Latest / Logic Library / 24 - My Intercourse - part 1 - The Ego and His Own - Max Stirner

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24 - My Intercourse - part 1 - The Ego and His Own - Max Stirner · Logic Library

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My power, my intercourse Part one. In society, the human demands at
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most can be satisfied, while the egoistic must always come short, because it
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can hardly escape anybody that the present shows no such living interest in any question.
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As in a social one has to direct his gaze, especially to society.
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Nay, if the interest felt in it were less passionate and dazzled,
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people would not so much in looking at society lose sight of the individuals in
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it, and would recognize that a society cannot become new so long as those
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who form and constitute it remain the old ones. If e g. There
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was to arise in the Jewish people a society which should spread a new faith
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over the earth, these apostles could in no case remain parises. As you
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are, so you present yourself, so you behave toward men, a hypocrite
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as a hypocrite, a Christian as a Christian. Therefore, the character of
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a society is determined by the character of its members. They are its creators,
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so much at least one must perceive, even if one were not willing
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to put to the test the concept society itself, ever, far from letting
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themselves come to their full development and consequence, Men have hitherto not been able
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to found the societies on themselves, or rather, they have been able only
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to found societies and to live in societies. The societies were always persons,
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powerful persons, so called moral persons, by e ghosts, before which the
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individual had the appropriate will in his head the fear of ghosts. As such
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ghosts, they may most suitably be designated by the respective names people and people.
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Let the people of the Patriarchs, the people of Helene's, etc.
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At the last, the people of men mankind amachoaris plutes was enthusiastic for the
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nation of mankind. Then every subdivision of this people which could and must have
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its special societies, the Spanish, French people, et cetera. Within it
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again classes, cities, in short, all kinds of corporations. Lastly,
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tapering to the finest point, the little people let of the family. Hence,
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instead of saying that the person that walked as ghosts in all societies hitherto
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has been the people, there might also have been named the two extremes,
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to wit, either mankind or the family, both the most natural born units.
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We choose the word people because its devoration has been brought into connection with
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the Greek peloe, the many or the masses, but still more because national
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efforts are at present the order of the day, and because even the newest
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mutineers have not yet shaken off its deceptive person. Although on the other hand,
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the latter consideration must give the preference to the expression mankind, since on
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all sides they are going in for enthusiasm over mankind. The people, then
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mankind or the family have hitherto. As it seems played history, no egoistic
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interest was to come up in these societies, but solely general ones, national
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or popular interests, class interests, family interests, and general human interests.
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But who has brought to their fall the peoples who decline? History relates who
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but the egoists, who was seeking his satisfaction. If once an egoist's interest
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crept in, the society was corrupted and moved towards its dissolution, as rome
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E g proves, with its highly developed system of private rights, or Christianity,
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with the incessantively breaking in rational self determination, self consciousness, the autonomy
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of the spirit, etc. The Christian people has produced two societies whose duration
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will keep equal measures with the permanence of bad people of these societies, state
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and church? Can they be called a union of egoists? Do we in
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them pursue an egoistic personal own interest? Or do we pursue a popular i
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e. An interest of the Christian people? To wit, a state and
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church interest? Can I, and may I be myself in them? Nay?
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I think an act as I will? May I reveal myself, live
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myself out, busy myself. Must I not leave untouched the majesty of the
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state, the sensity of the Church. Well, I may not do so
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as I will? But shall I find in any society such an unmeasured freedom
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of maying? Certainly? Know accordingly we might be content not a bit.
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It is a different thing whether I rebound from an ego or form of people
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a generalization. There I am my opponent's opponent, born his equal. Here
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I am a despised opponent, bound and under a guardian. There I stand
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man to man. Here I am a schoolboy who can accomplish nothing against his
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comrade, because the latter has called father and mother to aid and has crept
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under the apron While I am well scolded as an ill bred brat. And
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I must not argue there I felt against a bodily enemy, here against mankind,
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against a generalization, against a majesty, against a spook. But to
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me, no majesty, nothing sacred, is a limit, nothing that I
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know how to overpower. Only that which I cannot overpower, still limit my
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might, and I of limited might, and temporarily a limited eye, not
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limited by the might outside me, but limited by my own skilled deficion right
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by my own impotence. However, the God dies but does not surrender.
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Above all only a bodily opponent. I dare meet every foreman whom I can
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see and measure with mine eye, metal fires, my metal for the fight,
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etc. Many privileges have indeed been canceled with time, but solely for
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the sake of the common will of their state, and state will by no
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means for the strengthening of me. Vassilage e g. Was abrogated only that
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a single liege lord, the lord of the people, the monarchical power might
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be strengthened. Bassalage under the one became yet more vigorous. Thereby only in
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favor of the monarch, be he called prince or law, have privileges fallen.
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In France. The citizens are not indeed vassals of the king, but
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are instead vassals of the law. The charter subordination was retained only the Christian
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state recognized that man cannot serve two masters, the lord of the manner and
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the prince. Therefore one obtained all the prerogatives. Now he can again place
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one above another. He can make men in high place. But of what
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concern to me is the common wal? The common wal as such is not
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my will, but only the fairthest extremity of self denunciation. The common wal
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may cheer aloud, while I must gang. The state may shine. Will
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I starve in what lies the folly of the political liberals, but in their
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opposing the people to the government and talking of people's rights. So there is
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the people going to be of age, et cetera. As if one who
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has no maug could be wounded, only the individual is able to be wounded.
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Thus the whole question of the liberty of the press is turned upside down.
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When it is made claim to as a right of the people, it
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is only a right, or better the might of the individual. If a
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people has liberty of the press, then I, although in the midst of
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this people have it, not a liberty of the people is not my liberty.
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And the liberty of the press, as a liberty of the people,
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must have at its side a press law directed against me. This must be
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insisted on all a rank against the present day efforts for liberty. Liberty of
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the people is not my liberty. Let us admit these categories liberty of the
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people and right of the people e g. The right of the people that
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everybody may their arms? Does one not forfeit such a right? One cannot
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forfeit his own right, but may well forfeit a right that belongs not to
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me but to the people. I may be locked up for the sake of
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the liberty of the people. I may, under sentence, incur the loss
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of the right to their arms. Liberalism appears as the last attempt at a
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creation of the liberty of the people, a liberty of the commune, of
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society, of the general of mankind, the dream of a humanity, a
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people, a commune, a society that shall be of age. A people
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cannot be free otherwise than at the individual's expense. For it is not the
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individual that is the main point in this liberty, but the people. The
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three of the people, the more bound the individual people precisely at its freest
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time, created ostracism, banished the atheists, poisoned the most honest thinker.
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How did they place Socrates for his conscientiousness which makes him resist the advice to
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get away from the dungeon. He is a fool that he concedes to the
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Athenians a right to condemn him. Therefore it certainly serves him right. Why
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then, does he remain standing on an equal footing with the Athenians? Why
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does he not wreak with them? Had he known and been able to know
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what he was, he would have conceded to such judges. No claim,
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no right. That he did not escape was just his weakness, his delusion
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of still having something in common with the Athenians, or the opinion that he
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was a member, a mere member of the people. But he was rather
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this people itself in person, and could only be his own judge. There
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was no judge over him. As he himself had really pronounced a public sentence
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on himself and made it himself worthy of the pritenum, he should have stopped
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to that, And as he had uttered no sentence of death against himself,
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should have despised that of Athenians too, and escaped. But he subordinated himself
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and recognized in the people his judge. He seemed little to himself before the
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majesty of the people. That he subjected himself to might, to which alone
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he could succumb as to a right, was treason against himself. It was
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virtue to Christ, who, it is alleged, reframed from using the power
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over his heavenly legions. The same scrupuliness is thereby ascribed by the narrators.
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Lufer did very well, unwisely to have the safety of his journey to worms
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wanted to him in black and white. And Socrates should have known that the
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Indians were his enemies, he alone his judge. The self perception of a
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reign of law, etc. Should have given way to the perception that the
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relation was a relation of might. It was with pettifoggery and intrigues that weak
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liberty ended. Why because the ordinary breaks could still less attain that logical conclusion,
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But not even their hero of thought, Socrates was able to draw what
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then is pettifoggery but a way of utilizing something established without doing away with it,
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I might add, for one's own advantage. But you see that lies
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in utilizing such pettifoggers are the theologians who rest and force God's work. What
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would they have to rest if it were not for the established word of God.
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So those liberals who only shake and bless the established order, they all
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are perverters, like those perverters of the law. Socrates recognized law right.
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The Greeks consistently retained the authority of right and law. If with this recognition
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they wanted, nevertheless to assert their advantage everyone his aim, then they had
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to seek in it perversion of the law or intrigue. Earlsipid Days and Intruger
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of Genius introduces the period of Athian decay. The Spartan, Bysander and others
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show that intrigue had become universally Greek. Greek law, on which the Greek
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states rested, had to be perverted and undermined by the egoists within these states,
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and the states went down that the individuals might become free. The Greek
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people felt because the individuals cared less for this people than for themselves. In
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general, all states, constitutions, churches have sunk by the secession of individuals.
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For the individual is the irreconceivable enemy of every generality, every tie,
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eg, every fetter. Yet people fancy to this day that man needs sacred
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ties, he the deadly enemy of every tie. The history of the world
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shows that no tie has yet remained unwant shows that man tiresly defends himself against
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ties of every sort. And yet blinded people think up new ties again and
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again, and think eg that they have arrived at the right one. If
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one puts upon them the tie of a so called free constitution, a beautiful
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constitutional tie, decoration libbons, the ties of confidence ducing gradually to have become
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somewhat infirm. But people have made no further progress Thane from apn strings to
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garters and colors. Everything sacred is a tie, a fetter. Everything sacred
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is and must be perverted by the verters of the law. Therefore, our
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present time has multitudes of such perverters in all spheres. They are propelling the
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way for the breakup of law for lawlessness. More Athenians who are accused of
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petropoggory and sophistery, poor alcathedes of intrigue. Why that was just your best
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point, your first step in freedom, Your atheists, Herotus et. Cetera,
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only wanted to have of three Greek people. You were the first to
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summize something of your freedom. People repressed those who tell above its majesty by
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ostracism against two powerful citizens, by the inquisition against the heretics of the church,
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by their inquisition against traitors in the state for the people is concerned only
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with its self assertion. It demands patriotic self sacrifice from everybody to it.
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Accordingly, everyone in himself is indifferent and nothing, and it cannot do,
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not even suffer what the individual and he alone must do to wit turn him
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to account. Every people, every state is unjust towards the egoists. As
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long as there still exists even one institution which the individual may not dissolve,
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the inness and self opprochuance of me is still very remote. How can I,
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e g. Be free when I must find myself by oath to a
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constitution, a charter and law, by body and soul to my people.
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How can I be my own when my faculties may develop only as far as
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they do not disturb the harmony of society. Waiting the fall of peoples and
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mankind will invite me to my rise. Listen even as I am writing this,
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the follows begin to sound, that they may jingle in for tomorrow the
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festival of a thousand years existence of our dear Germany. Sound sound is hell?
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You do sound solemn enough, as if your tongue was moved by the
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presentiments that it is given convoy to a corpse. The German people and German
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peoples have behind them a history of a thousand years. What a long life.
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Oh go to rest, never to rise again, had only become free
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whom you so long have held in fetters. The people is dead. Up
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with me, O, thou, my much tormented German people? What was
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thy torment? It was the torment of a thought that cannot create itself a
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body, the torment of a walking spirit that dissolves into nothing at every cock
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crow, and yet find for deliverance and fulfillment in me too. Thou hast
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lived long, though, dear thought, Thou dear spook. Already I almost
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fancied I had found the world of thy deliverance, discovered flesh and those with
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a wandering sprint. Then I hear them sound the bows that usher thee into
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eternal rest. Then the last hope fades out. Then the notes of the
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last love guy away. Then I depart from the desolate house of those who
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now are dead, and enter at the door of the living one. For
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only he who is alive is in the right. Farewell thou, dream of
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so many millions. Farewell thou who hast chreinized over their children for one thousand
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years. Tomorrow they carry THEE to the grave. Soon, by sister,
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the peoples will follow thee. But when they have all followed, then mankind
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is buried, and I am my own. I am the laughing heir.
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The word gellschaft society has its origin in the word south hall. If one
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hole encloses many persons, then the hole causes these persons to be in a
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society. They are in society, and at most constitute a parlor society by
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talking in the traditional forms of parlor speech. When it comes to real intercourse,
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this is to be regarded as independent of society. It may occur or
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be lacking without altering the nature of what is named society. Those who are
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in the hall are a society even as mute persons, or when they put
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each other off solely with empty phases of curtsy. Intercourse is mutually. It
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is the action the commiseum of individuals. Society is only community of the hall,
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and even the statues of a museum hall are in society. They are
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brute. People are accustomed to say they have an I'm this hall in common.
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But the case is, rather than the whole has us in or in
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it, so far the natural signification of the word society. In this it
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comes out that society is not generated by me and you, but by a
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third factor which makes associations out of us too, And that it is just
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this third factor that is the creative one, that which creates society. Just
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so a prison society or a prison companionship those who enjoyed the same prison.
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Here we already hit upon a third factor fuller of significance, and was the
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merely local one. The whole prison, no, on their means, is
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space only, but a space with express reference to its inhabitants, For it
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is a prison only through being destined for prisoners, without whom it would be
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a mere building. What gives a common stamp to those who have gathered in
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it? Evidently the prison, Since it is only by means of the prison
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that they are prisoners. What then, determines the manner or life of the
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prison society the prison what determines their intercourse prison too. Perhaps, certainly they
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can enter upon intercourse only as prisoners, i e. Only so far as
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the prison laws allow it, But that they themselves hold intercourse I with you.
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This the prison cannot bring to pass. On the contrary, it must
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have an eye to guarding against such egoistic, purely personal intercourse. And only
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as such is it really intercourse between me and you, that we jointly execute
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a job, run a machine, effectuate anything in general. For this a
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prison role indeed provide, But that I forget that I am a prisoner and
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engage in intercourse with you, who likewise disregard it brings danger to the prison,
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and not only cannot be caused by it, but must not even be
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permitted. For this reason is saintly a moral minded French chamber decides to introduce
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solitary confinement, and other saints will do the like in order to cut off
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de moralizing intercourse. Imprisonment is the established and sacred condition to endure, which
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no attempt must be made. The slightest push of that kind is punishable,
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as is every uprising against the sacred thing by which man is to be charmed
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and chained. Like the whole, the prison does form a society, a
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companionship, a communion e g. Communion of labour, but no intercourse,
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no reciprocity, no union. On the contrary, every union in the prison
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bears within it the dangerous seed of a plot, which, under favorable circumstances
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might spring up and bear fruit. Yet one does not usually enter the prison
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voluntarily, and seldom remains in it voluntarily either, but cherishes the eagerluistic desire
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for liberty. Here. Therefore, it sooner becomes manifest that personal intercourse is
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in hostile relations to the prison society, and turns to the dissolution of this
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very society, this joint inclination. End of Section twenty four