Blumenfeld About Stirner

 

Jacob Blumenfeld, author of a book on Max Stirner, entitled ALL THINGS ARE NOTHING TO ME—THE UNIQUE PHILOSOPHY OF MAX STIRNER, was written about in

 

a review of his book for Zero Books, on historical materialism, dated 12/29/2018.

 

Jacob refers to Stirner’s book, The Unique and Its Property, as the first ruthless critique of modern society. This is likely so, for Stirner dismisses all axioms, even language and reasoning themselves, that underpin Western society.

 

Here is what the reviewer writes: “Misunderstood, dismissed and defamed, Stirner’s work is considered by some to be the worst book ever written. It combines the worst elements of philosophy, politics, history, psychology, and morality, and ties it all together with simple tautologies, fancy rhetoric and militant declarations. That is the glory of Max Stirner’s unique footprint in the history of philosophy.”

 

My response: I believe I am as defamed, misunderstood, deplatformed, dissmissed, demonized and forgotten as was Stirner. We are both complete loners, and that makes us unable to garner support from the clerisy to get published, recognized, rewarded monetarily and championed while we are alive. That is our fate for better or worse.

 

Like Stirner, what I write is not good philosophy but somehow, we both hit the nail on the head.

 

Then Saul Newman writes this review and endorsement of Blumenfeld’s book: “Max Stirner is the bad boy, the black sheep of post-Hegelian philosophy. Often derided and dismissed, his philosophy of ‘egoism’ and his powerful critique of the ‘spooks’ of modernity have continued to resonate with those who are at odds with the world around them. In this brilliant book, Blumenfeld discovers that the ghosts of Max Stirner are alive and well, and that his message of nothingness and indifference speaks particularly to us today, living as we do at the end of history. Yet, as this book shows, rather than being the nihilist he is often characterized as, Stirner guides us along the path of a new ethical and political sensibility based on singularity rather than identity—something urgently needed today. Blumenfeld’s original and heretical reading shows that Stirner’s undoubted contemporary relevance.”

 

My response: I have little to disagree with what Newman has written but Stirner seems to be coming into his own now among postmodernists and anarchists.