Dios y El Estado

by Mikhail Bakunin

Bakunin desarrolló una teoría política que se adecuaba dúctilmente a las energías populares que eran desencadenadas en las revoluciones. 1789 era para él una cifra tan renombrada como el emblema del "pecado original" de la política moderna, el inicio del moderno linaje de la autoorganización, correspondencia material para las capacidades autocreativas del ser humano. En este sentido, Bakunin nunca dejó de ser un ilustrado radical convencido de que los hombres y sus sociedades debían inventarse a sí mismos, y que para ello solo era necesaria una dosis máxima de libertad. La cuestión religiosa obsesionó a los anarquistas. Por un lado, la ontología anarquista centrada en la autocreación del ser no podía aceptar la hipótesis divina; por otra parte, sociológica e históricamente, el rol de la Iglesia cristiana en la ignorantización de la humanidad y el control de la autoridad eclesiástica sobre la conciencia eran datos políticos de peso.

Genres: Philosophy, Politics, Nonfiction, Religion, Russia, History, Theory

Paperback

First published January 1, 1882

About the author

Russian anarchist and political theorist Mikhail Aleksandrovich Bakunin, imprisoned and later exiled to Siberia for his considered revolutionary activities, escaped to London in 1861, opposed Communism of Karl Marx.

People often called Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin (Russian: Михаи́л Алекса́ндрович Баку́нин), a philosopher, the father of collectivism.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail...

Reviews

[Always Pouting · Rating 2 out of 5]

First off I really wish people would stop giving me books as gifts because they inevitably give me books like this, as in books I would never pick up on my own. Like I just really hate reading philosophy or even most things written before like the 1920's. Why do they all write like this, with constant references to other people who are equally annoying to read and a verbosity that is totally uncalled for. Even when he references people I've read, I haven't read any of those people recently so I'm like what is this actually referring to? And I wouldn't even try to read Hegel again even if a gun was held to my head. Also pretty annoyed that this was an unfinished manuscript and so disjointed with the huge footnotes it had. Imagine writing things to be read by other people and not making them easily comprehensible.

With all that off my chest though I will say that I liked a lot of the ideas he brings up like metaphysics as a way of us collectively understanding human psychology over time and the idea of idealism vs materialism. That said it's quite dumb how he sets out to make arguments about God not being real/serving the purpose of being used to control people and doesn't expand on that or even really justify it, he just says its self evident, yet that's what this whole book is supposed to be about. Instead he kind of just goes off and also I'm highly skeptical of the history of religion he's purposing and of things like the oriental elements he said were part of Christianity.

The most interesting ideas in this are things I've heard from elsewhere/read elsewhere and usually expanded on in a way that I felt much more satisfied with. I just think I can't be made to read source material because I always just hate it. If that makes me idiotic/non-intellectual then it is what it is.

[Justin · Rating 3 out of 5]

Struggled through this book at times due to Bakunin's frequent digressions ... But when he stays on point, you get gems like this:

"...religion is a collective insanity, the more powerful because it is traditional folly, and because its origin is lost in the most remote antiquity. As collective insanity it has penetrated to the very depths of the public and private existence of the peoples; it is incarnate in society; it has become, so to speak, the collective soul and thought. Every man is enveloped in it from his birth; he sucks it in with his mother's milk, absorbs it with all that he touches, all that he sees. He is so exclusively fed upon it, so poisoned and penetrated by it in all his being, that later, however powerful his natural mind, he has to make unheard-of efforts to deliver himself from it, and even then never completely succeeds."

"It should be added that, in general, it is the character of every metaphysical and theological argument to seek to explain one absurdity by another."

...which is why those of free-thought can never win a debate against those who have convinced themselves, by being bred from existence, to be without escape from this "mother's milk."

What I love most about Bakunin is his admission that the very moment he puts his ideas into words onto paper, they have become subject to antiquation. He recognizes that bc the future will undoubtedly be ripe with greater knowledge than he would have had access to in his own time, his ideas aren't so "awesome" as to keep them free from criticism. This grants me a sigh of relief towards listening to his premises. He had no intentions of writing a holy bible himself.

[The Conspiracy is Capitalism · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wrong anarchist text for what I am seeking…

The Good:
--I’ll start with the shortest part. The unfortunate thing is I probably agree with many of the views in the book, but this type of work mostly feeds my confirmation bias. I can see it as an abbreviated inspirational read (demonstrated by the reviews by anarchists I follow and respect).
--My favorite part is the critique on governance by science. After recognizing science as the truest form of abstraction (after all, much of the book is critiquing religion/idealism), Bakunin describes this form of abstraction as still a generalization that fails to capture individuality. Governance is described as inevitably justifying the status quo due to representation by a privileged body; furthermore, science has been mis-framed as the absolute and final object of human development rather than a means to a greater end.
…Bakunin insists that science is a crucial tool but must be made public. To me, this has plenty of relevance in today’s technocracy (despite the U.S.’s anti-science circus show); see Ben Goldacre. This also relates with education, which should be corrected of authoritarian tendencies with (for adults) popular academies based on mutual instruction between teachers and students. This foreshadows Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed.

The Contentious:
--Reading a negative review by someone whose politics/social imaginations I mostly disagree with, but who is nevertheless meticulous, I am further convinced that I have no confidence handing this type of text to a political opponent (or even someone on the fence). Even when I agree with you (actually, especially when I agree with you, since we are in solidarity and I don’t want to see you embarrassed!), I want your arguments to be as sharp and systematic as possible.
--The good bits I mentioned above were brief, and the proposed solutions were one-liners. The bulk of the (unfinished) book took on idealism vs. materialism in a vague and disjointed manner, using big, nebulous words and few examples. Had this been a political opponent (for example, a market fundamentalist harping on about human nature and progress in such a vague manner while bypassing concrete capitalist property rights), it would be ripe for the picking.
--I suspect the vagueness allows supporters to fill in much of what was missing with their own experiences from elsewhere, but the passages alone were simply not convincing. The big words (“human history”, “humanity”, “human race”, “society”, “religion”, “God”, “State”, “science”, etc.) bantered about were full of assumptions/contradictions/traps and were frankly Western/Eurocentric judging by the few examples given. This reminds me of the early Marx who wrote The Communist Manifesto at age 29.
--Another similarity with Marx is the use of poetic descriptions, for example:

For we must not deceive ourselves: even in attributing the larger part to the Machiavellian wiles of the governing classes, we have to recognize that no minority would have been powerful enough to impose all these horrible sacrifices upon the masses if there had not been in the masses themselves a dizzy spontaneous movement which pushed them on to continual self-sacrifice, now to one, now to another of these devouring abstractions, the vampires of history, ever nourished upon human blood.

…now, I quite enjoy rhetorical flair to bring life to text. However, Marx weaved his literary diatribes with copious amounts of functional examples, which was absent here. Bakunin seems content with brief hyperboles like describing Robespierre as “the most doctrinally despotic will, of the last century”. Seriously…
--As for religion, this was an earlier topic I encountered, and I witnessed an absolute butchering of it by the New Atheists (esp. Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris) and their imperialist foreign policy, while Chris Hedges tried to counter directly with I Don't Believe in Atheists. This was such a debacle that I have yet to recover my interest on the topic.
…I’m sorry to refer to Marx again as I know he and Bakunin had direct arguments which this review is not considering, and I also have several critiques of Marx and his disciples, but I cannot help referring back to Marx’s famous passage to wrap up the point on religion (emphasis added):

The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man – state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d’honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion.

Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo.

Why this makes me appreciate “anarchist” Graeber even more…:
--Having grown up in the West, it should be little surprise that I was introduced to radical (i.e. seeking the root) politics by the likes of Chomsky (where I first heard of Bakunin), Graeber (RIP), Zinn, and Hedges. Namely, self-described “anarchists” and “democratic socialists”.
--Since then, I’ve been trying to learn more about the materialist structures of real-world capitalism. This has mostly comprised of histories of the stock market/banking/technological change (weaving in with the histories of imperialism, wars, class struggle, etc.), classical political economy’s theories on the market and economic rent, Marxist theories on capital as a process and exploitation, post-Keynesian theories on Finance capitalism/international trade/monetary policies, neo-Marxist theories on imperialist rent/dependency/world-systems, neo-Marxist theories crossing over with other traditions esp. feminism/intersectionality (ex. social reproduction theory) and environmentalism (from indigenous relations with nature to political ecology to Earth Systems Science to Marxian metabolic rift), etc.
--In all this, anarcho-syndicalism has provided some useful supplements to Marx’s critique of worker exploitation (which “erratic Marxist” Yanis Varoufakis has synthesized with a broader vision of postcapitalism in Another Now: Dispatches from an Alternative Present; Marxist Richard D. Wolff also focuses on this in Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism).
--The only self-described “anarchist” I’ve encountered so far who has contributed substantial analysis is David Graeber , and critiquing Bakunin's book furthered my appreciation for how Graeber applies “anarchism”.
--Graeber combines anarchist social imagination with radical (esp. non Western-centric) anthropology and historical macroeconomics (ex. Debt - Updated and Expanded: The First 5,000 Years). Graeber does follow many anarchist political stances: quick dismissals of the USSR, popularizing Rojava to Western audiences, probably best known for his involvement in Occupy Wall Street, etc.
…However, world-systems perspectives are noticeable in his analysis (he has praised Immanuel Wallerstein, and has worked closely with Michael Hudson). Consider how this passage on the history of China from his history of debt book weighs world-systems with anarchism:

Normally, the easiest way to [use money to get more money, i.e. capitalism] is by establishing some kind of formal or de facto monopoly. For this reason, capitalists, whether merchant princes, financiers, or industrialists, invariably try to ally themselves with political authorities to limit the freedom of the market, so as to make it easier for them to do so. From this perspective, China was for most of its history the ultimate anti-capitalist market state. Unlike later European princes, Chinese rulers systematically refused to team up with would-be Chinese capitalists (who always existed). Instead, like their officials, they saw them as destructive parasites – though, unlike the usurers, ones whose fundamentally selfish and antisocial motivations could still be put to use in certain ways. In Confucian terms, merchants were like soldiers. Those drawn to a career in the military were assumed to be driven largely by a love of violence. As individuals, they were not good people, but they were also necessary to defend the frontiers. Similarly, merchants were driven by greed and basically immoral, yet if kept under careful administrative supervision, they could be made to serve the public good. Whatever one might think of the principles, the results are hard to deny. For most of its history, China maintained the highest standard of living in the world – even England only really overtook it in perhaps the 1820s, well past the time of the Industrial Revolution. [Ch.9 – The Axial Age]

[Trevor · Rating 3 out of 5]

I became interested in Bakunin after reading The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War 1890-1914. I then saw that this one was available from the nice people at Librivox.

http://librivox.org/god-and-the-state...

This is a very interesting book. There are lots of fairly standard arguments against the existence of God – I’ve always been attracted to the idea, elaborated here, that God creating the universe (that is, something infinitely developed making something less developed) is the exact opposite of how things normally work in the universe. That is, generally things grow from less to more complex. It is an interesting argument, although Darwinian evolution is a bit more complex and so, it turns out things can and do evolve to become simpler.

Bakunin has many very interesting thing to say in this book, particularly about the relationship between God, the state and power. Essentially he says that those in power need something to excuse them for gorging themselves on their plenty and something that will also keep those being stolen from from noticing, by promising them pie in the sky when they die. Religion serves this role particularly well. Religion has always been strongly supported (in theory at least) by the ruling classes. His point is that king and God hold hands and march together.

I hadn’t really thought about the fact that Christianity, which is often viewed as a kind of updated Judaism, is actually more accurately described as Platonism with a Jewish overcoat. He makes an interesting point about how long and hard the Jews had to struggle to keep to the idea of a single God. In fact, every time Moses turned his back his people were trying to worship one or other of the local Gods.

His views on science are also very interesting. He acknowledges that science is different from faith and must be a core basis for human endeavour and understanding, however, he also says that the problem with science is that scientists view the world as little more than an experiment. Science doesn’t really deal with individuals – not real individuals – it deals with what he refers to (following Hegel) as ‘abstract individuals’. That is, science never thinks about Paul or Jane, but rather with ‘average people’ or such ideas. It is this dehumanising that is both science's greatest strength and potentially greatest threat. This is because scientists can then become obsessed with proving the truth of their vision at any cost to the people who are seen as merely ‘abstract individuals’.

There is an interesting (though covered) swipe at Marx (around how well we can know the ‘science’ of history). His preference is for individual freedom and so his main criticism of the state is that it undermines the freedom of the individual in the interests of the ruling class. This is pretty much his main criticism of religion too – that the power imbalance between god and man is such that man must always be the slave of God. This was a fascinating argument. I have always had some sympathy with the theologians who argue that science offers little in the way of comfort to people given that the universe is so big as to be to the point of being amusing and completely uncaring. But his point is that God is much the same – it seems clear that thinking religious people increasingly make God more and more vague. They don’t want to have to defend the indefensible (why is there suffering of the innocent?) so they strip God of all positive attributes. No one really believes in Jehovah anymore, but rather in some very vague force that stands behind existence. But this absolutely ideal God is so far removed from what it is to be human that it is not at all clear why such a God, such a being, would be interested in us at all.

Except for faith, of course. But as he points out, the problem with faith is that in the end it is summed up in the statement, “I believe because it is absurd”. His running through the myth of the fall from grace and our eventual redemption – and therefore the mystery of the redemption – is a beautiful example of this will to believe in the absurd.

This was an interesting book and one well worth thinking over. There are times when he gets involved in Hegalian twists and turns and these are particularly hard to follow by listening, but generally he is blindingly clear.

[P.E. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pourfendeur d'autorités métaphysiques



➜ Bakounine envisage l'histoire comme un processus de dépassement progressif de l'animalité de l'homme, de développement de son humanité.


➜ Il ne conçoit d'autorités que temporaires, spécifiques et choisies.

Lorsqu’il s’agit de bottes, j’en réfère à l’autorité du cordonnier ; s’il s’agit d’une maison, d’un canal ou d’un chemin de fer, je consulte celle de l’architecte ou de l’ingénieur. Pour telle science spéciale, je m’adresse à tel savant. Mais je ne m’en laisse imposer ni par le cordonnier, ni par l’architecte, ni par le savant. Je les écoute librement et avec tout le respect que méritent leur intelligence, leur caractère, leur savoir, en réservant toutefois mon droit incontestable de critique et de contrôle. Je ne me contente pas de consulter une seule autorité spécialiste, j’en consulte plusieurs ; je compare leurs opinions, et je choisis celle qui me paraît la plus juste. Mais je ne reconnais point d’autorité infaillible, même dans les questions toutes spéciales ; par conséquent, quelque respect que je puisse avoir pour l’honnêteté et pour la sincérité de tel ou de tel autre individu, je n’ai de foi absolue en personne. Une telle foi serait fatale à ma raison, à ma liberté et au succès même de mes entreprises ; elle me transformerait immédiatement en un esclave stupide et en un instrument de la volonté et des intérêts d’autrui.

Si je m’incline devant l’autorité des spécialistes et si je me déclare prêt à en suivre, dans une certaine mesure et pendant tout le temps que cela me paraît nécessaire, les indications et même la direction, c’est parce que cette autorité ne m’est imposée par personne, ni par les hommes ni par Dieu. Autrement je les repousserais avec horreur et j’enverrais au diable leurs conseils, leur direction et leur science, certain qu’ils me feraient payer par la perte de ma liberté et de ma dignité humaines les bribes de vérité, enveloppées de beaucoup de mensonges, qu’ils pourraient me donner.

Je m’incline devant l’autorité des hommes spéciaux parce qu’elle m’est imposée par ma propre raison. J’ai conscience de ne pouvoir embrasser dans tous ses détails et ses développements positifs qu’une très petite partie de la science humaine. La plus grande intelligence ne suffirait pas pour embrasser le tout. D’où résulte, pour la science aussi bien que pour l’industrie la nécessité de la division et de l’association du travail. Je reçois et je donne, telle est la vie humaine. Chacun est autorité dirigeante et chacun est dirigé à son tour. Donc il n’y a point d’autorité fixe et constante mais un échange continu d’autorité et de subordination mutuelles, passagères et surtout volontaires.'


'Mais tout en repoussant l’autorité absolue, universelle et infaillible des hommes de la science, nous nous inclinons volontiers devant l’autorité respectable, mais relative et très passagère, très restreinte, des représentants des sciences spéciales, ne demandant pas mieux que de les consulter tour à tour, et fort reconnaissants pour les indications précieuses qu’ils voudront bien nous donner, à condition qu’ils veuillent bien en recevoir de nous-mêmes sur les choses et dans les occasions où nous sommes plus savants qu’eux ; et, en général, nous ne demandons pas mieux que des hommes doués d’un grand savoir, d’une grande expérience, d’un grand esprit, et d’un grand cœur surtout, exercent sur nous une influence naturelle et légitime, librement acceptée, et jamais imposée au nom de quelque autorité officielle que ce soit, céleste ou terrestre. Nous acceptons toutes les autorités naturelles, et toutes les influences de fait, aucune de droit ; car toute autorité ou toute influence de droit, et comme telle officiellement imposée devenant aussitôt une oppression et un mensonge, nous imposerait infailliblement, comme je crois l’avoir suffisamment démontré, l’esclavage et l’absurdité.

En un mot, nous repoussons toute législation toute autorité et toute influence privilégiée, patentée. officielle et légale, même sortie du suffrage universel. convaincus qu’elles ne pourront tourner jamais qu’au profit d’une minorité dominante et exploitante, contre les intérêts de l’immense majorité asservie. Voilà dans quel sens nous sommes réellement des anarchistes.


➜ Conçoit le salariat dans la même optique que le servage et l'esclavage (manuscrit écrit en 1871)...


➜ Met en garde contre la prétention de scientifiques, de spécialistes, d'experts à régir la vie (saint-simonisme, comtisme ?):

'La liberté de l’homme consiste uniquement en ceci qu’il obéit aux lois naturelles parce qu’il les a reconnues lui-même comme telles, et non parce qu’elles lui ont été extérieurement imposées par une volonté étrangère, divine ou humaine, collective ou individuelle, quelconque.'

'Un corps scientifique auquel on aurait confié le gouvernement de la société finirait bientôt par ne plus s’occuper du tout de science, mais d’une tout autre affaire ; et cette affaire, l’affaire de tous les pouvoirs établis, serait de s’éterniser en rendant la société confiée à ses soins toujours plus stupide et par conséquent plus nécessiteuse de son gouvernement et de sa direction.


Mais ce qui est vrai pour les académies scientifiques l’est également pour toutes les assemblées constituantes et législatives, lors même qu’elles sont issues du suffrage universel. Ce dernier peut en renouveler la composition, il est vrai, ce qui n’empêche pas qu’il ne se forme en quelques années un corps de politiciens, privilégiés de fait, non de droit, qui, en se vouant exclusivement à la direction des affaires publiques d’un pays, finissent par former une sorte d’aristocratie ou d’oligarchie politique. Voir les États-Unis d’Amérique et la Suisse. Ainsi, point de législation extérieure et point d’autorité, l’une étant d’ailleurs inséparable de l’autre, et toutes les deux tendant à l’asservissement de la société et à l’abrutissement des législateurs eux-mêmes. [...]


Bien loin de moi de vouloir comparer les abstractions bienfaisantes de la science avec les abstractions pernicieuses de la théologie, de la politique et de la jurisprudence. Ces dernières doivent cesser de régner, doivent être radicalement extirpées de la société humaine - son salut, son émancipation, son humanisation définitive ne sont qu’à ce prix -, tandis que les abstractions scientifiques, au contraire, doivent prendre leur place, non pour régner sur l’humaine société, selon le rêve liberticide des philosophes positivistes, mais pour éclairer son développement spontané et vivant. La science peut bien s’appliquer à la vie, mais jamais s’incarner dans la vie. Parce que la vie, c’est l’agissement immédiat et vivant, le mouvement à la fois spontané et fatal des individualités vivantes. La science n’est que l’abstraction, toujours incomplète et imparfaite, de ce mouvement. Si elle voulait s’imposer à lui comme une doctrine absolue. comme une autorité gouvernementale, elle l’appauvrirait, le fausserait et le paralyserait. La science ne peut sortir des abstractions, c’est son règne. Mais les abstractions, et leurs représentants immédiats, de quelque nature qu’ils soient, prêtres, politiciens, juristes, économistes et savants, doivent cesser de gouverner les masses populaires. Tout le progrès de l’avenir est là. C’est la vie et le mouvement de la vie. l’agissement individuel et social des hommes. rendus à leur complète liberté. C’est l’extinction absolue du principe même de l’autorité. Et comment ? Par la propagande la plus largement populaire de la science libre. De cette manière, la masse sociale n’aura plus en dehors d’elle une vérité soi-disant absolue qui la dirige et qui la gouverne, représentée par des individus très intéressés à la garder exclusivement en leurs mains, parce qu’elle leur donne la puissance, et avec la puissance la richesse, le pouvoir de vivre par le travail de la masse populaire. Mais cette masse aura en elle-même une vérité, toujours relative, mais réelle, une lumière intérieure qui éclairera ses mouvements spontanés et qui rendra inutiles toute autorité et toute direction extérieure.


➜ Prône science, éducation, instruction populaires :

Nous voilà retombés dans l’Église et dans l’État. Il est vrai que dans cette organisation nouvelle, établie, comme toutes les organisations politiques anciennes, par la grâce de Dieu, mais appuyée cette fois, au moins pour la forme, en guise de concession nécessaire à l’esprit moderne, comme dans les préambules des décrets impériaux de Napoléon III, sur la volonté fictive du peuple, l’Église ne s’appellera plus Église, elle s’appellera École. Mais sur les bancs de cette école ne seront pas assis seulement les enfants : il y aura le mineur éternel, l’écolier reconnu à jamais incapable de subir ses examens, de s’élever à la science de ses maîtres et de se passer de la discipline de ses maîtres, le peuple. L’État ne s’appellera plus Monarchie, il s’appellera République, mais il n’en sera pas moins l’État, c’est-à-dire une tutelle officiellement et régulièrement établie par une minorité d’hommes compétents, d’hommes de génie ou de talent vertueux, pour surveiller et pour diriger la conduite de ce grand, incorrigible et terrible enfant, le peuple. Les professeurs de l’École et les fonctionnaires de l’État s’appelleront des républicains ; mais ils n’en seront pas moins des tuteurs, des pasteurs, et le peuple restera ce qu’il a été éternellement jusqu’ici, un troupeau. Gare alors aux tondeurs ; car là où il y a un troupeau il y aura nécessairement aussi des tondeurs et des mangeurs de troupeau.

Le peuple, dans ce système, sera l’écolier et le pupille éternel. Malgré sa souveraineté toute fictive, il continuera de servir d’instrument à des pensées, à des volontés et par conséquent aussi à des intérêts qui ne seront pas les siens. Entre cette situation et ce que nous appelons, nous, la liberté, la seule vraie liberté, il y a un abîme. Ce sera, sous des formes nouvelles, l’antique oppression et l’antique esclavage : et là où il y a esclavage, il y a misère, abrutissement, la vraie matérialisation de la société, tant des classes privilégiées que des masses.

'Toute éducation rationnelle n’est au fond rien que cette immolation progressive de l’autorité au profit de la liberté, le but final de l’éducation ne devant être que celui de former des hommes libres et pleins de respect et d’amour pour la liberté d’autrui. Ainsi le premier jour de la vie scolaire, si l’école prend les enfants en bas âge, alors qu’ils commencent à peine à balbutier quelques mots, doit être celui de la plus grande autorité et d’une absence à peu près complète de liberté ; mais son dernier jour doit être par contre celui de la plus grande liberté et de l’abolition absolue de tout vestige du principe animal ou divin de l’autorité. Le principe d’autorité, appliqué aux hommes qui ont dépassé ou atteint l’âge de la majorité, devient une monstruosité, une négation flagrante de l’humanité, une source d’esclavage et de dépravation intellectuelle et morale. Malheureusement, les gouvernements paternels ont laissé croupir les masses populaires dans une si profonde ignorance qu’il sera nécessaire de fonder des écoles non seulement pour les enfants du peuple, mais pour le peuple lui-même. Mais de ces écoles devront être éliminées absolument les moindres applications ou manifestations du principe d’autorité. Ce ne seront plus des écoles, mais des académies populaires, dans lesquelles il ne pourra plus être question ni d’écoliers ni de maîtres, où le peuple viendra librement prendre, s’il le trouve nécessaire, un enseignement libre, et dans lesquelles, riche de son expérience, il pourra enseigner, à son tour, bien des choses aux professeurs qui lui apporteront des connaissances qu’il n’a pas. Ce sera donc un enseignement mutuel, un acte de fraternité intellectuelle entre la jeunesse instruite et le peuple.

La véritable école pour le peuple et pour tous les hommes faits, c’est la vie. La seule grande et toute-puissante autorité naturelle et rationnelle à la fois la seule que nous puissions respecter, ce sera celle de l’esprit collectif et public d’une société fondée sur l’égalité et sur la solidarité, aussi bien que sur la liberté et sur le respect humain et mutuel de tous ses membres. Oui, voilà une autorité nullement divine, toute humaine, mais devant laquelle nous nous inclinerons de grand cœur, certains que, loin de les asservir, elle émancipera les hommes. Elle sera mille fois plus puissante, soyez-en certains, que toutes vos autorités divines, théologiques, métaphysiques, politiques et juridiques instituées par l’Église et par l’État, plus puissante que vos codes criminels, vos geôliers et vos bourreaux.


➜ Il élabore en tout cas une charge sévère contre l'étatisme :

'Car, en fin de compte, à moins de retomber dans la fiction liberticide du bien public représenté par l’État, fiction toujours fondée sur le sacrifice systématique des masses populaires. il faut bien reconnaître que la liberté et la prospérité collectives ne sont réelles que lorsqu’elles représentent la somme des libertés et des prospérités individuelles.'


➜ Considère la religion comme l'escamotage frauduleux de la dignité, de la raison, de la justice, de la liberté et, à la fin des fins, de la vie humaine. La religion se nourrit de la réalité du monde, l'en dépouille et s'en pare, sacrifie l'homme vivant à une divinité abstraite et désincarnée, à un monde métaphysique de néant.

Eh bien, la religion est une folie collective, d’autant plus puissante qu’elle est une folie traditionnelle et que son origine se perd dans l’antiquité la plus reculée. Comme folie collective, elle a pénétré dans tous les détails tant publics que privés de l’existence sociale d’un peuple, elle s’est incarnée dans la société, elle en est devenue pour ainsi dire l’âme et la pensée collective. Tout homme en est enveloppé depuis sa naissance, il la suce avec le lait de sa mère, l’absorbe avec tout ce qu’il entend, tout ce qu’il voit. Il en a été si bien nourri, empoisonné, pénétré dans tout son être que plus tard, quelque puissant que soit son esprit naturel, il a besoin de faire des efforts inouïs pour s’en délivrer, et encore n’y parvient-il jamais d’une manière complète. Nos idéalistes modernes en sont une preuve, et nos matérialistes doctrinaires, les communistes allemands, en sont une autre. Ils n’ont pas su se défaire de la religion de l’État.


Auteurs mentionnés :

Guiseppe Mazzini, Jules Michelet, Edgar Quinet, John Stuart Mill, Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz, Kant, Fichte, Schelling, Hegel, Ludwig Feuerbach, Auguste Comte, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, François-René de Chateaubriand...


Voir aussi :

Sur le positivisme et le scientisme :
Les Carnets du sous-sol

Sur le libéralisme classique :
Common Sense
On Liberty

[Andrew]

Like so many, I'd read fragments of Bakunin starting in my teens, but only now do I read his landmark text God and the State to see what he was on about. Turns out, he has a lot of fuck-yous in him, most of which are pointed at all the appropriate people. Organized religion, the state, capitalists -- none are things I'm very fond of. And a society based on science and reason is absolutely a good thing. But like so many others working in Voltaire's shadow, he thinks the anarchist project will lead to a higher plain of the soul, not '90s Somalia. While I wish I could be an anarchist at times -- and mad support for Rojava and the Zapatistas, btw -- my preferred program remains socialism.

[Raquel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Uma das melhores leituras dos últimos tempos. Sou cada vez mais exigente quando o tema é a religião; tal assunto é, por si só, um "vespeiro." É difícil abordar as suas várias perspectivas sem cair em contradições. Já conhecia Bakunin de outras leituras, a sua capacidade crítica é memorável, mas esta obra marcou-me de uma maneira muito peculiar.

É profundamente dialéctica, ousada e expõe as fragilidades do "homo religiosus."
A obra só tem um defeito: é demasiado breve. Bakunin era conhecido pela incompletude dos seus escritos, mas defendia-se dizendo: "a minha própria vida é um fragmento."

Apesar dos traços marcadamente políticos dos seus escritos, é possível ler Bakunin sob outros prismas. Uma leitura excelente, muito, muito boa!

--

"Quando, como ou por que o Ser Divino, eterno, infinito, o perfeito absoluto, provavelmente entediado de si mesmo, decidiu-se a esse salto mortal desesperado, eis o que nenhum idealista nem teólogo, nem metafísico, nem poeta, jamais soube compreender, nem explicar aos profanos [...]
Os esforços gigantescos dos mais admiráveis génios que o mundo conhece, e que, uns após outros, durante trinta séculos pelo menos, empreenderam sempre esse trabalho de Sísifo, só conseguiram tornar este mistério mais incompreensível ainda. Podemos esperar que ele nos seja desvendado pelas especulações rotineiras de algum pedante discípulo de uma metafísica artificialmente requintada, numa época em que todos os espíritos vivos e sérios desviaram-se dessa ciência equívoca, saída de uma transação entre o contra-senso da fé e a sadia razão científica?
É evidente que esse terrível mistério é inexplicável, isto é, absurdo, e absurdo porque não se deixa explicar. E evidente que alguém que dele necessite para sua felicidade, para sua vida, deve renunciar à sua razão e retornar, caso seja possível, à fé ingénua, cega, estúpida; repetir com Tertuliano e com todos os crentes sinceros estas palavras que resumem a própria quintessência da teologia: "credo quia absurdum [creio porque é absurdo].

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can't say I agree with much of this as a Christian but what better way to strengthen my beliefs & religious arguments than to read things to the contrary & try to refute them :-)

[Έρση Λάβαρη]

(tl;dr to future self)

Ο Μπακούνιν εδώ στην ουσία εισάγει δύο αντικρουόμενους όρους, που πασχίζουν να επικρατήσουν στην σύγχρονη κοινωνία: τον ιδεαλισμό , που αναφέρεται στο πάντρεμα της Εκκλησίας και του Κράτους και που στόχος του είναι η «κοπαδοποίηση» του λαού προς διευκόλυνση της επιβολής ελέγχου και εξουσίας, του δεσποτισμού και της εκμετάλλευσης του πολιτικό-θρησκευτικού ποιμνίου από τους ηγέτες, και τον υλισμό , που συμπεριλαμβάνει τις έννοιες της λογικής και της επιστήμης, του ανθρώπινου ενστίκτου και της βιολογικής ανάγκης του ανθρώπου για τροφή και έρωτα που η Εκκλησία με το κήρυγμά της υπέρ της ηθικής εγκράτειας επιχειρεί (και πολλές φορές πετυχαίνει) να καταπιέσει, που αποσκοπεί στην απόλυτη ηθική και κοινωνική ελευθερία, που δεν θα συμφέρει την μειοψηφία των κοινωνικών τάξεων που από τον τρέχων ιδεαλισμό επωφελείται (ως επί το πλείστον οικονομικά και ιμπεριαλιστικά), την αναρχία.

«Η ιστορική εξέλιξη του ανθρώπου σύμφωνα με την υλιστική σχολή είναι μια προοδευτική άνοδος, ενώ του ιδεαλιστικού συστήματος μια διαρκής πτώση. […] Ο υλισμός ξεκινά από την ζωικότητα για να εδραιώσει τον ανθρωπισμό· ο ιδεαλισμός ξεκινά από το θείο για να εδραιώσει την σκλαβιά και την αποκτήνωση των μαζών. Ο υλισμός αρνείται την ελεύθερη βούληση και καταλήγει στην εδραίωση της ελευθερίας· ο ιδεαλισμός, στο όνομα της ανθρώπινης αξιοπρέπειας, διακηρύσσει την ελεύθερη βούληση και πάνω στα ερείπια κάθε ελευθερίας θεμελιώνει την εξουσία. Ο υλισμός απορρίπτει την εξουσία γιατί πολύ σωστά την θεωρεί ως το επακόλουθο της ζωικότητας και γιατί, αντίθετα, ο θρίαμβος του ανθρωπισμού, που ε��ναι και το πρωταρχικής σημασίας αντικείμενο της ιστορίας, μπορεί να πραγματωθεί μόνο μέσα από την ελευθερία. Εν ολίγοις, οι ιδεαλιστές θα επιδίδονται πάντα σε ενέργειες πρακτικά υλιστικές, ενώ οι υλιστές θα εμφανίζονται να κυνηγούν και να πραγματώνουν τις υψηλότερες ιδεαλιστικά προσδοκίες και σκέψεις» (σελ. 58-9 στο δικό μου αντίτυπο).

«Φοβού τα κοπάδια, γιατί όπου υπάρχει κοπάδι υπάρχουν και ποιμένες έτοιμοι να το κουρέψουν και να το καταβροχθίσουν» (σελ. 51 στο δικό μου αντίτυπο).

Ο Μπακούνιν υποστηρίζει πως οι σύγχρονες κυβερνήσεις, απότοκο της στενής συνεργασίας της θρησκευτικής και πολιτικής εξουσίας, είναι τόσο αυταρχικές, ώστε σκόπιμα αφήνουν τον λαό στην αμάθεια για να τον χειρίζονται και να τον ελέγχουν ευκολότερα. Ετούτο μπορεί μονάχα να λυθεί με την ίδρυση σχολών χειραφέτησης, που για να λειτουργήσουν θα πρέπει να αποφευχθεί κάθε αναφορά στον Θεό, που είναι ο αιώνιος και απόλυτος υποδουλωτής. Σε τέτοιες σχολές είναι αναγκαίο να φοιτούν όχι μονάχα τα παιδιά του λαού, αλλά και ο ενήλικος λαός ο ίδιος, και η σχέση μεταξύ δασκάλων και μαθητών θα είναι αμφίδρομη για να μην δημιουργηθούν δεσμοί εξουσίας, με τον έναν να μαθαίνει από τον άλλον.

Ο Θεός θα πρέπει να εξαλειφθεί από τις σχολές χειραφέτησης επειδή, κατά τον Μπακούνιν, ο Θεός δεν είναι άλλο παρά κατοπτρισμός του ανθρώπου, που μεταβάλλεται στο πέρας του χρόνου αναλόγως με τους επιφανέστερους προβληματισμούς της ανθρωπότητας. Είναι μια εικόνα μεγεθυσμένη και αντεστραμμένη, με στόχο την διαχείριση των εξελισσόμενων ακόμη ανθρώπινων δυνατοτήτων. Ο άνθρωπος, λοιπόν, επειδή είναι ανίκανος να προσεγγίσει την αλήθεια, την δικαιοσύνη και την αιώνια ζωή με τις δικές του δυνάμεις, πασχίζει να τις κατακτήσει μέσα από την αποκάλυψη του Θεού, που είναι ο μόνος που τις χωράει. Αυτό προϋποθέτει χαρακτηριστικά μεσσίες, προφήτες και θεόπνευστους νομοθέτες, δηλαδή ηγέτες, εκπροσώπους του Θεού στην γη. Κι επειδή καμιά δικαιοσύνη δεν συγκρίνεται με την θεϊκή δικαιοσύνη, ο άνθρωπος είναι πρώτα δούλος του Θεού κι έπειτα δούλος της Εκκλησίας. Κι εφόσον η Εκκλησία έχει στενή σχέση συνεργασίας με το Κράτος, μιλάμε για λαϊκή υποδούλωση που πραγματώνεται μέσα από την ιδέα και την αναφορά του Θεού. Σκοπός του θρησκευτικού συστήματος, έτσι, είναι η φτωχοποίηση, η υποδούλωση, ο εκμηδενισμός της ανθρωπότητας προς όφελος του Θεού και, εμμέσως, προς συμφέρον της πολιτικής εξουσίας.

Αυτά και άλλα πολλά εξίσου ενδιαφέροντα και εντυπωσιακά έχει να πει ο Μιχαήλ Μπακούνιν, ξεχώρισα όμως ετούτα ως αυτά που μου μίλησαν περισσότερο (μαζί με την θεωρία του περί ψυχής, θεϊκού αποτμήματος μέσα σε κάθε άνθρωπο που επιδιώκοντας την δημιουργία αγέλης, μιας κοινωνίας, προσπαθεί να ενωθεί με τα υπόλοιπα αποτμήματα που μαζί δημιουργούν τον Θεό· κάπως έτσι εξηγεί και τους πολιτικό-θρησκευτικούς ηγέτες, ακόμη και το πλήθος διαφορετικών θεών της ανθρωπότητας, ως ευνοούμενους της κύριας μάζας της Θεότητας ή φορείς ελαφρώς ογκοδέστερου θεϊκού αποτμήματος). Το σύγγραμμά του είναι ατελές, και ούτε να φανταστώ μπορώ τις υπόλοιπες σκέψεις του σχετικά με το δεσποτικό σχήμα κράτους και εκκλησίας και της φύσης/έννοιας του Θεού. Περνάω συντομότατα στο «Κρατισμός και Αναρχία», εν ολίγοις.

«[…] Και πάνω εκεί, ο δύστυχος Θεός, υποβαθμισμένος και σχεδόν εξουδετερωμένος από την πτώση Του, κείτεται κάποιες χιλιάδες αιώνες βυθισμένος σε λήθαργο και μετά συνέρχεται αργά, προσπαθώντας μάταια να θυμηθεί κάτι από τον Εαυτό Του».

[Marta Cava]

malgrat alguna discrepància, això és una autèntica Bíblia per a ateus

[Tinea · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really rambly arguments (especially at the end) against a specifically Christian god that really doesn't impact my life, not having been raised christian and all. There were a few parts with ringing eloquence on the independence of humans over god, the state, and science. Overall, contributed to a conversation of which I am not a part nor particularly interested in engaging.

I really want to read all the 'fathers of anarchism,' so I'll know what the hell I'm talking about when people want to talk about Anarchism, but every time I do I realize what they write about really isn't the philosophy to which I ascribe, which is more enunciated in anarcha-feminism, biocentrism, and critical theory. I get my philosophy from zines, direct action, and friends. Old stuff and other times' heroes have a place, but maybe not as big a one as they currently seem to occupy?

[A group read for (A) Bookclub.
Onlinefull text.
Read in Tanzania]

[Erik Graff · Rating 3 out of 5]

High school history courses had emphasized the American, French and Russian revolutions. In college, planning a history major, I took a two-semester survey of the latter. Having read some Marx and being critical of "actually existing" socialist states like the USSR and the PRC, I was much interested in what went wrong and, so, focused on the revolutionary ferment in Russia in the period from the Decembrist Revolt 1825 until Stalin's rise to power. Bakunin and the anarchists were much mentioned in the literature, so I went to the Grinnell College library to see what they had and came up with this.

'God and the State' was actually published posthumously, Bakunin having intended it as part of a longer, never completed work. Consequently, he cannot be entirely blamed for its rather aphoristic character. I, however, was disappointed, having been looking for something more systematic and well-reasoned. Still, some of bits of it were provocative.

[Jeremy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Voltaire says "If God did not exist, we should invent him." Bakunin answers: "If God did exist, we should destroy him."

Some interesting and original thoughts, but Bakunin's analysis lacks a scientific, methodological approach.

[Shulamith Farhi · Rating 5 out of 5]

I wasn't expecting to like this book, due to Bakunin's awful anti-semitism. I do like it anyway, and I want to make the case that it's worth reading. Warning to the reader: this book belongs to a different century, and there are a few infelicities concerning race, the intelligence of non-Europeans and so on.

The argument about authority is worth it. It's simple and as far as I can tell irrefutable. Some authority is legitimate, for example the authority of science. What Bakunin rejects is the divinization of authority. He turns Voltaire on his head: "if God really existed, it would be necessary to abolish him." Why is religious authority bad? For Bakunin, the issue is that religious authority is arbitrary and irrational. Why do people convince themselves that faith in these absurdities is indispensable? Bakunin spends a fair amount of time on this question, and clearly considers it one of the only interesting objections to his position. He comes to the Hegelian conclusion that religion is a reflection of deep discontent, and can only be cured through revolution.

There's a lovely bit of the text where Bakunin allows himself to wax utopian. He imagines a new kind of education that anticipates contemporary experiments in radical pedagogy:

They will be schools no longer; they will be popular academies, in which neither pupils nor masters will be known, where the people will come freely to get, if they need it, free instruction, and in which, rich in their own experience, they will teach in their turn many things to the professors who shall bring them knowledge which they lack. This, then, will be a mutual instruction, an act of intellectual fraternity between the educated youth and the people. The real school for the people and for all grown men is life. The only grand and omnipotent authority, at once natural and rational, the only one which we may respect, will be that of the collective and public spirit of a society founded on equality and solidarity and the mutual human respect of all its members. Yes. this is an authority which is not at all divine, wholly human, but before which we shall bow willingly, certain that, far from enslaving them, it will emancipate men.

Notice that in these popular academies we bow only to those that emancipate us.

Notably missing from Bakunin's text is any serious examination of economic conditions. I am convinced that these economic conditions can't be ignored. This text won't give you a systematic account of what immiserates us; it will encourage one to challenge irrational authority in one's life. We can't blame Bakunin for not being Marx, after all.

[Tighy · Rating 4 out of 5]

După ce ironizează aspecte importante ale religiei, pe care le consideră (pe bună dreptate) fabulații, Bakunin respinge statul ca fiind sinonim cu abandonarea libertății individuale, distrugerea relațiilor sociale, reducerea sau chiar negarea completă a vieții în sine... toate acestea pentru propria sa mărire. Statul este altarul libertății politice și, la fel ca altarul religios, este menținut în scopul sacrificiului uman.

Bakunin susține că forța pentru împotrivire provine dintr-un fel de dorință interioară de a se răzvrăti. Acest instinct de revoltă este primordial și animalic; un instinct care apare la toate ființele vii în diferite intensități. Este mai degrabă o chestiune de temperament decât de intelect sau morală și, pe lângă nevoile economice, este cea mai puternică cauză a revoluției.

[Alex · Rating 2 out of 5]

I read God and the State back when I was interested in left-wing anarchist theory, and believed that the anarchocommunists, anarchosocialists, anarchosyndicalists and us libertarian capitalists could come to a mutual understanding. Alas, I was wrong.

I did not know what I was getting myself into. I read it, and I do not remember, for the love of it, a single occasion where I could apply what I read. It was uninspired, it offered no positive vision, or even a coherent whole. Bakunin offered no compelling proof or argument for his own position, only a disjointed critique of others. I will focus on what Bakunin has to say on Christianity, because that is of the most relevance to me, and because it is sufficient to demonstrate his lack of academic virtues.

The book begins with a critique of the account of Adam and Eve in the book of Genesis. He paints God as an arbitrary tyrant, and titles Satan "the first freethinker and the emancipator of worlds". I don't think Origen spelled out how allegorical exegesis works so that Bakunin could forget all about it, but in between trying to ruin the economy and trying to ruin the economy, I suppose it is not so easy to find the time to actually read about the very thing that you're criticizing.

Bakunin also offers his critique of the doctrine of original sin:

We know what followed. The good God, whose foresight, which is one of the divine faculties, should have warned him of what would happen, flew into a terrible and ridiculous rage; he cursed Satan, man, and the world created by himself, striking himself so to speak in his own creation, as children do when they get angry; and, not content with smiting our ancestors themselves, he cursed them in all the generations to come, innocent of the crime committed by their forefathers.

Everyone who has bothered to read the theologians knows that there are various perspectives on original sin. Moral guilt does not feature in all, or perhaps even most of them. What Bakunin here is doing is a common feature of anticlerical propaganda: Take the Christian ideas that you find most repugnant, ignore all others, criticize those. Like other anticlerical ideologues, Bakunin has never heard of charitable interpretation, or of the faithful representation of Christian doctrines.

Then Bakunin offers his opinion on soteriology:

Then, remembering that he was not only a God of vengeance and wrath, but also a God of love, after having tormented the existence of a few milliards of poor human beings and condemned them to an eternal hell, he took pity on the rest, and, to save them and reconcile his eternal and divine love with his eternal and divine anger, always greedy for victims and blood, he sent into the world, as an expiatory victim, his only son, that he might be killed by men.

Not just that a good number of theologians rejected the idea that hell is everlasting, it is also well-known that an even greater number believed that those who died before Christ arrived could also reach Heaven, or at least everlasting life in Limbo, just without the bliss of being with God. I have never even read the Divine Comedy and I know that last part is in there.

Bakunin goes on and on like this, and I do not feel like debunking all of his wild claims. I believe I have shown that he has nothing to offer against sound doctrine or the Scriptures. He is simply ignorant of his subject matter. Should I criticize every single one of his claims, on the off-chance that one of them carries some weight? I don't think so. But what I think I should do is warn people who have little knowledge of Church history, theology or religious philosophy against reading this work. In fact, I don't think anyone should read this, except for research purposes. Its lies and falsehoods are poison for ignorant minds, and an insult to those who are more knowledgeable.

The book gets a bit better when he picks the positivists and statists as a target. Still, I don't remember it being in any way extraordinary. There are better critiques of positivism and statism from more honest and learned characters.

[Eadweard · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Reduced, intellectually and morally as well as materially, to the minimum of human existence, confined in their life like a prisoner in his prison, without horizon, without outlet, without even a future if we believe the economists, the people would have the singularly narrow souls and blunted instincts of the bourgeois if they did not feel a desire to escape ; but of escape there are but three methods—two chimerical and a third real. The first two are the dram-shop and the church, debauchery of the body or debauchery of the mind; the third is social revolution."
----





"There is a class of people who, if they do not believe, must at least make a semblance of believing. This class, comprising all the tormentors, all the oppressors, and all the exploiters of humanity; priests, monarchs, statesmen, soldiers, public and private financiers, officials of all sorts, policemen, gendarmes, jailers and executioners, monopolists. capitalists, tax-leeches, contractors and landlords, lawyers, economists, politicians of all shades, down to the smallest vendor of sweetmeats, all will repeat in unison those words of Voltaire: “If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.”

For, you understand, “the people must have a religion.” That is the safety-valve."
----




"For behind us is our animality and before us our humanity; human light, the only thing that can warm and enlighten us, the only thing that can emancipate us, give us dignity, freedom, and happiness, and realize fraternity among us, is never at the beginning, but, relatively to the epoch in which we live, always at the end of history. Let us, then, never look back, let us look ever forward; for forward is our sunlight, forward our salvation. If it is justifiable, and even useful and necessary, to turn back to study our past, it is only in order to establish what we have been and what we must no longer be, what we have believed and thought and what we must no longer believe or think, what we have done and what we must do nevermore."
----




"The history of religions, of the birth, grandeur, and decline of the gods who have succeeded one another in human belief, is nothing, therefore, but the development of the collective intelligence and conscience of mankind. As fast as they discovered, in the course of their historically progressive advance, either in themselves or in external nature, a power, a quality, or even any great defect whatever, they attributed them to their gods, after having exaggerated and enlarged them beyond measure, after the manner of children, by an act of their religious fancy. Thanks to this modesty and pious generosity of believing and credulous men, heaven has grown rich with the spoils of the earth, and, by a necessary consequence, the richer heaven became, the more wretched became humanity and the earth."
----




"The State will no longer call itself Monarchy; it will call itself Republic: but it will be none the less the State—that is, a tutelage officially and regularly established by a minority of competent men, men of virtuous genius or talent, who will watch and guide the conduct of this great, incorrigible, and terrible child, the people. The professors of the School and the functionaries of the State will call themselves republicans; but they will be none the less tutors, shepherds, and the people will remain what they have been hitherto from all eternity, a flock. Beware of shearers, for where there is a flock there necessarily must be shepherds also to shear and devour it."

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very accessible treatise on anarchism, the perils of religion and the hopeful, ongoing pursuit of the improvements of humanity.

Great background text for understanding more of Vollmann's worldview and bedrock for Vol 1 of "Rising Up and Rising Down"

[Felix · Rating 4 out of 5]

A jealous lover of human liberty, and deeming it the absolute condition of all that we admire and respect in humanity, I reverse the phrase of Voltaire, and say that, if God really existed, it would be necessary to abolish him.

In this book, Bakunin presents an argument for the non-existence and non-necessity of God, presented from an Anarchist and Marx-esque perspective. I say Marx-esque because Bakunin was a contemporary of Marx, and they both influenced each other, but neither was really a follower of the other. They do, however, share a similar logic in their arguments.

In this case, Bakunin's argument is that the concept of God is a reflection of man, and as such is used to keep the proletariat in place. The logic, as I understand it, is that the concept of God is used to debase man, and to present man as a lesser being, rather than as the highest being which demonstrably exists. Given that the traditional personality of God is a reflection of the personality of a plausible man, it follows that the divine order consists of subservience to a plausible personality, something which can be replicated on earth. As such, the Christian faith implicitely endorses subjugation of the proletariat, and by extension Capitalism / Imperialism.

This is carried over into the idea that the state and the necessity of God are interlinked. In order for the masses to accept their subjugation under a state, they require this social order to be sanctioned by something. This sanction is religion and its associated spiritual order, usually in the form of a church. However, the church is either subservient to the state, or the state is subservient to the church - whichever of these situations becomes manifest is irrelevant - the important matter is that the church and the state nourish and sustain each other. The church provides divine sanction for oppression, and the state provides the physical tools for maintaining it.

Naturally, Bakunin desires to break this cycle, and to realise Anarchism, which he sees as an ideal state of affairs. In this world, all authority would be based on merit, i.e. individuals would defer to scientists on scientific matters because of their scienitific knowledge, but would not prostrate themselves before kings without their being something that sustains them in position, beyond 'divine right' or tradition. It would be a world of free association, based on rational judgement, in which the realm of the spiritual would be abolished.

This thesis is developed with reference to the French Revolution, and in particular with a criticism of Rosseau's Supreme Being, and its failure to supplant the Christian god.

In all, its a fascinating read. Bakunin's style is often dense, and occassionally difficult to follow, but this book isn't long. Bakunin takes his fair share of digressions, but ultimately this book is fairly focused. If you're interested in the intersection of spirituality, politics and leftism, then this is definitely worth a look.

[Gabriel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Algunos comentarios sobre este texto (sean compasivos conmigo, es mi primera vez).
1. Este texto lo pude leer con relativa facilidad, pues coincidió con un período de baja carga laboral. Además, solo se requieren conocimientos básicos sobre filosofía, biología e historia para entender los puntos principales de Bakunin.
2. Fue bonito poder leer este libro justo después de haber leído “El Estado y la revolución” de Lenin, porque hay puntos de comparación y también algunas lejanías.
3. Bakunin era ateo y materialista. En su libro defiende estos sistemas de pensamiento para atacar la idea de Dios, las religiones, el principio de autoridad y el Estado.
4. Bakunin traza una distinción bastante tosca entre “idealismo” y “materialismo”, sin considerar ni hacerse cargo de la pesada tradición filosófica que tienen ambas palabras. A partir de esta falta de matices es que su crítica a Dios y las religiones dejan entrever varios errores, grietas y generalizaciones. Por lo demás, no cita directamente a ningún autor “idealista”, solo presenta las tesis de forma indirecta. Estas observaciones provienen de una persona que considera a sí misma atea y materialista.
5. Ahora bien, quizás la parte más revolucionaria del libro está en su crítica al positivismo. Es bien sabido que todos los autores de la izquierda del siglo XIX estaban sumamente influidos por el positivismo de Comte y por la publicación de “El origen de las especies”. De esta forma, de un sano reconocimiento de la validez de la ciencia como criterio universal, varios pensadores transitaron a proponer explícitamente una religión del método científico.
6. Como sea, Bakunin decide tempranamente apuntar al positivismo como un problema. Considera que un gobierno liderado por un consejo de científicos puede ser tiránico, despótico. Lo que él propone es la educación científica para el pueblo, pues es condición necesaria para conseguir la emancipación social.
7. Igualmente, Bakunin incurre en el mismo error metodológico que con sus críticas a la religión -no ir a las fuentes exactas- para realizar sus objeciones.
8. ¿Cómo es posible que hoy sigamos teniendo "filósofos" proponiendo de forma poco delicada lo mismo que Bakunin vio como un problema hace dos siglos?
9. Este libro es eminentemente filosófico, no propone tareas concretas para el proletariado ni qué hacer luego de la abolición del Estado, a diferencia de “El Estado y la revolución”, que contiene un itinerario revolucionario mucho más desarrollado.

Cualquier persona interesado en historia de las ideas debe leerlo. Eso.

[Tim Edison · Rating 5 out of 5]

"When the people are being beaten with a stick, they are not much happier if it is called 'the people's stick'". This quote from Bakunin's Statism and Anarchy crystallises, to some extent, the ethos of Mikhail Bakunin - his critique of tyranny disguised as liberal democracy. Of course one could substitute "the people's stick" for "god's stick" or any other authoritarian system that the anarchists such as Bakunin, rejected and derided.

In God and the State, Bakunin takes aim at religious authority - primarily Christian - and also at the emerging phenomenon of technocracy - a government of technical or scientific experts or as Bakunin humorously describes it, "the government of the savants". Bakunin discursively undermines the dual effect of historical Christian hegemony as creating a world of religious slaves and then keeping those slaves in a state of perpetual ignorance through the idiotic and absurd notions of Christian theology. Bakunin's critique of Christianity could easily be applied to any of the abrahamic religions.

Bakunin, as mentioned, also warns against governments organised around the scientific disciplines. Well, as an anarchist he is fundamentally opposed to any form of centralised government including Marx's form of communism which he correctly predicted would become a dictatorship. In God and the State Bakunin also foresees the arising of nazi totalitarianism in Germany.

The ruling governments of nineteenth century Europe must have been utterly terrified of people such as Bakunin. It was no accident that Bakunin and contemporaries such as Marx experienced the ignominy, or some might say, the glory of being nationally exiled and had their publications either censored or banned in various places. They were quite simply considered to be dangerous men and this in itself provides some modicum of credence to their literature.

Bakunin's theories were and still are subversive to the established political machinery and are still utterly relevant in a world where "liberty" still exists predominantly in the world of ideas:

"In a word, we reject all legislation, all authority, and all privileged, licensed, official and legal influence, even though arising from universal suffrage, convinced that it can turn only to the advantage of a dominant minority of exploiters against the interests of the immense majority in subjection to them."

[شفيق · Rating 3 out of 5]

أومن ؛ لأن هذا غير معقول!

هذه المقولة تكررت مرتين لفظاً في هذا الكتاب ، لكن يتردد صداها في كل سطر يقوله باكونين تقريباً.
فهو يقر أن الإيمان بالاله جاء لأنه غير معقول ، عبد البشر الاله لأنه غير مرئ ، غير حقيقي ، وهم صنعوا..

باكونين ماركسياً مادياً ، يريد تخليص العقل الأوروبي من مخلفات المسيحية خاصة التي ورثتها لقرون وقرون .


باكونين يحكي ايضاً في هذا الكتاب الفرق بين مسيح المسيحية ومسيح الاشتراكية المادية وهو أن الأول مشخص والأخير لا . كما أن مسيح المسيحية ممجد ومعظم في ماضيه علي عكس مسيحهم أي المادة التي سوف تعظم وتمجد في مستقبلها..


ناقش ايضاً تاريخ تطور النظرة التاريخيه لنشأ الالهة، وتطورها من الأغريق والرومان والفرق بينهما.

باختصار هو ضد المثاليين واللاهوتيين ، ضد الروحانيين ، ضد الدولة والاله...

[Xaviju · Rating 4 out of 5]

Se trata de un montón de reflexiones hechas por Bakunin en 1867 sobre ateísmo. Nada nuevo para los ateos que vivimos en 2017, pero lo sorprendente es que podría haber sido escrito hoy y aún así sería bastante vanguardista.
Aunque no sigue un esquema lógico de pensamiento ya que se trata de un montón de apuntes, me quedo con la comparación entre Dios/estado y opresión frente a la aceptación natural de lo libertario. Es probablemente la parte que realmente da un valor añadido al libro.

[Mojtaba · Rating 3 out of 5]

کتاب نثر نسبتن ساده‌ای داشت و به صورت کلی، توضیح داده بود که چه‌طور تفکر خدا(به خصوص مسیحیت) وارد دولت شده. توی این کتاب، باکونین بارها به تفکر خدا حمله می‌کنه و اون رو دروغی می‌دونه که آزادی رو می‌کشه و مردم رو به برده تبدیل می‌کنه؛ چرا که با متمرکز کردن قدرت در یک وجود مطلق و برتر از هرچیز، نماینده‌های اون قدرت، قدرت رو به ارث می‌برن و به راحتی بر مردمی که خودشون رو پست و حقیر می‌شمارن، فرمانروایی می‌کنن.

[Moli16 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Esta ha sido la gota que ha colmado el vaso de mis dudas de fe

[Evelin Hermaküla · Rating 3 out of 5]

kuni 55. leheküljeni pigem meeldis, aga siis läks lihtsalt lahmimiseks ja eelpool öeldu kordamiseks. samuti oli liiga palju kriitikat ja liiga vähe konstruktiivseid visioone tulevikuks. siis jääbki mulje, et täielikult võrdõiguslikku, ilma juhtiva eliidita riigikorda on võimatu üles ehitada (ma tegelt ei usugi sellesse kahjuks). huvitav aspekt, millele mõtlesin, on see, et tihti maalitakse sotsialistidest-anarhistidest väga inetu pilt (ega nad muidugi suured pühakud pole, aga seda pole keegi), kuid nende eesmärgid on siiski üllad – saavutada täielikult võrdõiguslik ühiskond, kus ei toimu ekspluateerimist valitseva klassi poolt. igatahes usub Bakunin, et riik, religioon, osaliselt ka teadus jms takistavad inimesel enda täit potentsiaali avastada, sest need tuimestavad ja orjastavad ta. samas on see mingil määral loodusseadus, sest alati liigub kõik sinnapoole, et ühtedest saavad korrumpeerunud ja teistest alamad (ta ennustas seda ka kommunismi puhul). aga et sellele vastu seista peab olema haridus kõigile võrdselt kättesaadav, inimestel on vaja mõista, mis nendega toimub. riigikorraks pakub ta nö naturaamajandusliku vormi põhimõttega, et "I give and I receive", aga selles majanduses puudub mingi kõrgem autoritaarsus. kuidas see kõik täpselt välja näeb - sellele ta tegelt vastust ei anna. utoopia :( aga üks sümpaatne tsitaat: "I am free man only so far as I recognise the humanity and liberty of ALL men around me." pind ihus on muidugi sõna "man", aga ta muidu tõstatas (küll vaid viivuks) ka naiste represseerimise probleemi ja eks niimoodi on kirjutanud kõik varasemad filosoofid. samas on oluline tähele panna, sest keel kannab väärtuseid!

[Rafael Almada · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this, it's simple and easy to read, and while Bakunin does seem to make some arguments that are/could be seen as humanist or positivist, it is of little significance to the contents of the book itself. He goes into a discussion of the interplay religion and state operate in a similar fashion, in some ways colaborating with each other, for lack of a better word. It was rather engaging, and I cannot recommend it enough. I specially recommend the section on authority, it may be useful.

[Patri_Iridium · Rating 3 out of 5]

Un pouco pesado ao principio, pero ten puntos guays.
"La ciencia no puede salir de la esfera de las abstracciones. El arte es, pues, en cierto modo la vuelta de la abstracción a la vida. La ciencia es, al contrario, la inmolación perpetua de la vida fugitiva, pasajera, pero real, sobre el altar de las abstracciones eternas"

[makort7 · Rating 1 out of 5]

No me ha gustao. Del Estado habla menos 3. Todo el libro gira en torno a distintas aproximaciones a la religión, a Dios y a cómo el Estado utiliza la religión y la fuerza para oprimir. Pero 0 teoría del Estado. Al final se hace pesado, mucha referencia a la Biblia y a las religiones monoteístas. La verdad que Público súper acertado al poner en la portada del libro la palabra "Dios" gigante y la palabra "Estado" en chiquito.

Proudhon sobre la propiedad un máquina, este tío por ahora un peñazo.

[Illiterate · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bakunin struggles to fuse (i) rationalist individualism with evolutionary theory & (ii) critique of technocracy with science of history.