The Monthly Salon: March
The Monthly Salon: March
Sit back and pour yourself an absinthe
As I wrestle with the next essay in my ongoing series here (I’m finding the essays about current events much harder to write than the historical essays I began this project with, which probably ought to tell me something or other) I’ve decided to introduce a new feature here at the Abbey.
Like all the best ideas, this one is pilfered (‘Talent borrows’, explained Oscar Wilde; ‘genius steals.’) Like some other Substack writers, I’m introducing a regular, reader-led open discussion for anyone who feels like diving in on a topic of their choice.
Beyond being broadly relevant to the topics I write about here, there’s no theme, mandate or expectation. You can talk about whatever you like. Imagine you have just wandered into some Parisian literary salon during your chosen favourite historical period and started up a conversation/provocation/argument. The only rule is the usual one: respect each other, even as you disagree. Beyond that, it’s a free for all.
To kick off this first salon, I’ll offer up a few things I’ve been thinking about myself as potential conversation starters - but you should feel entirely free to ignore them and talk about something else.
Russia & Ukraine
Along with most other people, I couldn’t find Ukraine on a map a few weeks ago. Now I have daily opinions about what is happening there, despite still basically knowing nothing about it - or I did, until I gave up reading the news for Lent, and for my own sanity. All of my opinions are worthless, because they are being conveyed to me by people who want me to think something, and I am being manipulated from a position of basic ignorance. This is the oldest story - war propaganda from all sides - but in the Internet age, there is such a tsunami of it that it has become essentially unreal, in a very post-modern way. After two years of agenda-led media manipulation around covid, it feels like the same patterns are being replicated on a different issue. Everybody wants something from me, as they do from you. I am being told what to think and who to hate and how to react, and as a result I find myself trusting nobody at all. I wonder what this means for my understanding of the world, or whether I could ever understand it at all. Is it ever possible to actually understand anything you don’t personally experience? At what point does propaganda become so pervasive that it is impossible to believe anything you hear?
Control & Money
The Canadian government recently used national emergency powers to freeze anti-government dissidents out of the financial system, thus essentally crushing protests against that system. The same mechanism is now being used on a geopolitical scale against Russia. Combined with the onward march of digital currencies, control of money looks like becoming the ultimate tool for corralling and crushing dissent in the age of the Machine. There will be much more of this. How should we respond to it?
Lent & Less
Orthodox Lent began this week, and I am beginning forty days of fasting, which is supposed to be combined with a greater emphasis on prayer and contemplation (the fasting is easy; the prayer is the hard work.) I’m interested in the meaning of self-denial (and indeed prayer) in an age of self-worship, and not just for Christians.
I’ll stop there. Please go ahead and introduce any topic you like, or respond to any of these. Enjoy!
Hi Paul, I wanted to ask about the importance of Lent in the modern machine world and any thoughts you have on it's use/misuse etc in the situation we find ourselves in. Despite not belonging to any Church I find the season useful and always try and observe Lent. This year I have given up coffee, news media, and ordering from Amazon. These are all things I enjoy but equally are all destructive habits health and sanity wise. I do wonder though if I should give up something that hasn't got any fringe benefits to giving up or am I getting Lent 'wrong'? I'm already on a pretty restrictive diet so fasting is not really an option. Also my catholic relatives insist you can 'break the fast' each Sunday so the total time adds up to 40 days. Is this generally true?
Hi Paul,
For me, your first and last topic weave together. Since 2017, I have been in the Lenten habit of fasting from all Internet activity beyond what I must do for work and email (which is how I read my substacks). This year I started early when I noticed that same pattern of manipulated hysteria begin beating away in my heart. I turned it all off two weeks ago, and I couldn't tell you a thing about the Ukraine, Canada, Covid. None of it is any worse for my ignorance, and I am certainly a lot better for it.
Why? Jaques Ellul wrote a book in the 60s called "The Humiliation of the Word". It's a classic, but it is especially pertinent during Lent. The Logos of the Universe simply cannot be heard amidst this inchoate flood of images that is late modern culture (and don't fool yourself. Even as we "read" on the Internet, we are inundated with images). The more time I spend on the internet, the less I can hear. Yes. And the more powerful the image--say tanks or horses bulldozing human beings--the worse it becomes. It seems clear to me that the reason the Ukraine or Canada or Covid unfold as they do is because of this phenomena. The world needs Lent, in other words. I do at least.
So I fast, and then I can pray. Which is what I will go do now I suppose. I can't look at Twitter; so, what else am I going to do with myself?