This Country Must Change: Essays on the ... - Temple University

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<strong>This</strong> combination works to produce a praxis-oriented perspective offering the necessary tools and ideas for a new revolutionary movement. Though I applaud the decision to write the text in this way, it is not unproblematic. For example, the editor seems to have left the decision of whether or not to include any sort of references up to the authors. <strong>This</strong> is understandable if one’s goals emphasize oration to a general populace rather than academic, peer-reviewed writing. However, we also have to remember that the book is being released at a time when the general public has not been revolutionized, yet have access to more information than ever before thanks to the technology “revolution” (a word that, as the book points out, we overuse, hence the scare quotes). Knowing this, counterarguments to the important claims in this book are readily available. Therefore, the average reader, if they are sympathetic to the claims made in the text, should be given the resources to further educate him or herself after having finished this book. Though some chapters do offer these resources, they should be included for every chapter. <strong>This</strong> is particularly important considering the radical claims made in the text—because many readers will have spent their life being told other narrations of history by state educational apparatuses, having regular citations in the book would give the chapters a level of authenticity and legitimacy that some readers may think is lacking otherwise. The more significant problem faced by this book is a general lack of organization. Reading the book, there are many connections between the various chapters. For example, a number of chapters work from an explicitly Marxist perspective. Others emphasize a need for animal rights, while others still emphasize a broader radical environmental perspective in the spirit of Earth First! and the Earth Liberation Front. Each of these perspectives has its place in this book, as each is an important part of any coming revolution in the 21 st Century. However,
these chapters are disconnected in the text. Chapters that emphasize radical approaches to animal rights and / or environmental justice separate from one another chapters specifically emphasizing a Marxist dialectical class analysis. Furthermore, there are contradictions between these chapters that a non-revolutionary audience may feel are problematic. Without drawing the existing and important connections between various revolutionary struggles, such as those for labor rights, animal rights, and reparations for past atrocities, a reader may be left uncertain about how a struggle with so many diverse goals can move forward. An academic audience could easily draw some of these connections for themselves. Having read Ronal Kuykendall’s chapter “Reification: An Impediment to Social <strong>Change</strong>,” the most theoretical chapter in the book, one could then better understand Bill Dunne’s “<strong>Change</strong> We Just Can’t Believe In” or the philosophical underpinnings of the lack of imagination in movements for social change detailed by Rob Los Ricos in “Power to the Imagination!” Jaan Laaman and Bill Dunne’s chapters both begin with similar analyses claiming that change is inherent to anything, and that it is often driven by internal contradictions, such as those in capitalism. Placing these chapters together, alongside other Marxist analyses emerging out of Hegelian Dialectics, would make sense. Similarly, the many chapters emphasizing the ever increasing need for environmental and animal justice could enter into a dialogue with one another by emphasizing their interconnections—those that describe well the horrors we will face if we do not deal with our environmental issues would be great precursors to the chapters that detail successful direct action campaigns against the corporate and government elites who have created these problems. Unfortunately, the book is not organized in such a way as to promote this understanding. While the chapters do speak to one another, their lack of organization leaves me wondering if an
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Page 5 and 6: of all nations and classes” (30),

This Country Must Change: Essays on the ... - Temple University

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