David Bindman, educator and musician, reviews Truth and Dare:
Truth and Dare: a Comic Book For the beginning and End of the World!, by Quincy Saul and the Ecosocialist Horizons Editorial Collective, shows, through pictures and descriptions, how the world as we know it came to be, and the connection between environmental devastation and capitalism. It also offers a plan: ecosocialism.
The book’s episodes follow and explain the trajectory from the big bang through the beginning of life on earth, human evolution, the beginning of agriculture, the growth of patriarchy, kingdoms, conquest, colonialism, slavery, industrialism, wage slavery, industrial farming/schooling/prisons, urbanization, and war.
It explains such things as the role and tools of the state (“law, religion, spectacle,education, violence”) and how, under capitalism “when making money became the purpose of production, the system could theoretically grow beyond its natural limits.” In order for this production system to function, “the two basic elements of this system are human labor and nature.” How does this system that demands growth -- more and more production and consumption -- affect our lives? “We all end up with ships full of products that people are too poor to buy,” for which we go into debt…
The book ends with hopeful messages: of humans coming together to build new ways of living with each other and nature, and ways to make this happen. It is an engaging work of art that can help us all understand what is going on. I highly recommend it.
Truth and Dare: a Comic Book For the beginning and End of the World!, by Quincy Saul and the Ecosocialist Horizons Editorial Collective, shows, through pictures and descriptions, how the world as we know it came to be, and the connection between environmental devastation and capitalism. It also offers a plan: ecosocialism.
The book’s episodes follow and explain the trajectory from the big bang through the beginning of life on earth, human evolution, the beginning of agriculture, the growth of patriarchy, kingdoms, conquest, colonialism, slavery, industrialism, wage slavery, industrial farming/schooling/prisons, urbanization, and war.
It explains such things as the role and tools of the state (“law, religion, spectacle,education, violence”) and how, under capitalism “when making money became the purpose of production, the system could theoretically grow beyond its natural limits.” In order for this production system to function, “the two basic elements of this system are human labor and nature.” How does this system that demands growth -- more and more production and consumption -- affect our lives? “We all end up with ships full of products that people are too poor to buy,” for which we go into debt…
The book ends with hopeful messages: of humans coming together to build new ways of living with each other and nature, and ways to make this happen. It is an engaging work of art that can help us all understand what is going on. I highly recommend it.
(David Bindman (in the yellow vest) and the Brooklyn Sax Quartet)
