anarchist individualism

anarchist individualism

E. Armand, “Qu’est-ce qu’un Anarchiste?” (1908)

March 9, 2018 Shawn P. Wilbur
E. ARMAND Qu’est-ce qu’un Anarchiste ? Theses et Opinions. J’expose, je propose, je n’impose point. E. A. La société actuelle. — Les réformateurs de la société. — L’anarchiste et la société. — L’anarchiste et les réformateurs de la société. — Les chrétiens et les anarchistes. — L’anarchiste envisagé comme réagissant contre la société. — Volonté de vivre et volonté de se reproduire. — L’effort et la joie de vivre. — L’anarchiste envisagé comme réfractaire sur le terrain économique. — De la vie comme expérience. — Les anarchistes considérés comme espèce et la camaraderie. — Les inconséquences des anarchistes. — De la […]
anarchist individualism

E. Armand, The Anarchist Individualist Initiation (1923) (in progress)

December 25, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur
The translation of E. Armand’s Anarchist Individualist Initiation is ongoing. Completed sections are available here, in English, and on the dual-language pages in French and English. Sections on the first page here have gone through at least one round of correction, verification against the original text and annotation, while sections on subsequent pages may be uncorrected drafts. As the work progresses, links to earlier or later versions of the various sections will be added. Editorial notes have been added in blue text. Related links: E. ARMAND—MAIN PAGE The Anarchist Individualist Initiation (Parallel (FR/EN) text) Notes on “The Anarchist Individualist Initiation” […]
Anarchist Beginnings

William C. Owen, “What is Anarchism?” (1920)

June 6, 2017 Shawn P. Wilbur
We receive pleasure or suffer pain through our own individual organs, breathe with our own lungs, think with our own brains, and move about actively or are bed-ridden, according to the condition of our own muscles. From ourselves we never get away. We cannot. The basic law of our existence is that each of us is a kingdom in himself, and that beyond the limits of his individual kingdom none of us can stray. Each one of us strives, instinctively and unceasingly, to protect and develop his own kingdom, because failure to do so is punished remorselessly. If my body […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Victor Yarros, “Anarchistic Socialism” (1889)

November 17, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
State Socialists are in the habit of charging the Anarchists with a partiality for middle-class ideas and institutions, and nothing is more common than the statement that we wish to retain the bourgeois arrangements, while endeavoring to give them an ideal flavor. Our teachings are taken to be identical with those of the individualistic economists of the Cobden-Bastiat school, and we are constantly told that the principles of individualism, inaugurated and embodied by the great revolution in France, have been tried and found wanting, have been condemned and utterly discredited by life itself. Our present social evils are alleged to […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Rosa Slobodinsky and Voltairine de Cleyre, “The Individualist and the Communist” (1891)

November 12, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
THE INDIVIDUALIST AND THE COMMUNIST. A DIALOGUE. INDIVIDUALIST: “Our host is engaged and requests that I introduce myself to—I beg your pardon, sir, but have I not the pleasure of meeting the Communist speaker who addressed the meeting on Blank street last evening?” COMMUNIST: “Your face seems familiar to me, too.” INDV.: “Doubtless you may have seen me there, or at some kindred place. I am glad at the opportunity to talk with you as your speech proved you to be somewhat of a thinker. Perhaps—” COM.: “Ah, indeed, I recognize you now. You are the apostle of capitalistic Anarchism!” […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Benjamin R. Tucker, “Why I Am an Anarchist” (1890)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
Why am I an Anarchist? That is the question which the editor of the Twentieth Century has requested me to answer for his readers. I comply; but, to be frank, I find it a difficult task. If the editor or one of his contributors had only suggested a reason why I should be anything other than an Anarchist, I am sure I should have no difficulty in disputing the argument. And does not this very fact, after all, furnish in itself the best of all reasons why I should be an Anarchist – namely, the impossibility of discovering any good […]
anarchist individualism

E. Armand, “A Little Manual for the Anarchist Individualist” (1911/1934)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
Petit Manuel anarchiste individualiste I Etre anarchiste c’est nier l’autorité et rejeter son corollaire économique : l’exploitation. Et cela dans tous les domaines où s’exerce l’activité humaine. L’anarchiste veut vivre sans dieux ni maîtres ; sans patrons ni directeurs ; alégal, sans lois comme sans préjugés ; amoral, sans obligations comme sans morale collective. Il veut vivre librement, vivre sa conception personnelle de la vie. En son for intérieur, il est toujours un asocial, un réfractaire, un en dehors, un en-marge, un à-côté, un inadapté. Et pour obligé qu’il soit de vivre dans une société dont la constitution répugne à […]
Anarchist Beginnings

Renzo Novatore, “Anarchist Individualism in the Social Revolution” (1919)

August 29, 2016 Shawn P. Wilbur
1 Anarchist individualism as we understand it – and I say we because a substantial handful of friends think this like me – is hostile to every school and every party, every churchly and dogmatic moral, as well as every more or less academic imbecility. Every form of discipline, rule and pedantry is repulsive to the sincere nobility of our vagabond and rebellious restlessness! Individualism is, for us, creative force, immortal youth, exalting beauty, redemptive and fruitful war. It is the marvelous apotheosis of the flesh and the tragic epic of the spirit. Our logic is that of not having […]
anarchist individualism

Mauricius, E. Armand as I Knew Him

May 15, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
  E. ARMAND AS I KNEW HIM By Mauricius (From “E. Armand, Son Vie, Son Ouevre”, La Ruche Ouvrier, 1964) I encountered E. Armand for the first time one beautiful night in the spring of 1905 at the Causeries Populaires in the rue Muller in Montmartre, where I had come that night in a very banal way. I lived then on the place du Theatre-Montmartre and on this street was a police station, in front of which I saw some men talking. I approached them. Suddenly, I saw coming from the police station an almost completely naked man who was […]
anarchist individualism

E. Armand, The Critical Activity of Individualists

May 15, 2012 Shawn P. Wilbur
  The Critical Activity of Individualists E. Armand One should not be mistaken: individualist anarchists are negators, destroyers, demolishers. They are those who believe in nothing, respect nothing. Nothing in fact is exempt from their critique of disintegration, Nothing is sacred. When do they make a critique? At every moment. Not one event or one historical fact which can not be critiqued. Not one suffering, not one sorrow, not one mourning which can not give rise to a critique; not one human drama which does not suggest a critique. Where does one criticize? In every milieu How does one criticize? […]