re: there's lots of pine forest, if you think it would be great to live in one just go do it.
I lived in China for several years and noticed a Chinese version of the Klingsnorth phenomena. After a few drinks, when everyone was feeling safe, someone would remark to a general nodding of heads that it would be great to live in the Tang Dynasty.
Of course, they meant to live in the Tang as one of the retired senior officials, in the mountains with a koi pond, doing calligraphy and poetry as servants handled the food, laundry and housekeeping.
When I was grumpy, I'd just tell them they didn't actually mean that as there was nothing stopping them from doing it now and making a better life of it than any of the Tang officials. Just like there is a lot of available pine forest in Canada (and Minnesota), there are a lot of available remote mountain sides in China.
Revealed preferences, or watch the walk not the talk.
Very interesting. Yes. The precise form differs, but the appeal of nostalgic dreams of lost simplicity has massive appeal across cultures. (But as you say, no one wants to remember the hoeing, dishwashing etc, mostly just the pleasures of a pre-modern life of leisure.)
What surprised me in this post is that there was little, if any connection between disenchantment as a moral or emotional phenomenon, and scientific materialism as a philosophy.
I tend to resist the disenchantment thesis somewhat, or at least, to find it overrated. But to the extent that it's valid, the obvious explanation seems to be that the change in people's imaginative capacities and habits is downstream of a change in philosophical beliefs and worldview. People tend to be less spiritual if they don't believe in spirits. Something about the world is lost if you don't believe in the supernatural.
What do you think? Is disenchantment a function of ideological scientific materialism? Does Kingsnorth perceive that at all?
Yeah, interesting point. Maybe it’s a bit like moral relativism giving way to expressive individualism. Scientific materialism gives way to “technocracy.” However Kingsnorth does talk about the worship of science too; that’s one of his “evil S” things. So yeah, I think it’s definitely in there.
re: there's lots of pine forest, if you think it would be great to live in one just go do it.
I lived in China for several years and noticed a Chinese version of the Klingsnorth phenomena. After a few drinks, when everyone was feeling safe, someone would remark to a general nodding of heads that it would be great to live in the Tang Dynasty.
Of course, they meant to live in the Tang as one of the retired senior officials, in the mountains with a koi pond, doing calligraphy and poetry as servants handled the food, laundry and housekeeping.
When I was grumpy, I'd just tell them they didn't actually mean that as there was nothing stopping them from doing it now and making a better life of it than any of the Tang officials. Just like there is a lot of available pine forest in Canada (and Minnesota), there are a lot of available remote mountain sides in China.
Revealed preferences, or watch the walk not the talk.
Very interesting. Yes. The precise form differs, but the appeal of nostalgic dreams of lost simplicity has massive appeal across cultures. (But as you say, no one wants to remember the hoeing, dishwashing etc, mostly just the pleasures of a pre-modern life of leisure.)
What surprised me in this post is that there was little, if any connection between disenchantment as a moral or emotional phenomenon, and scientific materialism as a philosophy.
I tend to resist the disenchantment thesis somewhat, or at least, to find it overrated. But to the extent that it's valid, the obvious explanation seems to be that the change in people's imaginative capacities and habits is downstream of a change in philosophical beliefs and worldview. People tend to be less spiritual if they don't believe in spirits. Something about the world is lost if you don't believe in the supernatural.
What do you think? Is disenchantment a function of ideological scientific materialism? Does Kingsnorth perceive that at all?
Yeah, interesting point. Maybe it’s a bit like moral relativism giving way to expressive individualism. Scientific materialism gives way to “technocracy.” However Kingsnorth does talk about the worship of science too; that’s one of his “evil S” things. So yeah, I think it’s definitely in there.