TOTW: Resiliency and growing stronger

As I’m sitting down to write this Topic of the Week, I’m confronted with an array of ideas and thoughts of where to go with the topic after years of writing them. I’m writing from the season of winter or four months of cold, snow, wind, and grey overcast skies which can certainly present challenges of finding the bright spots.

TOTW: Anarchist Mentors

Topic of the Week: The word mentor is defined as a trusted counselor or guide who is often someone who teaches or gives help and advice to a less experienced and normally younger person. Mentoring is often associated with the business world of professional development for on-boarding new workers into a new job with the process sometimes lasting multiple years. This week were taking some time and space to dig into the world of anarchist mentors.

Subverting the ‘dog eat dog’ dogma

From Freedom News

According to neoliberal ideology it is a “dog-eat-dog” world. But where and when do you see dog eating dog? Unless they are starving (due to unnatural conditions), badly socialised (a problem of conditioning) or on a leash (the perfect metaphor for the dysfunctional nature of authoritarianism), you are much more likely to see dog-sniff-dog, dog-play-with-dog scenarios.

TOTW: Mostly made of water

We’re mostly made of water. This week we’re exploring anarchist ideas and their relationship to water. Is there such a thing? Do you have a relationship to water? Do you define it as such or something else? What is your anarchist hot take about water?

totw: Strangers

If it's "all about who you know," what about the people you don't know? Dealing with strangers is not unique to anarchists, but the consequences of trusting someone new can hold special weight. Common practices such as security culture and the affinity group shield us from unfamiliar people in our close circles. Pair this with a distrust of technocrats and the rejection of community and all signs point toward the fact that hell is, in fact, other people. But is it that simple?

Poly and Other Relationships, on Immediatism

Immediatism has been looking at relationships and how anarchist views, and ways of talking about relationships, have changed over time. This was done by reading all of the following pieces in chronological order, followed by a piece translated by Seaweed as an encore. Here, you have Emma Goldman and Voltairine de Cleyre to compare with Clemence x Clementine and Andie Nordgren.

TOTW: Anarchy and Trauma

I know that, before I had ever encountered critical discourse or radical politics, before I'd attended my first protest or meeting, before I had debated anyone on political theories either face to face or on the Internet, my first experiences of disenfranchisement towards the state, capitalism, civilisation, etc., and desires to rebel came from direct personal experiences that were mostly, in some way or another, traumatic. The trauma of childhood poverty, of bullying teachers in school, of family members dependent on drugs and alcohol, these all left me with a feeling of "I hate this shit", long before I had read anything on economics or anarchism.

Horrible Creatures

by Sever, via electronic mail

to all those who left after their comrades treated them horribly

When the survivors realize that all the mayhem and tumult was a revolution—our revolution—and that it's already slipped away from us, a mocking failure belying our pretensions to anything other than misery, other than failure, the blame will start.

TOTW: Niches and Roles and Eco-systems Oh My

This week anews moderation was once again impugned. A member of thecollective brought up that no website can/should try to/will ever satisfy all the people's needs. If a healthy biosphere (to work a metaphor) has multiple options to meet various needs, or brains (to use a different metaphor) after damage can build different connections after to re-enable skills and memories, then what are ways that we can, right now, get our needs met? Or perhaps more clearly stated, how do you use your different anarchist connections differently? How does raddle work for you in ways that anews doesn't, and vice versa?

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