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Table of contents
PREFACE
ANARCHY.
MINORITIES VERSUS MAJORITIES
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF POLITICAL VIOLENCE
VAILLANT!
PRISONS: A SOCIAL CRIME AND FAILURE
PATRIOTISM: A MENACE TO LIBERTY
FRANCISCO FERRER AND THE MODERN SCHOOL
THE HYPOCRISY OF PURITANISM
THE TRAFFIC IN WOMEN
WOMAN SUFFRAGE
THE TRAGEDY OF WOMAN'S EMANCIPATION
MARRIAGE AND LOVE
THE MODERN DRAMA: A POWERFUL DISSEMINATOR OF RADICAL THOUGHT
PREFACE
Some
twenty-one years ago I heard the first great Anarchist speaker—the
inimitable John Most. It seemed to me then, and for many years after,
that the spoken word hurled forth among the masses with such
wonderful eloquence, such enthusiasm and fire, could never be erased
from the human mind and soul. How could any one of all the multitudes
who flocked to Most's meetings escape his prophetic voice! Surely
they had but to hear him to throw off their old beliefs, and see the
truth and beauty of Anarchism!My
one great longing then was to be able to speak with the tongue of
John Most,—that I, too, might thus reach the masses. Oh, for the
naivety of Youth's enthusiasm! It is the time when the hardest thing
seems but child's play. It is the only period in life worth while.
Alas! This period is but of short duration. Like Spring, the STURM
UND DRANG period of the propagandist brings forth growth, frail and
delicate, to be matured or killed according to its powers of
resistance against a thousand vicissitudes.My
great faith in the wonder worker, the spoken word, is no more. I have
realized its inadequacy to awaken thought, or even emotion.
Gradually, and with no small struggle against this realization, I
came to see that oral propaganda is at best but a means of shaking
people from their lethargy: it leaves no lasting impression. The very
fact that most people attend meetings only if aroused by newspaper
sensations, or because they expect to be amused, is proof that they
really have no inner urge to learn.It
is altogether different with the written mode of human expression. No
one, unless intensely interested in progressive ideas, will bother
with serious books. That leads me to another discovery made after
many years of public activity. It is this: All claims of education
notwithstanding, the pupil will accept only that which his mind
craves. Already this truth is recognized by most modern educators in
relation to the immature mind. I think it is equally true regarding
the adult. Anarchists or revolutionists can no more be made than
musicians. All that can be done is to plant the seeds of thought.
Whether something vital will develop depends largely on the fertility
of the human soil, though the quality of the intellectual seed must
not be overlooked.In
meetings the audience is distracted by a thousand non-essentials. The
speaker, though ever so eloquent, cannot escape the restlessness of
the crowd, with the inevitable result that he will fail to strike
root. In all probability he will not even do justice to himself.The
relation between the writer and the reader is more intimate. True,
books are only what we want them to be; rather, what we read into
them. That we can do so demonstrates the importance of written as
against oral expression. It is this certainty which has induced me to
gather in one volume my ideas on various topics of individual and
social importance. They represent the mental and soul struggles of
twenty-one years,—the conclusions derived after many changes and
inner revisions.I
am not sanguine enough to hope that my readers will be as numerous as
those who have heard me. But I prefer to reach the few who really
want to learn, rather than the many who come to be amused.As
to the book, it must speak for itself. Explanatory remarks do but
detract from the ideas set forth. However, I wish to forestall two
objections which will undoubtedly be raised. One is in reference to
the essay on ANARCHISM; the other, on MINORITIES VERSUS MAJORITIES."Why
do you not say how things will be operated under Anarchism?" is
a question I have had to meet thousands of times. Because I believe
that Anarchism can not consistently impose an iron-clad program or
method on the future. The things every new generation has to fight,
and which it can least overcome, are the burdens of the past, which
holds us all as in a net. Anarchism, at least as I understand it,
leaves posterity free to develop its own particular systems, in
harmony with its needs. Our most vivid imagination can not foresee
the potentialities of a race set free from external restraints. How,
then, can any one assume to map out a line of conduct for those to
come? We, who pay dearly for every breath of pure, fresh air, must
guard against the tendency to fetter the future. If we succeed in
clearing the soil from the rubbish of the past and present, we will
leave to posterity the greatest and safest heritage of all ages.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 UEBERMENSCH. It does not occur
to the shallow interpreters of that giant mind that this vision of
the UEBERMENSCH 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.These
examples bring me to the objection that will be raised to MINORITIES
VERSUS MAJORITIES. No doubt, I shall be excommunicated as an enemy of
the people, because I repudiate the mass as a creative factor. I
shall prefer that rather than be guilty of the demagogic platitudes
so commonly in vogue as a bait for the people. I realize the malady
of the oppressed and disinherited masses only too well, but I refuse
to prescribe the usual ridiculous palliatives which allow the patient
neither to die nor to recover. One cannot be too extreme in dealing
with social ills; besides, the extreme thing is generally the true
thing. My lack of faith in the majority is dictated by my faith in
the potentialities of the individual. Only when the latter becomes
free to choose his associates for a common purpose, can we hope for
order and harmony out of this world of chaos and inequality.For
the rest, my book must speak for itself.Emma
Goldman
ANARCHY.
Ever
reviled, accursed, ne'er understood, Thou
art the grisly terror of our age."Wreck of all order,"
cry the multitude, "Art thou, and
war and murder's endless rage."O, let them cry. To them that
ne'er have striven The truth that lies
behind a word to find,To them the word's right meaning was not
given. They shall continue blind among
the blind.But thou, O word, so clear, so strong, so pure,
Thou sayest all which I for goal have taken.I give thee to the
future! Thine secure When each at least
unto himself shall waken.Comes it in sunshine? In the tempest's
thrill? I cannot tell—but it the earth
shall see!I am an Anarchist! Wherefore I will
Not rule, and also ruled I will not be!
JOHN HENRY MACKAY.The
history of human growth and development is at the same time the
history of the terrible struggle of every new idea heralding the
approach of a brighter dawn. In its tenacious hold on tradition, the
Old has never hesitated to make use of the foulest and cruelest means
to stay the advent of the New, in whatever form or period the latter
may have asserted itself. Nor need we retrace our steps into the
distant past to realize the enormity of opposition, difficulties, and
hardships placed in the path of every progressive idea. The rack, the
thumbscrew, and the knout are still with us; so are the convict's
garb and the social wrath, all conspiring against the spirit that is
serenely marching on.
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!
Lesen Sie weiter in der vollständigen Ausgabe!