Category Archives: Reviews

Weathering Climate Change – A Fresh Approach

Review of a book by Hugh Ross

I discovered Hugh Ross recently (see his Wikipedia page), and am very impressed by his ability to explain astronomical phenomena. I am also hugely impressed by his courage and ability to interpret these phenomena from a Christian perspective. He is an “old-earth creationist”. In various speeches and interviews he shows how extremely unlikely the existence of life in the universe is. He explains the long array of unlikely coincidences which have to happen – some of them concurrently – to make life possible (see e.g. here and here). He runs a website called “Reasons to Believe“.

I resolved to find out more and bought a couple of books by him. One of those I have now finished reading: “Weathering Climate Change – A Fresh Approach” (RTB Press, Covina, CA, 2020). This is my review of this book.

We know that over the past few centuries, the Earth’s atmosphere has been warming somewhat. We also are reasonably sure that human activity has had some input into this warming, although we’re not at all sure what exactly and to what extent – despite what politicians and media appear to want us believe in this regard. (See e.g. the content description of this current book by Steven E. Koonin, a former top science advisor to the Obama administration.)

Ross clearly believes that the human contribution to the current climate change is considerable and dangerous to our continued existence. He suggests some measures, about which more later.

I am sceptical of that claim. However, I’m not in a position to contend it. The reason I’m writing this review is that Ross adds a perspective I have rarely seen before. And that is his contention that in the past near 10,000 years, human activity has decisively contributed to preventing the onset of a new glaciation. I say “glaciation”, not “ice age”, because the latter refers to a much longer time, measured in millions of years, in which periodic glaciations take place, which typically last thousands if not tens of thousands of years.

The current ice age started about 2.6 million years ago. It’s still ongoing. At the beginning of that age, glaciation phases happened roughly every 41,000 years. About 800,000 years ago this rhythm changed to about 100,000 years. We’re not sure why. Ross lists 14 currently discussed explanations, one of which is a large meteorite strike. This switch also meant that the interglacial phases lengthened to 2-4,000 years. (p. 140) Another hugely interesting fact he discusses is that another meteorite strike, about 12,000 years ago on the north-west edge of Greenland, stopped the “normal” warming phase that would otherwise have triggered a new glaciation within a couple of thousand years or so. This happened “just in time” so to speak, to allow human civilisation to flourish. (See chapter 14, “The Marvel of [current] Climate Stability”)

If you look at a temperature chart of the past 800,000 years (such as this one using ice cores from Antarctica), a few things stand out: 1. In the past 300,000 years or so, the glaciation phases have become progressively longer and deeper (i.e., colder). 2. While the previous interglacial phases were always very short (just a couple of thousand years at most), shown by sharply upward indicating points of the graph, followed swiftly by an equally sharp decline in temperature), our current interglacial is untypically long. It has lasted almost 10,000 years.

The reason (apart from the above mentioned Greenland meteorite), Ross contends, is human activity. “The human factor . . . has played the predominant role in delaying the onset of the next glacial episode.” He emphasises why this is important: “We need to understand how the fortuitous balance and current imbalance came about – and to gain hope that we can do something to stabilize the temperature, at least for a while.” (p. 199)

He goes into detail: “The dramatic rise in the number of cattle and the breeding of cows to increase milk and meat production that began during the sixth millennium BC substantially augmented the emission of greenhouse gases, specifically methane and carbon dioxide, into Earth’s atmosphere.” In addition, “[t]hroughout Eurasia, deforestation to make room for intensive crop cultivation and pastureland raised atmospheric carbon dioxide levels by replacing trees with photosynthetically less-productive plants.” (p. 199-200).

He continues: “Prior to the industrial revolution, the combination of animal husbandry, rice farming, and transformation of tropical and subtropical forest land to cultivated fields and pasture raised the atmospheric methane level from 450 parts per billion to 700 parts per billion and the atmospheric carbon dioxide level from 245 to 280 parts per million. These three human activities over the past 7,000 years not only helped to delay the onset of the next ice age [!], but they also contributed to maintaining an unprecedented period of extreme global climate stability.” (p.200)

However, “the explosive rise in technological and industrial development, transportation, standard of living, and resource consumption that has occurred in nearly all the world’s nations over the past 70 years has accelerated global warming beyond the global cooling rate from natural causes. As the imbalance continues, it has the potential to hasten the onset of warming disasters, followed by the greater devastation of the next glacial era.” (p.200, my emphasis)

The reason for the latter is, according to Ross, the current distribution of sea and land. Specifically, the fact that at the North Pole, there is no land. That in turn means there is not much ice at the North Pole, compared to Antarctica. So, a relatively small temperature rise will make all that ice disappear. What happens then, according to Ross, is this:

“As Arctic sea ice continues to vanish, the newly opened waters of the Arctic Ocean, with their much lower reflectivity than that of ice and snow, will absorb more heat from the sun. . . . This extra heat absorption increases the temperature and moisture content of the overlying atmosphere, which in turn means more precipitation falling on the landmasses adjoining the Arctic Ocean (primarily Canada and Russia).” (p. 189)

That would explain why previous interglacial phases ended very soon after the temperature spiked at a few degrees above the current global average level and much of the world became covered in immensely thick sheets of ice.

As mentioned, the reason that has not happened yet in the current warm phase is, according to Ross, human activity. However, our activities are tipping the temperature higher, so a new glacial phase might result.

Again, as mentioned, I am in no position to know whether this is true or not. However, I have no reason to doubt the sincerity of Ross as a Christian and a scientist.

So, what to do about this (possible) threat?

Near the end of the book, Ross presents some measures that might prevent the world tipping into a new glaciation. At least, “for a while”. And here, I am in a position to judge, at least to a certain extent, whether these measures are viable and/or wise.

It is laudable that Ross has recognised a very important point. The measures generally suggested nowadays involve economic sacrifices. “This”, he warns, “ignores the fact that humans are inherently selfish. While some individuals and nations may go along with austere governmental restrictions, most will battle them. Cheating is inevitable”, which in turn will “not only make the intended goal unachievable but also sow seeds of political mistrust and animosity.” (p. 200).

He then asks: “What if we could significantly prolong climate stability without resorting to draconian economic sacrifices?”

However, when one surveys his list of suggestions, some of which he himself admits are quite outlandish, one is struck by the fact that he doesn’t seem to realise that they all, too, involve some kind of economic sacrifice, at least from some. I will discuss this fact after I’ve presented Ross’ suggestions.

Here they are. He starts with “geoengineering ideas”: Artificial sun shields (possibly orbiting the sun, placed between earth and sun); solar power generators in space (where no clouds and haze prevent the collection of solar energy – which must then be beamed to earth through microwave radiation); Aerosol injection into the stratosphere (here at least he concedes that this may lead to “unintended consequences”); removal of atmospheric greenhouse gases (current technology only addresses CO2, not however methane, nitrous oxides and hydrofluorocarbons, the removal of which would “likely be 10-10,000 times more expensive than CO2 removal”, thus, “greenhouse gas removal factories will likely fall far short of compensating for emissions”); ocean fertilisation (again, “major concerns surround the potential environmental consequences and economic risk”); rocket earth (pushing earth out to more distant orbits around the sun while the sun continues to get brighter). (p. 203-05)

Ross concludes: “Although the rocket planet proposal seems too far-fetched, the other five proposed geoengineering ideas show some promise”, however, their implementation “in time to solve the current global warming trend seems remote.”(p.205)

So instead, Ross lists some “wise management of life resources” ideas, which he precedes with an important caveat: “If we keep the realities of human nature in view and follow well-established free-market economic principles, we should be able to resolve our environmental problems in ways that enhance both human welfare and the welfare of Earth’s life.” (p.206)

Here they are: Rice Paddy Management. Apparently, “direct seeding of rice into initially dry paddies” reduces “methane emissions by18-90 percent” compared to flooded rice paddies, which emit about “500 million tons of methane” or “20 percent of methane emission form human activity”. (p.206)

Alternative meat source. Ross advocates finding ways to replace beef, lamb and goat with ostrich meat. While texture, taste and colour resemble that of beef, it is much leaner, richer in iron and lower in cholesterol. Ostriches emit “very little greenhouse gas . . . virtually no methane.” They also “need far less water and pastureland”. (p. 208) The problem is: We have yet to discover how to “farm” them because ostriches, compared to cattle, “are far more sensitive and social animals. They tend to mate for life, and they need contact with other ostriches with whom they have developed emotional bonds. They need social contact with their ranchers, too.” (p.209)

Effective lumbering. Here, Ross makes a hugely important point. “Replanted forests grow at a much faster rate than virgin forests and, thus the rate at which carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere is much higher.” (p. 210) This echoes the commandment given by God in Genesis that we should “tend and watch over” creation (chp. 2, v. 15). Ross advocates “reduced-impact logging techniques” instead of “traditional, clear-cut logging” (p. 210)

Smart dams. Dams reduce dependence on fossil fuels for electrical power generation. However, they come with their own environmental challenges. Citing experts, Ross contends that “dams can be designed in such a way that the environmental positives outweigh the negatives.” (p. 211) Here too, we can allude to Genesis 2,15.

Restoring whale populations. Apparently, whales’ faeces fertilise the ocean’s phytoplankton. They in turn remove a lot of CO2 from the atmosphere. Whales contribute to CO2 production, but their presence allows for significantly more CO2 reduction due to their fertilisation of the oceans. (p. 212)

Replanting expanded deserts. Speaks for itself really. (p. 213-14) Unfortunately, Ross doesn’t mention the interesting fact that deserts are currently actually shrinking, without active, direct input by humans. And that is due to the risen CO2 content in the atmosphere.

Multilevel hydroponic farms. This means “growing plants without soil and often without natural light, nourishing them via water and dissolved minerals. . . . Shelves of plants and lights can be stacked on top of one another.” This not only means less use of natural ground, but “photosynthesis [i.e., removal of CO2] per unit of area also multiplies.” (p. 214)

Finally, Ross also advocates the “management of current technology”. He provides three examples: Solar power generating rooftops, bitcoin elimination (because “cryptocurrency consumes vast amounts of electricity” and “alone could push the global mean temperature 2°C above the preindustrial level in less than three decades.” [p. 215]) and wearable thermoelectrics (“wearable devices that can deliver more than 10°C of adjustable cooling or heating effect for up to eight hours” which, were they to become ubiquitously available, “more than 10 percent of the total energy presently being consumed by humans could be eliminated.” [p.216])

What to say about these suggested measures?

The idea of preventing/forbidding cryptocurrency appears nowadays as a non-starter. In fact, it’s amazing that no-one else has picked up on this, considering what Ross says about it. Maybe the reason is that central banks around the world are feverishly working on creating their own cryptocurrency and hoping to herd us all into exclusively using it for money, thereby immensely enhancing the powers of surveillance and behavioural control.

More generally however, when surveying the ideas that Ross promotes, he appears to overlook some basic facts of economics. For one, every measure (every human action, to be precise) involves an “opportunity cost”. We live in a world of scarcity. Using time, effort and material for one thing means they cannot be used for something else. That is the opportunity cost. A more religious term, which means the same thing, is the aforementioned “sacrifice”. What are we sacrificing when we embark on these measures? And then: Who should make the ultimate decision on what to sacrifice? For which purpose exactly? How certain can we be of reaching that goal? And how certain can we be of the scope and volume of the sacrifice? Who, in the meantime, gains from those measures?

These are important questions that may have been beyond the scope of Ross’ book, so will have to be addressed elsewhere.

These questions also bring me to the second basic fact of economics: For every measure, there are unintended consequences. In a free market system supported by the rule of law, unintended consequences are dealt with swiftly and efficiently, and damage is limited. However, when government intervention is involved (and most of Ross’ suggestions require a huge amount of government intervention), unintended consequences are, for unavoidable structural reasons, not dealt with swiftly and efficiently. Therefore, damages are not limited.

The biggest, and sadly largely unrecognised, unintended consequence of allowing large-scale government interventions is a metastasising state. Every unintended consequence is another “reason” for the government to intervene even further, causing more unintended consequences in a downward spiral that ends in societal disaster of one kind or another.

In order to cover/ignore/rationalise the resulting and growing mess, an ideological superstructure is sought that will justify this “mega-sacrifice” everyone (except for the “wise” managerial elite) is expected to endure. The end result is a totalitarian state, which tries to keep the lid on ever growing chaos in the society below. The Bible has a precedent for this development. It is the Tower of Babel. It is ungodly. It is anti-God.

This is an important aspect that Ross has missed out in his book. Christians need to be aware that, in allowing or even supporting unchristian methods, they are paving the way for a catastrophe for themselves and others that is much greater than even the onset of a new glaciation. They might even get the glaciation or some other climate catastrophe on top of totalitarianism, because of the common phenomenon of “government failure”. Bad weather, even very bad weather, can be dealt with when it arrives, by applying new, as yet undreamt-of technologies emerging on the free market – where, as mentioned above, unintended consequences are swiftly dealt with, while resources continue being concentrated on the actual task at hand.

A review of “The Total State – How Liberal Democracies Become Tyrannies”

(Book by Auron MacIntyre, review by Gregory Hood)

Excerpts:

The author [Auron Macintyre, of the new book “The Total State”] is a former journalist and writes that “watching firsthand as journalists completely altered events and details to fit their pre-selected narratives” was “eye-opening.” He accuses them of not just twisting their subjects’ words but making them up or outright lying (11). My own view is that the media are the regime because shaping public opinion from the top down is what democracy now is. Mr. MacIntyre says that whatever was happening in politics, and whatever theory said about the way government should work, “the media narrative seemed to dominate all other priorities, shaping people’s actions in ways I had never thought possible.” This is not just another book whining about a “biased” media; it explains that willful deception by journalists is the tip of the spear for the entire system.

This system serves power, but it is not a simple command-and-control model like a “fascist” organization. “No shadowy cabal of overlords was handing down marching orders; no editorial meeting was held confirming an anti-Trump direction, but every low-level propogandist with a journalism degree suddenly thought it was their solemn duty to destroy the orange menace,” he writes. “No falsehood was too great, and any and every distortion of the truth could be justified in the name of damaging what these zealots saw as the second coming of Adolf Hitler.” (12) Conservatives must understand the cruelty of “the press and the ruling class they represented” and their eagerness to “exploit and destroy what they saw as backward hicks for fun and profit.” Yes, they really do hate you, and yes, what is being done to you is done on purpose.

The book answers many questions: Why did the Constitution so completely fail to limit government action during the COVID pandemic? Why were some Americans forbidden to attend church or go to meetings while others got free reign not just to rally but to riot? Why does the GOP refuse to take up even popular causes? Conservatives must wake up; their beloved constitutional republic does not work.

Who is the “ruling class”? Mr. MacIntyre answers in terms of its institutional role — an answer of “what” rather than “who.” This is one way of approaching the problem, but some will see it as unsatisfactory.

The “who” is important. Mr. MacIntyre repeatedly asserts that power always seeks to centralize. We know that the federal government tries to limit what is discussed online, to the point of demanding that specific people be deplatformed. The New York Times pushed the “1619 Project” to give Black Lives Matter an academic veneer. “When Harvard comes to a conclusion on an issue of public policy,” writes Mr. MacIntyre, “Yale is soon to follow, the media quickly reports the findings, government bureaucracy implements them, and schools are teaching them in short order.” (29)

[. . .]

Mr. MacIntyre is right that modern progressivism is essentially religious. Paul Gottfried called our system a “secular theocracy” in 2004 in Multiculturalism and the Politics of Guilt, and it may not even be accurate to call it “secular” after 2020, when churches of all denominations prostrated themselves before George Floyd. Mr. MacIntyre identifies universities as the “churches” of the new regime and cites Curtis Yarvin’s model of the “Cathedral” — a “decentralized network of organizations and individuals responsible for manufacturing a cultural consensus” inside universities, the media, public education, and the bureaucracy. Mr. MacIntyre argues that because progressivism is a kind of religion, no conspiracy is needed because “those who manufacture the narrative of our civilization” all “go to the same house of worship.” 

[. . .]

Not long ago, even if we admitted that elites ruled, and “democracy” was a polite fiction, it did not mean we lived under a “total state.” Elites did not need to control all opinions, just enough to maintain power. However, the internet gave everyone a microphone and thus turned everyone into a potential threat.

Quoting Curtis Yarvin, Mr. MacIntyre writes that we are in a total state because “everyone and everything is infused with power” and thus “everyone is either a collaborator or a dissident.” There can be no private life, not just because the personal is political, but because the internet gives everyone the theoretical ability to turn personal views into a political force.

Despite the growth of government, the average person feels “liberated” because government took over the social obligations people once had to family or to intermediate institutions such as churches or guilds. Mr. MacIntyre argues that the modern state confiscates more taxes, imposes more surveillance, and commands more obligations than any absolute ruler of the past, but “so long as this is done while freeing the individual from traditional social obligations, not only do its citizens not feel oppressed, they see themselves as liberated.” (37) The desire to impose “neutrality” in government instead of personal rule does not lead to freedom, but builds a bureaucracy molded by incentives (including measures such as DEI) until it becomes monolithic. The absolute “liberation” of the individual leads to absolute subjugation to the state. Today, we see attempts by academics, media, and the state to “liberate” children from their families in the name of “transgenderism.” Ultimately, the more people are “liberated” and atomized, the more power flows into the hands of bureaucrats, politicians, media, and teachers.

It is a chicken-and-egg question whether such material interests cause an ideology of “liberation” or whether the ideology leads to a class that benefits from such a system. Either way, progressives love ever-expanding social engineering that overwhelms conservative appeals to equality before the law or institutional rights.

[. . .]

The Constitution will certainly not save us: “Relying too heavily on a written constitution simply incentivizes a nation’s leaders to become skilled at twisting and shaping language in order to circumvent the restrictions created by the formal meaning of the words.” (57) “Wokeness,” filled the metaphysical void left by Americans trusting in the ability of a document permanently to solve existential political questions.

Mr. MacIntyre cites Carl Schmitt on the existential nature of politics, which is ultimately about identity. A mainstream conservative citing Carl Schmitt (albeit regretting his “deeply unfortunate” involvement with Nazism) is a milestone. Yet it is necessary, and even the most liberal professor (until recently) would acknowledgment Schmitt’s importance. He dynamited the theoretical premises of liberalism, particularly liberalism’s promise to remove the friend/enemy distinction from politics by reducing it to a friendly debate in the marketplace of ideas where all parties have rights. In reality, because it is impossible to remove the friend/enemy distinction, what actually results is an “ever-expanding ideological empire,” with those who “serve to strengthen the power of the state” becoming friends and “those who seek to compete with or restrain it” becoming enemies. The “myth of the neutral institution,” or “value-free” institution lets the total state “obfuscate the advance of its own values inside the key structures of civilization.” (64)

[. . .]

“[In theory] the people rule, and so there is less need to think about who wields supreme authority,” he writes. “Which is very convenient for those who actually do wield supreme authority.” (65) Similarly, because (in Schmitt’s view) politics derives from theology, the state becomes essentially a god and “exceptions” — when normal laws are suspended — are like miracles. Much as a miracle shows the power of God, the state of exception shows who is sovereign and whose interests are served. The Enlightenment conceit that personal leadership is a problem and politics can be reduced to a neutral system is no protection against tyranny. Instead, trusting in a mere system advances tyranny by disguising sovereignty and concealing the truth that people wield power.

Mr. MacIntyre insists that there is no definable conspiracy or group we can point to that oversees the total state. However, citing Vilfredo Pareto and Machiavelli, Mr. MacIntyre offers a functional definition. Leaders can be classified as “lions” (conservative, capable of wielding force, favoring order) or “foxes” (skilled in manipulation of ideas, socially liberal, favorable to change). When societies mature, foxes tend to replace lions because the need for overt force declines. Mr. MacIntyre again destroys illusions by arguing that our “modern aversion to overt force” can mislead because all society rests on a monopoly of force. It may be more dangerous for people to pretend that they are exempt from this rule than bluntly to exercise power. Most people fear the truth.

Furthermore, just because “foxes” do not often use direct force does not mean that they do not use it. They rule through “deceit” and the “manipulation of systems along with the subtle control of information and data to maintain order.” (75) Democracy makes us more vulnerable to force by “obfuscate[ing] the source of power” away from a definable sovereign to a “nameless, faceless, ever-shifting process” that can never be held accountable. I have argued for years that no society can be meaningfully “free” if there is no awareness of who is sovereign. In contrast, we are ruled by an elite that uses control of information to govern both private and public institutions, ruthlessly vets bureaucrats for ideological conformity, and selectively enforces laws depending on political agendas.

[. . .]

The surface “diversity” preached by elites only undermines the real diversity of nations and peoples, much as the “diversity” on a college campus strengthens ideological uniformity. One can invent new sexual or gender identities or promote “pride” in various non-white races, but all these are varieties of consumerism. Instead of social mobility through independence, such supposedly diverse constituencies become client groups of the total state, its “social justice movements,” and justify ever-expanding government programs and NGO-based education programs.

[. . .]

Mr. MacIntyre credits Paul Gottfried with the concept of the “therapeutic state” — the way the managerial elite creates a continuous moral panic to justify its existence. War, crime, poverty, and other social problems cease to be part of the human condition and instead become pathologies that arise from flawed social institutions not yet under expert control. Mr. MacIntyre also quotes Sam Francis, who noted that “whether sincere or not,” the real effect of managerial political and social reforms is to ” ‘liberate’ the masses from the tyranny of bourgeois or prescriptive institutions, and to homogenize the mass population and bring it under the discipline of the mass organizations.” (94–95, quoted from Sam Francis in Leviathan) In other words, this is why almost every news story, education program, or government initiative ends with a call for more bureaucratic control and more funding.

Humans are not all identical, so it is not always easy to control them. The state will therefore “actively seek to shape the private and public lives of its citizens in order to homogenize influences that could introduce variance an instability.” This includes replacing sin and punishment with “medicalization of deviance.” What a prior generation would call evil can be fought through therapy, treatment, and programs, with a new clergy of professors and scientists replacing priests. “Under the total state’s model of behavior,” Mr. MacIntyre writes, “humans are inherently good, with the possible exception of straight white Christian males.” Education solves every problem — which means that traditional solutions, which tell men to behave with grace and honor in the face of eternal evils, are morally suspect and a surrender.

This means there are no inevitable tradeoffs — only errors of judgment, which encourage totalitarian rage against dissenters who stand in the way of progress. Of course, “the science” can be self-contradictory because it follows expedience, not facts. Why are sexual preferences supposedly inherent, but sex is no longer bound by biology? Why do genes set sexual orientation, but in-group preference is “racist”? Why are pedophiles “minor attracted persons” suffering from a tragic inherent misfortune, but men who desire fit, attractive women are morally deficient? Dissenters must never state an opinion, because we lack the credentials to be part of the “new priestly caste [that] will always favor the political priorities of the total state.” (102) So shut up, bigot.

From this perspective, compulsory state-funded education looks increasingly sinister, because it is the most effective way to break children away from family ties and inherent loyalties. Nothing is inherent or sacred because everything is a question of applying the proper technique to achieve the best social outcome. “A thoroughly secularized therapeutic culture would create the narrative justification for constant state intervention through the bureaucratic application of scientifically developed courses of treatment,” Mr. MacIntyre argues. “By stripping away the natural human preference for particular cultures, religions, moral systems, and aesthetics, social engineers can create subjects that are far easier to manage.”

[. . .]

It is not merely that institutions lose track of their founding principles as time passes and systems grow more complex. It is that the mere fact of opening up foundational principles to debate serves to undermine them. “Once the core values of a social organization are up for debate, they are over.” “Once the foundational axioms of an organization have entered the realm of open discussion, it will always and inevitably move to the left.” This is true. To open discussion undermines what was once unchallengeable. Thus, even for those of us friendly to “free speech” as a principle, allowing free speech or open admissions in our own organizations may doom them. “Anyone who is not defending, maintaining, and gatekeeping the things they love and care about will watch them decay and eventually be destroyed,” Mr. MacIntyre argues. Even the most stalwart gatekeeper will fall to entropy, because chaos is inevitable. Conflict is eternal.

[. . .]

The interest of a bureaucrat within an organization is his own position, not the organization’s. Promoting conflict within an organization or developing a new power base leads to new opportunities for advancement. It is thus not surprising that the consistent cry in everything from politics to business and even to entertainment is that existing citizens, customers, or fans must be replaced by new “underrepresented” constituencies. The decision by a Bud Light executive to promote transgenderism to working-class beer drinkers may seem bizarre, but that executive might have made the right career move for herself.

[. . .]

Modern managers may not be adding value to our current institutions. “Both James Burnham and Samuel Francis would recognize that managers are essential for the operation of massified organizations, but [Alasdair] MacIntyre asserts that most modern bureaucracy is simply a product of the cancer-like growth of the managerial class and does not actually produce notable increases in efficiency,” the author says. “These layers of bureaucratic management exist only for the purpose of facilitating power.” DEI is the most obvious example. We are oppressed, but by impotence rather than power.

[. . .]

It is also the most miserable, neurotic, and unhappy Americans who are the greatest supporters of the system. Young liberal women have high rates of depression and mental illness, but this is what makes them such reliable political soldiers. Our author reminds us of the Biblical story of the Tower of Babel about the price of hubris, but my fear is not that we are tempting judgment, but that there is no one to inflict it.

[. . .]

Our author considers three possibilities. First, that life will continue to get worse as the system hobbles along. I think this is the most likely, but he considers it least likely. The second alternative is Caesar, perhaps not a soldier, but a civilian. It is not unheard of in our time; we have only to look to El Salvador. With a clear sovereign who actually does the peoples’ wishes, the masses will not be obsessed with politics and thus free from propaganda. However, Mr. MacIntyre argues that the permanent progressive bureaucracy will remain, and still be at war with human nature. Unless that is abolished, a change at the top will not fix the problem.

Instead, our author contends the most likely scenario is a gradual collapse. The managerial bureaucracy will be unable to meet the core functions of the total state. Outlying regions will gain more autonomy as the system becomes more openly authoritarian. The opportunities for conflict will increase between federal and local authorities. This will not necessarily be good for normal Americans. The quality of life will decline, but this will hasten the fall of centralized power and the return of local, organic organization. Thus, those who wish to take advantage of this transition must discipline themselves now, organizing and forgoing luxury. “Consolidating local power that is capable of resisting the authority of the total state is essential.”

[. . .]

I believe Mr. MacIntyre is understating the difficulties. He has written a whole book that tells us the system is capable of mobilizing malcontents to further its own power, using a devastatingly powerful propaganda machine to remake humanity itself, appealing to greed and irresponsibility to convince people that slavery is freedom. Unless a decline were steep, who would choose an alternative? One of the key characteristics of Third World life is that most people tolerate chaos and dysfunction; an increasingly diverse America may adjust to continuous decline without reaction. In response, we may get even more social control and left-wing politics.

Yet, there is hope. The media have shed credibility and millions of Americans do not believe anything they say. The war in Gaza has divided the once united Cathedral. Some elites, notably Elon Musk, seem to be breaking from the social consensus of the Total State. The possibility President Donald Trump could return also introduces an element of chaos and disruption that could prove useful.

What is clear is that we will not be able to meet the future if we don’t understand how the system works. Millions must be made to understand this, and — to be blunt — no one in our movement can do this. Even Sam Francis could not, not because he lacked the knowledge or skill, but because he was Sam Francis. It takes a mainstream conservative to puncture myths that have crippled conservatism and to do so in an approachable, erudite, and compassionate way. It is a subtle art to tell people their most cherished beliefs are wrong. It is even harder to show them you are still on their side, are one of them, and can lead them to a better future.

Auron MacIntyre has done this.

Addendum: Tom Woods interviews the author here. (48 min)

Hate & Perversion in the Catcher in the Rye

It's "only three-quarters of a great novel"

I read “The Catcher in the Rye” when I was 18, and was disturbed by it. This review by Spencer J. Quinn of J.D. Salinger’s famous novel goes some way in enabling me to verbalise what exactly it was that disturbed me.

Excerpts:

Literature can shape the way we look at the world — even without our knowing it, or being beware of the specific literature in question. A Bible verse shared during a church service or a few lines of poetry offered in a classroom can have this effect. With novels, well-drawn characters can stick with us until we view life through their fictional eyes. I imagine Ernest Hemingway had this in mind when he claimed that “all modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn.” There is a little of Huck Finn in all of us, in other words.

By the 1960s, however, Huck Finn had been largely replaced by Holden Caulfield in the American imagination. Despite what an original character Holden is and how deftly author J. D. Salinger developed him in the 1951 novel The Catcher in the Rye, that’s hardly a good thing.

[…]

Holden Caulfield is indeed a wonderful, unforgettable character. But then why is The Catcher in the Rye only three-quarters of a great novel? Why is it bad that Holden has replaced Huck as the character through which so many Americans see their world?

[…]

None of this would be to the detriment of the novel had Salinger not molded Holden as the poster boy for revenge-minded alienated youth. Holden is treated so sympathetically by Salinger, especially at the end, that the reader is constantly tempted to view life through Holden’s jaundiced eyes — as if it’s the world that’s at fault, not Holden. This is dangerous. Given the connection between The Catcher in the Rye and John Lennon’s killer, Mark David Chapman, and others like him, yes, this is dangerous. Huck Finn may have viewed himself as an outlaw for helping Jim escape slavery, but he never saw himself as a predator constantly at odds with most of humanity the way Holden Caulfield seems to be at times.

What further enables the psychopath-as-hero reading of The Catcher in the Rye is the fact that so little is nice in Holden’s world. So much of it is dingy, seedy, or vomity, and, boy, does Holden Caulfield love dwelling on that. Other than during his dreamy walk through the museum, Holden fixates on the ugly and the revolting in New York City, as if that’s all there is. And his penchant for exaggeration doesn’t help. A hotel lobby smells like “50 million dead cigars.” Walking down steps to the sidewalk, he nearly breaks his neck over “10 million garbage pails.”

Even worse, Salinger normalizes sexual perversion. In a hotel Holden finds “a few pimpy-looking guys, and a few whory-looking blondes.” Through the open windows of his hotel, he sees a man trying on women’s clothing and a drunken couple squirting alcohol at each other from their mouths. “The hotel was lousy with perverts,” he states.

[…]

Most tragically, when a man Holden admires touches him inappropriately and forces him to flee into the night, Holden wasn’t even terribly surprised. He admits that “perverty” things like that have happened to him “about twenty times” before. Rounding that down to the more accurate-sounding once or twice, we still have the normalcy of perversion. It’s as if most American boys in Salinger’s world are forced to deal with unwelcome come-ons from grown men.

Who wouldn’t want to shoot up a world like that?

With such a splendid character as Holden Caulfield, The Catcher in the Rye could have been a much greater contribution to Western literature. Salinger only needed to tone down the murder in Holden’s heart and the perversion in Holden’s world. Instead, however, he was happy to paint the world to be a darker place than it really is, and make it cool to hate your fellow man.

Meghan Markle and the aristocracy of victimhood

How Meghan became the Princess of Postmodernism.

Article by Brendan O’Neill, in which he reviews Tom Bower’s new book, Revenge: Meghan, Harry and the War Between the Windsors.

Excerpts:

Isn’t it striking that the Trump administration was continually slammed by liberals for its promotion of ‘alternative facts’, whereas Meghan is loved by liberals despite also seeming to deal in ‘alternative facts’? The Trumpite Orwellian category of ‘alternative facts’ really means pushing ‘claims that do not conform to objective reality’, raged USA Today. ‘Traditionally known as false or misleading claims; also, lies’, it continued. Does that apply to the Duchess of Sussex, too? Are her claims about being an only child and getting married three days before she actually got married also ‘alternative facts’, false claims, misinformation?

[…]

This is not to say Meghan Markle is a liar. It is more complicated than that, and in a sense more sinister. She appears to be a product of the end of truth. She seems symbolic of a postmodern culture in which self-definition now takes precedence over objective reality. In which our narcissistic description of ourselves carries more weight than any anchored, measurable facts about ourselves. In which one can ‘identify’ as anything one chooses, however estranged your identification might be from material reality. A man can be a woman, despite having a penis, and Meghan Markle can be an only child, despite having siblings. That’s their truth, man.

[…]

Together Meghan and Harry have become globe-trotting moral reprimanders, with often unwittingly hilarious results. Meghan guest-edited Vogue, using it as a pulpit to preach about the evils of climate change. Yet she takes private jets the way the rest of us order Ubers, says Bower. Harry flew in a private jet to a Google camp in Sicily to speak about climate change. ‘His plane was just one of the 114 private jets, as well as a fleet of super yachts, that had ferried billionaires and celebrities to the festival.’ Later, at a press conference in Amsterdam to promote an eco-travel campaign (!), Harry is outraged when a journalist asks him about his private jet-setting. Ninety-nine per cent of my flights are commercial, he says. Actually, at least 60 per cent of your flights are private, he is informed. ‘No one is perfect’, he replies. A few days later the pair flew by private jet to attend the wedding of a close friend who was getting hitched to the son of an oil billionaire.

[…]

We may never know all the facts about some of these stories. But we should bear in mind a point Bower makes well – that in the woke ‘religion’ of Hollywood celebrities, ‘the concept of “universal truth” [is] false’. Indeed, Meghan herself has said that ‘life is about storytelling, about the stories we tell ourselves, the stories we’re told, what we buy into’. We all have the right to ‘create our own truth about the world’, she says. Behold the Princess of Postmodernism, for whom truth is whatever she says it is. I am the Truth – the final rallying cry of the narcissistic new aristocracy.

The Covid Plot Against Humanity

A new book by Dr. Naomi Wolf, review by Lew Rockwell

Excerpts:

The great historian and literature scholar Dr. Naomi Wolf has written the most important book of our times. She really nails it. After you read The Bodies of Others: The New Authoritarians, Covid-19 and the War Against the Human, you will understand the truly diabolical conspiracy that threatens the world with destruction.

[…]

The argument Dr. Wolf makes for this far-reaching conclusion is simple and devastating. Human culture depends on contact between people. But our high and mighty masters want to keep us apart through lockdowns, government control of all our activities, and injecting harmful substances into us. “In these two years, the COVID-19 pandemic, which began unfolding with unprecedented global ‘lockdown’ in March 2020, has fundamentally remade human relations, capitalism, and culture in the West. No matter that in the past we had lived through far graver medical crises without passing thought of stopping all congregation, suspending the production of all culture, or compelling all healthy people to cover their faces, close their businesses and keep apart—-this time, the elites used the ‘crisis’ to shut down Western norms of liberty, the human-centered world, and civilization itself.

[…]

Dr. Wolf issues a dire warning that she supports with irrefutable evidence. “The end goal is something much darker than a dark-enough world in which everyone is coercively vaccinated, whether they are at risk or not, whether they have immunity or not, a world in which ‘boosters’ for seven billion people annually are guaranteed forever. The end-goal, rather, is to ensure that our pre-March 2020 world disappears forever, irretrievable. To be replaced with a world in which all human endeavor is behind a digital paywall, and in which all of us ask the permission of technology to gain access to the physical world, access to culture and access to other human beings. . .The real goal has nothing to do with public health. The real goal is to destroy Western and human culture, and to replace it with a techno-fascistic culture—-a culture in which we have forgotten what human beings can do. The crime that was perpetrated during the pandemic years of 2020-22 was perhaps the greatest ever committed against humanity. And it is being perpetrated still.”

Rest of it here.

The Science of Evil

Michael Rectenwald's Review of "Political Ponerology"

“Political Ponerology” is the title of a book on the science of evil, written by Polish author Andrew M. Łobaczewski and first published in 1984 (!). US academic Michael Rectenwald has read it and written a review on mises.org. He starts by saying:

This strange and provocative book argues that totalitarianism is the result of the extension of psychopathology from a group of psychopaths to the entire body politic, including its political and economic systems. 

He goes on to say:

Łobaczewski made the bold claim that he’d uncovered “the general laws of the origin of evil.” If true, the book was on par with Newton’s Principia in the physical sciences, while being of greater practical importance. And he approached this domain from the disciplinary perspective of psychology. Such an “individualist” methodology had been dismissed as mere “psychologism” in my own and many other fields of the humanities and social sciences. Łobaczewski’s insistence to focus on individual psychological disorders to understand the unfolding of “macrosocial evil” seemed mistaken to me initially, but this approach accords well with Joseph Schumpeter’s methodological individualism, which became a hallmark of the Austrian school. My assumption had always been that one needed to study political ideology and economics and that political ideology and economic theory explained nearly everything one needed to know about how and why totalitarian evil comes about.

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From the conclusion of “The Relation Between Religion and Culture”

Great religions are the foundations on which the great civilizations rest

This is part 10, the last part, of my notes on the thoughts and ideas of Christopher Dawson. (In brackets the page numbers of each quote from TRBRAC, unless another book mentioned. “PwG” refers to my own thoughts.)     

Dawson: “The great civilizations of the world do not produce the great religions as a kind of cultural by-product; in a very real sense the great religions are the foundations on which the great civilizations rest. A society which has lost its religion becomes sooner or later a society which has lost its culture.” (271, my emphasis) (Progress and Religion, 1937)

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On Christianity and International Order

Religion is the only power that can meet the forces of destruction on equal terms

This is part 9 of my notes on the thoughts and ideas of Christopher Dawson. (In brackets the page numbers of each quote from TRBRAC, unless another book mentioned. “PwG” refers to my own thoughts.)     

Dawson proposes not a League of Nations but a Confederation, a league of federations, that would unite the nations of the world. (p. 245)

Dawson states that such a federation would work only if it were based on some spiritual force, and he believes that we should look to Christianity to supply this spiritual force. Just as Christianity, in the past, was the basis of unity in Europe, so too, can it bring about world unity. (p. 245)

(PwG:) This is of course the total counter-vision to secular world government.

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On the return to Christian unity and the predicament Christianity is in now

It has been replaced by "State-inspired public opinion and by the mass organisation of society on a purely secular basis"

This is part 8 of my notes on the thoughts and ideas of Christopher Dawson. (In brackets the page numbers of each quote from TRBRAC, unless another book mentioned. “PwG” refers to my own thoughts.)     

Dawson: “Either Europe must abandon the Christian tradition and with it the faith in progress and humanity, or it must return consciously to the religious foundation on which these ideas were based.” (p. 225)

Dawson: “true foundation of European unity is to be found not in political or economic agreements, but in the restoration of the spiritual tradition on which that unity was originally based.” (p. 227, my emphasis)

Totalitarianism and the totalitarian state [are] a force that impedes the restauration of the Christian tradition in Western Culture. (p. 227)     

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