RAW reviews The Ego and His Own, by Max Stirner

[Anonymous No.11891419]

The Ego and His Own, by Max Stirner
Libertarian Book Club, New York, 1964, $1.95

>This is probably the most disturbing, shocking and generally infuriating book in the whole history of political philosophy. First published in Germany in 1844, it aroused a violent storm of controversy—and, then, inexplicably, was suddenly forgotten. In 1907, the first American translation ignited another storm of controversary—which again died out quickly. It remains to be seen
what will be the fate of this new edition.

>Max Stirner was (aside from the somewhat psychotic Marquis de Sade) the only political-ethical thinker in all history who deliberately rejected all forms of authority over the individual. Since he was a German, living in the Age of Hegel, he saw fit to express this ultra-individualistic position in an exhaustive (and exhausting) book. The Ego and His Own starts out by giving the Church the worst drubbing it has had since Voltaire and Tom Paine; but that is only the beginning. Stirner then proceeds to tear down the idealism of the State, monarchistic or democratic, and then in turn demolishes the various forms of liberalism, socialism and radicalism. All that remains undemolished by Stirner’s destructive logic is—the Ego and his own.

>If you are an individualist, or think you are, you should read Stirner to find out if you are willing to carry self-assertion as far as he. (You probably will draw the line long before he does.) If you are not an individualist, beware—this book will give you high blood pressure. A final word of warning: Ayn Rand disciples will not like Stirner, who ends up his book as a socialist, albeit a peculiarly egotistic socialist. (No socialist party around today would accept Stirner, except the anarchists, and even most of them reject him.) Who will like this book? The man who has the guts to think for himself and who refuses to bow to any authority except his own independent judgement.

[Anonymous No.11891507]

>>11891419
RAW is underrated because even though he was a pretty smart and literate guy, he had a somewhat engrained schlocky way of writing due to years of writing for Playboy, and, moreover, he got really interested in conspiracy theories, parapsychology, the occult, and so on. We have enough Max Stirner threads here, we should make this a RAW thread. It’d be far too much to call him a “polymath” but few other writers can combine discussions and theories of art, literature, politics/conspiracy theories, sociology, psychology, anthropology, philosophy, neuroscience, mysticism/occultism, and probably more stuff I’m forgetting about into interesting unified wholes.

[Anonymous No.11891534]

>>11891507
>few other writers can combine discussions and theories of art, literature, politics/conspiracy theories, sociology, psychology, anthropology, philosophy, neuroscience, mysticism/occultism, and probably more stuff I’m forgetting about into interesting unified wholes
Anybody who is seriously trying to discuss mind necessarily integrates all of these things. He wasn't a polymath because his understanding of each of these subfields was shallow and dilettantish; rather, he was a mind expert.

[Anonymous No.11891941]

>>11891534
Yeah, that’s what I meant in saying it’s far too much to call him a “polymath”. Only that he’s a very broad and flexible thinker. So I totally agree with you. Holistic thinking is usually something more valued in the arts, and really interdisciplinary thinking is rarely used at all, so RAW is admirable for me because of how he sort of mixes all these different ways of thinking eclectically. To use the old and somewhat imperfect paradigm, he’s a really interesting case of fusing “left-brain” and “right-brain” thought. We’d all be very interesting people if we could mix these ways of thought like RAW did.

[Anonymous No.11892451]

>>11891419
Rand>Stirner as Rand's undergirding validation of egoism and individualism, the supremacy of reason, are what make these things objectively unassailable. Stirner's egoism has far less defenses and contradictions throughout as it practices what Rand termed "whim-worship" ad naseum. Furthermore the Anticoncept>the Spook because the former is an actually usefull (and historically revolutionary) tool for assessing bad ideational beleifs/philosophic logical fallacies and the latter is a barely useable whim-centric absurdity.
Overall? Stirner pretty much amounts to an attempt to validate the self by bruteforcing whim-worship. Your impression might be Stirner represents a sort of "purer" Egoism than Rand but the fact that Rand delves deeper into Egoism's causal foundation means the opposite is true and the result is more powerfully validated.
>I am not primarily an advocate of Capitalism; but of Egoism, and I am not primarily an advocate of Egoism; but of Reason. If one recognizes the supremacy of reason an applies it consistently, he will find that all the rest follows.

[Anonymous No.11892868]

>>11891534
Do you think his work still holds up to the present times? I dabble in reading everything you just listed but if I was to write about it, it'd be like a book except the pages were laminated alphabet soup.

[Anonymous No.11892990]

>>11892868
He has a knack for prettily rephrasing old ideas (guerilla ontology, probabilistic truth) and he has the bravery to endanger his own mind to better understand it. He's journalistic and definitely not a "philosopher" any more than Alan Watts or Terence McKenna, but he's intelligent and articulate and courageous and fun.

[Anonymous No.11893044]

>>11892868
you should read this

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/robert-anton-wilson-left-and-right-a-non-euclidean-perspective

[Anonymous No.11893079]

>>11892990
>>11893044
Thank you both

[Anonymous No.11893195]

>>11891419
>The man who has the guts to think for himself and who refuses to bow to any authority except his own independent judgement.
This reminds me of a backhand compliment I once received, where I was accused of having "invincible self-assurance." At first I was pleased, but then I realised I was being mocked for my arrogance and stubbornness.

Being too pig-headed to take advice from people who know better than you do is not guts.

[Anonymous No.11893308]

>>11893195
he was saying that the egoism that stirner exposes is the ultimate expression of self-independence, you have to have guts if your willing to leave any trace of moral codes, ethics, whatever society deems respectful if you want to be truly "independent"

[Anonymous No.11893325]

>>11893308
>you have to have guts if your willing to leave any trace of moral codes, ethics, whatever society deems respectful if you want to be truly "independent"
Not really. You just have to be such an unlikable person that society treats you poorly, and then you can use that as an excuse to turn your back on it.

It's very easy to go "against" society in the modern West because unless you do something actually reprehensible there will be almost no real consequences. It might have taken guts when Stirner was writing, back when the local people who you lived with would all get together and put you in the stocks or flog you for being a deviant, but nowadays that doesn't really happen and the "social stigma" of being different is meaningless because in a city of 10 million people nobody knows who you are and nobody cares.

[Anonymous No.11893360]

>>11893325
>but nowadays that doesn't really happen and the "social stigma" of being different is meaningless because in a city of 10 million people nobody knows who you are and nobody cares.

oh i see, i live in a city of 150k population, different stigma when you live in a metropolis huh? ;)

[Anonymous No.11893423]

>>11892451
dude, A=A totally lmao

[Anonymous No.11893433]

Bump

[Anonymous No.11893503]

>>11893044

Jesus, this is the EXACT type of person I absolutely hate in politics. They don't love anyone, not even themselves, they just serve as a prophet for some worldview that's supposed to hold all of the baggage of their mediocre life. Every single paradigm shift they had comes as a result of being disappointed, disgusted or confused by people in life events. They're not trying to find something that helps everyone, they're just trying to find a way to be intellectually invincible so that their self-worth cannot be touched.

[Anonymous No.11893516]

>>11893503
>Jesus, this is the EXACT type of person I absolutely hate in politics.
It's a good thing they're not in politics then.

Political philosophy and actual politics have virtually nothing in common.

I've got a foot in both worlds and cloistered academics like him have no fucking idea how things are really done or what really matters in politics.

[Anonymous No.11893542]

>>11893516

That, and the problem is even more personal. He had this coping mechanism of knowing everything, and it's so embarrassing to read. Instead of his life path coming out of consideration, values, or a dream, it comes out of a reaction to feeling alien and insufficient in his youth. It's like someone working their entire life to buy a Lamborghini because one time a girl dumped them for a guy with a nice Acura. Humility must be a form of acute trauma for a guy like that.

[Anonymous No.11893556]

>>11892451
Define Rands anticoncept for me? not that i think your right or wrong here i just have little familial knowledge of randian terms

[Anonymous No.11893573]

>>11893503
>person transcends shallow opposites and dualistic ways of thinking
>”Dude why can’t you fit into one of the opposites why are you criticizing both sides what the fuck is wrong with you lol ur just a shallow centrist afraid to have any ideas or be really passionate about anything”

>>11893516
>cloistered academics like him have no fucking idea how things are really done or what really matters in politics.

He probably knew more about it than you, bozo. He was privy to the scheming and duplicity of intelligence agencies, as that around his unfairly imprisoned friend, Timothy Leary. He didn’t have any idealistic beliefs covering up the reality of how corrupt and scheming politicians are and how many conspiracies go on in this realm.

>>11893542
>judging a guy so harshly and armchair psychoanalyzing him when you know nothing of him personally and haven’t met him
Wow, I wonder how superior you feel right now while you waste time criticizing a guy you’ve never met for not being humble enough.

And before you ask why I’m “sucking his dick”, I’m not, it’s just that your criticisms are shallow and embarrassing.

[Anonymous No.11893574]

>>11893542
It's probably that his (dubious) expertise here is one of, if not the only, sources of prestige and esteem in his life. Humans need prestige and esteem to abate feelings of anxiety. Because he has but the one source he's very concerned with ensuring that he makes the most of it.

If you're a healthy normal person with a healthy normal life and you go out four wheel driving with some friends, and those friends are more experienced than you, what you do is sit back and let them give you advice on how to not wreck your car. And if the tracks are hard, you park at the bottom and jump in one of their cars. You can do that, because you don't NEED to derive prestige and esteem from the interaction - you get prestige and esteem elsewhere. You know that you're not diminished in their eyes as a human being even if you are diminished in their eyes as a four wheel driver.

Imagine this guy as a person who cannot do that, because he absolutely does need to derive prestige and esteem from the interaction. He has no fallback source. That is his sole concern. So he ends up over his head and does something stupid and breaks his vehicle. Except, cleverly, he has picked a field where there are no consequences to being wrong. If you do something stupid when you're four wheel driving you end up stuck, and stuck with a repair bill. There are consequences. If you dribble an essay full of garbage onto some obscure website nobody gives a shit, and you can still trick yourself into thinking you've derived prestige and esteem from the experience because there are no actual negative consequences to point to which correct that misconception. There is no broken car stuck up the windows in mud.

This is why academics are generally the worst kind of arrogant shitheels. They're the kind of people happy with a life that is utterly devoid of achievement.

[Anonymous No.11893577]

>>11893573
>He probably knew more about it than you, bozo. He was privy to the scheming and duplicity of intelligence agencies, as that around his unfairly imprisoned friend, Timothy Leary. He didn’t have any idealistic beliefs covering up the reality of how corrupt and scheming politicians are and how many conspiracies go on in this realm.
Experience of the impact of political decisions is not equivalent to understanding how those decisions get made.

[Anonymous No.11893592]

>>11893574
>calling Robert Anton Wilson an “academic”

Kek, you’re adorable. This is a guy generally disregarded by most of academia and thought of as insane or shallow. He was willing to directly experiment with many occult and mystical practices and groups, parapsychological experiments, psychedelic drugs etc and write about them. This was a guy who unhesitatingly sacrificed his possibility of a reputation as a sane writer and thinker in the eyes of many by talking about his paranormal experiences and experiments in books like Cosmic Trigger. You guys are just embarrassing, have you read anything by Robert Anton Wilson? Or is his brief appreciation of Stirner and his claim that he doesn’t want to be called either a leftist or a rightist triggering you? Why don’t you get a life instead of henpecking someone you evidently know nothing about?

[Anonymous No.11893598]

>>11893592
I'll call people whatever the fuck I want and I don't really give a shit if you want to make snide remarks about it.

He's as worthless as any other academic for all the same reasons, and so I'm going to attach that nomenclature to him.

>have you read anything by Robert Anton Wilson?
So far I have avoided making that mistake.

[Anonymous No.11893603]

>>11893577
Fair enough, I thought of that point too after I wrote my post but couldn’t undo the post obviously. I just wanted to object to at least one facet which seemed to be implied by your post: that he was TOTALLY naive as to the nature of political machinations. I will admit, too, that there’s a difference between having strong political opinions about how things should be changed right now, and going into politics and seeing how impractical or even harmful to change things so much. I don’t think it discounts that a person can have the right outlook on things, it only discounts that they’re being practical.

[Anonymous No.11893611]

>>11893598
WOW, thanks for admitting you’ve never read anything by Robert Anton Wilson and yet criticize him so viciously! I pretty much have no other argument to make since you’ve given me all your ammunition and any sane thinking person reading this can see my point. Is any person who writes books an academic, in your worldview?

[Anonymous No.11893625]

>>11893611
>and yet criticize him so viciously!
Why would I need to read his books to criticise him? The problem is him, not what he writes. He is a shitter. I'm sure his books are also shit because shitter is as shitter does, but I'm not going to waste my time reading the ramblings of a shitter because why the fuck would I do that?

>Is any person who writes books an academic, in your worldview?
Anyone more concerned with the pursuit of knowledge than the deployment of it, but especially those who work in fields where knowledge is unfalsifiable (leaving aside all of the epistemological arguments about empirical knowledge for now), is at risk of being a loathsome academic.

[Anonymous No.11893660]

>>11893625
OK, so let me see. Based on stuff you’ve heard about him, you discount him entirely. That betokens a shallow and suggestible mind which believes that rumors and secondhand stories are more important than direct experience of something or someone.

Second, you say he valued accumulating knowledge instead of deploying it. I’ve already told you this is wrong. He actively tried many yogic practices, occult, mystical, and meditative techniques in general, joined as many occult and magical groups as he could, and experimented with psychedelic drugs on top of it. In fact, much of his work is based off of these direct experiences and self-experiments. His book Cosmic Trigger is his most famous account of how his fervent search for consciousness-changing methods did, indeed, change his consciousness. In fact, every one of your criticisms, more or less, could be discounted if you read a book of his.

So let’s review the situation. I’ve read his books. You haven’t. You’ve “heard about his life.” Off of some vague premises I can’t understand, you’ve decided he’s “shit”. Therefore everything he’s done and written is “shit”.

Unfalsifiable? Why don’t you try the practices he talks about and verify it yourself? Or why don’t you start with at least reading the most famous book of an “academic” (who was not at all in academia) you want to criticize so harshly, instead of reading nothing about him and harshly reproving him because it SEEMS as if he has an unlikable personality?

[Anonymous No.11893671]

>>11893660
>He actively tried many yogic practices, occult, mystical, and meditative techniques in general, joined as many occult and magical groups as he could, and experimented with psychedelic drugs on top of it. In fact, much of his work is based off of these direct experiences and self-experiments.
None of this shit is of any value.

[Anonymous No.11893687]

>>11893671
I’m waiting for your answer of why. Is it based off of knowledge you have of these fields but haven’t deployed?

[Anonymous No.11893716]

>>11893687
>I’m waiting for your answer of why.
I'm not interested in debating it, tbqh. The debate itself would be of no value.

Some people are oriented towards practical things that result in concrete achievement. Other people are oriented towards stupid self-gratifying bullshit that goes nowhere. I am the former, and you clearly are the latter. That's why I spend my time running my company, and you spend your time reading the ramblings of a nut.

>"b-b-b-b-b-but you can't prove that one is better than the other"
Sure, but I don't have to. I can give people my respect for any reason or no reason at all, and withhold it on the same basis. It's up to me. I'm not accountable to you or what you are pleased to call reason.

RAW's "work" is of no value because I don't value it, and I'm sure you can guess at this point why that is.

[Anonymous No.11893727]

>>11893671
You sound like a coward to me.

[Anonymous No.11893728]

>>11893503
if your entire self-worth relies on a ideology, you´re no different compared to a religious zealot, pathetic human being, you´re slave to ideology, i pity you anon

[Anonymous No.11893731]

>>11893727
Okay.

[Anonymous No.11893739]

>>11893716
>I’m not interested in debating it, tbqh

I already knew that, because I’ve been bringing up reasons your criticisms and posts are wrong, hypocritical, and indicative of shallow thinking, whereas you’ve just been content to happily assert how important your emotions and snap judgments are. You should try to check your vanity, it is an extremely big burden and cuts you off from a lot of experiences.

[Anonymous No.11893749]

>>11893739
>I already knew that, because I’ve been bringing up reasons your criticisms and posts are wrong, hypocritical, and indicative of shallow thinking
I found them to be shitty, and so I ignored them.

>You should try to check your vanity, it is an extremely big burden and cuts you off from a lot of experiences.
I'd rather achieve things than experience them.

[Anonymous No.11893767]

Oh and, by the way, I find it cute that you bring up that you’re “running a company”, as if I’m supposed to be impressed and envious at this. All your posts are indicative of your big-ass ego which has gotten to your head. So it’s not surprising you bring up your “personal accomplishments” and make this whole argument about criticizing people’s personalities. If I’m going to indulge in this criticism like you are, then I can say that your power and greed for wealth have corrupted you into an arrogant buffoon. Your whole posts are just you saying “My mind is closed! You can’t change my mind! I’m a great and worthy person and others are just insane!” As such, I’m just as happy to end this conversation as you are, since I can see we’re both getting nowhere.

[Anonymous No.11893778]

>>11893749
>I'd rather achieve things than experience them.
"I don't value having a mind and/or soul. Being an accomplished automaton is enough."

[Anonymous No.11893779]

>>11893749
Is this bait or are you just a massive brainlet?

[Anonymous No.11893810]

>>11893779
Neither. There are people who aren’t necessarily stupid, just very close-minded and arrogant. Arrogance, however, is itself a form of stupidity. It blocks you from experiencing and thinking new things. How can you learn anything when you have the mindset of, “I’m ABSOLUTELY right and you are ABSOLUTELY wrong, I already know this!” We’re all like this guy in our own ways in various areas, he just revealed it very openly and instructively in this conversation. What a great opportunity to learn about human psychology in this guy’s posts! We should be kneeling to him and kissing his hand for showing us so clearly what arrogance is like so that we can learn from and avoid it.

[Anonymous No.11893818]

>>11893810
can you please shut the fuck up, you´re derailing my thread, commie retard

[Anonymous No.11893824]

>>11893810
if you don´t like raw that´s fine, but i don´t care if you think you´re smart by shitting on him, retarded bitch

[Anonymous No.11893838]

>>11893767
>and make this whole argument about criticizing people’s personalities.
That's all it's ever been about. You want this argument to be a big contest of ideas because that's the kind of pointless timewasting that you enjoy. I was only ever in it to insult RAW as a person and I think I've achieved that.

>Your whole posts are just you saying “My mind is closed! You can’t change my mind! I’m a great and worthy person and others are just insane!”
I can certainly understand why you perceive me that way.

I'm willing to seriously engage with any idea, no matter how outlandish, but only on my terms. I don't think my terms are unreasonable. I want brevity, clarity, and a clear explanation of why the idea is important. I don't care about delicate turns of phrase and I'm not interested in poetry. When it's time for serious discussion I want to discuss things seriously. This is the kind of attitude that serious people have. Get to the point. Don't waste my time.

I think substantially less of people who write pretty prose at the expense of brevity and clarity, and RAW is a meandering obscuritan shitbag.

[Anonymous No.11893847]

>>11893778
>"I don't value having a mind and/or soul. Being an accomplished automaton is enough."
You might have a point if you were an accomplished freethinker, but you're not. You'll find in life that "free thought" and accomplishment do not go together. This is because "free thought" is short for "wrong thought," and that's why freethinkers gravitate to fields where there is no consequence for being wrong. You don't find very many freethinking engineers.

[Anonymous No.11893866]

>>11893838
>I'm willing to seriously engage with any idea, no matter how outlandish, but only on my terms.
Ah, so you’re willing to seriously engage with ANY idea but only if it’s presented in a way you like. It’s really funny and odd how you can’t see your hypocrisy.

>>11893824
I was pointing out the arrogance of this buffoon who is very openminded to any idea as long as it’s on his terms. I was saying he’s neither an idiot nor a troll, just sincerely arrogant.

[Anonymous No.11893876]

>>11892451
>reason
sounds pretty spooky to me

[Anonymous No.11893895]

>>11893866
>>11893838
Actually, I think I see your point of view now. You want a concise summary of RAW’s views? There are expanded forms of consciousness available to us. Ways to reach these forms of consciousness are found in Zen, Sufi, Kabbalistic, and yogic techniques and more. As well as the directed use of psychedelic drugs. One can change one’s brain in such a way for the better that one is mentally much more flexible, creative, and mindful. Of course, you will not dabble in these totally insane and wacko fields because you’re a hardheaded and practical, serious businessman. There’s no issue with that. Everyone has their own way. Only, I felt obliged to point out your criticisms were shallow and missed the point and that you’re engrained in arrogant ways of thought.

[Anonymous No.11893899]

>>11893866
>Ah, so you’re willing to seriously engage with ANY idea but only if it’s presented in a way you like.
Correct.

>It’s really funny and odd how you can’t see your hypocrisy.
If somebody is not willing to show me the courtesy of brevity and clarity, why should I show them the courtesy of listening to their idea?

If I want to know what a person has to say then I'm perfectly willing to meet them where they are. We're talking here about a situation where somebody else wants to tell me something that I'm not immediately interested in - so, why am I expected to moderate my expectations?

[Anonymous No.11893905]

>>11893847
How does any of that pertain to being open to experiencing things?

[Anonymous No.11894010]

>>11893905
It doesn't. I was attacking the poster as a person, not his 'argument.'

>>11893895
>Only, I felt obliged to point out your criticisms were shallow and missed the point
My criticism of RAW is that his ideas are silly and that he is a silly man, but he is insulated from the consequences of his silly ideas because he "works" in a field where there are no consequences for being wrong - and therefore he is a shitter, not really worth further consideration by anyone with a job to do.

Of course, the validity of my criticism depends on the accuracy of my assessment of his ideas, and maybe I am wrong. I doubt that. I'm open to rehearing his ideas, as I am open to all ideas, but they're not ideas I'm particularly interested in even beyond their evident silliness because, as you say, I am "a hardheaded and practical, serious businessman," so it's probably not worth anyone's time talking to me about them at this juncture. I'm kinda tired at the moment because I was up early, and I think two hours of arguing on /lit/ is enough for today. In addition, philosophically I'm a pretty staunch empiricist so arguments with me always tend to dissolve into epistemology.

>and that you’re engrained in arrogant ways of thought.
In arguments like this it's important to make sure people understand where I'm coming from.

[Anonymous No.11894149]

>4chan /thread

[Anonymous No.11894170]

>>11894010
Fair enough then. Empirically speaking, it’s difficult to prove that you have a free consciousness constantly capable of observing yourself all the time and rationally choosing what you do, think, feel, what your biases are, and so on.

In fact, most modern neuroscientists gleefully say that the brain isn’t one functioning whole, it’s a lot of different parts working together and based off of conditioning, but there’s something in our brains somehow giving us the illusion that every disconnected sensation, emotion, sudden thought, and snap judgment is related to and freely and intentionally done by this one conscious “self”.

Really, it’s just all being done.

This is something which has already been known to people like the Buddhists. So the practices they offer are ways out of this neurological prison so as to be more free and self-aware.

[Anonymous No.11894254]

>>11894010
>It doesn't. I was attacking the poster as a person, not his 'argument.'
Assuming that everyone you disagree with is one person is pretty schizophrenic. You should get checked, for that and also your generalized cowardice.

[Anonymous No.11894629]

>>11891419
I dont know shit about stirner or his works, but egoism to me just sounds like if sociopathy became a school of thought

[Anonymous No.11894672]

>>11894629
>but egoism to me just sounds like if sociopathy became a school of thought

welcome to the real world

[Anonymous No.11895954]

>>11894254
>Assuming that everyone you disagree with is one person is pretty schizophrenic
I didn't.

[Anonymous No.11895991]

>>11894629
>implying Striner advocates sheer selfishness
Maybe you should read him instead of giving uninformed hot takes.