The Forerunners of Anarchism by Emile Armand

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1. The Forerunners of Anarchism

by Emile Armand

Introduction,

Emile Armand (26^th of March 1872- 19^th of February 1962) was the son of a former Communard, that is a participant in the revolution of 1871 that established the Commune of Paris, and was for a time a well-known French Anarchist who moved through many associations and publications, developing his own thoughts and beliefs. In his early days he was sympathetic to a form of Christian Humanism before becoming interested in France’s diverse Anarchist movement. He eventually settled on and was closely associated with what’s called Individual Anarchism. An Anarchistic philosophy that centres free individuals as the foundations of the new society, and as the source of the solutions to the evils of our current society, war, domination, exploitation, capitalism, patriarchy etc. 

 

“If we were animals, herded together in a stockade, then the eating part would be the only real thing that would interest us, and it would not be so important as to whether the trough is coloured Bolshevik-red or Fascist-black (taking it for granted that there is at all a trough), whether the food-distributor carries upon his cap a soviet-star or a fascist insignia or a swastika, the main thing would be the eating part.

But when one doesn’t consider oneself as a stockade-animal, when one doesn’t place the eating above one’s determined, self-acknowledged, ever-developing personality and its traits, then the entire program changes.”

[Emile Armand, Individual and Dictatorship, 1935]

 

Individual Anarchism or Individualism as its commonly known had strong followings in France and the United States during the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. It arose partly as a response and critique of the more orthodox Socialist and Anarchist doctrines. There were many different types of Individualist theory but in general its thrust was to encourage Anarchists to live as closely to their ideals as possible in the present. Essentially act as living propaganda by showing it was possible -enjoyable even!- to live in a society based on mutual respect and liberty.

 

While convincing others of the correctness of an Anarchistic ideal was important to him he did not limit himself to writing, though he certainly did a lot of that. He was a very active speaker attending many meetings and conferences. He was also no stranger to the law, being sent to prison several times in his life, the first time in 1907 for counterfeiting money, then again in 1917 for his support of desertion, Armand was not only an opponent of the First World War but also a founding member of the Anti-Militarist League (established in 1911), then again in January 1940 for three months, and shortly after release was interred in several camps for 16 months, being released in 1941. He also wasn’t afraid to tackle social taboos and was an early advocate for sexual liberation, one of his more infamous stances was his defence of nudism and belief that it holds revolutionary potential. 

 

“It seems to us to be something else entirely than a hygienic fitness exercise or a “naturist” renewal. For us, nudism is a revolutionary demand. Revolutionary in a triple sense: affirmation, protest, liberation.”

[Revolutionary Nudism 1934]

 

In short, he’s a very interesting character. But he seems to have fallen into obscurity in English speaking circles. I discovered the following pamphlet while browsing the webstore of an Esperanto workers association, and picked it up on a whim. I was surprised I was able to read most of it and that many of my difficulties were to do with the subjects and not the language used. The pamphlet was written in 1933, the Esperanto translation in 1989, and it concerns the philosophical origins of Anarchism throughout history. 

 

Its an interesting topic and I learnt quite a bit reading it and in checking to make sure my translation was as accurate as could be. I started translating it as an exercise to improve my skills with Esperanto, but at the time of writing haven’t found this pamphlet in English, apart from a translation of a later passage on the website Libertarian Labyrinth which was translated from the French language version but was useful to me in proof reading. Though there were a few issues with the text for a modern and general audience.

 

I don’t know if this is the case but I strongly suspect that “Les précurseurs de l’anarchisme” was written purely for the French Anarchist movement, it doesn’t bother to explain what Anarchism is directly and relies on inference from the people and works it cites, so I’ve added a definition that Armand used in another work. It also assumed that the reader would be as familiar with philosophy as Armand was and so he’s a bit light on biographical context in some areas, so I’ve used footnotes to fill in some of the gaps, though I recommend in the event of confusion turning to the web can be instructive, most of the named persons and works have something in English that can be found, though worryingly I could find very little on some of them. In addition to footnotes the text in [] are comments by me to further help fill in the gaps.

 

English translations of Emile Armand’s other texts can be found online at the Anarchist Library (https://theanarchistlibrary.org/category/author/emile-armand) and the Libertarian Labyrinth (https://www.libertarian-labyrinth.org/e-armand/e-armand-1872-1962/)

Reddebrek

2. The Forerunners of Anarchism

by Emile Armand

“To be an anarchist is to deny authority and reject its economic corollary: exploitation — and that in all the domains where human activity is exerted. The anarchist wishes to live without gods or masters; without patrons or directors; a-legal, without laws as without prejudices; amoral, without obligations as without collective morals. He wants to live freely, to live his own idea of life.“

 

[This definition of Anarchism is taken from Emile Armand’s Mini-manual of Individualist Anarchism, written in 1911]

Antiquity

 

We do not know exactly - and what documents could tell us? - when government or state authority began. Some attribute many reasons to the establishment of authority. As the people formed more and more numerous groups, did it prove necessary to entrust the administration of matters and the solution of the disputes to the most intelligent or the most feared: wizards and priests? Since primitive groups have generally been hostile to each other, has there been a need to centralize environmental defence in the hands of several or one chosen from among the bravest or bravest warriors? Either way, it seems that authority existed before individual ownership. Authority obviously ruled while the lands, objects and in some cases even the children and women were property of the social organisation. The regime of individual property - the possibility for a member of the collective: 1: to seize more land than is necessary to support his family: 2: to exploit the surplus by means of another - only refined, complicated and made more tyrannical the authority whether theocratic or essentially military.

 

Did the primitives’ rebel against even this rudimentary authority that existed amongst primitive groups? Were there objectors, disobedient in those times when the climatic phenomena were attributed to superior powers, here good, now unfavourable, when they related the creation of man to a supernatural entity? These myths show that humanity was not always pleased to be playthings in the hand of the deity and a slave of their representatives, for example the myths of Satan and Prometheus, rebel Angels and Titans. Even later, when the administration and ecclesiastical authority was firmly founded, demonstrations broke out, which while maintaining a peaceful character, nevertheless testified to rebellion. One can classify under this type the satirical scenes and comedies, Roman Saturnalia and Christian carnivals etc. Many fables circulated amongst the people who listened joyously, sometimes from childhood, which all shared the same theme, the victory of the weak over their subjugators and the poor triumphing over the tyranny of the rich.

Greek Antiquity, with Gorgias¹ denying all dogmas; with Aristippus founder of the school of Hedonism, for which there is no other good than pleasure, the present actual pleasure, whatever its origin; with the Cynics (Diogenes and Crates of Thebes) with the Stoics (Zeno, Chyrsippus and their servants). Greek antiquity birthed people who criticised and then rejected the received values.

 

Since the denial of the values of Hellenic culture the Cynics have reached the denial of its institutions: marriage, homeland, family, property, state. Behind the barrel and lantern of Diogenes lay something other than mockery and witticism. Diogenes pierced with his sharp sarcasms the most powerful and feared among those who had torn from each other the remnants of the dying Athens. Undoubtedly Plato, scandalised by his ultra-popular sermons called him "delirious Socrates"; by looking at manual labour as equal to intellectual labour, declaring themselves citizens of the world, looking upon Generals as "Donkey drivers" making ridiculous superstitions, including the Demon of Socrates, reducing the object of life to the exercise and development of the moral person, the Cynics could claim as its master, doctors of the soul, heroes of freedom and truth. From the social viewpoint the Cynics were communalists, and this principle of theirs applied not just to objects but to people, a concept dear to many different philosophies.

 

The cynics, and especially Diogenes in particular, were rebuked for being proud of their isolation, posing as role models, and exaggerating in their way of life, which was a sort of denial of any organized society. Diogenes had replied before: "I am the same as the choirmasters who force the tone to be picked up by the students."

 

The first teaching of Zeno, that of the "Stoic" greatly resembled the teaching of the Cynics. Zenon in his "Treatise on the Republic" pushed against the customs, the laws, science and arts, and at the same time promoted the community of farmers like Plato had done. The foundation of the Stoic system is that the good of man is freedom, and that freedom is conquered only by freedom. A Sage is synonymous with a free man: he owes his good to himself and depends only on himself. Shielded by the blows of fate, in everything insensitive, self-controlled, needing only himself, he finds in himself boundless serenity, freedom, happiness. He is no longer a man. He is a god and more than a god, because the happiness of the sage is the privilege of his nature, while the Sage is happy, he is the conqueror of his freedom! Zeno logically denied the omnipotence and trusteeship of the state: man is a law unto himself and individual harmony is born from the harmony of a collective. Hedonism, Cynicism, Stoicism set up the "natural right" for the individual to dispose, against the "artificial right" which turns him into a tool of the state. Zeno used this theory to hit back just as the Cynics had already done the excessive nationalism of the Greeks, and to promote a social instinct, a natural instinct that would allow man to reach out to associate with other peoples. We could consider the Cynics and the Stoics the first internationalists.

Middle Ages

These ideas about "natural right", "natural law", "natural religion" has been adopted by many philosophers. Certainly, the triumph of Christianity was not as complete as was claimed by the incense burners. Many heretics appeared, some of them, out of caution, cloaked themselves with religious masks and disguised their ideas under a religious shell.

 

Take for example the Gnostic Carpocrates of Alexandria, founder of the sect of the Carpocratians, whose son Epiphanes codified the whole doctrine in his work On Righteousness. According to him, divine justice exists in the community through equality. As the sun is set by no one, so be it with all things, all pleasures. If God has given us a desire, it is so we can satisfy it, not restrict it; likewise, the other living beings on the earth do not curb their appetites.

The Carpocratians were among the first to recognise everyone's right to all things, to the extreme consequence, and tried to practice it. They were seemingly exterminated. Although surviving writing indicates that Carpocratian tendencies still existed in Cyrene North Africa until the 6th Century.

 

Exterminated or not, the Carpocratians had followers. We do not know if the initiates of the similar sects accepted their concepts or adopted similar ideas: discarding all authority, whether or not they were "organised" in the contemporary style. But it is certain that the ruling political regime regarded them as irreconcilable enemies. There was a network of connected secret societies in existence on an international scale, whose travelling members were accepted as brothers by the other associations. They were taught in secret, and the many legal penalties against those who were discovered and victimized by their propaganda amply demonstrate this. Very sadly, their true opinions are unknown to us. We only talk about their crimes (?) Or their deviations (?).

At the Synod of Orleans (1022) 11 Carpocratians (Albigensians²) were burned to death, accused of practising free love. In 1030, in Montfort near Turin, heretics are accused of declaring themselves against religious ceremonies and rites, against marriage, the killing of animals and were supporters of a commune to work the land. In 1052 in Goslar, a small number of heretics were burned, because they had declared their opposition to the killing of all living things, I.e., against war, murder and the slaughtering of animals. In 1213 Waldensians³ were burned in Strasbourg because they promoted free love and communal living on the land. They were not "scholars" but simple craftsmen, weavers, shoemakers, carpenters, masons, etc....

Relying on a passage from St Paul's Epistle to the Galatians "If ye be led by the Spirit, ye ar no longer under the law," many sects placed man above the law. Men and women took a viewpoint similar enough to the Carpocratians, and finalised, in practice, a type of libertarian communism, which they experienced as much as they could, in more or less occult colonies under the threat of ruthless oppression. Amalric of Bena, near Chartes taught his ideas in Sorbonne in the 13th century. He had disciples more energetic than himself, amongst them was Ortlieb of Strasbourg who made his doctrine of Pantheistic-anarchism known within the German states, where they found enthusiastic and convinced supporters who organised under the name "Bruder und Schwestern des Freien Geistes" (Brothers and sisters of the Free Spirit). Which Max Beer in his "History of Socialism" considers them to be a form of Anarchist-individualists, who kept themselves outside of society, its laws, morals and customs, and organised a separate society that was ruthlessly opposed by the authorities.

 

I imagine! For Amalric of Bene and his followers, God was found in Jesus as well as in the pagan thinkers and poets he spoke through the mouth of Ovid, as well as through that of St. Augustine. Such people were not worth living!

 

In the heresies it is necessary to distinguish between the Pantheistic Anarchism of Amalric, whose followers considered themselves elements of the holy spirit, discarding all asceticism, all moral truths, situated so to speak beyond good and evil, and the heirs of the Manichean agnosticism of the Albigensians, ascetics who aspired to victory over matter. But it is not always easy to see the exact line between them. The Catholic historian Döllinger who has studied the history of all of these sects, did not hesitate to declare that if they had been victorious (mainly concerning the Waldensians and Albigensians) the result would be a general reversal and complete return of pagan barbarity and indiscipline.

 

To the first pantheistic-anarchist group we link the Antwerp heresy of "Tanchelm", that of the "Kloeffers" of Flanders, of the Picards or Adams (radiating to Bohemia), of the "Loïsten" also from Antwerp; Everywhere there are people or associations who want to react against the predominant system, represented especially by Catholicism, whose dignitaries behaved scandalously, keeping prostitution at bay, ruled brothels and gambling houses, were armed and fought like professional soldiers.

 

I agree completely with Max Nettlau that at the close of the Middle Ages, Southern France, the provinces of the Albigenses, part of Germany reaching out to Bohemia, lands washed by the lower Rhine as far as Holland and Flanders, certain portions of England and Italy, and finally Catalunya were overrun with sects that attacked the institutions of Marriage, Family and Property.

 

This anti-authoritarian movement did not just spread in Europe. In the History of Armenia by Tschamschiang (Venice 1795), we read about a Persian heretic by the name of Mdusik, who rejected "all law and all authority"... In the Literary Supplement of the Temps Neuveux (Paris Vol II, pg 556-7) contains an article titled "One Forerunner of Anarchism", in which the Turkish writer Dr Abdullah Djevdet introduces a Syrian poet from the 15th century Ebr-Ala-el-Muarri.

The Renaissance

 

We are approaching the Renaissance; it cannot be denied that the Catholics with the aid of the secular state annihilated and reduced to impotence the pantheistic-anarchist heretics. The Protestants did not show mercy to the Anabaptists, a kind of authoritarian communists founded on an interpretation of the Old Testament. The dictatorship of John of Leiden in Münster disappeared lightning fast. The old world had to bow its head under the omnipotence of a state that was stronger and more centralised than in the Middle Ages. The discovery of America, however, ignited the spirit of the thinkers and originals, whose state of mind was not crushed under the laminate of the political organization.

 

 

They talked of a happy island, about El Dorado's, Arcadias. In his "Cosmography" (1544) Sebastian Munster described the inhabitants of the "New Islands", "Where one lives free from all authority, where one knows neither justice nor injustice, where no one punishes misdemeanours, where parents do not rule over their children, no kind of law, freedom in sexual relations. No trace of any God, nor of any baptism, nor of any worship". To these aspirations for liberty, it is possible to add the Free Masons and the different orders of Illumination. One of the most brilliant genius of the Renaissance, François Rabelais with his Abbey of Theleme (Gargantua I. 52/57)⁴ can be equally regarded as amongst the forerunners of Anarchism. Élisée Reclus proclaimed him "our great ancestor". Certainly, in that bookish environment it’s true that he tended to neglect the economic side, and that he owed more to his century than he imagined. Certainly, he painted his refined estate with the same spirit as Thomas More, in his "Utopia," his idealized England, and as Companella, in his "City of the Sun," his Italian and theocratic republic, or as the author. of "Kingdom of Antangil" (the first French utopia, 1516) his Protestant constitutional monarchy. That doesn't stop Rabelais, in Theleme Abbey, from painting an unauthorized life. It is recalled that Gargantua did not want to build "walls around it". "Even, and not without reason, approved by the monk, where a wall is in front and behind, there is a lot of murmur, envy and dumb conspiracy"… The two sexes did not stand still and speechless… they were dressed in a similar ornament…”

 

All their lives were occupied with laws, statutes, regulations. But according to their good will or free will; they rose when they pleased, drank, ate, worked, slept when they felt like it. No one woke them up, no one forcibly forced them to drink, eat, or do anything. Thus settled the Gargantua affair. And their rule was just that clause: "do what thou wilt," for free men, well-born, well-educated, conversing with shameful companions, naturally have an instinct and a sting which pushes them to virtuous deeds, and draws them away from the wickedness they called honour. There are those who, due to trivial domination and coercion, allow themselves to be diverted from their noble inclinations to tend virtues, meanwhile we have discarded that servile yoke; for always undertake forbidden things, and covet that which is denied us. With that freedom, they immersed themselves in competition to do whatever pleased them. If someone said "Let's drink" everyone drank, if someone said "let's play" everyone played. If they said "let’s go to the field" everyone went there.

 

Rabelais was more Utopian. Another predecessor of Anarchy -and a famous one- is undoubtedly La Boétie (Étienne or Estienne de La Boétie) in his "Against One" or "Discourses on Voluntary Servitude" (1577) whose main idea is the refusal to serve tyrants, whose power springs from the voluntary servitude of the people. "Everyone knows that the fire from a small spark will increase and blaze ever higher as long as it finds wood to burn; yet without being quenched by water, but merely by finding no more fuel to feed on, it consumes itself, dies down, and is no longer a flame. The same goes for the tyrants: the more they are given and served, the more they gain new forces to annihilate and destroy everything. On the contrary, if nothing is given to them, if they are not obeyed, without blow, without battle, they remain naked and defeated, and are annihilated; like a root that without juice, without food, dries up and dies.” "Firmly decide that you will no longer serve, and you are already free".

 

La Boétie did not propose a well-defined social organisation. Yet he speaks about nature which has seemingly made all men in the same form and mould ... "If in distributing her gifts nature has favoured some more than others with respect to body or spirit, she has nevertheless not planned to place us within this world as if it were a field of battle, and has not endowed the stronger or the cleverer in order that they may act like armed brigands in a forest and attack the weaker. One should rather conclude that in distributing larger shares to some and smaller shares to others, nature has intended to give occasion for brotherly love to become manifest, some of us having the strength to give help to others who are in need of it. Hence, since this kind mother has given us the whole world as a dwelling place, has lodged us in the same house, has fashioned us according to the same model so that in beholding one another we might almost recognize ourselves; since she has bestowed upon us all the great gift of voice and speech for fraternal relationship, thus achieving by the common and mutual statement of our thoughts a communion of our wills; and since she has tried in every way to narrow and tighten the bond of our union and kinship; since she has revealed in every possible manner her intention, not so much to associate us as to make us one organic whole, there can be no further doubt that we are all naturally free, inasmuch as we are all comrades. Accordingly, it should not enter the mind of anyone that nature has placed some of us in slavery, since she has actually created us all in one likeness." From this we can deduce a total social system.

[Quotations are from Discourses on Voluntary Servitude]

Modern Times

Monarchy became more and more absolute. Louis XIV reduced half of the "intelligentsia" to a state of servitude and forced the other half to turn to the Dutch press. In the "Longing of enslaved France, which aspires to freedom" (1689-1690) and similar works appeared in Amsterdam, amongst which can be found a few expressions of Anarchism. They had to wait a little for Diderot⁵, to hear that phrase which sufficiently expresses the whole of Anarchism. "I neither want to give nor receive laws". In his conversation between a father and his sons (complete works Vol.5 page 301) he gave precedence to the man of nature over the man of law, and to human reason over that of the legislator. Everyone remembers the phrase of Maréchale: "Evil is that which does more harm than advantages, good is the opposite, it has more advantages than harm". And the parting words of the old man in the "Supplement to the Voyage of Bougainville" You two are children of nature, what rights do you have over him, which he does not have over you?" Stirner who came later, would not say it better.

 

In the "Revue Socialist" of September 1888, Benoit Malon [the founder and editor] dedicated 10 pages to Don Deschamps a Benedictine monk from the 18th century, a predecessor to Hegelianism, transformism and Anarchist Communism.

 

And finally, Sylvain Marechal, poet, author, librarian (1750-1803) who was the first to joyously proclaim anarchist ideas, although tainted with Arcadianism. Sylvain Marechal was a political author, who tackled all kinds of subjects. "Shepherds Poems" in (Bergeries)1770, and "Anacreontic Songs" (Chansons anacréontiques) in 1770, and in 1779 he successfully released pieces on "Moral Poem about God" (Fragments d'un poème moral sur Dieu) "The Modern Pibrac" (Le Pibrac Moderne) in 1781, and in 1782 "The Golden Time" (L'Âge d'Or ) and "Shepard's Fables"; in 1784 "Book esacped from the deluge" (Livre échappé du déluge) or "Newly Discovered Psalms". In 1788 as a sublibrarian at the Mazarin Library, he published "Almanac of Honest Men" (Almanach des Honnêtes Gens) in which he replaced the names of Saints with those of famous men and women. He places Jesus Christ between Epicurus and Ninon de l'Enclos. For this, the Almanac was condemned to be burned by the hand of the executioner and the author sent to St. Lazare (A prison in France) where he remained for four months. In 1788 his "Modern Apologies for the Crown Prince"(Apologues modernes, à l'usage d'un dauphin) appeared. In them is the story of a King who, following a cataclysm, returns home each of his subjects, ordering that, from now on, the head of every family be king in his home. In that work there is the formula of a "general strike" as a method for establishing a society in which the earth is the common possession of all its inhabitants, where "Liberty, Equality, Peace and Innocence" rule. In "The Triumphant Tyranny" he imagines a people that surrender their cities to armed bands of soldiers and seek refuge in the mountains, where divided into families, they will live with no other master than nature, with no other king beyond the family heads, forever renouncing their time in the cities with its costly buildings, each stone of which came from the shedding of tears and stained with blood. The soldiers sent to bring the men back to their strongholds are converted to freedom, and remain with those they had to enslave again, returning their uniforms to the tyrant, who dies of fury and hunger, devouring himself. This is indisputably a reminder of "Voluntary Serfdom."

 

In 1790, he published the "Almanac of Honest Women" decorated with a satirical engraving of the Duchess of Polignac⁶. By exaggerating the "Almanac of the Honest Men" he replaced every saint with a famous woman. These famous women were separated into 12 classes or "genres" as he put it (1 class for 1 month): January Lesbians; February, sex workers, etc (...) this very rare pamphlet is found only in the hell of the National Library.

 

Sylvain Marechal greeted the revolution of 1789 with reservations. The first anarchist newspaper in France "The Humanitarian"L'Humanitaire(1841) asserted that he declared that so long as there were masters and servants, rich and poor, there would never be liberty nor equality.

 

Sylvain Marechal continued to promote his works, in 1791 he published "Mother Nature at the Helm of the National Assembly" (Dame Nature à la barre de l'Assemblée nationale) in year II (Revolutionary calendar) or 1793 he published "The Last Judgement of the Kings" (Jugement dernier des rois) in 1794 "The Festival of Reason" (La Fete de la Raison). He worked on the journals "Revolutions of Paris" "The Friend of the Revolution" and "Bulletin of the Friends of Truth". The Herbertist Chaumatte was a victim of the Terror, but Marechal escaped Robespierre. He would have escaped the persecution of the Thermidorean reaction and the Directory too, had he not gotten involved with the "Manifesto of Equals" or so it is claimed.

 

At the end of the storm, Marechal again took up the pen. In 1798 his work "Worship and Laws of a Society without God" (Culte et lois d'une société d'hommes sans Dieu). In 1799, "The Voyages of Pythagore" (Les Voyages de Pythagore) in six volumes. In 1800 he wrote his great work "Dictionary of Ancient and Modern Atheists" (Dictionnaire des Athées anciens et modernes) whose supplement was written by the astronomer Jerome Lalande. Finally in 1807 "On Virtue" (De le Vertu) published posthumously, which may have been printed, but did not appear, and which Lalande used for his second supplement to the "Dictionary of Atheists". Moreover, Napoleon forbade the famous astronomer from writing anything more on Atheism.

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In England, we consider Gerard Winstanley and the Levellers as the precursors to Anarchism. John Lilburne, another Leveller denounced authority "under all its forms and aspects"; his fines and terms of imprisonment cannot be counted. He was exiled to the Netherlands, three times the court acquitted him, the last time in 1613 (while he had broken court orders), Cromwell kept him in captivity for "the good of the country" in 1656 he was released and became a Quaker, which did not prevent him from dying soon after in 1657 at the age of 39⁷.

Around 1650 Roger Williams makes himself known, as the governor of the early settlements that would eventually establish the state of Rhode Island, in the United States. And especially one of his partisans William Harris, who spoke out against the immorality of all earthly powers, and the crime of all punishments. Were they mystical visionaries or isolated Anarchists? The first Quakers were also firmly anti-State.

The Dutch Peter Cornelius Hockboy (1658), the English John Bellers (1695) and Scottish Robert Wallace (1761) promoted voluntary and co-operative socialism. In his "Prospects" (Various Prospects of Mankind, Nature, and Providence) Robert Wallace conceived of a humanity consisting of many autonomous districts. The protest against governmental and authoritarian excesses appears in all kinds of pamphlets and satires, sharp and outspoken, which today we no longer have examples. It is enough to cite the names Thomas Hobbes, John Toland, John Wilkes, Swift, De Foe.

We must now talk about the Irishman Edmund Burke and his work "Vindication of Natural Society" (1756) - a justification of the natural society- whose fundamental idea is the following: Whatever the form of government, none is better than any other. "The various kinds of governments compete with each other for the absurdity of their constitutions and the repression they inflict on their subjects… Even the free governments have experienced more confusion and blamed more unquestionably tyrannical actions than the most despotic governments in history."[translation of text]

"The several Species of Government vie with each other in the Absurdity of their Constitutions, and the Oppression which they make their Subjects endure. Take them under what Form you please, they are in effect but a Despotism, and they fall, both in Effect and Appearance too, after a very short Period, into that cruel and detestable Species of Tyranny; which I rather call it, because we have been educated under another Form, than that this is of worse Consequences to Mankind." [Actual text from English version of Vindication of Natural Society]

Edmund Burke changed his words. In his "Reflections" (Reflections on the Revolution in France) He placed himself in opposition to the French Revolution. The American Paine, a deputy at the Convention replied to him with "The Rights of Man" (1791-2). Because of his opposition to the execution of Louis XVI he was expelled from the Convention and imprisoned. He barely managed to escape the Guillotine. He made use of his time in prison to write "The Age of Reason" (1795). "At all stages society is good, but even at its best, government is only a necessary evil; under its worst aspect it is an intolerable evil… The craft of government has always been monopolized by the most ignorant and most rogue of the individuals of mankind.” In 1796 in Oxford a pamphlet appeared with the title "The Inherent Evils of All State Government demonstrated", attributed to A.C. Cudden a strong Individualist-Anarchist, which Benjamin R Tucker republished in 1885 in Boston.

Under the influence of the French Revolution a group in London sprang up called the "Pantisocracy" founded by the impulsive young poet Southey, who would later follow the example of Burke and renounce his young dreams. According to Sylvain Marechal -and partly confirmed by Lord Byron- this Epicurean group wished to realise the Abbey of Theleme and share all things between its members including sexual pleasures. According to Marechal, the greatest artists, the greatest scientists, the most famous people in England were members of that group, which was finally broken up by one Bill of Parliament ("Dictionary of Atheists", at the word: Theleme).

In his "Figures of England" Manuel Devaldes presents the "Pantisocracy" as "a colony project to be established in the United States among the Illinoisans, a colony based on economic equality. Two hours of daily work should suffice for the settlement and subsistence of the settlers". Apparently, as a result of Southey's departure and the death of two of the main promoters, the "Pantisocracy" reportedly died before it was born.

 

In Germany Schiller wrote "The Robbers" whose main character Karl Moor, stands against conventions, against the law, which had never created a superior man whilst freedom generated Collossi and precious people. Fichte says that, if humanity is to be morally perfect it would not need a state; Wilhelm Humboldt in 1792 defended the thesis of reducing the state to its minimal functions. Alfieri in Italy wrote "Of Tyranny".

 

On every side, under one form or another, authority was ceaselessly attacked. Spinoza, Comenius, Voltaire, Lessing, Herder, Condorcet, where libertarians in some way, in some form of literary activity. Fighting against tortures inflicted on heretics, against the severe punishment of crime, against slavery, -for the liberation of women- for a better education of children, against the superstition of religion, and for Materialism. Spee, Thomasius, Beccaria, Sonnenfelds, John Clarkson, Mary Wollstonecraft, Rousseau, Restalozzi, La Mettrie, d'Holbach, undermined the support for authority. One volume would be needed to recall the names of all those who, in one manner or another, contributed to the shaking off of faith in the state and church.

 

This is why we will end on William Godwin, who because of his "Enquiry Concerning Political Justice, and its Influence on General Virtue and Happiness" (1793) we regard him as the first to be worthy of the name of doctrinaire of Anarchism. It is true that Godwin was a Communist-Anarchist, but his denial of law and state suits the nuances of all Anarchism.

____________________________________________________________________________________

1 Gorgias (483-375 BCE), an early Sophist, who was called Gorgias the Nihilist for his views on existence and sceptical arguments.

2 A French religious movement, mainly organised in the south of France particularly around the city of Albi where the name Albigensian comes from. Today they're more commonly known as Cathars. In 1209 Pope Innocent III sanctioned a crusade to eradicate the movement, it lasted 20 years and was so bloody and destructive against the civilian populations where Cathars practised that it is considered an act of genocide by some historians.

3 Waldensians early Protestant movement, faced severe persecution from the 1200s-1800s, still exist in small congregations around the world.

4 Gargantua and Pantagruel is a series of stories about the giant Gargantua and his son Pantagruel, written by François Rabelais, the Abbey of Theleme is also a feature in the stories. The stories are often comic and fantastical, but some sections became important humanist documents.

5 Denis Diderot 1713-84, French philosopher, novelist and art critic, chief editor of the Encyclopaedia project. And is considered an inspiration to the early thought of the French Revolution.

6 A favourite companion of Marie Antoinette and rumoured to be her lover, this subject was a popular topic among the more lurid pamphlets of the late 1700s.

7 This is an accurate translation of the original text, however the biographical information about John Lilburne is nearly completely incorrect. John Lilburne was not acquitted for the last time in 1613, partly because he was famously acquitted in 1653, but mainly because he was born in 1613 at the earliest with some with some historians believing Lilburne’s date of birth to be in 1614 or 1615

A short history of Gundam in the UK

Just when you thought speed climbing was frightening enough, you now need to impress a Transformer too at #Tokyo2020! 👀🤖 pic.twitter.com/0GzmVd3CnX

— BBC Sport (@BBCSport) August 5, 2021

 

 During the Tokyo Olympics multiple team GB commentators repeatedly failing to understand what those giant Gundam statues were. In addition to calling it a transformer during the speed climbing, I remember hearing the talking voices for a marathon fixture get the name right but trip over pronouncing it. "Gan-damn" its pronounced Gun-dam, though some Japanese voice actors put an extra syllable on the end sometimes.

It's a mammoth of a franchise, has lasted decades and has spun off a mountain of products and creative directions. Taken as a whole it's arguably the largest, most in depth attempt to grapple with militarism, conflict and its associated traumas. At least when it isn't being a light-hearted comedy or a show about a martial arts tournament with giant mobile suits.

It's not surprising that none of the team GB hangers on knew about Mobile Suit Gundam, because it practically doesn't exist here if you're too old to be an avid consumer of fansubs and torrents. The title says short, and it will be, because there just isn't much to talk about. 

A quick primer, the "robots" aren't robots they're mobile suits, most of them have a pilot inside them who directs what they do, it's more accurate to think of them as human shaped tanks or jet fighters. Not every mobile suit is a Gundam, but don't worry, you'll know when one shows up. Broadly speaking the television shows and movies are set in a future where humanity has begun to explore the solar system, there's usually space stations and cities on the moon. And the story is usually concerned with war and its effects on people and the environment, though comedy is still found, and some outlier series are more light-hearted. 

While Gundam as a franchise has been in existence from 1979 to the present with projects queued for release in the future it's had surprisingly little impact in English-speaking territories, and this was especially the case for the UK. The first official major  release of the franchise was the English dub of Gundam Wing on the Toonami block on Cartoon Network, in the early 2000s. Gundam Wing was released in Japan in 1995 and was a standalone continuity. If there was an earlier official release of a Gundam property I could find no evidence, the closest I could find is American VHS tapes which could be second hand. 

Wing was quite popular in the United States, I can't find much information on how popular it was in the UK, I watched it, and remember there were some toys in shops, not the famous model kits, these were more like action figures with detachable accessories (guns, swords, shields) and alternate limbs. Anecdotally speaking, none of my friends and schoolmates who liked anime were into it, I think I met one over kid who watched it. Cartoon Network at the time was only available on Satellite and Cable, so quite limited in audience reach back then. And also in general English-speaking circles Wing hasn't left a very big impact, outside its prominence in popularising same sex pairing fan fiction in the west. 

In North America, watershed events included the broadcast of the anime series Gundam Wing
- Boys' Love Manga: Essays on the Sexual Ambiguity and Cross-cultural Fandom of the Genre

In my experience this largely what gets Wing talked about to this day, the only exceptions I can think of are when a Gundam forum user talks about it as part of rewatch and is amazed at how well it holds up or is baffled by how poorly it holds up. Personally I'm in the latter category.

Other than that, in 2007-8 the UKs first and so far only channel dedicated to Anime, Anime Central aired Gundam Seed, I never watched Gundam Seed at the time, but I do remember seeing adverts for it in between shows I did watch, mostly Cowboy Bebop! Again the potential audience was very limited, Anime Central was only available on Sky Satellite and shutdown within a year. And that's it for TV broadcasts as far as I know. 

 

It's not the most gripping branding, but it got the point across.

 There is however one other area where the Gundam franchise made its presence felt in the UK, video games. Despite only seen one series and film (Endless Waltz) I considered myself a fan of the franchise because I really enjoyed playing them. The most popular where Gundam spin-offs of the Dynasty Warriors games, a serious I've enjoyed for a long time. Dynasty Warriors was still a niche product in the UK but it had a fanbase and that fanbase grew over time. In fact, I can remember a tv show that reviewed video games having a brief introduction to the setting before it reviewed one of the games, it ended with a sarcy "what do you mean you've never heard of it?"which I probably remember out of a sense of satisfaction since I had in fact heard of it.

 

I first learnt about Amuro Ray and Char Aznable through playing their story missions in Dynasty Warriors Gundam 1 and 2. There were other games released by other developers, but I don't remember them very well. It was also through these games that I first began to grasp just how vast this setting actually was, there were characters from dozens of shows and films with their original art styles that stretched over 40 years of animation developments. Mashing the square button and occasionally throwing in a random triangle for flavour was quite engaging and got me curious. So I turned to the net, where most of the Gundam franchise was available in varying quality. If you live in the UK and you had opinions on Gundam pre-2015, you almost certainly encountered it on the internet or via an anime club that ripped DVDs of fansubs without the teacher finding out. Thanks to these shady means, I was able to explore a large chunk of the available media, but there's so much of it that from 2010 to now I've still only experienced a minority of it. And I occasionally I have to google lists of releases to check if I'm missing something.

 At the present DVDs and Blu rays, have gradually increased in availability, though it's dependent on the US market getting a release with the UK being a secondary route of sales. In still more positive news Netflix the dominant streaming service which is now available in over half of all homes in the UK also shows some of the franchise, mainly Iron Blooded Orphans and Gundam Unicorn, both very new shows, but occasionally alternating some older shows. Currently, they have a number of movies released in the 1980s to 2021. 

The IP holders have also released a youtube channel Gundaminfo which cycles through the franchise. And as a result of this growing official presence, and it's less than legal channels the audience within the UK and in English-speaking parts of the web generally has been steadily growing, though it still lags behind other parts of the world, especially Japan, but also Italy and Latin America. There's never been a better time to check it out if you're in the UK.

Subs vs Dubs

 

The other day I rewatched the South Korean film Train to Busan, it's a solid action horror, I recommend it if you haven't seen it and are interested in horror and aren't put off by biting. A couple of weeks ago I saw that an American remake had been announced, don't know any of the details because I have zero interest in it. The reception was quite hostile, and I'm largely in agreement, it doesn't need any remakes from anyone, the film is still perfectly fresh and available.

But a lot of the criticism of this decision and and of past announcements of American remakes of foreign films tends to miss the mark. A lot of it is based on exasperation over a perceived reluctance by US film watchers to buy tickets for subtitled movies. I'm not an American nor have I been to the great Satan, so I don't know if this is true or a stereotype, all the Americans I interact with love foreign movies and most of the obnoxious subtitle enjoyers have been American, but if this is true, [i]and[/i] it was the reason for this trend, then why bother remaking from scratch when dubbing exists? I know that in English-speaking nations dubbing has a bad reputation, but that's largely the result of the history of dubbing, not the technique itself. In the US and UK dubbing was usually done by small outfits with little previous experience, little equipment and shoestring budgets, or when done by a bigger distributor who did have more funding and expertise to spare still chose not to. So the results were the infamous Kung Fu movies, anime voiced by people who happened to be passing by during recording, or my favourite, a competent dub with experienced actors, but only five of them who have to voice 30 or more characters.

Simply put, even a middle size studio or distributor based in Hollywood has access to very good audio engineering equipment and a decent talent pool for voices. If hesitancy over reading was considered a serious barrier to the popularity of a property they acquired, then at least some of these companies would put more effort into dubbing. The German-speaking regions have excellent dubbing standards, to the point that several German friends were shocked and horrified to find out what Arnold Schwarzenegger's real accent was.

I'm also not convinced of charges of racism. I'm not saying the executives are on a personal level free of prejudice, I don't know them that well to make that judgement, but I just don't find the argument that American studios "Yankify" movies out of hostility to other cultures. It seems compelling just looking from the mid 2000s to the present, where the main victims of this mangling are Asian films, but American media does the same to European films and tv, including shows made by other English-speaking nations. Hollywood currently has a rotten reputation for its treatment of Asian cinema, in the UK it also has a similar reputation for how it handles British television, especially comedies.

So then, why are they doing this? Well, I think it's simply a case of intellectual property. The American studios and distribution companies own more of the Americanised version and can exploit it's profitably much more fully. If there is genuine reluctance to watch subtitled films and domestic box office trends  higher for the American remake* then this can play a part, but it's an added feature or bonus. I've never seen the American Ring and Grudge movies (remakes of two Japanese horror series) but I know they exist because I've seen trailers and adverts on the side of buses for them. So by remaking a popular foreign film, they (usually, though it depends on contract specifics) get a bigger slice of a commodity that's already proved its market viability and potential for profit.

So even if Americans finally "Learn how to fucking read" as several commenters wish, this annoying phenomena probably won't go away. It's not even unique to the USA, taking a popular foreign film, doing it again and casting locally is a staple of practically all film industries, including in nations where dubbing and subtitling are perfectly common practice. There's an Indian remake of Stephen King's Misery to pick just one example.

Sadly, if we want this annoying practice to end we'll have to abolish capitalism, that way films will only be remade if a film collective wants to do its own different take on the formula.

*I tried looking into it, and I could find cases for and against, couldn't find a trend either way.

London Anarchist Bookfair 2021

 

 

 This weekend I packed my bags and went down to London to visit a bookfair. It was interesting, it was unbelievably hot, I've known Egypt, Cyprus and the Cambodian wetlands and I didn't sweat nearly as badly. Thankfully there was a small park directly outside with trees and shade. I had to cool off multiple times. I decided to trek down to the London because one of my translations was being printed by Seditionist press, unfortunately the printing wasn't completed until that Friday night so it and a bunch of other books weren't available. A pity but I got to check out some interesting literature and talk to some other people about a couple of topics while trying not to melt. 

It was my first time going to the London Anarchist Bookfair, based on some comments by organisers this one was smaller than it usually is, due to disruptions such as COVID and the resignation of most of the original committee a few years ago. Still seemed pretty busy to me, it might be my hearing, but I felt the acoustics weren't very good in the hall, I often struggled to hear what people were saying to me, and they had issues understanding me. 

Hopefully it'll continue to grow and develop, at least this time as far as I'm aware there was no massive incident that becomes fodder for gossip all over the world. It seemed like that happened every year when I read the forums, you could tell when the London book fair had happened when a new thread would pop up and had a dozen pages of responses within 24 hours. I didn't see anything controversial happen, and I haven't seen any of the usual fall out, so I guess nothing happened when I left. 

Sunday was dedicated to workshops which were recorded and will be available to watch soon on the bookfair's Kolektiva account.

Obligatory merch photo

 

Oops! I have ADHD!

 

 video Link 

 

 

Popular youtube personality Thought Slime made a video on the subject of ADHD, and it had some special guests, including a very late just on time and just in keeping with the requirements segment by me. I think its one of the best visual depictions of living with ADD/ADHD*, multiple little bits and jokes are about things I go through every single day, and while on their own can seem small in combination which often happens and several times a day, which can often happen, on bad days these issues and tics can plague me multiple times an hour. I really appreciate TS's platform being used to give some frankly much needed awareness of this frankly constant struggle. That seem a little melodramatic and for me I have good days and bad days, but the bad days can be brutal. I meant to write this up immediately after watching the video because I mean what I say, I think it's a really, really good demonstration of some of the more common problems of life with ADHD. And by the comments of other suffers, this opinion is shared. But just didn't get around to starting it, as many things just cropped up. I don't even know if I'll finish it, I can easily see other things jumping ahead of the queue or embarrassment over fears of oversharing getting to me so that this stays in my drafts folder for years/forever. 

 I've also reached another problem, I'm not sure how to continue, I planned to write this on the 3rd, and had an entire outline worked out in my head, and could still remember it when I started working on this, but now that information is gone. Well, I guess it's time for improvisation, hopefully if you're reading this far you have watched the video, it details many of the common symptoms of ADHD and how they effect TS, though I guess it's important to make clear that these are not the only issues nor do they affect everyone equally or at all. I think in retrospect this was what drove the ADD/ADHD division in the past, since patients clearly demonstrated some but not others. The popular conception of someone with ADHD is essentially a looney tunes character who is incapable of sitting still and talks ridiculously fast. There are people who are like that sometimes, I myself am usually more physically sedate, but I've chewed my way through thousands of pen lids and pens, and worn holes in hundreds of shirts, snapped pens and pencils in half, rubbed the skin off my wrists and fingers and had been biting my nails till they bleed for years, though I've managed to stop that one three years ago. 

There are other manifestations of this nervous energy I wasn't aware of, I was once interrogated by a policeman on the street who assumed I was a recovering addict because I keep brushing my face, and apparently that's a tell. And several school and work colleagues thought I was quitting smoking (never started) because my movements are quite similar (apparently) to someone trying to kick nicotine.

But these are relatively minor issues for me, the internal issues can be much more challenging. Many of the contributors talked about executive dysfunction and how attention deficit often comes with its opposite, extreme abundance of attention. Difficulty making choices and committing to them even on minor choices can derail an entire and throw a schedule off permanently. Focus on one task no matter how random can have the same effect, there have been many times where I have spent most of a day on a project to the point where no other task is done, to the point where I've gone days without eating, I'm aware that my body is hungry, or that it's getting late, or I have something else that should be really important to do, but that awareness is still somehow distant and not really important at the time, whatever I'm focussing on must take priority. The kicker is that the only times I've seen this behaviour discussed it's either in anecdotes from other people's ADHD struggles or in horror fiction where it's used as an early warning that possession or dangerous obsession is developing. 

The guidelines for submission whereas follows 

 

 - Please email me (thoughtslimeeditor@gmail.com) a <=10 second video of you telling me something you wish more people knew about adhd - Please pretend you are speaking to me on the phone - Please use the subject line "ADHD video" - Please give me links to use in the description.
-Please introduce yourself and what you do in the video. -Feel free to do whatever jokes you want, or put your own spin on things.

Didn't feel comfortable recording myself for a video so went with a tape cassette as a sort of mock answer machine as that sort of fit in with the fake call remit. The difficulty for me was the time length, given that I'm supposed to introduce myself and what I do creatively and maybe tell a joke and my main gripe all in ten seconds seemed impossible. I guessed it was a soft limit but still the time was a bit of a barrier, so I boiled it down to "I wish people would listen to me, instead of immediately substituting what they think ADHD is and then interrogating me when that doesn't fit" but that was still to long, so I abbreviated it. 

With a longer window, there's a lot more I would've said, and I'm kinda doing some of this here. If I was making the video and had all the time in the world the video would never get done I'd probably talk about just how non-stop hostile "Normal" society is to people who think and act like myself. And how modern technology has made some of this more manageable while at the same time greatly exacerbating other issues. Virtually everything from strict behavioural standards, deadlines, services offers some challenge or potential stumbling block. The pressure just keeps building, and the really horrible thing is that much of that pressure comes from everyone else living what is for them perfectly normal lives. I do my best to cope** but there are times when I just need to drop out for a while and do something else and get away from interactions and obligations. But there aren't many jobs where you can do that and make enough to support your basic needs.

 This is why I'm constantly shifting from project, to hobby, to interest, making some headway then seemingly dropping them only to pick it back up at some point down the line. It's also the reason why I haven't let this blog die despite its clear shifts in focus, I've somehow managed to keep it going for over ten years, and it's become something of an anchor, but it's also become a bit of a map to my state, in addition to the content showing what I've been experiencing and the pace of my intellectual development like any other blogger, the topics it focuses on and the incredibly erratic pace of updates also show how well I'm keeping all these plates spinning in the air. And if you've read my stuff and were wondering, yes this is largely why they often have a strange and inconsistent style and switch from voices or jump back and forth, its also largely why I keep editing posts weeks after publishing.

The problems with my limited ability to put things into words and this tendency a lot of people have to just latch on to their, well, best guesses, has been a major issue for me for a good number of years. There has been some change though, back in the day when I said the scary combination of letters to explain something most people asked "what's that?" and then started jumping in once I started clumsily explaining. More recently, I usually get some variation on "how's that relevant?" or "you don't act like it, are you sure?" I don't know if that counts as progress. Although none of the other submitters matched mine in words (unless I missed one) I noticed a few of them were expressing similar issues. Most of them were essentially regrets that wider society only seem to have one mental picture of a person with ADHD and are completely ignorant of virtually every other issue it causes and way it manifests, even if they're incredibly serious.

I do sort of get it, as frustrating as it is, since many of these issues are internal, it can be incredibly difficult to explain to people who don't have these issues. The joke about not being able to see a water bottle when it's right in front of your face, is an example of a very common issue many, including myself, have with perception. And yet from personal experience trying to get people to understand that this is an issue is completely miserable. I can't speak for others, but for myself my eyes are fine, I can physically see the object, but I'm not registering that I'm seeing it, or in some cases I do register that I see the object, but my mind does not acknowledge that it is the object that I am looking for. I'm sure everyone can agree that this can be quite annoying, especially when you're in a hurry, and you've already spent a lot of time getting ready and have in fact double-checked. But it can be even worse, when this problem is noticed, usually, the assumption is that I have visual impairments or that I don't have a functional mind. Really not pleasant, and that's only one of the perception differences I have to neurotypicals, and they all have caused me no end of grief.

In fact, there's another fantastic video made by someone with ADHD that uses animation to try and better express what some of this is like.

video link

I think these two videos pair well, they show some similarities but a lot of differences of degree and kind. I was surprised how much of what TS's skateboard journey reminded me of my own life, I didn't find the jokes funny though, I found them clever, but they were often tied to some unhappy memories. Abigail's video is also very clever and also brings up some unpleasant memories. I was struck by the part about being a pilot of a plane but then realising you weren't even in the cockpit. I've had that feeling several times and I do not want to feel that way ever again but I'm sure its only a matter of time. I also thought the near constant background hum and tap, tap, tapping was inspired. Sometimes for me that's litteral even tiny disturbances can wreck my concentration, but there are times when absolute silence can be just as bad, exam conditions were a nightmare even when the school agreed there was an issue and allowed me to take them in rooms on my own. Solitary confinement is considered a form of torture for a reason.

This may seem depressing, but writing it feels really cathartic, I'll try to end on a sort of positive note. I was diagnosed when I was 16, it was a surprisingly pleasant experience and in addition to the diagnosis I got a recommendation letter for treatment and support. There was however a problem, this was 2006 in the UK. At that time not only was their a divide about ADD vs ADHD there was little to no understanding of either. In order to pursue treatment options (which barely existed) I had to go to a mental health professional, there were no ADD/ADHD specialists, and the only mental health institution in my area was the staff at a confinement ward. When I went to the appointment and explained my issue and showed the documents and GP referral, the Doctor didn't know what I was talking about, she not heard of this disorder. I attempted to explain and she started taking notes. The questions very quickly started to focus on violent delusions, and I noticed that she wasn't actually taking notes, she was checking off a list. She was determining whether I was a risk to myself or others, if I continued with this line of questioning and failed she could've sectioned me. So I ended the interview and essentially gave up trying to seek treatment or extra support. You might think I was overreacting, but at the same time in a neighbouring area a boy my age went to his mental health team in a similar institution for support for his Autism. Autism was also not widely understood at this time, he was sectioned and he has remained in that ward ever since, I know this because the campaign his family has been fighting to try to get him out has become notable as an example of how horrible are system is to people who aren't neurotypical.

Since then I've been getting by with stimming (behaviour that eases the pressures).  However the good news, there has been some increase in awareness in the public and the health system, there are more treatments available, and there are now some, but not many, ADHD specialists. And I'm now once again seeking some assistance. Unfortunately its still a low priority, there aren't that many specialists, and its well known amongst ADHD circles to be a lengthy and difficult process, oh and also COVID happened. 

So yeah, don't really have a way of ending this, I did remember what my first plan for this was three paragraphs ago, but just kept on going. The ending for that wasn't very good either though. So here's a final appeal to watch the two videos I've shared if you haven't already.

*The distinction between Attention Deficit Disorder ADD and Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder ADHD has changed over the years and where you are, and the attitudes of health professionals in your country or region. When I was first diagnosed ADHD was more commonly associated with North America with the UK favouring ADD and as far as the learning difficulties and disability support assessors were concerned the two were quite different. Nowadays, the consensus is more that they are the same thing really, so if a person is diagnosed or uses one label, the other applies too.

 

** After writing this, I've just realised that the increasingly common internet joke about cope and coping probably shows some lingering and unconscious hostility towards people with anxiety and emotional and behavioural struggles.