Paul Kingsnorth "Scientism and Sex"
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- čas přidán 21. 08. 2023
- Tähenduse teejuhid (Maps of Meaning) is an Estonian language monthly newspaper that is distributed with the country's largest daily Postimees. The first issue came out in September 2020. The centre of gravity of each number is a ca 4000-word interview. This interview appeared in the 22nd issue of the paper.
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Paul Kingsnorth became famous in 2014 when his first novel „The Wake“ was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize. The novel takes us to England of the 11th century. A noble landowner Buccmaster leads a network of guerrilla fighters against the Norman invaders and their Christian god. The book is written in “a shadow tongue” - a version of Old English updated so as to be understandable to the modern reader and purged of Latin loans. „It is a tale of lost gods and haunted visions, The Wake is both a sensational, gripping story and a major literary achievement,” read we from the cover.
Kingsnorth’s first book had appeared roughly ten years ago. “One No, Many Yeses” (2003) is an account of the author’s travels in Mexico, West Papua, New Guinea, Italy and Brazil where he meets the leaders the anti-globalist movement. This book is followed by another travelogue “Real England: The Battle Against the Bland”, which describes Kingsnorth’s first-hand experience of the homogenisation of England through global market forces.
In 2009 he starts with a fellow author Dougald Hine the Dark Mountain Project,- a loose network of ecologically minded artists and writers. In the founding manifesto called “Uncivilization” Kingsnorth writes: “There is a fall coming after a quarter-century of complacency, in which we were invited to believe in bubbles that would never burst, prices that would never fall… Hubris has been introduced to Nemesis.“ These sentiments bring him to the Brexit camp in 2016. To Kingsnorth the European Union is a “huge, undemocratic bureaucracy trying to run thirty countries from one city. I’m instinctively in favour of small groups of people running their own affairs, close to the ground. Democracy only works when it’s close to the people.“
I was led to Kingsnorth by three other thinkers whom I had interviewed for TT earlier. David Fuller, with whom I talked in the very first issue, conversed with Kingsnorth at the beginning of 2022. A few weeks later Kingsnorth sat down with Charles Eisenstein (TT#2, “It Is Impossible To Be Healthy Alone”) and in the spring with Mark Vernon (TT#14 “Real Healing Starts in Purgatory”). These three conversations focused on paganism, Christanity, pandemic and the ongoing Great Transformation.
Kingsnorth who started out as a radical environmental activist, flirted thereafter with a new-pagan Wicca religion. A couple of years ago he was baptised in the Roman Orthodox Church, much to his own surprise. David Fuller’s interview with Paul Kingsnorth was titled “Pagan to Christian”. In 2022 Kingsnorth self-published “The Vaccine Moment”, a collection of essays criticising the response of the global technocratic elite to the pandemic. Similarly to Eisenstein, Kingsnorth interprets corona - or rather our reaction to it - as an apocalyptic event. The Greek word apokálypsis, from which the English adjective is derived, means disclosure or revelation. Hence, the pandemic was not an end of the world but an uncovering of forces that have been at work for decades if not longer. “None of our responses to the corona virus are anything new, they are all intensifications of trends that have gone on for a long time,” says Charles Eisenstein. Both he and Kingsnorth have devoted a great deal of their writings to analysing these very trends and forces.
Many interviews done with Kingsnorth lately have focused on his sensational conversion to Christianity. Kingsnorth himself has elaborated on this theme in his great essay “The Cross and the Machine” published on the website of an ecumenical journal First Things. I took a different course and concentrated on the Great Transformation. Kingsnorth writes about it in his other great piece “What Progress Wants” that can be found on his Substack page “The Abbey of Misrule”.
Kingsnorth is sitting with a friend around a fire. They are talking about the state of the world. “We got to talking about the last two momentous years: what had changed and how it had changed us. Something big, we both agreed, had shifted, but neither of us could quite pin it down. On the surface, of course, we could point to the obvious changes. The unprecedented biosecurity state which governments had imposed in response to covid. The accompanying media censorship operation. The vaccine passports and normalisation of mass surveillance. The digital attempts to enforce uniformity of opinion on key issues. Deepening political divisions. Crumbling public trust in institutions. Supply chain collapses. Coming food shortages. European war.“
With best wishes,
Hardo
I'm sure Paul would balk at such praise, but I believe he is one the most inmportant thinkers of the early 21st Century. His honesty and intellectual bravery are a challenge to us all.
I very much agree.
"In the face of this Huxleyan total system the question "What can we do?" is not really the right one . A question I prefer is "Where is the escape hatch?""
Paul Kingsnorth, International Aldous Huxley Conference in Tallinn, 24.5.24
czcams.com/video/eZjhLIugPP0/video.htmlsi=6nIpoVA_zKpfwphl&t=1
"The only question that matters when you're talking about religion is whether it's true. It doesn't matter whether it has any social utility. It doesn't matter what your history is. The only thing that matters is whether it's true."
Paul Kingsnorth
H.
czcams.com/video/AygzBvFDyzA/video.htmlsi=FdMDiB9s6QaIHIXB&t=1
Paul Kingsnorth is always worth listening to.
"The only question that matters when you're talking about religion is whether it's true. It doesn't matter whether it has any social utility. It doesn't matter what your history is. The only thing that matters is whether it's true."
Paul Kingsnorth
H.
czcams.com/video/AygzBvFDyzA/video.htmlsi=FdMDiB9s6QaIHIXB&t=1
I take from this: 1: nothing of value in our society is recoverable. 2: after its inevitable collapse it will need to be rebuilt from the individual up. 3: therefore withdraw from society and work on yourself 4: that might mean rediscovering how to pray. Okay, I’ll give that a go!
"The only question that matters when you're talking about religion is whether it's true. It doesn't matter whether it has any social utility. It doesn't matter what your history is. The only thing that matters is whether it's true."
Paul Kingsnorth
H.
czcams.com/video/AygzBvFDyzA/video.htmlsi=FdMDiB9s6QaIHIXB&t=1
@@EdmundBurkeiSelts now I’m just confused!
Brilliant talk. Paul is great!
I absolutely agree. It was a great privilege to interview him.
With best wishes,
H.
"The only question that matters when you're talking about religion is whether it's true. It doesn't matter whether it has any social utility. It doesn't matter what your history is. The only thing that matters is whether it's true."
Paul Kingsnorth
H.
czcams.com/video/AygzBvFDyzA/video.htmlsi=FdMDiB9s6QaIHIXB&t=1
lol u so remind me of me, but I became a singer song writer called myself, THE Mighty Asterix named after the cartoon because of the same type of colonial system the romans imposed upon my ancient ancestors are European, and also a Rastafarian of the 12 TRIBES of Israel House which is the most christian of the Mansions very much like Ethiopian Orthodox but with out the ritual side, kinda more like in the garden at the start before the added on stuff, bless u and ur work, in the name of The Holy Great One and the Lord of the ages, and the Son of Man.
I think it is deeper than the second reformation, though I can see elements. I think it goes further back to axial age.
I agree, the parallel with axial age is not be overlooked. "We are on the verge of a radical redefinition of reality," says Stanislav Grof on that point.
We'll see.
H.
@@EdmundBurkeiSelts With the emergence of the internet etc we are no longer limited by the city for networking. It provided the opportunity for networking but was limited to how far it could develop. It becomes to hard to maintain. Now it no longer matters in that respect. New ideas, different dynamics emerge. What we see occurring now it is not the end result. Some of the contemporary politics is Misleading in thinking it is. At best it a start. Possibly a false start or at worst a regression. We are about to see a radical transformation. But this comes with turmoil of transition, if we make it.
Here's a piece on the second axial age with Richard Tarnas.
With best wishes,
H.
czcams.com/video/VlukDizZ-Ac/video.htmlsi=a1zPlKVIkXGI8ZRU&t=1
"The only question that matters when you're talking about religion is whether it's true. It doesn't matter whether it has any social utility. It doesn't matter what your history is. The only thing that matters is whether it's true."
Paul Kingsnorth
H.
czcams.com/video/AygzBvFDyzA/video.htmlsi=FdMDiB9s6QaIHIXB&t=1
Would have been good to balance the sound levels before going online live. The interviewer is way too loud, can barely hear Paul.
You are right.
Learning by doing I guess.
With best wishes,
H.
"The only question that matters when you're talking about religion is whether it's true. It doesn't matter whether it has any social utility. It doesn't matter what your history is. The only thing that matters is whether it's true."
Paul Kingsnorth
H.
czcams.com/video/AygzBvFDyzA/video.htmlsi=FdMDiB9s6QaIHIXB&t=1
“ to pray again…”. Great, but to whom ? He seems to be an absent landlord.
"The only question that matters when you're talking about religion is whether it's true. It doesn't matter whether it has any social utility. It doesn't matter what your history is. The only thing that matters is whether it's true."
Paul Kingsnorth
H.
czcams.com/video/AygzBvFDyzA/video.htmlsi=FdMDiB9s6QaIHIXB&t=1
The idea of the 'Fighting Irish' is a myth. The Irish have always accepted foreign rule - England, Rome, Brussels & now Davos. The occasional 'rebellions' were always orchestrated by sinister forces & always brought more oppression.
As an Irish man living in Ireland, I'm inclined to agree....sadly.
The vaccines, and especially vaccine mandates may have been problematic, although hindsight is all very well. Who knew, at the beginning, especially with those horrific scenes from Italy and New York, that the virus wouldn’t be as bad as the 1918 flu. Or worse.
Also, there is something to be said for lockdowns- if implemented early enough.
My island State of Tasmania, in Australia, locked down very early after having a handful of alpha cases. Only a limited number of essential workers were subsequently allowed into the State after a period of quarantine. As a result we never had a single case of covid for a period of 19 months. And zero cases of delta. Once our borders were eventually opened up, in came omicron.
The reason everyone's agreeing obesity is a disease is because we must be kind, and we must be inclusive! Some kindness huh! Encouraging people to avoid responsibilty and stay fat, or take the lazy way out with a pill!
Kind of ironic to point the finger at the state as increasing its control when, historically, it has been religions that have exerted so much control over people!
I agree. Religion has always been about control. Physical and psychological. And too often outright abuse. As disturbing as current life may be, I’d still rather live now rather than in former times - especially as a woman.
Your remark seems to be correct at first sight. But historically church and state were working together closely most of the time. And the reformatory churches in Europe were in fact state churches where the priest were a kind of civil servants paid by the state. Even in New England there used to be official state churches. But today things are different and it is the state who is in control.
So historically states have not exerted control over people? Nonsense. Historically states, and corporations as well, have been the main factions controlling people. Where religion has exerted control, state and religion has been inseparable.