NEGATIVITY OF ANARCHISM Action from principle has in different contexts very different meanings. In the anarchist context these various principles, this attachment to principle, this ethics and politics of strict (but not absolute) principle, all this becomes intelligible and coherent when the various principles are referred to a single principle, that one should neither exercise nor submit to power over persons. either by collectivities or persons; with the correlative belief that the downfall of power depends upon action from this principle. By this interpretation, negation of power can be described as the principle-of-principles of anarchist action: in the end, perhaps it ls, or should be conceived as, the only principle. (It ls important to note that the principles mentioned are nearly all negative principles. Plainly they call for the supplement of concrete alternative actions fitted to circumstances, and an anarchist movement that knows nothing but its negative principles ls a movement in decay.) I believe that the central anarchist principle is best understood in interconnection with certain more general ideas: that the individual ls the basic social reality; that individual voluntary consent ls the ground of cooperation («giving one's word,1> in the traditional anarchist movements, ls the bond that unites); that everyone. oneself not excepted, ls responsible for their actions; that social freedom depends on the self-discipline of each; and that the assumption of power or submission to power in any sphere of human activity ls a negation of the fundamental reality of individuals, a negation intrinsically incapable of offset by other types of considerations. These ideas are, I would argue, existentially although not formally reciprocal, and are implicit in tlae negation of power-overpersons as presented in Section II above. (The argument would be difficult and would probably turn on explication of 'individual as basic social reality.' Here I note only that 'basic social reality' does not entail 'basic metaphysical reality.') (b. Power and Violence; Fraternity and Love) In two areas besides the question of property - which will be discussed separately- anarchists have differed sharply about principles. The dispute between anarchists who distrust formal organization, anarchist as well as other, and for whom the term 'organization' ls pejorative, and those who hold organization to be essential, would seem chiefly to represent a 39
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