Latest / The Philosophy Insights Collection / 31 - My Intercourse - part 8 - The Ego and His Own - Max Stirner

Transcript

31 - My Intercourse - part 8 - The Ego and His Own - Max Stirner · The Philosophy Insights Collection

0:00
My Intercourse Part eight. As long as respect is demanded, even for one
0:07
spiritual essence, speech and the press must be enthralled in the name of this
0:13
essence for just so long as the egoist might trespass against it by his utterances,
0:21
from which thing he must be hindered by due punishment, at least if
0:26
one does not prefer to take up the more correct means against it, the
0:31
preventative use of police authority e g. Censorship. What assign for liberty of
0:39
the press? What then, is the press to be liberated from? Surely
0:44
from a dependence, a belonging, and a liability to service. But to
0:51
liberate himself from that is everyone's affair, and it may, with safety be
0:57
assumed that when you have delivered yourself from liability to service, that which you
1:03
compose and write will also belong to you as your own, instead of having
1:08
been thought and indicted in the service of some power. What can a believer
1:17
in Christ say and have printed that should be freer from that belief in Christ
1:23
than he himself is? If I cannot or may not write something, perhaps
1:30
the primary fault lies with me. Little as this seems to hit the point,
1:36
so near is the application nevertheless to be found by a press law.
1:42
I draw a boundary for my publications, or let one be drawn beyond which
1:49
wrong and its punishment follows, I must limit myself. If the press was
1:56
to be three, nothing would be so important as precisely its liberation from every
2:02
coercion that could be put on it in the name of a law, And
2:07
that it might come to that I, my own self should have to have
2:13
absolved myself from obedience to the law. Certainly, the absolute liberty of the
2:20
press is like every absolute liberty, a nunity. The press can become free
2:27
from full money, a thing, but always only from what I do am
2:32
free from. If we make ourselves free from the sacred, if we have
2:38
become braceless and lawless, our words too will become so. As little as
2:45
we can be declared clear of every coercion in the world, so little can
2:52
our writing be withdrawn from it. But as free as we are, so
2:57
free, we can make it too. It must therefore become our own,
3:02
instead of as hitherto serving a spook. People do not yet know what they
3:08
mean by their cry for liberty of the press. What they often sensibly ask
3:15
is that the state shall set the press free. But what they are really
3:21
after, without knowing it themselves, is that the press become free from the
3:25
state, or clear of the state. The former is a petition to the
3:31
state. The latter and insurrection against the state, as a petition for right,
3:38
even as a serious demanding of the right of liberty of the press.
3:44
It presupposes this state as the giver, and can hope only for a present
3:51
permission a charting possible. No doubt that a state acts so senselessly as to
3:58
grant the demanded press. But you may bet everything that those who receive the
4:03
present will not know how to use it. So long as they regard the
4:09
state as a truth, they will not trespass against this sacred thing, and
4:15
will call for a penal press law against everyone who would be willing to dare
4:20
this in a word, the press does not become free from what I am
4:27
not free from. Do I perhaps hereby show myself an opponent of the liberty
4:33
of the press. On the contrary, I only assert that one will never
4:40
get it if one wants only it, the liberty of the press, i
4:45
e. If one sets out only for an unrestricted permission, only bed right
4:53
along for this permission. You may wait forever for it, for there is
4:58
no one in the world who could give it to you. As long as
5:02
you want to have yourselves entitled to the use of the press by a permission.
5:09
By the liberty of the press, you live in vain hope and complaint
5:15
nonsense. Why you yourself, who harbor such thoughts as stand in your book,
5:21
can unfortunately bring them to publicity only through a lucky chance or by stealth.
5:30
Nevertheless, you will inveigh against world's pressing and importuning his own state till
5:36
it gives the refused permission to print. But an author thus addressed, would,
5:43
perhaps, for the impudence of such people goes far, give the following
5:48
reply. Consider well what you say, What then do I do to procure
5:57
myself liberty of the press for my book? Do I ask for permission or
6:02
do I not? Rather, without any question of legality, seek a favorable
6:09
occasion and grasp it in complete recklessness of the state, and it wishes I
6:15
the terrifying word must be uttered. I cheat the state. You unconsciously do
6:23
the same from your tribunes. You talk it into the idea that it must
6:29
give up its center city and inviolability it must lay itself bare to the attacks
6:35
of writers, without needing, on that account to fear danger. But you
6:43
are imposing on it, for its existence is done for as zoon. As
6:47
it loses its unapproachableness to you, indeed, it might well accord liberty of
6:55
writing, as England has done. You are believer in the state, and
7:00
incapable of writing against the state, however much you would like to reform it
7:06
and remedy its defects. But what if opponents of the state availed themselves of
7:14
free utterance and stormed out against Church, state morals, and everything sacred with
7:21
inalexible reason, You would then be the first in terrible agonies to call into
7:28
life the September laws too late? Would you then move the stupidity that earlier
7:34
made you so ready to fall and plaver into compliance the state or the government
7:41
of the state. But I proved by my act only two things. This
7:46
for one, that the liberty of the press is always bound to favorable opportunities,
7:54
and accordingly will never be an absolute liberty. But secondly this that he
8:01
who would enjoy it must seek out and if possible, create, the favorable
8:07
opportunity availing himself of his own advantage against the state, and counting himself and
8:13
his will more than the state, and every superior power. Not in the
8:20
state, but only against it can the liberty of the press be carried through.
8:26
If it is to be established, it is to be obtained not as
8:31
the consequence of a petition, but as the work of an insurrection. Every
8:37
petition and every motion for liberty of the press is alreadily an insurrection, be
8:43
it conscious or unconscious, a thing which philistine halfness alone will not and cannot
8:52
confess to itself, until with a shrinking shudder it shall see it clearly and
8:58
irrefutably by the outcome. For the requested liberty of the press has indeed a
9:05
friendly and well meaning face at the beginning, as it is not in the
9:11
least minded ever to let the incident of the press come into vogue. But
9:16
little by little its heart grows more hardened, and the inference flatters its way.
9:24
In that really, a liberty is not a liberty if it stands in
9:28
the service of the state, of morals or of the law. A liberty
9:33
indeed from the coercion of censorship. It is yet not a liberty from the
9:39
coercion of law. The press, once seized by the lust for liberty,
9:45
always wants to grow freer till at last the writer says to himself, Really,
9:52
I am not wholly free till I ask about nothing. And writing is
9:56
free only when it is my own, dictated to me by no power or
10:03
authority, by no faith, no dread. The press must not be free,
10:09
that is too little. It must be mine ownness of the press,
10:15
or property of the press. That is what I will take. Why liberty
10:20
of the press is only permission of the press, and the state never will
10:26
or can voluntarily permit me to grind it into nothingness by the press. Let
10:31
us, now, in conclusion, better bring the above language, which is
10:35
still vague owing to the phrase liberty of the press. Rather put it thus,
10:43
liberty of the press, the liberals loud demand, is assuredly possible in
10:48
the state. Yes, it is possible only in the state, because it
10:54
is a permission, and consequently the permitter the state must not be lacking.
11:01
But as permission it has its limits. In this very state, which surely
11:05
should not, in reason permit more than is compatible with itself and its welfare,
11:13
the state fixes for it this limit as the law of its existence and
11:20
of its extension. That one state brooks more than another is only a quantitative
11:26
distinction, which alone, nevertheless lies at the heart of the political liberals they
11:33
want in Germany, I e. Only a more extended for the occurrence of
11:39
free utterance. The liberty of the press, which is sought for, is
11:45
an affair of the people's and before the people the state possesses it, I
11:50
may make no use of it. From the standpoint of property in the press,
11:56
the situation is different. Yet, my people, if they will go
12:01
without liberty of free press, I will manage to print by force or ruse.
12:07
I get my permission to print only from myself and my strength. If
12:15
the press is my own, I as little need a permission of the state
12:20
for employing it, as I seek that permission in order to blow my nose.
12:26
The press is my property from the moment when nothing is more to me
12:31
than myself. For from this moment, state, church, people, society,
12:37
etc. Cease because they have to thank for their existence only the disrespect
12:43
that I have for myself. And with the vanishing of this undervaluation, they
12:50
themselves are extinguished. They exist only when they exist above me, exist only
12:58
as powers and power holders. Or can you imagine a state whose citizens one
13:05
and all think nothing of it? It would be as certainly a dream an
13:11
existence in seeming as United Germany. The press is my own, as soon
13:18
as I myself am my own, A self owned man to the egoist belongs
13:24
the world because he belongs to no power of the world. With this,
13:30
my press might still be very unfree, as e g. At this moment.
13:35
But the world is large, and one helps himself as well as he
13:41
can. If I were willing to abate from the property of my press,
13:46
I could easily attain the point where I might everywhere have as much printed as
13:52
my fingers produced. But as I want to assert my property, I must
13:58
necessarily swindle my enemies. Would you not accept their permission if it were given
14:03
you certainly with joy? For their permission would be to me a proof that
14:11
I had hauled them and started them on the road to ruin. I am
14:16
not concerned for their permission, but so much the more for their folly and
14:20
their overflow. I do not sue for their permission, as if I flattered
14:26
myself like the political liberals, that we both they and I could make act
14:33
peaceably alongside and with each other. Yes, probably raise and copy each other.
14:41
But I sue for it in order to make them bleed to death by
14:45
it that the permitters themselves may cease. At last, I act as a
14:50
conscious enemy, overreaching them and utilizing their headlessness. The press is mine when
15:00
I recognize outside myself no judge whatever over its utilization are e when my writing
15:07
is no longer determined by morality or religion, or respect for the state laws,
15:13
or they like hurt by me and my egoism. Now what have you
15:18
to reply to him who gives you so imprudent an answer? We shall perhaps
15:24
put the question most strikingly by facing it as follows. Whose is the press,
15:31
the people's states or mine? The politicals on their side intend nothing further
15:39
than to liberate the press from personal and arbitrary interferences of the possessors of power,
15:48
without thinking of the point that to be really open for everybody, it
15:52
would also have to be free from the laws. From the people's states.
15:58
Will they want to make a people's affair of it. But having become the
16:04
people's property, it is still far from being mine. Rather, it maintains
16:11
for me the subordinate significance of a permission. The people place judge over my
16:18
thoughts. It has the right of calling me to account for them, or
16:22
I am responsible to it for them. Jurors, when their fixed ideas are
16:29
attacked, have just as hard heads as the stiffest despots and their servile officials.
16:37
In the Liberal best rebungean ed Garbuer asserts that liberty of the press is
16:44
impossible in the absolutest and the constitutional state, whereas in the free state it
16:52
finds its place. Here the statement is, it is recognized that the individual,
16:57
because he is no longer an individual, but a member of the true
17:03
and rational generality, has the right to utter his mind. So not the
17:07
individual, but the member has liberty of the press. But if for the
17:15
purpose of liberty of the press, the individual must first give proof of himself
17:21
regarding his belief in the generality the people. If he does not have this
17:26
liberty through might of his own, then it is a people's liberty, a
17:33
liberty that he is invested with for the sake of his faith his membership.
17:38
The reverse is the case. It is precisely as an individual that everyone has
17:45
opened to him the liberty to utter his mind. But he has not the
17:51
right. That liberty is assuredly not his sacred right. He has only the
17:56
might. But the might alone makes him owner. I need no concession for
18:03
the liberty of the press, do not need the people's consent to it,
18:07
do not need the right to it, nor any justification the liberty of the
18:14
press. Who, like every liberty, I must take the people as being
18:19
the sole judge, cannot give it to me. It can put up with
18:25
me the liberty that I take, or defend itself against it, give bestow
18:32
grant it. Cannot I exercise it despite the people purely as an individual,
18:38
I e. I get it by fighting the people my enemy, and obtain
18:44
it only when I really get it by such fighting, I e. Take
18:48
it, But I take it because it is my property. Sander against whom
18:56
E your writes lays claim page ninety nine, to the liberty of the press
19:03
as the right and the liberty of the citizens in the state. What else
19:08
does Edgar Buur do to him? Also it is only a right of the
19:14
free citizen. The liberty of the press is also demanded under the name of
19:21
a general human right. Against this, the objection was well founded that not
19:26
every man knew how to use it rightly, for not every individual was truly
19:32
man. Never did a government refuse it to man as such, but man
19:37
writes nothing for the reason that he is a ghost. It always refused it
19:44
to individuals only, and gave it to others e g. Its organs.
19:51
If then one would have it for all, one must assert outright that it
19:56
is due to the individual, me the man, or to the individual,
20:02
so far as he is man besides another than man, a beast can make
20:07
no use of it. The French government e g. Does not dispute the
20:12
liberty of the press as a right of man, but demands from the individual
20:18
a security for his really being man. For it assigns liberty of the press
20:25
not to the individual, but to man, under the exact pretense that it
20:30
was not human. What was mine was taken from me, what was human
20:36
was left to me undiminished. Liberty of the press can bring about only a
20:41
responsible press. The irresponsible proceeds solely from property in the press, for into
20:49
the course with men and express law, conformity to which one may venture at
20:56
times simply to forget, but the absolute value of which one at no time
21:02
ventures to deny, is placed foremost among all who live religiously. This is
21:08
the law of love, to which not even those who seem to fight against
21:14
its principle and who hate its name, have as yet become untrue, For
21:19
they also still have love. Yes, they love with a deeper and more
21:26
subliminated love. They love man and mankind. If we formulate the sense of
21:33
this law, it will be about as follows. Every man must have a
21:38
something that is more to him than himself. You are to put your private
21:45
interest in the background when it is a question of the welfare of others,
21:49
the will of the fatherland, of society, the common will, the will
21:56
of mankind, the good cause, etc. Fatherland, society, mankind must
22:03
be more to you than yourself, and as against their interest, your private
22:10
interest must stand back, for you must not be an egoist. Love is
22:15
a far reaching religious demand, which is not, as might be supposed,
22:21
limited to love to God and man, but stands foremost in every regard.
22:26
Whatever we do think will, the ground of it is always to be loved.
22:33
Thus we may indeed judge, but only with love. The Bible may
22:38
assuredly be criticized, and that very thoroughly, but the critic must before all
22:45
things, love it, and see it in the sacred book? Is this
22:49
anything else than to say, he must not criticize it to death, He
22:55
must leave it standing, and that as a sacred thing he cannot be in
23:00
our criticism on men too. Love must remain the unchanged keynote. Certainly,
23:07
judgments that hatred inspires are not at all our own judgments, but judgments of
23:15
the hatred that rules us when coors judgments, But our judgments that love inspires
23:22
in us anymore our own. They are judgments of the love that rule us.
23:29
They are loving, lenient judgments. They are not our own, and
23:33
accordingly not real judgments at all. He who burns with love for justice cries
23:41
out they just the year permundus. He can doubtless ask and investigates what justice
23:49
probably is or demands, and in what it consists, but not whether it
23:56
is anything. It is very true. He who abides in love abides in
24:02
God and God in him one John four sixteen. God abides in him.
24:08
He does not get rid of God, does not become godless. And he
24:14
abides in God, does not come to himself and into his own home,
24:18
abides in love to God, and does not become loveless. God is love
24:26
all times and all races recognize in this word the central point of Christianity.
24:33
God, who is love, is an effacious God. He cannot leave the
24:37
world in peace, but wants to make it lessed. God became man to
24:42
make men divine. He has his hand in the game everywhere, and nothing
24:49
happens without it. Everywhere He has his best purposes, his incomprehensible plans and
24:57
decrees, reasons which he himself is is to be forwarded and realized in the
25:03
whole world. His fatherly care deprives us of all independence. We can do
25:11
nothing sensible without it being said. God did that, and can bring upon
25:15
ourselves no misfortune without hearing. God ordained that we have nothing, but we
25:22
have not from him He gave everything. But as God does, so does
25:29
man. God wants to be forced to make the world blessed, and man
25:33
wants to make it happy, to make all men happy. Hence every man
25:41
wants to awaken in all men. The reason which he supposes his own self
25:47
to have everything is to be rational. Throughout God torments himself with the devil,
25:53
and the philosopher does it with unreason, and the accidental God lets let
26:00
no being go its own gait, and man likewise wants to make us walk
26:04
only in human wise. But whoso is full of sacred, religious, moral
26:11
humane love loves only the spook the true man, and persecutes with dull mercilessness
26:19
the individual, the real man. Under the thematic legal title of measures against
26:26
the unman. He finds it plaiseworthy and indispensable to exercise pitilessness in the harshest
26:33
measure for love to the spook or generality commands him to hate him who is
26:41
not ghostly i e. The egoist or individual. Such is the meaning of
26:47
the renowned love phenomenon that is called justice. The primly arraigned man can expect
26:55
no forbearance, and no one splays a friendly ble a over his unhappy nakedness
27:02
without emotion. The stern judge tears the last rags of excuse from the body
27:07
of the poor accused without compassion. The jailor drags him into his damp abode
27:14
without plassibility. When the time of punishment has expired, he thrusts the branded
27:19
manner gained among men, his good Christian loyal brethren, who contemptuously spit on
27:27
him, yes, without grace, or criminal deserving of death is led to
27:33
the scaffold, and before the eyes of a jubilating crowd. The appeased moral
27:38
law celebrates its sublime revenge, for only one can live the moral law or
27:45
the criminal. Where criminals live unpunished, the moral law has fallen, and
27:52
where this prevails, those must go down. Their enmity is indestructible. The
27:57
Christian age is precisely that of mercy, love solicitude, to have men receive
28:03
what just due them, yes, to bring them to fulfill their human divine
28:10
calling. Therefore, the principle has been put foremost for intercourse, that this
28:15
and that is man's essence and consequently his calling, to which either God has
28:22
called him or, according to the concepts of today, his being man the
28:29
species calls him. Hence, the zealed for conversion that the Communists and the
28:36
humane expect from man more than the Christians do does not change the standpoint in
28:42
the least man shall get what is human. If it was enough for the
28:48
pious that what was divined became his part, the humane demand that he be
28:55
not curtailed of what is human. Both set themselves against what is egoistic of
29:02
course, for what is egoistic cannot be accorded to him, or vested in
29:07
him a thief. He must procure it for himself. Love in parts,
29:12
the former, the latter can be given to me by myself alone. End
29:19
of Section thirty one