Blog - Page 190 of 286 - The Libertarian Labyrinth

Here he comes, to save the day…

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, […]

A lighter side of Louise Michel

November 7, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur

I’ve posted translations of “Old Chéchette,” a first story from Louise Michel’s Tales and Legends for the Children (1884), and “The Clavier of My Over-Dream,” an article/prose-poem contributed (under the name “Louis Michel) to Le Progrès musical in 1867.

Joseph Déjacque, “The Humanisphere” — Note on “The Extremes”

November 3, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur

I’m working on completing Part I of The Humanisphere, but I decided to finish up this very interesting note before settling down to that task. There are tensions in the work which are pretty remarkable — as we saw in Part III, Déjacque was prepared to call for a war against Civilization (defined, following Fourier, as the form of society of the modern era, and thus something to be progressed beyond) exceeding even that proposed by Ernest Coeurderoy, but, as we will see in Part II, that didn’t prevent him from imagining his anarchic utopia as a kind of thoroughly […]

Joseph Déjacque, “The Humanisphere” (Part III)

November 1, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur

[I’ve posted parts of The Humanisphere before, and talked a bit about the difficulties involved. Slowly, but surely, I’m working my way through the work, but not necessarily tackling the sections in order. This is the final section.] THE HUMANISPHERE by Joseph Déjacque Part III The Transitional Period. How will the progress be accomplished? What means will prevail? What route will be chosen? That is what is it is difficult to determine in an absolute manner. But whatever these means, whatever the route, if it is a step towards anarchic liberty, I will applaud it. Let the progress take place […]

An Anarchist-Collectivist View of Collectivist Anarchism

October 31, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur

[ezcol_2third] It’s been a while since I’ve been able to post a progress report. The first round of proposals brought a mixed sort of feedback, which led to another long round of research and strategizing. Thanks to everyone who contributed feedback, even if it was of a sort I ultimately couldn’t accommodate. I’ll have more complete details soon, but the good news is that we’ve settled on an initial set of 6 volumes: a general Bakunin Reader, The Knouto-Germanic Empire, the writings on Mazzini, two additional volumes of essays, and a collectivist anarchist reader, featuring a number of Bakunin’s allies. […]

Jean Grave, The Adventures of Nono — Chapter X

October 29, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur

THE ADVENTURES OF NONO by JEAN GRAVE [continued from Chapter IX] X THE ENCOUNTER The group was returning very slowly, without hurrying, when Nono saw a splendid death’s-head hawkmoth. He immediately decided to catch it. But when he tried to seize it, the insect, with an unexpected flap of its wings, escaped from the net and came fluttering, as if to taunt him, very close to the hunter who, carried away by the heat of the chase, soon found himself led far from his friends. Finally, stopping near a large oak, the moth seemed within range, and Nono thought […]

Jean Grave, The Adventures of Nono — Chapter IX

October 28, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur

THE ADVENTURES OF NONO by JEAN GRAVE [continued from Chapter VIII] IX THE PROMENADE Nono had been in Autonomie for some time, and that time seemed to have passed like a dream. The time passed quietly; each day brought diverse labors and pleasures, which prevented the children from being bored for a single minute. Nono now knew all his comrades by name, knew who their parents were, what they did, and what country they came from. Most of the time, school-hours were spent in the gardens, on the lawns; but, for variety, they had long since planned a long walk […]

Are Hotels Immoral?

October 27, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur

I’ve been trying to collect my contributions to various discussion threads, where the off-the-cuff stuff seems to advance the conversation, and I’m presenting them in the form of one-sided conversations, with just enough of the contributions of others to give context. Here’s a bit from Reddit, on the question of occupancy and use property norms: Q. Are Hotels Immoral? A. No. If someone is actively maintaining a hotel, then they are obviously occupying and using it. A large hotel is likely to be a collectively owned affair, like most large enterprises under usufructory ownership. A. Can that somebody hire people […]

Louise Michel as a Fiction Writer / The Claque-Dents

October 27, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur

One of the results of my continuing research on anarchism is that I occasionally find whole new genres of anarchist writing opening up in front of me. And recently, between my work on radical feminist writing and my work on the intersection of science fiction and fantasy and radicalism, I’ve been spending a lot of time reading, researching and translating fiction. A work like Jean Grave’s The Adventures of Nono is relatively unique as a children’s story, but the number of adult novels—including some that are very adult—written by anarchists is very large. One of the prolific novel-writers was Louise […]

On J. H. Rosny

October 25, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur

M. J. H. ROSNY. Let us transport ourselves in fancy a few years into the future. . . . The tendencies that are now beginning to assert themselves in education have definitely triumphed. Polite letters are banished from the course of instruction. The study of the dead languages has been abandoned by a society that has no time to lose. Classic literature has been utterly repudiated by the very men whose mission it was to initiate youth into its beauties. The university has realized its ambition of being modern. It has been reformed in accordance with the views of those […]