The latest from the excellent Paul Kingsnorth on the fight between spirit and the Machine. Also includes an extract from his forthcoming book
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Thank you PP, i’m still not sure I have the energy for tackling Paul K’s fiction but his articles and non-fiction, in particular Real England, are fantastic. This was a great example.
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To adapt a thought that George Orwell put into Winston Smith’s mind: “If there is hope, it lies in the gatherer-hunters…”
Very fortunately (“There is special providence in the fall of a sparrow”) the GatesBrinMuskoid nightmare is coming to its final crack-up time. Hear the extract linked below for Dmitry Shostakovich’s great insight of this, expressed in unforgettable music, in his ‘Leningrad’ Symphony. The technosphere is nearing its denouement and dissolution, because the Single Giant Pulse Event of hitech industrial civilisation is coming to its natural conclusion, in the Long Descent.
As this happens, amidst the Great Die-Back which we’ve brought on ourselves, it will be those small, despised and largely-ignored remnants of the once-universal gatherer-hunter life who will prove best able to survive amidst the ruins of Koyaanisqatsi, the clinically-insane Technosphere, as its crashed bodily remains disappear rapidly under the returning forests. They - the gatherer-hunters - have what it takes, still. How many of we soft keyboard jockeys can say that with certainty? Well, a few of us can. I watch the videos of survivalist woodspeople demonstrating just that vital capacity in the wilderness lands which still persist around the Northern Hemisphere. Some still have the skills.
The near future looks grim to me. But the further future shows a returning rosiness. Hear the mad march to catastrophe, which will get us there, eventually -
(The whole opening movement is well worth the time, but if you want to cut to the chase, it starts at 5mins.36secs.)
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Recent interview with Kingsnorth via Unherd Lockdown TV.
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Thanks for that @KarenEliot. I found the interviewer pretty clueless in his questions but Kingsnorth was good as always. There is a great degree of overlap in his thinking and that of the Deep Adaptation movement which I’ve been paying some attention to recently. It seems like the only sensible approach to me.
He raised a lot of thoughts in me about the question of identity and it’s relationship to the many culture wars currently ongoing. Loads to think about there, and I’m very unclear exactly what I do think about identity and patriotism and all that.
Thanks for the post!
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