Stirner On Nihilism

 

Alan Pratt has an article on nihilism in the 2023 Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy; it is not exclusively about Max Stirner, but Pratt does write a paragraph on Stirner that I would like to lay out and then respond to: “Max Stirner (1806-1856) attacks on systematic philosophy, his denial of absolutes, and his rejection of abstract concepts of any kind places him among the first philosophical nihilists. For Stirner, achieving individual liberty is the only law; and the state, which necessarily imperils freedom, must be destroyed. Even beyond the oppression of the state, though, are the constraints imposed by others because their very existence is an obstacle compromising individual freedom. Thus Stirner argues that existence is an endless ‘war of all against all’ (The Ego and Its Own, trans. 1907).”

 

My response: Dennis Prager and Jordan Peterson both insist that we are fallen from birth, and that social structures and faith are what give people values and purpose. Peterson warns us to be very, very careful about smashing existing, successful, working social structures for they keep society healthy, moral, and functioning. To smash what works is senseless, stupid and immoral; without absolutes, moral laws, legal codes and the police, all we will have is chaos, barbarism and lawlessness. Only a revolutionary, an idiot or an ethical nihilist would rip the band-aided veneer off the festering wound of unconscious aggression and satisfied impulses, all turned loose on the rest of society, helter-sketler. In light of this criticism, it would seem that rash and reckless Stirner is a misanthrope, a carefulness fellow that is amoral and indirectly immoral in that he deprives people of the moral guidance that they need, and then kicks them lose to prey on society.

 

I want anarchism and personal liberty and maximum liberty, but I also want God-fearing, ethical and law-abiding adults, and as objective egoists, as individuators-anarchist supercitizens, they get freedom power and liberty while being civilized moral agents. Ordered liberty is our motto and the supercitizen gets it fulfilled, and that is a concept they can and should live by.

 

Satan and Lera rule this world. People are born fallen, and their wicked natures makes them altruistic and group-living, so with all that wickedness so ready to flare up or overtake society, it is madness to follow the nihilist and rid society of all moral restraints. Stirner was a arrogant, moral fool. He and his nihilistic postmodern descendants are not blameless in endorsing the release of human savagery upon humanity.

 

The postmodernist Marxist postulate that power is the base reality for humans and the endless war of all against all as individuals battling for space and resources, is made worse by tribe fighting against tribe. Why throw aside the abstract bulwarks of civilized society so that the private and collective id can run amok? No way.