Spooks!

[Bird Daughter]

(I am new to the traditional forum format, so if I am doing anything wrong then please let me know)

What do you think of the ideas of Max Stirner? I figured you guys would like him because he is a strong advocate of disobeying authority and acting in your own interest, AKA 'doing whatever the shit you want'.

Links
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The Ego And His Own
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/max-stirner-the-ego-and-his-own

The Unique And Its Property (A new translation of the ego and his own that's easier to read but no one likes because it says 'phantasms' instead of 'spooks') [PDF]
https://www.pdf-archive.com/2017/06/24/the-unique-and-its-property/

[Q. G. Pennyworth]

Hey new person!

There is an Introductions thread around here somewhere, but I wouldn't worry too much about standing on formality. Feel free to poke around and comment on whatever threads tickle your fancy.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

What QG said.

[Bird Daughter]

Thanks for being so welcoming, I was kind of worried that with my first post being semi-political I would be seen as a pain.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Thanks for being so welcoming, I was kind of worried that with my first post being semi-political I would be seen as a pain.

You are.

But we're worse.  We are in fact bad people.  Everyone thinks that's a joke, or braggadocio, but it isn't.  It's sort of what would happen if you took the cast of The Real World and walled them all up together for 15 years.

So you're fine.

[Junkenstein]

Thanks for being so welcoming, I was kind of worried that with my first post being semi-political I would be seen as a pain.

It's not outright Nazism, which helps a bit.

Not familiar with the chap, will have a dig and see what's interesting.

3 points for new subject matter, at least for me. Kudos to you.

[Junkenstein]

For reference bird daughter, this is the part where you say something abhorrent and I retake my vow of silence.

[Bird Daughter]

Thanks for being so welcoming, I was kind of worried that with my first post being semi-political I would be seen as a pain.

It's not outright Nazism, which helps a bit.

Not familiar with the chap, will have a dig and see what's interesting.

3 points for new subject matter, at least for me. Kudos to you.

Not even close to Nazism, most people interpret his writing as a kind of individualistic form of left anarchism (post-left if you're going to pick of the nits).

[Cain]

I appreciate Stirner more as an influence than as a thinker in and of himself.  Rational egoism is very easy to claim, by a devious enough mind, as a reason for almost anything if one's self-interest is broadly enough defined, making it somewhat useless as a concept.

I do share his scepticism regarding social institutions, but I also think he doesn't take it far enough, by stopping with the individual ego.  I also think that while those concepts are certainly false, their outcomes are, at least in some cases, more preferable than anything that would come out of his own prescriptions.