American libertarian socialist author, orator, and philosopher
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Turns out you need to do more than just read Murray Bookchin if you want to be friends with anarchists. Reading: Towards a Marxist-Anarchist Solidarity (2023) by Michael Löwy, Olivier Besancenot & David Campbell Send us a question, comment or valid concern: auxiliarystatements(at)gmail.com DISCORD: https://discord.gg/TNmaRX2k
Vu sur La chronique de Patsy (157) : Murray Bookchin, Les anarchistes espagnols. Les années héroïques (1868-1936) Murray Bookchin, Les anarchistes espagnols. Les années héroïques (1868-1936), Lux, 2023 En 1977 paraissait en anglais Les anarchistes espagnols (1868-1936). Un demi-siècle plus tard, les éditions Lux nous permettent de découvrir cet écrit de Murray Bookchin, décédé en 2006, une des personnalités importantes de la gauche radicale américaine, libertaire, écologiste dont les écrits ont trouvé […] Cet article provient de Radio AlterNantes FM
Episode 66 comes in two parts. In our first segment, Lisa sits down with German members Jan and Henry to discuss post-neoliberal transformations in German politics, understood through the AfD and Sahra Wagenknecht's split from Die Linke. In the second segment, Andony talks with fellow West Coast members Octavio, Colin, Ishmael, and Hoang about anarchism on the West Coast, reflecting on the Heart of the Valley Anti-Capitalist Bookfair held in Corvallis, Oregon, and the inaugural Platypus West Coast Conference held in San Diego this February. They discuss the resurgence of anarchism under the Biden presidency in the context of long-standing anarchist traditions on the West Coast. --- Further discussions of German politics (in German): - Was ist DIE LINKE? (13.6.21 Frankfurt) transcript: https://platypus1917.org/2022/08/31/podium_2021_linkspartei/ video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZZb7BZp_bY - Redefreiheit und die Linke (4.11.23 Leipzig) audio: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Rf7K5h3h64 Further materials on anarchism: - Heart of the Valley Anti-Capitalist Bookfair (19-21 January 2024): https://hotvbookfair.noblogs.org - Dual Power: A Strategy To Build Socialism In Our Time (DSA Libertarian Socialist Caucus, 2018): https://dsa-lsc.org/2018/12/31/dual-power-a-strategy-to-build-socialism-in-our-time/ - Reimagining Revolutionary Organizing: A Vision for Dual Power (Institute for Anarchist Studies, 2019): https://anarchiststudies.org/reimagining-revolutionary-organizing-a-vision-for-dual-power/ - Against dogmatic abstraction: A critique of Cindy Milstein on anarchism and Marxism (Platypus Review, 2010): https://platypus1917.org/2010/07/01/against-dogmatic-abstraction/ - Social anarchism or lifestyle anarchism: an unbridgeable chasm (Murray Bookchin, 1995): https://libcom.org/article/social-anarchism-or-lifestyle-anarchism-unbridgeable-chasm-murray-bookchin - Whither anarchism? An interview with Kristian Williams (Platypus Review, 2021): https://platypus1917.org/2021/03/01/whither-anarchism-an-interview-with-kristian-williams/ - Reform, Revolution, and “Resistance:” The problematic forms of “anticapitalism” today (2/18/24 San Diego) audio: https://archive.org/details/reform-resistance-revolution-san-diego
Sixtine Van Outryve est docteure en sciences juridiques. Ses travaux portent sur la démocratie directe et l'étude des mouvements communalistes. Dans cet épisode, nous revenons sur l'expérience de démocratie directe de la commune de Commercy en 2019-2020, inspirée de la théorie communaliste de Murray Bookchin, qui a fait suite au mouvement des gilets jaunes. Music Credit : Sublime by Grapes - 2013 - Licensed under CC BY-NC 3.0. Ozé Le Podcast by Jean-Philippe Decka is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.
In Episode 221 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg continues the Spring ritual from his old WBAI program, the Moorish Orthodox Radio Crusade (which he lost due to his political dissent), of reading the George Orwell essay "Some Thoughts on the Common Toad"—which brilliantly predicted ecological politics when it was published way back in April 1946. The Social Ecology of Murray Bookchin today informs a radical response to the global climate crisis, emphasizing self-organized action at the local and municipal levels as world leaders dither, proffer techno-fix solutions, or consciously obstruct progress. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. https://www.patreon.com/countervortex Production by Chris Rywalt We ask listeners to donate just $1 per weekly podcast via Patreon -- or $2 for our new special offer! We now have 57 subscribers. If you appreciate our work, please become Number 58!
In an effort to understand the philosophy of technology and our relationship to it as humans, we turn to a 60 year old essay by Murray Bookchin. Reading: Towards a Liberatory Technology (1965) by Murray Bookchin Send us a question, comment or valid concern: auxiliarystatements(at)gmail.com DISCORD: https://discord.gg/YpmDM5Sd
Today we talk about some of the work of Murray Bookchin. We talk about anarchism as a historical trend in human thought that keeps recurring. Then we talk about the superficiality of typical approaches to being environmentally conscious. We talk about Futurism and the hope of colonizing other planets. We talk about Artificial Intelligence and why people sometimes don't feel like celebrating its arrival. Sponsors: Better Help: https://www.BetterHelp.com/PHILTHIS NordVPN: https://www.NordVPN.com/philothis Get more: Website: https://www.philosophizethis.org/ Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/philosophizethis Philosophize This! Clips: https://www.youtube.com/@philosophizethisclips Be social: X: https://twitter.com/iamstephenwest Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/philosophizethispodcast TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@philosophizethispodcast Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/philosophizethisshow Thank you for making the show possible.
This episode of Darts and Letters examines the theory and practice of anti-statist organizing. There's a story you can tell about the post-Occupy left gravitating towards a more state-oriented kind of politics, exemplified by the enthusiasm around Bernie Sanders, The Squad, and others. However, this misses autonomous and anarchist-inflected (and sometimes, explicitly anarchist) social movements that have brought enormous energy, and enormous change–from the movement for black lives, to organizing for Indigenous sovereignty, and so much more. In this episode, we look at the Kurdish movement, and mutual aid experiments across North America. First, we look at the work of the late libertarian socialist Murray Bookchin. Bookchin broke with Marxism, and later anarchism, and eventually developed an idiosyncratic ecological and revolutionary theory that said radical democracy could be achieved at the municipal level. This Vermont-based theorist has been enormously influential, including in an area formerly known as Rojava. There, the Kurdish people are making these ideas their own, and developing a radical feminist democracy–while fighting to survive. We speak with Elif Genc about these ideas, and about how the Kurdish diaspora implements them within Canada. Next, what is mutual aid? Peter Kropotkin's Mutual Aid: A Factory of Evolution (1902) examines how cooperation and reciprocity are core to nature. To anarchists, this should be generalized to radical political program, and a radically new way of living. Darts and Letters producer Marc Apollonio speaks to Payton McDonald about how the theory and practice of mutual aid drives many social movements across North America. Payton is co-directing a four-part documentary series called the Elements of Mutual Aid: Experiments Towards Liberation. Finally, how do social movement scholars understand (or misunderstand) autonomous social movements? There's a tendency to dismiss movements that do not make clear tangible demands, and deliver pragmatic policy victories (see: Occupy). However, Max Haiven and Alex Khasnabish say that this misses something key to radical social movements: their radical imagination. These movements do not want to just improve this system, they want to imagine, and create (or prefigure), a different system. We discuss their book the Radical Imagination: Social Movement Research in the Age of Austerity, the blind spots of social movement theory, and whether there might be a new style of organizing emerging that is somewhere between the the statist and the anti-statist. This episode received support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. It's part of our mini-series that we are producing which looks at the radical imagination, in all its hopeful and its sometimes troubling manifestations. The scholarly leads are Professors Alex Khasnabish at Mount Saint Vincent University and Max Haiven at Lakehead University. They are providing research support and consulting to this series. For a full list of credits of Cited Media staff, visit our about page. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network
This episode of Darts and Letters examines the theory and practice of anti-statist organizing. There's a story you can tell about the post-Occupy left gravitating towards a more state-oriented kind of politics, exemplified by the enthusiasm around Bernie Sanders, The Squad, and others. However, this misses autonomous and anarchist-inflected (and sometimes, explicitly anarchist) social movements that have brought enormous energy, and enormous change–from the movement for black lives, to organizing for Indigenous sovereignty, and so much more. In this episode, we look at the Kurdish movement, and mutual aid experiments across North America. First, we look at the work of the late libertarian socialist Murray Bookchin. Bookchin broke with Marxism, and later anarchism, and eventually developed an idiosyncratic ecological and revolutionary theory that said radical democracy could be achieved at the municipal level. This Vermont-based theorist has been enormously influential, including in an area formerly known as Rojava. There, the Kurdish people are making these ideas their own, and developing a radical feminist democracy–while fighting to survive. We speak with Elif Genc about these ideas, and about how the Kurdish diaspora implements them within Canada. Next, what is mutual aid? Peter Kropotkin's Mutual Aid: A Factory of Evolution (1902) examines how cooperation and reciprocity are core to nature. To anarchists, this should be generalized to radical political program, and a radically new way of living. Darts and Letters producer Marc Apollonio speaks to Payton McDonald about how the theory and practice of mutual aid drives many social movements across North America. Payton is co-directing a four-part documentary series called the Elements of Mutual Aid: Experiments Towards Liberation. Finally, how do social movement scholars understand (or misunderstand) autonomous social movements? There's a tendency to dismiss movements that do not make clear tangible demands, and deliver pragmatic policy victories (see: Occupy). However, Max Haiven and Alex Khasnabish say that this misses something key to radical social movements: their radical imagination. These movements do not want to just improve this system, they want to imagine, and create (or prefigure), a different system. We discuss their book the Radical Imagination: Social Movement Research in the Age of Austerity, the blind spots of social movement theory, and whether there might be a new style of organizing emerging that is somewhere between the the statist and the anti-statist. This episode received support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. It's part of our mini-series that we are producing which looks at the radical imagination, in all its hopeful and its sometimes troubling manifestations. The scholarly leads are Professors Alex Khasnabish at Mount Saint Vincent University and Max Haiven at Lakehead University. They are providing research support and consulting to this series. For a full list of credits of Cited Media staff, visit our about page. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory
This episode of Darts and Letters examines the theory and practice of anti-statist organizing. There's a story you can tell about the post-Occupy left gravitating towards a more state-oriented kind of politics, exemplified by the enthusiasm around Bernie Sanders, The Squad, and others. However, this misses autonomous and anarchist-inflected (and sometimes, explicitly anarchist) social movements that have brought enormous energy, and enormous change–from the movement for black lives, to organizing for Indigenous sovereignty, and so much more. In this episode, we look at the Kurdish movement, and mutual aid experiments across North America. First, we look at the work of the late libertarian socialist Murray Bookchin. Bookchin broke with Marxism, and later anarchism, and eventually developed an idiosyncratic ecological and revolutionary theory that said radical democracy could be achieved at the municipal level. This Vermont-based theorist has been enormously influential, including in an area formerly known as Rojava. There, the Kurdish people are making these ideas their own, and developing a radical feminist democracy–while fighting to survive. We speak with Elif Genc about these ideas, and about how the Kurdish diaspora implements them within Canada. Next, what is mutual aid? Peter Kropotkin's Mutual Aid: A Factory of Evolution (1902) examines how cooperation and reciprocity are core to nature. To anarchists, this should be generalized to radical political program, and a radically new way of living. Darts and Letters producer Marc Apollonio speaks to Payton McDonald about how the theory and practice of mutual aid drives many social movements across North America. Payton is co-directing a four-part documentary series called the Elements of Mutual Aid: Experiments Towards Liberation. Finally, how do social movement scholars understand (or misunderstand) autonomous social movements? There's a tendency to dismiss movements that do not make clear tangible demands, and deliver pragmatic policy victories (see: Occupy). However, Max Haiven and Alex Khasnabish say that this misses something key to radical social movements: their radical imagination. These movements do not want to just improve this system, they want to imagine, and create (or prefigure), a different system. We discuss their book the Radical Imagination: Social Movement Research in the Age of Austerity, the blind spots of social movement theory, and whether there might be a new style of organizing emerging that is somewhere between the the statist and the anti-statist. This episode received support from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. It's part of our mini-series that we are producing which looks at the radical imagination, in all its hopeful and its sometimes troubling manifestations. The scholarly leads are Professors Alex Khasnabish at Mount Saint Vincent University and Max Haiven at Lakehead University. They are providing research support and consulting to this series. For a full list of credits of Cited Media staff, visit our about page. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/politics-and-polemics
Episode 27 : Contre le capitalisme et le néolibéralisme : les luttes au Chili et en Argentine L'article original commenté : Emilia Arpini et al., "New municipalism in South America? Developing theory from experiences in Argentina and Chile", Urban Studies, 2022. --------- Autres références/ressources : Floréal M. Romeo, Agir ici et maintenant. Penser l'écologie sociale de Murray Bookchin, Éditions du commun, 2019. Elina Fronty (eds), Vivantes. Des femmes qui luttent en Amérique latine, Éditions dehors, 2023. Véronica Gago, La Puissance féministe. Ou le désir de tout changer, Éditions divergences, 2021. Cornella Möser et Marion Tillous (eds), Avec, sans ou contre. Critiques queers/féministes de l'état, Éditions iX, 2020. Vandana Shiva, Monocultures de l'esprit, Wildproject, 2022. "Ecologie polititique et féminisme" chez Game of Hearth sur YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMAmfh0MqEs --------- Musique : CC-BY Jaunter, "Reset" : https://jaunter.bandcamp.com/
Tune in to hear our thoughts on Artificial Intelligence. How will AI affect humanity for both better and worse! A special thank you to my panel for today's discussion Alex Palma:Archivist & Grant Writer IG: haunt_inhabit Ricky Clover: Award-winning Animator IG: Real.Clover Gabriel Setright: Artist, Educator , M.A. in Critical Theory IG: Tallernepantla Podcast mentioned in recording -Tech Wont Save Us by Paris Marx This whole podcast is dedicated to technology and silicon valley, and it's usually based around talking to experts. -Factually by Adam Conover Good podcast debunking a lot of myths, not just in tech. -Srsly Wrong It's a super funny podcast, with skits and jokes and interviews. Books mentioned during recording Utopia vs Futurism by Murray Bookchin: https://unevenearth.org/2019/10/bookchin_doing_the_impossible/ David Graeber's BS Jobs: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bullshit_Jobs Chat GPT Union in Africa: https://time.com/6275995/chatgpt-facebook-african-workers-union/ Article about Japan trying to automate healthcare: https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/01/09/1065135/japan-automating-eldercare-robots/ Nikons campaign against AI: https://www.collater.al/en/nikon-peru-campaign-against-ai-photography/ AI Black Supermodel Controversy: https://afrotech.com/the-worlds-first-digital-supermodel-is-a-black-woman
n°296 / 7 mai 2023.Connaissez-vous notre site ? www.lenouvelespritpublic.frUne émission de Philippe Meyer, enregistrée au studio l'Arrière-boutique le 14 avril 2023.Avec cette semaine :Patrick Chastenet, professeur en sciences politiques et spécialiste de l'écologie politique.Isabelle de Gaulmyn, rédactrice en chef du quotidien La Croix.Béatrice Giblin, directrice de la revue Hérodote et fondatrice de l'Institut Français de Géopolitique.Lucile Schmid, vice-présidente de La Fabrique écologique et membre du comité de rédaction de la revue Esprit.ÉCOLOGIE ET POLITIQUEPatrick Chastenet, vous êtes professeur émérite en sciences politiques à l'Université de Bordeaux et membre du Centre Montesquieu de recherches Politiques. Spécialiste des idées politiques, vous vous êtes notamment intéressé aux thèmes ressortissants de l'écologie politique, de la pensée personnaliste, de la communication politique et de la propagande, ainsi que des mouvements libertaires. Vous collaborez à divers périodiques et présidez l'Association internationale Jacques Ellul, intellectuel que vous avez connu personnellement, qui est devenu votre ami et dont vous êtes devenu l'un des principaux spécialistes dans le monde.En février 2023, vous publiez aux éditions « L'échappée » votre dernier ouvrage, Les racines libertaires de l'écologie politique, dans lequel vous analysez la pensée de grandes figures de l'écologie politique : Élisée Reclus, Jacques Ellul, Bernard Charbonneau, Ivan Illich et Murray Bookchin. Il s'agit, selon vous, des véritables fondateurs de l'écologie politique, qui ont en commun de penser l'écologie tout en préservant la liberté. A l'issue de cette investigation historique, il apparaît que la doctrine écologiste a tissé des liens étroits avec les pensées anarchiste et catholique, plusieurs des auteurs évoqués étant liés au christianisme.Votre ouvrage soulève des questions d'une grande actualité, alors que les formes que doit prendre la lutte écologique sont au cœur des préoccupations nationales. Après le rassemblement organisé par les opposants aux bassines agricoles à Sainte-Soline, la polémique reste vive sur l'usage de la violence par les forces de l'ordre, comme sur les actions radicales des militants écologistes, ou encore la dissolution du mouvement écologiste « Soulèvement de la terre » engagée par le ministre de l'Intérieur. Périodiquement, la nécessité urgente d'une action contre le changement climatique est rappelée à l'opinion publique. Le 20 mars, le GIEC publiait la synthèse de son sixième rapport d'évaluation. Elle fait état d'une intensification « sans précédent » de ce changement climatique et appelle les politiques à une action rapide et coordonnée. La loi Climat et résilience d'août 2021 a déçu beaucoup des militants car elle n'a repris que 15 des 149 propositions de la Convention citoyenne sur le climat. Une partie des activistes y a vu une confirmation de l'impuissance de l'État.Marie Tondelier, récemment élue à la tête du parti Europe Écologie – Les Verts (EELV), a lancé au début du mois de février les « états généraux de l'écologie ». Ce processus de démocratie participative, qui, en 150 jours, ambitionne de repenser les bases du parti afin de lui permettre de rassembler un million de sympathisants d'ici 2027, contre 11.000 adhérents à ce jour. La nouvelle secrétaire nationale du parti EELV défend pour sa part l'idée d'une « écologie populaire », source d'émancipation pour tous et en particulier pour les plus précaires. Plus généralement, les préoccupations environnementales ont été reprises par l'ensemble du spectre politique et opposent de multiples courants de pensée divisés entre un environnementalisme réformiste, confiant dans le progrès technique, et une écologie plus radicale et décroissante. De son côté, l'extrême droite tente de conjuguer la préservation de la biodiversité avec la défense de l'identité. Au-delà de ces mouvements ou de ces partis, de votre point de vue, de quoi devrait-on parler quand on parle d'écologie ?Vous pouvez consulter notre politique de confidentialité sur https://art19.com/privacy ainsi que la notice de confidentialité de la Californie sur https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
In this episode, Phil and JF discuss Vanessa Onwuemezi's, "Dark Neighbourhood," a tale of scintillant darkness from her debut collection of the same name. This strangest of strange stories is set in a vast encampment of destitute yet hopeful people whose lives consist entirely of waiting for their turn to step through the iron gates of the Beyond. Living off the dregs of civilization, they seem the last of our kind. They are the ones who, having made it to the front of the line, have the dubious honour of contemplating directly the mystery that awaits us all. Unlike anything we've covered on the show, "Dark Neighbourhood" is a chilling and moving story that elicits interpretation as elegantly as it resists it. Pierre-Yves Martel's album Mer bleue (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/mer-bleue) drops on May 1st, 2023! Support us on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/weirdstudies) and gain access to Phil's ongoing podcast on Richard Wagner's Ring Cycle. Listen to volume 1 (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-1) and volume 2 (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-2) of the Weird Studies soundtrack by Pierre-Yves Martel (https://www.pymartel.com) Find us on Discord (https://discord.com/invite/Jw22CHfGwp) Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau (https://cottonbureau.com/products/can-o-content#/13435958/tee-men-standard-tee-vintage-black-tri-blend-s)! Get your Weird Studies merchandise (https://www.redbubble.com/people/Weird-Studies/shop?asc=u) (t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc.) Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop (https://bookshop.org/shop/weirdstudies) REFERENCES Show Notes.docx Vanessa Omwuemezi, Dark Neighbourhood (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781913097707) Peter Breugel, Landscape with the Fall of Icarus (https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/landscape-with-the-fall-of-icarus) Weird Studies, Episode 140 on “Spirited Away” (https://www.weirdstudies.com/140) Karl Marx, Capital (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781453716540) Phil Ford, Dig (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780199939916) Murray Bookchin, Post-Scarcity Anarchism (https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/murray-bookchin-post-scarcity-anarchism-book) Weird Studies, Episode 98 on “Taboo” (https://www.weirdstudies.com/98 https://www.weirdstudies.com/98) Michael Wadleigh (dir.), Woodstock (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066580/) Samuel R. Delaney, Dahlgren (https://bookshop.org/p/books/dhalgren-samuel-r-delany/8507517?ean=9780375706684) Leonard Cohen, “Waiting for the Miracle (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXvG0SMP7tw) Martin Esslin, The Theatre of the Absurd (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781400075232) One red paperclip (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_red_paperclip), story of guy who traded a paper clip for a house Weird Studies, Episode 101 on Tanizaki (https://www.weirdstudies.com/101) James Hillman, The Dream and the Underworld (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780060906825) George Steiner, Real Presences (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780226772349) H. P. Lovecraft, “Nyarlothotep” (https://www.hplovecraft.com/writings/texts/fiction/n.aspx) Alexander Wendt and Raymond Duvall, “Sovereignty and the UFO” (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0090591708317902) Weird Studies, Episode 144 on Hellraiser (https://www.weirdstudies.com/144) Weird Studies, Episode 29 on Lovecraft (https://www.weirdstudies.com/29)
Episode 135:This week we're not continuing with Post-Scarcity Anarchism by Murray Bookchin.Instead we'll be reading a response to Listen Marxist by You can find it on page 50 of this pdf on Archive.org:https://archive.org/details/sim_monthly-review-us_1970-03_21_10/page/50/mode/2up[Part 1 - 4]Post-Scarcity AnarchismEcology and Revolutionary Thought[Part 5 - 8]Towards a Liberatory Technology[Part 9 - 10]The Forms of Freedom-The Mediation of Social Relations[Part 12 - 14]Listen, Marxist![This Week]On Future Developments in the College Left - 2:05Discussion - 20:39Footnotes:1) 19:26Martin J. Sklar, “On the Proletarian Revolution and the End of Political Economic Society,” Radical America, vol. 3, no. 3, May-June 1969, p. 34.
Episode 134:This week we're continuing with Post-Scarcity Anarchism by Murray Bookchin.You can find the book here:https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/murray-bookchin-post-scarcity-anarchism-book[Part 1 - 4]Post-Scarcity AnarchismEcology and Revolutionary Thought[Part 5 - 8]Towards a Liberatory Technology[Part 9 - 10]The Forms of Freedom-The Mediation of Social Relations[Part 12 - 13]Listen, Marxist!-The Historical Limits of Marxism-The Myth of the Proletariat-The Myth of the Party[Part 14 - This Week]Listen, Marxist!-The Two Traditions - 0:36Discussion - 29:42[Part 15?]Listen, Marxist!Footnotes:56) 15:17The term “anarchist” is a generic word like the term “socialist,” and there are probably as many different kinds of anarchists as there are socialists. In both cases, the spectrum ranges from individuals whose views derive from an extension of liberalism (the “individualist anarchists,” the social-democrats) to revolutionary communists (the anarcho-communists, the revolutionary Marxists, Leninists and Trotskyists). 57) 24:18It is this goal, we may add, that motivates anarchist dadaism, the anrchist flipout that produces the creases of consternation on the wooden faces of PLP types. The anarchist flipout attempts to shatter the internal values inherited from hierarchical society, to explode the rigidities instilled by the bourgeois socialization process. In short, it is an attempt to break down the superego that exercises such a paralyzing effect upon spontaneity, imagination and sensibility and to restore a sense of desire, possibility and the marvelous—of revolution as a liberating, joyous festival.Citations:35) 2:35Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Correspondence (International Publishers; New York, 1942), p. 292. 36) 3:31 Frederick Engels, Herr Eugen Dühring's Revolution in Science (Anti-Dühring) (International Publishers; New York, 1939),p. 323.
Episode 133:This week we're continuing with Post-Scarcity Anarchism by Murray Bookchin.You can find the book here:https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/murray-bookchin-post-scarcity-anarchism-book[Part 1 - 4]Post-Scarcity AnarchismEcology and Revolutionary Thought[Part 5 - 8]Towards a Liberatory Technology[Part 9 - 10]The Forms of Freedom-The Mediation of Social Relations[Part 12]Listen, Marxist!-The Historical Limits of Marxism-The Myth of the Proletariat[Part 13 - This Week]Listen, Marxist!-The Myth of the Party - 0:28[Part 14 - 15?]Listen, Marxist!Footnotes:50) 1:50A fact which Trotsky never understood. He never followed through the consequences of his own concept of “combined development” to its logical conclusions. He saw (quite correctly) that czarist Russia, the latecomer in the European bourgeois development, necessarily acquired the most advanced industrial and class forms instead of recapitulating the entire bourgeois development from its beginnings. He neglected to consider that Russia, torn by tremendous internal upheaval, might even run ahead of the capitalist development elsewhere in Europe. Hypnotized by the formula “nationalized property equals socialism,” he failed to recognize that monopoly capitalism itself tends to amalgamate with the state by its own inner dialectic. The Bolsheviks, having cleared away the traditional forms of bourgeois social organization (which still act as a rein on the state capitalist development in Europe and America), inadvertently prepared the ground for a “pure” state capitalist development in which the state finally becomes the ruling class. Lacking support from a technologically advanced Europe, the Russian Revolution became an internal counterrevolution; Soviet Russia became a form of state capitalism that does not “benefit the whole people.” Lenin's analogy between “socialism” and state capitalism became a terrifying reality under Stalin. Despite its humanistic core, Marxism failed to comprehend how much its concept of “socialism” approximates a later stage of capitalism itself—the return to mercantile forms on a higher industrial level. The failure to understand this development led to devastating theoretical confusion in the contemporary revolutionary movement, as witness the splits among the Trotskyists over this question. 51) 5:12The March 22nd Movement functioned as a catalytic agent in the events, not as a leadership. It did not command; it instigated, leaving a free play to the events. This free play, which allowed the students to push ahead on their own momentum, was indispensable to the dialectic of the uprising, for without it there would have been no barricades on May 10, which in turn triggered off the general strike of the workers. 52) 6:45See “The Forms of Freedom”. 53) 7:23With a sublime arrogance that is attributable partly to ignorance, a number of Marxist groups were to dub virtually all of the above forms of self-management as “soviets.” The attempt to bring all of these different forms under a single rubric is not only misleading but willfully obscurantist. The actual soviets were the least democratic of the revolutionary forms and the Bolsheviks shrewdly used them to transfer the power to their own party. The soviets were not based on face-to-face democracy, like the Parisian sections or the student assemblies of 1968. Nor were they based on economic self-management, like the Spanish anarchist factory committees. The soviets actually formed a workers' parliament, hierarchically organized, which drew its representation from factories and later from military units and peasant villages. 54) 19:02V. I. Lenin, “The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government,” in Selected Works, vol. 7 (International Publishers; New York, 1943), p. 342. In this harsh article, published in April 1918, Lenin completely abandoned the liberatarian perspective he had advanced the year before in State and Revolution. The main themes of the article are the needs for “discipline,” for authoritarian control over the factories, and for the institution of the Taylor system (a system Lenin had denounced before the revolution as enslaving men to the machine). The article was written during a comparatively peaceful period of Bolshevik rule some two months after the signing of the Brest-Litovsk Treaty and a month before the revolt of the Czech Legion in the Urals—the revolt that started the civil war on a wide scale and opened the period of direct Allied intervention in Russia. Finally, the article was written nearly a year before the defeat of the German revolution. It would be difficult to account for the “Immediate Tasks” merely in terms of the Russian civil war and the failure of the European revolution. 55) 34:04In interpreting this elemental movement of the Russian workers and peasants as a series of “White Guard conspiracies,” “acts of kulak resistance,” and “plots of international capital,” the Bolsheviks reached an incredible theoretical low and deceived no one but themselves. A spiritual erosion developed within the party that paved the way for the politics of the secret police, for character assassination, and finally for the Moscow trials and the annihilation of the Old Bolshevik cadre. One sees the return of this odious mentality in PL articles like “Marcuse: Cop-out or Cop?”—the theme of which is to establish Marcuse as an agent of the CIA. (See Progressive Labor, February 1969.) The article has a caption under a photograph of demonstrating Parisians which reads: “Marcuse got to Paris too late to stop the May action.” Opponents of the PLP are invariably described by this rag as “redbaiters” and as “anti-worker.” If the American left does not repudiate this police approach and character assassination it will pay bitterly in the years to come.Citations:30) 4:01Quoted in Leon Trotsky, The History of the Russian Revolution (Simon & Schuster; New York, 1932), vol. 1, p. 144. 31) 19:34V. V. Osinsky, “On the Building of Socialism,” Kommunist, no. 2, April 1918, quoted in R. V. Daniels, The Conscience of the Revolution (Harvard University Press; Cambridge, 1960), pp. 85–86, 32) 23:13Robert G. Wesson, Soviet Communes (Rutgers University Press; New Brunswick, N.J., 1963), p. 110. 33) 26:30R. V. Daniels, op. cit., p. 145. 34) 30:27Mosche Lewin, Lenin's Last Struggle (Pantheon; New York, 1968), p. 122.
Episode 132:This week we're continuing with Post-Scarcity Anarchism by Murray Bookchin.You can find the book here:https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/murray-bookchin-post-scarcity-anarchism-book[Part 1 - 4]Post-Scarcity AnarchismEcology and Revolutionary Thought[Part 5 - 8]Towards a Liberatory Technology[Part 9 - 10]The Forms of Freedom-The Mediation of Social Relations[Part 11]Listen, Marxist!-The Historical Limits of Marxism[Part 12 - This Week]Listen, Marxist!-The Myth of the Proletariat - 0:29[Part 13 - 15]Listen, Marxist!Footnotes:42) 1:12For ecological reasons, we do not accept the notion of the “domination of nature by man” in the simplistic sense that was passed on by Marx a century ago. For a discussion of this problem, see “Ecology and Revolutionary Thought.” 43) 3:08It is ironic that Marxists who talk about the “economic power” of the proletariat are actually echoing the position of the anarcho-syndicalists, a position that Marx bitterly opposed. Marx was not concerned with the “economic power” of the proletariat but with its political power; notably the fact that it would become the majority of the population. He was convinced that the industrial workers would be driven to revolution primarily by material destitution which would follow from the tendency of capitalist accumulation; that, organized by the factory system and disciplined by an industrial routine, they would be able to constitute trade unions and, above all, political parties, which in some countries would be obliged to use insurrectionary methods and in others (England, the United States, and in later years Engels added France) might well come to power in elections and legislate socialism into existence. Characteristically, many Marxists have been as dishonest with their Marx and Engels as the Progressive Labor Party has been with the readers of Challenge, leaving important observations untranslated or grossly distorting Marx's meaning. 44) 4:35This is as good a place as any to dispose of the notion that anyone is a “proletarian” who has nothing to sell but his labor power. It is true that Marx defined the proletariat in these terms, but he also worked out a historical dialectic in the development of the proletariat. The proletariat develop out of a propertyless exploited class, reaching its most advanced form in the industrial proletariat, which corresponded to the most advanced form of capital. In the later years of his life, Marx came to despise the Parisian workers, who were engaged preponderantly in the production of luxury goods, citing “our German workers”—the most robot-like in Europe—as the “model” proletariat of the world. 45) 6:26The attempt to describe Marx's immiseration theory in international terms instead of national (as Marx did) is sheer subterfuge. In the first place, this theoretical legerdemain simply tries to sidestep the question of why immiseration has not occurred within the industrial strongholds of capitalism, the only areas which form a technologically adequate point of departure for a classless society. If we are to pin our hopes on the colonial world as “the proletariat,” this position conceals a very real danger: genocide. America and her recent ally Russia have all the technical means to bomb the underdeveloped world into submission. A threat lurks on the historical horizon—the development of the United States into a truly fascist imperium of the nazi type. It is sheer rubbish to say that this country is a “paper tiger.” It is a thermonuclear tiger and the American ruling class, lacking any cultural restraints, is capable of being even more vicious than the German. 46) 8:17Lenin sensed this and described “socialism” as “nothing but state capitalist monopoly made to benefit the whole people.” (see citation 29 below) This is an extraordinary statement if one thinks out its implications, and a mouthful of contradictions. 47) 13:33On this score, the Old Left projects its own neanderthal image on the American worker. Actually this image more closely approximates the character of the union bureaucrat or the Stalinist commissar. 48) 16:56The worker, in this sense, begins to approximate the socially transitional human types who have provided history with its most revolutionary elements. Generally, the “proletariat” has been most revolutionary in transitional periods, when it was least “proletarianized” psychically by the industrial system. The great focuses of the classical workers' revolutions were Petrograd and Barcelona, where the workers had been directly uprooted from a peasant background, and Paris, where they were still anchored in crafts or came directly from a craft background. These workers had the greatest difficulty in acclimating themselves to industrial domination and became a continual source of social and revolutionary unrest. By contrast, the stable hereditary working class tended to be surprisingly non-revolutionary. Even in the case of the German workers who were cited by Marx and Engels as models for the European proletariat, the majority did not support the Spartacists of 1919. They return large majorities of official Social Democrats to the Congress of Workers' Councils, and to the Reichstag in later years, and rallied consistently behind the Social Democratic Party right up to 1933. 49) 18:28This revolutionary lifestyle may develop in the factories as well as on the streets, in schools as well as in crash pads, in the suburbs as well as on the Bay Area–East Side axis. Its essence is defiance, and a personal “propaganda of the deed” that erodes all the mores, institutions and shibboleths of domination. As society begins to approach the threshold of the revolutionary period, the factories, schools and neighborhoods become the actual arena of revolutionary “play”—a “play” that has a very serious core. Strikes become a chronic condition and are called for their own sake to break the veneer of routine, to defy the society on an almost hourly basis, to shatter the mood of bourgeois normality. This new mood of the workers, students and neighborhood people is a vital precursor to the actual moment of revolutionary transformation. Its most conscious expression is the demand for “self-management”; the worker refuses to be a “managed” being, a class being. This process was most evident in Spain, on the eve of the 1936 revolution, when workers in almost every city and town called strikes “for the hell of it”—to express their independence, their sense of awakening, their break with the social order and with bourgeois conditions of life. It was also an essential feature of the 1968 general strike in France. Citations:29) (referenced in a footnote above)V.I. Lenin, The Threatening Catastrophe and How to Fight It, The Little Lenin Library, vol, II (International Publishers; New York, 1932), p. 37.
Episode 131:This week we're continuing with Post-Scarcity Anarchism by Murray Bookchin.You can find the book here:https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/murray-bookchin-post-scarcity-anarchism-book[Part 1 - 4]Post-Scarcity AnarchismEcology and Revolutionary Thought[Part 5 - 8]Towards a Liberatory Technology[Part 9 - 10]The Forms of Freedom-The Mediation of Social Relations[Part 11 - This Week]Listen, Marxist! - 0:29-The Historical Limits of Marxism - 11:15[Part 12 - 15]Listen, Marxist!Footnotes:38) 7:23These lines were written when the Progressive Labor Party (PLP) exercised a great deal of influence in SDS. Although the PLP has now lost most of its influence in the student movement, the organization still provides a good example of the mentality and values prevalent in the Old Left. The above characterization is equally valid for most Marxist-Leninist groups, hence this passage and other references to the PLP have not been substantially altered. 39) 8:19The Dodge Revolutionary Union Movement, part of the Detroit-based League of Revolutionary Black Workers.40) 12:34Marxism is above all a theory of praxis, or to place this relationship in its correct perspective, a praxis of theory. This is the very meaning of Marx's transformation of dialectics, which took it from the subjective dimension (to which the Young Hegelians still tried to confine Hegel's outlook) into the objective, from philosophical critique into social action. If theory and praxis become divorced, Marxism is not killed, it commits suicide. This is its most admirable and noble feature. The attempts of the cretins who follow in Marx's wake to keep the system alive with a patchwork of emendations, exegesis, and half-assed “scholarship” à la Maurice Dobb and George Novack are degrading insults to Marx's name and a disgusting pollution of everything he stood for. 41) 14:41In fact Marxists do very little talking about the “chronic [economic] crisis of capitalism” these days—despite the fact that this concept forms the focal point of Marx's economic theories.Citations:28) 5:05Karl Marx, “The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte,” in Marx and Engels, Selected Works, Vol. 2, p. 318
Episode 130:This week we're continuing with Post-Scarcity Anarchism by Murray Bookchin.You can find the book here:https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/murray-bookchin-post-scarcity-anarchism-book[Part 1 - 4]Post-Scarcity AnarchismEcology and Revolutionary Thought[Part 5 - 8]Towards a Liberatory Technology[Part 9]The Forms of Freedom-The Mediation of Social Relations[Part 10 - This Week]The Forms of Freedom-Assembly and Community - 0:13-From “Here” to “There” - 18:11[Part 11 - 15]Listen, Marxist!Footnotes:33) 16:47Marx, it may be noted, greatly admired the Jacobins for “centralizing” France and in the famous “Address of the Central Council” (1850) modeled his tactics for Germany on their policies. This was short-sightedness of incredible proportions—and institutional emphasis that revealed a gross insensitivity to the self-activity and the self-remaking of a people in revolutionary motion. See “Listen, Marxist!” 34) 23:24It was not until the 1860s, with the work of Bachofen and Morgan, that humanity rediscovered its communal past. By that time the discovery had become a purely critical weapon directed against the bourgeois family and property. 35) 25:29Here, indeed, “history” has something to teach us—precisely because these spontaneous uprisings are not history but various manifestations of the same phenomenon: revolution. Whosoever calls himself a revolutionist and does not study these events on their own terms, thoroughly and without theoretical preconceptions, is a dilettante who is playing at revolution. 36) 26:41What Wilhelm Reich and, later, Herbert Marcuse have made clear is that “selfhood” is not only a personal dimension but also a social one. The self that finds expression in the assembly and community is, literally, the assembly and community that has found self-expression—a complete congruence of form and content. 37) 29:27Together with disseminating ideas, the most important job of the anarchists will be to defend the spontaneity of the popular movement by continually engaging the authoritarians in a theoretical and organizational duel.Citations:26) 7:27W. Warde Fowler, The City State of the Greeks and Romans (Macmillan & Co.; London, 1952), p. 168. 27) 9:55Edward Zimmerman, The Greek Commonwealth, 5th ed. (Modern Library; New York, 1931), pp. 408–9.
Episode 129:This week we're continuing with Post-Scarcity Anarchism by Murray Bookchin.You can find the book here:https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/murray-bookchin-post-scarcity-anarchism-book[Part 1 - 4]Post-Scarcity AnarchismEcology and Revolutionary Thought[Part 5 - 8]Towards a Liberatory Technology[Part 9 - This Week]The Forms of Freedom - 0:48-The Mediation of Social Relations - 4:31[Part 10 - 11]The Forms of Freedom[Part 12 - 16]Listen, Marxist!Footnotes:30) 7:37For a discussion on the myth of the working class see “Listen, Marxist!” 31) 15:57If we are to regard the bulk of the Communards as “proletarians,” or describe any social stratum as “proletarian” (as the French Situationists do) simply because it has no control over the conditions of its life, we might just as well call slaves, serfs, peasants and large sections of the middle class “proletarians.” To create such sweeping antitheses between “proletarian” and bourgeois, however, eliminates all the determinations that characterize these classes as specific, historically limited strata. This giddy approach to social analysis divests the industrial proletariat and the bourgeoisie of all the historically unique features which Marx believed he had discovered (a theoretical project that proved inadequate, although by no means false); it slithers away from the responsibilities of a serious critique of Marxism and the development of “laissez-faire” capitalism toward state capitalism, while pretending to retain continuity with the Marxian project. 32) 27:35This is not to ignore the disastrous political errors made by many “leading” Spanish anarchists. Although the leading anarchists were faced with the alternative of establishing a dictatorship in Catalonia, which they were not prepared to do (and rightly so!), this was no excuse for practicing opportunistic tactics all along the way.
Episode 128:This week we're continuing with Post-Scarcity Anarchism by Murray Bookchin.You can find the book here:https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/murray-bookchin-post-scarcity-anarchism-book[Part 1 - 4]Post-Scarcity AnarchismEcology and Revolutionary Thought[Part 5 - 7]Towards a Liberatory Technology-Technology and Freedom-The Potentialities of Modern Technology-The New Technology and the Human Scale-The Ecological Use of Technology[Part 8 - This Week]Towards a Liberatory Technology-Technology for Life - 0:19-Discussion - 21:59[Part 9 - 11]The Forms of Freedom[Part 12 - 16]Listen, Marxist!Footnotes:29) 5:57The “ideal man” of the police bureaucracy is a being whose innermost thoughts can be invaded by lie detectors, electronic listening devices, and “truth” drugs. The “ideal man” of the political bureaucracy is a being whose innermost life can be shaped by mutagenic chemicals and socially assimilated by the mass media. The “ideal man” of the industrial bureaucracy is a being whose innermost life can be invaded by subliminal and predictively reliable advertising. The “ideal man” of the military bureaucracy is a being whose innermost life can be invaded by regimentation for genocide.Citations:24) 1:39Thomas Carlyle, The French Revolution (Modern Library; New York, n.d.), p. 593. 25) 3:57Friedrich Wilhelmsen, preface to Friedrich G. Juenger, The Failure of Technology (Regnery; Chicago, 1956), p. vii.
Episode 127:This week we're continuing with Post-Scarcity Anarchism by Murray Bookchin.You can find the book here:https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/murray-bookchin-post-scarcity-anarchism-book[Part 1 - 4]Post-Scarcity AnarchismEcology and Revolutionary Thought[Part 5 - 6]Towards a Liberatory Technology-Technology and Freedom-The Potentialities of Modern Technology-The New Technology and the Human Scale[Part 7 - This Week]Towards a Liberatory Technology-The Ecological Use of Technology - 0:38[Part 8]Towards a Liberatory Technology[Part 9 - 11]The Forms of Freedom[Part 12 - 16]Listen, Marxist!Footnotes:27) 4:58See “Ecology and Revolutionary Thought.” 28) 31:37The efficiency of the gasoline engine is rated at around eleven percent, to cite a comparison. Citations:18) 6:11F. M. C. Fourier, Selections from the Works of Fourier, (S. Sonnenschein and Co.; London, 1901), p. 93. 19) 6:48Charles Gide, introduction to Fourier, op. cit., p. 14. 20) 26:54Hans Thirring, Energy for Man (Harper & Row; New York, 1958), p. 266 21) 30:36Ibid., p. 269. 22 Henry Tabor, “Solar Energy,” in Science and the New Nations, ed. 22) 32:45Ruth Gruber (Basic Books; New York, 1961), p. 109. 23) 38:05Eugene Ayres, “Major Sources of Energy,” American Petroleum Institute Proceedings, section 3, Division of Refining, vol. 28 III. (1948), p. 117.
Episode 126:This week we're continuing with Post-Scarcity Anarchism by Murray Bookchin.You can find the book here:https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/murray-bookchin-post-scarcity-anarchism-book[Part 1 - 4]Post-Scarcity AnarchismEcology and Revolutionary Thought[Part 5]Towards a Liberatory Technology-Technology and Freedom[Part 6 - This Week]Towards a Liberatory Technology-The Potentialities of Modern Technology - 0:18-The New Technology and the Human Scale - 26:55[Part 7 - 8]Towards a Liberatory Technology[Part 9 - 11]The Forms of Freedom[Part 12 - 16]Listen, Marxist!Footnotes:25) 3:01For example, in cotton plantations in the Deep South, in automobile assembly plants, and in the garment industry. 26) 13:08There are two broad classes of computers in use today: analogue and digital computers. The analogue computer has a fairly limited use in industrial operations. My discussion on computers in this article will deal entirely with digital computers.Citations:14) 2:26U.S. Congress, Joint Committee on the Economic Report, Automation and Technological Change: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Economic Stabilization, 84th Cong., Ist session (U.S. Govt. Printing Office; Washington, 1955), p. 81. 15) 17:10Alice Mary Hilton, “Cyberculture,” Fellowship for Reconciliation paper (Berkeley, 1964), p. 8. 16) 21:54Lewis Mumford, Technics and Civilization (Harcourt, Brace and Co.; New York, 1934), pp. 69–70.17) 37:45Eric W. Leaver and John J. Brown, “Machines without Men,” Fortune, November 1946.
Episode 125:This week we're continuing with Post-Scarcity Anarchism by Murray Bookchin.You can find the book here:https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/murray-bookchin-post-scarcity-anarchism-book[Part 1 - 4]Post-Scarcity AnarchismEcology and Revolutionary Thought[Part 5 - This Week]Towards a Liberatory Technology - 0:13-Technology and Freedom - 4:49[Part 5 - 8]Towards a Liberatory Technology[Part 9 - 11]The Forms of Freedom[Part 12 - 16]Listen, Marxist!Footnotes:21) 4:23Both Juenger and Elul believe that the debasement of man by the machine is intrinsic to the development of technology, and their works conclude on a grim note of resignation. This viewpoint reflects the social fatalism I have in mind—especially as expressed by Elul, whose ideas are more symptomatic of the contemporary human condition. See Friedrich George Juenger, The Failure of Technology (Regnery; Chicago, 1956) and Jacques Elul, The Technological Society (Knopf; New York, 1968).22) 17:04It is my own belief that the development of the “workers' state” in Russia thoroughly supports the anarchist critique of Marxist statism. Indeed, modern Marxists would do well to consult Marx's own discussion of commodity fetishism in Capital to understand how everything (including the state) tends to become an end in itself under conditions of commodity exchange. 23) 17:54The distinction between pleasurable work and onerous toil should always be kept in mind. 24) 21:52An exclusively quantitative approach to the new technology, I may add, is not only economically archaic, but morally regressive. This approach partakes of the old principle of justice, as distinguished from the new principle of freedom. Historically, justice is derived from the world of material necessity and toil; it implies relatively scarce resources which are apportioned by a moral principle which is either “just” or “unjust.” Justice, even “equal” justice, is a concept of limitation, involving the denial of goods and the sacrifice of time and energy to production. Once we transcend the concept of justice—indeed, once we pass from the quantitative to the qualitative potentialities of modern technology—we enter the unexplored domain of freedom, based on spontaneous organization and full access to the means of life.Citations:12) 10:57Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The German Ideology (International Publishers; New York, 1947), p. 24. 13) 12:30Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, What Is Property? (Bellamy Library; London, I n.d.), vol. 1, p. 135.
Episode 124:This week we're continuing with Post-Scarcity Anarchism by Murray Bookchin.You can find the book here:https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/murray-bookchin-post-scarcity-anarchism-book[Part 1 - 3]Post-Scarcity AnarchismEcology and Revolutionary Thought-The Critical Nature of Ecology-Diversity and Simplicity[Part 4 - This Week]Ecology and Revolutionary Thought-The Reconstructive Nature of Ecology - 0:35[Part 5 - 8]Towards a Liberatory Technology[Part 9 - 11]The Forms of Freedom[Part 12 - 16]Listen, Marxist!Footnotes:20) 8:53Rudd's use of the word “manipulation” is likely to create the erroneous impression that an ecological situation can be described by simple mechanical terms. Lest this impression arise, I would like to emphasize that our knowledge of an ecological situation and the practical use of this knowledge are matters of insight rather than power. Charles Elton states the case for the management of an ecological situation when he writes: “The world's future has to be managed, but this management would not be like a game of chess ... [but] more like steering a boat.” Citations:9) 9:26Robert L. Rudd, “Pesticides: The Real Peril,” The Nation, vol. 189 (1959), p. 401. 10) 22:10E. A. Gutkind, The Twilight of Cities (Free Press; Glencoe, N.Y., 1962), pp. 55–144. 11) 33:41H. D. F. Kitto, The Greeks (Aldine; Chicago, 1951), p. 16.
Episode 123:This week we're continuing with Post-Scarcity Anarchism by Murray Bookchin.You can find the book here:https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/murray-bookchin-post-scarcity-anarchism-book[Part 1 - 2]Post-Scarcity AnarchismEcology and Revolutionary Thought[Part 3 - This Week]Ecology and Revolutionary Thought-The Critical Nature of Ecology - 0:20-Diversity and Simplicity - 10:19[Part 4]Ecology and Revolutionary Thought[Part 5 - 8]Towards a Liberatory Technology[Part 9 - 11]The Forms of Freedom[Part 12 - 16]Listen, Marxist!Footnotes:18) 13:26The above lines were written in 1966. Since then, we have seen the graffiti on the walls of Paris, during the May–June revolution: “All power to the imagination”; “I take my desires to be reality, because I believe in the reality of my desires”; “Never work”; “The more I make love, the more I want to make revolution”; “Life without dead times”; “The more you consume, the less you live”; “Culture is the inversion of life”; “One does not buy happiness, one steals it”; “Society is a carnivorous flower.” These are not graffiti, they are a program for life and desire.Citations:9) 18:05For insight into this problem the reader may consult The Ecology of Invasions by Charles S. Elton (Wiley; New York, 1958), Soil and Civilisation by Edward Hyams (Thames and Hudson; London, 1952), Our Synthetic Environment by Murray Bookchin [pseud. Lewis Herber] (Knopf; New York, 1962), and Silent Spring by Rachel Carson (Houghton Mifflin; Boston, 1962). The last should be read not as a diatribe against pesticides but as a plea for ecological diversification.
Episode 122:This week we're continuing with Post-Scarcity Anarchism by Murray Bookchin.You can find the book here:https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/murray-bookchin-post-scarcity-anarchism-book[Part 1]Post-Scarcity Anarchism- Preconditions And Possibilities- The Redemptive Dialectic- Spontaneity and Utopia[Part 2 - This Week]-Prospect - 0:31Ecology and Revolutionary Thought - 15:09[Part 3 - 4]Ecology and Revolutionary Thought[Part 5 - 8]Towards a Liberatory Technology[Part 9 - 11]The Forms of Freedom[Part 12 - 16]Listen, Marxist!Footnotes:18) 13:26The above lines were written in 1966. Since then, we have seen the graffiti on the walls of Paris, during the May–June revolution: “All power to the imagination”; “I take my desires to be reality, because I believe in the reality of my desires”; “Never work”; “The more I make love, the more I want to make revolution”; “Life without dead times”; “The more you consume, the less you live”; “Culture is the inversion of life”; “One does not buy happiness, one steals it”; “Society is a carnivorous flower.” These are not graffiti, they are a program for life and desire.Citations:7) 16:54Abraham H. Maslow, Toward a Psychology of Being (Van Nostrand; New York, 1962), p. viii. 8) 17:54Quoted in Angus M. Woodbury, Principles of General Ecology (Blakiston; New York, 1954), p. 4.
Episode 121:This week we're starting a new book, Post-Scarcity Anarchism by Murray Bookchin.You can find the book here:https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/murray-bookchin-post-scarcity-anarchism-book[Part 1 - This Week]Post-Scarcity Anarchism- Preconditions And Possibilities - 1:11- The Redemptive Dialectic - 11:04- Spontaneity and Utopia - 21:48[Part 2 - 4]-ProspectEcology and Revolutionary Thought[Part 5 - 8]Towards a Liberatory Technology[Part 9 - 11]The Forms of Freedom[Part 12 - 16]Listen, Marxist!Footnotes:14) 11:01It is worth noting here that the emergence of the “consumer society” provides us with remarkable evidence of the difference between the industrial capitalism of Marx's time and state capitalism today. In Marx's view, capitalism as a system organized around “production for the sake of production” results in the economic immiseration of the proletariat. “Production for the sake of production” is paralleled today by “consumption for the sake of consumption,” in which immiseration takes a spiritual rather than an economic form—it is starvation of life.15) 12:58The economic contradictions of capitalism have not disappeared, but the system can plan to such a degree that they no longer have the explosive characteristics they had in the past. 16) 26:04For a detailed discussion of this “miniaturized” technology see “Towards a Liberatory Technology.” 17) 29:38Despite its lip service to the dialectic, the traditional left has yet to take Hegel's “concrete universal” seriously and see it not merely as a philosophical concept but as a social program. This has been done only in Marx's early writings, in the writings of the great Utopians (Fourier and William Morris) and, in our time, by the drop-out youth. Citations:3) 17:27Raoul Vaneigem, “The Totality for Kids” (International Situationist pamphlet; London, n.d.), p. 1.4) 27:46Guy Debord, “Perspectives for Conscious Modification of Daily Life,” mimeographed translation from Internationale Situationiste, no. 6 (n.p., n.d.), p. 2. 5) 36:01Josef Weber, “The Great Utopia,” Contemporary Issues, vol. 2, no. 5 (1950), p. 12. 6) 38:27Ibid., p. 19 (my emphasis).
Episode Summary Margaret and Casandra talk with Cindy Milstein about what anarchism actually is, why you should try it, possibly for life, the many horrors of fascism, and once again why community is all too important. They also talk about Milstein's new book from Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness, "Try Anarchism for Life." Guest Info The guest is Cindy Barukh Milstein (they/them). Milstein can be found on Instagram @CindyMilstein on Twitter @CindyMilstein, on Wordpress at CBMilstein.wordpress.com on on Mastodon @CBMilstein. Their new book, "Try Anarchism for Life" can be purchased from our publisher at TangledWilderness.org Host Info Margaret can be found on twitter @magpiekilljoy or instagram at @margaretkilljoy. Casandra can be found doing our layout at Strangers. Publisher Info This show is published by Strangers in A Tangled Wilderness. We can be found at www.tangledwilderness.org, or on Twitter @TangledWild and Instagram @Tangled_Wilderness. You can support the show on Patreon at www.patreon.com/strangersinatangledwilderness Transcript Margaret 00:14 Hello, and welcome to Live Like the World is Dying, your podcast for what feels like the end times. I'm one of your hosts today. Margaret Killjoy. And also with me is Casandra. How are you doing, Casandra? Casandra 00:24 Pretty good. Margaret 00:26 Today's episode is an episode that a lot of people have been requesting, which is, 'what is anarchism?' This thing that we keep talking about on this show. And how should you talk about it with other people? Or I don't know, whatever. It's what isn't anarchism, and with us today as a guest is the author of Cindy Milstein. And I think that you all will hopefully get a lot out of this conversation. But first, this podcast is a proud member of the Channel Zero network of anarchists podcasts. And here's a jingle from another show on the network. Casandra 01:05 Hi, Milstein. If you could introduce yourself with your name, your pronouns. And just a little bit of background about why you're talking with us today. Milstein 02:05 Yeah. Hi, to both of you. My name is Cindy Barukh Milstein and I use 'they' and I'm talking to you two, who are both part of Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness publishing collective. And you are about to put out my...your first book, and my somewhere in a bunch of books I've done called, "Try Anarchism for Life." Yeah, so I'm super excited to think it's actually in the mail to me now the real copy. Very excited to see it. Casandra 02:45 That's handy that you authored a book about anarchism, and we want to talk about....anarchism. Milstein 02:53 Wow, coincidence. Good coincidence. Margaret 02:57 Wait, are you an anarchist? Milstein 03:01 Time will tell. Margaret 03:06 Is that like a 'we all aspire to this,' thing? Milstein 03:08 Yeah, that was gonna be one of my answers to what anarchism is. Or like that, you know, a friend of mine was talking about recently how they're from Greece, and how people don't actually, they....I forget the whole anecdote, but anyway, that you can't say your something until after your life is over, then people can say it about you. So, Casandra 03:33 Oh, interesting. Milstein 03:34 You know, because we're all,we all really are aspiring to be an anarchist. I hope. And, and, yeah, I guess I do use that label. And it's on the title of some of my books so... Margaret 03:45 Okay, well, that leads us into the first question, which is a question that I get a lot, that you might get a lot, which a lot of listeners of the show have. Milstein, what is anarchism? Milstein 03:59 Oh, okay. Joking ahead of time, that if I am Jewish, yes, one Jew, they have two opinions. But if you ask anarchists, we probably have even more, and if you're Jewish anarchists, thousands. So I guess I was thinking about this, there's so many ways to describe anarchism, but lately I've really been thinking about it as like life, how we make life in common life and care. And do that in collective ways through self determination, self organization, self governance, because most of what we're facing that is not anarchism are different forms of deaths machines. So yeah, lately I've been thinking about what is that? You know, what does that mean to be staunchly in not just an advocate out but like actually, actively engaging in forms of bringing in essentially life? But yeah, I guess the other ways people...or I describe anarchism often is a compass, or sort of horizon made up of a bunch of ethics, which you often highlight on this show through various practices of like mutual aid and solidarity and collective care and all sorts of other nice warm and fuzzy ways we do good in this world or try to create better worlds. But yeah, I guess the nutshell other version, I would say is, to me, anarchism is both the absence and presence, and the absence of all forms of hierarchy and domination or striving to lessen them as much as possible. But, it's no good unless there's a presence of something to fill in those absences. Like, I don't know, anarchism isn't just like, we hate everything, let's like, you know, hate capitalism, patriarchy, chaos, whatever. But what is the presence of what we want and that's actually for me, where anarchism really shines, as a philosophy and practice of freedom, and liberation and liberatory practices of all sorts. So, I really like to think about that part of anarchism. And, and so therefore, the, that means that anarchism as a practice, which to me embodies the whole of your life every second of the day, is constantly juggling tensions, and between, you know, what we don't like and what we do and what we want to destroy, and what we want to create, or in a way, the core tension in anarchism is how do you create these beautiful societies and worlds based upon kind of balancing out freedom for each of ourselves and freedom, collectively? And, and that's hard. That isn't easy. But like, that's what anarchism is and is not. Like, we just want people to be free and do their own thing, which to me is capitalism or liberalism, or all these other things, like, "Fuck you, I'm gonna do my own thing." But anarchism is like, "No, you know, I should be able to become who I want to be. But I can only do that if you can do that too. And how we do that together is where it gets fun." And to me, that's what enter you know, a lot of what anarchism is about, that presence of all we do. So I don't know, what do you two think? Margaret 07:04 I mean, okay, one of the things that you touched on....I actually do I would define anarchism as this like striving for freedom, but I would I define freedom a little bit differently than, well, certainly liberalism or capitalism would. You know, my argument being we're not free if we like live alone in the woods, I tried it, actually, I still had a society to fall back on. But, you know, freedom is like, not just the individual in a state of nature, or whatever. Freedom is, is something that we create, and build cooperatively with each other, because if freedom is the ability to like, maximize my own agency and act in the ways that I would like to the most or whatever, right? We can create that with each other. And I basically, I make the argument that freedom is a relationship between people rather than a static state for an individual. And so, I do you believe in maximizing freedom, in that I believe in creating relationships of freedom between people. And I really like, and I don't remember who said it, I think I'm kind of paraphrasing it from Ursula Le Guin, is that anarchism is about the marriage of freedom and responsibility, that basically we need to all be as responsible to each other as possible so that we can maximize all of our, our freedom. And so that's like, kind of what I set out to do as an anarchist, is create these relationships of freedom. But, I guess I would say like, if I'm talking to someone who is like, "Well, what is anarchism?" I think at its like, core, it's like, simplest is, you know, yeah, like, as you said, you know, are like people trying to live in a world without oppressive hierarchies, right? You know, traditionally, in the sort of Western philosophical tradition that anarchism is most often reflected through, you have basically the idea of like, it comes out of an anti capitalist movement, it comes out of a movement against capitalism, and they said, "Well, also the state," you know, they were like, "The state and capitalism are intrinsically linked, we are opposed to all of them, or both of these constructs." And then people very quickly took it from there to be like, "and also patriarchy, and also white supremacy and also all of these, like systemic institutions of oppression." And, you know, anarchism is the movement against those things, but has, as you talked about, always been tied into, for most people also a sort of positive vision, the creation of a society without these things as a, as a desired thing to move towards. Milstein 09:39 Yeah, no, thanks for filling. I was I was thinking when you were speaking, it's like, so much of anarchism to me is it's like isn't a fixed thing. To me. That's why I like the idea of a horizon, your always kind of walking towards this beautiful thing, but you're never actually going to quite get there. But you know, like, you're never...you can see it but you can never fully, but so it's this process. And yeah, one other thing When you were speaking, I was reminded of as often I talked about anarchism is, like us together, figuring out different forms of social organization and different forms of social relationships that emphasize, you know, freedom and liberation and that it's impossible without the social, you know, like we we, we are social creatures. We can't possibly do this alone. Casandra 10:20 But I thought anarchism was about chaos. You mean anarchists are organized? Margaret 10:31 Sometimes we spend too much of our time on organization. Milstein 10:34 Or trying to organize. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, another way, another way. I think that's why I like tensions, because another tension to me is the tension between sort of, you know, freedom and spontaneity or how do you know, like, in a way, maybe it's playfully in the, in the, like, the word anarchism and anarchy, you know, you can't...anarchism is like we can make, we can try to figure out ways to like, create, you know, neighborhood assemblies and info shops, and mutual aid societies and all these other things. And then there's all this fun, spontaneous, spontaneous chaos and play and joy that happens that we never even thought of, and that we actually balance both those things we're not you know, just...Yeah, anarchism is like, I also think of anarchism is like being really dynamic and flexible and open, and kind of like, "Oh, that's a cool new idea. Let's try that." Versus like a lot of things like borders: "No, this was the line in the sand." or state: "No, you have to do that." You know, that's really different. Casandra 11:35 I feel like one of my favorite things about anarchism is that there are different ways to do anarchism. And that seems like counter intuitive still, even to a lot of anarchists. I'm thinking about like, I don't know, Twitter anarchists: "No, there's only one way to do this." Margaret 11:57 Yeah, the idea that we're like, gonna find the the one right way is inherently broken. And I really liked the, you know, the quote from the anarchists adjacent, but not anarchistic or not not anarchist Zapatista is that, you know, "A world in which many worlds are possible is the goal." Yeah, and I like that it's, it's not about coming up with easy answers, or providing easy answers to people, which is actually I mean, it certainly limits our recruitment, because we're, we can't just be like, "Oh, well, here we have the answer. Anarchism is the answer." Anarchism, it's said is like a system by which to come up with answers collectively, amongst people, you know, it's like a, it's much easier to tell people what to do than to tell people to become free thinking individuals who work things out with each other, you know? Milstein 12:51 Yeah, yeah. No, like, maybe the emphasis on like experiments and processes and us together. And the way you use the answers as plural is, you know, most other sort of forms of...yeah, like, politically engaging, first of all, are limited to like, one sphere of your life. But you know, anarchism is like, "How can we make the whole of our, of our lives feel whole," and, but to do that, there isn't like, one way to do things. And so you know, actually, when people get...the more, I just find this time and time again, to always is so beautiful, it's like, the more people you get together, the more incredibly beautiful creative solutions you have, or ideas or experiments. And, you can actually try multiple ones of them at once. And that makes for this kind of beautiful ecosystem, which is maybe another thing we didn't talk about anarchism, I think it's very, like, ecological in, not in the sense of necessarily like, you know, environmentalism, or making things, you know, but, like, very holistic, and understands things in ways like complicated ecosystems where it's okay for difference to coexist in an ecosystem, and actually, that makes us more resilient and stronger, is like some of the most, like, I love walking, you know, and observing the world. And when you walk around and just see some of the most like, you know, sort of ecosystems that are thriving, they're thriving, because there's multiple different types of plants and animals and species, and, you know, engagements and interactions and experiments going on. And they all shift and change through that. So, how can we think of that? So? I mean, often when people think about anarchists, and you're like, "Oh, and what kind of anarchists are you?" and you know, "I'm a feminist, anarchist, or queer anarchist, or Jewish anarchist, or, you know, et cetera, et cetera," and like that's like, some sort of problem and anarchism, and I think we're just actually trying to articulate that freedom and that ecosystem has to bring in the fullness of who we are. And the fullness of who we are isn't always the same. And it's that beautiful kind of interplay between what we care about in our own lives and our own, you know, experiences and identities and yeah. So, I'm just kind of rambling, but I don't know, lately, I've just been thinking a lot about the anarchist ecosystem. And that's actually, you know, I mean, so much of, you know, like white Christian supremacy homogenizes everything from calendars to, you know, time, to how we make decisions, to, you know, capitalism gives you the same, you know, type of, you know, hamburger or coffee no matter where you are in the world if you know if it's trying to like flatten out everything or actually destroy all sorts of foods so all we think of this certain foods, you know. And most like large scale forms of hierarchy and domination to succeed, they they flattened, I mean, we're looking at fascism, unfortunately, appearing in a lot of parts of the globe right now. And it's all about an essence creating this, like, pure identity, that's homogeneous identity, that should be able to survive while the rest of us should be killed off. And I mean, ultimately, fascism. If it ever fully succeeded in instituting itself would die because there's no possible way any kind of ecosystem can exist if it has only has one pure sort of being, right? Margaret 16:13 Yeah, I think about the anarchist comicbook author, Alan Moore, makes this argument that the primary axis of politics in this world is not communism versus capitalism. It's not left versus right. It's, it's fascism versus anarchism as you know, these two opposing concepts and what you're talking about, but fascism is the making everything the same, in order to be strong. And then anarchism is about like, celebrating difference and creating....diversity as strength, you know, rather than, like, just unity as strength in this sort of fascistic context. Milstein 16:58 Or, again, life. I mean, fascism, it has to engage in genocide, because there's no other way to get rid of all those things that aren't the one pure right, you know, sort of body you're, and, and, and we're like, you know, okay, we have to try to, like, bring forward life, and in a sense, and I guess one thing, when you're speaking, I was also thinking about with anarchism, it's always hard to sort of explain well what is anarchism is like, sure, some people came up with the, like, a word and applied it to, you know, a specific political philosophy at a specific time period in history. And those people that became anarchist love to travel and they wandered around the world, they, you know, convinced other, you know, through inspiring other people, a lot of people became anarchists. But anarchism is, is, is really this tendency of life unfolding. And when you get to the social realm, it's of people together, unfolding that life together, to create different forms of social relationships that allow people to live in more cooperative, mutualistic mutually interdependent and co-responsible ways. And all the things, you know, solidaristic, carrying all the many ethics we can throw in, but humans have been doing that, since the beginning of time, and continue to do that. And when we look at, you know, uprisings that have happened recently, whether it's, you know, in Iran or the George Floyd uprising, or we can name hundreds and hundreds of others, small scale and large scale. During the pandemic, which is still ongoing when, you know, people formed all sorts of projects in small scale and larger scale forms of solidarity and mutual aid to take care of each other. It's it's like that's anarchistic and I particularly don't really care to turn everybody into an anarchist, or to have everybody even say, "Well, this is about anarchism." This like, we, I think that's why Zapatistas are also super influential to me. And they, they also were like, No, we look for all the places in which we can listen to each other and hear the way we're all engaging. And watch each other and share with each other and borrow from each other and all the ways that we're engaging in creating that life and not worry about the labels. Worry about, and celebrate those places where people are like, throwing off hierarchy and domination, but not just throwing that off, but making their own lives together and going, "This is what we want our lives to be." I really think that's what's so powerful about these moments. It's like, you know, the uprisings, you know, the, all the hierarchical structures will say, "Oh, they don't know what they want. They're just angry. They're just ripping things down. They're just destroying things." And any of us who've been in these moments, or have done a mutual aid project with anyone, or done anything large or small, you know, that's not...sure we're like, you know, a window gets broken or, you know, someone takes the food out of a little library and instead puts some...or books out a little library instead of puts you know masks or food during a pandemic. We, but what you realize is people are creating different forms of social relationships that are around love, and care, and beauty, and they're sharing with each other, and they're acting in profound forms of solidarity. I listened to this beautiful piece recently that was talking about the George Floyd uprising and how, in the first especially few days is like, it was the most like counter to all this sort of conquer divide around race politics in the United States moment. Because suddenly, people...and all sorts of other things class, gender, age, all these people were acting in this beautiful concert, sharing, and helping each other get away from cops, but also sharing food, and knowledge, and joy, and painting murals. And, you know, when...I really remember Unicorn Riot, which is a great like anarchistic news media project, when they were up close filming the precinct being burned down, they walked in and go, "Oh these people are destroying the third precinct, police station," and then they walked in with their camera, and you're inside watching people trash the place, and it being set on fire. And then people's faces were joyous. And people walked outside and had a party basically. And I was like, watching that live. And going, this is why we revolt, we revolt....Why we just, quote, destroy things, destroy police stations that kill people, you know, status structures that are all these things, we're not destroying the...our lives, and we're actually...but that we do it so we can have that joy with each other. I'm rambling now. But I just I feel like that's the thing that gets so lost, but all of us that are part of these moments know it, and we have to....like anarchism asks you, this is a really, I think, a really powerful thing to trust in yourself and those around you to know we can do this. And, you know, there's nothing we have except sort of the trust of the things we promise each other in anarchism, because there's no you know, police force or bureaucracy or anything else. There's just this profound, deep promise and trust in each other. And we actually know that when we do it, we feel it, it feels different. It feels like life. It feels like love. Casandra 22:05 We've talked about that some in terms of community preparedness, when we're talking about things like natural disasters. And my understanding is that they're realizing that when these giant catastrophes happen, whether it's like a social catastrophe, or natural disaster, or something, people tend to band together, and work together,r and help each other in larger degree. It's almost like, it's like a natural way for us to be or something. Margaret 22:33 With the exception of the elites, right, you get that elite panic thing, if you have...I hate using the word elites, but it's, no, it's in the name of the like, the people who have power within a society are the people who don't band together in times of crisis, and instead try to like violently enforce the status quo. And, disaster studies stuff talks about that. That's the name they use. Casandra 22:58 Of course they do. Milstein 22:59 I feel like what's so sad is that we have you know, like, I hope that as an anarchist, I really hope we don't like be like, "Oh, romanticize disaster," as the places that this happens. You know, disasters are happening to us. We are... we want to create a society where, yeah, those moments show us that. But then we're like, "Wow, we can do this all the time. We don't have to just do this in disasters." Although we're pretty much in disaster constantly. We're in disaster always. I don't know, I don't also want to romanticize, Oh, I feel so great that we have this horrible, you know...fascism is getting worse. We're actually helping each other like, you know, provide community self defense in these wonderful ways. You know, it's like, all that does is point to I mean, you know, the point to the sort of, anarchistic dream of you know, autonomous communities or liberated zones, or all these places, in which we would still have arguments and we would still, you know, have behaviors that would harm us and antisocial behaviors, but they would be, I guess, I guess the other thing I want is you know is whenever you do these experiments that are anarchistic things still happen that don't feel great, but they happen to such a lesser degree, and we have so many more beautiful ways of dealing with them that aren't about prisons and police. And...or we try to at least, you know, we aspire to that, again, like going back to the beginning is like, everyone's like, "You know, you have all these, like, abolitionist ways of dealing with conflict, but yet we're not good at it." And I was like, "Well, how would we be, we've been raised in this culture for, you know, hundreds of years now, at this point, sadly, of, you know, police and until we're a few generations, which, again we have the Zapitistas to show us, because I think they've been around long enough to begin to be able to show us this is that, you know, their children and their children's children, I think they're now probably have grandchildren that have come out of them that have lived in autonomous communities, is each new generation is more able to do it better, you know, which is why in a lot of diasporic and long long time traditions that way, precede, you know, states and capitalism and a whole bunch of things. A lot of times the numbers, like seven is really prominent. And we think of, you know, some indigenous cultures talk about seven generations. Jewish, you know a lot of looking back to seven, like cycles of seven, and that it may take, you know, seven generations to be able to actually forget, like, sort of erase the socialization of how you know, and learn better ways to do this. So we're not instantly gonna have...I just want to emphasize you know anarchism is not, "Oh, great, everything's wonderful now," it's just about, we're gonna do things a lot better and more and better and better still, the longer we can hold and sustain these spaces of possibility. Margaret 23:00 Yeah, I want to ask a question for each of us, which is, how did you become an anarchist? Or how did you realize you're an anarchist? Or however you choose to define that? I don't know who wants to go first? It looks like Milstein... Milstein 25:49 Or one of you two? Margaret 25:58 Alright, I'll go first. Can't see, but Casandra opted out by putting their finger on their nose. My story is very, like pithy, but also true, which was that, you know, when I was like, when I was a teenager, I was not excited about any of the political options that were presented to me. I had this like, brief moment where I was a libertarian, because I took a quiz online, and it said, and it had been made by the Libertarian Party. And it was like, "Well, do you like freedom? You must be a libertarian." And my, like, communist girlfriend was like, "No corporations would run everything." And I was like, "Okay, well, that's true." But, I don't want to be a communist, as I understood it, at that time, meaning like, state communist or whatever, right? And still don't. And, so I just kind of didn't care about politics. I was like, vaguely social democrat. And then I went to this protest in New York City on February 2, 2002, it's part of the, you know, gets called the ultra globalization movement, or whatever. And, and the anarchists were like wearing masks despite a mask ban in New York City. And I was like, "That's cool," right. And I didn't know anything about the anarchists, except that they were willing to wear masks, despite being told they weren't allowed. And that was like "That rules." So, I went up to this kid wearing a mask. And I was like, "Hey," and I'm 19, or something...well not 'or' something. I was 19. I said," Hey, what's this anarchism thing?" And he's like, "Well, we hate the state, and capitalism." And I was like, "Well, what are you gonna do about it?" And he's like, "Well, we're gonna build up alternative institutions while attacking the ones that are destroying the world." And I was like, "Well, do you have an extra mask?" And he was like, "Yeah." And he gave me a black bandana and I tied it around my face. And I became an anarchist. And I've not really looked back. Casandra 27:53 That's the initiation, is donning a black bandana. Margaret 27:56 Yeah. And like, you know, that day, I got, like, rounded, I got kettled. And I spent like, I don't know, five hours or something with like, 10 of us surrounded by like, fucking 20 cops or whatever. And, you know, then it was like, this very powerful moment in my life. And then it, it took me a long time to sort of like, become part of the sort of anarchist scene or milieu or whatever. But from that day forth, it was I called myself an anarchist. Casandra 28:30 My story is less exciting. I had a really conservative, really religious upbringing, to the extent that I like, went to seminary and stuff. And when I turned 18, it was the first time I could vote. And, the discrepancies I was seeing between how we were told to vote and what we were taught was theologically sound was too much for me. So, I left, and, like the deconstruction of like, those things I was raised with and my concept of authority, the natural progression was just becoming an anarchist. It also helped that Crimethinc was based out of my hometown. So, I like lived and worked at the Crimethinc house for a while and got you know, exposed to all sorts of baby anarchist ideas through that. Milstein 29:26 Oh, I love you're an anarchist. I love hearing stories because they're all different and great. Yeah, yeah. They're never isn't a form...Yeah, for a while I was there must be a formula to this. But, there are no which is actually yeah, no, it's great. Casandra 29:42 How about you? Milstein 29:44 Yeah, I feel like there was preconditions that made me like sort of like what you're talking about, Margaret that made me like, kind of looking for anarchism for most of my life, including like, my parents were like overgrown kids because of their own trauma. And so they made me their parent from the very beginning. And so they really let me like self determined with me and my friends. And we were always creating our own self organized spaces or going off on adventures. But, so were my parents. And so I also had to be...learn a lot of responsibility and how to take care of people, because otherwise no one else would. So in a way, it's like a traumatic responses, as like, you know, and I think from ancestors, I don't know. I more and more believe that there's, like, ancestral, both trauma and joy that has, like, made me understand that like, to sort of be diasporic, to be not...you know, do you make community where you are with those who are with you, and you take care of each other. And this vague notion of like, our goal, or sort of our aim as humans is to, you know, be as good as we can and try to create as good a world as we can, that just, there's all these preconditions that so I was kind of always looking around going, Oh, maybe this political orientation, or this group or that group? And I was like, nope, nope, nope. And then, you know, and then I met some anarchists in Vermont, Burlington, Vermont, where I was living, and they were like, "Hey, why don't you read this?" And they kept handing me free articles and books. And then they were like, "Hey, why don't you come to this self organized cafe where, you know, everyday, things are mostly free, but you can throw in money in a jar, if you want on, there's events going on." Or, "Hey, why don't you come join us in some of the organizing we're doing." And I just, I, they were just so generous, they kept just gifting me. And it wasn't like they were asking me to be them or to change or they weren't even, you know, they were just like, this kind of like, I guess that's right, come back to the sort of, like trust and faith in anarchism is like, you don't have to like sell it to people, you can gift it, you know, and share it and and then they're like, "Hey, do you want to come here, Murray Bookchin speak at something called the Institute for Social Ecology that was happening then and Murray would, you know, I went to hear him speak and 12 hours later, after his first talk, he because he would just talk during this program. And people came from all over the world, so there were anarchists from all over the world sitting in this room, and it was like, wow, they're anarchists, and multi generational, all different ages listening, you know, and asking him questions and engaging. And I was like, whoa. And then as he came up to afterward, my friends introduced me and they go, "Hey, this is our friend, Cindy, Murray," and Murray's like, you know, "Where do you live?" I go, "Burlington" and he was like, "What's your last name?" And then he goes, "You need to study with me." Margaret 32:25 That's amazing. Milstein 32:26 And then he like, really, like, as he did for many, many people, he's just like, "Come to my house." And we would like, you know, he lived very, very modestly often in like, a studio, and we just, like, would crowd around this room and just read and, you know, so I just started with him and anarchists in that community doing organizing and reading and studying. And, yeah, and also, I never looked back from there, too. And I think it's because Murray, you know, maybe because we had affinity, because we're both like, culturally, really similar. And, but he's, like, you know, "I want to give you, you know, you have to, like, think and act for yourself," and I'm so shaped by him in a way, you know, he was like, he was so interested in what we would do to...what we would, how we would replace the state with what. What would we replace capitalism? You know, what would we, you know, and it's like, and maybe that just, you know, felt like...I felt at home, I guess that's why we know, for the first time, like, "Oh, this is where I should be," you know, so. And that it wasn't, I guess, less than want to say is like that, that group and Murray...yeah. And then I start doing the same thing. There's a, you know, gigantic, you know, movements going on and, you know, I was in at that time period, then started you know, going to New York, Montreal, all these other places, because I love wandering around and there was all sorts of incredible anarchist organizing, and then big movements started, you know, similar the alt globalization, movement and movements were constantly people were like, hey, read my scene. Hey, do you want this Hey, do you want that? Hey, do you need water? Hey, do you need a mask? And that's just generosity of spirit like why would you not want that. I just feel like it's like I just feel like more and more I just into this kind of big social fabric of...which doesn't mean all anarchists have been nice to me or great to each other. It's just yeah, it's just overall it's like far more generous of spirit and yeah. So. Margaret 34:17 Well that that...one of the things that you brought up during that you know, going into this like multi generational meeting and seeing that there's like anarchists from all over the world. I think one of the things you know if the primary target of this particular episode Oh, I guess try and do it with every episode of Live Like the World is Dying is people who are may not know, the things that we're coming into it knowing right like so someone who's listening to this might have only barely heard of anarchists, or only seen I guess what I would kind of say is sort of the tip of the anarchist iceberg, like the most commonly seen or known elements of anarchism change over time. I would actually say I wonder right now if it's not the mutual aid projects, Casandra 34:57 Oh, I was gonna say that crappy documentary. Margaret 35:01 Oh god, I wasn't even trying to think of...we could talk about An-caps [anarcho-capitalists] later, but ya know, like, okay, but of the actual anarchist iceberg...because there's a very...I hate gatekeeping but there's a certain....anyway you know, when I was coming up, the tip of the anarchist iceberg was like the black bloc, you know, people wearing all black and matte...I'm literally wearing a black hoodie as I say this, but but I don't have a bandana over my face. But, that was part of me becoming an anarchist, I guess. But, you know, this, this idea of the people who wear all black and break things, right, is like the tip of the anarchist iceberg. And there's this like presumption that people have that is incorrect about all of those people being young, able bodied, like cis white men, right? It's probably changed enough that some people think that it might, there might be some queer folks in there too, right. But this, like, youthful anger movement, is what people know about. And I think that that's, well, that's what, you know, the media presents us as, and all of these things, but actually finding out that it's this like multi generational movement, and this like multi like, like literally multicultural movement, like different people coming from very different, like cultural ideas of how they want to live, and like how they express themselves, you know, within that is actually the kind of more beautiful part of it. I have nothing against the people....I have nothing against the black bloc, but it is like, only some tiny portion of what anarchists do. I don't know, I don't know why I'm going on that rant. Milstein 36:35 I mean, in a way, I think what like when people go, Oh, anarchists, you know, I wear black bloc and I wear a black mask constantly, every day now. Because, the whole time since the pandemics been going on, it's like how do we be collectively carrying is we wear masks, and which is what the point of the mask were in the first place, which is like a black bloc was a way to take care of each other in moments when the police and the state are trying to target you. And all sorts of social movements around the world have...mask their face to protect each other, in moments of danger from the structures that are trying to kill us and do kill us. So, I think that's what gets lost is like that it's just black bloc is one tactic, you know, wearing masks for variety of reasons in a pandemic, is the similar tactic. And the underlying again, that ethic below it is, you know, you just have to push a little bit, but with anarchism it's about we try generally a lot harder to try to balance like how can we have social relationships structured around taking care of each other when there's like perfect moments of profound abandonment. And so like a lot of people coming into anarchism right now, a lot of the younger folks that I've met lately, and that's why I think multi generational spaces are important is the caveat is like, it's not because Oh, the older you get, the more you know, it's like no, if we're in multi generational spaces, we all...in all sorts of different directions learn from each other. Because I don't know what it's like to be 12 right now. But if I hear a 12 year olds telling me their experience, I'll better understand the world and better understand how they understand, you know, it's like we need each other in these multi generational spaces. So, I would like...folks that have been coming into anarchists in the last couple of years, it's either, you know, been because of the George Floyd...in North American continent at least, the George Floyd uprising, or mutual aid projects and solidarity, you know, disaster relief projects that are kind of structured in anarchistic ways. And, and, yeah, so there's just a different...like what values do people come in at anarchism at different moments to understand and so, you know, I, I think if people at these moments are there in person versus on, you know, Twitter or social media, which sadly, more and more has become, you know, a default, which is another way, you know, sure people find anarchism, but I still don't really think that's anarchism, you know, it's like a flat version, because you'd have to practice it in ways, in embodied ways face to face makes a big difference. But oftentimes, when people are in their spaces, they realize, wow, there's lots of anarchists here, and they don't even like tell me, they're anarchists, but I can kind of, if you're, you kind of look around and start asking people, you know, get to know them or start asking then people go, Yeah, I kind of been doing this for a long time. But you know, I can't run as much now. So like, Yeah, I'm like, I cook food and I bring that or I'm, you know, a legal observer, or, you know, I'm what, you know, I, I can move fast, but I don't want to run right now. So I medic, or all of these different, all these different roles is like, oftentimes, I kind of like think of anarchism now too, is like, we're not huge in number oftentimes, but we're so damned dedicated to being this like infrastructure of self organized, you know, mutual aid and care and solidarity and life making that we're almost always like, there are all sorts of these pivotal moments to be like, Hey, we don't have to, you know, control or tell everybody how to do mutual aid, but if people have questions about kind of how to do it, you know, we can kind of like offer some advice, or we can show you how some like, you know, decentralized yet federated structures worked in the past. And often, if you look around there actually is sort of multi generational anarchism, but sadly, sadly, I think, especially in in the US context, you know, I really, really encourage you, you know, this is another caveat, is like anarchism is this profound, profound, difficult duty, and really think of it as a duty. And it's hard, really hard to stay an anarchist, to continually make the spaces you want, even if it's difficult, and it gets more and more difficult over time. So, you know, I really committed to making all sorts of different kinds of spaces where we experience what it feels like to be the people we want to be for in a in a space we want and that doesn't always end up looking pretty or great sometimes. But often, it's pretty magical. But part of that commitment is bringing together, you know, different genders, and different cultures, and different skin colors, and different bodies of all sorts, and different ages and being really committed as an anarchist, the older I get to not be like I've been there before, it's really boring. I don't want to go to that thing. I don't want to be around young people, blah, blah. Yeah, sure, you know, but I get so tired of "Oh, no, this thing again." Can we learn to at least make better mistakes? Casandra 41:43 Oh, God. I feel that. Milstein 41:45 Yeah, but I don't know. I'm also really committed to that like, creating and being in multi generational spaces. And when I'm in those spaces, myself, and others, encouraging us to all listen to each other, and all tell our stories, and all be curious ,and not think we know everything you know, and like that, to me is part of an anarchist practice. Maybe that's why I say 'aspiring always,' you know, is like, how do we create those spaces where...Yeah, where we see the anarchism isn't the stereotype. We...Yeah, I should go back to like Murray. I was like, when I first met him, he's like, so so well read, like he never went to barely...I mean, he was like, a radical, and he was like, a baby. He was like, never had a childhood. And so but, you know, we moved from, like, sort of Marxism and to anarchism. And then he was just super, super, super well read. And for the first year, he was like, just, you know, never asked for anything, just would like spend hours and hours teaching, engaging conversation. The first year I go, his ideas are just so big and so expansive, and brings into so much beautiful things from all sorts of different historical movements, and philosophies, and tendencies, and logics that you should think of that, you know, are dangerous, like fascism, and all these other things. But also, I know, there's things that don't sit with me, right, but I couldn't, I didn't feel like I could feel my brain like stretching these beautiful growth ways. But I couldn't figure out how to argue with him, like, argue in the sense of like, not angrily, but like wrestle with ideas with him. And even other things I don't think I agree with him points, but I don't know how to articulate it yet. And I was like, I have to just let my brain keep expanding and keep, you know, and he kept saying, "I want you to learn to think for yourself." That's why I'm like, expose, you know, all these ideas, all these different tendencies. And then at one point, I was like, hey, whoa, and then like, you know, and then you reach this point where we could have these, we became good friends, and I could wrestle together with him with things I agreed with or disagreed with, or, you know, or things we both didn't know the answer to, which is even more interesting. And, and how do you how do we create spaces as anarchists that allow for I feel like that was such a gift, you know, to allow for that, that growth and to allow for us to see that there's so many different ways of doing things in the world. And we have to give ourselves the patience, and the time, and the space with each other to do that. And otherwise, it's just going to remain....I mean, there's lots of reasons but you know, I don't want to anarchism just to be you know, 18 year olds who stay anarchists for two years, and then it's, you know, it has to be grounded and so on. Yeah. Yeah. You know, more reasons to stay an anarchist. Well, that I'm kind of all over the place there. Milstein 42:33 But that does tie well into the next question that I have, which is, the title of your book is "Try Anarchism for Life," seems to be addressing that sort of thing. Do you want to talk about your new book? Milstein 44:41 Um, yeah, I mean, I kind of came out as I used to hate hashtags. I used to hate social media. I still I still do. But anyway, I used to roast hash tags...because I really like how can we boil down our ideas to two words or three words in a hashtag? But anyway, I started using "Try Anarchism for Life" at one point, but I was like, Oh, how do I fill that out? Because I guess for me, it was kind of this playful hashtag, but then I really meant like, anarchism has to be something once you embrace it that you you want to act anarchitically for the whole of your life and I don't understand how you can't once you embrace it, because I don't understand. Although I've known plenty of people who have, you know, but how once you've eyes widened to see hierarchy, domination, you kind of go What, whoa, wait, I don't believe that anymore. I just don't understand that. But ,once you know, once, you're sort of like, in anarchism and anarchistic, how, how do you do that for the whole of your life, but in service of life? So, that is kind of like puns play on or like word plays, like, try and anarchism for the whole of your life and for the life of all the ancestors that came before you, and the life of those will come after you, but also in service of life. And that it's trying because we're never actually going to all have to keep experimenting. So yeah, so I whatever, I kept playing with it and writing little little things about it on my plate to do sort of picture posted on Instagram. And then I don't know last winter, especially this time period has been incredibly bleak and traumatizing and horrific, horrifying, depressing. And, I'm not making light of it, it's just been a hellish, hellish, a lot of hellish time periods in history, but there are some that are particularly, yeah, horrific. And this is one of them. Fascism. Ecocide. You know, collapse of all sorts of any kinds of supports systems. Yeah, it's a really horrific time. And so yeah, I don't know, last year, especially last winter, I was like, what if I wrote little prose that really kind of tried to figure out, to kind of answer the thought experiment what are some of the many beautiful dimensions of anarchism? And it came about to talk about this in a little prologue to the book, but it came up on me posting things on Instagram originally, I don't know when I started doing that with the scriptwriter because I'm for life. But I take a lot of pictures of graffiti and street art and write little stories about some. I have thousands I have not yet written stories about on my camera. But uh, but I started just thinking, why is it that we like, mostly, you see a lot of spray painted Circle A's, but they're kind of haphazard? And just what does it say? When someone just the random person looks at a circle, like they might not know what it is. Or they might think oh, those anarchists things, people that break windows or black bloc, you know, like, it's this, we're not, again, doing justice to the beauty of the beauty of activism with Circle A's even though I love to see Circle A's everywhere. So then I, on Instagram was like, hey, who could? Who? What artists, friends of mine can draw Circle A's that, like, embody within the drawing the values and the beauty they find in anarchism. And yeah, I was so struck by how hard it was for so many folks would kept sharing things with me. And a lot of them were just things being set on fire, which is great, you know, police cars, fine, you know, but, you know, hey, we can maybe use those cars and buildings later, maybe, you know, the point is to tear down that world. Who cares? You know, what would we put in the place of others. And so, but then people started drawing them. And I started going, Okay, I'll do a little book of these things, just for fun. And so this book is 24 or 26 of these little stories. They're all very short and compact. They're kind of playful, poetic, lots of sort of puns, there's, they're kind of poignant in places, but they're very compact. I was like how can I say a lot in a small space. So I hope you look, there's a lot of little things in there that if whether you already know about anarchism, or you don't that kind of gesturing toward a bunch of wider things, but I love that forum, and I used 26 of the different drawings that people started creating all over the place. And since then, a lot of artists have been creating a lot more. So, it feels really exciting to see a lot more beautiful Circle A's out in the world. And yeah, I want to inspire people to, you know, I really think part of, you know, we as anarchists were like, Oh, this is this cool club, and we know how great it is, well, you know, we're just going to do Circle A's, you know, scrawl Circle A's, but we're not going to..... I don't know, I've been accused of being a friendly, welcoming anarchist. And I think that's a good thing. So, this book is, is also like, I also want people to act more anarchistically, and I don't want it for I want it because seriously this world, if we don't do that we are it really is a choice between anarchism, fascism or ecocide. And so I hope this book contributes in a small way to encourage all of you who read it or even think about any of the circle's in it, to think about how you can portray the beauty of anarchism more and more through your life, through your practices, through modeling it, through the projects, you do, the art you do, so that other people can find it and embrace it, because sometimes it's really damn hard to find anarchism and it shouldn't be, or to find that beauty and it shouldn't be, you know, and in this moment, we need it and I don't know I was really struck last winter, which was, you know, absurdly bleek, I started writing these prose and was, you know, like, feeling so crappy before I was doing it. And then the more I just was like, I'm just gonna get obsessed in writing these, that's all I'm going to do right now, because the world's going to hell, just I could focus on this for the next couple months. And I was like, it was like, this good medicine from my brain. Like, the more I just was, like, just focus on what's beautiful in anarchism, and try to write about some little practices, and not pie in the sky. Some of them are playful and fanciful, but most of them are things we really do. Also, the more I did it more as like, whoa, wow, I start my brain started remembering that it's not just all fascism and ecocide, and tragedy and depression, despair or death. I like remembered that, that tension that, you know, there is always trauma and joy, there is sorrow and joy there is we're never wholly in collapse or, you know, we're never wholly in disaster. We have. Yeah, so I don't know, I think, even on that level, for us to really stretch our brains to think about and practice that beauty, you know, I don't know, I've, I've done different, like, hospice care and other forms of care around death and grief. And, you know, people think, Oh, this is hard to deal with death. And I don't know something about like, being really open to these moments, when people are experiencing most sort of profound transitions in life, you know, going from this life to whatever after you believe happens. It's a pretty profound, intimate moment that only happens once in your life for each of us. And to accompany someone through that....Wow. It's, I think the sort of, you know, if we're able to do those things well, to take care of each other well, to really intimate moments of grief and or dying, and death is, is we find out all the people that are like, "Oh my god, I should have been living my life, I should have been telling people I love them, I should have been telling people I don't love them," you know, like people become genuine and like actually, strive, oftentimes people become, not everybody, but a lot of people like it calls into question your mortality an you try to be suddenly like recommit to life, which a lot of people I've heard, say, during the pandemic, too, this is just telling me what's important in life, you know, we show the world is in hospice right now, you know, and we don't know if there's going to be a future in the next 10 years, or what humans if humans as a species will survive this time period. And, but we do know, we can treat each other as good as possible and alleviate as much suffering as we can, and make every moment until that last moment, as beautiful as it can be, which is what hospice is, in the best of scenario's goal is, is to alleviate unnecessary suffering, and to accentuate as much beauty and collected care as you can. And so I don't know, I'm not it, I hope this book says, please, you know, all of us can't give up. Too many of us have lost friends to them killing themselves or taking too many substances intentionally or unintentionally, or depression, or, you know, all sorts of other reasons. And, you know, that's, that's there, that's real, right? And I want more of us to be here, you know, and so how can we be there to help alleviate as much suffering as we can and accentuate forms of collective care, even if we only think we have another six months or 10 years, or whatever it is we have, and not give up? Don't give up? Because that's, we might, you know, I don't know, to me as an anarchist, that's always like, I don't know how they always stay an anarchist. Because, you know, that's like a question we could talk about. But part of it is just this belief is like, I don't know what else I'm like, This is what I want to my last breath is to try really hard to be encircled by solidarity and care and love. And, you know, in ways that we do it non hierarchically, you know, in ways that we do together. That's all one sort of can ask for, but one also can try to do. Long winded version of, "Why you're doing this," but the last thing I want to say or not, the last thing cause I can say many things, cause I'm so grateful to all the 26 people who do this incredible beautiful Circle A's and the many other people sent me one that I didn't include because I was like, I can only write so many pieces. And, but, and they've all been really generous with the Circle A's and they're all in the same thought about if people use them for all sorts of things. And again, anarchists we're like cool, take it and turn it into a t shirt, or stencil, or spray paint it, or make a poster. And same with my words. I really love that we give those things to each other. But, I also really want to thank you two, and your whole collective of Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness. You've also just really embodied like anarchistic values and how like we collaborate, and you treated me and the whole process. It's been like, you know, learning together, experimenting together. It's been like a really beautiful experience. So, for me books aren't this like thing, this commodity which unfortunately we have to charge for because capitalism, you know, someday and hopefully we won't have to that's the irony, you know? Like, you know, not irony, just the sorrow, right? You know, we can't do the things we love as anarchists completely in ways we would want to. But we can do them as much as we can in the ways we want to. And so everything about this book, for me books are I do them as labors of love. The funds are going back to you all to support your publishing project. But I, I for me, it's the process of them that's anarchistic, like how do we? How do we think through doing them? Why are we doing them? Who are we doing them with? And for? And how do we treat each other while we're doing them? And once it's out in the world, how do others use it? And how do we engage with it? Right? I put books out in the world not to be a commodity and sit on someone's shelf or whatever. I do it because I want people to, to think and engage and transform the world. So, it's part of my way of inspiring and intervening in that, trying to push proof prefigurative politics, which is always my underlying agenda. Come on, we can do this. Margaret 55:55 Well, I like it that you picked 26, because in my mind, it's an alphabet book. It's just you know, a, a, a, a, a, a,a ,a..... Casandra 56:05 There's an alef in there. Milstein 56:07 Oh, I never even thought of that. There's an alef, an alef is the first letter in many different Jewish alphabets and probably other alphabets, too. And so there's a Circle Alef in there. So you have to get the book and read the story. Casandra 56:24 Yeah. And my my plug for it is that I think it was a perfect first book for our collective to tack and I'm just so grateful that you came to us and that this all worked out. And but what...is it really...today's release day? I just realized we're recording this on release day. Is that true? That's true. Margaret 56:42 And people might not be listening for a couple months? We don't know yet. Casandra 56:46 Yeah. But now they know, we're recording this on November 15th. I really appreciate that it's like an intro to anarchism in practice. I think that theory can be really intimidating for people. But, I just find your work immensely approachable. And, I think that's something that'll be really beneficial to people. Milstein 57:11 Yeah, I hope so. I also hope, I feel like I've sent it out to a lot of different folks to read it, like, well, some who are longtime anarchists, and I don't know, I also they're like, Oh, I also really hope that it lends like, you know, love and solidarity. People have been anarchists for a long time. Or it just reminds them why they're anarchists or think through different things, you know? Yeah, it's, I hope it's accessible for folks that don't know about anarchism, which I think it is, and also just like a gift to people who already are, because we also have to keep each other anarchists for life. Because, you can't do that alone. You have to keep reminding each other. Yeah, yeah. We're not just you know, So well, but anyway, you know, I'm really, really grateful to Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness collective.. So if folks listening to this have not checked out their website, and their growing list of projects,they don't just do books, they do all sorts of wacky things. Casandra 58:00 Like podcasts, like this podcast. Fancy that. Milstein 58:06 Baked goods, I don't know. Oh, one stop shop. Margaret 58:13 Well, is there is there any last word on on "What is anarchism?" or anything like that, that anyone wants to touch on? Casandra 58:23 I mean, I feel like we could talk about it forever. But I also feel good about what we've talked about today. Margaret 58:29 Yeah, fair enough. Milstein 58:31 Yeah, yeah. How about you, Margaret, what do you think anything else you want to? Margaret 58:35 I'm willing to give it a shot, I'll try some anarchism. Casandra 58:40 Will you try it for life? Margaret 58:42 So far, so good. I've been an anarchist more than half my life. And nothing's really shaken that, which is funny, because I go through these intentional kind of crises of faith with anarchism every now and then, where I'm like, Wait, really, and I kind of try and like break down the whole thing and like, come to a new conclusion. And the conclusion I keep coming to, I do this every couple of years, usually, because someone in the anarchist scene annoys me so much that I'm like, how am I in the same movement as that person? And then I like go through and I'm like, oh, because I hate the state and capitalism, and like, white supremacy, and you know, all that stuff. And so then I like, come back to it again. But, so yeah, I'm willing, at this point. I'm pretty sure I'm willing to try it for life. I mean, who knows? I'm not, you know, maybe... Casandra 59:27 That's very anarchistic of you to interrogate your anarchism. Margaret 59:31 Thank thanks. Milstein 59:32 Yeah. Which, we actually feel like we need to. I feel like that's a profound anarchist value, like, I don't know, I feel like one reason I've stayed an anarchists for a long time is often because of that, like one of those personal...I really felt them or like going through sort of like I hate all anarchists, but I'm still an anarchist. I don't like...okay. I have to figure out how to keep going in those moments. And...but I don't know like, I think that's the real value of some of the my favorite like projects and collectives, like, oh, we have to, every six months, stop and actually reevaluate if this project makes sense anymore if we, you know, and then end it well, when it doesn't, that was some of my favorite things. Yeah, like, continually reevaluate and reassess. But yeah, I don't know, how do you stay? I'd love to hear how do you think you stay a anarchists for life? Like, as long as you have so far, because I think that's really, it is a challenge when society, everything in the world...it's like right now wearing an N95 or KN95 mask, which I hope most people are doing, or everyone is doing, you know, you walk into spaces, and you can literally be the only one for days on end in public places. And you know, it's a good exercise in building up one's.... Yeah. How do you do things when the whole of society reflects back to you that you shouldn't be doing that? And you're like, "No, I know. This is right. I know this is the ethical thing to do. I know it's the kind of practice I want." Margaret 1:00:57 Go ahead, Casandra. Casandra 1:00:59 I was just ascentinthat is difficult. I was thinking about my child, actually, my kid who's eight and the only one wearing a mask. Which is not related to anarchism, but it's hard to be different. Milstein 1:01:12 Yeah. How do we do...but how? Yeah, so how does, as anarchist, does one you know, to sign up sort of anarchists for life is to sign up for a lot of like, grief and a lot of not seeing the world reflected that you want to see, and knowing that there's a far better world, you know, that dissonance...I always been like, you know, I get depressed a lot. And then I'm like, Why do I get depressed? It's because of that gap between the world that I want to see and the world that I live in. I know where that depression got strong. It's not a mystery, you know? So. Yeah. So, how do you...I was just curious, like, either you how you stay the older and older you get this? How do you stay an anarchist? Casandra 1:01:45 Community, I think. Not being anarcho individualists. Margaret 1:01:51 I, it's funny, because some of my answer is like, kind of, like, I'm used to being the weird one in the room, like, you know, like, like, if I walk into a grocery store, the weird thing about me isn't that I'm wearing a mask. The weird thing about me is that I'm a trans girl, and I exist, you know, and so I'm like, the mask is like, Yeah, whatever. And then, like, in some ways, the anarchism or like, you know, the way that that's like, sort of visually expressed for me, because I still sort of well I dress sub culturally, but that really kind of predates my anarchism, actually, I was just always a goth kid. But like, I'm sort of used to being the weird one in the room. And I'm kind of used to having the ideas that are like, a little bit more out there. But, honestly, in a lot of ways, I actually feel easier and more comfortable about being an anarchist now than I did when I was younger. One, because it's, it's reflexive for me, right? Like, it's, you know, people always say, you're gonna get, you know, you're gonna calm down as you get older. Right? And in some ways, I have calmed down. But, but I've settled into the, the ideological positions that I hold, and they feel more and more concrete to me, like, the idea that capitalism could possibly make sense or that authoritarianism could possibly make sense just completely disagree with everything that I learn and everything that I experience. So, I don't know. And then also, there's just, frankly, more of us than there were 10 years ago. And, the thing that I have more interest in and excitement about is the breaking out of it from subculture. I say this as someone who's sub culturally, I'm involved in music subcultures, and I'm also sort of sub culturally anarchist in terms of that has been like my primary, like friend groups and things like that over the past, like maybe 20 years. But, more and more anarchism is a more mainstream position. And t
Text can be read here https://theanarchistlibrary.org/libra... This 1989 piece by Murray Bookchin sketches out the early de-growth and social ecology movements and outlines many of the ecological crises that have come to pass in recent years.
This podcast finally turns its attention to the Kurdish Women's Movement in Rojava. My guest is Dilar Dirik, whose new book The Kurdish Women's Movement: History, Theory, Practice takes a sociological approach to examining and explaining the freedom struggle in Kurdistan over the past four decades. Dilar and I discuss the role of Abdullah Öcalan in the movement, connections between the movement and the work of Murray Bookchin, and the institutions and practices currently sustaining the struggle.
What if we could meet not just our needs, but also our desires, without harming the environment? What if our society and nature actually worked together to strengthen each other? Chaia Heller, author of The Ecology of Everyday Life, explains social ecology and her work developing a philosophy and politics of social desire. Social ecology, starting with the work of Murray Bookchin, envisions a rational society that values both social justice and the environment. Sounds pretty solarpunk to me!Check out the Institute for Social Ecology: https://social-ecology.org/wp/Read Chaia's book The Ecology of Everyday LifeFor more info about this episode, click here.Support my work: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/solarpunkcast…and be sure to follow Solarpunk Now on Twitter at @solarpunkcast!Support the show
In this episode, I am joined by Leah Wambui, founder of Hekima for the Future and regenerative agriculture specialist. We discuss the 1972 essay "Radical Agriculture" written by American social theorist and pioneer in the environmental movement Murray Bookchin. Leah helps break down concepts such as food sovereignty and exploitative capitalist agriculture to explain how returning to agricultural methods practiced by Indigenous peoples for thousands of years is key to ensuring a healthy and sustainable future for our planet.
Janet Biehl is one of the leading libertarian socialist writers in the country. For several decades, she was the partner and collaborator of the late political theorist Murray Bookchin, who stood, in the words of the Village Voice, "at the pinnacle of the genre of utopian social criticism." In bracing works like "Listen, Marxist!" and The Ecology of Freedom, Bookchin laid out the basis for an anti-capitalist, ecologically-oriented, and anti-authoritarian left. Bookchin's analysis was often provocative, and in works like "Social Anarchism or Lifestyle Anarchism" and "Re-Enchanting Humanity" (which includes a satisfying takedown of Richard Dawkins) he challenged what he felt were the dangerous currents of anti-rationalist and primitivist thinking emerging on the left. Bookchin tried to forge a philosophy that was pro-technology while sensitive to ecological destruction, and which salvaged insights from Marx while avoiding the rigidities of 21st century Marxism. He was one of the first thinkers to warn that capitalism itself was causing catastrophic global warming.Biehl is the author of Ecology or Catastrophe The Life of Murray Bookchin, the editor of The Murray Bookchin Reader, and the author of The Politics of Social Ecology, a primer on Bookchin's ideas.In addition to her work on Bookchin, Janet Biehl is an artist and journalist who has documented the social revolution that has taken place among the Kurds of Rojava. Her latest book is the graphic novel Their Blood Got Mixed: Revolutionary Rojava and the War on ISIS.In Part I of this interview, we discuss the social theories of Murray Bookchin. In the second part, we move to Biehl's recent work on the Kurdish struggle, more information about which can be found at the Rojava Information Center. There is a connection between Biehl's work on both topics, because the "democratic confederalist" philosophy developed by Kurdistan Workers' Party leader Abdullah Öcalan was directly inspired in part by the writings of Bookchin. Bookchin did not in his lifetime get to see a movement that took his ideas seriously, and one of the more poignant parts of Biehl's work is her reflections on how delighted and gratified Bookchin would have been to see his theories expanded upon, developed further, and put into practice by courageous revolutionaries.
DISCORD: discord.gg/bJtAEbFS LINKTREE: linktr.ee/AuxiliaryStatementsPodcast I ask you, humble listener, does it get any better than this? Reading Murray Bookchin on a Wednesday afternoon. No it does not. This week the fellas discuss the influence of systems theory, Marxism & anthropology on the ecotopian ideas of none other than the man himself...Murray Bookchin. Reading: "The Power to Create, The Power to Destroy" (1979) & "Toward an Ecological Society" (1975) by Murray Bookchin.
Kristen and Kyla are joined by activist Robert Miller to discuss Corey Doctorow's book “How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism”. For extra credit Kyla and Kristen also tried to read Shoshana Zuboff's “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism”, as Doctorow wrote his piece in large part as a response to Zuboff's. Topics: what is surveillance capitalism; what are the harms of surveillance capitalism; what would a world without surveillance capitalism look like. Robbie encourages listeners to support BSA (Black Socialists in America) - https://blacksocialists.us/dual-power-map Robbie would also like everyone to read more Murray Bookchin - https://theanarchistlibrary.org/category/author/murray-bookchin Leave us a voicemail! https://podinbox.com/pullback Website: https://www.pullback.org/episode-notes/episode83 Harbinger Media Network: https://harbingermedianetwork.com/Twitter: https://twitter.com/PullbackPodcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pullbackpodcast/?igshid=i57wwo16tjko Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PullbackPodcast/ Read "How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism" here: https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59 Pullback is produced and hosted by Kristen Pue and Kyla Hewson. Logo by Rachel Beyer and Evan Vrinten.
[Originally released Feb 2018] Debbie Bookchin is a widely-published journalist and author whose work has appeared in The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Nation, and numerous other publications. She served as press secretary to Bernie Sanders when he served in the U.S. House and she recently co-edited a book of essays by her father, Murray Bookchin, called The Next Revolution: Popular Assemblies and the Promise of Direct Democracy (Verso Books 2015). Debbie joins Brett to discuss the life and work of her father, Murray Bookchin, as well as the Rojavan Revolution, the rise of fascism, Social Ecology, Marxism, Anarchism, her father's legacy, and much, much more! Find Debbie, and much of her work, on twitter: @Debbiebookcin Learn more about and support the legacy of Murray Bookchin here: MurrayBookchin.org Outro Music: "Opening Salvo" by Blue Scholars, find and support them here: http://bluescholars.com Support Rev Left Radio: https://www.patreon.com/RevLeftRadio
Returning guest David Agranoff joins me for an extended non-spoiler discussion of The Dispossessed, and it really never gets that spoilery at all. Lots of background on Le Guin and the philosophy/politics of the book. Start - 7:30Intro through "Why this book?"7:31 - 44:02Non-Spoiler discussion44:03 - endSpoiler discussion Notes & Mentions: David's article from Tor.com: https://www.tor.com/2021/12/08/beyond-dune-and-foundation-golden-age-and-new-wave-sf-classics-that-should-be-adapted-right-now/Le Guin speech from Auscon: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Deuas-AuzbUGeek's Guide Episode about The Dispossessed: https://geeksguideshow.com/2021/03/26/ggg460-the-dispossessed-review/Always Coming Home, by Le GuinBannerless, by Carrie VaughnNo Gods, No Monsters, by Cadwell TurnbullUna McCormack's DS9 novelsPeter Kropotkin, Murray Bookchin, and Paul GoodmanOne Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, by Alexandr Solzhenitsyn David's Links: Dickheads Podcast: https://soundcloud.com/dickheadspodcast Dickheads Podcast Twitter: https://twitter.com/dickheadspod David's Twitter: https://twitter.com/DAgranoffAuthor Postcards From a Dying World: http://davidagranoff.blogspot.com/
00:00 Author Christopher McMaster, https://christophermcmaster.com/ 02:00 Placer High School, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placer_High_School 04:00 Hillmen Messenger, https://www.hillmenmessenger.com/ 10:00 Auburn, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auburn,_California 16:00 Sacramento State, https://www.csus.edu/ 18:00 On an Island Surrounded by Water, https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09DL6Z783/ 36:00 Murray Bookchin, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_Bookchin 40:00 Psychadelics, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychedelic_drug 57:30 Chris's non-fiction books, https://christophermcmaster.com/non-fiction-2/ 59:00 UNDERSTANDING BEHAVIOR: LISTENING TO THE LANGUAGE OF ACTION 1:01:30 The Lucid Series, https://christophermcmaster.com/the-lucid-series/ 1:02:00 April White, https://aprilwhitebooks.com/ 1:03:00 Stuart McElderry, https://www.amazon.in/Stuart-McElderry/e/B009R0XWHC%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share Join this channel to get access to perks: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSFVD7Xfhn7sJY8LAIQmH8Q/join https://odysee.com/@LukeFordLive, https://lbry.tv/@LukeFord, https://rumble.com/lukeford https://dlive.tv/lukefordlivestreams Listener Call In #: 1-310-997-4596 Superchat: https://entropystream.live/app/lukefordlive Bitchute: https://www.bitchute.com/channel/lukeford/ Soundcloud MP3s: https://soundcloud.com/luke-ford-666431593 Code of Conduct: https://lukeford.net/blog/?p=125692 https://www.patreon.com/lukeford http://lukeford.net Email me: lukeisback@gmail.com or DM me on Twitter.com/lukeford Support the show | https://www.streamlabs.com/lukeford, https://patreon.com/lukeford, https://PayPal.Me/lukeisback Facebook: http://facebook.com/lukecford Feel free to clip my videos. It's nice when you link back to the original.
Join us for a special episode brought to you buy the Education Working Group of the Green Socialist Organizing Project. This episode, hosted by Green Party US Co-Chair, Garret Wasserman, and IL Green Party Co-Chair and Former Green Party US Co-Chair, AJ Reed, is the first in a series of workshops on How to Run a Reading/Discussion Group. Murray Bookchin, who founded social ecology, a theory that strongly influenced early Green Socialist thought, strongly advocated the discussion and study group as the first step of any revolutionary movement. A group of individuals meets to expand their knowledge of radical thought and form a radical intellectual community; through the give and take of discussion, can eventually form ideas for next steps in organizing and political activity. According to Bookchin, study groups help create solidarity and a shared language — with a shared coherent vision — for building a mass, organizing, political movement! With Bookchin's words in mind and with the Green Socialist Organizing Project's commitment to building from the bottom-up, we do not only want to present or connect to existing Reading Groups, but seek to develop local organizers that can run their own local groups. This first workshop will be a livestream presentation and discussion of our How to Run a Reading/Discussion Group Guide with questions taken from viewers. There will be a follow-up ZOOM workshop on Tuesday, September 14 at 9 PM ET/6 PM PT that will allow those interested in starting a local reading group to experience an expedited sample session and have a more in-depth conversation with organizers who have ran such groups. For more information on our How to Run a Reading/Discussion Group Workshops at https://greensocialist.net/reading-group-workshops/ To watch the workshop visit https://youtu.be/FBIBpbEspak
This week Howie talks about Murray Bookchin 15 years after his death, the passing of Glen Ford, and the Democrats' failure to fight for the working-class as the eviction moratorium expires and expanded unemployment benefits and student loan relief expirations looming on the horizon. Followed by questions and answers with viewers. Streamed on 7/31/2021 Watch the video at: https://youtu.be/CV8fOTd8WoY Green Socialist Notes is a weekly livestream/podcast hosted by 2020 Green Party/Socialist Party presidential and vice presidential nominees, Howie Hawkins and Angela Walker. Started as a weekly campaign livestream in the spring of 2020, the streams have continued post elections and are now under the umbrella of the Green Socialist Organizing Project, which grew out of the 2020 presidential campaign. Green Socialist Notes seeks to provide both an independent Green Socialist perspective, as well as link listeners up with opportunities to get involved in building a real people-powered movement in their communities. Green Socialist Notes Podcast Every Saturday at 3:00 PM EDT on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Twitch. Every Monday at 7:00 AM EDT on most major podcast outlets. Music by Gumbo le Funque Intro: She Taught Us Outro: #PowerLoveFreedom
Bean brings us the news (2:20) Rawlf asks Rizzo about Buffalo Books through Bars (4:21) Scooter and Bean discuss the debilitating impact of problematic language (15:24) Music from RiBS (40:44) Rawlf interviews yoga teacher and independent scholar Sheena Sood about ways to decolonize yoga, embody community-based yoga, and Sheena's critique of the militarization of yoga and her support for political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal and the MOVE organization in Philadelphia (43:34) ******* 'Buffalo Books Through Bars is on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bflobooksthrubars You can purchase books by Alexander Berkman and Murray Bookchin at Burning Books: https://burningbooks.com/ ******* You can learn more about Sheena at her website - sheenashining.com Sheena's essay, Towards a Critical Embodiment of Decolonizing Yoga” is available in the Race and Yoga Journal. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9bx1x7wc She is featured on the current episode of the Conspirituality Podcast. No Quarter listeners are urged to listen to her in depth discussion about India's current Covid crisis and it's roots in Prime Minister Modi's authoritarian right-wing nationalist policies. https://conspirituality.net/wellness/50-sellouts-zealots-w-sheena-sood/ ******* Please please please subscribe and review our podcast on Itunes and Spotify because, you know - algorithms. We're on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/noquarterbuffalo/?igshid=1rmhpht2w9vhe and Facebook https://www.instagram.com/noquarterbuffalo/?igshid=1rmhpht2w9vhe and Twitter https://twitter.com/NoQuarterBuff Now go get some solar punk anarchist sunshine!
The Lindisfarne Tapes are selected recordings of presentations and conversations at the Lindisfarne Fellows' meetings. In March of 2013 William Thompson granted permission to the Schumacher Center for a New Economics to transfer the talks from the old reel-to-reel tapes to digital format so that they could be posted online and shared freely. In 2021, the Schumacher Center used the digital audio to create the Lindisfarne Tapes Podcast. Reposting should include acknowledgment of williamirwinthompson.org. Learn more about the Lindisfarne Tapes here.Bookchin delivered this lecture in 1976 at the Lindisfarne Spring Fellows Meeting, "Economics and the Moral Order."
My name is Jordan Mitchell I am a musician, artist, and activist here in Columbus, Ohio. I identify as a Socialist with no real proclivity toward any specific subsect of Socialism though I do find myself leaning more Libertarian/Anarchist than Authoritarian. While I find sympathy and solidarity in certain Communist causes I do not consider myself a Communist or a Marxist. My radicalization is rooted in racial and social justice directly inspired by American socialists like Dr. Martin Luther King, Angela Davis, Afeni Shakur, Angela Davis, Eugene Debs, Murray Bookchin and Bernard Sanders. I would really like to just kick some ideas back and forth, address some common misconceptions people have with the left and give your viewers some perspective as to what "Antifa" means and how someone who would be considered radical left views the world and this nation we live in.
For this special episode, Matt & Jesse are joined by Shawn Vulliez from the SRSLY WRONG Podcast for a very important discussion about how the concept of Library Socialism might dovetail with the idea-shape of The Golden Square. As Shawn laments, the inexorable crisis of capitalism is that it turns us into “Tool-Handed Monsters who can't hug our own children.” But published in 1971, Murray Bookchin's Post-Scarcity Anarchism provided some initial inklings of a world without work or want—where the even-flow of Social Ecology, Libertarian Municipalism, and an abundance of material resources would allow us to finally hug our children, our shared future. Yet, given the climate chaos of the here and now, it's hard to imagine how we might get there as we face the fast-Fascist collapse of the biosphere. Insects, animals and the Earth's ecosystems die-off while capitalism forces us into collectively stuffing more Big Macs into our mouths. How might we meet the human rights to food, shelter, healthcare and education, and in so doing, create a new horizon for physical objects, where we could live in an ever-revolving circularity of consumer abundance? Beyond the bleak choice between denial of reality or submitting to involuntary human extinction, is there a third avenue left unlisted by popular imagination, one that doesn't require a magic marker to see or decrypt? Thankfully, there is a clear path toward an Ecology of Freedom, where we say goodbye to the continued maintenance of hierarchy and make way for its utter annihilation and dissolution, replacing it with a shared prosperity. As such, we must Decommodify the means to a dignified life, and Democratize every area of society. This dual principle is the only game in town, and its consecrated demands will lead us toward a vibrant and fecund future. These principles need foundations, though, which is why Library Socialism and The Golden Square can mutually embrace as complementary concepts: The Golden Square as the new social contract for society, and Library Socialism as the means for organizing our world. This conversation between comrades traces the beginnings of a mutual vision to address our ecological & social crises with practical solutions and an imminently achievable purpose. Humanity has an infinite amount of untapped potential that these outlined concepts toward a dignified global society aim to unleash. We should break from the Baby Yoda Nostalgia Blankets © of the possible—that keep us swaddled in narrow dreams and demands—and chart a course toward The Utopian Sphere. To paraphrase the now-radicalized Mandalorian (upon hearing us): “The Golden Square is the Objective. Library Socialism is the Way.” Comprehensive Show Notes Can Be Found at thefutureisamixtape.com Feel Free to Contact Jesse & Matt on the Following Spaces & Places: thefutureisamixtape@gmail.com Facebook Twitter Instagram
In the most famous scene from the legendary film, Network (1976), populist news anchor, Howard Beale, creates a viral sensation before the internet became a thing: he tells his viewers, “I'm as mad as hell and I'm not gonna take this anymore!” And thousands of people across the country yell from their windows and rooftops repeating the mantra, “I'm as mad as hell and I'm not gonna take this anymore!” More than 40 years on, in our neoliberal wasteland, we have every right to be mad as hell as we huddle in our unpaid Covid-abodes with no more Bernie Bucks or stimulus, while microbes attack us relentlessly. With the Siberian forests on fire, the Great Barrier Reef deforming into black bones & ash and the oceans gasping for oxygen while record temperatures make Death Valley feel like Venus, we must become mad – with a rage that runs on love for what's been lost and for what we might still win. This week, Jesse & Matt celebrate the multi-authored manifesto, A Planet to Win: Why We Need a Green New Deal, published in 2019 by Verso Books. Our co-hosts will talk about the vitality and importance of this book and how the beating heart of any radical Green New Deal must include The Golden Square: the decommodification and universal provision of Food, Shelter, Healthcare and Education for All. We live in the worst version of a Cyberpunk world that doesn't even offer up androids or flying cars, while we gloat over our miniature technology & its secret surveillance as politicians offer up empty platitudes and technocratic masturbations. As the Social Ecologist, Murray Bookchin, once told us, the enemy isn't us; the enemy is the fossil fuel industry; the enemy lives inside McMansions and billionaire castles made by myths of perpetual market growth, peddled by the celebrity worshiping pyramid scheme of an influencer class clawing onto the old carcass of illegitimate hierarchies. We are in revolutionary times and collective actions require collective designs; so we must continue to draw the contours of what lies just beyond the horizon. We have a planet to win. Comprehensive Show Notes Can Be Found at thefutureisamixtape.com Feel Free to Contact Jesse & Matt on the Following Spaces & Places: thefutureisamixtape@gmail.com Facebook Twitter Instagram
This is a segment of a longer article I wrote for Harbinger: Journal of Social Ecology that was published in October 2019. It's entitled "Jordan Peterson, Carl Jung, and the Challenge for Social Ecology." The first part of the article is a critique of the limitations of Peterson's political stands, which will take about 10 minutes to read, but much of the article explores a comparison of the ideas of Social Ecology founder Murray Bookchin and psychologist Carl Jung. This segment is on Jung's political ideas with a little help from some of Charles Taylor's concepts. Reflecting on Peterson's take on politics, we find that Carl Jung's ideas on what causes ideological extremism is quite a bit more penetrating as he goes back to the Enlightenment and trends like industrialization and urbanization as the underlying causes of dangerous ideological movements, dehumanizing economics and overbearing governments. Here's the link to the article. https://harbinger-journal.com/issue-1/jordan-peterson-carl-jung-and-the-challenge-for-social-ecology/ … More What Would Carl Jung Think of Capitalism and Automation? A reading from my latest article. (Audio)
AP Andy comes across a fellow radical exile Blair Taylor washed ashore on a beach in Nayarit, Mexico. The two post-anarchists discuss the life and work of curmudgeonly communalist Murray Bookchin as they watch dolphins frolicking in the sunset. Topics include radical muncipalism, Bookchin's concepts of democracy and citizenship, Blair's Institute for Social Ecology and the formation of the Symbiosis network with DSA-LSC, Black Socialists, Cooperation Jackson, the PKK and Rojava, Bookchin's criticism of Bernie Sanders, and others, and what sort of kinky things the old man was getting up to in Vermont. Show Notes: ISE: http://social-ecology.org Symbiosis Network: https://www.symbiosis-revolution.org/ Demand Utopia: http://demandutopia.net Blair Taylor's three Bookchin starter texts: What is Communalism: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/murray-bookchin-what-is-communalism Post Scarcity Anarchism: https://libcom.org/files/Post-Scarcity%20Anarchism%20-%20Murray%20Bookchin.pdf "The Next Revolution" by Blair Taylor and Debbie Bookchin: https://www.versobooks.com/books/1777-the-next-revolution Closing music: BearForce1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twQlpFrm5iM
Donate to The Permaculture Podcast Online: via PayPal Venmo: @permaculturepodcast This conversation is the first of a series of guest-hosted episode. David Bilbrey, someone I've been speaking with for years about sitting down and recording some podcasts of his own, takes over the role of host and records an interview with Eric Chisler, one of my community members at Seppi's Place. Eric devotes his energy on emerging systems, and the stories of communities, cooperative, and alternative economics. Through our time together I always enjoyed the deep, heady conversations we had about all of these subjects, as well as lighter ones, such as heavy metal music or Western martial arts. During our many conversations together he also introduced me to many of the thinkers and theorists you'll hear mentioned today. I highly recommend listening to the video with Murray Bookchin posted below, and I'll be seeking out David Graeber's Debt, while already a copy of Charles Eisenstein's The Ascent of Humanity rests on my bookshelf, ready to read once I finish an upcoming move. Enjoy what Eric has to share, and let me know your thoughts. How would you build community? What about living in The Gift? Are you ready to make a leap? Feel free to get in touch. Email: The Permaculture Podcast Write: The Permaculture Podcast The Permaculture Podcast Resources Eric's Bio at The Emergence Network The Emergence Network Noam Chomsky Debt (Wiki) by David Graeber (Wiki) Murray Bookchin, Forms of Freedom (YouTube) Seppi's Place Charles Eisenstein Orphan Wisdom School and Stephen Jenkinson Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer Sponsors The Fifth World Permie Kids Good Seed Company Connect with the Podcast Support The Show (PayPal.Me) On Patreon On Instagram On Facebook On Twitter