Giovanni Baldelli Quotes

Giovanni Baldelli was an anarchist theorist, best known for his 1971 work Social Anarchism which defines social anarchism and provides a framework for its introduction.

Social Anarchism was published originally by Aldine in the USA in 1971 and by Penguin in the UK in 1972. It has now been republished by Transaction Publishers and is readily available.

Giovanni Baldelli also wrote poetry, plays and philosophical works. Published poetry includes:

In French the collections "Quand l'aube se survit," "Chair à étoiles," "Proses et poèmes," "Le pied à l’étrier". In Italian the collections "Itinerario" and "All'ombra del gufo". In English "Seven Fugues".

Baldelli regularly wrote articles for anarchist journals, including the Italian publications "Internazionale" and "Volontà".

✵ 1914 – 1986

Giovanni Baldelli: 8 quotes0 likes

Famous Giovanni Baldelli Quotes

“Although many laws perpetuate advantages gained by antecendent violence and apply unequally to rich and poor, and although most are outwardly prohibitive and therefore negative, they rest on the positive basis of the will of most men to live peacefully together.”

Giovanni Baldelli

Source: Social Anarchism (1971), p. 14

“Anarchism is the purity of rebellion. A pig who struggles wildly and rends the air with his cries while he is held to be slaughtered, and a baby who kicks and screams when, wanting warmth and his mother's breast, he is made to wait in the cold—these are two samples of natural rebellion. Natural rebellion always inspires either deep sympathy and identification with the rebelling creature, or a stiffening of the heart and an activation of aggressive-defensive mechanisms to silence an accusing truth. This truth is that each living being is an end in itself; that nothing gives a being the right to make another a mere instrument of his purposes.”

Giovanni Baldelli

Source: Social Anarchism (1971), p. 1

“Rebellion presupposes the existence of oppression and, on the psychological plane, deification of rebellion creates an affective compact with oppression.”

Giovanni Baldelli

Source: Social Anarchism (1971), p. 7

“Chiefly responsible for the bad name of anarchism are the supporters of political power, but anarchists too have contributed by being vague and perfunctory concerning the social side of their doctrine and by frequently espousing the cause of rebellion without insisting on its social illumination. Antisocial impulses and practices may only too easily find in anarchism a pseudo-rational justification. For these reasons the adjective "social" is a useful addition to the word "anarchism"—in order to be truly anarchist one has to be social.”

Giovanni Baldelli

Source: Social Anarchism (1971), p. 6

“For the anarchist, rebellion is not only a statement of will but a statement of rightness and truth.”

Giovanni Baldelli

Source: Social Anarchism (1971), p. 2

“It is time to apply to the mystique of revolution the same critical intelligence that has been applied to the mystique of war.”

Giovanni Baldelli

Source: Social Anarchism (1971), p. 8

“It is fashionable to present hate and contempt for humanity as the exasperation and despair of compassion, but in that case rebellion should be against existence itself. When a man who is horrified by the basic evil of the world and his own existence, and who sees no God to rebel against, takes revenge on his fellow beings, he is a coward and a hypocrite. Perhaps the ugly, sordid, and horrifying things of which there is no end have always been produced by hypocritical and cowardly rebellion against existence, but that is not the rebellion of the social anarchist.”

Giovanni Baldelli

Source: Social Anarchism (1971), p. 7

“He who needs something to rebel against is less of a social anarchist than he who seeks to create something against which there is no need to rebel. There may be no end to the ugly, sordid, and horrifying things against which an honest man cannot help but revolt, but there are also things that are beautiful, joyful, and pure. If it were wrong to attend to the latter while the former still thrive, then a hopeless perpetual struggle would become the only meaning of life.”

Giovanni Baldelli

Source: Social Anarchism (1971), p. 7

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