Posted on: December 29, 2007 Posted by: James McQuiston Comments: 2

The Calvin and Hobbes Guide to Daily Life / :15 / 20M / [email protected] / Crimethinc, 2695 Rangewood Dr, Atlanta, GA 30345 /

This guide is more of a perversion of Calvin and Hobbes to ultra-left propaganda or a paper for college than a normal zine. In fact, this zine is rife with the same type of knee-jerk leftism that really gives the movement a black eye. I understand if your point is to push homeschooling, but instead of just giving individuals facts about the problems associated with this public schooling, the author chooses to just say “The kids who fall behind are considered “slow” or “stupid” when in fact it may be the teaching technique that is inadequate” The lack of proper hard fact or real-life experiences in this zine really makes Robin’s heavy-handed approach seem all the more authoritarian. What is left as the driving force of this zine is philosophy, which largely fails due to the lack of alternative explanations offered and the jussive verbs chosen as proper by Robin. Perhaps if Robin could adequately explain away the explanations for urban sprawl offered by proponents of expansion while saying “this is the right way of doing things” instead of the much more weak “this is the way we should do things”, the argument contained within would be much more compelling. The points made in this zine are all top-shelf, and it is only the way in which they are couched within that keeps them from being more effectual. Calvin and Hobbes is a microcosm of everyday life; Robin was justified in picking this comic when choosing the medium for eir message.

Rating: 6.0/10

2 People reacted on this

  1. Why are you referring to this as leftist? This is an anarchist zine. Published by crimethinc.

    Leftism and anarchism are totally different. Why should I trust your review of anarchist literature if you can’t even properly classify it?

  2. Anarchism especially the type espoused by punk rock DIY zine makers tends towards majority opinion Anarchism i.e Anarcho-Communism/Libertarian Communism/Libertarian Socialism. Therefore this Zine should be considerered Leftist.As Right Wing Anarchism i.e. Anarcho-Capitalism/Libertarian Minarchism is a minority school of Anarchism. So when somebody says Anarchism only the politically illiterate would misconstrue that it either means a State of Chaos or worse an Ideology that is in any way pro Centrist or right-wing.

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