Two Lectures on the Bonnot Affair -------------------------------------------------------------------- People : ---------------------------------- Author : Victor Serge Text : ---------------------------------- The Individual Against Society 1) It’s rather the contrary that should be said. 2) Society is the enemy of any individuality An association is not a simple adding up of individuals; it has its own psychology and vitality. It thus wants to last, to live. 3) In order to live a society necessarily conform itself to two laws A – Law of social preservation; society preserves what created it = traditional = enemy of movement B – law of social conformism. It wants all individuals to act in consideration of this goal – be in conformity with a type – which it forges by force. Ex. The subject of monarchies, the citizen of democracies thus=enemy of originality individual independence. 4) In order to be (originally free) The individual must thus struggle against society. A. Against imposed social obligations. Ex: military service Wage labor Respect of laws Morality and respect of conventions. B. and what is most difficult: against the deformations produced in him by the social milieu ex: hypocrisy proprietary instinct (including sexual) passivity servility authoritarianism, etc... imposed solidarity (Le Dantec’s book “L’Hypocrisie indispensable) 5) This was, this is. Will it always be? Alas, yes. The laws that preside over the lives of societies are natural laws. Let us imagine a communist paradise: – Where there will not be a state of society; the end of all industry, complete and perpetual war against individuals. – Where there will be collective religiosity Morality economy – Where in this the original will be at the very least frowned upon. Moral constraint 6) Where then does social progress reside? In a displacement of the field of struggle We will perhaps no longer fight for bread< Constraint will no longer be physically violent Even so! 7) But what is the utility of these conclusions? A – We should have no illusions about the social future B – we should be sociable without being the dupes of sociability; no spirit of the coterie. Bandits 1) Current events offer us this subject It’s a fact; criminality is on the rise. People kill, steal, engage in fraud Let us profit from this occasion to say what we think of this. 2) What do we think of this? We think this is logical ineluctable necessary The social organization produces crime< Everything is sold, everything is stolen See how institutions and crimes are coordinated Property – theft Authority – rebellion Law – fraud Poverty – banditry Repression-reprisals On one hand society, on the other a few individuals 3) Among the criminals we distinguish the unlucky, bourgeois souls the clumsy, unemployed and the refractory draft dodgers, deserters, thieves because un-adapted to slavery Are distinguished by daring Resolution As much as I despise the former That’s how much I love the latter. 4) Along with us, they are the only men who dare demand life. From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org Events : ---------------------------------- Two Lectures on the Bonnot Affair -- Added : January 11, 2021 Two Lectures on the Bonnot Affair -- Updated : January 06, 2022 About This Textfile : ---------------------------------- Text file generated from : http://revoltlib.com/