Term has finished at the University of Manchester. I teach one term a year on the master’s in creative writing. I was born in Manchester, and, although I don’t want to live in the north any more (I made a life in the south in my early twenties), I enjoy the cheerful, quick-witted northern spirit. People readily talk to you up there, without assuming you are a drug addict or a psycho if you talk to them. In Manchester, smiling at a stranger does not make you a weirdo.
We could do with some of that ease exported to world politics. Populism’s success is old-fashioned fear/hatred of the “other”, now offered up as immigrants/DEI/elites with a college degree/feminists/trans folk/the deep state/anyone who disagrees with Donald Trump. Christian values are often waved around here – or do I mean waived? The Bible contains many instructions about welcoming strangers. A paraphrase of a verse from the Book of Hebrews is the foundation quote for my favourite bookshop in the world, Shakespeare and Company in Paris: “Be not inhospitable to strangers lest they be angels in disguise.”
The stranger is someone we don’t know. Someone who is not like us. That doesn’t mean we have to accept behaviours or beliefs that are harmful to people. It means we don’t start with blame. That way, we don’t end up with hate.
A better place
My students all want to write. There seems to be no end to folks who want to write. I can never decide if this is hopeless or hopeful. It’s hopeless because few people get anywhere via legacy publishing. Hopeful, because online platforms offer a different way to connect. There’s so much written about how baleful social media is, and how much damage is done by right-wing podcasts and influencers – and that is true, but it can be countered by folks setting up online with messages of hope and change.
I have recently returned to Substack. It’s a simple, open platform on which you set out your stall, then see who comes by. What I notice is a real need for thoughtful optimism. We know about the doom and gloom. We know about the madness of the manosphere, where everything is a feminist plot funded by George Soros to destroy white masculinity. Well, hell, if you don’t like what you are reading and hearing, then challenge it. That’s why I went back in. When Trump returned to power, it seemed to me that what is under threat is imagination. By that I mean the capacity to get out of yourself, to visualise other stories and other outcomes. To realise that the way we live is a narrative in progress. We can change the story because we are the story.
Every Sunday I drop a short post. Soon I will start a podcast called How to Have a Happy Apocalypse.
New world order
Meanwhile, it’s spring, and the English garden is a lovely place to be. I am signed up for the Royal Horticultural Society shows at Malvern and Chelsea, and my potatoes are planted, my broad beans sprouting. Over-wintered chard is jubilantly green.
As I get older, the cycle of the seasons becomes more precious to me. Spring, and a new start, is a wonderful antidote to the death cults in charge of life on Earth right now. While a few males would gladly murder the world in pursuit of their “values”, nature does her best to carry on. I take comfort in the fact that when humans have destroyed themselves, nature will find a way back, at her own pace. We don’t deserve this beautiful world.
It always makes me laugh when tech types talk about AI needing to align with our values. What values? Greed. Hatred. Racism. Violence. Power-mongering. Narcissism. Bring on the AI with values of its own.
Rising from the ashes
Time to go to Paris before the Easter rush. Yes, to visit my friends at Shakespeare and Co, but also to slip into Notre Dame early. That’s possible. The restoration is a reminder of what humans can do, in record time, when we set our minds to it. Destruction is easy. Anyone can bomb, burn and ruin. Remaking and rebuilding is much harder. The skill, patience and love that has gone into Notre Dame is moving. I don’t take photos. I light two candles for loved ones I lost last year. I let myself be. Afterwards, I will walk across the river to the oldest church in Paris, Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre, to sit at the back and contemplate for a while. Churches offer us a refuge, and we should take it.
Finding new life in ourselves is not some guru-garbage or wellness fad. Without daily renewal it’s easy to be trapped, mentally, emotionally, by the death cults, by the people who only know how to destroy.
Spring is renewal. I’ll take it.
[See also: The slow death of the Royal Mail is a parable of the modern British state]
Content from our partners
Related
This article appears in the 10 Apr 2025 issue of the New Statesman, Spring Special 2025