This week we are continuing our discussion of social organization and power structures by reading the classic essay “Society Against the State”.
Link to the format of your choice on the Anarchist Library.
This week we are continuing our discussion of social organization and power structures by reading the classic essay “Society Against the State”.
Link to the format of your choice on the Anarchist Library.
This week we are readin all of chapters 13 & 17 of Hobbes Leviathan. This reading is less than 10 pages in length, and contain the core of Hobbes’ arguement for monarchism.
Additionally we are reading the following paragraphs from chapters 11(¶1&2) 14(¶1-10,18) 15(¶1-5), as they contain some helpful context on his definitions and background assumptions about human nature (less than 9 pages). The rest of these chapters are still fun to read but Hobbes has a tendency to digress.
Here is a link to a pdf of the book.
Entering the filthy subterranean lair of Georges Bataille… It would be impossible to even attempt a summary of the astonishing breadth of his thought in a week, so these readings will broadly look at his idea of heterology, with a dappling of base materialism.
For next week, from the volume Visions of Excess: Selected Writings 1927-39, let’s look at “The Pineal Eye”, “The Use Value of D.A.F. de Sade (An Open Letter to My Current Comrades)”, and “The Psychological Structure of Fascism”.
If this feels like a bit much to digest (possible given the elliptical nature of Bataille’s writing), focus on the latter two pieces, as I suspect they are where our discussion will center. “The Pineal Eye” is a remarkable piece of writing though — and not very long either – so try and hit it as it’s one of his seminal texts.
See you all next week for this ritual of self-degradation and abasement!
This week we’re reading a few pieces by Renzo Novatore. We’ll be discussing “Toward the Creative Nothing”, “My Iconoclastic Individualism”, and “I Am Also a Nihilist”, all of which can be found in this collection.