The quote is from Mari Ruti's book Penis Envy and Other Bad Feelings

Your belief in a "strong" leader is a belief in your own weakness!

Would you rather be led, like sheep; or would you rather lead yourselves?

Would you rather believe in the strength of some privileged brute, or would you rather believe in your own strength — and that of your comrades?

Would you rather be soldiers, drilled & used as cannon fodder by brutes; or would you rather be anarchic nomadic warriors?

“The Teacher a Necessary Evil. — Let us have as few people as possible between the productive minds and the hungry and recipient minds! The middlemen almost unconsciously adulterate the food which they supply. For their work as middlemen they want too high a fee for themselves, and this is drawn from the original, productive spirits – namely, interest, admiration, leisure, money, and other advantages. – Accordingly, we should always look upon the teacher as a necessary evil, just like the merchant; as an evil that we should make as small as possible. – Perhaps the prevailing distress in Germany has its main cause in the fact that too many wish to live and live well by trade (in other words, desiring as far as possible to diminish prices for the producer and raise prices for the consumer, and thus to profit by the greatest possible loss to both). In the same way, we may certainly trace a main cause of the prevailing intellectual poverty in the superabundance of teachers. It is because of teachers that so little is learnt, and that so badly.”

— Friedrich Nietzsche,
Human, All Too Human (Part II) (§2. 282)

„Ein Lehrer, der das Gefühl an einer einzigen guten Tat, an einem einzigen guten Gedicht erwecken kann, leistet mehr als einer, der uns ganze Reihen untergeordneter Naturbildungen der Gestalt und dem Namen nach überliefert.“

“A teacher who can arouse a feeling for one single good action, for one single good poem, accomplishes more than he who fills our memory with rows on rows of natural objects, classified with name and form.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,
Die Wahlverwandtschaften
(Elective Affinities; Bk. II, Ch. 7)

bigotry of 'social contagion' logic

The ideological image of the child

“For the new year. — I'm still alive; I still think: I must still be alive because I still have to think. Sum, ergo cogito: cogito, ergo sum¹. Today everyone allows himself to express his dearest wish and thoughts: so I, too, want to say what I wish from myself today and what thought first crossed my heart – what thought shall be the reason, warrant, and sweetness of the rest of my life! I want to learn more and more how to see what is necessary in things as what is beautiful in them – thus I will be one of those who make things beautiful. Amor fati²: let that be my love from now on! I do not want to wage war against ugliness. I do not want to accuse; I do not even want to accuse the accusers. Let looking away be my only negation! And, all in all and on the whole: some day I want only to be a Yes-sayer!”

— Friedrich Nietzsche,
The Gay Science (276)

¹ ‘I am, therefore I think: I think, therefore I am.’
² ‘love of (one's) fate’

“Has it been observed to what extent outward idleness, or semi-idleness, is necessary to a real religious life (alike for its favorite microscopic labor of self-examination, and for its soft placidity called ‘prayer,’ the state of perpetual readiness for the ‘coming of God’), I mean the idleness with a good conscience, the idleness of olden times and of blood, to which the aristocratic sentiment that work is dishonoring – that it vulgarizes body and soul – is not quite unfamiliar? And that consequently the modern, noisy, time-engrossing, conceited, foolishly proud industriousness [Arbeitsamkeit] educates and prepares for ‘unbelief’ more than anything else?”

— Friedrich Nietzsche,
Beyond Good and Evil (58)

“Among these, for instance, who are at present living apart from religion in Germany, I find ‘free-thinkers’ of diversified species and origin, but above all a majority of those in whom industriousness from generation to generation has dissolved the religious instincts; so that they no longer know what purpose religions serve, and only note their existence in the world with a kind of dull astonishment. They feel themselves already fully occupied, these good people, be it by their business or by their pleasures, not to mention the ‘Fatherland,’ and the newspapers, and their ‘family duties’; it seems that they have no time whatever left for religion; and above all, it is not obvious to them whether it is a question of a new business or a new pleasure – for it is impossible, they say to themselves, that people should go to church merely to spoil their tempers. They are by no means enemies of religious customs; should certain circumstances, State affairs perhaps, require their participation in such customs, they do what is required, as so many things are done – with a patient and unassuming seriousness, and without much curiosity or discomfort; – they live too much apart and outside to feel even the necessity for a for or against in such matters. Among those indifferent persons may be reckoned nowadays the majority of German Protestants of the middle classes, especially in the great busy [arbeitsamen] centres of trade and commerce; also the majority of industrious [arbeitsamen] scholars, and the entire University personnel (with the exception of the theologians, whose existence and possibility there always gives psychologists new and more subtle puzzles to solve). On the part of pious, or merely church-going people, there is seldom any idea of how much good-will, one might say arbitrary will, is now necessary for a German scholar to take the problem of religion seriously; his whole profession (and as I have said, his whole craftsmanlike industriousness, to which he is compelled by his modern conscience) inclines him to a lofty and almost charitable serenity as regards religion, with which is occasionally mingled a slight disdain for the ‘uncleanliness’ of spirit which he takes for granted wherever any one still professes to belong to the Church. It is only with the help of history (not through his own personal experience, therefore) that the scholar succeeds in bringing himself to a respectful seriousness, and to a certain timid deference in presence of religions; but even when his sentiments have reached the stage of gratitude towards them, he has not personally advanced one step nearer to that which still maintains itself as Church or as piety; perhaps even the contrary. The practical indifference to religious matters in the midst of which he has been born and brought up, usually sublimates itself in his case into circumspection and cleanliness, which shuns contact with religious people and things; and it may be just the depth of his tolerance and humanity which prompts him to avoid the delicate trouble which tolerance itself brings with it. – Every age has its own divine type of naivete, for the discovery of which other ages may envy it: and how much naivete – adorable, childlike, and boundlessly foolish naivete is involved in this belief of the scholar in his superiority, in the good conscience of his tolerance, in the unsuspecting, simple certainty with which his instinct treats the religious person as a lower and less valuable type, beyond, before, and above which he himself has developed – he, the little arrogant dwarf and mob-man, the sedulously alert, head-and-hand drudge of ‘ideas,’ of ‘modern ideas’!”

— Friedrich Nietzsche,
Beyond Good and Evil (58)

Hustle culture, mental slavery

Will to Truth as Will to Power

“I decide whether it is the right thing in me; there is no right outside me. If it is right for me, it is right. Possibly this may not suffice to make it right for the rest; that is their care, not mine: let them defend themselves. And if for the whole world something were not right, but it were right for me, that is, I wanted it, then I would ask nothing about the whole world. So every one does who knows how to value himself, every one in the degree that he is an egoist; for might goes before right, and that – with perfect right.”

— Max Stirner

“On the natural history of rights and duties. — Our duties – are the rights of others over us. How have they acquired such rights? By taking us to be capable of contracting and of requiting, by positing us as similar and equal to them, and as a consequence entrusting us with something, educating, reproving, supporting us. We fulfil our duty–that is to say: we justify the idea of our power on the basis of which all these things were bestowed upon us, we give back in the measure in which we have been given to. It is thus our pride which bids us do our duty – when we do something for others in return for something they have done for us, what we are doing is restoring our self-regard – for in doing something for us, these others have impinged upon our sphere of power, and would have continued to have a hand in it if we did not with the performance of our ‘duty’ practise a requital, that is to say impinge upon their power. The rights of others can relate only to that which lies within our power; it would be unreasonable if they wanted of us something we did not possess. Expressed more precisely: only to that which they believe lies within our power, provided it is the same thing we believe lies within our power. The same error could easily be made on either side: the feeling of duty depends upon our having the same belief in regard to the extent of our power as others have: that is to say, that we are able to promise certain things and bind ourselves to perform them (‘freedom of will’). – My rights – are that part of my power which others have not merely conceded me, but which they wish me to preserve. How do these others arrive at that? First: through their prudence and fear and caution: whether in that they expect something similar from us in return (protection of their own rights); or in that they consider that a struggle with us would be perilous or to no purpose; or in that they see in any diminution of our force a disadvantage to themselves, since we would then be unsuited to forming an alliance with them in opposition to a hostile third power. Then: by donation and cession. In this case, others have enough and more than enough power to be able to dispose of some of it and to guarantee to him they have given it to the portion of it they have given: in doing so they presuppose a feeble sense of power in him who lets himself be thus donated to. That is how rights originate: recognised and guaranteed degrees of power. If power-relationships undergo any material alteration, rights disappear and new ones are created – as is demonstrated in the continual disappearance and reformation of rights between nations. If our power is materially diminished, the feeling of those who have hitherto guaranteed our rights changes: they consider whether they can restore us to the full possession we formerly enjoyed – if they feel unable to do so, they henceforth deny our ‘rights’. Likewise, if our power is materially increased, the feeling of those who have hitherto recognised it but whose recognition is no longer needed changes: they no doubt attempt to suppress it to its former level, they will try to intervene and in doing so will allude to their ‘duty’ – but this is only a useless playing with words. Where rights prevail, a certain condition and degree of power is being maintained, a diminution and increment warded off. The rights of others constitute a concession on the part of our sense of power to the sense of power of those others.”

— Friedrich Nietzsche,
The Dawn of Day (112)

Leftism, anarchism, revolution, organizing, action, guilt etc

It's an obvious truism that we need some action to make a change... most would also agree that some (philosophical) understanding would also be important.

But while it might be good to encourage or emphasize action, I feel that sometimes it turns into a sort of pressure on helpless comrades; even some kind of feeling of guilt etc

Suppose that you are from a region where a libertarian socialist movement was practically absent. And you are poor, so struggling and have very few resources to do anything. And neurodivergent, which makes it difficult for you to interact with people, especially offline... etc etc.

And most of the people you could find, especially in offline circles—already quite small—are apolitical liberals with absolutely no interest in radical politics (or in anything not normie); any leftists in your region might most likely be just liberals with a leftist label, or the fewer (aesthetically) "radical" ones – again liberals, but "radically" so... (tankies)

You might already be doing things—however small—your way... perhaps online more than offline

But you shouldn't be subjected to pressure saying that you aren't doing anything for the movement! Don't have to face more pressure than what the shitty system already subjects you to (which is such an immense pressure already)!

To hell with those annoying liberals who say: "it is no use having ideas, only actions count"... Well, fuck you! this is all I can do, and I'm doing what I can do and what I want to do...
(Usually their idea of action, especially if they're a bit privileged, is like "charity" and stuff... well, fuck you! I'm the poor person, whom do I give charity and from where!; or, often, something so narrow and stupid like becoming a powerful government officer (like "IAS" — I lost count of how many times I heard this silly suggestion)...)

(What's most annoying, however, is probably that people who make such judgements, apart from regular liberals, tend to be MLs — the irony being that in spite of MLs having been predominant on the left (even more in regions like India), and having had very significant power and influence in many cases, all they have done is shit, again and again... and at best only established a (much) more (bureaucratically) regimented version of social "democracy", calling it "socialism")

(P.S. this is not an angry rant, even if it sounds like that... just thought perhaps some comrades could relate to this)

Now it would be a whole another—long—thread, as to what counts as action, or different ideas of revolution etc... not going into that

But to elaborate a bit on the reference about MLs doing shit....
yeah, they have had state power to themselves in many regions; for decades even, in a few provinces in India as well; not to mention USSR and other ML states.

It is a misfortune that we even have to specially mention this, but: Leninism (in whatever variant) has nothing to do with socialism (except as its anti-thesis)!
In the name of socialism they have destroyed socialism and continue to do so... they have killed and suppressed workers — in the name of workers' liberation. They have actively sabotaged anarchist, genuinely socialist projects every time and now they ask us: "what have you anarchists done?"
They probably did more harm to socialism than the (non-red) bourgeoisie themselves

In India it's largely reformist, and the more radical ones are no less reactionary in being authoritarian.

Our "socialists" cannot imagine a socialist society! They cannot imagine a world without capitalism. No wonder they have helped capital so much, and continue to do so....!

“…at some distant future there will be a new language for all – first as a commercial language, then as the language of intellectual intercourse in general – just as surely as there will one day be air travel.”

— Nietzsche the prophet, 1878
XD

Leninism, USSR, special pleading

Leftist defense of USSR or other ML regimes, or of Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, Mao etc, is extremely absurd and largely depends on special pleading for these regimes/leaders, and on baseless assumptions generally.

If the same arguments were used in other situations, for other countries or leaders, it would look extremely absurd even for our Leninists. The dogma here is that SOMEHOW, no matter how remotely, these regimes must be seen as representative of socialism, as having SOMETHING to do with socialism. They have to be special because they claimed to be Marxist.

But it is only socialism in name. We have many other examples of that kind: from less extreme ones like the Indian Constitution (its preamble says India is socialist) to more extreme ones like the Nazis.
Leninists would dismiss most of these cases immediately without any argument, but when it comes to ML regimes there's all sorts of special pleading.
(Now outrage: "what! you compare USSR with Nazi Germany?? Daddy Stalin single-handedly killed every single Nazi including Hitler!!!!" Point missed again: it's not to say these regimes or their ideologies were equivalent, but to point out that calling oneself a socialist isn't enough to make one a socialist, be it an individual or a regime; or put it another way, not all these versions of socialism are equivalent, and just being "socialist" does not necessarily mean good... no more than Nazism is)

Calling it socialism, the pretentious aesthetic of "workers" or "the people" etc... remove all these, you end up with horrible regimes which are not essentially different from other imperialist regimes.

Some point to some vague pretension of democratic structure within USSR to claim it was democratic.
First, it's doubtful whether such a pretension of democracy means anything in such a highly centralized dictatorial regime. It is highly doubtful if people could, through that "democracy", have any meaningful influence on the top-level decisions.
Second, I haven't seen USSR but I see all the time, first-hand, how fanatically people here support leaders that are obviously corrupt and bourgeois from head to toe. No Leninist would say that these leaders are anything but bourgeois. So it is recognized well that this pretension of democracy doesn't mean anything, that it is democracy only in name. Popular support and a pretension of democracy doesn't mean anything, something our Leninists recognize as well as we do — unless the regime has "Communist" or "Marxist" somewhere in its party name or official documents (then special pleading begins).

Another thing they point to are some supposedly progressive policies in these regimes. But almost none of them are essentially different from what's in other bourgeois regimes. Difference in style or aesthetics, difference in implementation, difference in degree etc... but nothing that necessarily and essentially distinguishes them from other bourgeois regimes.
As I said, at best these regimes were highly regimented versions of social "democracy"; usually with a lot of extra shit.

"But social democracy is nothing but capitalism!" Yes, and so is it with these ML regimes — they are state capitalism. Engels, Lenin, Mao etc all recognized that such structures would amount to state capitalism (a term that's neither invented nor used solely by anarchists). That it is just capitalism, but their illusion being that somehow it is different when a party that calls itself Communist directs it, that it will then somehow lead to socialism. But it is neither socialistic in any way, nor could it lead to socialism, as has been proved again and again.

"But USSR was first to give women rights" "USSR was the first to do XYZ" Nah, still doesn't make it essentially different from other bourgeois regimes.
These same Leninists understand the baloney in pointing out to the women's rights in law-books if it's any other country... but if it is an ML regime it has to be different, it has to be special, right?

"These gentlemen think that when they have changed the names of things they have changed the things themselves. This is how these profound thinkers mock at the whole world."

Actually MLs agree on a lot of things with liberals/conservatives, their arguments (not to mention the ideologies) being very similar.
"Why don't you recognize all the achievements of our regime!!!!" "Why do you oppose it entirely, can't you appreciate the good parts!?" "Our regime has lasted for so long!" "yeah there were all these "mistakes" (i.e., horrible atrocities and oppression and exploitation), but the system is good and just needs a few reforms" etc etc
The conservatives, regular liberals, and Marxist-Liberals all agree on these regimes being the representation of socialism. Yet somehow anarchists are supposed to be the ones agreeing with (non-red) liberals & conservatives, while all of them think socialism is nothing but a version of social democracy (MLs are just more selective; the social democracy also has to have less "democracy" and have "Communist" or "Marxist" somewhere in its name).

"JUST ACCEPT THAT IT IS SOCIALISM EVEN IF YOU DISAGREE WITH IT!! REEEE!!!!"

But gotta admit still: Lenin, Stalin, Mao and all the others were genuinely revolutionaries. Bourgeois revolutionaries. Or, in our sense, counterrevolutionaries. Perhaps with genuinely good intentions? Doesn't make them any less counterrevolutionary.
No less anti-socialist for us. For, socialism for us is "the emancipation of the working classes" that is "conquered by the working classes themselves", to use Marx's words... not something directed dictatorially by counterrevolutionaries with socialist aesthetics, where exploitation is glorified as workers' liberation.

“The ways by which you may get mon­ey al­most with­out ex­cep­tion lead down­ward. To have done an­y­thing by which you earned mon­ey mere­ly is to have been tru­ly idle or worse. If the la­bor­er gets no more than the wag­es which his em­ploy­er pays him, he is cheat­ed, he cheats him­self. If you would get mon­ey as a writ­er or lec­tur­er, you must be pop­u­lar, which is to go down per­pen­dic­u­lar­ly. Those ser­vic­es which the com­mu­ni­ty will most read­i­ly pay for, it is most dis­a­gree­a­ble to ren­der. You are paid for be­ing some­thing less than a man. The State does not com­mon­ly re­ward a gen­ius any more wise­ly.”

— Henry David Thoreau,
Life Without Principle