Alex Gorrion

“The future is merciless, and there’s no place for us there.”

I like reading theory and culture analysis. This world is often mundane, but theory can enchant things with meaning, unveiling flows of power and affect around every corner. It’s exciting for me to have new ways of thinking about the world and my life.

That said, analytical writing about contemporary pop culture is usually academic, and/or written with painfully obvious social justice ends. So, I was stoked to see Little Black Cart publish a book of essays mostly from The Anvil, an anarchist print journal about pop culture. They sent me a free copy in exchange for writing an honest review on Goodreads.

The essays in this book were written specifically by Alex Gorrion, apparently a prolific contributor to The Anvil. Besides culture analysis, they write critically about science, epistemology, and apparatuses, the first two being particularly interesting to me. It’s helpful that they write theory well, and don’t aim to impress via jargon and or fall prey to hip theory lingo. They actually critique The Coming Insurrection for being a form of fashion. Their sentences are not usually too long, and I rarely had to stop and re-read multiple times to get their meaning. For folks who don’t read theory, this might be a bit challenging, but I really enjoyed it.

“Saying Goodbye” reminds me of what I like about Adorno’s Minima Moralia. In both, it seems the author is theorizing their experiences, not to build a political program, but just for the sake of reflecting and thinking through their life. It was smart, relateable, and, unlike Adorno, quite touching.

“Has the Insurrection Come Yet?” is one of the highlights of the book. Gorrion provides a nuanced critique of Tiqqun/The Invisible Committee, pre-ZAD treachery. They point out, based on the group’s own admission, that only through distance and lack of context can the Committee make claims about initiatives and moments of revolt around the world that fit into their politic. Similarly cutting, they compare the group to Marx in how both mistakenly predict revolt breaking out in the most economically developed and technologically advanced societies. Marx with Germany, Tiqqun with the Bloom figure. Their critique of how indigenous people don’t fit in with Tiqqun's sweeping ideas about the world seems particularly apt given that some of the most intense struggle over autonomous space have been fought by indigenous people in North America. That said, I haven’t read “Now,” but I assume they’ve backpedaled on those ideas since Standing Rock.

“Networks, Colonization, and the Construction of Knowledge” highlights two books critical of capitalist epistemology, which I’ve added to my reading list. The story in “Kafka Reloaded” mostly fell flat, but the critiques of Agamben’s apparatuses in that text and “You Don’t Really Care For Music” were interesting. I like how Gorrion is unsatisfied with Agamben’s theory of apparatuses not just for rational reasons, but because it eclipses our agency and free will. In “Robots of Repression” they make an interesting distinction between machines and apparatuses. They point out that a machine’s human operator is a lamentable necessity for the moment, who future innovations mean to phase out. An apparatus, on the other hand, does not try to get rid of the people it conditions. The former exists for the sake of the latter. I often think about technology as a social force, but find words like “technology” and “machine” too loaded to be helpful. So, I appreciate when these concepts are made distinct and more concise.

In “How This Is Going to Begin,” Gorrion cites the Firefly movie Serenity to critique the idea that whistle-blowing and leaking government secrets are subversive activities. In these pop culture depictions of social change, a small group digs up some hidden government secrets and reveals them to the public. Notably lacking in these stories are masses of people building collective power, widespread revolt, and negation of this society’s forms of life. They point out that actually the unveiling of government secrets rarely effect change, and just shifts public discourse to questioning whether the public should know such information or not. Part of me wonders if this critique is apt for Situationist practices, which aim to uncover this society’s “public secrets.”

“For the Love of God” dives into some of the ways the Spectacle portrays revolution, using Les Miserables and Robin Hood as examples. In it, they also point out ways Christianity is still relevant and counterrevolutionary. “Of Superheroes and Cyborgs” is probably my favorite piece about pop culture in the book. Gorrion puts forth the theory that superheroes become popular at times when the state is making a power grab: the New Deal, the Atomic Age, and now. The superhero is a figure of strength that can take care of the weak masses, a dynamic for the state’s ideal ideology as it becomes more powerful and awe-inspiring.

Regarding science, Gorrion critiques claims that it is the best or only way of producing knowledge. Interestingly, they do so without falling back on wooey New Age ideas, but still provides perspective on why science can't fairly judge whether alternative medicines like acupuncture are valid or effective.

The essays on Jewel and Kanye were interesting, but didn’t stand out that much. “We Want to Be Great Like Our Crime”, about Isabelle Eberhardt and Renzo Novatore, wasn’t really my thing. I’m not that drawn to anecdotes about larger-than-life people. Yes, it’s cool that they did the things they did, but I’m not going to live like that, so I don’t find them inspiring or relateable.

Recommended for: anarchists, theory-heads, people who like pop culture analysis… (más)