The Ego and his Own - Max Stirner (ebook reader screen .TXT) 📗
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They revindicate the alien not in their own name but in a third party's. Now
the "egoistic" coloring is wiped off, and everything is so clean and -- human!
Propertylessness or ragamuffinism, this then is the "essence of Christianity,"
as it is essence of all religiousness (i.e. godliness, morality, humanity),
and only announced itself most clearly, and, as glad tidings, became a gospel
capable of development, in the "absolute religion." We have before us the most
striking development in the present fight against property, a fight which is
to bring "Man" to victory and make propertylessness complete: victorious
humanity is the victory of --Christianity. But the "Christianity exposed" thus
is feudalism completed. the most all-embracing feudal system, i.e. perfect
ragamuffinism.
Once more then, doubtless, a "revolution" against the feudal system? --
Revolution and insurrection must not be looked upon as synonymous. The former
consists in an overturning of conditions, of the established condition or
status, the State or society, and is accordingly a political or social
act; the latter has indeed for its unavoidable consequence a transformation of
circumstances, yet does not start from it but from men's discontent with
themselves, is not an armed rising, but a rising of individuals, a getting up,
without regard to the arrangements that spring from it. The Revolution aimed
at new arrangements; insurrection leads us no longer to let ourselves be
arranged, but to arrange ourselves, and sets no glittering hopes on
"institutions." It is not a fight against the established, since, if it
prospers, the established collapses of itself; it is only a working forth of
me out of the established. If I leave the established, it is dead and passes
into decay. Now, as my object is not the overthrow of an established order but
my elevation above it, my purpose and deed are not a political or social but
(as directed toward myself and my ownness alone) an egoistic purpose and
deed.
The revolution commands one to make arrangements, the insurrection(98)
demands that he rise or exalt himself.(99) What constitution was to be
chosen, this question busied the revolutionary heads, and the whole political
period foams with constitutional fights and constitutional questions, as the
social talents too were uncommonly inventive in societary arrangements
(phalansteries etc.). The insurgent(100) strives to become constitutionless.
While, to get greater clearness, I am thinking up a comparison, the founding
of Christianity comes unexpectedly into my mind. On the liberal side it is
noted as a bad point in the first Christians that they preached obedience to
the established heathen civil order, enjoined recognition of the heathen
authorities, and confidently delivered a command, "Give to the emperor that
which is the emperor's." Yet how much disturbance arose at the same time
against the Roman supremacy, how mutinous did the Jews and even the Romans
show themselves against their own temporal government! In short, how popular
was "political discontent!" Those Christians would hear nothing of it; would
not side with the "liberal tendencies." The time was politically so agitated
that, as is said in the gospels, people thought they could not accuse the
founder of Christianity more successfully than if they arraigned him for
"political intrigue," and yet the same gospels report that he was precisely
the one who took least part in these political doings. But why was he not a
revolutionist, not a demagogue, as the Jews would gladly have seen him? Why
was he not a liberal? Because he expected no salvation from a change of
conditions, and this whole business was indifferent to him. He was not a
revolutionist, like e. g. Caesar, but an insurgent; not a State-overturner,
but one who straightened himself up. That was why it was for him only a
matter of "Be ye wise as serpents," which expresses the same sense as, in the
special case, that "Give to the emperor that which is the emperor's"; for he
was not carrying on any liberal or political fight against the established
authorities, but wanted to walk his own way, untroubled about, and
undisturbed by, these authorities. Not less indifferent to him than the
government were its enemies, for neither understood what he wanted, and he had
only to keep them off from him with the wisdom of the serpent. But, even
though not a ringleader of popular mutiny, not a demagogue or revolutionist,
he (and every one of the ancient Christians) was so much the more an
insurgent, who lifted himself above everything that seemed sublime to the
government and its opponents, and absolved himself from everything that they
remained bound to, and who at the same time cut off the sources of life of the
whole heathen world, with which the established State must wither away as a
matter of course; precisely because he put from him the upsetting of the
established, he was its deadly enemy and real annihilator; for he walled it
in, confidently and recklessly carrying up the building of his temple over
it, without heeding the pains of the immured.
Now, as it happened to the heathen order of the world, will the Christian
order fare likewise? A revolution certainly does not bring on the end if an
insurrection is not consummated first!
My intercourse with the world, what does it aim at? I want to have the
enjoyment of it, therefore it must be my property, and therefore I want to win
it. I do not want the liberty of men, nor their equality; I want only my
power over them, I want to make them my property, *i.e. material for
enjoyment*. And, if I do not succeed in that, well, then I call even the power
over life and death, which Church and State reserved to themselves -- mine.
Brand that officer's widow who, in the flight in Russia, after her leg has
been shot away, takes the garter from it, strangles her child therewith, and
then bleeds to death alongside the corpse -- brand the memory of the --
infanticide. Who knows, if this child had remained alive, how much it might
have "been of use to the world!" The mother murdered it because she wanted to
die satisfied and at rest. Perhaps this case still appeals to your
sentimentality, and you do not know how to read out of it anything further. Be
it so; I on my part use it as an example for this, that my satisfaction
decides about my relation to men, and that I do not renounce, from any access
of humility, even the power over life and death.
As regards "social duties" in general, another does not give me my position
toward others, therefore neither God nor humanity prescribes to me my relation
to men, but I give myself this position. This is more strikingly said thus: I
have no duty to others, as I have a duty even to myself (e. g. that of
self-preservation, and therefore not suicide) only so long as I distinguish
myself from myself (my immortal soul from my earthly existence, etc.).
I no longer humble myself before any power, and I recognize that all powers
are only my power, which I have to subject at once when they threaten to
become a power against or above me; each of them must be only one of *my
means* to carry my point, as a hound is our power against game, but is killed
by us if it should fall upon us ourselves. All powers that dominate me I then
reduce to serving me. The idols exist through me; I need only refrain from
creating them anew, then they exist no longer: "higher powers" exist only
through my exalting them and abasing myself.
Consequently my relation to the world is this: I no longer do anything for it
"for God's sake," I do nothing "for man's sake," but what I do I do "for my
sake." Thus alone does the world satisfy me, while it is characteristic of the
religious standpoint, in which I include the moral and humane also, that from
it everything remains a pious wish (pium desiderium), i.e. an other-world
matter, something unattained. Thus the general salvation of men, the moral
world of a general love, eternal peace, the cessation of egoism, etc. "Nothing
in this world is perfect." With this miserable phrase the good part from it,
and take flight into their closet to God, or into their proud
"self-consciousness." But we remain in this "imperfect" world, because even so
we can use it for our -- self-enjoyment.
My intercourse with the world consists in my enjoying it, and so consuming it
for my self-enjoyment. Intercourse is the enjoyment of the world, and
belongs to my -- self-enjoyment.
My Self-EnjoymentWe stand at the boundary of a period. The world hitherto took thought for
nothing but the gain of life, took care for -- life. For whether all
activity is put on the stretch for the life of this world or of the other, for
the temporal or for the eternal, whether one hankers for "daily bread" ("Give
us our daily bread") or for "holy bread" ("the true bread from heaven" "the
bread of God, that comes from heaven and gives life to the world"; "the
bread of life," John 6), whether one takes care for "dear life" or for "life
to eternity" -- this does not change the object of the strain and care, which
in the one case as in the other shows itself to be life. Do the modern
tendencies announce themselves otherwise? People now want nobody to be
embarrassed for the most indispensable necessaries of life, but want every one
to feel secure as to these; and on the other hand they teach that man has this
life to attend to and the real world to adapt himself to, without vain care
for another.
Let us take up the same thing from another side. When one is anxious only to
live, he easily, in this solicitude, forgets the enjoyment of life. If his
only concern is for life, and he thinks "if I only have my dear life," he does
not apply his full strength to using, i. e., enjoying, life. But how does
one use life? In using it up, like the candle, which one uses in burning it
up. One uses life, and consequently himself the living one, in consuming it
and himself. Enjoyment of life is using life up.
Now -- we are in search of the enjoyment of life! And what did the religious
world do? It went in search of life. Wherein consists the true life, the
blessed life; etc.? How is it to be attained? What must man do and become in
order to become a truly living man? How does he fulfil this calling? These and
similar questions indicate that the askers were still seeking for *themselves
--* to wit, themselves in the true sense, in the sense of true living. "What I
am is
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