Anybody else feel that biggest lie of modernity is individualism? This is my biggest gripe with thinkers like Stirner who reify the ego into being this autonomous god-like agent that doesn't depend on anyone for belief formation.
But isn't it the opposite? That collectivism is the natural social order of humanity in the form of co-operation and socializing and the further you go away from it you have arbitrary social hierarchies, stature based on exploitation and extreme forms of alienation. Isn't this the reason why religion is so effective in mobilizing people?
I feel Christianity was the most effective religion in destroying individualism despite some of it's negative nihilistic aspects. It was able to go beyond the family unit and through the organised church manage it's "flock". I really think we need a secular religion like Christianity where mass education plays a central role in distilling loyalty, confidence and love for the greater social whole, if communism is to be achieved.
Pic related is what I had in mind, not even trolling.
Yes. My main problem with Stirnerists is that they fall for the delusion that they are completely in control of themselves, ignoring that they too have an unconscious which they can not control.
I think it was Lacan who said that the formula of atheism is not 'God is dead' but rather 'God is unconscious'. The law lives on no matter how much you pretend that it is a spook,and this is evidenced by mechanisms like the superego.
And individualism is also a boom of the current era partly thanks to neoliberalism and its cult of individual success with pillars like the American Dream.
Liam Barnes
Dude christianity had also contributed to the philosophical foundations of individualism, look Augustine and Kirkegaard.
William Hall
Both the individualism and the collectivism of personhood turn out to be lies.
Strawman. Stirner was well aware that the culture he grew up in and indeed the very language he used shaped his perception of the world.
Beyond that, Christianity breeds the Idea of Evil and slave morality and can thus be regarded as being on the same level as nazism. Christianity breeds the apolitical being. I want the opposite.
Chase Jackson
When did I conflate the two you moron?
Jordan James
The biggest threat to the world itself is communication in a time where the internet has made communication lose meaning, making the faults of language and symbol more difficult to spot. So our collective reality changes in this way, the problems exacerbating themselves in Late Capitalism.
Jaxson Lewis
Fuck off Ringo. You're the shittiest of all the Beatles and your post doesn't address OP at all.
James Cruz
Why did you mention the individualism of the latter in a threat that criticises the former if not to imply they are at the very least related?
Jonathan Thompson
I was agreeing with op. "Individuality" is part of the argument I was making.
Levi Brown
Individualism and collectivism are not mutually exclusive. You can have a collective society that stresses individual freedom, or an individually managed society that stresses collective values.
Ryder Nguyen
They are related, since many stirnerists probably adopt it so they can maintain a semblance of being leftists.
Kayden Clark
Great so life is an illusion. So what? It's all I got? Why ought I not live within my world as it pleases me? Does the illusory apple taste any less sweet?
They adopt Randian individualism to be able to pretend they're leftists and thus Egoism is related to the moralist principle of protestant work ethics and anti-organizational priciples? What?
Ian Morales
You aren't pleasing yourself for the sake of yourself. You're doing it for the sake of another hypothetically. The only thing I could assume is close to this would be eating an apple, that I think would qualify as self interest, you're eating food.
But these are all simple things, life is far more complex. One should do well not to question the tone and language and marketing of others, as they can be easily led astray believing themselves doing it out of self interest.
Aiden Foster
But the point of Stirner is that the individual's historical nature is accounted for, that's why he's a Hegelian and why ancaps are the spoopy ones.
Elijah Collins
Yes. Yes, I am. My pleasure is the only pleasure I know to exist, the only one that I have experienced myself. The only time I please others is when the experience of perhaps illusion of pleasing others pleases myself.
Those whose perception of what is real of not leaves our own are called either madmen or enemies and we will forever struggle against each other in a bloody battle over reality itself.
Anthony King
Tell me user, do you fap for the sake of someone else? Like you're doing exvotos with your semen?
Alexander Richardson
Stirnerists adopt an ethical position where everyone can go fuck themselves since the only thing that matters is themselves (of course they can't no matter how much they repeat it). Simply put, it is based on the lie that your acts can only serve yourself as a subject when they serve the subject and the Other.
I am not equating it to Randian bullshit nor protestant work ethic. My point is that it's popularity can also be attributed to the cult of the individual that exists in today's society.
Benjamin Fisher
It isn't so much perception of reality as it is problems within our current structure of language. There is no changing it, but giving into exactly what they want, that is, blind self interest; is what think tanks would love for you to do.
I would argue self interest in radicalism becomes predictable in its lack of ways to go about it.
It wouldn't be semen, first off. Second off I do it for the thought of another, yes. Even if you think you aren't, you are doing it under the impression that the one doing the pleasing isn't yourself. Or, you want that. You're doing it for something beyond yourself. These things can't be defined by wants of individuals themselves.
Jeremiah Long
Slight precision, you care about others because you enjoy their company, not because that's what you must do.
Luke Brooks
So you can't distinguish between subject and object of desire.
Jaxson Wright
And that's it. You are not serving exclusively your ego, you also serve the Other. Acts like caring about others are determined by the unconscious, the ego merely rationalizes them.
Henry Walker
Maybe we get off to different things.
Jason Long
You live in a world where people get off to fucking floor tiles. Not everyone is doing things with other persons in mind. Your own desire is not an universal rule.
Jackson Adams
Yes of course, but the point is that even then the Christian in Kierkegaard's mind always battled with his conscience in what his faith was to that religious ideal and how strong it was. Which is why Kierkegaard opposed the sanitized Christianity of his times as for him faith was a constant battle with uncertainty.
But the point is that you can never be sure what the other wants from you, uncertainty in belief is the norm. But in today's post-modern society people believe more than ever as Zizek says that they are the "unique one", or that they are "above ideology" etc. This fake individualist veneer which is so cancerous today, is the main reason why people are so alienated.
Robert Rogers
Where did I ever imply that? I suggested we get off on the concept of human beings while masturbating. You could masturbate to yourself, but the context itself would be a human being, yourself.
I mean I suppose there's a kink for everything, so someone could switch their wiring and masturbate to the idea of floor tiles. But I would still say they would be anthropomorphizing a floor tile.
We do though
Jace James
No, no i just made a constatation, there are people out there who get off to weird shit, and you exist in the same world as them.
So when one's fap to himself, he's not fapping to himself but to an alter ego which appear to be himself. Are you schizophrenic?
No i'm not. You aren't in my brain. When i eat a fucking fruit, i don't think about someone else than me.
Eli Barnes
...
James Carter
confirmed for literally never reading stirner
Josiah Parker
Oh my Lord of 2016, please make OP read Kierkegaard
individualism is for selfish sociopathic narcissists who simply want an escape from responsibilities and a way to justify themselves not doing anything to spread class consciousness.
