Blog - Page 189 of 286 - The Libertarian Labyrinth

Jean Grave, The Adventures of Nono — Chapter XI

December 15, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur

THE ADVENTURES OF NONO by JEAN GRAVE [continued from Chapter X] –> XI THE AFTERMATH OF A FIRST MISTAKE On returning to Autonomie, took little part in the conversation. He pondered what he had just seen. A gamin of Paris, a child of workers for whom the greatest journey they could permit themselves was a walk in the woods of Clamart or Meudon, — it was an event when they could go as far as those of Verrières — he knew the sea only from the enthusiastic descriptions that he had found in books. Indeed, of mountains he only know […]

Charles Malato, “Some Anarchist Portraits” (1894)

December 12, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur

–> FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW. No. CCCXXXIII. New Series.—September 1, 1894. SOME ANARCHIST PORTRAITS. I am an anarchist. I have known intimately most of those who have carried on the propaganda by word of mouth and by writing, and also by deed: and if I disallow the epithet of “anarchist,” as applied to certain acts of equivocal individuals, I am not the less convinced that social problems need, at certain moments, to be solved by force, when other means are ineffective. I love and admire Vaillant, for instance, just as some English republicans love and admire Cromwell, who also was a regicide. […]

The Paris Explosion

December 11, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur

THE PARIS EXPLOSION. Paris, April 26.—To state that the explosion last night at the cafe of M. Very, at the corner of the Boulevard Magenta and Rue Sencey has caused a feeling of consternation in this city is to put it very mildly. The truth is that the people of Paris are panic stricken at the audacity of the Anarchists. The feeling of fear is heightened by the apparent impotency of the police to prevent the Anarchists from committing outrages when and where they please. There was a reason for last night’s outrage. It was in M. Very’s cafe that […]

Two-Gun Mutualism Rearmed extended outline

December 10, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur

[I’ve sent this extended outline for the Two-Gun Mutualism book to a number of friends and colleagues for comment, and have been debating whether or not it made sense to post it here at this point. I certainly welcome any feedback on the project, but I’m also inclined to think that the extended outline amounts to as good a summary of my overall project as I am likely to be able to produce, so here it is, offered with the hope that it may serve as a help in navigating the rest of the material on the blog. The section […]

Looking forward to 2013

December 8, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur

I spent last weekend in La Jolla, CA, at a Liberty Fund gathering devoted to the work of Gustave de Molinari, discussing a range of his writings with a small group including Roderick Long, Charles Johnson, Gary Chartier, Sheldon Richman, Matt Zwolinski, David Hart and David Friedman. It was an excellent event, and I’ll undoubtedly be coming back to Molinari’s writings in the near future. But it was also a very welcome break in my otherwise relentless, but not always well focused research into anarchist history and theory, with the train trip to and from making the break about a […]

Anarchism’s Ungovernability, and What it Means to Be a Mutualist

November 15, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur

Some time back I posted an unexpectedly controversial post on “The Ungovernability of Anarchism.” My goal was to start to talk about how the things that we are in the process of learning about the early phases of the anarchist movement, together with the struggles we are currently having to determine the limits of the tradition, raise interesting and potentially troubling questions about the ways in which we can lay claim to the various aspects of “anarchism.” I fully intended to “raise the bar,” but what I said was taken, by a variety of folks with an interest in […]

Gastrolatry / Gastronomy / Gastrosophy

November 13, 2012

These entries are from the Dictionary Of Phalansterian Sociology: GASTROLATRY. — Ignoble role of the man who only knows how to play with his jaw. — New Industrial World, 259. Theory of Universal Unity, 109. — See: Gluttony. GASTRONOMY. — In civilization gastronomy can only play a very subordinate role, nearer to debauchery than to wisdom. — New Industrial World, 258. — Conditions which render gastronomy honorable and praiseworthy. X. 251. — Gastronomy is a seed of attraction more effective than any other. N. 260, 382. GASTROSOPHY. — Gastrosophy is gastronomy applied to industrial attraction and to hygiene. — Gastronomy, […]

Louise Michel, “The Claque-Dents” (IV-VI)

November 13, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur

THE CLAQUE-DENTS [continued] IV There are two little-known islands on the coast of Morbihan. From a distance, Hœdik has the appearance of a seahorse; some bits of land, one having the appearance of bagpipes, the others stamped in the shape of the tail, surround it. Houat is a double star; reefs, where the waves and wind roar, border Hœdik and Houat. On these islands, and on their constellations of islets, live a population of fisher-folk who only know the sea. On the horizon, eating into the coasts of Quiberon and Penmarch, is the sea; between the two harbors, a first […]

Louise Michel and “the birds of the coming storm”

November 8, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur

Here is a literal translation of Louise Michel’s “Les Corbeaux”, from Before the Commune, a posthumous collection of poems published in 1905. _____ THE CROWS Up there, on the fir trees, are some soft birds’ nests; In the dark trees the are black crows. From Germany to the Ukraine, They open their wings to the wind; And they fly, casting over the plains Their raucous rattle of their voices. For them the harvest is superb; The dead are there, sown in the grass, O black bird, like wheat. Go, and from eyes full of shadow, As if from cups, drink; […]

Bakunin Library

From Louise Michel’s “The Imperial Bastard”

November 8, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur

I’ve been reading bits and pieces of Louise Michel’s novels, as part of a larger project to get a general sense of what’s out there, and naturally with some eye to what might be worth translating in the future. One of the titles I’ve been looking at today is a massive work, Le Bâtard Impérial, co-written with Jean Winter and published in 1883. One of the major plot-lines of the novel involves Yvan, who has been an executioner in Russian prisoners, and who, through a plot twist that seems to involve mistaken identities and one of Michel’s favorite plot devices, […]