I tend to avoid ever calling myself a "supporter" of any politician because there are always things about each of them that I have trouble with. I am willing to accept in most cases that one seems like the better choice over the other.
But yes, I voted Trump in 2016, in 2020, and again this time, and in each case felt like I was making the right choice, even if not an easy one or one free of issues. Like you, since he was sworn in last Monday I've felt a bit like he's restored order in some ways while at the same time resisting the temptation to dance on the chipping away at the harmful parts of Leftism that he's done.
In the end, I think about the part of the divine liturgy where we pray for the president and the armed forces (at least at my parish, I'm not sure if this is common everywhere). We prayed that a few weeks ago before the guy I voted for was in office, and we're still praying it now. And, God willing, I'll still stand at liturgy and say the same prayer for many, many more years.
Can I ask why? In which ways he's restored order? I'm genuinely curious. My primary concerns are for the environment and the economy (by 'the economy' I mean the price of eggs, not the stock market) and it doesn't look to me like his policies are going to affect either positively.
I figured that here, I could probably engage in a civil conversation with curiosity and openness that would not be available on other parts of the internet :).
I must admit, though living in Ireland, that observing the liberal/leftist collective meltdown since the decisive election of President Trump, and his implementation of precisely the platform he stood on, has given me quite a lot of the old "shadow joy". No, I do not hate you, looking at the globalist, traitorous mediocrities in power here in Ireland, I rather envy you.
I knew this subject would prompt a lot of reaction. May I remind those who immediately reverted to quoting scripture regarding not putting our trust in "Princes" etc , that we as Christians are also required to exercise our civic responsibility to make the choice of the lesser of two evils. Abstentionism is not an appropriate response either.
These issues are not in the vain of epistemology, they are our battle against entropy in this world today. The problem with religion is that it engenders religiosity in people and that religious impulse goes where it doesn’t belong. You make it too complex.
Try this on for size: order is good, Anything that brings order is good; disorder is bad and to be avoided. Good fit? Ordinary maintenance governance, let us work on that, perfect that, leave your soul out of it - please for all of us - until and only when you have secured “this day our daily bread. “
I'd argue that "Anything that brings order is good" is machine thinking, as are words like "ordinary maintenance government". (I'm not arguing for chaos, just for thinking un-like the machine). Once you understand that you will understand why many of us we cannot leave our souls out of it :)
See what I wrote above about the word "order" and "command" as being in relation to empire, please. It would probably be useful to check out the etymological history of the word "order", and look at "ordinary" too, because the words are certainly related. But we tend to go nuts, and feel imprisoned when confronted with too much rationalized order, and then.. all hell breaks loose...
Many years ago, when in a period of intense crisis, I pettily complained to the psychoanalyst whose couch I was lying on that my suffering was like a hemorrage that he was offering a bandaid for, and he told me that what I was feeling was... the bitch of living ? waking up in me, and waking me up, too. Basically because I had managed to convince myself that being "dead" was being alive, and being alive, and the suffering that it entailed was synonymous with being sick.
But Machine thinking is all about convincing you that you are sick when you are feeling alive, because it is uncomfortable to feel alive...
So, to conclude, I beware too much order, or... TOO MANY ORDERS FOR TOO MUCH.
Not idolaizing princes is not saying princes don't exist or have good and appropriate places and uses. True of every human being and invention. Good theology corrects bad theology and engenders better, realistic anthropology as well as the proper exercise of our also real responsibilities and powers.
No, I don't think that American political power leads the world at all. I think that American English is the motor of a global empire, and the United States, as the place of origin of American English, is swept up in the phenomenon of empire that it has little control over.
For information : in French, the word "order" is "commande", and the word "empire" comes from the Latin "imperium" which goes along with the IMPERATIVE mode, which is all about commanding. But in French, when you PLACE AN ORDER, and not when you make one... you still use the word "commande", so... that means that empire is right there with you, doesn't it ?(And you notice that the same thing happens when you use the word "order", right ?...)
In my opinion it does. It is an empire of consuming and consumers, making and placing orders, isn't it ? And Trump and the others are the lackeys of this empire, right ? You can see this empire on the infamous Am site, in the generalization of the word "product" for EVERYTHING that YOU CAN ORDER. But it is not just on the Am site... I hear the word in everybody's mouth, too.
By the way, the Internet has made the commodification of the written and spoken word possible to a degree that we couldn't even dream of a few years ago. And artificial intelligence is rather secondary next to this problem.
“Power is habitual obedience; regime change is a structured discontinuity in the habits of obedience. It must never be forgotten that regime change is a change to obeying something else.”
“ Force never disappears from the world. It just changes his hands.”
“ effective and dignified: the operational organs of the regime as opposed to the ceremonial organs of the regime”
All above quotes by Curtis Yarvin. I think you would greatly benefit by reading his “brief explanation of the cathedral” on Substack.
You’re considerable knowledge about the etymology of words is impressive but when people use words, they are deployed to deceive, not always, but likely 99% of the time. The meaning of words is the dignified and ceremonial meaning (your argument) but power transacts at the level of effective and operational which is to say meaning is Tertiary to #1effect and #2 affect.
Sincerely . A brief explanation of the cathedral will change how you view the world. You seem interested in the nature of power. Curtis has explained the mechanism of every human polity: “the selective advantage of dominant ideas and the inability of recessive ideas to compete.”
You are smart, but you’re missing that one vital piece . Please don’t take insult.
"Put not your trust in princes or any son of man in whom there is no salvation." The perfect Psalmic (second antiphon) reminder for every political season in our OCA Divine Liturgy. It calls us to resist every invitation to political idolatry so we can also avoid the disappointments sure to follow. Cracked human vessels can still carry water and we should give tempered thanks for whatever good things God does through them. A good problem, Jared.
While wokie meltdowns are fun to watch, I'm afraid I'm of the opinion that Trump has been anointed by Globo-Cap to take the US, and possibly the world, through the next stage that involves Digital ID and everything that goes with it, Machine-wise. He's just going to do it a different way. And he has to get people's trust first by doing a few things he promised (I'm not suggesting he isn't for those things or that he doesn't see himself as embodying the US, in the way that Putin sees himself as embodying Russia).
We'll see where he stands on CBDCs etc. when the Bank for International Settlements threatens to turn off the money tap. Nations with unpayable debts are not sovereign (whereas the BIS, interestingly, has sovereign immunity, like the UN). Never forget the Fat Controller telling you what they're going to do and why.
There may be more fake plagues, bird flu being desperately pushed for some time now, but there are other contenders, so we'll see what sticks - invisible bird flu is definitely their best bet and allows them to attack the food supply as a bonus - 'he who controls the food supply controls the world' - paraphrasing! But immigration control is a great way to get the MAGA faction on board with Digital ID.
He's still to say 'sorry guys, that Warp Speed injection I took the credit for has now killed millions worldwide' and he's aligned himself with a mega-billionaire satanist who wants to put chips in your brain and is best mates with Peter Thiel (Palantir).
So, hmmmm .... Put not thy faith in princes. Or billionaires. Or businessmen who were bailed out in the 90s by the Rockefellers and Rothschilds who, I'm sure, would never ask for anything in return. *cough*
I supported Trump in theory. I am feeling less comfortable about it now.
The way he is doing things does not seem in line with what I perceived to be a sensible return from woke/left ideologies. Alas, the pendulum will swing and in today's world, it seems the pendulum will defy physics and increase in momentum bath and forth until it all falls to pieces.
Social media (X in particular) is not a good reflection of peoples' true values (a good reminder for me to stay off). But things are looking ugly and I'm reminded of my prayer and work to do in this life, leaving what I cannot control alone.
I don't like that the AI focus is so strong to make sure the US doesn't fall behind other countries or entities, which will likely mean there will be no effort to expose AI as evil. After all, it is an Unthinking and Unspirited compilation of available words shared on media. And the programming seems to be skewable.
I recently listened to an interview with Iben Tranholm a Danish Catholic theologian /journalist. She has a warning to us in the US not to worship Trump. I think she irritated some listeners who (me included) are so happy to see him dismantling the sickening abuse of power we have been subjected to...on the other hand I do feel she has a point..the pendulum can swing too far right too.
She makes some valid points about how politics dominate our religious institutions to their great detriment. This is not what we are here to do...make the world suit our ideologies.
I voted in good conscience for a third-party candidate from the American Solidarity Party. I teach at a community college, with genuinely wonderful colleagues, all of whom voted for Harris. Many of my family/in-laws, also genuinely wonderful people, voted for Trump.
The main thing that bothers me about Trump is his hypocritical use of Christianity to get elected. I understand this is the case for many politicians, but it has seemed especially egregious with him.
I'm pretty nervous about Trump's alliance with the tech CEOs, especially with the emphasis on the development of AI. I'm not really sure the folks on that side are having serious conversations about what this "arms race" and seemingly unthinking advancement towards AI technology prevalence will have on the people on this planet.
I'm not an RFJK fan, per se, but I'm interested to see what happens with some of the health initiatives he's discussing, particularly regarding food.
Yes indeed: 'God saved me to save America' plus a Musk-ite obsession with AI and advancing the Machine ... I will be writing something about this soon.
The reason they're talking about food in their health-initiatives epiphany is to avoid talking about 'vaccines'. Watch the covid operation being memory-holed.
When they say 'look over here', you need to look at what they don't want you to look at.
Yep! But the 'powers that shouldn't be' do it more than the peasantry, as they have more reason.
Although, having said that, the collective loss of memory about the UK/US illegally invading a sovereign country and killing a million of its people a mere 2 decades ago, while they fulminate about Putin being 'literal Hitler' (when it was the CIA/US State Department's Maidan coup (take a bow, Ms Nuland) that started America's proxy war with Russia in 2014 anyway) is pretty widespread. The hypocrisy is eye-watering.
🎯 perfect. This is the nature of power. With power, you can do anything you want you don’t even have to hide it . This is why religious people in their religiosity are effectively useless in this realm. Jimmy Carter comes to mind completely ineffectual
No. There is no erasing the past. It is always there, and it always manages to find its way out from under the carpet somehow. This is our human modus operandi... And the words are always there to ensure that it will come out from under the carpet, and... THEY don't lie...
If I was American I wouldn't vote Trump. I can't concede he is doing the right things. But I wouldn't concede that of Biden either. No I don't feel sorry for you or hate you. I thought your post was interesting.
This is an odd statement. Over 50% of the country didn't vote for Trump. I was one of them. It's not because I'm a fan of the other side (I'm not) and it's not because I disagree with all his policies (I don't). What I can't condone is this nonsensical philosophy in America's politics of "policy over personality." I had one Trump supporter tell me that he wouldn't want Trump alone with his daughter, but he thinks he has some great policy ideas. How is this real life?! How did we make this shift? How have we come to a place where the morality and character of a person is irrelevant, so long as they have some bright ideas? Is not the heart at the center of everything? "For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks." Can we trust that decisions about education and the environment and immigration and foreign relations and nuclear warfare will be grounded and well balanced, with any ounce of love and compassion for humanity, when the President has proven so often to be filled with hate and malevolence, greed and fear? For me, the answer to this last was No.
Well, perhaps my view is tinged a bit by the fact that I was fired because of the illegal vaxx mandates, my finances destroyed, while not being hired by anybody for four years because of being a white male. I did not have the luxury to be philosophical about this. Yes. Retribution!
I'm sorry that happened to you, and yes, I'm sure that experience would make you eager for a change. I still don't trust Trump or his motivations (never in his life, prior to running for president, did he show any sympathy for the "working man"), and it feels like we're at risk of the pendulum swinging too far back the other way, with white men riding high and mighty while the (legal) immigrant and brown person gets a boot in the face and a place in the back of the bus. Of course even this division between you and me is a win for the evil powers that be, both political and spiritual. No one wins when the world is in this state.
True. If nothing else, the experience of the last 4 years made me better understand the events of the French or the Bolshevik revolutions. Sometimes you just want to hear the sweet, wet sound of guillotines, evil powers be damned. And, as Homer Simpson once said: "If I'm wrong, I'll recant on my deathbed."
Michael Murphy said Donald Trump never showed any sympathy for the working man prior to running for election.. I heard this anecdote first hand from a family member. One of my cousins, like many Irish young people was working in construction in New York in the mid 1990s. Him and his workmates were eating their lunch in and around the construction site on a rainy day. The site was visited by Donald Trump and his real estate business team to view progress on the refit of this older building which they had commissioned. Trump asked a the site manager about workers eating in and around the site, and said he wasn't satisfied with that situation. . The next week Trump's business made arrangements with a nearby hotel that a hot meal be on offer, and an event room booked for use by the sites workers as a dining area for the remaining time of the work. My cousin related that story to me long before Trump stood for office.
On Monday I listened to "Playing Shakespeare", a DVD that came out in the 1980's ? in the good old Shakespearean days, and there was a scene from "Richard II" that caught my fancy.
Here is the quote. The scene is between Richard II, a young, flighty king who was foolish enough to pay too much attention to the flatterers around him, and lost his common sense under the pressure of his royal function, and Henry Bollingbroke, a noble whose lands he seized, who, after raising an army to get his own back discovers that his success has "earned" him that unfortunate, unwieldy, deadly crown that he did not initially want.
From "Richard II" by William (Shakespeare), a dialogue between the deposed Richard, and the usurping Bolingbroke :
Richard : Give me the glass (the mirror)., and therein will I read.
No deeper wrinkles yet ? Hath sorrow struck
So many blows upon this face of mine
And made no deeper wounds ? O flattering glass,
Like to my followers in prosperity
Thou dost beguile me ! Was this face the face
That every day under his household roof
Did keep ten thousand men ? Was this the face
That like the sun did make beholders wink ?
Was this the face that faced so many follies
And was at last oufaced by Bolingbroke ?
A brittle glory shineth in this face.
As brittle as the glory is the face,
(Dashes the glass to the floor)
For there it is, cracked in a hundred shivers.
Mark, silent king, the moral of this sport --
How soon my sorrow hath destroyed my face.
Bolingbroke : The shadow of your sorrow hath destroyed
The shadow of your face." IV, i, 279-293
To this, I could continue with the idea that all the world's a stage, but the political world is particularly a stage. Our... "actors" are definitely strutting and fretting their hour on it...
There is definitely a lot of strutting and fretting going on these days, and not just among our political leaders, either.
I find it truly fascinating that people like the guy. My father, who is one of the kindest and most honest people I've met, and who is against nearly everything Trump does (cheating on wives, sexual assault, taking advantage of people, feigning Christianity for personal gain, pompousness, lying, etc) has also been a Trump supporter, so it just goes to show, perhaps, how far apart we all are.
But I suppose that a lot of people are attracted to someone who seems like a strong leader--and a lot of people revealing their daddy issues: "daddy's back. and he's taking off his belt." -mel gibson. "Daddy's home."-Lauren Boebert.
As for me, I couldn't vote for either. I couldn't vote for Harris because I don't like District Attorneys, and because of her enthusiastic support for the genocide in Gaza (and i hope Biden is haunted for eternity by every child maimed and killed by his bombs sent to Israel). And couldn't vote for Trump, because, well, though I have no love for the American Government, I don't appreciate it being dismantled by the Proud Boys or the billionaires.
As a medical provider, I know that if he successfully stops funding medicaid, it will harm a lot of people. And likewise, if he does enact his tariffs, it will just add an additional tax to average americans buying goods.
I think Trump is having you all on, the master con man! He is lining up his Technocracy (or worse) under the guise of 'Christian Values', he knows he needs to win over the Christians for it to work.
What do you think about his obsession with AI - and that of Musk, his right-hand man (for now?) Or drill baby drill, removing wildlife protections to do so? Seems to me it's Progress on steroids. Is that what you voted for?
I think his obsession with Elon and AI is troubling but not surprising. Im definitely not keen on his views of mRNA vaccines with AI. Who was behind Operation Warp Speed? It is interesting times!!
Thank you for that. Yes those are bad things but they are worth it for the good things that are going to be wrought, for instance, countering Leviathan as per NS Lyon’s China Convergence. Plus as a counter to the bigotry of our betters, oh how they hate us, this profane man is a much needed release valve.
I suppose it depends on your hierarchy of values. Personally I would say the opposite. I think that Trump taking on the woke in the way he has (which I support, and which is certainly entertaining to watch) and getting serious about illegal immigration (which is justified and popular) remain less important than the destruction of the natural world, the further unleashing of 'growth' and the rocket he is putting under the AI demon.
Trump is just another manifestation of the Machine. Looks like you can have the Machine in woke or based flavours - but the destination remains the same.
Yep, perfect retort to my position. You are undoubtedly, correct. I suppose my hierarchy of values are more profane ( not in a pejorative sense) and less, just less than the universal that you pursue. I believe he’ll bring order where discord and immense disorder exists and damn those who created the destruction. Damn them for what they have done.
I don't think my values are universal as such. I mean, do you want your fantastic national parks drilled in or built on? Seems like a case where America First screws America!
The trouble with damning the enemy is that they damn you too. So no order will come, other than by the sword or the rifle. Seems to me that the discord in America (like the discord in England) cannot be attributed to one political wing, though some are worse than others. It's a deeper thing, it's about our values, or lack of them.
I believe in a more muscular response. They Weaponized their luxury beliefs with a bigotry towards their blue collar brethren and then used their unfair advantage to pound us to smithereens all the while calling us imbeciles. No I reject.
It’s about what we value. What I value is often different what my neighbor values and it’s how we handle the differences. There’s trade offs to every decision.
But Trump is banning off shore wind turbines that are killing the Right whale and destroying nearby fisheries. He’s cutting funds to renewables which are no good for the environment. Mining rare earth minerals ravages the earth as well. Turbines use oil. The blades can’t be recycled. Solar is taking up the best farmland in the world. They too can put toxic chemicals into the ground. RFK wants to cut back on pesticides which also do their damage. So there is that.
The Christian position is to love your enemies. That does not imply that you do not have any. It doesn't imply, either, that you do not stand for your beliefs. You do. But with love. Because if you hate your opponent, you become the hatred, and it continues forever.
Schmitian Nomos of the earth, the standards or laws of power are immutable. In this way forward, not hate but love and a good smiting Old Testament style.
I think his obsession with AI is rooted in his desire to be part of something people richer than he are competing to have control of. He understands nothing about it other than there are extremely wealthy and potentially powerful people that are competing in a high-stakes enterprise and he is on the periphery of that which must irritate him. He could care whether it's the US controlling the technology only that he is having a say in how it makes him more powerful and wealthy.
I don't hate you. Christian obligation aside, hate is too draining to indulge in anyone's account. I think Trump may be the worst possible man for the moment (if only because of the techno-feudalists he's enabling), but I have relatives who support him, hunting buddies who support him, and I expect I could find common ground with Abbeyans who support him. It's easy to be detatched about it as I'm not directly threatened by him in any way, yet, though some people and places I care about could be. We'll see what shakes out.
I don't know if this country will again resemble what it was, which isn't all bad. True, it could get a lot worse, but I think there is at least a chance that on the other side of this, some good things could rise from the ashes.
These are specifically for Paul, but anyone who reflects on similar concepts can answer!
1. How have you and your wife reconciled spiritual practices between Sikhism and Christianity?
I think it's beautiful and makes complete sense, but I am curious how, in practice it is reconciled. One of the things I love most about my prayer and connection to God is sharing it with my wife. I'm curious how you have managed that + especially with kids. For context, my mother was raised Hindu and my father Mormon (though neither practiced).
2. Where have you landed on ethics with food (and meat in particular) as it pertains to Christianity?
I am curious how a thoughtful person such as yourself (with environmental and now Christian views) reconciles how food is produced. There are certainly a lot of "Machine" methods. I recently spoke to a Fr after Divine Liturgy, noticing some Vienna sausages on his plate that I, as much as I'm not proud to admit it, judged.
St. Paul’s guidance comes to mind in 1 Corinthians 8 when considering whether to eat meat sacrificed to an idol (in the modern day the idol does seem to be some aspect of the machine).
Also I highly recommend the book “The Marvelous Pigness of Pigs” by farmer Joel Salatin. It is all about the ethics of food from a Christian perspective in a modern world. I wish more Christians would read it.
Thus far, I have settled on this: I eat only wild animals I have hunted myself or where I know how the animal lived and died (ex: a farmer where I can see the animal + go kill it myself rather than having it go to a slaughter facility).
1. We both came, or came back to, religion in midlife, so we have converged on a joint sense of God together. There are obviously important differences between the two religions, but at heart they are in fact very similar in terms of how they require people to behave in the world. So we support each other and it leads to interesting conversations. There's no tension or competition.
2. In our family we have tried for years to eat as well as we can. We grow a lot of our own food, and the meat we eat comes from good sources, much of it from small farmers we know personally. I'm not opposed to meat eating; I think that whatever and however we eat, it needs to be as local and as nature-nurturing as possible. So we do our best.
I've booked for the event in Ireland and very much looking forward to it.
Some thoughts that have arisen over the weeks from listening and reading.
Could the temple in Jerusalem be understood in some way as an example of a kind of early industrialisation, modernity (if that is the right word.... It's not my field so might be using the wrong words)? I can't quite get my head around / feel at all comfortable or fully grasp within theology, the number and style of animal sacrifices there.
East or West, the machine or no machine, and so on, isn't the real issue, that the 'line of good and evil divides the heart of every man'? That this is where we return to, this is the only place we true have agency.
What about the challenge of healthcare and more specifically medicine? I see the machine you describe in the hospitals, even to a degree, hospice care (the movement for hospices to prioritise taking in those for whom complex medical intervention for complex signs and symptoms over those needing nursing care). Are the endeavours of medicine a be litmus test? How many of us could say stop the progress, stop the research, let's just try and fix and improve what we have, even though some of our lives would be shortened. I don't know that I could. Or does medicine lie outside of this? I'm not talking about use of AI in medicine - that is a separate though pressing issue too.
Have changes been made to the length of comments allowed, or am I just a dinosaur who doesn't know how to do things in the world of new and improved ? Could somebody explain to me how to do things under the NEW SYSTEM OF THE (Substack) MACHINE ??
This occurred to me yesterday, and I'm not sure how sound of an observation it is.
I saw a clip from a tech CEO last week (Anthropic?) who was saying that within a few years, AI will hopefully take over 100% of the labor of people. One big "perk" of AI is the idea that nobody will have to work anymore. This seems to be a deliberate human (?) attempt at "reversing" the curse given to Adam in Genesis, in which God says he will eat and live by the sweat of his brow.
This does not seem like too much of a stretch to this reader. It also seems to be anti-human, as we need to make/do things. I can't remember who came up with the term homo faber.
Likewise, we can think of Generative AI as an electronic Golden Calf. Some of us have no intention of bowing down before it.
Marc Andreesen said something very similar on X saying it will be a time of consumer "cornucopia" and those freed from work will spend time creating and helping others. I think he is wrong about the nature of work and is an extreme misjudgement about the motivations and behaviors of people not breathing the same rarefied air as he.
This is one of the biggest things that we are globally fighting about : the place of work in our societies, and after that, work for money. The word that you used is "labor"... does it ring a bell ? It looks like the French "travail", and this word means THE WORK that a woman does to bring a new human being into the world, and which necessarily entails suffering. The word "labor" creates a link between our activity to make money to make a living and the work involved to bring a new life into the world. The result of a multiplication (remember, "be fruitful and multiply" ?) is a "product". Does that ring a bell ? So... what is the relationship involved between the WORKPLACE and what it produces, and our need to be... fruitful ? Whatever we do, there will always be a relationship, in any case. And what we do in one area, in one place, affects what happens in another place. As it turns out, all the... work that we're doing to produce industrial orders/objects seems to have turned into a form of competition with the LABOR that brings new life into the world.
So... the idea of getting around LABOR involves trying to sneak back into the Garden with the idea that We will be able to live in paradise without WORK ?
And in the ancient Greek and Roman world, work, whether for the state or not, as in PUBLIC SERVICE was for slaves. FREE citizens were not supposed to, and could not work.
Oh yes - I am really curious. Perhaps my use of 'do tell' sounded disrespectful or impertinent. If so, then sorry. I am interested in what you mean by 'litterally shifting'. I spent some time considering this phrase and it seems opaque.
Down here in Co. Kerry the Machine world has been hit hard with the weather since the beginning of the year; snow and storms have caused school closures, cancellations and generally made everyone slow down. It's been wonderful! Like the days of covid, we've had more 'family working together' time, plus our little community has been drawn together very much by need. It's such a blessing and makes me feel confident that God knows exactly what He's doing; all He does is for the betterment of our souls.
My one concern is that the weather will prevent me from travelling up to Galway on the 15th! Massively looking forward to the conference Paul! Let's hope He's in favour of it too!
U.S. commenter here. I came to your work, Paul, through your environmental writings, and stayed for your discourses on the Machine. So I will try to keep my comments to current events as they relate to those two topics.
The Trump administration is going to set us - and in this case, by "us" I mean the world - farther behind in addressing the sixth great extinction (species loss) and the climate crisis. To be clear, I believe the Machine has already driven us collectively past the tipping point where humanity could "fix" or "solve" these things. But I still hoped for a slowing down of damage, for harm reduction. I hoped humanity might come to live more simply and locally, by goresight and choice rather than being forced to by elements of societal collapse (from pollinators being out of phase with blooms to widespread market and trade disruptions, etc... everything is connected).
Business-as-usual IS the Machine, and that was certainly true of prior administrations. AND the Trump administration is accelerating the Machine, with its faith in markets and technology (Zuckerberg, Musk et al) and even less ecological literacy than the mainstream (in which it's already pretty low).
I don't consider myself a conservative Christian, but I do understand - and share! - at some level the desire to return to traditional values. The ideology for which Trump is the front man is not the path to that return.
Thanks. I have been watching Trump and co for a while. It's a mixed bag but overall I agree. Some people have got so excited about his 'smashing the woke' and closing the border that they appear to be overlooking the fact that he is a Machine accelerant. Drill baby drill, colonise Mars, turbo-charge AI - is that what you call 'conservatism'? I'd like to hear Wendell Berry's take on it. Yes, business as usual.
Wow...Substack keeps changing. I understand it's probably good for their business, but I'm on the verge of never coming to the website and just reading my few subscriptions in my inbox.
I agree. It is a social media platform and the algorithm they use can be a trigger. It seems to be the notes feature. I tweaked a few things on it and it improved.
Yes, it's definitely social media now, and trying to cover all the features of other social media sites. I'm sure people are getting sucked into endless scrolling here just like they are elsewhere.
I was amazed by how every post in notes was someone linking an article with hyperbolic praise something like, "Totally mind blowing article that every human should read immediately!"
Ha! Yeah, I used to see that quite a bit. In the last day or so, when I click on home, it's almost like Instagram in content. Mostly photos and a lot of fashion stuff - something I have no interest in. Really weird!
I think observing all the billionaires attending the inauguration is telling on what the future holds, but I don’t know. I need to be mindful of keeping my eyes on Christ and not getting too distracted of going down the rabbit holes. God is good and has a plan. I align my views on politics probably close to CJ Hopkins lately but really I like his style and satire.
A bit of a random inquiry, but is the Scriptorium still around?
The reason I am thinking of it is that I am reading <i>A Canticle for Leibowitz</i> and it seems so on topic, with everything from Trump and the biosphere to Paul's recent written meditation on electricity. The book is bittersweet and at time hilarious. I haven't finished it yet (though it won't be long), so please no spoilers. But I do see a strong affinity between the Albertian Order of Leibowitz and the Abbey of Misrule. (In fact, there's a real monastery in the likely vicinity of the fictional one: Christ in the Desert, in New Mexico).
I do have a question. I’m new to Orthodoxy after decades of being a published Christian writer. I yearn to be part of the emergence of contemporary excellent creative literary works with a distinctively Orthodox emphasis. But like many others, I am not presently able to travel to meet with people such as you. I was recently accepted into Paradoxa (zoom-enabled writers associated with DarklyBright Press) and am grateful for that. Do you forecast or intend to create/facilitate groups that would help others like me? Pardon my ignorance if other such groups already exist. Thank you.
Latayne I wonder if you might find support reaching out to Nicholas Kotar, and a school of writing he’s part of. I think Paul Kingsnorth is involved as well. Links below, best wishes!
Paul, I enjoyed listening to your Erasmus lecture on civilizational Christianity and found it very timely in light of the cultural changes that seem to be unfolding in the wake of Trump taking power. I think what the Trump movement is about is primarily a necessary rebalancing of the culture in favor of masculine order after 15 years of being radically unbalanced in favor of the feminine caring & nurturing instinct having gone off the rails and turned toxic. I think a more charitable reading of Jordan Peterson and those who see cultural value in the Christian tradition is that God is both love and truth. Compassion and order. Feminine and male. If we as a culture reject truth in pursuit of misdirected emotional empathy, we end up with mutilated 'trans' kids and elevate the sin of pride into society's greatest supposed virtue. In the bible, sin is effectively the opposite of truth. It moves you from the path to God because it deceives you into believing that which is not true. So, I think there is a balance to be struck between the two Christian virtues of love and truth.
I agree with that, broadly. I agree too with what the new government is doing re 'transitioning' and gender ideology and the general craziness of woke ideology. Christianity is not about being soft. But it is about love. That's the hard bit. Love your enemies - whilst still being clear who they are. Too much softness is a problem. so is too much hardness. We;'ll see soon enough what balance emerges now.
I feel that the opposition between softness and hardness is a manifestation of our confusion about what a man is and should be, and what a woman is and should be. I feel that we are very confused about this, thus the woke ideology, etc. Softness is often associated with women, while hardness is associated with men. Granted this is a very binary opposition, but maybe binary opposition is what is most effective to separate, and we are in need of some separation in our minds ? I'm not sure, and this is a hypothesis. For info, the word "soft" in French is "doux", and it is a word that you can find everywhere : "soft" butter that has no salt in it, for example. (beurre doux) When we say "douceur", we are talking about something that is sugary, and for some strange reason, when I was a child, I learned that little girls are "sugar and spice and everything nice", while boys are snails and frogs and puppy dogs tails..." I didn't feel very "sugar and spice and everything nice" when little but definitely "frogs and snails and puppy dogs tails...". Probably like lots of other women here.
I have empathy for the people being rounded up and deported. ( The normal working people ) The criminals Im fine with sending back but it just seems like we should try something different. Yes they crossed illegally but I would do the same thing if in their shoes. Maybe one day the roles with be reversed. Ill be crossing illegally into Mexico with my BTC wallet hidden inside my stomach and dodging the minefields left by the Marines.
While I agree with empathy & mercy for migrants and those seeking a better life (or even survival - escaping poverty, drug cartels, violence, etc), I am in agreement with Trump’s cracking down as illegal immigration has become so over the top chaotic - especially at the US southern border. *I* cannot simply go into another country most places in the world without following *their* laws and expect to live there without there being legal consequences up to and including jail time or deportation. Why should the US be any different? Now - would I prefer we focus on VIOLENT criminals or those who committed more serious crimes rather than ‘families, women & children’ desperate for a better life. OF COURSE. I think they are trying to make that their primary focus - but - they are not incorrect that anyone here illegally has violated the law and by definition is a criminal. I would prefer us to vette those appredended and perhaps offer some path forward that permits those we accept to work towards citizenship but there must be deterrence to stop the madness of an ‘open border’ we’ve had the last 4 years.
Expat Aussie, gen X, living in Canada, mother of 5 boys, Catholic convert here.
I have felt for several years a deepening concern for the developments in our world, in December it switched to a sense of urgency. This translated on a personal level to repentance and deepening of my faith, a letting go of a lot of things. I have been going to daily Mass as often as I can after dropping my kids to school, with a sense of standing vigil, and praying for the needs of the whole world. I am on day 46 of a 54 day novena to our Lady, and one of the intentions was for God’s help to live a simple, humble life, living within our means with enough to help others. If this means selling our home to downsize, and look for ways to form intentional community I want to be ready and able to do so. Last week I discovered your writing/talks along with Dr Martin Shaw and Jonathan Pageau, and it felt like such a timely gift and encouragement.
When I look at current events on a human level, my stomach lurches. But then I look at the history of the Church and its saints, and remind myself we have lived through the fall and rise of civilizations before, and to keep my eyes on Jesus, and look for ways to love and serve in my community. I think of a quote of St Avitus of Vienne (470-519 AD) “My political views are those of the Our Father.”
Finally, I offer this poem, Canticle for Ordinary Time, written about 8 years ago. It still feels true.
Thanks for your quote about St Avitus. I went through chemo before Christmas, before they curtailed it, and I have had to learn to trust the Father, "not my will but yours", which is also in the final statement of our Lord " I made known your name to them (Father?), and I will continue to make it known, so that the love you have loved me with may be in them, and I may be in them.”
You have my prayers Barrie. Isn’t it amazing how, when the ground falls away from us, and the shadow of the valley of death looms large, how abandoning ourselves to our loving Father gives back to us a safe place to stand? Scripture really is living, and provides such strength and light for hard times. St John Chrysostom describes Scripture as a chest of medicines, and a treasury containing every kind of remedy. You sound like you have found good medicine for your trial.
OK, so I am a Trump supporter who is taking a terrible journey down into schadenfreude. it’s not nice of me, but I can’t resist.
Do you hate me? Do you feel sorry for me? Can you concede he’s doing the right things? Are any readers of this Substack with me?
I tend to avoid ever calling myself a "supporter" of any politician because there are always things about each of them that I have trouble with. I am willing to accept in most cases that one seems like the better choice over the other.
But yes, I voted Trump in 2016, in 2020, and again this time, and in each case felt like I was making the right choice, even if not an easy one or one free of issues. Like you, since he was sworn in last Monday I've felt a bit like he's restored order in some ways while at the same time resisting the temptation to dance on the chipping away at the harmful parts of Leftism that he's done.
In the end, I think about the part of the divine liturgy where we pray for the president and the armed forces (at least at my parish, I'm not sure if this is common everywhere). We prayed that a few weeks ago before the guy I voted for was in office, and we're still praying it now. And, God willing, I'll still stand at liturgy and say the same prayer for many, many more years.
Can I ask why? In which ways he's restored order? I'm genuinely curious. My primary concerns are for the environment and the economy (by 'the economy' I mean the price of eggs, not the stock market) and it doesn't look to me like his policies are going to affect either positively.
I figured that here, I could probably engage in a civil conversation with curiosity and openness that would not be available on other parts of the internet :).
I must admit, though living in Ireland, that observing the liberal/leftist collective meltdown since the decisive election of President Trump, and his implementation of precisely the platform he stood on, has given me quite a lot of the old "shadow joy". No, I do not hate you, looking at the globalist, traitorous mediocrities in power here in Ireland, I rather envy you.
John C I’m Canadian but ya, it’s America that leads the world and I too envy them.
I knew this subject would prompt a lot of reaction. May I remind those who immediately reverted to quoting scripture regarding not putting our trust in "Princes" etc , that we as Christians are also required to exercise our civic responsibility to make the choice of the lesser of two evils. Abstentionism is not an appropriate response either.
John C speaks for me; That is my thesis.
These issues are not in the vain of epistemology, they are our battle against entropy in this world today. The problem with religion is that it engenders religiosity in people and that religious impulse goes where it doesn’t belong. You make it too complex.
Try this on for size: order is good, Anything that brings order is good; disorder is bad and to be avoided. Good fit? Ordinary maintenance governance, let us work on that, perfect that, leave your soul out of it - please for all of us - until and only when you have secured “this day our daily bread. “
I'd argue that "Anything that brings order is good" is machine thinking, as are words like "ordinary maintenance government". (I'm not arguing for chaos, just for thinking un-like the machine). Once you understand that you will understand why many of us we cannot leave our souls out of it :)
Karen Warren, that’s why you’re not in the mix but rather on the sidelines.
See what I wrote above about the word "order" and "command" as being in relation to empire, please. It would probably be useful to check out the etymological history of the word "order", and look at "ordinary" too, because the words are certainly related. But we tend to go nuts, and feel imprisoned when confronted with too much rationalized order, and then.. all hell breaks loose...
Many years ago, when in a period of intense crisis, I pettily complained to the psychoanalyst whose couch I was lying on that my suffering was like a hemorrage that he was offering a bandaid for, and he told me that what I was feeling was... the bitch of living ? waking up in me, and waking me up, too. Basically because I had managed to convince myself that being "dead" was being alive, and being alive, and the suffering that it entailed was synonymous with being sick.
But Machine thinking is all about convincing you that you are sick when you are feeling alive, because it is uncomfortable to feel alive...
So, to conclude, I beware too much order, or... TOO MANY ORDERS FOR TOO MUCH.
Not idolaizing princes is not saying princes don't exist or have good and appropriate places and uses. True of every human being and invention. Good theology corrects bad theology and engenders better, realistic anthropology as well as the proper exercise of our also real responsibilities and powers.
No, I don't think that American political power leads the world at all. I think that American English is the motor of a global empire, and the United States, as the place of origin of American English, is swept up in the phenomenon of empire that it has little control over.
For information : in French, the word "order" is "commande", and the word "empire" comes from the Latin "imperium" which goes along with the IMPERATIVE mode, which is all about commanding. But in French, when you PLACE AN ORDER, and not when you make one... you still use the word "commande", so... that means that empire is right there with you, doesn't it ?(And you notice that the same thing happens when you use the word "order", right ?...)
In my opinion it does. It is an empire of consuming and consumers, making and placing orders, isn't it ? And Trump and the others are the lackeys of this empire, right ? You can see this empire on the infamous Am site, in the generalization of the word "product" for EVERYTHING that YOU CAN ORDER. But it is not just on the Am site... I hear the word in everybody's mouth, too.
By the way, the Internet has made the commodification of the written and spoken word possible to a degree that we couldn't even dream of a few years ago. And artificial intelligence is rather secondary next to this problem.
Debra:
“Power is habitual obedience; regime change is a structured discontinuity in the habits of obedience. It must never be forgotten that regime change is a change to obeying something else.”
“ Force never disappears from the world. It just changes his hands.”
“ effective and dignified: the operational organs of the regime as opposed to the ceremonial organs of the regime”
All above quotes by Curtis Yarvin. I think you would greatly benefit by reading his “brief explanation of the cathedral” on Substack.
You’re considerable knowledge about the etymology of words is impressive but when people use words, they are deployed to deceive, not always, but likely 99% of the time. The meaning of words is the dignified and ceremonial meaning (your argument) but power transacts at the level of effective and operational which is to say meaning is Tertiary to #1effect and #2 affect.
Sincerely . A brief explanation of the cathedral will change how you view the world. You seem interested in the nature of power. Curtis has explained the mechanism of every human polity: “the selective advantage of dominant ideas and the inability of recessive ideas to compete.”
You are smart, but you’re missing that one vital piece . Please don’t take insult.
I believe Trump is bringing much needed reform to America.
"Put not your trust in princes or any son of man in whom there is no salvation." The perfect Psalmic (second antiphon) reminder for every political season in our OCA Divine Liturgy. It calls us to resist every invitation to political idolatry so we can also avoid the disappointments sure to follow. Cracked human vessels can still carry water and we should give tempered thanks for whatever good things God does through them. A good problem, Jared.
Amen.
While wokie meltdowns are fun to watch, I'm afraid I'm of the opinion that Trump has been anointed by Globo-Cap to take the US, and possibly the world, through the next stage that involves Digital ID and everything that goes with it, Machine-wise. He's just going to do it a different way. And he has to get people's trust first by doing a few things he promised (I'm not suggesting he isn't for those things or that he doesn't see himself as embodying the US, in the way that Putin sees himself as embodying Russia).
We'll see where he stands on CBDCs etc. when the Bank for International Settlements threatens to turn off the money tap. Nations with unpayable debts are not sovereign (whereas the BIS, interestingly, has sovereign immunity, like the UN). Never forget the Fat Controller telling you what they're going to do and why.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpNnTuK5JJU
There may be more fake plagues, bird flu being desperately pushed for some time now, but there are other contenders, so we'll see what sticks - invisible bird flu is definitely their best bet and allows them to attack the food supply as a bonus - 'he who controls the food supply controls the world' - paraphrasing! But immigration control is a great way to get the MAGA faction on board with Digital ID.
He's still to say 'sorry guys, that Warp Speed injection I took the credit for has now killed millions worldwide' and he's aligned himself with a mega-billionaire satanist who wants to put chips in your brain and is best mates with Peter Thiel (Palantir).
So, hmmmm .... Put not thy faith in princes. Or billionaires. Or businessmen who were bailed out in the 90s by the Rockefellers and Rothschilds who, I'm sure, would never ask for anything in return. *cough*
I supported Trump in theory. I am feeling less comfortable about it now.
The way he is doing things does not seem in line with what I perceived to be a sensible return from woke/left ideologies. Alas, the pendulum will swing and in today's world, it seems the pendulum will defy physics and increase in momentum bath and forth until it all falls to pieces.
Social media (X in particular) is not a good reflection of peoples' true values (a good reminder for me to stay off). But things are looking ugly and I'm reminded of my prayer and work to do in this life, leaving what I cannot control alone.
I don't like that the AI focus is so strong to make sure the US doesn't fall behind other countries or entities, which will likely mean there will be no effort to expose AI as evil. After all, it is an Unthinking and Unspirited compilation of available words shared on media. And the programming seems to be skewable.
I recently listened to an interview with Iben Tranholm a Danish Catholic theologian /journalist. She has a warning to us in the US not to worship Trump. I think she irritated some listeners who (me included) are so happy to see him dismantling the sickening abuse of power we have been subjected to...on the other hand I do feel she has a point..the pendulum can swing too far right too.
She makes some valid points about how politics dominate our religious institutions to their great detriment. This is not what we are here to do...make the world suit our ideologies.
I voted in good conscience for a third-party candidate from the American Solidarity Party. I teach at a community college, with genuinely wonderful colleagues, all of whom voted for Harris. Many of my family/in-laws, also genuinely wonderful people, voted for Trump.
The main thing that bothers me about Trump is his hypocritical use of Christianity to get elected. I understand this is the case for many politicians, but it has seemed especially egregious with him.
I'm pretty nervous about Trump's alliance with the tech CEOs, especially with the emphasis on the development of AI. I'm not really sure the folks on that side are having serious conversations about what this "arms race" and seemingly unthinking advancement towards AI technology prevalence will have on the people on this planet.
I'm not an RFJK fan, per se, but I'm interested to see what happens with some of the health initiatives he's discussing, particularly regarding food.
Just to expand on one of my thoughts above--not only did Trump use Christianity to get elected, he uses it to make money:
https://godblesstheusabible.com/?srsltid=AfmBOoo0J2PjXOpqSsnylNc861nj8ssNk9rGeX3PU7mnXZ5imTuByM7l
Regardless, I'm praying for the man. At home, and at liturgy, just like Jared is.
Yes indeed: 'God saved me to save America' plus a Musk-ite obsession with AI and advancing the Machine ... I will be writing something about this soon.
I'm looking forward to it!
While I have your attention, Paul, thanks so much for the "Against Christian Civilization" lecture you gave. It was so good and so needed.
Thank you!
The reason they're talking about food in their health-initiatives epiphany is to avoid talking about 'vaccines'. Watch the covid operation being memory-holed.
When they say 'look over here', you need to look at what they don't want you to look at.
“The past was erased, erasure was forgotten and the lie became the truth”. George Orwell.
This is our human modus operandi.
Yep! But the 'powers that shouldn't be' do it more than the peasantry, as they have more reason.
Although, having said that, the collective loss of memory about the UK/US illegally invading a sovereign country and killing a million of its people a mere 2 decades ago, while they fulminate about Putin being 'literal Hitler' (when it was the CIA/US State Department's Maidan coup (take a bow, Ms Nuland) that started America's proxy war with Russia in 2014 anyway) is pretty widespread. The hypocrisy is eye-watering.
🎯 perfect. This is the nature of power. With power, you can do anything you want you don’t even have to hide it . This is why religious people in their religiosity are effectively useless in this realm. Jimmy Carter comes to mind completely ineffectual
No. There is no erasing the past. It is always there, and it always manages to find its way out from under the carpet somehow. This is our human modus operandi... And the words are always there to ensure that it will come out from under the carpet, and... THEY don't lie...
Deborah, I think I’m gonna stick with George Orwell.
If I was American I wouldn't vote Trump. I can't concede he is doing the right things. But I wouldn't concede that of Biden either. No I don't feel sorry for you or hate you. I thought your post was interesting.
If you were American, you'd have voted for Trump. I can guarantee you that. The last four years were nuts.
As Churchill once said: "If Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a favourable reference of the Devil in the House of Commons."
This is an odd statement. Over 50% of the country didn't vote for Trump. I was one of them. It's not because I'm a fan of the other side (I'm not) and it's not because I disagree with all his policies (I don't). What I can't condone is this nonsensical philosophy in America's politics of "policy over personality." I had one Trump supporter tell me that he wouldn't want Trump alone with his daughter, but he thinks he has some great policy ideas. How is this real life?! How did we make this shift? How have we come to a place where the morality and character of a person is irrelevant, so long as they have some bright ideas? Is not the heart at the center of everything? "For out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks." Can we trust that decisions about education and the environment and immigration and foreign relations and nuclear warfare will be grounded and well balanced, with any ounce of love and compassion for humanity, when the President has proven so often to be filled with hate and malevolence, greed and fear? For me, the answer to this last was No.
Well, perhaps my view is tinged a bit by the fact that I was fired because of the illegal vaxx mandates, my finances destroyed, while not being hired by anybody for four years because of being a white male. I did not have the luxury to be philosophical about this. Yes. Retribution!
I'm sorry that happened to you, and yes, I'm sure that experience would make you eager for a change. I still don't trust Trump or his motivations (never in his life, prior to running for president, did he show any sympathy for the "working man"), and it feels like we're at risk of the pendulum swinging too far back the other way, with white men riding high and mighty while the (legal) immigrant and brown person gets a boot in the face and a place in the back of the bus. Of course even this division between you and me is a win for the evil powers that be, both political and spiritual. No one wins when the world is in this state.
True. If nothing else, the experience of the last 4 years made me better understand the events of the French or the Bolshevik revolutions. Sometimes you just want to hear the sweet, wet sound of guillotines, evil powers be damned. And, as Homer Simpson once said: "If I'm wrong, I'll recant on my deathbed."
Stand your ground Doc, you were robbed.
Michael Murphy said Donald Trump never showed any sympathy for the working man prior to running for election.. I heard this anecdote first hand from a family member. One of my cousins, like many Irish young people was working in construction in New York in the mid 1990s. Him and his workmates were eating their lunch in and around the construction site on a rainy day. The site was visited by Donald Trump and his real estate business team to view progress on the refit of this older building which they had commissioned. Trump asked a the site manager about workers eating in and around the site, and said he wasn't satisfied with that situation. . The next week Trump's business made arrangements with a nearby hotel that a hot meal be on offer, and an event room booked for use by the sites workers as a dining area for the remaining time of the work. My cousin related that story to me long before Trump stood for office.
On Monday I listened to "Playing Shakespeare", a DVD that came out in the 1980's ? in the good old Shakespearean days, and there was a scene from "Richard II" that caught my fancy.
Here is the quote. The scene is between Richard II, a young, flighty king who was foolish enough to pay too much attention to the flatterers around him, and lost his common sense under the pressure of his royal function, and Henry Bollingbroke, a noble whose lands he seized, who, after raising an army to get his own back discovers that his success has "earned" him that unfortunate, unwieldy, deadly crown that he did not initially want.
From "Richard II" by William (Shakespeare), a dialogue between the deposed Richard, and the usurping Bolingbroke :
Richard : Give me the glass (the mirror)., and therein will I read.
No deeper wrinkles yet ? Hath sorrow struck
So many blows upon this face of mine
And made no deeper wounds ? O flattering glass,
Like to my followers in prosperity
Thou dost beguile me ! Was this face the face
That every day under his household roof
Did keep ten thousand men ? Was this the face
That like the sun did make beholders wink ?
Was this the face that faced so many follies
And was at last oufaced by Bolingbroke ?
A brittle glory shineth in this face.
As brittle as the glory is the face,
(Dashes the glass to the floor)
For there it is, cracked in a hundred shivers.
Mark, silent king, the moral of this sport --
How soon my sorrow hath destroyed my face.
Bolingbroke : The shadow of your sorrow hath destroyed
The shadow of your face." IV, i, 279-293
To this, I could continue with the idea that all the world's a stage, but the political world is particularly a stage. Our... "actors" are definitely strutting and fretting their hour on it...
There is definitely a lot of strutting and fretting going on these days, and not just among our political leaders, either.
Sorry, my mistake...
I find it truly fascinating that people like the guy. My father, who is one of the kindest and most honest people I've met, and who is against nearly everything Trump does (cheating on wives, sexual assault, taking advantage of people, feigning Christianity for personal gain, pompousness, lying, etc) has also been a Trump supporter, so it just goes to show, perhaps, how far apart we all are.
But I suppose that a lot of people are attracted to someone who seems like a strong leader--and a lot of people revealing their daddy issues: "daddy's back. and he's taking off his belt." -mel gibson. "Daddy's home."-Lauren Boebert.
As for me, I couldn't vote for either. I couldn't vote for Harris because I don't like District Attorneys, and because of her enthusiastic support for the genocide in Gaza (and i hope Biden is haunted for eternity by every child maimed and killed by his bombs sent to Israel). And couldn't vote for Trump, because, well, though I have no love for the American Government, I don't appreciate it being dismantled by the Proud Boys or the billionaires.
As a medical provider, I know that if he successfully stops funding medicaid, it will harm a lot of people. And likewise, if he does enact his tariffs, it will just add an additional tax to average americans buying goods.
So long live Pater Patriae, I suppose.
I think Trump is having you all on, the master con man! He is lining up his Technocracy (or worse) under the guise of 'Christian Values', he knows he needs to win over the Christians for it to work.
What do you think about his obsession with AI - and that of Musk, his right-hand man (for now?) Or drill baby drill, removing wildlife protections to do so? Seems to me it's Progress on steroids. Is that what you voted for?
I think his obsession with Elon and AI is troubling but not surprising. Im definitely not keen on his views of mRNA vaccines with AI. Who was behind Operation Warp Speed? It is interesting times!!
Thank you for that. Yes those are bad things but they are worth it for the good things that are going to be wrought, for instance, countering Leviathan as per NS Lyon’s China Convergence. Plus as a counter to the bigotry of our betters, oh how they hate us, this profane man is a much needed release valve.
I suppose it depends on your hierarchy of values. Personally I would say the opposite. I think that Trump taking on the woke in the way he has (which I support, and which is certainly entertaining to watch) and getting serious about illegal immigration (which is justified and popular) remain less important than the destruction of the natural world, the further unleashing of 'growth' and the rocket he is putting under the AI demon.
Trump is just another manifestation of the Machine. Looks like you can have the Machine in woke or based flavours - but the destination remains the same.
Yep, perfect retort to my position. You are undoubtedly, correct. I suppose my hierarchy of values are more profane ( not in a pejorative sense) and less, just less than the universal that you pursue. I believe he’ll bring order where discord and immense disorder exists and damn those who created the destruction. Damn them for what they have done.
I don't think my values are universal as such. I mean, do you want your fantastic national parks drilled in or built on? Seems like a case where America First screws America!
The trouble with damning the enemy is that they damn you too. So no order will come, other than by the sword or the rifle. Seems to me that the discord in America (like the discord in England) cannot be attributed to one political wing, though some are worse than others. It's a deeper thing, it's about our values, or lack of them.
I believe in a more muscular response. They Weaponized their luxury beliefs with a bigotry towards their blue collar brethren and then used their unfair advantage to pound us to smithereens all the while calling us imbeciles. No I reject.
It’s about what we value. What I value is often different what my neighbor values and it’s how we handle the differences. There’s trade offs to every decision.
But Trump is banning off shore wind turbines that are killing the Right whale and destroying nearby fisheries. He’s cutting funds to renewables which are no good for the environment. Mining rare earth minerals ravages the earth as well. Turbines use oil. The blades can’t be recycled. Solar is taking up the best farmland in the world. They too can put toxic chemicals into the ground. RFK wants to cut back on pesticides which also do their damage. So there is that.
People sleep peaceably in their bed at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on the behalf. George Orwell.
I do believe your Christian position is incorrect .
The Christian position is to love your enemies. That does not imply that you do not have any. It doesn't imply, either, that you do not stand for your beliefs. You do. But with love. Because if you hate your opponent, you become the hatred, and it continues forever.
Schmitian Nomos of the earth, the standards or laws of power are immutable. In this way forward, not hate but love and a good smiting Old Testament style.
I think his obsession with AI is rooted in his desire to be part of something people richer than he are competing to have control of. He understands nothing about it other than there are extremely wealthy and potentially powerful people that are competing in a high-stakes enterprise and he is on the periphery of that which must irritate him. He could care whether it's the US controlling the technology only that he is having a say in how it makes him more powerful and wealthy.
I don't hate you. Christian obligation aside, hate is too draining to indulge in anyone's account. I think Trump may be the worst possible man for the moment (if only because of the techno-feudalists he's enabling), but I have relatives who support him, hunting buddies who support him, and I expect I could find common ground with Abbeyans who support him. It's easy to be detatched about it as I'm not directly threatened by him in any way, yet, though some people and places I care about could be. We'll see what shakes out.
I don't know if this country will again resemble what it was, which isn't all bad. True, it could get a lot worse, but I think there is at least a chance that on the other side of this, some good things could rise from the ashes.
These are specifically for Paul, but anyone who reflects on similar concepts can answer!
1. How have you and your wife reconciled spiritual practices between Sikhism and Christianity?
I think it's beautiful and makes complete sense, but I am curious how, in practice it is reconciled. One of the things I love most about my prayer and connection to God is sharing it with my wife. I'm curious how you have managed that + especially with kids. For context, my mother was raised Hindu and my father Mormon (though neither practiced).
2. Where have you landed on ethics with food (and meat in particular) as it pertains to Christianity?
I am curious how a thoughtful person such as yourself (with environmental and now Christian views) reconciles how food is produced. There are certainly a lot of "Machine" methods. I recently spoke to a Fr after Divine Liturgy, noticing some Vienna sausages on his plate that I, as much as I'm not proud to admit it, judged.
St. Paul’s guidance comes to mind in 1 Corinthians 8 when considering whether to eat meat sacrificed to an idol (in the modern day the idol does seem to be some aspect of the machine).
Also I highly recommend the book “The Marvelous Pigness of Pigs” by farmer Joel Salatin. It is all about the ethics of food from a Christian perspective in a modern world. I wish more Christians would read it.
Thank you for sharing the book rec!
Thus far, I have settled on this: I eat only wild animals I have hunted myself or where I know how the animal lived and died (ex: a farmer where I can see the animal + go kill it myself rather than having it go to a slaughter facility).
Thanks for the questions. I would say:
1. We both came, or came back to, religion in midlife, so we have converged on a joint sense of God together. There are obviously important differences between the two religions, but at heart they are in fact very similar in terms of how they require people to behave in the world. So we support each other and it leads to interesting conversations. There's no tension or competition.
2. In our family we have tried for years to eat as well as we can. We grow a lot of our own food, and the meat we eat comes from good sources, much of it from small farmers we know personally. I'm not opposed to meat eating; I think that whatever and however we eat, it needs to be as local and as nature-nurturing as possible. So we do our best.
I've booked for the event in Ireland and very much looking forward to it.
Some thoughts that have arisen over the weeks from listening and reading.
Could the temple in Jerusalem be understood in some way as an example of a kind of early industrialisation, modernity (if that is the right word.... It's not my field so might be using the wrong words)? I can't quite get my head around / feel at all comfortable or fully grasp within theology, the number and style of animal sacrifices there.
East or West, the machine or no machine, and so on, isn't the real issue, that the 'line of good and evil divides the heart of every man'? That this is where we return to, this is the only place we true have agency.
What about the challenge of healthcare and more specifically medicine? I see the machine you describe in the hospitals, even to a degree, hospice care (the movement for hospices to prioritise taking in those for whom complex medical intervention for complex signs and symptoms over those needing nursing care). Are the endeavours of medicine a be litmus test? How many of us could say stop the progress, stop the research, let's just try and fix and improve what we have, even though some of our lives would be shortened. I don't know that I could. Or does medicine lie outside of this? I'm not talking about use of AI in medicine - that is a separate though pressing issue too.
Have changes been made to the length of comments allowed, or am I just a dinosaur who doesn't know how to do things in the world of new and improved ? Could somebody explain to me how to do things under the NEW SYSTEM OF THE (Substack) MACHINE ??
Thank you.
Is there a new system? I'm not aware of it.
No, I messed up. I can't see my full comments anymore, don't really know why, and am too lazy to try to figure it out.
In sum, I am a true sinner/pécheresse.
The Machine is eating all of its enemies.
LOL.
But some of its enemies are more conspicuous than others.
This occurred to me yesterday, and I'm not sure how sound of an observation it is.
I saw a clip from a tech CEO last week (Anthropic?) who was saying that within a few years, AI will hopefully take over 100% of the labor of people. One big "perk" of AI is the idea that nobody will have to work anymore. This seems to be a deliberate human (?) attempt at "reversing" the curse given to Adam in Genesis, in which God says he will eat and live by the sweat of his brow.
Too much of a stretch?
This does not seem like too much of a stretch to this reader. It also seems to be anti-human, as we need to make/do things. I can't remember who came up with the term homo faber.
Likewise, we can think of Generative AI as an electronic Golden Calf. Some of us have no intention of bowing down before it.
Marc Andreesen said something very similar on X saying it will be a time of consumer "cornucopia" and those freed from work will spend time creating and helping others. I think he is wrong about the nature of work and is an extreme misjudgement about the motivations and behaviors of people not breathing the same rarefied air as he.
https://x.com/pmarca/status/1882993091784880557 He later walked back (very slightly) https://x.com/pmarca/status/1883002579178938376
This is one of the biggest things that we are globally fighting about : the place of work in our societies, and after that, work for money. The word that you used is "labor"... does it ring a bell ? It looks like the French "travail", and this word means THE WORK that a woman does to bring a new human being into the world, and which necessarily entails suffering. The word "labor" creates a link between our activity to make money to make a living and the work involved to bring a new life into the world. The result of a multiplication (remember, "be fruitful and multiply" ?) is a "product". Does that ring a bell ? So... what is the relationship involved between the WORKPLACE and what it produces, and our need to be... fruitful ? Whatever we do, there will always be a relationship, in any case. And what we do in one area, in one place, affects what happens in another place. As it turns out, all the... work that we're doing to produce industrial orders/objects seems to have turned into a form of competition with the LABOR that brings new life into the world.
So... the idea of getting around LABOR involves trying to sneak back into the Garden with the idea that We will be able to live in paradise without WORK ?
And in the ancient Greek and Roman world, work, whether for the state or not, as in PUBLIC SERVICE was for slaves. FREE citizens were not supposed to, and could not work.
"The climate itself is literally shifting,"
I am curious to know about this 'litteral shifting' - do tell...?
For perspective on my questioning, see Roger Pielke's The Honest Broker Substack entry 'Climate Science Whiplash' posted on 17-Jan-2025.
Are you really curious, though?
Oh yes - I am really curious. Perhaps my use of 'do tell' sounded disrespectful or impertinent. If so, then sorry. I am interested in what you mean by 'litterally shifting'. I spent some time considering this phrase and it seems opaque.
Down here in Co. Kerry the Machine world has been hit hard with the weather since the beginning of the year; snow and storms have caused school closures, cancellations and generally made everyone slow down. It's been wonderful! Like the days of covid, we've had more 'family working together' time, plus our little community has been drawn together very much by need. It's such a blessing and makes me feel confident that God knows exactly what He's doing; all He does is for the betterment of our souls.
My one concern is that the weather will prevent me from travelling up to Galway on the 15th! Massively looking forward to the conference Paul! Let's hope He's in favour of it too!
I’ll also be there weather permitting Naomi and hope to meet you
Looking forward to meeting you there Jane :-)
The Wagon Box event looks awesome, I'm hoping I can attend with my grandson's, we'll see if we can swing it ;-)
I think it will be fun!
U.S. commenter here. I came to your work, Paul, through your environmental writings, and stayed for your discourses on the Machine. So I will try to keep my comments to current events as they relate to those two topics.
The Trump administration is going to set us - and in this case, by "us" I mean the world - farther behind in addressing the sixth great extinction (species loss) and the climate crisis. To be clear, I believe the Machine has already driven us collectively past the tipping point where humanity could "fix" or "solve" these things. But I still hoped for a slowing down of damage, for harm reduction. I hoped humanity might come to live more simply and locally, by goresight and choice rather than being forced to by elements of societal collapse (from pollinators being out of phase with blooms to widespread market and trade disruptions, etc... everything is connected).
Business-as-usual IS the Machine, and that was certainly true of prior administrations. AND the Trump administration is accelerating the Machine, with its faith in markets and technology (Zuckerberg, Musk et al) and even less ecological literacy than the mainstream (in which it's already pretty low).
I don't consider myself a conservative Christian, but I do understand - and share! - at some level the desire to return to traditional values. The ideology for which Trump is the front man is not the path to that return.
Enough for now.
- Robin in the central Appalachians
Thanks. I have been watching Trump and co for a while. It's a mixed bag but overall I agree. Some people have got so excited about his 'smashing the woke' and closing the border that they appear to be overlooking the fact that he is a Machine accelerant. Drill baby drill, colonise Mars, turbo-charge AI - is that what you call 'conservatism'? I'd like to hear Wendell Berry's take on it. Yes, business as usual.
Wow...Substack keeps changing. I understand it's probably good for their business, but I'm on the verge of never coming to the website and just reading my few subscriptions in my inbox.
I agree. It is a social media platform and the algorithm they use can be a trigger. It seems to be the notes feature. I tweaked a few things on it and it improved.
Yes, it's definitely social media now, and trying to cover all the features of other social media sites. I'm sure people are getting sucked into endless scrolling here just like they are elsewhere.
Yes, it will take discipline to use it.
I was amazed by how every post in notes was someone linking an article with hyperbolic praise something like, "Totally mind blowing article that every human should read immediately!"
Ha! Yeah, I used to see that quite a bit. In the last day or so, when I click on home, it's almost like Instagram in content. Mostly photos and a lot of fashion stuff - something I have no interest in. Really weird!
It has got far too busy now. I came to it in the first place partly because it was not like social media.
I think observing all the billionaires attending the inauguration is telling on what the future holds, but I don’t know. I need to be mindful of keeping my eyes on Christ and not getting too distracted of going down the rabbit holes. God is good and has a plan. I align my views on politics probably close to CJ Hopkins lately but really I like his style and satire.
A bit of a random inquiry, but is the Scriptorium still around?
The reason I am thinking of it is that I am reading <i>A Canticle for Leibowitz</i> and it seems so on topic, with everything from Trump and the biosphere to Paul's recent written meditation on electricity. The book is bittersweet and at time hilarious. I haven't finished it yet (though it won't be long), so please no spoilers. But I do see a strong affinity between the Albertian Order of Leibowitz and the Abbey of Misrule. (In fact, there's a real monastery in the likely vicinity of the fictional one: Christ in the Desert, in New Mexico).
That's a great book. The Scriptorium is temporarily retired, but I hope to bring it back later in the year.
I do have a question. I’m new to Orthodoxy after decades of being a published Christian writer. I yearn to be part of the emergence of contemporary excellent creative literary works with a distinctively Orthodox emphasis. But like many others, I am not presently able to travel to meet with people such as you. I was recently accepted into Paradoxa (zoom-enabled writers associated with DarklyBright Press) and am grateful for that. Do you forecast or intend to create/facilitate groups that would help others like me? Pardon my ignorance if other such groups already exist. Thank you.
Latayne I wonder if you might find support reaching out to Nicholas Kotar, and a school of writing he’s part of. I think Paul Kingsnorth is involved as well. Links below, best wishes!
https://nicholaskotar.com/
https://stbasilwriters.com/
Thank you so much, Amber!
You’re welcome!
Paul, I enjoyed listening to your Erasmus lecture on civilizational Christianity and found it very timely in light of the cultural changes that seem to be unfolding in the wake of Trump taking power. I think what the Trump movement is about is primarily a necessary rebalancing of the culture in favor of masculine order after 15 years of being radically unbalanced in favor of the feminine caring & nurturing instinct having gone off the rails and turned toxic. I think a more charitable reading of Jordan Peterson and those who see cultural value in the Christian tradition is that God is both love and truth. Compassion and order. Feminine and male. If we as a culture reject truth in pursuit of misdirected emotional empathy, we end up with mutilated 'trans' kids and elevate the sin of pride into society's greatest supposed virtue. In the bible, sin is effectively the opposite of truth. It moves you from the path to God because it deceives you into believing that which is not true. So, I think there is a balance to be struck between the two Christian virtues of love and truth.
I agree with that, broadly. I agree too with what the new government is doing re 'transitioning' and gender ideology and the general craziness of woke ideology. Christianity is not about being soft. But it is about love. That's the hard bit. Love your enemies - whilst still being clear who they are. Too much softness is a problem. so is too much hardness. We;'ll see soon enough what balance emerges now.
I feel that the opposition between softness and hardness is a manifestation of our confusion about what a man is and should be, and what a woman is and should be. I feel that we are very confused about this, thus the woke ideology, etc. Softness is often associated with women, while hardness is associated with men. Granted this is a very binary opposition, but maybe binary opposition is what is most effective to separate, and we are in need of some separation in our minds ? I'm not sure, and this is a hypothesis. For info, the word "soft" in French is "doux", and it is a word that you can find everywhere : "soft" butter that has no salt in it, for example. (beurre doux) When we say "douceur", we are talking about something that is sugary, and for some strange reason, when I was a child, I learned that little girls are "sugar and spice and everything nice", while boys are snails and frogs and puppy dogs tails..." I didn't feel very "sugar and spice and everything nice" when little but definitely "frogs and snails and puppy dogs tails...". Probably like lots of other women here.
I have empathy for the people being rounded up and deported. ( The normal working people ) The criminals Im fine with sending back but it just seems like we should try something different. Yes they crossed illegally but I would do the same thing if in their shoes. Maybe one day the roles with be reversed. Ill be crossing illegally into Mexico with my BTC wallet hidden inside my stomach and dodging the minefields left by the Marines.
I've no doubt that one day we Westerners will be the migrants again, as we have been before. Then we shall see how it feels.
While I agree with empathy & mercy for migrants and those seeking a better life (or even survival - escaping poverty, drug cartels, violence, etc), I am in agreement with Trump’s cracking down as illegal immigration has become so over the top chaotic - especially at the US southern border. *I* cannot simply go into another country most places in the world without following *their* laws and expect to live there without there being legal consequences up to and including jail time or deportation. Why should the US be any different? Now - would I prefer we focus on VIOLENT criminals or those who committed more serious crimes rather than ‘families, women & children’ desperate for a better life. OF COURSE. I think they are trying to make that their primary focus - but - they are not incorrect that anyone here illegally has violated the law and by definition is a criminal. I would prefer us to vette those appredended and perhaps offer some path forward that permits those we accept to work towards citizenship but there must be deterrence to stop the madness of an ‘open border’ we’ve had the last 4 years.
Expat Aussie, gen X, living in Canada, mother of 5 boys, Catholic convert here.
I have felt for several years a deepening concern for the developments in our world, in December it switched to a sense of urgency. This translated on a personal level to repentance and deepening of my faith, a letting go of a lot of things. I have been going to daily Mass as often as I can after dropping my kids to school, with a sense of standing vigil, and praying for the needs of the whole world. I am on day 46 of a 54 day novena to our Lady, and one of the intentions was for God’s help to live a simple, humble life, living within our means with enough to help others. If this means selling our home to downsize, and look for ways to form intentional community I want to be ready and able to do so. Last week I discovered your writing/talks along with Dr Martin Shaw and Jonathan Pageau, and it felt like such a timely gift and encouragement.
When I look at current events on a human level, my stomach lurches. But then I look at the history of the Church and its saints, and remind myself we have lived through the fall and rise of civilizations before, and to keep my eyes on Jesus, and look for ways to love and serve in my community. I think of a quote of St Avitus of Vienne (470-519 AD) “My political views are those of the Our Father.”
Finally, I offer this poem, Canticle for Ordinary Time, written about 8 years ago. It still feels true.
Wonders never cease-
this is what needs to be said
over and over to the desolate.
The murmuration of starlings
above a highway
the path of moonlight on water
the sweet unfolding of a woman
and a man in the night
the soughing of wind
in the deodar cedar
the human voice raised in song.
Night swimming in Howe Sound
like floating in a sea of stars,
where every stroke and kick
sparks blue fire.
The stillness of a heron
on his bank at daybreak
the sudden wet twisting
of a newborn’s body onto the bed
and first cry,
the soft red glow of the sanctuary lamp
patient beacon of a preposterous message-
that God hides in the most ordinary
of substances
and waits and waits and waits for us.
Beautiful
Thank you
Thanks for your quote about St Avitus. I went through chemo before Christmas, before they curtailed it, and I have had to learn to trust the Father, "not my will but yours", which is also in the final statement of our Lord " I made known your name to them (Father?), and I will continue to make it known, so that the love you have loved me with may be in them, and I may be in them.”
You have my prayers Barrie. Isn’t it amazing how, when the ground falls away from us, and the shadow of the valley of death looms large, how abandoning ourselves to our loving Father gives back to us a safe place to stand? Scripture really is living, and provides such strength and light for hard times. St John Chrysostom describes Scripture as a chest of medicines, and a treasury containing every kind of remedy. You sound like you have found good medicine for your trial.