Year: 2017

Contr'un

The Synthesist’s Consolation

November 25, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur
Posts in the series: “L’homme se trompe parce qu’il apprend.”—P.J. Proudhon One of the catalysts for the post on “Coming to Terms with the Anarchist Past,” and the particular kind of clarification it represents, has been the work I’ve been doing for an encyclopedia entry on mutualism. It felt like a project I had been working towards for close to a quarter of a century. It has turned out to be one more in a series of theoretically simple projects that have run up against the significant and unexpected difficulties presented by that complicated succession—from anarchy to “modern anarchism”—that occurred […]
Contr'un

Coming to Terms with the Anarchist Past

November 17, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur
[one_third padding=”0 10px 0 0px”] Posts in the series: [/one_third][two_third_last padding=”0 0px 0 10px”] As archives and projects converge, it seems like a good time to state or restate some the working hypotheses—or shall we say contentions—at the heart of this stage of exploration. It should be clear that the central problem I’ve been attempting to address is the role of historical knowledge in modern anarchist practice and I doubt anyone will be surprised if I suggest that we still have some work to do on that front. But let’s put it boldly: The use of history in the anarchist […]
Working Translations

Fernand Planche, “To Be Anarchist” (1934)

November 10, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur
To be anarchist is above all to be good; it is to think, to dream, to discuss without sectarianism.

It is to hate everything that causes suffering, tears, death.

It is to understand and explain things clearly, simply, without fear of the consequences, and also without hope of a profit.

It is to reject everything that is ugly, petty, inhuman, servile and submissive.

[…]

Anarchist Beginnings

P. R. Bennett, “The Anarchist” (1912)

November 7, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur
[From P. R. Bennett, Ducdame; a book of verses. 1912.] The Anarchist [A critic in the New Age suggests that modern thought can submit no longer to the tyranny of rhyme and metre.] Ravachol Needham was a man of letters, Who refused to submit to the wretched fetters That sought by rules of rhyme and scansion To prevent his soaring soul’s expansion. He had languished long on a dismal sonnet And wasted his eagle spirit on it, Till the poor old bird had been imprisoned So long that it grew depressed and wizened, Drooped its feathers and nearly moulted, Could […]
Anarchist Beginnings

“Anarchy and How To Overcome It” (1901)

November 7, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur
ANARCHY AND HOW TO OVERCOME IT. Following the intense excitement that prevailed at the time of the death of the President, many theories have been advanced concerning the meaning of the term “anarchy,” and each one has had as its accompaniment a plan for the suppression of the anarchist At the present the definition given by Webster suits the popular idea better than anything that is offered, and it is: “Absence of government; the state of society where there is no law or supreme power; a state of lawlessness; political confusion; disorder in general.” The blatant type of anarchist best […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Solomon Something, “Some Account of Mr. Anything” (1840)

November 7, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur
To the Editor of the Christian Observer. Should your observing eye, in the course of its comprehensive range, have lighted on any character in the religious world at all resembling the picture I am about to exhibit; I shall depend on the insertion of this paper for the benefit of the present generation of professed Christians. Mr. Anything, an acquaintance of mine, is a man blameless in his morals, and amiable in his disposition. His views of religious truth so nearly coincide, as to all material points, with my own, that I have no difference with him on the subject […]
Anarchist Beginnings

The Reference Shelf

November 6, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur
THE REFERENCE SHELF Entries from The Anarchist Encyclopedia Entries from Claude Pelletier’s Socialist Dictionary Entries from the Dictionary of Phalansterian Sociology Miscellaneous encyclopedia and dictionary entries