Philosopher views
Goldman In Private And Public
Download 5.81 Mb.
|
- Navigate this page:
- Philosophy And Contributions To Anarchist Thought
- Application To Debate
- Bibliography
- INDIVIDUALISM IS BETTER THAN SOCIETY
Goldman In Private And PublicThough she was committed to the notion of free love and sexual liberation, Goldman’s life was an expression of both the full realization of and a contradiction of that principle. Though she was a free-love advocate and certainly had multiple sexual relations, many with other anarchists, her relationship with her lover of ten years, Ben Reitman, is what many biographers find fascinating when scrutinizing Goldman’s life. In love with Reitman to the point of maddening jealousy, Goldman acknowledged that “the world would stand aghast that I, Emma Goldman, strong revolutionist, the daredevil, the one who has defied laws and convention, should have been as helpless as a ship on a rocking ocean.” Still, her love letters to Reitman cast light on the passionate, lustful side of Goldman, and the fiery spirit with which she committed herself to causes public and private.
Emma Goldman contributed a great deal to anarchist philosophy. Specifically, she incorporated sexual politics into the anarchist philosophy. While earlier anarchists had, at best, hinted at the issue, Goldman called for sexuality as an “essential” emiancipatory force. Goldman went to prison for the right of women to practice birth control during a time when even the literature was outlawed. She argued that a state-based legislative solution was not enough to eliminate sexism and adversarial relations between the genders. Her brand of feminism argued for a radical shift in social relations to be brought about by a change in the values of women themselves. Goldman advised women to assert themselves as personalities and not as sexual commodities to be “had,” “won,” or “possessed.” Second, she urged women to refuse the right of anyone--humans or the state--to control their bodies. Thus, her staunch defense of reproductive rights. Thus, also, her opposition to the church, which she viewed as a patriarchal mass. She viewed the church as another servant of the state, society, the husband, and the family which had oppressed women. Goldman also refused to budge in her arguments for the individual as the basis for morality. She argues that oppressive social structures that try to define morality for us miss the point it has never been society that has caused invention or human self-discovery, but the individual. In this manner, Goldman presents a twofold analysis of ethics. First, the individual is the prime concern. It is only a change in values that can liberate us from the control mechanisms of the state, and only individuals can make that change. Similarly, notions of “morality” that come from above stop that transition. Application To DebateIt is all too obvious for us to use Goldman as a critic of the state and of capitalist economics. Goldman’s primary application to debate can probably be found in her sexual and gender-related theories. There are many potential uses for these ideas, especially against cases that argue for puritanical treatment of the body and matters sexual. Goldman’s ideas hold that these kind of ideas are the kind that force women into a catch-22: either they become the repressed, chaste virgin, or the undesirable “dirty” woman. Moralizing value systems, especially those that espouse ‘traditional family values” are subject to mounting criticism from Goldman. Goldman can also be used to attack certain radical thinkers. Her ideas on the centrality of sexual liberation indite the potential for anarchist/socialist theorists that gloss over these issues. As Goldman says, any truly revolutionary system must note the primacy of these issues. Similarly, Goldman rejects the somewhat reformist notion of women’s emancipation that stops with the political sphere. An ultimate disbeliever in the power of the ballot box to challenge social customs, Goldman would argue for many “radical” goals that some theorists concerned with the emancipation of women would ignore--her criticism of marriage, for example, or her ideas on operating outside traditional political channels like voting. Her fusion of anarchism with feminism provides a perspective that few other authors share, making her a valuable source. BibliographyCandace Falk, LOVE, ANARCHY, AND EMMA GOLDMAN, revised edition, Rutgers: 1990.
1. THE INDIVIDUAL IS KEY TO ALL LIBERATORY STRUGGLE Emma Goldman, anarchist philosopher, MENACE: ESSAYS BY EMMA GOLDMAN, 1995, page np. Always, at every period, the few were the banner bearers of a great idea, of liberating effort. Not so the mass, the leaden weight of which does not let it move. The truth of this is borne out in Russia with greater force than elsewhere. Thousands of lives have already been consumed by that bloody regime, yet the monster on the throne is not appeased. How is such a thing possible when ideas, culture, literature, when the deepest and finest emotions groan under the iron yoke? The majority, that compact, immobile, drowsy mass, the Russian peasant, after a century of struggle, of sacrifice, of untold misery, still believes that the rope which strangles “the man with the white hands” brings luck. In the American struggle for liberty, the majority was no less of a stumbling block. Until this very day the ideas of Jefferson, of Patrick Henry, of Thomas Paine, are denied and sold by their posterity. The mass wants none of them. The greatness and courage worshipped in Lincoln have been forgotten in the men who created the background for the panorama of that time. The true patron saints of the black men were represented in that handful of fighters in Boston, Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips, Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, and Theodore Parker, whose great courage and sturdiness culminated in that somber giant John Brown. Their untiring zeal, their eloquence and perseverance undermined the stronghold of the Southern lords. Lincoln and his minions followed only when abolition had become a practical issue, recognized as such by all. practical issue, recognized as such by all. 2. THE INDIVIDUAL HAS ALWAYS LED THE WAY TOWARDS REAL PROGRESS Emma Goldman, anarchist philosopher, RED EMMA SPEAKS: SELECTED WRITINGS AND SPEECHES BY EMMA GOLDMAN, edited by Alix Kates Shulman, 1972, page 87. What role did authority or government play in human endeavor for betterment, in invention and in discovery? None whatever, or at least none that was helpful. It has always been the individual that has accomplished every miracle in that sphere, usually in spite of the prohibition, persecution and interference by authority, human and divine. Similarly, in the political sphere, the road of progress lay in getting away more and more from the authority of the tribal chief or the clan, of prince and king, of government, of the State. 3. INDIVIDUALISM IS DOWNTRODDEN BY STATIST POLITICS, INCLUDING SOCIALISM Emma Goldman, anarchist philosopher, MENACE: ESSAYS BY EMMA GOLDMAN, 1995, page np. The oft repeated slogan of our time is, among all politicians, the Socialists included, that ours is an era of individualism, of the minority. Only those who do not probe beneath the surface might be led to entertain this view. Have not the few accumulated the wealth of the world? Are they not the masters, the absolute kings of the situation? Their success, however, is due not to individualism, but to the inertia, the cravenness, the utter submission of the mass. The latter wants but to be dominated, to be led, to be coerced. As to individualism, at no time in human history did it have less chance of expression, less opportunity to assert itself in a normal, healthy manner. The individual educator imbued with honesty of purpose, the artist or writer of original ideas, the independent scientist or explorer, the non-compromising pioneers of social changes are daily pushed to the wall by men whose learning and creative ability have become decrepit with age. 4. INDIVIDUALITY IS THE ONLY EVOLVING, LIVING, REMAINING VALUE Emma Goldman, anarchist philosopher, RED EMMA SPEAKS: SELECTED WRITINGS AND SPEECHES BY EMMA GOLDMAN, edited by Alix Kates Shulman, 1972, page 88-9. Individuality may be described as the consciousness of the individual as to what he is and how he lives. It is inherent in every human being and is a thing of growth. The State and social institutions come and go, but individuality remains and persists. The very essence of individuality is expression; the sense of dignity and independence is the soil wherein it thrives. Individuality is not the impersonal and mechanistic thing that the State treats as an “individual.” The individual is not merely the result of heredity and environment, of cause and effect. he is that and a great deal more, a great deal else. The living man cannot be defined; he is the fountain-head of all life and all values; he is not a part of this or of that; be is a whole, an individual whole, a growing, changing, yet always constant whole. Directory: uploads uploads -> 587 Return function, r i(X) r i(0) r i(1) r i(2) r i(3) 1 0 2 4 6 Thermal Station, I 2 0 1 5 6 3 0 3 5 6 10 uploads -> Department of science and humanities department of mathematics part-a questions and answers uploads -> The Case Against the nypd’s Quota-Driven ‘Broken Windows’ Policing What Is It? uploads -> For want of a nail uploads -> Ownership Models There are two different types of ownership models uploads -> Police Militarization uploads -> City of rising star regular meting thursday, july 14, 2016 uploads -> Township of winfield uploads -> Stop Militarizing Law Enforcement Act of 2014 uploads -> The Black Panther Party’s Ten-Point Program What We Want Now! Download 5.81 Mb. Share with your friends:
|