Altruism is the other side of the coin of ‘hell-is-other-people’; only this time mystification appears under a positive sign. Let’s put an end to this old soldier crap once and for all! For others to interest me I must first find in myself the energy for such an interest. What binds me to others must grow out of what binds me to the most exuberant and demanding part of my will to live; not the other way round. It is always myself that I am looking for in other people; my enrichment, my realization. let everyone understand this and ‘each for himself’ taken to its ultimate conclusion will be transformed into ‘all for each’. The freedom of one will be the freedom of all. A community which is not built on the demands of individuals and their dialectic can only reinforce the oppressive violence of power. The Other in whom I do not find myself is nothing but a thing, and altruism leads me to the love of things, to the love of my isolation.

Seen from the viewpoint of altruism, or of solidarity, that altruism of the left, the sentiment of equal- ity is standing on its head. What is it but the common anguish of associates who are lonely together, humiliated, fucked up, beaten, deprived, contented together, the anguish of unattached particles, hop- ing to be joined together, not in reality, but in a mystical union, any union, that of the Nation or that of the Labour Movement, it doesn’t matter which so long as it makes you feel like those drunken evenings when we’re all pals together? Equality in the great family of man reeks of the incense of religious mystification. You need a blocked-up nose to miss the stink.

For myself, I recognize no equality except that which my will to live according to my desires recog- nizes in the will to live of others. Revolutionary equality will be indivisibly individual and collective.

- Raoul Vaneigem