Kropotkin's "Anarchist Morality"

[speck]

Could someone please clarify this--

"To enrich oneself, to seize one's opportunities, to exhaust
one's intelligence, zeal and energy, no matter how,
become the watchwords of the comfortable classes, as
well as of the crowd of poor folk whose ideal is to appear
bourgeois."

thanks

[speck]

Come on... someone?

[Tjis]

I'll quote it with a bit more context.


And by that habit of submission, with which we are only too familiar, the
thought of the next generation retains this religious twist, which is at once servile
and authoritative, for authority and servility walk ever hand in hand. During
these slumbrous interludes, morals are rarely discussed. Religious practices and
judicial hypocrisy take their place. People do not criticize, they let themselves
be drawn by habit, or indifference.They do not put themselves out for or against
the established morality. They do their best to make their actions appear to
accord with their professions.
All that was good, great, generous or independent in man, little by little
becomes moss-grown; rusts like a disused knife. A lie becomes a virtue, a
platitude a duty. To enrich oneself, to seize one’s opportunities, to exhaust
one’s intelligence, zeal and energy, no matter how, become the watchwords of
the comfortable classes, as well as of the crowd of poor folk whose ideal is to
appear bourgeois. Then the degradation of the ruler and of the judge, of the
clergy and of the more or less comfortable classes becomes so revolting that the
pendulum begins to swing the other way.


So Kropotkin argues here that all that is good in us is overridden by society's programming. "To enrich oneself, to seize one's opportunities, to exhaust one's intelligence, zeal and energy, no matter how" is this programming. Instead of cooperation, society teaches us to constantly compete with others, just like the bourgeois does. In fact, this morality says that this is the only way to become successful (= become part of the bourgeois). This is in their interest of course. People that compete with each other because they aspire to be just like the bourgeois are way less dangerous than people who work together in order to overthrow the bourgeois.

[speck]

I'll quote it with a bit more context.


So Kropotkin argues here that all that is good in us is overridden by society's programming. "To enrich oneself, to seize one's opportunities, to exhaust one's intelligence, zeal and energy, no matter how" is this programming. Instead of cooperation, society teaches us to constantly compete with others, just like the bourgeois does. In fact, this morality says that this is the only way to become successful (= become part of the bourgeois). This is in their interest of course. People that compete with each other because they aspire to be just like the bourgeois are way less dangerous than people who work together in order to overthrow the bourgeois.

Thank you, that was helpful. Any idea what Kropotkin means by "religious twist"? These 2 paragraphs are a bit elusive.

[Tjis]

more context.


A child's spirit is weak. It is so easy to coerce it by fear. This they do. They make the child timid, and then they talk to him of the torments of hell. They conjure up before him the sufferings of the condemned, the vengeance of an implacable god. The next minute they will be chattering of the horrors of revolution, and using some excess of the revolutionists to make the child "a friend of order." The priest accustoms the child to the idea of law, to make it obey better what he calls the "divine law," and the lawyer prates of divine law, that the civil law may be the better obeyed.

And by that habit of submission, with which we are only too familiar, the thought of the next generation retains this religious twist, which is at once servile and authoritative; for authority and servility walk ever hand in hand.

The religious twist refers to the first paragraph.

[speck]

Yeah, I simply don't quite understand why is it a "twist" and why is it religious (that is, making the boy accept the general idea of laws which must be obeyed).