Anarchism
he word anarch)' unsettles most people in the \(!e.'itern world~ It sug-
7 ing those conditions, because \ve have been livlllg with them for a long
Anarchism
That I could get a PhD. from a major American university without
knowing anything about anarchism, surely one of the most important
political philosophies of modern times, is a commentary on the nar-
rowness of American education I first became aware of anarchism
when in 1968 I became friends with a fellow historian, Richard
Drinnon, who had written a biography of the anarchist-feminist Emma
Goldman. Rebel in Paradise. I read his book, then read Emma
Goldman's autobiography Living My Life, and from that point on tried
to learn as much as I could about anarchist thought and experience.
For years. I taught a seminar on "Marxism and Anarchism" at Boston
University. Herbert Read was famous in England not only as an art
critic but as an anarchist, and his collection of essays, Anarchy and
Order, was being published in its first American edition by Beacon
Press in 1971. I wrote the following essay. entitled "The Art of
Revolution." as an introduction to that volume.
B44
64"5
T gests disorder, violence, uncertainty. \Ve have good reason tor fear-
time, not in anarchist societies (there have never been any) but in exact-
ly those societies most fearful of anarchy-the powerful nation-states of
modern times.
l\t no time in human history has there been such social chaos.
fifty million dead in the Second W'orld \Var. More than a million dead in
Korea, a million in Vietnam, half a million in Indonesia, hundreds of
thomand~ dead in Nigeria, and in Mozambique. A hundred violent polit-
ical struggles all over the world in the twenty years fol1owing the second
war to end all wars. Millions starving, or in prisons, or in mental institu-
tions. Inner turmoil to the point of large-scale alienation, confusion,
unhappiness. Outer turmoil ~y'mbolized by huge armies, stores of nerve
gas, and stockpiles of hydrogen bombs. \X/herever men, women and chil-
dren are even a bit conscious ofthe world our~ide their local border~, rhey
have been living with the ultimate uncertainty: whether or not the human
race itself will survive into the next generation.
Ir is the~e conditions that the anarchists have wanted to end; to
bring a kind of order to the world for the first rime. We have never li~­
tcned to them carefully, except through the hearing aids supplied by the
guardians of disorder-the national government leaders, whether capital-
ist or socialist.
The order desired bv anarchists is different from the order
("Ordmmg," the Germans called it: "faw dnd order," ~ay the American
politicians) of national governments. They want a voluntary forming of
human relations, arising out of the needs of people. Such an order comes
from within, and so is natural. People flo\',' into ea~y arrangements, rather
than being pushed and forced. It is like the form given by the artist, a
form congenial, often pleasing, sometimes beautiful. It has the grace of a
voluntary, confident act. Thus there is nothing surprising in Herbert
Read, poet and philosopher of art, being an anarchist.
Read came to philosophical anarchism out of his special set of
experiences: growing up in Yorkshire as the son of an English farmer.
spending several years as a c1etk in the industrial city of Leeds, going IO
the University there, writing poetry, entranced by art and literature-and
 TllF 1.1:\" RFAllFI{
then enduring the sounds and smells of \var as a British Army Capra in in
\\'orld \'('<1[ 1. for a \vhilc he was captlv,lted, ,1S were so many, by lhe
Bolshevik Revolution, bm [he party dictatorship turned hun firmly
toward anarchism, \vhich also seemed lO fit more comfortably his wlde-
ranging inren:st in the arts: portery, poetry, \X'ordswonh and Coleridge,
art crincism, the philosophy of an.
He had written over [(my books before he died in 196R, mostly
on art and Iirerature. In All'lI"d~)' muf Order, published in England in
1954, he put together various essa;r's he had \\'fHten on anarchism, from
his slim volume of 19JR, Poetl).' iwd Allilrchl.,m, to his essay "Revolullon
and Reason," of 1955. This imponanr book was never published in rhe
United Srates, perhaps because America in the fitiies was nor hospitable
to anarchism, or to serious dissent of any kind. As we stan the Seventies,
rhe mood is different. Read offers us something thal this generation seems
[0 want and need: an aesrhetic approach ro politics.
The order of politics, as we have known ir in rhe world, is an
order imposed on society', neither deSired by most people, nor directed to
[heir needs. Iris therefore chaotic and destructive. Politics grares on our
sensibilities. It violates the e1emenrary requirement of aesthetics-ir is
devoid of bcaury. It is coercive, as if sound \vere forced Illto our ears ar ,\
decibellevc! such as to make us scream, and rhose responsible called this
music. The "order" of modern life is a cacophony which has made us
almost deaf to the gentler sounds of rhe universe.
It is fiuing that In modern times, around [he time of the h-ench
and American Revolutions, exactlv \vhen man became most proud of his
achievemellfs, the ideas of ana;chism arose to challenge thaI' pnck
\Xrestern Clvilizarion has Ilever been modest in descrihing its qualitie.'i as an
enormous advance in human history: rhe larger uniry of national states
n:plaClng tribe and manor; parliamentary government replacing the
divine right of kings: steam and electricity substituting ttJr manual Ltbor;
education and sCIence dispelling ignorance and supersrition; due prace.s s
of law canceling arbirrary jusrice. Anarchism arose in the mosr splendJd
davs of \Xbtern "civilizarion" bccause the promises of that civilization
werc almost immediatelv hroken .
.t\allonallsm, pr~lllising freedom from outside tyranny, and secU-
rine hom internal disorder, vasrlv magnified both the stimulus and the
p;ssibility for worldwide empires over subjected pcople, and bloody con-
Hiers among such empires: imperialism and war were intensified to the
edge of global suicide exactly in the period of rhe narional stare.
Parliamenrary government, promising popular participation 111 important
decisions, became a facade (dillercntly construcred in one-party and I"\VO-
party stares) for rule by elites ofv..'ealth and power in the midsr ofalmosr-
frenzied scurrying to polls and plebiscites. l\1ass production did not end
poveny and exploirarion; indeed ir made the persistence of want more
unpardon<lble. The production and distribution of goods became more
rarional technically, more irrational morally. Education and literacy did
not end rhe deceprion of the many by rhe few; they enabled deception to
be replaced by self-deceprion, mystificarion to be internalized, and social
control to be even more effective than ever before, because nmv it had a
large measure of seijcontrol. Due process did nor bring justice; it replaced
the arbitrary, identifiable dispenser of injustice with the unidentifiable
and impersonal. The "rule oflaw," replacing the "rule of men," was just a
change in rulers.
In the midst of the American Revolution, Tom Paine, while call-
ing for the establishment of an independent American government, had
no illusions about even a new revolutionary government when he wrote,
in Common S'el1S1~ "Society in ever;' srate is a blessing, but government
even in its best state is bur a necessary evil."
Anarchists almost immediately recognizcd rhar rhe fall of kings,
and the rise of committees, assemhlies, parliaments, did not bring
democracy: thaI' revolutions had rhe potential for liberation, bur also for
another form of desporism. Thus, Jacques Roux, a country priest in lhe
French Revolution concerned wirh rhe lives of the peasanrs in his dis-
trict, and thcn \vith the workingmen in the Gravilliers quarter of Pari~,
spoke in 1792 against "senatorial despotism," saying it was "as rerrible as
the scepter of kings" because it chains rhe people withour their knOWing
it and brutalizcs and subjugates them by bv·...s they rhemselves ,tre sup-
posed to have made. ]n Perer \Veiss\ play, iHamt-Sade, Roux, strairjack-
ered, breaks through the ccnsorship of rhe play within rhe play and cries
our:
Wnu lumroL~ the markets
\X;11U lucb up the granaries
\X'ho gOt the loot from the pabce~
Who sit~ tight un the esta[e~
 Tlif 7J~\: R!:Af)ER
lhat wcre- going to be dlvidnj hc["wccn the poor
hcfo["e he IS quieted.
A friend of ROllX, Jean Varlet, in an early atldrchi~t manifesto of
the French Revolution called E\pIM/oII, wrote:
\'I/hal a social ll1onsrrosity, wll<lt a ma"erpl~ce of \hchl,welllaniSIl1, thi"
rcvolutionary gOl'cmmenr is ill bu, ror any leasonlllg bClng, Govcrnlll~nt
and R~volLltioll dr\:' illcomp'tliblc, at least unless the ~)eoplc \\ish~,\ 1'0 LOll-
stitlJte rhe organ,1 of power in permanent ifl.luneuioll agalnlr rhclllseiv es .
which is lOo ab5urd lo bel lew.
But it i~ exactly that which is "too ah~urd to helieve" which the anarchists
believe, because only an ""absurd" perspecrive is revolutionar;.-· enough to
sec through the limits of revolution itself Herbert Read, in a book with
an appropriately absurd tide, Tt) Hell With Clilture (he was seventy; this
\vas 1~J63, five veal'S before his death), \vrotc:
\Xhar ha, heen \vOrTh ,vhile III human hi\wrv-thc l':reJt aLllle\'em~m,1 of
ph;,sic5 and <lstl'OIH)Il1;', ofgcographlc:al dlsc:m:ery anJofhllman he;lll1lg, of
philosophy and of an-Ius been rhe work of extremists-of thos~ whu
helieveJ ill thc absurd, d'lred the llllpossibk..
The Russian Revolution promised even more-to eliminate that
iniustico:: carried into modern times bv the American and French
Revolutions. Anarchist criticism of that Revolution wa~ summed up by
Emma Goldman (,H)' hlrt!Jer [)w'llllSlliliment m RII.uw) a~ follows:
Ir 1,1 :It onc:e the g:reat Ltilure and (he grear rragedy of rhe Russian
IZcvolUllon thar ir arrempteJ... w change only Insrirurions and condirion,';
while ignoring ~nflrely rhe human and soci.ll values involved in [he
Rn'olulioJl .... :'.Jo re\"oluflo[] can ever succeed as i1 t:1Cl'Or of lib,:ra,iu!l unless
rhe 1111:'(./'1.' ll,cd lO furthu it he idenrical in spirit and rendency with the pur-
pmE; ro he achicved. RevolU(lon is thc neg,H1on of the cxisting. a violent
prme\t ag:am"t nun's inhulll.mity ro man with all the [housand and Ollt'
sl.w~ne,'; ir l[]vulvcs. It 1\ rh~ destroyu of JominaIll ,',llues upon which ,1
(omplex s~;stCJll of injll"tiu:. oppression. and wrong has been huil[ up by
l!.;norance and hruu!it\,. !l is rhe herald of rtEW l'llltii"·, ushering in a tratls-
j:orm;nion of the b;lSic relarions or mall ro man, 'tnd of Illan to soc:iery.
The institution of capitalism, anarchists believe, is desrrucrive,
irrational, Inhumane. It leeds ravenously on the imlllense tesources of the
earth, and then churns out (this is its achievement-it is an immense stU-
AI1,/rchi.'m
pid churn) huge quamities of products. Those products have only an acCl-
dcntal relationship to what is most needed by people, beclUsc the orga-
nizers and dislrihutors of goods care nor <lboUl human need; thev are
great bUSIness enterpri.se~ motivated only by profit. Therd(l["c, bombs,
guns, office buildings, and deodorants rake priority over fond, homes,
and recreation areas. Is there anything closer to "anarchy" (In tl1l' common
me of the word, mcalllng confusion) than the incrediblv wild :lIld waSle-
ful economic system in America?
.'\narchists believe the riches of the earth belong equally to alL
and should be distributed according
to nced, not throtwh the intricate..
, ~
inhuman sy'stem of money and contracts which have .so tar dlJnnclcd
most of these riches into a small group of \vealrhy people, dnd into a few
countrlcs. (The L'nited States, with six percent of the population, owns,
produces, and COllSutne~ tifty percent of (he world's production.) They
would agree With the Storr reUer in Ikrtholr Brecht's The ClIIm:iltln
Chalk Circ/", III the final words of the play:
lake l10te wh:n men uf old concluded:
That what rhere jo "h.ll1 go 10 dlOse who arc good t(lr ir
Thll.\: rill' children to the motherly, thar [hcy prosper
Th~ (arts to g:oocl drivers. thar rh(·\· arc well drlwn
And [he ,·alley to rhe ,\arer~rs, th<ll il hrlll!; fOlrh [nllt.
It was on this principle that CeLnd \Xiinsunlev, le;lder of the
Diggers in seventeenth century EngLlIld, ignored the Lnv of private mvn-
ership and led his t()l!owers to plant grain on unused land. \Xiinstaniey
wrote dhollt his hope for the future:
\'{'hen this lllliversal Lm ufequi(;.' risC'; lip III ever\' man and woman, tiKI!
!1une shall Lt\' claim [0 ,tIlV neaturc and say, Thi" is mine, and rh.lI is 'ours,
Thi, IS Illy ,\:ork, [hat i" ,-"uurs, BUl e\'er\' ~ne shall pur [() their hands' to till
th~ e.lrth and hrlllg lip Larrle, and rh~ blessing of the <.:anh shall b~ com-
mon ro .111; when a man harh nced uf anv (om or Ca[tle, tak~ from the next
slUrehuuse hc men,1 wirh. There shall be no bU;-Ing or sellin!;: no Lms 01
m~rkClS, but the whole earth shall be J C:Olllll!on rr(,ISUf\' for n'cr,' mall, f()[
the earth IS rhe lord's.. .
Our problem is to make lISC of the magnificent technolo(~v or our
be
time, for human needs, v...· irhollt being victimized by a bureaucratic mech-
anism. The Soviet Union did show that national economic planning for
common goals, replacing the profit-dtiven chaos of capitalist production,
(;')() TIll' Zll"~ Rl'AllFR
could produce remarkable results. It failed, however, to do "",hat Herbert
Read and other recent anarchisrs have suggested: to do a\vay with the
bureaucracy of large-scale Industry, characteristic of both upitalism and
wcialism, and the consequent unhappiness of the workers who do not
feel at ease with their work, with the products, with their fellow \vorkers,
wIth namre, with themselves. This problem could he soh-cd, Read has
suggested, by workers' co/urol of their own jobs, without sacrificing Lhe
benefits of planning and coordination [{lr the larger social good.
"Property is theft," Proudhon wrote in the mid-nineteenth cen-
tury (he was the first to call himself an anarchist). \X/hether the resources
of the earth and the energies of men are controlled by capitalist corpora-
tions or bureaucracies calling themselves "socialist," a great theft of men's
lifi:.:-work has occurred, as a kind of original sin which has led in human
history to all sorts of trouble: exploitation, waL the establishment of
colonies, the subjugation of women, attacks on property called "crime,"
and the cruel system of punishments which all "civilized societies" have
erected, knO'''/11 as "justice."
Both the capitalist and the socialist bureaucracies of our time Elil,
anarchists say, on their greatest promise: to bring democracy'. The essence
of democracy is that people should control their own lives, by ones or
twos or hundreds, depending on whether the decision being made affects
one or two or a hundred. Instead, our lives are directed by a political-mil-
itary-industrial complex in the LJnited States, and a party hierarchy in the
Soviet Union. In both situations thete is the pretense of popular particJ-
pation, by an elaborate scheme of voting for representatives who do not
have real power (the difference between a one-party state and a two-part!~
s[ate being no more than one party-and that a smudged carbon copy ot
the other). The 1!OIt' in modern societies is the currency of politics as
1r!()1l~}' i~ the currency of economICs: both mystif)' what is really taking
place-concrol of the many by the fe\\'.
Anarchists believe the phrase "Ia\\' and order" is one of the great
deceptions of our age. Law does nor bring order, certainly nor the har-
monious order of a cooperative society, which is the best meaning of That
word. It brings, if anything, the order of the totalitarian state, or the
prison, or the army, where fear and threat keep people in their assigned
places. AU law can do is artificially restrain people who arc moved to actS
of violence or theft or disobedience by a bad society. And The order
(i"il
brought by law is unstable, always on the brink ofa fall, because coercion
invites rebellion. L\\vs cannot. hy their nature, create a good society; that
will lOme from great numbers of people arranging resources and them-
selves voluntarily ("Mutual Aid," Kropotkin called it) so as to promote
cooperation and happiness. And that will be the best order, when people
do \vhat they must. not because of law, but on their own.
\Xlhat has modern Civilization, wilh its "rule of law," its giant
industrial enterprises, its "representative democracy," brought~ :-JudeaI'
mis~ilcs
already aimed and ready ft)t the destruction of the world, and
populations-literate, well-j-{~(L and constantly voting-of a mind to
accept this madness. Civilization has failed on tWO counts: it has pervert-
ed the natural resources of the earth, which have the capacity to make our
lives joyful, and also the natural resources of people, which have the
potential tor genius and love.
.\bking the most of these possibilities requires the upbringing of
new generations in an atmosphere of grace and art. Instead, we have heen
reared in politics. Herbert Read (in Art dud Alinult/oll) describes the
stunted human being \vho emerges from tillS:
If WC'lng <1nd handling. wllching and Il'.:aring and all the rdinCl1lcnts of scn-
s,Hion dut dcvclo[lcd hi\wriulh in the conquest of naturc and the nunil'-
LlLnjon o[ nutnial .\ubstancc, an· Ilot educcd and traineJ (rum hinh to
maturitl, the rc~lIlt 1\ OJ belllg (h<1t hardly dcscn·c.\ to be called hlllll,l11: a dull-
e\'ed, hortd and lisrkss auroIllaton \\hosl' one Je,ire L\ for vloknce in some
f(lrm 01 orher-vioklH ,tctio!\, vioJc.nr ~ollnd\, di,tr<1C(lOI1S of anv kind then
can pCJKrrate to ilS dectdcneJ nervcs. Its prd(~rred disrranions ,tre: the ,porE
stadium, thc pm-tahle alley\, rhe dancc-hall, the passive ''vlewIllS'' of Crime,
farct' and ''lui.lm of the tekyi>loll screen, g,tlllhiins and drug addicrioll.
What i\ Wi\)te of the evolutionary process~ lr rook a billion yeaTs to create
human beings \\'ho cOLIld, if they chose, form the materials of the eanh
and themselves into arrangements congetllal to man, woman, and the
universe. Can \ve still choose to do so?
It seems [hat revolutionary changes are needed-in the sense of
profound transf{lTmations of our work processes, or decision-making
arrangements, our sex and Elmily relations, our thought and culturt-
toward a humane society. But this kind of revolution-changing our
minds as well as our institutions-cannot be accomplished by customary
methods: neither by military action to overthrow governments, as some
 TIlF 1'.1\;l" READER
tradition-bound radicals suggest; nor by that slow process of electoral
reform, which traditional liberals urge on us. The state of the world today
reflects the limitations of both those methods.
Anarchists have always been accused of a special addiction to ViO-
lence as a mode of revolutionary change. The accusation comes from gov-
ernments \vhich came into being through violence, which maintain them-
selves in power through violence, and \vhich use violence constantly to
keep down rebellion and to bully other nations. Some anarchists-like
orher revolutionaries throughout history, whether American, French,
Russian, or Chinese-have emphasized violent upnsing. Some have advo-
cated, and tried, assassination dnd terror. In this they are like other revo-
lutionaries-of \vhatever epoch or ideology. \Xlhat makes anarchists
unique among revolutionaries, however, is that most of them sec revolu-
tion as a culwfdl, ideological. creative process, in which violence would
be as incidental as the outcnes of marher and bdby in childbirth. It might
be unavoidable-given the natural resistance to change-but something
to be kept at a minimum while more important things happen.
Alexander Betkman, who as a young man attempted to assassi-
rUle an American industrialist, expressed his more mature rdleetions on
vlOknce dnd revolution in Jhe ABC ofAnarchism:
\:("ha[, really, L\ there (() deslruy~
The wealrh uf [he rich? '\l,ty. [hat IS something we W<!Ill [he whule of
luciety to enjoy'.
The Lmd, the fields, the coal mines. the railroads, 6,ctories, mills and
shops) These we want nor to desrroy but lO make useful w the emire people.
The telegraphs, telephunes, [he medllS of communication and disrrib-
lltioll-do we walll [0 desrrov them? '\lo. we wam them w serve the needs
of ;111.
\X'h,ll. dKn. LI the social revolLltion ro destroy? It IS W take over [hlngs
for the genL'ral benefit. nor to destroy them, It is ro reorgat117;e condition.1
for the public wclbre.
Revolution III its l~lll sense cannot be achieved by force of arms.
It must be prepared in the minds and hehavior of men, even before insti-
tutions have radically changed. It is not an act, but a process. Berkman
describes thiS:
If your object IS to secure liberty, you must learn to do wit110ut authority and
compulsIOn. If you intend to live in peact: and harmony with your fellow
m(;Cn, you and lhey should cultiy.atc brotherhood and resp<:et for each other.
If .\Oll want to work lOgcthn wirh thelll for vour mutual belleflc \OU mu,r
pLlClice co-oper<]nOIl, The .Ioual reyolmion n;cans mIlch marl' [h,u; the reor·
ganuariun of conditions onil-: it m(~<lns the ouhli.lhm,'l1t of lICW hum;lI1 ql_
llel Jnd SOCial relatiomillps, a changed 'lllitude of man to man, as of one hee
,md mdqxndeIH lU Ius equal; it means ,t different spirit in individual and col-
lecnve lik. and lhat spirit cannot he horn O\'erT1lght. It is a 'rlrlr to be CLdli-
\';ued, lO bc nurrured and reared, a.1 the lllOSt ddical~ f]O\\,'er is. foJ' indeed ir
IS thc flower uf ~ Ill'W and h~aurifiil exIStence.... \:{'e mll'ir learn lO think Jit~
fert'ntly hd(lr" the revoluriun can come, Th,n alone em bring the re\olution,
The Jnarchist sees revolutionary change ,IS something immediare,
something we musr do now, where we are, where \ve live, where we work,
It means starring this moment to do aWd;.-' with authorllariJn, cruel rela-
tionships-between men and ",,'omen, benveen parents and children,
between one kind of worker and another kind, Such revolurionarv action
cannot be crushed like an <lftlled uprisll1g. It ukes placc in evervJav life,
in the tiny crannies where the pmverful but dumsy hJnds of sr~te I~owtr
cannot eJ"ily reach. It is !lot centralized and isolated, so that it can be
wiped out by the nch, the police, the military. It takes place in a hundred
thousand places at once, ttl f::unilies, on sm.:crs, in neiuhborhoods
t" " in
places of work. It is a revolution of the v.rllOle culrure. Squelched In one
place, it springs up in ;morhl'l", until it is ever}'\vhere.
Such a revolmion is an an, That is, it requires rhe cOllfage nOl
only of resistance, hut of imagill<ltion. Herbert Read, after pointirLlg our
that modern democracy' encourages both complacency and complicity,
speaks (in Art 'lIld Alienation) of the role of an:
;\t~. un rhe orhn lund, i,1 erernally dislurlJlllf:' perI11ancnd., revu]U[lonan.
It so heCHISC thc artilr, IT1 [he degree of his gl'eames,l, ah,,.an confl'On~\
LI
rhe unknown, ,Illd what he brings hack from that cOllfrollt~flO'[1 is ,t (JU\e!,
tv, a new Wl1lbol,:l newvisioll o(life, the outcr imal';e uf Illward lhinl'> fJi<;
imporrance to sucien','\ not [hat he YOlces recel\'ed'OplllioIlS, or gIY~S ~kar
~xrre,ISI(Jn to [he confused rccllllgs of th..: lTla,ses: rh,lt is the funcnot1 of [hc
poliriClan, thc journalist, thc demagugue, The anist is what the CnnullS
callthl Riitt!er. an up:setrer of the nublilhed order.
This should not be interpreted as an arrogant distinctlun benveen the
elite artist alld the mass of people. It is, ralher. a recognition that ill mod-
ern society, as Herbert Marcuse has pointed uur, there is enotmous pres-
sute to create a "one-dimensional mind" among masses uf people, and
this requires upsetting.
654 111F 71'\1\ RI',\DFR
I It:rben Read's attracrion to both an and anarchy seems a fining
response to tht: twentieth century, and underscores the idea that n:volu-
tion HllISt be cultural as ",,'ell as political. The title of his hook !i) Hd/ V?itl,
Culture might be misinterpreted if one did not read in it:
Today we: are hound hand dnd toOl 1O the past. Becau'ie property IS a sacrcd
thing and land values a .IOlJ[ce of lllllOld weal(h, our house,1 mU.lt be crowd-
ed together and Ollr ,treers must follow [heir ,mCIent illogical meandcr-
Illg.I.. BccallSc everytbing we huy for use must be ,old f(n profit, and
because thae lIIU,l alwavs be [his profitahle margm belween COSl and price,
our pots and om pan,l, our furniwre and our llothes, ha\"t~ the same shod-
dv consis[cncT, the .lame competitivc cheapncss. Ihe whole of our capital-
I':t culture is ~nc immense veneer: a surface of rdinemenr hldi ng the cheap-
nes, and shoddincss of the IlCart of thIllS"
lil hell with such cl nl1wI't. '10 (he ruhhish-heal' and furnace wi[h il
all~ Lc( lIS celehr:ne rhe democratic revolu[ion creativclv. Let us build cilies
that are not lOO big, but spaCIOUS, wIlh lraffic tlowlIlg heely through th~jf
leafv aveuues, widl dlildren plaYing sat-ely in lhcir green and t-lowery parb,
WI(h reople living luppily in bright eHiCIent house,... Lel Ll> balancc agrl-
culrure and II1dusny, toW!l 'lnd COUI1[I'y-let IJ'i do all thesL' ol'nsibk and
dl'ItleIHary things ,lIld tlJen let Ll,1 talk about culwre.
The anarchist tries to deal with the complex relationship ben\'tt:!l
changing institutions and changing culture. He knows that \','C must rev-
olutionize culture starring now; and yet he know~ this will be limited until
there is a nt:w way of living for large numbers of people. Read wnLes in
the Sdllle essay: "You cannot impose d culture fwm the top-it must come
from under, It gnl\vs OUt of the soil, out of the people, out of theIr daily
life and work. It IS a spontaneom expression of their joy in life, of their
joy in \vork, and if thIs joy does not exist, the culture will not cxisL"
For revolutionaries, the aesthetic element-tht: approach of the
art;~t-is essemial in breaking out of the past, for we have sem in histo-
ry hm\' revolutions have been crampt:d or diverted because the men who
made them were ~till encumbered bv tradition. The wdrtling of Marx, in
The Eighteenth Brunwfre (~F [Dill:; BOlldparte. needs to be heeded by
I\hrxists a5 well .IS by' others seeking change:
The uadirion of all the dead gcnerarions weighs like d nightmare on the
brain of the living, And just "vhell lhey seem engaged in revolutionizing
l hem.\d\"C~, and thing>, in creating ~()merhi ng enti[(.:I~ new, preuody III such
epochs of revolutionary crioi, they anxiously l'onjure lip the ,plri" of the
past IO thtir servile and borrow from them namts, hattie slog<lIls and cos-
65')
[umes in order 1'0 pl-cS(~nr rile nt\\- scene of world history In thl' rime-hUll'
(lul'ed disguise' and rhls borrowed LlIlg"<1gl~.
The .Irt of re\'olurion needs to go beyond what is called "reason,"
and what is called "science," because both reason dnd sCIence Me limited
by rht: narrow experience of the past. To break thos.:' limirs, to extend rea-
son into the future, we need passion and instinct, coming out of thost:
deprhs of human feeling which escape the bounds of a historical period.
\X!hen Read spoke in London in 1961, before taking pan in a mass act of
civil disobedience in protest against Polaris tlUcIcdr submarines, he argued
for bredking out of the limits of "reason" dlfoLlgh action:
This srakmate muse be broken, blll I( willntver bt hroken by ution.ll ,1rgu-
meill. There ,lre toO man.' tighl reasons for wrong actions on bodl sides. 1I
can he hroken onl:' Ill' mstinnivl' anioll. An dn of disobcdiL'llLC i\ ur
should be' collectivek msti(leti\"<~ -a revolt of rhe imtinets of man ;1j2:ainlt
lhe ducat of mass des[I'uction.
lnstinets art' dallj2:Lf()ll' to play with, hll\ dUl i, wIn, in thc prcscIll
dtlpeLite 'I(u.nion, we mll,lr pia:' with Illstinets.
'\l/e Illust release rll(' llll<lglll;nio(l of the people so thar rhe\' hecolllc
fully conscious of the fate dut is [hrea[cning them. and wc Cln Ix>! r(~ach
their Hluglllation hy our aniOIK h: our fearlessncss. by our wilJingnL's.l 1O
,acritice our comfort, OlJ[ libert;-. dnd n~[I oUt' livcs. to thc clld thclt
mankind shall Ix ckllwred hom palll and stIHermg ;md IInl\crsal dearh.
Anarchism ~eeks thar blt:nd of order and sponrant:ity in our livt:s
which gives us harmony with ourselves, with others, \virh namre. It
understands the need to change our political and economic arrangements
(0 frt:e ourselves for tht: enjoymenr of lire. And ir knows thar rht: change
must begin now, in those everyday human relations over whIch we have
the most control. /\ndrchism knows the need for ~obcr rhinking, but also
for that action which clarifies otherwise academic and abstract thought.
Herbert Read. in "ChaIns of ht:dom," writes that we need a
"Black Market in culture, a determination ro avoid rhe bankrupt acade-
mic institutions, the rixed values and standardizt:d products of current art
and literature; not ttl trade our spiritua.l goods through the recognized
channds of Church, or State, or Press; rather to pass them 'under the
counter.''' If so, one of the first items to be passt:d under the counter must
surely be the literature that speaks, counter to all tht: falsitlcations, about
the ideas and imaginings of anarchism.