Stirner And Choice

 

Soren Kierkegaard, the Christian existentialist, delved heavily into the issue of choice and agonized about how to live. One does not see Max Stirner burdened by this same sense of ethical obligation, though he does goad the egoist to not be possessed by enslaved by self-sacrifice t an abstraction.

 

Let me quote this passage on Pages 32 and 33 from Paul Strathern’s book, Kierkegaard In 90 Minutes: “What began as an agony of choice was eventually to become The Agony of Choice—the dilemma that faces all humanity. ‘What am I to do?’ became universalized into ‘How are we to live>’”

 

My response: It occurred to me that Kierkegaard lays huge emphasis on the importance of the individual and the prodigious act of will is required for him to choose how to live and to live well. There is a strong presupposition of the primacy of the individual self, its free will, and the requirement to make hard life choices.

 

This powerful status assigned to each individual and individualist decider does roughly make Kierekgaard’s individual prominent and prior to collective concerns, like Stirner’s The Unique enjoy his concrete particular existence, his personal interest predominating exclusively.