Reimagining the Cultural Narrative: Art and Storytelling for Systemic Change with Dougald Hine
The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens
Nate Hagens
4.8 • 551 Ratings
🗓️ 12 February 2025
⏱️ 97 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
(Conversation recorded on November 12th, 2024)
In today's modern era, the overwhelming flood of information that constantly flows our way can leave us feeling disoriented, lost, and powerless. Even science – our most trusted source of truth – can be taken out of context to fuel division and distort the reality around us. In the midst of this confusion, how can we learn to ground ourselves and find guideposts that can direct our lives and work?
Today, Nate is joined by storyteller and social thinker, Dougald Hine, to explore the importance of narratives in shaping our understanding of the world and how they can help us navigate the complexities of life, especially in the face of ecological crises. Together, they discuss the need for a reframing of conversations around environmental and climate issues, the importance of grassroots responses to systemic crises, and the concept of 'engaged surrender' as a way to navigate the challenges of modern life.
How can we foster emotional resilience in the face of ecological overshoot and the death of modernity? What role do art and storytelling play alongside science and data in responding to our collective human predicament? And how can we strengthen our communities and plant the seeds for a different way of life, starting in our own small corners of the world?
About Dougald Hine:
Dougald Hine is a social thinker, writer and speaker. After an early career as a BBC journalist, he went on to co-found the Dark Mountain Project, where he was the director until 2019. He is also the co-author, with Paul Kingsnorth, of Uncivilisation: The Dark Mountain Manifesto, and his latest book is titled, At Work in the Ruins: Finding Our Place in the Time of Science, Climate Change, Pandemics & All the Other Emergencies.
Dougald's recent projects include Notes From Underground, a ten-part essay series for Bella Caledonia exploring the deep roots of the new climate movements, and The Great Humbling, a podcast he co-hosts with Ed Gillespie. He and Anna Björkman are creating a school called HOME, 'a gathering place and a learning community for those who are drawn to the work of regrowing a living culture'. His latest writing is published on his Substack, Writing Home.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | the language of modernity, is founded both on the destruction of cultures and the devastation of |
| 0:05.1 | nature. And that's how it's worked all along. And up until quite recently, at least for those |
| 0:11.2 | who've got to experience it from the winner's perspective, that all felt like a price worth paying. |
| 0:16.3 | And now we're not quite sure about that. |
| 0:23.6 | You're listening to the great simplification. I'm Nate Hagen's. |
| 0:24.6 | On this show, we describe how energy, the economy, the environment and human behavior all fit together and what it might mean for our future. |
| 0:33.6 | By sharing insights from global thinkers, we hope to inform and inspire more humans to play |
| 0:40.1 | emergent roles in the coming great simplification. Today I'm joined with a repeat |
| 0:50.9 | appearance by social thinker and author Dugald Hine to discuss how to find peace |
| 0:56.8 | and purpose in the chaotic and unpredictable moment in history we all live in. |
| 1:02.2 | After an early career as a BBC journalist, he co-founded organizations including the Dark |
| 1:07.5 | Mountain Project, as well as a school called home, both of which act as |
| 1:13.0 | information and social networks for those working to understand the ecological, social, |
| 1:17.9 | and cultural unraveling that is now underway. |
| 1:22.0 | Dugald is a prolific author, and his latest book is entitled, At Work in the Ruins, |
| 1:28.0 | Finding Our Place in the Time of Science, |
| 1:30.9 | Climate Change, Pandemics, and all the other emergencies. |
| 1:35.2 | He also co-hosts the Great Humbling Podcast |
| 1:37.9 | and publishes a substact called Writing Home. |
| 1:42.8 | In this conversation, |
| 1:44.1 | Dougal and I discuss our paths working through |
| 1:46.5 | what some would call the end of modernity and how that work goes beyond discussions of |
... |
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