manifestos

E. Armand, “Plan for an Anarchist Individualist International” (1927)

To spend time with anarchists, just to find oneself as miserable as among the archists—the game is not worth the candle…

To spend time with anarchists, just to be smothered in an atmosphere of intellectual mutilation or a crippling of the life of the senses—that is truly not worth the trouble.

And an Anarchist Individualist International is only possible if those who form it possess first of all have a mentality and habits of their own, very much of their own, released from concerns about experimentation, freed from the fear of living. […]

Contr'un

Anarchist History: The Metaphor of the Main Stream

As tools for historical and cultural understanding, metaphors are obviously in the “use with great care” category and, as often as not, reveal more about our interpretive preconceptions than they do about the material we seek to interpret. But sometimes that’s just what is called for, as what needs to be more closely examined is at least as much the lens through which we are looking as it is the object of our scrutiny. […]