Monday, September 28, 2015

Dawson did it all for 'the little ones'

Henry Dawson's other Manhattan Project wasn't really to advance the cause of penicillin, to aid the Allied military effort or even to save the SBEs : rather he did it all for 'the little ones', to persuade Humanity to build a "Big Tent" that included everyone.

For with rare exceptions (perhaps the early days of the Communist revolutions in some countries) a Big Tent doesn't need to invite the big and the powerful inside - for they are already there.

Instead a Big Tent always newly invites in the small, the weak, those traditionally judged unworthy and unfit.

Their ideas, emotions, fears, feelings, efforts are now considered to be as worthy as those of any other --- and worthy to be judged for their suitability to the collective task at hand.

Dawson felt his earlier scientific studies had revealed that a Big Tent approach (aka a tolerance for 'unfit' mutations and a global HGT system) had helped keep the microbes alive for four billion years.

Now it might just do the same for humanity : help keep human civilization alive for another four thousand years, if only given a chance to prove itself.

From tiny beginnings, his Big Tent Penicillin, produced by an unlikely 'coalition of all the talents' and given freely to all in need in a war-torn world, has since indirectly benefited ten billion of us (and counting) since 1940.

All through a form of herd immunity to formerly endemic deadly infectious diseases.

In doing so, I think he has successfully scaled up (and proven up) that this Big Tent concept also works for humanity !

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