Guns of the Self

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Dear Readers,

  Something on my mind of late is radical self-reliance.  I know that there is an undercurrent in your time stream that suggests detachment from the norms of society, withdrawal from the production schemes and the military-industrial complex, and a variety of different self-industry paradigms.  There are interesting, and I think that your society is at a turning point between traditional ideas and these new ideas.  I do not wish to comment much on the different possibilities that may result therefrom.  I do attempt to keep some semblance of detachment, even from a time stream as dear to my heart as your own.

  It is interesting to me, however, that this is a movement born not of policymakers, militaries, or intellectual writers.  This is a movement of people who showed up in the desert one day, who took apart televisions, who simply found each other through the great electronic social connectors that your time stream has produced.  There is Burning Man, there is the Maker Movement, there are a wide variety of new wave scientific and industrial pushes that put a neo-industrial spin on the transcendentalist views expressed by Emerson in Self-Reliance.

This current of society fascinates me, as it is in large part a founding principle of the University.  We are the children of a displaced Empire, either originally born within it or adopted to it as something like time has pressed on through its annals.  By necessity and by mission the University of Constantinople is reliant only on itself.  It produces just a little more than it consumes.  It stands on its own legs and dares the forces that swirl in time to break it down.  Perhaps they will.  But we cannot be erased, for the fleeting time that we exist.

I know a time stream that may lie in your own future where Universities will become something similar to what the University of Constantinople has become: islands of self-reliance in a sea of Hobbesian chaos.  A sample is below the jump, in the form of a primary source letter from a University President to another.

  Always,

  Dr. John Skylar
  Chairman
  Department of Anachronism
  University of Constantinople


Dear Dr. Farnsworth,

  I write you with sincere hopes that you're well.  Here at the Black Hills Institute of Technology we have been in order since your last communication and I hope that your institution is equally stable.

  I am regretfully obligated to tell you of the unfortunate passing of Professor Ernest White at age 77.  Professor White was responsible for the excellent greenhouse and hydroponics facilities in our Institute's recycled Atlas missile base, and though we are not shorthanded, he will be sorely missed.

  I am reminded, however, with Professor White's passing, that it is now forty years since the Declaration of Joint Independence.  Considering that the government of the United States collapsed in on itself shortly after this declaration, it is only your predecessor's suggestion that I sign that agreement that prevented my institution from destruction.  Had I not listened to that advice, no doubt one of the many splinter "states" would have acquired us either by force or on the open market.  Professor White's contribution, of course, was to develop a system that would give us ample food to support the experiment in University governance.  Without it, we would be nothing.

  Of course, to a young man like yourself my correspondence may just sound like the ramblings of an old man past his prime.  And indeed they are.  The chaos around us, as well as the constant struggle to maintain this University's self-reliance, have left me somewhat tired and addled.  I wish to retire, but I must find a replacement for myself.  I know that you and those who were your fellow students under President Wurtheimer are gifted with his same abilities of foresight, either through wisdom or through some inscrutable technology we do not have.  Knowing your skills, I wonder if you may know someone among your fellows might be interested in applying for the position of President of Black Hills Institute of Technology.  Please respond electronically at your earliest convenience.

  With Respect,

   Professor Herman Alter, PhD, MSEng
   President
   Black Hills Institute of Technology