Initiation by Quotation

While exploring New York's American Museum of Natural History, an intricate model with geometric forms attracted my attention. It introduced a fascinating exhibit, Man in Africa, along with this accompanying statement:

Traditional African societies vary from the so-called "simple" society of hunters to complex states and empires.

All, however, are based on the family, and all involve a close and intricate interconnection of every structural part.

Here we suggest four major aspects of social life: religious, political, economic, and domestic.

Connecting these are many institutions such as the market, a place where both economic and domestic horizons are expanded, disputes settled and religious rites performed.

The strength of traditional societies is the profusion of such links and their ability to adjust to change.

Social change means more than changing any one part of society, for as this model shows, no one part can be touched without affecting the others.

The connecting ties are like elastic that can expand and contract, the parts of society all retaining their connections but shifting in response to each change so as to keep a total balance.

Only the violent changes of the past 50 years (from 1985) have thrown these systems off balance by destroying some of the vital links.

This statement provoked these considerations:

• If Africa is considered to be the place of origin for the entire human race, do the truths of its traditional societies embody the essence of all human society?

• If these truths successfully served traditional societies since the dawn of time, can they now serve any individual within a lifetime?

• If the violent changes of the recent past created a systemic societal imbalance, can an individual's contribution to cultural renewal reestablish some of the vital links?

This exhibit moved me to ponder many questions that initiated a lifelong pursuit of creative responses.