The Egoist Is Necessarily a Sinner before What Is "Sacred"

If a European kills a crocodile, he acts as an egoist against crocodiles, but he has no scruples about doing this, and he is not accused of “sin” for it. If instead an ancient Egyptian, who considered the crocodile to be sacred, had nonetheless killed one in self-defense, he would have, indeed, defended his skin as an egoist, but at the same time, he would have committed a sin; his egoism would have been sin,—he, the egoist, a sinner.—From this, it should be obvious that the egoist is necessarily a sinner before what is “sacred,” before what is “higher”; if he asserts his egoism against the sacred, this is, as such, a sin.

The sacred crocodile marks the human egoist as the human sinner. The egoist can cast off the sinner and the sin from himself only if he desecrates the sacred, just as the European beats the crocodile to death without sin because His Holiness, the Crocodile, is for him a crocodile without holiness.

--Max Stirner, Stirner's Critics, trans. Wolfi Landstreicher (Berkeley, CA: LBC Books, 2012), 77-78.

What in the World Does Egoism Have to do with Isolation?

But meanwhile, some have prepared their own depiction of egoism and think of it as simply “isolation.” But what in the world does egoism have to do with isolation? Do I become an egoist like this, by fleeing from people? I may isolate myself or get lonely, but I’m not, for this reason, a hair more egoistic than others who remain among people and enjoy contact with them. If I isolate myself, this is because I no longer find pleasure in society, but if instead I remain among people, it is because they still offer me a lot. Remaining is no less egoistic than isolating oneself.

--Max Stirner, Stirner's Critics, trans. Wolfi Landstreicher (Berkeley, CA: LBC Books, 2012), 80.

The Fetishized Belief in Compulsory Morality of Any Kind Is Absurd for Those Who Refuse to Live As Slaves

Max Stirner’s critique of morality is one of the hardest things for his critics to stomach. Even when they seem to understand it in theory, his critics remain so wedded to the self-subordination of their own activities to moral rules in practice that they are for the most part unable to consistently step outside their own habitual commitments, even in their imaginations. This leads to a complete inability to understand why the fetishized belief in compulsory morality of any kind is absurd for those who refuse to live as slaves.

--Jason McQuinn, introduction to Stirner's Critics, by Max Stirner (Berkeley, CA: LBC Books, 2012), 43n46.

Ownness--the Selfness of the Self--Is Revealed

For in spite of the elimination of self-will, private property, and private opinion, for the first time the unique individual who cannot be eliminated comes to light. "Ownness"--the selfness of the self--is revealed. Critical liberalism tries through its "criticism" to eliminate from the individual everything private and everything that would exclude all others. But the ownness of the individual is immune to this purging. Indeed, the person is an individual precisely because he or she excludes from the self everything that is not self.

--Keiji Nishitani, The Self-Overcoming of Nihilism, trans. Graham Parkes and Setsuko Aihara, SUNY Series in Modern Japanese Philosophy (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1990), 115. 

Humanitarian Liberalism Takes Away Each Individual's Self-Will, Their Property, and Their Private Opinion

The third form of liberal thought is humanitarian liberalism, as represented by Bruno Bauer and his followers.... The humanitarian liberalist criticizes the socialist: "As the citizen does with the state, so the worker makes use of society for his own egoistic purposes. After all, don' t you still have an egoistic purpose-your own welfare?" The humanitarian demands that human action be completely free of egoistic concern. Only there is true humanity found and true liberalism established.

While the politicians thought they had eliminated each individual's own will, self-will (Eigenwille), or willfulness, they did not realize that this self-will found a safe refuge through property (Eigentum).

When socialists take away even property, they do not notice that ownership secures its continuation within ownness (Eigenheit).

No matter how much property is taken away, opinion (Meinung) in the heart remains mine (das Meinige), and to that extent ownership remains. Therefore, we must eliminate not only self-will or private ownership but also private opinion.

--Keiji Nishitani, The Self-Overcoming of Nihilism, trans. Graham Parkes and Setsuko Aihara, SUNY Series in Modern Japanese Philosophy (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1990), 114.

Citizens Devote Themselves to the State; Workers Obey the Rule of Society and Serve It

Just as "citizens" devote themselves to the state, so do "workers" obey the rule of society and serve it. But society is a tool that should rather be serving our interests. Insofar as socialists seek a sacred society, they are as shackled to religious principle as the liberals: "Society, from which we receive everything, is the new master, a new ghost, a new 'supreme being,' which makes us bear the burden of 'devotion and duty.'"

--Keiji Nishitani, The Self-Overcoming of Nihilism, trans. Graham Parkes and Setsuko Aihara, SUNY Series in Modern Japanese Philosophy (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1990), 113-114.

Political Freedom Is Not My Own Freedom; It Means That the Concern of the Polis Becomes My Concern

Political freedom is not my own freedom because my own will (Eigenwille) is negated. It is true that in the citizen state each citizen negates the will of the ruler, who had suppressed individual will up until then, and takes a stand on personal free will. But at the same time the citizen voluntarily suppresses individual will to seek an idealized actualization of the will and freedom of the self through the state. This political freedom means that the polis becomes free and the concern (Sache) of the polis becomes my concern--but this means precisely that I am tied to the state from within myself.

--Keiji Nishitani, The Self-Overcoming of Nihilism, trans. Graham Parkes and Setsuko Aihara, SUNY Series in Modern Japanese Philosophy (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1990), 112-113.

For Stirner, Hierarchy Itself Means the Rule of Ideas and Spirit

Those who have ruled from the standpoint of spirit have done so by means of such ideas as the state, emperor, church, God, morality, law, order, and so on, thereby establishing political, ethical, and religious hierarchies. Indeed, for Stirner, hierarchy itself means the rule of ideas and spirit.

Spirit constructs systems of rule and obedience by sacralizing law and duty and transforming them into matters of conscience. The only thing that can fundamentally destroy this kind of hierarchical system is the standpoint of the egoist which discloses "spirit" as a fabrication. It is not hard to see how Stirner's ideas came to provide an influential philosophical foundation for anarchism.

--Keiji Nishitani, The Self-Overcoming of Nihilism, trans. Graham Parkes and Setsuko Aihara, SUNY Series in Modern Japanese Philosophy (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1990), 111.

By Making God, Country, Humanity, Society, and so forth One's Own Concern, One Forgets the Self

One normally considers the higher things to be those that relate to a universal apart from the self. One devotes oneself to such matters and makes them the concerns of the self. The religious person serves God, the socialist serves society, patriots their country, the housewife her home, as the concern (Sache) of the self. Each sees the meaning of life in this concern and finds his or her mission in it. To efface the self and devote oneself to one's concern is regarded as a superior way of life. By making God, country, humanity, society, and so forth one's own concern, one forgets the self and invests one's interest in something outside the self which then becomes one's own affair. This is one's Sache, the focus of ideals or values regarded as sacred.

--Keiji Nishitani, The Self-Overcoming of Nihilism, trans. Graham Parkes and Setsuko Aihara, SUNY Series in Modern Japanese Philosophy (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1990), 103.

Stirner's Standpoint: I Have Founded My Affairs on Nothing

At the beginning of his major work Stirner cites the motto... "I have founded my affair on nothing." Here we have Stirner's basic standpoint in nuce: the negation of any and all standpoints. Nothing, whether God or morality, may be set up as a ground to support the self and its activity. It is in effect a standpoint that rejects standing on anything other than the self itself, a standpoint based on "nothing."

--Keiji Nishitani, The Self-Overcoming of Nihilism, trans. Graham Parkes and Setsuko Aihara, SUNY Series in Modern Japanese Philosophy (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1990), 103.

Cops, Pigs, Killers! The Political Graffiti of Exarcheia, Athens, Greece

We passed by hundreds of circle-As and anti-authoritarian motifs, alongside wall after wall of painted rallying cries such as Cops, Pigs, Killers and 'Don't Live Your Life as a Slave, Riot Now!' One of these political slogans was of particular significance to Helena. Abruptly we stopped as she pointed to its large, bold, blood-red letters. Written in English, it said 'Fuck May 68, Fight Now!' 'Look at this, it is for me, everything' she began, pausing momentarily to roll her cigarette with the finesse and effortlessness of an addicted artisan:

It asks us to move on from the past. To go beyond May 68 and Paris. But we must first know May 68, what happened, the struggles, the failures, the successes. History is important to us ... to our movement. It shapes us. It influences. We learn from it. But then, listen, we must fuck it. Fuck May 68! Fuck Spain! Enough talk of old revolution, we must create our own revolution ... our own insurrections.

--Nicholas Apoifis, Anarchy in Athens: An Ethnography of Militancy, Emotions and Violence, Contemporary Anarchist Studies (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2017), 84-85.

Some Athenian Anarchists Adopt Bob Black's Post-Left Anarchist View of Abolishing Work

Some of today's Athenian anarchists and anti-authoritarians, steeped in the insurrectionist and Black Bloc tactics of direct actions and small affinity groups, may be hostile to formal organisations that focus on propaganda, and as such preclude them from historical narratives.

Certainly, this theme was evident in conversations with Tony. He was openly hostile to the benefits of anarchist rank-and-file unionism as part of his broader critique of notions of work. This is the sort of critique mirroring Bob Black's The Abolition of Work, where, in far greater detail than this memorable conclusion, he argues that '[n]o one should ever work. Workers of the world ... relax!' Echoing this distinction between anarchist currents, Panayiotta told me that the old history is 'not our anarchism. We are not like the old fighters. They are not our stories to tell.' Likewise, and somewhat frustrated by my constant questioning, Helena insisted that she shares 'little with this history, what is there to eulogise?'

--Nicholas Apoifis, Anarchy in Athens: An Ethnography of Militancy, Emotions and Violence, Contemporary Anarchist Studies (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2017), 79-80.

The People Send the Police Against Everything That Seems Immoral or Even Only Unseemly

That devotion to the sacred also brings it about that without any lively interest of one's own, one only delivers malefactors into the hands of the police and the courts: an apathetic giving over to the authorities, "who will, of course, best administer sacred things." The people goes utterly nuts, sending the police against everything that seems immoral, or even only unseemly, to it; and this popular rage for the moral protects the police institution more than the mere government could possibly protect it.

--Max Stirner, The Unique and Its Property, trans. and ed. Wolfi Landstreicher (Baltimore: Underworld Amusements, 2017), 253.

Proudhon and the Communists Are Religious People Fighting Against Egoism

Proudhon, like the communists, fights against egoism. That is why they are continuations and consequences of the Christian principle, the principle of love, of sacrifice for something universal, something alien.... The king is the property owner, because he alone can dispose of and deal with "everything"; he has potestas [power] and imperium [command] over it. The communists make this clearer in that they transfer that imperium [command] to the "society of all." So: Since they're enemies of egoism, they are therefore Christians, or more generally, religious people, believers in ghosts, dependents, servants of whatever universal (God, society, etc.). Proudhon is also like the Christians in this, in that he attributes to God what he denies to human beings. He calls him the Propriétaire of the earth. With this he proves that he can't think away the property owner as such; he comes at last to a property owner, but transfers him to the other world.

--Max Stirner, The Unique and Its Property, trans. and ed. Wolfi Landstreicher (Baltimore: Underworld Amusements, 2017), 262.

Practice Unruliness and Complete Disobedience

I ask those who want to be egoists what they think is more egoistic, allowing you to give them laws, and respecting those given, or to practice unruliness, yes, complete disobedience. Good-hearted people think the laws should only prescribe what is deemed just and proper in the feeling of the people. But of what concern is it to me what is deemed valid in and by the people? The people will perhaps be against the blasphemer; thus a law against blasphemy. Should I, therefore, not blaspheme? Should this law be more to me than a "command"? I question it!

--Max Stirner, The Unique and Its Property, trans. and ed. Wolfi Landstreicher (Baltimore: Underworld Amusements, 2017), 210.