Dougald Hine:

The fossil economy breaks the possibility of such a cycle [of human reciprocity with other living things]. How many million years of dying in the forests and seas of the ancient world go into one generation of living the way we have been doing around here lately? How could our lives ever be worthy of so much death? What could we possibly give back? And what would giving back even mean, when all that dying happened in the deep past of geological time? Committed to dependence on these vast underground reserves of death, the only response that remains is to silence such questions, to extinguish the ways of living which embody them, to make them unthinkable.

It’s as if we’ve discovered some powerful necromancy and we now we need a taboo on the practice. How is such a taboo established? How is it taught and enforced?

The universe is getting entirely too literal for my taste.

In 2024, we face the likely prospect of two old men representing two dying ideologies competing for the presidency of the United States.

On the one hand, we have an old man representing those who would resurrect a past in which a certain version of Christian morality is enforced on all. Add to this a strongman ideology of law and order, national cohesion, etc. I don’t need to go on—we all know what I’m referring to.

On the other hand, we have an even older man representing the ideology of Progress, the vision of a technocratic elite bringing in an ever-more-glorious future. An ideology in which the experts are anointed to rule over us in the name of science and efficiency. And if you’re lucky and go to the right schools you can become one of the ruling elites too.

The only thing that unites these two groups is their absolute devotion to the capitalist imperative of continual economic growth.

Both of these ideologies are dying. They are dying because neither of them can or will face the actual future.

In a recent podcast episode, Dougald Hine mentioned the work of Frederico Campagna. (I haven’t read him so I can’t say whether Dougald’s summary of his ideas is correct.) Campagna apparently says that sometimes humans are born into the ending of a world. It is important to note that the ending of a world is not the end of the world but it may feel like it is. In any case, the way you know you’ve been born into the ending of a world is that the future doesn’t work anymore. In a more normal time, you’re able to look at the past and present and project into a future. When you’re at the ending of a world, this is no longer possible.

In some real way, the world ended in 2016. In America, we were watching the close of the age of Obama. It hadn’t quite delivered on what we had hoped, but it seemed like a time we could be proud of. (Never mind all those bombs.) Now the first woman president seemed all but assured of taking office. Then it all came crashing down.

The feeling I most remember from that time is that nothing made sense. I was a Bernie voter. I didn’t like Hillary. But the idea that Trump had won was crazy. None of the rules seemed to apply anymore. And that feeling only got worse.

The world ended in 2016. American life has now entered a zombie state. Wildfires. A plague. An attack on the Capitol. Climate change as a present reality. Hell, we can’t even make original entertainment anymore.

Now these two old men with their old ideologies present themselves before zombie America and ask us to choose. It’s no wonder that both men have had their mental competence called into question: they represent insane ideologies. It’s even literally the same two guys. We have to give one of them a second chance.

Hey, Cosmos, isn’t this getting a little heavy-handed? Try for a little nuance, maybe.

We cannot see the future from here. Don’t trust anyone who says they can. But I suspect it is out there, if we are willing to let the dead bury the dead.

“A heathen, conceivably, but not, I hope, an unenlightened one.”—Lord Summerisle, and me.

Happy May Day! Around here that means its time to watch Wicker Man. Possibly repeatedly.

This is a beautiful pile of lilac flowers from the bush in our front yard. I’m making lilac simple syrup.

Today I was sitting on a bench at an Amish nursery near Loogootee, IN, listening to a couple of people enthusing over the flowers they found. Anyone that excited over flowers must be a decent person. Of course, I’m sure there are senators or defense department officials or CIA agents or private equity investors who enjoy gardening. Maybe. Theoretically. But I think it works as a rule of thumb.

A love for growing things seems to be one of those enthusiasms that come with age. Perhaps there something about the patience and humility required that does not fit well with the zeal and vigor of youth. Or maybe the desire to nurture life in some of its beautiful and fragile forms only comes to those who have been beaten down a little.

Treebeard was very disappointed in Saruman. He could have been so much more. At first he seemed eager to learn but Treebeard noticed that he never reciprocated (an essential feature of any relationship with nature). Rather he seemed only to take. Even in those days, Treebeard speculates, he may have been turning to evil.

He has a mind of metal and wheels; and he does not care for growing things, except as far as they serve him for the moment.

Another rule of thumb: never trust a person who sees the natural world as a means to their own ends.

“We all come from first peoples somewhere in the world. We have not always been trammelers of the land.”

I read years ago (can’t remember where) that the difference between leftists and liberals is their attitude toward capitalism. Liberals want to reform it; leftists want to abolish it. I don’t know how commonly held that definition is, but it’s been useful to me.

I’ve joined a small, local writing group. For the next meeting, I’m working on a fable-ish piece of fiction, which is new for me since I’ve never written much fiction. I’d worked out bits of it but it all felt rather bland–until last night when I got an unexpected idea. Now it’s coming together.

Re Spotify nonsense: I used to think I couldn’t live without Spotify for music discovery. Then I got a new phone and never reinstalled it. Then I stopped the paid subscription. Like Twitter, I haven’t missed it. All you need is a record store, Bandcamp, and friend recommendations