There have been quite a few critical essays, rants, and podcasts about how horrible any curiosity about ITS by anarchists is. This chatter has increased in volume and intensity since ITS Communique 29 which threw down the glove on any illusion that ITS didn’t mean it. This communique admits to the murder of a female University student and two hikers.
In this conversation we (Bellamy and I) attempt to distance ourselves from ITS, from their actions, but not from the challenge they represent. If I were to have a hope it would be that this ends my involvement in conversations about ITS as I think we’ve taken this as far as we could but I’m sure there will be another week or two of kerfuffle.
Tick Tock
:30 Catching up with Bellamy
2:00 Communique 29 – Bellamy
4:00 A! on violence-ism
5:00 What is a project of liberation?
9:00 Critical departure from @. What does that look like?
14:30 Transformative violence
17:00 What did Lenin say about white gloves?
21:20 Are ITS nihilists or “christians” (for lack of better language)
26:50 Do words mean anything?
29:00 Is there an anarcho-nihilism?
37:00 The social anarchist critique of eco-extremism
38:30 Freedom (Is there such a thing as freer?)
btw the reference is to The Anarchist Tension and not Armed Joy. Oops.
44:00 What it’s like to be the focus of five minutes of hate
50:20 Good faith, quotations, snarl words, logical fallacies, and getting smacked
54:00 Who is responsible for other peoples bad behavior
59:30 At least we are talking about ideas?
1:05 Team sports
email at thebrilliant@thebrilliant.org
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3 Comments
The comment I made following episode 49 was intended for episode 50.Sorry for any confusion.
I feel a bit out of the loop in that I have no clue who or what “IGD” is and haven’t taken the time to read their article or listen to any of the other podcasts you’ve referenced here as being critical of your own activities. That said, knowing the cliquish tendencies among various segments of the anarchist subculture as I do, I can understand your frustration over the different “hit pieces” with which you’ve been accosted as a result of this ITS conversation (although “shouting match” may be a more accurate descriptor in some cases).
Perhaps in some parallel dimension where the North American anarchist milieu is something other than what it is in our own, the discussion over the challenge posed to anarchism by the eco-extremist phenomenon could have been more constructive. However, the entire discussion took a very predictable turn when its primary focus became about the ethical implications of violence rather than the narratives that those *within* EE have set up to justify their actions to themselves.
It’s kinda like whenever there’s a school shooting or some other random act of violence in the States, the automatic default within the mass media is to start talking about gun control rather than things like social alienation and economic disparity as precipitating factors. While I still think there is at least the *potential* for a provocative discussion of ITS as “a post-anarchist challenge to anarchism,” the often petty nature of the anarchist subculture has a unique way of undermining that potential. Still, I maintain hope that the same discussion can be had through other avenues.
re:igd
https://itsgoingdown.org/nothing-anarchist-eco-fascism-condemnation
atassa response
https://atassa.wordpress.com/2017/05/13/on-the-igd-psa/