I always understood the windigo stories as the indigenous understanding of dealing with and controlling the small subset of the population that would today be classified as psychopaths. In human terms, a psychopath is someone who is essentially locked into a ‘pure predatory’ relationship with the world. Those people would be very dangerous in small tribes, thus ways of identifying, discouraging, and controlling/containing those individuals was imperative to a group’s long term survival.
With modern industrial capitalism psychopathy is a trait that gets self selected and helps consolidate massive amounts of wealth, power and control. It’s advantageous to be a psychopath in most industries and politics. So it’s no surprise that we are where we are, our civilization has been run by strict predatory carnivores for a long time. This is what happens when the wolves run the henhouse.
Indigenous people also knew a long time ago that if the carnivore populations got out of control they would eventually kill everything; all the animals, the humans, and eventually themselves. In metaphoric terms, this is where we are. Civilization has taken the most dangerous aspect of humans evolutionary psychology and handed it the reigns. I doubt it ends well…
You are pointing at something real, but it needs one more layer of precision.
What Indigenous traditions encoded under names like Windigo, modern clinical language sometimes encounters as predation without reciprocity. And what Andrew Lobaczewski attempted to map in Political Ponerology was the same pattern at the level of institutions: how a relatively small pathological minority can capture a social body, reorganise its values, and make the abnormal appear normal.
That is the part liberal systems theory refused to study seriously.
It drew elegant diagrams of interdependence, trust, feedback and emergence, as though a civilisation were a healthy organism by default. But it did not spend nearly enough time on the equivalent of tumours, parasites, seizure states, or predatory hijack. It gave us a map of the body and no chapter on cancer.
So yes, in a small tribe, a purely predatory person is a survival problem. Everyone feels the distortion quickly. The group has to identify it, name it, contain it, or be broken by it. Myth, taboo, ritual, and story all become immune functions. They are not quaint superstition. They are civilisational diagnostics.
Modernity, by contrast, did something far more dangerous.
It did not merely fail to contain predation. It professionalised it.
Industrial capitalism, financial abstraction, imperial bureaucracy, and later the attention economy created environments in which traits associated with psychopathy could outperform reciprocity for long stretches of time. Not always because “evil won”, but because the system became structurally indifferent to moral depth. It rewarded charm over conscience, scale over restraint, extraction over relationship, fluency over truth.
At that point, the wolves are not merely in the henhouse. They are writing the performance metrics.
But I would add one caution. We should not let the diagnosis collapse into “everything is caused by psychopaths”. That becomes too easy, and in a strange way too flattering to the rest of us. Ponerology matters because it explains how pathological minorities can seize disproportionate influence. But the full tragedy is larger: once the system is captured, it begins recruiting ordinary people into pathological functions. People who are not clinical predators still learn to think through predatory structures. They obey incentive gradients. They optimise within the cage. They become, in effect, competent organs of an incoherent whole.
That is why the Windigo is not just a person. It is a regime.
A civilisation becomes Windigo-like when it can no longer generate value through reciprocity, skill, memory, limit, or care, and so it begins feeding on its own substrate: forests, workers, children, cultures, aquifers, attention, truth. Ponerology helps explain how such a regime gets started and stabilised. It names the clinical reality that some people do not merely fail morally; they relate to life in a fundamentally parasitic way. And once a system stops recognising that, it starts treating pathology as leadership.
So no, it probably does not end well on its own.
But the important thing is this: if the pathology is systemic, then the response cannot be merely moral outrage. It has to be immune design.
A sane civilisation does not assume everyone is good.
It does not assume power self-corrects.
It does not assume openness is always safe.
It builds for the presence of manipulators, spellbinders, predators, and the weak-willed people who will enable them. It creates friction. It shortens the distance between action and consequence. It protects witness. It makes lying expensive, extraction visible, and predation harder to scale.
Read the book “the limits to growth”. And listen to Scene on Radio. The current season is all about “Capitalism,”. They discuss the book. Both discuss why capitalism is bad.
I hope you mention the word patriarchy somewhere. Dont you think that matriarchal societies, that always put children and the future first, are possible?
Absolutely! I refer to it elsewhere in the book as perhaps the deepest and most pervasive form of inequality: "Throughout world history, patriarchy has persisted as a relentless form of oppression, forcing half the human species into subordinate roles, frequently through violence and institutionalized cruelty."
I'm interested in your take. I truly believe that women identifying leaders would be great to have at the helm of our civilization during the transition away from capitalism, greed, even hierarchy itself. Feminine presenting leaders I think would be less susceptible to "Windigo Inc." though not exclusively. They'd be more likely to create a circular society that is able to distribute power as equally as possible rather than attempt to consolidate it for themselves.
However, I recognize that there is no right answer. There is always more to learn. My perspective is limited. Obviously equality for all across the gender spectrum should be the ultimate and necessary goal for humanity. I suppose I just find it also necessary at this moment in history for there to be a swing towards feminine representation. The pendulum of change, I think, wouldn't reach equilibrium as quickly without that. What do you think?
Except as women we have also been taught to shame the feminine within ourselves and many of those who would be most likely to step into positions of power, would be those who crave power over others over true power - power of self.
I do think we women we need to take the lead, but I think it looks like leading ourselves first and foremost, not as trying to gain positions of power. Largely, this next chapter is asking us all to learn to lead ourselves more.
I think it will take more than women leaders. We have that now, to some extent, and they are no better than their male counterparts. Sometimes worse.
What women excel at is working together to get things done.
That means that we need at least as many women as men in every occupation. Women on their own will be repressed or co-opted to follow the same wrong agenda. But with the backing of other women who share equal power, they will do the very best job and lead the way.
The leadership from either sex will rise to the top, but female/grandmother wisdom is a real phenomenon, and when we learn to appreciate it, as so many indigenous societies have, the world will be better off in the long run.
Very gender essentialist and very "my in-group of people is speehshul". I had enough of that coming from macho types for the last 10.000 yeats to last me another 10.000.
Gender essentialism is telling little girls who are tomboys that they are actual boys and they should remove healthy body parts to 'correct' themselves.
There are two sexes: male and female. The females - being less physically strong, and having biology that requires child bearing - have historically been subjugated in many cultures.
Gender identity is nothing more than a human construct or thought-experiment that currently helps deny the reality of biological forms of oppression. People can play 'let's pretend' about gender, but sadly it undermines the reality of sex-based oppression/exploitation such as FGM and surrogacy.
Your suggestion that 'feminine presenting' people might be less liable to oppressive/Windigo behaviour is a useful example of how the current gender confusion is unhelpful to actual females. A man who dresses in dresses and grows his hair is still a man. The traits and behaviours he displays do not change by changing clothing. They don't change because he is on HRT. he still went through male puberty. He was socialised male.
If he experiences hostility from others, it will be a form of homophobia based on him defying sex-stereotypes. It's not nice to experience that, but it is not misogyny. If you pretend that it is, you are doing a disservice to females everywhere.
Equally, it is a mistake to think women aren't capable of Windigo behaviour. Women and men are complicit in the extractive nature of our current paradigm. We all need to birth a new approach to co-existing with other humans and the more than human inhabitants of the planet.
It will be nice when this gender identity story goes away and we can move to a reality-based but genuinely more progressive attitude to sex roles and presentations. We nearly got there, but then we lost it.
Yes. This. There are issues with defining people as qualified or unqualified for leadership based solely on gender. Saying that we “just need to be matriarchal“ is too simplistic and excludes many voice. There are also too many women in Windigo, Inc. to trust that a shift will take place just because we replace patriarchy with something that seems to be its opposite. We need new words.
In conversations, many of my queer/trans friends manifest amazing powers of perspective-taking! We need leaders with specific skills like this. We need a Joanna-Macy-style Council of Beings. (This would include a way to center on trees, mushrooms, water, sloths, ecosystems, etc….) We need folks with strong ethics who listen carefully to multiple perspectives. We need people who care deeply about the Earth, the environment. People who take the long view. These aren’t gender-based skills.
A matriarchal society is exactly the same type of oppression as a patriarchy. Simply reversing the sex of rulers doesn't change the facts of having a ruling class. What did Margaret Thatcher change? Fairly sure she was a woman.
Spartan women were famous for the brutality and torture they inflicted on the slaves they owned.
Egypt had female rulers, and yet that didn't stop the wars, the slavery, or the massive inequality of Egyptian society.
Alternative definitions suggest that matriarchal societies might be more egalitarian, emphasizing cooperation, partnership, and balance between genders rather than hierarchical control.
And to see this work, women would have to have the freedom to perform to their true nature. Not simply being a woman performing as a man, in a patriarchal system.
The most egalitarian societies are egalitarian. That would allow women and men free to be whoever and however they want to be. Cooperation, partnership, and balance cannot happen without an egalitarian social order. Hierarchical control no matter how it's organized prevents that.
History is full of hideous powerful women. It is power that corrupts, not gender. It’s easy to say “matriarchy” is the answer, harder to be specific and point out that power inequalities have always been the issue. Men are not the problem. A system that permits any one person, or any one organization, to wield more decision making authority, any influence, more than another person, is the poison that must be eliminated.
I think there might be a difference between a matriarchy and a woman leader in a patriarchal system. Have you ever experienced living in a matriarchy? I haven't...
Sure I imagine there would be lots of difference. Although, what they both have in common is right there in both words. As in the “archy” part. Both words referencing a ruler or rulers.
That's the part I will always disagree with. The word does not refer to a leader that is followed, it is referring to a ruler that is obeyed.
Anarchy means without a ruler. An (without) archy (ruler). It doesn't mean without rules, or without order, it only means without a ruler.
Thanks for the Latin lesson. Brings me right back to 9th grade... However, it is the imbalance of voice in leadership that concerns me. The Haudenosaunee had an interesting decision-making structure. There are even some South American countries that have had /have female presidents, for god's sake. But not us. Instead we have Trump.
We definitely need to hear the female voices, female wisdom, and female leaders. The same for the male voice, it only becomes a problem when we make them into rulers.
What we are seeing is the final explosion of patriarchy. The male of the species hass run rampant for thousands of years and have brought about the destruction of the world. Quite simply they need to be stopped. NOW.
We can save ourselves if we can return to the principles of matriarchal societies. We need to get back to what women have known for thousand and thousands and thousands of years. That we live together in harmony with each other and the planet and the universe or we will cease to live at all.
Men have had their chance. They can correct their course and join with women as equal partners and help save humanity or they can get out of the way and let women fix the mess like we have always done.
There’s a lot of psychological manipulation on this subject to socially condition the sexes to compete with another so that society fragments instead of working together in natural harmony.
I listened to Teal Swan talking about what she calls "containment', and what I heard is her claiming that men are "supposed" to "contain" women while women are not at all expected or supposed to "contain" men. (In other words: "Care for and protect me, but don't expect to be cared for or protected.) But the more I listened the more I realized that Teal herself likes to play "little girl" in her relationships with men, while she expects and demands to be cared for, protected and supported by men without herself being able or willing to provide these qualities of presence herself. This means she has just not grown up into human adulthood at all. She prefers to live as a wise, elder little girl.
That video I listened to with Teal was heartbreaking, as she is pretending to be a wise elder while continuing to play little girl.
A little more about Teal Swan and her talking about "containment". If we actually listen very carefully, what Teal is actually saying is that it is a man's role to provide "containment" (protection, care, holding, sensitivity) for a woman for "his" woman (she calls this "ownership" of the woman) while she herself is simply on the receiving side of these qualities of care and attention. She says nothing about providing these for the man she is ostensibly in a "romantic" relationship with. In fact, it would be best, it seems (by her assessment) if she is simply cared for and he is not, as he attends to himself without such needs.
That this is a parent/child relationship dynamic is not hidden in the least. Teal is saying that a woman is a child and a man is the protective parent. Adult/Adult relating makes no sense to her at all.
Opinions vary. But may I say that if women are in charge then children and the future are more likely to be privileged over raw displays of status, power etc. Women who simply rule in a patriarchal system such as Ancient Egypt are not a matriarchy.
Let us not hung upon word definitions. Obviously, a society that simply replaces gender but keeps the same power structure in place, is pointless. But there are societies that do not care about power for the individual, but a future for all, and that begins with focusing on the rights of children, not treating them as collateral damage in ego-fuelled wars. The Wikipedia entry is interesting. It points out that it is hard for many people to understand that society does not have to be about power at all.
I agree. The issue is that when we use terms in non-standard ways — such as radically changing the meaning of matriarchy to mean something much different than the word’s actual definition — we end communication. Matriarchy is not the right word for “privileging” children and the future. That is a noble sentiment, but it is not related to matriarchy. And if we value that outcome, the only way to get there is through clear thinking and clear communications. Fighting for “matriarchy” means nothing. Fighting for the equal distribution of power, for equal access to heath care, for dignity in old age, for an integrated, systemic ecological view that recognizes our connectedness, our inseparability from each other and the world, is real, tangible, actionable. Matriarchy? That’s just patriarchy with an “m”.
Matriarchy is often misunderstood when viewed through a patriarchal lens. In patriarchal logic, power equals domination, so it is often assumed matriarchy means women dominating men. It does not.
Matriarchy reflects a different philosophy of authority, one rooted in responsibility, continuity, and stewardship rather than domination. It emphasizes relational balance, communal responsibility, and the long-term well-being of the community.
In matriarchal systems:
Mothers anchor lineage and continuity
Children are central to communal responsibility
Egalitarian. Authority flows from stewardship, not coercion
Men and extended kin support the mother–child axis without controlling it
Social organization prioritizes nurturing, protection, and collective well-being
Structurally, matriarchy is often expressed in matrilineal societies, where lineage and inheritance flow through the maternal line. Among the Akan of Ghana, for example, the Queen Mother holds institutional authority, including the power to nominate or depose chiefs, serving as a guardian of lineage continuity and social balance.
arbara Love and Elizabeth Shanklin wrote, "by 'matriarchy,' we mean a non-alienated society: a society in which women, those who produce the next generation, define motherhood, determine the conditions of motherhood, and determine the environment in which the next generation is reared."[
The issue is the corruption of power. Anyone that seeks power over another will in fact become corrupt. No exceptions. The past several thousand years have been one long, failed, effort to organize such that the accumulation of power in individuals and groups does not consume itself in short order. All of those efforts have failed miserably.
Yes, the patriarchy is a corrupt failure. But that is not because of gender. Women, given power, will also fall to corruption. The matriarchy is just the tails side of the coin. It has happened many times. It would be generally recognized if not for the fact that women hold power so rarely.
The point about matriarchy is that nobody has power. Children and the future are privileged, power per se is not of interest. Gender is not relevant, particularly.
ahhh, no. A matriarchy places power into the hands of women. And that power will corrupt women every bit as much as any man. History is full of examples.
Yes I am not bothered about nomenclature. Whatever society privileges the lives of children and the future over raw displays of power, status, money-grabbing and beating of the chest, gorilla-style. These things tend to be testosterone-fuelled. Ancient Egypt was a patriarchal system, in which women sometimes had power. You are right that which sex is in charge doesn’t matter in such a scenario.
I understand what you mean about any archy being less than ideal; however, as far as I can tell, anarchy usually reverts to might is right, aka rule by men.
Might is right, is another word for monarchy. Which is no different than a warlord. It certainly does not describe anarchy. As soon as a ruling party of any kind is designated the power struggle begins. The point of anarchy is self-agency and responsibility.
Anarchy doesn't mean no rules it only means “no rulers”.
Yes, I understand what anarchy means. I agree it would be ideal. My point is … that it’s ideal. No rulers to begin with would quickly turn into rulers — those who wish to dominate. Do correct me if you know of a successful state of anarchy in the modern world.
The Seventh Generation principle is also of interest, since it isn’t just about how humans run their societies, but how they perceive the context in which they live — not consuming insanely without regard for those who will be here in future would be a good start.
And what of the cultures who simply shun or kill those whose ego is clearly out of control — democracy has failed to reign in these kind of people, and has even handed them power.
Only certain forms of democracy, those that have concentrated power in corruptible individuals, have failed as you describe. Sadly, despite the labels and high-minded slogans, power twisted them all in the end.
Hey, that’s a really helpful addition to the conversation, to be rude for no reason and come over like an eye-rolling know-all. Thanks for your contribution!
arbara Love and Elizabeth Shanklin wrote, "by 'matriarchy,' we mean a non-alienated society: a society in which women, those who produce the next generation, define motherhood, determine the conditions of motherhood, and determine the environment in which the next generation is reared."[
They need to speak to the English language police and apply for a change in definition. Every time they misuse the word matriarchy to mean something it plainly does not, they are failing to communicate. Every time they say matriarchy, and anyone agrees, there is no way to understand what they are in agreement over.
Why not just create a new word that is not rooted in hierarchy? Hierarchy is far closer to the problem than either patriarchy or matriarchy. We don’t need power disparity. In fact, anarchy is closer to your definition of matriarchy than matriarchy itself. Anarchy does not mean chaos.
What word do you think would best describe a culture that refused to rotate around money, power and status; one which could not tolerate the killing, abuse or degradation of children for any reason whatsoever? One which centred kindness and deeply considered its impact on future generations; that acted with restraint and respect for other beings on Earth; that realised the importance of reciprocity rather than domination and exploitation, etc etc? —- a truly sustainable society, in other words …
That is the challenge. We have seen nothing even close for 12,000 years. I would start with these. Test to discover which sticks best.
Generative
Stewardship-based
Reciprocal
Tribal
Though absence of hierarchy is the key. No power disparities.
Maybe they all suck, but it’s a start. If it’s a political movement that motivates people to ask, winner. If they think they know what it is, and they find out otherwise, no one is happy. And there are people here that have become so accustomed to thinking in false dichotomies, unguarded language can lead them to divide the nation yet another way. We surely don’t need more division. That is how the power mongers win.
I’ve heard the term, but I thought it referred to the pit in The Odyssey, when Odysseus brings an offering of blood to attract the hungry ghosts - though now that I think about it it, they seem more thirsty than hungry. It draws them near the surface, and they speak with him. They tell him what he needs to know, and he answers their questions.
The idea that the dead are “forever insatiable” is embodied in this part of the Greek story.
The question that emerges for me: How can we coordinate and create structures that repattern towards harmony while operating under the rules of Windigo INC?
It's not possible, in my opinion, to do surgically. The best I can figure is to 1) see the monster for what it is (& you probably already do) and the 2) stop feeding the Windigo wherever you can. It might be that you find another job that's less rapacious, or you plant a garden so that you don't have to buy as much, or you share a meal with friends instead of going to Bali on a jet. When you start enjoying starving the Windigo, your joy will spread to others and they, too, will want to starve the Windigo.
I seriously think that this is such a wicked problem that unfortunately, probably, only an AI-level intelligence can untangle it and turn it into an understandable action plan.
I know, it sounds antithetical, doesn't it?? But my instinct takes me there. We have been overwhelmed by our own creations. We just don't have the COORDINATION CAPACITY to save ourselves from their aftermath of our actions (in terms of aligning our motivations). Even every single one of us "finds another job that's less rapacious" it is naive to think this will solve our coordination problem. There will always remain misalignments of resources and needs, of ignorance and understanding, which inevitably lead to conflict, trauma, and destruction. Solving this complexity would take a god-level intelligence, or a pro-social drug dripped into our water supply. Yes, I agree with you that my AI comment sounds like a joke, but I'm desperate -- we need a higher level of intelligence than ours to save us. Because we are not it, not even collectively.
It looks like Substack wiped out my lengthy reply, so I'll summarize: I agree with all of your sentiment and almost all your words...it IS complex and coordination within our communities is required to overcome the mess we are in. However, AI is not magic. It is written by humans and carries their foibles into their algorithmic processes. AI, and computers in general, are great at crunching numbers, but are terrible at wisdom. What we need to defeat the Windigo is wisdom. Humans can be wise, though it is strongly selected against by Windigo Inc., to borrow the author's phrase. So where is there hope?
We got into this mess from billions of small bad decisions and we can reverse course through many good small decisions. Your actions matter, though they may appear insignificant in the moment. We will need some big shifts, too, but those come from somewhere. The might river is made of many raindrops.
I also agree with your main sentiment and almost all your words! But pragmatically speaking, your hopeful description of what must happen is actually not a solution. At all. Adding up "many good small decisions" is not a real prescription for the future we need. It's vague hand-waving and it falls short of anything but inspiration for a brief moment. And that is simply not enough.
We have been overwhelmed by our own creations because we unconsciously perform for patriarchy with every move we make.
Instead of asking AI to adult for us, we need to pause and actually feel into our hearts, our souls, our bodies and learn to create far less (most of what we think of as ‘creation’ is actually force) and simply allow a more beautiful world to emerge by staying out of our own way and taking aligned action. I think that means learning to take care of ourselves first and foremost instead of relying on systems that are designed to oppress us to do it for us.
Yes, AI is mind. Wisdom requires embodiment and we do have a huge coordination problem. I am part of so many networks of people with incredible creative ideas and solutions and we gather and meet and find joy in seeing synergies and yet, coordination is costly and slow. I feel more and more about local even if activating global
Hits the issue squarely on the head, we live in an utterly mad system that consumes everything it touches. The insanity of eg, locking food, that every living creature on the planet requires to survive, away, and then trading it back to humans in exchange for their, “life force” if you will, for me, can’t be overstated. What always comes to mind, is how utterly mad it is, that we have people starving, and literal warehouses full of food, that is simply allowed to rot, if no one can afford to buy it. I think you’ve absolutely named the monster here, it is completely insane, it’s probably also the main reason every civilization ever has eventually collapsed, something I believe this one is headed for, sooner than anyone thinks…..
Jeremy, your naming of the psychological impulse to devour is powerful and resonates deeply. One constructive addition I’d offer is that this derangement doesn’t become civilizational on its own — it becomes world‑shaping only when a political‑economic system is built to actualize it. That system is extractive capitalism, which turns the human impulse to grasp into a structural mandate to consume, concentrate, and dominate. Naming that mechanism matters because it’s the link between inner compulsion and outer harm — and it’s also what opens the door to mitigation, repair, and the regenerative alternatives described by thinkers like John Elkington (Volans) and Marjorie Kelly (The Democracy Collaborative). When we identify the system that enacts the derangement, we can also identify the systems that can replace it. Regenerative capitalism can replace extractive capitalism.
The discussion here variously about ego (@verticaldispatch) and the difference between impulse and strategic systems building (@johnmcnellisrich) has long boggled my mind gently over the decades - being curious about, and perhaps adequately schooled in both evolutionary behavioural ecology and in systems and ecosystems analysis. Constraints and restraints on instinct and impulse lead to our systems - and these generally fall into the category of “nurture” rather than Nature. So what happens when humans, e.g. men frustrated by the confines of societal systems and norms, feel unleashed and affirmed by a trumpeting wannabe strongman? Societal structures can’t just rein them in with laws; nor will endless “hearing” of their frustrations suffice. We need artful blends of both in the form of national and global dialogues about these crossroads of humanity. These may be a challenge to moderate but they needn’t be tightly moderated. The important thing is to start the conversations everywhere, framed by a few key questions. What kind of societies do we want from now on? How do we get there from here? What went wrong before, and what went right? How can we achieve dramatic and wise reform while still keeping our hands as steady as possible on the stability of our societies? And perhaps, isn’t it possible for governments to govern more collaboratively with their publics?
It’s not new: colonial countries at their own crossroads of history have long had the need to ask these questions. I’ve been privileged to have a front row seat in two such countries, post-apartheid South Africa and newly independent Namibia for 34 years in government and academia (and have written about that here: https://www.ecologicalcitizen.net/pdfs/epub-086.pdf). But now we must take these conversations globally. Starting the conversation is half the battle.
This is fascinating. What a powerful analysis. I love that you name this systematic concept as a perverse self-destructive impulse embedded throughout our whole way of existing so thoroughly that we don’t even notice it. That’s brilliant.
Unfortunately I think AI is Windigo on steroids—with no consciousness to awaken and see itself in order to change courses Pure 10000% exploitative Windigo.
Like you I found the idea brilliant when I read it in 2013 in Paul Levy’s book Dispelling Wetiko. And he gave credit to Jack D. Forbes who wrote about this exact dynamic back in 1978 in his book Columbus and other Cannibals. So it’s not exactly a new idea, and surely not one that can in any way be attributed to mr. Lent.
Not to be confused with the lust for travel, i.e. Winnebago (kidding). Curiously, Wendigo (or Windigo) and Winnebago appear to come from the same linguistic root -- Algonquian/Ojibwe -- though not the same meaning. Winnebago seems to come from a term meaning "people of the rotten or stinking waters", possibly derived from local people who consumed a lot of fish (think rotten fish aroma). I speculate that this sense of rottenness might have a kissin' cousin relationship to Wendigo.
Yes, yes, thank you for pointing out the root. Have been puzzling over this my whole life. Every day, I may work to serve a higher good, but I am part of a system that blatantly serves evil, with a smile.
Jeremy, thank you. I am looking forward to reading your book. What I am pondering is what was the original fracture that separated human beings from self, each other, and our origin from the Earth. As I write this, I am listening to Imagine by John Lennon where he cites the constructs of heaven, hell, and religion as fictious ways of coping with the separation we find ourselves in now. How do we attune ourselves once again to our "liyan" as the Aboriginal People so wisely counsel? Or our neurological connection as Natureza Gabriel Kram advocates? Somehow, i think our lost mystical connections need to be resurrected. Nia To Go There
I always understood the windigo stories as the indigenous understanding of dealing with and controlling the small subset of the population that would today be classified as psychopaths. In human terms, a psychopath is someone who is essentially locked into a ‘pure predatory’ relationship with the world. Those people would be very dangerous in small tribes, thus ways of identifying, discouraging, and controlling/containing those individuals was imperative to a group’s long term survival.
With modern industrial capitalism psychopathy is a trait that gets self selected and helps consolidate massive amounts of wealth, power and control. It’s advantageous to be a psychopath in most industries and politics. So it’s no surprise that we are where we are, our civilization has been run by strict predatory carnivores for a long time. This is what happens when the wolves run the henhouse.
Indigenous people also knew a long time ago that if the carnivore populations got out of control they would eventually kill everything; all the animals, the humans, and eventually themselves. In metaphoric terms, this is where we are. Civilization has taken the most dangerous aspect of humans evolutionary psychology and handed it the reigns. I doubt it ends well…
You are pointing at something real, but it needs one more layer of precision.
What Indigenous traditions encoded under names like Windigo, modern clinical language sometimes encounters as predation without reciprocity. And what Andrew Lobaczewski attempted to map in Political Ponerology was the same pattern at the level of institutions: how a relatively small pathological minority can capture a social body, reorganise its values, and make the abnormal appear normal.
That is the part liberal systems theory refused to study seriously.
It drew elegant diagrams of interdependence, trust, feedback and emergence, as though a civilisation were a healthy organism by default. But it did not spend nearly enough time on the equivalent of tumours, parasites, seizure states, or predatory hijack. It gave us a map of the body and no chapter on cancer.
So yes, in a small tribe, a purely predatory person is a survival problem. Everyone feels the distortion quickly. The group has to identify it, name it, contain it, or be broken by it. Myth, taboo, ritual, and story all become immune functions. They are not quaint superstition. They are civilisational diagnostics.
Modernity, by contrast, did something far more dangerous.
It did not merely fail to contain predation. It professionalised it.
Industrial capitalism, financial abstraction, imperial bureaucracy, and later the attention economy created environments in which traits associated with psychopathy could outperform reciprocity for long stretches of time. Not always because “evil won”, but because the system became structurally indifferent to moral depth. It rewarded charm over conscience, scale over restraint, extraction over relationship, fluency over truth.
At that point, the wolves are not merely in the henhouse. They are writing the performance metrics.
But I would add one caution. We should not let the diagnosis collapse into “everything is caused by psychopaths”. That becomes too easy, and in a strange way too flattering to the rest of us. Ponerology matters because it explains how pathological minorities can seize disproportionate influence. But the full tragedy is larger: once the system is captured, it begins recruiting ordinary people into pathological functions. People who are not clinical predators still learn to think through predatory structures. They obey incentive gradients. They optimise within the cage. They become, in effect, competent organs of an incoherent whole.
That is why the Windigo is not just a person. It is a regime.
A civilisation becomes Windigo-like when it can no longer generate value through reciprocity, skill, memory, limit, or care, and so it begins feeding on its own substrate: forests, workers, children, cultures, aquifers, attention, truth. Ponerology helps explain how such a regime gets started and stabilised. It names the clinical reality that some people do not merely fail morally; they relate to life in a fundamentally parasitic way. And once a system stops recognising that, it starts treating pathology as leadership.
So no, it probably does not end well on its own.
But the important thing is this: if the pathology is systemic, then the response cannot be merely moral outrage. It has to be immune design.
A sane civilisation does not assume everyone is good.
It does not assume power self-corrects.
It does not assume openness is always safe.
It builds for the presence of manipulators, spellbinders, predators, and the weak-willed people who will enable them. It creates friction. It shortens the distance between action and consequence. It protects witness. It makes lying expensive, extraction visible, and predation harder to scale.
Excellent!!!
Agreed. We have elevated the psychopaths. This is what happens.
Spot on!
Read the book “the limits to growth”. And listen to Scene on Radio. The current season is all about “Capitalism,”. They discuss the book. Both discuss why capitalism is bad.
there are many varieties of capitalism, and what we have now in the US is more like a new kind of feudalism, which is worse than capitalism.
There is a book and movement called Regenerative Capitalism, that may be a way to start on the right direction.
SCARY STUFF! 😢
I hope you mention the word patriarchy somewhere. Dont you think that matriarchal societies, that always put children and the future first, are possible?
Absolutely! I refer to it elsewhere in the book as perhaps the deepest and most pervasive form of inequality: "Throughout world history, patriarchy has persisted as a relentless form of oppression, forcing half the human species into subordinate roles, frequently through violence and institutionalized cruelty."
As a Trans/Queer-adjacent individual I consider any Gender-essentialist narratives to be inherently sus, to be brutally honest. Not just patriarchy.
I'm interested in your take. I truly believe that women identifying leaders would be great to have at the helm of our civilization during the transition away from capitalism, greed, even hierarchy itself. Feminine presenting leaders I think would be less susceptible to "Windigo Inc." though not exclusively. They'd be more likely to create a circular society that is able to distribute power as equally as possible rather than attempt to consolidate it for themselves.
However, I recognize that there is no right answer. There is always more to learn. My perspective is limited. Obviously equality for all across the gender spectrum should be the ultimate and necessary goal for humanity. I suppose I just find it also necessary at this moment in history for there to be a swing towards feminine representation. The pendulum of change, I think, wouldn't reach equilibrium as quickly without that. What do you think?
I personally think that women tend to make better leaders than men as a rule, and as Indigenous author Jack D. Forbes noted,
women are generally less susceptible to Windigo/Wetiko, usually only contracting the milder form of the disease when they do get it.
Except as women we have also been taught to shame the feminine within ourselves and many of those who would be most likely to step into positions of power, would be those who crave power over others over true power - power of self.
I do think we women we need to take the lead, but I think it looks like leading ourselves first and foremost, not as trying to gain positions of power. Largely, this next chapter is asking us all to learn to lead ourselves more.
I think it will take more than women leaders. We have that now, to some extent, and they are no better than their male counterparts. Sometimes worse.
What women excel at is working together to get things done.
That means that we need at least as many women as men in every occupation. Women on their own will be repressed or co-opted to follow the same wrong agenda. But with the backing of other women who share equal power, they will do the very best job and lead the way.
The leadership from either sex will rise to the top, but female/grandmother wisdom is a real phenomenon, and when we learn to appreciate it, as so many indigenous societies have, the world will be better off in the long run.
Very gender essentialist and very "my in-group of people is speehshul". I had enough of that coming from macho types for the last 10.000 yeats to last me another 10.000.
I appreciate you sharing this in the way you did. I do hope people read both of our comments. Yours leaves an impression.
Gender essentialism is telling little girls who are tomboys that they are actual boys and they should remove healthy body parts to 'correct' themselves.
There are two sexes: male and female. The females - being less physically strong, and having biology that requires child bearing - have historically been subjugated in many cultures.
Gender identity is nothing more than a human construct or thought-experiment that currently helps deny the reality of biological forms of oppression. People can play 'let's pretend' about gender, but sadly it undermines the reality of sex-based oppression/exploitation such as FGM and surrogacy.
Your suggestion that 'feminine presenting' people might be less liable to oppressive/Windigo behaviour is a useful example of how the current gender confusion is unhelpful to actual females. A man who dresses in dresses and grows his hair is still a man. The traits and behaviours he displays do not change by changing clothing. They don't change because he is on HRT. he still went through male puberty. He was socialised male.
If he experiences hostility from others, it will be a form of homophobia based on him defying sex-stereotypes. It's not nice to experience that, but it is not misogyny. If you pretend that it is, you are doing a disservice to females everywhere.
Equally, it is a mistake to think women aren't capable of Windigo behaviour. Women and men are complicit in the extractive nature of our current paradigm. We all need to birth a new approach to co-existing with other humans and the more than human inhabitants of the planet.
It will be nice when this gender identity story goes away and we can move to a reality-based but genuinely more progressive attitude to sex roles and presentations. We nearly got there, but then we lost it.
Glad I'm not the only one seeing this
Yes. This. There are issues with defining people as qualified or unqualified for leadership based solely on gender. Saying that we “just need to be matriarchal“ is too simplistic and excludes many voice. There are also too many women in Windigo, Inc. to trust that a shift will take place just because we replace patriarchy with something that seems to be its opposite. We need new words.
In conversations, many of my queer/trans friends manifest amazing powers of perspective-taking! We need leaders with specific skills like this. We need a Joanna-Macy-style Council of Beings. (This would include a way to center on trees, mushrooms, water, sloths, ecosystems, etc….) We need folks with strong ethics who listen carefully to multiple perspectives. We need people who care deeply about the Earth, the environment. People who take the long view. These aren’t gender-based skills.
Oh c'mon! Now you're talking equality. Something conservatives AND liberals hate
I created a video collage that for the explores this “wendigo sickness” and offers possible remedies on the post linked below.
https://gavinmounsey.substack.com/p/the-monster-of-modernitywendigo-thinking
I would value getting your thoughts on what I put together.
Thank you greatly for your collage. So full of wisdom !
I usually don't watch long videos, but here, everything was meaningful. Thank you
Thanks for taking the time and commenting.
A matriarchal society is exactly the same type of oppression as a patriarchy. Simply reversing the sex of rulers doesn't change the facts of having a ruling class. What did Margaret Thatcher change? Fairly sure she was a woman.
Spartan women were famous for the brutality and torture they inflicted on the slaves they owned.
Egypt had female rulers, and yet that didn't stop the wars, the slavery, or the massive inequality of Egyptian society.
Alternative definitions suggest that matriarchal societies might be more egalitarian, emphasizing cooperation, partnership, and balance between genders rather than hierarchical control.
And to see this work, women would have to have the freedom to perform to their true nature. Not simply being a woman performing as a man, in a patriarchal system.
The most egalitarian societies are egalitarian. That would allow women and men free to be whoever and however they want to be. Cooperation, partnership, and balance cannot happen without an egalitarian social order. Hierarchical control no matter how it's organized prevents that.
History is full of hideous powerful women. It is power that corrupts, not gender. It’s easy to say “matriarchy” is the answer, harder to be specific and point out that power inequalities have always been the issue. Men are not the problem. A system that permits any one person, or any one organization, to wield more decision making authority, any influence, more than another person, is the poison that must be eliminated.
Exactly 🎯🎯🎯🎯
I think there might be a difference between a matriarchy and a woman leader in a patriarchal system. Have you ever experienced living in a matriarchy? I haven't...
Sure I imagine there would be lots of difference. Although, what they both have in common is right there in both words. As in the “archy” part. Both words referencing a ruler or rulers.
That's the part I will always disagree with. The word does not refer to a leader that is followed, it is referring to a ruler that is obeyed.
Anarchy means without a ruler. An (without) archy (ruler). It doesn't mean without rules, or without order, it only means without a ruler.
I don't want a male or female ruler.
I prefer a voluntary social order.
Thanks for the Latin lesson. Brings me right back to 9th grade... However, it is the imbalance of voice in leadership that concerns me. The Haudenosaunee had an interesting decision-making structure. There are even some South American countries that have had /have female presidents, for god's sake. But not us. Instead we have Trump.
We definitely need to hear the female voices, female wisdom, and female leaders. The same for the male voice, it only becomes a problem when we make them into rulers.
I don't know if I created it, but I have been saying: "Human Rights begin with Women's Rights" and sharing it when it seems appropriate 😉
I look forward to reading your book 📖
What we are seeing is the final explosion of patriarchy. The male of the species hass run rampant for thousands of years and have brought about the destruction of the world. Quite simply they need to be stopped. NOW.
We can save ourselves if we can return to the principles of matriarchal societies. We need to get back to what women have known for thousand and thousands and thousands of years. That we live together in harmony with each other and the planet and the universe or we will cease to live at all.
Men have had their chance. They can correct their course and join with women as equal partners and help save humanity or they can get out of the way and let women fix the mess like we have always done.
The divine masculine or masculine containment is the safe container for the divine feminine to flourish. Teal Swan speaks about this in detail.
Explain. Because the actual “masculine” sure as hell isn’t a safe space for the actual “feminine”.
There’s a lot of psychological manipulation on this subject to socially condition the sexes to compete with another so that society fragments instead of working together in natural harmony.
I would recommend this presentation https://youtu.be/IQli3EScVxA?si=S5SwnrTJpCIkZ2pt
and Teal Swan’s work on masculine containment https://youtu.be/MJxbiHBpSc4?si=7w2SRfOXECNq04lm
or study Yin/Yang
I listened to Teal Swan talking about what she calls "containment', and what I heard is her claiming that men are "supposed" to "contain" women while women are not at all expected or supposed to "contain" men. (In other words: "Care for and protect me, but don't expect to be cared for or protected.) But the more I listened the more I realized that Teal herself likes to play "little girl" in her relationships with men, while she expects and demands to be cared for, protected and supported by men without herself being able or willing to provide these qualities of presence herself. This means she has just not grown up into human adulthood at all. She prefers to live as a wise, elder little girl.
That video I listened to with Teal was heartbreaking, as she is pretending to be a wise elder while continuing to play little girl.
A little more about Teal Swan and her talking about "containment". If we actually listen very carefully, what Teal is actually saying is that it is a man's role to provide "containment" (protection, care, holding, sensitivity) for a woman for "his" woman (she calls this "ownership" of the woman) while she herself is simply on the receiving side of these qualities of care and attention. She says nothing about providing these for the man she is ostensibly in a "romantic" relationship with. In fact, it would be best, it seems (by her assessment) if she is simply cared for and he is not, as he attends to himself without such needs.
That this is a parent/child relationship dynamic is not hidden in the least. Teal is saying that a woman is a child and a man is the protective parent. Adult/Adult relating makes no sense to her at all.
Thank you, James. Im glad to hear this said. Maya Luna, "forbidden fruit" on the stack, does an exceptional job of breaking this pattern down as well.
Great! Where do I look, find, read first?
https://forbiddenfruits.substack.com/
Containment??? No thanks
Where the native tribes themselves not deeply patriarchal? Unrecognisably so to our modern sensibilities I would suggest!
Indeed. I will add that the late Claudio Naranjo wrote a great book called "The End of Patriarchy, and the Dawn of a Tri-Une Society".
Opinions vary. But may I say that if women are in charge then children and the future are more likely to be privileged over raw displays of status, power etc. Women who simply rule in a patriarchal system such as Ancient Egypt are not a matriarchy.
Thank you. You nailed it.
Let us not hung upon word definitions. Obviously, a society that simply replaces gender but keeps the same power structure in place, is pointless. But there are societies that do not care about power for the individual, but a future for all, and that begins with focusing on the rights of children, not treating them as collateral damage in ego-fuelled wars. The Wikipedia entry is interesting. It points out that it is hard for many people to understand that society does not have to be about power at all.
I agree. The issue is that when we use terms in non-standard ways — such as radically changing the meaning of matriarchy to mean something much different than the word’s actual definition — we end communication. Matriarchy is not the right word for “privileging” children and the future. That is a noble sentiment, but it is not related to matriarchy. And if we value that outcome, the only way to get there is through clear thinking and clear communications. Fighting for “matriarchy” means nothing. Fighting for the equal distribution of power, for equal access to heath care, for dignity in old age, for an integrated, systemic ecological view that recognizes our connectedness, our inseparability from each other and the world, is real, tangible, actionable. Matriarchy? That’s just patriarchy with an “m”.
Matriarchy is often misunderstood when viewed through a patriarchal lens. In patriarchal logic, power equals domination, so it is often assumed matriarchy means women dominating men. It does not.
Matriarchy reflects a different philosophy of authority, one rooted in responsibility, continuity, and stewardship rather than domination. It emphasizes relational balance, communal responsibility, and the long-term well-being of the community.
In matriarchal systems:
Mothers anchor lineage and continuity
Children are central to communal responsibility
Egalitarian. Authority flows from stewardship, not coercion
Men and extended kin support the mother–child axis without controlling it
Social organization prioritizes nurturing, protection, and collective well-being
Structurally, matriarchy is often expressed in matrilineal societies, where lineage and inheritance flow through the maternal line. Among the Akan of Ghana, for example, the Queen Mother holds institutional authority, including the power to nominate or depose chiefs, serving as a guardian of lineage continuity and social balance.
arbara Love and Elizabeth Shanklin wrote, "by 'matriarchy,' we mean a non-alienated society: a society in which women, those who produce the next generation, define motherhood, determine the conditions of motherhood, and determine the environment in which the next generation is reared."[
The issue is the corruption of power. Anyone that seeks power over another will in fact become corrupt. No exceptions. The past several thousand years have been one long, failed, effort to organize such that the accumulation of power in individuals and groups does not consume itself in short order. All of those efforts have failed miserably.
Yes, the patriarchy is a corrupt failure. But that is not because of gender. Women, given power, will also fall to corruption. The matriarchy is just the tails side of the coin. It has happened many times. It would be generally recognized if not for the fact that women hold power so rarely.
The point about matriarchy is that nobody has power. Children and the future are privileged, power per se is not of interest. Gender is not relevant, particularly.
ahhh, no. A matriarchy places power into the hands of women. And that power will corrupt women every bit as much as any man. History is full of examples.
Here is the definition of matriarchy:
matriarchy
nounhttps://dictionary.cambridge.org/help/codes.html
UK
/ˈmeɪ.tri.ɑː.ki/ US
/ˈmeɪ.tri.ɑːr.ki/
Add to word list
a https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/type of https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/society in which women have most of the https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/authority and https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/power, or a https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/society in which https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/propertyhttps://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/belong to women and is given to https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/children by women https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/rather than men
Any archal society is a society based on oppression. It doesn't matter which sex is rulling the problem is that they are rulling.
Egyptian's had female rulers, that didn't change the fact that they had slavery, warfare, massive inequality and oppression..
Yes I am not bothered about nomenclature. Whatever society privileges the lives of children and the future over raw displays of power, status, money-grabbing and beating of the chest, gorilla-style. These things tend to be testosterone-fuelled. Ancient Egypt was a patriarchal system, in which women sometimes had power. You are right that which sex is in charge doesn’t matter in such a scenario.
I understand what you mean about any archy being less than ideal; however, as far as I can tell, anarchy usually reverts to might is right, aka rule by men.
Might is right, is another word for monarchy. Which is no different than a warlord. It certainly does not describe anarchy. As soon as a ruling party of any kind is designated the power struggle begins. The point of anarchy is self-agency and responsibility.
Anarchy doesn't mean no rules it only means “no rulers”.
Yes, I understand what anarchy means. I agree it would be ideal. My point is … that it’s ideal. No rulers to begin with would quickly turn into rulers — those who wish to dominate. Do correct me if you know of a successful state of anarchy in the modern world.
Short-term: the Woodstock Festival of Peace and Music, 1969. Followed up by Rainbow Gatherings, although they have become corrupted in some places.
He doesn't mention it. I don't see it. Obviously a man will never understand that patriarchy created capitalism.
Mr Lent, above, says that he has included it in the book
The Seventh Generation principle is also of interest, since it isn’t just about how humans run their societies, but how they perceive the context in which they live — not consuming insanely without regard for those who will be here in future would be a good start.
And what of the cultures who simply shun or kill those whose ego is clearly out of control — democracy has failed to reign in these kind of people, and has even handed them power.
Only certain forms of democracy, those that have concentrated power in corruptible individuals, have failed as you describe. Sadly, despite the labels and high-minded slogans, power twisted them all in the end.
Should be mandatory imo
How on earth do you know that? Read The Dawn of Everything and you will soon discover that pretty much everything is possible.
No, because reality does not agree with your fantasy.
Hey, that’s a really helpful addition to the conversation, to be rude for no reason and come over like an eye-rolling know-all. Thanks for your contribution!
Matrifocal societies put the LAND first. The L A N D. If you’re going to ape indigenous systems at least understand them.
arbara Love and Elizabeth Shanklin wrote, "by 'matriarchy,' we mean a non-alienated society: a society in which women, those who produce the next generation, define motherhood, determine the conditions of motherhood, and determine the environment in which the next generation is reared."[
They need to speak to the English language police and apply for a change in definition. Every time they misuse the word matriarchy to mean something it plainly does not, they are failing to communicate. Every time they say matriarchy, and anyone agrees, there is no way to understand what they are in agreement over.
Why not just create a new word that is not rooted in hierarchy? Hierarchy is far closer to the problem than either patriarchy or matriarchy. We don’t need power disparity. In fact, anarchy is closer to your definition of matriarchy than matriarchy itself. Anarchy does not mean chaos.
There already are words: matrifocal, matrilineal, land-based, collectivist, etc.
What word do you think would best describe a culture that refused to rotate around money, power and status; one which could not tolerate the killing, abuse or degradation of children for any reason whatsoever? One which centred kindness and deeply considered its impact on future generations; that acted with restraint and respect for other beings on Earth; that realised the importance of reciprocity rather than domination and exploitation, etc etc? —- a truly sustainable society, in other words …
That is the challenge. We have seen nothing even close for 12,000 years. I would start with these. Test to discover which sticks best.
Generative
Stewardship-based
Reciprocal
Tribal
Though absence of hierarchy is the key. No power disparities.
Maybe they all suck, but it’s a start. If it’s a political movement that motivates people to ask, winner. If they think they know what it is, and they find out otherwise, no one is happy. And there are people here that have become so accustomed to thinking in false dichotomies, unguarded language can lead them to divide the nation yet another way. We surely don’t need more division. That is how the power mongers win.
In Buddhism, this "forever insatiable" is called the Hungry Ghost.
It has many names, I think. Hungry Ghost, Windigo. I call it cancer. Endless growth that feeds on the organism to its detriment and finally, demise.
I’ve heard the term, but I thought it referred to the pit in The Odyssey, when Odysseus brings an offering of blood to attract the hungry ghosts - though now that I think about it it, they seem more thirsty than hungry. It draws them near the surface, and they speak with him. They tell him what he needs to know, and he answers their questions.
The idea that the dead are “forever insatiable” is embodied in this part of the Greek story.
I first came across this in Robin Wall Kimmerers book Braiding Sweetgrass. It is definitely a fitting narrative.
It's rather disappointing that the author does not acknowledge this, isn't it?
The question that emerges for me: How can we coordinate and create structures that repattern towards harmony while operating under the rules of Windigo INC?
It's not possible, in my opinion, to do surgically. The best I can figure is to 1) see the monster for what it is (& you probably already do) and the 2) stop feeding the Windigo wherever you can. It might be that you find another job that's less rapacious, or you plant a garden so that you don't have to buy as much, or you share a meal with friends instead of going to Bali on a jet. When you start enjoying starving the Windigo, your joy will spread to others and they, too, will want to starve the Windigo.
I fully agree. Waste is a big one for me at the moment. Windigo is a monster we all feed
I like your phrase, "starve the windigo". Only I don't know if we can sufficiently cut off its food sources.
I don't either, Lin. All I know is that we must try or it will destroy us.
I seriously think that this is such a wicked problem that unfortunately, probably, only an AI-level intelligence can untangle it and turn it into an understandable action plan.
AI? I don't intend to be cruel, but if you turn to AI, then you're missing the point. Maybe you were being sarcastic (?).
I know, it sounds antithetical, doesn't it?? But my instinct takes me there. We have been overwhelmed by our own creations. We just don't have the COORDINATION CAPACITY to save ourselves from their aftermath of our actions (in terms of aligning our motivations). Even every single one of us "finds another job that's less rapacious" it is naive to think this will solve our coordination problem. There will always remain misalignments of resources and needs, of ignorance and understanding, which inevitably lead to conflict, trauma, and destruction. Solving this complexity would take a god-level intelligence, or a pro-social drug dripped into our water supply. Yes, I agree with you that my AI comment sounds like a joke, but I'm desperate -- we need a higher level of intelligence than ours to save us. Because we are not it, not even collectively.
It looks like Substack wiped out my lengthy reply, so I'll summarize: I agree with all of your sentiment and almost all your words...it IS complex and coordination within our communities is required to overcome the mess we are in. However, AI is not magic. It is written by humans and carries their foibles into their algorithmic processes. AI, and computers in general, are great at crunching numbers, but are terrible at wisdom. What we need to defeat the Windigo is wisdom. Humans can be wise, though it is strongly selected against by Windigo Inc., to borrow the author's phrase. So where is there hope?
We got into this mess from billions of small bad decisions and we can reverse course through many good small decisions. Your actions matter, though they may appear insignificant in the moment. We will need some big shifts, too, but those come from somewhere. The might river is made of many raindrops.
I also agree with your main sentiment and almost all your words! But pragmatically speaking, your hopeful description of what must happen is actually not a solution. At all. Adding up "many good small decisions" is not a real prescription for the future we need. It's vague hand-waving and it falls short of anything but inspiration for a brief moment. And that is simply not enough.
A description is never "enough". Did you really think that I thought it was?
We have been overwhelmed by our own creations because we unconsciously perform for patriarchy with every move we make.
Instead of asking AI to adult for us, we need to pause and actually feel into our hearts, our souls, our bodies and learn to create far less (most of what we think of as ‘creation’ is actually force) and simply allow a more beautiful world to emerge by staying out of our own way and taking aligned action. I think that means learning to take care of ourselves first and foremost instead of relying on systems that are designed to oppress us to do it for us.
Yes, AI is mind. Wisdom requires embodiment and we do have a huge coordination problem. I am part of so many networks of people with incredible creative ideas and solutions and we gather and meet and find joy in seeing synergies and yet, coordination is costly and slow. I feel more and more about local even if activating global
AI? Also Avery hungry system, devouring precious water sources, and programmed by the very windigo system. I have no hope in AI.
We can’t.
Hits the issue squarely on the head, we live in an utterly mad system that consumes everything it touches. The insanity of eg, locking food, that every living creature on the planet requires to survive, away, and then trading it back to humans in exchange for their, “life force” if you will, for me, can’t be overstated. What always comes to mind, is how utterly mad it is, that we have people starving, and literal warehouses full of food, that is simply allowed to rot, if no one can afford to buy it. I think you’ve absolutely named the monster here, it is completely insane, it’s probably also the main reason every civilization ever has eventually collapsed, something I believe this one is headed for, sooner than anyone thinks…..
Jeremy, your naming of the psychological impulse to devour is powerful and resonates deeply. One constructive addition I’d offer is that this derangement doesn’t become civilizational on its own — it becomes world‑shaping only when a political‑economic system is built to actualize it. That system is extractive capitalism, which turns the human impulse to grasp into a structural mandate to consume, concentrate, and dominate. Naming that mechanism matters because it’s the link between inner compulsion and outer harm — and it’s also what opens the door to mitigation, repair, and the regenerative alternatives described by thinkers like John Elkington (Volans) and Marjorie Kelly (The Democracy Collaborative). When we identify the system that enacts the derangement, we can also identify the systems that can replace it. Regenerative capitalism can replace extractive capitalism.
Capitalism must go completely
Exactly.
Yes except for that last sentence
The discussion here variously about ego (@verticaldispatch) and the difference between impulse and strategic systems building (@johnmcnellisrich) has long boggled my mind gently over the decades - being curious about, and perhaps adequately schooled in both evolutionary behavioural ecology and in systems and ecosystems analysis. Constraints and restraints on instinct and impulse lead to our systems - and these generally fall into the category of “nurture” rather than Nature. So what happens when humans, e.g. men frustrated by the confines of societal systems and norms, feel unleashed and affirmed by a trumpeting wannabe strongman? Societal structures can’t just rein them in with laws; nor will endless “hearing” of their frustrations suffice. We need artful blends of both in the form of national and global dialogues about these crossroads of humanity. These may be a challenge to moderate but they needn’t be tightly moderated. The important thing is to start the conversations everywhere, framed by a few key questions. What kind of societies do we want from now on? How do we get there from here? What went wrong before, and what went right? How can we achieve dramatic and wise reform while still keeping our hands as steady as possible on the stability of our societies? And perhaps, isn’t it possible for governments to govern more collaboratively with their publics?
It’s not new: colonial countries at their own crossroads of history have long had the need to ask these questions. I’ve been privileged to have a front row seat in two such countries, post-apartheid South Africa and newly independent Namibia for 34 years in government and academia (and have written about that here: https://www.ecologicalcitizen.net/pdfs/epub-086.pdf). But now we must take these conversations globally. Starting the conversation is half the battle.
This is fascinating. What a powerful analysis. I love that you name this systematic concept as a perverse self-destructive impulse embedded throughout our whole way of existing so thoroughly that we don’t even notice it. That’s brilliant.
Unfortunately I think AI is Windigo on steroids—with no consciousness to awaken and see itself in order to change courses Pure 10000% exploitative Windigo.
100% agree
Like you I found the idea brilliant when I read it in 2013 in Paul Levy’s book Dispelling Wetiko. And he gave credit to Jack D. Forbes who wrote about this exact dynamic back in 1978 in his book Columbus and other Cannibals. So it’s not exactly a new idea, and surely not one that can in any way be attributed to mr. Lent.
Paul Levy has been writing about Wetiko for years. Are you aware of his work?
Not to be confused with the lust for travel, i.e. Winnebago (kidding). Curiously, Wendigo (or Windigo) and Winnebago appear to come from the same linguistic root -- Algonquian/Ojibwe -- though not the same meaning. Winnebago seems to come from a term meaning "people of the rotten or stinking waters", possibly derived from local people who consumed a lot of fish (think rotten fish aroma). I speculate that this sense of rottenness might have a kissin' cousin relationship to Wendigo.
Yes, yes, thank you for pointing out the root. Have been puzzling over this my whole life. Every day, I may work to serve a higher good, but I am part of a system that blatantly serves evil, with a smile.
Jeremy, thank you. I am looking forward to reading your book. What I am pondering is what was the original fracture that separated human beings from self, each other, and our origin from the Earth. As I write this, I am listening to Imagine by John Lennon where he cites the constructs of heaven, hell, and religion as fictious ways of coping with the separation we find ourselves in now. How do we attune ourselves once again to our "liyan" as the Aboriginal People so wisely counsel? Or our neurological connection as Natureza Gabriel Kram advocates? Somehow, i think our lost mystical connections need to be resurrected. Nia To Go There
Well written - seems to me a little bigger than, while very aligned with, the Moloch (Alexander/Ginsburg) concept.
Looking forward to digging into this, as “The Patterning Instinct”, was a very influential read for me.
The common name is the ego. The book is coming https://substack.com/@theverticaldispatch/note/p-191528604?r=1pgr4n&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action