Autonomies

The only way forward is for all those targeted to gather themselves more effectively than their enemies have, to recognize their alliance, and to fight the phantasms prepared for them with a powerful and regenerative imaginary that can distinguish between the destruction of life and a collective life affirmation defined by struggle and even irresolution.

…

When we say I want to be free or I want you to be free, we are speaking about these distinct selves but also about social freedoms that should be accorded to everyone as long as no real harm is done. And for that caveat to work, we have to expose the fearmongering that would recast fundamental freedoms as harms, and make freedom into a new and vital object of desire. To live according to such a maxim means that we must distinguish between actual harms and those that grip the imagination as imminent possibilities, manufactured by those in the business of inciting hatred. But we cannot learn how not to cause harm if freedom itself is regarded as a harm, or if we become convinced that struggles for equality, freedom, and justice are hurting the world. Let us show instead that the world, the earth, depends upon our freedoms, and that freedom makes no sense when it fails to be collective, no matter how difficult staying in emancipatory collectivities might be.

Judith Butler, Who’s Afraid of Gender?

Note: Published in three parts in Commonweal, March-April 1889. For full details of publication and deliveries, see below.
Transcribed: by Graham Seaman, June 2022

(Source: marxists.org)

In making our claims for the changes in Society which we believe would set labour free and thus bring about a new Society, we Socialists are satisfied with demanding what we think necessary for that Society to form itself, which we are sure it is getting ready to do; this we think better than putting forward elaborate utopian schemes for the future. We assert that monopoly must come to an end, and that those who can use the means of the production of wealth should have all opportunity of doing so, without being forced to surrender a great part of the wealth which they have created to an irresponsible owner of the necessaries to production; and we have faith in the regenerative qualities of this elementary piece of honesty, and believe that the world thus set free will enter on a new eycle of progress. We are prepared to face whatever drawbacks may accompany this new development with equanimity, being convinced that it will at any rate be a great gain to have got rid of a system which has at last become nearly all drawbacks. The extintion of the disabilities of an effete system of production will not, we are convinced, destroy the gains which the world has already won, but will, on the contrary, make those gains available to the whole population instead of confining their enjoyment to a few. In short, considering the present condition of the world, we have come to the conclusion that the function of the reformers now alive is not so much prophecy as action. It is our business to use the means ready to our hands to remedy the immediate evils which oppress us; to the coming generations we must leave the task of safeguarding and of using the freedom which our efforts shall have won them.