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Good modern anarchist books that aren't bookchin, that fucker gelderloos, or graeber?
(lemmy.dbzer0.com)
Not a book exactly, but the afaq?
this post was submitted on 12 Jan 2026
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Didn't help OP, but it helped me, thanks!
that is immensly more basic than what I'm talking about haha. That's like the intro, not something you study.
Mutual Aid - Dean Spade
Ethics of Care - Virginia Held
Ethics of Care - Virginia Held
Looks interesting! Cheers
Glad I'm not the only one who finds Gelderloos insufferable. I have to admit I've never finished one of his books because I just can't he's too arrogant.
it's mostly his rank antiveganism that pisses me off but that's mostly just indicative of his shitty attitudes.
If violently coercing the indigenous people of the Arctic might be wrong participating in factory farming is fine.
Uh huh, sure buddy.
Smacks of tumblr arse dialogue vs a genuine attempt to arrive at a correct morality
He's specifically anti-vegan? Like has he written in defense of factory farming?
yeppers https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/peter-gelderloos-veganism-why-not
The man is a privileged piece of shit more concerned with right think than doing good. Garbage.
Holy shit:
I find it hard to understand someone who does not comprehend that pain is natural, necessary, and good. When we inflict pain on others, our faculties of sympathy provoke a conflict within us, and such conflict is also good, because it makes us think and question what we’re doing, whether it’s necessary, and whether there’s also an element of the beautiful in it. Evolving to eat animals and also to feel sympathy, our biology saddles us with a choice. Either we form an intimate relationship with that which we eat, understand it as a privilege to accompany the other creature in its last moments, and look forward to the day when we will also be killed and eaten; or we avoid this difficult process by forming an ideology so we know that what we are doing, a priori, is right, and therefore not a cause for conflict, sympathy, or doubt.
Anyone who doesn’t want to both die by being eaten alive and earn that kind of death by causing it over and over for other animals is dumb and morally cowardly.
You aren't impressed by his incredible mental acuity?
I’m impressed by the annoying kid in my middle school successfully tricking people into thinking he’s ~~academically qualified~~ thoughtful and intelligent (he probably is academically qualified, but that’s not the point)
you know gelderloos?
Its also just wrong. Like causing pain does not cause empathy or sympathy, it causes cognitive dissonance. We know harming things is wrong, we are harming something and we thus experience a conflict. You can either resolve this conflict by changing your behavior (stop harming others) or changing your beliefs (stop believing others feel pain, or stop believing they are worthy of empathy). The third option (which is quite often the case) is cognitive dissonance, where you ignore confronting the conflict between these two contradicting beliefs (the belief eating meat is fine, and the belief harming others is unethical). Like bro mustve failed intro to psychology
That's fucking wild.
burger brain /shrug
Right, I'm gonna say it:
Anarchists that can be but aren't vegan are very sus to me. Like what enforced hierarchy could be more prevalent than "might makes right"?
But inflicting pain is beautiful because it makes us think about our values or something.
It's fine because after you die of natural causes after a long life worms will eat your corpse.
I am very smart.
also to piggyback, does anyone have any good books about effective propaganda i can recommend to people? i know the basic pattern and put into practice:
- identify something about your audience
- give them something to agree/identify with
- associate a positive message with what they agree with
- create mass presence of this messaging so they see it everywhere
- wait for someone to give them in person verbal confirmation
but i lack any concrete published theory to give to people to read if they're interested in changing 21st century minds
Malatesta is GOATed
Malatesta
I probably should have said contemporary instead of modern.
I mean people writing about the conditions we find ourselves in today (or within the last few decades) with modern science informing their conclusions (e.g. media centralisation and availability has changed the ideological landscape substantially relative to the anarchists of the early 20th century, while processes such as electrification have increased state dependence for vital things like heating and cooling).
Maybe try Ian Bone, if you can track doen some of the old issues of Class War, or his autobiography Bash the Rich. He's less academic and more violent and punk side of anarchism, but I'd say worth reading.