Be The Revolution: LeGuin's Passing Prompts Me To Revisit My Anarchism
The idea of an “anarchist saint” might seem kind of silly at first, but that did not stop Autonomedia from starting its jubilee calendars of radical saints, now in their 26th year of publication. If anyone who has recently died qualifies for the status of anti-authoritarian saint, I would nominate the author Ursula K. LeGuin, who left life on earth behind on January 22, 2018. After working on the Fifth Estate for more than 30 years, I collaborated on my last issue in 2010, the special literary issue that featured LeGuin on the cover. One of the issues we struggled with then and still faces all of us now concerns the paradox of living in this capitalist and authoritarian but trying not be of it. This journal has held fiercely to its anti-copyright ethos, a protest against the privatization of words and the cult of celebrity. However to feature the LeGuin essay the editors chose for that issue required us to include a copyright. As often happens in FE editorial discussions, that
