Just some things you might enjoy reading this weekend.
Of the moment
Fuge, Tace, Quies. - Jack Leahy at Stillness in the West asks ‘What does it mean to flee a situation where total surveillance is fast becoming reality? Where can one go to flee this civilization of inversion, propaganda, and control? Where do we escape from an Imperium that increasingly demands from us what we can no longer in good conscience give?’ He gives a meditative series of answers.
Our Present Gods and Monsters - Jay Rollins at the Wonderland Rules writes powerfully about old gods, older even than ‘the terror-god of domination’.
Realists of a Larger Reality - Rhyd Wildermuth at From the Forests of Arduinna writes that ‘The dream of life without work is not our dream’. That he needs to make this point at all shows how cut-off from its roots the modern left is, but he makes it beautifully nevertheless.
There’s Gonna be a War in Montana - Isaac Simpson at The Carousel transcends the usual handwringing about American tribalism with eloquent rage: ‘The anger bubbling up from Three Forks isn’t happening because Montanans, left alone for decades, somehow developed into anachronistic bigots unready for the modern world. It’s happening because Montanans got their sh*t taken. They were intentionally shoved out, left behind. Their music, their signs, their cars, their language—they’re all born from a fresh wound.’
The People of the Cloud - Steven Gonzalez Monserrate at Aeon explores the physical work of the men who make our virtual worlds possible.
Echoing down the years
‘The anarchists have always been far too fond of systems and attached to rigid, narrow concepts. This, in fact, is the final answer to the question as to how anarchists can find value in the killing of fellow human beings. They have become used to dealing with concepts instead of real people. They have separated humanity into two static and hostile classes. When they kill, they do not kill human beings but concepts — that of the exploiter, the oppressor, the representative of the state. This is why those who are often the kindest and most humane in their private lives commit the most inhumane acts in the public sphere. There, they do not feel; they have switched off their senses. They act as exclusively rational beings who — like Robespierre — are the servants of reason; a reason that divides and judges. This cold, spiritually empty, and destructive logic is the rationale for the death sentences handed down by the anarchists. But anarchy is neither as easily achievable, nor as morally harsh, nor as clearly defined as these anarchists would have it. Only when anarchy becomes, for us, a dark, deep dream, not a vision attainable through concepts, can our ethics and our actions become one.’
Gustav Landauer, Anarchic Thoughts on Anarchism
‘The talking tribe, I find, want sensation from the mountain - not in Keat’s sense. Beginners, not unnaturally, do the same - I did myself. They want the startling view, the horrid pinnacle - sips of beer and tea instead of milk. Yet often the mountain gives itself most completely when I have no destination, when I reach nowhere in particular, but have gone out merely to be with the mountain as one visits a friend with no intention but to be with him.’
Nan Shepherd, The Living Mountain
Image: chain by Leo Reynolds (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Read this too
Years ago I started looking into anarchist philosophy. I didn't really get very far. As best I could tell at the time anarchy is just as likely to get bogged down in abstract theories and structures as most anything else we humans do. It is almost like we can't help ourselves. To be free of controlling structures we must build controlling structures. But don't call them that!
It is a real question for me whether or not we are even able to be free of this tendency. Otherwise...what?...it would be anarchy!! That's the last thing a good anarchist, or anyone else for that matter, would want.
The attraction to philosophical Taoism is for me the hope that in settling into the Tao--in returning to the uncarved block--the Way is clear. No external authority, no abstract theory necessary. But is this utopian, even delusional? Maybe. But to the degree one can so settle, it is still good.
Anyway, many thanks for the recommend!
Thank you for adding several more blogs and two books to my, already substancial, reading list. Good thing that I am retired, sort of.
I always enjoy what you write, plenty to think about, even when we are not eye to eye.
Thank you for your time and thoughts