Plastic in Utero: Anti-Civ Anarchy Reborn from the Compost of Wasteland Modernity (PIU) is back in issue #7 for Summer 2026!
Health, what is it? Is it a physical state of being, extrapolated and defined by specific parameters? Who defines those parameters? Evolution? [Based on what research?] The state? Corporations? Ourselves? These are questions confronted here in this issue. You find what could be classified as a postmodernist & radical individualist approach, as described in "The Discriminations of the Healthy." There is an approach to health as seen as a toxin-avoidance and informed by Robert F. Kennedy Jr, found in Fern’s piece. I won’t say these represent two ends of the spectrum of the positions taken here, as that is too shallow, but it does feel like it. I appreciate seeing such differing perspectives and I am glad PIU is part of that discussion.
I do want to emphasize there are pieces here that may make you uncomfortable. Sit with that and maybe even respond (here in future issues or otherwise)! Thus, I want to reaffirm my editorial position is to be as light-handed as possible. I don’t want to insert editorial comments disavowing state derived sources or affirmations of politicians, as I felt almost compelled to in this issue. That should be the work of the reader, without the editor’s authority skewing it. I’ve published pieces that could be considered non-anarchist and I am okay with that. Anti-civ, primitivism, & nihilism are often seen as non-anarchist, even anti-anarchists, by many. I am not interested in extending that view by dissuading dissenting opinions. Naturally, there is a limit to that. What about so-called national anarchism? Racism? Transphobia? I don’t know, as even these can be seen differently by folks. Primitivism is often derided as transphobic, for example. But to target individuals and communities explicitly, to seek to take away agency and autonomy from them, is probably a solid line, and always up to me (and my new editor!!). It can be summarized if we believe a piece is beneficial for anarchist spaces, we’ll publish it! Do you disagree? Do you agree? Please take it to the Issue 8 Letter Section (Due Halloween 2026) and tell us why!
******
I have reflected a lot on my body since hospitalization. For those who don’t know, in early April, I collapsed my right lung. I was at the gym and put down a weight and felt a pop in my chest. I felt my chest shake and I couldn’t breathe well. I struggled to my car and drove home, taking shallow breaths. I called my nurse friend who thought it was a muscle issue and said to go to the hospital. I ignored her, naturally. I waited 4 hours to go to the ER after a friend of a friend figured it was really bad and I finally listened. I spent 8 days in the hospital and another week incapacitated on my couch. I was so dependent on others, I felt horrible. I am so grateful for those who offered support, from roommates to my fellow anarchist-trouble makers. Someone made a joke that if the government wanted to, they could wipe out half the organized anarchist scene by flying a drone into my hospital room’s window!....
[This intro’s section is extended into the Letter Section!]
—Artxmis Graham Thoreau
Speaking of introductions, my own introduction is in order, so hello! I'm badger, and I'll be co-editing PIU, focusing on prisoner support and animal liberation. I came to anarchism primarily through abolitionism. My anarchist thought has developed largely through in-person conversations or through the less dialogic framework of reading, but I credit a lot of my ideological growth to a years-long penpal relationship with a friend who was incarcerated. This has made me very conscious of print's potential for connecting communities whose exchanges are otherwise much more limited. (And there's something special about print publication. As the internet becomes increasingly algorithmic, it's harder now online to reliably find nuanced counterarguments to your positions, and you instead get either AI slop, content that you already agree with, or engagement-bait contrary positions that are so un-nuanced they are functionally straw men.) In PIU I've found vibrant conversations drawing from people with many different frames of reference who might never have the opportunity to sit down together and talk in person, and I'm excited to be able to contribute.
And this issue is about health. Who can claim not to be affected by health? We all have/are bodies. Our lungs, many of them permanently altered by COVID, contribute to the Earth's chemical processes every time we breathe. The pieces in PIU #7 have challenged me in so many ways: from how cooking recipes atrophy our imagination, to how the hypernormalization of COVID reflects a collective trauma, to imagining what a workers' council orgy would look like, and beyond -- not to mention some powerful poetry and art. May they also challenge and engage you.
Want to submit? PIU accepts the following:
Essays, reviews, and interviews, and fiction writings (2,500 word limit)
Art and photography (keep to one page per piece, but feel free to submit several)
Poetry (keep to two pages, please be clear on formatting requests)
Letters (200-500 words)
Orders, questions, and physical mail submissions (Times New Roman or similar front, 9-10 size, landscape, single-spaced, .5 margins, two columns!) may be sent to:
Uncivilized Distro
PO Box 72
Seymour, IL 61875
or, tmwg1995[@]protonmail.com
Add new comment