Everything for Everyone

Everything for Everyone : An Oral History of the New York Commune, 2052–2072 est un livre signé par M.E. O'Brien et Eman Abdelhadi et publié en 2022 par l'éditeur Common Notions.

L'ouvrage se présente comme un livre d'histoire orale, la retranscription d'interviews fictives mais présentées comme réelles, dans le cadre la célébration des vingt ans de la fondation de la Commune de New-York. C'est donc un livre d'anticipation mais qui se présente comme le récit historique des vingt années qui ont changé le monde et la société, la fin du capitalisme et l'avènement d'une nouvelle ère où les citoyens se réapproprient leurs habitats, leurs activités, et leur vie en général.

J'ai beaucoup aimé ce jeu entre fiction et histoire, mais aussi les valeurs portées par le texte. Alors que l'actualité est chaque jour plus oppressante, que la vie sous le capitalisme hégémonique est toujours plus difficile à supporter, lire ce futur possible et désirable a été une bouffée d'air frais tout à fait bienvenue. Même si le retour à la réalité est difficile ...

I technically “finished” this because I skimmed the rest, but I more or less gave up after the Staten Island chapter. And ‘gave up' feels like it does me a disservice, because I should be framing it as, “died after a long struggle.” I wanted to put it down after the first chapter. I stuck with it as long as I could.

I am preconfigured to dislike it. I find anarchist theory and ideas to be woefully stupid, and I don't even know how to phrase that more respectfully. I simply do not think they are in line with reality. Not in a “you're saying no before thinking about it,” way. Part of it is that I believe a State can be a force for good, maybe in the same way that anarchists think that the Stateless can be. I'm not sure. I know there are a lot more examples in history of the State being a force for good than an anarchist “State” being a force for anything (to be fair, more examples of a State as evil, too). Anyway, I find the whole thought really dumb and bizarre, not to mention a woeful waste of time when so much could be done to improve the real world.

This is a work of fiction, so I'll review it like that. The writing is abysmal. An interview format can be interesting, though I think it is almost always an insanely lazy way to write because it lets the authors get away with such little detail and the infrastructure that makes a good story. You can do these things in an interview format, but these authors do not. They fail even to write decent interviews. No one in the world has ever or will ever speak like this. If an interviewer tried to interview like this, they the conversations would never get off the ground.

One of the authors is a professor at my alma mater. I frantically checked to ensure they DIDN'T teach in my program because I was appalled that someone professing human development would write such poor interviews. Surely, this is not how they engage when interviewing real people. I don't believe the people writing these have ever interviewed anyone. I hope not!

Struggling to put my personal beliefs about anarchy and its feasibility aside, considering the world described - there is no detail put into anything. The lack of detail drains conflict. There is no intention or opposition in the telling of this tale, and that means there is no drama. We are never held in suspense. We are never wondering what will happen next. If you set out to tell a story in an interview format, a certain amount of suspense is already lost because you are removed in time. So, you must keep us engaged somehow. They failed to engage me or try even to hold my interest.

In my book club, someone said something to the effect of, “it's in the aches, not the details.” I'm glad the book worked for them. That is not how books work for me. A good idea does not save a bad book, and let me be clear: I think this is an egregiously bad book. It lacks detail, it lacks consistency, it lacks interest in anything but the ideas the authors wanted to package up and proclaim as workable. They present no evidence for their assertions. They talk about a future 40-60 years from now in which everyone agrees with everything. They present no discussion of how the world achieved this peace, other than some passing glances at the great fun of remembering war and murder. Characters wave away any emotional conflict with “I've been to therapy.” Were it so easy.

I think these things MUST be engaged with if you're going to write a good book. If you want to write a vibes book, write a vibes book! But this isn't that - this is a work of worldly fan-fiction that tries to sell a political and economic ideology that does none of the work required to convince anyone. You can't give someone an idea and say, “figure it out!” That's a dumb thing to do!

This thing has already wasted too much of my time - safe to say I hated it!

I loved it! Listening to the audio book was great for the interview style, and the voice actors did a great job at bringing the different characters to life.

To my own surprise a few chapters even moved me to tears, and I realized that while I read a lot of historical or political non-fiction, I never allow myself to think much about the future outside of the potential dark paths we are going down. This book showed me the importance of concretely imagining a future in which we don't just survive but build something better.

I've been recommending it to so many friends already, especially those who don't usually read much fiction.