Often when survivors of abuse speak out against our abuser’s behavior and control, we are approached by seemingly well-meaning people who exhort us to “remember” our abuser’s humanity in the process, even going so far as to tell us to not use the term “abuser” at all, but person-first language like “person who abuses” just […]
Latest
“Who Has To Do It?”: A Reflection on the Compulsion to Coerce
When exploring the potential challenges of a liberatory future, one of the most frequent subjects we reflect upon is that of how our labor might be organized to attend to the needs of all without domination and hierarchy. There is no shortage of theory proposing various answers to these questions and it is not my […]
Do I Need To Be An Optimist To Be An Anarchist?
Many people new to anarchist ideas might find much that they resonate with in the political philosophy, but feel that they have some reservations that keep them from being able to identify fully with anarchism. Anarchism as many come to know it is, in many ways, a profoundly optimistic philosophy when it comes to the […]
Towards the Abolition of the Family!
You may have come across the radical slogan “Abolish the Family” before and found yourself dismayed. Perhaps familial connections and support has been a vitally important source of emotional fulfillment for you throughout your life and you cannot imagine where you would be without them. Are radicals seriously suggesting that you forsake your family? That […]
Against a Liberal Abolitionism
In the explosion of interest in the topic of abolitionism during and after the explosive summer of 2020 its meaning and purpose has become distorted in its trek through the popular imagination. The topic of Transformative/Restorative Justice also increased in popularity, and as a result many people even conceptualize TJ/RJ as being one in the […]
Is Punishment “Carceral Logic”?
As conversations about the possibilities of abolition continue to proliferate — and as they are at the same time co-opted and distorted by liberal politics — it may help us to take a moment to be clear about the distinctions between liberatory accountability and what many refer to as “carceral logic.” Already many of us […]
Monogamy and Vulnerability
Relationships are deeply personal. They are the smallest and most fundamental blocks that form our histories, our cultures, our societies. We are dependent, and thus deeply vulnerable, to other human relationships from the time we are born to the moment we die. Nothing human-made was made outside of relationships. Everything we make is a product […]
Liberatory Education 101
Radicalizing people towards liberatory politics is a challenging, deeply rewarding, and vital component to building real political power towards liberation. It is also emotionally taxing, difficult to navigate, and often rife with conflict. I hope to offer some tools, tactics, and frameworks for engaging in this process with others in ways that can keep doors […]
Butch Anarchy
Butchness is not only the appropriation of traditional masculinity, but the subversion of it. The sacred weapon in the arsenal of patriarchy, the one they did and continue to do everything to keep us from taking, is not something we even bother to steal under the cover of nightfall. Instead, we swagger right through the […]
Process-Centered Love: Dismantling Capitalist Logic in Our Relationships
The Logic of Capitalism The anti-capitalists of today look back at the most important works of anti-capitalists of yesterday (or the last century) and find a similar flaw threaded through many of the otherwise clear and continuously relevant writings: many of them believed that capitalism’s end was nigh and inevitable. They thought its strength was […]