‘Nowadays’, complained Mr K, ‘there are innumerable people who boast in public that they are able to write great books all by themselves, and this meets with general approval. When he was already in the prime of life the Chinese philosopher Chuang-tzu composed a book of one hundred thousand words, nine-tenths of which consisted of quotations. Such books can no longer be written here and now, because the wit is lacking. As a result, ideas are only produced in one’s own workshop, and anyone who does not manage enough of them thinks himself lazy. Admittedly, there is not then a single idea that could be adopted or a single formulation of an idea that could be quoted. How little all of them need for their activity! A pen and some paper are the only things they are able to show! And without any help, with only the scant material that anyone can carry in his hands, they erect their cottages! The largest buildings they know are those a single man is capable of constructing!’

Bertolt Brecht, ‘Originality’, Stories of Mr Keuner.

Each individual has his own particular ideal of man in general; these ideals are different in degree, though not in kind; each tries by his own ideal every being whom he recognizes as a man. By this fundamental impulse each is prompted to seek in others a likeness to his own ideal; he inquires, he observes on all sides, and when he finds men below this ideal, he strives to elevate them to it. In this struggle of mind with mind, he always triumphs who is the highest and best man;—and thus from the idea of Society arises that of the perfection of the race, and we have thus also discovered the ultimate purpose of all Society as such. When it appears as if the higher and better man had no influence on the low and uncultivated, we are partly deceived in our judgement, since we often expect to find the fruit already ripe, before the seed has had time to germinate and unfold;—and it may partly arise from this, that the better man perhaps stands at too high an elevation above the uncultivated,—that they have too few points of contact with each other, and hence cannot sufficiently act upon each other;—a state which retards civilization to an incredible extent, and the remedy for which we shall point out at the proper time. But on the whole, the ultimate triumph of the better man is certain:—a calming and consoling thought for the friend of humanity and of truth when he looks out upon the open war of light with darkness. The light shall surely triumph at last;—we cannot indeed predict the time,—but it is already a pledge of victory, of near victory, when darkness is compelled to come forth to an open encounter. She loves concealment,—she is already lost when forced out into the open day.

Fichte, The Vocation of the Scholar.

I know that this may be somewhat cheesy advice, but I genuinely believe that, in order to have a love for life, one MUST have a love for the living. It’s almost impossible to be happy without embracing the world around you. Of course, this wide world of ours is still worthy of fear and respect, but let that not divert us from our love for it. It seems as though modern living has forced into a more insular way of life, and into a certain state of self idolatry. Although I’m certain that these luddite arguments sound well wrung out to anyone who reads them, there’s no avoiding the relationship between our digital world and our ever increasing loneliness rates. And yet the wheel keeps turning. Although expecting any reversals in our technological growth, of course, is unreasonable, (and frankly, reactionary) our culture has yet to find a suitable response for this advancement. I believe, however, that this cultural progress is being stymied by certain forces in our society that thrive off of cultural regression: The same sort of organizations that thrive off exploitation. In a world of unfathomably quick progress, it seems unreasonable to be a capitalist. Why is this? Because capitalism, unfortunately, has a long history of muddying the waters of such things. The system thrives off of regression, because, in such a system, only the immoral can ascend. And these regressives, as we have taken to calling them, have not only stolen the autonomy of people. They have stolen the sanctity of the world which we love. And that, more than any other offense, is their greatest crime.

Although they are not explicitly connected, one must address the intimate connection between these "regressives" and faith. Although belief in a higher power is not, as many assume, inherently constraining, it becomes problematic when it is used as a basis for social and cultural development. Organized faith, through its unbreakable tenets, is often used to justify outdated practices. Personally, I’ve never really understood it, at least one particular aspect of it. How can it be that someone can be faithful, without being an environmentalist? How can one worship the creator, without worshipping the creation? It seems to me that, faithful or not, due reverence should guide one to a similar philosophy. Any other system, as I see it, is death worship.

@Nucleonimbus (@FoundAgain).

We walk through the world as the spectator walks through a great factory: he does not see the details of machines and working operations, or the comprehensive connections between the different departments which determine the working processes on a large scale….We see the polished surface of our table as a smooth plane; but we know that it is a network of atoms with interstices much larger than the mass particles, and the microscope already shows not the atoms but the fact that the apparent smoothness is not better than the “smoothness” of the peel of a shriveled apple. We see the iron stove before us as a model of rigidity, solidity, immovability; but we know that its particles perform a violent dance, and that it resembles a swarm of dancing gnats more than the picture of solidity we attribute to it. We see the moon as a silvery disk in the celestial vault, but we know it is an enormous ball suspended in open space. We hear the voice coming from the mouth of a singing girl as a soft and continuous tone, but we know that this sound is composed of hundreds of impacts a second bombarding our ears like a machine gun….We do not see the things, not even the concreta, as they are but in a distorted form; we see a substitute world—not the world as it is, objectively speaking.

Hans Reichenbach, Experience and Prediction.

Equity, therefore, does not permit property in land. For if one portion of the earth’s surface may justly become the possession of an individual, and may be held by him for his sole use and benefit, as a thing to which he has an exclusive right, then other portions of the earth’s surface may be so held; and eventually the whole of the earth’s surface may be so held; and our planet may thus lapse altogether into private hands. Observe now the dilemma to which this leads. Supposing the entire habitable globe to be so enclosed, it follows that if the landowners have a valid right to its surface, all who are not landowners, have no right at all to its surface. Hence, such can exist on the earth by sufferance only. They are all trespassers. Save by the permission of the lords of the soil, they can have no room for the soles of their feet. Nay, should the others think fit to deny them a ­resting-place, these landless men might equitably be expelled from the earth altogether. If, then, the assumption that land can be held as property, involves that the whole globe may become the private domain of a part of its inhabitants; and if, by consequence, the rest of its inhabitants can then exercise their faculties—can then exist even—only by consent of the landowners; it is manifest, that an exclusive possession of the soil necessitates an infringement of the law of equal freedom. For, men who cannot “live and move and have their being” without the leave of others, cannot be equally free with those others.

Herbert Spencer, Social Statics, or The Conditions essential to Happiness specified, and the First of them Developed.

Even if you could overthrow the Government tomorrow and establish Anarchism, the same system would soon grow up again.

This objection is quite true, except that we do not propose to overthrow the Government tomorrow. If I (or we as a group of anarchists) came to the conclusion that I was to be the liberator of humanity, and if by some means I could manage to blow up the King, the Houses of Lords and Commons, the police force, and, in a word, all persons and institutions which make up the Government—if I were successful in all this, and expected to see the people enjoying freedom ever afterwards as a result, then, no doubt, I should find myself greatly mistaken.

The chief results of my action would be to arouse an immense indignation on the part of the majority of the people, and a reorganisation by them of all the forces of government. The reason why this method would fail is very easy to understand. It is because the strength of the Government rests not with itself, but with the people. A great tyrant may be a fool, and not a superman. His strength lies not in himself, but in the superstition of the people who think that it is right to obey him. So long as that superstition exists it is useless for some liberator to cut off the head of tyranny; the people will create another, for they have grown accustomed to rely on something outside themselves.

Suppose, however, that the people develop, and become strong in their love of liberty, and self-reliant, then the foremost of its rebels will overthrow tyranny, and backed by the general sentiment of their age their action will never be undone. Tyranny will never be raised from the dead. A landmark in the progress of humanity will have been passed and put behind for ever.

So the Anarchist rebel when he strikes his blow at Governments understands that he is no liberator with a divine mission to free humanity, but he is a part of that humanity struggling onwards towards liberty.

If, then, by some external means an Anarchist Revolution could be, so to speak, supplied ready-made and thrust upon the people, it is true that they would reject it and rebuild the old society. If, on the other hand, the people develop their ideas of freedom, and then themselves get rid of the last stronghold of tyranny—the Government—then indeed the Revolution will be permanently accomplished.

George Barrett, Objections to Anarchism.

But today's society is characterized by achievement orientation, and consequently it adores people who are successful and happy and, in particular, it adores the young. It virtually ignores the value of all those who are otherwise, and in so doing blurs the decisive difference between being valuable in the sense of dignity and being valuable in the sense of usefulness. If one is not cognizant of this difference and holds that an individual's value stems only from his present usefulness, then, believe me, one owes it only to personal inconsistency not to plead for euthanasia along the lines of Hitler's program, that is to say, 'mercy' killing of all those who have lost their social usefulness, be it because of old age, incurable illness, mental deterioration, or whatever handicap they may suffer. Confounding the dignity of man with mere usefulness arises from conceptual confusion that in turn may be traced back to the contemporary nihilism transmitted on many an academic campus and many an analytical couch.

Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning.

Science is more than a body of knowledge; it is a way of thinking. I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time – when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.

Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World.

Between the serf, the farmer, the tenant, and the mortgagee, the difference is rather one of form than of substance. Whether the peasant belongs to me, or the land on which he has to get a living; whether the bird is mine, or its food, the tree or its fruit, is a matter of little moment; for, as Shakespeare makes Shylock say:

You take my life
When you do take the means whereby I live.

Slavery and poverty, then, are only two forms, I might almost say only two names, of the same thing, the essence of which is that a man's physical powers are employed, in the main, not for himself but for others; and this leads partly to his being over-loaded with work, and partly to his getting a scanty satisfaction for his needs. For Nature has given a man only as much physical power as will suffice, if he exerts it in moderation, to gain a sustenance from the earth. No great superfluity of power is his. If, then, a not inconsiderable number of men are relieved from the common burden of sustaining the existence of the human race, the burden of the remainder is augmented, and they suffer.

But the more remote cause of [evil] is luxury. In order, it may be said, that some few persons may have what is unnecessary, superfluous, and the product of refinement—nay, in order that they may satisfy artificial needs—a great part of the existing powers of mankind has to be devoted to this object, and therefore withdrawn from the production of what is necessary and indispensable. Instead of building cottages for themselves, thousands of men build mansions for a few. Instead of weaving coarse materials for themselves and their families, they make fine cloths, silk, or even lace, for the rich, and in general manufacture a thousand objects of luxury for their pleasure. A great part of the urban population consists of workmen who make these articles of luxury; and for them and those who give them work the peasants have to plough and sow and look after the flocks as well as for themselves, and thus have more labour than Nature originally imposed upon them. Moreover, the urban population devotes a great deal of physical strength, and a great deal of land, to such things as wine, silk, tobacco, hops, asparagus and so on, instead of to corn, potatoes and cattle-breeding. Further, a number of men are withdrawn from agriculture and employed in ship-building and seafaring, in order that sugar, coffee, tea and other goods may be imported. In short, a large part of the powers of the human race is taken away from the production of what is necessary, in order to bring what is superfluous and unnecessary within the reach of a few. As long therefore as luxury exists, there must be a corresponding amount of over-work and misery, whether it takes the name of poverty or of slavery. The fundamental difference between the two is that slavery originates in violence, and poverty in craft. The whole unnatural condition of society—the universal struggle to escape from misery, the sea-trade attended with so much loss of life, the complicated interests of commerce, and finally the wars to which it all gives rise—is due, only and alone, to luxury, which gives no happiness even to those who enjoy it, nay, makes them ill and bad-tempered.

Arthur Schopenhauer, Government.

Cultures have tried to teach a malign and apparently persuasive lie: that the most important metric of a good life is wealth and the luxury and power it brings. The rich think they live better when they are even richer. In America and many other places they use their wealth politically, to persuade the public to elect or accept leaders who will do that for them. They say that the justice we have imagined is socialism that threatens our freedom. Not everyone is gullible: many people lead contented lives without wealth. But many others are persuaded; they vote for low taxes to keep the jackpot full in case they too can win it, even though that is a lottery they are almost bound to lose. Nothing better illustrates the tragedy of an unexamined life: there are no winners in this macabre dance of greed and delusion. No respectable or even intelligible theory of value supposes that making and spending money has any value or importance in itself and almost everything people buy with that money lacks any importance as well. The ridiculous dream of a princely life is kept alive by ethical sleepwalkers. And they in turn keep injustice alive because their self-contempt breeds a politics of contempt for others. Dignity is indivisible.

Ronald Dworkin, Justice for Hedgehogs.