“Luddites weren't anti-technology, they were pro-human and pro-communities and pro-flattened forms of power that allowed for autonomy and dignity, instead of increasing inequality. They prioritised fairness, people and nature over the underlying principles of unrestrained profit and competition that was tearing up their land. They weren’t smashing machines, they were fighting the externalities those machines were creating that led to a future of servitude, poverty and massive inequality”
This is so important. It’s like we have to create a better sounding story than the common narratives of progress and modernity. A story that people can see themselves in as being satisfied, healthy, loved, working for a common cause, etc. That’s why I can see the importance in the work of artists and writers and poets in creating a better narrative that we can all get behind.
Thanks so much for the comment Leon. I couldn't agree more about artists, writers and poets creating a new narrative toward a more benevolent and beautiful world.
The late (and great) David Graeber once described storytelling perfectly when he said “the ultimate, hidden truth of the world is that it’s something that we make, and something we could just as easily make differently”. Artists, writers and poets have an innate responsibility to retell the world and to make it differently (better).
I might just add, I suppose, I can be guilty of thinking in meta-narratives that describe great swathes of behaviour or historical changes or whatever. But in the actual life that I live, it's the intimate and and gentle kindnesses that happen all the time, in the smallest and least visible ways, that suggest to me the world is overflowing with beautiful and benevolent people. It takes an enormous machine to hide this goodness. Sometimes I wonder if, instead of telling new stories, we should just tell of the kindnesses that flow to and fro between us all everyday in the most wonderful ways. Just remind ourselves that we already have all the love ready and waiting. We've just got to let it flow.
Then I start writing poetic stories about how idiotic everything is. Funny old world. I think I need to write something about kindness. Thanks for the idea :)
I'm a bit of a Luddite myself. When the Amish started moving into our neighborhood, I was thrilled that we might all be able to go back to some idyllic time. But of course, there's no such thing. Just all of us trying to grapple with life and its choices. The internet isn't really that different from the way newspapers used to get people all ginned up for war or electing some candidate. In America, people have always been really news and politics obsessed so that hasn't changed since the country's founding. I guess the big difference is the way people can anonymously say truly evil things and not have to suffer any consequences ... actually that's a really big difference.
What a wonderful comment Adrienne. Thanks. You've got me pondering and considering which is always welcome.
I agree with you totally about newspapers (and TV news and pamphlets and whatnot) had (have) the power get people all ginned up (I love that expression) to support idiocies they might otherwise reject. The internet has merely accelerated that latent tendency. Though, for me, I suppose one difference is that those public medias postulated their (often lamentable) ideas in the open, in the public sphere. Whereas the internet has the capacity (as you suggest) to encourage a kind of secret siloing, where people engage less and less in the public sphere and more in more in isolated and opposing groups. The "other" then becomes far more easily made evil.
Another observation I've made (you'll probably know exactly what I mean) is that the internet encourages people to imagine they've uncovered or discovered some conspiracy or crusade all on their own. As if they were personally path-finding the "truth" all alone, even though everybody else is saying exactly the same things having fallen down exactly the same rabbit holes. I think that ownership of ideas is kinda new.
But yeah, You're so right that there's not really anything new under the sun.
Anyway, thanks again for the comment. Your Substack looks wonderful. I'm going to join. In fact, if you don't mind me making a suggestion on the flimsiest of evidence, you might enjoy Leon's Substack above. His Farm Update October 2023 is a brilliant read.
I read Leon's piece. Very interesting. I humbly submit that when you go into farming for ideological reasons, it can be too overwhelming and can lead to bitterness and hopelessness. Farming is compromise. If you take on too much and have too many ideas about the perfectly correct way of doing thigs from a political or ecological standpoint, you become crippled. Sometimes a wormer is a good thing. Sometimes you don't have the time, money or heart to wrestle with the big ideas when your expensive cow is suffering. Would you withhold lifesaving medicine from a child? Utopians think by their actions they will create paradise. That's not going to happen. I'm not saying this as a judge. I've been there. I've also worked on farms run by people who loved ideals but hated humanity. Their farms did not bring them joy--which is really one of the few things that can transform. I don't envy the guy trying to farm a jungle with European bees. Raising bees where they don't belong (we've done it) is one heartache after another.
I wonder if it's possible, through deconstructing the concept "ideological" to suggest that possibly ALL ways of farming are based on social and political underpinnings that are in their own way ideological?
I feel that there is a recognition amongst many that the lives we lead in general (absent of farming lives) are problematic (and planetarily destructive), and as such many people are making practical attempts to engage in different ways of living. I'm so on board with the truth that this is extremely taxing and challenging, and I totally see that utopianism is a hiding to nothing (and probably always leads to disaster). Deciding how life should be, then attempting to fold everything into that shape can most certainly be crippling (although from one standpoint that is our only option).
For me I tend to feel, I guess, a sort of gratitude that others forge paths I cannot (will not?) myself. But of course what those paths are makes all the difference. Paths that lead to new possibilities without doing harm and without colonising others are part of ongoing human possibilities. Of course, what they lead to will only be known when they are travelled. Maybe the destination is bitterness and hopelessness. Maybe not. There are so many variables with each person on each path.
I read a lovely description recently about yearning for different lives being driven by an innate understanding that our current lives are lacking in so much that is (should be) part of the human condition. Bit like those bee's being raised in places the don't belong, "we" are also living in ways that are incompatible.
BTW, I've got a piece coming soon about yearning for the past. Keep your eyes peeled :)
Anyway, thanks so much for the engagement Adrienne.
Next time I get the Luddite assault, I will conclude that the person is shovelling me. I wouldn't go so far as to calling them a shoveler out loud, but I think it's a magic word countering the attack. Conjuring up the inner smile....
“Luddites weren't anti-technology, they were pro-human and pro-communities and pro-flattened forms of power that allowed for autonomy and dignity, instead of increasing inequality. They prioritised fairness, people and nature over the underlying principles of unrestrained profit and competition that was tearing up their land. They weren’t smashing machines, they were fighting the externalities those machines were creating that led to a future of servitude, poverty and massive inequality”
This is so important. It’s like we have to create a better sounding story than the common narratives of progress and modernity. A story that people can see themselves in as being satisfied, healthy, loved, working for a common cause, etc. That’s why I can see the importance in the work of artists and writers and poets in creating a better narrative that we can all get behind.
Thanks so much for the comment Leon. I couldn't agree more about artists, writers and poets creating a new narrative toward a more benevolent and beautiful world.
The late (and great) David Graeber once described storytelling perfectly when he said “the ultimate, hidden truth of the world is that it’s something that we make, and something we could just as easily make differently”. Artists, writers and poets have an innate responsibility to retell the world and to make it differently (better).
I might just add, I suppose, I can be guilty of thinking in meta-narratives that describe great swathes of behaviour or historical changes or whatever. But in the actual life that I live, it's the intimate and and gentle kindnesses that happen all the time, in the smallest and least visible ways, that suggest to me the world is overflowing with beautiful and benevolent people. It takes an enormous machine to hide this goodness. Sometimes I wonder if, instead of telling new stories, we should just tell of the kindnesses that flow to and fro between us all everyday in the most wonderful ways. Just remind ourselves that we already have all the love ready and waiting. We've just got to let it flow.
Then I start writing poetic stories about how idiotic everything is. Funny old world. I think I need to write something about kindness. Thanks for the idea :)
Have a great day!
I'm a bit of a Luddite myself. When the Amish started moving into our neighborhood, I was thrilled that we might all be able to go back to some idyllic time. But of course, there's no such thing. Just all of us trying to grapple with life and its choices. The internet isn't really that different from the way newspapers used to get people all ginned up for war or electing some candidate. In America, people have always been really news and politics obsessed so that hasn't changed since the country's founding. I guess the big difference is the way people can anonymously say truly evil things and not have to suffer any consequences ... actually that's a really big difference.
What a wonderful comment Adrienne. Thanks. You've got me pondering and considering which is always welcome.
I agree with you totally about newspapers (and TV news and pamphlets and whatnot) had (have) the power get people all ginned up (I love that expression) to support idiocies they might otherwise reject. The internet has merely accelerated that latent tendency. Though, for me, I suppose one difference is that those public medias postulated their (often lamentable) ideas in the open, in the public sphere. Whereas the internet has the capacity (as you suggest) to encourage a kind of secret siloing, where people engage less and less in the public sphere and more in more in isolated and opposing groups. The "other" then becomes far more easily made evil.
Another observation I've made (you'll probably know exactly what I mean) is that the internet encourages people to imagine they've uncovered or discovered some conspiracy or crusade all on their own. As if they were personally path-finding the "truth" all alone, even though everybody else is saying exactly the same things having fallen down exactly the same rabbit holes. I think that ownership of ideas is kinda new.
But yeah, You're so right that there's not really anything new under the sun.
Anyway, thanks again for the comment. Your Substack looks wonderful. I'm going to join. In fact, if you don't mind me making a suggestion on the flimsiest of evidence, you might enjoy Leon's Substack above. His Farm Update October 2023 is a brilliant read.
I read Leon's piece. Very interesting. I humbly submit that when you go into farming for ideological reasons, it can be too overwhelming and can lead to bitterness and hopelessness. Farming is compromise. If you take on too much and have too many ideas about the perfectly correct way of doing thigs from a political or ecological standpoint, you become crippled. Sometimes a wormer is a good thing. Sometimes you don't have the time, money or heart to wrestle with the big ideas when your expensive cow is suffering. Would you withhold lifesaving medicine from a child? Utopians think by their actions they will create paradise. That's not going to happen. I'm not saying this as a judge. I've been there. I've also worked on farms run by people who loved ideals but hated humanity. Their farms did not bring them joy--which is really one of the few things that can transform. I don't envy the guy trying to farm a jungle with European bees. Raising bees where they don't belong (we've done it) is one heartache after another.
I wonder if it's possible, through deconstructing the concept "ideological" to suggest that possibly ALL ways of farming are based on social and political underpinnings that are in their own way ideological?
I feel that there is a recognition amongst many that the lives we lead in general (absent of farming lives) are problematic (and planetarily destructive), and as such many people are making practical attempts to engage in different ways of living. I'm so on board with the truth that this is extremely taxing and challenging, and I totally see that utopianism is a hiding to nothing (and probably always leads to disaster). Deciding how life should be, then attempting to fold everything into that shape can most certainly be crippling (although from one standpoint that is our only option).
For me I tend to feel, I guess, a sort of gratitude that others forge paths I cannot (will not?) myself. But of course what those paths are makes all the difference. Paths that lead to new possibilities without doing harm and without colonising others are part of ongoing human possibilities. Of course, what they lead to will only be known when they are travelled. Maybe the destination is bitterness and hopelessness. Maybe not. There are so many variables with each person on each path.
I read a lovely description recently about yearning for different lives being driven by an innate understanding that our current lives are lacking in so much that is (should be) part of the human condition. Bit like those bee's being raised in places the don't belong, "we" are also living in ways that are incompatible.
BTW, I've got a piece coming soon about yearning for the past. Keep your eyes peeled :)
Anyway, thanks so much for the engagement Adrienne.
Next time I get the Luddite assault, I will conclude that the person is shovelling me. I wouldn't go so far as to calling them a shoveler out loud, but I think it's a magic word countering the attack. Conjuring up the inner smile....
Always conjure up the inner smile, and then fly, rare bird, fly.
Good to see you here Bertus, glad you've found your way to this place :)
The thought of standardised rabbit holes made me snort....