Utopia or Oblivion is a provocative blueprint for the future. This comprehensive volume is composed of essays derived from the lectures he gave all over the world during the 1960’s. Fuller’s thesis is that humanity – for the first time in its history – has the opportunity to create a world where the needs of 100% of humanity are met. “This is what man tends to call utopia. It’s a fairly small word, but inadequate to describe the extraordinary new freedom of man in a new relationship to universe — the alternative of which is oblivion.” R. Buckminster Fuller. Description by Lars Muller Publishers, courtesy of The Estate of Buckminster Fuller
A classic of utopian literature, more urgent than ever: Buckminster Fuller's provocative blueprint for the future Composed of lectures given by Buckminster Fuller throughout the world in the 1960s, Utopia or Oblivion presents the thesis that humanity, for the first time in its history, has the opportunity to create a world where the needs of 100% of humanity are met. Fuller's grandson, in the introduction, refers to this selection as "hardcore Bucky," as these essays display Fuller's investigations into mathematics, geometry and how they intersect with the arts, music and world peace. In Fuller's words, "This is what man tends to call utopia. It's a fairly small word, but inadequate to describe the extraordinary new freedom of man in a new relationship to universe--the alternative of which is oblivion. First published in 1969 and then reprinted by Lars Müller in 2008, Utopia or Oblivion also includes one of the earliest published discussions of Fuller's World Game, a revolutionary "game" that set as the goal for players, that the world "works" for 100% of humanity to nobody's disadvantage. It challenged players to overlook traditional world units such as nations, states and other political and economic divisions.
With the appearance of Grunch of Giants, R. Buckminster Fuller consummates his literary canon, his panoramic lifetime survey of all aspects of the responsibility of human beings for their own destiny. This book is a modern allegory - his long-gestated myth-of the villainy of capitalism and the fecklessness of classic economics. For Fuller, the academic discipline of economics is irrelevant since it derives from an invalid assumption of scarcity. In fact, he has long argued that future historians of our era may subsume our business practices as a branch of mythology; thus it is not surprising that the word economic appears nowhere in his text. Fuller’s myth is no idle fairy tale, since he faces his question - the question of a technological imperative which only he could raise with the deadly seriousness of satire. That question is: Can our system of national political sovereignties and corporate profits survive the inevitable technology revolution required to obviate wars by effecting a worldwide rise in the standard of living. One of the functions of myth is to resolve contradictions in our culture. Grunch of Giants portrays the rising of multinational corporations in the paradoxical role of function both as the epitome of capitalistic selfishness and as the inadvertent vehicle for the dissolution of national political boundaries - the last deterrent to a one-world economy. The result is more subversive of the property and profit values of the capitalist system than anything dreamed of since Karl Marx. —E.J. Applewhite, collaborator with RBF on Synergetics and Synergetics 2, author of Cosmic Fishing: A Memoir of Working With R. Buckminster Fuller
New edition of Buckminster Fuller’s first work published in 1938, which was promoted by Albert Einstein. In 43 chapters the constructor, visionary, inventor, designer, creator of language, and spectacular performer rolls out the art of independent thought. Fuller lays out an enormous horizon and Nine Chains to the Moon is equivalent to a navigation across the world we live in: "What Is a House?", "Death and Life", "Longing Crosses the Sea", "Dollarability", "We Call it Earth", "Stomach Rhythms", "Ephemeralization"—from the microscopic to the automobile, to the house, to urbanity, to the image of the cosmos in constant movement. The title, said Fuller, is meant to stimulate open thinking: the 1938 world population, one person on the shoulders of another, will reach from the earth to the moon nine times!
One of Fuller’s most popular works, Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth, is a brilliant synthesis of his world view. In this very accessible volume, Fuller investigates the great challenges facing humanity. How will humanity survive? How does automation influence individualization? How can we utilize our resources more effectively to realize our potential to end poverty in this generation? He questions the concept of specialization, calls for a design revolution of innovation, and offers advice on how to guide “spaceship earth” toward a sustainable future. Description by Lars Muller Publishers, courtesy of The Estate of Buckminster Fuller
The masterwork of a brilliant career, and an important document of the crisis now facing mankind. Today we find ourselves in the midst of the greatest crisis in the history of the human race. Technology has placed in our hands almost unlimited power at the very moment when we have run up against the limits of our resources aboard Spaceship Earth, as the crises of the late twentieth century—political, economic, environmental, and ethical—determine whether or not humanity survives. In this masterful summing up of an entire lifetime’s thought and concern, R. Buckminster Fuller addresses these crucial issues in his most significant, accessible, and urgent work. Critical Path traces the origins and evolution of humanity’s social, political, and economic systems from the obscure mists of prehistory, through the development of the great political empires, to the vast international corporate and political systems that control our destiny today to show how we got to our present situation and what options are available to man. With his customary brilliance, extraordinary energy, and unlimited devotion, Bucky Fuller shows how mankind can survive, and how each individual can respond to the unprecedented threat we face today. The crowning achievement of an extraordinary career, Critical Path offers the reader the excitement of understanding the essential dilemmas of our time and how responsible citizens can rise to meet this ultimate challenge to our future.
Child-molesting priests, embezzled church treasures, philandering ministers and rabbis, even church-endorsed pyramid schemes that defraud gullible parishioners of millions of dollars: for the past decade, clergy misconduct has seemed continually to be in the news. Is there something about religious organizations that fosters such misbehavior? Bad Pastors presents a range of new perspectives and solidly grounded data on pastoral abuse, investigating sexual misconduct, financial improprieties, and political and personal abuse of authority. Rather than focusing on individuals who misbehave, the volume investigates whether the foundation for clergy malfeasance is inherent in religious organizations themselves, stemming from hierarchies of power in which trusted leaders have the ability to define reality, control behavior, and even offer or withhold the promise of immortality. Arguing that such phenomena arise out of organizational structures, the contributors do not focus on one particular religion, but rather treat these incidents from an interfaith perspective. Bad Pastors moves beyond individual case studies to consider a broad range of issues surrounding clergy misconduct, from violence against women to the role of charisma and abuse of power in new religious movements. Highlighting similarities between other forms of abuse, such as domestic violence, the volume helps us to conceptualize and understand clergy misconduct in new ways.
This study develops the notion of dreamworld as both a poetic description of a collective mental state and an analytical concept. Stressing the similarites between East/West the book examines extremes of mass utopia, dreamworld and catastrophe.
This book collects some of R. Buckminster Fuller’s most important recent writings on the subject of spaceship Earth: the big, interconnected, total system that is “the only one we’ve got.” These articles stress the need for considering our planet as a whole, rather than breaking it into its parts—as most of us continue to do. This theme is crucial to the thinking of Bucky Fuller, who, in addition to his many other appellations, has been called the “godfather” of the Whole Earth Catalog. “Humanity is acquiring the right technology for all the wrong reasons—and only as driven by looming wars and the fear of being annihilated by the enemy. Humanity could acquire the technology for the purpose of total success and enduring peace. We say we cannot afford it in peace times, but technology … not only pays for itself but [leads] inadvertently to the acquisition of greater wealth.” —from “Earthians’ Critical Moment” in Earth, Inc. From backflap Earth, Inc.
And it Came to Pass – Not to Stay brings together a selection of Buckminster Fuller’s lyrical and philosophical best, including seven “essays” in a form he called his “ventilated prose” which address global crises and his predictions for the future. These essays, including “How Little I Know,” “What I am Trying to Do,” “Soft Revolution,” and “Ethics,” put the task of ushering in a new era of humanity in the context of “always starting with the universe.” In rare form, Fuller elegantly weaves the personal, the playful, the simple, and the profound. Description by Lars Muller Publishers, courtesy of The Estate of Buckminster Fuller
