cosmetic. They're only dimming the lights so we can see beyond. They're. only getting up the courage to take the first real step, to learn to choose and say no, to give up that which loses to us the irreparable bonds of life and leaves only that gnawing emptiness that no lights or srereo or TV or other diversions can ever fill. Our focus on technoiogy, on rhe one-dimensional improvements in our material life, in the quantiry or sophistication or ease of producing things, has a basic flaw which we have ignored. Yet it shouts ar us every day. It shouts in the locked doors and barred windows of our cities. It whimpers in the lonely bodies behind every door. It shrieks in every rape and groans in the deadness of every bureaucrat trapped in a role and a structure that drains one's soul and lifeblood. Our actions are meant to sustain our relations with other people and the rest of our world, not just to produce the material needs of life. The work we do and how we do the things that provide for our needs are carriers of these less tangible dimensions that are vitally more importanr than the obvious product itself. We see, and seek, and measure the product of work but not the product of work on the worker. We see the daily tally,of crime and the unsuccessful efforts of a militarized police force, yet don't see in the success of the unarmed British Bobbies or Communiry Patrols that moral aurhority is the vital Power. Co-Euolution Quarterly ran a short essay by a convicted rapist on how to prevent rape. His suggestion was to charge a suspect with indecent exposure rather than rape. The rapist became a deviant rather than a hero to his friends. He reciived a heavier sentence, bur more, the ridicule of his peers. T'he human dimensions-our dreams and fears and joys and uncertainties-are rhe real thing we're after in all we do, and we've lost sight of it. We've lost sight of how much of our activity is not ro provide for our material needs but to sustain our social and spiritual needs. How much energy goes into love and courtship! And what a seemingly inefficient process. Yet it has enduringly proven a mosr effective means of forming the bonds that ensure not just the conception but the nurture and protection of our young. Cars and houses and jobs and friends, ar any advertiser can rightfully tell you, are more important for their symbolic quality than their'material ones. The status they indicate, the values and achievements they express, rhe respect and self-respect they generate are fundamentai and real. May 1977 RAIN Page 17 The real effect of most of our technology on these dimensions of our lives has been devastating. Most of what that technology has given us-easy work that neither challenges no-r produces things of value nor makes us valued; TV that replaces interaction with other people with inaction; autos that take'us away from difficult situations and challenges rather than giving us opportunity to overcome them-take ' from us far more in these ways than they give us in their obvious and superficial benefits. The efficiency of how we work or produce things is in reality not usually very important. Much of what we produce is wasteful or wasted anyhow. Far more important, and far more ignored, is what happens to us or to our relations to others or to other things in the process of that work or producing those things. We're rechnologically smart, but street foolish. We put the product before the process, whose real product is people-how we feel, how we relate to others, the part we play in the cosmic dance that gives both joy and meaning to our lives. It is these things we should be concerned with, and these by which we should measure rhe value of what we do and the technologies we use to do them. -Tom Bender Four aquaculture directories have recently been published' 1) Membership Directory of tbe World Mariculture Society-1976. For a .copy, write: Publications Clerk 249 Ag Center Louisiana State Univ. Baton Rouge, LA 70803 2) Directory of Fish Culturists-1976. Write, Dr. Robert J. Valenti N.Y. Ocean Science Laboratory Monta;r.rk, NY 11954 3) Bulletin of the International Association of AstacologSr (crzwfish)- 1976. Write' Dr. Ossi Lindqvist University of Kuopio Kuopio, Finland 4) Directory of Aquaculture in tbe Southeast U.S. 1976. Write: James W. Ayers National Marine Fisheries U.S. Dept. of Commerce 1 Union National Plaza, Suite 116O Little Rock, AR 722AI Commercial Oyster Aquaculture in Maine, Herbert Hidu and Mark S. Richmond, $2 from: Marine Sea Grant Bull. 2 University of Maine-Orono Walpole, ME 04573 A very useful publication that covers oyster culture in Maine from A to Z. Even the appendix contairrs especiaily valuable info such as pertinent references, hatchery perspective; equipment suppliers, Maine aquaculture people and agencies, commercial shellfish rafting apparatus and costs, and marine law applicable to Maine aquaculture. -LJ Rooftop Wastelands, 32 pp., $2 from, Minimum Cost Housing Group School of Architecture McGill Univ. Montreal, Canada H3 A 2 A7 Details how a 1000-sq. meter roof with 250 containers, 12 cold frames, 3 small greenhouses and a compost bin demonstrated the potential for roof gardening in downtown Montreal. Ask for their publications pricelist. -LJ Application of Sewage Sludge to CropIand: CAST Report No. 64, free from: Council of Agricultural Science & Technology Agronomy Bldg. Iowa State Univ. Ames, IA 50011 Summarizes current knowledge of plant uptake of heavy metals from sludgetreated soils and implications for the food supply. -LJ
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy NTc4NTAz