“The modern dogma is comfort at any cost.” ― Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac

William Somerville

‘When autumn smiles, all beauteous in decay,
And paints each chequered grove with various hues,
My setter ranges in the new shorn fields,
His nose in air erect; from ridge to ridge,
Panting, he bounds, his quartered ground divides
In equal intervals, nor careless leaves
One inch untried. At length the tainted gale
His nostrils wide inhale, quick joy elates
His beating heart, which, awed by discipline
Severe, he dares not own, but cautious creeps
Low-cowering, step by step; at last attains
His proper distance, there he stops at once,
And points with his instructive nose upon
The trembling prey. On wings of wind and upborne
The floating net unfolded flies; then drops,
And the poor fluttering captives rise in vain.’

Nebraska

Diversity

Absolute diversity has only one outcome; chaos. Without some binding force to hold the bits of time, matter and space together we are left with an anti-cosmos. Although many have attempted, it is impossible to live, consistently, in an anti-universe. The best expressions of this are to be found in pieces of art. You can hang a disorderly
painting on your wall but you would not be able to function if you had to live within the disorder of the painting. The order of reality always creeps back, as the chaotic painting is not hung backwards on the wall, the artist created it to be seen, to make a statement, to make a truth claim that there is no truth.

If all ideas are relative how can diversity be better than unity. MR

Wendell Berry

“The basis of my resistance is not that I’m a crank, but that I’m satisfied. I didn’t dislike the way I was doing it.” Wendell Berry as quoted in National Review, July 30, 2012.