It’s Religion

In a recent post John Michael Greer has continued to bring to light how a religious impulse underlies the current governmental crises. Not as the superficial coverage narrates a battle between conservatives and progressives, but how all these contending forces share in the overall religion of Progress. Reason with a capital R, as much as Fundamentalism,

History

I’ve long had a sense that the story of the Twentieth Century is hidden behind the stories that century’s victors told about themselves. World Wars, I and II, were not what they appeared. Actually, they were more what they appear to be and less what was so shrilly repeated about them in an attempt to

Argo F… Yourself!

We do what we’re good at. Propaganda shows the violence of hegemon’s victims while hiding the violence they react against. Today’s propaganda has a willing audience and volunteers lining up to provide it. No need for a dark “Ministry of Propaganda,” or “Palace of Truth.” In this heyday it can even afford to play with

Titanic, April 15, 1912

My father was eleven years old when the Titanic went down. He would tell his own simple story of when he heard about it. He was living in Portugal at the time…. Told it as an old man to a young boy around the same age as the boy he had been. There were fifty-one

On Medieval Cathedrals and the Limits of Proprioception

The inevitable question arrived via Twitter. “If civilization is all bad, what about the cathedrals?” I must say I invited this kind of question, literally asking for examples to unpack…. Still, I’m leery of the exercise. I don’t write to convince anyone. I write as a record and a way to extend and fill out

Craft’s Collision with Civilization, a starting point

Andrew Taggart recently asked me to clarify how I see the deterioration and loss of Craft resulting from its confrontation with civilization. This is a big question! Let’s begin with a few definitions. I’m beginning to see Craft as a central focal point in examining how our confrontation with civilization has led us to where

Austerity’s Place

Following the last post, Crafting Awareness, here is a series of statements that arose as the result of that insight. The following is no more than a listing of these points as they came up. They are suggestive of directions of inquiry implied by the assertion that craft has roots beyond civilization and that these

Crafting Awareness

Skeins of various threads spiral around me. Their common center may be craft. Craft. It’s an interesting word. It seems straightforward enough at first glance but once we start to look more closely it expands. There’s a broadness to it. It means making. It also means a vessel that transports us. It denotes a variety

Innovation as Impermanence

Watching this BBC documentary about the Islamic History of Europe I came across the Islamic roots of Convivencia, a term I’ve associated with Ivan Illich, perhaps its most recent heir, himself part of an Hispanic tradition going back to Al Andaluz. This film is a refreshing look at the contributions of Islamic Culture to the

On Conservatism

Humans have been profoundly conservative for most of our existence. That statement is rendered meaningless if we take conservatism to mean what is sold in its name today, or believe in what passes for the span of human existence as our self-professed conservatives would insist it to have been. Let’s pry the term away from

Sowing Doubt…

I’m not sure what this post will be about. Trying to avoid predictions, and all that. There’s something about intention that’s been lost in my focus on finding a way to look at action without intention, putting will into the background. We have wills. The will-to-live, for instance, is universally lauded. It’s only problematic when

What does it mean?

Tying our existence to a belief in destruction as the ultimate good is such a contorted position to be in! How we got here, what it means, where it will all lead; these are also questions whose answers appear in glimmers and hints, passing doubts, premonitions and inklings of what is down there, at least as it all appears from “up here.”