recently finished reading blessed is the flame by serafinski

interesting book with some persuasive points about the virtue of resistance even in the most hopeless of situations with no hope of success, and some incredibly grim-but-inspiring stories of resistance during the holocaust

but i disagree fundamentally with the idea that the current situation for your average person in the west is comparable to the holocaust - the author is clear that the severity of the situation isnt comparable, but the hopelessness of meaningfully breaking free of the situation is. the difference is not only in our far greater capacity to find moments of real happiness in a lived life, but also that the complete hopelessness of the camp situation was due to the overwhelming power of the nazi state outside the camp even if the camp guards were overthrown. in our situation, the world itself would be the camp with no overwhelming nazi state outside, and while the odds may still be grim, i reject the idea that it is futile to spend our efforts in an attempt to build something better rather than doing adventurism in pure resistance-for-resistance-sake.

i dont want to dismiss the book, since i think its arguments are important for people who are actually in a comparable situation - and im sure there are people in the world who legitimately are, and perhaps with the climate crisis etc we will some day be too. but im not persuaded to go out and do an adventure, and yeah one of the groups he highlights in his call to adventure decided that the most worthwhile praxis would be to bomb a greenpeace office for being reformist, soooo...

currently reading graebers towards an anthropological theory of value which is great so far