The Great Humbling
Here's a rundown of references from this episode... Leah Rampy, Bill Drummond, David Mitchell, David Graeber & David Wengrow, Jay LeSoleil, – a documentary from the Swedish Transition Towns movement Chris Smaje (from 2016), – an anonymous anarchist text, quoted in Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing, Debbie Kasper, – about the day the cow came home
info_outline The Great Humbling S5E4: 'The Forever Project'The Great Humbling
Our final episode of 2023 finds Dougald already in his Christmas jumper, as the tiredness of a busy year catches up with the pair of us. Ed opens a window on Sophie Howarth’s . We share the Benjamin Zephaniah poems that have been going round in our heads, since the news of his death was announced, and . Ed’s been reading a doorstop of a novel, by Stephen Markley. Dougald has been revisiting the work of , including something he heard her say about finding ‘a forever project’, something that you’ll be working on for the rest of your life. We pick up the story from last episode...
info_outline The Great Humbling S5E3: 'We Used to Have Fun'The Great Humbling
We take a different route into our conversation this time around, in what turns out to be the first in a two-parter woven around John Higgs’s book, , which Ed has been reading. It’s the kind of book that detonates in the mind, sparking a million connections. First, though, we start out talking about humbling moments, great and small, prompted by Dougald’s experience of stumbling upon a conversation between two listeners who had very different responses to . The KLF conversation takes in George Orwell’s near-death experience off the coast of the Isle of Jura, where he wrote 1984. Also...
info_outline The Great Humbling S5E2: 'Words in Wartime'The Great Humbling
We recorded this episode – and Ed starts with the image of him , triggering unsettling flashbacks to the QAnon shaman, who is apparently now running for Congress. Welcome to the dark weirdness of 2023. Ed quotes from Paul Mason’s , a story brought to our attention by listener Richard Brophy, about a conversation between George Orwell and Stephen Spender during the Second World War. Before we head further into the core themes of this episode, Ed talks about a recent visit to the in Great Yarmouth and the stories he found in Sarah E Doig’s . Among these is the story of the first...
info_outline The Great Humbling S5E1: 'The Ruined Church'The Great Humbling
Welcome back to Season 5 of The Great Humbling! Here are some show notes... series at a school called HOME starts on 7 & 8 November. Ed has been reading Dougie Strang’s book, . Dougald mentions the cluster of authors who were part of the first decade of Dark Mountain who are stepping out with books of their own, finding their voice and getting the attention they deserve. This includes Dougie, also his wife Em Strang’s first novel , Nick Hunt’s first novel , Caroline Ross’s book on pigment-making, , and her Substack , and Charlotte Du Cann’s mythic memoir as well as her newly...
info_outline The Great Humbling: Live at Norwich Arts CentreThe Great Humbling
In February this year, we took The Great Humbling into a new format, a live conversation on stage at Norwich Arts Centre as part of the UK tour that Dougald made to launch his book, . It's taken us rather a long time to get the recording edited, but here it is at last. For this live show, Ed and Dougald were joined by two special guests. Charlotte Du Cann is a writer, editor, teacher and lover of all things rooted in Earth and sky. She works as co-director of the Dark Mountain Project and is the author of After Ithaca and 52 Flowers That Shook My World. She has just launched her Substack, , 'a...
info_outline The Great Humbling S4E8: 'We Need to Talk About George'The Great Humbling
We reach the end of Season 4 of The Great Humbling, though Ed and Dougald start the show with an invitation to a one-off live recording of a special episode with guests Rupert Read and Charlotte Du Cann for those who can join us . As always, we start off by talking about what we've been reading, listening to, watching, imbibing, or otherwise taking on board in ways that get us thinking. Ed has been reading a book called by someone called Dougald Hine. He's also working his way through Susan Cooper's classic series of fantasy novels, . And he recently rewatched Roy Andersson's black...
info_outline The Great Humbling S4E7: 'The Missing Episode'The Great Humbling
So, here's what happened – after a long break, we sat down in early October to record the seventh episode of this series, but life got in the way and by the time we got around to editing it six weeks later, the world had changed so much that it felt like a historical document. Britain has (yet) another prime minister, Sweden has a government over which the far-right have an unprecedented influence. But here it is, in any case, 'the missing episode', so you can travel back in time and relive the thoughts that were on our minds earlier this autumn. Some shownotes, then... Firstly, a...
info_outline The Great Humbling S4E6: 'Nice to meet you'The Great Humbling
After twenty-nine episodes recorded through screens and cameras, Ed and Dougald find themselves meeting for the first time and sit down for a conversation beside the mill pond in Loddon, in the garden of the Mill of Impermanence. We hear the unlikely tale of how Dougald found Ed’s fiftieth birthday present, a copy of Uriah Heep’s fifth album, , while en route to a holiday in Great Yarmouth. A chain of serendipitous events leads to the unavoidable conclusion that Yarmouth is the spiritual home of the Great ‘Umbling. This leads to a discussion of ‘serendipity’, the term...
info_outline The Great Humbling S4E5: 'Belief'The Great Humbling
Dougald poses a big question for this episode: what do we believe in? Ed responds playfully and paradoxically with ‘self-delusion’, citing Robert Trivers work on self-deceit that includes gay pornography and erection-o-meters. And lasers. Here's . Dougald talks about the formative influence of spending the first two-and-a-bit years of his life in the grounds of a theological college and what happened when he told his Sunday school teacher that he didn't find Hell 'a particularly helpful concept’. Does it matter more what we believe, or what our beliefs make us...
info_outlineWe start with Martin Shaw’s hare-piece (hair piece?) - ‘A Hare’s Leap or a Rabbit’s Hop?’, a typically stirring offering from Dr Shaw that bristles with energy and soul, and backbone...
“Culture is being forced to leap at this moment, but we run grievous risk of a rabbit hop back to safety not a hare leap into the deeper life.”
“[Hare] nags, and pulls and bites until something vast is happening to us. We are dragged into the presence of strange angels and so pathetically grateful we can only weep in this Chapel Perilous. For Hare, the Chapel Perilous is the fecund state of that changeable dimension we gesture to and dimly call our heart. Perilous is it, when the animal presences are absent, when there’s no sweet stink of the low bellied spirits. Hare will clamp his buck teeth straight into the beating organ, swinging back and forth like a lunatic pirate on the rigging in the most Machiavellian storm of most trembling imaginations till we are out the door, into the night, into the storm, into the rain.”
As Martin says - ‘Artists are waiting to get LEAPT’
We explore the Vasteras hares and our mutual observations of magpies this week.
Ed listened to a great interview with Margaret Atwood by Cheryl Strayed in her new podcast ‘Sugar Calling’. Atwood is known for her environmental activism, and mentioned Barry Lord, co-founder of Lord Cultural Resources, an international Museum Planning Consultancy…
His book ‘Art & Energy - How Culture Changes’ describes how the dominant energy system of the day defines the culture, it’s actions and values - and that energy transitions are by their very nature - therefore culture wars:
- Wood - access to land, forest, feudal
- Coal - culture of production and the industrial revolution (massive manpower)
- Oil and Gas - production to consumption
- Electricity - culture of modernism
- Nuclear - culture of anxiety
- Renewables - culture of stewardship
Dougald responds to this with ‘A virus doesn’t care about your stories’ Daniel Schmachtenberger – and asks what’s culture got to do with a pandemic...
Dougald talks about ‘Swedish exceptionalism, cultural memory and the Prime Minister’s recent speech – “Lives, health and jobs are under threat” – putting economic damage there alongside human casualties
Ed talks about British ‘deference’, obedience, over-zealous ‘busy-body’ police officers and general acceptance and respect of authority, but also British exceptionalism - lots of ‘Blitz spirit’ and war metaphors (as we discussed in Episode 4) and the Prime Minister’s lucky escape spun into ‘indomitable strength of character’ as if grit, determination and a stiff upper lip defined one’s survival chances?
Ed also refers to John Snow and and the original ‘contact tracing’ of cholera in Soho in 1850’s. Do we love/laud mavericks AFTER the fact…and do we LOVE a bit of mad, maverick conspiracy theory too?
Dougald explains Sweden has had more casualties than the other Nordic countries, but it doesn’t have the exponential rise in deaths that ought to be what happens if you don’t have a strong lockdown, and says it’s been a bit humbling for him having been deeply troubled by what felt like a relatively casual approach here, to see that it’s not playing out in the way that a lot of people feared, perhaps due to local, culturally specific factors – the amount of “social distancing” within the existing norms?
And is there an element of something getting lost in translation? Are there indirect means of influencing behaviour that are almost illegible to those of us not bred into the Swedish way of doing things, but that are having a major effect?
Ed reflects on the role of leadership right now too…
In uncertainty we seek familiarity - but unfortunately the reality of evolving understanding means leaders are having to constantly revise what they say, as new evidence emerges, new guidance, sometimes contradictory, is issued. Is it a time in which deeply held beliefs can turn out to be completely wrong?
Leadership right now feels a lot more like ‘holding space’ for vulnerability, creating psychological safety - but being really honest, able to admit ‘not knowing’ and having permission not to be a hero.
We conclude with a good letter from the CEO of AirBnB to employees: ‘We don’t know when travel will return. When it does it will be different’
Are they returning to the idea of human connection - real people in real homes. What does it mean to “Travel like a human”...feels like a humbling
Does a culture need to be broken by beauty, truth or its own consequences in order to be opened up to real change?