anarchism starts in the now: hope for a better future

But Gopal is very clear: the future is not a void, it has a terrain. It’s a treacherous terrain, but it has its points of intervention where collective action can gain leverage and make a difference.

every day, and who can blame us. The world is a wretched fucking mess. It needs to be saved from itself, so the folks who give a damn step up. We run for office; we march for justice; we volunteer in our community. We divest from the bad and invest in the good. We stand up for what’s right and refuse to stand for what’s wrong. We fight and sing and

This kind of thinking sees the future as defined by universal progress—rather than by a messy, contradictory struggle between different interests and forces—and never driven by the aspirations of those from below. It reduces the value of human agency to entrepreneurialism and empty consumerism.

Not to speak of the failure of dreams. Where once there were societies that served as models for a better future, grand plans, utopias, now there is distrust and dissatisfaction with any form of politics, a sense of powerlessness edging into nihilism.