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THIS DOUBLE-ISSUE OF 'HIE STORM! (*11-12) IS DEVOTED ENTIRELY TO E. ARMAND - the French anarchist individualist whose view that life is to be lived to the full, led him to be more than a theorist of anarchy - of life without authority. Armand practiced what he preached, and served time in prison for his resistance to militarism. He was a dissident among dissidents; even fellcw anarchists were sometimes offended by his open advocacy of sexual liberation - for persons of both sexes and all tendencies including homosexuality. The critique of monogamous and possessive love, which was part of Armand's overall critique of society, is now coming into its own within the various movements for personal liberation. Ahead of his time, Armand and a hearty few attacked State-enforced religious morality. In place of coercive Society, he sought to practice, whenever possible, relationships and associations based on canradeship, reciprocity, equal liberty, and free speech.

It is pointed out, in the introduction to this issue, that Armand made something of a fetish out of "free contract." This critique of the man is not enough to warrant rejection of mutual agreements that are self-en forced. Armand realized that to preach an individualism that does not equally respect the freedom of others is to declare inplicit, if not explicit, war on all others, and to invite them to oppress you lest you oppress them. Instead, he sought to liberate others - from the social prejudices and fixed ideas that lead them to resent and persecute the "anamalous", the different, the unique, the outsider, the "en-dehors".

THE FOLLOWING SELECTIONS from Armand's writings were, with one exception, previously published in English. We regret that we were not able to publish all of Armand's writings that are available in English, especially his long essay on "Value - the Consequences of Its Abolition", which originally appeared in MINUS ONE. Interested readers should also refer to Cienfuegos Press's Anthology of writings fran MAN!, edited by Marcus Graham, Ehm:>. Golcfcnan's NETHER EARTH (available in reprint by Greenwood Press), and Abba Gordin's THE CLARION (alas, not in reprint). We tope that the response to this initial Selection, will encourage others, as well as ourselves, to translate and publish further writings by E. Armand. Those interested in carrying the work forward are invited to contact THE STORM!

Before closing this short Preface, I would like to draw special attention and appreciation to S.E. Parker, editor and publisher of MINUS (KE, for his excellent Introduction to this Selection - whose previous publications of E. Armand have made this latest one possible. And to Robert Clancv, who generously translated 'On Sexual Equality" for its English debut in THE STORM!

Thanks are also due to the assistance of Dorothy Swanson of NYU's Tamiment Collection; to those comrades who have contributed generously to the support of this journal. And, more than thanks to those two Free Spirits, my co-editors and publishers. For the hard work, long tours, and the ability - to see what I cannot, the vet-to-be - of Jim Kemochan. And for the abiding patience and love of Danny Murphy, my Dreanweaver, who takes me to the morning light. ^y^y^C, ^ j ^

A sense of loss fills our hearts when we remember two friends who are no longer with us. One, a fellow rember of the Libertarian Book Club; known for her translations from many languages; and life-Ion? comrade to her nate, Yalerio. And the other, whom we all kr.ev intimately freer afar; who also leaves behind a comrade/lover, Yoko, with whan he sought to create peace and beauty in this strife-torn world of ours.

What We Have £eevt, We StCCC Remain < AVrther Eartft, Sept, l?J5> pi* c^cerpts front Ike G reat Dabado p. 17 e>28 Tfit Future Society

Ccver I(Xu$tmtim - Cfor^rafftiC''' from L'Unique'. Qucfcdlovi, 1923. Inside KCustrations frswu Fleurs deSoCituc<e,„,L'Unique, L'enDefwrs. Ccver eA Inside CaCCljmpfue fey MarkA.Su£Cu>cuv, Typeset esscujs (except where wftaL) <Mginatty pufclisfiert by SE.Parker,

To BRAMD ~ wPiose coHiradesfiif witit Armani , cuui whose awcvcfiUt Ctfe avtcC 'utf&uuiwaUst spirit , coviXributes

MIN1UEL <ir annft)

»PTuim._>CTOt„ „_K

PARIS - Centre de culture et de camaroderie "L'Unique" (Les amis d'E. Armand)

oo ton retrouwel

oo ion discatc

Reunions bi-mestrielles : Cafe « AU TAMBOUR »

10, place do la Bastille, 10 il ' dnue, 1™ salle >\ droitu Mttro B as tills (sorti- r. de la Roquette). — Autobus n** 20, GO 69, 76, 86, 91

In all spheres we are for the voluntary against the obligatory; for consent against isfjosition; for reason against violence; for free examination against dDgniCiar-

Individualists, we are against the subjection of the individual to the State, in any forr. against the absorption of the ego into the collectivity; against xnpuisory contracts; against forced solidarity or co-operation; against the exploitation of the individual by his fellows or society; against the encroach-cEnt of the non-self", organized or not, upon the "self", associated or

We are rith those »ho struggle in all places for caqplete freedom of expression of tb.ugbt - spoken, written or illustrated; for absolute liberty of assembly, LEior. zxoupirg, association and secession. We are for the intangible freedom ₀f exposition, publicity, experiment and realisation.

Whatever happens to be the end sought for, the purpose pursued, we opoose external control - statist or governmental - and all censure, restraint, constraint, or requisition, whether aininistrative, intellectual, economic, spiritual or moral, everywhere and at all times.

*e are for individual responsibility and autonomy against the oppression of castes, classes and rulers.

le are for liberty and free agreement against authority and irqposed rule. We regard the economic question as a subsidiary one, but conceive any solution to it on the basis of this principle.

I FIRST MET E. ARMAND one August afternoon in the Summer of 1953 out-si ie the Cafe au Tambour, Place de la Bastille, Paris, I was 23 years of age ind full of the revolutionary antistatist communism I then called "anarchism¹*. Even in those days, however, I was attracted by certair. aspects of anarchist individualism; and this, together with —/ reading of a few of Armand's writings in English translation, was

probably the reason I was so eager to meet him. What was said at that first meeting I can no longer recall. All I can remember was a little old ran in a black beret shaking ae by the hand, and then briskly handing me a heavy case containing literature to carry up to the first floor of the cafe where a gathering of "Les Amis d'Armand" was to ta>.e place.

The following day I returned to the cafe where a second gathering was being held; this time I had two companions fro.r London with me. During the course of a conversation with Armand one of then asked why he,

onsidered himself a conscious egoist, had spent so much time in prison -- some ten years in all. Armand replied that it was "a risk of the trade." He illustrated what he meant by pointing out that, just as a steeplejack daily risked his life in his job, so the anarchist propagandist risked imprisonment in his. This unaffected reply made a deep impression on me and undoubtedly helped to eventually deflate the grandiloquent notions of "living for the Cause" that I had at that time. Now I live for myself.

In retrospect I am sorry that I did not make more of my opportunity to get to know Armand. My head was stuffed with the fanciful dreams of Kropotkin and William Morris so my appreciation of his '-alue had to wait until some eight years later.

WHO WAS E. ARMAND? His real name was Ernest-Lucien Juin. He was born in Paris, March 26, 1872. His father had taken part in the Paris Commune of 1871 and had given his son a strict, studious and severlv anti-clerical upbringing. Not surprisingly, Armand's first rebellion was against all this. He became a "religeuse".

In 1388, Armand was in London and bought for one penny a copy of the New Testament, the reading of which converted him to Christianity. In December of that year he joined the Salvation Army and later rose to quite a high rank. He remained a member until December, 1897. About a year before, however, he had begun to read various French libertarian communist journals and soon contributed articles under a pen-name to one of the most famous, LE LIBERTAIRE.

After he left the Salvation Army he came under the influence of Tolstoy and considered himself a "christian anarchist". In 1901, together with Marie Kugel, he founded his first periodical, L'ERE NOUVELLE (The New Era), which he published for ten years, interrupted by a spell in prison on a charge of uttering counterfeit money. Other periodicals followed: HORS DU TROUPEAU (Outside the Herd) 1911, LES R3FRACIAIRES (The Insubordinates) 1912-13, PENDANT LA MELEE 'During the Conflict) 1915-16; and PAR DELA LA MELEE (Beyond the Conflict)1916-18.

By the time L'ERE NOUVELLE had ceased publication, Armand had abandoned Christianity and the libertarian communism he had previously championed and had become an anarchist individualist. From then on he devoted his life to publicizing by means of periodicals, books, pamphlets and lectures, his individualist ideas. In addition, he published works by Gerald de Lacaze-Futhiers, Max Stirner, Albert Libertad, John Henry Mackay, Benjamin R. Tucker, Ixigrec, Benjamin de Cassares and other i nrii uidual' St or near-ind i vidualiet writers. His own main theoretical contribution, first published in 1923, was L' INITIATION INDIVIDUALIZE

in 1918 Armand was condemned to five years imprisonment on a charge of i i di nq deserters. Released in 1922, after a big campaign for his liberation, he began to publish L¹ENDEHORS (The Outsider), which attained a circulation of 6 ,000. The outbreak of World War II i_n 1939 forced him to suspend publication and brought him two more periods in prison between 1940 and 1942 . The first, for three months, was for possessing an anti-war tract published by L¹ADUNATA DEI REFRATTARI of New York. The second consisted of two years spent in various internment camps, no doubt for being "an undesirable person."

Armand was 73 years old in 1945, at an age many men would have called it j day and retired to watch life from the sidelines. Instead, he earned on and started a new periodical, L*UNIQUE, named after Stirner's famous book. This was issued as a separate publication until 1956, when it became a supplement to Louis Dorlet's monthly DEFENSE DE L'HOMME. It remained such until Armand's death on February 19, 1962, one month short of his 90th year.

Individualists want a milieu that is conceived for the individual, that is relative to the individual, that will neither exist nor function except by and for the individual.

contraint, if not to nothing, then at least to ^a minimum. His great, his supreme concern, is to defend himself against its attacks. He succeeds or he fails; but, conqueror or conquered, his state of mind, his way of acting, remain the same.

Making this his touchstone, Armand launched a sustained critique of authority in all its forms political, economic, philosophical, sexual, moral, and so on. His great wish was to see the growth of so many self-owning individuals that his ideal of "a society without government" would be achieved. This he defined as:

a state of social life founded on a multiplicity of "families of election", of unions or associations or federations, conceived and realized without external interference or constraint, with no contracts imposed from without, all guarantees being given to the solidarity to evolve apart if he so prefers.

Armand called his form of individualism "contractual and mutualist". But h s way of interpreting his _contractualisrr." sometimes led to vehement dissent by his readers. This was illustrated by the controversy caused by his "parable" ALORS QUE LA BETE REGNAIT in which sentence of death is passed and executed upon a woman who is held responsible for the suicide of a ran to whom she had refused sexual intercourse. The reason for this extraordinary decision was because her refusal was contrary to the contract made by the oroup of which

she and he were members. It was quite clear that Armand in this "parable" regarded the "contract" as superior to the individuals who had made it. It is no wonder that his friend Ixigrec asked in a study of Armand: "Was this not a most authoritarian intervention by the "judges' who condemned her and the executioner who, killed her?" At the time of the controversy, Armand had denied this interpretation; but it did raise the question as to how far Armand had rid himself of the "moralic acid" he had imbibed during his Christian period. Indeed, his comrade of pre-1914 days, Mauricius, in a memorial essay on Armand, remarked that the latter's early Christian anarchism "impregnated all his life."

It was probably this "impregnation" that accounted for Armand's ambivalent attitude towards morality. He often proclaimed himself an amoralist, and urged the "de-christianization" of anarchism in order to eliminate all traces of moralism. But he could also argue against the amoralism of the Italian individualist, Enzo Martucci, in favor of an "individualist morality". Perhaps it is inevitable that a certain creeping-in of morality cannot be avoided if one seeks to create "non-governmental societies", since all organized collectives need normative sanctions. And this brings us to the question of whether anarchist individualism is really compatible with any form of "society" — even one that is "contractual and mutualist" in character.

IN OPPOSITION TO ARMAND, I consider that a thoroughgoing individualism has no solutions to the "social problem". An individualist may be able to solve certain personal problems, but that is all. To the extent that Armand sought SOCIAL solutions to the problems he confronted, his individualism was weakened and he fell under the spell of utopianisrfl and the social totalitarianism that, on other occasions, he so effectively criticised. Fortunately, he was, in part, aware of this danger; and in some of his writings, he was sceptical of the possibility of a universalized anarchy. And even when in a Utopian mood, as in his essay THE FUTURE SOCIETY, he called attention to the perspective of those individualists who rightly regarded all talk of a "free society" as a pipedream.

In 1961, as the result of reading Stirner's THE EGO AND HIS OWN, my ov;n individualism erupted after some years of intermittent development. I immediately got in touch with Armand again and corresponded with him until hisdeath. Despite his failing powers, he encouraged me to "re-animate anarchist individualism in the English language countries". I then took the responsibility of publishing several of his writings for the first time in English translation. I have now, it is clear, gone far beyond certain of the positions he held; but I am pleased and proud to have been asked to select and introduce some of his essays on individualism. In this time of galloping collectivism, when in all manner of insidious ways the prevalence of the "social" over the individual is preached and practiced; Armand's defense of the individual, and his anlysis of individualism, has a value which increases day by day.

rhe anarchist individualists do not present themselves as proletarians, nhsairtvd onlv in the search fur material amelioration, tied to a class determined to transform the world :uid to substitute a new- society for the actual one. They nlace themselves in the present; they disdain to orient the coning generations towards •i form of society allegedly destined to assure their happiness, for the sirrple reason that frcm the individualist point of view happiness is a conquest, an individual's internal realization.

Even if I believed in the efficacy of a universal social transformation, according to a well-defined system, without direction, sanction, or obligation, I do not see by what right I could persuade others that it is the best. For exanple, I wunt to live in a society from which the last vestige of authority has disappeared, but, to speak frankly, I am not certain that the "mass", to call it what it is, is capable of dispensing with authority. I want to live in a society in which the mtiribers think by and for themselves, but the attraction which is exercised on the mass by publicity, the press, frivolous reading and by St ate-subsidized distractions is such that I ask n^self whether men will ever be able to reflect and judge with an independent mind.

I may be told in reply that the solution of the social question will transform every man into a sage. This is a gratuitous affirmation, the more so as there have been sages under all regimes. Since I do not know the social form which is most likely to create internal harmony and equilibrium in social unity, I refrain frcm theorizing.

When "voluntary association" is spoken of, voluntary adhesion to a plan, a project, a given action, this inplies the possibility of refusing the association, adhesion or action. Let us imagine the planet submitted to a single social or economic life; how would I exist if this system did not please me? There remains to me only one expedient: to integrate or to perish. It is held that, "the social question" having been solved, there is no longer a place for non-conformism, recalcitrance, etc.....but it is precisely when a question has been resolved that it

is important to pose new ones or to return to an old solution, if only to aviod stagnation.

If there is a "Freedom" standing over and above all individuals, it is surely nothing more than the expression of their thoughts, the manifestation and diffusion of their opinions. The existence of a social organization founded on a single ideological unity interdicts all exercise of freedom of speech and of indeo logically contrary thought. How would I be able to oppose the dominant system, proposing another, supporting a return to an older system, if the means of iraking my viewpoint kno.w or 01 publicizing my critiques were in the possession of the agents of the regime ir, power" This regime must either accept reproach when compared to other .social solutions superior to its own, or, despite its termination in "ist", it is no better than any other regime. Either it will adnit opposition, secession, schism, fra*.tionalian, ccnpetition, or nothing will distinguish it significantly frcm a dictatorship. This "ist" regime would undoubtedly claim that it has been invested with its power by the masses, that it does not exercise its power or control except d> the delegation of assemblies or congresses; but as long as it did not allow the intransigents and refractories to express the reasons for their attitude •^u'^{,d for thier} corresponding behaviour, it would be onlv a totalitarian system. The •atcna) tenefits on which a dictatorship prides itself are of no inport'ance. prumi< .^s j whether there is scarcity or abundance, a dictatorsliip is always

It is asked of m? why I call ny individualian "anarchist individualism"? Sinply because the State concretizes the best organized form of resistance to individual affirmation. What is the State? An organism which bills itself as representative of the social body, to which power is allegedly delegated, this power expressing the will of an autocrat or of popular sovereignty. This power has no reason for existing other than the maintenance of the extant social structure. But individual aspirations are unable to cane to terns with the existence of the State, personification of Society, for, as Palante says: "All society is and will be exploitative, usurpacious, dominating, and tyrannical. This it is not by accident but by essence." Yet the individualist would be neither exploited, usurped, dominated, tyrannized nor dispossessed of his sovereignty. On the other hand, Society is able to exercise its constraint on the individual only thanks to the support of the State, ackninistrator and director of the affairs of Society. No matter which way he turns the individual encounters the State or its agents of execution, who do not care in the least whether the regulations which they enforce concur or not with the diversity of tenperaments of the subjects upon whom they are administered. From their aspirations as frcm theim demands, the individualists of our school have eliminated the State. That is why they call themselves "an-archists".

But we deceive ourselves if we imagine that the individualists of our school are anarchists (AN-ARCHY, etymologically, means only negation of the state, and does not pertain to other matters) only in relation to the State - such as the western democracies or the totalitarian systems. This point cannot be overemphasized. Against all that which is power, that is, economic as well as political domination, esthetic as well as intellectual, scientific as well as ethical, the individualists rebel and form such fronts as they are able, alone or in voluntary association. In effect, a group or federation can exercise power as absolute as any State if it accepts in a given field all the possibilities of activity and realization.

The only social body in which it is possible for an individualist to evolve and develop is that which admits a concurrent plurality of experiences and realizations, to which is opposed all groupings founded on an ideological exclusiveness, which, well-meant though they may be, threaten the integrity of the individual from the moment that this exclusiveness aims to extend itself to the non-adherents of the grouping. To call this anti-statist would be doing no more than provoking a mask for an appetite for driving a herd of human sheep.

I have said above that it is necessary to insist on this point. For exanple, anarchist communism denies, rejects and expels the State from its ideology; but it resuscitates it the moment that it substitutes social organization for personal judgement. If anarchist individualism thus has in conrron with anarchist ccnmunisn the political negation of the State, of the "Arche", it only marks a point of divergence. Anarchist communism places itself on the economic plane, on the terrain of the class struggle, united with syndicalism etc (this is its right), but anarchist individualism situates itself on the psychological plane, and on that of resistance to social totalitarianism, which is something entirely different. (Naturally, anarchist individualism follows the many paths of activity and education: philosophy, literature, ethics, etc., but I have wanted to make precise here only some points of our attitude towards the social environment.)

I do not deny that this is not very new, but it is taking a position to which it is good to return from time to time.

(First published in the Bulletin of SIA, 1957, This translation by Richard DeHaan first appeared in Views and Comments, No. 25, New York)

To say that the anarchist movement embraces several tendencies is not to put forward anything new; it would be surprising if it were otherwise. Non-political, outside of parties, this movement owes its existence solely to the individual personalities of which it is composed. Since there is no a priori anarchist programme, since there are only anarchists, it follows that each one of those who call themselves anarchists has his own conception of anarchism. Persecutions, difficulties and conflicts of all kinds, demand that whoever professes anarchism should be possessed of a mentality which is out of the ordinary, which is reflective, and which is in a state of continual reaction against a society composed of people who, on the contrary, are not reflective and are inclined to accept ready-made doctrines which make no demands on their intelligence. To ask that all anarchists should have similar views on anarchism is to ask the impossible. Hence a wealth of diverging conceptions are to be found among them.

As the word "anarchy" etymologically signifies the negation of governmental authority, the absence of government, it follows that one indissoluble bond unites the anarchists. This is antagonism to all situations regulated by imposition, constraint, violence, governmental oppression, whether these are a product of all, a group, or of one person. In short, whoever denies that the intervention of government is necessary for human relationships is an anarchist.

But this definition would have only a negative value did it oot possess, as a practical complement, a conscious attempt to live outside this domination and servility which are incompatible with the anarchist conception. An anarchist, therefore, is an individual who, whether he has been brought to it by a process of reasoning or by sentiment, lives to the greatest possible extent in a state of legitimate defense against authoritarian encroachments. From this it follows that anar-

chist individualism—the tendency which we believe contains the most profound realization of the anarchist idea—is not merely a philosophical doctrine—it is an altitude, an individual way of life.

The anarchist individualist is not simply converted intellectually to ideas which will be realized one day some centuries hence. He tries now—for the present is the only time which matters for him—to practise his conceptions in everyday life, in his relations with his comrades, and in his contact with those others who do not share his convictions.

All healthy organisms have a characteristic tendency to reproduce themselves. Organisms which are sick, or in a process of degeneration, have no such tendency—and this applies to the mind as well as the body. So the anarchist individualist tends to reproduce himself, to perpetuate his spirit in other individuals who will share his views and who will make it possible for a state of affairs to be established from which authoritarianism has been banished. It is this desire, this will, not only to live, but also to reproduce oneself, which we shall call "activity".

These considerations explain our title: "Anarchist Individualism as Life and Activity". Tending to live his own individual life at the risk of clashing intellectually, morally, and economically, with his environment, the anarchist individualist at the same time tries to like himself, are free from the prejudices and superstitions of authority, in order that the greatest possible number of men may actually live their own lives, uniting through personal affinities to practise their conceptions as far as is possible.

The anarchist individualist does not live in intellectual isolation. As individuals who share his ideas increase in number, so will his chances improve of seeing his aspirations realized, and as a result he will be happier. As individuals of his own "species" increase, so will the power of environment over his own life diminish. The wider his propaganda spreads and the more his activity grows, the more will his life be intensified.

His relationships with his comrades are based on reciprocity, on mutualism, on comradeship, and take numerous forms, all voluntary: free agreements of every type and in all spheres; respect for the pledged word and the carrying out of promises and engagements freely consented to. It is in this fashion that the individualist of our kind practices mutual aid in his species.

A conscious individual—seeking to create and select others—from being determined by his environment, he tends to become self-determining. to live his own life fully, to be active in the normal sense of the word. One cannot conceive the anarchist individualist in any other way.

In (he first place, then, the anarchist is—in relation to all social conceptions based upon constraint—an individual who negates; anarchism is an individualist concept and a product of individuals. The anarchist is naturally an individualist.

The legalists base societ> upon law. In the eyes of the law those who constitute society are no more than cyphers. Whether the law proceeds from one man alone (autocracy), from several (oligarchy), or from the majority of the members of a society (democracy), the citizen must suppress even his most rightful aspirations before it. The legalists maintain that if the individual subjects himself to the law, which allegedly emanates from society, it is in the interests of society and in his own interest since he is a member of society.

Indeed, society as we know it can be summarized as follows: The ruling classes, through the intermediary of the State, ensure that only their own views on culture, moralit) and economic conditions, are allowed to penetrate to the masses. They set up their own views in the form of civil dogmas, which no man may violate under pain of punishment, just as in former times, during the reign of the Church, there were severe penalties for daring to challenge religious dogmas. The State—the laic form of the Church—has replaced the Charch— which was the religious form of the State—but the aim of both has always been to form, not free beings, but true believers or perfect citizens. In other words, slaves to dogma or law.

The anarchist replies that when solidarity is imposed from without it is worthless; that when a contract is enforced there is no longer any question of rights or duties; that coercion releases him from the bonds which attach him to a so-called society whose executives he knows only in the guise of administrators, law-givers, judges and policemen; that he supports only the solidarity of his everyday relationships. Fictitious and imposed solidarity is worthless solidarity.

The socialists base society upon economics. According to them the whole of life resolves itself into a question of production and consumption. Once you solve this problem you will automatically solve the human problem, with its complexity of intellectual and moral experiences. The individual may be conscious, he may be the greatest drunkard or the worst of comrades, but he is only of interest when considered as a producer or a consumer. The call goes out to all—to those who think and to those who do not. All have a right to the collectivist banquet, all have the right to the result of effort without needing to attempt the effort. It is necessary only to unite and to grasp the power that will permit the seizure of society, and as soon as society has been seized, collectivism will be established and will function, willy-nilly, since any recalcitrants will be compelled to obey, otherwise they will disappear from circulation.

Socialism has been called the "religion of economics" and it is certain that a socialist metaphysic exists. This doctrine teaches that all the products of human activity are governed by economics. This is by no means difficult to grasp and is within the ability of every mentality. From the moment of its triumph socialism, in all its various shades, demands of its adherent that he be a good producer and a no less good consumer, putting his trust with regard to the organization of production and consumption in the wisdom of delegates, whether elected or imposed. Socialism is not concerned to make him an individual—it will make him an official.

The anarchist bases society neither upon the law nor upon economics. Good citizen, good bureaucrat, good producer, good consumer —this flour-spattered meal-trough has no message for him. After all, if it can be proved that in certain cases economics have determined intellect or morals, can it not also be proved that intellect or morals have often determined economics? And one should not pass in silence the role of the sexual factor.

The real truth must surely be that they mingle with and jostle one another; that they alternate and are mutually determined. From reformist socialism to revolutionary anti-parliamentary communism via trade unionism, all these socialist systems make a mockery of the individual and of free agreement between individuals. They give pride of place to the majority, to the economic contract imposed by the greatest number.

The anarchist proclaims that a transformation in mental outlook will always be accompanied by a transformation in the economic system; that a new social edifice cannot be built with stones that are crumbling into dust; that beings who have been moulded by prejudice can never build anything but a structure filled with prejudice; that it is necessary first of all to lay down solid materials, to select individuals.

If he joins a trades union, regardless of its colour, the anarchist enters it purely as a member of a particular trade, in the hope of obtaining by collective action an improvement in his own lot—but he will see nothing anarchistic in gaining a wage increase, or a reduction of working hours. From an economic point of view, under present conditions, each anarchist does what he thinks best for himself—one by working for a boss, another by acting outside the law; one benefits from the advantages obtained by association, another by participating in a "free milieu", yet another by satisfying his needs as an artisan. None of these ways ct getting by are more "anarchist" than the other* —they are makeshifts, sometimes "evasions", neither more nor less.

Since the anarchist conception places the individual at the base of all these practical consequences, it follows that it takes no heed of collective morality and the general pattern of life. The anarchist regulates his life not according to the law, like the legalists, nor according to a given collective metaphysic or mystique, like the religious, the nationalists or the socialists, for example, but according to his own needs and personal aspirations. He is ready to make the concessions necessary to live with his comrades or his friends, but without making an obsession of these concessions.

The anarchist knows full well that if his life is to be enjoyed to the full, if it is to be beautiful and rich in every kind of experience, he will not be able to appreciate it if he is unable to master his inclinations and passions. He has no intention of turning his life into a sort of English garden, carefully cultivated, monotonous and dismal. No, he wants to live fully and intensely, he attaches a thousand horses to his chariot, but he does not forget to put a bridle on the neck of each one.

The anarchist denies authority because he knows he can live without it. He is guided by the play of agreements freely entered into with his comrades, never trampling on the liberty of any of them in order that none may trample on his.

But in relation to those whose amorphism, ignorance or interest interferes with his living his life, the individualist feels himself a stranger. Moreover, inwardly he remains refractory—fatally refractory —morally, intellectually, economically (The capitalist economy and the directed economy, the speculators and the fabricators of single systems, are equally repugnant to him.) The full consciousness that none of his acts can debase him inwardly is for him a sufficient criterion. Surely the essential thing is that he remains himself?

Again, is not the anarchist constantly in a state of legitimate self-defense against constraint and social servitude?

Anarchist work, activity, and propaganda, therefore, do not consist of swaying the crowd, but of creating and selecting—my repetition is intentional—conscious individuals, free from prejudice. It is above all a work of undermining, of irony, of criticism, a work of education, but also a work of reconstruction, of the sculpting of a personality free from dominant spooks. A work of free examination and of independent research in aD fields.

Instead of talking of love in general, the anarchist talks simply of unity and alliance between comrades, between friends, who feel attracted to each other by affinities of one kind or another, by reciprocity.

Instead of postponing individual happiness to the socialist or communist calends, he extols his present achievement of it by proclaiming the joy of living.

Instead of building the great structure of Harmony with material taken at random from the rubble amid the ruins of former buildings, he shows that the first task to be done is to remove the stones one by one from the great human arena.

Anarchists no more want to be masters than they want to be servants—they no more want to exercise violence than to submit to it. They expose, they propose, but they do not impose. They are pioneers, attached to no party, non-conformists, standing outside herd morality and conventional "good" and "evil"—"a-social", a "species'* apart, one might say. They go forward, stumbling, sometimes falling, sometimes triumphant, sometimes vanquished. But they do go forward, and by living for themselves, these "egoists", they dig the furrow, they open the breach through which will pass those who deny archism, the unique ones who will succeed them.

The free man says to himself: "No duty binds me to my fellowman or to my world that oppresses and exploits me, or maintains or contributes to that which oppresses and exploits me. Nothing more will I give to the man or the world that I despise. I do not give him or them any right to my person, my life or my production. Neither do I recognize that I have any right over the person, the life or the production of another. I reject all imposed solidarity, all forced fraternity, all coerced equality. I do not accept any association, except that which I freely choose and freely consent to, and reserve the right to break it off whenever I feel it may injure me." On the above must rest the existence of all enemies of authority. It is the raison d'etre of their existence. It would be on this basis that theory and practice would really be efficacious, and this is how we must carry our anti-authoritarian propaganda to those .who are interested.

Essentially, our paper is intended for a certain category of people only, a select body, distinct from the general run of society, who, in default of a better term, must be referred to as "our kind of individualist" and who are, it must be understood, the only variety of individualist we are interested in. This sort of person is invariably a "non-conformist" with regard to the ethics and aesthetics of the bourgeoisie, the present system of education, and, indeed, with most majority opinions in society. He has taken due thought, and has jettisoned all those phantoms, those abstract principles which had haunted him when he floated back and forth on the tides of convention, carried along like a cork on such currents as "everybody does it", as the conformer must be. He has created for himself a personality which resists the influences surrounding it, which pays no attention to the vociferous, the braggart, or the fickle mob. He wants to know where he is going, though not without having carefully considered the route to be followed, and then without ever losing sight of the fact that his "freedom" must always be dependent upon his "responsibility".

What else is "our" individualist? He is a person who is united with those of "his world" by comradeship, which we define as "a voluntary agreement between individualists aimed at eliminating all avoidable friction and unpleasantness from their relationships". Now this definition is more than twenty years old, dating from 1924, and in 1939 I again wrote: "Our conception of comradeship is positive, not negative; constructive, not destructive" It is because such an idea is creative of good will, contentment and harmony that it will tend to reduce to a minimum the pain of living, and this in a society which is in itself indifferent. "And all this can be achieved without the protection of the State, the intervention of governments, or tfte mediation of the law."

But our kind of individualist is not only mind, spirit, thought. He is neither dry, nor niggardly of heart. If exclusively a rationalist, he would feel himself incomplete, so it is a necessity for him to be both sensible and "sentimental". This explains his plan for freeing "his world" of useless and avoidable suffering. He knows that this is possible when one speaks and understands "the language of the

unlatching of actions dictated by bitterness, animosity or spite. • • • »

Individualism as we conceive and propagate it is understood seriously, without equivocation, passionately. It postulates rectitude, constancy, reciprocity, support, comprehensiveness, indeed compassion. It implies fidelity to the pledged word, whatever the matter in hand may be; care not to interfere under any pretext in the affairs of another comrade (unless asked), or to encroach on his rights, nor to withdraw any rights once given except in cases of betrayed trust This individualism does not wish to provoke disquiet, disillusionment, torment or tears. Its freedom of affirmation must cease when it threatens another

Our kind of individualist must not be misunderstood. He is no moralist. He loathes "conventional lies", the false pretences of petit-bourgeoisie. He has discarded all preconceived ideas; he recognizes as a motive nothing outside himself. But he knows quite well that an individualist must give as well as take. He does not ignore the fact that the "gentleman's agreement" must be honoured equally with the formal bond.

He repudiates violence, imposition, constraint, which is not to say that he accepts being exploited, duped, made a game of or inferior, whatever his personal appearance or level of culture might be. He does not wish to receive more than he gives, nor give more than he receives. He is proud. He sets a value upon his person. It means nothing to him that anyone else knows him only as a "poor relation". Towards those who would humiliate him he reacts and considers himself in a state of legitimate defense ... but he is always ready to make

Yes. our kind of individualism loves life. It makes no secret of it—it revels in the joy of living, but in a discreet manner, without din or noisy demonstrations. It recognizes happiness as its goal. It welcomes anything that will increase its receptiveness and appreciation for either the products of the human imagination or those of nature. No asceticism, it is repelled by mortification. It is conscious of personal dignity. It can both sow and reap. It pays no attention to what "they say." It is neither young nor old; it is the age it feels itseff to be. And while there is a drop of blood left in its veins, it will fight for a piace in the sun.

But this joy. the enjoyment of living, the conquest of a life without prejudice, the individualist does not intend to gain at the expense of others, whether bis friends or comrades, or only the most humble and least important person in his society. He refuses to play the role of trouble-maker: he would not be the cause of any grief for anyone. He abhors the idea that one of the members of his circle should be in any way frustrated on account of his ambitions—on has account. He could never pardon himself for such conduct.

Nor does he wish to have anything in common with those armchair Nietzcheans or weekend Stirnerites who imagine, poor wretches, that they are "affirming their individuality" by petty dishonesty in money matters, or by forcing themselves upon the companion of a friend in prison.

In short, the individualist, as we know him, abominates brutes, cretins, rogues, schemers, twisters, skunks and so forth, no matter with what ideology they wish to conceal themselves.

But he also recognizes that practice does not always conform to theory, and that often, though the spirit is willing, the flesh is weak. He holds nothing against his associates on account of their inabilities or their weaknesses; he freely forgives them. Concessions are not rarities with him. And any damage he does, or suffering he causes, he will pay for or rectify to the best of his ability. But further than that he will not go—anything beyond compensation is extortion.

In the midst of a social order in which, despite frequent pompous discourses and bombastic declarations from allegedly responsible persons, the pledged word is more often broken than not and the philosophy of "get out of your problems as best you can" is the reigning attitude of man to his fellow-man, our conception of comradeship, as described above, raises itself like a lighthouse to remind the world that there are still persons capable of resisting the seductions and gross appetites of our philistine society.

We believe that our kind of individualism has a bigger following than might at first sight appear, and that, though scattered, there is a not inconsiderable number of persons who are trying to re-integrate themselves on these lines; people who have revolted against social determinism and who have decided to submit all ideas to their own personal tests. These people we look upon as a psychological group apart from those who remain in the mass. To them our call goes out

We look at "association" as a concrete manifestation of comradeship taking some co-operative or mutualist form, always providing that it is based on a sound understanding of the participants' characters. We know perfectly well that if in this association our personality affirms itself, that if the goal sought for is attained, it is at the cost of our "liberty". When he associates our kind of individualist accepts the disadvantages along with the advantages and he does not complain. (Adopted from a translation of A Qui Est Destine "LTJnique" by A.S.)

Tuckbr! Whit memories bis nunc invokes in our mind! The present generations have forgotten the pioneer of " anuchifi.individualism " or "philosophical anarchism" in the United States; 1 am not unaware of this. It is human to forget. But myself, I have never forgotten my firft contact with Libtrtj, now more than thirty years ago. I sought my way and then edited a paper I'irt nounDi, a ChriSian anarchifi organ. I was at that time under the influence of Tolfioy, to whom I am indebted not only for being an opponent of governmental violence and Statifl constraint, but for having comprehended that "salvation is within ourselves." But TolAoyism did not satisfy me any more than the Kropotkin brand of anarchism satisfied me, as represented by the French tendency of the Ttmps Nouuaux. A personality belonging to this lafi movement was nevertheless eminently sympathetic to me: that of Elisfe Redus. I had been to see him several times, we hid conversations, and had been in accord on many points. But I am aiming at something else.

S It is at that time that I made the acquaintance, intellectually speaking, of Tucker. That did not imply solely the assimilation of his do&rine. To edablish contact with Tucker meant inquiring into everything which his predecessors or those to whom he alluded had written: Josiah Warren, Stephen Pearl Andrews, Max Stirner, Proudhon for example. Tucker and those whom I am going to cite taught me the theory of the "individual," the doctrine of "individual sovereignty," of the association of "egos." I had learned from Tolfioy that it is within ourselves that salvation lies.

9 At the same time they swept from my brain all the traces of metaphysics which it had Sill sheltered. From then on my road was clear.

S I do not claim that I ever posed as an orthodox Tuckerian."i I feel within myself the soul of • heretic. I have always felt myself ► an outsider one m Jtbort, a non-conformifi through rapport with

movements that were moft sympathetic to me. Moreover, I read, ftudied, deepened my mind with Emerson, Ibsen, Nietzsche, Whitman. I was in contad with Crosby, Horace Traubel, Voltairine de Geyre. However, I am ftill indebted to Tucker for being revealed to myself. My knowledge of Tucker implied that of John Henry Mackay with whom I had maintained friendly relations until his death, u also with Jo Labadie.

i Not that the economic discussions which comprised lnsuadtf s B~i b«d entirely convinced me. But it is beciuie the spirit of this work which suits my temperament better thin the anarchism ofjoha Mofi or Peter Kropotkio, however much I respefl the durafler of the latter. My nature. my aspiratioos, are io better accord with the Ego and His Oun, Tb* Anarchists, Dtr Frtsbtilssubtr, for inftance, thin with the Omqutsi »/ BrtaJ. I am not, and cannot be a Communist Anarchist I do not believe io a siogle solutioo of the problem of man. I am a free associate and live absolutely convinced that there is room upoo our planet for the flowering of all the auances of the libertarian rainbow. »

S I bold that the isolated individual or free association muS be able to dispose freely of their ptoduflion and regulate their relations with others as they intend, other individual or another association. I hold that there exifts no "liberty" nor possibility of "e-qual b berry," or exercise of" reciprocity "—without the possession in inalienable title of the "means of production," (or an equitable equivalent.) I hold thai any contract which does not include the daose of cancellation is a leonine or oppressive cootraCt. Enemy dumber one is he who imposes the contrail— whether it be an individual, a federation, a a majority) or the State. I claim for the individual as for the association the right to defend itself againfi all tentatives of invasiveness, whether it b« an individual, a majority or the State which is shown to be invasive. I bold that "mind your own business" is the only "moral law" and that "interference with another's affairs is a crime, the only crime, and as such it muSt be opposed." For those four or five directives which are so very clear, I am indebted to Tucker. And throughout all my thirty-five yean of propaganda, whether in I'rrt nouuBt, bors du trouptau, Us rlfrat-tatra, par dtlj La milti, I'm dtbors, they have wound like a guiding thread through all I have spoken or written.

£ In I'm dtbon, I am less occupied with presenting solutions to economic problems thin affirming and exposing the individualistic viewpoint of life and the human problem. Times have changed since the appearance of Librrtj. There has been the war and the diminution of general culture which has followed it. In several important European countries the political impotence of democratic pirlementarism has caused the dawning of regimes which have annihilated the vifiories to which individualifts are very particularly attached liberty (of the press or) the public expression of opinions, liberty of union, liberty of association. An inevitable economic crisis causes a relegation to the second place of the pursuit of the individual autonomy. They iterate to us in all tones of the scale thai the very concept of liberty is a superannuated idea or petry-bourgeois. They proclaim that all is lofi and that there is no hope of relief, here if the individual is not submerged in the colleQive soul, there if he does not permit himself to be absorbed by the totalitarian State. How maintain individual values, persona] non-conformism, io the midft of the general upheaval, how resifl the general authoritarian involvement, oven or hidden? That is the problem I am forced always to keep in sight. On the other hand, 1 do not believe that it is enough to attack rn Hoc the solid firufture of authority ; according to my opinion, it is mot appropriate to undermine separately the pillars upon which it refis.4 Shaken to its foundations, spiritual, ethical, intelleftual, the edifice will finish by some day tottering.

& e. armand

22, clt< St-Joseph, ORLEANS

I MflAflD (<• a^ <iu|» i» )•!') ntfui)

? From there on, my propaganda with the view of uprooting in the individual certain prejudices, certain moral habits. For several years my activity was specialized on some very definite points and the ofiracism which has fallen upon my propaganda (interdiction of circulation of U'n dthen in the countries with dictatorial regimes) shows that I have hit the nail on the head.) It goes without saying that this specialization has never caused me to negleCt the appeal to the necessity of individual culture or the indispensibility of hewing out the personality.

S Moreover, I am no sedarian. The proof of this lies in my constant collaboration with I'Encyclopfdii AnartbiBt of Sebaftian Faure, the firft libertarian orator I have heard. This goes back to the era of the Dreyfus affair: which does not make me any younger (nor him either.) I admit indeed that other opinions than mine are professed and that there arc consecrations to other propagandas than those towards which my determinism is attracted.*

I have met Tucker twice, twenty-five years apart. I have not met him when he was in full propagandise activity. I have met him when he had ceased this activity. The firft time we were far from being io accord on a great number of points; the second time we were in agreement on almoft all points. But after every conversation I bad left more encouraged, more determined to Struggle for the sovereignty of the "ego" and free association in all branches of human activity.

• For example from the point of view of illegalism or economic non-conformism. And on several other points. The individualism of I'm dehors bears a special significance but it would be ingratitude to deny its origin.

» I am convinced that the communism termed anarchist or libertarian as the majority of its adherents underftand it, would show itself as fatally absorbing, if not despotic, as Bolshevism. The same goes for Syndicalism, Jacobinism of the extreme left, etc

4 You find "anardbifts" who affirm that it is couoier revolution*^ (/«■)! It is io the "tomorrow of the revolution" that one will regulate « hotde of queflions, the solution of which embraces the details of daily life. In the meantime, the years pass and the individual dies, crushed under, embittered, uaificed to ■ myftic!

) Such is our position with regard to the sexual quefiion. Became we have remembered, like Schiller, that love, equally with hunger wu a great motivating aust of the aftivity of man, they have vowed us to gemonia*. As if the solution of the economic problem important u it is ought to be the only subjed which could preoccupy • propaganda or a propaganda! I do not speak here of the individualifts among whom our theses have many precursors.

A On condition that we are not obliged to be silent and not forced to renounce our right of criticism and free examination concerning activities which are not our own.

IT is not from a vague humanitarian sensibility, nor from a hazy and mystic pity that we are proclaiming our horror of war. We know very well that life is a continual selection, in which only the most able and gifted triumph.

What causes our hatred for war, i. e., for the state of war and all that follows in its train, is that while it reigns selt-assertfon and individual determinism are more than ordinarily restrained, constrained, repressed, not to say reduced to naught. It substitutes in place of the individual struggle for existence and happiness a collective struggle profitable to a small number of the governing and the large exploiters of all countries. It places the individual in a humiliating position of subordination and dependence in face of the administrative and military authorities.

The non-combatant is deprived of the ability to express and expand his thoughts, if not also of free movement. His product is at the mercy of the first requisition. On the field of carnage, a prey of the atmosphere of brutish-ness and savagery, he is but an inanimate object, like a piece of baggage, at the disposal of others, who in their turn obey orders that they dare not discuss.

This was our standpoint before the actual events; such it still remains. We did not have to renounce our opinions, for they are confirmed. The most convincing proof that we had not erred is seen in the attitudes of the Col-lectivists. Syndicalists, Communists called Anarchists and

others who suddenly turned into ardent defenders of civilizations and jjolitics based upon maintaining mankind in subjection and ignorance; we have observed "adjustments of aim" which the tragic circumstances alone prevent us from qualifying as buffooneries. This sort of socialist recognized tlie necessity of temporarily abandoning the "class-struggle" to participate in the "national defense." This ilk of Anarchist proposes to change neutral diplomats to terminate the gigantic struggle. The strangest medley of names are to be found in conjunction, the highest dignitaries of the church, the most accredited representatives of the conservative bourgeoisie, the flamboyant "fifteen thousand" Socialists and the Syndicalist divinities!

If they could not or would not oppose or halt the massacre it behooved Socialists of all persuasions, with the feeling of elementary shame, to hold their peace. The interval of silence would have furnished an occasion to meditate on the frailty of dogmas. The attitude of the "intellectuals" is no less disgusting. Anti-nationalists and pacificists, religionists and free-thinkers, atheists and mon-ists, all, or nearly all, have kept pace with the government. Such a downfall!

If, comrades, we break the silence imposed by circumstances beyond our control it is not merely to deliver into space hollow recriminations. It is above all and essentially to put you on guard against incitations emanating from persons boasting of conceptions of the old International, urging to insurrection or revolution after the war those of you who shall have survived the butchery.

Note in the first place, that these doctrinaires write safely esconced in neutral countries where at this moment it is the interest of the governments to see a flourishing pacificist and anti-militarist propaganda. In the second place what passes under our eyes obliges us to inquire what would have been the attitude of these theoreticians if the States in which they reside had been engulfed in

In rea'ity. as before the war, we remain the resolute adversaries of revolutionary or insurrectionary attempts.

One must be blind not to perceive that a movement of this kind has no chance of success; it would result in a repression probably worse than that following the Commune of 1S71 ; it would give the authorities an occasion to silence permanently those rare spirits who have known how to resist the general disorder. It is this handful of men that will be attacked by the mass escaped from bullets and shrapnel, urged on by the masters, exploiters and servile press, avenging their long absence from their firesides. Moreover, only one gesture can interest us— that which recoils directly and personally upon the guilty ones.

Doubtless, the war, no matter who triumphs, will produce numerous causes of discontent. They are already fermenting. These germs of dissatisfaction our propaganda ought to utilize.

But before passing this question it would be well to glance at the past. We must recognize that but too often we neglected to erase preconceived notions from the minds of those whom we wished to accept "future societies" or economic systems to come. Too often we had wanted to reconstruct ideas in brains before the complete demolition of the-old. We have not criticized vehemently enough the enrollment in leagues, unions, syndicates and other bodies where individual autonomy and initiative are sacrificed to the common weal. Some of us have listened complacently to hypocritical justifications of "social constraints" or "solidarities" which are not disputed because their end is alleged to be the general or collective interest! The awakening was rude.

Even without decided advantage on either side, the simultaneous exhaustion of military and financial resources of the belligerents, the intervention of large capitalists, existing pressure upon the head of some neutral State, the inquietude of politicians fearing the electoral effect upon their parties, will hasten the end of the conflict.

The war concluded, it will be necessary for us to resume with vim and zeal the education of the individual. More than formerly and with all means at our disposal it devolves upon us to awaken the desire and will to annihilate all notions that enthral men to the State, Society, institutions or men representing them.

In other words, according to the temperaments of those we encounter, making appeal to sentiment or reason, to interest or sensibility we must:

Denounce relentlessly the peril of what placcs the individual, voluntarily or forcibly, in solidarity with the social ens"iible;

Demonstrate irrefutably the negation of super-personal ideals, belief in the invisible, abstract aspirations, luippi-ness not subject to the senses;

Destroy radically belief in chiefs and leaders, parliaments and public unions, newspapers and workers' federations, exploiters and exploited;

See to it, in a word, without relaxation, that those to whom our propaganda is addressed are turned into irreconcilable enemies, theoretical and practical, of all domination and exploitation of man by man or by his environment.

Comrades, we are not calling you to insurrection or revolution on the "morrow of the war." We know that no society is superior to the sum of those composing it, and if, by chance, a popular movement were successful, it would only effect a change of rulers. It is for a more profound task that you are to prepare henceforth, to sap and undermine all vestiges of respect for Society, State, rules, and rulers. We are so few in number that we cannot afford to have even a single one misled by the dialectics of the fossils of the International. Let us recollect that distrust and suspicion is on the increase for all those who wish to govern, direct, lead or conduct; that people are more and more inclined to think for themselves, to identify themselves with their own interest only, to lend a deaf ear to all except what is conducive of their own development Moreover, they are opposed to the social usurpation of the individual.

I am absolutely convinced that only a small minority, a very small minority, among men, are seriously reached and profoundly moved by our propaganda of criticism, of doubt, of rebellion, of free investigation, of independent research.

On the other hand, it is clear that our first interest lies always in seeking to increase this minority; to keep it, under all circumstances alive, active, refreshed. Our own happiness depends on it.

But we will not be able to keep alive a vigorous spirit of revolt in this small minority, if we give our propaganda a purely negative tendency, a tendency frankly destructive. Too often we do not stop to inquire where their preconceived ideas have disappeared when we give them a social morality of "a future society," a mature economic system—all of which is more than remote. Too often we have wished "to reconstruct their minds, without waiting to see whether "the destruction" was complete. It is our greatest fault.

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.

To be sure, the individualist often fails in bis attempts to free himself from the yoke of existing domination. Considering the forces of opposition and oppression, this is very natural. But the future will profit automatically from what he gains. The individualist knows very well that he will not explore the whole forest, but the path he opens will remain, and those who follow him, if they want to, will take good care of it and broaden it.

The individualist is incapable, it is true, of outlining in full detail the map of "future humanity" as it would be if his demands were won. Thus he cannot raak^ a topographical work; but on the other hand he can foresee with certainty both the nature of the terrain and the quality of the liquid that will fill the rivers, and the possible kind of culture. "The new humanity" is not for him absolutely terra incognita.

The individualist can, therefore, even now indicate what a "future humanity" will be. He knows it will resemble the present world in nothing—less by changes in detail than by a complete transformation of the general mentality, a different understanding of relations among men, a universal and individual change of state of mind, that will make certain methods and certain institutions impossible.

Thus the individualist can affirm with certainty that authoritarianism will in no case continue in the future society. To imagine a "world to come" where there would still be a trace of domination, coercion and duty is nonsense.

The individualist is sure that there will no longer be room for intervention of the State—of a governmental, social-legislative, penal, disciplinary institution or administration—in the thought, conduct and activity of human beings.

The individualist knows that relations and agreements among men will be arrived at voluntarily; understandings and contracts will be for a specified purpose and time, and not obligatory; they will always be subject to termination; there will not be a clause or an article of an agreement or contract that will not be weighed and discussed before being agreed to; a unilateral contract, obliging someone to fill an engagement he has not personally and knowingly accepted, will bo impossible. The individualist knows that no economic, political or religious majority—no social group whatever—will be able to compel a minority, or one single man, to conform against his will to its decisions or decrees.

"Future humanity", as the individualist conceives it, "unrolls itself without terminal station, without point of arrival. It is eternally becoming, indefinitely evolving. A humanity of the dynamic type, if one can so express oneself, ignores stops en route; or if there are stops at stations, it understands that this is the time strictly necessary to let off those who want to try an experience that will involve only them.

The future humanity, "the new humanity", as the individualists understand it, constitutes a gigantic arena where, as much in thought and custom as in technique, all imaginable projects, plans, associations and practices will struggle and compete with each other.

It is because of these well-established characteristics that "the new humanity" in no way resembles, can have no meeting-point with ours, "the old humanity". It will be poly-dynamic, polymorphous, multilateral.

When someone asks exactly how, in "the future humanity" that individualists want, one will solve some litigious point, it is clear that the questioner does not understand. But one can reply with certainty that there will never be a recourse to violence, compulsion or force to adjust a difference.

A good number of individualists think that the coming of "the future humanity" that individualists want, depends on an attack, on serious, rational and continued propaganda, against authoritarianism in all spheres ol human activity, whether in political or social economy, in morals, in art, in science, in literature. Arguing from the fact that the individual is born into—is thrust into—an already-organized society without being allowed to consent to it or reject it, or able to defend himself from it or oppose it, they deduce that this primordial fact confers on the victim the right to fife, without restrictions or reservations.

That is, the right to consumption, independent of economic politics; the right to individual choice of the method of production and the means of production; the right to choose the consumers he wants to benefit by his exchange; the right to choose whether to associate with others, and, if he refuses to associate, the right to the means of production sufficient to maintain himself; the right to choose his associates and the purpose for which he associates.

In other words, the right to behave as he finds most advantageous, at his own risk, with no limit other than encroachment on the behaviour of others (to put it another way, the use of violence, compulsion or coercion towards one who behaves differently than you).

The right to the guarantee that he will not be forced to do what he considers personally disagreeable or disadvantageous, or hindered from doing what he wants to (he will not, therefore, resort to pnysical force, deceit or fraud in order to gain what appears useful, advantageous or agreeable to him). The right to circulate freely, to move wherever

he pleases, to propagate those doctrines, opinions, propositions and theses that he feels impelled to, with the reservation of not using violence in any form to put them into practice; the right to experiment in all fields and all forms, to publicize his experiences, to recruit the associates needed for their realization, on condition that only those who really want to will participate and that those who no longer want to can withdraw; the right to consumption and to means of production, even if he refuses to participate in any system, method or institution that seems to him disadvantageous.

The right to life, that is, the right to make one's own happiness as one feels impelled to, alone or together with those one feels particularly attracted to, without fear of intervention or intrusion by personalities or organizations incompatible with one's ego or with the association of which one is momentarily part.

The individualists think that the guarantee of the right to life, thus conceived, is the least a human individual can demand when he realizes what an authoritarian and arbitrary act was committed in bringing him into the world. They think also that all propaganda for these demands favours the advent of a transformed mentality,

The struggle for the abolition of the monopoly of the State, or of any other executive form replacing it—against its intervention as centralizer, administrator, regulator, moderator, organizer or otherwise in any relation among individuals—equally favours, these individualists think, the emergence of this mentality.

I am aware that a good number of anarchist individualists have no interest in the "future humanity". For them: "Without risk of erring too far, we can assume: 1. That there will never be a general, collective, life from which authority is absolutely excluded; 2. That in all societies there will be individuals or groups who are protestants, malcontents, critics and negators. Without doubt, we will witness transformations, improvements, modifications, even upheavals. The capitalist system of production may vanish in the'end, gradually or forcibly. Little by little, one will work less, earn more; reforms will come, menacingly, inevitably. There may be an economic regime unlike ours. But whatever the social system, good sense indicates that its permanence depends on a system of regulation adapted to the average mentality of the people in it. Whether they want to, or not, those to the right or left of the average regulation must conform their behaviour to it; and it matters little whether its basis is exclusively economic, or biological, or moral.

"Experience indicates that towards refractories they will use the only arguments men can dispose of: politics or violence, persuasion or compulsion, bargaining or command.

"The crowd always goes towards him who speaks well aod carries himself well. Its angers last no longer than its admirations. It is always easy to fool and seduce. One can no more base oneself on it now than a century or a thousand years ago. The mass belongs to the strongest, the most superficial, the most slippery. In such a situation, what do anarchist individualists do, what will they do?

"1. Some reply that they will remain within the milieu and struggle to affirm themselves—without concerning themselves too much with choice of means, for their great concern—the concern of their lives—is. at all costs, to react against external determination of their lives. It is to affirm oneself if not to diminish the pressure of the milieu on oneself. They are reactors, refractories, propagandists, revolutionaries, utilizing all possible means of battle: education, violence, ruse, illegalism. They seize occasions when the Power is abusive to stir up rebelliousness among its victims. But it is for pleasure that they act, and not for the profit of the sufferers, or by abusing them by vain words. They go, they come, mingling in a movement or withdrawing, as their independence is or is not in danger of restriction, parting company with those they have called to revolt as soon as they pretend to follow them or constitute themselves a party. Perhaps they do, more than they are.

"2. Others situate themselves on the margin of the milieu. Having somehow obtained means of production, they preoccupy themselves with making their separation from the milieu a reality, trying to produce enough for themselves, while eliminating the factitious and the surplus.

"Because men, in general, seem to them hardly worth bothering about, they maintain only the minimum relations with people and human institutions, and their social life is limited to the company of selected 'comrades of ideas'. They group together at times, but only temporarily, and the limited association of which they are part is never delegated power to dispose of their product. The rest of the world exists for them only little or much—to the extent that they need it. Perhaps they are, more than they do.

"Between these two conceptions of individualist life, the diverse anarchist individualist temperaments range themselves."

For the comrades whose opinions I have just transcribed, any sketch of "future humanity", any hypothesis of an individualist milieu, is a work of imagination, pure literary fantasy. They maintain that, for the mentality, the general will, really to transform itself, it would be necessary that "the species on the road to degeneration, the 'directed categories', deliver the earth of their presence: and that is not likely."

It was only justice to make known this point of view that no individualist forgets, even when he speaks of becoming social.

For having depicted in broad strokes a tableau of "the new humanity" to which we would like to evolve, we cannot be taxed with being "future-society-ists". The anarchist individualist is not a future-society-ist: a presentist, he could not, without bad reasoning and illogic. think of sacrificing his being, or his having, to the coming of a stale of things he will not immediately enjoy. Individualist thought admits no equivocation on this point. It is amid the old humanity, the humanity of dominators and dictators of all kinds, that the "new humanity" appears, takes shape, becomes. Individualists are permanent and personal revolutionaries, they try to practise, in themselves, in their circle, in their relations with their comrades of ideas, their particular concepts of individual and group life. Every time one of the characteristics of the "new humanity" implants itself in the mores, every time one or more human beings, at their risk and peril, anticipate them by word or action, "the new humanity is realized."

In the domain of art, letters, science, ethics, personal conduct, even in the economic sphere, one finds individuals who think and act contrary to the customs, usages, routines, prejudices and conventions of the "old society", and attempt to break them down. In their kind of activity, they too represent the new humanity. Already the individualists take part in it, by their way of behaving towards the old world, because they reveal in each of their actions their intention, their will, their hope of seeing the individual free himself from the constraint of the herd, the mentality of the mass.

Can one hope that after many a flux and reflux, many a sad attempt, humanity will some day come to conscientious practice of reciprocity, to the anti-authoritarian, individualist—anarchist individualist—solution, the solution of equal liberty?

Can one anticipate that, more enlightened, more educated, better informed, the inhabitants of our planet will at last come to understand that neither coercion, nor domination of the majority, the 61ite, the dictatorship of an autocrat, class or caste, are capable of assuring happiness—that is, of reducing avoidable suffering? It is the secret of the future.

But, optimistic or pessimistic in this respect, the anarchist individualist will not the less continue to denounce the prejudice which gives statist authority its force: the superstition of necessary government; and to live as though the prejudice and this superstition did not exist.

IN THE FIELD OF RADICAL ACTIVITIES, in France, wfcere one meets with so many ^ tendencies and where there is room for various forms of expression, E. Armand has chosen his own path. An Individualist Anarchist, he moves outside of other anarchist groups. He advances upon a trail which he has blazed for himself, in ecirpany of a nucleus of comrades who share his views, and who, in all freedom of choice, act accordingly.

He, therefore, independently of other existing groupings or organizations, carries on his work, not depending on the assistance of any party or person, in fine, he acts in conformity with his own ideas and free will.

He exerts his activity as a propagandist, first of all in the publishing of "l'en-dehors" ₍ an organ he founded in 1922, and in behalf of various associations which he subsequently formed.

E. Armand does not content himself with the written word. With the help of canrades, be organizes propaganda tours in many provincial towns, which permit him to defend and propagate his theories in a more direct manner.

But it is in Paris that his initiative and efforts have given the most fruitful and most interesting results. Although visiting there but two or three times a month, he has established a "milieu" of comrades and friends who gather eagerly in a cafe in the Montparnasse quarter of the Tenple, to assist and participate if they so desire, in educational talks, covering numerous and various subjects.

In is this group of sympathizers,where discussions do not lack in vivacity, that the personality of E. Armand stands out in a characteristic manner. At first encounter, be gives the inpression of a man of sirrple manners, devoid of any vulgarity, who does not place himself upon any pedestal....

In his private conversations, E. Armand can put himself on a level with his questioner and answer him accordingly, whether tte questioner presents a problem in philosophy or confesses to some event in his domestic life, whether he belongs to the "genteel set" that ventures among the anarchists or, whether he is a bohemian or a vagabond.

E. Armand is not an orator. Nevertheless, when he delivers a lecture, he interests his audience by the clarity of his exposition, and also by a certain charm of voice. It is in repartee that he excels. The manner in which he questions the speaker on the topic that has just been developed gives rise to lively debates, stirs interest and discussion.

E. Armand unquestionably possesses the gift of bringing animation into a lecture hall, of creating an intense atmosphere, and, on occasion, of making effective use of sharp and biting irony....

1 'en-dehors". In this paper, which has since become a magazine with a circulation of 6,000, representing a minimum of 15,000 readers, he carries on a constant and often harsh and arduous struggle, for the propagation of ideas

that are dear to him and which he considers useful, lie fights against all prejudices morality, of the family, of the Fatherland, of the State.

Aiming at an educational goal, he seeks to undermine ready made ideas to encourage mental reflection, and, as far as can be done, to create new men talities. To liberate the individual, such is his object; to liberate him in all domains, from the yoke of the State and of the Church; to make him understand that the full strength of the individual lies within himself.

Above all, he works to pave the way for sexual liberation. By numerous article' and panphlets of his own and of his collaborators, such as Gerard de Lacaze-Duthiers and Dr. A. R. Proschowsky, he strives to overthrow one of the strongest prejudices prevailing to-day, as well as hypocrisy which is one of its fundamental causes.

Going beyond the point of view of Free Union, which is a faithful replica of Legal Union, he demands for each, the free disposal of his or her body, the right for the woman as well as for the man to choose her or his partner, to practice plurality in love and sex, if urged by their temperament.

Again, he claims for the sexual ancmalists and varietists, the right to satisfy their desires without being hindered by material obstacles, without incurring ' noral or legal disrepute, which overwhelm them today. He advocates a hedonistic conception of life, claiming for the individual, the right to all enjoyments, however: upon condition that he be discerning enough to distinguish between use and abuse.

The most original part of his work is perhaps the theory of "Anurous Comradeship" (Camaraderie .Amoureuse), the essential idea of which consists in bringing within the scope of the realm of canradeship the amorous and sentimental affinities.

To attain this goal, he has conceived the formation of groups, circles or clubs where this form of comradeship would be practiced, which would banish the prejudices concerning age, appearance and class; where jealousy and exclusiveness in love would be unknown.

To give a more exact idea of the policy which E. Armand has caused "1 'en-dehor- ' to follow at the present time, we insert this extract, which appeared in the October 15 issue and which is better than all possible interpretations:

In all places, the Anarchist Individualists of our tendencies, want to establish forthwith and for all time a society based on individual achievement, and in which, without any control or interference whatever fran the State, all individuals may be able to regulate their affairs between themselves bv leans of FREE CONTRACT, cancellable after due notice. Their free associations to be the unions of comrades, based on the exercise of "reciprocity" or EQUAL LIBERTY. The Anarchist Individualists consider as their enemies all those institutions and individuals who, directly or by proxy, wish to subject them to their authority and use force, if necessary - in other words, all partisans of IMPOSED CONTRACT. They reserve the right to defend themselves, bv all means at their disposal, even by ruse, if need be.

Individualists whose tendencies are in accord with those expressed in "l'en-dehors", oppose jealousy in sexual relationships and exclusiveness in love, which they hold to be authoritarian manifestations. Thev propagate the theory of "Amorous Canradeship".

They decand .ALL SEXUAL LIBERTIES, (provided they are not tainted with violence, deceit, fraud, or venality), inducting the right of education, free expression, variety, and association.

If E. .Armand appears as a bold theoretician and a precursor in sexualism to those who think and are not biased, he is, on the other hand, actively opposed by many, even among anarchists.

If the attacks against him were honest, there would be nothing to say, but it is too often that his friends have had the occasion to hear his public as well as his private life disparaged by men who, undoubtedly at heart, only desired to harm a personality such as his.

Indeed, it is quite possible to feel an antipathy for the person of E. Armand, to oondeim his ideas as pernicious (I try to judge this from the point of view of his enemies), but, could his opponents recognize in him the propagandist who gives himself without stint to his work, with conplete disinterestedness, and perservering in spite of all disappointments encountered on the way, then they would do him justice. (Paris)

(Translated from the French by J. Rudome. Reprinted from Abba Gordin's journal THE CLARION, Feb. 1933. Edited for THE STORM!)

_/ t BtXJ. R. TUCKER, Editor nd Putluktr '

f • NOT THE. DAUGHTER BUT THE MOTHER Of ORDER

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FOR SOME TIME THE SEXUAL "HETERODOXES" have resolved to no longer let themselves be placed under a ban by Society. They have recently formed an "International Committee for Sexual Equality" to claim for homosexuals (or homophiles) the same status as heterosexuals, that is, those who are considered as practicing normal sexuality. This protesting minority is not raising a revolutionary banner, it is simply referring to the Declaration of the Rights of Man formulate by the U.N., which declares that in theory, "all beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights". We do not wish to comment this affirmation, but we applaud this reaction by men and women who no longer wish to be sacrificed by barbarous laws, the victims of a social "boycott" and dupes of continual blackmail.

There are heterosexuals, homosexuals, and bisexuals just as there are tall and short people. That is the fact, against which there should be no prejudging by a prefabricated morality resting on religious traditions, irrational prohibitions, politico-social considerations. It's not a question of approving or blaming but, I repeat, of fact — just as there exist chastity, monogamy, polygamy, polyandry, promiscuity. While these expressions of sexual activity have, in the course of history, obtained the protection of customs, laws, and the approval of certain societies, "1'homophilie" and bisexuality are considered bad, deserving of rebuke and even looked on as delinquincies. We must, speaking "grosso modo", refer to ancient Greece or go to the Orient to find an understanding attitude toward "1'homophili_e" _{( to}speak of it only as an "anomaly". We should not believe that pederasty was foreign to the Romans. I cite Suetonius and his History of the Twelve Caesars.

I AM QUITE SURPRISED NOT TO SEE EDWARD CARPENTER mentioned among the names cited in French periodicals (1)...which try to raise homosexuals from the inferiority complex in which moral leaders try to maintain them. I knew Edward Carpenter well, who died at age 82 in 1929; I often corresponded with him: for a long time he spoke for the "underdog". All who have struggled, in one way or another, for the recognition of the right to sexual equality regard him as one of the greatest leaders in vindicating this right.

Naturally, when in "I'Unique" we support the thesis of free sexuality, it is in connection with "self mastery". There is no question of claiming the right to impose one's inclinations on another who does not share it. We are for any association of the "I" with the "non-I" in any domain or for whatever purpose which is based on a carefully worked-out contract and subject to modifications agreed or in advance. Voluntary associations can only be entered into between individuals who are morally balanced, of sound mind, knowing what they want. Whether it's a matter of sexual liberty or any other kind, it is no longer liberty when there is an implication of violence, force, fraud,

venality. We do not confuse psychopathic manifestations with the affirmation of the individual who seeks to respect himself; but not to be aogressive toward one who is not interested, to throw trouble in the development of his personality, to interfere in his affairs. It is on]y a matter of accepting himself.

Edward Carpenter, in "Love's Coming of Age", is concerned with the relations of the sexes. In the chapter entitled "The Intermediary Sex," following the Austrian author K.H. Ulrichs, he expounds the thesis that there are men whose nature is basically feminine, and women whose nature is basically masculine. These are the "Uranians" (homophiles). (2)

It is understood, then ,that these men and women are attracted by and toward those of their own sex, with respect to sentiments of love and friendship. It's a matter ofa particular temperament.(every population has a certain percentage of this type of person), not of sickness, of a morbid state, of physical or moral degeneration. There is thus no reason to consider them inferior to other types of humanity, all the more since those of the Uranian temperament include persons out of the ordinary, writers, artists and others. (3) Edward Carpenter thought that the "intermediaries" can fulfill a mission of reconciliation and interpretation between men and women whom we designate as normal and who so often battle with one another.

The author of "Civilization, Its Cause and Cure", of "Non-Governmental Society", whom T.H. Bell qualified as an English Tolstoy, has published "Iolaus, Anthology of Friendship" that... contains a selection of readings on celebrated masculine friendships (Edward Carpenter has always insisted on the platonic aspect of homosexuality without making it a dogma, of course). We find Achilles and Patroclus, Agesilas and Lysander, Alexander and Hephestion, Damon and Pythias, Ludwig of Bavaria and R. Wagner, Montaigne and La Boetie, Solomon the Magnificent and Ibrahim, Tennyson and Hallam...(4) Naturally, I only mention some of the names, but in the readings given to us — and legends — it turns out that exclusively masculine friendships have been productive of acts of devotion and deeds of remarkable fidility. Edward Carpenter is less prolix concerning exclusively feminine friendships. Of course there is Sappho whom one may consider as the first feminist of history — what Alcibiades and Charmides and Phaedrus were to Socrates, Pyrinna and Athis and Anactoria were to her, "a la Lesbienne"..'.

If, to my knowledge, in the publications to which I have referred, one does not mention or hardly mentions Edward Carpenter, a recent work "Oscar Wilde, or the destiny of the homosexual"... by M. Robert Merle, gives a new revival to the case of Oscar Wilde.

"THE LIFE OF OSCAR WILDE" BY HESKETH PEARSON... contains all the biographical elements needed to satisfy the curiosity of those interested in the author of "Salome". She follows him step by step, from his birth to his death. She shows him to us under his different aspects, studying at Oxford, engaged in the artistic movement of his epoch, critic, poet, author of plays for the theatre, lecturer, brilliant conversationalist, knowing success up to the age of forty. Entire

chapters are devoted to his trial, his imprisonment and his voluntary exile, up to his deplorable end. Numerous photoaraphic reproduces V¹?*"' ^s^.^";"^nderh^dlffe«nt aspects and at different perils his life...This biography put together impartially, written without emotion, has a classical allure, and its 400 pages should be consulted by anyone who wants to form an opinion of the mar, who wrote "A Woman of No Importance".

sought applause, he spoke of thinys in which those who heard hirr could not be intellectually superior. Certainly he was an insulter; he had many other faults, he was what he was, not wicked in spite of everything. All that is known. But I want those who think of his work as empty to consider whether they could have written "The Picture of Dorian Gray" or "Lord Savile's Crime" or "The Importance of Being Earnest", one of the best plays of the English theatre — or "The Soul of Man Under Socialism" — or any of his stories, some of which are delightful. They belittle this romantic —for that is what Wilde was -an easy task, but their hands are empty while their mouths are full of insults. I am not a psychoanalyst, but I defy anyone with the least bit of poetry in him to read "The Ballad of Reading Gaol" without being moved. Now that's poetry! It doesn't matter to me that Wilde throughout his days, developed the image of a bluffer, vain and diffi cult. Who doesn't do some of that in the theatre of life -- and can anyone exist without it? Oscar Wilde said, "He who asks questions is never the one who answers them" — a saying which goes far.

Unfortunately, Wilde declined after his imprisonment. This imprisonment was not of long duration. We have known men who have endured years and years of prison, and when they got out resumed the struggle. But not him: those two years had used him up, emptied him out, left him without resort. And why? He felt himself "punished by his own conscience, condemned by his deepest self".

I think that true homosexuality is congenital and not subject to any therapy. Not being homsexual myself, nor ever having been one, I have met homophiles who do not disguise themselves, persons who are loyal, disinterested and reliable; well, I think the repenters, the conversions to religious faith, in cases of innate homosexuality, are simulations, concessions to outside pressure. Even when platonic, the true homosexual remains a homosexual. Such is my opinion.

The downfall of Wilde, his feeling of guilt (?) does not mean that he regretted or deplored his homosexual temperament,but that his "homo-philie" was so linked to the social role he wanted to play in the world, that he felt, once out of prison, that it would be impossible henceforth to parade before his comtemporaries. For a man like hjm, it was inadmissable, inconceivable. A convinced revolutionary, an inveterate gangster -- pardon the comparison — can be imprisoned a^ long time and when let out, start all over again, the former his heroic propaganda, the latter his perilous exploits, and it is certain that among these revolutionaries and gangsters, temporarily removed from circulation, there are some homophiles, but their homophiiie

,S not part of their other role; what dominates them is the kind of life they arc leading, in which homosexuality is secondary. Thus Os.-ii Wilde was not the victim of his homosexuality, lv.it of the hypocrisy or Society which rejects the anomalous (I do not write the "abnormal"), and which is tolerant only so far as the anomalous does not give rise to public scandal. He could not surmount the scandal.

WE MUST PRAISE M. ROBERT MERLE for his courageous protest against the repression of homosexuality, heritage of the prejudices of another age, sequel of a medieval mentality. Tn France up to 1945, homosexuality was not -edified as a felony ("delit"). It fell under the common law which punished public offenses against decency, or lewd acts committed on minors less than thirteen years of age {less than twenty-one years if it was a question of influencing them). The ordinance of February 8, 1945 aggravates the sanctions provided with respect to homosexuality, it decides that "without prejudice" the maximum punishment...will be six months to three years, and a fine of 4000 francs to one million (5) for whoever has committed an act that is obscene or against nature with an individual of the same sex less than 21 years old...This law has for its object the protection of minors, whom M. Robert Merle believes to be sufficiently protected by the laws in force before 1945. Besides, what was a felony at age 21 less one day ceases to be one at 21 years plus one day. Stupefying! What is serious in the system of the repression of homosexuality — and not only of homosexuality — is that it encourages informing and blackmail, and enables professional swindlers to get rich almost without risk. An excess of morality breeds an excess of immorality.

(1) "Arcadie" and "Futur". Armand notes an exception to this observation in the April 1955 issue of "Arcadie". (M.A.S.)

(2) From "Uranos", heaven. K.H. Ulrichs thought that the love of the I'ranians was superior to ordinary love. (E.A.)

(3) In a volume in the series "Studies of Sexual Psychology" ("Sexual Inversion"), Havelock Ellis notes that Hans Anderson and Kierkegaard were suspected of inversion. They were in high and noble company. In the 18th century one class of society (the clergy) were among the "sectarians of the philosophic sin" (Voltaire style) According to Dubois-Dessaule... there were a number of churchmen in the Paris police reports. The list is long. It was the same in Bavaria and Swabia, where "non-conformism in love" was found. We wonder what became of Adolf Brand, the anarchist editor of "Der Cigene" — an individualist title if ever there was one. Did the Nazis assassinate him? (E.A.)

IXDIVLO. A] ISTS ARF THOSE iNAHCHISTtv ho fear the organized collective - Society -as much as the State and its institutions. Organized society, or governmental acfciinistration, are for them .vjuallv noxious and restrictive of individual initiative, reducing those whom they p>vern to the same connon denominator.

There are two ways of looking at hunan environment: either the individual exists for it, or it exists for the individual.

Individualists want an environment that is conceived for the individual, that is relative to the individual, that will neither exist nor function . \cept l\ ;uid for the individual.

One nay criticise this egoistic conception of a human milieu. One rnav think it mid, prejudiced, not likely to endure. That may be the case, but anyone who has not understood it, has understood nothing of individualist-anarchist life and work.

Individualists are always on guard against the encroachments of Society which, under different aspects, considers the individual as nothing but "human material" and sees his welfare only in terms of his being a piece of machinery - economic, political, moral, and so foith. Now, a piece of machinery is only serviceable insofar as it fulfills the role given to it. A piece of machinery that guts out of order or stops, threatens the working of the whole mechanism. One cannot conceive of a spring, a fly-wheel, or an element of a battery that would dispute its utility - that would be the end of the imchine to which it belonged.

The individualist refuses to occupy the place of a cog in the social machine, and struggles with all his forces to reduce its constraint, if not to nothing, then at least to a minimum. His great and supreme concern is to defend himself against its attacks. He succeeds or he fails; but, conqueror or conquered, his state of mind, his way of acting, remain the same. After all, he is never completely beaten - he suffers, but he does not submit; his acquiescence is a pretense; he tumbles himself only in appearance. He considers any conpulsory contract as invalid, even making use of the law to render it "null and void". The individualist responds to the force of obligation with the strength ol strategy, he opposes personal mtelligence to collective violence. That i-why, as long as he lives, he ignores final defeat. Even when crushed, even when unable to move, tlx? individualist does not cease to rebel inwardly.

Max Stirner has with good reason distinguished between revolution and rebellion. The revolutionary aims at a total change in society according to a plan defined in advance, or which can be defined later on. Tl>- rebel struggle"-' t«> reduce or annihilate tlx? oppression which weighs upon him. lie fights in order not to be forbidden to be or to do, so that he can maintain or affirm his .lutonomy. The individualist does not pretend to have n secret or a panacea that will make everyone happy. He rebels against everything that 1<-niLs to restrain hi- power, that prevents his attaining personal _w>ll-lving (this well-being being conceived of us outside of tlie domination and exploitation of others.)

WHLX FACED KITH A SCIENTIFIC OH TECHNOLOGICAL DISCOVERS', the individualist does not ask if this "proges-s" will, for exanple, shorten his hours or work - he asks first of all if it will make him more, or less, dependent upon the social whole. That is his standard: greater or less dependence upon Soc ty. It is in relation to hi/reelf that he judges the evolution of the forms of production or of icimnistration. He says: "All very well your discoveries and their application; your barrack-like workshops, houses and schools; your ordered, rationalised and regimented production; your civic memoranda, your social control of the individual, .our protection of the citizen - as far as I am concerned, as an individualist, will all this make me more, or less, dependent upon Society?"

The "union of egoists"is before all a defense association composed of individuals wanting to make themselves more independent of the organized collective. Inside these assocations they intend - no matter what end they pursue, or rules they willingly inpose upon themselves - to escape from the confines of Society and to resist its encroachments. "Hie more they can create these associations, the more Society loses its power. The more they can make free agreements, the more the compulsory social contract loses its importance. Voluntary association and free agreement demonstrate the uselessness of corrpulsory contracts and Society, sice , with them, one obtains superior results as regards the autonomy and affirmation of the individual, to those offered by any social organization, which inevitably sacrifices the individual to the efficacy of the machine. Divide and rule is also an individualist device.

Dd not challenge the individualist with the existence of a heritage, fruit of the labours of former generations. Before examining what this heritafje is really worth to him, the individualist will answer that the fact of being thrust into a world to whose organization he must submit, willy-nilly, amply compensates for the hypothetical advantages of this heritage.

Do not demand that the individualist cooperate in a collective transformation of society which makes the ego more dependent upon the mentality of the social herd r majority - the producing and consuming agglomeration! The individualist will only cooperate in a transformation which implies a complete change of current values - that is to say, one wich will base the social upon the individual.

Do not speak to the individualist of forms of society which later on (when he will no longer be there to enjoy them) will relate hunan environment to the individual. He is neither an illuninati, nor a mystic: for him, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. He does not mind being called short-sighted, or accused of having a narrow horizon. He speaks to the present. And he argues that, if the rational instinct of self-preservation had got the better of all other considerations, the world would not find itself in the inpasse into which it has been driven. It is not the egoist, nor the union of egoists, that has led hunanity to the brink of annihilation. It is the sacrifice of the ego to altruist - the altruism of the State, Society, Collectivity, Nation, Party, Religion, etc. On the altar of forced solidarity has been thrown the self, stubborn and bleeding. Today is being reaped what has been sown. The collective follows the individual into the grave. And this is just. It has not been understood that in eliminating the individual, one is preparing for the ruin of all.

No inventor has ever bothered about individual production - I mean to sav, the application of scientific discoveries for the profit of the personal producer r maker. So we get crises, enforced idleness, customs barriers, menacing wars, .ertainly there is mass product ion; but this is parralleled by mass destruction.

not so obvious as the right to e.xistence^f tto^ nJtter £ ^eX1Ster>(* conception of life? ^{wh0 neither} share nor adopt his

That is why one will always find the individualist - in association ™ , willing to make an agreement with any social groupingaSSSne ?o rUl™ ~ of which each party will live and organize ti^L sSts r L ™ „ guaranteeing security. That is why one will always fi^L^i^L^' ^mitUallywilling to renounce the "protection of the State", "the beLf?£ from the monent they are left "free" to live theirawn .1 ♦2«^&Clety '

of than. Against any collectivity whicTt^o &JTXL Z Z™* against their consent, individualists will Send tteSel^ _Apermanent rebellion, open _or concealed according to^S^L* £ \

The following rare anarchist and tmtualist literature, originally fror. the estate of Laurance Labadie, are being offered for sale. Prices include postage and other fees, ^'itb each order will be enclosed selected leaflets published by Laurance, or his father, Jo Labadie.

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