Petoskey — I’m sitting in my car on a warm August afternoon. It’s 77 degrees, and I’m watching people wander slowly into a store. It’s a 30-foot journey from the parking lot into the cool, cavernous building. I can tell who has air conditioning and who doesn’t by their clothes. Jeans: air conditioning. Sundress: no A/C. Hoodie: central air set to 68. Short-sleeve linen shirt: probably window fans.
Who doesn’t love walking into a cool house after mowing the lawn on a sticky summer afternoon or rushing to the window unit after walking up three flights of stairs? We all do. But as much as we may love the modern ability to live in a bonafide meat freezer on the hottest day of year, our addiction to air conditioning has consequences.
Linen, seersucker, and madras are staples of classic American style. They are thin and breathable, keeping us cool as temperatures rise and eliminating any perceived need for perpetual air conditioning in Michigan. A thin madras short sleeve button-up is cooler than a T-shirt. These fabrics were conceived long before air conditioning was around. They reflect a natural approach to beating the heat. Classic American summer is a madras shirt on a screened-in porch, it’s not a black hoodie in a chilly living room. Summer fabrics are natural and beautiful. Air conditioning, in no small way, renders them obsolete.
If we run from climate-controlled bedroom to climate-controlled car to climate-controlled grocery store to climate-controlled office and back again, we have no need for these breathable fabrics. We have no need for tradition, no need for culture. To wear natural fabrics in the natural world might, technically, be more inconvenient. We might run the risk of breaking a slight sweat in the middle of July, but it’s beautiful; it’s aesthetic. None of us currently living has ever breathed in a world that actually prioritizes style. Our gods today are convenience and efficiency. The synthetically programmed world of perpetual air conditioning is a flatter world. It is seamless and stagnant. No ups, no downs. No highs, no lows.
It might sound strange at first, but the question of air conditioning is deeply philosophical. At the crux of the problem is a debate between industry and culture. There is an argument that air conditioning is key to modern industriousness. Lee Kwan Yew, the founding father of modern Singapore, once said: “Air conditioning was a most important invention for us, perhaps one of the signal inventions of history. It changed the nature of civilization by making development possible in the tropics. Without air conditioning, you can work only in the cool early-morning hours or at dusk.”
This fact is easy to understand. It’s clear how air conditioning makes all sorts of civilizational advancement possible in previously inhospitable climates. With a stable indoor climate, you can work more comfortably for more hours. Streamlined efficiency. The modern world knows no borders, no limits.
Yet our lives are not only about streamlined efficiency. We cannot forget culture. What do we have without culture? Virgil Davis Hunt, a Tennessee-based writer who has spoken extensively on the impact of air conditioning in the American South, writes: “It’s silly to argue against A/C, something we all so unquestioningly accept as a default feature of our world, but not enough effort has gone into considering how it’s altered our world. The main bogeyman of the destruction of our ‘lived environment’ is the automobile, but I’d argue it’s air conditioning. We have summer breaks because the heat is unbearable, and it’s no coincidence that summer is the time during which social activity flourishes. Air conditioning has dulled this and enables the extension of all manner of economically productive activities through the summer. In the process, it’s destroyed the ability of people to genuinely settle into leisure: a defining characteristic of the South.”
There is always a trade off. At what cost? What is progress? Is traditional culture possible in technological modernity?
It must also be acknowledged that the question of air conditioning in Michigan is simpler than in Singapore or Tennessee. In Michigan, the stakes aren’t nearly as high. It isn’t Thailand or Oman. It isn’t Texas or Death Valley either. We live in a beautiful peninsula with temperate summers. Perpetual use of air conditioning isn’t a matter of life or death here; it’s more a matter of pointless decadence. Being burned alive under the desert sun isn’t the same as opting for linen and a window fan when it’s 80 degrees on the water. Air conditioning overuse in Michigan is a symptom of a neurotic desire to streamline, and make predictable, every single moment of life. A desire to experience no variation or natural lull.
The consequences of this neurotic desire are strangely vast. Air conditioning overuse doesn’t just erode classic American style, it also chips away at traditional architecture and ways of living. The broad porch with the deep shade that keeps you cool during the hotter months of the year with fans spinning above is beautiful and practical, as is the small cabin on the lake where you escape the concrete for the water. A dive off the dock is the traditional way of cooling off. That’s how your father did it. That’s how his father did it. They weren’t huddled inside next to the A/C with a laptop open, scrolling and scrolling. Better things: a screened-in porch on a quiet summer night, the breeze brushing against your temple with a bourbon in your hand.
You can’t hear the sound of the crickets if everyone has their central air cranking all day and night. The sound of God’s creation gets drowned out by the hum of convenience. It’s a metaphor for our modern world. Silence terrifies the modern man. Afraid of nature and afraid of God, he worships the idol of synthetic convenience.
The spread of perpetual A/C is total. It’s no longer limited to the home, the car, or the store. Now there are portable air conditioners that people wear around their necks. The 10-minute walk from car to building is too much variance for them. The heat is unbearable for even a few seconds. This horrifying creation makes the synthetic flattening of the climate portable. Man’s dominion over nature is one thing. It’s biblical. Becoming resistant to any variance in temperature and humidity is another. It is, quite frankly, lame.
We experience every glorious season in Michigan. Colorful autumns, arctic winters, blooming springs, and warm summers. Why would we ever want to lessen the spirit of summer when the descent into ice waits just around the corner? Why wouldn’t we want to breathe in the warm summer air as deep as we can? Why wouldn’t we want to feel that heat fill our lungs? In January, we would give anything to sweat on the dock or feel the blazing sun on our skin. The obsession with perpetual air conditioning and a hyper-regulated climate means hiding from the seasons. It means abandoning traditional American style. Forgetting culture and tradition. Ignoring vacation and leisure. Divorcing oneself from nature. Becoming too weak to even cope with the slightest natural variation of life in Michigan.
Perpetual air conditioning is about turning down the contrast on life. Why would we ever want to do that?
O.W. Root is a writer based in Northern Michigan, with a focus on nature, food, style, and culture. Follow him on X @NecktieSalvage.
