In this conversation, Daniel Firth Griffith and Hadden Turner of Over The Field explores the themes of agrarianism, localism, and the challenges of dismantling the consumeristic system in the face of a climate emergency.
We cover topics such as the refuge of authenticity, the concept of the machine, the tension between industrialism and agrarianism, the challenge of time and scale, the delusion of modernity and consumerism, resilience in the face of a climate emergency, and the need for consumerism to die. The conversation highlights the importance of locally adapted farming practices and the role of individuals and communities in creating change, from the inside out.
The conversation explores the question of what we are trying to save in the face of the climate emergency. It delves into the importance of focusing on the local place and disentangling ourselves and our communities from the desire to be everything to everyone.
Takeaways
- The machine refers to the mindset of totalizing efficiency and industrial farming, which is driven by the desire for mass production and consumption.
- Agrarian solutions are long-term and locally adapted, and they require a shift in human desires and a willingness to make sacrifices.
- Resilient local systems can be fostered by supporting local farmers, paying the full price for food, and living in a way that is adjacent to the consumeristic machine.
- Dismantling the consumeristic system is a complex challenge that requires a shift in societal values and a rejection of the delusion of modernity.
- While time is of the essence in addressing the climate emergency, agrarian solutions may not match the pace needed to avert the crisis, and it may be necessary to prepare for and adapt to a future of chaos and collapse. In the face of the climate emergency, it is important to question what we are trying to save.
- Focusing on the local and taking responsibility for our immediate surroundings is crucial.
- We need to disentangle ourselves from the desire to be everything to everyone.
- Personal introspection and change are necessary for addressing the challenges we face.
- Hope can be found in the local and the seeds of renewal.
Hadden's Substack: overthefield.substack.com
Daniel's Substack: danielfirthgriffith.substack.com
Episode Transcript
Daniel Griffith (00:02.33)
Okay, welcome to another episode of Denusion. It is a rainy Tuesday day here in central Virginia. We're getting like an inch an hour. It's like 32, 33 degrees. It's some of the worst weather in my opinion for livestock and animals in general. Humans too, we fit into that classification. I have with me a new friend, Haddon Turner, who lives just northeast of London in the UK. I have been following Haddon on
uh, sub stack on his sub stack over the field. Um, I don't know. It's been, it's been quite a bit of time. I actually learned about you through Paul Kings North, which I fear is not. Um, probably unique. It seems like a lot of your writing, you know, in his writing is, is not parallel, but truly complimentary or symbiotic. And so I found you through him. I can't remember when it was a while ago and, uh, I've really enjoyed your writings.
recently reached out, thought, hey, what an amazing conversation we can have about agrarianism, local systems, de-industrializing these complexes, wherever really the conversation goes. Haden is a fellow lover of Wendell Berry, and we even read, you know, strategically read some Wendell, some of his essays before this, just to prep. And so, you know, where this conversation goes, I have no idea, but I'm excited. Haden, thank you for being here with us.
Hadden Turner (01:28.505)
Pleasure. Pleasure Daniel.
Daniel Griffith (01:30.246)
Yeah, well, why don't we start? You know, I don't like really diving deep into people's stories. You know, you have so much written online that people can dig into instead. But quickly, if you will introduce yourself. Where are you? Who are you? What are you up to? And then we'll jump into the episode.
Hadden Turner (01:45.314)
Yeah, so as you just said, I'm from the UK, where agrarianism is perhaps smaller than in the US. And that's actually something that I'm trying to do is grow agrarianism and agrarian philosophy over here. My background is more on nature conservation. So that's where I started my journey, did a degree in conservation environment in a very small institution just outside my home city.
That was what, 2015. And didn't expect to focus on farming when I began. I mean, birds are my great love. And in that sense, a little boy. And I can remember during my first year being told farmers are the bad guys. In terms of conservation, the reason why our biodiversity is so wrecked, the reason why all the metrics are going down.
a big part of that is farming. And I agreed. And my first year, I thought, yeah, I can see I can see the logic behind that. And I agree. And then I started to dig a bit deeper. And then I started to actually listen to farmers themselves and to hear of their cyber picture and their struggles. And how tough it is for them in the current economic environment in the current ecological environment. And started to think
Perhaps it's a bit more nuanced than I'm being told. So then in my final year, I started to specialize in agricultural systems. Mostly I wanted to look at East Africa, that's where my heart was, but then was guided towards more UK based. And in my final dissertation, analyzed a sustainable certification scheme. And ever since then, I've just become more and more interested with farming in general.
but the relationship between farming and the environment especially. And then a few years after I finished my undergraduate, I discovered the writings of Wendell Berry. And it was like a light bulb came on. I thought, hey, this is someone who understands the complexity of the issue, who can marry together ecology and farming and create what I call good farming. There's farming and there's good farming, capital G farming, I call it. And here was some of that. I was articulating a vision that I
Hadden Turner (04:08.298)
almost pretty much fully get on board with. And it was just a philosophical awakening really. I started writing about Wunderberry on my sub stack. And then the last year, I then did a masters looking more explicitly at agricultural systems, looking at it from a human development point of view. Again, looking at more East African systems, but then realized actually I think my heart is still.
in the UK and on UK systems. And there's big enough problems in the UK and in Europe for me to focus on. And using Wendell Berry and a few other agrarians I've come across. And that's where my writing has developed into. And that's where I feel most comfortable and feel that, yeah, in the small way that I can, my writing can have the impact on the local communities around me and localism has become a big part of my philosophy and my vision.
is a constant theme that threads through my writing. Yeah, I suppose that's my journey. That's my journey into looking at agriculture. Like I say, it's not a tool where I expected to end up, but I couldn't be happier that I've ended up looking at these issues. How we eat and how what we eat is produced, I think there's a few more important questions than that.
Daniel Griffith (05:32.158)
Yeah, yeah, most definitely. There's so much there I want to unpack. Before we do, you know, as just this afternoon, just I guess, later, later this morning, it feels like afternoon, I was digging through your sub stack just re familiarizing myself with some of your words, some of your visions. And I came across, you describe over the field your sub stack as a refuge of authenticity. And I remember reading something in one of your essays, where it said something about resistance.
You know, our resistance or action might have been a different word you used. You know, it has to inhabit the same roost that the machine, this industrialism, this modern machine using Barry's words, you know, Paul King's Norse terminology. You see this all coming together and this convergence of this, this terminology of the machine. It, we still have to resist within the roost that the machine still runs. And so, I don't know, I want to start the conversation off there maybe. What is it really?
Hadden Turner (06:14.683)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Daniel Griffith (06:29.986)
You know, what is a refuge of authenticity? What is a refuge? What is authenticity? You can dive into both of those things. And then what do you mean the machine? Let's just kind of unpack and define that word. So I think we'll be using it throughout the rest of this episode.
Hadden Turner (06:43.166)
Yeah, that's a really good question. That article that I wrote on a refuge of authenticity sort of blew up a little bit. And I was more framing that in terms of the whole big question about AI at the moment and AI writing and the fact that we're entering an era where very little of what we see in here now we can assume to be real. I've seen some things on social media where you see a picture and you think, is that real? Is it not real? And it turns out not to be real.
audio clips that are fake and I was writing that saying this is a very disorientating world, it's a world where what can we have seen to be real anymore and actually by creating writing or spaces where you can come and be certain that what you're going to encounter is reality, that for me is a refuse of authenticity. But I suppose that does have some linkages to farming and farming communities
tying it into the machine, the machine being a totally artificial form of farming. It's a farming that's predicated on industrialism, not the natural capital that we have around us. So perhaps we can see sort of pockets of farms existing in the landscape matrix as these refuges where nature and farming come together, work in synergy, and you can come and experience real food.
You can come and experience food that tastes of something. I mean, my only real claim to fame for farming is I grow heritage tomatoes in my back garden. And as a kid, I never liked tomatoes. I thought the taste was watery, it was weak and horrible, and I used to just spit them out. And then I tried the tomatoes that I grew in my back garden and it was like, I'm actually trying a tomato for the first time. I can actually taste the tomato. But in our food system, when we go to the supermarket, we're just confronted with food that is so...
bland, anyway, inauthentic, is that everything's stripped out of it. And it's become, it's become adapted to industrialism. It's become adapted to the immense food markets it's got, it's got to have traveled. It's not adapted to the consumer and the consumer's health, the consumer's senses. It's adapted to the machine. And when you're confronted with real food,
Hadden Turner (09:08.71)
It's a sensory overload, you realize what you're missing, you realize that what you've been eating, what you've been told has been real by the supermarkets, that is perfect, red tomato, no blemishes at all. That's what you want, actually. No, it's not. That's not a real authentic product. And our farms can be where real authentic food is produced, but also real authentic farming, farming that is using nature farming that is using old traditional methods, but with a new expression.
farming that is creating, I use the word convivial a lot in my writing, it's creating a convivial environment not just for the food production but for the wider nature, for the wider community and the farmer himself.
Hadden Turner (10:00.47)
Yeah, I think that's what I'm that's where I'd say I was trying to get with refuge authenticity. And it is a word that sort of stuck with people. It's a it's a phrase that provokes interest. And I'm happy to run with that and see where see where it goes. But with the machine, this is a really interesting question. I was at the Frontport Republic Conference in Wisconsin.
Daniel Griffith (10:09.525)
Hmm.
Daniel Griffith (10:20.257)
Yeah.
Hadden Turner (10:30.054)
in October, when Paul Kingsnorth was talking about the machine. And I think it's a hard definition to pin down. And lots of people write about it, Paul especially, but Wendell Berry, Wendell Berry uses different terms, Wendell Berry, his more industrial farming is his term, or industrialism. But the machine, the way I describe it is it's the mindset.
of almost totalizing efficiency. That efficiency becomes the main one thing. So it subsumes everything else into this drive for efficiency, the one best way, which tends towards a big scale, which tends towards physical machines, et cetera, et cetera. But I think what's really important,
Hadden Turner (11:29.75)
Kingstorth hasn't been as strong on this as he could have been, although in perhaps some of his later essays he did touch on this was that the machine isn't, it isn't something out there. It's actually something in us. We are the machine, the machine cannot exist without human desires. So we are in a way the machine, the modern man is the machine. We are the ones that demand cheap food. We are the ones that demand efficiency. So
Daniel Griffith (11:42.472)
Yeah.
Hadden Turner (11:59.042)
The machine is us. It is this conceptual entity that has also created a helpful tool that we can use in our writings. But it is us. It is our desires. And I think to start to address the machine, you have to start to address human desires, human nature. And Paul in his writings has said this. There's an essay I keep coming back to learning what to make. I think it's called. And he says in that explicitly that a problem of activism is fighting against this.
this conceptual other, and that actually achieves nothing. You can throw all the sticks and stones you'd like at the machine concept. It's not gonna do anything to it. Actually, we've got to address what's here, what's in us and what's in our local communities, and that's where we can make a difference. All the protesting and advocacy, they want isn't really going to make much of a difference if we're not addressing the root of the issue.
Daniel Griffith (12:38.839)
Yeah.
Daniel Griffith (12:42.243)
Yeah.
Daniel Griffith (12:47.041)
Yeah.
Daniel Griffith (12:56.902)
Yeah, Thoreau, in the beginning of Walden, writes very similarly as what you're saying. He says, and I'm not going to be able to even paraphrase it well, it's in the first maybe 20 pages of Walden, but he says that, what does he say, the modern man labors under a mistake. That's more or less a direct quote. And then he says something about how this labor, tilling ourselves into the earth as though we are the machines.
that we stand against or something like this. But it's exactly what you're saying, right? The machine is us. And so activism, you know, can only go so far. It's so interesting. You know, on a, evolve the conversation or take it into a step of agrarianism and localism. I love that you brought up the word localism. You know, it's a term I think we could really play with for a long time, let alone on this conversation. My wife and I, we used to run this organization, a nonprofit.
Hadden Turner (13:31.642)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Daniel Griffith (13:54.19)
community-owned, community-supported agriculture sort of thing. We were a part of this large grant, this nonprofit that organized a number of different regional players to build a localized food system. We had marketers, we had distributors, we had nonprofit or NGO-type organizations that were doing trainings and everything else. We were tasked with building a network, a local community of collaborating, co-supporting farmers, local agrarians.
Daniel Griffith (14:24.798)
in downtown Charlottesville. I'll never forget this. And we were talking about the progress we had made or the lack of progress over the last two years. And the leader of the organization, the leader of the outfit, if you will, was sitting across this boardroom table. And I'll never forget they said, you know, I was talking about the problems of trying to turn a local economy into a scaled climate smart commodities grant, you know, opportunity and these other things. Trying to take the small.
and really solve it by turning it into the big. It's not possible. That's the speech that I gave. And he said, no, Daniel, what you don't understand is you've built a network of small, local, human scale farmers. That's the problem. What we really need to do is kick all of these farmers to the side, plant big industrial farms on them, and then we can scale that. And he said, it's not a question about human.
versus industrial or, you know, he didn't use the word machine, but it's machine versus the local role, you know, a grand economy. But rather, you know, if climate change is real, we have to go, go time is of the essence. And we have to get the small farmers out of the way doing small things. And we have to help big farmers do big things. Well, you know, I'm think we you and I would both agree, or have the similar opinions of this, but I stood up and walked out, I couldn't, I couldn't do it anymore. You know, I just I'm not going to sit there and debate.
But I'm also not going to sit there and take that conversation for granted. Right. We lost our funding. You know, we broke out of that. They moved on. They got like $3 million under the climate smart commodities grant program from the Biden administration here in the United States. And they're using that money to do who knows what. And, uh, my point is there's good farming. I want to, I want to really center on that. What is good farming? Because there's an inherent tension and Barry writes of this. You write of this, there's inherent tension or I think Barry calls it a contest.
between the industrial need of climate change and the agrarian small-scale rural need that really while we have climate emergencies, while the earth is shifting, it's absolutely true, you can't take those large-scale problems to solve small-scale rural issues. Anyways, let's just use that as a springboard. Let's just go from there.
Daniel Griffith (16:46.318)
There's no real question.
Hadden Turner (16:49.602)
I think that that's totally right. Something that Barry writes again and again is that when you try and put large scale solutions in inverted commas on small scale problems, you end up creating new problems. Say you use a big machinery to decompact you or to break up your soil, you're going to cause more compaction down the line, you're going to create emergent problems.
So it's scale issues. And this is something that I come back to again and again and again is it's a matter of scale. Often I hear the retort when I'm talking to people about Barry and King's North and they just go, it's all great. It all sounds really, really good, but it just can't work. And I'm actually writing an essay on that at the moment, just saying, No, Barry and King's North and they can't work at a large scale.
because that is completely the wrong context. They are not writing in that. In fact, they're writing against that context, but they can work at the small scale. And from the small scale, small-scale solutions can ripple out. What I hear from farmers in the UK, especially farmers that do more novel practices, more sustainable practices, is that the farmers around them, at first, are very skeptical, almost saying what you're doing is in a way almost morally wrong to your land. You shouldn't be farming in that way. You should be doing it as...
as your forefathers has done and as we are doing. And then over time, they start to see that, okay, maybe the soil is starting to improve in this mavericks farm. And then they become interested. And then you've got these little hubs of farms that are doing things differently. It just ripples out naturally at a natural scale, at a natural pace. On the university course, we went and visited a farmer. He's farming quite a large area.
But he's doing some really novel things, some really, really novel things on his farm, sort of intercropping apples and wheat, something I've never seen before in rows. And he farms in a very chalky landscape, quite poor soil. And he said to us, when you go back to university, get up maps, look at the satellite images, look at my farm and look at the farm surrounding me and see what you see. And it was stark, the difference was absolutely stark.
Hadden Turner (19:15.222)
Here's someone who's doing good farming. And the good farming is becoming visibly expressed. And those around him are now starting to get interested. That for me is how we make change. I'm very skeptical of big, big solutions, partly because these big solutions get so easily commandeered into that machine mindset of efficiency, of everything gonna happen very quickly right now. Like what the guy was saying to you that...
This is a climate emergency. We need to act now. For me.
No. And this is something that Paul Kingston said in that essay that I alluded to earlier, when he bought his land, he spent the first few months or was it a year just observing, observing the land, walking around it, trying to understand what he's just bought before he acts. Because it's, it's foolishness and it's also pride in a way.
to think that we know how best to act on this land. No, no, we don't. I mean, the ecology is so complex, we can only begin to scratch the surface. Acting now, acting fast is only going to cause problems down the line that we're going to have to deal with that could be as severe as what climate change causes to the land, in soil erosion, in soil degradation. And also, and this is something that
essay we've just read from Barry that
Hadden Turner (20:52.974)
Good farming is locally adapted. It's adapted to what is in front of you. It's adapted to the soil that you have, not the soil that you wish you had. It's adapted to the ecology that surrounds you. And it will look different from a farm 50 miles down the road. What's suitable for your farm may not be suitable for him. The practice, the specific practices that you put on your farm.
that make up good farming for you will be different. They'll be similar, but they'll be different from someone else. But these big, big schemes with their big prescriptions, they give out the same thing and ask you to apply it on your land at checkbox. If you've ticked off this, this and this, then you can have your certification. Therefore you are sustainable. But it's not adapted to your land. And if it's not adapted to your land, it's either going to cause neglect or abuse.
not intentionally, but it will do. It's trying to force the land to do what Berry says. It's trying to force the land to do what it wasn't designed to do. And for me, I'm yet to see a big scheme, a big, fast, quick scheme that is locally adapted. If you know of one point, I mean, I'm desperate to see it, but I just don't know of a scheme that does that.
And for me, that's a big problem.
Daniel Griffith (22:19.678)
Well, there's. Yeah, yeah, no, I think I think it'd be really hard to do near impossible, potentially impossible in the sense that it seems like a locally adapted system necessitates like a respect to time to long term relationship to local adaption is a fine word, but it's really just a necessity, right of local adaption. Life can only live in a locally adapted environment if it has had time to do so. You can't rush that. Right. It's
You know, it has some inherent tension there. It's interesting in the agrarian standard, the essay that we read, you know, before this episode, you know, Barry writes that there's a contest between industrialism and agrarianism. It's interesting. And maybe we can talk about this in a minute, but he calls agrarianism the proper use of an immeasurable gift, which I would love to talk about. But anyways, keeping on industrialism in the machine really, really briefly here.
Hadden Turner (23:08.474)
Mm-hmm.
Daniel Griffith (23:13.374)
He calls it the opposite way, which is an interesting thing when you're looking at an essay and immediately the first definition of a terminology being, you know, you know, described as just not that it's not a proper use of an immeasurable gift. It's interesting. But then he gets into he says, as I know, as I remember it, I don't have the text in front of me, but he says that industrialism is it's a system that does not distinguish place.
Right? An apple is an apple. A cow is a cow. A blade of grass is a blade of grass. It has been mechanized in that way. Just in the same way that a McDonald's cheeseburger here in the United States has been mechanized to that. If you're in, you know, Arkansas, California, or Virginia, it's the exact same, the exact cost, the exact ingredients. It's, it's been industrialized, right? And so it's the industrialism of agriculture that has eradicated the placeness of the local rural adapted, you know, agrarian society. And so, you know, it's interesting. I mean,
Hadden Turner (24:03.437)
Mm-hmm.
Daniel Griffith (24:08.91)
I've been in so many conversations with people who are trying to really, I mean, they have a good heart. They're trying to do big things. And the claim of doing these big things is that we don't have time. Just like the conversation I alluded to earlier, I keynoted a conference down in Fredericksburg, Texas, this previous spring, really arguing for agrarianism, localism, etc. And the executive director of the organization that was host or the CEO, whatever he was, of the organization hosting the conference was
really upset. He sat me down for two hours zoom call after the fact and really was just saying, Daniel, we're doing really good work. This is the work that has to be done. You know, and I asked him, I said, you know, where does your beef come from? And it's a Texas organization. And they said, Montana. Now, I mean, my goodness, I'm like, the UK is the UK. And it's an amazing country, but it's quite small. Like, I don't know how many UK is you could fit in between, you know, central Texas and northwest Montana. And I said, and where's your biggest, you know, area that you
the West and the East, which again, how many UKs can fit between Texas and Virginia? How many UKs can exist between Texas and Los Angeles, California, for instance? And then when you started to dive into it, you know, the chicken was coming from five states over here and all of their venison and their elk were coming from Australia and New Zealand. And so the meat's going from Australia, New Zealand to Texas, to New York City. And we're claiming that this system is regenerative. This doesn't make any sense. Or we don't understand the word regenerative. What I mean is, and this is the question,
You know, what does it really look like when we're living here at what feels to be the end of the world? And I don't necessarily mean ecologically. I mean, it might be the end of this industrial era. It could be the end of life as we know it. I mean, however you want to phrase that, it's the end of the world as we understand it. We're living in a climate emergency.
Daniel Griffith (25:59.838)
appears to most and especially some of our listeners as the only way to get from A to B but they don't discount to see like they you know we're just going from step one to step two is that the right view in your opinion or is it turned back to the local agrarian economy that sees life as a gift a slow time infused gift the first step the ultimate step but the first step what do you think about this
Hadden Turner (26:28.143)
This is a really good question. I think this is a fundamental question and it's something that I've thought long and hard about. And it's actually something that Paul Kingsnorth touched at the Frontport Republic Conference that was really, really helpful. I'll get on to what he said in a minute. Time is of the essence, undoubtedly. If the science is correct.
We are heading in the wrong direction. We're heading in the wrong direction fast. I can't see how you can doubt that.
Hadden Turner (27:05.934)
So yes, we are heading towards something that is going to be ugly. And it's going to be ugly for specifically the world's poor. What I studied in university was Africa. It is disastrous for some of African agriculture. The rain falls at completely the wrong time. It washes away the crops and then it's drought and barren the rest of the year. It's going to be disastrous and they don't have the capacity to respond to.
culture and that will cause a whole range of other social issues that we see. The Arab Spring, for instance, was kicked off by what was partly kicked off by droughts in Russia, which caused increase in the price of cereals that was then coming down into the Middle East and North Africa causing food riots because the price of grain had just gone sky high.
That's what we're going to see in the future. We're going to see huge social issues, huge social system collapse, perhaps. So time is of the essence. People will say, well, we've got to avoid that.
Not.
For me, the solution cannot be more of what's caused the problem. Industrialism has got us into this mess. Industrialism and techno fixes have got us into this mess. And to rely on those for the future, for me, we'll just throw out bigger issues down the line. I mean, what would be next if we solve climate change at the click of our fingers? We would still be faced with a system that is eroding biodiversity. We'd be still faced with a system that is causing our soils to be washed into the ocean.
Hadden Turner (28:54.283)
So for me, industrialism cannot be the solution, but at the same time, and this is sort of starting to be what Paul Kingsnorth said, agrarian solutions are long-term solutions, but they're also solutions that are going to take time. They may not match the pace that is needed to avert the crises that we are faced with. So therefore...
I think we have to expect that things are probably going to get worse. Um, they're going to get worse if we keep on putting, pushing out industrial solutions down the line that we will pay. But the agrarian solutions, and this is sort of what Barry said to an agrarian standard as well, is that we've lived in the industrial era for so long and those patterns and behaviors and systems and institutions have become so locked in.
that we can no longer do the small scale actions on the timeframe that's needed to avert the crisis that we're facing. So I'm a pessimist. And I say to people, I'm a pessimist in terms of the big scale problems that we face, but I'm an optimist that in small areas at the local scale we can see renewal, we can see resilience. And that's by putting in place
the practice that we should have always put in place, the good farming, the good community, the resilient community, the resilient farming. And those are the systems that will be the most resilient in the face of the perhaps chaos that is on the horizon. These are the systems that I can always stand. Chris Smage is someone that I read a lot of and he thinks that the future is small farm future.
He thinks there is going to be some sort of collapse. I'm not sure about that. I've not done the thinking whether we are definitely heading for a collapse or not. But he certainly thinks we are and he says, in a way, we're going to be forced to sort of do good farming, to do resilient farming to do nature based farming, whatever you want to call it in the future, and by the by the conditions that are going to result from say a collapse of global transport chains.
Hadden Turner (31:24.848)
Why not start now? Why not start putting in the solution now, preparing for that future? And also perhaps lessening the blow that is coming by doing so.
Hadden Turner (31:40.75)
But that's not a message that people want to hear necessarily. People want the big solutions. People want the quick and easy. Not easy, but they want the quick solution. They want the grand scale solution that's going to be the thing that's going to save us all. There's nothing in history that suggests that we are immune from collapses. When we look at history, it's collapse after collapse after collapse of big societies that no one thought could collapse. Well, are we?
arrogant enough to think that that's not going to be us, to an extent? Are we arrogant enough that we can avert that with the exact same things that are causing the problem? I think it's a delusion. It's a delusion, but it's an incredibly attractive delusion.
Daniel Griffith (32:33.482)
Yeah, yeah, for sure. It's in a lot of our life. My wife and I, we do a lot of ecological monitoring and consulting for local farms. This or that. And it's so interesting. Maybe seven years ago, we started to realize that, you know, it's this, the delusion of modernity.
I should say the illusion that modernity has placed over the modern mind, be it a modern mind of a local agrarian all the way to a modern mind of a whatever, a suburbanite or city dweller or somebody who doesn't really care about these ecologically based realities. It doesn't exactly matter. It's the same delusion in the sense that a lot of these localized farms, okay, so I'll give you an example instead of talking through it.
know, the COVID pandemic as we are merging out of it and the Russian-Ukrainian War began and a lot of fertilizer prices and like you were saying, cereal grains and such, you know, just skyrocketed all over the world due to war, due to climate change and everything in between, you know, supply chain shortages and everything else that the COVID, you know, era, you know, wreaked upon global or globalism properly understood. You know, there's a lot of, you know, farms on social media and their email newsletters and different blog articles and journals and magazines. They were
You know, this is the time for the regenerative agriculture to truly rise and understand itself in the sense that, you know, while, you know, two European powers are at war with each other, no matter, you know, the COVID pandemic and distribution and, you know, supply chain shortages are wreaking havoc across the world, look at us. You know, our grass is still growing, our water is still cycling, our animals are still eating and growing and things like this. But it's, this is a delusion.
Right? Because what you'll start to notice is that their price increased, you know, their local, their, sorry, their, their local use of those inputs also increased, right? Because there's no such thing as separation in the modern world. And what I mean by that is, yes, we all live in this, you know, Charles Eisenstein based story of separation. Barry writes about it. I've seen Paul Kings North write about it. Obviously Charles Eisenstein writes about it with the story of separation. We see ourselves as isolationists, you know, et cetera, and that we need is a story of community and connection. Yeah, that's true.
Daniel Griffith (34:54.706)
is absolutely true. What I'm talking about is, you know, we see ourselves as, you know, this separate entity, where the actions of our farm somehow exist in some alternative realities, some distant universe, than the conventional paradigm that we are standing against or not entirely interested in, or trying to farm away from. But it's, it's not true at all. The second that the supply chain stops, local farm, regenerative farm, got rid of all of their pigs because they couldn't feed them.
Right? So the while those local pigs being raised in local forest, raised in a local agrarian human scale system, were quote unquote, regenerating the land while the supply chain existed, the moment that supply chain ceased to exist or increase in price by three or four fold, the pigs had to go. And so what I want to focus here on is this idea of resilience. You know, I think we've been lulled asleep in this idea of regeneration, regenerated all costs.
We need to regenerate the soils, regenerating the soil, the soil and its soil health and soil organic matter, especially in stable form. You know, it's the most important thing that we can do today. This is the narrative that we are being pitched, or at least here in the United States. And it's a fine narrative, like I've said many times, soil health matters, of course it does. But it doesn't matter as we have painted it to matter, in the sense that a soil being resilient in and of itself, with its local community thriving, doing what that community does well, thrive in its own way,
That is going to get us through this next period. You know, I can continue on, but I think the question that I want to play with here is, what does a resilient local system look like that can still stand in the place of a climate emergency? Because if the local agrarian system is not going to thwart that climate emergency, I think the question is not what we can do to increase soil health necessarily, particularly singularly.
as if life can live in a singular way. Rather, the question is, what do we have to do as humans in the modern world where the machine still rules the nest so that we can create and foster and nurture local economies, rural societies, urban societies, whatever they are, that maintain their health in face of the climate outpacing its destruction that the system can create in abundance?
Hadden Turner (37:16.894)
Yeah, yeah, what a question.
Hadden Turner (37:24.018)
Ultimately, I don't know the answer to that. And I think if someone could write the essay that answer that question, then they've solved it. But I think, off the hoof, so to speak, I think it comes down to really wanting it, being prepared to make the sacrifices and to live the sacrifices that enable that system to survive, to...
to prosper. We've got to be prepared to perhaps take a living standards hit, not so much living standards, I think that's the wrong word, but our consumptive capacity is going to have a hit if we want these systems to exist. We've got to be prepared to take a hit to disposed with income. We've got to be willing to pay the full price.
for our food that keeps these systems alive as consumers. A farm like this can only exist if it's got consumers around it who are bought in to the vision, bought into the ideal.
Hadden Turner (38:36.814)
But I don't think we have that yet. I don't think we have enough people that are willing to pay the full price for food. I mean, the food that we buy in the supermarket is cheap, but it's also incredibly costly, because it's got so many hidden costs that are locked into that cheap price that we are paying for, eventually, in terms of our health, in terms of the environment, in terms of the...
degradation to ecosystem services, ecosystem assets, I hate using those terms as their business terms, but they're what people use. There's all those hidden costs locked into that cheap price. Somehow we've got to get that message out there. But
Hadden Turner (39:23.766)
moment you start talking like this politicians even local politicians get scared because this is just not what people want to hear therefore in a way sometimes I think
some of the writers that we like and we listen to, we listen to and we read, I think they're sort of thinking that perhaps this can only be learned in a time of collapse. This can only be learned in a time of chaos to live differently, because the industrial, the mass consumeristic mind, which I forget the economist's name, but we studied him at university. The pinnacle of development for him was a mass consumeristic society.
That is the pinnacle of human development. That's where he wants us to get to in the 60s. He articulated this. Well, a mass consumeristic society is the reason why we're in the mess that we are in. It's a society that has shaken off all limits. It's a society that just wants more and more and more and actually needs more and more and more to sustain itself, to keep itself growing, to keep the GDP growing up, to keep the jobs, et cetera, et cetera. But that is the air that we breathe, that we all breathe.
that I breathe. I mean, I'm trying to disentangle myself in this system, but it's hard. And I'm someone that's like to think ecologically minded for the average person down my street, I look and think they would probably think I'm absolutely crazy if I was talking like this to them. How do we how do we go? Yeah, go ahead.
Daniel Griffith (40:34.645)
Yeah.
Daniel Griffith (40:51.358)
Right. But when you unpack it, if I could just stop you, this problem is so interesting because while they have no interest, this hypothetical person down the street, why they have no interest in your actual thoughts? Because number one, their lives are lived in such another world. They haven't been bruntly faced by the ecological reality
Perhaps you can say it like this. But also too, what I think is not being made plain, and this is what I wanna see. We live in the era of social media influencers and all these people with all of these followings and such. What I would like to see is somebody with a larger following or something, some organization, whatever it is. So social media exists, let's use it. This is my opinion. If you have followers, let's try to convey the masses, convey thoughts to the masses.
Don't be you know consumed and in such by the by the media but utilize the media to you know Build build true community. I guess is what I'm saying But anyways if you if you think about it, like if you go to McDonald's and so like right now I imagine this is a state globe with the state globally I can talk about it from United States perspective East Coast but if you go to like a local McDonald's, which is about 45 minutes away from here and In you were to order a cheeseburger you would pay like a dollar 79 or something like that for it So let's just say it, you know two dollars to make math easy
But on every single McDonald's cheeseburger, let's take out the idea of nutrient quality. Let's just totally erase that as a concept, which you know we can't do, but for sake of conversation, let's do it. Let's say one pound of beef is equal to one pound of beef, regardless of raising, regardless of locality, regardless of cooking and handling and slaughter techniques and all of that. Let's just say it's equal. Nutrient density is off the table. On one single McDonald's cheeseburger, there's about one eighth a pound of beef.
Now there's a tomato and there's pieces of lettuce and there's, you know, fake ingredients, all of the rest mayonnaise and ketchups and things that don't really have many ingredients in actual reality, corn syrups and other things. And then you have a little bun, right? And so yes, while there's other ingredients on that cheeseburger, you're getting about one eighth a pound of beef. Right? So if you actually were to look at this and again, taking nutrient density and nutrient quality off the table, when you go to the local farmer's market,
Daniel Griffith (43:07.85)
and you're buying local grass-fed and finished ground beef from your local farmer, or you're going to your local farm and buying from them directly, you're paying $7, $8 a pound for the same product. Again, same product. We know that's not totally true. It's a much better product. But for now, let's say it's the same product. And so you're paying $2 a pound for a hand. I'm sorry. You're paying $2 for an eighth of a pound, which is $16 a pound for beef. Because you know the tomato is perfectly water. I mean, local.
I mean, an organization up in Massachusetts recently has proven that in the last 20 years, I think, carrots have lost 700%, I think is how you would say it, of the nutrient density or nutrient richness. So you have to eat seven carrots for every one that you had to eat 20 years ago. And if that's true for carrots, which is a root vegetable, which is solidly fibrous, right? How much is that true also for lettuce, for tomatoes, for wheat and buns and everything more?
The story that you and I pitching, it's not like everybody has to go take all of their money and all of their savings to go actually invest into local farms foods that are so entirely costly. The local farms food is half the cost, even if the nutrients are entirely equal across the board as the McDonald's cheeseburger. But the McDonald's cheeseburger is more convenient. And don't get me wrong, there's food deserts. There's a lot of complexity here that I am skimming right over. There's food access issues.
There are so many other problems that we have to solve. We need a total arising of a new community, right? Where industrialism isn't just focusing on particular areas where it can make money, but food is everywhere. Of course there's nuance, but it's not like a new paradigm has to be born. It's not like new realities need to be born. Rather, it's to me, something needs to die. Consumerism needs to die, right? Which I think is what you're getting at.
Hadden Turner (44:55.594)
Yes, absolutely. I mean, it's yeah, I think you've hit the nail on the head consumerism needs to die.
Hadden Turner (45:04.979)
the issue of that is there is a whole lot of invested interest in keeping consumerism alive and well. And that's the issue. That's the issue. You've got so much of our modern world is predicated on consumerism growing and growing and growing. The shareholder value keeping on growing. The jobs everywhere.
Daniel Griffith (45:12.451)
Yes, which yes
Hadden Turner (45:33.078)
Most jobs, consumerism keeps those growing.
Hadden Turner (45:40.402)
And I just look, I just think, how can we go about dismantling this system when the money, but also the power behind this consumeristic machine, to use the terminology again, the machine, because I think it's so apt with consumerism. How can you go about dismantling that? I really, really don't know.
apart from the only thing that I can think of, the only solution that I have is just little pockets of communities, little people that have decided to disentangle themselves to live an alternative lifestyle that's some unhelpfully framed adjacent to the machine. You know you've still got to live alongside the beast, the majority of people around you are still going to be consumeristic to the hilt.
but you live adjacent to them. And perhaps show that there is an off ramp, there is another way to live. And the overtime to show that it's better. It's better to have real people in front of you. It's better to have products that last. It's better to have your enjoyment being that which, apart from the travel to get out there, doesn't cost you a thing when you go and walk in.
nature creation doesn't cost you anything. You're not consuming anything. You're, you're, you're looking at a magnificent view or whatever you come back refreshed. We don't need the latest gadget to keep us entertained. And just showing that is a better, that is a better way.
That's the only thing that I can think of. But when you've got, when the air that we breathe, when the air that everyone around us is breathing, when the air that we ourselves breathe is consumerism, when you're confronted with adverts, the moment you leave your door. And I used to, I used to work in London. Um, and I was thinking, why am I so tired? Why am I on so edge when I travel on the transport? And then I realized it was from the moment I step on the train, to the moment I step off, I've got.
Hadden Turner (47:59.766)
adverts around me everywhere telling me you need this, you need this, this is what will make you complete. And it's exhausting. You just cannot find space and time to just to think. I tried reading books or whatever, but you just confronted that now they move, now they move, now they're digital adverts that are screaming to catch your attention. That's the message that in the city you are constantly bombarded with.
Daniel Griffith (48:08.503)
Right.
Hadden Turner (48:29.61)
And it is going to take something I don't know what to dismantle that but to be dismantled, it needs to be. And perhaps, perhaps these writers are correct. Perhaps it will be forced upon us. Perhaps if the global transport systems collapsed, if we reached peak oil, or if China took on Taiwan, for instance, perhaps the global transport systems that were
were pretty resilient during COVID may not be resilient enough to abstain those kind of things and maybe then the whole consumeristic thing would unravel but for me still the latent desire is there even if the means are taken away from the consumeristic mindset is still fully ingrained within people to dismantle that
Yeah, I don't know. And I think, in a way, we need to admit that we don't know.
Daniel Griffith (49:27.17)
Yeah.
Hadden Turner (49:30.198)
And that, yeah, perhaps it is beyond us. It's not the message we want to hear, but perhaps it is beyond us.
Daniel Griffith (49:37.398)
think the question is, is what are we trying to save? And I mean that from a modern climate emergency perspective, you know, been a part of so many Zoom, so many conversations, so many webinars, so many, you know, nonprofit brainstorm work groups, etc. And you know, we're always trying to save the world, right? That's the thing that everybody is saying. Trying to save the world, we've got to save the world, we don't have time, we don't have time to do what? Well, we don't have time to not save the world, it's all about saving the world.
Hadden Turner (49:58.679)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Daniel Griffith (50:07.05)
You know, and let's just pretend like the idea of the world, quote unquote, is something that we have to now define what it is. The question is, what is the thing we're trying to save? Are we trying to save modern humanity as it sits currently today? Are we trying to save our understanding of the world? Or, you know, as you know, in the middle of writing this book about rewilding and a couple other subjects, this and that. And, you know, it's really interesting. There's like you're saying, there's a lot of writers.
um... that when you really begin to think about these things you just you can't but run into them that are that are writing you know ducal time is one of them will be on the podcast in a couple of weeks you wrote at work in the ruins uh... northern european brilliant thinker his book at work in the ruins yes that's what it's called uh... good book great book yeah and uh... i mean that's what he's pitching out to i think anyways the point is to be on topic here it's what are we trying to save you know i think there's a lot of
Hadden Turner (50:54.353)
with communicates.
Daniel Griffith (51:05.65)
individuals trying to save this thing called the modern world. Um, you know, but I was in a conversation the other day with someone and I just asked, I, you know, I don't know.
I don't know if Earth, this living being all around us from her squirrels to her herself to her trees, etc. I don't know if she cares about this modern human, you know, created world. Like I was again, all these random thoughts in my head, I feel a little bit ADHD today. But I was listening to this comedian the other day. And he was like, what's up with money? And the crowd kind of just giggled a little bit. And he's like, we created this.
Like we're a servant to it, but we created it. It doesn't work for us. We have to work for it, but we created it. Like this was our idea. What happened? You know, and the crowd is roaring and laughing at this point, but it's so true. You know, so many of the measures that we are utilizing to solve climate change are only being utilized because one, we created them, and two, we are petrified for their uncreation. And you use the word disentanglement, you know.
Hadden Turner (51:47.886)
Mm-hmm.
Hadden Turner (52:01.358)
Mm-hmm.
Hadden Turner (52:12.331)
Mm-hmm.
Daniel Griffith (52:15.226)
previously and I think that's a great way to look at this. We need to disentangle ourselves from the concept of what has been created so that something new can be reborn. Now what that something new is, number one, we don't really know but if we had to guess it would be something that is simultaneously very old. And you know as I see it.
Hadden Turner (52:35.822)
I think I love what you've just said about what are we trying to save. I've not thought that before. And no, I would hate if my writings contributed to saving what we currently have.
Daniel Griffith (52:48.441)
Yes, yes, 100%.
Hadden Turner (52:50.474)
Because because that is that is totally not what I am trying to do. That is not what I believe any of these writers that we've discussed, who are writers that the way I define them is that they are prepared to ask the questions in the way that are hard that no one else is willing to ask. Do you go high and pull Kings North, etc, Wendell Berry, especially
Hadden Turner (53:14.474)
Yeah, we are not trying to save what we've currently got.
Hadden Turner (53:20.334)
So are we really trying to save it? I argue no. But what we are trying to save is that we are trying to save the good that has been left behind, the good that still exists out there, the good that still exists in the community, in the ecology. And you're right. Those are all old things. Those are all things that our time tests have proven their goodness, proven their worth and their resilience. That's what we're trying to save, or that's what we're trying to restore.
Daniel Griffith (53:24.694)
better question.
Hadden Turner (53:52.067)
But to get back to this question as well, I mean, what you just said at the beginning that you hear these people saying, we want to save the world. You want to save the world, you hear it in school, you hear it in university, at your graduation ceremony, what you're told, go out there and change the world, save the world. I just want to shout back. No, that's a complete arrogant mindset. Who am I to save the world? I mean, no, I can't.
A, I don't know what every single continent wants or what's best for every single continent. No, I'm arrogant to assume that. But also, I'm not responsible for saving the world. I've not been given the responsibility of the world on my shoulders. That's a crippling burden. That's why I think that the climate, the climate change, the climate change protesters are so, in a way, so can be so hysterical. It's because they're burdening themselves with a burden that they just cannot shoulder. You cannot.
feel responsible for saving the world because you just can't. You cannot. And to do so, then you'll start leaning on these big techno fixes and other things. But what you are responsible for is the land that's in front of you, that's outside your front door. That actually is your responsibility. And actually, when we start looking at saving the world, we forget what's right in front of us. And we forget the soil that is in our backyard.
You can be the greatest climate change protester you like, but if your garden is losing soil, if your local environment is not healthy, then I would ask what you're doing. You've not...
You've not focused your attention on your first priority. You've not focused your attention on what A, you can do and B, what you should be doing.
Hadden Turner (55:45.794)
That is to save or restore or to reinvigorate your local space. And that's what I'm trying to do. That's what I'm trying to do in my writings is when I write, I want to be thinking about the local woods that are near me, the local farms that are near me. Um, the local places that are around me, that that's, that's what I'm writing to influence and I hope that the people that read my stuff, they're thinking of their local place, they're not thinking of.
Say for my UK audience, they're not thinking of Virginia. They're thinking about Lancashire, Hampshire, wherever they are. And for my American audience, they're thinking about their local place and thinking, how can I influence my local place? I mean, I'm about to do a reading group on Wendell Berry with some of my sub-stack people. And that's the question I want us to ask is how do we apply Berry to our place?
not to this world, not to some abstract reality, but to the place that I am in, because the place I am in is the place that I can affect a positive change, but also I'm responsible for like what Barry said, and he wants to get onto this and I wanted to get onto it too. The responsible for gift that we've been given, the gift of our local place. That's the scale that we should be operating at. Now that's not glamorous.
That's not headline catching. But again, I come back to the essay that Paul Kings North wrote. He puts in that a great quote that someone said to him, be famous for 15 miles. Be famous 15 miles away. Be known for the good that you do for 15 miles. And then beyond that, you're forgotten. You're a nobody, but you're famous with that 15 miles for the good work you've done. Be a local advocate for your local place. That's what you can do. That's what you should do.
Hadden Turner (57:42.454)
And that's, that is a burden to put on your shoulders. I mean, that is hard enough. You've got a lifetime's work if they're in front of you. And if everyone was focusing on their local places, the change that would happen would be enormous. Um, and the, the sort of the paralysis, the action paralysis that we're faced with when we think of these massive large scale problems, that would all just fade into the background a lot better if we just focused on what's in front of us. Um, and that I think is ultimately what I'm trying to do.
with my writings is just encourage people to just operate at that human and humane scale, the scale that fits our humanity. And that for me is local.
Daniel Griffith (58:28.894)
Yeah, yeah, it gets down to the question, you know, and I love to ask this at the courses we get to teach, you know, we'll go out into the field and watch sheep graze or, you know, goats forage or cattle graze and you just, there's no answer to this question. But it's like, what are they trying to do? Like, what is that cow they're trying to do? And again, we don't have the answer, neither should we animate, you know, improperly some cows thinking a cognitive process, of course. But there's a realization that must sit in when you realize that the beauty
Hadden Turner (58:44.106)
Thank you.
Daniel Griffith (58:57.278)
of a regenerating environment, be it a global world or a local, you know, rural economy, or the soils beneath the cows feet and everything in between. The beauty that you realize is that it seems to me, to the best of our modern abilities, which could be improved, that cow is just trying to be a cow. It's trying to live, it is trying to have relationship, it's trying to consume, and it's doing so to the best of its abilities. And again,
It could be having thoughts that we will never understand, of course, but it seems content in this. It seems content in this. And even if that is not perfectly accurate, if the cow were to speak and they were to disagree with us, I think it is an amazing learning lesson for us humanity who wants to be everything to everyone in everywhere. Right. And I love that quote, you know, be something to everybody within 15 miles, like be somebody within that, like, yes, be a local player. But I think what has to be disentangled.
Hadden Turner (59:29.583)
Mm-hmm.
Daniel Griffith (59:53.014)
You know, when we're asking the question, you know, what are we trying to save? I think you so properly extended that to like, what needs to die? Like what, what aspects of us need to die in order to like really step into this new moment, um, which is also simultaneously a very old moment. You know, I think it's the disentanglement of wanting to be everything to everyone. That social media, that the internet, that all of this publicity, then all of the ability for us to care about what's going on way over there.
in views within us. We have to disentangle us from the narrative that right here, right now doesn't matter because something else needs to be done elsewhere. Right? It's that the family, the hearth, the local, you know, neighbors, environment and community, these things don't matter. It's the things out on the periphery that has to matter. And there are things out there that do matter. Right? Like you're saying, your heart constantly goes over to East Africa. Like that, that also matters. We are truly living in a global
Hadden Turner (01:00:31.908)
Mm-hmm.
Daniel Griffith (01:00:48.302)
global world and you have the ability to care about those things because of technology and transportation and everything else. Those things are going to stay for a while. My point is when it really gets down to it at its deepest moment of its core, it's what needs to die. That is, what do we need to disentangle from our own lives to start to truly be, to quote De Gaulle Hinde, and you know I've been reading his book in preparation for our conversation in a few weeks, you know what needs to be at work in the ruins?
Like what do we need to be content with disassociating and disentangling? Like what is the work of the moment? Right. It's as he says, it's to be a hospice, you know, for this, this modern, modern world, which I love.
Hadden Turner (01:01:28.694)
Yeah, yeah, there's so much there. What needs to die?
Hadden Turner (01:01:38.394)
I think we have to be honest to ourselves. We have to start with us, I think.
Hadden Turner (01:01:46.33)
can't just look at what we what we would like to die in this big system out there because at the end of the day the powers that be the institution the system and the machine whatever you want to call it is so big and strong that it's foolish to think that it's going to die it's foolish to think that the invested interest is going to happily let that fade into the distance no it's absolutely not again what
I can I come down to what are we responsible for? What are we responsible for? We're responsible for ourselves, our families, our communities. What needs to die and those is the first question we need to ask. And that's the hard question, because it involves us, it involves our desires. I think what needs to die in me. And I think we've already touched and I think a fundamental part of what needs to die. And it's that love of convenience, that love of ease, that love of
instantaneousness. I did an essay on the burden of speed, the fact we want everything to be quick, we want everything to be now and that becomes, in ecology, we call it a shifting baseline syndrome, that we assume now has always been now because the changes that have brought us up to now have been so slow, so slow to be imperceptible, that we think that next day delivery has always been the case.
well, perhaps the teenagers that have grown up have always thought next day delivery has always been the case. No, it's not been always the case. That the speed of cars, the speed of transportation has always been the case. No, it never used to be like that. I mean, I mean, we have a car and I'm very grateful that we have a car and I'm very grateful that we can get to A to B quickly.
But I do have to ask myself that does put me in a frame of mind where I'm expecting everything to be quick. And in what ways does that need to die? In what ways is my desires is my expectations causing the very problems that I'm writing against? It's a it's a it's an uncomfortable question. But that's where I start. I start with what needs to die in me. And then I start looking at my community. I start looking at my country.
Hadden Turner (01:04:09.558)
That's where I start the questions there. No, that doesn't mean I'm completely, or that we should be completely oblivious to what's going around us at the grander scale. I mean, you're quite right. I have a heart for East Africa. I've been out there. I've seen the issues that are out there and the immense poverty that's out there. And...
I think, yeah, what good can I do for that? The good that I can do for that is to support people who are on the ground there, and to give them the money or whatever the resources to enact the local change in their communities and preferably that would be indigenous Kenyans that will be doing that work and not Westerners who go over there thinking they know what these communities want.
Hadden Turner (01:04:54.618)
But yeah, what needs to die. What needs to die me is the first question. The uncomfortable questions being prepared to ask those income uncomfortable questions. And for me, it does. Most of the time it boils down to convenience.
Hadden Turner (01:05:14.978)
We are so in love with our lives as they currently are. We're so in love with convenience that we've become blind to the scars that convenience leaves behind on our communities and on our.
Waking up to that fact is the first stage. That's why Barry is so good because Barry is not afraid to say what no one else really is saying. He's not afraid to make people angry. He's not afraid to make people uncomfortable. He shines that penetrating light. He's been called sort of a modern day prophet. And in certain cases, that is true.
Hadden Turner (01:05:58.066)
And he shines the uncomfortable light on me, forces me to ask those hard questions. Yeah, and he shows he shows very well what needs to die. And that's what even the people that I've been communicating with who disagree with his solutions, they all admit he's showing very clearly what needs to die. And
I think for listeners if they've not read like The Burial Kings North that is a great way of finding out what needs to die.
solutions that's a harder thing and that's going to involve sacrifice and pain.
Hadden Turner (01:06:41.834)
That's where to start. But yeah, that's what I'd say. But it's a question that could take up volumes, volumes and volumes and volumes of work to explore that question.
Hadden Turner (01:07:00.898)
But for me, and I repeat myself again and again and again, it's got to start with me, you, the listeners, it's got to start with us. And it's got to start with us for a crucial reason, this has just come to mind, for a crucial reason that the industrialists, the big agroists, the climate change deniers, etc, what they love is when they find a hypocrite.
it. When they find someone who is saying all these things and is not actually living it out, because then they can dismiss them, when they feel they have the right to dismiss them. I've seen this so many times on social media, is that say some ex-politician is going on about climate change, and then they're found to have used a private jet to fly to the conference. And everything that politician has said, it could be great, it could be brilliant, but everything they've just said has gone out the window.
Oh, they're a hypocrite. Oh, look at them. They don't practice what they preach. And then that gives the detractors the right to just dismiss what they've just said. So it is so important to start with ourselves and start with that integrity of getting our own house in order and taking the time to do that. And it's going to take time. And it will be uncomfortable. Dying is always uncomfortable. I don't know why we've romanticized it in some circles that.
taking up your crosses is a glamorous thing. No, it's a very uncomfortable thing. Dying is always uncomfortable. And dying to the desires that we have lived and breathed and is going to be uncomfortable. And everything is going to, everything inside you and also everything inside the system and the industrialists and the advertisers are gonna be screaming, you don't need to do this.
Daniel Griffith (01:08:57.294)
Right, right, right. Brilliant, absolutely brilliant. No, this has been a great conversation, Hadden. Thank you so much. From Barry to climate change to localism, grarianism, machines, and everything in between. To me, what's gonna resonate is just the question, what needs to die? Because there's a lot of it in my own life. As we all work towards this.
Hadden Turner (01:08:58.123)
It's hard.
Daniel Griffith (01:09:25.93)
action at the end of the world, what does it really look like? You know, to have something left over, to love what we've created to some degree and let go that which, you know, needs to be uncreated. I think it's a huge question, but it's a very hopeful question. And so, you know, I'm really, you know, happy and blessed to explore it with you. Thank you so much for being here with us.
Hadden Turner (01:09:43.778)
Yeah, and I just want to end on that. You've just said the word hope. And I think that is really important, as it can be so demoralizing looking at these issues. It can be so demoralizing reading Berry. I mean, Berry says that in the essay we've just read, that he wishes that he never had to write what he wrote. And he wishes that 25 years after he wrote the original Unsettling of America, that it wouldn't be applicable anymore. He wants to write himself out of existence. But it hasn't happened.
Daniel Griffith (01:09:46.094)
Please.
Hadden Turner (01:10:15.603)
So we need hope and where we find hope is again in the local. In the local and what we have responsible for, that's where we can see seeds of renewal. That's where we need to have our hope and we do need hope because it can be a demoralizing place. So hope is a great way to end this, I think.
Daniel Griffith (01:10:35.57)
Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. I'll leave it at that. With hope, Hadden, thank you so much for being here. We'll have to do this again. I have plenty of notes that we didn't get to jump into, so we'll do it again soon.
Hadden Turner (01:10:48.014)
Yeah. Brilliant.
