G.P.O., New York, N.Y., U.S.A., 10001 SIDNEY E.

PARKER

An Individualist Review
EGO No. 2, 1982 15p
NIETZSCHE - ANTICHRIST? S.E.Parker (All quotations from Nietzsche, unless otherwise stated, are from the edition of The Antichrist published by Haldeman-Julius in 1930) "There have been many great attacks upon Christianity, strong and effective in their different ways, and one hesitates to distiguish any one of them by the superlative 'greatest', but if I were to use this superlative - especially with respect to sheer blasting force of inspired denunciation - I should apply it to The Antichrist of Friedrich Nietzsche....0ne is not only impressed intellectually, but one is thrilled and moved to the depths by the splendid, sweeping fervour of his attack." It is with these words that the renowned American freethinker and publisher, E. Haldeman-Julius, begins the introduction to his 1930 edition of The Antichrist. That Nietzsche is antiChristian - that is, antithe Christian Church - is apparent to anyone who has read him. The question I want to ask, however, is he really anti- Christ as he claimed to be? Before giving my answer it may be useful to briefly outline the way in which Nietzsche viewed Christianity. Nietzsche does not primarily concern himself with the usual questions regarding the dating of the Christian gospels, their consistency or inconsistency, or whether Christ did or did not exist. In other words, the validity of the documentary evidence for Christianity. Nor does he concern himself with the arguments for or against the existence of God, although he calls himself an atheist. He adopts what he describes as a "psychological" approach which revolves around the question: Does Christianity enhance or depreciate life? He writes: "What is good? - everything that increases the feeling of power, the will to power, and power itself, in men. What is evil? everything based in weakness. What is joy? - the emotion of power increasing, of a resistance overcome. Not contentedness, but more power! Not peace at any price, but war! Not 'goodness', but more ability!....The weak and the misbegotten shall sink to the ground: that is our humanitarian slogan; and they should be helped to sink. What is the most harmful vice? - pity, shown to the misbegotten and the feeble -Christianity."

Nietzsche argues that the attacks made upon Christianity up to his time have not only been timid but false. Christianity is a crime against life and the problem of its "truth" is of no value unless it leads to a consideration of the validity of its morality.

Christianity attempts to reverse natural selection. The Christian is a sick and degenerate individual who tries to thwart the natural course of evolution and wants to make the unnatural into law. He seeks to preserve the physiologically botched, those who are weak, and to strengthen their instinct to preserve each other. Those who do not regard this attitude as immoral belong to the same sickly crowd. "Genuine love of mankind," he writes, "exacts sacrifice for the good of the species: it is hard, full of self-control because it needs sacrifice." He adds: "Neither as an ethical code nor as a religion has Christianity any point of contact with...........things as they actually are. It is concerned with purely fantastic causes...and purely fantastic effects. It communes with purely fantastic creatures...it professes a fantastic science, a fantastic psychology....this world of pure fantasy is to be differentiated, to its disadvantage, from the world of dreams, for the dream-world at least reflects actuality, whereas the other falsifies, slanders and denies actuality." All religion is born of fear, but the Christian religion is essentially a product of servile mentalities. The slaves were in fear of their masters and wanted revenge for their inferiority. Christianity sprang from their resentment and had as its aim the undermining of the confidence of the ruling castes by means of guilt-inducing ideas of sin and pity. It was a levelling doctrine like its offspring socialism. The result of this triumphant slave revolt was the destruction of the intellectual accomplishments of the ancient world. The scientific method, the art of reading, the sense for fact - all were in vain. They were "buried in a night. Not trampled to death by German and other heavy feet! But brought to shame by crafty, stealthy, anemic vampires. Not conquered - merely sucked dry!" Nietzsche ends The Antichrist with an idictment of Christianity as "the one great curse, the one intrinsic depravity, the one black impulse of resentment, for which no subterfuge is too vile, or too furtive, or too underhand, or too mean. I say the thing is the one indelible blot on the achievement of man...."

Despite the fierceness of Nietzsche's indictment, however, his case against Christianity is incomplete. As Benjamin de Casseres has pointed out: "The Antichrist....is an evasion. It was a tremendous onslaught -the greatest ever made - on Christianity. But Christianity and Christ are identical." (I Dance With Nietzsche) Nietzsche, in fact, lets Christ off lightly, focussing his hatred on St. Paul whom he regards as the real intellectual founder of the Christian creed. Nietzsche accuses Paul of sacrificing "the Saviour; he nailed him to his own cross." He even blames the disciples for possessing the "most un-Christly desires for revenge," as if the numerous threats of hell and damnation attributed to the Christ of the New Testament could be construed as anything else but a very Christly desire for revenge! Later he claims that these threats were "put into the mouth of the Master" by "these trivial people." And in another place he complains that "The character of the Saviour, his teaching, his way of life, the meaning of his death, and even the sequel to his death - were all altered until nothing in the record even remotely approximated to fact." Just what this alleged "fact" was and how he knew it differed from "the record" Nietzsche does not say. Indeed it would seem that here he was contrasting his own private fantasy about Christ with the public fantasy of the Church. Nietzsche's famous statement that "there was only one Christian and he died on the cross" is yet another example of the reverential way he approached the Christ myth. Even such an ardent Nietzschean as Oscar Levy admits that "We are confronted here with a weakness in the strong mind of Nietzsche who, with all his deep insight, was more of an anti-Christian than an anti-Christ and who had, from his ancestral stock, a remnant of veneration for the Saviour in his blood." (The Idiocy of Idealism) But there is more to Nietzsche's reverence for Christ than the influence of his ancestral stock. If "Christ" is taken as a symbol for the "redemption of mankind" then Nietzsche would have felt a strong affinity with him, for he too wished to redeem mankind with his gospel of the Superman despite his statement in Ecce Homo that "The very last thing I should promise to accomplish would be to 'improve' mankind. I do not set up any new idols: may old idols only learn what it costs to have legs of clay." Here, for example, is the messianic Nietzsche in full flight: "Ye lonesome ones of today, ye seceding ones, ye shall one day be a people: out of you who have chosen yourselves shall a

chosen people arise - and out of it, the Superman. "Verily a place of healing shall the earth become! And already is a new order diffused around it, a salvation-bringing odour and a new hope!" (Thus Spake Zarathustra) This Salvationist strain in Nietzsche's thinking was clearly brought out in The Philosophy of Nietzsche by Georges Chatterton-Hill: "Those who represent the Overman as an incarnation of selfishness are grievously mistaken. It is not his own pleasure that the Overman seeks, but the justification of eternal Becoming, which is the eternal world process....the redemption of humanity through suffering, through great and intense suffering. And out of this intense suffering emerges precisely that supreme object and work of art which is the Overman, who by his deeds shall justify all that which is miserable and pitiable in life, and raise it to a pinnacle of beauty. The Overman modelled in the school of suffering shall in turn reflect his own glory on the whole of life: and life viewed in the wondrous light shed on it by the glory of the Overman shall be redeemed and affirmed and sanctified and justified." It is a characteristic of all religious and messianic doctrines that they demand the submission of the individual to some supraindividual entity or goal. The Christian views the individual as an instrument of his God, the Marxist views the individual as an instrument of the Dialectical Process, and Nietzsche, in his turn, views the individual as an instrument for the realization of the Superman. Having declared "the death of God" he became obsessed with the problem of finding a new goal for "mankind". His answer was the creation of the Superman. The godless were to have a new god. But I would ask why does my life need to be "justified" and "redeemed", "purified" by suffering, and the creation of the Superman? To me, all this is simply the old Christian rubbish given a new coat of paint. One of the reasons that I am an atheist is because I reject any belief that demands I serve it. I want my beliefs to serve me. If I am told by Nietzsche that Christianity is a servile creed, a permanent whine from those who are not strong enough to face reality, then I agree with him. But if he goes on to say that I must live my life for the coming of the Superman, I then classify his words in the same category as I do those of the Christian and his Christ: mystifying spookery! I live my life for my sake, not for the sake of a goal set by someone else and transcending me.

Nietzsche himself aptly observed that "The man of faith, any kind of 'believer', is necessarily subservient to something outside himself: he cannot posit himself as an end, and he cannot find ends within himself. The believer does not really belong to himself, he is only a means, he needs to be used, and he needs someone to use him. His instinct accords the highest place to a morality of abnegation; and everything within him - his prudence, his experience, and his vanity - prompt him to espouse this morality. Any kind of faith is an expression of self-denial, and of estrangement from self..." Had Nietzsche taken his own words to heart and applied them to his own faith he would have freed himself from all religion. Then indeed he would have been more than anti-Christianity, he would have been anti-Christ. (Since writing the above I came across the following passage in -another work by Benjamin de Casseres: The Muse of Lies. Although de Casseres was an ardent admirer of Nietzsche what he writes supports my theme: "Nietzsche's doctrine of the 'Eternal Return' was best illustrated in himself, for he preached the ideal of sacrifice and a living for a 'Beyond'. He was the last great Christian. The will to create the superman, the Beyond-Man, orders one even to sacrifice one's friends, says Nietzsche in one of his aphorisms. Is this not the ecclesiastical furor par excellence? Can you not see the cowled fanatic in that? Can you not smell the fagots and the pitch-pile? Can not we nihilists and mockers see the psychologic germ of the new Torquemada in that sacrificial admonition? The Eternal Return! Indeed thou wert a Return, o thou dancing, Dionysian forerunner of an Inquisition.") NEW PUBLICATIONS. Pride of place must be given to two new editions of Max Stirner's masterpiece The Ego and His Own. The first has been published by The Rebel Press (Box R, Aldgate Press, 84B Whitechapel High St., London E.1. Price 4.50) with a new introduction by myself. Unfortunately the publishers have seen fit to abridge and, in places, rewrite my original introduction so what appears is not what I wrote. Fortunately these mutilations have not substantially altered my text, but I hope readers will keep this fact in mind. The second has been published by Western World Press (P.O.Box 366, Sun City, CA 92381, U.S.A. Price: 6 dollars, 95 cents (U.S.)) This is a

straightforward reprint of the 1963 Libertarian Book Club edition which was edited and introduced by James J. Martin.

Carl Watner has sent me the first two pamphlets in The Voluntaryist Series (Box 5836, Baltimore, MD 21208, U.S.A. Price 1 dollar (U.S.)) No 1 is Party Dialogue by George H. Smith and discusses whether or not libertarians should follow political or non-political strategies to achieve a "free society". Smith thinks they should not. No 2 is Voluntaryism in The Libertarian Tradition by Carl Watner and is a brief history of voluntaryist ideas from Etienne da la Boetie to Thoreau. The Series has apparently been launched in the fond belief that the mob can be educated in "freedom" and inspired to civil disobedience to realize it - a belief I do not share. Not many at the age of 89 can be as active with their pens as Enrico Arrigoni. His latest works are three short playlets (part of a projected series of seven) satirising the nonsense of "Biblical fairy tales." They are When God Woke Up From His Eternal Slumber, Cain And Abel: The Unintentional Murder!, and God's! Folly: The Great Flood. No prices or publisher is given, but no doubt copies can be obtained from the author c/o The Libertarian Book Club, Box 842, G.P.O., New York, N.Y., U.S.A., 10001.) S.E.P

EGO Number 3 (year?)

VIEWS... By S.E.Parker and Stephen Marletts

SOLNEMAN's MANIFESTO
(The Manifesto Of Peace And Freedom by K.H.Z. Solneman. The Mackay Society Freiburg and New York. 1983. Translated from the German by Doris Pfaff and John Zube. Edited by Edward Mornin. Apt. 2E 227 Columbus Ave., New York, N.Y. 10023, U.S.A. 11.95 US Dollars) The most crucial struggle that anyone can engage in is the struggle to achieve self-ownership against the demands made by others in the name of the ideologies of the "society" into which

he is born. In this interesting, if badly titled, work by K.H.Z. Solneman it is pointed out that these demands are "more of a mental than a material kind". Out of the primitive belief in ghosts and gods arose domination by abstractions and fixed ideas. This was not only a product of priestly deception, it was also fad by those who wished to avoid the burden of thinking for themselves and wanted "a leadership which would relieve them of this burden and impress them by superior appearances". Always, despite changes in form and terminology, there exists this demand for the acceptance of some transcendent power to whom or which allegiance is regarded as obligatory: "While on the one side belief in a personal God gradually disappeared, even though it is still alive in millions, originally religious commandments remained still in force, but now as 'ethical' commandments and without people being conscious of their origin. At the same time, new gods with new commandments took the place of the previous ones. Philosophy, sociology and even modern theology have depersonalized the concept of God more and more and transformed it into the rather misty concept of an abstraction of 'love' or an impersonal world law, which again sets 'tasks' or a 'final aim'. Naturally, the self-appointed prophets and interpreters of this new God determine the specific commandments and prohibitions and, more or less through coercion, keep the individual at work to fulfill his 'task' or 'destiny'." To accept the validity of such abstractions as 'God', 'Society', 'Nation' and 'Class' is to condemn oneself to wandering in a perpetual fog haunted by the ghosts of what are no more than human inventions. To think realistically one needs a concrete starting point. This is "the actual mortal ego of each individual human being" and here Solneman acknowledges Max Stirner as the pioneer of such egoistic thinking. From an egocentric standpoint, therefore, it becomes clear just how nonsensical it is to regard abstractions as volitional beings and to ascribe to collectivities the ability to think, to feel and to demand ("the will of society", etc.) Only the individual is capable of such activities and basing himself on this awareness Solnemen launches a we11-argued assault upon all those ideologies that have as their purpose the subordination and sacrifice of individuality - in particular, the ideology of the State, the ideology of Marxism, and the ideology of democracy. In general I agree with Solneman's criticism of these ideologies and the fallacies and frauds that are used to justify them,

although at times I think that in his efforts to be "fair" to his opponents he lands himself in the very trap he is seeking to expose. For example, in his discussion of the development of the idea of sacrifice in primitive tribes he remarks that "So the feeling grew - and was confirmed by the behaviour of others that sacrifices for the community were something worthy of praise. They are this, in fact, under certain circumstances and within certain limits, provided the person concerned makes them himself voluntarily, and does not demand them from others through pressure and coercion." Certain religious and humanist moralists would not dissent from such a view, but from an egoist standpoint I cannot see how Solneman can justify it. Apart from the fact that he does not specify the "circumstances" and "limits" he mentions, it would seem here that he is investing "the community" with the same idolatrous qualities that he so effectively denounces when it has been labelled "society" or "people" ("A purely mental construct, a fanciful image in the heads of those who merely believe this product of their faith"). Sacrifices carried out while under the domination of a fixed idea like "the community" are not voluntary behaviour - that is, behaviour stemming from an individual's own will. However, such lapses in his critical analysis are rare. It is when he comes to outline his constructive proposals for "new social relationships" that my fundamental disagreements begin. I do not intend to go into the details of his programme of "equal access to natural resources and the distribution of land-rent to everyone", "open associations of management", "freedom of the means of exchange" and "autonomous legal and social communities" which are designed to replace "the law of the sword and aggressive force" with "non-domination and equal freedom". Readers can find these described in his book and can make up their own minds about them. The crux of Solneman's case does not lie in such a programme, which is nothing new, but in the method he claims will achieve it. He is not so naive as to believe in the totalistic tactics and dreams of the various communistic and anarchist churches. He recognizes that "the broad mass" of human beings have a strong desire "to submit and worship," the urge to dominate having its complement in the urges of those "for whom sacrifice and submission have become overwhelming needs". It follows that since so many want either to rule or be ruled their "right" to such a state of affairs must be granted since not to do so would mean that one becomes an authority oneself.

The problem for Solneman is how one can acknowledge this "right" and at the same time start in motion the process that will eventually lead to the abolition of rulership that he so ardently desires. His solution is a scheme he calls "To Everyone The State Of His Dreams", which is based on an 1860 essay by the Belgian advocate of "panarchy", P.E. de Puydt. De Puydt argued that the way for everyone to have the type of government he wants is to establish a plurality of governments in any given area in place of the system of one government for each area that exists today. This, he likened to the replacement of one church by the present multiplicity of churches and congregations that now exist peacefully side by side. In this way, de Puydt claimed, every individual could have the govenment he wanted and those who did not want to be governed would be free to live without government. He wrote: "All compulsion should cease. Every adult citizen should be and should remain free to select from among all possible governments the one that conforms to his will and satisfies his personal needs. Free not on the day following some bloody revolution, but always and everywhere. Free to select, but not to force his choice on others. Then all disorder will cease, and all fruitless struggles will be avoided." Solneman believes that in this way it would be possible to achieve a non-governmental society in a peaceful and amicable manner. The fatal flaw in this belief, however, is the assumption that everyone wil1 voluntarily agree to the implementation of his scheme - even those who are opposed to voluntarism and support coercion. I cannot see how someone who adheres to an ideology which incorporates "the truth", and furthermore thinks that all others should be compelled to accept this "truth", can be brought to agree to a scheme whereby those who reject his ideas are free to live according to their own tastes without interference from him and his fellow "truth" holders. In other words, Solneman thinks those who are authoritarians can remain such as long as they behave like non-authoritarians. Since he does not show how this contradiction can be resolved his whole scheme smacks of personal fantasy rather then the realism he claims for it. Indeed, he nowhere gives any cogent reason to suppose that the "broad mass", whom he acknowledges have always displayed an overwhelming need to be dominated, can so transform their mentalities as to become capable of self-determination. He

admits that the "anarchy" of his dreams has never existed in "a consistent form". And for this reason he dismisses the charge that it would amount to "disorder...or even chaos" because it "does not express an experienced fact". But if it does not express an experienced fact then it merely expresses a hope, a wish, an unverified belief. It belongs to those "metaphysics" which he himself defines as "all concepts and doctrines which go beyond the realm of sensibly and logically graspable experienced reality." To sum up: Solneman's critique of prevailing ideologies is of great value to individualists everywhere. His claimed peaceful transformation of the world, however, belongs to a category of faith akin to all those other utopian delusions that litter the history of human beliefs. To reject all belief in authority over myself is certainly experiencable and sensible. To deduce from this that all others individuals can do the same thing does not follow. It is an accomplishment limited to a few, as all "experienced fact" testifies. S.E.P.

EGO Number 4 (year?)

EGO AND SOCIETY

S.E. Parker We live in the Age of Society. On every side pundits of various political and moral. hues pontificate about the "need" for a society that is "caring", "compassionate", "moral", even "Christian". They proclaim differing degrees of real or assumed fervour that "society" should or ought to do this or that and are quick to denounce as "selfish" those who refuse to go along with their particular panaceas. Traditional conservative moralists of the Right, Marxist socialists of the Left (and their "libertarian" allies), liberal welfarists of the Centre, fuelled by their visions of a past or future paradise. or the latest statistics of old people suffering from hypothermia, all join in the chorus of supplication to the god of Society and demand that its. "will" be done. Behind this clamour lies the mistaken belief that when individuals form a "society" they thereby create an organic entity to which appeals can be made and to which they are related as mere cellular parts of a whole. Such a belief has no

basis in fact. "Society" is no ego which can cause, feel, or will anything. It is an abstract noun denoting a specific ,I:,,C,,regation of individuals relating to each other for certain purposes. To claim. therefore, that such individuals are nothing but cells of an organism is a gross misuse of words. A cell cannot exist apart. An individual can - albeit at the cost of considerable discomfort and inconvenience. "Society" is thus a purely mental construct. The-only concrete entity involved is the particular, flesh-and-blood individual. It may be objected to this line of reasoning that "man" is, after all, a "Social animal". If by this is meant that each individual living in a society has a multiplicity of relations with other individuals that is true. But if from this obvious fact the conclusion is drawn that these inter-individual relationships themselves constitute a real body with a life and demands of its own then those who draw it are simply placing themselves on the same level as the animism of primitive savages. It is no more than an empty hypostatisation. Nonetheless, no belief exists which does not serve some purpose, however foolish or irrational that may be. The sociocentric myth, the belief that the individual is mere a component of an abstraction called "society", in the gloss put ,upon the interests of those who have in mind some prescriptive ideal as to how people ought to behave. It is another spook with which to deceive the naive and the gullible. To make plain one's own interest is by no means as impressive as invoking the interests of "society". And as long as one is not called upon to explain how such a disembodied entity can have interests the myth remains intact for the future use of its beneficiaries. Against the mystique of the sociocrat, stands the conscious ego of the autocrat, whose being is pivoted within, and who regards "society" simply as a means or instrument,, not a source or sanction* The egoist refuses to be ensnared by the net of conceptual imperatives that surrounds the hypostatization of "society" preferring the real to the unreal, the fact to the myth. WHAT IS JUSTICE? James L. Walker It in an idea presupposing a power that lays down a rule or law to which the individual owes respect and obedience. God is presented as the supreme egoist. My wishes must yield to his. This is God's justice or law. Those who believe in God fear and obey --not I. Then comes society's justice. "Society" the egoist orders what it wills. I must sacrifice my wishes" to the family,

to the State,, to humanity. If the power exists and known-how to subject me, I must - not otherwise. Shall I waste my life in setting up and obeying an idea that 1 must treat all men alike? They are not alike - not equally able or willing to sustain me in return. Society is the natural state of men, and holds each Individual to "duties" so long as it can. or till he refuses to obey. When. he comes to full consciousness. he sets, up as his own master, and thereafter. if there be any use for the word justice,, it must mean the rules of a union of egoists with benefits to at least balance duties; and these duties are simply matter of contract. The egoists will act as they see fit or prudent towards natural society. Can any infidel say why he directly enslaves horses and not men? Men are indirectly enslaved and their deference to ideas keeps them enslaved. It is useless to urge that slavery is unjust. The chameleon changes colour, but remains a chameleon. One form of slavery is abolished to give place to another so long as men consent to be hold subject. The idea that slavery Is "unjust" is the idea that there is, a rule or law against it. The facts of nature are there. The mere idea. that:, if rulers would cease to oppress. all would be better, is not effective of improvement to the subject man. When, however it comes to his consciousness that he is naturally a subject till he refuses, and realizes that power and will are the essential matters, he makes himself free so far as he can. It is "just" to enslave those willing to be enslaved - that is, It is according to the role, or law, or shortest line of nature. Those who believe that man has an Immortal soul, and that a horse has not, may act from superstitious fear or reverence. The intelligent egoist will "respect" the "vicious" horse sooner than the tame, subservient man. Viciousness Is the resistance to enslavement. There is more virtue in the criminal classes than in the tame slaves. Crime and virtue are the same under : -State tyranny, as sin and virtue are the same under theological tyranny. "Justice", as a generality, with reference to natural society is a snare, or a transposition of the horse and cart. I recognize no duty towards the powers that control me instead of bargaining with me,, 1 am indifferent to the annihilation of the serfs whose consent enslaves me along with themselves. I am at war. with natural society, and "all's fair" in war, although all is not expedient. All wan lawful, but not expedient, with the apostle. So It is with the individual cone to selfconsciousness, not for the Lord's sake or humanity's sake, but

for himself. The assertion of himself will be as general and various as his faculties. To utterly dismiss the idea that there is any other justice in nature than force ' seeking the least line of resistance is to dismiss at the same time the Idea that there is any injustice. This may save generations of complaining and begging. In short we want to perceive the (Continued on page 9) THE EGOIST SALUTES ORWELL Anthony Milne The flurry of attention that has inevitably accompanied the first weeks of this, year, the setting for George Orwell's internationally acclaimed satire has disingenuously perpetuated the myth that Orwell was a socialist. Perhaps he purposively lived the lie to add brilliant poignancy to his last masterpiece. Bat if he was a socialist. lie belonged to a breed that died about the. same time as he did. Only the egoist em claim Orwell for his own . He was a latterday William Cobbett, a conservative a lover of old England that Industrialism threatened to destroy, a writer who was thoroughly rattled by the rise of 20th century techniques of mind-control. When he wrote Nineteen Eightyfour lie felt that many sectors of society deserved the fate that awaited them. The working classes had failed to appreciate the evils of Stalinist collectivism largely because of the duplicity and naivety of influential Left fellow-travellers. Therefore the workers became the morons of his novel. and the intellectuals the villains& The ruling class disgusted him, so he promoted them into deities. He despaired of the communicators of the tabloid press, which he could see, in 1949, were all set for a growth industry of vulgarity and hyperbole; ready to inflict a reign of linguistic poverty on the already culturally impoverished masses. Orwell was thus warning of two malign theats to modern society: the emasculation of the English in order to limit political self-expression, and the tyranny of socialism, The fact that many of Orwell's critics, including his chief biographer, deny this latter feature, is a a stunningly ironic confirmation that already the practice of Doublespeak was on its way in. And so, for that matter. was Newspeak, which had "been devised to meet the ideological needs of Ingsoc, or English Social! sm. The purpose of Newspeak, explained Orwell "was not only to provide a medium of expression for the worldview and mental

habits proper to the devotees of Ingsoc, bat to make all other modes of thought impossible". According to Marxist theory, on which Ingsoc is based, history is marching towards the triumph of socialism. It holds% therefore, that change itself is desirable, since there can only be one outcome& Newspeakers today hence, are not shy of talking about the need for change which by implication is 'progressive'. Marxism, as a political philosophy, even now still has great intellectual respectability, as anyone who has received higher education. or reads monthly journals, or belongs to an intellectual movement, will oonfim. Of course, Marxists are not all card-carrying militants, but they are to be found throughout the opinion-making sectors of the community, including - the greatest of mockeries - the Freethought movement. The danger, to Orwell, was that the Left intelligentsia might not simply wish to remain vocal but ineffective teachers, writers or media praters. Instead they might want political power, and be utterly ruthless in their execution of it. Orwell it seems. developed a philosophical system called Collective Solipsism. The Latin term solus ipse mane oneself alone, and refers to a highly personalized way of looking at reality, all other views becoming irrelevant or erroneous. When an entire political party behaves like an organism - seeing reality only one way - everything outside is a lie, or error that needs to be irreversibly corrected. Under Collective Solipsism a good party member will tailor his view of reality to accord with the worldview of the party: in other words to exercise Doublethink. Many western socialists today, ergo, practice the same Doublethink techniques by condemning the West for imperialistic. oppressive and manipulative characteristics applicable only to their own system of rule as practised by the Soviets. Living in the West, moreover, they know that their criticisms are untrue so they must be able to mentally adjust to the contradictions inherent in the theory and the reality, Most Western Marxists, indeed, go beyond Doublethinking by criticizing both the western and Soviet models, to offer instead their own cornucopia of social perfection that exists only in their a form of Cheatthink. Moreover, postwar manipulation of the language by intellectuals has succeeded in blunting the cutting-edge of our critical faculties. "Freedom", "democracy", "racism", "imperialism" are fast losing their original Oldspeak meanings, and are inexorably

on their way to mean the reverse of the truth. In the meantime if they are used often enough they begin to-have an incantatory effect. They lack any precision, but induce. the right quiescent frame of mind. As Karl Popper observed, such linguistic methods are intended through a conscious manipulation of facts and minds to foist invalid historical interpretations on the populace By politicizing everything, life becomes depersonalized. marriage abortion, the status of women - all once neutral social facts are now made into political facts. Anybody possessing views antipathetic to the Left is called "fascist", a smear word designed to render heretical thoughts unthinkable; the most glaring example of Doublethink., the kettle calling the-pot black. For example, Tony Benn, the standard-bearer of the vocal hard-left in Britain, espouses Mussolini's fascistic principles weekly in a newspaper column,, He is fond- of talking about "corporations" and "syndicates" without apparently realising what a corporate or syndicalist society really is. The reality of a world is where the entire economic activity of the State is organized into corporations, subordinate to the State and answerable to it. the corporations are the syndicates, representing the interests of the workers, employers' and professionals, all horizontally link ed to the centralized authority It is not quite a collectivized economy, but only one stage from it (perhaps that in why Fascism is such a dirty word to the Left). Even without the hard Left, freedom has been lost in Britain in ways more subtle than Orwell predicted. There are the terrorists, the muggers, the rapists, all operating under a system that. deifies the. Rule of Law and hence prone to abuse, by those who scorn legality. And the greater freedom to unelected pressure croups has meant the deprivation of some goods or services to the majority. Mary Whitehouse ~ for example, is free to have to. have the Soho sex shops closed down at her own behest (with the aid of obliging arch-reactionary Tory MPs). Of course the real 1984 is a much freer and more prosperous oils world than either Orwell's shabby, shortage-haunted 1949 or his Nineteen Eightyfour. Our society is more open. less conformist, there is greater access, to the m, media, and - less worry about old age. Even the high levels of unemployment distinguish our society sharply from the Soviet model, where everyone has a job

in: the way that the Roman slaves had jobs. Rather like those employed in the Ministry of Truth. ************ Revolutions have never lightened the burden of tyranny: they have only shifted it to another shoulder. Bernard Shaw Self-sacrifice enables us to sacrifice other people without blushing. Bernard Shaw facts and processes of nature without coloured .glass before our eyes. No justice, no injustice, as between an individual and any other in nature? Why then no wrong in any method of becoming free! Startling. thought to the halting slave. - Nothing in crime but fact? Nothing. See the complaining wife, not loving, but submitting and suffering. Nothing wrong in putting six inches of -steel into the bosom of her leige lord? The egoist says. call it what you like, there is no hell. What the woman will do depends upon what are her thoughts. Therefore, my reader, as the laws of society and the State, one of its forms are tyrannies or disagreeable impediments, to me (but I need not give any reason except to influence you) , and I see no difficulty in discarding, them but your respect for ideas such as "right", "wrong", "justice", etc., I would have you consider that these are merely words with vague, chimerical meanings, as Is there is no moral government of the world, but merely an evolutionary process, and it depends upon perception of this fact, ,and self-direction of our individual powers united an we shall agree,, how we can succeed in obtaining and enjoying more or less of the things of this world. Do you feel fully conscious of this? Then you and 1 can perhaps join our forces, and 1 begin to have an appreciable interest in you. Nothing that I could do for you (without setting you in power over myself) could fail to be agreeable to me. I think vie will not act very benevolently towards outsiders. They might take all we offered, an tile ox takes the grass in his pasture. Disinteredness is said to feed on unreciprocating selfindulgence in those upon whom it is spent. Do you not begin to think that by suiting only myself I am really doing far better towards others then by throwing myself away to serve them? If so, it is a lucky coincidence, for I only

serve and amuse myself. And I really do not care If you call that unjust. I shall begin to work 'for you when I see you are able to work for me. But if you are afraid to be free - stay in slavery. I must have the satisfaction of seeing that you do not wholly escape sufferings, if you are so unfit to aid me when I would aid you. And If you are thus lacking In stamina or sense, it will be no harm If you do get over-worked and your existence is shortened. But I hope better things from you. (Under the pseudonym "Tak Kak", James L. Walker was a frequent contributor to Benjamin Tucker's Liberty. The above first appeared in that publication on March 6, 1886, and sparked off a lively debate on egoism) ************

PUBLICATIONS RECEIVED
Egoist In Beyond Pearl Harbour (Ploughshare Press Rill Little Current, Ontario POP 1K0 - Canada - no price given) James J. Martin continues his acerbic investigation into the background and consequences of World War 2. Here he concentrates ten on the mystery surrounding Pearl Harbour, the treatment of Japanese living in the USA and the framing of "Tokyo Rose". Issue No 13 of The Storm is the always interesting journal of The Mackay Society (Box 131, Ansonia Stations New. York. NY 10023, USA - 5 issues for 6. US dollars) contains a discussion 1. of "rights" by Mark Sullivan, Robert Clancy, Kerry Wendell Thornley and Arthur Moyse and an article by S. E. Parker on Ragnar Redbeard and the Right of Might, assessing the main work of an elusive but colourful character. From the same publishers comes The Secret Life Of John Henry Mackay by Hubert Kennedy (2 US dollars), a description of the homosexuality of Mackay and the struggle he carried out in Germany to establish the of "man/boy love". Kennedy writes as a sympathizer and provides a lucid glimpse of this side of Mackay's life, illustrating at the same time his delusory belief that it is possible to reconcile the notion of "equal freedom" with Stirnerian egoism. ************ FREEDOM Dora Marsden

What have we in mind when we say freedom? We detect three elements., two notions and an atmosphere. There is the notion of a force, and a notion of a barrier which the force breaks through. A "breaking through" is the single complex which is "getting free". A definite action therefore, with a positive beginning and a definable end: limited in time and complete in its operation. There exists nothing in this which explains the vague unending thing called "freedom". To "get free" apparently is not freedom which is something which carries on an independent existence on -Its own account. This separate existence is the atmosphere. Freedom therefore in made up of loose association with the two notions which coalesce into the one action of getting free plus an atmosphere here. The action is an individual affair, the thing which must be done for oneself and permits of no vicariousness: the other, Le., the atmosphere is the part which one create for others. The atmosphere is an interesting study.. examined it reveals itself, half swoon, half thrill. It is the essence of sensation. the food of the EGO is edited and published by S. E. Parker, Garden Flat, 91 Talbot Road, London W2. 1.50 for four issues (USA 3 dollars). voluptuary. The thrill is the memory, the aroma of far-off deeds: the swoon is the suspension of intellect which allows vague association to make those deeds appear in part as one's own. Deeds, mark you! definite things. Now we can ask the question. ilhat"-!s the relationship of the simple. normal, definable life- process of over-coming specific resistances which vie call getting free to the vague symbolic indefinable thing called freedom. The second is a blatant exploitation of the first. The first is an individual affair Which rust be operated in one's own person and which once done is over. The second is riot an action: it is et worked up atmosphere, secured by culling special nosegays of "free-ings" - the most notable deeds of the most notable persons by preference bunching them together and inhaling their decaying sweetness with exactly the same type of pleasure as that which the drugtaker and the drunkard get out of their vices. As tippling is the vicious exploitation of the normal quenching of the thirst so the following after "freedom" is the vicious exploitation of the normal activity of working oneself free of difficulties....... "Freedom" presumes a state and there is no state of being free; there is an activity Of free-ing but the activity is limited by time to the duration of the act itself; the act completed, the free-ing is ended.

(from The New Freewoman No 1)

EGO Number 5 1984

Twenty Five Pence ON REVISITING "SAINT MAX" Increasing academic attention to the philosophy of Max Stirner has not meant any greater accuracy in interpretation. A case in point is an essay by Kathy E. Ferguson which appeared in a recent issue of the philosophical review Idealistic Studies (1) entitled Saint Max Revisited. Ms Ferguson makes some perceptive remarks. She writes of Stirner's view of the self as being "not a substantive thing but....rather a process" which cannot be confined within any net of concepts or categorical imperatives. It is "an unbroken unity of temporal experience that is ontologically prior to any essence later attributed to (it)....or any role, function or belief that (it)....might embrace." Stirner, she says, calls "the irreducible, temporal, concrete individual self....the Unique One; the Unique One is both nothing, in the sense of having no predicate affixed-to it as a defining essence, and everything, in that it is the source of the creative power which endows the whole of reality with meaning." More's the pity then that these suggestive insights are followed by a whole series of misinterpretations of Stirner's ideas. Some of these have their origin in that hoary old spook "the human community as a whole", others in what appears to be a sheer inability to grasp what Stirner's egoism is about. Here are a few examples. Ferguson considers that Stirner was an anarchist. As evidence for this belief she cites John Carroll's Break Out From The Crystal Palace and John P. Clark's Max Stirner's Egoism. Carroll's conception of an anarchist, however, embraces not only Stirner but also Nietzsche (who called anarchists "decadents" and blood-suckers) and Dostoevsky, although he admits that the latter's anarchism is "equivocal". As for Clark, he certainly regards Stirner as an anarchist and claims that Stirner's "ideal society is the union of egoists, in which peaceful egoistic competition would replace the state and society" (a piece of doubtful extrapolation). However, he does

not appear to be very convinced by his own claim for he comments that "Stirner's position is a form of anarchism; yet a greatly inadequate form" because "he opposes domination of the ego by the state, but advises people to seek to dominate others in any other way they can manage. Ultimately, might makes right." Since Clark defines anarchism as being opposed to all domination of man by man (not to mention the domination of "nature" by human beings), it is clear that Stirner's "anarchism" is not just "greatly inadequate" but, given his own definition, not anarchism at all. It can be seen, therefore, that Ferguson's effort to include Stirner in the anarchist tradition is not very plausible. Stirner did not claim to be an anarchist. Indeed, the one anarchist theoretician with whose writings he was familiar, Proudhon, is one of his favourite critical targets. Undoubtedly, there are some parallels between certain of Stirner's views and those of the anarchists, but, as I discovered after many years of trying to make the two fit, in the last analysis they do not and cannot. Anarchism is basically a theory of renunciation like Christianity: domination is evil and for "true relations between individuals to prevail such a sin must not be committed. Stirner's philosophy has nothing against domination of another if that is within my power and in my interest. There are no "sacred principles" in conscious egoism -not even anarchist ones.... Ferguson also falls victim to a common mistake made by commentators on Stirner: that of confusing the account he gives of ideas he is opposing with his own views. She writes that Stirner "speaks with great disdain of commodity relations" and gives as an example a passage in The Ego And His Own containing the words "the poor man needs the rich, the rich the poor.... So no one needs another as a person, but needs him as a giver." What she ignores is that this passage occurs in a chapter in which Stirner is describing the socialist case before subjecting it to his piercing criticism. It is not possible, therefore, to deduce from this passage that it reflects his "disdain" for "commodity relations", any more than it is possible to deduce from his poetic description of the argument from design that he believes in a god. Ferguson claims that Stirner does not recognise the "sociality" of human being and that "anthropologically and psychologically, it must be acknowledged that human being are born into groups." But Stirner quite clearly does acknowledge this fact. "Not isolation", he writes, "or being alone, but society is man's

original state....Society is our state of nature." To become one's own it is necessary to dissolve this original state of society, as the child does when it prefers the company of its playmates to its former "intimate conjunction" with its mother. It is not, as Ferguson contends, "our connection with others" that "provides us with our initial self-definition, but our awareness of contrast to them, our consciousness of being separate individuals. In other words, "self-definition is a product of individualisation, not socialization. Nor is Stirner an advocate of "the solitary" as she implies. Both in The Ego And His Own and in his Reply To Critics he rejects such an interpretation of his ideas. Nor is he a moralist - he is am amoralist. Presenting as evidence for his belief in "moral choice" an erroneous statement by John Carroll will not do. Nor does he reject "all socially (sic) acquired knowledge" if by that is meant "culture" (acquired by individuals, not by "society"). On the contrary, he states "I receive with thanks what the centuries of culture have acquired for me." Ferguson questions why the conscious egoist should not "wish to be free" from ownness. Why not "take a leap of faith into something like Christianity as did St Augustine or Kierkegaard?" Precisely because ownness is the condition for what she calls "the ontology of self as process" - that is, owness is me possessing me. Were I to abandon it by committing myself to the nonsense of Christianity, this would be a negation of me. My "new self" would not be my self, but a "redeemed self" shaped according to an image prescribed by others. In her concluding remarks Ferguson backs away from the challenge of Stirner's egoism. "Ownness is not a sufficient base for human life," she claims, because "authentic individual life requires that we have ties to others." She admits that such ties can become stifling and that Stirner sees this danger, but contends that "he does not see the necessity or possibility of a liberating sociality." She thus ends up indulging in that halfthis and half-that waffle that Stirner so unerringly dissected 140 years ago. Once one begins to think in terms of an "authentic individual life" then that "authenticity" has to be defined in order to distinguish it from the "inauthentic". Once it is defined, one is once again subjected to that "rule of concepts" that Stirner is so "startling acute" in rejecting. "Liberating sociality" based upon "authenticity"

is simply a verbalism disguising the interests of yet another set of idealists intent on deciding our lives for us. It is a philosophical confidence trick for which no conscious egoist will fall. (1) Vol. Xll, No.3, 1982 ************* LETTER Over the years I the American and Walker's article viewpoint, and I have come to appreciate the difference between European varieties of individualism. James L. What Is Justice speaks from the American am in sharp disagreement.

Certainly, the individualist rejects subservience to the state and other social institutions. This is the vertical aspect of society. However, there is also an unseen horizontal aspect. Because horizontal behaviours are so difficult to detect they can exert more powerful effects than more obvious constraints. Walker's ideas do not address the horizontal issues at all. Thus Walker may be enslaved by subtle spooks even as he has discarded the visible ones. By contrast Stirner understood that individual freedom requires individual transformation, and not merely a rearrangement of social bonds. Henry Rosenblum AND A REPLY I cannot accept your criticism that Walker neglects the horizontal authority of "society". In his What Is Justice?, to which you refer,

EGO Number 6 1985

Twenty Five Pence I NOW Tom Lisicki In making distinctions between concepts and percepts it has been asserted many times by many people that words and languages do not perfectly correspond with what is called "reality". This

point is hard to clarify because any criticism of words and language depends on words and language themselves and any attempt to criticize them tends to invalidate the critic's own remarks. Therefore ambiguity and intuition must be tolerated to some degree in a discussion of this topic and others related to it. What is the relation of language to reality and to the individual? Although language attempts to describe all of reality it might be more accurate to say that it describes social or societal reality. Language is a part of society, one of the common links between individuals. It is very precious, real, natural, human, and I do not wish to downgrade it, but there are limitations to the use of language that are of major significance to the individual and to individual self-expression and self-experiencing. The individual is a process in constant flux, changing from instant to instant. The individual and his uniqueness only exist "now". "Now" is not the same as the "present" that is found in language. The linguistic "present" is static and defined and cannot handle the "now-ness" and uniqueness of the individual, but rather deals with the "not now-ness" of individuals and with experiences rather than experiencing. Society is the product of the "not-ness" or "not-nowness" of individuals. Language can describe it in the static, linear logic of past, present and future tenses that truly describe society, but not the individual, who does not exist in the past, present or future, but always "now". The individual is what he is now experiencing, sensing and feeling, "internally" and "externally", while society stems only from what individuals have experienced, sensed and felt. For an individual to be truly self-experiencing and expressing he must be open to the uniqueness of "now". But very often individuals close themselves off from their "now" experiencing by limiting themselves to the narrow sensibilities of language, in an attempt to clarify and define with terms and expectations their "nows", preferring the security and consistency of language to the insecurity and wonder of "now". Not that one is less real or natural in doing this, but one is less individual and is unable to fully know one's self and one's interests by accepting this conventionality. It is possible for an individual to experience his unique "now", but it is not possible to think about "now" conceptually without reducing it to some common denominator, thus sacrificing individuality and uniqueness. Since language by nature is common and static rather than

individual and changing, its children - logic and laws - are not good supporters of the individual. Because language is consistently defined, logic and laws have consistency and this consistency is good enough for society because society does not deal with the flux of "now". Laws are real in society and society deals with them conceptually. To an individual laws are real just insofar as they are connected to percepts that occur in his "now" and to accept them conceptually would deny his individuality. Laws and authority are just elaborate manifestations of social reality engendered by words and concepts and as such are basically antiindividual. Not accepting laws and not believing in any sacred authority does not mean that these societal pressures will not be part of an individual's experiences. They will be real as part of the "now" experiences, but only in the context of the individuals open awareness of the reality of his individuality without any acceptance of the soporific effects of societal standards. To attempt to define and clarify an individual's goals or "worth" or "standards" would be foolish. Although an individual may often act in common with others, he will never be in common with others. Society may term him "common", but he will not really be so as an individual. The only possible description of an individual's relation to society is a negative one. An individual can be non-negative, but such a state is beyond description as far as the individual's reality is concerned. ************ EGOTIST, n. A person of low taste, more interested in himself than in me. POLITICS, n. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage. RADICALISM, n. The conservatism of tomorrow injected into the affairs of today. SELFISH, n. Devoid of consideration for the selfishness of others. The Enlarged Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce INDIVIDUALISM AND SOCIAL TIES An Extract From A Letter

Keith Hudson A point that appears to bother critics is the apparent conflict between individualism and social ties. I believe that this can be largely resolved by understanding the origins of our mental behaviour in the course of evolution. There seems little doubt now that both our physical and behavioural evolution proceeded in distinct "bursts" at the beginning of new climatic periods in the past. For example, we, along with several more pre-hominid ape-like species, were forced out of the rain forests and had to survive on the fringes due to a considerable cooling and drying of the earth's climate about 10 million years ago. This had considerable effects on both our physical and mental evolution. For tidiness (the early parts of what follows are somewhat arbitrary) I divide our evolutionary stages into four main periods - rain forest, forest fringe, open savannah and temperate-cold. All these periods implanted powerful behaviour/ mental "instincts", but the last two are particularly interesting in discussing the apparent dichotomy between our socialisation and our individualism. In the open savannah what was absolutely required (particularly among the males) was strict rank order and implicit obedience in emergency situations. The free-and-easy socialisation of the previous (forest fringe) period was thus modified, or rather added to. The main point from this is that we have a very deep need to associate together in common pursuits. Now where this is, say, the formation of a local bowls club or darts team, this is fine. But this need of ours is suborned by religious cults and ideologies then it is very dangerous. And the reason is that our individualism, our ability for abstract thought, arose mainly in the following evolutionary period (the onset of the Ice Ages). Conditions became extremely difficult and it became very necessary to develop conceptual systems (planning, theories, etc) to get through the long savage winters and also to hunt the larger, more dexterous creatures that we were forced to do. It was during this period that several parts of our brain (particularly the frontal areas) that are importantly involved in abstract thought expanded significantly. According to some experts this brain expansion stabilised about 60,000 years ago. But this ability for abstract thought also gave another weapon to the ambitious leader. No longer was he confined to short-range interactions and the display of quite ordinary human skills, but he now had the additional faculty to use ideology to inspire guilt and control. Under this additional control feature the tribe became, a city-

state and so on and so on - all our troubles began. It seems to me, therefore, that we have no need to negate our social impulses and needs, nor even the thrill that we get when we associate in small groups for the achievement of a common objective. What we must not do is to confuse those sort of objectives with matters that are entirely to do with untrammelled abstract thought - philosophy, beliefs and so on. These are entirely for individual consideration. But what should never be forgotten is that the ancient emotional needs and behaviours are very powerful indeed and can easily be used in instilling intellectual ideas. For example, to take the "package" of social behaviour from our forest-fringe period, the Moonies use guitarplaying week-ends, plenty of singing, dancing, touching and so on. This can have tremendous effects on the lonely youngster and, normally, he or she is then only too willing to accept the ideological strings attached. Another example, to use the "package" of behaviours from our open savannah period, Hitler persuaded many many intellectuals in the course of his Nuremberg Rallies. The marching and other super-tribal effects completely subjugated any intellectual doubts that individuals previously had. As you say in your newsletter, Stirner's philosophy had nothing against the domination of one individual by another. This, from our open savannah period, is very natural behaviour and, where there is an understandable, tangible objective, those who are dominated get as much kick out of it as the one who dominates. It is, indeed, essential in any fairly difficult endeavour. What is positively dangerous, however, is when a leader seeks to instil panoramic ideas and ideologies in his flock. No ideology, however brilliant, can be useful for very long in these modern changing times and inevitably becomes perverted by our more basic needs for power. I think we should be increasingly aware that our earlier instincts for socialisation, power, etc., are indeed strong and there mast always be outlets for them. But their origins must be clearly seen for what they are and their objectives must be clearly demarcated. Ideologies, abstract thought, intellectualisation, etc., belong to the individual.

************ People who bite the hand that feeds them usually lick the boot

that kicks them. Eric Heffer ReviewsMIGHT IS RIGHT (Might Is Right by Ragnar Redbeard. Introduction by S.E. Parker. Loompanics Unlimited, PO Box 1197, Port Townsend, WA 98365, USA. 7 dollars, 95 cents) Originally published in 1896, this is a much improved edition. I recall an old anarchist who in our discussions would never fail to quote Redbeard: "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, those three great lights of Modern Democracies are three colossal falsehoods - ignoble slave shibboleths impossible of actualization even if proclaimed by some superhuman Satan..." "Might is Right, absolutely, unreservedly. From the records of history, the facts of life, and the discoveries of science, this startling deduction may be thoroughly proved!" One could quote endlessly. The language is forceful and made to stick. On reading the book James J. Martin said "it is surely one of the most incendiary works ever to be published anywhere." S.E. Parker, in his Introduction, gives an interesting account of the history and mystery round the question "Who was Redbeard?" and a critique writing that "although Redbeard claims to scorn moral codes, stating that 'all arbitrary codes of right and wrong are insolent invasions of personal liberty' and that greatness lies 'in being beyond and above all moral measurement', he is nonetheless a moralist." Parker does not stop there, but deals with the question of racism and other compelling features. Reading this book is an experience not to be missed! Stephen Marletta RAPHAEL LEMKIN AND THE HOLOCAUST (The Man Who Invented "Genocide": The Public And Consequences of Raphel Lemkin by James J. Martin. Institute for Historical Review PO Box 1306, Torrance, CA 90505, USA. 9 dollars, 95 cents) James J. Martin is prominent among those "revisionist" historians who consider that the so-called "Holocaust" against the Jews during World War 2 was a hoax. He contends that there

is no cogent evidence that the Nazis had a deliberate policy of exterminating Jews in death-camps. He does not deny, any more than other revisionists, that the Nazis were anti-Jewish and did persecute them, nor that many of them died from various causes in the concentration camps. What he does question is that there was any organized "genocide". In his latest book, The Man Who Invented "Genocide", he considers in detail the manner in which a Polish-Jewish lawyer called Raphel Lemkin sought and succeeded in having the concept of "genocide" incorporated in to many legal codes. At the same time he subjects the legend of the gassing of 6,000,000 Jews to an astringently critical examination. Anyone who is not prepared uncritically to accept official war history will find much of interest in his book - despite the colourless character of the late Mr Lemikin. I particularly liked the chapter Some Missing Historical Back-ground which occupies over one third of its length. In this chapter he gives a mordant description of the treatment of Jews in countries other than Germany (such as Poland), the anguished wrigglings of the Communists over the Katyn Massacre, the effects of Allied policy on the German resistance, and the contradictions of the Holacaust believers. Here is Martin at his excoriating best. Whatever decision the reader may make about Dr Martin's case (and I, for one, have not been able, despite considerable reading on the subject, to make up my mind) his book should at least serve to underline the capacity of the persecuted to become persecutors when they get the chance. Witness the vendetta being currently waged by professional "nazi-hunters" and an acquiescent media against old and sometimes dying men for acts allegedly carried out fourty or more years ago. S.E.Parker THE LEAP ( The Leap by Bill Hopkins. Foreword by Colin Wilson. Deverell and Birdsey. 21 Kensington Park Read, London Wll. 7.50) The Leap is a novel that is powerful in style and unconventional in theme, but its declared purpose of being a "vehicle for ideas" is flawed by the contradictions of the ideas put forward. Plowart, the central character, is the leader of a new political movement who has arranged for its co-founder to be murdered because he has become an "obstacle". To provide himself with an

alibi he goes to stay on a remote Channel Island. While there he is befriended by the current ruler, the young Dame, and she provides him with an audience before which he can articulate his ideas. Plowart exalts the creative few, praises those who are in full possession of themselves, is contemptuous of those who "associate and identify themselves with those around them until they have no individual distinction at all", and scorns the herd conditioning that leaves "no majesty of self." But despite these telling insights he is the victim of muddled thinking. Desiring the fullest individuality of which he is capable, he at the same time is possessed by a messianic urge to redeem "humanity" from its weaknesses and force it towards the goal he has set for it. Despising the mediocre and the weak he nonetheless seeks to weld them into one body to serve his purpose despite the fact that the material at his disposal is such that it will forever frustrate him. Aware of the majesty of self, he is incapable of grasping that his power lies only in his own competence not in playing the role of a mob-messiah. In his foreword Colin Wilson compares The Leap to the works of Stirner and Nietzsche. Insofar as they are both self-divided the comparison between Plowart is valid. Plowart, however, cannot be compared to Stirner, for Stirner's egoism is at one with him and has not turned in on itself as it has with Plowart, who is a possessed individual. These criticisms notwithstanding, The Leap should be read. Written as a provocation it is just that as my own reactions show. S.E.Parker Two Short Notices Sanctions Buster by Harvey Ward (William Maclellan Embryo, 268 Bath St., Glasgow G2) is a vivid political/adventure novel about the clandestine heroes who helped to break the sanctions imposed on white ruled Rhodesia during the days of its independence. For those that like this type of novel and I do - this is well worth reading even if the author (former head of the Rhodesian Broadcasting Corporation and "sanctions buster") does not see that when the main terrorist reconverts to Roman Catholicism before she dies she has simply exchanged one religion for another. Stepping Stones To Women's Liberty by Les Garner (Heinemann Educational Books) is a socialist history of the suffragettes which contains an interesting chapter on Dora

Marsden and her individualism -soon to become a full-blown advocacy of egoism. S.E.P. THE SOGETSU IKEBANA EXHIBITION At the Festival Hall, London I was very surprised to come upon this oasis of beauty, harmony and colour in a building that more often than not gives its exhibition space over to the promotion of strident socialist realism occasions which are usually imbued with the theme of the rightness, purity and innocence of the "working" class. But at the Japanese Ikebana exhibition all was classless, peaceful and pleasing to the eye. Sweet smelling incense burned as subtle and delicate music played in the background. The exhibits mainly consisted of arrangements of everyday objects such as vases and bowls of flowers and earthenware jugs, combined with branches of trees, wooden wheels, bunches of dried cereals and paper flowers. By adhering to laws of harmony and symmetry similar to those of nature the artists had arrived at beauty, without which we should languish and fade. It seems to me that it is "art" not "ideology" that provides the most satisfactory clues as to our origins and purpose. I came away from this exhibition feeling enriched and more at peace with myself. If there is a Japanese Ikebana exhibition in your area I recommend the experience. "Unconscious Egoist" ************* Correction: On page 10, lines 12 and 13, between "between" and "Plowart" the words "Nietzsche and" have been omitted. ************* Special Offer for readers in the United Kingdom only: A few copies of MIGHT IS RIGHT are available at a bargain price of 3.00 (post. inc.) Editor. EGO is edited and published by S.E.Parker, Garden Flat, 91 Talbot Rd., London W2, England. Subscrip-tions: 1.50 for 4 issues (US: 3 dollars) LIBERTY AND DEMOCRACY Dora Marsden Liberty is as necessary to Democracy as is the second blade to a pair of shears. Democracy boldly affirms government; Liberty

whispers "Don't govern". Liberty plays 'Conscience with a task to't.' It is the ghostly spirit the moralists would have the meek carry inside their waistcoats: it plays the policemen inside the man. Unfortunately for the meek, it is only on them that Liberty is able to impose. Those who can govern, i.e. forward their own interest to the detriment of those who let them, will govern. Those who feel no stomach for "governing" will espouse the gospel of liberty. That is why to those who already have, shall be given, and from those which have not shall be taken away that which they have. The cry for "liberty" is the plea for the substitution of melodrama for drama in life; the life according to concept in place of life according to power. It is the hoisting of the white flag followed by an attempt to claim victory in virtue of it. It is the request that the powerful should refrain from taking liberties with the weak because they are afraid to take liberties with the powerful. That is what Libertarians have in mind when they speak of conduct which "should" be "non-invasive", not minding that it is scarcely possible to live a day in a community of two without being "invasive". We are one another's daily food. We take what we can get of what we want. We can be kept out of "territory" but not because we have any compunction about invading. Where the limiting line falls is decided in the event, turning on the will, whim and power of those who are devoured and devourers at one and the same time. From THE EGOIST 1/1/1914

EGO Number 7 1986

Thirty Pence PLEASE NOTE: All contributions and subscriptions should now be sent to S.E.Parker at his new address 19 St. Stephen's Gardens, London W2, England. Anything sent to his old address is unlikely to be forwarded. THE EGOISM OF MAX STIRNER S.E.Parker (The following extracts are taken from my booklet entitled The Egoism of Max Stirner: Some Critical Bibliographical Notes to be published by The Mackay Society of New York) Albert Camus Camus devotes a section of The Rebel to Stirner. Despite a fairly accurate summarization of some of Stirner's ideas he

nonetheless consigns him to dwelling in a desert of isolation and negation "drunk with destruction". Camus accuses Stirner of going "as far as he can in blasphemy" as if in some strange way an atheist like Stirner can "blaspheme" against something he does not believe in. He proclaims that Stirner is "intoxicated" with the "perspective" of "justifying" crime without mentioning that Stirner carefully distinguishes between the ordinary criminal and the "criminal" as a violator of the "sacred". He brands Stirner as the direct ancestor of "terrorist anarchy" when in fact Stirner regards political terrorists as acting under the possession of a "spook". He furthermore misquotes Stirner by asserting that he "specifies" in relation to other human beings "kill them, do not martyr them" when in fact he writes "I can kill them, not torture them" - and this in relation to the moralist who both kills and tortures in order to serve the "concept of the 'good'". Although throughout his book Camus is concerned to present "the rebel" as a preferred alternative to "the revolutionary" he nowhere acknowledges that this distinction is taken from the one that Stirner makes between "the revolutionary" and "the insurrectionist". That this should occur in a work whose purpose is a somewhat frantic attempt at rehabilitating "ethics" well illustrates Stirner's ironic statement that "the hard fist of morality treats the noble nature of egoism altogether without compassion". Eugene Fleischmann Academic treatment of Stirner is often obfuscating even when it is not downright hostile. A marked contrast is Fleischmann's essay Stirner, Marx and Hegel which is included in the symposium Hegel's Political Philosophy. Clearly preferring Stirner to Marx, Fleischmann presents a straightforward account of his ideas unencumbered by "psychiatric" interpretations and ad hominem arguments. He correctly points out that the "human self" signifies for Stirner "the individual in all his indefinable, empirical concreteness. The word 'unique' (einzig) means for Stirner man as he is in his irreducible individuality, always different from his fellows, and always thrown back on himself in his dealings with them. Thus, when he talks of 'egoism' as the ultimate definition of the human 'essence', it is not at all a question of a moral catagory.....but of a simple existential fact." Fleischmann contends that "Marx and Engels' critique of Stirner is notoriously misleading. It is not just that ridicule of a

man's person is not equivalent to refutation of his ideas, for the reader is also aware that the authors are not reacting at all to the problems raised by their adversary." Stirner is not simply "just another doctrinaire ideologue". His "reality is the world of his immediate experience" and he wants "to come into his own power now, not after some remote and hypothetical 'proletarian' revolution. Marx and Engels had nothing to offer the individual in the present: Stirner has." In his conclusion Fleischmann states that Stirner's view that the individual "must find his entire satisfaction in his own life" is a reversion "to the resigned attitude of a simple mortal". This is not a serious criticism. If I cannot find satisfaction in my own life where can I find it? Even if it [is] the activity of another that gives me satisfaction it is my satisfaction that I experience, any satisfaction that the other may have being something that he or she experiences - not me. If this constitutes being a "simple mortal" then so be it, but that it is a "resigned attitude" is another matter. Benedict Lachmann and Herbert Stourzh Lachmann's and Stourzh's Two Essays on Egoism provide a stimulating and instructive introduction to Stirner's ideas. Although both authors give a good summary of his egoism they differ sufficiently in their approach to allow the reader to enjoy adjudicating between them. Lachmann's essay Protagoras - Nietzsche - Stirner traces the development of relativist thinking as exemplified in the three philosophers of its title. Protagoras is the originator of relativism with his dictum "Man (the individual) is the measure of all things". This in turn is taken up by Stirner and Nietzsche. Of the two, however, Stirner is by far the most consistent and for this reason Lachmann places him after Nietzsche in his account. For him Stirner surpasses Nietzsche by bringing Protagorean relativism to its logical conclusion in conscious egoism - the fulfilment of one's own will. In fact, he views Nietzsche as markedly inferior to Stirner both in respect to his style and the clarity of his thinking. "In contrast to Nietzsche's work," he writes, The Ego and His Own "is written in a clear, precise form and language, though its avoids the pitfalls of a dry, academic style. Its sharpness, clarity and passion make the book truly shattering and overwhelming." Unlike Nietzsche's, Stirner's philosophy does not lead to the replacement of one religious "spook" by another, the substitution of the "Superman" for the Christian "God". On the

contrary, it makes "the individual's interests the centre of his world." Intelligent, lucid and well-conceived, Lachmann's essay throws new light on Stirner's ideas. Its companion essay, Stourzh's Max Stirner's Philosophy of The Ego is evidently the work of a theist, but it is nonetheless sympathetic to Stirnerian egoism. Stourzh states that one of his aims in writing it "is beyond the categories of master and slave to foster an intellectual and spiritual standpoint different from the standpoint prescribed by the prophets of mass thinking, the dogmatists of socialism, who conceive of the individual only as an insignificant part of the whole, as a number or mere addenda of the group." Stourh draws a valuable distinction between the "imperative" approach of the moralists and the "indicative" approach of Stirner towards human behaviour. He also gives an informative outline of the critical reaction to Stirner of such philosophers as Ludwig Fueurbach, Kuno Fischer and Eduard von Hartman. Stourzh mars his interpretation, however, by making the nonsensical claim that Stirner's egoism "need in no sense mean the the destruction of divine mystery itself." And in line with his desire to preserve the "sacredness" of this "divine mystery" he at times patently seeks to "sweeten" Stirner by avoiding certain of his most challenging remarks. References: Camus, Albert: The Rebel: An Essay On Man In Revolt. Knopf, New York. 1961 Fleischmann, Eugene: The Role Of The Individual In PreRevolutionary Society: Stirner, Marx and Hegel in Hegel's Po1itica1 Philosophy. Cambridge University Press, London. 1971. Lachmann, Benedict and Stourzh, Herbert: Two Essays On Egoism. To be published by The Mackay Society, New York. *********** High positions are like the summit of high, steep rocks: eagles and reptiles alone can reach them. Mme. Necker

EGO Number 8 1986

Archists, Anarchists and Egoists S.E.Parker "I am an anarchist! Wherefore I will not rule And also ruled I will not be." -- John Henry Mackay "What I get by force I get by force, and what I do not get by force I have no right to." -- Max Stirner In his book MAX STIRNER'S EGOISM John P. Clark claims that Stirner is an anarchist, but that his anarchism is "greatly inadequate". This is because "he opposes domination of the ego by the State, but he advises people to seek to dominate others in any other way they can manage...Stirner, for all his opposition to the State...still exalts the will to dominate." Clark's criticism springs from his definition of anarchism as opposition to "domination" in all its forms "not only domination of subjects by political rulers, but domination of races by other races, of females by males, of the young by the old, of the weak by the strong, and not least of all, the domination of nature by humans." In view of the comprehensiveness of his definition it is odd that Clark still sees Stirner's philosophy as a type of anarchism - albeit a "greatly inadequate" one. He is quite correct in stating that the _leitmotif_ of _theoretical_ anarchism is opposition to domination and that, despite his anti-Statist sentiments, Stirner has no _principled_ objection to domination. Indeed, he writes "I know that my freedom is diminished even by my not being able to carry out my will on another object, be this something without will, like a government, an individual etc." Is conscious egoism, therefore, compatible with anarchism? There is no doubt that it is possible to formulate a concept of anarchism that is ostensibly egoistic. For many years I tried to do this and I know of several individuals who still claim to be anarchists because they are egoists. The problem, however, is that anarchism as a _theory_ of non-domination demands that individuals refrain from dominating others _even_if_they_could_gain_greater_satisfaction_from_dominating_ _than_from_not_dominating_. To allow domination would be to deny anarchism. In other words, the "freedom" of the anarchist is yet

another yoke placed around the neck of the individual in the name of yet another conceptual imperative. The question was answered at some length by Dora Marsden in two essays that appeared in her review for THE EGOIST September 12, 1914 and February 1, 1915. The first was entitled THE ILLUSION OF ANARCHISM; the second SOME CRITICS ANSWERED. Some months before the appearance of her first essay on anarchism Marsden had been engaged in a controversy with the redoubtable Benjamin Tucker in which she had defended what she called "egoist anarchism" against what she saw as the "clericolibertarianism" of Tucker. At the premature end of the controversy Tucker denounced her as an "egoist and archist," to which she replied that she was quite willing to "not - according to Mr Tucker - be called 'Anarchist'" but responded readily to "Egoist". In the interval between the end of the controversy and the publication of her first essay she had evidently given considerable thought to the relation of egoism to anarchism and had decided that the latter was something in which she could no longer believe. The gist of her new position was as follows: Every form of life is archistic. "An archist is one who seeks to establish, maintain, and protect by the strongest weapons at his disposal, the law of his own interest." All growing life-forms are aggressive: "aggressive is what growing means. Each fights for its own place, and to enlarge it, and enlarging it is a growth. And because life-forms are gregarious there are myriads of claims to lay exclusive hold on any place. The claimants are myriad: bird, beast, plant, insect, vermin - each will assert its sole claim to any place as long as it is permitted: as witness the pugnacity of gnat, weed, and flea, the scant ceremony of the housewife's broom, the axe which makes a clearing, the scythe, the fisherman's net, the slaughter- house bludgeon: all assertions of aggressive interest promptly countered by more powerful interests! The world falls to him who can take it, if instinctive action can tell us anything." It is this aggressive 'territoriality' that motivates domination. "The living unit is an organism of embodied wants; and a want is a term which indicates an apprehension of the existence of barriers - conditions easy or hard - which lie between the 'setting onwards' and the 'arrival', i.e. the satisfaction. Thus every want has two sides, obverse and reverse, of which the one would read the 'not yet dominated', and the other 'progressive domination'. The two sides grow at

the expense of each other. The co-existence of the consciousness of a lacking satisfaction, with the corresponding and inevitable 'instinct to dominate', that which prolongs the lack, are features which characterize 'life'. Bridging the interval between the want and its satisfaction is the exercising of the 'instinct to dominate' - obstructing conditions. The distinction between the lifeless and the living is comprised under an inability to be other than a victim to conditions. That of which the latter can be said, possesses life; that of which the former, is inanimate. It is to this doministic instinct to which we have applied the label archistic." Of course, this exercising of the doministic instinct does not result in every life-form becoming dominant. Power being naturally unequal the struggle for predominance usually settles down into a condition in which the less powerful end up being dominated by the more powerful. Indeed, many of the less powerful satisfy the instinct to dominate by identifying themselves with those who actually do dominate: "the great lord can always count on having doorkeepers in abundance." Marsden argues that anarchists are among those who, like Christians, seek to muzzle the doministic tendency by urging us to renounce our desires to dominate. Their purpose "is to make men willing to assert that though they are born and inclined archists they _ought_ to be anarchists." Faced with "this colossal encounter of interest, i.e. of lives...the anarchist breaks in with his 'Thus far and no further'" and "introduces his 'law' of 'the inviolability of individual liberty'." The anarchist is thus a _principled_ _embargoist_ who sees in domination the evil of evils. "'It is the first article of my faith that archistic encroachments upon the 'free' activity of Men are not compatible with the respect due to the dignity of Man as Man. The ideal of Humanity forbids the domination of one man by his fellows'....This humanitarian embargo is an Absolute: a procedure of which the observance is Good-in-itself. The government of Man by Man is wrong: the respect of an embargo constitutes Right." The irony is, that in the process of seeking to establish this condition of non-domination called anarchy, the anarchist would be compelled to turn to a sanction that is but another form of domination. In the _theoretical_ society of the anarchist they would have to resort to the intra-individual domination of _conscience_ in order to prevent the inter-individual domination that characterizes political government. In the end, therefore, anarchism boils down to a species of "clerico-libertarianism" and is the gloss covering the wishes of "a unit possessed of the

instinct to dominate - even his fellow-men." Not only this, but faced with the _practical_ problems of achieving the "Free Society", the anarchist fantasy would melt away before the realities of power. "'The State is fallen, long live the State' - the furthest going revolutionary anarchist cannot get away from this. On the morrow of his successful revolution he would need to set about finding means to protect his 'anarchistic' notions: and would find himself protecting his own interests with all the powers he could command, like an archist: formulating his laws and maintaining his State, until some franker archist arrived to displace and supersede him." Nonetheless, having abandoned anarchism Marsden has no intention of returning to an acceptance of the _authority_ of the State and its laws for this would be to confuse "an attitude which refused to hold laws and interests sacred (i.e. whole unquestioned, untouched) and that which refuses to respect the existence of forces, of which Laws are merely the outward visible index. It is a very general error, but the anarchist is especially the victim of it: the greater intelligence of the archist will understand that though laws considered as sacred are foolishness, respect for any and every law is due for just the amount of retaliatory force there may be involved in it, if it be flouted. Respect for 'sanctity' and respect for 'power' stand at opposite poles, the respecter of the one is the verbalist, of the other - the archist: the egoist." I agree with Dora Marsden. Anarchism is a redemptionist secular religion concerned to purge the world of the sin of political govern- ment. Its adherents envisage a "free society" in which all archistic acts are forbidden. Cleansed of the evil of domination "mankind" will live, so they say, in freedom and harmony and our present "oppressions" will be confined to the pages of history books. When, therefore, Marsden writes that "anarchists are not separated in any way from kinship with the devout. They belong to the Christian Church and should be recognized as Christianity's picked children" she is not being merely frivolous. Anarchism is a _theory_ of an ideal society whether communist, mutualist, or individualist, matters little in this respect - of necessity must demand _renunciation_ of domination both in means and ends. That in _practice_ it would necessitate another form of domination for its operation is a contradiction not unknown in other religions - which in no way alter their essence. The conscious egoist, in contrast, is not bound by any demand for renunciation of domination and if it is within his

competence he will dominate others _if_this_is_in_his_interest_. That anarchism and egoism are not equivalent is admitted, albeit unwillingly, by the well-known American anarchist John Beverley Robinson - who depicted an anarchist society in the most lachrymous terms in his REBUILDING THE WORLD - in his succinct essay EGOISM. Throwing anarchist principles overboard he writes of the egoist that "if the State does things that benefit him, he will support it; if it attacks him and encroaches on his liberty, he will evade it by any means in his power, if he is not strong enough to withstand it." Again, "if the law happens to be to his advantage, he will avail himself of it; if it invades his liberty he will transgress it as far as he thinks it wise to do so. But he has no regard for it as a thing supernal." Robinson thus denies the validity of the anarchist principle of non-domination, since the existence of the State and its laws necessitates the existence of a permanent apparatus of repression. If I make use of them for my advantage, then I invoke their repressive power against anyone who stands opposed to what I want. In other words, I make use of an _archistic_ action to gain my end. Egoism, _conscious_ egoism, seen for what it is instead of being pressed into the service of a utopian ideology, has nothing to do with what Marsden well-called "clerico-libertarianism". It means, as she put it in her controversy with Tucker, "....a tub for Diogenes; a continent for Napoleon; control of a Trust for Rockefeller; all that I desire for me: _if_we_can_get_them_." It is not based upon any fantasy for its champions are well aware of the vital difference between "if I want something I ought to get it" and "being competent to achieve what I want". The egoist lives among the realities of power in the world of archists, not among the myths of the renouncers in the dream world of anarchists. NOTES AND NOTIONS S. E. Parker The Institute For The Study Of Terrorism (65 Blandford St., London W1H 3AJ) is "a private research institute supported entirely by private donations and its own earnings. Its Chairman, Lord Chalfont, is a former Minister of Defence, and its Director, Jillian Becker, is a writer on the subject of terrorism with an international reputation. " Its first two publications are booklets dealing with terrorism in Sri Lanka (Ceylon) and in South Africa. Tamil Terrorism: Nationalist Or Marxist? by Penelope Tremayne and Ian Geldard is about the political allegiances of the

little-known Tamil "nationalist" movement. It provides ample documentation of Marxist influence on the various Tamil groups ostensibly demanding their own form of "apartheid" in Sri Lanka, but in fact seeking to seize control of the whole State. (48pp. 4. 00 inc. post. ) Unlike Sri Lanka the Republic of South Africa is very rarely out of the headlines. An object of moral execration for guilt-ridden white and bombastic black politicians, the complexities of its racial problems are brushed aside and praise is heaped upon the communist led African National Congress which has, among others, the charming habit of burning opponents to death by means of a gruesome process known as "necklacing". ANC: A Soviet Task Force? by Keith Campbell is a convincing exposure of the claim that this organization does not have a close relationship with the South Africa Communist Party. Among the many facts it presents is cogent evidence that the darling of the Western media, Nelson Mandela, is a communist, despite his apparent lack of formal membership of the Communist Party. (58pp. 2. 95 inc. post. ) Department of Terrorist Apologetics: The publishers of Anarchism and Violence: Severino Di Giovanni in Argentina 1923-1931 state in their "blurb" that Di Giovanni's actions ".... were never indiscriminate.... They were always guided by a precise revolutionary reasoning: to strike at the centres of power..." Really? A bomb he exploded at a bank killed two and wounded twenty two. Another bomb exploded at the Italian Consulate killed nine and injured thirty four. A young man was killed when a suitcase he found exploded. A fellow-anarchist, Emilio Lopez Arango, was murdered because he denounced Di Giovanni. No "centre of power" was ever damaged. If these actions were "discriminate" and guided by "precise revolutionary reasoning", I wonder what actions resulting from "indiscriminate" attitudes and "imprecise" reasoning would be like? The anarchist publishers Freedom Press have just celebrated their first centenary and have published an enlarged and glossy edition of their paper Freedom to commemorate the fact. Although its many contributors write of its past history, recount their personal reminscences, or indulge in prophetic forecasts, there is a noticeable lack of any serious consideration of why it is, after one hundred years of existence, they are still a minute group preaching the good news to a small minority of the faithful. Indeed, it is only in a few contributions, such as those of Vernon Richards and Donald Rooum, that there is any hint that things are not what it was once hoped they would be.

This omission is all the more striking since they reproduce the entire first edition of Freedom which contained the statement that "but few years will elapse before Governments will be overthrown on the Continent." It is something of an irony that a group originally founded to help to bring about an anarchist revolution should be celebrating its first hundred years! Max Stirner and his ideas are mentioned by three writers: one of them, Peter Cadogan, with his notions of the "sacred", is, not surprisingly, hostile; two of them are favourable, Arthur Moyse (this is surpising) and Tony Gibson. The latter refers to the influence of Stirner upon a group of Glaswegian anarchists in the 1940s and 1950s, but, while he is free with names in other directions, he fails to name even one of this group. I find it hard to believe that he has forgotten Eddie Shaw, Jimmy Raeside or Bobby Lynn, even if he does not know that another member, Stephen Marletta, has been a staunch supporter of this publication since it began in 1963. THE EGOIST is edited and published by S.E.Parker, 19 St. Stephen's Gdns., London W2 5QU, England. Subscription: 1.70 (USA $4.00) for four issues. Please make all cheques and money orders payable to S.E.Parker. The same preference for anonymity prevails when he refers to me. He writes that The Ego And His Own has been known "to have an explosive effect upon some people. One lad, a devoted anarchistcommunist and a follower of Voltairine de Cleyre, a[t] first inveighed against the book and pompously condemned the Clydeside anarchists, but he experienced a conversion similar to that of Saul on the road to Tarsus, and later founded a Stirnerite journal." I certainly opposed the egoist ideas propounded by Eddie Shaw at a meeting of the London Anarchist Group in the early 1950s something which gives me wry amusement these days -but at the time of my "conversion" (1961) I had long ago ceased to be a "follower" of Voltairine de Cleyre, nor was I a "devoted anarchist-communist", having been a "pluralist anarchist" for some years. (My present views on anarchism are given elsewhere in this issue). Whether writing reminiscences or history, it is very useful to check available facts before doing so. Freedom/A Hundred Years is available from Freedom Press, 84b Whitechapel High St., London El 7QX. Price 2.00. ************** Others...are springing up to classify the Ego and Egoism in

philosophy. The Unit of Stirner is - yourself, if you like. You, as a person of flesh and blood, will not be successfully classified in "philosophy", I think, if you grasp the idea and act on it. The old so-called philosophic egoism was a disquisition on the common characteristics of men, a sort of generality. The real, living Egoism is the fact of untrammelled mind in this or that person and the actions resulting, the end of the tyranny of general ideas. James L. Walker

THE EGOIST (formerly EGO)

EGO Number 9 1987

Thirty Five Pence CONTROVERSY: More On Archists, Anarchists And Egoists... Comments From An Anarchist Fritz R. Ward I was not overly impressed with your article "Archists, Anarchists and Egoists" in the last issue of The Egoist. In using Clark's definition of anarchism, which I think applies only to those communists who also profess to be anarchists, I believe you have confused the issue. Anarchists do not assert (the somewhat confused quote by Mackay aside) that one must renounce domination and serve the god of non-invasion without question. They do, however, assert that in a social environment where liberty prevails, aggression will rarely be of any benefit. They also prefer anarchy because, to quote Tucker, "as a choice of blessings, liberty is the greater; as a choice of evils, liberty is the smaller. " (Individual Liberty, p85. His essay Why I Am An Anarchist expresses a similar egoistical basis for anarchism). In short, the opposition of individualist anarchism to "domination" is definitional, not religious (1). For example, Tucker believed that interest existed because of invasive laws which prohibited free contract. But, in an anarchist society (2) he wouldn't forbid anyone from taking interest above and beyond cost if he could get it. Tucker just didn't think the person would be able to get such returns if conditions of liberty prevailed. Also, consider along these lines, the more recent comments by anarcho-capitalist David Friedman. Friedman believes laws will be, with few possible exceptions, libertarian in an anarcho-capitalist society because the costs of aggression would outweigh the benefits. In blunt terms, your criteria for egoistical "domination", i.e., when one could "gain greater satisfaction from dominating than from not dominating" would simply not arise often enough to be statistically significant. 2 Although Tucker and others postulated such a society for the future, they certainly didn't feel that they should refrain from taking what few

advantages the state offered. You already cited Robinson in this regard and you could have added that Tucker, for all his supposed "clericolibertarianism", had no "moral" problem investing the money left to him by his mother in interest-bearing annuity shares. The same was true of Mackay. Obviously, none of the above anarchists considered such an "archistic" act "forbidden". Nor did such benefits which they attributed to archism prevent them from advocating anarchism (while remaining consistent egoists) since they believed that it would give greater benefits than they enjoyed under the State. In the final analysis, anarchism as advocated by the individualists is not incompatible with egoism. While it might be possible to construct some sort of non-anarchistic framework for a social organization which may be compatible with egoism under some limited circumstances, I don't believe your essay does this(3). Instead you place undue emphasis on certain phrases and neglect the fundamental ideas of individualist anarchism. Until you can suggest a realistic alternative to anarchism in which liberty is not the greater of benefits or the lesser of evils, I will remain an anarchist. Along these lines, I think Marsden's comments that the anarchist acts like an archist in defending his freedom, avoids coming to grips with the definition of the State as institutionalized aggression. The defensive and aggressive use of force are not the same thing. And, again, this is a question of definition, not morality. To accuse the post revolution(?) anarchist of acting like an archist is a misleading use of terms.... (1) I am excepting, of course, such natural rights anarchists as Spooner and Rothbard. (2) When I use the term "society" here I am not speaking of some entity above the individual. I merely use it as a convenient term meant to imply all the individuals living in a given region.

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(3) I suspect that de Sade, in Philosophy in the Bedroom, tried to do so but the result was an inadequate egoim as well as a non-anarchist, if somewhat libertine, form of social organization.

In Reply To Ward S.E.Parker Mr Ward claims that Clark's definition of anarchism as "non-domination" is only applicable to "those communists who also profess to be anarchists". This is not the case. KHZ Solneman, a disciple of John Henry Mackay and hence well within the Tuckerian tradition, writes in his book The Manifesto of Peace and Freedom (Mackay-Gesellschaft 1933) that "the standard of whether someone is really an anarchist or not lies in whether he renounces domination over others or not" (pl80) and defines anarchy as "a state of non-domination" (p ix). I have not, therefore, confused the issue. Indeed, since Mr Ward himself goes on to argue that the opposition of "individualist anarchism" to domination is "definitional", this can only mean that any attempt to dominate others is, by definition, an anti-anarchist act. When Tucker and Mackay invested their money in interest-bearing annuities they certainly showed good sense - but at the expense of their anarchist consistency since they were looking to the domination of the State to maintain the system which provided

them with their incomes. Such behaviour is quite in accord with pursuing one's own interests, but it is hardly something that will help to "starve" the State out of existence in order to make way for the anarchist society. Mr Ward believes that when the Tuckerian version of anarchy is established acts of "egoistical" domination "would simply not arise often enough to be statistically significant. " How does he know they would not? Since no has ever seen such a system in operation what he affirms about is merely a statement of faith. The theories of Tucker regarding what anarchism would be like in practice, like those of the anarchist communists, are not based on

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any empirical evidence. This is shown in Tucker's essay Why I Am An Anarchist to which Mr Ward refers. Here the reader is regaled with such claims as "no prospect can be positively alluring that does not promise both requisites of happiness - liberty and wealth. Now, Anarchism does promise both. In fact, it promises the second as the result of the first, and happiness as the result of both... Abolish the tarriffs, issue no patents, take down the bars from unoccupied land, and labour will straightway rush in and take possession of its own. Then mankind will live in freedom and in comfort. " Have made these rosy promises, however, Tucker has to admit that he cannot prove his case, yet he seeks to wriggle out of the problems this poses by claiming that it "cannot be dismissed by plain denial" in plain disregard of the fact that it is up to him to prove his affirmations not for the denier to "disprove" them. At the bottom of Tucker's doctrine lies the democratic delusion that each and every individual (the insane excepted) can and should take an equal part in determining human affairs. He believed that everyone was potentially capable of exercising "the sovereignty of the individual" and that, furthermore, their self-interest would lead them to accept his particular brand of social salvation. Despite his admiration for Max Stirner he was a possessed man possessed by the fixed idea that he had the answer to the "social question". (1) His egoism was pressed into the service of an ideal which neutered it. Mr Ward's distinction, derived from Tucker, between the "aggressive and defensive use of force", does not impress me. What is defensive and what is aggressive is more a matter of position than anything else. If I judge that I can benefit myself by "invading" the "equal liberty" of another then it does not matter how many copies of Instead Of A Book are held up before my sacreligious eyes. If I am competent enough to "invade" I do so - and enjoy the prize! Tucker's ideological blinkers prevented him from seeing that the logic of conscious ego(ism) bursts the strait jacket of anarchism. As for for Ward's challenge to me to "construct" a non-anarchist "social framework" based on egoism, I long ago

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gave up indulging in hypothetical social engineering. I am not about to begin again. (1) It is interesting to note, however, that, according to his daughter Oriole, at the end of his life Tucker no longer believed that anarchism would work. (See Benjamin R. Tucker And The Champions Of Liberty. 1986. Page 26)

The Difference Between Archism And Egoism Alan Koontz While you make a distinction between anarchism and egoism, you didn't make one between archism and egoism. Indeed, it appeared to be your point that there was no difference between archism and egoism and therein lay the difference between egoism and anarchism. I beg to differ with you on this point insofar as I perceive a difference between archism and egoism. It is implied in the article that the State is simply a condition of domination. An individual or group dominates another group. This definition is, however, incomplete for it leaves out that which makes it static. The State is in fact the condition of domination wherein only a certain individual or group is permitted to dominate another group. The authority to dominate resides in a portion of the population over which the State reigns. The remainder of the population lacks such authority and indeed must renounce all desire to dominate (in the spirit of anarchism, no less). The difference between the State and simple archy is that the former is tied to a concept while the latter is not. That concept is the authority to use force or impose one's will on another - i. e., to dominate. The reign of the State depends on the reign of this concept. The reason the egoist and the State are incompatible is that the former is the ruler of all concepts: including the concept on which the State depends. As far as the egoist is concerned, no one is authorized to dominate another. One

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possibly has the power to dominate another i.e. the former possesses some sort of advantage over the latter - but no one has the authority. The egoist has no compunction about dominating another "if this is in his interest. " Nor is the egoist offended by domination as such. What the egoist doesn't recognize is anyone's exclusive authority to dominate another. This calls for renunciation on the part of the other even if it is not in his interest. Such authority is antagonistic to egoism. The difference between the archist and the egoist is that the former could be possessed by the exclusive authority to dominate others whereas the latter could never be, even though neither is ever "bound by any demand for the renunciation of domination. " The archist thus could dominate not because it is in his interest, but simply because he is authorized to do so. That wouldn't be egoistic.

In Reply To Koontz S. E. Parker I am no believer in the authority of the State. In the essay from which I quoted Dora Marsden draws a distinction between "archistic" and "archonistic". The first she defines as "any kind of initiatory action, any kind of 'setting to' of the living unit to the task of dominating the conditions which lie between it and the goal of its desire. " The second she defines as relating to "the highest State magistrate" (the Archon) - i. e.

the political ruler. In her use of the term "archism" therefore it is quite compatible with egoism, but "archonism", insofar as it involves for its exercise a belief in authority, is not. Nonetheless, I can see no sound egoistic reason why an egoist should not assume the mantle of an authority towards others if it facilitates any act of domination he wishes to carry out and is competent to achieve. Of course, if there are egoists among these others they will not be taken in by this authority but will simply estimate how powerful the dominator is when deciding how to deal with him. Conscious egoism does not mean that I must necessarily expect all other egoists to be my allies. They may be the opposite.

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THE COST OF RUNNING AMOK WITHIN AND WITHOUT THE STATE Alan Koontz There are those who contend that without the State the peepul would run amok; they would be at each other's throats, invariably, trying to satisfy their individual needs or desires. What is it about the State that is supposed to prevent this from happening?

The primary feature of all States is the concept of Law in the minds of individuals. Law is meant to be a regulating force in human interaction. Presumably, the individual cannot make a decision about what action to take without consulting the Law. Each State has with it a regulatory or governmental apparatus to apply force in the name of the Law. However, in no case is the State physically capable of regulating every individual action. Indeed, for the most part individuals are depended upon to, presumably, follow the letter of the Law with only the threat of intervention by the government. The State is this condition of "voluntary" obedience to or obsession with the Law. At first glance, it would seem that the thing about the State that keeps people from running amok is the concept of Law. On closer examination, however, one will find that the thing which keeps people from running amok is the relatively high cost of running amok. In all praxeological decision-making, the higher the cost of particular action the less likely the individual will take that action. The individual, as a rule, tends to follow the least-cost operation. How do we know that the cost of running amok is relatively high? It is established as a scientific fact that no individual likes to be victimized; i. e., have his boundary violated against his will (see the late

Robert Lefevre's essay, Natural Rights, in New Libertarian 15). Furthermore, we know that people, generally speaking, are capable of violating boundaries, one way or another. What cannot be predicted is how someone will react to victimization. However, one may reasonably expect that the risk of a person's own victimization is relatively higher in cases where that person victimizes another. That is to say, an 8
action which tends to victimize someone tends to be a higher cost operation than one that doesn't. Moreover, since the livelihood of each individual is more dependent on others, the greater the division of labour, the cost of victimization tends to be higher due just to the correspondingly higher losses each individual experiences as a result; including, of course, the victimizer. The original question now becomes: How is the cost of running amok affected by the existence of the State? To the extent that the State through its governmental apparatus is able to contribute to the relatively high cost of running amok one may see a connection. However, the State is not really an essential feature of the scheme. In fact, it tends to disrupt the natural operation of the scheme by actually lowering the cost of running amok to next to nothing for certain people; viz., the governmental functionaries. On the other hand, there are the functionaries who have the Authority to violate people's boundaries in the name of the Law. On the other, there are potential victims of governmental functionaries who are bound by the Law not to victimize the functionaries. The cost of victimization for the governmental functionary is, therefore, virtually zero! The net effect is the large-scale victimization which the State alone enables certain people to get away with. This net effect is indeed the tendency within ALL States since, on the one hand, its functionaries are obsessed with enforcing the letter of the Law, regardless of the consequencies to their own welfare, and on the other, the incentive for individuals or groups to take advantage of the relatively low cost of victimization is always present. The most significant contribution to this tendency, however, is that of the victims of governments who are actually, as a group, more powerful than the total governmental apparatus, but are hamstrung by the obsession which is, in the final analysis, the State itself. So, the cost of running amok within the State is lower some than it is for all others. The net effect is large-scale victimization on the part of those naturally undertaking the least-cost operation. Without the State, the cost of running amok is generally the same for each

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individual. All each individual knows for sure, in this case, is that the cost of running amok is relatively high. The net effect is the general tendency to follow the least-cost operation, as in the former case, but with relatively few running amok.

June 1986 xxxxxxxxx BOOK REVIEWS The Centenary of Liberty Stephen Marletta (Benjamin Tucker and the Champions of Liberty. A centenary anthology edited by Michael E Coughlin, Charles H Hamilton, and Mark Sullivan. Michael E Coughlin, 1985 Selby Avenue, St Paul, MN 55104, USA. Hardback $15.00.) Away back in my Malatesta/Bakunin period, before I became absorbed in Stirner, Benjamin Tucker became, for a time, the writer who appealed to me most. Hence my added interest in this book's appearance. It has seventeen contributions. To mention a few: The introduction by Charles H Hamilton in which he points out that Tucker, besides being a publisher of what was best in radical and anarchist thought, was a brilliant controversialist. The blooming forth of these interests enrich the pages of the anthology. Paul Avrich's interview with Oriole, the daughter of Tucker, gives us an insight into the other side of the man. Wendy Mc Elroy gives us the non-economic debates in Liberty. A section of her article describing the debate on egoism - among the participants being James L Walker -and the impact Stirner had is the one to enjoy. The joint labours of Mildred J Loomis and Mark A Sullivan bring us into contact with another giant, Laurance Labadie. 10 Soshanna Edwards deals with "Benj R Tucker and G Bernard" -a debate concerning "State Socialism". Tucker, who was seldom cordial towards his critics, said of Shaw "after the buffoonery of 'The Workmen's Advocate' and the superficiality of 'Der Sozialist', it is pleasant to be criticized by a man of brain and wit. " "The New Freewoman: Dora Marsden and Benj Tucker" by S. E. Parker gives an interesting account of another debate. Dora Marsden, who was equally brilliant, proves to be more than a match for Tucker. There are also articles on economics, free banking and property - enough to whet the appetite for the enthusiast. Natural Law Egoist (Natural Law or Don't Put A Rubber On Your Willy. By Robert Anton Wilson. Loompanics Unlimited, PO Box 1197, Port Townsend, WA 98368, USA. $5. 95) Robert Anton Wilson's new booklet is an appropriately savage attack on the "natural law" doctrines of certain "libertarian" pundits - in particular Murray Rothbard, George H Smith and Samuel Konkin III - and is an extended version of an essay he contributed to the controversy on this question in The

New Libertarian in 1985. Wilson convincingly distinguishes between "natural law" as a scientific description of phenomena and "natural law" as a prescriptive ideal of behaviour. The first he accepts, the second he dismisses with scorching contempt. When Wilson is analysing the absurdities of the natural law theorists, their vagaries, their intellectual roots in Platonic hocus pocus and Medieval Catholic dogma, he is excellent. In his remarks on Max Stirner, however, he claims that the reason for Stirner rejecting morality is because "morality is a human invention". He gives no evidence for this claim, which is not surprising since Stirner does not reject morality on this ground. Wilson's wish to retain morality, despite his brilliant demolition of the case for natural law, shows that he is still "spooked". 11 LETTER Sir, In issue No 8 of your publication Francis Ellingham states that human beings have various opposing desires and lists wealth, social approval, power, friendship, companionship and fame as examples of these. He then goes on to state that all these are forms of one fundamental desire: the desire for pleasure - which is based on an even more fundamental desire: to escape from the void ("an aching sense of emptiness, isolation, loneliness, frustration, inadequacy" which is created when the desire for pleasure is blocked!) Mr Ellingham might possibly have avoided reasoning himself into a cul-de-sac if he had first consulted Nuttall's Standard Dictionary of the English Language where he would have seen that "pleasure" can be defined as "what the will dictates or desires.... arbitrary will or choice", or The Everyman's Dictionary: "will, choice", or James L Walker's The Philosophy of Egoism: "Philosophically 'pleasure' stands for sovereignty - is used in contradistinction to servitude. " Seen from this angle the various opposing desires which are troubling Mr Ellingham are all forms of the universal desire or drive for power (or, more fundamentally, self-unity) and this is as strong as the corresponding desire to escape from, or overcome feelings of, self-division, vulnerability and powerlessness. The chief difficulty that we all face is the fact that self-unity is not to be achieved through the most accessible forms of escape, those of group unity and group identity, even though they may represent one of the stages along the way. Being ingenious we have evolved at least three main strategies for coping with this dilemma. The majority of us sense that the odds are stacked against us and retreat quite early on in life into the pseudo-emotional omnipotence of infancy, with a little help from alcohol, cigarettes, promiscuous sex, simplistic religion 12 THE EGOIST is edited and published by S. E. Parker, 19 St. Stephen's Gardens, London W2 5QU, England, Subscription: 2. 00 (USA $5. 00) for four issues.

Appearance is irregular!

and morality of the News of the World - Sun - Daily Mirror variety. The middle and next largest group often identify with a simplistic political ideology (which will solve the problems of the whole of society.... ) and their letters on this theme are found in the pages of The Guardian. People in this category often favour "radical" violence and destruction which they believe will draw attention to their deep-seated wish for "unity". The smallest group follow their own individual creative drives in the arts of writing, painting, sculpting, music, philosophy, science, industry and philanthropy, although they are, of course, not above falling into one or both of the above categories. Yours, etc., J. Gillard Llandudno. xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Nothing is more fearsome than the man who is prepared to crucify you to establish a world without pain. Brian Walden

Out Of The Mouths Of Vicars And Sucklings - The Reverend Cook on the Radio 4 Today God Slot: "We are all so hopelessly selfish and self-centred that we cannot serve others for their sakes as there is not much in it for us. But perhaps we could do it for the sake of the Christian Church and for Jesus' sake..... The slave or servant is the most virtuous position." The least conscious egoists are those who claim to act on behalf of others. Anon.

The Egoist
EGO Number 10 1988
NOTES AND NOTIONS S.E.Parker Race and Ego In his recent work The Utopia of Instincts Dr Richard Swartzbaugh considers race to be a development of egoism. He considers that the idea of race is not properly a question of the classification of biological, psychological and cultural differences, but is a recent phenomenon. It is, he contends, a

reaction to the "impersonality" generated by the growth of technics in industrial societies. Since the white race is the most technologically developed of all the races it is among its members that true racial awareness has first arisen. The origin of "racism" is to be found in egoism. He writes: "Self-effacement is the fundamental contradiction in human life and the one which, extended from technics and narrowly technical social relations to social relations in general, becomes morality. The original technological impulse develops directly into the moral impulse, which is the terminal phase of human self-alienation. "The history of the human species is not complete, however, without the consideration that there develops, slowly at first but then with ascending intensity, a resistance to this self-effacement, which is here called egoism. "The ego is not limited to the individual but can possess whole groups, from the tiny family, the primary ego group, to the tribe and finally the race." Swartzbaugh's concept of race is a Hegelian one and seems oddly at variance with his profession of anthropologist. He states, for example, that "race is a step...in the movement of nature towards defined form" and it is "more than an 2 alliance, it is a phase in the movement of nature towards self-consciousness or perfectly focussed egoism." This is metaphysical mumbo-jumbo. To attribute to "nature", which is merely an abstract noun, the potentialities of "self-consciousness" is nothing more than an invocation of the "ghost of God" dressed up in a new shroud. There is not one scrap of evidence that can be produced in its favour, nor does Swartzbaugh attempt to offer any. Consciousness is a characteristic of only certain animal species and in its conceptual form, as a formulated awareness of the distinction between me and not-me, is confined to human beings. Swartzbaugh maintains that it is "a common mistake by philosophers...to equate the ego with the solitary person ...This is far from the truth. Where the ego must pass from one human lifespan to the succeeding one, it necessarily creates in the process the primary ego group, the parental or nuclear family...but more than this, where provoked...the ego may break out of the confines of the original family to form a greater ego group..the race." Swartzbaugh does not show how this mysterious migration of my particular ego from one lifespan to another takes place. However, long before modern research established the biochemical uniqueness of individuals, Dr James L. Walker effectively disposed of the belief that one can transmit one's ego to one's offspring. In The Philosophy of Egoism he writes: "Men flatter themselves that they can perpetuate themselves and not merely the race; a simple error, for if we allow half the effect to each parent the result is that A's offspring is half A; his grandchild is one-fourth A; his great grandchild is one-eighth A; the next genration is one_sixteenth A, and thus (ultimately) his descendants will have nothing more in common with him than any of the individuals of his race."

And this is to consider the question only at the biological level! The mind boggles when considering how the "Stirnerian ego" (Swartzbaugh claims to have been heavily influenced by Stirner), the "who" of me, can be "passed into the "who" of 3 another, for that which is uniquely mine cannot be transferred to anyone else. When I die I die. I do not deny that racial differences exist, nor that being of the Caucasian race is one of my qualities. These are facts which have to be taken into account if I want to see things clearly. The cult of ethno-masochism whose adherents ask for punishment because of the colour of their skins, or because of misdeeds allegedly committed in the past by others of the same racial stock, is not my scene. Race as a neo-Hegelian and purposive category, however, is a different matter. I no more accept its existence than I do race elevated into some kind of mystical soul, or race as a source of pseudoidentity for those who seek to gain a power that is not their own. Having rid myself of the delusion of equality I am not about to take on other delusions in its place. The Sin of Selfishness Selfishness, the putting of one's own interests before those of others, is a stock subject for denunciation by Christian preachers, as anyone who listens to religious broadcasts on the radio can testisfy. But even those who have ostensibly discarded the supernaturalism of Christianity and other traditional religions still shudder at the idea that I could deliberately place myself at the centre of my life. Humanists are prominent among these. They lay such emphasis on "the human" as a normative concept that it comes as no surprise to find that they are opposed to selfishness and urge that, as one of their leaflets puts it, we must live "considerately and unselfishly". Wherever a moral code existsand humanists are, par excellence, moraliststhere is always included a command to deny oneself in order to benefit others. Selfishness is a sin and altruism must take precedence over egoism in our motives. This attitude is exemplified in the works of the well-known humanist writer, the late Margaret Knight. In her book Morals Without Religion she states that "it is natural for us to be to a large extent self-centred and to be hostile towards people who obstruct us in getting what we want," but it is 4 "also natural for us to co-operate with other people, and to feel affection and sympathy for them. In more technical terms, we have both egoist and social instincts which may pull us in different ways." Note that she assumes that egoists can neither feel affection or sympathy for others, nor cooperate with them. She gives no reason as to why she thinks this way, but is content to echo the usual Judeo-Christian prejudice against egoism. Now, if I feel affection or sympathy for someone because it pleases me to do so, or if I co-operate with others because I see in it an expedient way of

serving my interests, how am I being less of an egoistless "selfish"than if I am hostile to someone who is a threat to me, or enter into conflict with those whose interests are contrary to mine? Whether I love or hate, cooperate or conflict, I am serving myself, seeking my satisfaction. Whether I behave one way or the other I do so out of conscious egoism. Knight writes "the essence of humanist morality is disinterestednessnot letting our own claims and interests blind us to other people's." Why my "own claims and interest" must necessarily blind me to other people's she, again, does not say. Once more she assumes that I can only favour my own interests at the expense of others' interests. Not only this, but her statement logically leads to the conclusion that I ought not to have any personal interest in anyone else. According to the Oxford Dictionary to be "disinterested" means to be "without interest; not interested; unconcerned...free from selfseeking." Thus, according to Margaret Knight, it would be immoral for me to take an interest in another individual for I would thereby cease to be "disinterested" and become "self-seeking". I would be guilty of the terrible sin of selfishness! Well might Max Stirner ironically observe that "the hard fist of morality treats the noble nature of egoism altogether without compassion". Egoism, in the guise of self-interest, is subjected to a similar misrepresentation in her later book Honest to Man. s Here she claims that "the Christian religion has been led through most of its history to proclaim...a code of morality that is in its essence completely self-interested. It has encouraged a self-centred pre-occupation with one's own salvation." This is a fundamental misconception of what Christians believe. The "self" with which they are concerned is not the self who I am here and now, but a "redeemed" self, a remade self, made over in the image of what they think I ought to be. Christian teaching is not egocentric, as even a cursory reading of the New Testament shows. It is allocentric as the words attributed to Jesus in Luke 9, 23, clearly show: "If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me." Here is the quintessence of unselfishnessthe demand to deny one's self in the service of "the other". In their opposition to selfishness humanists and Christians are at one. To serve "Humanity" is as unselfish as to serve "God". Rights and Mights "Rights" are very much to the fore in the political clamour of today. "Women's rights", "black rights", "gay rights","trade union rights", the "rights" of X, Y and Zall have vociferous groups busily engaged in demanding, defending or inventing them. What the bases for these "rights" are, however, is seldom spelled out. Indeed, I doubt if the vast majority of those who shout for them would react with more than a blank look if they were asked such a question. There is one view, which a few may know, which holds that "rights" are bestowed upon us by "nature" and are therefore "inalienable". Rights, it appears, are objective things, and if there are some nasty people who do not acknowledge this, who, indeed, "trample them underfoot", this does not alter their "essence".

This belief in "natural" or "inalienable" rights is no more than an act akin to the old belief that the moon was made of green cheese. An "inalienable right to life" does not save me from drowning if I cannot swim. An "inalienable 6 right to free speech" will not save me from a dictator's prison or firing squad if I try to exercise it against his decree. Such "rights" are delusions which crumble at the first contact with reality. In fact, of course, that "right" prevails which has the most might behind it. As it was succinctly put by Ragnar Redbeard: "'Man has the right to subsistence,' wrote Thomas Paine. 'Yes', replied an observant reader, 'he has a right to live 1000 years, if he can.' It is not a question of right, but of ability." If I do I might Carlyle "mights not have the competence to obtain or do something then, no matter how huff and puff, I have no "right" to have or do that thing. Thomas once observed that what are called "the rights of man" are really the of men". How right he was about "rights"!

Lucifers's Lexicon The use of wit to puncture presence is an age-old part of the intellectual weaponry of scepticism, but it must be used sparingly if it is to retain its effectiveness. To collect into one volume a series of satirical definitions is, therefore, to run the risk of producing something of a hit or miss production. Ambrose Bierce's famous Devil's Dictionary probably owes its success to having enough hits to outweigh its misses, but it is a work to sample briefly from time to time rather than to read through. The same can be said about L.A.Rollin's Lucifer's Lexicon recently published by Loompanics Unlimited (PO Box 1197, Port Townsend, IVA 98368, USA). Sparkling entries like "Racist: n, One who calls a spade a spade...", or "Objectivist: n, A person of unborrowed vision, who never places any consideration above his own perception of reality, who never does violence to his own rational judgement, and who, as a result, agrees completely with Ayn Rand in everything," contrast with rather boring examples of juvenile humour such as a long list of excruciating puns on film titles. Rollin's book, however, has enough of the former to more than counterhalance the latter to make it worth getting. 7 EXTRACTS ON EGOISM Max Stirner (In Wigand's Quarterly, Vol 3, 1845, Stirner replied to three critics of The Ego And His OwnLudwig Feuerbach, Moses Hess, and "Szeliga". The following extracts on egoism are taken from a translation of part of this reply by Frederick M. Gordon that appeared in The Philosophical Forum, Vol VIII, Nos 2-4, published by the Dept of Philosophy, Boston University, USA. They complement my remarks on selfishness that appear on pages 3-5 of this issue. It should be noted that Stirner refers to himself in the third person. S.E.P.)

The reviewers show still more anger at the "egoist" than at the "unique". Instead of trying to get close to the meaning of egoism as Stirner understands it, they stick with the customary conception of it that they have had since childhood, and read off the list of sins familiar to all. See here egoism, the ghastly sinthat's what Stirner "commends!" Stirner ventures to say that Feuerbach, Hess and Szeliga are egoists. With that, Stirner of course makes the identical judgement as when he says that Feuerbach does absolutely nothing but what is Feuerbachian, that Hess does nothing but what is Hessian, and that Szeliga does nothing save what is Szeliganlan. Nonetheless, only Stirner has given them the completely notorious title. Does Feuerbach live in some other than his own world? Does he live perhaps in Hess's, in Szeliga's, in Stirner's world? Isn t the world, just because Feuerbach lives in it, the world that surrounds him, the world that is thought, experienced, contemplated by Feuerbach? He lives not merely in the centre of it, but is its centre himself, he is the centre of his world. And as with Feuerbach, so no-one lives in another than his own world; as with Feuerbach, so is everyone the centre of his world. World is really only what one is not oneself, but what belongs to one, what stands in a relationship to one, what is for one. Around you everything turns: you are the centre of the 8 the outer world and the centre of the thought world. Your world extends as far as your power of conception, and what you grasp is your own by your mere grasping. You, unique one, are unique only together with "your property". Meanwhile you do not avoid the fact that what is your own is at the same time its own or has its own being, a unique being like you. In this you lose yourself in sweet self-forgetfulness. But if you forget yourself, do you then completely disappear? If you do not think of yourself do you altogether cease to be? When you look into the eyes of your friend, or contemplate some happiness which you might cause him, when you gaze at the stars, ponder their laws, or when you send affectionate greetings to someone who has the same feeling for you, when you lose yourself in the microscopic movements of some tiny form of life, when you without any thought of danger rush to save someone from fire or drowning: In such cases you do not, of course, "think" of yourself, you "forget" yourself. But are you only when you think of yourself, and do you pass away when you forget yourself? Do you only exist through selfconsciousness? Who doesn't forget himself every minute; who doesn't lose sight of himself a thousand times an hour? This self-forgetfulness, this losing of oneself, is indeed only a mode of our gratification, is only the enjoyment of our world, our property, our worldly enjoyment. Not in this self-forgetting, but in the forgetting of this, that the world is our world, does unselfishness, i.e. false egoism, have its basis. Before an absolute, a "higher" world, you throw yourself down and throw yourself away. Unselfishness is not self-forgetting in the sense that one does not think of oneself and is not engaged with oneself, but in another sense, that one forgets the "our" of the world, that one forgets that one is the centre or owner of this world, that it is our property. The fear and timidity shown

towards the world as a "higher" world is the most disheartened, "submissive" egoism, egoism in the form of the slave, who

The Ellingham/Gillard controversy will be concluded in issue 11.

9 does not dare to grumble, who remains still and "denies himself"it is selfdenial. Our world and the holy worldin that lies the difference between affirmative egoism and self-denying, unconfessed, incognito, sneaking egoism. Fraudulent egoism consists therefore of the belief in an absolute interest, an interest that does not spring from the egoist, i.e. from one who is selfinterested, but from an "eternal interest" which is imperious against the interest of the egoist and which firmly maintains itself. This egoism is "fraudulent" because the egoist's interests, "private interests", are not just ignored, they are damned. It remains nonetheless "egoism" because he takes up this alien or absolute interest only in the hope that it will make him happy. This absolute interest which would be interesting though disinterested, which thus, instead of being a concern of a unique individual, is rather looking just for a "vessel for its glory", or for men who would be its "tools and instruments", Stirner simply calls "the holy". The holy is in fact the absolutely uninteresting for it lays claim to the interesting only if no one has an interest in it. It is also the "general", i.e. subjectless interest, because it is not a unique interest, the interest of a unique individual. In other words, this "general interest" is more than youis something "higher". It also exists independent of youit is something absolute. It is an interest for itselfsomething alien to you. The demand is put to you to serve it, and it finds you fully willing if you let yourself be infatuated. xxxxxx The word wrong is a variation upon the past participle of the verb to wring, to twist. Victor and vanquished are two, and the moralist simply looks away from the facts of life when he preaches a universal natural right and ignores individuals with their various wants and powers and the probability that what is good to one may entail some ill upon another. James L. Walker 10 INDIVIDUALITY Pio Baroja The individual is the only real thing in nature and in life. Neither the species, the genus, nor the race, actually exists; they are abstractions, terminologies, scientific devices, useful as syntheses but not entirely exact. By means of these devices we can discuss and compare; they constitute a measure for our minds to use, but have no external reality. Only the individual exists through himself and for himself. I am, I live, is

the sole thing a man can affirm. The categories and divisions arranged for classification are like a series of squares an artist places over a drawing to copy it by. The lines of the square may cut the lines of the sketch; but they will cut them not in reality but only in the artist's eye. In humanity, as in all of nature, the individual is the one thing. Only individuality exists in the realm of life and in the realm of spirit. Individuality is not to be grouped or classified. Individuality simply cannot fit into a pigeon-hole, and it all the further from fitting if the pigeonhole is shaped according to an ethical principle. Ethics is a poor tailor to clothe the body of reality. The individual is not logical, or good, or just; nor is he any other distinct thing; and this through the force of his own fatal actions, through the influence of the deviation in the earth's access, or for whatsoever other equally amusing cause. Every thing individual is always found mixed, full of absurdities of perspective and picturesque contradictionscontradictions and absurdities that shock us, because we insist on submitting individuals to principles which are not applicable to them. 11 If instead of wearing a cravat and a bowler hat, we wore feathers and a ring in our nose, all our moral notions would change. People of today, remote from nature and nasal rings, live in an artificial moral harmony which does not exist except in the imagination of those ridiculous priests of optimism who preach from the columns of the newspapers. This imaginary harmony makes us abhor the contradictions, the incongruities of individuality; at least it forces us not to understand them. Only when individual discord ceases, when the attributes of an exceptional being are lost, when the mould is spoiled and becomes vulgarized and takes on a common character, does it obtain the appreciation of the multitude. This is logical; the dull rriust sympathize with the dull; the vulgar and usual have to identify themselves with the vulgar and usual. From Caesar or Nothing1919 ***************** ENDPIECES Tlhe Bishop of Liverpool has received a gas bill for 500... If you haven't got any power you have to resort to principles. Two social workers came upon an old lady lying in the gutter having been mugged. Said one to the other: How dreadful! I wonder what we can do to help whoever did this... The Reverend Lord Soper became an atheist when at Cambridge University. At the same time he developed boils. These disappeared when his faith returned. (Atheists of the world regain your faith' You have nothing to lose but your

boils!) 12 TIIE EGOIST is edited and published by S.E.I'arker, 19 St Stephen's Gardens, London W2 5QU. Subscriptions: 2.00 (USft $6.00) for four issues. Appearance irregular! Please make out cheques and money orders to S.E.Parker.

The Bishop of Birmingllam

Of course, people have always been selfish, but at least at one time they used to be more hypocritical about it (and it was easier for us to make them feel guilty about itbut, woe is me, since Margaret Thatcher has got into power she has gone and given the game away......) "Hello' this is Radio Rattleon, broadcasting on 284 meters, mediocre wave. This morning's religious reflections are by delightful Delia Do-a-lot." Delia Do-a-lot: "And a very Gawd-filled morning to you. My friends, isn't it very clear that humanity earnestly, sincerely, from the bottom of its heart, desires peace? ....chatter, blah, Gawd, chatter, blah, Gawd, chatter...... Announcer: "Thank you, Ms Do-a-lot. Now here is the latest news with details of violence, rapes, hi-jacks, military coups, civil wars, etc., etc...." A majority decision is a vindication of democracy if we happen to agree with it. It is an expression of mass stupidity if we don't.... Endpieces ended **************** There's always an easy solution to every human problem, neat, plausibleand wrong. H.L. Mencken

The Egoist
EGO Number 11 1989
MARX versus STIRNER Notes Towards A Critique Of The German Ideology by Marx/Engels Frank Jordan Page 129: "Since St Max pays no attention to the physical and social 'life' of the individual, he quite consistently abstracts from historical epochs, nationalities, classes, etc....." Stirner, on the contrary, pays a greet deal of attention to the physical and social 'life' of the individual. He only 'abstracts' from historical epochs etc. to point out that the individuali.e. the conscious egoistcan make use of the "physical and social life" for himself and not be manipulated by these

external forces as has happened countless times in the past. Page 143: "Incidentally...he ought to have merged the Stoics, Epicureans and Sceptics in the Neo-Platonist .. Instead of that, he merges these doctrines directly into Christianlty." Marx and Ehgels are 'tailoring' the facts. Early Christianity, notably in the figure of St Augustine, was greatly influenced by Neo-Platonism, so Stirner only, as it were, moved a step forward in his criticism. Why concentrate on Neo-Platonism when the dominant ideology was Christianity? Christianity encompassed in its folds the previous "isms" through the teachings of "the early Church Fathers. Page 180: "St Max.. declares that, although it is easy to become emancipated from the domination of one's own family, nevertheless, 'refusal of allegiance easily arouses pangs of conscience', and so people retain family affections, the concept of the family, and therefore have the 'ho]y conception of the family', the 'holy'." 2 Marx/Engels say the bourgeoise are to blame for the concept of the family and that the proletariat can actually abolish the family. Rubbish! Stirner was, and is, psychologically here, as elsewhere, much more profound than Marx. It is not only class or property relations, but a whole group of "spooks" that hold together the nuclear family as a fixed ideawhich is more insidious than any simple material conditioning Page 224: "The worker in the pin factory performs only one piece of work, only plays into the hand of another and is used, exploited by that other." Marx/Engels use this quote from Stirner to back up a most spurious interpretation. One page 225 they continue: "Thus, here Stirner makes the discovery that the workers in a factory exploit one another, since they 'play into the hands' one another; whereas the factory-owner, whose hands do not work at all, cannot, therefore, exploit the workers." I may be wrong, but my reading of this Stirner quote in Byington's translation, implies just the opposite. It is the employer, into whose hands the worker has played, who is being condenmed. I do not think that Stirner's criticism is being directed at the worker, although I stand open to correction on this point. Page 247: "The communists do not preach morality at all, as Stirner does so extensively. They do not put to people the moral demand: love one another, do not be egoists etc., on the contrary they are very well aware that egoism, just as much as selfless-ness, is in definite circumstances a necessary form of the self-assertion of individuals." What nonsense! The basic ideology of Marxist communism, from the ethos of The Party to the ideals of the Proletarian Revolution, is soaked in moralic acid. This is what makes communism such a powerful, quasi-religious movement, and woe unto any heretics or self-asserting individuals! I think that events in Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Poland, over the last half century, has confirmed this last point most tragically. 3

As for Stirner preaching morality even a cursory reading of Der Einzige shows that Stirner, as a conscious egoist, condemns morality as being just another "spook". Likewise he would have presumably condemned immorality on the same grounds. Logically one can only be immoral if the premise of morality is first accepted as something to rebel against. I would describle Stirner as amoral if one must try to pin a label on him. Page 323: "But in reality the proletarians arrive at this unity only through a long process of development...a means of making them take shape as 'they', as a revolutionary united mass." Here we have an early example of the famous Marxist "historical necessity" interpretation of events which Marx conveniently lifted from his mentor, Hegel, to prop up his own philosophy. In actuality all Marx/Engels have done is to replace the Judeo-Christian idea of the "saviour" leading the Chosen People into the Promised Land with a modern variant: the Proletarian Revolution bring about the Communist Society. There is basically no difference. Page 393: "He (Stirner) thinks that no one can compose your music for you, complete the sketches for you paintings. No one can do Raphael's works for him...it was not Mozart himself, but someone else who composed the greater part of Mozart's Requiem and finished it, and Raphael himself 'completed' only an insignificant part of his own frescoes." I find this section of The German Ideology, especially the part about Mozart, the most absurd and obnoxious of the whole book. Marx/Engels, in saying that Mozart's Requiem was finished by someone else, are using an extremely weak peg on which to hang their argument. What about the superb operas, symphonies, concertos, et al, that came from the fertile mind of Mozart's genius? Their stupid, infantile example can hardly be representative of the works of this outstanding musical genius. I dearly love Mozart's music and, seeing that Stirner never mentions him, I cannot see why Marx/Engels mention him, albeit in a most despical way, to bolster their argument. 4 Exactly the same criticism applies to their use of Raphael. Raphael mastered all aspects of painting and, although some of his later frescoes were completed by his assistants, due to pressure of work, no one but Raphael was responsible for painting The School of Athens, Disputa, The Cartoons etc., the two masterpieces first mentioned being frescoes in the Stanza della Segnature of the Vatican Palace. Marx and Engels are, in this section of their book, showing their bigotry and ignorance for what it is. Page 438: "The transformation of individual relationship.....(Page 439) within communist society, the only society in which the genuine and free development of individuals ceases to be a mere phrase.... This whole section contains countless contradictions. While Marx/Engels have tried, unsuccessfully, to dispose of Stirner's "unique one", now they try to support individuality as it would supposedly exist under an ideal, communist society which is a patent contradiction. Communism, like all ideologies, by its very nature reduces its adherents to the level of anonymous cyphers in an amorphous groupthe modern counterpart of the Pauline "Body of Christ".

Conclusion: I find the Marxist critique of Stirner's so-called "Hegelian" concept of history rather ironic. Whilst it is true that Stirner implies that ideas (spooks) have been the motivating force in history, it is actually Marx who gives the Hegelian interpretation. He turns Hegel on his head by stating that historical necessity and dialectical materialism are the true view of events. So all Marx has done is replace one "Geist" with another making the material/economic interpretation his fundamental idea rather than Hegel's "Resort". I think that recent events in Soviet countries refute Marxist determinism once and for all. x x x x x Not truth, but error has always been the chief factor in the evolution of nations, and the reason why socialism is so powerful today is that it constitutes the last illusion that is still vital. Gustave Le Bon 5 Book Review A "REACTIONARY" UTOPIA S.E.Parker (The Resurrection of Aristocracy by Rudolph Carlyle Evans. Loompanics Unlimited 1988. Price $12.95) The Resurrection of Aristocracy is a prophetic attempt at delineating a coming utopia. It will not be a utopia of equality, freedom and universal brotherhoodthe kind which has been assiduously peddled for thousands of years by a variety of political and religous seers. Mr Evan's utopia is frankly "reactionary". In it the masses know their placewhich is at the bottom of a social pyramid ruled by a new aristocracy composed of warriors who have won their dominance by means of their military ability and ardour. Modern industrial society will have been abolished and rural romanticism will reign. There will be no birth control, surplus population being killed off by warfare and an absence of any welfare facilities. Sex before marriage will be taboo, women will be shy, tender and sympathetic and their place firmly in the home. Not only this, but the common people will be "unselfish" and the nobility "will regularly consume wine to the point of stupefaction without any ill effect." In short, all human beings will be a violent, healthy ("herbal medicine will return to prominence"), thoroughly moralized lot whose lives will be lived in the way Mr Evans dreams should be. It is a utopia to make feminists furious, socialists scream and sceptics like myself smile incredulously. I have written "dreams" advisedly because despite all the author's disdain for the present age's neglect of unpleasant realities his proposed utopia is merely a compensatory dream whose connection with these realities I find it difficult to discern. This comes out most clearly when he deals with how his ideal world will be achieved. Here he retreats into vagueness and apocalyptic fantasy. He offers no cogent evidence anywhere in his book to show that the sudden catastrophe he claims is coming is coming nor does he show how, if it does come, it will result in

6 the ideal society he desires. What he presents is simply a modern version of the second coming of a saviour resting on nothing more than an expression of faith. Like Mr Evans I have no liking for the democratic and egalitarian myths to which so much lip service is given today. I do not deny, nor do I denounce, the existence of dissonances, divisions, distances, unequal abilties and functioning hierarchies, but I deal with the realities of power as they are and do not fantasize them away by assuming that a never-never land of refurbished feudalism will replace them. I find it strange that people such as he, who profess a tough-minded attitude to human affairs, can still fall into trap of utopian dreaming. ************* LETTER I regarded your article on me (Race and Ego No 10) as altogether fair and something I had anticipated. I only want to make the general observation that I am not alone in doing metaphysics; you too are forced onto a metaphysical level. No idea is more philosophically abstruse than the ego. That is, there is no idea more concrete or intuitively certain than that I existI am more certain of that than even that there is a world "out there." On the other hand, when I start trying to prove or in any sense relate to the idea that there is a person S E Parker, and to prove that idea absolutely, I immediately get into metaphysics. I cannot prove your existence, nor can I prove your ethical worthwhy you should beor why for that matter there is any point writing you or reading The Egoist. We cannot communicate except by descending or ascending (as the case may be) to a metaphysical level. I think what I'm trying to do is to distinguish two ideas of the ego:

1. The ego as self-consciousness. 2. The ego as self-assertion.

Self-consciousness cannot pass beyond the individual; when 7 I am asleep there is no me. On the other hand, my self-assertion can be passed through my genes and can be possessed by a large group, which I call an ego group. What is the other explanation for race? It could only be that race is somehow a "moral"entity, that it "should" exist. I know of no convincing moral explanation or justification for or of race. Mussolini said it all; things will be this or that way because I will it. These are some speculations. Again, thanks for the (altogether fair) account of my viewpoint. Richard Swartzbaugh (I have said, for the moment, all I want to say on the subject of "race and ego". As for Mussolini, if by "will" he meant actually the "power to

accomplish" then he was correct. But his "will" was not the unlimited will that is implied in his statement. When he was executed by communist partisans their combined wills proved greater than his will. He may have willed things to be otherwise, but his end showed that he was of distinctly limited will. The egoist conception of will is not a Nietzschean one. SEP) xxxxxxxxxxxx "Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so to them" might be good sense in a world where all men were alike, possessed of identical needs, desires and tastes. If anyone thinks it applicable in a world of individualities, let him try it out in his daily living. If he attempts to apply it literally, he will speedily discover the arrogance of the assumption that other men are like himself, that what pleases him will be acceptable to them. If he endeavours to disregard the letter but carry out the spirit of it, he will soon be engulfed in the fathomless task of determining what others, actuated by the Golden Rule, would do unto him with a view of having him do so even unto them! And at the best it is not so practical as the familiar "Put yourself in his place." Good suggestions, both of them, but as adequate rules of conduct, such as the Golden Rule is on every hand assumed to bechildish, utterly childish! Adeline Champney 8 A REPLY Francis Ellingham John Gillard (issue 9) misunderstands my letter in no 8. My fault, perhaps, but I did not write of a void being created when the desire for pleasure is blocked. I wrote of a (pre-existing) void opening up. That voidan awareness of being nothingis always at the back of our consciousness. But we won't face it: we try to cover it up, by pursuing pleasure. When that pursuit is blocked, pain arisesbitterness, anger, boredom, loneliness, etc. which indicates the uncovering or opening up of the void. By the word "pleasure" I mean "gratification" one of the primary meanings in The Oxford English Dictionary. I know that "pleasure" can mean "one's will, desire, choice" (its second meaning in the OED), but is that relevant? Mr Gillard seems to confuse those two quite distinct meanings of "pleasure", and thus to equate the desire for pleasure (as gratification) with the desire for powerthe ability to carry out one's pleasure (as will). But surely the desire for power is merely one form of the desire for gratification: to exercise power is gratifying, which is why we want it. Mr Gillard seems to regard the desire for pleasure as being "more fundamentally" the desire for self-unity. But that desire, surely, is just a reaction to the pain of self-divisionthe conflict between opposing forms of the desire for gratification. It is itself one of those opposing forms. Therefore it only increases the conflict and perpetuates the division. So, is there any "strategy" for achieving self-unity? Who will be the strategist, if not the already disunited self? More clearly: the inventor and

director of the strategy will be just one fragment of our divided consciousness, one form of desire. A fragment will never bring about unity. People who lose themselves in "creative art" are just as blind to that fact as those whose ways of covering up the void are less respectable. 9 Self-division can end, I am suggesting, only when we face the void. We do that naturally when the brain, seeing the futility of trying to cover it up, says to itself: "I'll just look at this thing, and find out what it is." The brain is then aware of it, and of the urge to cover it up, but without a "strategy", without effort, without any movement of thought. Then we know no division. COMMENT John Gillard It seems to me that Mr Ellingham is indulging in a petty quibble over the use of the word "created". It is evident that I did not use "created" in the literal sense, but in the popular sense such as "I was late for work this morning because an engine breakdown created a delay." He argues that "it is useless to make any effort to get rid of self-division" (first letter). Then he says (second letter) that "self-division can end...only when we face the void...when the brain...says to itself: 'I'll just look at this thing and find out what it is.'". He claims that this can done "without any effort, without any movement of thought." But facing and looking demand effort, the effort of focussing. It is, therefore, wrong to say no effort is needed. Although he claims that "a fragment will never bring about unity", it is to this "fragment" that he looks to make the effort of non-effort. Again, his writing a letter and expecting to convince reader of the validity of his case by so doing, requires not only "Movement of thought" on his part, but on the part of the reader as well. So, in order to accept the position of non-effort which will end self-division effort is required from both him and his readers. "Non-effort" is, in fact, nonsense since we are only alive because of the effort, the exertion of our forces, that we make, whether consciously or unconsciously. To cease making an effort is to die. Mr Ellingham is, however, quite right when he writes to exercise power is gratifying, which is why we want it." The power-pleasure drive is inseparable from us and 10 individual happiness or unity is dependent upon how well we understand and act upon this fact. I also think that it is true that an awareness, however dim this may be, of vulnerability and powerlessness in the face of our instinctual drive to excel and/or dominate can be experienced as a "void". And this is why people become addicted to the feelings of pseudo-omnipotence that recourse to alcohol, drugs, sex, war, being constantly on the move, spectator sports, fame, riches, commercial, political, religious, artistic and psychiatric allegiance can create.

Mr Ellingham is, however, mistaken when he suggests that the solution to this often intractable dilemma is simply to do nothing, to make no effort, for this is just another ruse of the relatively powerless. The answer is to carry on in the world, making mistakes, testing out your personal convictions and aspirations against those of others. You will often be bitterly disappointed, but you could eventually gain something that is equal to approval from other peopleself-knowledge. Once you start to acquire this you have a foot on the path to self-unity, real power instead of the false power of "non-action" or the frantic pursuit of external sources of power. As for people who attempt to lose themselves in creative art, I was not discussing those who attempt to lose themselves in anything, but those who are interested first and foremost in being themselves. By expressing their creative drives in writing, science, philosophy and so forth they may become more self-aware and unified. In conclusion I would like to add that I am indeed indebted to Mr Ellingham for presenting me with this opportunity to clarify my thinking on these important issues. (This controversy is now closed. Editor) **************** 11 DEATHS Stephen Marletta My old friend and collaborator, Stephen Marletta, died at his home in Glasgow, Scotland, on January 26th 1989. He was 81 years of age. Stephen had been a generous supporter of, and an occasional contributor to, Minus One, Ego and The Egoist for over 25 years. On the day of his death he wrote me a typically lively letter which he gave to his nephew to post for him. William J. Boyer News has come of the death a year ago of Bill Boyer who lived Thoreau fashion in the woods of Wisconsin, USA. He and I had some rumbustious debates by letter in the past, leading to my breaking off contact with him at one period, but as we grew older we ended up exchanging friendly letters on our birthdays which were on the same day of the same month. I will be writing in more detail about these two egoist "old guard" in the next issue. S.E.P. xxxxxxxxxxxxx NOTES AND NOTIONS S.E.Parker I have recently published in leaflet form a new edition of John Beverley Robinson's classic essay on Egoism. It is suitable for photocopying (A4 folded into A5) and an excellent introduction for anyone interested in the

egoist philosophy. Readers can obtain a copy by sending an A5 size stamped and addressed envelope to me at the address on page 12. Overseas readers should send an addressed A5 envelope together with an international postal reply coupon. The September 1988 issue of Heraclitus, an Australian journal published by "some Sydney libertarians, Pluralists and Critical Drinkers",contains a good article on Max 12 THE EGOIST is edited and pubilshed by S.E.Parker, 19 St Stephen's Gardens, London W2 5QU, England. Subscription: 2.00 (USA 4dollars) for 4 issues. Will overseas readers please note that overseas subscriptions can only be accepted in sterling or money orders made out to sterling. Bank charges for cashing overseas cheques now amount to more than the subscription! Stirner by my old "comrade in arms" of the sixties Dave Miller. Copies can be obtained from Heraclitus, PO Box 54, Darlinghurst, NSW 2010, Australia. There is no price, but a donation would no doubt be appreciated. The Scorpion is a magazine ritually denounced as "neo-Nazi" by sensitive souls, despite the fact that it often publishes articles critical of national socialism. In the latest issue "Loki", in his regular column, hilariously comments on those "nationalists" whose intelligence disintegrates when the question of "race" is raised. I have many disagreements with the philosophical position of The Scorpion, but I find it one of the more interesting of contemporary publications. The current issue, No 12, costs 1.60 from The Scorpion Press, Schellweider Str 50, 500 - Koln - 80, West Germany. xxxxxxxxxxxx Most people feel more comfortable with a planetary than with a solar view of life. Always to receive light, warmth and motion from elsewhere, and in conjunction with others, is easier than being oneself light warmth and motion. Herbert Stourzh The saying that no age ever knows its truly great men has no doubt afforded consolation not only to the neglected few, but also to the host of lesser beings who find in this maxim a convenient excuse for their own obscurity. It is nevertheless a true saying...freedom for all (if only theoretical freedom) means inevitable restriction for the few, who may have something to say, but cannot make themselves audible amid the myriad-throated crowd. Where everyone gets a hearing, no one is heard. Oscar Levy

EGO NO. 13 1991

(Incorporating THE EGOIST)

THE MYTH OF MORALITY by S.E.Parker VON HARTMANN AND STIRNER by Walker THE MYTH OF MORALITY S.E.Parker (A lecture given to the South Place Ethical Society on June 3 1990. A much abridged version appeared in The Ethical Record for February 1991) Morality is concerned with right doing and wrong doing. Thou shalt cannot be separated from thou shalt not. I have found, however, that many who are eager to praise something as morally good or condemn something as morally bad are not as eager to describe why they think that something is morally good or bad. In a way I do not blame them for their reluctance. Perhaps they suspect that if they started to strip off the tinsel wrappings of what they call "morality" they might find that there is nothing there - that morality is a myth. There is also the problem that those who are supposed to be experts on the subject very rarely agree as to how to define it. For example, in A Dictionary of Philosophy, published in 1976 by Routledge, it is stated that a "moral principle might be defined as one concerning things in our power and for which we can be held responsible .... or a moral principle might concern the ultimate ends of human action, e.g. human welfare. Other views have it that a moral principle is one which people in fact prefer over competing principles, or else which they should prefer. Others again make principles moral if a certain kind of sanction is applied when they are violated. Universalizibility has also been used to define moral principle." Is such a verbal hotchpotch what most people have in mind when they talk of morality? I do not think so. What they mean when they say something is moral is that that something ought to be done. What they mean when they say something is immoral is that that something ought not to be done. As the moralist Stuart Smith wrote: "The supremacy of the moral law means that the law should not be broken even if by doing so we gain something which is good or even if by keeping it we have to endure things which are bad....We do not regard a man as keeping the moral law who observes its requirements towards some of his fellows and disregards them towards others. We only regard a man as keeping the moral law who sees that law as binding in his relations to all men....A moral man is not a man who is moral to those he knows and likes....but one who is moral towards all men, for the sake of the moral law." Smith is clearly and unambiguously of the opinion that morality

consists of obedience to the moral law, that the moral law is above all other laws and that it applies to all human beings without exception. It is such a view, I think, that lies behind what most people mean when they talk of morality. I am aware that there are moralists who will dissent from such a view, labelling it extreme or unworkable, but to me it appears the only consistent attitude that can be taken by someone who believes in the need for a moral code. To introduce qualifications such a workableness is to introduce the question of expedience and the expedient is not the moral. The question for me, however, is: Why should I be "moral"? What is the justification for demanding my obedience to a moral code? Until recently one of the most common of these justifications was an appeal to "God" and, indeed, it has not completely disappeared. This god tells us what is right and what is wrong so runs the belief. However, even supposing that such a god exists, I have no way of knowing whether the moral commandments ascribed to this god are uttered by him her or it. I am simply told that I must obey them. If I refuse to obey, then I am told that this god will punish me. By threatening me in such a manner, however, the moralist has changed the question from one of morality to one of expediency, to one of my avoiding the painful results of not submitting to someone or something more powerful than I am. Of course, there are those who do not believe in a god who are nonetheless believers in morality. These moralists seek a sanction for their moral codes in some other fixed idea: the "common good", a teleological conception of human evolution, the needs of "humanity" or "society", "natural rights", and so forth. A critical analysis of this type of moral justification soon shows that there is no more behind it than there is behind "the will of God". Although, for example, there is much talk about the "common good" any attempt to discover what precisely this "good" is will reveal that these is no such animal. All there is is a multiplicity of diverse and often conflicting opinions as to what this "common good" ought to be. Freedom of speech is held by many people to be in the "common good", but a good number of these would deny that freedom to those holding what are considered to be "racist" views. To be free to express such views, it appears, is not in the "common good". On the other hand, the so-called racists might well argue that freeedom to express their views is in the "common good".

The "common good", therefore, is not something about which there is a clear and common agreement. It is merely a high-sounding piece of rhetoric used to disguise the particular interests of those making use of it. It is exactly this dressing up of particular interests as moral laws that lies behind morality. All moral codes are the inventions of human beings who want what they believe to be "right" to be accepted by all to whom the code is meant to apply. An individual, or group of individuals, wants to promote his or their interests and preferences. To make known these interests plainly, to say that I or we want you lot to behave in this fashion because that would serve my or our interests, would reveal the demand for what it is, that is a demand to do this or that for the benefit of those making the demand. I want to promote my interest and I want to persuade other people to support me. If I am frank about this I might get the support of those whose interest coincides with mine, but that is all. If, on the other hand, I claim that I am speaking in the name of God, or Humanity, or in the interest of the Nation, then my claim becomes much more impressive. This way of demanding gains me the advantage that anyone who disagrees with me I can denounce as being "evil", since they are opposed to the moral good. Bullshit baffles brains and it is certainly true that in the sphere of morality the ability to use a guiltinducing technique in an effective manner is an invaluable emotional weapon. Without such bullshit so-called moral demands would lose their allure and would be reduced to simple commands whose carrying out would depend solely on the power of those making them. Might would make right - until a greater might came along. There are some who might well agree with much of what I have said so far on the grounds that it refers to a belief in a moral absolute or some objective moral standard neither of which, they will argue, exist. Authentic morality, they believe, can only be experienced on an individual, subjective level and rests upon what an individual feels to be "right". They look neither to God, nor to the "common good" or its variants, as sanctions, but to feeling or intuition. The problem for such people is that they have no way of proving that they are morally right to do such and such, and that someone doing something opposite is morally wrong. If they are confronted with someone who is acting in a way that violates their feeling of moral rightness, but which that someone claims,

on the basis of his feeling, to be morally right, what can they do? Suppose I believe that abortion is morally wrong, because I have a strong feeling that it is, and you believe that abortion is morally right, because you have a strong feeling that it is, how can the matter be resolved? If we both stick to our conflicting feelings then we have a situation in which one moral right is in direct opposition to another moral right and no compromise is possible since one can only abort or not abort- one cannot halfabort. I accumulate all the evidence I can about the dangers of abortion, I issue sensational statements about crying foetuses and invoke varying degress of indignation about denying the sacredness of life. You point out the dangers of having unwanted and unloved children, the right of women to control their own bodies, the physical and mental risks of having too many children all too often in circumstances where they cannot be given a good life, and so on and so forth. Neither of us convinces the other. The result is a moral deadlock that can only be broken by going beyond what is "moral" and finding out who is the strongest party - those who oppose abortion or those who support it. Morality is therefore a myth, a fiction invented, as I have said, to serve particular interests. As a myth it nonetheless has its uses, and it is because of these that I do not anticipate that, any more than religion, it will disappear. I have no vision of muddled moralists being replaced by clearheaded amoralists, much as I would personally like to see it. One of the most popular uses of the moral myth is to add a garnish to the often unsavoury dish of politics. By turning even the most trivial of political pursuits into a moral crusade one can be assured of the support of the credulous, the vindictive and the envious, as well as giving a pseudo-strength to the weak and the wavering. A good illustration of this was the moral diabolization of the former prime minister Margaret Thatcher. To have read and heard what her political opponents had to say about her role as someone of unparalleled wickedness is to have thrown into stark relief what I said about morality being used as a cloak to cover particular interests. Whether one believes that under her rule the country went from glory to glory or sank ever deeper into a terrible mess, it was quite clear that she alone could not have been responsible. Nevertheless, even even those who hold that individuals amount to nothing and that "social" or "economic" forces determine everything did not hesitate to berate her as a kind of demon queen. It was, indeed, astonishing how the mere mention of her name was enough to turn

historical materialists into hysterical mysterialists! But then, the turning of political conflicts into campaigns for moral salvation and purity is often a paying proposition for politicians. Many millions have been slaughtered in the cause of creating a new moral order or defending an old one. As Benjamin de Casseres once pointed out those who claim to love "humanity" are usually sentimental butchers. It is true, of course, that those who engage in such crusades are not always mere cynical manipulators of the credulous crowd. There are undoubtedly those who sincerely believe in the validity of the moral principles they preach, however many exceptions reality may compel them to make. But it will be interesting to see how many of these sincere moralists will grapple with certain global applications of their beliefs. Take, for example, the birth rate which, according to a recent United Nations report, is increasing at a phenomenal rate in certain parts of the world - this decade alone will see the addition of another billion to the world population. If this rate of increase continues then a time will come when all the ingenuity of the agronomists will be exhausted and the amount of food available will drastically diminish in relation to the amount of food needed. Expanding needs will run headlong into finite resources. Suppose that among those who will have to decide who is to live and who is to die there are those who firmly believe in the "right to life", that is that every human being, by the mere act of being born, therefore has the moral right to all that is necessary to ensure their life and wellbeing. How will they confront the choices that will have to be made? They will only have two alternatives: to discard their moral principle or to be paralyzed by the inability to apply it. Either way their particular moral stand will be exposed for the sham that it is. The use of the moral myth clearly has its limitations. Like all myths it may have its soothing properties and useful deceits, but when taken literally it can be poisonous. To say that something is morally good or morally bad boils down in the end to nothing more than that something is said to be morally good or morally bad. What will be said to be good or bad will depend upon the belief of the moralist making the statement. When moral judgements class behind all the verbal pyrotechnics there is simply one idea lodged in one head and another and different idea lodged in another head. The passion with which they are expressed is merely a symptom of the unfulfillable desire to prove the unproveable. For myself, I have no use for the myth of morality, except as a

source of amusement or data for a study of slavery to fixed ideas. As Hajdee Abdee el Yezdee put it: "There is no Good, there is no Bad: these be the whims of mortal will; What works me well: that I call Good; what harms and hurts I hold as Ill; "They change with place, they shift with race; and, in the veriest space of Time Each Vice has worn a Virtue's crown; all Good was banned as Sin and Crime." ************ VON HARTMANN AND STIRNER James L Walker (From his introduction to the Tucker edition of The Ego And His Own) We owe to Dr Eduard von Hartmann the unquestionable service which he rendered by directing attention to this book (The Ego And His Own) in his Philosophy Of The Unconscious, the first edition of which was published in 1869, and in other writings. I do not begrudge Dr von Hartmann the liberty of criticism which he used; and I think admirers of Stirner's teaching must quite appreciate one thing which Von Hartmann did at a much later date. In "Der Eigen" of August 10, 1896, there appeared a letter written by him and giving, among other things, certain data from which to judge that, when Friedrich Nietzsche wrote his later essays, Nietzsche was not ignorant of Stirner's book. "Von Hartmann wishes that Stirner had gone on and developed his principle. Von Hartmann suggests that you and I are really the same spirit, looking out through two pairs of eyes. Then, one may reply, I need not concern myself about you, for in myself I have - us; and at that rate Von Hartmann is merely accusing himself of inconsistency: for, when Stirner wrote his book, Von Hartmann's spirit was writing it; and it is just the pity that Von Hartmann in his present form does not indorse what he said in the form of Stirner, - that Stirner was different from any other man; that his ego was not Fichte's transcendental generality, but "this transitory ego of flesh and blood." It is not as a generality that you and I differ, but as a couple of facts which are not to be reasoned into one. "I" is somewise Hartmann, and thus Hartmann is "I"; but I am not Hartmann, and

Hartmann is not - I. Neither am I the "I" of Stirner; only Stirner himself was Stirner's "I". Note how comparatively indifferent a matter it is with Stirner that one is an ego, but how all-important it is that one be a self-conscious ego, - a self-conscious, self-willed person. Those not self-conscious and self-willed are constantly acting from self-interested motives, but clothing these in various garbs. Watch these people closely in the light of Stirner's teaching, and they seem to be hypocrites, they have so many good moral and religious plans of which self-interest is at the end and bottom; but, we may believe, do not know that this is more than coincidence. xxxx It is high time to stop the repetition of the statement that anarchy represents the ideal of the greatest possible liberty. Liberty consists in the ability to do certain things, that is, to enjoy and possess certain properties; and since property is by its nature limited, the giving of all liberties to all men, the granting to all men of the right to perform all acts, would simply mean the restriction of the share of each - to the benefit of none and the injury of many. People ingenuously believe that liberty is a thing to be distributed, and that it would be well to give it to all men. Universal liberty, on the contrary, would result in a greater number of unimpeded actions, that is to say, in universal helplessness. The anarchistic ideal is not only impracticable; it is self-contradictory. ...anarchists have failed as yet to understand that since the liberty of all is a contradiction in terms the only liberty which can be established is the liberty of a limited number that is to say, the power of a limited number, the government of a class. Those who are free exercise power; that is to say, they possess the greater part of all properties, including the labour of other men. And it is clear that any society in which the few are free must necessarily contain many who are slaves. Despotism is the only practical ideal of anarchy. Giovanni Papini

EGO Number 14 1991 STIRNER AND NIETZSCHE

NOTES ON STIRNER AND NIETZSCHE S. E. Parker During the last decade of the nineteenth century and the first decade of this there was a great awakening of interest in the ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche. At the same time there began an assiduous search for his precursors. The philosopher of egoism, Max Stirner, was one of those suggested and some commentators even went so far as to claim the Nietzsche was his disciple. Others vehemently rejected this claim and argued that either Nietzsche knew nothing about Stirner or, if he did, was not influenced by him. It is certainly true that there are parallels between the thinking of Stirner and Nietzsche on some points, but are these enough to identify one with the other? I do not think so. Both Stirner and Nietzsche are outspoken iconoclasts. Both emphatically reject the Judeo-Christian-humanist moral code. Both savage the idiocies of democratic egalitarianism. Both express anti-statist sentiments, but both scorn anarchists Stirner in the figure of Proudhon, one of the first theoreticians of anarchism, and Nietzsche anarchists in general. Indeed, so often do they appear to speak with one voice that the claim that Nietzsche was a disciple of Stirner seems, at first glance, plausible. A few examples will show their similarities. For Stirner, as for Nietzsche, "truth" is an instrument, not a sacred "thing-in-itself". Stirner writes "before me truths are as common and indifferent as things... There exists not even one truth... that has stability before me, and to which I subject myself" (The Ego and His Own - all quotations from Stirner are from this, his main work). This is not to say that there are no truths in the sense of the "fact of the matter" since "for thinking and speaking I need truths and words as I do food for eating," but that "all truths beneath me are to my liking; a truth above me, a truth I should have to direct myself by, I am not acquainted with. " Nietzsche, too, states that the truths he proclaims are "my truths" (Beyond Good and Evil). Stirner rejects possession by fixed ideas. When an idea becomes a "maxim" for a man "he himself is made a prisoner of it, so that it is not he that has the maxim, but rather it has him... The doctrines of the catechism become our principles before we find it out, and no longer brook rejection." For Nietzsche, also, convictions are prisons: "The man of faith, any kind of 'believer', is necessarily subservient to something outside himself: he cannot posit himself as an end... Any kind of faith is the expression of self-denial, and of estrangement from self." (The Anti-Christ)

Both Stirner and Nietzsche proclaim an "ethic of power". Stirner states: "Might is a fine thing, and useful for many purposes; for 'one goes further with a handful of might than with a bagful of right'. You long for freedom? You fools! If you took might, freedom would come of itself." According to Nietzsche life is "appropriation, injury, conquest of the strange and weak, suppression, severity, obtrusion of its own forms, incorporation, and, at least, putting it mildest, exploitation. (Beyond Good and Evil) When Stirner writes "what I can get by force I get by force, and what I do not get by force I have no right to, nor do I give myself airs, or consolation with my imprescriptible right" one cannot imagine Nietzsche disagreeing. However, despite their apparent agreement about certain matters, Stirner and Nietzsche are not one but two and their destinations lie in different directions. Both, for example agree that "God is dead", but their responses to this realization are not the same. For Stirner it is not enough that "God is dead" - "Man" must also perish in order to make way for himself, the unique one. "At the entrance to modern times stands the God-man. At its exit will only the God in the God-man evaporate? They did not think of this question, and thought they were through when in our days they brought to a victorious end the work of the Illumination, the vanquishing of God; they did not notice that Man has killed God in order to become now - 'sole God on high'." For Nietzsche, on the other hand, the "death of God" creates an anguishing moral void that must be filled with a new ideal for "mankind": the creation of the Superman. "All beings have created something beyond themselves, are ye going to be the ebb of this great tide? Behold I teach you Superman" (Thus Spake Zarathustra). Indeed the language he uses to describe the advent of his ideal being is that of religious prophet: "Awake and listen ye lonely ones! From the future winds are coming with a gentle beating of wings, and there cometh good tidings for fine ears/Ye lonely ones of today, ye who stand apart, ye shall one day be a people; from you, who have chosen yourselves, a chosen people shall arise and from it Superman (Thus Spake Zarathustra) In order to achieve this "elevation of the type man (Beyond Good and Evil) Nietzsche demands the sacrifice of self. Stirner, in contrast, repudiates any setting up a goal for future being and does not worry himself about "Man". For him the question is: "Why will you not take courage now to really make yourselves the central point and the main thing altogether?" The Stirnerian egoist's reply to the Nietzschean ideal is succintly put by J. L. Walker: "We will not allow the world to wait for the overman. We are the overmen" (The Philosophy of Egoism).

Again, Nietzsche, for all of his fierce onslaughts on JudeoChristian morality, is a moralist. In place of the levelling doctrines preached by the pious of the pulpit and the political platform, Nietzsche seeks to create two types of morality: that of the masters and that of the slaves. In negating existing morality his concern is to replace it with a new morality. Although Zarathustra is a "destroyer" and breaks "value to pieces", he does so in order "to be a creator of good and evil". Stirner, too, negates existing morality, but he does so not that he may cleanse it of any poison he believes infects it, but that he can put his own satisfaction in its place. He does not wish to submit to any moral principle no matter what fixed [idea] is invoked to sanction it: God, Man or Superman. However much Stirner might have relished reading Nietzsche's caustic criticism of current moralizing his conclusion would have been that Nietzsche is incapable of ridding himself of the domination of morality itself and so remains - a possessed man. The conscious egoist is literally "beyond good and evil" and accepts with an untroubled mind that all things within his power are "permissible" even if they are not all expedient. In his The Philosophy of Nietzsche Georges Chatterton-Hill claims that Nietzsche "depasses" Stirner because "with Stirner the individual is himself the ultimo ratio, and his own individual satisfaction constitutes the justification of his egoism." With Nietzsche "the egoism of the individual is justified only in the light of its ultimate value to the race... Nietzsche has gone out beyond Stirner. He has adopted Stirner's conception and depassed it." Chatterton-Hill is wrong. Nietzsche does not adopt "Stirner's conception" and hence cannot "depass" it. At bottom Stirner and Nietzsche are two disparate facts that cannot be reasoned into one. Despite Nietzsche's scintillating idol-smashing he is haunted by yet another idol: the idol of an abstractified "Man" scheduled for redemption by the creation of the Superman. Nietzsche's championing of "egoism" is conditioned by the achievement of this goal and he frankly states that when an individual does not correspond to his prescriptive ideal of an "ascending course of mankind" then "it is society's (sic) duty to suppress egoism" (The Will to Power) This is not the view of an egoist, but that of a moralist demanding that a choice be made of his view that "mankind" is more important than individuals. Nietzsche's philosophy implies that supraindividual "entities" like "mankind" or "race" are entitled to the subordination of my interests and even the sacrifice of my life. Stirner, on the contrary, rejects all such sacrificial creeds. He joyfully prizes himself as more important than "mankind" or its "ascending course". He does not concern himself

with myths of human redemption, but with the real world of his own, unique being. XXX STIRNER ON NIETZSCHE? (Editorial Note: In 1917 appeared a work entitled The Will to Freedom. Its author, a Christian theologian named J. N. Figgis, devotes several pages to the relationship between Stirner and Nietzsche. He concludes them by imagining what Stirner's response to Nietzsche would have been had they been contemporaries: "Bah!" he would have said, "free air, pure air. Get out of my sight with you Gespenster, your will to power, your life with a capital L, and your superman - superghost you should have said. You call yourself Zarathustra the ungodly, the Antichrist, the immoralist. Go away! You are no better than the cobweb spinner of Konigsberg and his great-aunt the Categorical Imperative. Your eternal recurrence, and all your talk of eternity, the aim of all delight, your belief in the genii of the ring, your finding eternity in the moment recalls to me that hoary old humbug of Jena, who found the Absolute Idea objectified in the Prussian State. As to your superman, he is a ghost - like all other ghosts, and your disciples will slaves like the rest of their crowd. Idealists, Comtists, Liberty-loving atheists - all of you are no better than the Christians you despise. "Yes, I tell you you are a Christian, like all the others, except that you have added self-deception to their vices. You think you are new, yet you are as much a preacher of duty as Lycurgus. Your Dionysus cult is religion back once more. Whether you call it Dionysus or Christ, it is all the same, if you are to fall down in reverence. Capital letters are all idolatry. You even make an idol out of Life. What is Life, pray, that I am to fall down and worship it? I reject the monstrous slavery of your amor fati. Besides, I know nothing about it. I only know that I am here. "Poor fellow! You have tried hard to be shocking, and have succeeded only in being silly. You actually talk of redemption, of the salvation of man. Go back to your Frau Pastorin and to Church. " XXX When the Drury Lane Theatre burned to the ground, it destroyed Sheridan's limited wealth. Throughout the fire he sat in a

coffee house across the street, watching his livelihood going up in smoke. When a friend commented on his phlegmatic behaviour, Sheridan replied: "A man may surely be allowed to take a glass of wine by his own fireside. " STOURZH ON STIRNER AND NIETZSCHE (The following is extracted from the unpublished English translation of Max Stirners Philosophie des Ich by Herbert Stourzh, Berlin, 1923) Compared with Nietzsche, Stirner has been termed "lacking in temperament, " to which one can only reply that this judgement based on taste derives from erroneous presuppositions. Stirner's teaching does not abolish longing; its redemption is not extinction. The end of "possession" is not the end of inspiration, nor is the abolition of "fixed ideas" the abolition of the ideal. Max Messer aptly remarks of the "egoist": "It is not from the right of universal validity or of the universal human applicability of this ideal world, but from the right of the personality that he takes for himself that the egoist's courage comes and his ability to resist and to hold his own in his own world... no matter how crazy and useless this world may appear to others. " (1) Stirner's quietism is a strange quietism, all right. He is indeed quietistic with regard to prescribed temperament, and passive with regard to decreed emotions. Yet his joy in the free ideal that can replace service to the fixed idea is accompanied by all that vitality and activism which first makes possible the supplanting of the allocentric with the egocentric. Regardless of whether one looks more at the negative or the positive side pf Stirnerian "egoism, " more at his joyful nihilism or his buoyant self-confident teaching of "selfhood, " or (in another dimension) more at his relationship to the outward or the inward - one can everywhere observe the same wonderful elasticity that the special attitude (or rather change in attitude)of the "unique individual" necessarily brings with it. Oswald Spengler says of Nietzsche: "... he himself did not fulfil his demand that the thinker should stand beyond good and evil. He wanted to be a sceptic and a prophet, a critic and a herald of morality at the same time. " (2) Does Stirner the moral critic and moral sceptic fulfil this demand? - which, incidentally, Spengler himself does not.

To be sure, Stirner too is a "herald of morality" and a prophet - though this time truly beyond good and evil. There no doubt that Stirner - without contradicting himself -would have seen in Nietzsche a "man possessed, " a "fanatical" servant of "fixed ideas," a slave of his master-morality exchanging old chains for new. One will look in vain for imperative systems of feeling and behaviour in Stirner. Though Nietzsche's artistry is admirable, and though his polyphony and polychromy deserve special mention, he nevertheless often mingles the meaningful with the chaotic. John Henry Mackay, the rediscoverer of Stirner, expresses himself on this point with particular vehemence. He calls it "an absurdity not deserving serious rebuttal to compare Stirner's profound, tranquil and lucid genius with Nietzsche, that confused, vacillating, self-contradictory spirit staggering about almost helplessly between truth and error." He continues: "I have observed that most Nietzsche enthusiasts talk about Stirner with a sort of cool and most comical superiority: they do not quite dare approach this giant and are secretly afraid of his stringent logic. With Nietzsche they do not need to think so much: they let themselves be lulled by his language, while the real Nietzsche usually remains a stranger to them."(3) Instructive too is Messer's assessment, particularly since it is positive towards Nietzsche on the whole: "Regardless of how much more prolific, powerful and comprehensive Nietzsche is, it was Stirner who at one stroke produced that sublime perception to which, but not beyond which, Nietzsche rose. And so Stirner with his one book is like a monolith rising directly up from the plain like a narrow cone, while Nietzsche's work resembles a long mountain range with delightful valleys and icy chasms, whose highest peak scarcely overtops the summit of the solitary pointed rock."(4) Even an adversary of Stirner like Kronenberg confesses that it is particularly Stirner's "greater clarity and intellectual energy" that distinguishes him from Nietzsche.(5) Edward von Hartmann, too, finds that Stirner's book "is stylistically the equal of Nietzsche's writings, while it towers above them in philosophical content."(6) (1) Max Stirner Berlin, 1907, p.35. (2) Der Untergang des Abendlandes, Munich, 1920,I, p.473. (3) Max Stirner: sein Leben und sein Werk, Berlin-Treptow, 1910, p.21. (4) Messer, p.4. (5) Moderne Philosophen, Munich, 1899, p.182. (6) Cf. M. Kurtschinsky, Der Apostel des Egoismus. Max

Stirner und seine Philosophie der Anarchie, Berlin, 1923, p.166. XXX LETTER If one has to assume that liberty, as Giovanni Papini proposes (EGO 13), is a universal ideal to be parcelled out in equal shares to each individual, then the inevitable conclusion resulting from this belief would be a condition of despotism, but anyone with sleight-of-hand logic can stack the deck to come out with such pre-selected conclusions. I would like to propose the notion that Liberty can be thought of as a practicable concept rather than an ideal, It can be a useful tool in the hands of a self-conscious individual. Liberty is a state of being; one being at liberty, without restraint to act. There is nothing sacred about it. Mother Nature puts all sorts of perimeters on one's actions. Society heaps on another bunch and individuals acting on their own behalfs just about top off the restrictions that an individual can run into constantly in daily life. So what good is a concept that has been reduced so well by the powers that are? Liberty is a useful concept precisely because it enables an individual to define his own power, what he is at liberty to do, and another's power, that which restricts him. It's as simple as that. You use a ruler to measure short distances around you, you take up liberty likewise as a tool to measure the extent of your own power. Michael Muir-Harmony

EGO Number 15 1993 Inside: THINKING AND THOUGHT by Dora Marsden 1963-1993 by S. E. Parker EGO is edited and published by S. E. Parker, 19 St Stephen's Gardens, London W2 5QU, England. Subscriptions: 2. 50 for four issues (USA $6. 00) Will overseas readers please note that subscriptions can only be accepted in Sterling or its currency equivalent. No cheques can be accepted. THINKING AND THOUGHT Dora Marsden It is strange to find searchers coming here seeking thoughts,

followers after truth seeking new lamps for old, right ideas for wrong. It seems fruitless to affirm that our business is to annihilate thought, to shatter the new lamps no less than the old, to dissolve ideas, the "right" as well as the "wrong". "It is a new play of artistry, some new paradox, " they reflect, not comprehending that artistry and paradox are left as the defences of power not yet strong enough to comprehend. If a man has the power that comprehends, what uses has he left for paradox? If he sees a thing as it is, why must he needs describe it in terms of that which is not? Paradox is the refuge of the adventurous guesser: the shield of the oracle whose answer is not ready. Searchers should not bring their thoughts to us: we have no scruple in destroying their choicest, and giving them none in return. They would be well able to repair the depredations elsewhere, however, for nowhere else, save here, are thoughts not held sacred and in honour. Everywhere, from all sides, they press in thick upon men, suffocating life. All is thought and no thinking. We do the thinking: the rest of the world spin thoughts. If from the operation of thinking one rises up only with thoughts, not only has the thinking-process gone wrong: it has not begun. To believe that it has is as though one should imagine the work of digesting food satisfactorily carried through when the mouth has been stuffed with sand. The process of thinking is meant to co-ordinate two things which are real: the person who thinks and the rest of the phenomenal world, the world of sense. Any part of the process which can be described in terms unrelated to these two -and only two - real parties in the process is redundant and pernicious, an unnecessary by-product which it would be highly expedient to eliminate. Thoughts, the entire world of ideas and concepts, are just these intruders and irrelevant excesses. Someone says, apropos of some change without a difference in the social sphere, "We are glad to note the triumph of progressive ideas. " Another, "We rejoice in the fact that we are again returning to the ideas of honour and integrity of an earlier age. " We say, leprosy or cholera for choice. Idea, idea, always the idea. As though the supremacy of the idea were not the subjection of men, slaves to the idea. Men need no ideas. They have no use for them (Unless indeed they are of the literary breed - then they live upon them by their power to beguile the simple). What men need is power of being, strength in themselves: and intellect which in the thinking process goes out as a scout, comparing, collating, putting like by like, or nearly like, is but the good servant which the individual being sends afield that he may the better protect, maintain and augment himself. Thinking,

invaluable as it is in the service of being, is, essentially a very intermittent process. It works only between whiles. In the nadir and zenith of men's experience it plays no part, when they are stupid and when they are passionate. Descartes' maxim "Cogit ergo sum, " carried the weight it did and does merely because the longfelt influence of ideas had taken the virtue out of men's souls. Stronger men would have met it, not with an argument, but a laugh. It is philosophy turned turtle. The genesis of knowledge is not in thinking but in being. Thinking widens the limits of knowledge, but the base of the latter is in feeling. "I know" because "I am. " The first follows the second and not contrariwise. The base - and highest reaches - of knowledge lie not in spurious thoughts, fine-drawn, nor yet in the humble and faithful collecting of correspondences which is thinking, but in experienced emotion. What men may be, their heights and depths, they can divine only in experienced emotion. The vitally true things are all personally revealed, and they are true primarily only for the one to whom they are revealed. For the rest the revelation is heresay. Each man is his own prophet. A man's "god" (a confusing term, since it has nothing to do with God, the Absolute - a mere thought) is the utmost emotional reach of himself: and is in common or rare use according to each individual nature. A neighbour's "god" is of little use to any man. It represents a wrong goal, a false direction. We are accused of "finesse-ing with terms. " No accusation could be wider of the mark. We are analysing terms; we believe, indeed, that the next work for the lovers of men is just this analysis of naming. It will go completely against the grain of civilisation, cut straight across culture: that is why the pseudo-logicians loathe logic indeed, it will be a matter for surprise that one should have the temerity to name the word. So great a fear have the cultured of the probing of their claims that they are counselling the abandonment of this necessary instrument. They would prefer to retain inaccurate thinking which breeds thoughts, to accurate thinking which reveals facts and in its bright light annihilates the shadows bred of dimness, which are thoughts. Analysis of the process of naming; inquiry into the impudent word-trick which goes by the name of "abstraction of qualities"; re-estimation of the form-value of the syllogism; challenging of the slipshod methods of both induction and deduction; the breaking down of closed systems of "classification" into what they should be graded descriptions; these things are more urgently needed than thinkable in the intellectual life of today. The settlement of the dispute of the nominalist and realist schoolmen of the

Middle Ages in favour of the former rather than the latter would have been of infinitely greater value to the growth of men than the discoveries of Columbus, Galileo and Kepler. It would have enabled them to shunt off into nothingness the mountain of culture which in the world of the West they have been assiduously piling up since the time of the gentle father of lies and deceit, Plato. It is very easy, however, to understand why the conceptualists triumphed, and are still triumphing, despite the ravages they have worked on every hand. The concept begets the idea, and every idea installs its concrete authority. All who wield authority do it in the name of an idea: equality, justice, love, right, duty, humanity, God, the Church, the State. Small wonder, therefore, if those who sit in the seats of authority look askance at any tampering with names and ideas. It is a different matter from questioning the of one idea. Those who, in the name of one idea do battle against the power of another, can rely upon some support. Indeed, changing new lamps for old is the favourite form of intellectual excitement inasmuch as while it is not too risky, is not a forlorn hope, it yet ranges combatants on opposing sides with all the zest of a fight. But to question all ideas is to leave authoritarians without any foothold whatsoever. Even opposing authorities will sink differences and combine to crush an Ishmaelite who dares. Accordingly, after three quarters of a thousand years, the nominalist position is where it was: nowhere, and all men are in thrall to ideas - culture. They are still searching for the Good, the Beautiful and the True. They are no nearer the realisation that the Good in the actual never is a general term, but always a specific, i.e. that which is "good for me" (or you, or anyone) varying with time and person, in kind and substance; that the Beautiful is likewise "beautiful for me" (or you, or anyone) varying with time and person, in kind and substance, measured by a standard wholly subjective; that the True is just that which corresponds: in certainties, mere verified observation of fact; in doubt, opinion as to fact and no more, a mere "I think it so" in place of "I find it so. " As specifics, they are real: as generalisations, they are thoughts, spurious entities, verbiage representing nothing, and as such are consequently in high repute. The work of purging language is likely to be a slow one even after the battle of argument in its favour shall have been won. It is observable that egoists, for instance, use "should, " "ought, " and "must" quite regularly in the sense which bears the implication of an existing underlying "Duty. " Denying authority, they use the language of authority. If the greatest possible satisfaction of self (which is a

pleasure) is the motive in life, with whose voice does "Duty" speak? Who or what for instance lays it down that our actions must not be "invasive" of others? An effete god, presumably, whose power has deserted him, since most of us would be hard put to it to find action and attitudes which are not invasive. Seizing land - the avenue of life - is invasive: loving is invasive, and so is hating and most of the emotions. The emphasis accurately belongs on "defence" and not on "invasion" and defence is elf -enjoined. No, Duty, like the rest, is a thought, powerless in itself, efficient only when men give it recognition for what it is not and doff their own power in deference, to set at an advantage those who come armed with the authority of its name. And likewise with "Right." What is "right" is what I prefer and what you and the rest prefer. Where these "rights" overlap men fight it out; their power becomes umpire, their might is their right. Why keep mere words sacred? Since right is ever swallowed up in might why speak of right? Why seek to acquire rights when each right has to be matched by the might which first secures and then retains it? When men acquire the ability to make and co-ordinate accurate descriptions, that is, when they learn to think, the empire of mere words, "thoughts", will be broken, the sacred pedestals shattered, and the seats of authority cast down. The contests and achievements of owners of "powers" will remain. (This essay first appeared in The Freewoman, No. 5, Vol. 1. August 15th, 1913) *********** 1963-1993 S.E.Parker (MINUS ONE, the precursor of EGO, was first published in 1963, produced on a small hand operated duplicator intended for the printing of menus! In, commemoration I am reprinting my first "editorial," following it with a few reflections made thirty years later.) 1963: For how many years now have anarchists been demonstrating the iniquities of government, been showing how authority denies individual freedom and crushes individuals into anonymity? Appeal after appeal has been directed to the masses to throw off their chains. But the crowd is still the crowd, the masses continue to obey and the chains remain, even if, here and there, they are of a metal so light that the wearer denies their existence. Indeed, it almost seems an organic need for most

people to have a master of one kind or another. This "fear of freedom" is a very real thing and no amount of wishful thinking will dispose of it. Too much has happened in human history for the idea that everyone, or even the majority, yearns for "freedom" to be convincing any more. The fact must be faced that anarchists have always been a small minority and are always likely to be. New comrades, in the flush of their first enthusiasm, may proclaim the need to get the masses on our side, but the masses will not come - and if they would they would be of no use, since anarchism is concerned with the individual, not the mass. As was said years ago: "we do not wan a mass; we want a league of thinking individuals." But because anarchists are socially 'impotent' it does not mean that individually they are power-less. Against the subordination of the individual to the collective, individual affirmation is the one way that does not lead to a new enslavement. If anarchism is not individualist, then it becomes a hodge-podge, half-way house between socialist and democratic myths and the impulse to individual sovereignty. There is no need to compete with the peddlers of social and political panaceas - we are not in the same line of business. If the masses have not tumbled to the social lie by now - so much the worse for them! Let us leave them to their clock-faced citizenship. The fatuity of a handful of dissenters publishing appeals to the masses in tiny circulation papers that the masses would not read even if they knew of them is patent to anyone who does not have his head stuck in some nineteenth-century tarbucket. Let our explosions of disgust against a nightmare world be authentic, individual reactions, not stale word-rituals about the perfidiousness of politicians repeated out of habit in the hope that the multitiude might hear. To hell with the "people want this," "the workers want that!" Let us be ourselves, live our own lives, follow our own interests! Individualist anarchists are people who do not want to be "a plus one in the statistical millions." They have counted themselves out from the herd and their anarchy exists in their strength to affirm themselves. Here is one of their voices. Its call goes out to individualist anarchists everywhere. 1993: Re-reading my 1963 editorial my first reaction was: Who is this stranger whose words I am reading?Whoever he was his words, despite their heresies, were written

by someone whose thinking was still firmly within the closed world of the anarchists. Nonetheless, it is possible to detect, here and there, some seeds whose growth eventually took me out of anarchism altogether. For example: The notion that "the masses" have a need for rulers. Or: That the strenuous efforts of anarchists to get their message of social salvation accepted have landed up nowhere - they remain a small dissenting minority still, to quote Bartolomeo Vanzetti, "speaking on street corners to scorning men." Such, however, was the emotional capital that I had invested in anarchism, that I did not finally renounce my adherence to it until almost twenty years later, even though for a long time before that my reason for still calling myself an anarchist was more nostalgic than logical. I had more or less abandoned the premiss, but could not rid myself of the conclusion. Now I see that to try to retain the description "anarchist" for an attitude that sees no hope for the achievement of a "free society" is wrong. Anarchism is a creed of social transformation aiming at the ending of all domination and exploitation of man by man. Its adherents seek the creation of the Judeo-Christian myth of a heaven on earth. The central anarchist tenet is: Dominating People Is Wrong. It is based on the belief that all, or almost all, individuals are, or can be, equally capable of taking part in decision-making. I no longer accept these propositions.

As a conscious egoist I can see no reason why I should not dominate others - if it is my interest to do so and within my competence. Similarly, I am prepared to support others who dominate if that will benefit me. "If the condition of the State does not bear hard on the closet-philosopher, is he to occupy himself with it because it is his 'most sacred duty?' So long as the State does according to his wish, what need has he to look up from his studies?" (Stirner) Sometimes, indeed, I may behave in an "anarchist" fashion, but, by the same token, I may also behave in an "archist" fashion. The belief in anarchism imprisoned me in a net of conceptual imperatives. Egoism leaves any way open to me for which I am empowered. The belief in an equality, or approximate equality, of abilities in any sphere cannot be sustained by anyone who is aware of the extent of genetic inequality. The human species is shot through with wide differences of ability, individual and racial, in this or in that, and the inevitable outcome is a functional

hierarchy, Michel's "iron law of oligarchy," no matter how it may be disguised by formal pronouncements to the contrary.(Some psychologists, indeed, have claimed that all human groups, from street-gangs to nations, have a "dominant five percent" without which they are like headless chickens) Where an individual stands in this hierarchy will decided by the clash of his will with that of others. The "rights" he gets will be ultimately determined by the "mights" he has. These things I now accept as facts in my life. I certainly do not acknowledge the nonsenses with which these facts are often cloaked. I do not regard myself as being under any obligation to obey "the authority of the State" any more than "the will of God" - or any other of the multifarious "spooks" that are used to cloak the products of the will to power. I do, however, recognise the reality of the "powers" that may lie behind these "spooks" when stripped of their sacred vestments and take them into account in what I do. In his novel No Peace On Earth, Jean Larteguy has one of his characters define an adult as "a man who no longer falls into the trap of his own dreams. In regard to anarchism, at least, I have grown up.... ************ The best mask for moral heresy is one of pretended sanctity. It is very effective. Nearly all Higher Thieves are ostentatiously pious. Thus when you hear pulpiteers and journalists vociferously proclaiming their profound acquiescence in "moral principles", it is safe to conclude that they are engineering some subterranean swindle. Ragnar Redbeard ************ EGO Numbers 16-17 1994 THE EGO AND HIS OWN: 1844-1994: A CELEBRATION

Engels' caricature of "The Free", the Berlin group of Young Hegelians (Words in the drawing: Ruge, Buhl, Nauwerck, Bauer, Wigand, Edgar [Bauer], Stirner, Meyen, stranger, Koppen the Lieutenant. The squirrel in the upper left corner is a caricature of the Prussian Minister Eichhorn) Wm. Flygare, Frank Jordan, Svein Olav Nyberg, S. E. Parker, Paul Rowlandson and John C. Smith. PREFACE S. E. Parker Although the first edition of The Ego and His Own (Der Einzige und Sein Eigenthum) bore the date of 1845, it in fact appeared towards the end of October 1844. This year is therefore the 150th anniversary of its publication. Otto Wigand, its Leipzig publisher was well aware that such a work might feel the weight of the disapproval of the Saxon Censorship Board and resorted to a ruse which he hoped would enable the book to be distributed even if the censors condemned it. As soon as the copy that he was legally obliged to deposit at the Government Office was receipted Wigand set about delivering the remaining copies to booksellers so that any official confiscators would find his warehouse empty. To a large degree he succeeded. Nonetheless, the

censors still managed to seize 250 copies of the 1000 printed. After a few days, however, the confiscation order was withdrawn on the grounds that Stirner's book was "too absurd" to warrant censorship. In other words, the censors could not understand it! The Ego and His Own was also banned in Prussia, Kurkessen and Mecklenburg Schwerin, but although these bans were never lifted, this did not stop copies being obtained and read by anyone interested. Since then The Ego and His Own has been reprinted many times and has been translated into many languages. Throughout its existence it has provoked outrage and won admiration. All too often, however, both the outraged and the admiring have tried to fit Stirner's views into the conceptual imperatives of this or that ideology. He has been labelled many things, ranging from anarchist to fascist. No doubt passages can be found in his book that appear to lend support to each of these extremes, but the more one understands just what it is that Stirner is actually saying, the less these labels can be fixed. The contributors to this commemoration fortunately do not indulge in such a futile game. They are content to record their own reactions to The Ego and His Own and its value for them. Contributors... WM. FLYGARE: "This 1/5. 6 billionth: Swedish-American. Boston '17-'46. Chicago '46-'51. Kyoto '51-the end. BA & MA (philosophy and buddhism) plus attempts at music and theatre to learn my inabilities. Drafted into English teaching '51-'90. Some minor publications along the way. Highly independent... and dependent, enjoy being alone without loneliness, my being remarried ('65), with two daughters (25 and 28), two cats, a love-bird, and a plum-tree. Eclectic: atheist in fact, animist in fancy, affinity for persons, allergic to people. Own house ('69 at last) with a window overlooking 'rooves' onto green hills and a variety of skies. Retired to studying, versing, digesting my haps, and being glad for my failures-n-good fortune." FRANK JORDAN: "A life-loving, aesthetically minded outsider, passing from a 'Nietzschean' into a fully conscious 'Stirnerite'." SVEIN OLAV NYBERG: "27 years old; mathematician (PHD); editor of Non Serviam; almost as selfish as the two cats that own him; has been interested in Stirner for the ten years he has known about him." S.E.PARKER: "Born 1929, Birmingham, England. Now retired after thirty three years with British Rail. Has worked his way through the Young Communist League (1944-1946), the British Federation of Young Co-operators (19461947 , and virtually all the different varieties of anarchism (1947-1982), to emerge as his own man, the penny of conscious egoism having finally

dropped. Editor and publisher of Minus One/Ego/The Egoist/Ego 1963-1994." PAUL ROWLANDSON: "Currently earns a living as a lecturer in a pseudoacademic subject at a University College on the North West Frontier of the United Kingdom." JOHN C. SMITH: "Needs no introduction." xxxxx IN PRAISE OF MAX Frank Jordan What is arguably the most iconoclastic work of philosophy ever written was first published in the year 1844. This work was entitled The Ego and His Own (In the original German: Der Einzige und Sein Eigenthum). The author of this seminal work called himself Max Stirner, which was the pseudonym of Johann Caspar Schmidt. Stirner was a member of the radical wing of the Young Hegelians, but the ideas he put forward in Der Einzige, his one major work, easily outstripped and went far beyond anything that his friends and contemporaries had to say in their criticisms of the various idealistic trends in society, as they understood it. Whether the subject be God, Spirit, Family, Morality, The People, The State, and so on, all of these Stirner ruthlessly and logically breaks down and shows that they are nothing more than idealistic 'spooks,' falsely created in substitution for the true needs of the ego, and usually interpreted in an altruistic fashion. Only Nietzsche, in his many writings, approaches anywhere near to the same 'dizzying' extremes and idol-smashinq that is a constant theme in Stirner's book. The main difference between the two thinkers, I believe, is that Stirner's book is a complete statement, consistent within itself, whereas Nietzsche's insights have to be dug out from beneath his overall works, and they are usually aphoristic in style and content. The impact of Stirner's book provoked a most virulent attack against it by no less a thinker than Karl Marx, along with Engels. In their massive work, The German Ideology, they devoted almost two thirds of it to attacking line by line, and blow by blow, Stirner's book. They constantly refer to him as 'Saint Max', 'Don Quixote', and other rather absurd appellations, all to try and exorcise him and his book. But, in the end, they fail miserably, after having tried every intellectual trick they had in their mental store, hoping to promote Marxist socialism and discredit Stirner's pure egoism. Various theorists have proven, quite consistently, that Marxism as it eventually developed would not have been possible without Marx and Engels psychologically reacting against the egoistic philosophy of Stirner in the manner that they did. As recent history conclusively shows Marxism can now be seen as a failed attempt at trying to mould the individual psyche into a social-procrustean bed of ideology.

Besides the effect Stirner had on Marxism, various other thinkers and theorists have tried to adapt the views expressed in Der Einzige to bolster their own causes. For examples: anarchists, fascists (especially in the case of Mussolini), the situationists of the swinging Sixties, surrealistic and dadaistic artists like Max Ernst, psychologists like Erich Fromm. Even the very popular science-fiction trilogy of Wilson and Shea called Illuminatus acknowledges a great debt to Stirner throughout the plot. And we must not forget the existentialist tag Stirner has been given! Ultimately, of course, despite the diverse thinkers who are attracted to, and 'turned on' by, by Stirner, the uniqueness of The Ego and His Own stands like a lone mountain which cannot be levelled down to fulfil some else's rather shallow and hollow-sounding ideals. As long as men can, and will, think and act for themselves there will always be a place for Max Stirner's uplifting and stirring book. His work speaks from the position of a unique one to all other receptive unique ones. I thank you, Max Stirner. xxxxx STIRNER, YOUTH AND TRADITION Paul Rowlandson Young people are subject to the psychological malady of 'militant enthusiasm'. It strikes between the ages of 16 and 25, the time of life when we are most keen to sacrifice our all for a Cause, the particular cause being determined by the fashionable enthusiasms of the day. That is why young men are useful in armies - they are easily fired up to go over the top. They are useful too, in religious organisations, because they will go out and proselytise in the rain, or sign away their lives to religious orders. Stirner described this period, when the boy has become a youths "One must obey God rather than man... from this high standpoint everything 'earthly' recedes into contemptible remoteness; for the standpoint is the heavenly". As a youth in the late 60s and early 70s I was influenced by the passions of the time. As a child I was packed off to the fire and brimstone "washed in the blood of the Lamb" Congregational church in Oak Vale, Liverpool, by my parents, who themselves never went near a church except for weddings and funerals. I remember a visiting preacher throttling a live chicken in the pulpit to make a point I have long forgotten. It was a church parade day and I was a member of the church scout troop, which I hated. Some of the Church elders must have thought that the preacher had overdone it because I remember we were asked by some of them what we thought of the chicken-throttling. I can't remember being upset by it, which is surprising. It was shortly after this

incident that I was sent to the local Anglican church for some civilized religion. I wasted a lot of my time during my school years by my involvement with CND, the Young Communist League, the Syndicalist Workers Federation, and other radical organisations. I took part in various silly demonstrations, including the then obligatory Aldermaston marches and some sort of anti-Vietnam war demo from Hyde Park to Trafalgar Square. Most of my reading was of the radical sort - Marx, Alexander Berkman, Proudhon, Anarchy magazine, Direct Action, Solidarity, and such. I left school with 2 '0' levels as a result. The young mind is bombarded by other people's thoughts. From childhood to adolescence we absorb ideas and viewpoints from other people, whether in person, through print, or through radio and television. The selection of what goes in is more or less random, within certain limits, varying according to time, culture and geography. Christianity was perhaps the major ingredient in my case, as it probably was (and still is, though less so) with most English youths. It is an easy thing for an unformed mind to contrast the "idealism" of Christianity with the "injustices" of the world. I remember thinking how like Christianity Marxism was, and how hypocritical of a Christian society to deny us the benefits of communism. However, there was a growing realisation of a divergence of interests, an awareness that I had reservations and doubts about the activities and enthusiasms with which I was then engaged. For example, as a teenager I was a pirate radio enthusiast, which I found hard to reconcile with my anarchocommunist beliefs. There several other discrepancies. I was a strange sort of anarchist for I always had a high regard for the Police, and frequently found myself uncomfortable with my comrades' description of them as 'pigs'. I have always been an enthusiast for quirky or idiosyncratic publications. As a youth I favoured the iconoclastic. As an older man I now seek out the reactionary, the traditional, the ultra conservative publications. Revolutions pleased me then, Tradition pleases me now. The most unusual journal I ever came across was Minus One (the precursor

of Ego - Ed). I subscribed immediately. Here was something very different. I very soon thereafter acquired from Minus One a copy of the Libertarian Book Club 1963 edition of The Ego and His Own. Even the physical attributes of the book are extraordinary. It is a substantial book, printed on high quality paper, bound in signatures, with a plain thick green cover, and a plain typeface. It looks and feels a serious book. My reading of The Ego and His Own had a powerful and continuing influence. Here was a mind I connected with straight away. Its effect was of a mental spring cleaning. The "wheels in the head", the ideas and opinions which I had accumulated, lost their power, although, as Stirner says, "Daily experience confirms the truth that the understanding may have renounced a thing many years before the heart has ceased to beat for it." Nevertheless, the effect was that I now possessed the wheels in the head rather than them possessing me. Stirner takes no hostages. The demolition is thorough: "the Good cause, God's cause, the cause of mankind, of truth, of freedom, of humanity, of justice, my people, my prince, my fatherland, even the cause of Mind, and a thousand other causes." For a time I was cause-less, but eventually started restocking. I acquired some causes of my own, but this time they belonged to me. I could run with them or discard them as I wished. It is probably as difficult to go without causes as it is to do without interests. A cause is, after all, simply a compelling interest grown large. But one of the benefits derived from reading Stirner is the ability to prevent their possession of their owner. My final authority is myself. There are occasions in life which we think of as watersheds. Nothing is ever quite the same again. My discovery of The Ego and His Own was such an event. It became impossible to think again in the way I thought before I read the book. There is no other book like it. Pope John Paul II once commented that the faithful have a right not to be disturbed by the speculations of the so-called radical theologians. Should the man or woman in the street be exposed to Max Stirner? I think not. People will go to almost any lengths to avoid thinking for themselves. The Ego and His Own would no doubt unhinge many of them, which might make life more difficult for the rest of us. Fortunately there appears to be a small elite which can absorb and benefit from Stirner without going off the rails -those who can see through not just

the Emperor's new clothes but the old ones as well. xxxxx "TO MY SWEETHEART" - With An Addition To Bartlett Wm. Flygare On this 150th birthday of The Ego and His Own (1844, dated 1845), what intrigues is the dedication. What was Mary's contribution to John-n-Mary's only issue - a book? Stirner (42.2; p358) speaks of using life up like burning a candle. In the Johnn-Mary romance - a Roman candle - their wedded life (1843-1846) ended in her long-life life-long rancour against a "sly" man whom she "neither loved nor respected." In affairs of the heart, as well as in practical affairs, both were losers, the woman more than the philosopher who had two worlds to live in. It would seem, then, that the inspiring young Mary deserves a gratitude that the older embittered one would be loath to accept, her wound a secret she would not tell. The Ego and His Own appears a vast commentary to the Goethe poem alluded to at the beginning and end. Its absence in publications of The Ego is unfortunate. In Stirner's time this poem was "a favourite with everyone" (Schopenhauer's Counsels and Maxims #5) but it is little known now. Like Smith, Stirner is "in love," certainly with the "tyranny of words" (43.36; p.389). Unlike elsewhere in his work, there are poetic parallels and flights, external pattern, redundance, etymological word-play, elations, and hyperbole, his pen often shouting as if against the loud-voiced among "The Free Ones". These features have made the work most variously read and can detract. Parler sans accent. But as to the diagnostic content: Stance is circumscribed by circumstance. In their desperate drive for impossible certainty and acceptance, and hope to qualify, the driven drive the driven, mental straight-jackets nicely laced. In adolescence, the rarely curable brainsmudge received in childhood festers into visions and conversions that lead to "normal" madness and its "stealthy malice" (7.2; p46). Now instead of talk about the prophylaxis and solace offered by The Ego and His Own, Stirner himself: I have tried to ferret out his key observations in sober and concise form as "an addition to Bartlett" since Bartlett's "Familiar Quotations" is one of a number of well-known reference works which neglect this exorcist of "spooks", some of whose phrases deserve to be "familiar." Reference is to a yet unpublished paragraph-numbering system and to pages in Reclam 3957(6), the only currently stable publications: What have we gained, then, when for a variation we have transferred into

ourselves the divine outside us? As little as we are that which is outside us. I am as little my heart as I am my sweetheart, this "other self" of mine. 4.20; p34 ...out of confidence in our grandmothers' honesty we believe in the existence of spirits...But had we no grandfathers then, and did they not shrug their shoulders every time our grandmothers told about their ghosts? 5.1&2;p36 ...over each minute of your existence a fresh moment of the future beckons to you, and, developing yourself, you get away from the self that was at that moment. 5.13; p.39 Man, your head is haunted...You imagine...a spirit-realm to which you suppose yourself to be called, an ideal that beckons to you. You have a fixed idea. 7.1; p.46 ...it is only through the "flesh" that I can break the tyranny of mind; for it is only when a man hears his flesh along with the rest of him that he hears himself wholly, and it is only when he wholly hears himself that he is a hearing (vernehmend) or rational (vernunftig) being. 10.12; p.68 Because the revolutionary priests or schoolmasters served Man, they cut off the heads of men. 14.24; p.68 Many a man renounces morals, but with great difficulty the conception, "morality." 15.12; p.96 As if a concept of the case existed on its own account, and was not rather the concept that one forms of the case! 16.15; p.104 ...every effort arrives at reaction...a new master set in the old one's place, and the overturning is a - building up. 17.32 6 35; pp.120 &121 ...if a "tie" clasps you, you are something only with another, and twelve of you make a dozen, thousands of you a people, millions of you humanity...I answer, only when you are single can you have intercourse with each other as what you are. 21.34 & 36; p. 148 I do not want to have or be anything especial above others ...but, - I do not measure myself by others either...The equal, the same, they can neither be nor have. 21.52; p.152 It is not thinking, but my thoughtlessness (lit., thought -rid-ness), or I the

unthinkable, incomprehensible, that frees me from possession. 23.15; p.169 What the craving for freedom has always come to has been the desire for a particular freedom...the craving for a particular freedom always includes the purpose of a new dominion. 24.13 & 14; p.176 But the habit of the religious way of thinking has biased our mind so grievously that we are - terrified at ourselves in our nakedness and naturalness; it has degraded us so that we deem ourselves depraved by nature, born devils. 24.21;p.178 I am present. 24.22; p.180 Thousands of years of civilization have obscured to you what you are...Shake that off!...and let go your hypocritical endeavours, your foolish mania to be something else than you are. 24.30; p.181 You want to be "in the right" as against the rest. That you cannot; as against them you remain forever "in the wrong" ... 26.12; p.207 What is the ordinary criminal but one who...has sought despicable alien goods?...You do not know that an ego who is his own cannot desist from being a criminal, that crime is his life. 28.6; p.221 Everything sacred is a tie, a fetter. 31.24; p.239 for only he who is alive is in the right. (Whose verse?) 31.24; p.239 I never believed in myself; I never believed in my present, I saw myself only in the future...a proper I...a "citizen" ...a "free or true man"...an alien I...an I that is neither an I nor a you, a fancied I, a spook. 31.5; p247 But I love...because love makes me happy...because loving is natural to me, because it pleases me. I know no "commandment of love." 39.15; p.324 I sing because - I am a singer. But I use (gebrauche) you for it because I need (brauche) ears. 39.37; p.331 That society (e.g. the society of the State) diminishes my liberty offends me little. Why, I have to let my liberty be limited by all sorts of powers and by every one who is stronger; nay, by every fellow-man; and, were I the autocrat of all the R...., I yet should not enjoy absolute liberty. But ownness I will not have taken from me. And ownness is precisely what every society has designs on, precisely what is to succumb to its power. 41.7;p.342f We are equal only in thoughts, only when "we" are thought, not as we really and bodily are. I am ego and you are egos but I am not this thought of ego; this ego in which we are all equal is only my thought. I am man and you are man: but "man" is only a thought, a generality; neither you nor I are

speakable, we are unutterable, because only thoughts are speakable and consist in speaking. 41.15; p.348 ...Henceforth the question runs, not how one acquire life ...but how one can dissolve himself, live himself out. 42.6; p. 348 Possibility and reality always coincide. 42.3; p368f No sheep, no dog, exerts itself to become a "proper sheep, a proper dog"; ... 42.47; p372 I receive with thanks what centuries of culture have acquired for me for I am not willing to throw away or give up anything of it...But I want still more. 42.53; p.372 All truth by itself is dead, a corpse; it is alive only in the same way my lungs are alive - to wit, in the measure of my own vitality. The truth is a - creature. 43.64; p.398-399 No idea has existence, for none is capable of corporeity. What, am I in the world to realize ideas? 45.5 & 13; pp. 408 & 411 xxxxxxx THE EGO AND ITS OWN - The Choice of a New Generation Svein Olav Nyberg "Knowledge must die and rise again as will and create itself anew each day as a free person." Max Stirner, The False Principle of Our Education Those of us who reached adulthood in the eighties have not avoided noticing all the literature and the ideas about self-love that has been around. Even the nursery-eyed girls with the concerned looks sometimes stutter that they think you should love yourself as much as you love your neighbour. Most of this literature and most of these ideas come from psychologists. Wayne Dwyer reasons that since loving your neighbour as yourself will not amount to much love of neighbour unless you love yourself first, you should therefore set out by loving yourself. The link is claimed that other-love is psychologically impossible without self-love. So we should think we are at a magic time in history; the omnipresent Society gives us permission to love ourselves! But there are those of us who are not such well-bred rats conditioned to do whatever we are told benefits our neighbour. We do not love ourselves to please our abstract or concrete neighbours, but just love ourselves, plain and simple. Our kind of people see these trends as nothing other than the old hogwash in a new disguise. Not only shall you sacrifice yourself, but you shall bear the illusion that you do it for yourself. We penetrate deeper, we go into

philosophy. Philosophically, also, it has been a decade of praising the self. Why, has not the notorious Ayn Rand sold more books and increased her organized following more than ever? Has not the libertarian community accepted selfishness as a rule? Again, ever more illusion! Randian self-love is the love of Man, the Essence within you, and the hatred of the Evil un-Man, lurking at the boundaries of the Omni-Good Rational Thought. Libertarian ideas are in this respect nothing more you for it because I need (brauche) ears. 39.37; p.331 That society (e.g. the society of the State) diminishes my liberty offends me little. Why, I have to let my liberty be limited by all sorts of powers and by every one who is stronger; nay, by every fellow-man; and, were I the autocrat of all the R...., I yet should not enjoy absolute liberty. But ownness I will not have taken from me. And ownness is precisely what every society has designs on, precisely what is to succumb to its power. 41.7;p.342f We are equal only in thoughts, only when "we" are thought, not as we really and bodily are. I am ego and you are ego: but I am not this thought of ego; this ego in which we are all equal is only my thought. I am man and you are man: but "man" is only a thought, a generality; neither you nor I are speakable, we are unutterable, because only thoughts are speakable and consist in speaking. 41.15; p.348 ...Henceforth the question runs, not how one acquire life ...but how one can dissolve himself, live himself out. 42.6; p. 348 Possibility and reality always coincide. 42.3; p368f No sheep, no dog, exerts itself to become a "proper sheep, a proper dog"; ... 42.47; p372 I receive with thanks what centuries of culture have acquired for me for I am not willing to throw away or give up anything of it...But I want still more. 42.53; p.372 All truth by itself is dead, a corpse; it is alive only in the same way my lungs are alive - to wit, in the measure of my own vitality. The truth is a - creature. 43.64; p.398-399 No idea has existence, for none is capable of corporeity. What, am I in the world to realize ideas? 45.5 & 13; pp. 408 & 411 xxxxxxx THE EGO AND ITS OWN - The Choice of a New Generation Svein Olav Nyberg

"Knowledge must die and rise again as will and create itself anew each day as a free person." Max Stirner, The False Principle of Our Education Those of us who reached adulthood in the eighties have not avoided noticing all the literature and the ideas about self-love that has been around. Even the nursery-eyed girls with the concerned looks sometimes stutter that they think you should love yourself as much as you love your neighbour. Most of this literature and most of these ideas come from psychologists. Wayne Dwyer reasons that since loving your neighbour as yourself will not amount to much love of neighbour unless you love yourself first, you should therefore set out by loving yourself. The link is claimed that other-love is psychologically impossible without self-love. So we should think we are at a magic time in history; the omnipresent Society gives us permission to love ourselves! But there are those of us who are not such well-bred rats conditioned to do whatever we are told benefits our neighbour. We do not love ourselves to please our abstract or concrete neighbours, but just love ourselves, plain and simple. Our kind of people see these trends as nothing other than the old hogwash in a new disguise. Not only shall you sacrifice yourself, but you shall bear the illusion that you do it for yourself. We penetrate deeper, we go into philosophy. Philosophically, also, it has been a decade of praising the self. Why, has not the notorious Ayn Rand sold more books and increased her organized following more than ever? Has not the libertarian community accepted selfishness as a rule? Again, ever more illusion! Randian self-love is the love of Man, the Essence within you, and the hatred of the Evil un-Man, lurking at the boundaries of the Omni-Good Rational Thought. Libertarian ideas are in this respect nothing more than the ghosts of departed Objectivists. It is amid all this confusion that a young man of today will find himself as he picks up his first copy of The Ego and Its Own. Usually, as in my case, he will have a background in libertarian thought and will smile at the thought that "Here we have a guy who is even more consistent than Rand. Wow, these ideas will be useful for my libertarianism!" As the reading of the book proceeds, the young libertarian will look at the pages in amazed horror: is not this Stirner guy just picking libertarianism logically apart before his very eyes? Oh horror! No, this must surely rest on a misunderstanding. Stirner never knew modern libertarianism, did he? So, he is really running loose on something else. Yes? But, no, realisation dawns that libertarianism - after all a very logical and aesthetic system which even works, given a faint "best of society" premise - is without the foundation our young libertarian wants.

Rights are spooks, his head is haunted and his pride is hurt. There are now two possible lessons to learn: either to learn from Stirner to speak about selfishness - universalise that we are all (and implicitly ought to be)selfish and use this as a new basis for libertarian idealism - or, to delve into oneself to find one's own cause. Now, what is not supposed to be my cause! From society we learn that selfishness consists in filling your wallet and emptying your balls as best you can. From religion we learn that our true interest lies in the contemplation of ideas and renunciation of the body. But these are both very one-sided goals and do violence to me. They are both follies of one and the same type formal egoism. Formal egoism is what arises when you conceive of yourself as an object, a sum of predicates, and not as beyond predicates - as an Einzige. Modern man hypostatizes - makes objects of - everything, Including himself. For a modern man the choice is only which object among the objects is to be chosen as the ultimate value. So why not the object he knows as "me"? But when you serve the interests of an object, you need a recipe, a guideline - some rules. These might be explicit, or they might be, as for most people, implicit. The formal egoist then serves the himself-object as best he can according to the predications of what selfishness means - and, mind you, he might even have so much success as to obtain some predicated goals that he thinks a selfish man should attain -but he never gets to the bottom of his interests. He is formally indistinguishable from the selfish man, but in reality never attains anything more than being a boy-scout at satisfying the himself-object. Stirner is a good teacher of lessons. In A Human Life he shows the dialectical development towards a full understanding of one's own cause. One starts out as a child who thinks that all that matters is - matter. Thereafter the procession goes to the realm of the Mind - ideas - where all importance and values are to be found in the relation to the idea. Only thereafter does it dawn that there is something beyond all the material and spiritual objects, yet more immediate, namely I, myself. It is easy to come to the protest "Now what is the I?" As Stirner answers, I am not a "what" but a "who". Grasping this distinction, and why Stirner emphasises it, is essential to understanding Stirner, and why The Ego and Its Own is so different from any other book about selfishness. A question that seems to have puzzled both the older and younger generations is "If Stirner was such a self-loving man, why did he bother to write a book that gave him so much trouble and so little reward?" I do not propose to answer this question in specifics, but look instead at how he has developed his theory of relations to other people.

Stirner has been described as a man who has taken the full consequences of being-alone in the world. I take this description as coming from people not fully knowledgeable about Stirner. Stirner does not advocate the life of the "sole-ego-on-the-hill," out of contact with other people. Rather he seems to derive much enjoyment from the company of his peers, and even babies with their competent smiles. But it is easy to be intoxicated by a book-such as Stirner's, - and fail to read what is written. What Stirner actually writes about is that there are basically two forms of interaction, namely that of standing as an I against a You versus meeting one another as predicate-filled objects. The understanding of this demands that one understands the difference between the Einzige that one is, and the objects we are conditioned by culture to see ourselves as. The meeting of the I against the You actually comprises more than half of Stirner's book. This, I propose, is the key to why he wrote it. All around him he saw, and met, people whose only mode of interaction was as object-toobject. He met "good citizens", "Christians" and even "Humans", all playing out a social role according to the predicate of the day. Meeting one another with that veil of predicates removed was a scarcity, as it is today. Meeting Einzig to Einzig is scary. Then you stand all for and by yourself with no predicate to hide behind. That is why people continually choose to interact via predicates - object -to-object. But this is no different from the mad-man in the asylum who is unable to face the world as anyone but Napoleon. We live, as Stirner put it, in a mad-house among mad-men. Do you dare accept the therapy offered by Stirner? xxxxx sometimes tween man and man like shed rain on a parch'd plain in a language imperfect ployless elemental like bread intellect-play at bay something as tween man and dumb-animal is said Wm. Flygare 90.197 LAST AND FIRST WORDS

John C. Smith The Ego and His Own didn't exactly take the world by storm when it first appeared in 1844 and hasn't since. But its publication certainly caused a stir among the Young Hegelian circle in which its author moved. Karl Marx, for one, was so provoked by Stirner's book that he, together with Engels, devoted some two thirds of their book, The German Ideology, to vilifying Stirner, seeing him as a dangerous challenge to their creed of social salvation. In this country it is hardly ever mentioned in polite society. Any new edition is largely ignored by literary editors. Yet it is reprinted regularly and never lacks readers. Some, like the anarchist Herbert Read, for example, have to admit "One book I read in my youth I have never wholly forgotten. To say that it had a great influence on me would not be correct, for influences are absorbed and become part of one's mind. This book refused to be digested to use our vivid English metaphor: it stuck in the gizzard, and has been in that uncomfortable position ever since. I refer to Max Stirner's Der Einzige und sein Eigentum, The Ego and His Own as it was called in the English translation, published in 1913." (The Contrary Experience) The main religio-political ideologies, Christianity and Marxism, have failed to provide an answer to the world's ills. The human selfishness they were meant to triumph over has triumphed over them. Christianity, which promised individual salvation (freedom from the sin of selfishness) and brotherhood, has lost out to commerce. Shopping has replaced going to church. New temples, indoor shopping malls which are usually ugly and unnecessary, have sprung up all over Britain. The early Christian churches at least served a useful communal purpose and were beautiful to look at. In the Soviet Union the very understandable desire for personal reward undermined and eventually overthrew the state socialist system. There have been the inevitable attempts to explain this away by Marxist purists asserting, as did G.K.Chesteron about Christianity, that Marxism has not failed because it has never been tried. But, of course, it was tried, the theories that were espoused in Russia before the 1917 Revolution being more or less the same as what these apologists would call "real socialism." It need hardly be said that the lesser religions of anarchism and national socialism have also failed to deliver the goods. Anarchism, offering individual autonomy and group solidarity, is also concerned with a perfect society free from the sin of selfishness. It is, ostensibly, a morally purer religion than either Marxism or national socialism since anarchists reject, in theory,

involvement in existing political and social structures. They also complicate matters by insisting on self rule for the individual. This has ensured that anarchism has never enjoyed a mass following. Except for the fact that national socialism originated as a scheme for the salvation of white Europeans it is, as Roger Scruton has pointed out, very similar to Marxist socialism. Its most famous promoter, Adolph Hitler, was more than a bit bonkers. This, along with a similar obsession with a selfishness-free society, ensured that it has suffered the same fate as that of Marxism. If the collectivist panaceas have been tried and seriously found wanting what about the 'individualist' answers? Of these, existentialism of the kind propounded by Jean-Paul Sartre in his earlier, non-political phase appears to have the most in common with Stirner's ideas. Sartre rejected the Christian God and the Hegelian Absolute, his central doctrine being that man is what he makes of himself and "an insistence on the actual existence of the individual as the basic and important fact instead of a reliance on theories and abstractions." (Readers' Companion To World Literature) As Stirner was himself more concerned with the projectionist rather than what was projected he would not have found much to disagree with in this, but a closer examination of Sartre's position reveals that he and Stirner are worlds apart. For instance, Stirner confidently abandoned God whereas Sartre found it "extremely embarrassing that God does not exist...man is in consequence forlorn, for he cannot find anything to depend upon either within or outside himself." (Existentialism and Humanism) Sartre later sought to overcome this "embarrassing" forlornness by committing himself to the collectivism of Marxism while still clinging to the shell of his individualist existentialism. He hovered uncertainly between the two for the rest of his life. Stirner never made this mistake. He stubbornly, famously and usefully refused to be anything other than himself. The fact is, as Stirner himself could have pointed out, all of the foregoing answers are based on a flawed analysis - the lack of understanding of the difference between "egoistic" and "egotistic". Recently, Brian Walden observed that the Utopian mentality reveals a faulty perception of individuality. And more recently Matt Ridley commented that most Utopians are hopelessly naive about human nature: " I believe that...human beings are and always have been driven by three cardinal ambitions - for wealth, for reputation and for status - and that you ignore such facts at your peril. Look no further than Russia for proof. Marxism fails precisely because it indulges a fantasy that human beings will abandon these three and replace them with the greatest good of the greatest number."

Nevertheless, Ridley has left out something important. It is the perennial appetite for self-delusion - to be other than what you are that mostly fuels these power drives. Most people, as Nigella Lawson observes, "need to escape the resented meagreness of their own existence...They want magic and mysticism. They want to have others other worlds, other beings - dictate what is, what they are and not to have any responsibility for themselves." Given these facts it is not READERS - PLEASE NOTE From the next issue Ego will be incorporated into Non-Serviam, which is edited and published by Svein Olav Nyberg. However, I intend to issue occasional "viewsletters", usually consisting of one or two A4 size pages. Any reader who would like to receive copies of these should write to me at 19 St Stephen's Gardens, London W2 5QU. I would like to thank all who have supported Ego and its predecessors during thirty one years of publication, particularly those who belong to the now much reduced few who were there at the start. S.E.Parker

therefore surprising that Max Stirner's impassioned defence and celebration of his individuality is unique. Based as it is on the revolutionary stance that self interest is the basis of all human endeavour The Ego and His Own may not be the last word on the subject of human selfishness, but it contains some essential first words without which we would be even more in the dark than we are. *********** Edited and published by S.E.Parker, 19 St Stephen's Gardens, London W2 5QU, England.

Rdition 07/09/11