Here I am, starting an anarchist blog and zine distro in 2020.
Why?
I’ve done a terrible job of nurturing this idea of a writing project or a blog for over a year now. Why is it interesting to me? What can I contribute? What do I gain? I’m still skeptical. Those questions never leave satisfying answers. But I’ve grown accustomed to not being satisfied, I guess, and that’s just the way civilization crumbles.
In examining this ‘why’, I’ve found that I am dissatisfied with the state of “The Discourse”. I’m awfully bored. I could argue for theory informing practice and vice versa. I could act and get the goods and skip the talk cuz the insurrection is noooooow. I could smash some windows for the jouissancejoy. Peu m’importe.
Do I believe I can repair, aid, uplift, or otherwise save The Discourse? No, but I can engage other goals and tensions. Do anarchist, “radical”, or leftist conversations typically leave me feeling inspired or provoked? Almost never. I also have difficulty accepting mediocrity, one of my many failings. This world is too shitty to just sit here and be fine with the tired, sterile, half-cocked rhetoric that’s on offer.
Do I believe that I can have meaningful or instructive interactions with others about topics that interest me? Perhaps, if I am fortunate. This wee potential to find others is lustrous enough to tempt. This is a call into the void then. Moshi moshi, swirling maelstrom of doubt and epistemic desolation.
I guess that a more satisfactory answer would be: I ‘commit to commitment’1. I have fallen prey to curiosity and I can probably live with that. So here I am, wanting better conversations, better anarchists, having little hope of either, and giving very little. Hello. Are you out there?
Why now?
I’m exasperated. I’ve had a few big life changes recently and more are coming. Adjustments, re-evaluations, transvaluations; big griefs and little griefs. Competing desires among subpersonal agencies; futility, gasping and guffawing. Unmet needs. I’m trying something new. A lateral movement away from the feed and the eternal churning of the outrage cycle, the attention dynamics of cancel culture and activism, the way online spills into meatspace and the way in which anarchist/”radical” spaces are horizontally policed thru protocol and custom.
Update: I originally wrote this post before Aragorn!’s death. It has me reeling. I’m scared for North American Anarchism. My antagonisms are lonelier than ever. The Feels! I remember why I’m here. I’ve walked away from anarchism before, feeling exasperated, bored, and futile. I know what’s out there: fucking nothing. The best conversations are here, and they can be so much better. A! introduced me to an anarchism that had potential; that spoke to my imaginal interiority; that dreamed big AND honest, brave AND cunning; that brought anarchism back to the land of the living for me.
What’s the project?
This can be, at the very least: A place to structure my thoughts. A moment to re-commit to my refusals and curiosities. A channel for my readings and thoughts. An opportunity to connect with and embolden co-conspirators. A chance for inspiration. A stone to sharpen my wit, will, humor, desire, and power. I’ve always wanted to learn the skills of layouts, binding, printing, et cetera. Bonus Justification: I’ve always wanted to “write” in general and this is an opportune beginning.
And as a vague sort of answer: “The Spirit of Inquiry” and, even more vaguely, “Connection”. I could include, in a loose sense, critique and rebuttal, but those deserve their respective critiques and rebuttals. I intend also to leave a few doors open: to uncertainty, doubt, chaos, and smallness in the face of cosmic horror.
Let’s be more specific. I wish to explore where anarchism intersects with pessimism, egoism, memetics, humanism, theology, psychology, accelerationism, communization, aesthetics, and other worlds ad nauseam. I wish to waft over other horizons and tease out knots.
Where are we headed? Are our times any more troubled than usual? Why do anarchists love their failures? How do we counteract projection and neurotic victimization in anarchist spaces? Is there any way to combat atomization that has even marginal probability of success? How do we push back against Spectacle when so many anarchists can’t read? Why do I believe that if everyone read all the same books that The World would be any different2? And also, do I really have to read all that communization theory just to have a conversation with you? The queries are without end.
More Intentions: I wish to enfeeble my foes and their positions. This terrain, though it leaves much to be desired, is what I have. I wish to aim my meager arsenal at the world and all the rooting hogs that act as its guardians, especially the anarchisms of the do-gooders3 with their apologies, reverence, and promises; and the anarchisms of the rigid, juridical neurotics who sip from the twin latrines of duty and certainty. You know the drill: defenders, false critics, *eyeroll*.
pew pew pew. got ’em!
I wish to also distribute and produce “content”(mine and others), not to persuade, but to locate and to provoke. (Oh yoohooooo, where are you?)
I can probably count on one hand the number of anarchists who are actually engaging in conversations I find interesting. So, here’s to that then. I’m here now. Ready.
Pseudonymously,
Cumdump / Gangbang Gang / FCW
1. Anonymous, Hello (2013ish?), 7. https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/anonymous-hello
2. Rydra Wrong, Boundlessness(2019). http://freeradicalradio.net/boundlessness/
3. Hostis, The Politics of Cruelty (2017). https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/hostis-a-short-introduction-to-the-politics-of-cruelty#toc1