That was a great interview, full of wisdom, determination and love. I've been following Max for a while on Substack but having missed your first interview with him this was my first opportunity to get to see the person in the round.
I had a visceral response to the discussion around dominance and extraction and the word 'restraint' kept echoing round my head. It feels like the world is in crisis because we have not been able to practice restraint. The cult of competition has come to dominate the world and the mantra of 'what ever it takes' has become a virtue in the effort to be the first. The concept of being the best has been bastardised to mean the most profitable and the industrial rape of the planet and people the price those in power have been most willing to pay.
The question of violence has long been a no-go zone for me. I have been ever-willing to negate myself to avoid conflict and felt that I could never inflict violence on anyone else. There are, of course, good reasons why I adopted that strategy but the cracks have been appearing in recent years. Max's story of the mountain communities in Pakistan and their need to defend and enforce boundaries began to make sense to me and the clincher was that line about knowing when to put the weapons down. Restraint. To understand when to move forward and when to hold back.
Coupled with living with imperfection I reckon we could go a long way with those ideas.
Thanks, Leaf. I confess to feeling really frustrated that much of the community around us do not seem to see the need to prepare for the slide into gradual collapse which to me seems so inevitable. I am struggling to keep a not-for-profit in business that works in the community both to support people in growing more (or at all) and using this as a therapeutic medium for those who suffer from anxiety, depression and loneliness. I'm not a born leader but I find myself in that position without much support and constantly questioning whether this is what I should be doing. The urge to throw in the towel is so strong sometimes but connecting usually pulls me back.
Fascinating discussion. However, Bibi's g-cide is quite different from short-term power pathologies and tribal disputes. Zionism infiltrated British and US government over 70 years yielding the ruination of the Palestinian people and near total theft of their lands. Zionism overlords power politics in the US along with evangelicalism and its religious myths.
It is really amazing to consider just how, at least in the case of the US, the legal system is filled with competing elements, one designed to protect people against power, and others designed to protect power from the people. That they function in the same system, in competition with one another... clearly something is wrong.
Another deeply nourishing, necessarily provocative conversation. I listened in the middle of the night and it is not a metaphor that the first light of the day emerges as I type this comment. The conversation in its delicious meandering illuminates so much. Rachel, your work that platforms the work of so many people I might otherwise miss, enlarges and inspires possibilities that ignite imagination.
I feel Rilke’s line from The Book of Hours, voicing God: “Go to the limits of your longing. Embody me. Flare up like a flame and make big shadows I can move in.”
Every once in a blue moon I come across content like this that hits me right between the eyes. I'm only 20 minutes into this interview, and I feel like Max has reached into my brain, unscrambled and organised years of deep thinking and concluded it in this amazingly articulate expression of some of the fundamentals issues that are leading to many of the symptoms of decline and destruction we're witnessing. Brilliant work! Can't wait to listen to the rest!
Rachel is right that this crisis was inevitable. It actually happened and so had to happen. The only way it wouldn't have happened is for those with power to have different brains (since that the what is used to make decisions) but that is impossible. So it was inevitable.
I like Max's work but claiming that humans can live in different ways by referencing the few indigenous cultures that appear to have evolved their cultures in a way that is not (or far less) destructive is not too helpful. Unless one wants to return to their way of living, The only truly sustainable way of living is as all other creatures - hunting and gathering. But very few people (almost no-one) wants to get rid of modernity. Many activists are even open about wanting to save civilisation, though everyone actually wants that.
Max thinks most people want to protect the environment and that desire is blocked by not having functional democracies. But the environment can only be protected if there is no modernity. This is why most people don't even vote for parties that purport to prioritising environmental protection. If economies contract, that causes all sorts of societal stressors which voters wood prioritise over the environment. Economies, of course, are bound to contract, since they are not sustainable, but no one will vote for that.
Although this can be depressing, I do think that fooling ourselves that people can be persuaded to stop damaging the environment further is not helpful. If enough people can come to understand the reality of humans being a species, maybe enough brains can be altered enough to have global societies start to manage a contraction, until environmental damage reduces to an unnoticeable level.
"Just because you can, doesn't mean you should" loved this phrase. Yet It is the driving force behind so much of humanities never-ending quest for more - more control, more comfort, more of everything. Every time I hear about another Space X rocket taking off (and usually exploding) I wonder how we got to a place where we applaud this tech for the sake of tech and ignore the negative impacts. AI is similar. Driving forward with no idea why and using unsustainable amounts of energy to operate. Again why ? I recognize that I would not exist if not for this behavior (nor would billions of others). But we know we are killing the planet yet we push forward in such insane ways.
That was a great interview, full of wisdom, determination and love. I've been following Max for a while on Substack but having missed your first interview with him this was my first opportunity to get to see the person in the round.
I had a visceral response to the discussion around dominance and extraction and the word 'restraint' kept echoing round my head. It feels like the world is in crisis because we have not been able to practice restraint. The cult of competition has come to dominate the world and the mantra of 'what ever it takes' has become a virtue in the effort to be the first. The concept of being the best has been bastardised to mean the most profitable and the industrial rape of the planet and people the price those in power have been most willing to pay.
The question of violence has long been a no-go zone for me. I have been ever-willing to negate myself to avoid conflict and felt that I could never inflict violence on anyone else. There are, of course, good reasons why I adopted that strategy but the cracks have been appearing in recent years. Max's story of the mountain communities in Pakistan and their need to defend and enforce boundaries began to make sense to me and the clincher was that line about knowing when to put the weapons down. Restraint. To understand when to move forward and when to hold back.
Coupled with living with imperfection I reckon we could go a long way with those ideas.
I resonate with your comments, Richard. Especially about violence and Max’s story.
Thanks, Leaf. I confess to feeling really frustrated that much of the community around us do not seem to see the need to prepare for the slide into gradual collapse which to me seems so inevitable. I am struggling to keep a not-for-profit in business that works in the community both to support people in growing more (or at all) and using this as a therapeutic medium for those who suffer from anxiety, depression and loneliness. I'm not a born leader but I find myself in that position without much support and constantly questioning whether this is what I should be doing. The urge to throw in the towel is so strong sometimes but connecting usually pulls me back.
Fascinating discussion. However, Bibi's g-cide is quite different from short-term power pathologies and tribal disputes. Zionism infiltrated British and US government over 70 years yielding the ruination of the Palestinian people and near total theft of their lands. Zionism overlords power politics in the US along with evangelicalism and its religious myths.
It is really amazing to consider just how, at least in the case of the US, the legal system is filled with competing elements, one designed to protect people against power, and others designed to protect power from the people. That they function in the same system, in competition with one another... clearly something is wrong.
Exciting and inspiring. We're presently grazing rabbits in an adventure playground in Brixton and offering community provisioning skills at the Remakery, across the road. You can see our thoughts at https://alicesuzanneholloway.substack.com/p/care-home-farm-5-fibre-and-clothes?utm_campaign=posts-open-in-app&triedRedirect=true
You might be interested to speak to Alice?
Another deeply nourishing, necessarily provocative conversation. I listened in the middle of the night and it is not a metaphor that the first light of the day emerges as I type this comment. The conversation in its delicious meandering illuminates so much. Rachel, your work that platforms the work of so many people I might otherwise miss, enlarges and inspires possibilities that ignite imagination.
I feel Rilke’s line from The Book of Hours, voicing God: “Go to the limits of your longing. Embody me. Flare up like a flame and make big shadows I can move in.”
We are called to do nothing less.
Every once in a blue moon I come across content like this that hits me right between the eyes. I'm only 20 minutes into this interview, and I feel like Max has reached into my brain, unscrambled and organised years of deep thinking and concluded it in this amazingly articulate expression of some of the fundamentals issues that are leading to many of the symptoms of decline and destruction we're witnessing. Brilliant work! Can't wait to listen to the rest!
Rachel is right that this crisis was inevitable. It actually happened and so had to happen. The only way it wouldn't have happened is for those with power to have different brains (since that the what is used to make decisions) but that is impossible. So it was inevitable.
I like Max's work but claiming that humans can live in different ways by referencing the few indigenous cultures that appear to have evolved their cultures in a way that is not (or far less) destructive is not too helpful. Unless one wants to return to their way of living, The only truly sustainable way of living is as all other creatures - hunting and gathering. But very few people (almost no-one) wants to get rid of modernity. Many activists are even open about wanting to save civilisation, though everyone actually wants that.
Max thinks most people want to protect the environment and that desire is blocked by not having functional democracies. But the environment can only be protected if there is no modernity. This is why most people don't even vote for parties that purport to prioritising environmental protection. If economies contract, that causes all sorts of societal stressors which voters wood prioritise over the environment. Economies, of course, are bound to contract, since they are not sustainable, but no one will vote for that.
Although this can be depressing, I do think that fooling ourselves that people can be persuaded to stop damaging the environment further is not helpful. If enough people can come to understand the reality of humans being a species, maybe enough brains can be altered enough to have global societies start to manage a contraction, until environmental damage reduces to an unnoticeable level.
"Just because you can, doesn't mean you should" loved this phrase. Yet It is the driving force behind so much of humanities never-ending quest for more - more control, more comfort, more of everything. Every time I hear about another Space X rocket taking off (and usually exploding) I wonder how we got to a place where we applaud this tech for the sake of tech and ignore the negative impacts. AI is similar. Driving forward with no idea why and using unsustainable amounts of energy to operate. Again why ? I recognize that I would not exist if not for this behavior (nor would billions of others). But we know we are killing the planet yet we push forward in such insane ways.
A meditation in music by
CARLOS SANTANA,
The Calling