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A letter from an alumnus about the constancy of change


May 6, 2002

Abhi Raghunathan '02 in writing about university memorials (On the Campus, March 27, 2002), notes about the constancy of change, and that on the campus, "the sounds of construction are indistinguishable from those of destruction". This casual observation strikes a chord of profundity, because of course everything new must come at the expense of the old that it displaces. The displacement can be as local as a house going in where prior was only a wild woods, to the universal as when a sun-centered theory of the world overtakes an earth-centered one. I suppose this irony is the core of Hegel's theory of the dialectic, but I must confess some ignorance of all things Hegelian. However, I thank Mr. Raghunathan for uncovering the obvious where before it was not so certain, and perhaps obscure.

Rocky Semmes '79
Alexandria, Va.

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