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31 - My Intercourse - part 8 - The Ego and His Own - Max Stirner · Logic Library

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