Introduction: Hedonism Is a Bunker

Abstract

The Russian-American anarchist Emma Goldman (1869–1940) is famous for castigating a young comrade who thought that her enthusiasm for dancing was inappropriate ‘for an agitator’. He had insisted that such behaviour was ‘frivolous’ and that her obvious enjoyment was unbefitting a figure such as her: revolution and dance, for this earnest young anarchist, did not mix. Goldman, however, was furious and responded with what has become one of her most famous statements. In her autobiography, Living My Life, she explained that joy was a vital part of her radicalism:

I did not believe that a Cause which stood for a beautiful ideal, for anarchism, for release and freedom from conventions and prejudice, should demand the denial of life and joy. I insisted that our Cause could not expect me to become a nun and that the movement would not be turned into a cloister. If it meant that, I did not want it. ‘I want freedom, the right to self-expression, everybody’s right to beautiful, radiant things.’ Anarchism meant that to me, and I would live it in spite of the whole world — prisons, persecution, everything. Yes, even in spite of the condemnation of my own closest comrades I would live my beautiful ideal. (Goldman, 2006, p. 42)