The place of the individual in society
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- No scanning noise detected (automatic measure over the whole text, not checked by hand)
- Extent:
- ~5,680 words · 27 passages
Cite this work
- APAEmma Goldman. (n.d.). The place of the individual in society. Digital reproduction: SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/emma-goldman/the-place-of-the-individual-in-society
- MLAEmma Goldman. The place of the individual in society. Digital reproduction, SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/emma-goldman/the-place-of-the-individual-in-society.
- ChicagoEmma Goldman. The place of the individual in society. Digital reproduction, SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/emma-goldman/the-place-of-the-individual-in-society.
Reference to the edition that SigPhi reproduces: SigPhi is its digital reproduction, not its publisher. The edition's year is not in the metadata (hence "n.d."), and the translator appears only when recorded.
What it is about
A variant of the same late argument: what the individual owes society and does not owe the State.
Context and history
It overlaps heavily with The Individual, Society and the State, and reading them together is the right way: two versions of Goldman's final thought. This is a short article, not a book: its size in the catalogue is no defect of the copy. Much of Goldman's work took this form, in her magazine Mother Earth and in pamphlets.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
be sure. In practice, they still prefer the few liberties in their own respective countries. They go to Russia for a short visit or as salesmen of the “revolution,” but they feel safer and more comfortable at home. Perhaps it is not only lack of courage which keeps these good Britishers and Americans in their native lands rather than in the millenium come. Subconsciously there may lurk the feeling that individuality remains the most fundamental fact of all human association, suppressed and persecuted yet never defeated, and in the long run the victor. The “genius of man,” which is but another name for personality and individuality, bores its way through all the caverns of dogma, through the thick walls of tradition and custom, defying all taboos, setting authority at naught, facing contumely and the scaffold--ultimately to be blessed as prophet and martyr by succeeding generations. But for the “genius of man,” that inherent, persistent quality of individuality, we would be still roaming the primeval forests. Peter Kropotkin has shown what wonderful results this unique force of man’s individuality has achieved when strengthened by =co-operation= with other individualities. The one-sided and entirely inadequate Darwinian theory of the struggle for existence received its biological and sociological completion from the great Anarchist scientist and thinker. In his profound work, _Mutual Aid_, Kropotkin shows that in the animal kingdom, as well as in human society, co-operation--as opposed to internecine strife and struggle--has worked for the survival and evolution of the species. He demonstrated that only mutual aid and voluntary co-operation--=not= the omnipotent, all-devastating State--can create the basis for a free individual and associational life. At present the individual is the pawn of the zealots of dictatorship and the equally obsessed zealots of “rugged individualism.” The excuse of the former is its claim of a new objective.…