Tell me one valid reason why Stiner wasn't right

Tell me one valid reason why Stiner wasn't right.

pro tip: memes aren't a valid reason

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He was so right about everything he spooked philosophers for decades to come.

marx debunked him less than a decade later though

>debunked him
And yet he was so incredibly hesitant to publish that debunking
Stirner scared a lot of prominent thinkers, rightly so.
>Karl Marx: like Nietzsche's, his reaction to Stirner deserves to be emphasized here, owing to its era-forming impact. Marx believed as late as the summer of 1844 that Feuerbach was "the only one who had achieved a true theoretical revolution." The appearance of »Der Einzige« in October, 1844, shook this outlook to the core, because Marx very clearly experienced the depth and implications of Stirner's criticism. While others, including Engels, initially admired Stirner, Marx saw from the beginning in him an enemy who needed to be annihilated.

>Marx had originally planned to write a review of »Der Einzige.« However, he soon forsook this plan, instead choosing first to wait for the reactions of the others (Feuerbach, Bauer). In his polemic work, »The Holy Family. Against Bruno Bauer and Company« (March, 1845), Stirner was simply left out. In September, 1845, Feuerbach's criticism of »Der Einzige« appeared -- and at the same time, Stirner's brilliant reply to it. Now Marx felt personally provoked to intervene. He interrupted important, previously commissioned works in order to storm upon »Der Einzige.« His criticism of Stirner, »Sankt Max,« which was full of invectives directed at the "flimsiest skull among the philosophers," turned out to be even longer than »Der Einzige« itself. Yet after the completion of the manuscript, Marx must have wavered again in his choice of tactics, as the criticism of Stirner remained in the end unprinted.

Stirner was right

Egoism is a spook.

>The outcome of his privately led dispute with Stirner manifested itself in the form of Marx at last turning away from Feuerbach and designing a philosophy that, unlike Feuerbach's, should be immune to a Stirnerian criticism: the so-called historical materialism. Yet Marx seemed at that time to have considered his new theory as being only a provisional arrangement, because he left it in the drawer along with »Sankt Max.« Desiring in any case to avoid a public discussion with Stirner, he threw himself instead into political life, into feuds with Proudhon, Lassalle, Bakunin, and others. In the end, he was successful in fully suppressing the "Stirner" problem -- both in the psychological sense as well as in that of the history of theories.

>The historical aftermath of Marx's pioneering achievements in the area of repression becomes clear when one investigates how Marxist researchers of all lines of thought later looked at Stirner and assessed his influence on Marx. In an astonishingly unanimous way, they accepted without criticism the representation which Engels had given in 1888 in his popular book, »Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy.« Engels mentions Stirner in the book only casually as a "curiosity" in the "process of disintegration of the Hegel school of thought" and celebrates Feuerbach as the thinker who had superseded it.

>Some thinkers, to be certain, perceived that Stirner, although officially considered a narrow-minded forerunner of Nietzsche, was the more radical of the two philosophers. Yet they were the ones who neglected to come to a public confrontation with Stirner. Edmund Husserl once warned a small audience about the "seducing power" of »Der Einzige« -- but never mentioned it in his writing. Carl Schmitt was as a young man deeply moved by the book -- and maintained his silence about it until "haunted" again by Stirner while in the misery and loneliness of a prison cell (1947). Max Adler, Austromarxist theorist, privately wrestled his whole life with the ideas in Stirner's »Der Einzige.« Georg Simmel instinctively avoided Stirner's "peculiar brand of individualism." Rudolf Steiner, originally an engaged, enlightened journalist, was spontaneously inspired by Stirner; however, he soon believed Stirner was leading him "to the edge of an abyss" and converted to theosophy. Lastly, the anarchists on whom Stirner is often pushed as a precursor either kept a silent distance (for example, Proudhon, Bakunin, Kropotkin) or had a lasting ambivalent relationship to him (Landauer).

>Prominent philosophers of our time voice a shudder of their own when confronting the principal idea in »Der Einzige,« which they conceive as being unfathomably demonic. Leszek Kolakowski said that Stirner, next to whom "even Nietzsche seems weak and inconsequent," is indeed irrefutable; nevertheless, he must be banished at any cost, because he destroys "the only tool that enables us to make ethical values our own: tradition." Stirner's aim of "destruction of alienation, i.e. the return to authenticity would be nothing but the destruction of culture, a return to an animal state ... to a pre-human condition." Hans Heinz Holz warned that "Stirner's egoism, were it to become actualized, would lead to the self-destruction of the human race."

Please not this again. A spook is a non-corporeal idea like "the society", "morality" or "god". Egoism is a trait in someone. Striner did for example say the nationalists are right in that you cannot forsake your nationality.

>Hans Heinz Holz warned that "Stirner's egoism, were it to become actualized, would lead to the self-destruction of the human race.
It is time we form an egoist society for the purpose of destroying humanity as we know it so there will be no limit placed upon our desires

Being right is a spook

lsr-projekt.de/poly/eninnuce.html

required reading on stirner desu

How should I begin reading Stirner?
I have very little philosophical background, but from what I hear he has very interesting positions

read this firstto peek your interest
Then read the Ego, then Stirner's critics. He's not that difficult, so you'll be fine.

From that article, should I read some Hegel to understand where Stirner's criticism is coming from?

I wouldn't recommend reading Hegel himself, maybe some introductory secundary lit to familiarise yourself with him. You just have to keep in mind that The Ego is dialectically structured in a very satirical way.

>not "the ectoplasm of spooks"

Thanks
I've been trying to get a real start in philosophy and it's been really hard to find something where I can get a grasp without reading tons of percursor literature first

And that's it folks...........

......how Stoner become Veeky Forums next winters cup Player...........

Kinda wish more leftist would realize this every time the say "racism is a spook, ethnicity is a spook," so on..

bump

can someone give me the short version of why this guy is such a big deal?

Spooks, my property.

He is a philosopher whose ideas shit on almost everyone else's. His impact was fairly large in his time, although only a few actually responded to his arguments (which can be taken as a sign of Stirner being correct). His ideas also cause a lot of extreme emotions as they go against literally every ideology, religion and moral system.

>they go against literally every ideology, religion and moral system
now I'm interested
how is this possible?

His idea is simple.

All value-systems are based on axioms which are asserted, not proven, and which can be wholesale rejected if you do not agree to the fundamental premise involved.

In short, he revealed that all other philosophies are based ultimately on mere volition, which is why ethical and political philosophers can never agree about anything.

Utilitarianism is based on the idea of greatest pleasure for the greatest number, if you respond "I don't care about that", all the element flowery philosophy to follow falls dead.

Virtue ethics, if you don't care about happiness/flourishing/etc, same result.

Every single political and ethical system is based on an appeal and an axiom, and moreso on the actual desires of rational agents, and can be defeated wholesale by simply not giving a shit, or by denying the fundamental assertion.

That's extremely simple and if that's what his philosophy is, I will never read his books.

Of course this is all well and good until you realise that philosophy is actually supposed to explain things. Writers in virtue ethics (see Alisdair MacIntyre) have explained the same phenomenon in a way that actually yields greater understanding of human society, by appealing to culture and authority as the origin of value-systems and axioms. Stirner is just a joke, and worse, an edgy joke

Because Stirner claims serving "higher powers" which he calls spooks is madness. This includes ideologies (although indirectly, for example communists serve "society"), religions (god) and morality, which is the law of whatever higher power the person serves. According to Stirner, only following one's self-interest without caring about rights (which he doesn't think exist), morals or anything else is sane behavior.

Descriptive philosophy is different than prescriptive philosophy.

It stretches deeper and more complicated then that, but that is the initial revelation. It extends further with the realization that all our ethical/political systems are purely mental constructions, having only the power and influence they are believed to have, and do not "exist" in the same fashion as phenomena.

These two ideas, that values are axiomatic assertions, and that ideas are purely mental construction, leads him to the conclusion that the world is "haunted", that is, that the overwhelming majority of things people interact with on a daily basis or invoke for their decision-making process are consensual illusions, shared mental constructs. Spooks.

What the person you responded to is saying is not what Stirner focuses on. He spends most of the time explaining the logical inconsistencies in valuing for example humanity. I do recommend reading at least The Ego And Its Own. I enjoyed his writing style and it is entertaining to see him btfo of nationalists, liberals, communists and pretty much everyone else at the same time.

Your desire that these things are substantive being doesn't actually make them have so. Saying that your ghosts are derived from other ghosts doesn't make them stop being purely mental constructions based on axioms.

The only way to "answer" Stirner would be to somehow prove that certain values are inherent in consciousness itself, which would in turn mean that speaking of "opposing value-sets" and "differing axioms" would be meaningless, since all were subordinated to those fundamental desires.

Yet, I have yet to see any evidence of such universal desires [not for lack of trying mind you]

Stirnet does offer solutions though. What every philosopher of morality does is try to generslixe and look for something divine in something earthly. For example, you value humanity. That means you only value things you can see the higher power humanity in, something that is divine to you. A person like that only sees the general in an unique person and values him only as such.

Stirner opposes that and sees value in an individual for his use to him, in the individuals unique qualities. He doesn't think it's reasonable to start looking for the divine in everything, including other humans. In a way, he cares more about humans than the most moral man on earth.

what about epicurianism? or am I misunderstanding that? what about hedonism?

oh, also what about determinism? and what about solipsism?

anyway aside from the possible exceptions it seems like kind of an obvious truth that your participation and relevance to any given thing or process are all based in your own mind, but I understand how lots of people would take exception to it

It's good for pissing off the circle jerking neckbeards that are philosophers

I don't know about real life but the reason he's a big deal on Veeky Forums and Veeky Forums is
1. The iconic drawing of him
2. It's fun to call things spooks
3. His ideas are were very contrarian

Stirner is just a left wing Nietzsche

How is "I don't care if the core axiom is rational, my empathy tells me this is right?" not an answer? Empathy may be a spook, but it's hardwired into human psychology (unless you have some sort of disorder in which case you're often not being a productive person anyways). To ask people to put something like material self interest before what their instinct tells them is spooky on its own, is it not?

He's just a shit Nietzche

>MUH FEELOSOWFEE
Bullshit. Decide issue by issue, basically do problem solving.

>tfw the student thinks he's become the master

To go even further with this, is acting like an egoist any less spooky? Every human behavior, and I mean EVERY ultimately stems from one or another irrational desire insofar as there is no inherent value. Saying egoism is the end all of value systems is just a step away from dismissing all value systems, and then you might as well be a nihilist and stop doing anything because you're too good for irrational value systems

Wtf this isn't stirner at all

he isn't outside of small internet communities tho. Just a cult following like donnie darko or something

masterdom is a spook
;)

you can't escape spooks. You can't fully control your subconscious being.

retard. Marx just didn't like his thinking. that doesn't mean he 'debunked' him. it's like nihilism, good luck debunking that shit. it's trivially true

1. Would you want to?
2. I'll take that challenge. I've been taking that challenge for years and I'm getting closer. Does it count if you choose to let it run rampant?

1. you probably wouldn't want to since a lot of humanity's pleasures come from them
2. explain further pls

Samefagging because I felt the need to elaborate

You can usually spot people who have essentially skimmed the Wikipedia article for The Ego based on their misinterpretations of it. Very often you will get people who think he was arguing for some kind of nominalism, or an anti-idea ideology. Stirner was quite the opposite. He claimed to live in a world of ideas, and his seminal book was the culmination of these ideas. Really TEAIO is a kind of battle between two opposing clusters of ideas, one side being those ideas which are connected to the ego, the other being those ideas which wish to enslave the ego (spooks). Stirner would not hesitate to refer to himself as an idea, hence the term "creative nothing". This specific idea is an important one-- he saw himself as the creator of all things as well as the owner of all things, and as such he could use his property as he sees fit

When the interests of two creative egos collide, they form what he called a union of egoists. In this union, all parties involved use eachother to better themselves, and when they stop consciously admitting egoism the union either dissipates or it continues to exist without them. The relationship between these people and the state, or these people and a fixed idea such as God, even the relationship between them and any given institution, is not a union of egoists because not all members are consciously egoistic, and as such these ideas and institutions will naturally be consumed by the ego

...

>Striner did for example say the nationalists are right in that you cannot forsake your nationality.
that sounds made up or at the least completely at odds with the entirety of his ideology.

>fuck gods cause
>fuck the sultans cause
>fuck the kings cause
>not your nations cause though gotta stick together desu

Greatness and progressive society is ultimately wrought from the strong centralized union most often in the form of a nation.

Stirner doesn't strike me as an advocate for grass skirts and coexistence with nature to it's favor.

>scared a lot of prominent thinkers

So in other words he...spooked them?

Your nationality is a quality you can't get rid of. Hedoes critisize nationalism and patriotism heavily, because they are owned by the quality, value themselves and others only by seeing the nation within them just like christians do with God.

To explain more clearly, here's a direct quote from TEAIO

>Through the "Nationals" of today the conflict has again been stirred up between those who think themselves to have merely human blood and human ties of blood, and the others who brag of their special blood and the special ties of blood.

>If we disregard the fact that pride may mean conceit, and take it for consciousness alone, there is found to be a vast difference between pride in "belonging to" a nation and therefore being its property, and that in calling a nationality one's property. Nationality is my quality, but the nation my owner and mistress. If you have bodily strength, you can apply it at a suitable place and have a self-consciousness or pride of it; if, on the contrary, your strong body has you, then it pricks you everywhere, and at the most unsuitable place, to show its strength: you can give nobody your hand without squeezing his.

>The perception that one is more than a member of the family, more than a fellow of the tribe, more than an individual of the people, has finally led to saying, one is more than all this because one is man, or, the man is more than the Jew, German, etc. "Therefore be every one wholly and solely -- man." Could one not rather say: Because we are more than what has been stated, therefore we will be this, as well as that "more" also? Man and Germans, then, man and Guelph, etc.?

>The Nationals are in the right; one cannot deny his nationality: and the humanitarians are in the right; one must not remain in the narrowness of the national. In uniqueness the contradiction is solved; the national is my quality. But I am not swallowed up in my quality -- as the human too is my quality, but I give to man his existence first through my uniqueness.

That says nothing about not being able to forsake nationality, but to supersede it. Dialectics son.

Forsake might have been the wrong term as english isn't my first language, but what I was referring to was specifically this sentence.
>The Nationals are in the right; one cannot deny his nationality

What I meant is that Stirner does believe qualities exist (the post where I used the word "forsake" was a reply to someone claiming egoism is a spook), and in this case that your nationality cannot be removed.

>that your nationality cannot be removed.
until you remove the nation duh
revolution when

>no one buggered Marx as hard as Stirner
>decades later, there are stirnerposters with marxist agendas

The Stirner-pill is cyanide for philosophers.

If you have anything you hold sacred to you, any ideal you take for granted, Stirner shits on you.

>mistaking Striner's loathing of private property and state as marxist

>also what about determinism? and what about solipsism?
Those theories relate to more fundamental stuff, like "what is stuff" and "how does stuff works". It can inform religion, political ideology or ethics or whatever, but it doesn't relate to what Stirner attacks. He attacks ethics and ideologues.

Maybe you'll meet an ascetic monk that is scared of pleasure.

Empathy is not a spook, as long as you don't believe you have a moral obligation to be empathic. Emotions are not spooks.

Being a willing, aware egoist doesn't mean you stop wanting stuff. You don't need to believe in any snazzy value system for getting what you want. Just be honest about what you want to yourself.

What if you have no loyalty to any nation and consider yourself a citizen of the world?

Not him, but I'm coming to terms that non of my principles are sacred.

Principles like "it's good to be nice to people". But I still take pleasure from acting on that. and wether or not I take pleasure from that it's still something I lean towards because it's kinda structural to my personality. I'm fully aware, however, that this tendency of mine is not any less "objectively better" or "natural" than the tendency to hurt others, or derive pleasure from that.

I find that I'm less angry and hateful. Maybe I just feel closer to something more basic than ideology that is inside all of us.

You still have a load of cultural background and genetic ties. Not saying you have to hold these with any esteem, or that it would be in your interest to do so, but they'll be there.

I remember one user arguing that class struggle and syndicalism is in the worker's self interest of the workers. While these are tools that may be of use, being a "class traitor" may just as well be useful to you and easier to boot.

Friend, there is no other easy way of saying this other than to just start reading. You wont grasp man things at first, but as you continue, you will.

As for order... Veeky Forums has a nice guide to western philosophy. If you dont mind Veeky Forums bias.

Moral anti-realism is for plebs and angsty teenagers.

All I'm getting from this isn't that "nationalism is good" but more like a really white washed black guy will never actually be white and will always be treated as a black so he might as well accept it and utilize it in his social calculations.

t. slave to morality

I would hardly call living off the scraps of the elites to be as useful as owning the means of production, or easier since so few actually become class traitors.

Even from a Strinerfag's point of view being a class traitor merely means being someone else's property

Stirner conflates core psychological impulses with civic constructs and cultural memes. I don't like subscribing myself to a philosophy that denies the ultimately constructionist nature of humanity.

I never claimed he said nationalism is good. He clearly states in the book that he thinks nationalists are serving the spirit of a nation, a spook. But your nationality is a quality in you that you cannot deny. The post where this all started from was me giving an example why qualities are not spooks.

Bull.

Even if you were to lead some revolution, you'd probably not get your utopia in your lifetime. And working within the confines of an exploitable system is usually a safer bet than building a system to serve you from the ground up. Usually, loving up to middle/upper management beats being an entry level employee or holding up hope for an utopia while integrating the dregs of society, powerless.

Stirner doesn't conflate qualities of a person an emotions with spooks.

This thread is compelling, but confusing. Seems like everyone has a different interpretation of him. I'll have to read the TEAIO

>stirner
>moral antirealism
why don't people read anymore

It's more that rightfags try to reconcile stirner with their retarded worldview that leads complete misinterpretations of his core ideas.

>rightfags
Those that identify with a "righ-wing" don't care for Stirner.

And somehow people that identify with the left hide behind his image, when he broke off with the Left Hegelians.

>left Hegelian can exist
>right stirrers can't
Kys.

*stirners

>lsr-projekt.de/poly/eninnuce.html
This reads exactly like any other conspiracy theory apology. And really seems like the author has only a biographical understanding of thinkers who aren't Stirner, especially Nietzsche and Marx. The psychoanalysis bent is revealing, and makes me question if he even understands Stirner (by also reading the contemporaries). I mean, if he did, he'd easily understand the reason for Stirner's reception instead of constructing a conspiracy to explain it.

Stirner can't be "left" or "right". "Hierarchy being good" and "equality being good" are memes. Hierarchy is good when it gets me what I want. Equality is good when it gets me what I want.

>Hierarchy is good when it gets me what I want.
So right-wing stirners.

But it's not always good. It's not better "in principle" than equality. Because it's not an ideal to strive for, it's not anything sacred. It's just a tool. Why is it hard for you to understand this?

The problem is you think egostic individualism can't be right wing. Even venerating the ego above all others can be right wing.

Let me rephrase this. Nobody's reading of an idea will be perfect, nor will anyone perfectly practice an idea. You can take ideas of Stirner and read them them from the right, essentially creating something influenced enough by Stirner (without being perfectly Stirnerian egoism) to be considered right-wing Stirnerism.

This "right wing" is something outside me.

>Even venerating the ego above all others can be right wing.
Others what? Egos? Why would you use the word "venerating"? You aren't morally obliged to screw other people to benefit yourself if you don't want to do it.

You haven't actually read him, have you, OP?

>You can take ideas of Stirner and read them them from the right, essentially creating something influenced enough by Stirner (without being perfectly Stirnerian egoism) to be considered right-wing Stirnerism.
This is similar to Emma Goldman's leftwing Stirnerism, which she considered to be a mesh of Stirner's and Kropotkin's ideas

>Stirner can't be "left" or "right". "Hierarchy being good" and "equality being good" are memes. Hierarchy is good when it gets me what I want. Equality is good when it gets me what I want.
This childish egoism, lacking self-awareness, deconstruction, or subtlety, is why the /phil/ posters ignore this shit. I doubt this is even representative of Stirner, who I've heard was aware of the Eastern dissections of Ego/Self.

Things like "left/right" or "good/bad" only make sense at all when you assume a spectrum, a hierarchy. Hierarchy is necessary for there being good, whereas equality is impossible (or at most, a levelling, democratising effect).

>is good when it gets me what I want.
You use the everyday sense of "I" and "want". Not even Stirner is this coarse. You need to question the the concepts behind those words, and their historical development.

its a good way to let yourself feel better than others because you're holier than them

He doesn't say rights don't exist, simply that rights are only what people have to power to force the government to promise them.

>asking someone to condense a book on philosophy into a post on Veeky Forums

Stirner doesn't say empathy is a spook, in fact, he says its one of the purest human traits because no-one can force it on you. Stirner believed that a person can't love another unless its truly out of egoism, because if it isn't, you're simply doing it because someone else told you to. He argued that when you feel empathy, you're acting egotististically because you appropriate their pain, and want to end it because that pain is now yours.