Redpill me on Max Stirner, /lit/

>created a concept called spook
>spooks are "things that does not exist in reality" thus must be rejected
>blindly embraced the concept of spook disregarding the paradox
>spent the rest of his time philosophizing with a hammer

All his writings is based on a performative contradiction. Stirner is a hack.

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>>9348728
Don't worry, I'll explain his whole philosophy to you. I haven't read any of his works, but /lit/ has provided me with all of the information I need to know about Stirner. So like, basically, it's all about spooks and stuff lmao.

>>9348741
the trick is that literally everything is performative contradiction
might as well just say "im an existentialist" and get it over with. It's all the same absurdish-nauesau-induced shit

>>9348741
This is the response you get from people who haven't understood Stirner.

You are applying circular logic to Stirner.
>How can I stop being spooked, unless if I spook myself.
A spook doesn't apply to every idea that pops up if your head. It applies to ideals and ideas which you follow without considering how they will turn out in the end. Such as ideas which will end up killing you, or leaving you impoverished. Not everything is a spook, and you would understand this if you actually read Stirner.

18th and 19th century nationalism is an example of this. Why would you fight for a such a vague idea as the fatherland? The only one who is benefitting is the king or leader who probably doesn't care about you, aside for your ability to work. Why risk your life in war just because of an idea which got put inside your head by propaganda or idealism. Nationalism was a feeling people had. They didn't think rationally about it and decided to march to their war without considering the consequences. Resulting in the death of many people and destruction of the country in the process. Even if they won in the end, the price isn't worth it from a personal perspective. Is it worth dying so that your country might grow stronger? Even if you survive you won't taste the spoils of war.

The same with 19th century socialism. Why would you risk your life in class struggle if you aren't at the brink of death? The chances are that the leader of the socialist movement is only using you. Either the movement isn't strong enough and you die to the army shooting you. If you succeed there is an immense chance of foreign invasion, or the leader being a strongman and taking full control as a dictator. If you had a decent amount of money, then a revolution which plunges everything into chaos isn't a smart idea from a personal perspective.

redpills are a spook

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>>9348744
TFW Stirner is ur favourite philosopher and gets disrespected on /lit/

>>9348822
redpills are a spook is a spook

>>9348843
redpills are a spook is a spook is a spook

>>9348728
ITT: morons complicating things

Stirner is the only philosopher worth anything in regards to living, although he's no exception to the mental masturbation by small-dicked philosophers.

He basically says "you are free to do whatever the fuck you want". He's not wrong but you have to take reality into consideration and if you're able to not be an autistic sociopath wannabe about it it's great advice and also common sense which most "intellectuals" seem to lack.

>>9348788
No, that's not what I'm arguing.

If we have to reject all spooks, why shouldn't we reject the concept of spook itself?
Isn't the concept of spook a spook?

It's not circular logic, it's performative contradiction.
Stirner argues: I reject spooks because I accept the spook that said "spook must be rejected".

>>9348728
There are self-serving ideas, he calls spooks, that are ideas that make you their slave, that make you strive for their own goals (as much as ideas have goals). By pursuing these ideas, many don't realize they often go against their own self interest.

e.g. a soldier dies for 'the honor of his country' - in this case, he died not for his own self interest, but for a self-serving idea. The idea of country does not serve the soldier, but itself only.
This doesn't mean a soldier's sacrifice is necessarily slavish - if it is in your self-interest, e.g. you die so you can directly save your family, actual people you care about, your sacrifice can be selfish, egotistic. But, in the former case, you are le spook'd.

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>>9348892
>If we have to reject all spooks
>we have to reject all spooks
>we have to
What a nice way to show you know shit about Stirner.

>>9348892
not that guy but you're just operating on some annoying 14-year old faggot logic because you can't figure it out.

spook is just something that doesn't exist.
saying spook is a spook is saying that anything anybody believes has to be true because it's not possible for things to not exist.

do you see how you're a fucking retard?

The Italian edition of The Unique and His Property has an appendix concerning reactions to and influence of Max Stirner's work. There is a chapter within it that involves the far right, here's my translation of Evola's part:

Rather, it took a genuine associate of the Herrenklub of Berlin, a ferocious ghibelline like Julius Evola (never registered to the [Italian] fascist party, which he despised for its “feminine” flaccidity), to come to the true conclusion, for one and only one was possible: Stirner is a Jew. Thus, without any foundation (but whatever could factual evidence matter in such a grandiose design?) we find again Stirner, as “father of integral anarchism”, included by Evola in the list of instigators whom brought forth “the destructive endeavour” of Judaism “in the properly cultural field, protected by the taboos of Science, Art, Thought.” They are, in the order they're evoked: Freud, Einstein, Lombroso, Stirner, Debussy (whom it is conceded to be a "half-Jew"), Schönberg, Stravinsky, Tzara, Reinach, Nordau, Lévy-Bruhl, Bergson, Ludwig, Wassermann, Döblin (introduction to The Jewish International, The “Protocols” of the “Learned Elders” of Zion, Rome, 1937, pages xix-xx; this is the slightly changed and updated version – and the name of Stirner is part of the update – of another list of the great co-conspirers, which Evola proposed a few months earlier: Marx, Heine, Börne, Freud, Nordau, Lombroso, Reinach, Durkheim, Einstein, Zamenhof, Offenbach, Sullivan – evidently he must have viewed The Mikado as a document of Jewish infiltration - Schönberg, Stravinsky, Wassermann, Döblin, in Julius Evola, Three Aspects of the Jewish Problem, Rome, 1936, pages 38-39).

Protip: Jews don't write these things:
To this day the Jews, those precocious children of antiquity, have got no farther; and with all the subtlety and strength of their prudence and understanding, which easily becomes master of things and forces them to obey it, they cannot discover spirit, which takes no account whatever of things.

The Christian has spiritual interests, because he allows himself to be a spiritual man; the Jew does not even understand these interests in their purity, because he does not allow himself to assign no value to things. He does not arrive at pure spirituality, a spirituality e.g. is religiously expressed, e.g., in the faith of Christians, which alone (i.e. without works) justifies. Their unspirituality sets Jews forever apart from Christians; for the spiritual man is incomprehensible to the unspiritual, as the unspiritual is contemptible to the spiritual. But the Jews have only “the spirit of this world.”
t. Joo

>>9348892
>If we have to reject all spooks, why shouldn't we reject the concept of spook itself? Isn't the concept of spook a spook?
>It's not circular logic, it's performative contradiction. Stirner argues: I reject spooks because I accept the spook that said "spook must be rejected".
This is the point at which philosophy suddenly becomes the most pathetic and laughable human activity. The tricky vicious circle of Logic that tickles your fancy but brings you nowhere and doesn't offer anything useful to anyone.

>>9348895
Not OP but thanks for the explanation. I have a bit of a problem with the idea though, I dont think its beneficial for every person in every situation to reject a spook. What, if we want to keep your example, if the soldier in question had a miserable life as a civilian? What if the idea of serving his country and people is the first thing that gave him any semblance of self worth and of achieving something? What if he was more than happy to die with his idea of honor intact instead of dying as an old and bitter man of some kind of painful illness? Is him not being spooked in that case really worth it? Im not saying that we should blindly follow everything society and/ or authority tell us because it will make us happy in the end, but I think these examples are something we should consider. In my opinion people cling to spooks if they have nothing else and place these spooks whatever the reason might be over their direct physical interests, think of it as a mental survival mechanism that places itself over the physical one. Kind of like suicide if you will. I would argue that most people, conciously or subconciously do most of the things they do and support most of the ideas they support because in their mind they do actually benefit them, even if it might seem stupid to other people. Most of the time the problem is not people being spooked and not being aware of it but rather that not having the education and insight necessary to see why certain ideas might be harmful to their interests in the long run. Stirner also seems to ignore that as an individual you often times have to follow the spook of your society even if you regocnize it as a spook because society forces you to. I doubt that a young man in nazi germany could have said that hes not going to war because he doesnt believe in the cause without being severly punished.

>>9348935
Wait a minute, Nordau? really? he literally wrote a book called "degeneration" where he supposedly talked about how shit everything became in Europe.

>>9349100
In that instance he's not serving a higher ideal. Look at what anon wrote -- would fighting as a soldier to defend those he loved be spooked? No, that's his whole argument. Why then would fighting to escape a crap civilian life be spooked?

>What if the idea of serving his country and people is the first thing that gave him any semblance of self worth and of achieving something? &c.
Then he's still spooked. He might be an involuntary egoist, but he's unaware of the spooks which control him and he's unaware of why he supports them.

The point of egoism isn't "be happy". There isn't a point to egoism.
>Stirner also seems to ignore that as an individual you often times have to follow the spook of your society even if you regocnize it as a spook because society forces you to
He doesn't. It's a large chunk of his book. Essentially a slave who knows he is chained is unspooked.

>>9348892
>Stirner argues: I reject spooks because I accept the spook that said "spook must be rejected".
No he doesn't. He specifically says the opposite.

>>9349205
This makes it a bit more clear, thanks. I still dont understand why being happy shouldnt be the goal. I know that this might just be my personal take on life but isnt it much better to die happy if deluded than seeing the truth but dying miserable?

>>9349219
>I still dont understand why being happy shouldnt be the goal
Why should it be? According to Stirner, there is nothing which can justify -- well, anything. Not even egoism -- he simply says egoism is rational. The only exception IMO is faith. Stirner kinda disregards faith, probably because he was writing for a bunch of atheists.

Hence, the answer to your question (according to Stirner) is: nothing is better than anything. But being despooked should lead to your happiness far better than spooks, as the whole point of being despooked is to do only what you want to do.

>>9349219
Its basically do what you want, just be aware of the spooks.

>>9349278
No, it's basically be aware of the spooks. The point being that if you are aware of them, you will remove them, and if you remove them you will do what you want.

Except all of this has the caveat of "you don't actually need to do this lmao".

>>9349235
But doesnt this just connect with nihilism and existentialism? Isnt the answer in the end just aylmao kys? At any rate, I dont understand how feeling good emotionally and/ or physically is not objectively preferable to not doing so.

>>9349396
>But doesnt this just connect with nihilism and existentialism?
He is considered a forerunner of both.
>Isnt the answer in the end just aylmao kys?
No, there isn't any answer.
>I dont understand how feeling good emotionally and/ or physically is not objectively preferable to not doing so.
I don't understand how it is. The only way you could figure something like that out is with faith, which I do not have.

>>9349396
Depends really. I can not personally do anything that makes me feel good if it means that I have to lie to myself. I've tried, but my conscious keeps reminding me that I am just lying to myself. So it never works. I have come to the conclusion that learning as much as possible about the world, no matter how depressing the subject, is preferable that remaining ignorant. And I feel fine emotionally even if I understand that fixing this world is almost inconceivable. I think that is nihilism is about in the end. Accepting that things are shit and still go on regardless.

>>9348728
People who read Stirner suddenly understand what Christians mean by lack of standards. Idiots embrace it, as they should.

>>9348741
>>spooks are "things that does not exist in reality" thus must be rejected
>thus must be rejected

But that's wrong, retard.

>>9349549
Pseud

>>9349466
I feel ya honestly. Might as well try live life at least a little bit no matter how shit and just keep the option to neck myself if it gets to tedious or just plain painful. Its just really depressing to me that there is no answer but I guess part of growing up is learning to accept that existence is suffering.

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this thread is filled with cancer.

how can so many people not understand stirner? it's not particularly complicated. motivations that come from outside of yourself are spooks. take family for an example. liking your dad and hanging out with him doesn't make you spooked. hanging out with your dad BECAUSE he is part of your family even though you hate him means you've been spooked by the idea of 'family' which comes from outside yourself. this isn't much more than basic criticism, he's pointing to societies sources of values that tell you to do things and saying they're all the same, all outside yourself, all as valid as 'commands' from a christian god. what makes stirner unique is his solution. most critics dismiss one particular source of values and then replace it with something else that's also outside themselves; think of someone disparaging christian values, but replacing them with the just-as-spooky values of liberal humanism. stirner says the way to get back of spooks is to take motivation from only one place, from inside yourself, from the ego. nietzsche has a great description of how someone can start to live like this in thus spoke zarathustra (pic related.) try to understand what he's really getting at it, which is pretty revolutionary, before you listen to how people have applied his reasoning. i'll be around if you have any questions.

>>9349623
I like this post.
So, is Stirner nietzschean?
Rejecting spooks is becoming the Ubermensch. Well, its half of it. Am I completely wrong in saying this?
What should I read from Stirner?

>>9349623
I think that was made pretty clear desu. Just because someone words something a little different than you would but its still clear that he means essentially the same thing does not mean that he is wrong.

>>9349623
Yeah. It's basically 'be yourself.' But I think that phrase represents a much more profound idea than its surface-level meaning. Like you said, Stirner is really trying to find a backstop for all criticism, the destination of Hegelian dialect. His ideas become more sophisticated when he and Nietzsche begin to talk about 'creating.' People have interpreted Stirner in a sort of Daoist way - saying to ignore the heuristic conceptions that frame reality, even those of your own past selves, and to do what YOU WANT, not what you think you should.

There are two main critiques I see, neither of which make Stirner any less valuable of a guide in terms of how to live. One is metaphysical re: whether we can escape concepts at all, or whether how our ego may itself be a RESULT of said concepts. And of course, whether there actually is an ego. The other critiques levelled at him are normally ad hominem against naive egoism or some shit about anarchy.

>>9348728
>redpill

Suck a dick

>>9349638
they are related in a way that is difficult to pull apart. nietzsche is stirnerian in many respects. rejecting spooks is absolutely one of the steps in becoming the ubermensch, but it's then taken in a bit of a different direction, though not dramatically so. i'd say stirner's philosophy is cleaner, but he also only wrote one full book - the ego and its own. pick it up and then read thus spoke zarathustra and you'll have a pretty good idea of what they're getting at.