Occupying Anarchism

[alice wellintown]

The tale deserves a closer look but I am lazy. the anarchist, or so he
is called by his boss, the man who exploits him, is called or named
the anarchist of Baecelona in fact, though he is not Spanish, does not
even speak Spanish, a skill that might, given his place of employment,
if we can call his exhange of labor employment, increase his
opportunities for work, and the local folks, who read the European
papers and are familiar with the accounts of anarchists and their bomb
tossing, quickly, and without much thought, accept that the man is an
anarchist of Barcelona. But if he is not of Spain, but of France,
Paris in fact, might he not also be, not an anarchist but a
revolutionary or some such man, and the irony, that the people who
read the European papers much admire the French for their liberal
ideas and democratic ideals, even their resistance to, what these
local people would call the enslavement or exploitation of the working
class. Not that they are Marxists, for many of them like a strong, not
exactly facist, leader, what they call a man of the people. someone
like Nostromo,  but the people, many of them, while they are
interested in progress, do not want too much order. Order and
Progress? As it turns out the man in question does, on a night of
drinking, ignite a bar brawl when, after one too many, he yells, down
with the capitalists and plutocrats, or something like that, and
anarchism is the road to liberty. Or some such. He has not much idea
of what he is saying. He knows nothing of anarchy. He is not a scholar
or student or even an intelligent fellow, if by intelligent we mean a
person who reads and is educated enough to know that yelling anarchy
ina crowded bar is dangerous enough, given the state of things around
him, of which, as I said, he is, it seems, ignorant. Nonetheless, he
is taken in to the brotherhood of anarchy. Though he feels the
murderous hands at his throat, one a capitalists, the other an
anrachists, for he is caught now between the devil and the devil, and
wants only his freedom from both. In fact, it is the anarchists who
grip him tightest, for he is a poor worker and must encounter many in
his ordinary life. His circumstances will make of him an anarchist,
one who holds a gun to others, a man alone without a friend. To make
progress he must impose order on the other rebels, for progress is to
live. Though his life is desperate, he has it, though he must keep the
grip of the capitalist tight about his throat. and butterflies are
free to....did I mention Nabokov? Fly away Papillon. Now....