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3. Ideas Are More Permanent Than People
A Radio Talk by Charles F. Kettering
Today I should like to tell you about the work
of a friend of mine who has studied the distribution of our cultural
and industrial activities. In making these studies he has a large
map of the World and on this map he puts pins for the things he is
comparing. If it is music and inventions - he would choose a
period of time - say 50 or 100 years - select the important composers
of the
period - and put red pins at the location of their homes. He would
then pick out the outstanding inventions of the same period and locate
the inventors' homes with blue pins. It is surprising how
they group together. He points out that all of our activities are much
more interrelated than we normally think - and that no great
development is ever possible in one line without having some effect on
all others.
As a very simple example - take the
period from 1850 to 1900.
During that time lived one of the greatest composers - Richard
Wagner, whose music we are hearing this afternoon. Contemporary with
Wagner - we find the name of Rudolph
Diesel who invented the engine which today appears in the
headlines in connection with submarines, tanks, landing boats and
streamlined trains. Both were
Germans. But the comparison
sometimes goes further than the simple geographic location. For
instance Wagner was exiled from Germany and some of his greatest work
was done while he was out of his own country. The Diesel family was in
Paris at the time of Rudolph's birth and, because of the political
situation, they were forced to return to Germany. That particular
period was a very turbulent one and it seems to have affected all
forms of human activity.
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