🐰 Are We All Colonists Now? | Paul Kingsnorth, Against The Machine Book Study: Part 6
Nov 20, 2025 10:16 pm
🐰 Down The Rabbit Hole 🕳️
“A city is, at its heart, just such a ‘relentless collective assault’ on the way that humans have lived for 99 percent of their history; and, maybe more importantly, a collective assault on other forms of life. This is especially true of the modern megacity with its tens of millions of inhabitants, which bears about as much resemblance to an ancient city as a Reaper drone does to a longbow. The sheer scale of the modern urban conglomeration is mind-boggling and entirely irreversible.”
~ Paul Kingsnorth, Against The Machine, p. 83
---------------------------------------
Find great gifts for the tech-skeptics in your life...
And support this work at the same time!
LIVESTREAM AT 7:30PM (EST) TONIGHT (THURSDAY NOVEMBER 20)
Greetings, dear newsletter subscriber,
In my latest video, among other things, I discuss one of Paul Kingsnorth’s key ideas: that we treat the world like a giant fish tank. We believe that if we just understand all the inputs, we can manage everything — nature, society, even ourselves. But this mindset has consequences(!)
The modern world is fundamentally misaligned with what humans actually are. Our cities devour the land, which makes most of us de facto colonists. Our technologies reshape our habits and desires. And our "communities" often dissolve into moment-to-moment interactions.
In this week's video and blog post, I offer a reflection on Ch. 7 & 8 of Kingsnorth's book. As mentioned above, we will be discussing them this evening at 7:30pm (EST) - link above (in green)!
Even if you don't read the book, and just join us for the discussion, I'm sure you will find it of interest!
You can find the full schedule on this week's Substack post:
Hope to see you this evening! Have a great weekend, and we'll see you again soon!
Warmly,
Herman
PS: Here's the book study schedule:
November 20: 7:30pmEST
- Pages 64-88
December 1: 7:30pmEST
- Pages 89-134
December 11: 7:30pmEST
- Pages 135-167
December 18: 7:30pmEST
- Pages 168-205
December 29: 7:30pmEST
- Pages 206-243
January 8: 7:30pmEST
- Pages 244-284
January 15: 7:30pmEST
- Pages 285-318