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Title: The Philosophy of Defiance Author: Félix Pignal Date: 1854 Language: en Topics: defiance, philosophy Source: https://www.libertarian-labyrinth.org/anarchist-beginnings/felix-pignal-the-philosophy-of-defiance-1854/ Notes: Selections from a booklet by an unknown anarchist precursor: Philosophie de l’insoumission ou Pardon à Caïn, par Félix P. (New York, 1854, IV, 74 pp. in-12°).
… Give me any epithets you wish; I accept them all in advance. I have
only one thought, and envision only one glory: it is to strike
everywhere and always, as much as I can, at the principle of domination.
Satan, in his revolt, is my father, and, in his courage, Cain is my
brother!
… We do not take a single step in society without hearing that human
beings must believe in a God, in a sovereign being, master of all
things, according to whose absolute will everything occurs, whether for
good or ill.
Well, I claim bluntly that this doctrine is the source of all our
miseries and that those—too numerous, alas!—who maintain it, as much by
cunning as through ignorance or fanaticism, constantly dig beneath our
feet the abyss which must swallow us.
… Some mistreat others,—that is beyond doubt,—and in order to safeguard
ourselves against rebellion, we have invented the belief in God.
I will go further, and say that in order to believe in a supreme being,
the mistreated have no need of teaching; from that side, the movement of
the soul is inevitable.
Yes, it is when we are, so to speak, abandoned by everyone, that our
minds seek the support of an unknown being; and so long as he remains a
brother to us, a friend, it is from him that we await the consolations
that our sufferings demand…
… A tooth for a tooth! The law of the jungle. Such is the combat that we
must still make against the divinity… First, why do we tremble at this
audacity? Isn’t humanity, under the weight of its sorrows, at bay, at
the last extremities? So it no longer has anything to lose… Courage in
the attack! Courage! Our servility offers us a glorious pretext which
would, by itself, justify our rebellion. And since we honor a people
when they know how to overthrow a tyrant, what would be the grandeur of
our triumph, if we succeeded in destroying the principle of tyranny!
There is a fact, and it is that tyranny is an evil more violent than all
the evils which could result from our independence. That is why each of
us should seek to belong to ourselves, in order that human tribulations
(if we must still have them) might not be the result of a shameful
mistake, and that the vicious should always be disgraceful in our eyes,
for God is an imaginary torch, so fatal to humanity that he guides it in
paths contrary to its happiness and renders society guilty before the
criminal that it punishes!
With God, man is given the odious chore of torturing his fellows and the
victims the shame of patiently bearing the oppression!
Thus marches society, loaded down with the chains that it imposes on
itself! Ashamed of the blood that covers it! Without respect for its own
tears, and stuffed full with a crime which will choke it, if a plerosis
does not save it from its last bout…
… But the only God which it seems tolerable for me to avow, assuming
that name should not disappear from every language, has no absolute will
over us: it is the intellectual fluid, having the universe for
reservoir, which is refined in the springs of our imagination, more
mysteriously still than the nutritious juices of the earth being
distributed to the roots of the plants that absorb them. This fluid
gives some abilities which are ruled by no other laws than those that we
impose on them…
… Still, we dare to give him (God) the name of Almighty Father! A thing
which undoubtedly imposes on us the title of Brothers… Truly, wouldn’t
it make you shudder with horror if you knew some less powerful father
who would allow his own children to tear each other to pieces, before
his very eyes! It is barbarians who have created this vampire in their
image!…
How could we believe in liberty if the mind warps itself so easily in
favor of dependency? As long as the mind will bear any subordination,
the body must endure servitude. This is a deadly, but inevitable,
consequence of every belief in God.
Thus, let us first teach the children their duties with regard to their
fellows, instead of accustoming their imaginations to the mysteries, and
later, if they want, they can discuss eternal visions. There will then
be many fewer head cases and more honest folk in society…
… The tears, the moans—and the arms—of those who suffer, have still not
been able to change anything about their appalling condition…
What good is it to revolt today, if tomorrow you reestablish or allow to
be reestablished the colossus which crushes you; if tomorrow, in other
forms, you reconstruct the teeth that bite you, the jaw that crushes
you, the throat that swallows you, and the stomach which digests you; if
tomorrow, in short, the authority that you have overthrown, is reborn
fresh and even stronger, and consequently more violent and more
redoubtable? What good is that? Tell me.
For a number of years, the democracy was astonished to see its soldiers
so scattered and discordant; but I say that nothing is less astonishing.
The division of interests divides the interested parties… Let us console
ourselves, however, for despite everything nature is emerging and the
democracy, refining itself, is inclined to follow nature’s laws. So
there is no longer but one cry: the call for independence…
… Property, such as it exists today, is the fruit of a law upheld by
some skilled sorts who want to live at the expense of those that they
dominate. Like all human laws, it is unjust and murderous, not really
creating happiness for anyone, not even those that it protects…
Understood as it is presently, property is the source of all evils!…
… It is not, however, property alone that stems from the meanness, the
cruelty, the vengeance, and the laziness of which so many of our fellows
are accused!
Misfortune makes us mean, the lack of everything makes us thieving and
disheartened, and a false principle warps humans to the point of not
loving their fellows, of being harmful rather than devoted to them.
To maintain this principle and perpetuate its crime, we feign to
guarantee the public repose by increasing the number of police, by
building new prisons, by doubling or tripling the wages of those who
forge the chains or fasten them to the feet of the exploited poor. Ah!
If instead of exhausting us, misfortune gave us intelligence, we would
see something else entirely, despite the multiplication of the police!…
… If there is, in this world, some real power, it is indeed the reign of
tyranny, that colossus with numberless claws, which constantly tears at
all the peoples whose palpitating breasts call for liberty.
Certainly, we can find nothing more deplorable than the evils that
overflow the earth because of this murderous principle. The kings, who
should be for us only free conventions, which we should change as the
future brings us new ideas, because often the next day we do not know
how to content ourselves with what made us happy the day before, are for
most of us heavy chains that hold us riveted to misfortune, while the
traitors who attach themselves to us wander at their ease the fields of
our prosperity!…
Labor, which should be for individuals only a subject for leisure has
become mind-numbing under this insufferable and bloodthirsty empire,
because many are required to give of themselves beyond their strength to
feed their own executioners!…
… What!… There is not a single place on earth which is not stained with
the crime of slavery and oppression. Not a city which has not resounded,
as many times as there are grains of sand in its walls, with the cries
of the ill-fated and despairing! Could the inner man, whose nature a
false principle has still not been able to change, reflect on his
unfortunate fellows without a secret power awakening in him, to sleep
again only when it has found the salutary concoction with which the poor
are spoiled?… The poor are thirsty, and the only drink they demand… is
liberty! But an absolute liberty, a liberty without intermediary, a
liberty with no other laws than those which germinate in the people.
Finally that liberty which is born from independence, and which could
only be hostile to those who oversee the workers in order live on their
sweat and blood!!
Now, in order to enjoy that liberty, it is necessary to prevent tyranny,
and as we have already said: The king is certainly not the only tyrant
in a kingdom.
A king is only the summit of a governmental pyramid, the base of which
is calculated to maintain it.
As long as that base is not broken up, it would be useless to sacrifice
ourselves to knock down its peak in order to acquire liberty…
… To cut off the head of a king, but allow the principle which requires
him to remain, a principle which demands that so many other kinglets
fatten themselves at the expense of the proletariat, is just like trying
to stop the current in a rapidly flowing river with a saber blow!… Laugh
in the faces of the idiots and schemers who, on the basis of similar
stupidities, will cry out to you: To arms!… I have said, or have meant,
that to obtain true liberty we must wait for the governmental pyramid to
be broken apart, by itself even!… I stand by it…
Far from encouraging that bloodthirsty, liberticidal intoxication, I
would always strive for silence, so as not to have to bemoan the
atrocities of a revolution of barbarians or to water with our tears the
places stained with the blood of those who could have become our friends
Let us suppose that a government is broken up. It is then that we must
show the courage and resolution to prevent its reconstitution in any
other form. For, in order to exist, power must be homicidal, murder
being the daily fruit of its instinct for preservation.
For independence, and for her daughter liberty, we will sacrifice
ourselves! To arms, to arms!! But for our fellows, the seditious have
only silence… For, far from freeing the world from the claws which clasp
it, we will only enslave it more…
Truly, we could only laugh at a republican who wanted, at all costs, to
change one government in order to reestablish another! What then does
this madman—this troublemaker—want? Some trouble and disorder, fifty
savages in exchange for one barbarian. One hundred deputies for a
prince. Finally a thousand cankers for an ulcer. Is it really worth the
fuss for such horrors!!
No, no, I will never be republican to the point of swapping the ugly for
the dreadful. And I will not even trouble myself to see if the
barricades in the street are deserted or occupied, as long as people are
not disposed to discuss at least these four points.
1° The earth, being rightly regarded as the principal part of our
inheritance, is inalienable in any form and transaction;
2° All uncultivated earth returns to the public domain to be distributed
as an immoveable instrument of labor;
3° The products of labor alone are considered as trafficable, individual
properties;
4° All domestic service is regarded as degrading and whoever serves a
master will no longer be a citizen…
… I reflect in passing, that some are capable of believing that I would
diminish the number of revolutionaries!!… If I should diminish anything,
it would only be, in any case, the number of those who call themselves
republicans and who, most often, are only a bunch of brutes who will cut
the throats of the so-called reds and whites, because they are of
another color.
So much the better. Then we would know, and if the war between us is a
war to the death, we will at least have the advantage of knowing why.
While today, you hardly dare to approach in broad daylight certain
individuals who cry to you in an insolent voice: Long live the
republic!… Well, whoever wishes life for any government, also supports a
coterie existing at the expense of those whom it governs. Whoever says:
Long live absolutism! says long live lies. Whoever says: Long live a
governmental republic! says long live hypocrisy! But those who say: Down
with all governments!! says down with murder! Long live independence!
Long live truth!…
Let the liberals, the radicals, and the bourgeois republicans choose.
And if they want to continue to exploit the miserable workers, let them
say: Long live absolutism!…
The earth is the mother of everyone. Each has a right to the land, as
they have a right to the rays of the sun which warms us, and should not
command it any more than they would the air of which they breathe a
portion to invigorate their blood.
Now, if the earth is subject today to the laws of commerce, like an
ordinary bit of merchandise or any product, it is a crime against
humanity which affects the majority of us, and which has become the
source of all our evils and which puts humans below the savage beasts,
which despite their fierce spirit only appropriate that which conforms
to the needs of their nature
Thus there are two very distinct camps among us: that of the governors
and that of the governed, and there are also only two principles: that
of lies and that of truth…
… The governments tremble, so rejoice (worker!); they totter, so hold
yourself in readiness; they fall, so attack! But among their ruins,
soaked with the blood of your fathers, never let the audacious dare to
cry: Long live the power!… or crack their skulls, for power is
authority, and authority is tyranny. With the last… there is not
liberty, there is only some monstrous hybrid, which everyone must hound
as they would a beast suspected of rabies.
Down with governments, down with tyranny, and long live independence!
Long live love and friendship.
… No more governments, and no more taxes. No more cutthroats, and no
more blood. No more greed, and no more hate. The future is for all. And
it is thus that you will love yourselves in your brothers.
Establish yourselves in revolutionary communes; even in the smallest
places always cry: Down with the governments! Let each of you
participate in the discussions in their town, in order to debate their
interests.
As your well-being will depend on the same cause, you will never have a
guide except the same reason, the same spirit. It is thus that
intelligence will really prevail…
Don’t concern yourself with the lazy: there will be none, for
individuals who work freely for themselves need work as much as
recreation and could not do without it without suffering.
That sees bizarre, doesn’t it? There are so many today who are lazy and
live splendidly.
With regard to the majority of those, I do no know what to tell you,
except that since you have tolerated them thus far, we have to feed
them: habit is a second nature.
Besides, they will disappear like the old soldiers of the Empire.
The principle which must, by its own power, bring into communion the
interests of all its members, will promote industry as much as
agriculture; consequently, your moral and material necessity will be to
establish a balance between the agricultural products and those of
industry. And being dependent only on your needs, that equilibrium can
never been upset enough for the products of each of you to stop flowing,
always with the same regularity.
Thus, nothing can prevent or constrain any longer the free exchange of
your products, and as it is these alone which can satisfy the void of
your needs, each will trade at will. Then, the beautiful, the solid and
the convenient still being capable of an incontestable perfectibility,
an eternal competition will establish the price, stimulated by that
progressive perfection whose limit is found in the fictions of eternity,
if it is to be found at all.
Some communal bazaars will be established in each locality, and the
products which are lacking will very quickly give some advantages to
those who can fill this void, in order that each commune or hamlet will
soon have its necessities within reach. The fruits of the labor of the
producers will fall directly to the consumers, without any increase of
price above their real value, except for the costs that the staffing of
the bazaars to which these products will be entrusted will entail.
However, no one will be required to stock their products at the communal
fairs, so that they still remain free to negotiate directly with other
producers or consumers, if they judge it proper…
There will always be individuals of superior talent. And for this
reason, individuality could not be merged, without suffering subjection,
into a collective liberty. Besides, whoever says individual liberty,
says it all; for a collective liberty can only be created under the will
of several individuals.
Thus let those who judge it appropriate unite in life, duties and labor.
And let those whom the least subjection would offend remain individually
independent.
The true principle is thus very far from requiring inviolable community.
However, for the harmony of certain labors, it is obvious that many of
the producers will establish themselves in societies, for the advantages
that they will find in the union of their strengths. But once more,
communism will never be a fundamental principle, because of the
diversity of our intelligences, needs and wills.
Thus, excluding the jobs of judge, priest, policeman, thief and
torturer, our new society will offer to each of its members the means to
live in a perfect ease, no longer wearying themselves for vain glories
and sordid lusts.
In each community, they will establish some institutions for the young…
Scholars will never have been more sought after… Science will be an
instrument of busy labor for those who feel themselves capable of
working one of the fields of its domain… And each individual, being
occupied with the work they prefer, will put into that work as much art,
skill and intelligence as a great writer will use to describe some
story. An individual who is in their true society, works with taste and
pleasure, with no hostility towards anyone.
Thus, all your days will pass in prosperity and joy.
… The earth will be the homeland of everyone, and each will be able to
contemplate its riches.
All people will love one another…
Oh, independence! Protector of humanity, inexhaustible source of
happiness and satisfaction, seep into the hearts of the people, disabuse
their minds of the artifices which delude and incite them, unblind their
eyes, oh goddess! so that they can see your radiant halo, whose pure
light weakens the monsters like the daylight wearies the owl! Mother of
all pure liberties, let your name be sung, and let your name be blessed!
Long live independence! War to authority!