MUTUAL AID IS THE BASIS FOR ALL LIFE

MUTUAL AID IS THE BASIS FOR ALL LIFE

1. THE NUCLEUS OF MUTUAL AID KEEPS US ALL TOGETHER

Peter Kropatkin, Anarchist philosopher, MUTUAL AID: A FACTOR OF EVOLUTION, 1899, p206-7 The same applies to our civilized world. The natural and social calamities pass away. Whole populations are periodically reduced to misery or starvation; the very springs of life are crushed out of millions of men, reduced to city pauperism; the understanding and the feelings of the millions are vitiated by teachings worked out in the interest of the few. All this is certainly a part of our existence. But the nucleus of mutual-support institutions, habits, and customs remains alive with the millions; it keeps them together; and they prefer to cling to their customs, beliefs, and traditions rather than to accept the teachings of a war of each against all, which are offered to them under the title of science, but are no science at all.
2. MUTUAL AID FEELING HAS BEEN NURTURED FOR 1OOs of l000s OF YEARS

Peter Kropotkin, Anarchist philosopher, MUTUAL AID: A FACTOR OF EVOLUTION, 1899, p 218. There is the gist of human psychology. Unless men are maddened in the battlefield, they “cannot stand it” to hear appeals for help, and not to respond to them. The hero goes; and what the hero does, all feel that they ought to have done as well. The sophisms of the brain cannot resist the mutual-aid feeling, because this feeling has been nurtured by thousands of years of human social life and hundreds of thousands of years of pre-human life in societies.

Peter Kropotkin, Anarchist philosopher, MUTUAL AID: A FACTOR OF EVOLUTION, 1899, p 234. Each time, however, that an attempt to return to this old principle was made, its fundamental idea itself was widened. From the clan it was extended to the stem, to the federation of stems, to the nation, and finally -- in ideal, at least -- to the whole of mankind. It was also refined at the same time. In primitive Buddhism, in primitive Christianity, in the writings of some of the Mussulman teachers, in the early movements of the Reform, and especially in the ethical and philosophical movements of the last century and of our own times, the total abandonment of the idea of revenge, or of ‘due reward” -- of good for good and evil for evil -- is affirmed more and more vigorously. The higher conception of “no revenge for wrongs,” and of freely giving more than one expects to receive from his neighbours, is proclaimed as being the real principle of morality -- a principle superior to mere equivalence, equity, or justice, and more conducive to happiness. And man is appealed to be guided in his acts, not merely by love, which is always personal, or at the best tribal, but by the perception of his oneness with each human being. In the practice of mutual aid, which we can retrace to the earliest beginnings of evolution, we thus find the positive and undoubted origin of our ethical conceptions; and we can affirm that in the ethical progress of man, mutual support not mutual struggle -- has had the leading part. In its wide extension, even at the present time, we also see the best guarantee of a still loftier evolution of our race.

Peter Kropotkin, Anarchist philosopher, KROPOTKIN’S REVOLUTIONARY PAMPHLETS, 1970, edited by Roger N. Baldwin, page 91.

The ant, the bird, the marmot, the savage have read neither Kant nor the fathers of the Church nor even Moses. And yet all have the same idea of good and evil. And if you reflect for a moment on what lies at the bottom of this idea, you will see directly that what is considered good among ants, mannots, and Christian or atheist moralists is that which is useful for the preservation of the race; and that which is considered evil is that which is hurtful for race preservation. Not for the individual, as Benthaxn and Mill put it, but fair and good for the whole race.

THE STATE TRIES TO CRUSH THE HUMAN SPIRIT

1. THE STATE WILL ALWAYS TRY TO SAP HUMAN INDEPENDENCE AND SPIRIT Peter Kropotkin, Anarchist philosopher, KROPOTKIN’S REVOLUTIONARY PAMPHLETS, 1970, edited by Roger N. Baldwin, p. 81.

All that was good, great, generous or independent in man, little by little becomes moss-grown; rusts like a disused knife. A lie becomes a virtue, a platitude a duty. To enrich oneself, to seize one’s opportunities, to exhaust one’s intelligence, zeal and energy, no matter how, become the watchwords of the comfortable classes, as well as of the crowd of poor folk whose ideal is to appear bourgeois. Then the degradation of the ruler and of the judge, of the clergy and of the more or less comfortable classes becomes so revoking that the pendulum begins to swing the other way. Little by little, youth frees itself. It flings overboard its prejudices, and it begins to criticize. Thought reawakens, at first among the few; but insensibly the awakening reaches the majority. The impulse is given, the revolution follows.
2. THE STATE TRIES TO CRUSH HUMANS POSITIVE NATURE

Peter Kropotkin, Anarchist philosopher, MUTUAL AID: A FACTOR OF EVOLUTION, 1899, page

229.

In short, neither the crushing powers of the centralized State nor the teachings of mutual hatred and pitiless struggle which came, adorned with the attributes of science, from obliging philosophers and sociologists, could weed out the feeling of human solidarity, deeply lodged in men’s understanding and heart, because it has been nurtured by all our preceding evolution. What was the outcome of evolution since its earliest stages cannot be overpowered by one of the aspects of that same evolution. And the need of mutual aid and support which had lately taken refuge in the narrow circle of the family, or the slum neighbours, in the village, or the secret union of workers, re-asserts itself again, even in our modem society, and claims its rights to be, as it always has been, the chief leader towards further progress. Such are the conclusions which we are necessarily brought to when we carefully ponder over each of the groups of facts briefly enumerated in the last two chapters.

1. EQUALITY IS THE MOST POWERFUL WEAPON FOR SURVIVAL

Peter Kropotkin, Anarchist philosopher, KROPOTKIN’S REVOLUTIONARY PAMPHLETS, 1970, edited by Roger N. Baldwin, page 99.

Besides this principle of treating others as one wishes to be treated oneself, what is it but the very same principle as equality, the fundamental principle of anarchism? And how can any one manage to believe himself an anarchist unless he practices it? We do not wish to be ruled. And by this very fact, do we not declare that we ourselves wish to rule nobody? We do not wish to be deceived, we wish always to be told nothing but the truth. And by this very fact, do we not declare that we ourselves do not wish to deceive anybody, that we promise to always tell the truth, nothing but the truth, the whole truth? We do not wish to have the fruits of our labor stolen from us. And by that very fact, do we not declare that we respect the fruits of others’ labor? By what right indeed can we demand that we should be treated in one fashion, reserving it to ourselves to treat others in a fashion entirely different? Our sense of equality revolts at such an idea. Equality in mutual relations with the solidarity arising from it, this is the most powerful weapon of the animal world in the struggle for existence. And equality is equity.

Peter Kropotkin, Anarchist philosopher, KROPOTKINS REVOLUTIONARY PAMPHLETS, 1970, edited by Roger N. Baldwin, page 105.

The principle of equality sums up the teachings of moralists. But it also contains something more. This something more is respect for the individual. By proclaiming our morality of equality, or anarchism, we refuse to assume a right which moralists have always taken upon themselves to claim, that of mutilating the individual in the name of some ideal. We do not recognize this right at all, for ourselves or anyone else.