The Epicenter of Machine Resistance

Joy, Place, and Eros in the Catskills

Last Thursday, we loaded into Brandon's 1975 Cadillac Coupe DeVille and headed to a conference in Margaretville, a small town in the Catskills of upstate New York.

The conference, probably more aptly described as a “gathering” or an extended salon, was a loose association of writers, builders, farmers, and activists concerned about the state of America in the Machine Age who are thinking creatively about how to live within it.¹

The gathering was organized by Ashley and Patrick Fitzgerald of the Doomer Optimism podcast and Substack. The Fitzgeralds helped to organize a related gathering at the Wagon Box Inn in Story, Wyoming. The Wagon Box is best described as a based retreat center helping people “to get away from the din of The Machine.”  Read Suzy Weiss’s coverage in the Free Press to get a pretty good flavor of what these gatherings are all about.

Our gathering in Margaretville might be considered Wagon Box East and included many of the participants that Suzy met in Story. There were around 50 in attendance and the “keynote” speakers were Paul Kingsnorth and Matthew Crawford. In fact, Brandon and I picked up Paul in Lewisburg, PA, and he joined us in the Cadillac for the final half of our drive to the Catskills. If the weekend had yielded nothing more, it was a thrill to meet those two writers.

This was our first Doomer Optimism event, and it was transformative for the both of us. The gathering was organized around roundtable discussions on various topics during the day followed by evenings of fellowship and merriment. For three days, Margaretville was the epicenter of Machine resistance. We left deeply inspired to continue our work through the encouragement of these kind and thoughtful fellow resisters.

On the way home, we were ruminating on our time and wanted to share a few reflections. If these gatherings really do form the foundation of anti-Machine resistance, we can expect the resistance project will be 1) joyful, 2) rooted, and 3) erotic.

The Joyful Resistance 

The discussion reaffirmed our strongly held belief that the Machine cannot and will not be stopped. We see no strategic plan or policy agenda that will slow down the march of the forces that have been unleashed. Here is how one of the conference participants, Amelia Buzzard, described the age of the Machine in her Substack Writer’s Blog(ck)

An oppressive and controlling bureaucratic state coupled with a materialistic “meat lego” anthropology and the exponential rise of tech is driving our society towards an increasingly likely dystopia.

This sounds about right to us. There’s really no stopping this thing. That is the Doomer part of the Doomer Optimism.

The purpose then of the resistance is not so much to slow the intrusion of the Machine but to create little arks of flourishing that will survive the seemingly inevitable collapse, or at least the continued shitification, that is to come. The resistance strives to create little beacons of light pointing to another way of life that may be possible on the other side.

In fact, the entire gathering itself provided a clue to what the arks might look like. The atmosphere of the roundtable discussions was convivial to say the least. The participants were engaged and the conversations were productive and respectful, while also excitingly uncouth and titillating.

The evenings were punctuated by wholesome levity. On Friday night, we organized a potluck dinner. There was lots of fresh simple food and lots and lots of beer and wine (to curtail bad behavior, no liquor allowed). The evening ended with a sing along that lasted for hours: Springsteen, Radiohead, Johnny Cash. We brought out real instruments and we sang real songs. The following night featured mini-debates and bowling.  There were a few “satanic rectangles” around but it was all human beings having real human fun. It was joyful.

I guess this is the “Optimistic” part, though hope, not optimism, is probably the most apt description of virtue operative in our time together. And it seemed a sort of hope that produces joy.

The Rooted Resistance

We live in liquid times. We have nothing on which we can place our feet and stand. We are dislocated from place, tradition, and family. The Machine wants us to be rootless, disconnected cogs that can be relocated at will. We generally comply. Zygmut Bauman puts it this way.

In a liquid modern life there are no permanent bonds, and any that we take up for a time must be tied loosely so that they can be untied again, as quickly and as effortlessly as possible, when circumstances change - as they surely will in our liquid modern society, over and over again.

In many ways, we are all orphans. Perhaps the most impactful talk was given by Jeff Shafer from the Hale Institute at New St. Andrews College in Idaho. He left the group breathless with his very simple description of the ways in which advanced reproductive technologies (maybe the most Machine-transhumanist that you can get) are producing waves of children that are essentially orphans. But, he argued that it is worse than orphans. “Orphan” is still a relational term--they have been disregarded by their parents or their parents are dead. You cannot even call these children orphans because there is no relationship connection in the first place. This is the ultimate form of rootlessness.

There was a deep undercurrent that flowed beneath the conference of Gen X, Millennial, and Gen Z kids who are now grown up and pine for a home they never really had. In one of our early posts, we shared a poem by Wendell Berry where he describes the feeling this way:

…nobody who ever wanted to go home would ever get there now,

for every remembered place had been displaced;

every love unloved,

every vow unsworn,

every word unmeant

to make way for the passage of the crowd of the individuated,

the autonomous, the self-actuated, the homeless with their many eyes

opened toward the objective which they did not yet perceive in the far distance,

having never known where they were going,

having never known where they came from.

Many of us were searching for home and some had found it. Those who had found home spoke with such affection for their places like Pittsburgh (PA), Salinas (CA), New Hampshire, and upstate New York.

Many were also looking for a spiritual home. I found it remarkable that at least 8 of the 50 participant were very recent converts to Christianity, the vast majority of which had converted to Eastern Orthodoxy. Mind you, many of these men and women had just a few years ago been left wing atheistic social activists. But they were drawn back to a deep rootedness offered in ancient faith.

Our experience at the gathering made us love our own homes even more. I (Grant) was thinking throughout the course of the weekend how much I wanted my family there to share it with me. I am compelled to bring the ethic of the gathering back to my particular place. One tangible thing I intend to do is host monthly gatherings at my own house surrounded by my local people, food, debate, poetry, and music. Make a very local Pittsburgh expression of the Doomer Optimists.

The Erotic Resistance

We left the weekend also thinking that the resistance just might save the erotic. Although we did not take a poll, we suspect that the vast majority of the attendees held very traditional views of human sexuality. That being said, we were struck by the extent to which sexual difference was celebrated in all of its playful and erotic complementarity.

One thing that I (Grant) have noticed as I spend time with college students is the strange and nearly pathological feelings around sexuality. There seem to be only two modes: rutting and prudish. This generation of young adults is porn saturated and obsessed with sexual identity and expression. There is still lots of casual sex. But, at the same time, they are also incredibly scared of sex. I remember reading a short story with students in one of my classes. The two main characters were having sex. When I asked them to describe what happened in the story, the students were completely reluctant to say it out loud. I finally blurted out "They are screwing! Its OK to say it!”

Many young adults lack a healthy and integrated eroticism. They cannot comprehend a vision that celebrates the complimentary sexual binary, and the beautiful, thrilling game that men and women play. Sex is a dangerous game, and my students often miss the thrill of risk and end up fumbling around literally and figuratively. On one hand, a potential sexual partner is seen as an object for use. On the other hand, they are seen as enemies who must be engaged with on a procedural and contractual level. In fact, Matt Crawford just wrote a piece here about the alienation between the sexes.

The one thing that we do know is that neither of these position is fun or sexy. There is no mystery and play and excitement. How boring is sex when consent is the only standard? Is there any wonder that fertility rates are collapsing? The beautiful, mysterious and erotic nature of the sex binary has become a boring setting for conflict.

We were both moved by several conversations led by women at the gathering. We was struck by their unrelenting celebratory femininity matched seamlessly with a deep love for men. Their strong and powerful femininity was not threatened by giving themselves fully to their lovers. The femininity was both conservative and erotic. We especially loved the conversation about the role of formal, organized dances to bring back generative and healthy male-female eroticism.

Conclusion

We are extremely grateful to have been invited to this gathering. We left Margaretville renewed both intellectually and spiritually. We already have the next Wagon Box gathering on our calendars next summer. Hope to see many of you there.

1. Note: We all agreed to Chatham House Rules. So, we don’t name anyone who did not give express permission to do so or who had not announced in public that they would be attending or had attended. We asked specific permission of anyone that we attributed specific ideas.