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A review by bobreturns
The Way Home: Tales from a Life Without Technology by Mark Boyle
5.0
Enjoyed this one a great deal.
Bonus irony points for listening to the audiobook.
Whilst I don't agree with everything Mark Boyle believes and promotes in this book, it's mostly a matter of degrees. There's a lot to be said for trying to live more in harmony with nature - fixing things, eating/growing local foodstuffs, and the like. I'd never go to the extent of living without technology (and indeed, depending on your definition of technology neither does he - he has a bike, metal tools, domesticated plants etc.) but it's interesting to see the benefits of going further down that path. It's certainly revitalised my motivation to turn the back garden into more of an allotment, and expand my foraging knowledge.
I think there's more to be said about the whole gift economy/moneyless lifestyle (and I'll probably pick up his book on the subject next). It's a valuable perspective and parts of it are important to learning to live more sustainably. However there are always the little frustrations and hypocrisies of it, much the same way as I feel about #vanlifers and the rest of the back to nature set. Money always comes in somewhere, because we live in a society where that's the dominant paradigm for resource management. If nothing else Boyle somehow bought the land he's living on, and he gets paid for his writing. That money is used to buy materials or services he can't get on his own (he himself discusses his fishing lines, the postal service, and second hand tools). At some level someone always ends up paying the bills, even if it's the reader, and even if it's a gift (after all, barter economics are still economics). This shouldn't undercut the message - it's all just a matter of degrees - and the book is certainly thought provoking. I certainly agree with his discussion on the value of communities and connection. Man isn't *solely* an economic animal (and I think David Graeber would agree), you can't reduce all of human society to solely economic interactions. Quite a nice empirical companion volume to Graeber's more academic writing, come to think of it.
Highly recommended.
Bonus irony points for listening to the audiobook.
Whilst I don't agree with everything Mark Boyle believes and promotes in this book, it's mostly a matter of degrees. There's a lot to be said for trying to live more in harmony with nature - fixing things, eating/growing local foodstuffs, and the like. I'd never go to the extent of living without technology (and indeed, depending on your definition of technology neither does he - he has a bike, metal tools, domesticated plants etc.) but it's interesting to see the benefits of going further down that path. It's certainly revitalised my motivation to turn the back garden into more of an allotment, and expand my foraging knowledge.
I think there's more to be said about the whole gift economy/moneyless lifestyle (and I'll probably pick up his book on the subject next). It's a valuable perspective and parts of it are important to learning to live more sustainably. However there are always the little frustrations and hypocrisies of it, much the same way as I feel about #vanlifers and the rest of the back to nature set. Money always comes in somewhere, because we live in a society where that's the dominant paradigm for resource management. If nothing else Boyle somehow bought the land he's living on, and he gets paid for his writing. That money is used to buy materials or services he can't get on his own (he himself discusses his fishing lines, the postal service, and second hand tools). At some level someone always ends up paying the bills, even if it's the reader, and even if it's a gift (after all, barter economics are still economics). This shouldn't undercut the message - it's all just a matter of degrees - and the book is certainly thought provoking. I certainly agree with his discussion on the value of communities and connection. Man isn't *solely* an economic animal (and I think David Graeber would agree), you can't reduce all of human society to solely economic interactions. Quite a nice empirical companion volume to Graeber's more academic writing, come to think of it.
Highly recommended.