Oddly, here I was sitting in my reading chair, avoiding going out in the rain to feed the livestock, when I thought, it is about time PK sent out some kind of update. After a few minutes I wandered into the room where my computer sits, fired it up to see if the weather app confirmed what my eyes told me, that it was raining. While doing that I checked my email. Thanks for that, PK. Now I have more things to read while avoiding my duties. Cheers,
Thanks Paul! To "For all the horrors of the Internet..." I'd add "for all the anonymity of the internet.." even though there is more feedback/interaction on substack than on say releasing audio podcasts (where there is none), you only see the tip of the tip of the iceberg. Am writing purely to emphasise that your words, your smorgasbord of ideas spreads far and wide and not just the ideas for the fellow-traveller-ness of sharing your journey through the civilisational ruins. This heart connection and sense that us fellow, if atomised, travelers are not alone existentially. Historically of course society based in space rather than cyberspace meant one was physically close to others - now the people we are "close" to we will most likely never see.
Long story short just to emphasise what I am sure you know but it never hurts to send gratitude and praise - thank you for making us less existentially lonely in a time of division, decline and fall. Live long and prosper.
At the very end you mention Freedom to Care circles. I have been to two, looking forward to the 3rd one this Saturday. For anyone who is pushed to the brink- by the gaslighting, by the lies, by the uncertainty, by fear-- come! For anyone who has discovered that the only thing we know for sure, is the wisdom of our heart, come!
Thank you, Paul. As one who routinely expands my (Orthodox) parish's website with "festal resource pages" filled with loads of embedded links for further reading, I appreciate the occasional gift of these collections from you. Imbued as they are with hope and purpose, they are always welcomed!
Thank you Paul! I would be very interested to see any recommendations you have for children’s literature, and education in general. Like many parents, I am newly embarked on a homeschool adventure. It is wonderful, but can be stressful now that you’ve convinced me to turn such a critical eye on the stories we tell!
Another homeschooling parent here throwing out ideas. Watership Down is really good, also The Princess and the Goblin or The Light Princess by George MacDonald. We just finished Heidi which has its ridiculous romantic side but is still a lovely story, too. I'd love to hear other families' favorites.
My mom talked me into reading (the 500-page) 'Watership Down' when I was 7. Formative experience for sure. Though I'm not sure anyone would want their kid turning out like I have. ;) I recommended it back when Paul was soliciting ideas for the Scriptorium.
Another book that can give kids a sense of the tragic dimensions of life would be 'Bridge to Terabithia'.
Few random ideas:
- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
- The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
- Rascal: A Memoir of a Better Era (Sterling North)
It was St Bridget's day here on 1st Feb, which is also the traditional start date. But things have been 'springing' around here much earlier than usual, and the winter has been strangely mild.
I wonder how strange it really should be at this point. None of us have ever experienced a climate collapse before so we don't know quite how this is going to unfold, but milder winters at least should be unsurprising.
They sneak up on you and then quickly pounce, the consequences. I watched my children become climate refugees back in 2017 when the megadrought-fueled Northern California wildfires burned the family home to the ground. The way I tend to think of it now: everyone is going to have a story—likely multiple stories—like this in the form of the floods, the wildfires, the failed harvest, the heatwave, the tornado, the atmospheric river, the hurricane, the grid collapse from the arctic trough, the firenado, etc.
We should probably find a catch-all for it. William Gibson has coined "the jackpot" (https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jackpot_trilogy). It should probably be simply called The Reckoning.
I'm definitely not surprised. In fact I would be surprised if we suddenly had what I would have regarded as a child as a 'normal' winter. We don't have the kind of extreme weather events you describe in these parts: so far it's been more of a notceable but steady warming, especailly in winter. Mind you, if the gulf stream shuts down, the west of Ireland will become positively Canadian, at which point things will get interesting ...
I've only been in Galway City for 3 days now and the dreaded Galway winter weather I was warned about is... not so dreadful at all. Maybe I lucked out and missed the last of the terrible Galway winters for awhile. After decades in parched and relentlessly sunny Northern California I really can't get enough of the rain and lush greenery in this country. If I had to use one word to describe Ireland it would be "alive".
I'm in the country to stay. Was losing credibility with friends and family in the States after threatening emigration to Ireland for so long and not having done so. I've had citizenship for over a decade courtesy an Irish granny and seven years gathering and submitting supporting paperwork to get my foreign birth registration certificate and passport. So there, done.
The Burren, oh yes, so much of the country still to see. Can't wait to do so once I finish these rounds of interviews to replace my Silicon Valley tech job with... an Irish tech job. It is to weep, but I'm not qualified to do anything else.
"For all the horrors of the Internet, this little e-cosystem is throwing up some interesting writers and thinkers who are challenging the assumptions of the Machine."
This is true, and something I hoped would happen. To that end, I thought I'd give your friend Martin Shaw a go. St. Brendan the Navigator is an excellent place to start. I keep telling myself, "at some point, I'm going to have to leave the faux-adventure of the virtual world completely and take all the good things I've learned with me, and see what, if anything, can help restore wildness, connection and sanity."
What is our equivalent of St. Brendan's voyage in the hypermediated, atomized postmodern metamachine world? It can't simply be that of leaving comments on the internet? But does it have to be so literally a physical voyage? That's probably the least of it. I say this, alas, as I am not so young. But what is it?
I think about the book I've mentioned, The Inner Restoration of Christianity. I think that is a good candidate. But a lonely one for many of us. How to share the inner path with others? Where are the guides? Are we on our own?
Martin Shaw actually did a book a few years back, with the late poet Tony Hoagland, which was a translation of old Celtic poetry. I can't remember the title now (it's published by Grawolf) but it had a version of this poem in I think. Great book.
I actually have that book. It is packed away at the moment. I might try and dig it out. It seems relevant.
I am in a big transition point in my life right now. A chance--at least a chance--to do things differently. I have been thinking a lot about what might come next. (yes, and I am inflicting such "thinking" on this substack at the moment. whoops.)
Do you have a shortlist of books to start on storytelling and myth? I am actually interested in your course on rewilding words. Once I am more settled. Do I qualify as a "founding member"?
It seems that our current situation, i.e., the globalist elites and their Great Reset and the resurgent desire for community and localism, is ripe for a telling in terms of a wild and deep myth. Not simply a manichean tale of good vs. evil. Something more than that. Something far more than that...
I don't know if these are the right questions - though I've asked them myself for years and years.
If there's a value to what I/we are doing here, it is in stimulating thinking, putting things into perspective, and helping to understand the shape of the world we're in and what might be coming. That's why I do it anyway. I'm not under the illusion that I can change the shape or direction of it. So what is the work? It's different for us all, but I think Brendan's voyage might be a good metaphor. I don't think humans have changed much over the last 10,000 years. In the last year I've seen mobs forming that are probably similar to the ones who called for Christ to be nailed up. Systems change, but people don't, much. So surely the voyage has to be internal as well as external. I've found myself that you can flee physically but remain the same wherever you are. The Machine is both without and within. These days I think that inner freedom is a precursor to outer freedom. Easier said than done of course. But maybe this is the point of prayer.
Hi Paul, I’ll be very interested in what you write about Deneen’s “Why Liberalism Failed.” I finished it a couple of weeks ago and have suffered many sleepless nights since wondering if I harbor the wrong analysis of virtually everything. I find his premises and his critiques hard to argue against. However, I also fear where his take-down leads: are we flirting with a kind of Christian authoritarianism/fascism to replace liberalism? I’ve watched a lot of Deneen’s talks recently, and while I don’t hear evidence from him directly that he’s pursuing such ends, a lot of his fellow post-liberal writers are much more explicit that they are. Deneen is writing a new book that visits Aristotle’s political philosophies, so that ought to be an interesting addition that may fill in more of the blanks he left with his scathing critique. But, I’m very interested in what you make of the possibilities that could replace, or strongly amend, liberalism. Like you, I’ve been a longtime fan of Wendell Berry, and I know there’s much in that worldview to recommend returning to localism. I am, however, unclear how such a move would also impact people who have been at least politically and socially freed by liberalism (such as myself, having a serious disability). Please consider taking that head-on!
I was also rocked by Deneen's book. He is quite vague at the end of the book as to his preferred alternative to liberalism. As I recall, he praises Rod Dreher's Benedict Option. Deneen is also a longtime contributor to The Front Porch Republic--which promotes localism.
I tend towards a kind of localism myself. The problem I have with it is that it is, in the age of globalist gigantism--something of a dead letter. Given who trade, energy, finance, economics, politics, computing systems, etc., increasingly dwarf local efforts, short of permanent collapse, I don't know how any robust localism can emerge. I hope I am wrong.
Maybe I am being far too simplistic about this. But the real political struggle is about who gets to benefit from the metamachine emerging before us in real time. Such times of radical shifts are almost invariably bloody and chaotic. I hope I am wrong.
Agreed: the call to localism is a tough fit (though not so much a tough sell) in the age of homogenizing metamachines. I do think we'll see more experiments on this front in the Western world, though they'll be outpaced and probably swallowed up in most instances. I think the call to localism carries the benefit of being the moral move, insofar as it seems to be the only form that could possibly produce people who live within ecological limits. Honestly, I think there will be many collapses soon despite the encroaching metamachines, and in the past those periods of chaos have produced highly decentralized and vernacular cultural forms, so laying the template now does have its uses. However, I want to hear from the proponents of this template: how, in fact, might you envision dealing with dissent and deviance? It's not enough for me that people who philosophize on such subjects stay vague in that regard. Because for all its faults, Western Liberalism certainly provides some ability to dissent and deviate without being killed, and I consider that a prized value. I hear you that the political struggle maybe ought to be about "who gets to benefit from the metamachine emerging before us in real time," but I find it almost too depressing to consider that the metamachine is the only viable superstructure beneath which we can do politics (even if that means I have to remain delusional about what's possible).
These are all great questions. How much of our easy "individualism" will have to go out the window, for localism to work. We may have to learn to sing from the same hymnal again, certainly metaphorically and probably literally.
I think you might be right that we are going to experience many collapses; not only in spite of, but probably because of the encroaching metamachines. The Great Reset may yield the opposite of what the resetters intend.
And that may just be it: people will resist coming together in significant ways until there are no further alternatives. Then we'll start thinking more urgently about planting gardens and going "Amish".
I think there are many things we all can do in the meantime to prepare. It would be great if some of us learned how to farm and just basically learned valuable skills. I know I am fairly useless in the regard. But we can also start telling the kind of deeper stories than can and do shift our imagination and intentions. Like you said, we can envision alternatives...alternatives that hopefully offer a more fully human life here and now.
I think this is what brought us the Abbey of Misrule.
Oh man, Jack, I wrote a long and thoughtful response, and then it evaporated into the electromagnetic ether before I could post it. Alas, it’s godspeed for now, and look forward to future chats.
Localism is always the way forward, but of course is always also rolled over by the Machine. Twas ever thus.
But here's the question: what are 'we' trying to do here? Live well and be true, or create a working template for the whole country/world to live by? The latter is the Klaus Schwab worldview. It can only operate with a big control system buoying it up.
Interestingly, in Schwab's Great Reset book, which I wrote about before Christmas, he addresses the question of those who dissent against the Reset. He says we can expect many people to just walk away - to go and try to live off grid, to localise, as we are discussing here. He basically concludes that they should be left alone, but that of course they will then not receive the benefits of his Reset. They will not be able to access money, many shops, etc etc, because all these things will be linked by chips and the internet of bodies and things. So we have a two-tier society: the chipped and the unchipped. Very H G Wells.
Personally I think it will all start coming apart long before any such Reset is achieved on any scale, and spaces will open which we can enter to start to live differently. But yes, individualism, a proudct of liberalism and fossil fuels, will have to go. That will be a hard one: or perhaps not. Perhaps our generations, who grew up on it, will be gone by then. Cheery thoughts!
Sometimes our individualism seems not much more than consumerism capitalism applied to anthropology. (maybe, you've said this before?) But for all our focus on each our own particular, unrepeatable "journey" we really live in an age of mass conformism. The herd of independent minds, as it were.
We don't do well with actual non-conformists, generally. The trick is to only "challenge" things in the socially-approved way. That way one can be both a rebel and "iconoclast" (interesting choice of word) and get rewarded by the Machine for doing it's actual bidding. Which is to tear down everything that stands in the way of the free, unimpeded operation of the Machine. And call it liberation.
One of the greatest marketing coups of our time is convincing people that they need all the consumer signifiers of being a rugged individualist; someone who is beyond such manipulation. I know I certainly fell for it, and probably still do, alas. I must admire, in a way, the audacity of such a marketing ploy.
Once we were conditioned to that, it was fairly easy to get us to go along with pretty much anything.
Paul Simon called it the Myth of Fingerprints. That is why we must learn to live alone.
There is a kind of postmodern localism. These people, in this place, with this history find a modus vivendi. Others in a different situation will find a different path. Even if I don't like what others are doing, as long as we leave other alone, then all can be well.
The question I keep coming back to is whether or not we are able to leave each other alone. The human track record is kind of bleak, in that regard.
Post-collapse, will we simply revert to an "earlier" stage of history and social relationships (if such there be) or will we retain what the hard lessons of our many recent failures.
Maybe those are the kind of stories we need to start telling in the form of deep myth. How we keep these lessons in front of us, how not to forget them. I am interested in your own sense of that and your friend Martin Shaw, too.
I know I have been captured by a para-scholarly approach to this question. It seems to me that deconstruction is baked into the scholarly cake. A mode of discourse ("mode of discourse" itself being a mode of scholarly discourse) that requires the printing press to really take off. And the internet for it spread down to the likes of me. I probably would be laying brick in a saner age.
How does our narrative start to transform from the ideal of the monograph into deep myth. I am not a writer, nor do I want to be one. But the more storytellers--what I believe the Irish call Seanchai--the better. That interests me.
I think I am feeling this deep myth. It is very fuzzy but I will only clear things up by a slow process of living into them. I'm reading an old biography of John Woolman that I found in my meeting's library. His life is giving me light. I am groping my way toward understanding how to live consistently with the light that has already been revealed to me. Our modern world needs people to walk the path and also tell the story... but the story is there I believe, it is the walking that people long to see/don't often see.
I'm attracted to the idea of a life without the internet or computer. I was a late comer to the whole thing and haven't depended on it much until recently. But now, during the covid time, it has been the only way to get outside opinions. I know several elderly friends who don't use internet and they have no access at all to alternative narratives. The local radio and newspapers are following the official narrative to the extreme. I wonder if the nasty internet is becoming essential to me? I wonder if I would have "known" what was going on without this mode of communication. I would certainly have felt all alone.
I really appreciate the digital conversations on this substack.
Hey Jack, a “postmodern localism,” that’s a helluva phrase! I do wonder, like you, whether the “as long as we leave each other alone, then all can be well” is even possible, but moreover, whether it’s desirable. At this stage of history, globalization has transmitted knowledge all around the Earth and to every corner, and I fear that once we’ve seen other ways of being and thinking, we can’t unsee them. In other words, I have a hard time envisioning that a return to localism wouldn’t be stained (maybe enhanced?) by ideas in the idea space that in the past wouldn’t have easily found their way into hermetically-sealed cultures. If I had to make a case for the benefits of globalization—a tough ask—I’d say that the information exchange has been remarkable. Maybe too much is known, actually. But I do wonder about the long-term effects of all that knowledge floating around, post-collapse or otherwise. I wonder as well whether the “y’all do you, we’ll do we” format simply has to go, a relic of an age that can no longer exist.
I'll save my powder for next time, but I'll just say that this is a book which is a clear-eyed analysis of a failed system, in my view, rather than a proposal for replacing it. My view has long been that the notion of replacing systems is part of the problem, and the book hints at that, suggesting that liberalism is an ideology more than anything else. I'd say the future is probably patchwork. From what I can see, Deneen seems to be flirting with these 'Catholic integralists' who seem to be popular amongst some American conservatives. Frankly I can't see rule by the Pope taking off in 21st century America. But more to the point, a writer can be good at analysing a problem without necessarily being good at proposing a solution. I'm rather better at the former myself, but this might at least in part be because there is no one 'solution', certainly not one that can be drawn up by intellectuals. But you make good points about the obvious benefits of liberalism for all of us, which I will certainly address.
“Replacing systems in part of the problem.” That’s helpful Paul. I’ve been thinking on this a lot lately, prodded by Tyson Yunkaporta, who said something to the effect of “There are no solutions; solutions-based thinking is a symptom of the problem.” He talks about the ways we might interact differently that could generate emergent patterns at the collective (vis a vis complexity theory, though he’s aboriginal and starts from his cultural teachings). If you haven’t come across his book, Sand Talk, it’s a stunning and idiosyncratic read (though, and I say this to everyone, it’s quite inconsistent, and the first chapter is the worst of the book, so be sure to get past it).
Thanks! I look forward to some great reading. A new Sub that is, I think, challenging the assumptions of the Machine is HumbleKnowledge.substack.com It is exploring how we do and should think about what we can know. This matters when we are faced by a Machine that assumes its own omniscience.
Thanks for your writing once more. Regarding the course where you will be teaching, a general remark: entry to the US is not allowed to non-Americans or non- residents who are unvaccinated… this is very is that expected to change before the course?
Paul, first of all thank you - I have just recently subscribed to the Abbey of Misrule and have read all of your articles. Inspiring stuff.
I'd just take issue with your apparent concern at "the birds ... singing mating songs" in February. Autumn and winter song is normal in our resident bird species, especially after the winter solstice. For some historical perspective see H.G. Alexander's "A Chart of Bird Song" from the 1930s: https://britishbirds.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/article_files/V29/V29_N07/V29_N07_P190_198_A037.pdf
The only species I've ever noted singing outside the months recorded by H.G. Alexander is Blackbird (Turdus merula) which I've heard in full song on November nights under artificial light in Belfast and Newry (Northern Ireland). Birdsong always cheers my soul whatever time of year I hear it - there is no need to be concerned about hearing it in February - that's quite normal. Apparently the old belief was that most resident birds were paired up by St Valentine's Day. This year I've already seen Collared Doves copulating and a Woodpigeon nest-building - again totally normal for those species. Writing from currently snowy Fermanagh.
Edit: I should have clarified that I meant "resident" species - On 1st March 2019 I heard a Blackcap (Sylvia atricapilla) singing at Stoneleigh Railway Station in Surrey - over a month before our breeding Blackcaps generally return. But wintering Blackcaps were scarce or unknown in H.G. Alexander's day.
Oddly, here I was sitting in my reading chair, avoiding going out in the rain to feed the livestock, when I thought, it is about time PK sent out some kind of update. After a few minutes I wandered into the room where my computer sits, fired it up to see if the weather app confirmed what my eyes told me, that it was raining. While doing that I checked my email. Thanks for that, PK. Now I have more things to read while avoiding my duties. Cheers,
There is no such thing as a coincidence.
Thanks Paul! To "For all the horrors of the Internet..." I'd add "for all the anonymity of the internet.." even though there is more feedback/interaction on substack than on say releasing audio podcasts (where there is none), you only see the tip of the tip of the iceberg. Am writing purely to emphasise that your words, your smorgasbord of ideas spreads far and wide and not just the ideas for the fellow-traveller-ness of sharing your journey through the civilisational ruins. This heart connection and sense that us fellow, if atomised, travelers are not alone existentially. Historically of course society based in space rather than cyberspace meant one was physically close to others - now the people we are "close" to we will most likely never see.
Long story short just to emphasise what I am sure you know but it never hurts to send gratitude and praise - thank you for making us less existentially lonely in a time of division, decline and fall. Live long and prosper.
At the very end you mention Freedom to Care circles. I have been to two, looking forward to the 3rd one this Saturday. For anyone who is pushed to the brink- by the gaslighting, by the lies, by the uncertainty, by fear-- come! For anyone who has discovered that the only thing we know for sure, is the wisdom of our heart, come!
Thank you, Paul. As one who routinely expands my (Orthodox) parish's website with "festal resource pages" filled with loads of embedded links for further reading, I appreciate the occasional gift of these collections from you. Imbued as they are with hope and purpose, they are always welcomed!
Thank you Paul! I would be very interested to see any recommendations you have for children’s literature, and education in general. Like many parents, I am newly embarked on a homeschool adventure. It is wonderful, but can be stressful now that you’ve convinced me to turn such a critical eye on the stories we tell!
Another homeschooling parent here throwing out ideas. Watership Down is really good, also The Princess and the Goblin or The Light Princess by George MacDonald. We just finished Heidi which has its ridiculous romantic side but is still a lovely story, too. I'd love to hear other families' favorites.
A few more:
Five Children and It
The Trolls by Polly Horvath
Along Came a Dog by Meindert De Jong
The Mysterious Benedict Society
The Arabian Nights
My mom talked me into reading (the 500-page) 'Watership Down' when I was 7. Formative experience for sure. Though I'm not sure anyone would want their kid turning out like I have. ;) I recommended it back when Paul was soliciting ideas for the Scriptorium.
Another book that can give kids a sense of the tragic dimensions of life would be 'Bridge to Terabithia'.
Few random ideas:
- The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
- The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
- Rascal: A Memoir of a Better Era (Sterling North)
- The World of Chas Addams
Paul, thank you for recommending my writing, what an honor!!
You and Paul have both been beacons and it is marvelous to see this connection.
No honour, just solidarity. Keep going!
Thank you! I am smiling from ear to ear as I am typing this. :)
Hi Paul -- You know that Candlemas is the traditional beginning of spring?
It was St Bridget's day here on 1st Feb, which is also the traditional start date. But things have been 'springing' around here much earlier than usual, and the winter has been strangely mild.
I wonder how strange it really should be at this point. None of us have ever experienced a climate collapse before so we don't know quite how this is going to unfold, but milder winters at least should be unsurprising.
They sneak up on you and then quickly pounce, the consequences. I watched my children become climate refugees back in 2017 when the megadrought-fueled Northern California wildfires burned the family home to the ground. The way I tend to think of it now: everyone is going to have a story—likely multiple stories—like this in the form of the floods, the wildfires, the failed harvest, the heatwave, the tornado, the atmospheric river, the hurricane, the grid collapse from the arctic trough, the firenado, etc.
We should probably find a catch-all for it. William Gibson has coined "the jackpot" (https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jackpot_trilogy). It should probably be simply called The Reckoning.
I'm definitely not surprised. In fact I would be surprised if we suddenly had what I would have regarded as a child as a 'normal' winter. We don't have the kind of extreme weather events you describe in these parts: so far it's been more of a notceable but steady warming, especailly in winter. Mind you, if the gulf stream shuts down, the west of Ireland will become positively Canadian, at which point things will get interesting ...
Ireland has been tipped as one of the countries best positioned to ride out common social collapse scenarios (https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/ireland-one-of-world-s-best-five-places-to-survive-global-societal-collapse-1.4633726), including climate-induced collapses.
I've only been in Galway City for 3 days now and the dreaded Galway winter weather I was warned about is... not so dreadful at all. Maybe I lucked out and missed the last of the terrible Galway winters for awhile. After decades in parched and relentlessly sunny Northern California I really can't get enough of the rain and lush greenery in this country. If I had to use one word to describe Ireland it would be "alive".
It's been a very mild Galway winter! Often we have big storms, but this year it's been very calm.
I didn't realise you were in Galway. If you are in the country for a while, do make a trip to the Burren. It's a magical landscape on many levels.
I'm in the country to stay. Was losing credibility with friends and family in the States after threatening emigration to Ireland for so long and not having done so. I've had citizenship for over a decade courtesy an Irish granny and seven years gathering and submitting supporting paperwork to get my foreign birth registration certificate and passport. So there, done.
The Burren, oh yes, so much of the country still to see. Can't wait to do so once I finish these rounds of interviews to replace my Silicon Valley tech job with... an Irish tech job. It is to weep, but I'm not qualified to do anything else.
"For all the horrors of the Internet, this little e-cosystem is throwing up some interesting writers and thinkers who are challenging the assumptions of the Machine."
This is true, and something I hoped would happen. To that end, I thought I'd give your friend Martin Shaw a go. St. Brendan the Navigator is an excellent place to start. I keep telling myself, "at some point, I'm going to have to leave the faux-adventure of the virtual world completely and take all the good things I've learned with me, and see what, if anything, can help restore wildness, connection and sanity."
What is our equivalent of St. Brendan's voyage in the hypermediated, atomized postmodern metamachine world? It can't simply be that of leaving comments on the internet? But does it have to be so literally a physical voyage? That's probably the least of it. I say this, alas, as I am not so young. But what is it?
I think about the book I've mentioned, The Inner Restoration of Christianity. I think that is a good candidate. But a lonely one for many of us. How to share the inner path with others? Where are the guides? Are we on our own?
The Hermit's Song
I wish, O Son of the living God, O ancient, eternal King,
For a hidden little hut in the wilderness that it may be my dwelling. An all-grey lithe little lark to be by its side,
A clear pool to wash away sins through the grace of the Holy Spirit.
Quite near, a beautiful wood around it on every side,
To nurse many-voiced birds, hiding it with its shelter.
A southern aspect for warmth, a little brook across its floor,
A choice land with many gracious gifts such as be good for every plant.
A few men of sense we will tell their number
Humble and obedient. to pray to the King :
Four times three, three times four, fit for every need,
Twice six in the church, both north and south :
Six pairs besides myself
Praying for ever the King who makes the sun shine.
A pleasant church and with the linen altar-cloth, a dwelling for God from Heaven;
Then, shining candles above the pure white Scriptures.
One house for all to go to for the care of the body,
Without ribaldry, without boasting, without thought of evil.
This is the husbandry I would take, I would choose, and will not hide it:
Fragrant leek, hens, salmon, trout, bees.
Raiment and food enough for me from the King of fair fame,
And I to be sitting for a while praying God in every place.
Anyway. Thank you for the recommendations.
Martin Shaw actually did a book a few years back, with the late poet Tony Hoagland, which was a translation of old Celtic poetry. I can't remember the title now (it's published by Grawolf) but it had a version of this poem in I think. Great book.
I actually have that book. It is packed away at the moment. I might try and dig it out. It seems relevant.
I am in a big transition point in my life right now. A chance--at least a chance--to do things differently. I have been thinking a lot about what might come next. (yes, and I am inflicting such "thinking" on this substack at the moment. whoops.)
Do you have a shortlist of books to start on storytelling and myth? I am actually interested in your course on rewilding words. Once I am more settled. Do I qualify as a "founding member"?
It seems that our current situation, i.e., the globalist elites and their Great Reset and the resurgent desire for community and localism, is ripe for a telling in terms of a wild and deep myth. Not simply a manichean tale of good vs. evil. Something more than that. Something far more than that...
I don't know if these are the right questions - though I've asked them myself for years and years.
If there's a value to what I/we are doing here, it is in stimulating thinking, putting things into perspective, and helping to understand the shape of the world we're in and what might be coming. That's why I do it anyway. I'm not under the illusion that I can change the shape or direction of it. So what is the work? It's different for us all, but I think Brendan's voyage might be a good metaphor. I don't think humans have changed much over the last 10,000 years. In the last year I've seen mobs forming that are probably similar to the ones who called for Christ to be nailed up. Systems change, but people don't, much. So surely the voyage has to be internal as well as external. I've found myself that you can flee physically but remain the same wherever you are. The Machine is both without and within. These days I think that inner freedom is a precursor to outer freedom. Easier said than done of course. But maybe this is the point of prayer.
Hi Paul, I’ll be very interested in what you write about Deneen’s “Why Liberalism Failed.” I finished it a couple of weeks ago and have suffered many sleepless nights since wondering if I harbor the wrong analysis of virtually everything. I find his premises and his critiques hard to argue against. However, I also fear where his take-down leads: are we flirting with a kind of Christian authoritarianism/fascism to replace liberalism? I’ve watched a lot of Deneen’s talks recently, and while I don’t hear evidence from him directly that he’s pursuing such ends, a lot of his fellow post-liberal writers are much more explicit that they are. Deneen is writing a new book that visits Aristotle’s political philosophies, so that ought to be an interesting addition that may fill in more of the blanks he left with his scathing critique. But, I’m very interested in what you make of the possibilities that could replace, or strongly amend, liberalism. Like you, I’ve been a longtime fan of Wendell Berry, and I know there’s much in that worldview to recommend returning to localism. I am, however, unclear how such a move would also impact people who have been at least politically and socially freed by liberalism (such as myself, having a serious disability). Please consider taking that head-on!
I was also rocked by Deneen's book. He is quite vague at the end of the book as to his preferred alternative to liberalism. As I recall, he praises Rod Dreher's Benedict Option. Deneen is also a longtime contributor to The Front Porch Republic--which promotes localism.
I tend towards a kind of localism myself. The problem I have with it is that it is, in the age of globalist gigantism--something of a dead letter. Given who trade, energy, finance, economics, politics, computing systems, etc., increasingly dwarf local efforts, short of permanent collapse, I don't know how any robust localism can emerge. I hope I am wrong.
Maybe I am being far too simplistic about this. But the real political struggle is about who gets to benefit from the metamachine emerging before us in real time. Such times of radical shifts are almost invariably bloody and chaotic. I hope I am wrong.
Agreed: the call to localism is a tough fit (though not so much a tough sell) in the age of homogenizing metamachines. I do think we'll see more experiments on this front in the Western world, though they'll be outpaced and probably swallowed up in most instances. I think the call to localism carries the benefit of being the moral move, insofar as it seems to be the only form that could possibly produce people who live within ecological limits. Honestly, I think there will be many collapses soon despite the encroaching metamachines, and in the past those periods of chaos have produced highly decentralized and vernacular cultural forms, so laying the template now does have its uses. However, I want to hear from the proponents of this template: how, in fact, might you envision dealing with dissent and deviance? It's not enough for me that people who philosophize on such subjects stay vague in that regard. Because for all its faults, Western Liberalism certainly provides some ability to dissent and deviate without being killed, and I consider that a prized value. I hear you that the political struggle maybe ought to be about "who gets to benefit from the metamachine emerging before us in real time," but I find it almost too depressing to consider that the metamachine is the only viable superstructure beneath which we can do politics (even if that means I have to remain delusional about what's possible).
These are all great questions. How much of our easy "individualism" will have to go out the window, for localism to work. We may have to learn to sing from the same hymnal again, certainly metaphorically and probably literally.
I think you might be right that we are going to experience many collapses; not only in spite of, but probably because of the encroaching metamachines. The Great Reset may yield the opposite of what the resetters intend.
And that may just be it: people will resist coming together in significant ways until there are no further alternatives. Then we'll start thinking more urgently about planting gardens and going "Amish".
I think there are many things we all can do in the meantime to prepare. It would be great if some of us learned how to farm and just basically learned valuable skills. I know I am fairly useless in the regard. But we can also start telling the kind of deeper stories than can and do shift our imagination and intentions. Like you said, we can envision alternatives...alternatives that hopefully offer a more fully human life here and now.
I think this is what brought us the Abbey of Misrule.
For a deep dive into the localism question I highly recommend this gem: https://smallfarmfuture.org.uk/
This looks great. Thank you, I have spent a fair amount of time reading entries in Lean Logic. A lot to ponder.
Oh man, Jack, I wrote a long and thoughtful response, and then it evaporated into the electromagnetic ether before I could post it. Alas, it’s godspeed for now, and look forward to future chats.
Steven- I hate when that happens. If inspiration strikes again, I would love to hear your thoughts. Be well.
Localism is always the way forward, but of course is always also rolled over by the Machine. Twas ever thus.
But here's the question: what are 'we' trying to do here? Live well and be true, or create a working template for the whole country/world to live by? The latter is the Klaus Schwab worldview. It can only operate with a big control system buoying it up.
Interestingly, in Schwab's Great Reset book, which I wrote about before Christmas, he addresses the question of those who dissent against the Reset. He says we can expect many people to just walk away - to go and try to live off grid, to localise, as we are discussing here. He basically concludes that they should be left alone, but that of course they will then not receive the benefits of his Reset. They will not be able to access money, many shops, etc etc, because all these things will be linked by chips and the internet of bodies and things. So we have a two-tier society: the chipped and the unchipped. Very H G Wells.
Personally I think it will all start coming apart long before any such Reset is achieved on any scale, and spaces will open which we can enter to start to live differently. But yes, individualism, a proudct of liberalism and fossil fuels, will have to go. That will be a hard one: or perhaps not. Perhaps our generations, who grew up on it, will be gone by then. Cheery thoughts!
Sometimes our individualism seems not much more than consumerism capitalism applied to anthropology. (maybe, you've said this before?) But for all our focus on each our own particular, unrepeatable "journey" we really live in an age of mass conformism. The herd of independent minds, as it were.
We don't do well with actual non-conformists, generally. The trick is to only "challenge" things in the socially-approved way. That way one can be both a rebel and "iconoclast" (interesting choice of word) and get rewarded by the Machine for doing it's actual bidding. Which is to tear down everything that stands in the way of the free, unimpeded operation of the Machine. And call it liberation.
One of the greatest marketing coups of our time is convincing people that they need all the consumer signifiers of being a rugged individualist; someone who is beyond such manipulation. I know I certainly fell for it, and probably still do, alas. I must admire, in a way, the audacity of such a marketing ploy.
Once we were conditioned to that, it was fairly easy to get us to go along with pretty much anything.
Paul Simon called it the Myth of Fingerprints. That is why we must learn to live alone.
I am on a roll. Sorry about that!
There is a kind of postmodern localism. These people, in this place, with this history find a modus vivendi. Others in a different situation will find a different path. Even if I don't like what others are doing, as long as we leave other alone, then all can be well.
The question I keep coming back to is whether or not we are able to leave each other alone. The human track record is kind of bleak, in that regard.
Post-collapse, will we simply revert to an "earlier" stage of history and social relationships (if such there be) or will we retain what the hard lessons of our many recent failures.
Maybe those are the kind of stories we need to start telling in the form of deep myth. How we keep these lessons in front of us, how not to forget them. I am interested in your own sense of that and your friend Martin Shaw, too.
I know I have been captured by a para-scholarly approach to this question. It seems to me that deconstruction is baked into the scholarly cake. A mode of discourse ("mode of discourse" itself being a mode of scholarly discourse) that requires the printing press to really take off. And the internet for it spread down to the likes of me. I probably would be laying brick in a saner age.
How does our narrative start to transform from the ideal of the monograph into deep myth. I am not a writer, nor do I want to be one. But the more storytellers--what I believe the Irish call Seanchai--the better. That interests me.
I think I am feeling this deep myth. It is very fuzzy but I will only clear things up by a slow process of living into them. I'm reading an old biography of John Woolman that I found in my meeting's library. His life is giving me light. I am groping my way toward understanding how to live consistently with the light that has already been revealed to me. Our modern world needs people to walk the path and also tell the story... but the story is there I believe, it is the walking that people long to see/don't often see.
I'm attracted to the idea of a life without the internet or computer. I was a late comer to the whole thing and haven't depended on it much until recently. But now, during the covid time, it has been the only way to get outside opinions. I know several elderly friends who don't use internet and they have no access at all to alternative narratives. The local radio and newspapers are following the official narrative to the extreme. I wonder if the nasty internet is becoming essential to me? I wonder if I would have "known" what was going on without this mode of communication. I would certainly have felt all alone.
I really appreciate the digital conversations on this substack.
Hey Jack, a “postmodern localism,” that’s a helluva phrase! I do wonder, like you, whether the “as long as we leave each other alone, then all can be well” is even possible, but moreover, whether it’s desirable. At this stage of history, globalization has transmitted knowledge all around the Earth and to every corner, and I fear that once we’ve seen other ways of being and thinking, we can’t unsee them. In other words, I have a hard time envisioning that a return to localism wouldn’t be stained (maybe enhanced?) by ideas in the idea space that in the past wouldn’t have easily found their way into hermetically-sealed cultures. If I had to make a case for the benefits of globalization—a tough ask—I’d say that the information exchange has been remarkable. Maybe too much is known, actually. But I do wonder about the long-term effects of all that knowledge floating around, post-collapse or otherwise. I wonder as well whether the “y’all do you, we’ll do we” format simply has to go, a relic of an age that can no longer exist.
I'll save my powder for next time, but I'll just say that this is a book which is a clear-eyed analysis of a failed system, in my view, rather than a proposal for replacing it. My view has long been that the notion of replacing systems is part of the problem, and the book hints at that, suggesting that liberalism is an ideology more than anything else. I'd say the future is probably patchwork. From what I can see, Deneen seems to be flirting with these 'Catholic integralists' who seem to be popular amongst some American conservatives. Frankly I can't see rule by the Pope taking off in 21st century America. But more to the point, a writer can be good at analysing a problem without necessarily being good at proposing a solution. I'm rather better at the former myself, but this might at least in part be because there is no one 'solution', certainly not one that can be drawn up by intellectuals. But you make good points about the obvious benefits of liberalism for all of us, which I will certainly address.
“Replacing systems in part of the problem.” That’s helpful Paul. I’ve been thinking on this a lot lately, prodded by Tyson Yunkaporta, who said something to the effect of “There are no solutions; solutions-based thinking is a symptom of the problem.” He talks about the ways we might interact differently that could generate emergent patterns at the collective (vis a vis complexity theory, though he’s aboriginal and starts from his cultural teachings). If you haven’t come across his book, Sand Talk, it’s a stunning and idiosyncratic read (though, and I say this to everyone, it’s quite inconsistent, and the first chapter is the worst of the book, so be sure to get past it).
I look forward to exploring your suggestions. Another writer I enjoy these days is John Waters "unchained" on substack. cheers
Thanks! I look forward to some great reading. A new Sub that is, I think, challenging the assumptions of the Machine is HumbleKnowledge.substack.com It is exploring how we do and should think about what we can know. This matters when we are faced by a Machine that assumes its own omniscience.
Thanks Paul! I signed up for Rhyd’s sub stack as a paid subscriber. Great and deep insights on individuals whom the political is the personal.
Thanks for your writing once more. Regarding the course where you will be teaching, a general remark: entry to the US is not allowed to non-Americans or non- residents who are unvaccinated… this is very is that expected to change before the course?
Paul, first of all thank you - I have just recently subscribed to the Abbey of Misrule and have read all of your articles. Inspiring stuff.
I'd just take issue with your apparent concern at "the birds ... singing mating songs" in February. Autumn and winter song is normal in our resident bird species, especially after the winter solstice. For some historical perspective see H.G. Alexander's "A Chart of Bird Song" from the 1930s: https://britishbirds.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/article_files/V29/V29_N07/V29_N07_P190_198_A037.pdf
The only species I've ever noted singing outside the months recorded by H.G. Alexander is Blackbird (Turdus merula) which I've heard in full song on November nights under artificial light in Belfast and Newry (Northern Ireland). Birdsong always cheers my soul whatever time of year I hear it - there is no need to be concerned about hearing it in February - that's quite normal. Apparently the old belief was that most resident birds were paired up by St Valentine's Day. This year I've already seen Collared Doves copulating and a Woodpigeon nest-building - again totally normal for those species. Writing from currently snowy Fermanagh.
Edit: I should have clarified that I meant "resident" species - On 1st March 2019 I heard a Blackcap (Sylvia atricapilla) singing at Stoneleigh Railway Station in Surrey - over a month before our breeding Blackcaps generally return. But wintering Blackcaps were scarce or unknown in H.G. Alexander's day.