Confession: I am a huge sociology nerd.

My camera batteries are dead again (again!! it's ridiculous!), so while they're on the charger, I will leave you all with a few quotes I have come across in my research. I love them, so much so that I printed them out and tacked them onto my bulletin board. Some are a bit heavier than others, because they come from theoretical books, but I like the point they are trying to make.

"We could then suggest: revolutionary action is any collective action which rejects, and therefore confronts, some form of power or domination and in doing so, reconstitutes social relations--even within the collectivity--in that light. Revolutionary action does not necessarily have to aim to topple governments. Attempts to create autonomous communities in the face of power (using Castoriadis' definition here: ones that constitute themselves, collectively make their own rules or principles of operation, and continually reexamine them), would, for instance, be almost by definition revolutionary acts. And history shows us that the continual accumulation of such acts can change (almost) everything."

That is from David Graeber's Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology (2005) on page 45. That book is very good, and short and funny, so I highly recommend it, even to non-anthropologists and non-academics.

"Unlike revolutionary struggles, which seek totalizing effects across all aspects of the existing social order by taking state power, and unlike the politics of reform, which seeks global change on selected axes by reforming state power, these [autonomous, non-hegemonic] movements/networks/tacticts do not seek totalizing effects on any axis at all. Instead, they set out to block, resist and render redundant both corporate and state power in local, national and transnational contexts. And in so doing, they challenge the notion that the only way to achieve meaningful social change is by way of totalizing effects across an entire 'national' or 'international' society."

That one is from Richard J.F. Day's Gramsci is Dead: Anarchist Currents in the Newest Social Movements (2005) on page 45. I just noticed that both quotes come from page 45. Weird...

"Because when people only talk and don't listen, they end up thinking that what they say is the only thing that is worth anything. ... Because whoever takes themselves seriously has stopped with the thought that their truth should be the truth for everyone and forever."

Those two quotes are from Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos, from the EZLN. All his things are available here.

Enjoy the nerdy social movement quotes, everyone, and Happy May Day!