Sorry for being so long-winded.
But hope you all will read this to stimulate a debate.
A committed suicidal man, lost in hopelessness, but yet determined
to make a statement, will it happen?
IRA chilling statement:
"You may succeed in stopping all my attempts, but I only need one
successful attempt."
Again, as Millennium generations are being "edcuated" in
CYperspace, what make us so sure that "corruption" has not set-in,
and we may have a budding "Osama Bin Laden" in our midst..be them
Chinese, Indian, Malay or "others"?
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Why read archaic essays?
Leszek Kolakowski:
"We study various mythologies of long-dead religions, and the fact
that there are no longer any believers does not make this study any
less interesting.....Inquiry into the history of ideas, whether
religious, philosophical, or political, is a search for our
self-identity, for the meaning of our mental and physical
efforts."
"Marxism is the greatest fantasy of our century.....an idea that
began in Promethean humanism and culminated in the monstrous
tyranny of Stalinism."
Friedrich A. Hayek:
"....Party politics of any one country has not been the concern of
this book. The question of how the principles I have tried to
reconstruct by piecing together the broken fragments of a tradition
can be translated into a program with mass appeal, the political
philosopher must leave to that insidious and crafty animal,
vulgarly called a statesman or politician, whose councils are
directed by the momentary fluctuations of affairs.
The task of the political philosopher can only be to influence
public opinion, not to organize people for action. He will do so
effectively only if he is not concerned with what is now
politically possible but consistently defends the "general
principles which are always the same"."
Emma Goldman's definition of Anarchism:
"The philosophy of a new social order based on liberty unrestricted
by man-made law; the theory that all forms of government rest on
violence, and are therefore wrong and harmful, as well as
unnecessary."
Now, Emma Goldman is a child of the Industrial Revolution where
labor is cruelly exploited; where labor unionists are murdered,
where sexual favors are part and parcel of employment; when unions
are fighting for their existences and fighting for 8-hour
days.
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Briefly, Emma Goldman "Anarchism" is as follows:
Anarchism is the great liberator of man from the phantoms that have
held him captive; it is the arbiter and pacifier of the two forces
for individual and social harmony.
Religion, the dominion of the human mind;
Property, the dominion of human needs; and
Government, the dominion of human conduct,
represents the stronghold of man's enslavement and all the horrors
it entails.
Religion!
How it dominates man's mind, how it humiliates and degrades his
soul.
God is everything, Man is nothing, says religion.
But out of that nothing God has created a kingdom so despotic, so
tyrannical, so cruel, so terribly exacting that naught but gloom
and tears and blood have ruled the world since gods began.
Anarchism rouses man to rebellion against this black monster.
Breaks your mental fetters, says Anarchism to Man, for not until
you think and judge for yourself will you get rid of the dominion
of darkness, the greatest obstacle to all progress.
Property, the dominion of man's needs, the denial of the right to
satisfy his needs. Time was when property claimed a divine right,
when it came to man with the same refrain, even as religion, -
Sacrifice! Abnegate! Submit!? The spirit of Anarchism has lifted
man from his prostate position. He now stands erect, with his face
towards the light. He has learned to see the insatiable, devouring,
devastating nature of property, and he is preparing to strike the
monster dead.
Just as religion has fettered the human mind, and as property, or
the monopoly of things, has subdued and stifled man?s needs, so has
the State enslaved his spirit, dictating every phase of
conduct.
"All government in essence," says Emerson, "is tyranny."
It matters not whether it is government by divine right or majority
rule. In every instance its aim is the absolute subordination of
the individual.
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[Background of this statement is the aftermath of the Warsaw Ghetto
Uprising and suppressed by the Nazi in 1939]
Order derived through submission and maintained by terror is not
much of a safe guaranty; yet that is the only "order" that
governments have ever maintained.
True social harmony grows naturally out of solidarity of
interests.
In a society where those who always work never have anything, while
those who never work enjoy everything, solidarity of interests is
non-existent; hence social harmony is but a myth.
The only way organized authority meets this grave situation is by
extending still greater privileges to those who have already
monopolized the earth, and by still further enslaving the
disinherited masses.
Thus the entire arsenal of government - laws, police, soldiers, the
courts, legislatures, prisons - is strenuously engaged in
"harmonizing" the most antagonistic elements in society.
But what about human nature?
Can it be changed? And if not, will it endure under
Anarchism?
Poor human nature, what horrible crimes have been committed in thy
name! Every fool, from king to policeman, from the flat-headed
parson to the visionless dabber in science, presumes to speak
authoritatively of human nature. The greater the mental charlatan,
the more definite his insistence on the wickedness and weaknesses
of human nature. Yet, how can any one speak of it today, with every
soul in a prison, with every heart fettered, wounded and
maimed?
John Burroughs has stated that experimental study of animals in
captivity is absolutely useless. Their character, their habits,
their appetites undergo a complete transformation when torn from
their soil in field and forest. With human nature caged in a narrow
space, whipped daily into submission, how can we speak of its
potentialities?
Freedom, expansion, opportunity, and, above all, peace and repose,
alone can teach us the real dominant factors of human nature and
all its wonderful possibilities.
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Anarchism, then, really stands for:
- the liberation of the human mind from the dominion of
religion;
- the liberation of the human body from the dominion of
property;
- the liberation from the shackles and restraint of
government.
Anarchism does not stand for military drill and uniformity; it
does, however, stand for the spirit of revolt, in whatever form,
against everything that hinders human growth. All Anarchists agree
is that, as they also agree in their opposition to the political
machinery as a means of bringing about the great social
change.
"All voting", says Thoreau, "is a sort of gaming, like checkers or
backgammon, a playing with right and wrong; its obligation never
exceeds that of expediency. Even voting for the right thing is
doing nothing for it. A wise man will not leave the right to the
mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the
majority."
{Isn't it like our Election Process where
all I have to do is to fork out S$13,000 to S$17,000 "tender
deposit" and try to win a 5-year cotnract that is paying a handsome
return of S$13,500 per month?
WHy must this "Privilege" be limited to the Aristocracy? Why can't
they reduce the "tender deposit" to say, a token of S$500.00 wehre
even Serfdom can participate in this Great Lottery every
5-year?
Poor Andrew Kuan. He lost his gamble to participate in the other
Great Lottery paying S$5-million per annum, and to boot, free
rental stay in a great colonial bungalow right in the heart fo the
city!}
Even were workers able to have their own representatives [in
Parliament], for which our good Socialist politicians are
clamoring, what chances are there for their honesty and good
faith?
One has but to bear in mind the process of politics to realize that
its path of good intentions is full of pitfalls; wire-pulling,
intriguing, flattering, lying, cheating; in fact, chicanery of
every description, whereby the political aspirant can achieve
success. Added to that is a complete demoralization of character
and conviction, until nothing is left that would make one hope for
anything from such a human derelict.
Time and time again the people were foolish enough to trust,
believe, and support with their last farthing aspiring politicians,
only to find themselves betrayed and cheated.
It may be claimed that men of integrity would not become corrupt in
the political grinding mill. Perhaps not; but such men would be
absolutely helpless to exert the slightest influence in behalf of
labor, as indeed has been shown in numerous instances.
The State is the economic master of its servants. Good men, if such
there be, would either remain true to their political faith and
lose their economic support, or they would cling to their economic
master and be utterly unable to dot eh slightest good.
The political arena leaves one no alternative, one must either be a
dunce or a rogue.
Anarchism is the only philosophy, which brings to man the
consciousness of himself; which maintains that God, the State, and
Society are non-existent, that their promises are null and void,
since they can be fulfilled only through man?s subordination.
Anarchism is therefore the teacher of the unity of life; not merely
in nature, but in man.
There is no conflict between individual and the social instincts,
any more than there is between the heart and the lungs; the one the
receptacle of a precious life essence, the other the repository of
the element that keeps the essence pure and strong.
The individual is the heart of society, conserving the essence of
social life; society is the lungs which are distributing the
element to keep life essence - that is, the individual - pure and
strong.
Anarchism is the philosophy of the sovereignty of the
individual.
It is the theory of social harmony.