Max Stirner

[Communist_Rage]

Alright m8s, so I'm new here to RevLeft and I'm really hoping to learn a whole lot more about leftist politics and philosophy. One person that strikes my curiousity is Max Stirner. I'd like to see some thoughts and opinions regarding him. I am trying to research all these names and Max Stirner happens to be one of them.

[BIXX]

Mac Stirner is pretty cool. I've had users here tell me they don't need to read him to critique him (heance my sig), which is dumb as shit, so please read him and try to understand him before you go around pretending to be able to critique him.

He gets a bit to wordy for a simple idea (though I think most philosophers do), but its a good, simple idea. While I'm not a stirnerite per se, I think his contributions are pretty useful.

[Sinister Intents]

He was a philosopher who wrote The Ego and It's Own

It's say there are more relevant people but to each their own

https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stirner/

[Communist_Rage]

I would also greatly appreciate some insight/context into his philosophy as well. I am currently attempting to read the soucres given and on hand at the moment. Thanks for the reference, by the way.

[Ele'ill]

http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?groupid=1223

the egoist/stirner user group here on the forum if you haven't seen it yet

[Sasha]

He gets a bit to wordy for a simple idea

you know Marx/Engels wrote more words criticizing Stirner's work than the actual works contain... random fact that always makes me smirk. :lol:

[Sinister Intents]

Plekhanov wrote a pretty decent piece of literature that critiques Stirner as well, but I haven't read it yet.

Edit: I say decent because I've heard it is, so I'll be the judge

[BIXX]

you know Marx/Engels wrote more words criticizing Stirner's work than the actual works contain... random fact that always makes me smirk. :lol:

So I've heard. I will see how much of that was unneeded words or if they needed every bit of it.

[mutualaid]

I read some of ego and its own - not sure I understood everything. He has a rather unfortunate view of history that, as I recall, is explicitly racist (similar to HG Wells history). But for anarchists, he makes some interesting philosophical observations. He says that a man might kill a dozen men to get what he needs, but he will kill a million for an idea. I think his point is that when an individual externalizes morality it will inevitably lead to immoral ends because it assumes a privilege over the needs of others. Experience suggest that it isn't impossible to fulfill the needs of a lot of individuals,yet in spite of this, there is much death and misery for the sake of ideals (the state, religion, country, freedom, charity,etc) . For stirner, ethics is divesting the abstraction of a greater self (moral man) and following one's immediate and selfish ends. I recall him backtracking a little, suggesting that one's selfish ends might include some form of aid, which I think would require an image of 'moral man.' In any case, I found it sort of interesting, but as an anarchist I think there are better places to go for philosophy.