Side Stepping the Machine
A review of Paul Kingsnorth's Against the Machine (2025)
Over Christmas I read Paul Kingsnorth’s latest book, and what he states as his last foray into the topic of the ‘Machine’. Kingsnorth is a British writer (now living in Ireland) who started out as an environmental activist and then moved into a space that argued against globalisation and for a more localised ‘rooted’ society. His latest book, Against the Machine, is the cumulation of his ideas previously discussed in his One No, Many Yeses (2003), Real England (2008), and Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist (2017). I’ve read and own all but the first of these.
I find myself not always agreeing with everything Kingsnorth argues, but his grand theory; the big argument; the need for society to side step or avoid the thing that seems to be consuming it, is compelling. The Machine, as he labels it, is essentially the world in which we live. He describes it as the feeling of living in ‘modernity’ and how it is uprooting us from nature, culture and God. He states:
“The Machine manifests today as an intersection of money power, state power and increasingly coercive and manipulative technologies, which constitutes an ongoing war against roots and against limits. It’s momentum is always forward, and it will not stop until it has conquered and transformed the world. To do that, it must raze or transmute many older and less measurable things: rooted human communities, wild nature, human nature, human freedom, beauty, faith and the many deeper values which we all adhere to in some way or another but find difficult to describe or even to defend.” (Kingsnorth, 2025, 38).
Kingsnorth goes on to argue that its endgame is to replace nature with technology ‘in order to facilitate total human control over a totally human world’. To make this argument, Kingsnorth looks first at the history of how the Machine became (i.e. enlightenment through to modernity), what it is (as cited above), and where it seems to be heading.
There is a lot to unpack in this thesis and there is a step-change in how he considers these issues as well. The conclusion mostly comes down to the need to re-root ourselves and to do that Kingsnorth looks to the structures of faith that once guided and ruled over our civilisations: the church. The need to re-root ourselves, to become enchanted with our world once again and to seek out spiritual faith of some kind makes sense to me, but a return to the authority of churches; to a proscribed religion, leaves me wanting. I have no problem with people seeking religion as long as it a way for them to better themselves and find community. Where religion goes wrong, in my opinion, is in its need to infiltrate the political sphere of life; its own desire for power and the corruption that can bring! I worry that religion is little different than the Machine that Kingsnorth describes, or at least, it often becomes so.
For those reasons, this is a path that I am currently unwilling to take and I do not feel that it is necessarily the right path either. Faith, yes. A need to see, truly see, the wonders of the world around us; to understand deep in our souls how interconnected we are with the soil, the air, the water, the wildlife, the plants. That is the goal and the need. From there we turn away from the Machine; which to me is the artificial edifice that we have created for ourselves, which separates humans from the natural world.
That is not to suggest that we turn away from everything in our society. Side stepping normal is not about complete rejection, but about finding a way that works better, that offers a good life and one that embeds itself and ourselves into nature. One that cares for the Earth and provides stewardship, rather than sees it as a resource to use and abuse.
This, in a round about way, brings me to the second aspect of Against the Machine that did not entirely convince. A rejection of globalisation. I get what Kingsnorth is arguing when he suggests that a smaller, localised economy, where people feel rooted in their own ‘people’ (i.e. those who live in the same area), has benefits and that this does not need to mean a bigoted, inward-looking us vs them, mentality. Being more localised; planning buildings and streets, and events for the local community; to build roots, and to protect its values; is no bad thing. Indeed, there is a need to strengthen these ties, which I wholeheartedly agree about. However, globalisation is not necessarily an enemy here.
The form of globalisation and how it often serves the idea of uprooting ourselves and making us one homogonous people, is problematic. While I wished Britain had stayed in the EU and I feel myself as European (as well as British, English, Man of Kent), I was never a fan of attempts to break down the differences and uniqueness of each European country. The French should remain French. The Germans should remain German. The Italians should remain Italian. The British should remain British. Our diversity; our differences, but also our similarities and shared histories make us stronger, not weaker. But understanding these diversities and encouraging contact and engagement with them not only opens up better relations, but adds to the joy of living. It is also fertile ground. Permaculture often talks about the edges being the most productive - those points where two ecosystems collide and create something unique, are often the most beneficial. Our cultural interactions are no different.
Globalisation, in its current form, is also about trade. This is often a problem. Rather than buy tomatoes from Britain (or grow them ourselves) we get them shipped over from Spain or China, or somewhere else. The same goes in reverse. Products get shipped all over the world and often there is really no need for it. Of course, there are needs for many things. Bananas and oranges can’t be grown here; and there are books written in other countries that I would want to read - just to offer a few examples. But, many items could be produced more locally and should be produced locally. It would be better for the environment that way and would help us to re-root ourselves in where we are. By predominantly producing and buying locally we become part of that local ecosystem.
What is needed then, is a rebalancing. A better combination of the local and the global; a feeling of being rooted in a place and engaging with it at every opportunity, but also the ability and capability to engage with the edges; to embrace other peoples and find enjoyment in what is similar and what is different between us.
I have more to think about on both those themes - religion and globalisation - but these were the points where I feel I head in a different direction. The over arching thesis of Against the Machine, however, feels generally right. We appear to be at a cross-roads between a version of ourselves that is part human, part machine - a techno-utopia that integrates us more fully with our technologies and possibly overrides us; making us AI enhanced or AI controlled. Or, we could aim for degrowth; to reorientate ourselves towards our roots; rediscover our connection with the earth, and especially our little corner of it; whilst also reorientating those aspects of modernity which are beneficial; bending them more towards an ecologically ethical framework.
Is Paul Kingsnorth’s Against the Machine worth a read? Definitely. The book derives out of his Substack - The Abbey of Misrule - where he originally posted most of its contents in the form of essays. I read these as they came out, and it is nice to see them placed all together into one thesis. The narrative works well, building up a picture of a world gone wrong; highlighting what that wrongness is, and perhaps offering some ideas about what to do about it. There is a lot in there; much that needs mulling over. Some parts might not fit your taste or beliefs but the ideas need thought and attention, even where you might find disagreement. I will definitely be reading this book again, thinking over its implications and arguments, and figuring out precisely where I stand.
Kingsnorth’s desire for roots is not all that different from Permaculture’s degrowth philosophy. One leads into the other. In doing so, an alternative path is articulated - one that does not just follow the path set for us by the ‘Machine’ nor one set for us by techno-utopian ideas, but one that brings us back to where we belong whilst, perhaps, finding ways to integrate the best of what we’ve created along the way.
That then, is my two-pennies worth. Against the Machine is an important book for our times and as such it is one that needs engagement, interrogation, agreement and disagreement. Most of all, it needs to be read.
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