Voltairine de cleyre biography of mahatma

To start with, can you try to give us your own definition of anarchism?

It’s always tricky. I think anarchism describes a set of practices; it describes politics; it also describes a tradition, and within that tradition there is a set of cultures. It is a bounded political movement, but it’s defined by the way that its advocates, those who call themselves anarchists, engage with those traditions and cultures, and change their practices over time.

It’s possibly the political theory burdened by the most misconceptions, and the greatest contrast between how it’s defined by theorists, and what a random person on the street would think when they hear the word ‘anarchy.’ Why do you think that is?

It’s very difficult for people who come from other kinds of politics, within the mainstream, to make sense of anarchism. Most of the ways we think about our institutions, constitutions and political organisations are framed in a particular way: at a minimum, the theoretical premise is that we need some kind of structure in order to make citizens compliant and to make us cooperate. Anarchists start from a very different foundation: that we naturally cooperate. It may be in a very sociable way, in the sense that we have friendly relations, or it might mean in a thinner way, that we can cooperate despite our anxieties, antagonisms, and conflicts. And anarchists think that it is through this cooperation that we will build our institutions.

It’s very difficult for political theorists to think about anarchism in any other way than negative, because it seems to contradict everything that politics is based on: the idea that we need a constructed and defined order, and that we can’t coordinate our actions unless somebody helps us do it. Anarchists come along with the idea that anarchy is order, and what exists is disorder. That frightens people. And the way that the anarchist movement emerges in the post-French and post-American revolutionary cont

Wynn Bruce set himself on fire on April 22 2022 – Earth Day. His self-immolation in front of the US supreme court was a protest against inadequate action on the climate crisis. He later died of his injuries.

Two days earlier in the UK, climate activist Angus Rose ended his 37-day hunger strike when a parliamentary group finally agreed to host a briefing by the chief scientific adviser for MPs and ministers.

Such radical forms of protest have historically been deployed by social movements to cast a spotlight on desperate situations, when conventional legal and political responses have been deemed woefully inadequate. After decades of international negotiations, the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change yet again warned that current emissions put countries far off limiting warming to below 2°C by 2100. Severe droughts, intolerable heat, wildfires, violent storms, crop failures, sea-level rise and social turmoil are expected to spiral once global temperatures exceed that threshold.

As such, some climate activists are likely to deploy increasingly radical tactics in the years ahead. History shows that may be a good thing for the wider movement.

Bodies on the line

In my research, I’ve explored what motivates radical environmental activists to engage in what’s called direct action. Coined by US anarcho-feminist Voltairine de Cleyre, direct action was popularised during Mahatma Gandhi’s opposition to British colonial rule in India. Its use proliferated in civil rights and anti-war demonstrations during the 1960s and 70s, namely in the form of sit-ins, marches and other forms of civil disobedience that challenged state laws.

Direct action is a mode of protest that takes place outside of parliamentary politics. It encompasses a range of tactics. Within the environmental movement, Hambach Forest activists in Germany have used direct action to occupy old-growth forests set for clear-cutting. Extinction Rebellion has blocked roads and oil dep

Method of activism

This article is about activism. For military contexts, see Direct action (military). For other uses, see Direct action (disambiguation).

Direct action is a term for economic and political behavior in which participants use agency—for example economic or physical power—to achieve their goals. The aim of direct action is to either obstruct a certain practice (such as a government's laws or actions) or to solve perceived problems (such as social inequality).

Direct action may include activities, often nonviolent but possibly violent, targeting people, groups, institutions, actions, or property that its participants deem objectionable. Nonviolent direct action may include civil disobedience, sit-ins, strikes, and counter-economics. Violent direct action may include political violence, assault, arson, sabotage, and property destruction.

Terminology and definitions

It is not known when the term direct action first appeared. Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset wrote that the term and concept of direct action originated in fin de siècle France. The Industrial Workers of the World union first mentioned the term "direct action" in a publication about the 1910 Chicago strike. American anarchist Voltairine de Cleyre wrote the essay "Direct Action" in 1912, offering historical examples such as the Boston Tea Party and the American anti-slavery movement, and writing that "direct action has always been used, and has the historical sanction of the very people now reprobating it."

In his 1920 book Direct Action, William Mellor categorized direct action with the struggle between worker and employer for economic control. Mellor defined it "as the use of some form of economic power for securing of ends desired by those who possess that power." He considered it a tool of both owners and workers, and for this reason he included lockouts and cartels, as well as strikes and s

This post briefly describes 25 anarchist thinkers, following on from the political ideology post. I took the list of anarchist thinkers from ‘Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism’ by Peter Marshall.

William Godwin

William Godwin (1756-1836) is said to be the founder of philosophical anarchism. In his book An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793), he argued that “government is a corrupting force in society, perpetuating dependence and ignorance, but that it will be rendered increasingly unnecessary and powerless by the gradual spread of knowledge and the expansion of the human understanding. Politics will be displaced by an enlarged personal morality as truth conquers error and mind subordinates matter. In this development the rigorous exercise of private judgment, and its candid expression in public discussion, plays a central role, motivating his rejection of a wide range of co-operative and rule-governed practices which he regards as tending to mental enslavement, such as law, private property, marriage and concerts.”

Inspired by the optimism of the French Revolution, Godwin believed a time would come when the mind would dominate matter so ‘mental perfectibility’ would take physical form so it would be possible to control illness, ageing resulting in humans becoming immortal. Godwin’s moral theory is described as utilitarian. [1]

Max Stirner

Max Stirner (1806–1856) is the author of Der Einzige und sein Eigenthum (1844). In English, it is known as The Ego and Its Own or The Unique Individual and their Property. It is argued that “the form and content of Stirner’s major work are disconcerting. He challenges expectations about how political and philosophical arguments should be conducted and shakes the reader’s confidence in the moral and political superiority of contemporary civilisation. Stirner provides a sweeping attack on the modern world as increasing