Year: 2020

art-liberty

Calvin Blanchard, “Religion Made Intelligible” (1866)

March 5, 2020 Shawn P. Wilbur
Mr. Editor:—I was once, as you know, a mere sceptic, or unbeliever. But for many years past I have been a Positivist, certainly foreknowing, or claiming to foreknow, that, by means of Nature, including her cunning method, Art, the world will be populated from pole to pole by human beings, all of whom will be as far better developed than any that now exist, as the best of the present ones are superior to the ourang outang. Here is my Creed, if that which is positively known can properly be called a mere creed:—

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equitable commerce

Josiah Warren, “On Education and Re-Education” (1865)

March 4, 2020 Shawn P. Wilbur
The grand secret of Education is to make the learner feel an interest in the thing to be learned. The founders of the prevailing systems not knowing any other way of interesting children in their studies, have sought to create an interest by the hope of factitious rewards and the fear of punishments; the one intending to stimulate a blind self-conceit, and the other destroying all self-respect, both of which may be equally fatal in after life.

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Proudhon Library

Proudhon on Socialism (“Theory of Property” manuscripts)

February 29, 2020 Shawn P. Wilbur
Socialisme.—Tout mot et sujet a plusieurs acceptations. Si Théorie de la société, ou Science sociale ;—je l’affirmes. Si parti qui affirme une science sociale, la nécessité de réformer la société conformément à la science : j’en fais partie. C’état ce que nous affirmions en 48. Si par socialisme, en entend le droit social, par opposition au droit individuel, j’admets ce système, comme partie intégrante du système entier de l’Humanité ; mais si l’on entend lui donner la prépondérance sur la liberté, je le nie, c’est communisme. Ainsi l’a compris Pierre Leroux ; ainsi il l’a tour à tour attaqué et […]
Contr'un

Authority, Liberty and the Federative Principle

February 19, 2020 Shawn P. Wilbur
Related links: Initial Thoughts Proudhon’s Du principe fédératif et de la nécessité de reconstituer le parti de la révolution occupies an interesting place among his works. It has been, prior to my translation of Théorie de la propriété, the only extended portion of Proudhon’s final major project, the study of Poland, available in English. And my sense is that it has been considered one of the “good” late works, like De la capacité politique des classes ouvrières, rather than one of the potentially “bad” works, like the work on property—while also being, of course, the work most often cited in […]
Contr'un

On the Anarchist Culture Wars

February 17, 2020 Shawn P. Wilbur
When it comes right down to it, the only people I have much faith in when it comes to a lasting commitment to anarchist thought and practice are those who are both serious about ideas (although I recognize a lot of ways this seriousness might manifest itself) — and specifically serious about anarchist ideas and anarchistic ways of thinking — and ready to acknowledge that the particular ideas that separate anarchism from the rest of the political or social philosophies out there, anarchy chief among them, are not “safe.”

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Featured articles

Nathaniel Peabody Rogers on an Anti-Slavery Tour Of the White Hills (1841)

February 16, 2020 Shawn P. Wilbur
An 1841 Anti-Slavery Tour Of the White Hills Nathaniel Peabody Rogers CE-4706 A CORVUS EDITION   ANTI-SLAVERY JAUNT TO THE MOUNTAINS [from the Herald of Freedom of Sept. 10,1841.] We meant, from the several stages of our hurried expedition, to drop back for the Herald some of its incidents, detailed while events and impressions were fresh. But we could not find opportunity. The rapidity of our movement and constant occupation during intervals of anti-slavery action, compelled us to defer attempting it, and we must now give our readers a dull reminiscence. In company with brother Garrison, we left Concord the […]
Featured articles

Proudhon’s Barbaric Yawp (1840)

February 5, 2020 Shawn P. Wilbur
Every story has to start somewhere. And when the story is that of anarchist history, it seems hard to find a more likely place to begin than Proudhon’s 1840 declaration—je suis anarchiste—which we generally treat as the first instance of at least one kind of anarchist position-taking.

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Our Lost Continent

Our Lost Continent: 1840

February 4, 2020 Shawn P. Wilbur
Related Links: Our Lost Continent and the Journey Back [main page] What Mutualism Was: Coming to Terms with our Anarchist Past [main page] 1840: Our Lost Continent: Chronology: Notes: In the history of “the anarchist idea,” 1840 is not the beginning, but it is clearly one of those moments when something begins, conjured up with what has been a remarkably durable power by P.-J. Proudhon’s anarchist declaration, his barbaric yawp: je suis anarchiste. The fact that historical beginnings and endings are, at least in part, a matter of choice, often with significant consequences, is central to the argument about “anarchist […]
Featured articles

Positive Anarchy, Profusion, Uncertainty and the Uses of History

January 30, 2020 Shawn P. Wilbur
Our Lost Continent and the Journey Back Project Page: Our Lost Continent: Episodes from an Alternate History of the Anarchist Idea, 1837–1936 RELATED: “Our Lost Continent” (April 4, 2015) “The ‘Benthamite’ anarchism and the origins of anarchist history” (April 5, 1015) “New Uncertainties and Opportunities” (April 6, 2015) “Looking Forward—Mapping Our Lost Continent” (April, 2018) “What Mutualism Was: Coming to Terms with Our Anarchist Past” (January 4, 2019) “Our Lost Continent” [tag stream] “Extrications” [tag stream] — notes on synthesis, anarchist development, etc. MAPPINGS: Notes for an Introduction SOURCES: The First Leg of the Journey DISTRIBUTARIES: The Second Leg A […]
Featured articles

Archy vs. Anarchy

January 28, 2020 Shawn P. Wilbur
These short contrasting entries constitute an attempt to sketch out some basic principles of existing archic society and some anarchic alternatives. Those alternatives are drawn largely from what we have been calling the “neo-Proudhonian” project. As such, they are not necessarily the alternatives most often proposed by self-proclaimed anarchists. They are proposed, however, as a means of approaching some baseline for a consistently anarchistic synthesis of existing anarchisms. That approach will undoubtedly require considerable elaboration and clarification of the contrasting principles and tendencies presented here—but it is important to make a start. The Polity-form: Archic social organization seems to quite […]