I Am Not a Man, I Am Dynamite: Friedrich Nietzsche and the Anarchist Tradition

Seri Mengkaji Anarkisme

by John Moore (Editor), Jonathan Purkis (Editor)

Cultural Writing. The conjunction of Friedrich Nietzsche and anarchism will sound like an audacious proposal to many, especially those who still associate Nietzsche with fascism, and anarchism with a simple notion of class struggle. However, anarchism-the project which aims at the abolition of all forms of power, control, and coercion-should be free to appropriate the work of one of the greatest iconoclasts of all time. Although Nietzsche was rather harsh on his anarchist contemporaries, he nevertheless in some respects shared with them a vision of the total tranformation of life. I AM NOT A MAN, I AM DYNAMITE examines the historical, political and philosophical linkages between Nietzche's transgressive thought and the transformative political vision of anarchism.

Genres: Philosophy, Anarchism, Politics, Theory

160 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2004

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name. This profile may contain books from multiple authors of this name.

Other authors publishing under this name are:

John Moore, US SF & fantasy writer
John Moore, languages
John Moore, British author and pioneer conservationist
John Moore
John Moore, Scottish physician and writer
John Moore, English clergyman of Puritan views

Reviews

[yarrow · Rating 3 out of 5]

I would really like to give this book a higher rating, both because of my affinity with its stated intentions, and also because John Moore (who died prior to its completion) is wonderful and this could have been a perfect concluding note to his contributions to anarchist thought. That being said, a lot of the essays were extremely dry and overly academic. For those pieces, the task of reconciling Nietzsche with the anarchist tradition amounted to a ideological pursuit of making a venn diagram of ideas. In that way, those essays have more in common with the other academic appropriations of Nietzsche that they would purport to oppose. Of the more academic pieces, the one Leigh Starcross was worthwhile because its goal, to attempt to reconstruct the pieces of Emma Goldman's long lost Nietzsche lectures, is relevant to my interests. Besides that, all of the stars are earned by the pieces by Max Cafard, Peter Lamborn Wilson and John Moore, who approach Nietzsche's working as a provocation and a jumping off point into questions of life and death, the materiality of the spirit, entheogens, and art as life. I also appreciated the tribute to John Moore at the beginning, as I think he is a writer who deserves a lot more recognition and uptake among contemporary readers. If the book had consisted only of these four or five bits, it would be a 5 star book.

"In Turin in 1889 Nietzsche saw a coachman flogging a horse, rushed forward, and threw his arms around the beast to protect it -- then fainted. When eh awoke he wrote the Last Insane Letters. These absurd images have the crude surrealistic power of a messianic moment -- suitable for post-millennial stained glass, or a 'shrine of the book'. Nietzsche's recurrent modernity reveals him as prophet, saint. And as a modern scripture Nietzsche's Last Letters must of course be crazy." - Peter Lamborn Wilson, "Crazy Nietzsche"

[xDEAD ENDx · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a mix of downright terrible essays and great pieces of writing.

As for the poorly-done, I want to believe some of it is the fault of translators. In particular, the "Death of God" essay is almost unreadable, patched together by sentence fragments and practically undecipherable concepts. A couple other pieces weren't terrible, but a little boring or uninteresting.

I really appreciated some of the final essays, especially the pieces by Saul Newman and John Moore. Both of these highlight in different ways the importance of Nietzsche's thought to anarchists. In the Newman piece, he makes it clear how classical anarchist thought is a politics of ressentiment, but shows how individualist strains of anarchism break out of this bind. I feel like this piece opens the door for anarchist thought that isn't reliant upon inverted moral codes. The John Moore piece takes Nietzsche's writing-as-attentat as a point of departure in order to discuss how art can serve as a means toward a Dionysian way of life (anarchy) as long as we also recognize how it can confine us. In other words, it too must be destroyed in the end.

The bad parts were pretty bad, but the good pieces were worth reading, and I'm wanting to be generous to this book.

[Marty · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've been quite intrigued by this book for a long while. It seemed both a noble cause and great challenge to connect Nietzschean thought to anarchists. However there is a lot of overlap worth considering.

The selection of essays however left much to be desired. The book was overwhelmingly academic, overwhelmingly male and not particularly readable. Certain essays were fantastic whilst others were having to strech quite a bit to make their thesis work.

I agree with the intent of this book wholeheartedly. For too long the popular interpretation of Nietzsche is that he is reactionary. But like Max Stirner before him, his ideas attacked both left and right in an attempt at transcendence for the self.

If anything read the essay about Emma Goldman's defense of Nietzsche, it was a nice historical backgrounder.

[Rafael Almada · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an interesting collection of essays, where Nietzschean philosophy is compared or looked at from the anarchist framework, from several perspectives. It represents a plurarity of interpretations for Nietzsche's views, ideas and how they address and relate to anarchism, more importantly, how can anarchism grow from them, or if it can grow at all. The reality is there's no right answer, and the different essays somewhat reflect that.

[Leonart Maruli · Rating 3 out of 5]

Esai tentang kematian Tuhan ditulis dengan buruk sekali di buku ini. Hampir tak terbaca sama sekali. Tapi ada beberapa tulisan lain yang bagus memang. Secara tematik, saya suka dengan konsepnya, menggunakan filsafat Nietzsche untuk menjelaskan anarkisme.

[Ginanjar Jatnika · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tulisan-tulisan dari para komentator anarkis yang mengupas pemikiran Nietzsche agar dapat menemukan relevansinya dengan anarkisme itu sendiri. Cukup bagus untuk memperkaya wawasan perihal anarkisme itu sendiri, terutama di Indonesia yang notabene masyarakatnya sering keliru dan menilai bahwa anarkisme dapat digeneralisasi sebagai suatu keadaan yang melulu kontra-produktif.

[Achmad Soefandi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ada korelasi antara filsafat Nietzsche dan tradisi anarkhisme, kurang lebih pesan itu yang ingi disampaikan buku ini. Filsafat Nietzsche sendiri meskipun sulit untuk dipahami, jika boleh saya simpulkan salah satunya adalah adanya penghargaan terhadap keberagaman dalam hidup. Dalam pandangan anarkhisme, tujuan akhirnya adalah juga penghargaan keberagaman dalam hidup, tanpa ada yang ditindas dan menindas. Salah satu kesamaan lain dari filsafat Nietzsche dan Anarkhisme adalah keduanya sam sama anti sistem dan negara. Menurut Nietzsche dalam bukunya Beyond Good and Evil "negara itu sepeti monster yang dingin", dan menurut anarkhisme negara tidak lebih dari mesin penindas.

Dalam buku ini juga dijelaskan perbedaan Anarkisme dan Marxisme, karena sekilas Anarkhisme yang dipelopori oleh Bakunin dan Marxisme yang dipelopori Marx memiliki persamaan, yaitu sama sama menginginkan masyarakat yang egaliter (setara). Akan tetapi kedua aliran ini memiliki pandangan yang berbeda terhadap negara. Dalam pandangan Marxisme negara tidak bisa lepas dari yang namanya kelas borjuis, negara tidak independen, dan negara merupakan representasi dari relasi kelas borjuis. Tititk tolak pandangan Marxis masih bertumpu pada bidang ekonomi, khususnya produksi. Dalam pandangan Anarkisme negara itu bersifat independen, tidak bisa diintervesi oleh kelas borjuis sekalipun dan relasiborjuis merupakan representasi dari negara. Pandangan anarkisme berankgkat dari politik.

[Dylan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was, overall, a very good collection that includes a very wide variety of perspectives on Nietzsche's relevance to anarchism. Some contributions are deep; others, relatively shallow; some, political; others, more philosophical; some defend Nietzsche at the expense of the anarchist tradition; others, the reverse. But, sadly, I'll remember this book mostly by its two worst contributions (both translated from italian), one of which I literally could make no sense at all, and the other was only decent by comparison. I highly recommend this book to devotees of Nietzsche, but encourage you to skim or skip the two articles just mentioned.

[rekasakti · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nietzsche pun tidak tunggal. Mereka, dengan egois, menafsirkannya. Menjadi pertanyaan, bagaimana tafsiran Nietzsche atas dirinya sendiri, kebenaran miliknya -- ilusi yang kita lupa bahwa itu ilusi, suatu fenomena keindahan?

[Mc]

A very deep felling of ambiguity. Always like Nietzche, never so Nietzche...

[Hafizh Awaludin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nothing

[Didin Tohidin · Rating 4 out of 5]

absolut

[6655321 · Rating 2 out of 5]

GO FURTHER! FASTER! The old world is behind you! What is frustrating isn't so much the attempt to place anarchism and Nietzsche in conversation but the failure to interrogate the anarchist tradition and push Nietzsche past the limit. WHY do Bakunin and Proudhon keep popping up? Why are there references to the egoist and illegalist anarchist traditions but no sustained conversation? Why does this project seek to drag Nietzsche down to being a critique of anarchist liberalism instead of pushing an anarchist critique with fangs informed by Nietzsche?