"But a value system which glorifies wealth and accumulation, which builds itself on a platform of want, which inflames and creates more of it daily through a marketing machine that colonizes the human mind—this is what every spiritual tradition in history has warned against, and with good reason." (Kingsnorth, Against the Machine)

Just tagging off yesterday's post here with a followup quote from the book that I think hits what I was getting at a bit better. The point here isn't to say that a religious society is better or more just—far from it. Nor should we equate modern religious identity with its pre-modern versions. Capitalism has consumed religion just as much as anything else. But, there is wisdom to be found in these traditions if we are willing to listen.

Something I've been reflecting on over the last week as I've been working through Kingsnorth's book has been the way wealth, excess, and the pursuit of gratification has become aspirational in modern society. There was a time in pre-modern societies where avarice was considered a sin—when those who profited off the financial exploitation of others were shamed. This isn't to say it didn't exist, but it was not celebrated in the way it is today.

One of the myths that capitalism relies on is the way excess (prosperity) is presented as the grand goal for all. Rather than put limitations around wealth, we talk about it as something that anyone can attain with just a little hard work or the right timing of the market. This myth operates at both a local and a global level, driving the idea that the world will be a better place when everyone lives like the richest nations. But not only is this not possible, it begs the moral question of if this is even something we should aspire towards. A question that Kingsnorth notes was being asked by the British economist, E.F. Schumacher in the 1970s:

"The foundations of peace cannot be laid by universal prosperity, in the modern sense because such prosperity, if attainable at all, is attainable only by cultivating such drives of human nature as greed and envy, which destroy intelligence, happiness, serenity, and thereby the peacefulness of man."

The thing that makes ethics so tricky in our age is that we are trying to work out individual moral choices against the backdrop of a capitalist system that has made virtues of what was once considered vice. Lifestyles of excess are presented as normal and the pursuit of more is seen as the sign of a good life. What I think Kingsnorth is so rightly pointing out is that this has not always been the case; and we may need to be more critical in asking what this has cost us.

"The notion that the Machine is inevitable and natural, and that there is no 'realistic' alternative to its reign, is a self-fulfilling prophecy. It is also a fiction...

The reality is that Machine capitalism did not 'evolve' from small-scale artisan of peasant societies: they had to be deliberately destroyed in order that it might replace them." (Kingsnorth, Against the Machine)

Capitalism does not feed the local economy; it feeds on it. It preys on our sentiment and tells us a story to make us feel as though we are supporting local businesses but instead it is devouring any semblance of that. A good example of this has been the 'Buy Canadian' response to US tariffs over the last year. Many massive corporations exploited this idea in order to increase their profit margins while their existence hurts actual local, independent retailers. Not to mention that the little of the profit of those larger corporations stays within the community.

“Even if you are living where your forefathers have lived for generations, you can bet that the smartphone you gave your child will unmoor them more effectively than any bulldozer could." (Kingsnorth, Against the Machine)

The sort of central point—at least in the early parts of this book—is that we have all become uprooted by The Machine, a sort of loose term for the global crisis that has severed us from tradition, culture, nature, community, ourselves, etc... It is driven by the global economy and although it was created by the West we can see it being furthered by States all around the world.

We have all been uprooted.

"Meanwhile, out in what is fondly called ‘the real world’ by people who often don’t know very much about reality, you are living in a metastasizing machine which is closing in around you, polluting your skies and your woods and your past and your imagination... Most of the things you like are fading away. The great forests and the stories made in and by them. The strange cultures spanning centuries of time. The little pubs and the curious uninhabited places. The thrumming temples and dark marshlands and crooked villages and folk tales and conviviality and spontaneous song and old houses which might have witches in them. The possibility of dragons. The empty beaches and wild hilltops, the change of getting lost in the rain forever or discovering something that was never on any map. A world without maps, a world without engines."

Picked up 'Against the Machine' by Paul Kingsnorth at the library the other day. This part in the introduction leaped out at me.

Most of the things you like are fading away.