"Absolutely what we need in these days of spreading gloom." -John Holloway, author of Crack Capitalism

"A guide to a fulfilling militant life." -Michael Hardt, co-author of Assembly

"Rigid radicalism" is the congealed and debilitating practices that suck life and inspiration from the fight for a better world. Joyful Militancy investigates how fear, self-righteousness, and moralism infiltrate and take root within liberation movements, what to do about them, and ultimately how tenderness and vulnerability can thrive alongside fierce militant commitment.

Carla Bergman co-edited Stay Solid: A Radical Handbook For Youth.

Nick Montgomery is an organizer and writer currently at Queen's University.

Autorentext

Carla Bergman: Carla Bergman has worked with youth in alternatives-to-education projects for over fifteen years. She co-directed the film: Common Notions: Handbook Not Required and co-edited the Stay Solid: A Radical Handbook For Youth.
Nick Montgomery: Nick Montgomery is an organizer and writer currently finishing a PhD in Cultural Studies at Queen's University. His work focuses on alternatives to the capitalism, gender violence, settler colonialism, and ecological degradation.
Hari Alluri: Hari Alluri, an award-winning poet, educator, and teaching artist, is the author of Carving Ashes (2013), The Promise of Rust (2016), and The Flayed City (2017)

Inhalt

Introduction
-- Intro to intro
-- Questions
-- Affirmative theory
-- Joy and the Spinozan current
-- Joyful militancy and emergent powers
-- Beyond optimism and pessimism
-- On anarchism
-- The beginning of a conversation
-- Structure of the book

Chapter 1: Empire, Militancy and Joy
-- Resistance and joy are everywhere
-- Sadness and subjection
-- Joy is not happiness
-- The power of joy
-- Militant about joy
-- Starting from where people find themselves

Chapter 2: Friendship, freedom, ethics
-- Introduction
-- Friendship is the root of freedom
-- From morality to ethics
-- What can friendship do?
-- Solidarity begins at home
-- The ethics of affinity in anarchism
-- Connecting Spinozan current to Indigenous resurgence
-- Friendship and freedom have sharp edges
-- The active shaping of our worlds together

Chapter 3: Trust and Responsibility as Common Notions
-- Trust and responsibility as common notions
-- (Mis)trust and (ir)responsibility under Empire
-- Empire's radical monopoly over life
-- Towards conviviality
-- Emergent trust and responsibility: three examples
-- Indigenous struggles
-- Anti-violence and transformative justice
-- Deschooling and youth liberation
-- The power of baseline trust
-- Infinite trust and responsibilities?
-- Holding common notions gently

Chapter 4: Rigid Radicalism
-- Introduction
-- It's those people
-- The paradigm of government
-- Decline and counterrevolution
-- The perils of comparing
-- Having good politics

Chapter 5: Sources of Rigid Radicalism, Sources of Joy
-- Introduction
-- Ideology
-- Ideology in Leninism
-- Ideology in anarchism
-- Critique of ideology as such
-- Undoing ideology
-- Morality, fear, and ethical attunement
-- Christian origins of morality
-- Morality in movements
-- Warding off morality with common notions
-- You're so paranoid, you probably think this section is about you
-- Lack-finding, perfectionism, schooling, walking
-- Radical perfectionism and paranoid reading
-- Holding ambivalence
-- The limits of critique: from paranoia to potential
-- Towards new encounters

Outro
-- Rigid radicalism can be hard to talk about
-- Three modes of attunement
Appendix 1: Feeling Powers Growing Within Yourself: An Interview with Silvia Federici

Appendix 2: Breaking down the walls around each other: the transformative power of trust - An Interview with Kelsey Cham Corbett

Glossary of Terms

Acknowledgements

Bibliography