The Wonderchild

It is named Amory Lovins, and its theories have gained a religious following, though they are totally void of any scientific, technical or economic merit.*

The wonderchild's second hand ideas on how to run an industrial giant on summer breezes, water wheels and chicken manure are, of course, ecstatically embraced by the liberal media, for, as the wonderchild itself says, "a soft path offers a potential argument for every constituency."

Well, not for every one perhaps, but for those that matter: For the sensitive and concerned elite, a way to keep the rabble in their places (let them try and live on the energy sources that only the readers of the New York Review of Books can afford!); for the corporation baiters, a crippled economy; for the statists, a regimented way of life; and for the anti defense crowd, the ultimate answer to Soviet designs: the ruralization of America.

Business Week, for one, is sobbing in enraptured ecstasy; such gushing praise has not been heard since it swooned over Barry Commoner's Marxist economics.

One of the numerous troubles with the wonderchild's soft path is the hard coercion it would require. Capital, in its eyes, is not something that flows freely from investors who risk their own money, but is allotted by the State from taxes forced on its underlings. The two paths are therefore 'incompatible," for the soft path is not just for softheads who want to eat worms in a commune; it must be forced down everybody's throat. This coming summer we may witness something that has hitherto been seen only on German and French nuclear construction sites: the genteel maiden from the upper class family, the wonderchild in her heart, foam at her mouth, and brass knuckles round her hand.

Speaking to an international assembly of nuclear experts on October 19, President Carter used a string of concocted figures instantly traceable to one of the wonderchild's psalms. There is, indeed, a common bond here: Both masquerade as experts in a field for which they have no credentials. One likes to pose as a "high technologist?" though a recent Congressional hearing revealed that he has not even a bachelor's degree and never designed an energy producing system; the other likes to pose as a 'nuclear engineer," apparently on the basis of a two-semester course in the navy, now 25 years out of date.

The two recently met to discuss energy. It was a fitting encounter for a president who discusses human rights with Torrijos, morals with Playboy, and peace with the Soviets.

* On this point, we again recommend Soft vs. Hard Energy Paths, Ten Critical Essays on Amory Lovins' Energy Strategy, $5 from Charles Yulish Asscts., 229 Seventh Ave. New York, NY 10011.