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Title: Down and Dirty Freedom Author: Apio Ludd Date: 2014 Language: en Topics: My Own, book review, egoist, the market, political correctness, puritanism Source: Retrieved on 19th May 2019 from https://c4ss.org/content/23698 Notes: “Down And Dirty Freedom” was written by Apio Ludd and published in his My Own: Self-Ownership and Self-Creation Against All Authority, Number 11, January, 2014.
Thaddeus Russell
A Renegade History of the United States
Free Press, 2010
For Thaddeus Russell freedom doesn’t come from a political system, a
social order, a station in life or any other such institutionalized
relationship. It is the practical ability I have to do what I want in my
daily life. To the extent that such freedom exists, it is not because of
“our free democratic system,” nor because of political protests against
those who rule that system, but because selfish, non-conforming,
flagrantly hedonistic and egoistic renegades[1] insisted on living as
they wanted against all the odds.
The book is a good contrast not only to mainstream history, but also to
the various leftist histories that tend to make activists into martyred
heroes, and the oppressed into blameless victims. It is not at all a
politically correct history. This is appropriate since political
correctitude is a puritanical moral attitude, and that is precisely what
the renegades Russell writes about refuse to accept.
I appreciate the premise of the book. The argument that freedom in any
meaningful sense, my freedom to live, enjoy and create my life as I see
fit, is never granted, but is rather taken in spite of whatever
authority may be in power, is a basic part of my egoist and my anarchist
perspective. And it is a pleasure to read this history of the fierce and
playful battles of so-called degenerates to maintain their pleasure
against the attempts of authorities, reformers, radicals, etc., to
suppress them.
At the same time. I am convinced Russell tweaks his history leaving out
parts that don’t fit his view. This view definitely challenges status
quo history. (He lost one teaching job because of his ideas.) Some
portions of the book would have been helped by foot-notes (or endnotes)
for quotations, so readers could more easily track them down in the
sources to give them context. This would be particularly useful in
chapters 2 and 3 where he quotes extensively from interviews with former
slaves.
In addition, he almost makes heroes out of syndicate and mafia mobsters,
who may indeed have played a significant role in providing space (at a
price) for various outsider pleasures and ways of life, but who also ran
extremely authoritarian organizations that often worked hand-in-glove
with the authorities, including cops. For their profit, they’d work both
sides of the fence, and Russell doesn’t bring this out.
In addition, though many of the scandalous enjoyments Russell’s
renegades fought for were not products on the market, Russell seems to
use this history to promote a kind of pro-market stance. I don’t think
that the market has any inherent connection to either the enjoyment of
life or the refusal of constraints on one’s enjoyment. In fact, the
market as I’ve known it in my lifetime has been one of the institutions
limiting my freedom to enjoy my life, not only by putting price-tags on
more and more pleasures, but by turning them into fixed products –
identities that can be marketed, as free relations cannot. I’m not going
to get into the relation of the market to the work ethic, one of the
most oppressive products of puritanism, here.
So the book is flawed. Despite this, it is a fun to read. It exposes how
authorities, reformers and radicals use democracy, reform and even the
idea of revolution to suppress the actual experience of freedom and
enjoyment. And it provides abundant evidence that no one can grant you
“freedom” (or better, ownness) in any practical sense; instead you have
to take it, and you don’t take it by sacrificing yourself to it, but by
doing what you want regardless of laws or morals.
My Own is a publication of anarchist, egoist, individualist ideas,
literature and analysis coming from an explicitly anti-capitalist,
non-market egoist perspective aimed at encouraging the interweaving of
individual insurrections against all forms of authority, domination and
enforcement of conformity.
My own is available on a basis of mutuality. If you want to receive it,
show that you are aware of the effort and expense (postage and printing)
I put into it by sending me something that compensates for that:
My_Own@riseup.net
[1] Russell uses this word in the sense of intentional “outsiders,”
non-conformists.