Notes: Introducing Cautionary Tales, and What Is The 4th World?

Hi, my name is Wren [CUIDADX] Romero. These are cautionary tales.

Caution is literally my middle name. I chose it more than a bit ironically. My mother has a ritual of always telling her loved ones some variation of “be careful,” or “be safe!” and a common way of saying goodbye is the phrase “cuidate,” which means like, “be cautious!” If you know me or have known me, you likely know I have rarely been a cautious person. I am often impulsive, reckless, even drawn to dangerous, uncertain paths. One of my earliest ambitions in life was to be a journalist- the only career idea my family discouraged. Journalism is an increasingly decrepit profession, paid worse and worse, respected less and less, murdered more and more. To shoot the messenger is the order of the day.

This is my trying. Explorations, interviews, travelogues, criticisms, that sort of thing. Idk, I make it up as I go along. There will almost certainly be digressions into astrology, new-ish Marxisms, and the many world-making technologies I’ve encountered.

Most of all, I’m in search of The 4th World. If the 1st world is the world of capitalistic excess created at the core of colonial empires, the 2nd world is the lingering remnants of the old Soviet constructions, and the 3rd world is the growing decolonial world, then the 4th world is the blooming seed within the 1st world. The 4th world is all of the sublimated creativity required to make the first world thrive. The 4th world exists in ghettoized communities, on native reservations, in the undercommons of 3rd world intellectuals bristling against the confines of universities. The 4th world is the 3rd world within the first, like the “third university within the first” proposed by la paperson in “A Third University is Possible.” As 4th world intellectual, I strive to be merciless in my scavenging of the first world: let this blog be a kind of journal of what I find.

If this work resonates with you and you wish to support me in it, please consider supporting the work of my comrades at River Furnace, buy my books, or donate to my patreon.

For inquiries, find me on social media @cuidadx or send me an email to cuidadx@protonmail.com