I fished this set of paragraphs out of Critical Path, digitized, before heading into downtown Portland for the big protest.
These do seem like prophetic words, given how they were written close to a half-century ago (2030 - 1980 = 50).
From Critical Path (1981):The plotted curve of the rate of gain for increasing proportions of all humanity being thus swiftly advantaged by the doing more for more people with less and less matter and energy per function all accomplished with computers, satellites, alloys, etc.indicates that 100 percent of all humanity will be thus advantaged before 2000 A.D. In less than twenty years (less than one generation) all humanity is scheduled by evolution (not by any world planning body) to become physically more successful and metaphysically more interestingly occupied than have any humans ever been in all known history-provided that humanity does not commit ignorance-, fear-, and panic-induced total-species suicide.
Why might they panic? All the present bureaucracies of political governments, great religious organizations, and all big businesses find that physical success for all humanity would be devastating to the perpetuation of their ongoing activities. This is because all of them are founded on the premise of ameliorating individual cases while generally exploiting on behalf of their respective political, religious, or business organizations the condition of nowhere- nearly-enough-life-support-for-all and its resultant great human suffering and discontent.
Reason number two for fear-wrought panic is because all of the 150 nations of our planet are about to be desovereignized by evolution; that is, they are about to become operatively obsolete about to be given up altogether. There are millions in the U.S.A., for instance, who on discovery that their government was about to become bankrupt and defunct would become activist “patriots,” and might get out their guns and start a Nazi movement, seeking dictatorially to reinstate the “good old days.” If people in many of the 150 nations succeeded in re-establishing their sovereignties and all the customs-barrier, balance-of-trade shacklings, it would soon be discovered that the 150 nations represent 150 “blood clots” imperiling the free interflowing of the evolution-producing metals and products recirculation as well as of the popular technical know-how disseminating.
We have today, in fact, 150 supreme admirals and only one ship Spaceship Earth. We have the 150 admirals in their 150 staterooms each trying to run their respective stateroom as if it were a separate ship. We have the starboard side admirals’ league trying to sink the port side admirals’ league. If either is successful in careening the ship to drown the “enemy” side, the whole ship will be lost.
I don't think Fuller was under any illusions that his simply forecasting the demise of nationalism would magically occur right when he penned the lines about its so doing. He was anticipating trends and looking at moving targets, like the rest of us are. What he was saying here is, to look for signs. A last surge, a final hurrah, for nationalism, might involve activists rising up to re-establish their balance-of-trade shacklings.
I know "globalists" are the enemy at the moment, for nationalists everywhere, where "globalist" is predefined as this or that. In my day, "think globally, act locally" was one of those Bucky-inspired boomer slogans.
But then skeptics such as Wendell Berry wondered if "thinking globally" was actually possible, or, more likely, a dangerous chimera. I think of him, along with Charles Olson, as someone with little patience for the techno-laced lingo of the Fuller-inspired futurist crowd, into which I have blended.
Where does Wendell Berry cast aspersions on "thinking globally"?
I've been cultivating the habit of letting Perplexity do some of the heavy lifting, in terms of searching the corpus and graphing a path through it, connecting whatever dots I throw at it, or maybe telling me some dots don't connect.
Prompt: Did Wendell Berry express skepticism regarding the boomer slogan "Think globally, act locally". Did he find something disingenuous about thinking globally? More generally, did Wendell Berry ever comment on Buckminster Fuller's brand of futurism, expressing distaste for it. We know Charles Olson, the famous poet, did not hold Fuller in high regard. Are we able to document Olson's views. He and Fuller were both associated with Black Mountain College.
Here's the essay Perplexity wrote, in a few seconds, minus the footnotes and citations for brevity.
Here's a link to the full session online.
Good job Perplexity.