Understanding Stirner

 

There are two key concepts to understanding Stirner. His subjective brand of egoism requires that the individual live for himself in his own live-in, empirical perspective, solely focused on his own interests. His thoughts, feelings and drives drive him to here and there, but he does not value himself by putting some moral ideal or cause over himself for him to live up to and serve..

 

The second,  critical point is to realize that Stirner the atheist does not believe in a spiritual world, So what is he talking about with people with spiritual interests? It seems that the spiritual is mental or conceptual or abstract effort in our consciousness. So even an atheist like Feuerbach fails because this secular humanism rejects Christianity but replaces it with another ism to be worshiped and served, and that rational cause is spiritual or a phantasm for Stirner.

 

He dismisses all human attempts to serve an ideal or cause as spiritually based at its origin, and to be rejected accordingly. On the bottom of Page 19 of the Byington translation, The Ego and Its Own, by Max Stirner, Stirner denies the spiritual exists except as a human construct coined when first imagines that spiritual entities exist—one’s imaginary act to that effect is their own reality.

 

From the Steven Byington translation, I want to quote from Page 19: “But whom do you think of under the name of egoist? A man, who instead of living up to an idea, that is a spiritual thing, and sacrificing it to his personal advantage, serves the latter. A good patriot brings his sacrifice to the altar of the fatherland; but it cannot be disputed that the fatherland is an idea, since for beasts incapable of mind, or children as yet without mind, there is no fatherland and no patriotism. . . . You despise the egoist because he puts the spiritual in the background as compared with the personal, and has his eyes on himself where you would like to see him act to favor an idea. The distinction between you is that he makes himself the central point, but you the spirit; to be ruler of the paltrier remainder, while he will hear nothing of this cutting in two, and pursues spiritual and material interests just as he pleases . . . You live not to yourself, but to your spirit and to what is the spirit’s, that is ideas.”

 

My response: The egoist serves his personal advantage, not sacrificing himself for some self-alienating ideal, a spook that does not exist. He enjoys his spiritual (rational) and material interests to please himself, failing to worship any ideal.

 

 

Let us look at the same excerpt from the Wolfi Landstreicher translation of Max Stirner’s The Unique And Its Property, Page 26: “But who do you imagine under the name of egoist? A human being who, instead of living an idea, i.e., a spiritual thing, and sacrificing his personal advantage to it, serves the latter. A good patriot, for example, brings his sacrifice to the altar of the fatherland; but it cannot be disputed that the fatherland is an idea, since for animals with no capacity of mind, or children who are still mindless, there is no fatherland and no patriotism  . . .  

So you despise the egoist because he neglects the spiritual in favor of the personal, and looks after himself, where you would like to see him act from love for an idea. You differ from him in that you make the spirit, and he makes himself the central point, or in that you divide your I in two and raise up your ‘true I,’ the spirit, as master of the worthless remainder, whereas he wants to know nothing of this division, and pursues  spiritual and material interest just as it gives him pleasure . .  You don’t live for yourself, but for your spirit, and what is the spirit’s, i.e., ideas.”

 

My response: Stirner believes the amoral interest that the individual must concentrate on is his own interest, in its spiritual or material aspects.