The Ego and his Own by Max Stirner (best memoirs of all time TXT) 📖

concept, my generic

concept, only the Man, who, as he is called Tom, could just as well be Joe

or Dick. You see in me not me, the bodily man, but an unreal thing, the spook,

i.e. a Man.

In the course of the Christian centuries we declared the most various persons

to be "our equals," but each time in the measure of that spirit which we

expected from them -- e. g. each one in whom the spirit of the need of

redemption may be assumed, then later each one who has the spirit of

integrity, finally each one who shows a human spirit and a human face. Thus

the fundamental principle of "equality" varied.

Equality being now conceived as equality of the human spirit, there has

certainly been discovered an equality that includes all men; for who could

deny that we men have a human spirit, i. e., no other than a human!

But are we on that account further on now than in the beginning of

Christianity? Then we were to have a divine spirit, now a human; but, if

the divine did not exhaust us, how should the human wholly express what we

are? Feuerbach e. g. thinks, that if he humanizes the divine, he has found

the truth. No, if God has given us pain, "Man" is capable of pinching us still

more torturingly. The long and the short of it is this: that we are men is the

slightest thing about us, and has significance only in so far as it is one of

our qualities,(4) i. e. our property.(5) I am indeed among other things a

man, as I am e. g. a living being, therefore an animal, or a European, a

Berliner, etc.; but he who chose to have regard for me only as a man, or as a

Berliner, would pay me a regard that would be very unimportant to me. And

wherefore? Because he would have regard only for one of my qualities, not

for me.

It is just so with the spirit too. A Christian spirit, an upright spirit,

etc. may well be my acquired quality, my property, but I am not this spirit:

it is mine, not I its.

Hence we have in liberalism only the continuation of the old Christian

depreciation of the I, the bodily Tom. Instead of taking me as I am, one looks

solely at my property, my qualities, and enters into marriage bonds with me

only for the sake of my -- possessions; one marries, as it were, what I have,

not what I am. The Christian takes hold of my spirit, the liberal of my

humanity.

But, if the spirit, which is not regarded as the property of the bodily ego

but as the proper ego itself, is a ghost, then the Man too, who is not

recognized as my quality but as the proper I, is nothing but a spook, a

thought, a concept.

Therefore the liberal too revolves in the same circle as the Christian.

Because the spirit of mankind, i.e. Man, dwells in you, you are a man, as

when the spirit of Christ dwells in you are a Christian; but, because it

dwells in you only as a second ego, even though it be as your proper or

"better" ego, it remains otherworldly to you, and you have to strive to become

wholly man. A striving just as fruitless as the Christian's to become wholly a

blessed spirit!

One can now, after liberalism has proclaimed Man, declare openly that herewith

was only completed the consistent carrying out of Christianity, and that in

truth Christianity set itself no other task from the start than to realize

"man," the "true man." Hence, then, the illusion that Christianity ascribes an

infinite value to the ego (as e. g. in the doctrine of immortality, in the

cure of souls, etc.) comes to light. No, it assigns this value to Man alone.

Only Man is immortal, and only because I am Man am I too immortal. In fact,

Christianity had to teach that no one is lost, just as liberalism too puts all

on an equality as men; but that eternity, like this equality, applied only to

the Man in me, not to me. Only as the bearer and harborer of Man do I not

die, as notoriously "the king never dies." Louis dies, but the king remains; I

die, but my spirit, Man, remains. To identify me now entirely with Man the

demand has been invented, and stated, that I must become a "real generic

being."(6)

The human religion is only the last metamorphosis of the Christian

religion. For liberalism is a religion because it separates my essence from me

and sets it above me, because it exalts "Man" to the same extent as any other

religion does its God or idol, because it makes what is mine into something

otherworldly, because in general it makes out of what is mine, out of my

qualities and my property, something alien -- to wit, an "essence"; in short,

because it sets me beneath Man, and thereby creates for me a "vocation." But

liberalism declares itself a religion in form too when it demands for this

supreme being, Man, a zeal of faith, "a faith that some day will at last prove

its fiery zeal too, a zeal that will be invincible."(7) But, as liberalism is

a human religion, its professor takes a tolerant attitude toward the

professor of any other (Catholic, Jewish, etc.), as Frederick the Great did

toward every one who performed his duties as a subject, whatever fashion of

becoming blest he might be inclined toward. This religion is now to be raised

to the rank of the generally customary one, and separated from the others as

mere "private follies," toward which, besides, one takes a highly liberal

attitude on account of their unessentialness.

One may call it the State-religion, the religion of the "free State," not in

the sense hitherto current that it is the one favored or privileged by the

State, but as that religion which the "free State" not only has the right, but

is compelled, to demand from each of those who belong to it, let him be

privatim a Jew, a Christian, or anything else. For it does the same service

to the State as filial piety to the family. If the family is to be recognized

and maintained, in its existing condition, by each one of those who belong to

it, then to him the tie of blood must be sacred, and his feeling for it must

be that of piety, of respect for the ties of blood, by which every

blood-relation becomes to him a consecrated person. So also to every member of

the State-community this community must be sacred, and the concept which is

the highest to the State must likewise be the highest to him.

But what concept is the highest to the State? Doubtless that of being a really

human society, a society in which every one who is really a man, i. e.,*not

an un-man*, can obtain admission as a member. Let a State's tolerance go ever

so far, toward an un-man and toward what is inhuman it ceases. And yet this

"un-man" is a man, yet the "inhuman" itself is something human, yes, possible

only to a man, not to any beast; it is, in fact, something "possible to man."

But, although every un-man is a man, yet the State excludes him; i.e. it

locks him up, or transforms him from a fellow of the State into a fellow of

the prison (fellow of the lunatic asylum or hospital, according to Communism).

To say in blunt words what an un-man is not particularly hard: it is a man who

does not correspond to the concept man, as the inhuman is something human

which is not conformed to the concept of the human. Logic calls this a

"self-contradictory judgment." Would it be permissible for one to pronounce

this judgment, that one can be a man without being a man, if he did not admit

the hypothesis that the concept of man can be separated from the existence,

the essence from the appearance? They say, he appears indeed as a man, but

is not a man.

Men have passed this "self-contradictory judgment" through a long line of

centuries! Nay, what is still more, in this long time there were only --

un-men. What individual can have corresponded to his concept? Christianity

knows only one Man, and this one -- Christ -- is at once an un-man again in

the reverse sense, to wit, a superhuman man, a "God." Only the -- un-man is a

real man.

Men that are not men, what should they be but ghosts? Every real man,

because he does not correspond to the concept "man," or because he is not a

"generic man," is a spook. But do I still remain an un-man even if I bring Man

(who towered above me and remained otherworldly to me only as my ideal, my

task, my essence or concept) down to be my quality, my own and inherent in

me; so that Man is nothing else than my humanity, my human existence, and

everything that I do is human precisely because I do it, but not because it

corresponds to the concept "man"? I am really Man and the un-man in one;

for I am a man and at the same time more than a man; i.e. I am the ego of

this my mere quality.

It had to come to this at last, that it was no longer merely demanded of us to

be Christians, but to become men; for, though we could never really become

even Christians, but always remained "poor sinners" (for the Christian was an

unattainable ideal too), yet in this the contradictoriness did not come before

our consciousness so, and the illusion was easier than now when of us, who are

men act humanly (yes, cannot do otherwise than be such and act so), the demand

is made that we are to be men, "real men."

Our States of today, because they still have all sorts of things sticking to

them, left from their churchly mother, do indeed load those who belong to them

with various obligations (e. g. churchly religiousness) which properly do

not a bit concern them, the States; yet on the whole they do not deny their

significance, since they want to be looked upon as human societies, in which

man as man can be a member, even if he is less privileged than other members;

most of them admit adherence of every religious sect, and receive people

without distinction of race or nation: Jews, Turks, Moors, etc., can become

French citizens. In the act of reception, therefore, the State looks only to

see whether one is a man. The Church, as a society of believers, could not

receive every man into