It's vital to allow the freedom to have that possibility still going on. At almost every level, all the time, the power of the state and corporations are clamping down on that. And it's quite possible to imagine in five or 10 years, it being pretty much impossible to say, have a bank account that you could check without having one. So we're all sort of, we're sucked into this against our will. It's always the same story. Well, this is great. This is good for you. Look at all the stuff you've got that you didn't have. But what you've lost is a sense of autonomy and freedom that you did have before.
Paul Kingsnorth doesn’t fit neatly into Left or Right — which is only one of the reasons we consider him one of the more interesting thinkers of our time. He has been talking and writing about nature for over 25 years, and during that period he has developed a his own self-reliant, localised form of environmentalism.
Formerly a climate activist, Paul grew disaffected with the movement when he came to the realisation that “economic monster” that enveloped the world was too great to fight against. Instead, he channelled his energies into writing books, essays, novels and poetry, all of which have been hugely influential in the way we view our relationship with the modern world and its maladies.
In his own life, he has tried to “secede from the system” as much as possible by living on his own farmstead out in western Ireland in county Galway. While he admits that it is impossible to fully withdraw from the world, small acts of resistance — whether they are using an unconnected compost loo or refusing to use a smartphone — allows him to “jump off the treadmill”. His recent conversion to Christianity came as a surprise, not least to Paul, and it gave him a deeper appreciation of the importance of limits and humility. Below are some excerpts from this enthralling interview:
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