Stirner, Max
Average customer rating:
- Almost but not entirely !!!
- Ayn Rand could have written this book.
- tossing away spooks
- Those rantings makes good eatin'
- Interesting if abrasive food for thought!
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Stirner: The Ego and its Own (Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought)
Max Stirner
Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
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ASIN: 0521456479 |
Book Description
Stirner's The Ego and its Own (1844) is striking in both style and content, attacking Feuerbach, Moses Hess and others to sound the death-knell of Left Hegelianism. The work also constitutes an enduring critique of liberalism and socialism from the perspective of an extreme eccentric individualism. Stirner has latterly been portrayed variously as a precursor of Nietzsche, a forerunner of existentialism, an individualist anarchist, and as manifestly insane. This edition includes an Introduction placing Stirner in his historical context.
Customer Reviews:
Almost but not entirely !!!.......2005-11-29
To make this blunt and clear I have absolutely no problem with Max Stirners' philosophy (EGOISM). However, on one essential point Max Stirner seems to have travelled the road somewhat of nearly all 18th-19th century eurocentric racist. In PART FIRST: MAN, chp 2 Section 3 (THE HIERARCHY) Max Stirner unwittingly claims:
"The history of the world, whose shaping properly belongs altogether to the Caucasian race."
In conjunction with this racist statement by Max Stirner one is obliged to mention that Max Stirner himself wasn't certain about his very own claim concerning the historical development of the Caucasian. Max Stirner says:
"The historical reflections on our Mongolism which I propose to insert episodically at this place are not given with the claim of thoroughness, or even of approved soundness, but solely because it seems to me that they may contribute toward making the rest clear."
The reason I am writing this racial-review of Max Stirners' book is that I may point out to certain readers (African-Americans)that Max Stirner may seem like a racist but with further reading of his book it all becomes clear why Max Stirner presented his racial-analogue. Nevertheless, here is a weblink to a good article for African-Americans to read while also reading Max Stirners' book: [ http://www.nbufront.org/html/MastersMuseums/JGJackson/EthiopiaOriginOfCivilization.html ]
P.S.
I surely wish Max Stirner was alive to read the article up above. Maybe he would have changed his views concerning race.
Ayn Rand could have written this book........2005-08-30
But she didn't. Someone else did, nearly a century before anyone had ever heard of Ayn Rand. Yet somehow Ayn Rand got the credit for "originating" the philosophy in this book.
Perhaps Stirner's mistake was becoming an essayist instead of a novelist.
tossing away spooks.......2004-07-24
this is the most liberating book ever written, it frees the individual from such spooks as family, church, state, society, god. He was correct to note that feuerbach and the marxists were establishing their own religion, and this criticism applies to many of the secular religions of our day. He also destroys such chimeras as the 'social contract' and other nonsensical obligations.
Those rantings makes good eatin'.......2003-05-02
I'll dispense with the summary and just say that the book was interesting as a historical footnote. I certainly find it to be an awe inspiring book in its ability to inspire psuedo-anarchist rantings. Between this and Kropotkin's Conquest of Bread few books seem to have inspired so many middle-aged capitalists to forego their mid-life crisis Corvettes and dive into the selfishness of a fascism covered in the guise of anti-establishment philosophy.
Pesonally, I read it as historical precedent for the attack on systematic philosophies and a precursor to the nebulous nihilism of our day. As a left wing socialist 'kook', I found it to cast an interesting light on the internal war between our current passive, laissez faire nihilism and our more ideological desire to act (that was at least why I read it).
As any 'anti-whatever' book, it is more interesting to read then anyone who painstakingly creates a thoughtful thesis. Hegel may have been a genius but it certainly is less amusing to read then this or Nietzsche- that may be why we have so many undeveloped minds becoming anarchists or whatever, it's easy to read.
Interesting if abrasive food for thought!.......2002-10-03
"What is supposed to be my concern. First and foremost the Good Cause, then God's Cause, the cause of mankind, of truth, of freedom, of humanity, of justice; further, the cause of my people, my prince, my fatherland; finally, even the cause of my mind. Only MY cause is never to be my concern. 'Shame on the egoist who thinks only of himself.'"
In this, the first paragraph of his powerful book, Max Stirner sets the stage. His cause? 'Nothing.' His goal? To stop at nothing. In The Ego and It's Own (more literally translated to The Person and His Property) Stirner tries making the case for anarchism based on individualism, rebelling against the collectivist strand professed by Proudhon and Godwin before him.
When Stirner says he 'base[s his] cause on nothing,' what is meant. Simply, he takes nothing (even our supposed self evident truths like right to life) as givens. Everything is questionalbe; nothing immune. So really, this book is not for the squeamish. First, he takes apart religion for setting a 'transcendental' cause higher than the individual. Then he attacks the concept of the state- and socialism- for doing the same. Then he takes apart concepts of 'rights' becuase without a god to grant them and a state to inforce them, what right do I have to live if you kill me? To clarify, Stirner does believe in cooperation for each party's benefit; just not coerced in ANY way.
While Stirner is said to be a precursor to Nietzsche, there is no evidence that Nietzsche knew of him. In fact, the biggest influence he might've had (in print) is Marx's 300 page(!) critique of Stirner in his German Ideology. I've not read it, but it's clear that Marx has a lot to wrestle with.
Now for the subtracted star. Stirner, while being an egoist, is somewhat of an egotist. He repeats the same things many times and a reader would not miss much if she cut out 150 pages early. Secondly, and it must be said, Stirner is not profound because he is philosophically challenging. He is not; then again neither are most anarchists. He is profound because he has the gumption to say what no one else will. He even questions why it is considered bad to sleep with one's sister. Can we argue? Hmmm.... What are you staring at me for, read the book already!
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- Quirky but Intriguing Work
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The Ego and His Own: The Case of the Individual Against Authority (Dover Books on Western Philosophy)
Max Stirner
Manufacturer: Dover Publications
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ASIN: 048644581X |
Book Description
Credited with influencing the philosophies of Nietzsche and Ayn Rand and the development of libertarianism and existentialism, this prophetic 1844 work challenges the very notion of a common good as the driving force of civilization. Stirner chronicles the battle of the individual against the collective to show how the latter invariably leads to oppression.
Customer Reviews:
Quirky but Intriguing Work.......2007-06-03
This is a most intriguing and quirky work; many will probably find it repellant. It may well be that this volume is the reason that Marx and Engels wrote "The German Ideology"; it may be that Stirner's magnum opus led to Marx fundamentally changing his philosophical perspective from more idealistic to materialistic. Nonetheless, it is a work that gets one's mind to working as one responds to the arguments being advanced. That alone makes this an interesting book to explore.
Max Stirner (born Johan Kaspar Schmidt) is one of the more interesting figures in 19th century political thought. The turgid prose of his one major work, "The Ego and His Own," stretches for several hundred pages and can be a formidable barrier to the reader. Stirner posits something like a war of each against all as the proper way of life and the proper way of allocating scarce resources. This competition with others is natural and ubiquitous. Stirner says: ". . .the egoistic man, who deals with things and thoughts according to his heart's pleasure. . .sets his personal interest above everything."
One major obstacle in the way of an individual's egoism is the existence of "spook notions" and coercive agencies, such as the state. "Spook notions" are concepts viewed as superior to the individual, largely due to dominant values of a society inculcated into the individual; these concepts subsequently become reified. Among examples that he adduces: truth, right, chastity, the law, the good cause, the state, mankind, love, duty, obligation. In each case, people will come to accept these concepts as absolutes and then subordinate their own behavior to these reifications. Stirner contends, to the contrary, that humans should not allow themselves to become subjects to such "spook notions." Stirner argues that most people prostrate themselves before such "spook notions." As a result, so Stirner asserts, such people are possessed, just as surely as madmen may be possessed by their delusions.
If cut adrift from reified moorings, what next? Stirner asserts that one should be guided by one's self-interest, however one might define this. This self-interest, though, should not become superior to the individual, must not be rigidified into a reification. One should leave ends as open questions--remaining, always, the final judge of the ends' utility, since one, in Stirner's view, owns these ends. If one choose to believe in God and follow that deity's word, good. But one must continually recall that this is a matter of choice and that decision may be revoked at any time. The egoist "never takes trouble about a thing for the sake of the thing, but for his sake: the thing must serve him."
The ego and its own are intimately related. One's own can be other people, property, or ideas. The only things that are sacred are those which one declares as "sacred." One keeps all ends open and leaves the option of ultimate rejection of those values. The individual alone, of course, may be deficient in power to accomplish all that he or she would wish. Thus, one would find it expedient to form unions with others. As a result, one becomes strengthened and may do things that were previously beyond one's individual power. It is a union of convenience, based upon the extent to which individuals in the union can benefit from one another. This society, this union of egoists as Stirner describes it, is itself based upon egoism. Stirner says that: "Therefore we two, the State and I, are enemies. I, the egoist, have not at heart the welfare of this 'human society.' I sacrifice nothing to it, I only utilize it; but to be able to utilize it completely I transform it rather into my own property and my creature; that is, I annihilate it and form in its place the Union of Egoists."
Most readers will reject Stirner's perspective, which departs from much of Western philosophical tradition. However, his ideas are thought-provoking and challenge us to look at sociality and ourselves in a very different way. Whether or not one might agree with him, these effects, in and of themselves, make this an interesting work to peruse. Being challenged can be very positive.
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- Mackay's Max Stirner in English at Last
- It's about time!
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Max Stirner: His Life and His Work
John Henry Mackay
Manufacturer: BookSurge Publishing
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Binding: Paperback
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- Max Stirner's Egoism
- The Ego and His Own: The Case of the Individual Against Authority (Dover Books on Western Philosophy)
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ASIN: 1594579830
Release Date: 2005-01-28 |
Book Description
Max Stirner (1806-1856) was the philosopher of conscious egoism. His book Der Einzige und sein Eigenthum (published in English in 1907 as The Ego and His Own) is the fundamental work of that philosophy and the philosophical basis of individualist anarchism. The German poet and anarchist writer John Henry Mackay (1864-1933) carefully researched Stirner's life and published his biography in 1897, with a third, definitive edition in 1914. Hubert Kennedy's translation is the first in English.
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Mackay's Max Stirner in English at Last.......2007-03-09
John Henry Mackay's Max Stirner: His Life and his Work first appeared in German in 1898. There was no English translation until 2005, with the appearance of John Hubert Kennedy's translation of the third (1914) edition, befitting the obscure carreer of this unparalleled thinker Max Stirner. How could one invent a more poignant story, epic in its dimensions, than that of the rise and fall of Max Stirner? This is the only full account, and Mackay's recounting of the tribulations of his research into the life of Stirner is an epic saga in itself; he goes so far as to claim that if another twenty years had passed, even the meagre details of Stirner's biography he managed to turn up in a ten-year effort would have been irretrievably lost. Such was the power of the passing of fifty years.
Mackay's account is most interesting to me as he recreates the milieu Stirner inhabited in the decade between 1840 and 1850, when an intellectual struggle worthy of the Diadochi, as a young Karl Marx sardonically put it at the time, moved through its bewildering permutations. Begun in the hallowed halls of academia, in no less a bastion of scholarly endeavour than the University of Berlin, where Hegel had held court in a crucial period of intellectual history, it moved out into the more exoteric world of left-wing journalism and the informal, even raucous atmosphere of the tavern as the currents which culminated in the 1848 European revolutions took shape. The debates which would shake the intellectual foundations of Europe, in a seismic cataclysm which has still not abated, played out in one of these taverns primarily, a certain Hippel's Weinstube in central Berlin. Between 1842 and 1845, tendencies which had first seen the light of day in Ludwig Feuerbach's seminal Essence of Christianity (1841) rapidly mutated at the hands of this rather rag-tag band of erstwhile university instructors, fledgeling journalists, and various other sympathizers possessed with the urge for social change. As Mackay states at the outset of his description of this milieu, "To characterize 'The Free' in a few words is not very easy", since, for one thing, they never drew up any charters, and embarked on their meetings with no stated purpose. There was an inner circle, to which Stirner belonged, but its larger membership was according to Mackay "enormously large". Debates on the burning issues of the day typically began in the reading room at university, progressed to Stehely's stationery store and then on to Hippel's in the evening, every evening. And so it was in this atmosphere that Stirner formulated and composed his magnum opus, The Ego and Its Own (1844). Mackay relates some choice anecdotes about the nature of the gatherings at Hippels' where a game of cards often took precedence over anything resembling serious intellectual discussion, even and especially among the most prominent members of the inner circle of "The Free".
Notable also are the accounts of Stirner's formative years and that of his precipitous fall. After a brief and intense explosion on the intellectual scene, Stirner was plunged into one difficulty after another, financial and personal, and was already dead only 11 years after the appearance of The Ego and Its Own, at the tender age of 49.
Mackay's biography, though betraying a tendency towards hero-worship at times, is nevertheless an indispensable contribution to the understanding of this singular man and this crucial period in intellectual history. The translation is servicable, at times perhaps a bit too literal, but which, I believe, conveys essential elements of the flavor of the original.
It's about time!.......2005-03-06
I remember hearing once that Guglielmo Marconi (the inventor of the radio) believed that sound waves never completely die away--they just get quieter and quieter. He thought that, with a sensitive enough microphone, mounted in the appropriate position, and with the just the right amount of amplification, you could recapture events from history. It was his life-long dream, apparently, to record the sermon on the mount. When I sit and ponder this, for some reason it evokes in me a sense of desperate loss--a heart-wrenching, unquenchable longing for a past that is irretrievably gone.
There is something of that feeling in John Henry Mackay's biography of Max Stirner. The book is as much about Stirner as it is about the search for Stirner--or what paltry fragments of him remained, 40+ years after his untimely (and rather gruesome) death. Stirner left no progeny, and very few acquaintances were still living when Mackay began his research. Worst of all, Stirner's ex-wife refused to even discuss him, beyond answering a few basic questions. Meanwhile, other pathways in the search would appear to open up, only to reveal themselves as dead ends, for one reason or another.
I suppose, though, we ought to be happy that at least Mackay's search wasn't postponed another 5 or 10 years, for by that time Stirner's candle would have been completely extinguished. I see it as also very fortunate for us that it was a poet--rather than a philosopher or historian--who took up the cause of preserving the memory of Stirner.
As for the book itself, what really needs to be said? Without Mackay we wouldn't even know the name Max Stirner today. Mackay treats his subject with the respect and love that you would expect from a person willing to devote 25 years to it (What Mackay says of Stirner applies equally well to Mackay himself: "He did what he did for himself, because it gave him pleasure. He asks for no thanks, and we owe him none"). Obviously, the work is indispensable for anyone with more than a passing interest in Stirner.
Mackay divides Stirner's life into three periods, which he designates as "rise, height, fall." The first includes his youth and his life up to the end of his teaching activity; the second his years in the company of "The Free" at Hippel's pub (Trivia: Stirner apparently chain-smoked cigars), which lead up to the publication of _Der Einzige_; the third, the "period of forgetfulness and solitude up to his death."
The one complaint that I have about this edition (the first available in English) is that, apparently for "technical reasons," all figures and photographs, and a number of appendices, have been left out. So, if you have a desire to see things like the facsimile of one of Stirner's manuscripts, as well as a complete bibliography of Stirner's known published works, you'll need to get a copy of the German edition. I certainly hope that Hubert Kennedy will have occasion to publish a definitive English edition in the near future, which will include all those items--and perhaps there's even reason to hope for a translation of Stirner's "Kleinere Schriften"!
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Der Einzige und sein Eigentum.
Max Stirner
Manufacturer: Reclam, Ditzingen
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Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 3150030579 |
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The cultural logic contained within Emile Durkheim's work, specifically categories he puts forth in Suicide, creates the ground for Horrible Workers. This book is constructed to allow its readers to study the cases of Max Stirner, Arthur Rimbaud, Robert Johnson, and the Charles Manson Circle independently of one another or in a comparative fashion. Each case demonstrates in what ways particular social experiences lead to what have been perceived as unique forms of cultural expression.
Customer Reviews:
A Portrait of the Normal World.......2007-05-24
Emile Durkheim asserted that a crime free society is impossible. Crime alerts people to structural dangers within the normal world that require attention. For this crime is essential. The sociological category "deviance" has become a moral category including both crime and creativity. We are led astray and miss both the warnings and the solutions. Nielsen begins his account of tensions within the taken for granted world with this: "Anomic suicide and progress, egoistic suicide and autonomy, altruistic suicide and moral self-transcendence, fatalistic suicide and order: these are four pairs of virtues and vices, inextricably wedded to one another.(p. 3)" Nielsen develops the notion of fatalistic suicide, which takes on a pivotal role, from Durkheim's footnote. The voices of many including Erving Goffman, David Riesman, Max Weber and Johan Huizinga are brought to bear on the dynamics of our everyday world. Nielsen finds an essential tension in this world. On the one hand society becomes structurally and morally rigid. In his discussion of Stirner he observes that "The main aim is to make oneself 'audible.'"(p. 22) On the other hand people are in constant movement, what Nielsen refers to as "vagabondage." In the Rimbaud chapter there is this comment: "Nomadism, vagabondage and adventurism are some of the central expressions of our contemporary anomism."(p. 42) He demonstrates the historic roots of both tendencies. Nielsen finds Durkheim's four categories interacting at the center of the society. He comments that ". . .all express the restless movement which has become a common feature of life for everyone in advanced industrial society. . ."(p. 99).
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- An anarcho-syndicalist view of Stirner
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Max Stirner's Egoism
J Clark
Manufacturer: Freedom Press
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Binding: Paperback
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- Max Stirner: His Life and His Work
- The Ego and His Own: The Case of the Individual Against Authority (Dover Books on Western Philosophy)
ASIN: 090038414X |
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A major essay on the basis of individualist thought, with reference to the major influence of Stirner.
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An anarcho-syndicalist view of Stirner.......2005-10-11
Clarke is strongest when he is attacking the structure of Stirner's argumentation and logic, and weakest when he injects his own syndicalist socialism (which is, to Clarke, the only example of "true" anarchism) into the discussion. Paradoxically, however, Clarke's unique perspective adds significantly to the overall value of the book as a means for understanding both the philosophy of Stirner and anarchist thought in general.
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The German ideology
Karl Marx , and Frederick Engels
Manufacturer: Progress Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
Socialism
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ASIN: B0007AL9VC |
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A critical analysis of German philosophical idealism and a one of the earliest accounts of materialism, revolution, and communism.
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Prolegomena: To A Study Of The Return Of The Repressed In History
Manufacturer: Rebel Press
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ASIN: 0946061130 |
Book Description
I don't want to do anything subversive - I just want to destroy capitalism. A collection of 'ultra' prose and poetry from 300 years of outrage, passion, sarcasm and wit. Quotes, rants, declarations and blood-curdling warcries. This is utterly brilliant, and is finally reprinted here (from an obscure edition first published in the 60s) in a new edition edited, introduced, and illustrated by Clifford Harper. "Death to middle-class society, and long live anarchism!"
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The False Principle Of Our Education
Max Stirner
Manufacturer: Ralph Myles
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Binding: Pamphlet
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- The Ego and His Own: The Case of the Individual Against Authority (Dover Books on Western Philosophy)
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ASIN: 0879260017 |
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Humanism and Realism, the Egoist way. A classic essay from Stirner.
Customer Reviews:
Interesting.......2000-03-27
This book provides an interesting survey of the ideas of Stirner, Nietzsche, and Dostoevsky, asserting that they advocate individualist anarchism on psychological grounds. This is certainly true of Stirner, and probably true of Nietzsche (though he can be interpreted in other ways), but rather odd for Dostoevsky. In any case it makes good reading for anyone interested in psychology and anarchism. Also present are some brief comparisons with later psychologists of freedom.
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- Taylor, Charles
- Teilhard De Chardin, Pierre
- Trotsky, Leon
- Voegelin, Eric
- Voltaire
- Weininger, Otto
- Whitehead, Alfred North
- William Of Ockham
- Wittgenstein, Ludwig
- Zizek, Slavoj
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