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nerd teacher [books]

whatanerd@bookwyrm.social

Joined 4 years, 2 months ago

Exhausted anarchist and school abolitionist who can be found at nerdteacher.com where I muse about school and education-related things, and all my links are here. My non-book posts are mostly at @whatanerd@treehouse.systems, occasionally I hide on @whatanerd@eldritch.cafe, or you can email me at n@nerdteacher.com. [they/them]

I was a secondary literature and humanities teacher who has swapped to being a tutor, so it's best to expect a ridiculously huge range of books.

And yes, I do spend a lot of time making sure book entries are as complete as I can make them. Please send help.

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Trust Me, I'm Lying (2012, Portfolio) 1 star

You've seen it all before. A malicious online rumor costs a company millions. A political …

Things must be negative but not too negative. Hopelessness, despair—these drive us to do nothing. Pity, empathy—those drive us to do something, like get up from our computers to act. But anger, fear, excitement, or laughter—these drive us to spread. They drive us to do something that makes us feel as if we are doing something, when in reality we are only contributing to what is probably a superficial and utterly meaningless conversation. Online games and apps operate on the same principles and exploit the same impulses: be consuming without frustrating, manipulative without revealing the strings.

Trust Me, I'm Lying by 

Trust Me, I'm Lying (2012, Portfolio) 1 star

You've seen it all before. A malicious online rumor costs a company millions. A political …

It freaked me out when I began to see this sort of thing happen without the deliberate prodding of a promoter like myself. I saw media conflagrations set off by internal sparks. In this networked, interdependent world of blogging, misinformation can spread even when no one is consciously pushing or manipulating it. The system is so primed, tuned, and ready that often it doesn’t need people like me. The monster can feed itself.

Trust Me, I'm Lying by 

Capitalism (2014, Haymarket Books) 5 stars

From the poisoned rivers, barren wells, and clear-cut forests, to the hundreds of thousands of …

In the NGO universe, which has evolved a strange anodyne language of its own, everything has become a “subject,” a separate, professionalized, special-interest issue. Community development, leadership development, human rights, health, education, reproductive rights, AIDS, orphans with AIDS—have all been hermetically sealed into their own silos, each with its own elaborate and precise funding brief. Funding has fragmented solidarity in ways that repression never could.

Capitalism by 

Capitalism (2014, Haymarket Books) 5 stars

From the poisoned rivers, barren wells, and clear-cut forests, to the hundreds of thousands of …

The era of the Privatization of Everything has made the Indian economy one of the fastest growing in the world. However, as with any good old-fashioned colony, one of its main exports is its minerals. India’s new megacorporations, Tatas, Jindals, Essar, Reliance, Sterlite, are those that have managed to muscle their way to the head of the spigot that is spewing money extracted from deep inside the earth. It’s a dream come true for businessmen—to be able to sell what they don’t have to buy

Capitalism by 

Abolish Work (2014) 5 stars

Available for the first time in a single volume, the two influential and well-circulated pamphlets …

Delightful and a quick read.

4 stars

It packs a lot into one place, with a lot of really well constructed and fast critiques. Definitely good for those who haven't yet recognised the way that restaurants fit into the capitalist system (because the first two sections focus on the food service sector).

Two things I wasn't fond of, though.

First, the zine design with hyper-crammed text, which was frustrating for a dyslexic person. Sometimes I couldn't figure out where I was in a sentence, meaning I had to go backwards. Genuinely had to read it on the computer because I needed to be able to highlight lines to keep reading properly.

Second, a common issue in anarchist agitprop is provocative phrasing that often shows cracks in solidarity. They talk about people as being 'schizophrenic', implying that this is an inherently bad thing (or implying the people doing this are bad). We don't need to do ableism in …

Abolish Work (2014) 5 stars

Available for the first time in a single volume, the two influential and well-circulated pamphlets …

A working class political party is a contradiction in terms—not because the membership of a particular party can’t be largely working class, but because the most it can do is give the working class a voice in politics. It lets our representatives put forward ideas on how our bosses should run this society—how they can make money and keep us under control. Whether they are advocating nationalization or privatization, more welfare or more police (or both), the programs of political parties are different strategies for managing capitalism.

Abolish Work by 

Abolish Work (2014) 5 stars

Available for the first time in a single volume, the two influential and well-circulated pamphlets …

Business owners run the government and the media, the schools and prisons, the welfare offices and the police. We have our lives run by them. The newspapers and television put forward their view of the world. Schools teach about the great (or unfortunate) history of their society and produce a spectrum of graduates and dropouts fit for different kinds of work. The government provides services to keep their society running smoothly.

And when all else fails, they have the police, the prisons, and the army.

This is not our community.

Abolish Work by 

Capitalism (2014, Haymarket Books) 5 stars

From the poisoned rivers, barren wells, and clear-cut forests, to the hundreds of thousands of …

Sad, informative, and beautiful.

5 stars

There's a lot in here that I have little idea about, which is largely because I don't know much about what has happened throughout India and its relationships to its neighbours (particularly Pakistan) in the recent past. Though I know about Partition, I haven't had a lot of exposure to Indian politics until recently. It's one of many knowledge gaps that I'm filling, even if it's very gradual.

But this book of essays is... Well, with good reason, there are a lot of very upsetting elements. But the way that Arundhati Roy wrote about these topics is... Oddly beautiful. The analogies and metaphors used clearly communicate the frustration and anger of many people.

Capitalist Realism (EBook, 2009, Zero Books) 4 stars

Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? explores Fisher's concept of "capitalist realism," which he takes …

Doesn't Merit Its Constant References

1 star

I don't think this merits whatever praise it gets, especially for how often it's used among leftist writers when developing their arguments.

This book really... feels devoid of its own thought. The analysis and synthesis of ideas doesn't seem to actually take place, with it relying heavily on the thoughts of others. Considering the amount of times I read some variation of the phrase "as Žižek said," I may as well have gone and read Žižek (or Deleuze and Guattari, for that matter).

There are far too many references to too many pieces of media, which makes everything feel entirely vague or superficial. Even if he could adequately build a point using those pieces of media, it falls short and a lot of that analysis is needless? Like there's some media analysis about how names like McCauley are anonymous and without history, while Corleone is full of history because it's …

Advertising Shits in Your Head (2019, PM Press) 2 stars

Advertising Shits in Your Head calls adverts what they are—a powerful means of control through …

Disappointing.

2 stars

This book is frustrating, and it really was in need of an editor. Not only because there are occasional mistakes that make sentences absolutely infuriating to read but because an editor would've stopped and been like "You talked about this, can we please elaborate? Perhaps it might make a stronger case."

The introduction was inciting, and it really set the tone. It's unfortunate that the rest of it fell flat and felt largely vague. It also missed key moments to actually go into depth on some of the issues related to subvertising, like a more cohesive discussion on the co-option of street art (namely Banksy, as that was an example).