Zeitgeist be damned

Droughts are symptomatic

Freeman Dyson

Zeitgeist be damned

By Stephen L. Wilmeth

            So goes California … so goes the rest of the nation.

            Fact or argued fiction, that phrase is too often more true than not. The antics of a society gone mad are carried out on a daily basis in the Golden State.  From the comedic governance of buffoonery in Sacramento and urban centers to the artistry of hypocrisy in tinsel town, the state marches point to the horizons. It tends to highlight the way to communistic eventuality.

            There is, however, a problem. All the roads of Soroyan’s world leading to Fresno seem to be mired in quicksand and calamity rather than grandeur and the next discovery. Where is the California that once demonstrated to the world how free and independent men could not only climb mountains they can burrow through them just as readily? What happened along the way that altered the magnificence of newly manufactured resource conduits from a matter of creativity zenith to the matter of sensibility dissolution? How on earth does the world’s ninth largest economy submit to the ingenuity and imagination of the likes of Brown, Boxer, Feinstein, Waxman, Waters, and Pelosi?

            In the case of California, it all started and may end with … water.

            I didn’t witness the calamity of the drought of ’76-’77. We arrived years later, but the topic was still in debate.

            The magic of Lake Shasta was largely relegated to barren and dusty wasteland. Oroville and Folsom were in similar states of desiccation. It was the drought of droughts, or at least that was the case until the present. Current snow pack measurements are showing the same symptoms of pending catastrophe.

            Western Farm Press is forewarning a much different outcome if this happens. Their reminder is that the state is larger by 16 million souls than it was in 1977. What they didn’t report is it isn’t just California that will feel the impact. It is the entire nation that will feel the impact of a California water wreck. The population of the nation that depends on that agricultural production has increased 102 million souls since that same year.

Reality looms. The majority leadership of the state is no longer simply a California problem. It is a national problem … it is a world problem.

            Apocalyptic Zeitgeist

            The World Wars of the 20^th Century continue to impact our lives as much as California leadership threatens to affect us all.

            At the onset of both, the German society was beset by absolutism and technological clout. Both events ended in an arms defeat, but, moreover, it left deep psychological wounds. Great clouds of cultural pessimism and “apocalypticism” resulted. It demonstrated cultural contagiousness.

            The condition gave rise to a word. The word is a German noun. It is Zeitgeist. Zeitgeist is the intellectual fashion or dominant school of thought that typifies or influences the prevailing culture.

            Debate of the subject can take the course of reaching back and suggesting, like I have, that the catastrophic impact of world war gave rise to a nagging adherence and acceptance of chronic cultural despair, or it can accept the logic that the consequences of an injected mood of despair related to the seizure of power or influence is a repeatable phenomenon.

Regardless of the debate, it is important we learn what the modern reoccurrence of global Zeitgeist has done to our society.

            The phenomenon is captured in the metamorphosis of the German word. It has had breathtaking consequences to our society. It is ‘environmentalism’ although that, too, is changing. Watch more closely henceforth for the altering use toward ‘sustainability’.

Our modern zeitgeist must, by its definition, achieve a prevailing fascination. That must be extended through mob action. The scheme of the latest western absurdity, global warming, is the perfect example. It could only be carried out with the authoritarian banner of doom and gloom. That was necessary to secure the funding to capitalize careers and permanence. Scientists, politicos, and zealots alike sold all hints of independence and intellectual autonomy to fuel what has become their funding dependency. They had to adhere to a rigidity of theory that is now crumbling in every quarter of their existence. That outcome is not the only issue. The truth is their phony constraint inducement and their self appointed dominion has harmed their craft inexorably.

Their body of work is unalterably untrustworthy.

They have also created an army of workers that now carry a mantel of questionable independence and inquisitiveness. The great man inspired creations of this world have all been the result of supreme independence and thought provocation. That is what propelled California to greatness. That is what delivered the water that created an unbelievable $100 billion dollar agricultural sector.

That is also what created and supported the human conditions of luxury that allowed the leadership buffoonery of California … to evolve and exist.

            Freeman Dyson

            Freeman Dyson, one of the world’s most preeminent theoretical physicists, must be added to your list of assignments.

Born in England and choosing America as his preferred home, Professor Dyson, stands as one of the treasured intellectuals who believes that real scientists are rebels who must stand steadfast behind their instincts rather than submit to the social demands and or philosophical principles of the zeitgeist mob.

He is a global warming skeptic and has written that the common element of scientific vision “is rebellion against the restrictions imposed by the prevailing culture” and that scientists “should be artists and rebels (in their craft).”

He is also the originator of the scientific theory of infinity and the principle of Maximum Diversity. In the former, he believes in a universe, if allowed, will grow without limit to richness and complexity, and, in the latter, life will evolve to make the universe as interesting a possible. In all cases, he remains more impressed by the examples of unfolding diversity than abstract philosophical principles.

Known for his religious and philosophical optimism, Dyson adds a brighter lamp to what has become a very dreary secular, scientific world.

“Hope is high on the list of virtues,” he says. “God did not put us her on earth to moan and groan.”

“As my mother used to say,” he continued, “God helps those who help themselves”.

A scientist who not only believes in the sovereignty of thought, but also of creator bestowed human genius!

He believes the western academic world is much like Weimar Germany when it found itself defeated and without power or influence. The outcome is doom, gloom, and decadence. The modern polar opposite is the emerging China and India where the scientific counterparts do not share such a mood. He compares those reversals to America of the ‘30s and ‘40s. That is when we believed that technology married to colossal projects were virtuous and within our grasp.

That is exactly what created the great water works of California.

Without a doubt, lives were improved. Wealth was also created with enough excess to fuel the emergence of the false prophets and their systemic appendages. The combination has become the arbitrator of dependency. Hope has been displaced with bogus science and extended through regulatory heist and political conflagration.

The only way this social parasitism can exist is through continued expansion and the prevailing dominance of this cultural sustainability nonsense. It is debilitating beyond imagination.

Toward diversity

The elections of 2014 are important.

It won’t be the hypocrisy of scrubbed faced politicos rushing to return to the center we should indulge, but, rather, their demonstration of tolerance and belief in human central importance. It is not some sage grouse that is going to save this world. It isn’t some contrived scheme of state equality, either. It is the intelligence of mortals that have the aptitude, the courage, and the foresight to solve real problems that allow our society to excel and prosper.

Droughts impact us because we have not built infrastructure to combat them before they arrive.

That is symptomatic of undermining what Dyson suggests is the salvation of life. He refers to a universe of life surviving forever and making itself known to its neighbors across unimaginable gulfs of space and time, but that all starts and ends with the immense imagination of the God given talents of free men.

“My optimism about the long-term survival of life comes mainly from imagining what will happen when life escapes from this planet and becomes adapted to living in a vacuum,” Dyson says. “There is then no real barrier to stop life from spreading through the universe.”

That summarizes his “Principle of Maximum Diversity”.

It also implies being centrally enthralled with the past compromises the future. If we are to survive, it is necessary to dislodge the Zeitgeisters and recognize their real goal is to solidify only their mortal existence at the expense of future generations.

They need to go.

. Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico. “Government dependency is the worst form of parasitism.”

“When freedom prevails, the ingenuity and inventiveness of people creates incredible wealth. This is the source of the natural improvement of the human condition.” - Brian S. Wesbury

"My standpoint is reinforced with the firm principle established in social and political sciences that humanity's progress is based upon the inseparability of freedom and creativity as its main engine, as the wings of progress. Hence, any society or regime that cuts one of these wings is doomed to backwardness and recession. What about those who cut away both wings? Creativity doesn't flourish except in a climate of total freedom. Thus, freedom is the mother of progress as well as its ultimate objective." - Nader Fergany

"The best road to progress is freedom's road." - John F. Kennedy