Existentialist anarchism
Encyclopedia
Some observers believe existentialism
forms a philosophical ground for anarchism
. Anarchist historian Peter Marshall
claims that "there is a close link between the existentialists' stress on the individual, free choice, and moral responsibility and the main tenets of anarchism."
. In his book The Ego and Its Own
(1845), Stirner advocates concrete individual existence, or egoism
, against most commonly accepted social institutions—including the notion of State
, property as a right, natural rights in general, and the very notion of society—which he considers mere spooks
or essences in the mind. Existentialism, according to Herbert Read, "is eliminating all systems of idealism, all theories of life or being that subordinate man to an idea, to an abstraction of some sort. It is also eliminating all systems of materialism that subordinate man to the operation of physical and economic laws. It is saying that man is the reality - not even man in the abstract, but the human person, you and I; and that everything else - freedom, love, reason, God - is a contingency depending on the will of the individual. In this respect existentialism has much in common with Max Stirner's egoism."
has been one of the first philosophers considered fundamental to the existentialist movement, though the movement did not exist until after his death, which is when his works became better known. While he was alive, however, Nietzsche was frequently associated with anarchist movements and proved influential for many anarchist thinkers, in spite of the fact that in his writings he seems to hold a negative view of anarchists. This was the result of a popular association during this period between his ideas and those of Max Stirner. (See Relationship between Friedrich Nietzsche and Max Stirner.) As such, Nietzsche's Übermensch
was representative of the freedom for people to define the nature of their own existence, as well as the desire for a new human who was to be neither master nor slave
. Nietzsche's idealized individual invents his or her own values and creates the very terms under which they excel, taking no regard for God, the State, or the social behavior of 'herds'
. It was these things that drew Nietzsche to anarchists and existentialists alike, showing the clear commonality between both.
as possibly following a "philosophy of existence" against "the philosophy of essence" as advocated by Hegel, a figure whom many anarchists, in contrast to Marxists, have found authoritarian or even proto-totalitarian. "Every individual," Bakunin writes, "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," a set of "rudimentary faculties without any content" which are filled through concrete experience. Foundational existentialist thinkers such as Soren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche
also voiced their opposition to Hegel for denying the role of the free individual, glorifying State and Church, and claiming "absolute knowledge" about human beings. While influenced by Hegel early in his life, Bakunin later was stridently opposed to Hegel around the time he became an anarchist, and would refuse to say he was ever influenced by him.
The individualist anarchist and Transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau
's book, Walden
, is an example of a work that might be considered a forerunner of existentialism.
and Martin Buber
were among these thinkers who were also anarchists. Both are today sometimes seen as Jewish existentialists
as well as Jewish anarchists
.
It is agreed that Kafka's work cannot be reduced to either a philosophical or political theory, but this has not necessarily been an obstacle to making links from existentialism and anarchism to his principal writings. As far as politics, Kafka attended meetings of the Klub Mladých, a Czech anarchist, anti-militarist and anti-clerical organization, and in one diary entry, Kafka referenced influential anarchist philosopher Peter Kropotkin
: "Don't forget Kropotkin!"
In his works, Kafka famously wrote about surreal and alienated characters who struggle with hopelessness and absurdity, themes which were important to existentialism, yet simultaneously presented critiques of the authoritarian family (in The Metamorphosis
) and bureaucracy
(in such works as The Trial
) as well, about which he had strong views as institutions. He spoke, for instance, of family life as a battleground: "I have always looked upon my parents as persecutors," he wrote in a letter, and that "All parents want to do is drag one down to them, back to the old days from which one longs to free oneself and escape." In this regard, he was speaking from experience, but he was also influenced by his friend Otto Gross
, an Austrian anarchist and psychoanalyst. Otto Gross himself blended Nietzsche and Stirner with Sigmund Freud
in developing his own libertarian form of psychology, feeling that they revealed the human potential frustrated by the authoritarian family: "Only now can we realize that the source of authority lies in the family, that the combination of sexuality and authority, shown in the family by the rights still assigned to the father, puts all individuality in fetters.".
Agreeing with Gross and holding fundamental anarchist views, Kafka would also define capitalism
as a bureaucracy, "a system of relations of dependence" where "everything is arranged hierarchically and everything is in chains," and that in the end "the chains of tortured humanity are made of the official papers of ministries."
Martin Buber is best known for his philosophy of dialogue
, a form of religious existentialism centered on the distinction between the I-Thou relationship and and the I-It relationship. In his essay Ich und Du published in 1923, he writes how we cannot relate to other people through the "I" towards an "It", towards an object that is separate in itself. Instead, he believes human beings should find meaningfulness in human relationships, through "I" towards "Thou," towards people as ends-in-themselves which brings us ultimately towards God. This perspective could be seen as anarchist in that it implicitly critiques notions of "progress" fundamental to authoritarian ideologies which abstract from the personal here-and-now meeting of human beings. Later Martin Buber published a work, Paths in Utopia (1952), in which he explicitly detailed his anarchist views with his theory of the "dialogical community" founded upon interpersonal "dialogical relationships."
and Albert Camus
, who wrote best-selling novels, plays and widely read journalism as well as theoretical texts.
An influential exponent of atheist existentialism
, Sartre throughout his works stressed the expansion of individual freedom in a world without God or a fixed human nature
. Just as anarchists have always stressed that deterministic blue-prints for ourselves or the future will never lead to freedom, Sartre believed human beings could choose for themselves their own freedom, a "being-for-itself"
that is not enchained by the social, political, and economic roles imposed on them. This freedom may not always be completely joyous, as "man is condemned to be free" for Sartre. Anarchists argue likewise that an anarchist society would be desirable, but never inevitable and given to us, and thus we are left with what is the harder demand and responsibility for ourselves alone to create such a society.
It was for a brief period between 1939 and 1940 that Sartre was an anarcho-pacifist. Although best known for his Marxist politics and for aligning with the French Communist Party
and the Maoists during 1968, Sartre said after the May rebellion
: "If one rereads all my books, one will realize that I have not changed profoundly, and that I have always remained an anarchist." Towards the end of his life, Sartre explicitly embraced anarchism.
Although rejecting the term existentialism, Camus was a friend of Sartre's, and has been considered part of the existentialist movement. As another exponent of atheist existentialism, he concerned his works with facing what he called the absurd
, and how we should act to rebel against absurdity by living, by opening up the road to freedom without a transcendent reality. Camus would also be associated with the French anarchist movement. The anarchist Andre Prudhommeaux first introduced him at a meeting in 1948 of the Cercle des Étudiants Anarchistes (Anarchist Student Circle) as a sympathiser familiar with anarchist thought. He wrote for anarchist publications such as Le Libertaire, La révolution Proletarienne and Solidaridad Obrera (Worker Solidarity, the organ of the anarcho-syndicalist CNT
National Confederation of Labor), and stood with the anarchists when they expressed support for the uprising of 1953 in East Germany. He also again allied with the anarchists in 1956, first in support of the workers’ uprising in Poznan, Poland, and then later in the year with the Hungarian Revolution.
One of the most substantial expressions of both his existentialist and anarchist positions appears in his work The Rebel. For Camus, as for Nietzsche, rebellion should not delve into nihilism
, and as for Stirner, should be distinct from revolution
. It is not a lonely act, and does not destroy human solidarity but affirms the common nature of human beings. In the experience of the absurd, suffering is individual, but when it moves to rebellion, it is aware of being collective. The first step of the alienated individual, Camus argues, is to recognize that he or she shares such alienation with all human beings. Rebellion therefore takes the individual out of isolation: "I rebel, therefore we are." At the end of his book, Camus celebrates the anti-authoritarian spirit in history and comes out in favor of anarcho-syndicalism
as the only alternative: "Trade-unionism, like the commune, is the negation, to the benefit of reality, of abstract and bureaucratic centralism."
Compared by critics to Kafka and Camus, Stig Dagerman
was the main representative of a group of Swedish writers called “Fyrtiotalisterna” (“the writers of the 1940s”) who channelled existentialist feelings of fear, alienation and meaninglessness common in the wake of the horrors of World War II and the looming Cold War. He was also an active anarchist throughout his life, and joined the Syndicalist Youth Federation, the youth organization of a syndicalist union, in 1941. At nineteen, he became the editor of "Storm", the youth paper, and at twenty-two he was appointed the cultural editor of Arbetaren ("The Worker"), then a daily newspaper of the syndicalist movement. He called "Arbetaren" his "spiritual birthplace".
, and Camus... have all fought the battle of the individual against the State."
It was the English anarchist Herbert Read
who was perhaps most notable for acknowledging the link between anarchism and existentialism. In his essay Existentialism, Marxism, and Anarchism (1949), Read takes an interest in the writings of Soren Kierkegaard, Martin Heidegger
, and Jean-Paul Sartre
, and juxtaposes existentialism with his own anarchism, considering both to be superior to Marxism. Read was one of the earliest writers outside of Continental Europe to take notice of the movement, and was perhaps the closest England came to an existentialist theorist of the European tradition. He was also strongly influenced by Max Stirner
, noting the closeness between Stirner's egoism and existentialism, and wrote an enthusiastic Preface to the 1953 English translation of Albert Camus's The Rebel.
, post-structuralism
, and postmodernism
, intellectual approaches which are today still widely used in academia. However, existentialism, particularly existential phenomenology
, would still remain a significant influence on post-structuralism and postmodernism; one commentator has argued that post-structuralists might just as accurately be called "post-phenomenologists." Like existentialism, these approaches reject essentialist or reductionist notions and are critical of dominant Western philosophy and culture, rejecting previous systems of knowledge based on the human knower. Since the 1980s, therefore, a growing number of anarchist philosophies, represented by the term post-anarchism
, have used post-structuralist and postmodernist approaches.
Saul Newman
has utilized prominently Max Stirner and Friedrich Nietzsche along with such thinkers as Jacques Lacan
in his post-anarchist works. Newman criticizes classical anarchists for assuming an objective "human nature" and a natural order, which existentialism also objects to. He argues that from this approach, humans progress and are well-off by nature, with only the Establishment as a limitation that forces behavior otherwise. For Newman, this is a Manichaen worldview, which depicts only the reversal of Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan, in which the "good" state is subjugated by the "evil" people. Lewis Call
and Michel Onfray
have also attempted to develop post-anarchist theory through the work of Friedrich Nietzsche.
However, it is of note that the anarcha-feminist L. Susan Brown
has written a work, The Politics of Individualism
(1993) that explicitly argues for the continuing relevance of existentialism and its necessary compliment to anarchism. She believes anarchism is a philosophy based on "existential individualism" that emphasizes the freedom of the individual, and defines "existential individualism" as the belief in freedom for freedom's sake, as opposed to "instrumental individualism," which more often exists in liberal works and is defined as freedom to satisfy individual interests without a meaningful belief in freedom. But she argues, like post-anarchists, that classical anarchist theory has asserted human beings as naturally cooperative, and that this fixed, human nature presents many problems for anarchism as it contradicts its commitment to free will and the individual. For anarchism to be fundamentally individualist, she argues, it must look to existentialism for a more "fluid conceptualization of human nature." She looks to the works of Jean-Paul Sartre
and Simone de Beauvoir
in particular and sees them as being compatible with anarchism.
It is also notable that she argues anarchism does not generally take into account feminist ideas of child-raising. For instance, the idea of raising children existentially free from their parents and educated non-hierarchically by a community, is not often considered by anarchists, and yet radical thinkers from the highly Nietzsche-influenced Otto Gross
to existentialist psychiatrists such as R.D. Laing and post-structuralists Gilles Deleuze
and Félix Guattari
have argued forcefully that the nuclear family is one of the most oppressive, if not the most, institutions in Western society.
Neo-anarchist Simon Critchley
sees the existential phenomenologist Emmanuel Levinas
's self-defined "an-archic" ethics, the infinite ethical demand that is beyond measure and "an-archic" in the sense of having no hierarchical principle or rule to structure it, as important for actual contemporary anarchist social practice. His book Infinitely Demanding: Ethics of Commitment, Politics of Resistance propounds a Levinasian conception of anarchism and an attempt to practice it.
Existentialism
Existentialism is a term applied to a school of 19th- and 20th-century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual...
forms a philosophical ground for anarchism
Anarchism
Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...
. Anarchist historian Peter Marshall
Peter Marshall (author)
Peter Marshall is an English philosopher, historian, biographer, travel writer and poet. He has written fifteen books which are being translated into fourteen different languages. He wrote, presented and partly filmed the 6-part HTV series 'Voyage Around Africa', first shown in 1994...
claims that "there is a close link between the existentialists' stress on the individual, free choice, and moral responsibility and the main tenets of anarchism."
Background
Max Stirner
Anarchism had a proto-existentialist view mainly in the writings of German individualist anarchist Max StirnerMax Stirner
Johann Kaspar Schmidt , better known as Max Stirner , was a German philosopher, who ranks as one of the literary fathers of nihilism, existentialism, post-modernism and anarchism, especially of individualist anarchism...
. In his book The Ego and Its Own
The Ego and Its Own
The Ego and Its Own is a philosophical work by German philosopher Max Stirner . This work was first published in 1845, although with a stated publication date of "1844" to confuse the Prussian censors.-Content:...
(1845), Stirner advocates concrete individual existence, or egoism
Egoist anarchism
Egoist anarchism is a school of anarchist thought that originated in the philosophy of Max Stirner, a nineteenth century Hegelian philosopher whose "name appears with familiar regularity in historically orientated surveys of anarchist thought as one of the earliest and best-known exponents of...
, against most commonly accepted social institutions—including the notion of State
Sovereign state
A sovereign state, or simply, state, is a state with a defined territory on which it exercises internal and external sovereignty, a permanent population, a government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other sovereign states. It is also normally understood to be a state which is neither...
, property as a right, natural rights in general, and the very notion of society—which he considers mere spooks
Spooks
Spooks is a British television drama series that originally aired on BBC One from 13 May 2002 – 23 October 2011, consisting of 10 series. The title is a popular colloquialism for spies, as the series follows the work of a group of MI5 officers based at the service's Thames House headquarters, in a...
or essences in the mind. Existentialism, according to Herbert Read, "is eliminating all systems of idealism, all theories of life or being that subordinate man to an idea, to an abstraction of some sort. It is also eliminating all systems of materialism that subordinate man to the operation of physical and economic laws. It is saying that man is the reality - not even man in the abstract, but the human person, you and I; and that everything else - freedom, love, reason, God - is a contingency depending on the will of the individual. In this respect existentialism has much in common with Max Stirner's egoism."
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich NietzscheFriedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...
has been one of the first philosophers considered fundamental to the existentialist movement, though the movement did not exist until after his death, which is when his works became better known. While he was alive, however, Nietzsche was frequently associated with anarchist movements and proved influential for many anarchist thinkers, in spite of the fact that in his writings he seems to hold a negative view of anarchists. This was the result of a popular association during this period between his ideas and those of Max Stirner. (See Relationship between Friedrich Nietzsche and Max Stirner.) As such, Nietzsche's Übermensch
Übermensch
The Übermensch is a concept in the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche posited the Übermensch as a goal for humanity to set for itself in his 1883 book Thus Spoke Zarathustra ....
was representative of the freedom for people to define the nature of their own existence, as well as the desire for a new human who was to be neither master nor slave
Master-slave morality
Master-slave morality is a central theme of Friedrich Nietzsche's works, in particular the first essay of On the Genealogy of Morality. Nietzsche argued that there were two fundamental types of morality: 'Master morality' and 'slave morality'...
. Nietzsche's idealized individual invents his or her own values and creates the very terms under which they excel, taking no regard for God, the State, or the social behavior of 'herds'
Herd behavior
Herd behavior describes how individuals in a group can act together without planned direction. The term pertains to the behavior of animals in herds, flocks and schools, and to human conduct during activities such as stock market bubbles and crashes, street demonstrations, sporting events,...
. It was these things that drew Nietzsche to anarchists and existentialists alike, showing the clear commonality between both.
Other forerunners
Some point to Mikhail BakuninMikhail Bakunin
Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin was a well-known Russian revolutionary and theorist of collectivist anarchism. He has also often been called the father of anarchist theory in general. Bakunin grew up near Moscow, where he moved to study philosophy and began to read the French Encyclopedists,...
as possibly following a "philosophy of existence" against "the philosophy of essence" as advocated by Hegel, a figure whom many anarchists, in contrast to Marxists, have found authoritarian or even proto-totalitarian. "Every individual," Bakunin writes, "inherits at birth, in different degrees, not ideas and innate
Essentialism
In philosophy, essentialism is the view that, for any specific kind of entity, there is a set of characteristics or properties all of which any entity of that kind must possess. Therefore all things can be precisely defined or described...
sentiments, as the idealists claim, but only the capacity to feel, to will, to think, and to speak," a set of "rudimentary faculties without any content" which are filled through concrete experience. Foundational existentialist thinkers such as Soren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...
also voiced their opposition to Hegel for denying the role of the free individual, glorifying State and Church, and claiming "absolute knowledge" about human beings. While influenced by Hegel early in his life, Bakunin later was stridently opposed to Hegel around the time he became an anarchist, and would refuse to say he was ever influenced by him.
The individualist anarchist and Transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau was an American author, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, historian, and leading transcendentalist...
's book, Walden
Walden
Walden is an American book written by noted Transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau...
, is an example of a work that might be considered a forerunner of existentialism.
Kafka and Buber
In the first and middle decades of the 20th century, a number of philosophers and literary writers had explored existentialist themes. Before the Second World War, when existentialism was not yet in name, Franz KafkaFranz Kafka
Franz Kafka was a culturally influential German-language author of short stories and novels. Contemporary critics and academics, including Vladimir Nabokov, regard Kafka as one of the best writers of the 20th century...
and Martin Buber
Martin Buber
Martin Buber was an Austrian-born Jewish philosopher best known for his philosophy of dialogue, a form of religious existentialism centered on the distinction between the I-Thou relationship and the I-It relationship....
were among these thinkers who were also anarchists. Both are today sometimes seen as Jewish existentialists
Jewish existentialism
Jewish existentialism is a category of work by Jewish authors dealing with existentialist themes and concepts , and intended to answer theological questions that are important in Judaism. The existential angst of Job is an example from the Hebrew Bible of the existentialist theme...
as well as Jewish anarchists
Jewish anarchism
Jewish anarchism is a general term encompassing various expressions of anarchism within the Jewish community.- Secular Jewish Anarchism :Many people of Jewish origin, such as Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, Martin Buber, Murray Bookchin, Noam Chomsky, Murray Rothbard or David D. Friedman have...
.
It is agreed that Kafka's work cannot be reduced to either a philosophical or political theory, but this has not necessarily been an obstacle to making links from existentialism and anarchism to his principal writings. As far as politics, Kafka attended meetings of the Klub Mladých, a Czech anarchist, anti-militarist and anti-clerical organization, and in one diary entry, Kafka referenced influential anarchist philosopher Peter Kropotkin
Peter Kropotkin
Prince Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin was a Russian zoologist, evolutionary theorist, philosopher, economist, geographer, author and one of the world's foremost anarcho-communists. Kropotkin advocated a communist society free from central government and based on voluntary associations between...
: "Don't forget Kropotkin!"
In his works, Kafka famously wrote about surreal and alienated characters who struggle with hopelessness and absurdity, themes which were important to existentialism, yet simultaneously presented critiques of the authoritarian family (in The Metamorphosis
The Metamorphosis
The Metamorphosis is a novella by Franz Kafka, first published in 1915. It is often cited as one of the seminal works of short fiction of the 20th century and is widely studied in colleges and universities across the western world...
) and bureaucracy
Bureaucracy
A bureaucracy is an organization of non-elected officials of a governmental or organization who implement the rules, laws, and functions of their institution, and are occasionally characterized by officialism and red tape.-Weberian bureaucracy:...
(in such works as The Trial
The Trial
The Trial is a novel by Franz Kafka, first published in 1925. One of Kafka's best-known works, it tells the story of a man arrested and prosecuted by a remote, inaccessible authority, with the nature of his crime revealed neither to him nor the reader.Like Kafka's other novels, The Trial was never...
) as well, about which he had strong views as institutions. He spoke, for instance, of family life as a battleground: "I have always looked upon my parents as persecutors," he wrote in a letter, and that "All parents want to do is drag one down to them, back to the old days from which one longs to free oneself and escape." In this regard, he was speaking from experience, but he was also influenced by his friend Otto Gross
Otto Gross
Otto Gross was an Austrian psychoanalyst. A maverick early disciple of Sigmund Freud, he later became an anarchist and joined the utopian Ascona community.His father Hans Gross was a judge turned pioneering criminologist...
, an Austrian anarchist and psychoanalyst. Otto Gross himself blended Nietzsche and Stirner with Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...
in developing his own libertarian form of psychology, feeling that they revealed the human potential frustrated by the authoritarian family: "Only now can we realize that the source of authority lies in the family, that the combination of sexuality and authority, shown in the family by the rights still assigned to the father, puts all individuality in fetters.".
Agreeing with Gross and holding fundamental anarchist views, Kafka would also define capitalism
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
as a bureaucracy, "a system of relations of dependence" where "everything is arranged hierarchically and everything is in chains," and that in the end "the chains of tortured humanity are made of the official papers of ministries."
Martin Buber is best known for his philosophy of dialogue
Philosophy of dialogue
Philosophy of dialogue is a type of philosophy based on the work of the Austrian-born Jewish philosopher Martin Buber best known through its classic presentation in his 1920s little book I and Thou...
, a form of religious existentialism centered on the distinction between the I-Thou relationship and and the I-It relationship. In his essay Ich und Du published in 1923, he writes how we cannot relate to other people through the "I" towards an "It", towards an object that is separate in itself. Instead, he believes human beings should find meaningfulness in human relationships, through "I" towards "Thou," towards people as ends-in-themselves which brings us ultimately towards God. This perspective could be seen as anarchist in that it implicitly critiques notions of "progress" fundamental to authoritarian ideologies which abstract from the personal here-and-now meeting of human beings. Later Martin Buber published a work, Paths in Utopia (1952), in which he explicitly detailed his anarchist views with his theory of the "dialogical community" founded upon interpersonal "dialogical relationships."
Post-war period
Following the Second World War, existentialism became a well-known and significant philosophical and cultural movement, and at this time undoubtedly influenced many anarchists. This was done mainly through the public prominence of two French writers, Jean-Paul SartreJean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy, particularly Marxism, and was one of the key figures in literary...
and Albert Camus
Albert Camus
Albert Camus was a French author, journalist, and key philosopher of the 20th century. In 1949, Camus founded the Group for International Liaisons within the Revolutionary Union Movement, which was opposed to some tendencies of the Surrealist movement of André Breton.Camus was awarded the 1957...
, who wrote best-selling novels, plays and widely read journalism as well as theoretical texts.
An influential exponent of atheist existentialism
Atheist existentialism
Atheist existentialism or atheistic existentialism is a kind of existentialism which strongly diverged from the Christian works of Søren Kierkegaard and has developed within the context of an atheistic worldview....
, Sartre throughout his works stressed the expansion of individual freedom in a world without God or a fixed human nature
Existence precedes essence
The proposition that existence precedes essence is a central claim of existentialism, which reverses the traditional philosophical view that the essence or nature of a thing is more fundamental and immutable than its existence...
. Just as anarchists have always stressed that deterministic blue-prints for ourselves or the future will never lead to freedom, Sartre believed human beings could choose for themselves their own freedom, a "being-for-itself"
Pour soi
Pour soi or being-for-itself is a term used by Jean-Paul Sartre in his Existentialist work Being and Nothingness. Contrasted with the being-in-itself which rejects its own freedom and objectifies itself, the being-for-itself actively exercises its own freedom to impart essence and meaning to its...
that is not enchained by the social, political, and economic roles imposed on them. This freedom may not always be completely joyous, as "man is condemned to be free" for Sartre. Anarchists argue likewise that an anarchist society would be desirable, but never inevitable and given to us, and thus we are left with what is the harder demand and responsibility for ourselves alone to create such a society.
It was for a brief period between 1939 and 1940 that Sartre was an anarcho-pacifist. Although best known for his Marxist politics and for aligning with the French Communist Party
French Communist Party
The French Communist Party is a political party in France which advocates the principles of communism.Although its electoral support has declined in recent decades, the PCF retains a large membership, behind only that of the Union for a Popular Movement , and considerable influence in French...
and the Maoists during 1968, Sartre said after the May rebellion
May 1968
The May 1968 protest refers to a particular period in French history. It was historically significant for being the first wildcat general strike ever, and for being the largest general strike ever, bringing the economy of an advanced industrial country to a virtual standstill. It commenced with a...
: "If one rereads all my books, one will realize that I have not changed profoundly, and that I have always remained an anarchist." Towards the end of his life, Sartre explicitly embraced anarchism.
Absurdism
In philosophy, "The Absurd" refers to the conflict between the human tendency to seek value and meaning in life and the human inability to find any...
, and how we should act to rebel against absurdity by living, by opening up the road to freedom without a transcendent reality. Camus would also be associated with the French anarchist movement. The anarchist Andre Prudhommeaux first introduced him at a meeting in 1948 of the Cercle des Étudiants Anarchistes (Anarchist Student Circle) as a sympathiser familiar with anarchist thought. He wrote for anarchist publications such as Le Libertaire, La révolution Proletarienne and Solidaridad Obrera (Worker Solidarity, the organ of the anarcho-syndicalist CNT
CNT
-Buildings:* Canadian National Tower, or CN Tower, a communications and observation tower in Toronto, Ontario, Canada-Businesses:* Cantiere Navale Triestino , an Italian shipbuilding company founded in 1908 and renamed Cantieri Riuniti dell' Adriatico Monfalcone in 1929-Non-profit organizations:*...
National Confederation of Labor), and stood with the anarchists when they expressed support for the uprising of 1953 in East Germany. He also again allied with the anarchists in 1956, first in support of the workers’ uprising in Poznan, Poland, and then later in the year with the Hungarian Revolution.
One of the most substantial expressions of both his existentialist and anarchist positions appears in his work The Rebel. For Camus, as for Nietzsche, rebellion should not delve into nihilism
Nihilism
Nihilism is the philosophical doctrine suggesting the negation of one or more putatively meaningful aspects of life. Most commonly, nihilism is presented in the form of existential nihilism which argues that life is without objective meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value...
, and as for Stirner, should be distinct from revolution
Revolution
A revolution is a fundamental change in power or organizational structures that takes place in a relatively short period of time.Aristotle described two types of political revolution:...
. It is not a lonely act, and does not destroy human solidarity but affirms the common nature of human beings. In the experience of the absurd, suffering is individual, but when it moves to rebellion, it is aware of being collective. The first step of the alienated individual, Camus argues, is to recognize that he or she shares such alienation with all human beings. Rebellion therefore takes the individual out of isolation: "I rebel, therefore we are." At the end of his book, Camus celebrates the anti-authoritarian spirit in history and comes out in favor of anarcho-syndicalism
Anarcho-syndicalism
Anarcho-syndicalism is a branch of anarchism which focuses on the labour movement. The word syndicalism comes from the French word syndicat which means trade union , from the Latin word syndicus which in turn comes from the Greek word σύνδικος which means caretaker of an issue...
as the only alternative: "Trade-unionism, like the commune, is the negation, to the benefit of reality, of abstract and bureaucratic centralism."
Compared by critics to Kafka and Camus, Stig Dagerman
Stig Dagerman
Stig Dagerman was a Swedish author and journalist.Stig Dagerman was one of the most prominent Swedish authors during the 1940s...
was the main representative of a group of Swedish writers called “Fyrtiotalisterna” (“the writers of the 1940s”) who channelled existentialist feelings of fear, alienation and meaninglessness common in the wake of the horrors of World War II and the looming Cold War. He was also an active anarchist throughout his life, and joined the Syndicalist Youth Federation, the youth organization of a syndicalist union, in 1941. At nineteen, he became the editor of "Storm", the youth paper, and at twenty-two he was appointed the cultural editor of Arbetaren ("The Worker"), then a daily newspaper of the syndicalist movement. He called "Arbetaren" his "spiritual birthplace".
Influence of existentialism
Italian anarchist Pietro Ferrua became an admirer of Sartre during this period and considered existentialism the logical philosophy for anarchists and "had written some papers on that topic." Marie Louise Berneri wrote that "in France Jean-Paul Sartre, André BretonAndré Breton
André Breton was a French writer and poet. He is known best as the founder of Surrealism. His writings include the first Surrealist Manifesto of 1924, in which he defined surrealism as "pure psychic automatism"....
, and Camus... have all fought the battle of the individual against the State."
It was the English anarchist Herbert Read
Herbert Read
Sir Herbert Edward Read, DSO, MC was an English anarchist, poet, and critic of literature and art. He was one of the earliest English writers to take notice of existentialism, and was strongly influenced by proto-existentialist thinker Max Stirner....
who was perhaps most notable for acknowledging the link between anarchism and existentialism. In his essay Existentialism, Marxism, and Anarchism (1949), Read takes an interest in the writings of Soren Kierkegaard, Martin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger
Martin Heidegger was a German philosopher known for his existential and phenomenological explorations of the "question of Being."...
, and Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy, particularly Marxism, and was one of the key figures in literary...
, and juxtaposes existentialism with his own anarchism, considering both to be superior to Marxism. Read was one of the earliest writers outside of Continental Europe to take notice of the movement, and was perhaps the closest England came to an existentialist theorist of the European tradition. He was also strongly influenced by Max Stirner
Max Stirner
Johann Kaspar Schmidt , better known as Max Stirner , was a German philosopher, who ranks as one of the literary fathers of nihilism, existentialism, post-modernism and anarchism, especially of individualist anarchism...
, noting the closeness between Stirner's egoism and existentialism, and wrote an enthusiastic Preface to the 1953 English translation of Albert Camus's The Rebel.
Contemporary approaches
Although throughout the 1940s and 1950s existentialism was the dominant European intellectual movement, in the 1960s it was starting to lose its influence in the face of growing negative response. During the 1960s, there would be little or no existentialist movement to speak of, and what popularity it had would become far more overshadowed by structuralismStructuralism
Structuralism originated in the structural linguistics of Ferdinand de Saussure and the subsequent Prague and Moscow schools of linguistics. Just as structural linguistics was facing serious challenges from the likes of Noam Chomsky and thus fading in importance in linguistics, structuralism...
, post-structuralism
Post-structuralism
Post-structuralism is a label formulated by American academics to denote the heterogeneous works of a series of French intellectuals who came to international prominence in the 1960s and '70s...
, and postmodernism
Postmodernism
Postmodernism is a philosophical movement evolved in reaction to modernism, the tendency in contemporary culture to accept only objective truth and to be inherently suspicious towards a global cultural narrative or meta-narrative. Postmodernist thought is an intentional departure from the...
, intellectual approaches which are today still widely used in academia. However, existentialism, particularly existential phenomenology
Existential phenomenology
Existential phenomenology is a philosophical current inspired by Martin Heidegger's 1927 work Sein und Zeit and influenced by the existential work of Søren Kierkegaard and the phenomenological work of Edmund Husserl....
, would still remain a significant influence on post-structuralism and postmodernism; one commentator has argued that post-structuralists might just as accurately be called "post-phenomenologists." Like existentialism, these approaches reject essentialist or reductionist notions and are critical of dominant Western philosophy and culture, rejecting previous systems of knowledge based on the human knower. Since the 1980s, therefore, a growing number of anarchist philosophies, represented by the term post-anarchism
Post-anarchism
Post-anarchism or postanarchism is the term used to represent anarchist philosophies developed since the 1980s using post-structuralist and postmodernist approaches. Some prefer to use the term post-structuralist anarchism, so as not to suggest having moved "past" anarchism...
, have used post-structuralist and postmodernist approaches.
Saul Newman
Saul Newman
Saul Newman is a political theorist and central post-anarchist thinker.Newman coined the term "post-anarchism" as a general term for political philosophies filtering 19th century anarchism through a post-structuralist lens, and later popularized it through his 2001 book From Bakunin to Lacan...
has utilized prominently Max Stirner and Friedrich Nietzsche along with such thinkers as Jacques Lacan
Jacques Lacan
Jacques Marie Émile Lacan was a French psychoanalyst and psychiatrist who made prominent contributions to psychoanalysis and philosophy, and has been called "the most controversial psycho-analyst since Freud". Giving yearly seminars in Paris from 1953 to 1981, Lacan influenced France's...
in his post-anarchist works. Newman criticizes classical anarchists for assuming an objective "human nature" and a natural order, which existentialism also objects to. He argues that from this approach, humans progress and are well-off by nature, with only the Establishment as a limitation that forces behavior otherwise. For Newman, this is a Manichaen worldview, which depicts only the reversal of Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan, in which the "good" state is subjugated by the "evil" people. Lewis Call
Lewis Call
Lewis Call is an American academic notable for being a central post-anarchist thinker. He is best known for his 2002 book Postmodern Anarchism, which develops an account of postmodern anarchism through philosophers such as Friedrich Nietzsche and cyberpunk writers such as William Gibson and Bruce...
and Michel Onfray
Michel Onfray
Michel Onfray is a contemporary French philosopher who adheres to hedonism, atheism and anarchism...
have also attempted to develop post-anarchist theory through the work of Friedrich Nietzsche.
However, it is of note that the anarcha-feminist L. Susan Brown
L. Susan Brown
L. Susan Brown is a Canadian anarcho-communist writer and theoretician.Brown is best-known for her germinal text The Politics of Individualism , in which she makes a distinction between "existential individualism" and "instrumental individualism" and examines how these forms are utilized in...
has written a work, The Politics of Individualism
The Politics of Individualism
The Politics of Individualism: Liberalism, Liberal Feminism, and Anarchism is a 1993 political science book by L. Susan Brown. She begins by noting that liberalism and anarchism seem at times to share common components, but on other occasions are in direct opposition to one another...
(1993) that explicitly argues for the continuing relevance of existentialism and its necessary compliment to anarchism. She believes anarchism is a philosophy based on "existential individualism" that emphasizes the freedom of the individual, and defines "existential individualism" as the belief in freedom for freedom's sake, as opposed to "instrumental individualism," which more often exists in liberal works and is defined as freedom to satisfy individual interests without a meaningful belief in freedom. But she argues, like post-anarchists, that classical anarchist theory has asserted human beings as naturally cooperative, and that this fixed, human nature presents many problems for anarchism as it contradicts its commitment to free will and the individual. For anarchism to be fundamentally individualist, she argues, it must look to existentialism for a more "fluid conceptualization of human nature." She looks to the works of Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy, particularly Marxism, and was one of the key figures in literary...
and Simone de Beauvoir
Simone de Beauvoir
Simone-Ernestine-Lucie-Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir, often shortened to Simone de Beauvoir , was a French existentialist philosopher, public intellectual, and social theorist. She wrote novels, essays, biographies, an autobiography in several volumes, and monographs on philosophy, politics, and...
in particular and sees them as being compatible with anarchism.
It is also notable that she argues anarchism does not generally take into account feminist ideas of child-raising. For instance, the idea of raising children existentially free from their parents and educated non-hierarchically by a community, is not often considered by anarchists, and yet radical thinkers from the highly Nietzsche-influenced Otto Gross
Otto Gross
Otto Gross was an Austrian psychoanalyst. A maverick early disciple of Sigmund Freud, he later became an anarchist and joined the utopian Ascona community.His father Hans Gross was a judge turned pioneering criminologist...
to existentialist psychiatrists such as R.D. Laing and post-structuralists Gilles Deleuze
Gilles Deleuze
Gilles Deleuze , was a French philosopher who, from the early 1960s until his death, wrote influentially on philosophy, literature, film, and fine art. His most popular works were the two volumes of Capitalism and Schizophrenia: Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus , both co-written with Félix...
and Félix Guattari
Félix Guattari
Pierre-Félix Guattari was a French militant, an institutional psychotherapist, philosopher, and semiotician; he founded both schizoanalysis and ecosophy...
have argued forcefully that the nuclear family is one of the most oppressive, if not the most, institutions in Western society.
Neo-anarchist Simon Critchley
Simon Critchley
Simon Critchley is an English philosopher currently teaching at The New School. He works in continental philosophy. Critchley argues that philosophy commences in disappointment, either religious or political...
sees the existential phenomenologist Emmanuel Levinas
Emmanuel Lévinas
Emmanuel Levinas was a Lithuanian-born French Jewish philosopher and Talmudic commentator.-Life:Emanuelis Levinas received a traditional Jewish education in Lithuania...
's self-defined "an-archic" ethics, the infinite ethical demand that is beyond measure and "an-archic" in the sense of having no hierarchical principle or rule to structure it, as important for actual contemporary anarchist social practice. His book Infinitely Demanding: Ethics of Commitment, Politics of Resistance propounds a Levinasian conception of anarchism and an attempt to practice it.
See also
- IndividualismIndividualismIndividualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology, or social outlook that stresses "the moral worth of the individual". Individualists promote the exercise of one's goals and desires and so value independence and self-reliance while opposing most external interference upon one's own...
- Black existentialismBlack existentialismBlack existentialism or Africana critical theory is a school of thought that "critiques domination and affirms the empowerment of Black people in the world". Although it shares a word with existentialism and that philosophy's concerns with existence and meaning in life, it "is predicated on the...
- Feminist existentialism
- Nihilist movementNihilist movementThe Nihilist movement was a Russian movement in the 1860s which rejected all authorities. It is derived from the Latin word "nihil", which means "nothing"...
Further reading
- Moore, John. I Am Not a Man, I Am Dynamite!: Friedrich Nietzsche and the Anarchist Tradition (2005). Autonomedia.
- Marshall, Peter. "Existentialism". Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism (2010). Oakland CA: PM Press.
- Levi, Mijal. Kafka and Anarchism (1972). Revisionist Press.
- Kafka and libertarian socialism.
- Goodman, PaulPaul Goodman (writer)Paul Goodman was an American sociologist, poet, writer, anarchist, and public intellectual. Goodman is now mainly remembered as the author of Growing Up Absurd and an activist on the pacifist Left in the 1960s and an inspiration to that era's student movement...
. Kafka's Prayer (1947). New York: Vanguard Press. - Buber, Martin. I And Thou (1971). Touchstone.
- Buber, Martin Paths in Utopia (1996). Syracuse University Press.
- Sartre at Seventy.
- Sartre By Himself.
- Albert Camus and the anarchists.
- Camus, Albert. The Rebel (1956). New York: Vintage.
- Stig Dagerman, Swedish existentialist and anarchist writer.
- Read, Herbert. Existentialism, Marxism, and Anarchism, Chains of Freedom (1949). London: Freedom Press.
- Newman, Saul. From Bakunin to Lacan: Anti-Authoritarianism and the Dislocation of Power (2001). Lanham MD: Lexington Books.
- Brown, L. Susan. The Politics of Individualism: Liberalism, Liberal Feminism and Anarchism (1993). Montreal: Black Rose Books.
- Critchley, Simon. Infinitely Demanding: Ethics of Commitment, Politics of Resistance (2007). New York: Verso.
External links
- The Ego and Its Own HTML version
- Give Me Liberty or Give Me Bad Faith: Anarchism and Existentialism in Conversation. Paper by Andrew Dobbyn
- Levinas and Anarchism. Articles and Research Tools by Mitchell Cowen Verter