by Paul Cudenec, who reads the article here Sigmund Kvaløy Setreng (1934-2014) was a philosopher and activist who was deeply opposed to what he termed the Industrial Growth Society - IGS. We live, he warned in 1993, in "a global robber economy, a systematic plundering of the earth’s last resources at an exponential rate". "Like … Continue reading For life and truth: his struggle was his success
by Paul Cudenec, who reads the article here One of the great wonders of life, for me, is the way in which certain books find their way into my hands without me having actually looked for them - indeed, it feels as if it were they who were looking for me! Such was the case … Continue reading Modernity, metal and infernal inversion
by Paul Cudenec, who reads the article here Edward Abbey (1927-1989) was a writer, a defender of nature and an important inspiration for the radical environmentalist movement in the USA and beyond. He was in many ways the embodiment of the idea of nature defending itself through people, with his life and thinking being an … Continue reading A rebel wild and free
by Paul Cudenec, who reads the article here Can we today picture a world in which human beings were truly alive, throbbing with innocent joy to the rhythms and resonances of nature? I have already described the rural family-centred existence that was stolen from us by those behind the industrial "revolution", [1] but here we … Continue reading Against the modern mindset!
by Paul Cudenec, who reads the article here My first objection to the modern world in which I found myself was, I would say, cultural. My parents later told me that even as a very young child I was offended by the adverts that interrupted the TV shows we were watching, and I think I … Continue reading Facing up to reality: a personal account
by Paul Cudenec (who reads the article here) I have always found that physical and spiritual heights go hand in hand. As a boy, in the grey London suburbs, I had to make do with the top floor of the multi-storey car park over the road from my grandmother's house in order to experience this … Continue reading Great Pan and the gap into Elf-land
by Paul Cudenec (who reads the article here) "I don't think I'll come here again", said my friend as we finished a once-favourite walk on a ridge high about the Cévennes here in France. "This was always a magical place for me, but now that they've put that phone mast there…" I agreed and later … Continue reading A world defiled
by Paul Cudenec It is today not considered possible by our culture for a sane and serious person to be entirely opposed to the modern world, to its infrastructure and to its thinking. So many intellectual and cultural taboos have been built to block such a perspective from being voiced and shared, that it has … Continue reading Life philosophy: against the destructive will of Mammon
by Paul Cudenec As humankind shuffles ever closer to the jaws of the global death-machine, all the magic seems to have gone out of our lives and our thinking. Reduced to mere units of "human capital" by the usurious slave-masters, hypnotised into dull passivity by their weapons of mass distraction, too many people appear to … Continue reading Life philosophy: soul, rhythm, magic and love
by Paul Cudenec The global industrial-financial complex has been doing its best for decades now to ensure there is no real ideological opposition to its life-hating agenda. In part, it achieves this through relentless propaganda assuring us that its brutal assault on humankind and nature amounts to "progress" or "growth" or "innovation" or positive "change". … Continue reading Life philosophy: beyond left and right
