Burn After Reading: William Powell and the Anarchist Cookbook | Hacker News Reader

Burn After Reading: William Powell and the Anarchist Cookbook

harpers.org

84 pointsdnetesn11 comments

By the time it got to teenaged me (mid-1990s), much of the (non-incindiery) information was quaint and outdated, but I always found the whole thing fascinating, even if it didn't appeal to my nature.

I can understand wanting it out of print, but it also gained prominence during an age of information diaspora that brought with it interesting, iterative retellings and modifications of the information. It served as a rolling early Wikipedia for shenanigans (or worse) through he age of the BBS, into the early commercial Internet. I can't remember how many modified versions I encountered on places like FidoNet.

There is a near-universal, primal teenage boy attraction to this kind of stuff, sometimes with real, awful intent but more often as a sort of maturation fantasy mechanism. That it was expressed in some sort of compendium shouldn't be a source of lifetime regret.

Edit: The FBI FOIA response with their file on the AC is supremely interesting: http://rc.vc/files/docs/FBI-AnarchistsCookbook_1971-1999.pdf

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Well I was the same, if you'll note my comment. I had no interest in doing any of this, but the fact that it existed tickled some sort of appeal.

I also was a teenager throughout most of the 90s and I admit to having a huge fascination with this work. I believe the very first thing I made was homemade napalm and burned down a tree, which led to firefighters being called, my mom being questioned while she was cooking which then led to part of my house burning down. I still have this fascination even today, in a curious-how-does-it-work sort of way.

Wow. I've heard of the book of course but never really thought about who wrote it. I feel bad for the guy. These days things we'd rather people forget end up on the internet where they are likely to stay forever. This guy grew up in a time where that wasn't really the case for most people but he sure got hit by it.

Reading this reminded me that I haven't had the "if it ends up on the internet it may follow you around for life..." talk with my kids recently. Time to do so again!

I was given my copy from a friend in college. I keep it on a shelf. The first time I read it, I was amused how juvenile the book becomes. The whole back section about making bombs was basically, "Ingredients: 1 bomb." The drugs section was pretty much just edibles, with recipes that read like something out of Betty Crocker, but an inevitable "1/2 cup of pot". And then of course, there's the "bananadine" recipe.

Now when I read it, and look at the crude drawings, I think it's pretty obvious that this was the writings of a troubled high school student.

Now, The Terrorist Handbook, is a different can of worms...

A quote from near the end sums up the entire article: "All hippies at one time or another renounce themselves. Sooner or later they put a tie and a coat on."

I totally disagree that the tone of that comment sums up the article in the slightest.

While the article makes it clear that Powell now regrets authoring The Anarchist Cookbook, it is also made clear that the reasons for his regrets are far more interesting and nuanced than the quote above would have you think:

"When Powell was in his late twenties and teaching special-needs students in New York, he returned to White Plains High School. At the school he had struggled academically and socially, and looking through his results from two intelligence tests, he found what he took to be a clue to his unhappiness. “There was a huge discrepancy between my verbal and performance I.Q.,” he says. “That would have been a clear red flag in today’s world that something was going on. But at that point in time, nobody paid attention to it.” Powell thinks he likely had a learning disability of some sort, which contributed to his trouble in school, his alienation as a young adult, and his current work to support learning-disabled students."

Powell spent the rest of his life trying to help frustrated young people like his former self, which is far more profound and noble than an old hippie selling out.

The reasons for his regrets are ultimately irrelevant from an impartial position. They're only compelling if you've bought in to the reactionary yellow journalism narrative.

He played his part while authoring the thing, and then went on to join with the system that he was rebelling against. He's now fat and happy, has internalized the rules of the system he once hated, and is now examining his previous behavior using the framework of said system. This doesn't change the message of what he once wrote, or why it continues to resonate.

There's a whole genre of that stuff. Look in the back of any gun magazine for ads.

That Billy Blann is certainly an interesting character.

It should be noted that The Anarchist Cookbook is a very widely forged book these days. There are a ton of compendiums of various BBS text files or assorted clippings which claim to be successors, alternate editions and whatnot. An FAQ dated to 2000 actually summarizes things well: http://files.righto.com/anarchy/

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