Whole Earth Discipline
I admire Stewart Brand because he has spent his life identifying and advocating important ideas. The first half of Brand?s Whole Earth Discipline is especially compelling. His writing is quick and declarative. He is at his best when he presents authoritative ideas as simply as he does in this book. Stewart Brand?s best writing?The Whole Earth Catalogs, How Buildings Learn, and Whole Earth Discipline?always challenged his readers to improve ourselves and the places we live through learning, and planning for the future. Significantly, he re-writes the Whole Earth Catalog?s introduction in this book stating ?We are as gods and HAVE to get good at it? (as opposed to ?We are as gods, and might as well get good at it?). By recognizing that we have more of a responsibility than simply a capability to improve ourselves through learning, Brand shows how urgent the climate change crisis is, and, I think more clearly than he previously has, he shows that we learn for our common, not our individual, good. That said, there is nothing sentimental about learning in Brand?s writing. I felt that the weakest part of this book was where he admitted to making the mistake of thinking there would be a Y2K crisis. I know that it is essential to learning to admit mistakes, and Brand admits his as plainly as he states his best ideas. Still, I felt uncomfortable reading Brand confess his error. If his thinking about urbanization, nuclear power, and biotechnology required his reader to commit to less transformational ideas, than he may have been able to sugar coat his errors more. Perhaps it is more important that he didn?t. Brand is a creditable thinker because he does not sentimentality produce environmental platitudes. I?m going to find opportunities to advocate Brand?s thinking, and I will find friends to lend my copy of this book to
