Anti-Climacus

NITPICKING: I enjoy reading Rod Dreher on a number of things, though I think his tendency to the apocalyptic works against him in many instances. But in this post discussing, among other things, confirmation bias, I noticed a passage that seemed odd to me, in the context of discussing whether modernist-city-dwellers would be better off after an energy crisis than agrarian land-lovers:

If the weather gets unbearably hot -- which it does in this part of the country -- all they have to do is open the windows and turn on fans. Far from a perfect solution, but me, I can't open the windows of my old house (though it was made for pre-a/c weather) because they've been painted closed to prevent thieves from breaking in. I could have them opened, and put screens up, but there's no way I'd leave the windows open at night. You'd have to be crazy to do that. How about you readers -- how many of you live in a place where you could sleep easy at night, even though the windows of your house were all wide open to let in the breeze?

Hobbes writes about this in the Leviathan:

Let him therefore consider with himself--when taking a journey, he arms himself, and seeks to go ell accompanied; when going to sleep, he locks his doors; when even in his house, he locks his chests; and this when he knows there be laws, and public officers, armed, to revenge all injuries shall be done him--what opinion has he of his fellow subjects, when he rides armed; of his fellow citizens, when he locks his doors; and of his children and his servants, when he locks his chests. Does he not there as much accuse mankind by his actions, as I do by my words?

Hobbes is working on the intuition his readers will do at least one, perhaps all of those things, or else think them all reasonable to do, and this in 1651. I don't know that the condition Rod describes is ever readily attainable; it's a great good when it happens, but it's probably not reasonable to expect.