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The Egoism of Max Stirner
by Sidney Parker
(The following extracts are taken from my booklet entitled THE
EGOISM OF MAX STIRNER: SOME CRITICAL BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTES to be
published by the Mackay Society of New York)
Albert Camus
Camus devotes a section of THE REBEL to Stirner. Despite a fairly
accurate summarization of some of Stirner's ideas he nonetheless
consigns him to dwelling in a desert of isolation and negation
"drunk with destruction". Camus accuses Stirner of going "as far as
he can in blasphemy" as if in some strange way an atheist like
Stirner can "blaspheme" against something he does not believe in. He
proclaims that Stirner is "intoxicated" with the "perspective" of
"justifying" crime without mentioning that Stirner carefully
distinguishes between the ordinary criminal and the "criminal" as
violator of the "sacred". He brands Stirner as the direct ancestor
of "terrorist anarchy" when in fact Stirner regards political
terrorists as acting under the possession of a "spook". He
furthermore misquotes Stirner by asserting that he "specifies" in
relation to other human beings "kill them, do not martyr them" when
in fact he writes "I can kill them, not torture them" - and this in
relation to the moralist who both kills and tortures to serve the
"concept of the 'good'".
Although throughout his book Camus is concerned to present "the
rebel" as a preferred alternative to "the revolutionary" he nowhere
acknowledges that this distinction is taken from the one that
Stirner makes between "the revolutionary" and "the insurrectionist".
That this should occur in a work whose purpose is a somewhat frantic
attempt at rehabilitating "ethics" well illustrates Stirner's ironic
statement that "the hard fist of morality treats the noble nature of
egoism altogether without compassion."
Eugene Fleischmann
Academic treatment of Stirner is often obfuscating even when it is
not downright hostile. A marked contrast is Fleischmann's essay
STIRNER, MARX AND HEGEL which is included in the symposium HEGEL'S
POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY. Clearly preferring Stirner to Marx,
Fleischmann presents a straightforward account of his ideas
unencumbered by "psychiatric" interpretations and _ad_hominem_
arguments. He correctly points out that the "human self" signifies
for Stirner "the individual in all his indefinable, empirical
concreteness. The word 'unique' [einzig] means for Stirner man as he
is in his irreducible individuality, always different from his
fellows, and always thrown back on himself in his dealings with
them. Thus, when he talks of 'egoism' as the ultimate definition os
the human 'essence' it is not at all a question of a moral category
. . . . but of a simple existential fact."
Fleischmann contends that "Marx and Engels' critique of Stirner is
notoriously misleading. It is not just that ridicule of a man's
person is not equivalent to refutation of his ideas, for the reader
is also aware that the authors are not reacting at all to the
problems raised by their adversary." Stirner is not simply "just
another doctrinaire ideologue". His "reality is the world of his
immediate experience" and he wants "to come into his own power now,
not after some remote and hypothetical 'proletarian revolution'.
Marx and Engels had nothing to offer the individual in the present:
Stirner has."
In his conclusion Fleischmann states that Stirner's view that the
individual "must find his entire satisfaction in his own life" is a
reversion "to the resigned attitude of a simple mortal". This is not
a serious criticism. If I cannot find satisfaction in my own life,
where can I find it? Even if it is _my_ satisfaction that I
experience, any satisfaction that the other may have being something
that he or she experiences - not _me_. If this constitutes being a
"simple mortal" then so be it, but that it is a "resigned attitude"
is another matter.
Benedict Lachmann and Herbert Stourzh
Lachmann's and Stourzh's TWO ESSAYS ON EGOISM provide a
stimulating and instructive introduction to Stirner's ideas.
Although both authors give a good summary of his egoism they differ
sufficiently in their approach to allow the reader to enjoy
adjudicating between them.
Lachmann's essay PROTAGORAS - NIETZSCHE - STIRNER traces the
development of relativist thinking as exemplified in the three
philosophers of its title. Protagoras is the originator of
relativism with his dictum "Man (the individual) is the measure of
all things". This in turn is taken up by Stirner and Nietzsche. Of
the two, however, Stirner is by far the most consistent and for this
reason Lachmann places him after Nietzsche in his account. For him
Stirner surpasses Nietzsche by bringing Protagorean relativism to
its logical conclusion in conscious egoism - the fulfilment of one's
own will.
In fact, he views Nietzsche as markedly inferior to Stirner both
in respect to his style and the clarity of his thinking. "In
contrast to Nietzsche's work," he writes, THE EGO AND ITS OWN "is
written in a clear, precise form and language, though it avoids the
pitfalls of a dry academic style. Its sharpness, clarity and passion
make the book truly shattering and overwhelming." Unlike
Nietzsche's, Stirner's philosophy does not lead to the replacement
of one religious "spook" by another, the substitution of the
"Superman" for the Christian "God". On the contrary, it makes "the
individual's interests the centre of the world."
Intelligent, lucid and well-conceived, Lachmann's essay throws new
light on Stirner's ideas.
Its companion essay, Stourzh's MAX STIRNER'S PHILOSOPHY OF THE EGO
is evidently the work of a theist, but it is nonetheless sympathetic
to Stirnerian egoism. Stourzh states that one of his aims in writing
it "is beyond the categories of master and slave to foster an
intellectual and spiritual stand-point different from the
stand-point prescribed by the prophets of mass thinking, the
dogmatists of socialism, who conceive of the individual only as an
insignificant part of the whole, as a number or mere addenda of the
group."
Stourzh draws a valuable distinction between the "imperative"
approach of the moralist and the "indicative" approach of Stirner
towards human behaviour. He also gives an informative outline of the
critical reaction to Stirner of such philosophers as Ludwig
Feuerbach, Kuno Fischer and Eduard von Hartman. Stourzh mars his
interpretation, however, by making the nonsensical claim that
Stirner's egoism "need in no sense mean the destruction of the
divine mystery itself." And in line with his desire to preserve the
"sacredness" of this "divine mystery" he at times patently seeks to
"sweeten" Stirner by avoiding certain of his most challenging
remarks.
References:
Camus, Albert: THE REBEL: AN ESSAY ON MAN IN REVOLT. Knopf, New
York. 1961
Fleischmann, Eugene: THE ROLE OF THE INDIVIDUAL IN PRE-REVOLUTIONARY
SOCIETY: STIRNER, MARX AND HEGEL in HEGEL'S POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY.
Cambridge University Press, London. 1971
Lachmann, Benedict and Stourzh, Herbert: TWO ESSAYS ON EGOISM. To be
published by The Mackay Society, New York.