anarchism

The Holy Southern Empire: a proposal for Southern European anarcho-papism

Written by Federico Campagna, 16.09.2013
Cura hominum potuit tantam componere Romam,
quantam non potuit solvere cura deum.
Hildebertus, Carmina Minora, no.36
 
 
Beyond the Latin Empire
 
A few months ago, the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben published a short article on the opportunity to rethink the EU along its cultural traditions, rather than its economic dogmas. Agamben based his article on the work of the Russian-French philosopher Alexandre Kojeve, who presented the case for the political union of France, Italy and Spain in a culturally homogeneous Latin Empire which was to be politically and economically lead by France, and opposed to the Anglo-German block.
 
Despite the violent public reaction that followed Agamben’s piece, I would claim that, if Agamben is to be judge guilty of something, it is not of having been too provocative, but not enough.
 

The Garden of Egoists: a short introduction to Epicurus and Stirner

Written by Federico Campagna, 31.07.2013
Historical conditions
 
Although Epicurus founded his famous school, ‘The Garden’, at the end of the 3rd century BC, it was only centuries later, at the apogee of the Roman Empire, that his message reached its maximum level of diffusion.
By the time Classical Antiquity started fading into Late Antiquity, the Epicurean school challenged the Stoics and few other philosophical and religious schools – among which the obscure middle-eastern cult of Christianity – for hegemony over mainstream philosophy throughout the Empire.
This might sound surprising, if we think that one of the main principles of Epicureanism was lathe biose (live in hiding). Yet, Epicureanism owed its success to the perfect timeliness of its message.
 

Solidarity in ruins. A reflection on the Freedom bookshop bombing.

Written by Paolo Mossetti, 17.03.2013

Much has been said on the coward aggression Freedom bookshop was victim of. Founded by Charlotte Wilson and Peter Kropotkin and based in Whitechapel since the 1970s, Freedom was the oldest anarchic bookshop in the English-speaking world, home of the renowned Freedom Press - which sent into print names such as Clifford Harper, Vernon Richards, Colin Ward and his 'Anarchy' magazine, Murray Bookchin, William Blake and Errico Malatesta. It was already attacked by fascists in 1993 and since then metal bars were installed on the windows and the entrance door.
 
All major publishers, bookshops and leftist groups promtly expressed their solidarity, especially because Freedom Bookshop wasn't exactly a steady market competitor, but - like many anarchic organisations - a volunteer-run entity, struggling to survive. A spontaneous 'clean-up' soon followed, and many sincere militants, armed with broom, took part in this Red Aid intervention.
 
Ironically, with all due respect to those affected by the bomb -no one was hurt-, we could look at the bombing as exciting news for anarchism: for once, radical literature wasn’t confined to the spider webs and dust of academia. Not just another talk, another conference of self-boosting egoes and parboiled lectures. Most importantly, not another publisher whining about censorship before billing their authors as 'dangerous' on the back cover of their books (dangerous for whom, and how?). It was, surprisingly, a physical target to be physically attacked.

Tame Beasts: on obedience

Written by Federico Campagna, 04.04.2012
In 1959, Dr. Dimitriy Belyaev and his colleagues of the Institute of Cytology and Genetics in Novosibirsk, Russia, started a long-term experiment in the domestication of the silver fox (Vulpes vulpes). From an original population of 130 farm-bred foxes, the research team  progressively selected those who showed the least avoidance behaviour towards humans and separated them from the rest of the group. By allowing them to breed only amongst themselves – while avoiding interbreeding – by 1985 the researchers had managed to have 18% of the tenth generation of foxes showing extremely tame behavior. Their experiment was interrupted in that year, but other, more recent experiments have shown very similar results. Foxes, some of the least domesticable animals in nature, can be tamed as a species.[1]
 
Let’s compare the transformation of the Vulpes vulpes over the relatively short time-span of ten generations, with the evolution of humans over the vastly longer period of History, which we presume began in 3200 BC, with the first written records in Mesopotamia. That is, over 200 generations ago.
 

Squandering: the case for disrespectful opportunism

Written by Federico Campagna, 21.03.2012
Hitherto you have believed there were tyrants.
Well, you are mistaken: there are only slaves.
When nobody obeys nobody commands.
Anselme Bellegarigue, 1850
 
 
Promises
 
Why do people work? If they are not insane, they do it for the money. And what do they need this money for? To buy freedom from work. At the same time, money seems to be necessary to escape from the money-obsession of the poor, just like work seems to be necessary to escape from the work-obsession of the unemployed. The apparent non sequitur of these connections is the description of the logical loop in which most humans live and function in today’s society. Strangely enough, the very origin of their endless tail-chasing seems to be their desire to achieve a state of freedom, that is, an escape form the loop itself.
 
How could the human desire for freedom turn into a self-perpetuating and enslaving mechanism? Within the contemporary landscape, the answer lies in the way capitalism, as it always does, manages to take our requests to the letter, and to return them to us realized, if slightly modified. That slight modification, as we all know, is the tiny poison pill that turns all our ‘realized’ demands into even stricter chains. This is how, over the years, capitalism realized the requests for flexible work, sexual liberation, democracy, and so on. Capitalism always gives us what we want, but it does so in such a way that brings to reality the darkest warnings of the old saying, ‘be careful what you wish for’.
 
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