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Cambodia and Brian Fawcett. Brian Fawcett’s Biography. Brian Fawcett’s Works. Fiction 1974 The Opening: Prince George, Finally 1982 My Career with the Leafs and Other Stories – 1984 Capital Tales – 1985 The Secret Journal of Alexandre Mackenzie –
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Fiction • 1974 The Opening: Prince George, Finally • 1982 My Career with the Leafs and Other Stories – • 1984 Capital Tales – • 1985 The Secret Journal of Alexandre Mackenzie – • 1986Cambodia: A Book For People Who Find Television too Slow – • Public Eye: An Investigation Into the Disappearance of the World – 1990 • Gender Wars: A Novel and Some Conversation About Sex and Gender – 1994 • The Last of the Lumbermen – 2013 Poetry • Five Books of a Northmanual – 1971 • Friends – 1971 • Permanent Relationships – 1975 • Creatures of State – 1977 • Tristram's Book – 1981 • Aggressive Transport – 1982 Non-fiction • Unusual Circumstances, Interesting Times and Other Impolite Interventions – 1991 • The Compact Garden: Discovering the Pleasures of Planting in a Small Space – 1992 • The Disbeliever's Dictionary: A Completely Disrespectful Lexicon of Canada Today – 1997 • Virtual Clearcut, or The Way Things Are in My Hometown – 2003 • Local Matters: A Defence of Dooney's Café and other Non-Globalized Places, People, and Ideas – 2003 • Human Happiness, 2011
Cambodia: A Book for People Who Find Television Too Slow Published in 1986 “Urgent, blunt, difficult-- and vitally necessary.. This is a book that has the potential to make us stop. To make us think. To make our heads hurt and our stomachs ach.” Experimental Qualities Brian Fawcett. Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2007. Literature Resource Center.
Virtual Clearcut, or , The Way Things Are in My Hometown Published in 2003 Study of Prince George (1960~21c) Pearson Writer’s Trust Nonfiction Prize in 2004 Brian Fawcett. Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2007. Literature Resource Center.
Human Happiness Published in 2011 Heart of the story : Father and Son A tribute and an apology Exploration of Human Happiness Examining his parents’ lives • 40 questions (mundane, personal, reflective, judgmental) “Without Effort, attitude, and concentration, you don’t even know that it’s there.” Jennifer Spruit. Human Happiness by Brian Fawcett. Thomas Allen Publishers. 2011.
General Beliefs and ideologies • Fawcett’s beliefs revolve around the study of social violence, and its avoidance • Anti-Capitalist • Liberal Anarchist, with collectivist leanings • Mistrust of government, corporations, powerful organizations. • NMFG (No Money From the Government) “I’ve developed an unrelenting hatred for the way Euroamerican civilization has wasted the immense wealth it has had. This could have been the earthly paradise.”(Cambodia, subtext 100-101)
Usual Core Ideologies • Consent based relations • Do I consent to membership of this government? • Do I consent to slavery? • Do I consent to wage labour? • Dismantling harmful and/or unjustified institutions (majority of Anarchism flavours) • Is x justified? • Does x have damaging results or effects? • Is x inline with my principles? • Typical examples are such things as Capitalism, Authoritarianism, Fascism, sexism, homophobia, slavery, apartheid, racism, war, etc. • The scope of the above focus can range from specifically the self (excluding others), to each human as the basis of focus for whether something’s justified. • Anti-authoritarian, e.i. No person or entity should presume to exert authority over another for any reason (and for some flavours of Anarchism, unless given consent) • No thing, idea, person, religion, event, or anything else, is irreproachable • Direct democracy - Every vote is counted, and has an equal weight
How does Anarchism relate to other political ideologies? Standard politics Note, there’s no “real” map of political ideologies. Not only are these kinds of maps like the one on the right often biased, but elements of many lines of political thought often belong elsewhere than where the core ideology is placed.
Forms of Anarchism • Individualist Anarchism • The self is most important • Liberal Anarchism - Inalienable human/individual rights, anti-authoritarian • Anarcho-Capitalism - Disillusioned sellouts that think abolishing the state and allowing corporations (e.g. Microsoft, Apple, Trump Organization, etc.) have total free reign is ideal • Collectivist Anarchism • The self is important, but either the group is necessary or the most important. • Anarcho-Syndicalism - methods are preferably apolitical in achieving their goals. Anti-government, labour union focused. • Anarcho-Communism - indifferent to methods, so long as they’re a means to an end. Anti-capitalism, labour union focused.
Some Background on Fawcett Why was he motivated to write Cambodia? How is he influenced? What is he focused on as an author? Basically, Where is he coming from?
Fawcett in one word: An Activist (OK fine, two words)
“All my books are finally about the same thing: Why do people hit one another, or manipulate and lie to one another, and how can we stop doing this?” Fawcett in an interview with Open Book Toronto, 2011
Twigg: “…so many of your stories are so clearly intellectual responses to violence.” Fawcett: “Yes. A lot of them do begin with the fact of violence. I try to discover where the violence came from and where it leads to. I grew up in a very violent environment and I think I understand violence instinctually. I spent most of my youth avoiding punches thrown at my head.” Interview with Alan Twigg, 1985
“There is no impetus for writers [in Canada] to use their craft in order to learn, or to effect political and social change, and writers are subtly discouraged from asking ultimate questions.” (Cambodia subtext 86)
“… I’ve chosen my artistic companions from the interzone between the First and Third world, where an observer can still see the opaqueness of the Global Village, and can peer into and perhaps decipher that which is taking form in the dark oppressed villages, undistracted by the beads and trinkets that flood all around us.” (Cambodia subtext 93)
“It is prophesy that I am after, not visions of high imagination. I want to see how and where we’re impaled on the present dilemma.” (Cambodia subtext 89)
Published Works - 1947 - 1933
“He was not the person to be seen reeling about in the street. True he might lie down in the street, if need be, like a gentleman; but he would not reel.” • Under the Volcano
