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GROK 1.25" Button Stranger in a Strange Land Heinlein SciFi Cult Classic Empathy
$ 1.05
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Description
grok, heinlein, robert a heinlein, mars, martians, valentine michael smith, a martian named smith, science fiction, grok, understand, empathize, emotion, badge, button, pinbackGROK
Science Fiction Button
This listing is for one 1.25" button with the word GROK against an abstract space background.
Grok is a word coined by Robert A. Heinlein for his 1961 science-fiction novel 'Stranger in a Strange Land.' Valentine Michael Smith is a young man who is the sole survivor of a failed mission to Mars. Raised by Martians and with no knowledge of his origins, he is returned to Earth where he endeavors to comprehend human culture and humans, and they try to understand, exploit, or attack him.
Eventually Smith starts a Martian-influenced "Church of All Worlds" combining sexual freedom with Western esotericism, whose members learn the Martian language and thus acquire psychokinetic abilities. One of many hand-to-translate Martian words and concepts is 'grok' or 'to grok', which seems to mean 'to understand something so totally and utterly that it becomes a part of you and you become a part of it; to drink in knowledge; to love; an expression of ultimate empathy.'
Heinlein's deliberately provocative book generated considerable controversy. The free love and commune living aspects of the Church of All Worlds led to the book's exclusion from school reading lists. After it was rumored to be associated with Charles Manson, it was removed from school libraries as well.
The Oxford English Dictionary summarizes the meaning of grok as "to understand intuitively or by empathy, to establish rapport with" and "to empathize or communicate sympathetically (with); also, to experience enjoyment."
The concept of grok garnered significant critical scrutiny in the years after the book's initial publication. The term and aspects of the underlying concept have become part of communities as diverse as polyamory (in particular the Church of All Worlds) and computer science.
Wear this button while bathing, while levitating, while lounging on your waterbed, or while trying to understand your world and those in it.
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