Anarchism and Other Essays [Paperback]

If this happens to be your problem then this book will be ideal if you want to discover what this political philosophy stands for and what its issues are and, indeed, have been for a long time.

Emma Goldman, a woman with as fiery a personality as they come, has put together here a number of essays about anarchy that are easy to comprehend and definately thought inspiring.
Despite this book having been first published in 1917 it loses nothing of its importance in the current state affairs as all of the issues Goldman deals with not only remain unsolved but they have -in the meantime- become a social burden or a social disaster much worse than back in her time. Oh, and back in her time things already looked bad enough.

What you get here is, summarily, the following:
-anarchy, what is it and what does it stand for? Beyond the mainstream media cliches anarchy stands for personal and societal freedom of the highest conceivable order. A freedom, anarchists insist, that is not a utopia. It's basically a hard lesson in crushing your illusions and opening unthought of doors of perception of what freedom really means. That would be then something other than being in a cage and having food thrown in. Even if the cage is invisible..

-Hard punching essays about the prison system and the everself-destructing notion of patriotism.. Funny how every line one reads in there could've been written yesterday. Not much has changed. After decades and decades of the imprisonment system has society become more law-abiding? That would be a thundering no. Why is that? As for patriotism, the incredible notion of dying for your country the same one that might be killing you slowly while draining you of all your resources and enslaving you in a wage system and a daily mindless-toil called "work" . here, Emma has to say a lot. There's always a reason to die if someone is going to make money out of it (that would be NOT you) and dress the whole "cause" up as patriotic..

-The hypocrisy of puritanism as well as the seemingly eternal joke of marriage and "love" are also given the treatment they deserve. In a society based on hypocrisy alltogether, you have to start on a personal level. You have to lose your personal chains before you attempt to free others. Your personal chains begin with the things you've been taught to hold most sacred (as is generally the case). The morals that are not yours. Whom do they really serve? The institutions that everyone notices they have fail and yet most continue to serve them. Why? How can this possibly be?

These are just some of the issues dealt with in Emma's essays.
A classic book that will basically reprogram your brain if you honestly think about the issues in it. But reprogrammed into what? Well, it will only reprogram you into thinking for yourself. For once. If you do, you'll find that the illusion you've been living in does indeed serve someone. Your long hard road to becoming an individual will thus commence.

"Anarchism urges man to think, to investigate, to analyze every proposition... (Anarchism is 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.

"The new social order rests, of course, on the materialistic basis of life; but while all Anarchists agree that the main evil today is an economic one, they maintain that the solution of that evil can be brought about only through the consideration of every phase of life,--individual, as well as the collective; the internal, as well as the external phases.

"A thorough perusal of the history of human development will disclose two elements in bitter conflict with each other; elements that are only now beginning to be understood, not as foreign to each other, but as closely related and truly harmonious, if only placed in proper environment: the individual and social instincts. The individual and society have waged a relentless and bloody battle for ages, each striving for supremacy, because each was blind to the value and importance of the other. The individual and social instincts,--the one a most potent factor for individual endeavor, for growth, aspiration, self-realization; the other an equally potent factor for mutual helpfulness and social well-being."

From just that little exerpt it is easy to understand why any and all authority was terrified of Emma Goldman and why her important contributions to society have been muzzled from histories - down the "memory hole" to use an Orwellian expression.Again, "Anarchism, and Other Essays" is as relevent today as it was in Emma Goldman's day and necessary material for anyone truly interested or involved in altruistic direct action.