Explore "Moribund Society and Anarchy" by Jean Grave on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
It is upon the contention that "man is too evil to know how to govern himself," that authoritarians base their justification of the power they wish to establish. "Power is necessary to reform mankind" is the reply to the Anarchists when they speak of establishing a society based upon solidarity, entire equality, and absolute autonomy for the individual, without authority, rule, or constraint. "Man is evil. " Undoubtedly! But may he become better, and may he become worse? Is any change in his present condition possible, either for good or ill? Can he be improved or deteriorated physiologically and morally? And if evolution in one sense or another be possible (as history proves that it is) does the heritage of ancient laws, the harness of old institutions, tend to make men better, or do they help to make him worse? The answer to this question will tell us which of the two, modern man or the social state, must be reformed first.
Nowadays no one denies that the physical environment has an enormous influence upon the physiological constitution of man; now, with still greater reason the intellectual and moral environment must influence his psychological constitution.