Latest / Logic Library / 16 - Humane Liberalism - part 2 - The Ego and His Own - Max Stirner

Transcript

16 - Humane Liberalism - part 2 - The Ego and His Own - Max Stirner · Logic Library

0:00
Humane liberalism Part two. Now, in the first place, the discoverer of
0:07
a great truth doubtless knows that it can be useful to the rest of men,
0:12
and as a jealous withholding furnishes him no enjoyment, he communicates it.
0:18
But even though he has the consciousness that his communication is highly valuable to the
0:23
rest, Yet he has in no wise sought and found his truth for the
0:29
sake of the rest, but for his own sake, because he himself desired
0:34
it, because darkness and fancies left him no rest till he had procured for
0:41
himself light and enlightenment to the best of his powers. He labors therefore for
0:47
his own sake and for the satisfaction of his want that, along with this
0:52
he was also useful to others. Yes to posterity does not take from his
0:58
labor the ego was character In the next place, If he did labor only
1:03
on his own account, like the rest, why should his act be human
1:10
those of the rest of the unhuman I e egoistic. Perhaps because this book,
1:17
Painting Sympathy, et cetera, is the labor of his whole being,
1:22
because he has done his best in it, has spread himself out wholly and
1:26
is wholly to be known from it. While the work of a handy craftsman
1:32
mirrors only the handy craftsman, i e. Is skilled in handicraft, not
1:37
the man. In his poems, we have the whole skiller in so many
1:42
hundred stoves. On the other hand, we have before us only the stovemaker,
1:49
not the man. But this does mean more than in the one work
1:55
you see me as completely as possible. In the other, only my skill.
2:00
It is not me again that the act expresses. And it is not
2:04
more egoistic to offer oneself to the world in a work to work out and
2:09
shape oneself than to remain conceiled behind one's labor. You say, to be
2:15
sure that you are a revealing man. But the man that you reveil is
2:21
you. You reveil only yourself. Yet with this distinction from the handicraftsman,
2:28
that he does not understand how to compress himself into one labor, but in
2:32
order to be known as himself, must be searched out in his other relations
2:38
of life. And that your want, through whose satisfaction that work came into
2:44
being, was a theatrical want. But you will reply that you reveal quite
2:51
another man, a worthier, higher, greater, a man that is more
2:55
man than that other. I will assume that you accomplish all that is possible
3:01
to man, that you bring to pass what no other succeeds in. Wherein,
3:07
then, does your greatness consist precisely in this that you are more than
3:14
other men the masses, more than men ordinarily are more than ordinary men.
3:21
Precisely in your elevation above men. You are distinguished beyond other men, not
3:27
by being man, but because you are a unique man. Thankless, you
3:32
show what a man can do, but because you, a man, do
3:37
it, this by no means show that others, also men, are able
3:42
to do as much. You have executed it only as a unique man,
3:46
and are unique therein. It is not man that makes up your greatness,
3:53
but you create it, because you are more than man and mightier than other
3:59
men. It is believed that one cannot be more than man, rather one
4:03
cannot be less. It is believed further that whatever one attains is good for
4:11
man. In so far as I remain at all times a man, or
4:15
like Skiller, a Swabian like can't Oppusian like Gustaf Adolphus, a near sighted
4:23
person, I certainly become my superior qualities a notable man, Swabian puson,
4:30
or near sighted person. But the case is not much better with that than
4:35
with Frederick, the Great King, which became famous for Frederick's sake. To
4:43
give God the glory corresponds to the modern give man the glory, but I
4:47
mean to keep it for myself. Criticism, issuing the summons to man to
4:53
be human, enunciates the necessary condition of sociability, for only as man among
5:00
men is one companionable herewith it makes known its social object, the establishment of
5:08
humane society. Among social theories, criticism is indisputably the most complete because it
5:15
removes antiprise, the value everything that separates man from man, all prerogatives down
5:23
to the prerogative of faith. In it, the love principle of Christianity,
5:29
the true social principle comes to the purest fulfillment, and the last possible experiment
5:35
is tried to take away any exclusiveness and repulsion from men. A fight against
5:42
egoism in its simplest and therefore hardest form, in the form of singleness exclusiveness
5:49
itself. How can you live a truly social life so long as even one
5:57
exclusive still exists between you, I ask, conversely, how can you be
6:02
truly single so long as even one connection still exists between you? If you
6:09
are connected, you cannot leave each other. If a tie clasps you,
6:14
you are something only with another, and twelve of you make a dozen thousands
6:19
of you a people, millions of you humanity. Only when you are human
6:26
can you keep company with each other as men, just as you can understand
6:31
each other as patriots. Only when you are patriotic. All right, then,
6:36
I answer, Only when you are single can you have intercourse with each
6:42
other as what you are. It is precisely the keenest fotique who has hid
6:47
hardest by the curse of his principle, putting from him one exclusive thing after
6:54
another. Shaken of churchliness, patriotism, et cetera, he undoes one tie
7:00
after another and separates himself from the churchly man, from the patriot, until
7:05
at last, when all the ties are undone, he stands alone. He
7:12
of all men must exclude all that have anything exclusive or private. And when
7:17
you get to the bottom, what can be more exclusive than the exclusive single
7:24
person himself? Or does he perhaps think that the situation would be better if
7:30
all became man and gave up exclusiveness. Why for the very reason that all
7:38
means every individual. The most glaring contradiction is still maintained for the individual is
7:45
exclusiveness itself. If the humane liberal no longer concedes to the individual anything private
7:51
or exclusive, any private thought, any private folly, he criticizes everything away
7:59
from him before his face, since his hatred of the private is an absolute
8:05
and fanatical hatred. If he knows no tolerance toward what his private, because
8:11
everything private is unhuman. Yet he cannot criticize away the private person himself,
8:18
since the hardness of the individual person resists his criticism, and he must be
8:24
satisfied with declaring this person a private person and really leaving everything private to him.
8:31
Again, what will the society that no longer cares about anything private do
8:37
make the private impossible? No, but subordinate it to the interests of society
8:43
and e g. Leave it to private will to constitute holidays as many as
8:50
it chooses, if only it does not come in collision with the general interest.
8:56
Everything private is left free. Are has no interest for society. By
9:03
their raising barriers against science, the church and the religiousness had declared that they
9:09
are what they always were only that this was hidden under another's semblance, when
9:15
they were proclaimed to be the bias and necessary foundation of the state, a
9:20
matter of purely private concern. Even when they were connected with the state and
9:24
made a Christian, they were only the proof that the state had not yet
9:30
developed his general political idea, that it was only in situating private rights.
9:35
They were only the highest expression for the fact that the state was a private
9:41
affair and had to do only with private affairs. When the state shall at
9:46
last have the courage and strength to fulfill its general destiny and to be free
9:50
forever, when therefore it is also able to give separate interests and private concerns
9:56
their true position, and the church will be free as they never have been
10:03
hitherto, as a matter of their most purely private concern and a satisfaction of
10:09
purely personal wants. They will be left to themselves, and every individual,
10:15
every congregation and ecclesiastical communion will be able to take care for the blessedness of
10:22
their souls as they choose and as they think necessary. Everyone will care for
10:28
his soul's blessedness so far as it is to him a personal want, and
10:33
will accept and pay as spiritual caretaker, the one who seems to him to
10:39
offer the best guarantee for the satisfaction of his want. Science is at last
10:45
left entirely out of the game. What is to happen, though, is
10:50
social life to have an end, and all a felibility, all flatternization,
10:56
everything that is created by the love or society principle to disappear, as if
11:01
one will not always seek the other because he needs him, as if one
11:07
must accommodate himself to the other when he needs him. But the difference is
11:13
that then the individual really unites with the individual. While formerly they were bound
11:18
together by a tie, son and father are bound together before majority. After
11:24
it, they can come together independently. Before it, they belong together as
11:31
members of the family. After it, they unite as egoists. Sonship and
11:37
fatherhood remain, but son and father no longer pin themselves down to these.
11:43
The last privilege in truth is man. With it, all are privileged or
11:48
invested for. As Buno Beera himself says, privilege remains even when it is
11:54
extended to all. Thus liberalism runs it course in the following transformations. First,
12:03
the individual is not man. Therefore his individual personality is of no account,
12:09
no personal will, no arbitrariness, no orders or mandates. Second,
12:16
the individual has nothing human, therefore no mine and thine or property is valid.
12:22
Third, as the individual neither is man nor has anything human, he
12:28
shall not exist at all. He shall, as an egoist, with his
12:33
egotistic belongings, be annihiliated by criticism to make roomful man. Man just discovered.
12:41
But although the individual is not man, man is yet present in the
12:46
individual, and like every spook and everything divine, has its existence in him.
12:54
Hence, political liberalism awards to the individual everything that pertains to him as
13:00
a man by birth, as born by man, among which there are counted
13:05
liberty of conscience, the progression of goods, et cetera. In short,
13:11
the rights of man. Socialism grants to the individual and what betains to him
13:16
as an active man, as a laboring man. Finally, humane liberalism gives
13:22
the individual what he has as a man. Are ye, everything that belongs
13:28
to humanity. Accordingly, a single one has nothing at all. Humanity everything
13:35
and the necessity of the regeneration preached in Christianity is demanded unambiguously, and in
13:43
the completest measure become a new creature become man. One might even think himself
13:50
reminded of the close of the Lord's prayer. To man belongs to the lordship,
13:56
their power or dinnermis Therefore, no individual may be lord, but man
14:03
is the lord of individuals. Man's is the kingdom I eve the world.
14:09
Consequently, the individual is not to be proprietor, but man all commanded the
14:15
world as property to man is due venn glorification or glory doctor from all for
14:24
man or humanity is the individual's end, for which he labors, thinks,
14:30
lives, and for whose glorification he must become man. Hitherto, men have
14:37
always driven to find out a fellowship in which their inequalities in other respects should
14:43
become non essential. They strove for equalization, consequently for equality, and wanted
14:50
to come all under one hat, which means nothing less than that they were
14:56
seeking for one lord, on one tie. One faith tis in one God.
15:01
We all believe there cannot be for men anything more fellowly or more equal
15:07
than man himself. And in this fellowship the love craving has found its contentment.
15:16
It did not rest till it had brought on this last equalization leveled all
15:20
inequality laid man on the breast of man. But under this very fellowship decay
15:28
and women becomes most glaring in a more limited fellowship. The Frenchman still stood
15:33
against the German, the Christian against the Mohammedan, et cetera. Now,
15:39
on the contrary, man stands against men, or as men are not man,
15:45
man stands against the unman. The sentence God has become man is now
15:52
followed by the other Man has become I. This is the human eye.
15:58
But we vertic and say I was not able to find myself so long as
16:03
I sought myself as man. But now that it appears that man is aspiring
16:08
to become I and to gain a corporeity in me, I note that,
16:15
after all, everything depends on me, and man is lost without me.
16:22
But I do not care to give myself up to be the shrine of this
16:26
most holy thing. And I shall not ask henceforward whether I am man or
16:30
unman in what I said about let this spirit keep off my neck. Humane
16:37
liberalization goes to work radically if you want to be or have anything especial given
16:44
at one point, if you want to retain for yourself even one prerogative above
16:49
others to claim even one right that is not a general right of man.
16:56
You are an egoist, very good. I do not want to have or
17:00
be anything special above others. I do not want to claim any prerogative against
17:07
them. But I do not measure myself by others either, and do not
17:11
want to have any right whatever. I want to be all and have all
17:17
that I can be and have. Whether others are and have anything similar,
17:22
what do I care? The equal the saying they can neither be nor have
17:29
I cause no detriment to them, as I cause no detriment to the rock
17:33
by being ahead of it in having motion. If they could have it,
17:38
they would have it to cause other men no detriment. Is the point of
17:44
the demand to possess, no prerogative, to renounce or being ahead. The
17:49
strictest theory of denunciation, one is not to count himself as anything especial e
17:56
g. A Jew or a Christian. Well, I do not count myself
18:02
as anything special, but as unique. Doubtless I have similarity with others.
18:07
Yet that holds good only for comparison or reflection. In fact, I am
18:14
incomparable unique. My flesh is not their flesh, My mind is not their
18:19
mind. If you bring them under the generalities flesh mind, those are your
18:26
thoughts which have nothing to do with my flesh, my mind, and can
18:30
least of all issue called to mine. I do not want to recognize or
18:36
respect in you anything, neither the proprietor, nor the ragamuhin, nor even
18:41
the man, but to use you in salt. I find that it makes
18:45
food palatable to me. Therefore I dissolve it in the fish. I recognize
18:52
on ailments. Therefore I eat it in you. I discover the gift of
18:56
making my life agreeable. Therefore I choose you as a companion or insult.
19:03
I study crystallization in the fish, animality in you men, etc. But
19:11
to me, you are only what you are for me to whit my object,
19:15
and because my object, therefore my property. In humane liberalism waggamuffing hood
19:22
is completed, we must first come down to the most ragamuffing like, most
19:29
property stricken condition if we want to arrive at illness, for we must strip
19:34
off everything alien. But nothing seems more ragamuffing like than they could man.
19:41
It is more than ragamuffin hood. However, when I throw away man too,
19:47
because I feel that he too is ailing to me, and that I
19:52
can make no pretensions on that basis. This is no longer mere ragamuffin hood,
19:57
because even the rag has fallen off. Here stands real nakedness, the
20:03
nudition of everything alien. The ragamuffin has stripped off ragamuffin hood itself, and
20:11
therewith has ceased to be what he was, a ragamuffin. I am no
20:17
longer ragamuffin, but have been one up to this time. The discord could
20:23
not come to an outbreak because probably there is current only a contention of modern
20:30
liberals with antiquated liberals, a contention of those who understand freedom in a small
20:37
measure and those who want the full measure of freedom of the moderate and measureless.
20:44
Therefore, everything turns on the question how free must man be? That
20:49
man must be free in this or belief. Therefore, all are liberal.
20:55
I but the unman, who is somewhere in every individual, how is he
21:00
blocked? How can it be arranged not to leave the unman free at the
21:06
same time with a man. Liberalism as a whole has a deadly enemy and
21:12
invincible opposite, as God has the devil. But the side of man stands
21:18
always the unman, the individual, the egotist state, society, humanity do
21:25
not master this devil. Humane liberalism has undertaken the task of showing the other
21:30
liberals that they still do not want freedom. If the other liberals had before
21:37
their eyes only isolated egoism and work, for their most part, blind,
21:42
radical liberation has agained its egoism in mass throws among the masses all who do
21:49
not make the cause of freedom their own, as it does so that now
21:55
man and unman, rigorously separated, stand over each other as enemies to wit
22:02
the masses and criticism, namely free human criticism as it is called in opposition
22:08
to food, that is, religious criticism. Criticism expresses the hope that it
22:14
will be victorious over all of the masses and give them a general certificate of
22:18
insolvency. So it means finally to make itself out in the right and to
22:25
represent all connection of the fainthearted, antimous as an egoistic stubbornness, as pettiness,
22:32
paltriness, all wrangling, losses, significance and pretty dissensions are given up
22:40
because in criticism a common enemy enters the failed. You are egoists, altogether
22:48
know one better than another. Now the egoists stand together against criticism. Really,
22:55
the egoists know they fight against criticism precisely because it accuses them of egoism.
23:03
They do not plead guilty of egoism. Accordingly, criticism and the masses
23:07
stand on the same basis. Both fight against egoism, both repudiated for themselves
23:15
and charged it to each other. Criticism and the masses pursue the same goal
23:22
freedom form egoism and wrangled only other. Which of them approaches nearest to the
23:27
goal or even attains it. The Jews, the Christians, the absolutists,
23:33
the men of darkness and men of light, politicians, communarchists, all in
23:40
sort called the reproach of egoism far from them, and as criticism brings against
23:45
them this reproach, in plain terms and in the most extended sense, all
23:52
justify themselves against the accusation of egoism and combat egoism, the same enemy with
23:59
whom criticism wages war. Both criticism and masses are enemies of egoists, and
24:06
both seek to liberate themselves from egoism, as well by clearing or whitewashing themselves,
24:12
as by ascribing to the opposite party. The critic is the true spokesman
24:18
of the masses, who gives them that simple concept and the phrase of egoism,
24:25
while the spokesmen to whom the triumph is denied were only bunglers. He
24:30
is their prince and general in the war against egoism for freedom. What he
24:37
fights against, they fight against. But at the same time he is their
24:41
enemy too, not only the enemy before them, but the friendly enemy who
24:47
wields the not behind the timorus to force courage into them. Hereby the opposition
24:53
of criticism and the masses is reduced to the following contradiction. You egoists,
25:00
No, we are not. I will prove it to you. You should
25:03
have our justification. Let us then take both for what they give themselves out
25:10
for non egoists, and what they take each other for egoists. They are
25:15
egoists and are not. Probably criticisms says, you must liberate your ego from
25:22
all limitness so entirely that it becomes a human ego. I say, liberate
25:30
yourself as far as you can, and you have done your part. For
25:33
it is not given to everyone to break through all limits, or more expressively,
25:40
not to everyone is that a limit, which is a limit for the
25:44
rest. Consequently, do not tire yourself with toiling at the limits of others.
25:49
Enough if you tear down yours, who has ever succeeded in tearing down
25:55
even one limit? For all men are not countless persons today, as at
26:00
all times running about with all the limitations of humanity. He who overturns one
26:06
of his limits may have shown others the way and the means. The overturning
26:11
of their limits remains their affair. Nobody does anything else. Either. To
26:18
demand of people that they become homely men is to call on them to cast
26:22
down all humane limits. That is impossible, because man has no limits.
26:29
I have some, indeed, but then it is only mine that concern me
26:33
any and only they can be overcome by me a human ego, I cannot
26:40
become just because I am. I am not merely man. Yet, let
26:47
us still see whether the criticism has not taught us something that we can lay
26:51
to heart. I am not free if I am not without interests, not
26:56
man, if I am not disinterested, Well, even if it makes little
27:02
difference to me to be free or man, I do not want to leave
27:06
unuse any occasion to realize myself or make myself count. Criticism offers me this
27:12
occasion by the teaching that if anything pliants is self firmly in me and becomes
27:18
indissoluble, I become its prisoner and servant. Are a possessed man an interest.
27:26
Yet for what it may has kidnapped a slave in me. If I
27:30
cannot get away from it and is no longer my property, but I am
27:34
it. Let us therefore accept criticisms lesson to let no part of our property
27:41
become stable, and to feel comfortable only in dissolving it. So if criticism
27:48
says you are man only when you are restlessly criticizing and dissolving, then we
27:53
say man, I am without that, and I am I. Likewise,
28:00
Therefore, I want only to be careful to secure my property to myself.
28:03
And in order to secure it, I continually take it back into myself,
28:08
annihilate it in every movement toward independence, and swallow it before it confix itself
28:15
and become a fixed idea or a mania. But I do that not for
28:22
the sake of my humane calling, but because I call myself to do it.
28:26
I do not stop about dissolving everything that is possible for a man to
28:30
dissolve and e g. While not yet ten years old. I do not
28:36
criticize the nonsense of their commandments. But I am man all the same,
28:41
and act humanly in just this that I still leave them uncriticized. In short,
28:48
I have no calling and follow none, not even that to be a
28:52
man. End of seption sixteen.