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

>e. g. human society.

They revindicate the alien not in their own name but in a third party's. Now

the "egoistic" coloring is wiped off, and everything is so clean and -- human!

Propertylessness or ragamuffinism, this then is the "essence of Christianity,"

as it is essence of all religiousness (i.e. godliness, morality, humanity),

and only announced itself most clearly, and, as glad tidings, became a gospel

capable of development, in the "absolute religion." We have before us the most

striking development in the present fight against property, a fight which is

to bring "Man" to victory and make propertylessness complete: victorious

humanity is the victory of --Christianity. But the "Christianity exposed" thus

is feudalism completed. the most all-embracing feudal system, i.e. perfect

ragamuffinism.

Once more then, doubtless, a "revolution" against the feudal system? --

Revolution and insurrection must not be looked upon as synonymous. The former

consists in an overturning of conditions, of the established condition or

status, the State or society, and is accordingly a political or social

act; the latter has indeed for its unavoidable consequence a transformation of

circumstances, yet does not start from it but from men's discontent with

themselves, is not an armed rising, but a rising of individuals, a getting up,

without regard to the arrangements that spring from it. The Revolution aimed

at new arrangements; insurrection leads us no longer to let ourselves be

arranged, but to arrange ourselves, and sets no glittering hopes on

"institutions." It is not a fight against the established, since, if it

prospers, the established collapses of itself; it is only a working forth of

me out of the established. If I leave the established, it is dead and passes

into decay. Now, as my object is not the overthrow of an established order but

my elevation above it, my purpose and deed are not a political or social but

(as directed toward myself and my ownness alone) an egoistic purpose and

deed.

The revolution commands one to make arrangements, the insurrection(98)

demands that he rise or exalt himself.(99) What constitution was to be

chosen, this question busied the revolutionary heads, and the whole political

period foams with constitutional fights and constitutional questions, as the

social talents too were uncommonly inventive in societary arrangements

(phalansteries etc.). The insurgent(100) strives to become constitutionless.

While, to get greater clearness, I am thinking up a comparison, the founding

of Christianity comes unexpectedly into my mind. On the liberal side it is

noted as a bad point in the first Christians that they preached obedience to

the established heathen civil order, enjoined recognition of the heathen

authorities, and confidently delivered a command, "Give to the emperor that

which is the emperor's." Yet how much disturbance arose at the same time

against the Roman supremacy, how mutinous did the Jews and even the Romans

show themselves against their own temporal government! In short, how popular

was "political discontent!" Those Christians would hear nothing of it; would

not side with the "liberal tendencies." The time was politically so agitated

that, as is said in the gospels, people thought they could not accuse the

founder of Christianity more successfully than if they arraigned him for

"political intrigue," and yet the same gospels report that he was precisely

the one who took least part in these political doings. But why was he not a

revolutionist, not a demagogue, as the Jews would gladly have seen him? Why

was he not a liberal? Because he expected no salvation from a change of

conditions, and this whole business was indifferent to him. He was not a

revolutionist, like e. g. Caesar, but an insurgent; not a State-overturner,

but one who straightened himself up. That was why it was for him only a

matter of "Be ye wise as serpents," which expresses the same sense as, in the

special case, that "Give to the emperor that which is the emperor's"; for he

was not carrying on any liberal or political fight against the established

authorities, but wanted to walk his own way, untroubled about, and

undisturbed by, these authorities. Not less indifferent to him than the

government were its enemies, for neither understood what he wanted, and he had

only to keep them off from him with the wisdom of the serpent. But, even

though not a ringleader of popular mutiny, not a demagogue or revolutionist,

he (and every one of the ancient Christians) was so much the more an

insurgent, who lifted himself above everything that seemed sublime to the

government and its opponents, and absolved himself from everything that they

remained bound to, and who at the same time cut off the sources of life of the

whole heathen world, with which the established State must wither away as a

matter of course; precisely because he put from him the upsetting of the

established, he was its deadly enemy and real annihilator; for he walled it

in, confidently and recklessly carrying up the building of his temple over

it, without heeding the pains of the immured.

Now, as it happened to the heathen order of the world, will the Christian

order fare likewise? A revolution certainly does not bring on the end if an

insurrection is not consummated first!

My intercourse with the world, what does it aim at? I want to have the

enjoyment of it, therefore it must be my property, and therefore I want to win

it. I do not want the liberty of men, nor their equality; I want only my

power over them, I want to make them my property, *i.e. material for

enjoyment*. And, if I do not succeed in that, well, then I call even the power

over life and death, which Church and State reserved to themselves -- mine.

Brand that officer's widow who, in the flight in Russia, after her leg has

been shot away, takes the garter from it, strangles her child therewith, and

then bleeds to death alongside the corpse -- brand the memory of the --

infanticide. Who knows, if this child had remained alive, how much it might

have "been of use to the world!" The mother murdered it because she wanted to

die satisfied and at rest. Perhaps this case still appeals to your

sentimentality, and you do not know how to read out of it anything further. Be

it so; I on my part use it as an example for this, that my satisfaction

decides about my relation to men, and that I do not renounce, from any access

of humility, even the power over life and death.

As regards "social duties" in general, another does not give me my position

toward others, therefore neither God nor humanity prescribes to me my relation

to men, but I give myself this position. This is more strikingly said thus: I

have no duty to others, as I have a duty even to myself (e. g. that of

self-preservation, and therefore not suicide) only so long as I distinguish

myself from myself (my immortal soul from my earthly existence, etc.).

I no longer humble myself before any power, and I recognize that all powers

are only my power, which I have to subject at once when they threaten to

become a power against or above me; each of them must be only one of *my

means* to carry my point, as a hound is our power against game, but is killed

by us if it should fall upon us ourselves. All powers that dominate me I then

reduce to serving me. The idols exist through me; I need only refrain from

creating them anew, then they exist no longer: "higher powers" exist only

through my exalting them and abasing myself.

Consequently my relation to the world is this: I no longer do anything for it

"for God's sake," I do nothing "for man's sake," but what I do I do "for my

sake." Thus alone does the world satisfy me, while it is characteristic of the

religious standpoint, in which I include the moral and humane also, that from

it everything remains a pious wish (pium desiderium), i.e. an other-world

matter, something unattained. Thus the general salvation of men, the moral

world of a general love, eternal peace, the cessation of egoism, etc. "Nothing

in this world is perfect." With this miserable phrase the good part from it,

and take flight into their closet to God, or into their proud

"self-consciousness." But we remain in this "imperfect" world, because even so

we can use it for our -- self-enjoyment.

My intercourse with the world consists in my enjoying it, and so consuming it

for my self-enjoyment. Intercourse is the enjoyment of the world, and

belongs to my -- self-enjoyment.

My Self-Enjoyment

We stand at the boundary of a period. The world hitherto took thought for

nothing but the gain of life, took care for -- life. For whether all

activity is put on the stretch for the life of this world or of the other, for

the temporal or for the eternal, whether one hankers for "daily bread" ("Give

us our daily bread") or for "holy bread" ("the true bread from heaven" "the

bread of God, that comes from heaven and gives life to the world"; "the

bread of life," John 6), whether one takes care for "dear life" or for "life

to eternity" -- this does not change the object of the strain and care, which

in the one case as in the other shows itself to be life. Do the modern

tendencies announce themselves otherwise? People now want nobody to be

embarrassed for the most indispensable necessaries of life, but want every one

to feel secure as to these; and on the other hand they teach that man has this

life to attend to and the real world to adapt himself to, without vain care

for another.

Let us take up the same thing from another side. When one is anxious only to

live, he easily, in this solicitude, forgets the enjoyment of life. If his

only concern is for life, and he thinks "if I only have my dear life," he does

not apply his full strength to using, i. e., enjoying, life. But how does

one use life? In using it up, like the candle, which one uses in burning it

up. One uses life, and consequently himself the living one, in consuming it

and himself. Enjoyment of life is using life up.

Now -- we are in search of the enjoyment of life! And what did the religious

world do? It went in search of life. Wherein consists the true life, the

blessed life; etc.? How is it to be attained? What must man do and become in

order to become a truly living man? How does he fulfil this calling? These and

similar questions indicate that the askers were still seeking for *themselves

--* to wit, themselves in the true sense, in the sense of true living. "What I

am is