modern science and anarchism

modern science and anarchism (1903) by pëtr kropotkin via 34 pg kindle version from anarchist library [https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/petr-kropotkin-modern-science-and-anarchism]

found while reading against method

notes/quotes:

3

I. Two fundamental tendencies in Society: the popular and the governmental. — The Kinship of Anarchism and the Popular-creative tendency.

On the one hand, the masses were developing, in the form of customs, a number of institutions which were *necessary to make social life at all possible — to insure peace amongst men, to settle any disputes that might arise, and to help one another in everything requiring cooperative effort. 

*in sea world.. cancerous distraction if legit free..

Anarchism tries now as well to develop institutions which would insure a free evolution of society.

if institution ing and develop ing and evolution ing.. and society ing.. not legit free

Then, again, it always happened also that institutions — even the most excellent so far as their original purpose was concerned, and established originally with the object of securing equality, peace and mutual aid — in the course of time became petrified, lost their original meaning, came under the control of the ruling minority, and became in the end a constraint upon the individual in his endeavors for further development

rather.. petrified/dead from beginning.. any form of m\a\p

4

But all the while another tendency was ever manifest. At all times beginning with Ancient Greece, there were persons and popular movements that aimed, not at the substitution of one government for another, but at the abolition of authority altogether. *They proclaimed the supreme rights of the individual and the people, and endeavored to free popular institutions from forces which were foreign and harmful to them, in order that the unhampered creative genius of the people might remould these institutions in accordance with the new requirements. In the history of the ancient Greek republics, and especially in that of the mediæval commonwealths, we find numerous examples of this struggle (Florence and Pskov are especially interesting in this connection). In this sense, therefore, Jacobinists and Anarchists have existed at all times among reformers and revolutionists.

if *this.. then same song

5

II. The Intellectual movement of the XVIII century: its fundamental traits: the investigation of all phenomena by the scientific method. — The Stagnation of Thought at the Beginning of the XIX century. — The Awakening of Socialism: its influence upon the development of science. — The Fifties.

6

Laplace not only succeeded in writing his work without this supposition: he nowhere in this work resorted to metaphysical entities; to words which conceal a very vague understanding of phenomena and the inability to represent them in concrete material forms — in terms of measurable quantities. He constructed this system without metaphysics. And although in his “System of the World” there are no mathematical calculations, and it is written in so simple a style as to be accessible to every intelligent reader, yet the mathematicians were able subsequently to express every separate thought of this book in the form of an exact mathematical equation — in terms, that is, of measurable quantities. So rigorously did Laplace reason and so lucidly did he express himself.

so he did write in measurable quantities

7

When the thinkers of the eighteenth century turned from the realm of stars and physical phenomena to the world of chemical changes, or from physics and chemistry to the study of plants and animals, or from botany and zoology to the development of economical and political forms of social life and to religions among men, — *they never thought of changing their method of investigation. To all branches of knowledge they applied that same inductive method. **And nowhere, not even in the domain of moral concepts, did they come upon any point where this method proved inadequate. Even in the sphere of moral concepts they felt no need of resorting again either to metaphysical suppositions (“God,” “immortal soul,” “vital force,” “a categorical imperative” decreed from above, and the like), or of exchanging the inductive method for some other, scholastic method. They thus endeavored to explain the whole world — all its phenomena — in the same natural-scientific way. The encyclopædists compiled their monumental encyclopædia, Laplace wrote his “System of the World,” and Holbach “The System of Nature;” Lavoisier brought forward the theory of the indestructibility of matter, and therefore also of energy or motion (Lomonósoff was at the same time outlining the mechanical theory of heat); Lamarck undertook to explain the formation of new species through the accumulation of variations due to environment; Diderot was furnishing an explanation of morality, customs, and religions requiring no inspiration from without; Rousseau was attempting to explain the origin of political institutions by means of a ***social contract — that is, an act of man’s free will…. In short, there was no branch of science which the thinkers of the eighteenth century had not begun to treat on the basis of material phenomena — ****and all by that same inductive method.

*rather.. of letting go of investigation ness.. oi

**oi.. explain the whole world ness.. ooof

***oi.. social contract ness.. any form of m\a\p

****oi.. perpetuating same song ness

Of course, some palpable blunders were made in this daring attempt. Where knowledge was lacking, hypotheses — often very bold, but sometimes entirely erroneous — were put forth. But a new method was being applied to the development of all branches of science, and, thanks to it, these very mistakes were subsequently readily detected and pointed out. And at the same time a means of investigation was handed down to our nineteenth century which has enabled us to build up our entire conception of the world upon scientific bases, having freed it alike from the superstitions bequeathed to us and from the habit of disposing of scientific questions by resorting to mere verbiage.

ooof.. if only.. nothing new/diff/free

8

After the Revolution, which had proclaimed the great principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity, a slow evolution began — that is, a gradual reorganization which introduced into life and law the principles marked out, but only partly realized, by the Revolution. 

oi.. revolution.. Revolution.. ness

The scientific foundations of both governmental and non-governmental socialism were thus laid down at the beginning of the nineteenth century with a thoroughness wholly unappreciated by our contemporaries. Only in two respects, doubtless very important ones, has modern socialism materially advanced. It has become revolutionary, and has severed all connection with the Christian religion. It realized that for the attainment of its ideals a Social Revolution is necessary — not in the sense in which people sometimes speak of an “industrial revolution” or of “a revolution in science,” but in the real, material sense of the word “Revolution” — in the sense of rapidly changing the fundamental principles of present society by means which, in the usual run of events, are considered illegal. 

oooof.. whalespeak

9

The curtain was suddenly rent at the end of the fifties, when that liberal, intellectual movement began in Western Europe which led in Russia to the abolition of serfdom, and deposed Schelling and Hegel in philosophy, while in life it called forth the bold negation of intellectual slavery and submission to habit and authority, which is known under the name of Nihilism.

sany form of m\a\p

The simultaneous appearance of the works of Grove, Joule, Berthollet and Helmholtz; of Darwin, Claude Bernard, Moleschott and Vogt; of Lyell, Bain, Mill and Burnouf — all in the brief space of five or six years (1856–1862), — *radically changed the most fundamental views of science. Science suddenly started upon a new path. Entirely new fields of investigation were opened with amazing rapidity. The science of life (Biology), of human institutions (Anthropology), of reason, will and emotions (Psychology), of the history of rights and religions, and so on — grew up under our very eyes, staggering the mind with the **boldness of their generalizations and the audacity of their deductions.

*no lelgit rad change to date

10

III. Auguste Comte’s Attempt to build up a Synthetic Philosophy. — The causes of his failure: the religious explanation of the moral sense in man.

12

IV. The flowering of the Exact Sciences in 1856–62. — The Development of the Mechanical World-Conception, embracing the Development of Human Ideas and Institutions. — A Theory of Evolution.

The works which appeared in these five or six years have wrought so complete a change in the views on nature, on life in general, and on the life of human societies, that it has no parallel in the whole history of science for the past two thousand years. That which had been but vaguely understood — sometimes only guessed at by the encyclopædists, and that which the best minds in the first half of the nineteenth century had so much difficulty in explaining, appeared now in the full armor of science; and it presented itself so thoroughly investigated through the inductive-deductive method that every other method was at once adjudged imperfect, false and — unnecessary.

oi.. so he too is about science scientifically ness.. all to date has been same song.. cancerous distractions

13

Then, already during those years it was understood — and for the past ten years it has been still more firmly established — that the life of the cells of the nervous system and their property of transmitting vibrations from one to the other, *afforded a mechanical explanation of the nervous life of animals.

*whalespeak.. rowson mechanical law et al

Of course, very much still remains to be done and to be discovered in this vast domain; science, scarcely freed yet from the metaphysics which so long hampered it, is only now beginning to explore the wide field of physical psychology…And to the question once asked by the Russian physiologist, Setchenov: “By whom and how should psychology be studied?” science has already given the answer: “By physiologists, and by the physiological method.” And, indeed, the recent labors of the physiologists have already succeeded in shedding *incomparably more light than all the intricate discussions of the metaphysicists, upon the mechanism of thought; the awakening of impressions, their retention and transmission.

*again.. all to date has been same song.. cancerous distractions

In this, its chief stronghold, metaphysics was thus worsted. The field in which it considered itself invincible has now been taken possession of by natural science and materialist philosophy, and these two are promoting the growth of knowledge in this direction faster than centuries of metaphysical speculation have done.

speed makes no diff if non legit data.. ooof

In these same years another important step was made. Darwin’s book on “The Origin of Species” appeared and eclipsed all the rest.

rather.. same song.. not about legit free people

14

We know what storms then broke out upon Darwin and, especially, upon his bold and gifted disciple, Huxley, who sharply emphasized just those conclusions from Darwin’s work which were most dreaded by the clergy. It was a fierce battle, but, owing to the support of the masses of the public, the victory was won, nevertheless, by the Darwinians; and the result was that an entirely new and extremely important science — Biology, the science of life in all its manifestations — has grown up under our very eyes during the last forty years.

again.. rather.. same song.. cancerous distractions

At the same time Darwin’s work furnished a new key to the understanding of all sorts of phenomena — physical, vitals and social. It opened up a new road for their investigation. The idea of a continuous development (evolution) and of a continual adaptation to changing environment, found a much wider application than the origin of species. It was applied to the study of all nature, as well as to men and their social institutions, and it disclosed in these branches entirely unknown horizons, giving explanations of facts which hitherto had seemed quite inexplicable.

ongoing change.. yeah.. adaptation.. to me.. is whalespeak.. ie: meadows undisturbed law et al

In fact, the principle of evolution had been applied to the study of manners and institutions, and also to languages, from the time of the encyclopædists. But to obtain correct, scientific deductions from all this mass of work became possible only when the scientists could look upon the established facts in the same way as the naturalist regards the continuous development of the organs of a plant or of a new species.

whalespeak.. can be applied because all same song

15

Finally, all these broad deductions, expressed as they were in most abstract forms — as, for instance, the Hegelean “thesis, antithesis, and synthesis,” — left full play for the individual to come to the most varied and often opposite practical conclusions; so that they could give birth, for instance, to Bakunin’s revolutionary enthusiasm and to the Dresden Revolution, to the revolutionary Jacobinism of Marx and to the recognition of the “reasonableness of what exists,” which reconciled so many Germans to the reaction then existing — to say nothing of the recent vagaries of the so-called Russian Marxists.

‘give birth to’ because all those listed too are same song.. not new/revolutionary.. et al

V. The Possibility of a New Synthetic Philosophy. — Herbert Spencer’s attempt: why it failed. — The Method not sustained. — A False Conception of “The Struggle for Existence.”

Since Anthropology — the history of man’s physiological development and of his religious, political ideals, and economic institutions — came to be studied exactly as all other natural sciences are studied, it was found possible, not only to shed a new light upon this history, but to divest it for ever of the metaphysics which had hindered this study in exactly the same way as the Biblical teachings had hindered the study of Geology.

study ness is hindering life over survival ness.. ooof

16

How far Darwin himself was to blame for this misunderstanding of the real meaning of the struggle for existence, we cannot discuss here. But certain it is that when, twelve years after “The Origin of Species,” Darwin published his “Descent of Man” he already understood struggle for life in a different sense. “Those communities,” he wrote in the latter work, “which included the greatest number of the most sympathetic members would flourish best and rear the greatest number of offspring.” The chapter devoted by Darwin to this subject *could have formed the basis of an entirely different and most wholesome view of nature and of the development of human societies (the significance of which Goethe had already foreseen). But it passed unnoticed. Only in 1879 do we find, in a lecture by the Russian zoologist Kessler, a clear understanding of mutual aid and the struggle for life. “For the progressive development of a species,” Kessler pointed out, citing several examples, **“the law of mutual aid is of far greater importance than the law of mutual struggle.” Soon after this Louis Buchner published his book “Love,” in which he showed the importance of sympathy among animals for the ***development of moral concepts; but in introducing the idea of love and sympathy instead of simple sociability, he needlessly limited the sphere of his ****investigations.

*whalespeak.. not diff/wholesome..

**rather.. need life over survival ness.. need left to own devices ness.. deeper than mutual aid (still a form of people telling other people what to do) ness.. et al

***red flag..

****cancerous distraction

17

To prove and further to develop Kessler’s excellent idea, extending it to man, was an easy step. If we turn our minds to a close observation of nature and to an unprejudiced history of human institutions, *we soon discover that Mutual Aid really appears, not only as the most powerful weapon in the struggle for existence against the hostile forces of nature and all other enemies, but also as the chief factor of progressive evolution. To the weakest animals it assures longevity (and hence an accumulation of mental experience), the possibility of rearing its progeny, and intellectual progress. And those animal species among which Mutual Aid is practiced most, not only succeed best in getting their livelihood, but also stand at the head of their respective class (of insects, birds, mammals) as regards the **superiority of their physical and mental development.

*but what if ie: struggle for survival and progressive evolution aren’t what legit free people would be about.. need to try ie: life over survival ness.. and let go of perpetuating survival triage

**ie that this mutual aid for survival ness is a cancerous distraction

VI. The Causes of this Mistake. — The Teaching of the Church: “the World is steeped in Sin.” — The Government’s Inculcation of the same view of “Man’s Radical Perversity.” — The Views of Modern Anthropology upon this subject. — The Development of forms of life by the “Masses,” and the LAw. — Its Two-fold Character.

18

In this way everything — our religious, our historical, our legal, and our social education — is *imbued with the idea that man, left to himself, would soon turn into a beast. **If it were not for the authority exercised over them, people would devour one another; nothing but brutality and war of each against all can be expected from “the mob.” It would perish, if the policeman, the sheriff and the hangman — the chosen few, the salt of the earth — did not tower above it and interpose to prevent the universal free-fight, to educate the people to respect the sanctity of law and discipline, and with a wise hand lead them onward to those times when better ideas shall find a nesting place in the “uncouth hearts of men” and render the rod, the prison, and the gallows less necessary than they are at present.\

*exactly.. all data/experimentation/imagination ness to date has just perpetuatedmyth of tragedy and lord ness..

the thing we’ve not yet tried/seen: the unconditional part of left to own devices ness

[‘in an undisturbed ecosystem ..the individual left to its own devices.. serves the whole’ –dana meadows]

**all the forms of people telling other people what to do

And yet, a scientific study of the development of human society and institutions leads to an entirely different conclusion. It shows that the habits and customs for mutual aid, common defence, and the preservation of peace, which were established since the very first stages of human pre-historic times — and which alone made it possible for man, under very trying natural conditions, to survive in the struggle for existence, — that these social conventions have been worked out precisely by this anonymous “mob.”

makes no diff how we eval it all.. if it’s still same song

19

On the other hand, modern science has proved conclusively that Law — whether proclaimed as the voice of a divine being or proceeding from the wisdom of a lawgiver — never did anything else than prescribe already existing, useful habits and customs, and thereby hardened them into unchangeable, crystallized forms. And in doing this it always added to the “useful customs,” generally recognized as such, a few new rules — in the interest of the rich, warlike and armed minority. “Thou shalt not kill,” said the Mosaic law, “Thou shalt not steal,” “Thou shalt not bear false witness,” and then it added to these excellent injunctions: “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife, his slave, nor his ass,” which injunction legalized slavery for all time and put woman on the same level as a slave and a beast of burden.

all forms of aka: people telling other people what to do.. so as nice/better as they might sound.. still cancerous distractions

20

VII. The Place of Anarchism in Science. — Its Endeavor to Formulate a Synthetic Conception of the World. — Its Object.

22

VIII. Its origin. — How Its Ideal is Developed by the Natural-Scientific Method.

At the time of the great French Revolution of 1789–1793, Godwin had the opportunity of himself seeing how the governmental authority created during the revolution itself acted as a retarding force upon the revolutionary movement. And he knew, too, what was then taking place in England, under the cover of Parliament (the confiscation of public lands, the kidnapping of poor workhouse children by factory agents and their deportation to weavers’ mills, where they perished wholesale, and so on). *He understood that the government of the “One and Undivided” Jacobinist Republic would not bring about the necessary revolution; that the revolutionary government itself, from the very fact of its being a guardian of the State, was an obstacle to emancipation; that to insure the success of the revolution, people ought to part, first of all, with their belief in Law, Authority, Uniformity, Order, Property, and other superstitions inherited by us from our servile past. And with this purpose in view he wrote **“Political Justice.”

*all forms of people telling other people what to do.. cancerous distractions

**have it on kindle to read

23

*No struggle can be successful if it is an unconscious one, and if it does not render itself a clear and concise account of its aim. No destruction of the existing order is possible, if at the time of the overthrow, or of the struggle leading to the overthrow, the idea of what is to take place of what is to be destroyed is not always present in the mind. Even the theoretical criticism of the existing conditions is impossible, **unless the critic has in his mind a more or less distinct picture of what he would have in place of the existing state. Consciously or unconsciously, the ideal of something better is forming in the mind of every one who criticizes social institutions.

*ie of why struggle ness is not us.. ie: concise..account..aim.. cancerous distractions

**whalespeak.. we have no idea.. ie: black science of people/whales law et al

This is even more the case with a man of action. To tell people, “First let us abolish autocracy or capitalism, and then we will discuss what to put in its place,” means simply to deceive oneself and others. And power is never created by deception. The very man who speaks thus surely has some idea of what will take the place of the institutions destroyed.

rather.. everything to date has been a deception.. ie: assuming life is about power et al

27

So far middle-class political economy has been only an enumeration of what happens under the just-mentioned conditions — without distinctly stating the conditions themselves. And then, having described the facts which arise in our society under these conditions, *they represent to us these facts as rigid, inevitable economic laws. As to socialist political economy, although it criticises some of these deductions, or explains others somewhat differently, — it has not yet been original enough to find a path of its own. It still follows in the old grooves, and **in most cases repeats the very same mistakes.

*everything to date.. whalespeak.. in sea world

**rather.. in all cases.. has been same song

And yet, in our opinion, *political economy must have an entirely different problem in view. It ought to occupy with respect to human societies a place in science similar to that held by physiology in relation to plants and animals. It must become the physiology of society. **It should aim at studying the needs of society and the various means, both hitherto used and available under the present state of scientific knowledge, for their satisfaction.

*for legit free econ (ie: bachelard oikos law).. only problem deep enough.. all others cancerous distractions

**ie: need means (nonjudgmental expo labeling) to undo hierarchical listening as global detox so we can org around legit needs

This question can be settled only by taking up the study of economic relations as facts of natural science.

again.. only if econ deep enough.. ie: bachelard oikos law

29

X. Continuation: — Methods of Action. — The Understanding of Revolutions and their Birth. — The Creative Ingenuity of the People. — Conclusion.

 Freedom to oppose exploitation has so far never and nowhere existed. Everywhere it had to be taken by force, step by step, at the cost of countless sacrifices. “Non-interference,” and more than non-interference — direct support; help and protection — existed only in the interests of the exploiters. Nor could it be overwise. The mission of the Church has been to hold the people in intellectual slavery; the mission of the State was to hold them, half starved, in economic slavery.

if opposing ness (aka: everything to date).. not legit free.. any form of re ness as cancerous distraction

32

We understand the revolution as a widespread popular movement, during which, in every town and village within the region of the revolt, the masses will have to take upon themselves the task of rebuilding society — will have to take up themselves the work of construction upon communistic bases, without awaiting any orders and directions from above; that is, first of all, they will have to organize, one way or another, the means of supplying food to everyone and of providing dwellings for all, and then produce whatever will be found necessary for feeding, clothing, and sheltering everybody.

dcancerous distraction.. as it’s perpetuating survival triage via the ‘kindness’ of people telling other people what to do

34

In the economic field, Anarchism has come to the conclusion that the root of modern evil lies, not in the fact that the capitalist appropriates the profits or the surplus-value, but in the very possibility of these profits, which accrue only because millions of people have literally nothing to subsist upon without selling their labor-power at a price which makes profits and the creation of “surplus values” possible. *Anarchism understands, therefore, that in political economy attention must be directed first of all to so-called “consumption,” and that the first concern of the revolution must be to reorganize that so as to provide food, clothing and shelter for all. “Production,” on the other hand, must be so adapted as to satisfy this primary, fundamental need of society. Therefore, Anarchism cannot see in the next coming revolution a mere exchange of monetary symbols for labor-checks, or an exchange of present Capitalism for State-capitalism. It sees in it the first step on the road to No-government Communism.

*ie: a sabbatical ish transition

ie: try/code money (any form of measuring/accounting/people telling other people what to do) as the planned obsolescence.. where legit needs are met w/o money.. till people forget about measuring..

Whether or not Anarchism is right in its conclusions, will be shown by a scientific criticism of its bases and by the practical life of the future. But in one thing it is absolutely right: in that it has included the study of social institutions in the sphere of natural-scientific investigations; has forever parted company with metaphysics; and makes use of the method by which modern natural science and modern material philosophy were developed. Owing to this, the very mistakes which Anarchism may have made in its researches can be detected the more readily. But its conclusions can be verified only by the same natural-scientific, inductive-deductive method by which every science and every scientific concept of the universe is created.

whalespeak.. we have no idea what legit free people are like

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