Author: Kevin I. Slaughter

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The New En Marge

The New En Marge – Vol. 2 No.1

The Sidney E. Parker Archives announces it has released the second issue of its print only official newsletter: The New En Marge. This annual newsletter publishes photos and facsimiles of items from the life and work of Sidney E. Parker, as well as notices and articles about him and his work. We ask that the contents are not revealed online.

No photo description available.
Of the 66 copies of the new issue printed, approximately 50 were sent out to friends and supporters at the beginning of September, 2019.

There are only two ways to obtain The New En Marge:

1. Become a supporter of the Union of Egoists project at $9.99 per month or more on Patreon.

2. Send $3 US cash* and a mailing address to:
Union of Egoists
attn: En Marge
444 Maryland Ave. #7940
Essex, MD 21221

*Intl. customers please inquire.

Categories
Ephemera

Transcription of Paddy McGuinness’ book review of “Anderson’s Social Philosophy”

The following article was published in the Australian newspaper Financial Review of Friday September 28, 1979. A photocopy was in the Sidney E. Parker archives, and McGuinness was among one of the folks part of a London Union of Egoists that centered around Parker. Though this item is not by Parker (nor does it even mention him), as a part of his papers, and the work of a friend, we decided to transcribe it for the blog.

Anderson: grandfather of The Push

By P. P. McGuinness

Anderson’s Social Philosophy (the social thought and political lite of Professor John Anderson), by A. J. Baker; published by Angus and Robertson; hardback, $12.95; paperback, $7.95.

WHENEVER the very real differences in the intellectual climates of Sydney and Melbourne are discussed, the name of John Anderson inevitably comes into the argument.

Anderson, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Sydney from 1927 to 1958, exercised an influence on his students, and their contemporaries at Sydney University, which is still an important element in Australian intellectual life, and which is closely related to the more tough-minded approach to social and political issues by comparison with the attitudes more prevalent in Melbourne, sometimes characterised as “the politics of the warm inner glow.”

He was a controversial figure ail his life, making daring forays into public controversy and arousing the anger of the political and religious establishments, from the first major controversy in 1931, when he criticised “patriotism” as a way of suppressing freedom of thought, to his last clash in 1961 with Dr H. R. Gough, the then Anglican Archbishop of Sydney.

Throughout his career Anderson, although not a public controversialist by choice, was always concerned with contemporary issues of politics, social theory, literature, liberty and censorship. He had a couple of narrow escapes from actual dismissal from his Chair, and was even censured by the NSW Parliament. In every case, enlightened opinion supported Anderson’s position — but only afterwards.

He was also a philosopher of note whose work, even though he did not publish voluminously, is widely
known and respected throughout the English-speaking world. It was the force and cogency of his lecturing and writing in philosophy and social theory which are the basis of a still live influence.

There are many judges, lawyers, politicians, academics, journalists and professionals in ail occupations who are strongly influenced by Anderson’s ideas. Sometimes this influence was negative, as when religious youths going up to university were warned against attending his lectures.

Jim Baker, senior lecturer in philosophy at Macquarie University, has written the first book describing Anderson’s philosophy and chronicling his controversial influence. It is a short, clearly written book aimed at non-experts; as such it is an important contribution to Sydney’s intellectual history, and a useful introduction to some of the major areas of philosophy.

Baker documents the shift over time in Anderson’s political position. When he arrived in Sydney in 1927 he was a strong supporter of the Communist Party, but moved in the 1930s to Trotskyism, and thereafter experienced growing disillusion in the politics of the left, which he summed up in 1943 in a powerful essay, The Servile State.

In his old age he increasingly became identified with conservative positions, but as Baker makes clear he never abandoned his basic commitment to intellectual integrity, personal liberty, and the importance of free and unfettered inquiry. Nor did he lose his contempt for organised religion.

An important split took place in the ranks of those influenced by Anderson. The “left” Andersonians (of whom Baker was a leading representative) emphasized the radical element in his theories,
adopting a position close to anarchism, but devoid of utopianism; this was the Libertartan Society, often described as the “Sydney libertines,” since they anticipated by 20 or 30 years modern sexual mores.
The Libertarian Society, with its irregular duplicated publication The Libertarian Broadsheet, was the core of what became known as the Sydney “Push”, which spread Anderson’s ideas very widely throughout the artistic and literary community in Sydney (and Canberra). It was the true home of Sydney’s bohemia.

The “right” Andersonians, many of them now prominent (net the least being Sir John Kerr) emphasised Anderson’s hatred of communism and his disillusionment with social reformism. A number of essays by admirers of Anderson of this persuasion were published in Quadrant of September, 1977, celebrating the 50th anniversary of his arrival in Sydney.

Baker does not debate the merits of the two strands (although his own commitment is clear), but confines himself to expounding Anderson’s views.

Whatever the practical conclusions drawn from them, there is no doubt that Anderson held the beginnings of the modem irrational Marxist religion, the educationists who clutter up the universities, whatever their persuasion, and the vast overexpansion and debasement of tertiary education, in contempt.

He is one of the great figures of contemporary Australian history, who single-handed did more to establish an atmosphere of genuine academic independence and fearless opposition to orthodoxy than any other academic. lt is a pity that it did not survive him.

Categories
The New En Marge

The New En Marge – Vol. 1 No.1

The Sidney E. Parker Archives announces it has released the first issue of its official newsletter: The New En Marge. This annual 16 page newsletter will publish photos and facsimiles of items from the life and work of Sidney E. Parker. The contents are not to be revealed online.

There are only two ways to obtain The New En Marge:

1. Become a supporter of the Union of Egoists project at $9.99 per month or more on Patreon.

2. Send $2 US cash* and a mailing address to:
Union of Egoists
attn: En Marge
444 Maryland Ave. #7940
Essex, MD 21221

*Intl. customers please inquire.

Categories
Ephemera Union of Egoists

En Marge: The Occasional Newsletter of the Sidney E. Parker Archives

Later this year I will be launching a newsletter for the Sidney E. Parker Archives. It will take the name of Sid’s “occasional viewsletter”, and last journal En Marge.

The format is yet to be determined, but it will be an informal, print only newsletter. It will be only a few pages, and will be published as time permits, just as Sid’s own En Marge was. I do not expect that we will publish more than twice a year.

The point of the new En Marge is to share some ephemera, news items of note and progress of the archive.

There are two ways to receive the first issue of En Marge:

  1. Become a backer of the Union of Egoists project on Patreon at a rate of at least $9.99 a month and when the first issue is released, you will get it.
  2. Send $2 cash to:
    Union of Egoists
    Attn: En Marge
    444 Maryland Ave. #7940
    Essex, MD 21221
Categories
Criticism

A review of “Anarchism and Individualism” by Donald Rooum from Anarchy, December 1962

The following essay by Donald Rooum is a review of Anarchism and Individualism, Three Essays from Anarchy, December 1962. Rooum, most famous for his “Wildcat Anarchist Comics”. Years later in an essay titled Anarchism and Selfishness (The Raven, vol. 1, n. 3, Nov. 1987), Rooum said “The most influential source is Max Stirner. I am happy to be called a Stirnerite anarchist, provided ‘Stirnerite’ means one who agrees with Stirner’s general drift, not one who agrees with Stirner’s every word.” Rooum was inclined to merging his Stirner with Anarcho-Communism, and he and Parker would be at odds in this.

The Ethics of Egoism

Anarchism and Individualism, three essays by E. Armand; published by S. E. Parker, 75 Cotswold Road, Bristol 3; 1s. or 25 cents. Available Freedom Press.

EMILE ARMAND, IN HIS YOUTH, joined the Salvation Army. Then he studied Tolstoy and became a Christian anarchist. Finally, still in his youth, he became an anarchist individualist, and so remained until he died, at the age of 90. I am told by one learned in such matters, a Freudian could deduce, from the above facts alone, that Emile Armand had a strong father fixation. This gives me the confidence to voice a speculation of my own, formulated while I was reading a new pamphlet of translations from his work.

I reckon he shared, with many saints of several religions, a profound longing to define what was admirable in human behaviour, and make this the pattern of his own behaviour. The strict moral code was what attracted him to the Sally Bash. He resigned to become a Christian anarchist when Tolstoy showed him how quasi-military ritual actually hindered strict ethical behaviour. And finally, when the study of Stirner and Nietzche showed him that external moral forces also hindered personal responsibility, he gave up Christianity itself.

The essays in Sid Parker’s pamphlet are translated by three different writers and taken from two different periodicals. But all of them are on the subject of ethics. (The essay from Resistance, titled ‘The Future Society’ is about ‘the future humanity that individualists want’.) Instead of a mere memorial to a prolific anarchist writer, Parker has assembled a coherent and timely work on anarchism as a way of life.

Armand was a thorough-going anarchist; an honest believer in individual aspiration as the source of social harmony; one of those referred to by Bob Green in ANARCHY 16 as, ‘the egotistic (sic) anarchists whose declared over-riding concern is with Number One’. His ‘individualism’ was synonymous with Stirner’s ‘conscious egoism’, and the ‘egoism in sense 2’ which the Shorter Oxford Dictionary defines as; ‘Ethics. The theory which regards self-interest as the foundation of morality. Also, in practical sense; regard to one’s own interest, systematic selfishness.’

‘Our kind of individualist’, he wrote, ‘recognizes as a motive nothing outside himself.’ Presumably he preferred the word ‘individualism’ because ‘egoism’ is so easily confused with ‘egoism in senses 1, 3 and 4’ (to say nothing of ‘egotism’), besides being open to deliberate misrepresentation.

There would appear to be a section of self styled anarchists who have taken over from the authoritarian socialists, who in turn adopted it from the Christians, the equation of selfishness with cynical sensuality. These are the woolly-minded anarchists who think the egoist doesn’t give a damn for anyone else. They might be surprised to find Armand. who openly ‘recognizes as a motive nothing outside himself’, boasting that ‘our conception of comradeship raises itself like a lighthouse to remind the world that there are still persons capable of resisting the seductions and gross appetites of our philistine society’. Yet he shows quite clearly how self-interest leads to propaganda and the practice of mutual aid:

‘Tending to live his own individual life at the risk of clashing intellectually, morally and economically with his environment, the anarchist individualist tries to create in the same environment, by means of selection, individuals who like himself are free from the prejudices and superstitions of authority, in order that the greatest possible number of men may actually live their own lives, uniting through personal affinities to practise their conceptions as far as possible. As individuals of his own “species” increase, so the power of environment over his own life diminishes’.

That ‘the egoist is more willing and eager than the humanist to give free reign to his aggressive impulses’ is clearly shown to be a misunderstanding; and the question of how Armand’s anarchist would choose ‘given a clear choice between personal happiness and the happiness of others’ is one which cannot arise. Were any man so ‘niggardly of heart’, so lacking in common sympathy as to be aware of such a choice, ‘he would feel himself incomplete’, and could not be an egoist. For the egoist must feel self-sufficient.

‘This explains his plan for freeing his world of useless and avoidable suffering. He knows that this is possible when one prefers agreement to struggle, abstention to the unlatching of actions dictated by bitterness, animosity or spite.’

Armand admits the existence of ‘armchair Nietzcheans or weekend Stirnerites’ whose conception of egoism does not include a strict code of personal integrity, but he rejects them:

‘The individualist as we know him abominates brutes, cretins, schemers, rogues, twisters, skunks and so forth, no matter with what ideology they wish to conceal themselves.’

The integrity he wants, however, is strictly a matter of self-interest, quite different from submission to collective morality.

‘The anarchist regulates his life not according to the law, like the legalists, nor according to a given collective mystique like the religious, the nationalists or the socialists, but according to his own needs and personal aspirations. He is ready to make the concessions necessary to live with his comrades or his friends, but without making an obsession of these concessions …

‘Instead of postponing individual happiness to the socialist or communist calends, he extols his present achievement of it by proclaiming the joy of living …

The anarchists go forward, and by living for themselves, these egoists, they dig the furrow, they open the breach through which will pass the unique ones who will succeed them.’

Categories
Ephemera

WANTED: Minus One No. 18

The Sidney E. Parker Archives has an almost complete run of Minus One and Ego. While some of our issues could be in better shape, we’re completely missing an original copy of number 18, issued for May, 1967. While we are lucky that John Zube committed it (and many other issues) to microfiche, and have been able to create scans to put online, we’re looking to archive original copies of as much of his work as possible.

At some point we will be creating a master list of things the archive is missing, but this issue of Minus One is the most apparent. We are willing to pay the cost of shipping and handling on any donated SEP letters, publications or other items, but any additional cost will need to be negotiated. Please contact us if you have anything you’re willing to part with.

Categories
Ephemera

Sid Parker lectures “Democracy and Other Delusions” in 1987

A neat small “Lecture Programme” from October-December 1987 of the Leicester Secular Society. It details that Sidney E. Parker gave a talk in the topic “Democracy and Other Delusions: A Critical Look at Some Modern Sacred Cows.”

Categories
Union of Egoists

Libertarian Microfiche Index of S.E. Parker

The Libertarian Microfiche Project is an important source of material for this project and the parent Union Of Egoists project. Many items assumed lost were found there, and what is below is the fill index of S.E. Parker material indexed by John Zube that can be found in his microfiche.

No individual or institution in Europe or America has a full set of this microfiche and we are trying to raise funds to procure one. Please find out more here.

From “P-Q“

PARKER, S.E., Ego & Society, 6pp, in PP 1423: 26.

PARKER, S.E., Einfuehrung zu Badcock, Sklaven der Pflicht, 5 S., 24x, in PP 283-285.

PARKER, S.E., Enemies of Society, 1967, 4pp, in PP 1420/22: 267.

PARKER, S.E., In Defence of Social Pessimism, 2pp, in PP 1420/22: 67.

PARKER, S.E., In Defence of Social Pessimism, 2pp: 59, in PP 1465, in reply to Francis Ellingham.

PARKER, S.E., Individualism and the FREEDOM ASSOCIATION, 2pp, in PP 1420/22: 499.

PARKER, S.E., Individualism, Anarchism & the Police, 2pp, in PP 1420/22: 71.

PARKER, S.E., Individualist Anarchism, an outline, 4pp, 1965, 29x, in PP 386. – 2pp, in PP 1420/22: 34 & 46.

PARKER, S.E., Individualist-Anarchism, 2pp, in PP 1420/22: 11.

PARKER, S.E., Individualistischer Anarchismus, 3pp, 24x in PP 281.

PARKER, S.E., Introduction and note to Ragnar Redbeard, 7pp, in PP 1113.

PARKER, S.E., Introduction to Badcock’s Slaves to Duty, 4pp, in PP 897. With notes by James J. Martin.

PARKER, S.E., Introduction to E. ARMAND, 3pp: 188, in PP 501.

PARKER, S.E., Letter from the editor of EGO, with Jim Stumm’s reply on egoism, 1p, in PP 1318/1319: 190.

PARKER, S.E., Libertarian Broadsides & Individualist Sorties, 4pp, in PP 1420/22: 321.

PARKER, S.E., More Attacks on St. Max, 2pp, in PP 1420/22: 341.

PARKER, S.E., Nietzsche – Antichrist? 4pp, in PP 1423: 10.

PARKER, S.E., On Revisiting “Saint Max”, 4pp, in PP 1423: 29.

PARKER, S.E., Ragnar Redbeard and the Right of Might, 5pp: 16, in PP 1505. – Ibid : A Note on Ragnar Redbeard (Arthur Desmond): 14.

PARKER, S.E., Review of AVRICH, PAUL, Voltairine de Cleyre, 2pp, in PP 1420/22: 493.

PARKER, S.E., Review of: BOETIE, ETIENNE DE LA, Discours de la Servitude Voluntaire, in English & French, Ralph Myles edition, 2pp, in PP 1420/22: 411.

PARKER, S.E., Review of: DETTMEYER, DIEDERICK, Max Stirner: Etudes, documentes reunis and presentees, 1p, in PP 1420/22: 505.

PARKER, S.E., Review of: HOPKINS, BILL, The Leap, 1p on the book by what P. calls an inconsistent individualist, in PP 1423: 34.

PARKER, S.E., Review of: LABADIE, LAURENCE, Selected Essays, introduced and with appendices by James J. Martin: 1p, in PP 1420/22: 507.

PARKER, S.E., Review of: MARTIN, JAMES J., Men Against the State, 1p, in PP 1420/22: 123.

PARKER, S.E., Review of: RILEY, THOMAS A., Germany’s Poet-Anarchist: John Henry Mackay, 4pp, in PP 1420/22: 366.

PARKER, S.E., Review of: ROBINSON, JEFF, Anarchism & Modern Society, a pamphlet published by Parker, 1p: 47, in PP 1465.

PARKER, S.E., Review of: ROBINSON, JEFF, The Unavoidable Crisis, pamphlet, in PP 1420/22: 129.

PARKER, S.E., Review of: SARGENT, LYMAN TOWER, Contemporary Political Ideologies, 1p, in PP 1420/22: 103.

PARKER, S.E., Review of: SOLNEMAN, K.H.Z., John Henry Mackay – the Unique, 1p, in PP 1420/22: 494.

PARKER, S.E., Reviews, of SPOONER, LYSANDER, Vices are not Crimes & of MARTIN, JAMES J., The Saga of Hog Island & Other Essays in Inconvenient History, 2pp, in PP 1420/22: 480.

PARKER, S.E., Revolution, Individualism & Stephen Halbrook, 3pp, in PP 1420/22: 107.

PARKER, S.E., Sociolatry, 1p., in PP 1312/1314.

PARKER, S.E., Some Notes on Anarchism & the Proletarian Myth, 2pp from THE MATCH, in PP 274: 148.

PARKER, S.E., Some Notes on Anarchism and the Proletarian Myth, 1973, 2pp, 29x, in PP 484. (I seek a full set of his MINUS ONE for filming. J.Z.)

PARKER, S.E., Some Notes on Anarchism and the Proletarian Myth, 2pp, in PP 274.

PARKER, S.E., Some Slings and Arrows, 2pp: 37, in PP 1465.

PARKER, S.E., St. Max & the Critics, 2pp, in PP 1420/22: 130.

PARKER, S.E., Stirner on Education, 2pp, in PP 1420/22: 299.

PARKER, S.E., Stirner, Marx & Fascism, 3pp, in PP 1420/22: 509.

PARKER, S.E., The Morality of Co-Operation, 2pp, in PP 1420/22: 205. – There are almost endless varieties of cooperation. Too many anarchists tend to discuss only the pro and con of the senseless ones. – J.Z.

PARKER, S.E., The Myth of Morality, 6pp, in PP 1423: 53.

PARKER, S.E., The Poet and the Bogeyman: Or, the Case of Holbrook vs. Stirner, 3pp, in PP 1420/22: 465 & 472.

PARKER, S.E., Three European Anarchist Individualists, Some Notes on Armand, Martucci & Novatore, 3pp: 90, in PP 501.

PARKER, S.E., to Michael E. Coughlin, 2pp, Summer 78, 29x, in PP 243.

PARKER, S.E., Two Egoists: WILLIAM J. BOYER, 1904-1988 & STEPHEN MARLETTA, 1907 – 1989, 4pp, in PP 1423: 51.

PARKER, S.E., Untitled, 2 pages comment on Sargent’s review of Goldwater & Buckley, in PP 1420/22: 198.

PARKER, S.E., Victor Serge and Ego Anarchism, 2pp, in PP 1420/22 : 116.

PARKER, S.E.,Malfew Seklew – the Jester Philosopher of Egoism, 2pp, in PP 1420/22: 385.

From “Supplementary M-Q“

PARKER, S.E., Archists, Anarchists and Egoists, 3pp, in PP 1618: 34.

PARKER, S.E., Comment to Ken Knudson, 2pp, in PP 1618: 83.

PARKER, S.E., Malfew Seklew – The Jester Philosopher of Egoism, 2pp, in PP 1610: 57.

PARKER, S.E., Minus One, 2pp, in PP 1610: 41 & 44.

PARKER, S.E., On Revisiting “Saint Max”, 2pp, in PP 1618: 65.

PARKER, S.E., Preface, 1p, in PP 1618: 68. On Stirner & other egoists. – Note that NON SERVIAM Nos. 13 & 14 do together contain the last issue of Sid Parker’s EGO, whose part is now taken over by NON SERVIAM.

PARKER, S. E., See: LEFEVRE, ROBERT, Morality vs. Egoism, and exchange between Robert LeFevre and S.E. Parker in MINUS ONE, issues 20 & 21, dated Oct-Dec. 1967, 4pp, in PP 1680: 150, from the archives of THE MEMORY HOLE. – MINUS ONE has been fiched by LMP, either completely or nearly so, in several batches, as they became available. – J.Z.

PARKER, S.E., Sociolatry, 1p: 16, in PP 1564.

PARKER, S.E., Some Reflections, 2pp, in PP 1610: 50. – Unsigned, but, I suppose, by him. – J.Z.

PARKER, S.E., The Egoism of Max Stirner, 2pp, in PP 1618: 53.

PARKER, S.E., Three comments on your article “The Union of Egoists” which appeared in NON SERVIAM, 1p, in PP 1618: 97.

PARKER, S.E., to LABADIE, LAURANCE & ROSEMAN, HERBERT, n.d., 2pp, (47), in PP 1723/24: 290.

PARKER, S.E., to LABADIE, LAURANCE, June 20, 1962, 1p, in PP 1723/24: 376.

PARKER, S.E., to LABADIE, LAURANCE, May 16, 1962, 1/2p, in PP 1723/24: 375.

PARKER, S.E., Wm. Flygare (1916-1997), paragraph, biographical, in PP 1618: 98.

Categories
Ubi Sunt

Call for stories/reminiscences…

Sidney E. Parker was en marge, an outsider. His life was not that of a clean hero, but a troubled thinker and long time small publisher whose views slowly change over time.

While working on UnionOfEgoists.com I discovered that many people who knew Sid did not know he had died. Because of his troubled home-life, there was no announcement made in the papers, or even a funeral. Because of this, I don’t know that I’m aware of any written memorials to him by any of his peers or those he’d influenced. I would like to change that.

If you knew S.E. Parker, or were influenced by his writing, I’d appreciate hearing from you. I would like to gather and post memorials of any length. Please use the contact page to get in touch.