Ernst F. Schumacher

1973

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One of the founding texts of the environmental movement, and one that asks profound questions about the relationships between humanity and our environment. There are some great ideas about the nature and place of economics in deciding priorities for human investment and lifestyle. But taken as whole this isn't a book that's aged well.

Why not? I think there are three essential reasons. Firstly, there's a rather declamatory style to the presentation that presents as certainties things that are actually rather questionable. For example, Schumacher dismisses statistics: "and of course, nothing can be proven with statistics". I beg to disagree: in any physical or life science, one can only prove things with statistics, since there will always be noise and error in any set of observations that can only be properly analysed and quantified statistically.

Secondly, to continue from above, Schumacher is surprisingly dismissive of science as a useful cultural basis. He identifies six "large ideas" that – he claims – stem from the humanities and offer a broader and firmer foundation for living than any scientific ideas. And what do these "large ideas" consist of? Well at least two of them (evolution and natural selection) belong firmly within science after all; two more (class struggle and positivism) have been largely discredited, while another (Freudian sub-consciousness) has been changed beyond recognition; and the last (relativism), to the extent that it allows multiple opinions as to the Truth (with a capital T), is maybe the only one left standing – and can hardly be argued not to rest at least in part on scientific ideas of uncertainty and progressive refinement.

But the third problem is the most interesting. It seems to me that many of Schumacher's arguments are logical and well-supported by evidence – but have been proven wrong by events. A good example is his (again rather declamatory) assertion that economic growth must always be underpinned by increased energy consumption, which must necessarily come up against resource limitations. A plausible argument: but recent history shows growth decoupling from energy, with energy per unit GDP plummeting, driven in large measure by the rise of the service and digital economies. Schumacher could have dealt with the former, even if we accept he could have known nothing of the latter. But this lack of knowledge about future developments is not something that will ever disappear, and it renders his style of sweeping large-scale pronouncements permanently suspect.

It is always dangerous to make predictions, especially about the future (as Yogi Berra once observed). That doesn't mean we shouldn't continue to try to do so, but nor is it an excuse to dress up opinion as fact, or to claim that certain conclusions are inescapable and irrefutable. We won't get to the truth by literary means, and we need to accept that we continually over-estimate how quickly things will change when extrapolating from the present – and continually under-estimate how different from our predictions the long-term future will be. That's a level uncertainty that frustrates those looking for a single-issue "hook" on which to hang concrete action, but is nevertheless the world we actually live in.

2/5. Finished 04 April 2016.

(Originally published on Goodreads.)

John Joseph Adams

2008

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3/5. Finished 29 February 2016.

(Originally published on Goodreads.)

Randall Munroe

2015

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Complicated stuff explained in simple words.

It's hard to decide how to classify Thing explainer. On the one hand it should be a children's book: I once owned a book called "What makes it go?" that did a similar job. And Monroe does an excellent job at explaining things that children will want to know about: the US space team's up-goer five, Earth's past, the Big thing tiny hitter, and more. And also some things they hopefully won't want to know too much about, like the Machine for burning cities.

But there's also something of a conceit to the book, in that it's limiting its vocabulary for effect and not simply for clarity of explanation. That makes some things a lot harder than they need to be, and marks the book out as really not for children at all.

That being said, it's extremely enjoyable, as well-written and well-illustrated as What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions and the rest of xkcd. Definitely to be recommended.

4/5. Finished 28 February 2016.

(Originally published on Goodreads.)

Yoshida Kenkō

1332

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Two medieval Japanese classics in one.

Hojoki is a a short, simple parable of a monk's efforts towards enlightenment. There's a sting in the tail whereby, after describing his efforts to simplify his life, Chomei (the author) then concludes that he's become too attached to his own efforts, that his road to enlightenment is actually a source of attachment in its own right. In that sense the essay is almost a lengthy Zen koan on the dangers of pride, attachment, and effort.

Kenko's Essays in idleness is much harder to define, by contrast. It's part philosophy, part a gossipy history of events and anecdotes in a lost era. There are some fabulously quotable sections:

What happiness it is to sit in intimate conversation with someone of like mind, warmed by candid discussion of the amusing and fleeting ways of the world. But such a friend is hard to find, and instead you sit there doing your best to fit in with whatever the other is saying, feeling deeply alone.

It is a most wonderful comfort to sit alone beneath a lamp, book spread before you, and coming with someone from the past whom you have never met

4/5. Finished 27 February 2016.

(Originally published on Goodreads.)