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sunflowermagpie 's review for:
Everything for Everyone: An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052–2072
by Eman Abdelhadi, M.E. O'Brien
I admire this book as a monumental work of speculative fiction- so many political activists are so focused on tearing down the current world without proposing a new vision. One star for that.
That being said, if you told me this book was written by conservatives to convince people against communism, I would believe you.
Like most modern leftist writing, it operates on the magical thinking that communism will somehow cure addiction, domestic violence, and all interpersonal conflict with no explanation of how. Providing sex workers to everyone somehow cures all mental illness (what happens if demand for sex somehow exceeds the supply of human beings being commodified? No answer). There are also no answers to what happens when people abuse children, rape, or assault each other in a world with no justice system. No interpersonal violence happened before capitalism, obviously. This is especially ridiculous because drugs are abundant and widely used. Because people that are actively on hallucinogenic drugs are notoriously peaceful, healthy, ready to sit in eight hour commune planning meetings, and somehow also invent immersive VR implants in their free time.
Who is managing the garbage, generating the power/distributing electricity, building the trans-continental (!!!) maglev trains, certifying therapists and medical professionals, or building roads in a world with no states? Who cares, let’s talk more about polycule group therapy.
The narrative glamorizes and romanticizes political violence- executing, starving, and villifying people you see as anti-revolutionary (any business owners, police officers, loggers, or landlords, to name a few), as well as constant armed conflict all over the world is actively celebrated. Somehow this is presented as better than what we have now. Does the narrative discuss the social repercussions of cheering on mass murder? Nope, instead we get the characters talking about they're heroes because it's emotionally hard to kill people.
As usual, the leftist utopia is an absolute nightmare for women- that first chapter about “skincraft” is fucking bone chilling. The vision for a better world presented here is a literal Handmaid’s Tale scenario where the commune provides you with a “skin crafter” AKA prostituted woman if you can’t get actual sex. Don’t worry, women only enter the sex trade because they just love having sex with undesirable men out of the goodness of their hearts! No other reason! In this world where family has been abolished, there is also such thing as pregnant women giving birth to their own children, only “gestators” who produce children that belong to everyone. Can’t imagine any issues with that! And then there's the ubiquitous new technology of womb transplants, with, of course, zero discussion of the women whose body parts are presumably being harvested and commodified.
On a broader level, gender still exists even after violent revolution has destroyed the family, the state, and every single other social construct in the world. Hey, at least the authors recognize that biological sex is a lived material reality that will never go away.
Another pet peeve I find in this book (and modern leftist speculative fiction in general): the story acts like communism means people don’t have to work anymore. Somehow massive consumer tech development happens without a market, without universities, and after global economic collapse. The new internet somehow comes from drug-fueled queer dance parties. How? Who knows. A “council of grandmas” somehow end up being the ones arming and selecting a paramilitary group to defend the commune while everyone else gets to decide how many hours they get to work based on vibes. It's like the authors are living in a different reality.
As a novel, the writing is pretty bad. It’s clear that this is coming from two academics instead of people experienced in crafting interesting stories. The tone is really cloying: imagine the preachiest person you know or have ever seen at a campus protest just straight up lecturing at you for seven hours. The book feels like it was written to be assigned as reading in an undergrad sociology course. At least the audiobook narrators were good.
TLDR; just put this book down and read The Disposessed.
That being said, if you told me this book was written by conservatives to convince people against communism, I would believe you.
Like most modern leftist writing, it operates on the magical thinking that communism will somehow cure addiction, domestic violence, and all interpersonal conflict with no explanation of how. Providing sex workers to everyone somehow cures all mental illness (what happens if demand for sex somehow exceeds the supply of human beings being commodified? No answer). There are also no answers to what happens when people abuse children, rape, or assault each other in a world with no justice system. No interpersonal violence happened before capitalism, obviously. This is especially ridiculous because drugs are abundant and widely used. Because people that are actively on hallucinogenic drugs are notoriously peaceful, healthy, ready to sit in eight hour commune planning meetings, and somehow also invent immersive VR implants in their free time.
Who is managing the garbage, generating the power/distributing electricity, building the trans-continental (!!!) maglev trains, certifying therapists and medical professionals, or building roads in a world with no states? Who cares, let’s talk more about polycule group therapy.
The narrative glamorizes and romanticizes political violence- executing, starving, and villifying people you see as anti-revolutionary (any business owners, police officers, loggers, or landlords, to name a few), as well as constant armed conflict all over the world is actively celebrated. Somehow this is presented as better than what we have now. Does the narrative discuss the social repercussions of cheering on mass murder? Nope, instead we get the characters talking about they're heroes because it's emotionally hard to kill people.
As usual, the leftist utopia is an absolute nightmare for women- that first chapter about “skincraft” is fucking bone chilling. The vision for a better world presented here is a literal Handmaid’s Tale scenario where the commune provides you with a “skin crafter” AKA prostituted woman if you can’t get actual sex. Don’t worry, women only enter the sex trade because they just love having sex with undesirable men out of the goodness of their hearts! No other reason! In this world where family has been abolished, there is also such thing as pregnant women giving birth to their own children, only “gestators” who produce children that belong to everyone. Can’t imagine any issues with that! And then there's the ubiquitous new technology of womb transplants, with, of course, zero discussion of the women whose body parts are presumably being harvested and commodified.
On a broader level, gender still exists even after violent revolution has destroyed the family, the state, and every single other social construct in the world. Hey, at least the authors recognize that biological sex is a lived material reality that will never go away.
Another pet peeve I find in this book (and modern leftist speculative fiction in general): the story acts like communism means people don’t have to work anymore. Somehow massive consumer tech development happens without a market, without universities, and after global economic collapse. The new internet somehow comes from drug-fueled queer dance parties. How? Who knows. A “council of grandmas” somehow end up being the ones arming and selecting a paramilitary group to defend the commune while everyone else gets to decide how many hours they get to work based on vibes. It's like the authors are living in a different reality.
As a novel, the writing is pretty bad. It’s clear that this is coming from two academics instead of people experienced in crafting interesting stories. The tone is really cloying: imagine the preachiest person you know or have ever seen at a campus protest just straight up lecturing at you for seven hours. The book feels like it was written to be assigned as reading in an undergrad sociology course. At least the audiobook narrators were good.
TLDR; just put this book down and read The Disposessed.