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27 - My Intercourse - part 4 - The Ego and His Own - Max Stirner · Logic Library

• My Intercourse, Part four. Punishment follows crime. If crime falls, because the sacred vanishes, punishment must not less be drawn into its fall, for it too has significance only over against something sacred. Ecclesiastical punishments have been abolished. Why because how one behaves toward the Holy God is his own affair. But as this one punishment, ecclesiastical punishment has fallen, so all punishments must fall. As sin against the so called God is a man's own affair, so is that against every kind of the so called sacred. According to our theories of penal law, with whose improvement in conformatory to the times, people are tormenting themselves in vain. They want to punish men for this or their inhumanity, And therein they make the silliness of these theories, especially plagued by their consistency hanging the little thieves and letting the big ones run. For injury to poverty, they have the house of correction, and for violence to thought, suppression of natural rights of man, only representations and petitions. The criminal code has continued existence only through the sacred and perishes of itself. If punishment is given up now they want to create everywhere a new penal law, without indulging in a misgiving about punishment itself. But it is exactly punishment that must make room for satisfaction, which again cannot aim at satisfying right for justice, but at procuring us a satisfactory outcome. If one does to us what we will not put up with, we break his power and bring our own to bear. We satisfy ourselves on him, and do not fall into the folly of wanting to satisfy right. The spook. It is not the sacred that is to defend itself against man, but man against man, as God, to you know, no longer defends himself against man, God to whom formerly and impart. Indeed, even now all the servants of God offered their hands to punish the blasphemer, as they stilled at this very day, lend their hands to the sacred. This debation to the sacred brings it to pass also that without lively participation of one's own, one only delivers misdoers into the hands of their police, and courts a non participating maker over to the authorities, who, of course will best administers sacred matters. The people is quite crazy for handing the police on against everything that seems to it to be immoral, often only unseemingly, And this popular rage for the moral protects the police's institution more than the government could in any way protect it. In crime, the egoist has hitherto asserted himself and mocked at the sacred. To break with the sacred, or rather of the sacred, may become general. A revolution never returns, but a mighty, reckless, shameless consciousness proud crime. Does it not rumble in distant thunders? And do you not see how the sky grows persistently silent and gloomy. He who refuses to spend his powers for such limited societies as family, party, nation, is still always looking for a worthier society, and thinks he has found the true object of love, perhaps in human society or mankind, to sacrifice himself to, which constitutes his honor. From now on he lives for and serves mankind. Equal is the name of the body, state, of the spirit of that ruling person that has hitherto suppressed me. Some have wanted to transfigure peoples and states by broadening them out to mankind and general reason, But servitude would only become still more intense with this widening, and philanthropists and humanitarians are as absolute masters as politicians and dea clements modern critics in they against religion because it sets God, the divine, moral, etcetera. Outside of man, or makes them something objective, in opposition to which the critics rather transfer these very subjects into man. But those critics, none the less fall into the proper error of religion to give man a destiny, in that they too want to have him divine, human and the like morality, freedom and humanity, etc. Are his essence. And like religion, politics too wanted to educate man, to bring him to the realization of his essence, his destiny, to make something out of him, to wit a true man, the one in the form of the true believer, the other in fact of the true citizen or subject. In fact, it comes to the same whether one caused the destiny, the divine or human. Under religion and politics, man finds himself at the standpoint of should he should become this? And that should be so and so? With this postulate, this commandment, everyone steps not only in front of another, but also in front of himself. Those critics say, you should be a whole free man. Thus they too stand in the temptation to proclaim a new religion, to set up a new absolute, an ideal to wit freedom men should be free. Then there might even arise missionaries or freedom as Christianity, in the conviction that all were probably and to become Christians sent out missionaries of the faith. Freedom would then, as have hitherto faith as church, morality as state, constitute itself as a new community, and carry on a like propaganda therefrom Certainly no objection can be raised against their getting together, But so much the more must one oppose every renewal of the old care for us of cultural directed toward and end, in short, the principle of making something out of us, no matter whether Christians subjects or free men and men. One may well say, where fewer bark and others, that religion has displaced the human from man, and has transferred it so into another world that unattainable it went on with it's a existence. There has something personal in itself as a God. But the error of religion is by no means exhausted with this, one might very well let fall the personality of the displaced human might transform God into the divine and still remain religious. For the religious consists in discontent with the present men, in the setting up of a perfection to be striven for in man wrestling for his completion, yet therefore should be perfect, as your father in Heaven is perfect Matthew, five forty eight. It consists in the fixation of an ideal. An absolute perfection is the supreme good, the penis burnum. Everyone's ideal is the perfect man, the true, the free man, et cetera. The efforts of modern times aim to set up the ideal of that free man. If one could find it, there would be a new religion, because a new ideal, there would be a new longing, a new torment, a new divation, a new deity, a new contrition. With the ideal of absolute liberty, the same turmoil is made, as with everything absolute, and according to hes e. G. It is said to be realizable in absolute human society. Nay, this realization is immediately afterward styled a vocation. Just so. He then defines liberty as morality, the kingdom of justice, equality and morality i e. Liberty is to begin, etc. Ridiculous is he who, while fellows of his tribe, family, nation, rank high is nothing but puffed up over the merit of his fellows. But blinded too is he who wants only to be man. Neither of them perts his work in exclusiveness, but in connectedness, or in the tie that conjoins with him with others, in the ties of blood, of nationality, of humanity. Through the nationals of today, the conflict has again bestirred up between those who think themselves to have merely human blood and human ties of blood, and the others who brag of their special blood and the special ties of blood. If we disregard the fact that pride may mean conceit and take it for consciousness alone, there is found to be a vast difference between pride in belonging to a nation and therefore being its property, and that in calling a nationality one's property. Nationality is my quality, but the nation my owner and mistress. If you have bodily strength, you can apply it at a suitable place and have a self consciousness or pride of it. If, on the contrary, your strong body has you, then it pricks you everywhere and at the most unsuitable place to show its strength. You can give nobody your hand without squeezing his The perception that one is more than a member of the family, more than a fellow of the tribe, more than an individual of the people, has finally led to saying one is more than all of this because one is man, or the man is more than the Jew, German, etc. Therefore be every word holy and solely man. Could one not rather say, because we are more than what has been stated, Therefore we will be this as well as that more also man and Germans than man and goole, et cetera. The nationals are in the right. One cannot deny his nationality, and the humanitarians are in the right. One must not remain in the narrowness of the national. In uniqueness, the contradiction is sold. The national is my quality, but I am not swallowed up in my quality as the human. Two is my quality, but I give to man his existence first through my uniqueness. History seeks for man, but he is I you we sought as a mysterious essence, as the divine, first as God, then as man, humanity, humaneness, and mankind. He is found as the individual, the finite, the unique one. I am owner of humanity and humanity, and do nothing for the good of another humanity fall you, who are a unique humanity that you make amount of wanting to live for another than you are. The hitherto considered relation of me to the world of men offers such a wealth of phenomena that it will have to be taken up again and again on other occasions. But here where it was only to have its chief outlines made clear to the eye, it must be broken off to make place upon apprehension of two other sides toward which it radiates. For as I find myself in relation not merely to men, so far as they present in themselves the concept of man, or are children of men children of man, as children of God are spoken of, but also to that which they have of man and called their own. And as therefore I relate myself not only to that which they are through man, but also to their human possessions. So besides the world of men, the world of the sense and of ideas will have to be included in our survey, and somewhat said of what men call their own, of sensuous goods and of spiritual as well. According as one had developed and clearly grasped the concept of man, he gave it to us to respect as this or that person of respect. And from the broadest understanding of this concept, they're proceeded at last the command to respect man in everyone. But if I respect man, my respect must likewise extend to the human or what is man's. Men have somewhat of their own, and I am to recognize this own and hold its sacred. Their own consists partly in outward partly in inward possessions, the former of things, the latter spiritualities, thoughts, convictions, noble feelings, etc. But I am always to respect only rightful or human possessions. The wrong faul and unhuman I need not spare for only man's own is men's real own. An inward possession of this sort is e g. Religion. Because religion is free, i e. Is man's, I must not strike at it. Just so honor is an inward possession. It is free and must not be struck at by me action for insult, carry cactures, etc. Religion and honor are spiritual property intangible property. The person stands foremost. My person is my first property. Hence freedom of the person. But only the rightful or human person is free. The other is locked up. Your life is your property. But it is sacred for men only if it is not that of an inhuman monster. What a man as such cannot defend of bodily goods, we may take from him. This is the meaning of competition, of freedom of occupation. What he cannot defend of spiritual goods fools a prey to us. Likewise, so far goes the life of discussion of science, of pudicism. But consecrated goods are inviable, consecrated, and guaranteed by whom, approximately by the state, society, but properly by man or the concept, the concept of the thing for the concept of consecrated goods is this that they are truly human, or rather that the wholder possesses them as man and not as an man. On the spiritual side, man's faith is such goods, his honor, his moral feeling, yes, his feeling of decency, modesty, etc. Actions, speeches, writings that touch honor are punishable attacks on the foundations of all religion. The tax on political faith, in short, attacks on everything that a man rightly has. How far pritical liberalism would extend the sansity of goods on this point, it has not yet made any pronouncement, and doubtless fancies itself to be ill disposed towards all's sanity. But as it conducts egoism, it must set limits to it, and must not let the ol man pounce on the human. To its theoretical contempt for the masses then must correspond a practical snub if it should get into power. What extension the concept man receives and what comes to the individual man through it? What therefore man and the human are? On this point the various grades of liberalism differ, and the political, the social, the humane man are each always claiming more than the other. For man, he who has best grabbed this concept best what is man's The state still grasps this concept in political restriction, society, and social Mankind, so it is said, is the first to comprehend it entirely, or the history of mankind develops it. But if man is discovered, then we know also what pertains to man as his own, man's property, the human. But let the individual man lay claim to ever so many rights because man, or the concept man entitles him to them, because his being man does it? What do I care for his right and his claim? If he has the right only for man, and does not have it from me. Then for me he has no right. His life e g. Counts to me only for what it is worth to me. I respect neither as so called right of property, or his claim to tangible goods, nor yet his right to this sanctuary of his inner nature, or his right to have the spiritual goods and diginities his gods. Remain an unaggrieved. His goods is sensuous, as well as the spiritual, are mine, and I dispose of them as proprietor in the measure of my might. In the property question lies a broader meaning than the limited statement of the question allows to be brought out. The third solely to what men call our possessions, it is capable of no solution. The decision is to be found in him from whom we have everything. Property depends on the owner. The revolution directed its weapons against everything which came from the grace of God. E G. Again is divine right in whose place the human was confirmed to that which is granted by the grace of God. There is opposed that which is derived from the essence of man. Now as men's relation to each other, in opposition to the religious governor which commands a love one another for God's sake, had to receive its human position by a love each other for man's sake. So the revolutionary teaching could not do otherwise than first, as to what concerns the relation of men to the things of this world, settle it that the world, which hitherto was arranged according to God's ordinance, henceforth belongs to man. The world belongs to man and is to be respected by me as his property. Property is what is mine in this civic sense means sacred property. Such fact, I must respect your property, respect for property. Hence the politicians would like to have everyone possess his little bit of property, and they have in part brought about an incredible parcelation by this effort. Each must have his bone on which he may find something to bite. The position of affairs is different in the egoistic sense. I do not step shyly back from your property, but look upon it always as my property, in which I need to respect nothing. Pray do the like with what you call my property. With this view, we shall most easily come to an understanding with each other. Their political liberals are anxious that if possible, all servitudes be dissolved, and if everyone be free lord on his ground, even if this ground has only so much error as can have its requirements adequately filled by the manure of one person, a farmer in the story married even in his old age, that he might profit by his wife's thumb, be it ever so little if one only has somewhat of his own to wit a respected property. The more such owners such cotters, the more free people and good patriots has the state. Political liberalism, like everything religious, counts on respect, humaneness, the virtues of love. Therefore, does it live in incestent vexation, For in practice people respect nothing, and every day the small possessions are brought up again by greater proprietors, and the three people change into day laborers. If, on the contrary, the small proprietors had reflected that the great property was also theirs, they would not have respectfully shut themselves out from it, and would not have been shut out. Property, as the civic liberals understand, it deserves the attacks of the communists and proudhon It is untainable because the civic proprietor is in truth nothing but a propertyless man, one who is everywhere shut out instead of owning the world as he might, he does not own even the poetry point on which he turns around. Proudhon want not the proprietor, but the possessor or own sufferer. What does that mean? He wants no one to own the land, but the benefits of it, even though one were allowed only the hundredth part of this benefit. This fruit is at any rate, one's property, which he can dispose of at will. He who has only the benefit of a field is assuredly not the proprietor of it. Still less, he who, as proud Harm would have it, must give up so much of this benefit as is not required for his wants. But he is the proprietor of the share that has left him. CLOUDHRM therefore denies only such and such property, not property itself. If we want no longer to leave the land to the landed proprietors, but to appropriate it to ourselves, we unite ourselves to this end from a union, a society that makes itself proprietor. If we have good luck in this, then those persons cease to be landed proprietors, and as from the land, so we can drive them out of many another property. Yet in order to make it our property the property of the conquerors. The conquerors form a society which one may imagine so great that it by degrees embraces all humanity. But so called humanity too, is as such only a thought speak. The individuals are its reality, and these individuals, as a collective mass, will treat land and earth not less arbitrarily than an isolated individual or so called proprietaire. Even so, therefore property remains standing, and that as exclusive too in that humanity, this great society excludes the individual from its property. Perhaps only nisist with him gives as a thief a piece of it as it. Besides, it sloves everything that is not humanity e g. Does not allow animals to have property. So too it will remain, and will grow to be that in which all want to have a share, will be withdrawn from that individual who wants to have it for himself alone. It has made a common estate. As a common estate, everyone has his share in it, and this share is his property. Why so, in our old relations, a house which belongs to five heirs is their common estate, but the fifth part of the revenue is each one's property. Proud Ham might spare his polix pathos if he said, there are some things that belong only to a few, and to which we others will from now on lay claim or siege. Let us take them. Because one comes to property by taking, and the property of which for the present we are still deprived, came to the proprietors. Likewise, only by taking. It can be utilized better if it is in the hands of us all than if the few control it. Let us therefore associate ourselves for the purpose of this robbery. Instead of this, he tries to get us to believe that society is the original possessor and the sole proprietor of imperceptible rights. Against it, the so called proprietors have become thieves. If it now deprives of his property the present proprietor, it robs him of nothing, as it is only availing itself of its imperceptible right. So far one comes with the spook of society as a moral person. On the contrary, what man can obtain belongs to him. The world belongs to me. Do you say anything else? By your opposite proposition? The world belongs to all all are I and again I, etc. But you make out of the all a spook and make it sacred, so that then the all becomes the individual's therefore master. Then the ghost of rights places itself on their side. Proud Hon, like the Communists, fights against egoism. Therefore, they are continuations and consistent carryings out of the Christian principle, the principle of love of sacrifice for something general, something alien. They complete in property e g. Only what has long been exter as a matter of fact, to wit, the propertylessness of the individual. When the law says at regius potass omnium patroonot at singulus proprietus omniorets imperio procedent singulied domino, this means the king is proprietor, for he alone can control and dispose of everything he has protesters and imperium over it. The Communists make this clearer, transferring that imperium to the society of all. Therefore, because enemies of egoism, they are on that account, Christians or more generally speaking, religious men, believers in ghosts, dependents, servants of some generality, God's society, etc. In this too, Proudhon is like the Christians that he ascribes to God that which he denies to men. He names him the proprietary of the earth. Herewith he proves that he cannot think away the proprietor. As such, he comes to a proprietor at last, but removes him to the other world. Neither God nor man human society is proprietor but the individual. End of Section twenty seven.