The Caravan of Summer

Something of the real difference between pilgrim and tourist can be detected by comparing their effects on the places they visit. Changes in a place—a city, a shrine, a forest—may be subtle, but at least they can be observed. The state of the soul may be a matter of conjecture, but perhaps we can say something about the state of the social.
Pilgrimage sites like Mecca may serve as great bazaars for trade and they may even serve as centers of production (like the silk industry of Benares), but their primary “product” is baraka or mana. These words (one Arabic, one Polynesian) are usually translated as “blessing,” but they also carry a freight of other meanings.

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POTLUCK!
7-8 pm, for those of you who believe in that sort of thing.

this month will be celebrating peter lamborn wilson, an anarchist writer of many interests and many decades, the main entry in the category of arationalist anarchists (a new label! yay?)…

we are starting out with his best known and perhaps most influential (although to my mind, least interesting) text, TAZ (aka temporary autonomous zone).

also, we’re in the stretch for BASTARD. invite people to do workshops, especially on science fiction and/or utopian visions. (remember: interesting disagreements are the best kind.)

we plan on doing a month of readings by samuel r. delaney, starting out with rhetoric of sex, discourse of desire

delaney is relevant to anarchists in the way that good science fiction authors are meaningful to us, and delaney in particular is a very smart, gender-bending, philosophically minded author, who manages to tie together many threads in both fiction and non fiction writings. (so one of the things to look at here is how he writes… and ties personal anecdote into more general topics.)

three pieces from the new black seed (#2): the two anthropology pieces (by aragorn! and kevin tucker, respectively) and the white nationalism piece.
the premise is that there is a thread (or more) linking these three essays.
find the thread!
and this is sort of still on the topic of how we talk to people who disagree with us; the various formats at our disposal and how those formats are best used.

the continuing appeal of nationalism

If that’s too long for slackers then I’d say to read pages 5-28, and 45-58 (in the physical book) at the least, or in the online version the first seven sections (separated by ***), and from the sentence “After the war, many reasonable people would speak of the aims of the Axis as irrational and of Hitler as a lunatic” through the end of the text. Though the entire essay is recommended and a quick read! So much fascinating history, so many implications and so easy to digest!!

Questions:

1) How would you summarize the defining aspects and/or functions of nationalism according to Perlman’s analysis?

2)Fredy asserts that racism is an instrument implemented to consolidate and utilize repressive forms of power against the threat of The Other, by reducing people to racial identities. He carefully separates race from lived experience, cultural and religious identity, kinship, and community. Is there a core element to the concept of race which exists outside of the context of racism? That is to say, is race racist? Does race even exist?

3) In our current epoch of post-modernism, where people who comprise most popular liberation movements have already been born into a society lacking any real connection to their ancestral/cultural histories, what else do they have to lose or what are other detriments to organizing on lines of racial or national identity (black liberation, post-occupy decolonize movement, etc.)?

4) Fredy leaves us with a horrifying conclusion–that nationalism is the most practical option for the oppressed, posing the question “What concentration camp manager, national executioner or torturer is not a descendent of oppressed people?” Is it possible to organize a liberatory movement that actually destroys power rather than inverting it? Why or why not, or what would that look like?