Anarchism in America: Thoughts on Hess’s Comparison
Not much of a general movie review but a discussion on a particular comment made in the film. For a good general review, check out this one by James Garfield.
AK Press has done a great service in reissuing this documentary for our viewing pleasure. Its strongest suit is the immense variety of footage from protests to interviews with famous radical figures. Particularly interesting are the multiple scenes with late anarchist Karl Hess. The parallels he makes between political figures or factions seen as separate are intriguing. In discussing his post-Republican study of the American anarchists, he makes two provocative comparisons involving Emma Goldman. She is said to embody what Hess thought the Republicans always stood for and the best of Ayn Rand with a better appreciation of the social aspects of existence. On the surface, this connection between socialist Goldman and capitalist Rand seems off yet is actually quite sensible upon deeper examination. Both were controversial female writers who display individualist themes in their work. Rand portrays independent heroines in both We the Living and Atlas Shrugged. In We the Living, the female protagonist Kira defies the norms of her family by vowing to become an engineer.
“But Kira! What will you do?” Maria Petrovona gasped.
“I’ll be an engineer.”
“Frankly,” said Victor, annoyed, “I do not believe that engineering is a profession for women.”
Pg.33, Signet edition 1959
This theme of a woman wanting to do what’s traditionally considered a man’s job reappears in Atlas Shrugged with railroad titan Dagny Taggert. Goldman’s individualist streak was evident in her attraction to Friedrich Nietzsche and Max Stirner. Her pamphlet The Individual, Society, and the State contains tributes to individualism like the following.
The individual is the true reality in life. A cosmos in himself, he does not exist for the State, nor for that abstraction called “society,” or the “nation,” which is only a collection of individuals. Man, the individual, has always been and, necessarily is the sole source and motive power of evolution and progress. Civilization has been a continuous struggle of the individual or of groups of individuals against the State and even against “society,” that is, against the majority subdued and hypnotized by the State and State worship.
One of her contributions to treating women as free individuals included promotion of birth control despite legal restrictions.
Natasha | Anarchy, Ayn Rand, Feminism, Movies
But Emma Goldman was a bit of a plonker in the first place, so Hess’ admiration of her (particularly as he puts her alongside Rand) isn’t exactly convincing evidence of some kind of “capitalist scum unite with anarchists” thing.