The new heretics

In G.K. Chesterton’s day, it was not necessary to qualify the word “Liberal” with “Classical.”

Culture and political designations have changed. Verities, by definition, have not.

Five score and seventeen years after it was published, this resonates. It requires a careful reading:

“Truths turn into dogmas the instant that they are disputed. Thus every man who utters a doubt defines a religion. And the scepticism of our time does not really destroy the beliefs, rather it creates them; gives them their limits and their plain and defiant shape. We who are Liberals once held Liberalism lightly as a truism. Now it has been disputed, and we hold it fiercely as a faith. We who believe in patriotism once thought patriotism to be reasonable, and thought little more about it. Now we know it to be unreasonable, and know it to be right. We who are Christians never knew the great philosophic common sense which inheres in that mystery until the anti-Christian writers pointed it out to us. The great march of mental destruction will go on. Everything will be denied. Everything will become a creed. It is a reasonable position to deny the stones in the street; it will be a religious dogma to assert them. It is a rational thesis that we are all in a dream; it will be a mystical sanity to say that we are all awake. Fires will be kindled to testify that two and two make four. Swords will be drawn to prove that leaves are green in summer. We shall be left defending, not only the incredible virtues and sanities of human life, but something more incredible still, this huge impossible universe which stares us in the face. We shall fight for visible prodigies as if they were invisible. We shall look on the impossible grass and the skies with a strange courage. We shall be of those who have seen and yet have believed.”

G.K. Chesterton, Heretics, 1905

It is indeed strange that by 2022 courage is required contend that 2+2 is 4. The idea has been declared racist and patriarchal. We’re told simple arithmetic is an artifact of white privilege.

One may speculate that the hue of the impossible grass has been excluded from Progressive contempt only because that color is ‘green.’ And/or because neither white nor asian heterosexual males have mentioned it lately.

As to strange courage… How can it require courage to oppose those who declare men to be women?

Why is courage needed to suggest government profligacy tends toward inflation?

From whence could courage be summoned to contest those who think human life begins only after a full 9 months gestation?

In what reality does the idea that self-defense is a natural right become a courageous position?

What’s even stranger… these ideas have public support. In ‘safe’ districts hoary politicians run on these these ideas. Their wannabe successors echo the themes. Many of them are elected in spite of it. In fact, because of it.

What we can conclude is that our practice of democracy has proved Tocqueville right, and Benjamin Franklin’s fears accurate.

A Pecksniff of journalists

On the home page, when TOC was a Google blog, there was a slightly altered quotation from Humbert Wolfe’s 1930 book of poems, The Uncelestial City. Due to limitations in my WordPress theme, (at least with my OS, browser and add-ons) that now appears on the Blogroll and Contact pages.

It occurs to me that few people who visit TOC since the WordPress conversion ever click over to those pages, so I offer Wolfe’s little poem here as presently relevant:

You cannot hope to bribe or twist
thank God! The Main Stream journalist.
But, seeing what the man will do
unbribed, there’s no occasion to.
– After Humbert Wolfe (1886 – 1940)

In case you’re wondering, the alteration I made was from “British journalist” to “Main Stream Journalist.”

ABE books has 32 copies starting at $17.50 should you be interested. Since Amazon’s jettison of Parler, do not buy it there.

For “pecksniff” see here.

Ardnassac

This is a book recommendation. Sadly, it’s out of print, and I can find none in any of the used book sites I have used. The good news is it’s cheap on Kindle.

I found out about it here if you want a short opinion second to the one that follows.

I can’t believe I’d never heard of the book, either.

The flying car topic of the title is used to weave a sort of ‘back to the future’ look at at technology, American ingenuity/entrepreneurialism, and government regulation. There is a strong science fiction presence used to ask “Why did, or did not, the predictions of 1930-1960 SF come to pass?” It’s a good summary of my contention that much of that literature should have been required reading.

Appearances, among many others, by H. G. Wells, Issac Asimov, and Arthur C. Clarke.

The brilliant Dr. Richard Feynman also takes a bow in a discussion of Heinlein’s novellas Waldo and Magic Inc..

I cut my teeth on SF with Tom Swift, and my strong technological optimism arguably started with that series. (I wonder if there is anything comparable now for 10 year olds?)

The author, J Storrs Hall, is a techno-optimist, too, and he suggests that after the 1960’s America became a much less “can do” polity than we had any reason to expect. We went from the Wright brothers to 747s in 50 years, from Goddard (1926) to the moon in 43. Now we’re mired in CAFE standards and cronyism.

Hall does spend a fair bit of time discussing the history of ‘flying cars’ and that alone is fascinating. There’s much more. He also makes very intriguing points about nanotech, nuclear power, AI, cybernetics, economics, city planning, and other topics.

One major consideration is envirostatism (my term), where he contends that the GREEN point isn’t CO2, pollution, or any of the other excuses offered. It is essentially anti-human nihilism.

For example,

“Green ideas have become inextricably intertwined with a perfectly reasonable desire to live in a clean, healthy environment and enjoy the natural world. The difference is of course that in the latter case, the human enjoying the natural world is a good thing, but to the fundamentalist Green he and all his works are a bad thing.”

Lest you think this is hyperbole, he supplies some words from the mouths of the horses-asses:

The prospect of cheap fusion energy is the worst thing that could happen to the planet.
-Jeremy Rifkin

Giving society cheap, abundant energy would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun.
-Paul Ehrlich

It would be little short of disastrous for us for us to discover a source of clean, cheap, abundant energy because of what we would do with it.
-Amory Lovins

The title of this piece is Cassandra backwards. I closely paraphrase J Storrs Hall,

“There seems to be a bizarre reverse-Cassandra effect operating in the universe: whereas the mythical Cassandra spoke the awful truth and was not believed, these days “experts” speak awful falsehoods, and they are believed. Repeatedly being wrong actually seems to be an advantage, conferring some sort of puzzling magic glow upon the speaker.”

We hear California wildfires are caused by global warming climate change, when it’s actually envirostatist mismanagement, and the conscious intent to build windmills rather than maintain power lines. The California satraps agree with Rifkin, Ehrlich, and Lovins. In order to cripple the supply of energy, what have their like told us that wasn’t true?

California wildfires are caused by climate change. Gavin Newsom – yesterday
Four billion people will die between 1980 and 1989 from climate change. Paul Ehrlich – 1970
The polar ice cap will disappear by 2014. Al Gore – 2007
The planet will warm by 3 full degrees (0.1, actually). James Hansen – 1988
We will see the ‘end of snow.’ Untrue, no matter how many times it’s been predicted. various – 2000, 2015, 2017, 2020
Air pollution will reduce the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half. – Various – 1970

Amusingly, we also didn’t see an ice age by the year 2000. Kenneth Watt – 1970

Meanwhile, we see the very people who want zero CO2 emissions steadfastly oppose nuclear energy. Which is zero emission, safe, and causes immensely less environmental damage than windmills or solar panels. They are not protecting the environment, they are attacking the very idea of human well-being. This antipathy is in the spirit of Rifkin, Ehrlich, and Lovins. It is about authoritarian power in the way Critical Theorists describe it: There are no objective truths. Human history and culture are merely examples of a struggle in relative political power dynamics.

They don’t mean power as in horsepower, they mean justifying the political power of Antifa and BLM riots.

And don’t get me started on Critical Theorists’ “science” on “individuals with a cervix,” or what 2+2 equals.

Anyway. I recommend the book.

Book plug

Following is a reminiscence incorporated into a review of:

Conversational Guide to Backcountry Equipment:
How to choose and use gear and clothing

-by Brad Groves. Lichen and Ice Press – Marquette, Michigan, 2020.

Full disclosure. I have never met the author, but my copy was a gift from his father. Maybe that affects my review, but I think I have given an objective assessment.

If selecting appropriate outdoor gear is of any interest to you – if you’re into backpacking, camping, hiking, hunting, wondering about optimal choices for your bug out bag, even just blowing the snow from a 1,000 foot driveway – you should click the link above. And you needn’t take my word for it, check out the videos.

Brad Groves has written an engaging… well what the title says. It is well and profusely illustrated. The advice on equipment is intelligent and guided by vast experience. Practical details abound. Beginning and experienced backpackers will benefit from Coach Groves advice.

Beginners will want to read straight through. More experienced folks are also likely to find new insights. In either use case it could benefit from an index, or a searchable digital edition.

For example, a book addressing backpacking will necessarily include much discussion of the weight of items. On page 65 there’s a note on the weight difference in two nearly identical down vests – almost half a pound (a lot) – 37 pages later there is a note on the weight of a pair of camp shoes. Avoidable weight is important. Easily finding these examples of how to calculate avoided weight would be nice: I can trade off this weight for this weight for this cost.

I’m a geek. I would have a spreadsheet or two on this.

Without an index you have to RTWT. Which you will do because the writing will hold your interest, but being able to easily collate various references would be useful.

This does not detract from the quality of the content.

My relative expertise in these matters is tiny and ancient, but in my younger days I did a fair bit of backpacking. I still have some of the micro-sized stoves and other ultra-low weight gear popular in the 70s.

Following is a backpacking experience of my own, where weight and camp shoes combined with youth and optimism to override intelligence and experience.

Screen Shot 2020-06-24 at 1.05.38 PMYes, that pack was too heavy… read on.

My most adventurous trip was backpacking on several of the Hawaiian islands in 1975, and the most notable trek of that excursion was Haleakala Crater on Maui.

The Haleakala caldera is essentially an 8,000 foot high desert. There’s a 2,000 foot wall of mountains around it which blocks almost all the 55 inches of rain annually falling on nearby Hana. We needed to carry water for four days. So, everyone started out pack heavy.

I well recall setting off at 10,000 feet at the Sliding Sands Trailhead.Sliding Sands trailhead edit
About a mile in…
Peaty Fran Sliding Sands Trail

…I came to regret a couple of my “gear” decisions.

1- There were four of us – in our twenties. We wanted to have some alcohol along for end of day celebrations. So, in addition to my normal gear (and extra water), I was designated wine carrier. Four bottles. At two pounds twelve ounces each. As noted below, I knew the weight was an issue, but how often do you get to carouse on the caldera of a dormant Hawaiian volcano?

2- I was wearing relatively new boots. Hadn’t hiked in them before, but I’d worn them about the yard and house for a few weeks prior to the trip. They seemed well enough broken in. I did carry a pair of low cut Converse All-Stars as a backup and for use in camp. I wrote off the additional weight as “just in case.”

The first day was a 10 mile long descent of 2,000 feet – over some pretty rough terrain. I exchanged my boots for the All-Stars about half way. Blisters.Duane foot trailI worried about twisting an ankle for that last 5 miles.

On page 82, under “Footwear Height” Groves explains why my understanding of ankle support was flawed. If I was going accept the weight of an extra pair of shoes, I could have had much better ankle support.

While we’re on weight, my first comment after we had camp set up was,
“We’re drinking all this wine. TONIGHT!’

Not that I was naive about carry weight. Fanatic would be more accurate. I trimmed the edges off my maps. I pulled the tags and strings off teabags.

So, the section titled “Footwear Weight” on page 81 is in my youthful mistake wheelhouse, as are the comments on camp shoes under the photo on page 102. If I had had Brad Groves’ book in 1975, I might have reconsidered my boot break-in technique, the All-Stars, and the wine. Intelligence might have suggested replacing the wine with a single fifth of Jack Daniels. ;)

Groves’ advice about weight doesn’t go near the extent of my obsession (which started with a 70s book on backpacking). It is sensible. And professional.

I paraphrase: “Don’t carry unnecessary stuff, and here are some examples of unnecessary stuff.” The reasons for excluding that ‘stuff’ are made very clear. He gives you parameters for identifying ‘stuff’ you need not carry. The edges of paper maps and tea bag tags don’t appear on a list. The list is up to you. Groves gives you good guidance for decision making. With a touch of humor.

Next, I’m reading the section on cold weather boots and gloves, and seeking a balaclava solution that leaves my glasses less fogged: Because my old hands too easily get cold and I have a 1,000 foot driveway I must clear of winter snow.

Conversational Guide to Backcountry Equipment is a very good book, and a fine gift. I should know.