More than one person in the recent past has called me a "moderate" This perturbs me! I'm sceptical of representative democracy and the parliamentary road to socialism, I want to end private ownership of the means of production and democratise all facets of the economy...

... and I am at the least pretty sympathetic to pacifism, open borders, and prison abolition. It's extremely fair to say that I am a highly ineffective agent at actually generating radical change - I'm a comfy bourgeois academic! - so if people saying I'm a moderate meant...

... I'm functionally no threat to the powers that be, then, like, fair, stings a bit but I'd have to own that. (I think a great many self-described radicals are in this sense moderates, so I'm in good company!) But I think people rather meant that I was moderate in my opinions...

... and this I think is just not true. My ideals, if even partially realised, would represent a near total overthrow of the present order of things. I think the impression I am moderate in this sense is driven by two things: 1. my toned-down affect and understated aesthetic...

... and 2. I am not invested in the squabbles-about-bourgeois-etiquette (do we capitalise the "B" in black!? should you read White Fragility!?) that constitute the emotional core of the culture war for many people. These are, I think, not good guides to political preference.

(trying out a new thing where when I am feeling really sad rather than bothering my friends with random apologies instead I write whiny self pitying threads on things that don't matter)