Over at the Anarchist FAQ blog, Iain has a post recognizing the sesquicentennial of the term libertaire, used in 1858 by Joseph Déjacque as the title of his journal, La Libertaire, Journal du Mouvement Social. Déjacque is generally credited with the first use of the term “libertarian” as a synonym for “anarchist.” We’ve learned, as the digital archives grow, to be skeptical of first-use claims, but I’m happy to take a moment to recognize the importance of Déjacque’s contribution. His fascinating mix of anarchism, communism, egoism, and feminism, drawing on the thought of Fourier, Proudhon, Pierre Leroux and others, is deserving of much more attention that it has generally received.
Contr'un
Déjacque’s “Authority—Dictatorship,” revised translation
I’ve posted a revised translation of Joseph Déjacque’s essay, “Authority—Dictatorship,” also known by the title “Down with the Bosses!” My original working translation was not the most elegant of attempts, and it’s nice to have a substantially improved version available to readers. Slight revisions of “The Universal Circulus” and “The Theory of Infinitesimal Humanities” are on their way as well, as I start to work seriously on an anthology of Déjacque’s work. I’ve combed through library catalogs and the pages Le Libertaire for important and representative material, and it looks like these texts are key: Down with the Bosses! The […]
Contr'un
Joseph Déjacque, The Humanisphere — I
[I posted some of this about a year and a half ago, but set it down again, not feeling comfortable enough with some of the contexts to be sure I was getting the details right. With the work that I’ve been doing recently translating Charles Fourier, Pierre Leroux, and some other works by Joseph Déjacque, I’m feeling much more certain that I’m catching nuances, so I’m going to start posting sections again, beginning with a considerably enlarged first helping.] The Humanisphere Anarchic Utopia Utopia: “A dream not realized, but not unrealizable.” Anarchy: “Absence of government.” Revolutions are conservations. (P. J. […]
Anarchist Beginnings
Joseph Déjacque, “The Universal Circulus” (revised translation)(1858)
[This remarkable bit of libertarian philosophy by Joseph Déjacque poses all sorts of difficulties for the modern reader, not the least of which is it borrowings from, and reworkings of, the works of Charles Fourier and Pierre Leroux. And there are places where it ha been necessary to translate things rather literally, since terms are used suggestively, according to the established uses of none of the writers or schools that they were drawn from. There are also a couple of times when Déjacque’s enthusiasm clearly ran away with the syntax: where catalogs of conditionals come to abrupt stops, without ever […]