Quiet Defiance: Issue 5 - Work history of the Gainfully Unemployed

Quiet defiance is an acknowledgement of the sustained forms of subtle resistance that don’t exactly go unrecognized, but maybe aren’t acknowledged as the powerful, effective methods of cultural change that they are. Revolutions are portrayed as noisy riots. Political identities are supposed to be stated in declarative sentences on social media. Organizers for social change are expected to work with the bullhorn as their primary tool, to paint with the palettes of crowds and campaigns. They’re supposed to be tireless and loud to be ‘effective’. But those who engage in acts of quiet defiance opt out of participating in the attention economy, don’t follow the rituals for the cult of productivity, reveal capitalist mythologies to be silly with their simple daily deviations. These quiet actions don’t go unnoticed; they are apparent in the immediate families and friend groups and communities these reticent rebels are a part of. These writings describe the shape these ripples take, or maybe this seditious pamphlet is a ripple itself.
-Toxoplasma Press

Author
Rae