Moribund Society and Anarchy

This role is too well played by the bourgeois rhetoricians for us to attempt to supersede them in it. If the workers want to emancipate themselves they must understand that this emancipation will not come of itself; that they must obtain it; and that self-education is one of the forms of the social struggle. The possibility and the continuance of their exploitation by the capitalistic class proceed from their ignorance. They must know how to free themselves intellectually if they wish to be able to free themselves materially. If they already recoil before the difficulties of mental emancipation, which depends solely upon their own willingness, what then will it be before the difficulties of a more active struggle in which it will be necessary to expend an altogether incommensurate force of character and amount of will! Useless and injurious as it is, the bourgeoisie has nevertheless succeeded in concentrating in the brains of a few all the scientific knowledge necessary to the present development of humanity. If we do not want the revolution to be a step backward, the worker must be able intellectually to replace the bourgeoisie which he wishes to overthrow; his ignorance must not be an obstacle to the development of sciences already acquired. If he does not know them thoroughly he must be able to comprehend them when he finds himself in their presence.

To be sure we quite understand all this impatience; we can imagine that those who are hungry would like to see the dawning of the day when they will be able to appease their hunger; we are perfectly aware that those who submit to the yoke of authority only by suppressing their anger, are impatient to shake it off, desirous of listening to words in conformity with their condition of mind, reminding them of their hatreds, their desires, their aspirations, their thirst for justice. But however great this impatience, however legitimate the demands and the need of realizing them, the idea advances only by degrees, penetrates the mind and lodges there only when matured and elaborated. When we consider that the bourgeoisie which we wish to overthrow took centuries of preparation before it overturned the royalty, it should cause us to reflect upon the work of elaboration which we have to do. In the fourteenth century, when Étienne Marcel attempted to seize the power for the benefit of the bourgeoisie, already organized in corporations, the bourgeois class already felt itself to be strong; for a long time it had been aspiring to authority and had organized itself for that purpose, had educated and developed itself, had worked for its enfranchisement by endeavoring to obtain from the baronage the freedom of the communes. It was not, however, till four centuries later that it succeeded in winning the long coveted boon.

Assuredly we hope not to have to wait so long for our enfranchisement and the overthrow of capitalistic exploitation. Its complete collapse at the end of so short a period of power is hurrying it on to a speedy fall. Yet if the bourgeoisie was able in 1789 to substitute itself for “divine right,” it was because it had prepared itself intellectually for such substitution; and the more rapid the downfall the more haste should we workers make to prepare ourselves intellectually, not to replace the power which we must destroy but to organize ourselves so as to prevent any aristocracy’s substituting itself for that which has given way. The idea of free individual initiative once being established, people should be enabled (we cannot repeat it too often) to learn how to reason and to combine their initiative. If they have not the will to deliver themselves from their own ignorance, how will they be able to make others understand when they themselves have not been able to learn? Let us have no fear, then, of discussing the most abstract questions; each solution obtained is a step forward on the pathway of emancipation. Leaders being discarded, the knowledge hitherto in their possession must be diffused among the masses; and there is but one means of bringing it within their reach, which is, that, while continuing to go forward we persuade them to interest themselves in questions which interest us. Once more: Let us make ourselves as clear as possible; but let us not mutilate ourselves for then, instead of bringing the masses to us we should be brought to them; instead of going forward we should go backward⁠—truly a queer way of understanding progress.

IV

Is Man Evil?

It is upon the contention that “man is too evil to know how to govern himself,” that authoritarians base their justification of the power they wish to establish. “Power is necessary to reform mankind” is the reply to the Anarchists when they speak of establishing a society based upon solidarity, entire equality, and absolute autonomy for the individual, without authority, rule, or constraint. “Man is evil.” Undoubtedly! But may he become better, and may he become worse? Is any change in his present condition possible, either for good or ill? Can he be improved or deteriorated physiologically and morally? And if evolution in one sense or another be possible (as history proves that it is) does the heritage of ancient laws, the harness of old institutions, tend to make men better, or do they help to make him worse? The answer to this question will tell us which of the two, modern man or the social state, must be reformed first.

Nowadays no one denies that the physical environment has an enormous influence upon the physiological constitution of man; now, with still greater reason the intellectual and moral environment must influence his psychological constitution.

Upon what is our present society based? Does it tend to create harmony among men? Is it so managed that the adversity of one shall be felt by others, in order that all may be led to diminish or prevent it? Does personal well-being flow from general well-being, and is no