David Berry's biographical account of Guerin's discovery of the working class and of the links between this and his homosexuality; and a discussion of his attempts to generalise from these experiences and to theorise the question in order to inform his political choices.
Originally appeared in Left History: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Historical Inquiry and Debate Vol 9, No 2 (2004)
Attachments
Workers of the World Embrace.pdf
(1.29 MB)
Comments
I enjoyed that little read.
I enjoyed that little read. Wow a man of acute insights and absolute stinkers. Reminded me of Orwells orientalism re the working classes and Foucaults blind spot when it came to feminism. But I like flawed thinkers.
I never liked Daniel Guerin.
I never liked Daniel Guerin. He was SO goddam obsessed with individualism, he might as well just abandoned anarchism and become a goddam liberal. I thought his radical politics was just a random hanger-on to appeal to his intellectual buddies. He even started going on and on about how "naive" anarchist-communism was, the goddam Stirnerite.
I guess it was because he was gay, rejecting societal norms condoning homophobia by just saying society didn't matter - like how Einstein despised patriotism because patriotism in where he grew up, Germany, was traditionally anti semitic.
But, then again, I don't know exactly how much Guérin's homosexuality informed his politics. He might have just been a radical so much as his wealth didn't get affected.
Edit:
Also, JESUS he was like some sort of libertarian trotskyist something. Christ, I wouldn't be surprised if he prayed to comrade Trotsky before he went to bed.
Yeah that individualist,
Yeah that individualist, stirnerite, trotskyist, liberal - wait, what?
revol68 wrote: I'm intrigued
revol68
Of course it wasn't superficial or wrong; it's just that Germany (pre-hitler lol) had a tradition of being overly patriotic. Historically, going all the way back to Fichte, this patriotism has always been antisemitic. Einstein was, in his early years, fiercely anti-nationalism/anti-patriotism, though after the fall of nazism and the establishment of Israel he just became an anti-german zionist.
Also sorry if I seem all over the place on Guerin. I just really, REALLY don't like his thought process. It really does seem like a US-style right-winger became an anarchist through a former trotskyist or something. If he were born in the US instead of France, he'd probably just become an objectivist or something.
Oh god I LOVED big business
Oh god I LOVED big business and fascism. Gonna get that shizz on a pdf.
georgestapleton wrote: Yeah
georgestapleton
The individualist/collectivist dichotomy was a mistake