Facing the Crisis of the Earth: The Role of Communities of Liberation and Solidarity in Social and Ecological Regeneration

Presented by John Clark and Quincy Saul
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This presentation will focus on the importance of primary communities of liberation and solidarity, awakening and care, in the process of revolutionary social ecological transformation. Its premise is that we are in a new period of geohistory that goes under various names, but might best be called the Necrocene, the new era of death on Earth. It is argued that the imminent collapse of the biosphere can only be avoided, and social and ecological regeneration be achieved, if there is a simultaneous transformation of the social institutional structure, the social imaginary, the social ideology, and the social ethos. It is argued further that although this will require a multitude of complementary strategies and tactics, the most promising pathway to confronting these spheres of social determination on both personal and collective levels is through the formation of liberatory primary communities, and through the proliferation of large federations of such communities. The presentation will begin with a conversation between John Clark and Quincy Saul about these ideas, as expressed in John’s books Between Earth and Empire: From the Necrocene to the Beloved Community (PM Press, 2019), and The Impossible Community: Realizing Communitarian Anarchism (PM Press, revised edition forthcoming). Quincy is editor of Maroon Comix: Origins and Destinies (PM Press) and coeditor of Maroon the Implacable: The Collected Writings of Russell Maroon Shoatz (PM Press).