Humility Against the Machine
Humility is the essential disposition in our battle against the Machine.
Those who try to fight the Machine directly are embarking on a foolish endeavour. They are like a newborn antelope trying to head butt a lion; the battle is only going to end one way — they will be consumed. Burnout is the likely lot for any “Machine fighters”; either that or they will likely resort to tactics that are as abhorrent or violent as the Machine itself such as posting letter bombs to tech executives.1 If fighting against the Machine causes us to become like the Machine, then its victory is total. This all-consuming victory is just what the powers behind the Machine plan and desire. Agrarians must not fall for their schemes.
Who are these “powers” behind the Machine? It is an uncomfortable truth, but one which is in need of constant repetition, that all mankind — you and I included — constitute half the equation. When stripped down to its constituent parts, the Machine is ultimately the sum of fallen human desires expressed in their industrial and totalising form.
Humanity, though, is not wholly to blame. The constituents of the other half of the equation are far more insidious: the dark forces and spirits of this world — the powers, rulers, and principalities of evil — have readily taken our lusts, selfish ambitions, and greed, and fabricated them into the beast, the Machine, whatever you want to call it. It is these dark forces who, working through our desires and actions, ultimately control, empower, and direct the Machine to its destructive ends. If we could grasp even for the briefest moment the full extent of their power, we would forever be in a state of utter terror. It is a mercy that we remain in ignorance; but in this ignorance we are tempted to think that fighting the Machine directly in our own strength is possible.
By now it should be obvious why I believe fighting the Machine directly is foolish. Not only does it mean fighting against the fallen, habitual, and deep-rooted desires of all humanity (and the legions of citizens who are in love not just with the fruits of the Machine, but with the Machine itself), but it also means we are squaring up to legions of dark forces whose power can grind us into the dust in a heartbeat. This is not to say that all direct action is wrong. No, to a limited extent (limited being the keyword) it is necessary.
So, by all means lobby for tech regulation, try to tackle the greediest manifestations of corporate capitalism, and protest against the tyrannies of hyper-centralised state and industrial power — but be ready to fail and to be eaten up. The money, power, and legislative might of the individuals and groups at the helm of the Machine will confound you at every turn — and may even destroy you. They are skilled at winning: history and the dark forces of the world are on their side. And don’t place your hope in the power of big, collective movements either. As Wendell Berry2 and Paul Kingsnorth3 have convincingly argued, these (global or national) anti-Machine movements are destined to fail too — at least most of the time.
What then are we to do? Sit down and let the juggernaut roll over us and all that is good, beautiful, and holy? No. Passivity is not the answer either. Willpower, wisdom ingenuity, and communal spirit are all required in immense proportions, but the line of our attack is indirect rather than direct, subversive rather than confrontational. And perhaps the fight won’t look like fighting at all. Rather it might look like doing the good we were always meant to do: affectionately tending our fields, investing deeply in our communities, wisely bringing up our families — “the long obedience in the same direction” as one writer4 has put it — and saying a whole lot of “No”.
I have advocated before for the virtue of just saying “no” to the Machine. This is not a direct form attack, nor mere defence, but is a form of resistance and subversion — the creation and preservation of habits, ways of life, and communities living outside the Machine’s domain: miniature oasis in society where a refuge from the Machine can be found, where the analog is cherished, the good life, beauty, and conviviality are guarded, and old ways adhered to.
But along with the virtue5 of saying “no”, the virtue of humility6 is also an indispensable attribute of successful Machine resistance. Kingsnorth implies as such in his essay The Dream of the Rood when he says, “the way back to the garden is through the cross.”7 In other words, the route away from the Machine is through the cross. And the path of the cross is a way most narrow and steep, whose gradient can only be ascended by those who are lowly and stooped down and whose shoulders are burdened little by the baggage of self.
There is much that can be written about humility in terms of our resistance against Machine. It is a topic ripe for harvest for agrarians and is a subject I wish to return to. However, to keep things short, I want to just focus on two implications of what adopting a disposition of humility means for our resistance, and these are scale and self-denial.
A fundamental question for any would-be Machine resister is this: “on what scale are we acting against the Machine?” As I alluded to earlier, the problem with many movements for change is they are transfixed by the global and too often fall into the trap of world saving.8 Saving the world in our own strength is an impossible, inhumane task. It is one which necessarily involves actions based on abstraction, simplification, and standardisation — all of which have an uncanny ability to erode the good, the local, and the precious.9 World saving is also immensely hubristic, tempting its practitioners to consider themselves as indispensable Messiahs whose “benevolent” ends justify their means — even if those means require the death of local communities, the spread of ever bigger technologies, and total allegiance to the Plan. When put this way, world saving begins to look like partnering with the Machine to fight the Machine — there will only be one winner.
Instead of hubristic world saving, I am convinced the proper scale of our actions against the Machine is the local — which is the scale all agrarians should be working at anyway. This is for a number of closely related reasons.
Firstly, I believe local initiatives, local movements, and even local direct action, have greater chances of success. This is because they are based on place-based wisdom and also as they tap into local affection (local residents’ attitudes towards their local place can be like a mother bear protecting her cubs). The Machine’s preferred habitat is the global. It is the scale for which its schemes and technologies are designed and where the visions and ambitions of its chief proponents are focused. At the local scale it is in foreign territory, its weak underparts are exposed and vulnerable — and a few men and women with pitchforks might be able to chase it away.
Then there is the fact of limitations; the scale of local action, being necessarily small, coheres with our physical and mental limitations — making the good we try to do possible, humane, and repairable when we get things wrong. The matter of our limitations should always be one of our first considerations before embarking on any endeavour — especially if we call ourselves agrarians. And if we don’t, our bodies will soon remind us of our negligence — and arrogance.
But most of all, I believe in the primacy of local action because it is more likely to be characterised by humility — and it is the work of the humble that will be blessed. When we focus on the local, the places were we are and where our God-given responsibilities lie, we are doing what we ought to do and are not attempting things to high and great for us — a perennial temptation ever since we took that forbidden fruit in the Garden. Protecting, defending, and working in the local may be unglamorous; it may mean the direct good we achieve is only small; it may mean only protecting a little; and it may seem weak and futile compared to the size of the Machine and all the global damage it has caused — but it all counts. And if everyone the world over committed to working locally, then perhaps we might achieve something that looks like saving the world after all.
Finally, we come to self-denial. At its heart, humility is thinking rightly about ourselves. We don’t deserve half of what we demand: many of us are living well beyond our means (especially when we count our ecological costs), we expect almost everything to be done for us by the state, always demand the best at the cheapest prices, and want more and more and more. The Machine loves these attitudes. It knows that only through its industrial and materialistic schemes can our endless wants of mass consumerism be met. Our wayward, inflated desires make the Machine indispensable. Our modern desires are thus part of the problem — the trail of ecological destruction left in their wake should have told us this long ago.
So, all things considered, perhaps repentance is truly how we best attack the Machine. Becoming humble and thinking rightly about ourselves. Fulfilling the local responsibilities we have neglected. Demanding less stuff and being content with what we have. These are the attitudes the Machine hates for they deprive it of its fuel. But it is not only the Machine who despises these attitudes. So to do the evil powers that stand behind it, for these dispositions are marks of repentance, indicating that we might just be walking along the road to the place they dread: the place where the Machine and the powers behind it were ultimately disarmed — on a hill named Golgotha two thousand years ago.
The idea for this essay originated from the first session of the Against the Machine Reading Group I run for paid subscribers to Over the Field. If you would like to participate in future sessions of this reading group, you can sign up here.
The Unabomber, an evil figure who too many techno-sceptics flirt with did this.
Wendell Berry, In Distrust of Movements.
Paul Kingsnorth, Learning What to Make of It, in: Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist.
The title of a Eugene Peterson book.
It is a form of the virtue of self-control.
I am indebted to the participants in the Against the Machine Reading Group for highlighting the need for humility in our striving against the Machine.
Of course, Kingsnorth is saying here the ultimate way back to life as it should be — and the ultimate way to resist the Machine— is through living a life under Jesus’ authority by loving and serving Him. With this I wholeheartedly agree. However, I am not suggesting that only Christians can resist the Machine. Others most certainly can too. However, the fundamental characteristics of the cross-shaped life remain essential: self-sacrifice, self-denial, and humility. Without these, living a life against the Machine, is, I believe impossible.
This is what my lecture Substantial Healing Through Practicing Resurrection was partly about.
See James C. Scott, Seeing Like a State.
Exceptional reflections here brother.
Thank you for your thoughtful and clarifying words. This is the answer Jesus not only preached but demonstrated - neither nihilism nor revolution but hopeful, patient obedience.