Notes and letters

Rapoport page 290, Defending Europe, options for security (Taylor & Francis, 1986)

It is a curious habit of technocratic thinking to assume that every problem poses solutions. Even mathematicians do not have this. If you ask me whether or not I think humanity has a chance I will say a very slim one. I don’t pretend there is a solution. However, there is another way of dealing with this problem: not as a search for a solution, but as an organization for action.

Tom Lawson writes to the Bulletin:

“I … read your tribute to Anatol Rapoport [in the February Bulletin] with great interest. What a man!! I … visited him … when I was starting a senior secondary school course on Peace and Conflict Studies. His advice was invaluable, and the course was an unqualified success for my last three years of teaching. I have had dozens of classes playing Prisoners’ Dilemma and learning the great lesson it teaches …”