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3.93 AVERAGE
3.93 AVERAGE
medium-paced
The first book review I ever wrote was of a book criticizing Capitalism. Since I have plenty of critiques myself, I enjoyed most of it. Unfortunately, it was written by a Communist, so the thesis of the book was that if we just replace Capitalism with Communism everything would be fine. I think this theory is completely bonkers. Eleven years later I picked up this book. I kind of knew it was going to have a Communist tint (the collective who edited it is called Pinko) but I agree with some Commie stuff, and I have an interest in the way movements deal with conflict, so I read it.
There were some solid parts of collection of interviews with various people in the movement. The editor's statement that they wanted to “trace links between contemporary debates about accountability and an earlier era of struggle in the 1960s and '70s,” got me excited, though it didn't really seem like this happened. Sure, some of the interviewees talked about the past, but I didn't catch anywhere where they connected it to the present.
There was talk about how we need to interrupt cycles of harm, which is why it's important to not only include the survivor in a situation, but also the person who committed the harm. Finding that balance where neither side feels alienated and they both feel heard, is a tricky one. No one offered any one-sized-fits-all solution, which I appreciated; especially coming from commies.
Many, if not all, of the participants labeled themselves and their movements abolitionist, which I also find very non-commie. You know, gulags and all that. Still, I appreciated what they said about getting rid of the government in our heads, and especially about how being anti-prison means being anti-prison even when a cop gets sentenced.
Unfortunately, the few good parts were (to me anyway) spoiled by the weird views a lot of folks had. Their obsession with Mao made me want to close the book and move on (was Mao anti-authority? Was he an abolitionist?), but I was able to block that part out and keep going. What got me though, was the combination of ignorance and hatred of anarchy. Communists have a long history of screwing over and killing anarchists, so it's not much of a surprise, but I guess I hoped these folks had a little more ability to think critically. I'll end this with the two dumbest quotes in the book:
“Anarchism is very conducive to power consolidation. Everything is all whisper networks, and you can't call anybody out for being an authoritarian because oh, no, nobody's an authoritarian, and all of this kind of stuff.”
“But a true community, a community that meets the aspirations placed on the phrase “beloved community,” could exist only under communism.”