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Title: Solneman's Manifesto
Author: Sidney E. Parker
Date: 1983
Language: en
Topics: book review, EGO Journal, egoism, freedom, peace
Source: Retrieved 11/07/2021 from http://consciousegoism.6te.net/pdfs/ego/03.pdf

Sidney E. Parker

Solneman's Manifesto

(“The Manifesto Of Peace And Freedom” by K.H.Z. Solneman. The Mackay

Society, Freiburg and New York, 1983. Translated from the German by

Doris Pfaff and John Zube. Edited by Edward Mornin. Apt. 2E 227 Columbus

Ave., New York, N.Y. 10023, U.S.A. 11.95 US Dollars)

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The most crucial struggle that anyone can engage in is the struggle to

achieve self-ownership against the demands made by others in the name of

the ideologies of the “society” into which he is born. In this

interesting, if badly titled, work by K.H.Z. Solneman it is pointed out

that these demands are “more of a mental than a material kind”. Out of

the primitive belief in ghosts and gods arose domination by abstractions

and fixed ideas. This was not only a product of priestly deception, it

was also fad by those who wished to avoid the burden of thinking for

themselves and wanted “a leadership which would relieve them of this

burden and impress them by superior appearances”. Always, despite

changes in form and terminology, there exists this demand for the

acceptance of some transcendent power to whom or which allegiance is

regarded as obligatory:

“While on the one side belief in a personal God gradually disappeared,

even though it is still alive in millions, originally religious

commandments remained still in force, but now as ‘ethical’ commandments

and without people being conscious of their origin. At the same time,

new gods with new commandments took the place of the previous ones.

Philosophy, sociology and even modern theology have depersonalized the

concept of God more and more and transformed it into the rather misty

concept of an abstraction of ‘love’ or an impersonal world law, which

again sets ‘tasks’ or a ‘final aim’. Naturally, the self-appointed

prophets and interpreters of this new God determine the specific

commandments and prohibitions and, more or less through coercion, keep

the individual at work to fulfill his ‘task’ or ‘destiny’.”

To accept the validity of such abstractions as ‘God’, ‘Society’,

‘Nation’ and ‘Class’ is to condemn oneself to wandering in a perpetual

fog haunted by the ghosts of what are no more than human inventions. To

think realistically one needs a concrete starting point. This is “the

actual mortal ego of each individual human being” and here Solneman

acknowledges Max Stirner as the pioneer of such egoistic thinking.

From an egocentric standpoint, therefore, it becomes clear just how

nonsensical it is to regard abstractions as volitional beings and to

ascribe to collectivities the ability to think, to feel and to demand

(“the will of society”, etc.) Only the individual is capable of such

activities and basing himself on this awareness Solneman launches a

well-argued assault upon all those ideologies that have as their purpose

the subordination and sacrifice of individuality - in particular, the

ideology of the State, the ideology of Marxism, and the ideology of

democracy.

In general I agree with Solneman’s criticism of these ideologies and the

fallacies and frauds that are used to justify them, although at times I

think that in his efforts to be “fair” to his opponents he lands himself

in the very trap he is seeking to expose. For example, in his discussion

of the development of the idea of sacrifice in primitive tribes he

remarks that

“So the feeling grew - and was confirmed by the behaviour of others -

that sacrifices for the community were something worthy of praise. They

are this, in fact, under certain circumstances and within certain

limits, provided the person concerned makes them himself voluntarily,

and does not demand them from others through pressure and coercion.”

Certain religious and humanist moralists would not dissent from such a

view, but from an egoist standpoint I cannot see how Solneman can

justify it. Apart from the fact that he does not specify the

“circumstances” and "limits" he mentions, it would seem here that he is

investing “the community” with the same idolatrous qualities that he so

effectively denounces when it has been labelled “society” or “people”

(“A purely mental construct, a fanciful image in the heads of those who

merely believe this product of their faith”). Sacrifices carried out

while under the domination of a fixed idea like “the community” are not

voluntary behaviour - that is, behaviour stemming from an individual’s

own will.

However, such lapses in his critical analysis are rare. It is when he

comes to outline his constructive proposals for “new social

relationships” that my fundamental disagreements begin. I do not intend

to go into the details of his programme of “equal access to natural

resources and the distribution of land-rent to everyone”, “open

associations of management”, “freedom of the means of exchange” and

“autonomous legal and social communities” which are designed to replace

“the law of the sword and aggressive force” with “non-domination and

equal freedom”. Readers can find these described in his book and can

make up their own minds about them. The crux of Solneman's case does not

lie in such a programme, which is nothing new, but in the method he

claims will achieve it.

He is not so naive as to believe in the totalistic tactics and dreams of

the various communistic and anarchist churches. He recognizes that “the

broad mass” of human beings have a strong desire “to submit and

worship,” the urge to dominate having its complement in the urges of

those “for whom sacrifice and submission have become overwhelming

needs”. It follows that since so many want either to rule or be ruled

their “right” to such a state of affairs must be granted since not to do

so would mean that one becomes an authority oneself.

The problem for Solneman is how one can acknowledge this “right” and at

the same time start in motion the process that will eventually lead to

the abolition of rulership that he so ardently desires. His solution is

a scheme he calls “To Everyone The State Of His Dreams”, which is based

on an 1860 essay by the Belgian advocate of “panarchy”, P.E. de Puydt.

De Puydt argued that the way for everyone to have the type of government

he wants is to establish a plurality of governments in any given area in

place of the system of one government for each area that exists today.

This, he likened to the replacement of one church by the present

multiplicity of churches and congregations that now exist peacefully

side by side.

In this way, de Puydt claimed, every individual could have the govenment

he wanted and those who did not want to be governed would be free to

live without government. He wrote:

“All compulsion should cease. Every adult citizen should be and should

remain free to select from among all possible governments the one that

conforms to his will and satisfies his personal needs. Free not on the

day following some bloody revolution, but always and everywhere. Free to

select, but not to force his choice on others. Then all disorder will

cease, and all fruitless struggles will be avoided.”

Solneman believes that in this way it would be possible to achieve a

non-governmental society in a peaceful and amicable manner. The fatal

flaw in this belief, however, is the assumption that everyone will

voluntarily agree to the implementation of his scheme - even those who

are opposed to voluntarism and support coercion. I cannot see how

someone who adheres to an ideology which incorporates “the truth”, and

furthermore thinks that all others should be compelled to accept this

“truth”, can be brought to agree to a scheme whereby those who reject

his ideas are free to live according to their own tastes without

interference from him and his fellow “truth” holders. In other words,

Solneman thinks those who are authoritarians can remain such as long as

they behave like non-authoritarians. Since he does not show how this

contradiction can be resolved his whole scheme smacks of personal

fantasy rather then the realism he claims for it.

Indeed, he nowhere gives any cogent reason to suppose that the “broad

mass”, whom he acknowledges have always displayed an overwhelming need

to be dominated, can so transform their mentalities as to become capable

of self-determination. He admits that the “anarchy” of his dreams has

never existed in “a consistent form”. And for this reason he dismisses

the charge that it would amount to “disorder... or even chaos” because

it “does not express an experienced fact”. But if it does not express an

experienced fact then it merely expresses a hope, a wish, an unverified

belief. It belongs to those “metaphysics” which he himself defines as

“all concepts and doctrines which go beyond the realm of sensibly and

logically graspable experienced reality.”

To sum up: Solneman’s critique of prevailing ideologies is of great

value to individualists everywhere. His claimed peaceful transformation

of the world, however, belongs to a category of faith akin to all those

other utopian delusions that litter the history of human beliefs. To

reject all belief in authority over myself is certainly experiencable

and sensible. To deduce from this that all others individuals can do the

same thing does not follow. It is an accomplishment limited to a few, as

all “experienced fact” testifies.

S.E.P