The Story of B

It means I’ve been changed, fundamentally and permanently. It means I cannot be put back to what I was.

That’s why I am B: I cannot be put back to what I was.

Without a standing army, a king is just a windbag in fancy clothes.

What works, evidently, is cultural diversity. This should not come as a surprise. If culture is viewed as a biological phenomenon, then we should expect to see diversity favored over uniformity. A thousand designs—one for every locale and situation—always works better than one design for all locals and situations. Birds are more likely to survive in ten thousand nest patterns than in one. Mammals are more likely to survive in ten thousand social patterns that in one. And humans are more likely to survive in ten thousand cultures than in one—as we are in the process of proving right now. We’re in the process of making the world unlivable for ourselves—precisely because everyone is being forced to live a single way. There would be no problem if only one person in ten thousand lived the way we live. The problem appears only as we approach the point where only one person in ten thousand is permitted to live any other way than the way we live. In a world of ten thousand cultures, one culture can be completely mad and destructive, and little harm will be done. In a world of one culture—and that one culture completely mad and destructive—catastrophe is inevitable.

Crimes are what the state defines as crimes.

The world must live, the world must live! We are only one species among billions. The gods don’t love us more than they love spiders or bears or whales or water lilies.

All paths lie together like a web endlessly woven, and yours and mine are no greater or less than the beetle’s or the mouse’s. All are held together.

Any culture will become an obscenity when blown up into a universal world culture to which all must belong.

I asked, “Is it so easy to change a cultural vision.”

“The relevant measures are not ease and difficulty. The relevant measures are readiness and unreadiness. If the time isn’t right for a new idea, no power on earth can make it catch on, but if the time is right, it will sweep the world like wildfire.

You don’t have to understand what you see but you must at least make an effort to see what you see.

If the world is saved, it will not be saved by people with the old vision and new programs. If the world is saved, it will be saved by people with a new vision and no programs.

What appears to be kind and is meant to be kind can be the reverse of kind.