Against the Machine: On the Unmaking of Humanity
Caught in the Web of it’s Song: An Introduction
Paul Kingsnorth has been talking against the machine his whole life, even before he knew its name.
“This book seeks to tell the tale of this Machine; what it is, where it came from, and where it is taking us next”
Part One: The Western Deviation
Epitaph: The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives… GK Chesterton
1: The Dream of the Rood
Started in the Garden, but we reached for knowledge too soon. God came as man to redeem us. “God himself walks on earth and what does humanity do? We torture and kill him. ¶ But the joke is on us, because it turns out that this was the point all along. The way of this creator is not the way of power but of humility, not of conquest but of sacrifice.”
A culture built around this story, but this culture died, leaving ruins.
“The ‘culture war’ is the equivalent of two bald men fighting over a comb.”
He concludes we have all sorts of things to us today, but are lacking the two things we need and continue to grasp at, “meaning and roots”.