In a previous post, I mentioned that I am reading chaotically right now. This means that I am just reading whatever on whatever subject, for no reason. After five years of carefully reading everything through the lens of "does this help my dissertation? If so, how?" - it is incredibly liberating to read and react without having to connect everything to a larger project. I actually feel like I could theoretically go back and read everything I have read over the last five years and see it with fresh eyes, because I am no longer reading with an end in mind.
Generally speaking, I do try to ready broadly. I try not to limit myself to reading books written by people that I know I will agree with. I do this so that I can broaden my horizons and avoid the dreaded "living in an echo chamber." So, I was keen to read this book on anarchy even though I am most defenitely not an anarchist.
Once I started reading it, though, I remembered why I don't read a lot of anarchist books. I am not a Marxist, but I do find Marx useful and I am a fan of looking at things through a historical materialism lens, systemic change, and critical theory. I would also place myself in the political left, and I consider myself to be progressive. the book openly frowned on these things in a few places (see pages 14-17 as an example). In spite of the fact that the book took issue with some core elements of my identity, I found it an interesting read. The format was really accessible, with FAQs at the end of each chapter, addressing questions such as: "Do I have to be polyamorous?" The answer is no because a good anarchist would not prescribe anything. Or, "Is it better to have a job I don't care about or a job I do care about?" The answer is that having a job that you don't care about makes it easier to to not identify with your work, but if you must have a good job, just don't identify with your work.
There are a lot of things I disagree with in this book, like the discussion around looting and stealing. Or the claim that there is no such thing as ethical work. But while I read, I tried to look for things that I did agree with, in order to try to understand the author's perspective and anarchy. I think that one of the things that I did appreciate about the book was the idea that we don't have to just passively accept all social structures in society. There is a lot of room to negotiate, and to try to find ways that celebrate our ability to exercise freedom and choice, and to try to imagine and re-imagine how we might interact with each other. Freedon already exists in many areas of our life, we just have to act upon it by making and re-making our social world every day.
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| Meme - horse and lawnchair |
Something that I did find disorienting while reading was the claims that anarchy is compatible with Indigenous though and decolonial theory. I found that the way that the author included Indigenous thought was similar to the way that clastic rocks bring in various rocks, they are included but they are not actually incorporated. A bringing together of differences substances, but not actually true integration or transformation. The author references Leanne Betasamosake Simpson a few times, but I found it difficult to see where the connections lie.
Perhaps, if I were in conversation with the author, they would tell me that my disorientation is because I am reading Simpson, wrong. Perhaps they would tell me that I am so deeply immersed in so many institutions that my ability to see the anarchist threads in Indigenous works may be clouded. And maybe that is a little true, as we all read texts through our own interests any experiences. Nonetheless, in an attempt to orient myself, I made a little Venn diagram with pen and paper in order to try to keep track of my own thoughts. And then I tried to reproduce it in Canva, in order to further my ongoing goal to become more proficient at knowledge mobilitation. But I am not yet a Canva expert, so I had to make two venns - the compare venn and the contrast venn.
If someone wanted to criticize my venns, it would be easy. First, the stuff in the Indigneous column was done from memory based on books by Indigenous people published in North America, as well as my lived experience as an Indigneous person. One might say that I am making broad generalizations, and that is true, this is a quick and dirty diagram. Another criticism is that Indigenous people are not a monolith, and so it's impossible to capture Indigenous thought in a venn diagram. That's true. This chart glosses over diversity within Indigenous thought, and merely captures themes that come up often and/or stand out to me in books that I have read. So, this chart is by no means an authoritative chart. It's just a form of self-expression in response to a book that I read, and it was fun to make this chart.
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I am definitely not going to become an anarchist after reading the book. I remain deeply committed to family, supporting Indigenous traditions, participation in political life, progressive politics, and also participation in various institutions/organizations that I believe in. I did not find many of the proposed activities in the book very appealing. However, after I read the book, I was discussing this with a family member, and they said that anarchy is not easily theorized because people who are actually doing anarchy are not theorizing it, they are just doing it, and that's what anarchy is. That comment shifted my perspective a little, and maybe having read the book, I will begin to notice little acts of anarchy in the world around me, and gain a better understanding of it by noticing what it looks like in practice.
In other news, Reservation Dogs is on CBC Gem and I am watching it now. It is so good. One of my favourite scenes so far is when a Dallas Goldtooth's character tries to convince Gary Farmer's character that Crazy Horse had a man moon. Sooooo funny.
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