May 13, 2022·edited May 13, 2022Liked by FFatalism
Yesterday in a comment on Paul Kingsnorth post, I was taken back to a blog post that I had read in 2020. In it [https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/glory2godforallthings/2020/06/01/the-violence-of-modernity/] Fr Stephen Freedman wrote "The difficult answer is to quit living as though modernity were true. Quit validating modernity’s questions. Do not ask, “How can we fix the world?” Instead, ask, “How should Christians live?” and give the outcome of history back to God.". I see his "modernity" much as the "machine." It is a good addition, I feel, to how we can respond.
Walking away from the machine, disentangling our lives, requires community. But it can not be an exclusive community, because that only plays to the machine. I agree that labels - right/left, conservative/liberal, as well as religious affiliation or lack there of - need to go. Hanging onto labels will never allow for real community.
I agree with your 'do nothing' approach to some extent. The Machine after all is just a story created by human minds, the built environment that is causing ecological ruin is the symptom of this story. In Western medicine most illnesses are treated by suppressing the symptoms rather than addressing the root cause; trying to dismantle the physical manifestation of the Machine is akin to this. To address the root cause we need to look into our minds. To the place where these stories are created and upheld. This is a very spiritual journey that in essence will require us to physically do nothing and quieten our minds. Whether this is through prayer or meditation doesn't make a whole lot of difference. However, I do think finding God is important. Unfortunately I fear most people aren't quite ready to tread that path yet....but if you're a believer of Sheldrakes morphic resonance a small group of people doing this may just start something!
Wonderful. I'm thinking very much along similar lines: fighting windmills won't help, but we can use the machine's negative energy and turn it into something positive, Judo-style. It provides a contrast on which we can build a healthier understanding of the world and our place in it; and it provides the soul-shattering frustration that compels us to change: in our outlook, in our ways, in our being. Personally, I am convinced that if we do it right, a change for the better will follow organically. But even if not - it is still the right thing to do, and our soul will rejoice.
May 16, 2022·edited May 16, 2022Liked by FFatalism
I agree with you, even though (paradoxically) nothing is the hardest thing to do. As a Christian, I know that the one power that I have against the Machine is that power that Christ himself had, the only one that the Machine cannot take away or corrupt - the power to suffer in silence. But how I resist that!
May 13, 2022·edited May 13, 2022Liked by FFatalism
This is excellent. I still struggle with wanting to "do something". There is a deeper thought in me knows this is futile. It is also interesting that we are all finding each other--through the metamachine itself! Maybe the goal with all these substacks is to make them obsolete. That they can be a map out of the maze of the machine. Not a literal map, but an inner urge. I don't know how to better put it. Either way, it won't be an easy trick to pull off. Because it can't be a trick.
For the person who has learned to let go and let be, nothing can ever get in the way again--Meister Eckhart
The Way is ever without action, yet nothing is left undone. -Tao Te Ching
Hope consists in asserting that there is at the heart of being, beyond all data, beyond all inventories and calculations, a mysterious principle which is in connivance with me, which cannot but will that which I will, if what I will deserves to be willed and is, in fact, willed by the whole of my being." --Gabriel Marcel (from The Philosophy of Existentialism)
No doubt the solitary consciousness can achieve resignation [stoicism], but it may well be here that this word actually means nothing but spiritual fatigue. For hope, which is just the opposite of resignation, something more is required. There can be no hope that does not constitute itself through a we and for a we. I would be tempted to say that all hope is at the bottom choral. --Gabriel Marcel
Yesterday in a comment on Paul Kingsnorth post, I was taken back to a blog post that I had read in 2020. In it [https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/glory2godforallthings/2020/06/01/the-violence-of-modernity/] Fr Stephen Freedman wrote "The difficult answer is to quit living as though modernity were true. Quit validating modernity’s questions. Do not ask, “How can we fix the world?” Instead, ask, “How should Christians live?” and give the outcome of history back to God.". I see his "modernity" much as the "machine." It is a good addition, I feel, to how we can respond.
Walking away from the machine, disentangling our lives, requires community. But it can not be an exclusive community, because that only plays to the machine. I agree that labels - right/left, conservative/liberal, as well as religious affiliation or lack there of - need to go. Hanging onto labels will never allow for real community.
I agree with your 'do nothing' approach to some extent. The Machine after all is just a story created by human minds, the built environment that is causing ecological ruin is the symptom of this story. In Western medicine most illnesses are treated by suppressing the symptoms rather than addressing the root cause; trying to dismantle the physical manifestation of the Machine is akin to this. To address the root cause we need to look into our minds. To the place where these stories are created and upheld. This is a very spiritual journey that in essence will require us to physically do nothing and quieten our minds. Whether this is through prayer or meditation doesn't make a whole lot of difference. However, I do think finding God is important. Unfortunately I fear most people aren't quite ready to tread that path yet....but if you're a believer of Sheldrakes morphic resonance a small group of people doing this may just start something!
Thanks for the post, it reminded me of this verse I found from Tao de ching:
The more prohibitions and rules,
The poorer people become.
The sharper people's weapons,
The more they riot.
The more skilled their techniques,
The more grotesque their works.
The more elaborate their laws,
The more thay commit crimes.
Therefore the Sage says:
Wo wu wei
I do nothing
And people transform themselves.
I enjoy serenity
And people govern themselves.
I cultivate emptiness
And people become prosperous.
I have no desires, And people simplify themselves.
Wonderful. I'm thinking very much along similar lines: fighting windmills won't help, but we can use the machine's negative energy and turn it into something positive, Judo-style. It provides a contrast on which we can build a healthier understanding of the world and our place in it; and it provides the soul-shattering frustration that compels us to change: in our outlook, in our ways, in our being. Personally, I am convinced that if we do it right, a change for the better will follow organically. But even if not - it is still the right thing to do, and our soul will rejoice.
I agree with you, even though (paradoxically) nothing is the hardest thing to do. As a Christian, I know that the one power that I have against the Machine is that power that Christ himself had, the only one that the Machine cannot take away or corrupt - the power to suffer in silence. But how I resist that!
Thank you! This is advice to heed, especially when to do nothing seems impossible.
This is excellent. I still struggle with wanting to "do something". There is a deeper thought in me knows this is futile. It is also interesting that we are all finding each other--through the metamachine itself! Maybe the goal with all these substacks is to make them obsolete. That they can be a map out of the maze of the machine. Not a literal map, but an inner urge. I don't know how to better put it. Either way, it won't be an easy trick to pull off. Because it can't be a trick.
For the person who has learned to let go and let be, nothing can ever get in the way again--Meister Eckhart
The Way is ever without action, yet nothing is left undone. -Tao Te Ching
Hope consists in asserting that there is at the heart of being, beyond all data, beyond all inventories and calculations, a mysterious principle which is in connivance with me, which cannot but will that which I will, if what I will deserves to be willed and is, in fact, willed by the whole of my being." --Gabriel Marcel (from The Philosophy of Existentialism)
No doubt the solitary consciousness can achieve resignation [stoicism], but it may well be here that this word actually means nothing but spiritual fatigue. For hope, which is just the opposite of resignation, something more is required. There can be no hope that does not constitute itself through a we and for a we. I would be tempted to say that all hope is at the bottom choral. --Gabriel Marcel