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xolotlll's review
4.0
I read a 265-page abridged translation of The Ego and His Own, released in 1971 by Jonathan Cape. The editor claims to have cut down much repetitiveness. Even with so much missing, this is an incredibly thought-provoking book.
Hegel identified that humankind has a tendency to project an unattainable, unchanging beyond, whether spirital, moral, or temporal. We identify with the changeable and yearn painfully to attain this projected beyond:
"Herein lie all the torments, all the struggles of centuries: for it is frightening to be outside oneself, and everyone is outside himself, who has himself as object, without being able to unite this object entirely with himself, and to destroy it as an object, as a substance, and as a resistant thing."
Stirner thus tries to bring our consciousness back to the self - to self-consciousness; to reveal the unity of subject and object. This is similar to Hegel, but Stirner approaches it in a different way. Hegel does not advocate the 'destruction' of this object, but its preservation and integration. Destruction is exactly what Stirner wants, however. Hegel does identify this as a possibility, but argues that it leads to subjective anarchy. This is more than enough for Stirner though. He's not interested in the resurrection of Christ, but only his actual existence as a political insurrectionist in Jerusalem. Instead of positing a third term like Hegel, Stirner sticks with the second. He asserts the absolute reality and sole importance of the alienated self; the self as a creative nothing:
"The true man does not lie in the future, an object of longing but lies, existent and real, in the present. Whatever and whoever I may be, joyous and suffering, a child or a greybeard, in confidence or doubt, in sleep or in waking, I am it, I am the true man."
Stirner holds what man 'is' above what he 'ought' to be, and in doing so opposes himself to Hegel's teleological bent. Instead of man as an abstract concept realising itself in individual men, man is a meaningless abstraction, and individual men are the sole reality: "I live after a calling as little as the flower grows and gives fragrance after a calling." Similarly, Stirner tears down the 'fixed idea' of man when he argues against the Hegelian tendency to personify different thoughts as manifestations of 'geist'. He takes away their validity in and of themselves, refuses to treat thoughts as independent selves, and highlights their sole origin and reality in the individual, human self.
Stirner occupies the place of Rameau's Nephew in Hegel's discussion of the world of culture, where utility is the overarching principle. Stirner takes both the physical world and the world of thought to have significance only in and for him. That is, he takes their essence to be utility. Both Hegel and Stirner agree that this leads to a negative and destructive approach to knowledge; an egotistical subjectivism bordering on nihilism. Hegel rejects this, but Stirner revels in it.
Despite his shocking rhetoric, Stirner is arguably more compassionate than the high-minded moralist, or the person who fights others in the name of idealistic abstractions like humanity, liberty, equality, or love. Stirner expands upon Hegel's insight that this sort of morality pits a universal ideal against the individual which constitutes its negativity, but also its actuality. So a love of the abstract ideal man becomes the torment of actual, real men once it moves from ideality to actuality through action, as Hegel holds it did during the French Revolution. Stirner fights this tendency by enshrining the actual individual as opposed to some abstract ideal of what he ought to be, and in doing so seems surprisingly compassionate:
"Do not call men sinners, and they are not: you alone are the creator of sinners; you, who fancy that you love men are the very one to throw them into the mire of sin, the very one to divide them into vicious and virtuous, into human and inhuman; the very one to befoul them with the slaver of your possessedness; for you love not men, but man. But I tell you, you have never seen a sinner, you have only dreamed of him."
Stirner also reiterates the Hegelian insight that when an ideal becomes politicised as the ideology of a group, it inevitably gives rise to hypocrisy and destroys itself. In entering the realm of actual human action and interaction, it enters the realm of negativity. It necessarily becomes concerned with contradictory particulars; despite founding ideals, people necessarily become enmeshed in an unequal power structure of conflicting priorities, and entangled in interpersonal conflict. An abstract ideal or universal thus destroys itself by becoming actual in the human community:
"[...] the dissolution of society is intercourse or union. A society does assuredly arise by union too, but only as a fixed idea arises by thought - to wit, by the vanishing of the energy of the thought (the thinking itself, this restless taking back all thoughts that make themselves fast) from the thought. If a union has crystallised into a society, it has ceased to be a coalition; for coalition is an incessant self-uniting; it has become a unitedness, come to a stand-still, degenerated into a fixity; it is - dead as a union, it is the corpse of the union or the coalition, it is - society, community. A striking example of this kind is furnished by the party."
No wonder Marx and Engels were so threatened by him!
Hegel identified that humankind has a tendency to project an unattainable, unchanging beyond, whether spirital, moral, or temporal. We identify with the changeable and yearn painfully to attain this projected beyond:
"Herein lie all the torments, all the struggles of centuries: for it is frightening to be outside oneself, and everyone is outside himself, who has himself as object, without being able to unite this object entirely with himself, and to destroy it as an object, as a substance, and as a resistant thing."
Stirner thus tries to bring our consciousness back to the self - to self-consciousness; to reveal the unity of subject and object. This is similar to Hegel, but Stirner approaches it in a different way. Hegel does not advocate the 'destruction' of this object, but its preservation and integration. Destruction is exactly what Stirner wants, however. Hegel does identify this as a possibility, but argues that it leads to subjective anarchy. This is more than enough for Stirner though. He's not interested in the resurrection of Christ, but only his actual existence as a political insurrectionist in Jerusalem. Instead of positing a third term like Hegel, Stirner sticks with the second. He asserts the absolute reality and sole importance of the alienated self; the self as a creative nothing:
"The true man does not lie in the future, an object of longing but lies, existent and real, in the present. Whatever and whoever I may be, joyous and suffering, a child or a greybeard, in confidence or doubt, in sleep or in waking, I am it, I am the true man."
Stirner holds what man 'is' above what he 'ought' to be, and in doing so opposes himself to Hegel's teleological bent. Instead of man as an abstract concept realising itself in individual men, man is a meaningless abstraction, and individual men are the sole reality: "I live after a calling as little as the flower grows and gives fragrance after a calling." Similarly, Stirner tears down the 'fixed idea' of man when he argues against the Hegelian tendency to personify different thoughts as manifestations of 'geist'. He takes away their validity in and of themselves, refuses to treat thoughts as independent selves, and highlights their sole origin and reality in the individual, human self.
Stirner occupies the place of Rameau's Nephew in Hegel's discussion of the world of culture, where utility is the overarching principle. Stirner takes both the physical world and the world of thought to have significance only in and for him. That is, he takes their essence to be utility. Both Hegel and Stirner agree that this leads to a negative and destructive approach to knowledge; an egotistical subjectivism bordering on nihilism. Hegel rejects this, but Stirner revels in it.
Despite his shocking rhetoric, Stirner is arguably more compassionate than the high-minded moralist, or the person who fights others in the name of idealistic abstractions like humanity, liberty, equality, or love. Stirner expands upon Hegel's insight that this sort of morality pits a universal ideal against the individual which constitutes its negativity, but also its actuality. So a love of the abstract ideal man becomes the torment of actual, real men once it moves from ideality to actuality through action, as Hegel holds it did during the French Revolution. Stirner fights this tendency by enshrining the actual individual as opposed to some abstract ideal of what he ought to be, and in doing so seems surprisingly compassionate:
"Do not call men sinners, and they are not: you alone are the creator of sinners; you, who fancy that you love men are the very one to throw them into the mire of sin, the very one to divide them into vicious and virtuous, into human and inhuman; the very one to befoul them with the slaver of your possessedness; for you love not men, but man. But I tell you, you have never seen a sinner, you have only dreamed of him."
Stirner also reiterates the Hegelian insight that when an ideal becomes politicised as the ideology of a group, it inevitably gives rise to hypocrisy and destroys itself. In entering the realm of actual human action and interaction, it enters the realm of negativity. It necessarily becomes concerned with contradictory particulars; despite founding ideals, people necessarily become enmeshed in an unequal power structure of conflicting priorities, and entangled in interpersonal conflict. An abstract ideal or universal thus destroys itself by becoming actual in the human community:
"[...] the dissolution of society is intercourse or union. A society does assuredly arise by union too, but only as a fixed idea arises by thought - to wit, by the vanishing of the energy of the thought (the thinking itself, this restless taking back all thoughts that make themselves fast) from the thought. If a union has crystallised into a society, it has ceased to be a coalition; for coalition is an incessant self-uniting; it has become a unitedness, come to a stand-still, degenerated into a fixity; it is - dead as a union, it is the corpse of the union or the coalition, it is - society, community. A striking example of this kind is furnished by the party."
No wonder Marx and Engels were so threatened by him!
rotorguy64's review
2.0
It's [b:Might is Right|1172822|Might is Right|Ragnar Redbeard|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1181626891s/1172822.jpg|2353854], but German. More perfidious, less violent. It's as if Ragnar Redbeard had traded in the steroids for an actual philosophical education. The introduction he wrote was a delight to read. At least at the time. Nowadays, I'm far less inclined to call myself an egoist, but would probably still admire the rhetorics. While Stirners sneering is occasionally entertaining, it gets boring fast, however. Worse, he either seems to have forgotten the actual argumentation, or it got lost in the sea of smug puns and will assertions. Probably a mix of both.
I guess there was a critique of capitalism hidden somewhere in there, but it's hard to take serious because, well, he basically asked us not to. What does a Stirnerite care about the plight of the workers when he has disavowed morality and basic human decency? Does the sight of them hurt his sensibilities, or is he just really enthusiastic about telling other people they're not egoistic enough? Especially the latter sounds quite like ethically motivated behavior to me, which reinforces my (not quite original) thesis that emotivists of all shades are not actually "unspooked", they just refuse to be introspective when it comes to moral judgements. In any case, Stirners critique of capitalism is of extremely limited value. Either it's baseless to begin with, or it isn't, but then Stirner w0uld have to deal with ethical justifications for the capitalist mode of production, which he doesn't.
Then there's Stirners atheism, which I don't think he really justified either. He doesn't have anything to say on scholastic metaphysics, and hence he also has nothing to say to religious philosophers. So if your faith is founded on something other than emotions - which it should be -, fear not the Stirner. Like most physicalists, he seeks to convince through the boldness of his assertions, not the soundness of his arguments.
Stirner, at the end of the day, seems to be just another product of a time that couldn't have been more confused about the nature of morality. [b:After Virtue|332138|After Virtue A Study in Moral Theory|Alasdair MacIntyre|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1222820987s/332138.jpg|322688] includes a very powerful critique of emotivism, and [b:Ethica Thomistica|507883|Ethica Thomistica The Moral Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, Revised Edition|Ralph McInerny|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1348952184s/507883.jpg|495907] has another. As I said above, Stirnerites have a serious problem: They claim to be nihilists, but still moralize as bad as everyone else. Could it be, then, that their position is impossible to implement in the actual world? Certainly, and if [a:Saint Thomas Aquinas|158904|Thomas Aquinas|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1391161045p2/158904.jpg] is to be believed, then it's absurd even in concept, because every action has a moral character, the question is only whether you do it right or wrong. Stirnerites, then, are playing the game like everyone else, they're just setting themselves up for failure.
I guess there was a critique of capitalism hidden somewhere in there, but it's hard to take serious because, well, he basically asked us not to. What does a Stirnerite care about the plight of the workers when he has disavowed morality and basic human decency? Does the sight of them hurt his sensibilities, or is he just really enthusiastic about telling other people they're not egoistic enough? Especially the latter sounds quite like ethically motivated behavior to me, which reinforces my (not quite original) thesis that emotivists of all shades are not actually "unspooked", they just refuse to be introspective when it comes to moral judgements. In any case, Stirners critique of capitalism is of extremely limited value. Either it's baseless to begin with, or it isn't, but then Stirner w0uld have to deal with ethical justifications for the capitalist mode of production, which he doesn't.
Then there's Stirners atheism, which I don't think he really justified either. He doesn't have anything to say on scholastic metaphysics, and hence he also has nothing to say to religious philosophers. So if your faith is founded on something other than emotions - which it should be -, fear not the Stirner. Like most physicalists, he seeks to convince through the boldness of his assertions, not the soundness of his arguments.
Stirner, at the end of the day, seems to be just another product of a time that couldn't have been more confused about the nature of morality. [b:After Virtue|332138|After Virtue A Study in Moral Theory|Alasdair MacIntyre|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1222820987s/332138.jpg|322688] includes a very powerful critique of emotivism, and [b:Ethica Thomistica|507883|Ethica Thomistica The Moral Philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, Revised Edition|Ralph McInerny|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1348952184s/507883.jpg|495907] has another. As I said above, Stirnerites have a serious problem: They claim to be nihilists, but still moralize as bad as everyone else. Could it be, then, that their position is impossible to implement in the actual world? Certainly, and if [a:Saint Thomas Aquinas|158904|Thomas Aquinas|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1391161045p2/158904.jpg] is to be believed, then it's absurd even in concept, because every action has a moral character, the question is only whether you do it right or wrong. Stirnerites, then, are playing the game like everyone else, they're just setting themselves up for failure.
e_missouri's review
2.0
here is a summary to save you the effort of actually reading 213 pages of brain-numbing repetition:
"You are distinguished beyond other men not by being man, but because you are a “unique” man" (p. 83), and "I am everything to myself and I do everything on my account" (p. 100).
there, now you've read The Ego and Its Own.
"You are distinguished beyond other men not by being man, but because you are a “unique” man" (p. 83), and "I am everything to myself and I do everything on my account" (p. 100).
there, now you've read The Ego and Its Own.
srs_moonlight's review
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
5.0
Despite reading philosophy for my whole adult life, I only encountered Stirner very recently. This book is (I believe?) his main work, and is a kind of early exploration of ideas that (for me, at least) are Proto- examples of existentialism, a very idiosyncratic anarchism, and postmodernism. An excellent short read if those ideas interest you. The kind of book I expect to return to again and again. Five stars, even though obviously stars are a spook.
daddyswish's review
5.0
Proto psychology, influenced Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Ayn Rand. Good time if you wana see an edgy dude from the 1800s call social structures "spooks"