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

of as so indifferent. But they are looking for this very third party

that bestows no more "privilege." Then it is called perhaps the free State, or

humanity, or whatever else it may be.

As Christian and Jew are ranked low by Bruno Bauer on account of their

asserting privileges, it must be that they could and should free themselves

from their narrow standpoint by self-renunciation or unselfishness. If they

threw off their "egoism," the mutual wrong would cease, and with it Christian

and Jewish religiousness in general; it would be necessary only that neither

of them should any longer want to be anything peculiar.

But, if they gave up this exclusiveness, with that the ground on which their

hostilities were waged would in truth not yet be forsaken. In case of need

they would indeed find a third thing on which they could unite, a "general

religion," a "religion of humanity," etc.; in short, an equalization, which

need not be better than that which would result if all Jews became Christians,

by this likewise the "privilege" of one over the other would have an end. The

tension(37) would indeed be done away, but in this consisted not the essence

of the two, but only their neighborhood. As being distinguished from each

other they must necessarily be mutually resistant,(38) and the disparity will

always remain. Truly it is not a failing in you that you stiffen(39) yourself

against me and assert your distinctness or peculiarity: you need not give way

or renounce yourself.

People conceive the significance of the opposition too formally and weakly

when they want only to "dissolve" it in order to make room for a third thing

that shall "unite." The opposition deserves rather to be sharpened. As Jew

and Christian you are in too slight an opposition, and are contending only

about religion, as it were about the emperor's beard, about a fiddlestick's

end. Enemies in religion indeed, in the rest you still remain good friends,

and equal to each other, e. g. as men. Nevertheless the rest too is unlike

in each; and the time when you no longer merely dissemble your opposition

will be only when you entirely recognize it, and everybody asserts himself

from top to toe as unique.(40) Then the former opposition will assuredly be

dissolved, but only because a stronger has taken it up into itself.

Our weakness consists not in this, that we are in opposition to others, but in

this, that we are not completely so; that we are not entirely severed from

them, or that we seek a "communion," a "bond," that in communion we have an

ideal. One faith, one God, one idea, one hat, for all! If all were brought

under one hat, certainly no one would any longer need to take off his hat

before another.

The last and most decided opposition, that of unique against unique, is at

bottom beyond what is called opposition, but without having sunk back into

"unity" and unison. As unique you have nothing in common with the other any

longer, and therefore nothing divisive or hostile either; you are not seeking

to be in the right against him before a third party, and are standing with

him neither "on the ground of right" nor on any other common ground. The

opposition vanishes in complete -- severance or singleness.(41) This might

indeed be regarded as the new point in common or a new parity, but here the

parity consists precisely in the disparity, and is itself nothing but

disparity, a par of disparity, and that only for him who institutes a

"comparison."

The polemic against privilege forms a characteristic feature of liberalism,

which fumes against "privilege" because it itself appeals to "right." Further

than to fuming it cannot carry this; for privileges do not fall before right

falls, as they are only forms of right. But right falls apart into its

nothingness when it is swallowed up by might, i.e. when one understands what

is meant by "Might goes before right." All right explains itself then as

privilege, and privilege itself as power, as -- superior power.

But must not the mighty combat against superior power show quite another face

than the modest combat against privilege, which is to be fought out before a

first judge, "Right," according to the judge's mind?

Now, in conclusion, I have still to take back the half-way form of expression

of which I was willing to make use only so long as I was still rooting among

the entrails of right, and letting the word at least stand. But, in fact, with

the concept the word too loses its meaning. What I called "my right" is no

longer "right" at all, because right can be bestowed only by a spirit, be it

the spirit of nature or that of the species, of mankind, the Spirit of God or

that of His Holiness or His Highness, etc. What I have without an entitling

spirit I have without right; I have it solely and alone through my power.

I do not demand any right, therefore I need not recognize any either. What I

can get by force I get by force, and what I do not get by force I have no

right to, nor do I give myself airs, or consolation, with my imprescriptible

right.

With absolute right, right itself passes away; the dominion of the "concept of

right" is canceled at the same time. For it is not to be forgotten that

hitherto concepts, ideas, or principles ruled us, and that among these rulers

the concept of right, or of justice, played one of the most important parts.

Entitled or unentitled -- that does not concern me, if I am only powerful, I

am of myself empowered, and need no other empowering or entitling.

Right -- is a wheel in the head, put there by a spook; power -- that am I

myself, I am the powerful one and owner of power. Right is above me, is

absolute, and exists in one higher, as whose grace it flows to me: right is a

gift of grace from the judge; power and might exist only in me the powerful

and mighty.

My Intercourse

In society the human demand at most can be satisfied, while the egoistic must

always come short. Because it can hardly escape anybody that the present shows

no such living interest in any question as in the "social," one has to direct

his gaze especially to society. Nay, if the interest felt in it were less

passionate and dazzled, people would not so much, in looking at society, lose

sight of the individuals in it, and would recognize that a society cannot

become new so long as those who form and constitute it remain the old ones.

If, e. g., there was to arise in the Jewish people a society which should

spread a new faith over the earth, these apostles could in no case remain

Pharisees.

As you are, so you present yourself, so you behave toward men: a hypocrite as

a hypocrite, a Christian as a Christian. Therefore the character of a society

is determined by the character of its members: they are its creators. So much

at least one must perceive even if one were not willing to put to the test the

concept "society" itself.

Ever far from letting themselves come to their full development and

consequence, men have hitherto not been able to found their societies on

themselves; or rather, they have been able only to found "societies" and to

live in societies. The societies were always persons, powerful persons,

so-called "moral persons," i.e. ghosts, before which the individual had the

appropriate wheel in his head, the fear of ghosts. As such ghosts they may

most suitably be designated by the respective names "people" and "peoplet":

the people of the patriarchs, the people of the Hellenes, etc., at last the --

people of men, Mankind (Anacharsis Clootz was enthusiastic for the "nation" of

mankind); then every subdivision of this "people," which could and must have

its special societies, the Spanish, French people, etc.; within it again

classes, cities, in short all kinds of corporations; lastly, tapering to the

finest point, the little peoplet of the --family. Hence, instead of saying

that the person that walked as ghost in all societies hitherto has been the

people, there might also have been named the two extremes -- to wit, either

"mankind" or the "family," both the most "natural-born units." We choose the

word "people"(42) because its derivation has been brought into connection with

the Greek polloi, the "many" or "the masses," but still more because

"national efforts" are at present the order of the day, and because even the

newest mutineers have not yet shaken off this deceptive person, although on

the other hand the latter consideration must give the preference to the

expression "mankind," since on all sides they are going in for enthusiasm over

"mankind."

The people, then -- mankind or the family -- have hitherto, as it seems,

played history: no egoistic interest was to come up in these societies, but

solely general ones, national or popular interests, class interests, family

interests, and "general human interests." But who has brought to their fall

the peoples whose decline history relates? Who but the egoist, who was seeking

his satisfaction! If once an egoistic interest crept in, the society was

"corrupted" and moved toward its dissolution, as Rome, e. g. proves with its

highly developed system of private rights, or Christianity with the

incessantly-breaking-in "rational self-determination," "self-consciousness,"

the "autonomy of the spirit," etc.

The Christian people has produced two societies whose duration will keep equal

measure with the permanence of that people: these are the societies State

and Church. Can they be called a union of egoists? Do we in them pursue an

egoistic, personal, own interest, or do we pursue a popular (i.e. an

interest of the Christian people), to wit, a State, and Church interest? Can

I and may I be myself in them? May I think and act as I will, may I reveal

myself, live myself out, busy myself? Must I not leave untouched the majesty

of the State, the sanctity of the Church?

Well, I may not do so as I will. But shall I find in any society such an

unmeasured freedom of maying? Certainly no! Accordingly we might be content?

Not a bit! It is a different thing whether I rebound from an ego or from a

people, a generalization. There I am my opponent's opponent, born his equal;

here I am a despised opponent, bound and under a guardian: there I stand man

to man; here I am a schoolboy who can accomplish nothing against his comrade

because the latter has called father and mother to aid and has crept under the

apron, while I am well scolded as an ill-bred brat, and I must not "argue":

there I fight against a bodily enemy; here against mankind, against a

generalization, against a "majesty,"