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1. Cory Doctorow (pluralistic@mamot.fr)'s status on Wednesday, 22-Sep-2021 20:10:40 UTC Cory Doctorow

   Peter Kropotkin was a Russian aristocrat who renounced his titles, became a scientist and anarchist, and wrote many significant works, but none so important as MUTUAL AID, his 1902 treatise on the role of cooperation in evolutionary biology.

   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_Aid:_A_Factor_of_Evolution

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   • soloojos (Mastodon) repeated this.
   • Cory Doctorow (pluralistic@mamot.fr)'s status on Wednesday, 22-Sep-2021 20:10:52 UTC Cory Doctorow

     in reply to

     Originally intended as a series of (never delivered) lectures for William Morris's Socialist League, the book was an assault on "moral philosophers" who used Darwin's work and "survival of the fittest" to justify class oppression at home and imperial slaughter abroad.

     Painstaking researched and beautifully argued, MUTUAL AID reveals the scientific fraud of "social Darwinism," and its claims that hierarchy and exploitation are evolutionary inevitabilities baked into our very nature.

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     soloojos (Mastodon) repeated this.
   • Cory Doctorow (pluralistic@mamot.fr)'s status on Wednesday, 22-Sep-2021 20:11:15 UTC Cory Doctorow

     in reply to

     And while Kropotkin's ideas have inspired generations of biologists AND activists, the social Darwinists have only grown in influence, providing pseudoscientific cover for greed, oppression and immorality.

     The folks at PM Press have just published a stunning, illustrated new edition of MUTUAL AID, illustrated by N.O. Bonzo whose neo-Arts-and-Crafts marginalia and full-page spreads are gorgeous and thrilling

     https://www.pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=1185

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