I am very much looking forward to more of your posts. Trying to make sense of the last two years has been the most bewildering and transformative intellectual journey characterized by a tendency to navigate daily life between a state of doom and anxiety, and the liberating sense of escape from ideological straightjackets. As an autodidact, I have early on in the covidian “crisis” been forced to abandon my default leftist identity as it became obvious that the left-right dichotomy was not only useless in explaining anything but actually served the purpose of constantly reinforcing the dominant corporate narratives. The writings and interventions of varied voices such as Charles Eisenstein, David Cayley, Paul Kingsnorth, Paul Cudenec, Steve Newcomb, Vandana Shiva, Coling Todhunter, Louis Fouché, Jean-Dominique Michel, Le comité invisible, Michel Weber, among many others have helped me build new interpretative lenses to make some sense of the ongoing technocratic destruction of life, and avoid falling into spirals of despair. They also point in different ways to a path forward toward the possibility of living a decent life. I am glad to have one more voice to help me navigate the current and coming societal storms, and for now, will, thanks to one of your references, get my hand on one of the Jean Giono novels that so inspired me in my youth!
Only dead fish swim with the current…there are so many dead fish everywhere, and so few of us are truly equipped to brave the Machines hard push to conformity, comfort, possessions, spiritual and intellectual numbness. C'est une catastrophe honteuse et dangereuse!
Your introductory commentary is indeed intriguing and certainly worthy of further attention. I will subscribe to help aid a fellow compatriot share his prophetic voice and vision. Fiat Lux! Another encouraging light in the surrounding sea of darkness and dead fish….
A foundational narrative of hope based on truth, is always needed to help drive and sustain the daily struggle within and, that hardest of all, in our daily swim against the Machines rising tide…
Avec l'aide de Dieu et une nouvelle voix d'espoir, la lutte continue!
Jul 21, 2022·edited Jul 21, 2022Liked by Renaud Beauchard
Great introduction and so many of the points you mentioned color my own view of the world as its now unfolding.
Right now, the political class in the U.S. and Europe are desperately trying to pursue a Restoration of the old left-right axes of politics, but there's every indication this is failing. My main fear is that this failure will force them to adopt "politics by other means," i.e. war by playing hard geopolitics to justify a top-down organizing principle to something more amenable to their administration.
I've read two of your other posts — "Rage Against the Machine" and "A Crash Course on Christopher Lasch" — and was overtaken by both. To the point that I loudly verbalized an expletive, as I would when tasting a surprisingly good bourbon. I'm very much looking forward to your work here.
I've also been drinking deeply of Deneen, Lasch, Ellul, Illich, Lind, Kingsnorth, Crawford et al. and enjoying it immensely. But I'm relatively new to this stuff — like in the past three years — and I have a command neither of the terrain their thought occupies nor of their comparative locations to each other on that terrain. So the following question I have is likely a product of my greenness. (I didn't know where else to ask it of you, since it's a rather general question.)
On the one hand, such thinkers register their complaint that, in your paraphrase of Lasch, the human being has been rendered "fundamentally dependent on forces over which he has no control." On the other hand, the same thinkers will lament the tendency of the human being to avoid acknowledging his and nature's limits — i.e. things over which he has no control. Deneen, for instance, offers a paean to unchosen bonds: where you were born and to whom, and whom you give birth to.
In brief, I read that we should rightfully bemoan our having no control and that we should rightfully acknowledge our having no control. What's going on here?
Here's my suggestion as to how these thinkers might resolve the tension. The forces over which we have no control are political and economic forces, forces that have come into being by way of decisions humans have made. These forces can and should be resisted, reshaped, redirected. The natural and geographical limits (over which we have no control) that we should properly acknowledge are forces that are not in the same way or to the same extent subject to human decision. Is that the difference, do you think?
I love this, and am onboard: "For I believe, as Lasch put it, that Democracy “has to be judged by its success in producing superior goods, superior works of art and learning, a superior type of character.” "
I am very much looking forward to more of your posts. Trying to make sense of the last two years has been the most bewildering and transformative intellectual journey characterized by a tendency to navigate daily life between a state of doom and anxiety, and the liberating sense of escape from ideological straightjackets. As an autodidact, I have early on in the covidian “crisis” been forced to abandon my default leftist identity as it became obvious that the left-right dichotomy was not only useless in explaining anything but actually served the purpose of constantly reinforcing the dominant corporate narratives. The writings and interventions of varied voices such as Charles Eisenstein, David Cayley, Paul Kingsnorth, Paul Cudenec, Steve Newcomb, Vandana Shiva, Coling Todhunter, Louis Fouché, Jean-Dominique Michel, Le comité invisible, Michel Weber, among many others have helped me build new interpretative lenses to make some sense of the ongoing technocratic destruction of life, and avoid falling into spirals of despair. They also point in different ways to a path forward toward the possibility of living a decent life. I am glad to have one more voice to help me navigate the current and coming societal storms, and for now, will, thanks to one of your references, get my hand on one of the Jean Giono novels that so inspired me in my youth!
Only dead fish swim with the current…there are so many dead fish everywhere, and so few of us are truly equipped to brave the Machines hard push to conformity, comfort, possessions, spiritual and intellectual numbness. C'est une catastrophe honteuse et dangereuse!
Your introductory commentary is indeed intriguing and certainly worthy of further attention. I will subscribe to help aid a fellow compatriot share his prophetic voice and vision. Fiat Lux! Another encouraging light in the surrounding sea of darkness and dead fish….
A foundational narrative of hope based on truth, is always needed to help drive and sustain the daily struggle within and, that hardest of all, in our daily swim against the Machines rising tide…
Avec l'aide de Dieu et une nouvelle voix d'espoir, la lutte continue!
Great introduction and so many of the points you mentioned color my own view of the world as its now unfolding.
Right now, the political class in the U.S. and Europe are desperately trying to pursue a Restoration of the old left-right axes of politics, but there's every indication this is failing. My main fear is that this failure will force them to adopt "politics by other means," i.e. war by playing hard geopolitics to justify a top-down organizing principle to something more amenable to their administration.
The quotes from Bernanos hit me like a lightning bolt. Grateful to have found your Substack through NS Lyons!
Looking forward to the next essay of this promising publication Renaud. I will join you in this journey. Au plaisir.
I've read two of your other posts — "Rage Against the Machine" and "A Crash Course on Christopher Lasch" — and was overtaken by both. To the point that I loudly verbalized an expletive, as I would when tasting a surprisingly good bourbon. I'm very much looking forward to your work here.
I've also been drinking deeply of Deneen, Lasch, Ellul, Illich, Lind, Kingsnorth, Crawford et al. and enjoying it immensely. But I'm relatively new to this stuff — like in the past three years — and I have a command neither of the terrain their thought occupies nor of their comparative locations to each other on that terrain. So the following question I have is likely a product of my greenness. (I didn't know where else to ask it of you, since it's a rather general question.)
On the one hand, such thinkers register their complaint that, in your paraphrase of Lasch, the human being has been rendered "fundamentally dependent on forces over which he has no control." On the other hand, the same thinkers will lament the tendency of the human being to avoid acknowledging his and nature's limits — i.e. things over which he has no control. Deneen, for instance, offers a paean to unchosen bonds: where you were born and to whom, and whom you give birth to.
In brief, I read that we should rightfully bemoan our having no control and that we should rightfully acknowledge our having no control. What's going on here?
Here's my suggestion as to how these thinkers might resolve the tension. The forces over which we have no control are political and economic forces, forces that have come into being by way of decisions humans have made. These forces can and should be resisted, reshaped, redirected. The natural and geographical limits (over which we have no control) that we should properly acknowledge are forces that are not in the same way or to the same extent subject to human decision. Is that the difference, do you think?
I love this, and am onboard: "For I believe, as Lasch put it, that Democracy “has to be judged by its success in producing superior goods, superior works of art and learning, a superior type of character.” "
Very interesting. Thanks, Renaud. But "Edward" Abbey.