Beyond memeing about spooks, does Holla Forums actually embrace Max Stirner? After all, he wasn't exactly a revolutionary collectivist.
Oddly enough, his work seems to be gaining popularity with Scott Alexander types and what looks like some strain of the neo-reaction.
I read the Ego and Its Own years back, and thought it was interesting. Didn't agree with it, but I thought the section on "if I do incest or murder it's ok and good" was funny. I embrace Marxism and I don't really use Stirner, but if Holla Forums spams the spook stuff to red pill people its fine by me. I'm not an expert on Stirner's philosophy so take my opinion with a grain of salt.
his philosophy was pretty spot on, but sadly its pretty impractical. if the whole world thought the same way stirner did, we'd all be a bunch of psychopaths.
he is in favor of an insurgency, and i would consider stirnerfags to be my comrades
Nah, we just abuse the concept of spooks when it suits us and ignore it when it doesn't.
lol, not understanding the difference between Sternir's egoism and Randian egoism. If you are an egoist, you probably will recognize the uniqueness of others, which further enforces your cooperative side, and if you are willing to kill another unique individual(risking your relationship with others, which pleases you), you are probably serving some high and abstract concept. Besides, there is nothing stopping others from forming a union of egoists to force you to change your ways.
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Read about egoist communism.
He supports an insurrection against the state; not some revolution that replaces the state with other kinds of restraint on the individual.
Neither Rand nor Stirner ever say "hurr durr be a dick to others". One certainly might get that impression from Rand considering the heavy focus she puts on "REEEE I'M NOT OBLIGATED TO HELP PEOPLE" and the fact that she was an actual bitch in real life, but technically her philosophy doesn't really say you should be a sociopath anymore than Stirner does.
Her rejection of Atilla (using force to make others submit to you) and the Witch Doctor (using manipulation to do so) should make that clear, though.
Their biggest difference is that Rand puts a very strong "ought" on the egotism while Stirner is kinda ambivalent to it in a "well if you don't do this you are probably fucking retarded" way, but their actual models don't differ that much (obviously the main difference is that Rand is a capitalist cuck but that's beside the point).
I hardly like Rand but I felt like playing devils advocate.
Rand wants natural rights, which is spooky. She serve the abstract concept of the ego not the ego itself. She won't help someone if others also benefit.
Spooks and the concept of "concious egoism" are pretty useful.
It might be hard to tell through the memeing, but note that Stirner does not outright reject "spooks" but only when the ego is serving the spooks and not the other way around. For example, the ego may use the spook of morality in it's own self interest - to protect itself and others whom the ego may value as "property".
To argue semantics a bit, the spook is a spook precisely because the ego serves it. The concepts are not to be immediatly rejected, but it must become your property.
For his time, he was beginning to understand the frailty of western civilization, beyond that civilization as a whole. He suggested reliance on individual freedom will make us free from these things, these "spooks". He encouraged something similar to post-structuralism, in rejecting structure for your own ego.
The problem here is this is grossly outdated, employing terms like "ego" and "individual" to overcome the trials of being influenced.
The problem is he too was influenced in his own ways by these very ideas which were ultimately already present in the collective minds of the West. In this way he too was "spooked" by encouraging people not to be "spooked".
So while he was an interesting theorist, and a good way to get certain basic complex ideas across because of his time and place, we can say for certain he's grossly over rated in these sorts of circles and there isn't much criticism of him.
So somewhat positive.
Ultimately what people are influenced by are not vague conception of "spook", but the overwhelming and inescapable nature of semiotics in human communication.
Thanks for the clarification, that's exactly what I was trying to get at.
'' Without doubt culture has made me powerful. It has given me power over all motives, over the impulses of my nature as well as over the exactions and violences of the world. I know, and have gained the force for it by culture, that I need not let myself be coerced by any of my appetites, pleasures, emotions, etc.; I am their — master; in like manner I become, through the sciences and arts, the master of the refractory world, whom sea and earth obey, and to whom even the stars must give an account of themselves. The spirit has made me master. — But I have no power over the spirit itself. From religion (culture) I do learn the means for the “vanquishing of the world,” but not how I am to subdue God too and become master of him; for God “is the spirit.” And this same spirit, of which I am unable to become master, may have the most manifold shapes; he may be called God or National Spirit, State, Family, Reason, also — Liberty, Humanity, Man.
I receive with thanks what the centuries of culture have acquired for me; I am not willing to throw away and give up anything of it: I have not lived in vain. The experience that I have power over my nature, and need not be the slave of my appetites, shall not be lost to me; the experience that I can subdue the world by culture’s means is too dear- bought for me to be able to forget it. But I want still more.''
-The Milk Man, Me Me Me.
Read Stirner
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To be fair, Rand was also against altruism and said that we ought not be altruists at any point. Stirner has a different outlook on things.
The biggest difference was that one was a philosopher and the other wrote fiction.
Renzo Novatore based his philosophy on Stirner and was a revolutionary collectivist.
I am pro collectivism and so on.
Not everyone is, and for those that are not, there is Stirner.
Honestly, the book is just a fun read and stands on its own without requiring you to read 20 other philosophers beforehand. It's like babbys first philosopher, but not in a bad way.
I like Stiner, and I especially respect him for being an early antihumanist. That doesn't mean I accept everything he says (which, if you're a critical thinker, should never do with regards to anyone), but like Nietzsche his shit is fun and refreshing if you're usually knee deep in dry philosophical tomes
Most people here don't know what Stirner actually stood for, and just equate "spook" with "things that aren't into real" but those who do generally embrace him or reject him wholly
I'm reading The Ego and Its Own right now and I'm really enjoying it.