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RENEW Review of Paul Kingsnorth’s ‘Against the Machine’ · Real Life Theology Podcast

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  Welcome back everyone to the Real Life Theology podcast.
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  As part of our ongoing book review series,
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  today's episode features Chad Ragsdale on Paul
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  Kingsnorth's book Against the Machine.
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  Chad names the deep unease a lot of us feel about our culture
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  right now, and by the end of this episode, you'll have a real language
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  for it, plus a clear-eyed take on where Kingsnorth North
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  gets it right and where he pushes too far.
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  Here is the episode. How long can
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  a plant live once it's been uprooted?
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  Days, maybe weeks. There are various factors involved
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  that might lead to longer or shorter survival times, but the one thing that
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  we know for certain is that unless quick and decisive action is
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  taken, the plant is eventually going to die. Well, how long can
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  a people live once they have been uprooted?
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  This is the question posed near the beginning of Paul Kingsnorth's
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  book Against the Machine. This quote pretty
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  well captures the tone of the book when he says this: When
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  a plant is uprooted, it withers and then dies.
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  When the same happens to a person, or a people, or a planet
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  full of both, The result is the same. Our crisis
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  comes, I think, from our being unable to admit what on some level
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  we know to be true: that we in the West are living inside
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  an obsolete story. Our culture is not in danger of dying,
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  it is already dead, he says, and we are in denial.
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  This now is the reality we have to wrestle with and transcend.
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  I don't say this lightly. Very few nonfiction books
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  have affected me at a deeper level than this particular
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  book. Uh, it was sobering, it was maddening,
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  it was depressing, uh, it was weirdly
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  therapeutic all at the same time.
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  Some of that, no doubt, is related to Kingsnorth's mastery
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  of compelling prose. He's just a really good writer.
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  But more than the style, it was really the substance of the
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  book that made such a visceral impact on me when I read it.
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  This book begins with 2 contrasting epigraphs,
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  2 contrasting quotes offering 2 different
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  perspectives on the same reality. These quotes,
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  I think, set the tone for the entire book. That's why he included them at
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  the very beginning. The first quote is from the American novelist Wendell
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  Berry. Many of you have heard of him. He says, It is easy for me
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  to imagine that the next great division of the world will be between people who
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  wish to live as creatures and people who wish to live as
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  machines. On the very next page,
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  he offers this quote from the famous British science fiction
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  writer Arthur Clarke. He says, it may be that
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  our role on this planet is not to worship God, but to create
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  him. Both of these quotes are reflections on
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  a transformed cultural landscape.
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  To Berry, this landscape is a technological
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  wasteland absorbing what was left of our
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  humanity. To Arthur Clarke, on the other hand, this landscape holds
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  all the promise of a new Eden where humans
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  set free, uh, with the godlike powers of
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  technology, we create God ourselves, presumably we
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  create God in our own image. Kingsnorth then
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  spends the next 300 pages arguing that both
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  quotes contain some truth. In a
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  way, Clarke is right. We have
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  created wonders of efficiency and power,
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  overshadowing heaven with our digital Tower of Babel.
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  What need do we have for God in the age of AI.
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  But in a more important way, Barry is also right. In our hubris,
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  we have sown the seeds for our own destruction. We haven't,
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  we haven't made gods in our image. We have made idols that are conforming
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  us to their image. The most pressing questions
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  that humans will have to answer now and in the future is whether
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  we will continue to be fully human or
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  whether we will be absorbed into the machine.
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  Many who will read this book will already
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  have felt the reality of Wendell Berry's observation pressing
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  down on them, even if they aren't quite able to express it.
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  We live, after all, in a time of great wealth and comfort really
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  unparalleled in human history. In many respects,
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  things have never been better for us. We have easy access to
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  clean water and nourishing food. We carry the collective knowledge
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  of mankind on a device that fits easily in our pockets.
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  Despite persistent efforts from some media outlets to stir
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  up anxiety, the chances of widespread catastrophe and war seem
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  as remote as ever. Many of the physical
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  ailments and diseases which took so many millions of lives in the past have now
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  been rendered largely harmless. Yet,
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  yet something still feels terribly, horribly off.
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  There's a general sense of unease that no amount of affluence
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  or entertainment can seem to pacify.
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  Kingsnorth exposes, I think, and explains the
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  source of this unease. We are living through
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  what he at one point calls a great unsettling.
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  This is, he says, a time and place where nothing seems
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  solid, comforting, or even real.
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  This unsettling is a consequence of being uprooted. In one section
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  of the book, which I really appreciated, Kingsnorth outlines 4 essential values
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  that provided roots for older societies and cultures.
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  These values are: number one, a past, or a shared
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  sense of history or ancestry.
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  Number 2, a people or a shared group identity that informed
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  my own individual identity. So I, I understand who I am as
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  an individual by my connection to the group.
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  Number 3, a place or an almost sacred connection
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  to a particular location in nature. And then fourthly,
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  a prayer or a religious tradition which relates
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  to people, which relates a people to a sacred order.
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  So all 4 of these elements are essential, he, he argues,
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  in order for a person or a, or a, a group of persons to
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  feel rooted. We need a past, we need a people, we need a place,
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  and we need a prayer. Each one of these 4 cultural
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  values, he argues, have been replaced by what
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  he calls a global anti-culture, a global anti-culture which
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  promotes, um, science, Number 1, science is
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  the only story capable of describing where we've come from.
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  Number 2, the self. The self is the only source of
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  our identity, not, not the people that we're attached to, just ourself.
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  Number 3, sex. Sex is the highest means
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  of sacred pleasure at our disposal. And number 4, the screen.
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  The screen is our main interface with reality.
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  So, um, a past, a people, a place,
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  and a prayer have been replaced by science,
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  the self, sex, and the screen.
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  This anti-culture then results in the mass
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  experience of being uprooted, and this
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  anti-culture affects really all of us.
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  We're now a people who, who live within the
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  ruins of a once great but now complete alien—
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  completely alien civilization. This anti-culture
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  is reinforced and spread by means of what Kingsnorth
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  calls the machine. He defines and describes
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  the machine in various ways throughout the book.
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  Those who are familiar with the writings of French philosopher Jacques
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  Ellul will see some similarities between what Kingsnorth
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  calls the machine and what Ellul called technique.
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  This describes a phenomenon where efficiency and control become the
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  dominant cultural values. These values
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  are promoted by technology, but they're about much more
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  than just technology. These values are really
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  about a changed worldview in which human being— human values,
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  I should say, become machine values.
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  So our values are replaced by the values of the machine.
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  These values are often hidden behind political euphemisms like
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  progress, diversity, liberalism, or even conservatism.
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  But these labels are always, he argues, defined by the machine.
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  And so our progress is only in the direction
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  of the machine, and even our conservatism
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  is only in service of conserving the machine.
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  Uprooted from the sacred order, from our past, from nature, from community,
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  even from the grittiness of life, human beings can't escape the
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  feeling that we are becoming more and more artificial as time
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  passes. It's almost like we're being processed and packaged
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  by powers that are greater than we can imagine or control. Now, I know
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  this sounds, um, kind of heady. It sounds,
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  uh, maybe more than a little depressing. Uh, and if that's
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  the case, I think Kingsnorth will have accomplished his goal. He didn't
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  write this book to make us feel better. He wrote this book to
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  make us feel in a profound way the reality of our situation.
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  This book— I like to compare this book to Neo's red pill in The
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  Matrix. Once you read it, you won't see the world in the same way
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  again. Now, this book is well worth reading,
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  but it's not without criticisms either. My main criticism
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  of the book is that I couldn't help but wonder if the deep pessimism of
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  the book is completely warranted. Kingsnorth sees dark clouds
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  everywhere. Even those things in our culture that might cause us to rejoice
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  in gratitude and hope— turns out those things are just deceptive.
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  What we dubiously call progress is just the machine in
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  disguise. Uh, as an example, Kingsnorth's chapter on
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  artificial intelligence might actually cause you to lose some sleep.
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  He believes that artificial intelligence is literally demonic.
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  Now, I also harbor some deep concerns about artificial intelligence,
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  but his analysis at times borders on
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  hysterical. He fails to even consider more positive
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  outcomes and applications for this technology.
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  Kingsnorth is, is a romantic, and, and I think his romanticism
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  clouds the way that he sees much of
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  culture. Um, Kingsnorth, I think, would benefit from a more nuanced,
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  uh, theology of technology. Um, in the book,
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  he calls himself a self-professed Luddite, uh, who has relocated
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  his family as off the grid as possible. This bias
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  and even this paranoia against technology has, I think,
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  again clouded his analysis. While I can appreciate the,
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  um, the deep concerns that,
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  that we can legitimately have regarding the ways that technology reshapes
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  us in its image. I appreciate those things. I agree with those arguments by and
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  large. I also believe that technological innovation
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  can be biblically and theologically defended as a
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  good thing. God created us with a mandate to be fruitful and
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  multiply and to responsibly rule over the things that he's made. Technological innovation
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  is a natural byproduct of mankind's God-given capacity for creativity,
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  for problem-solving, and for rational thought.
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  Now, we know that these capacities have also been broken by sin,
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  which is why we have never really been able to escape the temptation to
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  build new Towers of Babel and to use our innovation
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  and our progress to eclipse God rather than to honor
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  God. But the brokenness of technological
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  innovation doesn't render all technological innovation as irredeemably
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  negative or idolatrous. There is a healthy
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  balance to be found between worshiping the machine and being,
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  you know, integrated into the machine, um,
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  and running to the hills and becoming Amish. Uh, like, there's— we
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  don't, we don't have to live at either one of those extremes.
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  Maybe I'm conceding too much, but my response to the
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  book is to be wise about the power of the machine.
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  Wisdom is a commitment that rejects both uninformed naivete
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  and also anxious paranoia. So I do recommend
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  this book. I think that it is a worthwhile read.
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  Like I said, it will cause you to see your life and to see your
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  world in a fresh perspective.
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  It'll bring things to light that maybe you have missed when just
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  looking at the culture in which we live. It'll also, I think, help to explain
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  some of the general feelings and unease that, that you
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  may have had just contemplating what it means to be
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  human in this world. But the overly pessimistic
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  tone of the book is something worth,
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  I think, critiquing.
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  Thank you guys for listening to this episode of the Real Life Theology
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  podcast. Here at renew.org, our mission is to
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  renew the teachings of Jesus to fuel disciple-making,
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  to help equip everyone to be disciple-makers. If you're interested
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  in more content like this, check us out at renew.org.