The Serpent's Egg

Ingmar Bergman's father was a Lutheran minister who became chaplain to the King of Sweden. Despite his religious background, I would guess Bergman leaned toward atheism based on the secular thinking his characters exhibit. The main character in Wild Strawberries suggests that his wife's infidelity is not a betrayal because human beings lack free will and they are not morally responsible for their conduct. In Scenes from a Marriage, a married lawyer gets pregnant, and she and her husband decide to abort the pregnancy for the sake of convenience. The son of the main character in Wild Strawberries threatens to leave his wife unless she has an abortion because his sense of duty to his child would deprive him of the option of committing suicide when he felt like it.

If Bergman was an atheist, he bears some resemblance to Friedrich Nietzsche. Although Nietzsche's father was a Lutheran minister, Nietzsche argued that religious ideas disparage man's existence. They suggest that  life on Earth is corrupt and evil, and that true value resides in a transcendent beyond where we will become one with God after we die. This view is foolish because, although life on Earth may be full of suffering and violence, it is also full of beauty, and it is only the existence we will know. There is nothing beyond this world.

Bergman seemed to respect Christianity's ability to inspire us to create beauty. He said it was worthwhile to build cathedrals whether or not God existed. The sentiment that religion is false, but uplifting and not altogether bad, is expressed by the priest in the following dialogue from Bergman's 1977 film, The Serpent's Egg:

Manuela: And I try to tell him that we’ll help each other, but that’s only words for him. And everything I say is useless. The only real thing is fear. And I’m sick. I don’t know what’s wrong. Is there any forgiveness?

Priest: Would you like me to pray for you?

Manuela: Do you think that would help?

Priest: I don’t know.

Manuela: Now?

Priest: Yes, now.

Manuela: Is it a special prayer?

Priest: Yes, yes. Let me think.

We ...

We live so far away from God...

...that he probably doesn’t hear us when we pray for help.

So ...

we must help each other, give each other the forgiveness that a remote God denies us.

I...say to you...

...that you are forgiven for your husband’s death. You’re no longer to blame. And I beg your forgiveness...

...for my apathy...

...and my indifference.

Do you forgive me?

Manuela: Yes, I forgive you.

Priest: That’s all we can do. I must hurry. The parish priest becomes annoyed if I’m late.

Wild Strawberries

At the beginning of this 1957 film by Ingmar Bergman, an elderly professor of medicine, Isak Borg, explains that he has withdrawn from society because human relationships make it necessary to discuss other people's conduct, and he wants to avoid the mistakes and exaggerations that go along with judging others. Borg has tried to suppress his interest in and feeling for people. He laughs when his ravishing daughter-in-law, Marianne (Ingrid Thulin, shown in the screenshot above), reveals that his son, Evald, hates him. He has no interest in the marital problems that caused Marianne to leave Evald several weeks earlier.

Borg and Marianne drive to Lund, Sweden, where Borg will receive an honorary degree. Borg confronts his approaching death and revisits painful moments of his past in a series of flashbacks and dreams. When a coffin falls out of a horse-drawn wagon on a deserted street in a dream sequence, the body inside turns out to be his own. Marianne and Borg stop at the house in the country where Borg spent the summers of his youth. In a flashback there, his younger brother wins the affections of Sara, the cousin he loved. A dream he has while Marianne is driving reenacts the episode in which his wife, 40 years earlier, yielded to the advances of another man in a forest. In post-coital talk, she tells her seducer that Borg will express pity for her and insist that she has committed no wrong that he can forgive. Borg has transcended the idea of free will to the point he can't hold his wife's breach of her marital vows against her.

After waking up from this painful dream, Borg tells Marianne that his dreams have been forcing him to acknowledge truths that he avoids while awake. Reciprocating his confidence in her, Marianne volunteers that she left Evald because she recently got pregnant and Evald insisted that she abort the pregnancy.
After Marianne and Borg arrive in Lund and Borg receives the honorary degree, he retires to bed in Evald's home. Borg forgives the debt that Evald had been working long hours to repay, and Evald reveals that he could not live without Marianne and had therefore accepted her decision to keep the child. To rid himself of restlessness, as he is preparing for sleep in the final scene, Borg recalls an image of his childhood at the summerhouse. It is one of the three or four most powerful moments I have ever experienced in film.
...
The greatness of films can't be separated from dialogue and personality, which are literary qualities that can't be reproduced in a still image. I think this is why film posters for great movies are almost always disappointing in comparison to the films they advertise.
...
Bergman used surrealistic elements to develop his characters' personalities. In Wild Strawberries, Bibbi Anderson plays the cousin Borg loved and one of a trio of hitchhikers whom Borg and Marianne pick up. They're both named Sara, but the hitchhiker has short hair so the fact that it's the same actress isn't immediately obvious. Andersson's dual role subtly conveys that Borg is still obsessing over Sara's choice of his brother 60 years after the fact. "Get over it." It's easier said than done.

The camera has a macro setting

Piper, September 2009

Photographs of Mt. Aix

Mt. Rainier framed by the firs on Nelson Ridge.

The triangular rock that seems to cut into the glaciers at the bottom center is Little Tahoma Peak, elevation 11,138. In June, Luke and I had camped on the Ingraham Flats above Little Tahoma before we summited Rainier. The island of rock at about 10:00 p.m. relative to Little Tahoma is the Disappointment Cleaver, which we climbed up and down when we summited.

The lighting is nice in the full-sized picture.

No, they couldn't be poisonous. If they were poisonous would they look just like blueberries? Eat them for heaven's sake!

Mt. Aix

Aaron and I did a day hike in the Cascades before heading to the Tri-Cities for Olszta's wedding. Like many of our trips to the woods, this one began with a petty dispute. The weighty subject of the argument was where we should get grub on the drive from SeaTac to the mountains. We had put some of the rancor behind us two hours later when we were making camp in the Wenatchee National Forest about 22 miles east of Rainier, near the head of the trail that leads to Mt. Aix's summit. Aaron made a fire while I pitched the tent. It was a clear night. We drank Mirror Pond Pale Ale and marveled over the luminosity of the Milky Way above us.

The next morning I made coffee by boiling water with my new MSR Whisper Lite stove. To each cup of water I added two heaping scoops of Folger's instant coffee, which was about three times the recommended amount. The result was a chemical sludge that was repellently strong until you drank a half cup, by which time your taste buds had become desensitized from exposure.

Galvanized by the Folger's, we set off for Aix's summit at 6:40 a.m. The trail heads east and south up the Nelson Ridge via a series of switchbacks. Once we got half way up the ridge, we had tremendous views of massive Mt. Rainier to the west. I could make out the main features of the route Luke and I had taken when we climbed Rainier two months earlier.

From the top of Nelson Ridge, the trail heads south to Aix's summit ridge. On the west side of the summit ridge, the trail forks. The left fork climbs up a scree field directly to the summit. The right fork contours around to the southern end of the summit ridge. We took the right fork because it was more challenging. We climbed between gendarmes on the south face to reach the top of the summit ridge. After we traversed a Class 3 ledge that was exposed to a good sized fall, Aaron commented, "This is pretty hairy." I answered, "Yeah, but it's fun too."

We topped off on the summit a couple hundred feet after the ledge. The summit gave up an inspiring view of Rainier to the west. Mt. Adams dominated the southern horizon. Smoke from a forest fire was spreading out east and west across the valley south of Aix. Mt. St. Helens was faintly visible to the southwest.

We climbed down the scree field because it was more direct than retracing our path back to the southern end of the summit ridge. The scree field was steep and the rocks flowed each time you put your foot down. During the descent on Nelson Ridge, Aaron complained that he was tired, out of shape, and his feet hurt. I asked if he couldn't just accept that discomfort was an inescapable part of experiencing the woods and mountains. His accepting pain wasn't the issue, though. The issue was my accepting his complaints about pain.

After we finished the hike, we drove through the Wenatchee National Forest on Highway 410. The delicate green leaves of a tree on the banks of a mountain stream were shimmering in the wind and glowing with the sun's golden light.

Blanca in Pictures

Ellingwood Peak

Blanca Basin from Little Bear's West Ridge

Another look at the Blanca Basin

Lake Como basin. Ellingwood Peak is right of center.

This shot captures aesthetic qualities that make me love mountaineering. It is a view of Blanca and her subordinate peaks from the southwest, off of Highway 150, about a half mile north of Highway 160.

Little Bear

6.4 rugged uphill miles lie between the Lake Como trailhead and Little Bear's summit. Jeeps modified for rock crawling and all terrain vehicles can drive up the 4X4 road to Lake Como at 11,760 feet. From the lake, the trek to the summit is just 1.1 miles. The pitch of the road approaches 30 degrees on some sections. There are massive rocks. Looking down, you can see the wreckage of trucks that have crashed on the steep mountainsides below. I noticed a memorial for someone who had died in such a wreck.

The road would have torn apart the rented P.T. Cruiser we were driving so we parked at the trailhead and set off under sunny skies carrying overnight packs. While the sun shone down on the trail, chalk gray clouds squatted over Blanca and Little Bear. Luke thought they would blow over but they started dumping hail and sleet on us around 3:30 p.m. We ran into the woods above the stream that the trail follows, looking for a branch that we could drape Luke's rain poncho over. Instead, we found a flat site above the stream and decided to make camp. We pitched the tent in minutes flat, threw our gear in, and then thew ourselves in. My body core was warm but my fingertips had gone numb from exposure to the freezing precipitation. It had been a rush to run into the trees and pitch the tent at breakneck speed with the hail coming down.

When the precipitation ended, we hiked up the trail and discovered that the storm had caught us just a couple hundred yards below Lake Como. We talked with two hikers who had weathered the storm in the shelter on the lake after trying to summit Bear earlier in the day. One had turned around at the Hourglass Gully because it was iced over. The other had been able to climb up the gully by staying on the left side.

We left the trail and hiked to the south side of Como where we surveyed the steep north-facing gully that takes you to the top of Little Bear's west ridge. From the west ridge, the route heads east to a steep, rain-polished gully called the Hourglass. The Hourglass is the crux of the route and climbs up Bear's southwest face. From the top of the Hourglass, you scramble a couple hundred feet to reach the summit.

We set off for Lake Como at 5:50 a.m. the next day and reached the top of the gully that climbs up Bear's west ridge by 7:00 a.m. The west ridge provided stunning views of the Lake Como basin and Ellingwood Peak. The rocks in the gully were icy. We hoped the conditions would be better in the Hourglass.

An hour later, we were at the base of the Hourglass. Five or six ancient ropes that had been tied into a rappel anchor were hanging down the gully. Much of the rock was covered in ice. Water flowed down the center of the gully. The ropes were water-logged and the strength of the anchor was unknown, so we started climbing up on the left side in the hope of finding a route that was free of ice. Luke led.

The gully is rated Class 4 terrain, which means vertical climbing. A fall may kill you. Some people prefer to climb fourth class terrain with a rope as protection against falls, but handholds and footholds are abundant enough that protection is not mandatory, which distinguishes Class 4 terrain from Class 5 terrain.

The climb got hairier the higher we went. Half way up, Luke climbed up a few feet, side-stepped left on narrow footholds under an overhanging bulge, and then climbed up to a flat step above the bulge where he was secure. We belayed my pack up to him so that I would be unencumbered when I climbed the section. As I climbed, I found bomber handholds on the bulge and rushed across the horizontal section without paying attention to my feet. My failure to place my feet cautiously freaked Luke out. "You're being a jerky fucking climber, Pete!! You're not paying any attention to wear your feet are going!!" I answered, "Sorry, man. You're right. I'll pay more attention."

At that point, we were 20 or 30 feet below the anchor the ropes were tied into. We were nearly done with the crux of the route, but the prospect of climbing the rest of the gully and climbing all the way down was frightening. I couldn't see any readily climbable line to the anchor. The ice had made it impossible to safely reach the summit, so we decided to turn around. It was a frustrating but sensible decision. Bear and Blanca will have to wait till next season.

September 18-19, 2009

Caldwell on Eurabia

I laughed out loud reading Rod Liddle's review of Christopher Caldwell's book, Reflections on the Revolution in Europe, which argues that Europe's growing Muslim population is unlikely to assimilate to Western culture. Caldwell worries that cultural change is more likely to run in the opposite direction, with guilty European elites trying to buy peace with assertive Muslim populations by clamping down on the things that piss the newcomers off, like homosexuality, jokes about the Prophet Mohammed, and criticism of Muslim immigration. Caldwell:

When an insecure, malleable, relativistic culture meets a culture that is anchored, confident and strengthened by common doctrines, it is generally the former that changes to suit the latter.

Liddle's review starts with an account of his relationship with an Egyptian cleric, Sheikh Abu Hamza Al Masri, who after being granted asylum in Britain called on Muslims to create an Islamic state there through jihad. The cleric's sons were recently arrested on charges that they had stolen a million pounds worth of cars and went on a coke and hookers spree. This boosted the hopes of the political mainstream that Muslims might assimilate after all.

that, give it time, we will win over these angry young boys from the deserts of Arabia with the wonderful stuff the West has: freedom, consumer durables, pornography, and Class A drugs. All this jihadi nonsense will stop when you see what we have to offer. No need to blow yourself up to secure the services of 72 virgins—you can have them now, pretty much, all you have to do is ask, Western women being very obliging that way. OK, they won’t be virgins, but still—fill your boots.

According to Caldwell, assimilation isn't occurring because Muslim immigrants start off hostile to Western values, and the host countries, instead of trying try to impress those values on the immigrants, tell them that their Islamic values are equal in worth. Multiculturalism combined with Muslim prudishness leads to what Liddle calls "magnificent absurdities:"

A few months after the government passed a law insisting that the religion of Islam and the Koran be treated with “respect,” the boss of the Muslim Council of Britain appeared on a BBC news program arguing that homosexuality was counter to the aims of civil society. The police were immediately dispatched to his house. Iqbal Sacranie faced a charge of inciting homophobic hatred for having divested himself, in the most moderate language, of the Koran’s fairly rigorous position on homosexuality: “kill the one who is doing it and the one to whom it is being done.” So, we must respect Islam, but simply to express one of its fundamental tenets, even in bowdlerized form, will bring the police around to your door. Presumably arguing that Islam is homophobic would have a similar consequence.

Caldwell is overly optimistic to the extent he claims that large Muslim populations would assimilate if only the Western host countries had the self-confidence to insist that they adopt Western values. Islam is not just a moral code and a description of man's supposed relationship to the divine. Islam claims to be the ultimate basis for a society's laws and government, and laws and government must yield to the extent they clash with Islam's teachings. Islam is incompatible with the Western tradition in which religion is limited to the spiritual sphere of life, while the state governs secular affairs.

The difference in the cognitive abilities of Muslims and Westerners as measured on IQ tests would preclude assimilation even if Islam were not a totalitarian faith. The average IQ in Muslim countries ranges from 83 in Egypt to 90 in Turkey. That's nearly a standard deviation below the average IQ of white Europeans. Groups with dramatically different cognitive abilities will not adopt the same views about how a society should be governed or what goals a society should pursue. There is a minimum average IQ that a population needs to sustain the political institutions of a democratic state, like a legislature and the rule of law. The authoritarian character of the governments of Muslim countries indicates that Muslim populations fall below that minimum.

Custer County, Colorado

Just right of center, there are the twin peaks of Crestone Needle and Crestone Peak, and to the right of them Humboldt Peak.

This picture of the flat bottom of the valley between the Sangre de Cristos and the Wet Mountains shows the curvature of the earth.

In the full-sized image, you can make out the tip top of Blanca Peak peaking out over the horizon in the center of the frame.

Equality

In the middle ages you could get thrown into jail for denying that the earth was the center of the solar system or that God created the universe. Today we don't have to accept false empirical claims to avoid being cast out of polite society.