The Ego and his Own - Max Stirner (ebook reader screen .TXT) 📗
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Tomorrow they carry thee to the grave; soon thy sisters, the peoples, will
follow thee. But, when they have all followed, then -- -- mankind is buried,
and I am my own, I am the laughing heir!
The word Gesellschaft (society) has its origin in the word Sal (hall). If
one hall encloses many persons, then the hall causes these persons to be in
society. They are in society, and at most constitute a parlor-society by
talking in the traditional forms of parlor speech. When it comes to real
intercourse, this is to be regarded as independent of society: it may occur
or be lacking, without altering the nature of what is named society. Those who
are in the hall are a society even as mute persons, or when they put each
other off solely with empty phrases of courtesy. Intercourse is mutuality, it
is the action, the commercium, of individuals; society is only community of
the hall, and even the statues of a museum-hall are in society, they are
"grouped." People are accustomed to say "they haben inne(45) this hall in
common," but the case is rather that the hall has us inne or in it. So far
the natural signification of the word society. In this it comes out that
society is not generated by me and you, but by a third factor which makes
associates out of us two, and that it is just this third factor that is the
creative one, that which creates society.
Just so a prison society or prison companionship (those who enjoy(46) the same
prison). Here we already hit upon a third factor fuller of significance than
was that merely local one, the hall. Prison no longer means a space only, but
a space with express reference to its inhabitants: for it is a prison only
through being destined for prisoners, without whom it would be a mere
building. What gives a common stamp to those who are gathered in it? Evidently
the prison, since it is only by means of the prison that they are prisoners.
What, then, determines the manner of life of the prison society? The prison!
What determines their intercourse? The prison too, perhaps? Certainly they can
enter upon intercourse only as prisoners, i.e. only so far as the prison
laws allow it; but that they themselves hold intercourse, I with you, this
the prison cannot bring to pass; on the contrary, it must have an eye to
guarding against such egoistic, purely personal intercourse (and only as such
is it really intercourse between me and you). That we jointly execute a job,
run a machine, effectuate anything in general -- for this a prison will indeed
provide; but that I forget that I am a prisoner, and engage in intercourse
with you who likewise disregard it, brings danger to the prison, and not only
cannot be caused by it, but must not even be permitted. For this reason the
saintly and moral-minded French chamber decides to introduce solitary
confinement, and other saints will do the like in order to cut off
"demoralizing intercourse." Imprisonment is the established and -- sacred
condition, to injure which no attempt must be made. The slightest push of that
kind is punishable, as is every uprising against a sacred thing by which man
is to be charmed and chained.
Like the hall, the prison does form a society, a companionship, a communion
(e. g. communion of labor), but no intercourse, no reciprocity, no
union. On the contrary, every union in the prison bears within it the
dangerous seed of a "plot," which under favorable circumstances might spring
up and bear fruit.
Yet one does not usually enter the prison voluntarily, and seldom remains in
it voluntarily either, but cherishes the egoistic desire for liberty. Here,
therefore, it sooner becomes manifest that personal intercourse is in hostile
relations to the prison society and tends to the dissolution of this very
society, this joint incarceration.
Let us therefore look about for such communions as, it seems, we remain in
gladly and voluntarily, without wanting to endanger them by our egoistic
impulses.
As a communion of the required sort the family offers itself in the first
place. Parents, husbands and wife, children, brothers and sisters, represent a
whole or form a family, for the further widening of which the collateral
relatives also may be made to serve if taken into account. The family is a
true communion only when the law of the family, piety(47) or family love, is
observed by its members. A son to whom parents, brothers, and sisters have
become indifferent has been a son; for, as the sonship no longer shows
itself efficacious, it has no greater significance than the long-past
connection of mother and child by the navel-string. That one has once lived in
this bodily juncture cannot as a fact be undone; and so far one remains
irrevocably this mother's son and the brother of the rest of her children; but
it would come to a lasting connection only by lasting piety, this spirit of
the family. Individuals are members of a family in the full sense only when
they make the persistence of the family their task; only as conservative
do they keep aloof from doubting their basis, the family. To every member of
the family one thing must be fixed and sacred -- viz., the family itself,
or, more expressively, piety. That the family is to persist remains to its
member, so long as he keeps himself free from that egoism which is hostile to
the family, an unassailable truth. In a word: -- If the family is sacred, then
nobody who belongs to it may secede from it; else he becomes a "criminal"
against the family: he may never pursue an interest hostile to the family, *e.
g.* form a misalliance. He who does this has "dishonored the family," "put it
to shame," etc.
Now, if in an individual the egoistic impulse has not force enough, he
complies and makes a marriage which suits the claims of the family, takes a
rank which harmonizes with its position, etc.; in short, he "does honor to the
family."
If, on the contrary, the egoistic blood flows fierily enough in his veins, he
prefers to become a "criminal" against the family and to throw off its laws.
Which of the two lies nearer my heart, the good of the family or my good? In
innumerable cases both go peacefully together; the advantage of the family is
at the same time mine, and vice versa. Then it is hard to decide whether I
am thinking selfishly or for the common benefit, and perhaps I
complacently flatter myself with my unselfishness. But there comes the day
when a necessity of choice makes me tremble, when I have it in mind to
dishonor my family tree, to affront parents, brothers, and kindred. What then?
Now it will appear how I am disposed at the bottom of my heart; now it will be
revealed whether piety ever stood above egoism for me, now the selfish one can
no longer skulk behind the semblance of unselfishness. A wish rises in my
soul, and, growing from hour to hour, becomes a passion. To whom does it occur
at first blush that the slightest thought which may result adversely to the
spirit of the family (piety) bears within it a transgression against this?
Nay, who at once, in the first moment, becomes completely conscious of the
matter? It happens so with Juliet in "Romeo and Juliet." The unruly passion
can at last no longer be tamed, and undermines the building of piety. You will
say, indeed, it is from self-will that the family casts out of its bosom those
wilful ones that grant more of a hearing to their passion than to piety; the
good Protestants used the same excuse with much success against the Catholics,
and believed in it themselves. But it is just a subterfuge to roll the fault
off oneself, nothing more. The Catholics had regard for the common bond of the
church, and thrust those heretics from them only because these did not have so
much regard for the bond of the church as to sacrifice their convictions to
it; the former, therefore, held the bond fast, because the bond, the Catholic
(i.e. common and united) church, was sacred to them; the latter, on the
contrary, disregarded the bond. Just so those who lack piety. They are not
thrust out, but thrust themselves out, prizing their passion, their
wilfulness, higher than the bond of the family.
But now sometimes a wish glimmers in a less passionate and wilful heart than
Juliet's. The pliable girl brings herself as a sacrifice to the peace of the
family. One might say that here too selfishness prevailed, for the decision
came from the feeling that the pliable girl felt herself more satisfied by the
unity of the family than by the fulfillment of her wish. That might be; but
what if there remained a sure sign that egoism had been sacrificed to piety?
What if, even after the wish that had been directed against the peace of the
family was sacrificed, it remained at least as a recollection of a "sacrifice"
brought to a sacred tie? What if the pliable girl were conscious of having
left her self-will unsatisfied and humbly subjected herself to a higher power?
Subjected and sacrificed, because the superstition of piety exercised its
dominion over her!
There egoism won, here piety wins and the egoistic heart bleeds; there egoism
was strong, here it was -- weak. But the weak, as we have long known, are the
-- unselfish. For them, for these its weak members, the family cares, because
they belong to the family, do not belong to themselves and care for
themselves. This weakness Hegel, e. g. praises when he wants to have match-
making left to the choice of the parents.
As a sacred communion to which, among the rest, the individual owes obedience,
the family has the judicial function too vested in it; such a "family court"
is described e. g. in the Cabanis **of Wilibald Alexis. There the father,
in the name of the "family council," puts the intractable son among the
soldiers and thrusts him out of the family, in order to cleanse the smirched
family again by means of this act of punishment. -- The most consistent
development of family responsibility is contained in Chinese law, according to
which the whole family has to expiate the individual's fault.
Today, however, the arm of family power seldom reaches far enough to take
seriously in hand the punishment of apostates (in most cases the State
protects even against disinheritance). The criminal against the family
(family-criminal) flees into the domain of the State and is free, as the
State-criminal who gets away to America is no longer reached by the
punishments of his State. He who has shamed his family, the graceless son, is
protected
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