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Title: The Anarchist Author: Elisée Reclus Date: 1902 Language: en Topics: geography, introductory, Libertarian Labyrinth Source: https://www.libertarian-labyrinth.org/working-translations/elisee-reclus-the-anarchist-1902/ Notes: From the Almanach anarchiste pour 1902, Paris. Working Translation by Shawn P. Wilbur.
By definition, the anarchist is the free man, the one who has no master.
The ideas that he professes are indeed his own through reasoning. His
will, springing from the understanding of things, focuses on a clearly
defined aim; his acts are the direct realization of his individual
intent. Alongside those who devoutly repeat the words of others or the
traditional saying, who make their being bend and conform to the caprice
of a powerful individual, or, what is still more grave, to the
oscillations of the crowd, he alone is a man, he alone is conscious of
his value in the face of all these spineless and inconsistent things
that dare not live their own lives.
But this anarchist who has morally rid himself of the domination of
others and who is never accustomed to any of the material oppressions
that usurpers impose on him, this man is still not his own master as
long as he has not emancipated himself from his irrational passions. He
must know himself, free himself from his own whims, from his violent
impulses, from all his prehistoric animal relics, not in order to kill
his instincts, but in order to make them agree harmoniously with the
whole of his conduct. Liberated from other men, he must also be
liberated from himself in order to see clearly where the truth sought is
to be found, and how he will guide himself toward making a movement that
does not bring him closer to it, without saying a word that does not
proclaim it.
If the anarchist comes to know himself, he will, as a result, know his
environment, men and things. Observation and experience will have shown
him that, by themselves, all his solid understanding of life and all his
proud will will remain powerless if he does not associate them with
other understandings, with other wills. Alone, he would be easily
crushed, but, having become strong, he joins forces with other forces,
constituting a society of perfect union, since all are linked by the
communion of ideas, sympathy and goodwill. In this new social body, all
the comrades are so many equals, giving each other the same respect and
the same expressions of solidarity. From now on they are brothers, if
the thousand revolts of the isolated are transformed into a collective
protest and demand, which sooner or later will give us the new society,
Harmony.