Letter From The Forests of Arduinna
An Imbolc update
In the older Western European calendar, before the Roman and then later Christian calendars became standard, the beginning of February was considered also the beginning of spring. The Julian and Gregorian reckonings put that date later, timed to the vernal equinox.
At least where I live, the older calendar is holding true. Already quite a few plants and trees have begun budding. Last night my partner rushed in excitedly from outside to show me a fallen oak branch he’d found, already covered in buds.
Certainly this is further proof that the climate has changed severely, but as I mentioned in an exchange with a friend, who likewise agreed, it’s regardless thrilling because spring is itself thrilling.
It’s been a bit of a long winter for me. Perhaps also for you. Despite riding my bike almost daily to a nearby village for groceries and to go to the gym, and despite writing quite a lot, it all felt a bit despairing. That is of course what winter does, and we humans have always found ways to work with that current, but several of those ways have been cut off to us here on account of the management of COVID.
It’s been almost two years now since the beginnings of shutdowns, mass panics, relentless masking, and the even more relentless cycle of blame and division in the social realms regarding COVID. As another friend mentioned, it’s become this generation’s September 11th, an event which radically altered society and the relationship between people and power.
I’ll not take any sides in all this (though to some, not making a sweeping pronouncement for one side or the other means you’re either a sheep or a fascist), and anyway it will actually take us many years to understand precisely how the rules have changed.
One place that I think we can begin to get a sense, however, is in what I call ‘ideological abandonment,’ a process which I’ve long noticed has occurred between the classic divisions of the left and right. I’ve heard this also called ‘ideological drift,’ and that term also works.
Regardless the term one uses, the process is similar. A position that was once held as a political belief by the left gets abandoned and even renounced, and then shows up suddenly in fringe political positions on the ‘extreme’ right.
Anti-globalisation is probably one of the clearest positions where this has happened. Twenty years ago, opposition to the globalisation of capitalism was a core leftist position, one which also drew in many otherwise conservative sorts as well. The massive protests which shut down entire cities for days (especially Seattle, but also others) were only one manifestation of that larger opposition.
Now, however, it’s rare to find leftists who even talk about this matter. What is more common, however, is to find this position among the populist right, and Donald Trump won at least in part for his opposition to NAFTA and other international trade agreements.
Again, this was once not just a leftist position, but a definitional position for the left. Twenty years later, it’s been completely abandoned by all but the stodgiest of leftists (I’m pretty stodgy…).
What actually happens here is quite interesting and not very well described. The best way to understand it is to see such positions as pre-political populist positions, meaning that they originate in the populace first, rather from formal politics. Then, political movements begin to pick up these positions as they become impossible to ignore. And when one political formation later abandons it—as they often do—another one will pick it up because the position itself still matters to people.
Take another example, one that has quite significantly drifted in the last two years, that of bodily autonomy and workers rights. Both of these things matter on a pre-political level, meaning that there will always be people who think what is done to their body should be their choice alone, and that working is a kind of sacred human act (tied to survival) that shouldn’t be taken away from people.
The left—especially when it was more defined by communism rather than anarchism—held both of these positions for a very long time, because Marxism itself was built upon these pre-political beliefs. Also, feminist arguments for abortion and birth control rely heavily on the belief in bodily autonomy.
Both of these positions have been almost completely abandoned by leftist movements in the past few years. This started before COVID. Consider the ‘Antifa’ actions to get people fired from their jobs because of their political beliefs in the past six years, and you’ll see that the left had already begun abandoning the idea that a person’s access to work was sacred, instead making it contingent on holding correct beliefs about the world.
Bodily autonomy was more resilient, however it did shift into other realms in surprising ways that began to supercede other concerns. For instance, it morphed into a kind of perverse ‘body positivity’ in which objectively unhealthy conditions (addictions, morbid obesity) were seen not just as matters of bodily autonomy, but of liberation which the rest of society should not merely accept, but rather celebrate. Having a medical or self-diagnosis (for ADHD, for gender dysphoria, for an invisible chronic illness) meant you were actually part of a liberated class, while ‘normal’ people in good mental and physical health were a kind of oppressor class.
COVID represented a final shift and transformation in both of these positions. We can see this best in the extreme glee with which leftists mocked lower class people who complained about losing their job because they didn’t want an injection. Such people became seen as idiots and equated with fascism, despite holding a pre-political populist position which leftists fought strongly for in the previous decades. Even nurses and doctors who were just last year a kind of sacred class of ‘frontline workers’ deserved to lose everything—including the ability to work to survive—because they believed they should be the final arbiters of what is done to their own bodies.
This, I must clarify, is more an American problem than a European one. The left in Europe still holds to some of these older positions (and are smeared as fascist by the media here and also in America for holding those beliefs). Many unions pushed back repeatedly against vaccine mandates for workers, though of course the larger ones with more ties to the political establishment in each country abandoned those principles.
Again, the important key to understanding this process is that these positions are themselves pre-political and are later picked up by political movements. They originate in the masses, and they persist beyond those shifts. People will always argue that they alone should have final say over their body and that the ability to provide for themselves through their labor is inalienable. Whether right-aligned or left-aligned political tendencies take up these issues, the issues themselves are neither right nor left.
There’s much more we will begin to understand in the next few years about these shifts, and I suspect new political constellations will arise to address these human desires that look nothing like what we’ve ever called the left or the right.
A Brief Re-Introduction
Many hundreds of you are receiving your first email dispatch from me, thanks to a very kind bit of publicity from one of my favorite writers, Paul Kingsnorth. Thanks to Paul for that, and also thanks to the many of you who also subscribed as paid supporters of my work!
Whenever I get such a large influx of new readers, I like to re-introduce myself the way the host of a party might when new guests arrive.
So, first off, this is me, or a least a picture of me:
Well, that’s one me, anyway, looking grizzled and a bit druidic. So here’s another me, or another image:
In that one I look more like a ‘gym bro,’ which is also a bit me.
In fact, both are me, and neither are, which is simultaneously a reminder of the manipulative power of images and also a reminder that humans can never be reduced to one thing, one identity, nor one ideology.
And that’s a significant reason for my writing.
I’m almost 45, born in the United States (an Appalachian hick, more specifically), and no longer on that continent. Now, I’m in Luxembourg, in the southern reaches of the ancient Arduenna Silva, ‘the forests of Arduinna’ now called the Ardennes.
Most of my life was lived as a political extreme leftist, often an anarchist and variously a Marxist. I’m still a Marxist (and have written a book about Marx, which you can buy here or get a digital copy for free as a paid supporter at the very end of this letter), but not really an anarchist anymore. Don’t get me wrong—I love the ideas behind it, but similar to what is said regarding some Christians (“I like Jesus but am terrified of his followers”) I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of anarchists I actually trust.
I write about that a lot, and am currently writing a book on the woke ideology, a leftist critique of it. Sure, lots of conservative critiques already exist of it, and some of them are okay, but none of them seem to understand how this all actually functions. I suspect I’ve got a good perspective from which to write this: I watched its birth within American radical communities, and was myself an early defender of woke ideology until I realised it was actually quite terrifying.
That book will be released at the end of this year, and in the meantime paid supporters get excerpts (my ‘open manuscript notes’ series) as I finish writing it.
I’m also a druid and a pagan. I co-founded and still direct a Pagan publisher called Gods&Radicals Press, where all of my published books can be found. The Arduenna in Arduenna Silva was a goddess, Arduinna, and that’s an important thing for me. I find that paganism (the old sort, not the neo-paganism tripe you’ll find in America) offers a much better framework for understanding and fighting capitalism, climate change, identity politics, and all the other nightmares of modern civilization. But I’ve also a lot of respect for older versions of other religious frameworks, too.
So, I write a lot about the woke and also about paganism (including my latest book, Being Pagan, which you can buy here or get a free PDF version at the bottom of this post as a paid supporter). I also write a lot about the body (I am, indeed, a ‘gym bro,’) and occasionally other things.
I’m new—where should I start?
Here’s a list of some of my favorite and most popular essays that I’ve written here on From The Forests of Arduinna:
This essay is what prompted a leftist publisher in London to ask me to write a book about the Woke ideology.
How the Greek concept of Hypocrisy and an ancient pre-cursor to the folk story “The Emperor’s New Clothes” explains a lot about why few are brave enough to challenge the Woke
The Revolution of the Return Home
A meditation on Walter Benjamin’s conception of revolutions, and in praise of human tradition.
The first in a four part series on the relationship between Woke ideology and the professional management class.
On the religious dimensions of Woke ideology.
Reflections after mass floodings here in the Ardennes, and what animism means for environmentalism.
Subscription Information
Free subscribers get access to almost everything I write and also a significant preview of any pay-walled writing. I’m really glad you’re here, and I really appreciate comments, shares, and even emails (though I’m a bit stretched thin on time for replies until my manuscript is complete).
Paid supporters get access to all this as well, and also full access to a minimum of two pay-walled essays each month and my Open Manuscript Notes series. You also get some free downloads, including digital copies of two of my books: All That Is Sacred Is Profaned and Being Pagan.
I also do a video series, my Druid Journals. These are occasional videos which I try to film whenever I have something to say. Winter and time constraints has made these a bit sparse the last few months, but more are coming quite soon. Paid supporters get to see these first.
Also, there is one more level of support, “founding supporters.” Generous folks who sign up at that level also get free access to courses I teach, including my very popular Being Pagan course. The next one starts 3 April, and everyone is welcome. If you’re a founding supporter, email me and I will set up a free enrollment for you.
How You Can Also Help
Besides becoming a paid supporter of this substack, and besides purchasing my books, sharing my work really helps a lot. A year ago I was hit with an Antifa-led cancel crusade that involved reporting my social media profiles as violations of terms of services. The result was a severe throttling of views of what I post on those places (from 10,000 views and hundreds of ‘likes’ and ‘shares’ down to about 100 views and 3 or 4 likes). I also stopped reading social media (it’s really bad for the soul, honestly) and posting things there except through automatic posting methods.
If you still use social media, sharing my essays helps a lot. So does telling your friends or readers about me (as Paul Kingsnorth recently did, which is why so many of you new folks are here!). I deeply appreciate it.
Download links for paid supporters
As mentioned above, I’m providing direct download links of two of my books for paid supporters (free subscribers will see a paywall just below this line).