1982, January 7 – Letter from David Miller of Australia

7 Jan, 1982

Dear Syd,

I have posted you Pessimist No. 2 by sea mail. This particular issue is for distribution at Existentialist meetings. It contains a reprint, “Existentialism and Irrationalism” which I used as an introductory pamphlet, a few years ago.

With the next issue of The Pessimist (No. 3) I hope to introduce Individualist viewpoints to the Existentialists. It will contain a lengthier article by John Williams, “Statism, Authoritarianism, and Libertarianism,” which comments on Corporate Capitalism, Marxism, and Anarchism. Following that will be your comments on Pessimist No. 1. If it’s ok with you I would like to follow your comments with your “Individualist Anarchism: An Outline.”

In future issues of The Pessimist, I would very much like to include material from back issues of Minus One, with acknowledgments of course. Would this be ok with you? I have also made the same request to the Sydney Libertarians for Broadsheet and Heraclitus.

It is great that Mackay’s book has been translated into English. It’s a pity that the Marxists havn’t translated Helm’s book, as it would create an opportunity for polemics; Saint Max is useless as nobody reads it. It’s also a pity that Oxford University Press havn’t brought out a paperback edition of Paterson’s book.

The numbers attending the Existentialist meetings vary depending on topic, speaker, and weather. Usually 40 to 60. At our last meeting we had about 100, mainly because the speaker is Professor at the University Faculty which conducts the courses in Existentialism. A month previously at my talk on Stirner we had about 30. Some of the Anarchists attended and handed out their literature. One of them had read Stirner, and after hearing me talk about the London Individualist Anarchists and Minus One, he asked for your address. I didn’t prepare any notes for my talk. I mainly followed the subject headings as listed in the first two-thirds of Paterson’s book; plus a section on ‘Stirner and Fascism,’ using John Carroll’s introduction to The Ego and His Own. His introduction and some of his following footnotes annoyed me enough for me to consider writing about them for Minus One sometime in the future. In the talk I made mention of Carroll’s claim in Breakout that Stirner was a precursor of Freud, but I didn’t elaborate because I couldn’t remember what was in the book. Clark’s book irritated me; I may write for Minus One about that too.

Yours,
(David Miller’s Signature)