Ursula Franklin was a scientist, author, activist and Quaker who wrote, among many things, on technology.

De-escalate speed, and also de-escalate vocabulary. Much of our vocabulary comes, again, out of production and advertising. I think we might make a pact with each other never to use the word “awesome”. I think the world was fine without the word awesome. De-escalate vocabulary, de-escalate hype.

Ursula Franklin Speaks

I consider reflecting on the ways my vocabulary and attitudes are shaped by a consumerist and technological society to be part of my spiritual practise.

Hype and marketing lead us awayh from the truth in order to influence others. I want to remember, when I am trying to be persuasive, to influence using truth, not exaggeration.

It’s good enough if things work. Everything doesn’t have to be “splendid”, “cutting edge”, “world class”. Those are responses to production. See where those things come from.

It’s very poor practice to hurry on your plants in the winter; when we have fluorescent lights all our plants get spindly and look miserable. There is nothing to speed per se.

Like efficiency, speed has a direction. It is not its own virtue; it depends on towards what we are speeding. And while there are many injustices we wish to speed away from, speed allows or necessitates us to miss details, to omit nuance, sometimes to fail to attend adequately to reality.

Filed under:quotestech

The epigraph to Jane Jacobs’ The Death and Life of Great American Cities reads:

“We are all very near despair. The sheathing that floats us over its waves is compounded of hope, faith in the unexplainable worth and sure issue of effort, and the deep, sub-conscious content which comes from the exercise of our powers.”

– Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr

I’m struck by how the swing from despair to contentment in the quote mirrors the journey of her book’s title, from death to life.

The quote resonates so much with me because of this fragment: “the unexplainable worth and sure issue of effort”.

I have a real sense that we humans are made to be creative, to strive, to exert our effort. We aren’t made for drudgery, for rote work or degrading toil. Our effort sustains us in a world that constantly challenges and threatens us. It is how we care for each other.

This innate creativity can be twisted - into hustle culture, into propsperity gospels, into class warfare that convinces the poor that they must overwork themselves to enrich the owners. But I, for my part, still feel most content when I have done hard work for a good cause.

I made this quote the epigraph for my own website because I want it to be a statement of intent, a reflection of what I value and why I write.

Filed under:quotes