Sunday, March 21, 2004
Why freiheit?
The name of Johann Most's rag back in the 1880's -1890's. Most was Emma Goldman's friend and mentor, an uncompromising, take no prisoners, accept no chewing gum ads, anarchist firebrand from the Old Country, public enemy number one in Grover Cleveland's Amerika.
Also the German word for freedom.
Accept no substitutes.
Scorn alternatives.
There is no alternative to absolute freedom. Freedom has nothing to do with choice or choices. Freedom is not the ability to choose between a Ford or a Cheverolet. Freedom is not the power to decide whether to send your kid to Cornell or Princeton. Freedom is not the luxury afforded to some to stay at home and work while others punch a time clock at a sweatshop or scrape dishes for rich Cornell students for a living. Freedom is not the choice of how to make a living. It is life itself.
Freedom is a necessity. Every living human being's necessity.
The only people who should be deprived of freedom are those who attempt to deprive others of freedom.
There is no social contract except the social contracts that every individual makes of his or her own volition. A society that is based on a so-called social contract that some old slaveholders made 200 years ago is not a society, It is an anthill.
Freedom doesn't interest ants. They are too busy moving the cheese. Drop a piece of cheese on the ground next to an anthill. See what happens. First, the ant scouts drift by and check out the cheese. Their little movements seem random and uncordinated at first. Don't be fooled. Behind all that randomness is the invisible hand of Adam Smith. All the ants have read Adam Smith. The ants don't decide just to dig in and pig out on the cheese, then take a little nap. No, they are motivated by self interest to wrestle up some worker ants and move the cheese back to the anthill. Some of the worker ants won't make it. They get squashed along the way. Other ants won't even get a taste of the cheese because they're too busy scouting other
pieces of cheese. That's ok, right? It's called patriotism.
Sounds pretty good, eh? Nature's original dumpster-diving, self-autonomous community? An example of Kroptokin's mutual aid in action?
Bullshit. Not only do individual ants have no choice, they don't operate under any other operant principle except an instinct towards the survival of the species. We're not talking about a society based around the pleasure principle here, a community of desire.
The idea of freedom is to be able to experience pleasure and desire, to experience the entire range of possiblity, to enter freely into any perceivable attachment with other human beings, not simply those based on economic relationships.
There is no freedom in John Kerry's or George Bush's or Ralph Nader's Amerika. There is only the simulcram of choice.
The name of Johann Most's rag back in the 1880's -1890's. Most was Emma Goldman's friend and mentor, an uncompromising, take no prisoners, accept no chewing gum ads, anarchist firebrand from the Old Country, public enemy number one in Grover Cleveland's Amerika.
Also the German word for freedom.
Accept no substitutes.
Scorn alternatives.
There is no alternative to absolute freedom. Freedom has nothing to do with choice or choices. Freedom is not the ability to choose between a Ford or a Cheverolet. Freedom is not the power to decide whether to send your kid to Cornell or Princeton. Freedom is not the luxury afforded to some to stay at home and work while others punch a time clock at a sweatshop or scrape dishes for rich Cornell students for a living. Freedom is not the choice of how to make a living. It is life itself.
Freedom is a necessity. Every living human being's necessity.
The only people who should be deprived of freedom are those who attempt to deprive others of freedom.
There is no social contract except the social contracts that every individual makes of his or her own volition. A society that is based on a so-called social contract that some old slaveholders made 200 years ago is not a society, It is an anthill.
Freedom doesn't interest ants. They are too busy moving the cheese. Drop a piece of cheese on the ground next to an anthill. See what happens. First, the ant scouts drift by and check out the cheese. Their little movements seem random and uncordinated at first. Don't be fooled. Behind all that randomness is the invisible hand of Adam Smith. All the ants have read Adam Smith. The ants don't decide just to dig in and pig out on the cheese, then take a little nap. No, they are motivated by self interest to wrestle up some worker ants and move the cheese back to the anthill. Some of the worker ants won't make it. They get squashed along the way. Other ants won't even get a taste of the cheese because they're too busy scouting other
pieces of cheese. That's ok, right? It's called patriotism.
Sounds pretty good, eh? Nature's original dumpster-diving, self-autonomous community? An example of Kroptokin's mutual aid in action?
Bullshit. Not only do individual ants have no choice, they don't operate under any other operant principle except an instinct towards the survival of the species. We're not talking about a society based around the pleasure principle here, a community of desire.
The idea of freedom is to be able to experience pleasure and desire, to experience the entire range of possiblity, to enter freely into any perceivable attachment with other human beings, not simply those based on economic relationships.
There is no freedom in John Kerry's or George Bush's or Ralph Nader's Amerika. There is only the simulcram of choice.
