The Book is Here! TENTS BEFORE TEMPLES
Rough Drafts On Building A Culture That Lasts
My Book is finished! Tents Before Temples: Rough Drafts On Building A Culture That Lasts
You can order it here: https://a.co/d/aqA1yiU
If you would like to see a longer description, I have put out a video on YouTube.
Now that the book is finished, I should be able to write here more frequently. As a gift, I will send a digital copy to anyone who signs up for a paid membership. Just write a note asking for a copy in the sign up.
Here’s the description from Amazon:
The pyramids have endured for millennia, but the secrets of their construction remain a mystery. What caused the culture of Egypt to fade from memory, while the practices of their tent-dwelling contemporaries endure to this day? It turns out that lasting cultures are not built like pyramids, but more bedouin tents.
The keys to survival are not always found in genetics, access to resources, or superior technology, but having the right cultural priorities.
People often survive calamity by assimilating with their neighbors, but do so at the cost of their cultural legacy. Yet a few cultures have managed to adapt to geographical and linguistic changes without surrendering the core of their cultural identity. This book seeks to discover what allows a culture to not only survive, but thrive, even in the face of an uncertain future.
By drawing on the ancient wisdom of the Jewish and Christian scriptures, we can map the principles that lead to the success and failure of cultures and people across a wide array of social, economic, and political landscapes.
Tents Before Temples is also designed to form the curriculum for Tectonic School - a model of apprenticeship based on integrating an education in the building trades with the wisdom of scripture, with the aim of helping local cultures preserve, adapt, and innovate.
This book is broken up into six sections to help navigate the path from cultural crisis to lasting success.
"Tools" introduces heuristics for unlocking the wisdom of the past and making it relevant to our digital age. These tools include essays on symbolism, evolution, agents & arenas, spirits, narratives & stories.
"Wilderness" is about navigating our current cultural landscape, using the tools unlocked in part 1 to assess the topics of politics, identity formation, economics, and mental health
"The Tectonic School Project" explores how recovering abandoned traditions like apprenticeships can restore the health of our current culture.
"Culture Building" explores the important role played by the physical building blocks of culture, like architecture, music, and clothing.
"Confrontation" is about how to defend culture from the influence of subversive agents, and deals with aspects of physical defense, and the more nebulous world of relationships.
"Celebration" is about how a healthy culture can celebrate its past history, and commemorate both the struggles and victories that define a people.
This book is primarily intended to inspire young men to seek out adventure, and for older men to take up the responsibility of passing on their wisdom to the next generation. It makes reference to many works of literature, poetry and art, as well as contemporary media such as podcasts and YouTube videos, while connecting them to the ancient wisdom of scripture.
While drawing on the well known works of authors like C.S. Lewis and J.R.R Tolkien, the author also seeks to extract wisdom from more varied sources; TV shows such as Star Trek, Freaks & Geeks, movies ranging from Bedknobs and Broomsticks to The Prestige, viral videos and internet memes, and many topics outside the norm of cultural examination, such as professional wrestling, and emo music.
Perhaps one of the most exciting aspects of this book is that it is being released as a rough draft, with the invitation for readers to participate in shaping its ongoing evolution. Not only is it a peek behind the scenes of how ideas go from initial exploration to a fully developed thesis, but an invitation for others to do likewise. The author has provided a means for suggesting changes to be incorporated in a future edition.
Great temples are not built all at once, they begin as humble tents.
Thanks for reading!