What we stand for
We are living in insecure and unprecedented times. A collapsing environment and a crumbling economy are turning all our assumptions on their heads. Nothing that we currently take for granted is likely to survive the 21st century intact.
We don’t believe that anyone – not politicians, not economists, not environmentalists, not writers – is really facing up to the magnitude of this. As a society, we are all still wedded to the idea that the future will be an upgraded version of the present. We tell ourselves that technology or political agreements or ethical shopping or mass protest will somehow save our civilisation from self-destruction.
We don’t buy it. We believe, based on all the evidence we see before us, that civilisation as we know it is coming to an end; undermined by a rapidly changing climate, a cancerous economic system and the ongoing mass destruction of the non-human world. But we also believe that this age of collapse – which is already beginning – could herald a new start, if we choose to make it so.
We believe, in short, that the end of the world as know it is not the end of the world full stop.
A civilisation is built not on oil, steel or bullets, but on stories; on the myths that shore it up and the tales it tells itself about its origins and destiny. We have herded ourselves to the edge of a precipice with the stories we have told ourselves about who we are: the stories of ‘progress’, of the conquest of ‘nature’, of the centrality and supremacy of the human species.
It is time for new stories. The Dark Mountain Project aims to conjure into being a different way of seeing and writing about the world. We call it Uncivilisation.
Our aim is to curate a movement of writers and artists, thinkers and doers, who will help us assault the citadels of establishment literature and thought, and begin to redraw the maps upon which we have based our human travels. We are not here to save the world. We don’t believe that the world needs saving. But we think that humanity probably does. And we think that some salvation can be found in the most ancient source of all: stories.
What we are doing
The Dark Mountain manifesto is available to read on this site. It can also be purchased as a limited edition, hand-crafted pamphlet. The manifesto lays out in more detail our thinking and our aims. The eight principles of uncivilisation summarise what we stand for in more succinct form.
The Dark Mountain Project will bring together a movement of people who share these aims, and showcase their work, with the overall goal of changing the angles from which we view our world and the human story. At the moment, our two vehicles for making this happen are the Dark Mountain journal and our series of public events.
The Dark Mountain Project, like the Earth itself, is in constant flux. We are always open to ideas, people and suggestions for different approaches.
Who we are
The Dark Mountain Project was conceived and is curated by Paul Kingsnorth and Dougald Hine.
Also – Steve, Sangeet, Pippa; could you fill in relevant details, Dougald, as I will get them wrong!
Pippa Buchanan – Wordpress theme development and technical implementation
