Summing up where we are...
I've written a fair number of posts looking at why I am where I am with my political thinking and activity. Where I am is beyond the fringes of the anarchist movement, doing my level best to think for myself. A process that hasn't exactly won me a lot of friends. In fact it has lost me some so called 'friends'.
Standing on the outside and looking back at the movement I was once a part of is a strange experience. To be fair, there are a number of anarchists who, while we don't agree on everything, I still get on with reasonably well. It's about agreeing to disagree and being willing to engage in a constructive debate. However, there are others who I've stood alongside on protests which have got pretty heavy and drunk with in the pub afterwards who wouldn't give me the time of day now. Such is life.
While it's not pleasant being ostracised, I realise it's the price I have to pay for being able to think for myself. We live in weird, dysfunctional and increasingly dystopian times. We're in a period where thinking along politically tribal lines is in my view, not the right way to go about analysing the situation we're in, let alone formulate strategies and tactics to deal with it. We have to free ourselves up to ask difficult questions. I don't pretend to have the answers by any means but, being able to have frank and open discussions will make the process of finding those answers a little bit easier.
Part of the process of finding answers to the questions we have is being prepared to read texts by people that a fair number of my now former comrades would object to. The two texts linked to below are, each in their own way, written by people those comrades would find 'problematic'. I'll confess that I've been sitting on these two texts for a few days, wondering if I should share them and working out how to deal with the inevitable negative reactions from some people. Well, here they are!
“Woke is fascist” - Paul Cudenec | Winter Oak | 4.6.23
I have sometimes been criticised for describing the society being ushered in since March 2020 as “fascist”.
That word has become so misunderstood and misapplied, associated with superficial historical detail rather than with underlying essence, that some argue it is not an appropriate label for what we are experiencing today.
So it has been reassuring to read The Road to Fascism: For a Critique of the Global Biosecurity State by Simon Elmer of Architects for Social Housing, which, as the title suggests, comes to similar conclusions to those I reach in Fascism Rebranded: Exposing the Great Reset.
The author insists: “We are now a fascist society in everything but name, and ready to form a properly fascist state under the new forms of sovereign authority that rule over the Global Biosecurity State”.
The Oxford kids are alright - Kathleen Stock | Unherd | 1.6.23
At both Cambridge and Oxford, I also had several enriching encounters with staunch defenders of my right to speak. A lot of these were with young gender-critical feminists, fired up by noticing the obvious inconsistencies and injustices in a supposedly “kind” worldview that tells women to put their own needs last. Some wanted me to sign their copies of my book. Others were keen to tell me their own stories of horrible social shunning for their beliefs.
One first year Cambridge student told me that, after writing a mildly gender-critical blog in defence of me, she had been ostracised and shamed by all the other women in her college year group, as well as by her own tutor. Another story I heard on Tuesday was about a young lesbian who had read my book and watched my talks, decided to defend my free speech publicly, and been kicked out of the Oxford LGBTQ+ student society as a result.
As ever, comradely discussion and debate about the above two readings are always welcome. There's a lot to think about and discuss in both of them. However, abuse and threats will not be tolerated - life is too short to have to deal with that.
Dave - the editor