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Title: About Freedom Author: Mikhail Bakunin Date: 1871 Language: en Topics: Freedom Source: Retrieved on 30th August 2021 from https://www.panarchy.org/bakunin/freedom.html Notes: The idea of freedom put forward by Bakunin is much more interesting and exhaustive than that expressed by liberals. This contributes to make anarchy a more satisfactory, theoretical and practical, approach for all human beings. Source: Mikhail Bakunin, L’empire Knouto-Germanique et la Révolution Sociale en France, 1870–1871.
The doctrinaire liberals, reasoning from the premises of individual
freedom, pose as the adversaries of the State. They maintain that the
government, i.e., the body of functionaries organized and designated to
perform the functions of the State is a necessary evil, and that the
progress of civilization consists in always and continuously diminishing
the attributes and the rights of the States. Such is the theory, but in
practice these same doctrinaire liberals, when the existence or the
stability of the State is seriously threatened, are just as fanatical
defenders of the State as are the monarchists and the Jacobins.
Their adherence to the State, which flatly contradicts their liberal
maxims, can be explained in two ways: in practice, their class interests
make the immense majority of doctrinaire liberals members of the
bourgeoisie. This very numerous and respectable class demand, only for
themselves, the exclusive rights and privileges of complete license. The
socio-economic base of its political existence rests upon no other
principle than the unrestricted license expressed in the famous phrases
laissez faire and laissez passer. But they want this anarchy only for
themselves, not for the masses who must remain under the severe
discipline of the State because they are “too ignorant to enjoy this
anarchy without abusing it.” As a matter of fact, if the masses, tired
of working for others, should rebel, the whole bourgeois edifice would
collapse. Always and everywhere, when the masses are restless, even the
most enthusiastic liberals immediately reverse themselves and become the
most fanatical champions of the omnipotence of the State.
In addition to this practical reason, there is still another of a
theoretical nature which also leads even the most sincere liberals back
to the cult of the State. They consider themselves liberals because
their theory on the origin of society is based on the principle of
individual freedom, and it is precisely because of this that they must
inevitably recognize the absolute right of sovereignty of the State.
According to them, individual freedom is not a creation, a historic
product of society. They maintain, on the contrary, that individual
freedom is anterior to all society and that all men are endowed by God
with an immortal soul. The human being is accordingly a complete being,
absolutely independent, apart from and outside society. As a free agent,
anterior to and apart from society, he necessarily forms his society by
a voluntary act, a sort of contract, be it instinctive or conscious,
tacit or formal. In short, according to this theory, individuals are not
the product of society but, on the contrary, are led to create society
by some necessity such as work or war.
It follows from this theory that society, strictly speaking, does not
exist. The natural human society, the beginning of all civilization, the
only milieu in which the personality and the liberty of man is formed
and developed does not exist for them. On the one hand, this theory
recognizes only self-sufficient individuals living in isolation, and on
the other hand, only a society arbitrarily created by them and based on
a formal or tacit contract, i.e., on the State. (They know very well
that no state in history has ever been created by contract, and that all
states were established by conquest and violence.)
The mass of individuals of whom the State consists are seen as in line
with this theory, which is singularly full of contradictions. Each of
them is, considered on the one hand, an immortal soul endowed with free
will. All are untrammeled beings altogether sufficient unto themselves
and in need of no other person, not even God, for, being immortal, they
are themselves gods. On the other hand, they are brutal, weak,
imperfect, limited, and altogether subject to the forces of nature which
encompass them and sooner or later carry them off to their graves.
…
Under the aspect of their earthly existence, the mass of men present so
sorry and degrading a spectacle, so poor in spirit, in will and
initiative, that one must be endowed with a truly great capacity for
self-delusion, to detect in them an immortal soul, or even the faintest
trace of free will. They appear to be absolutely determined: determined
by exterior nature, by the stars, and by all the material conditions of
their lives; determined by laws and by the whole world of ideas or
prejudices elaborated in past centuries, all of which they find ready to
take over their lives at birth. The immense majority of individuals, not
only among the ignorant masses but also among the civilized and
privileged classes, think and want only what everybody else around them
thinks and wants. They doubtlessly believe that they think for
themselves, but they are only slavishly repeating by rote, with slight
modifications, the thoughts and aims of the other conformists which they
imperceptibly absorb. This servility, this routine, this perennial
absence of the will to revolt and this lack of initiative and
independence of thought are the principle causes for the slow, desolate
historical development of humanity.
For us, materialists and realists … [the human being] was born a
ferocious beast and a slave, and has gradually humanized and emancipated
himself only in society.… He can achieve this emancipation only through
the collective effort of all the members, past and present, of society,
which is the source, the natural beginning of his human existence.
…
The human being completely realizes his individual freedom as well as
his personality only through the individuals who surround him, and
thanks only to the labor and the collective power of society. Without
society he would surely remain the most stupid and the most miserable
among all the other ferocious beasts.... Society, far from decreasing
his freedom, on the contrary creates the individual freedom of all human
beings. Society is the root, the tree, and liberty is its fruit. Hence,
in every epoch, the human being must seek his freedom not at the
beginning but at the end of history. It can be said that the real and
complete emancipation of every individual is the true, the great, the
supreme aim of history.
…
The materialistic, realistic, and collectivist conception of freedom, as
opposed to the idealistic, is this: the human being becomes conscious of
himself and his humanity only in society and only by the collective
action of the whole society. He frees himself from the yoke of external
nature only by collective and social labor, which alone can transform
the earth into an abode favorable to the development of humanity.
Without such material emancipation the intellectual and moral
emancipation of the individual is impossible. He can emancipate himself
from the yoke of his own nature, i.e. subordinate his instincts and the
movements of his body to the conscious direction of his mind, the
development of which is fostered only by education and training. But
education and training are preeminently and exclusively social ... hence
the isolated individual cannot possibly become conscious of his freedom.
To be free ... means to be acknowledged and treated as such by all his
fellowmen. The liberty of every individual is only the reflection of his
own humanity, or his human right through the conscience of all free men,
his brothers and his equals.
I can feel free only in the presence of and in relationship with other
men. In the presence of an inferior species of animal I am neither free
nor a man, because this animal is incapable of conceiving and
consequently recognizing my humanity. I am not myself free or human
until or unless I recognize the freedom and humanity of all my
fellowmen.
Only in respecting their human character do I respect my own. A cannibal
who devours his prisoner ... is not a man but a beast. A slave owner is
not a man but a master. By denying the humanity of his slaves he also
abrogates his own humanity, as the history of all ancient societies
proves. The Greeks and the Romans did not feel like free men. They did
not consider themselves as such by human right. They believed in
privileges for Greeks and Romans and only for their own countries, while
they remained unconquered and conquered other countries. Because they
believed themselves under the special protection of their national gods,
they did not feel that they had the right to revolt ... and themselves
fell into slavery.
...
I am truly free only when all human beings, men and women, are equally
free. The freedom of other men, far from negating or limiting my
freedom, is, on the contrary, its necessary premise and confirmation. It
is the slavery of other men that sets up a barrier to my freedom, or
what amounts to the same thing, it is their bestiality which is the
negation of my humanity. For my dignity as a man, my human right which
consists of refusing to obey any other man, and to determine my own acts
in conformity with my convictions is reflected by the equally free
conscience of all and confirmed by the consent of all humanity. My
personal freedom, confirmed by the liberty of all, extends to infinity.
The materialistic conception of freedom is therefore a very positive,
very complex thing, and above all, eminently social, because it can be
realized only in society and by the strictest equality and solidarity
among all men. One can distinguish some main elements in the attainment
of freedom. The first is eminently social. It is the fullest development
of all the faculties and powers of every human being, by education, by
scientific training, and by material prosperity; things which can only
be provided for every individual by the collective, material,
intellectual, manual, and sedentary labor of society in general.
The second element of freedom is negative. It is the revolt of the
individual against all divine, collective, and individual authority.
Society
The first revolt is against the supreme tyranny of theology, of the
phantom of God. As long as we have a master in heaven, we will be slaves
on earth. Our reason and our will will be equally annulled. As long as
we believe that we must unconditionally obey – and vis – a – vis God, no
other obedience is possible – we must of necessity passively submit,
without the least reservation, to the holy authority of his consecrated
and unconsecrated agents, messiahs, prophets, divinely inspired
law-makers, emperors, kings, and all their functionaries and ministers,
representatives and consecrated servitors of the two greatest
institutions which impose themselves upon us, and which are established
by God himself to rule over men; namely, the Church and the State. All
temporal or human authority stems directly from spiritual and/or divine
authority. But authority is the negation of freedom. God, or rather the
fiction of God, is the consecration and the intellectual and moral
source of all slavery on earth, and the freedom of mankind will never be
complete until the disastrous and insidious fiction of a heavenly master
is annihilated.
This is naturally followed by the revolt against the tyranny of men,
individual as well as social, represented and legalized by the State. At
this point, we must make a very precise distinction between the official
and consequently dictatorial prerogatives of society organized as a
state, and of the natural influence and action of the members of a
non-official, non-artificial society.
The revolt against this natural society is far more difficult for the
individual than it is against the officially organized society of the
State. Social tyranny, often overwhelming and baneful, does not assume
the violent imperative character of the legalized and formalized
despotism which marks the authority of the State. It is not imposed in
the form of laws to which every individual, on pain of judicial
punishment, is forced to submit. The action of social tyranny is
gentler, more insidious, more imperceptible, but no less powerful and
pervasive than is the authority of the State. It dominates men by
customs, by mores, by the mass of prejudices, by the habits of daily
life, all of which combine to form what is called public opinion.
It overwhelms the individual from birth, It permeates every facet of
life, so that each individual is, often unknowingly, in a sort of
conspiracy against himself. It follows from this that to revolt against
this influence that society naturally exercises over him, he must at
least to some extent revolt against himself. For, together with all his
natural tendencies and material, intellectual, and moral aspirations, he
is himself nothing but the product of society, and it is in this that
the immense power exercised by society over the individual lies.
From the angle of absolute morality, i.e., of human respect, this power
of society can be beneficent and it can also be injurious. It is
beneficial when it tends to the development of science, of material
prosperity, of freedom, equality, and solidarity. It is baneful when it
tends in the opposite direction. A man born into a society of brutes
tends to remain a brute; born into a society ruled by priests, he
becomes an idiot, a sanctimonious hypocrite; born into a band of
thieves, he will probably become a thief; and if he is unfortunately
born into a society of demigods who rule this earth, nobles, princes, he
will become a contemptible enslaver of society, a tyrant. In all these
cases, revolt against the society in which he was born is indispensable
for the humanization of the individual.
But, I repeat, the revolt of the individual against society is much more
difficult than revolt against the State. The State is a transitory,
historic institution, like its brother institution, the Church, the
regulator of the privileges of a minority and the real enslavers of the
immense majority.
Revolt against the State is much less difficult because there is
something in the very nature of the State that provokes revolt. The
State is authority, force. It is the ostentation and infatuation with
force. It does not insinuate itself. It does not seek to convert; and if
at times it meliorates its tyranny, it does so with bad grace. For its
nature is not to persuade, but to impose itself by force. Whatever pains
it takes to mask itself, it is by nature the legal violator of the will
of men, the permanent negator of their freedom. Even when the State
commands the good it brings forth evil; for every command slaps liberty
in the face; because when the good is decreed, it becomes evil from the
standpoint of human morality and liberty. Freedom, morality, and the
human dignity of the individual consists precisely in this; that he does
good not because he is forced to do so, but because he freely conceives
it, wants it, and loves it.
The authority of society is imposed not arbitrarily or officially, but
naturally. And it is because of this fact that its effect on the
individual is incomparably much more powerful than that of the State. It
creates and molds all individuals in its midst. It passes on to them,
slowly, from the day of birth to death, all its material, intellectual,
and moral characteristics. Society, so to speak, individualizes itself
in every individual.
The real individual is from the moment of his gestation in his mother’s
womb already predetermined and particularized by a confluence of
geographic, climatic, ethnographic, hygienic, and economic influences.
which constitute the nature of his family, his class, his nation, his
race. He is shaped in accordance with his aptitudes by the combination
of all these exterior and physical influences. What is more, thanks to
the relatively superior organization of the human brain, every
individual inherits at birth, in different degrees, not ideas and innate
sentiments, as the idealists claim, but only the capacity to feel, to
will, to think, and to speak. There are rudimentary faculties without
any content. Whence comes their content? From society ... impressions,
facts, and events coalesced into patterns of thought, right or wrong,
are transmitted from one individual to another. These are modified,
expanded, mutually complimented and integrated by all the individual
members and groups of society into a unique system, which finally
constitutes the common consciousness, the collective thought of a
society. All this, transmitted by tradition from one generation to
another, developed and enlarged by the intellectual labors of centuries,
constitutes the intellectual and moral patrimony of a nation, a class,
and a society.
...
Every new generation upon reaching the age of mature thought finds in
itself and in society the established ideas and conceptions which serve
it as the point of departure, giving it, as it were, the raw material
for its own intellectual and moral labor.... These are the conceptions
of nature, of man, of justice, of the duties and rights of individuals
and classes, of social conventions, of the family, of property, and of
the State, and many other factors affecting the relations between men.
All these ideas are imprinted upon the mind of the individual, and
conditioned by the education and training he receives even before he
becomes fully aware of himself as an entity. Much later, he rediscovers
them, consecrated and explained, elaborated by theory, which expresses
the universal conscience or the collective prejudices of the religious,
political, and economic institutions of the society to which he belongs.
He is himself so imbued with these prejudices that he is, involuntarily,
by virtue of all his intellectual and moral habits, the upholder of
these iniquities, even if he were not personally interested in defending
them.
It is certainly not surprising that the ideas passed on by the
collective mind of society should have so great a hold upon the masses
of people, What is surprising, on the contrary, is that there are among
these masses individuals who have the ideas, the will, and the courage
to go against the stream of conformity. For the pressure of society on
the individual is so great that there is no character so strong, nor an
intelligence so powerful as to be entirely immune to this despotic and
irresistible influence.
...
Nothing demonstrates the social nature of man better than this
influence. It can be said that the collective conscience of any society
whatever, embodied in the great public institutions, in all the details
of private life, serves as the base of all its theories. It constitutes
a sort of intellectual and moral atmosphere: harmful though it may be,
yet absolutely necessary to the existence of all its members, whom it
dominates while sustaining them, and reinforcing the banality, the
routine, which binds together the great majority of the masses.
The greatest number of men, and not only the masses of people but the
privileged and enlightened classes even more, feel ill at ease unless
they faithfully conform and follow tradition and routine. in all the
acts of their lives. They reason that “Our father thought and acted in
this way, so we must think and do the same. Everybody else thinks and
acts this way. Why should we think and act otherwise?”