Dear Queers and Non-conformists, 

 

In the introduction to her landmark novel The Left Hand of Darkness Ursula K. Le Guin argues that Science fiction is “not predictive, it is descriptive.” I hold that this is true of all fiction. Fiction is social experimentation carried out through words. It is the author painting a picture of what already is by building an auto-responsive cycle of if-then, resulting in worlds that are similar to our own, because they are our own - only with more questions asked. 

 

My hope is that this book club will be a space for thinking and re-thinking the power structures, metanarratives and ideologies that create our conscious (and to a great extent unconscious) minds and giving ourselves the chance to digest alternative narratives that fit our current needs. Digesting as in thinking collectively, outloud, and without fear of repression. 

 

Anarchism is widely understood as the partial or complete rejection of authority or hegemonic structures. This, of course, depends on who you ask. For the purposes of this group I take anarchism to mean the rejection of all fixed power structures and systems which grant an imbalance of power to any person or group of persons for any reason other than a situational necessity. It is the idea that power is something to be shared amongst all sentient beings in doses congruent with the needs of the moment. 

 

The concentration of power in one group or person is inevitable and necessary in order to maintain relations within and between groups - however, as a self-understood anarchist, I believe that any grasp of power should be conditional, situational, temporary, and above-all, continuously questioned. 

 

In its most basic form, I understand anarchism to be the habit of asking: do we still need this? In a similar fashion to which one may enact a diuretic to eject leftover substances from a bloated body - I reject the idea that systems ought to stay in place because they used to work. The broccoli in your bowels used to be nutritious but it has now been leeched of all its functionality in your body and is rotting. Does this mean that you need more food? Maybe. If you’re hungry. If not then release that broccoli back into the soil so the bacteria can do its work, and when you need more food - make more. And you probably will eat more than just broccoli today, right? 

 

A functional body needs a variety of nutrients. So does a society need a variety of leaders, systems, and forms of understanding to function well. So, I propose that existing works of fiction as catalysts, we ask our own questions. In this group we will inevitably use our own lived experiences as lenses through which we see our shared world. We will read and use books as guides for how we might question this world - as it is often difficult to see a sinkhole when you are standing in it. And when we meet, we will ask our questions to one another and respond to these questions not with the aim of receiving satisfactory answers, but with the goal of thinking - thinking for oneself as an act of resistance to eurocentrism, anthroprocentrism, heteronormativity, capitalism and materialism, and against the resignation that nothing can be done to change these fixed structures. 

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Founded on the idea that the mind is the most fundamental component of existence - of our world, I hope that through changing our minds we can genuinely change the world. 

 

But I also low-key want to sit with other queer people and eat cookies. So. Hope you join. 

 

With love and unfounded optimism - Shana