mustinvestigate

Since my job is primarily data-diving and refining my antisocial skills, I decided to take a break from listening to so much Tom Waits (honing those aforementioned skills a leeeetle too keen) and crack out some classic public domain audio books.

I started with the Sage of Baltimore’s In Defense of Women, and, uh…let’s just say, with a defense like that, we don’t need attackers. I made it through about half the chapters, and to sum those up: women must be smart because they cynically con men into marriage despite the institution being bad for men in every way, and men aren’t even allowed to beat their wives any more; also, women are uniformly ugly, shaped “like a dumbbell run over by an express train.” I can’t say it’s a bad thing you’re all but forgotten in your home town, H. L.

Then, Peter Kropotkin’s The Conquest of Bread, read by someone with a Benzaie-esque French accent. Turns out there was a passionate anarchist school of communist theory before the revolution, after which Lenin purty much squelched it. Like most pinko theory, great job deconstructing the faults of capitalism, not so great on the faults of humankind that make real existing socialism such a mess…this, speaking as someone who makes Upton Sinclair look like Rush Limbaugh. Nonetheless, his plans for how an anarchist commune would function make the Smurfs look like a fungus-based Rapture, and it’s damn soothing learning how everyone will get the basics of their meals from a communal kitchen (allowing the “housewives” to add their preferred finishing touches), and that other food, houses, and clothes will still remain a person’s personal possessions. And there’ll be no shirkers when everyone has meaningful work! What a picture.

So, I’m 1 for 2 so far. The experiment continues.