Without a goal by Zo d’Axa

Zo d’Axa, De Mazas a Jérusalem. Chamuel, Paris, 1895; Translated: for marxists.org by Mitchell Abidor; CopyLeft: Creative Commons (Attribute & ShareAlike) marxists.org 2004.

“Wait a minute then,” people say, “what is their goal?”

And the benevolent questioner suppresses a shrug upon noting that there are young men refractory to the usages, laws and demands of current society, and who nevertheless don’t affirm a program.

“What do they hope for?”

If at least these nay-sayers without a credo had the excuse of being fanatics. And no, faith no longer wants to be blind. They discuss, they stumble, they search. Pitiful tactic! These skirmishers of the social battle, these flagless ones are so aberrant as to not proclaim that they have the formula for the universal panacea, the only one! Mangin had more wit...

“And I ask you: what they seeking for themselves?”

Let’s not even talk about it. They don’t seek mandates, positions or delegations of any kind. They aren’t candidates. Then what? Don’t make me laugh. They are held in the appropriate disdain, a disdain mixed with commiseration.

I too suffer from that underestimation.

There are a few of us who feel that we can barely glimpse the future truths.

Nothing attaches us to the past, but the future hasn’t yet become clear.

And so we carry on, as misunderstood as foreigners, and it’s both here and there, it’s everywhere that we are foreigners.

Why?

Because we don’t want to recite new catechisms, and we especially don’t want to pretend to believe in the infallibility of doctrines.

We would need to possess a vile form of complacency to admit a group of theories without reserve. And we are not that complacent. There has been no Revelation. We are keeping our enthusiasm virgin for a fervor. Will it come?

And even if the final term escapes us, we won’t skimp on our work. Our era is a transitional one, and the free man has his role to play.

Authoritarian society is odious to us, and we are preparing the experiment of a libertarian society.

Uncertain of its results, we nevertheless long for the attempt, the change.

Instead of stagnating in this aging world where the air is heavy, where the ruins crumble as if to bury us, we hasten to the final demolition.

To do so is to hasten a Renaissance.