Latest / Logic Library / 26 - My Intercourse - part 3 - The Ego and His Own - Max Stirner

Transcript

26 - My Intercourse - part 3 - The Ego and His Own - Max Stirner · Logic Library

0:00
My Intercourse, Part three. Edgarbure inveages against the determination of the regent by
0:08
birth by chance. But when the people have become the sole power in the
0:14
state page one hundred and thirty two, have we not been in it a
0:19
master from chance? Why? What is the people? The people has always
0:25
been only the body of the government. It is many under one hat,
0:30
a prince's hat, or many under one constitution. And the constitution is the
0:37
prince. Princes and peoples will persist so long as both do not collapse.
0:43
Are you fall together? If under one constitution there are many peoples, as
0:50
in the ancient Persian monarchy, and today, then these people's rank only as
0:56
provinces. For me, the people is in any case an accidental power,
1:03
a force of nature, an enemy that I must overcome. What is one
1:08
to think of under the name of an organized people page one hundred and thirty
1:14
two. A people that no longer has a government that governs itself, in
1:19
which therefore no ego stands out prominently, A people organized by ostracism. The
1:27
banishment of ego's ostracism makes the people autocrat. If you speak of the people,
1:36
you must speak of the prince. For the people if it is to
1:41
be a subject and make history, must, like everything that acts, have
1:46
a head. It's supreme head. White Link sets this forth in di Urpliashi
1:53
Taiachi, and throud Harm declares own society or angzida Aschefel near pu Viev.
2:05
The vox populife is now always held up to us, and public opinion is
2:10
to rule our prince. Certainly, the roots populy life is at the same
2:16
time vox deer, but is either of any use and is not. The
2:23
vox principles also rocks day. At this point the nationals may be brought to
2:29
mind. To demand of the thirty eight states of Germany that they shall act
2:35
as one nation can only be put alongside the senseless desire that thirty eight swarms
2:42
of bees led by thirty eight queen bees shall unite themselves into one swarm bees.
2:50
They all remain. But it is not the bees as bees that belong
2:53
together and can join themselves together. It is only that the subject bees are
3:00
connected with the ruling queens. Bees and people are destitute of will, and
3:07
the instinct of their queens leads them. If one were to point the bees
3:13
to their beehood, in which at any rate they are all equal to each
3:17
other, one would be doing the same thing that they are now doing so
3:23
stormily in pointing the Germans to their german hood. Why gimmnhood is just like
3:29
beehood in this very thing that it bears in itself the necessity of cleavages and
3:37
separations. Yet without pushing on to the last separation, where if the complete
3:44
carrying through of the process of separating, its end appears, I mean to
3:50
the separation of man from Man, Germanhood does indeed divide itself into different peoples
3:57
and tribes i e. Behind, But the individual who has the quality of
4:02
being a German is still as powerless as the isolated bee. And yet only
4:09
individuals can enter into union with each other. And all alliances and leagues of
4:15
people are and remain mechanical compoundings, because those who come together, at least
4:23
so far as the peoples are regarded as one that have come together. Our
4:29
destitute of will only with the last separation the separation itself end and change to
4:36
unification. Now the nationals are exerting themselves to set up the abstract, lifeless
4:44
unity of beehood, but the self owed are going to fight for the unity
4:49
will by their own will for union. This is the token of all reactionary
4:56
wishes that they want to set up something general, abstract, an empty,
5:01
lifeless concept, in distinction from which this self owned aspire to relieve the robust,
5:09
lively particular from the trashy burden of generalities. The reactionaries would be glad
5:16
to smite a people, a nation forth from the earth. The self owned
5:21
have before their eyes only themselves. In essentials, the two efforts that are
5:28
just now the order of the day to wit, the restoration of provincial rights
5:33
and of the old tribal divisions thanks Bavarians, Lustia, etc. And the
5:41
restoration of the entire nationality coincide in one. But the Germans will come into
5:48
unison i e. Unite themselves only when they not over their bee hood as
5:55
well as all the beehives. In other words, when they are more than
6:00
Germans. Only then can they form a German union. They must not want
6:05
to turn back into their nationality, into the womb in order to be born
6:11
again. But let everyone turn into himself. How ridiculously sentimental will one German
6:17
grasps another's hands and presses it with sacred awe, because he too is a
6:24
German with that he is something great. But this will certainly still be thought
6:30
touching as long as people are enthusiastic for brotherliness i e. As long as
6:38
they have a family disposition from the supersition of piety, from brotherliness or childlikeness,
6:46
or however else the soft hearted piety phrases one from the family spirit.
6:53
The nationals who want to have a great family of Germans cannot liberate themselves.
7:00
Aside from this, the so called nationals would only have to understand themselves rightly
7:05
in order to lift themselves out of their juncture with the good nature touthumainiates.
7:13
For the uniting of material ends and interests which they demand of the Germans comes
7:19
to nothing else than the voluntarily union. Carrier inspired cries out whil roads are
7:27
to the more penetrating eye, the way to a life of the people e
7:32
g. Has not yet anywhere appeared in such significance. Quite right, it
7:39
will be a life of the people that has nowhere appeared, because it is
7:44
not a life of their people. So Carrier then combats himself Page ten.
7:50
Pure humanity or manhood cannot be better represented than by a people fulfilling its mission.
7:59
Why this nationality only is represented. Washed out generality is lower than the
8:05
form complete in itself, which is itself a whole and lives as a living
8:11
member of the truly general be organized. Why the people is this very washed
8:18
out generality, and it is only a man that is the form complete in
8:24
itself the inpersonality of what they call peopled nation. Is clear also from this
8:33
that a people which wants to bring its eye into view to the best of
8:37
its power, puts at its head the ruler without will. It finds itself
8:43
in the alternative, either to be subjected to approach who realizes only himself is
8:50
individual pleasure. Then it does not recognize in the absolute master its own will,
8:58
the so called will of the people. Or to see on the throne
9:03
a prince who gives effort to no will of his own, then it has
9:09
a prince without will, whose placed some ingenious clockwork would perhaps feel just as
9:15
well. Therefore, insight need go only a step further. Then it becomes
9:22
clear of itself that the eye of the people is an impersonal spiritual power,
9:28
the law the people's. I therefore is earth spook, not an I.
9:35
I am I only by this that I make myself. I e that it
9:41
is not another who makes me, but I must be my own work.
9:46
But how is it with this eye of the people. Chance plays it into
9:52
the people's hand, Chance gives it this or that, or Lord accidents procure
9:58
it. One he is not. It's the sovereign people's product, as I
10:05
am my product, conceived of one wanting to talk you into believing that you
10:11
were not your eye. But Tom or Jack was your eye. But so
10:18
it is with the people, and rightly for the people has an eye as
10:22
little as the eleven planets counter together have an eye, though they evolve around
10:28
a common center. Bailey's utcurrence is representative of the slave disposition that folks manifests
10:37
before the sovereign people, as before the Prince I have says he no longer
10:43
any extra reason. Why the general reason has pronounced itself. My first law
10:50
was the nation's will. As soon as it had assembled and knew nothing beyond
10:56
its sovereign will, he would have no extra revisals. And yet this extra
11:01
reason alone accomplishes everything just so. Mirabeau in theys in the words, no
11:09
power on earth has the right to say to the nation's representatives, it is
11:15
my will. As with the Greeks, there is now a wish to make
11:20
a man zoom politician, a scientist of the state, or political man.
11:26
So he ranked for a long time as a citizen of heaven. But the
11:31
Greek fell into ignominy along with his state. The citizen of heaven likewise falls
11:39
with heaven. We, on the other hand, are not willing to go
11:43
down along with the people, the nation and nationality, not willing to be
11:48
merely political men or politicians. Since the revolution, they have striven to make
11:56
the people happy, and in making the people happy great, et cetera,
12:01
they make us unhappy. The people's good hap is my mishap. What empty
12:09
talk the political liberals uttered with empathetic decorum is well seen again in your rets
12:16
on taking part in the state. Their conclaint is made of those who are
12:22
indifferent and do not take part, who are not in the full sensed citizens.
12:28
And the author speaks as if one could not be man at all if
12:31
one did not take a lively part in state affairs, i e. If
12:37
one were not a politician. In this he is right, for if estate
12:43
ranks as the warder of everything human, we can have nothing human without taking
12:48
part in it. But what does this make out against the egoist, Nothing
12:54
at all, because the egoist is to himself the warder of the human and
13:00
has nothing to say to the state except get out of my sunshine. Only
13:05
when the state comes in contact with his ownness does the egoist take an active
13:11
interest in it. If the condition of the state does not bear hard on
13:16
the closet philosopher, is he to occupy himself with it? Because it is
13:20
his most sacred duty. So long as the state does according to his wish,
13:28
what need has he to look up from his studies? Let those who
13:33
form an interest of their own want to have conditions otherwise busy themselves with them.
13:39
Not now, nor ever more. Ut sacred duty bring folks to reflect
13:43
about the state as little as they become disciples of science, artists, etc.
13:50
From sacred duty. Egoism alone can impel them to it, and will
13:56
as soon as things have become much worse. If you showed faults that the
14:01
egoism demanded that they busy themselves with state affairs, you would not have to
14:07
call on them long. If, on the other hand, you appeal to
14:11
their love of fatherlance, etc. You will long teach to the deaf hearts
14:16
in behalf of this service of love. Certainly, in your sense, the
14:22
egoists will not participate in state affairs at all. In New Wrek utters a
14:28
genuine liberal phrase on page sixteen, man completely fulfills his calling only in feeling
14:35
and knowing himself as a member of humanity, and being active as such.
14:41
The individual cannot realize the idea of manhood if he does not stay himself upon
14:48
all humanity, if he does not draw his powers from it, like Antios.
14:54
In the same place, it is said man's relation to the rarest publica
15:00
is degraded to a purely private matter by the theological view, is accordingly made
15:07
away with by denial, as if the political view did otherwise with religion.
15:13
Their religion is a private matter. If instead of sacred duty, man's destiny,
15:20
the calling to full manhood, and similar commandments, it will held up
15:26
to the people that their self interest was infringed on when they let everything in
15:31
the state go as it goes, then without declamations, they would be addressed,
15:37
as one will have to address them at the decisive moment if he wants
15:43
to attain his end. Instead of this, the theology. Hating authors says,
15:50
if there has ever been a time when the state laid claim to all
15:54
that are hers, such a time is ours. The thinking man sees in
16:00
participation in the theory and practice of the state a duty, one of the
16:06
most sacred duties that rest upon him, and then takes under closer consideration the
16:12
unconditional necessarity that everybody participate in the state. He in whose head or heart
16:21
or both the state is seated, He who is possessed by the state,
16:26
or the believer in the state, is a politician, and remains such to
16:30
all eternity. The state is the most necessary means for the complete development of
16:37
mankind. It assuredly has been so long as we wanted to develop mankind.
16:44
But if we want to develop ourselves, it can be to us only a
16:48
means of hinderance. Can state and people still be reformed and better? Now
16:55
as little as the nobility, the clergy, the church, etc. They
17:00
can be abrogated, annihilated, burn away with not reformed. Can I change
17:07
a piece of nonsense into sense by reforming it? Or must I drop it
17:11
outright? Henceforth, what is to be done is no longer about the state.
17:17
The form of the state, etc. But about me. With this,
17:22
all questions about the prince's power, the Constitution, et cetera, sink
17:26
into their true abyss and their true nothingness. I this nothing shall put forth
17:33
my creations from myself to the chapter of society. Belongs also the party,
17:41
whose praise has of late been sung in the state. The party is current
17:48
party, party who should not join one. But the individual is unique,
17:53
not a member of the party. He unites freely and separates freely. Again,
18:00
the party is nothing but a state. In the state, and in
18:03
this smaller estate, peace is also to rule, just as in the greater
18:11
The very people who quite loud is that there must be an opposition in the
18:15
state, invey against every discord in the party, a proof that they too
18:21
want only a state. All parties are shattered, not against the state,
18:26
but against the ego. One hears nothing often than now from the admonition to
18:33
remain true to his party. Party men despise nothing so much as a mugwump.
18:41
One must run with his party through thick and thin, and unconditionally approve
18:45
and represent its chief principles. It does not need go quite so badly.
18:51
Here, as with closed societies, because these find their members to dict laws
18:56
or statutes e g. The Orders the Society of Jesus, etc. But
19:03
yet the party ceases to be a union at the same moment at which it
19:08
makes certain principles binding and wants to have them assured against the tacks. But
19:15
this moment is the very birth act of the party as party. It is
19:21
already a born society, a dead union, an idea that has become fixed.
19:27
As a party of absolutism, it cannot will that its members should not
19:33
doubt the irrefagible truth of this principle. They could cherish this doubt only if
19:40
they were egoistic enough to want still to be something outside their party, i
19:45
e. Nonpartisans. Non partisans they cannot be as party men, but only
19:52
as egoists. If you are a Protestant and belong to that party, you
19:57
must only justify Prottism at most, purge it, not reject it. If
20:03
you are a Christian and belong among men to the Christian Party, you cannot
20:08
be beyond this as a member of this party, But only when your egoism
20:14
are you non partianship impels you to it. What exertions the Christians down to
20:22
hegel and the Communists have put forth to make the party strong. They stuck
20:27
to it that Christianity must contain the eternal truth, and that one needs only
20:33
to get at it, make sure of it, and justify it. In
20:37
the short the party cannot bear non partianship. And it is in this that
20:44
egoism appears. What matters the party to me, I shall find enough anyhow,
20:49
who unite with me without swearing allegiance to my flag. He who passes
20:56
over from one party to another is at one abused as a turncoat. Certainly,
21:03
morality demands that one stands by his party, and to become a postate
21:08
from it is to spot oneself with the stain of faithfulness. But owness knows
21:15
no commandments of faithlessness, adhesion, et cetera. Owness permits everything, even
21:22
apostasy, defection unconsciously. Even the moral themselves let themselves be led by this
21:30
principle when they have to judge one who passes over to their party, Nay,
21:37
they are likely to be making posseolytes. They should only, at the
21:41
same time acquire a consciousness of the fact that one must commit immoral actions in
21:48
order to commit his own I e hear that one must break faith, yes
21:53
even his oath, in order to determine himself instead of being determined by considerations
22:02
in the eyes of people of strict moral judgment, and apostate always shimmers in
22:08
equivocal colors, and will not easily obtain their confidence for their sticks to him
22:15
their taint of faithlessness i e. Of an immorality. In the lower man,
22:21
this view is found almost generally advanced thinkers or hereto as always into an
22:27
uncertainty and bewilderment, and the contradiction necessarily founded in the principle of morality does
22:36
not, on account of the confusion of their concepts, come clearly to their
22:41
consciousness. They do not venture to call the apostate gain right immoral, because
22:47
they themselves enticed to apostasy, to defection from one religion to another, etc.
22:53
Still, they cannot give up the standpoint of morality either. And yet
22:59
here if the occasion was to be seized to step outside of morality, are
23:04
the own or unique perchance a party? How could they be owned if they
23:10
were e g. Belonged to a party, or is one to hold with
23:15
no party in the very act of joining them and entertaining their circle, one
23:22
forms a union with them that lasts as long as party and I pursue one
23:26
and the same goal. But today I still share the party's tendency, as
23:33
by tomorrow I can do so no longer, and I become untrue to it.
23:38
The party has nothing binding obligatory for me, and I do not have
23:44
respect for it. If it no longer pleases me, I become its foam.
23:51
In every party that cares for itself and its persistent the members are unfree,
23:56
or better unknowned, in that degree they lack egoism, in that degree
24:03
in which a surface desire of the party, the independence of the party conditions
24:08
the lack of independence in the party members. A party of whatever kind it
24:15
may be, can never deal without a confession of faith. For those who
24:21
belong to the party must believe in its principle. It must not be brought
24:26
in doubt or put in question by them. It must be a certain,
24:30
indutable thing for the party member. That is, one must belong to a
24:37
party or the unsold. Else one is not truly a party man, but
24:41
more or less an egoist. Harbor a doubt of Christianity, and you are
24:48
already no longer a true christian you have lifted yourself to the effrontry of putting
24:55
a question beyond it and hailing Christianity before your egoism judgment seat. You have
25:02
sinned a ghost Christianity. This party cause, but it is surely not e
25:07
g. A cause for the Jews, another party, but well for you.
25:11
If you do not let yourself be affrighted, your effrontery helps you to
25:18
own us. So then an egoist could never embrace a party or take up
25:23
with a party. Oh yes, only he cannot let himself be embraced and
25:30
taken up by the party. For him, the party remains all the time
25:34
nothing but a gathering. He is one of the party he takes part.
25:41
The best state will clearly be that which has the most loyal citizens. And
25:47
the more the devoted, mindful legality is lost so much the more we the
25:52
state, this system of morality, this moral life itself, be diminished in
25:57
force and quality. With the good citizens, the good state too perishes and
26:04
dissolves into anarchy and lawlessness. Respect for the law. By this cement,
26:11
the total of the state is held together. The law is sacred, and
26:15
he who affronts it a criminal without crime. No state the moral world,
26:22
and this the state is is crammed full of stamps, cheats, liars,
26:26
thieves, et cetera. Since the state is the lordship of law its hierarchy,
26:33
it follows that the egoist, in all cases where his advantage runs against
26:37
the states, can satisfy himself only by crime. A state cannot give up
26:44
the claim that its laws and ordinances are sacred. At this the individual ranks
26:51
as the unholy barbarian natural man egoist over against the state, exactly as he
26:59
once was regarded by the Church. Before the individual. The state takes on
27:03
the nimbus of a saint. Thus it issues a law against dueling. Two
27:10
men who are both at one in this that they are willing to stake their
27:15
life for a cause, no matter what, are not to be allowed this
27:19
because the state will not have it. It imposes a penalty on it.
27:25
Where is the liberty of self determination? Then it is at once quite another
27:30
situation. If, as eg in North America, society determines to let the
27:37
duellists spare certain evil consequences of their act eg. Withdrawal of the credit.
27:44
Hitherto enjoyed to refuse credit is everybody's affair, and if a society wants to
27:51
withdraw it for this or that reason. The man who is hit cannot therefore
27:56
complain of enrichment on his liberty. Society is simply availing itself of its own
28:03
liberty. That is, no penalty for sin, no penalty for a crime.
28:08
The jewel is no crime, there but only an act against which the
28:12
society adopts countermeasures, resolves on a defense. The state, on the contrary,
28:21
stamps the jewel as a crime, i e. As an injury to
28:26
its sacred law. It makes a criminal case. The society leads it to
28:30
the individual's decision whether he will draw upon himself evil consequences and inconveniences by his
28:38
mode of action, and hereby recognizes his free decision. The state behaves in
28:45
exactly the reverse way, denying all right to the individual's decision and instead ascribing
28:52
the sole right to its own decision the law of the state, so that
28:57
he who transgresses the commandment it is looked upon as if he were acting against
29:03
God's commandment, a view which likewise was once maintained by the Church. Here
29:11
God is the Holy in and of himself, and the commandments of the Church
29:15
as of the state, are the commandments of this Holy One, which he
29:21
transmits to the world through his inlinited and lords by the grace of God.
29:26
If the Church had deadly sins, this state has capital crimes. If the
29:33
one had heretics, the other has traitors, the one ecclesiastical penalties, the
29:38
other criminal penalties, the one in custorial process, the other fiscal. In
29:45
short, their sins, here crimes, their inquisition, and here inquisition.
29:52
Will the sanctasy of the state not fall like the churches? The awe of
29:59
its laws, the reverence for its highness, the humility of its subjects.
30:04
Will this remain? Will the saint's face not be stripped of its adornment?
30:11
What a folly to as of the state's authority, that it should enter into
30:15
an honorable fight with the individual and as they express themselves in the matter of
30:22
freedom of the purse, share sun and wind equally. If the state,
30:27
this thought, is to be a de factual power, it simply must be
30:33
a superior power against the individual. The state is secret and must not expose
30:38
itself to the impudent attacks of individuals. If the state is sacred, there
30:45
must be censorship. The political liberals in the former and dispute the interference,
30:52
But in any case they concede repressive measures to it. For they stick to
30:56
this That state is more from the individual and exercises a justified revenge called punishment.
31:06
Punishment has a meaning only when it is to afford expiation for the injuring
31:11
of a sacred thing. If something is sacred to anyone, he certainly deserves
31:18
punishment when he acts as its enemy. A man who lets a man's life
31:23
continue in existence because to him it is sacred and he has a dread of
31:30
touching it, is simply a religious man. Whitling lays pride at the door
31:36
of social disorder and lives in the expectation that under communistic arrangements, crimes will
31:44
become impossible because the temptations to them e g. Money fall away. As
31:52
however, his organized society is also exalted into a sacred and involuable one.
32:00
Plates in that good hearted opinion e g. With their mouth professed alliance to
32:05
the communistic society, but worked under hand for its ruin would not be lacking.
32:12
Besides, Waiting has to keep on with curative means against the natural remainder
32:16
of human diseases and weaknesses, and curative means always a marriage to begin with,
32:23
that individual's will be looked upon as called to a particular salvation, and
32:30
hence treated according to the requirements of this human calling. Curative means or healing
32:37
is only the reverse side of punishment. The theory of cure runs parallel with
32:44
the theory of punishment. If the latter sees in an action a sin against
32:49
right, the former takes it for a sin of the man against himself,
32:54
as a decadence from his health. But the correct thing is that I regard
33:00
it either as an action that suits me, as one that does not suit
33:05
me, as hostile or friendly to me, I e. That I treat
33:09
it as my property which I cherish or demolish. Crime or disease are not
33:15
either of them. An egoistic view of the matter, i e. A
33:20
judgment starting from me, but starting from another, to wit whether it injures
33:25
right, general right or the health partly of the individual but the sick one
33:31
partly of the generality society. Crime is treated inarextibly, disease with loving gentleness,
33:40
compassion, etc. End of Section twenty six