Debating Desert

of the anarchist community. UM for it that way, UM. Today we'll be talking about the book the infamous uh polemic Desert by Anonymous. For those who uh, you know, not aware of this extremely controversial text. Desert is a nihilist anarchist text who is published in two thousand eleven that is mainly directed at other anarchists and seeks to address issues of climate collapse and revolution. It became somewhat

of a meme to tell folks to read Dessert. I'm not sure when that was, but I just remember scene. It's a lot um I think in yeah around read Desert became a name yeah yeah, all over Twitter and Instagram and Reddit, but of course, being a thing that exists on the Internet, people who naturally became torn on the subject of it. And so there are a lot of perspectives and opinions and think pieces about desert, some

more or less accurate than others. But we are here to discuss the book, all personal experiences reading it, things we think it gets right and wrong, and what we could potentially looen going forward, so I would see the floor is yours, whoever wants to go first. I mean, I'm a huge fan of the quote that the book takes it or that the that it takes its name from, which comes from you know, Tacitus, who was a dude writing in the Roman period Um, and the exact quote

that it comes from is and he's talking. Tacitus is talking about the Roman Empire, robbers of the world. Now that the earth is insufficient for their all devastating hands, they probe even the sea. If their enemy is rich, they are greedy. If he is poor, they thirst for dominion. Neither East nor West has satisfied them alone. Of mankind, they are equally covetous of poverty and wealth, robbery, slaughter, and plunder. They falsely name empire, they make a desert

and they call it peace. Huh, goodass quote. It is a it is a solid Yeah, And obviously I think people living in the shadows of every empire that's ever existed can identify with that quote. Um, it's it's a powerful kind of central idea to hang your extended essay. I don't really know what the best term to refer to it as. Yeah, it's it's it's it's a long essay. Yeah,

it's a very long essay. As we talked about kind of coming into this, it's extremely two thousand tens um three Arab Spring pre all the big uprisings and revolts we had in twenty nineteen, and Um, there's definitely some

stuff that it gets very right. And I think kind of one of the ways in which it's had an impact on me is kind of I've I've thought about what happens to sort of culture as the result of this kind of Hollywood engine that is heavily tied up with the United States military Industrial complex UM as a process of desertification of ideas and the ability to like

conceive of of of new futures. UM. That said, I I don't really I haven't reread it in a very long time and haven't really felt um called to in in many ways because I do think I don't know. I think there's an extent to which it's been kind of left behind. Um yeah, some of the things that

have happened since I think. Yeah, UM, I will say that as someone who really came into my owners an archist in like, although I had identified with it before, um, when I had read the book, Um, I think it was in late late so when I read the book first time, I read it and honestly, um, there was some good, some add some some very outdated stuff, and

also some stuff that I don't know. Maybe the author felt it was like groundbreak and at the time, but you know, at this present stage just feels like common knowledge sense, you know, I mean it was, it was groundbreaking in a way for like climate realism, right, like this was this was written before you know, this is written before climate levy thing. This was written before um,

the uninhabitable Earth. This was written before a lot of kind of the texts that view climate change is an absolute Like this was written one year before hyper objects, Which is really interesting actually because you know, the whole prepence of that book is that climate change is done, like it happened, where we're like there's no turning back the clock. And the Desert was written even before that, like it was. It was one of the first things now and of course it's it's it's much more niche,

but like it was. If I if I look back in books that have like impacted me, it was it's one of the first books like that came out, like timeline wise to take climate changes, like yeah, it's there's no saving it, like there's no living in the two thousand's,

there's no living in the nineties. Again, it's like things are like the world's not going to end, but things are going to get worse, right like and that, and that is kind of a big, big part of the book because it's it's also it's also not pro collapse like it it doesn't take collapse is an absolute. It doesn't take. It doesn't it doesn't subscribe to global collapse. And that's one of the misconceptions I think people have about them. Yeah, that they just assume it's like this

collapse dumorous like mr. Rupic kind of text, but which I did not read it as that. I first started around this same time you did, UM, And I read it as a part of a lot of books I was reading to prep for the show when we when we were writing our first five episodes on like on climate change and like the Crumbles. So I read it, read it as a part of my kind of general research and yeah, like at that point it was already kind of mimified to be like, you know, like an

anarcho nihilist like Dumer Manifesto. And I read it, I'm like, that's not what it's saying at all. It's actually once i'd read it, I was like, I was really taking it back at how how easily um, popular perceptions of a piece of media good um, I mean honestly corrupted beyond recognition. Yeah, you know, like if people are a bunch of people are telling you know it's that about is in text or whatever, you know, it's kind of shake, it kind of shakes the opposite like actually consumed for

yourself and then realize, how did you all get that? Yeah, how did you read that out of it? It is really interesting because I'm not even sure if they did read out of it, or if that was the perception they had going into it, So they read it through that lens, and that lens basically you know, changed the text in their heads to fit that thing, because yea, it is really interesting how how it is so associated

with like dumerism um. Yet if you like, engage in good faith with the text, it's very much not a Doomer manifesto anyway, although there are aspects of it that I am um that I think attitude wise, that I

am critical of. But I think Chris was going to say sometimes, yeah, so I was just like, I, I really I've always not liked this book, Like I read it back, and I think she doesn'teen when it was first sort of like coming back, yeah, And I didn't like it then, and I read it this morning and I like it even less now than I did then,

And I think, I think, I actually I actually okay. So, like, I think it's true that most of the text doesn't do the duomer thing, but I think I understand where people got it from, because you know, you have quotes in this like, uh, here here's one. Yet I can already hear the accusations from my own camp, accusations of deserting the cause of revolution, deserting the struggle for another world,

such accusations are correct. I would rejoin that such millinarian and progressive myths are at the core of the expansion of power. And this is this is what I really like. I think from an ecological perspective, it's sort of okay. I strongly dislike Desert as an anarchist text because I think that's just wrong. I think, I think, I think there's there there's there's there's an ingrained defeatism in it that is so strong that it it it just it

like warps the author's perception of the past. Like you get these things where he's talking about these these kind of he's talking about like the you know, what you call the classical anarchist movement from roughly like eighteen seventy two really sort of ends with the defeat of the anarchists in Spain and like seven and and he you know, they say things like from Spain pre nineteen thirty six to the Jewish anarchists in North America, the illegalist of France,

and the Italian anarchosenty close to Argentina. The habitants of anarchist counter societies were always, by definition active minorities. The minorities may have gotten larger in an instructionary moments, but they remained at minorities always and that's just wrong. It's

it's factually wrong. Like these these movements were not minorities, like the like the entire like the like the largest union in France was the CG like in the early Action hundred was the the you just see it this deep that all all of the French, Spanish and Portuguese country speaking countries have a they have one union that's called the U G C and one union it's called the CG T. And I can't remember which ones which, but like like that was that was the largest union

in France, and it was the syndicalist union right like it was like and there's you know the same thing with Argentina, right for a like for a while was

the largest union in Argentina. And I think and this this is sort of my problem with this, which is that you know, this is a person who's basically like they talked about, like they are born in the seventies and they've they they're writing the steals in eleven in just the midst of the collapse of sort of like the complete and total destruction of the old anarchist movement, right, the anarchist movement that had been born out of sort

of like the Zapatistas and the anti globalization movements. And they've been beaten so badly that you know, I mean they were crushed, they were completely destroyed, and they've been beaten so badly that they they can't they literally can't imagine winning and think that like like revolution in general, like is essentially is a secular theology. They repeat this over and over and over again. It's like revolution is

the theology, Revolution is a myth. And it's like and this is this is something that's just a product of defeat. It's not a product of sort of taking seriously the conditions that are emerging around them. And you know, I was talking about this before the recording. It's like right after this is written, it's you get the movement of the squares and then you get occupied, and it's like basically like every major city in the world goes into revolt.

The revolts are anarchists inspired. And you know, and the desert, like this is why Dessert vanishes for like six or seven years, because desert is a piece that's written like it's it's it's a piece that's that's only happens in a in a very specific part of a revolutionary cycle, which is when like every everything has been crushed, all resistance has been crushed, everyone's losing hope, and then everyone starts reading dessert again and then the revolutions restart, and

and at that point, like once once once there's like, you know, two thousand people in the streets again like fighting the cops, it becomes less and less sort of like like that, that part of its analysis becomes less and less relevant, until you know, inevitably everyone like there's there's a defeat and then everyone goes sort of like and I think I think that's why it has the duomer rep because it's it's it's the text that people

read when you've been beaten in the streets. See, Yeah, that's that's an interesting look at it because I mean, I definitely agree with the revolution is an idea, like is a thing like I I specifically within the context of the United States, which I believe that's what the books trying to mostly focus on. They do bring up other parts of the world and stuff, um, but it's definitely written by in a by an American like citizen and that that that is I mean, I mean that

that could actually be wrong. Um. It may not be written by an American, but I in terms of reading it, it is kind of through like a very like Western lens of like revolutions not happening here. Um. And I definitely sympathize and agree with that viewpoint. And I mean if if you're in a point of being like it was two US and eleven then occupied happened and like yeah,

but occupied in't. But that that also fits like every every attempt has not succeeded in this country did to get any kind of big, meaningful change that we can push towards something that's like post capitalist. Um. So yeah, I mean I do think I think it's it's it's it's mostly targeting people specifically like communists um or Marks Lendonist who like are just waiting around for the revolution

to happen and then don't do anything like that. Right, that is that but but but but but I think this is this is why it's a text that's like that's not good for the moment, because our problem isn't that, like like the problem right now isn't that there's no one like there's no uprising on the horizon, Like everyone's completely beaten down. No one's ever going to go into

his treats again. Our problem is that like there's just there's there's there's there's periodic uprisings everywhere, and every single time everyone is caught off guard, and every single time, no one is able to actually sort of mobilize off of it. And you know, like like like no, no one, no one's been able to like pivot it into something

that's actually like transformative. But but but but I think that that's a very different problem then the problem that desert is because desert has already abandoned the possibility that an uprising can win. That's I mean, it's yeah. And then let's specifically been the idea of like global revolution, right, that is, that is the thing that specifically targeting there's things smaller specific they're saying, like smaller local things actually

can't succeed in a lot of ways. But they're trying to tie this idea of global revolution is like a pacifying idea, right just waiting around for this to happen and tying that to this at the time much more niche idea. Now it's now it's way more popular. But this idea of like global collapse and how people think if they can people think believing in global collapse is smarter than believing in global revolution. They think it's more realistic.

But the book saying no, this is this idea of global collapse actually falls under all the same issues that global revolution has. I think i'd want to um sort of comments here um with regard to like the defeat is sort of reading um in the text. I understand that reading um. I mean personally, I distinguished in like defeatism and dumerism, and I always think, like my own personality and my own perspective kind of like inoculates me in a way from like adopting that kind of defeatist

attitude towards um, you know, change. But I don't think the book is entirely um, you know, dismissive of like revolution. Um. It just I think the main thrust of it is that it's critically the idea of like one global revolution, one global collapse. What it really emphasizes is that, you know, climate change brings new possibilities for new anarchies plural to

develop worldwide and responds changing circumstances. But at the same time, you know, in some areas things are going to get worse than some areas things are going to get better.

And it's not that really one broadbrush could be applied to the entire earth, but I think, I mean, I think like this, this is another thing that they're really guilty of, especially like there's an entire section in here where they just keep writing about Africa and it's like well, and then you know, and they'll get pressed on it and they'll be like, no, no, we mean sub Saharan Africa,

and it's like, what are you talking like. They they won't name countries, they won't name movements, they won't name people. It's just they'll just write something about the whole of

Sub Saharan Africa. And it's just like, well, I think that's evidence of the kind of of what Garrison was talking about this, right, And this is something you see all over the place with people writing about politics, with people trying to write about like particularly revolutionary politics, UM in a global sense, and I think it's usually a mistake to do that, UM for the reasons we've kind of discussed. Any time I see a left wing even

as somebody who I think is generally on point. Who starts talking about, for example, like extending their theories about revolutionary politics to places I happen to know just a little bit about, it's always very clear like, oh you don't know shit about Syria. Oh you don't know shit about Libya. Oh you don't know shit about Angle like um. And that's and that's like not even a moral failing.

It's just that it's impost It's it's impossible really to have in depth knowledge of like what's actually going on in those racism, what's going on in those revolutions. It's why people default so much to the whole. Well, whatever side the US is on must be the bad side, and whatever side the Russians on must be the good side. It's the easiest way to look at that ship. Um. I don't I think that's. I think that's a worthwhile critique to make, and it's a critique to make any

time that it happens. Um. I agree with Garrison and with Andrew that I think the thing that is that desert gets right. Um. And the thing that I've seen in my own life is that like the opportunities we should be looking for are not suddenly that some sort of global revolution sweeps all of the things we don't like out of power and magically institutes something better comprehensively across the globe. It's it's it's room for little anarchies.

It's what we saw in northeast Syria, right where the government pulls out and people have an opportunity to do something not perfect, but better. And I think that is that's kind of one of the things we talked about a lot on this show. That's why a mutual aid is valuable, It's why building these connections are valuable. It's because, um, as things crumble, there will be opportunities two in local areas, piecemeal institute and and push through for more just and

and better ways of living. Um And I think that if you're looking at kind of the broad level potentially optimistic point is that when you have enough of those and when they spread well enough, and if communication is good enough, maybe the things that work will get adopted on a wider uh scale. And there's always the opportunity that when enough, when ideas spread far enough, they have a tipping point and and they go viral, you know,

so to speak. But I I I don't I think that While there's a lot of specifics that Desert gets wrong, I do think they were ahead of the curve and recognizing that, and I think it's it's a more productive way to look at the idea of revolutionary change. Then we're going to finally have nineteen seventeen. But everywhere, you know, m throughout to the Africa chapter. The impression that I got while reading that chapter, and I think the book

itself references Um Samba Um. I got the impression that the author had read UM Afghan Anarchism, History of a movement by Sam Member and they were just kind of like inspired by that, I would say, because as I do point out, they didn't like specify the specific cultures, which is an issue considering, you know, the tendency that Westerners have of you know, being to Africa this large brush as if it's you know, all one way or

the other. Um. But I think what we do see now, UM is you know, from the Horn of Africa to South Africa to Nigeria too, I mean recently Sudan. I believe, Um, there are Africans, smaller number organizing under the mount of anarchism, and they are anarchic elements that continue to persist on

the continent. Yeah, I mean I think that's like, you know, I mean one of the things that they sort of got they got right, was about how like this the sort of the the sort of renewal the spread of urban anarchism they're talking about like Chile in particular, they

got right, Um, Indonesia Bangladestra somewhat. But but but I think I think there's there's another like my, my, my, my, my biggest issue with them in terms of the way they think about ecological stuff that this comes This is something they talk about with like they have this thing where they think that forger societies are like, Okay, they're they're they're they're they're they're more careful than most people.

To frame it as like the forging soci ideas can be a gallitarian, but I think they wind up talking about these sort of like the way that sort of forging nomadic society sort of inherently defy the boundaries of the state, and like that's true, but you can also have like nomadic forging societies that have that are you know,

hereditary slave societies. And this is this is a problem because there's a there's a lot in here about that that that's about sort of like they're they're you know, they're they're taking this a sort of like soft anti se of right. Yeah, it has a few lids where it does specifically say fialization is the cause of like I think it's like the civilization is genocide, um, which yeah,

and that can't silly, Yeah, by civilization genocide. Sure if they're saying that they do cause genocide, if you're if you're trying to make the case that it seems to be that civilizations, Uh, well, I don't know every civilization does not commit genocide, but no, but civilization gives you a constant Yeah, civilization gives you the framework that makes

genocide possible, well, like potentially intentional genocide possible. I don't know that I would agree with that, because I think you see examples of genocide from hunter gatherer societies and from from so societies, and that the obviously documentation on that isn't as extensive because we weren't documenting things for a lot of it. But you do have examples from from what we know of like um, the America's of their word genocides committed by societies we would call stateless.

So I think I might argue that like genocide is a thing that human beings do, and civilization because it allows us to do everything on a larger scale, allows us to do way better genocides. That's definitely in our

I think. I think my problem with it is is that they're going back into this sort of like that they're going back into the you know, there's this inherent binarya between forgers and sales societies and that you know, and and specifically they think that that that these sorts that the foragers ideas are you know, inevitably gonna become

a gualantarian. It's like that's not true, and it's not true in ways that you can see right now in like like they're like they're like there are lots of places right now where you can look at you know, forging anxieties that are incredibly right. Like there's there's like, for example, you get sort of you get the Filani joining like right wing Islamas groups, right and that like

that kind of thing. I think it has a problem with It's the same thing as looking at indigenous societies and and seeing them all on one side of the fight with with colonizing nations as supposed I'm reading a book about the history of them a Poochay right now, which are historically like the indigenous group in Chile that resisted the law, and the indigenous group really and you could argue in all of Latin America that resisted the

longest and most effectively. But even then, when you look at like the campaign to the Chilean government in the eighteen sixties and eighteen eighties, large like significant chunks of the Mapoocha sided with the government against other mapoo Chay and like that's the like, it's it's always a mistake. I think this is a good one of the things

that you get out of the dawn of everything. It's always a mistake to like look at any of these groups, hunter gatherers, stateless societies is like one thing or another. They're people and some of them sucked just like yeah they're yeah anyway, Yeah, there's there's one thing that I wanted to sort of push back against. Robbert, you had said that genocide is a thing that humans do. Um. I don't think I agree with that assessment um in this sense, or at least I'd rather I would like

to clarify um. Okay, if you an opportunity to clarify what you mean by that. I you know, I don't know that it's just humans, but I think that genocide is a thing that as long as we have evidence in recorded history, it seems like we have done not just against are not just against other humans, but against other kind of hominid species. We have we have examples of things that it seems fair to call genocide, going

back further than we have any kinds of written records. Um, you know, villages in the Balkans that were you know, burnt in people who like groups of people, tribes and whatnot, who seem to have been killed in mass and you know, there's there's other theories for some of that. Some of them may have been like people trying to stop a play. We don't plague or whatever. Like. There's not any kind

of comprehensive solidity. But what we do know is that as long as we have documentations of humans doing things, we have documentations of things that we could call genocide. I see, I see, look look into that a bit more. I appreciate the glarification. Yeah, can I can I do a Balkans pivot because there's a there's a there's a thing like like it genuinely disturbed me reading it in here about the Serbs dream read that the Bosnian genocide

were so that they're they're they're quoting. Its disturbing about that. Oh yeah, but this is this is a I uh okay, So they're they're they're doing they're they're reading a quote from the book Gypsies, Wars and Other Instances of the wild where he's talking this is about the Boston genocide. How is this possible in Europe at the end of the twentieth century was the question that played obsessively through

my mind. What the war in former Yugoslavia forced us to suggest the fact that people proved willing to make a conscious and active choice to embrace regression, barbarity and return to the wildness. Take the serve fighters who dreamed of a return to the Serbia of the epic poems were quote there was no electricity, no computers, when the serves were happy and had no cities, the breeding ground

of all evil. And then this is this is the next thing that's that's the text coming back and commenting on it that some modern day militias reflect romantic desires, while shelling towns, massacring villages, and being killed in turn

should neither surprise us nor necessarily fully validate romance. It does, however, suggest, along with the honest expression of joy and destruction mouth by some soldiers in every war, as well as many anarchists, that there was a coupling of some sort between a generalized urge to destroy and disgusted at a complex human society.

And there's there's there's another part um only later on they're talking about ethnic diversity and autonomy will often emerge both from mutual aid and community and animosity between communities. I'd like to think, and our history back this up, that self adantified anarchists will never inflict such pain as Serb nationalist militias, an example that shows purposely for the Repugnicans.

But we should admit that our wish to function up is partly driven by the same urge to civilizational dismemberment that can be found in many interethnic conflicts and in the minds of fighters more generally. And I think that's fucked. I think that's true. That's just I think there's commenting a specific type of anarchist literature, which is like the

make total destroy thing. And yeah, I've definitely I have observed that in people the same the same urge that you're you're so broken down by everything that the only urge that is the only creative urge you have is to destroy the things around you. I've seen that. I don't think they're necessarily celebrating that, but they're pointing out

that that urge can be there. When I think they get really wrong here is that I don't think that's the urge that that is is like that, that's when when when you're dealing with interethnic conflict, when you're dealing with genocide, I don't think that's the urge that's going on.

It'sc s pratically with the Serbs, because the Serbs, like you know, okay, like when when when an anarchist is doing mate total destroying right there, you know there, like there, there's there's a very specific set of things they're attacking or they're you know, they're attacking building, the attacking the physical infrastructure of the world. When the Serbs are doing the Bosnian genocide, like that, they have a very specific

thing they're doing, which is killing Bosnian Muslims. And I think that's extremely different urge than the sort of like I don't. I don't think that's about sort of what it's civilizational dismemberment or whatever. That's about Islamophobia and genocide. And I think that's a different I think the genocidal impulse is a I think a very different one than the sort of the like the impulse to break the

society that has harmed you. Yeah, I think it's important to draw a distinction between you can kill a shipload of people without it being a genocide, um. And I think and it's also one of those things I think sometimes why people I think why there's hesitation to see certain acts in early history of genocide is that they're not as complete as modern genocide. But but what a genocide really is, and I think it's important to lay this out. It's not necessarily killing every member of an

ethnic group or a religious group or whatever kind of community. UM. It is stopping their ability to propagate and continue themselves. That's why things like destroying churches and destroying the cultural distoral markers are part of genocide. And it's also why a lot of genocides they left the women and children alive. They would kill all the men, and they would take

the women in and they would breed with them. They might kill the kids sometimes, but it was this The goal was not necessarily where we need to kill all of you, it's we want to kill this, this culture, this population. Um I think the I think, yeah, I think the parallel he's trying to make here or there or she? Uh? Is that? Uh? That like that type of like genocidal cultural destruction is targeted against specific groups. The difference here is with this type of like you know,

he's he's writting this for other anarchists. He's pointing out, like our destructive urge, our cultural urge isn't even for a specific group, it's just for everything, and that can be unhealthy sometimes sometimes there's ways to do make total destroy. That's totally fine, but that can go to unhealthy places. Now, he's not equating like ethnic cleansing with that. He's like they are like they are different. But when when your total destroy urges against all of culture, then yeah, that

that can like that's something you should probably ponder. Yeah, I mean that's definitely I would agree that that's the thing that's potentially problematic. Right, Like with a number of different desires. Uh, there's a way in which that can lead to people doing really fucked up things. Yeah, it's like it's like it's pointing out that that type of accelerationism not specific to ideology, but just like accelerationism in general.

I mean, I think when I when I talk about things like the fact that because not every culture commits genocides and every civil civilization does, um, and throughout history there have been more that found the idea repugnant than found the idea acceptable. Um. But it is really a consistent thing in history. And I think the lesson with

that isn't necessarily that everything could end in genocide. So I don't think the lesson is necessarily like, oh you should look at make total destroy as if you know, the this kind of trend in anarchist thought could lead

to genocide. It's that people in groups are nearly always capable of killing a shipload of other people for a variety of reasons if applied in the proper ways, And so those of us who seek mass movement should always be conscious of that, because human beings in large groups can do wonderful things, but there's a long history of them doing really fucked up ship sometimes in ways that surprised the people that got the large group of human

beings together in the first place. The other thing I wanted to bring up this kind of more circling back to the dum kind of idea UM, because yeah, a big part of the book is trying purposely is to disolution people with this idea of global revolution and dissolution people with the idea that we can save the earth

because we can't UM. So that's a big thing. And first I think I think for some people, if you stop right there and you that's how you end that thought, Yes, that does lead to dumorism, obviously, like that that is, that is, but the books, the book doesn't stop there. The book continues on from there. Now they continue on from a nihilistic standpoint. I'm not a nihilist. I prefer absurdism. I prefer discordionism. But those two things are pretty caught

like there. They are more similar than not. UM is that you can be disillusioned with global revolution and the idea to save the earth, but that should not change what we do or how we feel or operate as anarchists. It's not that we should be disillusioned and then do nothing and step aside that we should be disillusioned, and then find that disillusionment itself a form of liberation, like the freeing nature of being free from this idea of revolution is that like, no, we are living our lives now.

Don't live for a revolution. Live your life now and do things now, because that's what you actually have. So it's like that type of nihilistic, absurdist discordion things. This is, this is, this is this is where I come back have a problems with it again because this this is literally just there is no alternative except it's it's yeah, and that's do anargy. But I mean, but that's how I live like that like that, I think, I think this is a bad I think that's a bad plan.

And I think if if you look, if you look at what happens with because you know, this, this was the thing that was really big in the American anarchist movement, like in you know, from about just and seventeen like roughly now, and it's like people were rising too. Yeah that didn't succeed like that, like not really like but I think like like this is like I think I think this is like like one of the reasons it didn't work, Like, okay, this is like the thing that's important.

One of the things is the point of revolutions, even when they don't succeed, is that for a very brief window, you actually can like it becomes it becomes possible to imagine the other world. And what what What this entire thing is saying is don't do that. That's not that's not that's that's that's that is not what it absolutely not. This is okay, I can I finish that sentence? Yeah,

Like yeah, okay, so what what what what? What I'm saying here is that what what they've abandoned, right, the thing that they're giving up when they when they give up revolution, when they're like this is a progressive myth, this is like uh theology. What what they've abandoned completely is our human capacity to actually shape a different world.

What they're arguing is that like the the you know, essentially that the combination of ecological and social forces are strong enough that humans humans no longer have the capacity to reshape the world into a way that is different than this, and that this is now the eternal present, and you know, and and yeah, inside of the eternal present. They're saying, you should be fighting for the same things you should be fighting for, like you know, you should.

You should be in your own sort of local domain. You should be like, I mean, there are some of the recommendations are wild, Like I think, I think their conservation stuff is sketchy given, I mean, it doesn't but it doesn't apply to an eternal present though, Like they lay out, like the world is changing a lot and will for the next fifty years, Like there will be massive changes and how things are set up in the next like in the next century, and we need to

take advantage of that. We need to turn those liabilities into assets and start making those little anarchies like that. That that is what it's trying to do. And I would add as well that as it points out the situations in plastic stooke in Bangladesh, a difference in the

present and will be in the future. You know. What I think is is trying to be sort of drilled in here is that at least in the text and how I read it um is that yes, things will be different in different parts to wood and probably maybe they won't be this, you know, or as the what this is they won't be you know, this one global revolution. But at the end of the day, Um, I think what it's trying to emphasize is that we don't have

the structures. And I think what part of what is trying to emphasize is that we don't have instructures in place right now to launch an instruction we can meaningfully defend. And so that is the sort of thing we should be focusing on. But but but they, but they, but this and this, this, this is going back to my problem with it, going going back to the thing where they go on the rant about how anarchists are like a permanent cultural majority and will never become a majority.

Is that even even in situations where people had that capacity and did it they go back, they project back onto it, go no, no, no, no no, they couldn't have done that. Like, it's it's not about it's it's it's they they have a belief and this is something that they do explicitly say that that anarchist will always be a permanent minority right there. There will always be an

active but permanent minority. And that is the like like that specifically, I think is just an actual rejection of the belief that we collectively can make a better future. Because if if, if you think our ideas that you know, if being free right, if if a society, if you think that that is permanently always going to be a minority, you are you know, you are condemning. You're condemning the

future to the people who don't believe that. And and I I understand why, especially if you know, if, if, if, if the only thing you've ever known is fifty years of when the new Liberals actually did the thing right. They took over the entire world, restructure of the entire world economy, seized every government. Like if if that's what you live through, I understand why you would think that.

But I think the fact that it was possible to do it from the other direction is in some ways a sense that like, yeah, we could do it too. I don't know, Sorry, I will stop harping on this one specific point. It just extremely annoys me. I think it's not giving up the idea that the world can be better. It's that like, we don't need to have the majority of people be anarchists to make the old better. We can still spread our own anarchies and people don't

need to self subscribe as anarchists. But as long as we start building those systems in the places around us, people start using them, and people might start like living them out, even if they don't call themselves anarchists, right, Like, the majority of people will probably prefer some some type

of state or government. Right. You can even look at ROSA and be like, yeah, it's still is state issue in some ways, but some ways not, right, Like, it's it's going We're not going to get an anarchist world. That's not going to happen, but we can make it better through the lens of anarchy. And I think that's

what it's kind of trying to say. Yeah, I I think it's it's worth acknowledging that, Like, yeah, the majority of people are never going to be what anarchists are right now, which is people who comprehensively reject the systems they live in. Most people are always going to think more like well, I want to be comfortable, I want to I support changes kind of that that, you know, fix this thing that I've noticed as a problem or that thing. Most people are never going to comprehensively reject

the system. But I do have hope that in time and given you know space to build things and show people other ways and improve life for people. You can get to a point where most people believe a lot of the things that I think are important. Yeah, And

I think that's what's time. I think that's sorry. I think that's what the as specificitis UM tend to advocate for in terms of through the process of social institution in these larger movements, generalizing the ideas of anarchist ideas as a whole, making them more common throughout the population. It's only trying to get each and every poost in the world to self identify as an anarchist, communist or whatever.

It's more so that you're trying to spread these ideas to the point where they are I suppose the common sentiment the popular will Yeah, like I it's it's um. That's like the point of culture jamming and and and ship like that. Like it's the the idea that like it doesn't so much matter, like like like what matters is inserting the things you think are important into the culture and getting people to identify with them and understand them.

The terms that they specifically use aren't aren't as important, like that that's not really what matters. Well, Okay, I don't think they're arguing that though, because I mean, like do they have lines like this. We cannot, however, remake the entire world. There are not enough of us, there never will be. But then you know, they like they they specifically talk about the oh well, they don't have to all be anarchists, and you know, I mean, here's

their line. There was unfortunately little little evidence from history that the working class, never mind anyone else, is intrinically predisposed to libertarian and ecological revolution. Thousands of years of authoritarian socialization favor of the jack boot. Neither we nor anyone else could create a libertarian or global or ecological

global future by expanding social movements further. There is no reason to think that in the absence of such a vast expanse, the global transformation concurrent toward desires will ever happen.

I think, I think think the keyword there is global, Like, yeah, that's they're trying to break with that, and it's important, like they're writing this specifically for anarchists who are kind of already nihilistic, kind of already anti sif right, they are writing this for other anarchists that this isn't a book to radicalize a normy or a communist by anarchists for other anarchists to be like, hey, you already kind

of think the world's kind of going to ship. Here's a way that we can still do things despite the world being shitty. Because once you're once you're disillusioned, it's

hard to be illusioned again. Like it's it's hard once you give up on the idea of global revolution, once you give up in the idea of global collapse, it's hard to re enter those even if you see things happening the world, like there can still be uprisings and revolts, absolutely, but there is a distinction of between uprising and the revolts and like a global revolution right and specifically like the Marxist Leninist sounds. And I'd also like to um

continue the paragraph you're reading from there. We had said that as anarchists, sweet he had said, or they had said that, as anarchists, we are not the seed of the future society in the shell of the old, but merely one of many elements from which the future is forming. That's okay. When faced with such scale and complexity, there is value in non servile humility, even for in such Yeah, but this this is just this is just giving up.

This is this is the old. It's too complicated, it's too like and like I think, I don't know, like it's it's it's it's giving up on it's giving up on trying to do any kind of on on like humans as a whole, trying to do any kind of large scale like you know, like it's trying to do transformation of what the society. I disagree to continue that that coote to give up hope for global anarchists. Revolution is not to resign oneself to anarchy, remaining any to protest.

Seaweed puts it well. Revolution is not everywhere or nowhere. Any bioregion can be liberated through a succession of events, and strategy is based in the conditions unique to it, mostly as the grip of facilitation that area weakens through its own volition for the efforts of its inhabitants. So aization didn't succeed every at once, and so it's undoing might only occur to varying degrees in different places at

different times. Even if an area is seemingly fully under the control of authority, there are always places to go to live in, to love in, and to resist from, and we can extend those spaces. The global situation may seem beyond us, but the local never is. And I think that's beautiful. I think that's like a That's one of the things that keeps me alive is ideas like that, honestly. And at the same time, I also hold the opinion that none of us, including this author, is a fortune teller,

you know. The desert's picture of the future is not the only possibility, you know, And I think in a lot of ways and a lot of always I believe that they can and have already been proven wrong, you know. Like, and there's an issue that I really take a lot of contention with the book. Part of the book that really pisces me off is the sort of persistence of the overpopulation myth. Yeah, I don't remember it being so consistent since I reread it um a couple of weeks ago.

And also this sort of nonchalance the author seems to have about like mass die offs and that kind of thing, you know. I think that that's very troubling to me. That's very specific to It's a type of anti sive literature that's like we view civilization is going to progress towards Jenna side anyway, and the way to actually avoid more deaths is to kind of help the collapse along

because that will end civilization quicker. So therefore less people, less people will be born, and less people will have to die. So that's the type of thinking they have. I don't necessarily agree with that, um necessarily, but like, yeah, that is that is very typical of this type of literature. So it gets because it is written mostly for other anti sid anarchists, but like, yeah, it's not like pro genocide.

It's saying genocide will happen. So the way to make less of it is to actually kind of slowly start kind of help helping the crumbles along essentially and while still you know, making people's lives better in your immediate community, like with that, with that very local focus. So again not not saying I necessarily agree with that, but that's the that's the type of thought it's engaging with. I mean,

I think that's true of some of it. But there is definitely a lot of like panic about there's going to be nine billion people and like population grows. All the over population stuff is a little iffy. You know, there is a there's a discussion to have on caring capacity, but we are not there yet. We right now we way overproduced for them for the amount of people we have. Yeah, that and that I don't know. That also fresh it

in me immensely. They're like, yeah, we we have consider they're talking about carring capacity right and they're like, oh, we already can't. We have a billion people going hungry. And it's like, yeah, but that's not about the carrying capacity. That's just that's that's destrition. Which was literally that and that idea gained more prevalence after Dessert was written. We kind of more understood, like like culturally that it is

a distribution issue not necessarily a production issue. Now we do overproduce, right because and the amount of production we have contributes this tough like climate change and that is bad. So we should tone down production, but we should make the ways that it's more sustainable and ecological. Um. Yeah, I think that does point towards the data nature of

the text. I think Also my last like thing with it is I think I think it could have benefited a lot from like in an indigenous stewardship perspective, because the way it thinks about its particularly the way things but wildness versus conservation is just very messy, and yeah,

if it falls, it falls. It does a better job of it than some other antis of things that I've seen, but it definitely falls into the like trap of like, here is the wild and then any attempt to manage it is uh, you know, is civilization and you need to go back to the wild, and it's like, well, this is already stewarded and managed. That is the one. Yeah, it does fall on that slope of like nature being another that is sacred, which isn't necessarily a great idea,

nor is it really true. Yeah, this is very two ten two ten. Yeah, right, So I think the book is critical conceitation and that sort of binary way, and I agree that indigenous stewardship perspective was sorely needed. But at the same time, I do think that the way that the book criticizes um wherever just points out um the sual conservation may have been and may still be

new for some people. You know, the idea that these sorts of government conservation projects which sort of preside over this sort of static vision of nature and ecology and stuff that is supposedly threatened by humanity. UM. I think criticizing that approach to nature it's good. I mean the sort of romanticization of the wild that is very typical of anti Seve text and thought. UM is very much

anti Sieve. But I do believe that people should look ah or should rather resist these sorts of conservation impulse. As I was rereading it a couple of weeks ago, I wanted to know, UM, what you guy's thoughts of the section of the book that speaks of the different modern different the the idea of fourth and fifth generation war Oh boy, that's a UM that has been UM sort of a contributional approach to analyzing conflict so figured out as you have been in you know, actual war

zoons robot that you might have a thing to see. UM. I mean, it's the kind of thing that we should probably cover in in detail on because this is a lot of like William Lynde stuff. I think he's the guy who came up with the idea of like fourth generation war less at least and it's UM. It's basically

the idea. It's the idea that warfare UM today is conducted through a lot of stuff that's not conventional weaponry, right, So stuff like UM, like like like putting networks together to like push social division, you know through UM, social media UM, or carrying out cyber attacks on infrastructure, disinformation UM, all of that kind of stuff, which is I think accurate. I've been reporting on what you could call fifth generation warfare since some UM. I think it's I think to

the extent that it's relevant here. I think one thing that people on the left need to acknowledge is that they have UM been blindsided by the effectiveness that the far right has adapted to UM the key components of this kind of warfare. And I think nothing is more key than social engineering and disinformation UM. And they've been much more successful at it over the last release in twos and fifteen in particular, UM than the left hast by basically everywhere, every single and by I think, every

single measure of of success. And I think this is something we should say in depth for another day, UM. But I think that it is worth acknowledging that this is And I also think that and this is again part of a bigger conversation. We talked about the concept of like culture jamming. When we talked about like Operation mind Fuck you know, which is Discordian idea. Um, all of which you can see is kind of pre predecessors

to the concepts of fifth generation warfare. I think there's a strong argument to be made that those efforts by leftists in the eighties and nineties in particular, actually contributed to the substantial right wing victories that we're seeing right

now in this space. UM. And I think maybe it's I think there's a number of reasons for that, um, including some to some extent, the idea of arrogance that um that what that we were just too smart, that they were never going to figure out how to utilize the same means we had, or to kind of judo like take the momentum for that and spin it around on us. But they were and they did, and um, yeah, that'll that'll lead into another or episode. We'll have to

talk about this in more detail. That's something like Grant Morrison actually talks a lot about in regards to discordionism and this type of how how you know he used to work for a company called Disinformation back when disinformation was Yeah, and now it's like one of the leading castes of mass death in the world right, So he that is something that Morrison talks about a lot in terms of how they did have that arrogance and now the same forces that they used in hopes of making

the world better and now being used to regress the world and make it worse. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I had a big copy of Disinformation on my coffee table when I was nineteen. I just ordered good there's some fun essays in their garret. Um, all right, that'll probably, I mean, did you have more to say on that? And yeah, I just wanted to say that, you know, regardless of the unsettent future, UM, regardless of your stands on get

its message however flawed. UM here now as the minor goods in Alice Huxley's Island so often repeat UM, we can and should pay attention to what we can do to support ourselves for whatever outcome you go through, you know, projects within the spaces we inhabit. I believe that anarchism could be the seed of the new will. I do believe that we have an impact a huge impact on society and on politics, and I believe there are still many possibilities for liberty still. Yeah, I do as well.

I think that acknowledging you know, failures both of of of you know ideas and of methods doesn't mean giving up hope or or ignoring the successes of those same things which which we're are also present. Um yeah, so I don't know, stay optimistic. Read something. Uh doesn't have to beat eert, but just go go read a thing. Go read yeah, back of your shampoo. B but especially if it's Dr Brauner's a lot of good stuff in there. Um, all right, that's gonna do it for us this week.

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