The Department of Air Conditioning

A friend shared this piece by Noah Rothman about the anti-air-conditioner movement. This particular wing of the environmental left urges, reports Rothman, that "among the corrupting tastes to which we’ve succumbed is the affinity for modern conveniences like air-conditioning." The pursuit of happiness took a wrong turn some way back, the movement believes. Like, way back, as in, with the advent of agriculture and writing. Rothman notes that journalist and novelist John Lanchester, writing for the New Yorker in 2017, wrote that even the development of writing loosed on the world a tool of “control” from which “war, slavery,” and “rule by elites” flow, imprisoning mankind in an unnatural state of affairs. “It turns out that hunting and gathering," Lanchester said, "is a good way to live." 

My friend shared the piece with me because we have shared criticism of the political left's simultaneous revulsion and insistence on progress, often with the upshot that one cannot know when these types are in earnest. But I do not raise my objections too strongly, because I also harbor misgivings about the mechanistic ideology on which most promises of utopia depend. 

Anyway, here is my response to my friend about the Rothman piece: 

Thanks for sending along the Rothman piece in opposition to the war on air conditioners. It is certainly on theme of our recent discussions. At our last lunch, we broached briefly the "Walden Pond" question whether there is such a thing as too much civilization: Might there be such a thing as too much equality, if we go to the extent of Vonnegut's "Harrison Bergeron"? Or too many comforts and conveniences? Louis CK's famous bit on this, "Everything's Amazing, and Nobody's Happy," is on point. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBLkX2VaQs4.) 

And while looking for the source of one of the Rousseau quotes (“it was iron and corn which first civilized men and ruined humanity"), I stumbled on another thread of that theme of the pursuit of happiness having taken perhaps a wrong turn. In my desultory search I was led to the CafeHayek.com site. Briefly browsing there, I read Jonah Goldberg's recent short piece supporting the Jack Smith prosecution of Trump, calling it a "necessity" because America elected such an "unfit" person as Trump (what makes him less "fit" than an unaccomplished Obama or a corrupt Clinton was not explained), and because America then twice failed to cashier him after two impeachment opportunities (because stupid Americans fell prey to populism, unlike us super smarts who only want to defend democracy!).

Dwelling on Goldberg's "unfit" remark, I concluded he was making another form of defense of air-conditioning, but in Goldberg's version (I am conjecturing), it is the defense of technocratic managerialism. Yes, true, Goldberg would concede, the technocratic state does belch noxious plumes of black smoke into the air of liberty, and it does discharge poisonous oily chemical waste into the rivers of ideas, so that we choke and splutter and become dizzy if we do not stay within its comfortable if labyrinthine interior  But, yet, and although, the technocratic managerial state alone supplies us with the miracle of democracy! It is the height of ingratitude to toss it aside without a thought to what would replace it!

There is a truth to this position I am attributing to Goldberg. The man who doesn't think things can get any worse has no imagination. The greens talk romantically about ending air conditioning—but with no earnest intention of giving it up themselves. Trump supporters talk romantically about toppling their technocrat managers—and no one, surely, has any idea what this would look like. So Goldberg is, at least, consistent—at least ostensibly—in the sense he is not willing to give up either his air conditioning or his technocrats.

But Goldberg also does not understand his Trump-supporting countrymen who, while perhaps not knowing what they are getting into, at least are willing to give up the benefits of the technocratic state, for they sense at their core that there may be things more important that have been lost along the way, and that it might not yet be too late to double back and recover them.

Tocqueville said something about this in his observations about the left and right banks of the Ohio River, with industriousness being the lifeblood of the American spirit  that Tocqueville admired (slavery being the bane of the spirit of industry).

My point is, while I have some concerns that we have entered into an age of hyperabundance of comforts and conveniences, those concerns arise, not from ingratitude, but from a spirit of industry. I have nothing against air conditioning, precisely because air conditioning tends to facilitate the spirit of industry. But I am concerned that we seem to be replacing the spirit of industry with a department of industry. Goldberg and the supporters of the technocratic state stand for air conditioning only ostensibly: in fact, they only further the cause of the department of air conditioning.

Cheers, 

Tim 

Professor Amy Wax—The Disciplinary Committee’s Decision Is Expected By September 5, 2023: What Is At Stake?

 

Dean Ruger wrote:

Wax has made repeated disparaging comments to and about faculty colleagues that violate this standard and exhibit a disregard for her colleagues and her role at the University, including but not limited to:

• Telling a Black faculty colleague, Anita Allen, that it is “rational to be afraid of Black men in elevators.”

• Stating, while on a panel with openly gay faculty colleague Tobias Wolff, that no one should have to live in a dorm room with a gay roommate and, separately, that same-sex relationships are self-centered, selfish and not focused on family or community. Wolff reported to Quinn Emanuel feeling “distressed” and that it was “striking she would choose to hold forth that way with me sitting there.” Wolff reported that conversations or disagreements with Wax end with “being made to feel you are a fundamentally debased human being.”

If your point is that Professor Wax broke an academic norm because she made a disparaging statement about Black people to Professor Allen, a black person, but her statement would otherwise be A-OK had her audience been entirely absent any Black person, then you are advocating intellectual apartheid for your university. Would not an argument for wrongful harassment depend on your showing that Wax made the alleged disparaging statement to Allen precisely because Allen was a Black person? But you do not allege that—in fact, the real “problem” is not that Professor Wax had singled out Professor Allen or other Black members of the Penn community, but that Professor Wax makes these statements in public, all the time, to one-and-all. The real “problem” is that you disagree with the purportedly illiberal content of her alleged statements.

If your point is that Professor Wax broke an academic norm because she made a disparaging statement about gay people to Professor Wolff, a gay person, but her statement would otherwise be A-OK had her audience been entirely absent any gay person, then you are (again) advocating intellectual apartheid for your university. Would not an argument for wrongful harassment depend on your showing that Wax made the alleged disparaging statement during the panel discussion precisely because Wolff, her fellow panelist, was a gay person? But you do not allege that—in fact, the real “problem” is not that Professor Wax had singled out Professor Wolff or other gay members of the Penn community, but that Professor Wax makes these statements in public, all the time, to one-and-all. The real “problem” is that you disagree with the purportedly illiberal content of her alleged statements.

Your framing the issue here, i.e., Professor Wax’s speech, in terms of discriminatory conduct or harassment is simply a cover—to make the censorship of ideas in an academic setting appear palatable.

I do not know Professor Wax. I cannot and do not speak to the remainder of your “charge sheet.” I do know something about Powell.[1] On that basis, I state that should Wax be disciplined, in whole or in part for assigning the Powell interview, or for voicing her unpopular opinions in a non-discriminatory fashion, I tremble in regard to what the consequences will be for freedom of speech, thought, and conscience in your university, in the United States, and elsewhere.

Seth Barrett Tillman, ‘Professor Amy Wax—The Disciplinary Committee’s Decision Is Expected By September 5, 2023: What Is At Stake?,’ New Reform Club (Aug. 10, 2023, 1:51 PM), <https://reformclub.blogspot.com/2023/08/professor-amy-wax-what-is-at-stake.html>; 

Seth Barrett Tillman, A Response to Dean Ruger’s Letter to Professor Gadsden, University of Pennsylvania Faculty Senate Chair, Calling for the Imposition of a Major Sanction Against Professor Wax (Aug. 2, 2022), <https://ssrn.com/abstract=4168694>; 

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[1] Cf. “Si monumentum requiris, circumspice,” Inscription emblazoned above the Tomb of Sir Christopher Wren, St. Paul’s Cathedral, <https://tinyurl.com/3aukcn9a>. It is also noteworthy that Enoch Powell was in life and continues to be—even long after his death in 1998—a muse or focal point for much drama, other fiction, pop music, and modern political and wider social commentary. One recalls: Olivier Esteves, Book Review, 57(4) Journal of Contemporary History 1126 (2022) (reviewing Paul Corthorn, Enoch Powell: Politics and Ideas in Modern Britain (OUP 2019) (book)); Lindsay Aqui, Michael Kenny, and Nick Pearce, ‘“The Empire of England”: Enoch Powell, Sovereignty, and the Constitution of the Nation,’ 32(2) 20th Century British History 238 (2021); Robbie Shilliam, ‘Enoch Powell: Britain’s First Neoliberal Politician,’ 26(2) New Political Economy 239 (2021); Paul Corthorn, ‘Enoch Powell, the Commonwealth and Brexit,’ 109(6) New Commonwealth Journal 750 (2020); Colin Kidd, ‘The Provocations of Enoch Powell: Fifty years after it shunned him, the Conservative Party has embraced Powell’s Eurosceptic and Nationalist views,’ 148(5486) New Statesman 42 (2019); Shirin Hirsch, In the Shadow of Enoch Powell: Race, Locality and Resistance (Manchester University Press 2018) (book); Sally Tomlinson, ‘Enoch Powell, Empires, Immigrants and Education,’ 21(1) Race, Ethnicity and Education 1 (2018);  Jonathan Coe’s Middle England (2018) (fiction); Chris Hannan’s What Shadows (2016) (a play); Andrew Smith’s The Speech (2016) (fiction); Sunder Katwala, ‘Powell: “best understood as part of our history”,’ British Future (June 15, 2012), <https://tinyurl.com/24ffucxt> (“There are many debates about identity, immigration and integration that we still need to have. A centenary after his birth, Enoch Powell’s contribution to them are best understood as part of our history now.”) (commentary); C.J. Sansom’s Dominion (2012) (fiction); Christopher Caldwell’s Reflections on the Revolution in Europe (2009) (commentary); Brian Walden (Labour-MP, for Birmingham–All Saints, and Ladywood), ‘Walden Reminisces,’ BBC Radio 4 (Oct. 3, 2004), <https://tinyurl.com/3786xawk> (“On the issues [Powell and I] were fiercely opposed and [we] couldn’t discuss immigration for five minutes without disagreeing. But unlike many people, including leading Tories, I never regarded Powell as a racist.”); ‘NCS: Manhunt,’ BBC One (Mar. 12, 2002), <https://tinyurl.com/yu6j75uy> (Marc Warren’s I am an Englishman speech was expressly influenced by Powell’s St. George’s Day speech (1961)) (television drama); Jonathan Coe’s The Rotters’ Club (2001) (fiction); Zadie Smith’s White Teeth (2000) (fiction); Shivaji Sondhi, ‘Enoch Powell and the invention of Thatcherism’ (1999) IV(7/8) Biblio: A Review of Books 24 (reviewing Simon Heffer, Likie the Roman: The Life of Enoch Powell (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson 1998)) (“It has come as a delight then to come across Simon Heffer’s recent biography of the man who died last February 9th, and to discover that the cardboard Powell was fiction.”) (India), <https://tinyurl.com/249kz7ar>; Christopher Morgan, ‘[Westminster] Abbey vigil for Powell enrages bishops,’ The Sunday Times (Feb. 15, 1998) (“Unexpected backing [for the abbey vigil], however, came from the Association of Black Clergy. Charles Lawrence, its chairman, said: ‘Powell was not a single-subject person and served his country well. Each person stands before God and deserves the same level of love.’”); Ayub Khan Din’s East Is East (1996) (a play); Hanif Kureishi’s The Buddha of Suburbia (1990) (fiction); Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses (1988) (fiction); Paul Gilroy’s There Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack: The Cultural Politics of Race and Nation (1987) (commentary); Samuel Selvon’s Moses Migrating (1983) (fiction); Howard Barker’s The Loud Boy’s Life (1980) (a play); David Edgar’s Destiny (1976) (a play) and Tedderella (1971) (a play); Millie Small’s Enoch Power (1970) (pop recording); Arthur Wise’s Who Killed Enoch Powell (1970) (fiction); The Beatles’ Get Back (1969) (pop recording); Cartoon Archetypical Slogan Theatre’s Muggins’ Awakening (1968) (a play); and any number of items within the collection of the [United Kingdom] National Portrait Gallery, <https://tinyurl.com/kc5dpnp2>. See also ‘Question Time,’ BBC One (Dec. 11, 2014), <https://tinyurl.com/2uk7jc44> (Russell Brand describing Nigel Farage, leader of the UK Independence Party and Member of the European Parliament (South East England), as a “pound shop Enoch Powell”) (at 1:45ff). One cannot help but notice that Brand thought “pound shop” was a legitimate criticism.

Three Draft Treatise Entries

 

Seth Barrett Tillman, ‘Presentment of Resolutions Clause,’ in The Heritage Guide to the Constitution (3d ed. forth. circa Sept. 2025), <https://ssrn.com/abstract=4512365>;

 

Seth Barrett Tillman, ‘Convening of Congress Clause,’ in The Heritage Guide to the Constitution (3d ed. forth. circa Sept. 2025), <https://ssrn.com/abstract=4512375>; and,

 

Seth Barrett Tillman, ‘Quorum Clause,’ in The Heritage Guide to the Constitution (3d ed. forth. circa Sept. 2025), <https://ssrn.com/abstract=4512557>.

 

 

Seth Barrett Tillman, ‘Three Draft Treatise Entries,’ New Reform Club (Aug. 10, 2023, 6:11 AM), <https://reformclub.blogspot.com/2023/08/three-draft-treatise-entries.html>;