Blog

Anarchist Beginnings

Walter Everette Hawkins, “Credo” (1920)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
CREDO I am an Iconoclast. I break the limbs of idols And smash the traditions of men. I am an Anarchist. I believe in war and destruction Not in the killing of men, But the killing of creed and custom. I am an Agnostic. I accept nothing without questioning. It is my inherent right and duty To ask the reason why. To accept without a reason Is to debase one’s humanity And destroy the fundamental process In the ascertainment of Truth. I believe in Justice and Freedom. To me Liberty is priestly and kingly; Freedom is my Bride, Liberty my […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Arthur Ranc, “Anarchy” (1869)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
ANARCHY. — D’Alembert, after having defined anarchy as “a disorder in the State, which consists of no one having enough authority to commander and make the laws respected, as a consequence of which the people behave as they wish, without subordination and without police,” concludes thus: “We can be sure that all government in general tends to despotism or to anarchy.” That thought which seems at first glance to place political society between two equally depressing alternatives, is at bottom, if we look closely, only a careless conception of the theory formulated in this way by Proudhon: “the first term […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Eliphalet Kimball, “Law, Commerce and Religion” (1862)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
LAW, COMMERCE, AND RELIGION. Eliphalet Kimball 1862 Mr. Editor:—Law, Commerce, and Religion, are the causes of the wrongs, vices, and consequent sufferings which have always prevailed in civilized nations. Natural law, or the healing power of Nature, would regulate society as it does the human body.—The mind of man is his body. Artificial law is a poison which deranges the course of Nature, and is sure to disorder society. The stillness of legal despotism is disorder. Artificial government turns morality upside down, and keeps it so by force. It protects a class of bad men in wronging others, but is […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Félix Pignal, “The Philosophy of Defiance” (1854)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
THE PHILOSOPHY OF DEFIANCE, or, A Pardon for Cain 1854 FELIX P….. Edited by Max Nettlau … Give me any epithets you wish; I accept them all in advance. I have only one thought, and envision only one glory: it is to strike everywhere and always, as much as I can, at the principle of domination. Satan, in his revolt, is my father, and, in his courage, Cain is my brother! … We do not take a single step in society without hearing that human beings must believe in a God, in a sovereign being, master of all things, according […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Anselme Bellegarrigue, “Anarchy is Order” (1850)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
[from Anarchy, A Journal of Order, No. 1] I.—Anarchy is Order. Were I to pay heed to the meaning generally attached to certain words, a common error having made anarchy a synonym of civil war, I should hold in horror the title that I have placed at the head of this publication, for I have a horror of civil war. I both honor and flatter myself in never having belonged to a group of conspirators or to a revolutionary battalion, because it shows, on the one hand, that I have been too honest to dupe the people, and, on the […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Max Nettlau, “On Centralization” (1909)

August 26, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
[The essay “On Centralization” is one of the few texts from the collection Critica Libertarian that has remained untranslated. For those interested in the questions addressed here, there was ongoing discussion in Les Temps Nouveaux at the time.] I am happy that someone has finally thought about proportion (1), which, in my opinion, holds the true, practical (automatic, so to speak) solution of the differences between centralization and decentralization. The problem remains complicated nonetheless, for proportion is not a single, unchanging term. I mean that for every organism there must be a certain minimum of proportion in order for it […]
Contr'un

Note on Anarchism and the Rhetoric of Democracy

August 14, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
The battle over the relationship between anarchism and democracy rages on, without necessarily gaining much in clarity. It shouldn’t surprise us, really. The earliest explicit proponents of anarchy had to find a way to place anarchy among a range of otherwise governmentalist possibilities, so we have inherited constructions like “the best form of government is that which does not govern,” leaving us to figure out whether anarchy is the last form of government (“pure democracy”) or the first form of something else–or whether perhaps the choice is largely rhetorical. To be clear, I think the choice is more than rhetorical, […]
poetry

Joseph Verey, “Vera Sassulitch” (1880)

August 5, 2016 A Beautiful Nihilist
VERA SASSULITCH. Joseph Verey If any asked the student, which He thought the prettiest among A score of Moscow school-girls, “Young And gentle Vera Sassulitch,” He answered with a ready tongue. Netchaieff was the student named, And Vera and his sister moved In the same social grade, and loved Each other, and the student claimed The heart of Vera unreproved. But oft Netchaieffs mind was bent— With passion which to youth belongs— Upon the many cruel wrongs Of a despotic Government, Deriding it in tales and songs. And some of these to Vera given, Around her drew the fatal coil […]
Contr'un

The Stirner Question

July 28, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
[two_third padding=”0 0px 0 0px”] Each of the earliest pioneers of the anarchist tradition asked, I think, a question or three that still very much pertain to the problems of 21st-century life. They’re not always easy to extract or to drag into the present, and they’re not always flattering to us when applied to the culture of anarchism that has developed since the late 19th century. Working from the roots of the tradition has been a valuable experience, both in terms of focusing my analysis on key concepts and in terms of gaining tools with which to understand why the […]