/lit/ - Literature

>>17500537
>200 pages of bloat, his prose is almost Kant levels of bad
You're not entirely wrong. He's something of a chore to read if you get too distracted by how he presents his ideas. Nietzsche is the exact same way and it really convinces one to think he took way more influence from him than he liked to admit.
>Some interesting ideas with the connection of humanism, communism and liberalism to the religious impulse, how abstract ideas can be pathological and how true freedom can be achieved.
Yes.
>It's not developed enough to be formulated into a complete philosophy
It depends on what that means to you. The Ego and Its Own is foremost a critique which breaks down all the ridiculous notions which prevailed in his day. Once the ground was clear, similar to Descartes' project of doubting, there was little else to turn to but the ego, apparently simplistic and almost too naked, but whole all the same.
>his "ego" is never well defined
I would recommend you turn to commentary. The Nihilistic Egoist by one Paterson is a helpful explanation of his core concepts.
But in short, the ego is the real you. It is everything you naturally are, and thus from whence your natural wants flow; everything else is extraneous and superfluous, unimportant, not above you and not within you.
>I enjoy philosophy and 19th century german philosophy in particular, but even my eyebrows were drooping reading this
You need to sit on it and come back to it every now and then as more and more you reflect and begin to understand just how right he was then, and how much everything he said still applies today. It's not going to reveal itself all at once, and Stirner can be a little irritating at first brush. Eventually you'll come more and more around, as long as you keep it in mind.
>Nietzsche does the same thing but better
Not really. Nietzsche is bogged down by the same sort of coping that Stirner advocates against, even if it's supposedly more "healthy" coping because the content of Nietzschean ideas are more in line with egoism than Secular Christianity is. Nevertheless, those are also figments which are above the ego and would subordinate it to them. You'll have to wade through a lot more irrelevant nonsense to gleam the same lessons from Nietzsche as you would from Stirner, even though it appears that Stirner himself touches upon a litany or irrelevant nonsense to support his claims.
>If it wasn't for Engel's funny drawing and "le spooki" meme, he'd be forgotten entirely to time.
That's because his conclusions are so damning to the current ideological current of the Occident, and devastating to the whole edifice which has been built up over millennia, that it's better for everyone to pretend he and his magnum opus never existed at all. Even Nietzsche is safer to engage with and easier to hand wave to his face.
You can't even talk about Stirner's ideas without through casting stones in the glass house of Western egalitarianism, collectivism, and zealotry.

>>14047332
>He's ... almost every 17 yr old you meet who's read Nietzsche and taken it grimly seriously.
That's a grossly ignorant assessment, but Wikipedia won't lead one anywhere else.
I recommend pic related, The Nihilistic Egoist Max Stirner by R.W.K. Paterson, as well as Roots of the Right's introductory essay on their reprint of The Ego and Its Own. They explain very well what egoism actually is, which is difficult for most people to really comprehend.
It's actually a very mature viewpoint, and arguably more dignified than Judeo-Christian-inspired moralizing and hypothesizing. Stirner even talks about practical politics and gives way too many examples that illustrate how egoism works and how non-egoism is fallacious.
But like I said, see if your library has either of those two analytical works and they'll make him clear.
>Strongly disagree. He's actually way inferior since he thinks other people are unknowable; it's solipsism verbatim.
He's unconcerned with others, but this doesn't even respond to what I was insinuating.

>>14040477
>>14041570
Philosopher Graduate here.

I'll give you a breakdown on my own personal journey, not including things I was forced to read and didn't care for. I consider myself unorthodox.

Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching (Lau translation) and Chuang Tzu (Martin Palmer translation), along with The Book of Tea; that covers Eastern Philosophy.
Existentialism is a Humanism, which is a text of a speech Sartre gave covering the basics of existentialism.
The Satanic Scriptures, by Peter Gilmore, which lays down the tenets and worldview of an explicitly elitist philosophy that is more focused and modern than anything Nietzsche provides.
Knights of the Old Republic I and II are fantastic for ethics and by nature of presenting the narrative through game form and providing personal interactivity in the dialogue, it does much better in keeping you engaged. The first one can be summarized by reading The Jedi Code and The Sith Code, available on Wookiepedia, and getting feedback from your in-game teachers on any parts you don't grasp. One is an ascetic philosophy promising spiritual release and the other is another elistist philosophy promising physical release. KOTOR II, through the character of Kreia, delves into the nature of moral actions yet ultimately proposes a worldview that is more of the same Sith, yet vastly more fleshed out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2y51Fu7lGo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KCD5Qqn3Eg
For films, a personal favorite is Fight Club, but its messages go over whoever's head is not already in the frame of mind it's vibing in.

And finally, for the purposes of this post, since you mentioned Stirner, I will vehemently exhort you to ignore any derision aimed at him. They don't understand it.
Read The Nihilistic Egoist Max Stirner by R.W.K. Paterson for an introduction and summation of his thought. It is definitely worth the read. In short, he denies being a slave to external philosophies and affirms his own existence and consciousness as being the only value to which he must adhere, yet he is a master of himself---he is self-posessed---in the way any other person would yet again enslave themselves to a reified ideal.

Hope this helps.