Hello, welcome to Propaganda of the Read, the most bookclub that ever…
I’m Tuesday. Way back in the 1900s I found someone’s older brother’s copy of Anarchism and Other Essays. I’ve been a lot of different things and a lot of different people since then, but I’ve always also been an anarchist.
Anarchy is a very simple, but also a very complicated idea. Anarchy means without hierarchy. That’s it, two words. But what is implicated by those two words is vast and if you are open to being critical of your own biases and assumptions, Anarchy can change the way you view reality.
I see a lot of people who are looking for anarchist reading groups, they want to engage with theory, but don’t necessarily know where or how to start. Sometimes they’re lucky enough to be able to live somewhere where there is an existing reading group. Unfortunately that isn’t always the case. And even when there is an online reading group, schedules always conflict and eventually you’re reading less and less together and then no one has the time.
I want to read theory. I want to take my time to go through important pieces of anarchist theory, from things published in the 1800s, to something posted yesterday. I want to read and think and talk and write about theory, about all of the things that “without hierarchy” means. I am in a place where I have some time and some privilege that I can use to make a project out of my desire.
Propaganda of the Read is an invitation to read along with me.1
I’ll be hanging out at #propagandaoftheread:riot.anarchyplanet.org (you’ll need an account on anarchy.planet, who are the folks who host the anarchist library, where I’ll be sourcing all the readings) and you’re welcome to hang out and chat. You can also hit me up on masto.
On Fridays I’ll be posting links to the full text, and audio/video versions. I’ll also be sharing my notes, which will include a summary of the section as well as my own thoughts and annotations which will also be posted as a podcast and a video. Maybe over the weekends I’ll do some streaming so you can come by and hang out as you please.
So, yeah. Let’s get anarcho-theorhetorical.
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See you nerds next Friday when we’ll be talking about the first section of Anarchy by Errico Malatesta. I made an .epub for you with numbered paragraphs for easy referencing.
- This is not an invitation to debate. [↩]