ToTW: Work! What is it and do we have to do it!?

Working for the man, working on myself, this relationship is work, this relationship is working, working on this or that, this is my body of work, that is just what i do for work, work work work. It's a word we seem to use for every sort of action or arrangement that requires any effort, but what does it really mean? Many anarchists are anti-work but scrape themselves raw on tasks or endeavors that could be called work.

TOTW: Has Anarchist Muay Thai Gone Too Far? Some Questions for the movement

Guest Topic of the Week entry chosen by thecollective from Anathema Volume 11 Issue 1 Summer 2025 - Has Anarchist Muay Thai Gone Too Far? Some Questions for the movement

A quick note: Anarchist martial arts culture is a new phenomenon in the United States. It is generally a welcome one in the author’s view. Here’s a few questions the author is pondering.

TOTW: Doing It Ourselves

"If you wish to make a molotov cocktail from scratch, you must first invent the universe" - Carl Sagan, Seattle '99

Anarchists have been known to attempt to sever their dependence on dominant structures. For some this is a massive effort, like a revolution against global capital or insurrection to wear away at industry itself. For others this is more meaningful on the local scale, like cracking a squat or starting a community garden. 

Today let's focus on the smaller end of that spectrum. Let's talk about doing it all ourselves!

Tags

TOTW: Recuperation and Social Signaling

Been reading and listening to people (notably Naomi Klein in Doppleganger but some youtubers as well) talk about how there is a growing tendency for valuable words and concepts to be coopted by our enemies or at least our non-friends. Fake news, The Other/othering, woke, and mutual aid are just a few of the ideas that have been (or are being) made into signifiers for people who we strongly disagree with.

Two part question then:

TotW: Fear and its Discontents

How do we, how do you, deal with fear? 

I want to do things that I am scared to do. By this I mean many things. I want to do things that scare me for personal growth, because dealing with fear makes me more capable and also more interesting to myself. I want to do things that scare me because I think that those things are challenges to the fucked up society that I live in. I want to do things that scare me because confronting fear with other people is a bonding exercise. 

TOTW: Meeting Them Where They're At

  • In 1962, Marxist-Leninist group Workers World Party kicked off a decade of anti-war protests which spread to the rest of the English-speaking world.
  • Throughout the 1980s, anti-apartheid protests snowballed into a global movement to free the Communist political prisoner Nelson Mandela.
  • At the end of the 1990s, communist student groups and NGOs convened to oppose the WTO.
Subscribe to totw