Dammit, Chris. Kingsnorth, too? I actually am not quite surprised, after hearing his comments two or three years ago about why he voted for Brexit. There's this little coterie including him, Christopher Eisenstein (who wrote a 9,000-word screed at the beginning of the pandemic decrying so many things that it was impossible to keep track), others we've talked about -- people who attracted readers like us by initially saying, "Look, this all doesn't have to be the way it is; we can do better" but whose inclinations seem to have tumbled them down a rabbit hole of magical thinking that basically ran right into libertarianism and married it. I don't understand it at all.
It is to me such an unreachable way of viewing the world, to hold fast to this idea that you can live in a way that doesn't affect other people. Or to think that you can live in a way that is pure and organic (plant those trees in Ireland!) and so well-fed in body and spirit that you can escape the physical effects of the industrial world (as if micro plastics and tens of thousands of unregulated chemicals will never penetrate your excellent immune system); or that you will be protected from the bottomless hunger of capitalism if you just buy your land and hide away.
Agreed across the board. On the plus side though, it has really had me rethinking where I stand on a lot of this stuff, because I certainly don't want to be lumped in with these guys.
What must be dead inside a person to make them so cruel? Exactly. I wonder this all the time. What's being asked of us for the health and safety of others is so minimal. I just don't understand how people justify their arrogance.
And, btw, I love your quote from Eloghosa Osunde, whom I'm going to have to check out.
The idea that the pandemic will lead to the weak humbling the strong is such bullshit. More specifically, Christian bullshit. It’s wishful thinking to rewrite reality; this idea that the poor will persevere when, really, they are the ones who always suffer the most.
If you throw your hands up and claim it’s God’s chosen method to “correct” humanity, then the entire Global North should be gone right now.
If anything, the pandemic is evidence that whatever God exists doesn’t care about justice, however it may be defined.
It's such SHITTY Christian bullshit, too. In the sense of shitty Christianity. I have watched Kingsnorth's conversion and subsequent public thinking with interest and no particular opinion, but I too have been deeply disappointed by this latest turn. It's not even his opinions, precisely, that disappoint me, it's the irresponsibility of airing them gleefully and without apparent care for humanity. Which, to be fair I guess, is something Kingsnorth has been steering toward for a long time. Maybe I should have seen it coming.
I think we've been on a similar arc. I starting doubting him (his authenticity? his compassion? not sure) after the festival talk where he defended his vote for Brexit. It was just so ... I guess very much like you describe below, like yes I can understand you feel this way but the conclusion you're coming to is just an articulation of cruelty, of uncaring about harm caused to others, or even the possibility of harm.
That's what galls me too, how in retrospect it seems like I should have seen it coming. I feel duped. And like you say: he seems gleeful, especially in the comments. What a jerk.
It's really the comments that are just pissing me off. A majority of the essay makes some reasonable points, says a lot of the stuff you mentioned in your own essay, but comes to a different conclusion. But then just that SMUGNESS. Ugh.
Re: different conclusions: reading Kingsolver these days feels like the way it's always felt to me to read C.S. Lewis' nonfiction. I love it! I nod along and I argue and I enjoy myself. And then he gets to his conclusion and I'm like NO! DUDE! Where did you GET that condescending nonsense?
I read it again, and I'm even more frustrated. This is a complex situation with a lot of factors playing in, and in the essay particularly, Kingsnorth is acknowledging and even trying to be quite clear about that. Much that he writes is cogent and useful, and much of it I also personally agree with. For example: forcing people to get vaccinated is a bad idea, and digital medical passports are a road we should not walk down; it goes places I don't want to be as a society.
BUT
a) The smugness! The weird glee! The (reasonable) theology turned to ends that feel slightly...mean. It's not in the essay really, but his responses to comments reveal that perhaps he is not as even-handed or compassionate off-the-cuff as his more polished writing allows me to believe that he is.
b) The bedfellows. I've been interested lately in the people and organizations Kingsnorth has allied with (in the sense of appearing on their podcasts or videos or what have you), because they seemed...odd. A person is not made up of (and cannot necessarily by judged by) one opinion, nor even their larger political beliefs. (An org absolutely is, and can.) But when far-right folks are serving as the main sounding board for your ideas...your ideas get twisted and used for ends you may not have intended...or did you? If you didn't, why aren't you clearly drawing your own lines?
For example, Kingsnorth says in his essay that covid is serious and requires national attention, that vaccines seem to be effective at preventing serious illness and death, and that they should continue to be part of national responses to covid (provided they are a choice and not forced.) But first of all, buries all of that. It's not at all front and center; it's easily missed. Second: try a cursory search for "paul kingsolver vaccine moment," and you get a bunch of people quoting him (sometimes he is a guest on these folks' shows, too), and also saying, for example, that masks do not work to prevent the spread of illness.
I don't know if Kingsolver is saying that. He didn't say it in his essay, or even imply it. But he didn't come right out and say the opposite, either, which concerns me because he must know that he is allying with folks who are anti-mask, believe covid is a hoax, etc, and if he doesn't get out in front of that kind of talk, he's tacitly endorsing it. So his calls for complexity ring just a little hollow to me, when followed by his behavior.
Kingsnorth has been problematic for a while. Google ecofascism and he's one of the guys who comes up.
I had huge issues with that last book of his about writing: Savage Gods -- in which he acts as though Ireland is the west of England, and especially the way he erases that his wife has essentially supported him all along -- first by working for a salary, and then, in Ireland, by homesteading and homeschooling the children he only ever mentions as a burden.
Then he flirts with Buddhism in the most annoying way ("I became a Buddhist" he declares after one weekend sesshin.) but discards it because ... it doesn't make him the center of salvation. I was not at all surprised to hear he joined the Eastern Orthodox church -- authoritarian, slightly arcane, and your spiritual life is all about your own salvation, not the salvation of all.
Sorry to rant, this one has been building for a while.
On the other hand, Amitav Ghosh's new book, The Nutmeg's Curse, is like Shock Doctrine put into a global context of empire and written by a non-western person. It's really beautifully written, and totally eye-opening.
I've been hearing so much about that Ghosh book. I'm getting it.
And thanks for your thoughts re: Kingsnorth. I've wondered about his wife. When he mentioned somewhere about how he'd started writing again (which he said he was not going to do anymore in Savage Gods) he said it was because supporting his family requires it. Makes me wonder.
I love the Ibis Trilogy, but some of the others haven't clicked for me. But Great Derangement and Nutmeg's Curse are, I think, 2 of the best things I've read about how we came to our current predicament.
I wanted to love Ibis but to be very honest I think I just have trouble staying engaged with books set in hot places. I hate being hot and somehow even having that visceral reading experience drags me to suffocating sleepiness.
There’s this much older one of his called In an Antique Land that I just loved, about an ancient, lost library that if I remember still had scraps of scrolls lying around?
Hi, can you please elaborate on the Eastern Orthodox church being arcane and how it is about your own salvation and not the salvation of all? I have been reading about Orthodoxy lately, and I know the local church closest to me has many volunteering opportunities and they talk a lot about charity. Is this not common elsewhere? I will check out The Nutmeg's Curse!
I was being more glib than I probably should have, and replying as a mostly-ex-Catholic. My comment was less about the Eastern Orthodox traditions, which can be very beautiful, and more about how annoying I found Kingsnorth's religous tourism in Savage Gods, and how even more annoyed I was by his essay when he converted.
In general, there is much to love in the orthodox Christian traditions including Catholicism, especially in the ways in which many of them take a sacramental approach to the non-human world. Kingsnorth has just been under my skin since I read that book last winter ...
I'm curious to read the response, too, but I have Russian Orthodox family members, and my understanding has always been that it's about one's own personal salvation rather than a conversion-of-others mission. Maybe it's different within different branches of Orthodoxy.
The first thing I thought was ecofascism, and I'm glad more informed people than me have said same. Rich white men want poor people to die, while they are holed up off the grid. It figures he voted for Brexit while living in Ireland.
I know I’ve said it before, but your writing gives voice to thoughts I have that I only wish I could express so clearly. Thank you. And fuck that Kingsnorth douchebag.
Assholes and arrogance are so exhausting. They make it hard for me to enjoy things like our Victorian Christmas downtown, because antimaskers gotta breathe all over everyone. I stayed home. I'm still staying home. I like it here in my bubble.
I do like the phrase, "a delicious little sign from God." I'll take that in the form of a rare bird or a tree in a blaze of color.
Now that I’ve had a chance to read Kingsnorth’s First Things essay about his conversion, it’s an even striking plot twist, because he didn’t *necessarily* have to from that to the more recent anti-vax stance you’re writing about. I know this to be true because it’s not how my own journey from a Catholic upbringing through a keen interest in Buddhist and Taoist thought, with a detour into solo chaos magick, before rediscovering that Jesus is way cool and landing with the Quakers, went.
On the other hand, that rebellious streak that draws upon anti-authoritarian impulses to the point that it approaches ever and ever closer to anti-statism? That seems, at some level, entirely consistently with the man who once wrote an essay about how he was worried that he couldn’t quite convince himself the Unabomber was wrong.
So very much in agreement. “Exhausted” is an excellent descriptive word for how I feel, hearing so much bullshit from those who subscribe to conspiracy theories. We are left with a very real shitshow to which the medical community must tend.
Thank you again, Chris, for a thought-bending journal entry.
Just read Anne Helen Petersen's newsletter where she recommends this one for 'anyone who is a little cranky but also incredibly tenderhearted', and it's the most validated I think I've ever felt, and yes, I'm shamelessly hitching a lift on your wagon :) Thank you for articulating this mix of hope and melancholy, of rage and tenderness - it's truly the most authentic encounter of my week (which probably speaks volumes about my current hermit vibe here in a rural in-between, but still).
Listened to a Jack Kornfield podcast last night and his quote - forgive yourself for being a learner in the world - resonated so much with this. Keep cracking the heart open. Keep steering back towards the better path.
“A delicious little sign from God”? I am seething. I am not familiar with Paul Kingsnorth, but this thinking it seems to me is symptomatic of what is terribly wrong in our world. It is particularly heartbreaking to know that people who possess substantial intellect are so very cruel and obtuse.
As for the holiday lights, I welcome the cheer that they emit. I’m not too keen on the inflatables but I suppose the children like them. Strings of lollipop colored lights do it for me.
I enjoyed the quote from Eloghosa Osunde. Did you know that she was a 2020 MacDowell Colony Fellow? The MacDowell Colony is located in Peterborough,NH which is about 20 miles down the road from Keene. If you re-visit Walden Pond, you should check it out.
I would like to express my deepest gratitude to all of the scientists and healthcare personnel who are helping us through this devastating pandemic. They are the true Angels.
Thanks again for the great writing. And just a thought. Might you consider visiting the bookstore on Christmas Eve Day? I worked in a sign shop for more that 30 years. It was definitely fun to be there during the days just before Christmas. There were always visitors and lots of cups of steaming coffee to enjoy and to share with others.
Paul Kingsnorth is ideologically painting himself into a corner. The first piece of writing I read by him, “Dark Ecology” published in Orion magazine in 2012, is brilliant https://www.orionmagazine.org/article/dark-ecology/ . Since then, he’s moved toward more railing at what he calls The Machine while simultaneously becoming more dependent on it. Could he continue to live on the west coast of Ireland without his internet and social media exposure and the income he makes from it? I doubt it, his books don’t sell that well and now that he’s announced he’s unvaccinated, how many will come to sit at his feet at his expensive writing retreats. That said, I do get Kingsnorth’s deep-seated distrust of technological hubris. Nothing supports that distrust more than the news of the Covid Omicron variant with its myriad mutations and its potential to render the current vaccine less effective. Nature always bats last as the saying goes. It’s also worth considering in your judgement of him, Chris, that he is in the UK where vaccine mandates are in effect in some places, and Johnson and his cronies have managed the pandemic rather poorly. Kingsnorth knows English history and rightly so has a rational skepticism for whatever magic bullet the London crowd is handing out.
In any case, cheers and as always, I enjoyed this one. I always look forward to Irritable Métis in my Inbox.
Okay, I read the essay and Kingsnorth's responses. There is a way this ilk snipes at one another that makes me crazy. Definitely an interesting read though, and thank you for sharing it!
Dammit, Chris. Kingsnorth, too? I actually am not quite surprised, after hearing his comments two or three years ago about why he voted for Brexit. There's this little coterie including him, Christopher Eisenstein (who wrote a 9,000-word screed at the beginning of the pandemic decrying so many things that it was impossible to keep track), others we've talked about -- people who attracted readers like us by initially saying, "Look, this all doesn't have to be the way it is; we can do better" but whose inclinations seem to have tumbled them down a rabbit hole of magical thinking that basically ran right into libertarianism and married it. I don't understand it at all.
It is to me such an unreachable way of viewing the world, to hold fast to this idea that you can live in a way that doesn't affect other people. Or to think that you can live in a way that is pure and organic (plant those trees in Ireland!) and so well-fed in body and spirit that you can escape the physical effects of the industrial world (as if micro plastics and tens of thousands of unregulated chemicals will never penetrate your excellent immune system); or that you will be protected from the bottomless hunger of capitalism if you just buy your land and hide away.
Why???
Agreed across the board. On the plus side though, it has really had me rethinking where I stand on a lot of this stuff, because I certainly don't want to be lumped in with these guys.
My mind is going overdrive mulling over all of this and the whole ego/guru issue.
What must be dead inside a person to make them so cruel? Exactly. I wonder this all the time. What's being asked of us for the health and safety of others is so minimal. I just don't understand how people justify their arrogance.
And, btw, I love your quote from Eloghosa Osunde, whom I'm going to have to check out.
The Osunde piece I linked to is wonderful. I need to read more of her.
The idea that the pandemic will lead to the weak humbling the strong is such bullshit. More specifically, Christian bullshit. It’s wishful thinking to rewrite reality; this idea that the poor will persevere when, really, they are the ones who always suffer the most.
If you throw your hands up and claim it’s God’s chosen method to “correct” humanity, then the entire Global North should be gone right now.
If anything, the pandemic is evidence that whatever God exists doesn’t care about justice, however it may be defined.
It's such SHITTY Christian bullshit, too. In the sense of shitty Christianity. I have watched Kingsnorth's conversion and subsequent public thinking with interest and no particular opinion, but I too have been deeply disappointed by this latest turn. It's not even his opinions, precisely, that disappoint me, it's the irresponsibility of airing them gleefully and without apparent care for humanity. Which, to be fair I guess, is something Kingsnorth has been steering toward for a long time. Maybe I should have seen it coming.
I think we've been on a similar arc. I starting doubting him (his authenticity? his compassion? not sure) after the festival talk where he defended his vote for Brexit. It was just so ... I guess very much like you describe below, like yes I can understand you feel this way but the conclusion you're coming to is just an articulation of cruelty, of uncaring about harm caused to others, or even the possibility of harm.
That's what galls me too, how in retrospect it seems like I should have seen it coming. I feel duped. And like you say: he seems gleeful, especially in the comments. What a jerk.
It's really the comments that are just pissing me off. A majority of the essay makes some reasonable points, says a lot of the stuff you mentioned in your own essay, but comes to a different conclusion. But then just that SMUGNESS. Ugh.
Re: different conclusions: reading Kingsolver these days feels like the way it's always felt to me to read C.S. Lewis' nonfiction. I love it! I nod along and I argue and I enjoy myself. And then he gets to his conclusion and I'm like NO! DUDE! Where did you GET that condescending nonsense?
Yes. Totally. Condescending is such a perfect word for it.
I read it again, and I'm even more frustrated. This is a complex situation with a lot of factors playing in, and in the essay particularly, Kingsnorth is acknowledging and even trying to be quite clear about that. Much that he writes is cogent and useful, and much of it I also personally agree with. For example: forcing people to get vaccinated is a bad idea, and digital medical passports are a road we should not walk down; it goes places I don't want to be as a society.
BUT
a) The smugness! The weird glee! The (reasonable) theology turned to ends that feel slightly...mean. It's not in the essay really, but his responses to comments reveal that perhaps he is not as even-handed or compassionate off-the-cuff as his more polished writing allows me to believe that he is.
b) The bedfellows. I've been interested lately in the people and organizations Kingsnorth has allied with (in the sense of appearing on their podcasts or videos or what have you), because they seemed...odd. A person is not made up of (and cannot necessarily by judged by) one opinion, nor even their larger political beliefs. (An org absolutely is, and can.) But when far-right folks are serving as the main sounding board for your ideas...your ideas get twisted and used for ends you may not have intended...or did you? If you didn't, why aren't you clearly drawing your own lines?
For example, Kingsnorth says in his essay that covid is serious and requires national attention, that vaccines seem to be effective at preventing serious illness and death, and that they should continue to be part of national responses to covid (provided they are a choice and not forced.) But first of all, buries all of that. It's not at all front and center; it's easily missed. Second: try a cursory search for "paul kingsolver vaccine moment," and you get a bunch of people quoting him (sometimes he is a guest on these folks' shows, too), and also saying, for example, that masks do not work to prevent the spread of illness.
I don't know if Kingsolver is saying that. He didn't say it in his essay, or even imply it. But he didn't come right out and say the opposite, either, which concerns me because he must know that he is allying with folks who are anti-mask, believe covid is a hoax, etc, and if he doesn't get out in front of that kind of talk, he's tacitly endorsing it. So his calls for complexity ring just a little hollow to me, when followed by his behavior.
Oh dear, halfway through this I started typing "kingsolver" when I meant "kingsnorth," and oh Barbara Kingsolver I am so sorry. :p
I couldn't agree more with ALL of this. Thank you.
Kingsnorth has been problematic for a while. Google ecofascism and he's one of the guys who comes up.
I had huge issues with that last book of his about writing: Savage Gods -- in which he acts as though Ireland is the west of England, and especially the way he erases that his wife has essentially supported him all along -- first by working for a salary, and then, in Ireland, by homesteading and homeschooling the children he only ever mentions as a burden.
Then he flirts with Buddhism in the most annoying way ("I became a Buddhist" he declares after one weekend sesshin.) but discards it because ... it doesn't make him the center of salvation. I was not at all surprised to hear he joined the Eastern Orthodox church -- authoritarian, slightly arcane, and your spiritual life is all about your own salvation, not the salvation of all.
Sorry to rant, this one has been building for a while.
On the other hand, Amitav Ghosh's new book, The Nutmeg's Curse, is like Shock Doctrine put into a global context of empire and written by a non-western person. It's really beautifully written, and totally eye-opening.
I've been hearing so much about that Ghosh book. I'm getting it.
And thanks for your thoughts re: Kingsnorth. I've wondered about his wife. When he mentioned somewhere about how he'd started writing again (which he said he was not going to do anymore in Savage Gods) he said it was because supporting his family requires it. Makes me wonder.
This explains a lot.
That’s a good book rec! I can never get into Ghosh’s fiction but his nonfiction is among my favorite.
I love the Ibis Trilogy, but some of the others haven't clicked for me. But Great Derangement and Nutmeg's Curse are, I think, 2 of the best things I've read about how we came to our current predicament.
I wanted to love Ibis but to be very honest I think I just have trouble staying engaged with books set in hot places. I hate being hot and somehow even having that visceral reading experience drags me to suffocating sleepiness.
There’s this much older one of his called In an Antique Land that I just loved, about an ancient, lost library that if I remember still had scraps of scrolls lying around?
Oh that's hilarious, but I completely understand. I also liked the Mishra a lot, but I read it so long ago ...
Did you read Pankaj Mishra’s “Age of Anger”? I found it good for that too.
Hi, can you please elaborate on the Eastern Orthodox church being arcane and how it is about your own salvation and not the salvation of all? I have been reading about Orthodoxy lately, and I know the local church closest to me has many volunteering opportunities and they talk a lot about charity. Is this not common elsewhere? I will check out The Nutmeg's Curse!
I was being more glib than I probably should have, and replying as a mostly-ex-Catholic. My comment was less about the Eastern Orthodox traditions, which can be very beautiful, and more about how annoying I found Kingsnorth's religous tourism in Savage Gods, and how even more annoyed I was by his essay when he converted.
In general, there is much to love in the orthodox Christian traditions including Catholicism, especially in the ways in which many of them take a sacramental approach to the non-human world. Kingsnorth has just been under my skin since I read that book last winter ...
I'm curious to read the response, too, but I have Russian Orthodox family members, and my understanding has always been that it's about one's own personal salvation rather than a conversion-of-others mission. Maybe it's different within different branches of Orthodoxy.
The first thing I thought was ecofascism, and I'm glad more informed people than me have said same. Rich white men want poor people to die, while they are holed up off the grid. It figures he voted for Brexit while living in Ireland.
It's maddening.
Ahh, People love to blame God or gods for the evil that they do to themselves to others.
Nice piece, Chris. Thank you.
Thank you, Dana.
I know I’ve said it before, but your writing gives voice to thoughts I have that I only wish I could express so clearly. Thank you. And fuck that Kingsnorth douchebag.
Assholes and arrogance are so exhausting. They make it hard for me to enjoy things like our Victorian Christmas downtown, because antimaskers gotta breathe all over everyone. I stayed home. I'm still staying home. I like it here in my bubble.
I do like the phrase, "a delicious little sign from God." I'll take that in the form of a rare bird or a tree in a blaze of color.
I love your interpretation of "delicious little" signs from God. I'm going to follow suit!
Of all the plot points 2021 could hit, I’ll admit I did not see “Paul Kingsnorth takes the Benedict Option” coming.
I was pretty shocked when I learned that too.
Now that I’ve had a chance to read Kingsnorth’s First Things essay about his conversion, it’s an even striking plot twist, because he didn’t *necessarily* have to from that to the more recent anti-vax stance you’re writing about. I know this to be true because it’s not how my own journey from a Catholic upbringing through a keen interest in Buddhist and Taoist thought, with a detour into solo chaos magick, before rediscovering that Jesus is way cool and landing with the Quakers, went.
On the other hand, that rebellious streak that draws upon anti-authoritarian impulses to the point that it approaches ever and ever closer to anti-statism? That seems, at some level, entirely consistently with the man who once wrote an essay about how he was worried that he couldn’t quite convince himself the Unabomber was wrong.
I think the Unabomber was largely correct right up until he started murdering people, frankly.
So very much in agreement. “Exhausted” is an excellent descriptive word for how I feel, hearing so much bullshit from those who subscribe to conspiracy theories. We are left with a very real shitshow to which the medical community must tend.
Thank you again, Chris, for a thought-bending journal entry.
Thank you, Marie.
You just brightened my morning. Thank you. You are one of my favorite angry tender writers.
Thank you, Jennifer.
Just read Anne Helen Petersen's newsletter where she recommends this one for 'anyone who is a little cranky but also incredibly tenderhearted', and it's the most validated I think I've ever felt, and yes, I'm shamelessly hitching a lift on your wagon :) Thank you for articulating this mix of hope and melancholy, of rage and tenderness - it's truly the most authentic encounter of my week (which probably speaks volumes about my current hermit vibe here in a rural in-between, but still).
Listened to a Jack Kornfield podcast last night and his quote - forgive yourself for being a learner in the world - resonated so much with this. Keep cracking the heart open. Keep steering back towards the better path.
Thank you so much, Clare.
Hi Chris,
“A delicious little sign from God”? I am seething. I am not familiar with Paul Kingsnorth, but this thinking it seems to me is symptomatic of what is terribly wrong in our world. It is particularly heartbreaking to know that people who possess substantial intellect are so very cruel and obtuse.
As for the holiday lights, I welcome the cheer that they emit. I’m not too keen on the inflatables but I suppose the children like them. Strings of lollipop colored lights do it for me.
I enjoyed the quote from Eloghosa Osunde. Did you know that she was a 2020 MacDowell Colony Fellow? The MacDowell Colony is located in Peterborough,NH which is about 20 miles down the road from Keene. If you re-visit Walden Pond, you should check it out.
I would like to express my deepest gratitude to all of the scientists and healthcare personnel who are helping us through this devastating pandemic. They are the true Angels.
Thanks again for the great writing. And just a thought. Might you consider visiting the bookstore on Christmas Eve Day? I worked in a sign shop for more that 30 years. It was definitely fun to be there during the days just before Christmas. There were always visitors and lots of cups of steaming coffee to enjoy and to share with others.
Wishing you a great week ahead,
Melissa
Thank you, Melissa. And thanks for the info on Osunde. I've only read a couple of her essays but, when time allows, I certainly want to read more!
Paul Kingsnorth is ideologically painting himself into a corner. The first piece of writing I read by him, “Dark Ecology” published in Orion magazine in 2012, is brilliant https://www.orionmagazine.org/article/dark-ecology/ . Since then, he’s moved toward more railing at what he calls The Machine while simultaneously becoming more dependent on it. Could he continue to live on the west coast of Ireland without his internet and social media exposure and the income he makes from it? I doubt it, his books don’t sell that well and now that he’s announced he’s unvaccinated, how many will come to sit at his feet at his expensive writing retreats. That said, I do get Kingsnorth’s deep-seated distrust of technological hubris. Nothing supports that distrust more than the news of the Covid Omicron variant with its myriad mutations and its potential to render the current vaccine less effective. Nature always bats last as the saying goes. It’s also worth considering in your judgement of him, Chris, that he is in the UK where vaccine mandates are in effect in some places, and Johnson and his cronies have managed the pandemic rather poorly. Kingsnorth knows English history and rightly so has a rational skepticism for whatever magic bullet the London crowd is handing out.
In any case, cheers and as always, I enjoyed this one. I always look forward to Irritable Métis in my Inbox.
Thank you, Susan. I realize I'm being quite harsh on the man. Part of it is the disappointment, I'm sure. It's all so frustrating.
Oh, it gets more interesting. Read the following blog post and then search for Paul's comments. ecosophia.net/the-way-of-participation-a-response-to-paul-kingsnorth/
Go down the rabbit hole of magic, demons, and yes, covid. What a world the internet is,
Okay, I read the essay and Kingsnorth's responses. There is a way this ilk snipes at one another that makes me crazy. Definitely an interesting read though, and thank you for sharing it!
Glad you found it interesting!
John Michael Greer is someone to follow. I have off and on for years, and he's really good.
What a generous-hearted essay that was. Thank you for sharing.
I'm glad so many people liked reading it!
Bookmarked. Thank you!
Feckin' Kingsnorth...
For real.