A…political art intervention and act of cultural criticism, I guess? The author – a writer, artist, curator, and activist in the UK – has produced a manifesto and collection of documents from an imagined Shy Radical movement. This movement brings together people who are shy, introverted, socially anxious, on the autism spectrum, or otherwise oppressed by “extrovert supremacy” under a unifying Shy Radical political identity committed to nothing less than the revolutionary overthrow of the current system and the founding of a geographically distributed shy people’s republic called Aspergistan. It is clearly tongue-in-cheek, but in a way that emerges from real experiences, real issues, and real things out in the world, and it is not always clear where exactly its genuine seriousness fades into the seriously ridiculous. It’s over-the-top, but it also names in a new way experiences that the introverted and the anxious among us will recognize and that, in that naming, may feel oddly affirmed by. Certainly it offers a critique of the real world, even if that is done via the vehicle of a an unreal movement. Clearly written by someone intimately familiar with both radical politics – it really does read like a collection of artifacts from a ’70s radical movement – and with that range of experiences that lead one to mostly prefer one’s own company, and probably will only be fully appreciated by readers who are both as well. If that’s you, read this. Very cleverly done, overall.
Originally posted by Scott on Goodreads.