Christoph Hackenberg liest Max Stirner

Schönes Video, entdeckt bei Ars Libertatis:

Auch gefallen auf dem gleichen Blog hat mir das unerwartete Plädoyer für eine traditionalistische katholische Kirche: http://arslibertatis.com/aus-gruenden-der-vielfalt-fuer-eine-traditionalistische-katholische-kirche/

99 Jahre Albert Camus

Lettre à un désespéré (1939)

Vous m’écrivez que cette guerre vous accable, que vous consentiriez à mourir mais que vous ne pouvez supporter cette universelle sottise, cette lâcheté sanguinaire et cette naïveté criminelle qui croit encore que le sang peut résoudre des problèmes humains.

Je vous lis et je vous comprends. Je comprends surtout ce choix et cette opposition entre votre bonne volonté à mourir et votre répugnance à voir mourir les autres. Cela prouve la qualité d’un homme. Cela le met au rang de ceux à qui l’on peut parler. Comment ne pas désespérer en effet ? Bien souvent le sort de ceux que nous aimons s’est trouvé menacé. Maladie, mort, folie, mais il restait nous et ce à quoi nous avons cru ! Bien souvent les valeurs qui étaient notre vie ont failli crouler. Jamais ce sort et ces valeurs n’ont été plus menacés dans leur entier et en même temps. Jamais nous n’avons été si totalement livrés à l’anéantissement.

Je vous comprends mais je ne vous suis plus lorsque vous prétendez faire de ce désespoir une règle de vie et, jugeant que tout est inutile, vous retirer derrière votre dégoût. Car le désespoir est un sentiment et non un état. Vous ne pouvez demeurer sur lui. Et le sentiment doit laisser la place à une vue claire des choses.

Vous dites : « Et d’ailleurs, que faire ? Et que puis-je faire ? » Mais la question ne se pose pas d’abord comme ça. Vous croyez encore à l’individu, certes, puisque vous sentez bien ce qu’il y a de bon chez ceux qui vous entourent et en vous-même. Mais ces individus ne peuvent rien et vous désespérez de la société. Mais prenez garde que vous aviez répudié déjà cette société bien avant la catastrophe, que vous et moi savions que la fin de cette société était la guerre, que vous et moi le dénoncions et qu’enfin nous ne sentions rien de commun entre nous et elle. Cette société aujourd’hui est la même. Elle en est venue à sa fin normale. Et en vérité, à voir froidement les choses, vous n’avez pas plus de raisons de désespérer que vous n’en aviez en 1928. Exactement, vous en avez juste autant.

Et, tout bien considéré, ceux qui firent la guerre en 1914 avaient plus de raisons de désespérer puisqu’ils comprenaient moins les choses. Vous me direz que de savoir que 1928 était aussi désespérant que 1939 ne vous avance en rien. Cela n’est qu’apparent. Car vous ne désespériez pas totalement en 1928, au lieu que maintenant tout vous paraît vain. Si les choses n’ont pas changé, c’est que votre jugement est faux. Il l’est comme chaque fois qu’une vérité, au lieu de vous apparaître à la lumière du raisonnement, s’incarne dans le vivant. Vous avez prévu la guerre, mais vous pensiez l’empêcher. C’est ce qui vous arrêtait de désespérer totalement. Vous pensez aujourd’hui que vous ne pouvez plus rien empêcher. Là est le nœud du raisonnement.

Mais d’abord il faut vous demander si vous avez bien fait ce qu’il fallait pour empêcher cette guerre. Si oui, cette guerre pourrait vous paraître fatale et vous pourriez juger qu’il n’y a plus rien à faire. Mais je suis sûr que vous n’avez pas fait tout ce qu’il fallait, pas plus qu’aucun de nous. Vous n’avez pas pu empêcher ? Non, cela est faux. Cette guerre, vous le savez, n’était pas fatale. Il suffisait que le traité de Versailles fût révisé à temps. Il ne l’a pas été. Voilà toute l’histoire et vous voyez qu’elle pourrait être autre. Mais ce traité, ou telle autre cause, il peut encore être révisé. Cette parole de Hitler, on peut encore faire que sa loyauté soit inutile. Ces injustices qui ont appelé d’autres injustices, on peut encore les refuser et demander que leurs répliques le soient aussi. Il y a encore une tâche utile à accomplir. Vous supposez que votre rôle d’individu est pratiquement nul. Mais j’invertirai alors mon raisonnement précédent et je vous dirai qu’il n’est ni plus grand ni moindre qu’il n’était en 1928. Je sais d’ailleurs que vous n’êtes pas très assis sur cette notion de l’inutilité. Car je crois que vous n’approuverez guère l’objection de conscience. Et si vous ne l’approuvez pas, ce n’est point par manque de courage ni d’admiration. Mais parce que vous jugez qu’elle n’a aucune utilité. Vous avez donc déjà conçu l’idée d’une certaine utilité qui vous permet de suivre ce que je dis.

Vous avez quelque chose à faire, n’en doutez pas. Chaque homme dispose d’une zone plus ou moins grande d’influence. Il la doit à ses défauts autant qu’à ses qualités. Mais n’importe, elle est là, immédiatement utilisable. Ne poussez personne à la révolte. Il faut être ménager du sang et de la liberté des autres. Mais vous pouvez persuader dix, vingt, trente hommes que cette guerre n’était pas fatale, que des moyens de l’arrêter peuvent être tentés qui ne l’ont pas été encore, qu’il faut le dire, l’écrire quand on peut, le crier quand il faudra. Ces dix ou trente hommes à leur tour le diront à dix autres qui le répéteront. Si la paresse les arrête, tant pis, recommencez avec d’autres. Et quand vous aurez fait ce que vous devez faire dans votre zone, sur votre terrain, arrêtez-vous et désespérez à votre aise. Comprenez qu’on peut désespérer du sens de la vie en général mais non de ses formes particulières, de l’existence, puisqu’on n’a pas de pouvoir sur elle, mais non de l’histoire où l’individu peut tout. Ce sont des individus qui nous font mourir aujourd’hui. Pourquoi des individus ne parviendraient-ils pas à donner la paix au monde ? Il faut seulement commencer sans songer à de si grands buts. Comprenez donc qu’on fait la guerre autant avec l’enthousiasme de ceux qui la veulent qu’avec le désespoir de ceux qui la renient de toute leur âme.

(nach Témoins, No. 29, März 1962).

148 Jahre Miguel de Unamuno

"Everything in me that conspires to break the unity and continuity of my life conspires to destroy me and consequently to destroy itself. Every individual in a people who conspires to break the spiritual unity and continuity of that people tends to destroy it and to destroy himself as a part of that people. What if some other people is better than our own? Very possibly, although perhaps we do not clearly understand what is meant by better or worse. Richer? Granted. More cultured? Granted likewise. Happier? Well, happiness ... but still, let it pass! A conquering people (or what is called conquering) while we are conquered? Well and good. All this is good—but it is something different. And that is enough. Because for me the becoming other than I am, the breaking of the unity and continuity of my life, is to cease to be he who I am—that is to say, it is simply to cease to be. And that—no! Anything rather than that!

Another, you say, might play the part that I play as well or better? Another might fulfil my function in society? Yes, but it would not be I.
'I, I, I, always I!' some reader will exclaim; 'and who are you?' I might reply in the words of Obermann, that tremendous man Obermann: 'For the universe, nothing—for myself, everything'; but no, I would rather remind him of a doctrine of the man Kant—to wit, that we ought to think of our fellow-men not as means but as ends. For the question does not touch me alone, it touches you also, grumbling reader, it touches each and all. Singular judgments have the value of universal judgments, the logicians say. The singular is not particular, it is universal.

Man is an end, not a means. All civilization addresses itself to man, to each man, to each I. What is that idol, call it Humanity or call it what you like, to which all men and each individual man must be sacrificed? For I sacrifice myself for my neighbours, for my fellow-countrymen, for my children, and these sacrifice themselves in their turn for theirs, and theirs again for those that come after them, and so on in a never-ending series of generations. And who receives the fruit of this sacrifice?

Those who talk to us about this fantastic sacrifice, this dedication without an object, are wont to talk to us also about the right to live. What is this right to live? They tell me I am here to realize I know not what social end; but I feel that I, like each one of my fellows, am here to realize myself, to live.
Yes, yes, I see it all!—an enormous social activity, a mighty civilization, a profuseness of science, of art, of industry, of morality, and afterwards, when we have filled the world with industrial marvels, with great factories, with roads, museums, and libraries, we shall fall exhausted at the foot of it all, and it will subsist—for whom? Was man made for science or was science made for man?
'Why!' the reader will exclaim again, 'we are coming back to what the Catechism says: 'Q. For whom did God create the world? A. For man.' Well, why not?—so ought the man who is a man to reply. The ant, if it took account of these matters and were a person, would reply 'For the ant', and it would reply rightly. The world is made for consciousness, for each consciousness.

A human soul is worth all the universe, someone—I know not whom—has said and said magnificently. A human soul, mind you! Not a human life. Not this life. And it happens that the less a man believes in the soul—that is to say in his conscious immortality, personal and concrete—the more he will exaggerate the worth of this poor transitory life. This is the source from which springs all that effeminate, sentimental ebullition against war. True, a man ought not to wish to die, but the death to be renounced is the death of the soul. 'Whosoever will save his life shall lose it', says the Gospel; but it does not say 'whosoever will save his soul', the immortal soul—or, at any rate, which we believe and wish to be immortal.

And what all the objectivists do not see, or rather do not wish to see, is that when a man affirms his "I," his personal consciousness, he affirms man, man concrete and real, affirms the true humanism—the humanism of man, not of the things of man—and in affirming man he affirms consciousness. For the only consciousness of which we have consciousness is that of man."

Aus The tragic sense of life (1912), nach der Ausgabe New York 1954 bei gutenberg.org.

Das Problem des anarchistischen Kommunisten

"Individualism (without quotes) may very comfortably be interpreted as a general name for persons bound to agree upon only one thing, which is that they are not bound to agree on anything else. But when one adds Communist one begins to represent a creed common to a good many others; and if one doesn't represent it correctly, one must immediately recant or—be excommunicated. I suspect the arguments presented by 'the imaginary Communist', which were really a condensation of those given by fifteen actual Communists in the discussions before mentioned, would be deemed heretical by M[ichael] Zametkin (in which case he must take to quotation marks), for it is well known that Communism itself has two individuals within its folds known as the State Communist and the Free Communist. Now, my friends, of whom the imaginary Communist was a composite, and who will be much surprised to learn on good Communistic authority that they are only straw men, belong to the latter variety sometimes called Anarchist-Communists. An Anarchist-Communist is a person who is a man first and a Communist afterward. He generally gets into a great many irreconcilable situations at once, believes that property and competition must die yet admits he has no authority to kill them, contends for equality and in the same breath denies its possibility, hates charity and yet wishes to make society one vast Sheltering Arms, and, in short, very generally rides two horses going in opposite directions at the same time. He is not usually amenable to logic; but he has a heart forty or fifty times too large for nineteenth century environments, and in my opinion is worth just that many cold logicians who examine society as a naturalist does a beetle, and impale it on their syllogisms in the same manner as the Emperor Domitian impaled flies on a bodkin for his own amusement. Besides, a free Communist when driven into a corner always holds to freedom first. The State Communist, on the other hand, is logical. He believes in authority, and says so. He ridicules a freedom for the individual which he believes inimical to the interests of the majority. He cries: 'Down with property and competition', and means it. For the one he prescribes 'take it' and for the other 'suppress it'. That is very frank."

Auszug aus: Voltairine de Cleyre, "A glance at communism", in The Twentieth Century vom 1. September 1892, jetzt in Gary Chartier u. Charles W. Johnson, Markets not capitalism. Individualist anarchism against bosses, inequality, corporate power, and structural poverty, London, New York, Port Watson, [2011], S.103-106; Zitat S.104.

142 Jahre Gustav Landauer

...und da er gestern im Mühsam-Text erwähnt wurde, hier ein Auszug aus Landauers "Durch Absonderung zur Gemeinschaft" (etwas Mystik zu Ostern also):

"Wir sagen also: was wirkt, ist gegenwärtig; was wirkt, das stößt und drängt, was wirkt, das übt eine Macht aus, was eine Macht ausübt, ist da, was da ist, ist lebendig. Es ist dieser Anschauung unfaßbar, daß etwas, was längst tot ist, noch wirksam, das heißt tätig sein soll. Jede Ursache ist lebendig, sonst wäre sie keine Ursache. Es gibt keine toten Naturgesetze; es gibt keine Trennung zwischen Ursache und Wirkung: diese beiden müssen aneinander grenzen; Ursache-Wirkung ist ein Fließen von Einem zum Anderen; und wenn das vielleicht um ein Winziges bereicherte Andere wieder zum Einen zurückströmt und so ein ewiges Hin- und Widerfluten entsteht, wird wohl das daraus, was man Wechselwirkung nennt; denn so etwas gibt es, wenn auch die Starren nichts davon wissen wollen. Die Materie ist starr und steif, kein Wunder, daß die Materialisten es auch sind. Dieses Hin und Her des ewig Lebendigen, in dem es kein Abgeschiedenes mehr gibt, weil für Tod und Geschiedenheit kein Raum mehr da ist, ist der Makrokosmos, dessen erschautes Zeichen Goethes Faust zu dem Jubelruf treibt.
Bin ich ein Gott. Mir wird so licht!
Ich schau in diesen reinen Zügen
Die wirkende Natur vor meiner Seele liegen.
Die wirkende Natur - die natura naturans des Goethemeisters Spinoza, der sie von den Mystikern und Realisten des Mittelalters übernommen hat.
Immer wieder stoßen wir auf diesen Hinweis, daß man Gott werden, daß man, anstatt die Welt zu erkennen, die Welt selbst werden oder sein kann. Es ist die tiefste Umdeutung vielleicht der Christuslegende, vielleicht auch die tiefste Bedeutung dessen, was Jesus selbst gelehrt hat, wenn Meister Eckhart den Gott, der zugleich Menschenkind ist, zu uns sprechen läßt: 'Ich bin euch Mensch gewesen, wenn ihr mir nicht Götter seid, so tut ihr mir Unrecht'. Sehen wir zu, wie wir Götter werden, wie wir die Welt in uns finden können."

(Vortrag, gehalten am 18. Juni 1900 in Friedrichshagen-Berlin)

205 Jahre Max Stirner

"Es ist nöthig, noch ein Wort über den Menschen zu sagen. Wie es scheint, ist Stirners Buch gegen den Menschen geschrieben. Dadurch, wie auch durch das Wort Egoist hat er sich die schlimmsten Urtheile zugezogen oder die hartnäckigsten Vorurtheile rege gemacht. — Ja, es ist wirklich gegen den Menschen geschrieben, und gleichwohl hätte Stirner auf dasselbe Ziel losgehen können, ohne die Leute so arg vor den Kopf zu stossen, wenn er die Kehrseite herausgewendet und gesagt hätte: er schreibe gegen den Unmenschen. Nur hätte er dann selbst die Schuld getragen, wenn man ihn in entgegengesetzter, nämlich in sentimentaler Weise missverstanden und in die Reihe derer gestellt hätte, welche für den 'wahren Menschen' ihre Stimme erheben. Stirner aber sagt: Mensch ist der Unmensch, was der eine ist, das ist der andere, was gegen den einen gesagt wird, wird gegen den andern gesagt.

Misst man ein Wesen an einem Begriffe, so wird es niemals diesem Begriffe vollkommen entsprechend gefunden: misst man Dich an dem Begriffe Mensch, so wird sich stets herausstellen, dass Du etwas Apartes bist, etwas, was mit dem Worte Mensch nicht ausgedrückt werden kann, also jedenfalls ein aparter Mensch. Muthete man Dir nun zu, durchaus Mensch und nichts als Mensch zu sein, Du aber könntest dein Apartes nicht abstreifen, so wärest Du durch eben diess Aparte ein Unmensch, d. h. ein Mensch, der nicht wahrhaft Mensch, oder ein Mensch, der eigentlich Unmensch ist. Der Begriff Mensch hätte seine Realität gerade im Unmenschen.

Dass an dem Begriffe Mensch gemessen, jeder wirkliche Mensch ein Unmensch ist, hat die Religion durch den Satz ausgedrückt, dass alle Menschen 'Sünder' seien (das Sündenbewusstsein); heute nennt man den Sünder einen Egoisten. Und wozu entschloss man sich in Folge dieser Einsicht? Dazu, den Sünder zu erlösen, den Egoismus zu überwinden, den wahren Menschen zu finden und zu realisiren. Man verwarf das Aparte, d. h. das Einzige, zu Gunsten des Begriffes, verwarf den Unmenschen, zu Gunsten des Menschen, und erkannte nicht, dass der Unmensch die richtige und allein mögliche Realität des Menschen ist; man wollte durchaus eine wahrhaft menschliche Realität des Menschen.

Man verlangte eben eine Widersinnigkeit. Der Mensch ist real und wirklich im Unmenschen; jeder Unmensch ist — der Mensch. Aber Unmensch bist Du nur als die Realität des Menschen, Unmensch nur im Vergleich mit dem Begriffe Mensch.

Du bist Unmensch, und darum bist Du vollkommen Mensch, realer, wirklicher Mensch, bist vollkommener Mensch. Aber du bist eben mehr als vollkommener Mensch, Du bist ein aparter, ein einziger Mensch. Mensch und Unmensch, diese Gegensätze der religiösen Welt, verlieren ihre göttliche und teuflische, also ihre heilige oder absolute Bedeutung, in Dir, dem Einzigen. Der Mensch, nach dessen Anerkennung unsere Heiligen so sehr schmachten, indem sie allezeit eifern, man solle in den Menschen den Menschen anerkennen, wird erst dann vollständig und wirklich anerkannt, wenn er als der Unmensch anerkannt wird. Wird er als solcher anerkannt, so hören alle religiösen oder 'menschlichen' Zumuthungen auf, und die Herrschaft der Guten, die Hierarchie, hat ein Ende, weil der Einzige, der ganz gemeine Mensch (nicht Feuerbachs tugendhafter 'Gemeinmensch'), zugleich der vollkommene Mensch ist.

Indem also Stirner gegen den Menschen schreibt, schreibt er zugleich und in Einem Athemzuge gegen den Unmenschen, als den Gegensatz zum Menschen; er schreibt aber nicht gegen den Menschen, welcher Unmensch, nicht gegen den Unmenschen, welcher Mensch ist — d. h. er schreibt für den ganz gemeinen Einzigen, der dadurch, dass er Unmensch ist, ohnehin und von selbst vollkommener Mensch ist.

Nur Fromme, nur heilige Socialisten u. s. w., nur Heilige aller Art verhindern, dass der Mensch im Menschen anerkannt und gewürdigt wird; nur sie hemmen den reinen menschlichen Verkehr, indem sie den gemeinen egoistischen Verkehr allezeit eingeschränkt haben und einzuschränken trachten. Sie haben einen heiligen Verkehr eingeführt und möchten daraus wo möglich einen allerheiligsten machen."

Aus: "Recensenten Stirners", in Max Stirner’s Kleinere Schriften und Entgegnungen auf die Kritik seines Werkes: „Der Einzige und sein Eigenthum“ aus den Jahren 1842–1848, 2. erweiterte Auflage, 1914, S.366-368.

167 Jahre Friedrich Nietzsche

Vom neuen Götzen

Irgendwo gibt es noch Völker und Herden, doch nicht bei uns, meine Brüder: da gibt es Staaten.

Staat? Was ist das? Wohlan! Jetzt tut mir die Ohren auf, denn jetzt sage ich euch mein Wort vom Tode der Völker.

Staat heißt das kälteste aller kalten Ungeheuer. Kalt lügt es auch; und diese Lüge kriecht aus seinem Munde: "Ich, der Staat, bin das Volk."

Lüge ist's! Schaffende waren es, die schufen die Völker und hängten einen Glauben und eine Liebe über sie hin: also dienten sie dem Leben.

Vernichter sind es, die stellen Fallen auf für viele und heißen sie Staat: sie hängen ein Schwert und hundert Begierden über sie hin.

Wo es noch Volk gibt, da versteht es den Staat nicht und haßt ihn als bösen Blick und Sünde an Sitten und Rechten.

Dieses Zeichen gebe ich euch: jedes Volk spricht seine Zunge des Guten und Bösen: die versteht der Nachbar nicht. Seine Sprache erfand es sich in Sitten und Rechten.

Aber der Staat lügt in allen Zungen der Guten und Bösen; und was er auch redet, er lügt – und was er auch hat, gestohlen hat er's.

Falsch ist alles an ihm; mit gestohlenen Zähnen beißt er, der Bissige. Falsch sind selbst seine Eingeweide.

Sprachverwirrung des Guten und Bösen: dieses Zeichen gebe ich euch als Zeichen des Staates. Wahrlich, den Willen zum Tode deutet dieses Zeichen! Wahrlich, es winkt den Predigern des Todes!

Viel zu viele werden geboren: für die Überflüssigen ward der Staat erfunden!

Seht mir doch, wie er sie an sich lockt, die Viel-zu-Vielen! Wie er sie schlingt und kaut und wiederkäut!

"Auf der Erde ist nichts Größeres als ich: der ordnende Finger bin ich Gottes" – also brüllt das Untier. Und nicht nur Langgeohrte und Kurzgeäugte sinken auf die Knie!

Ach, auch in euch, ihr großen Seelen, raunt er seine düsteren Lügen! Ach, er errät die reichen Herzen, die gerne sich verschwenden!

Ja, auch euch errät er, ihr Besieger des alten Gottes! Müde wurdet ihr im Kampfe, und nun dient eure Müdigkeit noch dem neuen Götzen!

Helden und Ehrenhafte möchte er um sich aufstellen, der neue Götze! Gerne sonnt er sich im Sonnenschein guter Gewissen – das kalte Untier!

Alles will er euch geben, wenn ihr ihn anbetet, der neue Götze: also kauft er sich den Glanz eurer Tugenden und den Blick eurer stolzen Augen.

Ködern will er mit euch die Viel-zu Vielen! Ja, ein Höllenkunststück ward da erfunden, ein Pferd des Todes, klirrend im Putz göttlicher Ehren!

Ja, ein Sterben für viele ward da erfunden, das sich selber als Leben preist: wahrlich, ein Herzensdienst allen Predigern des Todes!

Staat nenne ich's, wo alle Gifttrinker sind, Gute und Schlimme: Staat, wo alle sich selber verlieren, Gute und Schlimme: Staat, wo der langsame Selbstmord aller – "das Leben" heißt.

Seht mir doch diese Überflüssigen! Sie stehlen sich die Werke der Erfinder und die Schätze der Weisen: Bildung nennen sie ihren Diebstahl – und alles wird ihnen zu Krankheit und Ungemach!

Seht mir doch diese Überflüssigen! Krank sind sie immer, sie erbrechen ihre Galle und nennen es Zeitung. Sie verschlingen einander und können sich nicht einmal verdauen.

Seht mir doch diese Überflüssigen! Reichtümer erwerben sie und werden ärmer damit. Macht wollen sie und zuerst das Brecheisen der Macht, viel Geld – diese Unvermögenden!

Seht sie klettern, diese geschwinden Affen! Sie klettern übereinander hinweg und zerren sich also in den Schlamm und die Tiefe.

Hin zum Throne wollen sie alle: ihr Wahnsinn ist es – als ob das Glück auf dem Throne säße! Oft sitzt der Schlamm auf dem Thron -und oft auch der Thron auf dem Schlamme.

Wahnsinnige sind sie mir alle und kletternde Affen und Überheiße. Übel riecht mir ihr Götze, das kalte Untier: übel riechen sie mir alle zusammen, diese Götzendiener.

Meine Brüder, wollt ihr denn ersticken im Dunste ihrer Mäuler und Begierden? Lieber zerbrecht doch die Fenster und springt ins Freie!

Geht doch dem schlechten Geruche aus dem Wege! Geht fort von der Götzendienerei der Überflüssigen!

Geht doch dem schlechten Geruche aus dem Wege! Geht fort von dem Dampfe dieser Menschenopfer!

Frei steht großen Seelen auch jetzt noch die Erde. Leer sind noch viele Sitze für Einsame und Zweisame, um die der Geruch stiller Meere weht.

Frei steht noch großen Seelen ein freies Leben. Wahrlich, wer wenig besitzt, wird um so weniger besessen: gelobt sei die kleine Armut!

Dort, wo der Staat aufhört, da beginnt erst der Mensch, der nicht überflüssig ist: da beginnt das Lied des Notwendigen, die einmalige und unersetzliche Weise.

Dort, wo der Staat aufhört – so seht mir doch hin, meine Brüder! Seht ihr ihn nicht, den Regenbogen und die Brücken des Übermenschen? –

Also sprach Zarathustra.

Friedrich Nietzsche, Werke in drei Bänden, München 1954, Band 2, S. 313-316.

Und weil's so schön ist:

194 Jahre Henry David Thoreau

Zu Henry David Thoreaus diesjährigem Geburtstag der Schluss des längeren Essays "Life without principle", ein Vortrag aus dem Jahr 1854, zuerst veröffentlicht im Atlantic Monthly, Oktober 1863:

"What is called politics is comparatively something so superficial and inhuman, that, practically, I have never fairly recognized that it concerns me at all. The newspapers, I perceive, devote some of their columns specially to politics or government without charge; and this, one would say, is all that saves it; but, as I love literature, and, to some extent, the truth also, I never read those columns at any rate. I do not wish to blunt my sense of right so much. I have not got to answer for having read a single President's Message. A strange age of the world this, when empires, kingdoms, and republics come a-begging to a private man's door, and utter their complaints at his elbow! I cannot take up a newspaper but I find that some wretched government or other, hard pushed, and on its last legs, is interceding with me, the reader, to vote for it,—more importunate than an Italian beggar; and if I have a mind to look at its certificate, made, perchance, by some benevolent merchant's clerk, or the skipper that brought it over, for it cannot speak a word of English itself, I shall probably read of the eruption of some Vesuvius, or the overflowing of some Po, true or forged, which brought it into this condition. I do not hesitate, in such a case, to suggest work, or the almshouse; or why not keep its castle in silence, as I do commonly? The poor President, what with preserving his popularity and doing his duty, is completely bewildered. The newspapers are the ruling power. Any other government is reduced to a few marines at Fort Independence. If a man neglects to read the Daily Times, Government will go down on its knees to him, for this is the only treason in these days.

Those things which now most engage the attention of men, as politics and the daily routine, are, it is true, vital functions of human society, but should be unconsciously performed, like the corresponding functions of the physical body. They are infra-human, a kind of vegetation. I sometimes awake to a half-consciousness of them going on about me, as a man may become conscious of some of the processes of digestion in a morbid state, and so have the dyspepsia, as it is called. It is as if a thinker submitted himself to be rasped by the great gizzard of creation. Politics is, as it were, the gizzard of society, full of grit and gravel, and the two political parties are its two opposite halves,—sometimes split into quarters, it may be, which grind on each other. Not only individuals, but States, have thus a confirmed dyspepsia, which expresses itself, you can imagine by what sort of eloquence. Thus our life is not altogether a forgetting, but also, alas! to a great extent, a remembering of that which we should never have been conscious of, certainly not in our waking hours. Why should we not meet, not always as dyspeptics, to tell our bad dreams, but sometimes as eupeptics, to congratulate each other on the ever glorious morning? I do not make an exorbitant demand, surely."

(nach Anti-Slavery and Reform Papers, London, 1890, S.139-141)

208 Jahre Ralph Waldo Emerson

Hatten wir letztes Jahr an dieser Stelle einen erstaunlich "kommunistischen" Text Emersons wiedergegeben, so soll dieses Jahr der Individualist und Skeptiker gegen die Staatsgewalt zu Wort kommen, mit einem seiner bekanntesten Essays, veröffentlicht 1844 in Essays: Second Series.

Politics

Gold and iron are good
To buy iron and gold;

All earth's fleece and food

For their like are sold.

Boded Merlin wise,

Proved Napoleon great, —

Nor kind nor coinage buys

Aught above its rate.

Fear, Craft, and Avarice

Cannot rear a State.

Out of dust to build

What is more than dust, —

Walls Amphion piled

Phoebus stablish must.

When the Muses nine

With the Virtues meet,

Find to their design

An Atlantic seat,

By green orchard boughs

Fended from the heat,

Where the statesman ploughs

Furrow for the wheat;

When the Church is social worth,

When the state-house is the hearth,

Then the perfect State is come,

The republican at home.

In dealing with the State, we ought to remember that its institution are not aboriginal, though they existed before we were born: that they are not superior to the citizen: that every one of them was once the act of a single man: every law and usage was a man's expedient to meet a particular case: that they all are imitable, all alterable; we may make as good; we may make better. Society is an illusion to the young citizen. It lies before him in rigid repose, with certain names, men, and institutions, rooted like oak-trees to the centre, round which all arrange themselves the best they can. But the old statesman knows that society is fluid; there are no such roots and centres; but any particle may suddenly become the centre of the movement, and compel the system to gyrate round it, as every man of strong will, like Pisistratus, or Cromwell, does for a time, and every man of truth, like Plato, or Paul, does forever. But politics rest on necessary foundations, and cannot be treated with levity. Republics abound in young civilians, who believe that the laws make the city, that grave modifications of the policy and modes of living, and employments of the population, that commerce, education, and religion, may be voted in or out; and that any measure, though it were absurd, may be imposed on a people, if only you can get sufficient voices to make it a law. But the wise know that foolish legislation is a rope of sand, which perishes in the twisting; that the State must follow, and not lead the character and progress of the citizen; the strongest usurper is quickly got rid of; and they only who build on Ideas, build for eternity; and that the form of government which prevails, is the expression of what cultivation exists in the population which permits it. The law is only a memorandum. We are superstitious, and esteem the statute somewhat: so much life as it has in the character of living men, is its force. The statute stands there to say, yesterday we agreed so and so, but how feel ye this article today? Our statute is a currency, which we stamp with our own portrait: it soon becomes unrecognizable, and in process of time will return to the mint. Nature is not democratic, nor limited-monarchical, but despotic, and will not be fooled or abated of any jot of her authority, by the pertest of her sons: and as fast as the public mind is opened to more intelligence, the code is seen to be brute and stammering. It speaks not articulately, and must be made to. Meantime the education of the general mind never stops. The reveries of the true and simple are prophetic. What the tender poetic youth dreams, and prays, and paints today, but shuns the ridicule of saying aloud, shall presently be the resolutions of public bodies, then shall be carried as grievance and bill of rights through conflict and war, and then shall be triumphant law and establishment for a hundred years, until it gives place, in turn, to new prayers and pictures. The history of the State sketches in coarse outline the progress of thought, and follows at a distance the delicacy of culture and of aspiration.

The theory of politics, which has possessed the mind of men, and which they have expressed the best they could in their laws and in their revolutions, considers persons and property as the two objects for whose protection government exists. Of persons, all have equal rights, in virtue of being identical in nature. This interest, of course, with its whole power demands a democracy. Whilst the rights of all as persons are equal, in virtue of their access to reason, their rights in property are very unequal. One man owns his clothes, and another owns a county. This accident, depending, primarily, on the skill and virtue of the parties, of which there is every degree, and, secondarily, on patrimony, falls unequally, and its rights, of course, are unequal. Personal rights, universally the same, demand a government framed on the ratio of the census: property demands a government framed on the ratio of owners and of owning. Laban, who has flocks and herds, wishes them looked after by an officer on the frontiers, lest the Midianites shall drive them off, and pays a tax to that end. Jacob has no flocks or herds, and no fear of the Midianites, and pays no tax to the officer. It seemed fit that Laban and Jacob should have equal rights to elect the officer, who is to defend their persons, but that Laban, and not Jacob, should elect the officer who is to guard the sheep and cattle. And, if question arise whether additional officers or watch-towers should be provided, must not Laban and Isaac, and those who must sell part of their herds to buy protection for the rest, judge better of this, and with more right, than Jacob, who, because he is a youth and a traveller, eats their bread and not his own.

In the earliest society the proprietors made their own wealth, and so long as it comes to the owners in the direct way, no other opinion would arise in any equitable community, than that property should make the law for property, and persons the law for persons.

But property passes through donation or inheritance to those who do not create it. Gift, in one case, makes it as really the new owner's, as labor made it the first owner's: in the other case, of patrimony, the law makes an ownership, which will be valid in each man's view according to the estimate which he sets on the public tranquillity.

It was not, however, found easy to embody the readily admitted principle, that property should make law for property, and persons for persons: since persons and property mixed themselves in every transaction. At last it seemed settled, that the rightful distinction was, that the proprietors should have more elective franchise than non-proprietors, on the Spartan principle of "calling that which is just, equal; not that which is equal, just."

That principle no longer looks so self-evident as it appeared in former times, partly, because doubts have arisen whether too much weight had not been allowed in the laws, to property, and such a structure given to our usages, as allowed the rich to encroach on the poor, and to keep them poor; but mainly, because there is an instinctive sense, however obscure and yet inarticulate, that the whole constitution of property, on its present tenures, is injurious, and its influence on persons deteriorating and degrading; that truly, the only interest for the consideration of the State, is persons: that property will always follow persons; that the highest end of government is the culture of men: and if men can be educated, the institutions will share their improvement, and the moral sentiment will write the law of the land.

If it be not easy to settle the equity of this question, the peril is less when we take note of our natural defences. We are kept by better guards than the vigilance of such magistrates as we commonly elect. Society always consists, in greatest part, of young and foolish persons. The old, who have seen through the hypocrisy of courts and statesmen, die, and leave no wisdom to their sons. They believe their own newspaper, as their fathers did at their age. With such an ignorant and deceivable majority, States would soon run to ruin, but that there are limitations, beyond which the folly and ambition of governors cannot go. Things have their laws, as well as men; and things refuse to be trifled with. Property will be protected. Corn will not grow, unless it is planted and manured; but the farmer will not plant or hoe it, unless the chances are a hundred to one, that he will cut and harvest it. Under any forms, persons and property must and will have their just sway. They exert their power, as steadily as matter its attraction. Cover up a pound of earth never so cunningly, divide and subdivide it; melt it to liquid, convert it to gas; it will always weigh a pound: it will always attract and resist other matter, by the full virtue of one pound weight; — and the attributes of a person, his wit and his moral energy, will exercise, under any law or extinguishing tyranny, their proper force, — if not overtly, then covertly; if not for the law, then against it; with right, or by might.

The boundaries of personal influence it is impossible to fix, as persons are organs of moral or supernatural force. Under the dominion of an idea, which possesses the minds of multitudes, as civil freedom, or the religious sentiment, the powers of persons are no longer subjects of calculation. A nation of men unanimously bent on freedom, or conquest, can easily confound the arithmetic of statists, and achieve extravagant actions, out of all proportion to their means; as, the Greeks, the Saracens, the Swiss, the Americans, and the French have done.

In like manner, to every particle of property belongs its own attraction. A cent is the representative of a certain quantity of corn or other commodity. Its value is in the necessities of the animal man. It is so much warmth, so much bread, so much water, so much land. The law may do what it will with the owner of property, its just power will still attach to the cent. The law may in a mad freak say, that all shall have power except the owners of property: they shall have no vote. Nevertheless, by a higher law, the property will, year after year, write every statute that respects property. The non-proprietor will be the scribe of the proprietor. What the owners wish to do, the whole power of property will do, either through the law, or else in defiance of it. Of course, I speak of all the property, not merely of the great estates. When the rich are outvoted, as frequently happens, it is the joint treasury of the poor which exceeds their accumulations. Every man owns something, if it is only a cow, or a wheelbarrow, or his arms, and so has that property to dispose of.

The same necessity which secures the rights of person and property against the malignity or folly of the magistrate, determines the form and methods of governing, which are proper to each nation, and to its habit of thought, and nowise transferable to other states of society. In this country, we are very vain of our political institutions, which are singular in this, that they sprung, within the memory of living men, from the character and condition of the people, which they still express with sufficient fidelity, — and we ostentatiously prefer them to any other in history. They are not better, but only fitter for us. We may be wise in asserting the advantage in modern times of the democratic form, but to other states of society, in which religion consecrated the monarchical, that and not this was expedient. Democracy is better for us, because the religious sentiment of the present time accords better with it. Born democrats, we are nowise qualified to judge of monarchy, which, to our fathers living in the monarchical idea, was also relatively right. But our institutions, though in coincidence with the spirit of the age, have not any exemption from the practical defects which have discredited other forms. Every actual State is corrupt. Good men must not obey the laws too well. What satire on government can equal the severity of censure conveyed in the word politic, which now for ages has signified cunning, intimating that the State is a trick?

The same benign necessity and the same practical abuse appear in the parties into which each State divides itself, of opponents and defenders of the administration of the government. Parties are also founded on instincts, and have better guides to their own humble aims than the sagacity of their leaders. They have nothing perverse in their origin, but rudely mark some real and lasting relation. We might as wisely reprove the east wind, or the frost, as a political party, whose members, for the most part, could give no account of their position, but stand for the defence of those interests in which they find themselves. Our quarrel with them begins, when they quit this deep natural ground at the bidding of some leader, and, obeying personal considerations, throw themselves into the maintenance and defence of points, nowise belonging to their system. A party is perpetually corrupted by personality. Whilst we absolve the association from dishonesty, we cannot extend the same charity to their leaders. They reap the rewards of the docility and zeal of the masses which they direct. Ordinarily, our parties are parties of circumstance, and not of principle; as, the planting interest in conflict with the commercial; the party of capitalists, and that of operatives; parties which are identical in their moral character, and which can easily change ground with each other, in the support of many of their measures. Parties of principle, as, religious sects, or the party of free-trade, of universal suffrage, of abolition of slavery, of abolition of capital punishment, degenerate into personalities, or would inspire enthusiasm. The vice of our leading parties in this country (which may be cited as a fair specimen of these societies of opinion) is, that they do not plant themselves on the deep and necessary grounds to which they are respectively entitled, but lash themselves to fury in the carrying of some local and momentary measure, nowise useful to the commonwealth. Of the two great parties, which, at this hour, almost share the nation between them, I should say, that, one has the best cause, and the other contains the best men. The philosopher, the poet, or the religious man, will, of course, wish to cast his vote with the democrat, for free-trade, for wide suffrage, for the abolition of legal cruelties in the penal code, and for facilitating in every manner the access of the young and the poor to the sources of wealth and power. But he can rarely accept the persons whom the so-called popular party propose to him as representatives of these liberalities. They have not at heart the ends which give to the name of democracy what hope and virtue are in it. The spirit of our American radicalism is destructive and aimless: it is not loving; it has no ulterior and divine ends; but is destructive only out of hatred and selfishness. On the other side, the conservative party, composed of the most moderate, able, and cultivated part of the population, is timid, and merely defensive of property. It vindicates no right, it aspires to no real good, it brands no crime, it proposes no generous policy, it does not build, nor write, nor cherish the arts, nor foster religion, nor establish schools, nor encourage science, nor emancipate the slave, nor befriend the poor, or the Indian, or the immigrant. From neither party, when in power, has the world any benefit to expect in science, art, or humanity, at all commensurate with the resources of the nation.

I do not for these defects despair of our republic. We are not at the mercy of any waves of chance. In the strife of ferocious parties, human nature always finds itself cherished, as the children of the convicts at Botany Bay are found to have as healthy a moral sentiment as other children. Citizens of feudal states are alarmed at our democratic institutions lapsing into anarchy; and the older and more cautious among ourselves are learning from Europeans to look with some terror at our turbulent freedom. It is said that in our license of construing the Constitution, and in the despotism of public opinion, we have no anchor; and one foreign observer thinks he has found the safeguard in the sanctity of Marriage among us; and another thinks he has found it in our Calvinism. Fisher Ames expressed the popular security more wisely, when he compared a monarchy and a republic, saying, "that a monarchy is a merchantman, which sails well, but will sometimes strike on a rock, and go to the bottom; whilst a republic is a raft, which would never sink, but then your feet are always in water." No forms can have any dangerous importance, whilst we are befriended by the laws of things. It makes no difference how many tons weight of atmosphere presses on our heads, so long as the same pressure resists it within the lungs. Augment the mass a thousand fold, it cannot begin to crush us, as long as reaction is equal to action. The fact of two poles, of two forces, centripetal and centrifugal, is universal, and each force by its own activity develops the other. Wild liberty develops iron conscience. Want of liberty, by strengthening law and decorum, stupefies conscience. 'Lynch-law' prevails only where there is greater hardihood and self-subsistency in the leaders. A mob cannot be a permanency: everybody's interest requires that it should not exist, and only justice satisfies all.

We must trust infinitely to the beneficent necessity which shines through all laws. Human nature expresses itself in them as characteristically as in statues, or songs, or railroads, and an abstract of the codes of nations would be a transcript of the common conscience. Governments have their origin in the moral identity of men. Reason for one is seen to be reason for another, and for every other. There is a middle measure which satisfies all parties, be they never so many, or so resolute for their own. Every man finds a sanction for his simplest claims and deeds in decisions of his own mind, which he calls Truth and Holiness. In these decisions all the citizens find a perfect agreement, and only in these; not in what is good to eat, good to wear, good use of time, or what amount of land, or of public aid, each is entitled to claim. This truth and justice men presently endeavor to make application of, to the measuring of land, the apportionment of service, the protection of life and property. Their first endeavors, no doubt, are very awkward. Yet absolute right is the first governor; or, every government is an impure theocracy. The idea, after which each community is aiming to make and mend its law, is, the will of the wise man. The wise man, it cannot find in nature, and it makes awkward but earnest efforts to secure his government by contrivance; as, by causing the entire people to give their voices on every measure; or, by a double choice to get the representation of the whole; or, by a selection of the best citizens; or, to secure the advantages of efficiency and internal peace, by confiding the government to one, who may himself select his agents. All forms of government symbolize an immortal government, common to all dynasties and independent of numbers, perfect where two men exist, perfect where there is only one man.

Every man's nature is a sufficient advertisement to him of the character of his fellows. My right and my wrong, is their right and their wrong. Whilst I do what is fit for me, and abstain from what is unfit, my neighbor and I shall often agree in our means, and work together for a time to one end. But whenever I find my dominion over myself not sufficient for me, and undertake the direction of him also, I overstep the truth, and come into false relations to him. I may have so much more skill or strength than he, that he cannot express adequately his sense of wrong, but it is a lie, and hurts like a lie both him and me. Love and nature cannot maintain the assumption: it must be executed by a practical lie, namely, by force. This undertaking for another, is the blunder which stands in colossal ugliness in the governments of the world. It is the same thing in numbers, as in a pair, only not quite so intelligible. I can see well enough a great difference between my setting myself down to a self-control, and my going to make somebody else act after my views: but when a quarter of the human race assume to tell me what I must do, I may be too much disturbed by the circumstances to see so clearly the absurdity of their command. Therefore, all public ends look vague and quixotic beside private ones. For, any laws but those which men make for themselves, are laughable. If I put myself in the place of my child, and we stand in one thought, and see that things are thus or thus, that perception is law for him and me. We are both there, both act. But if, without carrying him into the thought, I look over into his plot, and, guessing how it is with him, ordain this or that, he will never obey me. This is the history of governments, — one man does something which is to bind another. A man who cannot be acquainted with me, taxes me; looking from afar at me, ordains that a part of my labor shall go to this or that whimsical end, not as I, but as he happens to fancy. Behold the consequence. Of all debts, men are least willing to pay the taxes. What a satire is this on government! Everywhere they think they get their money's worth, except for these.

Hence, the less government we have, the better, — the fewer laws, and the less confided power. The antidote to this abuse of formal Government, is, the influence of private character, the growth of the Individual; the appearance of the principal to supersede the proxy; the appearance of the wise man, of whom the existing government, is, it must be owned, but a shabby imitation. That which all things tend to educe, which freedom, cultivation, intercourse, revolutions, go to form and deliver, is character; that is the end of nature, to reach unto this coronation of her king. To educate the wise man, the State exists; and with the appearance of the wise man, the State expires. The appearance of character makes the State unnecessary. The wise man is the State. He needs no army, fort, or navy, — he loves men too well; no bribe, or feast, or palace, to draw friends to him; no vantage ground, no favorable circumstance. He needs no library, for he has not done thinking; no church, for he is a prophet; no statute book, for he has the lawgiver; no money, for he is value; no road, for he is at home where he is; no experience, for the life of the creator shoots through him, and looks from his eyes. He has no personal friends, for he who has the spell to draw the prayer and piety of all men unto him, needs not husband and educate a few, to share with him a select and poetic life. His relation to men is angelic; his memory is myrrh to them; his presence, frankincense and flowers.

We think our civilization near its meridian, but we are yet only at the cock-crowing and the morning star. In our barbarous society the influence of character is in its infancy. As a political power, as the rightful lord who is to tumble all rulers from their chairs, its presence is hardly yet suspected. Malthus and Ricardo quite omit it; the Annual Register is silent; in the Conversations' Lexicon, it is not set down; the President's Message, the Queen's Speech, have not mentioned it; and yet it is never nothing. Every thought which genius and piety throw into the world, alters the world. The gladiators in the lists of power feel, through all their frocks of force and simulation, the presence of worth. I think the very strife of trade and ambition are confession of this divinity; and successes in those fields are the poor amends, the fig-leaf with which the shamed soul attempts to hide its nakedness. I find the like unwilling homage in all quarters. It is because we know how much is due from us, that we are impatient to show some petty talent as a substitute for worth. We are haunted by a conscience of this right to grandeur of character, and are false to it. But each of us has some talent, can do somewhat useful, or graceful, or formidable, or amusing, or lucrative. That we do, as an apology to others and to ourselves, for not reaching the mark of a good and equal life. But it does not satisfy us, whilst we thrust it on the notice of our companions. It may throw dust in their eyes, but does not smooth our own brow, or give us the tranquillity of the strong when we walk abroad. We do penance as we go. Our talent is a sort of expiation, and we are constrained to reflect on our splendid moment, with a certain humiliation, as somewhat too fine, and not as one act of many acts, a fair expression of our permanent energy. Most persons of ability meet in society with a kind of tacit appeal. Each seems to say, 'I am not all here.' Senators and presidents have climbed so high with pain enough, not because they think the place specially agreeable, but as an apology for real worth, and to vindicate their manhood in our eyes. This conspicuous chair is their compensation to themselves for being of a poor, cold, hard nature. They must do what they can. Like one class of forest animals, they have nothing but a prehensile tail: climb they must, or crawl. If a man found himself so rich-natured that he could enter into strict relations with the best persons, and make life serene around him by the dignity and sweetness of his behavior, could he afford to circumvent the favor of the caucus and the press, and covet relations so hollow and pompous, as those of a politician? Surely nobody would be a charlatan, who could afford to be sincere.

The tendencies of the times favor the idea of self-government, and leave the individual, for all code, to the rewards and penalties of his own constitution, which work with more energy than we believe, whilst we depend on artificial restraints. The movement in this direction has been very marked in modern history. Much has been blind and discreditable, but the nature of the revolution is not affected by the vices of the revolters; for this is a purely moral force. It was never adopted by any party in history, neither can be. It separates the individual from all party, and unites him, at the same time, to the race. It promises a recognition of higher rights than those of personal freedom, or the security of property. A man has a right to be employed, to be trusted, to be loved, to be revered. The power of love, as the basis of a State, has never been tried. We must not imagine that all things are lapsing into confusion, if every tender protestant be not compelled to bear his part in certain social conventions: nor doubt that roads can be built, letters carried, and the fruit of labor secured, when the government of force is at an end. Are our methods now so excellent that all competition is hopeless? Could not a nation of friends even devise better ways? On the other hand, let not the most conservative and timid fear anything from a premature surrender of the bayonet, and the system of force. For, according to the order of nature, which is quite superior to our will, it stands thus; there will always be a government of force, where men are selfish; and when they are pure enough to abjure the code of force, they will be wise enough to see how these public ends of the post-office, of the highway, of commerce, and the exchange of property, of museums and libraries, of institutions of art and science, can be answered.

We live in a very low state of the world, and pay unwilling tribute to governments founded on force. There is not, among the most religious and instructed men of the most religious and civil nations, a reliance on the moral sentiment, and a sufficient belief in the unity of things to persuade them that society can be maintained without artificial restraints, as well as the solar system; or that the private citizen might be reasonable, and a good neighbor, without the hint of a jail or a confiscation. What is strange too, there never was in any man sufficient faith in the power of rectitude, to inspire him with the broad design of renovating the State on the principle of right and love. All those who have pretended this design, have been partial reformers, and have admitted in some manner the supremacy of the bad State. I do not call to mind a single human being who has steadily denied the authority of the laws, on the simple ground of his own moral nature. Such designs, full of genius and full of fate as they are, are not entertained except avowedly as air-pictures. If the individual who exhibits them, dare to think them practicable, he disgusts scholars and churchmen; and men of talent, and women of superior sentiments, cannot hide their contempt. Not the less does nature continue to fill the heart of youth with suggestions of this enthusiasm, and there are now men, — if indeed I can speak in the plural number, — more exactly, I will say, I have just been conversing with one man, to whom no weight of adverse experience will make it for a moment appear impossible, impossible, that thousands of human beings might exercise towards each other the grandest and simplest sentiments, as well as a knot of friends, or a pair of lovers.

148 Jahre Georges Palante

Die meisten der französischen Individualisten respektive Individualanarchisten, von denen ich hier bereits einige vorgestellt habe, sind heute weitestgehend vergessen. Eine Ausnahme bildet jedoch Georges Palante, der Ende der 1980er von Michel Onfray wieder entdeckt wurde (Essai sur un nietzschéen de gauche, 1989) - was man auch immer von dem sog. "libertären Hedonisten" und gleichzeitigem Unterstützer einer "gauche antilibérale" halten mag, das kann man ihn zu Gute halten. Seitdem sind mehrere Publikationen in Frankreich von und über Palante erschienen. Palante ist kein Anarchist (von dem er sich 1907 in Anarchisme et individualisme ausdrücklich distanziert), sondern steht als "Linksnietzscheaner" außerhalb aller Parteien, inklusive des organisierten Anarchismus, was ihn zugleich nicht davon abhält, Artikel in der Revue socialiste zu schreiben und 1908 auf einer sozialistischen Liste als Kandidat an Gemeindewahlen teilzunehmen. Mit der Beziehung zwischen Individualismus und Sozialismus hat sich Palante auch im abschließenden Kapitel seines Précis de sociologie beschäftigt, aus der ich hier zwei Auszüge bringe:

SOCIALISME ET INDIVIDUALISME

Nous pouvons maintenant aborder la question qui domine la Sociologie tout entière : celle des rapports de l'individu et de la société. Nous trouvons ici aux prises les deux doctrines du socialisme et de l'individualisme. Au sens général, le mot socialisme désigne toute doctrine sociale qui subordonne l'individu à la collectivité. Tel est le sens du socialisme platonicien. Dans un sens plus précis et plus moderne, le socialisme est une doctrine qui, par une réforme économique du régime de la propriété, prétend assurer à l'individu une plus grande indépendance matérielle et morale.

L'individualisme est une doctrine qui, au lieu de  subordonner l'individu à la collectivité, pose en principe que l'individu a sa fin en lui-même ; qu'en fait et en droit il possède une valeur propre et une existence autonome, et que l'idéal social est le plus complet  affranchissement de l'individu. L'individualisme ainsi compris est la même chose que ce qu'on appelle encore la philosophie sociale libertaire.
Dans un sens plus étroit, on entend par Individualisme la théorie économique du Laisser-faire (École de Manchester). Quand nous parlerons ici de l'Individualisme, il s'agira de l'individualisme entendu comme philosophie libertaire.

Quels sont les rapports du Socialisme et de l'Individualisme? Il y a beaucoup de points de contact entre le Socialisme et l'Individualisme. Le Socialisme s'inspire dans une large mesure de l'Individualisme, et sur beaucoup  de points s'efforce de lui donner satisfaction. — Il se propose l'émancipation économique de l'individu et veut l'arracher aux étreintes du capitalisme. Bien plus, il veut détruire non seulement le capitalisme comme régime économique, mais les institutions et fondations sociales qui sont les conséquences de ce régime: le droit capitalistique et bourgeois qui nous régit, la morale propriétaire et bourgeoise faite dans un intérêt de classe et oppressive de l'individu. Un sociologue allemand a dit à ce sujet : « Sans le libéralisme le socialisme est absolument inconcevable : le socialisme est essentiellement libéral; il s'inspire des idées d'affranchissement et d'émancipation qui sont, de nos jours, la condition et la garantie la plus sûre de son existence. Ce qu'il s'efforce d'obtenir n'est rien moins que l'affranchissement des travailleurs vis-à-vis de la toute-puissance du capital. » [Ziegler, La Question sociale est une question morale, Paris, F. Alcan, p.11]
Ce n'est pas tout. Aujourd'hui le socialisme est encore dans la phase militante. Il est encore un parti d'opposition et de lutte. Aussi défend-il la liberté sur le domaine politique, social, moral, toutes les fois qu'il en trouve l'occasion. Il favorise toutes les lois, toutes les motions, toutes les mesures propices à l'émancipation matérielle, intellectuelle et morale de l'individu. Il cherche volontiers à briser les cadres sociaux et moraux du passé. C'est ainsi que, sur le terrain moral, beaucoup de socialistes sont partisans de l'union libre. (…). Il est donc incontestable qu'aujourd'hui le socialisme représente l'Individualisme et en est l'incarnation sociale la plus puissante. M. Jaurès a très bien mis en lumière cette vérité dans son article de la Revue de Paris: Socialisme et Liberté.
Mais en sera-t-il toujours ainsi? Quand il sera parvenu au pouvoir, quand il sera un parti gouvernant, le socialisme sera-t-il encore libéral et individualiste?

C'est la question qui se pose. Car peut-être alors les germes d'anti-individualisme contenus dans le socialisme se développeront-ils.

Quels sont ces germes?

Il y en a qui sont évidents et sur lesquels les adversaires du Socialisme ont depuis longtemps insisté.
Citons par exemple la manie probable d'administration et de réglementation à outrance; la prétention accrue de la société au droit de contrôler l'activité des individus, l'omnipotence de plus en plus grande de l'opinion qui deviendrait dans le régime socialiste la principale sanction morale. Or, on sait combien l'opinion est aveugle, tyrannique, accessible aux préjugés de toute sorte, combien enfin elle est anti-individualiste.

Un autre point par où le Socialisme semble en contradiction avec l'Individualisme, c'est le dogmatisme unitaire, le monisme social et moral où il semble tendre infailliblement. On sait en effet que beaucoup de socialistes croient à un monisme final, à une uniformisation économique et morale de l'humanité. M. Jaurès lui-même semble accepter ce point de vue.  Il parle de la «grande paix socialiste », de « l'harmonie qui jaillira du choc des forces et des instincts ». Ce sont là de beaux rêves. Mais on sait aussi que tout dogmatisme et tout conformisme social, toute doctrine sociale unitaire sont un péril pour la diversité individuelle, pour la liberté et l'indépendance de l'Individu; car elles visent plus ou moins directement à réclamer le sacrifice de l'Individu à la communauté. Suivant nous, il y a contradiction entre le point de départ individualiste de M. Jaurès et son point d'arrivée, le monisme social final. Parti d'une prémisse libertaire, il aboutit à une espèce de mysticisme social. Proudhon qu'il qualifie de poète et de sophiste a raison contre lui, quand il proclame l'éternité et l'indestructibilité de la catégorie de la diversité et de la lutte. Au fond, Jaurès est un platonicien, malgré son inspiration individualiste initiale. Chez lui, le Socialisme revient finalement à sa forme antique: la subordination de l'Individu à la communauté. — Pour nous, nous sommes les adversaires résolus de tout dogmatisme, de tout monisme social, parce que nous les considérons comme une menace pour l'Indépendance de l'Individu et pour l'énergie individuelle. Pour nous dogmatisme et monisme sont synonymes d'absolutisme, de coaction et de contrainte. Tous les dogmatismes sociaux et moraux ont une tendance à devenir tyranniques. Et c'est pourquoi Nietzche a eu raison de protester contre eux au nom de l'instinct de beauté et au nom de l'instinct de grandeur. Ces dogmatismes autorisent le contrôle autoritaire de la conscience individuelle par la conscience sociale, au nom de prétendues règles infaillibles et la mise en quarantaine sociale de ceux qui contreviennent à ces règles. Nous ne disons pas que toutes ces conséquences soient contenues dans la conception socialiste de M. Jaurès. Mais des esprits moins libéraux que lui pourraient les en déduire, et en tout cas elles constituent au sein du Socialisme un péril pour l'Individualisme.

[…]

Le socialisme est légitime et vrai on tant qu'il lutte pour les idées de liberté et d'émancipation individuelles. A ce titre, il n'est qu'un moment dans le développement de l'individualisme. Et il est légitime dans la mesure où il est une affirmation de l'Individualisme.

Mais le socialisme a tort s'il croit pouvoir s'immobiliser dans un dogme arrêté, dans une conception unitaire, dans un idéal fixe, s'il se transforme en dogmatisme social. Car alors il prend le caractère de tout dogmatisme, celui d'être pour l'Individu une coaction et une contrainte. Beaucoup de socialistes ont aperçu ce danger et refusent avec raison d'enfermer le socialisme dans une formule dogmatique définitive. Dans un article des Socialistische Monatshefte [octobre 1900] écrit à propos de la mort de Nietzche, M. E. Gystrow repousse le socialisme comme conception immobile et statique, et n'admet la légitimité que d'un socialisme dynamique, d'un socialisme en évolution et se dépassant toujours lui-même. « Le vieux révolutionnaire Engels, dit M. Gystrow, a lui-même fait table rase de la révolution obligatoire. Le mouvement du socialisme vers son but final (Endziel) devait s'accomplir par des voies légales. Ensuite est venu Bernstein, qui a rayé le dogme du « but final »... Tout mouvement a une direction; mais autre chose est direction, autre chose but final.

Un mouvement historique n'est pas une ligne définie,  une parabole ou une spirale d'Archimède, mais une courbe que les plus grands génies de la géométrie analytique essayeraient en vain de déterminer. Il n'y a point en histoire de but final qui, au moment même où il serait atteint, ne se trouverait dépassé. Chaque but final ne peut jamais signifier qu'un point provisoire dans l'orientation du mouvement. Dans sa marche vers le but final, le mouvement historique le déplace incessamment. Ce qu'on appelle l'idéal d'un mouvement ne se trouve point à son terme final; mais il l'accompagne à chaque instant et se déplace avec lui : il voyage avec lui comme la colonne de feu avec Israël. Aussi longtemps qu'un mouvement historique se propose un but final au sens propre du mot, il est prématuré ; il vit encore dans les songes de l'enfance. Sans doute, cette phase est nécessaire. Mais de même que l'enfant grandit, il vient un jour où le mouvement historique se rit des espérances enfantines. Si un mouvement historique survit à ce jour, c'est la pierre de touche de son droit à l'existence. Le socialisme a jeté par-dessus bord son « But final » ; mais il possède en revanche un idéal qui, au lieu d'être devant lui, est en lui et lui imprime son empreinte. »

Pour notre part, nous répudions, comme ce sociologue, un socialisme à forme dogmatique et immobilisée. Mais nous admettons la possibilité d'un socialisme dynamique, d'un socialisme en devenir éternel, d'un socialisme porté et créé par les volontés individuelles au lieu de s'imposer à elles, en un mot d'un socialisme qui serait l'Individualisme.

Georges Palante, Précis de sociologie, 2. Auflage, Paris, 1903, S.174-177, 180-181.