Jason McQuinn seems to be something of an expert on Max Stirner. For is The Anarchist Library, McQuinn wrote an essay: Max Stirner: the anarchist every ideologist loves to hate. The date for the article’s retrieval is August 12, 2010 from www.anarchymag.org.
This short 4-oaragraph essay is excellent, but I am going to quote from the third paragraph for that is what interests me and that is what I want to respond to: “There had certainly been plenty of de facto anarchists before the European anarchist milieu began to arise at the end of the 1700s and the beginning of the 1800s—most notably throughout prehistory. Max Stirner was not only one of the first to elaborate a consistent anarchist theoretical orientation; he was also the most sophisticated and important anarchist critic of philosophy then and since. Nevertheless, his influence both within and without the anarchist milieu has always been extremely controversial. Stirner’s descriptive, phenomenological egoism and absolute refusal of any and all forms of enslavement have been a perennial source of embarrassment for would-be anarchist moralists, ideologues and politicians of all persuasions (especially leftists, and including individualists and others). By clearly and openly acknowledging that every unique individual always makes her own decisions and cannot avoid the choices of self-possession or self-alienation and enslavement presented at each moment. Stirner scandalously exposes every attempt not only by reactionaries, but by self-proclaimed radicals and alleged anarchists to recuperate rebellion and channel it back into new forms of enslavement and alienation. In Der Einzige und Sein Eigentum Stirner has harsh criticisms of those who attempt to legislate slavery through the imposition of compulsory morality, ideologists who attempt to justify submission to the political state and capitalist economy (or equivalent institutional forms), and politicians that ride herd on the rabble in an attempt to keep everyone in line. . . .”
My response: Stirner’s descriptive, phenomenological egoism is different from the descriptive and prescriptive, noumenal/phenomenological egoism that I espouse for I prefer the objective egoism of Ayn Rand more than the subjective egoism of Max Stirner.
His radical rebellion, his seeming utter refusal to abide under and obey a political structure of any kind, his pure anarchism is unworkable and would causes society to collapse, and lead to a Hobbsean nightmare for the society that adopts pure anarchy. Only angels with their angelic natures can live in a state of pure liberty and pure anarchy. Humans are at least half beast and demons so there must be laws to govern their behavior, their misbehavior, their poor choices. My Mavellonialist solution is to offer a semi-anarchist existence for each citizen as an individuator-anarchist supercitizens living in a federal constitutional republic with quite limited government and a free market economy. In that setting the invisible hand of the marketplace can unveil its miracles as people work, live and enjoy their lives in ordered liberty. They may thus not enjoy pure liberty, but that is the price we all must pay for living in a community.
Let me now quote and repeat the sentence from Paragraph 3 that fascinates me: “By clearly and openly acknowledging that every unique individual always makes her own decisions and cannot avoid the choices of self-possession or self-alienation and enslavement presented at each moment, Stirner scandalously exposes every attempt . . . to recuperate rebellion and channel it back into new forms of alienation and enslavement.”
McQuinn is a bit correct in insisting that each individual always makes her own decisions and cannot avoid the choices of self-possession or self-alienation and enslavement. All people do wield some free agency all the time, but pure, full, powerful, functioning free will is acquired as a moral adult, not wielded by an callow 8-year old.
But without moral training to learn to be wise, strong, liberty-loving, self-loving, courageous, expressing a fierce willingness to to fight and not surrender, people will surrender predictably and put up with being alienated from their true selves and enslaved. They are naturally so weak-willed that social conditioning will allow others and the authorities to stunt their puppet-lives and determine their choices for them. I presuppose that humans have natures that make them selfless and self-loathing, cowardly, selfish, sadistic (loving to oppress others below them in the hierarchy while, at the same time, masochistically accepting and defending putting up with abuse, oppression, and cruel treatment from those above them in stratified rank. I assume that all people are born ignorant (not knowing how to live and not being morally alert to know how to live. The good news is that anyone can and should develop a strong, virtuous will so that they will refuse to group-live, but demand the freedom to individual-live and room to maverize. Only the growing individuators is free and self-possessed.
I love how McQuinn contrasted concepts of people needing to choose to live lives of self-possession or meager, enslaved groupist life in a hierarchy with its class system and its police force enforcing compliance and obedience to its value set that, via brainwashing through the Althusser principle of interpellation spoon-fed to children in public schools, whereby kids in school are indoctrinated in the culture favored by the ruling class.
I would like to add to McQuinn’s contrast of the free agent that is self-possessed as free or self-liberating as an individual. The unwilling egoist is that sad groupist non-individuator that accepts and even welcome enslavement and self-alienation as her lot in life.
I was not going to but I am going to include the 4th and final paragraph from McQuinn’s article for this blog post entry, and then comment on his thoughts: “Still, (and quite infuriatingly to anarcho-leftists) there has always been a minority of spirited radicals, including undomesticated and undisciplined uncontrollables among the anarchists, who have heeded Stirner’s warnings and criticisms, refusing to allow any words, doctrines or institutions to dominate them. As Stirner proclaimed, ‘Nothing is more to me than myself.’ This clearly implies that I am only free when I choose how to live my own life. Politicians, economists, ideologists, priests, philosophers, cops, and every other con artist with or without official papers, plans, and/or bombs and guns: get the fuck out of our lives! And that includes any fake anarchists who think they can pull the wool over our eyes.”
My response: Both McQuinn and Bob Black are a couple of those spirited radicals that allow no words, doctrines, or institutions to dominate them, I suspect that these two intellectuals are clear about Max Stirner’s very high, very unpopular standard for remaining free and individuallly self-regulating. They have interpreted his texts as they should be interpreted.
Though I am an objective egoist more from the Ayn Rand wing of egoism, I accept that these free spirits and brave souls, that are Unique Egos refusing to be alienated from themselves or enslaved, are persons of integrity. I would hope that they would investigate my social suggestion that anarchist-individuator supercitizenship could provide them the independence and freedom that they deserve, crave and need to love themselves and yet we all must shoulder our duty to obey and serve reasonable abstractions, laws and causes out of adult duty and to help God on earth, in a political establishment of few, durable laws, natural rights, natural law and ordered liberty so that people have the legal and ethical structure they require to bring up the next generation of fallen children to civilize them and help them self-transform into productive, contributing adults, parents and citizens that keep America a capitalist constitutional republic for generations to come.
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