in conjunction with a book proposal, i've been typing out some selections from "equitable commerce" (1846), by josiah warren, the first american anarchist: an amazing and neglected figure. there is a "selected works" in our future.
quote:
To contend against this diversity [in human preferences and understandings], is to contend against our nature's constant production. Such is the subtle and inherent nature of this individuality, that it accompanies every one in every thing he does, and any attempt to conquer it is like undertaking to walk away from his mode of walking, or to run away from his breath - the very effort calls it more decidedly into play.
Out of the indestructibility or inalienability of this individuality grows the absolute right of its exercise, or the absolute sovereignty of every individual.
We now come to an important and serious application of the facts evolved.
Words are the principal means of our intellectual intercourse, and they form the basis of all our institutions; but here again the subtle individuality sets at nought the profoundest thoughts and the most careful phraseology. There is no certainty of any written laws, or rules, or institutions, or verbal precepts being understood in the same manner by any number of persons. This individuality is unconquerable, and therefore rises above all institutions. To require conformity in the appreciation of sentiments, or in the interpretation of language, or uniformity of thought, feeling, or action where there is no natural coincidence, is a fundamental error of human legislation - a madness that would only equaled by requiring all to possess the same countenance or the same stature. . . .
When two persons are talking at once, there is not sufficient individuality in either voice to separate it from the other. Both uniting together, they make nothing but confusion. The efforts of both them and their auditors are thrown away. The remedy is obviously to disconnect, to individualize them.
The more the letters of an alphabet differ from each other, i.e. the more individuality each possesses, the more efficient and perfect they are for the purposes intended. The same is true of arithmetical figures, and every thing of this kind.
. . .
The commencement of constitutional governments was the first step of progress in politics, and it was disconnecting, dividing, disuniting, the subjects of legislative action from those which were reserved to the people.
The disconnection of church and state was a master-stroke for freedom and harmony. The great moving power - the very soul of the Protestant Reformation - was, that it left every one free to interpret scriptures according to his own individual views.
Responsibility must be individual, or there is no responsibility. . . .
Lamartine, in his admirable history of the first French Revolution, says: "Among the posthumous notes of Robespierre, were found the following: 'There must be one will; and this will be either Republican or Royalist . . . all diplomacy is impossible as long as we have not unity of power.'" We here see the very root of his policy and the explanation of his sanguinary career. It was precisely the same root from which have sprung all the ancient as well as modern social and political fallacies. It was a demand for "unity," "oneness of mind," oneness of action," where coincidence was impossible. The demand disregarded all nature's individualities, demanded the annihilation of all diversity, and made dissent a crime. Therefore, all were criminal, for no two had the power to be alike. . . .
Having the liberty to differ does not make us differ, but, on the contrary, it is a common ground upon which all can meet, a particular in which the feelings of all coincide, and is the first step in social harmony.
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