# 48. John Henry Mackay's Development

#### I

Since the publication of his poem “Sturm” in 1888, *John Henry Mackay* has been called the “first singer of anarchy”. In his book “Anarchisten” (1891), which describes the social currents of the late 19th century in a way that is more transparent, comprehensive and based on a deep knowledge of the cultural factors of our time than any other book, he emphasized that he was proud of this name. And he has every right to be proud of it. For through him, the world view that is capable of freeing man from the fetters that prejudice and violence have imposed on him for thousands of years has found its poetic expression. What it means that he has put his poetic power at the service of this world view can be seen from the words with which he introduces his “cultural portrait from the end of the century: The Anarchists”. “In no other area of social life is there such a hopeless confusion, such a naive superficiality, such a dangerous ignorance as in the area of anarchism. The mere uttering of the word is like waving a red flag - in blind rage, most people rush at it without taking the time to calmly examine and consider it.” The anarchist's conviction is nothing other than that one person cannot rule over the thoughts, desires and feelings of another, that only a state of communal life can be fruitful in which each person is able to determine the direction and goal of his or her own actions. Until now, everyone thought they knew what was good for everyone in the same way. And they wanted to organize community life in such a way that the “ideal of man” that they had in mind would be achieved. But how can Hinz know whether it is right for Kunz to realize the “ideal of man” that Hinzianism considers to be the “truly ideal”? Religion, the state, laws, duty, justice, etc. have come about because Hinz believed he had to tell Kunz how he – Kunz – could achieve his goal. Hinz has thought of everything for Kunz, except for one thing: that if Hinz shows Kunz the way to his happiness, he takes away from Kunz the opportunity to take care of his own happiness. But that is precisely what anarchism wants to do: to make Hinz realize that he will best take care of Kunz if he lets him be happy in Kunz's way, not Hinz's.

J. H. Mackay has given this view a beautiful expression in the poem “Anarchy” (on p. 444 of this collection):

> Always reviled, cursed – never understood,  
> you have become the nightmare of this age —  
> They call it the dissolution of all order,  
> you are and struggle and never-ending murder.
> O let them scream! - To them who never sought
> To find the truth behind a word,
> The true meaning of the word is also denied.
They will remain blind among the blind.
> But you, word, so clear, so strong, so pure,
> That says everything I strive for restlessly,
> I give you to the future! - It is yours,
> When everyone finally awakens to themselves.
> Will it come in the sun's rays? — In the roar of the storm?
> I don't know - ... but it appears on earth! —
> “I am an anarchist!” - ‘Why?’ - ”I do not
> not rule, but also not be ruled!» —

It is sad that it has to happen: But it is necessary to say it again and again that true anarchism has nothing to do with the ridiculous behavior of those unfortunate and unclear fellows who seek to overcome the current social order by force. No, this “anarchism” is nothing more than the docile pupil of these same social institutions, which have always sought to make people understand their ideals of “religion, nationality, state, patriotism, law, duty, right, etc.” through inquisition, cannon and prison. The true anarchist is opposed to all measures of violence, even those that impudently claim the title of “anarchism.”

True anarchism wants the same opportunity for the free development of the personality. And there is no greater restriction of the personality than to try to teach it by force what it should be. II

It is not my intention here to refute the objections of all the clever people who regard this avowal of the anarchists as a “pious belief” and point out that the whole of political economy demonstrates the refutation of this belief. Anarchism has a large body of literature that builds its economic foundation better than the advocates of state socialism or any other form of socialism are able to do for theirs. One need only read Tucker's excellent writings to be convinced of this.

But it is not the foundation of true anarchism that interests me here, but *J.H. Mackay's* position within it.

It is a stroke of luck of the first magnitude that this anarchistic world view has found a singer in Mackay. It may be left to future ages to judge what the enthusiastic and inspiring poems of this man have contributed to the world view of the future. But it behooves us to say that this man, who has undergone difficult and rare struggles to rise to the anarchist confession, should not be taken one-sidedly as a “poet”. *John Henry Mackay* is a cultural factor within the current development of the European intellectual life. And he has every right to say of the volume of his poems under discussion here: “More than once a sentimentality, a self-deception, an exuberance has elicited a smile from me as the pen went through the pages, changing a word here and there - but always only a single one on purpose - into another. But this volume represents a development, and for that very reason, arbitrary gaps should not be torn into its independently created structure, quite apart from the fact that it was the desire to give a complete picture of this development that this edition owes its existence to in the first place. Therefore, the stronger may try to hold the weaker or the one may fall with the other – in any case, the claim should appear fair to the discerning: that a whole person may demand to be taken as a whole.»

In a future essay, I will show to what extent this statement is justified, especially in the case of J. H. Mackay.

It is the energetic struggle of a strong personality that is expressed in J. H. Mackay's “Gesammelte Dichtungen”[^1]

We are confronted with the noble sensibilities of a man who can only be satisfied when he has reached the height of human existence, where he can feel his own worth as clearly as possible. The highest nobility of the human soul does not lie in a humble, devoted attitude. It lies in the proud awareness that one cannot place oneself high enough. People with such a consciousness feel the great responsibility that the personality has towards itself. They do not want to omit anything that is suitable for developing all the wealth of their talents. For them, human dignity consists in the fact that man must give himself his own value, his own meaning. Humble, devoted natures seek an ideal, a deity that they can worship and adore. For they feel, by their very nature, small and want greatness to be given to them from outside. They do not feel that man is only the pinnacle of nature when he makes himself into one. Their estimation of the world is not the highest. Those who choose a hero “to whom they work their way up the paths to Olympus” ultimately value existence as being of little worth. Those who feel the obligation to make the most of themselves so that their essence contributes to the general value of the world, value it more highly. This obligation is the source of the self-respect of noble natures. And it is also the source of their sensitivity to any foreign intervention in their own self. Their own self wants to be a world unto itself so that it can develop freely from within. Only from this sacred regard for one's own personality can the esteem for the foreign ego also arise. Those who want the possibility of free development for themselves cannot even think of interfering in the world of the foreign personality. And with that we have given the anarchism of noble natures. They strive for this world view out of inner, spiritual necessity.

We follow the path of such a nature in J. H. Mackay's poetry. Only people with a deep soul and fine sensibilities follow this path. It is their nature to see everything in its true greatness. That is why they are also allowed to seek the greatness of their own self. It is true that proud natures usually grow out of a sentimental mood of youth. That they become effusive when they express their feelings towards things. And this sentimentality, this exuberance, is a feature of Mackay's youthful poetry in abundance. But it would be a sad state of affairs for a youth that could not be sentimental, not exuberant. For in such a disposition of mind it is announced that man will recognize the true meaning of things in his later development. He who does not see things in their romantic splendor in his youth will certainly not see them in their truth later. The great things in the world will only escape us if our soul's eye is not attuned to their greatness. But such a disposition leads people in their youth to see things in a more ideal light than they really radiate. And when we can feel with Mackay when he says: “I do not love this youth. It was not cheerful, not free enough, not open enough,” we feel no less his other words: ‘But I have respect for it, for its tireless struggle, its silent self-confidence and its lonely struggle.’ It is precisely the exuberance of youth that gives him the right to feel self-sufficient today. A self-confidence that does not arise from such a disposition inspires us with little confidence. Only those who feel the need to see the world as something lofty and worthy of veneration will have the strength to seek the valuable within themselves. A sober youth will develop into a maturity that underestimates things; an exuberant youth will develop into a true appreciation of the whole world.

This is how Mackay's later, self-liberated nature is foreshadowed in his youthful poetry. His descriptions of nature show his tendency to see things in the light of greatness. When he sings of Scotland's mountains in his first poem, “Children of the Highlands”, it sounds like a demand of the later life ideal:

> Like a virgin untouched,  
> never seduced by love,  
> To give herself to a man  
> and to bow her head,  
> So proud and stiff, so powerfully strong,  
> Her noble limbs full of marrow,  
> And never faltering in her courage  
> In silent splendor Mull rests island.

A poem such as “Über allen Wipfeln” seems to us to have been inspired by a true piety that has the need to be everything to the world that it can be. The poet wrote it during a visit to Ilmenau, in memory of the feelings that Goethe's soul experienced in the same place:

> Are these the paths? And you may walk them  
> Is that not great, unnameable happiness?  
> And do you not feel how the breath of these winds  
> carry you back to that distant time?  
> - You think - and silently you walk the old tracks;  
> A song hovers on your lips - a song!  
> You feel the melancholy, how it gently, gently  
> once surrounded him – and now surrounds you too.

Anyone who can feel the greatness and beauty of the world in this way also has the full right to speak the words that we encounter in Mackay's “Storm” (1888) in later years:

> I lift myself up! - Above the others  
> Rises high and free my proud self!  
> How long has it taken - after how long a journey?  
> until I finally found myself!  
> Now I wander alone. The world seems different to me  
> The world since I no longer give myself to it:  
> No laughter laughs to me, and no weeping weeps to me,  
> I am no longer a “one” - only I am I!  
> I know nothing more today of that delusion,  
> the last that forced me into its yoke:  
> The flag that is called love fell from the tired hand  
> is called love. - You laugh? Crush me, then!

Anyone who has been able to appreciate the world will also respect the part of the world that he himself is allowed to work on, if it is worthy of appreciation: his own self.

The depth of Mackay's empathy with every human personality is demonstrated by the deeply moving poem “Helene”. It describes a man's love for a fallen girl. If you follow the human ego into such depths, you will also gain the certainty of finding it on the heights.

The only thing that is justified about the belief in God is the human feeling that is inherent in it, which strives for a saint. Only a person who has the need for holy, pious feelings also has the right to atheism. Anyone who denies God only because he does not have the urge for the holy, his atheism appears stale and superficial. One must be capable of being pious, according to one's disposition: then one may be content with the de-divinized world. For one has not simultaneously eradicated the greatness of the world with the divine. What great religious sentiment lies in Mackay's poem “Atheism”.

> Perhaps when once the weary eyes break,  
> When the dark night of death descends,  
> That a prayer then my lips speak,  
> that never in life the mind had thought.
> Perhaps that I depart with a lie  
> from a being that has only known truth,  
> When I suffer the last pains of life  
> in fear and night and madness bound.
>
> Then my spirit succumbed; then my will broke!  
> Then reason fled! - But if I can,  
> Then the last cry, the shrill one, will still be heard,  
> Then the last beat of the heart will still proclaim:  
> “I never believed in a God above,  
> The liar or the fool only give us. I die – and I know of nothing to praise  
> Perhaps only one: that we live only once!"

We are born into a world that wants to sweep us away with its eternal waves. The thoughts and will of those who came before us live on in our blood. The ideas and power of those around us exert countless influences on us. In the midst of all the hustle and bustle around us, we become aware of our own selves. The more we manage to take the rudder of our life into our own hands, the freer we are. The man who presents us with his poems here strove for such self-liberation. And he considers it his good fortune that he has found himself:

> O world, how far you are!  
> I am drawn over your mountains.  
> But time, the minion, holds me back.
>
> O man, how small you are!  
> you can only lift yourself up high  
> When you have learned to live only for yourself.
>
> O illusion, how great you are!  
> I never gave myself to you,  
> And I conquered the fate of silence.
>
> My ego, you raise your head!  
> You were a child and became a warrior.  
> He who always believed in himself remains the victor!

This poem from the last part of the “Collected Poems” from the “Strong Year” expresses the attitude of a person who has found himself.

It is from such feelings that a deep resentment of a social order arises that seeks the salvation of the world in erecting all possible barriers around man. The poet Mackay wages war with such an order, the noblest, bloodless war, which fights only with the one weapon that brings people to recognize their true nature. For such a war is nourished by the belief that people free themselves to the extent that they feel the need for their freedom.

> A dog is one that knows a master!  
> But we are not masters and we are not servants!  
> impudent insolence dares to call  
> another man, who has the same rights  
> as he once had in the cradle of life!  
> — Let everyone see if he can walk,  
> But no one should be so dog-like as to bend  
> His knee in fear of another man.
> Let every man's forehead be raised equally high,  
> Whether it be poor or rich!  
> I will have my right, you may praise yours:  
> For me, for you, for all it is the same...
> (Collected Poems, $. 445)

Mackay may be quiet when others call him a poet of tendency, because as an artist he expresses a world view. Whose whole personality is so intertwined with this world view as his, he expresses it like another person expresses the feeling of love that he feels. For whoever has fought for a world view expresses it as his own being. And truly, it is no less worthy to express humanity's deepest thoughts and feelings than the inclination towards women or the joy of the green forest and the singing of birds.

We see the creator of the great cultural painting “The Anarchists” growing in the volume before us. Those who want to get to know him, how he struggled to realize the ideas in which he sees the liberation of humanity, should reach for these “Collected Poems”. They will feel that clarity is born out of suffering and disappointment. But they will also see the great path of liberation that alone brings man the self-satisfaction that can establish his happiness.

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[^1]: . Unfortunately, the title of the book discussed here was omitted in the first part of this essay. I am adding it here: “Gesammelte Dichtungen von John Henry Mackay. Mit der Photogravure des Dichters” (Zurich and Leipzig, Karl Henckell & Co).