The Anarchist Handbook: Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

I’ll be open and admit that I will probably never like Proudhon. We’re axiomatically different in too many ways, but that doesn’t mean that I have to believe everything he thinks is wrong.

In particular, the section that Michael Malice has excerpted for The Anarchist Handbook (Amazon affiliate link) contains a relatively pure expression of anarchist thought with few of his other theories coming into play.

As the third writer covered, he’s the first to write as an avowed anarchist (Godwin and Stirner not really quite fitting the category), and is also probably the easiest so far to understand without some background reading.

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The Anarchist Handbook: Max Stirner

I’m going to work through the essays in The Anarchist Handbook (Amazon affiliate link), written/edited by Michael Malice, over the course of the next several weeks. It’s a collection of works by an eclectic brand of thinkers who align, at times, only on their opposition to the state.

Because Malice organized The Anarchist Handbook in chronological order, the enigmatic Max Stirner is the second person to be covered in the anthology. I like Stirner, but he’s difficult to follow. This is not entirely accidental.

There’s a reason why I joke “Never go Max Stirner, just go a little Stirner.”

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The Anarchist Handbook: William Godwin

I’m going to work through the essays in The Anarchist Handbook (Amazon affiliate link), written/edited by Michael Malice, over the course of the next several weeks. It’s a collection of works by an eclectic brand of thinkers who align, at times, only on their opposition to the state.

Today we’re starting the series off with a look at William Godwin.

William Godwin’s take on political philosophy seems to me to share a good deal of affinity for Spooner’s later antiestablishmentarian philosophy. However, he is more of a balanced thinker and falls more in the Lockean tradition of discourse than the rougher American style that Spooner uses.

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Reflections on Aristotle’s Poetics

Aristotle’s Poetics is one of the earliest surviving works of literary criticism, and I read it over the past couple days. It’s pretty short (the Project Gutenberg version I got came to 60 pages, and that includes the legal notices), but it’s interesting to explore it as a thought exercise.

It’s one of very few surviving texts that is more than two thousand years old, and it’s interesting to see how well it equates to modernity even though many of the terms and concepts that it uses have developed in the time since its writing (though, to be fair, some of this likely also is a factor of translation).

You also don’t need as much information to go into it as I thought would be necessary. Being familiar with Homer is a must, since Aristotle references his work constantly. Other than a very basic knowledge of Greek myth or drama (e.g. to catch references to Oedipus or Medea or the more famous ancient playwrights), nothing more is needed.

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Jordan Peterson’s Beyond Order: Be grateful in spite of your suffering. (Part 2)

I’ve been working through Jordan Peterson’s new book Beyond Order (Amazon affiliate link), breaking down each chapter into halves so I can give each a fair treatment. Although Peterson did not intend for all the chapters in the book to build on each other, this final chapter seems like a summary of many of the previous elements in the book.

The core focus of this section, which is a reflection on the final part of the final body chapter, is on the reasons why striving for the good is so important despite the presence of truly horrible things in the world.

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Jordan Peterson’s Beyond Order: Be grateful in spite of your suffering. (Part 1)

I’ve been working through Jordan Peterson’s new book Beyond Order (Amazon affiliate link), breaking down each chapter into halves so I can give each a fair treatment. Although Peterson did not intend for all the chapters in the book to build on each other, this final chapter seems like a summary of many of the previous elements in the book.

That isn’t to imply that there aren’t new ideas in here. There are, and it actually presents some images that are strong and either unexplored or only trivially pursued in earlier chapters or work by Peterson. It also relies on the exploration of past concepts while moving in a new direction.

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Jordan Peterson’s Beyond Order: Do not allow yourself to become resentful, deceitful, or arrogant. (Part 4)

I’ve been working through Jordan Peterson’s new book Beyond Order (Amazon affiliate link), breaking down each chapter into halves so I can give each a fair treatment. I am splitting this chapter into three four parts because of its length, but also because I think this is such a significant topic that it deserves extra treatment.

Tonight I’m looking at the final portion of the chapter, in which Peterson talks about deceit in particular before getting into the solution to (as much as the reasons to avoid) resentment, deceit, and arrogance.

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Jordan Peterson’s Beyond Order: Do not allow yourself to become resentful, deceitful, or arrogant. (Part 3)

I’ve been working through Jordan Peterson’s new book Beyond Order (Amazon affiliate link), breaking down each chapter into halves so I can give each a fair treatment. I am splitting this chapter into three four parts because of its length, but also because I think this is such a significant topic that it deserves extra treatment.

This particular section focuses on two things: the role of the individual (and the two orientations that they often fall into–the hero and the adversary), and the way to avoid resentment. While I am only looking at a very short length of the book (I am reading on Kindle, but it is probably less than ten pages worth of print), I think it might be the most important part.

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Jordan Peterson’s Beyond Order: Do not allow yourself to become resentful, deceitful, or arrogant. (Part 2)

I’ve been working through Jordan Peterson’s new book Beyond Order (Amazon affiliate link), breaking down each chapter into halves so I can give each a fair treatment. I am splitting this chapter into three parts because of its length, but also because I think this is such a significant topic that it deserves extra treatment.

This section of the chapter relates to the premise only in an abstract sense, but deals with figuring out how to deal with the world in a way that prevents bitterness.

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Jordan Peterson’s Beyond Order: Do not allow yourself to become resentful, deceitful, or arrogant. (Part 1)

I’ve been working through Jordan Peterson’s new book Beyond Order (Amazon affiliate link), breaking down each chapter into halves so I can give each a fair treatment. I am splitting this chapter into three parts because of its length, but also because I think this is such a significant topic that it deserves extra treatment.

The reason this chapter is so important is that it brings the grand scheme into perspective. Everything in Peterson’s book so far leads up to this point and mastering this one principle gives a lot of power to a person.

And this is essentially the antidote to evil, at least in the sense that you can keep yourself from being worse than your natural proclivities.

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