I hereby add my voice to those who think this should appear as a book. (Also, this post is helpful, as it seems I'd missed a couple pieces along the way.)
I would absolutely love to have this as a book. Some of the essays I haven't read yet and others I would like to re-read. Should I start printing or rather wait? ;-)
Agreed - you do need to make it (a print book) happen. This post provides the framework for your introduction (well two-thirds of it) where you sketch out the whole thing. And then you just need a slight edit and proofread on all the essays to make sure they stand alone.
The fact is that these essays are dense and substantive - in contrast to so much online writing - and therefore lend themselves naturally to the print medium. But your flowing prose and clarity of thought makes it all eminently readable. You'll want a bibliography of recommended further reading where we can trace your key influences to their sources.
I have done some editing for a couple book projects and would be happy to contribute in any way I can, although I figure you have existing connections to publishers and all of that already. So if nothing else, let me just add my voice to the chorus saying there is a market for a paper version of this project even (or especially) among your subscribers.
Thanks for this Paul. I plan to gift the 3 one month subscription to my siblings for Christmas. This summary is helpful I believe in introducing them to you and your writings. At least they may know what I mean when I say ‘The Machine’ is wearing me down, but at the same I’m hopeful in what’s coming because I know I’m not alone with this community.
Thanks for the summary, Paul. I thought I had read all you postings up to now, but it appears I might have missed some of the early ones. I look forward to filling the gaps while I eagerly await your next piece. I'm also grateful that you listed many of the books your starting points. I believe you introduced me to the work of Jeremy Naydler, and as a result I have read one of his books and have two more on order. His insights into the consciousness that helped usher in the calamity we now find ourselves in have been very helpful to me.
I am so grateful for and intrigued by all that you have offered here Paul. IMHO you are in a class of your own as a synthesizer and diagnostician. I can't wait for more and join others in hope that this all shows up in print. It's a tour de force.
“The crumbling of the West would lead to a turn back to real religion” My immediate response upon reading those words was, “Well, what religion?” I read later that your intention is to speculate on the nature of that coming religion. I then thought the phrase “real religion” should be “a religion”. Will you be working with the thoughts of Seraphim Rose and other Eastern Orthodox writers as you consider the question? Do Spengler and other writers you have referenced above speak of this new religion? As a evangelical, Pentecostal type I have my own thoughts. I see Christians being returned to the status they had under Rome, people with a weird religion, not respected.
I see Queen Elizabeth’s funeral with its explicitly Biblical, Christian, Jesus as Lord and Savior scriptures and hymns as symbolically being the funeral service of a deceased Christendom. Christendom being a 1700 year old failed effort/experiment to make the kingdoms of this world the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ. We can be light and salt and do wonderful good as believers, but Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world” and in Romans the kingdom of God is defined as being “righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit” a kingdom realizable in individuals, families and in congregations and on the church as a whole in the here and now and for the Orthodox, miaphysite churches, Catholics in hermits, convents and monasteries.
I'm sure you are already aware of these Paul but in case you are not Fr Seraphim wrote the books below which are relevant to the topic in hand. The book on Nihilism was actually not completed before he reposed but even the partial text that was published is gold.
Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future
Nihilism: The Root of the Revolution of the Modern Age
“The triumph of the machine is the triumph of the merchant” I would trace the beginnings of the machine to the 1200s Italian merchant roots of banking and monetary system. Saint Francis at that time saw the coming of money as being the measure of all things and rejected it as seen in his turning away from his wealthy merchant father and Francis’s only accepting material donations and refusing donations of money.
So.... is "the triumph of the machine is the triumph of the merchant" another way of phrasing the universal pax romana, maybe ?...
In trying to put the pieces together, I discovered that one of Constantine's heirs, Julien, was a Western Roman emperor who, called back to rule Rome while in Athens to study philosophy, set up the military and administrative headquarters of the Western Roman empire in... Paris, and promptly proceeded to wage war on the strengthening Christian Church (ROMAN Catholic, I think) to reinstitute "paganism" (whatever that means, or could mean, at the time).
And on the machine(s)...
I consider it to be very telling that Paul's photo shows children working in the textile industry, on an industrial loom. The very first.... factory ("facere", to make) is within the "domain" of the household, as wool needs to be shorn, treated, and prepared to be transformed in order to clothe the household (to be distinguished from the home). The tasks are separated out because not everybody can be doing the same thing at the same time in the same place. And the machines... were not ELECTRICAL, with motors. (I will look for Jeremy Naydler.) A "domain" is not a nuclear family. It supports an entire social structure living on the land, and from it.
Significantly, I feel that the role of women in the "domain" (the word "domain" has etymological connections with "dominate") is a particularly central one, but a little bit like those black holes that are at the center of the universe ; this role, and the considerable power that it provided, was not spoken of publicly. The fact that it was not spoken of publicly (not "published") did not mean that it was not important to people ; it means that by convention, they did not "publish" it, or direct the public eye to it. (If we believe that to not write about something publicly is to demean it, isn't that one of our fundamental beliefs that should be examined ?)
In France, wool was traditionally prepared, spun to be transformed, in the home, and by women, until the 19th century, when you started seeing those machines that are in Paul's above photo. Initially, those machines, were operated by hand, (re the photo above) not by electrical mecanisms. And the people who operated them, children or not, had to have a fair amount of skill to be working correctly and efficiently. Working with your hands contributes greatly to making you intelligent.
We were different when we operated them by hand, and did not rely so much on AUTOMATION and electricity. I think that maybe electricity is already an item of worship in our modern religion.
Lastly, it is a source of grief to me that so many of my French compatriots really do not understand the nature of power. They do not understand that at the point we have reached in socializing ? our existences, the people who are elected ?, graced with the assumption that they detain immense power are constrained within the considerable limits that power exerts on them. Example : probably as early as under Louis XIV in France, there were already members of the aristocracy who wanted to "work" in order to feel... "useful" for the collectivity. But under the system, the aristocracy was not permitted to engage in activity for money...The aristocracy was set apart (elected) to be an incarnation of grace, and gratuity within the system.
Ultimately, electing people as "the best" has disastrous consequences for the people who are elected in this way. The more power you have in one sphere, and on one plane, the less you have elsewhere. This is the fallen world we live in. Credo.
Dec 5, 2022·edited Dec 5, 2022Liked by Paul Kingsnorth
I have read many of the books you refer to....and have many similar thoughts about the line of travel - but the stark clarity that comes across in that summary is really incredible.All I can do is pour another glass of whisky and say 'bravo'. I work in a university and the sense of working in the deepest 'heart' of the Machine is now so overpowering that I dread each semester. It's like the Borg from Startrek
I too work in education and try to resist the drive to use ever more technology to solve the problems that technology has caused. If kids can't focus and are functionally illiterate (which they overwhelmingly can't and are) we're encouraged to "support" them with computers. I now learn that AI and Machine Learning will be used to help children who've suffered trauma; it's not the human touch these kids need, it's the Machine. Chills the blood.
Thank you for this very useful roundup. With the big picture laid out before us, it's easy to confirm what is now a personal conviction of mine (largely shaped by your work here at The Abbey): Modernity is a carefully thought out plan to banish God and real devotion, so that a few power-thirsty individuals - who I hesitate to call 'human' - may take over and rule the Earth according to their will. In this light, the collapse of Christendom, for example, wouldn't be an accident but the most crucial part of a strategy of domination. They've known what they were doing all along, and it's all about to culminate in apotheosis or catastrophe - or, more likely, both.
I didn't say that's what Paul is saying (I think he isn't); it is, as I said, "my personal conclusion".
If you follow the development of it all, it gets harder and harder to conclude that Modernity is just the result of historical forces or some other abstract cause, instead of the planned intention of a particular group of individuals.
Thanks, Paul! I accidently fell into your series of essays about 6 months ago, made curious after reading your essay 'The Cross and the Machine' which resembles my own story of being turned 180° from being absorbed by the Machine, towards following the Cross, now a year ago. I missed the complete first part of your essays and some of the second part, and I do have plans to read them all. This summary essay provides to me the overview of the total until now. Thanks for that! Looking forward to the last essay of this series and to part three! In my opinion you are spot on in your view about the Machine. Thanks again!
Thank you for the summary, Paul. It made it easier for me to see which essays I want to go back to, and refresh, and think about more.
I am looking forward to thinking about ways of resisting, confronting what I have found, after much thinking, with what you will propose, and seeing how our views converge, and sometimes conflict, possibly.
And I am looking forward to being with the people in this community that I have begun to single out a little bit, although I have many questions about how the Internet does much to favor a new empire of technology, underpinned by yet another universal project for a "new" Man.
And how we are willing accomplices ? in all of this.
Paul, thank you.
If collected into a print book, about how many pages do you think you have?
A lot of pages! Probably too many. But I hope to make it happen.
I hereby add my voice to those who think this should appear as a book. (Also, this post is helpful, as it seems I'd missed a couple pieces along the way.)
Please do this (a paperback version).
I would absolutely love to have this as a book. Some of the essays I haven't read yet and others I would like to re-read. Should I start printing or rather wait? ;-)
Yes, and some of us hate reading on the screen.
I would organize a seminar course around such a book in a heartbeat
Agreed - you do need to make it (a print book) happen. This post provides the framework for your introduction (well two-thirds of it) where you sketch out the whole thing. And then you just need a slight edit and proofread on all the essays to make sure they stand alone.
The fact is that these essays are dense and substantive - in contrast to so much online writing - and therefore lend themselves naturally to the print medium. But your flowing prose and clarity of thought makes it all eminently readable. You'll want a bibliography of recommended further reading where we can trace your key influences to their sources.
I have done some editing for a couple book projects and would be happy to contribute in any way I can, although I figure you have existing connections to publishers and all of that already. So if nothing else, let me just add my voice to the chorus saying there is a market for a paper version of this project even (or especially) among your subscribers.
I too would love to see this as a book! There's so much here, it's a shame to have it only in bits and bytes.
Also interested.
I’d like to see that happen as well.
I would also be interested in a print version - given the themes if the series, seems appropriate for it to have a physical form
This has been a phenomenal journey together. Thank you for refreshing the milestones. I cannot wait for Part 3!
Thanks for this Paul. I plan to gift the 3 one month subscription to my siblings for Christmas. This summary is helpful I believe in introducing them to you and your writings. At least they may know what I mean when I say ‘The Machine’ is wearing me down, but at the same I’m hopeful in what’s coming because I know I’m not alone with this community.
This essay series is a phenomenal piece of work, one that I sincerely hope will appear in print at some point.
Can I double like this suggestion?
Triple
Thanks for the summary, Paul. I thought I had read all you postings up to now, but it appears I might have missed some of the early ones. I look forward to filling the gaps while I eagerly await your next piece. I'm also grateful that you listed many of the books your starting points. I believe you introduced me to the work of Jeremy Naydler, and as a result I have read one of his books and have two more on order. His insights into the consciousness that helped usher in the calamity we now find ourselves in have been very helpful to me.
I am so grateful for and intrigued by all that you have offered here Paul. IMHO you are in a class of your own as a synthesizer and diagnostician. I can't wait for more and join others in hope that this all shows up in print. It's a tour de force.
“The crumbling of the West would lead to a turn back to real religion” My immediate response upon reading those words was, “Well, what religion?” I read later that your intention is to speculate on the nature of that coming religion. I then thought the phrase “real religion” should be “a religion”. Will you be working with the thoughts of Seraphim Rose and other Eastern Orthodox writers as you consider the question? Do Spengler and other writers you have referenced above speak of this new religion? As a evangelical, Pentecostal type I have my own thoughts. I see Christians being returned to the status they had under Rome, people with a weird religion, not respected.
I see Queen Elizabeth’s funeral with its explicitly Biblical, Christian, Jesus as Lord and Savior scriptures and hymns as symbolically being the funeral service of a deceased Christendom. Christendom being a 1700 year old failed effort/experiment to make the kingdoms of this world the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ. We can be light and salt and do wonderful good as believers, but Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world” and in Romans the kingdom of God is defined as being “righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit” a kingdom realizable in individuals, families and in congregations and on the church as a whole in the here and now and for the Orthodox, miaphysite churches, Catholics in hermits, convents and monasteries.
Spengler predicted a 'second religiosity' as a result of the collapse. I agree about Rome. Keep an eye out for Fr Seraphim next week ...
I'm sure you are already aware of these Paul but in case you are not Fr Seraphim wrote the books below which are relevant to the topic in hand. The book on Nihilism was actually not completed before he reposed but even the partial text that was published is gold.
Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future
Nihilism: The Root of the Revolution of the Modern Age
They're on my shelf!
“The triumph of the machine is the triumph of the merchant” I would trace the beginnings of the machine to the 1200s Italian merchant roots of banking and monetary system. Saint Francis at that time saw the coming of money as being the measure of all things and rejected it as seen in his turning away from his wealthy merchant father and Francis’s only accepting material donations and refusing donations of money.
So.... is "the triumph of the machine is the triumph of the merchant" another way of phrasing the universal pax romana, maybe ?...
In trying to put the pieces together, I discovered that one of Constantine's heirs, Julien, was a Western Roman emperor who, called back to rule Rome while in Athens to study philosophy, set up the military and administrative headquarters of the Western Roman empire in... Paris, and promptly proceeded to wage war on the strengthening Christian Church (ROMAN Catholic, I think) to reinstitute "paganism" (whatever that means, or could mean, at the time).
And on the machine(s)...
I consider it to be very telling that Paul's photo shows children working in the textile industry, on an industrial loom. The very first.... factory ("facere", to make) is within the "domain" of the household, as wool needs to be shorn, treated, and prepared to be transformed in order to clothe the household (to be distinguished from the home). The tasks are separated out because not everybody can be doing the same thing at the same time in the same place. And the machines... were not ELECTRICAL, with motors. (I will look for Jeremy Naydler.) A "domain" is not a nuclear family. It supports an entire social structure living on the land, and from it.
Significantly, I feel that the role of women in the "domain" (the word "domain" has etymological connections with "dominate") is a particularly central one, but a little bit like those black holes that are at the center of the universe ; this role, and the considerable power that it provided, was not spoken of publicly. The fact that it was not spoken of publicly (not "published") did not mean that it was not important to people ; it means that by convention, they did not "publish" it, or direct the public eye to it. (If we believe that to not write about something publicly is to demean it, isn't that one of our fundamental beliefs that should be examined ?)
In France, wool was traditionally prepared, spun to be transformed, in the home, and by women, until the 19th century, when you started seeing those machines that are in Paul's above photo. Initially, those machines, were operated by hand, (re the photo above) not by electrical mecanisms. And the people who operated them, children or not, had to have a fair amount of skill to be working correctly and efficiently. Working with your hands contributes greatly to making you intelligent.
We were different when we operated them by hand, and did not rely so much on AUTOMATION and electricity. I think that maybe electricity is already an item of worship in our modern religion.
Lastly, it is a source of grief to me that so many of my French compatriots really do not understand the nature of power. They do not understand that at the point we have reached in socializing ? our existences, the people who are elected ?, graced with the assumption that they detain immense power are constrained within the considerable limits that power exerts on them. Example : probably as early as under Louis XIV in France, there were already members of the aristocracy who wanted to "work" in order to feel... "useful" for the collectivity. But under the system, the aristocracy was not permitted to engage in activity for money...The aristocracy was set apart (elected) to be an incarnation of grace, and gratuity within the system.
Ultimately, electing people as "the best" has disastrous consequences for the people who are elected in this way. The more power you have in one sphere, and on one plane, the less you have elsewhere. This is the fallen world we live in. Credo.
...
I have read many of the books you refer to....and have many similar thoughts about the line of travel - but the stark clarity that comes across in that summary is really incredible.All I can do is pour another glass of whisky and say 'bravo'. I work in a university and the sense of working in the deepest 'heart' of the Machine is now so overpowering that I dread each semester. It's like the Borg from Startrek
I too work in education and try to resist the drive to use ever more technology to solve the problems that technology has caused. If kids can't focus and are functionally illiterate (which they overwhelmingly can't and are) we're encouraged to "support" them with computers. I now learn that AI and Machine Learning will be used to help children who've suffered trauma; it's not the human touch these kids need, it's the Machine. Chills the blood.
Appreciate the summary -- very helpful.
"its manifestation today"
https://takecontrol.substack.com/p/invisible-prison-digital-id?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=317627&post_id=87671221&isFreemail=false&utm_medium=email
https://www.2ndsmartestguyintheworld.com/p/china-in-five-tweets?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=400535&post_id=88563445&isFreemail=true&utm_medium=email&fbclid=IwAR1uVUpDsCrAXrzpLMy3gHNbNl61hmnLBMXpI5aRBWW7RU1MIJbqIUBAVz8
Thank you for this very useful roundup. With the big picture laid out before us, it's easy to confirm what is now a personal conviction of mine (largely shaped by your work here at The Abbey): Modernity is a carefully thought out plan to banish God and real devotion, so that a few power-thirsty individuals - who I hesitate to call 'human' - may take over and rule the Earth according to their will. In this light, the collapse of Christendom, for example, wouldn't be an accident but the most crucial part of a strategy of domination. They've known what they were doing all along, and it's all about to culminate in apotheosis or catastrophe - or, more likely, both.
I didn't say that's what Paul is saying (I think he isn't); it is, as I said, "my personal conclusion".
If you follow the development of it all, it gets harder and harder to conclude that Modernity is just the result of historical forces or some other abstract cause, instead of the planned intention of a particular group of individuals.
Wow more to read , excellent news.
I didn’t realize the full series- I will be sharing this.
On behalf of the Machine, thank you Paul. I am sincerely grateful for your eye openers.
Thanks, Paul! I accidently fell into your series of essays about 6 months ago, made curious after reading your essay 'The Cross and the Machine' which resembles my own story of being turned 180° from being absorbed by the Machine, towards following the Cross, now a year ago. I missed the complete first part of your essays and some of the second part, and I do have plans to read them all. This summary essay provides to me the overview of the total until now. Thanks for that! Looking forward to the last essay of this series and to part three! In my opinion you are spot on in your view about the Machine. Thanks again!
Thank you for the summary, Paul. It made it easier for me to see which essays I want to go back to, and refresh, and think about more.
I am looking forward to thinking about ways of resisting, confronting what I have found, after much thinking, with what you will propose, and seeing how our views converge, and sometimes conflict, possibly.
And I am looking forward to being with the people in this community that I have begun to single out a little bit, although I have many questions about how the Internet does much to favor a new empire of technology, underpinned by yet another universal project for a "new" Man.
And how we are willing accomplices ? in all of this.