Customer Reviews

Stirner: The Ego and its Own (Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought)

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"The Ego and His Own", the testament of the philosophic incendiary Max Stirner, remains, one hundred and fifty years after its appearance, the most subversive, the most antisocial, the most radical book in the history of political thought. Writing in a highly idiosyncratic idiom, Stirner launches an extreme and uncompromising attack on Christianity, the state, society, the family, socialism and revolts against the monarchy of abstract ideas, as exemplified by the entire rational tradition of Western philosophy. His book represents the culmination of Left Hegelianism. In the place of moral imperatives, he postulates the will of the sovereign egoist, who lives untrammelled by convention or authority. Rights, obligations, duties do not exist. The might of the ego is the sole determining factor in conduct. He takes his doctrine to its logical conclusion and, at times, to its illogical extreme by urging reasons for crime against all institutions and in the egoist's bid for power in the war of each against all, the arena of which is the embattled socius. He has been interpreted as a harbinger of Fascism and, among other things, an important proto-Nietzschean thinker. He bears many resemblances to his successor Nietzsche, as in how he champions egoism, celebrates the passions, and also in his call for a transvaluation of existing values and the need to create one's life anew. But there is a crucial difference: Stirner, a disciple of Hegelian idealism, is critical; Nietzsche, assertive. Stirner's egoism is spontaneous and capricious while Nietzsche's semi-altruistic egoism always has the highest social end in view. A must for those who want to discover a forgotten classic of political thought.

He has been variously interpreted as an anarcho-egoist, an early existentialist, a protofascist who influenced the thought of Mussolini, a frontrunner of Nietzsche and as a nihilist maniac whose thirst for blood could never be quenched... an iconoclast who aimed to live above society, untramelled by moral conventions... In his defence of the sovereignty of the individual will, Max Stirner launches a brutal and uncompromising assault on the state, society, religion, the family. Also one of the most potent criticisms of humanism, liberalism and communism put forward, Stirner was one of the first to accurately prophesy the tyranny that communism would engender once established. Stylistically, it ranges from cutting aphoristic precision to opaqueness,self-contradiction and repetition, but nonetheless a profound, stimulating presentation of a highly eccentric position of political thought.

"What is supposed to be my concern. First and foremost the Good Cause, then God's Cause, the cause of mankind, of truth, of freedom, of humanity, of justice; further, the cause of my people, my prince, my fatherland; finally, even the cause of my mind. Only MY cause is never to be my concern. 'Shame on the egoist who thinks only of himself.'"

In this, the first paragraph of his powerful book, Max Stirner sets the stage. His cause? 'Nothing.' His goal? To stop at nothing. In The Ego and It's Own (more literally translated to The Person and His Property) Stirner tries making the case for anarchism based on individualism, rebelling against the collectivist strand professed by Proudhon and Godwin before him.

When Stirner says he 'base[s his] cause on nothing,' what is meant. Simply, he takes nothing (even our supposed self evident truths like right to life) as givens. Everything is questionalbe; nothing immune. So really, this book is not for the squeamish. First, he takes apart religion for setting a 'transcendental' cause higher than the individual. Then he attacks the concept of the state- and socialism- for doing the same. Then he takes apart concepts of 'rights' becuase without a god to grant them and a state to inforce them, what right do I have to live if you kill me? To clarify, Stirner does believe in cooperation for each party's benefit; just not coerced in ANY way.

While Stirner is said to be a precursor to Nietzsche, there is no evidence that Nietzsche knew of him. In fact, the biggest influence he might've had (in print) is Marx's 300 page(!) critique of Stirner in his German Ideology. I've not read it, but it's clear that Marx has a lot to wrestle with.

Now for the subtracted star. Stirner, while being an egoist, is somewhat of an egotist. He repeats the same things many times and a reader would not miss much if she cut out 150 pages early. Secondly, and it must be said, Stirner is not profound because he is philosophically challenging. He is not; then again neither are most anarchists. He is profound because he has the gumption to say what no one else will. He even questions why it is considered bad to sleep with one's sister. Can we argue? Hmmm.... What are you staring at me for, read the book already!

Max Stirner was ahead of the game, to say the least. <Ego and Its Own> was published when Nietzsche was a mere toddler and prior to Marx's reign as political guru. Stirner beat both philosophical sages to the gun at what would later come to be known as Marxism and Christian Nihilism. Then why is the name "Stirner" hardly heard in the realm of philosophy?

In many cases Stirner is abrasive and objectively unsympathetic to his audience (moreso than Rand ever thought of being). Stirner wasn't nearly as lucid as Nietzsche, though his themes were conducive to the latter's thought. As far as Marx is concerned, Stirner dictated what would later become Marxism and went 12 steps further and renounced it. Stirner is a staunch advocator of liberal anarchism, renouncing property via individualism a la Rand.

Though it is marketed as a political tract, the work transcends the boundaries of mere politics and becomes a universal thesis in the vein of Machiavelli's <The Prince.> This is a work of vast stature, covering the realms of theology, sociology, psychology, politics, and aesthetics. A must read for all thinkers.

This is a book that has been ignored undeservedly for a long time. "The most revolutionary book ever written" powerfully spurns the use of anything above the self as a means of defining the self. Stirner observes that the egoists -- the sultans, kings, and potentates -- live for their own ends off man's devotion to "ghosts" embodied in not only religion but also humanism. Stirner refuses to worship external idols and unabashedly asserts himself as the reference point for his life.

At times the book becomes long and taxing, but patience definitely pays off. Whether the reader agrees with the message or not, this work stimulates and challenges.

this is the most liberating book ever written, it frees the individual from such spooks as family, church, state, society, god. He was correct to note that feuerbach and the marxists were establishing their own religion, and this criticism applies to many of the secular religions of our day. He also destroys such chimeras as the 'social contract' and other nonsensical obligations.

Max Stirner is a forgotten great thinker who seems to be experiencing a renaissance - particularly as a precursor to Nietzsche, Rand and anarchism.

The author of a single book, he stands as the most solid individualist thinker and moral critic I have ever come across. Hegelian scholar Lawrence Stepelevich of Villanova University characterizes Stirner as both the ultimate Hegelian and as the anti-Hegel; the end of the Hegelian chain. Given Hegelianism's pretenses to being a conclusive philosophy, it might be tempting to say Stirner is thereby the end of philosophy. That, however, would be wrong.

But to say that Stirner is the end of *moral* philosophy would be to the point; the Stirnerian critique of morality has a strength that I have yet to see a moral philosophy withstand. His is not a freshman-nihilistic "Can you prove morality?" type of critique, but rather a critique of the necessary inherent assumptions of any moral philosophy. These are strong words to say about any book. In Stirner's case, they are deserved. Have an enjoyable reading!

Beyond freedom and over the spooks we go. Our goal: nothing short of godhood. In the palace of the mind, in the gut, and in the "real world" we devour all alien elements and make them our playthings. Easily the most dangerous book ever written--required reading for all those that would be Egoists.

It has taken me some time to come to the realization that we are all selling our souls for the so called "goodies" that the State dispenses to us. I wish I had read this book in my youth rather than the left wing socialist clap trap that was fed to me in every educational institution I attended. The main thesis of this book is that the State is the enemy of every individual. And it doesn't matter whether that State is Communist, Fascist, or Democratic. Read it!

Dialectical recipe: Smash Emerson and Schopenhauer into one and add bits of Macchiaveli and Callicles and there you have Max Stirner.

Byington's translation is superlative. The notes are extensive and provide ALL the necessary cultural/historical data you could need for reading this. Individualism never hurt so good.

Further Reading

"Instead of a Book by a Man Too Busy to Write One: A Fragmentary Exposition of Philosophical Anarchism"
by Benjamin Ricketson Tucker

Lysander Spooner