Devin Zane Shaw > Quotes

“On the one hand, given that the state attempts to uphold formal equality between individuals, some groups who have been barred access to social and political institutions have been able to demonstrate that the state has instituted barriers to their access.”
― Devin Zane Shaw, Philosophy of Antifascism: Punching Nazis and Fighting White Supremacy

“would suggest that if initial reports are correct and the rally’s attendance was boosted by participation of individuals from outside the region, then this model of recruitment involves financial and logistical costs that might not be sustainable in the face of mounting opposition.”
― Devin Zane Shaw, Philosophy of Antifascism: Punching Nazis and Fighting White Supremacy

“Community self-defense breaks this presumed monopoly—and, importantly, it prevents fascists from projecting an image of uncontested power in public spaces, which itself discourages potential recruits.”
― Devin Zane Shaw, Philosophy of Antifascism: Punching Nazis and Fighting White Supremacy

“any meaningful attempt to extirpate fascism and white supremacy in North America must embrace anticapitalism and anti–settler-colonialism, for liberalism, in its role in settler-colonialism and as part of a class compromise between the white bourgeoisie and the white working class, has codified whiteness as a form and norm of entitlement and privilege, while the Far Right draws, more or less, from “a major social base out of the traditional settler culture” (Sakai 2003, 8).”
― Devin Zane Shaw, Philosophy of Antifascism: Punching Nazis and Fighting White Supremacy

“When fascists show up, their goal, beyond the recruitment of a sympathetic audience, is to harass and intimidate those already oppressed and marginalized in our communities”
― Devin Zane Shaw, Philosophy of Antifascism: Punching Nazis and Fighting White Supremacy

“notion of ambiguity must not be confused with that of absurdity. To declare the existence is absurd is to deny that it can ever be given a meaning; to say that it is ambiguous is to assert that its meaning is never fixed and that it must be constantly won” (Beauvoir [1947] 1976, 129).”
― Devin Zane Shaw, Philosophy of Antifascism: Punching Nazis and Fighting White Supremacy

“Beauvoir, however, argues that evaluating the violence of the oppressed requires situating it against the violence of the oppressor. In a situation that is oppressive, oppression itself is already violent. Thus emancipatory violence must be gauged against the emancipatory goals of the oppressed and the violence of oppression.”
― Devin Zane Shaw, Philosophy of Antifascism: Punching Nazis and Fighting White Supremacy

“Fascists praise violence as an instrument of social domination (though often in plausibly deniable terms when such statements are made for public consumption and recruitment) and, as Walter Benjamin showed many decades ago, venerate it as an aesthetic object. By contrast, antifascists must engage in open self-criticism to prevent martial values from superseding political objectives, in other words, to prevent violence from superseding the diversity of tactics.”
― Devin Zane Shaw, Philosophy of Antifascism: Punching Nazis and Fighting White Supremacy