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21 - My Power - part 1 - The Ego and His Own - Max Stirner · The Philosophy Insights Collection

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Section twenty one, My Power, Part one. Right. Note This word
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has also in German the meaning of common law, and will sometimes be translated
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law. In the following paragraph, Enno is the spirit of society. If
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society has a will, this will is simply right. Society exists only through
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right, But as it endures only exercising a sovereignty over individuals, right is
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its sovereign will. Aristotle says justice is the advantage of society. All existing
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right is foreign law. Someone makes me out to be in the right does
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right by me? But should I therefore be in the right if all the
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world made me out so? And yet, what else is the right that
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I obtain in the state, in society but a right of those foreign to
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me? When a blockhead makes me out in the right, I grow distrustful
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of my rightness. I don't like to receive it from him. But even
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when a wise man makes me out in the right, I nevertheless am not
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in the right. On that account, whether I am in the right is
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completely independent of the fools making out and of the wise man's All the same.
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We have coveted this right till now we seek for right and turn to
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the court for that purpose to what to a royal, a papal, a
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popular court, etc. Can a Sultanic court declare another right than that which
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the Sultan has ordained to be right? Can it make me out in the
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right if I seek for a right that does not agree with the Sultan's law?
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Can it e g. Concede to me high treason as a right,
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since it is assuredly not a right according to the Sultan's mind. Can it,
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as a court of censorship, allow me the free utterance of opinion as
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a right, since the Sultan will hear nothing of this mind right? What
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am I seeking for in this court? Then I am seeking for sultanic right,
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not my right. I am seeking for foreign right. As long as
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this foreign right harmonizes with mine, to be sure I shall find in it.
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The latter two. The state does not permit pitching into each other man
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to man. It opposes the duel. Even every ordinary appeal to blows,
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notwithstanding that neither of the fighters calls the police to it is punished, except
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when it is not an I whacking away to you, but say the head
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of a family at the child. The family is entitled to this and in
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its name the father I as ego am not. The vossishka Zetum presents to
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us the commonwealth of right. There everything is to be decided by the judge
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and a court. It ranks the Supreme Court of Censorship as a court where
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right is declared, what sort of right the right of the censorship. To
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recognize the sentences of that court as right, one must regard the censorship as
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right. But it is thought nevertheless that this court offers a protection, yes
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protection against an individual censor's error. It protects only the censorship legislator against false
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interpretation of his will, at the same time making his statute by the sacred
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power of right or the firma against writers. Whether I am in the right
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or not, there is no judge but myself. Others can judge only whether
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they endorse my right, and whether it exists as right for them too.
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In the meantime, let us take the manner yet another way. I am
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to reverence Sultanic law in the Sultanate, popular law in the republics, canon
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law in Catholic communities. To these laws, I am to subordinate myself.
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I am to regard them as sacred sense of right and law abiding mind of
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such a sort is so firmly planted in people's heads that the most revolutionary persons
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of our days want to subject us to a new sacred law, the law
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of society, the law of mankind, the right of all, and the
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like. The right of all is to go before my right as a right
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of all. It would indeed be my right among the rest, since I,
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with the rest, am included in all. But that it is at
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the same time a right of others, or even of all others, does
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not move me to its upholding. Not as a right of all will I
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defend it, but as my right, And then every other may see to
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it, how he shall likewise maintain it for himself. That right of all,
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eg to eat, is the right of every individual. Let each keep
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this right unabridged for himself, then all exercise it spontaneously. Let him not
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to care for all, though let him not grow zealous for it as for
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a right of all. But the social reformers preach to us a law of
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society. There the individual becomes society slave, and is in the right only
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when society makes him out in the right, i e. When he lives
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according to society statutes, and so is loyal. Whether I am loyal under
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a despotism or in a society allah rightling, it is the same absence of
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right in so far as in both cases I have not my right but foreign
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right. In consideration of right, the question is always asked, what or
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who gives me the right to it? Answer? God, Love, reason,
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nature, humanity, etc. No, only your might, your power
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gives you the right. Your reason e g. May give it to you.
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Communism, which assumes that men have equal rights by nature, contradicts its
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own proposition till it comes to this that men have no rights at all by
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nature. For it is not willing to recognize e g. That parents have
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by nature rights as against their children, or the children as against their parents.
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It abolishes the family. Nature gives parents, brothers, etc. No
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right at all. Altogether. This entire revolutionary or Babuvist principle note see the
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Communists and in the Schweitz Committee report Page three rests on a religious i e.
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False view of things. Who can ask after right? If he does
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not occupy the religious standpoint himself is not right? A religious concept i e.
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Something sacred? Why equality of rights, as the Revolution propounded, it
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is only another name for Christian equality, the quality of the brethren of God's
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children, of Christians, in short, fraternity. Each and every inquiry after
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right deserves to be lashed with Schiller's words many a year, I've used my
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nose to smell the onion and the rose. Is there any proof which shows
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that I have a right to that same nose. When the Revolution stamped a
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quality as a right, it took flight into the religious domain, into the
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region of the sacred of the ideal. Hence, since then the fight for
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the sacred, inalienable rights of man against the eternal rights of man. The
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well earned rights of the established order are quite naturally and with equal right,
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brought to bear right against right, where of course one is decried by the
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other as wrong. This has been the contest of rights. Note rex strite,
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a word which usually means lawsuit. Since the Revolution. You want to
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be in the right as against the rest, that you cannot as against them,
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you remain forever in the wrong, for they surely would not be your
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opponents if they were not in their right too. They will always make you
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out in the wrong. But as against the right of the rest, yours
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is a higher, greater, more powerful right, is it not no such
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thing. Your right is not more powerful if you are not more powerful.
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Have Chinese subjects a right to freedom? Just bestow it on them, and
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then look how far you have gone wrong in your attempt. Because they do
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not know how to use freedom, they have no right to it, or
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in clearer terms, because they have not freedom, they have not the right
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to it. Children have no right to the condition of majority because they are
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not of age i e. Because they are children. People that left themselves
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be kept in Knownedge have no rights to the condition of majority. If they
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ceased to be in Knownedge, then only would they have the right to be
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of age. This means nothing else than what you have the power to be.
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You have the right to. I derive all right and all warrant from
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me. I am entitled to everything that I have in my power. I
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am entitled to overthrow Zeus, Jehovah, God, etc. If I can.
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If I cannot, then these gods will always remain in the right and
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in power as against me, And what I do will be to fear their
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right and their power in impotent God, fearingness to keep their commandments and believe
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that I do right in everything that I do according to their right about as
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the Russian boundary. Sentinels think themselves right fully entitled to shoot dead the suspicious
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persons who are escaping, since they murder by superior authority I e. With
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right. But I am entitled by myself to murder if I myself do not
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forbid it to myself, if I myself do not fear murder as a wrong.
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This view of things lies at the foundation of Commissau's poem The Valley of
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Murder, where the gray haired Indian murderer compels reverence from the white man whose
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brethren he has murdered. The only thing I am not entitled to is what
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I do not do with a free cheer, I e. What I do
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not entitle myself to. I decide what is the right thing in me?
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There is no right outside me. If it is right for me, note
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a common German phrase for it suits me, note it is right. Possibly
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this may not suffice to make it right for the rest I e. Their
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care, not mine. Let them defend themselves. And if for the whole
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world something were not right, but it were right for me I wanted it,
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then I would ask nothing about the whole world. So everyone does who
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knows how to value himself everyone in the degree that he is an egoist.
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For might goes before right, and that with perfect right. Because I am
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by nature a man, I have an equal right to the enjoyment of all
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goods, says Babyov. Must he not also say, because I am by
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nature a firstborn prince, I have a right to the throne. The rights
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of man and the well earned rights come to the same thing. In the
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end, I to nature, which gives me a right I e. To
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birth and further inheritance, etc. I am born as a man, is
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equal to I am born as a king's son. The natural man has only
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a natural right, because he has only a natural power and natural claims.
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He has right of birth and claims of birth. But nature cannot entitle me.
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I give me capacity or might to that to which only my act entitles
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me. That the king's child sets himself above other children, even this is
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his act which secures to him the precedence, and that the other children approve
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and recognize this act is their act which makes them worthy to be subjects.
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Whether nature gives me a right or whether God, the people's choice, etc.
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Does so, all of I E. The same foreign right, a
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right that I do not give or take to myself. Thus, the Communists
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say, equal labor entitles man to equal enjoyment. Formally, the question was
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raised whether the virtuous man must not be happy on earth. The Jews actually
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drew this inference, that it may go well with the on earth. No,
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equal labor does not entitle you to it, but equal enjoyment alone entitles
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you to equal enjoyment. Enjoy then you are entitled to enjoyment. But if
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you have labored and let the enjoyment be taken from you, then it serves
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you right. If you take the enjoyment, it is your right. If,
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on the contrary, you only pine for it without laying hands on it,
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it remains, as before a well earned right of those who are privileged
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for enjoyment. It is their right, as by laying hands on it would
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become your right. The conflict over the right of property waivers envehement commotion.
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The Communist affirm note a Becker volksh Philosophy, page twenty two f note that
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the earth belongs rightfully to him who tills it, and its products to those
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who bring them out. I think it belongs to him who knows how to
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take it, or who does not let it be taken from him, does
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not let himself be deprived of it. If he appropriates it, then not
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only the earth, but the right to it too, belongs to him.
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This is egoistic right, I e. It is right for me, therefore
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it is right. Aside from this right does have a wax nose. The
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tiger that assails me is in the right, and I who strike him down,
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I'm also in the right. I defend against him, not my right,
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but myself. As human right is always something given. It always in
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reality, reduces to the right which men give I e. Concede to each
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other. If the right to existence is conceded to newborn children, then they
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have the right. If it is not conceded to them, as was the
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case among the Spartans and ancient Romans, then they do not have it,
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For only society can give or concede it to them. They themselves cannot take
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it or give it to themselves. It will be objected. The children had
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nevertheless, by nature the right to exist. Only the Spartans refused recognition to
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this right. But then they simply had no right to this recognition, no
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more than they had to recognition of their life by the wild beasts to which
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they were thrown. People talk so much about birthright, and complain there is
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a last no mention of the rights that were born with us. Note Mephistopheles
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in fause, and note what sort of right then is there that was born
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with me? The right to receive an entailed estate, to inherit a throne,
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to enjoy a princely noble education, or again, because poor parents begot
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me to get free schooling, be clothed out of contributions of arms, and
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at last earn my bread and my herring in the coal mines are at the
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loom? Are these not birthrights, rights that have come down to me from
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my parents through birth? You think no, You think these are only rights
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improperly so called. It is just these rights that you aim to abolish through
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the real birthright. To give a basis for this, you go back to
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the simplest thing and affirm that everyone is by birth equal to another. To
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wit a man, I will grant you that everyone is born a man.
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Hence the newborn are therein equal to each other. Why are they only because
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they do not yet show and exert themselves as anything but their children of men,
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naked little human beings. But thereby they are at once different from those
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who have already made something out of themselves, who thus are no longer bear
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children of man, but children of their own creation. The latter possesses more
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than bear birthrights. They have earned rights. What an antithesis, What a
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field of combat, the old combat of the birthrights of man and well earned
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rights. Go right on appealing to your birthrights. People will not fail to
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oppose to you the well earned. Both stand on the ground of right.
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For each of the two has a right against the other, the one the
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birthright of natural right, the other that earned or well earned right. If
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you remain on the ground of right, you remain in rectabor I note,
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I beg you spare my lungs. He who insists on proving himself right,
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if he but has one of those things called tongues, can hold his own
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in all the worlds, despite false words to Memphistophales slightly misquoted for right Haburai
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see note on page one hundred and eighty five. End note. The other
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cannot give you your right. He cannot meet out right to you. He
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who has might has right. If you have not the former, neither have
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you the latter. Is this wisdom so hard to attain? Just look at
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the mighty and their doings. We are talking here only of China and Japan,
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of course, Just try at once, you Chinese and Japanese, to
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make them out in the wrong and learn by experience how they throw you into
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jail. Only do not confuse with this that well meaning councils, which in
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China and Japan are permitted because they do not hinder the Mighty One, but
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possibly help him on. For him, who should want to make them out
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in the wrong, They would stand open only way there too, that of
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might. If he deprives them of their might, then he has really made
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them out in the wrong, deprive them of their right. In any other
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case he can do nothing but clench his little fist in his pocket, or
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fall a victim as an obtrusive fool. In short, few Chinese or Japanese
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did not ask after right, And in particular, if you did not ask
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after the right that were born with you, then you would not need to
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ask at all after the well earned rights either. You start back in fright
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before others because you think you see beside them the ghosts of right, which,
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as in the Homeric Combats, seems to fight as a goddess at their
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side, helping them. What do you do? Do you throw the spear?
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No? You creep around to gain a spook over to yourselves, that
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it may fight on your side. You wo for the ghost favor. Another
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would simply ask, thus, do I will what my opponent wills? No?
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Now, then there may fight for him a thousand devils or gods.
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I go at him all the same. The commonwealth of right, as the
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vossishked Zeitung among others, stands for, it, asks that officeholders be removable
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only by the judge, not by the administration. Vain illusion. If it
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were settled by law that an office holder who is once seen drunken shall lose
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his office, then the judges would have to condemn him on the word of
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the witnesses. In short, the lawgiver would only have to state precisely all
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the possible grounds which entail the loss of office, however laughable they might be,
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e g. He who laughs in his superiors faces, who does not
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go to church every Sunday, who does not take the communion every four weeks,
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who runs in debt, who has disreputable associates, who shows no determination,
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etc. Shall be removed. These things the lawgiver might take it into
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his head to prescribe e g. For a court of honor. Then the
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judge would solely have to investigate whether the accused had become guilty of those offenses,
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and on presentation of the proof, pronounce sentence of removal against him in
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the name of the law. The judge is lost when he ceases to be
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mechanical. When he is forsaken by the rules of evidence, then he no
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longer has anything but an opinion like everybody else. And if he decides according
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to his opinion, his action is no longer an official action. As judge,
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he must decide only according to the law commend me. Rather to the
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old French parliaments, which wanted to examine for themselves what was to be matters
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of right, and to register it only after their own approval, they at
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least judge according to a right of their own, and were not willing to
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give themselves up to be machines of the law giver, although as judge as
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they must to be sure, become their own machines. It is said that
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punishment is the criminal's right, but impunity is just as much his right.
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If his undertaking proceeds, it serves him right, and if it does not
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succeed, it likewise serves him right. You make your bed and lie in
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it. If someone goes full hardily into dangers and perishes in them, we
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are apt to say it serves him right. He would have it so.
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But if he conquered the dangers I, if his might was victorious, then
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he would be in the right too. If a child plays with the knife
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and gets cut, it is served right, but if it doesn't get cut,
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it is serve right too. Hence right beerfalls the criminal doubtless when he
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suffers what he risked. Why what did he risk it for? Since he
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knew the possible consequences. But the punishment that we decree against him is only
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our right, not his. Our right reacts against his, and he is
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in the wrong at last, because we get the upper hand end of Section twenty one