Jorge Luis Borges

Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, opponent of fascism, totalitarianism and anti-Semitism, who declared himself to be "a modest Spencerian anarchist", something he claimed to have inherited from his father Jorge Guillermo Borges. "My father was an anarchist, a Spencerian, a reader of 'The Man Versus the State', and I recall that in one of the long summer vacations we took in Montevideo, my father told me to take a good look at many things because those things were going to disappear and I would be able to tell my children or grandchildren ... that I had seen those things. He told me to look at military barracks, flags, maps having different colors for the different countries, butcher shops, churches, priests, customs houses, because all of those things were going to disappear when the world was one and differences were forgotten. Up until now the prophecy hasn’t come true, but I hope it will come true some day." [Fernando Sorrentino - 'Seven Conversations with Jorge Luis Borges' (1973)]