 of social revenge. All this is used up; it
is no longer instructive as an object lesson in revolutionary anarchism. Every
newspaper has ready-made phrases to explain such manifestations away. I am about
to give you the philosophy of bomb throwing from my point of view; from the
point of view you pretend to have been serving for the last eleven years. I will
try not to talk above your head. The sensibilities of the class you are
attacking are soon blunted. Property seems to them an indestructible thing. You
can't count upon their emotions either of pity or fear for very long. A bomb
outrage to have any influence on public opinion now must go beyond the intention
of vengeance or terrorism. It must be purely destructive. It must be that, and
only that, beyond the faintest suspicion of any other object. You anarchists
should make it clear that you are perfectly determined to make a clean sweep of
the whole social creation. But how to get that appallingly absurd notion into
the heads of the middle classes so that there should be no mistake? That's the
question. By directing your blows at something outside the ordinary passions of
humanity is the answer. Of course, there is art. A bomb in the National Gallery
would make some noise. But it would not be serious enough. Art has never been
their fetish. It's like breaking a few back windows in a man's house; whereas,
if you want to make him really sit up, you must try at least to raise the roof.
There would be some screaming of course, but from whom? Artists - art critics
and such like - people of no account. Nobody minds what they say. But there is
learning - science. Any imbecile that has got an income believes in that. He
does not know why, but he believes it matters somehow. It is the sacrosanct
fetish. All the damned professors are radicals at heart. Let them know that
their great panjandrum has got to go, too, to make room for the Future of the
Proletariat. A howl from all these intellectual idiots is bound to help forward
the labours of the Milan Conference. They will be writing to the papers. Their
indignation would be above suspicion, no material interests being openly at
stake, and it will alarm every selfishness of the class which should be
impressed. They believe that in some mysterious way science is at the source of
their material prosperity. They do. And the absurd ferocity of such a
demonstration will affect them more profoundly than the mangling of a whole
street - or theatre
