Voltairine de Cleyre

Nobody asked but …

I have rediscovered Voltairine de Cleyre recently, or maybe I should just say “discovered.”  I had previously known her only from quotes and pocket-sized bios.  Listening to an audiobook of essays, however, I am learning of the artfulness that keeps her famous more than a century after her death in 1912.  I recommend a closer acquaintance, a focused attention, on her ideas — passages short and long, extracts and whole.

Pardon me for posting a quote, but I know of no other way to entice you to a closer look.

Anarchism, to me, means not only the denial of authority, not only a new economy, but a revision of the principles of morality. It means the development of the individual as well as the assertion of the individual. It means self-responsibility, and not leader worship.

This is a life-affirming definition of anarchy in just a few words, including the rejection of authoritarianism, the reliance on the natural effects of the marketplace, the calling for humanitarian principles such as the NAP, the encouragement of individualism, and the acceptance of responsibility.

— Kilgore Forelle