/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.10275048]

From the moment when he catches sight of the light of the world a man seeks to find out himself and get hold of himself out of its confusion, in which he, with everything else, is tossed about in motley mixture.

But everything that comes in contact with the child defends itself in turn against his attacks, and asserts its own persistence.

Accordingly, because each thing cares for itself at the same time comes into constant collision with other things, the combat of self-assertion is unavoidable.

Victory or defeat — between the two alternatives the fate of the combat wavers. The victor becomes the lord, the vanquished one the subject: the former exercises supremacy and “rights of supremacy,” the latter fulfills in awe and deference the “duties of a subject.

But both remain enemies, and always lie in wait: they watch for each other’s weaknesses — children for those of their parents and parents for those of their children (e.g., their fear); either the stick conquers the man, or the man conquers the stick.

In childhood liberation takes the direction of trying to get to the bottom of things, to get at what is “back of” things; therefore we spy out the weak points of everybody, for which, it is well known, children have a sure instinct; therefore we like to smash things, like to rummage through hidden corners, pry after what is covered up or out of the way, and try what we can do with everything. When we once get at what is back of the things, we know we are safe; when, e.g., we have got at the fact that the rod is too weak against our obduracy, then we no longer fear it, “have out-grown it.”

Back of the rod, mightier than it, stands our — obduracy, our obdurate courage. By degrees we get at what is back of everything that was mysterious and uncanny to us, the mysteriously-dreaded might of the rod, the father’s stern look, etc., and back of all we find our ataraxia, i. e. imperturbability, intrepidity, our counter force, our odds of strength, our invincibility. Before that which formerly inspired in us fear and deference we no longer retreat shyly, but take courage. Back of everything we find our courage, our superiority; back of the sharp command of parents and authorities stands, after all, our courageous choice or our outwitting shrewdness. And the more we feel ourselves, the smaller appears that which before seemed invincible. And what is our trickery, shrewdness, courage, obduracy? What else but— mind!

[Anonymous No.10275081]

Hobbes, and others like him, posit the narrative primitive individual and the interactions between primitive individuals as prior to and a direct cause of society (self-interested individuals compromising their free agency in exchange for safety under a collective rule from other self-interested individuals). Later there would be other theories of human nature and of society that disagree, that see the social group as the basic, primitive form of life, and that individualisation, egoism comes later, is spurred of from this.

Stirner's historical narrative, if I am right, is an interesting expansion of this. Stirner sees phases of civilisation, not shedding the original state of man as an egoist to reach a higher social consciousness - but instead of civilisation, by steps, shedding itself of its collectivism, of its social consciousness, of the gradual production of the individual, of the move toward egoism.