(by Midnight Freemasons, Steven L. Harrison, 33°, FMLR)
Last week’s episode of the Whence Came You podcast is well worth a listen. Scott Hambrick, a member of Owasso Lodge 545 in Oklahoma, was Robert Johnson’s guest on the show. Brother Hambrick is a founder of the Intellectual Linear Progression program, “an online community developing classically educated men and women using the great books of western civilization.” (https://bit.ly/2GafSsU). With a decided preference for hard copy books, Scott notes, “One of the reasons I started this project is because I’m desperately afraid we’re one EMP (electromagnetic pulse) away from losing civilization.” Robert picked right up on that and they both agreed that is not an issue to be underestimated.
The discussion brought to mind some of the resistance offered when I was an officer in the Missouri Lodge of Research. We worked for a few years to establish the Masonic Library in Columbia. One of the arguments against going to that expense was, “We don’t need books anymore. Everything is electronic these days. Books are old-fashioned and unnecessary in this ‘modern’ age.”
I love technology. It was my profession. I want the latest gadget. I want every document I write to be in electronic format. Cloud storage is the way to go. With little reservation, however, I have a message for the world: Don’t abandon paper.
In fact, along with that, don’t abandon any of the “old time” analog archiving techniques. I mean it. Everything today should be digital… but not exclusively. Why? There are lots of reasons not to turn every document or historical item into a string of ones and zeros, but there are a couple of really good ones.
First, you’ve got to have…