Book Review: ¡No Pasaran!

The cover of the book is an image of a wall with the remnants of multiple torn down posters and stickers attached. Over top is a sticker that is a black circle surrounding a red center. In the black is the title of the book in white stencil style letters. In the red is a white antifascist symbol of three arrows pointing downward to the left. Across the center are black silhouetted marchers holding banners and flags. 

¡No Pasarán!: Antifascist Dispatches from a World in Crisis, edited by Shane Burley, is a brick of a book, and for good reason- it collects a wide variety of anti-fascist voices from various backgrounds and locations around the world. I have always really enjoyed Shane Burley's work. I like his writing style and find his books and pieces engaging, but also have learned a ton about the diversity of far right and other movements therein. This book offers that same diversity for anti-fascist movements while also having the meticulous editing found in Burley's other works. Burley's own pieces in the book are also fantastic (without dominating it or taking up too much space.) He and those who worked on this with him also reached far in their calls for contributions. While there are generally going to be a lot of entries from the USA when one works and lives in the USA, there are also contributions from and/or about various European countries including Greece, South Asian countries, Syria, and Brazil (pardon me if I have left anyone out.) 

One thing that stands out to me in this book is how diverse the writing styles are. There are interviews, historical essays, philosophical essays, manifestos, story telling, and more formats, each with their own voice. There are entries that feel like anyone from any background or education level could grasp them, including children. There was only one academic entry that I found to be so painfully jargony that I didn't want to finish it. The other academic essays are far more accessible. The interview questions were well considered and had engaging answers from a variety of organizers. There is decent LGBTQ representation and an important focus on transgender folks who are a current target of fascists in even more extreme ways than usual.

Some of my favorite entries involved discussions of niche subcultures that fascists attempt to co-opt (and why we shouldn't let them.) "Subcultural antifascism: Confronting the far right in heathenry and heavy metal," by Ryan Smith was one of my favorite entries in the book and I also enjoyed "Nazis don't get nice things," by Margaret Killjoy about the importance of generally combatting fascism in all (sub)cultural areas of life, rather than handing things over and moving on. "The meme alibi," by Margaret Rex was a painful case study of a specific person's descent from edgelord online to real life fash really made the whole book feel more intimate. There are others referencing subculture that are also excellent, but these were my favorites. I straddle multiple subcultural worlds, some of which have been used- successfully and not- by fascists for rebranding and recruitment. (I was also a complicated teenage edgelord, luckily before the internet immortalized my embarrassing mistakes, which I thankfully grew out of.) I have a tattoo of the overlapping pentagrams intentionally resembling a certain body orifice symbol for the very gay avant garde, industrial band Coil- who actually collaborated with fascist Boyd Rice before he revealed himself to be a trash fire racist. I no longer call that symbol "the black sun," because that term is synonymous these days with the sunwheel/sonnenrad (a completely different symbol/meaning favored by nazis, that thankfully looks very different.) Industrial music has also been a contentious ground with a vast array of people from the furthest left you can get to pieces of fashy, misogynistic garbage that like playing militaristic dress up. It's also a subculture that I will forever feel a part of. So, of course I feel resentful if someone paints any of these things with a fascist brush as I am sure plenty of people from other subcultures do as well. The idea that all occult, esoteric, dark music, religions/atheism, even veganism, and more just need to be handed over every time a nazi grabs for one bothers me quite a bit, especially due to how many people within those cultures are either targets of fascism or vulnerable to recruitment due to their marginalization by society. I of course concede that there are some things nazis and other fascists will have forever like the backwards swastika. But, I appreciate that there are more people than I realized defending their various subcultures, music scenes, and belief systems from fascist co-optation.  

This review feels like it should be longer for such a long book full of great contributions. Rather than writing a lengthy book report on each entry, I will encourage readers to seek them out for themselves. I can't think of a single bad essay in this book. It's definitely an effective balm for the wound that is the false public perception of "antifa" unfortunately crafted by many liberals and the far right. Also, it's another great cover design from AK press.

This was also posted to my goodreads.

Book Review: An Immense World

The cover of the book is a green background with white particles travelling up from the bottom, getting brighter as they go up. In the center at the bottom is a monkey's face looking upward toward a blue butterfly in the upper right corner. Across the center in large white letters is, "An Immense World." Above that in yellow letters is, "how animal senses reveal the hidden realms around us." Below the title is the author's name- Ed Yong- in yellow letters. In small white letters below that is, "pulitzer prize winning author of I contain multitudes."
 

I love learning things about the larger than human world. Behavioral, biological, ecological, and other sciences are fascinating. Unfortunately, reading about them is often an underwhelming, depressing, or angering experience. People who have never worked in the sciences sometimes think that the field is full of one dimensional humans who are pure geniuses and devoid of bias, pettiness, and egocentrism. These assumptions are not true because scientists are human beings. When humans observe and write about other animals- especially humans invested in continued exploitation and harm towards other animals- they tend to do them a great disservice. It is true that anthropomorphism can be a problem when we interpret the worlds of other animals. Not only does it spread false information, it can lead to humans harming, neglecting, or even killing other animals without intending to. That "smiling" dog might actually be showing signs of stress and pain for instance. And don't get me started on all of the animal abuse industries who use cartoons of said animals on their restaurant logo- serving up their own slaughtered and charred body parts on the grill.

A far larger problem however is anthropocentrism. Humans have historically assumed that other animals were less than us. That they had no feelings, no inner worlds, no cultures, etc. Some people who did assume animals could have these things still often looked at them through the lens of human abilities, ranking them next to ours when they didn't do as well and quickly forgetting about the times they did far better than us. Humans are not rational animals, as much as some like to pretend that we are, so of course we made these mistakes. 

In in Ed Yong's An Immense World, he breaks with the tradition of a lot of very anthropocentric science writing and attempts to examine the data on other animals in a way that truly showcases their abilities and senses- including the many that we humans do not have. He navigates the struggle humans have in comprehending the worlds of these animals. He had me hooked in his introduction where he states, "...this is not a book in which we childishly rank animals according to the sharpness of their senses and value them only when their abilities surpass our own. This is a book not about superiority, but about diversity." I believe he mostly succeeded in this task.

The book is not without its faults. Yong is pretty into accepting the status quo of captive animal research, vivisection, and other ways of causing harm to other animals for science. It seemed so obviously in conflict with the very thesis of his book to refuse to examine the state of animal abuses in science. The only time he does so is for the section on pain, but he mischaracterizes pain research as existing to improve animal welfare, which is patently false. It is true that he interviews a researcher who sought to show that fishes feel pain (which should have been obvious, especially for vertebrate fishes,) but the vast majority of pain research on other animals is to substitute research that is illegal to do on humans due to its cruelty. There is also the large amount of people specialized in harming other animals who wouldn't move on to humans even if it were ethical and possible. There is also another section where he refers to bats kidnapped from the wild as "spending a cushy summer" in the lab. He misses analyses of captive test animals refusing to do tricks for humans as possibly being due to stress and depression. Lastly, he refers to animals as "it" through the entire book despite knowing they are not objects. It was frustrating to see someone- so enamored with the great many feelings and senses that other animals have- choose to hold on to his cognitive dissonance when it comes to the sciences.

Even with some pretty large flaws- ones that I very rarely see science books without- this is one of the best science books on nonhuman animals I have read. There is a ton of information in here that I had never heard of. The entire book was fascinating, but I especially enjoyed the sections on electricity-based sensory experiences. I am also glad so much of the book focused on non-mammal marine life, given that this world is so alien to most humans.

Despite this book being about nonhuman animals, there is a very overt and important human element to it (in a good way.) We learn time and again how scientists who showed various senses and abilities in other animals were (and often still are) ridiculed. There are still willfully ignorant people who think fishes don't feel pain despite all evidence to the contrary, for instance. This calls attention to the long history of oppressive assumptions that have existed in the science and medical realms (against both humans and other animals.) Yong's attention to these details breaks with some traditions of only highlighting the victories and virtues in science and medicine (of which there are many, no doubt.)

Another thing that stands out about this book is Yong's inclusion of a large variety of human experiences. It is common for any book about the senses to default to sighted, hearing, non-disabled humans in discussion. Yong breaks from this unfortunate tradition. Regularly, in discussions of various senses, Yong makes a point to include Deaf, Blind, disabled, etc people in his discussions. He also says things like, "...since most women have two X chromosomes..." without missing a beat (which is trans and intersex inclusive.)

 An Immense World is a flawed but beautiful exploration of the greater than human planet. I hope that this book is a stepping stone for Yong in the direction of greater understanding and empathy for other animals as well as greater analysis of ethics surrounding the way humans treat them.

This was also posted to my goodreads.

Book Review: Trust Kids!

 

Image: The cover of the book is a navy blue background with a painting of large flowers growing upward with pink and purple petals and green stems. In the yellow center of the lower flower are lots of small figures of people playing. In the center of the upper flower is a blue tower. There are dandelion seeds scattered over the cover with people holding onto them, riding the wind. Across the top in large white letters is "Trust Kids!" Below that in small white letters is "stories on youth autonomy and confronting adult supremacy." At the bottom in very small letters is "Edited by carla joy bergman, Forword by Matt Hern."

Trust Kids, edited by carla joy bergman, is a collection of essays, poetry, interviews, and artwork by adults, kids, and whoever else is in between. The book offers a lot of thought provoking information to those of us who have grown up entrenched in adult supremacy and ageism (i.e. most of if not all of us.) They state in the introduction that this is not meant to be a parenting manual or a group of examples of how perfect parent and other adults got everything "right." Nonetheless, it does offer a lot of perspective shifting content that could help with those things. It did seem a like they could have reached further with the call for submissions. There were lots of repeat contributors, many from the editor's family and friends, (and two white rappers, what are the odds?) giving the book a bit more of a limited scope. But, that does not mean I did not get a lot out of it. 

Going into a book about trusting kids was a strange experience and an emotional one. I am a person who generally looks back on my youth with uneasiness at best. As a kid, I struggled immensely, was taken advantage of frequently, and really believed adult men when they told me I was "mature." I didn't think I should have been "trusted." When some authors suggested kids were as knowledgeable as adults, and that they could govern their own lives, I was baffled. As I read on though, I repeatedly was forced to revise what I thought was true.

In the end, what I gained from this book were convincing arguments that not trusting kids actually makes things much easier for predators and much harder for kids (and the adults who care for them.) When children and youth are considered, listened to, included, and allowed to govern their own lives within supportive communities, they are more likely to be open and honest about their needs, wants, and questions they may have. They are more likely to push past the shame or uneasiness if something bad has happened, rather than hiding it like so many kids do. They are also going to feel safer telling adults about their lives and will be far more receptive to adults who have treated them like human beings expressing their concerns. 

I am not a poetry person, so I never feel that I can say whether poetry is "good" because I usually don't "get" any of it. I really loved the visual art in this book. The interviews/conversations were hit or miss, but I really enjoyed "Creating a Web of Intergenerational Trust," by Maya Motoi in conversation with her parents in Japan. The academic leaning (but still accessibly written) essays near the end by Tobey Rollo and Stacey Patton were some of my favorites and brought in theoretical frameworks I had not encountered before. I am team "Magneto was right," so I was happy to see an essay featuring him as the true hero (even if I wanted more from it.) The best entry in the book though was Uilliam Joy Bergman's "Hold on to Your Child (Within.)" I am glad that they put it into the book early, because it really showed me a 17 year old who knows more than I do about a lot of things, helping me trust the process of the rest of the book.

The only thing I disliked about this book was the representation of mental health/illness, particularly in one interview/conversation - "Four Q's and a Poem" - that seemed clearly scripted by the adult involved in order to highlight themself. I was part of organizing a local Icarus Project chapter years back. I favor Mad Pride movements and understand very well the many abuses in and problems with psychiatry. But, this entry made mental illness seem like some voluntary acid trip or cosplay. I have come to believe that the truth lies somewhere between psychiatry and people who claim mental illness is just a personality quirk. When your loved one is living with unrelenting, torturous paranoid psychosis causing them to live in a disoriented hellscape and act accoringly, when you know someone with foster kids whose minds have been mangled by trauma, and when you know personally what it's like to have the sickest parts of your mind control you, the horrors are far more real. Basically, there are much better sources for understanding trauma and mental health struggle in youth and adults than whatever this was- including ones from founders of The Icarus Project.

Trust Kids! is an important collection that offers up ideas for a better world where each of us comes into it as a whole person, not one to be molded by adults (who apparently finished becoming whole people at some undefined point.) There aren't many books like this that approach these topics with diverse perspectives and great passion. I don't think I have ever read a book about liberating kids that is written in part by actual kids, and that's a real problem. I hope this sparks future conversations for all of our sakes. 

This was also posted to my goodreads.