Lads, the spooks ate closing in on me. If I don't like Dickens then someone is there to call me a pleb...

philosophy isn't like that; you can evaluate someone's arguments without reading their whole books--you just can't evaluate their books. I can just as comfortably dismiss the ideas of ayn rand and feuerbach.

>you can evaluate someone's arguments without reading their whole books.

You dismissed Stirner as a meme. That's suggests you didn't understand his argument at all.

If you have real reasons I'd be interested to hear them (I mean this sincerely; I'm not trying to start an argument).

his entire project rests on a distinction between facts and values, and ignores the fact that all of our thought is irreducible to statements that don't ascribe value. no shit social institutions are not reified, mind-independent things; we don't even know what a reified mind independent thing would look like.
even his egoism is stupid; self-interest isn't reducible to non-spooky statements.
stirner is a meme because he's like nietzche without the drama or camus without the prose; he argues for edgy theses for which the only evidence he can provide amounts to 'I feel this way' or 'this is how it is, look'--none of his arguments will be compelling to anyone who doesn't already accept their conclusions.

>stannis-meme.jpg

>I've read Veeky Forums posts so I don't have to read books

Reading for fun is ok, but don't be shocked that some people who have read a lot of books have found different ways to enjoy literature.

>My Twisted World
I think I got meme'd

How could finish High School without reading the Shakes?

I thought it would be something like this.

Most people don't take the time to understand his argument.

On your first thing: He big idea isn't that social institutions are not reified, mind-independent things, his point is that these idea can manifest themselves in the real world by hijacking someone's mind.

An example is if someone is raised with the idea that they have to dress a very specific way because of God. While there is a parent to enforce this it's not a spook, but when this person becomes independent they continue to dress this way.

The physical enforcer (the parent) is removed you can see that there is still something forcing this person to dress this way. If the person decides to not dress this way they might feel bad or upset because they disobeyed God and their parents. That's the spook enforcing its law.

If the person said "I'm not going to dress like that, it's just stupid" then they have cast off the spook. They realize there is no real reason to follow it. The thing that caused real things to happen had no real power.

Stirner is trying to get people to free their minds from these. His thing is that people should do what they want to do. If the same guy from before wants to wear the clothes because he likes them, then it's not a spook; it's a choice and there is a real reason for it.

You say his self-interest isn't reducible to non-spooky statements, but this is a complete misunderstanding of his claim. Nietzche's self-interest is a spook because people who buy into it feel that this is want they "should do" and there are things they "have to" do if they want to be an ubermensch.

Stirner's self-interest is the absence of spooks. If you want to be nice and donate money or whatever, then you can do that so long as you do it because you want to and not because you feel like you should or because it "the right thing" to do.

His thing is about being free in the mind and doing things you really want. Thinking that you must make the most money or that you can't be empathetic are spook and not what Stirner is advocating.

If you think that people are inherently evil and cruel, then you might think Stirner is arguing for those things. I don't think people are inherently evil. Stirner would have just thought of "evil" as another spook because trying to avoid or trying to become evil is a thought that will change the way you act and take away your freedom.

I don't think that people are inherently anything; stirner's argument rests on the notion that they are--that there *is* some other reason to act
people want things for reasons; there is no pure *really* wanting that's reason-independent or non-spooky--and any argument that people *should* act in accordance with non-spooky reasons as opposed to spooky ones needs to rest on something--it needs to rest on something spooky.

do you get it?
people want things for reasons; there isn't this neat cleavage between what people *really* want and what they want because of the social institutions they belong to.

if his thesis amounts to 'the sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath,' that would be fine, but that was not his thesis.
stirner was making normative claims about the way the world should be and 'spooks' just ends up denoting systems of normative claims that he doesn't like

>there isn't this neat cleavage between what people *really* want and what they want because of the social institutions they belong to.
You think you're disagreeing with Stirner, but you're really not. Stirner isn't against "ideas", but agaisnt "fixed ideas"; because to him ideas aren't separate, but in a relationship with the one that thinks them: the real ego is sustained by the ideal or physical ego, exists thanks to them, and also creates them. That's what he means when he says he founds his cause on nothing: that there is no real essence that a cause can really be founded on, so there is no reason to become eternally fixed to a particular idea (or thing) over others, because there's nothing beyond what use or pleasure they can bring, and thinking that a particular thing is everything in the world is crazy because it clearly doesn't include the thinker of it.

I suffer from the same insecurities only with philosophical standpoints, like I just have to take e.g. moral realism or certain philosophy of science seriously because that's what all the cool kids are writing about and defending. It's like I could spend my entire life "considering" if I keep letting myself be swayed by popularity this hard. That may be fine for some people but frankly I don't have the nerves for it. I guess philosophy as a discipline is just not for me. I think you have to have hardcore standpoints and then you play the "intellectual generosity" card. I just listen to everything, think to myself that it's all a pile of shit as soon as it claims to be more than a heuristic to a specific problem and then I slip into a depressive state because I'm always left with the aftertaste that it's me who is wrong or missing something so I deserve to feel like my life is being sucked out of me. If only I could take pride in that scientific(?) standpoint but I don't, my inner nazi is yelling at me right now for thinking like this, hurr you're shutting yourself off from being proven wrong, too sensitive, hurr triggered this nihilism that, what about dem metaphysics doe, stirner isnt real philosophy (or you have to read him in such and such way which relativizes his seemingly radical standpoint), too easy, try harder, cry more, homo. Lately I have even started losing the ability to analyze and speak/write coherently. I think it's just getting too much. Could be a depressive phase but I really dislike the feeling that I'm being forced like this but of course I do it to myself. What really fucked me over the most so far is a certain philosophical project in German which portrays lamettrie, stirner and reich as the outlaws of philosophy and the only ones who dared to argue seriously for "fuck you i wont do what you tell me" and through that for the real enlightenment (in a nutshell) and as a result got excommunicated by respective intellectual authorities. It's fascinating stuff but now I just don't know how to in2 living anymore. Psychoanalysis always fucked my shit up the most.

I know this probably reads like it was written by an edgy teen. Probably the mental age I'm stuck at. Can anyone relate or give me advice that isn't "seek a professional"? I just want something to believe in at this point without it yelling in my face that I don't know enough to open my mouth. Sorry for bad englando.

>Stirner's self-interest is the absence of spooks. If you want to be nice and donate money or whatever, then you can do that so long as you do it because you want to and not because you feel like you should or because it "the right thing" to do.
Insecure depressive guy here, how.jpg

To be more precise, how can I be sure that I'm acting in my self interest when I'm actively fucking myself up by disobeying the "super ego" and as a result am feeling suicidal every other day? When does this ride stop..

Is the idea of spooks, a spook?

Not trying to be edgy, just trying to understand the implications of spookiness.

then just dont post here who gives a shit

Your problem isn't philosophy, it's that your mother never loved you.

>there is no real essence that a cause can really be founded on, so there is no reason to become eternally fixed to a particular idea (or thing) over others, because there's nothing beyond what use or pleasure they can bring
fucking social institutions don't real; honestly, you're just saying the same fucking shit over and over again. he founds his cause on nothing--so it's like all of the other causes!!! why should we go in for his cause? why should we listen to anything stirner says? why should we support the notion that there's nothing beyond a cause's worth than its utility? you're just saying shit; stirner is just saying shit.
this is why stirner is a meme, this is why stirner , like feuerbach, is not taken seriously outside of lit.
again, if all stirner was saying was 'the sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath,' that social institutions exist to serve us and not we to serve them, that's fine, but it's not all he's saying!

I'm right with you guys. In Tolstoy's My Confession, he talks about how there are only 4 ways to exist: the first being in ignorance, the second by distraction though hedonism or really anything at all, the third is understanding that suicide is the only way out and killing yourself, and the fourth is to realize suicide is the only way out but to continue to live in misery because you don't want to do it for whatever reason.

I'm in that forth group. But even killing myself doesn't seem right because what difference would that even make. There is no real reason to be happy or sad. If I did kill myself, then I would stop persevering time and the universe could go through billions of alterations until it is once again exactly right to experience consciousness again. Its never ending bleakness seems torturous. So should I just sulk around or delude myself, or just end it all? Whatever I do wont make a difference and I feel like doing anything is impossible. It's all the same really.

No. The spook forces you to do things you normally/naturally wouldn't.

Thinking of things as spooks does not do this. If you feel compelled to do something because of something like your moral code it is a spook, but if you want to do that same thing because you want to, there is some real merit to doing it or whatever, then you can do it.

Stirner's thinking does not try to get people to do anything or to not do anything.

>things you normally/naturally wouldn't
what the fuck is this supposed to mean

Being hungry is not a spook, it's a circumstance you'd want to get over for your body not to suffer from malnutrition.
Wanting to get food is a non-spooky motivation.

Wanting to eat healthy and thus eating no pork is not a spook. You don't feel pressured, it's a conscious decision and you could do otherwise.
Saying you can't eat meat because you're a vegan or a Muslim is spooky.

>The spook forces you to do things you normally/naturally wouldn't.

I'm not sure the idea of spooks could be sensible, then. If a "spook" just means "an idea which compels you to one action, rather than another," then wouldn't every idea, if we mean something by the idea of "idea," count as a spook? That is, there doesn't seem to be a "spookless" action, at least insofar as we consider an action to be on compelled by an idea of what the world is like or how one should act within it.

Stirner's account seems to presume some hidden, essential "desire" in every person which isn't at least partially determined by their interaction with ideas.

I'm open to clarification on this point.

It means exactly what you think it means. Would a normal person feel like they HAVE to dress like in the pic? Would a normal person feel like it is wrong to not dress like that?

It is a spook that makes people feel like they have to dress that way. A person without a spook could dress however they want.

And before you talk about how society affects what we like and so on, it is important to note that those aren't spooks. If you see someone dressed in a way you like and then you dress like them, it is not a spook.

There is the real reason of wanting to look good for yourself or because you to have an effect on others. Either one is a real reason and not because of the idea that it's wrong to not dress that way.

>A person without a spook could dress however they want.

Bullshit. Hasidic Jews dress that way because they desire the appearance of being a Hasidic Jew. "Wanting to appear as an Hasidic Jew" doesn't seem essentially spooky. Basically, for every behavior ascribed to spookiness, it seems that the desire and the idea of how to fulfill the desire are inextricable.

Desire may be the form of intention, but ideas are certainly its matter.

fucking this

>presume some hidden, essential "desire" in every person which isn't at least partially determined by their interaction with ideas

I see where you get this from what I wrote, but it is not a correct idea.

It is when an action is only done because of an idea. You could think of it as a simple cause and effect.

You are thirst so you drink water. You have quenched your thirst. There was a real reason for this.

You want to buy a book from a store so you do. You read it and enjoy it. Again there was a really reason.

These stem from ideas but are not spooks.

On the spook side:

You only buy American goods because you're an American! What really came out of this? You gave money to those guy instead of those other guys? What does it really matter.

You find yourself with 10 jobs to chose from but you decide to work the same job your dad did when he was young. Again what does this really matter? Is it actually going to change anything?

This time the ideas are only for ideas without any real world pay off.

Alternatively, if you chose the job your dad worked because you know people who work there, or your dad could give you tips, then these would be real concrete reasons for doing that and it would not be a spook.

>You only buy American goods because you're an American!

Someone wants to be patriotic. Not spooky.

>work the same job your dad did

Even if it were done because of some notion of filial piety, the desire (conform to society, fit in) is not spooky.

>This time the ideas are only for ideas without any real world pay off.

But there is *always* a real world payoff. Even when we speak of intangible things that do not correspond to any possible reality, we do so because of many perfectly human desires, such as showing off how smart and sophisticated one is (observe leftists), conforming, etc. Whatever people do, it is always because there is desired to effect some state of affairs rather than another. Stirner seems pretty autistic if he's taking people's ad hoc rationalizations of why they do things seriously.

>Basically, for every behavior ascribed to spookiness, it seems that the desire and the idea of how to fulfill the desire are inextricable.

You hit the nail on the head. That is exactly what being a spook is.

Don't you see it?

Let's say person has a desire to throw apples into a river once a month. They do this so they fulfilled their desire. What did they accomplish really? Nothing at all.

That's what Stirner is saying. You can just do away with something like that without having to do anything physical. Just cleanse your mind rather than act on these.

Those are the spooks.

You don't feel right if you have a desire and you don't fulfill it. Dressing in those clothes is used to overcome that desire.

Stirner say that you should just get rid of feeling. There is nothing stopping you. If there is something like a parent stopping you then that is something real and not a spook.

>Someone wants to be patriotic. Not spooky.

That is exactly a spook though. There is nothing real in being patriotic. It is a fantasy in your head you are acting out.

The idea is serving itself. What good comes from being patriotic?

>There is nothing real in being patriotic.

There's what other people think about you, and what other people think about you is real. Seems like Stirner's just buttmad that people care about things he doesn't want them to care about. Let me guess, Stirner was never popular.

Ritual (e.g. patriotism) is costly signalling which improves or maintains someone's status within a group. Even if the matter of the ritual mean nothing by themselves, the form of the ritual achieves a real, and often desirable, goal: group cohesion. Humans are social creatures, so it would follow that a lot of what humans do is purely social in this way. It seems that everything Stirner dismisses as "spooks" are these ritual forms which do, in fact, achieve real goals because people believe the rituals mean those things.

tl;dr Stirner can't into hyperstition

>There's what other people think about you, and what other people think about you is real.

This is not a consequence of being patriotic. It is a consequence of appearing patriotic. You could fake it all and still get the benefits.

Being patriotic doesn't do anything. If you are all alone then it wont help you. Some people look at patriotic as a bad thing especially in some European countries where some people think that liking your country means you are a racist.

You have to how the environment provides.

Doing something for a none spook reason has clear direct results: You are hungry so you go get food.

If you find yourself in a group of patriotic people and you decide to act super patriotic because you want to get with them, then it is not a spook. There is a simple cause and effect; you don't have to actually have the spook.

bump

Simple desire satisfaction theories of welfare suck balls. Idealized desire satisfaction theories are a little better, but have loads of problems, not least of which is spelling out what idealizations we should use and why. Did Stirner have some responses to the standard problems with these views? inb4: it's the satisfaction of non-spooked desires that count towards welfare.

Narrow egoism with a plausible theory of welfare is bad enough. Egoism with a bad theory of welfare is total garbage.

Go read some Hobbes, Sidgwick, Parfit, or something.

Ever read "The Denial of Death"? Stirner's "spooks" remind me of Becker's "illusions of immortality". From wiki:

The basic premise of The Denial of Death is that human civilization is ultimately an elaborate, symbolic defense mechanism against the knowledge of our mortality, which in turn acts as the emotional and intellectual response to our basic survival mechanism. Becker argues that a basic duality in human life exists between the physical world of objects and a symbolic world of human meaning. Thus, since humanity has a dualistic nature consisting of a physical self and a symbolic self, we are able to transcend the dilemma of mortality through heroism, by focusing our attention mainly on our symbolic selves. This symbolic self-focus takes the form of an individual's "immortality project" (or causa sui), which is essentially a symbolic belief-system that ensures oneself is believed superior to physical reality. By successfully living under the terms of the immortality project, people feel they can become heroic and, henceforth, part of something eternal; something that will never die as compared to their physical body. This, in turn, gives people the feeling that their lives have meaning, a purpose, and are significant in the grand scheme of things.

Becker argues that the arbitrariness of human-invented immortality projects makes them naturally prone to conflict. When one immortality project conflicts with another, it is essentially an accusation of 'wrongness of life', and so sets the context for both aggressive and defensive behavior. Both parties will want to "prove" their belief-system is superior, a better way of life. Thus these immortality projects are considered a fundamental driver of human conflict, such as in wars, bigotry, genocide, and racism.[citation needed]

Another theme running throughout the book is that humanity's traditional "hero-systems", such as religion, are no longer convincing in the age of reason. Science attempts to serve as an immortality project, something that Becker feels it can never do, because it is unable to provide agreeable, absolute meanings to human life. The book states that we need new convincing "illusions" that enable us to feel heroic in ways that are agreeable. Becker, however, does not provide any definitive answer, mainly because he believes that there is no perfect solution.

>so it's like all of the other causes!!!
Pretty much.

>why should we go in for his cause? why should we listen to anything stirner says?
You "should" not do anything. Stirner doesn't mind you disagreeing with him or whatever; he doesn't even mind people like Luther being spooked as hell! He's not there to live your life for you, or to bring you security--he does what he does because he likes it, because it's what makes him be. If he's telling you about spooks it's because he doesn't like seeing people going around suicide bombing, because he makes others his property, an aspect of himself, and so suffers and rejoices along them; not because his cause is the "right" one, but because it's what he has the "might" to do. But he's not obligated to it in the moral sense, he's the one that took it up; it didn't come to him as revelation, he made it, and he can unmake it! His is a philosophy of the inessential, so don't ask for things he never even tried to give you.

Say, have you actually read the book?

>this is why stirner is a meme, this is why stirner , like feuerbach, is not taken seriously outside of lit.
It's hard to listen to you with a dick in your mouth.

That's interesting but I for one never understood why people care about dying to much, or why it scares people. I honestly don't think it scares me.
I see the task not in preserving a non-physical self, as you describe, but to optimize my experience (reduce pain, etc.) while I'm alive.

You are probably not old enough to really contemplate the subject.

Fear of death? Well I'm 29.