From 6fa0028c98de65f783ca1da3d5dc24ff6ca99c10 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Joe Carstairs Date: Thu, 23 Apr 2026 19:06:47 +0100 Subject: reading log: this is not a drill --- reading-log.md | 82 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 82 insertions(+) (limited to 'reading-log.md') diff --git a/reading-log.md b/reading-log.md index 81cde5a..ff64dda 100644 --- a/reading-log.md +++ b/reading-log.md @@ -6,6 +6,88 @@ author: Joe Carstairs ## 2025-04-23 +### @{xr-not-a-drill} + +A collection of very short essays. Biggest takeaway: false hope is thinking +everything will turn out alright, real hope means persevering with love in the +knowledge that things will not turn out alright, at least for a while. Aragorn +at the Black Gate. Leaves me with a question: does true hope require us to have +faith that things will turn out alright _eventually_, even if on the other side +of the catastrophe? + +I was mostly struck by the hopefulness. @{kvandal-2025} had led me to expect XR +folk to have no hope for change, but I never found that. Everyone has hope that +things can change. Sam Knights, an editor an prominent XR organiser who opened +with the first essay, said: we did our homework, we organised a civil +disobedience campaign, we got an audience with politicians, we got Parliament to +declare a climate crisis. We have demands for politicians. We think if we keep +fighting we can win. Many contributors, especially in the second half about +practical action, emphasised the need for joy at protests: bring cake, give +police flowers, make sure it's a place that young, old and vulnerable people are +happy to be, serve rice and dal to fellow rebels, play music and dance. + +Jim Bendell's essay perhaps shows what kind of 'hopelessness' @{kvandal-2025} +was referring to. He used to think we could prevent catastrophe, but now +predicts social breakdown in most countries by 2030, and says he may not grow +old. He compares the realisation to Dostoevsky's false execution, saying he got +an intensified experience of the present. He thinks that once we drop false +hopes, we can live in the present with integrity. ('False hope' refers to belief +that we can avoid catastrophe.) We should prepare for the inevitable disaster +that's headed our way. We should not sacrifice our values to do whatever it +takes to avoid the disaster, because our values are worth keeping and the +disaster is inevitable anyway. Despair is inevitable, but love is the way +through despair. + +I don't think this is a hopeless narrative. There are things worth keeping, +which we can keep: love, integrity, experiencing the present. The 'false hope' +is the belief that things will be alright, which in my view is a shallow kind of +hope right from the start: real hope means perseverance in the face of +difficulty, and that's just what Jim advocates for. Seeing that things are in +fact pretty dreadful, and then resolving to live by what is right anyway, seems +strikingly similar to the rhetoric of John's Apocalypse. I also thought of +Aragorn's speech at the Black Gate, after he had seen Frodo's mail shirt and +been convincingly lied to that Frodo had been captured. It is a stark contrast +to the kind of 'hope' inspired by some folk who think we can stop the disaster. +It does also express a lack of faith in the establishment. (Like John…?) + +Dougald Hine had a rather different kind of hope, a helpful contrast. He says, +to survive, the impossible must happen, but we can have hope, because we can see +signs that we live in times where the impossible happens (Brexit, Trump, +Corbyn). He also criticised the 'sustainability' discourse behind 'plant 8 +billion trees and then we can carry on as normal', and says that 'carry on as +normal' is not desirable in 21st-century politics. Tweaking the market, fuel +duty, not adequate. He complained about the 'disenchantment of politics by +economics.' His hope is that we can avert disaster by overturning the political +system. This doesn't have the resigned pessimism to resilience move of Jim, and +instead it promotes revolution to get change to avoid the catastrophe. It +strikes me that Jim is much more apocalyptic than Dougald for this reason. + +The Apocalypse came up twice. Once, Ted Silverberg, who survived a forest fire +in California, said of the experience 'it feels like the Apocalypse; black, +burned and decimated … a devastating emptiness … like a hydrogen bomb … the end +of the world.' Rowan Williams in his Afterword said that this book is not an +apocalypse (or a jeremiad) because it expresses conviction that things can +change. Part of me thinks, has he read the Apocalypse? But I suppose one could +argue that the rhetoric of the Apocalypse is to get people to endure inevitable +suffering rather than work to avert suffering, maybe that's his point. (But +really, has he read Jeremiah?) + +Jay Griffiths had some striking mythical language describing a protest: 'Ancient +values are overtly resurrected in this Easter rebellion in London: the values of +chivalry and honour, faith in life and being service to Our Lady, Notre Dame, +Mother Earth, the mother on whom everything else depends.' The police loved +looking after us in our cells and said 'God bless' to us on the way out. +Exemplifies how mythical language nests a little context into a bigger context. +Not entirely intended to be read as 'fictional' I think, with the reference to +'the mother on whom everything else depends.' + +I was struck by how Rowan Williams concluded. In his essay, he emphasised that +'it might just work', or 'it might not'. Either way, we need to restore an +intelligent relationship with our world.' Accept the diseased imagination of the +culture we have created and the death count begins now. Anger, love andjoy may +be odd bedfellows, but these are the seeds of a future that may offer life -- +not success, but life. + ### @{xr-declaration} 'This is our darkest hour'. 'The science is clear -- we are in the sixth mass -- cgit v1.2.3