E. Armand on Anarchist Individualism

Links:

• Encounters with Anarchist Individualism (begins January 1, 2025)
• E. Armand (project page)
• What is an Anarchist? (translation in progress)
• Rambles in the Fields of Anarchist Individualism

In preparation for a new project — essentially a year-long return to the “fields of anarchist individualism, involving a reading, revision and annotation of E. Armand’s Anarchist Individualist Initiation — I’ve been working to quickly translate a number of Armand’s other attempts to characterize anarchist individualism, including one that is apparently about to celebrate its hundredth birthday:

• The ABC of « our » anarchist individualist demands (dated December 31, 1924) (pdf)

You’ll find two more, similar but earlier texts below. In the sidebar you’ll also find a link to an in-progress translation of the text What is an Anarchist? — an immediate precursor of the Initiation — which I intend to complete over the next few days.

All of this is in support of “Encounters with Anarchist Individualism,” which should kick off on or around January 1 and feature regular posts containing revised translations from Armand’s work and commentary on the lessons that anarchist individualism has to offer to anarchist theory more generally. That project is, in turn, work in support of a larger study of general, synthetic anarchist theory — about which I’ll have a lot more to say in the coming weeks. For now, well, this stuff seemed to good not to share right away.

(1907)

ANARCHISM

as Individual Life and Activity

I

To say that the anarchist movement embraces several tendencies is not to say anything new; it would be surprising if it were otherwise. Placed at the extreme vanguard of the other parties, rather outside the party, this movement exists only thanks to the individuals who compose it; as there is no anarchist program, as there are only anarchists, it follows that each of those who claim to be an anarchist has his own way of conceiving anarchism. Persecutions, difficulties, struggles of all kinds require that whoever professes anarchism possess an unusual mentality, reflect, be in a state of continual reaction to the milieu whose components, on the contrary, do not reflect and are quite ready to accept an easy doctrine, not tiring for their brains. To ask that all anarchists have similar views on anarchism is to ask the impossible. Hence the divergences of conception that are manifested.

However, it seems that one master thought unites anarchists, and this thought is the anticipation, the possibility of a state of affairs where both authority — the domination of man over man, moral and intellectual domination — and exploitation, the economic form of authority, would be ignored. An anarchist is anyone who denies the authority of man over his fellow man and the exploitation of man by his fellow man. I only recall in passing the etymology of the word anarchy and I consider the terms “anarchist” and “libertarian” as synonyms: both are equivalent to “anti-authoritarian.”

But this definition would have only a negative value if it did not have as a practical complement a conscious effort to live outside this authority and this exploitation, which are incompatible with the anarchist conception. So that an anarchist is the individual who, consciously, whether he has been led there by reasoning, or whether he has been led there by feeling, lives outside authority and outside exploitation. From this it follows that anarchism is not only a philosophical doctrine, — philosophical doctrines abound by thousands — but it is a life. The anarchist is not only intellectually converted to ideas that will be realized some day, in a few centuries, but he tends from now on — because for him the present moment counts only — he aims from now on to practice his conceptions in daily existence, in daily relations with his comrades, in contact with his fellow men who do not share his ideas.

The characteristic tendency of every healthy and living organism is to reproduce itself. Sick organisms or those in the process of degeneration do not tend to reproduce — this from the cerebral point of view as from the purely genetic point of view. The anarchist therefore tends to find himself, to perpetuate himself in other individuals who will share his conceptions and who will make possible, on a more or less vast scale, a state of things from which authority and exploitation will be banished. It is this desire, this will not only to live — that would be pure individualism, which we consider an aberration — but also to reproduce, that we call propaganda and that we will call activity.

These considerations explain the title of our report: anarchism as life and as activity. Tending to live outside authority and exploitation, — tending to live his own, individual life, at the risk of entering intellectually, morally, economically, into conflict with the milieu — the anarchist tends at the same time to arouse in this same milieu beings freed like himself from the prejudices of authority and exploitation so that currently the greatest possible number of comrades live their own, individual lives, coming together in turn by personal affinities, in order to realize their conceptions.

The anarchist does not live isolated, inactive; the more the individuals sharing his conceptions grow in number, the more he has a chance of seeing individual aspirations realized, consequently the happier he is. The more the individuals composing his species grow in number, the more the empire of the milieu over his own life diminishes. The more his propaganda is extended and the more his activity grows: and the more his life intensifies.

With respect to his comrades by affinity, he establishes his relations on the bases of camaraderie, of mutual aid. He practices mutual aid within the species.

A conscious individual seeking to arouse other conscious individuals — from being determined by the milieu becoming a determinant of the milieu and striving to sow in others the seed of reaction to the milieu — at once living fully and intensely, active, such seems to me to be the communist anarchist.

II

The anarchist is therefore, first and foremost, an individual: anarchism is an individualist conception, producing individuals.

The legalitarians place the legal fact at the base of society: before the law, the constituent of society is nothing more than a zero; whether the law emanates from one person (autocracy), from several (oligarchy) or from the great majority of the members of society (democracy), the citizen must silence his aspirations before the law, even his most legitimate aspirations. The legalitarians claim that if the individual thus abstracts his person before the law, supposedly emanating from society, it is in the interest of society itself and in his own interest since he is a member of society. In truth, society as we know it can be summed up in this: the ruling classes allow only their own views on culture, morality and economic conditions to penetrate into the deep masses, through their intermediary the State, and they erect their views into civil dogmas, which cannot be violated under penalty of punishment, just as formerly under the reign of the Church no attempt was tolerated to violate religious dogmas under penalty of severe punishment. The State, the secular form of the Church, has replaced the latter, which was the religious form of the State, but both have always pursued, as their goal, not the formation of free beings, but of perfect believers or perfect citizens, in other words, those enslaved to Dogma or to the Law.

The anarchist answers that where there is imposed solidarity, it is null, that where there is a forced contract, there can no longer be any question of rights or duties, — that coercion frees him from the bonds that bind him to a so-called society whose executives he knows only under the guise of legislators, judges, policemen, that he is subject to the solidarity of daily relations. Fictitious solidarity equals no solidarity at all.

The socialists place the economic fact at the base of society. All life, according to them, is resolved in a question of production and consumption. And once this question is resolved, the human problem, — with its complexity of intellectual and moral experiences — is resolved at the same time. The individual can be conscious, he can be the last of the deceivers or the bad comrades, but he can only be interesting when considered as a producer or as a consumer. An appeal is made to all, to those who think as well as to those who do not think; all have the right to the collectivist banquet, all have the right to the result of the effort without having to attempt the effort; it is only a matter of grouping together, of seizing the power allowing control over the milieu, here by parliamentary means, there by revolutionary means, as soon as the milieu is conquered, collectivism will be established and, willingly or by force, will work because the recalcitrants will be forced to obey, manu militari, if necessary.

I do not know who called socialism the religion of the economic fact — it must be Georges D. Herron — but it is certain that there exists a socialist metaphysics; it teaches that all the productions of human activity: literature, art, science, sentimentality, all depend on the economic fact. This is not difficult to remember and it is within the reach of all brains; this is what explains its relative success. From its triumph, socialism, in its various shades, asks its follower to be a good producer and no less a good consumer, to trust, for the organization of production and consumption, in the lights of the elected or imposed delegates. It will not want to make an individual of him: it will make him a civil servant.

The anarchist does not base society on the legal fact any more than he establishes it on the economic fact; good citizen, good civil servant, good producer, good consumer,… this floured keg tells him nothing of value. He does not know when the collectivist society will be realized. In the meantime, one must live and labor. If one can prove that in certain cases the economic fact has determined the intellectual fact or the moral fact, can one not prove that the latter have, more often still, determined the former?

Is it not true that they collide, mix, determine each other reciprocally, alternately? From reformist socialism to anti-parliamentary revolutionary communism, passing through syndicalism, all socialist systems disregard the individual, the free agreement between individuals, giving first place to the greatest number. The anarchist proclaims that a transformed mentality will always correspond to a renewed economic regime, that it is not with stones falling into dust that a new social edifice will be built; that beings kneaded with prejudices can never constitute anything but a whole kneaded with prejudices; — that it is therefore important above all to establish solid materials, to arouse individuals.

If he enters a trade union, the anarchist enters it only as a member of a specific profession, in the legitimate hope of obtaining, by collective action, an improvement in his individual lot: but if he obtains a reduction in working hours, an increase in wages, he will see nothing anarchist in that. From the economic point of view, under present conditions, each anarchist gets by as best he can: this one by working for a boss, another by acting extra-legally, that one by taking advantage of the trade union, that one again by working in a communist colony; but, except in the case of the communist colony and provided that this enterprise is really communist, none of these ways of getting by is more “anarchist”than the other; they are “last resorts,” nothing more, nothing less.

III

Since the anarchist conception places the individual at the basis of all its practical consequences, it follows that it ignores collective morality, the general rule of life. The anarchist regulates his life not according to the law, like the legalitarians, not according to a given metaphysics, like the religious or the socialists, but according to his own needs and his personal aspirations, even if it means voluntarily making the necessary concessions to live with his comrades, if necessary. It does not follow that the anarchist, in demanding to live freely, demands to live licentiously; he knows very well that if life is rich to live, insofar as it is beautiful in experiences of all kinds, one becomes no longer capable of appreciating it, when one does not know how to control either one’s inclinations or one’s passions; he does not intend to make of life a sort of carefully raked English garden, monotonous and lugubrious by dint of being stripped of the unexpected; no, no; he wants to live it fully, intensely, in all his adventures, to borrow a phrase from Edward Carpenter, he harnesses a thousand horses to his chariot, but without letting the reins on the neck of any of them. The anarchist denies authority because it is possible for him to live without authority, regulating by his free agreement his relations with his comrades, never encroaching on the freedom of any of them, so that none of them encroaches on his own.

But with regard to those whose prejudices or interests prevent him from living his life, the anarchist will feel no solidarity: there are too many useless productions for him to feel bound by any economic solidarity. He is “refractory,” fatally, I would be tempted to say, refractory from the moral point of view — his morality is not that of the milieu — from the intellectual point of view, he thinks differently from the milieu, from the economic point of view, because circumstances can lead him to live extra legally. The full awareness that none of his acts will dominate him internally, is a sufficient criterion for him. Isn’t the essential thing that he remains himself?

Under the influence of spiritualist conceptions or rather of prejudices of “honor” or “honesty” poorly understood, many anarchists reject all solidarity with those of our comrades, whom the laws declare “accused by common law.” Whereas for the so-called crimes of the pen, of speech, or “acts of strike,” for the anarchists refractory from the intellectual or moral point of view, protest meetings are organized, subscription lists are launched, the “economic refractories” are left in the shadows. This is an anomaly that must cease. The most punished are the “economic refractory;” the way in which their punishment is carried out is harsher. No special regime for them. While the arrivals of a vaguely anarchist literature, or even the liberal bourgeoisie, will be willing to intercede for the intellectual or moral refractory, they wear themselves out as soon as it is a question of “economic” refractory anarchists. One can even affirm that this is the touchstone. Is it not appropriate, subject to the criterion indicated above, to put an end to an attitude that can only be dictated by ignorance or bias. Is not the anarchist constantly in a state of legitimate defense with respect to the milieu?

IV

The work, the anarchist activity therefore consists not in increasing the number of groups based on legal or economic fact (Freemasonry, Human Rights League, unions, etc.) but in arousing — I repeat myself on purpose — conscious individuals, free from prejudices. It will be above all a work of undermining, a work of criticism, a work of education, coupled with destruction. This is indeed the work of anarchism; incapable, out of loyalty to its philosophy of the present moment, of indicating the hour of the advent of the collectivist or communist era, it is content to awaken the aspiration to live it. Instead of speaking of “love in general,” it speaks modestly of mutual aid between comrades: — he who loves everyone ends up loving no one. Instead of pushing back individual happiness to the socialist or communist calends, it advocates its immediate search by proclaiming the joy of living.

Instead of building the great building of Harmony with materials taken at random, ruins, rubble, debris, it detaches the stones one by one from the great quarry of Humanity.

The anarchists are neither socialists nor unionists, they are pioneers, outsiders, outside, on the margins, beyond morality, beyond good and evil, beyond conventions. They go, stumbling, sometimes falling, soon getting up again, often triumphant and often defeated, and while living for themselves, they dig the furrow, they open the breach through which the rebels who will succeed them will later pass. Other obstacles will arise, but the example of their precursors will push the rebels of tomorrow to try to overthrow them, while directing their efforts!

E. ARMAND.

• E. Armand, L’Anarchisme comme vie et comme activité individuelles [« Rapports présentés au congrès libertaire d’Amsterdam »], éd. de l’Anarchie, Impr. des Causeries populaires, Paris, 1907

(1910)

Anarchist first

I am an anarchist first. It is the basis of all my aspirations. At the origin of all my conceptions of individual life I place the negation of authority, I do not want to exert constraint on others, but I do not intend for others to exert constraint on me. I fight the encroachment of the non-self on the self, but I agree not to encroach on the non-self. It is a restriction. And that is why I am an individualist only afterwards, since this restriction can lead me to apparently renounce advantages that the acceptance or the exercise of authority, used in my favor, would procure me. It is by design that I write apparently, because in reality the benefit that results from the acceptance or the exercise of domination always ends up diminishing internally whoever lowers himself to that point.

I can accumulate contradictions in what I write. For I write only what I think at the moment I express it. And my opinion on a given subject may just as well change several times in the course of a year as remain the same. I do not want the authority of the dead who were dear to me over my thoughts any more than the authority of my former cerebral being. But an anarchist way of considering the questions I deal with dominates all my fluctuations of thought: I never consider them as susceptible of being resolved in an authoritarian fashion.

It is to the safeguarding of the autonomy of the person, of the ego, that I attach myself first of all when I discuss or examine the details of the relationships of the being with its fellows, or life among anarchists.

To be an anarchist is to deny the intervention of the State in the arrangement of my relationships with comrades in life or ideas. And the State is everything that encompasses and subjects a certain number of beings to the same conditions of life. The State is not only the Government, but it is Society, the Collectivity, the Community, the Commune, the Group; it is everything that exudes a whiff of aggregation, everything that subordinates a priori the particular interest to the general or common interest, everything that relates the individual effort to the well-being of the agglomeration. Dp I am no more communist than statist, deist or theist. I am anti-communist as I am atheist or anti-statist. And it is to mark it well that I call myself an anarchist-individualist.

I intend to be able to educate myself or to refuse to learn to read. I want to be able to be monogamous or polygamous, as I please. To devote myself to poetry or to devote myself to the exact sciences. To dress as I please or not to dress at all. To feed on plants or eat meat. To labor as much as I please, where and with whomever suits me, and for what pleases me. To be able to dispose of my time as I wish. To be governed only by my needs. To maintain the free disposal of my product; to destroy it, to give it away, to exchange it, to set such a value on it as I please. To choose my comrades, to leave them at will, or to live on the fringes of all friendship. To determine the nature of my satisfaction. To fix my rule of conduct and to modify it. To act, guided by reason or oriented by feeling. To be able to spread without any restriction my speech and my writings, etc., etc.

On one condition: not to oppress, constrain or exploit any being whatsoever in order to accomplish my design. Nor to behave as a hypocrite or a dissembler with regard to whom I have chosen as a comrade. I declare myself in a state of legitimate defense against any state of affairs that denies me these elementary possibilities. Adding of course their inevitable corollary: inalienable possession of the means of production — land or machine — meeting my individual economic needs. But I do not feel at all the “right” to impose my point of view on anyone. Even if circumstances were to occur that would put me in a position, without any risk, of forcing others to regulate their lives on mine, I would not be able to use them. Even if this refusal would be to my detriment. I am an anarchist first.

⁂

Secondly, I have to determine what gestures or actions are useful or harmful to my development, to my ability to appreciate life. I can give up alcohol, adopt a purely vegetarian diet, remain sexually faithful to the same partner for fifty years, meet with comrades to create a study circle, join with co-producers to produce a utility whose value we will set together, enter into a contract that can be terminated at will without in any way harming my anarchist conception of life.

There is nothing here that has been imposed on me. Nor is there anything that I impose. I do not intend to contribute to promulgating laws prohibiting tobacco or wine. Monogamous, I do not force my partner or, polygamous, my friends to stay indefinitely by my side when my company has ceased to please them. If I try to keep them, it will be solely by sentimental arguments. If I were to issue vouchers representing the effort I have made to carry out my production, I would not give them as legal tender and, in the case of production by several people, it goes without saying that my co-associates could separate from me if they find me a bad companion.

⁂

The current regime concentrates in the hands of a handful of privileged people the money and the values representing capital. It imposes on me a so-called social contract whose terms I am unable to discuss. It obliges me to contribute through taxes to the maintenance of a host of institutions and officials who do not interest me in any way. Collectivism or Communism would transfer the monopolies and privileges, the land and the other means of production to the Collectivity or the Community, leaving me without resources that belong to me personally, economically dominated. Making me a production machine, a contributor to the heap, forcing me a priori to produce for the consumption of those who do not want to contribute to common production, imposing on me in advance participation in productions that I may find useless or harmful. I am no more in favor of Capitalism than of Collectivism or Communism. I am an anarchist-individualist.

I am writing this to complete statements already made. It will be understood why I am interested in “attempts at living together,” in free associations formed by certain comrades with a view to tearing themselves away from frequenting a deranged and hypocritical milieu, demanding cretinism and careerism. It will be understood that I follow with the liveliest sympathy manifestations such as the refusals of military service (some of these are noted from time to time in Holland) and those of paying taxes, — two means of struggle whose generalization would bring about in the short term the fall of the governmental and statist mechanism. Free unions, single or plural, as protests against fashionable morality; practice of illegalism as a violent rupture of an economic contract imposed by the abstention from any action, from any labor, from any function implying maintenance or consolidation of the imposed intellectual, ethical or economic state of affairs: In all these gestures, I see marks of anarchist activity all the clearer as they are clearly directed against the functioning of statist oppression. These are gestures that are at the same time eminently individualistic, since they are the fruit of logical and mature reasoning on the part of the person who performs them… Yes, these acts of revolt are indeed the work of these rebels, these refractory people, these risk-takers who are the anarchist-individualists.

E. Armand.

• E. Armand, “Anarchiste d’abord,” L’Ère nouvelle 5 no. 49 (Juillet-Août 1910): 53-55.

Working translations by Shawn P. Wilbur.

Last revised December 29, 2024.