By Being Bold

DANTON’S FAMOUS PHRASE, “BOLDNESS, MORE BOLDNESS, FOREVER BOLDNESS,” has lost nothing of its synthetic value. It remains a great truth that we must never lose sight of; it remains the sole motto for those not content to vegetate in the marshes.

I thought of this the past few days upon reading of the tragic death of a young man who yesterday was obscure and part of the mass of young idlers and is today famous because he was bold. An aviator: Chávez.

It was necessary to be strong to conceive the mad dream of traveling through space above the white peaks that only eagles can reach. And how much determination and boldness did the aviator need to attempt this perilous flight? But having reached these heights, gliding over the snowy Alps, he lived minutes that were worth more than many lives. He felt himself to be a man par excellence, valiant, strong, the risk-taker, through the ardent effort by which all human works have been accomplished. For only those who were capable of risking all in vertiginous flights; those who had the strength to conceive the accomplishment of the impossible and to want it—the thinkers, apostles, and adventurers—were the demolishers of old civilizations and builders of new lives.

The boldness of Christopher Columbus and Amerigo Vespucci conquered a continent; the innovative boldness of Stephenson overturned the modern world by creating the machine and the railroad; Edison, gambling his life in his laboratory; others traveling the world despite pursuit and prison to bring routine-ridden cities their bold thoughts and acts; and that young man killed the other day. These men, strong, determined, bold, left their imprint on life, they destroyed, created, lived. The others do nothing; the others, without knowing why, guard and defend the shadowy routine in which they suffocate. The others lack both the force to destroy and the intelligence to build. And they pass right by life, like stumbling blind men, without hopes or desires.

I thought of these things upon learning of the agony and death of the unfortunate Chávez, who paid with his life for the error of having been too daring. But hasn’t it always been thus? There can only be two endings to the great struggle that is accepted by men of energy; one of the two things is fatal: since the man takes a risk he will kill himself or be killed. And what difference does it make if before that he tasted all possible joys, known all possible happiness, savored the battle, felt the pleasure of victory?

Or else he will be killed. Laws are made to prevent the strong from living; their mission is to level things in such a way that no one dares be braver or more intelligent than the cowardly and rotten mass which, in any case, hates those who rise above it. For slaves, in fact, the enemy is not the master, it is the untamed. For the crowd the enemy is the individual. For the strong being is above all an individual. Renan said, “The great men of a nation are those it kills.” The eternal conflict that bloodies history has no other causes. In Athens, in Alexandria, in Rome, in antiquity as in modern cities, the same struggle tore society apart: the crowd against the individual. The strangling authorities are created and supported by crowds in order to contain individual rebellions. “All against one”—this is the slogan. And yet, progress only occurs thanks to bold individuals.

Intelligence, will, boldness—to understand, to will, to dare—human strength can be summed up in these three words. But those who possess it being dangerous to a social order, whose most solid bases are precisely stupidity, weakness, and poltroonery; and men of a virile allure being, by definition, hated by brutes, it follows that of necessity everything is done to stifle in these minds the triple seed of revolt.

In school they rot the brain of the child who might have resisted—though this is difficult—the family’s continuous oppression. The workshop then cheats him and predisposes him for the barracks if he’s a male, or marriage and prostitution if she’s a female. The brothel and the barracks do the rest. The being comes out of this emptied, castrated, and flabby. If in an outburst of anger he wasn’t able to smash the chains in time he is completely lost—to himself and us.

This is the way honest people are made, the perfect citizens, good workers and excellent soldiers. Is intelligence necessary to pay your rent, work peacefully, put on and take off your uniform when you’re ordered to, to vote, to get drunk? What use would boldness be? And what could resist the long decay of such a pitiful existence?

It is thus true that most men don’t exist. At the very most they are number-fragments of the crowd. And crowds don’t think: they believe what others long dead impose on them. They are dominated by the dead. Crowds don’t reason; they become irritated, exasperated and enthusiastic depending on the leader; they are dominated by swindlers and megalomaniacs. Crowds don’t understand; they admit, and prestige blinds them just as vehemence frightens them. Crowds don’t want, they obey. They are fearful, cowardly, happy only in the beatitude of apathy.

At a certain moment every man has to face the same question: either you will have the strength to be a categorical “self” or you will disappear in the innumerable rabble of vague humanity.

Anarchists are those who don’t hesitate between the two possibilities. They remain those who have enough strength to resist the assault of the mob and, despite beatings, the law, and what people say, despite the crowd, are true to themselves: unbelievers, outsiders, rebels.

And the quality most needed to emerge victorious is boldness. The effort to be made isn’t a small one, but the results are worth it. There are many obstacles along the way. Sinister traps lie in wait for the insolent. Boldness is needed to take the first step. Will is needed to continue. Dare and risk with every step. And ever more boldness. Anarchists must be bold and not set themselves limits.

It’s better to be rash than pusillanimous.

The audacious are individualist by temperament. Whoever these rebels against universal weakness might be, no progress will occur without them. And so whenever a man’s daring is manifested through any effort of whatever kind I feel hope for amazing feats.

And so there are men who dare!

And so there are those who, for their pleasure, for their own personal satisfaction, risk their lives, like Chávez. And so there are those who, to carry out a task they have dedicated themselves to, accept the greatest risks. There are risk-takers, the bold.

How comforting the sight of them is after the cowardice of the banal. A vision of marvelous hopes. What if the example of these efforts entered into the plebe and gave rise to other and new feats of daring?

If poor wretches, the starving, seeing the Lathams, the Leblancs, the Chávezes, risk everything for the satisfaction of healthy pride said, “The efforts that these bourgeois dedicate to conquering the blue, we can dedicate to some happiness on this lowly planet.” What if the wretched who hunger and cold will murder this winter, if the slaves in the penal colonies found in themselves the boldness to risk everything as well?

They would see that there is a way not to be hungry. And he who was an honest imbecile yesterday will tomorrow be a rebel. The good soldier won’t wait to be freed to be free. The adolescent will say that we can love without going before the mayor. The boldness to think and, even more, the boldness to act will have revealed to them the splendor of living.

But first, you must dare.

Well then, the task of anarchists is to teach by example how to dare. To show how we can risk, how we can live boldly. Thumb our nose at laws and those who make them; laugh at conventions and live free despite it all.

Each of us must realize himself. Be neither a sect nor a school but clear, original, vigorous individuals living intelligently.

This is what we are bold enough to attempt. This is the boldness we would like to teach the pitiful people who are hampered by their own inertia.

(l’anarchie, October 6, 1910)