Scan barcode
A review by angethology
Anarchism and Other Essays by Emma Goldman
informative
3.5
An essential read for comprehensive and passionate Anarchist ideas. Emma Goldman was ahead of her time in many ways and her works are justifiably angry yet inspiring, I particularly appreciate that she addresses the harmful aspects of "girl bossing" and an interesting outlook on women's emancipation for that time. That said, I still find that she often engages in gender essentialism in regard to "women's nature," and I find that part surprising given her understanding of how men and women are socialized.
Emma Goldman emphasizes the importance of liberating people's consciousness to their full potential as individuals, but also focus on their needs as a collective. People are inherently creative and willing to contribute to society, and capitalism hinders that, and at the same time, strains people's relationships due to wage slavery & the need to work constantly to meet ends meet. Her perspective regarding religion on an institutional level, specifically Puritanism is also salient in how the lack of freedom and capitalistic ideas are realized.
Some important quotes that stick with me:
-The individual is the heart of society, conserving the essence of social life; society is the lungs which are distributing the element to keep the life essence—that I, the individual—pure and strong.
- Anarchism is the great liberator it man from the phantoms that have held him captive; it is the arbiter and pacifier of the two forces for individual and social. harmony.
- Anarchism aims to strip labor of its deadening, dulling aspect of its gloom and compulsion. It aims to make work an instrument of joy, of strength, of color, of real harmony, so that the poorest sort of a man should find in work both recreation and hope.
- With human nature caged in a narrow space, whipped daily into submission, how can we speak if its potentialities?
- Puritanism is based on the Calvinistic idea that life is a curse, imposed upon man by the wrath of God.
-The motto should not be: forgive one another; rather, understand one another. To forgive one's fellow-being conveys the idea of pharaisaical superiority.
- What has she achieved through emancipation? Equal suffrage in a few states.
- The greatest shortcoming of the emanicaption of the present day lies in its artificial stiffness and its narrow respectabilities, which produce an emptiness in woman's soul that will not let her drink from the fountain of life.
- Love is free; it can dwell in no other atmosphere. In freedom it gives itself unreservedly, abundantly completely. All the laws on the statutes, all the courts in the universe, cannot tear it from the soil once love has taken root.
Emma Goldman emphasizes the importance of liberating people's consciousness to their full potential as individuals, but also focus on their needs as a collective. People are inherently creative and willing to contribute to society, and capitalism hinders that, and at the same time, strains people's relationships due to wage slavery & the need to work constantly to meet ends meet. Her perspective regarding religion on an institutional level, specifically Puritanism is also salient in how the lack of freedom and capitalistic ideas are realized.
Some important quotes that stick with me:
-The individual is the heart of society, conserving the essence of social life; society is the lungs which are distributing the element to keep the life essence—that I, the individual—pure and strong.
- Anarchism is the great liberator it man from the phantoms that have held him captive; it is the arbiter and pacifier of the two forces for individual and social. harmony.
- Anarchism aims to strip labor of its deadening, dulling aspect of its gloom and compulsion. It aims to make work an instrument of joy, of strength, of color, of real harmony, so that the poorest sort of a man should find in work both recreation and hope.
- With human nature caged in a narrow space, whipped daily into submission, how can we speak if its potentialities?
- Puritanism is based on the Calvinistic idea that life is a curse, imposed upon man by the wrath of God.
-The motto should not be: forgive one another; rather, understand one another. To forgive one's fellow-being conveys the idea of pharaisaical superiority.
- What has she achieved through emancipation? Equal suffrage in a few states.
- The greatest shortcoming of the emanicaption of the present day lies in its artificial stiffness and its narrow respectabilities, which produce an emptiness in woman's soul that will not let her drink from the fountain of life.
- Love is free; it can dwell in no other atmosphere. In freedom it gives itself unreservedly, abundantly completely. All the laws on the statutes, all the courts in the universe, cannot tear it from the soil once love has taken root.