About us
The Forest Way: Re-visioning Western Outlooks on Nature, Society, and Self
Europeans have lost touch with their roots—with their sense of community and heritage, with their natural environments and mystery traditions.
In their place, we’ve seen the rise of cosmopolitan mindsets, of technocratic regimes, of dictated ‘sameness’ and universalist discourse.
This group is meant for those who wish to reconnect with their roots, rediscovering allegiances to ‘people’ and ‘place,’ and cultivating a love for the European longue durée.
Whether through cultural outings, nature-based activities, or text-centred discussions, we seek to step off the train of homogenising futures to walk a forest path—the ‘way of the woods’ that leads back to our roots and on to an alternate future, there to encounter a new sense of vitality and purpose.
Please join us!
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Terms of Service
By accessing and using Meetup, entering your RSVP, and continuing to attend our events, you agree to be bound by the following terms and conditions.
Disclaimer
In no instance will organisers be held liable to any party for any direct, indirect, consequential, or other damages arising from his or her attendance at one of our events. Attendance is at your own risk. The organiser, co-organiser, host, and Meetup are not responsible for loss, damage, theft, injury to oneself or equipment, allergic reactions, traffic or parking violations, or accidents with your vehicle.
RSVP Etiquette
Some circumstances and venue settings necessitate that we limit the number of attendees. In that case, we’ll create a waiting list for anyone who would like to participate should a space become free.
If you’re unable to attend an event that you’ve registered for, please be courteous in updating your RSVP the night before so as to enable organisers to prepare accordingly, potentially allowing others the opportunity to sign up in your place.
If you mark yourself as attending but fail to turn up, we will record this as a ‘no-show.’ Organisers reserve the right to discontinue membership of those who have accrued two or more ‘no-shows’ for this meetup’s events, or who have remained inactive in the group for more than a year.
Thank you!
Upcoming events
2
‘The Strange Psychology of Gen Z Girls’
Walter Scott monument, Princes steeet, Edinburgh, GBPlease note that the venue is in the vicinity of the Scott Monument and will be announced to RSVPing members closer to the event date. We will NOT be meeting at the monument, itself.
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Please join us for a discussion of a recent Winston Marshall interview with Freya India that addresses the topics of “Gen Z, social media, and the growing crisis of mental health, identity, and meaning among young people,” covering “how social media has reshaped an entire generation, from rising anxiety and loneliness to the collapse of real-world relationships and community”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4Ficq6NHr0
Come and share your thoughts about recent generational changes and causes for hope in the face of communal and cultural decay.
C&S
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Please note that this will be a joint event with the New Culture Forum Edinburgh Meetup group (https://www.meetup.com/new-culture-forum-edinburgh-meetup/), with an invitation extended to members of the NCF Locals platform as well.
6 attendees
Are We Headed for Collapse?
Walter Scott monument, Princes steeet, Edinburgh, GBPlease note that the venue is in the vicinity of the Scott Monument and will be announced to RSVPing members closer to the event date. We will NOT be meeting at the monument, itself.
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For this event, we’ll be asking questions about widespread demoralisation, dysfunction, and depopulation in the West from the starting point of John Calhoun’s famous ‘mouse utopia’ experiment.
Here’s an excerpt from the article about the experiment that we’ll use as the basis for our discussion:
“Calhoun constructed an elaborate, enclosed habitat for mice, which he called Universe 25. This wasn’t just a cage — it was an engineered paradise…
At the start, the results were exactly as expected. The mice thrived… But as numbers grew past a certain point, subtle changes began to emerge…
By Day 1,580, the last mouse died. Not from starvation, disease, or predation—but from the collapse of the social structure that made survival possible…
The Universe 25 experiment has often been used as a cautionary tale about overcrowding, urban decay, and the dangers of population growth. But Calhoun himself believed the core lesson was deeper.
For him, the tragedy wasn’t just that the mice ran out of space—it was that they ran out of social meaning.”
The experiment offers food for thought on what is happening in our own societies. Are Western nations experiencing a ‘meaning crisis’ that is, in different ways, leading to decline? Has material and social prosperity brought us—strangely perhaps—to a point of decadence, dysfunction, and despair?
Here’s a link to the article (along with a few supplemental links):
https://drmutura.substack.com/p/the-collapse-of-universe-25-what
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ReBJfxHjFU&t=5s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SH6fRSeqg4
Please join us!
C&S
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Please note that this will be a joint event with the New Culture Forum Edinburgh Meetup group (https://www.meetup.com/new-culture-forum-edinburgh-meetup/), with an invitation extended to members of the NCF Locals platform as well.
5 attendees
Past events
13
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