We must return to the land, to a less materialistic, more rural, way of living, because only such a way of living with its close and intimate contact with Nature and with its often hard manual work enables us to live in an authentic and human way.

The modern way of living - in vast urban sprawls with their commerce, their industry, their easy travel - is an inauthentic and inhuman way of living which has also encouraged, and indeed made possible, the development of a real tyrannical State whose very vastness and laws are a contradiction of everything that is human.

Humanity resides in reason, in the slow accumulation of knowledge and wisdom from direct personal experience, and in the direct and reasoned (that is: hospitable, honourable and well-mannered) contact with fellow human beings. Judgement of others is thus a judgement based on personal knowledge of them. In particular, humanity means a judgement that arises from slowly reflecting upon things that we ourselves have experienced at first hand.
 

The way of the modern world is the superficial, fast, way of abstract ideas (such as "the economy" with its "economic growth" or the policies of some "political party"), of commerce, of the individual as a consumer and the subject of some State. The perspective of the majority of the individuals of such an abstract State is that of their own lives, their own comforts, their own needs, or at best that of their immediate family.

The denizens of such a modern State get their food from shops, or worse, "supermarkets", just as their work usually involves office work, or social work, or commercial work, or business work: that is, work connected to the State, or its commerce, its industry, its business. There is therefore little or no contact with the land, with Nature, and certainly little in the way of hard manual toil, just as the daily and yearly rhythm of such a modern living is the abstract, fast, rhythm imposed upon the individual by their modern work. In addition, the denizens of such a modern State view the world, and other human beings, mostly through the abstract "learning" or abstract "knowledge" they acquire in Schools or Colleges, or on one or more of the many "courses of training" which now proliferate in such profusion.

So it is that these denizens come to use abstract ideas as their measure of judgement, just as their knowledge, their learning, is for the most part not the result of their own experience, their own reflection on that experience.  And so it is that we now have, in every single modern nation-State, a considerable number of people using and abusing "drugs", a considerable number of people stealing, cheating, robbing and doing very cowardly deeds, and a considerable number of people (in fact the majority) who are ill-mannered and unconcerned with how their materialistic, exploitative, way of life, and their own nation-State, are destroying the land and Nature herself.
 

In contrast, the way of the land - of a real rural living - is the way where the perspective is that of Nature: of the land itself. It is the way where the individual lives in the slower-paced world of Nature, and whose daily rhythm is shaped by Nature and by the changing seasons.
 
 

A Return to Authenticity:

We must return to the land even if it means that we have to forgo many of the attractions, comforts and conveniences of our modern world. For it is our very desire for such attractions, comforts and conveniences which have created and helped shape the inauthentic modern world.
 

The stark truth of the matter is that our modern way of living is inhuman: in fact, it is sub-human. It encourages and condones sub-human behaviour, despite all the meaningless abstract political rhetoric spewed forth by politicians and others.

The result of such sub-human behaviour is evident for all to see in the vast urban sprawls: drunken, ill-mannered, louts (both male and female) indulging themselves; gangs of youths roaming urban (and even rural) housing estates, terrorizing people; gangs and individuals robbing, raping and mugging at will; armed gangs carrying guns, and using them, in some "turf war" over drugs; ill-mannered, careless, angry drivers of motor vehicles; selfish, ill-mannered, vainly preening "business-executive" types acting superior because they have money..... And so on, and so on.

The modern world has become less and less human: less and less reasonable, less and less free. What is Prison but an inhuman Institution? What are most modern laws but a means to enforce State-control? What are the enormous powers of the Police but a sign of a tyrannical government? What are the vast animal slaughterhouses but monuments to our own insatiable sub-human desires? For we do not need to breed and slaughter animals in the way the modern world breeds and slaughters them because we do not need the vast quantities of animal flesh the majority of us insist on eating, just as we do not need most if not all of the luxuries of this modern world: TV, cars, fridges, mobile telephones..... To produce such things, we rapaciously cover the Earth in factories, in industries, in urban and rural sprawl, just as we rapaciously consume the raw materials of the Earth itself, and just as the owners of such factories and industries exploit the people who work for them and just as the Banks, through their inhuman usury, exploit both the owners and the workers.

We should know and act upon the truth that every act of bad-manners by us toward another human being is an act of exploitation.

We human beings - and particularly those in the developed Western world - have become like a plague sweeping over the face of this planet, leaving devastation and destruction in our wake. Our treatment of our fellow human beings is appalling: at every level, people are exploited, seen as some sort of commodity, or as some sort of enemy or threat. Where is decency? Where are manners? Where is the slow, quiet, reflection that marks the real rural way of living?

Our treatment of the other life-forms with whom we share this planet is equally appalling, if not more so. We ruthlessly exploit them, as we ruthlessly slaughter them, considering them just another commodity, to be priced and traded and consumed.
 
 

We do not have to live as we now live, and as most of us want to live. We do not have to exploit other human beings, and other life-forms, and the Earth itself. We can control ourselves; we can exercise restraint; we can choose to restrain our greed, our emotions, our desire for material goods and luxuries. We can behave in a reasoned and well-mannered way toward other human beings.
 

Such self-control, such restraint, such well-mannered behaviour, is the human thing to do. Thus, we can choose to live in a simple rural way, toiling in harmony and in rhythm with Nature in order to produce what food we need for ourselves and our family, just as others can work in honest trades supplying the essential things we need (such as clothes) which we ourselves cannot make or produce. And all this without the evil of usury or the exploitation caused by factories and industries. Everything that we really need can be made by hand in a natural way in a natural community in a small area. Everything that we do not need requires industry, commerce, business, factories and exploitation.
 

We all have a choice, as we all have the capacity to change ourselves for the better by using our will: by restraining our desires, our emotions, our needs. We all have the capacity to behave in a rational, civilized, way toward our fellow human beings, and toward the other life-forms which share this planet which is our home.

The real question is: will we do this? Will we strive to become human and so restrain ourselves? Or will we just carry on as we are, exploiting other human beings, other life-forms, and the Earth itself?
 

David Myatt
JD2452043.173