Book Review: A Guerrilla Guide to Refusal

Image: the cover of the book is a white background with old school typerwriter lettering. Most of the cover is black X's, some of which are covering other black letters. In red in the center is the title, below that is the author's name "Andrew Culp" 

I chose not to give this book a rating because, to be honest, I did not understand enough of it in order to judge the content. I am not a stranger to academic books and knew that this was from an academic institution and that Andrew Culp was an academic. I often note problems with accessibility when reading these texts- especially on topics that are meant to appeal to the masses or the vulnerable- then continue on to review the content. I can't do too much of that with this. I was drawn in by the title and assumed anything called "A Guerrilla Guide to Refusal" would be more on the accessible side of academic. This was reinforced by the blurb stating that the book is, "Poised to reach beyond the academy into activist circles..." but maybe they just meant that the book discusses activism, not that the majority of activists would be able to read and utilize it.

I am not sure if it is just that I don't read a ton of philosophy or if this is truly as over the top as it seemed while I slowly slogged through it. It would have been a DNF early on when I noticed I was out of my depth, but I did want to respect the whole review copy process, so I powered through. Take my ignorant review as you may, I could very well be wrong about everything I did seem to grasp (or so I think.)

First, I can say that the title was likely chosen to draw someone in, not to actually describe the text. There is nothing in this that could be a guide. But, that happens a lot with titles and often the authors don't get the final say. The author's writing style is something I wish I had the education to understand because there is some sort of flare there, I just am lost in a sea of it. The content seems to generally be in the vein of analyzing various kinds of media and history through an academic anarchist lens. There is obviously a specific focus on guerrilla forms of organizing and action. Discussions of things like illegalism, decentralized organizing principles, compromise and "waging politics" used to stifle revolution, Queer liberation, and Black liberation, are present as well as various specific examples of guerrilla organizing groups.

He does do the Queer theory thing I really dislike in that he calls things Queer that are just outside the norm, not actually Queer. There are times where he mentions groups in ways that seemed out of line with how I understand them. For instance, he claims "new anarchists" critique anti-civ groups, insurrectionist groups, Bash Back!, etc because they "resist legibility." Maybe I don't know what resisting legibility actually means but, as a person who has been part of or adjacent to many of those types of groups, there are quite concrete cultures therein. Sometimes decent traits like refusing to be trampled on or to beg for minor concessions, but other times rampant manarchism, ableism, transphobia, etc. He mentions that there are valid critiques of these groups, but gives none, and seems to suggest that those outside these groups are somehow tamer for critiquing them for emulating many of the things we should be fighting against. Earlier in the book though he says he's not claiming everyone should take up armed resistance and that, "...the most decisive victories will not be through military means, only through a battle of intensities."

There are chapters of the book that analyze media, but some of them just seem to be simply describing it rather than analyzing it. I am not sure how some of the chapters fit into the theme. They seem to go off in unrelated directions at times. I didn't dislike all of the chapters though. As the book progressed, there were a few essays that were more accessibly written. Culp also introduced me to some movements and groups I had not heard of. I really liked the chapter called, "We Are Bad, but We Could Be Worse," which included the feminist project "Public Feelings." The idea of combined art, self care, activism, and psychology was very clever. I was sad that when I googled it, their website no longer existed. There were other examples of this where it was just exciting to read about something new (to me.)

Maybe you're a leftist philosophy buff with a PhD in some sort of critical theory and you'll get much more out of this book than I did. Maybe I just couldn't grasp Culp's writing and other people can just fine. I will read your reviews either way because, honestly, the most disappointing thing with this book is that I think great discussions could be had if only they were in a shared language. Maybe you can translate for me, reader.

This was also posted to my goodreads.

Book Review: Begin the World Over

 

Image: the cover of the book is a combination of photograph and illustration. The background is a very close up view of part of a fire with the flames concentrated most in the lower eft corner, turning to burning embers as they extend across the dark night of the page. Flying out from the flames are tons of bird silhouettes shifting color from red-orange closest to the flames to teal as they reach the edges of the page. A red rectangle across the top says "emergent strategy series" in white letters. "Begin the world over" is in large teal letters across the center. And, Kung Li Sun's name is in white letters at the bottom.

Kung Li Sun's Begin the World Over is described as a "counterfactual" novel about the insurrection that resulted in the creation of Haiti. I am not a scholar of rebellions enacted by enslaved people throughout USA history, but I am interested in their stories, especially those that so often go untold. I am not sure if it's common to be ignorant about this particular uprising or not, but I was. Since the book is described as "counterfactual," I assumed initially to believe that the story was purely fiction. However, once I started the book, I realized just how much of it was true. The exact minute events and conversations may not be, but the people are very real. Sun tells us as much when they introduce the book, stating: "Characters are, by and large, real people, acting within the bounds of available evidence."

Knowing this, I approached the story as a historical fiction. Yet, as it went along, I still found myself fascinated and surprised by the extremely interesting characters. I eventually started googling them to figure out what parts were real and a hell of a lot of what occurred in this book was recorded throughout history. In particular, I was very excited by the fact that we meet multiple characters who transcend the bounds of gender conformity and heterosexuality. Romaine was the first character I ended up googling, when she is described as being born male but adopting the identity of a woman through inspiration and dedication to the virgin Mary. To call her a trans woman would be making assumptions about this interesting presentation that may be something more complicated and or fantastical, hence my language in the previous sentence. There is also some brief but passionate gay male action going on that I could not find evidence for in my very brief googling. It made sense nonetheless due to assumptions made historically about James Hemings' "fluid" sexuality.

These things among many other are what made this rebellion story stand out to me. Of course, LGBTQ folks have always existed, but they are often erased in these histories or at least these parts of their lives are. We also meet a great many maroons sharing space with Creek indigenous people. There is discussion about divisions among the indigenous between those like Red Eagle and Sehoy who will do anything they can to cooperate with and protect liberated slaves and those who would turn them in or worse in exchange for protection of their tribe from white slavers. This is also a real collaboration that happened throughout many revolutions and also in day to day life- maroons and indigenous people cooperating and living together on the margins of colonized and stolen land.

The story itself is exciting. I sometimes have trouble getting into period pieces and historical fiction simply because it's not my favorite type of fiction, but this book drew me in quite early. Sun manages to navigate the stories of many characters and their histories in ways that are both expansive and easy to follow. I felt as if I was along for the ride. I am keeping this vague to avoid spoilers, but I will say that, from what I gathered in my brief searches, the arc that the author chose to give James Hemings is the one that diverges most from recorded history. James Hemings met a tragic and lonely end in real life and this story gives his legacy redemption and a chance at a different timeline. I almost wish I had not looked him up, but at the same time, find the way his story was rewritten for him to be quite beautiful.

This is Kung Li Sun's first novel and I would definitely read something from them again. It was exciting, creative, engaging, and straight up fun at times despite taking place in such a torturous era full of horrific histories. It is an excellent reminder of what people can achieve together even in the most oppressive circumstances. I also really love the cover design. It combines destruction and liberation in a way that does the story justice.

This was also posted to my goodreads.

Book Review: A Profession without Reason

Image: The cover of the book is a white background with a black squiggly lined jumble that ends in an arrow pointing upwards. Below that in black letters is, "A profession without reason." Below that in red letters is, "the crisis of contemporary psychiatry untangled and solved by spinoza, freethinking, and radical enlightenment." Below that in black letters is, "Bruce E. Levine."
 

It would be impossible to review Bruce E Levine’s A Profession without Reason without acknowledging my own relevant life experiences. This is going to be a long review not as tailored to the shorter attention span of review sites and blurbs. In an attempt to keep a long and complex history at least mildly reasonable in length, I will try to be as general as I can and keep the personal history in italics in case you want to skip ahead. I am also going to analyze much more of the book in specifics, which also adds length:

I have had a personal relationship with psychiatry since age 9, an educational relationship since age 17, and a professional relationship since age 24. The latter two ended years back due to worsening disabilities, but my personal relationship remains ongoing. I am 39 years old.

Many of my friendships, most of my romantic partnerships, and both sides of my blood-related family are riddled with suffering through drug and other addictions and/or multiple mental health struggles. I have also been part of radical mental health and psychiatry-critical (a term I am using to differentiate from anti-psychiatry like that of scientology) movements in big ways due to abuses and failures I have endured off and on since childhood. In adulthood, I was forced to reexamine my views when my closest family member began suffering from severe psychosis, rife with terrifying delusions, hallucinations, and other hellish experiences, which eventually involved the authorities being called multiple times and forced hospitalization, no matter how hard I personally tried to avoid that. I was previously hard-line against these coercive methods. I was forced to reexamine those reexaminations when the coercion didn’t work either, causing even more fear and mistrust, leading that person to disappear from my life for a period of years. However, I cannot look back and see any other way things could have gone in those moments. Not long after that, unrelated to this, another immediate family member took his own life.

I eventually found the formerly mentioned family member and she is again part of my life, but still suffers today and refuses all medical treatment despite desperately needing it for physical health problems.I remain in various forms of treatment and out of work due to both physical and mental health problems. I cannot take psych meds due to lack of improvement (with every class of drug under the sun) coupled with extreme and often dangerous side effects and usually have to assertively defend this boundary with every clinician. I do not have a solution or answer to any of these problems, but there have been small improvements that have come from both inside and outside mainstream clinical psychology. There is much much more.

I am not super fond of writing all of that on the internet, though it is not the first time. The reason I am doing so is to share an account of something that is real life- not the often touted polar opposites on some ridiculous spectrum of “mainstream psychiatry is the god emperor and you are crazy and ignorant for refusing to go along with it” or “psychiatry is all horrible authoritarians who just want to poison your beautiful freedom and creativity so they can make big pharma money.”

When I first started this book of Levine’s, I worried that it was leaning too hard into the latter. Because I have seen what anti-psychiatry without other solutions in place can do, and how it can often lead to the same places as authoritarian psychiatry in the end or worse, I felt myself resisting hard against Levine’s criticisms and discussions. Because I have read that, for people suffering psychosis in particular, the longer they go without treatment, the poorer their recovery will be, I fear the criticism of psychiatry that I use to hold close and have no trouble agreeing with. While I agree that psychiatry has not made very good progress, that many larger messages about psychiatry and medication’s effectiveness are either myths or sales pitches for drug companies, and that many professionals are afraid (just like I am) to trust their patients or themselves over the system, I also worried at times that he was cherry picking data or being way too general in his claims. He has a ton of citations, but at first they seemed to only come from a few of the same books sharing his message. (This changed later in the text.) I found myself saying, “ah yes, I remember when I saw through rose colored glasses and believed this sort of thing, but what pray tell are you supposed to do when someone is truly in danger, is endangering others, is living in a persecutory hell, and who thinks all of that is real? Is that really freedom?” I dug my nails in and stuck with Levine and I would recommend that any other reader do the same if they end up feeling the same uneasiness that I was. He was pushing the buttons that I would have loved someone to push years ago before life had beaten me down this much. I am glad I held on, because honestly, he won me over by the end. I think this book should be critical reading for pretty much anyone, especially those in educational, clinical, and/or research psych* and neuro* fields. Even if you aren’t persuaded like I was, you should welcome the challenge and exercise in open-mindedness.

I won’t spend much time with the parts about Spinoza in this review, even though they are a huge part of the book. This is in part, because it’s just not that interesting to me aside from saying, yes, this dude had some liberating ideas for SOME European MEN way back in the day. I left myself asking all throughout the book, “yes, but where are the women- especially non-European, white women- in Spinoza’s equation?” only to discover on the last two pages that he did not believe they deserved equality. Levine is a little critical of this glaring flaw, but is also obviously sweet on Spinoza, so he tries to save his #problematicfave by acknowledging the time period and saying that, if Spinoza were to meet his female scholars of today, perhaps he would have changed his mind. I am sorry, did smart women not exist until today? And should a man this apparently brilliant and free thinking only find himself able to see women as human when they praise his own work? Levine definitely speaks to his own blind spots in this, and it honestly irked me , but I will leave it at that because you could easily remove all of the parts about Spinoza from this book and still have an interesting piece on psychiatry and alternative ways of thinking.

Now, onto the nut-meat and potatoes of these arguments: Levine discusses several studies in which treatment outcomes were poorer in wealthier nations with higher hospitalization and psychiatric medication uses than they were in less wealthy nations with less medication use. He also talks about how, even though psychiatry has progressed in its development of many new drugs and treatments, mental illness is on the rise and the DSM continues to be expanded upon to (what I agree is) a ridiculous extent- pathologizing any deviation from the norm. Correlation does not imply causation, he acknowledges. But, this is an interesting thing I have seen brought up regularly by people critiquing psychiatry and medication. When my brain was pushing back, it was saying, “yes, and stigma may have also been reduced, healthcare access increased, and thus due to accessibility more people sought care and increased the amount of illness in statistics even though people have been struggling all along in silence. There are a number of reasons these events could have taken place this way.”

Thankfully, Levine did not make the same mistake others who cited these studies in brief passing have. He told me the same thing a (human) neuroscientist friend of mine did when I asked his thoughts about it. Said friend once worked in a schizophrenia lab and learned that in China there were better outcomes regarding schizophrenia because family and community were more important in the collectivist culture being studied and thus, people took care of their loved ones during psychotic episodes instead of being driven by fear and assuming only psychiatrists and hospitals could deal with them. This resulted in better recovery times and little to no reliance on forced hospitalization and medication.

Levine talks extensively about how community support and financial aid are far more critical in terms of recovery than medication or hospitalization. But, my mind was still pushing back when he seemed to claim that drug companies had a hand in skewing many studies, almost seeming to suggest that no studies existed showing that psych meds work. I think this may have just been poor organization, because as the book progresses, he directly addresses some studies in which antidepressants, antipsychotics, and other drugs are deemed effective. A flaw of many of them that he points out is that the effect is not much more than placebo, even if it is statistically significant. This is relevant because, as anyone who has been on a plethora of psych meds knows, the side effects can be life changing and life threatening at times. Those factors combined with the possibly long term reduction in recovery rates mean that a mildly significant result doesn’t mean much at all in the grander scheme of things. If you’re going to get 10% better from the drug but feel 65% worse physically, that’s not really a success story. When I was told- even by folks on the icarus project boards who had dealt with psychosis- that forced hospitalization and meds were all that worked for them when their symptoms were severe, I took their word for it thinking I had been stupid for trying to find other ways to help my aforementioned family member. In hindsight, was that what worked because in western countries where most of us were from, that’s often all there is aside from wandering the streets alone or ending up in prison?

Further along in the book, he discusses research that reported a favorable drug result. But, the discussion of the results (which are rarely if ever reported in mainstream media or clickbait titles with paywalls) showed a more complex reality. The people achieving success were also receiving housing and other forms of assistance. It is a no brainer (pun maybe intended?) to say that, having stable housing vs houselessness or incarceration is likely going to foster more stability in one’s mental health. Other predicting factors for good mental health outcomes are safety from abuse and violence, financial security, work or other fulfilling responsibilities, friend/family support, and so on. All of these things make perfect sense, but as Levine states, "While psychiatry claims to have a "biological-psychological-social" model, the flow of dollars dictates bio-bio-bio research and treatment. Psychological, social, cultural, and political causes...receive significantly less consideration. By paying scant attention to societal and political causes, the societal status quo is maintained, which benefits those at the top of the societal hierarchy."

Levine makes a comparison between the pathologizing of LGBQ people- homosexuality in particular- and people suffering psychosis. I found this offensive. Not because oh psychosis bad, gay good, or because there’s never any overlap, but because comparisons like these do a disservice to the unique experiences of both LGBQ people (we did not even discuss the T, yet) and people dealing with psychosis and related experiences. To be frank, someone I know believing the government is giving them brain damage by projecting microwaves into their head because of the poetry they write on their personal computer is not anything like the experience of someone being attracted to or falling in love with the same gender. The latter is pretty damned simple to figure out and, when acted on with consent of all parties, is not dangerous. The former caused the person I am referencing to be unable to drive safely, have a conversation with a stranger, or even sleep or eat. I understand the drive to make comparisons in order to draw people to one’s side or to make a point, but I can speak from experience making the same mistakes in a variety of ways: it usually obscures the real issues and turns off the reader.


The rest of Levine’s discussions about the pathologization of radical action or normal human variations of thought and behaviors were excellent, not only because they did not rely on false equivalencies. The chapter Tractatus Psychiatrico-Politicus is particularly good. I have a ton of page flags throughout the book, but ended up just flagging this entire chapter when I realized that I wanted to quote the entire thing. It is quite true that all throughout history from the beginning of any sort of attempts to understand human thought and experience, marginalized and oppressed people have been pathologized. These include but are not limited to aforementioned sexuality, “drapetomania” applied to enslaved people who escaped, the increase in diagnoses of schizophrenia among Black activists during the 1960s civil rights movements, experimentation on intellectually disabled people, Jews, and many others during the nazi era holocaust, the forced sterilization of disabled, poor, and/or people of color throughout eugenics movements, and (not mentioned in the book, but added by me,) “zoophil psychosis” applied to people who historically believed in nonhuman animal liberation. These and many other horrific histories of all forms of modern medicine- not solely psychiatry- should always be enough to cause us to keep our minds open to critiques of the system. Even today, shadows of these things remain, even inside people who find themselves horrified by these histories.

A final note: I did not realize until 90% of my way through the book that I had not had to deal with triggers regarding glorified details of nonhuman animal abuse for psych* or neuro* discovery purposes. Despite it being perfectly possible and preferable, to compose a text about human psychology without including animal abuse, many writers do so with cold detachment because they are falling in line with the norm, trying to stay on supportive terms with their colleagues, lack an understanding of human studies or the flaws with translational research, or because they just don’t care about ethics and other animals as much as they care about their citation list. We do read about horribly unethical human experimentation, but this is done in order to further support Levine’s points about how pathologization is used as a tool of oppression by governments, doctors, and scientists in supremacist cultures and movements which is very different. Levine being a “free thinking” psychologist probably served him well in these regards, though I can’t claim to know his intentions regarding a focus on human research (other than to say, because it makes the most damned sense.) I would love to be able to read more books about human (or other animals) minds without having to sit through, “wasn’t it so awesome when this brilliant science man electrocuted dogs or injected acid into rats or separated baby monkeys from their moms or induced horrifying brain injuries, etc? WHAT A GUY.”

All in all, I enjoyed this book, learned a lot, and it changed my mind about quite a few things. It also offered me a little bit of a reprieve from the guilt and pressure caused by systems expecting easy solutions to complex problems. No wonder I did not and often do not know what to do. It takes a village, and all that. I also read Levine’s previous book, Resisting Illegitimate Authority, but liked this one much better. I can see were the author has learned and grown from his last work and that is always a good thing.

This was also posted to my goodreads.

Book Review: Manhunt

Image: The hilarious cover of this book is a dark navy blue background. In the center is a netted bag of two apples positioned to resemble testicles. Across the top in scrawled white letters is "Gretchen Felker-Martin." Across the bottom in larger scrawled yellow letters with tinges of red splatter is "Manhunt." Below that in small printed letters is, "the end of the world is nuts."

Manhunt is not necessarily what I would call an “enjoyable” book. It’s hard to apply such a word to any sort of post apocalyptic horror story, especially when so much of it mimics a reality that hits close to home. Of all post apocalypse scenarios, for me, zombies are the least likely and as a result, the least scary. What is appealing and truly scary about post apocalypse stories, is how regular people act. Now, we could think hard about how to truly conceptualize a world like this with an optimistic lens involving room for some sort of utopia. But, most of us alive in the world today know that even if we find a space for utopia, we’re gonna have to fight for it.

The description for Manhunt says, Y the Last Man meets The Girl with all the Gifts and I both agree and dislike this comparison. First off, I think this book is so original and well written in its telling of Trans, Queer, and LGB stories in this unreal post apocalyptic horror landscape that it stands on its own. However, I see how both of those comparisons fit. The differences are first off that both of those books are written by men. In the film version of TGWATG, Melanie is Black making the end of the movie an original fantastical liberation story for the little zombie hybrid children. In the book, Miss Justineau is Black and the little girl is a blonde white girl, so the story isnt quite as subversive though I guess there’s a grey area in who the monster is portrayed as. The YTLM books are full of problematic elements based on chromosomes both because it’s a dated series and Brian K Vaughn (despite my love for may of his works like Saga) has a history of writing broey things sometimes. The TV show tried but could not correct these things and thus only lasted one season (but, I also admit I liked the show and both the book and movie of TGWATG because I’m p r o b l e m a t i c.)

Manhunt is different. Manhunt conceptualizes a scenario that actually makes sense and is as realistic is it could be where a zombie-adjacent plague affects people who are testosterone dominant, allowing for a complex scenario where it is predominantly cis men who die or are turned into ravenous rage zombies and also some hormone deficient trans women and hormonally transitioning trans men and others who don’t stop T in time- mostly before the plague is understood. It is also a scenario where trans men who stop T can survive and remain as authentic male characters, trans women can survive if they are able to supplement hormones (often in a disgusting way mind you far worse than horse urine or synthetics,) and still remain authentic women characters, and cis women TERFs are emboldened in their war against trans people- particularly trans women- with the plague as a convenient pretext. This is the Y the Last Man that today’s world really deserved if we are gonna insist on adding that title to the comparison.

The strengths of the book are not just in it’s creative conception of this scenario, but also in the characters. There are real descriptions of trans fears, loves, experiences, struggles, and comradery. It tells a story of horrors and abuses full of very difficult and often gorey occurrences. I often don’t stick around for things like sexual assault, gorey violence, etc, but I could not step away from this story because of the rich world it created outside of these things. The author creates a world where there is a real and nuanced war between trans women, their accomplices, and TERFs complete with TE radical feminist war cries and complex scenarios where you are both rooting for the trans folks side and also understand the people they are up against and how they came to believe the things they do. There are also moments of dark humor at the ridiculousness of it all. Sometimes all you can do is laugh to survive. Similar to TGWATG, there are monstrous things that are possible, but can be prevented allowing for the humanity of those at risk. But, unlike TGWATG, there is a simple solution to trans women getting to live free of becoming a threat and it’s just one simple chemical. The man zombies don’t need to take over the world. But, neither do trans women or TERFs. 

 I am not going to tell much more of the story than that because I want to avoid spoilers. But, overall this book is a great read if you can stand all of the truly horrific elements including sexual and other violence, trans antagonism, disgusting gore, and lots of dysphoria. 

This was also posted to my goodreads.