Circling the Ⓐ: Revolution in a Single Syllable

From No Selves, No Masters

Love it or hate it, the “Circle A” — scrawled on walls, carved in bathroom stalls, printed on punk merchandise or painted on rebellious banners — is among the most widely recognized symbols of anarchy and anarchism. Learning to spray paint the circle A as a teenager is every bit as joyful and liberating (and annoying to adults) as learning the word “no” is for a toddler. Later on, if we grow up into “serious anarchists”, we might learn that it has a deeper symbolic meaning: the circle is not just a circle, but an “O”. “Anarchy is the mother of Order”, they say. Whether or not this is actually true is less relevant than the meaning it holds for militancy1. We’re not just here to rebel and destroy anymore: we want to build a new world in the ashes of the old. No more juvenile “fuck you” graffiti politics for us, thanks.

TOTW: Determinism

Robert Sapolsky’s 2023 Detemined: A Science of Life Without Free Will is a recent major influence on me. Sapolsky, a neuroscientist, argues free will either does not exist or at best, exists at a lower rate than we like to believe. Sapolsky’s previous book, Behave states, “And [human behavior] is indeed a mess, a subject involving brain chemistry, hormones, sensory cues, prenatal environment, early experience, genes, both biological and cultural evolution, and ecological pressures, among other things.”

Terminally Online

One goal for this series was to describe key developments in English-speaking anarchist thought as it resurged after World War II. Originally, the plan was to choose an anarchist who represented a recognizable tradition and demonstrate how they were informed by the thinking around them to prompt discussion. What we created instead was less tradition-centered and more history-centered.

The Peer Review #2: Ten Theses on Science and Radicalism

From libcom.org

Issue #2 of The Peer Review, a zine dedicated to the intersection of anarchism, science, and philosophy. This issue addresses the anti-science sentiment that has arisen in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Peer Review #1: The Anarchists Guide to Critical Thinking

From libcom.org

The Peer Review is a self-published a zine dedicated to the intersection of anarchism, science, and philosophy. The original pamphlet with more illustrations can be found on the Internet Archive.

This first issue is a guide to critical thinking written from an anarchist's perspective.

The Enemy Within

By the mid-2000s, things were changing again. In 1999, anarchists helped shut down the World Trade Organization in Seattle. The battle wasn't just against trade policy, but against the system itself. Unionists linked arms with environmentalists, crust punks with clergy. Black blocs moved through clouds of tear gas. Activists made puppet parades and lockdowns part of the new playbook. For a moment, it felt like something real had cracked. But even as global summits became zones of disruption, the movement was already facing burnout, fragmentation, and a coming wave of repression.

To Attack Is to Begin Again

Continuing on: But the stability didn’t last...

By the late 1960s, the world began to convulse. In Paris, students built barricades and workers occupied factories. In Mexico City, the army opened fire on demonstrators days before the Olympics. In Prague, tanks rolled in to crush socialism with a human face. In Berkeley, the free speech movement collided with riot police. Across Vietnam, the U.S. war machine burned villages in the name of freedom.

Subscribe to philosophy