Dead and Alive by Zadie Smith

        I can’t believe it’s already been five years since Zadie Smith’s very short collection of essays, Intimations (2020), rooted in experiences of the pandemic. With Dead and Alive, Smith returns with a set of essays on art, film, literature, politics, and life. There are some great insights, but I find myself even continuing to chase the glory of Changing My Mind, a set of essays that would now be graduating high school.

Zadie Smith, author and tenured professor of Creative Writing at NYU, has now gained enough prominence to be a household name—or at least one I hear regularly on TV. Changing My Mind is an incisive and illuminating set of essays, especially when discussing the works of Kafka or Nabokov or Forster or Hurston. It’s that close reading of literary works that has grips me, and in Dead and Alive, Smith remains at her best when discussing literature—I just wish she was a little more extensive in her commentary on specific works.

To that end, there are two parts that stand out. There’s a powerful essay exploring the life and career of James Baldwin as a queer man of colour focused on art within an atmosphere of social justice. She discusses the way he was attacked for his race, for his sexuality, and for his fiction while speaking to his power as someone who can explore the full range of human experience. Smith defends his ‘noncommittal’ stance and speaks to the power of fiction to help us understand one another and preserve a vision of the future.

In addition to her commentary on Baldwin, Smith provides obituaries for a number of famous authors—Joan Didion, Toni Morrison, Philip Roth, Martin Amis, and Hilary Mantel. The obituaries offer that which is best in Smith’s commentary: there’s a personal connection in these works that humanizes these literary giants, but also enough of a focus to explain, in brief, the significance of these authors’ works. With respect to Hilary Mantel in particular, Smith presents her as an unsung figure whose historical fiction, by Smith’s own admission, puts The Fraud to shame. That said, it was interesting to hear about her process (and also about her historical research for her most recent novel).

Smith doesn’t only talk about deceased authors, though: she also has an illuminating essay on the work of Egyptian novelist Ahmed Naji’s. The essay speaks to the liveliness of Naji’s Using Life while also speaking to the role of fiction in the world. It’s an enlightening work that speaks to the social norms and political ramifications of fiction. It seems odd to think that novels still have the power to spark such strong reactions—Naji was imprisoned for “violating public decency” with his book. Smith’s account of the narrative and accompanying reflections have piqued my interest in engaging with Ahmed Naji’s work, which I think is what good critics and bad censorship do. 

Throughout Dead and Alive, Smith makes some more broad observations about writing fiction. There are several references to the power of fiction as a means for embodying others and imagining possibilities for living. It’s a bit of a facile observation, but that doesn’t make it any less true. Where the conversation gets most interesting is when Smith explores the common concerns and feedback of her students. She says that the primary concern of writing students seems to be that the work is ‘true’. This then becomes a discussion about appropriation and writing and the imperative to ‘write what you know.’ There’s a pervasive mindset that people must only write from their own experiences and that writing gay characters as a straight person or racialized characters as a white person (and so on) is inherently problematic. Smith counters with the idea that we can be profoundly moved by the feelings of works, regardless of whether we are writing or reading from the same perspective. The essay echoes, in some ways, Alicia Elliot’s essay “On Seeing and Being Seen,” which essentially says that writing with love (about Indigenous people) is the key imperative, regardless of whether you occupy the same space.

Smith’s political work in this collection is similarly moderate. One commentator online has criticized Smith’s milquetoast liberalism, which I can appreciate. She refuses, for example, to commit to a ‘side’ in the Israel-Palestine conflict—but she doesn’t do so without nuance. She continues to emphasize the perpetual deaths that happen as we discuss the issues. In that essay, though, she also talks about the admirability of students who have something to risk in trying to get their Universities to divest in weapons funding. At the same time, she doesn’t like the way activists talk about Zionism as if it has always been the way it is now. To reduce Zionism to a singular, atemporal definition challenges activists’ critiques as empty sloganeering. In another essay, Smith talks about Trump’s AI projection of Gaza and connects it to the limited power of AI’s so-called imagination—in particular, she refers to the ‘entrance’ to Trump’s Gaza as a narrow archway that you are forced to conform to. It’s a moment of close reading that helps bridge her cultural studies background and political insights.

In Smith’s collection Feel Free (2018), she writes about the film The Social Network and that compelled me to watch it. I think the same is going to happen with Tár. Neither strictly literary or political, Smith’s work on the Cate Blanchett film addresses both. It was one of the most compelling standalone essays in this collection and speaks to the psychological complexity of the film, its commentary on gender issues, and the way the film speaks to the #MeToo movement and self-serving power. The way Smith dramatizes the summary and commentary compels me to watch the film, which as I always say, is an important part of criticism. I need to see how Todd Field addresses the ‘art monster’ trope.

Overall, I think this set of Zadie Smith’s essays is ‘good’ but not ‘great’. There’s probably something to say about the original inception of these essays. Most were originally published in, for example, the New Yorker (length constraints?), or delivered as a keynote speech (length constraints? audience considerations?), or as the introduction to a book. As a result, a lot of these essays feel like they don’t go quite deep enough to be as satisfying as Smith’s earlier essays, which felt more like peeking in on her lectures.

Regardless, I’ll never -not- read Zadie Smith essays. Happy reading!

Starting Somewhere: Community Organizing for Socially Awkward People Who've Had Enough by Roderick Douglass

It’s easy to feel defeated. The same fights have been happening for years. The world seems to keep getting worse. I think it’s pretty draining to see how limited the long-term change has been, especially when we reflect on the level of public discourse in the last decade. What can we do? How do we carry forward? It’s the need to address these questions that compels me to practical guides like Roderick Douglass’ Starting Somewhere: Community Organizing for Socially Awkward People.

Before diving into the review, I have two notes. One is that the book leans way more heavily on the community organizing piece and there’s very little by way of actually coaching socially awkward people to get involved. The other caution is that, in researching the author for the text, I encountered some controversy. There are some claims from roughly two years ago that the author is not supportive to queer Black folk and he maybe went missing for a while? The details are hazy and I haven’t been able to parse it out yet.

The book is a contemporary look at creating change within communities. The book moves through a few different phases and modes. Partly, it’s a manifesto of beliefs; partly, it’s a history of some activist movements in the United States and contemporary instances of, for example, police brutality; partly, it’s a personal memoir and reflection. Of course, it also sometimes reads like a listicle of rules for organizing.

The book starts off with an account of the author’s criminal past, running a CoinStar scam because the machines, at the time, all used the same keys. Douglass makes the case that this is a rebellion against capitalism. The anecdote is an engaging one to start the text.

From there, the book goes through some principles and practicalities for organizing community movements. Then, the text goes into some specific tactics for agitating. The book finally builds towards some discussion of common principles and values for guiding the work. I would say that the text gives more practical and applicable tips than some of the more philosophical social justice books I’ve read, which is a welcome change, even if I don’t entirely agree with the efficacy or viability of some strategies for myself.

One of the things I really appreciated about the book is the way Douglass frames how organizations should form and operate. Essentially, everyone needs to start small and go to community events. There’s an optimistic bent about going to community events that aren’t necessarily political in nature but that aim to address community needs—maybe it’s a fundraiser for building a new park, or maybe it’s a tree planting event, or maybe it’s a film screening followed by a discussion. These all become framed as places where people can find political affinities. Douglass discourages people from starting new groups—at least without starting by looking to see if any similar groups exist. The groups should all target particular community needs and address those first. Maybe the ultimate goal is to dismantle racism, but maybe the first step is just to replace racist graffiti on a particular wall downtown. Douglass also frames community organizations as fluid and dissolvable. That’s a really refreshing approach; I often feel like I need to be part of something eternal and everlasting, but Douglass suggests that the whole point of community groups is to do a job and then either update themselves or disband. It makes the whole idea of social justice seem much more manageable.

In terms of tactics, Douglass suggests everyone “lie, cheat, and steal.” He encourages that people lie to police, for example—whether it be about their name, or giving them the wrong directions when they see a teenager running away from them, and even going so far as to perjure yourself in court to let friends off the hook. The part about stealing is quite literal: Douglass goes through 22 tips for shoplifting effectively. I don’t really see myself taking this particular form of action, but I appreciated the cheekiness of making a whole chapter about how to be a better criminal. I’d have to do some more research to see how reliable the advice is. 

In another chapter, Douglass goes into the details for effective community organizing with clear, practical suggestions. The text is nothing if not accessible. There’s a number of ideas regarding everything from how to structure your meeting agendas, how to select meeting spaces, who to hire for supporting crowd control, where to get money from, and so on and so forth. The chapter reads largely like a checklist and I can imagine it being used as such.

The latter part of the book gets more philosophical in nature. There’s a relatively lengthy discussion of voting as a tactic. I have to admit I take some issue with his line of argumentation, but I can appreciate it nonetheless. His argument is that voting provides legitimacy to a system that is fundamentally unjust; all politicians, in Douglass’ view, are fascist. I understand not wanting to provide legitimacy to the system, particularly in a two-party system. Douglass disagrees with the idea of voting as harm reduction, but I just have such a hard time believing that there’s no difference between, say, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. Certainly, there are issues with Harris’ lack of care for the genocide of Palestinians—not that Trump cares, either. I just don’t believe that, had Harris been elected, Elon Musk and Doge would have been a thing or that our public discourse would be so openly racist, or that ICE would have been sent into major cities like a private militia. Voting isn’t going to change the system, and I hate the idea of providing legitimacy to it, but at the same time I can’t let go of the idea of harm reduction voting.

The ending of the book also goes into some more broad principles for organizing. For instance, about who to accept money from (or not), and how to manage the safety of members in groups. Douglass discusses the idea of crowdfunding and how to allocate funds directly to those most impacted. He also offers alternatives to raising money and focusing on tangible goods. He presents skepticism around NGOs and suggests that any group that has extra funds saved up is suspect: all money should be spent immediately on the projects the group has at hand (except, perhaps, legal fees). There’s then a whole section about the role of men within the movement and how becoming better partners and taking care of children can also free up space for their partners to lead revolutionary movements. Douglass discusses the necessity of holding men accountable for their actions when former abusers cannot be pulled from the movement entirely. I think reality gets messier, but Douglass’ optimism is fundamental to sustaining ourselves.

Overall, the book is an accessible outline for community organizing with its fair share of tips and anecdotes for how to effectively engage in community action. I appreciate its overall project: we are firmly rooted in the idea of praxis here, not too philosophical to be actionable. It seems like a worthwhile primer for people looking to get started in their communities. I’m sure there are some tips that you’d be able to apply in your own efforts.

Happy reading and happy engaging!

That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America by Amanda Jones

  About a month ago, I went to see a screening of the documentary The Librarians. The documentary is about the ways right-wing and white supremacist organizations have been infiltrating public and school library meetings to censor voices, especially those of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community and people of colour. I have a wild anecdote about the screening of the documentary, but I’ll save that for another time.

For now, I’ll focus on That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America by Amanda Jones. Jones features somewhat prominently throughout the documentary, and her memoir goes into some more detail about her experience as a librarian in America. Following a meeting at her public library board meeting where she spoke against censorship, she was viciously attacked online.

The attacks cast aspersions on her character and her career, despite the fact that she is a highly accomplished and decorated librarian. The attacks against her ranged from calling her a pedophile to death threats to insulting memes that circulated throughout the community. Even close friends were swayed, posting things like “I guess you never really know someone”. Jones discusses the devastating impact of online harassment on her life and the way she had to navigate her day-to-day life in response. 

The book has essentially three threads that Jones weaves together. The first is discussion of her personal life and career, including how her family responded to the attacks. The second thread is about her lawsuits in which she sued Ryan Thames and Michael Lunsford for defamation (she’s suing for one dollar and an apology). The third major thread is about the ongoing censorship war and the rise of right wing politics and the way and the reason white supremacists are trying to destroy libraries. I find the threads interesting in that order, moving from the specific to the systemic.

Jones’ storytelling is effective and accessible. It feels personable, conversational even. My main critique with the text is that, structurally, it hops around, which leads to some intermittent repetition. The book is largely chronological, with some time jumps or flashbacks. Part of me wonders if a more distinct vision for each chapter might have been more effective in the advocacy part of the book. The book is at its best when going beyond the personal into the more systemic factors, which I would have liked to see more of.

One example is the discussion of the lawsuit. Jones gives a rage-inducing account of being in court and not being listened to. In addition to the misinformation, Jones did not get to voice her concerns, and her initial suit was dismissed because she was classed as a public figure. Hearing about her lawsuit, I couldn’t help but wonder how similar cases have been addressed across the United States. I think getting into the grittier details of the legal fight would be engaging when considering the broader trends of online defamation and political attacks against public workers.

Of course, the most interesting layer to me is the way that politics has influenced public and school libraries. The debate around “appropriate” books hits close to home because I’ve faced a fair amount of controversy in the public education system. Some books get challenged for outdated perspectives while others get challenged for being “too woke.” What I find really compelling and sinister is the way right wing money funds and empowers people to challenge librarians. In particular, any books that feature queer relationships or are anti-racist in nature get challenged wholesale; lists and lists of books are sent out to right wing adherents to challenge. Groups like Moms for Liberty, while claiming to be grassroots, are actually funded by wealthy conservative donors and PACs. Jones touches on this, but that’s the kind of controversy I wanted to see more of. The story has the capacity to demystify the ways organizations like this operate and challenge the normalization of book bans.

That Librarian is a journey of one librarian navigating challenges to one of our most foundational institutions—libraries—and one of our most foundational habits as a species—reading. While I wish the text was a little more incisive about the trend of politics trying to ban books and the legal measures people can take in response, it’s a compelling and inspirational personal story. I hope it gives the courage to librarians and other public figures across North America to fight the good fight.

Keep reading and keep fighting!

Zero Point by Slavoj Žižek

  It’s been a while since I’ve read any of Slavoj Žižek’s work一by my reckoning, 2020 when I reread Welcome to the Desert of the Real in the hopes that it would help with my Master’s thesis for some reason. I’m revisiting some of his work via this short book of essays, Zero Point, which has proved serendipitous to some of my more recent reading memories, which I’ll circle back to shortly.

Zero Point is divided essentially in two sections. The first set of essays deals primarily with the (re)rise of Donald Trump from a Marxist-psychoanalytical lens. Of the early essays, the most interesting claim I thought Žižek presented was how the purported left has fed into the rise of Trump particularly by capitalizing on his flaws. Consider, for example, how late night comedians have routinely pointed to Trump’s personal and moral flaws. They’re not wrong about their assessment, but Žižek suggests that their form of critique actually exacerbated his supporters’ feelings of identification. Essentially, the argument runs that people identify more with others’ failures than with their successes, so that by highlighting all of Trump’s flaws, people came to see him as more reflective of their interests (while that factually remains untrue). 

Some of Žižek’s claims about Trump are frustrating and run counter to “common sense” understandings of political phenomena. In particular, Žižek objects to calling Trump a fascist and instead suggests that Trump is an extreme liberal on the grounds that he prioritizes letting big business do as they please. I’m not sure I agree, especially when considered in light of Trump’s tariffs. I also find some of Žižek’s claims about the Right and Left dubious. At one point he points to what appears to me a misinterpretation of the Left. I forget if he suggests a contradiction because the Left supports both Israel-Ukraine or Palestine-Russia; whichever the combination was, I think he’s wrong on that front. In other respects, Žižek is prescient. For instance, in one essay he predicts that the United States is setting up Iran to be their next enemy and tease war. And, well, here we are.

The second and more substantial section of the book is an exploration of the conflict in Israel and Palestine. Like the conflict, the inception of this Žižek collection requires some contextualizing. In 1949, a bedouin girl between the ages of 10-15 was gang raped and murdered by twenty men in the Israeli Defence Force. In 2017, Palestinian author Adania Shibli wrote the book Minor Detail based on the event, which I read by coincidence in 2024. In 2023, Shibli was awarded the 2023 LiBeraturpreis but the Frankfurt Book Fair ceremony at which she was to be honoured was “postponed” and then canceled with the excuse to not overshadow the then-recent Hamas attack against Israel.

Žižek’s collection of essays here is a response to these events, namely because he was delivering a speech at the Frankfurt Book Fair when he was heckled and ushered offstage. That piqued my curiosity. The essay is replicated in full at the end of the book and, honestly, it’s a lot less controversial than I expected. Essentially, following Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7th, Žižek suggests that we ought to also consider the plight of the Palestinians. He was told that this was not the time to talk about it.

So, when is the right time to talk about it?

Arguably, Žižek essentially takes a middle-ground. He opposes antisemitism, of course. He also opposes the slaughter of Palestinians. There are some controversial claims, like how Netanyahu (whom Žižek refers to as a war criminal) wants and requires war, how he is happy to have Hamas as an enemy that justifies all his own horrors. At the core, he suggests that mutual recognition is required to move forward, but that there are factors that obscure that possibility. Paradox runs through the text: Germany reinscribes antisemitism in the unequivocal support it provides to Israel while the United Nations, precisely because they have no power and are not formally accountable, provide the hope of speaking the truth. Solutions are not forthcoming.

I appreciate that Žižek has a degree of focus in this collection, even if his usual topic-hops still crop up. What is a bit of an issue is that Žižek repeats himself across the essays, even going so far as to repeat some anecdotes word for word (e.g. the one about Biden embarrassing himself by claiming to have seen pictures of beheaded children following Hamas’ October 7th attack only for Israel to admit that no such pictures ever existed). Žižek has always had a bit of a repetitious streak; across books, including this one, he repeats the same jokes to illustrate points. The repetitiousness becomes more noticeable in a short collection. Yet, for all that repetition, there is very little by way of definitive, declarative, unambiguous conclusions. The essays do not feel actionable in the same way that more polemical texts sometimes do.

I suppose I’m also ambivalent. Žižek’s work often inspires reflection, and he’s not someone I can wholeheartedly endorse nor dismiss out of hand. His perspective is worth considering and, for a few hours’ worth of reading, Zero Point offers a reasonable, if repetitious focus. It’s contemporary and timely—a blessing and a curse for a work of philosophy. 

Happy reading!

One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad

When reading nonfiction, I don’t necessarily have an expectation of stylistic flair. I think of data, of facts, of figures. I think of research that makes the case for how things are and how things need to be done differently. Every once in a while, though, I’m astounded by the power of words as people tell real stories about the world. Such is the case for One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This by Omar El Akkad.

Born in Cairo, El Akkad then grew up in Qatar before moving to Canada. One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This is an account of his personal experiences, his work as a journalist and author, and it all runs parallel to his outrage about the ongoing genocide in Gaza. I love the balance of the personal and broad focus of the book. Discussing his own history, his concerns for his daughter, and his own personally quandaries with navigating the literary institution, is beautifully rendered. The context for the book, the destruction of Palestine, is rendered with unflinching courage.

Incidentally, there was a quote from the book that really resonated with me. He discussed the images of the starved and dead that are readily available for Palestinians. He gives an account for the images in grim detail and offers a justification for forcing people to look: when we close our eyes, it flexes the muscle to close our eyes and ignore what is happening; when we keep our eyes open, that flexes another muscle—the one that compels us towards action. Apologies that I don’t have the exact quotation (I forgot to take notes, I was so engrossed and read the book in about two sittings). That quotation, if nothing else, is something I will continue forward with in my life. I want to be the kind of person that flexes the muscles that keep my eyes open. That takes action in small ways until it becomes reflex.

I appreciate the candor of Omar El Akkad’s feelings of hopelessness. I think it’s a pervasive feeling right now. We keep advocating, and progress, at the best of times, does not seem to be forthcoming—and, at the worst of times, we seem to be backsliding. El Akkad wrestles with the question: why bother writing? What’s the point. Nothing matters. El Akkad points out, though, how everything seems futile until we can look back and see that it made a difference. Sit-ins during the American Civil Rights movement weren’t seen as being useful in the moment, but long after the fact we look back as though they were an integral stage in the movement. So, the small things we do now are something. I hope.

The book hits home in particular because of my interest in literature. El Akkad is an author, of course, and there are several parts of the book that address his writing career. For instance, he gives an account of his book American War (written before Trump’s first election, published after) being optioned for a film and then being dropped because the actual political landscape shifted. El Akkad also talks about the way the literary institution routinely ignores the plight of Palestine. One example that caught my attention is the brief reference to Minor Detail by Adania Shibli, which is a novelization of the true story of a gang rape and murder of a young Arab girl by Israeli soldiers. Shibli won for the Literaturpreis award but the organizers chose to “postpone” the award ceremony, citing it as a “joint decision” with the author in response to the “war between Israel and Hamas” (El Akkad points out that it wasn’t and that the “postponement” turned into a cancellation). The literary world saw the book and flinched. Closer to home, El Akkad talks about the protest at the Giller Prize dinner where protestors interrupted because of Scotiabank’s stake in Israeli arms manufacturing. El Akkad talks about the invite to attend the dinner; he talks about not going at the last minute; he talks about the lack of reaction, the lack of voices added to the protest, and he wonders how he would have participated. I appreciate how El Akkad is so honest about the challenges of the writing world—everyone is barely scraping by, and the allure of a major award can be truly life changing, but at what cost?

He emphasizes that in order to protest the ongoing genocide, there are several options. One that seems to gain favour is ‘negative’ participation. That is, withdrawing from the game entirely. This means things like arts institutions refusing to accept money from people invested in the Israeli war machine. Corporations and politicians want their names on awards to give themselves legitimacy and a representative response is to just not let them be involved. It seems inconsequential, but, as El Akkad points out again and again—all these minor youth movements seemed inconsequential until their results were achieved.

The way El Akkad uses language is so powerful; I really ought to have taken notes. I can’t speak highly enough of the prose. What made the book even more engaging for me are the familiar historical and cultural touchstones peppered throughout the book. At the personal level, El Akkad talks about being a student at Queen’s, my alma mater, and living in Kingston. He talks about Guantánamo Bay, which was a watershed moment in my political awakening. As an extension, he draws on the story of Omar Khadr, whom I was very lucky to learn about through my grade 12 politics teacher. Reading One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This provided additional context to my formative years and the way anti-Arab and Islamophobic perceptions infiltrated the Canadian mainstream—incidentally, El Akkad brings together issues intersectionality, discussing the plight of Canada’s Indigenous people as a parallel to the Palestinian experience.

The central conceit of the book is that Western liberalism is ineffectual in standing up to injustice because the privileged will not forgo their own self-interest. No one wants to be vulnerable. No one wants to be accountable. No one wants to risk their own position. While horrible things are happening, Western liberals pay lip service to the idea with sympathetic nods but will fail to take a stand. It’s only when it’s too late to do anything that we will revere those who protested. El Akkad writes that “While the terrible thing is happening—while the land is still being stolen and the natives still being killed—any form of opposition is terroristic and must be crushed for the sake of civilization. But decades, centuries later, when enough of the land has been stolen and enough of the natives killed, it is safe enough to venerate resistance in hindsight.” The political cache to be gained by looking back and decrying that which we did nothing to prevent is cynical and embarrassing. Denouncing events like the genocide in Gaza become a matter of expedience, we “say the right thing” long after we have any chance to do anything about it.

In a weird way, I find this book inspiring. It calls me out and I think it’s important to acknowledge how little I’m really doing to make an impact on world issues. I also don’t put my own livelihood on the line to take a stand. (There’s a silencing effect, even in education.) It does inspire me to do better and continue to build community around people who will not wait until Palestine has been totally erased from the map and then say, “Yes, that was too bad. I always knew that was bad.”

I really recommend this one. My review doesn’t do it justice and for that I apologize.

Happy reading and resisting.

On Tyranny: Expanded Audio Edition by Timothy Snyder

  I imagine many of you are already familiar with Timothy Snyder’s thin volume On Tyranny. As Snyder offers twenty lessons to help resist encroaching tyranny, it feels more than coincidental that the book was released just a month after the first inauguration of Donald Trump. Oh, timely. That’s the word. Timely.

Many of the lessons that Snyder offers are pretty straightforward. For instance, the first lesson is “do not obey in advance” and the second one is “defend institutions.” These are explicitly, obviously, political. Others are more surprising, and actually the reason that I read the book. A friend and colleague of mine pointed me towards the chapter “Make Eye Contact and Small Talk,” in which Snyder recognizes that engaging with our neighbours and community members in a casual way also offers us a way of disrupting tyranny by humanizing ourselves to one another and offering solidarity as we navigate the world.

Of the other chapters, one that stood out in particular was “Be Wary of Paramilitaries.” I’ll offer a quotation from the book here. See if you can spot any parallels to real lice. I mean life. Sorry, messed up IFE and ICE there for a second:

“When the men with guns who have always claimed to be against the system start wearing uniforms and marching with torches and pictures of a leader the end is nigh. When the pro-leader paramilitary and the official police and military intermingle the end has come.”

The chapter discusses how government wants to retain exclusive right over the use of violence. If other groups can use violence, it gets in the way of official government business. So, tyranny operates by creating and funding violent organizations that involve themselves in politics: “such groups can take the form of a paramilitary wing of a political party, the personal body guard of a particular politician, or apparently spontaneous citizens’ initiatives, which usually turn out to have been organized by a party or its leader.” I can’t help but think of all the people that have been emboldened to, say, storm the capital. Or, say, the “lone wolves” that are encouraged to take action against Democrats like Nancy Pelosi’s husband. Or, say, the private security details that removed Trumps’ opponents from rallies and all of the willing audience members who became part of the mob. Or, say, bringing in ICE and the National Guard against citizens without concern over due process. Encouraging the use of the 2nd amendment almost certainly enables the right to solidify their authoritarianism, rather than its supposed intent to resist tyrannical government.

Another lesson I found resonant was “Believe in Truth.” Criticizing power relies on having a basis of truth and it’s no wonder that the Trump administration, along with technogiant capitalists, want us to reject ideas of truth. If we don’t have a common understanding of truth, it prevents us from mobilizing against tyranny and exploitation. Snyder documents different ways that truth erodes:

1. “The first mode is the open hostility to verifiable reality, which takes the form of presenting inventions and lies as if they were facts.” I think we see this process everywhere. When talking to MAGA supporters, how many times have we watched the facts been declared as “fake news”? How many times have blatantly wrong views been supported by “do your own research” (i.e. don’t listen to the experts, listen to the random unaccredited people that I trust)? Snyder notes that on the campaign trail, 78% of Trump’s factual claims were false. But that’s not the point. The point is to destabilize what even counts as truth because that makes it easier for tyrants to exploit people. They have the freedom to pretend reality is false.

2. “Shamanistic incantation.” Snyder notes that the “fascist style depends on endless repetition designed to make the fictional plausible and the criminal desirable.” He refers to how Trump’s nicknames for his enemies displace his negative qualities elsewhere, but I’d argue that his slogans (“make America great again”) are repeated without true understanding of the true implications, or a lack of concern for nuance in any case. We see it in the talking points the press secretary refuses to deviate from. Repeat it enough, and it becomes true.

3. “Magical thinking, or the open embrace of contradiction.” Snyder gives the example of the campaign promises to cut taxes while increasing spending for social policy and national defence. There’s a blasé attitude that things will just work themselves out and people have to accept that all is possible. I would also point to all of the nonsense comedians-on-the-street point out to people at Trump rallies. For example, they’ll openly embrace the contradiction that Leftists are weak and effeminate and yet also the biggest threat to the state.

4. “Misplaced faith.” Need we even comment on the AI-generated images of a Godlike Trump? 

One area that I would maybe push back on Snyder a little bit is his assertion that one way of resisting tyranny is to be a patriot. I understand where he’s coming from—you’re a true patriot if you defend the place you’re from and your community. I think my sense of ‘patriotism’ has just been eroded through all the people that claim patriotism as a character trait. To me, patriotism as it is is primarily servant to the state, and the state is too often aligned with tyranny. But I get what he’s saying.

Of course, this edition of On Tyranny is also the expanded audio edition. While the initial book was maybe only a hundred pages, Snyder’s expanded edition goes on for hours more. It’s compelling that he applies the lessons of On Tyranny to the history of Ukraine and Russia. The specifics of the history were informative but I’m more interested in the ‘big picture’ concepts. In particular, the totalizing views of history. Tyranny relies on both the “politics of inevitability” and the “politics of eternity.” The latter is more immediately obvious with respect to Russia: Putin relies on Russia’s foundational myth, a myth for a moment in time that never really existed but nonetheless establishes the justification for invading Ukraine. The corollary is that all of history is inevitable. Everything must be that way and therefore all suffering and displacement of Ukrainians is necessary.

If you’re interested in politics and history, On Tyranny is worth a read. The original text is definitely insightful from a political standpoint and the expanded one is a better fit for history enthusiasts. Both are accessible to a general audience, so don’t be intimidated—and also, smile at your neighbours.

Happy reading!

The Story of Stuff by Annie Leonard

        We live in a world of stuff. Not waste, necessarily, but certainly close to it. The Story of Stuff by Annie Leonard is a book-length project that developed from a 20 minute animation about where our stuff comes from and the devastating environmental impact of rampant consumerism. Throughout the book, Leonard documents the life cycle of a number of consumer goods, including everything from plastics to books to electronics. In terms of breadth, it’s hard to think of another book that covers so much ground—even if the sections that truly shine are the ones that go into some more depth.

Because our society is structured such as it is, it will be hard to truly accept and live by the central tenet of the book: we need to consume less. You’ve likely heard of the despiriting statistics. I am particularly struck by things like “How Many Earths.” If everyone were to live as people do in Canada and the United States, we would need to have 5.1 Earths’ worth of resources. Meanwhile, Earth Overshoot Day is the day each year when we have consumed nature’s resources and start dipping into reserves. This year was July 24th, by the way—barely halfway through the year. The statistics are harrowing.

Leonard offers some resources to help to curb our consumption or to verify the ‘ethical’ production of various goods (including plastics, diamonds, and so on). Our everyday practices as individuals, though, are insufficient for the kind of change needed. Even our mantra of “reduce, reuse, recycle” only goes so far—and Leonard offers some compelling research about why recycling is actually the least effective and least important of the three. Recycling can be energy intensive and we need to get into distinctions between pre- and post-consumer recycling. Are the materials being used for the same kind of product? Are they being broken down and mixed into other forms for manufacture of other goods? At the end of the day, the only way out is to use less, but the existence of capitalism demands continually more production of goods.

Industries and policies need to change. It’s pretty disheartening that even when policies are brought into place by local or federal governments, they can still be superseded by global-level organizations like the WTO. The policies also demand enforcement that is not always forthcoming, though Leonard offers some wonderful examples of resistance. To that end, Leonard offered some really compelling commentary on the exploitation of Haiti, including the way the WTO’s regulations limit the viability of farming. Also, Philadelphia burned a bunch of waste in incinerators (don’t get Leonard started on incinerators!) and sent the ash to Haiti. This is not allowed, and the United States had to clean up the waste. Leonard documents going to the Mayor’s event in a kind of flash mob demanding action, and she followed a boat carrying waste to ensure they didn’t drop it anywhere it wasn’t meant to go. One port they stopped at mysteriously was ablaze and the waste had to continue its journey. Ultimately, they dumped it in the ocean—but they were brought to justice. Moments like that are inspirational, but we need continual pressure to ensure that polices are established and enforced.

The other two big ideas I think are worth exploring further are externalized costs and extended producer responsibility. As for externalized costs, those are all the resource costs that companies get away with using without paying for. For instance, the environmental costs or degradation to the natural world as a result of their manufacturing processes are not seen as something companies need to pay for. Essentially, the costs are externalized to communities that feel the impact while not impacting the company directly. As an aside, I appreciate that Leonard talks about economics and the GDP as an insufficient metric for measuring it. The GDP fails to account for resource loss and externalized costs and simplifies to the point of meaninglessness. The other key component that I think we need to advocate for is extended producer responsibility. This means that companies are responsible for the entire lifecycle of their goods. Environmental choices have often been displaced onto consumers (e.g. I could buy post-it notes or recycled post-it notes). EPR suggests that the company producing the goods needs to take responsibility for the post-consumer life of their products. Having EPR policies would be a complete gamechanger for how we create goods and distribute them.

Overall, The Story of Stuff serves as a great primer for key issues in consumption and environmentalism. The sheer number of topics Leonard covers—and the statistics themselves—are overwhelming. It’s unfortunate because on the one hand I want to really focus in on one aspect of waste and try to advocate for improvements, but the book also shows how interconnected all these policies are. It’s as though we need to take responsibility for everything because, really, we do. My hope is that having these conversations leads to direct action and I hope you’ll join.

Happy reading and advocating!

Stolen Focus: Why You Can't Pay Attention---and How to Think Deeply Again by Johann Har

    It’s no secret that every beep, boop, and buzz draws us away from our inner calm into a whirlwind of distraction. In that respect, Johann Hari’s Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention—and How to Think Deeply Again is nothing revolutionary. Anecdotally, you already know what Hari confirms with research: modern life is comprised of interruptions that prevent us from thinking deeply. Hari sites studies about the average number of interruptions we face, the length of time it takes to enter a flow state of thinking, and the ultimate inefficacy of so-called multitasking. In addition to the research, Hari provides relatable personal anecdotes to help characterize the phenomenon.

    Whenever I read nonfiction, I think about titles and subtitles. I think about the promises they offer. Stolen Focus offers a promise to think deeply again and, technically, Hari delivers on that promise. The final chapter offers a primer on how to change habits in order to maintain focus—things like digital detoxing and setting times for when you’ll allow yourself to check your e-mail. That said, though, even Hari recognizes that personal changes are not enough. Like recycling in response to climate change, the onus (and the shame) is displaced onto individuals rather than those who are truly responsible for stealing our focus. 

    To Hari’s credit, he places the phenomenon in the broader technological and political contexts from which it has arisen. What’s at the heart of this problem? The same thing as for all problems: capitalism. Take, for instance, Google, whose business model is based on maintaining the engagement of its audience. They design ways of keeping you focused on their own products and services (one need look only so far as its new “AI Summary” feature—it’s there so that you don’t actually have to click away from Google itself). Hari recounts how one employee at the company suggested scaling back on push notifications—rather than sending an alert to your phone every time you receive an e-mail, you’d instead receive an update once a day—and he was essentially laughed out of the room. Apply that, and other tactics, to an already vulnerable populace that is burnt out from overwork, stress, poor diets…it’s a recipe for manipulation.

    To that end, Hari notes that personal commitments to improve our focus are insufficient and to suggest that we can simply restore our own focus offers us a “cruel optimism” in light of more systemic issues. The problem with systemic issues, though, is that they have far-reaching implications for mass-society and politics in particular. When people are not able to focus, they are not able to organize. Yet, all of the major issues in our society require collective, deep thinking. If we are to solve the environmental crisis, we will need to coordinate our efforts and communicate with one another and take action over long periods of time. That cannot be done if the threshold of our focus is a thirty second TikTok.

    This all plays into the hands of corporate interests and exploitative politicians. When nobody has the capacity to think through the implications of policy, do the research, fact-check politicians’ claims, it leaves the most vulnerable unprotected from policies that are actively harmful. Again, this is nothing surprising or even controversial.

    Stolen Focus delves into the medicalization of inattentiveness (i.e. through our collective response to ADHD). Essentially, the issue is that we don’t look enough at root causes and instead try to medicate the problem away. While medication can be effective, Hari’s approach is more of socio-psychological one that critiques the factors that contribute to a rise in inattention, including factors such as poor diet, constant distractions via media, and so forth. We’re at a cultural moment where ADHD is increasingly “normal” and yet there are a number of mitigating factors we might consider to help to manage it. This part of the book was of less interest to me, but still offered some valuable insight into both science and culture.

    All things considered, Stolen Focus likely won’t revolutionize your thinking. It will affirm your experiences, give you the language with which to discuss them, and inspire you to change some habits to restore the attention you deserve—and hopefully inspire you to change the world in turn.

    Happy reading!