I said my next post would cover my discussions with Tom Murphy, but I’m afraid time has caught up with me and I’m going to sign off for the year with this more general offering involving snippets from here and there.
Thanks for the comments, good wishes & suggestions. I like Annie's framing viz "What proportion of people need to be priced out of modernity before we admit that we’re a civilization in decline". I'm reading Paul's book at the moment and hope to comment on it sometime next year ... though maybe I should comment on my own book first!
Interesting suggestion from Vilhelm about writing near-future fiction. I did experiment with this skeletally in Chapter 12 of my recent book, 'Finding Lights...' - even to the point of an (incipient) love story! I'd' be interested in any feedback on this. I'd actually love to write some fiction like this - it's probably hard to get it published, but maybe that doesn't matter. Though I possibly have some non-fiction irons in the fire that I may need to work through first.
Anyway, that's it from me until the new year. Thanks as ever for comments, and happy holidays.
"Also, I found this article interesting – any thoughts?"
Indeed, I like this:
"We are no longer managing growth. We are managing the distribution of entropy."
Even managing is a strong word, Varying levels of mismanagement might be a better description, given the dementia emanating from the White House, the paranoias from the Kremlin and Knesset, and the I-don't-really-know-what-to-call-it falling out of the Westminster village.
Glad you got together with Tom Murphy, I look forward to seeing the discussions.
If you get chance, Tim Watkins of the blog Consciousness of Sheep might be good to compare notes with, he is in Wales so not too far away.
Yes it’s interesting reflecting on how peak oil had its discursive moment in the mid noughties then most folk went quiet about it when a collapse - or the one people were expecting - didn’t happen. I’m starting to think the word collapse limits peoples thinking too much. Even if the academics and other intellectuals who make sensible predictions use it to mean a long slow decline, the word will always evoke a sudden, dramatic crash. What is really happening though is being priced out of modernity right now. If you can’t afford electricity, or the guy you write about in your latest book living out a tent, are people like this living a ‘modern’ life? What proportion of people need to be priced out of modernity before we admit that we’re a civilization in decline?
Really enjoyed reading your blog and book - and a great book lauch. You tantilisingly speak of matters spiritual here and there, so i reckon book 4 may be somewhere in a pipeline. I guess Against the Machine moves into that area (and others too) but there is definately room for more.
Thanks for all your hard work on multiple fronts and have a good break.
Dear Chris. I very much share your expressed frustration when it comes to the ever so obvious epistemic breakdown within public and intellectual discourse. Not only are we disagreeing on what counts as evidence and which kinds of knowledge has priority, but also inabilities to self correct. Probably partly due to the forces of attention, clarity and moral signaling as more important than a corrective re-alignment with a responsible relationship to truthfulness. The reasoning comes from different epistemic cultures and standards.
Accepted standards of what constitutes truth follow different starting points and leaves discourse hanging as if one is arguing with a myth.
However, as I see it, the core disagreement between you and Monbiot (and other eco modernists) is not one of knowledge and facts alone. It’s a normative disagreement where value ordering outweighs factual discrepancies. If the goal is to change what people can imagine and therefore what they will tolerate politically, my thought is perhaps you, as a writer, would consider leaning into fiction as a deliberative method or tool over the non-fiction that has dominated your work so far (at least as far as I’m aware).
I imagine some form of constraint-respecting near-future stories that show, rather than lecture, how dignified, resilient, place-based lives might work in a world of real limits. Maybe even revisit historical agrarian realities told with a modern relatable perspective. Perhaps a love story that takes place within this future you envision or a story of grief as older generations scramble to make sense of a world in decay and struggle with their ability to provide their children with the kind of hope the deserve. Maybe the story of two children who have to flee urban unrest and find refuge in the cottage of their grandparents who teach them about the traditions and values that once used to be central to human collective life. Stories that add color and depth to a normative belief that independence moves attention away from other people while a belief in mutual dependency can enrich our ability to live together.
I don’t know, just riffing here. But you get the point.
Perhaps stories like these, rather than supply the hard data do the narrative work that makes your normative world thinkable, relatable and come alive through the lives of your characters. It’s not a capitulation of the ambition to form and inspire minds but rather a re-imagination of the tools we have at our disposal. Not as a replacement of the work, you already do, but perhaps as a compliment.
I’m sure this can, as well as being creative, also be a very productive way of moving fence-sitters by offering the cultural horizons that policy ultimately need. With the added bonus that you do not need to be wasting energy and valuable time trying to extract a public renouncement from those who are already speaking a different language. Rather, you can speak to the hearts of those struggling with the sense of loss that has come as an expense of the modern mindset, and offer them a glimpse into the kind of world you envision can stimulate and protect human flourishing
Thanks for the comments, good wishes & suggestions. I like Annie's framing viz "What proportion of people need to be priced out of modernity before we admit that we’re a civilization in decline". I'm reading Paul's book at the moment and hope to comment on it sometime next year ... though maybe I should comment on my own book first!
Interesting suggestion from Vilhelm about writing near-future fiction. I did experiment with this skeletally in Chapter 12 of my recent book, 'Finding Lights...' - even to the point of an (incipient) love story! I'd' be interested in any feedback on this. I'd actually love to write some fiction like this - it's probably hard to get it published, but maybe that doesn't matter. Though I possibly have some non-fiction irons in the fire that I may need to work through first.
Anyway, that's it from me until the new year. Thanks as ever for comments, and happy holidays.
"Also, I found this article interesting – any thoughts?"
Indeed, I like this:
"We are no longer managing growth. We are managing the distribution of entropy."
Even managing is a strong word, Varying levels of mismanagement might be a better description, given the dementia emanating from the White House, the paranoias from the Kremlin and Knesset, and the I-don't-really-know-what-to-call-it falling out of the Westminster village.
Glad you got together with Tom Murphy, I look forward to seeing the discussions.
If you get chance, Tim Watkins of the blog Consciousness of Sheep might be good to compare notes with, he is in Wales so not too far away.
Yes it’s interesting reflecting on how peak oil had its discursive moment in the mid noughties then most folk went quiet about it when a collapse - or the one people were expecting - didn’t happen. I’m starting to think the word collapse limits peoples thinking too much. Even if the academics and other intellectuals who make sensible predictions use it to mean a long slow decline, the word will always evoke a sudden, dramatic crash. What is really happening though is being priced out of modernity right now. If you can’t afford electricity, or the guy you write about in your latest book living out a tent, are people like this living a ‘modern’ life? What proportion of people need to be priced out of modernity before we admit that we’re a civilization in decline?
Really enjoyed reading your blog and book - and a great book lauch. You tantilisingly speak of matters spiritual here and there, so i reckon book 4 may be somewhere in a pipeline. I guess Against the Machine moves into that area (and others too) but there is definately room for more.
Thanks for all your hard work on multiple fronts and have a good break.
Dear Chris. I very much share your expressed frustration when it comes to the ever so obvious epistemic breakdown within public and intellectual discourse. Not only are we disagreeing on what counts as evidence and which kinds of knowledge has priority, but also inabilities to self correct. Probably partly due to the forces of attention, clarity and moral signaling as more important than a corrective re-alignment with a responsible relationship to truthfulness. The reasoning comes from different epistemic cultures and standards.
Accepted standards of what constitutes truth follow different starting points and leaves discourse hanging as if one is arguing with a myth.
However, as I see it, the core disagreement between you and Monbiot (and other eco modernists) is not one of knowledge and facts alone. It’s a normative disagreement where value ordering outweighs factual discrepancies. If the goal is to change what people can imagine and therefore what they will tolerate politically, my thought is perhaps you, as a writer, would consider leaning into fiction as a deliberative method or tool over the non-fiction that has dominated your work so far (at least as far as I’m aware).
I imagine some form of constraint-respecting near-future stories that show, rather than lecture, how dignified, resilient, place-based lives might work in a world of real limits. Maybe even revisit historical agrarian realities told with a modern relatable perspective. Perhaps a love story that takes place within this future you envision or a story of grief as older generations scramble to make sense of a world in decay and struggle with their ability to provide their children with the kind of hope the deserve. Maybe the story of two children who have to flee urban unrest and find refuge in the cottage of their grandparents who teach them about the traditions and values that once used to be central to human collective life. Stories that add color and depth to a normative belief that independence moves attention away from other people while a belief in mutual dependency can enrich our ability to live together.
I don’t know, just riffing here. But you get the point.
Perhaps stories like these, rather than supply the hard data do the narrative work that makes your normative world thinkable, relatable and come alive through the lives of your characters. It’s not a capitulation of the ambition to form and inspire minds but rather a re-imagination of the tools we have at our disposal. Not as a replacement of the work, you already do, but perhaps as a compliment.
I’m sure this can, as well as being creative, also be a very productive way of moving fence-sitters by offering the cultural horizons that policy ultimately need. With the added bonus that you do not need to be wasting energy and valuable time trying to extract a public renouncement from those who are already speaking a different language. Rather, you can speak to the hearts of those struggling with the sense of loss that has come as an expense of the modern mindset, and offer them a glimpse into the kind of world you envision can stimulate and protect human flourishing
Just a thought.
Happy holidays and Merry Christmas.
What do you think of Against the Machine? I don’t think I’ve seen you discuss it here yet.