Blog - Page 13 of 287 - The Libertarian Labyrinth

Justice in the Revolution and in the Church: First Study (Parallel French)

January 6, 2023 Shawn P. Wilbur

PREMIÈRE ÉTUDE POSITION DU PROBLÈME DE LA JUSTICE À Son Éminence Mgr Matthieu, Cardinal-Archevêque de Besançon. Monseigneur, Avez-vous eu connaissance d’un petit livre, format in-32, couverture jaune, qui a paru, il y a tantôt deux ans, sous ce titre : Proudhon, par Eugène de Mirecourt, chez Gustave Havard, éditeur, rue Guénégaud, Paris ? — Non, répondez-vous, mes souvenirs ne remontent pas si haut. Je ne connais ni l’auteur ni son ouvrage. — Pardon, Monseigneur : ce petit livre fait partie d’une collection intitulée les Contemporains. Il a pour numéro d’ordre 32. C’est une soi-disant biographie dont l’auteur, M. de Mirecourt, après avoir reconnu, […]

Justice in the Revolution and in the Church: Preliminary Discourse (Parallel English)

January 5, 2023 Shawn P. Wilbur

These draft translations are part of on ongoing effort to translate both editions of Proudhon’s Justice in the Revolution and in the Church into English, together with some related works, as the first step toward establishing an edition of Proudhon’s works in English. They are very much a first step, as there are lots of decisions about how best to render the texts which can only be answered in the course of the translation process. It seems important to share the work as it is completed, even in rough form, but the drafts are not suitable for scholarly work or publication elsewhere in their present state.

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Justice in the Revolution and in the Church: Preliminary Discourse (Parallel French)

January 1, 2023 Shawn P. Wilbur

— 1858 First Edition — — 1860 Revised Edition — DE LA JUSTICE DANS LÀ RÉVOLUTION ET DANS L’ÉGLISE. ÉTUDES DE PHILOSOPHIE PRATIQUE ADRESSÉES A SON ÉMINENCE M. LE CARDINAL MATTHIEU, ARCHEVÊQUE DE BESANÇON. PROLOGUE Sous le nom d’un archevêque, j’adresse ces Études à tous les membres du clergé français. Comme au temps des Césars la société est menacée de se dissoudre ; et comme au temps des Césars l’Église croit avoir seule la puissance de la régénérer. L’ouvrage qu’on va lire ayant pour but de reconnaître la réalité et l’intensité du mal, d’en assigner la cause, d’en découvrir le remède, […]

E. Armand, “Scènes de Noel / Christmas Scenes” (1901)

December 24, 2022 Shawn P. Wilbur

A church or a temple. Light, many lights. Candles that illuminate vast crucifixes, or a Christmas tree laden with toys, a fir tree whose evergreen branches evoke the image of eternity. Organs whose sonic flights seem an echo of celestial hymns. Carols that remind us of those with which our mothers rocked us to sleep… Handsome gentlemen in frock coats, tight at the waist, with eight shining gleams; polished, pomaded, combed, varnished, tied. Beautiful, elegant, fragrant ladies, studded with jewels, real or fake, whose slightly raised skirts reveal an expensively shod foot at the end of a finely arched ankle… Good, honest families in their Sunday best, made respectable, troops of children whose happy faces the symbolic tree illuminates… Ease, comfort, joy!… all that is good.

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Charles-Auguste Bontemps, “Éloge de l’égoïsme / In Praise of Egoism” (1965)

December 23, 2022 Shawn P. Wilbur

Second Study—Personnes—Parallel French

December 6, 2022 Shawn P. Wilbur

— Formatting in progress — 1858 1860 ESSAIS D’UNE PHILOSOPHIE POPULAIRE. — NO. 2 DEUXIÈME ÉTUDE LES PERSONNES CHAPITRE PREMIER. Principe de la dignité personnelle. Monseigneur, Puisque c’est à l’occasion d’un fait personnel que j’ai conçu l’idée de mon livre, permettez-moi d’abord de revenir sur ce fait, auquel vous n’êtes pas étranger, et de vous poser une question. Le particulier, dit la logique, reproduit le général ; le fait est nécessairement l’expression de l’idée. En partant d’un fait, nous n’arriverons que mieux à la loi, tandis que le contraire serait impossible. Telle n’est pas, j’en conviens, la méthode des révélateurs ; mais […]

Constructing an Anarchism: Privation

December 2, 2022 Shawn P. Wilbur

So we are in a peculiar position as anarchists and proponents of anarchism, since, by standards that even we must acknowledge we recognize, that identification and advocacy make us—among other things, of course—champions of privation.

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Constructing Anarchisms (Reimagined)

November 30, 2022 Shawn P. Wilbur

When Constructing Anarchisms was interrupted by “reopening” and a growing pile of unanswered questions, plenty of unfinished business remained. I’ve been chipping away at it ever since. The fundamental questions I needed to answer before I could start my historical survey have largely been answered. The toolkit from “A Schematic Anarchism” has been an unexpected bonus. The process of answering those questions seems to have been useful to others as well.

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Reading Proudhon Today

November 16, 2022 Shawn P. Wilbur

There is a lot of interesting material in Proudhon’s unpublished manuscripts, not all of which is vital to understanding his project, but there are two sets of texts in particular that any serious student should at least be aware of—if only to know what we don’t know.

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P.-J. Proudhon, “Psychology” (1839)

November 13, 2022 Shawn P. Wilbur

This is the most complete and exact map that has been drawn of the human soul to date; consequently, and if our title is true, it is the system of the world. Any man can grasp the whole of it, but no one has sounded its depths.

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