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Stirner: The Ego and its Own (Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought) by Max Stirner
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June 6, 2024
THE FOUNDATIONAL DOCUMENT OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF “EGOISM”
Max Stirner (born Johann Kaspar Schmidt; 1806–1856) was a German philosopher. He wrote in the introductory section of this 1845 book, “Now it is clear, God cares only for what is his, busies himself only with himself, thinks only of himself, and has only himself before his eyes… He serves no higher person, and satisfied only himself. His cause is---a purely egoistic cause. How is it with mankind, whose cause are we to make our own?... mankind looks only at itself, mankind will promote the interests of mankind only… Is not mankind’s cause---a purely egoistic cause?... God and mankind have concerned themselves for … nothing but themselves. Let me then likewise concern myself for myself…. I am the creative nothing … the nothing out of which I myself as creator create everything… I myself am my concern, and I am neither good nor bad. Neither has meaning for me… Nothing is more to me than myself!” (Pg. 1-2)
He states, “even granted that doubts, raised in the course of time against the tenets of the Christian faith, have long since robbed you of faith in the immortality of your spirit, you have nevertheless left one tenet undisturbed... that the spirit is your better part, and that the spiritual has greater claims on you than anything else. Despite your atheism, in zeal against egoism you concur with the believers in immortality.” (Pg. 18)
He asserts, “Sacred things exist only for the egoist who does not acknowledge himself, the involuntary egoist…for him who … does not count himself as the highest being, who serves only himself and at the same time always thinks he is serving a higher being, who knows noting higher than himself and yet is infatuated about something higher.” (Pg. 23-24) Later, he adds, “Do not think that I am jesting or speaking figuratively when I regard those persons who cling to the Higher… as veritable fools, fools in a madhouse.” (Pg. 28) Still later, he says, “To ‘Give God the glory’ corresponds to the modern ‘Give Man the glory.’ But I mean to keep it for myself.” (Pg. 95)
He argues, “Who, then, is ‘self-sacrificing’? … he who ventures everything for one thing, one object… He is ruled by a passion to which he brings the rest as sacrifices. And are these self-sacrificing people perchance not selfish, not egoist? As they have only one ruling passion, so they provide for only one satisfaction… Their entire activity is egoistic, but it is a one-sided, unopened, narrow egoism; it is possessedness.” (Pg. 51)
He says of the laborer, “his work has no satisfying substance, because it is only imposed by society… and, conversely, his society does not satisfy because it gives only work. His labor ought to satisfy him as a man; instead of that, it satisfies society; society ought to treat him as a man, and it treats him as… a laboring ragamuffin.” (Pg. 92)
He confesses, “Therefore, we two, the state and I, are enemies. I, the egoist, have not at heart the welfare of this ‘human society,’ I sacrifice nothing to it, I only utilize it… I transform it into my property and my creature; that is, I annihilate it, and form in its place the Union of Egoists.” (Pg. 125-126)
He insists, “Whether I am in the right or not there is no judge but myself. Others can judge only whether they endorse my right, and whether it exists as right for them too.” (Pg. 131) He continues, “I decide whether it is the right thing in me; there is no right outside me. If it is right for me, it is right… if for the whole world something were not right, but it were right for me… then I would ask nothing about the whole world." (Pg. 133)
Perhaps inconsistently, he admits, “So them an egoist could never embrace a party or take up with a party? Oh, yes, only he cannot let himself be embraced and taken up by the party. For him the party remains all the time nothing but a gathering; he is one of the party, he takes part.” (Pg. 169)
He asserts, “History seeks for Man: but he is I, you, we. Sought as a mysterious essence, as the divine, first as God, then as Man… he is found as the individual, the finite, the unique one.” (Pg. 174)
He points out, “Egoism does not think of sacrificing anything, giving away anything that it wants; it simply decides, what I want I must have and will procure.” (Pg. 183)
He observes, “love is not a commandment, but, like each of my feelings, my property. Acquire, purchase, my property, and then I will make it over to you. A church, a nation, a fatherland, a family, etc., that does not know how to acquire my love, I need not love; and I fix the purchase price of my love quite at my pleasure.” (Pg. 211) He continues, “To the egoist nothing is high enough for him to humble himself before it, nothing so independent that he would live for love of it, nothing so sacred that he would sacrifice himself to it. The egoist’s love rises in selfishness, flows in the bed of selfishness and empties into selfishness again.” (Pg. 212)
He states, “My intercourse with the world consists in my enjoying it, and so consuming it for my self-enjoyment. Intercourse if the enjoyment of the world, and belongs to my self-enjoyment.” (Pg. 231)
He argues, “A man is ‘called] to nothing, and has no ‘calling,’ no ‘destiny,’ as little as a plant of a beast has a ‘calling.’ The flower does not follow the calling to complete itself… The bird lives up to no calling…” (Pg. 236)
He contends, “If there is even one truth only to which man has to devote his life and his powers because he is man, then he is subjected to a rule, dominion, law; he is a servingman. Is it supposed that man, humanity, liberty, etc., are such truths.” (Pg. 252) he adds, “As long as you believe in the truth, you do not believe in yourself, and you are a servant… You alone are the truth, or rather, you are more than the truth, which is nothing at all before you.” (Pg. 256)
Finally, he concludes, “I am the owner of my might, and I am so when I know myself as unique. In the unique one the owner himself returns into his creative nothing, of which he is born. Every higher essence above me, be it God, be it man, weakens the feeling of my uniqueness, and pales only before the sun of this consciousness. If I concern myself for myself, the unique one, then my concern rests on its transitory, mortal creator, who consumes himself, and I may say: All things are nothing to me.” (Pg. 266)
While this book can become rather repetitious, it remains a clear statement of Egoism as developed and interpreted by Stirner. It will be “must reading” for anyone interested in such philosophies.
Max Stirner (born Johann Kaspar Schmidt; 1806–1856) was a German philosopher. He wrote in the introductory section of this 1845 book, “Now it is clear, God cares only for what is his, busies himself only with himself, thinks only of himself, and has only himself before his eyes… He serves no higher person, and satisfied only himself. His cause is---a purely egoistic cause. How is it with mankind, whose cause are we to make our own?... mankind looks only at itself, mankind will promote the interests of mankind only… Is not mankind’s cause---a purely egoistic cause?... God and mankind have concerned themselves for … nothing but themselves. Let me then likewise concern myself for myself…. I am the creative nothing … the nothing out of which I myself as creator create everything… I myself am my concern, and I am neither good nor bad. Neither has meaning for me… Nothing is more to me than myself!” (Pg. 1-2)
He states, “even granted that doubts, raised in the course of time against the tenets of the Christian faith, have long since robbed you of faith in the immortality of your spirit, you have nevertheless left one tenet undisturbed... that the spirit is your better part, and that the spiritual has greater claims on you than anything else. Despite your atheism, in zeal against egoism you concur with the believers in immortality.” (Pg. 18)
He asserts, “Sacred things exist only for the egoist who does not acknowledge himself, the involuntary egoist…for him who … does not count himself as the highest being, who serves only himself and at the same time always thinks he is serving a higher being, who knows noting higher than himself and yet is infatuated about something higher.” (Pg. 23-24) Later, he adds, “Do not think that I am jesting or speaking figuratively when I regard those persons who cling to the Higher… as veritable fools, fools in a madhouse.” (Pg. 28) Still later, he says, “To ‘Give God the glory’ corresponds to the modern ‘Give Man the glory.’ But I mean to keep it for myself.” (Pg. 95)
He argues, “Who, then, is ‘self-sacrificing’? … he who ventures everything for one thing, one object… He is ruled by a passion to which he brings the rest as sacrifices. And are these self-sacrificing people perchance not selfish, not egoist? As they have only one ruling passion, so they provide for only one satisfaction… Their entire activity is egoistic, but it is a one-sided, unopened, narrow egoism; it is possessedness.” (Pg. 51)
He says of the laborer, “his work has no satisfying substance, because it is only imposed by society… and, conversely, his society does not satisfy because it gives only work. His labor ought to satisfy him as a man; instead of that, it satisfies society; society ought to treat him as a man, and it treats him as… a laboring ragamuffin.” (Pg. 92)
He confesses, “Therefore, we two, the state and I, are enemies. I, the egoist, have not at heart the welfare of this ‘human society,’ I sacrifice nothing to it, I only utilize it… I transform it into my property and my creature; that is, I annihilate it, and form in its place the Union of Egoists.” (Pg. 125-126)
He insists, “Whether I am in the right or not there is no judge but myself. Others can judge only whether they endorse my right, and whether it exists as right for them too.” (Pg. 131) He continues, “I decide whether it is the right thing in me; there is no right outside me. If it is right for me, it is right… if for the whole world something were not right, but it were right for me… then I would ask nothing about the whole world." (Pg. 133)
Perhaps inconsistently, he admits, “So them an egoist could never embrace a party or take up with a party? Oh, yes, only he cannot let himself be embraced and taken up by the party. For him the party remains all the time nothing but a gathering; he is one of the party, he takes part.” (Pg. 169)
He asserts, “History seeks for Man: but he is I, you, we. Sought as a mysterious essence, as the divine, first as God, then as Man… he is found as the individual, the finite, the unique one.” (Pg. 174)
He points out, “Egoism does not think of sacrificing anything, giving away anything that it wants; it simply decides, what I want I must have and will procure.” (Pg. 183)
He observes, “love is not a commandment, but, like each of my feelings, my property. Acquire, purchase, my property, and then I will make it over to you. A church, a nation, a fatherland, a family, etc., that does not know how to acquire my love, I need not love; and I fix the purchase price of my love quite at my pleasure.” (Pg. 211) He continues, “To the egoist nothing is high enough for him to humble himself before it, nothing so independent that he would live for love of it, nothing so sacred that he would sacrifice himself to it. The egoist’s love rises in selfishness, flows in the bed of selfishness and empties into selfishness again.” (Pg. 212)
He states, “My intercourse with the world consists in my enjoying it, and so consuming it for my self-enjoyment. Intercourse if the enjoyment of the world, and belongs to my self-enjoyment.” (Pg. 231)
He argues, “A man is ‘called] to nothing, and has no ‘calling,’ no ‘destiny,’ as little as a plant of a beast has a ‘calling.’ The flower does not follow the calling to complete itself… The bird lives up to no calling…” (Pg. 236)
He contends, “If there is even one truth only to which man has to devote his life and his powers because he is man, then he is subjected to a rule, dominion, law; he is a servingman. Is it supposed that man, humanity, liberty, etc., are such truths.” (Pg. 252) he adds, “As long as you believe in the truth, you do not believe in yourself, and you are a servant… You alone are the truth, or rather, you are more than the truth, which is nothing at all before you.” (Pg. 256)
Finally, he concludes, “I am the owner of my might, and I am so when I know myself as unique. In the unique one the owner himself returns into his creative nothing, of which he is born. Every higher essence above me, be it God, be it man, weakens the feeling of my uniqueness, and pales only before the sun of this consciousness. If I concern myself for myself, the unique one, then my concern rests on its transitory, mortal creator, who consumes himself, and I may say: All things are nothing to me.” (Pg. 266)
While this book can become rather repetitious, it remains a clear statement of Egoism as developed and interpreted by Stirner. It will be “must reading” for anyone interested in such philosophies.
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