Stirner & Egoism

 

I read somewhere that Max Stirner was the inventor of the concept of egoism, and that may be so. I am looking at Wikipedia, 2023, to find quote that I might like to comment on. Here is a paragraph on egoism and Stirner: “Stirner’s egoism argues that individuals are impossible to fully comprehend, and no understanding of the self can adequately describe the fullness of experience. Stirner has been broadly understood as containing traits of both psychological egoism and rational egoism. Unlike the self-interest described by Ayn Rand, Stirner did not address individual self-interest, selfishness, or prescriptions for how one should act. He urged individuals to decide for themselves and fulfill their own egoism.”

 

My response: yes, we can never fully know ourselves or anyone because the soul inside us is connected to infinite possibilities. Still, one can come close and can rationally perceive and intuit the truth about others, their essence so to speak, with a fairly high degree of accuracy. Rand’s egoism may be more prescriptive, but it does not deny people the power room and opportunity to decide for themselves how to maverize their own egoistic ambitions.

 

Wiki continues: “He believed that everyone was propelled by their own egoism and desires and those that accepted this—as willing egoist—could freely live their individual desires, while those that did not—as unwilling egoists—will falsely believe that are fulfilling another cause while they are secretly fulfilling their own desires for happiness and security. The willing egoist would see that they could act freely, unbound to obedience to sacred but artificial truths  like law, rights, morality and religion. Power is the method of Stirner’s egoism and the only justified method of gaining philosophical property . . . “

 

My response: People are propelled mostly by their own altruism, and they are willing altruists.  Even unwilillng altruists pretend they are self-interested but they are not.

 

When Stirner avows that he is not against socialism but against sacred socialism, he has a point. The concept that has now been allowed by the egoist to rule his live and alienate him, that concept is a fixed idea and has become sacred not concrete. We do require sacred ideas to follow, worship and live our lives by but not obsessively or fanatically as fetishes and false idols.

 

If power is love of self and others, and it not used to abuse or allow oneself to be abused, then power utilization is acceptable and