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How to be Free
Modern life is absurd. How can we be free? If you've ever wondered why you bother to go to work, or why so much of consumer culture is crap, then this book is for you. Looking to history, literature and philosophy for inspiration, Tom Hodgkinson provides a joyful blueprint for a simpler and freer way of life. Filled with practical tips as well as inspiring reflections, here you can learn how to throw off the shackles of anxiety, bureaucracy, debt, governments, housework, supermarkets, waste and much else besides.
340 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2006
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2015 people want to read
About the author
Tom Hodgkinson
73 books289 followersTom Hodgkinson (b. 1968) is a British writer and the editor of The Idler, which he established in 1993 with his friend Gavin Pretor-Pinney. He was educated at Westminster School. He has contributed articles to The Sunday Telegraph, The Guardian and The Sunday Times as well as being the author of The Idler spin-off How To Be Idle (2005), How To Be Free (released in the U.S. under the title The Freedom Manifesto) and The Idle Parent.
In 2006 Hodgkinson created National Unawareness Day, to be celebrated on 1 November.
In 2006 Hodgkinson created National Unawareness Day, to be celebrated on 1 November.
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February 13, 2008
Murray Bookchin once made a distinction between "social anarchism' and "lifestyle anarchism," and if we adopt his conceptual scheme this work definitely falls in the latter. It is, after all, catalogued in the self-help section rather than the social science section. This is a lively, wide-ranging and anarchic assault on modern Western lifestyles and a plea to adopt the wisdom of our medieval forebears, who if Hodgkinson is to be believed, enjoyed a level of freedom and leisure that can scarcely be dreamed of by today's office drones.
One of the reasons why I enjoyed this book is that it is so peculiarly English. Hodgkinson makes his case largely through extensive references to the heavy hitters in the English canon: Johnson, Lawrence, Russell, Wilde, the Shelleys, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Blake and Godwin just to name a few. Late 1970s and early 1980s English punk rock, as exemplified by the Sex Pistols and CRASS, are major influences on his argumnent and his brand of backward looking, almost conservative radicalism is in the vein of William Cobbett, William Morris and George Orwell (and he quotes all of these chaps extensively as well). While his use of his texts is not very deep and indeed rather superficial at times, it's a pleasure to come across so many great thinkers and writers in one book, especially when they are encouraging you to quit your job, drink, have guilt-free sex, start a vegetable garden and engage in work that actually interests you.
The book does possess some serious shortcomings, however. Hodgkinson's depiction of medieval times is rather idealized and almost completely overlooks its more nasty and brutish aspects. His advocacy of completely abandoning any attempt to intervene in the political system does not sit well with me because I think it is a mistake to hand the state over to the most conservative and reactionary elements of society. Unlike the author, I don't think that it is feasible for everyone to completely reject large-scale economic organization to become yeoman farmers. Political and economic struggle in order to secure the basics of life for all is still more necessary than ever, and in order to secure increased freedom and leisure for all they need to be institutionalized in some sort. And there's no reason why the provision of social welfare by the state cannot be decentralized in some fashion. But then again that's part of why I think anarchism is far more effective as a personal ethic than a political program, and that's why the sections of the book that deal with ways in which to improve your everyday life are far better than his sections on government and class. It's also kind of strange to hear a man who is perhaps best known for running a magazine (the UK-based Idler) telling his readers not to read magazines, while also telling the reader that they should check out magazines that friends of his have produced.
Still, read this book. It's stimulating and entertaining, and will send you scurrying to pick up obscure Situationist texts while you reference Jean-Paul Sartre to explain why you bought a ukulele.
One of the reasons why I enjoyed this book is that it is so peculiarly English. Hodgkinson makes his case largely through extensive references to the heavy hitters in the English canon: Johnson, Lawrence, Russell, Wilde, the Shelleys, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Blake and Godwin just to name a few. Late 1970s and early 1980s English punk rock, as exemplified by the Sex Pistols and CRASS, are major influences on his argumnent and his brand of backward looking, almost conservative radicalism is in the vein of William Cobbett, William Morris and George Orwell (and he quotes all of these chaps extensively as well). While his use of his texts is not very deep and indeed rather superficial at times, it's a pleasure to come across so many great thinkers and writers in one book, especially when they are encouraging you to quit your job, drink, have guilt-free sex, start a vegetable garden and engage in work that actually interests you.
The book does possess some serious shortcomings, however. Hodgkinson's depiction of medieval times is rather idealized and almost completely overlooks its more nasty and brutish aspects. His advocacy of completely abandoning any attempt to intervene in the political system does not sit well with me because I think it is a mistake to hand the state over to the most conservative and reactionary elements of society. Unlike the author, I don't think that it is feasible for everyone to completely reject large-scale economic organization to become yeoman farmers. Political and economic struggle in order to secure the basics of life for all is still more necessary than ever, and in order to secure increased freedom and leisure for all they need to be institutionalized in some sort. And there's no reason why the provision of social welfare by the state cannot be decentralized in some fashion. But then again that's part of why I think anarchism is far more effective as a personal ethic than a political program, and that's why the sections of the book that deal with ways in which to improve your everyday life are far better than his sections on government and class. It's also kind of strange to hear a man who is perhaps best known for running a magazine (the UK-based Idler) telling his readers not to read magazines, while also telling the reader that they should check out magazines that friends of his have produced.
Still, read this book. It's stimulating and entertaining, and will send you scurrying to pick up obscure Situationist texts while you reference Jean-Paul Sartre to explain why you bought a ukulele.
April 18, 2019
In this very confident book Tom Hodgkinson tries to set us free from our 'mind-forgd manacles'. He is an anarchist of thoughts, nostalgic for a communal, more caring past. I think it's easier to first point out some of the things I didn't agree with...
-Some of his views were inconsistent or contradicted himself. For example, he criticised 'extreme sports' as a waste of money, and something that wage slaves have to do to feel alive. However, later he says that we should not worry about money but spend it one what we enjoy doing... which would seem to include extreme sports. He also says it is not up to one person to judge what makes another person happy, so he shouldn't really be criticising an activity that so many people clearly enjoy.
Other ideas just don't seem very well thought out. He advises getting solar panels in order to be self sufficient and avoid bills, but he doesn't seem to consider how most people will pay for solar panels - they're so expensive that the new owners will more than likely be paying off the price of them month by month rather than power bills- i.e., still paying bills of sorts.
-At times, he promotes things that I think are irresponsible, like telling people not to vote. His reasoning behind this is that if we don't vote, we have to take responsibility for our problems ourselves, rather than blaming the government. However, I think this is stupid. It is perfectly possible to vote for a party that you believe will be the best possible chance for the country, and still take personal responsibility for your life. I would certainly not like to leave the chance of extreme right or left wing politicians getting in to power, because even if you take personal responsibility for your life, politics will still have *some* effect on you & I don't want to be ruled by crackpots.
Another example is telling people to just stop taking medicine for depression! He argues that depression is natural and should be instead called melancholy, like in the medieval period. He says that the illness 'depression' is made up by drug companies to get more money, so we shouldn't take their drugs. I agree to a point: if it is possible to avoid taking pills, then avoid them. However they can at times be very very necessary. It's like telling me to never take my inhaler; I avoid taking it as much as I can because being on steroids all the time is not fun, but at times it is literally a life saver and I would be stupid not to take it. He gives the example of one friend he has who is depressed and doesn't want to get un-depressed, so he doesn't want to take pills, but I don't think that one person wanting to remain depressed can speak for all sufferers.
-He is at times very historically inaccurate. His view of the medieval past is so nostalgic and rose-tinted, you'd think that the nobles were falling over each other in order to make peasants happy, and that guilds were massive happy families that accepted everyone and didn't have monopolies over individual crafts. This is such an inaccurate view, it sounds more like communist propaganda than anything reasoned. For example, he continually compares 'Puritan/Industrial Swindon' with Florence, built by a 'medieval collective', arguing that Florence's beauty shows how much better that political system was. I am sorry, but Florence was NOT some idyllic, perfect republic. The Medici were in charge (most of the time), what they said went. And it wasn't some happy-go-lucky commune, people were continually bankrupting themselves trying to climb the greasy pole to the Medici's inner circle. Florence's decline to "sprezzatura" and studied self-artifice happened for a reason, which would not have happened in the Florence that Hodgkinson dreams of.
So. If I have so many problems with How to Be Free, why on earth have I given it 5 stars? Because it is so irrepressibly optimistic! Reading it made me feel happy! I engaged passionately with Hodgkinson's ideas, both in agreement or against them, and I think this is ultimately what the book encourages. It is his personal idea of freedom, and how to get there, which the reader is invited to interact with and test out for it's truth for each individual. I know that this section on what is good in the book is much shorter than my problems with it, but trust me, it's good. I just think you should read it in order to find out for yourself, and to see how his ideas can make you change your thinking...
And it has changed some of my habits. For pretty much the first time in four years, I am going without my watch for hours at a time. (Que gasps and a vague feeling of discomfort!) It has made me properly think about what i want in life, what will make me happy and free, which is especially important right now as I'm half way through my degree, and considering two pretty different career choices. Thank you, Tom, for really convincing me that it's not all about the money, that you can survive without it, because sometimes the importance placed on money in this bustling city can make it hard to remember that...
-Some of his views were inconsistent or contradicted himself. For example, he criticised 'extreme sports' as a waste of money, and something that wage slaves have to do to feel alive. However, later he says that we should not worry about money but spend it one what we enjoy doing... which would seem to include extreme sports. He also says it is not up to one person to judge what makes another person happy, so he shouldn't really be criticising an activity that so many people clearly enjoy.
Other ideas just don't seem very well thought out. He advises getting solar panels in order to be self sufficient and avoid bills, but he doesn't seem to consider how most people will pay for solar panels - they're so expensive that the new owners will more than likely be paying off the price of them month by month rather than power bills- i.e., still paying bills of sorts.
-At times, he promotes things that I think are irresponsible, like telling people not to vote. His reasoning behind this is that if we don't vote, we have to take responsibility for our problems ourselves, rather than blaming the government. However, I think this is stupid. It is perfectly possible to vote for a party that you believe will be the best possible chance for the country, and still take personal responsibility for your life. I would certainly not like to leave the chance of extreme right or left wing politicians getting in to power, because even if you take personal responsibility for your life, politics will still have *some* effect on you & I don't want to be ruled by crackpots.
Another example is telling people to just stop taking medicine for depression! He argues that depression is natural and should be instead called melancholy, like in the medieval period. He says that the illness 'depression' is made up by drug companies to get more money, so we shouldn't take their drugs. I agree to a point: if it is possible to avoid taking pills, then avoid them. However they can at times be very very necessary. It's like telling me to never take my inhaler; I avoid taking it as much as I can because being on steroids all the time is not fun, but at times it is literally a life saver and I would be stupid not to take it. He gives the example of one friend he has who is depressed and doesn't want to get un-depressed, so he doesn't want to take pills, but I don't think that one person wanting to remain depressed can speak for all sufferers.
-He is at times very historically inaccurate. His view of the medieval past is so nostalgic and rose-tinted, you'd think that the nobles were falling over each other in order to make peasants happy, and that guilds were massive happy families that accepted everyone and didn't have monopolies over individual crafts. This is such an inaccurate view, it sounds more like communist propaganda than anything reasoned. For example, he continually compares 'Puritan/Industrial Swindon' with Florence, built by a 'medieval collective', arguing that Florence's beauty shows how much better that political system was. I am sorry, but Florence was NOT some idyllic, perfect republic. The Medici were in charge (most of the time), what they said went. And it wasn't some happy-go-lucky commune, people were continually bankrupting themselves trying to climb the greasy pole to the Medici's inner circle. Florence's decline to "sprezzatura" and studied self-artifice happened for a reason, which would not have happened in the Florence that Hodgkinson dreams of.
So. If I have so many problems with How to Be Free, why on earth have I given it 5 stars? Because it is so irrepressibly optimistic! Reading it made me feel happy! I engaged passionately with Hodgkinson's ideas, both in agreement or against them, and I think this is ultimately what the book encourages. It is his personal idea of freedom, and how to get there, which the reader is invited to interact with and test out for it's truth for each individual. I know that this section on what is good in the book is much shorter than my problems with it, but trust me, it's good. I just think you should read it in order to find out for yourself, and to see how his ideas can make you change your thinking...
And it has changed some of my habits. For pretty much the first time in four years, I am going without my watch for hours at a time. (Que gasps and a vague feeling of discomfort!) It has made me properly think about what i want in life, what will make me happy and free, which is especially important right now as I'm half way through my degree, and considering two pretty different career choices. Thank you, Tom, for really convincing me that it's not all about the money, that you can survive without it, because sometimes the importance placed on money in this bustling city can make it hard to remember that...
November 23, 2008
Tom Hodgkinson's admirable intention may have been to write a parody of self-help books but unfortunately ends up falling into similar territory of smuggery as the genuine articles. It seems to me the underlying reasoning behind authors of self-help guides is steeped in narcissism, i.e. I am great ergo do as I do and you too shall be great. Thus, the cynical reader of 'How To Be Twee' will find it difficult to see beyond the calls to mimic the author's own choice examples of upper-middle class virtuous past times (the not watching telly, the horse riding, the growing your own vegetables, the retreating to the country, etc. – all after a good spell in London of course). Alas, they will be less likely to ponder on, presumably, his more fundamental, thought-provoking musings on the irrationality of most people's struggle with modernity.
Strangely, given this estimable aim of debunking myths about the glories of the bourgeois status quo, he harks back to the irrationality of the Catholic church and feudal regime, and ignores all concepts of social and political struggle since the Reformation, a major flaw if he aims to deconstruct modern society. Omitting the intervening centuries of intellectual discourse sometimes leaves his ideas seeming redundant and contradictory. For example, his advice to rid oneself of job protection: set in a 20th Century context this would be most likely espoused by a fan of the non-turning ferrous female known for snatching milk and spending 20 hours a day awake – not exactly an Idler. By trying to ignore more recent historical and contemporary arguments surrounding industrial relations, he may be attempting to introduce fresh ideas using a more pragmatic approach but to me generally fails and comes across as ignorant, condescending and arrogant.
Rather than aligning to anarchic radicalism, he seems to share a conservative reactionary desire to return to the ideal of “static” medieval feudalism and the guild system. (Tellingly, his anarchist influence of choice seems to be the anarchist Prince, Kropotkin). He fails to justify why he extols a beautifully crafted piece of furniture over, say, a beautifully coded piece of computer programming. I feel his misgivings probably lie within the prevailing neo-liberal economic model but his superficial polemics lead him open to accusations of simple Luddism. His repeated unilateral promotion of a romanticised Medieval era to highlight the flaws of today's world removes his argument, and solutions, further from the reader who is stuck very much in a real modern predicament. Changing one's lifestyle based on a personal revival of a previous age may have its benefits, but it is somewhat impractical unless you are lucky enough to share with the author a fortunate career in freelance journalism, perhaps arising from a similar education at £15,000+ per year Westminster School, and Cambridge University.
He champions Ye Olde Merrie England and wants us to know that before Enclosure things weren't so bad when we stayed in the same village for the whole of our lives, had benevolent Lords (temporal and spiritual) look after us, and that we had a pretty jolly time before we died aged 27 of bad teeth. It is a fair, if hardly original, exercise to look to the past to identify and resurrect beneficial forgotten ideas. He does try to highlight the more pleasant ideals of the chivalric age, leaving out the less enviable infant mortality rates for example (yet he still often callously writes in a sweeping enough manner to not sift out all the less appealing relics of a bygone age – why would anyone outside tabloid journalism keep Prince Charles?). I was hoping he could explain how to fit the good freedom-loving elements of medieval life he identified, such as healthy food and relaxation, with the freedom-loving elements of modern life he ignored, such as high agricultural productivity that allows us not to toil in grubby fields all our lives and gives us the opportunity to do loads of other stuff. Sadly I feel he doesn't fully explain how his ideas could be accommodated in the present domain. Essentially, by the end of the book I felt left to choose between the overbearing past feudal system and the overbearing current state/capitalist one rather than feeling free at all.
Hodgkinson is clearly intelligent, and as a columnist his articles are always enlightening. I am cruel to overlook and take for granted the many valid points he discusses, the interesting cultural references, and his quirky and eccentric style. He rightly attacks over-competitiveness, loss of community and real democratic involvement, artificial alienation from nature, hyper-consumerism, and the unquestioned virtue of industry. Yet despite offering teasing stabs and forays into his ideas of Utopia, he ultimately fails to lay out a clear workable socio-economic doctrine. I could accuse his book of being naïve but maybe it was my high expectations that were. Maybe he merely wished to dispense personal tips on how to avoid the pitfalls of modern living. Unfortunately, once the readers free themselves from his oft quoted 'mind forg'd manacles' of today, his more solid life changing advice rests upon overly familiar yet anaemically expounded concepts of disengagement, localism and ruralism. I still wish to read a convincing book properly explaining how this irksome retreat from properly confronting injustices and failings of the current “system” at its roots, and instead merely extricating oneself by imitating a 13th century serf, is supposed to bring radically liberating change. Hodgkinson seems to have the adept mind and public school arrogance to produce such a manifesto but sadly it is not to be adequately found within this book. It is because I agree with so many of his points that I was so disappointed with the ultimately unsubstantial nature of his musings. Maybe he just was happier to intermittently nip off and play the ukulele than concentrate on creating a 21st Century version of 'What Is To Be Done?'. It wouldn't be keeping with his style after-all.
Strangely, given this estimable aim of debunking myths about the glories of the bourgeois status quo, he harks back to the irrationality of the Catholic church and feudal regime, and ignores all concepts of social and political struggle since the Reformation, a major flaw if he aims to deconstruct modern society. Omitting the intervening centuries of intellectual discourse sometimes leaves his ideas seeming redundant and contradictory. For example, his advice to rid oneself of job protection: set in a 20th Century context this would be most likely espoused by a fan of the non-turning ferrous female known for snatching milk and spending 20 hours a day awake – not exactly an Idler. By trying to ignore more recent historical and contemporary arguments surrounding industrial relations, he may be attempting to introduce fresh ideas using a more pragmatic approach but to me generally fails and comes across as ignorant, condescending and arrogant.
Rather than aligning to anarchic radicalism, he seems to share a conservative reactionary desire to return to the ideal of “static” medieval feudalism and the guild system. (Tellingly, his anarchist influence of choice seems to be the anarchist Prince, Kropotkin). He fails to justify why he extols a beautifully crafted piece of furniture over, say, a beautifully coded piece of computer programming. I feel his misgivings probably lie within the prevailing neo-liberal economic model but his superficial polemics lead him open to accusations of simple Luddism. His repeated unilateral promotion of a romanticised Medieval era to highlight the flaws of today's world removes his argument, and solutions, further from the reader who is stuck very much in a real modern predicament. Changing one's lifestyle based on a personal revival of a previous age may have its benefits, but it is somewhat impractical unless you are lucky enough to share with the author a fortunate career in freelance journalism, perhaps arising from a similar education at £15,000+ per year Westminster School, and Cambridge University.
He champions Ye Olde Merrie England and wants us to know that before Enclosure things weren't so bad when we stayed in the same village for the whole of our lives, had benevolent Lords (temporal and spiritual) look after us, and that we had a pretty jolly time before we died aged 27 of bad teeth. It is a fair, if hardly original, exercise to look to the past to identify and resurrect beneficial forgotten ideas. He does try to highlight the more pleasant ideals of the chivalric age, leaving out the less enviable infant mortality rates for example (yet he still often callously writes in a sweeping enough manner to not sift out all the less appealing relics of a bygone age – why would anyone outside tabloid journalism keep Prince Charles?). I was hoping he could explain how to fit the good freedom-loving elements of medieval life he identified, such as healthy food and relaxation, with the freedom-loving elements of modern life he ignored, such as high agricultural productivity that allows us not to toil in grubby fields all our lives and gives us the opportunity to do loads of other stuff. Sadly I feel he doesn't fully explain how his ideas could be accommodated in the present domain. Essentially, by the end of the book I felt left to choose between the overbearing past feudal system and the overbearing current state/capitalist one rather than feeling free at all.
Hodgkinson is clearly intelligent, and as a columnist his articles are always enlightening. I am cruel to overlook and take for granted the many valid points he discusses, the interesting cultural references, and his quirky and eccentric style. He rightly attacks over-competitiveness, loss of community and real democratic involvement, artificial alienation from nature, hyper-consumerism, and the unquestioned virtue of industry. Yet despite offering teasing stabs and forays into his ideas of Utopia, he ultimately fails to lay out a clear workable socio-economic doctrine. I could accuse his book of being naïve but maybe it was my high expectations that were. Maybe he merely wished to dispense personal tips on how to avoid the pitfalls of modern living. Unfortunately, once the readers free themselves from his oft quoted 'mind forg'd manacles' of today, his more solid life changing advice rests upon overly familiar yet anaemically expounded concepts of disengagement, localism and ruralism. I still wish to read a convincing book properly explaining how this irksome retreat from properly confronting injustices and failings of the current “system” at its roots, and instead merely extricating oneself by imitating a 13th century serf, is supposed to bring radically liberating change. Hodgkinson seems to have the adept mind and public school arrogance to produce such a manifesto but sadly it is not to be adequately found within this book. It is because I agree with so many of his points that I was so disappointed with the ultimately unsubstantial nature of his musings. Maybe he just was happier to intermittently nip off and play the ukulele than concentrate on creating a 21st Century version of 'What Is To Be Done?'. It wouldn't be keeping with his style after-all.
November 30, 2016
This is either the best or worst book to read when you’re finishing a PhD and thinking deep thoughts about what to do next with your life. I’m not sure which yet - ask me in a few years. ‘How to be Free’ continues in the same vein as How to Be Idle, which I greatly enjoyed. The former has a more philosophical and political bent, however. The tendency to skip thither and yon, drawing inspiration from Sartre and Chaucer, reminds me a little of a less obtuse Žižek. Hodgkinson makes no claims to present a coherent political philosophy, which is good because he doesn’t. Instead, he critiques many aspects of modern life - or rather, modern life in 2006 when the horrible invasion of smartphones had barely begun. Given his scathing words about blackberries, I don’t imagine he approves of them. The book is structured around pieces of mostly practical advice, like replacing your car with a bicycle, growing your own vegetables, and accepting that the only meaning of life is that which we create ourselves.
I am sympathetic to almost all that Hodgkinson says and his so-conservative-it’s-radical philosophy is interesting and appealing. He harks back to late Medieval times, which he feels exemplify freedom from centralised authority and local co-operation. It’s certainly a valid point that taking inspiration from the past rather than the future is more pragmatic, given that the future is only ever an illusion. Hodgkinson is strongest when dismantling consumerism and presenting the appeal of thrift and self-reliance, but weakest when assuming that everyone else (who isn’t a straight white man) enjoys the same things in life as him. Thus, I definitely agree with the pursuit of inexpensive pleasures, but drinking and smoking have no appeal for me. I prefer night-time walks, browsing libraries, and rambling discussions with friends. Also, I don’t want to learn the ukulele, I’d rather learn Spanish. Nonetheless, the neo-Medieval anarchism advanced here is not proscriptive. Moreover, it’s refreshing to be told not to worry about having a career and the comments on housing are very good. A mortgage is essentially renting a house from the bank, at great cost. If only renting wasn’t so appallingly insecure. It’s relaxing to read a book in praise of carelessness - what’s the point of trying to earn lots of money, to get more than anyone else? We’re all going to die anyway. Might as well enjoy life, rather than trying to purchase enjoyment in rare hours not spent working.
I am sympathetic to almost all that Hodgkinson says and his so-conservative-it’s-radical philosophy is interesting and appealing. He harks back to late Medieval times, which he feels exemplify freedom from centralised authority and local co-operation. It’s certainly a valid point that taking inspiration from the past rather than the future is more pragmatic, given that the future is only ever an illusion. Hodgkinson is strongest when dismantling consumerism and presenting the appeal of thrift and self-reliance, but weakest when assuming that everyone else (who isn’t a straight white man) enjoys the same things in life as him. Thus, I definitely agree with the pursuit of inexpensive pleasures, but drinking and smoking have no appeal for me. I prefer night-time walks, browsing libraries, and rambling discussions with friends. Also, I don’t want to learn the ukulele, I’d rather learn Spanish. Nonetheless, the neo-Medieval anarchism advanced here is not proscriptive. Moreover, it’s refreshing to be told not to worry about having a career and the comments on housing are very good. A mortgage is essentially renting a house from the bank, at great cost. If only renting wasn’t so appallingly insecure. It’s relaxing to read a book in praise of carelessness - what’s the point of trying to earn lots of money, to get more than anyone else? We’re all going to die anyway. Might as well enjoy life, rather than trying to purchase enjoyment in rare hours not spent working.
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July 23, 2025I've been reading about (lifestyle) anarchism, and it is not a bad resource, if that is what you're after.
However, just like lifestyle anarchism, the concept feels supported by too-carefully chosen arguments, very masculine and very white; I wonder if a woman would have ever written anything like that - the concept of freedom as presented by the author seems either quite gendered, or very heavily alien to me personally, but I'm inclined to believe the former is the case. Women, I feel, have more awareness of what living on insufficient founds may mean in their old age.
It also suffers from lack of realism - individual production of energy, for instance, can hardly give us sufficient amounts of electricity to be teach electricity providers a lesson.
However, just like lifestyle anarchism, the concept feels supported by too-carefully chosen arguments, very masculine and very white; I wonder if a woman would have ever written anything like that - the concept of freedom as presented by the author seems either quite gendered, or very heavily alien to me personally, but I'm inclined to believe the former is the case. Women, I feel, have more awareness of what living on insufficient founds may mean in their old age.
It also suffers from lack of realism - individual production of energy, for instance, can hardly give us sufficient amounts of electricity to be teach electricity providers a lesson.
April 22, 2016
This is not a self help book. If anything, it is an examination of modern, western, middle-class (particularly British) society and the 'mind forg'd" manacles it perpetuates. There are a few suggestions in each chapter for various alternative ways of living, but no one lifestyle is suggested over any other.
I found this a brilliant, amusing and liberating read. Not because it proposed any revolutionary concepts, but because it validated and affirmed my own attitudes to life and my own values which are in great contrast to those of my peers. I would like to keep a copy of this on hand to loan to anyone (and everyone) who asks why I don't want a mortgage or a full time job or career.
A lot of reviewers focus on the way Mr Hodgkinson romanticises Medieval life, which surprises me because he makes a point in the first chapter that he is very much aware of the downsides to that era, but that learning about the past can in fact show us what worked and what didn't and we only need keep the good stuff. I believe he uses Medieval systems as an example to show that the modern work-ethic is not endemic in Western-Europe and that you don't have to go to far continents to find examples of how to live more passionately and free.
My only criticisms of this work is that it had a few passages which I found a bit sexist (generalisations of Women and Men.) Although they were not prominent enough to ruin the book for me.
Sadly, I have since followed up Mr Hodgkinson's website and work and find that it is not what was represented in the book. The once active community has been replaced with an expensive subscription only service and it seems the Author is no longer living the life of a smallholder but instead has joined the capitalist race of Retail he so abhorred. Pity.
I found this a brilliant, amusing and liberating read. Not because it proposed any revolutionary concepts, but because it validated and affirmed my own attitudes to life and my own values which are in great contrast to those of my peers. I would like to keep a copy of this on hand to loan to anyone (and everyone) who asks why I don't want a mortgage or a full time job or career.
A lot of reviewers focus on the way Mr Hodgkinson romanticises Medieval life, which surprises me because he makes a point in the first chapter that he is very much aware of the downsides to that era, but that learning about the past can in fact show us what worked and what didn't and we only need keep the good stuff. I believe he uses Medieval systems as an example to show that the modern work-ethic is not endemic in Western-Europe and that you don't have to go to far continents to find examples of how to live more passionately and free.
My only criticisms of this work is that it had a few passages which I found a bit sexist (generalisations of Women and Men.) Although they were not prominent enough to ruin the book for me.
Sadly, I have since followed up Mr Hodgkinson's website and work and find that it is not what was represented in the book. The once active community has been replaced with an expensive subscription only service and it seems the Author is no longer living the life of a smallholder but instead has joined the capitalist race of Retail he so abhorred. Pity.
January 1, 2017
This book was recommended by a friend and as I ploughed on, I could understand why the friend enjoyed it as there were obvious links between his and the authors 'quirky' world view.
There are some interesting ideas discussed within the book which have elevated my star rating from one to two, but ultimately I felt that it was written from a vantage point of smug middle class privilege. ' Hey let's all quit our jobs and move to the country and grow our own veg'. I have grown up and still live in a rural area and neither the wage slave lifestyle or the idyllic country living described feel familiar. It would have been more interesting to explore how people could embrace some of the authors freedom reclaiming ideas in a practical way. Although I am technically a freelance artist ( of which Hodgkinson would approve) I don't have an option to only work for three hours a day and I don't have a garden in which to plant and grow vegetables. Perhaps I should give up work and my house and become a transient drifter as Hodgkinson seems to encourage? As I read on I tried to remain open minded but the sneaking suspicion that the author was a smug arsehole was increasingly hard to suppress. This idea was cemented when trawling the internet for information on the author, I stumbled upon an article in the Spectator from several years after the book, where he completely contradicts most of the points he so passionately puts forward in this edition.
In summary, if being free means being a fickle, smug, hypocrite I'm very happy being a subservient wage slave.
There are some interesting ideas discussed within the book which have elevated my star rating from one to two, but ultimately I felt that it was written from a vantage point of smug middle class privilege. ' Hey let's all quit our jobs and move to the country and grow our own veg'. I have grown up and still live in a rural area and neither the wage slave lifestyle or the idyllic country living described feel familiar. It would have been more interesting to explore how people could embrace some of the authors freedom reclaiming ideas in a practical way. Although I am technically a freelance artist ( of which Hodgkinson would approve) I don't have an option to only work for three hours a day and I don't have a garden in which to plant and grow vegetables. Perhaps I should give up work and my house and become a transient drifter as Hodgkinson seems to encourage? As I read on I tried to remain open minded but the sneaking suspicion that the author was a smug arsehole was increasingly hard to suppress. This idea was cemented when trawling the internet for information on the author, I stumbled upon an article in the Spectator from several years after the book, where he completely contradicts most of the points he so passionately puts forward in this edition.
In summary, if being free means being a fickle, smug, hypocrite I'm very happy being a subservient wage slave.
June 9, 2008
I seem to have a soft spot for eccentrically reactionary radicals. For a while, I was eagerly reading up on the anarcho-primitivists, who thought civilization was a bad idea and that mankind had taken a wrong turn when we started messing around with things like cities, agriculture, and literacy. And you may remember when I reviewed Bill Kauffman’s Look Homeward, America: In Search of Reactionary Radicals and Front-Porch Anarchists, which had a soft spot for the American isolationist, regionalist, anti-cosmopolitan tendencies of the early 20th century.
Hodgkinson is an English punk rock radical who finds his model for human society in a romantically-evoked version of medieval Europe that has since been destroyed by the Protestant reformation’s war against the assimilated paganism of the Catholic church, by capitalism’s assault on guilds and craft, and by the victory of Puritanism over joy and nature.
Hodgkinson is the co-founder and editor of The Idler, which hopes to defend the point of view of the Grasshopper who was unfairly maligned in Aesop’s ant propaganda.
The book is a series of exhortations intended to inspire the reader to stop being the conforming, clock-watching, urban, employed, worried, lonely, rude, guilty, accumulating consumer, and instead to go back to the land, slack off, indulge simple pleasures, stop worrying about the future, stop feeling guilty, take up the ukulele, and start cashing in on the pleasures of being a roustabout bon vivant.
It’s full of quotes on this theme from the likes of William Blake, Guy Debord, E.F. Schumacher, Friedrich Nietzsche, Thomas Aquinas, Pyotr Kropotkin, William Godwin, Leo Tolstoy, Robert Burton, Jean-Paul Sartre, Bertrand Russell, and Penny Rimbaud. You know, Penny Rimbaud of Crass. (To give the kids of today some context, Hodgkinson notes that Tolstoy “was the late-nineteenth-century equivalent of Crass” — Crass being the late-twentieth-century equivalent of, I dunno, Chumbawumba or something.) Obligatory tax resistance pullquote follows:
It is perfectly possible to create an uncomplicated, job-free life. Artists Penny Rimbaud and Gee Vaucher started Crass, the anarchist punk band of the eighties. Forty years ago they rented a tumbledown house just outside London and renovated it and filled the garden with flowers, fruit, vegetables, sheds and arbours for quiet repose. Thanks to an open-house policy, which has ensured a steady flow of helpful residents and guests, they have been able to develop the house and grounds to a high standard with very little money. People power replaced cash. They keep things simple, they don’t need jobs, and that gives them acres and acres of free mind-space to follow their own paths through life, to think, read, write, talk, drink, make art. Their income is virtually nothing, but they do exactly what they want and this, it seems to me, is a tremendous achievement. It proves that money and freedom are by no means synonymous. Gee said to me, “I don’t think I’ve ever paid tax. How much do you need to earn? £5,000 a year? I don’t earn anything like that.” And a more bill-free and liberated household I have never seen.
The book didn’t do much for me, but I’m already a believer in what I think is the most evident and important mesage of the book: take responsibility for your life; make an honest and necessarily radical reassessment of your priorities that will certainly involve unlearning the ones you have absorbed from a childhood overdose of public school, media, and commercial propaganda; and start living creatively according to what you uncover in this way. Or, as Hodgkinson puts it:
Don’t bother setting up free republics or moving to a country which offers more liberties. Simply declare yourself to be an independent state. Do not involve and coerce others. This is the only way we will effect a proper revolution. Once each of us recognizes our own freedom and our own responsibility, then the chains that bind us will fall away.
And that excerpt comes from his chapter on cultivating good manners and avoiding rudeness — perhaps not what you’d expect to find in an anti-puritan punk rocker’s book about thumbing your nose at workaday living.
If you can deal with the fact that it’s Brit-centric (a mental search-and-replace that swaps “john” for “loo” and “WalMart” for “Tesco’s” will probably do the trick) and that it includes a heaping helping of bollocks, and if you’re unable to work up the gumption to get you out of your cubicle and back to living, this might be the kick-in-the-pants you need.
Hodgkinson is an English punk rock radical who finds his model for human society in a romantically-evoked version of medieval Europe that has since been destroyed by the Protestant reformation’s war against the assimilated paganism of the Catholic church, by capitalism’s assault on guilds and craft, and by the victory of Puritanism over joy and nature.
Hodgkinson is the co-founder and editor of The Idler, which hopes to defend the point of view of the Grasshopper who was unfairly maligned in Aesop’s ant propaganda.
The book is a series of exhortations intended to inspire the reader to stop being the conforming, clock-watching, urban, employed, worried, lonely, rude, guilty, accumulating consumer, and instead to go back to the land, slack off, indulge simple pleasures, stop worrying about the future, stop feeling guilty, take up the ukulele, and start cashing in on the pleasures of being a roustabout bon vivant.
It’s full of quotes on this theme from the likes of William Blake, Guy Debord, E.F. Schumacher, Friedrich Nietzsche, Thomas Aquinas, Pyotr Kropotkin, William Godwin, Leo Tolstoy, Robert Burton, Jean-Paul Sartre, Bertrand Russell, and Penny Rimbaud. You know, Penny Rimbaud of Crass. (To give the kids of today some context, Hodgkinson notes that Tolstoy “was the late-nineteenth-century equivalent of Crass” — Crass being the late-twentieth-century equivalent of, I dunno, Chumbawumba or something.) Obligatory tax resistance pullquote follows:
It is perfectly possible to create an uncomplicated, job-free life. Artists Penny Rimbaud and Gee Vaucher started Crass, the anarchist punk band of the eighties. Forty years ago they rented a tumbledown house just outside London and renovated it and filled the garden with flowers, fruit, vegetables, sheds and arbours for quiet repose. Thanks to an open-house policy, which has ensured a steady flow of helpful residents and guests, they have been able to develop the house and grounds to a high standard with very little money. People power replaced cash. They keep things simple, they don’t need jobs, and that gives them acres and acres of free mind-space to follow their own paths through life, to think, read, write, talk, drink, make art. Their income is virtually nothing, but they do exactly what they want and this, it seems to me, is a tremendous achievement. It proves that money and freedom are by no means synonymous. Gee said to me, “I don’t think I’ve ever paid tax. How much do you need to earn? £5,000 a year? I don’t earn anything like that.” And a more bill-free and liberated household I have never seen.
The book didn’t do much for me, but I’m already a believer in what I think is the most evident and important mesage of the book: take responsibility for your life; make an honest and necessarily radical reassessment of your priorities that will certainly involve unlearning the ones you have absorbed from a childhood overdose of public school, media, and commercial propaganda; and start living creatively according to what you uncover in this way. Or, as Hodgkinson puts it:
Don’t bother setting up free republics or moving to a country which offers more liberties. Simply declare yourself to be an independent state. Do not involve and coerce others. This is the only way we will effect a proper revolution. Once each of us recognizes our own freedom and our own responsibility, then the chains that bind us will fall away.
And that excerpt comes from his chapter on cultivating good manners and avoiding rudeness — perhaps not what you’d expect to find in an anti-puritan punk rocker’s book about thumbing your nose at workaday living.
If you can deal with the fact that it’s Brit-centric (a mental search-and-replace that swaps “john” for “loo” and “WalMart” for “Tesco’s” will probably do the trick) and that it includes a heaping helping of bollocks, and if you’re unable to work up the gumption to get you out of your cubicle and back to living, this might be the kick-in-the-pants you need.
December 11, 2007
Just starting it, but it reminded me how much I liked Hodgkinson's previous book
How to Be Idle: A Loafer's Manifesto. Alas, I managed to ignore it's lessons completely and now I work too much and am unhappy b/c of it. Will try again.
The lessons here though are very simple and are spelled out at the end of each chapter. For example, "THROW AWAY YOUR WATCH" and "RIDE A BIKE."
Can't get much simpler than these, but they do make a difference. Just 100 pages in, but I'm going to give it the full five stars.
How to Be Idle: A Loafer's Manifesto. Alas, I managed to ignore it's lessons completely and now I work too much and am unhappy b/c of it. Will try again.
The lessons here though are very simple and are spelled out at the end of each chapter. For example, "THROW AWAY YOUR WATCH" and "RIDE A BIKE."
Can't get much simpler than these, but they do make a difference. Just 100 pages in, but I'm going to give it the full five stars.
March 31, 2008
I read this on the heels of Tim Ferris' Four Hour Work Week and thematically they sort of go together. Except where Ferris argues that you should make a ton of money and then stop working (duh!) Hodgkinson argues not to bother with money at all. In fact, his premise seems to be it's better to go through life without anything so you won't be stressed about what you are missing.
I'll give Hodgkinson credit for being creative about his theory, but to me his premise goes too far. He seems to be "living" in some fantasy world where everything was better in the middle ages because people didn't have any money and so therefore didn't have to work hard to earn money to pay for all the crap they wanted. I think he needs to re-read his history a bit and come to terms with the fact that life was shitty back then too.
In one chapter of this book he suggests that all drugs are bullshit, especially anti-depressents. I worry about these anti-drug people who seem to think that all medical progress is bad. Hodgkinson forgets that people died of simple infections because we didn't have antibiotics! Also, as someone who has benefited from anti-depressents I take serious offense to his theory that we all just need to get over our melencholy feelings. I know the anxiety I had manifsted itself in me physically and I know the drugs have helped greatly.
On the plus side, I do agree with a lot of Hodgkinson's thoughts on what I call simplicity. But I don't think one has to go to the extreme measures he suggests to find benefits in simplicity. I think we can all find a life balance without running off to the woods to live like hermits.
One great message in the book is about finding happiness by surrounding yourself with friends. I've always found this to be true and the book inspired me to look for more ways to bring my friends together for food, drink and conversation.
Anyway, while the book does suggest some extreme measures, I just took a few nuggets out of it and will apply them to my life. I already agreed with his premise going in that simple is better, so the book reinforced many of my views and gave me some good ideas. Still, I'm not going to stop taking my cholesterol medication and move to a cabin in the woods!
I'll give Hodgkinson credit for being creative about his theory, but to me his premise goes too far. He seems to be "living" in some fantasy world where everything was better in the middle ages because people didn't have any money and so therefore didn't have to work hard to earn money to pay for all the crap they wanted. I think he needs to re-read his history a bit and come to terms with the fact that life was shitty back then too.
In one chapter of this book he suggests that all drugs are bullshit, especially anti-depressents. I worry about these anti-drug people who seem to think that all medical progress is bad. Hodgkinson forgets that people died of simple infections because we didn't have antibiotics! Also, as someone who has benefited from anti-depressents I take serious offense to his theory that we all just need to get over our melencholy feelings. I know the anxiety I had manifsted itself in me physically and I know the drugs have helped greatly.
On the plus side, I do agree with a lot of Hodgkinson's thoughts on what I call simplicity. But I don't think one has to go to the extreme measures he suggests to find benefits in simplicity. I think we can all find a life balance without running off to the woods to live like hermits.
One great message in the book is about finding happiness by surrounding yourself with friends. I've always found this to be true and the book inspired me to look for more ways to bring my friends together for food, drink and conversation.
Anyway, while the book does suggest some extreme measures, I just took a few nuggets out of it and will apply them to my life. I already agreed with his premise going in that simple is better, so the book reinforced many of my views and gave me some good ideas. Still, I'm not going to stop taking my cholesterol medication and move to a cabin in the woods!
November 8, 2023
In dit boek wil Tom Hodgkinson een gids aanreiken voor een beter leven, door je te bevrijden van alle elementen in een hedendaagse maatschappij die volgens hem je vrijheid inperken (geld, werk, maatschappelijke klasse,...). Dat lijkt een leuk opzet en ik was echt benieuwd maar de plattitudes en clichés die rondgestrooid worden en de wel heel erg zwart-witte kijk op de maatschappij maken het boek algauw eerder een gids met een soort kinderachtige humor, vol onrealistische voorstellen en voor de meesten onhaalbare acties Sommige beroepsgroepen (zoals freelance journalisten, zoals hijzelfs) kunnen misschien kiezen wanneer en hoeveel ze bereid zijn te werken in ruil voor genoeg geld om mee rond te komen (en niet veel meer dan dat) maar de meesten onder ons hebben die luxe niet en al zeker niet mensen die in loondienst werken. "Stop met in loondienst" werken is ook niet een advies dat voor iedereen haalbaar is en zelfs als dat zo zou zijn, stel je eens voor dat iedereen dat ook effectief zou doen. Onze huidige maatschappij is te complex geworden om zomaar levenskeuzes uit de middeleeuwen te copy-pasten en laat dat nu net zowat zijn wat hij letterlijk suggereert.
Het boek viel dan ook enorm tegen omdat je aan de meeste tips niet zoveel hebt en omdat alle tegenstellingen die genoemd worden zo van nuance ontdaan zijn dat het amper nog over het echte leven in onze echte maatschappij iijkt te gaan.
Het boek viel dan ook enorm tegen omdat je aan de meeste tips niet zoveel hebt en omdat alle tegenstellingen die genoemd worden zo van nuance ontdaan zijn dat het amper nog over het echte leven in onze echte maatschappij iijkt te gaan.
February 8, 2017
Edged dangerously close to self-help schmutz.
Read
May 11, 2020The second book in weeks to point out that success = somebody else’s failure. I’m listening, universe.
January 1, 2019
So wanted to like this. I have a fairly libertarian outlook and am rather suspicious of big government and the nanny state. I agree that there are so many stupid rules about this and that, these days, that we are all slaves to the machine (although I am in no way an anarchist, like he claims to be).
I totally agreed with his points about the unfairness of these huge companies who will chase you with threats if you are a day late with a payment but who feel it is OK to give you the runaround when they owe you money.
I too would love to avoid mortgage, pension, etc. But I really don't want to live in a commune or a squat.
I agree that the Puritans sucked a great deal of fun out of life [by banning Christmas, etc.] and wrecked a lot of beautiful religious art, etc...though I am not at all convinced by his obsession that if we had just all stayed Catholics then we would all just be such a happy bunch of peasants; nor by his constant claims that the medieval era was one of fairness and fun for all.
Some of his statements are just downright annoying. For example, his 'yay me for driving without insurance what a rebel I am'. No you're just an idiot with no concern about the poor person you might just crash into. And of course, every woman wants to get rid of her washing machine and instead wash her clothes in the river with all the other women (while the men are at the pub practicing their chivalry and dandy manners)! Yes we all like to wash laundry by hand whilst our husbands get drunk. Not. Oh and, apparently, even slaves could become freemen, so yay for slavery. Ah, the good old days...NOT!
And yes, I agree, big pharma are ripping us off (via the NHS) and we probably don't need to be as medicated as many of us are, however, I would suggest that developments in medicine and medical care has improved our lives greatly and we in England now don't often die in childbirth, from the flu, from an infection, from cholera, from smallpox...unlike the middle ages.
So, good premise, badly executed and spoiled by stupid statements.
I totally agreed with his points about the unfairness of these huge companies who will chase you with threats if you are a day late with a payment but who feel it is OK to give you the runaround when they owe you money.
I too would love to avoid mortgage, pension, etc. But I really don't want to live in a commune or a squat.
I agree that the Puritans sucked a great deal of fun out of life [by banning Christmas, etc.] and wrecked a lot of beautiful religious art, etc...though I am not at all convinced by his obsession that if we had just all stayed Catholics then we would all just be such a happy bunch of peasants; nor by his constant claims that the medieval era was one of fairness and fun for all.
Some of his statements are just downright annoying. For example, his 'yay me for driving without insurance what a rebel I am'. No you're just an idiot with no concern about the poor person you might just crash into. And of course, every woman wants to get rid of her washing machine and instead wash her clothes in the river with all the other women (while the men are at the pub practicing their chivalry and dandy manners)! Yes we all like to wash laundry by hand whilst our husbands get drunk. Not. Oh and, apparently, even slaves could become freemen, so yay for slavery. Ah, the good old days...NOT!
And yes, I agree, big pharma are ripping us off (via the NHS) and we probably don't need to be as medicated as many of us are, however, I would suggest that developments in medicine and medical care has improved our lives greatly and we in England now don't often die in childbirth, from the flu, from an infection, from cholera, from smallpox...unlike the middle ages.
So, good premise, badly executed and spoiled by stupid statements.
February 23, 2018
I sure don't agree with all of his premises, but he does raise some interesting points- and advocates some possibilities that most of us would not really think of otherwise.
Note that i do NOT favor his dicta to stop voting. I think voting is not only important, but a civil obligation. However, voting for what YOU want- not to try to game the system- is vital here. In the next election, I plan to vote green; I know they won't win, but I would hope that my vote, combined with others, might give the Powers That Be pause. I am no longer willing to vote for the "lesser evil".
I think the author is really ignorant about a lot of the history he raves about- like "Athens was great, except for a few slaves". Well, MOST Athenians were not citizens nor had a vote; not just the slaves, but the lower classes and the women.
And favoring the American South over the North because it was more courteous? How "courteously" did they treat the slaves???
I was also not impressed by his "revelation" that when women whinge- they don't want solutions! Since he'd been all along discussing male whingeing without the desire for solutions, the notion that this was a female peculiarity is ridiculous, and casts some doubt on his ability to get outside himself and see others fairly.
So: I think he has some interesting and enticing points, but his arguments from history show a partisan lack of historical knowledge and/or willful ignorance and/or intentional provocation.
However, I also think it's true that we can be more empowered to change our condition than we normally think of ourselves as being- and that's really valuable.
Note that i do NOT favor his dicta to stop voting. I think voting is not only important, but a civil obligation. However, voting for what YOU want- not to try to game the system- is vital here. In the next election, I plan to vote green; I know they won't win, but I would hope that my vote, combined with others, might give the Powers That Be pause. I am no longer willing to vote for the "lesser evil".
I think the author is really ignorant about a lot of the history he raves about- like "Athens was great, except for a few slaves". Well, MOST Athenians were not citizens nor had a vote; not just the slaves, but the lower classes and the women.
And favoring the American South over the North because it was more courteous? How "courteously" did they treat the slaves???
I was also not impressed by his "revelation" that when women whinge- they don't want solutions! Since he'd been all along discussing male whingeing without the desire for solutions, the notion that this was a female peculiarity is ridiculous, and casts some doubt on his ability to get outside himself and see others fairly.
So: I think he has some interesting and enticing points, but his arguments from history show a partisan lack of historical knowledge and/or willful ignorance and/or intentional provocation.
However, I also think it's true that we can be more empowered to change our condition than we normally think of ourselves as being- and that's really valuable.
January 25, 2011
I can't put this book down, It's a fantastic read! It seriously feels like you are having deep conversation with Hodgkinson, his writing style is that of a conversation's.
Hodgkinson is so passionate of a topic I love , that notion that simple is more and if any one was to offer an argument that is similar you'll easily get me on your side. So when Hodgkinson uses those fantastic references from a range of different fields and periods of time it inspires me to go an read those books. (even though i don't know where to get books from the 1700's.)
I don't particularly like this over glorification of medieval england which he refers to regularly in the book.However at times I fall in love with this community base feeling he paints of a medieval village. My point for disliking this over glorification of medieval England is due to the fact that in all periods of time they had there good points and they had there bad points, and there was never a period of time where everything was perfect. Also, moving backwards isn't such an easy solution to living a simple life in a a forward moving society.. It's like and old person who refuses to learn how to use a computer because he has no desire to move forward into the future.However i like growth.
I am yet to finish this book and so far its a gripping read . However he suggests to get rid of TV and I don't think I am capable of doing that .I will go through withdrawals.
Hodgkinson is so passionate of a topic I love , that notion that simple is more and if any one was to offer an argument that is similar you'll easily get me on your side. So when Hodgkinson uses those fantastic references from a range of different fields and periods of time it inspires me to go an read those books. (even though i don't know where to get books from the 1700's.)
I don't particularly like this over glorification of medieval england which he refers to regularly in the book.However at times I fall in love with this community base feeling he paints of a medieval village. My point for disliking this over glorification of medieval England is due to the fact that in all periods of time they had there good points and they had there bad points, and there was never a period of time where everything was perfect. Also, moving backwards isn't such an easy solution to living a simple life in a a forward moving society.. It's like and old person who refuses to learn how to use a computer because he has no desire to move forward into the future.However i like growth.
I am yet to finish this book and so far its a gripping read . However he suggests to get rid of TV and I don't think I am capable of doing that .I will go through withdrawals.
June 1, 2012
An enjoyable but sometimes silly book on the joys of removing oneself from the endless cycle of work and consumerism.
First, the eye-roll-inducing: I don't buy his oft-repeated premise that life was better in the middle ages, although I do understand the frustration with the protestant work ethic and what it's done to us. His position also reeks of privilege, something he admits to but brushes off as irrelevant. There's also a strong current of luddism, another viewpoint I understand but do not entirely share.
This book was like a nice long chat with a friend over drinks about what is wrong with the world today. I agree on many points, share a generally similar philosophy, and even enjoy it a bit when he goes off the deep end.
First, the eye-roll-inducing: I don't buy his oft-repeated premise that life was better in the middle ages, although I do understand the frustration with the protestant work ethic and what it's done to us. His position also reeks of privilege, something he admits to but brushes off as irrelevant. There's also a strong current of luddism, another viewpoint I understand but do not entirely share.
This book was like a nice long chat with a friend over drinks about what is wrong with the world today. I agree on many points, share a generally similar philosophy, and even enjoy it a bit when he goes off the deep end.
October 14, 2018
1 star. i absolutely hated this book including some of the comments the author made. he really doesn't grasp the fact that the things he says/does only work BECAUSE of all the things which we have and take for granted. f.ex. i am really glad that we have a functioning well established law system incl. police. it is only BECAUSE we have that that we can walk around at night everywhere. i really cannot think of ANY reason to want to go back living like in the middle ages f.ex. where you'd have to fear walking around at night even with protection because its so dangerous.
i tried several times but could not keep reading.
i really really don't understand how it can be such a high rated book here on goodreads.
i tried several times but could not keep reading.
i really really don't understand how it can be such a high rated book here on goodreads.
January 30, 2009
This is my second read of this terrific little book. His ideas are based on life before the Protestant Reformation when people lived without mortgages, without the weight of individualism, consumerism and "keeping up with the Joneses" - He suggests anarchism in everyday life:
Share a House with friends
Grow your own food
Light candles to avoid direct light on the dust & dirt
Pour yourself another glass of wine, invite friends over
Turn off the TV,
Lose the "Career"
Stop Worrying
Remember that Societal Anxiety produces better consumers
Make it, don't buy it
Share a House with friends
Grow your own food
Light candles to avoid direct light on the dust & dirt
Pour yourself another glass of wine, invite friends over
Turn off the TV,
Lose the "Career"
Stop Worrying
Remember that Societal Anxiety produces better consumers
Make it, don't buy it
Read
January 8, 2008Tom Hodgkinson and Joe Strummer (from The Clash) have a few things in common. I recommend listening to Sandinista during your reading breaks to maintain the Protesant work ethic-smashing spirit.
Read
June 3, 2025Great critique of our times, a book of philosophy and great, great views of why capitalism sucks ass. Good practical tips, too. Easy reading, yet very insightful and well-researched, teaching me a lot about protestantism and christianity, cities and our times.
Somehow, I'd like a second opinion of this. My view of the middle ages isn't that good, you know, I'm thinking that there's more to this. But still, very good and entertaining. Read this, unemployed, on my back in the sun, really feeling it, taking it in.
Somehow, I'd like a second opinion of this. My view of the middle ages isn't that good, you know, I'm thinking that there's more to this. But still, very good and entertaining. Read this, unemployed, on my back in the sun, really feeling it, taking it in.
April 19, 2023
This is a fascinating book about how to take back our lives from the (corporate and political) system that we are in.
The author has identified all the villains in the world today and didn't stop shy of saying that we too have to take responsibility of the current situation that we're in.
I don't agree with all the ideas shared by the author, for eg. indoor plumbing is tough to live without if you are used to it. However, I think some of the ideas have merit.
The book definitely made me think a lot.
The author has identified all the villains in the world today and didn't stop shy of saying that we too have to take responsibility of the current situation that we're in.
I don't agree with all the ideas shared by the author, for eg. indoor plumbing is tough to live without if you are used to it. However, I think some of the ideas have merit.
The book definitely made me think a lot.
March 31, 2024
Rather than a ~300 page book, this could have been summarized in a paragraph, or perhaps a few lines: “Drink, Be Merry, Be Free!”. I agree with most of Hodgkinson preaches, I even got new percpective on a few topics. However, I mostly found myself excited to finally be done reading this book. It was quite the struggle to get through
September 2, 2025
A fairly good book on how to start living life more lightly, worrying less, while slaving less time to the capitalistic system (big corporations, banks, food chains, etc). All in all a pretty good book, easily read, entertaining and quite funny. The only negative is that at times I find the author dreaming and looking up a bit too much to what the medieval times were (from where he draws much inspiration from), and the somewhat anarcho-libertarian comments of primarily mistrusting government (perhaps I should too). Overall still worth the reading and I am planning myself on reading the "How to be idle" of the same author
June 23, 2018
Slibná kniha zkažená neustálým opakováním dvou myšlenek: 1. Rolník ve středověku se měl báječně. 2. Za všechnu mizérii může kapitalismus. A nezapomínejte na démona Tesco!
December 30, 2013
I think I took this book too seriously, or more seriously than its intended purpose. I tend to agree with Hodgkinson's general philosophies of life, but I disagree with the details. I think he drastically oversimplifies things and if everyone were to adopt his strategies the world would be an even more impoverished place. He makes sweeping statements about modern life and then the "sources" he cites are either 17th century poets or unknowns who I'm presuming are his drinking buddies. Statements like (and I'm paraphrasing), "Don't save money, live for the day because you could be hit by a bus tomorrow and all that scrimping didn't get you anywhere. Let other people take care of you in your old age." So who are these "other people" and what happens when THEY get old and need someone to take care of THEM? He almost never addresses the obvious rebuttals to these statements, to a laughable extent. I agree that people shouldn't overextend themselves to buy a huge house, but the "just rent forever" philosophy doesn't address the inevitability of that rent being raised by the landlords. Where he finally lost me (and where I finally stopped reading) was in the chapter where he bitches about Puritan (read: American) rudeness, and in speaking about the Civil War, refers to the "rude North" and the "courteous South." No mention of that little "slavery" thing, apparently we went to war because the Puritanical North just couldn't stand that the South was having so much fun. Or something.
So yeah, I couldn't get past his total lack of perspective in most of these matters, although honestly it sort of reads like the Communist Manifesto - sure these are all good theoretical ideas, but the obvious questions of abuse are ignored. So maybe that's just what a manifesto is - a lot of expounding on your ideas and never having to defend them.
All of this being said, I did enjoy some validation that I'm not crazy, that living for your career and clawing yourself up the ladder at all costs is not the only option out there, or that being on top of your kids at all times is suffocating to both the parent and the child. I'm glad I'm not the only one out there who thinks a little neo-luddism and guilt-free loafing is a good thing.
So yeah, I couldn't get past his total lack of perspective in most of these matters, although honestly it sort of reads like the Communist Manifesto - sure these are all good theoretical ideas, but the obvious questions of abuse are ignored. So maybe that's just what a manifesto is - a lot of expounding on your ideas and never having to defend them.
All of this being said, I did enjoy some validation that I'm not crazy, that living for your career and clawing yourself up the ladder at all costs is not the only option out there, or that being on top of your kids at all times is suffocating to both the parent and the child. I'm glad I'm not the only one out there who thinks a little neo-luddism and guilt-free loafing is a good thing.
April 11, 2012
It's a good read. Some chapters are great and spot on, but on some I've felt like he was trying too hard to make a point and his views were just too out there for me, too radical. I would've liked a more grounded approach because some people (me) just aren't ready or don't want to committ to the level he expresses. But other chapters really spoke to me and I would recommend it in spite of the flaws stated before. Some of the things he said truly changed the way I face and live my life.
quotes that resonated with me:
1. "life is about recapturing lost freedoms."
2. "Feed your mind (...) Replace T.V. with friends and newspapers with books."
3. "Sometimes I think that life is becoming no more than staring at a screen. (...)
Work, rest and play: all involve staring at screens."
4. "I think one problem is that we have been brought up to believe in the idea of a job, a salaried position in which your money worries are taken care for you. We are dependent on employers. We do not have the freelance mindset which is so important to the freedom seeker, the mindset that tells you to llok after yourself."
5."Career is a path set down for you by some outside authority, whereas the truly free make their own path through the woods."
6. "Freedom, then, exists in a sort of spiritual selfsufficiency. The truly free do not join the chase for riches or for honours because they know that along that road lies slavery. The truly free fear nothing.
7. "(...) fear as a creative force rather than a creative one. Fear was not a reason to shrink away from living, as it is today, and to find solace in shopping and TV. Fear is a sort of humility. (...) acknowledge your fear and play with it, make use of it."
8. "You get so much more clarity about things. It's like fishing, you go beneath the surface and bring things back which are very useful. There'd be no Keat, Byron or Shelley if they'd been on Prozac. Society needs manic depressives, it needs people potholers, to bring back their treasures from the underworlds, and to polish them and turn them into things that are bautiful and glittering."
quotes that resonated with me:
1. "life is about recapturing lost freedoms."
2. "Feed your mind (...) Replace T.V. with friends and newspapers with books."
3. "Sometimes I think that life is becoming no more than staring at a screen. (...)
Work, rest and play: all involve staring at screens."
4. "I think one problem is that we have been brought up to believe in the idea of a job, a salaried position in which your money worries are taken care for you. We are dependent on employers. We do not have the freelance mindset which is so important to the freedom seeker, the mindset that tells you to llok after yourself."
5."Career is a path set down for you by some outside authority, whereas the truly free make their own path through the woods."
6. "Freedom, then, exists in a sort of spiritual selfsufficiency. The truly free do not join the chase for riches or for honours because they know that along that road lies slavery. The truly free fear nothing.
7. "(...) fear as a creative force rather than a creative one. Fear was not a reason to shrink away from living, as it is today, and to find solace in shopping and TV. Fear is a sort of humility. (...) acknowledge your fear and play with it, make use of it."
8. "You get so much more clarity about things. It's like fishing, you go beneath the surface and bring things back which are very useful. There'd be no Keat, Byron or Shelley if they'd been on Prozac. Society needs manic depressives, it needs people potholers, to bring back their treasures from the underworlds, and to polish them and turn them into things that are bautiful and glittering."
June 30, 2012
Len gave me a copy of Tom Hodgkinson's previous book "How To Be Idle" as a bit of hint for me to calm down a bit, a few years back. It evidently didn't do the trick, for either Tom or me, as he's back with a new book "How to Be Free", and I felt the need to buy it during a recent(ish) trip to the Idler bookshop in West London.
Since his last book it appears he's escaped to the country and is happier than ever living on a fraction of his previous income, and I'm happy for him. But he wants us all to be equally happy by doing the same thing, or at least living in the same spirit.
It's an easy, well-intentioned and enjoyable read, making serious points about how to escape modern consumer culture and city living, but filled far too many smug and semi-patronising tips (grow your own vegetables, play the ukelele, ignore bills, etc). A genuine love of life shines through, and a desire for others to escape the shackles to a new mediaevalism of guilds, feasting and federated anarchy but aside from an excellent chapter on thrift there is little here of practical help to most readers (even it's guardian reading demographic)
There are some enlightening, entertaining and well-researched passages, particularly about how the puritans took over merry olde england, and how much better things were in medieval days, but it's poorly (idly?) edited with some anecdotes appearing at least 3 times (I got fed up reading about the carved wooden elephant he gave his poor son recently), and reads more like a series of newspaper columns.
In the spirit of thriftiness and anti-consumerism, anyone is welcome to have my copy.
Since his last book it appears he's escaped to the country and is happier than ever living on a fraction of his previous income, and I'm happy for him. But he wants us all to be equally happy by doing the same thing, or at least living in the same spirit.
It's an easy, well-intentioned and enjoyable read, making serious points about how to escape modern consumer culture and city living, but filled far too many smug and semi-patronising tips (grow your own vegetables, play the ukelele, ignore bills, etc). A genuine love of life shines through, and a desire for others to escape the shackles to a new mediaevalism of guilds, feasting and federated anarchy but aside from an excellent chapter on thrift there is little here of practical help to most readers (even it's guardian reading demographic)
There are some enlightening, entertaining and well-researched passages, particularly about how the puritans took over merry olde england, and how much better things were in medieval days, but it's poorly (idly?) edited with some anecdotes appearing at least 3 times (I got fed up reading about the carved wooden elephant he gave his poor son recently), and reads more like a series of newspaper columns.
In the spirit of thriftiness and anti-consumerism, anyone is welcome to have my copy.
February 6, 2017
Note: The Freedom Manifesto is the US edition of this book. I read the original UK version, which is entitled How To Be Free. I'm assuming it's largely the same book, but there may be differences. How To Be Free does not have an entry on Goodreads.
I first read this book about ten years ago, not long after it was published, and it's been a favourite ever since. I tend to dip in and out of it regularly, but I've just re-read it following a bout of gloom induced by Trump and Brexit. I needed cheering up, and as ever it did the job.
The book is all about how we can live fuller, happier and more satisfying lives by largely opting out of the world created by modern capitalism, and looking to the past for inspiration. The author advocates growing your own food, working for yourself and avoiding supermarkets, among other things. He argues, using a range of literary sources and examples from his own life, that there's no point worrying about stuff you can't change, and that the rat race is entirely escapable.
I've always had my doubts about the practicality of this book, and the honesty of the author in how much he's managed himself, but it's a hugely enjoyable, positive, cheerful and inspiring book, and it's precisely what we need in these miserable times. It's full of ideas on how you can make your life better and more relaxed, and it always makes me think. It comes with a comprehensive reading list too, so it provides a great starting point for working out fresh ideas on how to live.
If you're looking for a "how-to" manual, you might be disappointed, but as a philosophical critique of modern life, it's great fun and full of little gems of wisdom. Highly recommended.
I first read this book about ten years ago, not long after it was published, and it's been a favourite ever since. I tend to dip in and out of it regularly, but I've just re-read it following a bout of gloom induced by Trump and Brexit. I needed cheering up, and as ever it did the job.
The book is all about how we can live fuller, happier and more satisfying lives by largely opting out of the world created by modern capitalism, and looking to the past for inspiration. The author advocates growing your own food, working for yourself and avoiding supermarkets, among other things. He argues, using a range of literary sources and examples from his own life, that there's no point worrying about stuff you can't change, and that the rat race is entirely escapable.
I've always had my doubts about the practicality of this book, and the honesty of the author in how much he's managed himself, but it's a hugely enjoyable, positive, cheerful and inspiring book, and it's precisely what we need in these miserable times. It's full of ideas on how you can make your life better and more relaxed, and it always makes me think. It comes with a comprehensive reading list too, so it provides a great starting point for working out fresh ideas on how to live.
If you're looking for a "how-to" manual, you might be disappointed, but as a philosophical critique of modern life, it's great fun and full of little gems of wisdom. Highly recommended.
August 16, 2010
I think David Cross put it best when he was reacting to a Promise Keepers story: "One... hundred... percent... BULLSHIT." (Honorable mention goes to Brian Cox: "The modern world is better than the middle ages so what's the problem with all these whinging hippies?") Tom Hodgkinson is the whingingest of all the whinging hippies. (That actually may or may not be true-- I haven't seeked out any whinging hippies and he happens to be the whinging hippy that was thrust upon me.) He summarily dismisses everything modern as, at best, negative, and at worst, a global conspiracy which forces humans to live in misery and submission. (And that is no exaggeration-- I'm sure he would approve of all I just said, with the possible exceptions of the word "conspiracy" and the derisive attitude I am employing.) Full time jobs-- evil! Grocery stores-- evil! Running water-- evil! The internet-- you guessed it-- evil! Not an amazing technological advance that represents a highlight of human innovation and creativity that instantly disseminates information and encourages the exchange of ideas and brings together the world's population more easily and intimately than has ever been possible in history, but which can be intrusive and damaging if abused or overused. Nope-- evil. His fetish for all things medieval is pushy, silly, naive, and extremely tiresome and smug.
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