Graham R (Ed.) - Anarchism - A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas Volume One - From Anarchy to Anarchism (300 CE to 1939)

21 R / ANARCHISM
we have thrown our support behind all rapine, every abomination, and if we have
ever shown any sign of pity, that pity was lucrative and we knew how to turn a profit
from it. We sold ourselves to all who made us an offer, everybody who could pay our
price." Deep down, good fellows, if you do not come over to the Revolution, it is no
doubt because you think that it has no immediate profit to offer you.
So what can we tell you and what matter to us are your carping, your insults and
your nonsense We believe in everything that you deny, love everything that you detest,
we hate everything that you hold dear; we have faith in our ideas and you have
no ideas, only appetites; we are minds and you bellies, and every fibre of our being
opposes you and we despise you every bit as much as you abominate us.
Which of us is right Time will tell. Perhaps you reckon that tomorrow will be
yours, that the hue and cry you have started is not going to end and that, worn out by
your yapping, tied down by the ropes you are trying to throw over us, we will fa ll silent.
Stop deluding yourselves. No law can halt free thought, no penalty can stop us
from uttering truth and justice according to our lights, and the Idea, gagged, bound
and beaten, will emerge all the more lively, splendid and mighty.
63.}ean Grave: Tile Artist as Equal, Not Master (1899)
III his 1899 publication, L'Anarchie, son but, ses moyens (Paris: P. V. Stock), Jean Grave argues
against artistic elitism, all the basis that true freedom fo r the artist call ollly be achieved
through the Feedom of t17e masses. lilts translation is takenfrol11 Alvin F. Sanborn's Paris and
the Social Revolution (Boston: Smal/, Maynard & Co., 1905), with some minor modificatiolls.
IT IS NOT ONLY TO THOSE WHO ARE dying ofvv'ant that anarchy addresses ilseif. To
satisfy one's hunger is a primordial right that takes precedence over all other rights
and stands at the head of the claims ofa human being. But anarchy embraces all the
aspirations and neglects no need. The list of its demands includes all the demands of
humanity.
Mirbeau, in his Mauvais Bergers, makes one of the characters proclaim to workmen
on strike their right to beauty. And, indeed, every being has a right not only to
what sustains life, but also to whatever renders it easy, enlivens it, and embellishes it.
They are rare, alas! in our social state, who can live their lives fully.
Some there are whose physical needs are satisfied, but who are inhibited in
their evolution by a social organization which is conditioned by the narrowness of
conception of the average intellect,-artists, litterateurs, savants, all who think, suffer
morally, if not physically, from the present order of things.