The Boggs Center presents
They Will Beat the Memory Out of Us
Why do we lose continuity in our movements from one generation to the next?
Why do we have to relive the same kinds of defeats every few years?
with participation from
Peter Gelderloos
Program: Thursday, November 21st, 2024 from 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm
Peter Gelderloos will present his two newest books and facilitate a discussion around the loss of collective memory
and intergenerational continuity in our struggles.
Info
Peter's latest books are They Will Beat the Memory Out of Us (Pluto Press 2024) and Organization, Continuity, Community (English edition Detritus Books 2024, originally published in Catalan in 2022).
Both books explore the loss of collective memory, the lack of intergenerational continuity, and the constant ruptures in our movements that cause us to repeat the same strategic mistakes or to succumb to repression, exhaustion, and hopelessness, rather than building off our cumulative knowledge, wisdom, and strength.
The Books
They Will Beat the Memory Out of Us (Pluto Books 2024)
The first book, blending interviews, research, and direct experiences, focuses on two movements: ecological struggle, which in its smartest form is a continuation of anticolonial resistance that has spread and persisted globally over the last 500 years, and in its worst form is a media spectacle centered around naive demands and ineffective reforms; and the anti-police, antiracist rebellions that have caused a sea change in public narratives from 2009 to 2020, but in actuality are the most recent manifestation of a fault line that sits at the heart of the US and many other societies, and that will remain irreconcilable until we achieve total abolition of police, prisons, and other institutions that rely on those structures.
Organization, Continuity, Community (Detritus Books 2024)
The second book deals with the deeper questions that are missed in debates around problems of organization, the lack of continuity in our movements, and a profound misunderstanding of what community entails and how a realistic approach to community could make us stronger. The context is the anarchist movement in Catalunya, which enjoys a celebrated history and experienced an explosive growth from 2010 to 2018, and was still strong in the initial responses to the pandemic, but then faltered.
Bio
Peter Gelderloos is a writer and social movement participant. He is the author of The Solutions are Already Here: Strategies for Ecological Revolution from Below, How Nonviolence Protects the State, Anarchy Works, The Failure of Non-Violence, and Worshiping Power: An Anarchist View of Early State Formation. He has contributed chapters to anthologies Keywords for Radicals and Riots and Militant Occupations. His books have been translated into 15 languages.