Epimethe

Epimethe : who's that guy ?
Ian Illich talks about him at the end of his inspiring book : deschooling society.
Promethee brought the fire to humans. With him humans started to engineer their world, they had the first hint into "techne", the greek word that gave technicians, technologies ... Techne is a way to reconcile humans lust over nature : lust for power, power of controling nature, lust for manufactured objects pleasing the senses, lust for knowledge and science : Libido dominandi, libido sentiendi, libido sciendi.

We now need a name for those who value hope above expectations. We need a name for those who love people more than products, those who believe that No people are uninteresting.Their fate is like the chronicle of planets.Nothing in them is not particular,and planet is dissimilar from planet. We need a name for those who love the earth on which each can meet the other,And if a man lived in obscurity making his friends in that obscurity, obscurity is not uninteresting.We need a name for those who collaborate with their Promethean brother in the lighting of the fire and the shaping of iron, but who do so to enhance their ability to tend and care and wait upon the other, knowing thatto each his world is private, and in that world one excellent minute. And in that world one tragic minute. These are private.*I suggest that these hopeful brothers and sisters be called Epimethean men.* The three quotations are from ""People"' from the book Selected Poems by Yevgeny Yevtushenko. Translated and with Introduction by Robin Milner Gulland and Peter Levi. Published by E. P. Dutton & Co. Inc., 1962, and reprinted with their permission.