Announcing ALLiance a journal of theory and strategy
Here's a pretty old post from the blog archives of Geekery Today; it was written about 15 years ago, in 2009, on the World Wide Web.
From ALLy Chris Lempa (2009-01-11):
ALLiance a journal of theory and strategy [beta] is done. I’m very happy with the content. I used Scribus to do the page layout and that was a mistake. It kept crashing my system and was overall not a very friendly program. Hopefully it will be replaced before the next issue. Please take a look at this issue and provide constructive criticism. My goal is to create a journal that promotes libertarian (broadly defined) theory. Please contact me if you are interested in a hard copy.
It is currently being hosted at www.issuu.com but will soon have it’s own space on the web. Issuu makes two versions available – a downloadable pdf as well as a version that is easier to read online.
Thanks for your interest and please remember that this is a test release! I need your comments. Please send them to chris (at) chrislempa dot info
Read ALLiance [beta] – http://issuu.com/alliancejournal/docs/alliance0
Here’s the introduction from the Beta issue:
A Note from Z’s
Libertarianism is political philosophy with a rich history. A countless number of people have dedicated their lives to the freedom movement. The goal of ALLiance a journal of theory and strategy is not to explain libertarianism — that has been done. The Molinari Institute, the Libertarian Labyrinth, and Anarchy Archives, amongst others, have a great collection of foundational texts. ALLiance aims to disseminate theory and strategy. Both new and recently published articles will be included. So many great articles have been published on blogs and articles. Some of these reach a large audience, unfortunately many do not. Many end up preaching to the so called choir or converted. Hopefully ALLiance will spread the ideas of our loose knit movement.
Future issues will, hopefully, focus largely on strategy. Most people reading this will agree that change is necessary, but how do we realize that change? Let’s move our theory to action. Articles on theory will be accepted and published, but we prefer to move those ideas forward. A lot of other venues focus on theorizing a more free society. An example of such a publication was Z Papers. This magazine continued up where Z Magazine stopped. That is, Z Papers went beyond analyzing what was wrong. In fact, that’s where the journal began. Unfortunately, from what I can gather, it failed due to lack of submissions.
Eventually I would like to turn ALLiance into a Z Papers for the libertarian left. Strategies will be diverse and differ in reach and risk. Anything from encrypting email to tax avoidance will be included. Electoral strategies will also be considered, but we really don’t have much interest in relying on the parasitic class. However since the state is so overarching, there will undoubtedly be people who work within the system. My personal view is that this is okay so long as it’s done as a non-reformist reform (i.e. working towards structural change).
Housekeeping Notes
ALLiance will be published quarterly. Submissions will be accepted up to one month before the next issue is published (February 1, May 1, August 1, and November 1). Please submit articles in publishble form. While I will attempt to edit them, I can’t guarantee that I will catch every error (or that we have the same writing style). Please email submissions to me no later than two weeks prior to the deadline if you are in need of proofreader. That will provide enough time to edit and/or suggest revisions if necessary. There is no specific length requirement. Every submission will be read and considered.
I would love to have a large print run, but that isn’t possible at this time. Until it is possible, I encourage interested parties to print and distribute copies. While it’s not necessary, I ask that you contact me if you plan to do this. The pdf will be distributed freely and hopefully widely.
Also note that this is a Beta Issue. The submissions are top notch, but the format is a work in progress. Graphics posed a problem for this issue. At the end I kept them even though the quality for many were poor. Fault lies with the editor (me) nd not the authors. I used Scribus, an open source desktop publishing program to layout this issue. I will be exploring other options for the next issue. Please contact me if you have any suggestions.
Letters/feedback are encouraged. In fact, response articles are encouraged. Symposium styled issues will be published in the future.
Donations/trades are accepted. There is also limited ad space available. Contact me to work something out.
Thanks for reading.
Chris Lempa
chris@chrislempa.info
Here’s the information about the next issue:
Next Issue
The next issue will take a closer look at action. How can we move towards a stateless society. What are some alternatives to the welfare state. I touched briefly on Mutual Aid Organizations, but what else is there? Have you written (or thought about writing) a Do It Yourself guide or primer tht will help peopl live life a little more freely? If so, please consider submitting it to ALLiance. Submissions deadline is February 14.
Submissions can be sent to chris@chrislempa.info.
Read, as they say, the whole thing.
Update 2009-01-15: If you don’t want to use issuu.com’s online reader or register an account with them, Chris Lempa has also provided a direct link to a PDF of the Beta Issue.
Follow
Samhain/Yule 2008? Seriously? Why not just “Winter 2008?”
If you’re going to slap “Samhain/Yule” on there you might as well add on “A publication for well-meaning middle-class white kids rebelling against their parents for a couple of years before they get real jobs” because the general public’s going to add that in their heads anyway. Then they’ll roll their eyes and walk on. They’ll probably do that either way, but there’s no point in just asking for it.
Just my $0.02. YMMV, and so forth.
‘If you’re going to slap “Samhain/Yule” on there you might as well add on “A publication for well-meaning middle-class white kids rebelling against their parents for a couple of years before they get real jobs” because the general public’s going to add that in their heads anyway. Then they’ll roll their eyes and walk on. They’ll probably do that either way, but there’s no point in just asking for it.’
I am so tired of this populist ressentiment against any the slightest gesture of creativity. As if only middle class people, or young people, are capable of smiling, and the rest of humanity demands a grey and uniform practicality.
I turned 30 this October. If I ever come to the point where I refuse to consider something because it feels too young, too different, or to bold, then I dearly hope any gods who may happen to exist will end what will have become an excuse for an existence. Death comes for all, but I refuse to believe that a premature death of the spirit is inevitable.
Yes, I know that most people are in fact beaten down until there is little left but this kind of sentiment. Yes, I am aware that those who are not are usually able to do so as a function of (among other things) some conjunction of privilege. I dearly wish that every passionate spirit was able to realise itself- to me that’s the whole point of any project of socioeconomic egalite. But as this is not yet the case, I would rather spend my life appreciating what little beauty has been allowed to exist than to affect abstinence and humility in order to placate those who distrust all that is not mediocrity. I hope that anyone else with the rare fortune to preserve their own liberty will do the same- and, incidentally, that is the only hope for a future in which that rare fortune is made universal.
Damn the ‘general public’. Everyone who is even potentially admirable is defined by being anything else.
Thank you, ‘your name’- seriously. I needed that. Sometimes I forget the ‘why’ of what I believe.
your name,
Well, feel free to send a comment about the date labels to Chris Lempa at chris@chrislempa.info. He’s the one who designed the cover. Or, for that matter, you should feel free to print out your own copies (there’s currently no centralized print distro anyway) and replace it with a cover you like better.
For what it’s worth, I have no particular attachment to using the medieval Irish calendar. But I think you may want to pick a different line of argument for your criticism, since I strongly doubt that is the intended target audience of the magazine. Or that it should be. The target audience Chris has in mind may or may not be the right audience to target; it may or may not be too narrow; and maybe he’s made choices that may unintentionally narrow it in ways he doesn’t want to narrow it. But there is in fact no such thing as a magazine intended for the and any successful magazine is going to include a lot of little and big subcultural markers that tend to turn some people off — and turn other people on.
Aster,
I think the worry is not that only middle class white kids are capable of smiling, but rather that there may be reasons what makes them smile may not make others smile. Which is something that one may want to keep consciously in mind when publishing a work intended for others to read, even if it’s not a decisive argument against anything.
I think that people who are that easily weirded out by unorthodox calendrical names are probably not going to be receptive to any of the weird ideas presented inside anyway, or any political views not pedaled by Oprah or Fox News. Yes, there’s something to be said tact and accessibility, and I’m never in favor of being needlessly off-putting just for the hell of it (well, almost never), but pandering to the lowest common conservative middle-class denominator while denigrating marginal people who logically should be our movement’s prime constituency is an even worse strategy. Evidenced by the fact that it’s been the libertarian movement’s strategy for the past 30 years.
On another not, some of us actually celebrate those holidays, ya know.
I never thought the major criticism of my new project would have to do with the date. Will it turn some people off? Sure. But I really thought the graffiti I used as the cover picture would turn more people off. Most people already see political radicals as “well-meaning middle-class white kids rebelling against their parents for a couple of years before they get real jobs.” This seems like senseless nitpicking; the kind that fills radical movements and hinders progress.
The copyright allows for you to redo the project as you see fit. Please feel free to take the pdf and do what you see fit with it. If that doesn’t work, email me and I’ll happily send you the Scribus File(Scribus is a free program). You can then make any changes that you wish. Perhaps you can add a note as to why you felt a change was necessary.
Now since you took a moment to bash me, can you please point me to you publications (web based or otherwise) so that I have a point of reference as to what attracts the general public?
Could you just give up a PDF link? I don’t want to sign up for some stupid site, and I don’t really want to use their web-based viewer (I like to read on the train).
“Which is something that one may want to keep consciously in mind when publishing a work intended for others to read, even if it’s not a decisive argument against anything.”
Charles-
To the degree that what you are counseling is the skill of awareness of nuance and translation into others’ social context, I do agree, altho’ I very much distrust the kinds of people and societies for whom this kind of grace and courtesy is a primary virtue. I also reluctantly do concede that in order to preserve one’s authenticity on the things that truly matter it is sometimes unfortunately prudent to concede on issues which don’t matter, but which those around you immovably believe matters a great deal.
But to the degree that the criticism above suggests that one should write, not with an eye to the best one can think and say, but to what appeals to others- any others, but especially the sort of person whose soul is entirely a product of comfortable agreement with past and present, then I disagree as loudly as I can shout. Any genuine politics, as anything genuine in any field of endeavour, is about what one wishes to see in the world- it is not the practice of becoming what the world wishes to see in you. To practice the habit of compromising small flairs of individuality and inspiration for the sake of what the neighbours will think is not only a good way to become the Libertarian Party (as Soviet Onion perfectly remarked), it’s also demanding in oneself the precise opposite of the liberation a proper politics ought to demand from the world. If one gives up the wrong little things for the sake of peace one will dull one’s feeling for what one truly desires and one’s confidence in one’s right and ability to pursue it- and, eventually, one will give up the big things too. The whole point of a radical politics is, by definition, to advance a view of life which is not popularly accepted. And the whole point of a liberatory politics is to win the right to act as others do not wish.
What I uneasily begin to suspect is these kind of principles have very little in common with most who might read these words here. Charles, what is the point of political activism for you? Why does one engage in it? What kind of heart, mind, and spirit ought one to bring to political discussions? And who is politics primarily about- and what are the particular vices and banes of political practice?
Here is a direct link to the pdf: http://tinyurl.com/97zmjt
Aster,
That’s not what I meant to suggest. If I did, then I misspoke.
Like I said, I don’t have any particularly strong feelings bout Chris’s decision to use the medieval Irish calendar on the cover of his magazine. But I don’t have any objection to it (at all), either, and certainly not in the name of (har, har).
My point in responding to you was to clarify what I took your name’s argument to be.
My own view is that one should write the best that one can think and say, not whatever happens to please or comfort an intended audience. I do think that specifying what might be necessarily requires at least some awareness and concern for an intended audience, but that’s certainly not the same thing as merely catering to what pleases them or appeals to them. And, like I said, I don’t consider any such awareness a decisive reason for or against anything in particular.
I agree that that’s a bad thing to do. I don’t think that anything I would earnestly advise people to do demands it.
I don’t know how to answer a question like that. in the broad sense is just life lived in public. There are many points, not one — as many as there are points to living with others. Most of my central political concerns are connected with individual freedom and substantive justice, or with mutuality and solidarity, for me, and for the people that I love, and for my neighbors (both in my physical neighborhood and in the cosmopolis). But there are other concerns that are also vitally important — discovery and knowledge, honesty, kindness, beauty, fairness, compassion, pleasure, courage, etc. etc. etc. Taking all of that and more into account, the first task is to live well yourself — to practice or to produce or to defend all these things in yourself, whether alone or in the company of others. Then to recognize other people’s practice or production of them, and to help others practice or produce them in themselves. Then finally to promote them, to the extent possible, in the world at large.
Chris,
Thanks! I’ve added a link to the PDF in the main article.
Charles-
Thank you very much for taking the time to reply. That’s precisely how I would hope one might answer a question of basic premises, minor issues of tone and emphasis aside. I merely hope you are not being diplomatic or too generous with ideas- if we do disagree on fundamental issues I’d prefer open disagreement to a false peace- the latter works in favour of the worst ideas anyway.
As a question more for myself than for you, I wonder if it is necessarily a good thing to live life in public? There are times when I think that public engagement is inherently corrosive of authenticity and integrity and as a field inherently rewards the other-directed and the power-driven state of mind- but then I remember what private life looks like if left too long without exposure to public sunlight, and how inescapable convention becomes without a culture of public critical scrutiny- and then apoliticism seems not to be an option.