Nostalgia for what never existed: Aquarius looks at Capricorn
Seeing a Paul Kingsnorth book on the new non-fiction shelf, I grabbed and went, happy to have this week’s reading material.
Against the Machine, Kingsnorth’s new book, like his previous books, is full of feeling. That’s what I enjoy most about this “recovering environmentalist,” that he conveys a true love of the earth, something that he explains is lost because the earth in a consumer culture is something to “use” (Capricorn keyword) and nurture only for further use.
If I could simply summarize what I see as “the machine” from Kingsnorth’s perspective, it’s anything which discourages human-to-human or human-to-nature interaction and instead involves human-to-digital/convenience/identity interaction.
While I agree with Kingsnorth that something is lost – the Loneliness Epidemic is certainly evidence – his ideas on what society should be are a combination of Aquarian idealism mixed with Capricorn “the way it used to be” tradition with some newer social trends being disdained.
His Aquarian idealism imagines a Renaissance Festival version of past cultures while forgetting that the lady tatting in the corner with reading glasses wouldn’t have made it to her mid 50s and wouldn’t be doing detailed needlework with bad eyesight and arthritic fingers and no aspirin.
Serfs, peasants, and slaves ate organic, wholesome, nutritious food for sure. But they didn’t live longer. They were used – negative Capricorn – as worker objects, disposable, replaceable. Our view of nature and the environment as something to be used rather than cherished follows this pattern. It’s not new.
Kingsnorth prefers and idealizes the small or smaller communities centered upon a spiritual hub of connectedness. Sounds nice, but small is also limiting of possibilities and, for some, causes the restlessness of lack of stimulation. While we all eat, not everyone enjoys being a farmer.
And like Henry David Thoreau of Walden Pond, Kingsnorth isn’t just living a quiet, community life but sharing with the world that he’s living a quiet, community life. Publishing allows for wider intellectual connection.
What would life be like if that went away?
A more perfect union
Kingsnorth’s dream of a smaller, more connected society may be coming true in other ways. Take the United States, for example. For some the current administration is reclaiming 18th century “freedoms” we used to have and lost. For others, there is a madman on the loose.
There’s a pattern here, probably all listed out in Project 2025, which I haven’t read.
Pluto in Aquarius idealizes and desires the perfect society. Communes are idealized societies. So are authoritarian states attempting to create perfect economies or perfect people, or both.
The US constitution indicates we wanted to create “a more perfect union.” After 250 years, the US has had its first Pluto return (in Capricorn) and appears to be on to Perfect Union 2.0.
Patterns suggest that the dismantling of public health, education systems, and the expulsion of large swathes of the population are the desire for a smaller, more select society with common historical knowledge. It’s “survival of fittest” – you survived measles and can defend yourself – and pure racial profiling.
Reintroducing illness will first affect older and less healthy people. Younger people are needed to replace older people in the workplace and fund social security. Yet technology reduces the need for people in the workplace. In business we know that people are the most controllable expense. It all seems related, and directed to a goal.
In many ways this is what Kingsnorth is seeking, a smaller society of similar people believing in the same god (generally represented as male), having the same values.
Who decides the entry criteria? Who decides what’s perfect, a form of control passed off as high standard?
Aquarius rules brotherhoods, you know, like fraternities. And we know the bane of fraternities is that persistent rite of entry – hazing.
Are we forming a more perfect union or hazing to see who survives the alcohol poisoning, who makes it in?
Who decides who’s American or who can share the bonfire with Kingsnorth?
You have me
You have me curious about Kingsnorth since I haven’t read him. Nostalgia for a past that never existed is in vouge today. What about women and children? The idea of childhood and rights for women and children is relatively new. Since we are in a time of transition economically and technologically, there is anxiety and a reaching for the past. Your point about combining the Capricorn and Aquarius influences resonates with me. I see it everywhere. Look at all the men wearing beards and looking like they just stepped out of the nineteenth century. Then there are the so called trad wives. I wonder how long that trend will last. There was an I love Lucy episode where Lucy and Ethel wanted to go back to the old days. They soon discovered how difficult all the manual labor was and quickly abandoned the idea.
I didn’t finish the book, was a little surprised by it but in a way it was similar to his books I do like, the feeling of connection to what he loves with disappointment that the earth isn’t loved and respected. In the newest book, it’s everything he doesn’t like with a romantic notion of the past forgetting we have 8b people and not everyone wants the same lifestyle. It’s the advancements that gave many people choice. If you see the reviews of this book, some are long because so much is included as “the machine.”