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Uncivilisation: The Dark Mountain Manifesto
“That civilisations fall, sooner or later, is as much a law of history as gravity is a law of physics. What remains after the fall is a wild mixture of cultural debris, confused and angry people whose certainties have betrayed them, and those forces which were always there, deeper than the foundations of the city walls: the desire to survive and the desire for meaning.”
‘Uncivilisation’ is a manifesto for writers, artists and storytellers – and for all of us, living through the end of the world as we know it. It’s a first attempt to set out the ideas behind the Dark Mountain Project and an invitation to join us in the search for the paths by which to reach the unknown world ahead.
‘Uncivilisation’ is a manifesto for writers, artists and storytellers – and for all of us, living through the end of the world as we know it. It’s a first attempt to set out the ideas behind the Dark Mountain Project and an invitation to join us in the search for the paths by which to reach the unknown world ahead.
20 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2009
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907 people want to read
About the author
Paul Kingsnorth
38 books554 followersPaul Kingsnorth is an English writer and thinker. He is a former deputy-editor of The Ecologist and a co-founder of the Dark Mountain Project. He lives in the west of Ireland.
He studied modern history at Oxford University, where he was also heavily involved in the road protest movement of the early 1990s.
After graduating, Paul spent two months in Indonesia working on conservation projects in Borneo and Java. Back in the UK, he worked for a year on the staff of the Independent newspaper. Following a three year stint as a campaign writer for an environmental NGO, he was appointed deputy editor of The Ecologist, where he worked for two years under the editorship of Zac Goldsmith.
He left the Ecologist in 2001 to write his first book One No, Many Yeses, a political travelogue which explored the growing anti-capitalist movement around the world. The book was published in 2003 by Simon and Schuster, in six languages across 13 countries.
In the early 2000s, having spent time with the tribal people of West Papua, who continue to be brutally colonised by the Indonesian government and military, Paul was instrumental in setting up the Free West Papua Campaign, which he also helped to run for a time.
Paul’s second book, Real England, was published in 2008 by Portobello. An exploration of the changing face of his home country in an age of globalisation, the book was quoted in speeches by the Prime Minister and the Archbishop of Canterbury, helped inspire the success of the hit West End play ‘Jerusalem’ and saw its author compared to Cobbett and Orwell by more than one newspaper.
In 2009, Paul launched, with Dougald Hine, the Dark Mountain Project – a call for a literary movement to respond to the ongoing collapse of the world’s ecological and economic certainties. What began as a self-published pamphlet has become a global network of writers, artists and thinkers. Paul is now the Project’s director and one of its editors.
In 2011, Paul’s first collection of poetry, Kidland, was published by Salmon. Since the mid-1990s, Paul’s poetry has been published in magazines including Envoi, Iota, Poetry Life and nthposition. He has been awarded the BBC Wildlife Poet of the Year Award and the Poetry Life Prize, and was narrowly pipped to the post in the Thomas Hardy Society’s annual competition.
Paul’s journalism has appeared in the Guardian, Independent, Daily Telegraph, Daily Express, Le Monde, New Statesman, Ecologist, New Internationalist, Big Issue, Adbusters, BBC Wildlife and openDemocracy, for which he has also worked as a commissioning editor. He has appeared on various TV and radio programmes, most shamefully ‘This Morning with Richard and Judy.’ He is also the author of ‘Your Countryside, Your Choice’, a report on the future of the countryside, published in 2005 by the Campaign to Protect Rural England.
He studied modern history at Oxford University, where he was also heavily involved in the road protest movement of the early 1990s.
After graduating, Paul spent two months in Indonesia working on conservation projects in Borneo and Java. Back in the UK, he worked for a year on the staff of the Independent newspaper. Following a three year stint as a campaign writer for an environmental NGO, he was appointed deputy editor of The Ecologist, where he worked for two years under the editorship of Zac Goldsmith.
He left the Ecologist in 2001 to write his first book One No, Many Yeses, a political travelogue which explored the growing anti-capitalist movement around the world. The book was published in 2003 by Simon and Schuster, in six languages across 13 countries.
In the early 2000s, having spent time with the tribal people of West Papua, who continue to be brutally colonised by the Indonesian government and military, Paul was instrumental in setting up the Free West Papua Campaign, which he also helped to run for a time.
Paul’s second book, Real England, was published in 2008 by Portobello. An exploration of the changing face of his home country in an age of globalisation, the book was quoted in speeches by the Prime Minister and the Archbishop of Canterbury, helped inspire the success of the hit West End play ‘Jerusalem’ and saw its author compared to Cobbett and Orwell by more than one newspaper.
In 2009, Paul launched, with Dougald Hine, the Dark Mountain Project – a call for a literary movement to respond to the ongoing collapse of the world’s ecological and economic certainties. What began as a self-published pamphlet has become a global network of writers, artists and thinkers. Paul is now the Project’s director and one of its editors.
In 2011, Paul’s first collection of poetry, Kidland, was published by Salmon. Since the mid-1990s, Paul’s poetry has been published in magazines including Envoi, Iota, Poetry Life and nthposition. He has been awarded the BBC Wildlife Poet of the Year Award and the Poetry Life Prize, and was narrowly pipped to the post in the Thomas Hardy Society’s annual competition.
Paul’s journalism has appeared in the Guardian, Independent, Daily Telegraph, Daily Express, Le Monde, New Statesman, Ecologist, New Internationalist, Big Issue, Adbusters, BBC Wildlife and openDemocracy, for which he has also worked as a commissioning editor. He has appeared on various TV and radio programmes, most shamefully ‘This Morning with Richard and Judy.’ He is also the author of ‘Your Countryside, Your Choice’, a report on the future of the countryside, published in 2005 by the Campaign to Protect Rural England.
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February 12, 2016
A group of people are meeting on my university campus to discuss an area they are calling Political Geographies. I learned one of the things they are reading is this manifesto, the main authors of which are Paul Kingsnorth and Dougald Hine, from England. It's short, a slim volume, though you can also read it online, right here, and then connect to their website and related issues.
http://dark-mountain.net/about/manife...
I got it and read it right away. Context: I am an older reader of eco-terrorism, of radical approaches to the destruction of the planet. I think Duncan the Wonderdog, Show One by Duncan Hines, told in part from the perspective of animals, of nature, an ecoterrorist tale, is one of the greatest graphic novels ever made. I just read After the Ice, about the final loss of the ice in the Arctic Circle.
Uncivilisation is about ecocide, the destruction of the planet that is going on even when I watch the Super Bowl (which I did and enjoyed!), and so on, as we go on with our daily lives, trying not to think of it. It is a statement of screaming rage, at first, and then an embrace of creativity, of storytelling, not as a means to reclaim where we were in some kind of enlightenment fantasy of progress, but as a guide to whatever is ahead for UN-civilisation after all there system collapses.
The manifesto quotes heavily from the poet Robinson Jeffers, who was too dark for the US of A to embrace when he said many of these same things:
These grand and fatal movements toward death: the grandeur of the mass
Makes pity a fool, the tearing pity
For the atoms of the mass, the persons, the victims, makes it seem monstrous
To admire the tragic beauty they build.
It is beautiful as a river flowing or a slowly gathering
Glacier on a high mountain rock-face,
Bound to plow down a forest, or as frost in November,
The gold and flaming death-dance for leaves,
Or a girl in the night of her spent maidenhood, bleeding and kissing.
I would burn my right hand in a slow fire
To change the future … I should do foolishly. The beauty of modern
Man is not in the persons but in the
Disastrous rhythm, the heavy and mobile masses, the dance of the
Dream-led masses down the dark mountain.
Robinson Jeffers, 1935
Here's a summary to see if you want to read the while thing, the manifesto's central principles, a summary:
THE EIGHT PRINCIPLES OF UNCIVILISATION
‘We must unhumanise our views a little, and become confident
As the rock and ocean that we were made from.’
1. We live in a time of social, economic and ecological unravelling. All around us are signs that our whole way of living is already passing into history. We will face this reality honestly and learn how to live with it.
2. We reject the faith which holds that the converging crises of our times can be reduced to a set of ‘problems’ in need of technological or political ‘solutions’.
3. We believe that the roots of these crises lie in the stories we have been telling ourselves. We intend to challenge the stories which underpin our civilisation: the myth of progress, the myth of human centrality, and the myth of our separation from ‘nature’. These myths are more dangerous for the fact that we have forgotten they are myths.
4. We will reassert the role of storytelling as more than mere entertainment. It is through stories that we weave reality.
5. Humans are not the point and purpose of the planet. Our art will begin with the attempt to step outside the human bubble. By careful attention, we will reengage with the non-human world.
6. We will celebrate writing and art which is grounded in a sense of place and of time. Our literature has been dominated for too long by those who inhabit the cosmopolitan citadels.
7. We will not lose ourselves in the elaboration of theories or ideologies. Our words will be elemental. We write with dirt under our fingernails.
8. The end of the world as we know it is not the end of the world full stop. Together, we will find the hope beyond hope, the paths which lead to the unknown world ahead of us.
Highly recommend!!! Read and let's talk! This came out in 2009! Where was I?
http://dark-mountain.net/about/manife...
I got it and read it right away. Context: I am an older reader of eco-terrorism, of radical approaches to the destruction of the planet. I think Duncan the Wonderdog, Show One by Duncan Hines, told in part from the perspective of animals, of nature, an ecoterrorist tale, is one of the greatest graphic novels ever made. I just read After the Ice, about the final loss of the ice in the Arctic Circle.
Uncivilisation is about ecocide, the destruction of the planet that is going on even when I watch the Super Bowl (which I did and enjoyed!), and so on, as we go on with our daily lives, trying not to think of it. It is a statement of screaming rage, at first, and then an embrace of creativity, of storytelling, not as a means to reclaim where we were in some kind of enlightenment fantasy of progress, but as a guide to whatever is ahead for UN-civilisation after all there system collapses.
The manifesto quotes heavily from the poet Robinson Jeffers, who was too dark for the US of A to embrace when he said many of these same things:
These grand and fatal movements toward death: the grandeur of the mass
Makes pity a fool, the tearing pity
For the atoms of the mass, the persons, the victims, makes it seem monstrous
To admire the tragic beauty they build.
It is beautiful as a river flowing or a slowly gathering
Glacier on a high mountain rock-face,
Bound to plow down a forest, or as frost in November,
The gold and flaming death-dance for leaves,
Or a girl in the night of her spent maidenhood, bleeding and kissing.
I would burn my right hand in a slow fire
To change the future … I should do foolishly. The beauty of modern
Man is not in the persons but in the
Disastrous rhythm, the heavy and mobile masses, the dance of the
Dream-led masses down the dark mountain.
Robinson Jeffers, 1935
Here's a summary to see if you want to read the while thing, the manifesto's central principles, a summary:
THE EIGHT PRINCIPLES OF UNCIVILISATION
‘We must unhumanise our views a little, and become confident
As the rock and ocean that we were made from.’
1. We live in a time of social, economic and ecological unravelling. All around us are signs that our whole way of living is already passing into history. We will face this reality honestly and learn how to live with it.
2. We reject the faith which holds that the converging crises of our times can be reduced to a set of ‘problems’ in need of technological or political ‘solutions’.
3. We believe that the roots of these crises lie in the stories we have been telling ourselves. We intend to challenge the stories which underpin our civilisation: the myth of progress, the myth of human centrality, and the myth of our separation from ‘nature’. These myths are more dangerous for the fact that we have forgotten they are myths.
4. We will reassert the role of storytelling as more than mere entertainment. It is through stories that we weave reality.
5. Humans are not the point and purpose of the planet. Our art will begin with the attempt to step outside the human bubble. By careful attention, we will reengage with the non-human world.
6. We will celebrate writing and art which is grounded in a sense of place and of time. Our literature has been dominated for too long by those who inhabit the cosmopolitan citadels.
7. We will not lose ourselves in the elaboration of theories or ideologies. Our words will be elemental. We write with dirt under our fingernails.
8. The end of the world as we know it is not the end of the world full stop. Together, we will find the hope beyond hope, the paths which lead to the unknown world ahead of us.
Highly recommend!!! Read and let's talk! This came out in 2009! Where was I?
Read
July 4, 2015Was there ever a trickier art form to pull off than the manifesto? If you're lucky, a few phrases will become the cliches of three generations hence. Read as a whole, though...invariably, your first readers will be the people who've already bought what you're selling, while the masses who need it are not the sort to read a manifesto. And you can't strike the necessary bold pose if you hedge every statement with caveats - but if you don't, inevitably you leave holes in the argument at which even the broadly sympathetic might find themselves poking in frustration. And make no mistake: I am in sympathy with much of this. That an increasingly deranged economy and the idea of 'growth' are largely responsible for the dire state of the planet I quite accept. But then, I live in North London and online, so I would, wouldn't I? That we're not going to be able to carry on regardless, sure. That more technology is not the answer...well, here I begin to dissent, because I suspect it's at least some of the likelier constellation of answers.
And yet.
The big idea of 'Uncivilisation' is attacking "the myth of human centrality". Some of the foundation suggested for this myth is questionable: "The very fact that we have a word for ‘nature’ is evidence that we do not regard ourselves as part of it". Really? Because last I checked, we have a word for 'humanity' too. And beyond that, all these grand, conflicted statements about our uniquely fucked-up role in the history of nature, how we are the only species to be capable of the current ecocide...that's just the myth of human centrality all over again. Self-disgust is self-obsession, honey: millions of years back, the algae killed most of the life then extant, and did vastly disruptive things to Earth's atmosphere that we half-bright apes are nowhere near matching.
This sort of thing recurs; the sense of oneself as a far grander sinner than is in fact the case is matched by its flipside, the belief that one is a far bolder and lonelier rebel than the facts support. Some of the most powerful writing in the manifesto resides in quotes from the 1930s work of poet Robinson Jeffers, presented as a visionary exile from the canon. Well, up to a point, but when this came out Jeffers was already being bigged up in the bestselling books of Rob Macfarlane. Apparently "It is hard, today, to imagine that the word of a poet was once feared by a king"; I imagine Seth Rogen and Salman Rushdie both find it quite easy to imagine, and that's limiting it to creators with the initials SR. And like clockwork, along comes the familiar broadsheet moan, asking where the art can be found which addresses the issues of the day. Just like every other time, I read the question, sigh, and respond: you want art asking big, science-based questions about the future, and yet you still somehow didn't think to investigate science fiction, which has been handling this stuff since long before the muggles started paying attention?
There's a persistent sense of a movement at pains to differentiate itself from nature writing; I suspect this is like the way Soft Cell saw themselves, for valid reasons, as entirely opposite to bands like Visage, yet from any kind of distance are invariably placed under the same umbrella. It's never clear in what, beyond an especially black take on the dark mood often and understandably present in nature writing, this difference consists. Equally, in the call for a new literature which abjures the old assumptions of progress ("The last taboo is the myth of civilisation"), I fail to see anything especially distinct from Celine or Cioran in hiking boots.
There is a lot here that I like. Some passages are utterly true and necessary: "We will reassert the role of storytelling as more than mere entertainment. It is through stories that we weave reality." Much of the rest, even where I don't altogether agree, is still powerful writing and evidence that these people are broadly fighting the right corner. Fundamentally, I suspect it may be as simple as this: there will always rise would-be prophets, who have grand and sweeping visions for solutions to the issues of their age. And alongside them there will always be the pernickety bastards like me, the non-joiners, asking if they're sure they've really checked this paragraph against the implications of that chapter, and what about over here, and this bit? Are you *sure*?
And without either one of those specialties, everything would likely have gone even more horribly wrong for humanity a lot sooner.
I'll let the manifesto have the last word:
"Beyond that… all is currently hidden from view. It is a long way across the plains, and things become obscured by distance. There are great white spaces on this map still. The civilised would fill them in; we are not so sure we want to. But we cannot resist exploring them, navigating by rumours and by the stars. We don’t know quite what we will find. We are slightly nervous. But we will not turn back, for we believe that something enormous may be out there, waiting to meet us."
And yet.
The big idea of 'Uncivilisation' is attacking "the myth of human centrality". Some of the foundation suggested for this myth is questionable: "The very fact that we have a word for ‘nature’ is evidence that we do not regard ourselves as part of it". Really? Because last I checked, we have a word for 'humanity' too. And beyond that, all these grand, conflicted statements about our uniquely fucked-up role in the history of nature, how we are the only species to be capable of the current ecocide...that's just the myth of human centrality all over again. Self-disgust is self-obsession, honey: millions of years back, the algae killed most of the life then extant, and did vastly disruptive things to Earth's atmosphere that we half-bright apes are nowhere near matching.
This sort of thing recurs; the sense of oneself as a far grander sinner than is in fact the case is matched by its flipside, the belief that one is a far bolder and lonelier rebel than the facts support. Some of the most powerful writing in the manifesto resides in quotes from the 1930s work of poet Robinson Jeffers, presented as a visionary exile from the canon. Well, up to a point, but when this came out Jeffers was already being bigged up in the bestselling books of Rob Macfarlane. Apparently "It is hard, today, to imagine that the word of a poet was once feared by a king"; I imagine Seth Rogen and Salman Rushdie both find it quite easy to imagine, and that's limiting it to creators with the initials SR. And like clockwork, along comes the familiar broadsheet moan, asking where the art can be found which addresses the issues of the day. Just like every other time, I read the question, sigh, and respond: you want art asking big, science-based questions about the future, and yet you still somehow didn't think to investigate science fiction, which has been handling this stuff since long before the muggles started paying attention?
There's a persistent sense of a movement at pains to differentiate itself from nature writing; I suspect this is like the way Soft Cell saw themselves, for valid reasons, as entirely opposite to bands like Visage, yet from any kind of distance are invariably placed under the same umbrella. It's never clear in what, beyond an especially black take on the dark mood often and understandably present in nature writing, this difference consists. Equally, in the call for a new literature which abjures the old assumptions of progress ("The last taboo is the myth of civilisation"), I fail to see anything especially distinct from Celine or Cioran in hiking boots.
There is a lot here that I like. Some passages are utterly true and necessary: "We will reassert the role of storytelling as more than mere entertainment. It is through stories that we weave reality." Much of the rest, even where I don't altogether agree, is still powerful writing and evidence that these people are broadly fighting the right corner. Fundamentally, I suspect it may be as simple as this: there will always rise would-be prophets, who have grand and sweeping visions for solutions to the issues of their age. And alongside them there will always be the pernickety bastards like me, the non-joiners, asking if they're sure they've really checked this paragraph against the implications of that chapter, and what about over here, and this bit? Are you *sure*?
And without either one of those specialties, everything would likely have gone even more horribly wrong for humanity a lot sooner.
I'll let the manifesto have the last word:
"Beyond that… all is currently hidden from view. It is a long way across the plains, and things become obscured by distance. There are great white spaces on this map still. The civilised would fill them in; we are not so sure we want to. But we cannot resist exploring them, navigating by rumours and by the stars. We don’t know quite what we will find. We are slightly nervous. But we will not turn back, for we believe that something enormous may be out there, waiting to meet us."
April 25, 2023
I randomly stumbled across this through looking up another book (The Darkness Manifesto) and I am so glad I stopped by. And thank you to one of the reviewers who left a link to the Manifesto.
It’s funny to me personally, I started my life as an artist but joined the ranks of science to be able to help us coexist with Earth rather than destroy her. This manifesto really speaks to my soul. It also spoke to both sides of my nature, both sides were inspired by the concept/reality of Uncivilisation and I wonder how I can do my part. A must read for everyone, but I think it would really hit home with people in my generation who are inheriting the fucked up planet.
It’s funny to me personally, I started my life as an artist but joined the ranks of science to be able to help us coexist with Earth rather than destroy her. This manifesto really speaks to my soul. It also spoke to both sides of my nature, both sides were inspired by the concept/reality of Uncivilisation and I wonder how I can do my part. A must read for everyone, but I think it would really hit home with people in my generation who are inheriting the fucked up planet.
Want to read
February 10, 2016I "have" the book via the link given in David's review.
April 7, 2023
While the description of circumstance and the aim is true of this slim manifesto, the description of and prescription for "uncivilised" writing is a bit murky. I agree with their main notion, that is that ecologist and conservationists at large are generally focused on environmentalism as a means to maintain the earth's hospitality towards human life, whereas they see no distinction or hierarchy between humanity and the rest of the life on the planet, and that the world should be protected in order to further all life. And it recognizes we are past the tipping point where the solution to sustaining life is human intervention rather than reduction in consumption. So like a lot of contemporary thought on so-called radical environmentalism, the core of the problem is capitalism and progress, which by definition requires growth on all fronts. So what is the solution? That, friends, is the question which the text posits, the answers to which remain, if not elusive, unwanted.
Listened to No Highs by Tim Hecker while reading this.
Listened to No Highs by Tim Hecker while reading this.
November 19, 2024
Refreshing to have someone just saying it how it is, without the corporate lingo or political jargon. Our “civilization” is committing ecocide in the name of “progress.” One of my fav lines was “The very fact that we have a word for ‘nature’ is evidence that we do not regard ourselves as part of it. Indeed, our separation from it is a myth integral to the triumph of our civilization”
December 31, 2024
Couldn’t stop underlining almost every sentence. This is a must read for everyone alive today.
Today, humanity is up to its neck in denial about what it has built, what it has become – and what it is in for. Ecological and economic collapse unfold before us and, if we acknowledge them at all, we act as if this were a temporary problem, a technical glitch. Centuries of hubris block our ears like wax plugs; we cannot hear the message which reality is screaming at us. For all our doubts and discontents, we are still wired to an idea of history in which the future will be an upgraded version of the present. The assumption remains that things must continue in their current direction: the sense of crisis only smudges the meaning of that ‘must’. No longer a natural inevitability, it becomes an urgent necessity: we must find a way to go on having supermarkets and superhighways. We cannot contemplate the alternative.
Today, humanity is up to its neck in denial about what it has built, what it has become – and what it is in for. Ecological and economic collapse unfold before us and, if we acknowledge them at all, we act as if this were a temporary problem, a technical glitch. Centuries of hubris block our ears like wax plugs; we cannot hear the message which reality is screaming at us. For all our doubts and discontents, we are still wired to an idea of history in which the future will be an upgraded version of the present. The assumption remains that things must continue in their current direction: the sense of crisis only smudges the meaning of that ‘must’. No longer a natural inevitability, it becomes an urgent necessity: we must find a way to go on having supermarkets and superhighways. We cannot contemplate the alternative.
September 2, 2023
A very 2009 text.
While I understand this sort of pessimism towards society, I think that there's still a great opportunity for personal fulfillment, culture and meaning if you take personal responsibility for it. This sort of criticism often seem poor in that it moreso takes inner dissatisfaction and projects it towards society, rather than having a personal state of self-stability and from there criticizing the lack of it in society in concern for other people. Otherwise it just deteriorates into this strange black pilled "my problems are society's fault"-ideology. It describes a sort of depression that's much more personal than universal. Also it's just poorly written and sort of banal.
It almost makes you laugh because it's so over-pointedly counter-cultural. I wonder if people like this ever stop to wonder if no one is listening because it's not very interesting. Not a thread of humility. It seems to want to touch on some genuinely interesting concepts but just never goes there I don't think.
While I understand this sort of pessimism towards society, I think that there's still a great opportunity for personal fulfillment, culture and meaning if you take personal responsibility for it. This sort of criticism often seem poor in that it moreso takes inner dissatisfaction and projects it towards society, rather than having a personal state of self-stability and from there criticizing the lack of it in society in concern for other people. Otherwise it just deteriorates into this strange black pilled "my problems are society's fault"-ideology. It describes a sort of depression that's much more personal than universal. Also it's just poorly written and sort of banal.
"Uncivilised writing is more rooted than any of these. Above all, it is determined to shift our worldview, not to feed into it. It is writing for outsiders. If you want to be loved, it might be best not to get involved, for the world, at least for a time, will resolutely refuse to listen."
It almost makes you laugh because it's so over-pointedly counter-cultural. I wonder if people like this ever stop to wonder if no one is listening because it's not very interesting. Not a thread of humility. It seems to want to touch on some genuinely interesting concepts but just never goes there I don't think.
Read
March 28, 2017Uncivilisation: The Dark Mountain Manifesto is a plea for a conscious re-rendering of the world through stories, the primacy of which almost nobody acknowledges. Or realizes. The thesis runs that our modes and habits are products of stories we tell ourselves, and of course, this is clearly true. We buy green products because we experience guilt over burgeoning ecological woes. We shop locally if we can, for who wants kiwifruit in January if it has to be carried many thousands of miles? We vote. Kingsnorth and Hine submit that it would be in our interest to examine more carefully all the stories that make up our life, and where necessary, discard them in favor of better, wiser, more purposeful ones.
January 3, 2021
Inspired and inspiring. I give this book away regularly. A contemporary manifesto calling all to the frontlines of social change in service of our collective soul. We proudly sell this at our bookstore- Honest Dog Books - the only retail source in North America.
June 11, 2015
"We do not believe that everything will be fine. We are not even sure, based on current definitions of progress and improvement, that we want it to be."
June 13, 2025
A must-read for anyone who cares about the environment and is exploring alternatives to nihilism 😝
June 24, 2024
Is the self-consciousness I feel proclaiming that I whole heartedly agree with this manifesto the result of my social conditioning? Yes, I believe so. Is social conditioning what is perpetuating the destruction of the planet? Yes. So I better not let my self-consciousness overrule here: This book is really important.
I feel the taboo so strongly: Civilization is a given. To even talk about it as such is somehow 'off'. I feel embarrassed thinking that there is another way for humans to live, a way without civilization. Needless to say, I definitely feel to embarrassed to share this thought openly. My mind says: Hobey, your crazy, your just in your own little privileged bubble, entertaining fantasies that help no one and if you say these things everyone will just think you're weird. That's how I feel. I feel like I'm going insane, split between these opposing realities. I can't accept how we humans are living, and yet I can't completely reject it, because I am human and must continue to live in this world. I understand that it doesn't serve to be all doom and gloom, that in order to create change you must come from a place of inner stability. But isn't it natural to feel unstable when you live in a world you can't accept?
We as humans can live in other ways, can relate to the world and our surroundings in other ways than how we are, but its hard to believe because this is all we know, at least on a superficial level. I am grateful that there are other people out there that are willing to face the monster that we have created. Sometimes I feel like I'm surrounded by a bunch of zombies who couldn't care less about anything that is not in their direct experience. But I rationally know that many many people feel the way I do to some degree, it's just that some people bury it down deeper than others. The dissatisfaction is buried under the joy people get from activities like sports, or it is buried under the stress people endure trying to make enough money to survive, or the mindfulness that monks acquire through meditation. When will see that civilization and technology and progress are not the only way?
I feel the taboo so strongly: Civilization is a given. To even talk about it as such is somehow 'off'. I feel embarrassed thinking that there is another way for humans to live, a way without civilization. Needless to say, I definitely feel to embarrassed to share this thought openly. My mind says: Hobey, your crazy, your just in your own little privileged bubble, entertaining fantasies that help no one and if you say these things everyone will just think you're weird. That's how I feel. I feel like I'm going insane, split between these opposing realities. I can't accept how we humans are living, and yet I can't completely reject it, because I am human and must continue to live in this world. I understand that it doesn't serve to be all doom and gloom, that in order to create change you must come from a place of inner stability. But isn't it natural to feel unstable when you live in a world you can't accept?
We as humans can live in other ways, can relate to the world and our surroundings in other ways than how we are, but its hard to believe because this is all we know, at least on a superficial level. I am grateful that there are other people out there that are willing to face the monster that we have created. Sometimes I feel like I'm surrounded by a bunch of zombies who couldn't care less about anything that is not in their direct experience. But I rationally know that many many people feel the way I do to some degree, it's just that some people bury it down deeper than others. The dissatisfaction is buried under the joy people get from activities like sports, or it is buried under the stress people endure trying to make enough money to survive, or the mindfulness that monks acquire through meditation. When will see that civilization and technology and progress are not the only way?
December 23, 2021
This is not really a book. It's very short.
Defies easy categorization. It touches on politics. It touches on what you might call religion or spiritual things. There's a fairly strong current of environmental concern. I thought of Koyaanisqatsi. I thought of That Hideous Strength.
Civilization as we know it is coming to an end. The myth of limitless progress and the perfectability of man is shattered. What is the story we should be telling about where we are now and where we are headed?
You can find this online for free at https://dark-mountain.net/about/manif....
Defies easy categorization. It touches on politics. It touches on what you might call religion or spiritual things. There's a fairly strong current of environmental concern. I thought of Koyaanisqatsi. I thought of That Hideous Strength.
Civilization as we know it is coming to an end. The myth of limitless progress and the perfectability of man is shattered. What is the story we should be telling about where we are now and where we are headed?
You can find this online for free at https://dark-mountain.net/about/manif....
December 6, 2019
This pamphlet started to pop up in many of my bookshelf recommendations, so I ordered it from the UK because it wasn't available on Amazon or from my local library.
As someone who is familiar with a broad cross-section of environmental literature, the ideas put forward in this manifesto were not that shocking or groundbreaking, and the authors seem to be rather west-centric. But the idea behind the movement is interesting, and I would be willing to delve further into Dark Mountain literature.
As someone who is familiar with a broad cross-section of environmental literature, the ideas put forward in this manifesto were not that shocking or groundbreaking, and the authors seem to be rather west-centric. But the idea behind the movement is interesting, and I would be willing to delve further into Dark Mountain literature.
January 29, 2022
It is interesting reading this in close proximity to the Ecomodernist Manifest. In many ways they feel antithetical to each other. One wants to uphold civilization, and thinks the only way to possibly do that is by newer and better technologies. This manifesto, on the other hand, denies that technological solutions are the answer, and thinks civilization itself is the target.
The manifesto is beautifully written, and I like Paul Kingsnorth's writings, but I can't get fully on board with their vision. More focus on nonhuman creation won't be the answer.
The manifesto is beautifully written, and I like Paul Kingsnorth's writings, but I can't get fully on board with their vision. More focus on nonhuman creation won't be the answer.
July 28, 2021
A short read. This is an urgent and necessary work. See dark-mountain.net for more of Kingsnorth and Hine's related work.
Related - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vUdr...
Doc. film on Paul Kingsnorth - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_s8V...
Interview - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojZjl...
These are ideas to consider now. The Manifesto is geared toward writers, thinkers, artists.
Related - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vUdr...
Doc. film on Paul Kingsnorth - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_s8V...
Interview - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojZjl...
These are ideas to consider now. The Manifesto is geared toward writers, thinkers, artists.
January 18, 2024
As an Audiobook 3.7/5
I found this text looking for Robinson Jeffers, who also gets mentioned in this text.
The text is written by a group of conservationists, it argues for embracing our uncivilized origins and nature in a sense.
Although I think it's factually wrong that the civilized world significantly harms or intends to antagonize nature, I do think that this text deserves to exist and that it is valid food for thought. The irrational and the instinctive is important.
I found this text looking for Robinson Jeffers, who also gets mentioned in this text.
The text is written by a group of conservationists, it argues for embracing our uncivilized origins and nature in a sense.
Although I think it's factually wrong that the civilized world significantly harms or intends to antagonize nature, I do think that this text deserves to exist and that it is valid food for thought. The irrational and the instinctive is important.
August 13, 2023
I would burn my right hand in a slow fire to change the future …I should do foolishly. The beauty of modern man is not in the persons but in the disastrous rhythm, the heavy and mobile masses, the dance of the dream-led masses, down the dark mountain. Robinson Jeffers, 1935
Time to ignore the messenger's presumption. https://is.gd/JE5hUw
Time to ignore the messenger's presumption. https://is.gd/JE5hUw
December 9, 2016
A beautifully-written, resonant manifesto. An important call to writers for Uncivilised writing to counter the myth of civilisation and human centrality. Truly inspiring.
June 5, 2017
Don't agree with everything, but certainly thought-provoking.
March 24, 2019
I am 10 years late to this party - but I found the narrative and guidelines I have been looking for.
April 16, 2020
Incredible, how this project found me at exactly the right time, this time where all doors of my heart were fully open for these words to come in, attach their wings and fly out into the world.
March 26, 2021
This may, in fact, be the most beautiful piece of writing I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading.
April 27, 2024
A slightly better written version of every crusty anarchist zine I read (or wrote) in the late eighties.
February 21, 2019
Some good points. Some... meh. However, if the author was a true believer, shouldn't I have not heard of this?
August 12, 2013
Reseña: http://theamericanbeat.wordpress.com/...
Aunque la idea me parece genial y lo empecé a leer porque estoy muy interesada en estos temas, me ha parecido bastante vacío de contenidos con demasiados florituras.
Aunque la idea me parece genial y lo empecé a leer porque estoy muy interesada en estos temas, me ha parecido bastante vacío de contenidos con demasiados florituras.
February 21, 2014
Quite an interesting concept. Even if you don't fully agree- it makes you think and that, alone, is a great accomplishment. Definitively worth a read through.
April 22, 2014
I was a big, big fan of this slim volume.
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