Anarchism Café Racer

Radosław Antonów Anarchism Cafe Racer Radosław Antonów Anarchism Cafe Racer Radosław Antonów Anarchism Cafe Racer Syców 2018 Reviewer Prof. dr hab. Marek Maciejewski Translation from Polish to English Iwona Wilcox Editor RadosławProof-reading Antonów EditingCover design Group Aleksandra Snitsaruk, from the concept of Radosław Antonów. Photo on the cover presents the technological process of creating the image presented in the photo,Collage described design in the chapter entitled “About the Cover”. Aleksandra Snitsaruk, from the concept of Radosław Antonów. The collage includes pictures by Radosław Antonów. Specific description of the photographic materialDTP and can layout be found in “About the Cover” chapter. Aleksandra Snitsaruk The book was first published in Polish by DILIGENTIA publishing house in 2017. © Copyright by Radosław Antonów, Wrocław 2018 ISBN 978-83-947989-1-8 Publisher DILIGENTIA Printwww.diligentia.pl Beta Druk www.betadruk.plInformation and orders www.radoslawantonow.com [email protected] Online http://www.repozytorium.uni.wroc.pl/publication/95597 DOI 10.23734/23.18.001 Table of Contents 7 10 Doctrines and Exhausts: Or, in Lieu of an Introduction 13 An Untimely Closure: Or, the Way It Is Bound to End 14 Prelude 18 Upon Thus Cultivating Science 27 Why the Motorcycle and Anarchism? 30 Explication of Anarchism by Proudhon, Bakunin and Kropotkin 38 BikerPolitical, Social and Cultural Entanglement of the Motorcycle 43 Motorcycle as a Symbol of Freedom and a Machine of its Actualization 48 51 Black Motorcycle Jacket 53 Why Café Racer? 57 Can One Thus Handle the Doctrine of Anarchism? 69 What Will We need? 71 Why Transformation and not Creation? 77 Is It feasible? How to Do It? 84 On Using Machines in Building Anarchism Café Racer 88 The Year 1979 90 The Joy of Destruction Is Also the Joy of Creation 90 A Controlled Destruction or a Creative Construction 90 Destruction 92 Construction 94 From No Logo to New Logo 95 The Engine 97 Two Sections: Headlight and Rear End 100 Punishment 107 Prospects 111 TankThe Colours of the Motorcycle Anarchism Café Racer 113 Mirrors: a Desire for Luxury 115 The State TABLE OF CONTENTS 5 130 135 Revolution 143 SaddleFreedom 145 On Doing the Emblems on the Tank 148 149 The First Technical Reflection 151 The First Theoretical Reflection 152 The Second Technical Reflection 153 The Third Technical Reflection 155 The Last Technical Reflection 157 How Was the Book Written? 158 About the Cover 159 In Lieu of the End 162 Your Password: For Those Who Want to Build a Motorcycle Bibliography Doctrines and Exhausts: Or, in Lieu of an Introduction Throughout the nineteenth, twentieth and twenty-first centuries anarchism has aroused and continues to arouse considerable emotion. The nineteenth century saw it associated with terrorism, but since the mid-twentieth century and continuing into theare first years of the new millennium its predominant links have been to youth countercul1 - ture and subculture. Pierre Joseph Proudhon, Mikhail Bakunin and Peter Kropotkin among the most prominent thinkers of this nineteenth-century doctrine. In historical sequence, the Frenchman and the two Russians created an unprecedented view of the world, a world in which the institution of the state did not exist, and every man – perceived as basically good – deserved to enjoy completely unrestricted freedom and prosperity. Every publication, not merely the scientific one, bears an introduction; a harbinger of what will be included2 (and not included) in one’s work. In some senses, this introduction is a Confession – I am already drawing on the anarchists’ oeuvres in evoking the title of one of Mikhail Bakunin’s writings – for the Reader, intended to provide a satisfactory explanation as to for what reason and why, at all, should his or her mind be preoccupied with this topic, and what is to be gained from reading the text. Apart, of course, from the serious fact (this being written with a twinkle in my eye) that I will be the owner of yet another 3motorcycle, or I should rather say, a custom bike, the aim of my work in biker slang is “to build a machine” manifesting – or perhaps it would not be excessive at this point to use the term “exemplifying” – the tenets of the doctrine of classical anarchism with its ideas and attempts that sought to transform1 those tenetsPod czarnym into sztandarem.reality in the Anarchizm mid-nineteenth w Polsce po 1980century. roku Za wolnością – przeciwko państwu. Poglądy współczesnych polskich anarchistów See R. Antonów , Wrocław 2004, pp. 17– 2 136; idem, Spowiedź (Confession), Pisma wybrane , Toruń 3 Biker2012, – pp. a motorcycle 7–67. rider Dictionary of Biker Slang Biker Slang: Motorcycle Lingo M. Bakunin, [in:] idem, , vol. I, Warszawa 1965, p. 502 ff. , , , at: https://axlead- dict.com/motorcycles/Biker-Lingo (accessed September 8, 2016); “a biker” in biker slang is a mo- torcyclist, often a member of a motorcycle gang. See http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/ english/biker (accessed August 17, 2016). DOCTRINES AND EXHAUSTS: OR, IN LIEU OF AN INTRODUCTION 7 Another aim of the book, doubtless essential from the scientific standpoint, will be to present, and in some cases even to verify empirically, the anarchists’ views on la- bour, progress, mutual aid, industrial development and the rationale behind the introduction of machines into industry. At this point it ought to be stressed that the author willAnarchism not merely Café write Racer a book while designing the motorcycle Anarchism Café Racer. He will also perform certain technical tasks involved in its actual construction. is a disquisition on how the doctrine, which can inspire a man to build a social system in all its minute details – in anarchism, the first precept is to Anarchismdestroy all Caféstate Racer institutions and second to create a human-friendly stateless system – can also inspire a man to turn ideas into steel, aluminium, horses, speed and exhausts. is as much a book as it is a motorcycle, a custom bike, a “machine” which visually and technically departs from all the mass-manufactured4 motorcycles. To be sure,5 this is the exact opposite of the “silent motor bicycles,” evoked by David Ogilvy in his dismissal of billboards erected across the picturesque landscapes of the 4 , No Logo. No Space, No Choice, No Jobs N. Klein , [Polish edition] Warszawa 2014 p. 37. At this point let me recall Ogilvy’s words, for one can discern parallelism between the question posed in the assertion and certain facts reported at the end of the nineteenth century, linked to anarchist activity. In 1963 Ogilvy stat- ed his views as follows: “As a private person, I have a passion for landscape, and I have never seen one im- proved by a billboard. Where every prospect pleases, man is at his vilest when he erects a billboard. When I retire from Madison Avenue, I am going to start a secret society of masked vigilantes who will travel around the world on silent motor bicycles, chopping down posters at the dark of the moon. How many juries will convict us when we are caught in these acts of beneficent citizenship?” As already mentioned, let me refer at this point to Ogilvy’s last sentence or rather a rhetorical question, whether a court convic- tion would actually be secured for such a criminal act. A certain analogy suggests itself here regarding the events associated with anarchist activity and which took place in Russia in 1878. At that time VeraKrólobójcy Zasu- lichKing attempted Slayers to kill Fiodor Fiodorowitch Trepoff, a Russian general. She was, however, acquitted for her attempt on the life of the “savage satrap,” as he is referred to by Wiesław Sclawus (W. Sclawus, ( ), second supplemented edition, Lviv, 1906, p. 252), for the court found that her motives had been strictly human as she had sought to protect those on whom the general had inflicted pain. The attempt “occurred on the fifth of February 1878 becoming a battle cry for the fight of the red terror against the white terror” (ibid., p. 253). Peter Kropotkin recalled: “A young girl, Vera Zasulich […] took a revolver, went to the chief of police, and shot at him. Trepoff was only wounded. Alexander II came to look at the heroic girl, who must have impressed him by her extremely sweet face and her modesty. Trepoff had so many enemies at St. Petersburg that they managed to bring the affair before the common-law jury, and Vera Zasulich declared in court that she had resorted to arms only when all means for bringing the affair to public knowledge and obtaining some sort of redress had been exhausted. Even the St. Petersburg cor- respondent of the London “Times” had been asked to mention the affair in his paper, but had not done so perhaps thinking it improbable. Then without telling anyone her intentions, she went to shoot Trepoff. Now that the affair had become public, she was quite happy to know that he was but slightly wounded. The jury acquittedMemoirs her unanimously, of a Revolutionist, and when the police tried to rearrest her, as she was leaving the court house, the young men of St. Petersburg, who stood in crowds at the gates, saved her from their clutches.” (P.A. Kropotkin, Lwow 1903, p. 444). It is therefore quite plausible that Ogilvy 5 is not that much mistaken in believing that the court might show someConfessions leniency in of the an Advertisingcases decided Man on the grounds of legal-natural law, so to speak, overriding the positive but a blind law. David Ogilvy, the founder of an advertising agency Ogilvy&Mather, , 1963, see N. Klein op, cit., p. 37. 8 DOCTRINES AND EXHAUSTS:OR, IN LIEU OF AN INTRODUCTION No Logo The New York Times USA.

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