🐰 Down The Rabbit Hole 🕳️

“If we can see what it [the Machine] is, we have a duty to speak the words to those who do not yet see, all the while struggling to remain human.”

~ Paul Kingsnorth, Against The Machine, p. 317

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LIVESTREAM AT 7:30PM (EST) TOMORROW (FRIDAY JANUARY 16)

Greetings, dear newsletter subscriber,

Our book study is finished! Alas...all good things must come to an end. But...every ending is also a new beginning!

As we move into 2026 I am inspired by Kingsnorth's quote above: How to continue to help folk perceive and understand what is happening in the world? And perhaps most importantly: How do we help young people understand, make wise decisions, and construct a hopeful vision for the future? This will be my focus moving forward...and I hope you will continue to join us on this journey!

In the final installment, we dive into the final chapters of Paul Kingsnorth’s Against the Machine and revisit one of his key ideas: that our real problem isn’t any particular technology, political party, or policy—but the unchallenged religion of Progress itself.

Kingsnorth argues that both the left and the right remain trapped inside the Machine’s worldview. Every crisis becomes an excuse for more control, more abstraction, and more distance from human-scale life. The alternative, he suggests, isn’t a new ideology or utopian blueprint—but a stance: drawing limits, loving place, and practicing "technological askesis."

This is not about rejecting the modern world outright, but rather about learning how to remain human inside it. This, finally, is how Kingsnorth ends the book: with an attempt to clarify what an "anti-Machine stance" looks like.

👉 Watch the video here

👉 Read the article here

Hope to see you tomorrow evening...have a great weekend, and we'll see you again soon!

Warmly,

Herman

PS: Here's the final book study schedule:

January 16: 7:30pmEST

Pages 273-318