The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 11: AntepenultimataBierce, Ambrose
General
The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 11: Antepenultimata
Bierce, Ambrose
American essays; American literature
Of course the words “coöperation” and “competition” are not here used
in a merely industrial and commercial sense; they are intended to cover
the whole field of human activity. Two voices singing a duet—that is
coöperation—Socialism. Two voices singing each a different tune and
trying to drown each other—that is competition—Anarchism: each is a
law unto itself—that is to say, it is lawless. Everything that ought to
be done the socialist hopes to do by associated endeavor, as an army
wins battles; Anarchism is socialist in its means only: by coöperation
it tries to render coöperation impossible—combines to kill combination.
Its method says to its purpose: “Thou fool!”
II
Everything foretells the doom of authority. The killing of kings is
no new industry; it is as ancient as the race. Always and everywhere
persons in high place have been the assassin’s prey. We have ourselves
lost three presidents by murder, and shall doubtless lose many another
before the book of American history is closed. If anything is new in
this activity of the regicide it is found in the choice of victims. The
contemporary “avenger” slays, not the merely “exalted,” but the good
and the inoffensive—an American president who had struck the chains
from millions of slaves; a Russian czar who against the will and work
of his own powerful nobles had freed their serfs; a French president
from whom the French people had received nothing but good; a powerless
Austrian empress, whose weight of sorrows had touched the world to
tears; a blameless Italian king beloved of his people; such is a part
of the recent record of the regicide, whose every entry is a tale of
infamy unrelieved by one circumstance of justice, decency or good
intention.
This recent uniformity of malevolence in the choice of victims is not
without significance. It points unmistakably to two facts: first, that
the selections are made, not by the assassins themselves, but by some
central control inaccessible to individual preference and unaffected
by the fortunes of its instruments; second, that there is a constant
purpose to manifest an antagonism, not to any individual ruler, but to
rulers; not to any system of government, but to government. The issue
is defined, the alignment made, the battle set: Chaos against Order,
Anarchy against Law.
III
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