Nostalgic Living
No sooner had the discussion ambled into the interstices of energy, poverty, and romanticism for the simple life than commenter Biker Chick drew our attention to a lengthy report in Bari Weiss’s online publication The Free Press about precisely this trend.
As we know, journalism sometimes seems a bit superficial in its labeling. Reporters have to come up with words to name things they report on, after all, and to be worthy of news reporting, it at least has to be new. Thus, a lot of reporting overuses the term “movement”, when the phenomenon in question is often not so much “new” as it is merely new to the journalist. The resultant “new movement” might be moving somewhere, or it might continue to exist somewhere at the margins of society.
In this case, Free Press correspondent Olivia Reingold attended a back-to-nature jamboree launched recently at Coeur D’Alene, Idaho. The participants were families who had decided to embark on a new-fangled effort to eliminate modernity from their lives as much as possible in the hopes of finding the greater physical and spiritual health presumed to have been common among our forebears.
The report tells the story of several attendees and their shared community of purpose. The image drawn is of modern, well-educated parents, often inspired by a pious religious spirit, who want their children to grow up free of what they believe are unhealthy modern technologies, ranging from mass-produced, processed foods (a frequent obsession of this blog) to always-on digital devices. Calling themselves “homesteaders,” these families responded to the Covid pandemic by going to the countryside, against the general relentless urbanization trend.
The event gives off an aura of being something of a specialized trade fair, where participants learn about products, services, and skills for traditional, pre-industrial folkways from successful practitioners. There are also similarities to cosplay or LARPing (live-action role-playing), with attendees dressing up in old-fashioned garb as they practice 19th Century and earlier farming techniques.
Reingold narrates the general vibe:
Out of the two dozen homesteaders I spoke with, most were religious—either Catholic or Christian—and many struggled with health problems that they said Western medicine failed to treat. At least half a dozen told me they were in dire straits, struggling with autoimmune disease, stomach ulcers, and allergies, until they started growing their own food. Some attributed their original illness to “vaccine injury,” as one mother put it.
But these are not the isolated, paranoid prepper types that mainstream media mocks. Nearly 60 percent of homesteaders in the U.S. have a bachelor’s degree or higher compared to just under 40 percent of the general public. The average homesteader, according to a survey of almost 4,000, is married, under 50, and religious.
The report depicts well-meaning people looking for solutions to problems they feel have resulted from modern industrialized society. They are seeking ways to reduce the harmful effects, as they see them, by turning back the civilizational clock. They are attempting to solve the problems for themselves and by themselves, rather than attempting to force these changes on everyone through political pressure.
As the organizers say of their own purpose:
Find others who have been in your boots, faced the same challenges, and found how to overcome them.
Homesteading can be lonely and while it lessens our dependency on a larger system it shouldn't be done alone. Homesteaders should be community-sufficiency, where we have those in our corner who help us when we need them, share ideas, and support one another.
You'll leave the conference with new relationships with the speakers, sponsors, vendors, and most importantly- other attendees who are just like you.
We thank Biker Chick for the tip, while adding a cautionary counterpoint linked by CynthiaW in comments, a report from the New York Post about a group that tried to move back to nature and failed. This item is considerably darker, overlaid with that publication’s intrusive advertising. If you go there, be sure to set your ad blocker to “stun”.
I bought some ironic soap for Sons B and C, and I was just wrapping it when I noticed the package said, "Never tested on animals, just bad interns."
Good morning, everyone. I saw this really pretty flowering plant at the zoo, but Cooperative Extension says it's very thorny, and the seeds are poisonous, so I won't get one.
https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu/plants/erythrina-herbacea/