It’s impossible to separate T.L. Simons’ Bloc by Bloc from recent events. I can’t imagine it isn’t intentional. Black Lives Matter. January 6th. Anti-vaxxers outside public health professionals’ homes. The ban on peaceful protest handed down by Brigham Young University. That last one was two weeks ago. Yesterday, the university tweeted about Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi. Has irony died or did somebody seize control of the company login? We may never know.

To be absolutely clear, I’m not placing these examples on equivalent moral footing. I suspect most people would agree that at some point a government may become too corrupt or too detached from the will of its people to continue, and that when peaceful action is no longer possible then more dramatic measures become necessary. But if the last few years have taught us anything, it’s that we all boil at different degrees. Also, we boil at very different degrees of truth claims. And while some pots boil, others explode feces all over the walls.

Thankfully, Bloc by Bloc isn’t ideologically agnostic. It’s radically and refreshingly committed to egalitarianism, clear-eyed about the contradictions that tug at modern efforts to effect change, and both deeply angry and hopelessly idealistic.

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