Arnold Kling reviews Thomas Sowell’s great 1987 book, A Conflict of Visions. Here’s Arnold’s conclusion:
One side of the culture war sees elite knowledge as superior to cultural knowledge. The other side insists that the reverse is true. Therein lies the enduring relevance of Sowell’s conflict of visions.
In an interview with Salon, [Warren] Hern, the author of Homo Ecophagus: A Deep Diagnosis to Save the Earth, doesn’t just argue that humanity is a cancer on the planet. He also advocates treating it with a similarly therapeutic regimen. After all, Hern told his interlocutor, “the human species now has all of the major characteristics of a malignant process.” As his book’s title suggests, humanity has evolved to the stage at which it has become the devourer of worlds.
Hern heaps praise on the ideas, if not the methods, adopted by the eco-terrorist outfit Earth First!, whose values were “very romantic.” Indeed. At least as a disposition, these laments are all a form of romanticism familiar to students of Rousseau. For that 18th-century philosopher, “it was iron and corn which first civilized men and ruined humanity.” The inescapable logic of economic specialization brings with it “the dissolution of morals,” Rousseau observed, because “the necessary consequence of luxury brings within its turn the corruption of taste.” Among the corrupting tastes to which we’ve succumbed is the affinity for modern conveniences like air-conditioning, which is credited with saving hundreds of thousands of lives every year.
“The West’s green-energy experiment has been a disaster.”
Rob Bradley looks back on 35 years of classical-liberal responses to climate hysteria. A slice:
Austrian-school economist Steven G. Horwitz’s essay, “Global Warming Is About Social Science Too,”6 provided a list of essential questions to make a case for government intervention.
- 1. Is the planet getting warmer?
- 2. If it’s getting warmer, is that warming caused by humans?
- 3. If it’s getting warmer, by what magnitude?
- 4. What are the costs of global warming?
- 5. What are the benefits of global warming?
- 6. Do the benefits outweigh the costs or do the costs outweigh the benefits?
- 7. If the costs outweigh the benefits, what sorts of policies are appropriate?
- 8. What are the costs of the policies designed to reduce the costs of global warming?
The first three questions relate to physical science; the last five are for economists and other social scientists to debate.
“Environmentalism: where democracy goes to die” – so writes Fraser Myers.
Pierre Lemieux understandably is a fan of Emma Griffin’s excellent 2013 book, Liberty’s Dawn.
Tony Gill continues to defend tipping.
Jacob Sullum explains that “prohibition gave us Tranq-aced fentanyl.”
Robert Dingwall decries the insane panic that fueled covid lockdowns and mandates. (HT Jay Bhattacharya)
