Dear Kristen,
It is midnight, so this will be a brief answer.
Frank and Elena and I have the advantage of having grown up in
the 1930s. If you grew up in the 1930s it is glaringly obvious that the world is
better now than it was then, and you cannot help being an optimist. The
troubles of today are real, but nothing like as pervasive and threatening
as the troubles of the 1930s. We should give humanity credit for some
amazing achievements in the last eighty years, conversion of Japan and
Germany from militaristic to pacifistic cultures, liberation of Africa and
Asia from colonial rule, drastic reduction of birthrates and improvement
of agriculture leading to better nutrition and public health for the
majority of people, rise of India and China from abject poverty to wealth
and prosperity, increase of freedom and respect for law in much of the world. The
disasters and failures that loom so large in your view of the world today
are quite small when you compare them with the injustices and miseries of
the past.
Good night and happy dreams, yours ever, Freeman.
A most terrible loss: my dear friend and mentor, Freeman Dyson
Freeman Dyson and Kristen Ghodsee in 2011
Freeman Dyson and Kristen Ghodsee in October 2016
Kristen Ghodsee with Freeman Dyson in March 2019
My last meeting with Freeman on November 3, 2019
In Memoriam: Sonja Luehrmann - 1975-2019
I was absolutely devastated to learn of my colleague’s death from cancer last week at the age of 44. She was an amazing anthropologist, a prolific scholar, the mother of three young children, and a dear friend. The world is a much dimmer place today.