Spook General

[Anonymous No.6632217]

Can we have a sincere spook thread?

I gave in to my spooks and bought The Ego and Its Own. I like what I've read so far. However, how does Stirner address the fact that we may not know what we truly want, or that we may want something that is in fact a spook?

One example he uses early on is a girl choosing between her lover and her family ties, but is torn because she values them both. Stirner concedes that she may desire maintaining her family stability but says that's rooted in piety, which is a spook. Therefore, she should choose the lover because that is more fulfilling for her ego.

I see the reasoning behind this but I'm not entirely convinced. What do you do when a spook has convinced you that you are happy? What happens when the totality of the spook means that it's in your best interest to keep it?

Take modern consumerism. I have the spook that luxury products will make me happy. In today's society, isn't that kind of true? Having nice clothes and a nice car etc. elevates your social status and makes people respect you more. I realize that those are spooks in themselves. But when those spooks are capable of determining whether we starve or dine nicely, experience love and affection or contempt, feel self-respect or self-loathing, isn't it in the ego's best interest to keep the spooks?

Help me /lit/. I'm seeing spooks everywhere and not sure what to do with all of them.

[Anonymous No.6632234]

Define "spooks".

[Anonymous No.6632240]

[Anonymous No.6632243]

>>6632234

A concept that you establish a master/servant relationship with, in which you are the servant.

[Anonymous No.6632248]

Everything's a spook. You might as well follow the spooks that make you happy.

>2015
>not being post-Stirner

[Anonymous No.6632332]

A... spook.
I thought you meant something traumatizing, I was gonna say The Earth Men by Bradbury. Now I don't know what to say... why?this- this thread is styupid.

[Anonymous No.6633474]

what's the diff between spooks and false consciousness?

[Anonymous No.6633481]

>>6632248
But that's not far from Stirner himself.

Do what makes you happy because it makes you happy, not because of external influence.

[Anonymous No.6633483]

>>6632243
>A concept that you establish a master/servant relationship with, in which you are the servant.

Half of lit are servants to the concept of spooks.

[Anonymous No.6633496]

>>6632217
>Stirner concedes that she may desire maintaining her family stability but says that's rooted in piety, which is a spook. Therefore, she should choose the lover because that is more fulfilling for her ego.
You've turned the concept of removal of spooks into a spook.

[Anonymous No.6633545]

>>6632217
>However, how does Stirner address the fact that we may not know what we truly want, or that we may want something that is in fact a spook?
But you do know what you want.

>>6632234
Absolute spirits.

[Anonymous No.6633552]

>>6633483
I know you're trying to be an edgemax memelord funnilinguist, but the concepts of spooks is a spook if you treat it as such. And you're just mad because people call your dumb opinions that don't matter spooks. fuck off.

[Anonymous No.6633562]

>>6632248
That's literally what Stirner says. Retard

[Anonymous No.6633570]

>>6633474
Not much, since Marx is Stirner + obfuscated morals

[Anonymous No.6633629]

I'm also 150 pages into Stirner and discussed it with some others. My problem with it relates to yours:

Firstly, I'd say a spook can be described as
"Any concept (in particular ideologies like being a good human, religious, aquiring money, being a feminist, vegan, etc.) that you follow and eventually put before yourself and your actual interests."
E.g. if you at one point decide for yourself that eating animals is bad, you can, and you may then find yourself as labeling yourself a vegetarian. The concept becomes a spook at the point where you "make decisions X" because "well...I'm a vegetarian, and vegetarian do X". That's spooky, you dropped acting in your interest and accepted a framework without thinking and thereby put it before and above you.

My point with it is this (and I think it's related to yours):
Being a Stirnerian egoist is fucking hard!
People invent labels (spooks, eventually) like 'Christian', 'feminist', and 'morally acting human' because they summarize a list of modes of action. People adopt it to assure others of their predictable behavior and to externalize decisions.
On the other hand, being a Stirnerian egoist, freeing yourself from any spook and acting in the egos interest, always, is giving up the ease of having ideologies.

What you say, that you might just not be capable to make the right decision also acknowledges that hardness. Humans are limited. I'm saying we might not mentally be capable of being Stirnerian egoists. You seem to say that also we might not have enough information to make the best of Stirners proposed mindset.

[Anonymous No.6633645]

>>6633629
I could add that what I'm saying is that being a Stiernerian egoist requires to live more in the moment and making conscious decisions than a human can practically do. We adopt spooks to adopt rules which externalize and thereby automatize actions.

[Anonymous No.6633844]

>>6633645
At some point it is just as spooky as anything else. You impose a paradoxical framework against frameworks.

[Anonymous No.6633894]

>>6633629
I tell people I have no standard of action and most people just don't understand

[Anonymous No.6633916]

>>6633645
>>6633844
It's important to realize that all objects of the mind are spiritual, "geistual", geist means both spirit and mind.

What Stirner is doing is pointing out that geistual things are just geistual. If the geist is only a geist, and describes nothing real, substantial, then it's clearly just a geist, and if you elevate that geist to being more important than substance, then you're being stupid/whatever.

It's anti-reification and anti-self-interest in a sense.

[Anonymous No.6634079]

>>6632234
FINALLY! Holy shit as someone who never read Stirner and browsed lit...

[Anonymous No.6634083]

>>6634079
oops, meant to reply to: >>6632243

[Anonymous No.6634371]

>>6633481
>Do what makes you happy because it makes you happy,
But I don't want to.

[Anonymous No.6634398]

>>6632217
Is the Cambridge translation the only acceptable one? It's like 3 times more expensive than the other ones.

[Anonymous No.6634408]

>>6633496
When speaking about spooks it's pretty easy to fall inot such assumption.
The interesting thing about it is that there's no feasible way to disprove it.

[Anonymous No.6634652]

>>6634398
No, they're all variations on the Byington translation

[Anonymous No.6634657]

>>6634408
Considering anything that turns reason into an apparatus that is "greater" than the substantial, yes, literally all spoken principles are functionally spooks.

[Anonymous No.6636091]

>>6633629

I'm glad there's another fellow meme scholar with similar questions. I'm reading this without any further instruction; do you have a professor you could ask to clarify some of his points?

I'm not as far into the book as you are but are you sure that giving into spooks and using labels like "Christian" or "feminist" is meant to externalize decisions? It seems like those sorts of labels are just general descriptors of a certain belief set. The directionless nature of the feminist movement these days means that when you call yourself a "feminist" it could mean a multitude of things. You may hate or accept transexuals, for example.

You might have a "core" belief set that you use to appraise new decisions.

Anyway, I agree with you that the mental obstacle of being a true egoist are almost impossible, but didn't Stirner stress somewhere that it's just an ideal to strive for?

[Anonymous No.6636111]

>>6636091

Breaking this up in to two parts so I'm not jumping all over the place.

Here's something that I've been confused about. Is giving into a spook that makes you happy something you should get rid of? Let's say want to get a nosejob, because you don't like how your nose looks. You want it to look a certain way that will look more attractive to you. Therefore, you think you are getting a nosejob because you want to make it look personally appealing.

However, your notions of what an attractive nose looks like is rooted in images fed to you by society, and what you deem to be attractive is simply what society at large as instilled in you.

In this case, should you stop yourself from getting a nosejob and try to feel more secure with your nose because the nosejob is a result of spooky thinking? Or are you letting the spook of not giving into spooks hinder your happiness?

[Anonymous No.6636115]

>>6636091
Christian and feminist are just titles that people objectify themselves with to gain social approval, to block out and limit the ego within them. People don't like a person to whom anything is an option.

[Anonymous No.6636136]

>>6636115

That seems to be an oversimplification. Using those labels is just semantic convenience. If someone asks you of your opinion on women's rights and you respond "I'm a feminist", wouldn't you agree that all that is meant is that your views roughly fall under the ideological umbrella of feminism? You can expand your viewpoints when asked; it's not like anyone just repeats "I'm a feminist" over and over again if you inquire for more detail.

[Anonymous No.6636140]

>>6636111
>Is giving into a spook that makes you happy something you should get rid of? Let's say want to get a nosejob, because you don't like how your nose looks. You want it to look a certain way that will look more attractive to you. Therefore, you think you are getting a nosejob because you want to make it look personally appealing.
>However, your notions of what an attractive nose looks like is rooted in images fed to you by society, and what you deem to be attractive is simply what society at large as instilled in you.
Have you read Stirner enough to get to the part about power?

First off, "society" is a reification. Society doesn't feed you images. Society is an idea, it doesn't do anything. You see images in line at the store, individuals make comments, it's all individual events.

Second, you just view everything as pros and cons, affects or not. Will getting a nosejob make other people find you more attractive? Is your desire to feel attractive? If that's a substantial (unreasoned) impulse, and that impulse leads your reason to that conclusion, then maybe you should do it or maybe not. But there's nothing wrong with it any way you choose, at all, it's just facts to Stirner. All he's trying to do is make you stop feeling impelled by reason from choosing an action.

So if you want not to get a nosejob because you don't want to be influenced by society, well then, why the fuck do you care so much to be a special snowflake apart from society? "You" are not an object with a list of predicates, and being obsessed over not being influenced by society is proof that you treat yourself like an object and not an emerging phenomenon.

Here's what you do with Stirner: stop giving a shit about what "you" are, because "you" are pretty much made up, and you and everyone else is pretty much imposing stupid ideas on you. Just do whatever shit you feel like. It's not that hard.

[Anonymous No.6636152]

>>6636136
>You can expand your viewpoints when asked; it's not like anyone just repeats "I'm a feminist" over and over again if you inquire for more detail.
Creative nothing, endpoint of language. Hegel kind of touches on this, but no, "you" are not a feminist. You're only an object in the process of contemplating yourself, and none of those predicates have absolute or lasting meaning. Feminist supposedly does have absolute meaning. Calling yourself a feminist imposes upon yourself a way of being that you don't have to be. And it's always stupid to impose rules on yourself that you don't need to impose.

[Anonymous No.6636177]

Honest question, I haven't read Stirner, but from reading opinions and articles about him I've gotten to this question:

Is Stirner against all spooks or does he finally conclude that, because most ideas are spooks and since we are concious about this, we should 'follow' or adopt those that we seem to follow into our life, yet not to put a servant-master relation in them?

If he is against all spooks, trying to apply his philosophy would be near to impossible, since we should be 'making' all of our thoughts and ideas in a way that only we are on 'top', and because of this, life in society might be impracticable, since society requires us to follow certain spooks like the State/Nation and others.

[Anonymous No.6636221]

>>6636177
>Is Stirner against all spooks
Stirner gives absolutely no ethical claims at all in his work. He doesn't say you should do anything. He's giving a metaethical description.

> does he finally conclude that, because most ideas are spooks and since we are concious about this, we should 'follow' or adopt those that we seem to follow into our life, yet not to put a servant-master relation in them?
Okay, I'm going to break down your geist the way Stirner sees it. I.E., how Hegel's phenomenology of geist works with Stirner.

"You" are essentially two parts. You have reason, and you have substance. Reason is what you do when you think. Substance is everything that isn't thinking. So if you're making a sandwich while thinking of Stirner, the sandwich is substantial life for you, and Stirner is an object of reason. Now, it's important to note that Reason cannot accept anything unreasonable. This is why you can't accept that "this book is both blue and not blue", because your reason will prevent that. You must change thoughts.

Hegel believed all things substantial can be understood in reason. Hegel also believed reason was superior to substance. However, substance is immediate, and is true, it's indeniable to Stirner. You can't deny the sandwich tastes good, and no amount of reason will ever change that.

In the early sections of Ego, Stirner hates on skeptics for rejecting all substance and accepting only reason, which is why they accept nothing. He then views Christianity as developing on this skepticism and adding it's own shit (this is why I claim Christians are the greatest skeptics, except for their pathology [insert Feuerbach here]). Since reason fails to adequately describe substance, the skeptic cannot accept substance.

Stirner commends the sophists for using reason for their own gain. So to use reason well, use it like a sophist: self-interested, not committed to anything higher. So what he's saying is, philosophers are dumb and live their lives in their heads, and stop trusting impulse and the world as it presents itself, which is a wealth of great and awesome experience.

All ideas are 'spiritual', 'geistual', as nothing in the realm of ideas can enter the realm of substance. So literally, all ideas are spooks. The problem most people have is they want to try to comprehend Stirner without accepting the rejection of reason in the skeptic's/philosopher's sense, which makes the mistake of elevating reason above substance.

Note that, Stirner isn't "against" reason, he isn't against the objects of reason (e.g., spooks), he's against the process which starts valuing reason and it's objects above substance, impulse, emotions, the unreasonable.

[Anonymous No.6636230]

>>6636177
>If he is against all spooks, trying to apply his philosophy would be near to impossible, since we should be 'making' all of our thoughts and ideas in a way that only we are on 'top', and because of this, life in society might be impracticable,
He is not against all spooks. He's not even against spooks. He's just describing what they are.

>since society requires us to follow certain spooks like the State/Nation and others.
This will make sense when you get to the section on power. To Stirner, and to Schopenhauer and Nietzsche as well (Schopenhauer believed in an entire ontology composed of will, Stirner of power, Nietzsche of will to power).

To Stirner, all things are power. All things are competing, dominating. If you want freedom, you must take power. Anything you do is an exertion of power. It just so happens that the State spook inhabits many people's minds, and their collective power will destroy you if you take it head on. So you can't, you have to abide by it.

There's nothing "spooky" about power, because we all experience power in substantial life. If you're trying to say "being punched only exists in reason", well, no, clearly not.

[Anonymous No.6636277]

>>6636230
>>6636221
thanks a lot, I feel the urge to buy Der Einzige und sein Eigenthum now

Stirner is truly fascinating, yet not many people read about him or credit him enough.

[Anonymous No.6636314]

>>6636277
No problem. I should add that the difference between a simple geistual object, and a "spook" proper, is also a distinction he makes, and one I underplay a little for brevity. Anything you think is an object of the mind, obviously. These are not all "spooks". E.G., nobody would really deny that "the default color of 4chan's /lit/ board is blue". It's a spiritual (geistual) thought, but it can't really do anything, it's just an inert fact. A "spook" is an idea that attempts to take over your substantial life. So thinking, "murder is wrong", will temper all human deaths, the idea itself will take away your own feelings, impulses, and emotions and fight them. Stirner doesn't say you "ought" to fight spooks, just that the spooks are at odds with your "creative nothing".

Read Stirner, but without a good philosophical base, the more philosophical sections will be cryptic. Stirner is the kind of guy to parody and reference other philosophers without naming them explicitly. It won't be easy to understand all of his work's depths without at least a cursory knowledge of Hegel, Feuerbach, and Bauer, as well as understanding, in general, the history of philosophy.

[Anonymous No.6636346]

>One example he uses early on is a girl choosing between her lover and her family ties, but is torn because she values them both. Stirner concedes that she may desire maintaining her family stability but says that's rooted in piety, which is a spook. Therefore, she should choose the lover because that is more fulfilling for her ego.

>serving spooks is bad
it's not even bad. you can serve something else and still be an egoist so long as it serves you. there is no fucking measurement system here that you are prompted to rely on for making decisions. desiring ownness vs desiring to serve something else is desire all the same, is pursuing egoism.

you're trying too hard to grasp egoism, trying to form a mode of operation for something that is better done than said

[Anonymous No.6636353]

>>6636314
I'm familiar with most of western philosophy up until Kant more or less. I haven't read any of the philosophers you mention, but I know some of the basic ideas of Hegel, Feuerbach and Bauer not so much sadly.

I guess I will keep them in my backlog until I buy Der Einzige...

Thanks again.

[Anonymous No.6636455]

>>6636346
Generally the obedience to spooks in an egoist is by the perception of that obedience to other people. The girl who's debating in her mind, might really be phrased, does her piety gain her the respect of her family vs. her attachment to her lover.

[Anonymous No.6637146]

>>6632248
>Everything's a spook.
FUCKING WRONG

[Anonymous No.6637332]

omg...Stirner wrote before many of modern day psychology was understood.
He implies the self is something unknown yet today one can say the self is simply the examination of the simulation of the world within your brain.
We know that human perception and understading rely on each other. They co develop.
We have cliche quotes like "Existence precedes essence" that can be interprete into meaning that we first act in the world before we are fully aware of ourselves.
There is never an "objective" transcendental stage or place where our core exists undisturbed, making objective descisions unless distorted by spooks..

Spooks are ideology, how we process and understand and interpret reality.

You can never get rid of "spooks" you can just trade certain ones for other ones because you can never transcend reality.

What Stirner is all about is the ability to do this exchange of spooks or to recognize the fact spooks can be exchanged yet the process of the exchange itself is the result of other spooks allowing you to make the exchange.

The relevant thing that still remains of Stirner's writings is the representation a certain way of thinking.
It melds into a more conscious understanding of the impossibility of objectivity. Of objectivity from everything as an incoherent concept.

[Anonymous No.6637353]

>>6637332
>He implies the self is something unknown yet today one can say the self is simply the examination of the simulation of the world within your brain.
>We know that human perception and understading rely on each other. They co develop.
category error
>>6637332
>We have cliche quotes like "Existence precedes essence" that can be interprete into meaning that we first act in the world before we are fully aware of ourselves.
that's not what is means, at all.
>>6637332
>You can never get rid of "spooks" you can just trade certain ones for other ones because you can never transcend reality.
>What Stirner is all about is the ability to do this exchange of spooks or to recognize the fact spooks can be exchanged yet the process of the exchange itself is the result of other spooks allowing you to make the exchange.
that's both bullshit and not what Stirner writes about.

[Anonymous No.6637394]

>>6637353
>what you said is wrong.
>whaaaaaa

Right on. XD

[Anonymous No.6637411]

>>6637394
I've done my share of arguing with retards on /lit/.

[Anonymous No.6637415]

>>6636221
I've read half of the book, saw basically nothing of the perspective you lined out here, which must be because I didn't read much other philosophy (like Hegel).

[Anonymous No.6637418]

>>6637411
>I know im smart!!

[Anonymous No.6637425]

>>6637418
that too, as it happens. I've published on Stirner.

[Anonymous No.6637426]

>>6636314
Then you started reading linguistic philosophers and threw Stirner into the fire.
happy ending.

[Anonymous No.6637429]

>>6637425
Me too, and?

[Anonymous No.6637443]

>>6637415
Stirner was a student of Hegel's, so he kind of argues in Hegel's language

[Anonymous No.6637447]

>>6637426
Stirner is still the greatest philosopher IMO