Michael Malice Archives

The Anarchist Handbook: Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

July 28, 2021July 29, 2021Kyle

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.

The Anarchist Handbook: Max Stirner

May 21, 2021May 21, 2021Kyle

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.”

The Anarchist Handbook: William Godwin

May 18, 2021May 21, 2021Kyle

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.

First Impression: Michael Malice’s The Anarchist Handbook

May 17, 2021May 21, 2021Kyle

Michael Malice is a brilliant writer and enigmatic celebrity, so I’ll let him introduce himself before I introduce his work:

Michael Malice is the author of Dear Reader: The Unauthorized Autobiography of Kim Jong Il and The New Right. He is also the organizer of the forthcoming The Anarchist Handbook, currently scheduled for release sometime last year. Malice is notorious for writing about himself in such a way as to confuse and annoy the reader, for no discernable purpose whatsoever.
Michael Malice, The Anarchist Handbook

As an anarchist without adjectives, Malice seeks to present a broad variety of anarchist thought. My own background, coming from a right-Tolstoyan perspective, differs as far as much as night differs from day when compared some of the thinkers he includes (e.g. Plunkett, whose essay “Dynamite!” is featured in The Anarchist Handbook).

I do not endorse these ways of thinking, but Malice’s intent in presenting them is as a historian and curator of thought.

It is from this perspective, then, that we should address Malice’s decisions in putting together the book, which is predominantly focused on presenting the work of others.