Stirner's View

 

I was interested in what Britannica posted about Max Stirner’s outlook, so I looked at its article, last updated 3/8/2023. They label him as anti-statist and that is obvious considering his individualist anarchist stance.

 

This entry is short and mostly biographical facts and statistics but this paragraph bears remarking on: “Stirner believed that there was no objective social reality independent of the individual; social classes, the state, the masses and humanity are abstractions and therefore need not be considered seriously.”

 

My response: Perhaps I misunderstand the editors but I do not think for a minute that Stirner denies that there is an objective social reality, or reality itself out there, or that other people exist, or that he, Stirner exists, or that the given is what it is. It could be that the editors are saying that there is something out there, according to Stirner, but it is a subjective reality not independent from the individual. It exists and we can generalize about it, but our generalizations are just relative spooks we contrive for utility or pleasure, and we should never take them seriously or as existent, or to be obeyed, or placed above ourselves.

 

My own take is that some abstractions are spooks, and some are real, and some we should put over ourselves to obey (love, God, morality), and others we should disregard. What Stirner, Jordan Peterson and I agree on is that no abstraction should become an idol that we worship. As true believers, we are in a position to hurt ourselves, others and the world in a ferocious, demonic manner.

 

Britanica continues: “He wrote of a finite, empirical ego, which he saw as the motive force of every human action. Writing chiefly for working-class readers, he taught that all persons are capable of self-awareness that would make them ‘egoists’, or true individuals.”

 

My response: Stirner’s Unique is a finite, empirical ego. There is no God, no eternal world, no spiritual realm. All abstractions are phantasm. We encounter the world phenomenologically here and now: our experience of it is immediate and personal. All actions are motivated by self-interest and should be.

 

He was for the workers, but he was no socialist or Communist.