SPOILER ALERT. This post contains a reference to a minor plot point near the end
of Watchmen, so if you haven't read the novel or watched the movie yet, go read
the novel! (Do NOT watch the movie first. The special effects are cool, though.)

This is an unsolicited opinion, and not necessarily the best-informed opinion, either. Ai can neither speak nor write Castilian, and my ability to read it or understand it when it is spoken is extremely limited at best, so let’s just acknowledge that right away.

A friend gave me a copy of the The Collected Communiques of Individualists Tending Toward the Wild in late 2012. The book, produced by Plain Words, is exactly what it sounds like. It comprises the first six communiqués released by Individualidades tendiendo a lo salvaje (ITS), an entity that made quite a splash with its Unabomber-inspired parcel bomb attacks against specific individuals in Mexico, namely those that are seen to be most responsible for helping to progress the conquest of wilderness by civilization. These communiqués were translated from Castilian into English by War On Society (WOS). It also contains five appendices, one of which is a chronology of relevant events in Mexico from December 2010 to January 2012, and the other four being communiqués or statements that were also released over the course of 2011, three of them by entities in Mexico and one of them by an entity in Chile. On top of all that, there is an introduction by Plain Words and a note on the translation by WOS. This note on the translation, or at least part of it, is what interests me.

Over half of the note is dedicated to what WOS calls “translation decisions that are worth mentioning”, and three out of the four paragraphs about these decisions are dedicated to the name of the entity itself. “Among the thousands of words penned by the group,” WOS writes, “their name remains the most difficult to translate.” Each of the three paragraphs is focused on a different part of the name: first, the word «individualidades», then «tendiendo a», then finally «lo salvaje». For the first part and the last part, the reasoning is provided for the choice about why the specific English terms “individualists” and “the wild” were used in the translated title, while for «tendiendo a», it is simply explained that the reader should keep in mind that the Castilian original doesn’t convey the wishy-washyness that the English word “tending” might seem to imply. In the end, WOS opts for “Individualists Tending Toward the Wild” as an appropriate translation.

Ai take less issue with the use of the English term “the wild” for the Castilian original «lo salvaje» than WOS itself seems to. Apparently ITS’ use of «salvaje» instead of the alternative «silvestre» might seem to imply an identification with the violent and chaotic aspect of wild nature; as a result, WOS says that it is “probably erring on the side of too much softness” with its use of the word “wild” instead of “savage”, a choice that WOS says is motivated by a desire to avoid “the racial connotations” of the word “savage”. For me, though, ai think the use of the term “the wild” would be appropriate even if we set aside the concerns about the offensive connotations of the word “savage” in English. It would be confusing as all fuck to speak of “individualists tending toward the savage”; we would probably be better off to speak of “tending toward the ferocious”, but then we’d be getting into even more tenuous territory. Another alternative is to speak of “tending toward savagery”, but then ITS’ name would probably incorporate either the word «salvajismo» or «salvajada», which are more direct Castilian correlates to “savagery”.

Ai do take issue, though, with the transformation of the Castilian «individualidades» into the English “individualists”. WOS acknowledges in its note on translation that the Castilian «individualidades» does not actually correspond with the English “individualists”; the actual term would be «individualistxs» (using the common style of feminization in Castilian that involves using a letter-ex [x, X] in place of a feminine letter-ae [a, A] or a masculine letter-oh [o, O]), a term that ITS never uses to describe itself. But WOS opts for the term “individualists” anyway because “it conveys an aspect of the group’s thought-action that distinguishes them from most other anti-technology warriors” and because “the group clearly expresses individualist positions in their writings and practice.” This reasoning seems weak, to me at least, and ai think it amounts to a failure to find an appropriate word in English for «individualidades». Ai think ai have found such a word, but first, ai want to get into the details of why the use of the word “individualists” is inappropriate.

Ai think it’s pretty fair to associate ITS with tendencies within anarchism that are labelled egoist or anarchist, but they make it clear in their communiqués that they reject the anarchist tradition outright. To speak of “individualists”, though, and to use that word with political/ideological content (rather than simply speaking of an individualist personality, something which may not have anything to do with a person’s politics), is to speak of anarchists. There is no other tendency or camp outside of anarchism that can be described as “individualists”, and thus, even if individualists may be harshly critical of much of what comprises the anarchist tradition or anarchism today, they remain within the anarchist fold. ITS, on the other hand, is decidedly outside of that fold.

Ai have, of course, made an overly general statement, because ai have no doubt that there are those who consider themselves individualists without considering themselves anarchists – whose individualism owes a great deal to the same people that the egoist/individualist tendencies draw from, but who have nonetheless made a comprehensive break (at least on the level of words) with what they see as both essentially anarchist and essentially problematic. Yet such people are a small minority, and ITS is not among their number because ITS does not describe itself as individualist. Ai think it is also fair to say that ITS, unlike the hypothetical non-anarchist individualists ai just described, also has an analysis that is informed by much more than anarchist egoism and individualism.

So ai don’t think it’s appropriate to describe ITS as individualist even if we can infer the influence of individualist analysis in their writings – and as for what we can infer from their practice, ai am skeptical that we can infer any individualism at all, since their tactics are not the sole property of individualists and since individualists have also opted for very different tactics in the past. As for the points about the term “individualists” conveying something about their thought-action that distinguishes them from other anti-technology warriors, ai would argue that it does nothing of the sort. Yes, there are many anti-techology warriors (to continue using the term used by WOS) that could be considered more collectivist (i.e. non-individualist or anti-individualist), and ITS is clearly different from them. But, at the same time, there are plenty of anti-technology warriors that do identify themselves with anarchist individualism (and often speak disparagingly of collectivism, leftism, etc.). The use of the word “individualists” in the translation of ITS’ name has the effect of unnecessarily conflating ITS with these groups.

Ai would go in for a different English name: Singularities Tending Toward the Wild.

The word «individualidades» could be rendered “individualities” in English, but this isn’t a very intuitive translation. We rarely, if ever, pluralize the word “individuality”, which is usually seen to refer to a person’s special uniqueness or whatever. This special uniqueness (lol) is very different from whatever ITS is trying to convey about itself in its name, since individuality refers to an aspect of the individual, yet ITS is speaking of the entire self of those involved as comprising an individuality. Ai think that this meaning could be conveyed better with the word “singularity” if we take this word for the specialized meaning it has developed within certain circles.

In Watchmen, Jon Osterman (Dr. Manhattan) comes a certain conclusion about humans just before he leaves Mars and goes back to Earth with Laurie (in order to save the human species or whatever). Specifically, he concludes that life on Earth is worth saving because it continuously, and consistently, produces completely unique creatures like Laurie. This is different from, say, the non-living forces on Mars that are also marvellous, but which don’t produce things without precedent, which we can also think of as “singularities”.

Ai am a singularity and so are you. Ai am a unique, unprecedented thing, something that can’t (yet) be fit neatly in any rational, orderly model of reality and its functioning – and so are you. But, as a singularity, characteristics can still be ascribed to me (and to you). What are these characteristics, though? Well, that’s a big question, but when it comes to ITS, we know that one characteristic they are ascribing to themselves is their tendency towards the wild.

This is, of course, a somewhat hokey proposal, and probably born of a fondness ai have for a particularly amusing graffito – one that read simply, in English, SINGULARITIES IN REVOLT – that existed on a wall in Montréal’s Southwest in 2009, and which me and my friends liked to talk about. Although ai am proposing it because ai actually think it makes sense as a translation, ai would, in order to hedge my argument, propose that, at the very least, it makes more sense than using the word “individualists” since it does not ascribe to ITS a politics that they never claim and which they probably reject.

Please note: ai have opinions about ITS, but this was not a post about those opinions. Pretty strong ones, actually. This was a post about how to render their name in English, and that is all. If you want the opinions, you should just talk to me.

And please note further: ai, as somewhat of a pedantic person who spends a lot of time thinking about these things, have come to a different conclusion than WOS as to how we should translate the name of ITS in English. This should be expected; translators are definitely going to disagree with each other. This post should not, however, be understood as a critique of WOS’ project, because it is my position that they have done the English-speaking world a great service by translating these texts into English. That’s because ai think the ideas of ITS should be, at the very least, of interest to people all over the world. Regardless of how much we accept, or don’t accept, those ideas as our own, their critique, backed up by their actions, constitute a challenge to prevailing attitudes that no one living in the civilized world should have the privilege to ignore.