An Anthology of Individualist & Egoist Thought
This book tells the story of the most neglected tendency in anarchist thought; egoism.
The story of anarchism is usually told as a story of great bearded men who had beautiful ideas and a series of beautiful failures, culminating in the most beautiful failure of them all -- the Spanish Civil War: a noble history of failed ideas and practice.
Egoism, and individualist anarchism, suffer a different kind of fate. It is not a great history and glorious failure but an obscure series of stories of winning, with victory defined by the only terms that matter, those of people who lived life to their fullest and whose struggle against the existing order defined them. This struggle was not one of abstractions, of Big Ideas, but of people attempting to claim an authentic stake in their own life.
Inspired by the writings of Stirner's "The Ego and His Own" the assertion these people make is not of the composition of a better world (for everyone) but of how the machinations of society, especially one of abstractions and Big Ideas, have shaped the individual members of that society. How everything that we know and believe has been shaped (by structure and intent) into a conformed, denatured shadow of what we could be.
Individualists anarchists have always argued that anarchism should not be a version of heaven on earth but a "plurality of possibilities". This has relegated their activity to the actions that people make in their lives rather than participating in political bodies and formations that shape, and participate in, society. Egoists have gone to war with this world, robbed banks, practiced free love, and won everything except those things worth nothing: history, politics, & acceptance by society.
People like you have been denounced as "enemies of society". No doubt you would indignantly deny being such and claim that you are trying to save society from the vampire of the State. You delude yourselves. Insofar as "society" means an organized collectivity having one basic norm of behavior that must be accepted by all (and that includes your libertarian communist utopia) and insofar as the norm is a product of the average, the crowd, the mediocre, then anarchists are always enemies of society. There is no reason to suppose that the interests of the free individual and the interests of the social machine will ever harmonize, nor is it desirable that they should. Permanent conflict between the two is the only perspective that makes any sense to me. But I expect that you will not see this, that you will continue to hope that if you repeat "the free society is possible" enough times then it will become so.
Table of Contents
1. Rejecting the Stamp of Group Approval: first wave individualists in the US and Europe
James L. Walker: A Unique One
What is Justice? by James L. Walker
On Rights, by James L. Walker
Stirner on Justice, by Tak Kak
Selfhood Terminates Blind Man's Bluff, by Tak Kak
Egoism in Sexual Relations, by Tak Kak
Egoism, by John Beverly Robinson
Biographical note: John Beverly Robinson
The Land of the Altruists: a parable for the infantile class, by John Beverly Robinson
Posterity: the New Superstition, by Benjamin De Casseres
Zo d'Axa's Heresy
Individualism, by Pierre Chardon
Biographical note: Pierre Chardon
What do the Individualists Want? by The “Reveil De L'Eschlave" Group of Paris
Renzo Novatore – Outlaw Anarchist, by Daniel Giraud
Iconoclasts, Forward!
Cry of Rebellion, by Renzo Novatore
In the Kingdom of the Spooks, by Renzo Novatore
Biographical note: Renzo Novatore
The Bonnot Gang: A Reminiscence, by E. Bertran
Notes on Individualism, by E. Bertran
Three European Individualists: some notes on Armand, Martucci, and Novatore, by S.E. Parker
Individualist Perspectives, by E. Armand
Is the Anarchist Ideal Realizable? by E. Armand
Biographical note: E. Armand
An Introduction to E. Armand; what he was for, what he was against, by S.E. Parker
E. Armand: Sexual Liberationist, by Catherine Campousy
Letter to E. Armand, by America Scarfo
On Sexual Equality: Edward Carpenter & Oscar Wilde, by E. Armand
Individual Differences: my polemic with E. Armand, by Enzo da Villafiore
In Praise of Chaos, by Enzo Martucci
Manifesto dei Fuorigregge
Individualist-Anarchism, by S.E. Parker
2. Rebels Building Dreams: second wave individualists reflect on their predecessors
John Henry Mackay's Appreciation of Stirner
poem: Anarchy, by John Henry Mackay
poem: To Max Stirner, by John Henry Mackay
Biographical note: John Henry Mackay
John Henry Mackay, by E. Armand
The Anarchists, by Jim Kernochan
Men against the State: the expositors of individualist anarchism in America, 1827-1908, a review by S.E. Parker
Pioneering Egoist Texts, by S.E. Parker
The Influence of Tucker's Ideas in France, by E. Armand
Stirner on Education, by S.E. Parker
Voltairine de Cleyre, by S.E. Parker
3. Smashing Fossils: individualists & egoists critique leftism and its heritage
Anarchism vs Socialism, by S.E. Parker
Social Totalitarianism, by Francis Ellingham
Stirner, Marx, and Fascism, by S.E. Parker
Enzo Martucci on Communism
4. Savage Summit: egoist perspectives on Nietzsche
Nietzsche, by Enzo Martucci
Notes on Stirner & Nietzsche, by S.E. Parker
Stirner on Nietzsche, by J.N. Figgis
Stourzh on Stirner and Nietzsche, by Herbert Stourzh
Nietzsche: Anti-Christ? by S.E. Parker
5. A Maze to Trap the Living: society & the unique one
Anarchism and Individualism, by Georges Palante
Biographical note: Georges Palante
Anarchism, Society, and the Socialized Mind, by Francis Ellingham
A Note on Authority, by Enzo Martucci
A Letter to a Friend, by Laurance Labodie
Superstition and Ignorance vs Courage and Self-Reliance, by Laurance Labodie
Joseph Labodie: Archivist, Poet
poem: Imperialism, by Joseph Labodie
Some Notes on Anarchism and the Proletarian Myth, by S.E. Parker
Enemies of Society: An Open Letter to the Editors of Freedom, by S.E. Parker
Anarchism, Individualism, and Society: Some Thoughts, by Scepticus
Anarchy and History:An Existentialist View, by N.A.W.
Freedom and Solitude, by Marilisa Fiorina
The Morality of Cooperation, by S.E. Parker
In Defense of Stirner, by Enzo Martucci
Enzo Martucci: Italian Lightbearer
Brief Statements, by Renzo Ferrari
Malfew Seklew: The Jester Philosopher of Egoism, by S.E. Parker
Brand: An Italian Anarchist and His Dream, by Peter Lamborn Wilson
Down With Civilization, by Enrico Arrigoni (aka Frank Brand)
My Anarchism, by S.E. Parker
Appendix A:
Archists, Anarchists and Egoists, by S.E. Parker
Flaming Resurrections of a Charred Alphabet (a glossary of basic terms)
To Sketch the Echo and to Paint the Link! (a reading list)