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

the wrong, deprived them of their right; in any

other case he can do nothing but clench his little fist in his pocket, or fall

a victim as an obtrusive fool.

In short, if you Chinese or Japanese did not ask after right, and in

particular if you did not ask after the rights "that were born with you," then

you would not need to ask at all after the well-earned rights either.

You start back in fright before others, because you think you see beside them

the ghost of right, which, as in the Homeric combats, seems to fight as a

goddess at their side, helping them. What do you do? Do you throw the spear?

No, you creep around to gain the spook over to yourselves, that it may fight

on your side: you woo for the ghost's favor. Another would simply ask thus: Do

I will what my opponent wills? "No!" Now then, there may fight for him a

thousand devils or gods, I go at him all the same!

The "commonwealth of right," as the Vossische Zeitung among others stands

for it, asks that office-holders be removable only by the judge, not by the

administration. Vain illusion! If it were settled by law that an

office-holder who is once seen drunken shall lose his office, then the judges

would have to condemn him on the word of the witnesses. In short, the

law-giver would only have to state precisely all the possible grounds which

entail the loss of office, however laughable they might be (e. g. he who

laughs in his superiors' faces, who does not go to church every Sunday, who

does not take the communion every four weeks, who runs in debt, who has

disreputable associates, who shows no determination, etc., shall be removed.

These things the law-giver might take it into his head to prescribe, e. g.,

for a court of honor); then the judge would solely have to investigate whether

the accused had "become guilty" of those "offenses," and, on presentation of

the proof, pronounce sentence of removal against him "in the name of the law."

The judge is lost when he ceases to be mechanical, when he "is forsaken by

the rules of evidence." Then he no longer has anything but an opinion like

everybody else; and, if he decides according to this opinion, his action is

no longer an official action. As judge he must decide only according to the

law. Commend me rather to the old French parliaments, which wanted to examine

for themselves what was to be matters of right, and to register it only after

their own approval. They at least judged according to a right of their own,

and were not willing to give themselves up to be machines of the law-giver,

although as judges they must, to be sure, become their own machines.

It is said that punishment is the criminal's right. But impunity is just as

much his right. If his undertaking succeeds, it serves him right, and, if it

does not succeed, it likewise serves him right. You make your bed and lie in

it. If some one goes foolhardily into dangers and perishes in them, we are apt

to say, "It serves him right; he would have it so." But, if he conquered the

dangers, i.e. if his might was victorious, then he would be in the right

too. If a child plays with the knife and gets cut, it is served right; but, if

it doesn't get cut, it is served right too. Hence right befalls the criminal,

doubtless, when he suffers what he risked; why, what did he risk it for, since

he knew the possible consequences? But the punishment that we decree against

him is only our right, not his. Our right reacts against his, and he is -- "in

the wrong at last" because -- we get the upper hand.

But what is right, what is matter of right in a society, is voiced too -- in

the law.(23)

Whatever the law may be, it must be respected by the -- loyal citizen. Thus

the law-abiding mind of Old England is eulogized. To this that Euripidean

sentiment (Orestes, 418) entirely corresponds: "We serve the gods, whatever

the gods are." Law as such, God as such, thus far we are today.

People are at pains to distinguishlaw from arbitrary orders, from an

ordinance: the former comes from a duly entitled authority. But a law over

human action (ethical law, State law, etc.) is always a declaration of will,

and so an order. Yes, even if I myself gave myself the law, it would yet be

only my order, to which in the next moment I can refuse obedience. One may

well enough declare what he will put up with, and so deprecate the opposite of

the law, making known that in the contrary case he will treat the transgressor

as his enemy; but no one has any business to command my actions, to say what

course I shall pursue and set up a code to govern it. I must put up with it

that he treats me as his enemy, but never that he makes free with me as his

creature, and that he makes his reason, or even unreason, my plumbline.

States last only so long as there is a ruling will and this ruling will is

looked upon as tantamount to the own will. The lord's will is -- law. What do

your laws amount to if no one obeys them? What your orders, if nobody lets

himself be ordered? The State cannot forbear the claim to determine the

individual's will, to speculate and count on this. For the State it is

indispensable that nobody have an own will ; if one had, the State would

have to exclude (lock up, banish, etc.) this one; if all had, they would do

away with the State. The State is not thinkable without lordship and servitude

(subjection); for the State must will to be the lord of all that it embraces,

and this will is called the "will of the State."

He who, to hold his own, must count on the absence of will in others is a

thing made by these others, as the master is a thing made by the servant. If

submissiveness ceased, it would be over with all lordship.

The own will of Me is the State's destroyer; it is therefore branded by the

State as "self-will." Own will and the State are powers in deadly hostility,

between which no "eternal peace" is possible. As long as the State asserts

itself, it represents own will, its ever-hostile opponent, as unreasonable,

evil; and the latter lets itself be talked into believing this -- nay, it

really is such, for no more reason than this, that it still lets itself be

talked into such belief: it has not yet come to itself and to the

consciousness of its dignity; hence it is still incomplete, still amenable to

fine words, etc.

Every State is a despotism, be the despot one or many, or (as one is likely

to imagine about a republic) if all be lords, i. e. despotize one over

another. For this is the case when the law given at any time, the expressed

volition of (it may be) a popular assembly, is thenceforth to be law for the

individual, to which obedience is due from him or toward which he has the

duty of obedience. If one were even to conceive the case that every

individual in the people had expressed the same will, and hereby a complete

"collective will" had come into being, the matter would still remain the same.

Would I not be bound today and henceforth to my will of yesterday? My will

would in this case be frozen. Wretched stability! My creature -- to wit, a

particular expression of will -- would have become my commander. But I in my

will, I the creator, should be hindered in my flow and my dissolution. Because

I was a fool yesterday I must remain such my life long. So in the State-life I

am at best -- I might just as well say, at worst -- a bondman of myself.

Because I was a willer yesterday, I am today without will: yesterday

voluntary, today involuntary.

How change it? Only be recognizing no duty, not binding myself nor letting

myself be bound. If I have no duty, then I know no law either.

"But they will bind me!" My will nobody can bind, and my disinclination

remains free.

"Why, everything must go topsy-turvy if every one could do what he would!"

Well, who says that every one can do everything? What are you there for, pray,

you who do not need to put up with everything? Defend yourself, and no one

will do anything to you! He who would break your will has to do with you, and

is your enemy. Deal with him as such. If there stand behind you for your

protection some millions more, then you are an imposing power and will have an

easy victory. But, even if as a power you overawe your opponent, still you are

not on that account a hallowed authority to him, unless he be a simpleton. He

does not owe you respect and regard, even though he will have to consider your

might.

We are accustomed to classify States according to the different ways in which

"the supreme might" is distributed. If an individual has it -- monarchy; if

all have it -- democracy; etc. Supreme might then! Might against whom? Against

the individual and his "self-will." The State practices "violence," the

individual must not do so. The State's behavior is violence, and it calls its

violence "law"; that of the individual, "crime." Crime, then(24) -- so the

individual's violence is called; and only by crime does he overcome(25) the

State's violence when he thinks that the State is not above him, but he is

above the State.

Now, if I wanted to act ridiculously, I might, as a well-meaning person,

admonish you not to make laws which impair my self-development, self-activity,

self-creation. I do not give this advice. For, if you should follow it, you

would be unwise, and I should have been cheated of my entire profit. I request

nothing at all from you; for, whatever I might demand, you would still be

dictatorial law-givers, and must be so, because a raven cannot sing, nor a

robber live without robbery. Rather do I ask those who would be egoists what

they think the more egoistic -- to let laws be given them by you, and to

respect those that are given, or to practice refractoriness, yes, complete

disobedience. Good-hearted people think the laws ought to prescribe only what

is accepted in the people's feeling as right and proper. But what concern is

it of mine what is accepted in the nation and by the nation? The nation will

perhaps be against the blasphemer; therefore a law