Dougald Hine: Post-doom with Michael Dowd and Barbara Cecil
Dougald Hine interviewed by Michael Dowd and Barbara Cecil (co-host) in an episode of Dowd's "Post-doom Conversations", filmed November 2019. Title: "Living in a Time of Endings." Time-coded table of topics: 00:17 Previews 1, 2, and 3 03:12 Conversation begins 03:58 DH (Dougald Hine): story of his co-founding The Dark Mountain Project" 05:43 DH: importance of creating a space where people feel safe to "share their doubts and their fears and their darknesses and their uncertainties without a pressure to put on a face of positivity or to move quickly to action or answers." 06:25 DH: his work and projects since moving on from The Dark Mountain Project 06:57 DH: project (with Anna Bjorkman) is a school called Home for "regrowing a living culture among the ruins". 07:56 DH: cites Anthony McCann for "lifting up the words and looking underneath" 09:02 DH: "The end of the world as we know it is not the end of the world full stop." 09:39 DH: "The end of the world as we know it is also the end of a way of knowing the world." 10:08 DH: "what it means to be living in a time of endings, which is a quieter way of naming this" 10:22 MD (Michael Dowd): speaks of his using Dark Mountain manifesto in his own talks and sermons 11:05 BC (Barbara Cecil): asks DH, "What have learned about doing endings well?" 11:50 DH: his experience in passing the Dark Mountain project on to others 15:05 DH: "It takes endings for there to be room for other things to begin." 15:38 DH: collaboration with Vanessa Andreotti and indigenous wisdom; "hospicing modernity" 18:10 DH: "how to walk this strange thin line between a desperate optimism (that is really wishful thinking) on the one side, and a simple despair that is kind of narcissistic ..." 19:22 DH: role models elsewhere: Gustavo Esteva 20:14 BC: asks DH to speak to the quality of conversation 21:00 DH: importance of "a quality of gentleness" especially in the brokenness 22:29 DH: aptness of "post-doom" in that conversation "doesn't need to be freighted with doom" 22:44 BC: What place does creativity and art play with being with one another? 23:04 DH: exploring "the role of art under the shadow of climate change" 26:52 DH: for modernity, the artist role includes serving as "the trickster figure" 29:24 MD (Michael Dowd): How did you wake up to the global predicament? 30:04 DH: As a teenager, climate concern already well recognized, book by Alan Garner 32:29 DH: "What I can know is that sooner or later it all does end, and I have to live in the face of that knowledge. I have to piece together whatever meaning I can find on my journey through life with the knowledge of endings at every scale: my own mortality and that of everybody I love to the larger scale of endings — knowing that that's all built into the story and that it doesn't cancel anything out." 34:08 DH: recounts hitting "panic" awareness and the stages of climate grief that ensued 36:50 DH: going from knowledge held mentally to experiencing and being changed by it; "ultrapessimistic certainty" is not the final stage. 39:48 BC: quotes DH essay "Negotiating the Surrender" 2019, written for Extinction Rebellion 41:07 DH: "surrender — not sustainability"; role of surrender in addictions recovery. A 5-minute video of his "Surrender" speech is posted here: https://youtu.be/scCL--Oovw4 44:00 DH: three key authors in shaping him: Alastair McIntosh, John Berger, Ivan Illich 45:57 DH: anger can motivate youth, but need different motivator post-youth 49:24 DH: about being the father of a young child and affirming parenting Youtube playlist of all Post-Doom video conversations: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcAlqMeyeaW91q0fUuOWHKEaGTCL41ItE Post-Doom Conversations website (videos, audios, and resources): https://www.postdoom.com/ Dougald Hine's website: http://dougald.nu/ Dark Mountain Project website: https://dark-mountain.net/
Dougald Hine interviewed by Michael Dowd and Barbara Cecil (co-host) in an episode of Dowd's "Post-doom Conversations", filmed November 2019. Title: "Living in a Time of Endings." Time-coded table of topics: 00:17 Previews 1, 2, and 3 03:12 Conversation begins 03:58 DH (Dougald Hine): story of his co-founding The Dark Mountain Project" 05:43 DH: importance of creating a space where people feel safe to "share their doubts and their fears and their darknesses and their uncertainties without a pressure to put on a face of positivity or to move quickly to action or answers." 06:25 DH: his work and projects since moving on from The Dark Mountain Project 06:57 DH: project (with Anna Bjorkman) is a school called Home for "regrowing a living culture among the ruins". 07:56 DH: cites Anthony McCann for "lifting up the words and looking underneath" 09:02 DH: "The end of the world as we know it is not the end of the world full stop." 09:39 DH: "The end of the world as we know it is also the end of a way of knowing the world." 10:08 DH: "what it means to be living in a time of endings, which is a quieter way of naming this" 10:22 MD (Michael Dowd): speaks of his using Dark Mountain manifesto in his own talks and sermons 11:05 BC (Barbara Cecil): asks DH, "What have learned about doing endings well?" 11:50 DH: his experience in passing the Dark Mountain project on to others 15:05 DH: "It takes endings for there to be room for other things to begin." 15:38 DH: collaboration with Vanessa Andreotti and indigenous wisdom; "hospicing modernity" 18:10 DH: "how to walk this strange thin line between a desperate optimism (that is really wishful thinking) on the one side, and a simple despair that is kind of narcissistic ..." 19:22 DH: role models elsewhere: Gustavo Esteva 20:14 BC: asks DH to speak to the quality of conversation 21:00 DH: importance of "a quality of gentleness" especially in the brokenness 22:29 DH: aptness of "post-doom" in that conversation "doesn't need to be freighted with doom" 22:44 BC: What place does creativity and art play with being with one another? 23:04 DH: exploring "the role of art under the shadow of climate change" 26:52 DH: for modernity, the artist role includes serving as "the trickster figure" 29:24 MD (Michael Dowd): How did you wake up to the global predicament? 30:04 DH: As a teenager, climate concern already well recognized, book by Alan Garner 32:29 DH: "What I can know is that sooner or later it all does end, and I have to live in the face of that knowledge. I have to piece together whatever meaning I can find on my journey through life with the knowledge of endings at every scale: my own mortality and that of everybody I love to the larger scale of endings — knowing that that's all built into the story and that it doesn't cancel anything out." 34:08 DH: recounts hitting "panic" awareness and the stages of climate grief that ensued 36:50 DH: going from knowledge held mentally to experiencing and being changed by it; "ultrapessimistic certainty" is not the final stage. 39:48 BC: quotes DH essay "Negotiating the Surrender" 2019, written for Extinction Rebellion 41:07 DH: "surrender — not sustainability"; role of surrender in addictions recovery. A 5-minute video of his "Surrender" speech is posted here: https://youtu.be/scCL--Oovw4 44:00 DH: three key authors in shaping him: Alastair McIntosh, John Berger, Ivan Illich 45:57 DH: anger can motivate youth, but need different motivator post-youth 49:24 DH: about being the father of a young child and affirming parenting Youtube playlist of all Post-Doom video conversations: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcAlqMeyeaW91q0fUuOWHKEaGTCL41ItE Post-Doom Conversations website (videos, audios, and resources): https://www.postdoom.com/ Dougald Hine's website: http://dougald.nu/ Dark Mountain Project website: https://dark-mountain.net/