#9: That Hideous Strength
Perspectives 9: That Hideous Strength
by Salvage Editorial Collective
Here then is where we are. Amid pestilence and decline and decline-disavowal, in the early days of a new dispensation.
Stand Back
by Tessa McWatt
We who live owe the dead a debt, to keep them unquiet, not to let an instant’s peace descend on the plantation. Light it up.
Extract from Daddy Poem
by Helen Charman
Poem. From Daddy Poem (2019), published by Spam Zine.
Selected Works
by Stephanie Monohan
Art.
Acting as if One if Already Free: David Graeber’s Political Economy and the Strategic Impasse of the Left
by James Meadway
Out of radical grief might come reflection. Honouring the lost by learning a lesson, by seeing beyond the horizon of the state.
Extract from Daddy Poem
by Helen Charman
Poem. From Daddy Poem (2019), published by Spam Zine.
On Natural and Femme Excess
by Judy Thorne
What and who would we be to accept enough? What will do will never do, and too much should be a minimum.
Great Griefs: Notes on the US Election
by Benjamin Kunkel
Bidenfreude: relief absent the slightest joy. How better to make use of it than to consider what the fuck happened?
Jewophobia Now
by Barnaby Raine
Continuing the debate on antisemitism, its parameters, affinities and deployment, and those of distinct oppositions thereto.
Extract from Worry Work
by Helen Charman
Poem. From Worry Work (2020), published by Earthbound Press.
So Much for Radical Pedagogy: In Conversation with Helen Charman
by Helen Charman & Caitlín Doherty
Radical difficulty, the political power of necessary embarrassment, working-class life, dignity and poetry.
The Anarchist in the Network
by Ben Davis
How do we solve a problem like the online? What is that problem? What are the politics of the problem of the actually-existing digital?
Destroying the Means of Planetary Destruction: In Conversation with Andreas Malm
by Andreas Malm & Richard Seymour
In urgent times comes the urgent necessity of new hedonism, and of inflicting losses on our enemies, of revelling in certain fires.
Extract from In the Pleasure Dairy
by Helen Charman
Poem. From In the Pleasure Dairy (2020), published by Sad Press.
Scotland After Covid-19
by James Foley
On relative merits of relative ruling-class competence to the north.
Extract from In the Pleasure Dairy
by Helen Charman
Poem. From In the Pleasure Dairy (2020), published by Sad Press.
Uncanny Valleys: Notes on the Future of Los Angeles
by Alexander Billet
It happened, and it happened here.
The Lycanthropes
by Davinia Hamilton
Fiction.
From This Issue
The Anarchist in the Network
On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather.
Uncanny Valleys: Notes on the Future of Los Angeles
The following article first appeared in print in Salvage #9: That Hideous Strength, our Autumn/Winter 2020 issue. Our back issues are available to buy individually here. Our poetry, fiction and art remains exclusive to the print edition, and our subscribers have...
Destroying the Means of Planetary Destruction: In Conversation with Andreas Malm
In urgent times comes the urgent necessity of new hedonism, and
of inflicting losses on our enemies, of revelling in certain fires.
So Much for Radical Pedagogy: In Conversation with Helen Charman
Radical difficulty, the political power of necessary embarrassment, working-class life, dignity and poetry.
Scotland After Covid-19: Independence, Nationalism and the Myth of Devolution
On relative merits of relative ruling-class competence to the north.
Jewophobia Now
The most important takeaway here is that anti-Semitic thinking is not a problem of excessive radicalism, as ‘the New Anti-Semitism’ theory has it, but rather insufficient radicalism – the failure to think structurally about problems of capitalism.
On Natural and Femme Excess: An Insistence
To anyone who has been told that the only way you’ll be taken seriously, tolerated, allowed to do what you want, be worthy of love, is if you tone it down – look around you! The ugly, suicidal world is in desperate need, above all else, of your beauty and of care. Of aesthetics and healing. Ornament and communism.
Great Griefs: Notes on the US Election
Bidenfreude: relief absent the slightest joy. How better to make use of it than to consider what the fuck happened?
Acting as if one is Already Free: David Graeber’s Political Economy and the Strategic Impasse of the Left
Graeber’s _Bullshit Jobs_ was a best-seller, but its critique of modern work has only just begun to impact conventional leftist politics. The same goes for his major ‘theoretical’ work, _Towards an Anthropological Theory of Value_ – a more academic, but richly insightful, work. His insights should offer critical guidance to the Left, in today’s bleak political context.
That Hideous Strength: Salvage Perspectives #9
Far more of Biden’s voters chose him on the basis of opposing the other candidate, than did Trump’s. Should the Democratic vote collapse, should turnout slide again, as seems eminently likely, particularly on the basis of this unenthusiastic foundation, it is not unlikely that a Trump-style candidate – if not Trump himself – could achieve a majority of the popular vote as well as an electoral college win.
Stand Back: Reflections on a Memoir I Wrote Too Soon
Everywhere we look there are plantation managers and overseers, kneeling over black bodies, shooting into crowds, ramming jeeps through protest lines, chasing joggers, calling the cops, demanding rent.