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38 - My Self-Enjoyment - part 4 - The Ego and His Own - Max Stirner · The Philosophy Insights Collection

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My self enjoyment part for the truth or truth in general, people are abound
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not to give up, but to seek. For what else is it but
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the atru supreme, the highest essence. Even true criticism would have to despair
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if it lost faith in the truth. And yet the truth is only a
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thought. But it is not merely a thought, but the thought that is
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above all thoughts, the irrefagable thought. It is the thought itself which gives
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the first hallowing to all others. It is the consecration of thoughts, the
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absolute, the sacred thought. The truth wears longer than all the gods,
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for it is only in the Truth's service and for love of it, that
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people have overthrown the gods, and at last God himself. The Truth outlasts
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the downfall of the world of gods, for it is the immortal soul of
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this transority world of God's. It is Deity itself. I will answer Pilate's
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question, what is truth? Truth is the three fought, the free idea,
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the free spirit. Truth is what is free from you, what is
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not your own, what is not in your power. But truth is also
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the completely unindependent, impersonal, unreal and in corporal truth cannot step forward,
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as you do cannot move change develop. Truth awaits and receives everything from you,
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and itself is only through you, for it exists only in your head.
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You concede that the truth is a thought, but say that not every
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thought is a true one, or, as you are also likely to express
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it, not every thought is truly and really a thought? And by what
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do you measure and recognize the thought? By your impotence to wit, by
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your being no longer able to make any successful assaults on it. When it
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overpowers you, inspires you, and carries you away, then you hold it
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to be the true one. It's the minion over you, clotifies to you,
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it's truth. And when it possesses you, and you are possessed by
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it, then you feel well with it, For then you have found your
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lord and master. When you are seeking the truth, what did your heart
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then long for for your master? You did not aspire to your might,
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but to a mighty one, and wanted to exalt a mighty one. Result,
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Ye, the Lord are a god. The Truth, my dear Polariti,
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is the Lord, And all who seek the truth are seeking and praising
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the Lord. Where does the Lord exist? Where else, but in your
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head he is only spirit, and wherever you believe you really see him there
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he is a ghost. For the Lord is merely something that is thought of.
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And it was only the Christian pains and agony to make the invisible visible,
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the spiritual popal that generated the ghost, and was the frightful misery of
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the belief in ghosts. As long as you believe in the truth, you
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do not believe in yourself. And you are a servant a religious man.
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You alone are the truth, or rather you are more than the truth,
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which is nothing at all before you. You two do assuredly ask about the
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truth. You two do assuredly criticize, but you do not ask about a
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higher truth, to wit, one that should be higher than you not criticize
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according to the criterion of such a truth. You adjust yourself to thoughts and
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notions, as you do to the appearances of things, only for the purpose
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of making them palatable to you, enjoyable to you and your own. You
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want only to subdue them and become their owner. You want to orientate yourself
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and feel at home in them. And you find them true, or see
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them in their true light, when they can no longer slip away from you,
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no longer have any unseized or uncomprehendible phase, or when they are right
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for you, when they are your property. If afterward they become heavier again,
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if they wiggle themselves out of your power again, then that is just
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their own truth to whip your impotence. Your impotence is their power, your
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humility, their exhaltation. Their truth therefore is you, or is the nothing
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which you are for them and in which they dissolve. Their truth is their
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nothingness. Only as the property of me do the spirits the truths get to
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rest, and they then, for the first time, really are when they
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have been deprived of their sorry existence and made a property of mine. When
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it is no longer said, the truth develops itself, rules, asserts itself,
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a history or so a concept, wins the victory, et cetera.
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The truth never has one victory. What was always my means to the victory,
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like the sword, that's sort of truth. The truth is dead a
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letter, a word, a material that I can use up. All truth
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by itself is dead a corpse. It is alive only in the same way
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as my lungs are alive. To wit in the measure of my own vitality.
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Truths are material, like vegetables and weeds. As to whether vegetable or
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weeds, the decision lies in me. Objects are to me only material that
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I use up. Wherever I put my hand, I grasp a truth which
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I trim for myself. The truth is certain to me, and I do
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not need to long after it to do. The truth a surface is in
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no case my intent. It is to me only a nourishment for my thinking
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head, as potatoes are for my digesting stomach, or as affirmed is for
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my social heart, as long as I have the humor and force for thinking.
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Every truth serves me only for me to work it up according to my
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powers. As reality or worldliness is vain and a thing of naught for Christians,
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so is the truth for me. It exists exactly as much as the
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things of this world go on existing, although the Christian has proved their nothingness.
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But it is vain because it has its value not in itself, but
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in me of itself, it is valueless. The truth is a creature.
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As you produce immoumerable things by your activity, Yes, shake the earth's surface
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anew and set up work of men everywhere. So too, you may still
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ascertain numberless truths by your thinking, and we will gladly take delight in them.
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Nevertheless, as I do not please to hand myself over to serve your
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newly discovered machines mechanically, but only help to set them running for my benefit,
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so too will I only use your truths without letting myself be used for
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their demands. All truths beneath me are to my liking a truth above me,
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a truth that I should have to direct myself by I am not acquainted
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with. For me, there is no truth, For nothing is more than
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I. Not even my essence, not even the essence of man, is
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more than I than I, this drop in the bucket, this insignificant man.
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You believe that you have done the utmost when you boldly assert that because
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every time has its own truth, there is no absolute truth. Why with
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this you nevertheless still leave to each time its truth, And thus you quite
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generally create an absolute truth, a truth that no time lacks, Because every
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time, however its truth may be, still has a truth. Is it
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meant only that people have been thinking in every time, and so have had
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thoughts or truths, And that in the subsequent time, these were other than
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they were in the earlier No, the word is to be that every time
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had its truth of faith, and in fact none has yet appeared in which
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a higher truth has not been recognized, a truth that people believe they must
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subject themselves to as highness and majesty. Every truth of a crime is its
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fixed idea, And if people later found another truth, this always happened only
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because they sought for another. They only reformed the folly and put a modern
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dress on it. For they did want who would their doubt their justification?
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For this, they wanted to be inspired by an idea. They wanted to
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be dominated possessed by a thought. The most modern ruler of this kind is
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our essence or man. For all three, criticism of thought was the criterion
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for own criticism. I am I the unspeakable, and so not the merely
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thought of. For what is merely thought of is always speakable. Because word
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and thought coincide. That is true? Which is mine? I'm true?
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At whose own I am true? E g? The Union untrue, the
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state and society free and true. Criticism takes care for the consistent dominion of
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a thought, an idea, a spirit own criticism for nothing but my self
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enjoyment. But in this the latter is in fact, and we will not
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spare it this ignomality. Like the bestsstal criticism of instinct, I, like
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the criticizing beast, am concerned only for myself, not for the cause.
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I am the criterion of truth. But I am not an idea, but
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more than an idea e g. Unutterable. My criticism is not a free
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criticism, not free from me, and not servile, not in the service
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of an idea, but an own criticism. True or human criticism makes out
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only whether something is suitable to man, to the true man. But by
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own criticism you ascertain whether it is suitable to you. Three. Criticism busies
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itself with ideas, and therefore is always theatrical. However it may rage against
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ideas, it still does not get clear of them. It pitches into the
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ghosts. But it can do this only as it holds them to be ghosts.
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The idea it has to do with do not fully disappear. The morning
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breeze of a new day does not scare them away. The critic may indeed
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come to atrisia before ideas, but he never gets rid of them. I
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e. He will never comprehend that above the bodily man there does not exist
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something higher w liberty, his humanity, etc. He always has a calling
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of man still left humanity, and this idea of humanity remains unrealized just because
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it is an idea and is to remain such. If, on the other
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hand, I grasp the idea as my idea, then it is already realized
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because I am its reality. Its reality consists in the fact that I the
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bodily have it. They say, the idea of liberty realizes itself in the
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history of the world. The reverse is the case. This idea is real
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as a man thinks it, and it is real in the measure in which
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it is idea i e. In which I think it or have it.
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It is not the idea of liberty that develops itself, but men develop themselves,
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and of course, in this self development develop their thinking too. In
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short, the critic is not yet owner because he still fights with ideas,
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as with powerful aliens, as the Christian is not owner of his bad desires
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so long as he has to combat them. For him who contends against the
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vice exists, Christian remains stuck fast in the freedom of knowing, the freedom
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of the spirit, and the spirit gains its proper freedom when it fills itself
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with the pure, true idea. This is the freedom of thinking, which
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cannot be without thoughts. Criticisms might one idea only by another, e g.
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That of privilege by that of manhood, or that of egoism by that
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of unselfishness. In general, the beginning of Christianity comes on the stage again
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in its critical end, egoism being conducted here as there I am not to
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make myself the individual count, but the idea the general Why warfare of the
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priesthood with egoism, of the spiritually minded with the worldly minded constitutes the substance
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of all Christian history. In the newest criticism, this war only becomes all
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embracing fanaticism complete. Indeed, neither can it pass away till it passes thus
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after it has had its life and its rage out. Whether what I think
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and do is Christian? What do I care? Whether it is human,
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liberal, humane, whether unhuman liberal inhuman? What do I ask about that?
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If only it accomplishes what I want, if only I satisfy myself in
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it, then overlay it with predicates as you will it is all alike to
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me, Perhaps I do, in the very next moment defend myself against my
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former thoughts. I too, am likely to change suddenly my mode of action.
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But not on account of its not corresponding to Christianity, not on account
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of its running counter to the eternal rights of man, not on account of
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its affronting the idea of mankind humanity and humanity arianism. But because I am
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no longer all in it, because it no longer furnishes me any full enjoyment,
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because I doubt the earlier thought, or no longer please myself in the
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mode of action now practiced. As the world as property has become a material
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with which I undertake what I will, so the spirit, too, as
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property, must sink down into a material before which I no longer entertain any
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sacred dread. Then firstly I shall shudder no more before a thought. Let
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it appear as presumptuous and devilish as it will, because if it fattens to
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become too inconvenient and unsatisfactory for me, its end lies in my power.
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But neither shall I recoil from any deed, because there dwells in it a
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spirit of godliness, immorality, wrongfulness. As little as Saint Boniface, please
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to desist, through religious scrupulousness, from cutting down the sacred oak of the
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Heathens. If the things of the world world had once become vain, the
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thoughts of the spirit must also become vain. No thought is sacred, for
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let no thought rank as devotions. No feeling is sacred, no sacred feeling
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of friendship, mother's feelings, et cetera. No belief is sacred. They
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are all alienable, my alienable property, and are annihilated as they are created
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by me. The Christian can loose all things or objects the most loved persons,
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these objects of his love, without giving up himself i e. In
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the Christian sense, his spirit, his soul as lost. The owner can
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cast from him all the thoughts that were dear to his heart and kindled his
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zeal, and will likewise gained a thousand folder gain because He their creator remains.
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Unconsciously and involuntarily. We all strive toward on us, and there will
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hardly be one among us who has not given up a sacred feeling, a
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sacred thought, a sacred belief. Nay, we probably meet no one who
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could not still deliver himself from one or another of his sacred thoughts. All
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our contention, engaged convictions, starts from the opinion that maybe we are capable
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of driving our opponent out of his entrenchments of thought. But what I do
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unconsciously I have to. And therefore, after every victory over a faith,
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I become again the prisoner possessed of a faith, which then takes my whole
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self anew into its service, and makes me an enthusiast for a reason,
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after I have ceased to be enthusiastic for them Bible, or an enthusiast for
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the idea of humanity, after I have thought long enough for that of Christianity.
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Doubtless, as owner of thoughts, I shall cover my property with my
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shield, just as I do not as owner of things, willingly let everybody
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help himself to them. But at the same time I shall look forward smilingly
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to the outcome of the battle, smilingly lay the shield on the corpses of
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my thoughts and my faith, smilingly triumph when I am beaten. That is
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the very humor of the thing. Everyone who has sublimer feelings is able to
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vent his humor on the pettiness of men, but to let it play with
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all great thoughts, sublime feelings, noble inspiration, and sacred faith. Who
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supposes that I am the omen of all? If religion has set up the
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proposition that we are sinners altogether, I set over against it the other we
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are perfect altogether, For we are every moment all that we can be,
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and we never need be more. Since no defect pleads to us, sin
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has no meaning either. Showed me a sinner in the world skilled if one
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any longer needs to do what suits a superior, If I only need to
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do what suits myself, I am no sinner. If I do not do
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what suits myself, as I do not injure myself a holy one. If,
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on the other hand, I am to be pious, then I must
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do what suits God. If I am to act humanly, I must do
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what suits the essence of man, the idea of mankind, etc. What
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religion calls the sinner. Humanitarianism caused the egoist. But once more, if
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I need not do what suits any other, is the egoist in whom humanitarianism
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has borne to itself a new fangled devil, anything more than a piece of
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nonsense. The egoist, before whom the humane shudder is as spook as much
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as the devil is. He exists only as a bogie and phantomism in their
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brain. If they were not unsophisticatedly drifting back and forth in the antediluvian opposition
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of good and evil to which they have given the modern names of human and
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egoistic, they would not have fleshed up the hooray sinner into an egoist either,
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and put a new patch on an old garment. But they could not
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do otherwise, for they hold it for their task to be men. They
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are rid of the good. One good is left. We are perfect altogether,
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and on the whole earth there is not one man who is a sinner.
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There are crazy people who imagine that they are God, the Father,
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God, the Sun, or the man in the moon, and so too
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the world swarms with fools who seem to themselves to be sinners. But as
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the former are not the man in the moon, so the latter are not
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sinners. Their sin is imaginary, yet it is insidiously objected. Their craziness,
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or their possessiveness, is at least their sin. Their possessiveness is nothing
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but what they could achieve the result of their development, Just as Luther's faith
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in the Bible was all that he was competent to make out, the one
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brings himself into the madhouse with his development. The other brings himself therewith into
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the pantheon. Until the loss of Bahallah, there is no sinner and no
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sinful egoism. Get away from me with your philanthropy. Creep in, you
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philanthropist, into the dens of vice, linger Awhile in the throng of the
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great city, you will not everywhere find sin and sin and against sin?
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Will you not wail over corrupt humanity? Not lament at the monstrous egoism?
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Will you see a rich man without finding him pitiless an egoistic? Perhaps you
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already call yourself an atheist, but you remain true to the Christian feeling that
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a camel will sooner go through a needle's eye. Thank a rich man not
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be an unman. How many do you see, anyhow, that you would
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not throw into the egoistic mass? What therefore has your philanthropy love of man
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found nothing but unlovable men? And where do they all come from? From?
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You? From your philanthropy you brought the sinner with you in your head.
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Therefore you found him. Therefore you inserted him everywhere. Do not call
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men sinners, and they are not. You alone are the creator of sinners.
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You, who fancy that you love men, are the very one to
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throw them into the mire of sin, the very one to divide them into
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vicious and virtuous, into men and un men, the very one to be
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found them with the slav of your possessiveness. For you love not men but
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man. But I tell you you have never seen, as you have only
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dreamed of him self. Enjoyment is embittered to me by my thinking I must
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serve another, by my fancying myself under obligation to him, by my holding
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myself call to self sacrifice, resignation, Etheism. All right, if I
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no longer serve any idea, any higher essence, then it is clear of
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itself that I no longer serve any man either, but under all circumstances myself.
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But thus I am not merely in fact or in being, but also
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for my consciousness. Their unique there pertains to you more than the divine,
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the human, etc. Yours pertains to you. Look upon yourself as more
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powerful than they give you out for, and you have more power. Look
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upon yourself as more, and you have more. You are then not merely
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called to everything divine, entitled to everything human, but owner of what is
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yours, i e. Of all that you possess, the force to make
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your own i e. You are appropriate and capacited for everything that is yours.
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People have always supposed that they must give me a destiny lying outside myself,
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so that at last they demanded that I should lay claim to the human
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because I am man. This is the Christian magic circle. Fish's ego,
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too, is the same essence outside me. For everyone is ego, and
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if only this ego has rights, then it is the ego. It is
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not I. But I am not an ego along with other egos, but
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the sole ego. I am unique. Hence my wants too are unique,
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and my deeds. In short, everything about me is unique. And it
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is only as this unique eye that I take everything for my own, as
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I set myself to work and develop myself. Only as this, I do
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not develop men nor as man, but as I I develop myself. This
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is the meaning of thirty unique one. End of section thirty eight