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

thought. If a union(90) has crystallized into a society, it has ceased to be a

coalition;(91) for coalition is an incessant self-uniting; it has become a

unitedness, come to a standstill, degenerated into a fixity; it is -- dead

as a union, it is the corpse of the union or the coalition, i.e. it is

--society, community. A striking example of this kind is furnished by the

party.

That a society (e. g. the society of the State) diminishes my liberty

offends me little. Why, I have to let my liberty be limited by all sorts of

powers and by every one who is stronger; nay, by every fellow-man; and, were I

the autocrat of all the R......, I yet should not enjoy absolute liberty. But

ownness I will not have taken from me. And ownness is precisely what every

society has designs on, precisely what is to succumb to its power.

A society which I join does indeed take from me many liberties, but in return

it affords me other liberties; neither does it matter if I myself deprive

myself of this and that liberty (e. g. by any contract). On the other hand,

I want to hold jealously to my ownness. Every community has the propensity,

stronger or weaker according to the fullness of its power, to become an

authority to its members and to set limits for them: it asks, and must

ask, for a "subject's limited understanding"; it asks that those who belong to

it be subjected to it, be its "subjects"; it exists only by subjection. In

this a certain tolerance need by no means be excluded; on the contrary, the

society will welcome improvements, corrections, and blame, so far as such are

calculated for its gain: but the blame must be "well-meaning," it may not be

"insolent and disrespectful" -- in other words, one must leave uninjured, and

hold sacred, the substance of the society. The society demands that those who

belong to it shall not go beyond it and exalt themselves, but remain "within

the bounds of legality," e. g., allow themselves only so much as the society

and its law allow them.

There is a difference whether my liberty or my ownness is limited by a

society. If the former only is the case, it is a coalition, an agreement, a

union; but, if ruin is threatened to ownness, it is a power of itself, a

power above me, a thing unattainable by me, which I can indeed admire,

adore, reverence, respect, but cannot subdue and consume, and that for the

reason that I am resigned. It exists by my resignation, my

self-renunciation, my spiritlessness,(92) called --

HUMILITY.(93) My humility makes its courage,(94) my submissiveness gives it

its dominion.

But in reference to liberty, State and union are subject to no essential

difference. The latter can just as little come into existence, or continue in

existence, without liberty's being limited in all sorts of ways, as the State

is compatible with unmeasured liberty. Limitation of liberty is inevitable

everywhere, for one cannot get rid of everything; one cannot fly like a bird

merely because one would like to fly so, for one does not get free from his

own weight; one cannot live under water as long as he likes, like a fish,

because one cannot do without air and cannot get free from this indispensable

necessity; etc. As religion, and most decidedly Christianity, tormented man

with the demand to realize the unnatural and self- contradictory, so it is to

be looked upon only as the true logical outcome of that religious

over-straining and overwroughtness that finally *liberty itself, absolute

liberty*, was exalted into an ideal, and thus the nonsense of the impossible

to come glaringly to the light. -- The union will assuredly offer a greater

measure of liberty, as well as (and especially because by it one escapes all

the coercion peculiar to State and society life) admit of being considered as

"a new liberty"; but nevertheless it will still contain enough of unfreedom

and involuntariness. For its object is not this -- liberty (which on the

contrary it sacrifices to ownness), but only ownness. Referred to this, the

difference between State and union is great enough. The former is an enemy and

murderer of ownness, the latter a son and co-worker of it; the former a

spirit that would be adored in spirit and in truth, the latter my work, my

product ; the State is the lord of my spirit, who demands faith and prescribes

to me articles of faith, the creed of legality; it exerts moral influence,

dominates my spirit, drives away my ego to put itself in its place as "my true

ego" -- in short, the State is sacred, and as against me, the individual man,

it is the true man, the spirit, the ghost; but the union is my own creation,

my creature, not sacred, not a spiritual power above my spirit, as little as

any association of whatever sort. As I am not willing to be a slave of my

maxims, but lay them bare to my continual criticism without any warrant, and

admit no bail at all for their persistence, so still less do I obligate myself

to the union for my future and pledge my soul to it, as is said to be done

with the devil, and is really the case with the State and all spiritual

authority; but I am and remain more to myself than State, Church, God, etc.;

consequently infinitely more than the union too.

That society which Communism wants to found seems to stand nearest to

coalition. For it is to aim at the "welfare of all," oh, yes, of all, cries

Weitling innumerable times, of all! That does really look as if in it no one

needed to take a back seat. But what then will this welfare be? Have all one

and the same welfare, are all equally well off with one and the same thing? If

that be so, the question is of the "true welfare." Do we not with this come

right to the point where religion begins its dominion of violence?

Christianity says, Look not on earthly toys, but seek your true welfare,

become -- pious Christians; being Christians is the true welfare. It is the

true welfare of "all," because it is the welfare of Man as such (this spook).

Now, the welfare of all is surely to be your and my welfare too? But, if

you and I do not look upon that welfare as our welfare, will care then be

taken for that in which we feel well? On the contrary, society has decreed a

welfare as the "true welfare," if this welfare were called e. g. "enjoyment

honestly worked for"; but if you preferred enjoyable laziness, enjoyment

without work, then society, which cares for the "welfare of all," would wisely

avoid caring for that in which you are well off. Communism, in proclaiming the

welfare of all, annuls outright the well-being of those who hitherto lived on

their income from investments and apparently felt better in that than in the

prospect of Weitling's strict hours of labor. Hence the latter asserts that

with the welfare of thousands the welfare of millions cannot exist, and the

former must give up their special welfare "for the sake of the general

welfare." No, let people not be summoned to sacrifice their special welfare

for the general, for this Christian admonition will not carry you through;

they will better understand the opposite admonition, not to let their own

welfare be snatched from them by anybody, but to put it on a permanent

foundation. Then they are of themselves led to the point that they care best

for their welfare if they unite with others for this purpose, e. g.,

"sacrifice a part of their liberty," yet not to the welfare of others, but to

their own. An appeal to men's self-sacrificing disposition end self-

renouncing love ought at least to have lost its seductive plausibility when,

after an activity of thousands of years, it has left nothing behind but the --

misère of today. Why then still fruitlessly expect self-sacrifice to bring

us better time? Why not rather hope for them from usurpation? Salvation

comes no longer from the giver, the bestower, the loving one, but from the

taker, the appropriator (usurper), the owner. Communism, and, consciously,

egoism-reviling humanism, still count on love.

If community is once a need of man, and he finds himself furthered by it in

his aims, then very soon, because it has become his principle, it prescribes

to him its laws too, the laws of -- society. The principle of men exalts

itself into a sovereign power over them, becomes their supreme essence, their

God, and, as such -- law-giver. Communism gives this principle the strictest

effect, and Christianity is the religion of society, for, as Feuerbach rightly

says, although he does not mean it rightly, love is the essence of man; *e.

g.*, the essence of society or of societary (Communistic) man. All religion is

a cult of society, this principle by which societary (cultivated) man is

dominated; neither is any god an ego's exclusive god, but always a society's

or community's, be it of the society, "family" (Lar, Penates) or of a "people"

("national god") or of "all men" ("he is a Father of all men").

Consequently one has a prospect of extirpating religion down to the ground

only when one antiquates society and everything that flows from this

principle. But it is precisely in Communism that this principle seeks to

culminate, as in it everything is to become common for the establishment of

-- "equality." If this "equality" is won, "liberty" too is not lacking. But

whose liberty? Society's! Society is then all in all, and men are only "for

each other." It would be the glory of the -- love-State.

But I would rather be referred to men's selfishness than to their

"kindnesses,"(95) their mercy, pity, etc. The former demands reciprocity (as

thou to me, so I to thee), does nothing "gratis," and may be won and --

bought. But with what shall I obtain the kindness? It is a matter of chance

whether I am at the time having to do with a "loving" person. The affectionate

one's service can be had only by -- begging, be it by my lamentable

appearance, by my need of help, my misery, my -- suffering. What can I offer

him for his assistance? Nothing! I must accept it as a --present. Love is

unpayable, or rather, love can assuredly be paid for, but only by

counter-love ("One good turn deserves another"). What paltriness and

beggarliness does it not take to accept gifts year in and year out without

service in return, as they are regularly collected e. g. from the poor

day-laborer? What can the receiver