2w ago

Temp check on an Anarchism reading group

Hey everyone came here after reddit started censoring everyone and anything.

I'll put down some suggestions and whatever folks are interested in I'll do weekly/bi-weekly posts talking about the chapter with folks.

Please comment if you are interested and/or have a suggestion

these are all a bit longer and I've read 2/3 (Conquest of Bread by Kropotkin and Anarchism by Goldman) the third is a fascinating one but I'm also open to other suggestions for what to read together.

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/murray-bookchin-post-scarcity-anarchism-book

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emma-goldman-anarchism-and-other-essays

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/petr-kropotkin-the-conquest-of-bread

I'll also include a really short essay in the comments and short story for personal reading here.

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-are-you-an-anarchist-the-answer-may-surprise-you

https://files.libcom.org/files/ursula-k-le-guin-the-ones-who-walk-away-from-omelas.pdf

19 comments

Well I’m part of an anarchist book club irl, so why not one more? I’m for it.

Hey everyone came here after reddit started censoring everyone and anything.
Were you in /r/anarchism. Do you get any censorship in there lately?
- no i had some disagreements with the subreddit years ago ( cannot even remember for what or why ) more so issues with the platform as a whole

Hell yeah! I just read Bakunin’s God and the State, a collection of Kropotkin’s work, Wengrow’s and Graeber’s Dawn of Everything, Emma Goldman’s Anarchism and other Essay’s and I’m currently reading Rudolf Rocker’s Anarcho-Syndicalism. So pretty much a lot of the classics. Graeber’s ”Are you an anarchist? The answer might suprise you” which you have linked is a great introduction to anarchist ideas.
- Great foundation, thought about adding Dean Spade's Mutual aid:
  https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/dean-spade-mutual-aid
  but thought that more introductory books might be better
  
  Dean Spade's cool

Hell yeah! Looking forward to future posts!

Huh, I hadn't really thought about Omelas as an anarchist story (especially with other of LeGuin's work like The Dispossessed being more explicitly anarchist), but now that you mention it I can see it. Perhaps also The Word for World is Forest, in that vein, it's about colonialism, resistance, etc.
- yea i really relate it to the dangers of authoritarianism that plague a faction of modern leftist movement. I haven't read the word for world is forest and sounds amazing. Would be interesting to reread "Ecodefense: A Field Guide to Monkeywrenching" after that
- Just as a fun side note, in one collection of her short stories (the wind's twelve quarters), she has a story about the beginnings the Odonians. In her author notes regarding that short story she says:
  this story is about one of the ones who walked away from Omelas
  I think reading both short stories back to back helped me contextualize better what Omelas means to me and, possibly, to her.
  
  Ooh, interesting, I didn't know about that. I definitely want to read more, I started reading her a few years ago and have fallen in love with it.

Not an anarchist, don't agree with its theory but I'm glad to see posts like these actually encouraging people to read.

Love to see it

Yeah, I've been reading more Anarchist stuff lately... Theory still gives me the equivilant feeling as watching paint dry.But I am slowly overcoming that.