1. At a public talk someone asks you, "okay, I understand what you reject, but I wonder what are you for? What institutions do you favor that will be better than what we have for the economy, polity, gender, race, ecology, or whatever you have vision for?
Virtually all institutions should operate in a far more democratic fashion than they currently do. Achieving this result would reshape the world along far more humane, liberating, and fulfilling lines – a necessary, vital, endless process. This is what the polls show: people are far more enlightened and humane than the repressive authoritarian systems they are forced to live and work within. This holds for virtually every institution and social system in our lives.
2. Next, someone at the same event asks, "Why do you do what you do? That is, you are speaking to us, and I know you write, and maybe you organize, but why do you do it? What do you think it accomplishes? What is your goal for your coming year, or for your next ten years?
I read, write, discuss, and work with people. I teach, as possible, professionally. (Also of course learn.) I produce types of liberatory literature in a variety of ways. I try to create an ever more liberatory culture and society largely via literature. My main goals for the coming year are to bring multiple and sizable teaching, editing, writing, and publishing projects to completion, some of which are highly collaborative, and have been multi-year efforts. And to continue doing so for the next ten years and so on, with an eye toward currently conceivable but not yet manageable larger scale co-operative achievements.
3. You are at home and you get an email that says a new organization is trying to form, internationally, federating national chapters, etc. It asks you to join the effort. Can you imagine plausible conditions under which you would say, "yes, I will give my energies to making it happen along with the rest of you who are already involved?" If so, what are those conditions? Or – do you think instead that regardless of the content of the agenda and make up of the participants, the idea can’t be worthy, now, or perhaps ever. If so, why?
Depends on what is involved relative to what I can contribute (see above), and whether or not I feel I can use my time effectively in any such effort.
4. Do you think efforts to organize movements, projects, and our own organizations should embody the seeds of the future in the present? If not, why not? If yes, can you say what, very roughly, you think some of the implications would be for an organization you would favor?
Sure. I’m willing to participate in organizations where my skills are useful, democracy based organizations ideally.
5. Why did you answer this interview? Why do you think others did not answer it?
I answered this interview so that my voice might count. The interview may seem too in the abstract, or impersonal, I suppose.
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