Blog - Page 60 of 287 - The Libertarian Labyrinth

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, […]

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 […]

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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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 […]

Anarchist Encyclopedia: Logomachy

May 29, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur

Logomachy is a quarrel, a dispute of words, that is to say over words. It is, in equivocation, a pointless exchange of misleading statements that do not illuminate the questions debated or enrich the mind. This style of psittacism is much more frequent than is generally thought, and Proudhon rightly accused philosophy of being “often only a logomachy”.

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Anarchist Encyclopedia: Imputation

May 28, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur

Indictment, well-founded or not. Attribution of blameworthy acts. Quite often the imputation is only a calumny (see that word). How many people, through envy, resentment or hatred, have sent their fellows to prison, even to the penal colony, through imputations entirely animated by the aim of vengeance or harmfulness. How many persons are still commonly given to imputations against those who surround them, sometimes bringing about tragic outcomes…

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Anarchist Encyclopedia: Impunity

May 28, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur

Entries from the Anarchist Encyclopedia IMPUNITÉ n. f. Absence de punition. Un fait à remarquer dans notre Société codifiée de toutes manières, c’est qu’alors que les révolutionnaires sont impitoyablement traqués par tous les gouvernements, les agioteurs, les tripoteurs, les mercantis, les commerçants falsificateurs, les ministres concussionnaires, les hauts fonctionnaires prévaricateurs jouissent d’une impunité presque totale. Les ministres et les généraux qui envoient journellement des hommes à la mort sont aussi protégés par l’impunité. On emploie souvent ce mot dans le sens d’immunité. (Voir les mots immunité, punition, répression). IMPUNITY n. f. Absence of punishment. A fact to not in our […]

Anarchist Encyclopedia: Impulsive

May 28, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur

IMPULSIVE adj. Giving or producing impetus (for example: the impulsive force of gunpowder.) Acting without reflection, yielding to the impressions of the moment. In general, we call impulsive those who are quick-tempered, who get worked up over trifles, who see red as soon as something impedes them, who, in discussion, will use violence in place of arguments. The opposite of the impulsive being is the level-headed being, the one who knows how, in every circumstance, to maintain their composure.

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Anarchist Encyclopedia: INDIVIDUALISM (or Communism?)

May 28, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur

Entries from the Anarchist Encyclopedia INDIVIDUALISME (ou Communisme ?) Depuis longtemps j’ai été frappé par le contraste existant entre la largeur des buts de l’anarchisme et de bien-être pour tous — et l’étroitesse du programme économique de l’anarchisme individualiste et communiste. Je suis très porté à croire que la faiblesse de base économique — exclusivement communiste ou individualiste (les termes communisme ou individualisme s’appliquent, tout le long de cet article, aux anarchistes partisans de l’un ou de l’autre. Il n’est nullement question du communisme, IIIe Internationale), selon l’école – faiblesse dont ils ont conscience — empêche les hommes d’avoir pratiquement […]

On the Subject of the Anarchist Synthesis (1929)

May 28, 2019 Shawn P. Wilbur

You have sent me The Anarchist Synthesis, by Sébastien Faure, dated February 20, 1928, and I am sure that you will republish this remarkable document or at least that you will make its contents known to your readers. On that conditions, allow me to put forward some remarks on this subject, which is certainly of a capital interest for the anarchist movement in all nations.

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