Mar 30, 2023·edited Mar 30, 2023Liked by Graham Pardun
I was originally going to be a free subscriber, but the references to both Lewis Mumford and Philip Sherrard (two writers near and dear to me), convinced me I needed to upgrade. I look forward to seeing where this is going.
Speaking of Genesis as counterculture against the machine, I believe Mumford argued exactly this in his two-volume Myth of the Machine. That the prophets and the concept of the sabbath, for instance, were pathways by which the original Babylonian and Egyptian megamachines were defeated. But since Mumford couldn't abide Christianity in the present, he seemed unable to come up with a template for doing it again in the 20th-21st century.
My first thoughts go to the city we all live in, wherever that place may be, and then how it resembles Babylon...and then how we can change it. But looking outward to find things to change (or really, critique), seems foolish when I consider the power I already have to change my surround. And then that seems foolish when I consider what needs to change within me. Everything is created in our image, but unless and until I can find the way back to the likeness of God in my own heart, the things I change outside will reflect the distortions unchanged within. I see a dual process, however, in my life. Changing the obvious affronts to peace and beauty in my surroundings at home and in my relationships while simultaneously targeting the chaos and disorder within. Both evolve as a process. As I change, traveling back "to that ancient beauty of Thy likeness," as the Orthodox death hymn states, my micro world at home should take on more of that image of Eden that the machine has marred.
Incredible insight about Genesis. Bravo. Is this understanding of a microcosm of the story commonplace in Orthodoxy? I wonder if it is more or less the actual origin or just “symbolism happening”
I've been turning this over in my head, and thinking: it's certainly possible, as is often done, to read Genesis as (among other things) an anti-urban polemic. The life of cities is bad; the nomadic pastoral life, while having its own problems, is basically good, and the ideal is the primeval garden. (Even then, though, a garden is not a wilderness.) But the picture gets more complicated as things go along, especially in the New Testament where what's looked toward is not so much the garden of Eden as the Heavenly Jerusalem which, as described in Revelation, sounds a bit like garden and city at the same time. (There's an essay by Andrew Gould in which he makes the lovely observation that in the Heavenly Jerusalem there's no distinction between indoors and outdoors, and I'd add that this is also reflected in Orthodox iconography where inside and outside often become ambiguous.) So we're not just trying to flee the city for the garden, but trying to bring the human impulse of civilization-building into harmony with God and his creation, rather than letting it become the rebellion against God and destruction of his creation that we so often see. Just some thoughts.
I'm really interested to see where you go with this. I'm an Orthodox parish priest in the Northeastern US (and, for various reasons, not planning to give much identifying information much beyond that), and so the question for me is always: how do we live this reality as actual parish communities? The Machine is working hard, and not without some success, to turn those parish communities into just more nodes of itself. The Church as theological reality is, I firmly believe, immune to that, but I don't believe any particular parish or church institution is. But hopefully you'll have some insights to guide us in all of that. I look forward to reading more!
I'm so glad I found your work via Paul Kingsnorth! It feels like the right time and place for this. I look forward to following you on this journey and being inspired by your work. I desire to disengage from the machine while faithfully stewarding my family. Suffering is okay and expected, but I've got to make sure it is done with careful intention.
Feb 27, 2023·edited Feb 27, 2023Liked by Graham Pardun
I must say, I thoroughly enjoyed this. I'm probably the last person one might expect to agree with what's in this essay. Even as recently as 2019, I was a Musk fanboy. I eagerly followed tech development. While, because of my faith and politics, I never fully embraced visions of techno- or man-made utopia, I was nevertheless fully "in" on tech development. This, really, was more of a childish innocence, indeed a naïvaté toward science and technology. Additionally, I was "all in" on the American experiment. I eagerly joined the Air Force out of nothing but a naïve belief in the essential goodness of America and without a twinge of conscience became a "Munitions Systems Technician"; I built bombs. A year after I left the service, I started work on a Bachelor of Science in Physics and had dreams of pursuing nuclear engineering in graduate school. I obtained my Bachelors last August.
When the pandemic hit, much changed. I was confronted with health problems that forced me to reckon seriously with asceticism and spiritual disciplines for the first time. I saw how perilously fragile the systems on which I was dependent actually were. There were many other important things that were roughly co-incident that forced a change of outlook. Though I still love the study of physics, and likely always will, my relationship with science and tech grew more complicated.
Though raised a non-denominational Evangelical Protestant, I had by 2020 been Anglican for a few years. Through my Anglicanism, I discovered and fell in love with Orthodoxy. Around then I started taking a deep dive into Orthodox theology and Eastern Christianity. At the same time, my politics became more traditionalist and I slowly started to question the assumptions of the Liberalism that undergirded the American experiment. As I read more deeply, the philosophical foundations of the entire modern world started to come into question. I discovered Wendell Berry, and then Paul Kingsnorth. I discovered many great podcasts including the Lord of Spirits from Ancient Faith Radio. I read Tolkien for the first time. I discovered other anti-technological writers.
Eventually I arrived at the conclusion that much of our ails stemmed from what I came to call the Technological Mind. This describes a mindset that is fundamentally loveless. It does not seek to know and love the Other, but rather is concerned primarily with techne: that is know-how, technique, to achieve its own ends. It values means more than knowing a proper telos. It seeks the centrality of Self, however that is conceived. It does not seek, out of love, to know and mimic an order external to the Self. It either does not believe in such an order, or resents it, and in either case seeks to establish by domination, manipulation, or quid pro quo an order in Its own image.
This is something mankind has always done. Whether through the spiritual technology of magic and ritual sacrifice to pagan gods, or through the material technology of our modern Baconian science, we wish to establish our own ends and accomplish them through our own means. In trying to take by force a place that isn't ours, we cause tremendous harm be it social, economic, ecological, or spiritual.
If there is to be a science worth having, I've come to the conclusion that we must abandon our Baconian science that seeks to reduce creation to merely consumable resources and seeks knowledge for the "relief of man's estate". Instead, we must adopt what I've come to call a "Damascene" science. This is named for St. John of Damascus, who said that he salutes and venerates all matter because of the Incarnation. This would be a science that only seeks to know at all due to, and then only to a proportion and manner consistent with, Love. It would desire to be intimately connected with all Creation, but would love and respect what isn't us for what or who it is. Scientific knowledge would then be one route among many to wisdom and would be for the sake of Love. Thus, even if there may be a temporary reductionism for methodological reasons to accommodate our limitations, the overall approach would shun reductionism as proper or ultimate, and instead seek a more holistic and integrative understanding of things. In the end, it should all come to Love, which we currently spurn.
I'm impressed that you have somehow made the word "empire" sound good, which I did not think could be done.
I was originally going to be a free subscriber, but the references to both Lewis Mumford and Philip Sherrard (two writers near and dear to me), convinced me I needed to upgrade. I look forward to seeing where this is going.
Speaking of Genesis as counterculture against the machine, I believe Mumford argued exactly this in his two-volume Myth of the Machine. That the prophets and the concept of the sabbath, for instance, were pathways by which the original Babylonian and Egyptian megamachines were defeated. But since Mumford couldn't abide Christianity in the present, he seemed unable to come up with a template for doing it again in the 20th-21st century.
My first thoughts go to the city we all live in, wherever that place may be, and then how it resembles Babylon...and then how we can change it. But looking outward to find things to change (or really, critique), seems foolish when I consider the power I already have to change my surround. And then that seems foolish when I consider what needs to change within me. Everything is created in our image, but unless and until I can find the way back to the likeness of God in my own heart, the things I change outside will reflect the distortions unchanged within. I see a dual process, however, in my life. Changing the obvious affronts to peace and beauty in my surroundings at home and in my relationships while simultaneously targeting the chaos and disorder within. Both evolve as a process. As I change, traveling back "to that ancient beauty of Thy likeness," as the Orthodox death hymn states, my micro world at home should take on more of that image of Eden that the machine has marred.
Incredible insight about Genesis. Bravo. Is this understanding of a microcosm of the story commonplace in Orthodoxy? I wonder if it is more or less the actual origin or just “symbolism happening”
I've been turning this over in my head, and thinking: it's certainly possible, as is often done, to read Genesis as (among other things) an anti-urban polemic. The life of cities is bad; the nomadic pastoral life, while having its own problems, is basically good, and the ideal is the primeval garden. (Even then, though, a garden is not a wilderness.) But the picture gets more complicated as things go along, especially in the New Testament where what's looked toward is not so much the garden of Eden as the Heavenly Jerusalem which, as described in Revelation, sounds a bit like garden and city at the same time. (There's an essay by Andrew Gould in which he makes the lovely observation that in the Heavenly Jerusalem there's no distinction between indoors and outdoors, and I'd add that this is also reflected in Orthodox iconography where inside and outside often become ambiguous.) So we're not just trying to flee the city for the garden, but trying to bring the human impulse of civilization-building into harmony with God and his creation, rather than letting it become the rebellion against God and destruction of his creation that we so often see. Just some thoughts.
(I found the essay I was referring to: it's this one, part 8 of a 12-part series: https://orthodoxartsjournal.org/an-icon-of-the-kingdom-of-god-the-integrated-expression-of-all-the-liturgical-arts-part-8-vestments/)
Wow..just wow!
I'm really interested to see where you go with this. I'm an Orthodox parish priest in the Northeastern US (and, for various reasons, not planning to give much identifying information much beyond that), and so the question for me is always: how do we live this reality as actual parish communities? The Machine is working hard, and not without some success, to turn those parish communities into just more nodes of itself. The Church as theological reality is, I firmly believe, immune to that, but I don't believe any particular parish or church institution is. But hopefully you'll have some insights to guide us in all of that. I look forward to reading more!
I'm so glad I found your work via Paul Kingsnorth! It feels like the right time and place for this. I look forward to following you on this journey and being inspired by your work. I desire to disengage from the machine while faithfully stewarding my family. Suffering is okay and expected, but I've got to make sure it is done with careful intention.
I must say, I thoroughly enjoyed this. I'm probably the last person one might expect to agree with what's in this essay. Even as recently as 2019, I was a Musk fanboy. I eagerly followed tech development. While, because of my faith and politics, I never fully embraced visions of techno- or man-made utopia, I was nevertheless fully "in" on tech development. This, really, was more of a childish innocence, indeed a naïvaté toward science and technology. Additionally, I was "all in" on the American experiment. I eagerly joined the Air Force out of nothing but a naïve belief in the essential goodness of America and without a twinge of conscience became a "Munitions Systems Technician"; I built bombs. A year after I left the service, I started work on a Bachelor of Science in Physics and had dreams of pursuing nuclear engineering in graduate school. I obtained my Bachelors last August.
When the pandemic hit, much changed. I was confronted with health problems that forced me to reckon seriously with asceticism and spiritual disciplines for the first time. I saw how perilously fragile the systems on which I was dependent actually were. There were many other important things that were roughly co-incident that forced a change of outlook. Though I still love the study of physics, and likely always will, my relationship with science and tech grew more complicated.
Though raised a non-denominational Evangelical Protestant, I had by 2020 been Anglican for a few years. Through my Anglicanism, I discovered and fell in love with Orthodoxy. Around then I started taking a deep dive into Orthodox theology and Eastern Christianity. At the same time, my politics became more traditionalist and I slowly started to question the assumptions of the Liberalism that undergirded the American experiment. As I read more deeply, the philosophical foundations of the entire modern world started to come into question. I discovered Wendell Berry, and then Paul Kingsnorth. I discovered many great podcasts including the Lord of Spirits from Ancient Faith Radio. I read Tolkien for the first time. I discovered other anti-technological writers.
Eventually I arrived at the conclusion that much of our ails stemmed from what I came to call the Technological Mind. This describes a mindset that is fundamentally loveless. It does not seek to know and love the Other, but rather is concerned primarily with techne: that is know-how, technique, to achieve its own ends. It values means more than knowing a proper telos. It seeks the centrality of Self, however that is conceived. It does not seek, out of love, to know and mimic an order external to the Self. It either does not believe in such an order, or resents it, and in either case seeks to establish by domination, manipulation, or quid pro quo an order in Its own image.
This is something mankind has always done. Whether through the spiritual technology of magic and ritual sacrifice to pagan gods, or through the material technology of our modern Baconian science, we wish to establish our own ends and accomplish them through our own means. In trying to take by force a place that isn't ours, we cause tremendous harm be it social, economic, ecological, or spiritual.
If there is to be a science worth having, I've come to the conclusion that we must abandon our Baconian science that seeks to reduce creation to merely consumable resources and seeks knowledge for the "relief of man's estate". Instead, we must adopt what I've come to call a "Damascene" science. This is named for St. John of Damascus, who said that he salutes and venerates all matter because of the Incarnation. This would be a science that only seeks to know at all due to, and then only to a proportion and manner consistent with, Love. It would desire to be intimately connected with all Creation, but would love and respect what isn't us for what or who it is. Scientific knowledge would then be one route among many to wisdom and would be for the sake of Love. Thus, even if there may be a temporary reductionism for methodological reasons to accommodate our limitations, the overall approach would shun reductionism as proper or ultimate, and instead seek a more holistic and integrative understanding of things. In the end, it should all come to Love, which we currently spurn.