Max Stirner
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Johann Kaspar Schmidt (October 25, 1806 – June 26, 1856), better known as Max Stirner (the nom de plume he adopted from a schoolyard nickname he had acquired as a child because of his high brow [Stirn]), German philosopher, who ranks as one of the literary grandfathers of nihilism, existentialism and anarchism, especially of individualist anarchism. Stirner himself explicitly denied holding any absolute position in his philosophy, further stating that if he must be identified with some "-ism" let it be egoism — the antithesis of all ideologies and social causes, as he conceived of it.
Stirner's main work is The Ego and Its Own, also known as The Ego and His Own (org. Der Einzige und sein Eigentum), which was first published in Leipzig, 1844, and has since appeared in numerous editions and translations.
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Biography
Image:MaxStirner'sbirthplace.jpg Stirner was born in Bayreuth, Bavaria on October 25, 1806. What little is known of his life is mostly due to the Scottish born German writer John Henry Mackay, who wrote a biography of Stirner (Max Stirner - sein Leben und sein Werk), published in German in 1898. A 2005 English translation has now appeared.
Stirner attended university in Berlin, where he attended the lectures of Hegel, who was to become a vital source of inspiration for his thinking, and on the structure of whose work Phenomenology of Spirit (orig. Phänomenologie des Geistes), he modelled his own book. (Hegel's influence on Stirner's thinking is debatable, and is discussed in more detail below.)
While in Berlin, Stirner joined in 1841 that faction of the so-called Young Hegelians, who clustered around Bruno Bauer. Some of the best known names in 19th century literature were members of the Young Hegelians, including Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Ludwig Feuerbach, and Arnold Ruge.
While some of the Young Hegelians were eager subscribers to Hegel's dialectical method, and attempted to apply dialectical approaches to Hegel's conclusions, the "left wing" members of the Young Hegelians, e.g. those named above, broke with Hegel. Feuerbach and Bauer led this charge.
Frequently the debates would take place at Hippel's, a Weinstube (wine bar) in Friedrichstrasse, attended by, amongst others, the young Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, at that time still adherents of Feuerbach. The only portrait we have of Stirner consists of a cartoon by Engels, drawn forty years later from memory on the request of Stirner's biographer John Henry Mackay.
Stirner worked as a schoolteacher employed in an academy for young girls when he wrote his major work The Ego and Its Own, which in large part is a polemic against both Hegel and some Young Hegelians (e.g. Ludwig Feuerbach, Bruno Bauer), but also against communists as Wilhelm Weitling and against the anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. He resigned his teaching position in anticipation of the controversy arising from his major work's publication in October 1844.
Stirner married twice; his first wife was a household servant with whom he fell in love at an early age. Soon after their marriage, she died due to complications with pregnancy in 1838. In 1843 he married Marie Dähnhardt, an intellectual associated with Die Freien. They divorced in 1846. The bitter ironic dedication of The Ego and Its Own - "to my sweetheart Marie Dähnhardt" - may hint at the reasons for the shortness of their liaison. Marie later converted to catholicism and died 1902 in London.
One of the most curious events in those times was that Stirner planned and financed (with his second wife's inheritance) an attempt by some Young Hegelians to own and operate a milk-shop on co-operative principles. This enterprise failed because the German dairy farmers harboured suspicions of these well-dressed intellectuals with their confusing talk about profit-sharing and other high-minded ideals. Meanwhile, the milk shop itself appeared so ostentatiously decorated that most of the customers felt too poorly dressed to buy their milk there.
After The Ego and Its Own, Stirner published German translations of Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations and Jean Baptiste's Traite d'Economie Politique, and a History of Reaction (1852).
In 1856, Stirner died in Berlin, Prussia from an infected insect bite. As the story goes, Bruno Bauer was the only Young Hegelian present at his funeral.
Philosophy
Stirner's main work is The Ego and Its Own (org. 'Der Einzige und sein Eigentum'), which appeared in Leipzig in 1844. One can chart the development of his philosophy through a series of articles that appeared shortly before this central work (the articles The False Principle of Our Education and Art and Religion furnishing particular interest).
In The Ego and Its Own Stirner launches a radical anti-authoritarian and individualist critique of contemporary Prussian society, and modernity and modern western society as such, and offers an approach to human existence which depicts the self as a creative non-entity, beyond language and reality, as generally conceived of in the western philosophical tradition.
In short, the book proclaims that all religions and ideologies rest on empty concepts, that, once undermined by individual self-interest, break apart to reveal their emptiness. The same holds true for those of society's institutions, that uphold these concepts, be it the state, legislation, the church, the systems of education, or other institutions that claim authority over the individual.
Stirner's argument explores and extends the limits of Hegelian criticism, aiming his critique especially at those of his contemporaries (particularly colleagues amongst the Young Hegelians, most importantly Ludwig Feuerbach), embracing popular 'ideologies', explicitly including nationalism, statism, liberalism, socialism, communism and humanism.
Egoism
Only when the false claims of authority by such concepts and institutions as the above, are revealed, can real individual action, power and identity take place. Individual self-realization rests on each individual's desire to fulfill his egoism, be it by instinct, unknowingly, unwillingly - or consciously, fully aware of his self-interest. The only difference between an unwilling and a willing egoist, is that the first will be 'possessed' by an empty idea, or a 'spook', in the hope that this idea will make him happy, and the last, in contrast, will be able to freely choose the ways of his egoism, and enjoy himself while doing it. Only when one realizes that law, right, morality, religion etc., are nothing other than artificial concepts, and not holy authorities to be obeyed, can one act freely.
Stirner has been broadly understood as a proponent of both psychological egoism and ethical egoism, although the latter position can be disputed, maintaining that there is no sense in Stirner's writing, in which one 'ought to' pursue one's own interest, and further claiming any such category of 'ought' would be a new 'fixed idea'. The notion that one's own interest (or one's own nature) is a calling to which one is beholden (or "ought to follow" in any moral or imperative sense) is, strictly speaking, contrary to Stirner's tenets. However, he may be understood as a rational egoist in the sense that he apparently considered it irrational not to act in one's self interest.
On the other hand, Stirner repeatedly refers to a fundamental state of existence, which he seems to view as ideal, 'like the bird, who sings because it is a singer'. He provokes his readers with references to their christian-adopted fear of their own nudity, encouraging them to throw away such fixed ideas, to see and become 'who they really are'. In such terms, Stirner's egoism may be seen as 'ethical' and perhaps even as idealistic.
Anarchism
The political ramifications of Stirner's work are sometimes described as a form of individualist anarchism. Stirner however does not identify himself as an anarchist, and includes anarchists among the parties subject to his criticism. In particular, Stirner's political doctrine repudiates revolution in the traditional sense, and ridicules social movements aimed at overturning the state as tacitly statist (i.e., aimed at the establishment of a new state thereafter), putting forth instead a unique model of self-empowerment and social change through "union activism" --although the definition and explanation of the latter is unique to Stirner, and does not resemble a standard socialist doctrine of trade unionism. Some people see Ernst Jünger's revolutionary conservative concept of the anarch as a more faithful rendition of Stirner's thought.
'The creative nothing'
Stirner's demolition of 'fixed ideas' and absolute concepts (derided as 'spooks' of contemporary philosophy) lead him to a nameless void, without meaning and without existence; a so-called 'creative nothing' from which mind and creativity will arise. The 'nothing' Stirner arrives at, in the process of tearing down every absolute concept (every absolute description) outside of himself, he later described as an 'end-point of language', meaning this is where all description comes to an end; it cannot be described. But this is also the place where all description begins, where the individual self can describe (and therefore create) the world in its own meaning.
In order to understand this 'creative nothing', which Stirner strives so hard to argue for and explain, to the extent that his work invokes poetry and vivid imagery to give meaning to his words - but helplessly cannot describe by words alone, it is worth bearing his Hegelian origins in mind. The 'creative nothing' by its dialectical shortcomings creates the need for a description, for meaning. You need the word 'nothing' to describe nothing - therefore nothing is a paradox. You cannot say 'nothing' without someone saying it, at the very least. And you need the concept of self to describe who is describing it. The nothing gives way to individual meaning, existence and power.
Stirner elaborated on his attempt on describing the undescribable in the essay "Stirner's Critics", written by Stirner in response to Feuerbach and others (in custom with the time, he refers to himself in the third person) :
One might describe this place (if describable) as the place where we come into existence; where we are born (see reference to the modern theorist Julia Kristeva below).
Power
'Power' is of central importance for Stirner, and can best be described as a form of mental creativity, represented as the key to psychological and social possibility of radical change.
In Stirner's sense power, also referred to as the acquisition of 'property', has a broad meaning, ranging from the smile of the child, that acquires its mothers' love, over the sensual and material pleasures and meanings of taking what one desires, to the wholesale attribution of meaning, value and existence in language and life. Power in this sense is synonymous with the dynamics of utter autonomy, and the ability of change, of existence, of life itself.
Stirner as Hegelian?
Stirner's critique of Hegel shows a profound awareness of Hegel's work, and, argued by scholars such as Karl Löwith and Lawrence Stepelevich, suggests a vital influence of Hegel's thinking, in Stirner's intellectual development and line of thinking -- even if Stirner's mature philosophy may comprise a thorough repudiation of Hegelianism, in form as well as content.
Stirner employs some of the most important elements of Hegelian structure and many of Hegel's basic presuppositions to arrive at his conclusions. Stepelevich argues, that while The Ego and his own evidently has an "un-Hegelian structure and tone to the work as a whole", as well as being fundamentally hostile to Hegel's conclusions about the self and the world, this does not mean that Hegel and Stirner are not related on the most intimate level.
In other words, to go beyond Hegel in true dialectical fashion is to continue Hegel's project, and Stepelevich argues persuasively that this effort of Stirner's is, in fact a completion of Hegel's project.
Stepelevich concludes his argument referring to Jean Hyppolite, who in summing up the intention of the Phenomenology, stated : "The history of the world is finished; all that is needed is for the specific individual to rediscover it in himself."
Influence
Stirner's work did not go unnoticed among his colleagues, the Young Hegelians. Stirner's attacks on ideology, in particular Feuerbach's humanism, forced Feuerbach into print. Moses Hess (at that time close to Marx) and Szeliga (an adherent of Bruno Bauer) also replied to Stirner. Stirner answered the criticism in a German periodical, in the article Stirner's Critics (org. Recensenten Stirners, Sept 1845), which clarifies several points of interest to readers of the book - especially in relation to Feuerbach.
To begin with, Engels was spontaneously enthusiastic about the book, and expressed his opinions freely in a letter to Marx. Later, Marx wrote a histrionic indictment of Stirner, co-authored with Engels, spanning several hundred pages (in the original, unexpurgated text) of his book The German Ideology (org. Die deutsche Ideologie). The book was written in 1845 - 1846, but not published until 1932. Marx's lengthy, ferocious polemic against Stirner has since been considered an important turning point in Marx's intellectual development from "idealism" to "materialism".
While The German Ideology so assured The Ego and Its Own a place of curious interest among Marxist readers, Marx's ridicule of Stirner has played a significant role in the subsequent marginalization of Stirner's work, in popular and academic discourse.
Over the course of the last hundred and fifty years, Stirner's thinking has proved an intellectual challenge, reminiscent of the challenge Cartesian criticism brought to western philosophy. His philosophy has been characterized as disturbing, sometimes even considered a direct threat to civilization; something that ought not even be mentioned in polite company, and that should be, if encountered by some unfortunate happenstance, examined as briefly as possible and then best forgotten. Stirner's relentlessness in the service of scuttling the most tenaciously held tenets of the Western mindset yields a terrain which bears testimony to the radical threat he posed; most writers who read and were influenced by Stirner failed to make any references to him or The Ego and Its Own at all in their writing. As the renowned art critic Herbert Read has observed, Stirner's book has remained 'stuck in the gizzard' of Western culture since it first appeared.
Several other authors, philosophers and artists have cited, quoted or otherwise referred to Max Stirner. They include Albert Camus (In The Rebel), Benjamin Tucker, Dora Marsden, Georg Brandes, Rudolf Steiner, Robert Anton Wilson, Italian individualist anarchist Frank Brand, the notorious antiartist Marcel Duchamp, several writers of the situationist movement, and Max Ernst, who titled a 1925 painting L'unique et sa propriété. The Italian dictator Benito Mussolini read and was inspired by Stirner, and made several references to him in his newspaper articles, prior to rising to power. His later writings would uphold a view opposed to Stirner, a trajectory mirrored by the composer Richard Wagner.
Since its appearance in 1844, The Ego and Its Own has seen periodic revivals of popular, political and academic interest, based around widely divergent translations and interpretations -- some psychological, others political in their emphasis. Today, many ideas associated with post-left anarchy criticism of ideology and uncompromising individualism - are clearly related to Stirner's. He has also been regarded as pioneering individualist feminism, since his objection to any absolute concept also clearly counts gender roles as 'spooks'. His ideas were also adopted by post-anarchism, with Saul Newman largely in agreement with many of Stirner's criticisms of classical anarchism, including his rejection of revolution and essentialism.
Stirner's demolition of absolute concepts disturbs traditional concepts of attribution of meaning to language and human existence, and can be seen as pioneering a modern media theory which focuses on dynamic conceptions of language and reality, in contrast to reality as subject to any absolute definition. Jean Baudrillard's critique of Marxism and development of a dynamic theory of media, simulation and 'the real' employs some of the same elements Stirner used in his Hegelian critique without, however, making recourse to very much that lies at the heart of the plumb-line libertarian core of Stirner's philosophy. Though many in the poststructuralist camp have championed Stirner's thought, the core tenets of these two entities are wholly incompatible; Stirner would never agree, for example, with that fundamental poststructuralist idea, that as a product of systems, the self is undermined. For Stirner, the self cannot be a mere product of systems. There remains, in the Stirnerian schema, as described in the above, a place deep within the self which language and social systems cannot destroy. This idea finds expression, perhaps, in a concept put forward by the contemporary philosopher Julia Kristeva; the 'semiotic chora', as she calls it, represents a state of mind which predates the inculcation of the social apparatus in the mind of the young child.
References
- Works by Stirner
- Stirner, Max : Der Einzige und sein Eigentum, Leipzig, 1844.
- Stirner, Max : "Stirner's Critics", translated by Frederick M. Gordon from "Recensenten Stirners", in Max Stirner's Kleinere Schriften und Entgegnungen, John Henry Mackay, ed, Berlin, 1914.
- Other resources
- Max Stirner in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, an extensive and recommended introduction
- Svein Olav Nybergs website on Max Stirner, with extensive links to texts and references
- The complete original text in German of "Der Einzige und sein Eigentum"
- The complete English edition of "The Ego and his Own", in the translation of Steven T. Byington.
- Recensenten Stirners / Stirner's Critics bilingual: full text in German / abridged text in English (trans. Frederick M. Gordon)
- Non Serviam, Internet periodical dedicated to Stirner's ideas
- Max Stirner, a durable dissident, 'How Marx and Nietzsche suppressed their colleague Max Stirner and why he has intellectually survived them'
- Stirner Delighted in His Construction — "loves miracles, but can only perform a logical miracle," by Karl Marx
- Nietzsche's initial crisis due to an encounter with Stirner's "The Ego" (of 2002)
- Max Stirner As Hegelian, By Lawrence S. Stepelevichca:Max Stirner
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