Although our critics may find it hard to believe, we read them with enjoyment and take account of what they say. Some of the compliments on the cover of this issue cancel out. Can a theory be both mystical and mechanical? Can mere drivel undermine libertarian impulses? The others show a tendency to dismiss us… read more »
Authoritarian religion and the state appeared together as paired expressions of domination, and the novelty of the original Christian movement was soon brought into line. In Christianity and the Rhetoric of Empire, Professor Averil Cameron suggests that the Christians in the Roman Empire took care that both what they said and their way of saying… read more »
ON MAX STIRNER Sir, Apropos your reply to the letter from Bob Black regarding Stirner. What you seem to me to be saying is that if someone tells you he has a ‘commitment to truth’ you will take any statement he makes as ‘true,’ whereas if someone says he has no such ‘commitment’ you will… read more »
Destutt de Tracy introduced ‘ideology’ (in the French form) in 1796, but applied it only to the study of ideas in the straightforward sense. In the 1840s Marx and Engels introduced a new level of complexity, using the word to indicate a system of ideas which can affect people without their knowledge. They recognised only… read more »
Pure and serene, logic floats above the thinking tainted by practical purpose or hope of advantage. At least, it used to do so; the title of James Hamill’s book shows how things have changed: Ethno-Logic; the Anthropology of Human Reasoning [1]. As studied by logicians, logic is about the form of reasoning, free of any… read more »
‘Though it is tempting to regard the Spaniards as natural anarchists, it is more likely that the social conditions of rural life in Spain created the circumstances for anarchism in Spain.’ [1] Why should the social conditions of rural life have created circumstances for anarchism in Spain when they have not done so elsewhere? Recalling… read more »
In Anarchy, a Journal of Desire Armed, #31, Lev Chernyi speaks of two political groups. On the one hand ‘those who defend dominant (or would-be dominant) institutions’; on the other, ‘radicals and revolutionaries.’ Most people who think about such things accept this or some similar distinction and they agree, also, that the second group works… read more »
IC has long been linking the conservationist movement with the divisive eidodynamic ideologies. News now comes that Sara Parkin, leader of the Green Party, has quit because of continuing disorder and refusal by some activists to accept democratic decisions. The agenda of the 1992 conference shows the party taken up with internal fighting; with two… read more »
The suspicion that average temperatures over the planet may be rising, or set to rise in future, with disastrous consequences to follow, has become an ideological battleground. On the one hand the eidodynamics, emphasising the danger and calling for restraints to avoid or at least minimise it. On the other, the eidostatics, professing the best… read more »
Into the 21st Century, by Brian Burrows, Alan Mayne and Paul Newbury. Adamantine Press (1991) ISBN 0 7449 0031 x The book carries the subtitle A Handbook for a Sustainable Future, and the format is one of short sections with a reading-list and a section of topics for further investigation at the end of every… read more »