Long read, some re-used from his previous critique which I posted here recently, but some real darts to the heart of middle class liberalism in this, especially when he gets on to the subject of religion/spirituality and find that even this is used as a cover for a failure to meaningfully oppose the system, while denouncing those that do as wannabe 'tyrants' and continuing to enjoy the privileges that if affords people in their position. Harsh - devastating even (not that I think PK has it in him to be constructively devastated in this way - he would probably shrug it off with a few faux-ironic deflections) - but fair:
Some good pointers, too, for those who (like me) are middle-class-but-in-recovery. I especially liked DH Lawrence's insistence that we fight:
By contrast, let’s take a look at a solution suggested by Kingsnorth’s previous incarnation, D.H. Lawrence. Lawrence had two recommendations. First of all he said you should fight. Kick and punch and bite and spit. Lawrence was disgusted with defeatism, and attacked it—along with the professional class who manage or worship the world of living death—over and over again. Lawrence did not, as Kingsnorth would have you believe, just attack ‘the Machine’, he attacked the whole thing, including—and especially—people like Paul Kingsnorth.
Still have no idea how to do it, really (except carefully, methodically, unreproachably in writing that people just ignore and talk over like it never happened), but I'm willing to learn! The Lawrence poem DA links to is perhaps more brutally apt than anything else in the article:
How beastly the bourgeois is especially the male of the species--
Presentable, eminently presentable-- shall I make you a present of him?
Isn't he handsome? Isn't he healthy? Isn't he a fine specimen? Doesn't he look the fresh clean Englishman, outside? Isn't it God's own image? tramping his thirty miles a day after partridges, or a little rubber ball? wouldn't you like to be like that, well off, and quite the thing
Oh, but wait! Let him meet a new emotion, let him be faced with another man's need, let him come home to a bit of moral difficulty, let life face him with a new demand on his understanding and then watch him go soggy, like a wet meringue. Watch him turn into a mess, either a fool or a bully. Just watch the display of him, confronted with a new demand on his intelligence, a new life-demand.
How beastly the bourgeois is especially the male of the species--
Nicely groomed, like a mushroom standing there so sleek and erect and eyeable-- and like a fungus, living on the remains of a bygone life sucking his life out of the dead leaves of greater life than his own.
And even so, he's stale, he's been there too long. Touch him, and you'll find he's all gone inside just like an old mushroom, all wormy inside, and hollow under a smooth skin and an upright appearance.
Full of seething, wormy, hollow feelings rather nasty-- How beastly the bourgeois is!
Standing in their thousands, these appearances, in damp England what a pity they can't all be kicked over like sickening toadstools, and left to melt back, swiftly into the soil of England.
Bide your time, stay alert and when the opportunity presents, in like Flynn, like the lad at the start of the credits for Baywatch.The last working-class hero in England. Clio the cat, ? July 1997 - 1 May 2016 Kira the cat, ? ? 2010 - 3 August 2018 Jasper the Ruffian cat ??? - 4 November 2021 Georgina the cat ???-4 December 2025
Shame the orange bourgeois charlatan co-oped that message. Another thing the dead-eyed middle classes can tut tut over.
Another enjoyable skewering from DA. Reading Allen is good for the soul.
Re: Fight! Fight! Fight!
Posted by Keith-264 on August 21, 2025, 10:45 pm, in reply to "Fight! Fight! Fight!"
Is this Kingsnorth really worth the effort?The last working-class hero in England. Clio the cat, ? July 1997 - 1 May 2016 Kira the cat, ? ? 2010 - 3 August 2018 Jasper the Ruffian cat ??? - 4 November 2021 Georgina the cat ???-4 December 2025
Maybe not, but I found it useful to illuminate some different dark areas of the liberal psyche, including my own (for shame!) A bit like how Monbiot-bashing might seem like a pointless activity if not for the utility of picking apart those patterns of thinking that trap people on the fringes of guardian-tolerable 'radicalism'. But yeah, some people might not need that!
Shame the orange bourgeois charlatan co-oped that message
Apols for being the fly in the ointment, He ain't bourgeois by any stretch of the imagination. He is an oligarch or perhaps an oligarchic stooge. Classier like.
I think that you put that rather well. I liked Trumps turn in the film "Caddyshack" when he appeared under the name of Rodney Dangerfield. ;O)The last working-class hero in England. Clio the cat, ? July 1997 - 1 May 2016 Kira the cat, ? ? 2010 - 3 August 2018 Jasper the Ruffian cat ??? - 4 November 2021 Georgina the cat ???-4 December 2025
My AI is getting pissed off with you, young K264. You give nada to the conversation. In other words, no conversation except vague references which in essence have no meaning. Stay clever (eyes roll). Unforgivable to my mind .. leading by the 'invisible' nose .. grrrr.
on August 21, 2025, 7:19 pm