Anarcho-naturism

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Anarcho-naturism, also referred to as anarchist naturism and naturist anarchism, appeared in the late 19th century as the union of

individualist anarchist circles[7] in Spain,[8] France,[5][9] Portugal[10] and Cuba.[8][11]

Anarcho-naturism advocates

nudism, hiking and an ecological world view within anarchist groups and outside them.[2][6] Anarcho-naturism also promotes an ecological worldview, small ecovillages, and most prominently nudism as a way to avoid the artificiality of the industrial mass society of modernity.[2] Naturist individualist anarchists see the individual in their biological, physical and psychological aspects and try to eliminate social determinations.[2]

History

Early influences

An important early influence on anarchist naturism was the thought of Henry David Thoreau,[5] Leo Tolstoy[2] and Élisée Reclus.[12]

self-sufficiency were Thoreau's goals, and the whole project was inspired by transcendentalist philosophy. "Many have seen in Thoreau one of the precursors of ecologism and anarcho-primitivism represented today in John Zerzan. For George Woodcock this attitude can be also motivated by certain idea of resistance to progress and of rejection of the growing materialism which is the nature of American society in the mid-19th century."[2]

France

For the influential French anarchist Élisée Reclus, naturism "was at the same time a physical means of revitalization, a rapport with the body completely different from the hypocrisy and taboos which prevailed at the time, a more convivial way to see life in society, and an incentive to respect the planet. Thus naturism develops in France, in particular under the influence of Élisée Reclus, at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th century among anarchistic communities resulting from utopian socialism."[12]

In

Federico Urales (pseudonym of Joan Montseny) promoted the ideas of Gravelle and Zisly in La Revista Blanca (1898–1905).[15]

Richard D. Sonn comments on the influence of naturist views in the wider French anarchist movement:

In her memoir of her anarchist years that was serialized in Le Matin in 1913,

gymnos, meaning nude. This back-to-nature, primitivist current was not a monopoly of the left; the same interests were echoed by right-wing Germans in the interwar era. In France, however, these proclivities were mostly associated with anarchists, insofar as they suggested an ideal of self-control and the rejection of social taboos and prejudices.

— Richard D. Sonn, [16]

Henri Zisly

Henri Zisly (born in Paris, November 2, 1872; died in 1945)

naturist.[13] He participated alongside Henri Beylie and Émile Gravelle in many journals such as La Nouvelle Humanité and La Vie Naturelle, which promoted anarchist-naturism. In 1902, he was one of the main initiators, alongside Georges Butaud and Sophie Zaïkowska, of the cooperative Colonie de Vaux established in Essômes-sur-Marne, in Aisne
.

Zisly's political activity, "primarily aimed at supporting a return to 'natural life' through writing and practical involvement, stimulated lively confrontations within and outside the anarchist environment. Zisly vividly criticized progress and civilization, which he regarded as 'absurd, ignoble, and filthy.' He openly opposed industrialization, arguing that machines were inherently authoritarian, defended nudism, advocated a non-dogmatic and non-religious adherence to the 'laws of nature,' recommended a lifestyle based on limited needs and self-sufficiency, and disagreed with vegetarianism, which he considered 'anti-scientific.'"[13]

Spain

This relationship between anarchism and naturism was quite important at the end of the 1920s in Spain:[1]

The linking role played by the Sol y Vida group was very important. The goal of this group was to take trips and enjoy the open air. The Naturist athenaeum, Ecléctico, in Barcelona, was the base from which the activities of the group were launched. First Etica and then

Iniciales, which began in 1929, were the publications of the group, which lasted until the Spanish Civil War. We must be aware that the naturist ideas expressed in them matched the desires that the libertarian youth had of breaking up with the conventions of the bourgeoisie of the time. That is what a young worker explained in a letter to Iniciales. He writes it under the odd pseudonym of silvestre del campo (wild man in the country). "I find great pleasure in being naked in the woods, bathed in light and air, two natural elements we cannot do without. By shunning the humble garment of an exploited person, (garments which, in my opinion, are the result of all the laws devised to make our lives bitter), we feel there no others left but just the natural laws. Clothes mean slavery for some and tyranny for others. Only the naked man who rebels against all norms, stands for anarchism, devoid of the prejudices of outfit imposed by our money-oriented society."[1]

anarcho-communism alongside naturism as a solution.[18]

This ecological tendency in Spanish anarchism was strong enough as to call the attention of the CNTFAI in Spain. Daniel Guérin in Anarchism: From Theory to Practice reports:

Spanish anarcho-syndicalism had long been concerned to safeguard the autonomy of what it called "affinity groups." There were many adepts of naturism and vegetarianism among its members, especially among the poor peasants of the south. Both these ways of living were considered suitable for the transformation of the human being in preparation for a libertarian society. At the Saragossa congress the members did not forget to consider the fate of groups of naturists and nudists, "unsuited to industrialization." As these groups would be unable to supply all their own needs, the congress anticipated that their delegates to the meetings of the confederation of communes would be able to negotiate special economic agreements with the other agricultural and industrial communes. On the eve of a vast, bloody, social transformation, the CNT did not think it foolish to try to meet the infinitely varied aspirations of individual human beings.

Cuba

The historian Kirwin R. Schaffer in his study of

anarcho-communism and anarcho-syndicalism.[11] Naturism offered a global alternative health and lifestyle movement. Naturists focused on redefining one's life to live simply, to eat cheap but nutritious vegetarian diets, and to raise one's own food if possible. The countryside was posited as a romantic alternative to urban living, and some naturists even promoted what they saw as the healthful benefits of nudism. Globally, the naturist movement counted anarchists, liberals, and socialists as its followers. However, in Cuba a particular "anarchist" dimension evolved led by people like Adrián del Valle, who spearheaded the Cuban effort to shift naturism's focus away from only individual health to naturism having a "social emancipatory" function."[11]

Schaffer reports the influence that anarcho-naturism had outside naturist circles. So "[f]or instance, nothing inherently prevented an anarcho-syndicalist in the Havana restaurant workers' union from supporting the alternative health care programs of the anarcho-naturists and seeing those alternative practices as 'revolutionary.'".

back-to-the-land" movement, they used these romantic images of Nature to illustrate how far removed a capitalist industrialized Cuba had departed from an anarchist view of natural harmony."[11] The main propagandizer in Cuba of anarcho-naturism was the Catalonia born "Adrián del Valle (aka Palmiro de Lidia)...Over the following decades, Del Valle became a constant presence in not only the anarchist press that proliferated in Cuba but also mainstream literary publications...From 1912 to 1913 he edited the freethinking journal El Audaz. Then he began his largest publishing job by helping to found and edit the monthly alternative health magazine that followed the anarcho-naturist line Pro-Vida.[11]

Other countries

Naturism also met anarchism in the United Kingdom. "In many of the alternative communities established in Britain in the early 1900s nudism, anarchism, vegetarianism and free love were accepted as part of a politically radical way of life. In the 1920s the inhabitants of the anarchist community at Whiteway, near Stroud in Gloucestershire, shocked the conservative residents of the area with their shameless nudity."[3]

In Italy, during the IX Congress of the Italian Anarchist Federation in Carrara in 1965, a group decided to split off from this organization and created the Gruppi di Iniziativa Anarchica. In the seventies it mostly comprised "veteran individualist anarchists with a pacifism orientation, naturism, etc,...".[4]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c Ortega, Carlos (Winter 2003). "History: Anachy and Naturism". Naturismo.org Magazine. Madrid Naturist Association. Retrieved 2016-07-11.
  2. ^ a b c d e f Roselló, Jose Maria (2005), "El Naturismo Libertario (1890–1939)" (PDF), Cuaderno de Pensamiento, no. 4, archived from the original (PDF) on 2016-01-02
  3. ^ a b Terry Phillips. "Nudism the radical tradition". Archived from the original on 2012-09-11.
  4. ^ a b "El movimiento libertario en Italia". Archived from the original on 2013-10-12. Retrieved 2013-08-31.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  5. ^ a b c d Díez, Xavier (1 April 2006). "La insumisión voluntaria: El anarquismo individualista español durante la Dictadura y la Segunda República (1923–1938)" (PDF). Germinal: 41. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-06-18.
  6. ^ a b Ytak, Cathy (2000). "Anarchisme et naturisme, aujourd'hui". Naturisme et Anarchisme (in French). Archived from the original on 2007-06-09. Retrieved 2016-07-14.
  7. ^ [4][5][6]
  8. ^
    ISSN 1665-4420
    . Retrieved 2016-07-13.
  9. ^ Armand, E. (2006). "Recension des articles de l'En-Dehors consacrés au naturisme et au nudisme". Naturisme et Anarchisme (in French). Archived from the original on 2008-10-14. Retrieved 2016-07-14.
  10. ^ Freire, João (2002). "Anarchisme et naturisme au Portugal, dans les années 1920". Les Anarchistes du Portugal. Confédération nationale du travail.
  11. ^
    ISBN 0813027918. Archived from the original
    on 2016-03-05. Retrieved 2011-05-06.
  12. ^ a b "The pioneers". Archived from the original on 2012-10-25. Retrieved 2013-10-11.
  13. ^ . Retrieved 2016-07-11.
  14. ^ "The daily bleed". Archived from the original on 2016-07-01. Retrieved 2015-05-20.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
  15. ^ Morán, Agustín (12 June 2011). "Los origenes del naturismo libertario" [The origins of Libertarian Naturism]. La Garbancita Ecologica (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 2011-06-12. Retrieved 2016-07-14.
  16. .
  17. ^ Henri Zisly page; from the Daily Bleed's Anarchist Encyclopedia Archived 2012-10-05 at the Wayback Machine
  18. ^ a b c d e Isaac Puente., El Comunismo Libertario y otras proclamas insurreccionales y naturistas (PDF)
  19. ^ Iñiguez, Miguel (2004). Anarquismo y naturismo: el caso de Isaac Puente. Asociación Isaac Puente.
  20. . Retrieved 2016-07-13.
  21. .

Further reading

External links