Reflections of a Former Eco-Pagan

Pagan: The Magazine of Blood-Knowledge

'The Green Issue' (Issue XXIX, Sept 1989)

 

 

I. 

 

I know that for many people the attempt to combine ecopolitics with some form of religious faith is something new and exciting, but I was working in this (dangerous) area thirty-five years ago, during a time when I identified as a pagan of a distinctly dark green variety and called for countercultural revolution and Lebensreform.

 

Not only was I member of the Green Party in 1989, but Pagan Magazine was enthusiastically advocating a kind of Year Zero primitivism that might have made even Pol Pot uncomfortable. In issue XXIX, for example, I cheerfully called for halving the UK population and praised the blood and soil philosophy of senior Nazi Party official Richard Walther Darré [1].

 

 

II. 

 

Of course, looking back, I'm mortified by my own moral idealism and fanaticism which, somewhat ironically, I was only able to overcome via an intensive reading of Nietzsche and D. H. Lawrence during 1994-2000; two of the authors who had led me to the edge of the Abyss in the first place.   

 

Nevertheless, I don't regret the fact that I explored the mad political and religious fantasies that I did during the mid-late '80s and early 1990s. 

 

It's because of my own background in ecospirituality and ecofascism, that I understand perfectly what motivates radical activists such as Roger Hallam; co-founder of the environmental movement Extinction Rebellion, who is currently serving a five year jail sentence for causing a public nuisance [2].  

 

And it's why I understand also what attracts people to charismatic conspiracy theorists such as David Icke, whose obsession with New Age philosophies didn't prevent him from becoming a national spokesman for the Green Party at around the same time I was working in the press office of their London HQ [3].       

  

 

Notes

 

[1] Darré was one of the leading Blut und Boden ideologists and served as Reich Minister of Food and Agriculture. Not only was he a high-ranking functionary in the Nazi Party, but he was also a senior commander in the SS. It is important to recall that in 1933 many environmentalists and conservationists in Germany welcomed Hitler's regime and praised the Nazis for creating nature preserves, championing sustainable forestry, curbing air pollution, caring about animal welfare, etc. 

      Readers who are interested in knowing more should See Anna Bramwell's Blood and Soil: Walther Darré and Hitler's Green Party (Kensal Press, 1985). Her later work, Ecology in the 20th Century: A History (Yale University Press, 1989) is also recommended.

 

[2] Readers who visit Hallam's website will note that a blog containing an archive of his writings since 2017 has a whole section entitled 'Sprituality', exploring dark nights of the soul and ecstasies of being. Hallam also reveals why, for him, Jesus is still the Man: click here.

 

[3] Icke and myself were both forced to resign roles within the Green Party at around the same time; he because of a penchant for wearing turquoise shell-suits and me for favouring traditional Tyrolean jackets. Admittedly, there were other factors apart from fashion choices that contributed to our leaving; for example, he went on Wogan in April 1991 and claimed to be the Son of God and I was openly contemptuous of the leadership of the Party (and most of the members).    

 

 

Get Off Your Knees and Hear the Insect Prayer: Notes on the Ant People

Get Off Your Knees and Hear the Insect Prayer

 

I. 

 

When I came across a reference the other day to the Ant People, I immediately thought of the Adam and the Ants slogan: Ant Music for Sex People: Sex Music for Ant People [1]. 

 

I had long believed that this line simply referred to those whom the cultural commentator Peter York once described as the "'extreme ideological wing of the Peculiars'" [2] - i.e., those who used to hang around Sex - and, secondly, to those who were hardcore fans of Adam and the Ants.

I now discover, however, that existing long before Adam and Marco ever walked through the doors of 430 King's Road, were a legendary race of highly advanced beings (possibly of extraterrestrial origin) known as the Ant People, and venerated by the Hopi Indians; a tribe of Native Americans who have lived on the high arid mesas of northern Arizona for thousands of years [3]. 

 

 

II. 

 

According to Hopi legend, in times of global catastrophe, it was the Anu Sinom, or Ant People, who come to their rescue and offered them sanctuary in underground caves, which essentially formed a natural network of subterranean prayer chambers, or what the Hopi call kivas (a word which etymologically means beautiful dwelling place).      

 

No wonder then that the Hopi refer to the Ant People with their elongated skulls, almond-shaped eyes, tiny waists, and long skinny arms and legs, as their friends: Anu-naki.  

 

And one can only hope that if members of Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil are correct in their dire predictions of a coming eco-apocalypse, that we palefaces will have some benevolent insects come to our rescue (although I doubt it and don't think we deserve such).    

 

Notes

 

[1] This line is a refrain in the Adam and the Ants track 'Don't Be Square (Be There)', found on the album Kings of the Wild Frontier (CBS Records, 1980): click here.   

[2] Peter York, writing in an article entitled 'Them', Harpers & Queen (October 1976), quoted by Paul Gorman in The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren (Constable, 2020), p. 329. 

[3] See Gary A. David, 'The Ant People of the Hopi' (13 October, 2013) on the website Ancient Origins: click here.

 

 

On the Rise of the Useful Idiot

 Adapted from the poster for I Am Greta

(a documentary film dir. Nathan Grossman, 2020)

 

I. 

 

Byung-Chul Han says that the idiot has all but vanished from our society. But Han is not using the term idiot in its familiar modern sense (i.e., to refer to a stupid person). 

 

Rather, he's returning to the ancient Greek term from which it derives - ἰδιώτης - which refers to a private individual who prefers to think their own thoughts rather than simply subscribe to common sense or conform to popular opinion (even at the risk of appearing ignorant or foolish). 

 

For Han, the idiot is thus a type of outsider or heretic; not so much uninformed as unaligned with any party or cause; someone who values freedom and opposes the violence of consensus [1]. The idiot, in brief, is the kind of person attracted to philosophy, a practice born - like psychology - of idleness and characterised - like art - by its uselessness [2].   

 

 

II.

 

Unfortunately, however, there's more than one type of idiot in this world.

 

And if the type of useless philosophical idiot privileged by Byung-Chul Han has all but vanished from contemporary society, the political idiot who prides themselves on their allegiance to a cause, party, or ideology and happily makes themselves useful to such is, it seems, proliferating in number ...

 

Some commentators may clutch their pearls - or even reach for the smelling salts - when they hear the term useful idiot [3], but it's a widely accepted term within political discourse [4] to refer to someone who believes they are fighting for a just cause and have history on their side, without fully appreciating the consequences of their actions or the extent to which they are being cynically manipulated by nefarious forces.  

 

Many supporters of Extinction Rebellion, or Black Lives Matter, or those we currently see larping for Palestine on streets and campuses across the Western world, are probably well-intentioned idealists; i.e., perfectly sincere in their views, but they are politically naive to the point that idiocy hardly even covers it; closing their eyes to reality and shutting their ears to reason, they unwittingly assist in the destruction of their own culture, history, and society.   

 

Notes

 

[1] See Byung-Chul Han, Psychopolitics: Neoliberalism and New Technologies of Power, trans. Erik Butler, (Verso, 2017). And see also the post 'On Heresy and Philosophical Idiotism' (20 Nov 2021): click here. 

 

[2] Nietzsche famously asserts in Twilight of the Idols (1889) that idleness is the beginning of psychology (and is therefore the result of vice). 

      Oscar Wilde, meanwhile, writing in a Preface to his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890) claimed: "All art is quite useless." He later explained in a letter what he meant by this: "Art is useless because its aim is simply to create a mood. It is not meant to instruct, or to influence action in any way." Similarly, philosophy is simply intended to open up a space for thinking - nothing else. Wilde's letter can be read in full here. 

 

[3] For those gentle souls who prefer a slightly less harsh-sounding term, it might be noted that some commentators speak of useful innocents, whilst those within the intelligence community apparently refer to unwitting agents.

 

[4] Frequently used during the Cold War to describe those susceptible to communist propaganda and manipulation, the phrase useful idiot was (ironically but mistakenly) attributed to Lenin by the Russian human rights activist and Soviet dissident Vladimir Bukovsky. Lenin may have liked to use it, but he certainly didn't coin it, and nor is it found in any of his writings.

 

 

On Useful Idiots

 

I. 

 

Perhaps seduced by its cynical charm, I've always had a thing for the political term and concept of a useful idiot ...

 

That is to say, an individual - usually a well-intentioned idealist of some description - who promotes a cause without fully understanding what's in play or what's at stake and who can be easily manipulated by those who do. 

 

I believe the idea originated early on during the Cold War to describe those left-leaning liberals and communist sympathisers in the West regarded as particularly susceptible to Soviet propaganda. Although some like to give Lenin credit for coining the term, this attribution is unsubstantiated and it seems to have first been used in a New York Times article in June 1948. 

 

Prior to this, however, some were already speaking (in rather less brutal terms) of useful innocents to refer to those confused and misguided souls whose tears of compassion for the suffering of others prevented them from seeing clearly when it came to the reality of life under communist rule. 

 

Those like the British Labour MP Diane Abbot, to give a relatively recent example, who, in 2008, was still putting the case for Maoism and said of the Chinese dictator that, on balance, he did more good than harm, blithely ignoring the fact that he was responsible for tens of millions of deaths [1]. 

 

 

II. 

 

Unfortunately, Abbott is by no means alone in being a useful idiot. Contemporary politics is full of 'em, on all sides, and not necessarily just doing the work of the far left. For many of the most useful of idiots today belong to (supposedly) radical environmental groups, such as Extinction Rebellion, and are unintentionally serving corporate interests and those promoting a Great Reset and/or a new industrial revolution. 

 

To be fair, however, thanks to social media and the way that the world now operates, perhaps we are all in some sense being made fools of; thus it is that one commentator proposes "a new, analogous term more appropriate for the age in which we live: useful hypocrites" [2]. 

 

Again, whilst that sounds a bit harsh, one suspects nevertheless that it's pretty much how the masters of the digital universe do in fact view us (and they have the data concerning our behaviour to back it up).

 

 

Notes

 

[1] I'm not making this up: appearing alongside Michael Portillo on This Week (a politics and current affairs show hosted by Andrew Neil on BBC One), Abbott - who would stand for the leadership of the Labour Party in 2010 and eventually serve as Shadow Home Secretary under Jeremy Corbyn (2016-2020) - really did attempt to put the case for Mao: click here. 

      Twelve years later, in November 2020, Abbott was forced to apologise for appearing on a livestream with Li Jingjing, a journalist working for the state owned CGTN, who denied human rights abuses against the Uyghurs, suggesting they were a fiction invented by China's enemies in order to to try and provoke a race war. At no point did Abbott challenge these remarks.   

 

[2] John Naughton, 'Why the internet has turned us into hypocrites', The Guardian (16 Nov 2014): click here to read online. 

 

 

Evolution Needs Death More Than It Loves Life: Reflections on Extinction Rebellion

Poster by Extinction Rebellion Art Group

rebellion.earth/act-now/resources/art-group/

What does it mean to rebel against extinction?

Ironically, it means one is opposed to the driving force of evolution; which is to say, one is anti-life understood in the immoral terms of difference and becoming.

For whether we like it or not, mass extinctions periodically destroy up to 95% of life forms in giant orgies of death and scientists think that 99.9% of all species that have ever lived have now - like the Monty Python parrot - passed on, ceased to be, joined the choir invisible. It's simply pointless protesting the fact that evolution needs death more than it loves life.          

We used to think the sun revolved around the earth. Then we discovered it wasn't so. Now there are young people who sincerely believe the earth revolves around them. The overly-privileged and self-righteous children of generation snowflake who talk about saving the planet are, ultimately, only concerned about protecting their own future.

But alas, everything isn't all about them - anymore than it's all about the polar bears or coral reef - and their will to conserve and self-preserve has become a form of mania expressed as moral and political alarmism.

Whisper it quietly, but every species is ultimately endangered and will one day topple into the abyss of non-existence. And if, as certainly seems to be the case, humanity is giving profligate Nature a helping hand by rapidly speeding up the extinction rate and destroying the environment, it might be remembered that we too are part of the biosphere and our actions just as natural as those of any other species.

In other words, there's no need to feel guilty or sinful; the so-called sixth extinction event lacks moral significance, even if we're the causal agents. Besides, as biologist R. Alexander Pyron has pointed out:

"Unless we somehow destroy every living cell on Earth, the sixth extinction will be followed by a recovery, and later a seventh extinction, and so on. [...] Within a few million years of the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs, the post-apocalyptic void had been filled by an explosion of diversity - modern mammals, birds and amphibians of all shapes and sizes. This is how evolution proceeds: through extinction."

Professor Pyron also reminds us that whatever effort we make to stabilise and maintain present conditions, sea-levels and temperatures will continue to rise and fall and the climate as we know it today will eventually be "overrun by the inexorable forces of space and geology".

Finally, it should be noted that even the most rebellious of extinction rebels doesn't object to the planned eradication of deadly diseases such as HIV, Ebola, and malaria, even though these are "key components of microbial biodiversity, as unique as pandas, elephants and orangutans". As indicated earlier, the campaign to save the Earth is really a campaign to save the Earth for us: Extinction Rebellion is just another exercise in anthropocentric conceit and hypocrisy.   

Thus, whilst it's true that climate change may have certain dramatic effects - such as coastal flooding and widespread famines - and whilst it makes sense to take action to mitigate these things, I refuse to be lectured by adolescent eco-warriors, bandwagon jumping celebrities, or grey-bearded old hippies with an apocalyptic worldview.

In fact, push comes to shove, I remain more sympathetic to the arguments put forward by members of the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, founded by Les U. Knight in 1991. For like Rupert Birkin, I regard people as an obstruction and a hindrance to the future unfolding of evolution and believe that only our self-extinction will allow life to continue perfect and marvellous in all its inhuman splendour.


See: R. Alexander Pyron, 'We don’t need to save endangered species. Extinction is part of evolution.' The Washington Post (22 Nov 2017): click here.

And click here for my post on Voluntary Human Extinction (published 12 October 2013).