Month: July 2019

Working Translations

Le Rétif (Victor Serge), “To Be and to Appear” (1909)

July 17, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur

We do not live for ourselves—we live for others. We suffer, we struggle and we die for the gallery, to astonish others, to wrest from them a cry of admiration or praise. To appear is the great, the unique concern for the men of this century.

For the vain glory of appearing, they renounce really living. And this is true in all the domains of their activity. […]

Utopian and Scientific

Notes on Simon Ganneau (the Mapah) and Evadisme

July 14, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur

We notice the death in Paris, a short time ago, of M. Ganneau. To most of our readers this obscure name will awaken no recollections; yet M. Ganneau had thought himself preordained to great things—and had some years ago drawn on himself no small share of public attention in Paris. At a period when new sects were springing up on all sides—when Mormons were crossing the Rocky Mountains, and “unknown tongues” were flourishing in England—he was the founder—we should say, the inventor—of a new religion; which he named “Evadaisme,” and of which he was—to use his own term—the “Mapah.” […]

Glossary

Panarchy (notes)

July 13, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur

PANARCHY (pa-nar-chî from prefix pan, and the Greek archê, command). Political. Government of all, absence of delegated authority: PANARCHY is the honest name of anarchy. PANARCHY, pantocracy or community is naturally produced by the death of the monarch or head of the family. (Proudhon.) […]