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18 - Part Second, Ownness - part 1 - The Ego and His Own - Max Stirner · The Philosophy Insights Collection

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Section eighteen, Part second onus, Part one at the entrance of the modern
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time stands the god Man at its exit? Will only the God in the
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god Man evaporate? And can the god Man really die if only the God
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in him dies? They did not think of this question and thought they were
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through, when in our days they brought to a victorious end the work of
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the illumination, the vanquishing of God. They did not notice that man has
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killed God in order to become now soul God on High. The other world
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outside us is indeed brushed away, and the great undertaking of the illuminators completed.
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But the other world in us has become a new heaven and cause us
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forth to renewed heaven storming. God has had to give place, yet not
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to us, but to man. How can you believe that the god Man
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is dead before the man in him? Besides, the God is dead one
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ownness subtitle. This is a literal translation of the German word ironight, which
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with its primitive iron own is used in this chapter in a way that the
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German dictionaries do not quite recognize. The author's conception, being knew he had
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to make an innovation in the German language to express it. The translator is
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under the like necessity. In most passages self ownership or else personality will translate
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the word. But there are some where the thought is so iron by e,
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so peculiar, or so thoroughly the author's own, that no English word
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I can think of would express it. I will explain itself to one who
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has read part first intelligently. End of footnote. Does not the spirit first
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for freedom? Alas not my spirit alone my body to first for it?
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Hourly, when before the Odoria's Castle kitchen, my nose tells my palette of
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the savory dishes that are being prepared therein it feels a fearful pining, as
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it's dry bread. When my eyes tell the hardened back about soft down on
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which one may lie more delightfully than on its compressed straw, a suppressed rage
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seizes it. When but let us not follow the pains further, and you
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call back and longing for freedom, What do you want to become free from
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them, from your heart attack and your straw bed, and throw them away?
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But that seems not to serve you. You want rather to have the
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freedom to enjoy delicious foods and downy beds are men to give you this freedom?
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Are they too permitted to you? You do not hope that from their
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philanthropy, because you know they all think like you, each is the nearest
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to himself. How therefore, do you mean to come to the enjoyment of
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those foods and beds? Evidently not otherwise than in making them your own property.
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If you think it over rightly, you do not want the freedom to
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have all these fine things, for with this freedom you still do not have
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them. You want really to have them, to call them yours and possess
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them as your property. Of what use is a freedom to you? Indeed,
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if it brings in nothing, and if you become free from everything,
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you would no longer have anything. For freedom is empty of substance. Whosoin
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knows not how to make use of it. For him, it has no
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value. It's useless permission. But how I make use of it depends on
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my personality. I have no objection to freedom, but I wish more than
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freedom for you. You should not merely be rid of what you do not
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want. You should only be a freeman. You should be an owner to
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free from what, oh, what is there that cannot be shaken? Off
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the yoke of serfdom, of sovereignty, of aristocracy, and prince, the
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dominant of their desires and passions, Yes, even the dominion of the desires
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and passions. Yes, even the domain of one's own will, of self
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will. For the completest, self denial is nothing but freedom. Freedom to
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wit from self, determination, from one's own self, and the plain thing
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for freedom, as for something absolute, worthy of every praise, deprived us
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of illness, It created self denial. However, the fear I become,
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the more compulsion piles up before my eyes, and the more impotent I feel
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myself. The unfreecern of the wilderness does not yet fail anything of all the
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limits that crowd a civilized man. He seems to himself freer than this latter.
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In the measure that I conquer freedom for myself, I create for myself
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new bounds and new tasks. If I have invented railroads, I feel myself
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weak again, because I cannot yet sail through disguise like a bird. And
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if I have solved a problem whose obscurity disturbed my mind at once, there
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await me innumerable others whose perplexities, impeded by progress, dim my free gays
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make the limits of my freedom painfully sensible to me. Now that you have
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become free from your sin, you have become servants of righteousness. Republicans,
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in their broad freedom, do they not become servants of the law. How
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true Christian hearts at all times long to become free? How are they pined
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to see themselves delivered from the bonds of this earth life? They look like
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toward the land of freedom. The Jerusalem that is above is free women.
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She is the mother of all us relations four twenty six. Being free from
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anything means only being clear or rid. He is free from headache is equal
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to he is rid of it. He is free from his prejudice is equal
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to he has never conceived it, or he has got rid of it.
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Unless we complete the freedom recommended by Christianity in sinless, godless, moralityless,
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etc. Freedom is the doctrine of Christianity. Ye, dear brethren, are
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called to freedom, So speak and so do as those who are to be
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judged by the law of freedom. Must we, then, because freedom betrays
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itself as a Christian ideal, give it up. No, nothing is to
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be lost freedom no more than the rest. But it is to become our
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own, and in the form of freedom. It cannot what a difference between
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freedom and illness. One can get rid of a great many things, one
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yet does not get rid of all. One becomes free from much, not
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from everything. Inwardly, one may be free in spite of the condition of
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slavery, although too it is again only from all sorts of things, not
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from everything, but from the wit, the domineering temper of the master.
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One does not, as a slave, become free. Freedom lives only in
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the realm of dreams onwness. On the contrary, is my whole being and
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existence. It is I myself. I am free from what I am rid
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of, owner of what I have in my power, or what I control.
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My own I am at all times and under all circumstances, if I
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know how to have myself and do not throw myself away on others. To
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be free is something, and I cannot truly will because I cannot make it,
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cannot create it. I can only wish it and aspire toward it,
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for it remains an ideal, a spook. The fetters of reality cut the
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sharpest welts in my flesh every moment, But my own I remain given up
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as surf to a master. I think only of myself and my advantage.
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His blows strike me. Indeed, I am not free from them, but
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I endure them only for my benefit, perhaps in order to deceive him and
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make him secure by the semblance of patience, or again not to draw worse
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upon myself by contumus. But as I keep my eye on myself and my
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selfishness, I take by the forelock the first good opportunity to trample this slaveholder
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into the dust. That I then become free from him and his wit is
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only the consequence of my anticidant egoism. Here one perhaps says I was free,
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even in the condition of slavery, to wit intrinsically or inwardly. But
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intrinsically free is not barely free, and inwardly is not outwardly. I was
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own, on the other hand, my own altogether, inwardly and outwardly,
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under the dominion of a cruel master. My body is not free from torments
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and lashes. But it is my banes that moan under the torture, my
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fibers that quiver under the blows. And I moan because my body moans,
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that I sigh and shiver proves that I have not yet lost myself, but
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I am still my own. My leg is not free from the master's stick,
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but it is my leg and is inseparable. Let him tear it off
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me, and look and see if he still has my leg. He retains
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in his hand nothing but the corpse of my leg, which is as little
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my leg as a dead dog is still a dog. A dog has a
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pulsating heart. A so called dead dog has none, and is therefore no
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longer a dog. If one opines that a slave may yet be inwardly free,
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he is said, in fact, only the most indisputable and trivial thing.
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For who is going to assert that any man is holy without freedom?
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If I am an eye servant, can I therefore not be free from innumerable
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things e g. From faith in Zeus, for the desireful fame, etc.
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Why then should not a whipped slave also be able to be inwardly free
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from Unchristian sentiments, from hatred of his enemy, et cetera. He then
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has Christian freedom, is rid of the Unchristian But has he absolute freedom freedom
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from everything e g. From the Christian delusion or from bodily pain in the
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meantime, all this seems to be said more against names than against the thing.
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But it is the name of indifferent and has not a word a syllabeth
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always inspired and falled men. Yet between freedom and oldness, then lies still
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a deeper chasm than the mere difference of the words. All of the world
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desires freedom, all long for its reiin to come our enchantingly beautiful dream of
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a blooming reign of freedom, a free human race who has not dreamed of
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it? So men shall become free, entirely free, free from all constraint,
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from all constraint, Really, from all are they never to put constraint
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on themselves anymore? Oh? Yes, that of course, don't you see?
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That is no constraint at all. While then, at any rate they
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are to become free from religious faith, from the strict duties of morality,
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from the inarexibility of the law, from what a fearful misunderstanding. Well,
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what are they to be free from? Then? And what not? The
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lovely dream is dissipated. Awakened, one rubs his half opened eyes and stares
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at the prosaic questioner. What men are to be free from? From blind
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crudelity, Chris one. What's that, exclaims another. All faith is blind
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crudelity. They must become free from all faith. No, no, for
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God's sake. In vase the first again, do not cast all faith from
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you. Else the power of brutality breaks in. We must have very public.
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A third makes himself heard and become free from all commanding lords. There
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is no help in that, says a fourth. We only get a new
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lord, then, the dominant majority. Let us rather free ourselves from the
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dreadful in a quality. Oh, hapless equality. Already I hear you plebeian
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war again. How I had dreamed so beautifully just now of a paradise of
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freedom, And what impudence and my sitchiness now raises its wild clamor. Thus
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the first laments and get some of his feute to grasp the sword against unmeasured
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freedom. Soon we no longer hear anything but the clashing of the swords of
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the disagreeing dreamers of freedom. What the quaving for freedom has always come to
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has been the desire for a particular freedom e g. Freedom of faith i
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e. The believing man wanted to be free and independent of what of faith,
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perhaps, no, but of the inquisitors of faith. So now political
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or civil freedom. The citizen wants to become free, not from citizenhood,
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but from bureaucracy. The obituaries of princes, etc. Princeletinitch once said he
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had found a way that was adapted to guide men in the path of genuine
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freedom for all of the future. The Count of Province ran away from France
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precisely at the time when he was preparing the Reign of Freedom, and said,
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my imprisonment had become intolerable to me. I had only one passion,
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the desire for freedom. I thought only of it. The craving for a
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particular freedom always includes the purpose of a new dominion, as it was with
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the Revolution, which indeed could give its defenders the uplifting feeling that they were
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fighting for freedom, but in truth only because they were after a particular freedom.
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Therefore a new dominion, the dominion of the law. Freedom. You
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all want, You want freedom, Why then do you haggle over a more
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or less Freedom can only be the whole of freedom. A piece of freedom
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is not freedom. You despair of the possibility of obtaining the whole of freedom,
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freedom from everything, Yes, you consider it insanity, even to wish
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this well, then leave off chasing after the phantom and spend your pains on
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something better than the unattainable. Ah that there is nothing better than freedom.
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What have you then? When you have freedom viz. For I will not
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speak here of your piecemeal bits of freedom. Complete freedom, then you are
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rid of everything that embraces you. Everything, and there is probably nothing that
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does not once in your life embarrass you and cause you inconvenience. And for
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whose sake? Then did you want to be rid of it? Doubtless for
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your sake, because it is in your way. But if some we're not
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inconvenient to you, If on the contrary, it was quite to your mind
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e. G. Edgentically but irresistibly commanding look of your loved one, then
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you would not want to be rid of it and free from it? Why
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not? For your sake? Again, So you take yourselves as measure and
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judge over all. You gladly let freedom go when unfreedom the sweet service of
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love suits you, and you take up your freedom again on occasion when it
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begins to suit you better. I need supposing which is not the point here,
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that you are not afraid of such a repel of the union for other,
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perhaps religious reasons. Why will you not take courage now to really make
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yourselves the central point and the main thing altogether? Why well, asp in
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the air at freedom in your dream? Are you your dream? Do not
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begin by inquiring of your dreams, your thoughts, for that is all hollow
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theory. Ask yourselves, and ask after yourselves. That is practical, And
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you know you want very much to be practical. But they're the one.
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Hearkens with his God. Of course, what he thinks at the name God
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is his God may be going to say to it, and another what his
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moral feelings, his conscience, his feeling of duty may determine about it.
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And a third calculates what Fox will think of it. And when each has
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thus asked his Lord God, Fox are a Lord God just as good as,
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nay even more compact than the other worldly imaginary one rocks poppy, rocks
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thee. Then he accommodates himself to his Lord's will and listens no more at
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all for what he himself would like to say and decide. Therefore, turn
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to yourselves rather than to your God's. Or I bring out from yourselves what
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is in you. Bring it to the light, Bring yourselves to revelation.
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How one acts only from himself and asks after nothing. Further, the Christians
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have realized in the notion God, he acts as it pleases him, and
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foolish man who could do just so, is to act as it pleases God.
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Instead. If it is said that even God proceeds according to eternal laws,
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that too fits me, since I too cannot get out of my skin,
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but have my law in my whole nature. Are ye in myself?
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But one needs only admorish you of yourself to bring you to despair at once?
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What am I? Each of you asks himself and abyss of lawless and
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unregulated impulses, desire, wishes, passions, a chaos without light or guiding
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star am I to obtain a correct answer? If without regard to God's commandments
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or to the duties which morality prescribes, without regard to the voice of reason,
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which, in the cause of history, after bitter experiences, has exalted
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the best and most reasonable thing into law, I simply appeal to myself.
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My passion would advise me to do the most senseless thing possible. Thus each
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deems himself the devil, for if so far as he is unconcerned about religion,
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etc. He only deemed himself a beast, as he would easily find
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that the beast, which does follow only its impulse, as it were,
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its advice, does not advise and impel itself to do the most senseless things,
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but takes very correct steps. But the habit of the religious way of
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thinking as bias our mind so grievously that we are terrified at ourselves, in
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our nakedness and naturalness. It has degraded us, so that we deem ourselves
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depraved by nature born devils. Of course, it comes into your head at
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once that your calling requires you to do the good, the moral, the
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right. Now, if you ask yourselves what is to be done, how
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can the right voice sound forth from you, the voice which points the way
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of the good, the right, the true, etc. What concord have
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God and belion? But what would you think if one answered you by saying
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that one is to listen to God, conscience, duties, laws, and
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so forth is flim flam with which people have stuffed your head and heart and
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made you crazy. And if he asked you how it is that you know
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so surely that the voice of nature is a seducer and if he even demanded
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of you to turn the thing about and actually to deem the voice of God
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and conscience to the devil's work. There are such graceless men, How will
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you settle them? You cannot appeal to your parsons, parents, and good
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men, for precisely these are designated by them as your seducers, as the
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true seducers and corruptors of youth, who busily sow broadcast the tales of self
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contempt and reverence to God, who fill young hearts with mud and young heads
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with stupidity. But now those people go on and ask for whose sake do
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you care about gods and the other commandments? You surely do not suppose that
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this is done merely out of compliance toward God. No, you are doing
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it for your sake. Again hitherto therefore, you are the main thing.
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And each must say to himself, I am everything to myself, and I
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do everything on my account. If it ever became clear to you that God
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the commandments et cetera, only harm you, that they reduce and ruin you
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do a certainty you would throw them from you, just as the Christians was
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condemned Apollo or maneuver or heathen morality. They did indeed put in the place
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of these Christ and afterward Mary as well as a Christian morality. But they
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did this for the sake of their souls welfare too, therefore, out of
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egoism or ownness. And it was by this egoism, this onness, that
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they got rid of the old world of gods and became free from it.
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Ownness created a new freedom, For ownness is the creator of everything, as
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genius deaf. And the ownness, which is always originality, has for a
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long time already been looked upon as the creator of the new productions that have
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a place in the history of the world. End of Section twenty eight.