translations

Anarchism

Joseph Déjacque – The Humanisphere (Preface)

December 26, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur
The Humanisphere: Anarchic Utopia Joseph Déjacque UTOPIA: “A dream not realized, but not unrealizable.” ANARCHY: “Absence of government.” Revolutions are conservations. (P. J. PROUDHON)The only true revolutions are the revolutions of ideas. (JOUFFROY) Let us make customs, and no longer make laws. (EMILE DE GIRARDIN) So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty…. Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers […]
Contr'un

Joseph Déjacque and “The Circulus in Universality”

July 18, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur
It’s long, and the translation is still a little rough, but I would encourage folks to take the time to read Joseph Déjacque’s The Circulus in Universality and to look at the other texts by him: “To the Ci-Devant Dynastics,” Down with the Bosses!,  “The Theory of Infinitesimal Humanities,” and the excerpt from The Humanisphere published as “Authority and Idleness.” Once you have some sense of the terrain, you may also want to take a look at the in-progress translation of The Humanisphere that Jesse Cohn has posted. Déjacque is another of those figures who deserves to be more than […]
Contr'un

The Circulus in Universality

July 12, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur
 The Circulus in Universality (1858) [revised translation available] Joseph Déjacque I The circulus in universality is the destruction of every religion, of all arbitrariness, be it elysian or tartarean, heavenly or infernal. The movement in the infinite is infinite progress. This being the case, the world can no longer be a duality, mind and matter, body and soul, which is to say a mutable thing and an immutable one, which implies contradiction—movement excluding immobility and vice versa—but must be, quite to the contrary, an infinite unity of always-mutable and always-mobile substance, which implies perfectibility. It is by eternal and infinite […]
Contr'un

Newly translated commentary on Stirner

June 20, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur
Check out the Vagabond Theorist blog for a translation of the “Introduction” to the 2001 edition of the Italian version of Max Stirner’s Der Einzige und sein Eigentum. The translation is obviously approximate in a couple of places, but Massimo Passamani’s provocative reading of Stirner is sufficiently clear. Thanks to the Vagabond Theorist himself for making this available.
Contr'un

Proudhon on Property (1846) – Conclusion

June 4, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur
Here is the final section of Proudhon’s study on property, from the Contradictions. The other sections I posted recently will appear, in full or part, in the forthcoming AK Press anthology, but this section didn’t make the cut for various reasons, not the least of which was its difficulty. The translation is still considerably rougher than the others in a few places, but I think most of it is clear and very interesting. As of today, I have officially begun a revision and annotation of Benjamin R. Tucker’s translations of the first two memoirs on property. Since the translations are generally […]
Contr'un

A freethought gem from Multatuli

May 30, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur
Though personally I am (notoriously, in some circles) a radical neo-christian, a “regular thoroughgoing heretic” much on the same model as William B. Greene, I’m a equal-opportunity historian and translator, and certainly enjoy a well-written freethought piece. After all, the institutions of Christendom seem to have trouble keeping their own basic doctrines straight, and pretty much beg for a good rebuttal. This short piece by Multatuli (Eduard Douwes Dekker, 1820-1887) is a translation of a French translation of a posthumously published letter, but I think the sense comes through loud and clear. THE PRAYER OF AN IGNORAMUS MULTATULI. I don’t […]
Contr'un

Proudhon on Property (1846) – Part 5

May 20, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur
THE SYSTEM OF ECONOMIC CONTRADICTIONS CHAPTER XI EIGHTH EPOCH.—PROPERTY [continued from Part 4] Thus property, which should consummate the holy union of man and nature, leads only to an odious prostitution. The sultan uses and abuses his slave: the earth is for him an instrument of luxury… I find here more than a metaphor; I discover a profound analogy. What is it that, in the relations of the sexes, distinguishes marriage from concubinage? Everyone senses the difference between these two things; few people would be in a state to render an account of it, so obscure has the question become […]
Contr'un

Proudhon on Property (1846) – Part 4

May 20, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur
THE SYSTEM OF ECONOMIC CONTRADICTIONS CHAPTER XI EIGHTH EPOCH.—PROPERTY [continued from Part 3]   Of all the forms of property, the most detestable is that which has talent for a pretext. Prove to an artist, by the comparison of times and men, that the inequality of works of art, in the different centuries, above all stems from the oscillating movements of society, from the changing of beliefs and of the state of minds; that whatever a society is worth, so much is the worth of the artist; that between the artist and his contemporaries there exists a community of needs […]
Contr'un

Proudhon on Property (1846) – Part 3

May 20, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur
THE SYSTEM OF ECONOMIC CONTRADICTIONS CHAPTER XI EIGHTH EPOCH.—PROPERTY   [continued from Part 2] § III. — How property is corrupted. By means of property, society has realized a thought that is useful, laudable, and even inevitable: I am going to prove that by obeying an invincible necessity, it has cast itself into an impossible hypothesis. I believe that I have not forgotten or diminished any of the motives which have presided over the establishment of property; I even dare say that I have given these motives a unity and an obviousness unknown until this moment. Let the reader fill […]
Contr'un

To the Point! To Action!! (3 of 4)

May 9, 2010 Shawn P. Wilbur
[Part 1] – [Part 2] XIII But there are people who are still far from accepting this reasoning. The theoreticians, our masters, find ideas preferable to fact. And this doctrine that they maintain provides them with a dividend which strongly encourages them to continue maintaining it. In their view, provided that tax payments continue and provided that the rain respects the words Republic and Liberty on the front of the public buildings, we are republicans and free. These people are very bright! As bright as that well-advised character in the Arab proverbs who, without touching the contents of a vase […]