Paul Kingsnorth delivered the keynote address at the 2023 FPR conference in Madison, Wisconsin. With help from a diverse band of fellow travelers including Jewish-Canadian songwriter Leonard Cohen, Anglo-Catholic social critic Malcolm Muggeridge, and the prophetic French-Egyptian Sufi Rene Guenon, the unexpectedly Irish Orthodox Kingsnorth takes listeners on a tour of techno-mirages, holy wells, and green deserts in a search for culture-seeding saints.
Highlights
2:00 Jeff introduces Paul
3:30 Paul introduces his thrift shop shirt
7:30 The disquiet of machine things
12:30 Surface debates and the depths beneath
19:00 Mumford and some on the suicide of the West
25:00 Anti-culture and real culture-making
29:00 Who is on the throne? (Or Paul as a sociological Bill Bright)
35:00 Transhumanist candor
38:00 Signs of light and darkness with Guenon and Spengler
47:00 A reluctant convert
50:00 Leaving the broken center for the margins
60:00 Short on saints
Resources
Paul’s Substack and an interview at FPR
On “AI Demonic” at Touchstone
“The Cross and the Machine” at First Things
Conference videos
Conference co-sponsor Plough
Wendell Kimbrough helps us find our way home
