A tribute to Peter Stannack (from Gregory Bufithis and Dr. Chris Donegan
29 December 2023 — There is an old African proverb that runs “When an old man dies, a library burns to the ground”. Throughout our lives, we collect countless lessons. Some are simple, some obtuse. And some people can communicate those lessons to others in a lively, often acerbic manner but well-meaning manner. Lest it be lost in the fires of life, these people pass on their wisdom through their stories, their reflections.
That was how Chris and I felt when we learned in late November that Peter Stannack had succumbed to his battle with cancer. But that cancer did not define him. Any good tribute is about lives that have been lived, not deaths that have occurred. The idea is to appreciate the character of the subject to the degree that that’s possible, usually based on what we know that person has accomplished and on what we can glean from interviews with family members and others.
And when Peter graced the pages of LinkedIn with his (sometimes) eccentricities, and humorous incidents and comments, each post seemed to generate a stream of smiles and ripostes.
We all have stories, we all have views, we are all driven to write. Our minds are like libraries and we just add more and more to it all the time. So did Peter. And it was hard-won wisdom, earned through a succession of companies he founded, plus just scanning the morning news as he did every day – looking to employ the perfect “bon mot”.
Everything we know, everything we have learned from our predecessors, is at risk if we don’t properly gather and transfer it. And Peter did. His erudition was on display almost everyday. And he often had chats with many of us off-line, expanding on his “post-of-the-day” and other matters. But scroll through his Linkedin posts and you see what I mean.
It would be impossible for me to name my favorite Peter Stannack post. Everything he wrote was erudite, human and whimsical. And he turned us onto to all sorts of things. Chris fondly remembers Peter recommending the poetry of Robert Service:
“There are strange things done in the midnight Sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Artic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was the night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee”
One exchange I still hold dear is a Linkedin post coupled with an email chat we had after he posted it. He had written on Linkedin:
“America has rewritten the book on re-engineering #presidential #politics, working from a #mediated script which has produced a narrative of #destruction and #salvation. Does this sound familiar? Because #LinkedIn, #Twitter, #Insta and all the rest are veritable binary tidal waves of #myside thinking. All of our politicians have destroyed the conventional role and institution of a democratically elected government with #media logic and the politics of fear – while promoting themselves as the saviour of anything from freedom in general to the #green warriors saving the whole Goddamned World!!!”
Peter noted “This is, of course, what many of us here on social media are also trying to do. And – I would argue – is what politics has become. A game like Fantasy Football. There is no place left now for reasoned arguments and discussion. The drain on our attentional capacity repeated everywhere. The struggle between “good” and “evil” is written on the pages of the Web”.
In an email he noted:
“Oh, sure we all think we are doing our best to save ourselves from everything that the Anthropocene represents. And we surely believe that the keyboard is mightier than the sword. This is firstly the result of a cultural context of popular culture, commercialism, fear, and entertainment valuing “celebrity”. (Are you enjoying it?) Secondly, a mass media and related information technology that systematically promotes entertainment, drama, conflict, and fear. (Are you still enjoying it?) Thirdly, a barrage of fear-inducing events, issues, and crises. (Really?) And finally, a digital media which is instantaneous, personal, and visual and that requires participation, limited interaction, and a sense of validation and community emotional support. (Of course you are!)”
Those were my favorite posts – his explorations of our technological relationship with the world as it has been conceived and developed in the western world, and which model we inherited from the ancient Greeks. Essentially the expression of a will to master nature. He once wrote to me:
“Technology blinds us with fairy dust. Technology will, metaphorically speaking, change at midnight, leaving us dressed in rags and missing a shoe. Technology is being built with data by people who are much more intelligent than me, but none have my best interests at heart.”
It led me to write a long-form essay back in 2020 titled “The divinity of data, and the flimsy fabric of computation”. Peter eagerly contributed his editing skills to make it perfect. It led to a flurry of Linkedin exchanges and off-line exchanges among many of us.
And Peter often wrote about “the colonization of our minds by our technology”, illuminating major milestone moments in that techno-rapture. And, of course, our stupidity and naivety in dealing with it. He was very good at that.
But as he noted, sadly the outcome of which, to the extent that our technological activity acquires more and more powerful means of action, could only be the predicted disaster which we must face today?
“Nature is winning guys. Aided by a powerful dose of human stupidity which comes free with every form of conflict”.
Peter, you are missed and shall always be missed and you have left a big hole on Linkedin – a hole impossible to fill. Chris and I will be drinking a toast to you this New Year’s Eve, wishing you Godspeed to wherever you are going.
I think it is fair to say all of us on Linkedin will miss Peter’s brilliant, eccentric, idiosyncratic mind.