The Monthly Salon: July
If voting changed anything, they'd abolish it
It’s the Fourth of July, which this year is a significant date for much of my readership, albeit for differing reasons. Actually, it’s just occurred to me that many of my American readers may have better things to do today than reading online blather - things like attending parades, festivals and parties. That does sound like a lot more fun than wading through my Substack.
Whether any country can actually be regarded as ‘independent’ in the age of the Machine is, of course, another question. I’m performing a (hopefully) final edit to my Machine book this month, and it’s brought home to me for about the zillionth time the reality that the Machine is a global force, and that its power centres are not rooted in nations, peoples, ‘democracy’ or any other such quaint concepts. We like to believe, of course, that we live in independent nation states run by leaders of our choosing, but this is an obvious mirage designed to disguise the reality: that the Machine is a giant, global, digitised web of commercial power and control, managed by transnational corporations and gatherings of elite powerbrokers, none of whom have very much interest in what ‘the people’ think. And even when they are interested, there is not very much they can do about it, because they are not really in charge.
In my homeland, Britain, the masses will be heading to the polls today to hand out a kicking to the fourteen-year old Tory government, and elect instead a Labour party that nobody really likes, or even knows much about. Still, at least they’re not the Tories. Britain, like many other countries, seems confused these days about what it wants or how to get it. Five years ago, the same electorate put into power, by a substantial majority, a government led by Boris Johnson, which promised to finally deliver the Brexit settlement the country had voted for in 2016, in the biggest democratic vote in British history. Today, three prime ministers later, they will put into power a man who campaigned to overturn the Brexit vote as soon as it happened. He has promised the country that he will sort out its many problems, which include a crumbling health service, a housing crisis, collapsing infrastructure, massive and unsustainable levels of immigration, and a not-unrelated crisis of national identity.
He will, I would guess, solve none of them. This is not because he is venal (though he might be) but because he will not really be in charge. Twenty-first century society is so complex, so multilayered and so bureaucratic, with a vast and growing gap between action and impact, that even the people running it don’t know how to make it work. And yet the engines keep humming; accelerating, in fact. At this point the Machine can more or less run by itself. This will be even more obvious as the AI systems come on line and openly replace human actors in any number of fields.
This reality, I think - the reality of powerlessness - is what hums behind the rising tide of despair and cynicism that flows in the veins of our nations and people. We know that we are not really nations. We know that ‘democracy’ is not about changing anything, or exercising any ‘popular will.’ We British know that Brexit changed nothing, and the next government will fail too, just as my American readers know that Joe Biden can barely walk off a stage, let alone run a country. We have all been long colonised by the Black Ships of Machine globalism. We are not in charge. We never were. Recognising the scale of the conquest, I’d say, is the first step to working out what to do about it.
Oops. I seem to have written a short essay/rant/manifesto. Let me change the tone, then, and wish all of my US readers a happy Independence Day. And to my fellow Britons, I wish you a … happy election day, I suppose; though this may be tricky if you’re a Tory voter. I suppose both of these could be an excuse for a human-scale party in the face of the Machine’s endless spools of nonsense.
Anyone who would like some good reading on the state of a tribalising England as it goes to the polls should read this essay by Aris Roussinoss, who is a very astute commentator on the state of the nation. Also excellent is Connor Tomlinson’s recent elegy for a ‘Deep England’ being eaten alive by the Machine. I wrote a lot about that subject for many years. My pre-Brexit essay Rescuing the English, written in 2015 on the eve of another election that changed nothing, seems still to be relevant. And my 2008 book Real England is a bit dated now, but it probably still has something to say about the state of the nation.
Before I open the floor to you all, there are two more short things I want to bring to your attention:
Tickets are still available for my Erasmus Lecture in New York City on Monday 28th October. I’ve entitled it ‘Against Christian Civilisation.’ Come along and say hello. You can buy tickets here.
Finally, one of my readers has issued an appeal for help, and I want to bring it to your attention. A regular commenter here, who goes by the pseudonym ‘BushHermit’ is trying to raise money urgently for his fifteen year old daughter Julia to undergo a vital operation. As someone with children the same age, I can only imagine what he and his wife are going through, and I promised I would spread the word to our little community. You can help out here.
OK! I have said more than enough. Please say your piece, readers, on any subject you like. If nobody says anything, I will assume you’re all enjoying the fireworks, and raise a glass to you.
Paul's diagnosis does seem to bring much despair. If I didn't know Jesus, I probably would climb under that shiny, black leather blanket and pull it over me. That's why the solution is--Christian or not--focusing on our watersheds. They're a human-scaled region that all of us affect. You can use the boundaries of your friendly-neighborhood body of water to concentrate on human problems or (though they usually aren't separate) ecological problems. What do your neighbors (human and non-human) need? Me? I tend to focus on getting rid of the immigrants (Calm down! I'm talking plants) in my neighborhood. Perhaps you are trying to get your town to stop funding unsustainable legacy costs for stupid building projects? Maybe you're helping adults become literate? Whatever the issue, they can be found in our watershed and we can actually make a change--small as it may be. Happy Independence to my fellow traitors!
I spent the day in nature with someone I love and a dog I love. I'm writing this, supping a nice stout on my sunny terrasse. I know the Machine is out there, but it didn't touch me today. I try to have many days like this.