I propose a hypothetical not in an attempt to try to prove that Stirnerist Egoism is paradoxical, but instead to understand the perspective better: A man is an alcoholic and recognizes that he is one and that he is being subjugated to his urges and has lost ownness to the bottle. He recognizes he needs to regain his ownness by controlling his desires for alcohol, and tries to cut down his drinking. However, when he drinks he often ends up falling into a drinking binge as the alcohol causes him to lose self-control. If he promises himself to stop drinking alcohol, is he losing his ownness? If the answer is yes, then how can he retain his ownness permanently as the alcohol causes him to lose his ownness?
Max Stirner is one of those philosophers I constantly roll my eyes at Not because I think he’s wrong, but because despite wanting to disagree with him, His views are more often than not, astute Great video, Really underrated channel you got here
True, my problem with Post-Left literary texts is that while I do agree on it as a critique but I can see especially the works of Kacyznski and Stirner to be assessed and reappropriated by right-wingers due to being loosely interpreted.
@@MatPost it truly is saddening how many Philosophers have had their ideas interpreted and adopted by the very people they themselves would not only disagree with but despise in certain cases. Like Nietzsche and the Nazi party, Or Marx being toted by the Bourgeois
Without ideals, life is significantly different. The very concept of these new view of being "good" or "bad" fails. It leaves me uneasy, i am but a slave to these ideals.
Thanks a lot for this great contribution to Stirner. We are studying Stirner in University at the moment. One tip: i would add more time-context to Stirner as one of the Young Hegelians
Did you know that Stirner never once in his life went to the bog? He took full ownness of his bowels and diverted their contents into a divine font of energy. Truly, a transcendent philosopher!
Wow! Thank you for introducing Stirner and the subject of egoism to this particular sentient representation 🤣🤪🤩 great work as always and appreciate what you do!🍻🎉😎
I haven't read that translation but for anyone interested, it's available online here: theanarchistlibrary.org/library/max-stirner-the-unique-and-its-property
I propose a hypothetical not in an attempt to try to prove that Stirnerist Egoism is paradoxical, but instead to understand the perspective better: A man is an alcoholic and recognizes that he is one and that he is being subjugated to his urges and has lost ownness to the bottle. He recognizes he needs to regain his ownness by controlling his desires for alcohol, and tries to cut down his drinking. However, when he drinks he often ends up falling into a drinking binge as the alcohol causes him to lose self-control. If he promises himself to stop drinking alcohol, is he losing his ownness? If the answer is yes, then how can he retain his ownness permanently as the alcohol causes him to lose his ownness?
I think a simple question is does failure to control an urge count as total failure? Does control over one decision count as mastery or is it relative to a length of decisions? Is one failure reson to say you aren't a successful egoistic because you haven't mastered every single decision put forward?
That is a great question. I think the promise is a tool that has it limitations and at each point you can throw it away. But with reason you might see that throwing it away too early will cause you to start drinking uncontrollably again. If his drinking cannot be cured, then certainly there are other tools for stopping drinking like going to AA. Let me know what you have come up yourself
@@lazarspopov I am not sure. I am not an alcoholic by any means but do sometimes experience symptoms of an addictive personality. I think putting boundaries on yourself is not limiting your ownness in this regard.
He sounds like my kind of guy , if you don't think everything you do is self-serving then you are deluded . As someone who has filed bankruptcy twice and considers my signature on any contract to be worthless I view the everyday affairs of man to be a game that you make up the rules as you go .
kinda wild how strongly marx was influenced by stirner ie when stirner talks about how humanity cant be defined by any single property marx' answer is to say that we are whatever we do, our species being is to produce society
Interestingly enough, Stirner's egoism doesn't include morality, it's just a worldview of mastering the control of one's mind, isolating it from external powers.
Thanks for the suggestion, but I'm afraid I'm definitely not competent to do a video on Heidegger! Stirner is already rather far outside my philosophical comfort zone.
When me and a friend were exploring egoism together (before we had heard the term ordinary egoism) we used the term egotism versus egoism, the essential difference being that the egotist is not only malignant in their ego, but also that their ego is subservient to the way in which it is observed by others and therefore not an expression of individuality. To contrast, the egoist is altruistic to an extent with their ego; it does not manifest in simple hedonism nor social establishment but in the ontological actualization of the self and what is objectively in their own interest both immediately and in the long term
is there not a better painting or drawing of max? looks like a kid drew him... other historical figures at the time seem to have better representations of themselves
Insofar as Stirner was a nominalist, he not only objected to the universal of the subject as practice or practice as the subject, but to revolutionary practice. Thus, his reflections on property are ironic. Not only is each individual unique but each individual is his/her property! This raises at least two issues: there are many who are propertyless so what is their essence? Secondly, domination takes a different form subsequent to the initial acquisition of property by fiat; the pioneers to the New World, and we could extent this to Mesopotamia and Upper Egypt, etc., simply took for free their new found property. Afterwords exchange principles took effect - there is a difference between exchange relations and relations of domination by force and conquest, albeit some overlap. Marx addresses "Saint Max" in "The German Ideology" where he points out that the notion of production extends to ideology and to the non-particulars to which Stirner objects. Marx asserts that we can study the abstractions, their genesis, their production by individuals, as a function of the collective or social conditions, and distinguish between abstractions which yield real knowledge and those which have a function of misrecognition; and between circumstances in which the use of abstractions is justificatory and those which it is not. Marx averts Stirner's nihilism.
Yeah so you can finally stop saying shit like “reeeee egoism is when i do what i want reee” Although people will take your blabbing as serious as kaspar took marxs straw-man ramblings towards him
Why do you use the feminine person when talking about a whatever one random individual? As in "she", "her", etc.? Am I missing something? It s just weird, considering that you are a male, I mean last time i knew you are one! Hahaha
I think Stirner is a victim of the same circular reasoning he critiques on other young hegelians. At the end of the day owness is just another abstraction, another ideal to subjugate every human being Stirner thought that would be possible to end abstractions by our mere volition. But we need to recognize our position in the capitalist society as a class, the working class. An abstraction that can put end to class struggle. When a society without classes become possible, the abstractions go away and everybody would be abble realize their individual potential. But there's no away to end abstractions just by your own psychology. We need a revolution
All things are nothing. Abstractions are only things if you decide they are. Marxist classes are only semi-coherent at the best of times, if you choose to view people as individuals or uniques, the classes cease to exist.
@@Hashishin13 I don't think you know what marxist theory of classes is. Classes are objective. You only exists in the capitalist society if you either sell your labor force or buy the labor force of someone else. You are either a capitalist or a worker. That's not an abstraction. Owness is an abstraction What Stirner doesn't understand is that the only individual that exists in a capitalist society is CAPITAL. Capital is the one that we all want to be. This dialectical relation between the One and the Many (us) is the real class struggle that is going on.
@@jorgemachado5317 So when I hire someone to do something, I'm an oppressor, even when I'm working for someone else? You can work for people while employing other people. I do it often. See how Marxist classes are a joke? You are typing and reading on a computer. Is it an entertainment device? It is until you learn to code and write multi million dollar software on it. Then it is the means of production, something individuals shouldn't own according to Marx right? Your computer is significantly better than the ones that Windows was first written on. You have the means to produce Microsoft.
@@Hashishin13 "So when I hire someone to do something, I'm an oppressor, even when I'm working for someone else?" No. You invented that. I never said it "You can work for people while employing other people. I do it often." How? Can you give an example? Why i would work for someone if i am a buyer of labor power? That doesn't make any sense. Please, explain "See how Marxist classes are a joke?" You don't even tried to understand what classes are "It is until you learn to code and write multi million dollar software on it. Then it is the means of production, something individuals shouldn't own according to Marx right?" No you just don't know what you talking about. You never read anything by Marx, everyone can tell. Computers aren't means of production... means of production are SOCIAL RELATIONS. Means of production are not commodities. You just don't know what you are criticizing "Your computer is significantly better than the ones that Windows was first written on. You have the means to produce Microsoft." No... I can have a computer.... Not a SOCIAL RELATION... Your understanding of this topic is simply absurd. How can you criticize something that you don't have the slightest idea what it means? You can't produce Microsoft... Workers already did...The social relation is not a non class social relation tho
Did you read the book? And more importantly did you read the last chapters? 'my own i am at all times'- thats all there is to owness, there is no abstraction there unless your unable to free yourself from abstracting it. Its a common mistake people make when it comes to stirner, i have to point it out in all commentsections i see it
Interesting, intelligent presentation, but your insistence on using "she" and "her" was very distracting. "She" excludes half the human race, whereas "he" is both generic (both sexes) AND specific (to males). It was men-and not women-who were shortchanged by the use of the masculine pronoun, if that's the complaint feminists have. Men can handle that sort of shortchanging with perfect equanimity. (It's never too late to defend grammar and reason against ignorance and emotion.)
I use "she/her" because I'm attracted to women so I prefer to imagine women when I'm speaking. It has nothing to do with feminism or grammar or reason lol
I'm so glad I came across this. This is such a killer overview-I haven't read The Unique in a few years. Dropping my favorite quotes here! --------------- Quotes: One who feels himself to be a free spirit does not get depressed or frightened by the things of this world, because he has no respect for them. It must not will to have a freedom, it can only wish, and thus petition, for it, mumble a "please, please !" What would come of it, if the opposition actually willed, willed with the full energy of the will? No, it must sacrifice will to live through love, sacrifice freedom for the love of morality. It must never "claim as a right" what it is only allowed to "request as a favor”. If you command them: "Bow down before the Most High;' they will answer: "If he wants to bow us down, let him come and do it himself; we, at least, will not bow down of our own free will." And if you threaten them with his wrath and his punishment, they will take it like being threatened with the bow-wow. And this ‘family’, internalized and desensualized into a thought, a conception, now counts as the "sacred;' whose despotism is ten times worse because it rumbles in my conscience. This despotism only gets broken, when the family as conception also becomes nothing to me. State, religion, conscience, these oppressors, make me a slave, and their freedom is my slavery. That in this they necessarily flow the principle, "the end sanctifies the means;' goes without saying. If the welfare of the state is the end, then war is a sanctified means; if justice is the state's end, murder is a sanctified means, and is called by its sacred name "execution"; the sacred state makes sacred everything that is useful to it. To "Give God the glory" corresponds the modern "Give the human being the glory." But I intend to keep it for myself. But I don't do it for the sake of my "human calling," but because I call myself to it. Think it over well and decide whether you want to put on your banner the dream of "freedom" or the resolution of "egoism;' of "ownness. I get around a rock that stands in my way, until I have enough powder to blow it up; I get around the laws of a people, until I've gathered the strength to overthrow them. Since I cannot grasp the moon, is it therefore supposed to be "sacred" to me? If I could only grasp you, I surely would, and if I find a way to come up to you, you shall not frighten me! You incomprehensible one, you shall remain incomprehensible to me only until I have acquired the power of comprehension for myself and call you my own; I do not surrender before you, but only bide my time. This means nothing else than: what you have the power to be, you have the right to. I derive all right and authorization from myself; I am entitled to everything that I have the power for. The tiger that attacks me has the right, and I, who strike him down, also have the right. I defend not my right against him, but rather myself. Because I was a fool yesterday, I must remain one the rest of my life. So in state-life, I am in the best case-I might as well say the worst case-a slave to myself. Because I was a willer yesterday, today I am will-less, yesterday voluntary, today involuntary. How to change? Only by recognizing no duty. Anyone who wants to break your will is dealing with you, and is your enemy. Act against him as such. Authorized or unauthorized-it doesn't matter to me; if only I am powerful, then I am empowered by myself and need no other authorization or permission I don't shyly step back from your property, but see it always as my property in which I need to "respect" nothing. Just do the same with what you call my property To know what a slave will do once he has broken his chains, one must…await. If your person matters to me, then you pay me with your very existence. Precisely because you hold something sacred, I poke fun at you, and, even if I respected everything else about you, your sanctuary is precisely what I would not respect What do I do then to get the freedom of the press for my book? Do I ask for permission, or do I not rather, without any question of legality, look for a favorable opportunity and grasp it with a complete lack of consideration for the state and its needs? I-the terrifying word must be uttered-I cheat the state. God, who is love, is a meddlesome god: he cannot leave the world in peace, but wants to bless it. I also love human beings, not just a few individuals, but every one. But I love them with the awareness of egoism; I love them because love makes me happy, I love because love is natural to me, it pleases me. I know no "commandment of love." I have fellow feeling with every feeling being, and their torment torments me, their refreshment refreshes me too; I can kill, not torture, them But because I cannot bear the sorrowful crease on the beloved forehead, therefore, then for my sake, I kiss it away. If I didn't love this person, he could go right on creasing his forehead, that wouldn't trouble me; I'm only driving away my troubles. I sing because-I am a singer. But I use you for it, because I need ears. That's your affair, and I don't care. Morality entitles those people to expect the truth; but I do not entitle them to it, and I acknowledge only the right that I grant. It is contemptible to deceive a trust that we voluntarily elicit; but it is no shame to egoism to let anyone who wants to get us in his power through an oath bleed to death at the failure of his untrusting tricks. If you've wanted to bind me, then learn that I know how to burst your bonds. But how does one use life? By using it up, like the candle, which one uses by burning it. One uses life, and consequently himself, the living one, by consuming it and himself. Enjoyment is using life up. You poor things, who could live so happily if you were allowed to leap according to your own feelings, you're supposed to dance to the pipe of school-masters and bear-trainers, to perform tricks that you yourself would never use. Then, first of all, I will no longer shudder before a thought, however reckless or "devilish" it may seem, because if it threatens to become uncomfortable and unsatisfying for me, its end lies in my power; but I will also not shrink back before any action because a spirit of godlessness, immorality, unlawfulness, dwells in it. If religion has put forward the proposition that we are all of us sinners, I set another against it: we are all of us perfect! If I base my affair on myself the unique…then I may say: I have based my affair on nothing. -------------
11:40 i found this argument rather weak, sounds like "interested in X" can always be "enslaved by" in Max Stirner's logic. What will he say about a man acting on sole pursuit of interest in poetry? Is he a slave to his interest in poetry? Or he would think interested in wealth and interested in poetry have some kind of fundamental difference.
@@dr.shuppet5452 Having great genuine interest in something can be considered "taken over" tho, e.g. a man leaving his wife and child because he thinks his duty to care for others have come in the way of his own passion in poetry that he cannot focus and write all day. Is he enslaved by poetry, or is he is a noble egoist.
@@slmjkdbtl I would say the line is reflective cognizance. So long as my interest in poetry is under my control, i.e. not a habit or an addiction whereby I need to do it in order to maintain my identity or my health, then I am not taken over by it.
Here is a list of page references for things I have said in the video. References are to "The Ego and His Own", Byington translation, 2014 Verso books edition ("Radical Thinkers" series).
3:53 - 157
4:24 - xxi
8:30 - 181
9:46 - 67
11:17 - 281
15:45 - 33
16:40 - 76
17:53 - 167, 193
18:39 - 165
19:03 - 162
19:24 - 170
20:20 - 162
21:25 - 140
21:40 - xxiii
22:33 - 161
23:10 - 190
25:58 - 147
27:40 - 287
28:32 - 144
29:54 - 153
30:43 - 146
32:00 - 145
32:46 - 267
33:58 - 144
36:39 - 148
I propose a hypothetical not in an attempt to try to prove that Stirnerist Egoism is paradoxical, but instead to understand the perspective better:
A man is an alcoholic and recognizes that he is one and that he is being subjugated to his urges and has lost ownness to the bottle. He recognizes he needs to regain his ownness by controlling his desires for alcohol, and tries to cut down his drinking. However, when he drinks he often ends up falling into a drinking binge as the alcohol causes him to lose self-control.
If he promises himself to stop drinking alcohol, is he losing his ownness? If the answer is yes, then how can he retain his ownness permanently as the alcohol causes him to lose his ownness?
Max Stirner is one of those philosophers I constantly roll my eyes at
Not because I think he’s wrong, but because despite wanting to disagree with him, His views are more often than not, astute
Great video, Really underrated channel you got here
True, my problem with Post-Left literary texts is that while I do agree on it as a critique but I can see especially the works of Kacyznski and Stirner to be assessed and reappropriated by right-wingers due to being loosely interpreted.
@@MatPost it truly is saddening how many Philosophers have had their ideas interpreted and adopted by the very people they themselves would not only disagree with but despise in certain cases. Like Nietzsche and the Nazi party, Or Marx being toted by the Bourgeois
@@noriyakigumble3011 do yours know if K. Fischer was an young hegelian?
Stirner is a spook
I am spook
Spookeyspookeyspook
Hes incredibly boring, there's a reason hes only remembered because he got completely dunked on by Marx.
Finally, a video on egoism that isn't edgy.
Gimmie your stuff
Ancap is a spook
@@MatPost Huh? Oh, it's the Gadsden flag, isn't it? Wouldn't be the first time someone wrongly assumed my ideology...
@@edwardcumpstey9061 autistic anarcho-syndicalism is a spook
@@MatPost ancap and the NAP is a spook.
Without ideals, life is significantly different. The very concept of these new view of being "good" or "bad" fails. It leaves me uneasy, i am but a slave to these ideals.
Thanks a lot for this great contribution to Stirner. We are studying Stirner in University at the moment. One tip: i would add more time-context to Stirner as one of the Young Hegelians
Is that stirner hagelians? Or being hagelians and anti-hagelians at the same time? I think stirner is first post structuralic philosoper
And i think he is his own person and any other label would be a form of imposing your reificatio of such concepts
Did you know that Stirner never once in his life went to the bog?
He took full ownness of his bowels and diverted their contents into a divine font of energy.
Truly, a transcendent philosopher!
Lol, have u seen the magicians? reminded me of this. Its a great show (read the first book preferred the show). recommended
Wow! Thank you for introducing Stirner and the subject of egoism to this particular sentient representation 🤣🤪🤩 great work as always and appreciate what you do!🍻🎉😎
i started reading ego and it’s own and this video definitely helped me understand the information better, cheers mate
Loved it! His philosophy actually is more complex than I thought it was. From the amount of memes around it seemed really superficial
Thank you so much for making these!
Some paragraphs from the Byrington translation that i didn't understand were more clear in Wolfi Landstreicher translation
I haven't read that translation but for anyone interested, it's available online here: theanarchistlibrary.org/library/max-stirner-the-unique-and-its-property
You’re my favourite philosophy channel
I propose a hypothetical not in an attempt to try to prove that Stirnerist Egoism is paradoxical, but instead to understand the perspective better:
A man is an alcoholic and recognizes that he is one and that he is being subjugated to his urges and has lost ownness to the bottle. He recognizes he needs to regain his ownness by controlling his desires for alcohol, and tries to cut down his drinking. However, when he drinks he often ends up falling into a drinking binge as the alcohol causes him to lose self-control.
If he promises himself to stop drinking alcohol, is he losing his ownness? If the answer is yes, then how can he retain his ownness permanently as the alcohol causes him to lose his ownness?
I think a simple question is does failure to control an urge count as total failure?
Does control over one decision count as mastery or is it relative to a length of decisions? Is one failure reson to say you aren't a successful egoistic because you haven't mastered every single decision put forward?
His disease is his ownness
That is a great question. I think the promise is a tool that has it limitations and at each point you can throw it away. But with reason you might see that throwing it away too early will cause you to start drinking uncontrollably again. If his drinking cannot be cured, then certainly there are other tools for stopping drinking like going to AA.
Let me know what you have come up yourself
@@lazarspopov I am not sure. I am not an alcoholic by any means but do sometimes experience symptoms of an addictive personality. I think putting boundaries on yourself is not limiting your ownness in this regard.
This is sounding like Sartre and his belief in free will disregarding addiction as a thing that can actually prevent a truly free will.
I subjugated myself to ownness. Send halp.
That's a case of mistaking the map for the terrain, words with reality.....as you could argue I'm doing right now
He sounds like my kind of guy , if you don't think everything you do is self-serving then you are deluded . As someone who has filed bankruptcy twice and considers my signature on any contract to be worthless I view the everyday affairs of man to be a game that you make up the rules as you go .
Great video.
An excellent video, save for one mistake. You refer to the egoist as 'She' which is wrong, since I am the Only One and I decide to be a man.
@@tbird-c2q
And what a woman becomes? A man?
This is a fabulous video! Very enlightening
kinda wild how strongly marx was influenced by stirner
ie when stirner talks about how humanity cant be defined by any single property marx' answer is to say that we are whatever we do, our species being is to produce society
nice...
21:00 - Nameless Monster, basically.
Very interesting
YHWH means Jehovah, their the same God
ГУБАМИ ОБЪЯСНИЛ
😅😅😅
Interestingly enough, Stirner's egoism doesn't include morality, it's just a worldview of mastering the control of one's mind, isolating it from external powers.
You should talk more about stuff from the "continental" side! Maybe Heidegger next?
Thanks for the suggestion, but I'm afraid I'm definitely not competent to do a video on Heidegger! Stirner is already rather far outside my philosophical comfort zone.
макс штирнер конторский?
defaulting to she/her pronouns is very based
When me and a friend were exploring egoism together (before we had heard the term ordinary egoism) we used the term egotism versus egoism, the essential difference being that the egotist is not only malignant in their ego, but also that their ego is subservient to the way in which it is observed by others and therefore not an expression of individuality. To contrast, the egoist is altruistic to an extent with their ego; it does not manifest in simple hedonism nor social establishment but in the ontological actualization of the self and what is objectively in their own interest both immediately and in the long term
The egotist differs from the egoist in that the egotist is not and cannot align themselves with stirners creative nothing
@@poopymcmonkealr
"Get your fucking hands off of me!"
is there not a better painting or drawing of max? looks like a kid drew him... other historical figures at the time seem to have better representations of themselves
Engels drew that :)
@@ASH-cn7qs just surprised there's no painting like virtually every other philsopher or person of prominence from the 19th century
There isn't any painting or photo that we know of
He died relatively young I think. He also didn't write very much I hear.
@@mike04574 The thing is, he was not a person of prominence. Interest in his works beyond a novelty only took off after his death.
ego man good torrent photoshop
yes
stirner was just marx’ secret pen name why do you think engels made the only doodle of him. every detail in his backstory is a symbolic fabrication
@Will he’s being ironic, genius
ironic on internet, what is the world going to ?
210 IQ comment right here.
27:12
Insofar as Stirner was a nominalist, he not only objected to the universal of the subject as practice or practice as the subject, but to revolutionary practice. Thus, his reflections on property are ironic. Not only is each individual unique but each individual is his/her property! This raises at least two issues: there are many who are propertyless so what is their essence? Secondly, domination takes a different form subsequent to the initial acquisition of property by fiat; the pioneers to the New World, and we could extent this to Mesopotamia and Upper Egypt, etc., simply took for free their new found property. Afterwords exchange principles took effect - there is a difference between exchange relations and relations of domination by force and conquest, albeit some overlap. Marx addresses "Saint Max" in "The German Ideology" where he points out that the notion of production extends to ideology and to the non-particulars to which Stirner objects. Marx asserts that we can study the abstractions, their genesis, their production by individuals, as a function of the collective or social conditions, and distinguish between abstractions which yield real knowledge and those which have a function of misrecognition; and between circumstances in which the use of abstractions is justificatory and those which it is not. Marx averts Stirner's nihilism.
I like that you use 'she' in place of the usual 'he' : D D D
This is very similar to advaita vedanta.
Me learning about Stirners philosophy so i can criticize Egoists better.
Yeah so you can finally stop saying shit like “reeeee egoism is when i do what i want reee”
Although people will take your blabbing as serious as kaspar took marxs straw-man ramblings towards him
ego and her own
29:55
This sure sounds close to nihilism and existentialism.
Well it's not, at all. Stirner didn't concern himself with existential matters. Just social ones, like most of his peers at the time.
I mean I do not wish to subjugate myself to Stirner's ideas of what an egoist should do lol. I do what I want
And so does everyone
Stirner doesn't tell you what to do...
Use his work as a tool if you so please
кто пришел от маргинала, лайк
Why do you use the feminine person when talking about a whatever one random individual? As in "she", "her", etc.? Am I missing something? It s just weird, considering that you are a male, I mean last time i knew you are one! Hahaha
Because I find women physically attractive, so I prefer to imagine women when I'm talking.
@@KaneB lol. got you
@@KaneB is it because language enables the patriarchy?
@@ihossi22 That's not my view, and anyway I'm not particularly concerned about "the patriarchy" in general.
@@KaneB what is your reason then? I'm genuinely curious.
Why does he use "she" instead of the correct "he"? It sounds so bizarre and disturbs the flow of ideas.
Because I'm sexually attracted to women, so I prefer to imagine women when I'm talking.
@@KaneB keep doing it I personally think it sounds better.
@@KaneB Based
Imagine not being attracted to the same sex
@@KaneB As an Egoist I'm sexually attracted to I and I only use first person view to discuss matters
I think Stirner is a victim of the same circular reasoning he critiques on other young hegelians. At the end of the day owness is just another abstraction, another ideal to subjugate every human being
Stirner thought that would be possible to end abstractions by our mere volition. But we need to recognize our position in the capitalist society as a class, the working class. An abstraction that can put end to class struggle. When a society without classes become possible, the abstractions go away and everybody would be abble realize their individual potential.
But there's no away to end abstractions just by your own psychology. We need a revolution
All things are nothing.
Abstractions are only things if you decide they are.
Marxist classes are only semi-coherent at the best of times, if you choose to view people as individuals or uniques, the classes cease to exist.
@@Hashishin13 I don't think you know what marxist theory of classes is. Classes are objective. You only exists in the capitalist society if you either sell your labor force or buy the labor force of someone else. You are either a capitalist or a worker. That's not an abstraction. Owness is an abstraction
What Stirner doesn't understand is that the only individual that exists in a capitalist society is CAPITAL. Capital is the one that we all want to be. This dialectical relation between the One and the Many (us) is the real class struggle that is going on.
@@jorgemachado5317 So when I hire someone to do something, I'm an oppressor, even when I'm working for someone else?
You can work for people while employing other people. I do it often.
See how Marxist classes are a joke?
You are typing and reading on a computer. Is it an entertainment device?
It is until you learn to code and write multi million dollar software on it. Then it is the means of production, something individuals shouldn't own according to Marx right?
Your computer is significantly better than the ones that Windows was first written on. You have the means to produce Microsoft.
@@Hashishin13 "So when I hire someone to do something, I'm an oppressor, even when I'm working for someone else?"
No. You invented that. I never said it
"You can work for people while employing other people. I do it often."
How? Can you give an example? Why i would work for someone if i am a buyer of labor power? That doesn't make any sense. Please, explain
"See how Marxist classes are a joke?"
You don't even tried to understand what classes are
"It is until you learn to code and write multi million dollar software on it. Then it is the means of production, something individuals shouldn't own according to Marx right?"
No you just don't know what you talking about. You never read anything by Marx, everyone can tell. Computers aren't means of production... means of production are SOCIAL RELATIONS. Means of production are not commodities. You just don't know what you are criticizing
"Your computer is significantly better than the ones that Windows was first written on. You have the means to produce Microsoft."
No... I can have a computer.... Not a SOCIAL RELATION... Your understanding of this topic is simply absurd. How can you criticize something that you don't have the slightest idea what it means? You can't produce Microsoft... Workers already did...The social relation is not a non class social relation tho
Did you read the book? And more importantly did you read the last chapters? 'my own i am at all times'- thats all there is to owness, there is no abstraction there unless your unable to free yourself from abstracting it.
Its a common mistake people make when it comes to stirner, i have to point it out in all commentsections i see it
Interesting, intelligent presentation, but your insistence on using "she" and "her" was very distracting. "She" excludes half the human race, whereas "he" is both generic (both sexes) AND specific (to males). It was men-and not women-who were shortchanged by the use of the masculine pronoun, if that's the complaint feminists have. Men can handle that sort of shortchanging with perfect equanimity. (It's never too late to defend grammar and reason against ignorance and emotion.)
I use "she/her" because I'm attracted to women so I prefer to imagine women when I'm speaking.
It has nothing to do with feminism or grammar or reason lol
Awesome video
I'm so glad I came across this. This is such a killer overview-I haven't read The Unique in a few years. Dropping my favorite quotes here!
---------------
Quotes:
One who feels himself to be a free spirit does not get depressed or frightened by the things of this world, because he has no respect for them.
It must not will to have a freedom, it can only wish, and thus petition, for it, mumble a "please, please !" What would come of it, if the opposition actually willed, willed with the full energy of the will? No, it must sacrifice will to live through love, sacrifice freedom for the love of morality. It must never "claim as a right" what it is only allowed to "request as a favor”.
If you command them: "Bow down before the Most High;' they will answer: "If he wants to bow us down, let him come and do it himself; we, at least, will not bow down of our own free will." And if you threaten them with his wrath and his punishment, they will take it like being threatened with the bow-wow.
And this ‘family’, internalized and desensualized into a thought, a conception, now counts as the "sacred;' whose despotism is ten times worse because it rumbles in my conscience. This despotism only gets broken, when the family as conception also becomes nothing to me.
State, religion, conscience, these oppressors, make me a slave, and their freedom is my slavery. That in this they necessarily flow the principle, "the end sanctifies the means;' goes without saying. If the welfare of the state is the end, then war is a sanctified means; if justice is the state's end, murder is a sanctified means, and is called by its sacred name "execution"; the sacred state makes sacred everything that is useful to it.
To "Give God the glory" corresponds the modern "Give the human being the glory." But I intend to keep it for myself.
But I don't do it for the sake of my "human calling," but because I call myself to it.
Think it over well and decide whether you want to put on your banner the dream of "freedom" or the resolution of "egoism;' of "ownness.
I get around a rock that stands in my way, until I have enough powder to blow it up; I get around the laws of a people, until I've gathered the strength to overthrow them. Since I cannot grasp the moon, is it therefore supposed to be "sacred" to me? If I could only grasp you, I surely would, and if I find a way to come up to you, you shall not frighten me! You incomprehensible one, you shall remain incomprehensible to me only until I have acquired the power of comprehension for myself and call you my own; I do not surrender before you, but only bide my time.
This means nothing else than: what you have the power to be, you have the right to. I derive all right and authorization from myself; I am entitled to everything that I have the power for.
The tiger that attacks me has the right, and I, who strike him down, also have the right. I defend not my right against him, but rather myself.
Because I was a fool yesterday, I must remain one the rest of my life. So in state-life, I am in the best case-I might as well say the worst case-a slave to myself. Because I was a willer yesterday, today I am will-less, yesterday voluntary, today involuntary. How to change? Only by recognizing no duty.
Anyone who wants to break your will is dealing with you, and is your enemy. Act against him as such.
Authorized or unauthorized-it doesn't matter to me; if only I am powerful, then I am empowered by myself and need no other authorization or permission
I don't shyly step back from your property, but see it always as my property in which I need to "respect" nothing. Just do the same with what you call my property
To know what a slave will do once he has broken his chains, one must…await.
If your person matters to me, then you pay me with your very existence.
Precisely because you hold something sacred, I poke fun at you, and, even if I respected everything else about you, your sanctuary is precisely what I would not respect
What do I do then to get the freedom of the press for my book? Do I ask for permission, or do I not rather, without any question of legality, look for a favorable opportunity and grasp it with a complete lack of consideration for the state and its needs? I-the terrifying word must be uttered-I cheat the state.
God, who is love, is a meddlesome god: he cannot leave the world in peace, but wants to bless it.
I also love human beings, not just a few individuals, but every one. But I love them with the awareness of egoism; I love them because love makes me happy, I love because love is natural to me, it pleases me. I know no "commandment of love." I have fellow feeling with every feeling being, and their torment torments me, their refreshment refreshes me too; I can kill, not torture, them
But because I cannot bear the sorrowful crease on the beloved forehead, therefore, then for my sake, I kiss it away. If I didn't love this person, he could go right on creasing his forehead, that wouldn't trouble me; I'm only driving away my troubles.
I sing because-I am a singer. But I use you for it, because I need ears.
That's your affair, and I don't care.
Morality entitles those people to expect the truth; but I do not entitle them to it, and I acknowledge only the right that I grant.
It is contemptible to deceive a trust that we voluntarily elicit; but it is no shame to egoism to let anyone who wants to get us in his power through an oath bleed to death at the failure of his untrusting tricks. If you've wanted to bind me, then learn that I know how to burst your bonds.
But how does one use life? By using it up, like the candle, which one uses by burning it. One uses life, and consequently himself, the living one, by consuming it and himself. Enjoyment is using life up.
You poor things, who could live so happily if you were allowed to leap according to your own feelings, you're supposed to dance to the pipe of school-masters and bear-trainers, to perform tricks that you yourself would never use.
Then, first of all, I will no longer shudder before a thought, however reckless or "devilish" it may seem, because if it threatens to become uncomfortable and unsatisfying for me, its end lies in my power; but I will also not shrink back before any action because a spirit of godlessness, immorality, unlawfulness, dwells in it.
If religion has put forward the proposition that we are all of us sinners, I set another against it: we are all of us perfect!
If I base my affair on myself the unique…then I may say: I have based my affair on nothing.
-------------
11:40 i found this argument rather weak, sounds like "interested in X" can always be "enslaved by" in Max Stirner's logic. What will he say about a man acting on sole pursuit of interest in poetry? Is he a slave to his interest in poetry? Or he would think interested in wealth and interested in poetry have some kind of fundamental difference.
Stirner's logic doesn't work that way. There is a clear difference between just doing something and it taking over everything that you do.
@@dr.shuppet5452 Having great genuine interest in something can be considered "taken over" tho, e.g. a man leaving his wife and child because he thinks his duty to care for others have come in the way of his own passion in poetry that he cannot focus and write all day. Is he enslaved by poetry, or is he is a noble egoist.
@@slmjkdbtl I would say the line is reflective cognizance. So long as my interest in poetry is under my control, i.e. not a habit or an addiction whereby I need to do it in order to maintain my identity or my health, then I am not taken over by it.