Somebody who knows me well wrote to say he’s shocked that I like Paul Kingsnorth because he’s the opposite of me. And OK, I’m still me, I disagree with about 80% of what Kingsnorth says. He detests industrial modernity. I love it. But that’s precisely why it’s interesting for me to read this author. I’m discovering an extremely different worldview. In the process, I’m learning stuff of which I would otherwise be utterly ignorant.
For example, Kingsnorth, a lifelong, passionate Green, explains how the Green movement changed into its exact opposite in the past 30 years. The Green New Deals we keep hearing about are a manifestation of a technocratic drive towards eliminating nature, Kingsnorth says. I honestly didn’t know there was any difference between 2002 Greens and today’s Greens who keep repeating the word “sustainability” like unhinged parrots. Turns out these two groups of Greens are engaged in an extinction-level battle against each other. I found this very helpful because I like nature but detest sustainability. I don’t like nature anything like Kingsnorth likes nature because dude clearly spent his whole life bemoaning that it’s impossible to live in a haystack. But it’s very useful to find out when and how things went sideways in eco circles.
I’m still reading Against the Machine, and much of it is alien to me but also every page has something new and useful.
Kingsnorth’s support for nationalism is all backwards and very nutty, for example, but that’s a topic for another post.
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