T.E.M.
Number of posts: 281
Registration date: 2008-12-04
 | | Subject: Re: Anyone Familiar with Max Stirner? Thu Dec 04, 2008 3:32 pm | |
| I'm probably going to the library soon to check out "The Ego and His Own." I downloaded a pdf read about 52.4% of it a few months ago but put it back the (figurative) shelf.
I stopped reading it because Stirner has a really confusing writing style and because I don't like reading long stuff online. It also challenged a lot of my core beliefs like natural rights so it made me a bit uncomfortable. And of course, I have a talent for procrastination like no other, it's more of an art form for me than a bad habit.
...but at this point I've decided that morality is an unecessary and often harmful concept. I also like Stirner's ideas on enslaving yourself to concepts which often have no logical basis and only an imagined utility and the deleterious effects this can have on one's psyche. |
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Guest
Guest
| | Subject: Re: Anyone Familiar with Max Stirner? Fri Dec 12, 2008 2:12 pm | |
| It also challenged a lot of my core beliefs like natural rights so it made me a bit uncomfortable.
LA Rollins has an excellent critique of 'natural rights' that I have on pdf if you want, he was influenced by Stirner. (though I think Anthony De Jasay's is more telling by exposing 'natural rights' as an anti-liberal concept).
I also like Stirner's ideas on enslaving yourself to concepts which often have no logical basis and only an imagined utility and the deleterious effects this can have on one's psyche.
Stirner also has much clearer views on what personal liberty means, even as compared to most radical libertarians at present; IE he sees that liberty is personal and self-generated and that even the lovers of liberty are slaves to one sort of nonsense or another. He also dismisses primitavism and anti-culturalism (common among modern 'anarchists') by saying that he does not give up lightly what his anscestors have bequeathed. His concept of a union of egoists was noteworthy because he was well aware that unions for self-gain are the most reliable and that private individuals were not only capable of production and protection but in fact were doing it all along (The State merely being an imaginary creature in the mind of its slaves). LIkewise he realized that the ideological legitemacy of states is what gives them their power over people.
"If submissiveness ceased, it would be all over with lordship."- Max Stirner |
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T.E.M.
Number of posts: 281
Registration date: 2008-12-04
| | Subject: Re: Anyone Familiar with Max Stirner? Sun Dec 14, 2008 4:13 pm | |
| | vichy wrote: | It also challenged a lot of my core beliefs like natural rights so it made me a bit uncomfortable.
LA Rollins has an excellent critique of 'natural rights' that I have on pdf if you want, he was influenced by Stirner. (though I think Anthony De Jasay's is more telling by exposing 'natural rights' as an anti-liberal concept). |
Sounds interesting; I'd like to give it a read. I find libertarians are generally a bit religious about the natural rights. I kind of think of my own apostasy from it like John Stuart Mills disillusionment with utilitarianism. I imagined a world with 100% respect of natural rights and realized that it may (but not necessarilly) be even more boring than our current world. Of course, I also found a lot of philosophical flaws in such views; not to mention not wanting to give up some hobbies that violate natural rights in a minor way.
| vichy wrote: |
I also like Stirner's ideas on enslaving yourself to concepts which often have no logical basis and only an imagined utility and the deleterious effects this can have on one's psyche.[/i]
Stirner also has much clearer views on what personal liberty means, even as compared to most radical libertarians at present; IE he sees that liberty is personal and self-generated and that even the lovers of liberty are slaves to one sort of nonsense or another. He also dismisses primitavism and anti-culturalism (common among modern 'anarchists') by saying that he does not give up lightly what his anscestors have bequeathed. His concept of a union of egoists was noteworthy because he was well aware that unions for self-gain are the most reliable and that private individuals were not only capable of production and protection but in fact were doing it all along (The State merely being an imaginary creature in the mind of its slaves). LIkewise he realized that the ideological legitemacy of states is what gives them their power over people.
"If submissiveness ceased, it would be all over with lordship."- Max Stirner |
I'm not sure I understand what Stirner is saying in that last quote. I agree though, that Stirner has much more clear views on personal liberty than most libs today. Some more extreme natural rights views remind me of puritanism; just like the Chassidic Jews who carry around a little book to keep track of their sins, some people want an objective morality to tell them what to do in literally every situation. Sounds tedious to me.
Although I must say that sometimes I can be just a bit of a primitivist. I like computers and all that, but I tend to prefer food cooked over an wood burning flame to stoves and microwaves. I generally think that we tend to just assume things will be better with every new technology when really it just makes things more annoying. Of course primitivism is the opposite: assuming that new technology will always make things worse. |
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RJMII
Number of posts: 49
Age: 28
Registration date: 2008-12-14
| | Subject: Re: Anyone Familiar with Max Stirner? Fri Dec 19, 2008 1:39 pm | |
| | Quote: | Although I must say that sometimes I can be just
a bit of a primitivist. I like computers and all that, but I tend to
prefer food cooked over an wood burning flame to stoves and microwaves. |
That is not primitivism, that is rational behaviour. Wood fires are technologically superior to your purposes than microwaves. Most people find some things unsuitable for microwave ovens, and some dishes unable to survive a dish washer. |
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