The Ego and his Own by Max Stirner (most read books txt) 📕

personal invasion of another's sphere revolts the civic sense; if the

citizen sees that one is dependent on the humor, the pleasure, the will of a

man as individual (i.e. as not as authorized by a "higher power"), at once

he brings his liberalism to the front and shrieks about "arbitrariness." In

fine, the citizen asserts his freedom from what is called orders

(ordonnance): "No one has any business to give me -- orders!" Orders

carries the idea that what I am to do is another man's will, while law does

not express a personal authority of another. The liberty of the commonalty is

liberty or independence from the will of another person, so-called personal or

individual liberty; for being personally free means being only so free that no

other person can dispose of mine, or that what I may or may not do does not

depend on the personal decree of another. The liberty of the press, e. g.,

is such a liberty of liberalism, liberalism fighting only against the coercion

of the censorship as that of personal wilfulness, but otherwise showing itself

extremely inclined and willing to tyrannize over the press by "press laws";

i.e. the civic liberals want liberty of writing for themselves; for, as

they are law-abiding, their writings will not bring them under the law. Only

liberal matter, i.e. only lawful matter, is to be allowed to be printed;

otherwise the "press laws" threaten "press-penalties." If one sees personal

liberty assured, one does not notice at all how, if a new issue happens to

arise, the most glaring unfreedom becomes dominant. For one is rid of orders

indeed, and "no one has any business to give us orders," but one has become so

much the more submissive to the -- law. One is enthralled now in due legal

form.

In the citizen-State there are only "free people," who are compelled to

thousands of things (e. g. to deference, to a confession of faith, etc.).

But what does that amount to? Why, it is only the -- State, the law, not any

man, that compels them!

What does the commonalty mean by inveighing against every personal order,

i.e. every order not founded on the "cause," on "reason"? It is simply

fighting in the interest of the "cause"(67) against the dominion of "persons"!

But the mind's cause is the rational, good, lawful, etc.; that is the "good

cause." The commonalty wants an impersonal ruler.

Furthermore, if the principle is this, that only the cause is to rule man --

to wit, the cause of morality, the cause of legality, etc., then no personal

balking of one by the other may be authorized either (as formerly, e. g. the

commoner was balked of the aristocratic offices, the aristocrat of common

mechanical trades, etc.); free competition must exist. Only through the

thing(68) can one balk another (e. g. the rich man balking the impecunious

man by money, a thing), not as a person. Henceforth only one lordship, the

lordship of the State, is admitted; personally no one is any longer lord of

another. Even at birth the children belong to the State, and to the parents

only in the name of the State, which e. g. does not allow infanticide,

demands their baptism etc.

But all the State's children, furthermore, are of quite equal account in its

eyes ("civic or political equality"), and they may see to it themselves how

they get along with each other; they may compete.

Free competition means nothing else than that every one can present himself,

assert himself, fight, against another. Of course the feudal party set itself

against this, as its existence depended on an absence of competition. The

contests in the time of the Restoration in France had no other substance than

this -- that the bourgeoisie was struggling for free competition, and the

feudalists were seeking to bring back the guild system.

Now, free competition has won, and against the guild system it had to win.

(See below for the further discussion.)

If the Revolution ended in a reaction, this only showed what the Revolution

really was. For every effort arrives at reaction when it *comes to discreet

reflection*, and storms forward in the original action only so long as it is

an intoxication, an "indiscretion." "Discretion" will always be the cue of

the reaction, because discretion sets limits, and liberates what was really

wanted, i. e., the principle, from the initial "unbridledness" and

"unrestrainedness." Wild young fellows, bumptious students, who set aside all

considerations, are really Philistines, since with them, as with the latter,

considerations form the substance of their conduct; only that as swaggerers

they are mutinous against considerations and in negative relations to them,

but as Philistines, later, they give themselves up to considerations and have

positive relations to them. In both cases all their doing and thinking turns

upon "considerations," but the Philistine is reactionary in relation to the

student; he is the wild fellow come to discreet reflection, as the latter is

the unreflecting Philistine. Daily experience confirms the truth of this

transformation, and shows how the swaggerers turn to Philistines in turning

gray.

So, too, the so-called reaction in Germany gives proof that it was only the

discreet continuation of the warlike jubilation of liberty.

The Revolution was not directed against the established, but against the

establishment in question, against a particular establishment. It did away

with this ruler, not with the ruler -- on the contrary, the French were

ruled most inexorably; it killed the old vicious rulers, but wanted to confer

on the virtuous ones a securely established position, i. e., it simply set

virtue in the place of vice. (Vice and virtue, again, are on their part

distinguished from each other only as a wild young fellow from a Philistine.)

Etc.

To this day the revolutionary principle has gone no farther than to assail

only one or another particular establishment, i.e. be reformatory. Much

as may be improved, strongly as "discreet progress" may be adhered to,

always there is only a new master set in the old one's place, and the

overturning is a -- building up. We are still at the distinction of the young

Philistine from the old one. The Revolution began in bourgeois fashion with

the uprising of the third estate, the middle class; in bourgeois fashion it

dries away. It was not the individual man -- and he alone is Man -- that

became free, but the citizen, the citoyen, the political man, who for

that very reason is not Man but a specimen of the human species, and more

particularly a specimen of the species Citizen, a free citizen.

In the Revolution it was not the individual who acted so as to affect the

world's history, but a people; the nation, the sovereign nation, wanted to

effect everything. A fancied I, an idea, e. g. the nation is, appears

acting; the individuals contribute themselves as tools of this idea, and act

as "citizens."

The commonalty has its power, and at the same time its limits, in the

fundamental law of the State, in a charter, in a legitimate(69) or

"just"(70) prince who himself is guided, and rules, according to "rational

laws," in short, in legality. The period of the bourgeoisie is ruled by

the British spirit of legality. An assembly of provincial estates, e. g. is

ever recalling that its authorization goes only so and so far, and that it is

called at all only through favor and can be thrown out again through disfavor.

It is always reminding itself of its -- vocation. It is certainly not to be

denied that my father begot me; but, now that I am once begotten, surely his

purposes in begetting do not concern me a bit and, whatever he may have

called me to, I do what I myself will. Therefore even a called assembly of

estates, the French assembly in the beginning of the Revolution, recognized

quite rightly that it was independent of the caller. It existed, and would

have been stupid if it did not avail itself of the right of existence, but

fancied itself dependent as on a father. The called one no longer has to ask

"what did the caller want when he created me?" but "what do I want after I

have once followed the call?" Not the caller, not the constituents, not the

charter according to which their meeting was called out, nothing will be to

him a sacred, inviolable power. He is authorized for everything that is in

his power; he will know no restrictive "authorization," will not want to be

loyal. This, if any such thing could be expected from chambers at all, would

give a completely egoistic chamber, severed from all navel-string and

without consideration. But chambers are always devout, and therefore one

cannot be surprised if so much half-way or undecided,

i. e., hypocritical, "egoism" parades in them.

The members of the estates are to remain within the limits that are traced

for them by the charter, by the king's will, etc. If they will not or can not

do that, then they are to "step out." What dutiful man could act otherwise,

could put himself, his conviction, and his will as the first thing? Who

could be so immoral as to want to assert himself, even if the body corporate

and everything should go to ruin over it? People keep carefully within the

limits of their authorization; of course one must remain within the limits

of his power anyhow, because no one can do more than he can. "My power, or,

if it be so, powerlessness, be my sole limit, but authorizations only

restraining -- precepts? Should I profess this all-subversive view? No, I am a

-- law-abiding citizen!"

The commonalty professes a morality which is most closely connected with its

essence. The first demand of this morality is to the effect that one should

carry on a solid business, an honourable trade, lead a moral life. Immoral, to

it, is the sharper, the, demirep, the thief, robber, and murderer, the

gamester, the penniless man without a situation, the frivolous man. The

doughty commoner designates the feeling against these "immoral" people as his

"deepest indignation."

All these lack settlement, the solid quality of business, a solid, seemly

life, a fixed income, etc.; in short, they belong, because their existence

does not rest on a secure basis to the dangerous "individuals or isolated

persons," to the dangerous proletariat; they are "individual bawlers" who

offer no "guarantee" and have "nothing to lose," and so nothing to risk. The

forming of family ties, e. g., binds a man: he who is bound furnishes

security, can be taken hold of; not so the street-walker. The