r buckminster book design

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The words of

R BUCKMINSTER

FULLER

The design of

Fernando Padilla

I n v i s i b l er e a l i t y .



R B u c k m i n s t e r F u l l e r : E s s a y s

TABLE OF CONTENTSEssays & interviewsR. Buckinster Fuller

Writings courtesy of

The Buckminster Fuller Institute

http://www.b.org/

p.Accelerating Acceleration

p.Big Picture Thinking

p.Earthian’s Critical Moment

p.Only Integrity is Going to Count



R B u c k m i n s t e r F u l l e r : E s s a y s4 5

ACCE L ERA

T I N GACCE

L E R A

T I O N




Not tourist. Just re-sponding to requests toappear here and there,to lecture at universitiesor design some struc-ture, or whatever it maybe. So that is in theeveryday pattern, that I

am circuiting that earth.

Certainly makes

evidence that we are

dealing in totality of

humanity not the--up to

my generation-

completely divided

humanity, spread very

far apart on our planet.

And we’re at a point

where I now have what

would seem absolutely

incredible to generations

before. I’ve now

completed thirty-seven

circuits of our Earth-kind

of zig-zagging circuits,

not straight around.

My father was in the leather

importing business in Boston,

Massachusetts, in the United States,

and he imported from two places,

apparently--Buenos Aires and India,

for bringing in leather for the shoe

industry, which was centered in that

time in the Boston area. His mail, or

a trip he would like to make to Ar-

gentina, took two months each way.

His trip to India, or the mail, took

exactly three months each way.




was in distress, and a ship then rushed to its

aid. Absolutely unexpected. My father and

mother were saying, “Wireless? Nonsense!”

And, when I was three the electron was

discovered and nobody talked about that;

it wasn’t in any of the newspapers. Nobody

was interested in the electron, they didn’t

know what was the electron or whether it was

discovered. I was brought up that humanity

would never get to the North Pole. Absolutely

impossible. They’d never get to the South

Pole. On Mercator maps, it didn’t even show

anything up--the northernmost points were a

very rugged kind of a line, if you see it, with

nothing beyond that. When I was fourteen,

man did get to the North Pole. When I was

sixteen, he got to the South Pole. The “impos-

sibles” were happening.

Like all other little boys, I was making paper

darts that you make at school--boys must’ve

been making them for a very long time. And

we were hoping it might be able to get to

ying. Parents would say, “Darling, it’s very

amusing for you to try that, but it’s inherently

impossible for man to y.” So when I was

seven, the Wright brothers suddenly ew, and

my memory is vivid enough of seven to re-

member that, for about a year, the engineering

societies would try to prove it was a hoax, that

it was absolutely impossible for man to do that.

It seemed absolutely logical to humanity when

early in this century Rudyard Kipling, the Eng-

lish poet, said “East is east and west is west,

and never the twain shall meet.” It was a very,

very rare matter for any human being to make

such a travel as that, taking all those months.

There were not many ships that could take

him there.

All that has just changed in my lifetime,

to where I’m not one of the very few making

these circuits of the Earth, but I am one of

probably getting to be pretty close to twenty

million now who are making, living a life like

that around our planet. And very much the

whole young world is doing so. I keep meeting

my students of various universities from around

the world half way round the world again.

They’re all getting to be living as world people.

This is a very sudden emergence of some

new kind of relationship to our Universe being

manifest. None of it was planned. There was

nobody in the time of my father, my mother, in

the time I was brought up, prophesying any of

the things I just said.

The year I was born, Marconi invented the

wireless, but it did not get into any practical

use until I was twelve years of age, when the

rst steamship sent an SOS, when it was in

distress, by wireless. Think of it. Great many

miles--and the world began to know the ship

So then, not only was there radio, but when

I was twenty-three--which I guess many in this

room are not twenty-three yet,--when I was

twenty-three, the human voice came over the

radio for the rst time. That’s an incredible

matter. I was forty-ve when we had our rst

television. It couldn’t be a more recent matter,

and yet, nobody thought at that time, they

didn’t know you were going to have transis-

tors. They didn’t know man was going to have

satellites going around the earth, they didn’t

know we were going to have radio relay satel-

lites, with programs coming out of any part of

the Earth to any other part of the Earth. Not

one of these steps was ever anticipated by any

of the others.

So having experienced that, I also expe-

rienced living with my fellow human beings

who, I nd, no sooner does i t happen, says “I

knew it all the time. I’m not one of those to be

surprised; I was totally in on it, you know, I was

a little bit r esponsible.” There’s a strange van-

ity of man, I think the vanity that he has was

essential to his being born naked and helpless

and having to make the fantastic number of

mistakes he had to make in order to really

learn something. I think he is so disgruntled,

so dismayed by the mistakes and the errors

that he would never have been able to carry

on--would’ve been absolutely discouraged.

So he was given this strange vanity to say--to

continually make himself exempt, that he was

some kind of privileged and always i n, and he

is able to quite clearly deceive himself a great

deal. So I nd everybody today--let anybody

do that unless it is absolutely simple

and logical.

The rst census of the population of the

United States was taken in 1790, just after

the war was over. In 1810, the United States

Congress decided we ought to have a census

of the wealth of America, so the Treasury

Department had a very large survey made

of people to determine their wealth. In 1810,

there were a million families in America. In

1810, there were a million human slaves in

America. It’s a very sad and very dramatic fact

to be revealed if you go back into the records.

It looks like every family having a human slave;

that was not correct. Very few families owned

a slave, comparatively. But the point is that

kind of a gure.

So I found that in 1940, in contradistinction

to that kind of condition, there were a number

of energy-slaves working in the economy

rather than human slaves. And I found that--

you can go back and look at Fortune Magazine

10th Anniversary Issue, 1940, and you’ll

nd the number of energy slaves operating

per each person, per family. The number of

were happeningThe impossibles



R B u c k m i n s t e r F u l l e r : E s s a y s1 0 1 1

to see what was really beneting the family. So

then, I found out how many net energy slaves

were really supporting a peaceful life of human

beings in America. What I found was one hun-

dred energy slaves per family, approximately--I

came to two hundred at the time, and about

half of them were really working for the human

family itself; the other half were getting ready

for war.

I took the criteria of a hundred energy slaves

per family as being the criteria for what I call

a “have” family. This represented people who

were enjoying a really comfortable standard

of living. So my criteria for a “have” family: a

hundred energy slaves per family.

Now in 1900, taking the total human popula-

tion, far less than one per cent were in what I

called “industrial have” family. So less than one

per cent of humanity in 1900. As a conse-

quence of World War II, and the technology

I spoke about that was i ntroduced in World

War II, it came out four per cent of all humanity

were suddenly “industrial haves” which was a

very big jump from nothing. In 1951, I was tak-

ing a new point on the curve, and I found we’d

gotten up to twenty eight per cent of humanity.

I now had enough points on my curve--I had

three points--to be able to discover, there’s a

radius of change, so I made a constant radius

of change, and I extended that radius. And

energy-slaves operating in the United States

per person was thirty-nine energy slaves per

person. Every individual, if you have a family

of ve, you come pretty close to two hundred

slaves working for each family. But energy

slaves are really inanimate, in contradistinction

to a million--one slave per family--of human

slaves. Suddenly you have two hundred non-

human slaves doing the work. An enormous

step up in the standard of living is represented,

as well as doing away with the inhumane idea

of the human being being the muscle machine

to be commanded. That that change had tak-

en place in such a short period of time--about

a hundred and thirty year change--I felt I was

discovering something very, very dramatic.

And now I went into the gures in 1940 even

more deeply because by then World War IIwas thoroughly looming, and a great deal

of the energy being generated in the United

States was going toward war production. So

I deducted from the total energy that I would

be considering any energy that could be

identied as going toward anything that had

to do with war. To see then how much energy

was actually beneting the family, the human

beings; if the energy was producing a highway

for them to go on, I made that primarily for

them and not for the war, whatever that might

be. I made as strict an accounting as I could

a very new relationship.

In 1951, I marked on my chart, the critical

year would be 1970. Using my acceleration it

could be somewhere between 1970 and 1975

The most accelerated point would be 1970

and the least accelerated would be 1975. This

is the critical period and the curve really did get

exactly there at 1970. So we crossed, we’ve

been going through a very, very critical time

right now. Because this is the point where, I

say, it is now being clearly demonstrated to

humanity that something is going on, if he is

not so myopic and shortsighted as not to really

look at such curves. I am really astonished at

how little people will look at them.

This kind of awareness that made me want

to develop what I called a World Game to try

to make it as quickly as possible to make it

clear to all humanity what its options were,

that changes are going on. There are very big

things going on in nature here. I spoke to you

about our all coming out of some common

womb of permitted ignorance, with enough

cushion of resources by which, by trial-and-

error to make mistake after mistake, to learn

what we’re learning. And this is a very extraor-

dinary moment, I nd; suddenly there is--all

around the world--literacy. This wasn’t there

when I was young.

I found that curve was increasing so rapidly

that the curve in exactly 2000 AD, we came to

100% of humanity would be enjoying a high

standard of living. I saw that that curve could

be accelerated, so I made an acceleration

curve on my 1951 publishing of this curve and

when I took the slower rate, the constant rate

of radius, and I found that (this 1951), as of

1970, the curve went through fty per cent

of humanity.

Historically, ninety-nine per cent and more

of humanity were “have-nots’” they were in

dire need, and revolution was really rampant.

The many would say the fewer are enjoying

unfairly, and we have to get up and do some-

thing about it. When you go by fty per cent,

I saw for the rst time in history, the majority

begins to be “haves”, rather than “have-nots.”

This would bring about a different way of

looking at things. Those who were “haves”

would probably nd much more information

than they ever had before, found they really

couldn’t enjoy that “have-ness” as long as they

had awareness of the dire “have-not-ness” of

the others. At any rate, this would be a critical

point where, for the rst time, you would not

have the majority rising up to pull down the

top. You might really have, then, the tendency

of the majority, being on top, to pull the bottom

up. This seemed to be, probably,

were “have-nots’”more of humanity




B I GP I C

T U R ETHIN

K ING




THINKING

DISCIPLINE

Fuller: I am going to review two or three ways

in which I discipline myself to try to get myself

thinking in a little more adequate manner

concerning what we know of our Universe and

what may be going on in a larger way, and to

try to get things a little better proportioned. As

for instance, I would like to have a picture of

our Milky Way galaxy may I have that picture

please?

MILKY WAY

We’re looking at an array of stars—you can

see the Milky Way r unning through the stars.

The number of stars you are looking at is about

18,000, and they comprise approximately

1/6,000,000 of all the stars in our Milky Way

galaxy. We now know, and we have been able

to get our great telescopes trained on other

galaxies and so forth; we now have taken

photographs and are aware of a billion such

galaxies of a hundred billion stars each*.

LITTLE EARTH

We’re looking at an exploding phenomenon. I

spoke about those hundred million galaxies* of

a hundred million stars each. 99.9% of them

are invisible to our naked eye, but their sizes

are of great, great magnitude. To get a little

idea, our own star Sun—our Earth is 8,000 of

miles in diameter and the diameter of the Sun

is just a hundred times that, so our little Earth

looks very tiny against that enormous big ball.

OUR SMALL SUN

But our star Sun is a small star. Most of you

are familiar with Orion’s Belt. In Orion’s Belt,

one of the two bright stars is reddish in colorand this is Betelgeuse. Betelgeuse’s diameter

is greater than the diameter of the orbit of the

Earth around the Sun. So that’s a good

size star.

HUMANS ARE INVISIBLE

So, we are a little planet of a rather i nferior star

which is one of a hundred billion stars in our

galaxy and we know of billions* of galaxies. So

you get an idea of our little planet, and you and

I are utterly invisible on it. We take pictures of

our planet coming in from the moon, when you

can see through the cloud cover, you can see

the blue of the waters and brown of the land,

but you can’t make out a human being. You

can’t even make out a mountain, let alone a

human being.

MOUNTAINS ARE

INVISIBLE There’s absolutely no visibility of a mountain

because the aberration of the deepest water

— ve miles below sea level, ve miles above

to the mountain top—ten miles aberration in

8,000 miles is so meager that a polished steel

ball is probably rougher than that.

WE ARE REALLY SMALL

So we are absolutely invisible on a really

negligible little tiny planet of a rather negligible

star, which is one member of a hundred billion

of known million billion such stars. So you

multiply the billion times a hundred billion and

you’ll get an idea.

BURSTING

PHENOMENON

As we look at things at great distances, this

picture that I have of the -- this is of a bursting

phenomena in the heavens which looks like a

tiny little light and it keeps remaining like a tiny

light. It’s such a distance, and the distances

involved are so great. This particular phenome-

non is expanding at a velocity of 3 million miles

an hour. For instance, the distance between

the earth and the sun is 92 million. So in 30

hours, just a little over a day, this expands the

complete distance between the earth and the

sun. Yet it remains for the thousands of years

we may be looking at it like a little tiny speck

there in the sky. You get a little sense of the

size and deceptiveness to us in the magnitude

of the information we are really dealing

in today.

and you and I are utterly invisible




abstract. As the world entering World War I,

in what we call the 20th century (which is a

very arbitrary kind of a counting matter), we

had some 100 - I’m doing this off the top of

my head from my memory - about 175,000

known substances, possibly almost a quarter

of a million substances, by the time the United

States came into the war, known to chemistry.

But we came out of World War I with almost

a million substances known. By the time we

entered World War II, we were well up to 10

million and we’ve come out of it now, where

the gure is really getting to be astronomical.

We can’t really keep track of the rate at which

we are discovering more, just talking about

differentiable substances, chemically distinct

from one another.

ACCELERATION

OF INFORMATION AND

EXPERIENCE

Those are typical of the information release at

a bursting rate now, I’m speaking now in rela-

tionship to my own life. One life in the extraor-

dinary numbers of lives there must have been

on board of our planet. That the information is

multiplying at that rate during just one l ifetime

indicates that something is going on here right

now that is utterly unprecedented.

TRANSITION TO A NEW

RELATIOSHIP WITH

UNIVERSE

And there is such an indication of an accelera-

tion of experiences of human beings, the inte-

gration of the accelerated experience to pro-

duce awareness that are indicative of humanity

going through some very, very important kind

of transition into some kind of new relationship

to Universe, I’d say, the kind of acceleration

that occurs after the child has been formed in

the womb, taking the nine months, then sud-

denly begins to issue from the womb out into

an entirely new world. I think we are appar-

ently coming out of some common womb of

designedly permitted ignorance.

SEEING 11.5 BILLION

TIMES 6.5 TRILLION

MILES

I am quite condent, this is as far as you and

I have been able to -- when I say you and I, I

mean all our fellows -- the human beings who

have been born naked and helpless and nally

discovered principles of the refraction of light

and developed the telescope, and have been

able to make a sweep-out. We are getting

information -- tiny as we are, we have informa-

tion of an approximate spherical sweep-out of

observation of eleven-and-a-half billion light-

year radius. A light-year is six and one-half

trillion miles; when you get to eleven-and-a-half

billion times six-and-one-half trillion, you get alittle idea of the distance you and I are getting

information from -- reliable information. We get

the rate at which this thing is expanding.

SPECTROSCOPE

And through the spectroscope we learn about

refraction of light. Through the spectroscope

we are able to take the light from all those

observations. And each chemical element has

its unique frequencies when incandescent,

and we have been able then to -- little human

beings on our planet have been able to take

inventory of the relative abundance of chemical

elements in the sweep-out of eleven-and-a-half

billion light-year observation.

SIGNIFICANCE OF

HUMAN BEINGS

That we have that kind of capability, despite

our absolutely negligible magnitude physically,

that we can we deal with our minds in such

magnitudes and do so quite reliably gives us a

hint that human beings must have some very

great signicance in the scheme.

INFORMATION

INCREASE

Just making a little jump in information. As

humanity on board of our planet entered

into what it called World War I, the scientists

around the world had ways of reporting to one

another ofcially. Chemists have what they

call chemical abstracts. Chemical abstracts

are methodical publications of anything and

everything any chemist nds that he publishes

information regarding, it becomes a chemical

tiny as we are, we have information




EARTHIAN’SCRITICAL

M OM

E N T




The following transcripts were taken from

a dialogue while playing World Game

(Integrity Day, June 1983).

RBF: We nd that the average--there are a

number of different size atomic bombs. The

total devastation at varies, but they average on

this map here 5/16 of an the inch total devas-

tation. There are now 50,000 bombs waiting to

go. We nd that the little, in the game of bingo,

the little pink lozenge--transparent lozenge

chips--and they are just 5/16th of an i nch,

or the size of the average devastation of the

atomic bombs. There are 50,000 ready to go.

So we’re going to put the 50,000 here. We’re

not putting them on the water. We’re only put-

ting them in the dry land where the people can

be. This is one of them.

You’ve got a crew? Five or six people?

Participant:We’re all ready.

RBF: All right, lets go.

Participant: So you’ve got 50,000 of these

things?

RBF: Yeah. Only on the dry land. Only on the

dry land. Don’t put them on the North Pole.

We need more over here. If they are expertly

spread out, you’ll nd we get r eally complete

coverage of all humanity. In other words, the

capability to kill all humanity in half an hour,

because really when the bombs start off, the

automated responses are just going to mean

all of them going off. The idea about limited

atomic warfare is absolute junk, a complete lie

to humanity. These are all doubled up pretty

much. At any rate, you get a good feeling now

of the utter devastation. If we hadn’t had all the

people standing up there now, you’d see what

you’ve got. You have a way of brushing these

up, Jaime? You’ve got brushes ready? Will you

remove them now?

Participant: Somebody said its easier to drop

them than to pick them up.

RBF: You bet. Here’s our world absolutely--it’s

gone, and that’s why I’m talking to you today

about integrity. I think if the individual humans

as an invention are incapable of demonstrating

integrity, then the invention human is going to

turn out to be an unreliable invention, and the

Universe will not need it anymore. So, if this

happens, it’s simply because we’ve failed as

individuals in being able to pass the examina-

tion, which we are all entering into now. We’re already in it.

The crisis is already on us. You see how really terribly thick

they are here.

As of 1970, keeping track of all the environment controlling,

all the logistics of thinking about total planet--for Spaceship

Earth, in 1970, we passed a threshold where it could be

demonstrated, engineering-wise, that if we took all the metals

going into armaments and put them into what you call livingry,

instead of killingry, that within a design revolution of only ten

years we could have all humanity living at a higher standard of

living than anybody had ever known, on a completely sustain-

able basis, while phasing out forever all further use of fossil

fuels and atomic energy. We could live entirely on our energy

income. Now this is absolutely clear in 1970, we passed that

threshold. For the rst time in history, I knew it Obsolete did

not have to be you or me! That war was obsolete!

But how--because of the invisibility of all these

things I’m telling you--how difcult it is for me to

get you to understand just tensegrity struc-

tures. How quickly can I get humanity all the

information necessary in this invisible reality,

with all the specialization, where no specialist

is standing up there in the university saying,

“The man’s right. Fuller’s right.” They’re all so

specialized - they don’t deal with things com-

prehensively the way I do.

At any rate, you understand my sense of

responsibility when you trust me with your

time. I do know, now, the time has come, it is

now there, and it’s up to you, it’s a matter of

integrity, to really check up on what I’m saying,

to really nd out, yes, it is true, and how do

you get word to humanity quickly enough sothose who are making decisions in great politi-

cal systems, which are very emotional, before

they do then say, “It has to be you or me, and

who’s going to push that bomb?”

We have very little time before we blow our-

selves off the Earth to really discover that invis-

ible integrity of Universe, that we do have a

new phase of potential existence operating. It

has nothing to do with anybody earning a l iving

ever again. It’s a matter of how do each one of

us, really. . . . Each human being has a drive

distribution systems, our nations, all the differ-

ent kind of separateness--it blocks the whole

thing. Just think of it--simply because we’re

badly organized, we’re not taking care of it.

That would be typical then.

So I’m talking about everybody having proper

sustenance. I’m talking about everybody being

properly protected, clothing-wise,

building-wise, sanitary-wise, everything you

need physically, taken care of, and a very great

deal of accommodation of your wants, over

and above your absolute needs--your travel

capability and so forth. That’s what I’m talking

about--standard of living in that way.

I’m not saying whether you’re going to be

happy or not. But I’m saying you’re gaining thiscapability not at the expense of others. You’re

gaining it by virtue of using our minds and our

knowledge and our experience to make it work

for everybody.

You will not equate work with earning a living.

This is very important. Every human being

has a deep drive within them to demonstrate

competence to themselves and to others. It’s

going to be the greatest privilege of all in a new

kind of world like that, to be allowed to be on

the production team. It will have nothing to do

with earning a living, nothing to do with upset.

We’re talking about a new kind of socialism, a socialism of

four-and-a-half-billion billionaires. It’s not a socialism of pulling

the top down and sharing the misery, its a matter of pulling

the bottom up and doing so, only because we now can do so

much more with each pound of material, each erg of energy,

each second of time. The increase has been about 99-fold.

That’s the only thing that makes it possible.

So it’s a new moment in the history of humanity. That’s what

is difcult to get over. If I can get to you in enough so you can

personally look into it a little more, then part of your integrity

then will be for you to do your best to get other people to

realize what I’m saying is so! You’re going to nd there’s an

enormous number of people who don’t know this is so, that

we actually have the option to make it.

atomic warfare is absolute junk




ONLY INTE-

GRITY

IS GOING TO COUNT




Excerpt from interview February 26, 1983

Interviewer: If or when we accomplish a

hundred percent physically successful world,

what is the next step? Can we rely on humans

to progress without physical need?

RBF: I would like to come back to my earlier

questions of myself of why were humans

included in the Universe? I think I did discuss

that earlier, didn’t I?

Interviewer: Yes.

HUMANS AS LOCAL

PROBLEM SOLVERS

RBF: I did--and that we are here as local

information harvesters, local problem-solvers

in support of the integrity of eternally regen-

erative Universe. The fact that we get away

from physical problems doesn’t mean we go

away from problems. The problems are really

rarely physical. Much greater involves just the

integrity of problems. The question of integrity

will get ner and ner and more delicate and

more beautiful.

Interviewer: Next question. A study of one

thousand adolescents in Boston showed that

seventy per cent are extremely pessimistic

about the future, to the point where they don’t

expect to have any future. In your travels, have

you sensed this kind of pessimism among

young people, and do you have any sugges-

tions on how to convey to them your convic-

tion that we are capable of making the world a

hundred per cent physical success?

RBF: Well, I told you I nd people only listen

to you when they ask you to talk to them, and

I do travel around speaking a very, very great

deal, and I have certainly been back to Boston

many, many times.

UNDERSTANDING

DESIGN REVOLUTION

It certainly is true, I nd audience after audi-ence did not know we have an option to make

it. There is no way they could, unless they--I’ve

said it’s so difcult, because, in the rst place,

you have to get into technology very deeply to

understand what I call the design revolution.

They have to be involved where I’ve told you

just about--knowing what the uses of tin are

and where it is.

INVISIBLE REALITY

A nd so I nd, because we’re dealing in an

invisible reality and humanity is so specialized,

it is very difcult for them to understand from

one person to another.

At any rate, when I have an audience, I never

have an audience that doesn’t come out--very

rarely, you’ve been with me many times--they

almost always give a standing ovation. In other

words, I nd the audiences very excited. But

then they come and say to me, “Your optimism

has brushed off on me. I didn’t know we had

an option. I feel so much better.” They say,

“Your optimism.” And I am not optimistic or

pessimistic. I feel that optimism and pessimism

are very unbalanced. I am a very hard engi-

neer. I am a mechanic. I am a sailor. I am an

air pilot. I don’t tell people I can get you across

the ocean with my ship unless I know what I’m

talking about.

WE HAVE THE OPTION

TO MAKE IT

So, I think it’s absolutely touch-and-go

whether we’re going to make it. But the point

is, for me to tell you that you have an option is

not to be optimistic.

But in real answer to that question, time and

again, of course I am running into millions who

don’t know we have the option, because it’s

invisible, and I feel I have tremendous respon-

sibility. So when people ask me to come and

talk to them, I do my best to let them know

they do have the option. Of course they’re

pessimistic, not knowing that. Incidentally, I

don’t mean to be sitting up here like a great

wisdom. These are questions I’m answering

the best I can.

Interviewer:How would you, right now in

your life, dene integrity?

COURAGE: A COMPONENT

OF INTEGRITY

RBF: I nd that I have to use the word cour-

age, due to the circumstances of humanity.

The courage to cooperate or initiate are based

entirely on the truth, the whole truth, and

nothing but the truth as the divine mind within

you tells you the truth is. It really does require a

courage and a self-disciplining to go along with

that truth. That’s the way I dene it.

Interviewer: A lot of what we are all asking

is, what do we do, what do we need to do, to

have an impact on bringing about the realiza-

tion of a successful world?

we’re dealing in an invisible reality




HUMANITY IN OUR

FINAL EXAM

So I have to say, I think that we are i n some

kind of nal examination as to whether human

beings now, with this capability to acquire in-

formation and to communicate, whether we’re

really qualied to take on the responsibility

we’re designed to be entrusted with. And this

is not a matter of an examination of the types

of governments, nothing to do with politics,

nothing to do with economic systems. It has to

do with the individual. Does the individual have

the courage to really go along with the truth?

INTEGRITY OF THE INDIVIDUA L

Now you have the ability to communicate, you

don’t have to say, “I didn’t know what was

going on because I was illiterate.” I do know

what’s going on and I have very much of a

sense of what is really valid--what my life tells

me works or doesn’t work, this is the truth or

not the truth. So it is this matter of the integrity

of the individual, the courage, the courage to

go along with the truth as you personally really

see it--or are you going to be swayed by the

crowd? Are you going to be scared about

your job, or whatever it may be? That’s why I

talk about integrity. Integrity of the individual is

what we’re being judged for and if we are not

passing that examination, we don’t really have

the guts, we’ll blow ourselves up. It will be all

over. I think it’s all the difference in the world.

GROWTH OF LITERACY

MEANS MORE RESPON-

SIBILITY

When I was born, humanity was 95 per cent

illiterate. Since I’ve been born, the population

has doubled and that total population is now

65 per cent literate. That’s a gain of 130-foldof the literacy. When humanity is primarily

illiterate, it needs leaders to understand and

get the information and deal with it. When we

are at the point where the majority of humans

them-selves are literate, able to get the infor-

mation, we’re in an entirely new relationship

to Universe. We are at the point where the

integrity of the individual counts and not what

the political leadership or the religious leader-

ship says to do.

NEW MOMENT

OF INTEGRITY

It’s a matter now of humanity getting to the

point where it’s now qualifying to make some

of its own decisions in relation to its own

information. That’s why we’ve come to a new

moment of integrity.

experience is such and such, I have such and

such a memory. I have various conceptionings,

everybody else has that, and my integrity is

something else. It’s, for instance, the terribly

simple little things. If I’m going to be able to

keep on being able to be useful--because I

see I have a lot of things still to be done--there

are still several more books to write. Twenty-

four books have been nished. There’s more

technology to be done, there are all kinds of

things I can see where I could really be useful

if I’m around.

WEAPONRY TO LIVINGRY

As we make various transitions--if we can get

to the point where the Boeing Company, Lock-

heed, and so forth, begin producing livingry

instead of a great deal of ghting ships and so

forth. So, I say, “I’ve got to stay healthy. And I

mustn’t get fat.” So just not eating that mouth-

ful of that is part of that integrity all the time.

You’re always up against it, and it’s not as if

anybody else can come in and do any scoring.

You’re really doing your own scoring. We know

about that--about every little detail of our li fe-

-whether this is the thing we really ought to be

doing. That’s it, darling.

DOING YOUR OWN

THINKING

RBF: Darling, I say I never try to tell anybody

else what to do, number one. And number

two, I think that’s what the individual is all

about. Each one of us has something to

contribute. This really depends on each one

doing their own thinking, but not following any

kind of rule that I can give out, any command.

We’re all on the frontier, we’re all in a great

mystery--incredibly mysterious. Each one pos-

sesses exactly what each one is working out,

and what each one works out relates to their

particular set of circumstances of any one day,

or any one place around the world.

Interviewer: In that way, do you nd foryourself, that integrity is almost a guide for you

in the sense of, by feeling an integrity in a situ-

ation, is that a guide for you towards knowing

when you have a set of options, or when you

have to make decisions, does that play a part

in knowing what you need to do next?

INTEGRITY IN THE LITTLE

THINGS

RBF: No. Integrity, for my part is, I can, my



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