Thanks for these comments. I’m glad my post resonated.
Just to pick up on a couple of points. Chris’s point about money is very interesting, and I’d like to understand more about its ‘originating motivations in consciousness’. And also ‘the Dweller on the Threshold’. My sense is that Paul doesn’t espouse a narrowly dualistic or moralistic sense of the Devil (he was previously into Wicca, after all) but I’m a bit outside my lane with all this.
Thanks also to Jonathan for drawing my attention to McKibben’s review, which I read. I must admit, I thought it was off target in many ways. At least he was trying to be generous where he could, and I guess it was all in good faith, but it seemed to me he really didn’t ‘get’ the arguments in a fundamental way. As I said in my review, some of Paul’s statements on ‘culture war’ issues may seem to some to be out on the edge, but I think McKibben’s characterisations of them are grossly unfair. His two other beefs relate to vaccines and climate change. FWIW my position on vaccines and Covid is quite mainstream, probably more so than Paul’s, and I haven’t read everything he’s written on the topic. But I’m not sure he’s questioning the medical efficacy of vaccines in general, nor that there’s a place for public health measures – it’s more the rather totalising political narratives around them in respect of Covid. In the end, even I began to find the ‘follow the science’ pro-lockdown narrative almost as irksome as some of the anti-vax positions. Likewise on climate change, I don’t think Paul is questioning the gravity of the danger or the importance of decarbonisation. He does question a narrowly technocratic approach to carbon counting and to decarbonising the existing energy economy without fundamentally changing it and reducing energy consumption – rightly so in my opinion.
Thanks for this review, I’ve been pondering whether to read ATM but have made a new year’s intention to read less non-fiction. (I have got your book to read however). I think we know what to. But, doing work in practice is so much harder than reading about it! Especially as you say, when we’re pushing a big boulder up the hill. Here’s to strong arms and more local agroecological livelihood creation in 2026!
Thanks for this, Chris. I have had similar distance from Paul at times in the past but the recent critiques of his Machine book have been so toxic and with such little honor they make me suspect the book of decency.
I think folks often forget Paul is pretty new to Christianity and, like most new converts, is in a great deal of flux. However narrow his dualism may or may be in some of the earlier texts, the guy is clearly in motion. I have been finding myself rooting for him and this review helps articulates why.
As you say, Chris, the concept of the Machine appears somewhat nebulous, but nonetheless has a real core. You rightly emphasised the relevance of linking it to a "tendency within us", rather than just an external structure of political economy.
A great deal of the nature of the beast that does pertain to political economy (i.e. quite a lot) can in my view be analysed as following from the way in which money has increasingly been created by private banking corporations over the past 330 years - as I've suggested previously in one of these threads. But even if one agrees with such an analysis, it relates to mechanism & implementation, not the originating motivations in consciousness. Obviously putting it like that will alienate anyone who espouses philosophical or so-called "scientific" materialism, but that can't be helped.
Approaching the Machine from a metaphysical perspective, as Paul does, one can pick up on the "tendency within us" & equate the Machine's inner nature with what esoteric traditions have termed the Dweller on the Threshold. This refers essentially to the sum total of prevailing human thoughtforms & attitudes which may or may not once have had some dynamic utility for the evolution of consciousness, but which have now become outdated & rigidified so as to obstruct the needed next step in evolution.
Paul would probably not favour that perspective, as he unfortunately seems to align with the narrow Christian characterisation of other lines of metaphysical/occult thought as works of the Devil. And talking of the Devil, the Tarot arcanum (XV) of that title symbolises just the mental & emotional domination, by a seeming reality which appears too powerful to oppose - but ultimately isn't.
Thanks for this review. I particularly appreciated your point that Kingsnorth may have granted too much ground to the machine by conceding the 'numbers game' to Monbiot.
It strikes me that Against the Machine can best be seen as an appendix to Schumacher's Small Is Beautiful. And although he doesn't reveal much of his own deeper beliefs in the book, Schumacher's theological commitments are not far from Kingsnorth's.
That Against the Machine is getting as much attention as it has is a sign of hope for me.
I look forward to getting into your new book. The craft element is also key for me. I think one of the best ways to fight the machine is to resist its reduction of our hands to mere typing machines. Having worked with some traditional crafts myself, like woodcarving and blacksmithing, it strikes me that here are tangible and immediate challenges and pleasures far beyond anything the machine can offer.
I can’t tell you how much I appreciate the depth of this review. I read Against the Machine a couple of months ago and I’ve been wrestling with how to meaningfully live out a response to it. As a bit of a purest, I desire to be a raw barbarian…but it is practically impossible given the demands of modernity. I also just got Small Farm Future and can’t wait to read it.
When a new niche group of writers can be caricatured so specifically, as Chris shows in the Emma Collins quote, you know something must finally be congealing in the public imagination - great news!
A generous review - maybe just a little too generous for me. I think an interesting critique is to be be found from Bill Mckibben, writing in the TLS a week or so ago
Thanks for these comments. I’m glad my post resonated.
Just to pick up on a couple of points. Chris’s point about money is very interesting, and I’d like to understand more about its ‘originating motivations in consciousness’. And also ‘the Dweller on the Threshold’. My sense is that Paul doesn’t espouse a narrowly dualistic or moralistic sense of the Devil (he was previously into Wicca, after all) but I’m a bit outside my lane with all this.
Thanks also to Jonathan for drawing my attention to McKibben’s review, which I read. I must admit, I thought it was off target in many ways. At least he was trying to be generous where he could, and I guess it was all in good faith, but it seemed to me he really didn’t ‘get’ the arguments in a fundamental way. As I said in my review, some of Paul’s statements on ‘culture war’ issues may seem to some to be out on the edge, but I think McKibben’s characterisations of them are grossly unfair. His two other beefs relate to vaccines and climate change. FWIW my position on vaccines and Covid is quite mainstream, probably more so than Paul’s, and I haven’t read everything he’s written on the topic. But I’m not sure he’s questioning the medical efficacy of vaccines in general, nor that there’s a place for public health measures – it’s more the rather totalising political narratives around them in respect of Covid. In the end, even I began to find the ‘follow the science’ pro-lockdown narrative almost as irksome as some of the anti-vax positions. Likewise on climate change, I don’t think Paul is questioning the gravity of the danger or the importance of decarbonisation. He does question a narrowly technocratic approach to carbon counting and to decarbonising the existing energy economy without fundamentally changing it and reducing energy consumption – rightly so in my opinion.
Thanks for this review, I’ve been pondering whether to read ATM but have made a new year’s intention to read less non-fiction. (I have got your book to read however). I think we know what to. But, doing work in practice is so much harder than reading about it! Especially as you say, when we’re pushing a big boulder up the hill. Here’s to strong arms and more local agroecological livelihood creation in 2026!
Thanks for this, Chris. I have had similar distance from Paul at times in the past but the recent critiques of his Machine book have been so toxic and with such little honor they make me suspect the book of decency.
I think folks often forget Paul is pretty new to Christianity and, like most new converts, is in a great deal of flux. However narrow his dualism may or may be in some of the earlier texts, the guy is clearly in motion. I have been finding myself rooting for him and this review helps articulates why.
As you say, Chris, the concept of the Machine appears somewhat nebulous, but nonetheless has a real core. You rightly emphasised the relevance of linking it to a "tendency within us", rather than just an external structure of political economy.
A great deal of the nature of the beast that does pertain to political economy (i.e. quite a lot) can in my view be analysed as following from the way in which money has increasingly been created by private banking corporations over the past 330 years - as I've suggested previously in one of these threads. But even if one agrees with such an analysis, it relates to mechanism & implementation, not the originating motivations in consciousness. Obviously putting it like that will alienate anyone who espouses philosophical or so-called "scientific" materialism, but that can't be helped.
Approaching the Machine from a metaphysical perspective, as Paul does, one can pick up on the "tendency within us" & equate the Machine's inner nature with what esoteric traditions have termed the Dweller on the Threshold. This refers essentially to the sum total of prevailing human thoughtforms & attitudes which may or may not once have had some dynamic utility for the evolution of consciousness, but which have now become outdated & rigidified so as to obstruct the needed next step in evolution.
Paul would probably not favour that perspective, as he unfortunately seems to align with the narrow Christian characterisation of other lines of metaphysical/occult thought as works of the Devil. And talking of the Devil, the Tarot arcanum (XV) of that title symbolises just the mental & emotional domination, by a seeming reality which appears too powerful to oppose - but ultimately isn't.
Thanks for this review. I particularly appreciated your point that Kingsnorth may have granted too much ground to the machine by conceding the 'numbers game' to Monbiot.
It strikes me that Against the Machine can best be seen as an appendix to Schumacher's Small Is Beautiful. And although he doesn't reveal much of his own deeper beliefs in the book, Schumacher's theological commitments are not far from Kingsnorth's.
That Against the Machine is getting as much attention as it has is a sign of hope for me.
I look forward to getting into your new book. The craft element is also key for me. I think one of the best ways to fight the machine is to resist its reduction of our hands to mere typing machines. Having worked with some traditional crafts myself, like woodcarving and blacksmithing, it strikes me that here are tangible and immediate challenges and pleasures far beyond anything the machine can offer.
Appreciating this wonderful piece on a book I recently finished and left me with a changed perspective. Your writing has done that for me too.
Worth a look in terms of a broader 'new economy' outlook.
https://cusp.ac.uk/themes/aetw/wp44/#full538f-5c38
I can’t tell you how much I appreciate the depth of this review. I read Against the Machine a couple of months ago and I’ve been wrestling with how to meaningfully live out a response to it. As a bit of a purest, I desire to be a raw barbarian…but it is practically impossible given the demands of modernity. I also just got Small Farm Future and can’t wait to read it.
I started an essay series last week on my thoughts and response to Against the Machine: https://open.substack.com/pub/andrew756864/p/against-the-machine-toward-the-garden?r=fx017&utm_medium=ios&shareImageVariant=overlay
When a new niche group of writers can be caricatured so specifically, as Chris shows in the Emma Collins quote, you know something must finally be congealing in the public imagination - great news!
Thank you for this excellent review!
A generous review - maybe just a little too generous for me. I think an interesting critique is to be be found from Bill Mckibben, writing in the TLS a week or so ago