“Anarchist individualism as we understand it—and I say we because a substantial handful of friends think this like me—is hostile to every school and every party, every churchly and dogmatic moral, as well as every more or less academic imbecility. Every form of discipline, rule, and pedantry is repulsive to the sincere nobility of our vagabond and rebellious restlessness!
Individualism is, for us, creative force, immortal youth, exalting beauty, redemptive and fruitful war. It is the marvelous apotheosis of the flesh and the tragic epic of the spirit. Our logic is that of not having any. Our ideal is the categorical negation of all other ideals for the greatest and supreme triumph of the actual, real, instinctive, reckless, and merry life! For us perfection is not a dream, an ideal, a riddle, a mystery, a sphinx, but a vigorous and powerful, luminous and throbbing reality. All human beings are perfect in themselves. All they lack is the heroic courage of their perfection. Since the time that human beings first believed that life was a duty, a calling, a mission, it has meant shame for their power of being, and in following phantoms, they have denied themselves and distanced themselves from the real.”
— Renzo Novatore, Anarchist Individualism in the Social Revolution (§1)
Individualism is, for us, creative force, immortal youth, exalting beauty, redemptive and fruitful war. It is the marvelous apotheosis of the flesh and the tragic epic of the spirit. Our logic is that of not having any. Our ideal is the categorical negation of all other ideals for the greatest and supreme triumph of the actual, real, instinctive, reckless, and merry life! For us perfection is not a dream, an ideal, a riddle, a mystery, a sphinx, but a vigorous and powerful, luminous and throbbing reality. All human beings are perfect in themselves. All they lack is the heroic courage of their perfection. Since the time that human beings first believed that life was a duty, a calling, a mission, it has meant shame for their power of being, and in following phantoms, they have denied themselves and distanced themselves from the real.”
— Renzo Novatore, Anarchist Individualism in the Social Revolution (§1)
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“The entire system of higher education in Germany has lost what matters most: the end as well as the means to the end. That education, that Bildung, is itself an end — and not ‘the Reich’ — and that educators are needed to that end, and not secondary-school teachers and university scholars — that has been forgotten. Educators are needed who have themselves been educated, superior, noble spirits, proved at every moment, proved by words and silence, representing culture which has grown ripe and sweet — not the learned louts whom secondary schools and universities today offer our youth as ’higher wet nurses.’ Educators are lacking, not counting the most exceptional of exceptions, the very first condition of education: hence the decline of German culture.…
What the ‘higher schools’ in Germany really achieve is a brutal training, designed to prepare huge numbers of young men, with as little loss of time as possible, to become usable, abusable [exploitable], in government service.…
In present-day Germany no one is any longer free to give his children a noble education: our ‘higher schools’ are all set up for the most ambiguous mediocrity, with their teachers, curricula, and teaching aims. And everywhere an indecent haste prevails, as if something would be lost if the young man of twenty-three were not yet ‘finished,’ or if he did not yet know the answer to the ‘main question’: which calling [Beruf; profession]? A higher kind of human being, if I may say so, does not like ‘callings,’ precisely because he knows himself to be called. He has time, he takes time, he does not even think of ‘finishing’: at thirty one is, in the sense of high culture, a beginner, a child. Our overcrowded secondary schools, our overworked, stupefied secondary-school teachers, are a scandal: for one to defend such conditions, as the professors at Heidelberg did recently, there may perhaps be causes — reasons there are none.”
— Friedrich Nietzsche,
Twilight of the Idols (§8. 5)
What the ‘higher schools’ in Germany really achieve is a brutal training, designed to prepare huge numbers of young men, with as little loss of time as possible, to become usable, abusable [exploitable], in government service.…
In present-day Germany no one is any longer free to give his children a noble education: our ‘higher schools’ are all set up for the most ambiguous mediocrity, with their teachers, curricula, and teaching aims. And everywhere an indecent haste prevails, as if something would be lost if the young man of twenty-three were not yet ‘finished,’ or if he did not yet know the answer to the ‘main question’: which calling [Beruf; profession]? A higher kind of human being, if I may say so, does not like ‘callings,’ precisely because he knows himself to be called. He has time, he takes time, he does not even think of ‘finishing’: at thirty one is, in the sense of high culture, a beginner, a child. Our overcrowded secondary schools, our overworked, stupefied secondary-school teachers, are a scandal: for one to defend such conditions, as the professors at Heidelberg did recently, there may perhaps be causes — reasons there are none.”
— Friedrich Nietzsche,
Twilight of the Idols (§8. 5)
“There are not two sexes, there are n sexes; there are as many sexes as there are assemblages. And since each of us enters into several assemblages, each of us has n sexes. When children discover that they are reduced to one sex, male or female, they discover their powerlessness: they lose the machinic sense and are left only with the signification of a tool. And then a child really does fall into depression. They have been damaged; their countless sexes have been stolen!”
— Gilles Deleuze,
The Interpretation of Utterances
— Gilles Deleuze,
The Interpretation of Utterances
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Forwarded from mehkum-e-hikmah (josephine kalieda)
Desiring-machines or the nonhuman sex: not one or even two sexes, but n sexes. Schizoanalysis is the variable analysis of the n sexes in a subject, beyond the anthropomorphic representation that society imposes on this subject, and with which it represents its own sexuality. The schizoanalytic slogan of the desiring-revolution will be first of all: to each its own sexes.
Deleuze & Guattari, Anti-Oedipus
Dionysian Anarchism
Christian denial of life: designating desires of the flesh as evil etc
“Old Russian nurses full of such lore will tell you never to put a child to bed without unbuttoning the collar of its shirt. A warm spot at the bottom of the neck should be left bare, where the guardian angel may nestle. Otherwise the devil will worry the child even in its sleep.
These artless conceptions are passing away. But though the old words disappear, the essential idea remains the same.
Well brought up folks no longer believe in the devil, but as their ideas are no more rational than those of our nurses, they do but disguise devil and angel under a pedantic wordiness honored with the name of philosophy. They do not say ‘devil’ nowadays, but ‘the flesh,’ or ‘the passions.’ The ‘angel’ is replaced by the words ‘conscience’ or ‘soul,’ by ‘reflection of the thought of a divine creator’ or ‘the Great Architect,’ as the Free-Masons say. But man’s action is still represented as the result of a struggle between two hostile elements. And a man is always considered virtuous just in the degree to which one of these two elements — the soul or conscience — is victorious over the other — the flesh or passions.”
— Peter Kropotkin, Anarchist Morality (II)
These artless conceptions are passing away. But though the old words disappear, the essential idea remains the same.
Well brought up folks no longer believe in the devil, but as their ideas are no more rational than those of our nurses, they do but disguise devil and angel under a pedantic wordiness honored with the name of philosophy. They do not say ‘devil’ nowadays, but ‘the flesh,’ or ‘the passions.’ The ‘angel’ is replaced by the words ‘conscience’ or ‘soul,’ by ‘reflection of the thought of a divine creator’ or ‘the Great Architect,’ as the Free-Masons say. But man’s action is still represented as the result of a struggle between two hostile elements. And a man is always considered virtuous just in the degree to which one of these two elements — the soul or conscience — is victorious over the other — the flesh or passions.”
— Peter Kropotkin, Anarchist Morality (II)
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“The most disheartening tendency common among readers is to tear out one sentence from a work, as a criterion of the writer’s ideas or personality. Friedrich Nietzsche, for instance, is decried as a hater of the weak because he believed in the Übermensch. It does not occur to the shallow interpreters of that giant mind that this vision of the Übermensch also called for a state of society which will not give birth to a race of weaklings and slaves.
It is the same narrow attitude which sees in Max Stirner naught but the apostle of the theory ‘each for himself, the devil take the hind one.’ That Stirner’s individualism contains the greatest social possibilities is utterly ignored. Yet, it is nevertheless true that if society is ever to become free, it will be so through liberated individuals, whose free efforts make society.”
— Emma Goldman, Anarchism and Other Essays (Preface)
It is the same narrow attitude which sees in Max Stirner naught but the apostle of the theory ‘each for himself, the devil take the hind one.’ That Stirner’s individualism contains the greatest social possibilities is utterly ignored. Yet, it is nevertheless true that if society is ever to become free, it will be so through liberated individuals, whose free efforts make society.”
— Emma Goldman, Anarchism and Other Essays (Preface)
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Nothing would help our so-called MRAs/"Meninists" more than a better understanding of patriarchy, a good dose of feminism... assuming that they actually care about the problems faced by men, which however appears to be a minority among them
Usually the worst feminist is better than the best MRA
Usually the worst feminist is better than the best MRA
Dionysian Anarchism
Scientists then vs now (on philosophy)
How does it happen that a properly endowed natural scientist comes to concern himself with epistemology? Is there no more valuable work in his specialty? I hear many of my colleagues saying, and I sense it from many more, that they feel this way. I cannot share this sentiment. When I think about the ablest students whom I have encountered in my teaching, that is, those who distinguish themselves by their independence of judgment and not merely their quick-wittedness, I can affirm that they had a vigorous interest in epistemology. They happily began discussions about the goals and methods of science, and they showed unequivocally, through their tenacity in defending their views, that the subject seemed important to them. Indeed, one should not be surprised at this.
— Albert Einstein, ‘Ernst Mach,’ Physikalische Zeitschrift (Vol 17) (1916; No. 7, p. 101)
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Albert Einstein was, right from a young age, profoundly influenced by philosophy: especially that of Spinoza, Arthur Schopenhauer, Ernst Mach, David Hume; but also that of Immanuel Kant, Plato, Aristotle etc. (And although it doesn't seem to be a very significant influence on him, he was also more or less familiar with Nietzsche's philosophy. Not to mention many other influences.)
It's doubtful he would have come up with his theories the way he did without these philosophical influences.
His thinking was also in general philosophical; his view of science is not the narrow one that has become dominant among today's popular scientists, or, should we say, science popularizers...
Regarding the importance of epistemology, a field of philosophy, he wrote:
Apart from epistemology, his philosophical interests included ethics, determinism and free will, pantheism, causality, etc.
Regarding ancient Greek philosophers, he said:
He was also deeply political in a radical sense: he was a determined socialist, anti-militarist, anti-nationalist, internationalist. Political activism formed an important aspect of his life. He often used his image and influence to stand up for the oppressed.
Although, in my opinion, not as profoundly as Einstein, many other influential scientists of that era were also interested in philosophy; and some were also socialists like Einstein.
It's doubtful he would have come up with his theories the way he did without these philosophical influences.
His thinking was also in general philosophical; his view of science is not the narrow one that has become dominant among today's popular scientists, or, should we say, science popularizers...
Regarding the importance of epistemology, a field of philosophy, he wrote:
The reciprocal relationship of epistemology and science is of noteworthy kind. They are dependent upon each other. Epistemology without contact with science becomes an empty scheme. Science without epistemology is—insofar as it is thinkable at all—primitive and muddled.
Apart from epistemology, his philosophical interests included ethics, determinism and free will, pantheism, causality, etc.
Regarding ancient Greek philosophers, he said:
The more I read the Greeks, the more I realize that nothing like them has ever appeared in the world since.… How can an educated person stay away from the Greeks? I have always been far more interested in them than in science.
He was also deeply political in a radical sense: he was a determined socialist, anti-militarist, anti-nationalist, internationalist. Political activism formed an important aspect of his life. He often used his image and influence to stand up for the oppressed.
Although, in my opinion, not as profoundly as Einstein, many other influential scientists of that era were also interested in philosophy; and some were also socialists like Einstein.
“But to me, who am not of a warlike nature, and who have no warlike sense, war-songs would have been a mask which would have fitted my face very badly.
I have never affected anything in my poetry. I have never uttered anything which I have not experienced, and which has not urged me to production. I have only composed love-songs when I have loved. How could I write songs of hatred without hating! And, between ourselves, I did not hate the French, although I thanked God that we were free from them. How could I, to whom culture and barbarism are alone of importance, hate a nation which is among the most cultivated of the earth, and to which I owe so great a part of my own cultivation?
Altogether, national hatred is something peculiar. You will always find it strongest and most violent where there is the lowest degree of culture. But there is a degree where it vanishes altogether, and where one stands to a certain extent above nations, and feels the weal or woe of a neighbouring people, as if it had happened to one's own. This degree of culture was conformable to my nature, and I had become strengthened in it long before I had reached my sixtieth year.”
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,
Conversations with Eckermann (March 14, 1830)
I have never affected anything in my poetry. I have never uttered anything which I have not experienced, and which has not urged me to production. I have only composed love-songs when I have loved. How could I write songs of hatred without hating! And, between ourselves, I did not hate the French, although I thanked God that we were free from them. How could I, to whom culture and barbarism are alone of importance, hate a nation which is among the most cultivated of the earth, and to which I owe so great a part of my own cultivation?
Altogether, national hatred is something peculiar. You will always find it strongest and most violent where there is the lowest degree of culture. But there is a degree where it vanishes altogether, and where one stands to a certain extent above nations, and feels the weal or woe of a neighbouring people, as if it had happened to one's own. This degree of culture was conformable to my nature, and I had become strengthened in it long before I had reached my sixtieth year.”
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,
Conversations with Eckermann (March 14, 1830)
“Here is a man who snatches its last mouthful of bread from a child. Every one agrees in saying that he is a horrible egoist, that he is guided solely by self-love.
But now here is another man, whom every one agrees to recognize as virtuous. He shares his last bit of bread with the hungry, and strips off his coat to clothe the naked. And the moralists, sticking to their religious jargon, hasten to say that this man carries the love of his neighbor to the point of self-abnegation, that he obeys a wholly different passion from that of the egoist. And yet with a little reflection we soon discover that however great the difference between the two actions in their result for humanity, the motive has still been the same. It is the quest of pleasure.”
— Peter Kropotkin
(picture unrelated, XD)
But now here is another man, whom every one agrees to recognize as virtuous. He shares his last bit of bread with the hungry, and strips off his coat to clothe the naked. And the moralists, sticking to their religious jargon, hasten to say that this man carries the love of his neighbor to the point of self-abnegation, that he obeys a wholly different passion from that of the egoist. And yet with a little reflection we soon discover that however great the difference between the two actions in their result for humanity, the motive has still been the same. It is the quest of pleasure.”
— Peter Kropotkin
(picture unrelated, XD)
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“As for the famous ‘struggle for existence,’ so far it seems to me to be asserted rather than proved. It occurs, but as an exception; the total appearance of life is not the extremity or starvation, but rather riches, profusion, even absurd squandering — and where there is struggle, it is a struggle for power. One should not mistake Malthus for nature.”
— Friedrich Nietzsche
(picture unrelated)
— Friedrich Nietzsche
(picture unrelated)
„Ich weiß, dass mir nichts angehört
Als der Gedanke, der ungestört
Aus meiner Seele will fließen,
Und jeder günstige Augenblick,
Den mich ein liebendes Geschick
Von Grund aus lässt genießen.“
“I feel that I'm possess'd of nought,
Saving the free unfetterd thought
Which from my bosom seeks to flow,
And each propitious passing hour
That suffers me in all its power
A loving fate with truth to know.”
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,
Eigentum (My Only Property)
Als der Gedanke, der ungestört
Aus meiner Seele will fließen,
Und jeder günstige Augenblick,
Den mich ein liebendes Geschick
Von Grund aus lässt genießen.“
“I feel that I'm possess'd of nought,
Saving the free unfetterd thought
Which from my bosom seeks to flow,
And each propitious passing hour
That suffers me in all its power
A loving fate with truth to know.”
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,
Eigentum (My Only Property)