in addition to the academic/ngo industry factor, we also are living in a time where socialism is really "in" in america, culturally. popular understanding of global events deepens the divide between socialist, anarchist, and any other perspectives (to the detriment of any rigorous specificity in understanding) as people cling to branded and reenforced narratives of what is even the problem/what is the solution. i particularly appreciate how tirelessly you've written about this phenomenon in regards to climate discourse, and also wars.
socialist and communist dismissals of '"""mutual aid""""' (said with a sarcastic/dismissive tone always) and anti-state anti-capitalist projects of all kinds is becoming more common in my immediate life, including from voices who used to never engage in that. i have thought a lot about the micro-reasons and affective textures involved in this trend (aside from the obvious question of what words can get you a salary or grants). in particular, i see more and more people who i used to consider overly dogmatic anarchists become disillusioned as their lives get worse and they feel that "mutual aid" fails to give back to them, and watch them transform into dogmatic communists with a vengeance. Or (if male) even into redpilled alt-right people, tragically. I am locally experiencing a gradual but definite abandonment of an anti-state perspective in a lot of areas, taking a lot of forms. That's why I think it's partly a cultural trend and not just an academic one.
the more betrayed and let-down people feel by their aging lives, the more likely I think they are to feel that anarchist perspective "is just a subculture", "only works for privileged people," "is just a mutation of american anticommunist propaganda/was always a psyop" "is too small and unrealistic to be relevant to anything", "has no positive vision for the world". my criticism of this is usually that the people who make this turn usually had, in my opinion, unrealistic and unexamined emotional investments in an anarchist perspective to begin with, and in the first place had inflexible/fragile dogmatism about what "anarchist" ideas even meant.
maybe i should take peoples ideas more seriously but i have never known how to do so--i just set my watch and wait for people to become dissilusioned with socialism next. I give it like 5-6 years. in the mean time I plan to just keep on plugging away at whatever.
for myself, i feel insulated from this trend because as insane as it might feel to oppose something immeasurably huge, or attempt to fight it while being tiny and unimportant, it clearly seems even more delusional to act like you found a universal "science" that will explain "how history works". my experience is that people are irrational and chaotic, no amount of formality or assertions of universality ever changes this.
and practically--who in my city gets people food, housing, medical care, education, childcare, etc? it's only ever been the anarchists doing all that. some socialists changed some brake lights in 2016 and good for them but to my knowledge that was all they did. shrug
Yeah, I see the same thing happening and I agree with much of how you frame it. This kind of reactionary/heartbroken "retirement" from the struggle comes up a bit in my last book, on lack of continuity and loss of memory in our movements. Thanks for this.
I am certain I can speak for all of us here in Bremen when I say that we're glad you took the space to rest when you needed it. We were so engrossed discussing "the solutions are already here" until late that I almost missed the solidarity bar. Wishing you a good recovery and good times.
I have the same anger, but I can never express it so well in a text. Thanks for that. I'm sorry that you and Rachel are feeling just as bad and that this is overwhelming us. Instead of healing, we are allowed to fight, no matter what the fuck. Yeah, awesome system, fuck it. Really admire how you still find the strength to write texts and books. Thanks for mentioning Bremen, a city I enjoyed living in as a young person, and also for mentioning Erich Mühsam, he was one of the best here. I can only send strength and hugs and this measly 5 euros a month because I don't have any more. But it comes from the heart. Sophie.
Bremen is a nice little city, is one of the Hanseatic cities, a city-state, which goes back to its trading history and of course to colonialism. It was once very rich, but today it is one of the poorest cities. A lot has changed there. In the past, as a poor person, you could easily find an apartment or a room there. That's hardly possible today. A giant corporation has bought up all the apartments in a working-class district there and, like everywhere else, large real estate companies have completely making expensive entire districts. I looked around online because I was always homesick for the city and because there is now an anarchist scene there that is quite respectable for Germany, and the same is true in Hamburg. But no chance, I was shocked how in just 3-4 years they managed to do the same shit there as in Munich, Hamburg, Frankfurt, where you can hardly find a place to stay as a person with little money. Yes, the air there is fantastic, in contrast to Munich, where the air is stagnant and I regularly have bad headache attacks and often feel so lost and exhausted. What the hell. Glad you liked it there, the proximity to the sea also makes a big difference. Sending you and Rachel lots of strength for everything.
I also had to stop watching one of the panels on abolition at the #Socialism2024 conference, when it started to make me scream at my screen, just before i started to insult them as reformist shills of the state.
But, there were also other panels, that i thought were worth watching. The one by Death Panel, offering a wider context on health and abolition, and the one with Sarah Jaffe, Kelly Hayes and especially Eman Abdelhadi, with a focus on grieving.
"Anyway. I’m wishing death to those who profit off misery, but I’m also sick with so much hostility."
I so hear you. But how can we square this particular circle?
Increasingly i am convinced that the split between the so-called "left" and "right" is just as fundamental and insurmountable as the one between horizontalists (anti-authoritarians) and verticalists (statists).
"At the Socialism conference she claimed she was “waiting to be convinced” that we can provide “education, clean water, air, transportation, sustainable environment” through “voluntarism and association.”"
- Would this be RWG by any chance? She seems to have become increasingly authoritarian in recent years, probably because of her proximity to PSL Marcyite cultists. At a recent reading group on her work she proudly declared how much she loves the state - literally in those words. The irony is that she probably identifies as a communist, i.e., someone who is reasonably convinced that we can do without the state.
Sorry about the dental stuff by the way - I know that pain well :-(
Thanks for sharing this. Klee wrote a bunch in “No spiritual surrender” about the non profit industrial complex. Glad to see you taking it on as well. Andrew Lee also posted a great article on substack today about representation in politics that I think would be a great supplemental piece for this.
Sorry to hear about all the health stuff you and your partner are going through. This is world is full of pain and misery sometimes, and your country doesn’t help with your extremely garbage health care system. As far as your friend in Virginia, have you reached out to Certain Days collective? I’m sure you’re aware of them, but if not they do a lot with incarcerated political prisoners and help them get set up a bit when they get out. I hope it all works out for them. Solidarity Peter.
I really wish we could have helped Klee somehow, to have him with us for many decades more. I got his book into our local distro and have been recommending it a lot, but it's such a poor substitute.
I was never able to meet him, although I find his writing and his podcast quite inspiring and thought provoking. Also that board game he created “Burn the Fort” is very cool. I watched a video of him and his partner playing it and it makes me wish I had folks to play it with. I have a friend who lives in so called Arizona who knew him. Klee put a show on for him and he said Klee was a genuinely honest person.
Please do spread it wherever you think people will benefit from it. There's ideological diversity—pieces rejecting abolition as a whole next to some rejecting careerist & coopted versions specifically—but not coming from the right or other pro-state positions. (Joy James has promoted electoral politics more than once, but there isn't any of that propaganda in her piece, which is more focused on the relevant movement dynamics.)
in addition to the academic/ngo industry factor, we also are living in a time where socialism is really "in" in america, culturally. popular understanding of global events deepens the divide between socialist, anarchist, and any other perspectives (to the detriment of any rigorous specificity in understanding) as people cling to branded and reenforced narratives of what is even the problem/what is the solution. i particularly appreciate how tirelessly you've written about this phenomenon in regards to climate discourse, and also wars.
socialist and communist dismissals of '"""mutual aid""""' (said with a sarcastic/dismissive tone always) and anti-state anti-capitalist projects of all kinds is becoming more common in my immediate life, including from voices who used to never engage in that. i have thought a lot about the micro-reasons and affective textures involved in this trend (aside from the obvious question of what words can get you a salary or grants). in particular, i see more and more people who i used to consider overly dogmatic anarchists become disillusioned as their lives get worse and they feel that "mutual aid" fails to give back to them, and watch them transform into dogmatic communists with a vengeance. Or (if male) even into redpilled alt-right people, tragically. I am locally experiencing a gradual but definite abandonment of an anti-state perspective in a lot of areas, taking a lot of forms. That's why I think it's partly a cultural trend and not just an academic one.
the more betrayed and let-down people feel by their aging lives, the more likely I think they are to feel that anarchist perspective "is just a subculture", "only works for privileged people," "is just a mutation of american anticommunist propaganda/was always a psyop" "is too small and unrealistic to be relevant to anything", "has no positive vision for the world". my criticism of this is usually that the people who make this turn usually had, in my opinion, unrealistic and unexamined emotional investments in an anarchist perspective to begin with, and in the first place had inflexible/fragile dogmatism about what "anarchist" ideas even meant.
maybe i should take peoples ideas more seriously but i have never known how to do so--i just set my watch and wait for people to become dissilusioned with socialism next. I give it like 5-6 years. in the mean time I plan to just keep on plugging away at whatever.
for myself, i feel insulated from this trend because as insane as it might feel to oppose something immeasurably huge, or attempt to fight it while being tiny and unimportant, it clearly seems even more delusional to act like you found a universal "science" that will explain "how history works". my experience is that people are irrational and chaotic, no amount of formality or assertions of universality ever changes this.
and practically--who in my city gets people food, housing, medical care, education, childcare, etc? it's only ever been the anarchists doing all that. some socialists changed some brake lights in 2016 and good for them but to my knowledge that was all they did. shrug
Yeah, I see the same thing happening and I agree with much of how you frame it. This kind of reactionary/heartbroken "retirement" from the struggle comes up a bit in my last book, on lack of continuity and loss of memory in our movements. Thanks for this.
I am certain I can speak for all of us here in Bremen when I say that we're glad you took the space to rest when you needed it. We were so engrossed discussing "the solutions are already here" until late that I almost missed the solidarity bar. Wishing you a good recovery and good times.
Thanks so much! That means a lot! And it was really helpful for me to take a break, though I guess I spent the break writing a rant!
I have the same anger, but I can never express it so well in a text. Thanks for that. I'm sorry that you and Rachel are feeling just as bad and that this is overwhelming us. Instead of healing, we are allowed to fight, no matter what the fuck. Yeah, awesome system, fuck it. Really admire how you still find the strength to write texts and books. Thanks for mentioning Bremen, a city I enjoyed living in as a young person, and also for mentioning Erich Mühsam, he was one of the best here. I can only send strength and hugs and this measly 5 euros a month because I don't have any more. But it comes from the heart. Sophie.
If things are feeling scarce over there, please don't worry about the 5e, but in the meantime, I appreciate it immensely.
I like Mühsam's sensibility, and I've only been to Bremen once, but I liked it too, the smell of the sea in the air. Hopefully I'll get back.
Bremen is a nice little city, is one of the Hanseatic cities, a city-state, which goes back to its trading history and of course to colonialism. It was once very rich, but today it is one of the poorest cities. A lot has changed there. In the past, as a poor person, you could easily find an apartment or a room there. That's hardly possible today. A giant corporation has bought up all the apartments in a working-class district there and, like everywhere else, large real estate companies have completely making expensive entire districts. I looked around online because I was always homesick for the city and because there is now an anarchist scene there that is quite respectable for Germany, and the same is true in Hamburg. But no chance, I was shocked how in just 3-4 years they managed to do the same shit there as in Munich, Hamburg, Frankfurt, where you can hardly find a place to stay as a person with little money. Yes, the air there is fantastic, in contrast to Munich, where the air is stagnant and I regularly have bad headache attacks and often feel so lost and exhausted. What the hell. Glad you liked it there, the proximity to the sea also makes a big difference. Sending you and Rachel lots of strength for everything.
Thanks for this rant, dear Peter.
I also had to stop watching one of the panels on abolition at the #Socialism2024 conference, when it started to make me scream at my screen, just before i started to insult them as reformist shills of the state.
But, there were also other panels, that i thought were worth watching. The one by Death Panel, offering a wider context on health and abolition, and the one with Sarah Jaffe, Kelly Hayes and especially Eman Abdelhadi, with a focus on grieving.
"Anyway. I’m wishing death to those who profit off misery, but I’m also sick with so much hostility."
I so hear you. But how can we square this particular circle?
Increasingly i am convinced that the split between the so-called "left" and "right" is just as fundamental and insurmountable as the one between horizontalists (anti-authoritarians) and verticalists (statists).
And yes, i ofc meant to circle this square.
"At the Socialism conference she claimed she was “waiting to be convinced” that we can provide “education, clean water, air, transportation, sustainable environment” through “voluntarism and association.”"
- Would this be RWG by any chance? She seems to have become increasingly authoritarian in recent years, probably because of her proximity to PSL Marcyite cultists. At a recent reading group on her work she proudly declared how much she loves the state - literally in those words. The irony is that she probably identifies as a communist, i.e., someone who is reasonably convinced that we can do without the state.
Sorry about the dental stuff by the way - I know that pain well :-(
Thanks for sharing this. Klee wrote a bunch in “No spiritual surrender” about the non profit industrial complex. Glad to see you taking it on as well. Andrew Lee also posted a great article on substack today about representation in politics that I think would be a great supplemental piece for this.
Sorry to hear about all the health stuff you and your partner are going through. This is world is full of pain and misery sometimes, and your country doesn’t help with your extremely garbage health care system. As far as your friend in Virginia, have you reached out to Certain Days collective? I’m sure you’re aware of them, but if not they do a lot with incarcerated political prisoners and help them get set up a bit when they get out. I hope it all works out for them. Solidarity Peter.
I really wish we could have helped Klee somehow, to have him with us for many decades more. I got his book into our local distro and have been recommending it a lot, but it's such a poor substitute.
I was never able to meet him, although I find his writing and his podcast quite inspiring and thought provoking. Also that board game he created “Burn the Fort” is very cool. I watched a video of him and his partner playing it and it makes me wish I had folks to play it with. I have a friend who lives in so called Arizona who knew him. Klee put a show on for him and he said Klee was a genuinely honest person.
https://open.substack.com/pub/instruggle/p/on-representation?r=2ldef4&utm_medium=ios
Keep it up, Peter. Looking forward to your new book. Get well soon.
Thank you, I appreciate that
Dental pain is wretched - sorry to read that.
Yeah, it does have a special way getting under one's skin, doesn't it? At least that's been my experience with it.
For those unaware of the long-running critiques of [reformist] abolition & abolitionists, some starting points linked here.
https://types.mataroa.blog/blog/neo-abolitionism/
Damn, this is a hell of a list! I'm snagging this for my anarchism course! Thanks!
Please do spread it wherever you think people will benefit from it. There's ideological diversity—pieces rejecting abolition as a whole next to some rejecting careerist & coopted versions specifically—but not coming from the right or other pro-state positions. (Joy James has promoted electoral politics more than once, but there isn't any of that propaganda in her piece, which is more focused on the relevant movement dynamics.)