Featuring thinkers such as Theodoros ‘the Godless’, Hegesias ‘the Death-Persuader’ and Aristippos the Elder a.k.a. ‘the Royal Dog’, the Cyrenaics have always been the most vilified and neglected among the many philosophical schools of the Hellenistic age. Initiated almost informally by Aristippos the Elder, one of the companions of Socrates, the Cyrenaic school found its structure only two generations later at the hands of Aristippos’ grandchild, Aristippos the Younger. Unlike the majority of philosophical movements of the time, which sprung mostly in Athens or in the coastal part of modern Turkey, the Cyrenaics take their name from the North-Eastern area of today’s Libya. Perhaps because of their distance from the increasing dogmatism of Platonic/Aristotelian Greece, the Cyrenaics promoted a sophisticated form of ultra-hedonism which sounds remarkably free and audacious even to our postmodern ears.
individualist anarchism
Cynics: the radical atheism of the heavenly dogs
Dressed in rags, if dressed at all, their heads half-shaved, eating, defecating and masturbating in public, ranting in the middle of the marketplace, the Cynics are among the most controversial figures of ancient Western philosophy. With a move that long predated the witty self-deprecation of groups like the Cubists or Afroamerican ‘nigga’ rappers, Cynic philosophers presented themselves as ‘dogs’ (kynoi) – and as such they behaved in public. By taking their place just under the bottom of the social order, the dog-philosophers simultaneously declared themselves to be above it: such was the most famous thinker of the early Cynic school, Diogenes the ‘son of Zeus’, the ‘heavenly dog’, the ‘king’. According to a famous anecdote, when Diogenes – who at some point was captured and sold as a slave – was asked by the trader in what he was proficient, he replied: ‘In ruling men’. Then he pointed to a rich man in the crowed and said. ‘Sell me to this man; he needs a master.’[1]
The Holy Southern Empire: a proposal for Southern European anarcho-papism
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.
Sperperare: la tesi dell'opportunismo irriverente
Fino a oggi avete creduto che ci fossero i tiranni!
Ebbene, vi siete sbagliati, non ci sono che schiavi:
laddove nessuno obbedisce, nessuno comanda.
Anselme Bellegarigue, 1850
Promesse
Perché la gente lavora? Se non per follia, lo fa per denaro. E perché ha bisogno di questo denaro? Per comprarsi la libertà dal lavoro. La logica di questa correlazione è lo stessa alla base del desiderio del povero di avere denaro al fine di sfuggire all’ossessione per i soldi, o del bisogno di un lavoro da parte del disoccupato al fine di liberarsi dall’ossessione per un impiego. La maggior parte degli esseri umani vive e funziona all’interno della logica della società contemporanea col solo fine di poterne di evadere.
Ma come può il desiderio di libertà trasformarsi in un meccanismo perpetuo e schiavizzante? All’interno del panorama contemporaneo la risposta va trovata nel modo in cui il capitalismo riesce a prendere le nostre richieste alla lettera e a restituircele realizzate, anche se lievemente modificate. Quella minima modifica, come sappiamo, è la piccola pillola avvelenata che trasforma le nostre richieste “esaudite” in catene ancora più strette. È così che nel corso degli anni il capitalismo ha realizzato le rivendicazioni sulla flessibilità del lavoro, sulla liberazione sessuale, sulla democrazia e via dicendo. Il capitalismo ci dà sempre ciò che vogliamo, ma lo fa in modo tale da confermare gli oscuri moniti del vecchio detto “Fai attenzione a ciò che desideri”.
A Life That Could Contain Every Kind of Greatness: Stirner meets Pessoa
“I belong to a generation – assuming that this generation includes others beside me – that lost its faith in the gods of the old religion as well as in the gods of modern unreligions. I reject Jehovah as I reject Humanity. For me, Christ and progress are both myths from the same world. I don’t believe in the Virgin Mary, and I don’t believe in electricity.”[1]
“Whenever I arrived at a certainty, I remembered that those with the greatest certainties are lunatics.”[2]
These opening words are part of the literary legacy of a man that never existed, the Baron of Teive. One of the several lifetime incarnations of Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa, the Baron of Teive is possibly his most dangerous heteronym. In his book The Education of the Stoic, the fictional Baron of Teive collects the last thoughts of a life that has come to an end, crashing against the willful edge of suicide.
“Since I wasn’t able to leave a succession of beautiful lies, I want to leave the smidgen of truth that the falsehood of everything lets us suppose we can tell. [...] These pages are not my confession; they’re my definition.”[3]
TODAY #7
TODAY #7: a publication by Through Europe. Featuring articles by Federico Campagna, Toby Austin Locke, Paolo Mossetti, Franco Berardi Bifo, Nathan Witt. Freely available here.
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