A Philosophical Annotated Reading List...Part 1
Here's some of what's influenced me on my journey to the "Five Essentials"...
To quote Andrei Martyanov, a Russian military expert who has a Youtube channel, at the start of every one of his videos: “Well, hello! That’s me again…” And so it is.
In this installment, I’d like to present something of an “annotated reading list” – a selection of books over the years that have influenced me in getting to where I’m at in terms of the “Five Essentials.”
Note that most of these books, except where otherwise indicated, can be found for free download at Z-Library, a Web site that bills itself as “the world’s largest ebook library” and hosts 10,309,656 books and 84,837,646 articles from various journals. Although that does include multiple copies of many books.
Z-Library has a five-book download limit per day. If you create an account, that increases to ten. If you donate $10, it rises to thirty. If you have VPN (Virtual Private Network) software on your system which allows you to change servers and thus to get a new IP address, you can evade those limits by simply getting a connection to a new server and thus getting a new IP address after downloading five books.
Those books on this list not available from Z-Library can be obtained from Amazon. I will therefore omit designating the link for the book on Z-Library, but will provide links for books available from Amazon. Z-Library has a search function, you can search by book title or author as well as topic and it’s easy to find them.
Here is the link to Z-Library: https://z-lib.org/
Let’s start with what I consider the most important book ever written:
The Immortalist, by Alan Harrington
This book starts with the words "Death is an imposition on the human race, and no longer acceptable.” It makes the argument that immortality, i.e., continuity of existence, is the only goal worth achieving in that all other goals depend on life. And that in essence all human problems stem from the fact of death and most especially the human fear of death.
Take note! This book is one of the cornerstones of my philosophy. If you want to grasp what I’m talking about in this Substack, you need to read it.
The next book you need to read to grasp what is really important is this one:
The Ego and Its Own, by Max Stirner (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Stirner)
Suffice it to say that he is the most important individualist anarchist philosopher. As the Wikipedia entry states:
“Stirner, whose main philosophical work was The Ego and Its Own, is credited as a major influence in the development of nihilism, existentialism and post-modernism as well as individualist anarchism, post-anarchism and post-left anarchy. Although Stirner was opposed to communism for the same reasons he opposed capitalism, humanism, liberalism, property rights and nationalism, seeing them as forms of authority over the individual and as purveyors of ideologies he could not reconcile himself with, he has influenced many anarcho-communists and post-left anarchists.”
Trust me – this understates the case for his importance.
The next book is related to the same area:
The Portable Nietzsche, by Walter Kaufman (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Kaufmann_(philosopher))
There are many explanatory texts and editions of the works of Friedrich Nietzsche (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Nietzsche). The book cited is an easy introduction. Like Stirner, Nietzsche can be a difficult read based on the fact that both were pre-20th Century German philosophers being read in translation. Nonetheless, it’s worth the effort.
The next few books extend our education in individualist anarchism. First up is this:
The Bonnot Gang, by Richard Parry
The Bonnet Gang, as the Wikipedia entry says (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonnot_Gang),
“was a French criminal anarchist group that operated in France and Belgium during the late Belle Époque, from 1911 to 1912. Composed of individuals who identified with the emerging illegalist milieu, the gang used cutting-edge technology (including automobiles and repeating rifles) not yet available to the French police. “
But the book is not just a history of a criminal gang. It analyzes the milieu of the anarchist scene at the turn of the previous century and quotes many well-known anarchists explaining why the so-called “illegals” – anarchists who turned to what is called “direct action” to achieve their desired freedom – held that philosophy. This will relate very much to my recommendations connected to the “Five Essentials.”
More books in that genre which I recommend are as follows:
The World That Never Was - A True Story of Dreamers, Schemers, Anarchists and Secret Agents, by Alex Butterworth
Enemies of Society, by Ardent Press
A Criminal History Of Mankind, Colin Wilson (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Wilson)
The latter is a study of the motivations of criminals, especially extreme crime. I disagree with Wilson’s conclusions, but he does raise some valid points.
In the study of individualist anarchism and direct action, the questions of morality and ethics arise. I have not completed my study of these issues, however, I have read several books questioning the value of both. One could start with these:
Against Moral Responsibility, by Bruce N. Waller (Argues against the concept of moral responsibility based on logic and modern psychology)
Ethics Without Morals, by Joel Marks (Argues that there can be “legitimate” behavior without a moral code.)
Natural Law or Don't Put a Rubber On Your Willy, Robert Anton Wilson - https://www.amazon.com/Natural-Rubber-Willy-Writings-Outlaw/dp/1952746108/
This book is by Robert Anton Wilson (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Anton_Wilson) who was as Wikipedia puts it:
“an American author, futurist, and self-described agnostic mystic...Wilson described his work as an "attempt to break down conditioned associations, to look at the world in a new way, with many models recognized as models or maps, and no one model elevated to the truth". His goal was "to try to get people into a state of generalized agnosticism, not agnosticism about God alone but agnosticism about everything."
This book discusses the concept of “Natural Law” which leads directly to concepts of “human rights” and then into things like morality and ethics. Stirner denounced all that. So did this book:
The Myth of Natural Rights by L.A. Rollins. Wilson, in his book, develops the arguments further.
Wilson’s “attempt to break down conditioned associations” is closely related to Max Stirner’s debunking of abstract concepts or “ideals” as “spooks in the head.” In short, most people spend a lot of time talking about things they don’t understand and which don’t have any real existence and then rely on those things to condition their behavior both for themselves and in relation to other people and the events of the world. Read my lips: This. Is. A. Bad. Idea.
We’ll have another look at Wilson further down with regards to this fictional works.
Also related to anarchism and similar political movements is the Situationist International (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Situationist_International). As Wikipedia states, this was a movement which began as something of an art criticism movement and morphed into a political movement which eventually had some influence on international political theory culminating in the French riots in 1968.
Wikipedia’s initial description:
“The Situationist International (SI) was an international organization of social revolutionaries made up of avant-garde artists, intellectuals, and political theorists. It was prominent in Europe from its formation in 1957 to its dissolution in 1972. The intellectual foundations of the Situationist International were derived primarily from libertarian Marxism and the avant-garde art movements of the early 20th century, particularly Dada and Surrealism. Overall, situationist theory represented an attempt to synthesize this diverse field of theoretical disciplines into a modern and comprehensive critique of mid-20th century advanced capitalism.”
Several books were published by the members of the group, of which in my view the best was this:
The Revolution of Everyday Life, by Raoul Vaneigem (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raoul_Vaneigem) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Revolution_of_Everyday_Life)
Other good introductory works include the following:
Situationist International Anthology, by Ken Knabb
The Most Radical Gesture - The Situationist International in a Postmodern Age, by Sadie Plant
The importance of this movement was that its criticism was not limited to the existing political structure but also the existing social structure including the issues of work and the quality of life.
I’m going to stop Part 1 here… Part 2 coming up…
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You know, I freaking love Robert Anton Wilson. I was really pleased to see him as a cited source. I loved The New Inquisition. Talk about someone who studied epistemology and believed it. I think it's unfortunate how there's so much big talk about belief systems these days, but so few staking their life/death on it. Just their in/out herd status.
Been a fan of Nietzsche for nearly three decades and dip into Zarathustra or BGE (etc) now and again. I did a Masters Thesis on the Birth of Tragedy a lifetime ago. Nietzsche is easy to read and to misread.