Why rejecting the modern world is a privileged fantasy

Romanticising the past is a common human compulsion, and may well have psychological benefits. But some people take it rather far, embracing millennia-old practices and lifestyles, like “paleo diets”, or alternative medicines based on “ancient wisdom”, and so on.

Some even eschew as many of the trappings of modern life as possible. One such person is Mark Boyle, a man who rejects things like money, technology, electricity, etc, and is a much better person for it. Better than us, at any rate, judging by his books and regular Guardian columns. You might argue adopting an extreme back-to-nature lifestyle then crowing about it via a major website is slightly massively-hypocritical? You wouldn’t be alone.

I’ll admit Boyle’s annoyed me in the past. I keep assuring people that the Guardian’s not just privileged middle-class white people, convinced of their own superiority and using their own half-baked theories to lecture the less fortunate on how to live their lives, then up pops a Mark Boyle column. It’s like insisting your good friend isn’t that drunk, only for him to suddenly vomit on his own shoes.

That being said, at least Boyle’s not blaming immigrants or haranguing gay people for clicks. He’s not hurting anyone. At least, he wasn’t, but with his recent article on how he’s much healthier without “the trappings of modernity” and progress, I feel that’s changed. Lecturing people about how modern technology and medicine is bad for you, based on your own narrow experience, musings and good fortune, that can have very dangerous results.

That’s assuming his claims are consistent and coherent, but they aren’t really. For instance, his latest piece begins with an attack on those scourges of society, ambulances.

The ambulance itself undoubtedly saves lives (including my dad’s). Yet deconstruct a single ambulance – with its plastics, oils, fluids, copper, acids, glass, rubber, PVC, minerals and steel – and I’ll show you how to lay waste to the very thing all our lives depend upon: the planet.

So, manufactured things are bad, even if they save his father’s life? A bold stance. Except, what’s this later passage about how modern life is making us all sick?

I’m not convinced that it’s necessary to fall into such poor physical shape, as civilised peoples tend to do. My dad is almost 73 and he can still cycle 150km before dinner, simply because he has never stopped looking after his health.

The same dad who was saved by a civilisation-endangering ambulance earlier? That’s who he’s using to show how the modern world is bad for you; the guy who owes his life to it?

Then there’s this gem;

I wouldn’t dream of suggesting that this is a prescriptive solution for anyone else; but with the exception of a voluntary vasectomy, I haven’t seen a doctor or nurse for 20 years.

He eschews all modern medicine, except for that surgical intervention he requested? Which wasn’t even essential, just convenient? It’s like claiming to be a vegan and admitting to enjoying calf’s-blood milkshakes, in the same sentence.

Boyle also uses familiar unscientific waffle to explain his approach to health, like “vitality” and “being mindful”, and argues that you should listen to your body. Thing is, vitality isn’t a measurable “thing”. And, what if your body is telling you things like “I don’t know how to make insulin anymore”? What are you going to do about that? Boyle’s only solution offered is consuming the relevant medicinal herbs from his garden, like those containing antihistamines to combat hay-fever. Presumably he found out about antihistamines via his own decades of painstaking research? Can’t be relying on modern progress and knowledge, after all.

Although, he later says;

I use no chemicals inside or outside the house

Antihistamines are chemicals, aren’t they? Then again, so is everything else. Avoiding chemicals entirely would mean constructing physical matter from pure energy. How can you have that sort of God-like power, but also be vulnerable to pollen?

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However, while it would be easy to dedicate a whole article to simply mocking Boyle’s patronising-yet-incoherent proclamations, he’s far from alone, and at least he does acknowledge that living the lifestyle he’s opted for isn’t easy. Many others decry modern science and technology, usually via their phones or laptops connected to a global communications network.

There’s the problem with all of these ideologies which romanticise the past; they’re dependent on cherry picking. Literally, if they advocate foraging.

Admittedly, evidence reveals the advent of agriculture led to a decline in overall health and many associated problems, while hunter-gatherers were healthier overall. So, a primitive hunter-gatherer diet is healthier, right? That’s the logic behind paleo diets and the like. Except, it ignores the wider context. The health problems are believed to be due to the sudden and radical change to a more uniform diet. Basically, we invented agriculture, but we hadn’t figured out the concept of a balanced diet. This is what happens when you opt for intelligent design over evolution! But now, we have figured all this out.

Our primitive ancestors also spent all day hunting and foraging, so got more physical exercise than someone who espouses the merits of ancient wisdom and practices while sat in front of their screen eighteen hours a day. So why do they do it? Many reasons, like social pressures, body image, or just an innate need to feel superior to others maybe?

However, even if we do concede that we would have been better off as a species if we hadn’t developed agriculture and industrialisation, the fact is, we did. So now, mass farming and other high-tech approaches are essential if we want to provide enough food for our ever-increasing population. Because agriculture allows populations to grow beyond the limits of the natural world. You can argue that humans should return to their more primitive lifestyles, but to do this in any sustainable way, most of humanity will have to die. And how would you decide who “deserves” to live in the new primitive utopia? Anyone who owes their life to modern medicine, even for things as everyday as diabetes, they’re out. Advocating a return to a more natural, “primitive” world is basically eugenics-by-proxy. And there’s a phrase I never expected to use in my lifetime.

But the real kicker is this; choosing to reject all the “conveniences” and “trappings” of modern life is only possible if you’re immensely privileged thanks to all the advantages the modern world brings. Those who swear by their paleo diets, do they grow, find or hunt their own food? Or do they get it from a suitable shop, supported by modern infrastructure? I’d guess the latter.

And for all Mark Boyle’s lofty claims of embracing a natural lifestyle away from the health-hazards of the modern world, the truth is he couldn’t do any of this without the modern world and progress he maligns making it possible for him. He was born and grew in a culture that knew how to best ensure healthy development. It’s progress that cleared the forests of the UK, that eradicated the predators, that maintains a social order preventing rival tribes and enemies from attacking him. And if Boyle is seriously injured or falls ill, he can wander (or be carried) into the nearest hospital and expect effective treatment.

That’s the thing, Mark Boyle isn’t living in a more primitive world; he’s living in the modern world like everyone else, he’s just chosen to avoid most aspects of it because he’s fortunate enough not to depend on them for his life. Even so, he’s still utilising the advantages it offers, like established knowledge, and ways to communicate with a mass audience. I don’t care how dedicated you are to living a “more primitive” existence; unless you willingly cut yourself off from all of what the modern world offers with no way back, you are not living like our ancestors did. You’re just on an extended gap year.

If you have the privilege, opportunity and inclination to do that, fair enough, it’s your life. But for the love of all that is sane, stop thinking this makes you better than those who don’t, won’t or can’t live like that.

Dean Burnett rails at similar irrational arguments and beliefs in The Idiot Brain, available now in the UK and US and elsewhere.