[OL-Forum] Digest Number 849

[OutdoorLighting-Forum@yahoogroups...]

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There are 2 messages in this issue.

Topics in this digest:

      1. Re: Outdoor Lighting as a Belief System
           From: "Karolyn Beebe" <keedo@merr...>
      2. RE: Outdoor Lighting as a Belief System
           From: "Richard Klappal" <klappal@xnet...>


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Message: 1
   Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2003 08:23:09 -0500
   From: "Karolyn Beebe" <keedo@merr...>
Subject: Re: Outdoor Lighting as a Belief System

John wrote: > There were large numbers just
> below the light so aparently they were doing double duty and lighting
> their street address numbers too.

How does that work at night? I see glaring porch and other lights obliterating house numbers and wonder what language cabbies use for that, or pizza deliverers? Give these and other troops of potential warriors something useful like *GlareBuster* *ParShield* and ordinances to support. 

Karolyn




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Message: 2
   Date: Mon, 23 Jun 2003 13:59:33 -0500
   From: "Richard Klappal" <klappal@xnet...>
Subject: RE: Outdoor Lighting as a Belief System

IMHO, as our ancestral stone-agers began to control fire, that fire
discouraged attacks by wild animals that has a natural fear of fire (prairie,
forest, ...).  It provided heat and drying in cool/cold moist times.

The campfire provided a beacon to hunters, late in returning from the hunt
(and to unsuccessful hunters now intending to steal your successes).

As our ancestors learned to burn toxins from spoiled meat (cooking) they came
to rely even more on said fire. Along the time-period they learned to sharpen
saplings by charring the end of the wood, then grind of the charred portions
to make a point.  Thus originated the stabbing spear.

Gathering wood was still an expensive proposition that detracted from food
gathering, and stone axes and knives were not well suited, so large
light-producing fires were probably rare; a bed of coals supplied heat,
dryness, and the smoke to discourage animals.


As life progressed to farming and stationary living, a fixed fireplace,
fat-burning oil-lamps, and the need to maintain tools during otherwise
"non-productive" times (when fieldwork was not possible) led to an increasing
need for "light".


Around the 16th century, magistrates in Paris began requiring lights in
windows to provide some street illumination since streets were narrow and
cramped, pavement was uneven, the sewers were in the streets and crime was
rampant--people were being injured by slips, falls, and muggings.  Lighting
thus becomes codified as providing SAFETY.


As the means of lighting progressed through gaslights to electricity, it
became easier to provide light in ever greater amounts and the providers of
gas/electricity developed the profit motive.  A fire provides heat; a fire
provides protection from wild animals {no longer applies}; a fire provides
light; ergo, fire = safety, heat, light, which are all good now means that
light = good.

>From the provider's view, light = sales = profits = good.  Reinforcement, and
an excuse to mythify (is that a word?) light = safety.

Since much of our educational systems tend to teach status quo, "go with the
flow" and consumerism rather than critical thinking, the myths are accepted
and become TRUTH.  Getting brains to re-engage is difficult, especially when
the myth-makers still have the profit motive and can feed the campaign pockets
of government.


Rich
The expectations of cynics are less often unsatisfied
than the expectations of skeptics.




-----Original Message-----
From: John Gilkison [mailto:jgilkiso@zianet...]
Sent: Monday, June 23, 2003 03:07
To: OutdoorLighting-Forum@yahoogroups...
Subject: [OL-Forum] Outdoor Lighting as a Belief System


    Unfortunately, in this world everyone views things throught a
certain medium, which prevents his seeing them in the same light
as others. While this is a quote from "The Count of Monte Cristo"
by Dumas, I think is applies to outdoor lighting as  well as many
other subject.

    I have been thinking for quite some time about outdoor lighting
as a belief system, and like any other belief system it tends to be in-
visible to the believer. In the first place there is the idea that a light
at
night can somehow make you safe which is ridiculous on the face
of it. How could a light see into the heart of good persons and
bad persons and repel only the bad? Who these lights in unattended
spaces are really helping remains a mystery to me!

    The caveman and his fire come to mind, and the primitive roots
of the undefined feeling that you are safer with an outdoor light begins
to make a little bit of sense as some kind of psychological aberration.
One  who lights a piece of ground is literally taking possession of  it
subconsciously speaking.

... trimmed





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