For those new to contemporary, post-Seattle/WTO anarchism, CrimethInc. may not be a term all too familiar. For the rest of us, these folks are seen as a prominent voice in the modern radical milieu, publishing a series of widely ready books, pamphlets, magazines, films, websites, etc. CrimethInc. manages to mix lifestyleist politics with highbrow theory, and wrap it all in a well designed package of allure and militancy, masked with a bit of clandestine conspiring. Call them escapist provocateurs or the modern day Situationists, they are a force to be reckoned with.
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Our business in the field of fight is not to question, but to prove our might. – The Iliad
Fiction and literature have always dealt with human nature and its derivatives such as rebellion, revolution and war. Bearing in mind the upheavals of today – be it via the newest tweets from Egypt or fearless reporting from Syria – one could travel back almost three years, when a French book had kept Europe’s feuilletons busy and which reads now as a prophetic piece of writing; wrapped up as a huge novelistic footnote to the current narrative of change in politics. Mathias Énard, the author of Zone, has written a reflective tale of violence and tragedy set in Europe of the 1990s, but reaching back far in time. It is encompassing everything you ever wanted to know about the history of warfare in the Mediterranean Basin, the titular Zone, and more importantly, the fates of men who crossed this space for centuries.
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Frantz Fanon’s The Wretched of the Earth (originally published in 1961) is an enlightening and yet deeply troubling book. In advocating for the sort of things progressive and liberal readers support – an end to colonialism, growth of authentic national culture – he also advocates for ideas and tactics that leave those readers rather queasy – violence, nationalism, and in some readings, even racial separatism. It can be tempting to cherry pick the safe ideas from Fanon and, for example, embrace his views on culture while rejecting those on violence or to dismiss him as a product of his times, whose ideas might have been new and necessary at the time but many of which are sadly outdated and dangerous in our more enlightened times. Both of these approaches do him a disservice, and a more honest reading of Fanon would attempt to at least comprehend, if not embrace the more troubling facets of his work. While many readers may choose to reject some of his views, it is possible to give them a careful consideration without relegating them to the dustbin of history.
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In Reform or Revolution, Luxemburg (1900, reprinted 1970) argues that the act of reform within the capitalist system, regardless of its potential to benefit the workers, is ultimately a destructive act because reform serves to extend and perpetuate the capitalist system. Revolution is the only possible way to truly change the system, though in this work she does not indicate whether or not non-violent revolution is possible. This question is key for the field of conflict analysis and resolution because whether we agree with Luxemburg or not indicates how we conceptualize the field and how we approach conflict. Are we attempting to mitigate or manage the most violent conflict, to shift it to less violent forms, to stop the killing; or are we working to be catalysts for greater change and focused beyond ending physical violence? There seems to be merit to both approaches ñ clearly no one interested in resolving conflict would argue that allowing people to die is a good thing. However, it is quite clear that imperfect resolutions can result in more people dying in the long term, so resolution for resolutions sake is also not the answer. The Rwandan genocide, which resulted in part from the failure to resolve an earlier conflict through the Arusha Accords makes this clear. In re-reading Reform or Revolution it is helpful to apply Luxemburg’s ideas to something other than revolution in the sense of a proletarian uprising, and to instead look at how the questions affects conflict resolution.
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In Disarming Manhood; Roots of Ethical Resistance, David A.J. Richards theorizes on why some men are doomed to perpetuate patriarchy while others deviate into “democratic manhood.” A narrative analysis of Richards’ theory yields a narrative of masculinity so narrow it positions interventions into masculine violence nearly outside the reach of our field. But if considered loosely, Richards’ observations shed light on paths we can investigate.
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Žižek’s (2009), First as Tragedy, Then as Farce, is yet another salvo at proponents of the liberal world order. It is by no means a rigorous academic study or a philosophical treatise, but an unflinching challenge to the status quo of the (un)critical Left. Using the financial collapse of 2008 as his anchor, Žižek launches his characteristically unflattering assault on global capitalism and liberal democracy. Francis Fukuyama’s utopian vision of the “end of history” serves as the running joke disparaged over and over throughout to remind readers that the West does not solely determine the delineation of history. History struck Fukuyama’s dream first as tragedy on the morning of September 11, 2001 and it returned to mock it September of 2008. While the world panders to the very system and people responsible for the mess, begging that they should clean up after themselves, Žižek asserts capitalism is running on the fumes and assails the Left for their failure to pose a suitable challenge.
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