/lit/ - Literature

>>7133194
he accidentally marxist historical materialism and that is hard to forgive

Marx wrote a 500 page refutation against Stirner, it's highly personal but he does squarely meet Stirner's argument.

because Stirner wrote all that there was to say. Its hard to expand on Stirner

>>7133194
He's just not relevant.

I have a degree in philosophy and not once in those four years, did I ever hear anyone mention Max Stirner. I don't know how Stirner became this way, but he's less of a philosopher and more of a 4chan meme. That's his legacy.

>>7133194
The greatest trick Max Stirner ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.

I knew about Stirner before I knew he was a /lit/ meme philosopher. From what I understand his influence has just been on a lot of fringe political philosophy ideologies such as individualist anarchism, fascism (Mussolini was a fan of Stirner in his elitist socialist days, not sure when he was Ill Duce) and in a more contemporary sense the academic postanarchists. Though he was mentioned a bunch of times in the Illuminaus! trilogy.

He's mostly just been seen in history as a drinking buddy of Marx and Engels. His legacy is pretty scattered on the left and right and then 4chan where he's just been reduced to the spooks meme.

The only people who'd really possibly be able to say much about his magnum opus are Hegelians imo. He has a very, wikipedia reader friendly philosophical framework.

>>7133445
like a ghost or a spook

Plato only became popular like 2000 years after his death, give him some time. In the future when everyone lives in communities of voluntary egoists they will look back at people who didn't know about Stirner as the uneducated ones.

How did he became a /lit/ meme?

Rudolf Steiner, founder of Steiner schools was a fan of Stirner, I can kind of see the influence in the batshit crazy kids that come out of those places

>>7133494
mixture of him having a silly looking picture and the goofy term "spook" people can use to denounce an idea they disagree and misunderstand him

>>7133480
>Plato only became popular like 2000 years after his death
oh my, never let me down /lit/
>>7133194
>Even Nietzsche, who integrated a lot of Stirner's ideas into his philosophy refused to even acknowledge his existence. Why?
because he didnt read anything about him, and wasnt influenced by him

I think people dismiss him because he's a meme here and because his philosophy is rather simple.

Ironically, few people here grasp him, probably because few actually read him. If they did they'd realize he's more than a meme. I've seen plenty of people read the Stoics, looking for advice on how to live life, or turning to something like Buddhism (of which I know nothing but I've seen comparisons between that and Stirner).

These people should be reading Stirner. I mean he has only one real book (The Ego and Its/His Own), plus Stirner's Critics which is a very quick read and can be found online.

I've yet to see anyone refute the core of his philosophy. It's incredibly useful. The hardest part is internalizing it, something I still struggle with. Recognizing spooks and not letting them have power over you, this is easier said than done, especially when you've lived an entire life allowing yourself to be enslaved by these things.

>>7133778
>I've yet to see anyone refute the core of his philosophy.
it isnt philosophy, it's misosophy

>>7133494
Stan used to spam him relentlessly in 2011

>>7133801
in what way

>>7133480

Plato was everything the west had until 1200 AD, when Aristotle was rediscovered through Arab translations. And it still remained popular.

>>7133778
The great proposition that forms the basis of all these equations is: I am not non-I. This non-I is given various names, which, on the one hand, can be purely logical, e.g., being-in-itself, other-being, or, on the other hand, the names of concrete ideas such as the people, state, etc. In this way the appearance of a development can he produced by taking these names as the starting-point and gradually reducing them — with the aid of equations, or a series of appositions — again to the non-ego, which was their basis at the outset. Since the real relations thus introduced figure only as different modifications of the non-ego, and only nominally different modifications at that — nothing at all need be said about these real relations themselves. This is all the more ludicrous since [the real] relations are the relations [of the individuals] themselves, and declaring them to be relations [of the non]-ego only proves that one knows nothing about them. The matter is thereby so greatly simplified that even “the great majority consisting of innately limited intellects” can learn the trick in ten minutes at most. At the same time, this gives us a criterion of the “uniqueness” of Saint Sancho.

>>7133778
>>7133938

Saint Sancho further defines the non-ego opposed to the ego as being that which is alien to the ego, that which is the alien. The relation of the non-ego to the ego is “therefore” that of alienation [Entfremdung]. We have just given the logical formula by which Saint Sancho presents any object or relation whatsoever as that which is alien to the ego, as the alienation of the ego; on the other hand, Saint Sancho can, as we shall see, also present any object or relation as something created by the ego and belonging to it. Apart, first of all, from the arbitrary way in which he presents, or does not present, any relation as a relation of alienation (for everything can he made to fit in the above equations), we see already here that his only concern is to present all actual relations, [and also] actual individuals, [as alienated] (to retain this philosophical [expression] for the time being), to [transform] them into the wholly [abstract] phrase of alienation. Thus [instead] of the task of describing [actual] individuals in their [actual] alienation and in the empirical relations of this alienation, [purely empirical] relations, the same happens here — the setting forth is replaced by the [mere idea] of alienation, of [the Alien], of the Holy. [The] substitution of the category of alienation (this is again a determination of reflection which can be considered as antithesis, difference, non-identity, etc.) finds its final and highest expression in “the alien” being transformed again into “the holy”, and alienation into the relation of the ego to anything whatever as the holy. We prefer to elucidate the logical process on the basis of Saint Sancho’s relation to the holy, since this is the predominant formula, and in passing we note that “the alien” is considered also as ‘,the existing” (per appos.), that which exists apart from me, that which exists independently of me, per appos., that which is regarded as independent owing to my non-independence, so that Saint Sancho can depict as the holy everything that exists independently of him, e.g., the Blocksberg. [85]

>>7133943

Because the holy is something alien, everything alien is transformed into the holy; and because everything holy is a bond, a fetter, all bonds and all fetters are transformed into the holy. By this means Saint Sancho has already achieved the result that everything alien becomes for him a mere appearance, a mere idea, from which he frees himself by simply protesting against it and declaring that he does not have this idea. just as we saw in the case of the egoist not in agreement with himself: people have only to change their consciousness to make everything in the world all right.

Our whole exposition has shown that Saint Sancho criticises all actual conditions by declaring them “the holy”, and combats them by combating his holy idea of them. This simple trick of transforming everything into the holy was achieved, as we have already seen in detail above, by Jacques le bonhomme accepting in good faith the illusions of philosophy, the ideological, speculative expression of reality divorced from its empirical basis, for reality, just as he mistook the illusions of the petty [bourgeois concerning] the bourgeoisie for the “[holy essence” of the] bourgeoisie, and could therefore imagine that he was only dealing with thoughts and ideas. With equal ease people were transformed into the “holy”, for after their thoughts had been divorced from them themselves and from their empirical relations, it became possible to consider people as mere vehicles for these thoughts and thus, for example, the bourgeois was made into the holy liberal.

>>7133947

The first difficulty appears to arise because this holy is in itself very diverse, so that when criticising some definite holy thing one ought to leave the holiness out of account and criticise the definite content itself. Saint Sancho avoids this rock by presenting everything definite as merely an “example” of the holy; just as in Hegel’s Logik it is immaterial whether atom or personality is adduced to explain “being-for-itself”, or the solar system, magnetism or sexual love as an example of attraction. It is, therefore, by no means an accident that “the book” teems with examples, but is rooted in the innermost essence of the method of exposition employed in it.


Indeed, in his imagination, all these things have this in common: that they are the “holy”. But at the same time they are totally different things, and it is just this that constitutes their specific nature. Insofar as one speaks of their specific nature, one does not speak of them as “the holy”.
A little reflection shows that the second rock against which Saint Sancho was bound to suffer shipwreck was his own assertion that every individual is totally different from every other, is unique. Since every individual is an altogether different being, hence an other-being, it is by no means necessary that what is alien, holy, for one individual should be so for another individual; it even cannot be so. And the common name used, such as state, religion, morality, etc., should not mislead us, for these names are only abstractions from the actual attitude of separate individuals, and these objects, in consequence of the totally different attitude towards them of the unique individuals, become for each of the latter unique objects, hence totally different objects, which have only their name in common. Consequently, Saint Sancho could at most have said: for me, Saint Sancho, the state, religion, etc., are the alien, the holy. Instead of this he has to make them the absolutely holy, the holy for all individuals — how else could he have fabricated his constructed ego, his egoist in agreement with himself, etc., how else could he at all have written his whole “book"? How little it occurs to him to make each “unique” the measure of his own “uniqueness”, how much he uses his own “uniqueness” as a measure, as a moral norm, to be applied to all other individuals, like a true moralist forcing them into his Procrustean bed, is already evident, inter alia, from his judgment on the departed and forgotten Klopstock, whom he opposes with the moral maxim that he ought to have adopted an “attitude to religion altogether his own”, in that case he would have arrived not at a religion of his own, which would be the correct conclusion (a conclusion that “Stirner” himself draws innumerable times, e.g., in regard to money), but at a “dissolution and swallowing up of religion” (p. 85), a universal result instead of an individual, unique result.

>>7133952

After Saint Sancho has thus transformed all the contradictions and collisions in which the individual finds himself into mere contradictions and collisions of the individual with one or other of his ideas, an idea which has become independent of him and has subordinated him to itself, and, therefore, is “easily” transformed into the idea as such, the holy idea, the holy — after this there remains only one thing for the individual to do: to commit the sin against the Holy Spirit, to abstract from this idea and declare the holy to be a spectre. This logical swindle, which the individual performs on himself, our saint regards as one of the greatest efforts of the egoist. On the other hand, however, anyone can see how easy it is in this way to declare that from the egoistical point of view all historically occurring conflicts and movements are subsidiary, without knowing anything about them. To do this one has only to extract a few of the phrases usually adopted in such cases, to transform them, in the manner indicated, into “the holy”, to depict the individuals as being subordinated to this holy, and to put oneself forward as one who despises “the holy as such”.

A further offshoot of this logical trick, and indeed our saint’s favourite manoeuvre, is the exploitation of the words designation, vocation, task, etc., thereby immensely facilitating the transformation of whatever he likes into the holy. For, in vocation, designation, task, etc., the individual appears in his own imagination as something different from what he actually is, as the alien, hence as the holy, and in opposition to his real being he asserts his idea of what he ought to be as the rightful, the ideal, the holy. Thus, when it is necessary for him, Saint Sancho can transform everything into the holy by means of the following series of oppositions: to designate oneself, i.e., to choose a designation (insert here any content you like) for oneself; to choose the designation as such; to choose a holy designation, to choose a designation as the holy, i.e., to choose the holy as designation. Or: to be designated, i.e., to have a designation, to have the designation, the holy designation, designation as the holy, the holy as designation, the holy for designation, the designation of the holy.

And now, of course, it only remains for him strongly to admonish people to select for themselves the designation of absence of any designation, the vocation of absence of any vocation, the task of absence of any task — although throughout “the book”, “up to and including” the “Commentary”, he does nothing but select designations for people, set people tasks and, like a prophet in the wilderness, call them to the gospel of true egoism, about whom, of course, it is said: many are called but only one — O'Connell — is chosen.

>>7133955
Stop, please.

>>7134203
make me

>>7133194
>important
SPOOK!

Any philosopher that accurately manages to argue that people's axioms are delusional will be marginalized.

Also, the fact that Stirner does not give people a philosophical worldview that is normative, makes people ignore him as well, because people are interested in listening to philosophers who tell them how they "ought" to behave.

>>7133207
And then there's the opposite view that those 500ish pages amounted to nothing except mockery and personal insults

>>7133194
>Even Nietzsche, who integrated a lot of Stirner's ideas into his philosophy refused to even acknowledge his existence. Why?

Nietzsche only appears similar and/or a continuation of Stirner's thought when he is misread. There is a lot less Stirner influence in his project than many people realize.

>>7134203
hurts doesn't it

>>7133480
>Plato only became popular like 2000 years after his death
what

>>7135314
>>7133845
>>7133770
"The only Platonic work known to western scholarship was Timaeus, until translations were made at a time post the fall of Constantinople, which occurred during 1453"

>>7135347
I guess you mean worldwide popularity,
because Plato was known even when he was alive.

>>7135314
it wasn't till the Renaissance when people started reading him again

>>7135353
they might have knew him as a figure but were unable to read his actual work.

>>7135347
>>7135355
But theory of forms had a major influence on Christianity way before 1453.

>>7135428
>>7135428
yeah, the more educated who could read latin and greek maybe. it kind of died down and wasn't widespread for a period when people couldn't really read and there were no translation to read

>>7133778
thats because stirner's focus was a very specific part of philosophy. the scope of his writing is dwarfed by the important philosophers, who are far more comprehensive and prolific. more renown philosophers often tackled large and deep topics like aesthetics, consciousness, logic, causality, epistemology, or mathematics.

stirner wrote 'the ego and its own,' which addresses only one particular theme in just one of these topics, namely ethics. or rather, meta-ethics, for the pedants out there.

its like asking why john dewey's name isn't better known compared to freud. dewey's thought is about a very particular topic and subject (education) whereas freud, whether you believe his ideas relevant or not, spanned a greater number of topics in the field.

>>7133938
>>7133943
>>7133947
>>7133952
>>7133955
This is a terrible critique and Marx and company only went on to prove how right Stirner was.

>>7135485
You made a good point that I think many people miss. Generally the more disciplines one influences or the wider the breath of a philosopher's thought the more popular they will be.

>>7135485
Yeah you're completely right I'm not sure why I didn't post that as well. In his field though, he seems to be the end point, at least for me, or maybe end point isn't the right word. Optimal, perhaps?

But yes, lack of scope makes his philosophy simpler and can also lead to people underestimating him, I think.

>>7133438
>implying 4chan memes stay at home

>>7133480
Obvious troll as someone posting Francoise would not say this seriously

>>7133194
Because Stirner is the Edgar Allan Poe of philosophy: great beyond measure, but no cred with academics.

>>7137564
That's a really bad comparison. Poe actually has a great deal of renown and influence outside of the Anglosphere. Stirner is a nobody everywhere.

>>7137497
>>7137497
how am I wrong though? I should have said his works were not widely available outside of a small group of educated for another 2000 years but its still generally true. Aristotle was always the more popular one

>>7133194
because taking his shit without acknowleding him is the ultimate irony

>>7137630
that his works werent available doesnt mean he wasnt influential (he did influence Aristotle after all)

And you seem to forget the whole line of NeoPlatonists that existed up until the early modern period

What do we have for Stirner? a bunch of fags spouting "spooky tbh fam"
Talk about educated

>>7137564

He ended it. That's why no-one talks about him, because I they acknoweledged him college proffesors couldn't keep peddling shit like Atheism to teenagers.