JMG on Unherd

[ecosophia]

About a month ago, very much to my surprise, I fielded a contact request from an editor at the British news-and-opinion website UnHerd, asking whether I was interested in writing an article on the interface between magic and politics. Of course I was interested, and my piece, very nearly as I wrote it, is now up as a "Weekend Essay" on their website; you can read it here. 

I took a certain wry amusement in the way they positioned it as a silly season piece, with a less challenging title than the one I suggested, and a photo of the goofiest looking Druid they could find splashed across the top, as a wink and nudge to their sophisticated readers not to take the piece too seriously. Mind you, I'm not complaining.  That's bog-standard treatment for occultists in the English-speaking end of the industrial world, of course, and has been for well over a century now. As I learned back when I was a speaker in the peak oil circuit, it's also an unexpected means of influence. Very often people who don't think they have to take a set of ideas seriously never get around to raising mental barricades against it, and can end up accepting those ideas in whole or part without ever quite noticing their source. 

One way or another, it'll be interesting to see what reaction if any this essay gets, and where things go from here. It's not impossible that the crisis of legitimacy currently hitting political, academic, and cultural institutions like a well-aimed wrecking ball will give the vaticinations of Druids more attention than they've generally received so far. But we'll have to wait and watch how things unfold...

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

So far the comments are roughly divided between people who agree with you and those who hold their noses up in contempt. One actually thought your views of magic were 'superficial'. Definitely not a reader of your
blog or Dreamwidth! As for the picture of the Druid, I rather like it. We could use a little more cheerful goofiness these days.

JLfromNH/Scarlet Phlegmatic Catfish

[lincoln_lynx]

The comment section on that article gave me a good laugh. One guy called your understanding of magic "superficial" then praised Steven Pinker and Darren Brown. :D

[methylethyl]

I saw that. It was as though he were commenting on a whole different article!

[brenainn]

I saw that comment earlier but now I'm not seeing it. Too bad, as it was quite amusing. I will say that it is heartening to see that the comments seem to be on the more positive side. This gives me hope that more folks in the mainstream are beginning to wake up.

Going mainstream

[ecosophian]

A couple of years from now they'll be publishing you in The New York Times.

The very first comment to the article made me laugh out loud -

The author has a very superficial view of magic and the examples he gives of magic in America are no more than advertising tricks in business and propaganda in politics which are common knowledge tricks of the trade not magic.

JMG has a superficial view of magic!

Re: Going mainstream

[kimberlysteele]

I'm thinking that guy prefers the Byzantine world of Harry Potter fandom!

Re: Going mainstream

[deng]

Everyone knows Thoth stole all his material from New York advertisers.

[kimberlysteele]

JMG, it's odd they used an old picture of you in a nemyss... didn't they have other choices?

[ecosophia]

Sure, but it fits the silly season theme. Again, I'm not complaining; protective camouflage comes in all sizes.

[(Anonymous)]

Congratulations on your break into the mainstream! It only took ~30 years from your first publication to building up an audience at the margins, to finally being noticed by the center. Does it feel vindicating in a way?

[ecosophia]

Qoite the contrary. Since the mainstream is pretty much wrong by definition, being noticed by a publication even as close to the mainstream as UnHerd makes me a little uneasy that I might be straying too close to the conventional idiocy of our time.

[(Anonymous)]

What? The goofiest looking Duid? Do you mean you don't wear an oaken wreath on a daily basis? How disappointing ;o)

Well, even without the oak I really like this essay and I think you did a very good job with it! Thinking back to the times when I was not even sitting on the fence but still lurking on the materialist side of it, your writing would certainly have had a powerful impact on me and made me think. You've laid out a perspective on magic that is very easy to accept even if you are very convinced that your consciousness is limited to your skull and even the hint that it might not be is written in a way that will not repel the skeptic reader but possibly open-minded reader. Possibly a fine starter drug into magic for some of UnHerd's readers.

Other than that I got the impression that the friendly looking, wreath-wearing druid is wielding a flaming sword and is throwing a large number of well aimed bricks in all directions that matter. Possibly this will not lead to increased understanding from those who sit on the receiving end, but it might not be the intention behind your essay to reach that far across the spectrum - which strikes me as a very wise approach.

Greetings,
Nachtgurke

[ecosophia]

I prefer to leave the oak leaves on the trees where they belong! As for the essay, I hope it accomplishes at least a little of that. A bit more genuine skepticism toward the faith-based perspectives of today's political dogmas would be helpful...

[(Anonymous)]

The Druid at the top looks quite good, for a moment I assume it was you!

Tidlösa, Sweden

[kimberlysteele]

What was your suggested title?

[ecosophia]

"Political Incantations" was my title.

[deng]

I read this from the link someone posted on Ecosophia and think it's a clear and straight forward message that will resonate with those it is meant to. It is still good attention. Checked out another article before bookmarking the site and quickly changed my mind.

[(Anonymous)]

It seems to me that those criticizing the essay didn't bother reading it. They just wrote lame one-liners bashing a straw man. But that's par for the course.

Jon

[ecosophia]

Well, of course! It's quite rare for a discussion of magic to field intelligent criticism, which is a real pity. Most people in the modern Western world brandish a thoughtstopper and back away as fast as they can.

Wonderful development!

[(Anonymous)]

This is an interesting development, JMG. Congrats!

Even though yours is supposed to be a ‘silly season’ piece, I am confident that there will be readers of your article who have also been watching the weekly rants on the TV (GBN) by Neil Oliver – a much beloved and trusted celebrity who has done innumerable BBC historical series (he’s an archaeologist... and has a wonderful Scottish accent, to boot!) – in which his contempt for and distrust of the British government’s motives and behaviours over the past year and a half have become more visible and increasingly dark. If he’s got enough of the public’s ear (and attention), I could imagine quite a few light bulbs going off in British minds as they bridge the small gap between Oliver’s points and yours.

Ron M

Re: Wonderful development!

[ecosophia]

Oh, I'm quite happy to have it as a silly season piece. It's a fine way to slip ideas under the radar. When I first started doing the peak oil speakers' circuit, a lot of the organizers and attendees were pretty clearly going "Har har har, it's a guy who thinks he's a Druid, bring him in for comic relief." I don't think most of them ever noticed how many of my ideas they were repeating thereafter. And if this piece interfaces with the speeches of a good old-fashioned Scots curmudgeon, all the better.

[(Anonymous)]

First Unherd, then Quillette, and then it's time for your Joe Rogan appearance!

[(Anonymous)]

I would watch that with so much joy!

[(Anonymous)]

This is not the topic but I’d hate for anyone to miss it: tonight the NORTHERN LIGHTS may be visible much farther south than usual. Step outside and see if you get lucky!

—Princess Cutekitten

Northern lights?

[(Anonymous)]

It has been my experience, over many years, that "space weather" forecasts (which this is an example of) are rarely worth getting excited about. Yes, they saw a pulse of plasma ejected from the sun in our general direction, but the "G3" level "major" storm turned out to be a "G1" level "minor" storm.

There are YouTube channels devoted to both real-time and historical appearances of the northern lights, as seen from northern Canada and Scandinavia.

Lathechuck

"then they laugh..."

[rob_r]

As they have positioned you for silly season, would that not have you at step two of the four that begin "First they ignore you..."

Re: "then they laugh..."

[ecosophia]

It would indeed. I spend a lot of time at that second stage.

[(Anonymous)]

"I took a certain wry amusement in the way they positioned it as a silly season piece, with a less challenging title than the one I suggested, and a photo of the goofiest looking Druid they could find splashed across the top, as a wink and nudge to their sophisticated readers not to take the piece too seriously. Mind you, I'm not complaining. That's bog-standard treatment for occultists in the English-speaking end of the industrial world, of course, and has been for well over a century now. As I learned back when I was a speaker in the peak oil circuit, it's also an unexpected means of influence. Very often people who don't think they have to take a set of ideas seriously never get around to raising mental barricades against it, and can end up accepting those ideas in whole or part without ever quite noticing their source."

As another example, I noticed a while back that people were far more receptive to a lot of ideas I present which challenge the conventional wisdom of our time when I have muttonchops and my top hat on than when I look even vaguely "presentable"!

[ecosophia]

Hmm! I'd say that's a great argument for mutton chop whiskers. ;-)

!!!

[(Anonymous)]

Holy Moly,

I've not even read the piece yet, but that's remarkable. I read Unherd a lot and I've often suspected some of their regular contributors know your writing. Mary Harrington is one of my favourites, partly because her pieces show an attitude to PROGRESS that is refreshing, yet familiar.... I could be wrong in her case, but I'd be fascinated to know how exactly you came to their attention.

Taking a look now,

Jack (aka Morfran)

Re: !!!

[ecosophia]

I don't know how it happened -- I fielded a contact request from one of their editors, and things went from there.

Free to subscribe

[(Anonymous)]

Hi JMG,

"I was disappointed not to see it just now, though it may have slid down into the subscribers-only part of the comments. One way or another, I had the pleasure of chuckling at it."

You're right it's still there in the full list of comments. It's free to subscribe by the way. I'm reading them all now and I've not paid Unherd a penny. The site now only limits you from commenting without having paid a membership.

The article is excellent and goes much further into the "non-rational" than I thought they'd allow: I'm kind of amazed they've published this.

Jack (Morfran)
Jackk (aka Morfran)

[walt_f]

The WHAT of Druids? Oh, "vaticinations." I'm sure you'll understand if I saw a different word there at first.

("Announcing QUERCIVAX. Not an injection, you wear it on your head.")

This article covers so much ground. Almost every paragraph adds a different challenge to conventional understanding, with cumulative effect. I'm trying to imagine my ten-years-ago self trying to take it all in. I wish there were a way to see how far each reader gets without losing the thread. (For those who only make it halfway, I imagine the article will just come across as a reprise of the half-hearted concerns, from the mid 2000's, over the predominance of "sound bites" in political discourse. Even that much could be helpful, but noticing the flashing red warning lights spaced throughout the latter parts would be better! I hope some manage to do so.)

[(Anonymous)]

If they make it to the end they get to see the oncoming train

[boccaderlupo]

Good read, and a good reminder to myself to pick up that book by Couliano, which I seem to keep forgetting to read...

Axé

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, I think I'm going to have to move that one up the list as well.
Grover

[(Anonymous)]

I can well relate when you say, "Very often people who don't think they have to take a set of ideas seriously never get around to raising mental barricades against it, and can end up accepting those ideas in whole or part without ever quite noticing their source."

A few months ago, I noticed people using "fracking" in place of the more popular four-letter expletive. This was in many sites well in the mainstream (The Financial Times comments section was one, I think). Who coined that usage? You, of course! But I could not figure out how it ended up from your blog to the wider internet. It even got into Unban Dictionary (with a more colorful description than you suggested)

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Fracking

[temporaryreality]

Sorry to say frack and its relatives became popular in the early 2000s through the spinoff miniseries Battlestar Galactica, though it's worth noting that the series puts progress on its head through the trope of space opera. So not unrelated to things ADR and ecosophia, and in a surprising way that might've let the idea into the broader culture because it was undefended against there.

UnHerd

[(Anonymous)]

I thought it was a great piece. And I liked the photo they picked too. Not goofy at all - I want to be like him. Some of the comments were fairly thoughtful too.
Grover