The LaborPunk Manifesto : Ten Simple Rules

        "I would be ashamed to admit that I had risen from the ranks. When I rise it will be with the ranks, and not from the ranks." - Eugene Debs, Labor Organizer and Prisoner

        "The history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggles." - Karl Marx, inventor of sociology

        "The working class and the employing class have nothing in common. There can be no peace so long as hunger and want are found among millions of working people and the few, who make up the employing class, have all the good things in life." - Preamble to the Constitution of the Industrial Workers of the World, a labor union

        "From each according to their ability to punch you in the face, to you according to your need to be punched in the face." - Raven Green, author of this blog

 I would say that most of the stories I write these days could be called "LaborPunk."

DISCLAIMER: Before you get on my case about branding yet another xPunk subgenre, I am actually using the term correctly to describe an intentionally subversive subgenre with ties to youth culture. LaborPunk is to class struggle what cyberpunk is to technology. I hesitate to apply the "dystopian" or "utopian" labels because I rarely write straight utopians, I don't find them interesting, and I think to shoehorn everything into "dystopia" based on setting obfuscates certain key thematic and story-relevant differences. For example, in "1984," Orwell writes that "If there was hope, it must lie in the proles" (proletariat). This could be considered an early example of a LaborPunk theme. I also don't want to reinforce Horseshoe Theory based purely on setting aesthetics, which are really more superficial in the analysis than the thematic underpinnings of a genre.

I have settled on "LaborPunk" to describe most of my stories because while the settings tend to be gritty and non-utopian, I wouldn't call the stories anti-utopian, and the "dystopian" elements people seem to see in them are actually just elements of our own society, like the way that far-right authoritarianism maps so easily onto the neoliberal hegemony. There are certain things, story-wise, that I don't do, and certain tropes I don't like to use, and the use of these things in a story would disqualify it from being LaborPunk.

So I am going to write a list of rules. If the rules are followed, it is LaborPunk. And if the rules are broken, it is not LaborPunk.

A LaborPunk story must do the following things:

1. LaborPunk must establish that class struggle is inevitable and desirable. The classes must struggle; there can be no peace until social stratification, the wage system, structural poverty and the state's militarized defense of these things is abolished. The story does not have to depict the final abolition. It can merely show that such a way forward is possible, and more desirable than any compromise with the ruling class.

2. LaborPunk must avoid reinforcing Horseshoe Theory . A story that endorses Horseshoe Theory is by definition not LaborPunk, because LaborPunk is far-left, anti-capitalist and anti-fascist. LaborPunk writers must recognize and articulate the difference in value systems between the far-right and the radical left and why the latter is more desirable and sustainable than the former, and also, more desirable and sustainable than the neoliberal hegemony. LaborPunk is not about how an oppressed group becomes just as bad or worse than its oppressor. That is reactionary horseshit and a rejection of calls for social justice. LaborPunk is about building anti-oppressive resistance, not revenge fantasies or role reversals. It is about building a better world, not justifying the one we have.

3. LaborPunk shouldn't go the easy route of writing soul-crushing endings or using Deus Ex Machina. LaborPunk stories cannot rely on Deus Ex Machina because LaborPunk is not bourgeoise "technology will solve all social problems" utopianism. And while it's fine to have characters meet tragic fates because of hubris of selfishness or some other anti-social or predatorial tendency, and of course not every decent character needs to survive, there should be some indication of hope for radical change in the theme of the story. If the story lacks this and concludes with a hands-thrown-in-the-air "humanity is horrible, human nature is unchangeable, what we've got is better than nothing" message, it is definitely not LaborPunk. For all the despair that dark, gritty settings can entail, there needs to be hope. In reality, unlike the land of fiction, totalitarian fascist empires don't last very long. So while a setting can by dystopian, there should be an underlying theme or message in LaborPunk that dystopia cannot last and the human yearning for freedom cannot simply be stamped out so easily from so many by the State.

4. LaborPunk must be both anti-capitalist and anti-fascist. LaborPunk acknowledges and articulates the historical and practical relationship between capitalism and fascism. Anarchist LaborPunk is generally more anti-authoritarian than purely socialist LaborPunk, but because the stories are about class struggle, any story advocating Anarcho-Capitalism is definitely not LaborPunk. Where fascism is addressed, its relationship the neoliberal hegemony should be at the forefront of its depiction. Fascism does not happen in a vacuum. LaborPunk, like the rest of the Left, appreciates context.

5. LaborPunk is not "liberal." It is not about elections of well-meaning, do-good members of the political class who manage to build a government by the people, for the people using good-old-fashioned representative democracy and politicking. It is not about elites. It is not about knights, lords, dukes, kings, queens, space marines, intrepid merchants, executives, generals, presidents, chancellors, the Bourgeois, the aristocracy, religious leadership, the political class, or the "struggling" middle class. These may be peripheral characters or factions and their behavior and legacies maybe important to the backstories of settings and main characters, but at its core, LaborPunk is about working-class people's agency. It should not make use of tropes that reinforce bourgeois society's values or narratives that strip working-class people of our dignity and agency..

6. LaborPunk is primarily anti-elitist and only as dystopian as reality under industrial capitalism already is. Face it, you live in an elitist, neoliberal dystopia. You just don't think it's dystopia because the ruling class has hoodwinked you into voting it repeatedly into power with symbolism and theatre to distract you from the real horror of what industrial capitalism does every day in the name of profit and power. So, while maybe your neighborhood isn't a dystopia, if you live in any big city, you can find one that is. The notion of dystopias as fantastic or gimmicky or ultra-efficiently totalitarian is antithetical to this underlying assumption of LaborPunk. Dystopia need not be fantastic, unrealistically efficient or gimmicky. Dystopia can look like someone else's neighborhood. It's better that it does, because that actually reinforces LaborPunk themes, such as that one person's happy medium between "extreme" policies is what other people call structural poverty. LaborPunk must not send the message that dystopia doesn't already exist somewhere in our own atomized and hierarchical, alienated communities. LaborPunk settings don't need to look like Oceania in "1984" or like Syria today to get the point across. They can look like the nearest ghetto to your own neighborhood, and make that point better. If your dystopia relies not merely on bad social and economic policies and structural poverty, but instead on an ultra-efficient, soul-crushing fascist government, or magic, or mind control technology that oppresses everyone equally without a hierarchy of formal and informal privileges, or any of these other fantastic plot devices that take away the agency of working class people or otherwise obscure class differences, you probably shouldn't call it LaborPunk. If your hero is an exceptional elite who doesn't uplift other people from their class to a similar heroic status, but solves all the problems using their innate superiority or collaborating only in secret with other elite individuals, it is definitely not LaborPunk.

7. The heroes of LaborPunk stories can have flaws, they can do questionable things, they can and should be either human or closely human A.I., but they should not be navel-gazing slackers, erudite bohemian hipsters, "bourgeois bohemians," or "manic pixie dream people." If a character begins a story as one of these archetypes and is important enough to make it to the end, by the end, they should either be an obstructer, an antagonist, or moved closer to a revolutionary, militant ideal based on collaborative planning and action rather than existential angst or aesthetic rebellion. Existential angst can feature in a character's arc, but it needs to be resolved by something like dialectical materialism and personal and political growth for the story to be LaborPunk.

8. LaborPunk is populist literature. It is not about the triumph of high culture or the intellectual elite over the ignorant masses. This is elitism and will not be tolerated in the Proletarian Insurrection that is LaborPunk. That does mean LaborPunk endorses anti-intellectualism of any kind. But intellect must serve the class struggle. Intellect alone is not any kind of determinant of the moral or ethical behavior of an individual or society. LaborPunk is not about elites of any kind. It is about compassion and depth of understanding, nuance, context, all these things, but it must not promote any kind of elitist message or theme. LaborPunk is populist, but a LaborPunk writers needs to distinguish populism, which is desirable, pluralistic, and anti-authoritarian, from vulgar majoritarianism, the authoritarian, anti-pluralist, undesirable thing which most liberals and the bourgeois conflate with populism.  

9. LaborPunk does not endorse class reductionism. Sexual orientation, gender, race, and other systems of hierarchical division are part of how capitalism maintains itself, but these struggles must be part of class struggle, not seen as separate from it. Classism exists within marginalized groups as well as between them, and this is exploited by the ruling class to keep groups competing with each other and convinced that their interests conflict with each other's identities and freedoms. LaborPunk must acknowledge and articulate the intersectionality of class struggle with anti-racist, anti-imperialist and anti-patriarchal struggles.

10. LaborPunk writers should make an effort to pass the Bechdel Test.

Official Expanded Universe Tie-Ins are Official Scams : where lazy writing meets aggressive merchandising, it's about quantity, not quality

I respect worldbuilding as a craft. I respect a high quality story world. But worldbuilding has to support a coherent story. There is a craft to speculative fiction that is separate from marketability. A good story should be self-contained, even if it shares a setting or characters with another story. Obviously, a series builds on previous installments. That is a matter of craft and there is nothing inherently wrong with that. But even within a series it helps to distinguish the installments. No one needs to see every "Indiana Jones" movie because each of those movies tells one story. It tells that story well, and then it moves on (M*A*S*H joke, for anyone who didn't catch that).

This is not a rant about "sequelitis," "prequelitis," or "franchise fatigue" per se, or the distinct but related "reboot fatigue," although those factors are at play. What pisses me off more than creators not respecting the original material, is not respecting the fanbase enough to be satisfied with crafting a high quality product that stands on its own, but instead seeing fandom as a cash cow for marketing "official tie-in merchandise" that exists not so much to further develop characters or plot, but to explain and excuse lazy writing, plot holes, bad research, weak characterization, and inconsistent and often controversial or unpopular production choices.

There's nothing wrong inherently with a sequel, or a prequel, or a reboot. Franchises function under the auspices of industrial capitalism, I don't expect any grand nobility there, but I do expect craft. There is a craft difference between creating a sequel or a prequel to a well-loved book or movie or other media, because of a commitment to the people who love it, and this masturbatory exercise of releasing calculated for-profit tie-in material to explain all the inconsistencies and choices that you, yourself, the creator, made that frustrated or did not resonate with the fans in the first place. And it's also, in a way, about accountability.

So let's say you're rebooting a classic franchise, like "Star Trek." Just to name a prominent example. It's the 21st century so obviously what looked futuristic in the sixties is retro now. The thing that creators underestimate about fans is, we're actually willing to overlook things like that if the product is high quality and stands on its own. Of course, if you change the look of something, it's fairly simple to own that production choice. If you have confidence in your work, this shouldn't be a source of shame. It's reasonable and expected that a modern production would make use of modern production values and maybe that means the USS Enterprise looks different, or the uniforms are more detailed, or whatever because that's not really the important part. Sure, it will frustrate nitpickers who make a religion out of entertainment, and people like that are annoying, but just because they are annoying, doesn't mean they deserve to be exploited.

What I find exploitative is the notion that any unpopular decision or instance of bad writing, bad characterization, bad research, bad continuity, etc, can and should be the basis of a sub-industry of for-profit tie-in material. I think if a creator is concerned with the quality of their product, even if that product is part of a series or a franchise, the product has to stand on its own merits. "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" is a great fucking movie in this regard. It's a direct sequel to a classic episode with one of science fiction's most memorable villains, but what's remarkable about "Star Trek II," to me, is that a casual viewer can enjoy it without necessarily having seen that episode, or having sat through the very poorly received and much less exciting and charismatic first Star Trek movie. The characters and the conflicts work in a self contained fashion, even though it's part of a series and the series is part of a larger franchise. It does this because enough people who were responsible for the production process respected not only fans but casual viewers and didn't generate continuity lockout by design for the sake of selling tie-in comics, novelizations, web series, etc. That's not to say "Star Trek II" had no plot holes. It did. But the whole product held up under enough intensive fan scrutiny and enough "casual viewer who's maybe seen two Star Trek episodes in their life before this" scrutiny that it struck a happy medium that is vanishingly rare in entertainment today that most people would be hard pressed to remember the plot holes compared to their positive experience of enjoying "Star Trek II."

I also happen to think "Back to the Future Part II" improved on the original and didn't detract from it in the least. It stands on its own because you don't actually have to see the first movie to appreciate the second. It works if you have, the callbacks will be more significant, but it's not strictly necessary to "get" what is going on with Marty and Doc in "Part II." More of the jokes make sense if you've seen Part I first, but guess what? Story-wise, it doesn't much matter. You could actually watch any of the "Back to the Future" trilogy films out of order and each would still be reasonably coherent on its own. That's a strength of the writing, and it didn't take a hundred "official tie-in" titles to link the movies together.

That's not to say those movies don't have plot holes either. It's just that they are overshadowed in the audience's mind by the coherence of the storytelling and production.

This is not how franchises work now. Now, any bad writing, any negation of continuity, any stylistic choice at all can be justified because there will be a prequel comic or a novelization or some other non-promotional (I.E. "not free") tie-in material that enough frustrated fans will buy to keep the studio from going into the red. Yes, I know, this is how capitalism works, but there has also been a sharp increase in this trend in, I would say, the last two decades or so, and I think it has had a negative impact on the quality of Sci Fi mass media.

I've got no issue with user generated content. User generated content has been a feature of fandom since before most people even knew what the internet was. Fan fiction was published in DIY zines that were sold at conventions to pay the vendor fee. No one got rich from this, people did it out of love for the characters and the worlds. I don't think that's equivalent to doing it to milk a cash cow, and when you're doing it to milk a cash cow and also justify your own laziness and inconsistency, that's the point it stops being an "expanded universe." Expanded universes "expand" on what it known. Casual enjoyment of the main franchise shouldn't depend on consuming every last bit of profitable material associated with the 'verse of one movie or a series of movies or a TV series, etc, etc etc. Maybe George Lucas thought it was cute that every funny-costumed extra on the set of "Star Wars" had their own story, but no one needed to know those details in order to enjoy the first "Star Wars" movie, or any of the original trilogy. The names and backstories of the bounty hunters are interesting on their own but not particularly relevant to any of the action in "The Empire Strikes Back." Likewise, no one needs to watch every episode of the 1980s "Ewoks" cartoon to follow the plot logic of "Return of the Jedi." Fortunately.

But these days, the model seems to be that studios don't create self-contained high quality works. Every work is now a living commercial for a universe of high-quantity, varying quality explanatory (as opposed to "expanded") tie-in material. These do not tell one story, they do not do it very well, and they do not move on.

And it is killing science fiction. I can't even watch any new "Star Wars" material anymore because my understanding of the nuances of the characters and world of a show like "The Mandalorian" seem dependent on the assumption of my consumption of every single tie-in novel, comic book, and board game to understand the barest elements of the backstory. I haven't even bothered to sit down and watch "The Mandalorian" because I know there will be too much continuity lockout, and I don't have the time or the inclination to read and absorb all the tie-in shit. I love "Star Trek" much, much more than I relate to the themes or setting of "Star Wars" (for reasons I will detail in another post, they are primarily political reasons) but I don't have time or inclination to read the various "Countdown" comics that explain how all the unpopular choices and inconsistencies the latest installments of the franchise have introduced are actually relevant and part of "canon." I just don't care. It has nothing to do with good characterization, storytelling or worldbuilding.

I care about quality. Not quantity. Guess I'd make a pretty shitty capitalist, but there's no "good capitalism," is there?

Still, there is a difference between true "expanded universe" material and the new wave of "explanatory universe" material. "Expanded universe material" expands on what is known, it adds nuance. But what I am calling "explanatory universe material" doesn't add nuance in that way, it is largely instead a contrivance explain away plot holes and controversial stylistic decisions, and recoup studio losses. Everyone in the Mos Eisley Cantina having a name and backstory in some obscure notebook of George Lucas' is an example of an "expanded universe" done well, because none of those characters or their backstories are particularly important to the plot concerning Luke, Leia and Obi Wan, and their slaves ("droids" maybe the politically correct term but fuck that, they are slaves). But when important plot points (or, in many cases, plot holes) depend on supplementary material to make sense in context, that's when you've a problem. A high quality product shouldn't need to have important plot points or gaping plot holes elaborated and explained by supplementary material. It's the worst combination of lazy craft and aggressive marketing.

I've got news for fandom: they don't make this material because they "respect you." They do it because they're betting that you'll shell out money for quantity in lieu of actual quality. And that pisses me off more as a writer than it does as a fan. If I'm able to get my stories published and I have fans of my own one day, I'm not going to treat them like this. It's a shitty way to treat someone, even if enough people fall for it and are making you rich.

If the latest installment of a series or franchise can't be reconciled with the rest of the series or franchise without a whole "explanatory universe" of supplementary material, maybe that's because the quality of storytelling just isn't what it used to be, and the creators need to be held to a higher standard. Quality, over quantity.

I can think of many situations like that throughout history, where boycotts seem to always have worked.

Why Everything You Think You Know About Amish Adolescence Is Wrong : The "English" Myth of Rumspringa

 When I was 16, my high school film class watched a documentary called "The Devil's Playground." You can watch the full movie on YouTube. When I was 16, I thought this movie was awesome. I was taken in by sensationalism, elitism and a distorted mythos about Amish adolescence. The narrative we tell about the Amish paints a curious picture. If the myth is to be believed, between the ages of 16 and 21, Amish youth participate in a rite of passage called "Rumspringa," in which they are not subject to their communities' standards of behavior. They are encouraged to experiment with the "English" (mainstream) culture, and Amish parents are not supposed to intervene or discipline them. The Amish teens "go wild" with drugs, cars and partying, and experience a pastoral version of "Scared Straight" when they are unable to cope with the influences of the outside world, and they come crawling back to the Amish Church and become full fledged adults in their repressed, conservative communities.

This is not actually true, nor is it a story about the Amish. It's actually a story about us. Amish society doesn't do this to young adults. We do. 

First, Rumspringa is real. The term translates roughly to "Jumping Around" or "Hopping Around" in Pennsylvania Dutch, the traditional language spoken in Amish communities. But for most Amish teens in communities that practice it (and not all Amish communities do), it's less a time of sanctioned partying, sex, drugs, and popular music than it is about dating. In Rumspringa, certain social prohibitions are relaxed to give the kids a chance to develop closer social and ideally romantic relationships with the opposite sex. It's not about partying. It's about courtship. Not all communities of Amish do this (just like Amish communities make practical decisions about their use of technology) and in those that do, the incidental "experimentation" mostly consists of soda and video games. It's not the sensationalized, exciting coming of age that "The Devil's Playground" portrays. It's much more mundane and rarely lasts 5 years. And no, Amish parents are not prohibited from disciplining their teenagers or intervening if they do go too far and disrupt community life.

Let me say a couple things as disclaimers: I am not defending the Amish lifestyle as ideal. I would not want to live in an Amish community. I would find it overly religious and repressive. My sexuality and atheism would hardly be tolerated. But Amish society has its good points too: it is cooperative and communalist, and these aren't bad things. Humility and modesty also are not bad things. And as a social worker with a background in anthropology, and having an intense hatred of exploitative and sensationalist media, I don't like when our narratives rob people from other cultures of their agency and dignity. I am also miffed by the tendency to simultaneously idealize, fetishize, and other-ize the Amish. Amish people are more like other human beings than not. They're not Puritans, they're not Pilgrims, they're not living relics whom time has passed by. Nor are they Luddites. Luddism is an "English" tradition. Their choices about using or not using particular technologies are primarily oriented toward maintaining their lifestyle and autonomy by preserving their pace of life and not depending on the "English" world. It's about modesty, not ignorance.

A multi-year long time of sanctioned experimentation exists in our culture. It's called college. And just like Rumspringa, not every one in our culture practices this.

The Amish are anabaptists. They believe that only a consenting adult can make a choice to accept God's salvation and become a full fledged member of the Amish church. Amish parents are no more likely to be cold, distant and aloof than "English" parents, and there is plenty repression in our own culture. Amish parents also do not fail to teach their children appropriate coping skills and then leave them to be "scared straight" by the outside world. This is not just a misconception, it is elitist propaganda. I am not an anabaptist, but the idea that only a consenting adult can participate fully in religious life isn't that alien to me. I actually kind of agree with it. And frankly, most people don't make a total break as adults with the culture or religion they were raised with as children. Amish, like everyone else, thrive in positive relationships with their families and other members of their community. That's why most Amish kids join the church as adults. It's not because they're traumatized by modernity. It's because they are human.

But guess who do fail to teach kids how to cope with a chaotic and troubled world and leave them at the mercy of that world to sink or swim?

We do. "English." Westerners. Mainstream Americans. The disciples of Industrial Capitalism.

The myth of Rumspringa is not really about the Amish. It's a story about us.

"The Devil's Playground" is also a monument to bad research. The filmmakers hyper-focused on one youth who spirals downward into drug addiction and isolation before rejoining his community as an adult when he forms a relationship with an Amish girl. They took his and a few other rebellious teens' accounts of Amish life at face value and interspersed these segments with an interview with one elder who was probably the only Amish adult who consented to being filmed. This isn't just exploitative filmmaking, it's bad research, bad documentarian technique, and sensationalized propaganda aimed at promoting the dominant culture as morally superior to those backward, rural technophobes we imagine the Amish are.

Dear "English" world: stop doing this. It's condescending and dishonest. Teach your own kids the coping skills they will need to navigate the world and stay above negative influences, and stop projecting our own society's social problems on a minority culture.

Thank you. Until next time, comrades and fellow travelers.

The Shape of Things to Come

Dear Readers,

I apologize for my prolonged absence. Work has been more intense as of late. In my line of work, the holiday season tends to be a time when kids who are separated from their families are very vulnerable and troubled, and matters more urgent than this blog have demanded my attention. I have not had much energy left over and my writing has suffered for it.

This post is entitled "The Shape of Things to Come." It is a preview of posts I intend to make in the near future. There are four that I think will be of special interest to readers of this blog.

First, I will be writing a post on WHY EVERYTHING YOU THINK YOU KNOW ABOUT THE AMISH IS WRONG. Before I was a social worker, I was an aspiring anthropologist. I would argue that I still do anthropology... at least, I still use ethnographic methodology in my social work practice. I also hate sensationalism. And I hate exploitational media (with the exception, which I will detail in a separate post, of Jerry Springer). The AMISH post will tell the real story of Rumspringa, the oft-mythologized and distorted narrative of Amish adolescence.

I will be penning a LABORPUNK MANIFESTO, which will detail excruciatingly the subgenre I am trying to make. LABORPUNK is to class struggle what cyberpunk is to technology and youth subculture. But not exploitative. It's not exclusively dystopian or utopian, both these concepts too often reinforce the status quo. LABORPUNK is insurgent science fiction.

I will be writing a post about my youthful fixation on the specter of extraterrestrial abduction and conspiracy theories, from a mature and seasoned, more skeptical perspective, as a SCIENCE FICTIONALIZED NARRATIVE RECONSTRUCTION OF SEXUAL TRAUMA. This post will touch on why "Mysterious Skin," Gregg Araki's adaptation of the Scott Heim novel, is one of the most underrated and important movies of our time.

Finally, I will be writing A LOVE LETTER TO JERRY SPRINGER FROM MY CLOSETED QUEER ELEVEN YEAR OLD SELF, a retrospective about a time in my life when I was beginning to question and rebel and I spent a lot of time watching Jerry Springer while waiting for Star Trek reruns. I will explain why The Jerry Springer Show was formative in my youth, and why I think it still holds up today. And why Jerry Springer does not get the credit he deserves for his inventive role in modern television. 

These things, and more, from the Speculative Anarchist.