Aragorn!, Bellamy Fitzpatrick, etc.

Since Bellamy was here at the start of The Brilliant project it is great to check in where he is at regarding the things we are talking and thinking about. Obviously Bellamy and I have been having similar experiences in the Anarchist Space over the past few years. This episode is about some dissimilar experiences and what is next with each of us and our respective media projects.

Transcript

Speaker 1: Welcome to the brilliant podcast. This going to be episode 101 and it's going to be the first episode in what we're going to call season five of the Burn podcast. So season five begins in 2020 and I today am with Bellamy Hi.

Speaker 2: Hello Aragorn, it's always a pleasure to talk.

Speaker 1: With you yeah, nice to hear from you now that you're in the country and you've been there a believable period of time, you're no, you're no longer one of. The city people .

Speaker 2: Yeah, I know and. And actually the familiar phenomenon of easily falling into a sort of bubble universe is well upon me now.

Speaker 1: Right, but. Very much a different universe. Than the one that I live in, so. Why don't we? Begin by talking about some anarchist projects as in ours and then.

Speaker 3: Just follow up with people on what we've.

Speaker 1: Been up to the last 6. Months or so since. We've really talked. And then we're going to talk about 2020. And what lie? Ahead, so I guess the big project that people haven't heard much from you about is backwards #2.

Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's true I. Yeah, I guess I haven't. I don't think I've been on your show since that since it was released. Yeah, and. Yeah, I think. I'm getting. Different responses from. Backwards one in one sense. For example the piece that I wrote in backwards one, an invitation to desertion. I got a very very positive response from that. Think I actually got. A more a louder and more numerous positive response from that thany single bit of media that I've ever done. And I even had several people say to me they think that it should be seen as a kind of anti SIV 101 text which was.

Speaker 1: A nice compliment.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not very good at accepting compliments. So yeah, I mean I would.

Speaker 1: Call the biggest compliment, the fact that there have been at least two, maybe three different scene versions of it. Like people were so excited about it as a tax that.

Speaker 2: OK, I

Speaker 1: They made it their own.

Speaker 2: I actually did not know. That so maybe later on you can.

Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a big deal.

Speaker 2: Tell me where where?

Unknown Speaker: To find it.

Speaker 2: And where they are, yeah. And then with backwards 2, the response to my big essay, and that was instead. I didn't really understand what you were going for and or sort of I did have some positive responses, but a lot of people thought said that they thought it was very obscure or they didn't. They didn't see how it tied in with the rest of the journal, one person said. Something like it's a bit dense and I didn't see the point or like something like that. So I one has highs and lows I guess and, but I did get the main thing that people enjoyed with that was the letters section.

Speaker 1: Yes, right?

Speaker 2: So I thought that was, yeah, I thought that was good. I wasn't as happy with printing. We had a different printer and it kind of it. It didn't. Didn't quite come out how I was hoping, whereas with the first one by our friends of the now absorbed enemy combatant, I thought the printing was very nicely. Done with number. UM, But yeah, did you? Have specific questions about it, I'm not sure.

Speaker 3: No no I.

Speaker 1: Mean mostly, I just wanted to sort of hear how the process went and what? What to expect from the project from the perspective of the projects arc and then. And then obviously to hear what you. Have to say about #3. Like, do you have a similar epic essay?

Speaker 2: Right?

Speaker 1: That you intend for #3 and. Will it be on I guess? If we've, if you've done politics and religion. I guess Next up is.

Speaker 2: Social life or something?

Unknown Speaker: Yeah, I'm not sure.

Speaker 2: No, actually I wanted to. Take a step back because the first two I wrote the long buy for the longest pieces and both one and two. And in this third one. We're going to have. I have a more a shorter essay that's sort of a review essay, as in not just a review, but sort of review and commentary on. Jacques Ellul's the technological society. And David scherbina Book the Metaphysics of technology and it's sort of reviewing both of those. In as if in dialogue with each other, and that's to set up the fact that I then have an interview with David Scherbina David Scherbina. For those who don't know, is. He's a professor of philosophy at the University of. Michigan, I believe, and he is. Known out so he writes academic philosophy works, but he's also known for being a long time. Correspondent of the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski and he.

Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I think that's all.

Speaker 3: He edited.

Speaker 1: Mainstream article.

Speaker 2: Right, and so he edited and helped to publish Ted's book. That's a collection of Ted's essays called Technological Slavery.

Speaker 1: The Ferrell House books.

Speaker 2: Which was Feral house and. David Gabina wrote I what I think is extremely interesting book about technology, and unlike most academics, he actually just comes out very strongly. Luddite in the book, I think it's a it's an excellent book and I basically interviewed him about that. And he is. He's interesting in that he. Is essentially calling for a. I actually I actually mentioned this on anarchy bank where I. Called in he. Is calling for a return to a sort of medieval level of technology like a euro medieval level? So he's not full. Primitivist, he's more. I guess you could say just strictly antIndustrial kind of guy. And yeah, I'm looking forward to it. We'll have a letter section again as well and then. There will be. A few other essays in there and. But you did mention actually, when were, I don't mean to put you on spot too much here, but we did mention you did mention when were speaking just before recording that you seem to have some area of disagreement or push back with #2.

Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean.

Speaker 2: And we don't. We don't have to get into a whole. Debate about I'm just.

Speaker 1: Curious what the well again, it's been long enough since I've engaged with it. That I'm not hot about. Anything right now, but I was very hot. When I read your interview with Leila.

Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: I basically thought it was one of the most unethical and ****** things I'd sort of seen anarchist project do since the old days when GA did a similar move around their. I think it was around their class issue, but anyways. The point being that what you. Did and this for people who haven't really met. The issue yet is that. That you had sort of a series of tense back and forths in their conversation with Leela like it was clear that people were getting getting their rank her up and then the interview ended and then. Someone, someone then essentially wrote. A trash like they. Trashed Laylat the end of the interview with Layland. Rather than sort of say, those things maybe as a Part 2 of the interview or maybe as here's an essay out of my feelings about the interview. If you'd like to respond, I'm going to include this essay in the issue. Anyways, it was just one of those classic things where. Where not only. Did you sort of like win the argument by speaking last and with the power of publishing the magazine but and? And I'm not saying I didn't agree with you. I just I. Just think that I'm perhaps old school enough that I believe that the rules for like doing things like a magazine or a paper are different than than the rules for like having this conversation Reddit or something. So, so that was what I was upset about.

Speaker 2: Sure, yeah, yeah no.

Speaker 1: When we got.

Speaker 2: Actually, I but. I yeah, I knew that because you phoned me when you read this and essentially gave me a sort of semi formal dressing down over the over the telephone about why and actually so did. One of your fellow black seed editors. And yeah, I understand why. I understand why someone could see that as being in bad faith, but to me it was not because I, I wrote her saying, hey, I, I feel like we didn't actually unpack this all the way and I didn't want to derail my entire interview by. Getting into a big debate with you, I wanted you to be able to talk about your project and not just have an argument with me, because this was not a debate. It was an interview. But I do think some of the issues that we touched on have to be addressed and I have these thoughts and I welcome a response from you and she declined. And Even so I put in my little postscript, which was written by me, of course. That Invite her to respond, and I think. To me I'm enough of a neurasthenic creature that I have to point out when someone is that I have to point out when someone is engaging in logical fallacies for the benefit of posterity.

Speaker 1: That's $5 word. God, you can't even. When you live self after saying something like that.

Speaker 2: It's a good life. It's a comfortable life. But no, I appreciate that. I mean, I, I did. I did shop around the ideand I got. I got mixed responses. Some people said, Oh yeah, you definitely have to do this. And then others took your view. So I I don't know but.

Speaker 3: Well, I mean.

Speaker 1: There's a couple of things that I will say not exactly in your defense, but that do remind me of this topic enough to mentione is that I have done several interviews in the context of the brilliant where I didn't go after the throat of the person I was talking to. And as and as a result, the interview, the interview was more boring one and then point. Two after there was no consequence after the interview, and consequence is an is an interesting thing because as an example I really went after the throat of this person named Nathan June, who is not a person I necessarily should be interacting with or politically is relevant in the context of the brilliant. But by demonstrating sort of like what a nihilistic approach was to someone who was very much not that kind of person as a matter of fact, who just finished writing a book that just got released more or less defining. Anarchism, in such a way that it. Could only sort of fall in line. With enlightenment, values like demonstrating. Like what the . Proper response to that was made the interview much more interesting and the logical fallacies that you're referring to. I mean, I would just sort of say like slow thinking. Sloppy thinking or even different. Thinking like sometimes you just don't want to. Get into it. Because you don't necessarily want your life to be consumed with that particular argument, and perhaps the blow off conclusion was a way to do that, but it does, sort of. It is related to the conversation we're going to have later. In this episode where we talk about free speech, it does sort of connect to this topic of free speech and the limits of speech and the limits of. How we relate to each other and why we relate to each other? And obviously in Laelae's. Particular approach, like they’re sure there may be a primitivist, but their general interest is not anarcho primitivism. Their interest is elsewhere.

Speaker 2: Yeah, and go go ahead.

Speaker 1: No, that's fine.

Speaker 2: No, that's fine, and I mean, that's why. As I said, I tried to allow her to really talk about what she is interested in because I think it. I think it is a genuinely to be, concerned with stories and especially children's stories I thought was a genuinely interesting topic and that's why I wanted her to be able to speak about it. You know when I get. Weirdly, personally attacked in a way that is not particularly relevant when I'm trying to ask a serious question about. This beside these these issues of food and ethics, I feel that I have to defend myself and I feel that I have to defend myself. Not because I. I'm so personally wounded, but for this for the sake of argument, because I take these things seriously and I because the book or say the journal is about what should we really be doing? What is possible, what is desirable and I.

Speaker 1: And what was their attack? It's basically the because you're vegan. You're not vegan.

Speaker 2: It I mean. I don't know that I want to get into it that much, but it was, yeah. It's this sort of. You know it. It was these sorts of things about veganism and these sort of. Woester red herring arguments about. Issues of access to food, but they. They were, they were all they were all just repeatedly red herring arguments and I. Am such I am so concerned with. The degradation of reason that is happening at this particular moment because it has real consequences in the way that people think and try to act as anarchists and other radicals that I feel the need to really just. Drag it out as much as is necessary to allow the truth to shine forth, and that's what happened. And even if I have to be kind of * **** to do that, I'm. Fine with.

Speaker 1: That, well, . I mean, I can to repeat my point. I feel like it's totally unfair.

Speaker 3: For you to have done it.

Speaker 1: Not like whether or not you're * ****, is more or less irrelevant to me, but I will say that the greater concern for me is the idea that you're holding yourself to be this paragon of reason. That to me feels. Very scary.

Speaker 2: Well, I think in that case I was at least OK. So what about you? How are you feeling about black? Seed at the moment.

Speaker 3: Well, so we tried to do something pretty aggressive which was.

Speaker 1: You know, so this amazing thing happened in August, which was an event called the indigenous Anarchist Convergence happened. Of course in Flagstaff the talaugon. Infoshop and those? There were like quite a few fallouts. Of course from the event it was. More or less amazing, sort of the kind of thing that just couldn't have happened 10 days ago 10 years ago and so on. That level, it was like we, we tried to hurry up and finish another issue of black seed IE black seed. Right, and, that we try to finish it by the end of the year. But, we don't ******* need the man's calendar. So, so it'll it'll happen.

Speaker 2: You're on the Julian calendar.

Speaker 1: Exactly so it'll it'll be.

Speaker 2: So you have another two weeks.

Speaker 1: You know it'll happen early 2020. UM? Part of like when you think about a project like a publishing project, you always have like certain strengths and weaknesses and. So one strength that we have which is sort of an amazing strength is that our business model works. Meaning we never have money be the issue as to why we haven't published another issue like. You know, because. This black seat is directly fed by the Little Black Car project and the Little Black Black Car Project has so few expenses and continues to sort of be successful as a capitalist enterprise. You know were just totally ready for #8 to happen on the logistics side, which is what. In fact do spend a lot of my time to. Working on and. But ? The other thing that we're trying to do with the with #8 was sort of implement a new and innovative editorial process which involved new people and that of course went much slower than we hoped. So #8 will be surprising for a lot of people, and probably. Welcome for them. Because the new editorial team has more of like a what are positively say is an on the ground. Feel to it and what I would negatively say has an activist feel to it. OK, sure,.

Speaker 3: So it will.

Speaker 1: Happen soon it and maybe we'll do two issues in 2020. It's just funny to think that the thing that limited us from doing two issues in 2019 was not money, which normally that is the sort of thing.

Speaker 2: Yeah, instead of you're saying essentially was the sort of wonders and travails of collective decision making. And yeah. Yeah, yeah. I I recently I'm afraid I can't reference it, but I recently read a study about how academic mathematicians actually when they are trying to solve problems individually versus in Group conversations with each other. They perform worse as a group.

Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, right. Of course. Yeah, and there’s. This weird thing about doing projects in the Internet way. You know where people are not necessarily sitting in a room and doing much of anything together and instead using some sort of tool and then of course the tool ends up being what cripples you and what turns you into lunatics.

Speaker 2: Yeah and yeah.

Speaker 3: So one the other project.

Speaker 1: That's worth mentioned from 2019. Which I thought was a totally worthwhile effort, and obviously there’s. There is some material result of that effort, but it didn't exactly go the way that I thought it was going to is the anarchy. Bank project.

Speaker 2: MHMM MHMM

Speaker 1: Which energy bank for people who don't realize this, sort of like was a type of extension of the current project? But the big difference was that it was intended to be a weekly podcast and with the facility and the connection to call in and partially. Of course, this was motivated by John Suzanne's kind of assertion that. A call in format would somehow eliminate the problems of technology.

Speaker 3: You know?

Speaker 2: I haven't heard him say that.

Speaker 1: Yeah, but it well. It's been decades since he said. It because he's been on the radio. For . 2 decades.

Speaker 3: But ? It was a. It was an effort to sort of see.

Speaker 1: What was good and bad about that weekly format and that and that sort of call in style? I will say. That the end of the day, one of the positive lessons that came out of the project was that. The having multiple people call in the project ended up being really smooth. Once we realized that it was pretty easy to just stay on the phone the whole time. So we had. We would have three or four people who would more less call in and just stay on the phone for the whole hour and or two hours. And speak up occasionally, but not dominate the conversation. Or, sort of do. The thing that. Wacky callers do, which is sort of like totally not pay attention and change the topic and do what it is that they want. Do and. Yeah, anyways, the technology actually enabled us to have up to 6 plus people. On the line. Talk talking and it and it that was kind of amazing. You would have like. Three or four people in the studio and then six people on the line. It was like, wow.

Speaker 2: Right, right? And So what? Why why bring it to an end?

Speaker 1: I committed to doing it for a year and in my head I was going to get a job last year which was going to make make the project sort of more time sensitive for me. You know with the idea of being working Monday through Friday and then sort of like preparing for it. On Saturday and then Sunday doing it.

Speaker 3: I didn't get a job.

Speaker 1: As it turned out, so it was, it was fine to just have the one one to one 1 1/2 days a week where I sort of. Did stuff with the project, but. It definitely told me that like now that I'm getting older now that other things are changing. I was not going to want to do it. On top of a full time job, so that was sort of the primary reason for stopping also the bill was coming due. So it was. Like do I pay to keep it going another year or do I wrap it up so?

Speaker 2: This the bill for the technology involved with.

Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah exactly. And then, secondarily, there was just this sort of sense. And this. This hard to. I'm not trying to make a critique, I’m just saying that like. This was. An air going from beginning, middle and end kind of project, which I'm not super excited about doing and I do find more emotionally and mentally exhausting than if it were something where I could be a little bit more. Behind the scenes.

Speaker 2: Yeah, sure, of course.

Speaker 1: So of course it was very much airborne personality, airborne content, and then airborne keeping the show going.

Speaker 2: Yeah, and you have to be on all the time.

Speaker 1: Very much.

Speaker 2: Yeah, and it yeah you have the issue with. To what extent should a personality drive a project where it's hard?

Speaker 1: Yeah, right?

Speaker 2: It depends on the project.

Speaker 1: Yeah, well, and more pointedly like. I want to be able to play around with it more and in this case was not able to and I'm not sure how that would look moving forward.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I will say I thought one of the strengths of the project was that obviously you get a lot of ****. Thrown at you, and it did. Doing something like this did mean rising to the occasion of saying, OK, well if you have criticisms of me as a person or how I do my projects or that sort of thing, you can just call in and you can. You can **** ** up, live on air, and so I thought that was a very positive aspect of it. As far as responding to critics.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that's a that opens up a big huge conversation because of course nobody did. Did and.

Unknown Speaker: Right, yeah?

Speaker 2: Or at least not in any serious way. I mean you had you had.

Speaker 1: Trolls yeah, yeah we had trolls for sure, but they but they literally could be people who agreed with me about everything but they just were going to troll me. Anyways, yeah, that's

Speaker 2: True, yeah, we have no idea, yeah?

Speaker 1: Well, we do have one idea because one thing that did come out. Of that was. A particular troll really shined. They shine more over the first six months. The second six months, they stopped engaging publicly, but kept on trolling. And that was a sort of interesting phenomenabout like, what does it look like when you're troll? I mean they more or less agree with you, but they're 20. Years younger than you.

Speaker 2: Do you want to? Unpack that or.

Speaker 1: Yeah, sure, I mean. The trolls name is Z and yeah.

Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I know this person. That's an online person, yeah?

Speaker 1: And they. I think it was short for zakhaev I think it was from. The name of one of the people. From letters of insurgents. UM? And there's tons of personal biographical information that they sort of shared over time, but the punch line for that for them, for their political position, I guess, is that they were hard, green anarchist that whatever that means they had formally. Been under this way of Kevin Tucker and we're looking for a harder. Position than that. And so they were so hard that they would do things like. Show pictures of them with guns and they actually those are very funny. One that was like their whole arsenal and then my book in the. Middle of it. You know which is like one of those?

Speaker 2: Well, this. It's a bit odd, yeah?

Speaker 1: It just says. That, like they're aiming their guns in.

Unknown Speaker: No, no, I understand.

Speaker 1: The right direction.

Speaker 2: I understand, I understand.

Speaker 1: No, I'm Not saying like.

Speaker 2: It's the yeah.

Speaker 1: Hooray, let's do that, but.

Speaker 3: But it's.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I believe this the same person who called in. I'm not. I may be wrong about this. The one who called in and tried to drag me by saying. My project isn't really that cool because I’m growing plants and therefore I'm still a domesticated or something like I should just be going full.

Speaker 1: Oh, that's funny, that's.

Speaker 2: You know, full hunter gatherer. Otherwise, it's just reformism I guess, or something.

Speaker 1: I mean, that’s a classic,, Kevin. Tucker type dish.

Speaker 2: Oh yes, like yeah.

Speaker 1: Like you're doing horticulture man. Yeah like.

Speaker 2: Yeah Kevin Tucker. Once compared it to. In conversation with me through e-mail, he once compared it to the Marxist, the Orthodox Marxist idea of taking over the state and using the state as a transition form. You know, I'm not going to do any kind of horticulture, even if it's a transition, because I don't believe in transitions like. I guess one day you're gardening the next week, a whole red bureaucracy has formed. That's going to oppress you, I mean.

Speaker 1: I mean what's so great about that? Is 1, it's absolutely a parody of a sort of leftism. But two, it's like it's like have we have we actually agreed on what we how we think revolution happens or transitions of any sort. So Z ended up doing some really funny stuff that just, the whole. Anarchy Bang Community will we'll call it. Which is about. There are at least. 30 very active people who we're just making fun of every aspect of it. Because of course. Anytime you add a militant spin, within the American context it's. It says, oh it's so strange and wacky. It's like they were referring to. Can't remember the exact name, but basically the guerrillarmy in Africa that is ending shells rain. Petrochemical Nigerian.

Speaker 2: Yeah, it's movement for the emancipation of the Niger Delta.

Speaker 1: Yeah right. So anyways they were sort of heavily referencing this group as being the group that also holds their position and and just all this like hyper hyperbolic young man gun wielding and of course they scared some people because they did successfully. Some people at particular moments. And I refer to the pictures of them with guns. They essentially implied that they were going to meet the person while they were taking a vacation at wherever it is that they were going, and they were bringing a gun with them. So it's like it's like a little funny. A little not so funny and. So that happened.

Speaker 2: Yeah, sure I. I don't want to do too. Much drama so we.

Speaker 1: Can yeah and that’s part of the thing. It’s like, yeah, very little content, high dramand high Internet drama you. Know so like.

Speaker 2: Yes, it's a. It's a very Internet kind of happening, yeah?

Speaker 1: Very much so. And, figuring out that boundary is really interesting and hard too, it's. Anyways, I very much could. Pick up the Anarchy project in the future, but there's there are some personal logistics as to how. To do it. Like a couple of years from now, and Intend to be more on the road. Well is does that. Mean it's better to do a project like this? Or is it worse and ?

Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the idea.

Speaker 1: That's your future question.

Speaker 2: Of having a little. Hiatus and then bringing it back is a is. A good one, yeah?

Speaker 3: And all the all the.

Speaker 1: Archives exist, . You can go to anarchybang.com and find out everything that I'm talking about.

Speaker 2: Right, right? And so we're talking about.

Speaker 1: Projects from 2019.

Speaker 2: Right, we're talking. Of course, we're talking about projects from 2019. One of the big themes I thought of the past year. Is both in the anarchist subculture context, and in the broader culture context? Increasing attack on free speech and free expression. However, we define those we can maybe. Talk about what? We mean by that, but and one of those things has been. The kind of continuing saga of. LBC being besieged by people who. Essentially claim to be. Radicals who want a wonderfully liberated and open world dramatically different from ours, but who also. In a schizoid manner, really want to suppress the just open exchange of ideas within their own little micro environment.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, there's a couple of different shortcut terms to talk about. This one is what happens when what happened when cancel culture came to energy land.

Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think it that is a good way of putting it. Cancel culture, yeah.

Speaker 1: The because of course, nobody in cancel culture would describe it the way that you just described it.

Speaker 2: No no.

Speaker 1: But whereas they. Might be willing to identify with cancel culture.

Speaker 2: That's funny because. Well, no, go ahead, go ahead.

Speaker 1: I mean, of course It’s this. It's a strange wicked because almost none of the people who are so incensed about the particular crimes of whoever. Seems to be doing much. In the way of building something. They very much just seem to be interested in some type of destruction, and so I'd also think. That we have. To map what that destruction looks like compared to, let's say, the nihilistic destruction of the existing, world writ large. I don't know. I mean obviously I have lots of a huge bundle of ideas of how to talk about this, and I'm not exactly sure. Sort of who I'm talking to. What I'm saying it, it's like. I think most of the people who listen to this podcast in particular, they're already on board with whatever it is that we're going to say. Like in other words, they're with us and they think that the kind of things that we're talking about cancer culture about. They're with us.

Speaker 2: Maybe I don't know, I mean. Any episode that? That we do gets a certain amount. Of negative feedback. So obviously people are listening just to. Experience hatred toward evil, right so? But I think, yeah, I think most people listening are more or less on board.

Speaker 3: Well, OK.

Speaker 1: I mean, let's start. Slow and talk about what you mean when you talk about the free and open exchange of ideas. Because I think that's an interesting topic like some people think they talking about child sexuality while not being for it is OK.

Unknown Speaker: Right?

Speaker 1: Some people think that the topic is triggering and damaging to young people who might pass by the speakers.

Speaker 2: Right, sure so. When I am. One of the interesting things I think is. That many anarchists, including people who are mutual friends of ours, will say, Oh no, I'm not for quote UN quote free speech because what free speech really means is a relationship between. It’s a term that describes a relationship between governed people and their government, so it's this inherently sort of statist idea. OK, that's fine, as far as it goes, but what I mean when I say I am for free speech, which I absolutely am, is that I believe. We need. To have. A more or less free and open exchange of ideas. 1st for ethical reasons, because it is a foundational principle for human freedom in general. Second, for I guess you say logistical reasons because I think once you start to cut yourself off from criticism and feedback. You will tend to get worse and worse results in whatever group endeavor that you're trying to accomplish. And 3rd for. I guess I would say. The human is a fallen creature, reasons, which means that as soon as you let in the idea that you can sometimes. Physically coerce or intimidate people or deep platform them or what have you. As soon as you let in the idea that is sometimes OK to do it is just so easy for it to slide into more and more suppression, and therefore we have to for the same reasons that I'm against some people having state power because I am pessimistic. Human morality human tendencies. For the same reason I am for free speech because I think as soon as you start allowing censorship of some kind and it will just get toxic. Very fast. And so. This idea that. You know, somehow it's cool and heroic and just to intimidate or punch or get people censored online because of things that they're saying, I just. I think it's deeply toxic. I think it's anti anarchist and I think it is playing into the hands of the state because we're seeing now in the United States more and more push in this way. I mean even just a few weeks ago. The New York Times ran opinion piece entitled free speech is killing us. Free speech is killing us. That's the way that the dialogue is going. And I don't think I think America should be completely pushing back against them.

Speaker 1: So this so well, part of the reason why these are challenging conversations because it's very. Hard to agree on terms. When, when? So in the story that you just told you didn't mention Nazis and of course we know that. Sort of like the first. Step in the sort of criticism of free speech. Is that's where Nazis hide out and. And basically that in this argument the argument for. Sort of. On hesitant free speech? How do we deal with the Nazi problem and? I almost think that this an argument about specialization. Because most people. Aren't excited about arguing about something like free. Speech in other. Words like can people say terrible things and that be OK. Yes, because of course . We know many, many people think that you shouldn't say terrible things, and that if you do it should be suppressed on some level.

Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think that's a totally authoritarian attitude. And the way that people. Usually go with. This Oh well, what if they make these ridiculous arguments like Oh well? What if someone is just following you around and spouting invective at you? It's like, OK, well clearly that's harassment. Like if if I. And being followed and harangued by someone or someone coming into my home and doing these things. That's not a speech issue. That's that's just a sort of basic boundaries issue. But the point is that any any society, unless it's very small, like Dunbar number sized which is how I think it should be. But any society larger than that is going to have some kind of public forum or public fora, whether it's publications or a literal sort of town. Square or a? Internet channels of the Internet and I think yes, in those public fora it needs to be open dialogue and if you don't like it then you can criticize it or respond to it or ignore it or whatever and that includes the Nazis and if you. If someone's response is if we let the Nazis start talking, Nazism will catch on OK. First of all, who really is a Nazi like? I would. Draw the definition of fascism or what have you smaller than I think many people would, but the second is if you think that. People are so vulnerable and so pliable that they hear a speech or two and they're going to go. You know, full. Genocide or fully genocidal on you. Then what does that say about your view of humans in general and to me we can talk about this later or not. If you think you can't even live with. Human beings without protecting them. Sort of dangerous ideas that will make them instantly flip into being monsters. Why would you want any kind of mass society? Doesn't that mean that you have such pessimism about the people around you that you think that they could become dangerous to you almost immediately and?

Speaker 1: Well, this where this where this position becomes a liberal position almost immediately, because it never the this conversation never leads in that direction against mass society. It in fact leads in the direction that mass society will protect us as long as we do XYZ.

Speaker 2: Yeah, although I mean it depends on your definition of liberal. I mean the classical liberal position would be for free speech, right? I mean someone like. Noam Chomsky would say yes, of course you have to let the Nazis speak. He's still saying that, and he wants to defend a certain type of enlightenment society. Where, yes, you protect free and open exchange of ideas, but I think. Many of our Antifa type friends, they’re anti liberal in the classical sense, and they're for some kind of authoritarian pseudo anarchism where you just beat the **** out of people that you don't like and somehow at some point you win right? You just you. Fight evil until you win and somehow you don't transform into an authoritarian mess in the process.

Speaker 1: I, I think that. The common use of liberal and. The tradition of the traditional. Thing are not very far apart. I do think it's worth reflecting on the moment of like again, many anti pop people are crowing. About the defeat of Milo, a single individual.

Speaker 2: I mean Milo, like. Honestly, he is not far removed at all in his actual views from just the sort of establishment Conservative Inc type of guy. I mean he. All he did all he did was sort of. You know Ben Shapiro type talking points mixed in with some vulgarity and like I'm like super flaming gay and I just like the idea that he was some kind of. Some sort of yeah is ridiculous. Like there's nothing about him. That is the least that NazIn any of his actual policy positions.

Speaker 1: I guess though what I'm trying to get at. Isn't sort of the.

Speaker 3: The spectacle of all.

Speaker 1: Of this, because it's true that Antifa sort of like everyone else in the mainstream ******** reality consensus reality. They're all playing the same game. They're playing for cameras. They're not playing for content that there's no content here, but that said, we, as in the critical anarchist position, still lost in this in this moment. And how could we have? How could that have happened differently?

Speaker 2: Well, OK, you mean we lost in the sense that.

Speaker 1: Anarchists and anti farm more broadly have not demonstrated themselves to be critical engaged. Counter cultural phenomena.

Speaker 2: Or, I'm a little bit alarmed because it sounds like you're trying to present yourself as a paragon of reason and. No. I agree with. You I agree with you and I. I mean this. One of the. This one of the issues that makes me have these really stupid conversations with my partner where I go and say to her, I just don't know if I can call myself anarchist anymore because of what's happening and she goes, oh, give it a rest like you're anarchist but.

Unknown Speaker: Sure, sure.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know what to do. About that except essentially say. That anarchists need to be for freedom of speech against the idea that you that it's wonderful and cool to use physical coercion to stop ideas that you don't like, because actually that's the fast track to some species of authoritarian leftism. And if you. You disagree with that. You have to come up with a better argument than just but what about the Nazis? But what about the Nazis, right? But what about the Nazis? There's a, a Nazi under every manhole and hiding under every bed in spite of the fact that these people have no institutional power. They are reviled by every major center of power, Academia, Hollywood, the state. They're deep platformed constantly on YouTube, they're deep platformed constantly on Twitter, they're. The Rolling Stones said yes, it's great and wonderful if you punch a Nazi and the New York Times is saying yes, we need to shut down the speech of these evil people, right? They are hated by every center of power and the idea that somehow they’re moments away from taking over is ridiculous.

Speaker 1: It reminds me of. I think it was one of Adam Curtis's documentaries where he talks about when Reagan era Star Wars.

Speaker 3: Programs were coming into into.

Speaker 1: The technological possibility part of the conversation was like the reason why we have to do this, is because the Soviet Union's power is so great that they don't even have to test it.

Speaker 2: Anymore, right right? Yes yeah, yeah.

Unknown Speaker: It's like.

Speaker 2: Well, It’s like. It's also like the recent Hillary Clinton thing where she was saying Tulsi Gabbard was an agent of the Kremlin, and when there was pushback against this the chattering classes who are loyal to the Clinton Democrat power Nexus say. Oh well, . You don't actually have to be in communication with Russia to be a Russian agent. Actually, don't even. You don't even have to. Know that you are a Russian, right like.

Speaker 3: So you could. You don't, you don't.

Speaker 2: Have to actually even believe in fascism or white supremacy to be a Nazi. You know, if you're just doing things that are useful to them, like criticizing Antifa, that makes you a Nazi.

Speaker 1: I I just I want to end this. Sort of thing that we're talking about right now by saying that. I desperately wish that anarchism were an open that anarchists were an open conversation with each other about this. But the. Craziest thing that seems like a conclusion. To take from. The last couple of years has been that. Stupid mainstream attitudes about how it is that you engage with people you disagree with seem to have infected the anarchist space and it's wildly disappointing and. And yeah, and it, it's sort of like this a moment to just really take pause in this, and perhaps to speak more by way of the essay or whatever. The **** to how it is that this happened and how it is that. Yeah, that. How it is that this happened I just?

Speaker 3: Had a pretty.

Speaker 1: Serious conflict with somebody that's I guess, luckily private. But where the punchline to it was that I'm a terrible person, blah blah blah. And the reason I'm a terrible person is because I provided an environment where these conversations can happen publicly that they basically claimed that several of their friends. I had to go into hiding because they were public conversations about criminal activity that they were involved in, which of course. I think is sort of well. I don't want. To be accused of being against criminal activity. Quite the opposite, but the idea being that by having open conversations in an open platform to have these conversations that basically I put individual people in jeopardy and our whole little anarchist. Base in. In the crisis.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I might be suffering from some kind of cognitive block. I don't even quite understand what the what you allegedly did wrong, so just the mere fact that you.

Speaker 1: Anarchist news.

Speaker 2: Right, OK, so the mere fact that you.

Speaker 1: 15 years of anarchist news, yeah.

Speaker 2: OK, the mere fact that you. Host this platform where. People using the platform who are not. You could say things that endangered, hypothetically endangered, others. Merely providing that space you did something bad.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean they're the more specific accusation would be that. That like that ID solved all the problems.

Speaker 2: By I'm sorry.

Speaker 1: By there being no comments.

Unknown Speaker: OK, that's what I thought, yeah.

Speaker 1: In other words, all content on IG D has been vetted by some collective body that has confirmed that's appropriate to be shared publicly and there's no, there's no off topic conversation happening.

Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's. Yeah, I mean this this the same kind. Of it's actually. It's kind of a similar ethical framework to the free speech thing, by allowing a space right that where something might happen that I don't like, merely you providing that space you’re therefore countenancing evil doing. So, but it is.

Speaker 1: Worth mentioning that this does exist in the context. In other words, like anarchists and anarchists in the United States in particular, have particular cultural constructs and. May or may. Not challenge them, but this might be a great time for you to talk about the fact that you saw crime, think recently and crime. Think of course does live in a different cultural and contextual space than we do.

Speaker 2: Yeah, nice semi coercive segue.

Unknown Speaker: It was on our track list.

Speaker 1: Thank you very.

Speaker 2: Much, I guess it's. It sort of dovetails with free speech issue, and then I guess it can go. It can take us eventually to. What would we? What would we? Like to see in 2020? So yeah, this was. Oh geez, this was probably. I think it was this past May. It was around the beginning of it was around springtime this past year and they came doing a. For their book from Democracy to freedom.

Speaker 1: Oh wow Ken.

Speaker 2: And there were two of the representatives there. Their talk was, was fine talking about. You know the idea of democracy, either on a large scale or. On a small scale, in terms of decision making in. Activist groups and that kind of thing and how democracy can be. Certain forms of authoritarianism, a foothold, which I'm totally fine with. I mean, I. Don't think that democracy, either direct or representative, has much of anything to do with anarchism, and so that was all kind of fine and dandy, but. You know one thing that's kept happening in the conversation was they both of them repeatedly referred to. You know the far right this the far right that the far right is doing this and I. Right, right and. I think we've talked about this on this show before, and I know I've talked about it on the. Other projects have done this idea of what I call world domination anarchism, where the implicit premise never stated almost never stated behind. This way of thinking and talking and acting out anarchism is that some point we're going to win. And we are essentially going to. Create this new world society where? Apparently everyone is anarchist. Everyone is super woke and we have created this kind of universal culture where everyone's going to think the same way and have similar life ways. You know, maybe we're all going to be queer, some all this. Kind of this weird way of looking at things that what freedom looks like is I replace all ideas and life ways with mine and then we live happily ever after. And so I during the Q&A did some sort of pushback where. I said You know, I ask questions. That essentially communicated what I just said in a nicer, more respectful way of do you really think that's? Like does anarchism look like a new world society to you or does it instead look like radical decentralization, which is what I would like and also what I think is the only real, sane way to imagine a world that I would like to see and. And I got a response from one of the speakers there. The other one was notably quiet. And this person said essentially, what? What anarchism, what the triumph of anarchism would look like to them would be this kind of. Federations within federations within federations, all the way up to a world society. Although this person didn't use the term world society, and I again sort of pushed back saying I. I don't see that as practical for a number of reasons, but I also think you keep talking about the far right, the far right and. Relative to what? Imagine your point of view. Is the far right. By the definitions that I'm imagining. You have would be billions of people and what is it that you're going to do with all of these people? If, let's say we had were an incredible explosion of worldwide insurrections. And states started crumbling the world over. These people with ideas and lifeways different from you are going to want to form communities different from yours, and if you push against them, they are going to push back and that will lead to escalating aggression until we reach the point of what are you going to do are. You going to take all these people line them? Up and shoot them. Are you going to send them to reeducation camps until they get super woke and agree that biological sex doesn't exist and everyone should celebrate. Diversity and inclusiveness. Are you going to? Like what level of force are you willing to inflict on these people and why? And where does it lead? Or are you instead going to accept a radically decentralized world where we don't live under a horrible leviathan States and we instead? Live in small autonomous communities where people have significantly different values, different life ways and agree to mutual non interference pacts. Mutual defense pacts having as friendly relations as you can. In spite of disagreement allowing for, as much as possible free movement of people so that they can find the communities that they would. And if that means that all the white nationalists get together in racially homogeneous communities or whatever like I'm fine with that. And so I said this and. Four people in there were probably 1520 people at this gathering who would come to see them speak. Four people reacted so viscerally it was if Satan himself had manifested. In the room. And one of them immediately responded, saying. In a in a shaking, literally shaking voice,, I just have such a problem with what you said that I don't know where to start. I mean would I want to shoot all these people I mean. I hope it wouldn't come to that, but I. Just think this astonishing, I mean.

Unknown Speaker: You.

Speaker 2: Are you're such a? Jacobin that you're already ready to. Talk about mass executions and I just.

Unknown Speaker: I.

Speaker 2: Anyway, I have other things to say about this, but I talked for a bit so you. Should give me some feedback.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I don't think. Part of the problem with any of these conversations, especially in a room of strangers, is.

Speaker 2: Yes, and they. These were except for the two friends I went with. I didn't know any of these. People like.

Speaker 1: Ultimately, a lot of people would like to see their click win yes, and if we want to talk like just as I mean, I want to, I'll just say what I feel about the. Little black cart. Situation as bluntly as possible in this context, because to some extent, many people. Who are allied or who share the point of view that you're referring to about it? My click lost and that's the click of critical post left. Nihilistic anarchists are not good at making friends and at doing the thing and at doing the thing that it takes to sort of like stay cool in that room because that person. If they knew some of your work, if they knew things about you, they very well might like you quite a bit. You know. Might even be like a big fan. Or something but.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that is.

Speaker 1: Possible, but in fact to the extent to which like and again well and to the but to the extent to which you're. Referring to the fact that like. Click Victory is not actually a great a great way for anarchists to think about their about their work and. And it's definitely not how the world works, broadly stated. Like there's some, there's some problems ahead and those.

Speaker 3: Problems do have to do.

Speaker 1: With some of these types of questions I hate to sort of. Like being an. Old mand talk about history, but . 1012 years ago there was this very explicit visceral critique of crime. Think that involved throwing people's backpacks out the window and eventually involved crime thing, sort of like kicking out the traveler kids. That was essentially a critique that boiled down to your group is a white group that pretends to be bigger and but pretends to be broader and you're really not and the way that crime think addressed it was by taking it totally, seriously and totally missing the point. Meaning that they essentially became a radical journalism project. They wrote like crazy on this topic. They wrung their hands viscerally like in such a way that we could hear it on the other on the other coast, and. And basically lamented the fact that they were that the that the criticism was true, even if it was sort of bucked up and inappropriate and all the rest and didn't change a thing about why the criticism was true because what they what they sort of succeeded at was sort of to say. This the definition of the click. This what inside and outside that click looks like and we're going to do something that's more that. That absolutely addresses the shallowness the shallow part of the critique and doesn't address at all the. Fact that like. You totally yes, what you say is true. We are these people. We only have the capacity to do this. Which, like they didn't quote UN quote, become different people and I don't blame them for this. I blame the way in which people think that a good criticism means. Like that you. Like lose your mind or like .

Speaker 3: You totally changed.

Speaker 1: Your actions, like I think it's totally fine for crime thing to say like, we're countercultural. We're sort of like we're wrestling with the issues of race in the exact same way that other American non radical groups are are are dealing with the same types of issues. And we'd like to throw this open. And to A to a thing that a broader set of people can get involved in talking about rather than just our set of people talking about. Anyways, I think about that a lot when. I when I sort of. See like crime thing does amazing journalistic type work and I don't. Feel like those. People get nearly enough credit for the for the work that they do because. It all ends up getting cold crime thing.

Speaker 2: MHMM MHM Yeah, and so. The outcome of the meeting that I described was that we had a tense back and forth for a bit in the Q and I a friend of mine who was there brought up Bolo’bolo which actually I didn't mention to you earlier. I have finally. Read Bolo’bolo.

Speaker 1: Oh, good.

Speaker 2: Yeah, and I thought it was very well done and I agreed with most of it and this friend of mine said, look. Basically what Bellamy is talking about is. Is is this kind of model and I agree with him, that's it's the one of the few. Big picture, strategic, practical sorts of things that could be done at this point and. It's kept escalating to the point that's one of the people in attendance. What, not someone with crime thing but one of the people in the. In spite of the fact that I was just calmly responding to this person, I seriously thought he was going to deck. Me before I got, yeah. And it's and. And It’s one of these sort of depressing things about when you walk through the world as a paragon of reason and. Virtue, and you're just. Sorry, you're just constantly. Finding you can't actually have a human conversation. It. It's sad to me that I feel like when I talk to some sort of normal person in a bar I can have. In many ways, a more sane political conversation than at a crime. Think event when the mere fact that I say hey, people. Live and do and think in ways that you really don't like. Are going to be here whether you like it or not, and it's better if you find a way that you can strategically get rid of the worse things about our world. Like insane state violence and mass incarceration and. Runaway industrialism destroying the planet. And if you could sort of. Agree about the biggest things. You don't like about the world and then agree to sort of. Separate as much as possible and you have to live with just knowing that there are people on the planet that are doing things that you don't like and the response from a so-called anarchist. They would never put it this way, but the response really what it means from a so-called anarchist person is. Actually, I can just destroy all of those people. Yeah, that's. I mean yes, that's a non starter.

Speaker 1: I think you I. You're being hysterical in how you're framing it, but . But of course what you're saying is true, which is that we never have conversations about what. What framing do we choose together instead? The position tends to be we know what's right.

Speaker 2: We know it's right and we can force it upon others, and if they don't like it then we're going to use escalating levels of violence against them until they just, put up with it or die.

Speaker 1: Well, but that’s the truth of the matter, which is that we are talking about. Like this. Why revolutionary movements in my opinion. Are suppressed so easily is that. Most of the time, the order of operations has more to do with deciding how much violence 11 can control and wants to start implementing, and that's when you get caught.

Speaker 2: Right? But it I you're saying I'm being hysterical in the way I'm framing it. You know, obviously I'm. Having a bit of fun and everything but. When people. Get this upset that they don't even want to have a conversation with you about it or that they, feel that you're some sort of demon by even bringing it up. When they do that in the context of the fact that leftist revolutionary movements have a bad record when it comes to mass killing mass execution, brutality toward people who don't want to go along with the social revolution, it just makes. Me think . You are the type of person that if the situation in the United States were to change. And some sort of. Left wing revolutionary movement. Where to ? Somehow take hold in the United. States you would. Be OK, it seems. With the next round of mass killings and or at the very least you aren't acting in a way that demonstrates to me that you necessarily wouldn't. You know, maybe when the **** really hit the. Fan you think? Oh ****, I'm totally not OK with this. I don't want to act like, I could see into the souls of these people, obviously. But the way that they're talking, at least is. Yeah so and. It makes me. It makes me. Sad about the subculture and that's why my. My next projects that I want to do I. Am going to. Really be trying to reach out of the subculture and sort of put my money where my mouth is. And say, OK, you. Know tell me you're saying that you're? You're fine with having a dialogue and agreement with these sort of various types of malcontents that you might have disagreements with, so I'm going to actually try to do that. And I think it's an interesting time. For it, because we do have on the global scale. These signs of discontent with the sort of reigning. You know globalist sort of power elite. There's discontent coming from all sorts of different corners. And so I think it's a good time actually for this sort of pan secessionist Bolo’bolo type of idea to maybe find fertile ground. You know we see everything from. You know various nationalist movements in Europe you have. In the United States, this kind of tension over. Gun rights issues happening in Virginiand other places in the US. You have you I. Guess it feels like there's a lot of. Discontent coming from different places, and that those places might be open to a kind of. Idea of, well, what about decentralization? What about reducing the reach and power of giant states? What about more local or regional autonomy? And I think there's a lot of that in the air right now.

Speaker 1: Well, OK.

Unknown Speaker: I mean this.

Speaker 3: Is a great.

Speaker 1: Transition sort of what I wanted to close this conversation with is what do we want to do and talk about in 2020. So obviously you’re leaving that with some language. And you're definitely, you’re crafting some language that is inoffensive to a couple of audiences that you obviously are targeting. I'm curious and ultimately I think that you need your own word. I mean to some extent the good thing about the magazine is that it sort of had its own heft, and I really think that you probably want a word that. Can be used. In a similar way to the way. In which the word rewelding is used. It is more of a sort of sociological. Aspect to it or something.

Speaker 2: Right, OK, so there was some implicit criticism there. And then there was. There was some explicit criticism there. My point just to clarify, was I? I think that the. Encroachment of increasingly global governance. The encroachment of increasing cultural homogenization and the ecological pressures of technology. Together will act to make more and more people who whatever they think however much I might. Disagree with them. They won't like what's happening. They won't like being forced into a global society, and so I think that there's a ripeness. In this moment for. Promulgating the idea of radical decentralization to whomever will listen so that maybe clarifies what I was talking about in a roundabout way, as I was freewheeling in the last section there, and I think the I think the word is hand secessionism I know it's a. It's a technical term. I know, but so is it uncharismatic is that the problem?

Speaker 1: In my response to you, I was. I was basically going to say that what you're missing. In all of that. Verbiage is essentially a post situationist analysis. Meaning that the way in which we have become a spectacular rized has to be part of anything. That you're talking about, but obviously.

Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, sure.

Speaker 1: But obviously doesn't have. An audience in the same way that you're using it. That said, the left very much thinks that there's a global uprising happening right now, and amongst the kind of leftists that talk about it the most are people who also refer to themselves. As a type of secessionist and I'm referring to the group that calls itself ARM and that uses race trader type language. Anyway, it's the point is that. That perspective is starting to build its own infrastructure within the radical left in space.

Speaker 2: That's fine, though.

Speaker 1: I’m I'm let me just.

Speaker 2: They can be included. In the umbrella.

Speaker 1: Finish my point, which is that their website is like a MW worldwide or something like that and they and the reason that I mentioned them in that perspective is like.

Speaker 3: Your like the language you're.

Speaker 1: Using sounds to me like a secular right wing language, so it's like not, not right. Wing doesn't call itself right wing, but talks about the sensibilities of the right like IE. You referred to being anti state and you didn't refer to capitalism. And the sort of complication, which is of course also the situation as point I made earlier. I guess again what I'm what I'm referring to. The word that you're. That's missing it. What I'm referring. To about it is the fact that. Like you also want. To articulate your perspective as a practical perspective. Yes, rather like and that's why I mentioned rewilding rather than other things, because rewilding ultimately, if reloading doesn't involve some talk about like how you put some sticks together and make a nuclear missile, then it's. It's not, it's It’s ultimately a practical. Philosophical perspective and you, of all people, know that your. Philosophical perspective is going to dominate unless you're really conscious about.

Speaker 2: Something else, yeah sure. OK, I like that I'm getting critical feedback, so I didn't say anti capitalist because capitalism, has at least three definitions, maybe even more. If people want to secede from the dominant society and. Have some sort of market. Society, I'm totally fine with that. Is, I mean the point with as I'm on this. Yeah, so the point with this sort of pensionist umbrella idea is that I want to include as many people as possible, including these people that you briefly described who are talking about secession. I think that's. You know, that's great.

Speaker 1: From a rights perspective, yeah.

Speaker 2: Yeah, that's great. Great and I'm actually talking to. I've been hanging out with them. People who did the inhabits.

Speaker 1: Oh, really.

Speaker 2: Yeah, and I've been talking to them about it and saying, let's let having basically having this the same sorts of conversations that I was trying to have at the crime thing thing. Except these people are reasonable and don't act like they want to assault me because they say something that they disagree with. So it's.

Speaker 1: Their audience might.

Speaker 2: Yeah, that's fine, but I. Mean if people are, consider. Anti state communist type people and they want to secede to try to create the socialist utopia. Great go for it great we just have to agree that the common. There are certain common enemies that are going to stop anyone from doing self organized organic communities, and we should recognize those sorts of common enemies and that is. I think. At the moment the most fertile way of looking at things that I see. The common enemies are the are the, the large scale global industrial system, the major state or sort of deep state or global state. Sort of powers. They are the sort of this like corporate cultural homogenization that is. Is going to. Extinguish any kind of organic lifeway because you just, the more you can wipe out anything non consumerist, the more consumerism can go like this. These are the problems the mass media.

Speaker 1: I share my criticism not because I'm trying to suppress your thing. But is really to help your thing be more successful.

Speaker 2:, no, I understand that.

Speaker 1: And well, sometimes people don't,, and so you hope to do this by way of like.

Speaker 2: It's going to be an online thing.

Speaker 1: An online thing, yeah?

Speaker 2: It's going to be an online thing I'm going. Back to. The Internet.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I've heard good things about it. So this that.

Speaker 2: There’s a lot of stuff on.

Speaker 3: That Internet

Speaker 1: So In fact totally disagree with this as a project for 2020 because I basically don't think anybody is powerful enough. To Outshout electoral politics, and I think that 2020 is basically a wasted year and that this a year to recharge your batteries and to and to really think about.

Speaker 2: Ohh I see sure yeah.

Speaker 1: Let's say whatever it is that you're doing so that come 2021 you're ready to launch, you're ready to do your thing because. I'm serious.

Speaker 2: That is a good criticism that.

Speaker 1: 2020 is awash and yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: No, that's a good point. I should talk to my. The primary person. I'm doing this with about that yeah, it's going to be. It's going to be so ridiculous it. I mean it already is. I don't know if you've been.

Speaker 1: It already is.

Speaker 2: Paying attention, yeah.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I really like comedy and I really desperately want late night comedians to entertain me with things I call laughter and they're just not doing it at all anymore because they can't stop talking about this ******* stupid sideshow.

Speaker 2: Yeah. Well. I mean we have. To defeat evil in 2020, right that's.

Speaker 1: Yes, yes indeed yeah.

Speaker 2: OK. So OK, do you? So you've said what you think cannot happen in 2020. Do you want to talk about what you would like to see in 20? 20 or what?

Speaker 1: Well, in terms of my own projects, I mean I'm feeling like I have been like if my click is lost, what does that mean for me? And so that's very much my thought for 2020 is. To really retreat. And to think and write, and to and to start. Planning for some future projects. I feel like I'm not enough people to sort of outshout the idiot voices of the anarchist. Anarchists and activists left and, and I'm feeling tired of being the punching bag.

Speaker 2: Sure, sure, yeah. I mean so. We kind of. We sort of already talked about the free speech thing. I don't know if you want to resurrect that to talk about it. In the.

Speaker 1: I'm to you. Asking, but I guess I just I don't have a lot of energy meaning like I don't have much to say like the click will call it the. Anarchist activist click has shut my publishing project. Little Black heart out of another event. Just having a.

Unknown Speaker: Couple weeks

Speaker 1: Let's go all of the art like the Queen quote reasons to which I. Got which was very. Little were total weaksauce right? They were something about akassand something about the fact that like we make cheap.

Speaker 2: It's actually very. It's actually very similar to the accusations against Socrates, right? You were accused of corrupting the youth.

Speaker 1: Exactly and like. The amount of energy I have to summon to pretend like I care. So much about a toss of the like the idea that I corrupt the youth is it? That's wonderful. That's ecstatic, no publisher. Would want more.

Speaker 3: But we're not really.

Speaker 1: Talking about that like we're talking, we're talking about something else entirely. That isn't about me or us, or anything that we've done and so the idea that I have to throw myself in front of a bullet. I didn't fire. You know, I.

Speaker 2: Just it's really become this albatross that you. Never really asked for. I mean, at no point in spite of what some people. Continue to claim to the contrary, neither you nor I ever said, Oh yeah, eco extremism. That's totally. What we're for? That's totally, what we would like to see. We never, never once said that, and I've, challenged our critics. Find me one quote from either us where we ever said that and no one has. The silliest criticism we ever got from a now defunct podcast was in the within the space of 10 minutes. They first claimed that we said we had problems with their actions. But their theory is super great. And then a few minutes later, the person claimed that we said there are problems with their theory, but at least they're doing something clearly. You know, if both those things cannot be true, and in fact neither of them are. And it's unfortunate that I don't know like is this just sort of a human nature issue that. Something like this. That the subculture is so incapable of go.

Unknown Speaker: Well other.

Speaker 1: Ahead, I mean the other part of this that for many people this nothing to do about Atassa. Atassa was just a way it was a vector to use to basically attack me in a non critical way. IE without. Yeah, it was a way to sort of say **** Aragorn. I've disliked him for years. Here's a mechanism by which I can get rid. Of him You know, so it's like to the extent to which that's true. It's about clicks. It’s just about sort of social being social stuff and I've never took a shine to it in such a way. That I was going to go to a party. With people who I found boring and who were doing boring **** for long enough to make to make a human connection with a bunch of people who I don't give a **** about. And that's this, is the hard part. It's like.

Speaker 3: How do you?

Speaker 1: How do you get into it with people who you don't have a relationship with and who very much do not want to? Get into it with you.

Speaker 2: Right, so see, This why pan secessionism is the only sleep.

Speaker 1: I don't even know what that means.

Speaker 3: If we if we.

Speaker 1: I mean I. Hate pants.

Speaker 2: Could all bullow bolo right? If Bolo’bolo pants sessions, them could be this sort of overarching strategic goal of anarchism then we can just agree to disagree but. Like all this stuff, it's like. It's about like sentimentality. It's about sort of, like what is an appropriate. Thing to say and it's almost like what is an appropriate thing to say in polite company. How do we? How do we navigate? The intimacies of social relations. You know all the stuff I feel like, can that can be worked out in your dunbars number group of people. It's not. It's not a broad scale anarchist. Strategic issue, whether.

Speaker 1: Well, I'm going to take this in a very different direction, which is to say that I've been a super fan of Bolo’bolo for 25 years. I really, really love this book and I've, I've done as much as a single person can do to promote this book as sort of a thing that we talk about in America. Yes, that said, the first half of that book I've always said to people avoid don't look at it. Don't talk about it because the first half of the book is exactly the part of the book that you're talking about right now, which is that the first half of the book sort of says this how we can get there. And I'm not saying I'm right, I'm saying that it is worthwhile for us to sort of re sit down and reconsider that first half of the book, perhaps to see what we agree and what we don't agree with. About it, because perhaps it is arguing for exactly the thing that you're arguing for right now, a pan secessionist movement. I always read it is basically saying if we keep on working on the counterculture we will make it grow and I'm not sure that's what I would say that it's trying to say today.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the. The procedural strategic questions are certainly up for debate, and I think they're going to look. They're going to look different in each region and locality where they play out, but I think that the overall projection of where we want to go is basically right, except for there's some weird stuff at the end where.

Speaker 1: They try to bring bring the market back.

Speaker 2: Well, like it's like this. Sort of like we could have a like sort of global governance type agreements through this whole representative system, . I mean, you want to basically leave each other alone as much as possible and get along as much as possible to the extent to which you interact. But the idea that we should be. That the culmination of the anarchist macro political project would look like radical decentralization and autonomy. Separatist autonomy at the smallest level possible. I mean, ideally even all the way down to the individual. That is the. Goal and it should be something that. A wide range of people could agree on even if they disagreed about so many other things. Yes, that's my stump speech.

Speaker 1: But the but the point is, is that it. There is a whole program about how we get from here to there in that book that is worth sort of like maybe even just writing a criticism of with your own perspective thrown in.

Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I agree with you. Yeah right, that is something that I should do.

Speaker 3: And by the way.

Speaker 1: The end part that you're talking about that I totally agree is nonsense and ridiculous really comes out of the fact that like first of all there were communist and anarchist type people in the 80s who are already thinking about the consequences of computer network. Technology basically long before the Internet that those people also had a very utopian ideas to how it was going to play out.

Speaker 2: Right?

Speaker 1: And really, what you're seeing in there is that an example of what that utopianism looks like.

Speaker 2: Yeah, it just.

Unknown Speaker: It seemed.

Speaker 2: It seems like. Three steps forward. 2 Steps back because he makes this whole push against the idea of a global society and then serves as well. But maybe we could have like kind of a loosey Goosey global society, but it would be, really non binding, and so why, like . What why? Just just let it? Be what it is I mean. No one, no one wants it.

Speaker 1: It’s hard to argue against information.

Speaker 2: What's that?

Speaker 1: It's hard to argue against information in. In other words, it's very easy to decide the information is neutral.

Speaker 2: Yeah yeah.

Speaker 1: I mean basically it's the anti William Gillis argument also.

Speaker 2: Yeah, sure sure.

Unknown Speaker: How do you do that?

Speaker 1: Well, I feel like the like we have reached a natural conclusion or at least an ending.

Speaker 2: Sure, sure.

Speaker 1: So let's end this for now. Obviously we'll do this again three months or so. That would be great. Yeah, it's always a pleasure, and. Yeah, thank you very much, thank you.

Season 4 (2019-20)

Ep. 100 – Revisiting (anarchist)Nihilism

Source

January 12, 2020

Episode 100 – Revisiting (anarchist)Nihilism

Ultimately I am not a nihilist but this might be a de jure vs de facto kind of distinction that people hate hearing people drone…

Transcript

Speaker 1: Welcome to The Boring podcast. If things turn out as I anticipate this will be episode 100, so an excellent theme comes up. Given that we're 100 episodes in, we'll see how it plays out. I mean, I'm hearing conversation with Nev, who will describe themselves. Throughout throughout the course of the conversation. Today we are going to talk. We're going to. Do a sort of reassessment. Of nilas, for those of you who know. 1520 years ago. I wrote a series of essays about nihilism. To some extent. I feel like I coined the term as it was used for a little while anticolonialism. And then other people demonstrated a different sort of definition and sensibility about naturalism. Those people are mostly in Europe and then here in the last five years in the United States, there is a new crew of people who are describing themselves as novelists. That I basically do not recognize in any way, shape or form. So we'll talk about all of these things and we'll talk about criticisms and not of nihilism. And we'll sort of do a. A temperature check. About what it is, what does it mean to be a novelist in 2020? How's it going, man?

Speaker 2: It's going well glad to be here. Nihilism is always kind of one of these fraught issues. I'm curious, you just mentioned these sort of three kind of the old school. Of course, Russian nihilists sort of where where this all sort of starts from and then sort of the.

Speaker 1: Sure, sure.

Speaker 2: Conspiracy sells of fire. Euro nihilism that was around or still is, I guess around. But what was the US like? Who would you characterize in that last category?

Speaker 1: Warzone distro?

Speaker 2: OK, and so like how does their? I'm not really familiar with them. How does their nihilists ethics or how their nihilism different from other nihilism's?

Speaker 1: Well, I went to this book fair of people who were describing themselves as. Green nihilists

Speaker 2: I heard about this yeah. Move it again.

Speaker 1: It was called it called itself the green scare.

Speaker 2: That was.

Speaker 1: It book Fair, which of course is. So it's there's. It boggles the mind as to why they call themselves that. Why would you name yourself after a government program? Repressing anarchists 15 years ago?

Speaker 2: Good question.

Unknown Speaker: Yeah no. And that and.

Speaker 1: That's actually the point is that this new wave of nihilists will call them. And it. Is important to mention that I never really called myself a novelist exactly like I. I thought it was interesting. I thought it was worth discovering. Worth sort of exploring. I thought it. It was a valid anarchist perspective. But I was sort of looking for a conversation like in the same way that insurrectionary anarchists are, sort of. Often times the first thing that you'll hear from a new group of insurrectionary, insurrectionary anarchists will be their manifesto. I was sort of looking for people to introduce themselves to each other and. To me, by way of that. And that didn't happen, at least in the US.

Speaker 2: Context, yeah, it seems a little strange to treat nihilism as just sort of like any other political sort of identity, something that you can just kind of like appropriate. Take on for yourself. I am a nihilist. Just like you could be a Social Democrat or a whenever a fascist or something.

Speaker 1: Right, right exactly exactly.

Speaker 2: Because it is, I think more of a perspective or a kind of a. I sometimes describe it as like a radical skepticism to any idea that sort of has traditionally has been given meaning, so yeah. I mean that sort of goes against it being an identity and more of sort of a perspective that people should like. You said engage in conversations to try to figure out where we, where this could take us and how we could act from this perspective.

Speaker 1: And that and. All of that is exactly was my thought. You know in 2003 or whatever. Whenever the **** all this was happening, the. So the take away? That I got from these. These quote UN quote this new crowd is ultimately like. Intensely ahistorical. Which is sort of another way of saying,. Kids who don't know ****. Or kids who like. **** you dad.

Speaker 2: Is this a? Historical kind of coming from like a Pearlman sort of ideabout history and as it relates to civilization.

Speaker 1: Well, I’m the obvious first example would be the fact that they called their event. The green scare had a good book fair that it that I mean. That you couldn't. Give a better example of like what does a historical look like? This what it looks like.

Unknown Speaker: I mean, this what it looks.

Speaker 1: Yeah, like. Like and then. Then the next thing that's sort of like in my experience. And in describing this, this group of whatever this youth culture will say, is that my first experience of the event was. Like I did everything in my table to have everything in my. Power to make sure that I had a table and that I was going to be sort of like part of this event that happened. I walked into the. Room about 15 minutes after 10 in the morning, every table had a pile of material on it in the in the event and no and no one was sitting behind any of the tables.

Speaker 2: What on Earth were they? Just not? What is that? Where were?

Speaker 1: They it, I would say it was not exactly a tightly organized event.

Speaker 2: Oh wow.

Speaker 1: And most of the people who had put stuff on the tables had done. It like the night before. Or even several days before.

Speaker 2: Oh, so they just left it there and didn't weren't there at. All weren't doubling at all.

Speaker 1: Yeah, they still they were still sleeping or.

Speaker 2: See yeah, and that to me like the main reasone of the main reasons to do a book fair is to be able to interface directly with these people that. You otherwise have to. You know, usually sort of see through the Internet or through some other kind of mediation. So I mean. Well, this was a this was.

Speaker 1: Actually, on this level I'll give them, give them a compliment, which is that this event in fact was not really an open public book fair.

Speaker 2: OK.

Speaker 1: It was intended for a set of friends. Who more or less already knew each other and those friends would mostly be described by outsiders as Eagles? And it was basically like a party for their friends, the Eagles but the. But what was strange for me was like I did so much to make sure that we had a table. There were actually even three different groups. Who who had. Committed to going to the event. Who then couldn't go to the event. So I talked to all three of. Those events all. Three of those different tables, and was like it. Well, do you mind if I. Take your table instead, sure. And of course, but I did all this outside of the power of the organizer. The of the book Fair, so the organizer, the book Fair both. Was totally did not control the event. Did not sort of announce things to the audience like workshops or anything like that. As a matter of fact, I believe there were no workshops at the event but in but after the **** talking that happened after the event happened, they were like. No, we organize we self organized workshops and just in such a way that no one in the center room knew. That they were happening. Or that you meeting me? Didn't know they were.

Speaker 2: Happy you were part of the privileged group that was invited to.

Speaker 1: Exactly, yeah wow. And then. The next sort of strain. So anyways I have no table, they're all like you're not even supposed to be here. Sort of attitude and so eventually I set myself up at these couches on the side of the room and set set up, essentially what's like our books. And then. The main like the first. Set of Googles that were there. Did not talk to me at all. They just walked by the table videotaping it.

Speaker 2: For Twitter, for Twitter. Googles on Twitter. I follow many of them and.

Speaker 1: It’s super strange, yeah? Anyways, I won't go. Through all the nitty gritty, suffice it to say, by the time I left the event, they had claimed to pepper spray my tent. They had claimed to, or they in fact stuffed my gas tank with debris and then. And then made it very clear they wanted essentially nothing to do with our project.

Unknown Speaker: Oh my God.

Speaker 1: And none of them came to me to ask me questions or sort of even engaged with.

Speaker 2: Me was wondering like what was their? Did they give you? Any like? Was it because of like Atassa or? Was it yeah?

Speaker 1: Like it was a yeah they stole a pile of tosses and burned them and again that was shared on Twitter.

Speaker 2: Ohh specifically Atassa. Well, I guess you could look at eco extremism as yeah, another kind of strain of nihilism. But I kind of I guess I kind of see what you're saying. This a. I mean, I don't know really how to characterize it from the way you're describing it, but it sounds sort of like. A nihilism that's kind of. I don't know divorced from any sort of like philosophical understanding of the term, and it's more just sort of this lived kind of like. I don't give a **** kind of attitude which right can look different ways. Some people that could be really hostile and for other people. Maybe that's like just sort. Of the vibetween them and their friends or whatever. But yeah, I can see what you mean.

Speaker 1: And again, like. It would be something else entirely. If this were like a punk rock, or like a kind of nihilism. But the fact that they engage with the task. And the way that they did. Makes it really sort of again a historical like. They basically align themselves with the moralist faction within the anarchist space are calling that nihilism and using it against LBC.

Speaker 2: So would you then say historical?

Speaker 1: Would you store?

Speaker 2: Would you say then the history in some sense? Has some sort of meaning or some sort of value for a? I mean, obviously we want to reject it and it's sort of the way it sort of reifies our experience is the way that one person or one group gets to write history, usually to the detriment of the. The poor, the indigenous peoples. All the people that are are the target. Of it, but. I don't know like how would you say history in this. In that sense is like has some value for anarchists or for. Nihilists well.

Speaker 1: I guess. You know the best way to make an. Argument against history requires. An awful lot have an awful lot of knowledge about history, and that's one of the one of the problems with sort of nihilistic. Like world views is that is that to do them well you more or less need to be couched in some sort. Of context, right?

Speaker 2: You have to understand the things that you're critiquing and then ultimately rejecting, yeah.

Speaker 1: And so I would. I would love to say that like. That is, alism is something that I'm sort of like envious of. Or like. But I very much feel like I'm. On the outside, and it's. More of a generational sounds like. A thing than it is anything else. It's it really is.

Speaker 2: **** you, or even just like a clique kind of thing like a group of friends that you and I don't. Belong to so that's yeah.

Speaker 1: Exactly exactly and so and so with. That said, it. Is worth reflecting on the fact that perhaps this the generation that. Sort of learned these lessons, or as are practicing these lessons and on that level I just don't recognize them at all.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I guess. If I wasn't sort of already kind of implicitly interested in history and in the things that I would sure be. Willing to. Admit have a lot of ways that they're used that are oppressive and that serve authority, but I can. I can see, going through. Especially the US public education system and kind of coming out with this sort of almost antIntellectual. It sounds like attitude that you're describing. And which, yeah, I mean, I'm all for like again, critiquing intellectualism. As a form of. Specialization and the roles and the Academy that implies but. I also love. Exercising my intellect and using it on these things that kind of. Have a dual. Dual meaning. So yeah, I don't know. I I kind of would be torn as to. Whether . History or something like that is, totally meaningless. If we're going to look at it from a nihilist perspective, but I guess it with that is kind of how things most things are with nihilism. It’s not so much about rejecting these ideas or these. Thought formations or whatever we want to call these things entirely, but more about. Like identifying the parts of them that are useful to me as an enemy of society, authority, whatever. And not allowing myself to be Co opted by the other elements about how they're used to serve authority in the state, whatever else, so.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean this of course so the initial set of essays that I wrote. Which are packaged in this pamphlet called Anarchy Now as I'm in the 21st century. In that piece, sort of. The biggest article, which was incredibly difficult to write and mostly plagiarized of course, was sort of how to reconcile a sense of what nihilism means today, with what nihilism meant for the 19th century Russians. And it's worth reflecting on the fact that, like. Ultimately, the people who did not self describe but were described by mediat the time, as well as the people who essentially assassinated the tsar. Those people I don't have a lot in common with them. The severity of them, the severity of how? They were trying. To live out their ideas and the severity of like putting ideas into practice that were utterly hostile to the society. I definitely have a lot. I mean, I share an awful lot. That, but ultimately, and really you read this the most clearly in the book. Fathers and sons. Is this idea of like how do you do science? Like if science is being clear to the fact that physical reality is not the ideology, that it's that we're told it is. That to me was very striking about the original nose. Because of course, we wouldn't use the word science. We would use the word antIdeology or. Or how do you be clear minded about about these? Things, yeah so.

Speaker 2: For them it was they were still kind of more kind of caught up in the Enlightenment. You're saying they were still very much like kind of seeing rationalism and scientism as a sort of revolt against the sort of, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1: The mysticism of centralized religions. And so, like. They use the word science so obviously we can't accept what it is that they're saying because they were positing it against the mystification. But ultimately they were trying to do though the early steps of this sort of thing that we're doing when we're. Talking about ideology. So on that. Level like I think it's they're well within the Canon. We should very much be taking them seriously. Just, don't use the word. But with that said, I'm not sure if the quote UN quote. Natural sciences. Are the way in which any of us are going to solve like what we call human problems? Sure, like the way that a frog is composed doesn't have a lot to do with the way that a. Society is composed well.

Speaker 2: And I yeah, I mean like probably the best text, that kind. Of speaks to. That for what it means today would probably be desert. I would think as to. Sort of like. Cause for me, science is maybe the main way that it sort of pervades us. Our society is through technology and so that text that I’m wondering was that a text that you had? You had seen sort of circulated in this kind of nihilist. American group that you were talking about. Or have they? Are they kind of like engaging? With that text at all. Or not at all, OK?

Speaker 1: I don't see them. Engage with texts at all.

Speaker 2: With any with any tax OK?

Speaker 1: OK, I mean again, Twitter. No it no, it's important.

Speaker 2: Enough said really, yeah.

Speaker 1: When we talk about technology and how is the technology infects? Sort of the conversation. It's worth just sitting and resting in. The fact that, like Those who use Twitter. Are really limited by the by the. The format by the context of it. The just as to stay in the 19th. Century a little bit. I think that. To refer to ourselves as nihilists . Again we have to we have to live with the fact that those people themselves at that time called themselves like socialists. Sure, they did not call themselves nationalists.

Speaker 2: That was still a legitimately radical. Term at the time. You know communism hadn't even really come into into being as a distinction from socialism yet, so yeah.

Speaker 1: Exact yes, correct? Yeah, and by and large like the reason why they're important to sort of reflect on today is all the things that they have in common with the things that we do today that we. Considered to be part and parcel of being anarchist or part and parcel being radical. And in fact. We're part and parcel being a radical. For them then, to in the 19th century. But that are not sort of the same as like what the normies do, so by and large these are people who are sharing resources living together and. Just trying to figure out like a quiet. Little way to live in a world that was very much attempting to be repressive towards them so. You know it's so It’s like. We can talk about the that history and really it's a history of like counterculture in the 19th century. And the fact that there has been a very similar counterculture, now for 100. And 20 years I.

Speaker 2: Wonder if you would also characterize. Although they he and the people that were after him didn't use the term nihilist. But if Scherner and the individualist anarchists who took up his ideas after him, would also for you be as part of this nihilist sort of strain of the 19th century, because for me, definitely like to sterners's egoist method is. Essentially nihilism, just with a different kind of name and a different facade put on in front of it. But and other people have taken up the idea. There's a book written in the 19th. I think it's James Walker's maxner, the nihilistic egoist, or something like that, and then the Japanese philosopher Keiji Nishitani, who's. Written extensively about nihilism has many long chapter in one of his books about sterners egoism as nihilism. So I'm wondering if that resonates. For you if. You see those as kind of distinct?

Speaker 1: Well, I mean they are distinct in the sense that we are talking about different countries, different mostly poor people who did not have the facilities to be interacting. With each other at. All so on that level, no connection. On the level of like what? How were people trying to grapple with late Enlightenment ideas with how do you reconcile the individual in the society and against the society? I mean, obviously all of this part part of a package of ideas that. You should understand. But it does. This where the history part is sort of important. Like every historian has a judgment, especially on these questions that I just brought up. And by and large, like at the end of the day, most of them are pro society. They are you. Know more or less sort of hostile to. To the idea of another culture that is in opposition to the one that we're in and so. Finding out the truth and the weakness and the lies and the all of this is a huge challenge for anyone who's just trying to figure ****. Out and so I think that it's. It's this where we're. Looking it's based I'm talking. About the genre of ideas that. Today we would call sort of the individual anarchist cannon or something and. The difference, I think, is that the nihilists, I feel like they were less individualistic. There's the waves like it. It feels like they mostly live together in little communal sort of sort of setups, how they're associated with the current is because. They're associated with the illegalise current on the level of like trying to assassinate the Tsar. I mean like that is more or less sort of seen as a bifurcation from the general socialist current that wasn't so much into assassinations and sort of like murder and mayhem. And again, like for me, this a topic totally worth studying. I don't feel like I have enough knowledge to be done or complete on this and that. And I do think that there are little bits written in sort of like broader histories of Russiand all the rest, because like this idea that. Most overthrowing of any leader in the history of ******* kings and leaders looks like a palace coup, yeah? So what?

Speaker 2: A military uprising or something?

Speaker 1: Like basically it's something from the inside, Evo Morales who just got bounced out of Bolivia.

Unknown Speaker: Sure, yeah, great exam.

Speaker 1: Like very clearly palace.

Speaker 2: Coup it's not like a proletarian uprising.

Speaker 1: It was not, and it. Was not a conspiracy of cells of.

Unknown Speaker: Fire, ?

Speaker 1: Sure, not like it was not. Brilliant people who made **** happen in a world that the in a world gone mad or something. And so in the. The way the nihilists are very different. Than what we call what we refer. To as the Russian nihilists are very different, like in fact they kept on trying until they did.

Speaker 2: It very much.

Speaker 1: Yeah, like that's crazy. Like that doesn't, doesn't map to any. Sort of reality we've. Ever experienced so to me? To the extent to which we're talking about, like. What would it look like? Totally transform it or upend this. This world that we live in, like the fact that the nihilists in fact are a different kind of story. That is very Russian. Whatever Russian culture, whatever that means. And are not Palace coup like and they're not essentially a revolutionary like they're not like a hunta. They're not like che and Castro, coming out up down from the mountains like they did their thing. They all got either murdered. Or like killed? And then the. Culture got cleansed. You know, like and then 20. Years later, there was a regular style revolution like that's. Some pretty crazy ****. And I just, like I don't feel like I have the talent too. But it's like this a way in which we are connecting something to a historical thing. But then. It's worth. You know the next part of that has to be that the philosophical concepts around realism that we're going to, probably talk about for most of the next half hour, have nothing to do with any. Because ultimately on some level they were in the in the Russian.

Speaker 2: That's true.

Speaker 1: Sorry Soviet communist terminology. They were adventure, adventure and adventure neering or something like they had no no. The people did not support them, they did not know how to reach or talk to the people. It ended up that there was more of a mask group. After them so.

Speaker 2: You're saying is they were all they were all about living an incendiary life against authority and it had nothing to do with trying to with ideas. I one hand, or trying to appeal to some populist impulse or something.

Unknown Speaker: Yeah, I think all that's fair.

Speaker 1: So I, in the context of talking about why we should use this terminology today. You know it's worth mentioning these people that the media the press called nihilists, but in point of fact, were just socialists. But of a type that we sort of don't understand because we're not really part of Russian. Culture and the way in which what it is that they did was an expression of that cultural set of values more than it was of like a. And antisocial, individualistic perspective referring to the rest of the movement? Of that type. I mean, I mean even like. When you talk. About these elements that come out of like, let's say Eastern Europe or sorry East Asia. I mean, my sensibility is that there was more of a philosophical tradition there of like why these ideas were worth thinking and talking about, and so in that way, like I think the part that you're getting at the sort of philosophy of nihilism live more there than it did in.

Speaker 2: Russia yeah very well might have.

Speaker 1: But it's worth mentioning the fact that the Russians actually killed some people right right? And this of course brings us to the moralism of this conversation. Any time we have it in the context of a red or social anarchism. That always talks about sort of the terrible and pathetic thing about Russian idealism is that it never meant a mass movement for a better world or a better society. It always meant sort of like invention. I'm looking for the right word. It's like a when you as a revolutionary. Talking about the people. Were who are failing a revolution, but trying really hard you refer to them as adventure. It's like adventure, adventure, earning you something like.

Speaker 2: I think I get it. You're getting out with it. Yeah, take basically that they’re. They're sitting around having conversations and debating meaningless issues. You're going to take it into your hands to actually do something. About it and to strike authority in a in a real individual, kind of.

Speaker 1: Way well, yeah, I mean I mean. Part of the point of it is. But oftentimes it might better to sit around the sit around the table and keep on talking, because you might ruin the revolutionary spirit, and in fact is, the people are ready, but you ****** it up by killing the jar you.

Speaker 2: Perhaps yes.

Speaker 1: Know yeah, two weeks before. The masters.

Speaker 2: Were ready here right? But sounds like you're almost. Gesturing to like a sort of like a practical tradition of nihilism, if we could call it that with the Russian nihilists. And maybe we could. Sort of extend that into like people like novatore or degiovanni or people like that and then sort of a philosophical side where we could look at. Nietzsche Stirner through Nietzsche through Heidegger and kind of up until the day and sort of like I, I'm not too sure about like the term nihilism being used in the 20th century before groups like the CF and whatever. But it has there been any sort of like nihilist tradition other than these sort of? Individualist, anarchist sort of things in the in the 20th century that you.

Speaker 1: Would identify I mean I would very much point to the fact that van. Again, more or less quoted Nietzsche to refer to active versus passive nihilism as sort of like a central question, and that start Heidegger and sort of those people are more or less pointed to and referred to as being the passive nihilist tendency that sit around and sit around and. Talk **** rather than do essentially the construction as it was articulated by Nietzsche and then again is that acting, nihilism good passive nihilism bad? But of course there aren't a lot of examples of active nihilism that look like much. First of all, It’s not exactly a flag that it feels appropriate to it to wave, and I think that. That's been true for. 100 years in other words. It's like. I think it's it makes perfect sense for there to be even. A social group. Of people who sort of are talking through what active nihilism, what the consequences are, what they are in life, what they are in a social movement and beyond. But once you're actually like, let's say talking about, killing a local police officer, which was something that was a bit more common to do 100 years ago. Like, would you put the flag of nihilism that that and that seems a little strange.

Speaker 2: So you mean are you kind of saying that like part of the reason maybe that we can't identify so much of it is just that because like not only is nihilism sort of a set of ideas that? Focuses more on the way I can live my life and the way I can, and not so much on changing things in a way that would make it. You know noticeable and part of history and sort of. I mean, is that kind of like where. You're getting at going.

Speaker 1: Out with this sort of saying that. It makes sense as anarchist, even anti social non movement anarchist. To say that I want to transform the world. In such a way as. That we would call that world. That we have transformed anarchist world like the form of government. In this future, world would. Would be anarchism. Whereas nihilism is much more of a philosophical orientation, it doesn't. Have a flag. And so it doesn't say that like. My hatred for society and for the standing social order is so great that I. Want to destroy? It, which maybe I share with the. Anarchists, but then It's. There, there's no conversation. No follow up conversation with an with analyst.

Speaker 2: About what comes.

Speaker 1: Of about what comes next and nihilism, more or less. Sort of. Addresses maybe this? Current situation with no passion at all. For our future.

Speaker 2: Particularly, and I think that's to me kind of like where nihilism is interesting to me as anarchist is sort of like taking on an idea of anarchism that is not only what we kind of have already had from an individualist tradition that's not focused on creating social or political change, but also that sort of.

Speaker 1: Where is the appeal, yeah.

Speaker 2: Maybe anarchism? That kind of sees itself as being impossible almost, but that doesn't look like quietism or fatalism, or defeatism or anything like that. But that sort of recognizes that not only is. The idea of, like you said, anarchist world or government under anarchist principles. Totally undesirable. But it's totally impossible and that sort. Of acts from that and, and to me, that's much more interesting, because it sort of, I guess represents the endpoint of. What do we? What things look like when we stop. Granting ourselves towards the people or towards the society and sort of turn inward, and so I don't know. That's to me what exactly how it's kind of informing my anarchism in recent years.

Speaker 1: Well, I will say that it's still worth reflecting on the fact that the majority of self-described anarchy. This see anarchism is the self-expression of the working class that's true, and so if the day of days comes. We now have to sit with each other, look each other in the eyes and figure out what the **** is the difference between between the thing we desire and the thing that they desire like. Again, to just to say it like I accept the criticism that for those who believe that the that anarchism is itself expression of the working class, that they sort of have the plan now it's still a. Plan that. That assumes that the that the basic human. Activity is production. So I think that they're going to. There's a pretty some pretty big illusions there that they have that they're going. To have to work through.

Speaker 2: And I think it's also assumes that like at some point we need to use authority and force to control the behavior and activity of some people. I think most social anarchists, as they would maybe described if you kind of press the point eventually they are going to sanction some idea of prisons. Or some idea of a proletarian police or something like this. Because that's really the difference between a societally oriented anarchism and one that's antisocial. Is that a societal one at some point? Unless you're just going to completely ignore the consequences of trying to create a society, any society is going to require something to hold it. Some kind of force to hold it together, and to me that totally goes against the. You know originary impulse of anarchism. So yeah, I don't know to me. That's why I. I really have no interest in dealing with most of those people, and I almost kind. I feel like It’s it would better to talk about them, as almost libertarian socialists or something like that, as opposed to anarchists. Obviously, that's just me redefining the terms and they if they want to use those terms. Obviously I'm not. They're not going to be able to stop them from doing so, but I don't know. It really does feel much more like part of the socialist. Like the Historical socialist movement. Whereas what we're doing here and the way we're talking about anarchism, I think, is completely antithetical to what that socialist movement has always been trying to achieve.

Speaker 1: My main concern with the prospect of your sharing. Is that I have been subject for the past couple of years to the anarchist equivalent of cancel culture and I feel like what you're articulating is some variant of cancel culture, which is this idea that some point our disagreements are or. How do we talk about where our disagreements are? And I don't accept the fact that we like essentially, especially with the term like anarchism. I want to sit at the table with people who do disagree with me and so come the day of days. I feel like I would be perfectly happy to sit at the table with the mediocrities. Of all stripes that call themselves anarchists, I accept the premise of what you're saying, which is that we so deeply disagree that many of us will walk away from the table, and I think some of them. Some people will be perfectly happy to call themselves libertarian socialists. And be done with. I also don't think that by and large our perspectives are,, a great way to organize this society, which is why I. Have them.

Unknown Speaker: I mean right like.

Speaker 1: In other words, the point is. I want to keep on smashing though the social organization of 360 million people. Until such point is that it's human size. And what does that look? Like and that's the table I'll I'll stay.

Speaker 2: At and that look that for you. Looks like continuing to. Converse interact, discuss with people that are. More socially or societally oriented.

Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. I mean I mean, but again, like that's such an imaginary conversation because of course, like we still live in a world of ******* cops.

Speaker 2: Absolutely, it's gonna. It would take enormous unthinkable amount of change for us to get to the positions that we're kind of. Talking about and. All the ATR kind of conversations really are just are just. People kind of living out their fantasies and that and that can be, fun and playful, whatever but.

Speaker 1: Yes, yeah. Yeah, I mean when I was a. Preteen I played a lot of.

Speaker 2: It's not a bad analogy.

Speaker 1: Some people just wanna.

Unknown Speaker: Keep on playing. I get it.

Speaker 1: I mean, those CNT outfits are very cute. OK, so.

Unknown Speaker: To come back.

Speaker 1: Around to the to the specific thing right now is. I do want to. Talk about this fundamental criticism that someone made of, sort of like the anarcho Stuff as constructed by me. 15 plus years ago and that is ultimately that the Europeans who sort of use the same language you mentioned, CF. But there were a couple others IFF and some other output groups. Those peoples practice in this person's evaluation and again the people who are the most engaged with the nihilism stuff were associated with insurrectionary anarchism, which again. If there were a spectrum, obviously insurrectionary anarchism much larger than idealism, but And not so far away.

Speaker 2: Very much in the same individualist antisocial kind of grouping. Yeah, yeah, so.

Speaker 1: So more so, more or less, they critiqued my thing as being. An American intellectual exercise rather than. What it should be, which was a sort. Of group that attacked more vigorously. I mean my first response, which of course did not endear me. To a lot. Of people was to basically pause and say most of your attacking isn't attacking the thing you're saying it is, and it's kind, it's. A waste of time. Especially like there are two different kinds of kinds of attacks, some in the modern context. It's like there's there are attacks that are where you're safe when you do them. It's a smash a window and then run home. Or it? That's something that's sort of M arier. Scarier fire, the gunplay that's both happening. Greece and in New Mexico. But most most insurrectionary attack most sort of things called attack are, smash and grab and run home and again like I'm all about. People not getting caught. But be honest with yourself about what you're doing, what you're accomplishing, even what your goals are. Because like in the atmosphere of attack. Like that was more or less what a lot of insurrection at their best. That's what the insurrection anarchists were creating, where they're being a couple towns that had atmospheres of attack and. You know, and again like a noble task, but not an existential threat.

Speaker 2: Perhaps though, yeah, something that might make your as especially as an insurrection anarchist your life in that community more pleasant. And it might because more people are opening up and two words attack might give you greater opportunities to do, more dramatic forms? Contact that you might. Not be able to. Do if it was just you and a couple of friends doing it so. But yeah, I mean. Certainly not something. That's going to provoke an existential crisis, as you said, for the state.

Speaker 1: But the so the criticism of my stuff was more or less like. That I wasn't exemplifying a way to put it into practice in the way that insurrectionary anarchists.

Speaker 2: Were so they wanted like a guide of like how to make Molotov cocktails or something like something very practically oriented like that.

Speaker 1: I mean, I think really what they were trying to say was that we're just when the Americans who are so safe that we're not even smashing. Window and whereas in Europe they're real. Yeah, and that and that. Of course to me was sort of the like a lot of anarchists, a lot of insurrectionary anarchists like it's an Italian idea that barely makes sense in the UK. Whereas it's like there is an aspect, especially because of passive nihilism. Where there is a checkout of politics in general that is very American that is actually worth thinking about. Like why does it work? Why does it make sense for people to do that with their life rather than sort of this adventurous adventurism which is? Which is essentially pretending, like the political context exists for. Let's say an. Attack against the firmament of the society like. As an example, a bunch of our friends got popped with pretty serious charges during May Day events in Seattle because they actually did some regular black bloc activity around the federal building, and because of the nature of our legal system by their laws, all or sorry. Their crimes all went from misdemeanor ******** charges to federal charges because they attacked this building. And in my sense is that it just happened because of circumstance, not because they in fact were trying. To attack the. Federal building, like they weren't attempting a federal crime.

Speaker 2: They just happened to be there and the police saw the opportunity to charge.

Speaker 1: It is happening exactly.

Speaker 2: Them with more. Serious crime now.

Speaker 1: So, so that brings me to the to the point of like if you were going to make the case that individuals with batons and or whatever and the **** is the way in which we're going to March from. From what we're doing now total anarchy's ******* triumph. If I were going to make that argument, perhaps I would sort of say that like every town, everywhere should be attacking the federal buildings. Just to scale that down just one step, like most people live in a town like ours where or a couple 100,000 people and the city center. We're not millions of people, it's anyways. Attacking a city building is a is a. I mean it's hard because on the one hand the idea of attacking a city building as a way to sort of like build a hostile force against existing society. In my opinion, is moronic and like as an example during Occupy there was a time where people got inside the Oakland City Hall. You know and. And what they did was not inspiring, yeah well.

Speaker 2: Cause it's important to use that word inspiring because the entire logic behind the this idea insurrection or anarchism is that not only more recently, it's kind of been involved into like doing this for my own reasons and whatever. But if like going back like. Propaganda of the deed. Yeah, like it's this idea that by showing that you can strike at the mechanisms of authority you show others. That they don't have to continue to live this passive way, and they too can strike at them. So yeah, it's important to use that term inspirational. Cause yeah, there's absolutely nothing inspirational about seeing somebody drop a banner from the top. Of a. A building that they're then holed. Out of by the police. An hour later or something.

Speaker 1: And that's sort of part of my problem. With a lot of. Insurrectionary rhetoric and sort of thought processes like,, they're in fact. Insurrection by and large has become is now used in the exact same way that revolution was used before, and people aren't sort of like paying attention to the fact that they're talking through acting as if they are revolutionaries, and they're not. Especially if they're if they're paying any attention to bananos writings or whatever the **** which they don't have to. But in fact It’s sort of speaking on the same stage as the Maoists and the ******* Communists and. So it's like. How do we? Talk about our disdain of the world that we live in without more or less starting a conversation with the ******* people. We're never who are our enemies and to me that's an important response to the initial criticism, which is basically that. Is is an intellectual exercise? And yeah, so I guess I sort of land I end. Up landing there. But of course, because the yeah anyways?

Speaker 2: I don't know it's like. I, I think what I don't like also about people calling it an intellectual exercise is that I think in some sense that just implies kind of not thinking deeply about. You know how? How this all plays out and sort of just accepting these sort of stock narrative that. You know these revolutionary activities are worth doing for their own just because they're revolutionary activities and not like really looking at how. If we if we say that our goal is to attack to strike immediately without waiting at the mechanisms of authority. How do we do that in the most effective way? How do we do that in the way that keeps? Us the safest, and that prevents police and other problems from coming into our scene and that to me implies. Intellectualizing it I suppose. I mean, sure, the intellectualism as it's as I said earlier, when it's becomes this ossified thing can certainly be something to destroy, but in this context it feels really like they're just. Like a very superficial critique that really doesn't. Say like did they. Did they go on anymore about like why your particular text struck them as overly intellectual?

Speaker 1: Well, I think it's a fair criticism insofar is like one of the tensions between what you're saying or how you're framing things and how. I frame things. Ultimately, you're talking about nihilism as a practice that's very recognizable from egoism. Meaning that. Like the intellectual argument says, how can we both? Despise and attack the existing order and be safe. Obviously we can't sure so. The egoist response is how do we that we? I don't want to say. Maintain the rhetoric, but like. That we. Live life pleasurably And any opportunity we have, we attack the existing order.

Speaker 2: I don't know. I mean I would. I wouldn't say any opportunity we have to our to our detriment like to take massive risk. Just because an opportunity presents itself, I don't think that ego is an egoistic or an illegalise kind of approach would necessarily imply that, but certainly, foregrounding. Attacking and that will obviously implies risk and sort of the weighing, weighing the equation as so far. That I would. Rather live a brilliant, intense, but maybe short or maybe fraught life than to live the passive, comfortable domesticated existence. That means foregoing attack and foregoing insurrection is. But to me this also just like all this, this the idea of like your piece being too intellectual or something is just speaks of the same kind of like fake dichotomy between theory and practice that somehow like because you're thinking and this all supposedly in the realm of.

Speaker 1: Right, yeah, yeah of course.

Speaker 2: Thought that there's no real practical. Right, consequences from from the things that you're writing, so I don't know. I'm just always suspicious of anything like that. Obviously probably wasn't a great a great critique to begin with, .

Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean. I guess I often devote a lot more energy to critique just because it's a kind of engagement, which oftentimes is so. Difficult to get. Any meaningful engagement in the modern anarchist space. There was another response that was sort of directed at. At the anachronous perspective that was written by Jasper Burns. That was it's. In the title it had something. About Barrowby and yeah, and essentially.

Unknown Speaker: Hmm ohh I.

Speaker 2: Think I read.

Speaker 1: It's essentially. The critique of quietism sure which more or less I would expect, but anyway it's good to go back to this more traditional insurrectionary response. You know, like. I don't just want to insult and search in their perspective as being. As exoticizing, a European tendency that has nothing to do with the world that we live in, or as just being sort of like wishful wishful thinking, which is largely what . It's like let's blame the nihilist for the. Fact that like. The United States doesn't have a social movement.

Speaker 2: Right, but we're all failing it.

Speaker 1: And yeah, yeah, I mean. But I also want to take to. Heart, the fact that like. Ultimately, the practice that I advocate for is put yourself in the middle of conflict, like I basically have been in the middle of conflict within the anarchist space for 25 plus years. And like I. Don't want to. Yeah *******, and say you should do it too. But ultimately, that is really a I. It's all I really have to offer is to is is that like what you do with your body and what you do with your sort of person? That's how you're going to be measured, and I will definitely be measured as someone who's been an ******* in the middle of things for an awful long time, but. That's not a social revolution either, like. It's like perhaps I've become. The new man through this process, but it's. But it's lonely. It's not. I wouldn't like. It's very hard for me to. Advocate for it. Right and I can imagine people who have. Way better social skills than I do who could have done a much better. Job of it and not come out of every. Conflict they've ever been a part of. As like a ******* ******* which that I can very I can advocate very well for that.

Speaker 2: Well, I mean, but I think there's something to be said to defend you a little bit here. I think the yeah, sure, maybe you've kind. Of been a kind of conflictual force in. Some people's eyes. But you've also opened up a tremendous. Amount of ideas and conversations to people with your projects that they otherwise wouldn't or maybe would have had a much more difficult time discovering. So I mean, it. It's kind of like a sure, maybe the A more ideal person could have done those things, but you were the one who did it, so for better or for. Worse, I think that’s. While, but what I was also going to ask you, you were talking earlier about how the sort of euro insurrectionary approach is unthinkable in the US context. And I totally agree that it is but. What would you sort of ascribe that? To is it just. The European countries having a much stronger tradition of anarchism and therefore of. The legalist insurrectionary anarchisms, or is it something about the US kind of like our attitude towards socialism and Communism post McCarthy or I'm curious what plays? Into that in your.

Speaker 1: Mind yeah I would. I would definitely. Not say that it's a greater history of anarchism. Oh, that's one thing you really get cured of when you're there. There is that sense that there is necessarily rich, anarchist, tradition, the rich anarchist tradition that there is decades old, not 100 years old. So to the extent to which anyone even recognize it, recognize that illegal illegalism exists in their town or whatever the **** that's a broken history. But that said. There being a social movement. Whatever in the **** that. Has always existed pretty much most places, sure. Europe, I mean. Less in Scandinavia, less in other places. Especially in the South of. Spain, France, where anarchism has a much stronger tradition since World War Two at least. But the fact that a social a social history exists. So for instance, when we when we talk about like we oftentimes joke around about this person who's who is from the Bay Area named Kevin Keating, who basically says that the answer to every problem is sort of like a fare hike. In other words, that we., in the context of our social of our train services, either in the city proper or the Bart system or whatever that basically our social movement can begin there and in the in the US context, that just sounds so insane and idiotic we've met. We've we have no history. Of there being like a Proletarianized employees employee body right with any of our train systems. You know there might be minor, minor and local acts of solidarity, but there's no nothing that looks like a social anything around. Our fair system. Whereas in most of especially southern Europe, but most of Europe, there is some story you can tell that's the Dutch train drivers doing things like. So those stories exist in every city in Europe. They just do. They're just, they're just and they and they. They're multi generational stories, from the 60s to the 70s to the 80s. And yeah, that's just there's just nothing like that here and. So what would it look? Like for that to begin to happen, looks like. Kevin Keating's dream, which is essentially to go to. The to the to the train station and talking to people. And like the idea of like that kind of interaction. The idea of walking to a stranger and starting our political conversation with them and the American imagination. It just doesn't exist, it's it. It's a foreign and I'm not saying like. It’s impossible to do that. Or like whatever but. The idea that we're going to jump from. All of a sudden. All that all those conversations have been that have been had, and we've convinced these workers to then what would be necessary for those workers to start to interact and engage outside and.

Speaker 2: To be willing to start risking their bodies and their, yeah, exactly and not to mention.

Speaker 1: And their jobs.

Speaker 2: Just the economic realities of this country where it's. I mean, I don't know specifically a lot about the European workers protection, but I mean certainly in this country there's always an attitude of like we can get another person very easily, especially for a Union job that has benefits and other things like that so. Yeah, I guess that definitely is true, because when I think about the Europeanarchist, stuff that has the longest kind of continuous presence. It's very, I guess you could say conservative anarchist bodies like exist in Spain and France as opposed to sort of things. That which would already be hostile to any sort of insurrectionary illegal list. Individualist kind of stance so. I guess that's probably a pretty good explanation, or at least part of.

Speaker 1: The reason before we started you sent me a little note that more or less explained some of your ideas. So what you wanted to talk about some of the language of that was really strong. So if you have it, could you read that for us as sort of like? To wrap this up, because I really felt. Like what you? Were trying to get at was more or less. Like how do. We talk about these nihilistic ideas moving forward. It seemed. Like you had some good thoughts.

Speaker 2: Yeah, let me find it. All right, so I wrote that I'd like to look past the reflex dismissals of the one camp and empty platitudes from the other to ask what the relevance of nihilism is for anarchists with similar sympathies as my own. Just let's also dispose of vagaries like negation. And total refuse to look at the way the tension between different kinds of nihilism. Diagnostic, critical Hammer, Bartleby and quietism radical, heterodoxy, etc. And the world. Plays out in our projects, relations, attitudes, lives.

Speaker 1: So let's pause there for a little bit. There’s a lot in there, so I think that the idea of referring to the fact that there are a couple different categories of nihilism, or what people's interest is in them. Is there's a lot to. Say there certainly. The thing I'm sort of referring to the most is that I think. For many people, the people who are. Initially really excited about nihilistic idea. Is they were mostly excited about it as the idea of like an unfettered insurrectionary perspective.

Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah totally.

Speaker 1: There was actually a sort of infamous moment that happened at a book fair where someone who was kind of speaking from a they were like representing an out of this position and they more or less were describing like. Extreme insurrection and. And that was hard, it was. Hard because they got called on it. And it was a little silly, a little embarrassing. It's also worth mentioning, and this totally total rumor mongering is that person. I just heard a rumor that person is now representing themselves as a communist.

Speaker 2: Oh wow.

Speaker 1: Now and maybe even like a hammer and sickle communist, and that to me is actually not a huge surprise on the level of people who tend toward extreme position. Tend to do them all overtime. Yeah, and really what they're what they're attracted to is the extremeness of the position, not the position itself.

Speaker 2: Yeah, it's similar with people. A lot of people. It seems like they're looking for the political ideology with the greatest efficacy or at. Least what they seem.

Unknown Speaker: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: To think is the most effective and so that leads people straight to tanky positions because it yeah, it's like, well, that is the most effective way to. You know, control everybody and get everybody behind. Your project is to use the army and the police. So yeah, I would agree with that.

Speaker 1: So can you further describe what you see as the different categories of? Now that's personal.

Speaker 2: Well, when I said diagnostic I was kind of. Talking about Nietzsche. 's sort of attitude of passive nihilism as sort of this, like looking at the kind of way that on their own or through modernity. Or through civilizations? Progress like these ideas that one. Had some sort of value or meaning for people have gradually whether I mean like with in the era of Trump. You know you could I think even people who are fairly middle liberal conservative kind of positions have already begun to sort of like lose any faith or belief in the state as this sort of like sacred institution. Worthy of veneration or something, so that's kind of what I meant by that as like a critical hammer that’s sort of maybe like Nietzsche's own kind of idea of nihilism, or of active nihilism, but more more in a sort of sense of. Looking at these ideas and these constructions of human thought that are usually seen as worthwhile, meaningful or whatever, and breaking them down and then kind of the quietistic attitude that we talked about before that you were talking about in Jasper's piece, which certainly that exists, and I think part of like. Accepting or moving to an individualist anarchist or a nihilist perspective is coming to terms. With like not, not necessarily being hostile towards a quietistic attitude and recognizing that like for everybody there, there's a completely different path and a completely different idea of like what is implied by you, know the sort of radical openness that these ideas imply and that. Means sort of. Not needing to. To make everybody to be doing something necessarily that's really active or whatever. Because to me that immediately starts to reek of like Bookchin and lifestyle anarchism. If we're going to, treat people who are preferring towards a more introverted, quietistic attitude. If we're going to treat them like somehow. That's not also a. Worthy way to sort of put these ideas into practice and then the last one I said. Radical radical heterodoxy and that's kind of what I what I've sort of been talking about about my own idea of nihilism throughout this, which is sort of like. Again, kind of like the critical hammer approach. Treating all these things that are traditionally ascribed to have meaning as if they don't, and to play with what that looks like, or at least being able to break up certain aspects of say something like ethics or morality that I do want to keep and that I do want to keep using. As a weapon in my toolbox and the ones that I want to abandon because they're too stifling or something like.

Speaker 1: That what's your best example of like what you what you'd like to be, heterodoxy?

Speaker 2: For me, like I really trying to explore what it like being against any kind of closure or. Intelligibility means in my life like I've really started to think in recent years that like it is impossible for us as human beings to either like understand each other fully or to be understood. Fully and so because that breaks down, and because there's never a possibility of like finding a meaning to life, a truth, a ethics, a morality that is like absolute and fulfilling and. You know, does what. We're always kind of looking for these things to do. It's sort of an approach that not only recognizes that the possibility of closing or fully realizing or fully understanding either any of these things. Anything in our world or each other is impossible, but sort of refusing to try to create those closures or try to create those. I don't know if any of this making any sense, but basically It’s an approach that takes the kind of classic. I think it's Hassan Essabar statement. Nothing is true, everything is permitted as a sort of. Ontological approach to thinking and to living and so that's kind of what I what I mean by that is and. And to me, that's what anarchy really has started to mean. Is this sort of refusal to give any final absolute answers or I ascribe any identity final absolute identity to myself? Or to others and sort of? What does that mean for interacting with people?

Speaker 1: I think then the next decade of thinking about this stuff is probably going to be some reconciliation with these ideas that you're talking about. I mean, I'm definitely very taken by this particular European tradition that you're referring to, that's. Sort of a. Spiritual tradition and obviously we have friends with practice practitioners of it, many of. You might remember. Lou, who's both been on the program podcast and also on Anarchy Bang. Episode 99 of the Brand podcast also included another woman who is a priestess in this discipline. I am I'm of course taken by the. The everything is permitted thing. I do pause. And recognize the fact that we now live in this different time and to some extent. To the extent to which there is a store of ideologies that. Are sort of like come and get out. A lot of people are really into for. Like for their language identity politics, a lot of people listen to this conversation and they hear two men talking. How does? How does one? Open up the conversation to include at least the open minded and the interesting people from that camp who are influenced by these ideas. When they hear the everything is true or whatever, everything is permitted statement, which I again I I love the sensibility of. It, but it feels pretty rapey.

Speaker 2: No I will, I mean. I totally AM. Try try to be aware of, like the way that like you're saying people for whom their identity is very much a liberatory. Any aspect of their existence, or is something that they feel exists in revolt or in conflict with white supremacy? Say I can totally understand somebody who has a completely different relationship to their ancestry than I do as a ostensibly white male person, . And I absolutely despise the concept of whiteness and whatever. Whereas I can see somebody who doesn't come from my, background having a very different relationship to it. So I think it's less that identity or where I kind of have come, come to the point of is it's less that identity is. Like meaningless entirely because I think like just to interact with other people, we have to like in some way, crystallize or ossify our identity into something that's like concrete and like enough for somebody to understand, and that doesn't necessarily mean that like we have to cling to it, it doesn't mean that like it's something that we can't. Change, but I can see, I think it leaves room. For people to. Really value aspects of their identity, such as their ethnicity or their gender or whatever. But it also, I think, implies that like a lot of people who play that identity politics game. You know, reduce everybody that is a member of a particular class to a particular thing in a very similar way that a fascist does. You know It’s. It's a process of like because you have this physical trait or whatever that you are. You know, this you represent this and that. You know, of course does away with individual difference. It does away with people who don't fit quite into those. You know, rigid categories. And so I think it just implies being. Willing to sort of. Use identity as a something to play with and to perhaps give great meaning to for myself, but also allowing other people around me to perhaps completely, reject these sort of static identities that we like to use to try to understand each other, because that is really the only way we understand each other is by at least for a moment. Trying to become something static or something recognizable to another person, and so I think it just implies being willing to play with that a little bit more.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm not sure that really answers the question I recognize it's a big hard question. I'm bringing a bunch of things that I don't necessarily believe, but I, but I'm sort of willing to like use other people's language. I think most people experience the world is gigantic. And unknowable. And so I totally agree, that identity oftentimes lives in that space. It's like, how can I pretend to be known to be known when I am unknowable, but more import? Like because I perceive that I know you. I'd like to keep things simple like I'd like to put. You in a box. Thank you very much. And so I guess where I'm going when I'm sort of referring to the rapidness of like a satanic holvey or something is that it's. I guess as I'm going further along, I'm less interested in meeting with meeting everyone.

Speaker 2: Hmm yeah.

Speaker 1: And sometimes identity politics is useful for that. You know, it's like the world's complex. How can I still survive, right? And think about this in the context of blacksite, because we're trying to talk about how indigeneity in the context of anarchism. Is not identity politics or at least for me.

Unknown Speaker: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: I'm hoping I'm hoping to come to that conclusion, but it's a challenging because ultimately we would like to get more native people involved in the project as an indigenous anarchist journal. So it's like. Most of the way in which people join or feel like joining is appropriate is because of identity related topics.

Speaker 2: Oh sure, sure.

Speaker 1: So anyways, It’s a big question and I.

Speaker 2: I’m curious though.

Unknown Speaker: I don't have a.

Speaker 2: Like what is it? Because I agree there is obviously something that separates like the struggles of indigenous peoples or whatever from identity politics. What is it like that you kind of? Brings those two. On different sides like.

Speaker 1: Well, I mean for me I guess just to speak to. My own like totally totally my own trip. I have never met a radical like when I growing up in Michigan around. Indian people, native people. I never met someone who had any connection at all to radical politics in the way that I've understood it since then. Other words, I went from living essentially like in a small American city to moving to the Bay Area because I wanted to be. Around the freaks. OK, several decades go by. I all also. I don't want to forget about where I come from and if anything I would like. To make it bigger. And more interesting, in the way that I chose when I came to the Bay Area in the in the first place. In other words, like. But there are, there are still no there. There's still not really any presence of radical politics in the initial space other than in Canada. Essentially, Ontario would be the better place for me to live than the Bay Area, if that were my goal. 30 years ago. That said, pretty much anytime I'm in a circle of native people, I enjoy that circle. I find a lot of things in common. This summer. We had this gathering called the Indigenous Anarchist Conference. And some people came with heavy identity politics that was shocking to me. They sort of were not that indigenous. They were mostly urban people, but who wanted there to be a strong line in the sand between. Basically, like the work we do and the people we deal with and the other and at the end of it, one strong motive motive for energy. That came out of it, which is reflected in the new issue of black seed, that we're just about to. English is some people wanting to articulate a denay anarchism as opposed to an indigenous anarchism?

Speaker 2: I’m not familiar with the term denay.

Speaker 1: Denay is the same thing as Navajo.

Unknown Speaker: OK.

Speaker 1: OK, so in other words, they're making the more accurate point. That their perspective and the one that they want to share with others is also a perspective. That's about their people. The people that they've.

Speaker 2: Right, as opposed to some like massive like.

Speaker 1: Always been around.

Speaker 2: Concept of indigenous maybe?

Speaker 1: Exactly exactly.

Speaker 2: Which kind of? Also like ropes, everybody in and reduces them to one thing instead of having these individual beautifully distinct traditions right that.

Unknown Speaker: You will right?

Speaker 1: Makes sense, and so this. This an. Existential question that we can answer right now because it's a small number of people having the conversation, but to the extent to which we hope for a large, larger group of people at some point, sure, it's sort of a relevant conversation to have now, because by and large most of the people who came with a deep identity identity politics sort of focus. Had very little to say about their particular people because by and large they could name their people, but their people are mostly gone. Their people are mostly genocider and I can more or less say the same. Thing as a US a nation of Bay whose Ottawa it's a very small number of people. So the idea that I could say my interest is in a Dawanarchism. It would be very difficult to talk about. When there were hundreds of Ottawa people living together, cutting trees, hunting Beaver. That world is very far from this world, right? And there are very few people who could identify with it today. Even if they were to. Whereas Denais still have 10s of thousands of people, they still exist as an intact, coherent language. And like I believe the language might be 100,000.

Speaker 2: People speak the language, so you’re because you don't have necessarily other. Anarchists in your sort of like indigenous community to connect with. You're looking to other communities to broaden and to deepen what that means, right? Whereas these people who are coming from a very rich community with others who share their ideas so they wanna kind of be. More insular.

Speaker 1: And it brings up all the tight questions about what is identity, what, what does it do well for people?

Unknown Speaker: Makes sense.

Speaker 1: What does it do terribly for people? You know, like obviously when we talk about identity politics, we're almost always talking about the negative aspects of the social environment that looks like an identity. But obviously there's a lot of things. That people get out of it. Anyways, we're not going to solve the. This particular problem today I. Just wanted to bring it up as like an example of how is it that we reconcile any like for minimalism?, as I use it in any sort of actual thought processes like how do you clean these moments? How do you sever?, should be things from good things and. And this to me is a big open question that we're sort of just answering and that we just begin the conversation in the next issue, black seat. I think you have you read all the. The from your piece yeah.

Speaker 2: It was a little bit more, but.

Unknown Speaker: Let me get that up.

Speaker 2: So,, I said Stroner might come up, as might nishitani Suji, June or others. But I'm going to try to keep corpses from my mouth and instead try to carve out how a nihilist method can be of inestimable, inestimable import for those with affinity for insurrectionary post left and egoist anarchist approaches.

Speaker 1: So the only thing I'll say there. And this I'm not. I don't mean this as. As much of an homage as it's going to sound like. I'm not sure nihilism. Ever is going to make sense to people it has too many aspects of it. It has this deep historical aspect. It has this conceptual thing that we've only really talked to a bit about, like we haven't actually got into what I think are some of the deeper aspects. So as an example. I don't think negation. Is that interesting or relevant to nationalism? But in fact, the fact that we haven't mentioned it means that we've left all the sort of popular. All the popular people who've sort of been playing with nihilism, mostly what they're talking about is negation, which, in my opinion sort of is a reconciliation with Marx and Marxism. But IE negative dialectics. But the but the. Character, I'm actually going to bring. Up is that I'm not sure how much. We gain using that particular term. Just using the term critical anarchism, by which I mean Jason Mcquinn's very clear written text on critical anarchism says an awful lot of what it is that we're talking about. Absolutely, and the reason I don't use it up till now is more or less because like I like all the things that are connotated and that are sort of on the underbelly of this conversation. When we use nihilism and sort of more pointedly saying like niche needs to be part of our anarchism, whereas Jason. Ultimately, like as a writer, he is an American writer like. Like I, I mean, I hate to say it that way. He does not fetishize Europe and anything he writes in a in a way that sometimes bothers me about anything that I write and about.

Unknown Speaker: No, not at all.

Speaker 1: Sort of, anyone who tries to be philosophical or whatever the **** just seems to love Europe. And I don't love Europe. That said, of course the dig on Jason is that. You know he's like writing to be read like what the **** like? He's like saying what he means and like . Like I'm a. Line of flight like you can't ******* capture me and so it is worth reflecting the fact that the reason I'm still a post left anarchist and I haven't like so strongly divorced myself from that. History is. Because I honor the fact that like that Jason writes really clearly and. He gets at least. I would say 90% of the of what we're talking about here in that text.

Speaker 2: It's a great a great pamphlet we're talking about. I think the panel is just called. Critical self theory. By Jason Mcquinn and yeah basically yeah. I mean, I think the idea of post leftism really does kind of imply. Insurrectionary, egoist, and sort of nihilist. And because of those being the sort of things that leftism would have, the problem with in anarchism. So yeah, no, that's a. That's a great a great text and he does. I think a good job of writing not to. I mean, I guess you could still accuse it of being a kind of an intellectual exercise, but he does a really. Good job of writing in a very like. Non philosophical way about. Like what does it mean to sort of construct an idea of myself from the ideas implied by Schur and then to kind? Take that into the world. And what does it mean to confront others and have them being influencing my life according to that method. So yeah, I mean that's a great text. If anybody hasn't read it, they definitely. Should check that out, yeah?

Speaker 1: I mean, I mean, I guess more pointedly. It's like. Nationalism written by me would focus more on maybe criticism as attack. Like in lieu of being able to ******* get the ************* in the room and put a put some lead in them.

Speaker 2: Well, yeah, you I was gonna bring that up earlier because like were talking about your critique of somebody critiquing you of being too intellectual. Supposedly different from being practical or something right that . The idea of attack. Normally when we think of it, we're talking about, physical. Kind of actions, but really, writing and developing ideas is absolutely a form of attack. If it's used, . Against the structure of authority. But then there's this other way in which it can certainly be seen as kind of a way of., I don't know. Taking the easy the path of least resistance or something because it is, implicitly safer and full of less, less risks so that I think means it has to be a little bit less incendiary or something.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know how much you pay attention to Derek Jensen, but part of his his program is that. He does not. He is against horizontal hostility. Which is basically attacking him.

Speaker 2: OK, vertical hostility only then OK.

Speaker 1: This that funny thing where it's like what does attack mean? Yeah, right, like does attack mean I just smashed windows from McDonald's? I mean, OK, what? What are you saying?

Speaker 2: Well, it's I think. It's you have Bonanno and people kind of writing after him. Have done a pretty. Good job of kind of distinguishing it. From . Like political parliamentary right, action socially oriented action. But yeah, I mean, there's really whenever whenever we speak about it, we always just kind of go back to the. And images that we all have of you smashing a Starbucks window or turning over a mailbox. Or maybe throwing some sort of a Molotov or something, but there has to be something more than that in order for it. Obviously the just the idea that we can, . Wage a physical. Attack on the instruments of state power. Is ridiculous, but there has to also be a some kind of a deeper. Dimension to it and yeah, no, not. A lot of people have ever really written about how things other than that kind of group of activities we always think of as attack can still be a form of insurrection, so.

Speaker 1: Thank you very much.

Speaker 2: Yeah, thanks for having me good to be here.

Ep. 99 – Carrie, Thelema, Anarchy

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January 1, 2020

Episode 99 – Carrie, Thelema, Anarchy

Among the people I met in the Berkeley Anarchist Study Group (aka BASTARD) are people I should have met more generally. I’m referring to the…

Continue ReadingEpisode 99 – Carrie, Thelema, Anarchy

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Ep. 98 – Green Anarchy vs Black Seed

Source

June 21, 2019

Episode 98 – Green Anarchy vs Black Seed

I was a big supporter of Green Anarchy back in the day. Even today I host a remembrance site for them, am close friends with the old editorial team (except for the Z who has feelings), and am part of the Black Seed editorial group that was deeply inspired by GA. This conversation is between the GA team and I and concerns Black Seed #7 which they review and we discuss.

This conversation is very much “in the weeds.” We go through the project article by article. We frame out Black Seed by context, order, and authorship.

You can get access to Black Seed via LBC

email us at thebrilliant@thebrilliant.org if you have questions, concerns, or whatever

Transcript

Speaker 1: Into the brilliant, this episode 98 and we're coming up on 100 which is really exciting. We are going to have a conversation about the current issue of black seed, which issue seven with the editors of Green Anarchy magazine. They've sort of risen from the dead, although I guess John couldn't make it tonight. But John.

Speaker 2: Has arisen from the.

Speaker 1: They have risen from the dead, and we're going to have a conversation about green anarchism. About the black seed and probably other gossipy things that are happening in June of 2019 when we're recording this so. I'm here with disgust. And rotten.

Speaker 2: Hey, and I'm anxious to get straight to the gossipy things.

Unknown Speaker: OK.

Speaker 1: OK, well let's blaze through the usual black seed and then then we'll get to the gossip. Yeah so anyways, so black seed is running. It's sort of like a once a year operation. Where, of course we tried to make it twice a year when we started, but we didn't get along well enough to do that. What do y'all think?

Speaker 2: Well, I've been impressed with black seed since. Issue 2 for sure. Issue one I felt showed tremendous promise and I know what it's like starting a journal. You're trying to find your footing, but I think from 2 on every issue has gotten progressively better. I like the byline and the last issues, songs of creation and destruction. I think you should incorporate that, but no, thissue is phenomenal. When you approached us last night, it seemed like. You wanted. To try to frame this discussion as some kind of like a conflictual. You know debate green anarchy versus black seed and.

Unknown Speaker: You know, I'm. That's going to happen.

Speaker 2: Not, I'm not. I'm not feeling antagonistic towards. Black seed. Yeah, I feel like I have a high degree of respect for what you all are doing. But yeah, I'll throw in my 2 cents when I feel.

Speaker 4: Like well, yeah you.

Speaker 3: Rolled into Southern Oregon last night, dropping off some bundles of black seed and I was able to get about. Half of it. Consumed today in between my various off the grid, wild stuff of Southern Oregon and overall definitely impressed airborne. And we can talk about some of the differences between this and GA. Overall though, I would say this. Has continued the legacy of green anarchy far more thanything that has come out of the. Primitive this quarter. You know, by any stretch of the imagination and so. So that is clear, especially after reading sitting down and reading almost the whole.

Speaker 1: Issue right? I mean obviously the reason that I want to sit down and talk with the two of you in particular is because the domain of the contents of black seed and the domain of the contents of GA. You know? I mean, obviously intentionally overlap. But really, for us is sort of this question about to what extent has the politics moved. What's what sort of advanced, what's not and how do we think about the future? You know, because by and large it seems like. There isn't a healthy green anarchist tendency prowling the earth. But it yeah, and so to what extent are we responsible for that?

Speaker 4: Or not, and I was.

Speaker 3: Thinking about this? This morning the question of green anarchy and black seed and where they are and. The thing that kept coming back to in my mind was the context that we're in, and I started writing down some of the context were in GA when we started in 2000. It was sort of the anarchist renaissance of sorts.

Speaker 1: Sure was right after 19.

Speaker 3: You know the IT was, it was back big, Seattle was fresh. Anarchists were attacking everywhere. The LF was attacking weekly, getting away with it right. Even the Greek anarchists were looking over here and saying.

Speaker 1: Well, we didn't know much about them, and so every everything we heard. Was like Oh my.

Speaker 3: God and they were like contacting us and happy about the making total destruction that was going on in North America. All it I'd go to people's houses and Ted Kaczynski posters would. Be on the. Wall things were in. Anarchy was not only back but it. Looked like it was. It was coming back green. And so that was exciting. And that was the context were. Yeah, putting out a project in like it was this. Up swell of anarchist activity and specifically anti civilization anarchist activity and that informed what was in the pages of. GA In a lot of ways.

Speaker 1: Definitely informed the enthusiasm.

Speaker 3: The enthusiasm the hyper optimism. You know the cockiness, the self righteousness, like all those things that. Are for better or for worse.

Speaker 1: We're definitely part of the project.

Speaker 3: Yeah, where now it's like this dismal reality we're living in.

Speaker 2: No one has to ask themselves why. Hope yeah.

Speaker 4: And so, like I would not.

Speaker 3: Want to put out? A project right now it would be too. Hard and so I give you credit for to be able to put out. Something that’s. Relevant and vital in this dismal period we're in.

Speaker 1: I mean there's a whole bunch of stuff to talk about in that context, mostly the. The idea that. In 2000 it was possible to believe that anarchism was yet to be written, and today it feels like not like a lot of the anarchist problem is that we're carrying these burdens. You know and. And for a lot of our language, but the burden of Occupy, the burden of Ferguson. And whether or not in a Black Lives Matter moments, it's appropriate for not black people to do anything at all. And of course, to feel like we have no influence.

Speaker 3: Where, where, where at our period it was? There wasn't much before there was some punk punk anarchy, but nothing really. the Renaissance of Anarchy hadn't really.

Speaker 1: Yeah no, I mean 99 you? Know, yeah, overshadow the decade before the decade after. So let's let's go through a little bit and talk about the editorial. And again, let's focus on the content. Obviously, contextual stuff will come up. At theart of the editorial is this provocation that perhaps the language that we've been relying on using the terminology of green, that perhaps we need to sort of, maybe revisit that. You know, this actually a heyday of climate. Books, right. Climate change books, . One of the one of the reviewed in the in the in the current issue, but, but like there's one coming out and another NPR author every every other month, basically right now.

Speaker 2: The review.

Unknown Speaker: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: Talking about, just how dire and wringing their hands loudly about what's next. And I do feel like that continues the legacy of green. Whatever in the **** you want to call it. But a green. Politic that's hand wringing that's like it's like humans, consciousness. And maybe even the memory and or and it's like talking about environmental science.

Speaker 3: Yeah, green was always a weird one for me like I understood.

Speaker 1: Degrees and **** like that.

Speaker 3: Why it was used? I mean we inherited. It in a lot. Of ways from from the English version.

Unknown Speaker: Right?

Speaker 3: Green anarchist and I got where it was coming from, but it always felt a little weird. Especially in Eugene, where the town was filled with these environmental hippies, yeah.

Speaker 1: Right, everyone agrees right? And what does it mean for us from the anarchist position trying to. Articulate like what is special. About a green. Anarchism, when basically we all the Liberals are not in their head along with the tune and on some level nothing's happening. Yeah, so definitely I think for issue a just that provocation of like what do we? Do with this. Thing that's tied around her leg.

Unknown Speaker: MHM MHM

Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't. I don't know what to do about the problematic nature of the word green. I think you're asking the right questions so and I definitely appreciate your exploratory approach to it. You know, just trying to find a better way to articulate and conceptualize this particular anarchist vision. I mean, this an improvement, a Journal of Indigenous Anarchy.

Speaker 3: That right there I would say is the big difference between green anarchy and this in this project.

Speaker 1: No of. Course, yeah.

Speaker 3: Like for me just looking reading.

Unknown Speaker: Of it.

Speaker 3: It allows you a much more solid, grounded place to stand from.

Speaker 4: Where, where, where?

Speaker 1: Right?

Speaker 3: Green, where green anarchy was like a collage kind of feeling.

Speaker 1: I mean, in my critique of and of course we've talked about this for a long time. At some point, rewilding became the language that was used to. Trying to solve this and probably if you were still publishing the same paper today, it would be something around anticolonial like you'd be sort of forced into that trap and you'll be submitting articles like crazy in that direction.

Unknown Speaker: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: And yeah, so I’m at level like. It's an.

Speaker 3: Improvement, yeah, I mean I, I envy that's a position y'all can work from that. That we always felt. Yeah struggling, struggling with yes exactly.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean were. Were surrounded by ideologues and chose to work with ideologues so. One thing about. Black seed that seems really fresh is that you’re. You are approaching it as if this all still unwritten, it's being discovered, so there's a sense of discovery going on in every page of black seed. I just think working with more ideologically driven and ideologically rigid people, you, you do become, confined to certain ways of conceptualizing things like rewilding was something I got burned out on after about six months. Not the practice of rewilding, but. The rhetoric around it.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it had an origin story, right rewelding as it ended up getting used. In G like there. Was a book or two on it, I think during.

Speaker 4: That time period? Well, I remember.

Speaker 3: Tamarack was big and in a lot what lot.

Speaker 1: Yes, which let's explain what Tamarack is.

Speaker 3: Of people were talking about.

Speaker 1: It's a person.

Speaker 4: Right, it's a person, Minnesota, possibly Minnesota, living living.

Speaker 1: Yeah, but it was a living art.

Speaker 2: Concept and yeah.

Speaker 3: Yeah, watching drums? Yeah people would go there and do their six months of learning how to live in that place and using the old ways. It is what he would call. Which there was always some weirdness to it.

Speaker 1: No, no, of course this this.

Speaker 2: I mean there was kind of the wild roots connection which we had a little more directly with some of those people.

Speaker 1: Is actually awesome.

Speaker 3: They were more anarchistic.

Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3: You know the in North Carolina. But yeah, the tamarack thing was always a little. Not only did he capitalize every other word he wrote, he wrote, which was always an odd one.

Speaker 1: Oh, you published some of his writing.

Speaker 4: We post a.

Speaker 3: Couple, but not too many, but a lot of people who are interested in the rewilding. Area of Green Anarchy magazine would often go there and they had a connection to.

Speaker 1: Them well, I mean, this also speaks to that age thing because of course like black seed. It might seem open and naive, but of course like I'm an old experienced publisher and so this represents the fact that I've decades of experience. You know, whereas GA you all were competent in terms of doing it, but you were you were newer to it and what are the consequences of that? Was that you allowed a lot more like in fact he was a guru of a thing, but more pointedly, a lot of the articles read like they were written by someone who was two years out of college, and that's less true for black seed, which obviously is to our advantage. But of course we miss that. The enthusiastic firebrands who are speaking nonsense but sometimes nonsense is OK.

Unknown Speaker: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I think of. I mean that was part of the problem for welding, is that it? It seemed to echo that traveling person mid 20s and they're going to go to a place that teaches skills because they didn't get any skills in college.

Speaker 3: And in fact, the first article, the revolution of fungal life. Reminded me of some of that in a way. Just the way it was written.

Speaker 1: Right?

Speaker 3: The subject matter on some level, but also the way it was written. I did find that an interesting article. I mean there was. Definitely I. I love the idea of the derive almost the rewilding bereave. Yeah, that was. That was an interesting way of looking at it.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm surprised it was actually gone there before because obviously this. He used to be the post situation. His ideas were common.

Speaker 3: Are they, I mean being? Removed from the anarchist world pretty much.

Speaker 1: Not removed, but Tycoon has so supplanted the SIn terms of people's imagination of her French theory.

Unknown Speaker: OK.

Speaker 3: It's theirs now.

Speaker 1: Yes, it's theirs.

Speaker 4: Isn't that what they do? Grab stuff and brand it?

Speaker 1: Yes, yes they do, yeah.

Speaker 4: From what I from what I know.

Speaker 1: Well, definitely the Americans do. Yeah, . Yeah, I mean that article is interesting because. They decided at some point to rewrite it entirely and the time frame didn't work and so. So it was published under Anon rather than their authorial name, and to me, that's always an interesting process, and that sort of thing where, like obviously any magazine like ours. You're you're desperate for content and sometimes you would rather go fast and .

Speaker 3: I was wondering why it was anonymous. Because it wasn't. Like the material matter was sketchy in any way.

Speaker 1: Well, I mean, I think that. You know, I mean obviously us us as. A publisher publisher. Really like, there's lots of reasons why people don't want to be assigned to their to their articles. I think that yeah, I agree with you. This pretty innocuous but this person hasn't written enough to have like a. Pen name so.

Speaker 3: I mean it did. It even had the reminiscent. Feel of the. Weeds growing in the cracks. Kind of imagery of the of the late 90s early 2000s so.

Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. I mean that would actually be another criticism I have of green. Right? Like Green isn't always like. You know with the weeds and the concrete and, and eventually we're going to win with more authority and green tends towards that. That sort of like secular Christian.

Speaker 2: Yeah, green could be gangrene too.

Speaker 1: I would definitely have to work on my metaphors of like you. Know medical wasting of gangrene.

Speaker 3: I did like the idea of addressing. The idea that there's more than four. And that was. An interesting way to look at that there's hundreds of seasons that if you just can look around and see like today is the day we harvest this. Or today is the day. We deal with this process.

Speaker 1: Right? You know it. It does remind me a little bit of that, Alejandro. I'd say green nihilism and I believe it was in this. Say but, but there was that essay where he basically said that there's, like there's a position that's sort of like. Like a liberal position which allows for sort of many options like or maybe a postmodern position and that the negation position is sort of, like the most challenging of all, because to actually practice it and then do it like there's no. So wrote that all.

Speaker 3: Like and everyone's going to hate you. And that comes, I forget which article it was, but I loved when it we'll get to it, I guess. But being optimistic wins. Your friends being pessimistic doesn't.

Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'm not sure. I mean, . Again, like I’m in the early stages of thinking about how to talk about green and what its implications are, and I'm not sure I want to map those two things together. Because of course it's me coming to find myself and yet another unpopular position right now and super excited about doing that.

Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I think throwing green out.

Speaker 3: The window works for me. I mean it's easier to get rid of that thanarchy, and anarchy is half out the window. So anarchism, at least. I mean they can take the word anarchism all they want.

Speaker 1: So since we're going page by page. Let's talk about veganism.

Speaker 4: Yes, let's I. I was expecting a little more.

Speaker 3: Jabs at the vegans.

Speaker 4: I expect a little more humor. But basically.

Speaker 3: I just saw it as antIdeological piece.

Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so that would totally need attention.

Speaker 3: Yeah, which was great. I thought I thought that was well done and you used that venue venue. Of veganism, to also get out your own personal story.

Speaker 1: Yeah, which I didn't go into that much I.

Unknown Speaker: OK.

Speaker 1: Think that.

Speaker 4: A little more of that.

Speaker 3: Would have been good.

Speaker 1: I you. Know of course, right now in particular, I'm very hesitant to expose myself to an audience of strangers who like who may despise me. And also it's. Like there's this challenge of how do you do? A paper like this I. Mean like you got, you use so many. Different pen names. That someone would really have to be paying attention to your tone and sound to. Know, sort of. Who wrote what? And like this article and. More and more I'm. I'm inclined towards some depending but. You know, I continue to use my name in the in the, perhaps naive belief that I'm going to have good relationships with people who develop that over time and most people, of course. Who are ever going to read this article are going to probably read it on the anarchist library or something like that, rather than in the paper, so it's sort of that. Hard question of like. I also wanted this to be a like. I didn't want to put my body on the line necessarily in the story, but I wanted to sort of talk about veganism like an adult human being rather than like as an ideologue.

Speaker 2: Well, you were putting your body on the. Line all all those years you were vegan for sure. It’s amazing you emerge from that with your health intact.

Speaker 1: I would definitely attribute my diabetes to carbohydrates. Doubt about it. Well, I've always been. Addicted to sugar.

Speaker 3: And processed stuff.

Speaker 1: I've always been addicted to. Sugar like straight up sugar. But the problem is that is that when you get to the ore part of that, I don't really have a good ore like I like a lot of other people did go go keto and I just I don't think that's like necessarily a ********. Alternative to veganism., like? And so. Being post ideological about something that's so personal like your diet Mm-hmm. For me that's a big challenge. It's really hard.

Speaker 4: I'm glad to see that.

Speaker 3: You gained your chill though.

Speaker 1: I've always had chat. Even when I was a vegan.

Speaker 3: I've known that.

Speaker 4: But there is a matureness to the.

Speaker 1: Article yeah, which was obviously part of the goal.

Speaker 3: And the recognition that you can have your personal choices. But when people make those personal choices political, that's when we start to get.

Speaker 1: Into trouble well there is a new breed of. Essentially Straight edge veganarchists who were just, I mean, obviously there's a big excerpt in this article. They're they're just like they're mind boggling that they can say the things that they're saying in 2019 like that, they can believe the things that. They believe in 20. 19 There's like It’s as if they just don't listen to. And or talk to anybody who disagrees with them, like they have not been beat up beyond the schoolyard. Enough that is absolutely clear and. And even more clear, having. Met some of them but like the. When you when you read their argumentation. Yeah, with the native argument around veganism it. Was it's like preposterous like you. Know it, it really sounded like they just never. Talked to another living human being.

Speaker 3: Well, there's interesting too, because there. Was this idea that? Personal choices also exist within the group that we're with and that we make decisions together and that was interesting too. This concept of where freedom does join up with I don't want to use the term collectivism or anything like that, but or community or but the people you care about and the people. You have affinity with your BOLO.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean . I really identify with that aspect of where they're. Coming from like. Like I remember to the extent to which I've been in gang type forms in my life, like those connections felt basically more real thany other relationships I've had in my life, where, like that sense of being next to somebody who. There is a fight about to happen and this person is. With me And that's that sense of closeness or whatever, like, I'm not going to little by calling it community or ******* all these other ******* margarine words. You know, I’m instead going to say that like I mean, that's one of the reasons why. And we've actually been talking about this quite a bit like. Middle-aged people stop having. Making new friends and they more or less have a very small circle especially, middle-aged men. They just they're their social world clothes off. Partially this because of things like. That coming of age thing like the people who I came of age with, I still think of them as the best friends I ever had. Even though I go back and visit them. And they're largely really mediocre. People who have nothing in common with me now, but man, I don't know and so there's something about the crew which is sort of this mythology figure in the straight edge world that I get it like I understand why people are motivated by that and why that sort of drives.

Unknown Speaker: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: A lot of this discourse, but It’s basically in a separate category and things like anarchy. You know? And I don't think that actually. Egoism, as an example, reconciles this in a satisfactory way, which obviously I was taking some jabs at that, but it was subtle.

Speaker 3: Well, and then the next article was that towards anthropology of science fiction was one of my.

Speaker 1: Favorites, I'm surprised and, and of course the closest thing to a criticism of.

Speaker 4: Yes, well, a certain certain.

Speaker 2: Prominent voice with Benji.

Speaker 1: I mean, It’s specifically. A criticism of Suzanne and more pointedly. And actually. This had been changed since the last time I saw it, but like this author really has an appreciation for Gerald Bozner and for people who don't know who Gerald Bozner is, he was this. He was a native. He was an academic. He was also like could pass for white. He is a nation Abe, which both Dominique and I, our nation Abe. So that's sort of like, that doesn't hurt. But Dominique clearly really identifies with visitor and. In the framing of the piece, like John's aunt has a critique of Joe Visner and it comes off looking exactly like you would expect it to look. You know, we're just John doesn't understand what the **** is going on with this guy and some calls calls him the names that we've all heard him called Tom.

Unknown Speaker: Yeah so.

Speaker 1: **** and.

Speaker 3: But Dominique did it in such a cool handed way that it doesn't come off vicious. I think I'd like to. I'd like all primitives to read it. Sadly with an open mind, I'd like them to, but I don't think most of them are even gonna read it. Yeah, which is the sad part. And Dominique address is that they don't. There's not this they don't want to learn from it, they've. Decided what's up.

Speaker 2: I really appreciate it. Dominique's discussion of the trickster figure too and. Zuzanna's profound misunderstanding of the complexity of the trickster figure and what visitor is doing.

Speaker 3: Yeah, I thought there was there was an interesting quote and abhorrence towards metanarratives is another way to say that hunt to say there's hundreds of oral traditions and I thought that was a great way to put it in different languages and settings. They're preferable to Latin, the Latin one church, the true one church which. Exactly and how anarchists green anarchists can't see that still buggy. Of my mind and he talks about the imaginative failure of primitivism. The point is not to adopt the mostly passe assumptions of postmodernism, but to embrace ambiguity and playfulness as inherently valuable. That was perfect.

Speaker 1: There is an article that just came out this week by one of the only other primitivists that is currently active named Ria Ria something and it. It was a submission that she made to wild resistance and it was she essentially is trying to make a vegan intervention into.

Speaker 4: Oh yeah.

Speaker 1: There's lots to say about it, but the hostility that she is receiving from the editor of World Resistance is really, sort of remarkable because it's like if primitivism doesn't change, it's just going to, it's just going to end with two men standing on a. You know?

Speaker 3: Yeah, declaring everyone else, yeah, sinners.

Speaker 2: Well yeah, I mean to those two prophets and there are a handful of followers. That is the one true church. I mean, that's the problem right there. Whereas what I-11 of many things I appreciate about about black seed is and it relates to. That line that was just quoted about. The preferability of hundreds of oral traditions I. I just think you’re allowing for a lot of voices and you're allowing people to express themselves in their own language and. The primitive his church doesn't really allow for that.

Speaker 3: And another great quote from it was the problem with primitivism is not that it draws inspiration from the other, but its fixation knowing the final true. They're about what living in this world means, and that hit right on thead. And I'm not saying this to make enemies with John and Kevin. I love those guys, I think. They've contributed. Especially John has tribute and Dominique gives him props at the beginning. It's not that they don't have or haven't offered credible stuff. It's where they stop. That's the problem. And another part of the when they talk about. When they set out with the hunter gatherers, these ideal hunter gatherers, I thought it was great how he painted as conflict free proto liberals.

Speaker 4: That hunter gatherers were that. You know, I thought when I.

Speaker 3: Read that I was just like exactly like because it has nothing. You know there aren't. Humans aren't ideal.

Unknown Speaker: Right?

Speaker 3: And toe that line is so problematic. You know, like I think Hunter gatherer existence. I wish I lived in that context. But a lot of. It has to do with the material.

Speaker 1: Situations, the context in which.

Speaker 3: The context exactly. Not that there's this purity that has been polluted.

Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, I mean, obviously we. We've been negotiating how to interact with Antico primitivism after they've, sort of been so silent towards. The critique that we represent, and this was really nice. This was actually. Were going. To do a pamphlet, basically like a lot of people submit John's and critiques to us, but most of that stuff isn't new. And more pointedly like. You know some of the unfair stuff . I just don't want. To publish, yeah. And so how do you? How do you negotiate with someone who are who, I guess is an ideological opponent, but really, It’s. It's like just this very different approach. You know, wild resistance for whatever criticisms I might might make, like. If you're a budding. Anthropologist, like that's the magazine for. You like. I just don't think that there are that many people around us in the anarchist space who are budding anthropologists. Or who want to be like amateur anthropologists?

Speaker 3: And we don't need a little green book.

Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3: No, and the fact that they can't see that. Really makes me question their being them being anarchists.

Speaker 1: Well, this by the way is a bigger issue that I kind of preferred what GA did to what we end up having to do, which is that GA did publish a wide array of disagreeing positions. And a lot of it was because they were more open not just to submissions but to submissions from people who were really new. And so part of the problem with doing a paper like black seed is that is that we're basically like coming up with a position at the same time that we're inviting feedback and trying to grow our messaging or whatever the ****. But not many people can reach the level. And that's a *******. Huge huge problem.

Speaker 3: And challenge, it's almost like I don't know if you ever been to these meetings or discussions where they have the dry erase board and people just throw stuff out. Yes, and brainstorming sessions.

Speaker 1: Butcher papering as we.

Speaker 3: Butcher papering and I feel almost like in a way, green anarchy was doing that.

Speaker 1: Caught it. Yes, yeah, that's true.

Speaker 3: And now ten years later. You all have been able to look at the butcher paper, cross stuff out, circle stuff, added a few. New things, and I mean in.

Speaker 1: Issue one or two. We did reprint. The wood is green anarchy and when we did it, it was like. As an editorial body, were sitting down and sort of saying trying to answer the question like would we write this today or like? To what extent should We have a manifesto and you. Know would it be? This and of course you guys wrote that sort of halfway through your run right like towards.

Speaker 3: We did one and then we redid a. We did a smaller one and.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I advised it later.

Speaker 3: Did a bigger. More important, one which I would write my parts differently completely.

Speaker 1: No, no, of course. Of course. I mean, you're also much much older, but part of part of that question is like, is the manifesto the right way to articulate what it is we're trying to do and that sort of speaks to the question of. Green too like. Green anarchy, green ecology. Begs for a manifesto mm-hmm and that way of communicating ideas that's tired, mm-hmm and. And I mean, I have for years been trying to sort of like strain against that where where it's like I give people a language to understand it, but then I try to explode it so that they understand that it's more complicated than that. But frankly. As nihilism has demonstrated, I have totally failed at that particular mission because by and large people who take on the term natalism as their own I more or less despise them all. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: I haven't seen. A good manifest, though in a while the Dark Mountain manifest that was pretty interesting.

Speaker 1: That was a good one, yeah? But it doesn't hurt that they are right. They are writers before they're anything else. And that's of course, the downside to it. Is that ultimately the content of a lot of the dark Mountain stuff is liberal claptrap?

Speaker 2: You know it. It makes me wonder though, would the. Orthodox primitivist camp Appreciate what those people are doing. Would they? Do they view them as another? Voice against civilization? Or are they also to be stamped out as?

Speaker 1: Yeah, I would answer that in two ways.

Speaker 2: Unbelievers, I mean.

Speaker 1: I would say on the one hand, because Kingsnorth has been in the New York Times quite. A few times they probably. Really appreciate that.

Unknown Speaker: There is a.

Speaker 2: Certain validation that's from the New York Times. Yeah, it seems really efficient.

Speaker 1: But on the on the flip side. Of course, they're pessimistic outlook and they're anti activist outlook, .

Speaker 4: Well, in this in this.

Speaker 3: Context were talking last night about the letters in anarchy. Being a place where these kind of discussions could happen. And I think that's sorely missing. Yeah, and I think if John was more back to where he was back then, where he could actually. Write letters to people that discuss in depth what his position is. These hostilities wouldn't be here. I mean they would be, but they wouldn't be as dismissive as.

Speaker 1: They are, I think that there is very little motivation for John to do anything like that, because by and large he is the most famous anarchist in North America because he's willing to talk to and has. And then he was like the New York Times, and he essentially doesn't want anyone else. To join him at the at the mountain top of media notoriety.

Speaker 3: We're getting off off topic, and that's a shame that is, well, the next section was one of. My favorites.

Unknown Speaker: Yeah, I love this.

Speaker 2: Posting in a person.

Speaker 3: Oh yes.

Speaker 1: Yeah, so this Dominique second piece. In the in the issue. And he definitely had been working on this. What what is strange and this? A generational thing? He mostly wrote this on cell phone. Well, like he'd be sitting at work writing this on the cell phone, which just Can you imagine. I just.

Speaker 4: I mean I'm a sucker for fragments. Yeah, for.

Speaker 1: A little for the.

Speaker 3: For the aphorism, for just little spurts that overall have a general coherence, but are going in different directions.

Speaker 1: Come on.

Speaker 3: There were some great ones. I mean I couldn't. I wanted to pick out my favorite for tonight and I couldn't because I kept reading.

Unknown Speaker: Oh, really.

Speaker 3: More and more.

Speaker 1: Oh no, there's A couple of actually made me laugh out.

Speaker 4: What's your favorite?

Speaker 1: Loud and yeah, I'm probably not. Going to find it right now, but.

Speaker 3: Discussed what was. Do you have a favorite?

Speaker 2: You know I'm going back to it now asking that the inheritors of genocide stay optimistic is in poor taste. Yeah, that's a good one.

Speaker 1: But we should all stay positive. I mean come on, we all agree.

Speaker 3: With that I like the mixed Bloods will be buried as deep as their white blood. Full Bloods will levitate, levitate in a sacred dance at the tree lines. Anthropologists will be buried upside down with their toes exposed like mushrooms.

Speaker 1: It's a great imagery. Yeah, that actually is sort of a reference to a Gerald Vizenor concept. Gerald visner. Both is responsible for the concept of post Indian, but he's also really talks a lot about mixed blood and I mean, as you all can. Like when we when we have these conversations, one of the goals of black seed from the onset was to dispel the essential category of the indigenous person. As as being so in touch with the Earth and like looking towards the sun, and obviously that's where we're we're, we're we're. A reasonable person who wants anarchism to be a fixed. Thing can could easily get upset because we're basically saying not only is anarchy not a fixed thing. But ? These these native people that you think are are are planted and. Roses are also. Other next thing, but in that context like natives. A lot of natives have a lot of investment in the in the crumbs that they get by being full blood. And by and by basically adding that mystical component to their to their story and so, like, how do you engage with that as mixed blood people as people who live in several worlds? Which of course we all do, but the way in which of course the tenor of what? That looks like in the context of. Blood Mm-hmm blood is a mystical category right? Anyways, so that's so visner really, really speaks a lot to that. You know Visner is a. Visner is the Sherman Alexie of his. Time, like he wrote, a lot of fiction. He has tons of essays . And again, it was an academic at the same time, because of course most writers have to make a living, yeah?

Unknown Speaker: Pay the bills.

Speaker 1: Yeah, so this actually dominating. Attempting to point people towards visioner.

Speaker 3: OK. I also like decolonized. Eugenics will be used to spread bronze skin and high cheekbones. Syphilis will do the rest. Yeah, good job Dominique.

Speaker 1: Yeah, Dominique is. Also, the Co host of the. The podcast that I do, he's on every other week. The podcast is called Anarchy bank.com for people who have not been down in with it, which probably you have since you listened to a podcast.

Speaker 4: Well, the two.

Speaker 3: Interviews were I did. I haven't gotten fully into them yet. The first one, the poem due to collective interview I read in the book.

Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely. Pieces of it were in the book, but I think this will be the full thing over 222 issues. It was a fantastic. It was really and I think I said this in the book and. So this the. Book the fight for Triple Island. This was like my favorite interview, mostly because it was two people and so there was a bit more dynamic energy and they have a mission like, like you can sort of hear it in the in some of. The work that they. Do, but like they, they weren't being interviewed as much as sort of they were. Interviewing me. Yeah, that was really nice.

Speaker 3: Yeah, I know and I'm really want to find out more about I'm. I'm sure I'm going to butcher the name Inqua Dutta, the Dakota warrior.

Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. Yeah you can. You can actually find a little bit of an online. But their version of the story is much nicer. Yeah, I mean just the way in which the Indian wars looked on the ground where where people survived. And kept on fighting. Like beautiful, yeah, and it's very different than sort of the way with which we imagine it where we just imagine like a meat grinder blazing through native people. And in fact, when the weapons were, when they were rifles and horses on both sides of the sudden.

Speaker 4: Oh yeah.

Speaker 1: Changed because of course like white people had no idea. What was going on? And yeah, bareness.

Speaker 3: Well and. The flux and cross pollination through the different cultures and the blending of the movement of peoples because of colonization and being squished together and the conflicts that were created and what they allude to. And some of that was really interesting.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that stuff really points towards the way in which anarchism hasn't done enough theorizing, because we pretend like so many things are essential fixed categories. Yeah, we don't actually open ourselves. To the fact. That like. If civilization were to collapse in and were alive and participating in that collapse. Yeah, what would? That look like. Yeah, like what would it look like to basically like OK? We're more focused on taking down dams and you are more focused on taking down electric grid in general. You know what does that interface look like? Because and by and large. Right it all looks. Like genocide still even today because genocidal thinking is thinking. That says I only associate with people who are entirely correct and anyone who's wrong has to die, sorry.

Speaker 3: MM.

Speaker 1: I'll pray for you afterwards and. What we're seeing right now, right? Is that by and large anarchist behavior is genocidal and in its orientation, and a great example of that. Today on the Internet, is that a big article came out today accusing Wolfie of Things that are appropriate because of an article written 32 years ago. And like that is the opposite of, like the kind of life that I want to live with other animals. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3: And the second interview I didn't get to that, but I look. Forward to reading that.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean more or less, this just a way to culturally contextualize that uncertain conflict and just, the general sort of blockades against pipelines and how. How do we think about them and frame them and they obviously have a lot more personal stories of their involvement there, and that that of course is still. An active conflict and. We have a piece later on that sort of updates that situation today. It’s very much this summer will be the time when a lot of **** happens.

Unknown Speaker: Yeah, it seems.

Speaker 1: Like it, yeah? And allegedly there's some other pipeline blockades are happening in can in BC, but I don't know. The details.

Speaker 3: I mean just a brief glance at some of what was written in the interview. Or the? Going back to living with understanding and protecting. And as Indigenizing was seemed really a potent kind of.

Speaker 1: Yeah, and of course this one of those places where we have a really hard time because a lot of times native people talk about their conflicts in a whitewashed way so that they can get white people to basically help out and donate money and their bodies and sometimes that. Like what we want is to sort of get past that sort of curtain. You know we'll call that white the whitewash curtain or something.

Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: And I feel like that we did that interviewer is a little newer and I would have liked to have of course gone more. In that direction.

Speaker 3: And always great to see critiques technology. We have nothing to say technology and the. At economizing of communication.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I want to get into that piece. I didn't have time to read it, but yeah. I saw the you'll. In for your references, yeah, yeah looks really good.

Speaker 1: Right yes yes yes yes. Yeah, I mean this an interesting piece. This basically our newest editor. I don't know him. That well goat goat. But my hope for them is that they sort of just bring that new energy like, they're kind of coming up to speed with stuff and they're trying to reconcile. Like a whole bunch of material that we know has all this like context and essentially this an article context. You know, it's interesting to think. About like what is the role or like? So . Obviously for us coming of age did involve reading books like why? Why technology against technology and that sort of like essay length approach towards technology. Part of the problem. Is that there isn't a bigger tax around technology, partially because it doesn't necessarily lend itself to a docs capital. But there are so many things to talk about about technology that I feel like are missing, not the least of which are what I would call existential issues. You know, like. You know we now call the children that are around us. You know cripples because they're so reliant on these screen based devices. Yeah, well, I mean like how do we get past the sort of like the anti TV arguments like how do we? How do we really deeply examine the way in which we have become dependent? On these outside things and. Most anti tech arguments are wholly. They unfazed. People who yes. Who use cell phones? For instance? Because they're, they're like, do you understand how useful this device is? Yeah, essentially, like this a device that can. I can do everything from being entertained to translate in real time conversations in Chinese or something like the arguments. Four, if you're going to. Make a four and. Con caves they're very strong, and they're very strong. If you accept. Mean, like the logic of living in this society.

Unknown Speaker: Sure, sure.

Speaker 1: So I feel like anti tech arguments have by and large sort of like made circumspect points, but that more or less are like written from a different generation and they really.

Speaker 3: And they often almost come off more or less.

Speaker 1: Need to be modern. Yeah, yeah, yeah they absolutely come off.

Speaker 3: Fast yeah.

Speaker 1: So to me, that's a problem that I I've tried to think about it a couple of times and. It's like because I make so many arguments in my life that are about not exactly efficiency, but about being equalitarian. It's like. Anti tech arguments in this world are basically saying like if you don't shoot in your left foot, it's a good idea. Then you should shoot your. Right one yeah.

Speaker 3: Yeah, you come off looking like the crazy guy in the corner. Yeah, saying the world is is ending and . It is.

Speaker 1: And that's exactly the point. Like so much what we would call anarchist common sense. You know you're just you're called a crazy person. And because we don't have a clear model of like what social change looks like, looks like in what we desire. We're basically saying no, no, but there’s a better way to be. But and.

Speaker 4: Well, people can always come to my compound where we don't have cell phones.

Speaker 1: You mean service service?

Speaker 4: Or cell phone, yeah.

Speaker 3: It is it, yeah. I mean, it's one of the reasons I've gotten more nihilistic is just how it seems like. Everyone around me has just given up to this to this next step.

Unknown Speaker: That have been.

Speaker 1: In human evolution.

Speaker 3: In human evolution exactly well, even . And some people say there's nothing we can do. They made the rules. You know this, the same primitive as we talked about earlier, has said. What am I going to do not? Communicate this stuff out. I mean they made they made the rules.

Speaker 1: Right, yeah?

Speaker 3: I have to play by. Them, well, that's kind of a. Weak argument in my mind, yeah.

Speaker 1: Definitely not one. I would say out loud.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like 1. Of the best ways to. Reach people who. Aren't fully assimilated into like the technological matrix at this point is? Pointing out the cognitive effects of all this technology. The problem is. Those cognitive effects seem seem to me as an outsider to. Be comparable to. A really good and really addictive drug high. I mean so it seems like once those cognitive. Shifts start to occur. With most people, there's no going back.

Unknown Speaker: With the.

Speaker 2: I think there is there is kind of a point in no return. I mean for what I what I see I see it's spreading. In that way, yeah, it's funny, I'm.

Speaker 1: Going to make a different argument. That conversation, which I think is a great one and sort of, is the one that I would rely on, is essentially a classist argument. Meaning, like Steve Jobs other like Texas CEO's, they raise their children without technological gadgets. Those gadgets are more or less intended for the peasants. They're intended to entertain you to death. And people who essentially are intended to rule us are trained in an entirely different way.

Speaker 2: How how do ? This about like Steve Jobs, yeah?

Speaker 1: Oh, it's totally recorded. That his. Children were not getting gadgets, they were not. And has he ever publicly explained why? Been dead for a while. Yeah, there’s tons of people in that like the tech entrepreneur, CEO type people who have who have said I mean.

Speaker 2: Aware of what they were unleashing on the world.

Speaker 1: Well, the way in which they put. It no the. The peasant thing is my construction, but they’re articulation is basically like they want to make sure their children have the basics before they give them. The devices. And I, and I think that's something really that’s worth worthwhile to look at to sort of say which class orientation are you going to choose for yourself and your children and, and that's, I think that those arguments actually are super effective, but most people of course have made the choice. In which they've. Actually made in other words, they have chosen to be a consumer. They have chosen the passivity nowadays, right? Like interacting in public in like a. City it is phenomenal to see how people how accepting people are of what really looks like a sheep like. You know I, I would take these vigorous morning walks and walk by a whole bunch of bus stops with people trying to get to work. And it was like. I was knocking people over, because.

Speaker 3: Nobody's talking to anyone. No, absolutely.

Speaker 1: I mean. Yeah, obviously there's tons.

Speaker 3: There's a gaze that, yeah, they're in and they'll even get these news reports on the radio or the magazines they read.

Speaker 1: Of fall out of that.

Speaker 3: How unhealthy it is for them. But it doesn't seem to. Faze them, yeah, they're so committed to. This new direction but.

Speaker 1: But again, I don't like arguments that basically end up calling people idiots or sheep like they’re.

Speaker 4: What if they earn?

Speaker 1: Well, they are easy.

Speaker 2: Do you do you feel there's a neurological reconfiguration that's occurring? Like the more you interact with this so like?

Unknown Speaker: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: Point, it almost ceases to be like a class issue. It's just like. Something has occurred, It’s more like a physical possession or a.

Speaker 1: No, it’s both because.

Speaker 2: Yeah, an invasion of the mind.

Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's a class issue because basically like you get like to the extent to which we're all categorized by, like the conspiracy, into certain modes like this part. Of what that looks like. You know which is obviously like why it's important to recognize that there are some people sitting in that bus who are reading a book. There are some people who are doing something different, and if you were going to start a conversation with people, those are clue of the people that you would start with.

Unknown Speaker: Yeah, Oh yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: You know, because most of this stuff is so unconscious like being a passive. Consumer is something that we all sort of did until that day in which something clicked. I don't know. I mean you. Know like I'm not trying to be overly prescriptive here other than to say that like I just feel like the way in which we've approached this stuff ends up coming off as moralizing and blaming the victim. And how to fight that? How to struggle against that to me is more interesting.

Speaker 3: Yeah, I tend to find myself. I just feel aloof to really a lot of this. I mean, I can't help it. I mean, I try to empathize with. The situation people are in with their connection to technology and I just can't. I mean, yeah, It’s hard for me to. Put myself in their shoes.

Speaker 2: I mean, I think I just have more of a. Survivalist orientation towards it or survival related questions like how do I see that this hive expanding and growing in numbers every day and I just question like how do I survive it? Like how do I remainvisible to this ever expanding hive, and what am I going to do when they constitute the majority of the population? Then what where do I hide?

Speaker 1: It is worth mentioning this another aspect of black seed. That sort of existed in GAnd I think less so exists in black seed. In other words, like there is a didactic element to this where we're. Like and. I in fact wish that we had, more intelligence or technology. But we don't have very many articles that sort of are like against cell phones. Yeah, yeah. Which in fact I kind of wish we did like we yeah. I mean, we spent a lot of time on this image that we did that ended up being on the cover of the blast, which was this one off that we did the. That sort of played around with the way in which spectacular society, and so it was a scale.

Speaker 3: Just yeah.

Speaker 1: It was a big Photoshop job, . I just I don't know I I still think there's a lot to say from my perspective about cell phones and yeah, and the way in which it's totally, really, since early before GA changed to our social dynamics and especially to the younger people.

Speaker 3: They know no other way. And I'm not just talking cell phone versus a phone or a letter, just it goes beyond the medium.

Speaker 1: Yes, yeah. But again, like. There's a danger there sounding like old fogies Would ? My guess is a listener right now is was very much think think that of the three of us I'm the only one that does live in the world with a screen phone. But you don't really see me. Pull it out. But yeah, that's a hard line because it's not paying the bill. It's not like not living in the world. That is some to some extent constrained by that phone, sure. So I guess what we're really talking about is the uninhabitable Earth.

Speaker 2: That was actually the only other piece I was able to get through. Was the review of that book.

Speaker 3: Thanks, well discussed.

Speaker 2: Yeah so.

Unknown Speaker: Yeah, I.

Speaker 2: Feel I don't I. Don't know if this really the starkest most strident. Cry in the wilderness. I mean I think there's been quite a few like in the. Last 30 or 40 years. You know, I don't know why this book is being singled out for, like, just all the hype and mediattention it's getting at the moment, but. I think a review of it. A lengthy review. Like this a good. Way to just discuss the larger problem. Like where we're at. Environmentally the unraveling of the biosphere. And yeah, I don't. I don't have answer to that one. You know, I'm just I'm expecting it to continue, intensify, accelerate and. My concern about that is also tied in with my concern about how. Domesticated people. How increasingly domesticated people are coming becoming with all this technology and how much uglier that’s going to make environmental collapse, the inability to adapt whatsoever. How much more challenging it's? It's going to make it for those of us who. Might want to try to survive and.

Speaker 4: You know when there's.

Speaker 3: Cell phones don't work anymore. Their iPhones. They won't be able to identify the plant. The mushroom that's on the. Ground for them to eat.

Speaker 1: So whether it's edible.

Speaker 3: Whether it's edible or not.

Unknown Speaker: You know, I do.

Speaker 1: You know, for me, this conversation is so closely linked to how. I understand humanism, which is human good, more human better yeah. And . Obviously that's an unfair definition of humanism. But I don't ******* care because I see humanists. Do things that. Confirm my definition. Yeah, I don't see humanism as this glorious evolution of thought around. What people are capable of.

Speaker 3: Unleashing human potential.

Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Instead see it as some version of stacking cord. Wood, and . Like my interest is not to talk. Or die off or any of the rest? I feel like that's. Going to resolve. Itself, yeah, but I do feel as though like science fiction, talks about this in a way that I find quite satisfying. Which it more or less says that at some point they commit to the idea that like. People are so good that we just need to ******* stuff. This planet full of them and so they build these things called not artifacts. Our colleges and arcologies essentially are giant skyscrapers filled with humans. And it's where they live. It's where they work. It's where they play and there is. There is an argument that sort of like a quantifiable argument that you could basically replace every city with an arcology and you, you literally could put the bulk of you, know, eight 8 billion or 12 billion people into 1% of the land mass of the planet and. And if you did that correctly, you basically all this. Land would, would there essentially would be a verdant utopia outside these ******* hellholes.

Speaker 3: So with these tall skyscrapers of people, where does? The box cutter come in. Anyway, sorry, sorry sorry.

Speaker 1: But anyways, the. I regress the point of sort of our colleges is to sort of say that like if the basis of all of. This humanism, yeah. You might as well stack them like cord wood, which is in fact what they are.

Speaker 3: Totally totally. I I did like the idea of the cult of optimism, that keeps it going and that ties into the humanism thing. Like, we're just, we're reaching which is why I tend to despise progressives more than even conservatives at this point in my life, because conservatives are generally just a bunch of old diamond white dudes. We're the progressives. They're leading us down this path to these skyscrapers of hell. Yeah, and with iPhones, not even iPhones anymore. Whatever the next thing is.

Speaker 1: Probably give me the bamboo.

Speaker 3: Well reviews I'm I was glad to see the review because we always like doing reviews in green because I feel felt like it was a really potent way to flesh out certain ideas, especially on the fringe of different perspectives and.

Speaker 1: Yeah for sure for sure.

Speaker 3: So I'm glad to see. That I would like to see.

Speaker 4: Some letters.

Speaker 1: Yeah, It’s interesting to say that we basically received no correspondence and maybe there might be a couple of different reasons why that's the case, but it is in fact true.

Speaker 4: In black

Speaker 1: We'd probably publish them if. We got them. I think.

Speaker 4: If you just get letters.

Speaker 3: Versnick yeah.

Speaker 1: All of. Our packages seem to be ticking.

Speaker 4: Aesthetically, I'm not a big fan of the tabloid format. I like the, the magazine or scene, but overall.

Speaker 1: Well, the bottom line, the motivation for tablet format is cause yes, it's not even a question. Magazine format is so expensive, and what do you get mean? Obviously this. There's a lot to do with, like why we can keep on doing this. Why will we will keep on doing this? Everyone tells us no. How many 5000 which we have lowered it a little bit, but frankly were. We just have too many issues, but I want.

Unknown Speaker: To talk about.

Speaker 1: The final article, which which actually nobody. Has given me any comments about and noticing something. Quite interesting in it. That I at least want to point out. You will. The Twitter so right the point is that there is a Twitter account that calls itself the Indigenous Anarchist Federation. So it in fact like is a thing or like sounds like a thing.

Speaker 4: Are they claiming more than what they are?

Speaker 1: There's a whole bunch of complexity to it that obviously it's talked about in the article itself, but I want to get to the part of this that's that. Basically nobody has talked to me about yet and so I just want to float past.

Speaker 3: You and I've heard about Twitter.

Speaker 1: So one of the reasons why indigeneity is that is an essential category is because some people benefit from it. Yeah, like some native people, but other people too. You know, they’re still is poverty, pimping, and things like this. So I'm just going to read a little bit from this Twitter article. On orientalism. Buried in here are a number of issues that are hard to access. If I were to indict the news, support, entertainment complex, it would begin with an examination of who we are versus who we cover. If we're part of a movement to attack and change the world, then sharing stories of strangers who use our terminology, wear our clothes and. And our food doesn't seem particularly problematic. What if our stories are actually stories of other people who we don't, who we don't and can't talk to? Where do our stories become their stories? And then I give a definition of Orientalism from Wikipedia. Orientalism is a term used by art historians and literary and cultural studies scholars for the imitation or depiction of aspects. Of the eastern world, these depictions are usually done by writers, designers and artists from the West. In the universe that measures people by how racist, sexist, transphobic and generally ****** ** people are to be orientalist is pretty bad. It is among the worst kind of othering, and it often is taken to be the final word on a person. Being Orientalist is also central to the colonial project, and to every project that has otherwise been described as a support project up till now. It's the patronizing idea that we by any definition of we. Know how to help people better than they can help themselves and it has a whiff of being true as oftentimes we as colonized subject who also colonize have more resources money than we. Helping as Jesus said in Luke 620 to 21, blessed are you who are poor for yours is the Kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry, for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep, now, for you will laugh. He said a bunch of other assertive **** about how great the poor are, but I think you get the point. Christians, and by extension the West, Draw a line between us and them, and it has a lot of strange and terrible implications. Sorry for the long preface because this actually one that I wanted to get to. I want to use the term Orientalist to describe these implications that get to a point that isn't particularly friendly to many, many people who would otherwise describe as friends as much as I find anarchist security culture, which essentially can be described as an arrogance about how important we are as individuals annoying, I basically agree with it to the extent. That our representation should be controlled by us collectively and individually and not by them. Systems of control that usually are state agencies. Selfies are selfies, not fixed cameras. But how we choose to represent ourselves, especially in our media, is nightmarishly terrible. The same Twitter search I referenced earlier, i.e., Indigenous, is a case in point representations of natives of either are either as performers in traditional regalia or members of bourgeois culture. Proper clean clothes at bill signings and whatnot. Paper dowels only. Barely only very rarely with a third dimension. But media, even in especially our media, is even worse. Again, nothing new here. I've been railing against the orientalism of natives by the left for decades, as have more articulate voices than mine. The newer point is this. In our fight against Orientalism, we have chosen to create an empty space where representation would otherwise exist, and our yearning to not unfairly portray our subjects. We have generally chosen to say nothing when given the choice, we have been vague, Sir, Forzas. And that has allowed our position to be misrepresented by those who have no compunction about Orientalizing everything around them. I think I'm talking about rather than articulating a charismatic position that contradicts the orientalist one, we have seemed to hedge. The IAF is not a bad actor here. The Twitter account. The website is a better yeah. So anyways. I feel. Like that, that point is sort of central to. We're trying to publish here. Which is which is. Part of the problem that we have. Had in black seed. And meet me more generally that. Oftentimes articulating a position puts you in a box being, but Orientalism does allow you to explain the world clearly. Anyways, that's actually a really good article.

Speaker 4: Yeah, I heard that.

Speaker 1: That no one read yet because.

Speaker 3: Why is it in the back?

Speaker 4: Could you switch it with the mushroom article?

Speaker 1: Well, it's in the review. Section, So what can you do?

Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, so you're reviewing the Twitter site, the Twitter site. What they call them sites.

Speaker 1: Twitter accounts.

Speaker 3: Twitter accounts yeah, no you can. It's easy to articulate yourself if you're. Putting out these generalized, yeah nothing. But if you live in the world of. Intricacies and nuances as we all do. Which standardization and wants to erase which all the stuff wants to erase? It's hard to articulate yourself.

Speaker 1: With the review. Sort of consumed and discussed by us. What do we? What we're saying, at least right now, is saying about where the anarchist in this position is right now.

Speaker 2: You know, I feel like. When were publishing. Green anarchy, I mean it was. You know the context was everything and we already discussed that earlier, but I feel it was like. Reflective of that period of time. But if we had continued publishing, I mean. It would have. It would have had to evolve. And there would have. Needed to it, it would have needed to. Develop and then. Would have needed to be a deepening of like a lot of the questioning and explorations that were going on in GA. So for example for me. Developments that were encouraging to me after I stopped working on GA. And I know this. Going to be controversial, but. The first generation ITS when they when they first appeared, when it. Was this really interesting synthesis of like Ted Kaczynskinspired anti. Technological perspectives and. Egoists and individualist anarchist perspectives their critiques of. Humanism within anarchist thought. I mean, I thought that was definitely a step in the right direction. I'm not defending what they later evolved.

Unknown Speaker: Into sure.

Speaker 2: But that was encouraging to me. I think like. You know towards. Towards the end of our run with GA. A lot of nihilist perspectives began to appear in the paper, and you were instrumental in articulating a lot of those perspectives and getting them out there at that period of time. That was encouraging to me when. That material began to appear. I'm trying to think of what else has has been encouraging to me since then. The book Desert, so there are. There are things that have come on, but then black seed and what? What you're doing with this paper. The exploration that you've undertaken. I feel that like GA would have had to have headed in a similar direction to remain relevant. So I do see this as like. A continuation, although it's entirely it's own autonomous thing. But yeah, I feel mini edge there like there's a there's a thread.

Speaker 3: We would have had to take the butcher paper down. But if we wanted to. Continue doing what?

Unknown Speaker: Were doing.

Speaker 1: Yeah, right, and that would have been very hard because. No, because a lot of. People came through. Yeah, they're whatever our people come to you within the anarchist space from many of those people, the brightest. Frankly, they wrote their manifesto in GA.

Speaker 2: Yeah, or we might have had to have started butchering ideologues just to. Have a little more freedom?

Speaker 4: But I agree with you about.

Speaker 2: To talk about this.

Speaker 3: The ITS phenomenon when it first came out because to me it reinspired me. It was it was. It was naive, at least in what in the written statements there was a honest assessment of the world we lived in. We live in. And what? Even a speck of what needed to happen. If our words. Actually had any real relevance to them.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I, I think that the problem is that ITS became orientalized right away and that's basically one of my big biggest criticisms of the way in which people have treated Atassatossa. Was definitely guilty of Orientalism, no doubt, but it was also trying to engage with the material. And, if I were to have redone it to us and actually been involved in editing it, which I. Was not I would have focused more on like rewriting the communicates so they were understandable. You know, because so much of them were bravado. Were really long and so many words for what seemed like no reason and poorly translated. Like for someone to have rewritten them for the punchy parts or like to be comprehensible by the Twitter generation or something that really would have been a worthwhile project, yeah?

Speaker 3: But as far as 2019, the anarchist world, I really little interest outside of a few projects like this.

Speaker 1: One, do you feel like there's any so?

Speaker 3: And someone last night was talking about the youth and how we need to connect to the youth with the youth. And I have two kids, so I connect with the youth every day. But I'm not, I'm not going to give them false hope about any of this like I think the most grounded thing we can do is. Be as real as Poss. About their hopelessness.

Speaker 2: Yeah, and youth is some kind of essentialist category. Too, like.

Speaker 1: Like, yeah, it is worth mentioning. I don't know who the author of the Waterfront Statler column was.

Speaker 3: He was some ******* but.

Speaker 1: I will say. That you 2 have become the personification. Of water, so I guess now is the time for you to admit that you wrote that.

Speaker 4: Were not well off from stattler.

Speaker 1: They've just become more exceller. We're talking.

Speaker 2: I take it as a high compliment that we're. On the list. Of suspects.

Speaker 4: Yeah I do. I do miss writing.

Speaker 3: Reviews I have to say. I got a lot of my. Angst out in those.

Speaker 1: Yeah, you definitely should have.

Speaker 3: They deserved it.

Speaker 4: Who you gonna defend Eric going who you gonna?

Speaker 1: Defend I'm not going to defend mentioning that they're nice people.

Speaker 4: Yeah, nice people. The road to hell is paved with nice people.

Unknown Speaker: Might be nice. It would be.

Speaker 4: Nice, we can get my feet dirty.

Speaker 3: Well, stepping on them would be dirty, but anyway.

Speaker 1: So yeah.

Speaker 3: Well thanks Aragorn for staying in touch and doing what you're doing.

Speaker 1: Thank you very much for staying focused and having this conversation with me.

Ep. 97 – Duane Rousselle

Source

June 20, 2019

Duane and I have known each other for a number of years. (At least 12!) He was one of the first people who found the…

https://thebrilliant.org/podcast/episode-97-duane-rousselle/][

Ep. 96 – Miekal And

Source

June 9, 2019

Episode 96 – Miekal And

I have mentioned the influence of Dreamtime Village on me quite a few times. I only visited there once before this interview but it really…

Continue ReadingEpisode 96 – Miekal And

Ep. 95 – Ian

Ian is an old friend that used to go by different names. I was passing through the midwest on the way to the GSABF and…

Ep. 94 – Kill All Normies

Source

March 26, 2019

Episode 94 – Kill All Normies

Angela Nagle’s book was released at exactly the right time, with a perfect title, and great marketing. It is a leftist take on the Trump…

Transcript

Speaker 1: With the brilliant podcast. I believe this might be episode 9594. Somewhere in there anyways, the point of this episode of The Brent podcast is that we are going to have a discussion and by we in this in this context I mean chisel and I we're going to talk about Angela Nagels book Kill all normies The sub. Title is online culture wars from 4 Chand Tumblr to Trump and the Alt right. And so this book was published in 2017. So two years ago and so in some ways it almost feels dated. I guess just. As a, preliminary conversation, a large part of the reason why we want to read this book and why we have read this book is to talk about the ways in which it. This a very trendy conversation and think through how this relevant to anarchists. I think that this conversation is mostly going to be led. By chisel, because chisel has written a ton. Of notes

Speaker 3: Yeah, per usual, I want to start out by saying that the title of this well kill all normies is a brilliant title, but the subtitle is stupid and irrelevant. This she does three things in this book. It is a left feminist take on Internet troll culture. It identifies various players, and it's a history of how some events played out.

Speaker 1: So it's worth mentioning and. And of course I. I do tend to prefer a kind of metanalysis. This book is derived from Angela Nagel's PhD dissertation and.

Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly no. Totally, it seems like exactly that.

Speaker 1: And I think that the I probably my guess would be that the first half of the book was written later. Because her dissertation was basically about how online feminist discourse has happened, and especially how anti feminist discourse has happened and the last two chapters of the book are specifically about that. And really, it's thread through. The whole thing. In other words, it's clear that she is like what we would call like. A left feminist.

Unknown Speaker: OK.

Speaker 1: Actually, one of the places where she's written before is Jacobin, which is the magazine that commune is sort of like trying to respond to. But Jacobin is like a united left. UM? Not party, but something like something like Communist, Marxist and pointedly. I think that she is quoted from Rosa Luxemburg. Either I saw somehow that she was making some quote about Rosa Luxemburg. Who is very clearly? Like a left communist and a major figure. And yeah, an icon and if you're into Germany 100 years ago, like.

Speaker 3: Yeah, my frustration with the title is definitely that it does not mention feminism at all, and she's this. Feminism is clearly, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: It's almost disingenuous.

Speaker 3: And it's almost disrespectful to the other. Issues that happen online. But that's fine.

Speaker 1: Because it's so clearly part of her project and either the editors of the book itself.

Speaker 3: Right, right?

Speaker 1: Decided to remove all all traces of that or.

Speaker 3: It's not good marketing, yeah?

Speaker 1: She decided to somehow not.

Speaker 3: Try to broaden the appeal in some way and it's yeah she yeah it's false. I have big points to talk about about the book and I have little points to talk about the book and I'm and I'm tempted to start with little points and I'm not sure why that is, but. Yeah, I think. That I won't. I will think I will start with the big points which. I think that Internet culture is a huge. Brand new thing and. And the this.

Speaker 1: And we're just getting started to even think to like organize our thoughts around how to even think about it.

Speaker 3: Oh, totally like absolutely.

Speaker 1: And mostly it's derogatory what people are saying.

Speaker 3: Yes, and I and will all of those things are what I'm going to say right now, which is that she this book and many people I'm sure, but I'm reviewing this book now, does a disservice to this brand new big thing by talking about by freezing it at a particular. On a particular topic and acting like that's what it is and.

Speaker 2: Right?

Speaker 3: And there's some irony in that because so much, I think of what? People are responding to online. Is this sense of finally getting a voice finally being able to talk to large groups of people or to have your voice resonate? So, so the way that she's sort of mimicking mainstream mediand what the role that mainstream media has played up until now is part of what online culture, what real, what I would call online culture is responding to. Yeah, so let me. What is the first point? My first note says that there's an artificial slash arbitrary. To where? This lens is looking or like where where the Internet is getting frozen. UM? In other words, it's a process. There is a like. The things that are going on in the world are all interacting with each other and they're all responding to each other and there's. And there's the way that people will freeze something and say this what I'm going to look at right now. I'm reading basically reading the point that. Yeah, that she's taking a specific thing making that the only thing that's going on. It's a bad thing, so we should be alarmed. So there's also that.

Speaker 1: Well, but OK, but let's talk about what that thing is, because oftentimes when I think about people's political analysis, I think of them as a string of like freeze frames. So as an example, in this case, the freeze frame is like. How do we talk about the fight against Trump? But that's a stupid conversation or it? It’s just a conversation the level of affect or on the level of like political tactics. So how do we deepen that analysis? I guess the point that I'm getting at is that. Like there's a starting place that's on the on the. Level of like. Everyone's talking about Trump. Everyone's talking about the alt right online. Everyone's talking about these sort of like shallow things, and they're talking about it in a shallow way, and I feel like Nagle who was in grad school during this time period was like. How do I deepen this? And so for me it feels like a series of snapshots. That's like there's a topical conversation. My research has been on the Internet. I've been obsessed with how the Internet is churning through this content. How do I tie them together? This book comes out of that process, sure.

Speaker 3: Yeah, so one of the another one of the bigger things to talk about about the book is how not anarchist she is and about how like so. The two main things. That she critiques the Internet for is its leaderless Ness and its decentralization and it's free. The freedom of its speech so not to say that freedom of speech is anarchist thing but free association and like these. Yeah, the and decentralization I would say are totally anarchist things and I believe she explicitly says too much. Freedom is bad and like not in so many words, but like that this that this too much. And I mean just I go into. The world that I live in expecting people to be sucked up expecting everybody to be racist, expecting everybody to be sexist, expecting everybody to be classist, expecting everybody to like, have these cops in their heads. And so none of this particularly surprising to me. And that's sort of 1 thread of my reaction and the other reaction I mean that is juxtaposed and somehow overlaid with this. Idea that she's only looking at us very specific. Part of what's going? On and how her looking at this very specific part of what's going on is really very much In Sync with the problems that already existed and that the Internet is responding to. You know I'm going to end up repeating that point, probably over and over. Again, because. Because it I guess. I think it is the most interesting point, like the idea that the Internet is this brand new thing that is. Never, never like this this new. This a new thing and there's not very many new things and. And trying to only see the bad in it or emphasize the bad in it, or emphasize the ways that it already that it reflects things that we think we already know about who people are and how they interact or something is really doing a disservice to all. Of us. And I think that there are plenty of bad things about the Internet for I'm totally not. Saying that all. I'm just saying I'd like to be open to what good there is also.

Speaker 1: Since this book has come out, the main way in which Nagol has come back into media representation is that they wrote an article and I swear to you, it's for the American Affairs Journal. Called the left case against open borders, so in this way. She has placed herself as. And anti neoliberal? Right and basically I mean it's like there's a way in which maybe I wouldn't disagree with the with the position, but just to state the conclusion. Members of the open borders left, May try to convince themselves that they are adopting a radical position, but in practice they are just replacing the pursuit of economic equality with the politics of big business masquerading as a virtuous identitarianism, America is still one of the richest countries in the world. Should be able to provide not just full employment. But a living wage for all of its. People including in jobs. Including in jobs which open borders, advocates claim America won't do, or Americans won't do. Employees who would exploit migrants for cheap labor illegally at great risk to the migrants themselves should be blamed, not the migrants who. Are simply doing what? People have always done when facing economic adversity. By providing inadvertent cover for the ruling elites, business interests, the left risks a significant existential crisis as more and more ordinary people defect to far right parties at this moment of crisis, the stakes are too high to keep getting it wrong. Well, the reason why this useful is because this position does relate to her take on the Internet in general and really like when I think about this book. The reason? Why we're reading this? Book is that this book is putting a lot of Antifa politics. Into a more theoretical context. But there's still this underlying liberal. What we would call maybe classical liberal assumption that has to do with. What are ordinary people? How do they react? And basically, how does one examine politics in a? In the in the. Political sense of the word like. In other words, she is trying to. To look out fordinary people. Her perspective of the left, how she's defining the left is that's what the roles the left should be, and that, and so she's critiquing leftists that are neoliberal.

Speaker 3: Like what ordinary?

Unknown Speaker: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: Meaning that thinks that global trade basically where liberals get on board with. With global trade is believing that global trade means that we don't go to war? With each other. Right and so now we're in this in sort of attention where what we would use to what we used to call like labor. Politics has more or less been destroyed or dismantled in the way in which labor is now seen as this fungible resource. But it's also a nationalistic resource, like this a sort of return. A closed border because a closed border is. The only way in. Which, let's say the United States is going to return return to full employment and take care of its workers, so.

Speaker 3: Take care of its workers, yeah.

Speaker 1: There's a huge mishmash of like old school leftism versus new school leftism that Nagel is basically taking the side of old school leftism. Yeah, and the question really like the reason why we're entering this book at all is because of Antifa. And basically because of like the rise of the old ray. In other words, the old right appears to be using the Internet in a nimble. Like neoliberal wave, maybe perhaps, and so Nagle comes down against it in the same way that she comes down.

Speaker 3: She's coming down this yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: Against orders, I'm sorry to jump ahead, but I just felt.

Speaker 2: No, no, that's fine.

Speaker 1: Like that was a way like.

Speaker 2: We're going to be jumping all over the place in this book because, yeah, that's how it works.

Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean that brings up a related but different point for me, which is one of the interesting things that I got out of a brief paragraph or page or something. And the book is the challenge of calling the alt right right at all and I think that she doesn't go into it very much, and I wish that she I mean well, I found myself periodically wishing that she was writing a different book, but I'm not totally fair to. I'm not criticizing her on that, but. But this idea that calling the Alt right I mean. It is. And doing the exact thing that I was just talking about where it's trying to fit a new thing into the model of an old thing and doing disservice to both of them. I would not, yeah.

Speaker 1: Can you explain your terms a bit more?

Speaker 3: I mean, one of the things she does totally talk about how the alt right is very different from the old, right? I meand you hear this talked about on popular news programs all the time about. How what's known as the old Republican Party thinks that Trump is terrible. You know it's like all they're. They are conservative in a very different way from people like Milo, who is, pro transcript OK. And then we'll get to transgression as a whole new whole other big part of the topic.

Speaker 1: We spend the whole chapter on that so.

Speaker 3: But the alt right are very. Liberal in many what? Would yeah liberals in other vague words.

Speaker 1: Actually let me side by this and say so Nagel is in the tortured space between being a journalist and being an academic. And as an academic, they have served their masters well by coming up with a new jargon term. Which is called alt light. This their term and it's their term to sort of describe the way in which. These people are not traditional. They're not traditionally part of the right. What is described as the alt right are the people who are more or less part of the traditional right in that they are explicitly racist.

Speaker 3: Yeah, it's all about, yeah.

Speaker 1: Whereas the old light is more like the Milo. Yannopoulos figure who is much more about transgression than they are about.

Speaker 3: You're not, you're not close. Any specific thing?

Speaker 1: Old, especially old school values. Of right or left. It's also relevant, I think, that we are having this conversation just a day after the New Zealand massacre and the two mosques.

Speaker 3: Massacre in the mosque. Oh ****.

Speaker 1: And so I'll probably be referring to that again. So go back to what? We're saying about the right.

Speaker 3: Yeah so. My understanding of her calling the group all light was more the periphery of what people they're calling all be all right. But maybe I didn't read that. As carefully as you. Did so we can move on to the idea of transgression and how she really challenges. Which is another way that seemed. Anyway, she really challenges the idea of transgression as being something that is has was initially claimed by leftists and promoted by leftists, and that, I know, is of strong thread in the anarchists who I tend to hang out with. And joy, and saying that is one of the things that these new. Alt whatever people I.

Speaker 1: The old light.

Speaker 3: I almost don't want to go with her word, but that's fine. Have adopted and have owned. Unlike are owning more than the left is right now. If you accept the left as Tumblr culture stereotypes where they're and Antifa who are. Generally extremely rigid and dogmatic and protectionist and.

Speaker 1: I mean just to play out an example, as many people know, we have an IRC server which is a place where more or less post left anarchist type people can sit around and chat with each other. And I just watched for an hour while while a half dozen of the IRC people. We're basically having a quote, UN quote, transgressive conversation around the New Zealand massacre. And it couldn't be more what Nagel was talking about.

Speaker 3: Sounded like yeah.

Unknown Speaker: Exactly, yeah.

Speaker 1: Matter of fact like I. Was really feeling my Spidey sense like tingle. Yeah, as to like what? What was the difference between this ostensible group of anarchists talking about New Zealand the transgressive Chan culture has the exact same conversation because they basically think. It would have looked identical.

Speaker 3: Exactly the same, exactly the same.

Speaker 1: But literally, people were talk. About being effective at killing people at their feelings while watching the video. Because of course, these are the kind of people who immediately go and watch the video, which there’s like a whole underbelly of the Internet. That's that's all about, like, like there's a. It's like called gratuitous violence or something like the website, but.

Speaker 3: You're watching people die. The subreddit think it just got cancelled, yeah?

Speaker 1: Or no, but the point being that the mainstream Internet, like Reddit, even though Nagle was talking about it as if. It's transgressive, yeah? But that Reddit represents the main.

Speaker 3: Mainstream part of that same well, it's got to spread, but.

Speaker 1: Right?

Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: No, but the point being that like if you really want to be in on the on the dirt and the transgressive side of it, you have to find these more niche websites and again it was really shocking to me to see that there was, like the anarchism disappeared.

Speaker 3: You fine you five yeah.

Speaker 1: You know, amongst these these people. Have varying degrees of anarchist pedigrees that disappeared in their fascination with what I would call the most like boring and gratuitous parts and absolutely it felt like a room of adolescent men talking about things that fascinate them, like . Gun gear and. And being hard and doing what it takes to be done. And every once in a while people would drop references to Ted Kaczynski, who of course is the grandfather of this side of the anarchist equation of. This kind of culture, which of course he would be rolling his graves to watch. Basically, these technical, techno alienated.

Speaker 3: If he were dead, which he's not. Doesn't mean he's dead anyway, yeah.

Unknown Speaker: Yeah, I.

Speaker 3: Mean that's exactly that's exactly right. And. One of the things.

Unknown Speaker: You know, like the book.

Speaker 3: That she didn't write has. To do with. Why are people fascinated by these? You know where does this come from? What is this about? And that's totally valid that's not what this book is about, but. But this idea that people egg each other on and that they don't. Well, that's just getting back to the media thing and about and the forced moralism and about how we're all supposed to have the same kind of response to these events. And when we don't have them, then we feel. A variety of things probably, but among the things we feel are bad and like there's something wrong with us, and so then finding other people who don't feel the way that they're supposed to feel or who don't respond and externally as if they're feeling the way you're supposed to feel. Then it then is this huge bonding as much more of a bonding than it would be otherwise and anyway. Yeah, sort of. Yeah, so the idea that this so much. A study in a reaction to this monolithic force of. I guess I'm calling the corporate media. And I want to time part of one of the threads. Of this, both Nagel's book and. And corporate media I guess is something. About celebrity so. One of the where does she talk about it? There's a thing about. People, oh, it's part of the call out culture, so it's part of the Tumblr conversation is that people get very excited when somebody has has done something bad. I can't use the word transgressed now because it's getting to be used too much, but and that. And that the tendency in general is for people to say, well, why are? Why are people getting so upset? And my. Take, I think is to say why is all the upsetness centered on a single person. So in other words, I see it much more as a reflection of celebrity culture that like that, that there are such a few number of people who are supposed to carry such a huge burden of this social psychological angst. That is that's the problem. Or that's at least as much of a problem as people getting freaked out. That somebody said a bad word or something.

Speaker 1: Can you talk about the symptoms of what you're talking about? A little more? Because I'm not here you. Seem to be focusing on the sores or the.

Speaker 3: Maybe let me see if I can find something. In my notes, so the example would be on the Leslie Jones. The fact that she makes a note, Nagel makes a note that Harambe was referenced by harassers in the hate. Campaign led against Ghostbusters star Leslie Jones with largely anonymous threats and comparisons to her **** anyway and my. Yeah my point. My point, the note that I wrote for that was the issue is not that people are mean or rude or. Insensitive the issue.

Speaker 1: Even though they are.

Speaker 3: Is that they totally are of course the issue is that too few people come to mean too much. It's that people care too much about people they have not met and. Will never meet. And also obviously sexism, racism and also of course. People are sexist and racist, and ******** like those. Those that goes without saying.

Speaker 1: So yeah, It’s interesting to sort of transition from this book, which which the one thing I will say about Nagel. Mad props. Her sentence density is very high and her fluidity with using all of these Internet tropes and all these sort of like. You know, I basically was. With her 3/4 of the time and then 1/4 of the time she totally lost me, which I appreciate in a book like this which this really is a book. That's a snapshot and like this what the culture is today.

Speaker 3: Right now, yeah.

Speaker 1: It attempts to try to be more theoretical, but mostly sales but it does a great job of.

Speaker 3: Fails, yeah.

Speaker 1: Of painting a picture of like in 10 years.

Speaker 3: Yes, absolutely.

Speaker 1: This book will feel very dated. You know, just two years after its publication, it already feels like it's all.

Speaker 3: Almost stated yeah.

Speaker 1: Stated but that's not a criticism, I mean, I mean like, it was written to be 2017 boom and a lot of what she talked about was actually like.

Speaker 3: No, it's not.

Speaker 2: There it.

Speaker 3: Is yeah.

Speaker 1: Made more sense in 2018 than in 2017, like she really did a great job. I mean, obviously I know she spent years working on it, but like it was really relevant for its day in the sense of talking about. In the in the very introduction, which again I'm sure she wrote last, she's talking about this Internet campaign against Leslie Jones, who, if you're not aware of who she is, she is basically one of the few older African American comedians who's ever been part of setting their lives and who has. It was part of the female reboot of Ghostbusters movie and as one can imagine, like to the extent to which we're talking about online culture and the Alt right in online culture. We're talking about a bunch of boys who. Opinions about stupid ****, not the least of which is their upsetness and the fact that the world has decided that there's a need for these female reboots and obviously we could have a conversation about what's good and bad about that and about the Me too movement in that context. But the main point is, is that, like. In the conversation that these boys had very loudly about Leslie Jones, they were talking about her in comparison to Harambe, which which is the name of a gorilla who died in the Columbus Zoo. And like this, is a huge semiotically dense.

Speaker 3: Who was killed?

Speaker 1: Who was killed?

Speaker 3: Because because, no, no the kid fell into the pen and they killed the gorilla to make sure that the kid.

Speaker 1: They hurt somebody, right?

Speaker 3: Didn't get hurt.

Speaker 1: The point is like this a semiotically dense set of set of cultural moments that again 2022 all have forgotten except for the fact that Harambe has sort of been this strange rallying cry for.

Speaker 3: Yes, very dense.

Speaker 1: Something that has nothing to do with Mr. Jones in any way.

Speaker 3: Probably many things. I mean, that's probably that's part of the point is that there's a. Lot of different things going on.

Speaker 1: Yeah, and Nagle does a great job of sort of talking about and touching on and really, even explaining how these these more or less. Unmoored to reality Internet, only cultural constructs are floating and colliding and yeah.

Speaker 3: It's true, it's true. Part of my frustration with. The fact that. Like she does a really good job of setting it up. She does touch on all of the different things and the fact that there's multiple layers of every of almost every single Internet controversy slash event that happens, . But then she's but so then it's even more frustrating. I think that when. She when she. Gets shallow again her in her sort of assessment of what it means. Her talking about the way that she talks about. The significance of it or something, or what she decides to pay attention to, but anyway. Yeah, well, the thing that.

Speaker 1: I would say that would be the. I mean I, I guess, to the extent to which I'm trying to integrate some of this into anarchist conversation. For Nagel, it's extremely important to see cause and effect. And ultimately, her political analysis has to do with cause and effect.

Speaker 3: All right, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: And that's why I connect this to Antifa. That also is very concerned with cause and effect, like right now on Facebook all I'm seeing are conversations about basically the New Zealand shooter.

Speaker 3: Positive yeah.

Speaker 1: The manifesto in this manifesto they draw. I mean, it's like terrifyingly American. What they draw on and they basically like. They might as well. Be wearing a maga. Hat which the idea that you live in New Zealand like? It's so strange and bizarre that. It only could. Be the Internet that would allow this to be lubricant, but I think that it's a very anarchist conclusion that cause and effect is not so.

Speaker 3: To pull this together, yeah, yeah. Tightly bound.

Speaker 1: Right that, but, but perhaps this really easy for us to see, because this analysis we've been talking about for over a decade. You know, perhaps because of earlier feelings that we've had about the Internet, but it is worth sort of talking about the fact that, like. People who see the world in terms of cause and effect, and people who recognize that there's a that there's something disjointed happening. I feel like that distinction was not talked about at all in the book and is something that for me from anarchist perspective is really important because I mostly don't see the kind of like. Especially in Nagles case he Nagel more or less points to solutions, and I don't think that these solutions have almost anything to do with the with the cause and effect relationship that she would like there to be. She just wants these things.

Speaker 3: To go away.

Speaker 1: Yeah she wants many things to go away but she also like wants these. Conclusions that she's articulating and drawing from. She wants them anyways.

Speaker 3: What do you mean giving an example?

Speaker 1: Well, I think that talking about limitations on free speech is a is a classic example of where this happens, like. I might be exhausted by the young men in IRC who are talking about the killing in New Zealand. But I'm glad they have a place. To have that conversation with ostensibly other anarchists, because they like. Yeah, I.

Speaker 3: You think you think we're a little less likely to go off? The anarchists are a little bit less likely to freak out.

Speaker 1: I'll put a pin that I think that's fine to say, but I think It’s more that.

Speaker 3: OK.

Speaker 1: The act of the Act of then thinking that conversation is transgressive and can only happen in the in the shadow. I think that the that the. Net result of that is grotheer is creepier is problematic like.

Speaker 3: Thisn't actually. This not reflecting an argument about ***********.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I would actually head in for a direction here, meaning that there is something about desire and what the difference is when desire is sublimated versus when it's allowed to be expressed.

Speaker 3: Right exactly

Speaker 1: And I'm not saying I necessarily have tons of answers here, but. But I just feel like when these things get suppressed, it looks more like World War Two. And what we have today in the postmodern reality where a lot of the same things are swimming in our intellectual and social spheres. The fact that they're able to be expressed, the fact that they're able to be sort of writ large. I think it. I think it rates is very different questions than the world world World, World War Two. Era, But that's because of the different technological apparatus that we.

Speaker 3: I suddenly got the idea of Freud talking to right and about how like this.

Speaker 1: Right, yeah?

Speaker 3: We're actually living in a world where right some of what Reich is. Like we still have all the character armor, but we can talk about things more than yeah, I don't know enough about these, but there's something there.

Speaker 1: Well, no, but this. This also the Communist for Xanarchy fist conversation. Can also be sort of like put on top of here like in other words, this rich versus. This anarchist versus communist. The Communist is going to have a plan for the entirety of society and is really going to devote a lot of energy to fixing problems in the in the universal ways.

Speaker 2: Right?

Speaker 1: Whereas clearly our inclination is to say that. These problems shouldn't be solved, and to the extent to which we're watching the social consequence, I point the problem at the society aspect of this rather than at the yeah. Next point.

Speaker 3: OK, yeah, I’ve only gotten OK, so. Yeah, I mean again. So part of my whole assumption that things are actually very funked up in our society and I think that's a fairly common anarchist understanding. There's a point where Nagel is criticizing the Tumblr people by saying that so many things we're seeing is problematic. From eating noodles to Shakespeare. And of course, that made me more sympathetic than I've ever been to Tumblr people, because of course, there could totally be problems with eating noodles and there's absolutely a problem with Shakespeare and so, and the idea that Nagle thinks that's ridiculous, which she doesn't exactly say what she implies.

Speaker 1: Kosher, yeah?

Speaker 3: Like is again, one of these things where she is a liberal. She's I mean she's that's just the most liberal thing like. And of course, that doesn't mean that the way that the Tumblr people are responding to that is acceptable in any way or whatever, but that's about the response. It's not about the underlying problem. Of which there are still many so.

Speaker 1: So before I address the nagal part of that, I want to talk about the fact. That Tumblr culture could be gone in two, two to three years. And the reason why that's the case is because in December of 2018, Tumblr removed adult content. On their service.

Speaker 3: What does that mean?

Speaker 1: It means that all. A lot of there was a lot of. *********** on Tumblr.

Speaker 3: OK, so adult means pornographic, OK?

Speaker 1: Yeah, usually so, but why that's relevant is the first numbers have come out of what their traffic looks like since December, and It’s tainted it's tainted tanking it exactly the way that you think it would be tanking, given that one assumes that *********** drives a lot of the Internet.

Speaker 3: Ohhh ****-htanked.

Speaker 1: But this means that a lot of the vitality of Tumblr and why it was such this dynamic. Thing is, basically the transformation is also about money or traffic and money are are connected and of course what to the extent which there's advertising. And so Tumblr as a platform did has represented the voice of this generation, and this might even be like. 8 millennial generation. And whatever the Generation Z that's coming up could actually be somehow impacted by all of this. In other words, like Tumblr has been what it's been for about 10. Years, that's a long time. It is a long time and. You know, and so obviously when we refer to Tumblr culture, oftentimes we're referring to things like furries, and we're referring to like peak identity, identity politics, and we're referring to like the most affected teenager coming of age in very, very public ways. That's when we talk about couple. That's what we need, yeah, so now in Nagels snapshot, and Nagel basically has a chapter on Tumblr in the book. They're basically talking about about these voices and this shyness and this, very like Smiths writ large. Yeah, right, but post it's like post.

Speaker 2: E-mail, yeah.

Speaker 1: You know so it has this strange thing now is colliding with this economic reality of removing their adult content? I just feel like that’s an important like material way to also try to triangulate and understanding of this yeah?

Speaker 3: Look at what's going on.

Speaker 2: I don't know. I'm done with that, I guess well.

Speaker 3: There's something in this book about feminism, and about what normal is. One kind of feminism says that men are not the only normal ones that women are normal too. Another kind of feminism says that women are special, more attuned to the world, whatever. Just not special like sexists say we are. Sex is special, frequently looks like the Madonna Ford dichotomy and those two kinds of feminisms obviously get in each other's way. If one expects people who are. If one expects people who are lonely, devalued voiceless to be funked up to lash out at easy targets because they don't think they're up to more difficult challenges, which has been the case since long before the Internet, than there's nothing surprising here in the coming together of a bunch of social losers along lines that are common, if usually unspoken. So that's kind of going back to. I mean, that's definitely going back to my. Everybody's ****** ** and mostly. Have limited ways or of expressing that I combined everything that might two things that didn't actually anyway go on.

Speaker 1: You're you're basically implying that there are two kinds of feminism, one that basically like.

Speaker 3: Extols the virtues of women and the other one says that women are just people, and people are people.

Speaker 1: OK, so you're saying which one is Nagel?

Speaker 3: I don't know why I brought that up. Actually I'm not sure.

Speaker 1: OK, OK.

Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm not sure why I talked about the two. Kinds of feminists.

Speaker 1: But you're also trying to. Unpack this in anarchist direction.

Speaker 3: Said that, they. Think that feminists sometimes do try to play both at the same time. So I’m.

Speaker 1: There's almost anyone who is part of an essential category does.

Speaker 3: Sure, of course, yeah.

Speaker 1: I'm me and. I'm part of something you can't question. Well, it's relevant in this context, because of course Nagle is very interested in. All this male hostility towards feminism, and mostly what that hostility is about, is. Why don't they just shut? Up and accept that we're equal. You know or? They have a special thing that I want. That they're not letting me get. So the hatred it also has that similar sort of two formed. End of lens.

Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I still don't remember why I said that first thing, but it definitely like I guess part of what's part of what one of the backburners in my brain about this book is about her feminism. Because and sort of like going back to the fact that it's actually a feminist book, that's actually seems to be her motivation for getting into this.

Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3: And yet, that's not explicitly what she says.

Speaker 1: It's not on the cover.

Speaker 3: It's not on the cover, and it really should be on the cover because it is her foundation. It is where she's coming from and. And there was just. There's this one, and this fairly stupid, and maybe this too minor to even get into it, but I was really surprised at one point. She says these people. These women are complaining about post traumatic stress disorder when none of them have been in wars. And as somebody who's done a lot of work around domestic violence. Women like there is a big difference in genders and how the two in how women experience PTSD and how men experience PTSD and women of course can be in wars. So I'm not saying they can't get PTSD from war, but most women get post traumatic stress disorder from living with their abusers. And like that is the common thing. So the idea that she threw this out there in a way that to me was very glaring was just disorienting. So again, minor point, but sort of what? Yes, feminism and the questions around feminism was an ongoing stream for me throughout the book. On page 42, she says the Saudi and transgressive element of the 60s condemned by conservatives for decades as the very heart of the destruction of civilization. The degenerate and the nihilistic is not being challenged by the emergence of this new online right. Instead, the emergence of this new online right is the full coming to fruition of the transgressive anti moral style. Its final detachment from any egalitarian philosophy of the left or Christian morality. Of the right. And my note to that was that. Thank you. This the kind of argument that liberals will always make against anarchists. That freedom is too hard, too scary, too messy. And the argument is always made by 1 by taking one instance or category of instances. That is especially horrible, and making that the thing that has to be responded to that. Must be stopped.

Speaker 1: But that's the part that's also interesting. That's what the Antifargument is too. I mean, this so, like there's something subterranean here that where maybe we would say that liberalism is what links it, but that idea that though that the scary extremes of the position represent something fundamental to the position.

Speaker 3: Yeah, I feel like the Antifa thing is a little different because. I to the extent that OK, well, Antifa doesn't have to be anarchist. Obviously, most Antifare not anarchist, but the anarchist Antifare the only ones that give a **** about are not saying that the answer is to have a state that take that limits people. The. Anarchist antiphone my understanding are saying she's sucked. Up right now. We have to do something right now. We are not planning a state to take care of this. We are not. We're not saying this control should happen where I do think that she is saying that she is.

Speaker 1: So there's a. So it's worthwhile mentioning that there is a tech group that comes out of the anarchist space in New York. Their big project is basically a software plugin for Chrome so that you can report. Bad material to YouTube. What we're talking about is a cybernetic state that basically is encouraging, as is almost any no platforming sort of vehicle. Sure, it might call itself anarchist, but It’s not acknowledging what state functions are and. Whether or not humans are necessary for.

Speaker 3: Sure, I mean, but this basically the same. This the reformist versus revolution argument, and neither one neither reform nor revolution gets to the society that you and I are talking about wanting and the and the argument is how much like. In other words, it's not it, maybe not. It's not anarchist to be reformist. But that doesn't mean it's necessarily the wrong thing to do. And I'm not saying that the we're arguing theory here. We're not. I'm not defending the people who are talking about calling in YouTube.

Speaker 2: Stop making that face at me or I'll stop.

Speaker 1: Thank no, I'm having an objective.

Speaker 2: You know you would never make a face purely purely intellectual conversation going on.

Speaker 1: Conversation with you.

Speaker 2: We are two brains in a jar.

Speaker 1: So you're saying something about reform being anarchist?

Speaker 3: No, I am not saying anything.

Speaker 1: Can you clarify?

Speaker 3: I'm saying that we live in the world, all of us make these compromises. We, I mean, I don't have to spell this out for you. Stop making that face again. Different face still problem. Yeah, we all like and there is. It's absolutely valid to be fighting racism in the best way that you can in a ****** ** world like that's not a not. I mean valid is another empty word, but potentially I'm I am not saying things are anarchist. Is it only OK to do only anarchist things?

Speaker 1: Well, OK, that is. A deep and painful and painful and painful conversation.

Speaker 3: No, I'm asking don't you try to go Meadow with me? I'm asking.

Speaker 2: You that question.

Speaker 1: I am meta, I no I. You know, first of all, do I think that much of any of this fighting racism, and the answer is no. I don't think these people are are actually fighting racism. They're they're turning. They're basically pushing something to be subterranean, using the exact same logic that the state uses to do the same things. They're creating a black market of racism.

Speaker 3: But it isn't.

Speaker 1: That's irrelevant to this.

Speaker 3: It's not irrelevant because I because it is so much the logic of what she's talking about. Like this absolutely part of this book and I guess I don't know. I guess I don't know like I think that I don't know what makes people do things and I think that sometimes something being subterranean. Does keep bad things from happening and other times something being subterranean makes worse things happening and worse worse things happen and so.

Speaker 1: Well, just to keep, keep this as centered on the book as possible. I do want to mention this blurb that's from the from an editor from Jake Jacob in the magazine. Because when we're talking about this subterranean or black market. The other way to have the same conversation is to talk about politics and politics being the mechanism by which we exert some sort of pressure or power to get a result. So the blurb. Which is from, yeah, like I said, unlike much of the left who've grown far too accustomed to marginalization and defeat, Nagle still believes in politics as the only way of changing and increasingly brutal, world. She is the writer and social critic I've been waiting for. Now, blurb logic aside that idea of like politics being this hinge moment like in Natal, basically saying, here's a here's a way to be. Effective the other thing to mention is that Nagel is Irish, which in the in the anarchist sensibility. The only thing I'll say about that. Is that like? They are Irish anarchists. Oh, they're all basically anarcho syndicalists well.

Speaker 3: Not anarchist at all.

Speaker 1: They're definitely willing to talk about class logic in a way that seems really weird, especially to us in the US. But they're basically. Yeah, they’re red, they're clap. Anyways, obviously I'm not trying to complete Nagle andrew Flood and the WSTAnd.

Speaker 2: Wsa yeah woo no W.

Speaker 3: Whatever, yeah.

Speaker 1: Could be both. Could be other. But the point being that. When we're talking about. Politics in this sense. That's that.

Speaker 2: So she's actually.

Speaker 3: Irish, she's not like Irish descent.

Speaker 1: I think no.

Speaker 3: I'm American, OK?

Speaker 1: I think she lives. In Ireland, yeah.

Speaker 2: OK.

Speaker 3: But I mean she's not trying to be anarchist, so there's no.

Speaker 1: For sure, for sure, but.

Speaker 2: So it's.

Speaker 1: But also like.

Speaker 3: Just in terms of the context, she's coming out of.

Speaker 1: What does it mean to? To argue for politics, like whether you're anarchists or not, because partially what we're talking about. We're talking about Tumblr culture, and we're talking the Internet, and even no platforming. Is this different way of attacking problems that have been around for a long long time so in the context of the me too movement?

Speaker 3: A no for sure yeah.

Speaker 1: There is both a wing that's just trying to like grow diversity, but partially in that wing or a whole bunch of careerist people, of course. And like if that if the Julian I can't remember the name, but the person who allegedly. Paid for people to beat. Beat them up.

Speaker 3: Jessie Jessie Smollett.

Speaker 1: Yeah, if that is about anything, it's about how does one grow one's cachet in Hollywood? And then also the fact that we're talking about me too as being a Hollywood experience rather than like, the 99 per cent of the rest of the jobs in the world.

Speaker 3: God for real.

Speaker 1: And anyways, politics is a big loaded explosive word that, a particular wing of the anarchist. World is one of the only people. Only sets of people.

Speaker 3: Groups that's talking about it all.

Speaker 1: That are that are against it.

Speaker 3: Yeah, troubling it at all. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: Anyways, we should try to finish the rest of your points. OK, because we are, we actually have been talking for 50 minutes.

Speaker 3: So another. One of the things that was a classic thing that people are talking about with Internet culture, and that she certainly talks about a lot. Also, is this. The slide from humor and laughing about things to egregious behavior and totally disrespectful. Blah blah blah blah blah. So the note about that. Humor and not humor are. Insufficient for our purposes, the argument gets made as insufficient words for our purposes or insufficient concepts. The argument gets made that making fun of hard, painful things is bad when it is a life saving tactic for people who have lived through **** to engage humor in a political conversation, we have to have a more sophisticated way to talk about it. As the multilayered contradictory thing it is for people in this book or is it is for people this book, like most media representations of the new stuff, alludes vaguely to the depth which we talked about before of all the different layers of all the different like. Pieces of that are going into any any specific instance of Internet eruption. But always within the framework of look, what humor has allowed to happen as if controlling it is better.

Speaker 1: So when I say that you these notes are really tightly packed, you're actually referring to some specific things that you're not mentioning because they're because in your head. This a shortcut, so let me just say something explicit. When we talk about the humor of Jews who have been through the Holocaust or Native Americans who have been through the genocide of their people, those are cultures that embed humor as central parts of like what entry into those cultures look like. What understanding what the worldview of those cultures look like and to talk about that humor in the same breath as to talk about the humor of. You know the alt right ******* who's making fun of a female female body? Like in the case of Leslie Jones, like these are. Qualitatively, different definitions of humor, and we almost do ourselves a disservice to use the same word to describe them, except they are the same and that is much more complicated thanyone's talking about, and I'm not sure that like the answer is, is for us to come up with a science of humor, or if the answer is.

Speaker 3: Right?

Speaker 1: For us to engage in all of this irreverent. Currently, or is the answer to only talk about all this stuff in the in a dead serious way? And we know. We see like what we're talking about when we talk about the transgression of the left and the 60s, versus the transgression of. The right and the. And, and the nanos this partially what we're talking about. We're talking about how humor is it. Is a central part of this conversation, but it's dealt with shallowly.

Speaker 3: Absolutely, and I would say that like you, you chose the Jewish and the Indian. The Native American thing are very. Like they’re broad people, but there's also. There's also people who are disabled who have to deal with, like, yeah, like humor just covers an insanely a huge amount of territory and it reflects off of it. Like what you said, like it both is the same thing and isn't the same thing. And to talk about humor seriously, or to talk like reminds me of or talking about militant joy. You know, like where they are trying to take this thing very seriously, even at the same time that there's that what they're talking about, I would say is not a serious thing. Is a light hearted thing and so.

Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's.

Speaker 3: You know the easy sort of inclusive response to that is, well, we need all of the different ways of approaching these things, but that is sort of too democratic.

Speaker 1: To try.

Speaker 3: Or yeah, it's. Like **** *** whoever wants to say that was never me. I never. Wanted to say that.

Speaker 2: OK, you want to pause it again for a second.

Speaker 3: So on page 60 I have this note that says she's making the same point over and over again, which is the transgression metric can be used in any direction. Here she calls it anti conformism, but it's the same message. But what's the larger message that any tool can be used against its creator? The interesting direction to take that, then is how to turn the tools that work for our enemies.

Speaker 1: Well, what you should read what that's referring to?

Speaker 3: I should read what I just wrote.

Speaker 1: Because I don't understand, you can close it.

Speaker 3: Oh yeah, that makes sense. OK. Goes too fast. Trillings adversary culture. An idea that preoccupied the right at the time meant a political or intellectual culture that sought to counter and subvert the existing order and smash that which went before often through irreverence and transgression for transgression's sake. And later in the more respectable world of academia, though it became a term to describe the post 60s. Academic takeover it is remarkably similar. To how you're not pull it. Thanks for helping me how Yannopoulos himself was described as he rose to prominence, transgressive, subversive speaking truth to power, exposing lies, et cetera. Even as he identified Academ as the problem at the root of millennial cultural liberalism. So that's the.

Unknown Speaker: Yeah, so that I mean.

Speaker 3: To me it riffs off of the Audrey Lord slogan that I'm not even sure is used the way that Audrey Lord meant it or something. Which is that the masters tools will never just mental the Masters house. You know, if we take that seriously, where do we go with that or something?

Speaker 1: We have. I mean, I guess on. Some level we're. Talking in this. Context about effectiveness and. And hear me out, the one thing that the right does consistently better than the left. In my time. Is messaging they sum up what it is that they have to say in a really nice, pithy way. Eventually you can unpack it to mean a whole bunch of other stuff, but, but generally speaking, death, tax and all the different ways in which, like a lot of thinking goes into naming stuff and.

Speaker 3: Sound bites.

Speaker 1: And sound bites. So in the. Case of Audrey Lorde. Logan this was when the left was more effective at this particular set of problems and. One of the conclusions is that it was used for too long. The Masters tools cannot disable dismantle the master. 's house first of all, that's not true.

Speaker 3: No, that's right exactly.

Speaker 1: Second of all is the is the question of what do you mean by this? Like are you meaning physical infrastructure? Are you meaning the mental cages that were locked in?

Speaker 3: Constructs champions.

Speaker 1: Like is a key part of the? Cage that we're in. Or is it not part of the key that we're that we're in? Is the key that the people's? Knowledge of something and so like. Like the so the problem with the left of the pass is that it's so geared really well, but of course all these metaphors basically got tortured and used. For too long. And there hasn't been a reexamination. There hasn't been like our let's sit down and talk about the personal. Is the political. Right, which is another slogan that is basically like, 20 years past its due date.

Speaker 3: And does absolutely get used in the opposite way of what it was originally intended for.

Speaker 1: Sure, so. For the past 20 years at least, the right has done a much better job of packaging their ship and when they're referring to cultural Marxism and the critique of Foucault and Audrey, Lord in the in the Academy and obviously like our a person who I like. Quite a bit. What, whatever or just all the voices of the of the left that. Have sort of risen and. That and that fill this particular moment. But most of those like you have to read a lot to understand what the ***** is. Trying to say. You know there are very few pithy things that come out. Of bouquet other than saying biopower is everywhere, ? So anyway, so like so there's some ebb and flow there, and you're talking about what the right and the left are good at and to what extent. Is there something useful in either in either sort of like yeah? So I really like. I mean, ultimately, I think I agree with Nagel's point about transgression in that It’s a overloaded operator. But I don't see. A solution to it other than maybe like.

Speaker 3: Right?

Speaker 1: Some people on the left sitting down. There's an academic who's actually UC Berkeley. Don't think of an elephant, I think. Is there the one of?

Speaker 3: Lakey Lakey I think George Lakey.

Speaker 1: The few people who I think talks about this from a quote, UN quote left perspective. But I hate him. I mean like the content.

Speaker 2: Every possible.

Speaker 1: Yeah, like I think that point is a fair point, but. You know, like. But he leveraged it to try to get Clinton elected anyways.

Speaker 3: So I talked before about how these are like it's a misnomer to call the people that these people they all right. And this. This more along that line. This a quotation off of page 68. The rise of Milo Trump and the Alt right are not evidence of the return of the conservatism, but instead of the absolute hegemony of the culture of non conformism self-expression. Transgression and irreverence for its own sake and aesthetic. That suits those who. Believe in nothing but the liberation of the individual and the ID's, whether they're on the left or the right, the principal free. Idea of counterculture did not go away, it has just become the style of the new right, and then she goes back to calling them the new right which but anyway so this. Is yeah.

Speaker 1: Yeah, that's interesting. I'm not sure I'm quite there because I more or less work of the assumption that the Internet has killed subculture. And what I mean by that is, I, I guess I mean subculture in a in a positive sense, because. Whatever, when I was coming of. Age it took five. Years to understand ******** music and to.

Speaker 2: OK granddaddy Oh my Lord.

Speaker 1: Well, but really. What I mean by that is that. I had to. Put blood in to get below the out.

Speaker 3: Yeah, no, no right, right, right and now you don't have. To do anything.

Speaker 1: And more pointedly. The information that I achieved was layered.

Unknown Speaker: Right?

Speaker 1: It happened in the matrix of a of a whole life that was lived within this space and I, that's because in my childhood. Punk rock was mapped to a particular location where I would go after a school Oregon during vacations and it was really meaningful that like my life was in this location where all the other punks went and that we found each other there and we listened to music there. We could text a lot of that music there. We're talking about it while it was playing and. And again, it was years of doing this that made me like made this part of who I was. It was a rich tapestry that I could choose instead of the of the other life that looked like going to high school and conforming whatever the ****. Whereas the Internet, because the Internet is so the opposite of that. It's so, like I just went in, I got the information. I knew everything there was to know about. About Straight edge ******** from 87 to 91.

Speaker 3: Well, also, you're saying that you made a choice that precluded, or at least severely limited, other choices which the Internet you don't have to choose between. Things you the, you, the, the, the illusion is that you can have.

Speaker 1: He's gonna have it all, yeah.

Speaker 3: It all, yeah, and that's a huge. I mean, that's so deep in terms of like the US mythology about being able to be anything and about like all. Context free, it's all. OK.

Speaker 1: But the point is that is that. So for me, subculture has been destroyed by the Internet. Here she's talking about a kind of subculture that I would basically perhaps call a shallow.

Speaker 3: Or maybe needs another word, yeah?

Speaker 1: Yeah, right, right like of course like come 8788 we experienced the kind of people who would like go to hot topic and come come. Out a punk. But it but it was clear that what they were doing was a really different thing, and that's what she means by the. Subculture and so. You know, in this case we're going to say.

Speaker 3: Niche niche or niche niche niche is not us, not a simple.

Speaker 1: Counterculture versus? Yeah, the language.

Speaker 3: Me think you want.

Speaker 1: We've used was counterculture versus subculture.

Speaker 3: Yeah, except that the to me it's culture. Like I. I guess I'm now at this moment arguing for defending the word culture as meaning something that's actually layered and relevant, and that a niche market is not a subculture, is how I would talk.

Unknown Speaker: About it

Speaker 1: Yeah, that’s fair, but I'm not sure how much that exists on the Internet is. Part of the reason why this why our definitions are different here because.

Speaker 3: OK.

Speaker 1: A lot of people who do everything they do on the Internet part of that is not paying for anything.

Speaker 3: Yeah, but it doesn't make him not a market.

Speaker 1: It does.

Speaker 3: That is it. That's it, yeah. I would say that it doesn't. Yeah, because yeah., I mean, I guess there's a there's like a implicit.

Speaker 1: The anarchist version of this did crime think? Who grew the popularity of shoplifting and turned shoplifting into a into a type of counterculture or actually a subculture? Was that consumerism?

Unknown Speaker: Yeah, yeah, that's.

Speaker 3: Part of the question for sure. Can it? Yeah can? What things exist outside of capitalism and what thing, yeah, whatever, and this another big I want to. There's one ending point that I have that's fairly minor, but I want to reiterate the things that I said at the beginning about what this book does. It's the left slash maybe center of feminist take on the Internet. It identifies various players in that culture, and it's a history of how some events played out, so that continues to be my sense of what the book is. And my minor point about the book, but not necessarily a minor point in general, is. That she consistently uses the metaphor of virtue as an economy, and I really get that. That's catchy, but it really bugs me along. Sort of, maybe these similar lines of, like how deep does capitalism like? Is it the only metaphor that makes sense to people, or that that grabs people's? Attention or something. Virtue is not a scarce resource, and. And yeah.

Speaker 1: And maybe explain what she means when she says it.

Speaker 3: She is talking oh God. You have to make me find the page again and I don't know I didn't write it down.

Speaker 1: Why do they bother you?

Speaker 3: Because economic metaphors bother me because it doesn't work. I don't think it's apt. I think like, OK. So no, it comes up when. In the Tumblr Tumblr scenario where people call each other out and they aggrandize their own social status, It’s a social cred. There's a lot of similarity to the social cred argument where you downplay other peoples. Credibility and virtue so that yours is higher. I believe that's and. Obviously that happens, but using the metaphor of an economy. Flattens out, I think, and simplifies what's going on it. It redirects attention to the. To a capitalist framework in a way. That I don't think is helpful, it doesn't.

Speaker 1: How does this differ?

Speaker 2: What's going on?

Speaker 1: So there's a prominent anarchist. Who has called me out on multiple occasions for having social capital? And basically me being bad because I have social capital I.

Speaker 3: She's calling you because. You're doing bad things in order to get social capital or something, or you're doing bad things with your. Social capital isn't that more what it is.

Speaker 1: I don't know, but I feel like it's the same criticism that you're making.

Speaker 2: OK.

Speaker 1: Virtual capital or. Virtual economy is the same thing as social capital.

Speaker 3: Yeah, when I said Social Credit I was I was meaning social capital. I was referring to that to that to those interactions. Yeah, and social capital is something that I had not heard before I heard him use it, and now I've definitely heard it more so. Yeah, it's a it's. A similar issue for sure, like.

Speaker 1: So, so your problem is that when you refer to something economically, you're referring to it as if there's something in here that has a limit, perhaps even a hard limit, and that and that.

Speaker 3: Hmm hmm.

Speaker 1: Basically, people are going back and forth.

Speaker 3: And that we know how to interact with it the way because we will interact with it the same way we do with buying and selling any other product like the. In other words, that.

Speaker 1: It constrains our imagination to right, whereas your quick intervention would be wait. These things have no limits, you're base. Treating something economically or as a limited thing when it in fact is.

Speaker 3: When it is not. Yeah, yeah, and that's my off the cuff, and because I haven't thought about it more than that so I don't have a more thought out response, but.

Speaker 1: Not, I think.

Speaker 3: Yeah, it's. Like treating everything like.

Speaker 1: So there’s infinite, there's infinite virtue, there's infinite ability and so the idea that one would constrain that with the metaphor space of economics.

Speaker 3: A market is locked up. Sociability, yeah?

Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's I totally. Agree with that. Especially the idea of intervening before people get too deep into these metaphors. Because these metaphors are the definition of imagination killers. Yes, exactly, and of course that's the problem with this book. Ultimately is that this book has a very is not imaginative at all. It grounds the phenomena of Internet culture and it tries to ground it in leftist political discourse. Both feminism and Marxists, ultimately.

Speaker 2: OK.

Speaker 3: I didn't notice the Marxism, but yeah, I don't always.

Speaker 1: Wow, she wrote for Jacob and she mentioned Rothenberg. It perhaps is a more.

Speaker 3: Yeah, it's hidden. You had you, you had your you had your magnifying glass on while you were reading and.

Speaker 1: It's been watch. TV Yeah it's been watched to her academic experience, yeah?

Speaker 3: I did not.

Unknown Speaker: OK.

Speaker 1: Thank you very much, you're welcome.

Ep. 93 – The Fight for Turtle Island

Episode 93 – The Fight for Turtle Island

I put together a book. It is not a book about me. It is about a dozen other people who are, in some way, the…

Continue ReadingEpisode 93 – The Fight for Turtle Island

Ep. 92 – A Discussion of Joyful Militancy

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January 30, 2019

Episode 92 – A Discussion of Joyful Militancy

I made a promise to Nick the last time I was in Victoria BC. I said I would meaningfully engage (I might have even promised…

Transcript

Speaker 1: Welcome to Episode 92 of the Brilliant podcast. I am sitting here with chisel and we are going to have. A we're going to do. Something a little different. My goal. This year is to be a bit more, I guess. Integrated in the content in the anarchist space that is not necessarily specifically about the content that. That is published by Little Black Cart, which is the publishing project that I'm involved in so today. We're going to do a. Review of a book that was published by AK Press and also I guess on the imprint the IS imprint which is Institute for Anarchist Studies. So the book is called joyful militancy and I guess we begin with the background information about the about the publishing itself. So I guess it was ten years ago when AK Press gave the I sort of like the run of publishing a book here. So maybe it's only been seven years because this the 7th collaborative publication, and of course from the outside. It's difficult to imagine how they divide up the work and. But I will say that for this project they have done a really amazing job of putting a. Lot of care. Into the title. There’s a lot that I'm going to say about that has to do with like the specifics of publishing books, but I guess before we begin, let's talk a little bit about our toy. Both children, both children and I, are probably known by most people as being really critical people, and so it might seem surprising that would even talk. About a book from from the AK Press crew. But I think we're going to try to. To really to not do that, especially in the context of this book, largely by engaging. With this book for so long. Part of the goal is to,. Not exactly end the. Like the seeming. Hostility between us and them because first of all, that would be naive to. Think that. It's gone, but. This book in particular is a. It's a movement book, and to the extent to which we are part of the same movement that the left anarchists are a part of, this book is also about us. And one of the core conceits of the book is this idea of the sad militant and I think to some greater, lesser extent. There is a highly critical aspect of this book that perhaps is pointed at us and people like us. So obviously we want to engage in that, and in that sort of like, yeah, the context of that. What does it mean for AK Press to, they've now published since we've been active about six books that could be described as hostile books towards us. But of course we're not. Exactly cited, we're not exactly named, and there's plenty of people that have problems with the quote UN quote extreme position that we tend to represent than just AK Press. And then couple that whatever I don't want to give a big speech here in the beginning, sort of. Thing I want to. Say the preface.

Speaker 2: No, the stuff that I want to say is going to come. Out more, I think in the as we go through the book. So I guess I'm I. Guess I'm struck that you take this. I think that the audience, the people that they're pointing fingers at is fairly broad and that we are in fact a small in this particular book, and it's unclear to me how much you're talking about a press when you were just saying that or how much. You talking about this book in particular so.

Speaker 1: Well, I think that the figure of the Fed militants. I think that is absolutely. I don't think that. That makes this a small finger in their in. Their criticism, I think it's actually.

Speaker 2: Just well, except that they actually explicitly say they changed from being talking about said militants to talking about rigid radicals, and that I think. I mean, sure, we can be called. I mean, anybody could be called a rigid radical, but I don't think that I would not call that our biggest problem.

Speaker 1: So yeah, before we go into the topic of language, I do want to talk about the topic of. Rather than call it intention, let's talk about who the audience is for this book, and that is a great way to frame out what this book is trying to accomplish. Who is trying to accomplish it with and for. Do you want? To start back.

Speaker 3: That out, yeah, I think that.

Speaker 2: I think that they're attempting to have their audience be very broad to be basically all anarchists and, and I don't think that is. I don't think they did a good job of that, although it's not a terrible effort in that direction. It's just it took me a long time to get to a place in the book. Where I felt like they were actually talk. They were talking to me like in terms of what the issues that I have or something like what my problems are and how I'm how I'm rigid or how the people like who are like. Me or rigid but. And one of the mostly the book did not **** me off once I got past the knee. Jerk this AK press. This not going to be speaking to me reaction. But the thing that probably seemed the most disingenuous to me was them saying that they were not that the authors were not coming from a position of 1 particular. Kind of anarchist or another because that just seemed totally full. They are. They definitely seem like they're movement anarchists. They're speaking to left is what I would call leftist anarchists, and that just seemed like that was the case and it was part of the issue I had with the book. Was that it? I don't consider my like they were speaking to a set of values and in a in a with a bunch of words that would make more sense to a different. Person than me so.

Speaker 1: Right, what? I don't actually think. That they're the goal. They did not demonstrate what I would call an openness to other forms of or to anarchist positions that were not their own. They just cited so many sources that, like it was clear. How does one work with other people and I'm actually entirely going to complement them because they did a bang up job of.

Speaker 2: Yes, we did a fantastic job.

Speaker 1: It wasn't an illusion, but it was like they the sources they cited their focus in. In my opinion, that's who their audience was. So Ashanti Cindy millstein

Speaker 2: Sylvia Federici

Speaker 1: Lots of federici's stuff.

Speaker 2: Who is not anarchist.

Speaker 1: Right, and that's Actually, why I would be hesitant like.

Speaker 2: To say that they're just speaking to interests?

Speaker 1: Well, I think they as they as.

Speaker 2: Yeah, that's fair.

Speaker 1: Two people who also did a very good job of. I had no idea who said what and where, but so they as two people did a did did a fair job of being 1 voice. But it was clear that they were a voice that was like that wanted to say something to a big set of people. The people basically cited in the book, in other words, they wanted to be to triangulate their audience somewhere between Ashanti Federici and Cindy Milston. And especially you see this in the way in which they do their introduction and the way in which they were really careful to like mention everybody's name, because that's the box that they that they were going to, that they're. Going to reach. And I think they were pretty. Aware of that, it's also worth mentioning in tone and style. This a book written. Like I know enough. Biography here to. To sort of say to say some things that might not be their goal. But like basically, one person was a longtime activist at this place called the Thistle House, which was like a really intentional community that I think did some social services and the other person basically is a grad student or was a grad student for the entire duration of this book being created. The grad students clear, yes, I mean, the idea that Spinoza has. **** all to. Do with inter movement stuff that's all and.

Speaker 2: Which doesn't make it bad. It's it. It adds an interesting component, I think to.

Speaker 1: And then that. That's why we're talking about this book. Yeah, it's true, because if it if there weren't for the. Spinoza stuff basically. It would not be heavy enough theoretically heavy enough for me to give two ***** about it to be.

Speaker 2: That's fair for you to say, yeah, I. Don't yeah.

Unknown Speaker: OK.

Speaker 2: I don't know. What I think about that, but yeah.

Speaker 1: But the point being. That the two of them did an interesting collaboration in terms of like how it what it meant in terms of their. How how it worked out in terms of like?

Speaker 2: One of the things that I think is really good. The book is how they integrate the different voices that they spoke to into, like. If anything, it sort of it devalues or deemphasizes the voices of the authors because they have so many quotations from all these other people. Sometimes those quotations are really great, like sometimes they're really good, but just there is something about the balance about that. But having it be. Having it seem like a converse, a curated semi curated conversation between people who actually have interesting things to say about. The topic is. Awesome. I mean there's nothing. What about that?

Speaker 1: Yeah, I will say that I think that this 250 odd page book, probably in terms of what it was really trying to accomplish, could have been done in a in a thick pamphlet.

Speaker 2: Ouch, OK.

Speaker 1: I'm not trying to insult her, I'm just saying. That like. Chapter one and chapter. Two were basically identical in terms of. Thesis and arc.

Speaker 2: And there is. There's a significant amount of convincing people that things are bad, which gets very tiresome when you've read. Enough of books.

Speaker 3: Sure, sure.

Speaker 2: Like you don't need. I don't need to be convinced that she's. But they're not, but they're not writing for me. Again so.

Speaker 1: Yeah, but I'm not sure that anyone who they're. Writing for needs that I've heard.

Speaker 2: Right isn't means that either. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: Like this sense, because this a movement book. In other words, it's about the movement, it's for the movement, and it's essentially on some level trying to be curative to certain problems that. The authors see. You know, they’re. They're really trying pretty hard to have the people who they're talking to, and the definitely the quotes that they're pulling make their argument for them. Yes, so they don't seem like meta narrative style.

Speaker 2: Pulling pulling strings. Or whatever I think that I disagree with you. At least my take on who The Who they were trying to reach was different from yours like. Or different from what you're saying here. I would not say that they're aiming at the people that they were quoting. I would say that they're aiming at people who were. Impressed by the people that were quoted.

Speaker 1: Yeah, no. I friendly amendment. Totally agree.

Speaker 2: OK, so that's then that's fine.

Speaker 1: But I guess as a way to sort of talk about audience, I'm going to talk a little bit about the Institute for Animal Studies and AK Press because of course.

Speaker 2: Context matters.

Speaker 1: Context matters. First of all, to talk about the book itself as a physical object. I'm not sure what you're doing. It's a Pretty Little book. It's in the aesthetic style of the other IS books, which means it has this sort of like it's a. Small form factor.

Speaker 2: Very just seedy.

Speaker 1: Very Jesse Z, who of course Josh Macphee is the is the cover art, art author and of course, his stuff is always very good. There is in fact a Thistle. On the cover of the book, which I'm sure was a hard pull from the author who has devoted, I think a lot of their adult life to this purple Thistle project, which I've never interacted with, but I want to read the. The IAS introduction here and it. We'll get into it after. I read a little bit of it. Anarchist interventions colon and IAS AK Press book series radical ideas can open up spaces for radical action by illuminating hierarchical power relations and drawing out possibilities for liberatory self. Now I know I'm on a bit of a Jag about this, but that is the very definition of assertion based politics. I mean, radical ideas can open up spaces for radical actions.

Speaker 2: You know, yeah, like I mean sure it's empty rhetoric. It’s opening, right? It's like they use the same template for every book that they're doing. With this. I mean It’s yeah it's empty, OK?

Speaker 1: The Anarchist intervention series.

Speaker 2: If you're going to get mad at every empty thing that. Radicals say you're.

Unknown Speaker: You're going to burn.

Speaker 2: Out in like 10 minutes.

Speaker 1: No, in fact.

Speaker 3: I'm not good .40 years in.

Speaker 1: I mean on some level. How can the authors of this book? Published the argument that they're trying to make, which I guess we haven't. Really talked about the what's essential thesis.

Speaker 2: We haven't got there yet. Yeah, I am.

Speaker 1: But how can they do that? In the context of exactly. The thing that they're talking about. Whatever it's, it's just worth mentioning that IAS is a biased actor in a hostile conversation between anarchists about what it means to be an. Anarchist what it? Means to sort of. Interacting in anarchist space and.

Speaker 2: To say more about what that hostility is, let's flush that out.

Speaker 1: Well, I would say. That part of that. Hostility is basically an. An argument that something that I would call activism, and I think other people would call activism is our goal and that rather in this in the context of this intervention that basically ideas serve the master code action.

Speaker 3: Yeah, I got it. That makes sense, yeah?

Speaker 1: And then. And that basically like. Yeah, I meand that. And that all. Of our energy is basically. Just yeah to serve this sort of master and it's a greedy master. All it wants is our bodies and our lives. Given that anarchism has become the dominant tendency within revolutionary milieus and movements today, it's crucial that anarchists explore current phenomena, strategies and vision in a much more rigorous, serious manner. I mean, this book came out in 2017, so just. You know a little more than a year ago. The idea that anyone can say that right now. And then, and this basically like the problem I have with activism is it's like you. If they could tell you, make it. You ride the waves. With the exact same flag on your mask and damn the.

Speaker 3: OK.

Speaker 1: Phenomenon strategies and visions that you.

Speaker 3: See along the way.

Speaker 1: Whatever I. I mean, that's just a piece of the of the intervention. I just think It’s theight of arrogance and almost preposterous. And it's in it's formulation.

Speaker 2: It's basically them putting their stamp on the book with no content, just peeing on the book. It's just like this book is ours also yeah.

Speaker 1: That's fair.

Speaker 3: So let's.

Speaker 1: Talk about thesis. What is thesis of this?

Speaker 2: Thesis that. It's important for. People who are trying to make radical change trying to make fundamental social slash political slash economic change to be. Open to transforming. Yeah, to be open to transforming themselves and that requires a kind of vulnerability and. Yeah, I. Mean yeah.

Speaker 3: It is.

Speaker 2: Let me see if I can some. Of the pages. See 194. This was so this. Page 194 out of as Aragorn. Said two 250 page. Book or so, and this was where it actually changed my perspective. Enough of the book to make me to make me like it so for us this shows that militancy is always about more than tactics or combativeness. It is tied to questions of affect. How movements enable people to grow their own capacities and become new people or don't? So that's basically like that idea that as anarchists, one of the things we're trying to do is become new, is become new, and more have more capacity. That's not, I don't as I that's as close to like a good definition of benefits as I expect from people who I never spend any time with.

Speaker 1: That's great. Yeah, that's interesting. I also wanted to do some reading of sort of my favorite. Part of the. Book, which is the initial question. I think that the initial question is really good and really interesting.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I wouldn't say it's my favorite part of the book, it's just where it clicked for me. But anyway, going.

Unknown Speaker: Well, that's fine.

Speaker 1: There is something. That circulates in many radical movements and spaces, by the way, where they differentiate between radical and anarchist. I think is interesting I think that you saw the book a little bit more through rose colored glasses because you read the anarchist as serious. I'm not saying that you're not anarchist, they absolutely are. And I and I honor them as such, but I think.

Speaker 2: That they're reaching out broader than that.

Speaker 1: They're very much trying to do that, and their and their radical movement. Looks much more like Ashanti actually sort of described what he doesn't exactly use the word anarchist in here, and I think that they agree with that line, which .

Speaker 3: OK, what?

Speaker 1: We have decided to live and. Die by the word anarchism. And so we included sort of front and center in a way that does resemble the sad militant that they're describing. Because basically we have been clobbered by. Whether or not we are, you look. Like we've been clobbered by this by this. By this chin up approach and whatever, I just want to sort of state that I do think that there is a distinction is that?

Speaker 2: Yeah, between radicals and absolutely.

Speaker 1: Between radical, not just between radicals, anarchists, but between their sensibility here and not just one that we share but like. I think that this an on look. I'd like to tease. This out OK.

Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, if we can, yeah.

Speaker 1: Anyone who has frequented these bases has felt it many, including us, have actively participated in it, spread it, and been hurt by it. It nurtures rigidity, mistrust and anxiety precisely where we are supposed to feel most lives. It compels us to search ourselves and others. Ruthlessly, for flaws and inconsistencies, it crushes experimentation and curiosity. It is hostile to difference complexity and nuance, or it is the most complex, the most nuanced, and everything else is simplistic and stupid radicalism becomes an ideal and everyone becomes deficient in comparison. So first of all, radicalism becomes an idea whenever one becomes deficient. If were to have written this book, we would have said anarchism here. And the fact that we draw this distinction between radicalism and anarchism is why they're talking about us.

Speaker 2: That's fair.

Speaker 1: And that, that's yeah. It's also worth mentioning here, like.

Speaker 2: Although I want to say in our whatever. Yeah, I don't know I'm. Not ******* defending anything on the other side of that. That the reason that I will stick by anarchism as a word and why I think anarchism in that. Like using anarchism there would be different from using any other ISM. Is that anarchism is so broad that it in some ways is a useless term to define, like the fact that I can stick by anarchism because I get to define it the way I want to. Define it, to some with some parameters, and that's not really true of any other thing. But anyway, go on.

Speaker 1: I'm gonna read that a little bit more just because I do think that they're this. Where they're putting. Their thumb down OK and I wanna talk about whether or not I think it's true.

Speaker 2: Oh God.

Speaker 1: The anxious posturing. The vigilant search for mistakes and limitations, the hostility that crushes a hesitant new idea. The way that critique becomes a reflex. The sense that things are urgent yet pointless. The circulation of the latest article tearing apart bad habits and. The way shaming others becomes comfortable, the ceaseless generation of necessities and duties. The sense of feeling guilty about one's own fear and loneliness, the clash of potential views that requires a winner and a loser. The performance of anti oppressive language, the way that some state stare at the floor. Or look at the. Door we know these tendencies intimately. We have seen them circulating and feel them pass through us. When we began talking with friends about this, there were immediate head nods and sometimes excited eruptions. Yes, finally someone is going to talk about this publicly. Now, that's their audience. And that person isn't is quote UN quote inexperienced activist? So in that way, there's.

Speaker 2: OK.

Speaker 1: I mean, I feel like Oh no the screen.

Speaker 2: I mean, I think that.

Speaker 3: First of all.

Speaker 2: They do quote somebody else in there. Assuming I'm remembering the quotation from the right place, who started out? No, they do. They talk about a queer trans person ex sex worker who talks about coming into the mix and every . I mean, that's the classic story. They weren't cool enough, they didn't know the right language. They had the right politics and they know that they have the right politics because they're still around and they figured out how to talk about the fact that they have the right politics. But because they used all these words that were wrong. People gave them endless **** and didn't like didn't let them participate in etc etc. So I. Mean I think. That person like they're that person is experienced now and is in touch with these authors now, but they were. The audience even went before they. I mean, I guess you're saying. That on some level they are, they are. They are requiring you to know a certain amount of jargon to read this book. Is that part of your point? I'm not sure that I agree with that, but I may I'm sure.

Speaker 1: Surely criticizing the jargon I'm and I'm not criticizing the audience.

Speaker 2: You're talking about audience.

Speaker 1: Yeah, like the audience needs this book.

Speaker 3: No no yeah.

Speaker 1: I mean, to some extent when. I first heard about. The book it was described as being a way in which activists could rest. And I'm not. Sure, that's what the. Book is, I think, the book. Is instead more of a. Firm up your legs and try again harder. But harder informed through this lens. Which the joyful militancy lends which. You know they try very hard. Well and acknowledge and acknowledge their failure at not arguing for joyful militancy.

Speaker 2: We'll get there.

Speaker 1: Like they definitely begin quite a few paragraphs with the joyful militant will. Blank, but in the beginning of that, before they start doing that, they do say we're not trying to say that you should become. A joyful militant, but.

Speaker 2: Well, yeah, the direction I want to go from what you what you just said is actually. This was the biggest disconnect for me probably is the carefulness. While they're talking about being joyful and.

Speaker 1: I was going to talk.

Speaker 2: This.

Speaker 1: About languages our next thing.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I would. This also how I would talk about the fact that they were so careful to get this wide range of people who were identity wise not. Them, like how very careful they are to have such a huge pool of people who are not CIS white people. And there's nothing wrong with that, except that when you're talking about joy, to me, that's antithetical to joy. That part of joy is being carefree, actually, and is being in the moment and is not hedging your bets. And making sure that nobody can yell at you, so it's a totally politically sound thing that they did. It's absolutely necessary, but that's not joy. I mean, that's kind of the exact thing that they're talking about, so this book, the biggest thing I mean the biggest. My biggest issue with it, I guess if that's not exactly the right word, but is that it? It's a do as we say, not as we do example, which I feel like there's tons of those.

Speaker 1: Well, that's interesting.

Speaker 2: You know, there's tons of that and that made me. Start thinking well. How do you express joy? And and then Immediately think, Novatore, which is a little nuts. But . But that is. Poetry or something or like enthusiasm and vibrancy and not.

Speaker 1: If that's a book.

Speaker 2: Not actually giving up. You know, acting in any rate like you don't give a **** what other people are thinking of you and that's obviously there's a very strong political bias to that. And that's not again. And that's not who they're talking to. And I think the people that they're talking to. This could be a first step on a great path or something. But it's not. The end step I guess the.

Unknown Speaker: OK.

Speaker 1: Well, I would love to. Hear your thoughts on that a little bit.

Speaker 2: I don't know what I'm saying here, yeah?

Speaker 1: But yeah. It is worth mentioning that.

Speaker 2: There's so much caveated going on in this book.

Speaker 1: Yeah right. OK so I'm going. To stick the link. The language to start. With which is that they do? They spend basically the entire book defining the term joyful militancy in such a way as to make this palatable as possible to all of the people who they're trying to talk to, and trying to do that the same time that you're basically not saying that you're. Advocating for that. That's a classic leftist problem and. And it's like to be comprehensible to your audience, which I think that they probably suffered from in the early drafts of manuscript. They probably were not intelligible to who they wanted to talk to, and they really had to fix that and how they fix it was for instance by having chapter 2 expanding the exact same ideas of chapter one with different word. And exactly in this way, like keep the amount of jargon that you're going that you're going to develop in this as limited as possible and just reiterate, reiterate, reiterate, and I get that like I really yeah, Identified with the problems. That they had and definitely like after reading poststructuralism and for 10 years beyond that I had the exact same problem in my writing and in my thinking like the caveats, I absolutely recommend that I'm not sure there's a way in the 21st century to avoid it.

Speaker 2: And let me just clarify for caveats what I mean, and I assume what you mean. Also are them saying we don't mean this. We don't mean this. We don't mean this. We don't mean this. We don't mean this thing and you can totally hear the conversations that they had with people where, where they and with themselves where they were like.

Speaker 1: And then so.

Speaker 3: Oh no, that's.

Speaker 2: Not what we meant. You know we didn't mean everybody has to be. Happy which they explicitly. And joy being different from happiness.

Speaker 1: And that's why this book is 250 pages and not and not a pamphlet, because if they would have just not caveated and not required other people's voices just.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I know yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3: They would have, yeah.

Speaker 2: But the people that they're talking. To wouldn't have heard them.

Speaker 1: Well, that's actually the part about language that I think is the most interesting. In my reading and and again like it's mine. They spent a good chunk of the book, more than 20% talking about not being ideological, and this was the part where where they were.

Speaker 3: MHMM MHMM

Speaker 1: Basically, I felt like they were. Turning themselves inside out. Basically saying we're we're not left with anarchists or. We deeply desire. A non ideological approach to our movement. And that hurt it hurt to read. They said it over and over again, and then they had a very brief segment that. Actually talked about.

Speaker 2: Ideology yeah, with cool crude harder. I don't know what his name was, but he's my native guy, yeah?

Speaker 1: Yeah, the person who wrote Red Mask which which by the way I thought I had a copy of and I.

Speaker 2: Yes, yes.

Speaker 1: I'm not sure I've seen it a while anyway.

Unknown Speaker: But the but.

Speaker 1: The gist of what it is they were getting at was. Was that we? To be a joyful militant. You need to be essentially opposed to ideology or like you need to sort of go through a cleansing and.

Speaker 2: I think Ashanti they have something very shantIn there also on the. Same topic go on.

Speaker 1: You need to speak a little. Louder because yes. Because I'm. Ashanti anyways, it was fascinating for me to read it because they basically framed that whole thing in such a way as to not sound like. Post Situationist post left anarchists and the way in which they did that to satisfy their audiences needs to like. To me that was. Like, really interesting.

Speaker 2: And paint that was the. Part that. Was yeah.

Speaker 1: It was kind of painful, but it was like. This how you say this such in such a way that the IRS can publish.

Speaker 2: Yeah, that was absolutely. I was going to end. I was going to get closer to the end before it said that. Yeah this seems like non post lift anarchists saying post lift things to other non post left anarchists and that's a fascinating exercise just in itself. Like just to do anthropological study of like this, this how you do it, or whatever. Or but we. Don't even know if. It was successful because we don't know. What leftists think of? This book.

Speaker 1: Right, and this was actually. Point I was going to make earlier and . And so AK Press, ? I guess if you talk about like what the IAS does, what that what AK Press does and what the authors did to make this book what it was so we talked about the Josh Macphee art, which obviously is a compress paying paying Josh whatever? But the thing that AK did, which just for me is jaw-dropping is they basically paid for a half dozen reviewers to write blurbs about the book and It's such a fascinating thing what you're trying to accomplish, so just to list the authors of the Bluebirds.

Speaker 2: Michael Hart's first front and center is Michael Hart.

Speaker 1: So OK.

Unknown Speaker: Let me stop here.

Speaker 1: Asked her Taylor, author of the People's Platform, I have no idea what that is. Scott crow.

Speaker 2: Yep, old Scott.

Speaker 1: John Holloway And Stephen chiquitas? Now that's three figures that are not at least three figures that are not anarchists and instead are autonomous. So they're, I ask, but I assume this was a K driven. Basically pushed this book to be blurbed by autonomous, which that doesn't really. Exists in the US? Is it because they're Canadian? Is it I mean? You know clearly they do pull out some autonomous rhetoric, but that politically, as I find to. Be fascinating and. There really isn't an A. Known anarchist in this group.

Speaker 2: Scott Flow Scott flow.

Speaker 1: Unless Scott crow

Speaker 2: Come on.

Unknown Speaker: No, I mean.

Speaker 1: I mean of course Scott cross anarchist, but like the way in which he's he's in all.

Speaker 2: No, he's the friendliest, most most big umbrella kind of anarchist possible, yes.

Speaker 1: Right? I'm not. I'm not a bomb.

Speaker 3: Thrower I’m a recycler.

Speaker 1: When a whole annual rifle that. As I push back the waters.

Speaker 3: We have you Scott anyways.

Speaker 1: Yeah, so I guess I. I just wanted to bring that up in. The context of like how did they keep package this? How did what? What's the message? They're trying to. Get across which and this and this seems like they're basically saying they have more faith in an autonomous audience to purchase them.

Speaker 2: Or at least more money. Yeah, exactly yeah, but this that's such a. This a publisher game like this whole thing about trying to figure out the different levels of the marketing or whatever but. But yes.

Speaker 1: Well, the other thing I will say is because so Nick has put me up a couple different times in Victoria where he lives and. I have felt as though the. You know mostly. AK Books and our books and most books require the author to really buy in on their book to make it a successful project.

Speaker 2: To support them and to support them and talk about. Them and yeah.

Speaker 1: Right and watching him do that for this book. I felt like the message was much more what was smaller and. Humble and I appreciated watching the author do that.

Speaker 2: And that's consistent with the with the actual book rather than the.

Speaker 1: Yeah, right exactly and so. So there are in fact three different intentions here. IS's intention is the most political in the sense of like they have an agenda.

Speaker 2: Cover and the blueberries etcetera. Etcetera yeah.

Speaker 1: Yeah, they've now put out seven books, sort of in service of that agenda. If we look at those seven books, we can sort of triangulate a message.

Speaker 2: But AK has a mostly business model and or business agenda. And then the authors have.

Speaker 1: Deep, complex agenda that's been pushed. By a whole bunch of people. I mean the other figure that looms really large in this book who is anarchist figure is Richard Day. You know they sort of bring up Richard Day as a mentor and that was definitely my experience and I and I'm not hostile to it like what Richard Day has to say is mostly very smart and in and in line with thesis of the of the book generally. You know again. Like I think that they're trying to accomplish something for the movement that they see themselves as part of. That really is also why they lose us as an audience because there's they’re so concerned over over their movement and .

Speaker 2: Yes, so let's start talking about that now. So because now I'm getting my dander up or something. No, you don't you like it, so there was. There are two places 2, two more places that I'm remembering, one is. Oh ****, I'm going to forget that. Man, Oh well, no, that's for a different point. So there's they talk about ohh two things they talk. They have this nurturing. They have this language that is very about supporters and nurturing and I can't. Remember other, but it's. Soft and in a way that. Makes sense for people who are burned out for people who are exhausted. For people who are fried, but it's not. Not appealing to me, I guess so it.

Speaker 1: Well, you should. Pull out an example. Actually, I'll pause what you do. Go ahead.

Speaker 2: On page 36 they say. Organizing by affinity basically means seeking out and nurturing relationships based on shared values, commitments and passions without trying to impose those on everyone else. That's not exactly sort of threw out. I guess. I'm not sure that there's a single place, but there's just talk about. Yeah, nurturing trust. So that's one like.

Speaker 1: What's the point you're? Getting at.

Speaker 3: What's the what?

Speaker 2: They're coming down hard on a. Piece of what it means to be in relationship with people, and they're doing it in a not necessarily explicit way. In fact, other times I think they try to get away from that or something they try to say we're not. We're not saying be soft. We're not saying be nice. We're not saying all these things. As part of their all their caveats. But I do think that there's still some sort of underlying thread that being supportive and being. Maturing is what they're saying is missing. It's what they're saying needs to happen more, and it's a vision, and because that in my brain anyway ties in so closely to an entire raft of thinking about what actually makes change and what actually makes deep relationships and what actually makes authentic relationships. So I have a reaction to that because I.

Speaker 1: I mean, fundamentally, you're talking about Canadians are nice. We should be nice.

Speaker 2: I'm saying that's an underlying threat, even though they're trying to say that it's that they're even though they're trying to reject that and deny it. They're not trying to, they're. Actively saying that they're denying it.

Speaker 3: Yeah, and I.

Speaker 2: So that's.

Speaker 1: Feel like they’re doing some a couple of different parts where they're where they're basically saying. Like do what we say not.

Speaker 2: Yeah so but yeah.

Speaker 1: What we do?

Speaker 2: And then there's just some places where that's more obvious than other places, so I want to talk also in Chapter 5, which is, I think, theart of the book. It's called undoing rigid radicalism, activating joy. They talk about.

Speaker 1: They really fall into self-help language with that.

Speaker 2: If it didn't work, they wouldn't sell so many books. There is a. Section called you're so paranoid. You probably think this section is about you, which is mildly funny. Lack finding, perfectionism, schooling and walking, and they talk about this. They use a metaphor of a kid who's learning to walk and people celebrating the fact that the kid took their first steps and they're not criticizing the kid. For taking for not being able to walk already, they're happy. Woohoo, this particular kid is learning how to walk, and that's an exciting thing to be to be part of or just to see or whatever. So part of that is. And then they blame the fact that people blame things on schooling among other things. And about how schools teach us to be critical and. I'm not going to disagree with any of the particulars or something like, again, a lot of the specifics I agree with. I'm not sure I disagree with any of them, but the idea that people who are being political people who are doing activism, things, people who are trying to do political things. I can support the desire. I do support the desire. In fact, I'm going to cry. Now, because I really support the designer, but that doesn't mean that we celebrate like some people should be celebrating. Some people should be celebrating that your first action and you just got arrested and like, OK, you ******* you popped your cherry. That's awesome. Like, Woohoo and other people need to be saying OK but. What good does that do? Like what happened, and you don't have to be an ******* about being critical. But people aren't learning to walk like the expectation in society is when you learn to walk. That's part of learning to run. You know that's part of learning to do all these other things, but with political stuff. The expectation isn't necessarily that you're going to. Gone so it's that the criticism that we give people that we get from people about needing to go get to the next step. That's important because the rest of society isn't teaching us that the rest of society is teaching us. Oh, you're as college students. So when you graduate, you'll get over all this ********. Or oh, you're just a young punk who doesn't know ****. So when you get a job then you'll understand. Or you when you turn 30. It's like it's the rest of society is telling us that you can stop where you're at, or you can even go backwards in terms of radical slash anarchy. Activity, and so the people who are criticizing people I think are essential, essential to refocusing on how much further we need to get to, even if what you just did is a fine thing to have done, it cannot be the end, and so, like their metaphor is sweet or whatever, but it's not a good metaphor. It doesn't, it doesn't. GAIL or whatever the word would be. Doesn't have legs.

Speaker 1: Yeah, you have a much nicer. I mean, again, my goal here is to is to spend some time. Treating this book respectfully and not exactly being critical of it, because of course, like for me, this book talks right past me. It doesn't give me very much good advice, and that and the sense that you're talking about, and I know desperately that's what they're trying to do. Like they're basically. For me, I got caught up a little earlier in their discussion about friendship like they literally basically made a proposition, a proposition that was like a tacuna's proposition about how important how important friendship is and then and then they included the conversation with they had with the natives active. A native activist who basically told them actually no friendship is too ephemeral. It's and. And to know and knowing them personally, I would. I would absolutely say that one of the big takeaways I took that I that I got from from him personally was like that their core group of people who they really have built their superstructure on. That they haven't had a break yet. And then when they had the break, it's. Going to be. Terrible, and because I've suffered so many breaks in my life, I really can.

Speaker 2: Devastating yeah.

Speaker 1: I recognize that lack of. Break and of course, when I treat it sweetly because all the people involved were very nice and great and maybe Canada.

Speaker 2: But maybe?

Speaker 1: But they basically had a direct experience with somebody who told them that their all their ideology around friendship was ******** and they just moved right past it. And that's really hard, because at the very heart it demonstrates a disconnect between their goal of who it is that they're talking to.

Speaker 2: Yeah, well sure.

Speaker 1: And their ability to basically hear what?

Speaker 2: Great yeah yeah.

Speaker 1: And this this the hard thing. I don't want to. I'm not trying to dump on. Them and I. Don't think that they're intention. Even the practice is so.

Speaker 2: No, it's I mean, in a certain way. Yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 1: I just it's really hard what it is. They're that they what they're claiming that they want to accomplish what they're capable of actually accomplishing, and then like what the world allows you to do. I mean just to watch sort of imagination. Flounder on the. Rocks like the things that they say are really. Of the things that they're arguing, which we'll just say, is a joyful militancy. It's impossible, not because people are **** ***** well.

Speaker 2: Of course yes.

Speaker 1: But also I feel like our language is our.

Speaker 3: Yes no no.

Speaker 1: Language is deficient here. Because we keep on calling ourselves or we keep on getting framed in the in the context of being critics or being critical. And in fact the point. Is I don't. I’m actually not a big fan of criticism at this point for me. I'm a I'm an opponent of what criticism has created, which is sort of the way in which people have to live in channels and are so separate and aliens.

Speaker 2: And our insular, like the criticism, creates this, this inward spiral that just you never get the ****. Out of yeah.

Speaker 1: So I so it's important for me to see myself in this book.

Speaker 2: Sure, yeah.

Speaker 1: Any sense of being criticized? But then, on the other hand, to turn it and say. Because of the lack of critical dialogue that people have around each other's tactics and the deep way in which it's easier to say **** you rather than to engage in it. It means that we don't don't get to like we don't get deeper.

Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely. And I think the. Thing that this book does, there are definitely ways that it's a self help book and part of what it does in that way is that it does imply on some level.

Ep. 91 – Bellamy on Corrosive Consciousness

Episode 86 – Comedy with Michael Cohen

I didn’t know how sophisticated and interesting comedy was until about five years ago. I really fell in love with this kind of comedy by…

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2017 in Review via the Brilliant

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December 29, 2017

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2017 in Review via the Brilliant

The Brilliant podcast is a way to have a deeper conversations than allowed in the text boxes of websites. On the one hand a podcast…

Speaker 1: This the brand podcast we're about to start another series thematic series. I actually kind of like this idea of having a couple episodes. From a tight group of people on a particular topic, and this conversation is going to be really interesting because I don't know the person I'm talking to at all. We basically had a 5 minute introductory conversation before we started recording and. Gerardo is coming to us, I guess you. Can introduce yourself.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm like the so-called youth that you.

Unknown Speaker: Keep referring to your.

Speaker 2: Previous podcast yeah. I'm from North Texas. So definitely like out of out of the loop in regards to the usual anarchist scenes of Portland New York City and. The Bay Area in LA. I host my. Own podcast called Haters. Left with two other. People you can find it, you can find the website at hayters.lifeno.com because I'm a millennial and we like nothaving.com I guess.

Speaker 1: So obviously theme. That we're going. To try to get intoday. Is is about technology and I really want to talk about a critique of technology that's sort of beyond view cheering nather or John. Just saying. Another type of. Critique into one that's relevant. To the 21st century. But before we get there. Can you talk a little bit about? Your route of how you got. From where you're from to where you? Are now visavis Che Guevara T.

Speaker 2: Yeah, that's what . Our teacher that I saw was just like I just remember keep seeing it but yeah, so I come from like a very working class family like I actually started working in construction. Well, I always went was I always went with my father usually and I would playing the same stuff. But when I started training when like around age 13. And maybe a bit earlier, my father kept or my father kept teaching me more and more, and eventually I just learned the trade of drywall, drywall, mudding, and I think that a lot that helped me start, jump, start my curiosity and like why do I have to really have to work? Why like and just? Taking the economy and just the way the personality of my own, being especially being a first generation American. Some like both. My parents are Mexican immigrants. Yeah so. Let let's be a bit.

Speaker 1: More specific, so you start with true.

Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: Guard, did you actually? Read about focus on and some of his. Political ideology.

Speaker 2: A bit so I like so I.

Speaker 1: Looked up teaching tomorrow.

Speaker 2: Was I looked up who the guy the teacher was when like noticed he was a communist then like just saw just one of the Wikipedia page. I literally like just went on Wikipedia page and looked up what coverage. It was and I was like and. This sounds interesting. It's definitely an alter. Eventually I was like oh, what Marks and lemons and what's all of these different sub categories of comedies of like anarcho, communists and stuff like that? And I definitely like felt more like I definitely like. Did delve into Marks and lemons. And stuff like. That and had critiques and. Read works by Marks and stuff like that, but I always know.

Speaker 1: What did you like about about marcellana?

Speaker 2: I mean, I think initially It's just like did. It hit the US like that's an example, but I mean eventually like more now. Like Oh yes, sorry. Definitely not something. I want to repeat marks. It's but you.

Speaker 1: Read enough to. Know that like their ideas influenced this incredible revolution have actually changed the society that.

Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: It impacted and did like. Did you actually, read the manifesto. Yeah, I really like this or.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I read the manifesto I read. Principle of cognition by angles I read. I read some other like origin of the origin of family, origin of family, property and state that I can't remember the exact ordering. The three, but.

Speaker 1: And so then when? You find a critique of the USSR. You realize how ******. Under it being who were. The others that what was. Their next step in terms of the author.

Speaker 2: I didn't like Emma Goldman Carpat can.

Speaker 1: Oh, so you did you actually read? Disillusionment in Russiand again.

Speaker 2: I didn't actually read that I like I think I just went maybe? On the arcade library because I was just. Like oh anarchism was another. Stream and I think like I really like bought it too. Like oh, and like anarchy and continents have had the same end goal. You know that future growth trend and I was like oh, So what do I have to worry about? And then I just read. Yeah, I definitely read like her pocket. I'm a Goldman Malatesta. Yeah, like the market affair, I read a lot about the history of American in the US and then like the more and more I read just. The more and more. Like further into I got the edges of what is considered like more mainstream American is and went to like insurrectionary anarchism with Bonanno starter actually. At a fairly. Early introduction to starter because I did a lot of my political research on Twitter, I guess I found a lot of political figures, but just people talk a. Lot about politics on. Twitter and so I just I just read a. Lot of what they recommended and. One of them was. Thank you, the board and. Stuff like that.

Speaker 1: This sturner mean stuff didn't really get started until like 2014. Maybe 2015?

Speaker 2: Yeah OK, yeah.

Speaker 1: So it's really just. Going to couple. Of years.

Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and I definitely like didn't really get introduced to her by the memes. It was basically just one person who I followed a mutual of mine on Twitter and we and he just recommended to her to me. And I was like, OK, this seems interesting, especially since like it's a critique of fixed ideas and now it's like, yeah, this? This critique seems fair. Yeah, fairly interesting critique, yeah.

Speaker 1: OK, and so then what was your next? Step or actually? Talk a little bit about, really what you're talking about. Is you start out with Wikipedia, which of course makes sense if you type in a word on any search engine. That's going to. Come up real real. Quick then you read. To the anarchist library and you. Probably also from the Marxist. Andyeahboxes.org so. You at least went. You know one level deeper. In Wikipedia to. To read some source material. To sort of see how some of that. Source material was connected, and then you're talking about Twitter. Which is of, almost the. Opposite of those two formats and. That It’s very real time. It's lots of like. In jokes and lots of like Clippy, whatever instructs.

Speaker 2: A lot of. Yeah, a lot of clicks got every so many arguments get. It's almost daily that happens, but.

Speaker 1: I mean, I mean, I’m. Going to be honest with. You know I'm. A very strong Internet user and but I don't understand Twitter I can't. I don't I can't, yeah.

Unknown Speaker: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: Yeah, you're definitely not the only one. Even within my group's group age group. That's the word even within my age group. A lot of people don't like get Twitter right? Definitely, I think just something that you have to. Kind of just automatically. Like either getting to or not. I mean that really seems to be just what any social media platform seems to be. Something you either immediately get or you just. Like very curious about and just. You know, try it. Out eventually, eventually just either get it or. You just get bored. Of it and go to another platform.

Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, for me, it's. It's continues to be. There's a critical mass there that. I'm not exactly. Catching on to or, I came too late or there's. Something about I just don't exactly broke, yeah. OK so this. By following Twitter and things like that.

Speaker 2: Yeah, along with right as well, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: It means you're paying. Ah OK which. Which of the, which, of the Reddit subgroups do you pay attention to?

Speaker 2: Paid like past tense, it was our cash and archiving marchar socialism mark slash communism occasionally Communism 101 looks like that more like the introduction stuff with us and then like enter the 101 as well and then the group discussions. The one where all of the groups also. Just have their.

Speaker 1: Kind of. Almost the big.

Speaker 2: Groups yeah.

Speaker 1: And where where do you feel that there? Continues to be like. I've always found our anarchism to be nightmarish. Like if this the anarchist society that. That some people. Hope to build I don't want this.

Speaker 2: Yeah no. Yeah I got tired of it. Like really I just like. Eventually I just. Got tired of it, I'll just like I'll just use on. Twitter because I'm just tired of. Having the same liberal anarchists, or saying liberal Chompsky.

Speaker 1: So what do you so this means that you're? Still at the point. Where you participate in conversations on the Internet pretty much as the way in which your politics has grown and shaped itself.

Speaker 2: Actually, it's actually pretty interesting because I was only someone who didn't necessarily. I was only the worker. I didn't necessarily like have conversations with other regularly with other people like. Have to wait. Did I mean on Twitter? Definitely, just because that one-on-one interaction was easier, but whenever it's just like fully anonymous. I just was kind of worry and I just. Wanted to I. Just want someone really wanted. To have more and more. Information instead of necessarily fighting the community, which seems to be what a lot of people on the Internet. Are trying to find especially within my age group even seen in real life or in yeah like outside of your net. Just a lot of people. The reason why they go in groups or like going. To various groups, yeah.

Speaker 1: Wouldn't want to do anything, yeah? Yeah so. And it's just because you have a community.

Speaker 2: Not even necessarily. I think I just always saw the Internet as like the separate realm. Or I'm not a separate. At least I'm connected to the real world, but not something that I can really form actual meaningful relationships. I can definitely use it to. Connect to other people and. I like that start, but once .

Speaker 1: Did you? It sounds like you maybe have a. Relationship with it more like the.

Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, actually.

Speaker 1: OK, it's where you go to do. The to do. The to open to. Crack the books to find the things and then. You leave to be. Part of your life.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I definitely have. Like a community on Twitter. Like I kind of I'm part of. But it's actually not something that I obsess. Over yeah like image for I think like if it's explicitly political, I try not to lay it enveloped my life and yeah and like just.

Speaker 1: Yeah, can you find? Any different credit community where the conversations are actually higher quality than our anarchism like our socialism or communism.

Unknown Speaker: Actually, better in.

Speaker 2: No, I mean.

Speaker 1: Any way?

Speaker 2: No, the whole like the whole. Reddit community is just. Not conducive to having good conversations. I think, like I haven't really found a platform. Were that is able to mimic conversations from person like voice,, conversation from voice to voice or from person to person, either in real life or from like a Skype call or. Something, did you?

Speaker 1: Ever use cosmos? Ohhheriksons.org

Speaker 2: Oh anarchist news. Yes, I use it just for a news site. I don't necessarily the comments are I. Don't know. I don't know, I just. The comments just to me doesn't seem very. Conducive, I mean, they definitely have some. Good conversations occasionally, but it's not something that I always necessarily check.

Speaker 1: It’s interesting because it seems like. If you if you are want more information, anarchist's comments in my experience, have the most contextual fiber. And I guess OK.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I definitely have to check them out more. It's just I think it's just from being on the Internet so long and the old that our day I've never look at the. Comments, because it's always a shitshow. Maybe I'm just that's just like one of the rules that I always. Advise and of course that's true, but.

Speaker 1: Other things are also.

Speaker 2: True yeah. For sure.

Speaker 1: OK, so you basically because of the Internet you've got to do some stuff really really fast. Compared to my generation. And even compared to the generation or two after. Me so you basically have landed on at a on. A political position at. A pretty young age.

Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's it.

Speaker 1: Like a fairly. A fairly extreme political position.

Speaker 2: Yeah, from like yeah 14 years old.

Speaker 1: And rare without pop music, but. Pop punk music honestly can can turn you into a leftist, but it. Doesn't turn you into a post left left, right? Yeah, yeah. What do what So what have been the cultural? Influences that has. Promoted or inspired you in that direction if it has been punk rock. Did you find crime did?

Unknown Speaker: Right?

Speaker 1: You find crime think really.

Speaker 2: Really, yeah actually. Yeah, I did. I did find crime. Think pretty early on and I listened to their podcasts. Funnily enough. Yeah, just a lot of podcasts actually just because of working construction. And I'm. Not able to listen.

Speaker 1: So you've been using podcast is like A. Thing for years.

Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, like I've definitely been raining. Depending on how busy I've been, but I just like don't have much to do like when construction where I've just work goes by hands and not necessarily thinking about anything else I just put on my podcast and listen.

Speaker 1: Oh, that's fascinating that. That did not exist before. There were. There were people in my. Generation who were formed because of radio, but it was because of college radio, basically like playing alternative music. Or like I remember in the very early 80s when I'm that old, people like listen to you 2. And R.E.M. On the radio and college. Before they became popular bands and that was like.

Speaker 2: Oh wow.

Speaker 1: That form. You know the entirety of alternative rock and all that stuff was college radio. So now we're talking about the possibility because of podcasts and because of such a niche format that you can actually become a post left anarchist. Listen to podcasts.

Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: That's crazy.

Speaker 2: Yeah, definitely. It's definitely interesting because there's like a lot of my, yeah, a lot of like. Just my other anarchist comrades or friends there. There's like they listen to punk and I'm just like that weird guy who doesn't like really find it that enjoyable.

Speaker 1: Yeah honestly, even though I. Very much come out of the ******** scene I don't listen to punk very much at all. Nowadays I listen to some sort of nostalgic music, mostly mostly. I listen to modern EDM and electronic, and I’m a big fan of. Swedish dance music.

Speaker 2: Like vapor wave and reard Internet.

Unknown Speaker: OK.

Speaker 1: Yeah, which honestly has a lot of overlap with. Noise, which is a huge huge scene that's. Very post punk and.

Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: So let's talk a little bit about where. Your ideas are going sort of adjacent to conjoining with anarchism. Obviously right now I. Really want to talk about technology and so why don't? We start that conversation. What are your thoughts?

Speaker 2: Whole technology I think it definitely it. It's definitely something that in the modern day it's very good. It is and you can't. I think It’s very hard to escape it if you don't. If you don't actually create a willing effort to do it. Like rewilding, I guess if you're indifferent to this milieu and I just keep noticing, like how connect like how I have to connect to technology to like fulfill myself or. Like where I? Can't just like I can definitely like sit down and relax, but it's something I have to think about and not like I I. Extinctive may have to like grab. My phone and check Twitter or. Check Facebook or something and I just like realize like it's like kind of like an addiction. Like I hate doing that comparison but it really kind of is just where you can't really. You have a withdrawal if you don't have it with me. I mean, yeah, like we today like the house and we have Internet problems and it's like everybody is kind of, just not they. They just go to where? The Internet is which is the campus right now.

Speaker 1: Which is closing. So obviously this like the first level of. With the conversation everyone agrees technology. Has inserted itself into. Life yeah, that's. Yes, of course. We also agree, and I think everyone. Agrees whether. They're pro or con that there's been this huge impact, especially in the daily lives, especially in the daily lives of young people. But I guess the. I guess there's a question here that's sort. Of similar to talking about capitalism or other. Ubiquitous oppressions which is. Kind of a chicken and egg question. Which which is to basically say was there. Is there a cabal that has inserted technology into life's daily life? Or is the persuasion of technology the driving force? That sort of created this situation that? We live in. Now in other words. Are we are? We going to say that this because. Was the television medium had had died and so people want their screens to be smaller and more portable? Or yeah, don't talk about your thoughts there.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I definitely. Don't think about. The Cabal, I definitely. I definitely think it's just people want it portable. They have the like. They have the idea of progress, especially the idea of like the science science fiction progress where you have just technology always connected to it. Oh, disconnect or.

Speaker 1: I'm here, I'm actually moving.

Speaker 2: OK, sorry.

Speaker 1: When I when I cough.

Speaker 2: Ah, OK, I'm sorry. Yeah, but definitely just the idea of. Like that. Sci-fIdeal of always having technology on your body somehow they like think of Star Trek communicators or are you in cyber cyberpunk Blade Runner type stuff? I think that definitely like helped, like it's like a cultural shift or cultural mindset of always wanting to progress to something new or always wanting to progress to something better like technology in the minds of a lot of people. It's not it, it's. Something neutral when it? Certainly I don't think it's it, it is. It definitely has its own structures and it imposes its own logic within within the minds of. Yeah, within just. How people interact I guess, and how people see themselves.

Speaker 1: So that there is a. An argument that. Could make about a modern era that. Basically says that. Will say since the death of workers movement, which I. I viewpoint is. Living somewhere between the 60s and the 70s, but basically as the death throes of it being the may and 68 moment that obviously influenced me and other people like me.

Unknown Speaker: Since the.

Speaker 1: Death of the workers movement that not much has changed. In modern capitalist western life. And by. This I sort. Of would mean that while. We might laugh at the. Fashion of the 80s. The fashion of the 80s is very much in the spectrum of the fashion of today and.

Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, it's that culturally. I mean, vaporwave itself is kind of just a remixing of 80s fashion. Or 80s aesthetic. It's just now like in some ways, isn't the critique in other ways and exultate exulting that with the 80s?

Speaker 1: And cyber.

Speaker 2: Saying that.

Speaker 1: Cyber Punk is absolutely a product of the 80s.

Speaker 2: Oh that's it, yeah?

Speaker 1: And so. Anyways, I mentioned this because. There is a way in which when we talk about technology and how fast. It's moving and. You know, people wave their hands and are really enthusiastic. I can imagine nothing changing for the next 10 years and people being perfectly happy and satisfied meaning. Like if. I can imagine your living room. You know, with like. Imagine that you live in a group house or you. Live with other young people then commonly.

Speaker 2: And evening will be filled with fear.

Speaker 1: For people hanging. Out in the living room, all staring at screens and every once in a while, . Maybe sharing a YouTube? Video with another person in the. Room and basically having having this various sort of sedentary screen based, we'll call it like. Almost calling response or like. Pavlovian sort of sort of set of. Interactions with each other and that to me seems like. An end game. In other words. Like it feels like that could still. Just be the case for the next 10 years and you basically from the outside view. You know, wouldn't. Notice the difference of on some level. That may if that makes. Any sense in other words? It feels like we've reached. A plateau in this current generation of Internet based mobile technologies and It’s hard for me to imagine something that's going to. Have the sort of cultural and the like. The critique of the Internet. As far as it's gone, hasn't gone. Deep enough because it hasn't understood. Enough about the. The social impacts with the. Internet, but it feels like you. Actually, are close enough to see how it how it feels.

Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean, we definitely actually we. We have a very small TV and we don't we barely use it. We only use this when we want to play a video game one of the consoles, which is actually also fairly rare. We basically just yeah we stay in our rooms occasionally and we're either doing school work or we're watching. YouTube videos or something consuming media online on our laptops? Or on our. Phones and then when we see each other on. We kind of make it into a small event. I mean in my house we have this thing called a porch sesh where because we have a porch where it's the place that's designated as a where you can smoke weed and smoke smoke cigarettes and that's and wherever we just like kind of see each other in the household we. We kind of like 1. Of our slides porsesh question mark and then everybody kind of like,, sure why not and then we kind of like smoke weed and just talk for a bit and. And then, once we're done, we go back to our rooms and or go back to where we do and make your making food, or getting food and then go back to our rooms and go back to the same routine of doing school work and go consuming media on the Internet.

Speaker 1: I apologize for sort of sidebar here, but. I'm curious as to what. Dating life. Like for. For people in your age. Group yeah, I mean.

Unknown Speaker: In other words.

Speaker 1: Like how many of your friends? Are with the people that they're with and. They met via the Internet via dating.

Speaker 2: Not everything.

Speaker 1: You're you're in college, so obviously colleges be a few times in someones life. We can actually meet real. Human beings in. The modern sort of scenario. But I'm curious. I'm curious as to. How much those apps are? Used in your social circles.

Speaker 2: Depends on how lonely the person feels, funnily enough. Because often like the perception of Tinder and other dating apps like that is. It's just. Like a game or like have a way to get validation for how you look. For how you is, it's.

Speaker 1: Is it because it's for hookups or because? It's just for the, for the swipes.

Speaker 2: This it like it's if we see it add for hookups, but a lot of people just don't like. You know they're not comfortable or they just like they just want to have a validation. They just have the looks to swipes. I mean, that's actually how I use it. I only used it once to hook up and then I was like. I don't really use it. To meet people or to find. New people, I just try to. Meet friends through mutual friends and I think that seems to be what other people do as well, unless they're very isolated or just feel very alienated from the community they're in.

Speaker 1: You probably heard me. Through talk with this answer you seen. Them yourself. But your generation is famously under. Next compared to generations.

Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: Before right? Which is strange given. I mean I can. Imagine if I had a. Dating app, when I. Was young and cute. You know? I would have used it. But there's no like no way about it.

Speaker 2: Yeah, that's in Japan, but yeah, that's I don't. I'm not sure I think. Maybe it's,, as stuff like the rules are sexual harassment or like the borders of. Of intimacy are definitely like becoming more. I know more socially talked about a lot of people are more cautious or I'm sure I'm sorry.

Unknown Speaker: Well, a lot of.

Speaker 1: A lot of campuses have. This really clear like. May I please touch your hand? Yes, you may touch your hand hand touching your curves.

Speaker 2: May I?

Speaker 1: Please put my arm over your shoulder, yes, in. Other words this., clear dialogic consent for sort of mode.

Speaker 2: Yeah, which is like definitely a I mean I don't know. I personally think it's a better model, but it's not a very. Good one than one that. And just I don't know. It just leaves a lot of room for., it just. Seems very boring and very robotic in a way. It just doesn't seem natural to. Me, but civilization is not natural. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I noticed that whenever you go to. Mexico, the village family there.

Speaker 1: Actually, yeah, talk a little bit. About that, how different in the way you experience it is your family, rural or urban?

Speaker 2: Both my parents are come from rural towns.

Unknown Speaker: So when?

Speaker 1: When you go there, you're going. To the country.

Speaker 2: There's a countryside in northern Mexico, . So the desert, the desert of northern Mexico, yeah?

Speaker 1: The **** and what are they? What are they growing?

Speaker 2: So my father's family raises. Ohhhhhh yeah wow yeah.

Speaker 1: Crazy, so they're.

Speaker 2: So we have.

Speaker 1: They're so they're like Cowboys. They wear like. Funny shoes and the hats and the whole.

Unknown Speaker: Warm jeans

Speaker 2: Well, that's when we're going to go out. Which is saying, which is why my parents. Moved to Texas. I think because it's a very similar. Culture, but yeah, the difference between the use of technology is still there, but it definitely. Since it's rural, it's definitely a lot less prevalent, and since it's a small town. You can create deeper social connections. Like everybody knows each other in that town and. In those two towns. And whenever I visit, they always like oh your ex your. Gerardo's my father, so they're like, oh, you're. And you had people I was like, oh. Yeah, yeah, definitely yeah.

Speaker 1: Holy **** wow. It's like you're in the. 19th century or something.

Speaker 2: A bit a bit, I mean 19th century. With still having cable television, although a lot of people don't necessarily like watch that much TV, they just they sit on the porch and they, . They do, they try to keep themselves busy by they're doing work or just going to. Or definitely the older people I guess. Yeah, the younger they definitely been, the young the younger generation has been either going to the US or going to the nearest cities to try to work and try to, I guess get out of this grind or get out of this. Foreign world as they see it?

Speaker 1: But that's really no different than the. US most of the most.

Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: Of the rural US is exactly like that.

Speaker 2: Yeah, but even like the.

Speaker 1: And how many? How many young people want to raise cattle right?

Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. Yeah exactly, especially since it's not necessarily the land that we own, but it's communal land sitting by the state that we just manage for ourselves, because even the state presence, it's fairly low in the in the rural towns it's actually there like it's because my father's village is right next to a military base. Which I noticed last time my I saw or I visited, but it's definitely not a big presence. It's just there and you can ignore it if you want. With not too much consequence, as long as you don't do something extreme I guess.

Speaker 1: Yeah, what's the? What's the Mexico military apparatus look like is there any? International ambition or is it just?

Speaker 2: I don't think so, no. Not from what I've seen, it's just. Basically focused on cartel activity, more drugs.

Speaker 1: Ohh **** right. So it's basically. Adjacent to the DEA, yeah. God, I'm miserable.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I remember when I get to the Chihuahua Chihuahua, which is like the biggest the capital city of the state of Chihuahua which is near where my mother is from and we're going to city because but for my other things walking down and then just I would see soldiers with like with AR fifteens or some other type of gun just. They're just watching and making sure everything there isn't any shady. **** going on. Yeah, it felt.

Speaker 1: Of course.

Speaker 2: Like over 10 years ago, but I haven't visited since then.

Speaker 1: So let's come. Back around to the topic of technology.

Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.

Unknown Speaker: I'm sure that you.

Speaker 1: Probably have some particular things that. You wanted to get at. In the in the context of the conversation that. I want to. Leave room for. That, but I do want to ask the. And if you were going. To advocate like this what we can do to fight. You know, the technological. Cream or this? Is what we could do to. To change the relationship that my. Generation has to technology. Where would you?

Speaker 2: Begin like to make your generation more receptive to. Technology or more?

Speaker 1: I mean.

Speaker 2: I'm the opposite, I'm sorry, I'm.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm assuming. I'm assuming that we that we share a critique. Yeah, yeah. And then there's some technology as a way in which our lives are becoming robotic, less human, less natural. And but really what I'm trying?

Speaker 2: How would I?

Speaker 1: To do is.

Speaker 2: What would a way out? Look like for me or yeah, OK. See, that's what.

Unknown Speaker: I'm trying to figure.

Speaker 2: Out for myself because I definitely think like probably like deleting faith like I think. The way I see technology. Or maybe the Internet to. Lessen the scope of it is. As a repository of information. Whereas a lot of people see that as. Space for socializing and the way the way that socialization works around the Internet changes the way we socialize around the world or around in the in the actual world. I like to call it AFK away from. Keyboard to be funny but. I, I think, definitely maybe like going. Back to just. A repository of information, or I'm not sure going back, but just using that and. I'm just trying to because I'm trying to figure out how after they have more productive discussions, I'm more productive and you for social connections outside of technology with technology still present and I just haven't been able to find answer. For that. I mean like recently, Facebook is God. I hate. I hate I have. Myself up don't ever debate on Facebook friends, nothing, nothing of substance is ever gonna or even. On the Internet in general.

Speaker 1: You will notice. It that I don't debate on Facebook. I might seem like I do, but. Mostly just by making provocative comments and walking away.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't even do that. I just I just I just stay away because I think definitely into culture and like the call out type culture everything or that. I guess that college activism lives in it's very. It's very much like screenshot and it's forever and you don't want to have that. Especially for me who. Who is very? Open to changing my own position and changing. My own mind, I don't want to necessarily have like something.

Speaker 1: To record to represent.

Speaker 2: Yeah, record representing like as if that's my position and that positionly, which sometimes a lot of people kind of can. Treat it like that, especially if you're.

Speaker 1: So your. Your mutual attitude is one of self-defense, yeah? The Internet for the for. Its functions as a fantastic library and otherwise maintain self-defense at all times. Except for Twitter.

Speaker 2: Twitter, even yeah. I mean I got a Clipper Twitter sometimes I try not to provoke provocative but sometimes not provocative. But just like something that kind of. Team is all of my. Position that is that or something. Well, like a tweet that would like, well I don't know even wait, let me check my Twitter, yeah. I mean one of. My tweets was. Broke fighting against Heteropatriarchy to education, dialogue and material resistance. Will commodifying insights and queer culture for neoliberal simulation. This spoke equating everything gay that's good, which is like a critique of how how people, especially in the space that I could probably here at the college that I go to gain. This very or queerness, even this very. Very idealized or idolize I say and kind of just like that. Like a lot of. People just equate gay as necessarily as something good, but don't go at the deeper end of why it's good or why they see it as good. They just see like, oh, it's countercultural, maybe. Or maybe the image of being gay and that how they see them as resisting their condition of hetero patriarchy. But then when? It comes to actually trying to dismantle the material. Structures they I don't know. A lot of people tend to shy away.

Speaker 1: From that, honestly, that was an example of. A very dense.

Speaker 2: I'm sorry coming out.

Speaker 1: Little little critique. You know it's I mean obvious that I have a problem with it, but. It actually comes off. Very much more like a. And to say economy critique done, anarchist critique. So it sounds so it. Sounds like it you all have also been impacted by anticommute stuff. Yeah, what's what's an example of stuff that's inspired you? In that in that room.

Speaker 2: I like a pocket even. Trying to think Communization theory committee if that could be considered.

Speaker 1: I mean the SI also.

Speaker 2: Yeah, the FI yeah definitely.

Speaker 1: I mean earlier you mentioned Julio. Obviously I did in. This one episode of the Growing with. I mean, I mean, Imagine you. Julio finding Julio. Must have been very exciting for you because. He is also interested. In Twitter and he is also a Latino post left.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I don't like LA for that part of like. I really don't like LA. I get to do it once and I was like no but the rest. I was like. Yes, this. This amazing. And stuff that. I don't know this finding other radicals at the same this, let's see. I guess that's in the same position. Can be very difficult.

Speaker 1: And he really does. Have a clue in LA like? Like he's actually. Not the I. I met him ten years after. I met the other people so.

Speaker 2: Oh wow.

Speaker 1: He's the giant. Completely in that scene, yeah?

Speaker 2: Wait, so Johnny what?

Speaker 1: Johnny completely. It's like he's the second generation, yeah?

Speaker 2: Oh OK, yeah. OK yeah, I thought. It was a reference to some old cultures. That I did.

Speaker 1: It probably it probably is, but I. Even I don't know the actual origin story, so.

Unknown Speaker: But yeah, yeah. He has.

Speaker 1: Some people down there who. Are more like my age. He's a 10 years 10 to. 15 years younger than me so. OK, so back-to-back to technology. Has there been anything in your studies on the actual classes you take and the and the ways in which people have talked about technology that has been meaningful or useful to you? Because, one of the things. That I'm finding is that a lot of the. Technology critiques that we sort of use nowadays. Sort of don't seem to understand how technology has changed. You know the thing about the Internet so powerful is that it's all the. Things we've been talking about and more. Mm-hmm, and in other words . You can definitely feel like you have control over it because you can. Just for instance, treat it like a library or treat it like an IRC channel, or treat it like and all of those different functionalities. Make it this incredibly ubiquitous tool.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm trying to think because usually the critique or the way technology is talked about tends to be like yes, like they're bad stuff. They're there's bad stuff about it, and because it's a very like basic level critique of technology work, yes, we have to be aware of how it affects us and how our behaviors.

Speaker 1: Right?

Speaker 2: Change, but like it's still very much. Crow pathologies

Speaker 1: It's and It’s a. Mutual argument at work. It's basically yeah.

Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly exactly. There are definitely some courses here that I'm interested in taking that the professors seem to be very critical technology, but I won't be taking those until like the next year or so the next semester. Yeah, that's I mean yeah, there's not much really else to say, especially since initially I was in stem and stem. Kids are definitely very much pro pro technology.

Speaker 1: Yeah, in my own story, I mean I don't know if. You've heard this or. Not, but really it was for me leaving STEM and coming to a clear break from STEM and really determined. Sort of my political direction and reconciling. You know how how one could have learned so much? About the world. Through sort of the science education and also through science fiction. You know, again, the other the. Other sort of topic that I. Want to thread? Out in this, I don't exactly have answers here, I'm just asking questions. At least at this point, I'm just going to read the read the. Line to you. How do we feel about a hard? Rejection of technology, IE. One that would destroy it without. The consent of the users of it. In light of Ted. A ITS and even old school or first actions. Do we feel that soft rejection IE not using it ourselves is enough? Assuming it isn't enough to save the world, is it just enough to save our little lives? Sorry, I think that the old school and conclusion of this. Conversation sort of seemed to say if you had a critique technology, it was either a. Hard, a hard critique which said that we should destroy. The grid and the consequences. Or was a soft critique saying? You know, I'm not going to use. Facebook anymore. Do you think there's a different way? A different way? Today I'm trying to.

Speaker 2: Maybe I don't know. I'm trying to. Think of like the only position I could see. That's somewhat different from those two positions. Is like somewhat it's somewhere in the middle where they're two different like you. Your community that you're in for technology.

Speaker 1: Bakers were Amish.

Speaker 2: Under yeah, yeah, kind of kind of like yeah commune types over like you all the members of commune don't use technology or something. That and I mean that's I wouldn't say that's a very interesting. We're very, very useful way of thinking or a very new way of thinking I guess. Just say because yeah, because I definitely don't see another way out or like either individually or just comically just ran technology through like the pet K, ITS school or. Just social like just rejecting technology yourself. I mean, it's definitely something. That, like for a long time or not. A long time, I think relatively if I'm only. I'm fairly young. But for a while, just trying to think of just how to lessen the grip technology has over me and over my life, but I just. I still haven't found answers. To that either.

Speaker 1: Well,, so I guess just talk about., something a bit more gossipy. And a little bit more. Capital how have? You felt about the controversies around ITS and around. Like one.

Unknown Speaker: Of the.

Speaker 1: Positions you've probably heard me take is that. I don't understand. Enough about Mexican culture to talk about to judge, especially the context. Of the violence. ITS of claimed responsibility for visavis someone who basically says the idea of basically killing hikers is abhorrent to any sort of conversation about working towards a better.

Speaker 2: See, my surprise was the way a lot of people reacted towards the use of violence as if Eric just don't like advocate for violent revolution at some point, or like where a lot of the moralists would advocate for live revolution IS itself. I think they bring in.

Unknown Speaker: Some critiques.

Speaker 2: Or interesting like it was an interesting way on how they developed from a group of Kaczynski nights and current events and that type of ideologies to just or complete rejection of anarchism. As an ideology, and. And tech. And especially the way they kind of I'm not. Appropriate is the. Right word, but just appropriated like Aztec and Mexican culture or Aztec and mine culture and.

Speaker 1: Yeah, it's almost always Aztecas. It's almost always Aztec not. Not very frequently mine right?

Speaker 2: OK yeah because yeah, because it's in the same way how a lot of cheap comics. Yeah, what I've noticed that exults. The Aztec culture itself have like this. This culture that this noble culture that fought against the Spaniards but died in vain or died, died in resisting imperial conquest as if as if they themselves have a connection. Do the Aztecs. I mean I, I guess, in a way, Mexico does have a connection, but it's definitely not one that's indigenous and that I always try to critique a lot of people because I definitely do. After I have some indigenous blood in my in my history, but I'm not like I'm not going to claim to be indigenous because I'm certainly not connected to any type of indigenous culture.

Speaker 1: Yeah, that’s an interesting publication. There's a huge conversation to have there, I think one of the things that I'm definitely. And grappling with right now. Is if. It requires a continuous bloodline to be indigenous. That means that we're done that and the relationship between us and. The Earth, the relationship. Between us And sort of a simpler way of being. In the womb is over. And that, that seems to me to be to the benefit. Of the colonizers.

Speaker 2: Yeah, so how do you propose like do? You see a way like a different. Way of being indigeneity or.

Speaker 1: I think that I. Would basically use the term in two different ways. Or perhaps I would say that. Indigeneity is something separate than being native. You know being native is about. Perhaps who you were raised by the community that you're from and indigeneity is perhaps. More for the. OK, but I would I would I. Would be very tender footed about how I'd I'd do this communication. Because I. I totally buy the fact that. You know many. Native people were going to say we're indigenous and you. Or they say that . White European people are not indigenous. And I think. That while while it's fair for them to say. That it's fair to have that perspective. I still I still think. That basically leaves the situation to be too hopeless, which might sound funny from someone. Who people think is enough? But important fact, I think that the that for me hope. Looks like that. Believing in the capacity for people to start. Over and learning to live. While eating ash. But that's that's my own my own. Trip, yeah, and obviously I want. To hear yours because.

Speaker 2: Yeah, so maybe you can relate that to technology. If were like if. There were some if there. Were some sort of just math I don't know like a. I did that, completely destroyed the technology. I believe in living like what I guess. What's the possibility of rebuilding or re revising human culture in a way that maybe doesn't rely as much on technology or may have a completely different relationship to technology? Especially since we see how fragile this technology can be in light of this huge disaster like that. Because I mean, well, there's I can't remember what exactly the solar event is, but the one type of solar event can wipe out all the technology that we have. I believe if I could be wrong. I could just be reading horrible signs.

Speaker 1: But there's a ton of stuff that could do. It I mean not just nuclear war, but. But sure there. Are certain types of solar flares that? Could actually not come electronics. And you. Know really what we're talking about. But it's not. It would be required. Just not have electronics would also require not the factories that produce electronics. It would just require that would also require knocking that the people who have the intelligence to build the factories and they probably wouldn't just require that. It would probably also require destroying. Certain of the conceptual frameworks that allowed the knowledge to continue etcetera etcetera.

Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: But that said, . One of the fascinating and pernicious things about the Internet was the way in which was designed to decentrally in such a way as to. You know, obviously it was planning on war, but what that looks like today is that in many different contexts it doesn't matter if you're not. On the server.

Unknown Speaker: You know? If.

Speaker 1: I, if I had enough money, as. You probably know. I'm a technologist and I host a. Lot of anarchists. With infrastructure.

Speaker 2: No, I haven't noticed at all. Have yeah.

Speaker 1: It’s actually it's. Actually, like my secret superpower that I. That I that I. Don't talk about that. Much because it's. Not that important to what I believe.

Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: But it's but it's very important because it's one of the reasons why people listen to me even. If they hate me. So anyways, the point is, is that it's. Just a matter of money, why I don't? Why I couldn't be stopped by? A government, for instance, and that's. That's a really different state of affairs than it used to. Be, . The Pirate Bay continues on even. Though government after government is against it.

Speaker 2: Yeah well yeah. Even then, I mean there's been a shift like. Like for something been a shift. In the way. Got the power in the Internet lies because it doesn't really lie in governments, it lies in the like I mentioned. Have to say like the corporations like Google who like on like on Google or like on Microsoft and like relies on all these different type of new authorities and.

Speaker 1: It does, yeah.

Speaker 2: We see this kind of. Shifting even in the real world. From where I mean who is hosting who creates the servers that have all the NSA? All the NSA surveillance data definitely like technology company and they're the ones who manage it because I'm sure the US government contracts that type of management some to some. Their firm early like that.

Speaker 1: Well, thank you very much, John.

Speaker 2: But yeah, I guess it shipped in balance, yeah? Probably just a shift. In balance, as I think maybe as. We go into more interconnected. Age we're more similar to a cyberpunk. Future than we realize and the state. Definitely still an actor is probably not. After that's been after, it's been conceptualized by a lot of anarchists I. Guess .

Speaker 1: For sure, well, I mean this. Is one of the reasons why differentiate between first wave and 2nd wave anarchism the first wave anarchist of course points to the state is, the primary enemy and the 2nd wave anarchist. It's not necessarily, it.

Unknown Speaker: Would it would?

Speaker 1: Be nice to say that the 2nd wave points to capitalism, but that isn't exactly true because capitalism has changed and contorted itself to not be nearly as clear as that. The critique against the state was in the in the first wave.

Unknown Speaker: You know the.

Speaker 1: The nature of talking to these corporate bodies, for instance, in the context of the multi multinational Internet and it's so complicated that it's really hard to wrap your mind around and there isn't a docs completel for the for the Internet.

Speaker 2: Not yet, if there ever will be.

Unknown Speaker: Well, thank you, thank you very. Much for having.

Speaker 2: This conversation with me. Yeah, of course I'd. Love to know if you need. Any further conversations? I mean I'm around.

Speaker 1: And your podcast again.

Speaker 2: Gators to your left haters dot life is the website.

Ep. 58 – Exclusion IV

Episode 58 – Exclusion IV

This a discussion with Andy Robinson. One of my favorite recent AJODAuthors. Part of my interest in discussing exclusion was to begin to…

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Ep. 57 – Exclusion III

Episode 57 – Exclusion III

This the third of four conversations about exclusion. This an interview with Mitchell Halberstadt. He wrote a provocative essay back when I was…

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Ep. 56 – Exclusion II

Episode 56 – Exclusion II

This a discussion with Soren and Dominique. You have met Soren before as she was the star of episode 52 and before that we…

Continue ReadingEpisode 56 – Exclusion II

Ep. 55 – Exclusion I

Episode 55 – Exclusion I

This the first of three conversations about exclusion in the @ space. In the old days I used to say that the only interesting…

Continue ReadingEpisode 55 – Exclusion I

Ep. 54 – Isaac VII – The Pharmaceutical industry

Episode 54 – Isaac VII – The Pharmaceutical industry

This the last of the pre-planned hour long conversations with Isaac Cronin. We intend on doing at least one more episode on questions listeners…

Continue ReadingEpisode 54 – Isaac VII – The Pharmaceutical industry

Ep. 53 – A Round Table about Publishing Atassa

Mar 8, 2018

https://archive.org/details/thebrilliante53

Transcript

Speaker 1: So this going to be very interesting because this this.

Speaker 2: Is going to be. An episode of the brilliant.

Speaker 1: Where we are going to talk? This on the home side of this call out that happened this week. That was a report back from this event that happened in Seattle where a couple of people came to the LBC table to vigorously critique LBC for the publishing of the cathedral and it seemed that they wanted to. For everything to take, I think we.

Speaker 4: Have to see.

Speaker 1: I think they wanted to take some sort of responsibility for the sucked up behavior of ITS and so this weekend we're at a we'll call it anarchist event.

Speaker 3: Where a variety of people have got.

Speaker 1: Together you can take a seat.

Speaker 3: Anything there?

Speaker 1: Well, I think the actually the reason it's worth talking about this as well, because I think that the of the book series is coming to an end and so how do anarchists meet and conspire and plot outside of the books, their context and so? So in that way? I think that this a book fair or this an error cause offender or it will like evokes what the future of anarchist events. Could be like. So anyway, so my hope today is to talk about this. This report back on the Seattle event that started out as a confrontation about about a book and perhaps a bad book. And ended up in two people getting respectively choked out and punched out. And so I'm here with a variety of people who can choose to introduce themselves if they desire, but who probably are just going to stay blankly at the quarter. And some voices will recognize what were people thought, what people thoughts about the fact, and about the tumor of what it means for future anarchist conflict.

Speaker 3: Are you talking about the report back from the people? Yeah, the India day thing, yeah?

Speaker 1: Yeah, what? What was? What was your?

Speaker 3: Thought was about what I expected. I thought they would be more complaining and whining than they were. It was. It was funny I guess.

Speaker 6: But yeah, most mostly it was.

Speaker 3: Seemed pretty par for the course there's.

Speaker 1: I'm not sure they thought it was. Funny they thought.

Speaker 3: It was funny, no, not even the next.

Speaker 1: Thing specifically, they were doing everything in their power to put the blankets more condemnationto the black card.

Speaker 7: Yeah, sure.

Speaker 6: A couple of thoughts I had. The I thought it. This sort of revealing of how they referred to the critiques is anarchist. Several times and employing the LBC is something besides intercast. And then I thought it was strange that if they believe LBC is a violent, indiscriminate group, then why would they? Confront people in physical space, so there's a some kind of rift between. What they're proclaiming to believe in, and what their actions are. There's also.

Speaker 3: What I noticed in that? I didn't. I got like a very cursory look at the call out for the response. Was that there was this weird shifting? And who was the provoke? Where from what I saw it seemed like it was saying that NBC was being provocative by offering this book, and when a person walks up to a table and rips it in half and doesn't expect someone to respond in some way that could very well end up being physical like.

Speaker 1: With the actual title of it. Was LBC attacks anarchist in defense of Eco extremism?

Speaker 3: What kind of like?

Speaker 6: The agency is there if you go.

Speaker 3: Up and rip someones book in half when you kind of response, are you expecting?

Speaker 1: You know it used to be that I would. Have so there was a time before I was before I had done much in the way of anarchist projects where a lot of these conversations were theoretical to me, where I would have been in. I would have agreed with their with their perspective. I would have said. You know that the value of a like a book is in, in and of an object. It's not, it's just a thing, and ****. The people matter and people are valuable and I think that for me this whole moment. Is about the. What happens like OK? So I accept that's true. I think the people, the people matter more than things, but when they came to the table and picked up and toss and ripped the Atassa They weren't just ripping a book, they were. They were doing something that was both symbolic and not symbolic, and this, I think, actually part of the thing where like the. Situations could take me. With falls apart a little bit in the. Face of reality or something. Where what in fact was happening was they were looking someone in the eye and tearing apart something that was of value. Even if that value was, only slightly more than nothing. It was basically saying, hey, you person across the table. This what I think of your project, this. What I think of the work that you do. This what I think of the ideas that you. Think are worth talking about.

Speaker 6: Right?

Speaker 1: And so that distinction, I think, is actually an important distinction, because it is. It's like the pure anarchist philosophical perspective is that people matter. Maybe the conversation matters, ideas, maybe matter, things don't matter. That's a sort of pure thing perhaps. I think that this moment what this moment is sort of saying, is that, well, actually long things matter, and it's and those things shift all the time based on context.

Speaker 3: It kind of fits perfectly in my. But not just the way like anarchists and I'll put them in quote deal with like interpersonal stuff and with the state with second expectation where they're out all the time, right? And if you have the rhetoric, if they're like posting on Facebook or they write anything, or even just the way they talk to people, it's the rhetorics. Always like eat the. Rich and all the other animals propaganda that like that large portion. Five and they go out in the streets, and they literally want to abolish the police and they hate the police and affect the police. And then they're somehow surprised that. The police beat them. Up, it's like yes you can see like you can be upset that they beat you up, but what else do you expect when you take a fight with someone and it's the same thing as this? It's like anarchist, think they can pick a fight with another anarchist. But then when something happens. It’s really sucked up and wrong for that person to do something about us, but I mean like even interpersonal things like anytime and it just it's a big deal, whereas like, why can't there just be a thug?

Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I mean ? Again, I guess this there is a question of like if were. So let's let's pretend for a moment that 80% of the anarchist self identified anarchists call themselves social anarchists. So I guess for the 1st place I'd go in. In this conversations, I'd say what rules they use to have conflict with each. Like what's Konrad Lee? 's disagreement look like in the context of social anarchists. Because I actually can't, I'm not like. In general, it seems like their conflicts are hidden.

Speaker 3: It's like Mean Girls. It's all behind the scenes maneuvering. It's not direct conflict, it's just gossip and exclusion by just saying someone sucks or vaguely referencing something they did because you can't actually call them out for it. Or just trust me. I know they're a bad person. I've I have a friend who knows they're a bad. Person I trust that friend. Then it's easily 5 layers removed by the time that person shows up to some random place and it's. A bad person. But I rarely personally have seen much in the way of physical confrontation or even like mature intelligent conversation.

Speaker 6: I mean, there's more.

Speaker 1: Fries of conflict than just physical stuff. And **** talking.

Speaker 6: But that's just I mean.

Speaker 3: Even in terms of conversation, like resolving things, sitting down with the. Mediator of friends or anything.

Speaker 1: Well, actually to be more explicit, so AK Press has been hostile to green anarchism as a political phenomenon for as long as there's. Been an AK press. And what that has looked like is that AK Press only financially involves themselves in green anarchist material that they know they make a profit on. So they'll carry John's own books. They'll carry dairy Jensen material. Full stop, that's it.

Speaker 7: They still carry their guns.

Speaker 4: Well, I'm sure I'm sure.

Speaker 3: Of yes.

Speaker 5: They do they.

Speaker 3: Were tabling with it the last hilarious yeah.

Speaker 1: So that. Would be an example of like how you do conflict that's outside of, like that has material consequence or something and I'm more thinking about examples. That like I will say or another example would be prison support, right? For many years, ABCS did not materially support any green anarchist prisoner, as my fact they supported prisoners of war coming out of the black liberation struggles in the 70s, more than they supported. Anarchist prisoners for many, many years even even decades and then over time they slowly included a couple. Anarchist prisons and really it started with free and now Marius Mason are supported by a lot of ABC and ABC F type groups, so that would be another federation.

Speaker 3: What is that stand? For OK.

Speaker 1: So that would be an example of. Like how how? Anarchists play out their political conflicts with one another. In a more material way.

Speaker 8: Because like the.

Speaker 1: Gossiping and you're talking like, well, obviously we can talk about it for hours, and it's infinitely interesting for people who know the particular details. I'm not sure what conclusions you can draw from a lot of that stuff because it's so amorphous because it's so slippery because it's So what it is. Was like and physical sites are a pretty recent phenomenon in American circles like it's really been the last five years. That's it, and I'm not sure that it represents like an increase in the depth and quality of the conflicts. I actually would say that it's quite the opposite.

Speaker 7: We don't think.

Speaker 8: Slight increases the quality of the conflict, no.

Speaker 1: Do you think anybody from the group of people who intervened against the ******? Changed their mind because they lost the.

Speaker 7: Oh, I see what you're saying. Yeah, no, of course not.

Speaker 2: But actually you.

Speaker 3: Can say the same for most disagreements. Most people just double down on whatever ideology they already held.

Speaker 1: So I disagree with that because the other part of the consequence of violence in particular is you chase people away. There's a lot of people who don't want to be around. Those fights and don't want to be around. Basically, big men throwing it out. They're gonna start. Those people are the shock troops, probably of the of the side of against attacks. Now obviously there's no army of the willing, but those that those are the kind of people who basically, if they think that they're going to have to like, get into with this fight over a ******* book, they're going to stop coming to events where that book is. Around and where they and where. The fear of that.

Speaker 7: So you're saying that there's a you? Think there's a. Ripple effect for anarchy in general. Whenever physical things come to a physical place or a violent place.

Speaker 1: I don't think this my anarchism at all. I think that. That by and large, if I mean the reason why baseball games or soccer hooliganism has been crushed has been because soccer games, family. Upcoming to soccer games, right? Why would you bring a kid to a bookshare event if you if you feel like? There's gonna be a fight there.

Speaker 7: And did you people say that they got to the Seattle Book Fair right or right after the fight and immediately left?

Speaker 2: For the file.

Speaker 3: You actually had a person at the table when the conflict started, who was had just gotten done asking me. I don't know anything about anarchism. What do you have to offer that will introduce these ideas in actually in Seattle that were there are substantially more of those coming in, and when that fight happened, it was this really like. Their reaction was kind of like well, is this what this whole thing is like and it was just that was that was kind of a strange moment for me as I was trying to have like a. A conversation about the ideas. And yeah, it definitely that. Ripple effect was. Very felt I think, and I could see it in that least this one person's eyes as this was happening. They're just kind of like what, whoa, so.

Speaker 1: When I want, I want to say like I. Threw on different. About this because on the one hand it wouldn't it be fantastic if the anarchist space accepted that there are consequences and that and that ideas have meaning, and that what we're what we're fighting for is important. On the other hand. I'm not quite sure a journal based in the US about a Mexican group that has done bad things qualifies to even that level of seriousness and interestingness.

Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I would like to see if there are going to be fights. I'd rather than not be about censorship, basically.

Speaker 4: Right?

Speaker 3: It also doesn't make sense to have fights in front of strangers. It's just the same thing where like if you're having a disagreement with someone, it's nice to have whatever form it takes. It's nice to have people there who are somewhat involved and related, and they're choosing to be there like I don't think any of us. At least, I don't particularly. Care to be around a fight that I'm not involved in?

Speaker 1: I can't imagine a scenario where a person would be tabling a thing.

Speaker 3: Where I would walk?

Speaker 1: Up to the table and basically not leave the table until someone had to ******* fight me the object they had.

Unknown Speaker: On their table.

Speaker 3: That seems strange. To hold a stranger.

Unknown Speaker: With like.

Speaker 3: Just walking around downtown. Tons of stuff that people it's not hard.

Speaker 1: I mean, one of the comments about all of this that I did find. Really interesting was. That these people didn't go to an all right event and tear up a blog. They go to a bookstore and tear up an event. A book they came to an event where they knew the cops wouldn't be called and where they basically suspected that there were. There were going to be no consequences. And if history. Served them at all. It would it? Would dictate to them. That probably they would win. Whatever conflict was what was going to happen based on altercations that happened between Portland Olympia for the past three or four years. Where chanting and burrito throwing was actually like 1 conflicts. They thought that. That scene Something that was going to play. Itself out.

Speaker 3: And if they lose, they just blame you for starting the fight.

Speaker 1: Right?

Speaker 3: But it just comes back to more. More of the sand like the same reason people in Oakland don't actively fight like evictions and justification is because it's really ******* hard. And you're not going. To run, but it is easy to walk up. To a party it's. Like at a ******* another squat and. Tell these white people they suck. Because chances are they'll apologize. Everyone support you and you can win, so they're taking fights they can win.

Speaker 4: Except for this one, yeah.

Speaker 9: It wasn't about the fight.

Speaker 7: It was a. It was a performance, it was. Theater this person wanted to be self-righteous and sanctimonious. And public and. And I'm sure that it was that it was actually fairly. Well played out in. Their head how this going to end. And they were going to get to leave. You know, victorious after having slain the great evil dragon, and it just didn't quite go down that way, but it wasn't. My understanding is that the person actually could not coherently put together the argument about what was wrong with. The book somebody else had to do it.

Speaker 1: And that to me, is actually the question. Like if this was a set up if that kid was set up, that kid was basically hyped up of like there's a publisher here who's? Pushing fascist material? What are you going to do about a kid, young, young, young, soft headed kid? I mean that to me that is heartbreaking.

Speaker 7: That you didn't know that. They can be just like look. This book is on the table. This books table. You know this book is this book. The person behind the table was like publishes it. They had no idea.

Speaker 5: What is this kid doing?

Speaker 3: This he's a Bible just keeps walking.

Speaker 7: Who was talking to you, what? You were doing. Just this book is bad and so I'm, I'm going to hear. I'm going to tell. You about the. Book being bad, but you have to.

Speaker 1: Access to a particular type of privileged information. To hear that this. Book is bad Atassa I mean 400. Copies of this journal.

Speaker 3: Maybe shy of 1000? People know what house is.

Speaker 1: Right exactly so, that means that a very like they came to this book fair educated. About this journal. About this project. And had an absolute preconceived notion had probably never opened it or read the thing about it, and yet somehow was needed new, just a catalyst to trigger a direct action, quote UN quote. Of ripping it up. So that to me says that someone primed the pump. Someone basically did the thinking to have the book torn and just found the Patsy. Basically, to do it not really. I mean thinking that the Patsy was perhaps going to be safe, but not recognizing the consequence of what was going to happen. And then setting this kid. Up and so to me the. Question is who is? That person what? Was their motivation and will they ever come up behind the shadows? Or will they just perhaps write to communicate for them afterwards? Or they talk about how sucked up were for defending eco extremism? As opposed to. Defending our project and to me these are the questions that sort of Duncan get asked in the in the back and forth mess of Internet comments. You know, it's like there's actually some people selling some people up, and because of the political moment we live in, it seems like moving up along to your something.

Speaker 3: It seems like people are. Just broadly in culture and our culture right now that people are ready to get very up in arms about things that might not be significant enough to get up in arms about. Like we just got done saying you haven't sold more than 100 copies of the process, so it's. There is this. Of all the books floating around out there in the ether, this the one that very few people have read that you want to go and have a confrontation about.

Speaker 6: It yeah, I think criticisms don't match the content of the book at all, and I wonder. About what the strategy is, I understand wanting to.

Speaker 1: Well, that's why it feels like such a set up right? Feels like someone else has. Designed this strategy.

Speaker 6: So I'm curious to hear what people think, why, how they came to this conclusion and who could gain from it. And I think just thinking of the way the legal system works versus how. In your case. Will approach putting people on the outside and I think of things like Bob Black. Snitching or being racist or Hakeem Bay. Being a pedophile and I think it's different than the legal system because it's people don't necessarily talk about the actions, It’s. It's someone is a Sinner and that you are a racist. And it's not like what?

Speaker 3: They said or did? It's something that the person becomes moved entirely into the symbolic accusations function as convictions. In this kind of contest.

Speaker 1: Yeah, right?

Speaker 8: People are also into writing manifestos rather than having any sort of dialogue. I mean, there used to be letter sections in magazines and that the slow process of like exchanging letters over time. It doesn't happen.

Speaker 3: Anymore really, yeah, I was thinking about that recently that because just finishing black seed it was. I was thinking, oh, there really isn't a letter section here like there would be in a Jodi or green anarchy and. The and to me it's comparing the time and thoughtfulness that it takes to sit down and write a letter that a lot of people are going. To be sitting holding in their hands and reading. That versus commenting on the news where it's kind of like instant gratification and instantly almost instantly vanished. And maybe you even forget that you made the comment.

Speaker 7: Well, it isn't permanent, they actually. Do go away.

Speaker 3: Yeah, if they appear at all, which is kind of. You know, same with letters in general, but yeah, there's it's just an interesting.

Speaker 1: And to be clear, we would publish letters if they were submitted. The vaccine, I think. I think that many. People because there's been a year and a half since. The last one perhaps thought that it was gone. Yeah, but the time of letters and that kind of that sort of slow communication. I mean, I'm not. I won't say it's. Over as like a dramatic.

Speaker 4: Right?

Speaker 1: Down, down, down, right but. But it's over. Yeah, who does it more?

Speaker 3: Where is the dialogue like in the last five years? Where has there been actual? Like good faith dialogue on both sides? Between two different. This about liking hundreds of tons of. Anarchists which too have had a. Good faith dialogue in the last five years.

Speaker 8: I mean, Anonymous gets a lot of dialogue between anonymous and that's what I see.

Speaker 2: Yes, I'm not speaking for the group.

Speaker 8: Yeah, no, no, no, I'm sorry. Just anonymous posters.

Speaker 3: All anonymous yes oh I.

Speaker 1: See like in other words, if you could remove. 1/3 of the comments from anarchist news. You could find a good faith argument in there, but it's not the entirety of it. Of course there's tons of and actually you could almost talk about the qualitative shift of argumentation in and out of amicus means discussions. So for instance, 30 discussion with the 1st 10 comments. Are fantastic, but by the time someone comes home from work and season, there's 30 comments there and 20 of them are ******* ******** and the 10 good comments are threaded with things that makes it extremely hard to follow. Yeah, I mean like we've contemplated changing the technical way in which comments happen, so currently comments are threaded, so you can more or less see that like. OK, well here's here's a strain about this, and here's a strain about this. And each of the threads has is different contextually, but it gets overwhelming all the different threads and all the different. Like back and forths, we've talked about flattening the comments. So that it's just a single. Stream, which perhaps would encourage more of a letter writing sort of a format, or it would just encourage people to go through and enter and there's one of the collective members is really dead. Set on fighting those sort of comments. So like people who think they really put this. And the conversation get all **** *** because they write a ******* poopy head. Sort of a comment and it gets removed and so they feel like they've contributed to the conversation. Anyways, yeah so there is some talk about like is there a technical way to do this, but I'm suspicious of there that there isn't, and because there are so many different types of some so many different types of anarchism and each of them has their own sort of groups of people who are. Part of them. I'm suspicious that most people don't need to. To argue with other types. Like the people they're trying to convince are like the general public, like I mean like the full frame of this particular conflict isn't to convince a manifest of what's happening. Not at all. It’s the convenience of soft the liberal. That thinks thinks the. Amethysts are good pure beings and to basically say these good. European beings came to the table and were consequence.

Speaker 3: Even like off the Internet like so say, well I think what you said is part of it, where they that's that guy or someone it's going down or just some other person in that social ilk of range of politics. See something they don't like instead of trying to have. A conversation about. It's just the center thing that we. Were talking earlier. Where it's like they're not worth talking about. It's the same, no platform for fascists or bad anarchists, and they have. They're just redefining themselves, so there's no conversation like limiting more fun. To go to. Like a book for an event where you had a couple of people of different. Perspective just having a conversation with each. Other like wouldn't wouldn't. That be nice. I think that'd be fun as.

Speaker 5: They will welcome for the 1st 55.

Speaker 1: To 10 years of the best for conference. Well also the 1st 5 the best for conference wasn't so tightly associated with post left anarchism and I would say that the 1st 5. In the first five years, there was a faster conference on economics where at least six different anarchist positions were actually represented. Today we can get them to. Come like we reach out to as many individuals as we can think of. On a particular. Theme they just won't come. ******* has become a self selected. Which is sort of the depth of it as a place where new and interesting ideas can live. I mean obviously like our self selecting group, have some new and interesting ideas. But what you're talking about I. Don't think it's.

Speaker 4: I don't think it's.

Speaker 1: The fault of us, I think that something about the times has changed and that's why I put the Internet in there. But there's something about the times where like it used to be, that sort of civil discourse was like a thing that people were like all about. I don't see anyone. Argument that nowadays

Speaker 8: Now it's about getting a position and. Bludgeoning other people until they come around to your position, particularly if you have it in that. Liberal anti racist neo fascist thing and then you don't interrogate those categories.

Speaker 1: And well, you do, but you do it to expand it and to weaponize it, yeah.

Speaker 7: I don't understand how people. Can decide that they are the keepers of what is correct and what is not correct and not see a conflict there.

Speaker 3: But I.

Speaker 7: So the thing that I thought was remarkable about. You know basically the position of ban this book because this indecent. You can think of it as if these. People are just too. Young, but I grew up in the normal, hardworking people around me are not just my bookshelves, but almost any anarchist. Because this treasonous, this the talk of terrorists. This the talk of people who want to undo, the work of our founding fathers who don't want to value the same values that I do. And of course, this all part of why we are anarchists and what we are moving away from the ways that were. These the things that were taught, with the book burnings of the 50s and the 60s and the 70s. Because that's not right, because ideas should flourish except. Now we've moved into this area where OK, there is this contingency contingency in anarchy. That's decided that no, that there is a right and all the rest of it is wrong and that they hold the Center for what is correct and appropriate and moral. And, and I’m just baffled. And how you get there and how you. Think that's OK?

Speaker 3: You know, I, I agree with that, but I also. Kind of wonder. If it isn't just that people are being fed the scandal. The scandal narratives constantly in the news. Yeah, and so there might not be that much reflection what. What are the implications of the scandal? What it, what it? What are the underpinnings running? How we're thinking? About the scandal. It's just like there's a scandal. How do we respond to it? Confrontation, hostility, firm convictions, and this what like we're going to go up, and we're going to rip this book in half. Or whatever it is, but it's but. Yeah, I mean I don't like. I said earlier and I've been kind of thinking of this as this a form of censorship, but I almost don't think it's even going that far. It's just this a scandal. How do we deal with scandal? You know and maintain whatever it is that the scandal is threatening.

Speaker 6: My I think yeah, it's interesting to talk about censorship or you're talking about book burnings and this what I've been thinking about. Like how do you have? An idea of free speech that is not coming from liberal values and that. You're you're talking about how these are people that like. How do you be a gatekeeper and think that what morality is? And I think that's. A difference in how I approach what books I would choose to read, and what actions I would take is that I don't believe that I'm a good person. And I think that's OK and then I'm not going to be perfect in righteous and sometimes I'll seek out the bad things. And some of us. Some of us do that, so I guess that's my answer to free speech is that it's not a right given to us, it's something that we can choose to take and we don't have to apologize.

Speaker 2: Before he goes to like.

Speaker 3: A more fundamental idea of society that's like a contradiction within the social anarchist position itself and with people that are something else, like maybe some of us here are. Like the way they see society is like twofold. They have this whole idea that everyone's anarchist, right? Because when if you're talking about movement building, you're talking about a significant number of people. So when they think about it, I think most of the rhetoric ends up being like 90% of people are like anarchists on the team and the other 10% are like the rich or whatever because even the like the redneck revolt things. The idea that these conservative Like hillbillies or Hick, or whatever word you want to use. Those people are on the team once. You go out there and. Do the hard. The hard breach of it. So when you have your like whole. Movement there eventually. It's going to like grow like a big BLOB or something, right? So if you're holding that ideat the same time, everyone's anarchist, yet also they must be protected from the bad things which is a liberal position to be protecting people. So they're anarchist. But you're the anarchist that needs to protect them. And then so you have that contradiction within it. And then you have the contradiction of other people who have a different version of what society. It's like that. The whole the whole conversation is coming back to its right where for them society is everyone except for maybe a few 1000 people at most on the planet, like maybe for them. It's what some uncontacted tribes and like them, and anyone that does what they do in the few countries that's happening. So and this fundamental, like the. It doesn't make sense to call it indiscriminate attack for them, because It’s everything. It's not, it's not indiscriminate, there's just nothing not to attack except a tree like a ******* frog. But if that frogs in the laboratory. Then you attack it. So how do you? Like how do you? What's the point of having a conversation even with someone who's holding? The position of being a protector and that everyone is anarchist. When you have such a fundamentally. Different concept of.

Speaker 1: Well, I guess part of what it is that you're talking about when you’re using the word society is what's your like? What does what do you believe? The shape of a revolutionary moment is going to look like, and what's the result? So when you use the word society, I think that you're implying that the end result of a. Part of Social Revolution is a new society. And that's sort of a core principle of being a social anarchist. And I and I think the book enemies of society is actually an excellent sort of that's actually the book I recommend, rather than uncivilized to people who are asking. Sort of like what's the origin or how do I get started as? I point out. To them, because it has many inspiring texts on it, and because it isn't so pedagogical. You know green anarchism. For, for better or. For worse, sort of provides the answer of green anarchism, and I'm not sure if the answer is complete or clear enough out of out of what was published in. Magazine, whereas enemies of society says it says something that seems natural that we would all be on board with it and we'd all agree with it, and questions that, and to me I like that as anarchist position better than I like a lot of others where where I like the problems to be deeper and harder than. We ever imagined so. So to follow this through, I would say that. That one of the. Things that isn't being sort of explicitly said in the context of talking about the black card, because perhaps. Part of what they're? Saying about little black. Car is that the revolutionary project that little black cart is in pursuit of does not appear to be the same revolutionary project that were part of. Here is what our revolutionary project is, and I think that if they expose that it would be a little bit more parent. I think to a reader or to someone who has no. Right to anarchism but. I'm not sure I want that. That thing that. You that you're describing is, perhaps it looks more like liberalism than I suspected. Perhaps it's not such a difference from the world that we're currently living in. Perhaps Trader Joe's has actually solved most of those problems.

Speaker 3: One on your how? Often do are even honest with the amount of violence they're. Willing to bring to bear through their project.

Speaker 1: They will focus on.

Speaker 3: Because they're more than willing to talk about 1 murder here. 2 murders there, but I never see much actual talk of what it would look like. I don't think the streets of Spain were bloodless.

Speaker 1: So that's interesting because I think that a lot of people are willing to talk about violence in the context of the historical moment. And a lot of. People are willing to talk about. Violence as an abstraction. But what you're talking about is 1/3. Category which is. What where would we start today? Yeah, and I think that because ITS which. Again I don't want to actually talk that much about ITS themselves because I don't find them. I don't know enough about them to say. Much about them, but. Because they're, but they are getting started today. At least say that much.

Speaker 4: Two years ago.

Speaker 1: But they put something in, they put a.

Speaker 3: Plan into into motion. Yeah, they got a scheme.

Speaker 1: They have a scheme and so that's what's so crazy and dangerous about them is of course their schemes disagree. So, so like if you think about the history of like, like,, sectarian statist communism, every sectarian status Communist regime was different than every other regime, so they had to hate each other. It's not that they hate each other. First feature and faster than they hated this games. As of the people who didn't even. Know who they were.

Speaker 3: So what was the follow through on the third category?

Speaker 1: Well, I guess. The point that I was getting at was. Just the idea that. I actually think that most of these people who are sort of playing out this controversy asked schema don't have a strategy that they are entirely reactionary to the times that we're living in. They perhaps are taking inspiration from call out culture from social justice. Warriors and even from like the Trump era. But if they were to be honest about social revolution, which I agree would expose a lot of their own disagreements that so that version of revolution looks like convincing the majority of people that what they want is necessary and actionable.

Speaker 3: And maybe that there might lie. Some of the underlying hostility towards UBC as a project in general, mainly because a lot of the texts that you that LBC puts out the being questioned. The main point of a lot of the books is asking questions that lead you right to that kind of realization that. Social revolutions aren't what they say they are, and they might actually not be what we want as anarchists.

Speaker 6: I feel like beyond just a taste issue, that part of people, part of the sin. Is not having a positive political program has. Been mentioned in. One of these pieces as just as damning. As the other offenses, and I think that's worth thinking about.

Speaker 3: It's funny because if you look at like the All Stars of them and the Americas, it's. Like right now, it's like it's going down in some mediand it's not like they really have a positive program. This of some sort of ideas on like getting together and then like some other **** they're like oh they these. People did this organizing thing. We like that there's stuff they like, but they don't have like I actually think they do have like an ideand a plan.

Speaker 4: Especially like yeah.

Speaker 3: I think they talk and have an idea. In the plan, I just don't think they like. Put it out there and as he gets back to the Pepsi thing like maybe that kid in the book there was a Patsy and maybe everyone getting like directed towards his thing down and watching some media is also not realizing what the people running those projects like really have in mind for. Years down the line when the sucking, whatever the deterministic Marxist sucking ship that they're really operating under, comes to fruition.

Speaker 1: You know what? It's when you mentioned that because ID recently opened a store. And there are very few items in the store, but some of the most composed and are taking things that are in the store are from the RAM, the Revolutionary Autonomous movement. And so I. Believe that this. Group is sort of associated with people organizing around the base, which is at info shop out of Brooklyn and. And so it's a revolutionary autonomous position or sorry abolitionist position. And so abolitionism has this interesting political pedigree. And I. Want to be cautious here because I think that there's lots of threads here that I only know partial information about, so I don't want to speak too far out of school, but abolition abolition unism as reflected in race trader. The magazine or evolutionism reflected in hard crackers, which was a new sort of storytelling meeting. It's looks like a scene and with. A ridiculous name. It's not revolutionary. In other words, that thread of race, trader wism or evolutionism. Doesn't have a revolutionary component, partially because I think that a lot of it is in reaction to the it's its own millest pedigree. So like it seems like there's a dense intellectual pedigree there that's worth examining and I say this because. Some people I know from that scene have been reacting to sort of the to this movement in similar ways that I wouldn't surprise me because I thought that they that they were like this, but I'm not sure that. They are and. With that I know one of the others are. Hard crackers so that obviously there's a manifesto. Socialist Ram group. And I think that by and large, what's in that manifesto would be something that’s supported by ID. And anyways, and to me that there are some interesting legal questions, and I look forward to sort of hearing how people thrash out and figure out actually where, where, where the the revolutionary part begins and ends and.

Speaker 7: Are you are you talking earlier about? ID and submediant not having a program and I actually don't think that's true. I think that they have a program of rhetoric committed to the presentation of positive forward progress. And that's why all the stories are what they are and why the kind of common thread that runs through everything that they put up is what it is becomes if we, if we leave this tail tightly enough that winning is what is happening.

Speaker 6: The winning.

Speaker 7: Then further faster more I like I. I can't much that I can adequately. Finish that, but that's. You know this has been heard before that what you got from IGDB is like these are. These are good stories and you feel good after you read them. This positive news and This why people go here and there's no comments and crazy to bum you out and what you get what you get also with that is not particularly. And analysis and the stories are very particularly treasured and signed and told. And but that. There's a political program, right? I agree.

Speaker 3: With what I'm saying. I'm saying that like their. Program isn't for everyone like they're not sharing the whole program. There's more like they're recruiting, so trying to recruit soldiers for battles, but not explaining. What the war? Is or that like there will. Be a war once we get. Enough soldiers.

Speaker 1: Although perhaps these these articles that explicitly name some of our projects.

Speaker 6: Do expose a.

Speaker 1: Little bit more of the program they have up. Till now, I mean they're going to say that it's just one columnist, it's. Just one editor-huh. But I mean the fact is they don't publish much in the way of critique there. There aren't a lot of groups that are. That are singled out as. Being sort of like that, this the problem and that's. Interesting because if they have this. Sort of like awesome positive social program. That's like going up and up and growing and just everything is like. Like it's the only thing bombing the model is the only thing like they could possibly slow them down like you. Know 12-9 lists. Sitting in a room smoking clothes cigarettes.

Speaker 3: Do you have read the friend thing thing or is like an interview with some kids from Charlottesville talking about being on the front lines? I think they actually use, I think, actually use the word counter. Revolutionary and they have to describe that their radio. Which is with the radicals, what's that?

Speaker 4: Which is.

Speaker 1: Which are the radicals?

Speaker 3: The ones that weren't there, ones that were. Yeah, I think this ones that weren't there and also where there are. Yeah, two people like people that could be described as some range of us and then people that could be described as like too liberal like when the when the whole world punches with the Nazi. That's the person who's. Like standing on the back and it's. Like,, maybe. I'm not punching.

Speaker 4: Right, that kind of little, yeah.

Speaker 7: That's coming.

Speaker 3: Yeah, but I feel like that’s where it's more telling to. It's you just get like brief moments of it, but it's not like they want to attack people for not having a program, but they're not explicit about what their **** is because it's pretty nearly.

Speaker 7: Maybe they don't have to be explicit. I'm not sure that I really want to give them all this. Credit for masterminding. I think there's also a yeah. And I think that there is a kind of an inevitable entropy to their building and about if it manifests itself in the ways that we are talking about.

Speaker 1: Incoherence is a dominant theme.

Speaker 7: But I feel like using language like recruiting and that’s probably a little too strong and. Many people, but I don't want to give. Any credit a little bit too much credit. Not going.

Speaker 3: To do a good job, I think that's the.

Speaker 7: Do you think it's all that calculated?

Speaker 3: I think there's yeah, I think there's a level of calculation I don't. Think it's like I don't you? Know I don't think it's like power, low level intelligence or anything like that. You know, maybe it's more like levers helping the local politician get in the.

Speaker 1: Office where they bought the 1224 case of year.

Speaker 3: Yeah, maybe maybe they all. Got off work and had a few beers and. They're like hmm, work sucks. What are we going to do so we can all share the work together and then we work 30 hours a week.

Speaker 9: Yeah, I'm gonna give a.

Speaker 1: Little less credit to that calculation, but.

Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm not having conspiratorial fantasies about this.

Speaker 9: We are now except except in, the.

Speaker 1: Reason why I'm talking about this today is because we're thinking about next week and if. Our culture is upon us and what we're talking about really is like what does. It look like what? Is anarchism with call out culture or anarchism? Plus now with color culture. What does that look like when next? Week is the. Bay Area, that's books there and. And the question is, what's the tenor and the shape of what happened in Seattle? Going to look like in. The Bay Area. And what is what? Our appropriate response is what could and should. They look like and what does this? Mean for the future of conflict within the anchor space where where some people think that. This conflict requires shredding a bow.

Speaker 4: But what else?

Speaker 7: What else is the conference require?

Speaker 1: I mean is there any to win it?

Speaker 5: What does that look?

Speaker 1: Like to them? Or to put it more pointedly, they have now tried it. Three different books, tools to disallow LBC from tabling so. Since that has not succeeded, do they think that if they set up enough pot seeds? That's going to do because liberal organizer wants wants. To have that. Level of drama, their books there, and this LBC always brings that because these activists have taken us on the project. I mean this what activism succeeds. This how it succeeds.

Speaker 3: And how are they not already winning? Like it depends what they want. Do they want to be like the most popular form of anarchy? Like that's true then that when they're winning, like if you need anarchist, they're not going to have read the LBC shift. They're they're probably not going to read much to be honest, but if they have read something, it's going to be like a post on some social media thing. It's like the other ship is not, it's just not out. There it's like. It's not being consumed at the same level. They are winning like they get more views on their ship like they have more people to their. Things like that's.

Speaker 8: You know, I think.

Speaker 4: OK.

Speaker 3: This actually says something rather unfortunate about it at all, because I would. The controversy around it you would hope would generate. Interest like it normally does, but I think because that's normal, that's what it would do in mass culture famously, when. Within this context, now because political correctness is such a huge focus, it's I think it's making people stigmatizing. LBC to the point where it's like. We're well not even going to approach that because a lot of the interesting they're fascists or whatever, and.

Speaker 1: I don't want my friends seeing me. Do it.

Speaker 3: Exactly and I I can. I yeah, I definitely have sense from friends outside of like the LBC realm that. There is there is that kind of aura that’s definitely seeping out, and that to me, on both on an individual level of anarchist friends. And then on the in the broader scheme of things, it says something really bad about about, because you would hope that anarchists would want to would. Seek out the controversy. Stuff in the in that, like heresy, would be a good thing for us in that. Yeah, and the fact that people are too afraid to be interested. I mean that **** . That feels really important. Like how much has the has like the move towards like identity and guilt and all this stuff like it's gone so far like the desire for dangerous. Ideas like come on. That's what I'm going to like. If I saw something that was like heretic even like 10 years ago when I like didn't know anything or anyone that was just like a follower online from a. Sounds like I would have been like oh **** what's that? I gotta, I gotta read that like, right? Why does anyone hate this person so much? And then you probably I probably read. Him like ship around or something.

Unknown Speaker: That's actually how I.

Speaker 7: Got my first copy of Anarchy magazine in my hand. I was I don't know what I was reading now, but the person was going on and on about how this anarchist magazine. That's been around for decades, that. I believe this funded. By the feds and they are completely complicit with missing all of these crazy accusations, as if everybody in the. World knows us.

Speaker 4: I just wanna say.

Speaker 3: I thought Jason was a was a fed.

Speaker 7: Because magazine exists in the inner chest.

Speaker 9: With federal aid.

Speaker 3: And you want to make sense of. It yourself.

Speaker 7: Make sense of it myself.

Speaker 4: That's that's that.

Speaker 7: I want to like, really because you feel like if that were true, somebody at some point would have somebody else. Besides, you would have picked it up and I didn't know who that.

Speaker 3: Right?

Speaker 7: Was then so.

Speaker 8: And the taking.

Speaker 3: People's word for it. Thing is really rampant and yeah. I have to. Trust people so much, have they not? Met people do they?

Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean my anarchism is always about questioning everything and even my own assumptions. So like I don't understand it, it seems like they're going the opposite way and I want to just confirm all my assumptions rather than question my assumptions.

Speaker 3: Those of your friends and the people you interact with.

Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, exactly I.

Speaker 1: Mean I hate to say. I mean for me what I'm trying to understand. I don't think these people have a long life span. I think the half life of this movement, whether it's witch burnings or book poverty or OVC hating. I think they have like. A short but I. Don't understand what it looks like when it falls apart. So like we can, we can look at some historical examples. So the end. Of the McCarthy. Era like we know that some people standing up to McCarthy destroy their. But at some point, standing up to McCarthy actually ended up being a winning strategy. Yeah, and that’s what's fascinating about this moment, because I know that a whole bunch. Of people who. Would otherwise respect or enjoy or like aren't doing the standing up that I would expect them to do if I didn't feel like it. It's about their team winning, so to be, to be blunt and to just put some authority in here. I care deeply for some of the people. Involved in the crime they project. The sense that they have remained silent through all of this and basically have. And watch their collaborators. Behaves in the ways that they behave. It’s shocking, but what does it look like for this? You know, very many, very small, very ineffective reign of terror to end and for anarchism to again become a place where dangerous ideals live. Where people are willing to sort of step outside of social norms and really like moralistic values.

Speaker 8: Yeah, I mean the weird. The thing I keep coming to is the whole nichinan thing of transvaluation of values. I hate to be all weird like that, but the idea to me is to come to your own sense of values. Not just accept what's given to you and It’s the whole, they're just. Somebody else's friend.

Speaker 3: And to accept that other people have different meanings.

Speaker 8: Yeah, and right and like that's the other side of it is that, like other people have different values like I, there's a lot of things I don't want to read, but I'm not going to go rip it up because I don't really care like it's like fine you go do your thing.

Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean a case continuing Derek Jensen's. Just mention that again. It's like I see that and it's like, well, they’re still down with this transphobic out with this guy. I'm not. I'm not going to go up to the table. And even bother them about it, he's explicitly.

Speaker 2: Antibiotics as well.

Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's like but it's but. But The thing is, it's there. And people can still engage with it and figure it out for themselves and.

Speaker 7: Well and then, but that’s one of the nice things about it being there. Is that then just the fact that it's present is a conversation and I have had people that I like in the past. Look at look at OK press books and this . A particular book.

Speaker 3: Yeah, and I’ve actually had that too with.

Speaker 7: But I'm actually going to have a conversation with a person that I have a relationship with and a context about what I don't understand. Is where you get the ego where you get the notion of your own self and your own self worth that you need to decide that you're the one who's going to. Hold the line for the rest of.

Speaker 9: The flock in the world.

Speaker 7: No one can read this book. This book is bad. I decided this bad and if you don't agree with me that this. Bad, then you're bad. And I'm gonna dictate for everybody else I don't like. I couldn't even find that inside me. Yeah, yeah, to be able to publicly try to hold the mind like that.

Speaker 1: Plus that's the.

Speaker 3: That's theart of their entire father.

Speaker 7: Like it's like historically, the people who are holding that line are never the nice. People are never the good people.

Speaker 8: People that take over the new society.

Speaker 7: Which is what they want to.

Speaker 6: Do, but I really don't think. They're they're going to take over the society.

Speaker 7: So that's what that's what makes.

Speaker 8: It sadder.

Speaker 6: Is like, but when we're talking about victory and there was a discussion that's saying that social anarchist or whatever have more numbers and that they that they have wins. But actually I think the way that I framed. Things we're winning because we still read the books we want to, and we can still think for ourselves and our goal is not to necessarily convert, so they're not going to stop us from. Publishing or associating an in different way, so I think we'll be OK.

Speaker 3: Like it's funny like. The protecting thing is like I get why. Someone would do that. I had someone I've known this person since I moved to. Oakland eight years ago. And I met. I met them the same times. I'm another friend and I guess they didn't know. I've been really close friends with this other person who's been called out for being a fascist blah, blah like Internet, Facebook ******** and actually got a private message like the copy paste thing like about my friend being a fashion and like Oh yeah, actually, I lived with. Her for like 4-4 years. Like I’m OK, maybe you should stop doing this and then the response is basically just.

Unknown Speaker: Because I was like.

Speaker 2: Where do you even?

Speaker 3: Hear this and it. Was fifth hand. Like no joke, fifth hand, that is that. Far away from them and the whole thing. Was just some joke. She said at a party. And it was so ridiculous like it was literally a joke. She said her party where she said some vaguely misanthropic. Thing and someone's like you're a white supremacist and she. Goes yeah, I'm a white supremacist. Like with telling like. That and the story just got like. You know *********** to she's a white supremacist and the end of this messaging me telling me telling this person like do you think this reasonable? Like would you want someone doing this? And they're just like, well, I just wanted to make sure you didn't like it converted to like Nazism and.

Speaker 7: I was like how how? Like how patronizing.

Speaker 3: And it's really embarrassing thing you think that I'm going to be converted to become a Nazi because I vaguely interact with this person. It's just very patronizing, like the whole heart. Of the project is to like. Take control, control the ideas because people on their own are not responsible enough to be like anarchists. Everyone is susceptible to the bad.

Speaker 6: We must.

Speaker 3: Well, we all have like a.

Speaker 1: A like a weak spot.

Speaker 2: Yeah, just waiting for a similar story.

Speaker 1: Where there were two anarchists, one that over. 10 years ago. Where they were like they were there. Was a crew of NVC anarchists nonviolent communication? And they were all sort of like adorable. Soft people like I like them all.

Speaker 5: But limits communication without, there's an ideology. Is there?

Unknown Speaker: The thing is.

Speaker 4: It's a whole.

Speaker 2: Yeah, for.

Speaker 7: Classes and there's a whole.

Speaker 8: Let's go.

Speaker 5: Every breath you.

Speaker 2: Face is violent.

Speaker 1: So they live in the Bay Areat the time and then in the way one of them is involved in a in a they moved to anarchist town that has anarchist stuff and you can do anarchist stuff and so they're still intact.

Speaker 9: That space

Speaker 1: But somehow their politics changed. They sent me an e-mail because the other one moved to a town. Whether or not that many out anarchists and ones that there are very much in the anarcho communist space. And that's it. And so this person, the second person started to associate with some anarcho capitalists. And they based on the ethical capitalists willing to. Have more types of conversations. They they weren't doing. Opening businesses with these people but. Or they felt that they were open more. Open minded than manical communist were in. The town so. I actually got this long e-mail from the first person basically saying like I hate to inform you, but our shared friend is no longer anarchist because they have been exposed to these people and it really was like I. And I, I mean, I wasn't engaged in it, so I just wrote a very short e-mail. Thank you. For the information. I'm I feel like I'm capable of. Figuring out whether that's true or not. If I my direct interactions with them, which I currently have, so it's is like that felt like a very like classic moment of the current time.

Speaker 7: I was thinking about how if you decide if you are the arbiter of what is right and what is not right and the way that you are going to manifest that arbitration is by drawing lines and putting things on good and bad side of that lines and denying or demanding no access to the things that are bad. How does that not make? You some kind of cop. You're talking about protecting?

Speaker 4: With everything else.

Speaker 9: With the wrong crowd, is that the way the way that you were framing protecting people from the bad?

Speaker 7: Yeah, no I suppose. And I was like this this. The argument for having police.

Speaker 4: Yeah, that’s.

Speaker 7: So basically saying I'm late. I'm late to the party that everybody else.

Speaker 9: Has already been out for an hour and a half OK.

Speaker 2: Sorry about that.

Speaker 3: Well, that's yeah, that's what I. You know I'm just calling it censorship is.

Speaker 4: Front facing.

Speaker 6: Whereas like it's. That's what I was trying to.

Speaker 3: Get to is that police.

Speaker 6: It always has.

Speaker 1: So before we stop, usually I'm very abruptly shut off and **** you if you're. More things to say. But if there are any. Closing comments that anyone has I want. To offer this time to do. That because I feel like we've covered a lot of ground.

Speaker 5: Well, if there.

Speaker 6: Are that police there? It's still fun to be a criminal.

Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true, that's fair.

Speaker 7: Yeah, I'm OK with that.

Speaker 2: OK, thank you everyone.

Ep. 53 – A Round Table discussion I

Episode 53 – A Round Table discussion I

As most listeners know The Brilliant is related to a few other public projects, namely Little Black Cart (LBC) a publisher and distributor of anarchist…

Continue ReadingEpisode 53 – A Round Table discussion I

Ep. 52 – Soren Cate

Episode 52 – Soren Cate

This a discussion with Soren Cate who is a local anarchist friend of mine who Interviewed a few months ago for the @news…

Continue ReadingEpisode 52 – Soren Cate

Ep. 51 – Dr. Bones

Episode 51 – Dr. Bones

Dr. Bones is a phenomenon that can only exist on the Internet. They are currently of face of egoist communism and only heard of Stirner…

Continue ReadingEpisode 51 – Dr. Bones

Transcript

Speaker 1: Welcome to the Browning podcast. This episode 51. And I'm here talking to the writer who publishes. Doctor Bones who? At the gods and Radicals website and.

Speaker 2: Welcome Doctor Bones, so happy to be here.

Unknown Speaker: Do you actually have another location where you?

Speaker 1: Also write like table, blog or something like that.

Speaker 2: Yes, yes, I have. The conjurehouse.com is my personal site where I'll mirror my articles and also post some of my more inflammatory things that could potentially land me in prison.

Speaker 1: What do you mean? When you say conjure house?

Speaker 2: Oh well, I’m a conjurer. I'm a occultist. I've been doing Hoodoo, which is a Southern style occult work. A blend of African theology, European grimoire traditions, and Native American herbalism. Since I was 16, so in between writing about how we need to destroy the state, I'm in the graveyard, summoning up dead people to try to kill my enemies.

Speaker 1: When and I'm harkening back a very long time to my I think this third edition Dungeons and Dragons. I recall that there's like five families of magic. There's like. What is it like, illusion, divination? In summonings.

Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, destruction all that.

Speaker 1: What are the other categories? OK, so there's so there's a category that's basically destructive spells. I'm just curious which family of spells are you interested in?

Speaker 2: Oh all kinds, one of the beautiful things about Hoodoo is that remember this was. Magical tradition that basically became born out of the southern system of slavery and dealt with the sort of Jim Crow world afterwards. So, whereas let's say you have your Wiccan types that are, praying to some God and goddess to, make find their enemies or whatever and who do we have spells to help draw business to a ********** to help you? Win a dice game to keep the cops away from your house to make your boss bend over and give you exactly what you need and who do. There's almost no morality enters into it. Whatsoever it's there's an old phrase that everything that's done, God has a hand in and it's sort of, this sort of religious overtone infused idea that look there are ways to do things. There is no moral arbiter that's going to come down and punish you. There is a theory that you do enough bad works. You almost get this stain on you that you need to wash off. But there is this idea that. There's certain things are justified, so let's say family member of yours gets raped. You know, in some magical traditions you would be. Praying for the elevation of the victim and the binding and getting making sure this other person doesn't hurt someone else and who do. That's not the case. You know we would go out. We would find where that person was and we could do all sorts of stuff we could make their if they get arrested, you can make their court case fail. You could certainly sicken them. Try to paralyze them and. Ultimately eventually removes them, so it's. It's very because it's african based system. It doesn't line up necessarily with a lot of sort of Western ceremonial types that a lot of people in the United States and Europe when they think occult or magic. They think some pot bellied white dudes in a lodge somewhere with a whole bunch of expensive garbs speaking. Pure nonsense, whereas down here in the South when we talk about magic, we're talking about dolls and graveyards. We're talking about broken jars, thrown on doorsteps, the devil being met at the crossroads. Stuff like that.

Speaker 1: We are also talking about with that tradition, a relationship with Catholicism that isn't so much like Protestant America.

Speaker 2: Ohh well yeah. And specifically towards the more western aspects when we talk about voodoo in the Southeast SE, we're talking about Protestant area, some of the older school workers they won't call on the Saints, but they might call on Moses to, make their boss do what they need or this out of the other, certainly. Catholicism by way of New Orleans. Entered voodoo and again. It's a very sort of African concept because you have these people that were brought over as slaves and. You know, here they are. You know they're not allowed to worship in the way they're normally used to, and then they're giving these images. Oh, by the way, this, St Chris, for he protects you with travel. Oh, he's a giant that in some records had a dog head. Well, . They're looking at this and saying, I kind of have a God like this too. Maybe they're the same, so you'll The funny thing is you'll have people calling on Catholic Saints and who do St Martha? Right the. Random lady that basically did some house cleaning while Jesus was there. Well, she's known as St Martha, the Dominator and that's who women pray to when they want their. Men to be put under their feet. You know it's. It you can literally beat thell out of your husband the idea is you get mouth on your side. You won't be able to go anywhere, so again, it's a very sort of twisted take on the sort of Catholic cult of the dead.

Speaker 1: The I mean I guess. Since we're within this topic and. I, I guess, talk. A little bit about your feelings about the general category of cultural appropriation and what it's like for someone who I assume was not raised in the Hoodoo tradition to take it up as you get older and with it within a culture that isn't necessarily yours.

Speaker 2: Well, this that's a great topic because I think hudu is a great. Sort of example of where this argument wins and where it fails. Who do is a byproduct of the southern region of the United States. It is an amalgam, . You have European grimoires, Native American herbalism, traditional African practices, both white and black. Practiced who do certainly we will acknowledge it is a black practice. The overwhelming practice and identity of it. Where it really blossomed and came to be is from black folks and we can acknowledge that and I think it needs to be acknowledged. Cultural appropriation is an interesting argument that loves to separate things into these super defined categories. When especially in African religions, there are no super defined categories. In African religion, much like in old Roman religion, there's this big synchronization of different gods and deities. OK you? They're a workers in Alabama, right? That may have a Buddha statue on their prosperity altar. Now these workers aren't looking at, they're not trying to steal anything from their culture. They're just looking at a spirit that works. So the idea is you go out and you find what works, whether it's a Catholic St, whether it's a spirit you mean a trance, whether and so there's this idea that we're going to freely borrow and take what we can now, I think. The big difference and where a lot of the people that you talk about cultural. Appropriation is respect. You know, if. I'm practicing this tradition and I especially as a white person say, well, yeah, I mean it is a black tradition. It grew up in, black communities. If this, it's from the southeast. This the reality of where the nature is. You can accept all that without you get some people that. You know this whole. Irish slave myth where Oh well, actually slaves didn't have it that bad. It was actually the Irish that were really bad and somehow it came it's I think if we dispensed a large part of the sort of victimization mentality. You know, if weren't fight. Over if you weren't fighting over who suffered more, if were able to acknowledge yes, this was terrible. It was bad. It came out of it era that was terrible and bad and It’s here now, . But it is funny because when I first started writing and people saw that I was practicing hoodoo and that I was white. They're like, oh, . Cultural appropriation? I mean, I'm a southerner. I'm Florida born raised, this rather than practice, . Some crazy religion out of England, I’m literally practicing the a cult tradition that's grown up from my soil that speaks to my plants and my trees and the bones of the animals around me, ? So it's funny that you'll have these people say you can't eat burritos. This restaurant can't serve burritos. It's like. We live in Arizona. I am 5 miles away from the border. Like are you weed burritos all the time? What are you? Talking this, it's not any one specific property. I think the whole sort of cultural appropriation thing. It started out as a great idea. As a way to teach people that hey, try not to wear a ******* Indian headdress at your next baseball game because that's, we really would appreciate it if you didn't do that and then it got picked up by college liberals and they just they just ran. With it

Speaker 1: Well, just. To extend that argument and again. Like of. Course I'm not arguing for the position of saying that. You are a cultural. Appropriator I like your answer but I but. I also like. Hard questions. I love hard questions, yeah so. So to take this a little further, what I like. About what you're saying about. Do is that It’s an ultimately a practical. System and so it has that sort of like **** theory. What's the doing sort of thing at it at its heart. And so the sort of my next question is, as someone who has quote UN quote white skin privilege., why do you need this practical thing like in other words, can you reconcile the. You taking or you using a system when in point of fact you're a beneficiary of the of the various system that this question lives with him.

Speaker 2: I would say first let me preface this by saying what's really interesting is that sort of dialogue in the exact. Where you put it is almost completely alien to the specific geographic region, and thinking of the philosophy and I find this, you'll often see these sort of weird. You know, people like to talk about colonialism. Colonialism is this. You know these, West Coast or northeast. College educated way deep into poststructuralism and they're coming down. And so these regions that have nothing to do with it. And then, Oh well, you. By the way. The collard greens you're eating is actually a theft. You shouldn't be eating collard greens and it's like, well, I've. I've been eating collard greens forever because they're good and it's actually what grows here and I'd. Like to eat? And survive, so I think. It's not when people talk again. Like you said, who do is structured around a practical basis? Why do you do who? Well, I'd like to *** ****. I'd like to make sure my boss gives me as much hours as I can. I'd like to make sure that ******* who lives next door who plays his music at 3:00 AM, is going to get the **** out of my apartment complex within the. It's less a question again of like what am I doing when I'm snatching up a policeman's foot track? Am I am? Am I stealing an African culture? It's practical sorcery, so it's removed from the sort of weird navel gazing so inherent with Western ceremonialism and it's like look, what do you want to do? Here's a way to do it. This for whatever reason the way people do it down here. These are the plane you. Who do you centers itself among the southeast? These are the plants that grow here. These are, the spirits, that sort of reside here. They were first accessed by black slaves who really sort of made the connection and there were a whole bunch of other people that joined in right around the same time. You know what's appropriation when the 1930s you had people in? Mississippi buying an old Pennsylvania German manual on how to stop bleeding with, a Bible which by itself is also a sort of foreign import from the Middle East. I don't think there's any. Cultural appropriation likes to imagine that there's these clear cut lines. That cultures exist as a entity under itself rather than a byproduct of individuals playing with this entity, .

Speaker 1: Well, actually let me let me move on. Because so. So the I guess at theart of this this idea that colonization. Like the crime. And colonization is committed. Isn't isn't the crime of, well, it's the crime of genocide and my own interest in these topics sort of centers around that particular crime. And what's interesting is, I think that Florida or the South more generally genocide. Looks different than in a lot of the rest of the country, and I think that's worth sort of reflecting on in the in the in this context, like. So as an example, black folk as this sort of generic term like have been there for a long time and there are some culture. Cool continuities that don't exist in places where white people just killed all the natives and glassed over it with suburban shopping malls. So I guess there's this complicated reconciliation in place like Florida, which most of us and frankly, Florida is one of the few places in the US I know very little about other than. To know that it's filled with. These same shopping. Malls and this same sort of glassing. Behavior, so I’m curious about about what that reconciliation looks like.

Speaker 2: Well, I mean, let's take Florida for instance. You know, Florida. First off, Florida will have existed under the Spanish flag longer than the American one until the year 2050. Alright, so technically right now our history is still the majority of under the Spanish Empire. Floridas existed under five Flags, the French, the British, the Spanish, the Confederate and the American. Florida literally was since its founding almost a dumping ground for criminals. Pickpockets before the Civil War, Florida was actually home to a gigantic community of runaway slaves, unbelievable in fact, it was such a threat to the southern planters that they petitioned. Andrew Jackson to go down and destroy all the free communities down here because it was evidence that black folks could live however they wanted without a, a slave master. You had Seminoles who remember Seminoles are not. Not a tribe that just magically sprang up out of the ground. These were originally Lower Creek folk that from South Georgia that immigrated and were pushed down into Florida by violence. So the state of Florida is this all the original tribes, like the Calusa, the ICE, everything like that they're gone. There’s no one left. All dead and what we have are these different communities and collections of people that have been put here and forced to work together or against each other and everything like that. So for a lot of these people. There's just no. Set line, there's no clear cut OK, you talk about the black community in the traditional S, they do have a lot of traditional. Cultural mores, and folkways and everything like that. But by sheer proximity, a lot of those things have spread to the white community as. Well, we eat a lot of the same food when we're doing magic. We do it in the same way. So while there are, different cultural sort of things that we do from say South Miami versus northern, . Tallahassee, there's this idea that there's no hard set rules as to what exists in. I mean, I definitely see your point, I think. Cultural appropriation looks different when you're someone living in like Idaho and it's literally you learn about the history of the Native tribes that live there and you look around and you realize that there's no one there and it's all a whole bunch of white people living in these shopping malls and everything like that and in it in the South necessarily. You have to remember that it wasn't so much a concrete plastering over of a culture. As a oftentimes horrible and genocidal mix of cultures, clearly white supremacy was on top. Jim Crow, everything like that. Clearly white folks have been like this, absolutely, 100% on top, ******* everybody below them. As long as time can remember for the Southeast United States. Those people still exist. Those communities are still here, so they've not become this sort of like platonic solid to where we can. Oh, if only we had done it now, there are real black people here. They do real things you can meet them. You can talk to them and oftentimes you'll you find out, oh, you like the same music I do. So again, it's just cultural appropriation. There's this idea in Pacific Islander culture called Tapu, and the idea is that. It's basically spiritual trespassing, and the idea is that you can mess with some things. You can get spirits to bend one way, get them to bend another, but there are some places and not some things you just don't go. That's spiritual taboo, . I can practice in African American tradition. I can live in the South. I can have black friends. I'm never going to say the N word. Because that's just no you just. Don't do it. You know it's a. It's a terrible, terrible thing and especially my wife has mixed. We've had to. I've been kicked out of parties because people have said it and I've attacked them. You know, we get all ohh well. You know it's not what it means, so there is, I think, cultural appropriation as a place in like creating some boundaries like hey, by the way, I really don't appreciate you doing this, but the idea that. People making burritos in Portland is literally helping to further along a colonialist narrative. I have a little hard time in believing.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess the where I was trying to go is to. Sort of say. And again, like I don't necessarily buy this argument myself, but the but the definition of privilege that I do like the best, is the idea that when you, when a visibly white male person is driving down the street. Their concern is not that they're. Going to get pulled over randomly. Which of course doesn't. Mean that it's not necessarily going to happen, but. That by and large. You know the statistical mean of white. Dudes driving down. The road so they don't get pulled over for. Being white dudes. Whereas if you exist, as a different phenotype that isn't necessarily the case.

Unknown Speaker: Oh what?

Speaker 1: So bring bringing this whole conversation around. Who do the. The point is, is that. Is that you have access or? Where a white skinned male bodied person has access to everything in civilization. Sort of provides you and you're. You're also grabbing other tools. It’s. Like the argument would be. That it, it does feel quite unfair. That you. Get all the toys.

Speaker 2: Well, see again. That's very like especially I you brought up the thing about pulling out. Remember this I don't think anyone we down here. Of for Christ's sake, there have been so many killings down here, we are all very much, at least I like to think the halfway intelligent people. Now, granted, you have plenty of people that are walking around with Blue Lives Matter, and this, that and the other. But clearly, yes, there absolutely is a system of privilege. I mean, you can look at the statistics at the rate which black folks are. Killed by police or imprisoned or everything. Like that and so I. Can see how some people might ? Oh well, it's As you to use the terms you use, not fair, you use all the toys and again the only. Thing you can. Sort of struggle to explain is that it. It's not. Again, it's not necessary. Magic is available to everyone, right? If I get, here's who do. This what Hoodoo is. If you have. A problem with your boss. You get his. Name right you stuff it. In a hot sauce jar. You jam black powder in there. You jam red pepper red pepper in there. If you can find it. Some sulphur close that bottle up and you take that. Bottle and you scream and you pour every bit of energy about how much you hate that ************. You put it in a. Up bottle flipped over you burn a tee light on it and every time that ******* ****** you off you burn a tea light on that on that hot sauce jar. Now that's available. It's just what works. We're talking about a sort of constellation of symbolism that's sort of boiling down to one point and changing the reality around you, that's. The thing is. Magic, that's just one specific form of it. Now you can do the same thing with a whole bunch of prayers to Jesus. I'm sure if you were a ceremonial magician you could do that in what the our Jupiter with different kinds of incense and everything like that. It's not magic to me isn't so much a form. Of culture, all these different things like that, but rather a language, a symbolic language. When I do Hoodoo, it's what makes what magic feels like to me. You know, standing around a cauldron and rhyming words isn't magic to me. It doesn't make sense to me, but by candlelight being over. Of voodoo doll and saying words of power into it that feels like magic to me. That makes sense to me and it's this sort of. Effervescent aspect of reality, colored in a specific tradition. Again, the whole cultural, . Do you get to have all the toys ? My response is what exactly is the plan here then? Are we going to go to the South and say, by the way, any white folks in the South I need you to stop eating collard greens? Black Eyed Peas. We're going to have a huge conference to figure out who the **** came up with BBQ. Some people say the Cubans some. We've got all these different styles, by the way, no South Carolina BBQ sauce. If you're not in South Carolina like it gets into this ridiculous sort of, ******* contest over who has what. It's not necessarily that I get to have all the toys. It's literally OK saying. Let's divide the toys amongst themselves into ways that we decide fits best that way doesn't make sense to me. There's plenty of toys and things like that we can have for everybody. Everybody can enjoy them. Everybody can enjoy Southern cooking while at the same time acknowledging the fact that yes, this came from slaves. We should acknowledge that history be a part of it, but at the same time eat the ******* color.

Unknown Speaker: Yeah, I think that.

Speaker 1: The part of this that. I am interested in is more and actually where you began. Which was to talk about. How does one respect? Something that is. That is foreign to them, or that. Or that they have a. Complicated relationship with because I. I feel like I love the idea of participating in a ceremonial life, but I by and large live in a secular, a secular world where where sort of ceremony that it that doesn't look like logic puzzles is all considered sort of forbidden. And so I guess that's for me I.

Speaker 2: Guess see, that's an interesting who decides it's forbidden? Who in you has told you it's forbidden?

Speaker 1: Well, of course I'm the one who's told. Myself that but I also.

Speaker 2: But why?

Speaker 1: Well yeah, I mean again, that's sure that for some people that's that is the interesting part of the question, but I guess I’m just getting at. How does one respect? Like again, if I have nothing like who do in my life and I decide tomorrow that who do is The thing is is the way I want to push forward that process is gonna look very uncomfortable. And how can one sort of make that transition between uncomfort and comfort and partially? Of course, what that looks like? Is how how is 1 respectful to this new toy?

Speaker 2: Well see, that's again and that's a very sort of religious mindset, which, again, if we're talking about practical occult work, which who do is let me let me preface this by saying who do OK, it's not. Religion now if were talking about Vodun right, which has a set hierarchy which has initiations which you have to undergo certain ceremonies to find out which God you walk with. That's a totally different ball game if we're talking about if I have the right to start walking around and calling myself a mambo. Even though I don't have any initiation for it, even though I've never. Been to Haiti. That's a different thing. Now we're talking real like I'm just taking whatever the **** I want without earning it. I'm not even doing the work. I don't call on legra. I don't petition ursul. You know I’m actively working within. Sort of basically almost my. Own sort of culture, but who do is much more grounded in practical sorcery, so it's not there are no initiations. There are no secrets. There is literally nothing. To say you earned this more thanybody else other than practical work, who do you basically took all of the operations from a traditional African, the. Took it to the southeast. It got beat over thead with Protestant Christianity. It fused that and then it asked the Native Americans around. You know what herbs, what roots are here that we can work with, and then paperback publishers sold a whole bunch of grime words to them back in the 1930s. So you had again. This the sort of and if you look at a lot of African traditional religions quimbanda they took they have these African deities that are literally horns and devils. You know that they are the German concept of the typhoid, the earthy devil spirit looking to make a deal. You know, in this sort of African mindset, there's it's all about bleeding and sharing and everything like that. You have, of course. Again, as I said, these voodoo and systems that I wouldn't stray into. I never claimed that I'm a, . Mambo or a bicore or anything like that. But I know that certainly I could go learn some things and if I learned a few tricks from. Core I could utilize them to as much as I want without having to call myself a bocor, ? So again, my specific tradition is all based on practical results. Look can you do the work or not? If someone comes to you and they say my wife left me, I'm beaten up. How do I get her back? Who do says? Here's how you get her back. It's not interested in and it's not even interested in necessarily for talking about purely on a practical standpoint why he wants to get her back. It doesn't matter. There are some workers out there that will just do the most shady **** because. Don't care, it's not about that for them. They again they share much more in common with the Haitian idea of a bokor of a sorcerer doing whatever happens to fit his personal individualistic desires versus a priest or priestess of some grand religion.

Speaker 1: So the way in which she really. Came under my radar is that? All this conversation about voodoo and the rest. You, you're you've infused it in your writing and clearly in the way in which you're thinking about things with the right perspective, can you?

Speaker 2: Yeah, can you?

Speaker 1: Talk a little bit about how you came to find Max Stirner and why. Sort of his ideas have sort of seemingly become part of. Your hoodoo practice.

Speaker 2: Well I came across Max Stirner through memes. I literally I don't even know. Remember how I saw the first one, but I kept seeing this face pop up over all these memes. And it's the same face in different . And so eventually I was like who thell is this guy that all these people are talking about? You know? Nice Spooks. Or what? This somehow I was able to find a. You know I read a small sort of like little thing on Max Stringer's ideas and a lot of it seemed to make sense to me because especially as someone who in their own life is transgressing boundaries of what is sacred. You know for most people. Graveyard is a sacred sanctimonious place for me. It's a workspace, I'm going there I'm collecting dirt. I'm dealing with these beings or whatever, so I've made a lot of sense to me that these concepts seem to be running people's lives, so I picked up the ego on his own. Blew my head clear across the ******* table. I couldn't believe what I had my hands on and it just completely revolutionized my thinking. Especially as it pertains to the individual. Everything like that and I don't know necessarily. It’s hard to say. Has sterner influenced my spiritual practice or? Did Sterner make sense because I already had a spiritual practice in place? That sort of did that? You know, practical sorcery.

Speaker 1: Sure, yeah.

Speaker 2: And again, there's a big difference between an occultist. A priest and a cultist is a person the ground saying I need to figure out. What works I? Need to get this person out of X. How do I do that? I need to find a spirit that can help me with that and sterner's union of egoists made a lot of sense to me because I swear fealty to nothing. Nothing at all, right? I only enter into relationships with spirits. We both help each other look. You do this for me. I'm going to give you this offering. That's where the work ends. When we go to the graveyard and we're buying graveyard dirt, we're doing it for a specific task. I'm telling that spirit there look. Here's a bottle of rum. Here's a cigar. I need this, can you do this? We have actual real intercourse rather than some weird fantasm of the some collective group. I'm going to actual individual people with names and addresses and politically it made sense to me because it's just one of the big critiques. Against these anarchists and things like that is that they're really just trying to create a new state, and especially with. A lot of the anarchism I have been seen kicking around. I mean, when I was a kid and I was first ringing about anarchism, I saw the 1903 guy with a bomb in his hand a curly mustache. You know this made sense to me like that somebody was going out. Gonna go out there and shoot a. King in the. Face OK, this makes sense. You know like yeah, **** those people. Let's actually like you want to be free. OK, let's burn down the plantation and like we're going. Free and dealing with a lot. Of anarchists Stirner. Just made again more and more sense because they had all these weird ideas. You know they talked about these, theological principles and how they were getting involved with humanity and the revolution. Everything was for the revolution and you. I just saw generations and generations of people living and dying without accomplishing. Anything because they thought they were furthering some goalpost. You know the oh, not in this. Life but the next.

Speaker 1: Did you have direct experience with the Fort Worth anarchists Fort Worth? This I think it's is in Fort Worth the place where there was the quote UN quote anarchist mayor in Florida.

Speaker 2: Oh no, no like worth, lake. Worth no, no, I haven't had any experience with that anarchist mayor, huh?

Unknown Speaker: OK.

Speaker 1: OK onwards. Yeah, they were.

Speaker 2: That's how right it is.

Speaker 1: Actually they were actually a founder of the radical cheerleaders, which if. You ever want? To get to a. Serious case of the idiot shivers. Go go to YouTube and search for anarchist cheerleaders and some of their chants are are excruciating.

Speaker 2: Ohh yeah well and especially Stirner with a when I saw you got these people. Perfect example right 2001 9/11 we decide we're going to go to war. The biggest anti war protests the world had ever seen. Millions of people marching up and down, holding signs, telling the people in power. That they were unhappy. That happened every single one of those ************* got ignored because their tactics were ********. They've always been ********. The only thing that was dangerous about the 1960s is how involved people were getting with the process. You know? We took the. Form we took the spooky idea of non violence and instead of seeing it as a specific tactic for a specific time and a specific instance. We took it as gospel. Oh, we almost had it this one time. If we just do this same thing again, it'll work. It's the same as you see these tankies that honest to God believe that 1917 was the pinnacle of human political thought and they will do anything to jam it down everyone's throat. You know the sheer idea that anyone would think that a great political idea is to try to justify Joseph Stalin to Americans has got to be off the ******* rocker and at least quite possibly a little deranged.

Speaker 1: It's funny there in the last stanza demonstrated that you come to radical politics through the Internet. And I have. To admit, I've never heard the. Word tankies used as much as the past three years of Internet discourse. Yeah, it's it. It didn't really. Exist as? I mean obviously people knew that like there was a there was a serious problem about how people felt about intervention in the in the context of World War One. And this was true. Both in Europe it was true for anarchists, and it was true here in the US, but the term tankies, which came out of that set of disagreements, has like it didn't. It wasn't used for decades until very recently. It’s. It's quite strange to see how things like that come back.

Speaker 2: Oh yeah, well, I mean not well. You mean Hungary, right?

Speaker 1: No, my understanding of tankies is that it came out of anarchists in World War One who were for the war.

Speaker 2: Oh no, see my understanding of tankies is that back when the Hungarian revolution was happening and the Soviets?

Speaker 1: This 56.

Speaker 2: Yeah, when the Soviets sent in tanks. Right to crush revolution. That's where the word tanky comes in. As I understood it, because a lot of people on the. Left are like. Well, if the Soviet Union does it ship, it can't be bad. Just like you have some, I don't know if. You've seen these. Crazy *** socialists online that like literally think Assad is quite possibly the next. You know now like they. It’s mind boggling like the IT. And to think these people really do think they’re radicals and they're like propping up a Syrian government. It just blows my mind interesting. I mean it.

Speaker 1: It's a similar vein as to like whether or not one is a is a radical. Things that intervention in World War Two was necessary to throw off the Nazis. That obviously is at theart of. All anti fascist activity today.

Speaker 2: Yes, an interesting question to say the least, and one I don't think anarchists really fully come to terms again. So much and what really got me writing was there's so much anarchist discourse and everything like that is it? It seems very almost sheltered, so dude, they don't really tackle a lot of like larger questions. It I think. Anarchism had to survive as almost this sort of fringe movement. It became a religion. They really did, and so these religious ideas about certain things were held without criticism. You know, this was how you became a good anarchist. You were judged on how well you behaved a certain. OK, and that sort of incubation period for anarchism W it's sort of naked, . Again, go back to the Iraq war protests. You know, at a certain point it was clear those protests weren't working and I went. What amazes me, especially in these first in the United States. I look out at like the informal Anarchist Federation. These people are shooting politicians in the kneecap for building a nuclear power plant. You know, they're sending letter bombs to people, they're burning buildings. They're creating this sort. Sense of fear. Look if you mess with us, bad things are going to happen. We're here to attack and this something I try to stress in my writing. This sort of a legalist standpoint, which is one of the sort of strains of anarchism I've really, really been interested in analyzing, was that you have organizations that are amazing at living outside of the state. Actively working against it, Hell's Angels mafia syndicates. These people literally are living outside of the confines of the law according to their own rules, not only doing it but surviving quite well, and sort of creating these inclusive well, not necessarily inclusive, but creating these cultures within themselves to sort of operate their own sort of morals, their own sort of folk ways. What they consider right wrong? And they're doing. They're able to pull off these amazing different. Things and what amazed me was no one ever looked at that model and said, how thell can we make this political? You know anarchists are still chasing around these sort of Labor unions that existed in 1930s. You know Catalonia in the middle of 2017, America. I mean, I don't know about a lot of northeastern areas, but in the South unions are almost non-existent. They're worse than non-existent. The sheer the sheer word union can get you fired down here. There's no representation whatsoever. So you have these people that are coming down. Hey, we're going to organize a Jimmy John's. Everyone gets fired, the chain gets closed. Well, guess what? No one ******* won, now but you have these people that said well, what if we take what we need ruthlessly against those that would exploit us? And what if we did it with the idea that we're going to create these other pockets of resistance? And in that with Novatore and with all these different legalists you sort of had that idea that they were striking back. And if you could just get enough people to strike back, who would. Who would the United States government really be more afraid of Portland if they decided to buy a couple of small arms? Or if thell's Angels decided that they were going to switch to full blown? The Marxist Leninism and they were going to kick off a review. And I think when we get down to the nitty gritty details in the nuts and bolts, the people that are more going to be afraid of let's analyze their tactics. Let's see what they do rather than keep evoking this sort of long dead system that failed.

Speaker 1: So I'm not sure how familiar you are with. Some of the ideas that. That we work in, but a lot of. What you're talking about is. Falls under the category of First wave. Anarchism and 2nd wave. Anarchism, so the story goes that the first wave of anarchy died on the fields of Catalan in 1937 and this sort of elite. From anarchist perspective represents the end of the workers movement and the end of the possibility of revolution happening in Spain. And more or less the end of the first wave of anarchism meant that there sort of were there were not a lot of active anarchists from 1937 until about 1968. And basically on the streets of Paris began the 2nd wave of anarchism and pretty much all of anarchism today. Or that sort of reflects that second wave has may of 68 very firmly in mind when it talks about insurrection versus revolution. And so anyways. There may be some research on your end just to talk about those differences. This also partially in the US context.

Unknown Speaker: Oh yeah.

Speaker 1: This where post organicism comes into play because post left anarchism by its definition, basically is post 1968 and very much keeps those ideas and that different perspective in mind.

Speaker 2: Well and yeah, with the situations and everything like that, but my own sort of brand of. Anarchist, I don't know. It came to a lot of texts from different avenues that a lot of people like. I'm not involved. There is no anarchist scene where I'm at, like there was a lot of a lot of people in different geographical areas. You know there was a small. Poor, a community that you would go to that would trade text. So literally everything has been, reading on my own ideas of my own. And so I mean, If we're talking about second wave anarchism, my God I would love if the average Americanarchist was all about situationism and you. Taking to the streets that I think again we anarchism as an idea has like flowed and taken shape wherever it can. And if you look at the story, it's actually really quite sad. You know, it's like you have these individuals that all of a sudden realize that they're these beautiful souls and that they can run their own lives and they try to tell people that. And then it just ends up going horribly, and it shape changes through the ages. It takes different forms and everything like. That and If. I were to look at anarchism today in the United States. Now again the United States. I mean some comrades and showing and everything like that are. Doing some amazing work and Greece with their refugee flats and everything like. These people. They've sort of Americanarchism as I see it. And again this my own perception has grafted onto itself. Different ideas taken from like liberalism. Some sort of like Social Democratic ideas. You know, it sort of did whatever it had to do to survive. And I think, especially in the basically the period of 1990s to 2001. Anarchists were trying to take their message to the wider world because they were absolute. You know, it was all about sparking off some grand Revolution. You know some grand revolts, so they were trying to talk to the people in whatever way they could and made sense. A lot of that came off sounding as basically rehashed Democrats. You know whereas. When I came to read the illegal lists, in rabbit troll and Novatore and Max Stirner, this was something. Totally foreign, it wasn't trying to borrow anything. It wasn't trying to be anything and said look, this the way the world is trying to entrap you. The only way forward is to attack it, destroy it, and liberate yourself. There are other people that want to be liberated, get together with them and start your own insurrection, and so that really resonated with me. Rather than trying to, go down to the fast food joint. Am I trying to unionize? People now find the people that. Are already ready. Let's get some connections going. Let's get some networks. You know what are, what are we going to do if you get arrested? What are we going to do if I get arrested? How can we decrease our food? Costs we're getting to a stage in history in at least American history that was similar to the early 1900s, and the fact that the social safety net is collapsing. And if we look at the early 1900s you had this huge explosion of fraternal organizations. OK, if I die at work, I need a way to get. Buried, let's pool our money together, we promise that. Each member is going to get a burial. I have no health care. How thell can I get healthcare if? We all pull our. Our combined efforts we can maybe get healthcare. That's where the Eagles, the moose, all these different organizations sort of came from, and in the early 1900s, when the state couldn't provide these things that people relied on them. And that's where we saw these huge explosions and. Leadership again, I'm looking at this model. I'm looking at criminal organizations that have survived for decades. I'm looking at terrorist organizations that have these cellular networks, and I'm saying why in the **** is anyone still bothering to get a piece of cardboard and riding on a sign where we could literally be creating a world unto ourselves with the sole purpose of destroying the world we just left? Basically, instead of trying to reform the plantation? Let's get off the plantation and then have the idea that we're gonna go. Back and burn it down.

Speaker 1: Have you heard much about ITS?

Speaker 2: Ah ha ha ha I have. I have the crazy little ******* down in Mexico that as I understand it, they. I mean they they were going to kill Ted Kaczynski and then they I mean they man they really don't went from what I've seen they went way way, way ******* down. The rabbit hole I mean. They didn't know one of their last communication. I believe this was one of the things that really kicked off that whole. I know your name got brought into this about publishing their works and everything like that. What are what exactly do you? I've what exactly do you think about its?

Speaker 1: It’s funny that so this going to. Be episode 51 of. The brilliant and both episode 49 and 50 are sort of our about exactly this question. You know, I've never been. A I guess. I guess you would say I've always. Been quite Catholic in my anarchism, meaning that I'm. I'm happy to grab from from books Knights who I largely disagree with from. Pacifists who I largely disagree with from Christian Americans who I largely disagree with and even from red anarchists. Who I largely? Disagree with and so. So for me the question of ITS is that I think that they are. Making a very solid criticism of sort of. Marcus pedagogy because they're exposing the problem of means and ends, and they're exposing it in their rawest way possible. And you sort of talked about thissue a little earlier in this conversation where you basically were talking about the fact that anarchists try over and over again. Of course, within this limited sphere of activity to do what it is that they do and so for me, this question has to do with the. Idea that the tradition that a lot of anarchists spiral from without acknowledging it is Puritanism or Christianity and mostly that's in the idea of there being. A world that. Has true universal values, especially good and. So specifically. When we talk about means and ends by and large, most anarchists believe that the only way in which to have a revolutionary moment is to basically be pure of heart and pure of activity along anarchist principles. Every step of the way to a better world and.

Unknown Speaker: Oh yeah.

Speaker 1: And so for me ITS really exposes the. I mean, again, like because. There is no. Such thing as Utopiand there never will be a post. Revolutionary world. Nobody really knows the answer to these questions, but to the extent to that to which we do know the answer of these questions, the whole way in which it's set up is. Is insane and silly, but so on that level it's is fascinating because they're basically post anarchists and part of their critique of anarchists is how naive anarchists are around violence. So I. Have to accept the fact that ITS are not anarchists, they are post anarchists. In other words they come out of the anarchist space and have a critique of it. Their critique is around this question of violence, and I don't. Love their answer. Which is sort of just sort of to attack without. Reflection so the thing that ITS is that people are really hot. About right now is in communicate 29. They take credit for killing some random hikers who perhaps caught them doing something that they could have reported them. For and they take credit for assassinating like a college student who happens. To be female. And so part of this part of the moral accusations around the ITS activity, is they’re being called femicide is now, which is like the strangest word term in the world.

Speaker 2: Well, I what I think is interesting is when I was reading these. You know, critiques or think of the ITS none of it again as a person who was, reading Stirner was, it was again this sort. Of ITS became this platonic solid again, what I mean? It was not a literal flesh and blood group of people. Living out in God knows where it was. Everything that they stood for, and so it became a way to attack. Look, I've read some ITS communicators when they blew up like some kind of university laboratory. I honestly didn't give a shoot whatever it, it doesn't matter to me, and I get their whole wild thing. But again as a. As an individualist, OK, so this group of anarchists. They've had great critiques about, this, that and the other. By the way. They killed a random group of hikers. Now you were saying they may have stumbled across something. I would say I want that sort of thing happens all the time. Ask anyone that's been involved with trafficking drugs across the border. You see something you're not supposed to see. It's going to be bad for you with that. Does that mean that I necessarily need to support ITS no? In my own book if they're really. It's starting to go around killing random people. Well then then they can die for all I care. I mean really, someone can just go in. And kill them. It would literally be no skin off my back. I mean really, if they've just gone this far down under their own eye. Isn't that kind of the? Weird thing about ITS, they say they're so beyond anarchism. They're doing, and yet they still maintain all these weird anarchist. Structures of where they need the public to. Communicate is who are they talking? Just I'm kind of feral revolution. I mean, as I understand their own writings, no they don't. But here they are publishing their communiques railing against a world that they know they can only affect in small small doses. It's it reads to me more. You know people that really bought their own books hook, line and sinker, and if anything, they're just. I meand. I'm not, but. They're a tragic figure. A group of individuals that were so deep powered by the world around them. The only way to survive is to. Nest in this little cluster and strike out randomly wherever they could. I mean, it's a study in human madness. I mean I, I get they've got some great critiques against anarchism and for one thing like their whole, the most people take the sacred idea of the revolution. I've read some of the stuff on that and. Agree with it, but when you reach. The point where you're just right. I mean, that's just bad. The business, what I mean, that's just dumb on their part, and if they're dumb, the stupid usually tend to get.

Speaker 1: Pushed the so I want to. Finish up and usually I. Try to keep these conversations to about an hour. A lot of podcasts I think go on and on but with that said and before we sort of start a conclusion, I would like us to talk again. If you don't mind because this this fun and you come in. Some things from a very different perspective that I'm interested to see how it's fleshed out over. So tell me about your book and tell me about whatever community of who do practitioners. You're part of. You can. Start with who do practice?

Speaker 2: Alright, well I am not a part of any community of human who do practitioners who do is pretty much individualistic in the sense that there is no cabals, no unions, it's pretty much the lone sourcerer. However, I am part of a. The organization of the Best way to put it without mentioning its official name is anarchist major. Field dedicated to doing certain things. Certain acts that have distinct political actions.

Speaker 1: Is it just Internet based or is it? Face to face.

Speaker 2: I cannot say what I can tell you is that we've got quite a few Members and we've got quite a few installations and we're moving towards some very large things. Some of those things will be the sort of model that we've used better explained in. The book but the occult is really starting to get politicized and basically aiming to make it in. And imagine if you will a thieves Guild mix for the major Guild. There are a lot of us spread across 2 continents that are being involved with that right now.

Speaker 1: OK and so. Let's talk about your books. So is. This your first book or.

Speaker 2: Your second, this my first book, my first book I’ve been printed in other publications, but this. My first book.

Speaker 1: And it's called.

Speaker 2: It's called curse your ball hex estate. Steal back the world or take back the. I'm sorry.

Speaker 1: And it's published by Gods and Radicals. OK, so tell me about.

Speaker 2: It well, basically it takes the sorcerer as a revolutionary subject, and I think it's a very interesting one because people involved in the occult community are again sort of the individualist critique against capitalism. We don't want to be workers. A lot of things that we want to do. Have no material value, no profit motive. No, there's no union that could do this. If I want to go into the woods and commune with whatever I find there for hours on end, that's not an economic process. The book is a call for the sectarian, more secular folks to really liberate themselves from the Spooks of society, the media, the state capitalism, and really put put themselves first as a revolutionary subject and start attacking the world around them and at the same point. It's also. All for the sorcerers, the Wizards, the witches to. Dies that the only way we're going to truly unfurl our potential is to destroy everything around us. That limits us. That's the capitalist order. That's the state that's society and the book towards the back not only has theory, but has practical information from a long study of anarchist terrorist cells. Hezbollah Bolshevik gangs in the early 1900s of practical means that anarchists in the United States can look towards to maybe seeing some more practical results rather than marching up and down empty streets holding.

Speaker 1: This and so within the family of other people talking about the occult and how to integrate the occult into a practice. There has to be a sort of a spectrum of ideas and what the ideas you're talking about and how political you're talking about these ideas. Being has to be pretty far on a particular. Spectrum, Imagine you're getting some interesting pushback from other people from that from that spectrum.

Speaker 2: Well, there the occult unfortunately has been danced with by the far right for a long time, and right now we're starting to see that sort of, anarchist twinge, especially with websites like Gods and Radicals, really starting to build onto itself. As for specific pushback, no, not, not really. I ever since I tore *** across a couple of people and basically had no qualms about. Buck off lighters have tended to try to shy away from me because I can get fairly acidic and violent, but we're we're starting to see the occult scene is really just now starting to political. There is an organization, the wolves of Vinland, for instance, which is far. Right in nature. These people own property. They have a specific hierarchical order. They Hale owned for all this good ****, but I mean they're basically organized along the lines from biker gang. They have, there's And these people are really creating exactly what I was talking about. This sort of world outside of the world that anarchists could never really mobilize outside of. Like squats like there are places you can go if you remember. It's a safe house. You have nothing to worry about. There are resources you can call on as a member, or you'll be taken care of, and they're slowly starting. To build these things out, I mean. You know, Doo Doo. Musty orders like the Golden Dawn I guess are still kicking around. I don't know anybody that pays attention to them, but that there was a big anarchist twinge in the 90s. With, Grant Morris and all that. I think we're just now starting to see a real sort of renaissance in the occult world, because, again, economics is. Filtered into our lives. When your author is, a thrift store table with candles you stole from work. At a certain point, you've got to start asking yourself are the material conditions around you really conducive to the kind of spiritual calling you think? Have when, when you can't afford to take off work for a holy day, maybe should really start asking questions about the work or boss relationship, and I think a lot of people as the United States continues to descend into this form of poverty which it is are starting to have that question, and I think magical people are going to be. One of the folks that really take it to heart and really make some big.

Speaker 1: Changes doctor bones. Thank you very much for this conversation and like I said before, I look forward to pushing forward. On it in the future.

Speaker 2: Absolutely always a pleasure.

Ep. 50 – Concerning ITS with Bellamy

Source

June 30, 2017

There have been quite a few critical essays, rants, and podcasts about how horrible any curiosity about ITS by anarchists is. This chatter has increased…

Transcript

Speaker 1: Welcome to Episode 50 and it's unclear that this will be posted as episode 50, but this in fact episode 50 of the brilliant podcast.

Which season 2 has sort of demonstrated now? Seems to be mostly kind of interview or conversation podcast now, and lo and behold, who has returned but Bellamy, welcome.

BELLAMY: Yeah, glad to be back. I was just saying before we started that I don't think that this will be the last that you hear me and if I'm not on every episode I'm . Still in the mix, I guess it's hard to get away from the tentacles of the. Internet in this day and age. So glad to be here, yeah?

ARAGORN!: Although I assume mostly your daily life doesn't really involve the Internet so much, since you're like hands deep in lawn(?), correct?

BELLAMY: Yeah, yeah. I spend the certainly the majority of my time outside battling with black flies and the Expurgating sun and the other aspects of nature's unforgiving wrath and efforts to crush the human being in body and spirit.

ARAGORN!: Nice vocab words. This week we're going to talk a little bit about. ITS clearly there's a lot that's been happening in the ITS space since communique was it 39?

BELLAMY: Yeah I think so yeah, yeah.

ARAGORN!: So the gist of course what we need to do is talk about how we feel about ITS at this point, sort of what's changed, what hasn't and then we're going to respond to the large volume of critics.

ARAGORN!: Both of us as in the shape of this podcast and other concerns.

BELLAMY: Yeah, and I think it's been clear for a while that certainly ITS in particular and maybe the extremists in general have been heading down this path of an increasingly theological. Perspective and pretty quickly it was some years ago that they started trying to distance themselves from anarchism from rationality from. Liberation, so I think once you throw out the liberatory aspect and you throw out the not only any desire or possibility of making the world in general better, but increasingly the idea that you can't even make your life better or. You can't make your. Life more free or that of those around you? And increasingly, take on this kind of divine mission that it's not entirely surprising. The path. That they've gone down and at the time of doing the episode. 40 I think it was. 41 Where we talked about Atassa, you wouldn't know it from some of the. Critical response I got. But at that time I said, well, yeah, it's I don't consider anarchist project. They're not interested in liberation, that's. You know, certainly. Now that's the case, but.

ARAGORN!: Yeah, I think that's a challenging. Place to start. Because on the one hand, they're not interested in liberation, but that's because they've stated pretty clearly they're not a revolutionary project, and so I think that it's very possible to be anarchist project and not a revolutionary project, but I, really, I. I think that this this whole conversation around.

BELLAMY: Of course.

ARAGORN!: What does it mean to connect or disconnect means and ends by way by way of social change. And this, I think, where a lot of the criticisms start start to fall apart. But before we go there, I will say. That I am not in favor of random killing of people. I think that the ITS mission of sort of randomizing violence, especially in the context of the Mexico that I understand, which frankly, is not much seems absurd. It seems completely easy to get. Lost in the. Horrendous violence that's absolutely reactionary and horrific and that. It would be. Absurd for someone in North America. To fantasize about an ITS type of a program here in the US. And I absolutely am not for that kind of a program. And I think that the question of violence is a big question. It's not answer and answer. That's yes.

BELLAMY: Yeah, it may have been putting the cart before the horse with my opening statement there. And I think it's. Probably better to start where you just started. And I agree with what you said. I think almost completely, except that I do want to clarify my previous statement and there may be some disagreement here. But when I say a project of liberation, I'm not restricting that to a some sort of revolutionary program where. The all of the conditions surrounding us and the life of everyone, or nearly everyone changes. I’m allowing for a much larger space of liberation that might look like liberation the individual or small group scale where people can take back their lives and make themselves have. Greater freedom and live more the way that they would want to live, and I'm saying that its in their recent rhetoric has been very clear that they're not even interested in that or don't think that it's possible. I also think that's in spite. Distancing themselves from the idea of revolution, I think from the very beginning I think that IS has a lot of revolutionary tropes or revolutionary ah. Kind of revolutionary theology is still there, it's just one that doesn't hold out that same sort of promise at the end. And I wrote about this, like,, something like a week and 1/2 ago. Piece for the upcoming issue of Black Seed, where I pointed out that there are actually some uncomfortable similarities. I think between the critics of the eco extremism who hold a revolutionary perspective and the eco extremists themselves. And that is. Really, what I've been trying to point. When we brought up the eco extremism before and there's. There's some combination. Of mine not getting that across clearly. And I think people taking things I'm saying in very bad faith or refusing to hear them, but that is what I've been trying to say.

ARAGORN!: Yeah, this actually a great time to mention the fact that issue 5 of black seed is very close to print read. It will be out by the end of June and so. One of the reasons to.

BELLAMY: Wow, that's great.

ARAGORN!: Do this podcast and wanted for us to have this conversation was to sort of prepare for that new issue of black seed and to talk about a little bit. One of the sections in thissue is going to be on violence and. There's going to be three or four articles that. More or less.

ARAGORN!: On the similar theme.

BELLAMY: Oh wow, that's good, OK? So where do you want to go? From here and then we can.

ARAGORN!: Oh no, there's plenty of places to go. I the next thing I was going to say was that. On the on, the sort of general topic of revolution and revolutionary hope I mean not to be clear or pedant, or overly clear or pedantic, but I do think it's fair to refer to the kind of spiritualism that ITS has expressed. As being. Not so far from the tree of a Christian sort of worldview, which is not to say that thisn't a place to point to and sort of. Say we're experimenting here, but obviously in the in most of the communicates ITS sounds more macho than they sound experimental. And so It’s a challenge because on the one hand I want to be sympathetic to this idea that I'm trying to listen to things that are quieter than than cars. There's and computers and the life in that. In that sort of direction. On the other hand, when I refer to the old ways or to ancient wisdom, I sort of seem to have a clear program as to what that looks like. Go ahead.

BELLAMY: Go ahead.

ARAGORN!: OK, but I but I think I. Guess the point always to me around ITS was not was not that I was ever saying or that I ever thought I was saying. Do what ITS is doing or be like ITS, but I was saying that ITS these people are clearly come out of the anarchist space. By and large they haven't been around for long enough. They are. They have clearly come from the anarchist space and so that means that they're exit from the anarchist. Was a criticism of anarchism and I always want to? Sure a great deal of attention to what it looks like for people to critically leave anarchism rather than to leave anarchism because they couldn't handle it or because they’d rather sort of have. A more domestic life. Like these people wanted to have a radical practice by a very broad definition of the term radical and they wanted to and they basically had problems with what it looked like within the anarchist space. And I want to listen to that, and I think that for them, the primary critique they had of anarchism had to do with means and ends. And had to do with this question of violence and I still. Think that ITS has. It is extremely provocative around these two questions, and I guess I want to talk about the those questions we can talk about it for Druid again, but like those two questions to me continue to be the place where I feel like ITS is valuable. That said, just like authors that we read where we enjoy their writing but don't enjoy them as people.

BELLAMY: It's clear that.

ARAGORN!: Its like as people are functioning as ******** and ******** in exactly sort of the way in which petty criminals live as ******** or mass murderers live as ******** like these, these people are ********. Do not. With them, but pay attention to what they're saying and. By their action, pay attention to what? Their action is. Saying because I think. That's still there is something relevant and important.

BELLAMY: Yeah, I mean I think the whole I mean if the way that they're portraying it is accurate. This whole killing someone because they're intoxicated on the street late at night. I mean, in practice that's no different than someone who likes to go around and beat up homeless people for kicks or something like that. So it yeah, it's clear as people as the way that they're actually playing. It out I. See no trace of a project of liberation there. I want to add a third question. To what you were saying about the first two, the means and ends and the question of violence. And I, I think the 3rd way in which eco extremism has been provocative is this sort of deconstruction of the oppressor oppressed dualism? That is obviously inherited? To some degree, from Marxism, for most anarchists. But it definitely shoots through most forms of anarchism in thought and practice and. Putting a very uncomfortable and difficult question, I think of how much of our crisis a product of oppression versus a product of voluntary submission, or in what ways. Another way of putting it would be in. What ways are? We oppressed by. What we think of as ordinary everyday people versus the sort of obvious feelings we can point to like a David Koch or a Donald Trump or something like that?

ARAGORN!: That's funny you bring that up this week.

BELLAMY: Go ahead.

ARAGORN!: This week a friend of a friend accused me of being anti black and to me that was a fascinating moment because I feel like anti blackness has.

BELLAMY: Really OK.

ARAGORN!: Been, articulate. That pretty coherently as a systematic as a function of systems and a function of history and a function of sort of like these giant structures. And so the fact that of course just like everything else, has gotten stripped down and turned into a new identity. Or the same old identity that can be.

BELLAMY: The individual accusation.

ARAGORN!: Exactly yet another individual. As if, yeah, as if I anyways. Heard by that, but.

BELLAMY: Yeah, I mean I’ve always understood why I was. I've always understood someone like Frank Wilderson to be saying you can't help but be anti black. It's not an individual failure.

ARAGORN!: But the point that you're bringing. Up I think is just so perfectly so beautifully. Stated in Perlman's continuing appeal of nationalism. That it's hard to sort. Of better than that. I I don't know if you remember the. The sort of famous. Quote, But he basically said, you’re. You're making your. Argument for why you're sort of doing bad political stuff because you've been oppressed, but what? But what person that's serving as a prison guard or as an oppressor doesn't have a history, it's a such a beautiful line. Yeah, yeah.

ARAGORN!: So, so the question of violence, which is. Covered quite a bit in the new. Issue of black seed to me has this. This dual form that I think is rather interesting. On the one hand, violence very much clarifies questions of what does direct action look like. How does one assert oneself in the world? But on the other hand, violence is a very unimaginative answer to lots of things that anarchists by and large would like to be imaginative about. In other words, what? What is another way of living? For instance, without violence because by and large when we talk about daily life, we don't want to talk about it as being infected or dominated by violence.

BELLAMY: Sure, sure, sure, and I mean what I generally say when this topic comes up is I. It's not that I so much have a moralistic prohibition against violence. I mean, I think if I could be. Very persuasively convinced that. A relatively small short amount of violence would bring us to. Where we want to. Be then I would be in favor of it. It's just that when I look at the legacy of revolutionary violence or transformative violence, I don't see a great legacy there. I don't see people becoming free or I see them. Entering into newer form of domination, often one that's more internalized or sublimated. And I think you can look at even some of. The most what we would. Hope would be inspiring moments of effort at liberatory violence like the Haitian Revolution where chattel slaves were literally rising up against their oppressors and fighting off against incredible odds. And in a sense, winning. But then very quickly finding themselves in the same sort of parasitic relationships and being on the plantation and being under a new jurisdiction.

ARAGORN!: Well, one. Of the criticisms that was made, and obviously, we'll we'll segue to. That now but one of the criticisms that was made about one of the conversations were having was that I basically argued that the only moral high ground that one could take to sort of disagree with ITS tactics and again, this sort of prior to them gloating about the random killings that they've done in the past. But the I basically made the argument that only a pacifist could really take them all high ground to ITS and, and I think that in hindsight the case I was making was sort of talking about a pacifist. And that could exist in a morally pure universe, but we of course don't live in that universe and that I was basically making the argument that if you're going to say that randomized violence is forbidden, then I was essentially trying to make the case that by and large what we refer to as revolutionary violence would probably. Also be forgiven forbidden by that same moral gaze.

BELLAMY: But I agree I agree and I am surprised and this came up in one of the criticisms of us, that I guess will address later. I'm surprised. By the very. Optimistic vision. Some people seem to have. What a successful revolutionary movement would look like as far as being free of that kind of indiscriminate violence. And I think the only. Way that you can get close to what that optimistic vision sounds. Like to me would be. This sort of very rigid moral dualism where the moment that someone opposes your liberatory violence in some way. And seems to be counter revolutionary. Then they immediately are guilty and maybe may have violence done to them without any sort of hesitations. I mean, I think in one of. Yeah, actually, I'm sure in. One of our past episodes. I talked about, the people that live around me. What would happen if Albany that there were some great Albany, NY it's direction and Albany became a liberated commune of the revolutionary anarchists? And just? How much vigilante or just sort of single person violence I think would immediately be directed at the just from the people that I live in. Yeah, and would you then very quickly say, well, these people are counter revolutionaries so it's OK to? Do violence to them. That's the only way I can understand.

BELLAMY: Not imagining indiscriminate violence.

ARAGORN!: Yeah, I mean, I think that in the North American context the idea of killing a person seems horrific, but the fact that . Thousands of car drivers die every year. And hundreds of people die by gun violence every year. That isn't necessarily sort of there. There doesn't seem to be a calculus of what that means, and especially in the context of, progressive social change. There can't be, because basically what's happening in. Real life, trademark. Is is absolutely different from? Sort of, the protest politics that. That we, by and large are seeing around.

BELLAMY: Right, and obviously people who are really deeply upset by the idea of indiscriminate violence for a liberatory cause don't want to think of themselves as countenancing. All that sort of violent. By continuing to, mostly live within the system, more mostly obey and therefore making their own minute, but nonetheless significant and all the time present contribution to the current situation of violence by gun death and car and malnutrition and chronic disease and all the. Lovely things that civilization brings us that we have become mostly desensitized to. I mean, I'm desensitized to it as well.

ARAGORN!: So there are three general criticisms that I guess we'll talk about here today, and I want to mention the 1st 2 by name. Well, can I?

BELLAMY: Can I? You're talking about the criticisms of us.

ARAGORN!: Yeah, the general criticisms of anyone who sort of thinks ITS is something interesting to offer.

BELLAMY: Yeah I did. Yeah I did wanna do 1A.

BELLAMY: Little bit first, which is this idea that and obviously we're going to unpack this more as we go on that's. Dot itts are nihilists and that this this the end product of. Nihilism I think this. A deeper problem of our esmati vocabulary or our use of isms being going around being people with isms that we want to defend. And it's why I have. Increasingly distance myself from I I'm much. Or cautious about saying or I'm a nihilist or I'm an egoist? Or I'm anarchist because you are immediately lumped in with all these people that you probably don't agree with very much and you consider those differences very important. But insofar as I'm going to be asmatic, I'm going to say that I reject the idea that. Realists, I think they are somewhere on the revolutionary theology spectrum, even if they have distanced themselves from a lot of that because they see themselves as having some sort of divine mission they see themselves as. Living aesthetically and dangerously and doing direct actions and publishing communiques and in the communicates they say action is necessary and those who disagree with us are cowards or weaklings or deluded. They see themselves as the product of a corrupt humanity that doesn't deserve the earth that they've been given. They call the human insufficient and flawed, and the only way to purify yourself is through this righteous violence. I mean, this not. A nihilist to me, if. And even the language. And this even in a ****** around nihilism. Is things like if you're not a real nihilist. If you don't do what we do, I mean, that is that's a moral realist claim. That's a claim about what is righteous and what is flawed. And I just. I think they have. Have basically taken the one trope that maybe has become the most familiar nihilist trope within the anarchist milieu of saying we don't. We don't think. We have any guarantee that things are. Going to get better. And that they've run away with that one. Thing without taking along. A fuller package of what I think a nihilist critique or a nihilist sort of starting point. It is. So insofar as people want to say these people are are part of your. Your tendency and you're responsible for them. I just reject that, .

ARAGORN!: I've said this before, and of course I say it fairly softly. I'm not a nihilist, but I'm happy to use the terminology because I think that the terminology starts in the interesting conversation and it does it by being provocative. And clearly, like if the singular claim of nihilism is that it, it doesn't believe that revolution is possible and in the current atmosphere and in the era that I live in, then that's the definition that I'm happy to use or that happy is to use. But I also will say. And I my interest in continuing to use the term. Anarchist or nihilist or. Green anarchist Isn't to language police I kind of hate those discussions. I always has since the first day of being anarchist and This why I sort of won't involve and I won't get involved in the cage match where someone starts the conversation by saying you, Aragorn are not anarchist or. We're not whatever. The **** because **** you. **** you and more importantly, I just I think that just that, thattachment of a term to its. Sort of semiotic roots. I mean, It’s just not particularly constructive. That said, I'm happy to talk about what is it that you think is? A good use. Of your time, how? Is it that you practice your? Value system, whatever that value system is and I’m happy to get into the mix around those lines. But I. Really don't like it when other people tell the world what other people are and are not along those lines. But that said. I definitely agree with what you're saying about that. Yes, I do think that I my nihilism is a moral and ITS is nothing. If not moralists. But I'd also say the same for my analyst.

BELLAMY: Yeah, I guess yeah, I think I. Agree with most of what you said. I think I do. I will participate in some level of language policing as I just did, just because I think at a certain point we're just we. We're just. I mean, we're not able to communicate if we can't agree. On some level of definitions and I yeah, I just think the idea of saying that. You know our. God tells us that humanity is flawed and needs to be destroyed, and so we're going to do it. And if you don't, you are. A weekly or a failure in some way and I'm a nihilist. I, I mean, I just have. To say no. Way if there's just.

BELLAMY: No way there's no, I'm willing.

BELLAMY: To give someone a lot. Of wiggle room with these terms. And I also agree with you that we. And I think one of. The great failures of our. Our discourse as anarchists right now, and I think a lot of it has. To do with the. Sort of online identity culture is that we spend too much time saying this form of ISM sucks and. You're one of those, so I. Have nothing to say. To you or you're not. We're not really this form of it. And that's fine, I agree, and that's why I'm trying to distance myself from the terms like I said. But we, we have to have some basis for Limbaugh. Once once said words mean things, and well, that's completely false. He has a point.

Speaker 1: I mean to just.

ARAGORN!: To begin responding to some of the critics. The first critic is the one who actually is one of the reasons why I don't engage with this nonsense. And that's John Zerzan, right? Because Johns is all the things that you're sort of accusing ITS of. Along these lines of sort of just using words in this sort of insane, very self motivated or self aggrandizing way John does that constantly on his radio show where where he's sort of blurs the line absolutely between all the things he doesn't like and calls it either leftist or nowadays. Denialist, and there's just no engaging with that, because.

BELLAMY: It's postmodern.

ARAGORN!: You know postmodern, right? Because I, I basically somehow slid from being a postmodern suspected leftist to being a sociopathic nihilist. You know, over the course of 1010 shows and it's all just is sort of a nonsense slurry of.

BELLAMY: Right right, yeah.

Speaker 1: And so and. So the only.

ARAGORN!: Way to yeah, I mean, clearly, like what's entertaining in the past couple of episodes of his show, he's he's more or less said. Come and get it if you if you want to really have a conversation around around my criticisms or these. Topics, but of course that's utter nonsense. There’s no way in which a person could, in any reasonable way, expect to have a meaningful conversation that's absolutely gated by John's rhetorical. Flourishes and by the fact that he. Gets the set up before the phone. Call and after the phone call I'd be yeah.

BELLAMY: Well, I mean I, I. Went on his. Show actually don't remember his probably about 2. Years ago and.

ARAGORN!: Yeah, two or three.

BELLAMY: I yeah, I tried to have it all out with him and say, well, this what I really meand I see you doing this and it doesn't make sense. And at the time the conversation was kind of reasonable, but afterward he just went back to saying the same thing, so. It didn't, really.

ARAGORN!: Yeah, so it says it didn't happen.

BELLAMY: Made no except for whoever. Yeah, yeah, except. For whoever was listening. To that particular episode, his audience would not know that anything had transpired and they would just think, yeah, I don't know why John's phone still call so.

ARAGORN!: And of course, tonight I would be happy to go on the show and do the exact same thing, but with the absolute anticipation. That the same result would occur.

BELLAMY: I mean what are? The I mean since? We're talking about. It one of the things that I really see happening is when he. When he goes out about nihilism, it's always. Well, what do they want and what do they really stand for? And what analysis do they give you? And I think there's this kind of slippage in terminology that happens where I don't see. I I actually don't really think there is anarcho nihilism in the sense that you have things like anarcho syndicalism or anarcho communism or anarcho primitivism, where no one wants to get called on an ideology in the bad sense of the word. And I'm not. I'm not even trying to go there, but I'm trying to say with each of those there's a clear set of thinkers. There's a. There's analysis.

BELLAMY: Of here's where we are.

BELLAMY: And here's why, and here's how we. Got here and here's what we have to do, there's. No, I'm not saying. It's a 12 point political program necessarily, but there's a clear sort of analysis and direction that you might go with it, and I don't think that there is. That with my wisdom when I say that I start from a place of nihilism, or if I want to say that I'm a nihilist, which increasingly I don't want to say that because of how much confusion leads to all I need is that I reject belief in. A lot of things that are conventionally believed in I don't. I don't believe in moral absolutes or a moral universe that somehow tends toward the good, or that there's a sort of battle between good and evil in any of the many disguises, and that it might have, including the modern secular. I don't think that there's an objective purpose and meaning to life. I don't think that we could have absolute knowledge in the way that we would like to, or in the way that our secular theologians think that we can. I think knowledge is fundamentally practical and pragmatic, that there are irreducible mysteries in life, and that's all OK. And I don't think that there's any kind of inevitable political destiny for people as a whole, and that's that we're getting freer or there's progress, or that a revolution is going to come. That's what I mean, and so that's not that has. That's my starting point because. I think if we're not. Existentially free and we're not free to create our values and not have values given to us. Then we're not really free at all, or we're importantly self enslaved. Some sense, but it's not. It's not what I'm about, it's not what I'm for. And so when John Zerzan or other people say, well, these nihilists, what are they for? I mean, do you even? Know it's like they. They don't even know what they want. Well, that's because it's not a. It's not a political tendency in the marketplace of ideas in the same way as these. Other versions of anarchism. Bar, and so there's a kind of category error that happens where John, let's say, well, don't they have something that they're for and something? That they want. It doesn't seem like it, or it seems like they all want different things. Well, that's because. It’s just you making a. Category error and you're saying that something isn't what it should be? One that's not really what it. Is I mean there are many things that. But it's not really. It doesn't really have that much to do with my nihilism, except that I start there. Someone said to me, oh, you're doing this whole force gardening project. I don't see what that has to do with nihilism.

BELLAMY: It doesn't necessarily.

ARAGORN!: Right, absolutely well, actually I love your definition. I think that's a fantastic definition of nihilism, and one that I would also, sign on the dotted line. And then I would say, and that's a portion of my life that's a portion of my activity, right? I think that.

BELLAMY: Right?

ARAGORN!: Really, what we're talking about. Is the fact that political perspectives tend to want to define other political perspectives in their shadow in their image and when?

BELLAMY: Sure, sure.

ARAGORN!: When I first started thinking and writing about Nominalism, which probably the closest document I could point to at least. In my own. World that sort of would. Argue for anachronism. Position It’s boom. The small little booklet that is composed of two scenes from about a decade ago.

BELLAMY: Right?

ARAGORN!: If I were going to start there, I would say one of the things that was attempted to be stated in there was that the that the narrative arc of problem. Data solution that's part of the problem. That's a that's a western mind. Simplistic way to see to see how things are structured and how the universe is shaped. And I don't want. I don't sign on to that. And sure, we can call it nihilism. But it's also saying that like fundamentally, the Western project. I am not signing on for. I don't believe in a progressive, metaphysical universe and that's sort of where John and. A lot of other critics fall. Apart, because they're basically saying sure, . Our solutions might not be, all the way there and we might not know how to implement them. But then then we know where we're going separately.

BELLAMY: Right, right?

ARAGORN!: From a nihilist nihilistic conversation, I'm happy to say these are models, and these are hopes and dreams. And these are things that we can talk about in that cadence. But we're doing it not. The reasons of like that we believe in a chain of history, and that's the last chain, but that, but because it's sort of useful to sort of play around with these ideas, part of what imagination looks like is articulating hopes and dreams and visions and models. And then. To smash them.

BELLAMY:-huh-h

BELLAMY: Yeah, and I think.

BELLAMY: I mean, there's. There's another level to it, which is that for most of the political tendencies that I'm talking about, when I say when I was listening things and saying that when I talk about my nihilism. It's not one of those things is that there's still. I shouldn't say still there. There's a sense in which if we can't get to there from here, then we failed in some way, and that's not what the that as I was saying before, that revolution doesn't exhaust the possibility of liberatory projects for me. That for someone like John. Who doesn't say that he's for revolution? But if you listen between the lines and if you read between the lines, he's. Still kind of talking about it because. He's talking about some sort of radical overturning. Where we have to end civilization and if we haven't ended civilization then we failed in some way that when you talk about what you're talking about with the reimagining, the sort of the way to approach problems or what I've talked about on this podcast and elsewhere of, I'm interested in. And in making myself and the people around me freer insofar as I can, even if that maybe doesn't look like the most exciting thing to you. That for a lot of people, if you're talking in one of the two ways that we're talking, they want to say, well, you're just not anarchist really, right? So that's another thing that's going on here. It's not just that.

Speaker 1: Yeah, actually.

BELLAMY: Go ahead.

ARAGORN!: Good, I was actually going to transition to talking about what I think is the harshest criticism and my project little black heart is more pointed in the in this context. This this piece that was done for I. D from a social anarchist position and from someone who sort of was self styled expert on Mexico and Mexicanarchist.

BELLAMY: Yeah, yeah.

ARAGORN!: Do you? Remember what it was called.

BELLAMY: I believe the piece is called. There's nothing anarchist about eco fascism. It's something very close to that.

ARAGORN!: Eco St ISM so.

BELLAMY: That's on it, no. And he calls it eco fascism.

ARAGORN!: Oh really, in the title. So the so the fundamental conceit of that piece which I think it very much dovetails with what you're talking about, is that anarchism equals struggle, IE revolutionary struggle and that sort of the examination or the OR the navel gazing around whether or not or.

BELLAMY: Yeah, yeah.

ARAGORN!: That any anarchism that sort of doesn't define itself that. Way is not anarchy. Position and that because eco extremism is so hostile towards that idea, and of course has committed lots of bad behavior that anyone associated with ITS which it that he lists some examples, and they're mostly propaganda projects that host everything from anarchosyndicalist M to eco extremism. But that. All all of those players are bad, bad, bad and not analyst.

BELLAMY: And little black cart was one.

BELLAMY: Of them, of course, yeah. Yeah, of course. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I feel.

BELLAMY: Like there's different ways we could go here. I did assume at some point we're going to talk about little black card and address those criticisms. I could also go on a short language policing rant about the use of the word. Questions about.

ARAGORN!: Well, actually, before you do that. I do want to bring up a place. Where we do. Disagree and I realize this somewhat semantic, but. I feel like. But not enough in our joy makes this point that I really agree with and it sort of dovetails with one of my pet peeves. One of my pet peeves, which has become increasingly. Increasingly common is people referring to unique as not being aB? Menary, and instead referring to unique as being sort of like. You can be very unique, or increasingly unique. Or for me unique, either you are either unique or you are not unique and that’s it, like there's no, that's the definition.

BELLAMY: I agree with.

BELLAMY: It’s not just for you that is. Actually, what the word means.

ARAGORN!: Yes, but increasingly I mean this. Or like over time, inflammable and flammable start to mean the same thing, because of use and sometimes I’m willing to stand fight. And in the case. Of unique I'm willing to stand. Fight, but I'm also willing. To stand fight in terms of the term freedom and this when I was used in. Mutual aid where he. He basically says there is no such thing as freer. There is either free or not free and we. By and large. Live in a condition of not free. We might have moments of freedom in our. Life, but that by and. Large we that we are not freer. And. I realize that you. Is the not that use of the term but for me I actually. I think that the term is worth defending as a binary. It's it either exists or it doesn't and it. Can be short. Lived, but that's and then. It can refer to that short liveness. So I'm all on board with having more and more moments of freedom in one's life, but I'm just not sure that freedom. It's possible within within the constraints of the culture and the society that.

BELLAMY: We live in. Yeah, so I think in a lot of ways the word itself is. This very fraught. And if you look at the history of the word in Western culture. I mean, you wouldn't have the word. The word freedom wouldn't mean. What it did, except in it, except that chattel slavery is a huge part of Western culture. And so and. There's actually a lot that's interesting in slavery scholarship about the fact that many cultures When when Western, when western slave traders or kidnappers first contacted for example peoples in West Africa the idea of there wasn't an obvious analog for the word freedom because for the peoples that were contact in West Africa. That ended up selling slaves to Western slave traders and being kidnapped by Western slave. Leaders to them this the slave was actually the completely alienated person. It was the person. Who didn't have? Kids ship ties or social ties except to one person who owned them. And So what was bad about being a slave was the sense that you were disconnected from almost everyone. And now we have this idea. At least a lot of the steel and like that to be free is to be without ties in the to be able to go.

ARAGORN!: That's interesting.

BELLAMY: Go where you want to go and do what you want to do and to other peoples that would actually look like a sort of maybe not a condition of slavery because you wouldn't be heavily tied to one person but that, but to be disconnected is not to be, is not something that's desirable. What's desirable is to have many connections, and so you're not completely. Relying one. Person, and so I think that the term is very fraught. I do use the term still because I think it has a strong resonance and it I don't think it's completely problematized. But all this to say, I guess I do disagree with you and that I think. By becoming less. Dependent on the economy. By becoming less dependent on state institutions for survival, I think we can couch out more space for ourselves. And I think that's a good thing, and that's obviously what the orientation of my life is right now. One of the major projects I'm involved in is this idea of achieving subsistence outside of dependence on society, and I feel that I am becoming freer. Appointment and that I am doing it with people around me that I care about and I think that makes me freer than I would otherwise be, and I think that's something that is worth pursuing and looking into more for anarchists and buy anarchists this. Kind of all or nothing. Way of looking at things I think, I think.

ARAGORN!: Well, let's let's move on.

BELLAMY: Me finish this all or nothing way of looking at things. I think you end up falling back into the kind of revolutionary perspective because either we overthrow it all or we failed. And that's fine. That's the topic for another time.

ARAGORN!: Yeah, I that was. A topic from the time. I mean again, I I would point to listeners, would point to bananas, enjoy and he makes the argument better than them.

BELLAMY: Which I have not read.

ARAGORN!: So to talk about little black car and this sort of way, in which some of these conversations have bled into criticisms about little black cart. I am this definitely. A thought provoking moment because. There we live in a moment where if you're committed, if you're if there isn't. A demographic that is committed to making your name, mud and to sort of like having 5 minutes of hate for your for your benefit. They can absolutely do it like it is in the realm of the possible and. Right now is. Parsed it's not exactly a moment. For LBC but I mean the. For the past six months, or maybe closer to a year, like my name has been, mud in certain circles, and that's by and large because I tried in my clumsy and unfortunate way to make an argumentation cautious and perhaps even critical of anti thought. And of the anti fall moment without paying clear enough attention to the fact that nothing was going to stop. Sort of like the cool kids from being for being all on board with the anti fall moment and. So I was really clearly. Relating sort of the first principle of cool kids, which is that you don't criticize cool causes until it's not cool anymore. And I mean, I mean, this the horrific thing and I and I. I hate to overexpress. It, but like the idea that me I literally held an event or what I was attempting to do was talk about. Personal experience fighting fascists and that got turned into me being the most ****** ** person in North America because partially my conclusions are. Critical of antifa. That, like the idea that chain of events happened, is it continues to be just mind numbing. And yeah, so with that. With that said, little black card obviously is has been wrapped up into in this whole blur because little black card publishes. You know things written by me. Obviously I'm involved in little black card and by and large in the face of little black card so we know that all of that is said one of the things that we'll get into more later. The thing that I think a lot of people don't understand is. How insignificant I mean it's not like an insignificant in the context of LBC, but there are other extremely strong personalities who are as involved little black heart as I am and the fact that those people choose not to be public personalities about it can be a little insulting. Because basically everything that LBC does by and large is put at my at my foot at my feet. Rather than sort of understanding that there's a body of people who are involved in this stuff. But just to sort of finish up a little more current as a publishing project, our goal is to publish provocative material by and large, for anarchists. And I, I don't. I am not convinced that ITS type material is forbidden. It should be. Forbidden to anarchists. I think that anarchists. Should at least.

ARAGORN!: Flip through Mein Kampf, which is a horrific document of racism and it's wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong wrong obviously I have to say that three times before continuing this paragraph but we should read forbidden texts and I and I just think that the idea that anarchism has. Has become modified to mean that we are pure of heart and don't pollute ourselves in. In this sort of way I there's no clear definition of moralism to me. I am at a moral.

BELLAMY: Right, right, yeah, I think,, what I usually say in these situations. If is if you don't understand why the people that you see as your enemies think what they think and think that they have good reasons for thinking it, then you haven't really understood your own position and. Why you hold it? For instance, I spent the last two weeks when I was cooking or exercising, listening to a whole lot of alt right media because I didn't understand much about them or. Beyond the fact that they were, white, the new face of white nationalism. And I didn't know what they were about. And after listening to a whole lot of Richard Spencer giving talks now I feel like OK, I could understand why I can understand that the specific set of analytical error. Others that someone makes that leads them to have this position and think that it's something that's liberatory or is going to make their lives better. If it could realize its goals and I didn't before, and I think that was a good thing to understand it allows you to understand your. I mean if you think if your way of. Of thinking about your enemies is. That they're. Demons or some secularized version of demons. Then I think. You have not gone very far in understanding what is going on in the world or understanding yourself.

ARAGORN!: Yeah, I mean I guess to me this sort of an obvious argument and it seems strange to make it within the context of anarchism. But clearly like LBC is making a decision and it's a decision not so dissimilar from publishers in the. Past and I want. To be, I want to be cautious about that. Or at least sensitive to the fact that. So both when panics and Feral house and even underworld amusements publish quite a bit of material that's look like scandalous or like, purposely provocative, and our goal in publishing material like ITS is material which you. Know as it. Currently stands we actually haven't published any other material. Although we're considering publishing the community. But we've destroyed material that other people. Have put together but. But again. This always with the thought in mind that there's something interesting going on here. There are these three questions that we've sort of partially or wholly addressed during this conversation, and if you if you're just reading it. To sort of. Hear some dudes talk about how cool they are because. They've hurt some people OK then. Perhaps we're blocked up for doing that because that's pretty stupid, but that really isn't all they're doing. So go ahead. Yeah well do.

BELLAMY: You have more to say about BC. I was going to suggest that.

ARAGORN!: No, yeah, absolutely.

BELLAMY: We OK yeah, so I did want to. We talked about Johnson. We talked about the ID piece this podcast. Was very specifically criticized at quite a lot of length by the podcast horizontal hostility. There it was. Their 4th episode was something called ITS is in the title. The title and I've had my share of conflict with people because of doing mediand I honestly have tried to be in good faith. I won't claim that I've always succeeded, but I.

BELLAMY: I have tried and.

BELLAMY: One thing that I think is. Mark of having good faith conflict with some of the media is to. To do things like quote them to reference sources so that your listeners or readers can check them out for themselves. In this podcast, we've made it a practice of meeting critical emails on the air in at in full length and responding, and I've tried to avoid very consciously. Cheap rhetoric, like using snarl words or engaging in logical fallacies that pass as arguments to some people. And I think that's a mark of being sincere and ethical in your debate and. Actually trying to learn and push critique forward, but I guess I'm when I listen to this particular. This horizontal history episode I was reminded that I my legal first name is Catholic Saints name because I feel like I just keep turning the other cheek. So that someone can smack me again and again with bad faith attacks I mean. It really?

BELLAMY: Had the feel of a sloppy hit piece throughout. It was riddled with fallacies and errors. It was shot through with malfeasance. I want to try to. Take it in a way of. Saying, maybe I can be clearer with. The arguments of making. And maybe I. Haven't talked clearly enough about what I mean by nihilism, like I did earlier. But I mean. What was going on was a kind of exercise. In demonology like that. We are people who cannot be reasoned with, that we are that LBC is corrupting the anarchist movements that the end of the piece. It was implied that were semi system pathic and right off the.

BELLAMY: Yeah, I mean within the 1st.

BELLAMY: I think 30 seconds or so of the piece you have this classic association. This guy, Jeremy Christian, who is a white supremacist who recently stabbed 3 people in Portland who intervened when he was. Harassing some young women who were wearing hijabs. And if you even cursorily look into this guy's story, I mean he's someone who, possibly he's on the schizophrenic spectrum. I'm obviously I'm not able to make any kind of medical diagnosis, but in the sense that you read things that he's posting online. And they're not coherent. He is talking about everything from,, how how much he hates feminists? Because they don't care in his mind, they don't care about men being circumcised and he's saying he wants to create a white ethnostate and cascade. And the black ethno state in the American S and he's saying that he wants to defend the Nazis because they didn't commit any kind of atrocities and he's all over the place. And in the course of being all over the place while he was draped in an American flag. And talking about how he was a Viking in the New world, he said also that he was a nihilist and. One of the.

BELLAMY: Hosts tries to then say, play this into your some. This what nihilism is and this what's wrong with. Nihilism. It's just so. It's to make that argument. With a straight face, which I guess I can't say for sure whether the host had a straight face. When he was. Saying it is embarrassing and is something.

ARAGORN!: Let's be, let's be clear, let's be clear at least three other sort of public personalities have to have attempted to make the same conflation, including John Suzanne.

BELLAMY: That someone should embarrassed about doing. I didn't. OK ohh I'd yeah. OK, well . There’s enough embarrassment to go around I.

BELLAMY: Guess yeah, in the in over.

BELLAMY: The course of an hour and a half the Billy podcast was never. Quoted there was no. Reference to any sort of episodes so that the listener. See for themselves, and unsurprisingly, the things that they claim we said bear no resemblance to the things we have said or would say there. There was even an obvious internal incoherence within the space of the podcast. Initially it was claimed that we defended Itts by saying, well, their ideas may be strange, but at least they're doing something OK. First of all. Does this sound? Like me or you at all. I have never been part of camp do something in over the course of this podcast. We've criticized that. Our anarchist mainstays you were just talking about Antifa. We took an enormous amount of heat in the first season of this podcast by criticizing the sort of protest riot form. Or an insurrectionary anarchism that is.

Speaker 1: They can't even suck it.

BELLAMY: Yeah. And the irony here is that.

BELLAMY: And the and of course, of doing that were repeatedly criticized as pushing a do nothingism. We're now we're being criticized for claiming for allegedly saying at least they're doing something which was never said, and there's no reference. There's no. Oh, and then about 45 minutes or so later in the episode, they flipped the script and say that our defense of ITS was maybe their actions are wrong, but their analysis great. Well, which is it? These are opposite claims. First to say, we say their ideas are weird, but they're doing something later. Defense of them was their actions are bad, but their analysis great. It's just it's just sloppy and nasty.

BELLAMY: The things we.

BELLAMY: Actually said which was that this question. Of violence, the only thing that we actually said that was brought up was, very briefly brought up and then just immediately dismissed as absurd. So a host brings it up and says Oh yeah, they want to. Say this thing. About if you, if you're for revolution, then you're for indiscriminate violence. Oh, that's absurd. And then everyone else in the show just says, yeah. And they dropped it and move on.

BELLAMY: Yeah, I mean .

ARAGORN!: Find find me. Find me a find me a bloodless revolution and you'll find heaven the same day.

BELLAMY: Yeah, and yeah, I don't know how much of this we want to. Unpack, I mean I can keep going. On there was a completely false claim that the critique of morality, which was also just called absurd, very quickly that the critique of morality coming from nihilism is shallow, because they just critique the ontology which for those who don't know. Is is theory of morality based on the idea of rights and duties and rights, rights, duties and rules? Basically so if someone says something like murder, murder is always wrong. That's a deontological. It's completely false to say that all we have ever critiqued this, the ontology I've critiqued consequentialism in writing. Which is. The idea of BorellIn terms of and actions, rightness or wrongness depends on the consequences of the actions. So when someone says something like the ends justify the means, that's a consequentialist claim. I’ve critiqued that in writing in black seed I've done it on podcasts. I did it on free like radio done on this podcast, so it's once again just sloppy false claim and my the best I can assume is that the hosts are are just mistaken and confused, and they're not thinking through things. The worst I can assume. Is that they know they're being bad. And they respect their audience so little that they think the best thing that they can do is trot out these bad faith, sloppy arguments, and this demonological kind of Hit piece podcast form, and that will pass with their audience, because their audience is either not familiar with us or they think their audience is not capable. Of reasoning well.

ARAGORN!: Well, I mean I. Guess to me, I will call this, as much as I agree with everything you're saying, I will say that this the best faith case that all that pretty much almost all anarchists who are sort of hostile towards these sets of conversations has made towards engaging with them at all, in other words. These people seem to be at least on some level, interested in these conversations. They just somehow seem. To be blocked. From actually having them because they're so interested in getting points and that to me feels like the part of this that I'm the most upset about what is most impacted by which is the sense of gamesmanship? This feels much more like it's a theme fight than it is about ideas. And because I'd be happy to actually engage with, like we have different ideas about what it is that human behavior should look like and clearly like some of these. People involved in this podcast have very clear ideas that they've expressed in other contexts, but they're not exactly connecting them to why they're so concerned about the ITS because let's be honest, ITS is a small little speck of an event in on the world stage of events and. You know, I hate to bring up this dude's name, but this guy Trump seems to be really impacting our lives in all these crazy, unforeseen ways that surprise me as anarchist and. And as much as I don't necessarily want to talk about him, I want to talk about the impact in which he's making on public relations and on themes that are anarchistic and orientation. But instead, we're going to talk about, basically probably half dozen people in Mexico. I don't know. There's something there that feels a little. Obsessive or strangely, yeah it's just. It's just a little strange.

BELLAMY: Yeah, and In the piece of ripe for black seed. I said one of the strange things about eco extremism is that it has become kind of quickly and quickly and seemingly overly and emphatically, and Imagine will pass away quickly as well. But it's become a sort of. Tell us within North Americanarchism of where. How you talk? About it or how you engage with it about what sort of pet? The in Group or out group you're part of and what this seemed like was an effort to inflate it. You know we did talk about eco extremism on this podcast several times. Maybe we talked about a little too much. I felt like we always talked about it and then just sort of dropped the subject and I don't know that we necessarily would have brought it up again. But it there's been this effort to inflate it, and it's happened through distortion, and I do want to say one last thing about the horizontal hostility podcast that I thought was really the nastiest part of it. That because it was so obviously distortion where they read the communique, the I guess it was the 39th communique or right around there about the random killing and ITS expressing this kind of hyper jaded hyper, misanthropic attitude about the killing that they did and then. Finished reading that. And then said this the discourse that the brilliant says they want to support. I don't know why they want to support this kind of thing. And of course, we had never read that communique. Never that has never been published in anything that little black card has done, and so to do. That is, is. It's plainly erroneous and the. The implication that's being made. Is that we're? For this hyper moralistic murder of random people, and I think we've been very clear about the parts of equal extremism that we thought were relevant in what they provoked in anarchist discourse. And then, of course, they closed the episode by saying. Well, those anti syphilis. They're halfway between anarchism and ITS. And then someone says they're more than halfway and so there's just this. This sort of straight up demonization that in some way we're we're someone who's for moralistic murder of random people or even might commit and. It's just nonsense, just silly.

ARAGORN!: You're silly. And frankly, I kind. Of hope that. We actually have a planned episode to talk to another person about this particular topic. But after that, after that conversation is over, I kind of hope to never talk about ITS again, but it's a challenge because, I, I still think that this question of violence is a central question for our time and that. Basically us in the United States have been. Rejected from it by our particularly effective law and order states, which is probably the most effective law and order state in the world. And to me, that connection of law and order and what it means to be a supplicant of state control. To me, that's still an extremely relevant conversation. One of my favorite pieces in the tossal was this was a piece that. But question theart of this particular math and I just I. I feel like I'm not done with that part of the conversation. And if and if it means still talking about the acts of a bunch of ********, maybe it's a small price to pay to get at theart of what? I think the politics, the politics of data life look. Like in the 21st century, because I'm still interested in that.

BELLAMY: Yeah, yeah. I mean the.

ARAGORN!: Other part of. This like, I guess to the extent to which anarchism really does become a team sport activity. You know what we're really seeing with this with this horizontal hostility podcast, is that their team and they have a perspective. And, outside of spending a lot of time. Just telling us what the other team is, I look forward to sort of them fleshing out exactly what their team is for, because I suspect that it's for something that looks like. Transhumanist humanist market market based solution type of anarchism, which as far as the team sports goes is a is a strange one.

BELLAMY: Yeah, but I'm not sure if that's true or not. There was certainly no obvious trace of that in that episode, although they did. Have a brief discussion about humanism that I thought was actually kind of was misinformed about what humanism means, which to me. It's secularized Christianity, and that was not brought up as relevant or was this idea that what might be.

ARAGORN!: I think people will probably use one.

BELLAMY: Wrong, yeah, yeah, but I mean, I think it's.

BELLAMY: It's at least known even to people who are pro humanist, that's a criticism of humanism that it. It replaces the deity with a divinized humanity that has a historical destiny and things are getting better and we can overcome all of the. What we might think of as perennial human problems and that gets played into a lot of. Nasty things and on there was just. Maybe what's wrong with? Humanism is that we're not respecting nonhumanimals.

BELLAMY: Which is which is what one of?

BELLAMY: The one of the many friends.

ARAGORN!: Thank you much for this conversation.

BELLAMY: Yeah, sure and yeah, I guess we'll we'll talk again soon. And when we talk again. Soon it will. Not be about ITS.

ARAGORN!: I sure hope so.

Ep. 49 – Conversation with Abe Cabrera The Main Editor of Atassa

The Brilliant Post

MP3

June, 2017

This an informal conversation between Aragorn! and Abe Cabrera the primary editor of the Atassa journal. It is not intended to be a defense of ITS or a serious attempt to engage in the criticisms towards us (Atassa, LBC, and me personally). It’s intended to sound like a conversation between people who share some similar perspectives. Obviously those who don’t share those perspectives are going to feel less comfortable and perhaps feel misrepresented.

Transcript

Aragorn!: This is going to be episode 49 of The Brlliant podcast. We just put up episode 46 I think. So it's going to. Be up week or two before this posted up live, but obviously what we're talking about was so very important to week. And now a week later feels a little less important, but clearly I think a lot of people. Care about this? Topic or just care about the conversation? Obviously both of us were sort of called out, but I wasn't called out by me and just my projects were called out. You were called out about 10 days ago from IGDB and this person named. Scott Campbell, I think the name is Scott, something and more or less what the purpose of the article was to was to disassociate social anarchism. From its and from even considering its to be something worth talking about or thinking about. And I guess my first question. Well, actually you. Know what I think? I'd rather not talk about that article to start out with, I'd rather. Talk a little bit about. Your pedigree, because you actually came to the eco extremist position, not really from anarchism, but from a sort of ultra left Marxist position is that.

Abe: Well, this what this where all the legal distinctions come involved. I don't feel I. Would could call myself any books similar.

Aragorn!: Sure, sure.

Abe: Obviously people would be like who don't like these who they're quite a female. Would go ha ha. Ha, you're just making. For for injuries legally, but I think just the nature of what equal extremism equal extremism is. Very much a practice oriented sort of thing, and obviously I'm not doing that because like I said, the FBI would have opened up my door already. So, so that's sort of the caveat you always have to put up with these things and all the same people will come up and say, well, they're going to do it. One of these. Days you'll see and it's like, well, . Everything, everything has its limits right? So we try to minimize those, but OK. So after that's sitting here, how did I come to sympathize with them? Yeah I. I mean, how far do you want to go back? Because I. Could go back. I mean I could go, I mean my formation was basically when I was. Young when I I could write for the Confessions of a young trusting this sort of thing because I had to trust kids when I was 16, and I've been to basically and then I had a spiritual crisis. So I was in the desert for a bit, almost literally, actually I was. I studied for the priesthood, I grew up Stafford, but that's a whole other story. And then I was in a monastery for a couple of years. And then I got married and returned to normal life and then after that occurred, after my kids started being born then I started to return. Or the political thinking, but not, not in the practical sense, because I, in the practical sense, I could barely tie my shoes at that point, cause, young children in the job and so on and so forth. So I started. But yeah, that's the point that I encountered. Anarcho primitivism or like radical anti civilization thought I was a Marxist because I sort of because when I returned to political thinking for religious thinking, if you are philosophical thinking, I actually took. Up where I? Left off and I was like OK, well I need to return to all these things. That as the young man I visited and tried to slander, sort of in the desert, perfusing the marches. And then, I encountered. You know when people were religious thought like their chances and Gary Schneider and on realism. So after a few years of that I started, this the. John Bolton show. Ironically, since he takes me now, but I heard of the people in Mexico who were and like being Mexican extraction, . You know my fear first up, so I obviously I googled it and I read the communicate. I read the communicate your first communicate that the first is to communicate in 2011. Yes, and I was very like oh OK, because it went off on. I mean, there's sort of really tinfoil hat stuff and people will laugh at that now because we're like, Oh well, you’re basically, apologize for being so fast. But I mean the 2011 and I, I have to just talk. They are doing recordings of those again, even though on these extremist website. Now these to the new site. It's so funny because after a couple of days after they started doing those they did the recording one and two. They did this. It must have been like a seven or eight paragraph like a preamble, like we're going to be post this. Link, but since so. You know, this how we've evolved. We're we're seeing like fine print sort of thing, but I was reading that they sort of for me. They sort of be very temporal hat on, and the technology is going to create robots. Follow the world, blah blah blah. And so I'm like, oh, that's nice. So I sort. Of just kept. Going, with my physical, they're sort of reading and writing at that point. And then it was only at the point that they became. While the action with people as well the action which is August 2014. That really perked my ears, because then we started to look off in another direction with the sort of historical historical allusions to what happened in ancient Muslim Americand the concepts and the war against civilization that occurred there over the period of about. Half a century, so that was interesting, and that's what led to my, and that's what led to my article towards savagery with the ritual magazine, which really started the ball rolling on that and. Like told. And it was just sort of a. There's a website at that time that was part of. It was pretty well. A lot of interesting primary sources and a lot of it was. It was clear that something was going on, like there was something from from just being like, . Green anarchist, very eclectic, . I think sure her everyone concerned that I land. That was certainly starting to settle into something that hadn't been. Really been before, if you will. That I mean, that's sort of that. I mean where marks the 5th and that. I mean, yeah, I've. I've actually never considered myself anarchist. I sort. Of I mean, when I when I was interested in that article, primitivism, when I still have, have called myself, and I'm not. I'm not sure about this article part if I just. Well, that was at Berkeley you. Know when I was. A Trotskyist and I just remember that the anarchists were, and I just didn't associate that.

Aragorn!: You know when?

Abe: I was very much. Tell tell me more about that one paper.

Aragorn!: Tell me more about that. What period was? That in what anarchist were you? Did you?

Abe: I didn't even. I mean, I didn't really interact with anybody. I mean I have. I have some feedback from for sale, bagels or some demonstrations. When I was 16, . You know, I didn't really. I guess I was in there after the scene I was in. You know, in that sort of thing. This was this was realizing that wasn't banned. You know that?

Aragorn!: Ohh really.

Abe: And I was in the I was like the very early stage of that. Like I. Like caucuses at its foundation. I was there and so, but I mean I don't. I don't know I feel bad about playing this, but let's just say that there that a lot of them are trustless if you will. So I live in that and so that was my real. You know it was. It was sort of that was my only real fault if you will, so I didn't really have anybody any other. You know, interactions with the only people I would only ever sort of. Trends . Cross Street activity I would have is basically in real life trolling of the sparks and the ISO which is a fighter that's means of International Socialist organization. For those who aren't for. So, just like fellow Trotsky is foods and then. The RC working and going viral. But things like that it was just it was just what it. Was ? And I do remember it was funny because I always think that when I was at that stage, I mean ethological. Radical thought was like the furthest thing from my mind because this what like late 90s, right? So you're older than you were you were you were in Berkeley at that stage, right? I I still in here in the Bay Area for a number of years, yeah so I mean, I remember once there was that as the captain really in the middle of campus I was. Spanish class and. Some guy hung a banner that's been in 1998 from the capital and he just suspended like. I don't know how many hundred hundred couple 100 feet above ground or however tall that is and it's she had a benefit and animal vivisection, you just trained there for like two or three days and I rolled my eyes at it. And I always thought that it was, . Referring me, I was a good I. Was a good Bolshevik. So that was that was my. And that will further my political theory. But I mean that lasted only a few years. I mean, I was when I would drop out of Berkeley that. Word 2021 and when I started my spiritual journey or whatever.

Aragorn!: And so and so then.

Abe: I don't know.

Aragorn!: You had a gap. Between that time and when you became interested in eco extremism and so, I guess, continue to talk about the evolution of the ITS phenomenon through from, from the time it became wild, react.

Abe: Right well, I mean they what the big thing was is they started out doing that. They were they were either just something that was another thing that Scott Campbell article that was sort of like. 1/2 truth like they had anarchists in them and the group shout outs. You know the typical shout outs. To the anarchist person. And so on and so forth, as in about the six communicator. Right now, we're not doing that anymore. And and they, they're sort of saying we're not going to the. Political correct language? We're just gonna we basically we just felt that the left is worth dealing with, which is really sort of cause. In which in? Anyway, yes, so I. I guess it's just sort of what became more consistent consistency right at that point. But the but the one thing that they've never done with liberty and accuracy is the article. Something that never actually, the one thing they've never advocated this revolution, so that's the big thing about, . Industrial society and its future in the whole tech revolution. They were like no. It's not gonna, that’s not gonna fly. We don't believe in that and it was funny. Because initially. The case they were like no no. We know this. Physiciand he's been in jail for another year. So she will out right now. He would see that revolution as impossible. You know you can't, create a mass movement in this way. Technology like that's just not possible, so that and the whole life industry minded attack that's in there since they want that's been, more or less. I mean not in the sense, not in the sense. Maybe that they've been doing it now, but in the sense of like if we send the. And it's it just throws up your who's the secretary and says off or something like that instead of the person. Well, that's just, that's just how we're going to do it. That's just how it is. So we're sort of like. That, and it's just very much. Fighting its way. You know from there and also very very fast. It's very rational. Like I said, when you're looking to go on and on about mental technology about battery and so on and so forth. So that's a very that’s another sort of thing that's between then and now. I mean, they really are. Are very different ideologies within the same field 2011 but within six years where they've gone much more than idealistic, much more virtual. If you will, because although that's interesting because there are there are certain. People who get those folks more than others because. If you wanted to go into that or you wanted to keep on a large scale so one of the things about the 29th stimulatory, if you, if you think of people just, Oh my God, they kill people, but which of course is, is significant, however.

Aragorn!: Oh no, that’s great no no.

Abe: If people saw it. If people know the curve.

Aragorn!: Actually, can we pause for a second? The first thing is the first thing is, you're a little close to the microphone, so you're. Breaking up quite a bit, I'm not. Sure, if the if you're if.

Abe: OK.

Aragorn!: You're holding the microphone if you're or if. You can if you can. Move it just.

Abe: A little while because I'm sort of standing let.

Aragorn!: OK, OK and yeah.

Abe: Me just sit down.

Aragorn!: OK so then continue continue. You're talking about the 20th. Communique and what it said. Other than that they were taking credit for killing. Some quote UN quote innocents.

Abe: So is this better, yes. Better OK, let me just. I'll sort of what we've been doing all. This stuff, yeah. Yeah, I'm just talking to myself in the in the way so the kid was signed by two groups, which was one with the ITF and then there's a which is the individual. In the in the group. These are two groups, the. The latter which is the GPS which which I don't know how you would, how how they. Would say it. I think it's a particular individual and he I guess you could just. Indiscriminate if you will, and she before it was. She had a something called an industrial attraction. She's interested. She writes in a very cold. Mexican, Spanish and he has his own sort of theme going either them or I should just clarify right now. I don't know who ITF is. I don't know how many there are. You know theoretically or it could be just, if it's just a prank bro, it's. I mean it's. Possible, I mean I don't. I don't know. I think at this point there's something. Going on so I don't know. Is who's who and who's what. I have no idea. I just figured it out from when they issued the communication. The faster than the Spanish and the fact that I've read a lot of the same things they have. So with that out of the way, well, actually actually actually, let's let's.

Aragorn!: Expand on that one. One more level, which is to your. To your understanding, how much of what they take credit for. Is there any sort of like external source validated that they actually did? What is they did? In other words, how much of this could be a joke if they were just joking around?

Abe: 50% well let me put it to you. This way there hasn't been anything that has come out like that. Has what people have said. Well this wasn't done this with somebody else and I know I'm actually told that's difficult and that's also different with Scott Campbell's article. He was like 99% of the crimes in Mexico goal. That's all which is funny, since a lot of people come that are in jail for the only people who get caught in Mexico are. Assassins it's a drug cartels. Give up anarchist, but anyway that's an interesting thing so nobody's been. Caught nobody has ever come out and said or somebody else did this, not them. There's a caveat about that because I know that the, the Enron worker, they work at the. The national economy. University of Mexico. The chemistry they had thead of chemistry. The Chemistry Department services people were the police report. One initial report from the Tourney General's Office said that it was. Coworkers left with it. However, both coworkers were never caught. So I mean, I mean, I'm assuming that they were his coworkers. Why didn't ? Why didn't the police just go to their house and the rest of them? So you go to the Mexican media now right now. And that's gonna be the September board at all. But they're saying yes, it hasn't been solved yet. So who knows who I mean? Somebody could have said something, so unless this built in the fact that. You know we, we just don't know. I mean, it's it. It's but. However, the only thing that the only people who seem to be saying anything about it is like yes well, I mean they killed the Restor vice rector of a prominent Mexican technical. Literacy in the. North they shot him when he was going at a map map out of out of math. Going to church and they shot him coming out of church. Having they have they caught anybody in regards to that and you could just say ohh the Mexican police are incompetent. OK they're in. Like that unless you can say at this point they've been in the national news about that. If they got caught or they said oh this was done, they would just, somebody would just come out and say it and nobody said it. But I think a lot of this stuff is really strange, like when they killed the two hikers. Also the 29th. Backpack, backpack and they weren't robbing them. You know that should be very interesting and the other big significant thing that is underplayed in the United States is when they sent the tax package done to Oscar landed Richard, who is thead of the which is the Chilean mining company, which is one of the largest mining companies. In the world they sent the ITF group and one of the ITF groups in Chile sent a package from China's house. And and it, it blew up it really. And the only reason that she was a little bit more is because there was there was some sort of way that just by sheer chance of. Having opened there, most of the shot will flew away from the state, but it was on that within the child. For weeks, the President of Chile Commons, the person the Supreme Court. When the I think is the President of the Chilean Supreme Court that may change your prudence. You know which reflects sometimes bond. That ICF is used, other places, nobody solves it. You know it's just like Oh well, you're just you're just out and about. But I'll I'll, I'll give you, I'll give you a reason why we probably don't get caught. And this just this actually if you do the password, there’s a. An article called surviving Civilization is the reference to the Devil rights of these extremists, which, if you do a little bit of digging, actually based on a similar work that I actually like. Avoid the seeing just like a normal person. Talk with normal person. Don't tell anybody that's you. Know what you're doing and just various things and might be aware of how you dress and what you do and just . Just be normal, just like the normal life when it comes time to do it, to do it and then. And so, and one of the things they say about that is like, yeah, they put that anarchist anarchist thing because they're calling the cops.

Aragorn!: Orders and so you.

Abe: See how that works. You know supposedly want to influence the people and they wanted, influence and they have all the infighting and they have all those rules and those pictures, and the people that them out. And that's why they end up in prison. It's just doesn't do that, it's is. Disease is basically like a physical. Well, they don't. Nobody goes through the honor.

Aragorn!: Isn't similar to ISIS? Both of them are similar to Netziv.

Abe: Yeah, well that's where all my history is deficient. Yeah, very extensively though that particular article is based on that.

Aragorn!: Any words onward?

Abe: Like I've actually read.

Aragorn!: That argumentation is almost verbatim from Natchez's catechism of the Revolution.

Abe: OK, well I have reading reduces and I guess OK we might have something about that and we have to pass that. You know, if we do get it and then she or something like that if we do get to that point, right? Actually, why don't? Why don't we when we talk about yeah when we talk?

Aragorn!: About how did the Rs fall apart in your understanding and sort of return to ITS and so talk a little bit about that journey from there to communicate 29.

Abe: I don't know actually what happened, So what would happen then? What happened in August 2014? They put people back there so while we actually put out the first two minutes and then they were like a group of criminals and politically and for like people. And then they did things like like. Higher on various. You know, various construction sites and then those incidents. Bombing at the Towers, Mexican telephone. And then there's things like that and then. Then we after year if they that they disbanded. And I don't. It's kind of well. I have no idea. I like, I just have no idea what happened. OK, so I'll give my guts to learn about this and then I could be wrong. And then I think there's a lot of. When you were trying to say to me. There there are more groups than possible group groups of rules and possible members. I think people move around the. Law, I think some groups are only just one person I think. I do think that there's a lot of so because of that since. A lot had. A lot of supposedly had all these groups. You know all over central Mexico and stuff like that. I'm just lazy. I mean maybe that's what it is. I just I just the number of groups that they. That they claim to. Have the logistics of keeping that under wraps. It's kind of hard. It's kind of hard to swallow, sometimes up little bit that you are you following each other that I think. I'm sorry if I could back up. I think I think they're there. The books are just like the book names just represent that level, shifting number of individual.

Aragorn!: Oh so you so you so.

Abe: You know, really sort of moving around.

Aragorn!: You don't think? Because it, I do think that year where Rs was sort of the way in which these were. Being talked about. ITS did not issue any communications during that year and then after that year they started issuing their. Own communications again.

Abe: So, so you want to know about that? No, that's just really at all. So what happened was OK, so no, that I change. This doesn't became wild reaction. So that's what happened before either of your two before and then after a year they just discovered and became nothing. Between August 20, 2015 and January 2016, there were various groups like 16 with proof Terror and something else in the middle of the page. Taking stuff from the mountains and stuff that they were still around. But they were sort of trying to inform my idea of why IP has reformed was because it runs international. That's what happened, and there's evidence that before during the stage of Rs they were in, they were in talks with people with in China. For example, in Argentina, so that's why I think ITF. Very much a Mexican had a very much a Mexican feel to it because I mean they were all they were all they have like indigenous names like which is the. Language, it's real, like there's a physical they really love. And things like that. So we all have. So I mean, if I were to guess, maybe maybe, maybe they were like legitimate. Differences between each other? I mean, I really like that the guy is returning to the gift side that then discriminate guy like he's always been sort of resenting. And I know I mean, for example, last year he claimed, or he or she claimed to have assassinated. A computer engineering student, actually a computer science student. He was also like in. The middle of. The street and in the communication issue. He said that some of these people issued like oh, don't worry. At least she. Put up a fight.

Aragorn!: That communicate was I was pretty interested in it because yeah, it was like tell his family tell his family he put up a fight.

Abe: Yeah, so it's. Yeah, it's only that person in that particular group has always been like that, and like you and she, and actually in the and the communicate with the 29th communicate. I'm sorry I'm jumping around. All over the place. Or spirits or everything. We're just here to like. You know, kill people because we don't want to see their what they're doing to the environment, and that's it. So he all the spiritual style about cheaper North Star and the and the spirits and the gods or whatever he said. Yeah I don't believe in that, I'm just I'm sorry . So she you could sort of have a gallows humor about it, but yeah, so that's a very particular person. So yeah, with that since the last of their probably their tensions, but I have no idea why they just standard, but I think a lot of us have to do. Yes, the ITS is going to be assigned the initials under which they would go international basically.

Aragorn!: OK, so let let's shift gears because so far what we've mostly allowed you to do is sort of rant and rave about. The Who's where's and how's of ITS directly from. And from a North American audience, the thing that I think has been very notable the past two weeks has been that a lot of people a lot of our friends, a lot of anarchists all of a sudden are extremely nervous about ITS because the consequence of ITS being a bunch of murdering Mexicans. Has dawned on them, especially because of this critical. What do you think of this sort of moralistic hand wringing? Do you, do you think that there is some solid points there? What I guess? And what did you think of Scott Campbell's points that it's racist? To pay attention to ITS or to or to give them any ink.

Abe: Well I'm Mexican. I mean I do. I mean my mom she in Mexico. I mean I visited Mexico when I was growing up. I grew up speaking Spanish.

Aragorn!: But you can.

Abe: I’m a know.

Aragorn!: Be you can be a racist you can. Be a racist.

Abe: Mexican whatever, anyway? So let me back up so well. So the question was exactly what? What do I think? I just don't think. People have been paying. Attention, I think what I mean. I have a Facebook. Age for a consumer unfortunately, I'm I. I try to troll too much for my own good, but I think it's like ITF is one of the only groups that sells what it's gonna do and then does it. Right, so I will recite the country info and 3:25 no state and all these other people who are so excited to release their. The first ITF Communication 2016 of last year obviously did not read them. Because people are going to be horrified by that or whatever, but it's like when have they said they're not going to do exactly what they're doing. No, I mean you could go back to 2011. Maybe they were. Basically this wouldn't be far from that word. You know where it is, but I know there's 2 they're caught up. There's always some social anarchists. And then it's you actually anarchist who have been very critical of the opportunism. But I mean, I guess people put, put it out at first because it was. You know, and for the edgy people or whatever. Everybody for being edgy. But whatever I mean, you can do you visit that place later, but I don't think people have been paying attention. I mean where were they when in 2011 they just rolled up this guy. You know, since that for scientists. You know who is riding on the, on the motorcycle and shot him in thead and the role they released stabbed the guy last year, and they were. They were they when they when they stabbed that computer science and where they were landed at. You know, almost when your daughter you have a 3 year old daughter left to the. Bomb that he could have potentially been like blinded by it or something, but what it really is. Like they got triggered by the fact that there was a woman first of all, and second of all, before ITS released to communicate they were always marching up your lawn. So the at the University of Mexico of Women. You know we're currently, . Discuss if it was, within the continuity of the terminal side of other places, that she's gonna plotted and places like that, and and they and they just they. Basically they hit too close to home for them.

Unknown Speaker: I think.

Abe: And was before just ago, because they they got. So the left in Mexico got so upset over it. And then the. Yeah we did that. You know that. That's what it. Is and it's not like they don't have president. I mean they have attacked me wrong several times. That's just the staffing from last year. I think that I heard the rumor. I don't know if it was in the community or something. I think they've insinuated. Even that one of them the gift driving which in that guy who put like a bomb outside of like the other gifts or whatever the auditory and the wherever the left is gather there's like should give that out or something like that. Auditorium is going outside of it, but they’re just like it's not like. And this comes out of the blue, . Should they see somebody wandering in front? You know, walking in front of the engine room building and they, and they do. What they really done? You know, so I don't. I'm sorry you lost the train of thought, but we're were getting that OK so why was that reaction? I guess that's it. I mean it. It. You know how? It's just not, . It's not a. Rational, though I mean, people aren't paying attention, it's not on their radar, so how.

Aragorn!: The other way to go about this that the ITS doesn't have a rational revolutionary program, and so it's taking a while for people to reconcile the that the fact that they’re not rational. Has is actually a program of, ? Again, not spontaneous violence, but it's sort of a violence first program, and that is not anarchist.

Abe: Yeah, I mean, but that we could get into a whole discussion of, why are you so obsessed with this label? Saying like why are you? Why are you so obsessed with being the Presbyterian? I mean that there's something more to presbyterianism than just having a label. I'm not gonna. I'm like I'm not gonna discuss who's that? As this not on the system and that's not. That's not to be that's interesting to me, so I'm not gonna. I'm not going to get into that, but it's. It's just one of those things that you had admitted this stuff into. Your into, your, your, your and then you pulled after right? I don't, I don't. I don't faster than you. Why you have this? It's sort of not clear to me, with them. You know well, I mean, the whole thing about Scott Campbell, I don't. I don't know if you wanted to talk about the explicitly, but the whole thing about calling. It equal fashion. You know, for me, that's just sort of like that's the flavor of the month because of the whole Trump game of the Black bloc and soft frozen just gonna sort of, spin off of it. It’s a spin off because it has no, do you even know what fascism means? I mean, I don't think it's. They black book, they mask up against their fascists. I mean not really, I mean.

Aragorn!: Have you? Have you studied Scott CV? Because he I think he has pretty deep ties in some of those social anarchism of Mexico City. So for instance he might have some connections to the wherever the bombing was that happen.

Abe: Yeah, I mean I listened to his it's going down podcast what he did with the Mexican business, which is sort of sighted in my. Trailer EP. You know the GPS, a public service announcement that I had, . Yeah, I know, I know. I know his type. I want to go see, I know what he's like I. Know what I? Know his type you.

Aragorn!: Know, yeah, I believe I've actually run into him in person couple of different times and he's almost like a walking billboard of the sensitive North American gringo who. Who speaks who speaks Spanish at any opportunity and says Chile and like literally has a kafia on alongside a poncho. If he isn't, I think if he if he is who I think he is, we actually saw him get dropped off at the book at the book Fair in Orange. Tony by his mom and a Prius who's. Urban music

Abe: Well, I mean, I was reminded of when I was the 1st through my first time around when I was a first year long time ago. Everything I was that the merican classes studies program and she had a she had a like a. With the shoulder bag with a prominent USW. Sutton it. And Richard United Pharmacies, which is really ironic since I actually come from the family farm workers and when I was a kid I actually worked with perfect strangers that it's just I don't know. Just the whole racism thing. Yeah, yeah, when?

Unknown Speaker: Sure, give give it, give it.

Abe: When I when I see stuff like.

Aragorn!: Real give it give a real response to that.

Abe: When I see stuff like that, it just reminds me. Of that. Of virtue singling, I mean, first of all from this side of the border, finding things can be more, we can feel we can be more it just, it isn't destroyed radicalism to it that that and it's really, really really really. Where this flower? Really, yeah, because they're because they're poor and oppressed.

Aragorn!: What does that mean?

Abe: They have some sort of. They're sort of. They think of people and all of their and all of their causes their things and causes. These are the people like IPS along with IPS. Just everybody in general. They're just like I mean, that's the reality. They don't. Care ? Actually know what about Mexico City, the. Senior pilot **** That's what they don't. They're it's like if you think that if we develop, if you're fighting terrorism, that's in a sort of majesty. Save us from from whatever. Either there are no. I mean, all of these things are, fighting things that colonialism imperialism. That's just. I mean that's just 1960s knowledge propaganda. I mean, that's not even how the world works now. You know, really, looking Mexico so far from. God supposed to the United States, I mean. The ice caps. Are melting the emotions are dying and we want that politics? Like really I mean every single leftist movement like every single one has falling apart like it just doesn't. I mean, It’s. It's a non issue it's a non starter. And we're still on this politics, where have you been the past?

Aragorn!: Well, but I think that there is a there. There is a large segment of people.

Abe: Where have you been the past 40 years?

Aragorn!: There's a large segment of people in North America who still respond to. To this type. Of name calling to this kind of terminology, I mean, it's not out of the blue that they that he used it. I mean, I mean he's clearly using it to draw a line in the sand say you're on that side and he's on this side and I guess to what extent do you think he's going? To be successful with that. And the real question is, to what extent are these ideas attractive to people? What kind of people are they attractive to? What's being referred to when? When sort of these leftist talk about edgy? People, yeah, I mean I guess for me I try to take these arguments seriously on the level of they work for somebody.

Abe: I mean, they're not. I mean, I'm, I'm sorry that. I mean, we could. We can. We can sort of call the whole possible thing tomorrow because they're not. They're basically equal extremism calls for the extension. Extension of the. Human race, I mean they're not. I mean, they're not popular, I mean, and they’re not going to fashion themselves to be popular. You know It’s not. It's just not gonna happen. And the actual the paradigm you're working with is what you're lism is like a totally different paradigm. You're you have a totally different basis. Why you do something? Why you think something? Why you say something? Just totally different. It changes out of other. You know other races in Americanism and Primitivism antisymmetrization that, and just in the sentence apology and political thought. But It’s not, there, there. There really isn't. You know there really isn't anything. Else to say. Which is sort of why my approach? Just at this point it's OK if somebody criticizes the copy of the. I've actually already been written because in reality we don't really have anything to say to these people. Kind of thing. And two weeks from. I'm a nice person so I and I try to like relate to people so I will try to do what I can to be like Oh yeah, like this. OK, well how's that life or you have left this and how's that life? But in reality my core values and the core values and a lot of people involved in this.

Unknown Speaker: OK.

Abe: No, I mean they're, they're completely waiting. Shall let we're not doing. We're not doing politics. We're straight doing theology, and it might be a little bit bloody, but it's that’s what we're sort of doing. We're we're just like we're we're in that in that, 10 years, 20 years movements. My lifetime, well, how can I get my liberation now? No, we don't we're not interested in.

Aragorn!: Well, that's actually a different direction to take this conversation, which is to say. Because you don't have like it, it appears that you do have a social. Life. That's sort of. Around these topics and I see the same people sort of talking to you about this stuff, most of the. Time, does it hurt your? Feelings or does it? Help you out to sort of. Be hated by strangers. For your interest in a in a set of ideas and. A set of people. That other. People don't like or whatever.

Abe: In the truck? No, because they don't. Better, I mean they they're what I mean. I know they're gonna love you and you haven't basically and I know you love it, not the rest. Of the world. Neither is even even, buy water in New Orleans, which also has a. Who I've never met cause I've never thought or whatever I mean I’ve never no it doesn't matter Eric isn't failed left is in the failed the rest of it in the failed why, why, why fight people who have been defeated they just don't we don't we don't matter. Anymore, so why so why bother? I mean, humanity doesn't sort of matter either, but I mean the least humanity. You know what I'm reading right now? You want to know what I'm reading right now?

Unknown Speaker: Go ahead.

Abe: Theology, because the Catholic Church has a billion people. On it. You know, I, I could have known Catholic theology. You could. Have more conversations with more interesting people that I read reading for production or performing or whatever. Or one of those or any of the other. No, I mean you’re you sugar sugar, so I mean why? Why so? I mean, you're probably going to be like, OK, we're we're done. You know bye and at the same time, OK, you've given me this opportunity to do the journal. Something very interesting. So I'm gonna do it. And I don't know if what you think is the conference in the. Past and how much you actually addressed. It, but it doesn't have. I mean, I guess I started out my. Article that my one of my major articles with marks, even with Carl Marks and you can reach you from there or whatever politics.

Aragorn!: Those little head breaks.

Abe: One anomaly theology about the spirits telling tearing down the cosmos with the machete. So back that people don't have time to scream. And even even equal extremist action, there will be like you're any political. You're not political. This not a political thing. And that's why sort of individual people who are.

Aragorn!: But I get.

Abe: Who are they?

Aragorn!: I guess I. Guess you’re answering a question, but you're also making huge assumptions and it's one of the reasons why I asked you about your anarchist pet. Because the kind of anarchism that I represent for lack of another language has always not been the same type of anarchism that pays attention to Trotskyists or to what you would call politics. In other words, that kind of anarchism that I'm involved with would broadly be called anti political. Clericalism so a lot of the sort of. Attitude that you have. Is about something different or like in other words, I'm playing a type of devil's advocate because I, because I wanna I wanna take as much like when people have energy about something. That to me is a. That's a. That's a little blinker of light and I crave light and. So when someone? Hates a project that we're working on. Whether it's a Tosa or another little black card project. For me the goal of that. Is to be like. OK, like in my life like I'm I. I play around with ideas. I use ideas, I try to grow and change and learn from ideas and I’m totally a *****. Like I’m. Happy for those ideas to be ones I disagree with, or ones that perhaps thing where the burn and so for me the conversation are under tonsa. Like why I've been so excited about Itts has been because I call them a post anarchist challenge to anarchy. And part of that challenge is a challenge. That's a that's a political challenge, but there's other challenges in there too. Like one of the other challenges is most anarchists don't, but they can just portray their politics in these very safe ways and AT and ITS points to. This what it looks like to do your politics. And a less safe way. Now, of course, the social anarchists. Like if they. Are if they were right, and that and that if we could get a large enough crowd. And if we if we could rally large enough, then we could change the world. That's an even more exciting and dangerous transformation. But I, firmly believe, and I think that it's agrees with me. Is that what they're doing is impossible, right? In other words, that there. Is no like they could make. It the biggest rally. In the world and. It's not going. To be enough. To change ********. Right, because change doesn't happen that way and we don't live in France. And 1798 or whatever and the **** and so and so. For me ITS is interesting because it feels like it's it grasps something very 21st century, which is that violence is almost a universal solvent. And it's playing out with. What the consequences of that of that sort of theory is? But that said, of course I. I mean, it makes perfect sense. Cause a social anarchist position is going to say well that's unacceptable because social anarchism says that you have to do anarchism all the way down. And of course that's not how society has changed. That's how revolution happens, . Et cetera. Et cetera, et cetera. So that's more sort of the questions I'm getting at is like to. What extent like? Unless and a quote UN quote apocalypse happens in the foreseeable. We're probably going to have to live with politics as we see it on television for the rest of our natural lives, and so in that context, what does ITS versus social anarchism look like? Because I think that in that context, it's kind of interesting. There's something interesting happening.

Abe: Well, what it is that if I were. Which is called floor gate card title and what it really is that if you're going to. Do the type that. Things that they used to do. Now, I mean, if you're going to do that stuff, the bomb throwing and stuff like that, you're going to have to do use ITS as yourself.

Unknown Speaker: Yeah, right?

Abe: At this point. It's not gonna be like we're gonna shooting this slot. We're gonna have to struggle session. We're gonna talk and talk and talk about it. No, It’s gonna be like it's gonna come out of the blue it's gonna come out of nowhere and then let's say that people are going to be on the move like quiet and . We are far away from Islam. We didn't know he would have been that, .

Aragorn!: No, that actually yeah.

Abe: And that's and that's purifies the social anarchist. It's purified, it horrifies them. They, they and that's where they feel. They're just a bunch of serious relationships, don't they? This, but I mean the intentions are if they have a political ish intention behind that, and that's only that's how we're. Going to have. To do it. It's not, it's not an issue of. I mean, it's just as capitalism develops as the machinery. It's just some industrial society as well. You know the meaningful resistance of having been with. They all have improved the meaningful oppression, the needs for control. What what rating right against that? I recommend you use the chambers of any sort of opposition through that. It's going to look like it's going to be extremely much more chaotic. It's going to look much more individualistic. It's going to look much more. Yeah, antisocial, it's going to. It's going to be severely, disproportionate to what people think should be the action and so on and so forth. It's just not going to be controlled anymore. And that's like around the side of kiosk. You know, and that. Horrifies people people still think it's so like you. Could be sick in Spain. You know still think and that's sort of when they, when they when they when people have got called they or I equal fascist or fascist. Thisn't this, 2017. This not this time. Even how ISIS does it in Europe. I mean, come and do the car and drive it. The people no don't go on the subway.

Aragorn!: Well, and for me this actually like we're kind of talking about the pieces. For me this a little bit more about the board, which is to say that if there were a CNT that were in point of fact large and healthy, and doing things of consequence, then I would. Say Scott Campbell. You know, I wish that you would spend your time building and working. You know, in your zone rather than spending time focusing on a zone that's not yours at all, because it. It really feels like. To me that the social anarchist perspective has very little to point to say, we're doing great good news, and so instead this sort of where the energy is spent and it feels very strongly to me. Like of course nobody believes. Including ITS and ITS is sort of the way forward for a movement for social change. And so you’re basically criticizing them for. Something that they. That they don't say that they are. Or that they're not. Even trying to. Achieve and so the real question and then. And I asked this question a lot is yeah, are we just talking past each other? Why are we actually ? Why are we engaging with each other? Because in this case we're really talking very different zones. And the only real reason that we're talking to each other is basically you called a virtual signaling, but it's sort of like It’s like a mob rule, just a sort of a motivation. And obviously you're not that impacted by that, because your. In the in the social milieu of anarchism. But of course I am quite impacted by it because I am.

Abe: But no, I guess what I would say I don't know if this touches on the point or not. Going back to the point where I said, well, why, why, why, why? Are you? Why are you so obsessed with labels like anarchist like Presbyterian? Whatever I'll back up and say when I see things like other cable. Even though I maybe maybe I don't know enough to comment, ? On every single detail or marks or witness that I don't see it as and this just my own particular philosophical and ideological information. I don't see this as sort of physical, it's full of that. That's well in case and have these very definitive lines separating them. And previous ideology or from the history of thought, human thought itself. I mean, if you want to go into anarchism, I mean there's a. There's a really interesting book called Watching the Bible. Has superficial Mirandand she said that Saint Paul, the person who wrote, wrote the New Testament. Was actually the first down artist. I mean, he said that there are passages in Saint Paul about the law that would put protecting. The community change. And that might be. Exaggerating, but that's right. And then you could. Get a lot. Fuller and then you could get dialogues and stuff like that. So the questions between anarchism and Marxism and all these things were going back to thousands of years. Thisn't just like. You know you're not, you're not part of my tree house, so I'm kicking you out. It's like your tree house is part of a larger legacy of Western thought and global thought that even if you don't know it, you're basically dealing with it. If you don't know, It’s. The outlook of all philosophy, the footnotes. To Plato. You know, even though you think that you're coming up with this whole very special position, you're basically being haunted by goals or these factions of ideological ancestry. You know, and if you don't deal with those, you're just sort of returning. You're just sort of repeating yourself over and over, maybe slight with slight variations, but it's just, you just sort of the things didn't go over and over again. You don't know why so I don't know when people say Oh well, you don't you? 'cause you don't know anything about others . Like yeah, I'm not. I'm not interested in the. Fact that you're in church. Thank you, but at the same time it's like, but that whole thing about child Child would series of predestination. And the yeah, I mean that’s. Something that's interesting. You know, that those those points of doctrine, yes, because those come from somewhere. Theological, theoretical foundations. And that's what I could comment on explicitly. You know whether or not that conforms to your club house rules. That's up to you. If you don't want to. You know the diagnosis and the other. Outlets for you to come and give your attention.

Aragorn!: Yeah, I mean I don't know how, how much you pay attention to some of the projects I'm involved with, but this basically exactly the conflict that happened between Johnsos and Kevin Tucker and black seed, which is 1 projects I'm involved in. Have you seen any of the issues with Black Sea?

Abe: No, I actually haven't recording. Sorry, I don't.

Unknown Speaker: All right?

Abe: I think you may have sent one to me and I put it somewhere, no? The whole the whole model is something that’s one of the day. It was so funny because I have read back anything with you.

Unknown Speaker: Don't hurt.

Abe: Me, but I have read all of them. And there was a very cute essay about nihilism about negative theology in there, and it was so it was just so like freshman in English. Like people style excited Wikipedia like try the site with negative theology of the level. Oh my God that they choose because when theology is one of the things that I actually know about, that the whole idea of negation and you can only know who God is by what he's not and that sort of thing that. When what does what does it mean? What does that mean for? After that, so I don't know I don't know if that if that's one of theories of the whole, because I know. I mean, I do listen to John Person show because the on board and whatever and I do listen to it and I know he's just like everything everything. Every episode is just the excommunication of the violence. Over and over and over again that to the board, right? I'm just wondering please.

Unknown Speaker: Trying to think in.

Abe: I just think It’s like. You know, I, I don't, I. I would hold short venture about how the whole talk or something about how I don't really feel like something wireless that sort. Of the knowledge that. I am. It's only it's because it's a it's. A tool, but I'm. Rambling letter know what you wanted to make.

Aragorn!: Yeah, well It’s. It's fun actually. Why don't we wrap this up for now? I think maybe we could do another episode where we just talk about denialism.

Abe: OK yeah I have to see where where I'm at, yeah?

Aragorn!: Yeah indeed, thank you very much.

Abe: OK, you have a goodbye.

Ep. 48 – Isaac VII Call it Sleep

Episode 48 – Isaac VII Call it Sleep

This the seventh interview with Isaac Cronin and it pertains to all the specifics of the film he made with his partner Call it…

Continue ReadingEpisode 48 – Isaac VII Call it Sleep

Ep. 47 – Kalan

In this episode I have a discussion with one of my favorite stranger-friends Kalan who is anarchist nihilist street performer. You can see him…

Continue ReadingEpisode 47 – Kalan

Ep. 46 – Isaac VI (mid seventies)

Episode 46 – Isaac VI (mid seventies)

This episode is the last about the Bay Area post-situ milieu and represents the end of that era (which seemed to whimper to an end…

Continue ReadingEpisode 46 – Isaac VI (mid seventies)

Ep. 45 – a bunch of conversational nonsense

Episode 45 – a bunch of conversational nonsense

This an interview with a friend in AZ who remains anon. Anyone who lives there will immediately know who this and what our…

Continue ReadingEpisode 45 – a bunch of conversational nonsense

Ep. 44 – How do we fight?

Episode 44 – How do we fight?

As a person who has been involved in the post-left anarchist space I’ve had a fight or two with other anarchists. How did we do…

Continue ReadingEpisode 44 – How do we fight?

As a person who has been involved in the post-left anarchist space I’ve had a fight or two with other anarchists. How did we do that? What was off and on the table? Was there a winner/loser? Was it the right thing to do?

This conversation is with Julio, our friend from the LApocalypse, and covers fighting and what is there to win.

tick tock 44

:30 A review of the Anews podcast
2:00 An introduction – Are there rules to fighting? Where is the line between conflict and fighting? How is conflict racialized? When/if physical conflict? What about threats? What about threats on the Internet?
7:00 Bob Black and his rules for intra-fighting
10:00 Physicality vs Social Exclusion
15:00 Outrage exhaustion & Left unity
19:00 An order to opposition (should capitalism be first or other peoples bad ideas?)
23:00 Can we discuss, with those we disagree with, anything at all?
27:00 Hope, god, nihilism
32:00 Maoists
36:00 Friends vs Milieu
40:00 LA diversity (its real)
44:00 Political education
47:00 Death of the workers movement (Social Justice vs Trump)
49:00 Some conversation about Joe Rogan
52:00 The sad thing about being a messenger and how to do media training

Ep. 43 – A conversation with Joe

Episode 43 – A conversation with Joe

This an informal conversation with “Joe” anti-State Communism about living and working in this world and having radical politics. (656)

Ep. 42: Isaac V – 1970-1972

Source

February 23, 2017

Episode 42: Isaac V – 1970-1972

In this episode we sit and talk about their Bay Area Situationist supergroup that provided a real critique of the countercultural left. You can find this material on the Bureau of Public Secrets website. John Zerzan, Point Blank, Micheal Lucas (local Bookchinite), James Carr (George Jackson) and other local luminaries guest star.

In this conversation is a conversation about critique that should resonate today. It concerns humility, the peril of being right (in a world that is wrong), the left (same as it ever was), race, worker(ism)s, orthodoxy vs play, etc.

Transcript

Speaker 1: So if.

Speaker 2: I have my number.

Speaker 1: Correctly, this episode 42 of the brain. We'll continue our conversation with Isaac Cronin and at this point we've sort of evolved to. The point where. Each episode is. About a year, so this going to be the year 1970. Actually went off to Paris in 1970 and talked about that. So this. 71 through 72, which is.

Speaker 2: Pretty much a transitional period for a lot of reasons because it was clear it became clear that the wave that hit the world in 68 had really crashed and it was beginning to be obvious that euphoric moment that we extended into two years was over and. And we had to figure out a new direction, but weren't quite ready to do that. So what happened was there were a lot of in the rock'n'roll world. There were a lot of bands calling themselves super groups around that. So as our little joke. We thought well, what if we can put together? We never used the word C2. Well, we said situation as to what if we can put together a meeting in the minds of the smartest, most groovy situation that's in the Bay Areand form a new group? Because the Council for the rights of the marvelous. Was gone, that was like. The main group at the time. And what if we put together from those people and other people, the Super groups that would really take on the task that we later defined as are a real critique of the. Counterculture in the US? What if we could put that group together and obviously.

Speaker 1: We could because, like with keeping.

Unknown Speaker: We need everything.

Speaker 1: Else to do, no one would not working. Weren't going to school, were just, freelance we.

Speaker 2: Were still I. Personally was still living off this. Tiny inheritance and other. People were getting by and almost nothing, and that's were so low that even if weren't really. Didn't have an inheritance. Were spending a couple $100 a month literally to live, so anyone could kind of join. Up the band right? OK, so setting the stage so we had Dan Hammer and I were from council to eruption. The marvelous we had gone off to Europe together and come back after having met the situation as realizing weren't going to become the American section of the situation. International because, unbeknownst to us at that moment, the SI was. Was imploding and was later to that death was later to be announced in the book. Translated variable season in the international by Gita Boror Vertical Split, which came out in action in 71. We didn't know this at the time, but we hadn't heard much from France so. We thought well. OK, we will have to. Focus on America. So they were still never an eye that. Was kind of. Who had made his appropriate self criticism the year before, and was his sidekick from a small school in Ohio Shimer College called Ron Rothbart, who's now a professional photographer, taking really beautiful pictures of the day, which he posts on Facebook. Some of the nicest. Pictures I've seen in a long.

Speaker 1: Time and there were.

Speaker 2: Two other guys. One there was.

Unknown Speaker: The book.

Speaker 2: A brook dentist called Michael Lucas he was. A big gay rights advocate and had known Murray Bookchin for a long time and tragically he died of AIDS. I heard I hadn't seen him in years, but I heard that like he was a kind of dancing nightclubbing disco situation as to wasn't much of a writer, but he was. He was fun and. Enthusiastic and then there was a guy called John Adams. The relationship to the President and President of the United States. He had a big beard. He wasn't the bear, though he was. He was straight, but he was kind of academic, so our goal was to create the most powerful, complete critique. Of the new left mover, which included SDS up against the law ************* the Weather Underground, the Yippies and the counterculture. And also it also contained a critique of the pseudo critique of society by Alvin Toffler who's a futurist and were. Were making a critique of that. He was a fake as a super critique of the cybernetic welfare, so this was an incredibly ambitious project. At least the way we set out to do it, which was going to be, as brilliant as on the poverty of student life and as comprehensive as Herbert Marcuse. And a huge task and suffice it to say that Dan Hammer and I were kind. Of the activist militant side, we wanted to get something out there we thought was really important, whereas now. And Rothbart were much more self critical and would constantly find things wrong, so we would have endless. Where people presented drafts and eventually this material was published only on. The Bureau of. Public secrets website. So you can actually find this critique of this of what we did in published by Ken Mahab on.

Speaker 1: Hmm, when I was a younger mand was very much pursuing as much of the this material as I could find, I found. Two or three pamphlets by contradiction. This like a fake, maybe a small book. I think pamphlet about I can't remember, but.

Speaker 2: Well, we never published a movement critique, so our main activity anyway. So we would fight about this and we fought and fought and we had. We had really acrimonious meetings. John Adams was also an. Academic and he was kind. Of in over his head we.

Speaker 1: Just he was. He was a PhD.

Speaker 2: I mean at that point. You can really just say. A few words and if they were confusing enough. And going enough. We would let you in the gang. So John John was kind of not. So important, it was really a fight. Between Ron and Ken and Danny. And I about whether we should publish this material. So, and it was all. Authored uncredited, so it was all collaboration. There weren't names attached to any, so eventually we didn't publish anything. But at the same time fortunately for us and I was looking back on this history. There was an active labor movement in San Francisco. There were three principal strikes in 1971. There was the cable car workers Wildcat strike where they went against their transportation union and went out and a lot of them were African. American very militant cool. I mean they were all like they had these incredible hipster looks and they were doing the cable car thing and they were. They were part time entertainers back then, even. More than now they would do this whole. Routine with the. Bells and this whole this whole thing. But they went on strike for higher wages, and that was one strike. There was a social Workers Union. Wildcat strike almost at the same time, and it turned out one of the leaders of that strike was John Zerzan. So John Zerzan found a leaflet actually was a comic that we did called Wildcat Comics. Also on the video public Secrets website, I suppose we can put that up.

Speaker 1: I'm sure sorry, yeah.

Speaker 2: OK, so we met with some of these people. We handed it out. It was pretty funny. It was actually an improvement on the side. They turned them off comics in some ways. I had some really funny images in it from Skype from the Chain Gang, a classic film from the 20s and. It was had. It was well done. Anyway, they didn't like the cable car drivers were not happy with what we did. They thought were honing in on their world. And providing too much, too much of a. Radical critique for what was more like bread and butter. Issues for them. But we did meet John Sears and we kind of went to the Saints. My recollection went to the same routine as we did with Ken. Yeah, he found us. We found him. I can't remember which and he was defending his reformist position and we just said, yeah, OK, if you want to have any more conversations with us you will have to make a critique of that. And I he made. The critique I'm not sure if it was written. To us, but we started palling around after that and then there was a big strike. I just we did the research on this for the telephone workers they were on strike for nine months. The CWA Communications Workers of Americand they won most of their demands, so we included them in this. At the same time we did. Couple of weeks in conjunction with the guys from point blank because by now were fast friends so we co-authored a couple of these leaflets and I was trying to remember what our point of view was at the time and basically because between us and point blank were the situation is moving in the Bay Area. We thought that were kind of like, a present. Were like the ruler, the radical rulers of the Bay Area. So anything that happened we had. To comment on any event, any situation. We had to. Provide the situation. That's perspective on what was. Going on and pretty much we did I. Mean were very, active. And that, but I wanted to bring up just. A bit of the. History of the period and I. And I really did need to refresh my. Own memory on it. So there was also in 1971 actually 72, but starting in 71A strike at an automobile assembly plant in Ohio called Lordstown that was really radical. It was a lot of violence. There was a lot of they went against the UAW which was very unusual. An incredibly powerful union then and maybe even still. But they went out on strike and they didn't win, but it was a very militant period and there was also a postal strike. Like that happened actually the next year, so there was a Wildcat strike that started in New York where the postal workers hadn't had the right to even do collective bargaining. So the New York postal workers went out on strike and at that point, Nixon ordered the army and the National Guard. To deliver the mail. Forgotten this they literally intervened. They would not. Nixon was very obviously anti. Union so they brought in. The Army and the nation by like 20. It took like 10 times this. Many delivered and it was total chaos and the stock market dropped dramatically in price and there was even talk about closing the stock market. So at that point were thinking, Oh well, maybe this 68 again, were, dreaming. Guys and . This scene, like look at. The power of the Union to affect the stock. OK, and that strike spread nationally sporadically, so for eight days the Postal Service was disrupted and obviously back then we didn't have FedEx. We didn't have DHL, it was.

Speaker 1: Sure, since the only game in town.

Speaker 2: It was the. Only game in town. It would be like if all those Courier services went out or the Internet or something right? It was a big. So we thought OK, if you can't have the Vietnam War, this was a much more interesting movement to look at than the anti Vietnam protests because it was actually following the blueprint. The situation that's laid out for workers. Good reliance and work on intellectual alliance. And of course were competing with every other Trotskyist and both Civic Group, and the embarrassing thing was, they were saying very similar things. They were. They were certainly defending the Wildcat part right and so we didn't seem that cool in a way and that gave us pause the other way, that the movement. Extending itself beyond this traditional worker protest was in the prison. So here you've got. A totally non student non essentially white movement rising up in the prisons right around this time 7071 and obviously incredibly influenced by the Black Panthers because their critique made perfect sense and a lot of the Black Panthers who were members had come out of prison. But there was a kind of free flow between them. But the person who made the individual who made the biggest impact at that point, and he still remembered in some circles, was George Shack. So George Jackson was a guy and I noticed a history because he grew up with my co-author on a project called Bad James Carr and I'll get back to that later. George Jackson had been in prison for a long time, he'd he'd committed armed robberies, and one was questioning. That he wasn't one. Of those guys who claimed he was innocent, I. Mean he the way. He was proud of the fact that he'd done it. He was in prison. He had read Jean Genet. The French intellectual was very influenced by his very passionate militant. Critique of the prison system. He wrote a book. He was part of the Soledad Brothers movement, and there's a couple of others who were arrested for crimes in jail. Who were and? Their trial became a big deal, with three of them actually, and so his passionate plea for Prison Reform really touched theart of a lot of. White liberals he was. He was their guy because he was literary. And he was. Had also he was kind of a hodgepodge. He wouldn't call it that, but he was kind of a hodgepodge of francino wretched of the Earth, which influenced everybody. Now ISM Malcolm X and the Black Panthers. This due that. We put together. It didn't wasn't really coherent, but it was just so angry and there was some poetry in it, so it definitely mobilized a lot of people. But we didn't really know how to respond to that in.

Speaker 1: The was really.

Speaker 2: For you no. In our current incarnation, in contradiction, and it was so clearly quote reform.

Speaker 1: Missed that because it was so focused on Prison Reform.

Speaker 2: Yeah, because we're so focused on and it. Was also part of the Black. Panthers and were definitely enemies of. The Black Panthers. So we couldn't really go. Too far in that so. But what I'm thinking about in the last couple of days and I wish I thought about it sooner, was that in our idea of what was wrong with the radical movement at that point, were looking to blame. The failure of. The movement on the inadequacies of the left and it's kind of contradictory. Because even though we. Call them the pseudo left from the very. Beginning were at the same time saying, well, they could have done better. They should have done better and it was a really fundamental obfuscation of the problem that were confronting, which was that our theory, our ideas, our critique and our lives were inadequate to the task and to project this onto others which so in a way I think that's why we never published it. Because we realized that like what were we really doing in blaming these people? We didn't call it our failure, but so the failure of the movement and we never acknowledged that the time.

Speaker 1: Emerging war

Speaker 2: No, weren't capable of going into that, and fortunately, yeah fortunately the ideas came along from Europe once again, that helped us with that.

Speaker 1: This the problem of young men.

Speaker 2: We'll get into that in the next episode, but we didn't have the humility or the ability to really take this on, so we literally projected the failure at that time onto the movement that we said would never succeed anyway and didn't recognize the paradox there.

Speaker 1: The twins.

Speaker 2: There anyone?

Speaker 1: Else anywhere else in the country critiquing you or like was there, yeah, thinking us. Yeah, or essentially counting the instructions that you sort of saw yourself in.

Speaker 2: Well, I mean. I think there was still the lingering butchness critique of the situationist. You know that critique? Was that the workers councils were not about daily life. They were about work and you needed to have a larger critique of daily life to. That was one of the critiques that. You have the situation.

Speaker 1: Is there something written? I think so.

Speaker 2: Anyway, though now but Michael Michael Lucas, who was booked and has brought that into the conversation. Although once again these people couldn't really ever they could talk, but they couldn't ever really write much, so that never we never had to confront that anyway, were. So we did have. If we hadn't this. If this worker's activism haven't coming along. We would have even dissolved sooner because were completely. Kids and was a huge personality clash too because Danny and I were still the playful goddess, influenced guys and Rothbart and Nabre professorial. Really compared to us in their orthodoxy. So were we. Were totally at loggerheads there, so fortunately we found our way. Out of that? And where? We found our way out. Was that Dan Hammer's sister Bessie was? Someone who had a romantic and political attraction to black militants she had before she met and married James Carr. She had another black militant boyfriend who had been very active in the Venceremos brigade. I mean literally their house in San Jose and it was very nice middle class. Became the Center for accidents or aimless brigade militants. Can you tell me I don't know what that is? OK, so the Venceremos brigade were the guys and gals who volunteered to cut cane sugar cane in Cuband really went there for months at a time. Snuck over to Cuband cut sugar cane and these were Americans as an act of theft.

Speaker 1: As American Black Panthers mostly.

Speaker 2: Or no whites and every all leftist plus yes yeah this 71. This was at his literally sneak over there and cut sugar cane for three or four months at the time and it was back breaking the horrific work in tropical was the hardest work ever and they would come back.

Speaker 1: And this since late 60s to early 70s.

Unknown Speaker: Of course.

Speaker 2: Exhausted but exhausting Cuban hell. Stories, none of which appealed to us because we knew he was, the Stalinists who killed the anarchist opposition. But so we used to have huge fights in the House. We would we could. Literally almost not go in there. So there was a situation. That's contingent in one part of the kitchen and then all the African Americans and. Betsy in the. Other part of the kitchen like early.

Speaker 1: That's fascinating.

Speaker 2: In salsacross each other. Betsy met through her prison activism. An African American called James Jimmy Carr, who had been. In jail with. George Jackson, who has spent most of his adult life in prisonce again an armed robber who was convicted of crimes he actually did commit and she loved this guy and. He had been paroled to Santa Cruz, where he had become. He taught himself how to do calculus. And other things is. The total. Autodidact at San Clinton, Folsom, Soledad, CA. Men's colony, Sanli Obispo and so he got through an African American professor at Santa Cruz, who led the Black studies department called Herman Blake. He got Jimmy into Sanders, so Jimmy was actually a teaching assistant in calculus straight, and he never gone. Never gone to college. Obviously he never even gone to high school. I mean he was he was in the California penal system from the time he. Was twelve wow so he got a job. Teaching math and going to school at Santa Cruz. Right? When you get this was 1971 and at the same time this was the period when African American. Militants were very, very sexy. And this actually a true story. Kind of shocked us because I mean were in the free world.

Speaker 1: But you'll see.

Speaker 2: Went in the front door. He had a key chain that he pulled out. And on this key chain there was like 30 keys, and these were. All women who. Had given him their house key to come anytime. He wanted now. I mean, I've never.

Speaker 3: Heard a story.

Speaker 2: Like that?

Speaker 1: It's wild.

Speaker 2: I mean, that's pretty. Wild, But as Jimmy said, it was based on Fidel Castro because in Cuba women always left according to Jimmy and the other black militants. Women always left their back door unlocked in the hope that Fidel would show up, and apparently he.

Unknown Speaker: Did Oh my God.

Speaker 2: I know it's like I mean talk about crazy sexuality, right? This this true. Jimmy had the keychain. I saw, I mean he was. I was like so he was a. Very handsome guy, he'd. Been a world class weight lifter. Literally, bench press. 600 pounds. If you can imagine right his. Chest was so developed you could put water glasses, water, glass on each of his packs. And it would sit there. It's like that. Kind of. Feel I mean beyond the. Typical prisoner guy who this world class way you? Could have been in the Olympics. And then even in prison.

Speaker 1: In jail.

Speaker 2: Anyway, so Betsy Betsy fell in love with this guy and she got rid of the other boyfriend. And so were hanging out there. Because it was part. Of our route and went there for a home cooked meal. Dancing mother had also fallen in. Love with George. Jackson, even though they were like 30 years apart. And she was a passionate correspondent with him. And her letters I think some of them are in. The Soledad brothers book. So we met Jimmy and didn't quite know what to make of them. Although the immediate appeal was OK, well, here's a real radical. I mean, after dealing with NAV and Rothbart were ready for some. You know, we returned to some real activism. I guess you'd have to call it or. So we met Jimmy and one of the first conversations that we had. Were talking about Malcolm X and of course, this a Seminole and crucial in the central figures for the history of radicalism in the United States. But I was on my high horse so I said something like, yeah, Malcolm X was. Cool, but he wasn't really that radical. And there was like silence. And there's this guy sitting there. He's like, must he couldn't even wear regular pants because his legs were still together. Wear overalls, literally and a watch cap. Or and he's got. He's shaved head and and he's looked at me and he said, I could just break your neck. Dan jumps out and he says, oh now. Isaac, Australian national. But it turned out that. Even though it was a really stupid thing to say and. It wasn't even true. Somehow because I was like this little white guy saying that. But trying to be like honest that actually kind of broke the ice and that made him say, well, he's obviously. He might be. Wrong, but at least he speaks his mind so that I think, kind of. Helped a lot. To speed up the process. So we just. Started hanging out, which is back then smoking dope and drinking rum, whatever from Cuba of course, and smoking, smoking cigars. I mean, it's like I'm like 23 here, right? And he's. Six years older so. Seven years older and he started telling these most incredible stories. A story like they were in Soledad and in the maybe late 50s, early 60s and. They had a riot. They rioted for something, and so they got them up and they ran into the shower in the in the gym. And so they called the National Guard. No one even knows this, and they started shooting into the into the. Shower and they shot. Every tile of the wall, but. Then they realized that Jimmy James is only 17. And if they killed him as a juvenile, he wasn't even supposed to be in some of that he was there illegally. He was supposed to be in a juvenile. Facility that would be a. Huge scandal, so they so they. Just said OK come on. Out we're not. Going to kill. You guys. They were going to. Kill him, though you thought, so he told stories. Like that. No one had ever heard of like. Much more wild thany of the stories.

Speaker 3: I'd never heard about prison.

Speaker 2: So we developed a relationship of trust and discovered, of course, that he had spent a lot of his prison time reading the same books that we had. And by same books, I mean, Bakunin, Reicha, Hagel, Marx. He was a guy who took the classic self improvement program in prison. Many steps further in terms of the radicality of what he read, but also how smart he was. You know, just really smart, quick, curious, clever, funny, someone we. I mean there wasn't like really any difference between us. We thought intellectually like we. We're just equals pretty much, I mean not pretty much we would, and so this really exciting. So after a week or two things moved quickly then I just said, well, I think we should write you more and he said, Oh no, I don't want to do that. My story, this horrible. You know you don't want to.

Speaker 3: Hear my story.

Speaker 1: She was really.

Speaker 2: Really really wanted to do it. We had no idea why, because like why would you want to tell your story? I mean, we'll. Do the work he said so eventually. He said you. Know these stories are horrible, I'm. Not proud of what I did. It was what I did to survive. Thisn't really that cool. Plus I'm not a writer and I won't do any of the writing and we said, OK. We'll write it. We'll do the writing. We'll just. We'll record takes which back. Then was reel to reel cars so.

Speaker 1: When I come.

Speaker 2: Yeah mid 70s. Yeah, reel to reel tape recorder and he had to be stoned and or drunk to do it well but it wasn't because. He was fun for him. It was the opposite, right? He was really painful and so we sat down and. With very little. Prompting from us recorded about 30 hours of tape. And it covered his whole life from when I mean the book starts out and his life started out when I was nine years old I. Burned down my elementary school and he said, oh come on. He didn't, he said no. It was true and he. His the. Coach had taken a leather jacket from him that he wore to school, taking it away from him. So to get back at the coach, he went to the coaches office and threw a lighted match with something flammable into the. Took the glass and set school on fire. I know how much of it burned, but. So I mean that became the opening sentence.

Speaker 1: Of the book, which is pretty good hook.

Speaker 2: Pretty good, yeah, pretty good. So anyway, there was a lot of amazing stories. He told were pretty much fell down the whole time. I mean, one of the most interesting things about prison back then was that before there was so much St slang which we have now. Hip hop slang and it's all kind of mission mashed together. Everyone knows it there was this prison slang and the prison slang is extremely different from what everyone else on the street. Talked about and the oral culture was very strong there and one of the ways that would manifest itself would be that these guys were, all would say be locked up for some infraction infraction in solitary, and they were specifically designated liars and these were guys who told stories that were just. So incredibly vivid and lucid that would be their entertainment and so. They to egg them. On they would yell down the hall. Hey Smitty, tell us. A lie and then. He would say something. And say, oh, you're lying. Don't lie like that and he would go. Of course he was lying, but he would tell these incredibly these were, so I think some. I wish those stories were recorded. It's really a shame. That we did have a we. Did have a record put out by Folkways which was. One of the original. Ethnic folk record companies.

Speaker 1: Right, yeah?

Speaker 2: It's around forever of Jimmy'z original recordings. We have 40. 5 minutes of that, yeah. And his voice is great fabulous. And it's amazing slang with a really inventive and these people were incredibly creative and once again, of course, now that's all gone because I think that what prison language is very similar now with all the hip hops. Maybe I'm wrong. Talk to anyway. So we managed to. Get me channels. The story and a lot of it was. Tough he admitted. To a couple of murders that he didn't put in the book that he was never charged with in jail or he was in fights. People were killed either he did. It or he. Was involved in it. It was it's brutal beyond belief and one of the reviews. UM? Of the book said this was the most relentless and honest account of evil, and in an autobiography. They'd ever read. And I really feel that's a fairly accurate statement because he didn't really blame the system. Although the system created the situation, but he accepted responsibility. We're doing certain things that were that were choices, so it's a very interesting existential blend of accepting responsibility and acknowledging that he was forced to make those choices in.

Speaker 3: The first place.

Speaker 1: I definitely want you to expand a bit more on some of his intelligence and his politics, and he obviously formulated in. Prison because there have been some prison memoirs since then. Since this book that are also like equally if. Not more evil. Than this book monsters.

Speaker 2: There was that for fighting. The monster, right?

Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: That one definitely.

Speaker 1: And any of the.

Speaker 3: American History X stuff is similar to you.

Speaker 2: I think with what we left out though. It probably would give a run for his money because we left out.

Speaker 3: So give it a run for.

Speaker 1: Its money, yeah?

Speaker 2: Some of the most brutal detail. So he came out. So when Jimmy was. There's a lot here. Jimmy was in prison and out in 70 and 71. He ran with the Black Panthers. He was actually one. Of humans, bodyguards and he was very he was involved in that ideology. Although he had his own suspicions, but he definitely that was the only game in town really. And so it kind of made sense. He he'd read France say no, he'd read not so much now. But he'd he'd read the standard leftist catechism, and so he. He was somewhat taken by that, and when we met him we spent a lot of time going over why we thought that didn't work, and because he'd read the communion. And the anarchists? Because he'd been prepped on his own because he'd had those interests. I said, don't you read that in jail? He said they didn't know what those Russians. Were talking about like I didn't even get it right. Marks OK, maybe.

Speaker 1: That was that man.

Speaker 2: To a prison official and said quit.

Speaker 3: They don't know what.

Speaker 2: He's doing right. It was below the radar. You know, because he had done his own work, and because I think he was just a free spirit and wasn't really into this to be part of an organization he was into it because he saw, the systematic systematic evils of the system he was willing to or able to abandon those ideas. Without like. You know, twisting his honor I think the other thing was it was just that were really asking him questions. He liked the decline. And follow the spectacular commodity economy pamphlet on the loss by the situation. It's a lot. I mean, that was an incredible organizing tool and I think it still.

Unknown Speaker: Could be, I mean.

Speaker 2: It’s amazing. Well maybe it's not big, but at that time it really spoke to him. I think as he grew up and was he was in jail when that happened, but he understood, that was a very powerful and nobody else had things like that to offer, right? That kind of really radical, appreciative analysis. So it wasn't really a battle, it was just kind of a process that went through together and there was a lot of discussions. But ? He grasped most of it really, quickly wasn't really. That wasn't a battle to get him to do that. I mean, we would have done the book. Anyway, sure yeah, of course, but I mean. It just made it easier.

Speaker 1: No, that's OK.

Speaker 2: So he narrates. A section where he talks about George Jackson and this was one. Of the most I think at the time. Now it appears to be tame. Scan was parts of the book was that he was this guy, George Jackson who'd been completely lionized, mostly by whites as a man a hero could do no harm. And yet in the book he's presented at in the beginning. As it goes through an evolution like everybody else has a thug really and a thug in the sense that when someone took away of his pile of weights, he tried to kill him and he tried to kill him. By biting his. Jugular vein On the yard. Now this not the behavior. Of an altruistic radical, it's the behavior of a guy who has had a horrible life and it's an eye for an eye tooth for a tooth. So we put that detail in the book. We put other details that were similar and of course we talked about his evolution and they were in the cell together for a long time, so they knew each other really well. We talked about this evolution. Of George and Jimmy.

Speaker 1: But that.

Speaker 2: Interestingly enough, made the book pretty much unacceptable at that time to the liberal establishment and the way that manifest itself was, and I'm jumping ahead after we finished writing the book and went out looking for a literary agent which you had to have. None of the liberal. Agents who had done, ? Any material like that would touch. The book and they never. That why, but we knew because it. Was a really commercial book that. They didn't want to. Touch it so we. Finished the tape recordings and there's I think too much. Unless you want to go over specifics, there’s just a whole world in there that It’s. It's in the.

Speaker 1: No, I mean people should people people should. Read the book.

Unknown Speaker: I feel like they.

Speaker 2: Should yeah, and it's come out in the new edition. We finished the book and in April of 1970. Two so it. Took us I don't know 3-4 months to. Do all that because we didn't do it. All the time and I got a phone call. I don't remember the exact day in April about 6:00 in the morning from Joan, who was Dand Bessie's mother saying the worst has happened. Jimmy's dead and obviously a huge shock to me to us and didn't really know what to do or think. At that moment, but it turned out that he had been killed by the Black Panthers, and this one of the clearest cases of a political assassination being traced back to his origin. Because the two guys who killed him, they jumped out of the bushes with. Sawed off shotguns and classic gangland style women half basically. Drove off but they were and went S on 101 from San Jose in a car that people had seen and they were caught and they were card carrying. Members of the Black Panther Party and they've been keeping their receipts so it was obviously a contract there. And in California, if you are caught and convicted of a contract. Killing, there's no parole, so I assume you're still in jail that would.

Speaker 1: Be like what's that 7120?

Speaker 2: 945 years later, they're still in. It's either you're either executed or you're in life in prison for a contract killing. So then of course the question is why did Huey Newton order the killing? Obviously kill him and there were details about what he did that. I think there's. Basically 3 theories of why he was killed. One is and I. I don't really know. This not the kind of thing. He would talk about with us. Because how implicate us in his secret. Life past life.

Speaker 1: The one.

Speaker 2: We've been stealing money from the Angela Davis defense and she may have been. I mean one is he was a dog, right? So you never know one. Is he killed a Black Panther called Fred Bennett in the mountains in Santa of Santa Cruz? That did happen. He was killed and this was a way to get rid of. Him because maybe they didn't want that coming back. The organization and the third one is, it was just a classic Co Intel Pro program and Co. Intel Pro was the Jay Groover effective counterintelligence program to infiltrate leftist groups from liberal ones like Martin Luther King all the way in the most. So that when so many. Of the groups members were agents they could spread what's called the rat jacket or a dirty jacket jacket. Reputation about somebody and convince others that it was true, and then they would believe it. They saw almost nothing but innuendo. And then they would decide this person. Was a rat and. Kill him so one of those three things happened, but in any case it was clear. That it had been ordered by Hugh and Newton because there would have been no other reason for it to happen, and Jimmy had been very close to him. He gave us some interesting detail about his life, which is in the book, but essentially he was called by the numbers. Temper and he had a horrible drug, had very strong addictions, and he had a 3 foot cocaine mirror which he drove around in the back of his Lincoln continent on the trunk. With so it was a. Lot of cocaine going on there. Big surprise him anyway, so tragedy happened. It was, were devastated. Totally surprised that this had. And of course, although Jimmy used to say I'm not going to live more than two more years, I just feel like he never said why, but he was one of those guys who, had, he'd been involved in so many murders, counter murders in jail, so much intrigue. I mean, people have to remember this was a very heavy time. Lots of people were being killed in and out of the Black Panthers. Very many deaths, a lot of paranoia. Everyone was armed. It was a very dangerous, difficult time. For that group. On the right side, nothing. I mean, were so. Far from that, we just didn't have anything.

Speaker 1: To do with that and between 70 and 76 was many, many Black Panthers were still.

Speaker 2: Men, dozens, dozens and. So he and the way he. Was just telling the line of combat. Yeah, OK, so couple days after he died there was awake for him and it was very interesting because it brought together the San Jose Liberal crowd of the Hammers guys. Just out of. Prison the Vance Ramos brigade. It was a very eclectic. This was a very elegant house. The Hammer House and still, elegant house in San Jose so were having this wake. Everyone was obviously totally devastated and about. 5 minutes into the first. Villagey delivered by this guy. Phil, who'd been in Cuba? As a venture among gay guy, an African American guy. All sudden, all these gunshots struck going like hundreds of rounds of gunshots. And we're thinking, oh God, we're all going to die. They've come to kill us and so everyone hits. The floor, everyone's all dressed up. We all dive on the floor. And like it goes on for like 2 minutes gunshots and so. Then finally the gunshots stop and. Phil gets up. Great, just let her looks out. The window to see there's nobody. There, So what thell then we start smelling smelling this smoke and they start. We start smelling hearing the fire. So basically what happened was Dand I. About an hour before the party were asked to burn a bunch of milk cartoons in the fireplace to get rid of. Them, which we did back. Then you put your trash and they were covered. With wax so they got really hot. So they got really hot and then this then. But then the fire went out. You know you. Know just stuff. Burning and. It was an hour before. The party so. There actually has been a. There was a hole in the chimney and so. Some sparks got. Out of the chimney and into the eaves. And Jimmy had slept with a 9 millimeter pistol under his pillow, and he had a few 100 rounds of ammunition stuck up in the eaves. And they all went off and blew a hole. In the ceiling, but we thought this was cool because it was like he. Was sending himself off right? It's like it.

Speaker 1: Was his. Is 21 gun salute?

Speaker 2: I mean. I'm sure it was he's. 21 gun salute, I meand so. It was like a wild story and it's really. It's a crazy wild. And then the party just went on. You know the police and the police. Knew what had happened in this house. The fire department they came, they put. The fire out, but somehow they. Were really respectful. I guess they . I mean, he actually made friends with a lot of people and he was like such an athlete that he kind of cut through that. Plus they had just had a baby. He was a father. He had a job. He was working in construction. He had given up his old. Life I'm sure he. Would never have gone back, to the old way I’m positive except. There's one story, so were big martial arts fans. We love Kurosawa, so just as were finishing the book to celebrate, went to San Francisco and right near the corner of Fairmont, California, it's gone. There was a movie theater called. The clay and we. Went and saw your gym, but together with one. Of the great, of course I was samurai. And he had one of those old Toyota land cruisers that looked exactly like a the original Range Rover. Jeep was nothing like it is now. It was a tiny Jeep vehicle. And very rugged. And so we got in the car. We parked right in front of theater and right to the left of the clay was the Bank of. So he opens up. The glove box and there is his 9 millimeter, he says. Well, in the spirit of that movie. Would you guys come in with me and? Rob this. Bank and he pulls the pistol out. When I know. This will out. He says, because frankly, I've got nothing to. Lose Oh my God. You know all you guys have to do? Is hold the bag and I'll do the rest. I don't know if it was just. Like joking, calling her blast.

Speaker 1: Sucking with sucking with you again.

Speaker 2: ******* with us. Probably ******* with us, but I mean if we said yes he would have done it.

Unknown Speaker: Oh yeah.

Speaker 2: I mean, this the kind. Of guy, he was right. I mean so we just said. Well, frankly, don't you want to finish the book? Yeah, no no. But I mean the.

Speaker 1: Thing is, we can.

Speaker 2: Easily have died. We would be good to do this. I mean this like, right? In the in theart of San Francisco. They could scramble, really quickly so anyway. We said no you. Know we're we're checking, . So obviously there was still a risk kind of pull towards that life because he had robbed. You know dozens of banks. Just that way and gotten away with it anyway. So then were pretty much devastated about that and. Put the book aside for a while and just to finish with the book. Basically what happened was we couldn't find an agent for the reasons I mentioned. They just really. It was just. Too hard to handle really. It was a hot potato you. Know because it was just. I mean maybe they didn't. Like it because. It was so brutally honest, but I think mainly it was the George Jackson. Thing that you just could not defile someone of that. Even if you were there even. If it was true. Nobody ever said it wasn't true, they just nobody said. He's lying, you need it up. Because he didn't, he was there. He didn't make up anything, they just didn't want it published. So eventually, through the series of publishing connects. Were introduced to a kind of Maverick in publishing called Herman Graph and Herman Graph was a very offbeat, iconoclastic New Yorker who had worked as the sales director for the most online card publishing company in the United States that actually published the author of Malcolm X. All girl press. Grove Press published Beckett they published junction they were hugely successful publishing company run by 1 Crazy Speedfreek Jewish Guy called Bonnie Watson and they had huge success.

Speaker 1: Yeah, they're.

Speaker 3: Big, they're a big man.

Speaker 2: In fact, Herman had found Confederacy of Dunces on the. Junk pile at the university. Of Louisiana paid $3000. The book, so he had a great eye for the offbeat. He was eventually fired three times by Barney Rosset and the last time he was fired, Bernie Rosset said, don't worry, Herman is the only person. So Herman started his own imprint called Whirlwind Press and we met him and he said this a fabulous book. He made us change a bunch of names of the prison officials for libel suits because basically we said in the book on such and such a day, the prison officials brought in the Nazis here in brotherhood and said. If you go. And start a fight and then run back. We'll kill this person. So we had that kind of detail in the book, which was all what Jimmy was willing to say. It was true, but they made us change some of those names because it was that accurately calling people murderers for specific incident.

Speaker 1: Say it again.

Speaker 2: So anyway, Herman said, yeah, I'll publish the book, but I'm a small press. I need a distributor. I can't, I'll, I'll pay for the printing and I'll do all that. But you need to have a distributor, so I need to make a distribution deal. So he said the biggest and the most important distributor. Of paperbacks because. It was going to be in mass market. Paperback original, which in that era man was going to be much more widely distributed in every drug store. Every bus station, not. He has many more books were sold in non. Bookstores through that method have cheap. Books and two books he said Dallas the best and the biggest. They were so we'll all get them to do this book. So we thought, oh. That's cool, OK? This was 1975 because I've jumped ahead to. Finish the story of.

Unknown Speaker: The book.

Speaker 2: So it took us that long. In fact, went to France in between and tried to find us. We thought, well, we'll do this classic route. No one loves us in America. If I'm here. So we met with some people. And they actually thought it could work. But that we should go back and. Try America one more time. They actually said we can get this published in France and it was later published in France and went through. Like 10 printings. And five editions. It was a mini best seller in France, so it actually was that kind of. European cache, but so anyway, Herman said, yeah, we'll. Get down to the biggest or the best. From 130,000 copies and we'll we'll take the world by storm. So we thought great and so then the book came out and we got a copy and something totally weird had happened, which is. That Dell had not read the book before they published it and. They didn't really know what was in it. So at the last minute before they published it, the same kinds of liberals, New York, right publishing liberals had. Read the book and. Freaked out and they thought we. Really don't want to be associated with this book. We've signed a contract, so we will. Be sued, but. Can we sabotage this? Look, is there a way to make sure? That nobody really excuse. Me leads the book and So what they did was they disowned the book and. Made it impossible to reorder and. Then they did that because they didn't give. It an ISBN number.

Speaker 1: Yeah, they didn't.

Speaker 2: Give it an ISBN number at the. Last minute they pulled the title page that they had that was typeset and they put a Selectric typed title page. You can tell from the from the copy. Then not only did they not give it an ISBN number, they didn't list it in their catalog at all in any way, and they took their name off the book. So it said DD. But if you didn't know. What that was, they'll distribution. You couldn't find it so. There was no way for. The book to continue sabotage the book and at that point were devastated. Also, they shipped a huge number of. Books to Canada instead of the US.

Speaker 1: Like half the books which.

Speaker 2: Is just ridiculous, right? What's the point, right? We said we gotta suit these guys, ? I mean, it's like they've destroyed this.

Speaker 1: Book I mean.

Speaker 2: It could be a best seller, . Whatever, and he refused because he said they were too powerful and he would lose. So the book literally was sabotaged by the publisher. I know we talked about this before and he said maybe there are other incidents, but I haven't heard of any quite in this way where the book is actually published in order to suppress.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I’ve heard of other cases that. Really come out.

Speaker 3: Of some part of the freakish underground and tries to emerge into the public and are slapped down basically.

Speaker 2: Right? Right, so essentially, the book didn't have found success. It was also translated into German. It was a German edition. It was a Spanish edition, but essentially had success in France and I actually went over there before the book came out and worked with the translator and tried to bring some of this African American. Slang into French which. Is really tough, but I spent a fair amount of time and I think the translation was actually pretty much. OK. Anyway, so that's kind of the legacy of that story, and it. It continues to be, I think, an upsetting book. In some ways I think it still has legs. A new edition was published. There was anarchist edition that was published after it went. Out of print. And then Carolyn Grass became a current and republished it again. So it's more or less been continuously in print. Since 1975. And as far as Jimmy's legacy, I think you can look look looking back. Like you said there was just this extreme wave of violence. A lot of it's really nonsensical that happened during that period, so kind of is a good stopping point, yeah?

Speaker 1: That's good, excellent.

Speaker 2: Well, what's what's up for next episode. So next episode is 7273, where when in doubt, lacking critical ideas, we'll go back to France. We realized that we needed to renew our bond with France. Went back twice in 72 and 70. 31 time after Jimmy was killed. Actually, I'd I'd. Like to add one kind of footnote to this. I just remembered a kind of. Personal note, which is that after he was killed I decided along with my girlfriend that we should escape because at that point because we. Had written a critique of the black. Panthers that was in the book we didn't. Really know this was our fantasy, of course. And maybe something we'd said. Had gotten out to the black. Panthers thinking they would be responding to this critique of violence. So we, my girlfriend and I. Moved from San Francisco to Santa Cruz. Which was actually closer. To where he'd been killed. It's not really brilliant. And we moved into a boarding house that was owned by a friend of Jones, and I went back to commercial fishing. And in this period I rediscovered my passion for food because I took over the cooking at the boarding house I was staying at where lentil soup was on the menu every night, and I just really at a certain point. I said, OK. I'm not going to complain. Can I just start cooking for the 15 surfers or in the in the boarding house? And the only cookbook in the house at. The time was this very cryptic comprehensive Dictionary of French cooking in English. Called the loose gastronomy. So I started. Making very elaborate French meals for $2.00 a person and ingredients for. All the surfers in the house. And I remember one day I was in the kitchen and two African Americans came to the door and I just ran I. I was just running, running, running I just. Ran away I. Thought they were there to kill me and. It turned out they were the goodwill guys. Who come to pick up baby? Yeah, but I but I mean really it was. It was kind of. Not totally unrealistic. To think that something we'd done or said.

Speaker 1: It was in the realm. Of the possum.

Speaker 2: So it was. What it was it was. Exaggerated and little narcissistic that. It was in. The realm of the possible. So I kind of like to. End that period that now.

Speaker 1: Yeah well good. OK, thank you very much.

Ep. 41: Atassa

This episode of the Brilliant is an active discussion between Bellamy, Aragorn!, and Wil about the new LBC journal project Atassa. It is worth checking…

Continue ReadingEpisode 41: Atassa

This episode of the Brilliant is an active discussion between Bellamy, Aragorn!, and Wil about the new LBC journal project Atassa. It is worth checking out as an introduction to the journal and an exercise about how to think about revolutionary (or not) practice in a world where terrorism no longer has any meaning. Eco-extremism isn’t a solution that would work in the US but it does raise challenging questions about violence, the planet, and the spirit that inspires all of our actions.

Tick Tock

Introductions to Wil and Bellamy
1:34 Atassa introduction
2:00 Wil: Attitude. ITS.
6:00 Market anarchism & Technophilia
7:30 Strong introduction. Defines terms. Bel: This something you have to deal with (Why?)
9:45 Origin story of eco-extremism. Revolution. Kacynski. Ancestral Beliefs.
13:20 Shocking bits wrt Mafia style violence, appearance, adopt an accent, espouse a strong moral character. sXe. Necheav.
15:30 Return of the warrior. Clastres. What is the relationship between violence and the State? Monopoly of violence has unforseen consequence. Becoming.
29:00 More origin of EE. Solid piece from Jacobi. Notes on wildism vs EE vs AP.
34:30 Creek War. Market economy as invasion. Old ways. Brutal.
39:00 Indiscriminate anarchists. Today there is reaction by @ against indiscriminate attacks. There is a history here. This another way to talk about social vs anti-social @.
41:40 Is this anarchist journal? No! But @ should be engaged with it anyway.
45:30 Are you a pacifist? Kudos for your consistency. Otherwise you have to (internally) confront the questions of Atassa.

Links

Buy Atassa now!

The Atassa website

Hunter Gather project

Comments

1. orion

Clastres is used to eliminate the grey zone between brutal savagery and civilized state oppression,
Anarchists are used to justify indiscriminate violence,
Rewilding is used to justify scalping children and torturing women
South American gods are used to justify poisoning the civilized
Logic is used (badly) to justify ignoring logic
Indigenous groups are used to justify perpetual warfare
Extremism is used to justify violent patriarchy
Amoralism is used to justify immoralism.
Wildness is used to justify human extinction.

This group is going to inspire massive repression against all ecological resistance movements.

To your question at the end: are you a pacifist?: No. I’m a strategist and tacticiand nihilistic terrorism is the ultimate subjugation of all to the ego–a hypercivilized instrumental/utilitarian tendency that will induce nothing but a death spiral. Blowing up the civilized on a bus cuz it makes you feel wild is fucking retarded. Even blowing up the grid is extremely removed from indiscriminate violence, because there is a strategic goal for the future. This group does not believe in the future. They believe in stroking their egos to orgasm with the civilized blood of whoever is unfortunate enough to be around them when their pathology strikes next.

January 27, 2017 Reply

1. jim

Yay! Good to see all 3 of you all on this episode, keep it going.

January 27, 2017 Reply

1. Joshua Finch

I’m wondering why Bellamy thinks it’s not anarchism and A! thinks it is.

Also why should Jacobi care about anarchist trivia? If getting older is all about knowing about anarchist trivia, then kill me now.

January 30, 2017 Reply

- Bellamy

I said EE is not anarchist in the moment of recording because they explicitly eschew the label anarchist, are critical of anarchists themselves, are largely rejected by anarchists in kind (as far as I can tell), and because they have at various times shown adherence to positions and values that are commonly criticized and rejected by anarchists (some form of racial or tribal nationalism, apologies for certain forms of authority, a refusal of the future, indifference to human life, endorsement of deities, and so on).

Of course, there are many definitions of anarchism, many of which are mutually exclusive. I agree with A!’s reasons for why this book is potentially interesting for anarchists.

February 12, 2017 Reply

1. thebrilliant

I think EE is anarchist because I think the questions EE ask anarchists are anarchist ones. Is it possible to impact society in the meaningful ways we wish to without violence? How capable are we of committing the amount that we need? How capable are we of determining where that violence is best applied? Does the future world hold these violent, unconscious actions and beliefs in their belly?

I claim anarchist as a broad label because, whatever else happens, I want to grow old with people who share a world view with me. Who understand why trivia is important. I want an argumentation I care about and understand. This probably involves these hard questions and others shared with anarchists who use the word differently than I do. I’ll let B speak for himself…

January 30, 2017 Reply

1. Frederich Stirnerius von Deleuzenstein

The whole idea that indiscriminate attacks can be “individualistic” in nature strikes me as a false premise to begin with. One’s level of ethical aversion (or lack thereof) to violence in general doesn’t even need to enter into the discussion to recognize this as being the case. The act of setting off a bomb in the middle of a crowded city street is not grounded in the liberated desires of self-willed individuals acting as they choose, but in the same sense of self-imposed reactive urgency that underlies so many “activist” projects. The same impulse can just as easily be seen on a picket line as it can during an act of insurrectional violence.

It would be naive of anarchists to deny that there is a perverse form of personal liberation involved in any act of domination. Whether in the power of the slave master to crack the whip, the power of politicians to send people off to war, or the power of ITS to set off a bomb, there is a certain “freedom” in the ability to decide how the lives of others should be controlled, expended, or destroyed. However, as the saying goes, “heavy is thead that wears the crown;” or, in the case of eco-extremism, heavy is the arm that throws the incendiary device. In other words, to subordinate others is to inadvertently subordinate yourself.

The rationalization for indiscriminate violence that I’ve heard coming from ITS that there are no “innocent bystanders” because everyone who is not engaged in open revolt against civilization is complicit in maintaining its existence is nothing less than a moralistic justification for the authoritarian control and destruction of life. While this may appear in some depraved alternate universe to be an expression of “liberated desire,” the fact is that whatever visceral knee-jerk response to existing conditions motivates them to do what they do, it is based in reactive desperation rather than the active expression of individual will.

Much like the corporate CEO who has global brand recognition and billions of dollars to his name but nonetheless feels empty, vacuous, and burdened by the responsibilities of life at the top of a labyrinthine bureaucracy, I would assume that a life lived “underground” in an effort to evade the authorities and gather resources for the next attack carries its own set of burdens and privations. Constantly having to watch your back, stay on the move, and keep secrets from those you care about would get exhausting after awhile. It would be a highly ascetic lifestyle that would require a strong commitment to self-sacrifice and a willingness to abstain from many basic comforts.

If people want to choose that route for themselves, it’s certainly their own prerogative to do so, but they shouldn’t pretend there’s anything “individualistic” about it. If anything, they’re prostrating themselves on the altar of “the Cause” even more ardently than the most self-sacrificing of lefty activist community organizers who spend their days printing fliers and advocating to city hall for caps on rent hikes. The tactics may be way more aggressive in the case of something like EE but the underlying logic is the same, regardless of any rhetoric about “wildness” or “individual desire” they may put forward.

February 8, 2017 Reply

Bellamy

This a very reasonable critique of EE, one that doesn’t fall into the usual pattern of internal contradiction and sanctimony. I wonder whether a future issue of Atassa could take this kind of criticism up.

February 12, 2017 Reply

Atassa

Probably not

February 18, 2017 Reply

Caudillo

We get this a lot from egoist / nihilist people who think eco-extremism is a “knee-jerk”. The answer already exists.

“In the “Eco-Extremist Mafia” (as they like to call themselves) there are Nihilist Terrorists, particularly in Italy. These nihilists adhere to the position that true nihilism is active nihilism or it is not at all. It is no use to speak of one’s “nihilism” or “egoism” while one pays taxes and obeys traffic laws. Such a purely passive egoism or nihilism is perhaps more akin to Buddhism or the philosophical nihilism of the 19th century, which upholds all of the things that condemn one to be a cog in the great societal machine, but offers some sort of invisible integrity or purity (or a particular “emancipated space”) akin to “spiritual liberation”. Active Nihilist Terrorism as practiced by the Memento Mori Nihilist Sect and others seeks to attack that which obviously enslaves the individual to society, and thattack must always be a physical attack against real targets such as machines, buildings, etc. and the humanoid automatons who build and run them. All other manifestations of nihilism or egoism are no better than Christian or Far Eastern asceticism.”

From: The flower growing out of the underworld: An introduction to eco-extremism

February 18, 2017 Reply

Frederich Stirnerius von Deleuzenstein

------------
“Active Nihilist Terrorism as practiced by the Memento Mori Nihilist Sect and others seeks to attack that which obviously enslaves the individual to society, and thattack must always be a physical attack against real targets such as machines, buildings, etc.” [Emphasis added]
------------

The simple fact that you’re making moral proclamations about what a genuine egoism “must” or must not be illustrates my point. Strictly speaking, I am under no obligation to do anything whatsoever in the way of opposing civilization. The language of duty and obligation, even if you do not explicitly use these terms, is itself a system of repression that keeps the individual subordinated to the stultifying logic of technological rationality. As already suggested in my previous comment, this same appeal to duty and obligation can just as easily be seen in the left-activist milieu for whom the perceived urgency to “just do something” leads to moralistic guilt trips about “checking one’s privilege” and a deliberate refusal of theoretical critique under the guise of it being an “elitist” pursuit that the more abjectly oppressed are neither capable of nor can afford to engage in. Reframing the obligation in terms of a need to attack rather than a need to make formal demands to those in power does little if anything to uproot this logic. If, at any given time, it may prove to my advantage to take some sort of action against the civilized apparatus, I will cross that bridge when I come to it. However, what I will not do is be guilted or harangued into taking actions that, in my view, lack the strategic foresight necessary to knock the pillars out from under this civilization in such a way that does not expand the scope of my own or other people’s autonomy. If that’s what “egoism” is to you, then you can keep it.

As for the concept of “active nihilism,” the above quote seems to be using the word “active” in the colloquial sense of “taking action” as opposed to “not taking action,” whereas I was using it more in relation to Gilles Deleuze’s discussion of “active and reactive forces” found in his book, “Nietzsche and Philosophy.” According to this perspective, any force exerted on or by a material body, whether that body is a conscious human agent or an inanimate object such as a marble or a stone, contains the potential to become either active or reactive. Thus, in order for an “action” to be to be truly active, it is not sufficient to merely “do something.” In Deleuze’s own words,

“When a reactive force develops to its ultimate consequences it does this in relation to negation, to the will to nothingness which serves as its motive force. Becoming active, on the contrary, presupposes the affinity of action and affirmation; in order to become active it is not sufficient for a force to go to the limit of what it can do, it must make what it can do an object of affirmation. Becoming-active is affirming and affirmative, just as becoming-reactive is negating and nihilistic.”

These dual notions of becoming-active and becoming-reactive fundamentally break down the false dichotomy between “action” and “in*action” in the colloquial sense. Consider, for example, a game of marbles in which Marble 1 strikes Marble 2 and Marble 2 rolls off in some other direction. While Marble 2 is still undergoing the “action” of rolling away, this action is itself reactive in nature because it is reacting to the force of impact from Marble 1. Now, let’s say for the sake of argument that Marble 2 continues along its trajectory and ultimately makes impact with Marble 3, which then rolls off in a different direction of its own. While it can certainly be said that the force exerted on Marble 3 by Marble 2 temporarily “became” active at the moment of impact, this doesn’t negate the fact that the active power of Marble 2 was borne out of its initial reactive encounter with Marble 1. In the case of both becoming-active and becoming-reactive, the potential for each is always contained within its opposite.

It is also worth pointing out that Deleuze isn’t necessarily just talking about the becoming-active or -reactive of conscious human individuals carrying out whatever tasks they happen to be choosing for themselves – whether it is the task of insurrection or something completely unrelated like eating or clothing oneself. A theory of “forces” in general is not yet concerned with individuals and their choices, merely with the interactions between bodies in space and time. It is only through these interactions that a “Self” can be said to emerge in the first place – a Self that is always multiple and always in a process of emergence. A consistently nihilist (or, for that matter, egoist) perspective would be one that unapologetically acknowledges the illusory nature of any and all sacred categories – be it the category of “God,” “Mankind,” or even the “Self” as a pre-constituted identity. Even Max Stirner, for all his apparent veneration of “the Ego” as a quasi-divine being, concludes his book “The Ego and Its Own” by saying that “no concept expresses me, nothing that is designated as my essence exhausts me; they are only names.” To this, I personally would add that I am the capacity to create myself as I choose; I am the becoming of myself from out of a pre-personal void.

Pushing nihilism to its furthest possible conclusion, I would argue that nihilism’s ultimate goal is to negate even itself – a negation that, paradoxically enough, begins and ends with an act of affirmation. The affirmation of life as a creative force that breaks free from the shackles which chain it to civilization’s own narrative about duty, obligation, and technological rationality. The idea of nihilism as an ideological “position” to be “adopted” like one might adopt the position of “liberal” or “conservative” in the arena of representational politics runs counter to the spirit of nihilism itself; which, when donned as an identity, transforms negation as such into yet another sacred category. I take Raoul Vaneigem very seriously when he says that

“Nihilism is a self-destruct mechanism: today a flame, tomorrow ashes. The old values in ruins today feed the intensive production of consumable and ‘futurized’ values sold under the old label of ‘the modern’; but they also thrust us inevitably towards a future yet to be constructed, towards the transcendence of nihilism. In the consciousness of the new generation a slow reconciliation is occurring between history’s destructive and constructive tendencies.” [Emphasis added]

However, let no one fall into the trap of being so enamoured with this talk about flames and ashes that they overlook the deeper ideas being discussed here. There is a far more nuanced strategic and ethical (not moral) sensibility here than excessive preoccupation with real flames and real ashes could ever hope to comprehend. To speak of “historical tendencies” and “the transcendence of nihilism” is to demand a level of attention to detail that actively rejects reactive desire itself, its false dualisms, and its fetish for “negation” for its own sake. If it is not only the coercive structures of techno-industrial civilization but also my own enjoyment and my own autonomy that are being negated through an allegedly “active” nihilism, then I see no reason why this something I should even want let alone devote my energy trying to achieve. In fact, it is precisely the sort of ascetic self-denial that I am trying to get away from. An “active nihilism” that seeks to become “active” in more than just name only is not an ideological position in which to languish as one would alongside a swimming pool with a margarita in one’s hand. Rather, it is a tool to be picked up and used as needed, only to be discarded again when it has outlived its usefulness.

February 19, 2017 Reply

Caudillo

Eco-extremism is the tragic sense of life embodied in our epoch. It is a product of the contradictions of our time, of the haziness of anthropological scholarship, of the renunciation of political action, and of the contemporary ideological impasse. This tendency knows that this impasse will not be solved by better philosophies or moral codes, but only in the destruction of all that exists, including the “hyper-civilized” (i.e. all of us). Techno-industrial society is a problem that should have never existed in the first place, and all of the “defects” and “contradictions” of eco-extremism as an ideology are the result of society’s contradictions reflected as in a distorted mirror. There is no solution. The only appropriate response is fire and bullets.

February 21, 2017 Reply

Caudillo

Eco-extremism isn’t moralistic because it doesn’t have a “telos” per se outside the individual, in other words, it isn’t trying to convince you to do anything. The benefit of thinking collective action is useless is you don’t have to make “moral appeals”. Eco-extremists aren’t trying to make more eco-extremists. There are no eco-extremist brigades or communes. They’re not trying to build a community or even a “union of egoists”. If you want to do that and it appeals to you, if you have affinity to it, by all means. But they have no illusions that they are going to convince anyone of anything.

But if you feel they are “judging” you and your course of (in)action, what can I say, that’s just your opinion, man. They’re not going to argue with your feelings, though they don’t particularly care about them either.

February 22, 2017 Reply

Frederich Stirnerius von Deleuzenstein

Nor do I really care whether the adherents of eco-extremism choose to martyr themselves on the altar of nihilistic destruction – which is, whether they care to admit to themselves or not, the disavowed “telos” that unconsciously guides all of their actions. Having done with teleology isn’t a simple matter of merely proclaiming it to be the case, regardless of how strong may be your conviction to the contrary. If you look closely at the language of your previous comments, you have already revealed the hidden “telos” of eco-extremism which, according to you, does not exist: that of “physical attack” or “fire and bullets.” (And don’t get me wrong, I think that, under certain conditions, these sorts of tactics are as valid as any.) This goes back to what I was saying about negation itself being elevated to the status of yet another sacred category along the lines of “God” or “Mankind.” In the absence of an affirmative, consciously-stated “goal,” the means do not merely “justify” but effectively become the ends. This blurring of means and ends shouldn’t be confused with what is often frivilously referred to as “praxis” in anarchist circles, in which the desired ends are contained within the means so that each is forever transforming the other as circumstances demand. Rather, it is a sort of unconscious retroactive imposition of a de facto if not theoretical “goal” that takes effect precisely through the conscious refusal of teleology itself.

Believe me, I spent much of my 20’s relishing the idea of an “anti-teleological” insurrectionary anarchist praxis. However, the conclusion that I slowly came to is that an escape from the “telos” is not to be found in the refusal of teleology as such, but in a fundamental reconceptualization of the relationship between means and ends. The whole idea of a “goal” as a dialectical end-point to be arrived at via the linear exchange of thesis and antithesis needs to be dispensed with entirely and replaced with the idea that goals are forever transforming and being transformed by the means used to achieve them. Simply making grand declarations about not having a “telos” at all does not cut the mustard here. You can shout it from the rafters as loudly as you please and it wouldn’t change the fact that negation itself has retroactively filled in the gap where an explicitly-stated “goal” otherwise would have been. It is in this sense that, despite its best intentions, eco-extremism still manages to remain “moralistic” in nature. The level of sensitivity that eco-extremists may or may not have toward my personal “feelings” about my own supposed moral obligation to “the Cause” aren’t even the issue here. What is at issue is the false narrative that the eco-extremist milieu seem to be telling themselves about being an expression of “active” nihilism and the liberated desire of “the individual.”

One of the reasons why I’m constantly harping about Gilles Deleuze is because he posed a question that I think has been largely ignored by anarchists for far too long: what is it that causes people to desire their own repression? Setting aside the typical Joe Six Pack who would rather spend his time watching the Super Bowl or beating his wife than worrying about how the existence of techno-industrial civilization runs contrary to his interests, let’s just deal with the eco-extremist milieu itself for the time being. When you speak of eco-extremism as being “the tragic sense of life embodied in our epoch,” I don’t hear the defiant voice of joyful rebellion, I hear an almost forlorn resignation to precisely the sense of duty that I talked about earlier. There’s a certain “woe is me” quality to it that almost seems like it should be accompanied by violin music. I’m reminded of Nietzsche’s comment in “On The Genealogy of Morals” about “the spirit of priestly revenge”:

“Those who have been the greatest haters in world history and the most spiritually rich haters have always been the priests—in comparison with the spirit of priestly revenge all the remaining spirits are, in general, hardly worth considering. Human history would be a really stupid affair without that
spirit which entered it from the powerless.”

As a quick refresher in Nietzsche’s critique of morality before moving on to my main point, consider the fact that, for Nietzsche, all of Christian morality is grounded in an inversion – an inversion of the “aristocratic” values of the pre-Christian nobility. In other words, with the rise of Christianity, values such as “nobility,” “strength,” and “pride,” came to be replaced by ones like “humility,” “meekness,” and “temperance.” This inversion of aristocratic values is what he referred to as “the slave revolt in morals,” meaning that those who had historically been denied the capacity to act in accordance with their own “will to power” at last found a way to compensate for this by transforming their powerlessness from a vice into a virtue; and, thus, taking vengeance on those who had until that point denied them of their power. This what led Nietzsche to say that, “[i]n order to arise, slave morality always requires first an opposing world, a world outside itself. Psychologically speaking, it needs external stimulIn order to act at all. Its action is basically reaction.” The connection here with Deleuze’s discussion of “active and reactive forces” should now be quite obvious.

In the first of your two most recent comments, it’s almost as if you’re saying directly to the apologists for civilization, “you have created us through your own contradictions! You have yourselves to thank for the havoc that we carry out! Behold what thou hath wrought!” While thisn’t strictly what Nietzsche referred to as the “imaginary vengeance” of the priests (in the sense that real bombs blowing up real buildings is hardly imaginary), there is a sense in which you are making a spectacle of your own perceived victimization by transforming it into a weapon against the moral consensus of the established order. Civilization encountered as a unified object is precisely your “world outside,” your “external stimulus” that grounds all your actions in *re*action. Expressed in Freudian psychoanalytic terms, it’s what you experience as the “reality principle” imposing itself upon your “pleasure principle” – an experience that you react to violently by resisting the sublimation of the drives.

Fortunately, however, Deleuze (among others) did a fine job of turning Freud on his head at one and the same time as he set him back on his feet. As much as I have spoken at different times as if “civilization” is a specific “thing” that exists “out there” in the world, the reality is no where near this clear-cut. If I have spoken in these terms up until this point, it has merely been for ease of communication and nothing else. For Deleuze, civilization is not an external “object” that one must “react” to either positively or negatively, but an “abstract assemblage” – a diffuse network of machinic, conceptual, and intersubjective relations that is always already in the process of reconfiguring itself. If people continue to encounter civilization as an external object rather than a network of relations in which they are bound up from the very beginning, it is because they are being perpetually habituated to a dualistic logic of instrumental rationality that regulates their desires to serve its own purposes. Deleuze developed the concept of “micropolitics” as a discursive field within which to grapple with questions of how to disengage one’s desires from the regulatory functions of (post-)industrial capitalist civilization and its machinic landscape.

I suspect this something you would probably write off as the “spiritual liberation” of “Christian or Far Eastern asceticism,” but this would presuppose the sort of dualistic separation between “inner” and “outer” that Deleuze fundamentally rejects. Aside from the fact that, as I already explained in my other comment, “the Self” is always actualizing itself from out of a pre-personal void and is thus open to a reciprocal exchange with its environment, there is also the question of how desire is conceptualized in “Christian or Far Eastern asceticism” vs the perspective that I am articulating here. While I can’t speak on Christian asceticism not having read much about it, I do happen to possess my very own copy of Lao Tzu’s “Tao Te Ching,” which stands as a prototypical example of the latter. I remember one particular stanza that addresses the question of desire directly:

“Therefore the Master takes action
by letting things take their course.
He remains as calm
at the end as at the beginning
He has nothing,
thus has nothing to lose.
What he desires is non-desire;
What he learns is to unlearn.”

I would modify these words by making one change and one change only: what the Master desires is desire itself. Desire is not the desire for an object that is lacking, but a productive energy that manifests its objects through its own reproduction. It is only in this sense that desire can become “active” at all; and any “action” that does not affirm the outpouring of active desire is an action not worth taking.

February 23, 2017 Reply

Transcript

Speaker 1: Welcome to the. Group Podcast This going to be episode. I think 41. We're we're actually waiting to put up an episode that's on anti fog and this episode will be probably just as just as bit of a of a spicy Tamale. It's going and you see it so because.

Speaker 2: To be.

Speaker 1: We have a couple of. People here, do you have a name you? Want to go by? For this.

Speaker 3: Well, fine.

Speaker 1: OK, so we have will and. Bellamy and Bellamy has returned. Back to the fool. He's been like to play, yeah?

Speaker 4: I'm cold.

Speaker 1: He's he's been. Out in the. Country and has come to the big city. For the East banner. Cause book fair that's coming up this weekend and tonight we're going to talk about a project that is a very exciting project. It's sort of. Fresh out of the OBC. Laboratory and actually represents a new editorial direction for LBC and a new relationship for us because it's the first project we've done with this character that Internet people would know as art. Cabrera, who wrote this excellent and really fascinating article for Ritual magazine, which seemed. To be a project of him and. Some friends of his. And I tried to get LBBC into the ritual game earlier in the process, but to no avail. Anyway, so arts new project is called Atassand we're to devote this entire episode to talking about Atassa talking about the political implications of it, talking about some of the articles and the content within Atassa, and hopefully introducing a North American audience to ideas of eco extremism. So I guess just to sort out what do you all think of betasso and the both will and Bellamy have read more of it than I have. I've only read. The first quarter.

Speaker 3: I read all of it.

Speaker 2: What does it do?

Speaker 1: Well, what does it? What does it? Do less well.

Speaker 3: It does flair well. It has a lot of panache. There are a couple of stronger. More critical pieces. There are a couple of weaker critical pieces and most.

Speaker 1: Did you? Did you read the paper version of the communicators from individualist, tying towards the wild?

Speaker 3: I've just read.

Speaker 1: Yeah, but you but you so you read them. Because the point to me would be sort of like that's the only text tool representation there's been up till now of eco extremist literature. And so is this better? Is this worse? What's different?

Speaker 4: Well, you mean the only textual representation in English, right? Sure, yeah, yeah, so. I actually was going to ask you. We got a little bit ahead of the game, but this following closely on theels of abolish work, which I think. Was another book that might be unusual to your audience. Unusual to the people involved in LBC. Is there some sort of move toward, printing things that are more disagreeable or questionable or that sort of thing?

Speaker 2: Well, I wish it were that.

Speaker 1: Simple, the thing about our project right? And we've talked about this quite a few times, but. You know we spent five years producing material and I sort of did it as an assertion that there is such a thing as a post less literature and while obviously I think that we've evidence that's true. On the flip side, it's taken every quarter has become more and more difficult in terms of getting content. And so this. Another one of the things that was coming up, which I think is sort of an interesting phenomenon, is that more people seem to be at the level of producing and doing what it takes to make a journal than of necessarily doing the book. So obviously if you look at our first two years of the five year that we see printed book A. Month it's project.

Speaker 4: And some sell.

Speaker 1: Well, it's not. Just all books, but it's like all like these. Heavy hitters, right? Querol to a violence Novato. Sorry, it's just like book after book. That, like clearly we're years in the making and those first two years was just like heavy hitters and the last year or two, we've had some strong books, but they're all fairly small, like the blessing of the flame. It's a strong book, strong title, but it's very small. It’s half the size of nugatory if not. Yes, and so we knew when we start when were starting to do journals that one of the goals of doing journal is to sort of be a place where a stable where a set of authors can sort of like chew on each other and chew on the context and.

Speaker 4: Feel like they. Whatever they write is gonna have a. Place to go.

Speaker 1: Yes, and that and then and then eventually build the confidence to do something that's. That's the book. So that was the part of the purpose of journals. So toss. It came along as exactly that kind of a. Project where you can imagine. Some of the Anglophile authors of Atassa. In two or three years. We'll have a. Book, but it just it just turned out that for. This quarter were going to have. At different points in the process, we're going to have as many as three or four books and two to four journals, and as it's probably going to turn out, we're going to have two journals and three books for this quarter, and it so Atassa. Yeah, I, I guess it's a I'm not sure I totally answer the question, but.

Speaker 4: Sure, yeah, so is. Is there a feeling to use a crude analogy that the well is drying up and you have? To drill deeper. You have five years of vibrant post left tenancy to me. That's good run, but it's, but it's also.

Speaker 1: Pretty good run.

Speaker 4: I assume there’s a feeling of exhaustion or something when. It starts to. Dry up, yeah.

Speaker 1: I mean. I knew I. I knew five years was sort. Of as much of my life as I wanted to devote to this so that was sort of why five years made sense in the in the in the first place. The to speak specifically about abolished work. I do. I do think that post up anarchists could find some places to engage in market anarchists because but actually the more problematic part is I don't know how much of. That book you've. Read the technophilia. Yeah, yeah read, that's the. Part that's sort of totally outrageous.

Speaker 2: That's that's the person.

Speaker 4: Just I, I was reading it and then. I came to. Several in a row that were that way and. Then I just put it down and I haven't picked it up.

Speaker 1: Yeah, no right. So that's the thing. About that book I. I definitely think that there's a. Place for engagement. With the market people and definitely to me, the big open questions are about sort of like what does it mean to be a? Pro market person. If you're just using the word to instead. Of human relationships. Or something like I get it. But OK, but the but the. Technophilia in that book is wild like yeah. I mean, but Bob Black, really. Did open that door. And he tried to. Backpedal sense but in abolish work. Or is that the that also work?

Speaker 4: No, they'll abolition. Where he leaves open the possibility, yeah?

Speaker 1: Oh, it’s. Even heavier than that is.

Speaker 4: Yeah, there's actually. I can't remember which one it is. One of his iconic. Work essays. He's sort of he. He sort of leaves it open in this way of like let's see, who does a better job the pro tech or the anti tech? People abolishing work.

Speaker 1: Oh, that's interesting.

Speaker 4: And he says, right now I'm leaning toward the anti tech, but he doesn't even say I feel strongly.

Speaker 1: Anyways, back to Thompson. So I guess at that, the first thing that's worth mentioning is that the introduction to Atassa does a very strong, probably even the bang up job of making the argument for an eco extremist position. It goes through and it defines terms. And It’s. It's not like a. System here let's let's.

Speaker 2: Do it, sort of a sort. Of a thing, but it actually.

Speaker 1: Like it's a diligent. Solid introduction to the ideas and it makes a case.

Speaker 4: Yeah, and even before that I really appreciate the editorial note at the beginning of the. Book when they say something like. I’m just going to paraphrase it because I can't recall it. We're neither cheerleading nor censoring. We're just saying this something that you have to deal with. It's something that's happening and I think they do a very good job between the introduction and then following that, John Jacobi's piece where he gives a little bit. Of the history and.

Unknown Speaker: You know?

Speaker 4: Pointing out that this something that has this tendency that people being active, who are aligning themselves with this tendency, have been around now for five years. If you consider this, the stirring up stirrings up in Europe to be part of the tendency, then you could say spreading. If you consider Kaczynski to be the sort of ancestor of this tendency, which arguably he is, then you could say something's been around for quite a while and is showing the ability to research and so. What I hope this book does is reach some people who are at least. Even if they don't like it, even if they hate. It will read it and engage with it honestly and recognize that it's not something that is just, you. Know, government syops false flag. It's not something that's just a few cranks, it's something that has a lot of adherence and I would like. To see more. Discussion coming out of this that doesn't either look like saying yay or Boo, but looks like saying. What does this mean? What does it say about the state of things for radicals that this something that a lot of people feel like is the best option? Or even the only option? To express their values.

Speaker 1: For those of you who are. Not familiar with the history of Eco Extreme. It basically began when the Unabomber manifesto. Which was also called.

Speaker 4: Industrial society and its future.

Speaker 1: When it was translated into Spanish, and so the idea that there were a set of people with bright eyes who picked up this brand new Spanish translation and then decided to put it into practice is sort. The spark that's become the tendency we're not calling eco extremism. But let's let's actually get into at least the political point that maybe you all can reference different articles to talk about. Which is. Is there a range of ideas that come out of eco extremism? Do you feel based on atosa that ranges? Between like this not a revolutionary movement. This just a movement of hostility. Like is there any wiggle?

Speaker 3: Room there.

Speaker 1: Are there other positions taken?

Speaker 3: Yeah, I think there are more positions taken. I think there seems to. Be a more model. That form of the eco extremists that are more faithful to Kaczynski's work or is. This theoretical work.

Speaker 1: But that was the whole thing about you are.

Speaker 3: Yeah, and then there's the groups operating under the ITS banner that are arguably.

Speaker 1: Not revolutionary.

Speaker 3: Yeah, not revolutionary.

Speaker 1: Because Kaczynski still uses the revolutionary. Word a lot too yeah and I think.

Speaker 4: I think Jacoby does a good job of sketching out that history of pointing out that there are these people around the publication. Ultimate Reducto who are very much saying Kaczynski was right and we just need to perfect what he said. We need to give it philosophical rigor and that what makes sense to do is.

Speaker 2: He's still there.

Speaker 4: Try to sort of build this revolutionary force and then ITS being the first people in Mexico who distanced themselves from that. He makes the point that initially they were saying we're against revolution because. We're not, we're. Not advocating for revolution because we think it's impossible or impractical. And then it later. Turned into a sort of hardening into. And we wouldn't. Like it anyway, because it we don't think it would. It’s completely tied up in. Modern culture in humanism. In this idea of humans as mass as mass society and so it's just, it could never give. Us what we want. And he also talks about the sort of shift from the sort of metaphysical shift from Kaczynski, who of course is very much a scientific materialist. And it's started off. That way, even though they were distancing themselves political. And then they actually ended up rejecting that as part and parcel of the modern worldview and turned toward. An idea of at least. Partially reclaiming insofar as it's possible what they saw as insurable. If, yeah, that's.

Speaker 1: Do they and the essays? Go deeper into that exploration, it does. It doesn't seem like spirituality that was not necessarily the strong part of this.

Speaker 4: Yeah, not it would be referenced in passing, but if there wasn't, there's certainly nothing focusing on that.

Speaker 1: And some of the part. That's the strangest.

Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that. Warrants more exploration to hopefully they'll they'll go there and issue two. Yeah, thissue definitely seems to be more talking about their rejection of morality and their embracing of violence and giving justification. However, that's possible for those. Those parts of the tendency.

Speaker 4: Yeah, I think there's a lot in here that would shock the well shocking the LBC audience. And then I think certainly shock people in the broader milieu, one of which is there's some admiration of sort of mafioso murderers. Ohhh really any. Tactics, no, they’re actually, there's one that's I think you’re really waiting until because it's a sort of almost something approaching a how to at the end. And there's some referencing of you, know how great this. Mafioso killer was, as far as his track record, in sort of the tactics he used to evade the law for so long, yeah.

Speaker 1: Well and to what end is the which? Which article is that?

Speaker 4: Yeah, surviving civilization lessons from the. Double lives of eco extremists. Just as far as keeping a low profile look very normal. Change your clothing little time. Learn makeup and prosthetics so that you can make yourself your elderly, yeah?

Speaker 3: It straight up says to like, pretend to be as normal as possible in your life and keep people around. You lie to everyone. Basically lie to everyone and keep people around you that.

Speaker 1: I heard it described as a very negative and. You have asked.

Speaker 3: Yeah that yeah.

Speaker 4: Yeah, and even adopt an accent when you're talking to most people and.

Speaker 1: This a Spanish translation. This from the magazines.

Speaker 4: Yeah yes, yeah and. Always to everyone who knows you espouse a. Strong moral character.

Speaker 1: And love for soccer.

Speaker 3: Yeah, it also says to emphasizes to avoid alcohol and tobacco and to exercise often. Being physically fit is very is given some. Importance in that?

Speaker 1: She's it's interesting.

Speaker 3: Yeah, CrossFit raw meat and.

Speaker 2: So let's talk about this.

Speaker 1: Essay that I'm. Sure will be that. The talk of this particular issue.

Speaker 4: Got it.

Speaker 1: The return of the war.

Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that was. That was surprising for me. I actually. Am quite unfamiliar with the work of CLASTRES as we said. Yeah, it's something that's been. On the sort of short reading list for a while, but I've never actually gotten around to. It and this they draw. This essay draws quite heavily from his work, and so a lot of it is focusing on the Yanomami. And I'm just going.

Speaker 1: To read a. Little bit sure. It's the year 1970 clusters lives among the Amani and declares them quote the last free society in the world end. Quote remarks upon their incredible flatulence, the product of the high level banana in their. Diet, which is particularly funny because last night we had. A big fight about bananas.

Speaker 2: I'm not.

Speaker 4: The flash from bananas that notice.

Speaker 2: At night, Costas is.

Speaker 1: Left alone in the camp with. The women, so the. Men have gone. Off to raid, they attack their enemies at night. And run back in. The jungle to avoid the inevitable swift counterattack. The dead, the dead are burned upon a pyre. Their bones ground to dust, to be snorted. Days of leisure and laughter are punctuated by forays across the river. Canoes are full of men covered with scars men.

Unknown Speaker: Gather in the.

Speaker 1: Dirt to duel over wives with clubs. For thesis of the of this piece.

Speaker 4: Yeah, so thesis, which I think will be astounding to some, especially people who aren't familiar with yanami and clusters. As I was not. Familiar is well, I guess I want to back up. And say, I think almost all anarchists would say that part of what they hate about the present world, whether it's civilization. Or capitalism or. However, the state is how much our culture is based on violence and how much even the sort of daily functionings of the economy. The basic essentials for life necessitate enormous amounts of violence, whether it's subjecting people to work that they don't want to do, or the wars or the sort of. The mediated violence that we experienced from buying all these consumer items and that sort of thing. And so I think almost all anarchists would say what they want. Their utopia would be peaceful, would be much more peaceful than the world that we live in now. Well, even if you wouldn't be able to, completely wipe out violence and this thesis shocking in that they the author unapologetically idolizes. I would say the onami and argues that they're extreme violence which starts from a very early age. Is what allows them to be free and this a world where children are violently punished. This a world where people worship well. No, I should not worship where prestige is based on being a great warrior and this a world with seemingly very hard gender division.

Speaker 1: Very different than the yeah the. Gatherer Hunter Society of Medical primitivism ?

Unknown Speaker: Come out and.

Speaker 4: Say for certainly. For the past. Few years my Utopia has looked like, . Hanging out under. The shade of a fruit tree and going swimming in the Creek. And hugging and loving everybody.

Speaker 1: Yeah, and perhaps having those bottle blue monkeys? Yeah, that's good. Yeah fencing?

Speaker 2: That's how we'll resolve conflict.

Speaker 1: Your utopia uncovering this journal looked like the page is the 5th Estate magazine.

Speaker 3: This section in this the return. Of the warrior. Yeah, but I think sums it up pretty nicely. The boundaries and demarcations of territory are transgressed by the warrior in its absence of this transgressive force. We are domesticated livestock, the warrior who raids abducts. And scorches crosses all lines and resists all control beyond his own meaning. It is glory alone and the prophets who direct him towards its achievement that impel him. He comes, he goes the law, he follows, supersede the pettiness of the state, the monstrosity of techno industrial society over codes and over determines at every opportunity nothing threatens its hegemony like the deterritorialization of war.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean mostly what I like about this. That of course, I'm not convinced, but I'm probably never going to. Get a like. We're never going to sit down at a table and actually get to decide anything. Like this perfect world.

Speaker 2: And this really.

Speaker 1: Opens up something that I think is really important, which is the civilizing aspect of the kind of violence that we. Live under now, right? Our violence is not a democratic violence. Are the only people who actually get to be violent wear blue, right? They get to. ******* unleash holy terror. If you're not. Wearing blue and you're violent. Quote UN quote you’re a victim quickly.

Speaker 4: And if you, if you're violent toward those in blue. You'd be a. Victim very very. Quickly it's a pacifying violence, yes, I mean you can sort sort of call this a redistribution of the. Access to violence.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean by the way I. Would also say before. Reading this and I haven't actually read this essay yet, but before reading this, my position was always that I drew a distinction between war outside of civilization and war inside civilization and but, but basically I would say that I was against war and.

Unknown Speaker: Sure, sure.

Speaker 1: And I sort of like you. Know clearly have. Never been a pacifist but found. Sensibility from pacifism that I agreed with around this. This definition of war and, and the idea that war is mechanization of tearing apart human life, and that's and as much as this as costus's view of this Yamani society talked to. So much about the violence. For me, I leave a. Lot of room for that because the violence is. They're personal, but I'm not sure that's actually the case.

Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: Of course, and that's probably a soft way to read the thing, but that I, I definitely did read it that way up till now.

Speaker 4: Yeah that I should say that I'm not well read in anthropology. It's not what I've been drawn to so far in my in my explorations and so I had to sort of late into maybe unarticulated idea that. Well, OK, yeah. Sure there are. There are primitive cultures that regularly practice violence, but violence is not so brutal. But what is being described not only in this essay, but in a later piece by our Cabrera. Lessons from the Creek. War in what's being described is absolutely brutal and including. You know treatment of captives very painful.

Speaker 3: It's helping children alive.

Speaker 4: Yeah, very painful. Torture to death of captives and that kind of thing.

Speaker 1: The violence team really shouldn't be a surprise to any of you. Yours if you don't. If you're not aware, a tassa is in fact a war club, and so it's the violence is very much on the cover of this journal and I'm glad actually that we published it in the sense that we haven't talked enough about violence in the past five years.

Speaker 4: Yeah, I did want to ask when just a few minutes before were going to record you mentioned that clastres is sort of. Is this sort of anthropologist at the post left and I was wondering what exactly that meant. Because what he's saying is very different from Marshall Sullins. Or Richard Bushey Lee.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean . Of course, everyone's education is different and has different sparks that inspire it, but for me when I first read anti civilization arguments and it referred to other texts. Class dress was on the short list and class dress was French, which frankly whether we like it or. Not that actually gave him. On the edge. Up over the angle, anglophone anthropologists and classics is one of the. Few that I've read 2. Of his books. Unlike others who have just decided to stay. Translator like.

Speaker 4: And so he's referred to.

Speaker 1: Well, I've referred to him as the just the anthropologist of the post left, mostly because, like in the early 90s, when I was learning about this stuff, he was one of the few things that was translated. And was available so. His publisher was the equivalent to like Autonomedia something I don't think it was that, but it was like you could find it at a bookstore. In a way that you couldn't find, maybe John, Suzanne or something.

Speaker 4: Rent, rent and so, but I guess sort of the main ideas they're taken from him are are what these sorts of things that hey, maybe Utopia doesn't look like that’s kind of what?

Speaker 1: Right?

Speaker 4: I was getting at well.

Speaker 1: My impression of him that was favorable was because he lived with the people he was talking about and so he is as much as I've come to the position of being hostile towards anthropology.

Speaker 4: I see OK.

Speaker 1: He was all the early people who, sort of post man man the Hunter but only a little bit after that he lived. He lived with. Who he was talking about and very much took on their values. So he was writing from inside the values of this culture. Where he's not from. So that. Asked the questions that were appropriate for me early.

Speaker 2: In my life.

Speaker 1: Political person and again he was. He was referred to all the time by a joda in the pages of the Joda.

Speaker 4: OK yeah. So there was one other thing I want. To say about. This piece just because it struck me so much. So I guess besides the sort of lazing about and in the shade of the fruit tree, one would hope that utopia would be a sort. Of State of Contentment, of completeness of peace, peace, yeah. And when you read this you think. Do I want this?

Speaker 1: World ******* at.

Speaker 4: All because the author, who I should say, the authors Ramon Ramon Elmon and he writes the. About halfway through the piece, the warrior, like Hegel slave, is always in a state of becoming just as he inherits nothing. From the Glorious Acts of his fathers, with each scalp he takes he. Must begin again. It does not matter how many scalps of Warrior has hanging on the walls of his. But once he stops taking scalps, his glory is at an end. The quest and hunger for prestige is a compulsion. Clastres, who correctly places the warrior in an existential context, writes quote, the Warrior is in essence condemned to forging ahead End Quote, he never has enough scalps. His bloodlust is never quenched. The warrior is thus, paradoxically, a quintessentially. Figure he is always dissatisfied and restless. He is a neurotic. He's formed and conditioned by conflicted forces. A soul that yearns for glory but is dependent on a society to recognize. And reward it. And you could change. A small number of words there and talk about the quintessential capitalist. No matter how much money he makes, it's never enough and he, so he's never actually able to enjoy the fruits of his labor. So isn't capitalism so stupid even for the people who succeed?

Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah that's not saying, yeah, I wonder what? One of the thought process was. For the author and making this argument I. Mean yeah.

Speaker 4: I said that was at. The middle that actually toward the end they. Leave it kind of open-ended. I mean, they sort of just present the figures and it's up to you to say what to do because I think you could very easily read this and then. Tie it back to saying and therefore humans will. Never be happy. And they will always be violent and life is always going to suck. I mean, you could draw that conclusion very easily. So and sort of so, what's the point of even you? Know resisting society.

Speaker 1: Well also I and I think this a fair point. This very clearly a society in the way that individualist anarchists who oppose society. To sort of be opposed to.

Speaker 4: Yeah, definitely strong value systems that the individual is expected to adhere to. I mean, it's not like .

Speaker 3: Not just adhere to they're beating the injury. They're violently enforced as part of the. The lesson being taught, right, yeah?

Speaker 1: Is there any else you wanted to say? About this piece.

Speaker 3: Right at the end I like we must refuse to shy away from the importance of violence and the creation of community. We must acknowledge, in fact, that violence alone, properly understood, is the only means to achieve the kind of society. Yes it is.

Speaker 4: The only way to be. Free is for everyone to have a gun. But they're hip.

Speaker 1: Yeah, well, it's interesting to. Think of whether or not guns. In the in this context are actually relevant because, like the idea of everybody being scarred and being warriors in that sense of the term is a lot different than people just being dead. And child and bodies. Make sure of course, if you're going to have physical conflict all the time. People are going to get hurt.

Speaker 4: Right?

Speaker 1: Perhaps fatally, but that is a different. I mean, I mean, this this the argument I always make when I talk about war, like when one set of people are gunning down another set of people and calling that war and calling themselves warriors. To me, that's a very. Different phenomenon than what we're talking about here, which, yes, meeting people with clubs is. Painful, but it's not.

Speaker 4: I mean, just phenomenologically, it's totally different. When I mean? You're face to face with someone. There's emotions are going to be very different from. I mean now we have people. Killing with drones. Right, and if they're sitting in a little box somewhere. High off their *** and playing a. Video game.

Speaker 1: Well I want to I want to back up and talk about Jacob's piece because of the thing that we haven't talked. We haven't mentioned yet about Jacob's piece, which is actually a very solid piece. Surprisingly so, because I found him to be sort of a bore and what he's written before. I apologize for being honest. But alongside this, so this piece is actually a very solid piece. It really does help from a first person perspective, sort of jacobie's, or both. His relationship with Kaczynski himself and sort of the introductions that sort of were made on his behalf by Kaczynski. To these to the eco extremist movement.

Speaker 2: So Jacobian, I think this.

Speaker 1: Worth teasing out a little bit.

Unknown Speaker: He has.

Speaker 1: Created a position that was a shared position for a while called Wild ISM, so this was a position that was shared with you are the ultimate progression, reductive and that this position sort of is a distinct position from the eco extremists of the ITS variety.

Speaker 4: Ultimate Ultimate yeah.

Speaker 1: And I think this interesting because Jacoby has sort of been trying to create an A non primitive primitivism for a couple of years now and. So it's interesting that he fell into these sets of people and he's a very young American College student, but. But he's incredibly articulate and definitely. Has the words in the past. A lot of what his language is around, like Jacoby three years ago, was publishing foreman like recent pieces by Foreman, and was really trying to he.

Unknown Speaker: Right, right?

Speaker 1: Was sort of calling his perspective a conservationist perspective.

Speaker 4: Yeah, which I always find very strange.

Speaker 1: Very strange or it would be very strange if he wasn't 21. Years old, right? But the, the, the, the sense that if you're reading radical green material that you're not recognizing that there already are. Sort of slices. And positions and that form. And then the conservations to represent sort of like the right wing of the green movements to some greater or lesser extent and so then to go from there.

Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: To quote UN quote wildest position I I just think it's very interesting and this piece does sort of track that movement at least a little bit.

Speaker 4: Yeah, I think he does a very good job. With the giving, especially the unfamiliar reader sort of taxonomy of the possible positions or the existing positions, and I do want to make clear I don't know if you were implying this or not, that he makes it clear that he moved away from the Ultimo reducto position, which was which was very Kaczynski and avowedly Kaczynski and he does give the.

Speaker 1: Yes, right?

Speaker 4: Bit of history I or recent history that I didn't know. Which is that Kaczynski’s very much aware of the eco extremists, which of course makes sense but he has disavowed them yes very flatly. And I think mainly from a sort of tactical perspective.

Speaker 1: Yeah, right? I mean if he believes that a revolution is the only thing that's. Going to save the world.

Speaker 4: Which he still seems to, and also a crucial part of his position is that we have to be opportunist. We have to wait for the crisis moment in global technical global society, whereas that's not at all where the extremists are coming from.

Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think the important thing is that the wildness position that JacobIs espousing he places basically. Flat in the. Middle between ITS and the Kaczynski's position, which I don't exactly know. I got to understand exactly enough of this to be like look like you. You be people, bats.

Speaker 2: Doesn't shoot them.

Speaker 4: I, I think one of the weaknesses of the piece and it might just be that he thought it was outside the scope or it was inappropriate because it's not his thing or It’s about you. Know people other than him is that he leaves you wondering exactly what it means because it's you get this idea. That sort of well what's the way to share most of the values, but also still. Be in the world rather than live a complete sort of criminal life and you think OK, well, what does that look like? I guess outside of. Publishing or something like that.

Speaker 1: And by the way, for anyone. Who's interested in learning more about Jacoby's position here? He publishes a. Something called Hunter Gatherer, which is very strange to call your periodical hunter gatherer because he lives in Raleigh, NC, which is also the home. Or meeting me or Raleigh NC Carrboro. That's actually where he lives for in that area. And that's also where well.

Speaker 2: Some rock singers.

Speaker 1: I mean, he's very he's a public.

Unknown Speaker: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: Personality, so I'm not. I don't feel like I'm.

Unknown Speaker: Serious, serious Sir.

Speaker 1: An unfair, but that's also the home. Of crime think and crime thinks.

Speaker 2: If for those who don't know. Did a publication called. Together to me It’s. This the, the lack of history and I.

Speaker 1: Mean whatever, I guess I'm just gonna do it. More more like it over. But like it's very strange to be like living in the. Town where the. People who did the publication that you're not calling the same thing, but it's totally. Different it.

Speaker 4: I wouldn't be stressed, he's. Almost totally unfamiliar with the cramping brother, right?

Speaker 1: Yes and no, I mean.

Speaker 4: OK.

Speaker 1: The social scene isn't that. Big but sure.

Speaker 3: That seems to be a bit. Of a like a. Generational gap almost.

Speaker 4: Sure, yeah anyways.

Unknown Speaker: And this.

Speaker 4: So what's next? Well, so this sort of the particular piece is a toss. The lessons of the Creek War, which is also by Ed Cabrera, who I think it's fair to say is the primary.

Speaker 1: Is the editor.

Speaker 4: I think other yeah, primary. Other and. It tells this. The sort of sad story of how the Creek people were initially encroached upon, and there should be sort of level of soft assimilation happening. They were getting into the market economy with white people and getting into the market.

Speaker 1: With white people.

Speaker 4: Economies started to not only change their lifestyle but also degrade their environment because they started hunting deer skin for the market economy. And depopulating the. There and then they reached this sort of crisis moment, where a sort of subsection of the Creek Society tried to sort of go back to the old. Ways and it's. It was funny to me to think how quickly right that the old ways become old, and then there's this traditionalist movement and you, at least I. I tend to think well. And these people were already living this. Sort of traditional. Semi traditional way of life, but even then they must have been able to feel the difference and see what was happening so much and it led. To a war of resistance which they had one major victory and then ended up just getting rolled by a sort of by Andrew Jackson, one of his three weirdest figures for sure, and who allied with Cherokees.

Speaker 3: Andrew Jackson

Speaker 4: And then they get. Wiped out As you might expect.

Speaker 1: How's the peace?

Speaker 3: It's definitely stronger than a. Piece of a little. Bitcoin, it does a much better job of kind of laying out what happened so that you can actually like extrapolate with the author the lessons to be learned it goes into. The culture of the red sticks. As a culture of resistance, it was really interesting when they completely re existed against the mainstream of their own culture.

Speaker 4: Right, yeah?

Speaker 3: Basically, to the point of murdering chiefs who wanted to. Cooperate with white people.

Speaker 4: Oh wow.

Speaker 3: You know disappearing into the forest to form new communities. More traditional communities.

Speaker 4: Yeah, not just murder them but murder them in. An especially cruel way where they sort of said. Let's have a. Meeting and they all sat down together. And then they just took them. Out, and so again to take it back to the bit about the Yanomami you think there's not really room for heroes here because. What's and I? Think that is a good thing, but. You know what happens here? Besides the sort of the ruthless murdering of. The chiefs. Be with any sort of discussion. I guess there's also a bit about how when the red sticks, the red sticks are this traditionalist war making faction of the Creek when they take as Will alluded to earlier when they have their victory? I mean, what happens to the captives is just awful, right? Just a kind. Of brutal torture, murder and our 8 camerart career. Same person he talks about how this what looks gratuitous and he calls it far from being acts of gratuitous or extraordinary violence. What occurred at Fort Mims? This brutal takedown at the captives was well within the cultural and spiritual logic of traditional Creek culture. Oh, wow, yeah. And so yeah, there's no room for this, sort of. Peace loving.

Speaker 1: Little hippies.

Speaker 3: Yeah, that's hairy.

Unknown Speaker: In this journal.

Speaker 3: Yeah no, no hippies in this journal no.

Unknown Speaker: The image of.

Speaker 4: The uncivilized primitive is not what some people would like. It to be.

Speaker 3: At all, yeah. Yeah, the attack on Fort Mims is really. If they it's very detailed in the piece and it's it is brutal. Children being scalloped. Pregnant women cut open their babies. Right next to them. Yeah, they ******* brutal and then the place was burned down.

Speaker 4: No prisoners.

Speaker 3: No prisoners.

Speaker 1: And what are so we're? Sort of wrapping up, working towards the end of our time. Are there any other pieces that are working? This almost a 200 page journey.

Speaker 3: A lot of the.

Speaker 1: You'll be able. To find thislittleblackcart.com.

Speaker 3: Translated, so there's two. There's actually two pieces by someone named Lunas Oburu that are pretty indicative of how the.

Speaker 1: OK.

Speaker 3: Translated pieces in the book or in the journal GO. They're very over the top and bombastic and.

Speaker 4: Oh, just the violence.

Speaker 3: Yeah, and they’re love poems. The violence, there's one. The first one in the in the in the general is called size, the first one by the author. It's called size. And it's basically about a couple going out dynamiting a place and then going off into.

Speaker 4: The woods to ****.

Speaker 3: Which I'm cool. And then the other one. Something about mountains. Is toward the end.

Speaker 1: Let let let the person that thinks that flipping pages sounds good on the microphone.

Speaker 3: We'll fight it, yeah?

Speaker 1: I was going to change the subject.

Speaker 2: And go ahead but one.

Speaker 3: No, that's fine.

Speaker 4: Of the other pieces, I definitely think deserves. Get highlighted is. One called indiscriminate anarchists and part of what is being talked about here. So one of one of the assertions you could say being made by. Atassa is that. The North Americanarchists knew you broadly. I don't know about outside of the states. I wouldn't be. President type as well there. There's been a. Condemnation coming from certain set. Of the eco extremists adherence to indiscriminately attacking, which we could define as attacks that are not based on people that we maybe could all agree. Are our enemies or people who have it coming in some way. But that built in. The design of the attack is the high possibility, or even the intention that random passers by will be affected, and part of what I see a test trying to do here is, say, actually if you look at. Anarchist history this has been happen. Running for a long time. Is not a new thing, the.

Speaker 1: Almost sense sense word invoke.

Speaker 4: Right? And the indiscriminate interest piece even makes the assertion the original, the original modern terrorist is the anarchist based on what they were doing and you. You see what ends up happening. It's a. It's a sort of bullet point. History is that split starts to emerge as time goes on, to the point that the. I guess you could say civil anarchist, social, anarchist, social, anarchist.

Speaker 1: Was it hacker?

Speaker 4: Turn on the indiscriminately attacking anarchists and even help to bring them down. Yeah, that was very interesting for me. Almost all that was new. And I yeah, I definitely recommend this piece alone I think makes it very. Interesting to anarchist.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, that's actually perhaps the question we can end on, which is a big question. Is this anarchist journal?

Speaker 2: No, really, It if.

Speaker 4: If anarchist journal means espousing some sort of Eric's position, I would say no. If it means something that. Anarchists should care about. If they want to. Understand the present moment and be weighing in and be actively participating and I said yes.

Speaker 3: I yeah I I.

Speaker 1: You would save your home. Like in your own words.

Speaker 3: I don't. I don't think it's anarchist journal, but I do think it's important for anarchists to engage with it.

Unknown Speaker: What are you doing?

Speaker 3: I think that even if you come out of it completely repulsed or whatever, because I know people that will be the case, yeah?

Speaker 2: The whoopie

Speaker 3: And they're challenging ideas. And I think that's always important.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I probably think that this anarchist journal. It's definitely trying to expand the definition of what anarchism is, but I think that argument is long overdue. I mean, I mean clearly I am biased and that I myself, want to expand the palette of the anarchist. But I think that this. Idea of indiscriminate anarchism. And this highly compelling. To me, and I think that the way in which ITS the non sanism it sounds familiar. It sounds like something that I one of my friends would have said about anarchism and about how sort of passive and soft and not paying attention to something that's kind of important.

Speaker 4: Yeah, I guess part of what makes that hard for me to follow is that the eco extremists have not been calling themselves either because they've been specifically saying that they're not sure, sure.

Speaker 1: But they clearly come out of the milieu and the way in which they said that they're not anarchists is a way in which I would have said that not anarchist sure. In other words, I don't want. To be chained by the more moralizing Cowling. Of anarchists. And so then so if. I'm going to. Have to sort of listen to these whiners all the time. Well then **** it. That's that's what they said. They said we're not anarchists. They basically said you sound like a. Bunch of brats.

Speaker 4: Also, and that it just doesn't anti social perspective. If anarchism means to you I need to care about 7 billion strangers. Or anarchism means to you we're going to unite under one big world with one big set of values then yeah.

Speaker 2: And this one of the reasons.

Speaker 1: Why the anarchists in North America? That have been so hostile to Atassa. That what they're hostile to that critique. And they're just not. They're not being fair, they’re basically, they're. They're basically just calling. Them more lists or saying that they're that they're. The new ISIS, rather than saying. That they don't want to. They do. That If I were a social anarchist and were to say, I think that in anti social anarchist position is unattractive or unappealing. That actually makes what the what the ITS system would seem like a reasonable disagreeable but reasonable position. And that's of course not at. All what's happening.

Speaker 3: That there actually is some a couple of instances of like. Tips of the hat to ISIS and there isn't. There's one reference to how fluid their organizational structure is, and that is a good idea for a good model for eco extremists, which.

Speaker 1: Is fair.

Speaker 3: Fair, it is fair. Just that, and that association is brutal.

Speaker 1: Some people haven't shed all their moralism knows that I mean honestly. The idea of taking it. Two track and doing Donuts in the middle of the intersection. Pretty cool.

Speaker 2: OK.

Speaker 4: Well, actually I. Do want to? Yeah, just a. Parting thought I guess I would say I've. Said this before. On the show. I'm going to say it again. I'm going to try to say it in the best and most throw away because. I thought about. More for those who don't even want to read this book, or for those who. Read it and say that's. Disgusting my question to that person is are you? A complete pacifist and someone who thinks the only way to the anarchism that they would like to see is sort of principled pacifism that consists entirely of just spreading the word dropping out, withdrawing from the economy, that sort of thing. If so, I would say. Good for you. You have a completely consistent position and your disagreement is based in self. I'm thinking if you are anything less than total pacifist. If you are advocating for an insurrection. If you are advocating.

Speaker 1: Or expand expand civil war styles.

Speaker 4: Mars, Spanish, Civil War revolutionary movement, industrial sabotage. If you are advocating as I know some who really disagree with this position have of some sort of attack, the grid and you make. All the lights. Go out position. You are advocating for a form of indiscriminate attack. Because there are absolutely going to. Be loads and loads of people. Who get hurt by your actions mean attacking the grid would cause? Death on an enormous. And if you say all of that is fine because we have to go through blood and fire to get through to the other side, I would say OK, that's a position I understand. It's one that I have sympathy for, but that is not so far removed from what is being articulated by eco extremism. Except that maybe you are more optimistic than they are about getting to the point that you'd like to get to. But you are you. Have no less. Sort of mental blood on your hands. Based on your ideas than these people do, except that they are very blunt about it and so maybe you're just ****** *** by an attitude difference.

thebrilliant

October 28, 2016

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Transcript

Speaker 1: Welcome to the brilliant this episode 26.

Unknown Speaker: I prefer to stick. To my guns.

Speaker 1: You are the brilliant. You are the ones who we. Shine the light. Upon who are observed, who are truly alive? Which is especially wonderful because we live in a. World of The Walking Dead. The Gray. A world of life is routine. As a chore, we tell the stars stories. Chocolate waterfalls. We speak of living anarchy in the shadow of. Order and necessity. We believe in these stories and that. The sharing grows them. So this episode you.

Unknown Speaker: Know we're coming.

Speaker 1: Towards the end of this first set of episodes and we are unsure exactly what's. Going to happen. When we resume, which will probably be in June. But this so we're going to talk about some listener feedback, which there was a lot of because last weekend. We posted episode 17 through 19 as a package deal on a news and we got a lot of good feedback. We're going to talk a little bit about the about the news, and we're going to talk thematically about science.

Speaker 2: Yeah, some of the feedback was some really nice emails which we're not going to get intoday because it's it doesn't quite relate to the topic, but there was a good amount. Of feedback. In the form of comments, including some. Actually confusing feedback. For me. There was a reference to. The urban elitism of this show that. Wassociated with. Quote vast repositories of hard to find books, possibly academic libraries, and the assertion was that there is a kind of regional elitism and that for those outside of the perceived ivory towers that quote UN quote cutting. Edge anthropology theory always sounds. And this was I guess odd for a couple of reasons. I don't really experience myself as someone that has a vast repository of hard to find books for one. And two, there was actually a later in that in that bit of feedback there was the comment about an. Obsession with anthropology. And I'm not sure. Exactly where that's coming from.

Unknown Speaker: I don't even.

Speaker 2: Know if we've posted yet the episode that's. Where I talked for a. While about Dunbar. 's number, which was something that was exciting to me, which was anthropological concept that. I pursued for a bit on the show and tried to motivate toward. Anarchist perspective. And I guess it could be seen as an obsession, but for the most part this show I think has demonstrated that best ambivalence at most of especially from airborne hostility to the idea of anthropology to the idea that. Outside observers can tell stories about people that they're whose group they're not part of, and we also talked quite a bit about black seed regularly on the show that has actually had a couple. Essays specifically hostile to anthropology, so difficult to understand where that's coming from. I'm always wanting to take. Criticism, as in the most good 5th way that I can, but I struggle with this.

Unknown Speaker: Well, I think in general.

Speaker 1: Though we've taken our the criticism of. Our project here in far better faith than is appropriate.

Speaker 2: One of the criticisms I've received is. We take the criticism that way. Far too much.

Unknown Speaker: You know, I mean I'm a.

Speaker 2: Nerd I guess. See how I come across. As a nerd. That's fine if people don't.

Speaker 1: Well, again, like. When people make criticisms that are especially ones. Or really just some version of **** you. I don't like you very much. You know one has to make. A choice or a series of choices. And while I thought it was it, it was appropriate for us to talk a lot about them. Just just as a way for us to have an interesting conversation in general. People who deal with me in the ways. In which I mostly see on the Internet and almost never see in person. What can I say? But **** you and this person, this particular,, comment in general has some very fascinating things going on because it's sort of. It's lots of accusations. And some of. Them sort of feel like the person has hasn't. Listened to the podcast. And because it's so like it doesn't have a trolling vibe like it's not just name calling or it's. Not just it's. It's not trying to like make us into a sucker, it sort of makes sense to engage in it on some level. And definitely there's a couple points. In here I do. Want to engage with but most of this? Just feels like somebody who. Doesn't really know who we are and who is just experiencing. This an Internet phenomenon that they're engaging with, like Internet phenomena. So specifically, this idea of the elitism of urbanites. You know, come on 90. 5% of people in the in the US live in. Some version of the. City, especially become the suburbs and the and the exurbs and so. So to accuse us of the of the elitism of urbanites. Is to basically say that 95% of people are elite if you. Use the very opposite of the definition of elite I. Mean not to, not to parse. Them in that way. But like what are they? Actually trying to. Say here are they what it? Sounds like they're trying to say is that? Like the true anti civilization perspective or a true green perspective is the opposite of what it is. That we're doing which.

Speaker 2: Sure, I mean that’s easier to take in good faith than that. That's that's somehow philosophy and academic trappings are themselves part and parcel of civilization, and the more you invest in that, the more you're actually reproducing. Position OK.

Speaker 1: Yeah, and that’s. A totally fair. Point and. And if they, if they're having some. Examples of when we've done that, I totally would engage with that. Absolutely in good faith because that feels like you’re trying to make some specific point. But this just. Sort of a blanket accusation it doesn't. And even that like they just say. That we do it by our style and approach. Made of people with easy access to the. Vast repositories of hard to find books. I mean by and large when. We are talking on the on this podcast and referring to notes. All of these notes and the things. We're referring to are publicly available things. Like they're on the Internet, which . For better and.

Unknown Speaker: For worse is.

Speaker 1: It is, it is the same.

Unknown Speaker: Place where this.

Speaker 1: Person is making their. Comment towards this yeah?

Speaker 2: A vast repository of books is absolutely. And I think this for the 4th or 5th time that the label of academic has been laid at our feet. And let me just say, unequivocally, I have never been paid for anything that remotely resembles sophisticated intellectual labor. I have not participated in that in any way. And the way that. I've survived in this world has been. For doing ****** physical.

Speaker 1: Work the accusation of academic. You know it. It almost always, especially when it's not clarified as it indicated here almost always has that ugly characteristic of anarchist seeming anti.

Speaker 2: Intellectual this person actually specifically said I'm not doing that. They said I'm not being antIntellectual.

Speaker 1: Then what are they accusing us? Of it's. Because basically OK. So just to I guess, get into this thing a little bit more. This person gives lots of shout outs and valorize is the work of Aaron Schwartz. Which for those of you. Who don't know was one of. The founders of Reddit and it basically was a. A techie person. They were very young and they were somehow associated with the MIT. University I'm not sure as a student, but they were basically on trial for the crime of putting a bunch of hard drives into a closet in MIT and. And basically trying to download the MIT like a locked box of MIT documents to hard drives to make them publicly. Available, yeah it was JSTOR, yes, JSTOR. Is an academic repository of journals. But basically what they were. Accused of is being a type of seed for torrent sites and. And for the free sharing of information, which obviously anarchists in general, or for and, and so and then so the punchline and Aaron Schwartz is that. In the context of this possible prosecution or even probable prosecution some level they killed themselves so they're now they've become a bit of a martyr to the Open Access crowd, and. And rightfully so. To accuse us of basically not being as interesting, engaged, relevant as Aaron Schwartz is to ignore pretty small, or maybe a fairly significant thing, which is that I am one of the founders of the Anarchist library, which is a repository of some copyrighted and a lot of not copyrighted anarchism. Cereal, and so it is true. I'm not Aaron Schwartz. I didn't free information from from the lock box of university because I have no ties to universities which again, makes the academic accusation sort of a little hollow. But to say that I'm not also interested in the free spreading of information is extremely facile. And just to is ignoring context.

Speaker 2: It's also the third time I think. That we've been accused. Of being somehow state agents how?

Speaker 1: Do they do?

Speaker 2: That yeah, the. Potential counter subversive. Hostile nature of the brilliant still is a relevant question to keep in mind, and that's in the context of saying it's something that the assertion something like it may be worse than the oversight what? They're doing, actually this.

Speaker 1: Something to engage with and I feel like this. This accusation happens all the time, not just to. To us into this project, but essentially to what is branded the nihilist perspective. If one is pessimistic about struggle, especially struggle as it looks in the North American context, then somehow one is being counter subversive and hostile and, and that is a fascinating logical. Not employed which of the fallacies is that? I'm sure it's some version of the argument from from fallacy.

Speaker 2: I don't even.

Speaker 1: Which assumes that if an argument for some conclusion is fallacious and the conclusion is false and. So what's the? What's the primary fallacy? Or yeah, the primary argument that's being. Made well, that's that. In the case of this commenter that. That they are a revolutionary. That they're doing the good work that. That will bring. Us to the Holy Land.

Speaker 2: To express skepticism toward that is to disagree. With the conclusion. Which we don't. To be clear. I don't agree, or I don't disagree. With the idea of. The free world of the anarchist world. Sure, yeah, but I'm saying the fact that I'm skeptical towards your means doesn't mean that I'm skeptical towards your ends.

Speaker 1: Yeah I would go there, but that's fine.

Speaker 2: And there was also a complaint that we never talked about prisoners, so we don't talk about prisoners enough, which I qualified because we have talked about prisoners, but. I guess we don't talk about enough and that's again, a. That's an argument about content. I would say other anarchist podcast. Do more of them. Yeah and.

Speaker 1: Actually, with that in mind. I have. To say I'm going to change my tune on a particular anarchist prisoner. For those of you who don't know, and this sort. Of bleeding into the news section. Eric king. Is a young person who just basically. Took a. Non cooperating plea deal and is going to serve 10 years for lighting several containers of gasoline in the. Kansas City court. Oh well. Yeah, I mean . Again, like the details are a little sketchy, but. But the bottom line is that they broke a window at a court building and led to two containers of gasoline on fire. They didn't combust, they didn't ignite.

Speaker 2: Oh wow.

Speaker 1: And so they're basically going to search 10 years for breaking the window and. And a failed fire bombing. But when I first heard about them, the. The first sort of word on them was sort of filled with like vegan, vegan, vegan, vegan prisoner, vegan prisoner, and, and so I sort of. Passed by the. The details of the story. Because, like if they're emphasizing so much their eagerness, in general the crime that they, that they're that they would be accused of, is something about animals and, and yeah, so for the first time I actually read what their what they were accused of, given that they just.

Speaker 2: And the more. Risk there.

Speaker 1: Did the plea deal? This week and first of all they their website. Emphasizes their anarchism as much as their veganism, which either changed or whatever trade of emphasis and they had 10 years for basically a failed bombing of a court building, which is a pretty. Pretty thing, pretty. Significant act anyways. The other story we're going to talk about. Is it was a little bit about this New Scientist article titled there's No DNA test to prove your Native American? Which is most interesting because it says things that we all already know, which is sort of interrogates. The idea of blood, quantum and how blood quantum is the slow genocide. Of a lot of native tribes and sort of the idea of what is it? What does it mean to be a member of a tribe or what's a relative in the context of a of a world that wants to quantify these things and instead of sort of speaking from the story, speak from the math. And of course. This particularly interesting to me. Because my maternal grandfather is a Canadian Ottawa. And wasn't listed on her birth certificate either way, but the Canadian Ottawa, plus my maternal grandmother's American Ottawactually didn't add up to blood quantum or enough blood quantum for me to be considered a native, whereas my mother is on the tribally affiliated. And so this method had direct consequences. My life, but mostly it's. It's just a fascinating sort of conversation about how science in this case is, is used to enforce policy.

Speaker 2: And so when you say slow genocide, you mean because by this system that what the people would be gradually there would be fewer and fewer mathematically identified.

Speaker 1: Absolutely, absolutely. And yeah, because most tribes basically ask you questions about your quantum. And very few tribes like usually the math you need is 25% blood quantum calculation to be verifiable. Some only require you to be 1/8, but mostly it's 1/4.

Speaker 2: And this becomes significant policy wise because when tribes. Things going on like casinos that payout revenue, then suddenly it becomes this commodified economic argument of how much blood gives me money, yes?

Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that's. For a lot of people that. They immediately want to turn this into a conversation about casinos and fishing rights and the perks. Quote UN quote of being natives. But the other part of the conversation, the one that I'm more interested in, is 1 about who am I and how the answer to the question. My is becoming more and more complicated. But to speak. To your point, some of the things that have been happening in tribal politics that have been extremely narrowly, especially outsiders who look at it just like your jaws drop, is that certain tribes that have case. Those have actually rearranged their own masks to drop existing tribal members from roles. And sometimes it's sometimes it's been done. In a context that's. Very much like family units. Having overly subscribed to the board of a of a tribal management. Like the Council and dropping families that they don't like and so it really has taken on like that. That aspect of it has taken on these extremely narrowly characteristics, but again, the parts that I'm much more interested in is the idea that, especially outside the reservation that . And X number of generations, which arguably is one or two because of like I'm 2 generations removed from the language right and so. Basically and I'm outside the rules, so I'm not counted and so . Basically my generation or my children's generation if I were to have them. You know you basically you're talking about a way in which people stop being natives and then of course with this article takes it from the perspective of saying that there's no test. There's no blood test, there's no. Yeah, there's no test that verifies indigeneity at the end of the test. Anyways, It’s a complicated spectrum of conversations. The articles called there's no DNA DNA test to prove your Native American, and it's from the scientists. You were going to. Ask some questions.

Speaker 2: Oh, just when you called it slow genocide. I mean is part of the indigenous critique that specifically this was crafted so that over the course of generations the colonists would have this sort of war of passive or war of passive mathematical attrition that would, over the course of generations, just ground out anyone's identity.

Speaker 1: Yes, that's the symptom, but the cause is like if one wants to complete the process of genocide civilization. Yeah, this sort of like one of the ways which you can describe what a similar simulation is, but the first step in this simulation is you destroy the language and. And of course, another step is that you basically like you remove as many people as possible from land base and so that looks both like there's an Ottawa reservation in Oklahoma. You know, that's a removal from land base and then. You basically start to clear the reservations, making it so economically unfeasible to live in the context of a reservation that very few people do. I think in the context of my family's connections to reservations, it's almost entirely old people that live there. Basically, the most poor and the most most old anyways. Just an interesting article we can. Move on, sure.

Speaker 2: So the main. Theme of the episode is going to be science and what anarchist perspective on science might. Look like and. How it gets talked? About differently. This the introduction I've said this on the show before, but I'll just. First it briefly. That I was very much a science oriented kid. I spent a lot of time reading books that whose terminology was really beyond my grasp as a kid and really interested in microorganisms and vertebrates. Things that were far removed from the human form and. Growing up by. Envisioned myself becoming a scientist, so I guess I envisioned myself becoming an. Ironically enough, and it went through college and got my bachelors in biology and philosophy and I did in the course of doing that, published one formal scientific paper and pretty much by the time I was 19. 20 You realized that. I that was not something I wanted to. Do with my life and that what I was interested in was anarchism. And so really, just for the past couple, those last few years was operating on inertia. And by the time I. Had my degree. I was so ******* done with having that. Be where my life was going. But it's science nonetheless informs a lot of my worldview to this. Day, although I would. Say now I'm. More a much more skeptical person. Than it used to be, but. I guess all this to frame it by saying. I consider myself coming somewhat from an insider perspective in the way that I'm having this conversation, but not in a formal or professional.

Speaker 1: Way and similarly, but not as a graphical version of the story, I came to a. Critique of science. After nearly completing a degree in chemistry and during my studies, I worked in laboratories. I worked in the both on campus and. And was very excitedly engaged in the science of chemistry and sort of how the world was composed. But yeah, and that's enough for an introduction.

Speaker 2: Where so one of the reasons I wanted to talk about this was because of some engagement that we had had with people. Who listen to the show? Which I'll get into later, but it was basically around the. That we had talked about science in past episodes and so I just wanted to hash it out here and have it be clear. I guess what our perspective was.

Speaker 1: And more more broadly. You know we're going to refer to articles by John Jacoby. And William Gillis? But not because. They're relevant to the context they show, but because. And to some extent we're engaged with both black seed and with just conversations we're having. In General, Jacobi's article is in response to an article from the annual review, which is the publication that I published.

Speaker 2: And so one of the problems. I have with the way it gets talked about specifically in anarchist circles is that there tends to be what I see as this false dichotomy between the ardent scientific realist whose worldview is very much informed by science and who sees science as the only reasonable perspective that one. Can have in the world. And then on the other hand, the critic who sometimes is an ill informed person and is easy. To caricature and. Maybe associates science somehow intrinsically with this Western perspective and finds the rejection of that in the embrace of perceived anti western perspectives or Pagan perspectives or something like that as being an essentially anarchist act and I find myself in strong disagreement with both camps here and one of the problems with the discussion is that. The term science is incredibly indeterminate. It's like saying philosophy, It’s incredibly open-ended, and it can meany number of things. It could mean the scientific method or a scientific epistemology. A way of knowing about the world. It can mean the popular belief in science. Science is a sociocultural phenomenon. General belief in science, and it can also mean technocracy. It can mean the fact that we live in a world that is largely managed by experts and that ways of knowing about the world facts. About the world or perceived facts are largely kept to a cert. Really, and that it the way that knowledge and applied knowledge develops is in accordance with class interests and state interests. And these are all very different things. It doesn't make sense to say I'm critical of science in the broad sense, and so the way that I would like to talk about it for most of the discussion is the empirical method applied in a certain systematic way. You forward to take anarchist perspective on those different aspects of the definition that I just.

Unknown Speaker: Doubt a lot of it.

Speaker 2: Makes sense to yeah reject out of hand. A critique of technocracy. Sure, that seems totally well placed. It's a critique of specialization like were talking about last week with the situations and a critique of the way that human effort is motivated to. Of course, in a lot of cases. Has come up with nastier industrial methods, nastier chemistry that finds its way into the biosphere. That's a lot of it is motivated. Toward building weapons of. Various kinds, sure it makes sense to. Be critical of that. It makes sense. To be critical of the way that knowledge. Is hoarded in the way that Schwartz. Schwartz was against. That we talked about earlier. It makes sense to be against this culture of prestige that is associated with certain experts, and then as far as the second part that I laid out there. This sort of popular belief In science, it's basically become the middle class Western religion. It functions theologically. It gives people a sense of meaning. It tells them. What the world? Is like and.

Speaker 1: OK. It's a shortcut for truth, yeah?

Speaker 2: It's a shortcut for truth. One thing when I was in the process of taking notes for this episode, I was amazed to. Learn that supposedly 1/3 of self-described atheists in the United States. Say that they look. Primarily to science for moral guidance.

Speaker 1: Wow, yeah.

Speaker 2: Incredible to me and that number supposedly is increasing and you. Have, of course, these. I would call them evangelical religious atheists like Sam Harris who absolutely assert that science can answer moral questions for us, that we can look at the biochemistry of human beings and find out what is good for them and therefore arrive at moral principles. Sam Harris also for a. Militaristic solution to what he calls Islamic fascism and is also for a. One world government.

Speaker 1: Sure, I mean one of the most clear people. Who sort of has that? That vibe is Fred Woodworth who publishes the anarchist magazine. The match. Which is either. The oldest or second oldest. Current English language anarchist publication and. He sort of follows. He's also extremely hostile to monotheistic religions, wrecks lots and lots of tracks that are essentially using that same sort of verbiage.

Unknown Speaker: And .

Speaker 1: It's hard to disagree with him on some level, it's. It's really for me a matter of emphasis. And I don't live in a world where I'm being hounded by like I live in Berkeley, CA, which arguably is a secular type of fascism. But it's absolutely not Christian. Or is Islamic?

Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I can see, when I. When I was younger when I was describing myself growing up as a kid I think I have. A little bit the evangelical atheist streak. If you're living in that kind of that kind of little micro society where you're encountering people who seem so bewildered and baffled by their monotheism, I can see how you would want to motivate aggressively this kind of solution. But when you see where it's not just Sam Harris that holds click of evangelical atheists, they're all absolutely for the state. They're sure they have no real problem with militarism and that sort of thing. So and then. Lastly, when we're, I guess talking about scientism or the big science or whatever. You want to call it. Is of course, the progressive. Worldview the idea? That's there is objective scientific progress and going along with that is social and moral progress, and that. The destiny of humanity is to acquire most or. All of the. Knowledge in the universe spread to the stars and so. Forth and that. That of course can motivate all kinds of authoritarianism. And so it makes sense to reject that out of hand. But when it comes to just the systematized empiricism that I was talking about before, it's not so clear what the anarchist perspective. Be and so I want. To engage a bit with Jacobi's piece Jacobi having reached out to us after some comments I made about science and he wrote a piece a while ago called the revolutionary importance of science and this appeared in his publication, not just his but a group. Publication the wilderness, which I'm sorry to say to this day, has one of the worst names of any publication I've heard, and I don't mean to start things off in a bad faith way. That's just an editorial comment. And so yeah, he was responding as everyone said to a piece in the anvil written by Alex Gordon, and Jacoby spends a while mostly attacking gorian for his definition and doing what he sees as a kind of slippage in terms where Florian. Keeps referring to science capital S, and it seems like sometimes he's referring to a way of knowing. Sometimes he's referring to the culture around it. And basically saying that this. Imprecise and I find myself mostly agreeing with. And he also spends a while saying that what Gloria doesn't acknowledge and what Kobe. Serves a lot. Of inner historic knowledge is that a lot of scientists and philosophers of science have the same kinds of criticisms that. Americans have of science and I have found that to be true as well. And again I find myself mostly agreeing with Jacobe where I think we differ is a little bit that he gets into here and I'm just going to read a. This about halfway through his piece. For one thing, even if this approach by which he means science is a way of knowing. Has some real problems. The alternatives are even worse. Mysticism, religion and various forms of obscurantism have been the primary tools of the powerful seeking to justify their power science logic. Reason empirical evidence has been the tool that has cut off the legs of those beasts. Science is what allows us to demystify. Our relations and. The world around us so that we can properly respond. Otherwise, we are left making decisions that do not, for example, acknowledge evolutionary processes. Economic trends of sociological tendencies, and human nature. This as absurd as making decisions without acknowledging the laws of gravity. Worse, we are left not believing in the laws of gravity, because a monarch or tradition or divine revelation has told us so.

Speaker 1: Yeah, this I mean. This whole way of sort of befuddling your enemies while declaring the clarity of your team. This almost the definition of bad faith, basically. Any any perspective one that calls itself mystical, one that calls itself religious, one that. Calls itself. Obscurant obscurantist all could make the exact same argument that they make there, which is that science mystifies power relations and is used by those in power. So, so this just a. Circular form of name calling. As far as I'm concerned.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't I. Don't find myself disagreeing. I want to. Read a little bit more of what he writes, and then I'll get into some of what. I have to say about.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I actually don't want to do that. I actually think you should stop halfway through because I think as an example it says here science, logic, reason, empirical evidence has been the tool that's cut off the legs of. Those beasts. To the those seeking power, meaning those in. Power and it's just so objectively untrue that I just think it's sort of room to pause. As to what's? The motivation for this article in the first place. Sure, now obviously on some level it's just as a hand handed attempt to say on a scientist, they're therefore true. Good person IE anti thurian IE beyond anarchism type. But to me that again, this just an assertion, an assertion that again a circular fashion. Could be made by. Any system of beliefs in arguing against any other system so you can read on if you can.

Speaker 2: Ensure so part of what Jacobi wants to do. Is what I see doing partially is trying to. Rescue the word. And say everything that's bad about science. Everything that you can say that's bad about science is actually with bad about technocracy. And everything that's that is good about it. This sort of skeptical critical thinking independent mind is science.

Speaker 1: That's possible, but again, I do question people who obsess so much on etymology or like on this. Sort of like that. If we find the right word and, and I'd definitely say this from a long history. If being involved in this, like if we if we just agree on the word, then somehow we've done the hard work. And I. Definitely don't think that's true at this point.

Speaker 2: After 26 episodes of doing a podcast with. Someone who's that way? All right, so Jacoby continues. Some have argued that science only justifies the prevailing order going in. For example, might cite the medical industry's tendency to influence quote scientific. Product quote studies. In order to boost their profits. But the problem here is a lack of science. Not too much of it. Furthermore, scientific findings on ecological devastation and climate change have presented a profound challenge to the prevailing industrial order, which I completely disagree with in every everyone, it is the religionists and their obscurantism who are promoting the greatness of the industry. And glossing over its negative consequences with climate change denial.

Speaker 1: This basically seems. Like a libertarian talking about about how capitalism doesn't truly exist in this world. And if we. Had true capitalism. Then everything would be all right. I mean this. This basically an incredible howler.

Speaker 2: In the face of growing ecological devastation, I am not ready to dispose of signs for some unclear or worse alternative. What is needed now is a group of people who are dedicated to cutting through ******** with the strongest tools they have and responding appropriately, falling into mysticism or relativism, as some quote radicals, ****** quotes, which I can't understand. Have proposed might feel good, but it. Makes our analysis. Impotent a dangerous thing when the situation we. Are facing is so dire?

Unknown Speaker: So I.

Speaker 2: Don't buy that scientific thinking proper is needed to notice and understand what's wrong with the world. I don't buy that. It is. It is necessary to perceive that ecocide is happening, and I think that something that reveals itself quite plainly to the senses part of what is happening is that JacobIs throwing simultaneously. And narrow and a wide. Net a narrow net in that he liberates the term science from all the baggage of technocracy and. Hierarchy and the sort of diluted Popular Science that forms the middle class religion that was talking about earlier and at the same time casts a wide net where he wants to say that noticing the absence of a particular Organism that used to live in a. Places so noticing that there are fewer insects chirping is a scientific observation. That's what hunter gatherers were doing when they tracked prey or became aware of the way that various plants would respond to different stimuli with science and. So it's a. Way of rescuing the term, which becomes a kind. Of as you were saying, maybe. Attire some sort of semantic exercise when it's not necessarily so important that we agree on. The points but. I want to. Also in. It push this a little further, because Jacoby says. Most of the. Seems to want to say that things. That are bad about science. Emerged with the industrial Revolution and the corresponding technocracy. Whereas I think we can see the toxic tendencies of a certain way of thinking or becoming really fixated on. Certain way of thinking earlier. I think we can see with Renee Descarte and Sir Francis Bacon, the kinds of things that these founders of the scientific revolution were saying before industrialism. Had emerged really at all. They were saying things like that the application of scientific reasoning will allow man's mastery over nature. They were. Trying to or they were opponents of folk medicine and that sort of thing. They were opponents of the non specialization and non institutionalization of this way of knowing. And So what I think we see is that becoming excessively fixated and reifying a certain way of thinking. It is itself toxic and that to me it seems like thealthier attitude is just. To be skeptical in general. I consider myself very much an empirical thinker and I'm not hostile to that in the least, but I think there's something about the desire to rescue the word here that speaks to that same kind of obsessive way of thinking that I see emerging earlier.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean in that. In that section and this section before what I'm reminded. Of is this characteristic? That seems to. Have really been. Encouraged by the Internet. But that I came to despise beforehand, which I guess I would call the utopian thinking, which is this idea that what our project is a creative thinker or a radical is to imagine a better world and then test that better world against the rocks of reality. And so. And once we become sort of like a bit more advanced, you demonstrate that whereas a Mystic a mystical. View of reality. Fails when I dash it against the rocks. In this way, my view of reality that have, let's say empiricism. Does just fine. Being dashed against the rocks of reality. Because it flexes and is and is amazing and perfect and so. In this case It’s said in the face of growing devastation. I'm not ready to dispose of science for some unclear worse. Kind of so. OK, we recognize already from the essays that mysticism and religion and obscurantism those are worse than scientists. Science, which perhaps is a valid point, but why is it that science is it is successful and that argument isn't necessarily made, it's just. A repeated assertion and it's not that I necessarily just wanted to debate. This on the on the level of logic. I just basically think that anytime you're talking about a system of beliefs that's entirely trenched in. In this current world, they're all. They're they're all. Equally bad and I. Just repeating assertions. That doesn't improve one of. Them in comparison. To any of the others.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean else to say weakness of the pieces that religion, mysticism, and obscurantism are never defined. They're just stated as the bad.

Unknown Speaker: And .

Speaker 2: All in all, I don't as I was saying, I don't. Something necessarily agree with Jacoby's conclusion so much as his emphasis, but. Want to transition into with the time we have left talking? About a few of. The philosophers of science that have that I think. Healthier attitudes toward this way of knowing, and so maybe you. Could talk about fair.

Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean of course the 1st. Question and his how to pronounce his name correctly, so we'll call him. We'll call him big *** and. Get away from that entirely.

Speaker 2: This the author of against Smith.

Speaker 1: Yeah, and against method is. Is not a political book, but. It does. Refer to its argument as being epistemologically anarchist. Concluding that there. Is no useful or exceptional exceptionalist methodological rules governing the progress of science or the growth of knowledge. The reason that I like this guy and we read both books early. Some sections for both books in the reading group years ago and this reminds me that I would like to do it again. But is that?

Unknown Speaker: He frames this.

Speaker 1: Project much more in terms of interesting questions rather than in terms of answers. So I'll just. Give you an example of some of those. Questions and I'll just sort. Of speak to what he said, his motivation was some of those questions are. What's so great about knowledge? What's so great about science? What's so great about truth and to me, these these are the questions that have driven me in my life in general would be sort of. I'm surrounded by people who are so convinced of the correctness or whatever of their perspective, and I don't share their enthusiasm and, and I find in general. And I asked the question, why is this so exciting that the response is some version of shut up your reactionary and this definitely the thing that we talk about a lot in the context of critiques of the brilliant podcast is that. By sort of critiquing a certain sort of insurrectionary Orthodox shut up your reactionary so anyway, so he says one of my motives for writing against method was to free people from the tearing. The philosophical authenticators and abstract concepts such as truth, reality, or objectivity.

Unknown Speaker: Which narrow people.

Speaker 1: 's vision and ways of being in the world. Formulating what I thought were my own attitudes and convictions. I unfortunately ended up by introducing concepts of similar rigidity such as democracy, tradition, or relative truth. Now that I'm aware. Of it, I wonder how it happened. The urge to explain your own own ideas, not simply not in a story, but by means of a systematic account is powerful indeed.

Speaker 2: Sounds pretty arrogant.

Speaker 1: Where it came from.

Speaker 2: And It’s interesting the way he starts his his book off is almost exactly how I always refer to this book, because it was one of the most influential books to me, but it's very similar to how. Beyond good and evil. Starts working, what? Why truth? Why do you want truth and? Yeah, and I think he's getting at that kind of obsessive core. I was trying to get at with maybe the reified scientific orientation that dreams of total knowledge and mastery. And there's something about that way of knowing that seems to have the seeds of authoritarianism in it to me.

Speaker 1: And most of these perspectives I, I appreciate because they're part of a. Process like. Most of us are constrained greatly by the ways in which we're given information or knowledge. As we age, and so for me. The reason why it's. A biographical version of my own. My own story. Like I would say that more than being, quote, UN quote, anti sieve, I'm against the truth system called science and so being against that truth system means eventually I lent myself to being against the whole truth systems and so obviously. Structuralist perspectives became appealing to me for. A big chunk of time and. Definitely my escape. From from chemistry and from thinking of science as being this a clear world system was philosophy or specifically the French poststructuralist thinkers, but once I sort of. Process that information. In and gain some sort of familiarity with it, ? The question like. All the rest of our questions is sort. Of what's next? What what does one do with this? Nation, and So what I like about the anti super selective is that on some level the anti Sikh perspective has answer to that question that you destroy civilization. But it doesn't answer it in so many ways because of course civilization I think is a great way to describe a certain story, a certain path of how we got here from somewhere else. But I don't think that civilization is necessarily as useful as. Marxism is sadly, because it doesn't ever sort of describe something specifically. So in other words, Marxism at some point talks about the later labor theory of value and up and down talks about the economy, whereas I don't think that and that the reason for this of course because of the anti save critique, is more of a. Historical critique, rather than attempting to be science in the way that Marxism. Anyways, the long and. Short is as anti systemic theory proponent is. Sort of how to how. To think through these questions from the perspective of trying to think about like how, what do we do? And I will say, and I want to mention a piece of anarchist propaganda that I think was one of the few attempts to be imagined, imagined to about these questions from the. Like from the perspective of anti sense perspectives, and that's a thing written by magpie called positive. Now, one of the things I was going to try to get into earlier in this conversation was some version of that. Science is a great way to talk about how to think, which usually isn't what happens. And it's a way to think about how to. Build the future. And so oftentimes when you talk to red anarchists, they basically talk about how if our widgets were actually meaningful. If they were. Actually relevant then. Then we could have a widget full conversation about. The better world and. A lot of the people who read these science articles that they end up being software developers or. People who work. In the in the, in IT and. Lo and behold, they talk. A lot about how. It and computer systems. Are going to build a better world.

Speaker 2: Which is actually something to Jacobi's credit that's interesting about him, because that's not what he's talking about at all, and. That's not where it's coming.

Speaker 1: From he's also 19, yeah. I mean his mind is exactly the type of mind I. Could foresee going down that. Yes, absolutely, but I mean I mean, one thing you'll see as a preface, almost all of William Gillis's writing is he's a former primitivist.

Unknown Speaker: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: So anyways, where I'm going with this with doc, my posive. It's basically meeting those pro science people where they're at, but basically saying like. On some level, he's thinking. Through out loud the problems of desert like. In other words. If we're not going to get a cataclysmic transformation from this world to the next, which as far as. I'm concerned is probably true. Then what does that mean for whatever it is that the value system is in practice? Because then by and large, like the reason why anti Sikh people were made fun of by pro science people is because their practice is laughable. You know, It’s usually highly individualistic and. Really sort of idiosyncratic.

Speaker 2: Yeah, that would. Say it often has the kind of what I guess I mean bluntly called intellectual laziness. About it where? It science is capitalized and demonstrates this weird slippage of meaning. Sometimes the epistemological practice, and sometimes the institutions that go along with it. And so. When someone says something which actually you said earlier, but it's, it's often not phrased as carefully that I'm against science, that on the face of it, is at least initially, possibly laughable. If it's not well. Explained yeah

Speaker 1: I'm definitely someone who's. I mean, it's I guess it's similar to. The to the term anarchist. You know like I, I have personally ascribed value to this term, right? And so if someone describes themselves as anarchist, I consider them someone who I want to have a series of conversations with, whereas really on some level, I guess we could make the argument that people who are saying that they're pro science in this. In this sort of way in which the NEO, the newest forms of primitivists seem to be saying, that they're for science. What they're really saying is, they're flying it. They're freak flag, and they're basically saying other people who like bright eyes. Find me, find me if you also like to talk about science and definitely on Facebook. I’ve seen these people basically like be pretty explicit along this line like. All I really want is another queer identified pro science person. To cuddle with.

Speaker 2: Yeah, clear transmutes go beyond the body of the problems of gender result.

Unknown Speaker: Right?

Speaker 2: Yeah, there's something. I heard recently on the. The Unterrified podcast actually where their guest was. Saying my problem. With like when I read something, it's anarcho primitivism study find myself mostly agreeing. My problem is that they want to that they decided to make a black and green flag and now they're waving a flag. And that's my problem. Is that the idea that. There's a flag. To gathering so nothing, we're getting short on time I didn't want to talk about a couple of clusters of science. One of them being Thomas Kuhn, but maybe it makes sense to. Just shortened things since we ran long last. Time and I. Guess I'll, I'll just say. As a kind of capstone to what Kobe was saying and what? Per science people in general are. Saying it's I. I mostly agree with you. What I find disturbing is just. This kind of desperate hunger. For the truth. And what I've arrived at, I guess going down. Different anarchist tendencies is that there's something that feels very toxic about certain perceived certainty or a hunger for certainty. And you could call it the reification of ways of knowing you could call it auto theology. You could call it Platonism, but this idea that we as limited organisms? And grasp at these eternal transcendental truths is something that I just don't. Leave and that the idea of seeing oneself as capable of reaching it is disconcerting to me. And so one of my favorite philosophers of science is bassan Frasson, who wrote the scientific image in 1980, and what he was saying is his perspective on science, which he calls constructive empiricism. Is that a scientific theory is valid so long as it adequately describes empirical phenomena? So basically he's just saying it's a way of organizing and thinking about what our senses tell us and he is going to remain agnostic in his words about the fundamental nature of reality. And So what science does is not get at. The fundamental rate. Nature of reality it. Describes in an organized way what we see going on around us, and he is aligning here that I like. Where he's explaining why he thinks we should stop at the empirical adequacy so that accordance with our senses. Of a theory. Rather than the belief in the truth sort of capital. T If you like of a theory and he says both beliefs go beyond the evidence, but quote in either case, we stick our necks out. Empirical adequacy goes far beyond what we can know at any given time. All the results of measurement are not in. They will never all be in and in any case we won't measure everything that can be measured, and so he's basically saying we're already being adventurous with what we think about the truth. But as far as believing the full capital T truth of theory, it is not an epistemological principle that one might as well hang for a sheep. As for a lamb. The need to believe beyond what the census tell us, why the need to imagine oneself who as this sort of gazer at the world or gazer, at the reality that can comprehend all of it rather than just part of the chaotic flux of reality and limited in what we can know. I think there's something anarchist about. Being humble about what you can know and there's something authoritarian about dreaming that you can know everything.

Unknown Speaker: Well, I guess I.

Speaker 1: Just want to respond in some way is to is to say that I'm probably going to echo what you're going to say in extremely different terms, and I guess that's maybe one of the lessons here is that people who devote or who reify a particular ideology part of what they're demonstrating, and part of what they. Demonstrate every day. Is there disconnection from what? I would call everyday life. Yeah, and so for me. I guess as a. As a goal. I want to distinguish between the monsters of reified reality and the living that I do in the shadow of those and those realities and so science is, I guess, for me just to an example of a general case, which is that this what ideology and reification looks like. And there's some quote I could pull from from that van. Again this case, but I think that this enough for this week.

Speaker 2: Yeah, actually our. Friend Jason Mcquinn said to me, the. Other week, the reason people want truth. So much is that they're not enjoying their.

Speaker 1: Absolutely thank you for joining us this week. Oh, by the way, the date is March 5th, so we're about we're still running about 6 episodes behind, and hopefully we'll talk to you soon. Oh, and don't forget to e-mail us at. The brilliant at the brilliant. Dot org.

Ep. 25 – What remains of the Left?

Episode 25 – What remains of the Left?

This episode continues our conversation about the left, what we draw from it but mostly focuses on the French group the Situationist International (the SI).…

Continue ReadingEpisode 25 – What remains of the Left?

Ep. 24 – The (Libertarian) Right pt II

Episode 24 – The (Libertarian) Right pt II

We have a new sound engineer linnomable. Hopefull that means we’ll be quickly getting through the last episodes of Seasone (24-29) and getting onto…

Continue ReadingEpisode 24 – The (Libertarian) Right pt II

Ep. 23 – The Right

Episode 23 – The Right

In our race to the end (episode 29) we had a bunch of topics we wanted to discuss. One of them was the libertarian right.…

Continue ReadingEpisode 23 – The Right

Ep. 22 – Bioregionalism

Episode 22 – Bioregionalism

Humor & Bioregionalism Tick Tock 2:30 Study on kids and the absence of the Internet 6:00 Cell phones 16:00 TedK 22:30 ITS is back! 31:30…

Continue ReadingEpisode 22 – Bioregionalism

Ep. 21 – Why Are We so Weak?

Episode 21 – Why Are We so Weak?

Following up on episode 20 we turned directly to this article by Frere Dupont and the question of why is this thing (what we call…

Continue ReadingEpisode 21 – Why Are We so Weak?

Ep. 20 – Revolution II

Episode Twenty – Revolution II

We spend most of this episode discussing a provocative email that opens questions about strategy & revolution, the US & the world. Were going…

Continue ReadingEpisode Twenty – Revolution II

Ep. 19 – Desert III

Episode Nineteen – Desert III

In Episode 19, recorded January 15th, we have a wide-ranging, rather bleakly-toned conversation that begins with a brief examination of how the Millennial Generation seems…

Continue ReadingEpisode Nineteen – Desert III

Ep. 18 – Desert II

Episode Eighteen – Desert II

Recorded January 10th Tick Tock 3:00 Resignation is death Infrastructure is a substitute for action? Futilitarian means I don’t like what you do, not that…

Continue ReadingEpisode Eighteen – Desert II

Ep. 17 – Entering the Desert

Episode Seventeen – Entering the Desert

In this episode, we begin the first of three episodes that will discuss the essay “Desert”, an essay written as an effort toward anarchist…

Continue ReadingEpisode Seventeen – Entering the Desert

Ep. 16 – Brought to You by Society

Episode Eleven – Revolution

This episode turns out to be an argument against striving for only an hour for each episode. We cut some conversations, especially the one about revolution itself short. Perhaps this good as things can get repetitive otherwise but we begin an examination about revolution where B ends up falling on the “working with small groups” and A! falls on “anarchist space is good” side of the conversation. We also talk about some listener feedback about the Midwest and some about how A! is some kind of a social scientist and shit. Especially the shit part.

Recorded on November 6th 2015

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Ticktock

Listener Feedback @ 2:30

Anarchism in the Midwest
ennui
DIY ethic
Response to critical feedback about being a social scientist

Revolution @ 25:10

Fighting on the New Terrain
lifestyle vs strugglismo
Crises in 2015 vs 2009
The contradiction of the CT manifestos
Resistance is the motor of history?
Progress
Christian Eschatology
Social media is a way to oppress yourself with how boring your life is
The bad people will get what they deserve?
Heart is with the anarchist space

URLs

Anews feedback
Fighting on the New Terrain

Ep. Ten – Indigineity II

Episode Ten – Indigineity II

This episode concerns indigineity. It is labeled part II but, in fact, should be part I as our first episode on thissue was distracted by more (temporally) pressing items. We begin by returning to our dialogue with the Haters, discussing a critique of anti-civilization discourse, the Rojava reportbacks by Paul Z Simons (who has outed themselves in the last writeup), and then an emo rantish introduction to the topic of Indigineity by Aragorn!

Recorded on October 30th 2015

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Ticktock

Listener Feedback @ 3:15

More on the Haters v Brilliant
Sex life & Freedom
The podcast as circumspection tool

Anti-civ @ 8:55

The comments on @news are great wrt article
Anti-civ is anti-thinking
Who will win the ultimate anarchist idea contest?!
How to win a fight no one wants?

Rojava @ 17:20

What is the motivation of a journalist? How about an activist journalist?
What is the limitation of google vs living in a context (information greed)
Americans exoticize/fetishize international stories

Indigineity @ 27:00

An actual discussion about what A! is for
practice vs identity
spirituality meets the western gaze
Ward Churchill
references to episode 8 about leadership
Spirituality
Paradise Lost
Critique of Race Traitor
Action plans

btw you can hear murmurs throughout this episode by Brick. Here is Brick.

http://thebrilliant.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/brickonbed.jpg][

URLs

A Quick and Dirty Critique of Primitivist & Anticiv Thought
Final Rojava dispatch
Locating an Indigenous Anarchism

Ep. Nine – The People

Episode Nine – The People

This episode features Crimethinc. and their To Change Everything tour. We try to turn the conversation into a condemnation humanism to limited success. We do ask some questions that others may have more complete answers to than we did in this conversation. Obviously we are thankful to Crimethinc for bringing their guests to our neck of the woods to entertain and beguile us with how wonderful other places are. We also respond to some more feedback including a correction from Resonance Audio and more anthropology feedback.

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Ticktock

Correction @ 3:12

the piece was poorly done

Listener Feedback @ 4:30

a special epistemic value
gotchanthropology
faith, reason, imagination
a priorIs a latin word

Rojava I @ 12:40

The tears of Bookchin
war

Crimethinc events @ 16:55

not about the text…
instead about stories (of a type)
The Justice League and its relationship to anarchism
space vs milieu
daily life and results

preamble to the People @ 31:50

The Work and the Motivation
Library project
a defense of media projects

what is healthy and why would someone do it?

The People @ 41:00

Leadership pro and con
To Change Everything text
Is Crimethinc a worthy subject of study?
Our vs the People’s daily life
Humanism?
anarchy 101 if were abstractions
More nihcom ranting about how resistance doesn’t look like politics (but often self destruction)
How does one distro 100K+?

URLs

Resonance Distro
To Change Everything
Hostis Interview
T@L
Nihilist Communism – web
Nihilist Communism – book
Self Destruction

Ep. Eight – Indigenity I

Episode Eight – Indigenity I

This the eighth episode of the Brilliant podcast. Stories about brilliant people, ideas, and how they are lived in the world. This episode is the first of two about Indigenity (although, to be fair this one turns out to not really be about what we promise). We respond to feedback from Emile and discuss the recent review of John Zerzan’s new book Why Hope? which is the question of the day, isn’t it?

Recorded October 16th, 2015

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tick tock

0:00 By popular request: new theme song!

2:20
Welcome, first listener feedback, beginning of dialogue
Are we talking about indigeneity? Aragorn promises it.
Bellamy scapegoated, a common experience

3:45
Sometimes the Brilliant listens to you: Emile
Bellamy outs himself as an Emilist…or claims Emile as a Bellamyist…either way, he monologues for almost three minutes
A! implies Bellamy is pretentious/pedantic. Bellamy proves him right
Where do disses come from?

14:10
The Spirit of Gravity is annoying…
Unreferenced pronoun terrorism

17:00
Incontrovertible proof!: A! plays human beings like chess pieces and is a subjectivist post-modernist
Bellamy can’t stop saying “mmhmm…”

22:05
John Zerzan’s “Why Hope?” and Ian Smith’s review
Disses come from book titles
Ian Smith: the Reasonable Anarcho-Primitivist
Just the place for a snark!
Nihilism is a disease; the tumor must be excised

28:10
We are diseased
Fashionable posturing by A!
Fashionable posturing by Bellamy

32:30
John Zerzan’s Origins
Where reviews end and cheerleading begins

39:43
The Natives lose to the Anthropocene
Weird plug for the East Bay Anarchist Bookfair and Conversation Event
Plague of People
We are the new cyanobacteria

51:30
Loathsome futilitarians
“Hope-ist” is a thing now
Pessimism as radical humility?

URLs

Announcement of this podcast
The Anthropocene
East Bay Book and Conversation Event
“Review” of Why Hope?

Ep. Seven – Society

Episode Seven – Society

There is a tendency to be attracted to bad news. Is this regressivist? Are things getting worse? Is something called society fragmenting? In this episode we talk anthropology and animism, the bible and speculation, the academy and truth. Epistemic consistency for the win? We discuss mass shootings (con) and the social media ripple around it. Beta’s are discussed. and then society as framed by the book Enemies of Society.

We are still catching up (we recorded episode 9 last Friday). We hope to be caught up next week. This the first episode where the sound has been fixed so… hurray!

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Ticktock

Listener Feedback @ 3:40

Feralism
animism
stories vs empiricism

Mass Shootings @ 15:00

beta uprising
elliot rodger
manifestos (racist, wingnut, beta, bullied)
horrorshow pornography
the decay of society is here? and it’s the angry young man (aka patriarchy)
the alphas, the betas, and the property
a theory of society
The statistical decline of violence
freakonomics

Society @ 37:40

Enemies of Society
mass anonymity
definition as a frame of reference or a strawman
the end of history and Thatcher
anxiety
Is society the ur-oppositional statement of purpose?
Did society come first or civilization?
Bolo’bolo
JZ’s show vs Urban Scout

URLs

Lincoln Finch blog
God is Red
Motte and Bailey
Auditing Shooting Rampage Stats
Freakonomics
Knabb preface
Enemies of Society

Ep. Six – Conflict II

Episode Six – Conflict II

This the second of two episodes where we focus on conflict. We begin by whetting our appetite on another look at the Micheal Schmidt controversy, we discuss the fantastic new article from the current issue of Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed and the context of it being published as an audiozine by Free Radical Radio, and finally we engage in the topic of Conflict, ending by some thoughts on Justice.

Apologies for the sound quality. We have mostly fixed the issue (It is entirely fixed by episode 7) In this episode the flutters only get bad in the last 5 minutes of the discussion.

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Ticktock

FRR audio books @ 4:20

What is the role of Anarchist media
AJODA subtitles are not good
Will it convince someone who disagrees?
Resonance audio
Identity politics as a shitty term
a long reading

More MS/AK/BS @ 19:20

The modern way of @ conflict (anon call out vs perpetrator)
The accusation of booj
Fascist method acting
US American @ see themselves as the Internet police

Conflict @ 29:45

30:45:00
List of recent public kerfuffles
OMG is that Law & Order theme music?
We will not be silenced by your violence
Has rationale argumentation died? (on the Internet?)
A positive story about being called out
Crime as self-help
Justice – Wild, restorative, and transformational
Unforeseen consequences

URLs

FRR Audio of “Against Identity Politics
The Politics of Denunciation
Resonance
Boom
Hostis interview
Wild Justice

Ep. Five – Conflict I

Episode Five – Conflict I

This the first of two episodes where we focus on conflict. Conflict as a form of life, conflict as anarchist practice, conflict as my choice but not necessarily everyone’s choice. I’d like to imagine the brilliant as those who do conflict without confusing signs and chants with seige weapons and the end of this world but sometimes we have to take what we can get.

Apologies for the sound quality. We are trying to fight “microphone flutter” and I think by Episode 7 it will be defeated. In this episode there are some abrupt cuts that might make us sound more insane than we already are…

Join us in conversation by email

Ticktock

Parenting @ 3:00
Single family dwellings
Shout out to the Midwest
Man & Vasectemies
lifestyle questions
-abrupt cut that decontextualizes a story about Audrey Goodfriend
Aging alone is a terrifying concept
Michael Schmidt part I @ 16:20
Black Flame summary
Sectarianism
AK vs AJODA
SAvLA vs Black Flame
-abrupt cut relating to a critique of post-left anarchy
Conflict @ 33:20
Anarchy == Peace?
Total Domination
Genocide
Consensus & process
-abrupt cut
The dual form of process
savior motivation

URLs

email us
TotW on Parenting
Michael Schmidt and AK Press
Broken Teapot

Ep. Four – Critique

Episode Four – Critique

The topic of this episode of The Brilliant is critique but really is a journey through Critical Theory from AJODA through contemporary French theory. The great thing about working without a script is that you often find yourself somewhere else than where you anticipated.

Join us in conversation by email

Ticktock

Haters podcast @ 4:04
Dialogue
You are what you eat
Are movies important
What is entertainment?
The MSM is bad but that’s not enough of a hook for this
FRR @ 14:35
The relationship has changed
Bob @ 16:40
Published two books
Behavior vs writing
Shouting snitch as attack
Punching as attack
an essay is forthcoming
Critical thinking @ 24:30
Definitions
Changing minds
Does it matter that I make no sense?
Dialectics
Are we in a moment of grand ideas
To Our Friends
Appel
Critique of Critique
Stories of immiseration
Is anything new under the anarchist sun?

URLs

email us
Aragorn! on Bob Black
Wolfi on Critical Thinking
To Our Friends
Call

Ep. 3 – Principles

Source

October 5, 2015

Episode Three – Principles

This week we discuss the To change everything tour and anarchist aging. The topic of the week is principles and we use the text “Instead of a meeting” by Lawrence Jarach and my essay “Locating an Indigenous Anarchism.”
Join us in conversation by email

Ticktock

Bay area reaction to 9/11 @ 3:00
Big anarchist meeting dissolving into chaos
How to jump in front of a bullet for an audience
To Change Everything @ 7:00
How to break out entirely within the @ space
Wet buttz
Where does the midwest end?
Aging @ 20:00
Generational problems
Nostalgiat the Long Haul
North American tiqqunists
The managerie of anarchists
Aragorn! gets marxist
Principles @ 36:00
for and against
the big 3
post-left anarchism
liberalism
riots work
new principles
transparency
security culture
accountability
Black Seed

URLs

To Change Everything tour
Aging and burnout
Lawrence’s Instead of a meeting
Locating an Indigenous Anarchism
A reading of LIA

Transcript

Speaker 1: We live in a world where most stories are just variants of the same story. Good beats, evil Cowboys and Indians.

Unknown Speaker: Profits and loss.

Speaker 1: This story has been told 1000 million times. And the ubiquity of it. Is what I would call a great tragedy. A tragedy because the consequences had on our imagination. Their relationships, the brilliant podcasts and attempt to tell different kinds of stories, ones with complex moral plays, ones that aren't so clearly stories and one that's. Very human in size. Our motivation to tell his tales is a desire to see proliferation, different stories. And not just. The simple morality plays of popular culture or the inverted but otherwise identical. Read stories the radical media.

Speaker 2: We believe the world of.

Speaker 1: Free people as possible. We call these people the people. Who are in active pursuit of a free world? The brilliant because. They are impossible. To ignore, it cannot be seen directly, especially in the world that is dull and Gray. I'm your host. Iroquois, joined by your cohost development this month or this week. I guess RCB is anarchist principles and.

Speaker 3: We begin.

Speaker 2: And one day I came in and a woman who had lost a child was talking to a robot in the. Shape of a baby seal. It seemed to be looking in her eyes. It seemed to be following the conversation. It comforted her. And many people found this amazing.

Unknown Speaker: So I'm. Going to talk to you about you and how you. Can be brilliant every single day.

Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode. This our third one. This September 11th. They history actually at some point.

Unknown Speaker: I should tell the.

Speaker 1: Patriots Day hatred say yeah. The at some point I should talk. About the Bay Area. To Patriots Day because actually, if it isn't recorded or somehow written down at some point we're going to lose that memory. But basically September 11th, 2001 in the Bay Area, as soon as the event happened, a phone tree. Sort of lit. Up and sort of everyone who everyone knew was invited to sort of. Sit down and talk about. Like what? Is the radical response to 911. And this was still early days, but by the time that we all sat down together, which was in the evening, there were at least 100 or more people in the room. But it was a lot of different factions. Definitely factions that did not like each other were all in the room together, including the reading group being sort of one of those larger facts. Options and the evening went on and. On it was a muddled mess of sort. Of what people's motivations were and what. They wanted to. Talk about there and the. The moderator was Beau Brown. Do who? Brown is.

Speaker 3: No, I don't.

Speaker 1: Beau Brown was part of the George Jackson. Brigade, because I was absolutely.

Unknown Speaker: OK.

Speaker 1: This important figure in anarchist history. Because the both. The George Jackson Brigade was both Marxists and anarchists, right? And Beau Brown for the anarchist faction, and his beau has been like a sort of solid figure in the queer world. Forever. She's a stone.

Unknown Speaker: Cold Butch ****

Speaker 1: And she was a. Horrible moderator, . She absolutely. Like had her own sort of mission that she wanted to accomplish in the event, which probably looked like something that we call activism. People talked crazy. They talked about anarchists defending mosques. They talked about anarchists defending. Party stores owned by. Muslims and finally this young Latino woman came in and said, I have a statement that I'd like to read from from my group, which I believe was soul. It might have been storm. I can't, but the acronyms get a little confusing because I don't exactly understand who's who in this. But basically this a group of primarily people of color. It's a Maoist group that sort of did people's education work, but absolutely had. This had a Maoist pedigree. And so, as you can imagine, what they had to say about. The day's events was doctrinaire.

Speaker 3: Or just the formality of? Here's a written statement from my group who already speaks volumes. Right?

Speaker 1: Exactly, and so she. Started going on and on and on. But of course everybody was being respectful and probably she was on the verge of wrapping it up, and so. We could move on and Kevin Keating stood up.

Speaker 3: OK.

Speaker 1: Kevin Keating exists in real life. He stood up and basically said. How much ******* longer we're?

Unknown Speaker: Gonna have to.

Speaker 1: Listen to **** and. As you can.

Speaker 3: I'm guessing things started to.

Speaker 4: Unravel at that point.

Speaker 1: I mean they never raveled again for. Sure, I mean that was the end. Of the evening, but basically.

Speaker 3: It takes September 11th to get all the radicals in a room together. After an hour or two they realize they don't. Like each other.

Speaker 1: Yeah it was shocking, but. The amazing, the amazing part of it was sort of like some of the things that people said in. In this moment. Like explicitly people stood up and basically shouted. Like racist and like just everything. And so it was really. Like this like how can you make? People hate you the fastest. You know the most. Interrupt a young Latina woman obviously ranks pretty high and then Lawrence also and this sort of that one of these amazing moments where Lawrence spoke up and sort of. Repeated what Kevin said. It's kind of to back. Him up. But if anything, the entire target of the ire of the evening was on Lawrence, like Lawrence is the one who really carried the burden of that of that day, which of course, maybe. In later episodes, we'll. Talk about other other similar types of stories, but.

Speaker 3: Yeah, so even though he tried to be more reasonable in the way.

Speaker 1: That he was vaguely more reasonable. I mean, I think actually we wasn't really. But more or less repeated the. Spirit of what Kevin was trying to say, which was perhaps.

Speaker 3: This a bunch of doctrinaire nonsense and I'm anarchist and I hope.

Speaker 1: This not the moment. Exactly anyway, so this week, in terms of our news segment, we're going to talk about the to change everything tour that was announced this week from crime. Think they're gonna go on a 2 month national tour? And we're gonna talk. About that, we're also gonna talk about the topic of the. Week that happened on anarchist news this week. Which was on aging, but first up the crimethink. UM, to change everything to her and.

Unknown Speaker: We're not going to.

Speaker 1: Talk so much about the document itself because. Perhaps that's worked for other episode. The main question or the main sort of thought I have is, is this idea of a U.S. You know they’re kind of doing pretty much every radical space that I know of in North America, or especially on the West side. And I guess the thing.

Unknown Speaker: That I sort of want.

Speaker 1: To speak to is the fact that. One of the promises of it to change everything document was to. Was to break out. Of the milieu. A lot of different tendencies, a lot of different people are talking about. You know what does it mean to talk to regular people and to change everything as a document much more than fighting. For our life. Is this document that really strips the sort of personalities of radical politics out of the equation and tries to make a case? Or radical politics by. By other names, basically and yeah.

Speaker 3: Well, as you say, it's kind of interesting and I know crime thicket I. I don't know if they still hold to this. I know at one point they had this sort of stance against citation, as this rescue of academiand so often you can see with crime thing documents. Then sort of going through and you can kind in your head's name the names and say like, oh, they're talking talking right now. They're talking, turning out, and you can very much see that in this document, and the way it reads it, it sort of tries to hit all the bullet points. I think of prominent anarchist thinkers without naming them and put them in this. More approachable and accessible way that. Actually to me sort. Of muddies things, because I think within this document. You can find. Internal contradictions, and I wonder. Is this their attempt to? Sort of. Reach as many people as possible by saying something that everyone can latch on. To, well, let's go.

Speaker 1: Come back to the contradictions later because I definitely would love to hear your thoughts on what is the some of those contradictions. But this document does come out of a perceived need that fighting for our life. You know which? I think they all together published maybe 1/4 million copies or something. Maybe it was even half a million. It was awful lot. And no, it's incredible.

Speaker 3: It's actually quite amazing.

Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, especially for a free document, yeah? And so. 10 years later, basically after publishing that document they felt the need to sort of do it again, and my guess. Is that now? They're their finances are more constrained that they were than they were 10. Years ago, because they haven't. Exactly done, any bestsellers in the past 10 years. And so. So the desire? For this document absolutely came out. The same desire as fighting for life which. Is sort of how? How do you introduce a new generation to these ideas and? Two or three years ago, the core brain trusts of crime thinkers based in northern. Carolina, North Carolina. And they have a book fair, they're. In Carrboro on. It's in the late fall and a couple of years ago they basically announced as part of the. Book fair contest. For people to sort of write new introductions to anarchism. So in other words, sort of.

Speaker 3: OK. Like anarchy 10.

Speaker 1: One and One of the prominent entries into the contest was life without law, which is which is Magpies. Margaret Killjoy's attempt to sort of do.

Speaker 3: Right?

Speaker 1: Anarchist introduction. And so anyway. So that's the terrain which the. This document came out of but this. Document my guess. Is that they were running it? For years and. There definitely was a large collective process around.

Unknown Speaker: It I.

Speaker 1: Don't know very many details about it, but. For me the overriding. Feel that I get out of that document. Is that a committee wrote it?

Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely.

Speaker 1: And so it really has weaknesses of what it looks like when a committee writes a document, and I'm not sure if it's Some, by their measure, perhaps in every measure.

Speaker 4: So look episodes 2. Three and four were recorded. While I was away so we didn't realize that the MIC connection was destroying portions of the recordings until I got back and started working on putting the episodes together. So episode 4 will have some glitches as well, but from episode 5 on.

Unknown Speaker: This will no.

Speaker 4: Longer be a feature. Of the show. Thanks for bearing with us while. We figure out how to make the podcast. During the glitchy part that I cut out, arrogance said that a significant difference between fighting for our lives and to change everything is that in the years following its release. Fighting for our lives is in every quote radical bathroom. People are talking about it. It was memorable. And to change everything not so much.

Unknown Speaker: He said that he.

Speaker 4: Had to go dig a copy of to change. Everything out of the. LBC district because no. One liked to have had a coffee on. And then. North Carolina Book Fair Anarchist Primary contest because. It was a. Mine from which to get raw material. That could be put in there to change everything. And says that one of the. Best documents to come. Out of the wheelchair contest was. Life without low lol. And that this document claims that in the modern anarchist space there are basically 4 aspects of modern anarchism that make up that space, one of which is clear and an essential. Identifying features for your nihilist is a wet ****. That wet butts equals fear now. And that this unforgettable. Bellany said that he had. To really need to change everything before recording because he had read it when it first came out and he couldn't. Remember any of it? For Eragon, what was most? Memorable about to change everything. There's the preponderance of shockingly cliched leftist imagery played Tiananmen Square, etc. Anyway, here they are discussing said imagery.

Speaker 1: Yeah, that's just.

Unknown Speaker: Jaw-dropping.

Speaker 1: Especially with prime thinking, you always do such a fantastic job of visual design, sort of to return to these I mean the.

Speaker 3: Old images.

Speaker 1: And then the baby hugging the tree.

Speaker 3: Well, I had the hard stuff. With that one, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: Brutal, just really. Brutal and it just. I mean I. I guess it speaks. To the fact that they're coming to invite. Strangers into a conversation.

Speaker 3: That the black power engine, that's strange, I mean. At best it seems patronizing. At worst it seems appropriative.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I I. I just. I don't really know. The I guess the thing for. Me is. Is their goal a reasonable middle-aged person that listens to NPR who might be interested in radical ideas? Or is their goal the youth, right? Right in the past, the thing that they've always done very well is they've they've been the starter kit for radical. And perhaps they're acknowledging something that might be true, which is it's more likely that an older person is going to going to find anarchism interesting and worth exploring, rather than younger people who sort of, I can't imagine a young person looking at it as images and relating like they might not even have ever seen. The black power.

Speaker 3: That's true, yes.

Speaker 1: Same thing before.

Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean right before we started recording, I said that the best way that I can read the piece, and I mean this generously, is that. I could imagine my mother picking it up and finding it completely approachable, and my mother just to give a little background. Midwestern second generation. American suburbanite woman listens to NPR pretty gender, normative in a lot of ways, and I can imagine her picking that up and. Not finding anything that's difficult to approach, and so if in fact it is aimed at the older crowd. Middle America. Sure, yeah, and. There are no strange names. There's no academic pretension.

Speaker 1: So, so they're going Ms U.S. Obviously going to be speaking about the piece, but my guess and this sort of the experience that of crime thing in general. In general when they do face to face or crowd work, they usually walk entirely off text. And then the main thing that they attempt to accomplish is some sort of performative sort of sort of task, and so that's going to be. Interesting to see what it is. That they do and. In particular here in the Bay Area, they're going to do 3 different events. They're going to do an event in. The city that's Probably going to be a sort of big popular. Sort of thing like in a. At a big hall or whatever. They're going to do a thing. At the Omni of. Course which is going to be their East Bay? Fundraising sort of side. And finally, they're going to actually come to our reading group, which meets in Berkeley on Tuesdays, and they say that what we're going to get in Tuesday is going to be utterly different, and that, and that they're. Sort of expecting a. Critical engagement on Tuesday and I somewhat suspect that perhaps we're like, my guess that they're going to be. Two car loads of people. And my guess is. We're gonna get half of that Carla. For the for the long haul, but. But I look forward. To going to probably to the Omni event just to see how the how the breaks happen and Mm-hmm and what does it look like when they're waking.

Speaker 3: Are they playing politics? Yeah, I guess they're significantly not going to kilombo.

Speaker 1: Right, sure, well, I'm sure they wouldn't even. Be invited and that there be. A big meeting about it.

Speaker 3: Yeah, if they were invited it would be a big meeting that.

Unknown Speaker: Well, either way, yeah.

Speaker 3: Trump like shut it down.

Speaker 1: The OK, why don't? We move on to talking about this piece.

Speaker 3: I wanted to just touch one thing with the rhetoric. You said the contradictions that you're curious.

Unknown Speaker: Oh right here.

Speaker 3: Yeah the one thing I'll highlight I don't want to dwell on the text too much, especially since I could see us talking about this. In more detail when they come, but to me it. Was very significant that. They begin the piece by saying anarchism is the idea that everyone is entitled to complete self-determination. Which I think as were talking about in the first episodes of this to me is very Western. Idea of freedom. And it's sort of the, the autonomous individual or the kind of liberal idea of the individual, and then they go on later to talk over and over about how we're not really individuals and we're freedom. Is it more matter of relations than it is individuality? And it just seemed kind of odd to me to hold both of that and then at the end they talked about self-determination again, and I'm sure one could. Deconstruct this since a self-determination isn't really about that idea, but to me rhetorically. If you're writing to America, that is. What people think of. I’m my own sovereign.

Speaker 1: Absolutely, I mean, yeah. I don't want to dive. Too much into itself. Crime thing does do this thing, but it's not just crime. Right, something is interesting in this way. Culturally, it's sort of both coastal and Midwestern, and a lot of the people who do. The writing and. The thinking around crime think are the Midwesterners Mm-hmm. And it's hard. You know, it's hard to like is North Carolina the East Coast? Well, of course it is, but it's not culturally the East Coast.

Speaker 3: It's not, it's.

Speaker 1: Not the arc between DC and New York. Right, but that said this. The topic that you're talking about does. Does feel very Midwestern to me because a Midwesterner in general is basically is going to say that they're that everything can be everything that they're that you don't necessarily have to have these hard brakes and contradictory sort of line, so they're going. To say, yeah. You can absolutely be a self determined individual, and there's no I.

Speaker 3: A set of relations, sure. My analytic philosophy behind is. Covering that kind of put.

Speaker 1: No, I mean one of the things I was remark on when I go to the Midwest is like the phenomenon that I see all the time where you'll have a kid who will come to an event and they'll they'll be wearing a slingshot, T-shirt and IWW hat and 1st patch and you're just. Like but. But basically what they're trying to. Presented with that image is like I'm here.

Unknown Speaker: Like I'm ready.

Speaker 3: I'm for it.

Speaker 2: And I’m.

Speaker 1: For good things, I'm yeah, probably against bad things, yeah, and your whole West Coast attitude. About it doesn't. Matter me sure. Which for me of course, is highly irritating. Topic of the week and artist aging and burnout.

Unknown Speaker: What is?

Speaker 1: Yeah, so basically this anarchist news.

Unknown Speaker: Provided a

Speaker 1: Very brief sketch on the fact that anarchists and aging is the thing but the threat has been explosive. I mean, it's there's a couple of days on it and it's well over 200 comments. Yeah, and at least the first hundred were really good. Really good at conversation. A lot of people who clearly. Like are older and are experiencing that.

Speaker 3: Yeah, actually it was. It was pretty awesome to see so many people come out of the woodwork and. Some of it I find relatable. Some of it I find unrelatable, but I think it was great that a lot. Of people were. Eager to kind of tell a story and say I'm this old. This what happened to me, and it's very interesting for me is as a young person, not only. Young in general, but also very new to actually spending time around anarchists. And I always or I've thought for years that one of the most toxic things about the dominant cultures that people tend to spend the vast majority of their time around people their own age, unless it's their immediate nuclear family. So and growing up as a kid, you're in a pure age group. The only people who are different ages are these more or less distant authority figures in school and then a lot of people once they take a job that they keep for part or most of their life are still spending time around people their age and I think. It's cliche to say, but absolutely true that for not around older people, I think there's a huge loss of transmission of wisdom. There's a loss of humility with knowing what you're doing and when you're around younger people, I think there's just a loss of a sense of play and spontaneity. And so I mean, the fact that we don't have. I think. One of the complaints that just sort of rising to the surface among different comments was the fact we don't. Have stable anarchist spaces that are multi generational. Where we have very few.

Speaker 1: Well, it's hard to imagine what one would look like. I mean, currently we're in this active conflict around at the. Long haul to. Our local info shop and the fact that we can actually. Even have a generation. Sorry, and at theart of. That conflict is a generational sort of shift. Even though I happen to be the same. Generation is sort of the old guard that's attempting to preserve. Sort of. A certain sort of style at. The long haul my. Heart is with the new guard. That's sort of just trying to change things in general without necessarily a clear vision of what that change would look like. Other than desiring change and watching that generational shift happen, yeah, I mean, I mean one of. The things that the older people really bring up. Sort of all the time. Is like you. Know we're real we we have this thing that we've been. Trying to do for. Forever and we want help. Well, what they don't sort of recognize in their own statements is that they want help doing the thing that they. Want to be? Done rather than we want to see this radical space transform and change. As it's. Appropriate to do. Because the problem with the older people is that there isn't. There isn't a. Group of people. In their mid 40s, who are you? Know talking about the good old days. Of Gilman Street and. There's a totally new generation of people who want to talk about entirely different things that are, just different and aren't as punk rock. Focus as an example, but the. That's actually my. My main criticism of the of the threat of this piece in particular is that there's lots of complaining like definitely. Some perceptive, older, older people who are sort of really naming some age appropriate changes that happened. Very little in terms of constructive criticism. In other words, I hear almost not like. Almost all the old people. Sound old, jaded, burned out and like and that they're done rather than that they have any ideas. At all about. How to do think transform?

Speaker 3: Not only that, they're done, but that. It's not their fault. They're done. And I. Again, coming to the Bay and being in anarchist subculture for the first time, I do think I. Immediately saw a lot of things I didn't like, and it's pretty easy to make fun of it. It's very easy to make fun of it, and we sell a lot of it on. That thread and. It's, it's just a bunch of immature people. It's like high school. It's all hookup culture sure and then pretty much the other major line of criticism was, oh, you've just got this. Denunciation of moralism of your fluffed up year this year that. Yeah, and I think those are relevant criticisms, but I don't. I don't see much beyond. I met certain people that I don't like and they were jerks to me. Therefore I'm done and that's a criticism you could make. About any kind of. Subculture, yeah, and I don't see anything about what makes this specifically a problem with anarchism.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean the other direction. To take this in which obviously I'm very uncomfortable with. One of the things you do see. At the. Long haul is that there are some older than me people who sort of feel who vibe a bit more of the 60s than they do of the 80s who. Who come around the long haul and they don't necessarily help that much. But to the extent to which they do help out in their present. And they're engaged. They're in it for the movement and what they mean is the same thing that everyone else means when they when they. Sort of evoke some sort of larger. Quasi real quasi spiritual thing that actually looks like a conversation about liberating human beings from the from the shackles that we've created for ourselves. And so on the. One hand your heart goes. Out to these people because. It sure would be great if that movement existed. On the other hand, I guess if. It were to exist. Would it be born? In spaces like the long hall. Would it be born in the relationships that we call the anarchism of you and this the central question of today because I think a lot of people are beginning to reject this idea that anything. Is going to grow out of radical spaces, and that instead. That basically the role of. Radicals is to sort of shut up and. Get out of the. Way so that the proletariat. Or some magic. Or people of color. In urban settings, do the work and. This sort of talked about in two different ways that. I think are interesting in anarchist texts. You know, on the one hand we have nihilist, communism and sort of their provocation about the Pro revolutionary. Which more or less is. Like the fan of revolution is the.

Speaker 3: Yeah, the cheerleader.

Speaker 1: Cheerleader and then on the. Other hand we have Bob Black. In the 80s for this piece, that basically says the biggest problem with anarchism is anarchists, which really speaks to the same problem.

Speaker 3: I'm actually not. Familiar with that? He's saying, well, we.

Speaker 1: Should talk about in another.

Unknown Speaker: OK.

Speaker 3: Essay, sure. Yeah I think to me. The frustration was with the thread. I mean again, I thought there was a lot of good in the thread and a lot of interesting things, but theme. That kept coming up was. This sort of vindictive. Anarchists just shouldn't even be hanging out with each other at all, and so I was talking a little bit with Squee about this, and he was pointing out. A lot of people have this idea that anarchists should separate and almost disperse ourselves like so many dandelion seeds and then just. Inject ourselves into various social movements, not so much as. Anarchists speaking the gospel of anarchism, but rather as these highly energetic people who are going to agitate and enhance whatever the conflictual ility of these different social movements and. I still find it. Hard to understand the idea that anarchists shouldn't be talking to each other. Sharing ideas. And supporting each other's projects, and I don't think that has to happen with the social dynamics of a subculture that everyone likes to make fun of and is very easy to make fun of. It seems to me that there's a conflation with the idea of just anarchists spending any time with each other at all in these particular social dynamics.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean of course. The the conclusion of this going to be some. Sort of like it doesn't have. To be all or nothing.

Unknown Speaker: My inner.

Speaker 1: Like Midwestern areas coming out, but the.

Speaker 3: I thought it. Was actually mockery by Midwesterners?

Speaker 1: Fair enough but with that said I this actually a pretty serious problem. Meaning in another context I just had someone who I. Would call like a teknisk say that. That the problem is hang out with anarchists.

Unknown Speaker: Full stop.

Speaker 3: Here's the full step.

Speaker 1: And that and that, sort of their movement, which is a very explicit on this point, which is abandon the milieu and do the good work, sort of outside. Of the milieu. You know what's? Absolutely absurd about this about this construction. Is that perhaps that is true in the context of France that has very different conditions, has a very different relate like people's relationship to politics is very different in France and is in the US. When you bring any sort of when you bring a group of people who are concerned about political issues and do not want to become reformists, do not want to become involved in real politique. You have the first problem you have to say is the fact that what do you do in your spare time? What are you? Doing you're not saving the world and the answer. That sort of punk rock really provided, but that in general you see in radical politics is we you associate with each other and especially in big urban centers, there's. Going to be other people who are sort of similar to. And so this idea that you sort of should have been in the on the on the one hand is absurd because it doesn't solve the answer that question except that it does, which is what we see in the sort of three or four big urban centers that have the sort of leave them the view behind what you actually have. For smaller reviews you actually have. People who basically appear to be francophiles who dress in nice clothing but normal. Who associate with each other rather than associate with the menagerie that is the anarchism and so it you. You end up having sort of the weakness of not actually having all that many people who. Understand what the. Hell, you're doing and what you do instead is you create a smaller, more attenuated milieu of people who sort of speak. Incredibly coded language.

Speaker 3: And maybe one that's. A small view that's more project oriented than socially oriented, would you say? Or not even?

Speaker 1: It would be. Nice, it would be nice to say that's the case, I mean. Woodbine, which is this project in New York City would definitely from what I can tell at a distance, seems to be much more project focused, much more like they're they. They have sort of a pland it's clear that they're working towards that plan. The other. None of the other sort of spaces or projects that I've heard of in North America. Appear to be as coherent as New York is, but here in the local area it seems very social.

Speaker 3: So a grievance that I didn't so much see coming up in the in the comment thread with the topic of the week was what I would call the to me. The deeper critique of the subculture beyond just making fun of them for acting a certain way, and that's I guess. It's come for me coming on theels of just immediately having read Ron Sakowski's Mutual acquiescence piece or breaking loose. It's called and to me the deeper critique of the subculture is the mutual acquiescence, which I Would say is rampant. And it's this validation of yes, I'm anarchist. Yes, I'm a radical and wanting to look at look in the mirror and say that to oneself and then have one's friends reflect that as well. And it means I would say, at least in the Bay Area, that being anarchist means being at. Being seen, seeing and being being seen, excuse me at the protests and the parties. Regardless of what kind of actual political potency. They have. It's a certain sexual orientation, usually being polyamorous or queer. It's certain social morays and speaking a certain vernacular, saying all the right buzzwords, and then having an income that's predicated either on some sort of criminality that makes 1 edgy or some sort of moral job. Of being in an NGO and having basically saying OK we do all these things, therefore we're anarchists. Therefore I'm in this group and it ends up being just. It feels nice. It feels nice to be around people who are validating you and it you sort of lose. I think the wider angle of what am I actually doing? And so to me, that's the deeper critique and I'm. Wondering if we. Could just nod back to episode one is. Maybe a possible way out of this mutual acquiescence, or a possible way out of the critiques of the subculture to have those more projectional relationships?

Speaker 1: Well, of course that's my personal ideal and. And I feel like that ideal was infectious. UM? Not to get Marxist. For a little bit. But I probably would say that there's this that there's an argument that most of the points that you're talking about are the are the result of the fact that people don't have time for full relationships with one another that instead. Our relationships, whether they're radical or not, are fit in the cracks between racing from one part time job to another part time job they're racing from running from a part time job to a protest to prisoner writing to. To whatever it is and that basically like as living in the Bay Area in particular as it's become more difficult just on the logistical like money for rent, sort of level, just the amount of time that people have to care for one another is drastically decreased. And it was. And perhaps in the past, caring for one another was a was a value and that people shared and understood each other on, but I wouldn't say that's a value that I experienced. Radical politics today. By and large. People are spend a lot of time sort of naming. Others, and hating them because of whatever name they've come. Up with yeah something like that. OK, I think that's. So the format of this brilliant podcast is that. Everyone talk about the ideas behind the moves and then each week we have a theme. Talk a little bit about the news. We try to do it as. We're non topical way. This week theme is a little challenging because. It's definitely a topic that I want to talk about, but it's not exactly. There isn't necessarily like a stance on it. In other words, the last two episodes were clearly four positions, so projection ality 4 imagination 4 but this? Week we're going to talk about. Principles, specifically anarchist principles, what do they? Mean what do they look like? And so we're going to talk, sort of about the classic understanding of anarchist principles and the and the way in which even today a lot of people, when they're introduced to anarchist ideas, are introduced to as to anarchist principles, as if they. Are fixed positions. And then we're going to talk a little bit about what future or what. But less fixed positions look like and so the text we're going to talk about mostly are going to. Be our texts from Lawrence, Iraq. Instead of a meeting by someone too irritated. To sit through another. One and Lawrence actually does a pretty good job of establishing a sort of standard position. And then the other piece we're gonna talk at least a little bit about is a piece that I wrote called locating an indigenous anarchism.

Unknown Speaker: Story, you never confess. You never turn a friend. This civil war No, I guess. The edge off the ball there's a justice.

Speaker 3: Yes, so I do think that. Lawrence's piece is a good response. The way that I think a lot of these classical anarchist values get. Reinterpreted today in what might be called a kind of decadent or deteriorated way. And so he lays out solidarity, mutual aid, direct action, voluntary association and I really liked the fact that he was. That direct action is frequently misinterpreted that mutual aid is frequently misinterpreted, and for direct action I usually think of Voltairine declare and her piece was actually one of the first explicitly anarchist pieces of literature that I encountered where she contrasts it very diametrically with political action. So it's direct action if you're. Acting without mediation, whereas we're so used to the mediated activity that we don't even notice a lot. Of the time and. I'm not sure where you want to go with this because I was going to do a whole thing about how I see these principles reinterpreted in this meal you today.

Speaker 1: You're you’re just gonna criticize the. The way in which people play.

Speaker 3: It out well, still saying this anarchy and this direct action. This that sort of thing. So for instance, here there maybe four years ago or something. There was this whole. Riot's work slogan, and so I think for many people, the riot seems like clearly direct action. I'm breaking the law, I'm destroying things with my hands. I'm being visible and this feels like an unmediated activity, but then you see the kind of insidiousness with. The actual riots work understanding, which is that rioting leads to desirable legal social reform. And Lawrence does a really good bit where he points out. Breaking things. Can be examples of direct action. I'm quoting Lawrence here. Breaking things can be examples of direct action, but the intention behind these acts are what is important, not the acts themselves. Direct action has nothing to do with pressuring any part of a government. To alter a. Policy, but right now we have this understanding of the riot as direct action that leads to possibly desirable police related social reforms. And so you can. I think there's a lot of cases in how this has been sort of. Decadently interpreted.

Speaker 1: Well, actually, let's talk about this a little bit more, because this actually this piece who really helped clarify some ideas that I had when it was written that has led me to sort of in general not call myself a post left anarchist anymore.

Speaker 3: OK.

Speaker 1: And that's because this quote that you just read is actually a fantastic quote because it does speak to theart of post left anarchy. In my opinion, which is intention. Basically, I just when I read that piece, I sort of examined this ideabout intention and I found myself not agreeing with Lawrence here at all. Not that I agree about the about the breaking windows being direct action, but the idea that one would parse activity in such a way as to sort of determine whether the activity. Sort of.

Speaker 3: Like if you're thinking the right anarchist, things, right?

Speaker 1: Exactly, and this a. This actually runs through a lot of the post left anarchist writing that basically we could be. We could be doing the same thing. On the streets. Or in our daily life. And the intention matters to the post life anarchists. And I'm not sure it does.

Speaker 3: I mean, I'm not even going to go down this because it's philosophy. Rabbit hole but just to briefly say I have huge problems with the idea of intentionality. I think it's a completely fraught concept. The fact that there are moral systems predicated on intentionality, I think, is terrible. But yes, because it basically means I did the same thing as you, but when I went home and got into bed, I was thinking the right things and I was thinking about how dumb you were while you were doing those. Things even though I was doing it and that ends up being a pretty weird.

Speaker 1: What it actually ends up being the position of what does post left anarchist practice look like and you just described what post left anarchist practice should look like is that went to the same event and I came home and realized how stupid you were and so it ends up being a critical perspective which is fair enough. It's not like those things. Shouldn't be criticized. It's not like. I disagree with. In general, what those criticisms are going to be, but I'm just not sure the criticism itself is necessarily a particularly interesting form of life. Or to put it. A little differently, I totally I love Lawrence for the for the way in which he describes some definitions in ways that I pretty much can accept. And then I move on. And what ends up happening and what ends up being a lot of the fights that you see both online and in general with post like anarchists, is that posthumanism has to fight for those definitions and those are not fights that I think are particularly good uses of time, but I'm in general comfortable using the definitions and moving on. Anyways, finished talking through your thoughts cause probably the most important one for Lawrence and for a lot of other postmodernists, actually is in direct action, which I just think that they're right about what the definition should be. And most people in their in the way they use it are wrong. Full stop, but the most important post. Left traditional anarchist principle is voluntary association. Because it basically says leave me alone.

Speaker 3: Or, I'm afraid to be an island if I want to be, and I can dissociate from everything as soon as I think the people around me are being done. Yeah, yeah. Well, I. So I don't think we ran through the list. Of course, the classical values we're talking about are solidarity and mutual aid, direct action, and voluntary association. If that wasn't clear. And then yeah, the way that I think. Mutual aid, unfortunately again, is becoming the second thing is that it means. In many modern American subcultures, deference to those who are perceived as less privileged and the voluntary association become a moral obligation to participate in certain social struggles from a kind of secondary observer position. Who is, somehow, I'm going to bring the radicalism to what, of course. Is going to be a large scale and then almost inherently liberal activity. And so then this watched phrase of meeting people where we're where they're at just means of perpetual deference to liberalism.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean again, I think that this I. I agree with you, I feel like. This probably is the case. Anytime you tie your political perspective down to a set of terms is that you basically provide this these this. Type of entries.

Speaker 3: And then the. Terms mutate into prayers that so long as we're saying them to ourselves, thanything that we do is blessed. I'm doing each wave. And it could be charity.

Speaker 4: Five completely indiscernible minutes 10 minutes. And then we're here.

Speaker 1: It's a critique of power politics, and so if you're not basically willing to make the sort of real political types of decisions so you're not going to, . Join the school board. You're you're not. You're not going to,. You're not you’re not going to like you basically limit yourself to this magical place called the streets is the only place in which you can express political power. And you. Know I mean just to say it. I have no idea. Why people believe that the streets is actually a place where political power?

Unknown Speaker: Resides there.

Speaker 3: It is.

Unknown Speaker: I mean.

Speaker 1: Like riots work. At what when?

Speaker 3: Yeah, reform I think yeah.

Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, It’s.

Speaker 3: And I think they. I think it's demonstrably true that they do, and I think you can. You can go back. Years and years and. Years and see how that. I mean, you could argue the whole civil rights. The huge thrust of the. Civil rights movement was riots. Were yeah they keep sucking. Riding and the lots will change.

Speaker 1: And at the end of the day. Anarchists have a plausible deniability around that part of it because they don't do any of the work around that part of it, and the words the anarchist position is sort of a puritanical position that says as long as I'm only doing the part of the work that is that doesn't touch all the grossness of making the law or of change changing city council's mind or whatever. As long as I don't get involved in those aspects, the fact that I that I the rides do work and I and I helped provide the fuel for the people who do that work, I have plausible deniability that I have anything. To do with it.

Speaker 3: I didn't want them to take it down the. Reform Ave, right?

Speaker 1: Yeah, and this because of a. What I what I feel like is a pretty disconnected from reality political perspective that perhaps we can point to Lenin as being the. Author of this. But perhaps we can talk about the French Revolution in this context, and say that pitchforks and torches on the street led to the beheading. Of a lot of bad. 250 years ago. Why not now? And we know why not. Now the. The powers that be the have a sophisticated analysis of what's happening that the riots work perspective is not and that's and that's I mean. I guess it's just very off topic from the idea of anarchist principles. But I do feel. Like anarchist principles, have sort of led us to this particular conclusion, this sort of fetishist revolutionist idea that this maybe worth mentioning, but.

Unknown Speaker: Perhaps we shouldn't dwell on that.

Speaker 3: I don't feel it's deviating too far from. So you were talking about how you feel the. New anarchist principles have. Emerged, yeah well.

Unknown Speaker: There's a couple ways. To talk about this.

Speaker 1: I mean, I think more more broadly, I was thinking about this exactly and the way in which Lawrence let's. These sort of traditional. These traditional principles, I think that. Traditional principles that sort of should be added. To the list in the. 21st century, one of which I would add would be transparency. Yeah, that.

Speaker 3: I think it's a very democratic principle.

Speaker 1: Sure, but it also addresses the first international critique that Bakunin. By not being transparent, basically and being for sort of the secret society was not anarchistic. That's sort of the political historical motivation for why transparency is. It breaks. But yeah, absolutely, democracy argue argues for the same point.

Speaker 3: Yes, yes.

Speaker 1: And it's and it's unclear in modern anarchist practice whether or not transparency actually happens because the strongest argument against transparency in most circles. Is quote UN quote security culture? And so it. It turns out that security culture perhaps is another anarchist principle that is directly.

Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a really good new one that has emerged and closely related to that is as I was thinking of new ones that have emerged. It's what I would call fetishization of process and. Certainly the way that consensus has caught on in anarchist circles this idea that if that it's. The idea I think, although not often articulated in these terms, is. People are fallible. Our socialization makes us extremely fallible. The way to escape. The crappy things about us is to have the right process and if we can just get the process right then it means that everyone's voice has been heard. No one can be that sucked up to each other and you see that of course with decision making through consensus and then also the infamous accountability process which.

Speaker 1: I was actually going to mention that is what I what I would say is a modern principle.

Speaker 3: The accountability process, which as far as I've seen has not actually manifested on Earth. But this idea of. If we can just. Work on our **** enough if we can find the right way to air all the grievances then. Things will be good.

Speaker 1: Yeah, just to speak in defense of accountability. You know there's an. There's a way in which accountability could be defined as. If you have enough meetings, everybody feels ******. And that's accountability. Which I think there's something fair about that, like one of the things that is actually true about the modern radical, is that. We are still alienated. We are still removed from actual relationships with one another. And the ideal accountability section means that we now all of a sudden are in each other's lives in each other. 's **** like I think a lot of people when they talk about like when the radicals say that they're gonna move to the country and it's going to solve all their problems once they live in rural life. You know why many people sort of resist? That is because they perceive the small town as being a place of horror and of and of and of being trapped rather than a place that actually truly frees one from the social ties that they might despise from the city. I mentioned this mostly because the best examples. Ever heard of sort of accountability? Processes have been in towns like Santa Cruz where there's a lot of people who've known each other for a very long time who sort of represent the core. Of what these processes look like and meand usually the processes are about people who are much more short timers and it ends up being a way in which the old timers sort of sit in meetings. With one another. And feel each other out and have relationships with each other. And the new and the new. People who perhaps were even at theart of the controversy. Spin themselves out and leave.

Speaker 3: Yeah, and I mean I, I think I'm. My tone in talking about this obviously very cynical, jaded and I'm kind of being a sneery haha. Everything sucks and I don't like to occupy that space too much. And So what I will. Is that yes? I think the aim and the desire of motivating this a good one. It is the recognition of alienation and the recognition that just because I have this cool analysis and theory that answers a lot of questions doesn't mean that I'm necessarily any. More able to have real relationships with people. My the point of my poking fun here is just to say that I think. There's this. Intellectualization that if only we have the process, we can make up for the fact that we're still these alienated locked up people, which I'm skeptical of.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I, I think that there is a certain type of person who that vocabulary really works for and they hammer thell out of it. Sort of chase everybody else out of the.

Speaker 3: Room vocabulary of process yeah.

Speaker 1: We like sure. Just yeah.

Speaker 3: The board of bureaucrats.

Speaker 1: Just this last weekend we had a pretty contentious. Meeting at the long haul, which is a collective, but it's a collective that has never sort of used collective methodology or process. And there's this woman who is sort of like not socially. Part of long Well, but their group focuses a lot on how to do good process. Their group is a cohousing group and so they focus a lot on lights.

Unknown Speaker: I'm visiting.

Speaker 1: Well, they focus. Actually a lot on how are we going to live together? If we're strangers and there's a bunch of money on the line so that so there's a way. In which the process. Focus makes some sense to them because it's real in a way that a lot of radical politics is not real. But when she started to try to sort of nail the consensus down, especially using lots of like affirmations, as sort of the. Talking filler and whatnot.

Speaker 3: I honor your perspective, yes.

Speaker 1: Exactly, I think that before we go on, we really. Should honor the fact that blah blah blah said blah blah blah that yeah. I mean I consider all of that to be a total ********. I mean, It’s a.

Speaker 3: I think it's more honest to say your perspective will always be incomprehensible to me, but. I will never know what it's like to think. The things you're thinking.

Speaker 1: But mostly It’s funny to watch that perspective in a in a room that's incredibly. Informal because the. The flip side of this again. Just to be a little. Is to say that I actually think that informal consensus is perhaps even more toxic than process focused consensus, because in general, informal consensus tends towards the type of popularity contest tends towards. It actually?

Speaker 3: Oh wait.

Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely and.

Speaker 3: I know we won't get into it in this episode, but I know that. You and some others have arrived at a different sort of collective decision making process, and maybe that would be interesting to talk about on the. Show at some time.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean for sure it's gonna make sense to be a theme to just talk about counterexamples. Sure, I think that one of the one of the problems about even having that conversation is that you're making these assumptions. About what the future of working with other. People is going to. Look like that are really challenge. Because one of the things, for instance that I've seen a lot in radical circles is that in general, as soon as conflict comes up, people just bail.

Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely.

Speaker 1: And. So how do you? Come up with a different system or even think about this problem when basically you're trying to catch fish with your hands and.

Speaker 3: Are you saying I'm? I'm acting as if the system is widely applicable.

Speaker 1: No, I’m just. Saying that the that. The problem of how to do decision making and how to even think about like. If the reason the rationale for a process like consensus is so that we, can, make decisions together, but the cultural transformation that's happened since consensus sort of came into radicals lives in the 80s. The radical transformation is that conflict means. Pull the pull the parachute. Cord and get thell out of there. It sort of. It almost becomes irrelevant, and that basically really what you're talking about is the people who stick around tend towards certain types, many of whom. You could just call stubborn, and so perhaps you can't actually make very many decisions when you're just dealing with a bunch of stubborn people, sure, and you really are having a conversation about how can we stay thell out of each other's way. Which is which in the context of long haul which is. The conflict I'm thinking about a. Lot right now is absolutely what's happening. Well yeah, so the pivot here is. To talk a little bit about this article that I wrote. A long time ago, perhaps as long as ten years ago called locating indigenous anarchism and. And in it I sort of. State some first principles. So we're talking about anarchist principles, and I'm describing in this article something that I'm calling indigenous anarchism, which I'm distinguishing from the old, the old kind of anarchism that it's from Europe, perhaps in the US. Context involved immigration perhaps in the American context looks a lot more like. Easy Rider than it does like the Internet. You know, and so I'm so the proposition here is that perhaps there's anarchism that grew grew in this soil and that has a really different tenor that perhaps looks land based and perhaps look looks, quote UN quote, indigenous. There's a nice piece that. Part of it that I really. Like that and I'll just quote here.

Speaker 3: Do you want to get the background? Of what the piece is.

Speaker 1: All right, yeah? So the piece was written for Green Anarchy magazine. I guess in the middle part of their run it was an entire issue on indigenous on indigenous issues, which I actually felt ended up not being that strong, largely because they did a lot of reprints and they didn't have the. Resources to sort of. Perhaps do the to do what I would. Do I mean one of the goals of? Black Feed, which is a paper that I work on that it's attempting to sort of. Maintain the spirit of what green anarchy did is that I've really committed in black seed to having there be strong indigenous voices in every issue and really to take the perspective that anarchism has a lot to learn from real living people who. Are probably indigenous, but rather than sort of the attitude that I felt like, green anarchy took a lot, which was a sort of we already know what the answers are, and we're looking for other people to sort of confirm, especially if they're if they're brown people then then. You know?

Speaker 3: You feel like there was some mascot.

Speaker 1: Absolutely, absolutely. But I mean again, the criticism. It's not the point isn't a criticism. The point is that they that their resources they just didn't have much in the way of resources nor interest in pursuing. This particular line of thought. The,, yeah. So I have more resources in this in this vein, and I'm much more interested in pursuing this line of thought. And it's actually one of the aspects of Black Sea that's sort of depressed me that people haven't really caught on with. Which is this idea that instead of sort of telling the. Know what it is that we are sort of asking the world. What is it anyway? So the part that I. Was going to read. I guess it's. Not really a quart, but it's just this. Idea that. Most of the indigenous anarchists that I've met have been natives. Because there are so few teacher. Of any of these sort of values in Western life, and I feel like . Again, like in the past, I would I would have engaged in a lot of criticism about how stupid ****** is, but I think the more the more difficult problem is the fact that what he has very few teachers and pursuing. Some of the other topics we've talked about during this episode. Most people. So first of all, they run away rather than sit down and sort of listen and learn. And second of all, there's a sort of dismissive attitude towards the slowness that any of these sort of. Perspectives would require. That is pretty much. It's the opposite of the Internet and. The opposite of the Internet is not searchable. So just to wrap up my sort of speech if I'm here for a second in the article, I do talk about some. Equals one of them is that everything is alive and that there. Are no objects. The second one is that memory is very important. The third one. The place is very important. 4th one that an extended family is central to sort of understanding what the. What the self is the problem, of course, is that the term family and in our in our context has so many burdens that it's. Harder to defend the language. But and then finally self-determination and radical decentralization, which basically is the desire for people who are self organized, whether by tradition. Choice or inclination to decide how they want to live with each. And so this has. This has something to do with terminology. In other words, this one of the reasons why in my practice today, I argue that calling yourself anarchist or sort of explicitly stating that you're in the family of those ideas is important, because that's what self-determination looks like, and perhaps what I'm saying about. Our friends who are abandoning them, abandoning them to you. Is that what they're really saying is that there is no self and explicitly there is no self determination possible.

Speaker 3: It's impossible not to immediately for me want to contrast or compare it, maybe with the kinds of complaints that we saw about people saying the subculture sucks and I'm aging and I'm dropping out because right they felt that they were in a place that was dead emotionally and passionately. That they there was number sort of memory. There was number subcultural memory of how to cope with conflict. There was no sense of place and a lot of people specifically said oh suddenly everyone was aging and dropping out and I didn't know where it was anymore and there was no sense of family that there was a feeling that the relationships were shallow. And I mean someone, even when I think it might be in the first comment on the thread. Was someone saying like we, we need places and I think they were saying we need that. These sort of rural, intentional community kind of places. And so I mean it's. I think it gives a certain bite to what you're writing immediately. To see some of the anarchists basically saying yeah, we don't have these. Values and that's why it sucks.

Speaker 1: Yeah, and the. Hard thing is it's not like in the. Articles it states the values clearly, which perhaps? This does is enough. I mean for. Me, I would like.

Speaker 3: That's something.

Speaker 1: Yeah it's something, but, but perhaps to me It’s my thought is how? How have I fallen short and not fallen short of achieving some of these values myself? I mean. Or perhaps it's a contrary conversation to the one of principles because you. A lot of. Natives are going to agree with this list of principles and if you look at their. Practice it isn't going to look like this at all. It's going to look like what how urban people? Have to live. Like I would say that. Talking about everybody. Being alive or and that there are no. Objects is a. Is a statement about time that I do not practice? My daily life. In my daily life I have a full time job and more, and then I have all these radical projects that I work on and the. The patients to. To just stop when there's when there's a moment of. Of the real. I don't have that patience, I drive right past it, just like everyone else does.

Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely. There was a particular line toward the I think it's in the middle of the piece that when I first read it and I didn't know you at all, and at this time you were just this body of text in the uncivilized anthology and it made me love the piece and it goes. I'm just going to quote it. The question that anarchists of all stripes have to answer for themselves is whether they are capable of dealing with the consequences of other people living in ways they find reprehensible. There are a lot of ways to parse this. You could say it's the difference between 1st and 2nd wave anarchy. You could say it's the. You know it's the difference between the Enlightenment anarchism and the indigenous anarchism. I mean there are lots of ways you can. Talk about it, but it. Actually, it was really perfect for me in the way that I was radicalized because I like to make the jokes that I'm one of the only anarchists I know. Who was radicalized by David Hume? Or I am the only? Anarchists I know. So and . So I read niche and Hume before I read any kind of people who call themselves anarchists. And then I went straight from that. Do you? Reading a lot of leftist stuff and the thing I could never. Deal with the leftism was after reading those two thinkers who are so at odds with that as these anarchists them reading. Now they want to. Write their views on the world. They want the global view. There's the real and the good and the true and it. Needs to be.

Unknown Speaker: Yeah, the goals.

Speaker 3: For the world, yeah. And even a lot of a lot of people who will say that they that they want to distance themselves from that enlightenment perspective will still like one of the things I. I like to. To mess with people when they're sort of. Putting forth the utopic vision is, what if the people on the other side of the hill are having sex in a way that you think is wrong and a lot of people who claim to be anti enlightenment who claim to be anti moralist will say yeah I would go over there and stop them. Would invade them.

Speaker 1: I mean the example. I hear a bit more often. Is what if that your. Neighbors are beating their wife.

Speaker 3: OK, yeah that means gets the same thing, yeah?

Speaker 1: Yeah, because most people say well sex who cares?

Speaker 3: Ohh no, I don't think so, I mean.

Unknown Speaker: Well, in.

Speaker 1: In left you annica circles. As long as there's a condom involved.

Speaker 3: Yeah, andm. I think it's a serious question.

Speaker 1: Well, I think we could wrap. It up, we've actually we're going a. Little long actually. I've heard it's. Going to do a.

Speaker 3: No, I just feel like I took up the end of it. With my weird monologue.

Ep. 2 – Imagination

Source

September 6, 2015

Episode Two – Imagination

This week we discuss stories about the role of anarchist (or alternate) media production and the end of Wild Reaction (RS). We then discuss imagination using Hakim Bey’s Millenium and Jesus Sepulveda’s Garden of Pecularity. Join us in conversation by email

Ticktock

Anarchist Media @ 3:20
Big city anarchism
Love & Rage
Closed mindedness
Audience
Motivation of anarchist media projects
Roy Burton breaks in
Wild Reaction @ 17:30 (18:20)
RS = not fun
M. Parenti & the role of the communique
Italian insurrectionary anarchism
CCF & the critique of militancy
ISIS & RS
Imagination @ 29:30
conversation cut short by technical issues
Black Seed is fucking awesome
Roy Burton is funny
Anti-civ Society of the Spectacle @ 42:20
Reification

URLs

RS morte
Role of Anarchist Media
Millenium
Garden of Peculiarities

Transcript

Speaker 1: We live in a.

Speaker 2: World where most stories are just variants of the same story, good beats, evil Cowboys and Indians. Profits and loss. This story has been told a. 1000 million times and. The ubiquity of. It is what I.

Speaker 3: Would call a.

Speaker 2: Great tragedy a tragedy because of the consequences it has on imagination future imagination. On our capacity to dream and on relationship. The Brilliant Podcast is an attempt to tell different kinds of stories, ones with complex moral plays, ones that aren't so clearly stories and ones that are of human size. Our motivation to tell these tales is a desire to see a proliferation of different stories and not just the simple morality plays of popular culture or the inverted but otherwise identical stories of the radical milieu. We believe that a world of free people is possible. We call these people the people. Who are in. Active pursuit of a free world. The brilliant. Because they are impossible. To ignore and yet cannot be seen directly, especially in a world that is dull and Gray. This podcast is going to flip between telling stories about the. Brilliant about brilliant moments. Ideally we will spend as much time laughing as we do, crying out in despair and the absence of a vibrant, textured and luminous shared real world. I am your host belony and I'm joined by co-host, Eragon.

Speaker 3: And one day I came in and a woman who had lost a child was talking to a robot in the shape of a baby seal. It seemed to be looking in her eyes. It seemed to be following the conversation. It comforted her and many people found this amazing.

Unknown Speaker: So I'm.

Speaker 4: Going to talk to you about you and how you.

Unknown Speaker: Can be brilliant every single day.

Speaker 4: Welcome, this. Episode two of the brilliant, Our little attempt to. Sort of break intopical conversations. With some deeper thoughts and some reflections based on our own experiences this week. Theme it's going to be imagination. We're going to talk about that the second-half of the show. The way that we'll begin, as we'll always begin is with something that looks like a review of the news. But I think specifically what that looks like is trying to talk in detail about some of the things that happened in the anarchist media over the prior week. This week we're going to talk about. The editorial that came out of the voice of the collective, which is the new group that's running anarchist. News.org and. Their topic for the week is what? Is the role of anarchist media. And yeah, I guess what do you?

Speaker 2: Think yeah, initially I couldn't help but recall in workers sort of retirement statement, suicide letter. The bit about a news ultimately being sort of for and about the fact that many people who have anarchist ideas. Are do not live in a place with a lot of anarchists. Do not necessarily talk to anarchists on a regular basis and. That struck me because that completely describes my radicalization experience, which I did not grow up in any kind of punk scene or anarchist scene. I did not live in an urban area where that kind of thing was happening. I lived very much the. Kind of archetypal Midwestern suburban life. Where don't so much talk to your neighbors. There's not really. Any place? To go grow up with the kind of dysfunctional family and eventually start to recognize that has to do with cultural forces and society has societal implications, and I basically came across these ideas by. Browsing around on the Internet and encountering anarchist mediand the first anarchist book explicitly anarchist book that I ever read was crime. Thinks days of war. Nights of love.

Speaker 4: Never heard of it.

Speaker 2: And later shortly after that was Derek Jensen's. End game. Yeah, and so I. Had a now what I recognize is this. Of stilted exposure to those ideas. But if not for anarchist media, I. I'm not sure what would have happened. I have been sitting with these doubts and questions but It wasn't until. I was 24 that I actually. Encounter numerous people who call themselves anarchists, and by then I had had those ideas for a long time, but it was only through media.

Unknown Speaker: Yeah, it's.

Speaker 4: Interesting to think about it from that perspective because I think that while that's true, the other thing that's true is that people who live in a place where there are a lot of anarchists oftentimes don't realize it or don't right sort of recognize it because the. The problem with radical politics in general is there aren't clear boundaries. So for instance, here in the Bay Area where there's at. Least four or five different anarchist scenes that all. Hate each other. There isn't. There isn't a clear sense of boundaries or the way in which boundaries are talked about are are, like air going funked up, so don't don't that so that represents a boundary. But ? But if you're a sort of an open minded person who wants to be exposed to new and different ideas, you might take that as like an invitation to like. Well, everyone's sucked up that means something that's worthwhile to chase down and to think about.

Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I actually was talking to a mutual friend of ours about this recently and he was saying actually you should be glad that you. Didn't grow up in anarchy scene and that. Wasn't the way. That you got radicalized because then you were able to think through things without having your ideas be turned into social currency or social. That then sort of buffets you about and becomes less of this, less of an exercise in how to critically think and more an exercise and social cache.

Speaker 4: Yeah, to me that's less about sort of anarchist as an aggregate, but it's about, be thankful you weren't raised by closed minded people. Or something like that, but. Most people were raised by closed minded people.

Speaker 2: I yeah, I definitely. Would yeah.

Speaker 4: Most people were raised by Christians or capitalists who spent their entire your entire formative years. You know, trying to insert certain ideas in your head. That said, about 15 years ago I was involved in a local group that did involve a person who was a quote quote black type of baby and.

Speaker 2: Oh really, OK.

Unknown Speaker: Yeah, and it was.

Speaker 4: It was interesting because the person was basically raised by love and rage. Do much about? Love and rage.

Speaker 2: Not so much.

Speaker 4: So love and rage nowadays. The terminology that's used is that they were a synthesis organization that did not require ideological uniformity for its membership. It was a federation and its later. Years, but it? It was the group that birthed Nethack and then whatever the later Nethack incantations have been incarnations. So love. And rage, if you were to pick. Up a love and rage paper today what you? Would basically see is sort of shouting. People fists in the air warning signs about the particular struggle that they were that they. Presented and so this young person who was very young in the context of the group 15 years ago. The main thing I would say about about them was that they were incredibly arrogant, especially around anarchist stuff, because it was their bread and. Butter bread. But they were not well read, they were not. Universally intelligent even about their anarchism. They just had a deep education in the sort of 1 type. And it was, it was. It was interesting because it was that sort of like the example. But it was an example of a person who's just raised by sort of intolerant people or close minded people. It wasn't, and in that way. Was no different than the one who came from Christian.

Speaker 2: Right, yeah, yeah, I think maybe the outsider perspective can have. That value of. Maybe you would call it humility, but also just I'm still learning things. There's a lot to learn. I'm not going to make these assumptions and end up with these crystallized belief structures.

Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that there is there is a thing to say about socialization in our country because by and large when people do come in from. From the outside, as you sort of described yourself. The way in which they learn and the way in which they sort of come of age does tend towards some uniform characteristics so.

Speaker 2: You gonna define me right now.

Speaker 4: No, actually I'm. Not thinking about in terms of you, but OK, that's fair. I think that actually. Yeah, an example of one of those characteristics. Is sounding a lot like the book that you. Thread so . So you read Kropotkin and all of a sudden you're seeing mutual aid everywhere you go, you're walking on the street. It's amazing biological organs, human beings, everyone is in a in a sort of unspoken.

Unknown Speaker: Cooperative dance, yeah.

Speaker 4: And then the next week you read. Stirner you're like? You see, Spooks everywhere all around you. People who think that they're cooperating. Actually locked in a set of lies. And that's real. That should be real, but actually to come back around. You know, I think what you're really. Getting at is that. The kids in the big city who get to talk to each other in some with some frequency are a. Are a subset of the audience of anarchist media. And it's hard to sort of discern how much. That they are that audience and how much that lone person sitting in front of a computer in the Midwest is, is the primary audience. Yeah, because if you look at the evidence like the comments, which mostly I don't want to talk about. If you look at the comments of the of a lot of anarchist news content, the. It seems like it's a pretty good. Mix, like the trolls probably are, . Either someone who has a dog. In the fight or that loner kid. Yeah, and but all the like know it alls. Who are sort of wanting to fight with each other in the context of the comment section seem to be big city. Kids who are, in a cooperative.

Speaker 2: It was.

Speaker 4: Our group house. Yeah, they’re dissing their roommate as much as they're dissing their ideological enemies or whatever.

Speaker 2: Yeah, and. A question that goes alongside this, which has always been one for me, is how big is that audience? How many people are there? How well distributed are they throughout this country and other countries, and. I guess there are some ways of. Knowing send the thousands.

Speaker 4: There are some ways of knowing. Yeah, yeah, I mean it's I. It's not enough to notice if you. Weren't looking at this news. I mean, look at a look at a new. Store in your local newspaper. Website and look at the tenor and the and the intensity of the comments and it doesn't seem like there's a lot of. Anarchy around. Just a lot of anarchists in small towns experience themselves as the as the lone voice in the in the in the group that they find themselves in. So let's say they have a problem with. Oil pipelines or whatever. You know? Most oil pipeline groups has the one anarchist and there's different archetypes what that one anarchist looks like, but that I think is a is a reasonable indicator of how many people are sort of like finding each other through anarchist media. I mean theartbreaking thing is that most people who find each other. Demographically would have found each other anyways?

Speaker 2: How do you? Mean because they would go to the same places. And they would.

Speaker 4: Same, they work at the same coffee shops they ? Yeah, they’re basically of. A of a type. Is my perception?, but, but perhaps that's my perception of a casual view of a casual reader of someone who's just coming into it rather than than the person who like there's a classic person in anarchist politics in the Bay Area called Kevin Keating and. Like no one would ever find him. He is literally the crank in the corner. You know, yelling at the stage, . Every time someone flubs the line or says something inappropriate, you would never find him.

Speaker 2: If not for meeting, so the way that you're framing this, it seems like you're getting at a certain impotence of anarchist media. By saying these people would have found each other anyway, and so I'm wondering for you what the thrust is. As someone who does a lot of anarchist media, I've heard some people such as agencies, say that the reason they want to. Do their media project as they want to live in a world with more anarchists so they seem to see a very clear, active kind of evangelism, anarchist evangelism and do you. Whereas I see you maybe seeing that the audience already exists and wanting to. Play to them rather than have the evangelist name, but I'll let you.

Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean having. The little black cart though the. Description You could make of it is that It’s serving a pre-existing audience rather than that's doing a particularly good job of finding a new audience. The problem with the with the agency position and actually it's one of the few comments in this in this stories thread that I thought was interesting. And basically said that the day the days of. By why mediare over that? What the cool kids are doing now is basically going into the inside and sort of burrowing from the inside.

Unknown Speaker: Trying to

Speaker 4: Yes, steer from within very. Good and in this way the cheapness, the affordability of digital options does come to bear. So, for instance, the clearest example in the energy space of borrowing from within is Mask magazine, right? They took the lowest hanging fruit. Which is vice which is. Doing a fantastic job of reaching the demo. And they basically parried it, parried it from from bow to stern. And so I really took that as a provocation, like when I saw the that's what they were doing and I really thought long and hard about sort of what that looks like compared to the projects. I would like to do. And 1st of. I'm absolutely incapable of doing it right. I'm 20 years outside.

Speaker 5: So there are some technical difficulties there. Microphone shift to bed and now airborne and bell and we have to wait for us a few. Minutes into the future. I'll get you caught up. They basically. Wrap up their conversation about media. Say some things about mask having an impossible task they evangelize with a simple message that says riots are good, which resonates well with youth, but that's about it, and the idea of people burrowing, imagining themselves infiltrating a. Big company in a skyscraper and working their way. Up into a position of influences. A kind of laughable and untenable position. Anyway, then we move on. To the next piece, which was the. Piece by wild reaction. S post ITS group. Its being individuals tending towards the wild groups that committed several actions against industrialists and technoculture down in Mexico. They wrote a series of interesting post Kaczynski manifestos. Change your name to Rs and divided of oops. Bellamy mentions that the piece reminded him or got him thinking about a Wolfie essay in which. Wolfie talks about communiques and doesn't like communiques where people take on names or align their actions with grand causes and he sees this as self. That it's better to be anonymous so that you're not creating some larger than life mythology that's over and above you. And you've. The sense that's what this group was feeling. Which is why they're deciding. Break into four separate groups and voters. Ways, and arathorn disagrees. And here's him telling you why he left you for a second. But it. Will clear up.

Speaker 4: Yeah, I think I probably feel a little. Bit differently than I'll be. This because. I think that what's interesting to me. Or I guess I never take these names that seriously. Like other things, I love about CS and the groups are on the around when CF's are originating. We're like they listed like the group, so the part of CF they lose at least 20 different names. And they were just there, right? They were wonderfully fun and. I like that idea of that of that sort. Of grandeur because I. Don't take this stuff. And so in that way that what's been? Interesting to me. Well, reaction has been the way in. Which they very much sound much more. Like European groups than they than they sound like crime. Think for instance and. And but they don't have. They don't bring any of the fun with them like this. Wild reaction. Not fun.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I, I wonder. Just to press you on this a bit and also to kind of reveal some of my early Marxist reading roots. I'm reminded of Michael Parenti.

Speaker 4: And well. And his.

Speaker 2: Father's in.

Speaker 4: Michael, no Michael's the father.

Speaker 2: Yeah, like Christian or something. Right? So Michael ParentIn democracy for the few, talked about the in one of the roles of mass media is to. People who might think of themselves as ordinary people feel that they can't do anything to change society, and part of that is that the typical. Stories that we are given by large movies, for instance, is that things change because of heroic larger than life figures. And often it's just one or a few people. Often they have special powers or something like that, or that they're otherwise marked as not being like everyone else, and it's. Because of their. Behavior that things change. It's not because of anyone that looks like an ordinary person, and so I, I think sometimes these communiques can be resonant of those sorts of hero stories where you see people. Doing this, let's say again, Midwestern kid in the suburbs doesn't know any other anarchist reads this and thinks, whoa **** this crazy. I can't imagine ever doing this and these people have these dramatic names and they're doing all this crazy stuff, and that's not something that I could ever do. And so I wonder with. The kind of anonymous and. Anonymous name and the lack of talking about yourself in these large and life terms. I for instance there was one. Several months ago that came up in a news of these people who had to damage some kind of rail system and they put it in very frank simple terms and said we did this. It was easy. You can do this too, and so forth, and that to me is very different than the way a wild reaction story or the late wild reaction reads.

Speaker 4: Well, the second one, the plain language. This how we did it. This what we did story that comes out of. The Italian insurrectionary anarchist tradition. Right? The idea of the political practice being creating easily reproducible actions. The core of Bananos critique of militant groups like Wild reaction and that's and that's where sort of the rubber hits the road. Now, because the CCF, you can describe it as the child of Alexis, right? That Alexis being killed in 2009. In Athens and then the accompanying 3 to 4. Peak fear, fear uprising true insurrectionary moment that. Well so. Anyways the CCF were. Born in that moment, right? So that's. We'll, we'll start there. And they were born. And it was born by young people, right? In other words, like Athens has this, incredibly established, 10 times larger than the Bay Areanarchist. And those people are gnarly like, meaning that if you're 17 years old and you go into a room with those people talking, there's no way you're going to speak. There's no way you're going to try to engage them as peers because you're not peers and so the story as the story goes in the context of CF. These kids sat down with it with each other. And we're like. What ideas do we have? What do we want to do about this? This thing that we're unhappy about? And that’s CF and that's why CF echoes militant stuff more than it echoes sort of the grinding 30 year struggle of anarchist in the context of Athens. It's sort of like it's this generational shift. I mentioned that because. Wild reaction has a similar feel, but probably even more sort of lost in the woods. I mean, I think that there's. One thing that. Word reaction and its before them really teach me is how important translation is, because basically these groups came into existence as soon as society and its future. The. The Ted Kaczynski document.

Speaker 2: Technological society or, techno, industrial society, that's future.

Speaker 4: It took that text being translated into Spanish.

Speaker 2: Oh really, OK.

Speaker 4: For its to exist.

Speaker 2:, and that happened recently, fairly and.

Speaker 4: And to me that moment, and . And it could very well be that someone found it in the lot in their library, and pulled it out and talked to their friends. And their friends were excited. And it. And it, and especially, marrying the news headlines to this document. All of a sudden. You know you have this very this moment that is. Inspired by the word, the people of the word, the green people of the word, but. So to me, I guess that's kind of more where I go is in this direction of? Like why is militant groups in the in the seven in the 1970s definition of it? Why is there a resurgence of that? I think that we've talked about Chris Lebedeff before. But Chris Lebedev, business publisher out of the Montreal area who is absolutely fetishistic really about militant groups, and so they've been publishing for 10 years. These these monster tones, and they're now an imprint of PM press. But if you look at them, it's like, Red Army. Faction, ? It’s like all. The big groups from the 70s. And these books are seemingly immune to the fact that there's been a lot of thinking about these groups and why we don't want to sort of parallel ourselves to them. And yeah, anyway. So I. I mentioned them because they're one of the sort of few English language. Propagandizes of militancy in the. In this old tradition, but these new groups, are sort of a new take on. An old idea which is like you say. You know it. It is, sort of. These special, unique, wonderful.

Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean some. Of the adjectives that they even use. I mean, I think, of course they're intentionally taking on these. What are usual? Usually conceived of as denunciation labels, they call themselves extremists terrorists. They say that they are psychotic. Even in this one. Yeah, they see psychosis.

Speaker 4: Yeah so. I mean, but again, I. Still love ****. Like some of the names of. The groups Lord of the Green.

Speaker 7: That's fine, yeah, that's.

Speaker 4: Lurking Wildcats rain of arrows. So wonderful, but again, I guess perhaps I have a different position about. Reality or something like I don't see myself dying by the gun by gunfire. 20 years ago I did and I'm sure that when they when they process all these documents through the through their FBI smart machines, that's sort of stuff that they really come up with is like they're from this age to this age. They are from this part of the country, but yeah.

Speaker 2: Surprised that this recent posting on the news didn't get quite as much as hate as wild reaction you usually does, which was, back when they first came out, was provoking rider and life free radical radio to sort of be their most ardent defender.

Speaker 4: I mean I'm. Not sure what that's about I, it could very well because this came out. In August and even. Anarchists are on vacation in August.

Speaker 2: OK yeah. Just usually this like. I mean there were some crazy things being said before, like comparing them to the Islamic State.

Speaker 4: Well, why do you think that's unfair?

Speaker 2: Because I. My main issue, which was pushing me to their defense earlier, was this kind of. Equation of any kind of killing with therefore being motivated by. A desire to dominate, exploit, or exterminate or engage in genocide and to me, it really just seemed like conflation, I mean. Not to get too deep into the problems of intentionality, but I think different kinds of violence are going to have very different outcomes, and I didn't see the violence that they seem to be engaging in as leading to that kind of domination. And I also think there is a kind of. I don't know what to. Call it something like. Fetishization of deontology where I don't think that performing certain actions that will result in certain people's deaths. Is seen as categorically different from a kind of passivity and inaction that makes you complicit. I think in other kinds of destruction and death. Does that make sense? I mean.

Speaker 4: Go ahead, I guess.

Unknown Speaker: OK.

Speaker 4: The counter argument would be that. ISIS didn't begin. The day that they raised the. Like right ISIS began 3040 years ago with, the assassination of Sadat, with the sort of rise of radical Islamic perspectives which you could put in this sort of category.

Speaker 2: I mean the genesis of ISIS could be said as having some kind of liberatory.

Speaker 4: Element absolutely, I mean especially for Muslim but actually I'm going further, I'm saying. Thing that 30 years ago 40 years ago the radical Islamists might have looked like what we're looking at right now in wild reaction. In other words, when they make the parallel, they're not saying that wild reaction is. Like I said, this. They're saying that this seed there is ISIS fruit in decades future.

Speaker 2: Well, I do think definitely any kind of dualistic thinking, I think is very dangerous and I think dualistic thinking has the kind of seed. Maybe that you're talking about. And I do see that from them.

Speaker 4: One of my strongest memories of being a poor kid mostly left to my own devices. Was playing with McDonald's Happy Meals. I vividly recall. Some of the detritus that was around in my bedroom that looked like spools of thread without with a thread gone. Combined with the Hamburglar plastic pencil Topper toy from a from McDonald's made a perfectly adequate spaceship, that in particular I remember enjoying because of its docking capacity and then in years future. I eventually got enough Legos where I sort of emulated what I did with the Hamburglar toy with Legos that was sort of the more official way to do similar sorts of things that could actually look like a spaceship rather than hamburglar hugging a spool of thread. I at the time I probably felt very alone. Very like. Yeah I felt alone. But in hindsight those were the moments that made. Me who I am today, the creativity of using things for different purposes and they were intended for the hours of obsession about how different things fit together. And finding the correct spool thread for my plastic. Toy, the. The general umbrella that I use to think about this set of conditions that I feel like I experienced in my youth is imagination, so I've always talked about imagination being what I would consider one of my anarchist principles. So today we're going to talk a little bit about imagination. We're going to use a couple essays to sort of fuel that conversation, so we'll mostly be talking about text. But texts whole stays as a is a wrapper around the part that I think is important, which is imagination.

Speaker 1: Hold your breath, make a wish. Count to 3. Come with me and you'll be in a world of pure imagination.

Speaker 7: Hey Carlos.

Speaker 1: And you'll see. Into your imagination.

Speaker 7: We'll begin. With a spin travelling. In the world of my creation. We'll see will define. You if you want to view Paradise, simply look around and you will. Thing you want to do, you want to change the world.

Speaker 1: There's nothing to.

Speaker 4: So the two articles we're going to. Talk about are two. Books actually is a book called Millennium by Hocking Bay and a. Book called the. Garden of peculiarities. By Jesus Sepulveda, and obviously a lot of what I'll talk about is the context of. These books and why they? Were important at their time, but again, I hope not to lose focus on the part of both of those texts that I really like, which is that which is their. Like from the way in which anarchists think about problems prior to these texts. So let's begin with talking about Millennium.

Speaker 2: She or something I really liked that Hakim Bay says when he is in the interview at the beginning of this book, he the interviewer is asking him about how he Often we'll lay multiple narratives on top of each other, which reminded me of how you like to talk about telling stories and telling stories as the kind of basic human action. Activity and he has a line where he says something about stack these origins or conceptual frameworks on top of each other and I was thinking about. Imagination versus religious thinking or reification? And whether they might be thought of dualistically as these sort of opposite impulses, and how maybe one of the strengths of imagination from anarchist perspective is this kind of theoretical openness and. Resistance to. Having a kind of single answer and that. I guess I'm jumping ahead. I was connecting it to something Sepulveda says which we're going to talk about later where he says that the state materializes itself in the minds of individuals and how it might be that the kind of surrendering to one story or one totalizing narrative is very closely tied with authority, whereas the openness to multiple narratives. Laying these narratives on top of each other, like Hakeem Bay talks about is, pushes one more toward anarchist tendency.

Speaker 4: Yeah, that's interesting. So part of the context of talking about the Hacking Bay Book is, is and. And obviously we're talking about imagination. You know you immediately provoke me to talk about these two books that we just published by Peter Lamborn. Wilson, which is the legal name of the pseudonym of Hacking Bay. And the two books were called. The spiritual journey spiritual journey of anarchist and spiritual destinations of anarchist. And what is very compelling about these two books and obviously the reason we published them in. The way that. We did is that he didn't go to. Africa he didn't go to Italy. He basically went on this journey post the 60s, the anti Vietnam era. He went to the Middle East and this because he had he had found something in the Islamic tradition that he wanted to sort of pursue. He then spent ten years of his life pursuing that vision and he didn't really come back. In any sort of way, an Orthodox Muslim, and when you read his spiritual books today, they don't feel like interpretations of the Islam.

Speaker 7: See you.

Speaker 4: Tradition they feel like something freaky and new. And even though I, I oftentimes make fun of sort of chaos magic and that whole sort of family of very Western interpretations of people's ideas I recognize in that category that there is a. A depth and an intensity that I basically am not open to and not ready for. But I do respect. I respect it as a sort of yearning attempt towards towards this.

Speaker 2: When you say you're not ready. For it

Speaker 4: Well, not ready for it because I find it ridiculous. I meand laughable and.

Unknown Speaker: You know?

Speaker 2: But I guess you do come back to this. You know telling stories and I think I've often heard you say certain things that echo the kind of sentiment that I was getting at and in a lot of ways, I think the practice of theory critical theory could be a practice of telling lots of different stories to ourselves and to our friends to try to. Push us in a direction that we want. And so when you say it's ridiculous, what aspects of it do you mean? Because I actually I'm going to come out and say I know almost nothing about chaos, magic and. It's not really the it's not something I'm drawn toward reading about, but I understand that there's, I think a certain aversion to the single totalizing narrative, and rather this idea that. The world's fundamentally inscrutable and all we can do is look at it. With different sorts.

Speaker 4: Of lenses, yeah, I'm going to. I'm going to read cast magic in. In the best possible light because. From my perspective, like. Chaos magic is this hodgepodge of all kinds of other people's traditions and.

Speaker 2: Right, yeah?

Speaker 4: And so on. The one hand, sort of. I have an aversion to that, sort of.

Speaker 2: Colonial gaze colonial.

Speaker 4: Gays, but on the other hand it has these Anton Lavey Esque sort of things and Anton Lavey is pretty famous for like you. Know wearing a high. Cowl cloak. You know having. A shaved head and And a wicked. You know goatee. Like he was a circus performer, he was the PT Barnum PT. PT Barnum of spirituality and chaos Magic absolutely is touched by that aspect. So for me the what I'm getting at when I'm sort of talking. About this that. Like there's something there that is that is a true moment for a lot of people, and perhaps we could, just, change this conversation to being about Catholicism, which has very similar aspects of being on the one hand, a circus show, on the other hand, a whole bunch of other. People's cultures.

Speaker 1: Right?

Speaker 4: And so in. In both cases, like I get that there's something there that something. Is not for me. But that doesn't mean that I that I sort of like shut down my brain and not accept the fact that there's something real here. I'm actually in the middle of writing a piece for the next black seed. That's on animism. And one of the things I sort of say about animism. You know that obviously we all can accept sort of the animistic animistic program. The way in. Which we would experience that moment, that animistic moment is absolutely filled with all these other things. In other words, we can lean down and appreciate a rock and then stand. Back up and feet.

Speaker 5: So we lost another battle against Skynet. This time the machines took 13 minutes of conversation. It's way too glitchy to even get a synopsis from Aragorn, said something about animism. I'm pretty. Sure, Bellamy said reify. That's a good one, right reify?

Speaker 6: Hi anyway.

Speaker 5: To learn more about Aragorn.

Speaker 6: 's thoughts on animism. Pick up the next. Issue of black suit. And even if you don't care where you're going asked to say about animism, pick up the copy anyway. Because black seed is ******* awesome. Anyway, now we rejoin here going and Bellamy. We're wrapping up the discussion about Millennium and talking about John Zerzand Iron. As for how they wound up on. This topic you'll just.

Speaker 5: Have to use your imagination.

Speaker 4: But at least he's going so far as to say, and this what postmortems do, rather than just whatever using the accusation. And I also think it's a it's. It's him being a little dated. You know, in other words, like. Like some like. You know the way in which irony irony was, was a sort of prime cultural thing at that that moment in time and then sort of theadlines. Around 2001 was that this was the day that irony died, but basically a whole type of sense of humor that was the 90s that was. TV shows like friends? Yeah and sure and. Sort of just the. Cultural firmament that was over once the towers came down.

Speaker 2: Because were brought crashing back to the real or OK?

Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean this was gone in a couple of years but for the about a two year window it was like everyone was like. We all agree the joke was over exactly.

Speaker 2: And to get serious, yeah.

Speaker 4: It's time to get serious and. Anyway, so I feel like that's like.

Speaker 2: It's dating this book, sure.

Speaker 4: Yeah, the fact that AK. Published those, it's just wild in hindsight yeah.

Speaker 2: They haven't found their feet yet, I guess.

Speaker 4: OK, well let's talk about Jesus. So just a little preface, for those of you who don't know and for you, Hazel Sepulveda is an active professor at the University of Oregon in Eugene is close personal friends with John. Suzanne this book for many years was reprinted in G Magazine and was sort of talked about as like the Anti Sieve Society. The spectacle, so in the so it had this kind of significant importance about 10 years ago, or soon after it came out, because it was. You know, reprinted in GA, so it was sort of talked about on and. Going on and because it's sort of like was given this like it's a pretty high. Mantle to call. Your book a modern society this.

Speaker 2: Fact, but it is that as far as its impact or as far as its direction.

Speaker 4: Or I think it's afterwards the tone. OK, sure. And the fact that what it was talking about was important. Capital I.

Unknown Speaker: Yeah, what were your?

Speaker 2: Thoughts well I went on a long philosophical rant about it, for which I was mocked earlier but I was very much struck by the way that he was talking about this. Actually, I mean it. It's perfect with the storytelling which I touched on briefly before where he keeps coming back to theme of. We're told this the best of all possible worlds, or at least the. Best that will actually fund. And so again, just touch on theme to me when were talking about imagination and stories that it tells an account of civilization such that it becomes the story that we keep telling ourselves in a way that it almost drones and drones and drowns out all other possibilities. And then therefore this kind of. Static behavior goes along with it and this kind of repetitive grinding work wage dye life cycle. That eliminates other possibilities.

Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean. The terminology he uses to describe that is domestication. And I've never been. A big fan of using the word. Domestication as a.

Speaker 2: If it gets a very fraught, difficult word.

Speaker 4: Yeah, like obviously both Kevin and John, but especially Kevin thinks that's his theoretical contribution is sort of like, . He really gets into the into the what it means to be domesticated and to domesticate. And yeah, for me, I'd never have resonated with that whole approach, mostly because I just don't feel like it says enough for. Sort of. Like a sure shrug. What's next? But because he uses that word hazels, he uses the word. I mean, yeah, I mean. I just feel like that's perhaps part of why that terminology is so coded for the anarcho primitivist perspective, but this book is clearly not. Medical primitive book. I mean, there's absolutely nothing other than the fact that he's John's personal friend GA carried the book and reprinted it. That's the only connection this. Book has to AP. That said, I. I do find the book in general to just be like. Like I guess it never engaged me. Like society, the spectacle did but. Thoroughly pleasant, pleasant book that almost feels like the sort of thing you discussed with friends over one which perhaps is my problem with. It not just.

Speaker 2: Say you don't drink.

Speaker 4: Not yeah, I mean not. Only is it due to being.

Speaker 2: Straight Edge, but it's not a safe space for it.

Speaker 4: But there's something soft about it that. It doesn't work for me personally because I'm not soft and I don't like things that are I tend not. To like. Things that are soft. My theory doesn't use a.

Speaker 2: Pillow, it's very conversational style, and it's. It's clearly it's actually was quite surprised. You told me that it came from a professor because it's not. Academic at all. He doesn't cite. Anything, even when he makes references to specific people, he actually makes a reference to Society of the spectacle and then, and it's. I found it. Very pleasant to read in the way you described it didn't. I don't feel like I got anything new from it. It was more just a way of talking about ideas in a different way that I had had, which is why I went off on that whole reef itself, because that's. One of the things that's most. Exciting to me.

Speaker 4: You're excited about being verified.

Speaker 2: I'm excited about recognizing my reification.

Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean. I mean it was written 10 years ago and he had more than almost 15 years ago and he and he mentioned Jejak, which is sort.

Speaker 2: Of funny he was not such a big thing at that time, yeah.

Speaker 4: I don't know well. Well, I'm not. Sure how to wrap this off with the. Discourse on imagination.

Unknown Speaker: But I will.

Speaker 4: Say that the thing I really do like about him is the fact that yeah, he's a professor who doesn't sound like a professor, which perhaps has to do with the fact that he's named Grant and his immigrant. Status has has more to do. His voice sounds more like his immigrant status than it does like his. Academic credentials, but what I like about this book to the extent to which we will say that it's the AP or the Anti Civilization Society spectacle, is that it does feel more., like it, it's not a pedagog. It's not a polemic. And in that way I feel like anarchists have a lot to learn from a text like this, because you can't actually say things without sounding like you're beating people over thead with the right with the right answer, and I feel like a lot. Of our writing is suffering from that burden, including some of the other pieces we read just today.

Speaker 2: Wild reaction.

Speaker 4: OK, well thank you very much for listening to. This episode 2. Of the brilliant.

Ep. 1 – Projectuality

Source

August 30, 2015

Episode One – Projectuality

This the first episode of The Brilliant podcast, an attempt to tell different kinds of stories, ones with complex moral plays, ones that aren’t so clearly stories, and ones that are of human size. Our motivation to tell these tales is a desire to see a proliferation of different stories and not just the simple morality plays of popular culture or the inverted, but otherwise identical, stories of the radical milieu.

We will be accomplishing our storytelling mostly by way of editorializing and discussing themes in an informal, conversational style. Join us in conversation by email

Themes

News Analysis @ 2:40
Projectuality (starts around
animism
simplistic name calling about cooptation
reification & civilization
For and against everything
The dialectic
Space Travel @ 22:00
wrenching vs post-SI theory
living in a car in space
space
arcologies
the enclosures
brick
Projectuality @ 37:20
Too long of a wolfi reading
what does it mean to be free
Free will
vectors
projects vs organization
stirner?
baby steps

URLs

The New Nihilism by Peter Lamborn Wilson
The Anvil Review issue 5
Illegalist Space Program in Four Parts
AAA – Association of Autonomous Astronauts
Against the Logic of Submission
Canenero
LBC link for print version of Canenero

Transcript

Speaker 1: You live in a world where most stories are just variants of the same story. Good needs, evil Cowboys and Indians. Profits and loss. This story has been told 1000 million times, and the ubiquity of it. It's what I would call a great tragedy tragedy because of the consequences it has had.

Speaker 2: And the imagination the future.

Speaker 1: And our capacity to dream and in our relationships. The brilliant podcasts in an attempt to tell different kinds of stories, ones with complex moral plays, ones that are so, including stories and ones that are of human size. Our motivation to tell these tales is a desire to see proliferation of different stories and not just the simple morality plays of popular culture or the inverted but otherwise identical stories of the radical milieu. We believe that a world of free people as possible we call these people the people who are in active pursuit for free world. The brilliant, because they're impossible to ignore and yet cannot be seen directly, especially in a world that is dull and Gray. This podcast would have flipped between telling stories about the brilliant about brilliant moments. Ideally we will spend as much time laughing as we do crying out in despair with the absence of a vibrant.

Speaker 2: Texture shared real world.

Speaker 1: I'm your host Herbort, joined by co-host Bellamine.

Speaker 3: And one day I came in and a woman who had lost a child was talking to a. Robot in the shape of a baby seal. It seemed to be looking in her eyes. It seemed to be following the conversation. It comforted her and many people found this amazing.

Speaker 1: So I'm going to talk to you about.

Unknown Speaker: You and how?

Speaker 3: You can be brilliant different single day.

Speaker 1: OK, so this section we're going to call what's new with the brilliant, and we're going. To talk a little bit about. News stories that have struck us over the past. Chunk of time. Because this our first episode, we're not going to limit what we're going to talk about to the last week, and instead we're just going to talk about some articles that have come out over the past couple of weeks that intrigue us. The first one. We'll talk about is actually a piece that was. Submitted to the anvil. Which is a. The newspaper Slash website Project that I started a long time ago and hasn't. Totally thrived, but Peter Lamborn Wilson after I visited him in Woodstock NY, wrote us this beautiful piece called the new Nihilism, which is sort of like, in my estimation, a romantic, almost like a love note to the modern kids that least by his view, that we're doing something right. So I really love the piece and intended it to stay as just a paper piece. But then someone typed it up and submitted it to anarchist news. And so we're going to talk about it.

Speaker 4: Yeah, I think calling it a love note to the kids or a kind of romantic take is perfect because you see how this person who has lived through so much has seen so much has travelled so much, has gone through all these different stages of his thinking, has come to this same kind of disillusioned, yet still cautiously romantic place that I think a lot of young anarchists are. That today and so it's sort of reassuring in a way to see that. I guess you could say one of the elders of Anarchy has arrived in a similar place, but also kind of jarring to think, wow, am I just so jaded at such a young age? I didn't get to experience all these stages of hope. I never lived through the 60s. Didn't I didn't see this thing of? Where various people were cautiously saying wait a minute. Maybe it's tipping in our favor. Maybe we're going to see this free world even if it probably wouldn't have been the free world that I would. Like to see that?

Speaker 1: Yeah, as inspiring. Quote UN quote. As the Occupy period was that was never, at least, from anyone I talked to with the illusion that it was ever going to, pop beyond like a world globe changing phenomenon, and especially when you think. About the fact that like. In his life, not only did he have that moment, he then decided to take that energy and travel the Middle East.

Unknown Speaker: Right?

Speaker 1: For the for a decade, which which, again, like from our perspective.

Speaker 4: Right?

Speaker 1: Seems insane.

Unknown Speaker: Yeah yeah.

Speaker 4: Completely inside well, yeah I just was going to say that it.

Speaker 1: Go ahead.

Speaker 4: I think this brings us to what is the were just saying is the unintentional sort of theme of the episode which is talking about escape and ideas of space and I would like to move toward the. Active escapism, but it sounded like you.

Speaker 1: Were going to yeah I want to talk about this article before just because again, there's so many things in it that I think are really. Specifically, he actually talks about animism, which I think right now . There's a sort. Of little buzz of people talking about the distinction between animism, polytheism and monotheism. And here I'm just going to read from the article. As animist, I experienced the world outside civilization as essentially sent to you. The death of God means the rebirth of the. Gods as nature. Implied in his last mad letters from.

Speaker 2: The resurrection of the great.

Speaker 1: God pan chaos arrows. Gaiand old Knights. As Consag put it. Ontological anarchy desire. Life itself and the darkness of revolt and negation all seem to me as real as they. Need to be. I mean, this just so nice and even though of course I being a punk rather than a hippie, I. Sort of can't. I can't get. Behind some of the some of the language, but. But I. Obviously I think. That he is. He is one of the few of the of the elder anarchists that I think that you really can return to as like a fount a fountain of most of the ideas we're talking about today and that he talked about them. 20-30 years ago.

Speaker 4: I was actually struck as this passage being kind of odd because to me in my. The very limited understanding of animism to even be deifying and naming these forces seems already to be engaging in that kind of splitting of the world and the kind of personification that I see as antithetical to animism, where I very much see a kind of dissolving of identity, a world of just relations and not objects. Whereas when we put these. And to me Gaia. Actually it implies a certain level of alienation because you're othering basically everything that's non human. Or maybe everything other than yourself, and so you're still in this divided relationship or a subject object relationship. I wasn't quite sure what to make of that, actually.

Unknown Speaker: Well, I think.

Speaker 1: That the thing that's important about. Peter is the is the flow more than getting stuck in any any of the details?

Speaker 4: I’m a detail oriented guy.

Speaker 1: Fair enough but I mean you. Know he's all about like. I mean, .

Speaker 4: He's gonna rattle off, he's gonna shotgun approach. Yeah, I mean I appreciate. It I, I think, actually chaos, I think is the nicest. One there but.

Speaker 1: And it's not capitalized, but the. The I think the. Point to him that I do find to be. You know it, It’s. I guess he's really Westernized, so a very large body of ideas that he's totally unfairly, chaining them all together and. Yeah, I. Don't know, I just I think that. That his promiscuity is interesting to me, even though I sort of would, wouldn't do it. Myself, yeah I.

Speaker 4: Mean how do you feel about these Western takes on animism in general, and whether it's Peter or someone else it? It seems to be something anarchist you're talking about more lately.

Speaker 1: Well, I guess my concern. Which is pretty obvious, is that people are going to spoil what's valuable about the idea of animism by sort of talking it to death. I mean you. Know one of my biggest criticisms of the way in which comment threads often boil down on anarchist news is into these incredibly simplistic. Sort of terms like I don't think they calling someone anarcho liberal or whatever name it is that you call. Someone ends the conversation. I mean, that said, the problem is that how do you? How do you? Force someone to. Yeah, I mean the I guess. I don't think the purpose. Is necessarily to like argue the point. All the time, but there's but there's. Something between Pedantically, arguing every point and. Calling people liberals that. That gap seems really huge. And obviously, the preponderance of things are on the one side. So in the case of animism. To the extent to which I respect where Peter's coming from, he's he's daring to say something that's a little weird.

Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, he definitely takes risks.

Speaker 1: Which is, yeah, yeah, exactly and so, for instance, I'm not sure I would basically accept the first sentence prior to where he starts to go.

Speaker 4: What's fun about us?

Speaker 1: Go crazy. And in tying every. You know myth. Dark age, middle European sort of idealong with tying it to and in other words, the first sentence which says as animals. I experience the world outside. Civilization is essentially sentient that break that break. That's a huge break right there. That basically says we live in a world that is not sent. And that outside civilization, their sentience. I don't give civilization that much power.

Speaker 4: Well also, I mean. I can't even get that far without saying, well wait where? Where is it outside?

Speaker 1: Right, yeah, for sure, no for sure, but this actually a central conceit behind the anti civilization perspective. That to me doesn't seem fully thought out.

Speaker 4: How do you mean?

Speaker 1: Is this conversation inside or outside civilization?

Speaker 4: Right, sure, yeah.

Speaker 1: Like. And to the extent to which civilization is just being used as a metaphor. Then don't give. It the power to basically take spirit out of the things in your in your life.

Speaker 4: Yeah, and one of my typical complaints when someone writes anti SIV essay, which I would argue this one is that. If they don't define civilization, even though I realize it's really tiresome to start somebody essays by saying what I mean by civilization is, then it leaves you just with these dangling questions. I think can't be resolved. Is civilization a certain set of behaviors? Is civilization's mode of reified. Is civilization a set of infrastructure and so? Again, back to your question, is this in or outside civilization? Because then you could say well if civilizations are largely the set of rigid beliefs and codified behaviors that we all reproduce in all of our activity, then you could argue that these kinds of conversations are a kind of exit, however momentarily from it. But if it's.

Speaker 1: And if you don't essentially accept that, then you're basically. Willing, willing yourself into prison rather than whether than talking about exit hatches the way in which this ends. Actually reminds me of one of the things I think is the most important thing. About Peter, especially, . When he was called Hawking Bay.

Speaker 4: So did he. He left that.

Speaker 1: Name behind he was left it behind for the obvious reason that he no longer wants to be tarred with the with the immediate place where people always go. When they talked about being gay, which is as the poet of pedophiliand probable pedophilia. Celiac because there is still one.

Speaker 4: I think there's more than one, yeah?

Speaker 1: I think political. Political correct has has definitely brought us some more tattoos but this? This tattoo is. You know, yeah, it's. Pretty strong, but. Cross cultural post left anarchism in general has never. Successfully argued for a sort of positive position. Yeah, but he has. Which is the Taz and lots of people poo poo it but I almost never hear a particularly like strong reason for why. Why they can? Poo poo it yeah? Anyway, so he mentions Taz at the end and he sort of talks about like no matter which of the three paths one takes. It seems to me that the essential thing is not to collapse. Demeyere apathy, which obviously everyone agrees that passive nihilism is, is less than.

Speaker 4: Or hyper pessimism, or whatever paralyzing. Yeah, he says something. I think it's right around there where he says I could never bring myself to be against everything, which I think were just talking yesterday about a jodah which has taken the stance of being critical. Pure pure criticism and eschewing any kind of. Being for anything and the question to me is that it does. Is the aversion there that being for anything, even if it's just being for certain things in your own life? Do people see that as prescriptive, or at least implicitly prescriptive? And is that the fear is the fear just this hyper allergy of programmatics? That even saying, hey, I like taking walks outside is even that is somehow you’re laying down, you're prefiguring oh you think well we should be spending more times out of doors. Are you making claims about? What kind of infrastructure we're going to have?

Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I think all those things are true I also. Think that there's something in here about. About critiquing other people's revolutionary programs and when you're engaged in that kind of exercise which for many years, Joe to engage itself in this monologue against me. Fact against, pretty much anyone who would sort of step up and say we think that the revolution is going to happen in this way. And so then ojota would say, well, This why. You're wrong and would generally do. A solid job of making the argument. And that's why nowadays almost none of the sort of struggle lismo groups actually make a claim to revolution other than in very general terms.

Speaker 4: Widening the ruptures

Speaker 1: During yeah, like I mean that if that. Isn't a mystical description of how I don't.

Unknown Speaker: Know what it is.

Speaker 4: Well, also if I think if it isn't just like a cautious recapitulation where we're not saying there's going to be a moment, it's going to happen at this time, but there will be many moments there happening at various times, and we're still going to play that. Kind of. Agitator role and it. I think it's more fuskator. I claim that's not actually all that different.

Speaker 1: Well, I mean, I guess it to come around to close that piece of it off. I feel like the for and against modality that we're talking about here is like, isn't the goal. And I hate the fact that as someone who has been seen as being really critical of other people's activity. Then that has sort of forced me to be seen as being like against rather than for and the deep simplicity of that. I think it's been a huge barrier to radical engagement with other people to doing more interesting things and. That doesn't mean that I'm enthusiastically for things I think are dumb, but it means that I, I think that the answers and solutions are more complicated.

Speaker 4: So just maybe what was it 2 weeks ago the. The A news topic of the week was negation versus affirmation, and so, but you seem to be. Lying to me here that you'd like to see that. That caught me dissolved.

Speaker 1: I think that. It’s worthwhile to talk about things in sort of epochal ways, in other words, to like, talk to, to talk through what does it mean to be for a position or for? And then, of course, to say against. But I think that the personal. Obligation is torture both of them the way I normally talk. About this. Is in the context of negation Mm-hmm like I'm not for negation. Personally, because I don't think that you can talk about negation outside of the dialectic. And if you're participating in the dialectic you're participating in. A sort of. False complication that. As all these were of historical antecedents that you generally are not talking about.

Speaker 4: Because you have to be the antithesis of thesis, and so then what you feel that people end up being trapped in grand narratives or OK.

Speaker 1: Generally, that's how it works, yeah?

Speaker 4: For sure, OK. So then that would put you on the affirmation or.

Speaker 1: Well, no it wouldn't because. I because again, like.

Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm trying to draw.

Speaker 1: You out well, but people who describe themselves as dialecticians oftentimes play this sort of game where where they basically are framing the universe in terms of black and white and.

Speaker 4: Sure, yeah.

Speaker 1: And they're saying. And now I come in as like a magic ******* wizard and spin them together. Do you get it? And for me, I just want to call them false Wizards. And who are doing magic with definition games and not with the proletariat, .

Speaker 2: OK.

Speaker 1: As they might imagine themselves to. To be doing. OK, well I think. That's probably more than enough for.

Speaker 4: Do you don't want to talk about the active?

Speaker 1: Escapism. Oh yeah, that's cool.

Speaker 4: Yeah, I was. It struck me because I thought, oh, this sounds suspiciously a little bit like what? I've been talking about for the past year of. Of anarchists going in and trying to take space and have subsistence off of that space and have a means of life that as Peter's talking about is not trapped in this kind of dreariness. So it made me kind of question myself and say, well, hey, is this whole land project thing I've been talking about for a year actually just some kind of recapitulation of the Taz that's hopefully a on the longer end of the temporary spectrum.

Speaker 1: He actually a lot. Of people do this sort of stuff. There's a there's. A different example that I'll talk about another time. Bolo’bolo but he did write the follow. Up piece to Taz called Paz.

Speaker 4: Permanent yeah OK?

Speaker 1: Yeah, and then additionally here locally the people who really got into Taz were people in the early forms of electronic dance music.

Speaker 4: Yeah.

Speaker 1: So the rave scene right there was actually there was.

Speaker 4: Hilarious to me for so many reasons. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: But there was a there was a local DJ group called ****.

Speaker 4: Semi permanent.

Speaker 1: And they were they were active for many years, had a warehouse in West W Berkeley. Yeah, and were like it was. Like the place to be for many years. But it as they declined.

Speaker 4: Take a little ecstasy and suddenly it's ******* angry.

Speaker 1: You're autonomous by. Some definition of autonomous, that's for sure. Yeah, yeah. And I mean it's kind of funny to think about the end of **** and the end of like. That kind of like quirky, funny thing was the end of the era. Which has sort of represented part of.

Speaker 4: That area well then at some point Burning Man picked it up right then the original Burning Man people.

Unknown Speaker: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: I mean. Taz is not outside the scope of talking about Burning Man.

Speaker 4: Yes, definitely not.

Speaker 1: Which actually might be an interesting thing to talk about. Another time in the context of the podcast, is how to because there’s all kinds of like libertarian ideas in Burning Man.

Speaker 4: And then it's so perfect now that. I don't know if it was just last year or just recent years. Now all these Silicon Valley people are starting to go to Burning Mand it's I see. This perfect extension of their continued attempt to sort of engulf these libertarian ideas.

Speaker 1: No, but then this was. This was built into preman from the very beginning Mm-hmm the Burning Man came out of a cultural social context that was the start of the Internet. OK, so that was never not the case, OK? I mean the way. In which it's visible now or five years ago is. Just sort of speak to. The way in which. The people who work internet technologies have become the fiber of the Bay Area culture and that and eventually that fiber became more and more conservative and more and more and more wealthy overtime. The next article that we're going to. Talk about is a really amusing article. Called the illegalise Space program in four parts and the first part that's fantastic, is the fact that it's only in three parts.

Speaker 4: It's a, it's a cliffhanger. You have to tune in next time.

Speaker 1: They do say at the end, coming soon a thorough analysis of materials and technologies involved in the production of high standard of living, extraterrestrial, extraterrestrial habitats. Utilizing current isru in situ resource utilization technologies and disregard for international copyright and patent laws so it's totally hysterical. Anyways, the reason I. Want to talk about this because whether they, if they. If they haven't. Heard of this? This group that prefigures this discussion. They basically are guilty of. Anyways, so there was a group from from the UK in the late 80s, early 90s called the AAA, the Autonomous Astronaut. The Association of Autonomous Astronauts, which was basically a pro situationist version. Of what it? What it is that they're arguing for now? They're they had very pithy slogans. Like space is the place. Who owns outer space? I'm just going to read a little bit from one of the AAA texts. To become an autonomous astronaut, you don't just need to understand the history of independent space exploration and act accordingly. You must also be something different from the attitudes and values of the society. We want to leave behind. We must be ourselves first and foremost, wherever that may take us. The militant posturing so adored by so many puritanical. Political activists is of no use to the AAA. It's a mindset that splits the individual into two. Separating people's real, individual and social means. The reasons why they cannot stand life on planet. Earth, from their actions, their attempts to. Leave this world. And if the AAA's program turns into another job even for one person. Then we will have failed utterly.

Speaker 4: There's zero drudgery associated with building spacecraft.

Unknown Speaker: I mean I love. I love that the.

Speaker 1: Focus like the focus of a group like this nowadays is entirely on techniques. Right, because SpaceX exists. Because there's some sort of like capitalist argument for all of this. Sure, people, and because of the way in which technology has, has made it more conceivable that we could actually build spacecraft all of a sudden. The people who sort of like missed the days of Popular Mechanics. All of a sudden are racing to these. This sort of idea space. There's sort of a famous vignette here that there's this guy named John Carmack who was a famous video game designer. He created the 3D engine that basically created the entire phenomenon of 3D games. So he was the main programmer behind games like Quake and Doom. So he's very famous guy. He sort of got bored of making video games.

Unknown Speaker: OK yeah.

Speaker 1: And he. Started a company called Armadillo. Astronauts or. Or aeronautics or something? And he basically bowed out of video games and into making Valve designs for spaceships. And he's like, he's the. Perfect Patnik crack version of. Of this idea, but this. Idea, of course, is much more like a random random guest. Yeah, like this what the situation. Was all. About to like leave behind the drudgery of communism. And instead head to space.

Speaker 4: What is the greater revolution of everyday life than leaving the planet?

Speaker 1: Exactly **** gravity.

Speaker 4: I guess even though it just to me, it seems like you'd just be trapped in a car in. Space for a long time.

Unknown Speaker: I think it would be.

Speaker 4: As exciting as.

Unknown Speaker: But you see.

Speaker 4: The popular appeal of this there. Was it's probably almost two years ago now. They talked first. We're pulling people into that Mars one project and it just and there are 10s of thousands of people that want to do this. And they're saying basically you will leave behind. Your you probably won't see your family and friends ever again, and I mean there's that many people who just want to absolutely abandon existence. I mean, talk about. We talk about the negation of the existence I. Mean these people? Really just want to leave their entire life behind. It's a kind of playful suicide almost.

Unknown Speaker: Yeah, no that.

Speaker 1: That's true actually I. Mean there have been some essays by people who made it into the second or third round or whatever that they’re in from ours. One where sort. Of like now they're sort of thinking through. The exits and. Leaving everything behind and all the articles you just draws drop because these people are insane, .

Speaker 4: It seems like this. This whole piece is actually just motivated by this desire for space, right? I mean they're pretty explicit about it, and it reminds me of the kind of conversation that Roger and I would come back to a lot on free radical radio. Which was this he he likes to say. I think partially is just this kind of provocative. Provocation that he's a regressive. He thinks things are getting worse all the time and. The best argument I've heard him make for it is this idea that there's less and less space as time goes on, and he likes to say, if you were back in Sumeria, maybe it would be difficult to get away from the lugal's guards with their Spears and everything, but once you got out there then it at that time that would. Have been maybe. The only civilization, or maybe there were some. Sort of ones, but that there was by and large a lot of space where you could just get lost and you could disappear, and that since then there's been this roughly linear reduction in the amount of space that exists. I'm curious what you think of that. If you think that's what's motivating this, and is that a real? Substantive kind of observation? Or is it a kind of illusion we trap ourselves?

Speaker 2: With well I.

Unknown Speaker: Have a lot of thoughts.

Speaker 1: About that idea because. In science fiction, one of the most common tropes is this conversation about what does it mean? How many resources do a human need? Does a human need to survive and the resources are on different levels? You know, psychological resources, material resources, food resources, and. Asmall sort of famously did this in the early days, and. His more or less the way he talked about his idea were that humans were going to at some point, say enough is enough. You know all the arable land in the country in. The world we've. We've put cities on top of it and if you take this sort of Chinese model seriously, It’s time to basically like basically. Stop ******* up the planet and put humans into an efficient right.

Speaker 4: Hive city

Speaker 1: So he called them caves of steel. The more modern terminology for this for the same concept of arcologies, and I just heard a number like last week or so. That said, that pretty much all the humans could safely fit into an. Arcology, around the size of New Zealand.

Speaker 4: Really right I would love to. See that actually.

Speaker 1: So then. So if you have that sort of conversation and you accept, sort of like what anarchy has already. Assumed which is that we live in a totalitarian regime in which we are not free to. To breathe and be a free man, yeah, and they just ship us all to New Zealand. To the New Zealand they're. Technology, it transforms this conversation in this in this really dramatic way where people who escape or who are free might still be able to roam the earth, but they get none. No infrastructure, they get none of the things. And so then of course the anti sieve ideas get to run free and be wild and amazing. And then we see what does it look like for civilized people to live it out? You know, try these dreams out.

Speaker 4: I mean, you even have anarchists or social ecologists like Matt Hearn is pro arcology. I don't think he uses that terminology, but he's saying let's live in ultra dense cities and then let the rest of the world be wild. Yeah, I mean my confusion and there's like so many technical problems. Somehow this arcology is not going to pollute, I mean there. Are all kinds of issues with it.

Speaker 2: Well of.

Speaker 1: Course it's yeah. I mean, but of course it's going to pollute, but if you build it from the ground up and that with this extremely managed, 7 billion person plan like you start talking about pollution in terms of. Metric tons of carbon rather than his. Poop, but. Obviously, it's not that I'm. For that, but It’s. It's like if we're going to have thought exercises like what would it mean to leave Babylon then? Then we can continue this thought exercise like a lot of people. Have are thinking through different aspects of these of these thought exercises and that and actually anarchists are some of the people who do it the worst. Because we almost entirely are thinking in programmatic terms, I have an ideabout anarcho communism and about what economic relationships should should look like. Therefore, all my thought experiments are about that where whereas I think that like the carrying capacity of the planet is a ******* interesting question and then also another.

Speaker 2: Right?

Speaker 1: Equally interesting question is what does it mean to be free? And our colleges. Basically, I think, do take center stage in that in that sort of a development because it really would be this. Transformation of the world.

Speaker 4: Amazing if I can press you a bit more on this question of space as in space for what we might cautiously call freedom rather than outer space. I, I wonder if that kind of possibly illusory thinking is motivating this, where the author at the beginning is saying like, OK, come on, let's be honest, this civilized life sucks. We can't do anything and I was talking to one of my friends, Dean Workman about this some months ago and talking about that kind of regress this argument that Roger makes about how there's less and less space. And he brought up something interesting which. Back in 14th century England when they first passed all the vagrancy laws that were basically trying to force people into the system, force people to work. You see from. Writing at that time, all these people talking about. How everything's being enclosed? We don't have space anymore. You can't go out and do things. The sort of the empires everywhere that there's no way to get a break, and we're talking about something over 600 years ago that to us would probably look relative. Spacious and that there would be a lot of land that's not taken, and so I wonder if this to what extent this question of space is a mindset rather than a physical reality.

Speaker 1: I don't know I.

Unknown Speaker: I think that.

Speaker 1: I would probably fall maybe a little closer to where Roger was coming from. If for no other reason. But because I live in this world, I have had moments where I've not heard other, like I've not heard any human activity in my vicinity, like yeah, even right now we hear a little beep beep beep of a truck backing up while we're here, and the mic probably isn't picking it up, but it might be. You know we're hearing brick outside the outside the door, ? Tap tap, tapping, wanting in our. Our world is. Constantly filled with these sort of external. Noises sure rather than being.

Unknown Speaker: You know?

Speaker 1: A bubbling brooks and the wind through the trees.

Speaker 4: Sitting there is.

Speaker 1: Yeah, which is which, so I have had that experience and I can imagine people in many parts of the world have never had that experience right? In other words, they've only been within hearing this sense of other people.

Speaker 4: Of the noise of civilization or.

Speaker 1: And so I so I don't think that. Probably the way to address this to think more clearly through the idea of what does freedom mean, because I do think that most of us don't accept that this true, but we actually have a very distinct definition of freedom. That's an American definition of freedom, right? In other words, we just defined it in terms of bubbling. Brooks and. And the wildering like the wilderness, right? In that in that sort of a way, rather than defining it in terms of peace or serenity, or, pleasant relationships with our other folk. We, as Americans, tend not to think of those as high priorities, yeah?

Speaker 4: I feel it's. Almost sugging into the projectivity conversation, but I. I just wanted. To make one more comment about this one, which is that I loved toward. The end the. What do we owe the future question which I just think is so great that the author says something to the pretty extreme. It's something like what do we owe the future? The future is going to take? From us, and it touches on these ideas of futurity that I see coming up more and more at some point relatively soon, and do an interview with the bad end folks and one of the most exciting things to. About that book. The first one is that this abandonment of ideas of futurity, and to what extent is that. Again, this kind of idea of civilization as a mindset or a certain rigid set of behaviors, including let's raise the next generation up to a higher plane of existence and that kind of thing and. Although I guess they want to raise the next generation up to a higher planet of existence.

Speaker 2: Yeah, sure.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I guess for me I'm utterly on board with the BATENS program as far. As that's concerned. The only question for me is what does that look like on the ground? Because we as radicals, including a radical perspective. On the future. Have despairingly few models. Sure we have no we're very few elders to talk to us about these things. Sure, and this actually one of the places in which Badden has more resources than than I do, because as an example here in the Bay Area, there's an enormous community of radical fairies. These are people in their 50s sixties, Seventies, 80s who have been thinking through these ideas with their bodies. Forever and to some extent I have punk rock and that punks have been thinking about this. Like shared this approach. In the 70s, no future but.

Speaker 4: Right?

Speaker 1: But largely failed. You know that eventually they became the next pop pop hits exactly the things that they. Said they didn't want. To be and so. So to me this there is this sort of longing for sets of models and for people who can tell us what mistakes that they made and didn't make in thinking. Through these problems. So the idea for each. Episode of the podcast we're Going to talk. About a different idea, a theme it might might be a theme that is a specific theme within anarchist thinking and practice. Or it might be a theme that relates, but is somehow outside. So for instance, next week if you're going to talk about imagination. Hopefully imagination is not just limited to anarchists or hopefully anarchists actually feel connected to imagine. But this week We're going to talk about projects wality, and we're going to start it out with. A little reading. This from willful sorry. Against this, the logical submission, which is a essay by Wolfie Land striker, and this the section called Projectional Life. And understanding of how the decision to live in revolt against the present reality relates to desire relationships, love and friendship requires an understanding of how such a decision transforms. Those who make it. The logic of submission, the logic that the social order seeks to impose on the exploited is a logic of passivity of resignation to the mediocre existence offered by this order. According to this logic, life is something that happens to us that we simply make the best of. Our perspective that defeats us before we. Begun to struggle. But some of us burn with an energy that goads us towards something else, something different in our burning. We suffer anguish from every humiliation that the present world. Imposes on us. We cannot resign except our place and content ourselves with just getting by move to decisive action by our passion against all the odds we come to view life differently. Or more precisely, to live differently. A social reality exists. It is smothering the planet with commodities and control, imposing a pathetic and miserable existence of enslaving to authority and the market everywhere. Starting from a refusal of this imposed existence. And decision to rise up against it. We are faced with the necessity. Creating our lives as our own of projecting them. We are posing ourselves.

Speaker 2: Most difficult task.

Speaker 1: The transformation of ourselves of our relationships and of existence itself. These transformations are not set a constituted single task.

Speaker 2: Life projection and at this project at.

Speaker 1: While it aims towards the destruction of the social order and is to say this directional. Present so many.

Speaker 2: Of us are. So careful, so apologetic, ready to distance ourselves.

Speaker 1: From even our most radical and defiant. Acts this indicates that we have not yet understood what it means to live our lives conjecturally.

Speaker 2: Our actions are still pending.

Speaker 1: Not full of ourselves that step into lightening the reading. To withdraw the lease. Signing risk danger? Contrary, the development that the character projection reality requires that one emerged oneself into what one does without falling back without hedging one's bets. Not that this immersion.

Speaker 2: Is ever a finished project? It's a thing in motion a. She must be perpetually lived over and over again, but hedging one bet is surely brings. Perpetually grappled with it's been proven over and. The feed as serene.

Speaker 1: Having taken this responsibility for our lives. There is no room for half measure.

Speaker 2: The point that to. Live without measure, longer chains for chains.

Speaker 1: Nonetheless, 1 needs a. Niche of a more effective, the very opposite, the fatal. Resignation demanded of the logical submission. A more fatigue is the love of faith. The worthy adversary that moves ones to courageous action explains the willful self-confidence that develops in those who put all this substance into what they do say or feel. Here, regrets melt away as one learns to. Act as one. Will mistakes, failures and defeats are not devastations, but situations would learn. And move on in the. Perpetual tension for its the destruction of all limits in societies, eyes any refusal of its. Order to crime.

Unknown Speaker: But this immersion.

Speaker 1: Into light moves insurgents beyond the level of. Crime at. One, the insurgent has ceased to nearly react to the code, rules and Law of society and has come to determine her action. His own terms, without regard for the social order beyond tolerance. Everyday politeness finished with tact and diplomacy. She is not given to. Speaking abstractly about anything that relates to his.

Speaker 2: Life in the interaction.

Speaker 1: But rather give weight to every word. This comes from a few with the skinny surface of things because I rather to immerse myself into the project in relation to one has chosen to create or involve oneself and to draw them fully into oneself. Because these are the things with which one creates, pulling their own life.

Speaker 2: Like revolution, love, friendship and the.

Speaker 1: Wide variety of other possible relationships. Are not events one waits for.

Speaker 2: Things that merely happen when one.

Speaker 1: Recognizes herself has.

Speaker 2: Had an agency as being an individual capable of acting.

Speaker 1: Creating these cease to be wishes goes through long and aching in the depth of 1's God. They become possibilities, words which one moves conscious and projection with.

Speaker 2: One's live. That burning The gods want to revolt.

Speaker 1: They desired to have broken free from the channel that reduced it to a mere longing, the same desire that moved one.

Speaker 4: To create the.

Speaker 1: Life and the projection ality towards insurrection anarchy. Freedom and joy also provoked the realization that such a contractually is best built on shared projects. Liberated desire and expansive energy, and opening the possibilities and.

Speaker 2: Wants to share?

Speaker 1: Projects and actions, joys and pleasures, love, and both insurrection of 1. Be possible, I would even argue that it's the necessary first step for the shared insurrectional project that Insurrection 2. Three men increases courage and enjoyment and opens a myriad of passionate possibilities. Obviously the various modes of relating that society puts into place for us to fall into and not.

Speaker 2: Fulfill this desire.

Speaker 1: Happen love partnerships, friendships. Based on the camaraderie of mutual humiliation and disrespectful. Tolerance and the daily encounters of no substance that contained but the anality of survival. These are all based on a logical submission. I'm merely accepting the mediocrity this reality they must destroy offer. They have nothing. To do with Projectional desire for the. Other the relations that this decision to live. Actually, as a revolution in anarchist who's one to seek our relations of affinity of passion and intensity, varieties of living relations that help one to build life as desire moves to their relations with clearly defined. Others who have affinity with one way of living and being such relations must be created in a fluid. And by the way, and dynamic, changeable and expansive. As affinity and passion themselves. Such an expansive opening of possibilities has no place within the logical submission, and that in itself makes it a worthy project for anarchists to pursue. So that's it's worthwhile to note that's sort of one of the places in which Wolfie talks about practicality. There's a couple other essays, both of both with disobedience. And in the old magazine, and some of these ideas come from Cass Aneiros, which was a. Insurrectionary newspaper project the late 90s, but the great thing is that one of the other projects involved in is called the Anarchist Library. And if you just go to the anarchist library and search for projection ality, you'll find about 10 or 20 different essays that refer to the topic. And now we're going. To talk about it a little bit.

Speaker 4: Sure, so as you're reading that I was struck again by my strong desire to interview Wolfie, which has has. Not actually happened. After a few attempts because live in the same. Place and it's. It's just been difficult to actually schedule. Time, but it I just makes me want to ask him certain questions, only one of which I've briefly been able to talk to. Him about and. One was actually his reading niche, which is very different from mine. And so I actually have a hard time understanding where he's. Coming from with. That but the other thing is just what the what the question of freedom that were getting into earlier. And what does it actually mean to be free? And my thoughts on this have become so flummoxed that I've actually, as anarchist, started to steer away from the word, which is a funny sort of happening that I couldn't have anticipated a few years ago. But with Wolfie he uses this really charged passionate language. It's very exciting. It's I find it to be very inviting language. It's he wants you to get excited in the way that he is, which I think is great, but a lot of it. I mean, even just willful disobedience, right? The name we get into these questions of free will and. The question is to what extent ideas of freedom intersect with ideas of free will, and you were talking about an American idea of freedom, and I think you were fit maybe focusing more on the. Kind of isolation or space or kind of rugged individualism, but I would say the other component or another component is this liberal enlightenment idea of free will, where the world is a world of subjects and objects and subjects are distinct in that they make meaningful choices, and for each thing that a subject. Has done it could be the case that they had done something differently, and that's the kind of what I think of as a robust, very American idea of free will, which is very closely tied to. Capitalism, because then the implication is well, if you are this kind of Randian free agent who is making hyper rational choices and taking information and acting with this reason, that is your power and you really are free in the sense that you could have done something otherwise for each thing you do then you deserve what you get and therefore you're entitled to the wealth that you amass. You're entitled to the positions of power. That you reach. And my question is, to what extent does projection, ality or other conceptions of anarchist freedom hinge on this idea of? Free will because. I actually am am not too enticed by that kind of robust idea of. Free will.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I. I'm ready to sort of like.

Speaker 4: Go down that.

Speaker 1: Rabbit, yeah go down that road. I mean I guess for me the point of projection ality. Speaks to sort of. My general orientation, which nowadays is less about being anarchist in a chair and more about being anarchist in motion. So I really love the. You know, like my background, I have a science background. As you may or may not know, and there are these concepts when you start to talk about. You know where? Where I think in terms of vectors and the vector is a is has both direction and velocity sure, and so projectivity is one of the sort of few terms that for me I really like the crossover because a lot of anarchists seem to be they might be in. They might have velocity right on the streets and they might have direction, but usually they don't have both and so in other words we see many, many anarchists more or less comfortably sitting in.

Speaker 2: Right?

Speaker 4: Talking about how everything sucks.

Speaker 1: Talk about how everything sucks, but it's not a very anarchistic phenomenon that we've all experienced to. To answer these questions by some sort of practice. I mean I hate. To use terms like practice or whatever, but like.

Speaker 4: I was going to. Bring that up.

Speaker 2: But that's like that's sort of an old lefty.

Speaker 1: Maybe talk about this. Ideand obviously what I like about about wolfies version or about Projectivity is the is the passion like Mm-hmm like and .

Speaker 4: Yeah, I know.

Speaker 1: And of course like it might be a dated it might be.

Speaker 4: Projector held

Speaker 1: Well, in other words, the idea of talking about praxis you imagine like commie camps with like 17 kids singing a song about praxis you. Know yeah I.

Speaker 4: I still use the term all the time and I think it's one of the first radical authors I read was Ward Churchill and he's really into it. And yeah, I was going to say to what? To what extent is this kind of almost a synonym, right? And I think it is. And maybe It’s a way to abandon some of the leftist baggage, both linguistically and circumstantially. Propositional attitude is different with this and. Yeah, I guess what I wanted to say just to kind of cap the weird monologue I had was to say that I think when you get into these more relational understandings of the world instead of as a world of separate identities. Then I think that idea of robust free will starts to become not only unrealistic but also unappealing, and so if. If we're not for freedom in the robust sense because we think, well, I'm not so much a thing as I am a set of relations, or maybe I'm not so much a what as I am aware, or I'm not so much a. Person as I am. A vector maybe? Then Projectivity becomes more of this kind of attitude, general orientation, or something like that and so. I guess I'll Put you on the spot I mean. Everyone likes to. Say you're a really busy guy, you're. Doing anarchy all the time, and So what does? When you read this and then you look at the projects that you're involved in. Can you talk a bit about what projection quality means to you? Besides the little vector analogy?

Speaker 2: Well, actually I think.

Speaker 1: That you've said some of the words that I'll use to. Describe my orientation. By and large, when you when you stay. In the land of theory. It's very easy to abstractly talk about relationships. By and large, those abstract efforts aren't relationships. Or, to put it differently, most theory heads I've met, myself included. The more ideas I had, the fewer people. I had in. My life. And the fewer people I was sort of doing anything with. And So what? When I'm referred to being to being busy now, it is because I'm doing the hard, slow work of developing relationships of people who. Are more or less working on different parts of the same project? I mean perhaps another direction to go in, which maybe is the opposite of your usual orientation, is to think about the difference between a project and an organization. A project and a lifelong concern, like so for instance, when we Orient our conversations around sterner, it means that we that we frame our conversations in honest statements and by and. Large we have. We have very few examples of Stern. Projects that are they have many people involved. In them. I guess I guess. The point that I'm trying to make. Or that? I’m not locking myself into the cul-de-sac of. Not wanting to talk about Stirner all. That much but, but I guess. There's something about that orientation in how it actually lays out. In most in most situations that turns it into this into a very small conversation. In other words, sure, scherner is not concerned with destroying the world. Now obviously we would. Hope that a reading of scherner. Would include. That as a goal. But we know what Sterners actual life look like, and it didn't look like the. Stern in the world. High school teacher right at best. Rarely, rarely employed.

Speaker 4: Failed venture capital.

Speaker 1: Phil Baker, but anyways so in terms of thinking about. To the extent to which one would like to. To do something bigger than that, it really involves a lot of people and it. Involves lots of. Conversations and it involves ******* baby steps and it involves. The recognition of failure because. None of these things are intended to succeed. But answer to a question. About what does a life worth living look like so I. Guess that's partial.

Speaker 2: Partial answer yeah.

Speaker 4: Yeah, we saw that same kind of. Theme coming up in PLL where? I think with this kind of pessimistic point he's reached that his anarchy starts to look more like what does it mean to live a life of joy with people that you love and have that? Be something more substantive than just this kind of fleeting grasping to whatever relationships you can have in the work a day, commodity existence.

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