146 lines
7.1 KiB
Plaintext
146 lines
7.1 KiB
Plaintext
The Egoism of Max Stirner
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by Sidney Parker
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(The following extracts are taken from my booklet entitled THE
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EGOISM OF MAX STIRNER: SOME CRITICAL BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES to be
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published by the Mackay Society of New York)
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Albert Camus
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Camus devotes a section of THE REBEL to Stirner. Despite a fairly
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accurate summarization of some of Stirner's ideas he nonetheless
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consigns him to dwelling in a desert of isolation and negation
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"drunk with destruction". Camus accuses Stirner of going "as far as
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he can in blasphemy" as if in some strange way an atheist like
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Stirner can "blaspheme" against something he does not believe in. He
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proclaims that Stirner is "intoxicated" with the "perspective" of
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"justifying" crime without mentioning that Stirner carefully
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distinguishes between the ordinary criminal and the "criminal" as
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violator of the "sacred". He brands Stirner as the direct ancestor
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of "terrorist anarchy" when in fact Stirner regards political
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terrorists as acting under the possession of a "spook". He
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furthermore misquotes Stirner by asserting that he "specifies" in
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relation to other human beings "kill them, do not martyr them" when
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in fact he writes "I can kill them, not torture them" - and this in
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relation to the moralist who both kills and tortures to serve the
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"concept of the 'good'".
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Although throughout his book Camus is concerned to present "the
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rebel" as a preferred alternative to "the revolutionary" he nowhere
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acknowledges that this distinction is taken from the one that
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Stirner makes between "the revolutionary" and "the insurrectionist".
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That this should occur in a work whose purpose is a somewhat frantic
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attempt at rehabilitating "ethics" well illustrates Stirner's ironic
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statement that "the hard fist of morality treats the noble nature of
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egoism altogether without compassion."
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Eugene Fleischmann
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Academic treatment of Stirner is often obfuscating even when it is
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not downright hostile. A marked contrast is Fleischmann's essay
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STIRNER, MARX AND HEGEL which is included in the symposium HEGEL'S
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POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY. Clearly preferring Stirner to Marx,
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Fleischmann presents a straightforward account of his ideas
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unencumbered by "psychiatric" interpretations and _ad_hominem_
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arguments. He correctly points out that the "human self" signifies
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for Stirner "the individual in all his indefinable, empirical
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concreteness. The word 'unique' [einzig] means for Stirner man as he
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is in his irreducible individuality, always different from his
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fellows, and always thrown back on himself in his dealings with
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them. Thus, when he talks of 'egoism' as the ultimate definition os
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the human 'essence' it is not at all a question of a moral category
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. . . . but of a simple existential fact."
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Fleischmann contends that "Marx and Engels' critique of Stirner is
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notoriously misleading. It is not just that ridicule of a man's
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person is not equivalent to refutation of his ideas, for the reader
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is also aware that the authors are not reacting at all to the
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problems raised by their adversary." Stirner is not simply "just
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another doctrinaire ideologue". His "reality is the world of his
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immediate experience" and he wants "to come into his own power now,
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not after some remote and hypothetical 'proletarian revolution'.
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Marx and Engels had nothing to offer the individual in the present:
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Stirner has."
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In his conclusion Fleischmann states that Stirner's view that the
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individual "must find his entire satisfaction in his own life" is a
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reversion "to the resigned attitude of a simple mortal". This is not
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a serious criticism. If I cannot find satisfaction in my own life,
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where can I find it? Even if it is _my_ satisfaction that I
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experience, any satisfaction that the other may have being something
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that he or she experiences - not _me_. If this constitutes being a
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"simple mortal" then so be it, but that it is a "resigned attitude"
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is another matter.
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Benedict Lachmann and Herbert Stourzh
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Lachmann's and Stourzh's TWO ESSAYS ON EGOISM provide a
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stimulating and instructive introduction to Stirner's ideas.
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Although both authors give a good summary of his egoism they differ
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sufficiently in their approach to allow the reader to enjoy
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adjudicating between them.
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Lachmann's essay PROTAGORAS - NIETZSCHE - STIRNER traces the
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development of relativist thinking as exemplified in the three
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philosophers of its title. Protagoras is the originator of
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relativism with his dictum "Man (the individual) is the measure of
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all things". This in turn is taken up by Stirner and Nietzsche. Of
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the two, however, Stirner is by far the most consistent and for this
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reason Lachmann places him after Nietzsche in his account. For him
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Stirner surpasses Nietzsche by bringing Protagorean relativism to
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its logical conclusion in conscious egoism - the fulfilment of one's
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own will.
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In fact, he views Nietzsche as markedly inferior to Stirner both
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in respect to his style and the clarity of his thinking. "In
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contrast to Nietzsche's work," he writes, THE EGO AND ITS OWN "is
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written in a clear, precise form and language, though it avoids the
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pitfalls of a dry academic style. Its sharpness, clarity and passion
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make the book truly shattering and overwhelming." Unlike
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Nietzsche's, Stirner's philosophy does not lead to the replacement
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of one religious "spook" by another, the substitution of the
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"Superman" for the Christian "God". On the contrary, it makes "the
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individual's interests the centre of the world."
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Intelligent, lucid and well-conceived, Lachmann's essay throws new
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light on Stirner's ideas.
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Its companion essay, Stourzh's MAX STIRNER'S PHILOSOPHY OF THE EGO
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is evidently the work of a theist, but it is nonetheless sympathetic
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to Stirnerian egoism. Stourzh states that one of his aims in writing
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it "is beyond the categories of master and slave to foster an
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intellectual and spiritual stand-point different from the
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stand-point prescribed by the prophets of mass thinking, the
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dogmatists of socialism, who conceive of the individual only as an
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insignificant part of the whole, as a number or mere addenda of the
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group."
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Stourzh draws a valuable distinction between the "imperative"
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approach of the moralist and the "indicative" approach of Stirner
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towards human behaviour. He also gives an informative outline of the
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critical reaction to Stirner of such philosophers as Ludwig
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Feuerbach, Kuno Fischer and Eduard von Hartman. Stourzh mars his
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interpretation, however, by making the nonsensical claim that
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Stirner's egoism "need in no sense mean the destruction of the
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divine mystery itself." And in line with his desire to preserve the
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"sacredness" of this "divine mystery" he at times patently seeks to
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"sweeten" Stirner by avoiding certain of his most challenging
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remarks.
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References:
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Camus, Albert: THE REBEL: AN ESSAY ON MAN IN REVOLT. Knopf, New
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York. 1961
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Fleischmann, Eugene: THE ROLE OF THE INDIVIDUAL IN PRE-REVOLUTIONARY
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SOCIETY: STIRNER, MARX AND HEGEL in HEGEL'S POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY.
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Cambridge University Press, London. 1971
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Lachmann, Benedict and Stourzh, Herbert: TWO ESSAYS ON EGOISM. To be
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published by The Mackay Society, New York.
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