Theos-Talk Archives (May 1996 Message tl00197)

On Fri, 3 May 1996 19:05:25 -0400, Kim Poulsen
(poulsen@dk-online.dk) wrote:

>Easily, Liesel. It may be that the idea cannot be rendered
>satifactorily in english. It is the *idea* I like. Alan put the
>"universal" back in, which is a great improvement. "Brother-" is
>obviously hopeless.
>In friendship,
>Kim

When, Kim, did Alan put the "universal" back in?  The first vote on
the objects of TI that I have record of is dated April 13, 1996.
In that message the first object was worded:  To form a nucleus
within the universal human family,....(etc.).

Are you referring to an earlier version of these objects or wording
in other places, such as a web site?

I'm glad to hear you think "Brother-" is hopeless.  In my
experience English does make definite gender distinctions.  When I
read theosophic, occult, esoteric, and other such authors who wrote
in the 19th and first half of 20th centuries, I get a strong
impression that when they say they are using "brother" to mean
"everyone" and "man" to mean "humanity" they are not being honest.
To me, what comes through their words is that they really did mean
what they said - people of male gender.  I'm speaking here about
authors who were themselves in female as well as male bodies when
they wrote.  It is my observation that authors who sincerely mean
to include all genders did not appear in writing on such topics
until the second half of this century.  Indeed, to me, times have
changed!

Virginia Behrens TI, TSA