Peace Corps and Anthropology

Becoming an anthropologist is a slow  and challenging process. As I remarked in an earlier essay, Expanding American Anthropology, 1945 – 1980, published through the Association of Senior Anthropologist, brought back lots of early memories. One article is by Robert Textor  where he described the formation of the Peace Corps. This brought back many memories.

In 1960, toward the end of my freshman year at Brown University I walked into Faunce House, the Student Union at the time, and picked up a copy of the Brown Daily Herald, the campus newspaper. That day there was a Supplement (I don’t remember the name) but I do remember an article about the British Overseas Volunteer Corps[1]. As I read the article, I thought to myself –“Wow, I’d like to do that!”

I had enrolled in NROTC in the Fall of 1959, this article suggested an alternative type of service. Little did I know at the time that I would be suspended from NROTC that fall because of my grades the previous year. Those grades which included the math required for my planned major in astronomy, were to be life changing as was the article I had read.

According to Textor[2], a few days after his inaugural address President John F. Kennedy began work to establish a new governmental organization that became known as the U.S. Peace Corps. President Kennedy chose his brother-in-law, Sergeant Shriver, for the task of turning the concept into a reality. On March 1, 1961, Kennedy signed the Executive Order that created the Peace Corps.

Textor’s article traces the development of the early days of the Peace Corps and some of its key personalities. He also recounts his role in the process. At the time, I was still struggling with the immediate personal issue of being placed on academic probation as I entered my sophomore year.

Textor’s major contribution to the development of Peace Corps was to lobby and insist upon a strong language training program for the volunteers who would be assigned to serve in the program. The tradition of US representative such as embassy staff, USAID, and military advisers to live in enclaves and work in English in the metropolitan cities and with host government officials. But this would not work at the village level where the PCV’s (Peace Corps Volunteers) would be assigned.

At the time, Textor was a post-doctoral fellow, Yale/Harvard anthropologist, who was working on a book about Thai Religion when he got the invitation to join the Peace Corp/Washington. The goal was to develop a language program to train the PCV recruits in Thai and to get them in place quickly. Textor’s article brought back memories of my own training for Peace in the summer of 1964.

In the May, 1964 I graduated from Brown University and faced the question – “What next?” 

This is the perennial question facing AB graduates in anthropology. “Is anthropology simply a major, like history or English, preparation for a middle-class job or professional graduate school?” Or, “Is it a path toward an academic career?”

Another question I faced at the time was, “What about the “peace time” draft?” 

I considered my options. After an interview with a J. Walter Thompson recruiter, who chained smoked Marlboro cigarettes while bragging, “This is one of our clients!”, I decided that advertising was not for me.

 I consider OCS, Officer Candidate School, as a way of fulfilling my military obligation. I also applied to 10 anthropology graduate programs mostly west of the Mississippi. I figured that I would play the IVY LEAGUE degree and geographical distribution card to overcome my early academic record.

 And, I remembered the British Overseas Volunteer Corps article I had read and how it had excited me. So I decided to apply to the newly created Peace Corps.

I was accepted by several of the graduate programs in the mid-west and south-west. However, an offer from the Peace Corps to train for Peru arrived and was more attractive. Our training would be at Cornell (famous for the Vicos Project). There I became one of some 50 candidates who would go through the basic RCA/Tools project training.

I wrote to the schools that had accepted me and indicated my decision. A problem I’d been concerned about was how I would handle the logistics of applying from overseas while serving as a PCV. So, I asked in the letter, ”If I went to Peru, could I update my application for the entrance class of 1966?” Most responded that I would have to reapply for the 1966 class. One, however, the University of Arizona, wrote back that they would update my acceptance to the class entering in 1966. This solved my problem.

In late June, I prepared to go to Cornell and begin my training. There I ran into Robert Textor’s idea for intensive language training. The Cornell Program, headed by William Rideout and anthropologist, Cara Richards, had two language tracks. For those who knew Spanish (either as Spanish majors, or native speakers) there was training in Quechua, the predominate Indian language of the highland Indians. For the rest of us, the language was Spanish. Language training was the dominate subject we trained in for 4 to 6 hours a day for the 8 weeks of training. If we survived Cornell, we would spend 2 weeks in Puerto Rico at Camp Radley.

Reading Textor’s essay brought all this back. My Spanish teacher was an American Graduate Spanish major, a young woman, who spoke Castilian Spanish. Other classes had native speaking instructors who were graduate students at Cornell and represented different Latin American “dialects”.

The classes seemed to go on and on. I found myself getting out of seat and pacing back and forth in the back of the class. That earned me the nickname, El Tigre. I found that as I was learning Spanish, the German I’d studied at Brown also improved as I tried to not respond in English but would go to a German translation first.

I learned from this training the two major truths that Textor described in his essay. Most Americans, outside of the diplomatic corps and who were US representatives in country, did not have good language skills. Most lived in American enclaves that insulated them from the local population. Peace Corps was modeled more like the traditional anthropological field situation, living and working with the locals and in their community. 

Our first task was to learn and/or develop our skills in the indigenous language

As an anthropologist, I observed how my classmates’ language skills had improved and been altered by their communities. Indians, Cholos, and Metizos did not speak Castilian. They spoke with accents that combined Spanish and Quechua derived elements. Second, those of us assigned to work as a link between the PC and the American community – tended to fall into the class that Textor was attempting to have Peace Corps avoid.

 I fell into this latter class.  My spoken language proficiency never exceeded a 3.5 on the foreign service exam. I was based in Cuzco but covered the Departments of Cuzco, Puno, and Apurimac where I was assigned to work on Special Projects as a liaison between USAID/Alianza para Progreso and the Peace Corps Volunteers working in Southern Peru. Special projects included local school construction, potable water, introduction of rabbits as a food source, etc. at a cost to USAID of around $1,000.

Textor’s essay describes the ideals behind the Peace Corps and documents the history of the very earliest days of the Peace Corps, from the Washington perspective. It is a valuable lesson in the history of anthropology and points to the anthropological input in the development of training for the foreign service.

My “class” was part of the second wave of volunteers into Peru. When we arrived at the airport, we were met by the local PC office’s American secretary. The problem was she was there to meet her friend returning from vacation. No one had informed her of our arrival. There were no preparations made for us. In addition there were the representatives of two other classes of PCVs arrived with us. What we found, when we arrived, was a poorly organized program that was still working out its purpose and processes.

It took the regional Cusco office several months to get everyone assigned and settled. My roommate, an artist/ceramist had been told that he would be helping to set-up a kiln in one of the native villages in Cuzco. That never happened. He ended up working with local PC office. In those days, we h had to learn to be flexible and adaptable.

I discovered that there was more than just the basic speaking skills to learning the language . This is what Textor described as his goal in the formative days. There was also learning the “occupational or subject” vocabulary of the language.  This was especially true if your assignment dealt with cultural differences in a specific skill set or activity. To this day, much of my “agricultural” vocabulary and knowledge is in a bastardized Spanish/Quechua based on a mixture of 16^th century and 20^th century agricultural culture.

 In my assignment as a liaison, I learned the “culture” of grantsmanship and program administration. Each has its own language and English and Spanish vocabularies. In essence, Textor was correct insisting that PCV’s know and speak the language of the peoples they would be serving. I doubt, however, he thought of it in this other sense. 

There was a disconnect problem between language training and the country and skills training components at US based facilities,  and, in those early days, the uncertainty of the in-country assignments., When Peace Corps later shifted to an in-country training model, this problem was corrected.

Peace Corps was an adventure, especially for a young BA in anthropology. It confirmed my interest in anthropology – working with village leaders, other volunteers, government (Peruvian and American) officials developing simple low-tech projects – as an applied field.

At the end of my tour, I was offered a contract to work with the Lima USAID office. I turned it down and exercised my option to enroll in the graduate program at the University of Arizona. I recommended a fellow volunteer for the position, which he accepted.

In Arizona, I met Dr. Edward H. Spicer and enrolled in the Community Development Seminar that he conducted with Dr. Cortland Cleveland from the sociology department. There I was introduced to Spicer’s case-book approach to training, Human Problems in Technological Change and had an opportunity to put my personal experience into perspective.

Peace Corps has been the training ground for many who have since considered anthropology as a career. It carried forward a certain Boasian quality even as academic anthropology was fragmenting in to narrower and narrower specialties. It has also trained many in the more exotic languages humans have developed over the history of the species. More important, Peace Corp has helped to salvage may tongues that might have been otherwise lost in the expansion of our global culture.

 For me, reading about those very early days, reawakened many fond memories.

 Isn’t part of what the Association of Senior Anthropologists mission is, is to document the traditions of the profession?

---

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voluntary_Service_Overseas

[2] Chapter 2, Textor (1980:22),in Expanding  American Anthropology 1945-1980

Thoughts on the Legacy

 In 1974, Ned Spicer was invited to participate in a symposium, organized by Thomas Weaver of the University of Arizona, entitled  "Anthropology in the 1990's: Conditions, Needs, and Prospects." The symposium was held in conjunction with the American Association for the Advancement of Science meetings in San Francisco in the winter of 1974. The subheading of the symposium was, "Suppose They Began the Twenty-First Century and Forgot to Invite Anthropology!!!" Ned presented his paper entitled, "Anthropology in the society of the 1990s", on February 28, 1974.

In 1994, Twenty years later, the paper was republished in the Society of Applied Anthropology journal,  Human Organization, with a forward by his widow, Rosamond Spicer, under the title, "Reassessing Edward Spicer's Views on Anthropology in the Society of the 1990s: How and Why This Paper by Edward H. Spicer Was Written" (Spicer, Rosamond 1994 Human Organization, Vol. 53. No. 4, pp. 388 - 395). From her forward, we can gain an insight into Ned's thinking and approach to the future.

Rosamond observed that

"In preparing this paper on the future of cultural anthropology, Ned apparently gave it a great deal of thought. As was his habit, he wrote down voluminous notes and lists of ideas. He also made a number of starts, each different from the last.”

At one point, Ros states, 

[H]e wrote, 'I react strongly against nineteenth century economic-determinism, that technology and physical environmental conditions are the essential factors to consider in forecasting. I rather look to the future in terms of the adaptation of social structures and cultural orientations to one another in the context of the influence of firm cultural products. I shall therefore take off from consideration of the probable alternative trends which we may expect in the form and functions of societal structures and cultural value orientations.'  “Such a point of view was always the basis of his thinking and writing." (p. 388)

In describing Ned, Rosamond says,

"His interests, reading, and studies ranged through drama, literature, economics, city planning, philosophy, history, poetry, the environment, and all the fields of anthropology. All of this vast array of information and understanding he brought to bear in some way or another on any project he undertook, on any subject on which he wrote.”

“Perhaps one of his outstanding characteristics was his ability to synthesize, as was so evident in his Cycles of Conquest. I have long thought that the practice of that art of synthesis was connected with another, the appreciation and writing of poetry. I mention all these aspects of Ned because they seem to be contained in the following paper." (p.388).

It was his global interests and ability to synthesize vast amounts of material that I remember from my first graduate classes with Ned.  I was drawn to his Community Development Seminar where  he challenged us to look at the problem at hand from multiple points of view. He asked us, “What are the “felt needs” of the various parties in this change situation?” He encouraged us to seek a synthesis of these views as a way toward understanding the issues and their complexities. As community developers, he taught us that our job was to help the parties to synthesize their shared interests. Our job was to facilitate, not impose, problem resolution.

Ned was a humanist who understood and taught the connection between a people’s past, present and how these shaped their future. In his paper on the February day in 1974, he outlined 5 trends in the social and cultural environment that he felt would shape the next 20 years for anthropology.

The five trends that Ned chose to characterize the society he envisioned for the 1990s were the following:

(1) increasing intercommunication among the peoples of the world;

(2) increasing occupational specialization with accompanying organic differentiation within societies;

(3) increasing failure of technological solutions for the resolution of human problems in acceptable ways;

(4) increasing assertion and self-expression of ethnic groups within nation-states; and

(5) increasing reaction against centralization in political and administrative structures.

He stated "In general, continuation of these trends will, I believe, result in a society more heterogeneous than it was in the 19th or any previous century, more aware of its heterogeneity, with stronger than ever tendencies to compartmentalization, with increased awareness of and interest in non-technological and non-economic factors affecting human life, and with a growing tendency to view the nation-state in a wholly new light, especially with reference to its ethnic components and its political and administrative units." (p. 389)

This raises the bigger question -- what is a legacy?

In Edward Spicer's case, it was a combination of students trained with his unique perspective of anthropology as both a science in the pursuit of knowledge about the human condition and a body of knowledge about that condition that could and should be used to bring about a better world.

Second is his body of work, the depth of which has just been scratched. That body of work is to be found first in Spicer's bibliography starting on p.342 and ending on p.350 of James Officer's Memoir of Edward E. Spicer published in the National Academy of Sciences  Biographical Memoirs V.68 (1995) and second his papers located in the Edward H. and Rosamond B. Spicer Archive at the Arizona State Museum Library. It is from these resources that the legacy resides to be picked up and carried forward by all who hold these values.

Now nearly 40 years later, it might be worth considering just how prescient Ned’s predictions were for the 1990s and for the 21st Century. Was he right?  Partially right? Or, Did he miss the mark?

What are your thoughts? 

Originally published in the SfAA website  Barry R. Bainton on December 23, 2011  

Thoughts on a Legacy

Ned Spicer was invited to participate in a symposium, organized by Thomas Weaver of the University of Arizona, entitled  "Anthropology in the 1990's: Conditions, Needs, and Prospects." The symposium was held in conjunction with the American Association for the Advancement of Science meetings in San Francisco in the winter of 1974. The subheading of the symposium was, "Suppose They Began the Twenty-First Century and Forgot to Invite Anthropology!!!"

Ned presented his paper entitled, "Anthropology in the society of the 1990s", on February 28, 1974.

Twenty years later, in 1994, the paper was republished in Human Organization with a forward by his widow, Rosamond Spicer, under the title, "Reassessing Edward Spicer's Views on Anthropology in the Society of the 1990s: How and Why This Paper by Edward H. Spicer Was Written" (Spicer, Rosamond 1994 Human Organization, Vol. 53. No. 4, pp. 388 - 395). From her forward, we can gain an insight into Ned's thinking and approach to the future.

Rosamond observed that

"In preparing this paper on the future of cultural anthropology, Ned apparently gave it a great deal of thought. As was his habit, he wrote down voluminous notes and lists of ideas. He also made a number of starts, each different from the last.”

“At one point he wrote, 'I react strongly against nineteenth century economic-determinism, that technology and physical environmental conditions are the essential factors to consider in forecasting. I rather look to the future in terms of the adaptation of social structures and cultural orientations to one another in the context of the influence of firm cultural products. I shall therefore take off from consideration of the probable alternative trends which we may expect in the form and functions of societal structures and cultural value orientations.'  “

“Such a point of view was always the basis of his thinking and writing." (p. 388)

In describing Ned, Rosamond observed that,

"His interests, reading, and studies ranged through drama, literature, economics, city planning, philosophy, history, poetry, the environment, and all the fields of anthropology. All of this vast array of information and understanding he brought to bear in some way or another on any project he undertook, on any subject on which he wrote.”

“Perhaps one of his outstanding characteristics was his ability to synthesize, as was so evident in his Cycles of Conquest. I have long thought that the practice of that art of synthesis was connected with another, the appreciation and writing of poetry. I mention all these aspects of Ned because they seem to be contained in the following paper." (p.388).

 It was his global interests and ability to synthesize vast amounts of material that I remember from my first graduate classes with Ned.  I was drawn to his Community Development Seminar where  he challenged us to look at the problem at hand from multiple points of view. He asked us, “What are the “felt needs” of the various parties in this change situation?” He encouraged us to seek a synthesis of these views as a way toward understanding the issues and their complexities. As community developers, he taught us that our job was to help the parties to synthesize their shared interests. Our job was to facilitate, not impose, problem resolution.

Ned was a humanist who understood and taught the connection between a people’s past, present and how these shaped their future. In his paper on the February day in 1974, he outlined five trends in the social and cultural environment that he felt would shape the next 20 years for anthropology.

The five trends that Ned chose to characterize the society he envisioned for the 1990s were the following:

(1) increasing intercommunication among the peoples of the world;

(2) increasing occupational specialization with accompanying organic differentiation within societies;

(3) increasing failure of technological solutions for the resolution of human problems in acceptable ways;

(4) increasing assertion and self-expression of ethnic groups within nation-states; and

(5) increasing reaction against centralization in political and administrative structures.

He stated "In general, continuation of these trends will, I believe, result in a society more heterogeneous than it was in the 19th or any previous century, more aware of its heterogeneity, with stronger than ever tendencies to compartmentalization, with increased awareness of and interest in non-technological and non-economic factors affecting human life, and with a growing tendency to view the nation-state in a wholly new light, especially with reference to its ethnic components and its political and administrative units." (p. 389)

Now nearly 50 years later, it might be worth considering just how prescient Ned’s predictions were for the 1990s and now for the 21st Century. 

What are your thoughts about Applied Anthropology, or what has been your experience since 1974?   PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT IF YOU HAVE ONE.

What is the legacy of an anthropologist -- Edward H. and Rosamont B. Spicer Foundation

Anthropology is the study of humanity. It is carried out by individual men and women which is the legacy of all those who have, those who are, and those who will add to the discoveries and traditions that are the basis and core of our discipline, our science, our profession, and our passion. That is, today's anthropology is the legacy we, as the intellectual heirs of our founders, have been entrusted with to honor, to build upon and to apply for the benefit of humanity. Have you made plans for preserving and passing on your legacy?

One such legacy is that of the late Edward H. Spicer and his wife, Rosamond.

The Edward H. and Rosamont B. Spicer Foundation is a non-profit foundation incorporated in the state of Arizona. Its mission is to honor and further the legacy and life works of Edward H. and Rosamond B. Spicer in the fields of anthropology, community development, and social justice. The foundation was founded by Scott Spicer, Ned's grandson and Lawson Spicer and several of Ned's former colleagues and students to honor the memory and further the work of the Spicers


In Edward Spicer'and his wife Rosomond's case, their legacy is to be found in the combination of his body of work, the depth of which has just been scratched.  And second in the students he trained with his unique perspective of anthropology as both a science in the pursuit of knowledge about the human condition and a body of knowledge about that condition that could and should be used to bring about a better world

The body of work

A listing of Spicer's major works can be found first in James Officer's Spicer biography published in the National Academy of Sciences  Biographical Memoirs V.68 (1995) and second his papers located in the Edward H. and Rosamond B. Spicer Archive at the Arizona State Museum Library. It is from these resources that the legacy is to be found, picked up, and carried forward by all who hold these values.

Ned Spicer was invited to participate in a symposium, organized by Thomas Weaver of the University of Arizona, entitled  "Anthropology in the 1990's: Conditions, Needs, and Prospects." The symposium was held in conjunction with the American Association for the Advancement of Science meetings in San Francisco in the winter of 1974. The subheading of the symposium was, "Suppose They Began the Twenty-First Century and Forgot to Invite Anthropology!!!"

Ned presented his paper entitled, "Anthropology in the society of the 1990s", on February 28, 1974.
Twenty years later, in 1994, the paper was republished in Human Organization with a forward by his widow, Rosamond Spicer, under the title, "Reassessing Edward Spicer's Views on Anthropology in the Society of the 1990s: How and Why This Paper by Edward H. Spicer Was Written" (Spicer, Rosamond 1994 Human Organization, Vol. 53. No. 4, pp. 388 - 395). From her forward, we can gain an insight into Ned's thinking and approach to the future.
Rosamond observed that

"In preparing this paper on the future of cultural anthropology, Ned apparently gave it a great deal of thought. As was his habit, he wrote down voluminous notes and lists of ideas. He also made a number of starts, each different from the last.”

“At one point he wrote, 'I react strongly against nineteenth century economic-determinism, that technology and physical environmental conditions are the essential factors to consider in forecasting. I rather look to the future in terms of the adaptation of social structures and cultural orientations to one another in the context of the influence of firm cultural products. I shall therefore take off from consideration of the probable alternative trends which we may expect in the form and functions of societal structures and cultural value orientations.'  “

“Such a point of view was always the basis of his thinking and writing." (p. 388)

In describing Ned, Rosamond says,

"His interests, reading, and studies ranged through drama, literature, economics, city planning, philosophy, history, poetry, the environment, and all the fields of anthropology. All of this vast array of information and understanding he brought to bear in some way or another on any project he undertook, on any subject on which he wrote.”

“Perhaps one of his outstanding characteristics was his ability to synthesize, as was so evident in his Cycles of Conquest. I have long thought that the practice of that art of synthesis was connected with another, the appreciation and writing of poetry. I mention all these aspects of Ned because they seem to be contained in the following paper." (p.388).

It was his global interests and ability to synthesize vast amounts of material that I remember from my first graduate classes with Ned.  I was drawn to his Community Development Seminar where  he challenged us to look at the problem at hand from multiple points of view. He asked us, “What are the “felt needs” of the various parties in this change situation?” He encouraged us to seek a synthesis of these views as a way toward understanding the issues and their complexities. As community developers, he taught us that our job was to help the parties to synthesize their shared interests. Our job was to facilitate, not impose, problem resolution.

Ned was a humanist who understood and taught the connection between a people’s past, present and how these shaped their future. In his paper on the February day in 1974, he outlined 5 trends in the social and cultural environment that he felt would shape the next 20 years for anthropology.

The five trends that Ned chose to characterize the society he envisioned for the 1990s were the following:
(1) increasing intercommunication among the peoples of the world;
(2) increasing occupational specialization with accompanying organic differentiation within societies;
(3) increasing failure of technological solutions for the resolution of human problems in acceptable ways;
(4) increasing assertion and self-expression of ethnic groups within nation-states; and
(5) increasing reaction against centralization in political and administrative structures.

He stated "In general, continuation of these trends will, I believe, result in a society more heterogeneous than it was in the 19th or any previous century, more aware of its heterogeneity, with stronger than ever tendencies to compartmentalization, with increased awareness of and interest in non-technological and non-economic factors affecting human life, and with a growing tendency to view the nation-state in a wholly new light, especially with reference to its ethnic components and its political and administrative units." (p. 389)

Now. nearly 40 years later, it might be worth considering just how prescient Ned’s predictions were for the 1990s and for the 21st Century. It is time to evaluate the predictions and further the legacy

.

Suppose They Began the Twenty-First Century and Forgot to Invite Anthropology

 In 1973,  Thomas Weaver of the University of Arizona organized a symposium  in conjunction with the American Association for the Advancement of Science meetings to be held in San Francisco in February 1974.  The theme/ title, "Anthropology in the 1990's: Conditions, Needs, and Prospects." with the subtitle "Suppose They Began the Twenty-First Century and Forgot to Invite Anthropology!!!" One of the people Weaver called upon was Dr. Edward H. Spicer, a fellow colleague from the University of Arizona and the President of American Anthropological Association, for his observations and thought about the future for cultural anthropology.

As reported by his widow in 1994, (Spicer, Rosamond 1994 Human Organization, Vol. 53. No. 4, pp. 388 - 395), Spicer took the assignment with the same degree of seriousness and dedication that he had displayed through out his professional career. He saw it as an opportunity to share his thoughts and impressions of the profession and in particular, to speculate on where he saw the profession going. On February 28, 1974, he presented his paper entitled, "Anthropology in the society of the 1990s".

Edward H. Spicer was a both a humanist and scientist whose work spans the traditional four field of anthropology, and who played a significant role in the formation and development of the fifth field, Applied Anthropology. Spicer taught those of us fortunate to be his student to appreciate and understand the connection between a people’s past, their present, and how these shaped their future. In his paper on that February day in 1974, he outlined 5 trends in the social and cultural environment that he felt would shape the next 20 years for professional anthropology.

Twenty years later, in 1994, the paper was republished in Human Organization with a forward by his widow, Rosamond Spicer, under the title, "Reassessing Edward Spicer's Views on Anthropology in the Society of the 1990s: How and Why This Paper by Edward H. Spicer Was Written"  From her forward, we can gain an insight into Ned's thinking and approach to the future.

In 1974, Spicer envision five major societal trends that would impact the development of the profession leading toward the 1990s were the following:

(1) increasing intercommunication among the peoples of the world;

(2) increasing occupational specialization with accompanying organic differentiation within societies;

(3) increasing failure of technological solutions for the resolution of human problems in acceptable ways;

(4) increasing assertion and self-expression of ethnic groups within nation-states; and

(5) increasing reaction against centralization in political and administrative structures.

He stated "In general, continuation of these trends will, I believe, result in a society more heterogeneous than it was in the 19th or any previous century, more aware of its heterogeneity, with stronger than ever tendencies to compartmentalization, with increased awareness of and interest in non-technological and non-economic factors affecting human life, and with a growing tendency to view the nation-state in a wholly new light, especially with reference to its ethnic components and its political and administrative units." (p. 389)

Now nearly 40 years later, it might be worth considering just how prescient Ned’s predictions were for the 1990s and for the 21st Century.

Was he right?  Partially right? Or, Did he miss the mark?

What are your thoughts?