Stewart Brand: We Are as Gods | Whole Earth
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Stewart Brand ruminates on the catalog's famous purpose statement, "We are as gods," in this piece from, I believe, 1998.
As unexpected and ungrammatical as a clap of thunder on a sunny day was the opening line of that first Whole Earth Catalog in 1968: "We are as gods and might as well get good at it."
Credit where it's due: I stole the line. Page one, chapter one of A Runaway World? by British anthropologist Edmund Leach (Oxford, 1968) begins: "Men have become like gods. Isn't it about time that we understood our divinity? Science offers us total mastery over our environment and over our destiny, yet instead of rejoicing we feel deeply afraid. Why should this be? How might these fears be resolved?"
Source: Whole Earth Catalog
