On Wed, 06 Sep 2000 13:48:41 CEST "Waldemar Ingdahl"
<wingdahl@hotmail.com> writes:
> Activism is important, but it is a later stage in the development of
> a
> political movement. Looking on how other movements established
> themselves
> one can see that they didn't establish themselves as activist
> movements. The
> activist stage came when a potent intellectual movement had been
> established, when it had developed it own "Great Narrative" of
> history,
> enabling the members of the activist movement to undergo a
> metamorphosis to
> becoming a member of a distinct transhumanist culture, not relying
> on other
> cultures.
Historically, radical social change has come about after the
establishment of an intellectual movement and the appearance of one or
more charasmatic members of the movement who carry the message from the
intellectual elite to the masses.
One reason I see this segment of time we inhabit as unique is that
social changes may be occurring more rapidly than human minds working
together can reach a level of agreement that would result in a potent
intellectual movement.
But on reflecting, I'm not sure it's true that the extropian movement
(if it can be called such) lacks an intellectual base. The intellectual
movements which spawned the cultural revolutions of the past generally
consisted of relatively small numbers of people with sometimes only one
or two creative thinkers leading the way.
Barbara
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