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Title: The Anarchist as Lover
Author: Ryan Calhoun
Date: September 28th, 2014
Language: en
Topics: individualist anarchism, individualism, individualist, love
Source: https://c4ss.org/content/31995

Ryan Calhoun

The Anarchist as Lover

What would it be like if everyone loved everyone else? 10 out of 10

people agree, it’d be pretty fucking great. Unfortunately we are all, at

this point, human. Our capacities to embrace each and every individual

as a truly beautiful and unique creature are far beyond us. We also

exist within social structures which embrace the potent power of hate,

separation and collectivism. In these shackles, individuals are not

particular or meaningful entities. We exist only for the ends of some

institution, some vague and old superstition about the horrible others.

While we might never have good reason to love everyone, society ensures

we will hate The Other, whoever it decrees qualifies.

The most potent force to tear down these walls which entrap us is not

counter economics, propaganda by the deed, networks of solidarity, or

any organizational structure. The sledgehammer to wield, to swing

maddeningly, to obliterate the prisons our minds persist in is love.

Radical circles must be full of lovers, wild lovers, those who love

without shame or fear or consideration to rules and norms. It takes

lovers, whose only permanent object of hate is the walls that separate

them, limit their love, chain their ecstasy, deny them their absolute

right to be in love with any and all aspects of the world around them.

We hate too often. There is no shortage of things to hate for an

anarchist, but we must never allow our hate to become a defining feature

of our individual insurrections and revolutionary rhetoric. Hate can

help us identify the enemy, but it can never destroy them. Hate will not

empty the prisons, it will not burn down the corporate office space, it

will not melt down the machinery of the military-industrial complex. If

we are filled with hate, we will only accomplish the destruction of our

current system for another system of walls. Because what is oppression

but hatred for freedom? It is raw fear, terror and misery which ensnare

us all in some way. It is the true fuel of military conquest, racism,

xenophobia, sexism. Without hate, systems have no way of imposing

themselves on us.

We must embrace love for ourselves first. Love for yourself is not a

tawdry egotism or self obsession. It is recognition of all that makes

you great, of which I assure you there is an everlasting supply. Love

for ourselves will allow us to more accurately discern the goodness in

others, to easily identify those characteristics in line with our

passions.

Love is not solidarity. Solidarity is nothing more than loyalty to the

cause of a group. It isn’t love. I am told often why I should have

solidarity with this group or that despite any personal connection with

those involved, despite my judgment on the rightness of their actions.

It is not love because love isn’t loyal. Love is infatuated, it is

dedicated, it will not merely speak a word of agreement and obedience

with The Cause. Lovers do not require obedience. What would you not do

for those you love? Do you have to be put in line and told what to love?

No, we do not need that kind of dedication to our fellows. We need

angered, impassioned, unstoppable individuals guided by their connection

with those around them, with those who have shown us they are worth us

fighting for and along side.

How many of our friends exist behind concrete walls and barbed wire

fences? The influence of love in our lives has not even truly begun

until we recognize that every person is deserving of love by someone,

that they are not to be treated as inherently vicious creatures who must

be stamped out. You cannot have love without recognizing the dignity of

those you may never know or have a reason to embrace in passionate,

mutual exchange of the best in one another. Some people may not be

deserving of your love, but they are deserving of freedom. They too are

lovers, whoever they are. We all know what it is to be infatuated and

there will always be others to share our infatuation with. But love is

also random. One does not truly know when we will be gifted with another

to embrace, or why we should embrace them so. Until all are free, our

love is necessarily limited, and so our ability to truly control and

live our lives to the fullest and most ferociously joyous is cut down

before us.

Love isn’t all we need, in fact it can’t be. To love is to love for

something. We must fill our lives up with reasons to love and build new

institutions which allow us to discover ourselves and one another. This

is no small task and it will unfortunately not come as easy as our

passions arise. All the more necessity for lovers, for those that will

fight for a world they can embrace with total freedom of action and

conscience. We will need books, guns, fire, strategy, markets, and so

many other things to do away with our oppression, which is the

oppression not just of you or I, but of every living, sentient, complex

individual currently living in chains.

Hate. Hate the walls around you. Hate every bit of mental furnishing put

there to bind you. Hate, so that you can love in full. Love, so that we

might do away with a need for undue hatred.