May 18

“Nothing has changed.
The body shudders as it shuddered
before the founding of Rome and after,
in the twentieth century before and after Christ.
Tortures are just as they were, only the earth has grown smaller,
and what happens sounds as if it’s happening in the next room.” Wislawa Szymborska - Tortures

May 8

“In the present times of increasing submission by the workers to powerful state tyranny, it is natural that more sympathy is directed toward anarchism, with its propaganda of freedom. Just as social democracy, its opponent, it had its roots in 19th century capitalism. One took its necessity from exploitation and capitalist competition, the other from the entire enslaving and suppression of personality; one found its force in the need for and propaganda of organization, the other in the need for and propaganda of freedom. Since the former was felt most immediately and overwhelmingly by the workers, social democracy won the masses and anarchism could not compete with it. Now rising under state capitalism it seems to have a better chance. But we have to bear in mind that both in the same way carry the mark of their origin out of the primitive conditions of the 19th century. The principle of freedom, originating from bourgeois conditions of early capitalism, freedom of trade and enterprise, is not adequate to the working class. The problems or goals for the workers are to combine freedom and organization. Anarchism, by setting up freedom as its goal, forgets that the free society of workers can only exist by a strong feeling of community as the prominent character of the collaborating producers. This new character, coming forth as strong solidarity in the workers’ fights already is the basis of organization- without compulsion from above. The self-made organization by free collaborating workers is the basis at the same time of their personal freedom, i.e., of their feeling as free masters of their own work. Freedom as the chief content of anarchism may awake strong sympathies now, but it is only a part, not even the basic part, of the goal of the working class, which is expressed by self-rule, self-determination, by means of council organization. It seems, then, that in the present times there is in anarchism a certain approach toward the idea of workers’ councils, especially where it involves groups of workers. But the old pure anarchist doctrine is too narrow to be of value for the class struggle now.”

Anton Pannekoek

May 3

“To be GOVERNED is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so. To be GOVERNED is to be at every operation, at every transaction noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be place under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonored. That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality.” Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century

Apr 24

“When a man loves cats, I am his friend and comrade without further introduction.” Mark Twain

Apr 17

“An idea, like a ghost, must be spoken to a little before it will explain itself.” Charles Dickens

Apr 3

“However stupid a fools words may be, they are sometimes enough to confound an intelligent man.” Nikolai Gogol, Dead Souls

Mar 23

“Instruction in sex is as important as instruction in food; yet not only are our adolescents not taught the physiology of sex, but never warned that the strongest sexual attraction may exist between persons so incompatible in tastes and capacities that they could not endure living together for a week much less a lifetime.” George Bernard Shaw, Everybody’s Political What’s What, 1944

Feb 27

“When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.” Mark Twain, Notebook, 1898

Feb 10

Chomsky on Anarchism

- I think a lot of people today, when you mention to them an anarchist society, they get the wrong impression… Would you describe anarchist society as an ultra-radical version of democracy?

First of all, nobody owns the concept “anarchism.” Anarchism has a very broad back. You can find all kinds of things in the anarchist movements. So the question of what an anarchist society can be is almost meaningless. Different people who associate themselves with rough anarchist tendencies have very different conceptions.

But the most developed notions that anarchist activists and thinkers have had in mind are those for a highly organized society—highly structured, highly organized—but organized on the basis of free and voluntary participation. So, for example, what I mentioned about the Ohio network of worker/community-owned enterprises, that’s a traditional anarchist vision. Enterprises, not only owned but managed by participants in a free association with one another is a big step beyond. It could be at the federal level, it could be at the international level. So yes, it’s a highly democratic conception of a structured, organized society with power at the base. It doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have representatives, it can have, but they should be recallable and under the influence and control of participants.

Who’s in favor of a society like that? You can say Adam Smith, for example, who believed—you can question whether his beliefs were accurate—but he believed that market systems and the “invisible hand” of individual choices would lead to egalitarian societies of common participation. You can question the logic of the argument, but the goals are understandable and they go far back. You can find them in the first serious book of politics that was ever written, Aristotle’s Politics.

When Aristotle evaluated various kinds of systems, he felt that democracy was the least bad of them. But he said democracy wouldn’t work unless you could set things up so that they would be relatively egalitarian. He proposed specific measures for Athens that in our terms would be welfare-state measures.

There are plenty of roots for these concepts, a lot of them come right out of the Enlightenment. But I don’t think anyone has the authority to say this is what an anarchist society is going to look like. There are people who think you can sketch it out in great detail, but my own feeling here—I essentially agree with Marx—is that these things have to be worked out by people who are living and functioning in freedom and work out for themselves what kinds of societies and communities are appropriate for them.

- The late British philosopher, Martin Hollis, worked extensively on questions of human action, the philosophy of social science and rationality. One of the claims he made was that any anarchist vision of a society rests upon an idea of human nature that is too optimistic. In short, he argued that anarchism is only viable if humans by nature are good. He says that history shows us that humans cannot be trusted to this degree, thus anarchism is too idealistic. Would you mind responding to this objection very quickly, given your commitment to some of the ideals of anarchism?

- It’s possible to respond to arguments. It is not possible to respond to opinions. If some one makes an assertion saying, “Here’s what I believe,” fine, he can say what he believes, but you can’t respond to it. You can ask, what is the basis for your belief? Or, can you provide me with some evidence? What do you know about human nature? Actually, we don’t know very much about human nature. So yes, that’s an expression of his belief, he’s entitled to make it. We have no idea, nor does he have any idea, if it’s true of false. But it really doesn’t matter; whatever the truth turns out to be, we will follow the same policies, namely, try to optimize and maximize freedom, justice, participation, democracy. Those are goals that we’ll attempt to realize. Maybe human beings are such that there’s a limit to how far they can be realized, okay, we’ll still follow the same policies. So, whatever one’s un-argued assertions may be, it has very little affect on the policy and choices.

- Professor Chomsky, thank you very much.

“After Thirty Years of Class War” - Interview extracted from Occupy by Noam Chomsky.

Jan 16

“And yet in our world everybody thinks of changing humanity, and nobody thinks of changing himself.” Leo Tolstoy, on Anarchy

Jan 9

“I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I’m awake, you know?” Ernest Hemingway

مش فاكر نشرت الإقتباس دا قبل كدا ولا لأه! بس هو مناسب جدًا للأيام دي.

مقتنيات شخصية

كل شئ ولا شئ

Anton Pannekoek

Chomsky on Anarchism