Anti-Social Anarchy: A Short Response to Ausonia Calabrese’s “Against Individualism”

From Warzone Distro

Marxism shares one thing in common with other authoritarian ideologies: they are against the individual. Even when Marxists claim to be anarchists or “anti-state communists,” they make sure that masses and classes are always more important than actual people. This is as obvious in Tiqqun or Theory of Bloom as it is in Stalin’s “Anarchism” or “Socialism”, and now, in Ausonia Calabrese’s Against Individualism. The fact that someone identifying themselves as an anarchist or a Stirnite could ever claim to be against individualism is beyond me, but I digress.

The main gist of the essay is that individuals are not a real material reality, despite the fact they clearly are. There’s a lot of academic jargon that Calabrese claims supports his argument, but how anyone could understand that is beyond me. A lot of communists hide behind such ruses, when in reality their actual positions are a lot simpler than that. Simply because individuals have parts or have desires and wills does not mean they are somehow inferior to masses and collectives: this is the precursor thinly-veiled power-grab like all self-styled Marxists all inevitably fall for. That is the ultimate goal of all anti-Individualists, because that’s what the opposition to the Individual implies. The rare times that Ausonia Calabrese gets beyond fancy wordplay and sloganeering, it is merely to deal with symptoms, treating them as causes. Superficiality is the current order of the day in what passes for theoretical endeavors, so they are only being fashionable. The author hides behind thick word salad to hide their true point: that the individual is, or should be, subservient to the whole or public or “greater good.” And how does this greater good differ from a state? It simply does not, because they are both tools for some to rule over others.

After warning us against organizations and milieus, supposedly under the guise of some bullshit "mystical anarchy," Ausonia Calabrese and other communards call on us to “form communes.” They don’t explain how or why a commune is not a form of organization or a more solidified milieu,. They simply say: “It’s what makes us say ‘we’ and makes that an event.” Egoism isn’t even as Calabrese describes it. In reality, egoism is self-creation out of the nothing. This is what Stirner means when he talks about the Creative Nothing. Wolfi Landstreicher understands this lightyears ahead of Calabrese so it is funny that he attacks him. Wolfi seems to be a magnet for commies to attack. If I am to create myself and my life on my terms in each moment, the established, the permanent, the absolute, is my enemy, so I can’t favor any sort of permanent collectivity, community, or society. Any permanence that permeates me, petrifies me so that I am no longer able to create my self on my terms. I can only try to adapt myself to the permeating permanence. So in insisting upon creating myself on my own terms, I undermine all collectivity, all community, all organization and all society, even those temporary associations I choose to make for my own purposes, since once they no longer serve my purposes I pull myself out and let things fall where they may. This is why my egoist elegance prefers desultory duos, transitory trios, and ephemeral ensembles to permanent partnerships, solidified sodalities, and calcified collectivities.

Communism, even under the guise of nihilism, requires a permanent community. If this isn’t its aim, the word is meaningless, nothing more than the babbling baloney of blowhards battering for their share of revolutionary cred. A lot of the current commies have lost faith in the Gospel of Marx and its promise of predestined communism (of course, no anarchist-communist ever put faith in this pious promise, right?). But even those who conceived “communization” – the idea of communism as an ongoing movement toward community – don’t get away from this goal, because communization is still supposed to be a movement toward that universal (and so, permanent) human community. And what is permanent and universal is anti-individual, anti-me, my enemy. Whether they claim to be anarchist or not, anyone who proclaims himself to be an anti-individualist is my enemy.

AGAINST COMMUNES, AGAINST LEVIATHAN

Ausonia Calabrese’s Essay “Against Individualism: The Individual Is Not So”

There are 61 Comments

as someone who's more of an advocate of individualism than communism, but in material reality this conversation is nothing more than a conversation. Individualists will be communists when it best suits them as individuals, communists will be individualists when it best suites their desire to stay connected. Just don't let anyone dominate your mind with spooks, and you'll be okay, beware the carrot and the stick.

wait, where did ausonia call for people to form communes? did i miss something?

No where. This whole zine has nothing to do with what it's supposed to be responding to

People were hurling the communist insult at the first essay...yet it never said that and I was not really sure what it was alluding to.

It really is foolish to be worried about all these ideological devisions in a time like this, just keep your ear to the ground, beware the carrot and the stick

"There’s a lot of academic jargon that Calabrese claims supports his argument, but how anyone could understand that is beyond me." This is such a self burn, y'all. Need some aloe?

If you are going to admit your own inability to comprehend simply laid out arguments and then spew vitriol like some brand new YLF like your ressentiment got triggered rilllll good, the least you could do is actually make an argument. Grug need a back rub?

Lol at warzone launching a defense of individualism during a pandemic. I have no problem with individualism. I’m an individualist myself. I just think that this is a goofy thing to care about right now. Oogs will be oogs though.

welp, they have their dangerous space now, except it's not even a policy, it's a feeling!

In a time of pandemic guilt trips, heavy moralism and the endless assault on our freedoms made by the states appeal to "the collective good", it would stand to reason that the ideas of individualism could perhaps become more relevant than ever.

Im looking forward to the coming exchange of texts by individualist anarchists regarding the pandemic.

i guess i'm just confused as to why people who claim to be individualists are appealing to a non-existent binary, the fact your even talking about these individualists shows the weirdness in your claim to be one.

it is better right now to not even think about the pandemic...

"it is better right now to not even think about the pandemic..."

Really, what makes you say that?

not so goofy when individual actions have a wider effect. even if that effect is unfounded or overreaction. like the lolkids spitting in food, smearing snot on door knobs just for s&g's and social media cred. i accept this is their choice and even accept the self centered aspect. i get that some people say fuck you, i don't choose to be locked down and i don't care if i get sick or make you sick.

even though i am one who might suffer with severe consequences if i am not careful. this is a consequence of living in crowded spaces.

practically speaking, the threat of a lockdown becomes more of a plan because individuals decide to do their own thing despite the risk to others. will this be sufficient to modify actions? the grandest lab rat test is launched.

the individual and the group - not a false binary but an ever-present tension.

When the only group people are forming is based on a state lead effort to stop the spread of the virus. Most people are just really worried and further isolating.

You're not an individualist if you're mindlessly putting up with the State's newfound global war

I agree we need the human community. Or as Peter Kroptokin expressed cooperation and less competition in his works on Mutual Aid.

We also need family as well. If our needs aren't being addressed then hopefully a humane community will help that shunned individual.

"the human community"

oh, you mean that singular, all-encompassing, everyone knows everyone else "human community"?

that is even worse than "the black experience" or "what gay people go through". as if all black folks or queers experience the same thing. much less all "humans"! could there be a more glaring example of useless and ideological massification?

We live in a society.
Humans are social animals, we crave social community. Individualism is a canard. It's a philosophy used to atomize people, divide and conquer, control, isolate, exterminate.

"In reality, egoism is self-creation out of the nothing."
Bullshit, no thought or behavior comes out of 'nothing'. Everything is a response to the environment, based on either instinct or social cues. This statement explains why egoism is a joke.

We live in a society which sometimes resembles a herd of uniform people in a totalitarian state of mind.
Humans are social animals but not herd animals, we crave social community but don't want to be clones. Individualism is a diversity of persons. It's a way of looking differently and creatively and used to empower people, give thèm depth and mutual respect, freedom of expression, autonomy and harmony.

"In reality, egoism is self-creation out of the nothing."
True, thought or behavior comes out of 'nothing'. Somethings are a response to the environment, based on either instinct or social cues. This statement explains why egoism is a fascinating and not for sheepish idiots who cannot think for themselves.

There is nothing in what I said that implied anything to do with being clones, or totalitarianism, or being a herd animal. How in the actual fuck you got that from what I said, I'll never know.
Individualism doesn't empower people, it fragments them. We have to stop reducing all of life into a binary of individual vs collective, and stop thinking in terms of looking at human social life through 'isms.

Thought and behavior does not come out of nothing, it has an origin. That's why it's usually predictable. Egoism is a ridiculous minor side show in the history of anarchism. It's boring as fuck and offers no solutions to the immense problems we face as a species.

You have twisted logic into a collective corner. When you say ---Thought and behavior does not come out of nothing, it has an origin. That's why it's usually predictable.---- you fail to realise that predictability is boring and reactionary. It is the unpredictable and uncultured child that displays individuality in its raw and fascinating form. The uncultured lone being ìs an exciting novel consciousness, like a strange book in a different language, mysterious and unlawful, undisciplined and guided by no laws or manners. Then society happens, and the anarchist being begins kneeling down to pray, and go to work as a wage slave, or to war, or just being boring and dull like a simple instruction book on how to operate an elctric bbq, over and over, operating a bbq,,,,,boring.

Society pre-exists the individual. We are all born into a pre-existing society. When someone proudly tells me they are an "individualist", I can already predict their behavior and related beliefs. Boring.

Umm, I'd stop philosophizing, you're no good at it, and umm, your hamburger is burning on your neverending bbq ;)

Pointing out facts is now "philosophizing"? Go fuck yourself.

I'd actually take a basic class in philosophy if I were you, so you could learn what it is and stop embarrassing yourself on here.

If anything they are concurrent. The social may pre-exist the individual(Stirner admits as much as the Der Einzige is something that becomes out of social upbringing) but society is a reification that does not actually exist. Neither does the individual in a sense(or nothing even) either but it's a HELL of a lot more concrete and experiential. It begins with the type of consciousnesses that Julian Jaynes talks about via subjective reflections.

Society isn't a reification. You live in one. How demented do you have to be to deny basic reality?

Stop eating Tide Pods.

I'll have to correct you here numbhead, but society, and there can be only one definition of society, as the constructs of peoples actions, desires and beliefs. This is what reification is describing. Pick anything out
Construct society road intersection1)the traffic lights. = the desire of people not to have to deal with car wrecks and mutilated bodies.
Non constructed road intersection = people conscious of speed, empathy depth/time, i.e. not rushing to work or drunk.
Thus, depending on the conscious self-awareness of the individual, it could be possible to live in groups without "society" .or laws. The personalization of a sense of just behavior and respect has been attained by indigenous people before.
Do not get hungup on the industrial capitalist significance placed upon "society", it is a prison disguised as a holiday resort.

Your incoherent babbling is boring as fuck.

Society is a designation of a group of people living together with more or less common beliefs and values, as distinct from other groups of people. A society can be small (hunter gatherer societies) or large (North American society). The borders around societies (when there are such) are called countries. It is a social construct, but not an abstract one.

Society is not a reification anymore than say a forest is. Both have concrete form, made up of real physical individual people, or individual trees. Both have a border, however fuzzy or arbitrary it may be drawn. Nobody would say there's no such thing as a forest, or that a forest is just an abstract idea that doesn't really exist, or that a young tree sapling did not germinate into the landscape of a pre-existing forest.

You are getting triggered by the word society, insisting it doesn't exist. Yet we can all point to a society in the physical realm or on a map, and understand what each other means by the use of the word. It's simply a category that picks out something that actually exists.

Are all egoists this obtuse and insufferable?

You simply don't understand how to differentiate between linguistic correspondence and abstraction. People who know philosophy and greater epistemology know these things very well. They know what misplaced concreteness is. Society is a perfect example of misplaced concreteness. There's also the differentiation between belief and experience or perception which you also don't get.

There is no band society, there are only bands. Society is defined by outer human scale and correspondent reification. The fact that it does not jibe with experiential concreteness is why it does not exist. It ONLY exists as an abstraction which is a tertiary downstream complicated human construction. Of course the fuller zen/daoist position is that all constructs don't really exist(I happen to agree) but this is obviously the case for SOCIETY.

That's because the communalist cowards are making "individualists" in the first place. This is first an foremost an identity you throw at some individuals who're just too special for your herd dynamics to handle.

Like I'm not seeing many individuals kicking groups from a house or milieu... but on the other hand we've seen the opposite sooooo many times!

"We are all born into a pre-existing society."

No, I was born from my mom. I am from a womb. Not a society. Womb is independent from any given social arrangement; it's the social arrangement that depends on the womb, as you don't have any society continuing without newborn humans. That, unless you were inseminated.

Hey dipshit, I'm not the one professing "individualism", as a philosophy to live by. you are, remember?

Yes, you were born into a pre-existing society. How fucked up in the head do you have to be to not understand that your mom who gave birth to you is part of a wider community called society that pre-existed your birth? And a society that does not continue is still a society for however long it lasts. What sort of solipsist bullshit are you peddling? Do you live in an isolated vacuum chamber? Or are you on LSD right now?

Fucking nihilist idiots.

Maybe some LSD wouldn't be a bad idea. Or at least a deep breath. Calm down, anon.

Lol...thought so. When you don't have an argument, just accuse the other person of being angry.

Yes yes yes no yes maybe thinking,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,no no yes,,,,more caffeine please yes no yes yes,,,,,,,,

It is a spook. There are only relations and activity. Some of this activity builds up and maintains a bigger *imagined* whole that we call "society". But it ain't more real than God, the Nation, or whatever.

Keep believing in Santa Claus, as a bunch of shitty authoritarians with more power than you and currently bringging down to your knees, and you're doing it headfirst, because "the community". And yes, I'm sure LSD would help you out, if it still can be found at this point.

"There is no community. There is only relations and activity".

Relations and activity of who? Squirrels? You've just redescribed the concept of community using different words. And that would be a community of squirrels.

Society is much more real than God. You encounter society every time you step outside your mom's basement (assuming you ever do leave your mom's basement). It's called American society. And like most Americans, you are stupid enough to deny reality.

so, in your world, you accept the situation you were born into as appropriate and immutable? not as potent point of refusal, but of acquiescence? and the strength of your commitment to this truth incites you to disdain and condemn those who choose otherwise? is this an accurate understanding of your position?

"We live in a society."
Submitted by anon (not verified) on Sat, 03/21/2020 - 19:38

How do you get from 'society exists' to 'therefore I must accept the way society is'

Seriously, do egoists go to school to learn how to be irrational dumbfucks?

shit on stirner's egoism, it's already a very marginal thing amongst anarchists. Fans of it like myself aren't going to turn into patriots and guilt mongers because of this virus. This may be a little bit for ya'll to take but, the virus is having very positive effects on non-humans! Stop being so short-sighted and look at the problem from more angles than "are you one of those dbags who coughs on the elderly or are you self-quarantining in solidarity with the rest of us?"!

The fact that you find this factual statement humerous, means you're either a psychopath, or a troll. Which is it?

Fuck off, narcissist.

means that you are not a deep thinker, or that you're totally accepting the assumptions embedded in it. either of which doesn't give you much of a leg to stand on to call other people names. perhaps you could take your irritation as motivation to look deeper?

Says the guy calling me a "socialist despot". Imagine being so lacking in self awareness that you can't see your own hypocrisy. Also imagine being so defensive and fragile that you cannot take any criticism without accusing someone of not being a deep thinker.

name calling is the most vapid form of criticism, to respond to an assertion that "we are social animals", with "fuck off socialist despot"...that's some middle school bully/alex jones level shit!

I imagine the anon calling someone a socialist despot is really a 13 -year-old ideological girl who just finished reading Stirner for the first time.

read something that dense, maybe people would be reacting more reasonably to the pandemic?!

maybe if it what stirner and other interesting thinkers said might be shared in a way any 13-year-old could understand, they would not let their teenage rebellion be shunted into safe spaces but let run wild.

i am no fan of einstein or sayings or aphorisms, but the one comment to him, if you cannot explain it to a child, you do not sufficiently understand it yourself, is one worth considering.

as being an explanation of something you already knew, which is why it's satisfying to read. If a child's mind isn't filled with spooks to begin with they don't really need to be familiar with it, i tend to like the writing of the taoists better for this reason, it's a more poetic description of a felt reality as opposed to "learning" or "education"

I can't believe I have to remind certain people of this sometimes. What do you think the Stirn is getting at when he talks about 'my intercourse'.

You're not getting what out of nothing means and taking the phrase to literally. There is no such thing as absolute everything or nothing. This is basic Daoism which Stirnerian nihilexistentialist egoist philosophy is very similar to.

19:38 ---You are confused.

"A society is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Societies are characterized by patterns of relationships between individuals who share a distinctive culture and institutions; a given society may be described as the sum total of such relationships among its constituent of members. In the social sciences, a larger society often exhibits stratification or dominance patterns in subgroups. Societies construct patterns of behavior by deeming certain actions or speech as acceptable or unacceptable. These patterns of behavior within a given society are known as societal norms. Societies, and their norms, undergo gradual and perpetual changes" .Wikipedia

Anews! forgot to mention the author of this text "Arturo Cota".

That this article isn't even responding to the article or claims to be responding to. The problem is that I dont want to be playing identity politics while theres both an authoritarian and viral threat going around scaring the shit out of everyone.

I dont know much about warzone distro but all their behavior so far indicates I wouldn't really get along with them.

warzone distro are usually p cool ime, but this article definitely reads like somebody wrote an essay mad abt inhabit or tiqqunists or s/t and then played madlib using ausonia quotes

Why tf are you nerds spending brain cycles arguing this shit?! Is it a survival mechanism to protect your psyche from COVID19-STATE20 ??

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