The Selected Prose of Fernando Pessoa by Fernando Pessoa

Author:Fernando Pessoa [Pessoa, Fernando]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Grove Press
Published: 2011-01-05T16:00:00+00:00

“There were other young men who shared my views. Most, but not all of them, were workers. All of us, in any case, were poor, and as far as I can remember there were no dummies among us. We were eager to know and learn, and we wanted to spread our ideas. For ourselves and for others—for all humanity—we wanted a new society, free from all the prejudices that make people artificially unequal by imposing on certain ones an inferiority, poverty, and suffering that Nature had no part in. The things I read confirmed me in these opinions. I read all the cheap libertarian books then available, and there were quite a few. I went to the lectures and rallies of the social idealists of the day. And each book I read, each speech I heard, convinced me all the more of the fairness and Tightness of my ideas. What I thought then—I repeat, my friend—is what I think today. The only difference is that back then I merely thought it, whereas today I think and practice it.”

“Okay. I follow you up to this point. I understand why and how you became an anarchist, and I can see that you most definitely were one. I don’t need any more proofs of that. What I want to know is how a man with your views could become a banker and not feel any contradiction.... Actually, I think I can guess—”

“Well guess again. I know what you were going to say. Given the arguments I’ve just set forth, you supposed that I found anarchism to be an unattainable goal, leaving bourgeois society as the only fair and defensible alternative. Right?”

“Yes, that’s more or less what I figured.”

“But how could that be when, ever since we started this discussion, I’ve insisted that I am an anarchist, that I not only was one but continue to be one? If I’d become a banker and businessman for the reason you supposed, I’d be bourgeois, not an anarchist.”

“True. But then—how on earth can ...? Go on, explain yourself.”

“I’ve always been basically clear thinking, as I told you, and I’ve always been a man of action. These are natural qualities. They weren’t given to me in the cradle (if I even had a cradle); I had them when I came into the world. Due to these qualities, I couldn’t stand to be a passive anarchist, to just go and listen to speeches and to talk about anarchism with friends. No: I had to do something! I wanted to work and to fight on behalf of the oppressed and the victims of social conventions! Having decided to do whatever I could do, I thought about how I could be useful to the libertarian cause. I started to lay out my plan of action.

“What does the anarchist want? Freedom. Freedom for himself and for others. Freedom for all humanity. He wants to be free from the influence and pressure of social fictions. He wants to be just as free as when he came into the world and as he has every right still to be.

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