#Individualist anarchism

[all-things-are-nothing-to-me]

The illegalist current is an offshoot of individualist anarchism. Refusing to be exploited, forced to work for some rich tyrant, instead the illegalist chooses to rob them. It’s an anti-work ethic for individual autonomy to be realised in real life right away through Individual expropriation also known as individual reclamation.

Individual reclamation gained notoriety in France in the last decades of the 19th and early 20th century gave birth to what was to become known as illegalism.

[miochimochi]

Finished the back of the unity jacket. Need to think of more to put on this one. Mainly trying to think of something to paint on the hood. Maybe a black head?

[nando161mando]

Something on individualism

[post-leffert]

Greece: First issue of the anarcho-nihilist newspaper “Blessed Is The Flame”

In the following link we provide the digital version of the first issue of the newspaper of our project “Blessed Is The Flame“, a project for the diffusion of the theory and praxis of black-flag anarchy* While the newspaper is in Greek, we would like to see it translated in other languages too and be disseminated internationally. If any comrades are interested in this undertaking, contact us at blessedistheflame (at) riseup (dot) net, and we can provide you with an editable .odt version of the file.

PDF: Ευλογημένη Η Φλόγα Τεύχος

In this newspaper we will cover topics like international and local anti-info of the two most recent months, discussions, claims of responsibility, ideas and tips about direct action and anti-surveillance.

Editorial: “The present newspaper is the printed form of the project Blessed Is The Flame, which will be irregularly issued. The purpose of this project is not only to disseminate black-flag anarchy, but more generally to disseminate the radical thoery, praxis and criticism that stems from the act of insurrectionarry armed desire, recognising that the social situation we are in, and which we did not choose, leads our lives to bankruptcy, to the alienation of our Egos.

We do not attempt to persuade anyone, we do not wish to bet on the mass mobilisation of a robotised society. What we are trying to do is contribute in building a communication bridge between those who have chosen to revolt here and now and those who want to revolt. We are what we are because we got courage and inspiration from the rebels who show us what is possible. We do not postpone the insurrectionary and revolutionary action for an indeterminate future because we are liberated from the bonds of hope. We are not nihilists because we are simply pessimists. No, we are nihilists because the situations around us do not allow us to think of future utopias, because we do not wait for freedom to come, but we bring freedom each time we act with defiance and without compromise against society, state, capital, and any other aspect of civilisation. This is the most immediate realisation of anarchy.

Long live direct, anarchist and guerrila action No resignation, no truce, no peace For anarchy and nihilism”

*In the terminology used within the Greek radical circles, black anarchy (μαύρη αναρχία) refers collectively to the nihilist, individualist, insurrectionary, anti-social and egoist currents of anarchism.

Posted in LibraryTagged Anarchist Newspaper, Anarcho-Nihilist, Anti-Social, Black Anarchy, Blessed Is The Flame, Egoist, Greece, Individualist Anarchist, Insurrection, PDF, Publication, Revolution

[forbidden-sorcery]

It is not within my power, right now, to bring down this rotten system. But I am free to live this situation actively, to act pursuing my desires right up to the limits imposed on me by the outside world and the limits dug into my own mind-body. And not just to go to the limits but to test and break them and push them back. It seems to me that if I take up this freedom and become active, then indeed I am living freely, in an important sense. Living joyfully and freely, at least for me, has to mean living fighting. I will act as I can, given my capacities, to crack, bring down, and overcome the shit in and around me, and help create new ways of life. Perhaps my capacities for fighting are very limited, but they are never zero, and I seek to increase them. I will fight, but not like an anarcho-christian martyr, sacrificing myself in a grim struggle while I dream of some future utopia I may never live to see. I fight because this is how I want to live.

Shahin - Nietzsche and Anarchy

[against-forms-recognizable]

Okay, so, here's the thing, here's where a lot of my anarchism comes from.

Let's go all the way back, back to where humans came from, the ancestral environment. In the ancestral environment, when we're all hunter gatherers, sometimes there's scarcity. And when there's scarcity, it's who you know and the nature of those relationships which determines whether or not you survive. So, being a social animal, the degree to which you manipulate the social environment is a huge factor in that.

A lot of the ways we do this are through social structures, phantasms. We have a lot of them floating around; gender, morality, honor, justice, family. These are all things that don't actually exist materially. They only exist as a linking of concepts, a constellation of ideas that we reify into a system. And we use these to control each other, to create a social environment that is more suitable to getting our needs met. They form the bedrock of our civilization and society.

We enforce these structures most often by methods of social correction; isolation, harassment, bullying, and so on, to make people get with the program. And when that fails sometimes there is violent coercion, in modern times usually by the body that maintains a monopoly on violence and violent coercion, the state.

But because these things don't actually exist materially, they are flexible. We can add or remove stars from these constellations while maintaining mostly the same recognizable shape and other people still recognize it and might not even realize we changed it at all. And we all do this, all the time, generally unconsciously, in ways that favor us. This is where identity politics comes from, right? All of the toxicity within it. Everyone is trying to weaponize these structures to extract material benefit from the social environment by reshaping these relations to be more favorable to them.

But these abstractions are largely the way we make sense of the world. It's the foundation of language and cognition and communication. So anything we do together will always result in people playing these games with each other, defecting in this grand prisoner's dilemma.

This applies to communism, too - I think every communist has started out well-meaning, the marxist-leninists included. The thing is that we are fundamentally unable to participate in society without trying to turn it to our benefit, it is hard-wired into us, we are so good at it that we don't even realize when we are doing it. And it applies to anarcho-communism, as well, even in the absence of a coercive state people can still accrue soft social power and utilize that to create a social hierarchy - even a simple reading of Ursula K. Le Guin's The Dispossessed, which posits a flawed anarcho-communist utopia, reveals it as an investigation into how even if you start out with true believers, applying it on a society wide level will result in the vast majority of people talking the talk without walking the walk.

So, at present, because I don't really see a way out of this, my anarchism is mostly formulated as a critical orientation at these structures which create hierarchy and domination, a toolbox of critique that we can use to break them down, a continual process that must be adhered to as everyone will always be trying to build new ones up. Conscious deconstruction, of our unconscious constructions. This doesn't mean I don't think things can be better, that I don't think a positive social project is possible. I just don't know how to get there, right now, with a method I'm sure won't just end up making things worse.

[oceanicmarxist]

RE: that "left-wing anarchist" terrorist guy in the UK

"In our eyes, individual terror is inadmissible precisely because it belittles the role of the masses in their own consciousness, reconciles them to their powerlessness, and turns their eyes and hopes towards a great avenger and liberator who some day will come and accomplish his mission. The anarchist prophets of the ‘propaganda of the deed’ can argue all they want about the elevating and stimulating influence of terrorist acts on the masses. Theoretical considerations and political experience prove otherwise. The more ‘effective’ the terrorist acts, the greater their impact, the more they reduce the interest of the masses in self-organisation and self-education. But the smoke from the confusion clears away, the panic disappears, the successor of the murdered minister makes his appearance, life again settles into the old rut, the wheel of capitalist exploitation turns as before; only the police repression grows more savage and brazen. And as a result, in place of the kindled hopes and artificially aroused excitement comes disillusionment and apathy."

Leon Trotsky: Why Marxists Oppose Individual Terrorism (1911)

[wulfinna]

Anti-Economy Anarchy

Along with being opposed to every state, every political denomination and every form of society and civilization, I am opposed to every economic system and the notion of economy in general having an effect on my life. Why? Because no system, no institution in any sphere of sociability can agreeably interact with me. Even ones that seem to be imbued with a certain sanctity of necessity by even the…

[neon-amnesia]

Kind of a rant post, pretty long.

Alright well, I'm learning something new everyday on anarchism, and my thoughts on most ancaps have changed somewhat compared to a few days ago. You can say I am an individualist anarchist, believing in personal property, etc. But I honestly don't care if one still believes in private property. As long as it doesn't hurt/exploit anyone.

And to reiterate, I'm not a communist neither do I support their ideology as a whole lol. If you look at a 2 piece puzzle, they fit. But are they the same piece? No they're not. Anarchism and communism may share some things, but that doesn't make them the same thing, neither does it make them a communist just because some ideas are agreeable. An anarchist can be one without being a communist. Maybe be anti-communist even.

A couple of things I learned from someone, in person/online. Talking like civil people despite our differences:

leadership =/= ruler

Rulers use violence, and/or coercion to force people to follow them.

Leaders use persuasion to convince people, but still voluntary (no one is forced).

anarchism does not mean: no leaders, no rules, no hierarchy (although for the last one my views may be different, as stated previously I'm not an ancap).

Voluntary = good, forced = bad.

What's the point of fighting each other because of our differences? When I see people tell me how I view things is incorrect and what they think is right, are they not hearing themselves? We all fall under the same category in the end, regardless of our differences. No one's ever going to agree on the same thing. Might I say it even goes against all of our principles to be arguing with each other. Civil debate? No problem with that, but don't go around telling people that what they believe in is wrong if it doesn't align with what you believe in. Try to understand first. Do you still disagree? Move on then, end the conversation.

Sorry for this long post. Or rather I don't normally make my posts this long and want to keep it short, so this won't be a regular thing. I'm just tired to be just shitted on when several people I have talked with online was the one who asked "ok then how do you view things?". Only for them, after I answer, to go "well you're wrong and don't know what you're talking about". Lmao, I've talked to many like and different minded people over the years, both online and in person. Don't tell me that I don't know what I'm talking about. And yet, I'm still open to what people say.

[autonomoustweekazoid]

Bang Bang Bonnot Gang

[all-things-are-nothing-to-me]

I can't remember where Against Sustainability is from lol.

Technical Authority is in this issue of Black Seed. Everything besides this one is an excerpt from a book, so read just the excerpt or the whole book, the choice is yours.

You can read more than just the first ITS communique if you want but they get a little bit nuts later in their existence.

[miochimochi]

Just wanna get a feel for things.

Please reblog for a wider reach!

[sensiblephilosophy]

Charles Johnson on Left Wing Market Anarchism

[fruitiestsyrup]

As an aside Max Stirner wrote an entire book about how, even if you are the most selfish bastard imaginable, a communist society that has successfully managed the transition to a post-statist entity is still the best society for people to exist in. You do not need to be selfless to understand rationally that communism is objectively a better state for you to exist in.

that post complaining about how first world communists want communism to improve their lives rather than being communist out of a selfless desire to improve the lot of the third world is very very silly. socialism isn't about some abstract principle of selflessness, it's about organising the proletariat in class struggle. thinking socialism would improve your life as a proletarian is called "class consciousness" and it's good.

[forbidden-sorcery]

Individualists concern themselves little with a future society. That idea has been exploited and can nourish the believer just as exploitation of paradise nourishes the priest; but it resembles paradise, in that a description of its wonders has an enervating, soporific influence on those who hear it, it makes them forget present oppression, tyranny and bondage. it weakens energy, emasculates initiative. The individualist does not put his hope in the future society. He lives in the present moment, and he wants to draw from it the maximum results. Individualist activity is essentially a present work and a present accomplishment. The individualist knows that the present is heir to the past and pregnant with the future. It is not in some tomorrow that he wants to see the end of encroachment by society on the individual, of invasion and oppression of one person by another. It is today, in has own life, that the individualist wants to win his independence.

Émile Armand

[against-forms-recognizable]

'Causes' are the diversion of the feeble – of those who have lost the power of acting strongly from their own nature. They are for the titillation of the senses of the herd, and a person who can act strongly should shun all Cause-ites and their works. Strong natures [...] act out their beliefs in their own person, not realizing that such grounds for actions as Causes proffer are in place only among those who, having lost the instinct for action, amuse themselves by words, occasionally are fascinated by the jargon, with consequences disastrous in the highest degree to themselves.

- Dora Marsden, The Freewoman Volume 1 Issue 1, 1913

Dora Marsden is pictured above being arrested in 1909, after an action in conjunction with several other suffragettes which involved her dressing in her full academic regalia as an alma-mater of Owens College in Manchester, UK, to interrupt a speech by the Chancellor of that college and demand that he speak out against the force feeding of imprisoned suffragettes who were on hunger strike.

Marsden, in the following years, would go on to start three literary and philosophical journals which published many important works including some by authors like T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, and James Joyce.

Following her disaffection with the Suffragette movement, she identified as an egoist and an individualist anarchist, and was one of the most prominent voices who brought Max Stirner's scathing critique of society forward into the twentieth century, building upon him to create her own unique philosophy at the intersection of egoist anarchism and feminism. She advocated for free love and individualism and attacked various cultural monoliths she saw as limiting the freedom of people and especially women, arguing that the institution of marriage reduced women to objects whose only purpose was reproduction.

Later in her life, she published works on the philosophy of language and time, the latter from within a mental hospital where she spent the last twenty five years of her life, the hospital having classified her as severely depressed. She left behind a rich legacy and a large impact on the ideological development of many milieus, and has gained an increased amount of attention in the last few years, with a comprehensive biography of her life being published in 2019.