I think it's an interesting/significant topic, but:
http://www.ablemuse.com/erato/showthread.php?t=22937.
Coming back to add a comment. Once I started reading the
Atlantic article, this passage from Alan Watts's
The Book: The Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are came to mind:
Quote:
|
The speed and efficiency of transportation by super-highway and air in many ways restricts freedom of travel. It is increasingly difficult to take a walk, except in such "reservations for wanderers" as state parks. But the nearest state park to my home has, at its entrance, a fence plastered with a long line of placards saying: NO FIRES. NO DOGS. NO HUNTING. NO CAMPING. SMOKING PROHIBITED. NO HORSE-RIDING. NO SWIMMING. NO WASHING. (I never did get that one.) PICNICS RESTRICTED TO DESIGNATED AREAS. Miles of what used to be free-and-easy beaches are now state parks which close at 6 P.M., so that one can no longer camp there for a moonlight feast. Nor can one swim outside a hundred-yard span watched by a guard, nor venture more than a few hundred feet into the water. All in the cause of "safety first" and foolproof living.
|
Safety first! (Reality and its messy imperfections, way down the list.)