Steven T. Byington

I still enjoy his classic translation of Stirner's The Unique and his property. I am now reading it for a 5th time as part of my long term research project towards writing my book on objective egoism. Bob Black's translation and interpretation of Stirner captures his humor, sarcasm and satire, but Steven's more straight-laced interpretation seems right on the money to me, most of the time.

On Page 152 of Steven's translation it becomes clear that Stirner is criticizing involuntary egoists rebelling against an old ism, an old abstraction that they no longer worship, only to replace it with a fresh cause to worship and subjugate themselves to.

If I may interpret what Max is warning against: involuntary egoists are altruists that always find a cause to follow, and really remain duped egoists, not voluntary egoists, fulling embracing their own existence, consciousness and experience. Until they shed all causes, and worship only themselves as their own cause, in their utter ownness, having gathered to themselves all their own properties, they will remain alienated from themselves, from happiness, from fulfillment, from a truthful, clear-eyed appreciation of what is going on, who they are, and what they are undergoing.

Of course, as an Aristotelian rationalist and prescriptive moralist, my moderate stance must be too not go near as far as Stirner in rejecting abstractions, in denying the existence of spirits and deities, in despairing that there are ethical answers, in doubting objective truth, and asserting that the universe is absurd.

To borrow a famous phrase from Kant, Stirner like Hume can awaken us from our dogmatic slumbers.

As voluntary egoists, as Mavellonialists, we can have our cake and eat it too: we can live as uniques with our own property while still living within the realm of Aristotelian logic and ethics, and having a loving, rich interaction with the Mother and the Father.