Stuff Worth Tracking

I want to offer something of an eclectic mix of writings, events, organizations, and products that are currently informing my thinking — or just tickling me with joy. I plan to do this from time to time to showcase innovative developments in thought and culture I think are worth tracking.

On Polarization: Paul Kingsnorth and N.S. Lyons

In my recent essays, I’ve been framing our highly polarized cultural milieu as an expression of tensions between the masculine and feminine dimensions of the collective unconscious. As a reader pointed out, these polarities are playing out in many different and complex ways. Paul Kingsnorth and N.S. Lyons have offered some of the more original takes I’ve come across to describe this dynamic.

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Paul Kingsnorth’s writings feel to me sourced from a deep wellspring in the Earth. They wash over me like a forest stream, leaving me quieter and more sane than when I began. In The Nation and the Grid, he offers a profound perspective on the rift between ‘nationalism’ and ‘globalism’ that defines much of our current politics. He got me thinking about the deeper meaning of the ‘nation’ in our globalizing world in a new way. Both nationalists and globalists are comprehended here in a compassionate vision that helps illuminate what they are ideally striving for, but also why neither side is really clear on how to get it.

The Nation and the Grid

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N.S. Lyons is the pen-name of a Washington D.C.-based writer who works in US Foreign Policy. His Substack blog The Upheaval “explores the shared upheavals of our era, including technological and cultural change, the ideological revolution consuming the West, the rise of China, and the crisis of liberalism.”

The essay I’m linking (Reality Honks Back) is about the Canadian Trucker protests — so, ancient history now — but I still think it offers one of the more insightful descriptions of our cultural divisions I’ve come across.

“[L]et’s first identify and categorize two classes of people in society, who we could say tend to navigate and interact with the world in fundamentally different ways.

The first is a class that has been a part of human civilization for a really long time. These are the people who work primarily in the real, physical world. ….. This class necessarily works in a physical location, or they own or operate physical assets that are central to their trade.

The second class is different. It is, relatively speaking, a new civilizational innovation (at least in numbering more than a handful of people)…. They don’t interact much with the physical world directly; they are handlers of knowledge. They work with information, which might be digital or analog, numerical or narrative. But in all cases it exists at a level of abstraction from the real world. …. They are informational middlemen. This class can therefore do their job almost entirely from a laptop, by email or a virtual Zoom meeting, and has recently realized they don’t even need to be sitting in an office cubicle while they do it.

For our purposes here, let’s call these two classes the Physicals and the Virtuals, respectively.”

Reality Honks Back

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Rhyd Wildermuth, Why I am Not a Family Abolitionist

Rhyd Wildermuth is a self-described pagan theorist, nomadic anarchist, queer poet, and punk bard. He grew up in poverty in the Appalachians, and raised and educated himself to become the world class writer he is today. He produces prose at times elegant, edgy, and profound, at a prolific rate. As a writer with a much slower process, I resent him for the latter, but otherwise have nothing but good things to say about his writing.

Why I am Not a Family Abolitionist is a gorgeous piece that weaves Rhyd’s honest personal story with sharp intellectual analysis to critique Sophie Lewis’s new book Abolish the Family: A Manifesto for Care and Liberation.

“The family is not just a factory for bourgeois subjects. It is also an independent realm of social life, distinct from the state. Looked at this way, the family is a human relationship that capitalists and the state are always trying to capture and control—through tax policy and family courts as well as marketing and media propaganda. But there is always a dimension of our relations with our kin, both unchosen and chosen, that can escape these encroachments. This is what family abolitionists seem incapable of grasping.”

You can sign up for Rhyd’s Substack newsletter here:

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Chloe Valdary: Theory of Enchantment

Since in my recent writings I’ve critiqued the ideological fundamentalism that has taken hold of much of today’s social justice orthodoxy, I think it’s important to point to alternative approaches to transforming historical wounds of oppression that offer a different way forward.

Chloe Valdary has developed an original anti-racism approach inspired by the teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and in pursuit of his Beloved Community. Her Theory of Enchantment is rooted in three guiding principles:

1. Treat people like human beings, not political abstractions.

2. Criticize to uplift and empower, never to tear down and destroy.

3. Root everything you do in love and compassion.

You can study the Theory of Enchantment approach to anti-racism via a self-paced online program, or you can hire Chloe and her team to get a more human approach to diversity training for your organization.

A brief introduction to her approach is available HERE.

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Global Joy Summit

A Four-day Celebration and Exploration of Joy

November 13-16

I recently learned about this upcoming free 4-day online event inspired by and featuring His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the late great Archbishop Desmond Tutu and more than twenty other renowned joy scientists, visionary change-makers, spiritual teachers, and artists.

A global community of 200,000+ participants is expected as the Summit explores how we can live with more joy, resilience and compassion, even in deeply troubled times. 

Feeling the pain of the world and recognizing how many are struggling with isolation and despair, His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu met one last time before Arch’s passing to create a final gift for us all – poignant, practical, and often humorous teachings on how we can live with more Joy, even during deeply troubled times.

Be inspired by the contagious Joy of these self-described “mischievous brothers” and learn from many other spiritual teachers, Joy researchers, visionary change makers, and artists.

Something about the spirit of this event is calling to me — there is an innocence and simplicity and playfulness that I find very appealing.

Join the Joy! Sign up for free HERE.

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The LightPhone

I am in love with my LightPhone! The LightPhone is for people like me who detest the distraction factor of smartphones, but still need a minimal solution to stay in touch and function in the modern world. Kate found this for me as a way for us to stay connected after I had sabotaged the functioning of several previous smartphones.

The Lightphone is designed for human beings, intentionally created as a different option in our age of “Surveillance Capitalism” and the “Attention Economy”.

It’s tiny — fits easily into the palm of your hand — and has a minimal array of features. It’s a phone and you can send and receive texts. You can add music, listen to podcasts, and get directions. But there is no email, social media, apps, or internet browser. It doesn’t ‘pull’ on you like most smartphones do.

I’ve had it for about a month and love it. True, you’re not likely to win any national speed-text competitions with its old-school e-reader interface. But personally I am more than willing to sacrifice that speed for the peace of mind it gives me on a daily basis.

Check it out HERE.