If you look at it this way, you find that if one could make visible the possibility of alternatives, viable alternatives, make a viable future already visible in the present, no matter on how small a scale ... then at least there is something, and if that something fits it will be taken . ... If the little people can do their own thing again, then perhaps they can do something to defend themselves against the overbearing, big ones. So I certainly never feel discouraged. I can't myself raise the wind that might blow us, or this ship, into a better world. But at least I can put up the sail so that when the wind comes, I can catch it. E. F. Schumacher Good Work March/April 1985 RAIN Page 19 Schumacher a few hours before his death in Switzerland (FROM: E. F. Schumacher: His Life & Thought) ACCESS: E. F. Schumacher E. F. Schumacher: His Life and Thought, by Barbara Wood, 1984, 394 pp., $19.50 from: Harper and Row 10 East 53rd Street New York, NY 10022 E. F. Schumacher's writing and presence plumbed depths whose simplicity and obviousness swept away the usual intellectual bickering and short-sightedness of argument, and challenged all of us to an equal shift in our perceptions and actions. Yet to know Schumacher only through the success and public adulation that followed the publication of Small ls Beautifu.l is to miss some of the most important lessons of his life. Barbara Wood's sensitive biography of her father gives a valuable perspective on the personal costs, the years of frustration and unrewarded effort, and the unrelenting questioning that forged Schumacher's groundbreaking insights into wiser ways of relating to our neighbors, our work, and our resources. Schumacher's repeated failures until his later years to get his far-seeing proposals implemented had the unintended-but ultimately more rewardingeffect of keeping his energy from being siphoned off into projects that proved to be peripheral to the path his life was exploring. They also repeatedly pushed him into new experiences that further challenged his basic assumptions about people, economics, philosophy, religion, and himself, and eventually led to fundamentally new insights. It is helpful to _see the crises and difficulties that even the most successful people experience, the role that chance and apparent misfortune play in the development of ultimately successful ideas, and the pathways that bring lives together in time and spirit. Schumacher's life, as well as his writing, is a challenge and example to us all. - Tom Bender Tom Bender is an architect, building inspector, and writer. He was an editor of RAIN from 1975 to 1979. The Schumacher Lectures: Volume II, edited by Satish Kumar, 1984, £8.95 from: Muller, Blond and White Limited 55/57 Great Ormond Street London WCIN 3HZ UNITED KINGDOM E. F. Schumacher died in 1977, but his ideas continue to inform and inspire many people all around the world. One important forum for carrying on his ideas has been the annual Schumacher Lectures, held in Bristol, England. Edited transcripts of the speeches given at last year's lectures have been collected in this book. The scope of Schumacher's thought is demonstrated in the breadth of entries included. There's something for everyone: Kirkpatrick Sale on bioregionalism, Susan Griffin on the ills of patriarchy, Colin Wilson on "peak experience," Petra Kelly on Green politics, Russel Means on the American Indian critique of industrial culture, Gerald Leach on appropriate scales of energy production, Gary Snyder, Wendell Berry, and others. The quality of thought is high throughout. -FLS
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