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1. I second the other poster's concerns about you seeking therapy. Remember that your mental health won't really improve unless you are personally invested in your improvement. It's a process, and a slow one at that, with many ups and downs.
   
2. It's perfectly normal to feel overwhelmed. Most people do. Some leftists say this is by design - that capitalism tires us out to prevent out-of-market social bonds from forming. I don't particularly agree with this perspective (it sounds too NWO conspiracy theory to me) but regardless it is a consequence of the skyrocketing disaggregation of social bonds that comes with rampant neoliberal technology. The late Zygmunt Bauman wrote some wonderful books about this "liquid modernity", as he called it, which can help you make sense of this whole thing:
   
   Liquid Modernity (pdf)
   
   Liquid Love (can't find an easy-access pdf)
   
   I think that reading about these processes may make them intelligible to you, and help you process your worries in a healthy way. This is something you can do without forcing yourself to interact with people.
   
   

3. ...but yeah, eventually you should try to make bonds. Community, solidarity and love are praxis. Probably the most important praxis of all, in my opinion. There's something radical about love, that capitalism can't take away for you and commodify. Though it tries, of course, and will keep on trying, but there's no trading away social bonds. So really, the worst thing you can do is dwell on that isolation. Reach out. There are more people who will relate to your feelings than you think.
   
   Also, and this is a minor point I guess, but you're 17 and hormones are all over the place. It's perfectly normal and part of your development to feel lost. Read books, talk to your therapist, make friends, and you'll be fine.

At least for Anarchists or other left-libertarians it should also be important to actually read up on some basic or even fundamental ethical texts given most political views and arguments are fundamentally rooted in morality (unless you're a orthodox Marxist or Monarchist). I'm sadly not familiar enough with applied ethics to link collections of arguments for specific ethical problems, but it's very important to know what broad system you're using to evaluate what's right or wrong to not contradict yourself.

At least a few very old texts will also be available for free somewhere on the internet like The Anarchist Library.

Some good intro books:

• The Fundamentals of Ethics by Russ Shafer-Landau
  
• The Elements of Moral Philosophy by James and Stuart Rachels
  
• Ethics: A Very Short Introduction by Simon Blackburn
  
  Some foundational texts and contemporary authors of every main view within normative ethics:
  
  
• Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotles for Classic Virtue-Ethics. Martha Nussbaum would be a contemporary left-wing Virtue-Ethicist who has used Marx account of alienation to argue for Global Justice.
  
• Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals by Immanuel (or Emmanuel) Kant for Classic Deontology. Kantianism is a popular system to argue for anti-statism I believe even though Kant himself was a classical liberal. Christine Korsgaard would be an example of a contemporary Kantian.
  
• The Methods of Ethics by Henry Sidgwick for Classic Utilitarianism. People usually recommend Utilitarianism by John Stuart Mill, but most contemporary Ethicists believe his arguments for Utilitarianism suck. 2 other important writers have been R. M. Hare and G. E. Moore with very unique deviations from classic Utilitarianism. A contemporary writer would be Peter Singer. Utilitarianism is sometimes seemingly leading people away from Socialism, but this isn't necessarily the case.
  
• Between Facts and Norms and other works by the contemporary Critical Theorist Jürgen Habermas may be particularly interesting to Neo-Marxists.
  
• A Theory of Justice by John Rawls. I know Rawls is a famous liberal, but his work can still be interpreted to support further left Ideologies. In his later works like Justice as Fairness: A Restatement you can see him tending closer to Democratic Socialism.
  
• Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche for... Nietzsche's very odd type of Egoism. His ethical work was especially influential to Anarchists such as Max Stirner, Emma Goldman or Murray Bookchin and also Accelerationists like Jean Baudrillard.
  
• In case you think moralism and ethics is just bourgeois propaganda maybe read something on subjectivism like Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong by J. L. Mackie
  
• Or if you want to hear a strong defense of objective morality read Moral Realism: A Defense by Russ Shafer-Landau orc

If you want a best understanding of what Graeber provocatively calls everyday communism, I suggest you take a look at this book:

Anthropology and the Economy of Sharing by Thomas Widlok.


Thomas Widlok's book is the only book that I know of that talks about the issue of communism in any detail. He edited two books on the ethnography of equality that are also useful.

The anthropological term for that communism is "demand-sharing".


Demand-sharing is distinct from the gift, by the way. Demand-sharing is NOT a form of exchange (Widlok deals with this very well).

For Gifts, I would direct you to The World of the Gift by Jacques T. Godbout and Alain C. Caillé and Gifts and Commodities by C. A. Gregory.

Alain Caillé is the expert on the question of the gift.


P.S:

/u/LitGarbo

You deserve way more subscribers, this is some good quality stuff.

1)What do you think of this sub?

​

Need better sidebar link. Link to The Bread Book with a summation would be best. Current results for duckduckgo'ing "The Bread Book" returns:

The Bread Book: More Than 200 Recipes and Techniques for ...

The Bread Book: Linda Collister, Anthony Blake ... - amazon.com

The Bread Book by Linda Collister - Goodreads

The Conquest of Bread - Wikipedia

The Best Bread Books — abreaducation

etc etc etc

I'm particularly a fan of his correction videos on historical topics (along with Three Arrows). I also just noticed that season 4 of Adam Ruins Everything in on Amazon for $6. It was special season of all animated episodes devoted entirely to updating and correcting bad history.

It's got all the important stuff: coverage of Native American Genocide, stories of oft-forgotten minorities in pivotal roles, and a more comprehensive historiography of other events, including all perspectives rather than just the "written by the victors" versions or the myths we pick up because they were in songs or movies. I'm learning a bunch!

It's tiding me over while I wait for more Shaun. It scratches a similar itch (with comedy).

I also watched John Leguizamo's Latin History for Morons, which teaches ancient American history via a Broadway one-man show.

> Are there books on why

what a surprise /s. there are

The Battle for china's past by Mobo Gao

Was Mao Really A Monster by Gregor Benton

The rise of the Chinese people's communes by Anna Louise Strong

The Chinese road to socialism: Economics of the cultural revolution by E. L Wheelwright

Fanshen: A Documentary of Revolution in a Chinese Village by William Hinton

Turning Point in China: An Essay on the Cultural Revolution by William Hinton

The Reactionary Mind by Corey Robin

Explicitly feminist theory:

• Alexandra Kollontai
  
• I haven't read it, but I get the sense that Silvia Federici's Caliban and the Witch touches on these themes.
  
• A lot of mother-goddess archaeological work, feminist anthropology, etc. deals with this; specifically, Evelyn Reed, and several essays in this 1974 reader.
  
  Other things that might be of interest:
  
  
• Jewish kibbutzim anti-family child-rearing practices that I imagine are based in some body of theory, but I'm not familiar enough to cite anyone here. Other utopian communities may also have similar practices.
  
• Lewis H. Morgan, who was making broadly similar arguments to Engels but more through an anthropological lens comparing the western patriarchal family to matrilineal cultures.

Did you read the article? They have four citations.

one
two
three
four

Maybe you can provide an explanation of why these numbers are wrong and tell us where we will find more accurate figures.

No problem, man.

If you don’t know about what’s going on in Rojava, I understand how you wouldn’t see the significance of the fight in Rojava.

It’s not just about some individuals fighting for their lives. It’s about a progressive model for how to organize society along anarchist thinking, living equally and ecologically. And out of all the places in the world, this begins in war-torn Syria!

I recommend you do your own research. But here’s a Rolling Stone article about the the western anarchists who joined the fight , which explains a bit of the context. I recall it was an easy read.

If you’re looking for a more academic account and
a more thorough analysis from a societal perspective, I can recommend Revolution in Rojava: Democratic Autonomy and Women's Liberation in Syrian Kurdistan.

Edit: Wanted to add that these people are fighting an important fight, probably the most important fight in the world right now.

(For context I'm a Democratic Confederalist basically a form of Anarchism)

​

This shit is honestly tamed and creates connections of intuitions with forms of subversions without context ensuring his point is met across. Such as the situation of the bargaining of a worker saying bargaining power is taken away and given to the supposed lazy person who wants '$ 3.00' per hour compared to the "Hard worker" who can function for 2.00 or 2.50 without establishing the more complex implementations of why they need that extra dollar why ones perceived labor is seen different than another. Also, he misses that many of his arguments work against the power structures he agrees with such his arguments against mass consumerization and the profitable/ beneficial structural nature of the capitalist media. And his arguments of destabilization are correct to an extent but he is also underplaying the situations the 'other' groups had to deal with. Such as slavery, legal and social discrimination for black people, Wage, and cheap labor exploitation of Asians/Asian Ancestry, Dehumanization and chastising of Gay/GSRM individuals and many more situation of 'context' he misses. Such social animosity doesn't simply by the fact that the certain exploitative system has been done away with no the effects are already seen, they have come to past and the only way to subdue it or attempt to pacify is to seek amends or give compensation but such Abuses will be there as scar they will never leave. His criticization of bureaucracy misses why such systems were created and for what purpose. That purpose was the management of information and logistics to ensure the current order, without such a system it would have caused major destabilization among the order of the state or exploitation of individuals. And his critique of the media also serves as another failure of the capitalist system unable to bring unbias information in exchange for its profit and popularity. A better understanding of the study of subversion is Naomi Klien's well researched and detailed work of the Shock Doctrine. And his focus is more of the Soviet Union's actions of subversion which would be seen as anti-socialist for a reason but that doesn't matter to me considering Stalin wasn't committed to the ideals of communism or of the movement he was a thug made to help it in destroying the reactionaries but in turn took it over and did it his way. Also, he appears to miss the notion that the US has done such action for its own benefit long before and long after the creation of the Soviet Union. I find it laughable how much he is willing to give up his freedoms and the possible freedoms of minorities for a future under Fascism. I'm honestly disappointed how these people are slowly just being sucked into Fascist propaganda.

Read or watch the Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein its magnitudes better than any more garbage this pseudo-intellectual has to offer

Shock Doctrine Book

Shock Doctrine Documentary

I just got done reading a great book, The Politics of Denial, which discusses a lot of this in detail. The authors provide evidence that even what we would consider "minor" child abuse (spankings, verbal humiliation, etc.) combined with claims that "it's for your own good" and sanctions against expressing anger over such abuse create denied or suppressed rage within children that, is unresolved later in life, is strongly connected to the sort of right-wing or conservative authoritarian politics that Peterson advocates for.

The worst part is that it naturally reproduces itself: children abused in this way are likely to do the same with their own kids as well as repress the angry reaction within them, which is later projected onto the next generation as well as various out-groups.

The most prominent symptoms of such repressed childhood rage against parents are an idolization of authority figures (the researchers note that such individuals will speak in glowing terms about their parents, but when asked about specific circumstances can only usually recall instances of abuse or humiliation), and an especially strong distrust or anger towards out-groups (as repressed anger against parents is redirected or projected towards other targets).

The authors also present strong experimental evidence that this pattern is much more pronounced among men compared to women (likely because girls are taught/allowed to "let out" the anger generated by such abuse through emotions of fear or sadness), which explains both the appeal of this ideology to men especially as well as the massive and growing gender divide in political affiliation.

Uh, sexual abuse in the Orthodox Jewish community is well documented. Try Google:

http://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-23/jewish-leaders-thought-it-was-a-sin-to-report-child-abuse/8380574

“Ultra-orthodox Jews believed it was a sin to report allegations of child sexual abuse to the police, and shunned those who did, a royal commission has heard.”

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-the-woman-spearheading-the-fight-against-sexual-assault-among-haredim-1.5455644 [paywall]

“The woman spearheading the fight against sexual assault in ultra-Orthodox society”

http://www.traditiononline.org/pdfs/50.2/0050-0059.pdf

https://m.jpost.com/Diaspora/Study-finds-widespread-history-of-sexual-abuse-among-formerly-Orthodox-562937

“individuals who have left the Orthodox community are more than four times as likely to have been molested as children than the general population”

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/10/nyregion/ultra-orthodox-jews-shun-their-own-for-reporting-child-sexual-abuse.html?pagewanted=all

“those who come forward often encounter intense intimidation from their neighbors and from rabbinical authorities”

http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2012/06/18/tonight-on-ac360-child-sex-abuse-scandal/

“Child sex abuse scandals have been making headlines for years and bringing unwanted attention to a group bent on privacy”


https://apnews.com/b8de22cae69549be81b8ab69da90bd2e

“the leader of a safety patrol in Brooklyn’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish community has been arrested on charges he sexually abused a teenage girl”

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/318475825_Twice_Silenced_The_Underreporting_of_Child_Sexual_Abuse_in_Orthodox_Jewish_Communities

https://www.amazon.com/Sexual-Shonda-Concealment-Orthodox-Communities/dp/0786471255

“cases of child sexual abuse have been systematically concealed in Orthodox Jewish communities”