/lit/ - Literature

>>18269954
We don't frown on individualism, we frown on the incessant shilling of the shitsack in picrel

Read the Ego Book, and Emma Goldman is pretty individualistic.

>>18270053
>shitsack
Why do you hate him so much, bro? What did he ever do to you?

I love Stirner, but I'm hung up on the individual part. Some anon asked me how I indivualize myself from the environment since I'm dependent on the environment for any kind of stimulation that would bring forth cognition. I fell back on that I draw from my environment inorder to create the identities I use until I take them buck up into myself. This was ofcourse the equivalent of responding by blowing spit bubbles vacantly while emptying my bowels. My response doesn't resolve anything, it simply posits some unique organizing self as a solution, which is no solution at all because whatever that is came from the environment anyway. At this point I can't tell where I end and the spooks begin.

>>18270216
>>18269954
People who get caught up on labels, with Stirner, are missing the point - he doesn't have a normative ethics.

>>18269954
What does individualism even mean? How can it even be an ideology? What are the beliefs of the person that follows it?

Bump.

>>18270588
Principally, it's concerned with self-interest.

Stirner's individualism is amoral (as opposed to moral or immoral), harshly critical of systems, structures, identity groups, and most other forms of association.

To Stirner, ownership is a state of control, and not a legally enforced concept. Natural rights do not exist (as they must be granted to you), nothing is sacred, and even selfless actions are ultimately selfishly motivated.

The ego book is honestly one long unintelligible run-on sentence, so if you're interested in learning more I would suggest finding some post-left people to talk to about it.

>>18269954
Stirner was too ideological, ironically enough, and did not practice what he preached. In the end he was a slave to his lofty doctrine of egoism.

>>18271924
>In the end he was a slave to his lofty doctrine of egoism
Really? Any examples of that?

>>18271813
Thank you. Were there any other important works based on it, other than Stirner's.

>>18271813
does he actually confuses self interest with slefishness?

>>18269954
It's because individualists are a net negative to the human race.

>>18271813
So it's essentially arbitrary? How does that not lead most people into confusion and despair?

>>18269954
because the individual is also a historically constructed spook
read Larry Sidentop's Inventing the Individual

>>18269954
Only losers who need stronger, smarter, more driven, harder working people to prop themselves up hate individualism.

>>18269954
Is Ayn Rand a Stirnerian

>>18269954

The nuclear family should be the smallest recognized social and political unit, not the individual.

Prove me wrong.

>>18273702
I don't understand why people think guy in image is doing mental gymnastics. He could have very well understood that he is weak and may truly see an issue with it.
The next Buddha is fat.

>>18271813
>self-interest
But what if my self-interest is for my entire family over everyone else's, does that still count? Because I see families back stab each other for a sliver of extra wealth and it legitimately makes no sense to me.

>>18273702
>Only losers who need stronger, smarter, more driven, harder working people to prop themselves up hate individualism

The case is typically that those who can't thrive, produce or succeed hide behind the excuse of 'Im an individual, i dont need anything from anybody'.

The real truth is that you are entirely worthless and have nothing to provide. So no group (business, family, woman, etc) wants you.

>>18273928
>The nuclear family should be the smallest recognized social and political unit, not the individual.
Why do you think so?

>>18269954
>Why does /lit/ frown upon individualism?
Because we are disciples of the great René Guénon (pbuh)

>BY INDIVIDUALISM we mean the negation of any principle higher than individuality, and the consequent reduction of civilization, in all its branches, to purely human elements; fundamentally, therefore, individualism amounts to the same thing as what, at the time of the Renaissance, was called 'humanism'; it is also the characteristic feature of the 'profane point of view' as we have described it above.

>Indeed these are but different names for the same thing; and we have also shown that this 'profane' outlook coincides with the antitraditional outlook that lies at the root of all specifically modern tendencies. That is not to say, of course, that this outlook is entirely new; it had already appeared in a more or less pronounced form in other periods, but its manifestations were always limited in scope and apart from the main trend, and they never went so far as to overrun the whole of a civilization, as has happened during recent centuries in the West.

>What has never been seen before is the erection of an entire civilization on something purely negative, on what indeed could be called the absence of principle; and it is this that gives the modern world its abnormal character and makes of it a sort of monstrosity, only to be understood if one thinks of it as corresponding to the end of a cyclical period, as we have already said.

>Individualism, thus defined, is therefore the determining cause of the present decline of the West, precisely because it is, so to speak, the mainspring for the development of the lowest possibilities of mankind, namely those possibilities that do not require the intervention of any supra-human element and which, on the contrary, can only expand freely if every supra-human element be absent, since they stand at the antipodes of all genuine spirituality and intellectuality

>>18274422

>Individualism implies, in the first place, the negation of intellectual intuition-inasmuch as this is essentially a supra-individual faculty-and of the knowledge that constitutes the true province of this intuition, namely metaphysics understood in its true sense. That is why everything that modern philosophers understand by the word metaphysics-if they admit the existence of anything at all under this name-is completely foreign to real metaphysics; it consists indeed of nothing but rational constructs or imaginative hypotheses, and thus purely individual conceptions, most of which bear only on the domain of 'physics', or in other words of nature.

>Even if any question is touched upon that could really belong to the metaphysical order, the manner in which it is envisaged and treated reduces it to the level of 'pseudo-metaphysics', and precludes any real or valid solution. It would seem, indeed, as if the philosophers are much more interested in creating problems, however artificial and illusory they may be, than in solving them; and this is but one aspect of the irrational love of research for its own sake, that is to say, of the most futile agitation in both the mental and the corporeal domains.

>It is also an important consideration for these philosophers to be able to put their name to a 'system', that is, to a strictly limited and circumscribed set of theories, which shall belong to them and be exclusively their creation; hence the desire to be original at all costs, even if truth should have to be sacrificed to this 'originality': a philosopher's renown is increased more by inventing a new error than by repeating a truth that has already been expressed by others. This form of individualism, the begetter of so many 'systems' that contradict one another even when they are not contradictory in themselves, is to be found also among modern scholars and artists; but it is perhaps in philosophy that the intellectual anarchy to which it inevitably gives rise is most apparent

>>18273928
>political unit
So the head of the household votes but only people with spouses and children vote?

What about grandparents living with the family? The nuclear/extended break has never been clean.

>>18274403
Because the nuclear family is the bedrock of society, the means by which a community to last generations is formed. There is obligation, duty, love, care, intimacy and more in a family, there is none of this in the individual. Everything of value needs more than the individual.

Society should reflect this.

>>18270269
You're dodging the question, which is an ontological one, not an ethical one.

>>18271956
anarchist individualism, the pre-nazi german gay liberation movement, lots of other flavors of anarchism and libertarianism and egoism

>>18274491
civilizations and cultures without distinctive nuclear family units endured for centuries and millennia. the nuclear family structure is only present when a culture enforces monogamy; in the absent of monogamous practices, alternative familial or communal relational structures emerge that are just capable of nurturing children and providing love and intimacy.

>>18274603
I simply am. My emotions are mine and so are my ideas. If an idea in my mind requires me to do something to feel something, that is spooked. I can feel as I please, I need not any judgement from myself.

Spooks *are* your ideas, but you delude yourself into the inking they are higher than I. Just think why you do an action and if you have any reason except "cuz I want to" you're probably spooked.
"I want to eat bread because it makes me feel good. I want to feel good" is not spooked.
"I want to eat bread because I should feel better after. I want to feel good" is not spooked, though maybe confused. Once you learn whether or not bread makes you feel better, that's when you have attained knowledge for the future.
"I should eat bread to feel good. I want to feel good" is spooked, as it places an obligation upon you to accomplish a goal of yours that need not be there.
"I want to eat bread because I'll feel better. I should feel good" is very spooked, as you're placing an extreme obligation on yourself in limiting emotions.

>>18274479
The nuclear family has always been clear. Mother, father and children, baring tragedy this has always been the case.

The vote is awarded to the family, collectively, how they cast it is their choice, be it through coming together and talking or by one person casting it for the family, it does not matter.

Grandparents are by their name, succesful and their own nuclear family. Having raised their own children.

>>18274655
>civilizations and cultures without distinctive nuclear family units endured for centuries and millennia

None of them had the vote, or if they did it was in a manner similar to Atheanian style.

Communal family structures are at best sub par for raising children, from both the prospective of the child and the parent. The only exception that disproves this is the Jewish Kibbutz style and that was stopped by the parente missing their children and having no connection.

Thus damaging society.

>>18274491
spooky

>>18274669
That’s more like it

>>18274491
Bitch I’m gay the nuclear family can suck my big individualist cock lmao

>>18275103
No natural born children, no vote.

Individualism is against ones own interest as association is required to perform political, social and productive functions.

>>18274603
Stirner is an ontological nihilist though. He does not have a prescriptive ethics or ontology.

>>18275167
This is a strange assumption because you assume an individual must entertain
nomian ethics when being a member of a political, social or even productive relations. An individual will use those things insofar they meet his needs, but it doesn't let principles tie him to them.

>>18274491
These are normative ethical claims; I don't have to value "society" or even your normian ethics. "Obligations, duties, love, care" are all meaningless, nominalist slogans to chain people to artificial systems they can choose not let rule their lives, and have every ability to rebel against - even if that requires risking their own life.

>>18271813
Stirner isn't individualist. The problem is a lot of people here read the "Ego and Its Own", which was a mistranslation, and also are unaware of his subsequent replies where he clarifies. The problem with discussing Stirner that philosophy itself has poisoned many ontological concepts we take for granted;ideas are no longer seen as norminal, but must be tied to a specific ideological doctrine. Stirner himself sought to escape philosophy, even the dogmatic geosynclines people have to words and people. There are intellectual movements that do convey Stirner's point more clearly, many of them existed thousands of years before Stirner's book, but they also fall into the same traps of interpretation. The best way to describe Stirner, in my opinion, is the Nietxchean last man - the man seeks his self enjoyment, and does not chain himself to the political bickering, and non-sensical mannerisms societal changes. To him, death itself is ultimate arbitrator of fact - the phantasms, the ideas we endless debate into the ground.

>>18275415
>These are normative ethical claims; I don't have to value "society" or even your normian ethics. "Obligations, duties, love, care" are all meaningless, nominalist slogans to chain people to artificial systems

The same is said for the individualist, why is self-determination, liberty any different? It is no less nor more artificial. Only one, familialism, is based on biology, the opposite is a refutation of it.

Collectivism is just individualism in disguise as any action always reflects the purpose to serve your ego

>>18273702
>>18274246
It’s both

Every ideological line of thinking is fallowed mostly by fags like everyone here

It's a regression to a primitive existence

I have come to the conclusion that individualism only works if everyone is individualistic. White people sticking to individualism while thirdies are collectivists is going to be our downfall.

>>18276492
You can be individualistic when people are roughly equal but not in a multi-ethnic society.

Don’t know about individualism but consistently avoiding national, racial, ideological tribalist and groupies is something I’m consistently doing

My grandpa said it best
>”any kinship that it’s built upon people you you personally know is FAKE”

>>18276654
Can you try that quote again when you’re not having a stroke

>>18275594
You make the implication that claims can not be antagonistic to each other to be useful. We can both have our own interpretations and live with them.

>>18275594
>why is self-determination, liberty any different?
It isn't.

>>18277432
>”Any kinship that isn't built upon people you personally know, is FAKE”

>>18269954
What to read after Ego?

>>18270216
>I fell back on that I draw from my environment inorder to create the identities I use until I take them buck up into myself. This was ofcourse the equivalent of responding by blowing spit bubbles vacantly while emptying my bowels. My response doesn't resolve anything, it simply posits some unique organizing self as a solution, which is no solution at all because whatever that is came from the environment anyway.
Stirner actually explicitly states the same thing. The only "real" difference is that you get to choose what you make your own, as opposed to what society tries to educate into you subconsciously. That's literally it. I'd quote the section (quite short) from the first section of his book but I cannot be bothered skimming through.

>>18270216
>>18280131
Forgot to add, this is why Stirner calls the "true self" the creative nothing. It is nothing, not man, not God, not anything substantial, it is pure creative potentiality with a will.

>>18274246
If people proclaim they don’t need anything from anyone, why wouldn’t you believe that person?

People who can’t succeed hide behind not needing help? What is this babble?

>>18280135
>>18280131
What I'm confused about is where this creative nothing which emerges from the environment aquires an agency that is wholey distinct from that environment. Sure I could choose not to follow christian morality or cherry pick what I like about it l, but I'm still making and these choices from a perspective enmeshed in the environment. So how do I know there isn't some force or productive collection of forces driving my actions that I'm just positing the creative nothing in place of to justify my owness?

>>18281630
So Stirner, justification is a matter of persuasion or might. The war of all against is what he describes - when you try to psycho-analyze Stirner too much; you miss the point completely. There are consequences to accepting Stirner's analysis, and if you accept them, more the power to you
>" Stirner’s egoism is utterly pedestrian and unromantic; he does not pretend that he is a great master or predator of other men. He has no ambition other than to enjoy himself, physically and mentally, until he is dissolved by death. The banality of this life is no fault of Stirner; on the contrary, he has done too good a job of expounding the logical implications of moral nihilism.While a life of doing what one pleases may be a tortuous labyrinth, especially for those who are more reflective, this does not constitute a refutation of Stirner. It could be that life really is as bleak and pointless as he describes. Likewise, our revulsion toward his ethical implications is not a refutation. If you are repulsed by murder and incest, this may be a reason for not allowing yourself to commit such acts, but it is not grounds for a universal rule against them. "

>>18282196
Look, he has posited some kind of agency able to decern whether or not it is orienting itself around some fixed idea and act according this dicernment, the aware egoist being able to do this vs unaware egoist being unable to do this. I'm willing to grant that you are an invinite unique process only expressible through your own manifestation, but I'm curious as to where the dividing like between definition given by the environment and the agency given by the creative nothing; or there's no such distinction and if not, why. I'm unconcerned with the moral and meaning implications.

>>18281197

>>18273750
Not even a little, Stirner's whole thing is that there's no such thing as obligation, Ayn Rand is all about an obligation to be, essentially, a self made man. Rand's idea of virtue is the good honest capitalist who creates his own wealth and makes the world better for it, and her sinner is the dirty lying socialist who would stifle these great men and steal from them, all while hidden behind a veil of false altruism. Stirner doesn't believe in virtue, and he doesn't believe in sin, and would say that no matter whether you're being selfish or selfless you're doing everything you do out of your own self interest, and by that I mean. If you give it is because you want to give, if you take it is because you want to take, and no matter how you try to justify your act it will always be rooted in your own, essentially arbitrary, desires. That's why Stirner's dichotomy is the egoist vs the unwitting egoist, rather than the egoist vs the altruist. When the egoist is kind it is because he wishes to be kind, when the unwitting egoist is kind it is because he feels an obligation to be kind, and he wishes to fulfill that obligation, and the same thing can be said for cruelty or charitability or sloth, along with any other way one might be.