Shaping Change, Changing Worlds. I've ordered the book from Abebooks and will try to read it and follow your Toward Liberation.
As you may know, I published an open access 1999 article in Humanity & Society, A Needs-Based Partial Theory of Human Injustice is the short title. It argues that oppression, mechanistic dehumanization and exploitation (ODE)--a typology which arose in my teaching at Fordham in 1989 and was enriched by the works of Doyal and Gough, Nick Haslam and Ann Cudd--produces human injustice. At least it does so in the absence of primary and secondary prevention. In social work we mainly do tertiary (downstream) prevention.
So I'm an abolitionist in that I want to abolish human injustice, and address human needs--which are explained fully in my latest open access entry Human Needs: Overview in the Encyclopedia of Social Work Fall 2023--and work towards human liberation.
My 2019 piece presents a Figure and typology of human injustice, human needs and human liberation. But on your issue of small scale change and large scale change, I explicitly omit the question of individual level injustice on the ground, that requires understanding issues of philosophy in which I'm not competent, since my theorization was strictly sociological.
Yes, my work on The Moment of Microaggression in 2016 did discuss individual level acts and their frequest roots in ODE, but I concluded that ultimately there are also matters of individual human relations. After all, as one might conclude from your piece, if we all in a sense refused to engage in individual level oppression, mechanistic dehumanizaition or exploitation, those sytems would crumble! I'm hoping to see how you enage with that profound and complex issue.
Over the holidays I'll be writing my own Election Analysis, informed by a bibliography of over 500 pieces I've read. That bibliography--which now includes your piece--comments on many of them are found in my substack's Beats section on Election Analysis https://michaelalandover.substack.com/p/2024-election-analysis. My Essays section has two initial pieces on Surviving the Next Four Years: https://michaelalandover.substack.com/s/essays.
I've never in my life seen someone undergo such a later-life radicalization such as yours, over the last five or so years (that is, assuming you were not lying in the weeds until you got tenure. I've noticed how few social work educators truly speak out or engage in intense activism, even when they do have tenure.
It has been great having some direct exchanges with you and I took your advice on some of the new wording for the WIMBY pledge (www.wimby.org) when we revised it. I'm still looking for a permanent home for it, much like the journal Reflections: Narratives of Professional Helping found when I decided to retire after some health challenges I've now overcome (well, several actually).
I'm hoping very much as well to write another piece about the Middle East, if the hopes for a Gaza ceasefire can be realized over these holidays. I cover that extensively on my Middle East Peace with Justice beat: https://michaelalandover.substack.com/p/peace-with-justice-in-the-middle. That piece will be informed by my 55 years of peace and solidary activism, and the last year of intensive reading in the bibliography of over 1500 pieces I've read since 10/06/23. During the time since then, I've published onw reporting item on the Palestinian Voices event at the City Club of Cleveland (Washtenaw Jewish News), and three advocacy items (a January 2024 New York Times letter, a February 2024 Cleveland Jewish News letter , and December 2024 Cleveland Plain Dealer op-ed, all calling for a Gaza ceasefire. That above link leads to that bibliography
I've spent most of my activist life since 1967 working within my fields of endeavor, first journalism (1966-1972), 2 intense years of Chile solidarity activism (1973-4), social work (1975-present) and sociology (1991-present). But I've now chosen to more fully enter the public area with my substack and I'm pleased I'm in good company. I just learned how to include this in Notes by checking the below! And I'll try to re-stack your piece somehow, I'm still learning. I hope our paths cross.
Hello Michael - it's nice to hear from you and I'm so glad you came across Toward Liberation! Thank you for sharing all of these resources you've compiled over the year - all your work in this space is really amazing and I'm looking forward to digging in more. Happy new year!
The book arrived yesterday. I'm busy prepping 2 sections of 35 each of a writing HBSE macro course, demand was so high they opened a second section, but I'll get to it soon as I'm trying to turn my partial theory into fuller theory. Meanwhile I'm reviewing Wendy Brown's Nihilistic Times and Jonathan Foiles's Reading Arendt in the Waiting Room. He's an advocate of police abolition and you might like that book. my substack has, I think, my op-ed for our Cleveland Issue 24 for a citizen's review board.
Alan, it is remarkable that you are writing this https://www.towardliberation.com/p/on-emergent-strategy-the-2024-election and proposing discussion of the book Emergent Strategy
Shaping Change, Changing Worlds. I've ordered the book from Abebooks and will try to read it and follow your Toward Liberation.
As you may know, I published an open access 1999 article in Humanity & Society, A Needs-Based Partial Theory of Human Injustice is the short title. It argues that oppression, mechanistic dehumanization and exploitation (ODE)--a typology which arose in my teaching at Fordham in 1989 and was enriched by the works of Doyal and Gough, Nick Haslam and Ann Cudd--produces human injustice. At least it does so in the absence of primary and secondary prevention. In social work we mainly do tertiary (downstream) prevention.
So I'm an abolitionist in that I want to abolish human injustice, and address human needs--which are explained fully in my latest open access entry Human Needs: Overview in the Encyclopedia of Social Work Fall 2023--and work towards human liberation.
My 2019 piece presents a Figure and typology of human injustice, human needs and human liberation. But on your issue of small scale change and large scale change, I explicitly omit the question of individual level injustice on the ground, that requires understanding issues of philosophy in which I'm not competent, since my theorization was strictly sociological.
Yes, my work on The Moment of Microaggression in 2016 did discuss individual level acts and their frequest roots in ODE, but I concluded that ultimately there are also matters of individual human relations. After all, as one might conclude from your piece, if we all in a sense refused to engage in individual level oppression, mechanistic dehumanizaition or exploitation, those sytems would crumble! I'm hoping to see how you enage with that profound and complex issue.
Over the holidays I'll be writing my own Election Analysis, informed by a bibliography of over 500 pieces I've read. That bibliography--which now includes your piece--comments on many of them are found in my substack's Beats section on Election Analysis https://michaelalandover.substack.com/p/2024-election-analysis. My Essays section has two initial pieces on Surviving the Next Four Years: https://michaelalandover.substack.com/s/essays.
I've never in my life seen someone undergo such a later-life radicalization such as yours, over the last five or so years (that is, assuming you were not lying in the weeds until you got tenure. I've noticed how few social work educators truly speak out or engage in intense activism, even when they do have tenure.
It has been great having some direct exchanges with you and I took your advice on some of the new wording for the WIMBY pledge (www.wimby.org) when we revised it. I'm still looking for a permanent home for it, much like the journal Reflections: Narratives of Professional Helping found when I decided to retire after some health challenges I've now overcome (well, several actually).
I'm hoping very much as well to write another piece about the Middle East, if the hopes for a Gaza ceasefire can be realized over these holidays. I cover that extensively on my Middle East Peace with Justice beat: https://michaelalandover.substack.com/p/peace-with-justice-in-the-middle. That piece will be informed by my 55 years of peace and solidary activism, and the last year of intensive reading in the bibliography of over 1500 pieces I've read since 10/06/23. During the time since then, I've published onw reporting item on the Palestinian Voices event at the City Club of Cleveland (Washtenaw Jewish News), and three advocacy items (a January 2024 New York Times letter, a February 2024 Cleveland Jewish News letter , and December 2024 Cleveland Plain Dealer op-ed, all calling for a Gaza ceasefire. That above link leads to that bibliography
I've spent most of my activist life since 1967 working within my fields of endeavor, first journalism (1966-1972), 2 intense years of Chile solidarity activism (1973-4), social work (1975-present) and sociology (1991-present). But I've now chosen to more fully enter the public area with my substack and I'm pleased I'm in good company. I just learned how to include this in Notes by checking the below! And I'll try to re-stack your piece somehow, I'm still learning. I hope our paths cross.
Hello Michael - it's nice to hear from you and I'm so glad you came across Toward Liberation! Thank you for sharing all of these resources you've compiled over the year - all your work in this space is really amazing and I'm looking forward to digging in more. Happy new year!
The book arrived yesterday. I'm busy prepping 2 sections of 35 each of a writing HBSE macro course, demand was so high they opened a second section, but I'll get to it soon as I'm trying to turn my partial theory into fuller theory. Meanwhile I'm reviewing Wendy Brown's Nihilistic Times and Jonathan Foiles's Reading Arendt in the Waiting Room. He's an advocate of police abolition and you might like that book. my substack has, I think, my op-ed for our Cleveland Issue 24 for a citizen's review board.