Litnet

Against the machine: on the unmaking of humanity
Paul Kingsnorth
(2025, 348 bladsye, uitgegee deur Thesis, ’n druknaam van Penguin Random House, Londen)
ISBN: 978-0593850633 

Inleiding

Amper ’n dekade gelede was ek en my vrou een aand in Oxford in die geselskap van ’n lieflike gasheer en ’n ewe aangename aantal gaste. Buiten ek en my vrou en een ander Suid-Afrikaner aan die tafel, was die res van die geselskap almal uit die Anglo-Amerikaanse Weste – Britte, Amerikaners, en so meer.

Soos dit seker van die soort ete verwag kan word, het die geselskap hoofsaaklik oor die eietydse wêreld en sy uitdagings gegaan. Wat daartoe aanleiding gegee het, onthou ek nie meer nie, maar in ’n stadium haal ek toe met groot instemming die groot Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o aan uit ’n Afrika-daglesing wat hy ’n paar jaar tevore by Kovsies gelewer het. Nadat Ngũgĩ deur die loop van die voorafgaande paar dae vir almal weet te vertelle het dat hy dié aand vir ons die antwoord op al ons vrae gaan gee, kom dit toe aan die einde van sy lesing. Die antwoord op al ons vrae, sê Ngũgĩ, is: The world begins at home. Die wêreld begin tuis.

Tot my skok en verbasing was die Westerse gaste om die tafel se reaksie eenparig: “We don’t know anymore where home is.” Vir iemand afkomstig uit ’n kultuurgemeenskap vir wie hul Westerse afkoms gewoonlik op een of ander manier relevant is, was om te hoor dat verteenwoordigers van ons kultuurhistoriese komvandaan sélf nie meer weet waarvandaan hulle kom nie, se reaksie ondenkbaar.

Terwyl Suid-Afrikaners oor baie dinge heftig verskil, ken ek nie ’n Suid-Afrikaner wat nie ’n baie sterk sin van plek en tuiste het nie. Die moeilikste besluit wat my geslag Afrikaners moes neem – om te bly of te gly – is sonder uitsondering bepaal deur hoe jy antwoord op die vraag of jy nog hier ’n plek het of nie. Na my ervaring het diegene wat negatief op dié vraag geantwoord het en die land verlaat het, sonder uitsondering nooit ophou terugverlang nie. So gesien hét ons nog ’n huis en weet ons nog waar dit is, al wil nie almal meer daar woon nie.

.......

Terwyl Suid-Afrikaners oor baie dinge heftig verskil, ken ek nie ’n Suid-Afrikaner wat nie ’n baie sterk sin van plek en tuiste het nie. Die moeilikste besluit wat my geslag Afrikaners moes neem – om te bly of te gly – is sonder uitsondering bepaal deur hoe jy antwoord op die vraag of jy nog hier ’n plek het of nie. Na my ervaring het diegene wat negatief op dié vraag geantwoord het en die land verlaat het, sonder uitsondering nooit ophou terugverlang nie. So gesien hét ons nog ’n huis en weet ons nog waar dit is, al wil nie almal meer daar woon nie.

........

Die eietydse Westerse verskynsel van eksistensiële tuisteloosheid, of eintlik om die blote idee van die liefde vir jou tuiste af te wys, staan bekend as oikofobie. Op die keper beskou, is die idee om jou tuiste lief te hê, om onder meer bepaal te word deur waar jy vandaan kom, so oud soos die mensdom self. Omgekeerd is die idee dat dit nie meer so is nie, en dat jy jou selfs daarteen moet verset, ’n idee wat waarskynlik grootliks tot die eietydse Westerse moderniteit beperk is. En geoordeel aan die opkoms van populistiese partye wat hulle teen onwettige immigrasie na hul lande verset in die naam van hul eie land, hul eie tuiste, lyk dit nie of oikofobie gekom het om te bly nie.

Paul Kingsnorth

Dié kwessie is een van die belangrikes wat aan die bod kom in Paul Kingsnorth se opspraakwekkende nuwe boek, Against the machine: on the unmaking of humanity. Kingsnorth is sonder twyfel ’n prikkelende en omstrede figuur. Soos hy self in die boek meld, het hy grootgeword in ’n lae-middelklas Londense gesin. Van kindsbeen af was hy lief vir die natuur. In sy vroeë twintigs het hy betrokke geraak by ekologiese aktivisme en sy naam as skrywer aanvanklik gemaak in diens van die Britse ekotydskrif, The Ecologist.

Aldus Kingsnorth het hy egter mettertyd met die groen beweging ontnugter geraak, veral omdat hy oordeel dat dit deur dieselfde kapitalisme wat al die ekologiese probleme geskep het, gekoöpteer is in die vorm van die idee van ekologiese volhoubare groei. Kingsnorth se ontnugtering met die groen beweging het gepaard gegaan met ’n interessante geestelike reis. Vanaf die agnostiek van sy jeug het hy via die beoefening van Zen en selfs Wicca uiteindelik die Ortodoksie ontdek en hom in 2019 daartoe bekeer – iets wat hy self toeskryf aan die feit dat hy die behoefte ervaar het om te aanbid.

Kingsnorth bedryf ’n lesenswaardige Substack, onder die titel The Abbey of Misrule, en lesers van die blog kon eerstehands meemaak hoe wat begin het as opstelle vir sy blog, uiteindelik beslag gekry het in Against the machine. Een van die interessantste aspekte van dié ontwikkeling is “The Machine Sessions”, oftewel boeiende videogesprekke wat hy voer met onder andere die feminis, Mary Harrington; die psigiater en breinnavorser, Iain McGilchrist; en die Ortodokse priester, Vr Stephen Freeman. Dit is almal mense wie se werk ook ’n invloed op Kingsnorth se denke uitgeoefen het.

’n Ambisieuse boek

Against the machine is, om die minste te sê, ’n ambisieuse boek waarin geen doekies oor die Westerse moderniteit omgedraai word nie: Kingsnorth beskryf homself byvoorbeeld onbeskroomd as anti-modern en ’n reaksionêre radikaal, hoewel dit natuurlik belangrik is om te let op presies wat hy hiermee bedoel, waaroor meer hier onder.

Kingsnorth sluit eksplisiet en bewustelik aan by ’n lang lys filosowe, romansiers, digters en kunstenaars wat hulle teen die Westerse moderniteit verset. Wat byvoorbeeld romansiers betref, meld hy in die inleiding die name van Mary Shelley, Aldous Huxley, George Orwell, EM Forster en Ursula Le Guin. Teen die agtergrond van sy aansluiting by hierdie romansiers, som hy dit op wat hy in die boek gaan ontleed en hom teen verset:

This triumph of the mechanical over the natural, the planned over the organic, the centralised over the local, the system over the individual and the community; this was the tale of our time. As this Machine arose around them, all of these writers tried to pin it down in words. Many succeeded, and yet we are still here trying to work out what is going on and what to do about it and what it quite means. All we know is that some force has been unleashed in our world which we are struggling to contend with. A huge change is birthing itself; a change in our human relationship with nature, with each other, with our past, with our tools. With everything. (xvi–ii)

Hy voeg ook ’n belangrike punt hiertoe by, en dit wel oor die veelbesproke kultuuroorloë wat vandag soveel lande verdeel – en wat ongetwyfeld vandag ook onder die Afrikaners woed – naamlik dat hy die boek begin het met die vermoede dat “the roots of this culture war were much deeper than they looked. That it was related in some way to that Machine that had stalked me all my life” (xviii).

Deel 1: “The Western deviation”

Soos reeds hierbo vermeld, het Kingsnorth dit in sy boek oor wat hy beskou as die unieke wyse waarop die moderne Weste ontspoor het, en dit is dan ook die tema van die eerste van die vier afdelings van die boek, naamlik “The Western deviation”. Volgens Kingsnorth is ’n belangrike aspek van die moderne Westerse afwyking die afskeid wat die Weste van sy godsdienstige bronne geneem het. Volgens Kingsnorth bestaan daar nie so iets soos ’n kultuur wat nie een of ander heilige orde (“sacred order”) aanhang nie; wat die moderne Weste onderskei, is dat dit spesifiek ontwikkel uit die verwerping van die heilige orde wat dit eens aangehang het, en wat die implikasies hiervan is, is wat Kingsnorth in sy boek probeer verstaan:

[W]hen a culture built around such a sacred order dies then there will be upheaval at every level of society, from the level of politics right down to the level of the soul. The very notion of an individual life will shift dramatically. The family structure, the meaning of work, moral attitudes, the very existence of morals at all, notions of good and evil, sexual mores, perspectives on everything from money to rest to work to nature to kin to responsibility to duty: everything will be up for grabs.

The West, in short, was Christendom. But Christendom died. What does that make us, its descendants, living amongst its beautiful ruins? It makes ours a culture with no sacred order. And this is a dangerous place to be. (7)

Aangesien geen kultuur kan bestaan sonder iets waarin dit glo nie, en aangesien die Westerse kultuur nog met ons is, is die vraag wat dit dan is wat as plaasvervanger vir die Christendom sedert dié se afgang in die Weste opgetree het. Kingsnorth verwys hierna as die moderne eksperiment en vat dit soos volg saam:

The modern experiment has been the act of dethroning both literal human sovereigns and the representatives of the sacred order, and replacing them with purely human, and purely abstract, notions – “the people” or “liberty” or “democracy” or “progress”. I’m all for liberty, and it would be nice to give democracy a try one day too; but the dethroning of the sovereign – Christ – who sat at the heart of the Western sacred order has not led to universal equality and justice. It has led, via a bloody shortcut through Robespierre, Stalin and Hitler, to the complete triumph of the power of money, which has splintered our culture and our souls into a million angry shards.¹ (11)

Kingsnorth is ook nie juis opgeruimd in sy taksering van hoe dinge tans vir die ontwortelde Weste daaruit sien nie – en hier kon dit net sowel ’n karakter in een van Michel Houellebecq se romans aan die woord wees:

We – at least if we are among the lucky ones – have every gadget and recipe and website and storefront and exotic holiday in the world available to us, but we are lacking two things that we seem to need, but grasp at nonetheless: meaning, and roots. (13)

Simone Weil en wortels

Een van die 20ste-eeuse denkers wat lank voor haar tyd was, en wie se uur ongetwyfeld nou aangebreek het, is een by wie Kingsnorth ook aansluit wanneer hy dit oor die noodsaak vir wortels het, naamlik Simone Weil. ’n Mens sou kon sê minstens een rede waarom Weil nie in haar tyd verstaan is nie, is dat terwyl Nazi-Duitsland in die naam van die wortels van ’n sogenaamde Ariese kultuur die nihilistiese slagting van die Tweede Wêreldoorlog ontketen het, Weil in presies dieselfde era geskryf het dat die kuur vir die waansin van die era was om terug te keer na ons wortels. Nodeloos om te sê dat sy en die Nazi’s twee baie verskillende dinge met die begrip wortels verstaan het. Kingsnorth haal Weil aan om te verduidelik wat sy met die gevolge van die Westerse verlies aan wortels bedoel het:

For centuries now, men of the white race have everywhere destroyed the past, stupidly, blindly, both at home and abroad. If in certain respects there has been, nevertheless, progress during this period, it is not because of this frenzy but in spite of it, under the impulse of what little of the past remained alive. (17)

Vir ons in Suid-Afrika met ons pynlike koloniale geskiedenis wat nog ver van verwerk is, is hierdie insig van Weil belangrik. Kingsnorth brei uit op die betekenis hiervan deur uit te wys dat daar twee fases van Europese kolonialisme was. In die eerste fase het die opkoms van die moderne staat hul eie kleiner kultuurgemeenskappe ontwortel en in groter nasies saamgebring, waarna dieselfde eksperiment herhaal is in ander wêrelddele, soos die Amerikas, Afrika en Asië. Volgens hom is hiermee ’n proses aan die gang gesit wat onverbiddelik en omvattend is, wat geen teenstand of grense verduur nie. Enigiemand wat daagliks die wêreldnuus volg, sal kan verstaan wat hy met die volgende bedoel:

Wherever we come from, wherever we are, we are almost all uprooted now. The power of the “global economy” demolishes borders and boundaries, traditions and cultures, languages and ways of seeing wherever it goes. Record numbers of people are on a move as a result, and as the population increases and climate change bites, those numbers will rise everywhere, churning cultures and nations into entirely new shapes or no shapes at all. Even if you are living where your forefathers have lived for generations, you can bet that the smartphone you gave your child will unmoor them more effectively than any bulldozer could. The majority of humanity is now living in megacities, cut off from non-human nature, plugged into the Machine, controlled by it, reduced to it. (19)

Deel 2: “Divining the Machine”

Die verlies aan ’n heilige orde en die gepaardgaande ontworteling wat in deel een bespreek word, maak volgens Kingsnorth die pad oop vir die opkoms van wat hy die Masjien noem, en dit kom aan die bod in deel twee, “Divining the Machine”. Soos hier onder duidelik sal word, is die titel van dié afdeling versigtig gekies om te dui op ’n konstante van menswees, naamlik dat ons in iéts moet glo. Selfs al is dit ’n masjien.

Kingsnorth begin dié afdeling deur te wys op wat sonder twyfel nie slegs een van die belangrikste geloofsartikels van die Belydenis van die Sekulêre Moderniteit is nie, maar ook een van die belangrikstes waarmee tegnologiese ontwikkeling as aantreklik aan ons voorgehou word, naamlik vooruitgang:

The notion that new machinery equates to “progress” is probably as old as civilisation, or at least as old as modernity. In my lifetime, all the labour- and time-saving technologies which have been pushed at us, from the microwave oven to the internet, have given us things we didn’t previously have, and taken plenty more away, but one thing none of them has done is to save either time or labour. I’m old enough to remember, for example, when we were promised that the advent of email would save us hours of time: no more faxing, or opening and replying to letters! Now we spend, by some estimates, thirty days a year on email alone, and it is increasingly impossible to be out of touch with anyone, anywhere.

This is the devil’s bargain of technological society, and we have been falling for it forever: embrace the new, lose the old, and find yourself more deeply entwined in a technological web from which you cannot extricate yourself even if you want to. (34)

Vir Kingsnorth is hierdie gestadigde uitbreiding van ’n omvattende netwerk van tegnologieë waarsonder ons nie meer ons lewens kan lei nie, part en deel van die Masjien. Dit bring hom dan by sy omskrywing van wat die Masjien is:

It is not simply the sum total of various individual technologies that we have cleverly managed to rustle up – cars, laptops, robot mowers and the rest. In fact, such “technics”, as [Lewis] Mumford calls them, are the product of the Machine, not its essence. The Machine is, rather, a tendency within us, made concrete by power and circumstance, which coalesces in a huge agglomeration of power, control and ambition.

The Machine manifests today as an intersection of money power, state power and increasingly coercive and manipulative technologies, which constitute an ongoing war against roots and against limits. Its momentum is always forward, and it will not stop until it has conquered and transformed the world. To do that, it must raze or transmute many older and less measurable things: rooted human communities, wild nature, human nature, human freedom, beauty, faith and the many deeper values which we all adhere to in some way or another but find difficult to describe or even to defend. Its modus operandi is the abolition of all borders, boundaries, categories, essences and truths: the uprooting of all previous ways of living in the nature of pure individualism and perfect subjectivity. Its endgame is the replacement of nature with technology, in order to facilitate total human control over a totally human world. (37–8)

Die punt wat Kingsnorth hier in navolging van Mumford maak, naamlik dat dit nie soseer om tegnologie gaan nie as om ’n sekere kulturele uitkyk of neiging waarvan voortdurende tegnologiese uitbreiding die uitdrukking is, is wesenlik – en sluit ook aan by hoe Heidegger die saak takseer in sy beroemde opstel oor die vraag aangaande tegnologie. Daarom sal verset teen die Masjien vir Kingsnorth begin by ’n bewuswording van hierdie bepaalde kulturele uitkyk of neiging, en ’n relativering en afwysing daarvan, waaroor ook meer hier onder.

Moderne rasionaliteit en geloof in wetenskap

’n Pikante ironie van soveel eietydse wedergebore Afrikaanse ateïste is die geesdrif van ’n nuwe bekeerling waarmee hulle ’n appèl maak op rasionaliteit – as mense tog net, soos Immanuel Kant dit in die laat agtiende eeu wou hê, die durf sal hê om “vir hulself” te dink, pleks van dat, sê, die kerk dit vir jou doen; nou ja, dan is die pad na vryheid so oop soos ’n waenhuisdeur. As dié spesifieke variant van wedergeborenes tog maar ag geslaan het op die kritiek van dié opvatting van die rede en die gewaande vryheid wat dit vir ons sou bring. Hulle sou byvoorbeeld die filosoof, John Ralston Saul, se Voltaire’s bastards (1992) kon oopslaan. Of minstens let op die volgende samevatting wat Kingsnorth instemmend van Ralston se tese gee:

[S]aul notes that the “grandiose and dark events” which “overcame Western society” in the modern period, from religious bloodbaths to the Napoleonic wars, “seemed to do so thanks to rational methods”. Reason was supposed to be a moral force, but it turned out to be anything but. The twentieth century, which, according to Saul, saw “the final victory of pure reason in power”, also saw “unprecedented unleashings of violence and of power deformed”. It is hard, he writes, “to avoid noticing that the murder of six million Jews was a perfectly rational act”.

That “perfectly rational act”, as Simon Schama pointed out, was a direct descendant of the murderous clarity of Robespierre and co: the guillotine, after all, was designed as a humane means of dealing with the enemies of the Revolution. Mass death, yes, but rational mass death.

The eighteenth century’s two revolutions – the revolution of Reason and the revolution of Technology – were supposed to walk us towards a universal paradise. Instead, we live in a time of mass extinction and cultural disintegration. (61–2; Kingsnorth se klem)

Hierbo is reeds gewys op die Masjien as plaasvervangende geloofsvoorwerp. Nog ’n belangrike geloofsartikel in die Belydenis van die Sekulêre Moderniteit is die wetenskap, of meer spesifiek, die teologiese status wat aan die wetenskap toegeken is:

Science, right from the beginning of the modern enterprise, was allotted the role that the Church had previously claimed for itself: the primary guide to truth, and enlightener of humanity. More than a method, it was a faith. It remains one today, which is why arguments around scientific questions, from COVID to climate change, are often so vexed and divisive. Each of us wants to claim the mantle of “science” for our perspective because of the authority it bestows. “Follow the Science” usually translates in practice as “follow me”. (70)

Die teologiese waarde wat deur die sekulêre moderniteit aan die wetenskap toegeken word, spruit voort uit die feit dat wanneer wetenskap die kerk as die arbiter van die waarheid opvolg, die beheer oor die heelal wat eens aan God toegedig is, nou bygevolg daardie rol by God probeer oorneem – in dié opsig reken Kingsnorth verskil dit nie soveel van die ouer veld van die toorkuns nie:

The history of magic in the West is a long one, but one thing it teaches is that what we call “magic” and what we call “science” are intertwined. Many of the pioneers of science we know today were also magicians of one sort or another. [Francis] Bacon was said to be a Freemason and an alchemist. Isaac Newton wrote far more about alchemy than he did about physics, and many of the founders of England’s Royal Society, still one of its foremost scientific institutions, were alchemists or mages. In the early modern period, today’s distinction between “science” (real, good, objective) and “magic” (fantastical, bad, superstitious) did not really exist. Both were branches of the same effort: to understand the mysterious forces of the universe, and ultimately to control them. (75)

Moderne stad

Nadat Kingsnorth die ontologiese en teologiese uitgangspunte van die Masjien uiteengesit het, behandel hy die ruimtelike vorm wat dit verkry het, naamlik die opkoms van die groot moderne stad. Die groei van die groot moderne stad is skynbaar nie slegs onkeerbaar nie, maar dit verdring ook ander lewenswyses en kulture:

Once a society becomes primarily urban, it is locked into a process of metastasizing growth which will, in the end, lead to the destruction of other ways of being, and other forms of life, via the monoculture of the Machine – a Machine which is primarily a creation of the city. A Machine civilisation is an urban civilisation, and its worldview and direction is that of the urban dwellers who build, justify and benefit from it. (82)

In teenstelling met die dorpie wat ’n lewe van selfstandigheid bevorder, bevorder die groot moderne stad ’n lewe van afhanklikheid – en dit ondanks die mite dat ’n mens jou bestemming in die groot moderne stad gaan vind en uitleef:

A giant city is a kind of micro-empire: it cannot exist without enclosing and harvesting lands and peoples elsewhere to provide for its own growth. One of the great myths of the modern city is that we go there to individuate – to “find ourselves”. It might be more accurate to say that the city removes our agency, deskills us, and toys with us at its leisure. A city’s inhabitants are dependents: they have neither the space, the skills, the time nor the inclination to fend for themselves. A city dweller exists to serve the city. If she is lucky, the city will also serve her. If she is unlucky, she will end up juggling three jobs and trying to scrabble together enough pennies to feed her children. The city provides opportunities for wealth that the village never could, but it treats it poor and marginalised with a contempt that the village would regard with incomprehension. (84)

Weg met grense!

Feitlik alle denkers oor die Westerse moderniteit stem saam dat dit in vele opsigte ’n radikale breuk verteenwoordig met hoe mense tradisioneel vanaf die vroegste tyd geleef het. Daar is verskillende verklarings aangevoer vir waarom die Westerse moderniteit dan so beslissend en so vinnig opgang gemaak het. Volgens Kingsnorth is die verklaring te vinde in die moderne afwysing van die tradisionele idee dat ’n goeie lewe perke en grense stel aan wat nastrewenswaardig is en die vervanging daarvan met die verheerliking van grenslose en onmiddellike bevrediging van behoefte en begeerte, waarin die eertydse sosiale status wat aan die produsent toegeken is, nou vervang word met die handelaar:

What is this force? What could be so powerful that it could dissolve away centuries of cultural inheritance; could dissolve forests and oceans, great faiths, nations, traditions – everything that makes a human life real – and replace it with this [...] pleasure dome?

Want. Want is the acid.

We can usefully understand our time by seeing in it the final result of the centuries-long tension between the merchant class and everyone else. Pre-modern societies, in every case that I know of, always kept the merchant class in their place, and that place was usually right at the bottom [...]

Why were the merchants the lowest order of society? Because their work created nothing of value. In fact, it created nothing at all [...] Money had to be kept under control, precisely because of the power it had to ignite the powerful flame of want [...]

But the story of the world since the eighteenth century has been the story of setting that flame, and the resulting fire. We are all bourgeois now, which is to say that we are all driven forward by want. We have all learned a bourgeois version of history, too, in which medieval “feudalism” is seen as dark and barbaric, while modern capitalism is equated with freedom and liberty. (95–6; Kingsnorth se klem)

Jacques Ellul

Aangesien dit in tradisionele samelewingskulture en religieë is wat perke en grense stel, en aangesien juis hierdie kulture en religieë dus deur die moderniteit ontwrig word ten einde alle perke en grense ikabod te verklaar – alles, soos hierbo uitgewys, geskoei op ontologiese en teologiese uitgangspunte – is dit nie vreemd nie dat die moderniteit uiteindelik uitloop op ’n nuwe soort beskawing: “One which is replacing all previous human ways of living, cultures and value systems with something novel and totalising” (115). Volgens Kingsnorth gee die Franse tegniekfilosoof, Jacques Ellul, aan ons insig in wat die aard van hierdie nuwe beskawing is, naamlik dat dit nou oorheers word deur die tegniek, wat Ellul soos volg omskryf:

Technique is the translation into action of man’s concern to master things by means of reason, to account for what is subconscious, make quantitative what is qualitative, make clear and precise the outlines of nature, take hold of chaos and put order into it. (116)

Soos Kingsnorth uitwys, staan tegniek nie sonder meer gelyk aan tegnologie of gereedskap nie, maar is dit inderwaarheid ’n hele nuwe gesigspunt op die werklikheid:

Technique is not the same thing as technology. Humans have always used technologies, or at least tools; but for most of history they have been designed to augment human work rather than to entirely replace it. Technique, on the other hand, when it is taken up as a way of seeing, gives birth to an entirely new type of technology: one which exists to remake the world in the image of technique itself. The kind by which, today, we are all increasingly enslaved. (116)

Vir Kingsnorth is die uitstaande onlangse voorbeeld hiervan die internet – wat begin het as ’n tegnologie met die belofte van nuwe vlakke van vryheid en harmonie wêreldwyd, het nou verandering in ’n magtige instrument om ons te moniteer, ons begeertes te manipuleer en op ons aandag beslag te lê (118).

Deel 3: “The hollowing”

Nadat Kingsnorth die opkoms en aard van die Masjien behandel het, gaan hy in deel drie – “The hollowing” – oor tot ’n bestekopname van wat die Masjien aan ons gedoen het en steeds doen.

Om mee te begin sluit hy aan by die invloedryke eietydse Amerikaanse post-liberale denker, Patrick Deneen, om te wys op die nuwe vryheidsbegrip van die moderniteit wat die tradisionele vryheidsbegrip vervang, en in wese neerkom op ’n volgehoue aanslag op dit wat mense mens maak, naamlik ons wortels:

“Freedom from external constraints” is a good description of the central drive of the Machine’s anticulture. This pursuit, claims Deneen, seeks freedom for the individual from society itself, and it is built upon a radical notion of human nature. Rather than seeing humans as hefted creatures, rooted, Weil-like in time and place, this new lens offers a new vision: detached, sovereign personhood. Humans are now, in Deneen’s words, “rights-bearing individuals who could fashion and pursue for themselves their own version of the good life”.

In this new world, the sovereign human person, dis-embedded from community, history and nature, will utilise reason, informed by science and enabled by technology, to choose how to live. The rational individual, making choices in a marketplace overseen by a government committed to “liberty” and guarding individual “rights” through a “social contract”: this was the basis of a wholly new world. (129–30)

Die vier P’s versus die vier S’e

Dit is op hierdie punt dat Kingsnorth sy leser begin voorberei op die alternatief op die Masjien wat hy voorstaan. In wese baseer hy dit op wat tradisionele gemeenskappe dwarsoor die wêreld voor die koms van die Westerse moderniteit mee sou saamstem. Dit gaan hier om vier tradisionele waardes:

1. Past. Where a culture comes from, its history and ancestry.
2. People. Who a culture is. A sense of being “a people”.
3. Place. Where a culture is. Nature in its local and particular manifestation.
4. Prayer. Where a culture is going. Its religious tradition, which relates it to God or the gods. (131)

Kingsnorth gee toe dat daar uitsonderings op hierdie vier waardes mag wees, byvoorbeeld voormoderne nomadiese gemeenskappe wat nie noodwendig hulself aan ’n vaste plek verbind nie, maar hy reken dat “if you remove more than one element from this list, your chance of sustaining a cultural story in place and through time is slim” (131).

Teenoor die vier P’s waarvoor Kingsnorth voorspraak maak, voer hy aan dat die Masjien sy eie vier waardes het wat antagonisties teen die vier P’s is, naamlik die vier S’e:

1. Science. Where we come from. Science can offer us a non-mythic version of this story, and assert a claim as to the true (i.e. measurable) nature of reality.
2. The Self. Who we are. The highest good is to serve the self and ensure its longevity.
3. Sex. What we do. Both the highest means of sacral pleasure and, through public expressions of “sexuality”, an affirmation of individual identity.
4. The Screen. Where we are going. The screen is both our main source of distraction from reality and the interface by which we are directed into the coming post-human reality of the Machine.

If the Machine has an ideology, I suggest that these four notions are a fair summary of it. Perhaps, though, it is less an ideology than a theology. In the Machine age, ideology effectively functions as a replacement for and simulacrum of religion. Liberalism, socialism, communism, fascism, nationalism: all of these post-Enlightenment forms could be said to be the result of what the historian John Bossy has called “the migration of the holy” from Church to state. (133)  

Westerse ongeloof, Westerse afgang

’n Verdere belangrike effek – of simptoom? – van die Masjien is hoe die (liberale) elites van die Westerse moderniteit sy eertydse waardes en grondslae verwerp. Hierdie verwerping geskied interessant genoeg teen die agtergrond van die agteruitgang en invloedsverlies van die Weste:

The West’s ongoing decline has caused itselites to lose faith in their cultural inheritance (or is it the other way around?), and this loss of faith has now reached pathological proportions. As a result, the leading lights in Western society – the cultural elites, and sometimes the political and economic elites too – are dedicated not to upholding the cultural forms they inherited, but turning them on their heads, or even erasing them entirely. (138)

Die afgelope jare is waarskynlik die oorheersende openbare emosie dié van woede, en Kingsnorth skryf dit toe aan die Weste se eietydse verwerping van sy eertydse waardes en grondslae, wat inderwaarheid lei tot wydverspreide disoriëntasie uitgedruk as woede:

[O]ur cultural elite’s ongoing “deconstruction” of all we once were has deteriorated into a kind of incoherent rage, a culture of inversion on steroids which has now elicited its own rising counter-revolution [the anti-woke movement]. Nobody knows where any of this will lead, but the primary emotion it is all channelling is rage. In our perpetual sibling society – sick with consumerism, eye-glazed with screen burn, confused, rudderless, Godless – we have forgotten how to behave like adults, or what adults even look like. The result is that we squabble like children, fighting over toys in the mud. (146)

Nasionalisme, die groen beweging

Dit is welbekend dat nasionalisme die afgelope dekade of twee in die moderne Weste herleef, nadat die voorstanders van globalisasie in die 1990’s die begrafnis daarvan wou hou. Hierdie herlewing word deur Kingsnorth vertolk as ’n reaksie op die (liberale) Westerse elites se aanval op die eertydse waardes en grondslae van die Weste, maar hy het twee voorbehoude hieroor. In die eerste plek reken hy dat nasiestate in die 20ste eeu ’n belangrike bydrae tot die opkoms van die Masjien gespeel het; in die tweede plek verklaar hy dat terwyl hy nasies waardeer, hy ongemaklik is oor nasionalisme – wat hy self erken nie ’n heeltemal samehangende standpunt is nie:

To many people, nationalism seems like a reasonable response to [the Machine], and sometimes it can be, under the right circumstances. Still, there are good reasons to be nervous about what it can do to the human mind. Humans remain human, and it is not so hard for national feeling to shade into xenophobic triumphalism, just as cosmopolitanism can shade into sneering elitism disguised as compassion. I’ve long found myself in the uncomfortable position of valuing nations but usually being repelled by nationalism. I’m not sure what to do about this. (203)

Die eertydse eko-aktivis, Kingsnorth, het ook sy voorbehoude oor waarom die groen beweging nie ’n bevredigende bolwerk teen die Masjien bied nie. Hy skryf dit toe aan die feit dat, volgens hom, die Masjien ook al die groen beweging se maniere van kyk, dink en handel geïnfiltreer het, wat gesien kan word aan hoe die kwessie van klimaatsverandering vandag die groen agenda so oorheers:

If you have ever wondered why climate change has so utterly dominated the green debate to the exclusion of so many other problems which stem from industrial society – mass extinction, soil erosion, the collapse of human cultures, ocean pollution, fill in the blanks – then the answer, I think, is here. Climate change is a problem amenable to numerical questions and technocratic answers which go with the grain of a Machine culture. It is, furthermore, a problem which, almost by definition, can only be solved by elites. If you can’t read or understand the “peer-reviewed science”, then you are open to being intimidated into fearful silence by those who can, or claim they can. And those people – drawn, as all green “thought leaders” are, from the upper strata of society – will bring with them a worldview which treats the mass of humanity like so many cattle to be herded into the sustainable, zero-carbon pen. (215)

Hierbo is reeds verwys na die teologiese uitgangspunte van die Masjien. Kingsnorth brei hierop uit deur te wys op die feit dat die ou Christelike ideaal van theosis (vergoddeliking, meer algemeen in die Afrikaanse vertalings van die Bybel vertaal as heiligmaking) nou vervang word via tegnologie en die idee van die sogenaamde transhumanisme met die ideaal van die mens wat nie soos God word nie (theosis), maar wat self God word:

We are heading very quickly now, and increasingly openly, towards the endgame of this whole project: transhumanism, the attempt to both immortalise ourselves and to build new intelligences alongside us that will act as our servants in the new age we are making. This is the salvation offered by the religion of the Machine. You will be like gods, knowing good and evil. How can a human become like a god? By doing what gods do: creating. And how can a human create? Through our unique gift: the power of technology. And so the religion of the future, the debased faith of the Machine age, the self-built theology of a people who worship the strongest thing in the world, will end where it all began [in the Garden of Eden]: in an attempt to self-divinise. (243)

Deel 4: “The savage reservation”

Dit bring Kingsnorth by sy alternatief op die Masjien: deel vier, “The savage reservation”. Hy begin dié afdeling deur aan te sluit by die psigiater en breinnavorser, Iain McGilchrist, se diagnose van waarom dinge in die Westerse moderniteit so skeefgeloop het, naamlik dat die gesonde samewerking wat tussen die regter- en linkersfere van die brein behoort voor te kom, in die moderne Weste vervang is deur ’n toestand waarin hierdie samewerking nie is wat dit moet wees nie, en die linkerbrein se klem op die deel ten koste van die regterbrein se klem op die geheel aan die orde van die dag is:

This left-hemisphere culture: this is what we today call “the West”, and the whole of this “West”, since at least the eighteenth century and possibly much earlier, has been in a state of permanent revolution. Was this forged by that left-hemisphere way of seeing, or was it the other way around? Who knows, but from France to Russia, Germany to America, Marx to [Ayn] Rand, 1789 tot 1969, the aim has been the same: bring it all down. Break it all up. Pull it apart, examine the parts, put them back together in a better, more equal, more profitable, more human order [...]

This is what we do in “the West”: we break things. We break systems and traditions, cultures and forests. We split atoms and bust through the upper atmosphere. We break the bounds between species and sexes, we blur the line between life and death. Our great revolution has unleashed untold energy and created miracles, but now we can see where it is going. The modern revolution, the Machine revolution, is the left hemisphere’s work. There is a kind of greatness to it, and a certain tragedy. Most of today’s “defenders of the West” are defending aspects of this revolution. They will defend empire, science, rationality, progress and nuclear fission until the cows come home. They are revolutionaries themselves, even if they call themselves conservatives. But the West’s left-brain revolution will end up destroying us, and the world, if we let it. (268–9)

Kingsnorth en McGilchrist vind inderwaarheid aansluiting by ’n omvattende korpus van denkers wat aanvoer dat dit wat skeefloop in die Westerse moderniteit, te wyte is aan dit wat ons van die tradisionele wêreld verloor het. Soos vele ander denkers onder hierdie korpus begin die alternatief vir Kingsnorth ook nié in die “terugkeer” na daardie wêreld nie – aangesien daardie wêreld eenvoudig te verrinneweer deur modernisering is – maar wel van daardie wêreld te herwin wat ons kan in die hoop om ánders te leef as wat die Westerse moderniteit aan ons voorskryf. Dit is ook belangrik om te let op presies waar hierdie herwinning vir Kingsnorth begin, naamlik by ons aandag, waarmee hy weer eens by McGilchrist aansluiting vind:

Where would we start?

McGilchrist would tell us that we should start by changing our quality of attention. This may sound nebulous, but it is anything but. If our left-hemisphere-dominated minds cause us to pay attention to the world in one way, then we need to train them, bit by bit, to pay attention in another. “Attention changes the world,” he writes. “How you attend to it changes what it is you find there.”

What would this mean in practice? I think we know already. It would mean attending to the ways of seeing that were central to past cultures, but that Western modernity relentlessly dismisses or downplays as unprofitable, unrealistic, romantic and all the rest. Perhaps central to this is an effort to see the world as an organism rather than a mechanism, and then to express it that way, through art, through creativity, through writing, through our conversations. (271)

Nie ’n program nie, maar ’n houding: reaksionêre radikaal

Kingsnorth besef alte goed dat indien hy een of ander program of ideologie of utopie voorhou, hy een van die oergebare van die Westerse moderniteit sal herhaal, wat dus by voorbaat tot mislukking gedoem is. Daarom pleit hy eerder vir ’n soort eksistensiële houding: “[W]hat is needed is something [...] old-fashioned: a stance. A place to stand, based on a particular reality” (275). In aansluiting by die geskiedkundige, Craig Calhoun, in sy eksplisiet nie-Marxistiese werk oor die Engelse werkersklas, betoog Kingsnorth dat die houding wat hy bepleit, dié is van die “reaksionêre radikaal”. Vir Calhoun was die Luddiete wat hulle in die naam van hul tradisionele gemeenskappe en ekonomie teen die koms van die nywerheidsfabriek verset het, die oorspronklike reaksionêre radikale (278). Wat sentraal tot laasgenoemde se stryd was, was volgens Calhoun ’n “morele ekonomie”. Kingsnorth lig die term verder toe:

Reactionary radicalism, then as now, is a defence of that moral economy – a system built around community bonds, local economics and human-scale systems – in the face of the colonisation by the Machine [...]

The Luddites, for example, opposed new machinery in a way that was “thoughtful, not absolute”, and they were, says Calhoun, “concerned with more than machinery”. They campaigned for “the right of craft control over trade, the right to a decent livelihood, for local autonomy, and for the application of improved technology to the common good [...]”

Technology, thought the Luddites, should be applied in a way which reinforced the moral economy rather than destroying it. (280–1)

Dit gaan dus baie beslis nie om ’n eensydige verwerping van nuwe tegnologie as sodanig nie, maar eerder oor die verwerping van tegnologie wat nie die algemene goeie bevorder nie. Ook van belang vir ons in Suid-Afrika is dat Kingsnorth daarop wys dat die radikale reaksionêre met hul morele ekonomieë nog in ons tyd voorkom, juis buite die Weste:

Every time you hear of a village in China or India resisting a giant dam, or tribal people fighting eviction from their ancestral lands, or rural or indigenous communities resisting vast mines or deforestation, you are hearing from reactionary radicals. (282)

Vir Kingsnorth beteken dit dat al is die morele ekonomie grootliks verlore in die moderne Weste, kan dit steeds herwin en herbou word, juis deur klein pleks van groot te begin:

Perhaps we live in the place where our ancestors lived, or perhaps we moved to our place from another last year: either way, we are part of its life now. We can help turn that place into a moral economy [...] We start small: everything starts small, and the best things remain that way. All we have is our small power; still, it has its own impact. (283)

Hier verbind Kingsnorth sy vier P’s – plek, gemeenskap, die verlede en gebed – eksplisiet aan die houding van die reaksionêre radikaal:

A reactionary radicalism could be usefully defined as an active attempt at creating, defending or restoring a moral economy built around the four Ps.

This then, is my idea of an anti-Machine politics. A reactionary radicalism, its face set against Progress Theology, which aims to defend or build a moral economy at the human scale, which rejects the atomised individualism of the liberal era and understands that materialism as a worldview has failed us. A politics which embraces family and home and place, loving the particular without excluding the outsider, and which looks on all great agglomerations of power with suspicion. The rejection of abstract ideologies in favour of real-world responses, and an understanding that material progress always comes with a hidden price tag. A politics which aims to limit rather than multiply our needs, which strategically opposes any technology which threatens the moral economy and which, finally, seeks a moral order to society which is based on love of neighbour rather than competition with everyone. (284)

Kingsnorth gee onmiddellik toe dat ofskoon dit alles goed mag klink, die vraag bly wat dit konkreet mag beteken, veral in ag genome dat hy ’n grootskalige poging om ’n omvattende alternatief vir die Masjien te skep, eksplisiet afwys. Sy antwoord begin deur as’t ware marginaliteit eksplisiet toe te eien in navolging van die volgende aanhaling van Ellul:

The only successful way to attack these features of modern civilisation is to give them the slip, to learn how to live on the edge of this totalitarian society, not simply rejecting it, but passing it through the sieve of God’s judgment. Finally, when communities with a “style of life” of this kind have been established, possibly the first signs of a new civilization may begin to appear. (289)

Anargistiese groepe en barbare

In die verlenging van die onus wat op Kingsnorth rus om konkreet pleks van abstrak oor sy alternatief te bly, vind hy aansluiting by die bekende anargis, James C Scott, se beskrywing van hoe sommige stamme in Suidoos-Asië steeds daarin slaag om alle pogings van die moderne staat aldaar om hulle te onderwerp, te systap. Hiervoor haal hy met hartlike instemming die geskiedkundige, Malcolm Yapp, oor dié soort kultuur aan, naamlik “jellievisstamme”:

[J]ellyfish tribalism is a process of defending cultural and economic autonomy by “scattering, and/or changing livelihood strategy, make the group invisible or unattractive as object of appropriation”. (293)

Ons weet vandag dat die ou Grieke die term barbaar gemunt het vir diegene wat nie deel van die Griekse beskawing wou wees nie. Kingsnorth eien die term geesdriftig toe vir diegene wat nie deel van die Masjien wil wees nie:

Any attempt at building utopia will fail – but utopia should never be a goal. Some form of free survival is the goal: survival in order to live a life unconformed to the dictates of the Machine, and to uphold the values of a true human life [...] There is no easy or standardised answer to the question of how we can cultivate [“Machine-repelling characteristics”], but there is one question it might be useful for each of us to ask: What kind of barbarian do I want to be? (294)

Vir die beantwoording van die vraag oor watter soort barbaar ’n mens wil wees, sluit Kingsnorth aan by ’n klassieke antropologiese onderskeid wat getref word in ’n 12de-eeuse Chinese dokument oor die Li-volk, wat die Chinese staat weerstaan het en deur die dokument in twee groepe gekategoriseer is: “The raw barbarians lived outside the walls and the cooked lived within” (295). Kingsnorth pas dié onderskeid toe op twee verskillende houdings jeens die Masjien vandag:

What we see here, then, are two potential escape routes from Machine culture: one outside, one inside. Shatter zones do not literally have to be in the hills: they can be within our homes and even within our hearts. My heart soars whenever I hear of some remote monastery or surviving rooted community with no online access or even electricity, whose people know exactly where they stand: outside the Machine, the better to see God and experience creation. Such places are the work of raw barbarians, and we need more of them. But most people are cooked barbarians. We are, to different degrees, in the Machine but not of it. Perhaps we look like good citizens from the outside. But if we coalesce as a jellyfish tribe, we can begin to dissociate ourselves from the Machine while creating alternatives to it. (295)

Kingsnorth plaas homself duidelik in die laasgenoemde groep – hy handhaaf immers ’n beduidende teenwoordigheid op die internet. Daarom skryf hy: “I have to cautiously accept that using the technology of the Machine can be of benefit, even though it can also be a trap” (296).

Askese

Kingsnorth verstaan alte goed dat die oordeelkundige gebruik van die tegnologie van die Masjien gepaard moet gaan met dissipline. Hiermee sluit hy (as Ortodokse Christen) soos vele ander eietydse Christelike denkers aan by die klem op askese, wat hy op ’n sinvolle manier toelig met betrekking tot ook ander geloofstradisies en selfbeheersing:

As we think about living through the digital age, perhaps ancient Christianity can be our guide. Specifically, perhaps we can look for help to an ancient Greek word: askesis. Askesis is usually translated as “self-discipline”, or sometimes “self-denial”, and it has been at the root of the Christian spiritual tradition since the very beginning. In fact, I don’t know of any serious faith which does not regard asceticism as central. Restraining the appetites, fasting from food, sex and other worldly passions, limiting needs and restraining desires: this is the foundation stone of all spiritual practice. Without an ascetic backbone, there is no spiritual body.

What is all this for? Not to please God, who as far as we know sets no rules about what people should eat on Fridays, and has no strong opinions about how many prostrations are appropriate every day. No, the purpose of askesis is self-control. Learning this will allow us to avoid the various pits and snares of life which knock us off the path that leads to holiness – wholeness – and onto the path which leads to pride and self-love. The literal translation of askesis is simply “exercise”. Asceticism, then, is a series of spiritual exercises designed to train the body, the mind and the soul. (303; my klem)

In die gevolgtrekking van sy boek keer Kingsnorth terug na dieselfde denker waarmee hy die boek begin het, naamlik Simone Weil. Hy gebruik Weil om aan te dui dat die belangrikste effek van die Masjien een van ontworteling is, dat dit inderwaarheid lê ten grondslag van die kultuuroorlog wat vandag in die Weste woed, en dat hy reken ons word eerder vir ’n ander belangriker oorlog opgeroep:

We all need multiple roots. The rise of this thing I call the Machine [...] has steadily dug up so many of these roots. We would all like to blame someone else for this, but Weil will not allow it. It is Western people, she insists, who have “everywhere destroyed the past, stupidly, blindly, both at home and abroad”. This has been the work of the modern “West”, and of modernity as a whole: uprooting. Making it new. After the fall of Christendom, the West dedicated itself to the upturning of all tradition, and this, in turn, became the new Western tradition. As we have uprooted the tradition of much of the world, we have also uprooted our own. We have made ourselves homeless.

Now, because we no longer have a culture, we have a culture war instead. But I don’t believe in this conflict, and I won’t send my children to fight in it. If any real “war” is in evidence today, it is a spiritual war. It is the Machine versus human-scale culture, the technium versus creation, our desire to be gods versus our desire to be with God. (310; my klem)

Beoordeling

Soos reeds gemeld, sluit Kingsnorth aan by ’n ryke tradisie van denkers wat die Westerse moderniteit reeds vanaf minstens die 17de eeu bevraagteken. Vir Descartes se oorskatting van die rede is daar Pascal se “die hart het sy redes waarvan die rede niks verstaan nie”. Kierkegaard en Dostojewski had hulle vinger op die pols van die eksistensiële leegte wat modernisering skep. Nietzsche het gewaarsku teen die dood van God en die kruipende woestyn van die nihilisme. Heidegger het uitgewys hoe gevaarlik die neiging van die moderniteit is om die wêreld tot ’n prentjie van die wêreld te verskraal, oftewel om ’n abstraksie van die werklikheid vir die werklikheid te aanskou. Ivan Illich het in boek ná boek gewys op hoe modernisering ons selfstandigheid, tradisies en geestelike sintuie vernietig.

Waaroor Kingsnorth en al hierdie denkers bes moontlik sou saamstem, is dat ondanks al die kritiek wat reeds op die Westerse moderniteit gelewer is, dit as stelsel eenvoudig onverbiddelik bly ontvou. Daar is geen kwessie nie dat die opkoms van digitale tegnologie en tegnologieë van die simulasie van menslike intelligensie, intelligensiesimulasie (IS; verkeerdelik benoem as KI, oftewel kunsmatige intelligensie), nie slegs die jongste fase van volgehoue modernisering is nie, maar op vele vlakke vir die menslike spesie ernstige bedreigings inhou, soos Kingsnorth dit ook op talle plekke in sy boek bespreek.

Toe die eietydse filosoof van die tegniek en die wetenskap, Michel Serres, Suid-Afrika in 2000 besoek het, het hy in ’n gesprek met verwysing na die stryd om die voortbestaan van Afrikaans in die skaduwee van die magtige Engelse hegemonie (self deel van die Masjien) aan my voorgestel dat indien ’n mens te staan kom voor ’n teenstander wat te magtig is om regstreeks op sy eie terrein die stryd aan te sê, dit beter is om jou op ’n alternatiewe terrein te probeer vestig en selfstandig te handhaaf, waarvan ’n eie idioom soos Afrikaans ’n groot bate is.

Kingsnorth bepleit niks anders nie met sy onderskeid tussen die rou en die gekookte stamme, asook met sy voorspraak vir ’n houding eerder as ’n utopie, ideologie, of program. Hy is ook geen uitsondering op die reël nie dat denkers krities op die Westerse moderniteit feitlik sonder uitsondering op een of ander manier voorspraak maak vir die askese en die beoefening van ’n lewende tradisie.

Vir ons in Suid-Afrika, waar hier inderdaad nog ander tale as Engels gepraat word, waar hier inderdaad nog vele lewende kulturele identiteite en geloofstradisies is – weliswaar nie ongeskonde deur Westerse modernisering, kolonialisme en imperialisme nie – dien Kingsnorth se boek as bevestiging dat ons hier in Suid-Afrika in sekere mate in elk geval as rou óf gekookte “barbare” bestaan.

Om hier te leef is om reeds op ’n alternatiewe terrein te leef. Om hierdie terrein te verlaat om in die naam van groter materiële en liggaamlike sekerheid sigself te gaan vestig in samelewings wat in die hart van die Westerse moderniteit staan, lyk al hoe bedenkliker. Die teenwoordigheid van die Masjien is vandag inderdaad oral in wisselende mate ’n gegewe, maar om verder eerder as nader van die kern daarvan te leef is beslis wensliker – en maak dit makliker om nog iemand te wees met ’n huis waar die wêreld begin.

Eerder dít – met al sy uitdagings – as om nie meer te weet waar jou huis is nie. 

¹ ’n Briljante opgaaf van hierdie moderne Westerse versplintering “into a million angry shards” word gegee in Bret Easton Ellis se mees onlangse roman, The shards.

Lees ook:

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o: Decolonising the mind

Die Johann Rossouw-gespreksreeks: Die wêreld op sy kop gekeer – Gilles Kepel oor 7 Oktober 2023 en die voortslepende konflik in die Midde-Ooste

Die Johann Rossouw-gespreksreeks: Michel Serres – filosoof van ons tyd en ons toekoms

Die Johann Rossouw-gespreksreeks: Oor Afrikaner(on)geloof en ons geloofsbesering

Die Johann Rossouw-gespreksreeks: Die VSA en Venezuela – wanorde of orde?