Reflections on the Anarchist Principle

By Paul Goodman (1966)

Entry 3301

Public

From: holdoffhunger [id: 1]
(holdoffhunger@gmail.com)

../ggcms/src/templates/revoltlib/view/display_childof_anarchism.php

Untitled Anarchism Reflections on the Anarchist Principle

Not Logged In: Login?

0
0
Comments (0)
Images (1)
Permalink
(1911 - 1972)

American Writer, Critic, Psychotherapist, and Anarchist Philosopher

: As the movement became the Movement and shifted to a struggle between the Old Left and the New Left, Goodman remained unapologetically free. Many of his former followers abandoned him as he refused to offer a blueprint for building structures for the future, preferring the formulation of here, now, next. (From: Fitzgerald Bio.)
• "Anarchism is grounded in a rather definite proposition: that valuable behavior occurs only by the free and direct response of individuals or voluntary groups to the conditions presented by the historical environment. It claims that in most human affairs, whether political, economic, military, religious, moral, pedagogic, or cultural, more harm than good results from coercion, top-down direction, central authority, bureaucracy, jails, conscription, states, pre-ordained standardization, excessive planning, etc." (From: "The black flag of anarchism," by Paul Goodman.)
• "There cannot be a history of anarchism in the sense of establishing a permanent state of things called 'anarchist.' It is always a continual coping with the next situation, and a vigilance to make sure that past freedoms are not lost and do not turn into the opposite, as free enterprise turned into wage-slavery and monopoly capitalism, or the independent judiciary turned into a monopoly of courts, cops, and lawyers, or free education turned into School Systems." (From: "The black flag of anarchism," by Paul Goodman.)
• "As our families are, the children in both their present satisfaction and the free growth of their powers, are certainly crushed, thwarted, pushed, hurt, and misled by their hostile and doting grown-ups. Frankly, I doubt that you can find one child in a dozen who is not being seriously injured, in quite definite and tangible ways, by his family." (From: "The Children and Psychology," by Paul Goodman.)


On : of 0 Words

Reflections on the Anarchist Principle

 Photo by Danny Hammontree, CC BY-NC-ND License

Photo by Danny Hammontree,
CC BY-NC-ND License

Anarchism is grounded in a rather definite proposition: that valuable behavior occurs only by the free and direct response of individuals or voluntary groups to the conditions presented by the historical environment. It claims that in most human affairs, whether political, economic, military, religious, moral, pedagogic, or cultural, more harm than good results from coercion, top-down direction, central authority, bureaucracy, jails, conscription, States, preordained standardization, excessive planning, etc. Anarchists want to increase intrinsic functioning and diminish extrinsic power. This is a social-psychological hypothesis with obvious political implications. Depending on varying historical conditions that present various threats to the anarchist principle, anarchists have laid their emphasis in varying places: sometimes agrarian, sometimes free-city and guild-oriented; sometimes technological, sometimes anti-technological; sometimes communist, sometimes affirming property; sometimes individualist, sometimes collective; sometimes speaking of Liberty as almost an absolute good, sometimes relying on custom and “nature.” Nevertheless, despite these differences, anarchists seldom fail to recognize one another, and they do not consider the differences to be incompatibilities. Consider a crucial modern problem, violence. Guerrilla fighting has been a classical anarchist technique; yet where, especially in modern conditions, any violent means tends to reinforce centralism and authoritarianism, anarchists have tended to see the beauty of nonviolence. Now the anarchist principle is by and large true. And far from being “Utopian” or a “glorious failure,” it has proved itself and won out in many spectacular historical crises. In the period of mercantilism and patents royal, free enterprise by joint stock companies was anarchist. The Jeffersonian bill of rights and independent judiciary were anarchist. Congregational churches were anarchist. Progressive education was anarchist. The free cities and corporate law in the feudal system were anarchist. At present, the civil rights movement in the United States has been almost classically decentralist and anarchist And so forth, down to details like free access in public libraries. Of course, to later historians, these things do not seem to be anarchist, but in their own time they were all regarded as such and often literally called such, with the usual dire threats of chaos. But this relativity of the anarchist principle to the actual situation is of the essence of anarchism. There cannot be a history of anarchism in the sense of establishing a permanent state of things called “anarchist.” It is always a continual coping with the next situation, and a vigilance to make sure that past freedoms are not lost and do not turn into the opposite, as free enterprise turned into wage-slavery and monopoly capitalism, or the independent judiciary turned into a monopoly of courts, cops, and lawyers, or free education turned into School Systems.

From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org

Chronology

Back to Top
An icon of a book resting on its back.
April, 1966
Reflections on the Anarchist Principle — Publication.

An icon of a news paper.
July 13, 2019; 4:57:10 PM (UTC)
Added to http://revoltlib.com.

An icon of a red pin for a bulletin board.
January 3, 2022; 10:57:21 AM (UTC)
Updated on http://revoltlib.com.

Image Gallery of Reflections on the Anarchist Principle

Back to Top

Comments

Back to Top

Login to Comment

0 Likes
0 Dislikes

No comments so far. You can be the first!

Navigation

Back to Top
<< Last Entry in Anarchism
Current Entry in Anarchism
Reflections on the Anarchist Principle
Next Entry in Anarchism >>
All Nearby Items in Anarchism
Home|About|Contact|Privacy Policy