Background
Max Stirner, whose real name was Johann Caspar Schmidt, was born on October 25, 1806, in Bayreuth, Prussia (now Germany); the only child of Albert Christian Heinrich Schmidt and Sophia Elenora Reinlein.
(I don't want to do anything subversive - I just want to d...)
I don't want to do anything subversive - I just want to destroy capitalism. A collection of 'ultra' prose and poetry from 300 years of outrage, passion, sarcasm and wit. Quotes, rants, declarations and blood-curdling warcries. This is utterly brilliant, and is finally reprinted here (from an obscure edition first published in the 60s) in a new edition edited, introduced, and illustrated by Clifford Harper. "Death to middle-class society, and long live anarchism!"
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0946061130/?tag=2022091-20
(From the introduction: Max Stirner's 1844 masterwork, De...)
From the introduction: Max Stirner's 1844 masterwork, Der Einzige und sein Eigenthum (The Unique and Its Property), is one of the most subversive, radical and extreme texts in all of history. It can also be described as one of the most misread, misinterpreted and misunderstood books in the history of modern Western thought. This should not be unexpected. Subversive, radical and extreme texts will always obtain hostile receptions from those targeted by their critiques, whether the critiques are accurate and justified or not. The book is rather simply - though very cleverly - written with very little use of technical terminology. And Stirner goes out of his way in an attempt to use common language wherever possible, though he often does so very creatively and idiosyncratically. It is also a fairly demanding text for anyone (including nearly every contemporary reader) who is unfamiliar with the cultural background within which it was conceived, written and published. It is possible for it to be read and appreciated without knowledge of this background, however the prospect of adequate understanding - not only of the central points but also their extensive implications - definitely recedes the less a reader is familiar with topics like nominalism, phenomenology, hermeneutics, analytical and dialectical logic, and critiques of religion, ontology, epistemology, ideology and language that were current in Stirner's day. From the moment Stirner's text first appeared, it directly and fundamentally challenged every religion, philosophy and ideology. It didn't just politely challenge every existing historical religion, philosophy and ideology, which would already have been enough to have made its author many enemies. It also blatantly and scathingly challenged every existing contemporary religion, philosophy and ideology of the day.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1620490072/?tag=2022091-20
Max Stirner, whose real name was Johann Caspar Schmidt, was born on October 25, 1806, in Bayreuth, Prussia (now Germany); the only child of Albert Christian Heinrich Schmidt and Sophia Elenora Reinlein.
Stirner studied theology and philology in Berlin, Erlangen, and Königsberg.
Stirner taught at a private girls' school until he married a wealthy woman whose money he used partly to write his magnum opus, Der Einzige und sein Eigentum (1844; The Ego and His Own), and partly to speculate in the milk business. The latter activity resulted in his imprisonment for unpaid debts, and his wife became disillusioned with him and left him. He died from the bite of a poisonous fly on June 26, 1856.
A great number of brilliant thinkers admired him, from Ivan Turgenev and Fyodor Dostoevsky to George Bernard Shaw and André Gide. A great number of brilliant thinkers fought him, the most famous among them Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx. After Stirner's death his name was lost among those of a lot of minor figures, but in the 1890s he became well known again through the efforts of John Henry Mackay. It was not that his philosophy became popular but that Mackay resurrected him in the form of a father of modern anarchy. In fact, however, Stirner never was politically active as an anarchist. Yet his writings became not only part but a standard element of anarchist teaching.
He is often seen as one of the forerunners of nihilism, existentialism, psychoanalytic theory, postmodernism, and individualist anarchism. Many anarchists of the late 19th and the 20th centuries found ideological inspiration in his writings. His work The Ego and Its Own appeared in numerous editions and translations.
(From the introduction: Max Stirner's 1844 masterwork, De...)
(I don't want to do anything subversive - I just want to d...)
Stirner's philosophy maintained that only the individual counted: He was the center of the world, and his thoughts and feelings determined the scale of social and, specifically, moral values. Outside the individual nothing existed but the creation of the individual. Stirner's philosophy represents probably the acme of subjectivism in the history of philosophy of the Western world. Stirner was against all social conventions and demanded the abolition of the state. He opposed all the philosophies of his time that were known to him, including German idealism, French materialism, British empiricism, and international socialism (communism).
Quotations:
"The State calls its own violence, law; but that of the individual, crime. "
"If it is right for me, it is right. It is possible that it is wrong for others: let them take care of themselves!"
"Freedom cannot be granted. It must be taken. "
"Whoever will be free must make himself free. Freedom is no fairy gift to fall into a man's lap. What is freedom? To have the will to be responsible for one's self. "
"A race of altruists is necessarily a race of slaves. A race of free men is necessarily a race of egoists. "
"We don't call it sin today, we call it self-expression. "
Quotes from others about the person
"Stirner went so far in his notorious work, 'Der Einzige und Sein Eigenthum' (1845), as to reject all moral ideas. Everything that in any way, whether it be external force, belief, or mere idea, places itself above the individual and his caprice, Stirner rejects as a hateful limitation of himself. What a pity that to this book – the extremest that we know anywhere – a second positive part was not added. It would have been easier than in the case of Schelling's philosophy; for out of the unlimited Ego I can again beget every kind of Idealism as my will and my idea. Stirner lays so much stress upon the will, in fact, that it appears as the root force of human nature. It may remind us of Schopenhauer. " - Friedrich Albert Lange
Stirner married twice. His first wife was Agnes Burtz. She died from complications with pregnancy in 1838, soon after their marriage. In 1843 he married Marie Dähnhardt, an intellectual associated with Die Freien. They divorced in 1846.
