This zine contains various thoughts and ideas related to anti-speciesism, nihilist pessimism, and anti-left anarchy, expressed by Morgan Taylor, a vegan straight edge anarchist writer.
Handful of Objections: A Response to a Proposal for Desertion
From back cover:
“An insurrectionary moment is a qualitative leap, a negation of existing social relations on a whole other level. From there ugly things can happen, beautiful things also. What has changed is our power to make things happen…
…There are those invested in the politics of insurrection, working in the tradition of the authoritarian Blanqui. An Eric Hazan and his Factory (producing theory for the aspiring intellectuals) have measures to implement, the (not so) Invisible Committee has the strategy (tested before and failed) and its (not so) Imaginary Party has the cadre (wannabe politicians) and the infrastructure (thanks to wealthy lefty benefactors). Cynical people willing to manipulate others to realize their authoritarian projects. Nothing new there. It’s up to persons with anarchist sensitivities to recognize these intentions and subvert them (if they care enough). Admittedly, a lot of the radical milieu got seduced by their mystifications….
…I concede this {Desertion} is a theory we are presented with. But more than being a “whole way of seeing” (as Bellamy defines it); a theory is based on generalizations and abstractions. At the best of times, a theory can provide us with tools to find a more conscious relation with what is surrounding us. Mostly though, theory produces crude categories that are imposed on complex beings and dynamic realities; reductions that are counter-productive to understanding. Moreover, a theory that is not understood as having its limitations and shortcomings (and thus, as being a peculiar way of seeing), but instead as forming a complete picture produces its own mystifications and idealizations.”
Handful of Objections_A Response to a Proposal for Desertion pdf
Egoist Vegan: Some Thoughts on an Individualist Animal Liberation
From back cover:
“If I am thoroughly an egoist, then I recognize the ego of others and the desire of that ego to not be controlled or dominated. I own nobody, and nobody owns me. This social relationship does not constitute a form of politics. Politics implies social governance guided by an external authority. My lifestyle is an anti-politics rejecting all anthropocentric power and authority constructed to govern my social interactions with other animals. My refusal to view nonhuman animals as “food” for consumption can easily be understood as a primal expression of this anti-authoritarian lifestyle.”
Egoist Vegan_Some Thoughts on an Individualist Animal Liberation pdf
Destroy Race Destroy Society: Another Diary of Mayhem and Race Nihilism
From back cover:
“I am sure there will be some who will find this text redundant – another critique of identity. Fair enough. But allow me to be clear: I write this with the intent of further agitating identity politics by confronting the idea that Race is sacred and/or above criticism. My anti-fascist, anti-racist views recognize Race as nothing more than a social construct used to govern individuality. Despite attempts to personalize it with glory, cultural value, and meaning, Race continues to be just one of many phantoms woven into the fabric of social control and domination. My same desire to destroy white supremacy extends toward any and all racialized supremacist ideologies that attempt to take its place. So whether people call it “Post-Race Anarchy” or “Race Nihilism”, a critique of Race could be understood as a necessary re-wilding toward the rejection of civilized identity.”
Destroy Race Destroy Society_Another Diary of Mayhem and Race Nihilism pdf
Cultural Appropriation is a Toxic Concept
From back cover:
“I have faced racism — it is a fact of my life as a woman of colour. But I refuse to be on the cultural appropriation bandwagon — I find it nearly insulting that while I deal with people’s harsh judgment for the colour of my skin, that while I have faced actual physical violence for it — there are people who care so goddamn much about who gets to wear henna on their hands and who doesn’t. How about making this world a safer place for me? How about not deciding on my behalf what could offend me?…
…I am asking you to look at the concept of cultural appropriation with a critical lens. Ask yourself if the censorship and banning of words/arts/crafts/food by people in power is something that provides a viable solution to the problem of structural racism and inequality here. For instance, when black people are mocked for wearing dreadlocks, while white people wearing dreadlocks are seen as cool and edgy — that is absofuckinglutely racism. But is the solution then to instruct white people (or nonblack people of colour) to not wear dreadlocks? Will white people or nonblack PoC stopping to wear dreadlocks stop the discrimination and mockery that black people get for wearing dreadlocks? The censorship of freedom of expression lies at the core of this concept, and the parallels it has with the blasphemy laws of the country I come from are really rather striking.”
Cult of Resentment: How Identity Politics Fails Everyone
From back cover:
“Individuals are nearly as unique as their fingerprints might suggest. Attempts to lump large swathes of people together is often based on ones own limited ability, or willingness, to know and genuinely understand other unique individuals on an individual level. This mechanism has served as the underpinnings of some of the most brutal ideological manifestations in all of history.”
A Dagger of Feral Anarchy
From back cover:
“For me, post-left anarchy is synonymous with anti-left anarchy. The “post” in post-left anarchy does not represent a ‘new’ or evolved form of leftism – as some would claim with various contemporary anti-state communist and socialist projects. Rather I use the phrase post-left anarchy to merely express a present frame of mind distinct from a past experience of having identified and engaged with leftist thinking. And from this perspective, anti is synonymous with post because it accurately expresses the nature of my present existence – my desire for individualistic, feral freedom – as antagonistic toward the civilizing order of leftism. For me, post-left anarchy does not mean some sort of alignment or sympathy with right-wing politics – I am equally hostile toward nationalism, fascism, and all other conservative ideologies created in the name of preserving law and order. I recognize that both left and right wing ideologies are fundamentally collectivist, requiring the absorption of individual freedom in exchange for the uniformity of a republic. Both sides of the political spectrum integrate people into a binary interpretation of reality that ultimately maintains industrial society.”
A Balanced Account of the World: A Critical Look at the Scientific World
From back cover:
“One cannot come to an understanding of how a machine works simply by observing it as it functions in its environment. One needs to break it down into its parts — the gears, the wheels, the wires, the levers, etc. — in order to figure out what each part does. Thus, a foundational aspect of the method of modern science is the necessity of breaking everything down into its parts, with the aim of achieving the most basic unit. It is in this light that one can understand why scientists think that it is possible to learn more about life by cutting a frog open in a laboratory than by sitting by a pond observing frogs and fish and mosquitoes and lily pads actually living together. The knowledge science pursues is quantitative knowledge, mathematical knowledge, utilitarian knowledge — a type of knowledge that transforms the world into the machine it claims the world is. This sort of knowledge cannot be drawn from free observation in the world. It requires the sphere of the laboratory where parts can be experimented with outside of the context of the whole and within the framework of the ideological foundations of mathematics and a mechanistic worldview.”
A Balanced Account of the World_ A Critical Look at the Scientific World View pdf
Wildpunk: Black Against Civilization
Originally published by 1312 Press, “Wildpunk: Black Against Civilization” is the first English-language translation of writings by Elany, a Black anti-civ anarchist from Switzerland. Her 2021 book Schwarze Saat collected first-time German translations of 85 diverse Black and Indigenous anarchist texts previously available mostly in English. The collection also included several German-original essays written by Elany herself as well as her late dad, Samuel B. “Wildpunk” brings these passionate essays into English:
Scorched Earth, Sick Bodies: The Necessity of Destroying Industry [Elany]
A Black Critique of Civilization [Samuel B]
Tools of Anarchism [Elany]
-Part 1: On Interpersonal Relationships (and Lived Anarchy)
-Part 2: On Decolonization (and the Technological Components of Colonialism)
-Part 3: On Decivilizing (and a Revaluation of the World)
Survival in the Endtimes: A Wildpunk “Manifesto” [Elany and Samuel B]
Elany and Samuel B’s works tackle the brutal reality that we must demolish industry and civilization rather than attempt to separate them from colonialism, capitalism, and the state. They also examine the inspirations and practices of a decolonial, decivilized anarchism.
This zine hopes to make a small contribution to the task of translating essential anarchist thought by bringing these German-original works into English for the first time. Elany and Samuel B may now enter into direct conversation with the movements they helped to translate.
ELANY’S ARREST: During the translation and layout of “Wildpunk,” Elany was arrested by the Swiss government (https://feralfire.noblogs.org/post/2022/01/31/update-zur-situation-von-elany-update-on-the-situation-of-elany/). She has remained in investigatory detention since January 9, 2022. The jail has denied her medication has been, restricted her outside contact, and forced her onto a meat and grain jail-diet.
Channeling Elany’s spirit, her partner has called for: “No prison demonstrations and other actions in a certain place because a certain person is imprisoned but actions in all places because prisons exist at all. This would make her heart smile much more. No one is free until everyone is.”
Fire to all the prisons!
Updates and asks on Elany’s case can be found at feralfire.noblogs.org and via #FreeElany on Twitter and Mastodon.
Support offers or info requests can be directed to freeelany@riseup.net
Elany’s original German-language writing and translations can be found at feralfire.noblogs.org, a “Black-led Ⓐ-Publication about Insurrection, Sabotage & Destruction, Wildness & Queerness, Anti-Leviathan, Anti-Ableism, Black and Indigenous Anarchism, and More.”
Wildpunk_Black_Against_Civilization pdf
Why Nihilism? A Response to John Zerzans “Why Hope? (Critique of the Nihilist tendency in Anarchism)”
From back cover:
“The electioneering of hope and countless other political promises may captivate some, but not all. In the case of this text, I’m pointing out that some discover freedom in the total abandonment of positive politics including the “utopian future” tied to it like a carrot. For some, nihilism is the pursuit of creating moments of bliss here and now with the rubble of burned down slaughterhouses, the cartloads of retail theft, the spontaneous attacks against fascism and so on. Some nihilists do more than just look at the stars; some enjoy the night sky from the rooftops of squatted buildings, the sunrise from moving freight trains, or the thunderstorms during nighttime property destruction.”
Blessed is the Flame: An Introduction to Concentration Camp Resistance and Anarcho-Nihilism
From back cover:
“Blessed is the match consumed in kindling flame. Blessed is the flame that burns in the secret fastness of the heart. Blessed is the heart with strength to stop its beating for honor’s sake.Blessed is the match consumed in kindling flame.
—Hannah Senesh, Jewish partisan fighter.
(Zine cover art and booklet format by Little Mouse Fun, http://www.littlemouse.fun/zines.html)
Confronting a Silent Assassin: Intoxication Culture in Resistance Movements
From back:
“From an anarchist perspective, intoxication remains a source of contention. Many radical anti-capitalist anti-statists remain unaware of the ways intoxicants, stimulants, and depressants have been deployed by ruling classes throughout history as mechanisms for diminishing the self-defense capacities of industrial and agricultural workers, peasants,and slaves. Sadly, many radicals – especially in the USA –see the use of alcohol, tobacco, and illegal drugs as an authentic and valuable aspect of working class (but not necessarily oppositional) culture. From an individualist perspective, the issue is further fraught with contention due to the peer pressure and unspoken assumptions of subcultural conformism that inhere in their consumption. And adding an extra dimension to the conversation is an anti-civ perspective, where we must acknowledge their reliance on industrialized production and distribution.
Confronting A Silent Assassin_Intoxication Culture in Resistance Movements pdf
3 Essays Against Work and the Deprivation of Life
Texts from back cover:
“It is work that keeps the whole miserabilist system going. Without work, the death dealing juggernaut that proclaims itself the “free market” would grind to a halt. “Free market” means freedom for Capital, and unfreedom for those who work. Until the problem of work is solved — that is, until work is abolished — all other problems will not only remain, but will keep getting worse…In a world too busy to live, work itself has become toxic, a form of “digging your own grave’.”
“So in order to put an end to one’s slavery, to move beyond the limits of merely getting by, it is necessary to make a decision to refuse to submit; it is necessary to begin to reappropriate one’s life here and now. Such a project inevitably places one in conflict with the entire social order of work; so the project of reappropriating one’s existence must also be the project of destroying work…This is the world we must destroy in the process of taking back our lives, and the necessity of this destruction makes the project of the reappropriation of our lives one with the projects of insurrection and social revolution.”
“Because there is no common positive project to be found in our condition as proletarians — as the exploited and dispossessed — our project must be the struggle to destroy our proletarian condition, to put an end to our dispossession. The essence of what we have lost is not control over the means of production or of material wealth; it is our lives themselves, our capacity to create our existence in terms of our own needs and desires. Thus, our struggle finds its terrain everywhere, at all times. Our aim is to destroy everything that keeps our lives from us: capital, the state, the industrial and postindustrial technological apparatus, work, sacrifice, ideology, every organization that tries to usurp our struggle, in short, all systems of control.”
3 Short Essays on Insurrectionary Anarchy, Illegalism & Post-Leftism
These essays were originally published in the zine produced by comrades from Dark Matter Publications & 325 ‘Anarchy – Civil or Subversive?’ : A Collection of Texts against Civil Anarchism
Text from the zine:
“Theorization of abstract social systems – and all social systems are based on abstractions – only strengthens domination. But if you start from your own life and refuse to be a component of anything, refuse to represent others or have others represent you, embracing your inscrutable uniqueness, knowing that all you face in life are choices, then you are a danger to authority and order, a walking microcosm of anarchy. This then is a call out to avoid the casual hierarchies and cliques of the official anarchist movement, to avoid ideological systems and political identities, to savour the pleasure of thinking for yourself, of following your desires, the dignity of honestly following through to whatever unknowns of truth, negation and passion, setting no abstraction above yourself. In the war to the end, only choices matter, and only you are responsible for the choices you make. Examine your feelings and thoughts, eliminate all moral and ideological systems from yourself, be aware that “common sense” (or rather social consensus rationalism) is the strongest support of the existent, don’t be afraid of where your inner (and outer) struggle takes you.”
3_Essays_Insurrectionary Anarchy_Illegality_Post-Leftism pdf
9 Thesis on Insurgency: Institute for the Study of Insurgent Warfare
Text from the zine:
“To be an insurgent means re-evaluating our relationship to so-called social movements, and also our role outside of them. For example, liberals are not allies, even though there is often confusion on this question. Fundamentally, their goals always involve some paternalistic attempt to define everyday life, and to use the state to do so; it should then be no surprise that they often work with the police. This does not mean that they cannot be used, or that engagement with social movements may not be effective, but to be able to re-evaluate the relationship that any of us may have to social movements we have to re-conceive of what the so-called social movements are, and this requires a move away from understanding them as a necessity towards the conception of them as a tactic, a form of engagement that has dramatic limitations, but that may not be all together useless given the right conditions. But, to move to this point means moving beyond defining what we are doing as a thing that exists in some consistent way across time and space.”
10 Points on The Black Bloc
Text from back cover:
“It is true that the State is not a window, but neither is it just an abstract concept. Breaking windows is not a revolutionary act and neither is any other act if taken out of context and presented as an abstraction, ignoring the intentions and strategy of those who break the windows. The State or Capital or colonialism cannot be attacked as abstractions. They can only be attacked in their material forms, their social relations and their institutions. It is not possible to attack all forms and material components of oppression at once, so they must be attacked in pieces at different times and locations.”
20 Reasons to Abandon Christianity
Text from the zine:
“This pamphlet briefly looks at many of the reasons that Christianity is undesirable from both a personal and a social point of view. All of the matters discussed here have been dealt with elsewhere at greater length, but that’s beside the point: the purpose of 20 Reasons to Abandon Christianity is to list the most outstanding misery-producing and socially destructive qualities of Christianity in one place. When considered in toto, they lead to an irresistible conclusion: that Christianity must be abandoned, for the sake of both personal happiness and social progress.”
A is for Nihilism
This zine does not represent any “official” definition, nor a new program or political ideology. Instead it merely presents some common anarchist-nihilist ideas which encourage an anti-political critique of all social control and order, in favor of individual empowerment, anarchy and insurrection.
Abolish Whiteness
Text from the zine:
“Whiteness is not a culture. There is Irish culture and Italian culture and American culture – the latter, as Albert Murray pointed out, a mixture of the Yankee, the Indian, and the Negro (with a pinch of ethnic salt) ; there is youth culture and drug culture and queer culture ; but there is no such thing as white culture. Whiteness has nothing to do with culture and everything to do with social position. It is nothing but a reflection of privilege, and exists for no reason other than to defend it. Without the privileges attached to it, the white race would not exist, and the white skin would have no more social significance than big feet.”
A Conversation Between Anarchists: A discussion about tactics, theory and practice between the imprisoned members of CCF and a few anarchists in Mexico
From the text:
“As nihilist anarchists we hate both the hand that holds the whip and the back that endures it and passively accepts flagellation without reacting. We dismantle and destroy all the values of civilization, annihilate the dictatorship of economy by making it void, make the cities of the masses and their authoritarian urbanism crumble, attack the plunder of nature and animal exploitation, hamper dogmatic positions and refuse the religion of scientists. Only constant and merciless destruction-creation makes life worth living. Constant nihilist questioning, through texts, bullets and explosives, attack organized boredom, the offspring of the dominant culture of “identity”.”
A Critique, Not a Program: For a Non-Primitivist Anti-Civilization Critique
Text from back cover:
“Ultimately, if we imagine dismantling civilization, actively and consciously destroying it, not in order to institute a program or realize a specific vision, but in order to open and endlessly expand the possibilities for realizing ourselves and exploring our capacities and desires, then we can begin to do it as the way we live here and now against the existing order. If, instead of hoping for a paradise, we grasp life, joy and wonder now, we will be living a truly anarchic critique of civilization that has nothing to do with any image of the “primitive”, but rather with our immediate need to no longer be domesticated, with our need to be unique, not tamed, controlled, defined with identities. Then, we will find ways to grasp all that we can make our own and to destroy all that seeks to conquer us.”
A Critique, not a program For a Non-Primitivist Anti-Civilization Critique pdf
Accomplices Not Allies: Abolish The Ally Industrial Complex
This zine presents a strong critique of the political identity of “ally” and the activists who have built an “ally industrial complex” based on their anti-oppression credentials. Written from the context of indigenous struggles, this zine criticizes and explains several different types of “allies”: those who wish to “save” oppressed people, those who wish to use oppressed people to advance their own interests, academics, self-proclaiming allies, and more. Rather than “allies,” the zine argues instead for “accomplices” who attack colonial structures and ideals and who are realized through mutual consent and trust.
Against Assemblies: Organisation, Democracy & the Left
A zine critical of the Left and formal organizations. Advocates post-left anarchy through informal organizing and affinity group based attacks.
Text from back cover:
“Informal self-organisation is particularly powerful in war. Modern states can easily crush weaker opposing armies, but struggle to contain loose informal insurgencies. And it’s war we’re talking about.”
Against Assemblies – Organization, Democracy, and the Left pdf
Against Identity Politics: Spectres, Joylessness & The Contours of Ressentiment
Texts from back cover:
“What is being criticized here is a particular political style, rather than a theoretical orientation – a style which labels as oppressive any deviation from a particular political line, which resorts almost immediately to public denunciation and exclusion, and which entails analytical and categorical rigidity […]”
“Structural oppressions are sociologically real, but their roots can be traced deeper, to the structures of statism and representation. If we must theorize a primary contradiction, then let it be the contradiction between ourselves – as unique ones, forces of becoming, irreducible and unrepresentable beings – and the entire regime of spectres and alienation.”
Against Innocence: Gender, Race & The Politics of Safety
Text from back cover:
“Ultimately, our appeals to innocence demarcate who is killable and rapable, even if we are trying to strategically use such appeals to protest violence committed against one of our comrades. […] When we rely on appeals to innocence, we foreclose a form of resistance that is outside the limits of law, and instead ally ourselves with the State.”
Against The Logic of Submission by Wolfi Landstricher
Text from back cover:
“The desire to change the world remains merely an abstract ideal or a political program unless it becomes the will to transform one’s own life. If joy and wonder, and a beautiful, indomitable existence are what we want, we need to try to achieve this here and now in rebellious defiance against all domination, eradicating the logic of submission from our lives, and our relationships and our revolutionary struggle – for the destruction of politics and the creation of life without measure.”
Against The Logic of Submission: The Subversion of Existence
From “Willful Disobedience Volume 2, number 12”
Text from back cover:
“On the basis of these relationships of affinity, real projects that reflect the desires and aims of the individuals involved, rather than simply a feeling that one must do something, can develop. Whether the project is a squat, a sharing of free food, an act of sabotage, a pirate radio station, a periodical, a demonstration, or an attack against one of the institutions of domination, it will not be entered into as a political obligation, but as a part of the life one is striving to create, as a flowering of one’s self-determined existence. And it is then and only then that its subversive and insurrectional potential blossoms. If joy and wonder, and a beautiful, indomitable existence are what we want, we need to try to achieve this here and now in rebellious defiance against all domination, eradicating the logic of submission from our lives, our relationships and our revolutionary struggle — for the destruction of politics and the creation of life without measure.”
Against the Logic of Submission_The Subversion of Existence pdf
Against The Police and the Prison World They Maintain
A collection of essays and communiques of anarchists attacks in different cities against police and capital.
Text from the zine:
“The police—agents of social control and pacification, army of the rich, the long arm of law and order whose purpose is to instill fear and submission—are fundamentally enemies of any individual who wants to escape from predetermined roles and live a life of freedom and creative-destruction. Cops literally put people in cages; they also convince many to live in cages of their own, made out of fear. As such, an attack (quite different from a military operation) against the police is an essential part of the destruction of a world that is imposd upon us.”
A Guide to Alternatives to Pesticides
This zine appears to have been around for a long time judging by how worn the cover is but you know what they say: never judge a book by its cover! This zine is filled with useful information on alternatives to pesticides!
Ain’t No PC Gonna Fix It Baby: A Critique of Ally Politics
Text from back cover:
“Anti-authoritarian white allies often express that they are working with authoritarian or nonpartisan community groups, sometimes on projects they don’t believe in, because the most important thing is for them to follow the leadership of people of color. The unspoken implication is that there are no anti-authoritarian people of color—or none who are worth working with. Choosing to follow authoritarian people of color in this way invisibilizes anarchist and anti-authoritarian people of color; it also functions to marginalize and suppress efforts from less powerful or influential members of these communities. In this way, white allies diminish the agency and leverage of people of color who disagree with the established, institutionalized groups, reinforcing hierarchies of legitimacy and policing the boundaries of political approach by throwing the weight of their privileges behind those who already have more power.”
Aint_No_PC_Gonna_Fit_It_Baby_A Critique of Ally Politics pdf
Algunas Notas Sobre Anarquismo Insurrecional
Spanish version of “Some Notes on Insurrectionary Anarchism”.
Anarchic Practices in the Territory Dominated by the Chilean State
This zine details insurrectionary attacks, prisoners and a relentless fight for total freedom in Chile.
Anarchic Practices in the Territory Dominated by the Chilean State pdf
An Eco-Pessimist Revolt Against Fascism
From back cover:
“I am convinced that Tarrant is not an eco-fascist, because eco-fascism is impossible, as fascism is civilisation epitomised and ultimately hates what is ecological and wild, which resists being tamed. Tarrant is undoubtedly a fascist, and perhaps a green-nationalist, who might like the idea of white communities with houses covered by solar panels. There is no sincere environmentalism in his rhetoric. His green-washing is an attempt to filter his ugliness to an audience he obviously fears the condemnation of, who he attempts to justify himself to through the text.”
Anarchism & Revolution in Black Africa
Text from the zine:
“Black Africa has a centuries old anarchist tradition. After years of imperialist aggression which led to the complete carving up of the continent at the hands of the white “master race”, this tradition was temporarily harnessed. The ancient liberties of Africans under the rule of the “free world” were smashed, while the attempt was made to impose upon them white dictatorships in the Western tradition. But the spirit of rebellion is irrepressible, and frequently “the natives get restless.” Three of the most significant recent occasions of this restlessness are: the Mau Mau Revolution, the Biafran Revolution, and the current liberation movement in “Portuguese” Guinea.”
Anarchism: What it is and What it Aint
This zine is a short introduction to the anarchist principles of direct action, voluntary cooperation, and mutual aid. It differentiates anarchism from the political philosophies of “the left” and argues for the separation of anarchist strategies and thought from “the left.”
The original essay was written by Lawrence Jarach and titled “Instead of a Meeting: By Someone Too Irritated to Sit Through Another One”
Anarchists Against The Wall
Text from the zine:
“The following texts, drawn out from the vast ocean of information about occupied Palestine, do not constitute an attempt to represent “Anarchists Against the Wall” the political entity, but rather the small-scale, particular contexts and realities in which it operates. And yet we hope that in shedding light on the latter, a great deal about the nature of the former will also shine through.”
“First and foremost, Anarchists Against the Wall is a banner under which actions are made that are diametrically opposed, not only to the occupation, but also to its root causes; to the personal perspectives and political systems within Israel that sustain it, military and civilian. AAtW sweats off the excess weight of thick, heavy ideological frames by making practice its center of gravity. This is not to imply that principled, theoretical analyses are not needed, of course we certainly encourage applying them to deconstruct Zionist Apartheid myths; however, at this time, the individuals comprising AAtW would rather apply tugging ropes, bolt-cutters and ten-pound hammers to deconstruct Israel’s Wall and express their disagreement with IDF roadblocks.”
Anarchy: Civil or Subversive?
This zine critically examines “anarcho-liberalism”, highlighting the civilized formations of leftist anarchism as non-threatening to the established order, and advocates for subversive insurrection beyond leftism.
Text from the zine:
“In this pamphlet I wrote about the fundamental divide between those of us that knew the moment was ours, and those that found it was scary and horrifying, or at least, problematic. I wrote about seeing my non-political friends rising up and rioting – “All our back and forths about ‘anarchism’ seemed irrelevant knowing my friends loved real anarchy much more than many of the politico ‘anarchists’ I’ve met who don’t seem to have a drop of the spirit of revolt and anarchy in them. To me it showed the domesticated irrelevance of the activists and their political circuses, it was real, human, not crippled by representation and politics.”
Anarchy Against Civilization
Text from back cover:
“As radicals (from the latin radixroot) we seek to examine and challenge root causes. The anarchist tradition has historically identified capitalism as a root cause. Fortunately, we as anarchists are not bound to tradition. Certainly capitalism is odious and something to be abolished, but it is not a root problem. Capitalism is rooted in civilization. Social stratification and hierarchy are necessary for the operation and maintenance of mass society. There is no way to take all of the tasks necessary to maintain civilization and equalize them and divide them up among people equally. Because of its complexity, civilization requires specialization and hierarchy. Breaking with civilization, economics, and domestication has nothing to do with “going backwards” or “turning back the clock.” Correcting mistakes is not a matter of reversing a preset trajectory. Civilization is constantly and rapidly destroying species, ecosystems, communities, and people. Whether it crashes on its own or whether we take responsibility and bring it down ourselves, the sooner civilization comes down, the less devastation there will be when it does. If anarchy is to be relevant in today’s world it must be green, that is, it must be focused on bringing down civilization and finding a way of living in which we acknowledge ourselves as a part of the natural world, rather than a force at odds with it.”
Anarchy: The Life and Joy of Insubordination
From back cover:
“Wage-slavery is the enemy of play, individuality, and freedom. Social systems require the subjugation of individuality to either homogenized membership or fixed group-identities in order to maintain their existence. With all social systems the formula is similar: individuality is surrendered to the group in order to be granted access to resources. Under capitalism, the wage-slave – or in Marxist terms, “the proletariat” – is an identity pre-configured with the role of reproducing capitalist society. This includes an individual surrendering their mind and body to a master in exchange for a wage that serves as the permission slip to access resources. But to the anarchist individual armed with the illegality of resource expropriation, anarchy is survival without permission.
Anarchy can not be experienced through history books, the reformation of work places nor the confines of a new societal system. Anarchy breathes with the rhythm of the wild in constant flux, ungoverned by anthropocentric laws and order. I rejoice my anarchy in the transformative abandonment of the role and identity of “the proletariat”. There is no great future revolution on the horizon to organize or wait for. There is only today, with no guarantee of tomorrow. There are no charismatic leaders to open the door to freedom. There is only the power of anarchist individuality defined by the liberating ammunition of desire.”
