* * * * *
                                        
                                   It's magic
                                        
> For our entire history, right up until a hundred years ago, the idea of
> flying carpets and magic lanterns held peoples imaginations in thrall. Now
> that we have everyday miracles like jet aircraft and electric lights, all
> some people want is to return to a time when the belief in magic was common
> but the everyday blessings of magic—telephones, computers, antibiotics
> didnt exist. Back in the anti-nuclear 80s lots of folks drove around with
> SPLIT WOOD NOT ATOMS bumper stickers, and I often asked myself, how much
> wood have these people actually split? Ive done an hour in my 20's and I
> thought I was going to die.
> 
> It's sad, frankly—at least to people like me. I find it terribly,
> tragically sad that the more successful and comfortable we become, the more
> people pine for a time when none of these everyday miracles existed.
> Outdoor bathrooms on January nights and miserable coal stoves that need to
> be tended hourly just to heat a pathetic half-gallon of tepid water need to
> be experienced to be believed—and not just in a 24 hour adventure, but
> continuously. Death, hunger, cold, disease, infant mortality— we have
> fought them tooth and nail for millennia, for what? Apparently in order to
> so insulate people that they can long for “ancient wisdom,” return to the
> “holistic tribal remedies” of the past, and hold up the most primitive and
> achingly poor cultures on earth as being the sole repository of
> “authenticity” while scorning every advance that they take completely for
> granted.
> 
> Magical thinking is everywhere today, and it is growing. It threatens the
> foundations of reason, individualism, science and objectivity that have
> delivered this success so well and for so long. It is **dangerous**. If we
> are to continue to thrive and progress, then we need to sharpen some sticks
> and drive a stake through the heart of this monster, and right quick.
> 

“MAGIC [1]”

I don't take indoor plumbing or hot water for granted—I have no desire to
experience life in a “magical” setting. I like my hot and cold running water,
thank you very much. And A/C (Air Conditioning). And electricity. And the
Internet.

I like the trappings of modern life. 

[1] http://www.ejectejecteject.com/archives/000051.html

Email Sean Conner at sean@conman.org

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