#43 Paul Kingsnorth

- “What if We Were Wrong?” and Other Questions We Can’t Face (Part 2)

On this episode of “Death in The Garden,” we share our in-person film interview with writer Paul Kingsnorth, creator of the Abbey of Misrule and author of many acclaimed books, such as Alexandria, Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist, and Savage Gods. In this interview we discuss broadly the Machine, a metaphor for the mechanized, atomizing, and ruthlessly extractive society we live in today and how it impacts us spiritually, psychologically, and physically. We discuss the process of unseating the sacred from the “throne” at the center of our societies, and how we’ve supplanted it with technology, reason, and above all, money. We dissect some of the oft forgotten aspects of colonization which were intrinsically tied to industrialism, exploring how colonialism of the enclosure of lands preceded the enclosure of the means of production but being forged from the same story, and how this same story continues today. We discuss at length the story of the Garden of Eden and what we can learn from its metaphors. And finally, we talk about the unlikelihood of turning this ship around, but the importance of recognizing the story of the Machine is a lie, and perhaps only thereafter, we can start living a different way.

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Editing: Jake Marquez

Outro music: “The Goose and The Common” by The Quiggs