InChrist
Free4ever
This is interesting, if you’re interested…
“Looking back on “I, Pencil” years later, what strikes me is the book’s lovely humility. Let’s not forget that “I, Pencil” was published in 1958, less than a year after Sputnik 1 was launched into space and the same year America responded with Explorer 1. The Space Race that ensued was one of the most exciting periods in US history but one that also nurtured the belief that human genius could do anything—even conquer space or build a new Babel—if we only had enough experts and resources.
“I, Pencil” and Humility
The message of “I, Pencil” ran counter to this. The book was a clarion call for humility (intellectual and economic). Read showed, in creative fashion, that despite all our feats and all our brilliance, humans are incapable of creating even the simplest of tools on our own. Knowledge is dispersed, and the world and its materials infinitely more complex than people realize—even central planners.
Read, unlike so many “experts,” was unafraid of these three simple words: I don’t know.
This same message of humility comes through in Milton Friedman’s homage to Read’s work. In a powerful two-minute clip that pays tribute to “I, Pencil,” Friedman acknowledges that he has little idea where the materials came from to create the pencil in his hand.”
Jon Miltimore
“Looking back on “I, Pencil” years later, what strikes me is the book’s lovely humility. Let’s not forget that “I, Pencil” was published in 1958, less than a year after Sputnik 1 was launched into space and the same year America responded with Explorer 1. The Space Race that ensued was one of the most exciting periods in US history but one that also nurtured the belief that human genius could do anything—even conquer space or build a new Babel—if we only had enough experts and resources.
“I, Pencil” and Humility
The message of “I, Pencil” ran counter to this. The book was a clarion call for humility (intellectual and economic). Read showed, in creative fashion, that despite all our feats and all our brilliance, humans are incapable of creating even the simplest of tools on our own. Knowledge is dispersed, and the world and its materials infinitely more complex than people realize—even central planners.
Read, unlike so many “experts,” was unafraid of these three simple words: I don’t know.
This same message of humility comes through in Milton Friedman’s homage to Read’s work. In a powerful two-minute clip that pays tribute to “I, Pencil,” Friedman acknowledges that he has little idea where the materials came from to create the pencil in his hand.”
Jon Miltimore
I, Pencil by Leonard E. Read | Leonard E. Read
I am a lead pencil—the ordinary wooden pencil familiar to all boys and girls and adults who can read and write. Writing is both my vocation and my avocation; that’s all I do. You may wonder why I should write a genealogy. Well, to begin with, my story is interesting. And, next, I am a mystery...
fee.org