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

against blasphemy. Am I not

to blaspheme on that account? Is this law to be more than an "order" to me? I

put the question.

Solely from the principle that all right and all authority belong to the

collectivity of the people do all forms of government arise. For none of

them lacks this appeal to the collectivity, and the despot, as well as the

president or any aristocracy, acts and commands "in the name of the State."

They are in possession of the "authority of the State," and it is perfectly

indifferent whether, were this possible, the people as a collectivity (all

individuals) exercise this State -- authority, or whether it is only the

representatives of this collectivity, be there many of them as in

aristocracies or one as in monarchies. Always the collectivity is above the

individual, and has a power which is called legitimate, i.e. which is

law.

Over against the sacredness of the State, the individual is only a vessel of

dishonor, in which "exuberance, malevolence, mania for ridicule and slander,

frivolity," etc., are left as soon as he does not deem that object of

veneration, the State, to be worthy of recognition. The spiritual

haughtiness of the servants and subjects of the State has fine penalties

against unspiritual "exuberance."

When the government designates as punishable all play of mind against the

State, the moderate liberals come and opine that fun, satire, wit, humor, must

have free play anyhow, and genius must enjoy freedom. So not the *individual

man indeed, but still genius*, is to be free. Here the State, or in its name

the government, says with perfect right: He who is not for me is against me.

Fun, wit, etc. -- in short, the turning of State affairs into a comedy -- have

undermined States from of old: they are not "innocent." And, further, what

boundaries are to be drawn between guilty and innocent wit, etc.? At this

question the moderates fall into great perplexity, and everything reduces

itself to the prayer that the State (government) would please not be so

sensitive, so ticklish ; that it would not immediately scent malevolence

in "harmless' things, and would in general be a little "more tolerant."

Exaggerated sensitiveness is certainly a weakness, its avoidance may be

praiseworthy virtue; but in time of war one cannot be sparing, and what may be

allowed under peaceable circumstances ceases to be permitted as soon as a

state of siege is declared. Because the well-meaning liberals feel this

plainly, they hasten to declare that, considering "the devotion of the

people," there is assuredly no danger to be feared. But the government will be

wiser, and not let itself be talked into believing anything of that sort. It

knows too well how people stuff one with fine words, and will not let itself

be satisfied with the Barmecide dish.

But they are bound to have their play-ground, for they are children, you know,

and cannot be so staid as old folks; boys will be boys. Only for this

playground, only for a few hours of jolly running about, they bargain. They

ask only that the State should not, like a splenetic papa, be too cross. It

should permit some Processions of the Ass and plays of fools, as the church

allowed them in the Middle Ages. But the times when it could grant this

without danger are past. Children that now once come into the open, and live

through an hour without the rod of discipline, are no longer willing to go

into the cell. For the open is now no longer a supplement to the cell, no

longer a refreshing recreation, but its opposite, an aut-aut. In short,

the State must either no longer put up with anything, or put up with

everything and perish; it must be either sensitive through and through, or,

like a dead man, insensitive. Tolerance is done with. If the State but gives a

finger, they take the whole hand at once. There can be no more "jesting," and

all jest, such as fun, wit, humor, becomes bitter earnest.

The clamor of the Liberals for freedom of the press runs counter to their own

principle, their proper will. They will what they do not will, i.e. they

wish, they would like. Hence it is too that they fall away so easily when once

so-called freedom of the press appears; then they would like censorship. Quite

naturally. The State is sacred even to them; likewise morals. They behave

toward it only as ill-bred brats, as tricky children who seek to utilize the

weaknesses of their parents. Papa State is to permit them to say many things

that do not please him, but papa has the right, by a stern look, to

blue-pencil their impertinent gabble. If they recognize in him their papa,

they must in his presence put up with the censorship of speech, like every

child.

If you let yourself be made out in the right by another, you must no less let

yourself be made out in the wrong by him; if justification and reward come to

you from him, expect also his arraignment and punishment. Alongside right goes

wrong, alongside legality crime. What are you? -- You are a -- criminal!

"The criminal is in the utmost degree the State's own crime!" says

Bettina.(26) One may let this sentiment pass, even if Bettina herself does not

understand it exactly so. For in the State the unbridled I -- I, as I belong

to myself alone -- cannot come to my fulfillment and realization. Every ego is

from birth a criminal to begin with against the people, the State. Hence it is

that it does really keep watch over all; it sees in each one an -- egoist, and

it is afraid of the egoist. It presumes the worst about each one, and takes

care, police-care, that "no harm happens to the State," *ne quid respublica

detrimenti capiat*. The unbridled ego -- and this we originally are, and in

our secret inward parts we remain so always -- is the never-ceasing criminal

in the State. The man whom his boldness, his will, his inconsiderateness and

fearlessness lead is surrounded with spies by the State, by the people. I say,

by the people! The people (think it something wonderful, you good-hearted

folks, what you have in the people) -- the people is full of police sentiments

through and through. -- Only he who renounces his ego, who practices

"self-renunciation," is acceptable to the people.

In the book cited Bettina is throughout good-natured enough to regard the

State as only sick, and to hope for its recovery, a recovery which she would

bring about through the "demagogues";(27) but it is not sick; rather is it in

its full strength, when it puts from it the demagogues who want to acquire

something for the individuals, for "all." In its believers it is provided with

the best demagogues (leaders of the people). According to Bettina, the State

is to(28) "develop mankind's germ of freedom; otherwise it is a

raven-mother(29) and caring for raven-fodder!" It cannot do otherwise, for in

its very caring for "mankind" (which, besides, would have to be the "humane"

or " free" State to begin with) the "individual" is raven-fodder for it. How

rightly speaks the burgomaster, on the other hand:(30) "What? the State has no

other duty than to be merely the attendant of incurable invalids? -- that

isn't to the point. From of old the healthy State has relieved itself of the

diseased matter, and not mixed itself with it. It does not need to be so

economical with its juices. Cut off the robber-branches without hesitation,

that the others may bloom. -- Do not shiver at the State's harshness; its

morality, its policy and religion, point it to that. Accuse it of no want of

feeling; its sympathy revolts against this, but its experience finds safety

only in this severity! There are diseases in which only drastic remedies will

help. The physician who recognizes the disease as such, but timidly turns to

palliatives, will never remove the disease, but may well cause the patient to

succumb after a shorter or longer sickness." Frau Rat's question, "If you

apply death as a drastic remedy, how is the cure to be wrought then?" isn't to

the point. Why, the State does not apply death against itself, but against an

offensive member; it tears out an eye that offends it, etc.

"For the invalid State the only way of salvation is to make man flourish in

it."(31) If one here, like Bettina, understand by man the concept "Man," she

is right; the "invalid" State will recover by the flourishing of "Man," for,

the more infatuated the individuals are with "Man," the better it serves the

State's turn. But, if one referred it to the individuals, to "all" (and the

authoress half-does this too, because about "Man" she is still involved in

vagueness), then it would sound somewhat like the following: For an invalid

band of robbers the only way of salvation is to make the loyal citizen nourish

in it! Why, thereby the band of robbers would simply go to ruin as a band of

robbers; and, because it perceives this, it prefers to shoot every one who has

a leaning toward becoming a "steady man."

In this book Bettina is a patriot, or, what is little more, a philanthropist,

a worker for human happiness. She is discontented with the existing order in

quite the same way as is the title-ghost of her book, along with all who would

like to bring back the good old faith and what goes with it. Only she thinks,

contrariwise, that the politicians, place-holders, and diplomats ruined the

State, while those lay it at the door of the malevolent, the "seducers of the

people."

What is the ordinary criminal but one who has committed the fatal mistake of

endeavoring after what is the people's instead of seeking for what is his? He

has sought despicable alien goods, has done what believers do who seek after

what is God's. What does the priest who admonishes the criminal do? He sets

before him the great wrong of having desecrated by his act what was hallowed

by the State, its property (in which, of course, must be included even the

life of those who belong to the State); instead of this, he might rather hold

up to him the fact that he has befouled himself in not despising the alien

thing, but thinking it worth stealing; he could, if he were not a parson. Talk

with the so-called criminal as with an egoist, and he will be ashamed, not

that he transgressed against your laws and goods, but that he considered your

laws worth evading, your goods worth desiring; he will be ashamed that he did

not -- despise you and yours together, that he was too little an egoist. But

you cannot talk egoistically with him, for you are not so