"What if we all find ourselves living in a world outside of our control, in real life, and the only way we’ve imagined that reality is unmitigated horror?"
Well put! This is one of the thoughts that has been driving my work since back before Paul and I wrote the Dark Mountain manifesto. And as your note about the horror story as the shadow version of the Big Story suggests, most of the stories we tell ourselves about "the end of the world as we know it" don't get us out of this trap. (I should probably write up my thoughts on McCarthy's The Road, as I see people citing it with enthusiasm in some of these circles on Substack, but I'm less than convinced.)
hey, thank you so much! it's one of the big motivators for me to improve as a fiction writer: we seem to have no shortage of utopian stories (which i'm critiquing in an upcoming post) and plenty of grim-to-horrific dystopian stories, but very little optimistic realism. it's a tough needle to thread, especially as a new author. hopefully i'm not setting myself an impossible task.
i was just commenting on one of Paul's posts about the need for a rallying point where artists can gather when they're ready to look beyond the apocalypse as a terminal end. is Dark Mountain still the best place to go for that?
and while i've got you on the line—how would you define the word "utopian"?
also, i've been meaning to order your book ever since i listened to your conversation with Rhyd, and this is a very timely reminder. thanks again!
Thanks, R.G.! Dark Mountain is still going strong and it's certainly one rallying point for artists and writers who want to look beyond "the end of the world as we know it". I think you've mentioned the Solarpunk movement which is also trying to foster a kind of post-apocalyptic optimism. Then there's New Maps, a journal of "deindustrial fiction", which John Michael Greer is connected with:
You asked how I define "utopian". For me, it goes to the root meaning of the word: a "u-topia" is literally a "no-place", and the characteristic of utopian thinking is its placelessness, the sense of attempting to design a perfect world in a vacuum, with no regard for the ongoing presence of the past, the local, the specific. However good the intentions, utopian thinking won't succeed in creating a perfect world or even bringing us closer to it, but it will contribute to the bulldozing of all those things its placelessness causes it to disregard.
I hope that makes some kind of sense. Enjoy the book!
oh wow, New Maps looks excellent—exactly what i was hoping for, thank you so much. i'll keep an eye on Dark Mountain for future opportunites; it would be great if there was a Discord server or similar that i could join.
your definition makes perfect sense, and i agree completely. can i get your permission to quote you in an upcoming essay?
Absolutely, you're welcome to quote me! And glad to have introduced you to New Maps. You're right that a Discord server or something like that would be good, although I fear the current Dark Mountain crew – wonderful people, all – are not very Discordian, or not in that sense, at least...
Feb 11, 2023·edited Feb 12, 2023Liked by R. G. Miga
Do you have any recommendations up your sleeve for a modern telling of the older stories you talk about at the end, which aren't premised on the idea that humans should dominate their environments (and that life is wretched and brutish when we can't)? Or is that something for Part 3?
off the top of my head—in terms of movies, the one that really surprised me recently was The Green Knight from 2021. i don't know how that one snuck through; it's a rare example of a properly pagan worldview that isn't straight-up horror. it's bonkers. i guess it's technically magical realism, but in a way that muddles what real is... totally subverts the expected Hero's Journey, and the ending is ambiguous in a way that puts agency in the more-than-human world. definitely recommended.
Feb 11, 2023·edited Feb 11, 2023Liked by R. G. Miga
I've heard that movie recommended as "really good" a few times but never knew the details, and I haven't taken the time to watch it yet. Just moved it much higher on my priority list, thanks for the tip!
I'll throw my hat in the ring and suggest Disco Elysium in a somewhat similar vein. It's a video game, but the experience of playing it is much closer to reading a novel. I wouldn't call its message necessarily pagan in spirit, but the story conducts itself on rising and falling levels of magnitude, from deeply personal matters of lost love and addiction, to politics and religion and culture in a globalized world, to the fundamental nature of the (fictional) universe itself and the possibly-living spirit of the city that is crumbling around your character. Its execution is brutally effective, and it tells a story about Power which is also profoundly aware of how temporary and illusory Power actually is. There's nothing else really like it and I can't recommend it enough.
The downside, of course, is that it will take you about 20 hours to complete a run-through, and that still won't come close to showing you everything the narrative has to offer. Worth not sleeping for a few nights, for sure.
PS: I forgot to include this joke in my top-level comment! Here you go. "Flying Cars and Tradwives is the name of my electro-folk quartet."
it's interesting to see these ancient texts talking about essentially the same dynamic... we imagine that we've come such a long way in the past few millennia, when in fact we've been living in more or less the same historical moment this whole time. timescales are funny things.
i also need to brush up on my Taoism, thanks for reminding me.
It's interesting to look at the fictional depictions of the people who thrive outside The Wall; recent famous ones being Craster from GoT and Beorn from The Hobbit.
Another thing you prompted: I've been studying the hero's journey, and it's interesting how this archetypal meta-narrative fits within The Big Story: the Hero's Journey is how The Weak become The Strong.
absolutely. one contemporary take on this version of the Hero's Journey—maybe the best exemplar, both narratively and meta-narratively for the time and place it was made—is Conan the Barbarian. the protagonist starts out as a slave (outside The Wall, one of the Weak) and becomes the ruler (inside the Wall, ruler of the Strong) by being the absolute best at dispensing violence and defeating the villain's sorcery with the power of enormous biceps. i'm sure John Milius was just trying to make a Man's Man movie—but the function of power that the Big Story takes for granted is on full display. combined with the triumphalism of Reagan-era America, it's got a lot to say about where we are now as a culture.
glad you found the post interesting, thank you for reading and commenting!
"What if we all find ourselves living in a world outside of our control, in real life, and the only way we’ve imagined that reality is unmitigated horror?"
Well put! This is one of the thoughts that has been driving my work since back before Paul and I wrote the Dark Mountain manifesto. And as your note about the horror story as the shadow version of the Big Story suggests, most of the stories we tell ourselves about "the end of the world as we know it" don't get us out of this trap. (I should probably write up my thoughts on McCarthy's The Road, as I see people citing it with enthusiasm in some of these circles on Substack, but I'm less than convinced.)
hey, thank you so much! it's one of the big motivators for me to improve as a fiction writer: we seem to have no shortage of utopian stories (which i'm critiquing in an upcoming post) and plenty of grim-to-horrific dystopian stories, but very little optimistic realism. it's a tough needle to thread, especially as a new author. hopefully i'm not setting myself an impossible task.
i was just commenting on one of Paul's posts about the need for a rallying point where artists can gather when they're ready to look beyond the apocalypse as a terminal end. is Dark Mountain still the best place to go for that?
and while i've got you on the line—how would you define the word "utopian"?
also, i've been meaning to order your book ever since i listened to your conversation with Rhyd, and this is a very timely reminder. thanks again!
Thanks, R.G.! Dark Mountain is still going strong and it's certainly one rallying point for artists and writers who want to look beyond "the end of the world as we know it". I think you've mentioned the Solarpunk movement which is also trying to foster a kind of post-apocalyptic optimism. Then there's New Maps, a journal of "deindustrial fiction", which John Michael Greer is connected with:
https://www.new-maps.com/
You asked how I define "utopian". For me, it goes to the root meaning of the word: a "u-topia" is literally a "no-place", and the characteristic of utopian thinking is its placelessness, the sense of attempting to design a perfect world in a vacuum, with no regard for the ongoing presence of the past, the local, the specific. However good the intentions, utopian thinking won't succeed in creating a perfect world or even bringing us closer to it, but it will contribute to the bulldozing of all those things its placelessness causes it to disregard.
I hope that makes some kind of sense. Enjoy the book!
oh wow, New Maps looks excellent—exactly what i was hoping for, thank you so much. i'll keep an eye on Dark Mountain for future opportunites; it would be great if there was a Discord server or similar that i could join.
your definition makes perfect sense, and i agree completely. can i get your permission to quote you in an upcoming essay?
Absolutely, you're welcome to quote me! And glad to have introduced you to New Maps. You're right that a Discord server or something like that would be good, although I fear the current Dark Mountain crew – wonderful people, all – are not very Discordian, or not in that sense, at least...
Do you have any recommendations up your sleeve for a modern telling of the older stories you talk about at the end, which aren't premised on the idea that humans should dominate their environments (and that life is wretched and brutish when we can't)? Or is that something for Part 3?
off the top of my head—in terms of movies, the one that really surprised me recently was The Green Knight from 2021. i don't know how that one snuck through; it's a rare example of a properly pagan worldview that isn't straight-up horror. it's bonkers. i guess it's technically magical realism, but in a way that muddles what real is... totally subverts the expected Hero's Journey, and the ending is ambiguous in a way that puts agency in the more-than-human world. definitely recommended.
I've heard that movie recommended as "really good" a few times but never knew the details, and I haven't taken the time to watch it yet. Just moved it much higher on my priority list, thanks for the tip!
I'll throw my hat in the ring and suggest Disco Elysium in a somewhat similar vein. It's a video game, but the experience of playing it is much closer to reading a novel. I wouldn't call its message necessarily pagan in spirit, but the story conducts itself on rising and falling levels of magnitude, from deeply personal matters of lost love and addiction, to politics and religion and culture in a globalized world, to the fundamental nature of the (fictional) universe itself and the possibly-living spirit of the city that is crumbling around your character. Its execution is brutally effective, and it tells a story about Power which is also profoundly aware of how temporary and illusory Power actually is. There's nothing else really like it and I can't recommend it enough.
The downside, of course, is that it will take you about 20 hours to complete a run-through, and that still won't come close to showing you everything the narrative has to offer. Worth not sleeping for a few nights, for sure.
PS: I forgot to include this joke in my top-level comment! Here you go. "Flying Cars and Tradwives is the name of my electro-folk quartet."
I like this. Your 'The Strong' remind me a lot of Zhuangzi's 'Great Thief', and your 'Storytellers' of his 'Sages': https://terebess.hu/english/chuangtzu1.html#10
I'd go so far as to say that some of the stories you are looking for are in that classic. I prefer Ziporyn's translation (https://hackettpublishing.com/zhuangzi-the-complete-writings) but Watson's is good and free on the internet.
it's interesting to see these ancient texts talking about essentially the same dynamic... we imagine that we've come such a long way in the past few millennia, when in fact we've been living in more or less the same historical moment this whole time. timescales are funny things.
i also need to brush up on my Taoism, thanks for reminding me.
It's interesting to look at the fictional depictions of the people who thrive outside The Wall; recent famous ones being Craster from GoT and Beorn from The Hobbit.
Another thing you prompted: I've been studying the hero's journey, and it's interesting how this archetypal meta-narrative fits within The Big Story: the Hero's Journey is how The Weak become The Strong.
absolutely. one contemporary take on this version of the Hero's Journey—maybe the best exemplar, both narratively and meta-narratively for the time and place it was made—is Conan the Barbarian. the protagonist starts out as a slave (outside The Wall, one of the Weak) and becomes the ruler (inside the Wall, ruler of the Strong) by being the absolute best at dispensing violence and defeating the villain's sorcery with the power of enormous biceps. i'm sure John Milius was just trying to make a Man's Man movie—but the function of power that the Big Story takes for granted is on full display. combined with the triumphalism of Reagan-era America, it's got a lot to say about where we are now as a culture.
glad you found the post interesting, thank you for reading and commenting!