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read-marx-and-lenin · 6 days

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heyo- a friend is trying to get me to read 1984 because 'it'll totally change your worldview on government and anarchism', but i've heard some bad things about the book itself/george orwell. should i read it? is there anything similar/more theorylike i could read instead?

thank you! your blog rocks <3 <3

Go ahead and read it if you want. It's a classic entry into the genre of dystopian science fiction and it has spawned many imitators since its publication. However, if you're looking for actual theory or history, you won't find it there. I would recommend Pat Sloan's "Soviet Democracy" or Anna Louise Strong's "The Soviets Expected It" and "The Stalin Era" if you want real accounts of the Soviet Union under Stalin.

Orwell never actually visited the Soviet Union, and 1984 is based not on his own personal experience with the country but instead on Western propagandistic views of the country and his own displeasure towards the fact that during World War II, when the UK and the USSR were allies, the British press was much less keen to publish anti-Soviet works right at the same time he was trying to get Animal Farm published. You must also understand that his wife worked for the UK's Ministry of Information as a censor and Orwell himself worked at the BBC producing wartime propaganda. It is not a coincidence then that the main character of 1984, Winston Smith, is a censor and propaganda official working with the fictional "Ministry of Truth" and eventually finding himself battling against state control of information.

Ironically, after stylizing himself so much as a defender of liberty and freedom against the "totalitarianism" of the time, Orwell would write up a list of alleged subversive writers for the British Information Research Department, a secret department tasked with publishing anti-communist propaganda during the Cold War. Some of this propaganda would end up being a comic strip version of Orwell's Animal Farm. There is a significant throughline in both Animal Farm and 1984 that clearly betrays Orwell's political views. In both works, the proletariat are depicted as nothing more than idiots and sheep who follow the orders of anyone willing to give them work and are easily duped by intellectuals. In 1984, he phrases it as the proletariat being more "free" simply because they're so insignificant as to warrant no government surveillance.

In 1984, the fictional society of "Oceania" is a far cry from a dictatorship of the proletariat. The proletariat have no political power, they all live in slums and are mollified by bread and circuses. How is the building of the slums organized? Where does the money go when one buys their bread? We are not told anything about this except that the process is slow and inefficient. The story isn't interested in material concerns. The "proles" do their work, we are told, but we are never shown much more than informal labor. We don't know who is telling them to work or how they are getting paid. The "Outer Party" is supposedly the white collar "middle" class of Oceanic society, but despite the amount of focus the story has on this class, we are never shown a single Party member managing a workplace or poring over receipts. We are to believe that the proletariat are simultaneously left to their own devices and unmolested by the state, while also completely under the control of the state through invisible mechanisms that are never elaborated upon. While Winston will complain endlessly about his own quality of life, not once does a single prole gripe about their job. The cost and quality of goods come up sporadically and only to illustrate the deterioration of English society under Party rule, never to illustrate any material basis of said rule.

Even more at the periphery are the colonized peoples (although never described as such) within the war-torn areas never under the permanent control of any world power. All three of the global superpowers are said to be in a constant struggle over the control and enslavement of these super-exploited workers and the resources of their nations, which are said to make up a significant proportion of the material resources of each superpower, however at the same time they are not considered to be part of the proletariat and are dismissed as entirely disposable and unnecessary for the maintenance of any of these superpowers. To Orwell, it seems, colonialism is simply a thing the colonizers do out of habit and not a phenomenon with an actual material basis or actual material effects. In turn, the colonized are not actual people who might take umbrage with the constant conflict imposed upon them, but rather chattel that is perfectly content to be traded back and forth among the colonizers.

The importance of the middle class in society is a recurring theme in 1984. For example, the Trotsky-esque political treatise Winston reads within the story, "The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism", begins with a twist on Marxist historical materialism - while it recognizes the role of class conflict in human history, it asserts a transhistorical narrative of the eternal existence of three separate classes within society since "Neolithic times": the upper, middle, and lower classes. It is then asserted that it is the middle and only the middle class that is ever revolutionary, and that when it appeals to the lower classes it does so only to use them as a cudgel against the upper classes and never out of a genuine concern for their wellbeing. The treatise, idealistic as it is, provides little definition of these classes. The lower classes are described as "crushed by drudgery" and in a constant state of servitude that places them incapable of achieving political consciousness, something reserved solely for the upper and middle classes. The upper class is defined simply as the "directing" class, and the middle as the "executive" class. The identity of the middle class within Oceania is made clear: they are the "Outer Party", the white collar intelligentsia and managerial class which Winston and Julia belong to. One must assume Orwell viewed himself as a member of the middle class as well. If this section of the book is at all reflective of Orwell's own views (and to be clear no part of the book refutes this outlook,) then Orwell's rejection of Marxism-Leninism is rooted in his view of the vanguard party as simply a mechanism for the intelligentsia and bureaucrats to trick the stupid proles into overthrowing the bourgeoisie, rather than as a genuine means of proletarian liberation.

The politics of the Party are entirely idealistic in nature. "Big Brother" dominates through control of ideology and speech. The goal of Ingsoc, the ruling ideology of Oceania, is to make dissent impossible through the thorough alteration of language and the removal of words which could represent ideas that are not in line with Ingsoc, a process called "Newspeak". It is explicitly stated, however, that none of this ideological control is directed towards the proletariat, which is said to make up 85% of Oceania's population. The proles are not expected to learn Newspeak, they are not monitored by the telescreens, because as is stated quite frankly in the book, "the masses never revolt of their own accord, and they never revolt merely because they are oppressed." That this line is given by the villain of the story is unimportant, because the story never refutes it.

While Winston routinely repeats his belief that "hope lies in the proles", he is consistently met with scenes that challenge his faith whenever he winds up interacting with the proletariat. His conversations with proles reveal their total lack of concern with politics or history. He hears a crowd erupt into chaos and briefly hopes it's the proletarian uprising he is waiting for, only to find it's simply a riot over consumer goods. They are more than once compared to animals. While it is said in exposition that intelligent members of the proletariat who might end up fomenting dissent are eliminated, this is never actually depicted. We don't see Winston meeting with a single intelligent and politically conscious prole. The most intelligent prole he meets turns out to be a secret member of the "Thought Police". And so, the concept remains theoretical.

Winston is depicted as an ardent materialist, desperately defending the notion of external reality against deranged idealists who believe that through control of thought, control of reality becomes possible. But the world he lives in is not material. It is fictional, of course, but more than that, the fictional world described operates on idealistic principles even from Winston's own perspective. Winston's worldview is a faith based one, appealing not to any material basis for liberation but purely to emotion. It is love and the spirit of humanity that is the basis of freedom, and material freedom springs forth from it. Anyone who thinks otherwise is merely a trickster trying to control the masses.

Orwell rejected the material basis of history because he rejected the idea of a revolution on a material basis. To him, the revolution must be an ideological one, and the problem lie not in how society and the economy are organized but in the existence of hateful "authoritarian" ideologies governing the world. He believed the material basis was already here, that industry alone was the solution to material inequality, and so we must concern ourselves now only with the idea of equality and freedom, and from an abstract and universal viewpoint to boot. It is intolerable to him that a revolution be fought against an actual enemy in the real world. The problem is not that the capitalists are in control of the means of production, the problem is that the workers are too stupid to disobey them. A real revolutionary class would spontaneously throw off its own shackles through thought alone. It doesn't matter that Orwell was a lackey and a snitch, because in his mind he was freer and smarter than everyone else.

The bravery of Winston Smith was in recognizing the existence of a material reality that lies and propaganda could never destroy even while being tortured into believing such absurd notions as "two plus two equals five". But Orwell was never tortured into any of his incorrect beliefs. His incorrect beliefs stem purely from accepting the official narrative that he was fed and refusing to investigate its veracity for himself. Orwell's writing was used as propaganda against the designated enemy of the UK throughout the Cold War, adapted countless times in the forms of radio plays, TV shows, movies, and comic books. He never made an effort to actually travel to the Soviet Union to find out if what he was told about the country was true. All the other upper middle class "left-wing" intellectuals he hung out with seemed to be just as concerned as he was with the rising tide of "totalitarianism" and the supposed excesses of the Soviet Union, so why shouldn't he agree? He was in this regard no different than the Western "socialists" of the modern day who have no shortage of vitriol towards China or North Korea. Yes, he might performatively rail against chauvinism and nationalism, but only enough to ensure that he wouldn't be seen as a conservative. He still knew in his heart that his country was surely better than those barbarous communists in the East.

Yes Orwell was sexist and homophobic, and despite his best efforts he remained plagued by racist and antisemitic attitudes, but in addition to all that his books promulgated a view of the world entirely in line with British bourgeois values, which is why they were so eagerly used as propaganda by the British government. The Nazis were bad and the Soviets were bad because they were both authoritarian, and the differences between them were negligible and unworthy of mention. The references 1984 makes to the shifting alliances in Oceania, "we are at war with Eurasia" becoming "we are at war with Eastasia" and vice-versa, are most likely allegories for the shifting alliances of Britain at the time, how they viewed the Soviets as an enemy before the war, as an ally during the war, and as an enemy again once the war was over. Orwell viewed himself as above all of this simply because his view of the Soviets never changed at any point throughout this.

#communism #socialism #leftism #anti capitalism #politics #orwell #george orwell #1984 #ask

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mixelation · 8 months

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oh yeah i wrote this last night

“No,” Shisui said, flatly. “Absolutely not.”

He still maintained his proper at ease pose, feet apart and arms folded behind his back. It was a stark contrast to his rather blatant words.

“I recognize you have a very… strong interpersonal relationship,” Minato said carefully. “But like all our shinobi, Tori knows how to behave professionally when on missions.”

“With all due respect,” Shisui replied, “if she wasn’t a problem, you could hand her to any other captain.”

Minato’s lips thinned. He had wasted so many years believing Tori was the most personable member of Team 4, and now look what he and Kushina had allowed her to become. Now that he needed to temporarily pull a fuinjutsu master for ANBU, it was becoming clear she’d somehow ended up on the shit list of several key ANBU members. She was as bad as Itachi in terms of reputation, except she had to clout within ANBU to command respect.

He could just put Kushina on this mission, but her personality was wildly unsuited for ANBU. Tori was theoretically a much better pick. She could be incredibly discreet when she wanted to be.

Shisui’s dark eyes watched him, waiting for a reply. Unlike any member of Team 4, Shisui was not openly judging him for his decisions, or the fact that he’d just let Tori piss off half of ANBU and done nothing to intervene.

“Uchiha Itachi recommended you,” Minato said finally. “He believes your skills would complement, and that despite your differences, you would be able to read each other well, despite never having run a mission together.”

He could tell Shisui was fighting hard to not react, like a good ANBU.

“Perhaps Itachi should captain this mission then,” Shisui said finally. “They have an excellent mission record together.”

“You know I can’t assign them together,” Minato replied.

In theory, he could, because he could do whatever he wanted as Hokage. But now that they were dating, he didn’t want to throw them together into a high-stakes mission until after they’d had some trainings on workplace romances and run a few easier missions together, if they wanted to explore that. Romantic feelings and missions could be a disaster for both the mission and the relationship.

(Kushina would be so upset if they broke up.)

Shisui took a deep breath.

“If you force this,” Shisui said, steely eyed, “I will consider resigning from ANBU.”

Wow, Minato thought. He hadn’t thought they’d disliked each other this much.

“I will take your opinion into consideration,” Minato said, and then dismissed him.

Minato distracted himself with some more mission assignments for an hour, but he inevitably came back around to the Tori problem.

The unfortunate truth of the situation was that he did have to build an ANBU team around her, rather than carefully pull the best agents from a range of different candidates.

The mission was a rare invitation from the Water Country Daimyo. He wanted a certain political enemy eliminated, but all three of Kiri’s own attempts to assassinate the mark had failed, because the mark had somehow turned his home into a maze of fuinjutsu barriers and traps. So the Daimyo wanted Konoha to infiltrate, kill only the mark and his two partners, and also not leave any evidence a foreign ninja had done this so he didn’t have to explain anything to the Mizukage.

The fuuinjutsu requirement, along with baseline ANBU requirements, meant literally only Kushina and Tori could reliably do this, and Kushina was horrible at being subtle.

Could he maybe move the mission out of ANBU and widen his pool of other teammates…? No, it really had to be ANBU.

What if he just did the mission?

Kakashi walked into the office to find Minato with both hands in his hair, glaring at the current ANBU roster. ANBU Jaguar would be perfect for this, actually, except Tori had brought Jaguar to Book Club the time Bounty Hunter Kakuzu had inexplicably shown up.

“Have you also been speaking to genin?” Kakashi asked, dropping a folder onto Minato’s desk.

Minato stared up at him helplessly. That was right; he’d asked for the newest Jounin Sensei to turn in their six month report on their genin teams in a tad early so they could discuss entering them in the Chunin Exams this round.

Team 7 must have really done a whammy on Kakashi if he was the first to turn his in.

“ANBU is sort of like speaking to children,” Minato said, and Kakashi dropped into a seat across from him to listen to him whine.

“Just make Itachi deal with her,�� Kakashi said when Minato finished. “Or are you afraid their relationship will turn them into a vortex of toxic behavior likes of which ANBU has never seen?”

“Something like that,” Minato replied. He absently picked up a pen and jotted down a note to himself to tell them they had to do workplace romance training so he never had to deal with this again.

Then Minato said, “I really thought Shisui was a good fit. They’re not friendly, but they’re civil at Book Club.”

“Ah, it’s because Shisui is intimately aware she’s a manipulative little monster,” Kakashi said. He settled back further in his chair and crossed his legs. “He used to get weird about having to work with Itachi too.”

Minato sighed and tapped his fingers on the desk. He should have a conversation with Tori about being more pleasant. Except if he used that wording both she and, more importantly, Kushina would yell at him about being anti-feminist because… something something women were expected to be kind and gentle where men weren’t.

He just wanted her to not use her teammates as psych experiments…

“Hey,” Minato said, eyeing Kakashi up and down. “Do you want a break from your genin?”

Kakashi, currently fiddling with a pen, froze.

“It’ll only be a couple weeks,” Minato said. “I’ll stick them with someone else and tell them it’s an evaluation for candidacy to the Chunin Exam.”

Kakshi looked less than convinced.

“I of course enjoy my cute little ninja sibling,” Kakashi said very slowly. “But only in my personal time. When there’s other people to point her at.”

Minato could force the issue and just assign Kakashi to the mission. But he was trying so hard to get people to get along on their own. That was his philosophy as Hokage.

Of course, sometimes people just didn’t want to get along, and then he had to use other tactics.

“I’ll get you Jiraiya’s current manuscript,” Minato offered. “And just think: it’ll be really, really funny.”

Kakashi looked more considering.

xXx

Tori stared down at the mask on the desk. Her eyes rose, meeting MInato’s. They had a certain dewey quality to them that almost made him feel bad.

“Why would you do this to me?” Tori asked, sounding betrayed.

“Wow,” Kakashi said, putting a hand on a hip. He was a nostalgic sight, in full ANBU uniform again. “Usually people are overjoyed to work with me.”

Tori made a face like she didn’t believe this.

“It’s just like any other mission,” Minato assured her. “Just with a couple extra rules.”

Tori reached hesitantly for the mask.

“If you make me ANBU Songbird,” she said, turning it over in her hands, “I am going missing-nin.”

“So,” Minato said blandly, “a stricter behavior code is part of your temporary ANBU assignment–”

“Maa, it’s a Nightingale,” Kakashi interrupted, completely undermining Minato lecture on how he should technically give Tori several demerits and send her off to a psych eval for her joke. “Which I believe is a songbird. Suborder Passeri, right?”

Kakashi had definitely looked this up beforehand, specifically for this.

“Why would you do this to me?” Tori repeated.

“I was being sensitive,” Minato defended. “You went on for a very long time about your ancestor Nightingale, and it was available.”

Tori stared at him, clearly confused.

“The statistician?” he tried.

“Florence Nightingale?” Tori said, sounding mildly scandalized. “She’s not my ancestor!”

Minato could have sworn Deidara had referred to this Nightingale person as “one of Tori’s people” to explain the strange given name. Maybe he hadn’t meant she was part of Tori’s family after all…?

“No one gets to choose their own mask,” Minato said, backtracking. “I try to allow people to turn down temp ANBU assignments, but we really don’t have anyone else with the required skillset.”

Tori scowled down at the mask some more. Minato would at least hear her out, if she decided to give an actual argument for not wanting to run an ANBU mission, but she didn’t offer one up.

“Maa, I’ll try to fill the rest of the team with people you haven’t personally harassed,” Kakashi said. “Although that’s not a long list…”

Tori held the mask up to her face experimentally, then pulled it away.

“Do you sterilize these between uses?” she asked.

“Yes, of course,” Minato said. “But, um, that one’s been in storage for years. I’d clean it again.”

“Don’t worry, my cute little sister,” Kakashi drawled, “I will teach you in the way of mask hygiene.”

Tori shot Minato another pained, betrayed look.

“He means that as your captain, he’ll brief you on how this works,” Minato said. He almost reassured Tori that Kakashi really was one of their best. But she already knew that.

Kakashi swung an arm around her shoulder and walked her out, listing tips for cleaning her mask and borrowed armor as he went.

Minato watched them go with conflicting emotions. Kakashi and Tori… made each other behave worse, in public. It was heartwarming when he looked at them as young people he’d mentored: their mutual interests brought each other out of their shells and they enjoyed each other’s company. It was also kind of a nightmare when he thought of them as soldiers under his command. He trusted both of them to reel it in once the mission started, but Tori’s orientation would almost definitely end with more names on the list of ANBU Tori had personally harassed.

Ah well. It would be character building for whoever they ended up harassing.

#reborn au #my writing

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dipperdesperado · 1 year

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Get Organized!

I recently made a post about how to get started in doing radical stuff. Said otherwise, that post was meant to answer the question, “Where do I go, when I know the world is fucked?” This post covers similar ground, but is more interested in the theoretical side of things. Not to say it won’t be practical. It’s just saying that if you’re not the kind of person that can read a little bit and feel confident to act, or you like having a little bit more scaffolding, that you also deserve a resource. I’m hoping to contribute to that today. As the title says, we’re going to be focusing on organizing. This is one of those things that is said a lot, but is actually defined much less often. Tangentially, you should be aware and ready for this for literally everything relating to politics. Any word that you hear used, you should always ask for a definition. Many a movement would have gone differently if folks spent more time trying to find semantic alignment. Anyway.

When I say organizing, I mean catalyzing the energy of folks, acting from a specific theory of change. A theory of change is a thought process or method to create some kind of social impact in a particular context. When the world sucks in some particular way, and you want it to stop sucking, the answer is to organize, in the way defined above. By organizing, we lean on the idea of collective power to create changes that are currently only afforded to those with authoritarian power. It’s a game of evening the odds.

I will also note that this assumes that you are going to be framing your work around broad-based movements, that have (mostly) aboveground (as in “legal”) tactics. This is not necessarily a statement of what is correct; small groups that are in concert with larger movements are also able to be successful, even when doing more confrontational tactics.

So, to organize, I’d say it would be useful to be involved in movements already. You can look at my radicalism 100 post to see how that could look. Either way you have to know what your where your niche(s) lie. In other words, what sits in the middle of the intersection between what you like to do, what you are good (or can become good/have a willingness to become good) at, and what is needed in your context. I tend to center the local level, because that is the area where influence is more tangible, and fits into how I see a resilient world coming to fruition. So, you have to ask yourself, “What can I do, that I would enjoy doing, in my community?” Then, you should find some other people who are in that same vibe. Depending on your approach, this may take no time at all, or a lot of time. I listed some ideas for finding folks in radicalism 100, but to reiterate: look for social medias and IRL presences of people who are into the same topics, and connect with them. See where you can plug in, and see where the contours of organizing in your local contexts are. Ideally you can see places where gaps can be filled.

Once you find an issue that you think has potential, and you have a couple of people to do some organizing with, you have what I think of as a catalyst group. This group is meant to start (or assist) in a certain kind of reaction, but not lead it. Trying to control movements is both futile and antithetical to liberation. So, to ground us, we have two very important ingredients: a topic/issue/area of focus to organize around, and a group of folks to work with. Once this is in place, you can co-create a strategy with your organizing team. I’d recommend employing an encircling strategy as your long-term or meta strategy, where multiple sub-strategies and campaigns happen within this frame. Essentially, this allows you to employ campaigns across a matrix of tactics. Within the encircling frame, you can create a campaign (what I consider a “short-term” strategy). Campaigns are a series of actions over time. Strategies are a series of campaigns over time.

A useful way to think of strategic planning is by separating the process into stages, grouped by movement size.

Small: Organize small actions/protests, figuring out ways to build movement visibility and interest

Medium: Focus on scaling up the participation, through mobilizing efforts. Promote your actions, get people involved, and encourage meaningful action.

Large: Create a movement. The kind of thing people hear about.

To organize on the smallest level, the easiest thing might be to just do plan actions that are well within your team’s capacity, organize those actions, and execute. If you can swing it, I’d really recommend to not lean too much into symbolic actions. There are risks with every action, no matter what legal frameworks your locality has. If you’re going to do something, you have to be very intentional with:

what you hope to accomplish through the action

a high likelihood of success for the action

doomsday planning in case something goes wrong

If you’re able to do this, then you will be leagues ahead of a lot of other folks. This is not to make it a race or a competition, but it is moreso to say you can symbolically represent and catalyze action without becoming a martyr.

As you’re doing actions, you should be refining your idea of who’s impacted by the issues more and more. As that picture gets clearer, you should spend more and more time understanding and listening to those folks. Ideally, you get to a point of co-creation, where you are enabling people to fight for themselves and build their autonomy. That is the kind of thing that prevents movements from dying. Organizers should be trying to put themselves out of business, in a sense. Catalysts should be able to come from anywhere.

To scale up, I’d recommend a focus on meeting folks. Take the ideas of deep canvassing, where you empathetically have conversations with whoever is impacted by the issue you’re responding to, through the lens of giving power to those people. Rather than asking them to feed into some established system of power, encourage them to take action into their own hands, as a collective.

I’d also recommend that as capacity grows, build a “positive” or “constructive” power. This can look like a lot of things. Whether it is a block club, neighborhood pod, community council, or community assembly, dedicate energy into creating spaces where people can start building their democratic and consensus muscles. These can simultaneously act as the training ground and alternative governance structure that allows folks to start making decisions for themselves in a very specific way.

This will ideally allow the movement to really start to be intersectional. It should be intersection minded from the outset, but that can be difficult to meaningfully actualize in the early stages of the movement. since single-issue movements are inherently brittle (if your movement revolves around getting something on a ballot, winning or losing just ends the movement)—there are throughlines that connect all movements, and those lines should be made visible and traveled. Environmentalists should fight for housing rights, LandBack, Reparations, and a host of other things. The more developed our networks, the stronger our movements will be.

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moleshow · 3 months

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I am a stupid person. Where should I begin reading about economics.

update: added pdfs for the books

where you should begin depends on what you want to know. my response is long so i'm putting it under a readmore

if you want to know about economic theory, that's one thing; if you want to know about economics in practice (i.e. the way economies operate), that's another. these things are related, but they're often in separate books.

if there's something you want to know about specifically feel free to ask--i may or may not be able to provide a suggestion on what you should read. my wheelhouse is mainly international economics and political economy so note that my recommendations are not the end-all-be-all of the field.

i've uploaded pdfs for all of these books here: https://gofile.io/d/hDB9vU i wasn't able to find a pdf of the 2020 edition of the Frieden but i was able to find the 2017 edition.

the first recommendation i have is unfortunately a textbook. theoretical foundations are important 😔

An Introduction to International Economics: New Perspectives on the World Economy by Kenneth Reinert

this book's focus is primarily on neoclassical economic theory (which is often what people mean when they say "economics"), but it provides a strong foundation for thinking about markets, trade, and currencies.

i also want to note here that economic theories are best thought of as lenses through which to look at phenomena. all of these lenses illuminate some things and obfuscate others. so the utility of a given theory is dependent upon what you're trying to examine.

2. The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy: An Economist Examines the Markets, Power, and Politics of World Trade by Pietra Rivoli

this book is a lot of fun, and falls pretty squarely into the "political economy" camp. Rivoli takes as her subject a t-shirt from a walgreens in florida (if memory serves), and follows the chain of production, to find out how it got there--as well as where shirts like it might go after being purchased. along the way she looks at the dynamics of production in practice, so she looks at the role of labor, firms, governments, brokers, etc.

i would almost recommend starting with this one or reading it alongside the Reinert so you aren't raw-dogging a textbook.

3. Global Capitalism: Its Fall and Rise in the Twentieth Century and Its Stumbles in the Twenty-First by Jeffry Frieden

for this one, you'll want to read the 2020 edition because the 2007 edition doesn't talk about the global financial crisis of 2008. this is a book that really is what it says on the tin--a history of global capitalism. it's particularly useful for understanding the origins and consequences of the postwar economic order. it contains some good discussions of keynesian economics and the neoliberal school of thought that followed.

4. World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction by Immanuel Wallerstein

this one's not a crucial read, but it covers a different way of thinking about basic economic units in international economics (i.e. not limiting one's economic analysis to nation-state units but instead thinking about the global economy as a system).

5. Running Steel, Running America by Judith Stein

i've put this book here because the latter half of the book essentially goes through how and why american production changed in the latter half of the 20th century, focusing chiefly on the production of steel. (this is another political economy book.) Stein illustrates the consequences of US foreign policy for the domestic economy, particularly during the 1970s--a crucial period. the whole book is worth reading, but the first half deals more with labor and politics so it's not directly related to your question.

feel free to reach out if you have more questions or need clarification on something here👍

#hope this is helpful

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out-of-the-forest-i-come · 7 months

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Feminist Non-Fiction Recs

Because feminism isn't only about your own voice and your own rights, but about the liberation of all women, it's important to uplift the voices of women who are rarely heard. To honour this international day of Women's Rights, here are some recommendations for non-fiction feminist theory books centered on women of colour.

Please note that this is a non-exhaustive list, and that some very important works might not figure on it. Take it as inspiration, not as a binding list of works to have read, and remember that this is only the surface of women of colour's writings on feminism.

all of bell hooks' books, but I would recommend "Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism" to start with intersectional feminism

There Is No Hierarchy of Oppression; by Audre Lorde

Sister Outsider; by Audre Lorde (all of Audre Lorde, actually)

Hood Feminism; by Mikki Kendall

White Tears, Brown Scars; by Ruby Hamad

Mediocre; Ijeoma Oluo

We Should All Be Feminists; by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

This Bridge Called My Back; an anthology edited by Cherríe Moraga and Gloria E. Anzaldúa

Bad Feminist; by Roxane Gay

I Am Malala; by Malala Yousafzai

Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment; by Patricia Hill Collins

Arab & Arab American Feminisms: Gender, Violence, & Belonging; an anthology edited by Rabab Abduhaldi, Evelyn Alsultany and Nadine Naber

Making Space for Indigenous Feminism; an anthology edited by Joyce Green

Beyond Veiled Clichés: The Real Lives of Arab Women; by Amal Awad

The Trouble with White Women: A Counterhistory of Feminism; by Kyla Schuller

A Decolonial Feminism; Françoise Vergès

Eloquent Rage: A Black Feminist Discovers Her Superpower; by Brittney Cooper

Women, Race, & Class; by Angela Y. Davis

These books really only scrape the surface of an intersectional approach of feminism focused on race, and if you want to discover more works, I would recommend looking at intersectional feminism and decolonial feminism. Also, if you're not a native English speaker or if you speak fluently multiple languages, I recommend looking for feminist books originally written in other languages that may not have been translated to English, as they offer a perspective that is not so American-centered, which I feel is the case in too much of today's feminism.

#international women's day #feminist books #feminist theory #intersectional feminism #decolonial feminism #women of color #non fiction books #book recs #book recommendations

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ceruark · 22 days

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Hi ! Dont worry about not being as active, health and happiness comes first, and there is always someone whos willing to wait for you.

I just found the entwined au which i loved. I also had my theory for the follow up, that it was Robin who sabotaged Sunday. Because they have the same intentions but go about it differently. Probably she was the one who noticed Sundays obsesion the most and wanted to free you from that future.

As for Ratio, we are lucky he is on our side and cares for us, because, like you said, he isnt unwilling to use our trust to his benefit. Also Im guessing he was orphaned young but actually has royal blood? Probably his kingdoms court threw him out because they were corrupt? Those are my theories. Hopefully he doesnt find out or else we will be in trouble haha.

Also loved that Gepard was the best option among the suitors, is he not yandere? Hes like a puppy.

Finally the whole time i was imagining Himeko as my late mother but her dying would make me sad so Im wondering what the rest of the astral express is up to.

These were a few of my thoughts while reading! You wrote the scenes so well, when sunday won my heart dropped after all the tension. I was really hoping he would lose haha.

(entwined au masterlist)

Thank you so much for your kind words, it really means a lot to me :) <3

I'm so glad you like the Entwined AU! As for Robin, she's an interesting figure here, for sure. She cares deeply for both you and Sunday, her childhood friend and her dear brother, but even she can't turn a blind eye to Sunday's unhealthy obsession with you. She knows him better than anyone else, and she knows that his love is going to destroy the both of you if it goes unchecked. She loves her brother and wants to see him happy, but not at the cost of anyone else's prosperity and freedom.

I wouldn't say Robin is bold enough to cut the sash herself, but who's to say she wouldn't conspire against him? If beloved Princess Robin was seen talking in hushed whispers to Imperial Advisor Ratio before the dancing started, it's anyone's guess as to what they were discussing.

Yes, we're certainly in a lucky position when it comes to Veritas being on our side and being unknowing of his past— it'd be far too easy for him to seize your hand marriage if he knew the truth. You already trust him so easily, what reason would you have to deny him?

But yes, your guesses are correct: Veritas is a prince by blood, but was thrown out of his kingdom the moment he was born. His father had long since perished in a terrible war, and his mother perished in childbirth. It was far too easy for some corrupt advisors to get rid of him and say that the prince passed on with his mother. It was easy to hand the throne off to a different prominent family who promised them riches unfathomable if they managed to pull it off.

Queen Ruan Mei's advisory court are awfully nervous in your presence when it's Ratio at your side instead of Welt, though you and the queen herself cannot possibly imagine why.

Gepard is not yandere in this AU... I personally cannot imagine him being yandere in any capacity, so he is by default the best option of all the suitors. He's such a golden retriever, he'd treat you right and would protect you! Hopefully. Belobog's forces could stand against Penacony's... right?

I could never kill off Himeko, that would break my heart! I hadn't really thought about the other express members besides Welt, but now you've got me thinking... Maybe after the Entwined incident with Sunday, it's finally time for you to start gutting your advisory court and get rid of those who don't respect your wishes.

Welt is quick to recommend Himeko, a military strategist with a sharp mind and flawless record. After some more searching, you manage to also recruit March, a young but optimistic and sociable woman who's very in touch with the common people. You also recruit Dan Heng, a reserved but dependable political and economic analyst who plays the advisor role oddly well despite claiming to have no prior experience. (You'll have to look into those rumors about him having been a Xianzhou advisor. The last thing you need is Jing Yuan slithering his way into your business.)

It's so good to hear that you enjoyed the main story. I never could have imagined it would spawn into an entire world/AU like this! Your support means so much :)

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icarusxxrising · 23 days

Text

I've been wanting to write a longer thread about this for awhile.

If you're new to the concept of Anarchy, even if you know the basics, you most likely have never heard of Anarcho-Nihilism. If you know basic leftist Ideologies, or just scrolled Political Compass pages, you know of Anarcho Communism, and most people understand there's other branches for marginalized groups like Queer Anarchy, Anarcha Feminism, etc.

This thread will go over Anarcho-Nihilism and the basics of what it is. It will talk to the reader as if you already understand the basic concepts of Anarchy, so if you don't, I recommend reading "Life Without Law" before coming back here.

Anarcho-Nihilism: A Beginners Text To How Fucked We Are

Anarcho-Nihilism is a post-left ideology, meaning that most of the substance of its standpoint are direct criticisms of not just Anarchy, but the leftist movement as a whole, which means Anarcho-Nihilists often reject the label of "Leftist" all-together.

Anarcho-Nihilism is also directly connected to Individualism and Egoism, with more modern Anarcho-Nihilists aligning into Eco-Extremism as well.

Post-Left criticisms, which includes Anarcho-Nihilist criticisms, of the Left include but are not limited to the Lefts view on Organization, Revolution, Unity of Ideologies, Fetishism of Work and Industry, and need of Popularity Politics. We will get into these shortly.

Brief History and Moments of Inspiration

Anarcho-Nihilism takes inspiration from a wide range of people and movements in history, but the earliest "creation" of Anarcho-Nihilism starts with the "Nihilist Movement", which was a Russian movement in the 1860s which focused on attacking traditional ideas of society such as morality, authority, traditionalism, and religion. This came from the growing divide between older radicals and the younger generation who were disillusioned towards older forms of leftist organization and ideas.

Russian anarchist Peter Kropotkin discussed the movement itself, stating "defined nihilism as the symbol of struggle against all forms tyranny, hypocrisy, and artificiality and for individual freedom".

Early forms of Russian Nihilist theory incorporated Egoist theory into its ideas, and saw that all morality, aesthetics, and social institutions were meaningless, but they did not see all ethics, knowledge, and human life as meaningless.

Russian Nihilism was characterized throughout Europe for being linked to Political Terrorism due to multiple assassinations and assassination attempts against politic officials, including the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in 1881. Historian M. A. Gillespie concludes that Russian Nihilism was at the core of revolutionary thought in Russia throughout the lead up to the Russian Revolution.

Anarcho-Nihilism as a movement grew with voices like Kaneko Fumiko, a self identified Anarchist and Nihilist who was convicted of plotting to assassinate members of the Japanese Imperial Family.

Kaneko had many experiences from working with the notably Christian Salvation Army, to studying socialist movements and revolutionaries, anarchist theorists, and Nihilist movements. She only maintained a brief relationship with the Salvation Army, not compelled by their beliefs as well as being abandoned by a Christian friend after he felt his growing feelings towards her were threatening his beliefs. From the Salvation Army she jumped into the socialist movement, but was let down as she found Socialists would often behave in ways they directly advocated against.

Kaneko says her radical shift from Socialism to Anarchism and Nihilism came in 1922 when she met Hatsuyo Niiyama, who she considers her closet friend. Hatsuyo introduced her to thinkers like Max Stirner, Mikail Artsybashev, and Friedrich Nietzche. Kaneko also met Pak Yol, a Korean activist and anarchist who shared her belief systems.

Kaneko and Pak themselves helped continue to define a new set of Anarchism that aimed away from the common ideas of Syndicalism and Union Organizing, Kaneko herself writing about her views in a document made to the court in 1925 after she and Pak were convicted of attempted assassination, stating "formerly I said 'I negate life'... [but] my negation of all life was completely meaningless... The stronger the affirmation of life, the stronger the creation of life- negation together with rebellion. Therefore, I affirm life...Living is not synonymous with merely having movement. It is moving in accordance with one's will… one could say that with deeds, one begins to really live. Accordingly, when one moves by means of one's own will and this leads to the destruction of one's body, this is not a negation of life. It is an affirmation." Kaneko also claimed she wanted to "throw a bomb at the Emperor to show he, like everyone, will someday die" to deny his authority as all powerful.

One of Kaneko's main criticism of the Socialist Movement was the treatment of women, including her, in the movement itself, and this further pushed her into Anarchism and Nihilism as she believed that even these Socialist men would abuse their authority should it be granted.

Blessed is the Flame: The Anarcho-Nihilist Manifesto

"The anarcho-nihilist position is essentially that we are fucked. That the current manifestation of human society (civilization, leviathan, industrial society, global capitalism, whatever) is beyond salvation, and so our response to it should be one of unmitigated hostility. There are no demands to be made, no utopic visions to be upheld, no political programs to be followed — the path of resistance is one of pure negation." Serafinski "Blessed is the Flame"(2015)

Blessed is the Flame is considered one of if not the theory for Anarcho-Nihilism of the modern age, with its criticisms of organization and resistance during times of great tragedy.

Blessed is the Flame is a piece of text about not just Anarcho-Nihilism, but Negation through the lens of the Holocaust and Concentration Camp Resistance. The theory takes the time to explain to the reader just how bleak the reality of life was for concentration camp prisoners, and how the Nazis did everything in their power to snuff out rebellion at its core, and how people rebelled anyway, even when there was no hope to rebellion. Because of this perspective, and usage of a great tragedy, many have criticized Blessed is the Flame for romanticizing the struggles of camp prisoners, even if the author meant not to.

Blessed is the Flame, nonetheless, does the important task of putting what Anarcho-Nihilism is into digestible theory that can be spread and built upon.

Blessed is the Flame asserts that, as the quote says above, Anarcho-Nihilism is the belief that the world as we know it is fucked, to put it simply. That the current systems of domination such as white supremacy, patriarchy, colonialism, etc. have their roots too deep to be organized away, that we have reached past the point of no return for ecological destruction (Global Warming), and that we should meet this hopelessness with destruction.

Blessed is the Flame, and Anarcho-Nihilism, directly criticizes the Marxist idea of Progress. Progress, as in, the idea that Humanity overtime progresses in its worldviews and we will naturally get to a point where Humanity achieves some better world without hate or exploitation, away from the systems of domination. It is argued that history shows we do not progress up, even if we have moments things seem better, we keep crashing harder and harder as the systems of domination grow stronger and root themselves deeper into our lives and psyche. "The conception of history that came out of the Marxist tradition (dialectical materialism) dictated that the transformation of society would pass through capitalism... to transform into socialism and eventually communism. This meant that progressivism was embedded within this (the dominant) branch of socialism."

Blessed is the Flame also argues that, "This stands in direct contrast to other anarchist tendencies that place at least some emphasis on “positive programs” — aspirations to construct something ideal in the present world or to craft plans in preparation for the downfall of the current system. Anarcho-nihilism understands the positive program as “one that confuses desire with reality and extends that confusion into the future” by either making promises about what a revolutionary future might hold, or attempting to bring those conditions about from within the existing order."

To put it more plainly, Anarcho-Nihilists argue that whatever we try to build under these current systems will be co-opted, capitalized, and/or destroyed as they will be at odds with these systems. That our socialist programs, minority solidarity movements, etc. will always find their ways back to being assimilated into the death machine that is industrial civilization.

Imprisoned members of the CCF (Greek Conspiracy Cells of Fire) write, "We anarcho-nihilists ...don’t talk about ‘transformation of social relations’ towards a more liberated view, we promulgate their total destruction and absolute annihilation. Only through total destruction of the current world of power... will it be possible to build something new. The deeper we destroy, the more freely will we be able to build".

The argument is that if we meet the state with negation, with destruction, then our positive movements cannot be co-opted and destroyed. The further we dismantle the states control, the more freely we can take the time to build ways we can help each other.

In this same frame of argument, Anarcho-Nihilists, including the aforementioned imprisoned members of the CCF, argue that creating strict organization is "construction of a dam that tries to control the impetus of the abundant stream of Anarchy". Anarchy is fluid and will take many paths, and attempting to redirect Anarchy onto one path is undesirable.

Coming back to Post-Leftism, Anarcho-Nihilist (as well as Post-Leftism) critiques the lefts style of organization, the revolution, and a need for popularity politics. Blessed is the Flame brings up how the Nazis used this concept of "future time" to break the spirits of camp prisoners, through slogans such as "Freedom Through Work", being told they were being taken to Sweden only to end up in Auschwitz, taken to be Showered only to be stripped and put into prison clothes, told Work was Freedom only to be worked to death. The Nazis, cruelly, suspended the Prisoners in this Limbo of time between certain death and uncertain future, breaking their resolve to fight back as fighting back could cost them that possibility of freedom. The key to insurgency wasn't to open the curtain to reveal the lie of future time, as this lead to despondency and the further breaking of the soul. Blessed is the Flame argues that the key might lie between what is dubbed "Lager-Time" (future time) and Suicidal Despondency, something called "Suspension". In Suspension, there is no focus on the past nor future, but rather, the need to survive in the current moment. Breaking free of that suspension in the present, throwing away the chains of time, lead to violent uprisings and revolt even in the most hopeless of situations.

The paragraph above ties into Anarcho-Nihilisms critiques of the lefts view of the aforementioned 3, organization, revolution, and popularity politics. Anarcho-Nihilism argues that the left views organization as a non-violent house of cards that must be meticulously built up fully, no matter how many times it gets knocked down, and that our Revolution may only come after this house of cards is built. The left with also argue that this house of cards can only be built through their ideas becoming popularized, such as "workers of the world uniting", and once that happens then Revolution is an inevitable force. Leftists argue that revolution WILL happen, this precarious house of cards WILL be built, and there IS a better world and denying this is anti-revolutionary.

Anarcho-Nihilists reject this, viewing this as a form of Lager-Time, unable to act in the present because of uncertainty, or rather a false certainty, of the future. Given what was previously said about Anarcho-Nihilists view of Progress, they argue that radicals shouldn't wait for some Rapture like "revolution", that while we wait for workers to unite, fascism builds and global warming worsens and capitalism continues to evolve like an ever growing leviathan. The fact is, Anarcho-Nihilism claims, there isn't a reality where the workers of the world all wake up and unite against the common enemy. Even in socialist movements there lays bigotry against marginalized groups that chokes the life from these movements and further scatters the solidarity amongst each other.

Anarcho-Nihilists, as well as Blessed is the Flame, directly oppose the lefts modern form of organization, which is built on democratic circles and layers of policy and aesthetics. Needing to go through 3 different rings of people to do action just delays, and defangs, the action. Anarcho-Nihilism advocates for decentralized forms of organization, where the "org" is disconnected from each other except by name and motivation. If you want to do action, you just fucking do it, no bureaucracy bullshit. Examples of these modes of Organization is ELF (Earth Liberation Front), ALF (Animal Liberation Front), and the CCF (Conspiracy Cells of Fire). Each of these fronts is without leaders, without form, moving like water to serve the cause when needed. To be a part of groups like these, such as ELF and ALF, you need only to agree with the views, and that's it. You can create an ELF or ALF group right now with friends and go do shit.

At its core, the Anarcho-Nihilist critique is that of an Individualist one, of the collective vs. the individual. This critique argues that often, the will of the collective can overrule the freedom of the individual, stunting action and even self that the collective was supposed to foster (This specifically being a similar argument that Max Stirner, the "Father of Egoism", has discussed).

"...think back to 2012 when the CEO of an Italian nuclear power company was shot in the kneecap by two anarcho-nihilists who claimed the attack under the banner of the FAI. After the attack (which was partly inspired by the 2011 nuclear disaster in Fukushima), the pair released a communique pointing to the various atrocities committed in the name of nuclear power and calling for an all-out attack on the nuclear industry. In response to that action, the Anarchist Federation in Italy (a formal Marxist organization with no relationship to the FAI) issued a response that condemned such a renegade action: “... we strongly criticize individualist and vanguardist tactics that do not come out of a broad-based class-struggle movement. We condemn actions that put workers in danger without their knowledge...” According to this perspective, the individual acting without the validation of a formal collective, and without respect for working class solidarity, has no place in an anarchist movement. In counter-response to this (and other condemnations), insurrectionary and nihilist keyboards ignited with scathing indictments of this breed of “civil anarchism” that tries to restrain individual attacks behind the “working class” banner." Blessed is the Flame.

So, if we are fucked, and Leftist modes of organization can strangle action, what is there to do? Why fight back?

Hope Is Not A Plan: Jouissance and Insurgency

Jouissance is a French word for "enjoyment" but can have connotations related to "uncivilized desire".

"Jouissance is an ecstatic energy, felt but never captured, that pushes us away from any form of domination, representation, or restraint, and compels us towards fierce wildness and unmitigated recalcitrance. It is “the process that momentarily sets us free from our fear of death” and which manifests as a “blissful enjoyment of the present,” or a “joy which we cannot name.”[110] Jouissance is the richness of life evoked by resistance, the spirit that allowed Mária Jakobovics to continue her acts of sabotage despite the sting of the club or the threat of the noose, and the spirit that perhaps allows many of us to lead lives of resistance in absolutely overwhelming circumstances. It is the visceral experience of negation as ecstatic liberation." Blessed is the Flame

Jouissance, for Nihilists, is the core of Anarchism. The need, no, the Joy of resistance to keep us alive and going. Not fighting because we might win, not fighting because we might lose, but fighting because we can and we fucking will. "Inmates who physically confronted their oppressors were not engaged in a “rational political struggle for a better future,” but rather understood the futility of their situations and chose to fight back regardless."

Said from the CCF, "what really counts is the strength we feel every time we don’t bow our heads, every time we destroy the false idols of civilization, every time our eyes meet those of our comrades along illegal paths, every time that our hands set fire to the symbols of Power. In those moments we don’t ask ourselves: ‘Will we win? Will we lose?’ In those moments we just fight." Anarcho-Nihilists favor Insurgency and Insurrection, not Revolution. Anarcho-Nihilists are for short bursts of violent energy, of humans taking up arms not for some convoluted idea of politics, but for the goal of rebelling. Like the burning of the Minneapolis Precinct in 2020, letting the rage and rebellion of those of us still living shining through and proving we still have fight in us, we won't die quietly in the night. These short bursts of violent energy encouraging humans to negate the will of the systems of domination, and encouraging more radical action and eventual destruction of these systems entirely, because what else is there? We live under these impossible systems, we fight and possibly die or we don't fight and we DO die.

"The active nihilist sees in the unknown future and despair at our current situation, a call to arms. Meaning is found in approaching the void rather than in the false knowledge of what is on the other side of it." —Attentat

Embracing the Void: How We Can Use This

On a real level, I don't expect you to read this and instantly agree we are fucked. Embracing this idea that our world is gone is a difficult one, and a depressing one.

Instead we can focus on what Anarcho-Nihilism brings to the table regarding its critiques and ideas.

We can begin to embrace decentralized modes of organizing, instead of searching for some Vanguard party to get swallowed up into. When you have an idea, do it. Get with friends or peers and go out into the world.

We can embrace negating the system when at all possible, illegalism as a tactic.

We can embrace the uncertainty of the future and, instead of waiting for things to get better, we can take action NOW, in the present, outside of suspension to do what we can because we can. Our nihilism does not have to paralyze us, it can instead energize us.

Anarcho-Nihilism Reading List

Blessed is the Flame

Blessed is the Flame (Audiobook)

Desert

Desert (Audiobook)

The Insurrectional Project

The Economy is Suffering, Let it Die!

Uncivilized

Say You want an Insurrection

Anarchy: Civil or Subversive?

Armed Joy

Notes on Post-Left Anarchism

Accomplices not Allies: Abolishing the Ally Industrial Complex

Rethinking the Apocalypse: An Indigenous Anti-Futurist Manifesto

Voting is Not Harm Reduction - An Indigenous Perspective

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haveyoureadthisscifibook · 8 months

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Hey! What books by POC got a majority yes result? I'm interested in reading more by authors of color but when I used the be loathed Tumblr search function the only posts it brought up as tagged 'result: yes' were by white authors. Also, any personal recommendations for sci fi by POC?

hello! don’t mistake the stats — no books by authors of color have gotten a yes result either here or on the fantasy blog, and I don’t think any are likely to at this point (if Jemisin’s The Fifth Season couldn’t do it on the fantasy blog, I highly doubt anything else will); authors of color simply have an average yes percentage here that’s only slightly lower than the average percentage for white authors.

I’m happy to give my own recommendations, though:

any of Samuel R. Delany’s sci-fi. I think Nova is maybe the most approachable starting point (and quite good in its own right), but if you want to jump off the deep end, I think Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand is the greatest science fiction novel ever written; whether or not one agrees with that statement, I think it is pretty unequivocally the most science fiction novel ever written, by which I mean that no other book I’ve encountered or heard of has made such a thorough use of everything science fiction can be and do as Stars.

I also would be remiss to not recommend Octavia E. Butler; I’m personally not a huge fan of her books, but I do think every sci-fi reader should read at least one of them. the Earthseed duology (Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents) is probably most-discussed in recent years because they seem to parallel current developments in US politics, and the Xenogenesis trilogy (first book Dawn) is also considered a classic.

the elements of it that read as (at least potentially) science fiction upon publication now read as fantasy, but if you’re interested in something older, Pauline Hopkins’s Of One Blood, or The Hidden Self is an early work of science fiction/fantasy by a Black writer — it was serialized in 1903. it’s part lost world narrative, part last gasp of (pseudo)scientific mesmerism/animal magnetism theory, part troubled romance (caught up in turn-of-the-century racial politics).

Zainab Amadahy’s novel The Moons of Palmares is a cool (though a little short) novel about a racially diverse mining colony trying to break away from Earth’s capitalist / colonial domination.

I’ve enjoyed several of Aliette de Bodard’s Universe of Xuya books, which are mainly short — I think the first I read was On a Red Station, Drifting, and I also enjoyed The Tea Master and the Detective (even though I often don’t really care for Sherlock Holmes adaptations) and The Citadel of Weeping Pearls.

if you like science fantasy, I loved Jacqueline Koyanagi’s Ascension when I read it back in 2014. it hits a lot of ~found family~ notes that I think would appeal to what people on tumblr (say they) like.

I also would recommend any of Yoon Ha Lee’s books; I think the best starting point for his work is his short story collection Conservation of Shadows, which is incredible and also contains “The Battle of Candle Arc”, which I think is the best intro / preparatory reading for his Machineries of Empire trilogy (first book Ninefox Gambit), which is excellent (though very dark) but can be challenging to get into.

I read and enjoyed a lot of Nnedi Okorafor’s books in the past, although I haven’t read most of her more recent stuff, and I would particularly recommend Lagoon, as well as her short story collection Kabu Kabu, which includes some excellent sci-fi stories, especially “Spider the Artist” (also available online).

if by any chance you read Spanish, I can’t recommend Edmundo Paz Soldán’s Iris highly enough — incredible, deeply fucked-up novel about an anticolonial war in a corporate dystopia somewhere in ambiguously Latin America-slash-Oceania.

also “authors of color” isn’t necessarily the right rubric for these, since he’s Wajin in Japan, but if you like military sci-fi I’ve been really enjoying Tanaka Yoshiki’s Legend of the Galactic Heroes novels, although tragically Tyran Grillo’s translations of the middle novels are very bad.

Masande Ntshanga’s Triangulum was something I’d picked up entirely on spec at a bookstore a few years ago and it absolutely blew me away — I’ve been recommending it to everyone.

if you liked The Locked Tomb and ever found yourself thinking, “what if this decadent space empire ran on sex magic instead of necromancy”, I’d highly recommend Bendi Barrett’s Empire of the Feast

and some other short fiction collections (some with the same caveat re the utility of “POC” as Tanaka Yoshiki):

Gillian Ybabez, Homeward Bound, and other stories includes some sci-fi and some science fantasy, published as part of the now sadly defunct Trans Women Writers Collective booklet series and is still available through its successor, River Furnace.

Ted Chiang, Stories of Your Life and Others (now sometimes titled Arrival)

Hassan Blasim (ed.), Iraq + 100

Basma Ghalayini (ed.), Palestine + 100

Sofia Samatar, Tender — Samatar is imo the greatest living fantasy author, but this collection is also about 50% sci-fi and she’s just as good at sci-fi.

most of it is realist but I have to mention Leanne Betasamosake Simpson’s This Accident of Being Lost, which has two excellent sci-fi stories (“Big Water” and “Akiden Boreal”); Simpson has imo perfect prose — never a word out of place.

Sunyoung Park and Sang Joon Park (ed.), Readymade Bodhisattva

Michel Jean (ed.), Wapke, which was originally published in French but is apparently now also available in English

it wasn’t all my preferred kind of specfic, but Chelsea Vowel’s Buffalo Is the New Buffalo is worth a read in any case.

#not a poll

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fdelopera · 11 months

Note

reading your response to the ask about Elohim, i found it so fascinating and really wanted to learn more about jewish history. but im kinda scared to try and dive into googling it because like, for obvious reasons there is a lot of antisemitic misinformation out there. where's a good place to start learning about it all from a historical standpoint, aside from taking a college course? i hope this is okay to ask, i really don't want to stumble upon/consume revisionist history out of ignorance

Hi Anon. Thank you for your kind message. I really appreciate it.

I'm glad that you enjoyed my post about the origin of Elohim as one of the names of G-d in Judaism. Studying Jewish history and Jewish religious practice gives profound understanding and context to Abrahamic religions, as well as to the last 3500+ years of history, since at least the Late Bronze Age.

And thank you for wanting to learn more about Jewish history, and for reaching out to a Jewish person to ask about it.

My answer to your Ask is based on this answer about Jewish history, which I posted a few days ago. Not a lot of people saw it, so I feel okay about posting these links here again.

This past month especially has made me realize just how little most gentiles (non-Jews) know about Jewish history. It's been eye-opening, for sure.

And ... you're right, unfortunately. I've seen a metric shit ton of Jew-hatred going around. And so many antisemitic conspiracy theories that originated with the Neo-Nazis and the KKK.

Some people have been spreading this Neo-Nazi rhetoric intentionally, but many others have been spreading it because they don't have the context to understand that they are repeating Nazi dogwhistles.

In talking to gentiles, I often find that their knowledge of Jewish history extends to a few facts about the Holocaust. Some gentiles who have studied European history and political science may also have a general understanding of Hitler’s rise to power.

But that’s only the past several decades of Jewish history! And it's limited almost entirely to Europe!

Jews are a Levantine people. We are indigenous to Judea (the area currently called Israel/Palestine), and our history goes back thousands of years to the Late Bronze Age.

For a good overview of Jewish history, from the Late Bronze Age to the present, I would recommend two YouTube channels. That’s a good place to start. There are many history books on the subject, but a lot of them are quite dense, and the videos from these two historians will give you a good general overview if you want to learn more.

Sam Aronow:

Sam Aronow covers the span of Jewish history, from the Late Bronze Age to modern times. It is an ongoing Jewish history project that he’s been producing for the past three years, and it is in chronological order. He is currently in the early 1900s, and he comes out with a new video every month or so (he's just released a new video this month).

Click here to go to Sam’s YouTube channel, and then you can scroll back to watch his videos from the beginning, or you can decide what time period of Jewish history you’re most interested in learning about first.

Useful Charts:

Matt Baker, PhD runs the YouTube channel "Useful Charts," and he often works with Sam Aronow's channel. He has a PhD in education and religion. Matt has a very interesting story. He converted to Judaism as an adult; when he was a young man, he escaped a Christian doomsday cult, which he was born into. This gives him a unique understanding of Jewish history, especially how the "Old Testament" is often weaponized by Evangelical Christians to advance specific right-wing agendas. (As I explain below, the Old Testament is NOT the Hebrew bible. It is a chopped up, reordered, edited, and mistranslated version of the Hebrew bible.) Matt's videos on the history of Judaism are well-researched, and he breaks down different aspects of Jewish history into easy-to-follow segments.

I) Jewish History series:

Which Bible Characters are Historical.

Kings of Israel & Judah Family Tree.

Maccabees & King Herod Family Tree. (by Sam Aronow)

Classical Rabbis Family Tree.

Judaism and Jewish Denominations Explained.

Jewish Streams (Denominations) Re-Explained. (by Sam Aronow)

II) Who Wrote the Tanakh and the New Testament series:

NOTE: The Tanakh (the Hebrew bible) is an acronym that stands for Torah (Instruction), Nevi'im (Prophets), Ketuvim (Writings). It is NOT the same as the "Old Testament" in the Christian bible. The Christian editors of the "Old Testament" cut up the Tanakh and reordered it in a way that doesn't make any sense for Jewish practice. Many Christian bibles (such as the King James Version) also intentionally mistranslate the Old Testament to advance specific religious, political, and social ideologies of their time.

Who Wrote the Torah.

Who Wrote the Prophets.

Who Wrote the Writings.

I am including links to Matt's series on who wrote the New Testament, because many people who were raised Christian were never given a historical context for the people who wrote the books of the New Testament.

Who Wrote the Apocrypha. (The Apocrypha are later-written Jewish books that are not included in the Tanakh, but do appear in some Christian bibles, like the Catholic bible)

Who Wrote the Epistles. (Paul's Epistles were written before the Gospels, which is why the Epistles are linked first.)

Who Wrote the Gospels and Acts. (The Gospels were all written long AFTER Jesus' lifetime, and AFTER the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 AD. They were NOT written by the people they are attributed to.)

Who Wrote Daniel, and Who Wrote Revelation. (Matt includes Daniel from the Nevi'im [Prophets] as well as Revelation from the New Testament in this video to discuss apocalypticism in Jewish and early Christian tradition.)

#jumblr #judaism #jewblr #jewish history #jewish #NOTE - I report and block antisemites. If any antisemites comment on this post you will be reported and blocked. You have been warned.

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fembrie · 1 year

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Intro to Radical Feminism

If you've stumbled across my blog because you're interested in radical feminism, here are some FAQs and links to resources:

What is radical feminism?

Radical feminism emerged during the second wave of feminism, in opposition to liberal and Marxist feminism. Liberal feminists demanded equal rights for women without consideration of the broader social structures that oppress women. Marxist feminists linked women's oppression to capitalism, and therefore considered dismantling capitalism the key to achieving women's liberation. Radical feminists, on the other hand, looked beyond legal and economic systems and instead considered patriarchy as the system under which women are oppressed. (Note: the distinction between radical and Marxist feminism is not as clear cut today as it used to be, since radical feminism borrows some analyses from Marxism, and Marxist feminists also acknowledge the existence of the patriarchy.)

What is the patriarchy? Where does it come from?

The patriarchy is the system of social organization that grants men social, economic and political power over women, enabling women's subjugation. There are several theories on its origins. Marxist feminists might point to Engel's analysis of women's oppression, whereas radfems might look to Firestone's analysis in The Dialectic of Sex, for starters.

Are radical feminists transphobic?

Since radical feminist belief in the existence of patriarchy relies on the notion of two sexes, one of which acts as the oppressor sex, radical feminism lies at odds with modern gender ideology which dictates that sex is mutable. The notion that a person can identify in and out of their sex - and by extension in and out of their oppression - renders patriarchal oppression a meaningless concept. Whether or not this constitutes transphobia is up to you.

What is a TERF?

TERF stands for trans exclusionary radical feminist. TERF is a misnomer, really - radical feminists include anyone observed female at birth in their feminism, including trans and nonbinary identified females.

Is radical feminism white feminism?

Not at all. While feminists in the global south may not self identify as radical feminists, radical feminism is the branch of western feminism most closely aligned to the struggles of women outside the west. Radical feminists focus on issues such as sex trafficking, male violence and female socialization for instance, all of which are more likely to be experienced by racialized women. Moreover, the analysis of gender relations through the framework of patriarchy is applicable to women everywhere in the world. Liberal feminism lacks such an analysis.

How can I learn more?

This is an excellent overview of commonly held radical feminist beliefs

If you're interested in books on radical feminism, this is a masterpost on radical feminist readings. I would personally recommend Dworkin's Right Wing Women as a short and simple (but nonetheless powerful) introductory work.

If you want to read something shorter than a book, On The Woman Question publishes articles on popular radical feminist topics

If you are a podcast person, Redfem covers a variety of topics in radical feminism and leftist politics in general

I also highly recommend watching Kathleen Stock's interview at the Oxford Union if you're new to radical feminism to get a better grasp on gender critical arguments

#intro post #radical feminism

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communistkenobi · 1 year

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hey there! I was wondering if you have any contemporary Marxist/even just leftist book recommendations for an annoying professor dad? he’s conscious of the, uh, enormous human suffering all around him, but unable to imagine anything outside capitalism. I am unfortunately not as academically educated as he is, and the more basic stuff I read isn’t impressive to him.

anyway I know you can’t magically fix my shitty dad, but any book recommendations you’ve got would be greatly appreciated. And thanks so much for all of the excellent Posting, I’ve learned a lot from you.

Academic doomers are the fucking worst! They read the material and concede the basic fact that this current system is rotten but turn that into a wholly negative outlook, refusing to imagine anything beyond it by painting all left wing politics and movements as uniformly “unrealistic.” It is pure cowardice. They are perhaps my least favourite kind of liberal, someone who mistakes their own (ivory tower, western) cynicism for pragmatism. They often tout the more ‘progressive’ version of “liberal in your twenties, conservative in your forties” to students, assuring any young person who makes demands for a better world that their pie-in-the-sky thinking will be beaten out of them one day. I have found historic accounts of past revolutions to be the most helpful for my own politics. Knowing about communist history keeps me from despair. Communism is not untested, it is not abstract, it exists in this world and it continues to exist despite the endless tide of imperial violence of capitalist countries trying to wipe it off the face of this earth. The conclusions the proletariat & all oppressed peoples continue to arrive at about their own exploitation cannot be destroyed, only delayed, and only for so long.

I would recommend reading up on a couple different revolutions - the Haitian, Cuban, and Russian Revolution. These are all proletarian revolutions, meaning they are worker revolutions (in contrast to the American or French revs, which were bourgeois, meaning property owners revolted against their own aristocratic/monarchical system for economic independence). For the Haitian Rev I would recommend the book black jacobins, and for the Russian rev I recommend the Russian Revolution by Walter Rodney. I don’t have any book recs for the Cuban Rev right now sorry! It’s on my to-do list of shit to read up on. Additionally, The Jakarta Method by Vincent Bevins outlines the anti-communist violence the US conducted around the world during the Cold War - I find this history useful to know as it helps counter the claim that communism “works only in theory but not in practice” or is “outright unrealistic,” as all communist programmes have been subjected to incredible amounts of violence and political & economic & social suppression by western countries in general and the US in specific. They have never been allowed to grow and learn on their own merits. finally, this isn’t a reading but a general recommendation, the podcast blowback is very good, it outlines the imperial history of the United States (a central pillar of that imperialist violence being anti-communist programmes). They cite history books and specific scholars in the podcast if you want to read more on specific events (their second season is about the Cuban Revolution!). I find it to be accessible, meaning they don’t use jargon, although the subject matter can be pretty horrific at times.

anyway I don’t know if any of that will help, I personally am skeptical of being able to save those types of people (ie people who have access to more critical scholarship than virtually anyone else on the planet but refuse to take it seriously - education is not a cure-all and the class interests of professors do a lot of work to inoculate them against left wing views), but who knows!

#asks #book club #thank u!!!#also I’m not directing my rage only at your dad lol sorry. I’ve just met that exact type of guy many many many times #also sorry your dad does not take your own views seriously. It is insanely frustrating

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cto10121 · 5 months

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You mentioned in the tags of one of your posts on Mercutio's (non-existant) sexuality that you're partial to the idea that he may have been inspired by Kit Marlowe; I want to hear all about this lol.

Also, do you have an Marlowe recommendations? I've heard good things so I would like to read some of his plays.

Oh, yeah, my Christopher-Marlowe-may-have-been-the-inspiration-for-Mercutio theory! Glad to talk about it.

So I’m definitely not the only one with this theory—some scholars have mused as much and I did come across them. But the case for Mercutio-as-Marlowe stands roughly as follows:

One of Marlowe’s nicknames was Mercury (!!). Now, Shakespeare clearly did not come up with the name, as he got it from his source material in Brooke et al. But as the Mercutio there was just some random courtier, I have no doubt that Shakespeare got an eyeful of that name in the Brooke poem and just 😏 and seized that golden opportunity to honor his friend in this way

By all accounts Marlowe was charming, erudite, intellectually edgy (an avowed Arianist and homosexual), with a nasty bit of a temper. Mercutio is much along those same lines

Marlowe and Shakespeare may have been friends as well as theater rivals, with similar backgrounds but (I suspect) opposite personalities and sensibilities—the iconoclastic Marlowe with the much milder Shakespeare. You see that same push-pull dynamic in Romeo and Mercutio’s relationship.

Mercutio was killed during his duel with Tybalt. Marlowe was killed while fighting with his fellow spies at a tavern/government safehouse in Deptford. So Shakespeare making Mercutio’s death off-stage may be a reference to Marlowe’s out-of-London death (and perhaps how Will came to find out).

So yeah, not much evidence, come to think of it. Just general vibes. Mercutio does have lines about dreams that are a reference to Thomas Nash, who was also friends with Marlowe and perhaps Shakespeare as well. But of course Shakespeare would make Mercutio a composite of his friends and not just limit himself to any ~one thing.

Against this is the fact that there is no clear evidence that Shakespeare and Marlowe knew each other. That said, the theater world was tiny and Marlowe wrote for Strange’s Men; Shakespeare may have been a player for them at the time. But it’s logical for many fangirls scholars to believe they knew each other and were friends/rivals and so forth.

As for recommendations, I’ve only ever read Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, which even got a Globe performance, and his Hero and Leander, a narrative poem along the lines of Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis. I’m ashamed to admit that in class I mistook a passage from Hero for Shakespeare’s, an ignominy that will live in me forever until my dying breath.

But while Marlowe was never as great at character as Shakespeare, his verse was very good (if a little too regular with the masculine endings) and nigh indistinguishable from Shakespeare’s in the beginning. Also, Marlowe is 1000x gayer, even writing about Edward II and his forbidden romance with his favorite Gaveston. Hence his popularity in fangirl circles. If you like Shakespeare but feel he could have been more violent, political, and gay, Marlowe will be right up your alley. There have been tons of fanfiction about him, some notable ones of which are:

The Marlowe Papers (Barber)—author is a stupid anti-Stratfordian, but her verse is legit

A Tip for the Hangman (Epstein)—not feeling the main romance, but it was fun and well-researched

The Secret Life of Shakespeare (Morgan)—actually focusing on Will/Anne, but this version of Marlowe is my favorite. He is just as I’ve envisioned him

#kaleb-is-definitely-sane #ask #romeo and juliet #william shakespeare #christopher marlowe #i think the reason is that marlowe’s personality is just much more evident than shakespeare’s #even though marlowe has fewer trails #hence his popularity in fanfic #meanwhile i can’t say i’ve encountered a portrayal of shakespeare that has satisfied me #life of will

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