Note: I no longer wish to distribute this text and have removed it from the online catalog. Rather than merely excise this post from the site, pretending it does not exist, I share some brief thoughts.

It is vital that we never cease to grow. Far too often, anarchists betray this commitment in favor of adopting hard-line positions, which they will then abandon in favor of other (often contradictory) hard-line positions, ad nauseam. What is lost in this cycle of self-righteousness and bluster is the nuance that allows us to see the complexities of the world, the honesty to admit when we are off track, the humility to recognize that we do not have the answers, the flexibility that accepts change – in short, all that makes anarchy vibrant and shines a light on moldy dogmatism.

Having kept this project alive for years – as a vehicle for occasional publishing of writing that is of interest to me and which I wish to share with others – there is naturally some inconsistency in the material. I stand by much of it, but much of Dangerous Spaces now reads to me as something opposed to my desires for anarchy: if not always in content, then in tone, language, affect. Militant identity politics is still identity politics. Interpersonal violence, even when justified as a retaliatory measure, is something to approach with serious consideration and care, not celebration and posturing. The attitude which views thought as suspect, which romanticizes violence in and of itself, which merely straps a weapon to social justice politics and calls it insurrectionary…this is not my anarchy.

As I see the directions in which individuals have taken the ideas laid out in the publications I’ve created and the set of ideas that this project comes from, I begin to feel distant from the worlds and words present in these texts. In the case of Dangerous Spaces, where the title itself is being mobilized in ways I find contrary to my own anarchic spirit, I feel pulled to intervene in this small way.

To those who find inspiration in this publication: please consider the issue of violence with delicacy, with neither moral condemnation nor nonchalance. To those who seek to share their ideas via publishing and writing: keep going, write things that will later embarrass you, and have the honesty to admit when you realize you were wrong.

The person who created this publication was naive, rigid, and pontifical. I am now, I hope, less so.

Anyone seeking further dialogue can feel free to contact me via email.

For anarchy,

untorelli press, June 2019