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e Anarchist LibraryAnti-Copyright

October28,2012

mileArmande Gulf

1910

is short piece by mile Armand appeared in Horace Traubels TeConservatorin 1910. Its an interesting piece to have appeared in a

magazine dominated by the shadow of Walt Whitman andan interesting example of Armands thought. Shawn Wilbur

hp://libertarian-labyrinth.blogspot.com/2010/08/e-armand-gulf.html

mile Armand

Te Gulf

1910

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All the societies of thevanguardSocialDemocrats, revolutionariesof all shades, various communists say that the individual is a productof his environment. It would be more exact to say that individuals areproducts of their environment, adding that the individual person, more

especially, is the end of an ancestral line, which traces its origin back intoanimal darkness, holding this fact accountable for certain individuals inwhom essentially predominate the characteristics of temperament anddisposition ofa particularancestry. Allsocieties religious, lay,col-lectivist revolutionaries or not say that the individual is a composite,therefore a dependentupon his environment. e anarchist individu-alists wishto maketheindividualperson anindependent, therefore adecomposite ofhis environment. e societies seeintheindividualastone of the structure, a member of the body. Te anarchists aim to makeeachindividualperson a distinctorganism,a unifiedfreeman. Whencetwo conceptions of education and propaganda:

1st. e socialconception,whichregardstheindividualas a wheel-work ofsociety,and inits mostaudacious dreams does notgo beyondthe idea of the tremendousfinal transformation or revolution of theenvironment. It regards evolution as a quantitativeresult,a question

ofnumbers. It takesthe child or the adult,and,a priori, fills him withthe conceptofbinding solidarity,ofnecessaryharmony,ofa communalorganization inevitable and universal. It proceeds by shaping the brainaer a paern arranged in advance. It prescribes a special education.

2nd. e anarchistic conception,whichregardstheindividualas de-tachedasthe cause or reason ofallassociationwho opposesit tosociety,and who would daringly liketo make each personal life a fer-ment destructive to the prescribed or submissive life of the environment.

Itconsidersthatallemancipationis dueto quality, toindividualeffort.Itseeksto makethe child or the adultmore competent for resistance,beerendowed,a being decidingforhimselfas much as he can his own

needs, and supplying them as much as possible; a union now or to comeof othersmore capable or beer endowed in oneway or another.Outsideofall intervention,ofallguardianship,ofallprotection of the state orthe community. Anarchistic education does not proceed by force, but byfree examination, by approved elimination. It suggests, it selects.

And these two points of view are irreconcilable.

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E. Armand.