anark - Network

In my newest video, I use the features of fascism laid out by Umberto Eco, Robert Paxton, and Roger Griffin to answer the question "is...

In my newest video, I use the features of fascism laid out by Umberto Eco, Robert Paxton, and Roger Griffin to answer the question "is Trump a fascist?"

https://youtu.be/E9Fh3rTQ9eo?si=koejysh7BtJ08fIO

How people doin over here on Mastodon?

How people doin over here on Mastodon?

Been re-reading The Wretched of the Earth over the last couple of weeks and it occurs to me how hamfisted the discourse on the topic of...

Been re-reading The Wretched of the Earth over the last couple of weeks and it occurs to me how hamfisted the discourse on the topic of Palestinian liberation is in many places right now. People really owe this topic more care and attention than they are showing.

For example: Fanon vindicates the call to violence by the colonized, but he also recognizes that a consciousness based around resentment and revenge is not capable of liberation. It can lead to transformative violence, but not the production of a new, liberatory society. Fanon recognizes the importance of organization in the national liberation process, but also understands that these representatives tend to be failure points which reconfigure into new forms of oppression over the colonized populace after, taking the reins of the enemy system.

This is the demonstration of a nuanced thinker; someone who actually witnessed the decolonial process firsthand. And he did not peddle simplistic reductions. That is because these topics demand careful contemplation, a skill that seems to be in short order on the internet.

The Palestinian people, like all colonized peoples are being psychologically tortured, murdered, and violated by the colonizers. They will inevitably and SHOULD respond with defensive violence. However, that does not mean that everything they will do is defensible. Without this violence the Palestinian people will never be free. To defend themselves, to strike out against their oppressors, is to begin to regain their dignity, to rise from the status of prisoners to rebels. And yet, in this process, some will carry out indefensible horrors.

Likewise, one can understand that Hamas is a key entity in mobilizing the Palestinian people toward their liberation, while also recognizing that it is the most likely candidate to become their new oppressor if they were to succeed in decolonial violence. It is a veiled enemy.

In the context of Algeria, Fanon noted that racial resentment and revenge fantasies were underdeveloped forms of consciousness which prevented the colonized from recognizing the root problems that had to be changed. Anti-semitism is the clear parallel in the Palestinian context. Despite the fact that Israel is NOT the Jewish people, anti-semitism is indeed very present in this struggle to oust Israel. Worse, though in the African context it was not harmful to sow racial resentment for Europeans, it is very harmful for anti-semitism to be spread.

All of this is to say: none of these topics will avail themselves to simplistic stances. People need to practice some careful reflection and resist the impulse to kneejerk react. Also go read The Wretched of the Earth because it's extremely pertinent: https://monoskop.org/.../Fanon_Frantz_The_Wretched_of_the...

If you're an anarchist wondering what Fanon's stances are before diving in, just know that WotE has a LOT of very anarchistic elements to it. Sometimes it seems like he's going to stumble onto the anarchist analysis wholesale. However he has a few vanguardist takes here and there

I think one of the biggest impediments to the spread of anarchism has always been that it seems too cynical to the majority. They just...

I think one of the biggest impediments to the spread of anarchism has always been that it seems too cynical to the majority. They just can't believe that we have spent thousands of years in folly. There has to be a good reason as to why we live under such miserable domination. When people are informed that the reason authoritarianism continues is that systems of domination perpetuate themselves and that they are only defeated when the people have built a revolutionary counter-system, most are overwhelmed by such a historic task. They prefer ignorance.

People within authoritarian societies have become used to the fact that they are just a cog in a machine and that their betters will do the work. It is exhausting to be told that they have a responsibility to make a better world, to act to change conditions in the here and now. Even the right-wingers, who constantly champion rhetoric about "self-responsibility" only really mean a responsibility to serve the machine. They want nothing to do with any larger transformative project. Meanwhile, the liberals languish in establishment progressivist narratives.

I think this is why anarchism thrives when conditions get very bad and authoritarianism is faltering. The only answer that makes sense to many people is one that appears cynical. This is also, I think, what leads many to adopt a purely deconstructive anarchism at first. Many come to anarchism out of a mentality of attack, of opposition, of contrast. However, in doing so, they still lack an understanding of the positive, constructive aspect of anarchism which truly gives it life.

All the things I said above are why I try to focus my time on both the deconstructive AND constructive aspects of anarchism. To not only engender indignation, but to motivate people toward the tasks which would materially embody their dignity.

One of the biggest struggles of being an educator in the modern era is just how short everyone's attention spans have become. Though you...

One of the biggest struggles of being an educator in the modern era is just how short everyone's attention spans have become. Though you always want to meet people where they're at, it's just not possible to abbreviate some of the most important and fundamental knowledge.

We're going to have to figure out how to get people interested enough that they WANT to pay attention for long periods of time; so that they can actually begin to learn how deep and complex the world is. I think that will take an ecosystem of different approaches.

But, ultimately, the goal still has to be to get people to learn at length and to reflect deeply about the world around them. There is no way to take complex knowledge bases and turn them into a bunch of tiny chunks that add up to the original. You lose a lot of depth in that process.

Musk's destruction of Twitter is a good example of how hierarchical power structures are actually quite fragile, contrary to what is...

Musk's destruction of Twitter is a good example of how hierarchical power structures are actually quite fragile, contrary to what is usually claimed. Because all power is concentrated at the top, a failure at that point causes a failure cascade in the entire system.

This is why every vanguardist project fails. Not only is it nearly impossible to find some perfect human being who can properly wield power to sit at the top of your pyramidal structure, but also one day they will die and be replaced with someone almost assuredly more mediocre.

Every time a vanguardist makes excuses as to why their "workers' state" deteriorated, they blame one or another figure who replaced their glorious figurehead. But that's precisely the point. Your authoritarian holy figure will one day die. And then what?

I am very happy to announce that the script for the third part of A Modern Anarchism: Revolution is now published on libcom.org! This part...

I am very happy to announce that the script for the third part of A Modern Anarchism: Revolution is now published on libcom.org! This part had some very involved diagrams, so I hope that this text version will be helpful for those who are studying. https://libcom.org/article/modern-anarchism-part-3-revolution

Power structures only concede to demands when they are afraid of the consequences for not doing so. They are not afraid of more protests....

Power structures only concede to demands when they are afraid of the consequences for not doing so.

They are not afraid of more protests. They are not afraid of social media declarations. They are not afraid of voting harder.

They are afraid of militant mass organizations.

At long last, A Modern Anarchism (Part 3): Revolution has released! This video is the culmination of ten months of hard work, combining the...

At long last, A Modern Anarchism (Part 3): Revolution has released! This video is the culmination of ten months of hard work, combining the insights from parts 1 and 2 into a wide-spanning theory of how horizontal revolutionary activity takes place.

https://youtu.be/sb2TIFrEjVw

Uploaded an interview I did with Doomer Optimism on the subjects of anarchism, complexity, and localism. Includes some nuggets from my own...

Uploaded an interview I did with Doomer Optimism on the subjects of anarchism, complexity, and localism. Includes some nuggets from my own theory on hope and revolutionary action. Enjoy! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRAlCYzKU0Q

This is your regular reminder that, if you are a radical, you are in fact responsible for educating others. And this is especially true if...

This is your regular reminder that, if you are a radical, you are in fact responsible for educating others. And this is especially true if you are an anarchist or a libertarian socialist of some kind. A bottom-up movement requires us all to act as catalysts for radicalization.

And this should not be a hot take. This should be the coldest of all takes on the left. People are not going to educate themselves because you snark at them on the internet that they should read a book. No matter how exhausting it is, it absolutely is our responsibility to educate. You know how most people "educate themselves" if left to their own devices? They search for articles and studies that support their already existing ideas, ignoring ones that contradict them. And all those right-wing talking heads will happily reinforce that ignorance.

When you see people who are wrong about something, who hold harmful ideas, etc... your first instinct needs to be to meet them where they are at and engage in a civil fashion, explaining your perspective; not denying responsibility, dunking, or wannabe grade school bully tactics.

Obviously for fascists and their ilk, they don't care about education. Discourse is just a big power play. But most people are not such True Believers. They regurgitate harmful things because they picked them up through cultural osmosis, not through some reasoned framework.

Though a bit tangential to the thread, the insights in this essay inform a healthier approach on the topic. I highly recommend it. https://zabalazabooks.net/2014/03/05/thoughts-on-commitment-responsibility-and-self-discipline/

https://twitter.com/i/status/1616268478759010304

https://twitter.com/i/status/1616268478759010304

So to summarize: one of the cops in Georgia accidentally fired a gun at another cop. This caused all the cops to freak out. Then they...

So to summarize: one of the cops in Georgia accidentally fired a gun at another cop. This caused all the cops to freak out. Then they proceeded to murder a protester in their frenzy of cowardice.

Yeah, this sounds about par for the course.

Back during Occupy, we were very worried about how the 2012 NDAA could be used against protesters. The bill says that any person deemed a...

Back during Occupy, we were very worried about how the 2012 NDAA could be used against protesters. The bill says that any person deemed a "terrorist" by the state loses all constitutional rights.

They are finally trying to establish precedent to weaponize these measures.

If you lose constitutional rights, this includes the right to habeas corpus. This is to say: the state could kidnap you and imprison you without even having to file paperwork. Establishing "property damage" as "terrorism" in a legal sense brings this dangerously close to reality.

And here is my video about Healthy Conflict, mentioned there: https://youtu.be/dp2UDTEbZKA

And here is my video about Healthy Conflict, mentioned there: https://youtu.be/dp2UDTEbZKA

Here is a video about Burnout Society, if you want to learn more about it! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qikrYBd4tw

Here is a video about Burnout Society, if you want to learn more about it! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qikrYBd4tw

So I've been thinking a lot for the last few years why our spaces are so bad at conflict, why they are so reactive and kneejerky and why...

So I've been thinking a lot for the last few years why our spaces are so bad at conflict, why they are so reactive and kneejerky and why they are so quick to condemn rather than to reconcile. I had really been struggling to find a good answer, only picking up little pieces of insight here and there, until I learned a bit about Byun-Chul Han's thesis in The Burnout Society. Going to ramble a bit here, so forgive me.

One of Byun-Chul Han's main concepts is that, due to the way we are embedded in modern society and our interaction with technology, we have cultivated what he calls "hyperattention" which he says is inherently shallow and broad. This is to say, we are constantly paying attention to some thing, but we tend to only engage with that thing very shallowly, as it flits across our screen and then disappears. We can think of clear examples of this like TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc... These platforms engage our attention for very short periods of time, but they engage our attention intensely. However, that engagement is shallow; it engages us with a necessarily brief and skin-deep analysis of any given thing. The skin-deep analysis ends, we feel satisfied, then it flits away so that some new skin-deep analysis can occupy our minds.

He contrasts this with "contemplative immersion." In a contemplative mode we stop and really delve into things. We are present, we think about the implications of things and work out their dynamics and question features. It is deep thought. Our society, a "Burnout Society" emphasizes hyperattention, not contemplative immersion.

I think that this is one of the key features at the root of our cultural dysfunction. As I said in the video Healthy Conflict, when people have not thought things through very deeply and when they have not engaged in healthy conflict about key topics with other people, they will tend to engage with fear and kneejerk, because they have not really become comfortable with the ideas at hand. They aren't sure if, when they are forced to defend their idea, that they will be able. They feel uncertain about possible arguments that will be presented. They feel insecure about the idea itself and thus any questioning of the idea becomes a dire threat. They have to quash discourse, because they can't foresee where it will lead.

The problem is, all of the components of our society encourage us not to develop this deep understanding, because we are constantly immersed in a hyperattentive mode. Instead of developing foundational understanding of our philosophical/political perspective, we learn little factoids, we memorize what we heard in a tweet, we remember and then reproduce talking points thought up by others and that's it. Instead of actually learning how some system of thought moves and justifies itself, we absorb a sort of recuperated aesthetic of that system of thought. Here I think we delve into something similar to Debord's realizations in Society of the Spectacle. Through the process of social structuring and through mediation by technology, ideas are iteratively hollowed out until all that remains is their aesthetic. Then the aesthetic, sterilized of its content, is delivered back to us as commodity in order to control discourse.

I think that these technologies act to turn systems of ideas into simulacrum of the original ideas, which are then shotgunned at us, creating hyper-attention instead of contemplative immersion. As a result, people have shallow conceptions which are defended by kneejerk defensiveness.

In this way, it's almost as if this technological and social process acts to colonize our minds, to atomize our thoughts and empty them of foundational content. This leaves us awash in the ideas around us with no mooring. And this unfortunate arrangement then reproduces itself by pushing us to atomize ourselves socially from others. Not only do we develop a reactive, kneejerk discursive mode, which is naturally bound to blow up over and over and over and over into toxic arguments, but we also exist within digital spaces, not real life ones, which then makes all of our interpersonal relations indurable and disposable. Instead of reconciliation, we thrive on outrage. In place of deep thought, we prioritize shutting down conversation.

This is then accordant with a society where humans are worth very little and social bonds can be discarded at a whim. We never have to be burdened with conflict, because we have the option to withdraw into tinier and tinier echo chambers where threatening ideas never penetrate. And we are encouraged to do so by hyperattentive, skin-deep analysis instead of contemplative thought.

Moreover, this mode of existence tends to generate a thousand excuses as to why it should continue. We have a low opinion of others because we are filled full of fear and insecurity. We are given a multitude of reasons as to why we have no responsibility to have a healthy discourse with others, to justify fleeing from conflict, and therefore to produce a culture of condemnation and loneliness.

The question is: how do you reverse this tendency? Obviously prefiguration has some place in this process. The struggle for me in the last few years has been figuring out how. People who have unhealthy modes of conflict tend to induce chaos and ill will where they interact. But, alternatively, you have to create a space where a healthy mode in interaction is modeled, otherwise things will just get worse. This is to say, you could choose to cultivate a little echo chamber of people who have healthy conflict, but that won't act to transform social relations more broadly. Instead, it seems like you have to create a place where people who engage in unhealthy conflict are allowed to be present and to interact, but wherein there are correctives to produce a healthier environment. The problem is, people with unhealthy conflictual modes tend to lower the discourse, using accusation, insult, and prolific strawmen. They confuse conflict with an excuse to be petty and they confuse their short temper with a justification for being upset at others.

So how do you actually cultivate that healthy interpersonality? Clearly exclusion isn't good enough, as the people who would be excluded are often the very people who need to fix these problems to begin with! We can't fix the reactive, hyperattentive dynamics of the internet we are embedded in because we don't control what websites people peruse.

Anyway, food for thought!

If you are interested in my take on this subject, I lay it out in extensive detail here: https://youtu.be/yBRTm1tMdAw

If you are interested in my take on this subject, I lay it out in extensive detail here: https://youtu.be/yBRTm1tMdAw

I think a lot of radicals are very pessimistic because they keep comparing us to 1917, when we are closer to the mid-to-late 1800s in terms...

I think a lot of radicals are very pessimistic because they keep comparing us to 1917, when we are closer to the mid-to-late 1800s in terms of revolutionary development. They keep expecting a harvest when we have not tilled and remediated the soil, let alone planted the seeds. We are in a period of catalysis, not of revolutionary overthrow. And that is very distressing, as the problems that face us now are worse than ever.

We must take a solemn view, knowing that, even if the road ahead is long and full of horrors, we only make our way by walking. Optimism cannot carry us forward in place of pessimism. We can consult no crystal balls to assure us of our ultimate success or inevitable failure. There is only action. There is only concerted effort toward a goal. There is only necessity in the face of oblivion.