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manifestos

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

June 13, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur
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.

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manifestos

An Individualist Program (El Unico, 1912)

June 12, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur
Documents Un programme individualiste Abolition of tout tribut : loyer, rente, dime ou impôt. Suppression de toute institution militaire, multitudiniste ou patronale. Abolition de tout démarcation : borne, poteau-frontière. Une seule langue universelle. Négation de tout titre. Education générale pour tous. Vie garantie à tous les enfants, vieillards ou inaptes. Celui qui veut manger, qu’il travaille. F. Internationale Individualiste. (El Unico, 12 mars 1912). Documents An individualist program Abolition of all tribute: rent, income, tithe or tax. Suppression of every military, multitudinist or employers’ institution. Abolition of every dividing line, boundary marker or border post. One single universal language. Denial of every […]
Contr'un

Anarchist History: Streamside Reflections and Preparations for the Journey

June 11, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur
RELATED: “Our Lost Continent” (April, 2015) “Looking Forward—Mapping Our Lost Continent” (April, 2018) “Neo-Proudhonian Anarchism (A Step toward Synthesis)” (April 19, 2018) “Our Lost Continent: Episodes from an Alternate History of the Anarchist Idea, 1840–1934” (May, 2019) I expect that anyone who has made the experiment—on any scale, really—can attest that it is often much easier to venture out into the wilderness than it is to find our way home again. There is undoubtedly a lesson here for historians of what we call “the anarchist tradition,” and particularly for those of us whose researches have taken us deep into the […]
Working Translations

Sylvain Maréchal, “Corrective to the Revolution” (1793)

June 10, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur
[ A translation in progress. ] [Sylvain Maréchal: Pastoral Simplicity and Patriarchal Government (author page)] CORRECTIF A LA REVOLUTION CORRECTIVE TO THE REVOLUTION Tous nos malheurs sont dûs la Société: L’homme perdit ses droite à la félicité, Du moment qu’il osa, d’une main criminelle ; Substituer un code à la voix paternelle. Sylvain Maréchale. All our misfortunes are due to Society: Man lost his right to happiness, At the moment when he dared, with a criminal hand; To substitute a code for the paternal voice. Sylvain Maréchal. CORRECTIF A LA RÉVOLUTION. —– A PARIS, Chez les Directeurs de l’Imprimerie du Cercle […]
Contr'un

Anarchist History: Maps and Overland Guides

June 8, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur
RELATED: “Our Lost Continent” (April, 2015) “Looking Forward—Mapping Our Lost Continent” (April, 2018) “Our Lost Continent: Episodes from an Alternate History of the Anarchist Idea, 1840–1934” (May, 2019) However cautious I might be about some common metaphors, I have to acknowledge that I have shown much less restraint in talking about mapping and in treating the terrain of anarchist history just a bit literally from time to time. The Libertarian Labyrinth name referred very explicitly to the experience of finding myself dropped—really of dropping myself—into the midst of a history, specifically that of the early anarchists in the United States, […]
Bakunin Library

Mikhail Bakunin, “Le Gouvernementalisme et l’Anarchie” (1878)

June 7, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur
The texts presented here are two different French translations of portions of Bakunin’s 1873 work, Государственность и анархия or Statism and Anarchy. Between March 10 and October 21, 1878, a partial translation appeared in L’Avant-garde (Chaux-de Fonds, Switzerland) under the title “Le Gouvernementalisme et l’Anarchie.” The parallel text includes the corresponding section from the Archives Bakounine edition. The differences in the translations raise a number of interesting questions, particularly regarding the notion of statism (étatisme), which was a relatively new concept in 1878 and may have appeared only once or twice in Bakunin’s French writings. It also seems useful to […]
Contr'un

Anarchist History: The Metaphor of the Main Stream

June 6, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur
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.

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Working Translations

E. Armand, “Challenge” (1941)

June 3, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur
Défi Je sais que vous tournez en dérision ceux à qui leurs cheveux blancs n’interdisent pas d’aimer, car je vous connais bien, vous qui prétendez que l’amour n’a qu’un temps, et qui, persiflant, accommoderiez ainsi l’alexandrin du fabuliste : « Passe encor de bâtir, mais aimer à cet âge » s’il était toutefois présent à votre mémoire. Je vous connais bien, mais je ne crains pas de relever le défi ; sournois ou exprimés, vos sarcasmes me laissent indifférent et je ne les redoute pas, car je me sens de la race de ceux qui ont chéri la vie jusqu’à […]