On the latest episode of Restoring Order, I discuss Paul Kingsnorth’s 2025 book Against the Machine: On the Unmaking of Humanity.
Kingsnorth was a left-wing environmental activist who converted to Orthodox Christianity and adopted reactionary politics. His book offers an insightful, eloquent critique of the mentality that undergirds technological society: the push for maximum efficiency, organization, centralization, and profit, which he calls the Machine.
Is this Machine the primary culprit behind Western decline? Could it be that the left – and some conservatives – are unknowingly carrying out the will of this force? Or does Kingsnorth have it all wrong?
In this episode, I explore technology, capitalism, the loss of meaning, accelerationism, human obsolescence, the nature of right and left, and much more.
