Finished reading Kingsnorth Against the Machine. I both want and don’t want to say a lot about it, so I’m opting for less over more. With one notable exception (which I won’t get into here because, unlike him, I don’t think it’s central to his argument), I agree with most of it. In fact, most of the arguments are familiar to the localist, agrarian, human scale, neo-Luddite crowd. And his recommendations are also good.
But I don’t trust him. Some of this is my inability to forgive him for a stupid thing he said in one of those holy well essays. Aside from that, I wonder how many years it will be before he says something truly ugly.
I can’t help but compare him to Wendell Berry, who has been a major influence on us both (if I understand correctly). Berry is deeply humane and patient and rooted. Kingsnorth wants to be—and, while that desire is very commendable, I don’t think he’s there yet. He feels too “of the moment” and tapped into certain trends that don’t help my worry about where he’s going. For being a student of Berry, Kingsnorth talks less about localism than I expected. I think if he moved that direction more fully, I would be a bit less suspicious about his motivation.