When I say I am an anarchist, I simply mean that, to the extent that I have the power, I refuse to let anyone or anything dominate me. In other words, I refuse to accept the power of any authority, any institution, any existing or would-be ruler, any ruler, etc., over me. This is why I also refuse to choose between potential rulers and rules. Doing so would express a willingness to give up my power to create my life, a willingness to surrender this power to others, and I am not willing to do this. I also am not willing to even temporarily hand my power over to any authority or institution to act for me. This is why I won’t turn to cops or courts to deal with any problem or conflict in my life. To the extent of my power, I avoid dealin... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Thaddeus Russell A Renegade History of the United States Free Press, 2010
For Thaddeus Russell freedom doesn’t come from a political system, a social order, a station in life or any other such institutionalized relationship. It is the practical ability I have to do what I want in my daily life. To the extent that such freedom exists, it is not because of “our free democratic system,” nor because of political protests against those who rule that system, but because selfish, non-conforming, flagrantly hedonistic and egoistic renegades[1] insisted on living as they wanted against all the odds.
The book is a good contrast not only to mainstream history, but also to the various leftist histories that tend to make ... Drowning...
A death in which one is completely overcome by a natural force too great for one to fight...
But what deaths do not involve such a force?
I think drowning has its special significance because the force surrounds the victim, encompasses her, ingests and plays with him. Particularly in the sea, it is as if infinity has swallowed the one who has drowned, has taken him in and turned her into a part of itself. While there are similarities to death by fire, which also consumes its victims, fire lacks the apparent infinity of the sea, and the victim has freedom of motion limited only by her own fear, at least until asphyxiation causes him to lose consciousness. But one who drowns finds himself to be the playthi... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Introduction by Alfredo M. Bonanno
This book has a lot to say, far more than it might seem at first sight. But it requires a particular disposition on the part of the reader, a disposition to understand rather than to simply inform oneself.
In fact, there is not merely ‘information’ here, there are ‘ideas’, something that rarely happens in American (even ‘radical’) culture, and this is somewhat disturbing. How many of us are prepared to consider ideas? I don’t know. Those who do not want to question their certainties will find confirmation of their beliefs in this book in another guise, ruining the author’s solicitations to look at reality differently.
Anyone can spend yea... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Among the various "-ism"s that some (occasionally even I) may use to name the ways that I encounter my worlds, there is one I chose to treat by itself, and that is atheism. The label "atheist" most certainly applies to me, since I don't believe in any god and, beyond this, have no desire for any such being in the worlds I experience. But as Stirner pointed out more than 170 years ago, so many atheists are such utterly pious people, and it can be embarrassing to be associated with such dogmatic true believers.
It's not hard to distinguish pious atheists; the signs are obvious: an obsessive need to evangelize; endless attempts to show they are as moral as...the instigators of crusades and inquisitions, the perpetrators of jihads and wi... Communities .. are best defined in terms of food relationships – we are asking who eats whom. –Marston Bates
Damn near everywhere I go, I hear talk about community.
It’s apparently something everyone needs, something to which everyone should be willing to give herself. In big cities, it’s easy to ignore these calls to belong, since it’s hard for the unarmed proponents of community* to intrude personally into other people’s lives. I now live in a rural area. It has many advantages, but its human population includes far too many liberals, activists, do-gooders, in short, busybodies for whom community is sacred, an impersonal deity to whom these believers want everyone to know.
These... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Only when nothing is said about you and you are merely named, are you recognized as you. As soon as something is said about you, you are only recognized as that thing…
– Max Stirner
It’s amusing how often people confuse identity with individuality. Identity traces back to a Latin word meaning “sameness.” And sameness implies the existence of something with which I can be the same.
It is certainly possible to conceive of individuals as identical atoms bashing into each other—marxists like to assume that this is what individualists are talking about—but even atoms only become identical when you or I conceive of them as atoms, giving them an identity. Atomization is a process ... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Notes: The following essays are not yet present from the original document.
Wild Sensuality - Rediscovering the Super-Abundance of Wild Nature
Child Molestation vs Child Love
A.I.D.S as a Dis-Ease
Rants: Essays and Polemics
“This book is dedicated to all Pansexual Pirates, Anarchic Adventurers, Mischievous Magicians, Chaotic Creators, Heroic Hermaphrodites, Delirious Deities, Prophetic Perverts, Orgasmic Outlaws, Androgynous Avatars, Beautiful Bandits, Erotic Elves, Demented Dreamers, Mad Moorish Mystics, Devine Dilinquents and Reveling Ranters. May your health, love and pleasure be yours always, grand creators of paradise.”
Feral Faun
Introduction
Here I am, a free... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Almost every scholar of Stirner, whether self-taught or university-trained, insists on referring to the author of The Unique... as a philosopher. I can’t recall Stirner ever referring to himself as such, and certainly, by the time he wrote his book, he had concluded that philosophy was a joke that its purveyors took far too seriously, buffoonery deserving only laughter. And to call the mocker of philosophy a philosopher is as absurd as calling the impious atheist[1] a theologian.
Philosophers pursue answers in the ultimate sense—universal answers. And so they are, indeed, lovers of wisdom. They conceive of wisdom as something objective, as something that exists in itself, beyond any individual, and so as something they ha... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) “Their lives are like their knitting: introspective yet mindless; fussy, exacting, repetitive and pale-tinted by the cheaper dye.”
— Rikki Ducornet
When I first encountered godless anarchy in the late 1970s, it was its excess, its unconstrained exploration and experimentation with the furthest realms of passion and ideas, and its desire and dreams that attracted me.
It was a magnificent feast.
Its wines and ales were strong, intoxicating and full of flavor, hints of spices, herbs and fruits from undiscovered realms of poetic imagination.
Its music throbbed with crazy rhythms, laughing leaping melodies, harmonic cacophonies of joy and rage.
It evoked wild, unfettered dancing, an... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) The developments in technology over the past sixty years—the nuclear industry, cybernetics and related information techniques, biotechnology and genetic engineering—have produced fundamental changes in the social terrain. The methods of exploitation and domination have changed, and for this reason old ideas about the nature of class and class struggle are not adequate for understanding the present situation. The workerism of the marxists and syndicalists can no longer even be imagined to offer anything useful in developing a revolutionary practice. But simply rejecting the concept of class is not a useful response to this situation either, because in so doing one loses an essential tool for understanding the present reality and ... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) These are funny times. If some old, obviously doddering anarchist (if they weren’t doddering, they’d never do this!) dares to use the word “libertarian” the way it was used for well over a century, the way it’s still used in many parts of the world, the hip, young anarchists will look at her aghast, all because about forty-two years ago a few pathetic pro-drug, pro-sex, pro-capitalism goofballs decided to stick that name on a party. And, no, is wasn’t a keg party or a pot party or even a tea party, it was that most tedious kind of party – the political party. I could understand why these youngsters don’t want to use the word if it weren’t for one thing. A lot of them have no trouble at a... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.) Willful Disobedience
In this section of the site I am bringing together the theoretical articles that I wrote for Willful Disobedience, an anarchist zine that I published from 1996 until 2005 with some minor revisions that I have made to clarify my meaning where I felt it was necessary.
Though, inevitably, my ideas developed and went through changes during the nine years that I published this zine (as they continue to do now, since I am still alive), I did have specific aims in publishing Willing Disobedience, and these are reflected in the common threads that run through it from the beginning to the end: an anarchism based in Stirner-influenced egoism; an insurrectionary approach that sees individual insurrection in the prese... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)