luh_windan
09-21-2004, 03:47 PM
I'm doing some research on the English Greens while browsing in the library, so I thought I'd post this. It's an article written by someone from the English Heathen Front. I'll post more things when I have the time.
It seems there hasn't been much if any talk on the Phora lately about English individuals in a positive context, so this might be a nice alternative to the current trend toward Anglo-bashing we have here in the History forum.
http://www.heathenfront.org/ehf/art6.html
ROLF GARDINER, FATHER OF THE ENGLISH GREENS
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The English Heathen Front salutes Rolf Gardiner (1902 – 1971) as father of the English Greens and hero of our National Ecology movement. Farmer and forester, Gardiner was an early champion of biodynamic (organic) farming and a founder member of the Soil Association.
His youthful links with Guild Socialism and the Social Credit movement gave way in the 1930s to a more mature engagement with National Socialism. Gardiner was the creator of the Springhead Ring, an attempt at agrarian renaissance based at his estate in Dorset which involved establishing a Rural University and the revival of folk dance and song and rural festivals.
The semi-militaristic life of service advocated by Gardiner led him in 1936 to membership of Lord Lymington’s back-to-the-land group English Array and to Kinship in Husbandry. Both these organisations attributed social breakdown in England to the influence of “aliens … who bring corruption and disrespect for the ancient decencies”.
Gardiner was a powerful advocate of folk traditions. He believed “folk art is the matrix of all arts” and inveighed against cosmopolitanism, intellectuals and the modern cult of individualism. He actively supported agrarian work camps for the unemployed -- most notably that run by the national ecologist Order of Woodcraft Chivalry at Godshill in Hampshire in 1932.
Gardiner liked to describe himself as “a plain, practical working farmer, forester … an ameliorator of the land”. Nonetheless, his thinking was heavily influenced by the work of blut und boden ideologue Walther Darré whom Gardiner visited in Germany before the outbreak of World War Two. Gardiner also corresponded with Darré after 1945 hailing him as the inspiration for Britain’s organic farming movement. Another key influence on Gardiner was Jorian Jenks, agricultural adviser to the British Union of Fascists.
In one of his last public addresses in Strasbourg in October 1971, Rolf Gardiner stated what the EHF now sees as one of its central propositions:
“In the post-modern age, society will have to discipline itself to more selective consumption, to reliance on bare essentials, to thrift. Squandering our resources and reckless consumption lead to ultimate impoverishment and all-pervading illness of soils, plants, beasts and humankind. We cannot afford them. We must adopt a wiser style of living altogether if we are to survive at all”.
The EHF too calls for a “wiser style of living” based on the values of National Ecology. This approach -- allied with a revival of militant folk consciousness in England -- offers us our last and greatest hope of national salvation. We salute Rolf Gardiner, father of the English Greens!
Woden be with us!
It seems there hasn't been much if any talk on the Phora lately about English individuals in a positive context, so this might be a nice alternative to the current trend toward Anglo-bashing we have here in the History forum.
http://www.heathenfront.org/ehf/art6.html
ROLF GARDINER, FATHER OF THE ENGLISH GREENS
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The English Heathen Front salutes Rolf Gardiner (1902 – 1971) as father of the English Greens and hero of our National Ecology movement. Farmer and forester, Gardiner was an early champion of biodynamic (organic) farming and a founder member of the Soil Association.
His youthful links with Guild Socialism and the Social Credit movement gave way in the 1930s to a more mature engagement with National Socialism. Gardiner was the creator of the Springhead Ring, an attempt at agrarian renaissance based at his estate in Dorset which involved establishing a Rural University and the revival of folk dance and song and rural festivals.
The semi-militaristic life of service advocated by Gardiner led him in 1936 to membership of Lord Lymington’s back-to-the-land group English Array and to Kinship in Husbandry. Both these organisations attributed social breakdown in England to the influence of “aliens … who bring corruption and disrespect for the ancient decencies”.
Gardiner was a powerful advocate of folk traditions. He believed “folk art is the matrix of all arts” and inveighed against cosmopolitanism, intellectuals and the modern cult of individualism. He actively supported agrarian work camps for the unemployed -- most notably that run by the national ecologist Order of Woodcraft Chivalry at Godshill in Hampshire in 1932.
Gardiner liked to describe himself as “a plain, practical working farmer, forester … an ameliorator of the land”. Nonetheless, his thinking was heavily influenced by the work of blut und boden ideologue Walther Darré whom Gardiner visited in Germany before the outbreak of World War Two. Gardiner also corresponded with Darré after 1945 hailing him as the inspiration for Britain’s organic farming movement. Another key influence on Gardiner was Jorian Jenks, agricultural adviser to the British Union of Fascists.
In one of his last public addresses in Strasbourg in October 1971, Rolf Gardiner stated what the EHF now sees as one of its central propositions:
“In the post-modern age, society will have to discipline itself to more selective consumption, to reliance on bare essentials, to thrift. Squandering our resources and reckless consumption lead to ultimate impoverishment and all-pervading illness of soils, plants, beasts and humankind. We cannot afford them. We must adopt a wiser style of living altogether if we are to survive at all”.
The EHF too calls for a “wiser style of living” based on the values of National Ecology. This approach -- allied with a revival of militant folk consciousness in England -- offers us our last and greatest hope of national salvation. We salute Rolf Gardiner, father of the English Greens!
Woden be with us!