Paths Toward Utopia

by Cindy Barukh Milstein, Erik Ruin

10 collaborative picture-essays that weave poetic words with intricate yet bold images. This collection aims to challenge readers into thinking of community action in a positive light. Depicting what it would be like to live, every day, in a world created from below, where coercion and hierarchy are largely vestiges of the past and showing some of the practices that prefigure the self-organisation that would be commonplace in an egalitarian society. A stirring read that mines what people do in their daily lives for the already-existent gems of a freer future.

Genres: Nonfiction, Graphic Novels, Politics, Comics, Utopia, Graphic Novels Comics, Anarchism

120 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Cindy Barukh Milstein is a diasporic queer Jewish anarchist and longtime organizer. They've been writing on anarchism for over two decades, and are the author of Anarchism and Its Aspirations and Try Anarchism for Life: The Beauty of Our Circle. They edited the anthologies Rebellious Mourning: The Collective Work of Grief and Deciding for Ourselves: The Promise of Direct Democracy, among others.

Reviews

[Marc Lucke · Rating 2 out of 5]

Conceptually, I think this book is really strong but I wish the execution had been tighter. The artwork was monotonous and the writing had an overly-verbose, from-the-pulpit feel to it. I agree with almost everything the artists are saying with this work, I just wish they had found a more engaging way to say it.

[Ryan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was pretty sure I had read all of Cindy Milstein's books (except maybe their most recent), but I saw this book at a store in Philly and had to buy it. Paths Toward Utopia was written by Milstein and drawn by Erik Ruin. I had never heard of Ruin before, but that didn't matter. What I think I like most about Milstein's writing is the excitement they show. I've found that anarchists from 100 years ago had such an excited style of writing—like they truly believed the world they were fighting for was possible—but the newer stuff I've read mostly lacks that. Or maybe with newer stuff it feels like most of us lose that vigor by the time we hit our late 20s or early 30s. Cindy Milstein is not one of those people.

There's hope in these pages; after all, the title has Utopia in it. It's not a blind, naive hope though. It's a hope from people who have been around the block, who are middle aged and should either be super cynical or have sold out long ago. It's a hope based in reality; a hope that has facts and examples to let us know that it can be done, it has been done. Movements are born and they die, but even after they're dead, something lives along in the people who were involved; and that something gets carried on to the next thing. From the Arab Spring to Occupy to Standing Rock to the George Floyd uprising.

There's not much else to say about Paths Toward Utopia; it's a short book with very few words, but worth the quick read. It's also the second book I've read in a row that quote both Martin Buber and Hannah Arendt.

[Amy Layton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Long ago, I didn't really understand anarchism.  I thought I did, but I didn't.  And then I became friends with folks who I later realized were anarchists.  They were pretty cool people.  In fact, their politics were right on point.  And then I realized that anarchism was different than how I understood it.  It was something incredible, engaging, empowering.  I learned that it meant community activism, community-centered politics, anti-capitalism, pro-giving, pro-caring, pro-horizontal structures.  

Paths Toward Utopia shows us a future where anarchism reigns: it's peaceful, arguments are solved via talking and discussion, power structures are dissolved.  It shows us these ideas through a graphic novel, comic-esque means to literally illustrate what these systems would look like.  

The only thing is that I wish I knew how to get to those ideas from our current society.  After all, radical change requires, well, radical change.  And I don't know what that looks like.  However, that might have not been the scope of their book!  And that's totally a-okay.  What this book did for me was illuminate and educate, and it therefore did its job.  I definitely recommend this to folks who are curious about anarchism and other means of revolution.

Review cross-listed here!

[V · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 - “that’s the victory, the revolution, the truth of our power. that we know how to create lives worth living, knowing that such moments, too, won’t last… the world never fully goes back to normal. we aren’t the same people. some of our experimentation sticks, making us a little less estranged, a little more heightened. even when presidents & property, police & prisons, crushingly return, memory, like some scrappy carrier pigeon, transports our courage upward to the next rebel commune, so the next time & the time after that & perhaps even now, we’ll know how to do-it-ourselves even more beautifully.”

[Denna Bee · Rating 2 out of 5]

I agree with the other comments that this was overly wordy. I always find it funny (and by funny I mean very frustrating) how anarchists and those advocating for amore equitable world always use small font and inaccessible wording. The intro I had deep difficulty understanding and had to reread many paragraphs. The comic portion was cozy and fun but didn't necessarily offer "paths" rather just showed some ways. I did however really enjoy the section on libraries.

[Nat El-Hai · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel bad about it but I liked the prologue more than the book itself.

[Spicy T AKA Mr. Tea · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ok, so for the record, sometimes I like Milstein's writing and sometimes I find it really tedious, repetitive, and buzz wordy. Example: her book put out by IAS and AK about anarchism felt refreshing and interesting. This book, Paths toward utopia opens with a massive classic cindy essay managing to talk somewhat about the process of creating the work and much more about her thoughts and feelings regarding possibilities of everyday anarchy. I found the text in the visual essays to be rather dull and uninspired. But that might also have been because i worked through the essay by her at the beginning. Erik Ruin's images are nice. Not as shocking or immerseive as other illustrators I've seen/read, but good, solid stuff. I think this new way of collaborating really needs some work. Usually, in graphic novels the illustrator is able to visually show what Milstein wrote throughout each page of illustration. It felt more like Ruin's work was a backdrop for Milstein's writing--which didn't seem particularly collaborative to me. Each essay had a truth to tell and politically/socially I agree with them. I just think Milstein needed to take a step back and let the illustrator work with the text to develop something resembling the text without all the excess words. A good try at a new collaboration that needs more work.

[Mel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love the idea for this book - a visual artist and writer collaborating to illustrate examples of anarchy in action right in front of our faces. But I almost wish that Occupy, Egypt..would not have happened while they were writing it. Because the most powerful chapters are actually the ones that talk about smaller things. My favorite is the chapter on pubic parks. Everyone is there just doing their own thing and respecting each other and the space - unorganized but not chaotic.

[catechism · Rating 2 out of 5]

This really was not what I wanted it to be. The art was monotonous and not great and the writing was tedious and somehow wordy. I rolled my eyes a lot, and listen, I'm the choir; there should have been fist-pumps, not yawns.

[Alexander Vieß · Rating 2 out of 5]

Schöne Grafik, aber die Texte kommen nicht über das Niveau eines peinlich-proklamativen Unity-Geschwätzes hinaus. Linker, ahistorischer Kitsch.