Self-realization is the only virtue of cynics. But being a dissident, the revaluation of all values, necessarily includes this claim. Keeping this in mind at all times is not only important for shaping your own good life, but also a criterion for judging the trustworthiness of others.
A touchstone for the cynical anarchist Program
I have already shared the following quote from Paul Goodman at this blog. I have also used it in several articles of mine, such as in Telepolis1The linked article is in German. I myself use deepl for translation. This free translation app works amazingly well, And for sure I will share it more often. It is so important that this time I share not only the crucial excerpt (here in bold), but a longer excerpt from the text. I only know the German translation by Stefan Blankertz. If anyone knows a link to the American original, I will be very happy to be informed. Update I found the original quote now after all. However, the source is not correct. In the Maypamphlet of 1946 I found the text not exactly so.
Anarchists must not fall into the trap of wasting forces in opposing constraints that authority no longer imposes, while overlooking the new methods of exploitation. […]
Paul Goodman. Anarchistisches Manifest, Verlag Büchse der Pandora, Münster/Wetzlar 1978, S. 23-26. link
As a result, people, without realizing it, are more enslaved in their time management, their choices, their possibilities for change, their spontaneity and their culture than they were in the dark days of scarcity, when people’s misery was unspoiled and could provoke natural reactions. […]
I would like to propose a kind of touchstone for the correct anarchist program in a time like the present, when the corporate integration of economy, morality, taste, and information of society is so firm; a time when the press, the movies, etc., themselves commodities, fuel the rising consumption of commodities. The touchstone is this:
does our program include a large number of the very actions and words for which people are in fact thrown into prison? We must proceed on the basis of the conviction that the coercive society knows very well the actions which are dangerous to it and which are not; actions which give rise to coercion have anarchic force; those which used to be punished but are now tolerated have lost that force. This is not neutral, but has itself coercive consequences. […]
If anything is appropriate to his nature, if it is right and necessary for himself and his friends at the present moment, let him do it without guilt and with pleasure. Let him avoid the coercive consequences with natural prudence, but not by inhibition and fearful rejection of what is the thing; for our acts of freedom are our strongest propaganda.[…]To return to the starting point, namely, the necessity of changing the anarchist program with the change of coercive circumstances, I would like to offer a criticism of the continued use of one of the favorite words of anarchist literature, a criticism of the word “individual” as in “individual freedom,” “individual” expression, etc. In fact, at the present time, the aim of all agencies of propaganda, entertainment, and education is to shape individuality so that a person will make his personal choice in a way that is objectively conducive to the coercive union of which he will then feel a part. Because of their use of the expressions “free individuality”, “individual spontaneity”, “individual participation”, the drivel of psychologists like Erich Fromm has attained. [… ]
Let me suggest to replace the word “individuality” by “nature”. Nature means such drives and forces, both on the animal and human levels, which are presently expressed in spite of such conventions as we and our friends all agree are obsolete and no longer “natural.” These drives and forces will be the engines of personal idiosyncrasy and mutual aid in a free society.
With his “touchstone,” Paul Goodman points out something that the ancient Cynics already knew. That is why they did not simply call for the cultivation of the virtue of self-realization, but at the same time with the claim to revaluate all prevailing values, demanded being a dissident.
The alleged naturalistic fallacy
It is also exciting that Goodman already recognized the state propaganda of the “free individual,” which culminates in the silly claim, common among libertarians today, that to be left alone is the only human right.
Continue reading: Freedom is not what we are sold as individual freedom
The Argumentum ad Naturam is condemned by statist nihilistic philosophers like Hume2Just as Goodman recognized Erich Fromm as a dangerous windbag, Nietzsche considers philosophers like Hume “an attack on the philosophical mind in general, Hobbes, Hume, and Locke a degradation and diminution in value of the term ‘philosopher’ for more than a century.” Exactly! [JGB-252] as a naturalistic fallacy: one cannot conclude from the factual natural being to the ought. Yes, one can. Yes, we can. Paul Goodman also did it. So we can’t just blindly trust philosophers either, because they probably already know the truth. Even in the case of a philosopher, psychologist, artist, etc., it is worth checking whether he is being a dissident or more of a civil servant.
Read also: Cynics need to fear neither hubris nor sin
And how dangerously do you live?
Do you simply adopt the prevailing rules because it is more comfortable to live if you simply accept the increasing interventions of biopolitics
Read more: Resistance to biopolitics
in our lives? Are you afraid of being exposed as an alleged Nazi, racist, sexist, homophobe or animal abuser? Do you renounce the “N-word”, do you forbid your children to play Indians, have you already cut off your grid hair and do not play reggae music anymore? Are you gendering, that is, defacing your mother tongue because you’re supposed to?
Today, the rulers don’t even have to enforce censorship with the threat of prison. Even a block on Facebook intimidates many. When Gustav Landauer had just served his sentence for lèse majesté, he wrote a critique against the Socialist Laws and attacked the emperor head-on. And what are you afraid of? What keeps you from being a dissident? Is it the fear of Facebook or is it the fear of death?
Read more: How to make death your best friend
- 1The linked article is in German. I myself use deepl for translation. This free translation app works amazingly well
- 2Just as Goodman recognized Erich Fromm as a dangerous windbag, Nietzsche considers philosophers like Hume “an attack on the philosophical mind in general, Hobbes, Hume, and Locke a degradation and diminution in value of the term ‘philosopher’ for more than a century.” Exactly! [JGB-252]