Special Event: The Unmachined Coffee House

3Rs of Unmachining Unpacked & Front Porch Republic Conference Report

Ten Pound Island by Childe Hassam, 1896

Peco and I are currently working on our next article together, which should come to your inbox by the end of October. In the meantime, we hope that you’ll enjoy what we we have planned for next week. ¹

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Question: How do you bring together readers from 50 States and 73 countries for an online, live discussion² of the 3Rs of Unmachining, while also finding out what insights were shared on “Living as Humans in a Machine Age” at the Front Porch Republic Conference?

Answer: By hosting “The Unmachined Coffee House” with special guests

Hadden Turner

(Over the Field) ,

Dixie Dillon Lane

(The Hollow), and

Nathaniel Marshall

(The Blue Scholar)!

My husband

Peco

and I are excited to offer this special event for paid subscribers of

School of the Unconformed

and

Pilgrims in the Machine

on

Saturday, October 28th at 3 PM EST³

“The Unmachined Coffee House” event will be hosted by

Peco

and myself, and will include special insider reports from Dixie, Hadden, and Nathaniel on the Front Porch Republic Conference, including

Paul Kingsnorth

’s keynote speech. In the second part of the event, we open up the floor to questions and discussion. This would include:

• Discussing their observations and impressions

• Reflecting on their insights against the backdrop of the 3Rs of Unmachining

• Exploring any new ideas that might arise

If you are interested in attending this live online event please respond in the comment section below, so that we can gauge numbers( a simple “I’ll be there!” will do⁴). We would be very interested to hear about any specific questions that you might like to discuss.

We would also like to extend a special offer for this event (so it will actually cost you less than a Starbucks coffee to attend). Receive a 20 % discount if you upgrade to a paid subscription by October 28th! See details here:

The Unmachined Coffee House Special

Old Mumford House by Childe Hassam, 1918

While we are speaking of specials, Ignatius Press is generously offering a 20% discount on Exogenesis to coincide with The Front Porch Republic Conference and “The Unmachined Coffee House” event⁵. The novel clearly echoes the focus of the conference “Living as Humans in a Machine Age”, weaving both technological and spiritual themes. It presents a vision of the future in which society has become fully divided into an advanced technological megacity on the one hand, and a traditional, family-oriented society on the other. If you have enjoyed reading essays here and on

Pilgrims in the Machine

, you will find many of the themes reflected in this dystopian, yet hopeful story.

“The finest dystopian novel I have read in years. A futuristic nightmare that feels all too credible. Peco Gaskovski’s novel is a worthy successor to Huxley’s Brave New World with an added ingredient missing from most dystopian novels—hope.”
—Fiorella de Maria, Author, Father Gabriel Mystery series

The Cedar Lot, Old Lyme, by Childe Hassam, 1904

For those of us how are not able to attend the Front Porch Republic conference in person, I have selected a few articles from the FPR archive that touch on the 3Rs of Unmachining: Recognize, Remove, Return, and may provide added meat for next week’s discussion.

Learning through Language: Education and Electronic Media by T. David Gordon

“Your brain has been shaped; not by Big Brother, not by your parents, not by the public school system. It has been shaped, neurologically, by electronic, image-based media. Just as important, your brain may not have been shaped by frequent exposure to sustained and nuanced reasoning.”

What Tolkien Can Teach Us About Twitter by

L. M. Sacasas

“It is also true that Twitter’s temptations should appear especially malicious to anyone with localist sympathies. It can foster dissatisfaction with the constraints of place and time, and it tends to disorder our relationship to both.”

Planting Our Flag in the Real World: Parents Take the Postman Pledge by Matt Stewart

“As John Senior said, “… [W]e are a rooted species, rooted through our senses in the air, water, earth and fire of elemental experience.” Were Senior alive today, he would be aghast at the alienating effects of technological media, removing us ever further from our rootedness in real things, elemental things. Sensitive to this problem, our Postman Pledge group is attempting to foster our connections to real things, like the natural world, through face-to-face activities in beautiful settings.”

Conservatives Should Take Another Look at Cohousing by David Larson

“As digital technology isolates many of us in our home, education, work, and social lives, having a living arrangement that facilitates actual face-to-face engagement could be invaluable. What little study has been done on whether cohousing achieves this overwhelmingly suggests it improves both physical and mental health. That’s not surprising considering studies on happiness and health in general show how damaging isolation can be and how beneficial relationships are.”

A Recipe for a Festival by

Anthony Esolen

“In both of those Italian towns, it was as it was also in those Pennsylvania towns, that your neighbors are your cousins, or your cousin’s cousins, or cousins to your cousin’s neighbor, and that means that you all fit in, somehow, and there are no real strangers, at least not after you say your name.

Such people can come together for common work, common play, and common celebration; the second thing that is essential. I said that they can do so, but it really is not so much a possibility as it is the perfectly natural expression of their neighborhood, their belonging to one another.”

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Hope to see you next week!

Ruth & Peco

Woodchopper by Childe Hassam , 1902

1. Note: The next Latin/Greek stem installment for paid subscribers will come to your inbox the first week of November along with some a special Classic Learner’s Edition of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.

2. I admit that meeting “online” for an “unmachining” event is an oxymoron. Yet we are trying to take the discussion to a more personal, conversational level, which is a step in the right direction.

3. The choice of this time was very deliberate as subscribers in California (and the rest of the west coast) could join us over lunch, those in Texas (and other CST locations) would be putting down their little ones for a nap, people in New York (or us in Ontario) would be having some afternoon coffee, while subscribers across the pond would still be awake and could join over a cup of tea. So really, there seems to be little excuse that the timing doesn’t work (unless of course, you are in Australia or thereabouts) :)

4. No need to respond again if you have already confirmed your interest last week.

5. This discount applies from Oct 21st to 31st.