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Title: Ideal and Reality Author: Errico Malatesta Date: 1924 Language: en Topics: Realism, reality, idealism, fascism Source: The Method of Freedom: An Errico Malatesta Reader, edited by Davide Turcato, translated by Paul Sharkey. Notes: Translated from “Ideale e realtà ,” Pensiero e Volontà (Rome) 1, no. 3 (1 February 1924).
Let’s skip the “philosophical” definitions, that is, the demanding,
confused and… inconclusive ones. The ideal means: that which is desired.
The real means: that which exists.
Unhappiness with what is, and the constant craving for something better,
the aspiration to greater freedom, to more power and more beauty is a
peculiarly human characteristic. The man who finds everything fine, who
reckons that everything there is, is as it ought to be, and should not
and cannot change, and who blithely accommodates himself, without a
murmur, without any objection, without a gesture of rebelliousness, to
the position and circumstances thrust upon him, would be less than
human. He would be... a vegetable, if such a thing could be said without
offending vegetables.
But on the other hand, man cannot be and cannot do everything that he
wants, because he is curtailed and obliged, not only by brute natural
environment, but also by the actions of every other man, by social
solidarity which, like it or not, ties him to the fate of the entire
human race.
Therefore, one must strive for what he wants, doing what he can.
Anybody who can accommodate himself to everything would be a poor thing,
comparable, as I was saying, to a vegetable. On the other hand, someone
who reckons he can do anything he wants without taking into
consideration the wishes of others, the means required to achieve a
purpose, the circumstances in which he finds himself, would be nothing
but a cloud-chaser cast forever in the role of victim, without advancing
the cause he so cherishes by as much as a single step.
So the problem facing us anarchists—since the aim of this publication is
to have whatever impact it can on the anarchist movement—the problem
facing us anarchists, who regard anarchy not so much as a beautiful
dream to be chased by the light of the moon, but as an individual and
social way of life to be brought about for the greatest good for all…
the problem, as we say, is to so conduct our activities as to achieve
the greatest useful effect in the various circumstances in which history
places us.
One must not ignore reality; but if reality is noxious, one must fight
it, resorting to every means made available to us by reality itself.
Come the outbreak of the world war, the harmful consequences of which
are still evident, there was in certain quarters, which purported to be
and may once upon a time had been subversive, much talk of “reality.”
All half-baked consciences, all of those who were casting around for
some honorable pretext upon which to make amends for their youthful
transgressions and secure themselves a livelihood, all the weary who
lacked the honest courage to admit that that was what they were and then
retreat from public life—and there were many such in the ranks of the
socialists and several in the anarchist ranks—embraced and preached the
war “because it was a fact,” relying on backing from some selfless types
who, in all good faith and misled by a wrong-headed view of history and
a whole propaganda based on lies, believed that this really was a war of
liberation and got involved in it and paid the price.
Today there is no shortage of those who back fascism “because it is a
fact” and they cover up or think they can justify their defection and
treachery by arguing of fascism, as they once did of the war, that its
aims are revolutionary.
Yes, the world war and “the peace” that came out of it are facts, just
like every previous war was a fact, and all the massacres and all the
people-trading. The fascist cudgel is a fact, as was the German rod that
“cannot tame Italy!”
Furthermore, all the oppression, all the poverty, all the hatreds and
crimes that assail, divide and degrade men are facts too.
Are we therefore to accept everything, and defer to everything because
this is the situation in which history has placed us?
The whole of human progress has been made up of battling against natural
facts and social facts. And we who want to see maximum progress, the
greatest possible happiness for every single human being, are besieged
and buffeted on every side by hostile realities, and we have to combat
these realities. But before we can combat them, we must know about them
and take them into the reckoning.
If it is to emerge triumphant or merely to stride towards its triumph,
anarchy has to be thought of, not merely as a luminous, attractive
beacon of light, but also as something feasible, achievable not only
with the passage of centuries but in relatively short space of time and
with no need for miracles.
We anarchists have greatly minded the ideal; we have devised a critique
of all the moral falsehoods and all the social institutions that corrupt
and oppress humanity and we have outlined, with whatever poetry and
eloquence each of us may have possessed, a yearned-for harmonious
society rooted in kindness and love; but there is no denying that we
have scarcely troubled ourselves about the ways and means of turning our
ideals into reality.
Granted the need for a revolutionary—or, rather,
insurrectionary—upheaval that should demolish any material obstacles,
political authority or hogging of the means of production, things that
counter the spread and trialling of our ideals, we believed—or behaved
as if we did—that everything would just fall into place, without any
pre-conceived planning, in a natural, spontaneous way, and our response
to prospective difficulties was abstract formulae and an optimism that
runs counter to present facts and foreseeable ones. In short, we
resolved the whole thing by theorizing that the people will want what we
want, and that matters will work out precisely as we would wish.
Are all governments noxious? Well, “we shall do away with them all and
stop new ones from being formed.” How, though? With what resources? “The
people or the proletariat will see to that.” But what if they do not?
“Each person will do as he pleases.” But what if all these individuals,
who together make up the masses, were to want the opposite of what we
want, were to kneel before a tyrant, or let themselves be used as
instruments deployed against us?
What if the peasants were to refuse to keep the towns provisioned? “The
peasants are no fools and will hasten to ship foodstuffs to the towns in
return for industrial goods… or for promises of goods yet to be
manufactured.”
And what if folk refuse to work? “Work is a pleasure and no one will
want to deny themselves that pleasure.”
And if there are criminals who trespass against the lives and liberty of
others? “There will be no more criminals.”
And so on and so on, answering every query with blithe assertions and
denials, ruling out all the bad things, and taking for granted all the
good things.
There have even been a few, fired up with enthusiasm and maybe looking
ahead centuries to the hoped-for outcomes of education and eugenics (the
science and art of selective procreation) who have divined that, on the
morrow of a successful insurrection, humanity will be made up entirely
of kindly, intelligent, healthy, strong, and handsome folk!
The truth is that we have always been trapped in a vicious circle.
While, on the one hand, we have been arguing that the masses cannot
attain moral emancipation as long as the current conditions of political
and economic subjection apply, on the other we have assumed that events
would turn out as if those masses were already made up entirely, or for
the most part, of conscious, forward-looking individuals jealous of
their own freedom and respectful of the freedom of others. Even as we
have been arguing that anarchy, of which freedom is the stock-in-trade,
cannot be forcibly imposed, “by contradiction absolute forbid,” it never
occurred to us that we should prepare against the eventuality of other
people’s over-ruling us.
In short, we have lacked a practical program capable of being enacted
the day after the victorious insurrection, one which, whilst not
trespassing against anybody’s freedom, might enable us to enact, or
start to enact, the implementation of our ideas, and draw the masses to
our side through example and through the tried and tested superiority of
our methods.
Thus, that fraction of the people that aspires to emancipation and will
forge a new history has not understood us and has largely embraced
either the authoritarian, oppressive communism or hybrid syndicalism.
And we have found ourselves powerless just when circumstances seemed
most to favor us.
It is high time that we sort out these shortcomings of ours so that we
can be ready for future opportunities, which are assuredly on their way.
And we urge all our friends to partake in this task of drawing up a
practical program for immediate implementation.