#BlessedIsTheFlame can be understood as an argument that material conditions (death camps) produce forms of struggle (futureless revolt) which in turn produce forms of consciousness (hopelessness but not despair).

It also wonders if our conditions are really so much less hopeless than the camps (at the very least debatable) in order to suggest that futureless revolt and hopelessness might be promising directions for struggle in our context.

Whether or not we agree, this is still an argument for basing our forms of struggle on our best read of the conditions we find ourselves in. Not ideology, not habit, not personal satisfaction. Conditions.

I believe this is the first proper anarcho-nihilist text I've read, so some of the specific concepts are new to me.

Overall I think this is worth reading for any #Anarchist. The examination of resistance in concentration and extermination camps, places the author points out are _designed_ to eliminate possibilities to resist, is inspirational.

But it also leaves me wondering to what degree the understanding of the complete lack of a future is necessary for such resistance. If we're going to take lessons from this to apply in our own situations, most of us aren't living in anything like a concentration camp. You can draw parallels with the forms of lethal and arbitrary social control we face, but "I will be alive in 5 years" is something many more of us can expect to be true than could anyone in the covered stories of concentration camp resistance.

The critique of formal organizations is good and reminds me of some of my own experiences with formal groups. Again I'm not in a situation nearly as dire as a camp, but the dynamic of an organization redirecting energy into sustaining or replicating itself at the expense of effective action is something I've seen.

I do think there are situations and ways where formal groups are useful and worth having, but IMO the more important factor is communities and relationships engaged in resistance independent of a group. Here, formal groups would be more focused towards supporting those people and communities, in actual relationship with them, with an orientation combative to domination (eg: from the state, capitalism, patriarchy, ...), rather than focusing on getting new members, or vague "movement building" events.

Finally, something I like about jouissance (joy in acts of resistance/negation regardless of expected outcome) and the concept of rejecting futurity (rejecting that you have a future in the existing system) is that they can help break out of paralysis. You don't have to come up with the perfect, best, sure to win action and grand strategy before doing anything, you can just act where you stand with what you have. As mentioned in the book, this doesn't mean there isn't careful consideration and patient planning involved in actions, and there's caution against ill-considered actions, but allowing that vagueness opens up important possibilities for action, and finding life and joy in such action.

#Nihilism #BlessedIsTheFlame

In the next minute and a 1/2 supervisor Meero doesn't exactly quote #Bakunin but the wink is hard to miss ("Systems either change or die"), then we get shown how right authoritarians ("I'm right? [...]") actually welcome and celebrate " the market place of ideas"

The 3rd "theory" doesn't get named, (or perhaps it does with " "Watch your back" ....") tbh it doesn't need to be, that's the running theme of the series and that's the point that the next three episodes are bringing home: #BlessedIsTheFlame #AnarchoNihilism

In that regard the quasi-quotes would be too many to number so let me just drop a link:

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/serafinski-blessed-is-the-flame

Edits: Plenty

In the next minute and a 1/2 supervisor Meero doesn't exactly quote #Bakunin but the wink is hard to miss ("Systems either change or die"), then we get shown how right authoritarians ("I'm right?") actually welcome and celebrate
" #Agorism "

The 3rd "theory" doesn't get named, (or perhaps it does "Watch your back") tbh it doesn't need to be that's the running theme and that's the point that the next three episodes are bring home: #BlessedIsTheFlame #AnarchoNihilism

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/serafinski-blessed-is-the-flame

In the next minute and a 1/2 supervisor Meero doesn't exactly quote #Bakunin but the wink is hard to miss, then we get shown how authoritarians actually welcome and celebrate " #Agorism "
The 3rd theory doesn't get named, it doesn't need to be that's what the next three episodes are for: #BlessedIsTheFlame

In the next minute and a half supervisor Meero doesn't exactly quote #Bakunin but the wink is hard to miss, then we get shown how authoritarians welcome and celebrate #Agorism
The 3rd theory doesn't get named, it doesn't need to: #BlessedIsTheFlame

I reread blessed is the flame yesterday (I know rereading sounds pretentious, I can't remember who stated it's the bourgeoisie never reads they always re ready and the re: I te important part in that statement)

Still, words are a mess an when able I like to precise, I re-read blessed is the flame yesterday, this was prompted by the current discourse which I believe was triggered by #Andor (at least I hope that is the reason because otherwise I need some other explanation as to why I these days wake up with nemkins voice reading quotes featured in there book)

I don't have much to say on the subject, save for the fact that I was surprised by how deeply this reading affected me, I can recall the first reading, it hit close to home, for a myriad of teasonsy some of them personal that I won't get into today
Anyways this time it hit differently. I do understand why, and this would be an interesting subject for another post. But that ain't what this about.

It just triggered me to share a bit more about my journey and political awakening, so fair warning this won't be too long but we are going into autobiographic territory.

I was raised by self professed anarchists, surrounded by ancoms and the odd socdems or tankies. My parents anarchism was more of a posture than it was an ethical imperative. My father was abuse, mysoginistic, ageist and ableist (and a de facto spicy statist socdem) as you might or might not imagine, being raised in a context where charisma (masking) and wordsmithing were the only metric made me quite wary of political discourse. (Which is simultaneously the reason why I feel the need to post this toot, and the reason why I usually have no interest in theory)

Without spending too much digital ink on the subject, let's just say that deconstructing the abuse I was subjected in these settings is something I still struggle with in a lot of ways.

The last paragraphs are just here for context (if you are French speaking I wrote a whole novel on the subject, hit me up and I'll send you a PDF)

I guess what I wanted to say is that when re-reading blessed is the flame, I realized that while in the last (almost 30 years) I identified as an ancom, an anarchist-syndicalist, a mutualist, an Anarchafeminist (and all along the way an instructionist) my life has been defined by praxis which only makes sense in the context of anarcho-nihilism, I always refuted this denomination, mainly because my self professed anarchist *actually* authoritarian father only had a superficial reading of the concept,l, rejected it and passed said taboo to me..

So once again from the top: an #Introduction: I'm an Anarchist, I always have been but there is no pride to be taken from that's just a generational mess that might require a different framework to untangle. More importantly, whatever my discourse may be, my politics (read Praxis) as (and always did -even before I came across the literature ) more to do with Anarcho-Nihilism han anything else.

(Please forgive the typos, more importantly sorry if you expected some salient point or analysis, this was never about that, I'm just thankful for people sharing their journey and I felt like giving back.)

#BlessedIsTheFlame #AnarchoNihilism #Anarchism #BookClub #Introduction #Andor #Discourse #NothingNewUnderTheSun

(Felt safe might delete/edit later)