ego and his own
(1845) by max stirner [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Stirner]:
Johann Kaspar Schmidt (25 October 1806 – 26 June 1856), known professionally as Max Stirner, was a German post-Hegelian philosopher, dealing mainly with the Hegelian notion of social alienation and self-consciousness. Stirner is often seen as one of the forerunners of nihilism, existentialism, psychoanalytic theory, postmodernism and individualist anarchism.
Stirner’s main work, The Ego and Its Own (German: Der Einzige und sein Eigentum), was first published in 1844 in Leipzig and has since appeared in numerous editions and translations.
ego and his own [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ego_and_Its_Own]:
The Ego and Its Own (German: Der Einzige und sein Eigentum), also translated as The Unique and its Property, is an 1844 work by German philosopher Max Stirner. It presents a post-Hegelian critique of Christianity and traditional morality on one hand; and on the other, humanism, utilitarianism, liberalism, and much of the then-burgeoning socialist movement, advocating instead an amoral (although importantly not inherently immoral or antisocial) egoism. It is considered a major influence on the development of anarchism, existentialism, nihilism, and postmodernism.
In 2010, John F. Welsh coined the term dialectical egoism for the thoughts of Stirner expressed in this work, in order to emphasize the distinction from the negative and pejorative connotations from the common everyday use of egoism in the sense of egotism.
Part one
The first part of the text begins by setting out a tripartite dialectical structure based on an individual’s stages of life (Childhood, Youth and Adulthood). In the first realistic stage, children are restricted by external material forces. Upon reaching the stage of youth, they begin to learn how to overcome these restrictions by what Stirner calls the “self-discovery of mind”. However, in the idealistic stage, a youth now becomes enslaved by internal forces such as conscience, reason and other “spooks” or “fixed ideas” of the mind (including religion, nationalism and other ideologies). The final stage, “egoism”, is the second self-discovery, in which one becomes self-conscious of oneself as more than his mind or body..
Part two
Part two is centered on the possibility of freedom from current ideological ways of thinking through a robust philosophical egoism. Stirner’s egoism is centered on what he calls Eigenheit (‘Ownness’ or autonomy). This ‘Ownness’ is a feature of a more advanced stage of human personal and historical development. It is the groundwork for our world-view..
Further in Part II, Stirner discards the concept of freedom and replaces it with power and property. In Chapter “My Power”, Stirner explores the concept of human rights and their subsequent inherent separation from the self: “The right of “all” is to go before my right.”
In the chapter “My Self-Enjoyment” Stirner discusses longing and “true life”, discarding both of them preferring a “non-seeking” man: “Not till I am certain of myself, and no longer seeking for myself, am I really my property; I have myself, therefore I use and enjoy myself.” “A man is “called” to nothing, and has no “calling,” no “destiny,” as little as a plant or a beast has a “calling.” Further he argues that”[t]he true man does not lie in the future, an object of longing, but lies, existent and real, in the present“.
In Part III of Part II, “The Unique One”, Stirner gives a summary of the book and its ideas, and ends it as it began: “I have set my affair on nothing”
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notes/quotes from kindle version from anarchist library:
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publisher’s preface
A Reproduction of the First English Edition. Translated from the German by Steven T. Byington. (1907) With an Introduction by J. L. Walker.
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If the reader finds the first quarter of this book somewhat forbidding and obscure, he is advised nevertheless not to falter. Close attention will master almost every difficulty, and, if he will but give it, he will find abundant reward in what follows. For his guidance I may specify one defect in the author’s style. When controverting a view opposite to his own, he seldom distinguishes with sufficient clearness his statement of his own view from his re-statement of the antagonistic view. As a result, the reader is plunged into deeper and deeper mystification, until something suddenly reveals the cause of his misunderstanding, after which he must go back and read again. I therefore put him on his guard. The other difficulties lie, as a rule, in the structure of the work. As to these I can hardly do better than translate the following passage from Prof. Basch’s book, alluded to above: “There is nothing more disconcerting than the first approach to this strange work. Stirner does not condescend to inform us as to the architecture of his edifice, or furnish us the slightest guiding thread. The apparent divisions of the book are few and misleading. From the first page to the last a unique thought circulates, but it divides itself among an infinity of vessels and arteries in each of which runs a blood so rich in ferments that one is tempted to describe them all. There is no progress in the development, and the repetitions are innumerable....The reader who is not deterred by this oddity, or rather absence, of composition gives proof of genuine intellectual courage. At first one seems to be confronted with a collection of essays strung together, with a throng of aphorisms….But, if you read this book several times; if, after having penetrated the intimacy of each of its parts, you then traverse it as a whole, — gradually the fragments weld themselves together, and Stirner’s thought is revealed in all its unity, in all its force, and in all its depth.”
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intro
(1907) Introduction by J. L. Walker.
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The critics inquire what kind of man the author is talking about. They repeat the question: What does he believe in? They fail to grasp the purport of the recorded answer: “I believe in myself”; which is attributed to a common soldier long before the time of Stirner. They ask, what is the principle of the self-conscious egoist, the Einzige? To this perplexity Stirner says: Change the question; put “who?” instead of “what?” and an answer can then be given by naming him!
the it is me ness
Von Hartmann wishes that Stirner had gone on and developed his principle. Von Hartmann suggests that you and I are really the same spirit, looking out through two pairs of eyes. *Then, one may reply, I need not concern myself about you, for in myself I have — us; and at that rate Von Hartmann is merely accusing himself of inconsistency: for, when Stirner wrote this book, Von Hartmann’s spirit was writing it; and it is just the pity that Von Hartmann in his present form does not indorse what he said in the form of Stirner, — that Stirner was different from any other man; that his ego was not Fichte’s transcendental generality, but “this transitory ego of flesh and blood.” It is not as a generality that you and I differ, but as a couple of facts which are not to be reasoned into one. “I” is somewise Hartmann, and thus Hartmann is “I”; but I am not Hartmann, and Hartmann is not — I. Neither am I the “I” of Stirner; only Stirner himself was Stirner’s “I.” Note how comparatively indifferent a matter it is with Stirner that one is an ego, but how all-important it is that one be a self-conscious ego, — a self-conscious, self-willed person.
*undisturbed ecosystem ness
thurman interconnectedness law: when you understand interconnectedness it makes you more afraid of hating than of dying – Robert Thurman
Those not self-conscious and self-willed are constantly acting from self-interested motives, but clothing these in various garbs. Watch those people closely in the light of Stirner’s teaching, and they seem to be hypocrites, they have so many good moral and religious plans of which self-interest is at the end and bottom; but they, we may believe, do not know that this is more than a coincidence.
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Stirner loved liberty for himself, and loved to see any and all men and women taking liberty, and he had no lust of power. Democracy to him was sham liberty, egoism the genuine liberty.
any form of democratic admin
Nietzsche, on the contrary, pours out his contempt upon democracy because it is not aristocratic. He is predatory to the point of demanding that those who must succumb to feline rapacity shall be taught to submit with resignation.
Stirner shows that men make their tyrants as they make their gods, and his purpose is to unmake tyrants.
Nietzsche dearly loves a tyrant.
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*Nothing could seem clearer to my mind than that the reality of egoism must first come into the consciousness of men, before we can have the unbiased Einzige in place of the prejudiced biped who lends himself to the support of tyrannies a million times stronger over me than the natural self-interest of any individual. When plumb-line doctrine is misconceived as duty between unequal-minded men, — as a religion of humanity, — it is indeed the confusion of trying to read without knowing the alphabet and of putting philanthropy in place of contract. But, if the plumb-line be scientific, it is or can be my possession, my property, and I choose it for its use — when circumstances admit of its use. I do not feel bound to use it because it is scientific, in building my house; but, as my will, to be intelligent, is not to be merely wilful, the adoption of the plumb-line follows the discarding of incantations. There is no plumb-line without the unvarying lead at the end of the line; not a fluttering bird or a clawing cat.
*this is itch-in-the-soul ness
On the practical side of the question of egoism versus self-surrender and for a trial of egoism in politics, this may be said: *the belief that men not moved by a sense of duty will be unkind or unjust to others is but an indirect confession that those who hold that belief are greatly interested in having others live for them rather than for themselves.. t But I do not ask or expect so much. **I am content if others individually live for themselves, and thus cease in so many ways to act in opposition to my living for myself, — to our living for ourselves.
*huge
**‘in undisturbed ecosystems ..the average individual, species, or population, left to its own devices, behaves in ways that serve and stabilize the whole..’ –Dana Meadows
Several passages in this most remarkable book show the author as a man full of sympathy. When we reflect upon his deliberately expressed opinions and sentiments, — his spurning of the sense of moral obligation as the last form of superstition, — may we not be warranted in thinking that the total disappearance of the sentimental supposition of duty liberates a quantity of nervous energy for the purest generosity and clarifies the intellect for the more discriminating choice of objects of merit?
when we let go of any form of m\a\p.. all the red flags (obligation ness et al)
J. L. Walker
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Translator’s Preface
Steven T. Byington
If the style of this book is found unattractive, it will show that I have done my work ill and not represented the author truly; but, if it is found odd, I beg that I may not bear all the blame. I have simply tried to reproduce the author’s own mixture of colloquialisms and technicalities, and his preference for the precise expression of his thought rather than the word conventionally expected.
language as control/enclosure et al..
One especial feature of the style, however, gives the reason why this preface should exist. It is characteristic of Stirner’s writing that the thread of thought is carried on largely by the repetition of the same word in a modified form or sense. That connection of ideas which has guided popular instinct in the formation of words is made to suggest the line of thought which the writer wishes to follow. If this echoing of words is missed, the bearing of the statements on each other is in a measure lost; and, where the ideas are very new, one cannot afford to throw away any help in following their connection. Therefore, where a useful echo (and there are few useless ones in the book) could not be reproduced in English, I have generally called attention to it in a note. My notes are distinguished from the author’s by being enclosed in parentheses.
The allusions are clear enough, without names and dates, to give a vivid picture of certain aspects of German life then. The tone of some of them is explained by the fact that the book was published under censorship.
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All Things Are Nothing To Me
The individuals have died “for the great cause of the nation,” and the nation sends some words of thanks after them and — has the profit of it. I call that a paying kind of egoism.
But only look at that Sultan who *cares so lovingly for his people. Is he not pure unselfishness itself, and does he not hourly sacrifice himself for his people? Oh, yes, for “his people.” Just try it; show yourself not as his, but as your own; for breaking away from his egoism you will take a trip to jail. The Sultan has set his cause on nothing but himself; he is to himself all in all, he is to himself the only one, and tolerates nobody who would dare not to be one of “his people.”
*steiner care to oppression law.. graeber violence in care law
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And will you not learn by these brilliant examples that the egoist gets on best? I for my part take a lesson from them, and propose, instead of further unselfishly serving those great egoists, rather to be the egoist myself.
God and mankind have concerned themselves for nothing, for nothing but themselves. Let me then likewise concern myself for myself, who am equally with God the nothing of all others, who am my all, who am the only one.[Der Einzige]
i’m never just me.. beyond the monastic self.. et al
If God, if mankind, as you affirm, have substance enough in themselves to be all in all to themselves, then I feel that I shall still less lack that, and that I shall have no complaint to make of my “emptiness.” I am not nothing in the sense of emptiness, but I am the creative nothing, *the nothing out of which I myself as creator create everything.
*sounds like hinting at imagine if we just focused on listening to the itch-in-8b-souls.. first thing.. everyday.. ness
*Away, then, with every concern that is not altogether my concern! You think at least the “good cause” must be my concern? What’s good, what’s bad? Why, I myself am my concern, and I am neither good nor bad. Neither has meaning for me.
*yeah.. as long as i’m never just me ness and thurman interconnectedness law.. but huge to maté trump law and brown belonging law ness.. huge
The divine is God’s concern; the human, man’s. *My concern is neither the divine nor the human, not the true, good, just, free, etc., but solely what is mine, and it is not a general one, but is — unique,[Einzig] as I am unique.
*yeah.. i think these would be irrelevant s to legit free people.. dancing the dance.. [‘in undisturbed ecosystems ..the average individual, species, or population, left to its own devices, behaves in ways that serve and stabilize the whole..’ –Dana Meadows]
Nothing is more to me than myself!
nothing more.. but also nothing less..
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First Part: Man
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Man is to man the supreme being, says Feuerbach.
Man has just been discovered, says Bruno Bauer.
Then let us take a more careful look at this supreme being and this new discovery.
imagine if we just focused on listening to the itch-in-8b-souls.. first thing.. everyday.. and used that data to augment our interconnectedness.. we might just get to a more antifragile, healthy, thriving world.. the ecosystem we keep longing for..
what the world needs most is the energy of 8b alive people
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I. A Human Life
Accordingly, because each thing cares for itself and at the same time comes into constant collision with other things, *the combat of self-assertion is unavoidable.
*yeah.. i don’t think so.. perhaps just a sea world thing.. we have no idea
Back of the rod, mightier than it, stands our — obduracy, our obdurate courage. By degrees we get at what is back of everything that was mysterious and uncanny to us, the mysteriously-dreaded might of the rod, the father’s stern look, etc., and back of all we find our ataraxia, i. e. imperturbability, intrepidity, our counter force, our odds of strength, our invincibility. Before that which formerly inspired in us fear and deference we no longer retreat shyly, but take courage. Back of everything we find our courage, our superiority; back of the sharp command of parents and authorities stands, after all, our courageous choice or our outwitting shrewdness. And the more we feel ourselves, the smaller appears that which before seemed invincible. And what is our trickery, shrewdness, courage, obduracy? What else but — mind![Geist. This word will be translated sometimes “mind” and sometimes “spirit” in the following pages]
graeber parent/care law.. maté parenting law.. et al
Through a considerable time we are spared a fight that is so exhausting later — the fight against reason. The fairest part of childhood passes without the necessity of coming to blows with reason. We care nothing at all about it, do not meddle with it, admit no reason. We are not to be persuaded to anything by conviction, and are deaf to good arguments, principles, etc.; on the other hand, coaxing, punishment, etc. are hard for us to resist.
This stern life-and-death combat with reason enters later, and begins a new phase; in childhood we scamper about without racking our brains much.
to me this is not yet scrambled ness..
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As in childhood one had to overcome the resistance of the laws of the world, so now in everything that he proposes he is met by an objection of the mind, of reason, of his own conscience. “That is unreasonable, unchristian, unpatriotic,” etc., cries conscience to us, and — frightens us away from it. Not the might of the avenging Eumenides, not Poseidon’s wrath, not God, far as he sees the hidden, not the father’s rod of punishment, do we fear, but — conscience
socrates supposed to law et al
But, when the spirit is recognized as the essential thing, it still makes a difference whether the spirit is poor or rich, and therefore one seeks to become rich in spirit; the spirit wants to spread out so as to found its empire
itch-in-the-soul ness
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*Spirit is the essential point for everything, to be sure; but then is every spirit the “right” spirit? The right and true spirit is the ideal of spirit, the “Holy Spirit.” It is not my or your spirit, but just — an ideal, supernal one, it is “God.” “God is spirit.” And this supernal “Father in heaven **gives it to those that pray to him.”
*yes.. if we’re legit free (which no one has been to date)
**idk
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The child was realistic, taken up with the things of this world, till little by little he succeeded in getting at what was back of these very things; the youth was idealistic, inspired by thoughts, till he worked his way up to where he became the man, *the egoistic man, who deals with things and thoughts according to his heart’s pleasure, and sets his personal interest above everything. Finally, the old man? When I become one, there will still be time enough to speak of that.
*yeah.. i see that as the child .. not yet scrambled ness et al
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II. Men of the Old Time and the New
How each of us *developed himself, what he strove for, attained, or missed, what objects he formerly pursued and what plans and wishes his heart is now set on, what transformation his views have experienced, what perturbations his principles — in short, how he has today become what yesterday or years ago he was not — this he brings out again from his memory with more or less ease, and he feels with especial vividness what changes have taken place in himself when he has before his eyes the unrolling of another’s life
*oi.. all whales so all voluntary compliance at best
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the Jew does not even understand these interests in their purity, because he does not allow himself to assign no value to things.
any form of m\a\p.. can’t hear the heart (but all of us.. no divisions/labels)
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The ancients, as they want to be of good cheer, desire good living (the Jews especially a long life, blessed with children and goods), eudaemonia, well-being in the most various forms. Democritus, e.g., praises as such the “calm of the soul” in which one “lives smoothly, without fear and without excitement.”
humanity needs a leap.. to get back/to simultaneous spontaneity .. simultaneous fittingness.. everyone in sync..
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Of course community, family, etc., as natural relations, are burdensome hindrances which diminish my spiritual freedom.
only as we have determined/defined/oppressed/cancerized them in sea world.. part of the dance in a legit undisturbed ecosystem
1\ undisturbed ecosystem (common\ing) can happen
2\ if we create a way to ground the chaos of 8b legit free people
II. The Moderns
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But whom do you think of under the name of egoist? A man who, instead of living to an idea, i. e., a spiritual thing, and sacrificing to it his personal advantage, serves the latter. A good patriot brings his sacrifice to the altar of the fatherland; but it cannot be disputed that the fatherland is an idea, since for beasts incapable of mind, or children as yet without mind, there is no fatherland and no patriotism. Now, if any one does not approve himself as a good patriot, he betrays his egoism with reference to the fatherland.
You despise the egoist because he puts the spiritual in the background as compared with the personal, *and has his eyes on himself where you would like to see him act to favor an idea. The distinction between you is that he makes himself the central point, but you the spirit; or that you cut your identity in two and exalt your “proper self,” the spirit, to be ruler of the paltrier remainder, while he will hear nothing of this cutting in two, and pursues spiritual and material interests just as he pleases. You think, to be sure, that you are falling foul of those only who enter into no spiritual interest at all, but in fact you curse at everybody who does not look on the spiritual interest as his “true and highest” interest. You carry your knightly service for this beauty so far that you affirm her to be the only beauty of the world. You live not to yourself, but to your spirit and to what is the spirit’s, i. e. ideas.
*hints of curiosity over decision making ness
Mystical as this sounds, we yet go through it as an every-day experience. Are you a thinking being before you think? In creating the first thought you create yourself, the thinking one; for you do not think before you think a thought, i.e. have a thought. Is it not your singing that first makes you a singer, your talking that makes you a talker? Now, so too it is the production of the spiritual that first makes you a spirit.
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But from this it also appears how thoroughly theological is the liberation that Feuerbach is laboring to give us. What he says is that we had only mistaken our own essence, and therefore looked for it in the other world, but that now, when we see that God was only our human essence, we must recognize it again as ours and move it back out of the other world into this. To God, who is spirit, Feuerbach gives the name “Our Essence.” *Can we put up with this, that “Our Essence” is brought into opposition to us — that we are split into an essential and an unessential self? Do we not therewith go back into the dreary misery of seeing ourselves banished out of ourselves?
*hints of sea world ness.. and hari rat park law
The hero wants not to go into the other world, but to draw the other world to him, and compel it to become this world! And since then has not all the world, with more or less consciousness, been crying that “this world” is the vital point, and heaven must come down on earth and be experienced even here?
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Let us, in brief, set Feuerbach’s theological view and our contradiction over against each other! “The essence of man is man’s supreme being; now by religion, to be sure, the supreme being is called God and regarded as an objective essence, but in truth it is only man’s own essence; and therefore the turning point of the world’s history is that henceforth no longer God, but man, is to appear to man as God.”
Nay, we really do always think of the supreme being as in both kinds of otherworldliness, the inward and outward, at once; for the “Spirit of God” is, according to the Christian view, also “our spirit,” and “dwells in us.” It dwells in heaven and dwells in us; we poor things are just its “dwelling,” and, if Feuerbach goes on to destroy its heavenly dwelling and force it to move to us bag and baggage, then we, its earthly apartments, will be badly overcrowded.
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His toil and care to get away from himself is nothing but the misunderstood impulse to self-dissolution. If you are bound to your past hour, if you must babble today because you babbled yesterday, if you cannot transform yourself each instant, you feel yourself fettered in slavery and benumbed. .t Therefore over each minute of your existence a fresh minute of the future beckons to you, and, developing yourself, you get away “from yourself,” i. e., from the self that was at that moment. As you are at each instant, you are your own creature, and in this very “creature” you do not wish to lose yourself, the creator.
find the bravery to change your mind ness.. and needing to hear each itch (at least) everyday
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When one looks to the bottom of anything, i.e. searches out its essence, one often discovers something quite other than what it seems to be;.. t honeyed speech and a lying heart, pompous words and beggarly thoughts, etc. By bringing the essence into prominence one degrades the hitherto misapprehended appearance to a bare semblance, a deception. The essence of the world, so attractive and splendid, is for him who looks to the bottom of it — emptiness; emptiness is = world’s essence (world’s doings). Now, he who is religious does not occupy himself with the deceitful semblance, with the empty appearances, but looks upon the essence, and in the essence has — the truth.
quiet enough to see/hear.. the little prince – see with your heart ness..
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Man, your head is haunted; you have wheels in your head! You imagine great things, and depict to yourself a whole world of gods that has an existence for you, a spirit-realm to which you suppose yourself to be called, an ideal that beckons to you. You have a fixed idea!
What is it, then, that is called a “fixed idea”? An idea that has subjected the man to itself. .. Is not all the stupid chatter of (e.g.) most of our newspapers the babble of fools who suffer from the fixed idea of morality, legality, Christianity, etc., and only seem to go about free because the madhouse in which they walk takes in so broad a space? ..Whether a poor fool of the insane asylum is possessed by the fancy that he is God the Father, Emperor of Japan, the Holy Spirit, etc., or whether a citizen in comfortable circumstances conceives that it is his mission to be a good Christian, a faithful Protestant, a loyal citizen, a virtuous man — both these are one and the same “fixed idea.” . Just as the schoolmen philosophized only inside the belief of the church; as Pope Benedict XIV wrote fat books inside the papist superstition, without ever throwing a doubt upon this belief; as authors fill whole folios on the State without calling in question the fixed idea of the State itself; as our newspapers are crammed with politics because they are conjured into the fancy that man was created to be a zoon politicon — so also subjects vegetate in subjection, virtuous people in virtue, liberals in humanity, without ever putting to these fixed ideas of theirs the searching knife of criticism. Undislodgeable, like a madman’s delusion, those thoughts stand on a firm footing, and he who doubts them — lays hands on the sacred! Yes, the “fixed idea,” that is the truly sacred!
aka: whalespeak et al
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you imprison as a criminal an honest man who speaks openly against the existing constitution, against the hallowed institutions, and you entrust portfolios and still more important things to a crafty rascal.
A virtuous girl may become an old maid; a virtuous man may pass the time in fighting his natural impulses till he has perhaps dulled them, he may castrate himself for the sake of virtue as St. Origen did for the sake of heaven: he thereby honors sacred wedlock, sacred chastity, as inviolable; he is — moral.
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After the annihilation of faith Feuerbach thinks to put in to the supposedly safe harbor of love. “The first and highest law must be the love of man to man. Homo homini Deus est — this is the supreme practical maxim, this is the turning point of the world’s history.”
love – enough.. love – is the movement.. et al
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We may find the word “morality” taken as synonymous with spontaneity, self-determination. But that is not involved in it; rather has the Caucasian shown himself spontaneous only in spite of his Mongolian morality. The Mongolian heaven, or morals,[The same word that has been translated “custom” several times in this section] remained the strong castle, and only by storming incessantly at this castle did the Caucasian show himself moral; if he had not had to do with morals at all any longer, if he had not had therein his indomitable, continual enemy, the relation to morals would cease, and consequently morality would cease. That his spontaneity is still a moral spontaneity, therefore, is just the Mongoloidity of it — is a sign that in it he has not arrived at himself. “Moral spontaneity” corresponds entirely with “religious and orthodox philosophy,” “constitutional monarchy,” “the Christian State,” “freedom within certain limits,” “the limited freedom of the press,” or, in a figure, to the hero fettered to a sick-bed.
Man has not really vanquished Shamanism and its spooks till he possesses the strength to lay aside not only the belief in ghosts or in spirits, but also the belief in the spirit.
whalespeak ness
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Hence it is manifest that Mongolism represents utter absence of any rights of the sensuous, represents non-sensuousness and unnature, and that sin and the consciousness of sin was our Mongolian torment that lasted thousands of years.
But who, then, will dissolve the spirit into its nothing? He who by means of the spirit set forth nature as the null, finite, transitory, he alone can bring down the spirit too to like nullity. I can; each one among you can, who does his will as an absolute I; in a word, the egoist can.
Sacred is everything which for the egoist is to be unapproachable, not to be touched, outside his power — i.e. above him; sacred, in a word, is every matter of conscience, for “this is a matter of conscience to me” means simply, “I hold this sacred.”
For little children, just as for animals, nothing sacred exists, because, in order to make room for this conception, one must already have progressed so far in understanding that he can make distinctions like “good and bad,” “warranted and unwarranted”;.. t only at such a level of reflection or intelligence — the proper standpoint of religion — can unnatural (i. e., brought into existence by thinking) reverence, “sacred dread,” step into the place of natural fear. To this sacred dread belongs holding something outside oneself for mightier, greater, better warranted, better, etc.; i.e. the attitude in which one acknowledges the might of something alien — not merely feels it, then, but expressly acknowledges it, i.e. admits it, yields, surrenders, lets himself be tied (devotion, humility, servility, submission). Here walks the whole ghostly troop of the “Christian virtues.”
yeah .. to me huge red flag.. because not yet scrambled ness et al..
But in fear there always remains the attempt to liberate oneself from what is feared, by guile, deception, tricks, etc. In reverence,[Ehrfurcht] on the contrary, it is quite otherwise. Here something is not only feared,[gefürchtet] but also honored [geehrt]: what is feared has become an inward power which I can no longer get clear of; I honor it, am captivated by it and devoted to it, belong to it; by the honor which I pay it I am completely in its power, and *do not even attempt liberation any longer. Now I am attached to it with all the strength of faith; I believe. I and what I fear are one; “not I live, but the respected lives in me!” Because the spirit, the infinite, does not allow of coming to any end, therefore it is stationary; it fears dying, it cannot let go its dear Jesus, the greatness of finiteness is no longer recognized by its blinded eye; the object of fear, now raised to veneration, may no longer be handled; reverence is made eternal, the respected is deified. The man is now no longer employed in creating, but in learning (knowing, investigating, etc.), i.e. occupied with a fixed object, losing himself in its depths, without return to himself. The relation to this object is that of knowing, fathoming, basing, not that of dissolution (abrogation, etc.). “Man is to be religious,” that is settled; therefore people busy themselves only with the question how this is to be attained, what is the right meaning of religiousness, etc. Quite otherwise when one makes the axiom itself doubtful and calls it in question, even though it should go to smash. Morality too is such a sacred conception; one must be moral, and must look only for the right “how,” the right way to be so. One dares not go at morality itself with the question whether it is not itself an illusion; it remains exalted above all doubt, unchangeable. And so we go on with the sacred, grade after grade, from the “holy” to the “holy of holies.”
ugh.. sea world itis.. except maybe *this.. i don’t think legit free people would even think about alwhether they are free or not.. et al
50
Men are sometimes divided into two classes: cultured and uncultured. The former, so far as they were worthy of their name, occupied themselves with thoughts, with mind, and (because in the time since Christ, of which the very principle is thought, they were the ruling ones) demanded a servile respect for the thoughts recognized by them. State, emperor, church, God, morality, order, are such thoughts or spirits, that exist only for the mind. A merely living being, an animal, cares as little for them as a child. But the uncultured are really nothing but children, and he who attends only to the necessities of his life is indifferent to those spirits; but, because he is also weak before them, he succumbs to their power, and is ruled by — thoughts. This is the meaning of hierarchy..t
jensen civilization law et al
huge.. hierarchy and scrambled ness
need 1st/most: means to undo our hierarchical listening to self/others/nature ie: tech as it could be
Hierarchy is dominion of thoughts, dominion of mind!
We are hierarchic to this day, kept down by those who are supported by thoughts. Thoughts are the sacred..t
that’s why to me.. intellect ness et al.. as red flags
Spiritual men have taken into their head something that is to be realized. They have concepts of love, goodness, etc., which they would like to see realized; therefore they want to set up a kingdom of love on earth, in which no one any longer acts from selfishness, but each one “from love.” Love is to rule. What they have taken into their head, what shall we call it but — fixed idea? Why, “their head is haunted.” The most oppressive spook is Man. Think of the proverb, “The road to ruin is paved with good intentions.” The intention to realize humanity altogether in oneself, to become altogether man, is of such ruinous kind; here belong the intentions to become good, noble, loving, etc.
socrates supposed to law et al
51
He who lives for a great idea, a good cause, a doctrine, a system, a lofty calling, may not let any worldly lusts, any self-seeking interest, spring up in him. Here we have the concept of clericalism, or, as it may also be called in its pedagogic activity, school-masterliness; for the idealists play the schoolmaster over us. The clergyman is especially called to live to the idea and to work for the idea, the truly good cause. Therefore the people feel how little it befits him to show worldly haughtiness, to desire good living, to join in such pleasures as dancing and gaming — in short, to have any other than a “sacred interest.” Hence, too, doubtless, is derived the scanty salary of teachers, who are to feel themselves repaid by the sacredness of their calling alone, and to “renounce” other enjoyments.
52
Here we come upon the old, old craze of the world, which has not yet learned to do without clericalism — that to live and work for an idea is man’s calling, and according to the faithfulness of its fulfillment his human worth is measured..t
krishnamurti measure law et al
literacy and numeracy both elements of colonialism/control/enclosure.. we need to calculate differently and stop measuring things
53
On this account the priestly spirits of our day want to make a “religion” of everything, a “religion of liberty,” “religion of equality,” etc., and for them every idea becomes a “sacred cause,” e.g. even citizenship, politics, publicity, freedom of the press, trial by jury, etc.
oi
And (p.32): “You must get hold of folks by their real interests if you want to work upon them.” Immediately after this he shows how a fine looseness of morals is already spreading among our peasants, because they prefer to follow their real interests rather than the commands of morality.
rather.. if you want them (and yours) to be legit free
begs.. non hierarchical listening.. to hear/see itch-in-8b-souls.. everyday
54
How comes it, though, that the egoism of those who affirm personal interest, and always inquire of it, is nevertheless forever succumbing to a priestly or schoolmasterly (i. e. an ideal) interest? Their person seems to them too small, too insignificant — and is so in fact — to lay claim to everything and be able to put itself completely in force. There is a sure sign of this in their dividing themselves into two persons, an eternal and a temporal, and always caring either only for the one or only for the other, on Sunday for the eternal, on the work-day for the temporal, in prayer for the former, in work for the latter. They have the priest in themselves, therefore they do not get rid of him, but hear themselves lectured inwardly every Sunday.
How men have struggled and calculated to get at a solution regarding these dualistic essences! Idea followed upon idea, principle upon principle, system upon system, and none knew how to keep down permanently the contradiction of the “worldly” man, the so-called “egoist.” Does not this prove that all those ideas were too feeble to take up my whole will into themselves and satisfy it? They were and remained hostile to me, even if the hostility lay concealed for a considerable time. Will it be the same with self-ownership? Is it too only an attempt at mediation? Whatever principle I turned to, it might be to that of reason, I always had to turn away from it again. Or can I always be rational, arrange my life according to reason in everything? I can, no doubt, strive after rationality, I can love it, just as I can also love God and every other idea. I can be a philosopher, a lover of wisdom, as I love God. But what I love, what I strive for, is only in my idea, my conception, my thoughts; it is in my heart, my head, it is in me like the heart, but it is not I, I am not it.
55
Because Protestantism broke the medieval hierarchy, the opinion could take root that hierarchy in general had been shattered by it, and it could be wholly overlooked that it was precisely a “reformation,” and so a reinvigoration of the antiquated hierarchy. That medieval hierarchy had been only a weakly one, as it had to let all possible barbarism of unsanctified things run on uncoerced beside it, and it was the Reformation that first steeled the power of hierarchy. If Bruno Bauer thinks: “As the Reformation was mainly the abstract rending of the religious principle from art, State, and science, and so its liberation from those powers with which it had joined itself in the antiquity of the church and in the hierarchy of the Middle Ages, so too the theological and ecclesiastical movements which proceeded from the Reformation are only the consistent carrying out of this abstraction of the religious principle from the other powers of humanity,” I regard precisely the opposite as correct, and think that the dominion of spirits, or freedom of mind (which comes to the same thing), was never before so all-embracing and all-powerful, because the present one, instead of rending the religious principle from art, State, and science, lifted the latter altogether out of secularity into the “realm of spirit” and made them religious.
need a legit other way.. not just another same song
57
Cognition has its object in life. German thought seeks, more than that of others, to reach the beginnings and fountain-heads of life, and sees no life till it sees it in cognition itself. Descartes’s cogito, ergo sum has the meaning “One lives only when one thinks.” Thinking life is called “intellectual life”! Only mind lives, its life is the true life. Then, just so in nature only the “eternal laws,” the mind or the reason of nature, are its true life. In man, as in nature, only the thought lives; everything else is dead! To this abstraction, to the life of generalities or of that which is lifeless, the history of mind had to come. God, who is spirit, alone lives. Nothing lives but the ghost.
oi.. intellect ness et al
58
Protestantism has actually put a man in the position of a country governed by secret police. The spy and eavesdropper, “conscience,” watches over every motion of the mind, and all thought and action is for it a “matter of conscience,” i. e., police business.
structural violence et al
62
Liberalism simply brought other concepts on the carpet; human instead of divine, political instead of ecclesiastical, “scientific” instead of doctrinal, or, more generally, real concepts and eternal laws instead of “crude dogmas” and precepts.
oi oi oi
Now nothing but mind rules in the world. An innumerable multitude of concepts buzz about in people’s heads, and what are those doing who endeavor to get further? They are negating these concepts to put new ones in their place! They are saying: “You form a false concept of right, of the State, of man, of liberty, of truth, of marriage, etc.; the concept of right, etc., is rather that one which we now set up.” Thus the confusion of concepts moves forward.
oi
63
III. The Free
1. Political Liberalism
64
The commonalty is nothing else than the thought that the State is all in all, the true man, and that the individual’s human value consists in being a citizen of the State. In being a good citizen he seeks his highest honor; beyond that he knows nothing higher than at most the antiquated — “being a good Christian.”
oi
The commonalty developed itself in the struggle against the privileged classes, by whom it was cavalierly treated as “third estate” and confounded with the canaille. In other words, up to this time the State had recognized caste.
and still/always has.. any form of m\a\p
65
The commonalty is the heir of the privileged classes. In fact, the rights of the barons, which were taken from them as “usurpations,” only passed over to the commonalty. For the commonalty was now called the “nation.” “Into the hands of the nation” all prerogatives were given back. Thereby they ceased to be “prerogatives”:[Vorrechte] they became “rights.”[Rechte] From this time on the nation demands tithes, compulsory services; it has inherited the lord’s court, the rights of vert and venison, the — serfs. The night of August 4 was the death-night of privileges or “prerogatives” (cities, communes, boards of magistrates, were also privileged, furnished with prerogatives and seigniorial rights), and ended with the new morning of “right,” the “rights of the State,” the “rights of the nation.”
oi .. rights ness et al [perrogative – right exclusive to a particular class].. same song
66
Against right one can no longer, as against a right, come forward with the assertion that it is “a wrong.” One can say now only that it is a piece of nonsense, an illusion. If one called it wrong, one would have to set up another right in opposition to it, and measure it by this. If, on the contrary, one rejects right as such, right in and of itself, altogether, then one also rejects the concept of wrong, and dissolves the whole concept of right (to which the concept of wrong belongs).
oi oi .. binary ness et al
What is the meaning of the doctrine that we all enjoy “equality of political rights”? Only this — that the State has no regard for my person, that to it I, like every other, am only a man, without having another significance that commands its deference. I do not command its deference as an aristocrat, a nobleman’s son, or even as heir of an official whose office belongs to me by inheritance (as in the Middle Ages countships, etc., and later under absolute royalty, where hereditary offices occur). Now the State has an innumerable multitude of rights to give away, e.g. the right to lead a battalion, a company, etc.; the right to lecture at a university, and so forth; it has them to give away because they are its own, i.e., State rights or “political” rights. Withal, it makes no difference to it to whom it gives them, if the receiver only fulfills the duties that spring from the delegated rights. To it we are all of us all right, and — equal — one worth no more and no less than another. It is indifferent to me who receives the command of the army, says the sovereign State, provided the grantee understands the matter properly. “Equality of political rights” has, consequently, the meaning that every one may acquire every right that the State has to give away, if only he fulfills the conditions annexed thereto — conditions which are to be sought only in the nature of the particular right, not in a predilection for the person (persona grata): the nature of the right to become an officer brings with it, e.g. the necessity that one possess sound limbs and a suitable measure of knowledge, but it does not have noble birth as a condition; if, on the other hand, even the most deserving commoner could not reach that station, then an inequality of political rights would exist. Among the States of today one has carried out that maxim of equality more, another less.
oi oi oi.. so many red flags
67
With the time of the bourgeoisie begins that of liberalism. People want to see what is “rational,” “suited to the times,” etc., established everywhere. The following definition of liberalism, which is supposed to be pronounced in its honor, characterizes it completely: “Liberalism is nothing else than the knowledge of reason, applied to our existing relations.” Its aim is a “rational order,” a “moral behavior,” a “limited freedom,” not anarchy, lawlessness, selfhood. But, if reason rules, then the person succumbs.
oi oi oi.. carhart-harris entropy law et al
69
Orders carries the idea that what I am to do is another man’s will, while law does not express a personal authority of another.
oi.. same song.. people telling other people what to do.. structural violence.. voluntary compliance.. any form of m\a\p
71
The commonalty professes a morality which is most closely connected with its essence. The first demand of this morality is to the effect that one should carry on a solid business, an honourable trade, lead a moral life. Immoral, to it, is the sharper, the, demirep, the thief, robber, and murderer, the gamester, the penniless man without a situation, the frivolous man. The doughty commoner designates the feeling against these “immoral” people as his “deepest indignation.”
All these lack settlement, the solid quality of business, a solid, seemly life, a fixed income, etc.; in short, they belong, because their existence does not rest on a secure basis to the dangerous “individuals or isolated persons,” to the dangerous proletariat; they are “individual bawlers” who offer no “guarantee” and have “nothing to lose,” and so nothing to risk. The forming of family ties, e.g., binds a man: he who is bound furnishes security, can be taken hold of; not so the street-walker.
oi
72
They form the class of the unstable, restless, changeable, i.e. of the prolétariat, and, if they give voice to their unsettled nature, are called “unruly fellows.”
graeber unpredictability/surprise law et al..
Such a broad sense has the so-called proletariat, or pauperism. How much one would err if one believed the commonalty to be desirous of doing away with poverty (pauperism) to the best of its ability! On the contrary, the good citizen helps himself with the incomparably comforting conviction that “the fact is that the good things of fortune are unequally divided and will always remain so — according to God’s wise decree.” The poverty which surrounds him in every alley does not disturb the true commoner further than that at most he clears his account with it by throwing an alms, or finds work and food for an “honest and serviceable” fellow. But so much the more does he feel his quiet enjoyment clouded by innovating and discontented poverty, by those poor who no longer behave quietly and endure, but begin to run wild and become restless. Lock up the vagabond, thrust the breeder of unrest into the darkest dungeon! He wants to “arouse dissatisfaction and incite people against existing institutions” in the State — stone him, stone him!
thurman interconnectedness law et al
“Money governs the world” is the keynote of the civic epoch. A destitute aristocrat and a destitute laborer, as “starvelings,” amount to nothing so far as political consideration is concerned; birth and labor do not do it, but money brings consideration [das Geld gibt Geltung]. The possessors rule, but the State trains up from the destitute its “servants,” to whom, in proportion as they are to rule (govern) in its name, it gives money (a salary).
earn a living ness.. perhaps let’s try/code money (any form of measuring/accounting) as the planned obsolescence w/ubi as temp placebo.. where legit needs are met w/o money.. till people forget about measuring
I receive everything from the State. Have I anything without the State’s assent? What I have without this it takes from me as soon as it discovers the lack of a “legal title.” Do I not, therefore, have everything through its grace, its assent?
On this alone, on the legal title, the commonalty rests. The commoner is what he is through the protection of the State, through the State’s grace. He would necessarily be afraid of losing everything if the State’s power were broken.
oi.. security ness.. on hold ness.. et al
73
Therefore the non-possessor will regard the State as a power protecting the possessor, which privileges the latter, but does nothing for him, the non-possessor, but to — suck his blood. The State is a — commoners’ State, is the estate of the commonalty. It protects man not according to his labor, but according to his tractableness (“loyalty”) — to wit, according to whether the rights entrusted to him by the State are enjoyed and managed in accordance with the will, i. e., laws, of the State.
oi.. voluntary compliance ness
The laborers have the most enormous power in their hands, and, if they once became thoroughly conscious of it and used it, nothing would withstand them; they would only have to stop labor, regard the product of labor as theirs, and enjoy it. This is the sense of the labor disturbances which show themselves here and there.
The State rests on the — slavery of labor. If labor becomes free. the State is lost.
2. Social Liberalism
74
Consequently, social liberalism concludes, no one must have, as according to political liberalism no one was to give orders; i.e. as in that case the State alone obtained the command, so now society alone obtains the possessions.
This is the second robbery of the “personal” in the interest of “humanity.” Neither command nor property is left to the individual; the State took the former, society the latter.
In this state of things the former are in a state of prosperity, the latter in state of need.
75
this is our significance in the world, and therefore it must be our consideration too and must come to receive consideration. What can you meet us with? Surely nothing but — labor too. Only for labor or services do we owe you a recompense, not for your bare existence; not for what you are for yourselves either, but only for what you are for us. By what have you claims on us? Perhaps by your high birth? No, only by what you do for us that is desirable or useful. Be it thus then: we are willing to be worth to you only so much as we do for you; but you are to be held likewise by us. Services determine value, — i.e. those services that are worth something to us, and consequently labors for each other, labors for the common good. Let each one be in the other’s eyes a laborer. He who accomplishes something useful is inferior to none, or — all laborers (laborers, of course, in the sense of laborers “for the common good,” i. e., communistic laborers) are equal. But, as the laborer is worth his wages, let the wages too be equal.
oi
78
3. Humane Liberalism
Man must assuredly find leisure: but, if the egoist makes use of it, it will be lost for man; therefore you ought to have given leisure a human significance. But you laborers undertake even your labor from an egoistic impulse, because you want to eat, drink, live; how should you be less egoists in leisure?
oi
79
But, if every door is to be bolted against egoism, it would be necessary to strive after completely “disinterested” action, total disinterestedness. This alone is human, because only Man is disinterested, the egoist always interested.
?
Be not a Jew, not a Christian, but be a human being, nothing but a human being. Assert your humanity against every restrictive specification; make yourself, by means of it, a human being, and free from those limits; make yourself a “free man” — i.e. recognize humanity as your all-determining essence.
marsh label law et al
Rather, therefore, invert the case, and say to yourself, I am a human being! I do not need to begin by producing the human being in myself, for he belongs to me already, like all my qualities.
on each heart ness
80
The politicians, thinking to abolish personal will, self-will or arbitrariness, did not observe that through property[Eigentum, “owndom”] our self-will [Eigenwille “own-will”] gained a secure place of refuge.
The Socialists, taking away property too, do not notice that this secures itself a continued existence in self-ownership. Is it only money and goods, then, that are a property. or is every opinion something of mine, something of my own?
So every opinion must be abolished or made impersonal. The person is entitled to no opinion, but, as self-will was transferred to the State, property to society, so opinion too must be transferred to something general, “Man,” and thereby become a general human opinion.
opinion ness.. perhaps.. but that sounds like more like dm or response.. rather than ie: curiosity over decision making
need 1st/most: means to undo our hierarchical listening to self/others/nature .. need to get to (hear/see) daily itch-in-the-soul
81
Everything that is not a “general human” entity is something separate, satisfies only some or one; or, if it satisfies all, it does this to them only as individuals, not as men, and is therefore called “egoistic.”
not if ue ness.. ie: in undisturbed ecosystems ..the average individual, species, or population, left to its own devices, behaves in ways that serve and stabilize the whole..’ –Dana Meadows
But to take part in the rivalry you need only to be commoners; to take part in the welfare, only to be laborers. Neither reaches the point of being synonymous with “man.” It is “truly well” with man only when he is also “intellectually free!” For man is mind: therefore all powers that are alien to him, the mind — all superhuman, heavenly, unhuman powers — must be overthrown and the name “man” must be above every name.
So in this end of the modern age (age of the moderns) there returns again, as the main point, what had been the main point at its beginning: “intellectual liberty.”
oi to intellect ness et al
Consequently free activity is not attained till you make yourself free from all stupidities, from everything non-human, i.e., egoistic (pertaining only to the individual, not to the Man in the individual), dissipate all untrue thoughts that obscure man or the idea of humanity: in short, when you are not merely unhampered in your activity, but the substance too of your activity is only what is human, and you live and work only for humanity. But this is not the case so long as the aim of your effort is only your welfare and that of all; what you do for the society of ragamuffins is not yet anything done for “human society.”
oi
86
Very good! I do not want to have or be anything especial above others, I do not want to claim any prerogative against them, but — I do not measure myself by others either, and do not want to have any right whatever. I want to be all and have all that I can be and have. Whether others are and have anything similar, what do I care? The equal, the same, they can neither be nor have. I cause no detriment to them, as I cause no detriment to the rock by being “ahead of it” in having motion. If they could have it, they would have it.
To cause other men no detriment is the point of the demand to possess no prerogative; to renounce all “being ahead,” the strictest theory of renunciation. One is not to count himself as “anything especial,” e.g. a Jew or a Christian. Well, I do not count myself as anything especial, but as unique.[“einzig”] Doubtless I have similarity with others; yet that holds good only for comparison or reflection; in fact I am incomparable, unique. My flesh is not their flesh, my mind is not their mind. If you bring them under the generalities “flesh, mind,” those are your thoughts, which have nothing to do with my flesh, my mind, and can least of all issue a “call” to mine.
brown belonging law.. undisturbed ecosystem.. et al
a contention of those who understand “freedom” in a small measure and those who want the “full measure” of freedom; of the moderate and measureless, therefore. Everything turns on the question, how free must man be?
krishnamurti partial law et al.. none of us are free.. for (blank)’s sake
88
Political liberalism abolished the inequality of masters and servants: it made people masterless, anarchic. The master was now removed from the individual, the “egoist,” to become a ghost — the law or the State. Social liberalism abolishes the inequality of possession, of the poor and rich, and makes people possessionless or propertyless. Property is withdrawn from the individual and surrendered to ghostly society. Humane liberalism makes people godless, atheistic. Therefore the individual’s God, “My God,” must be put an end to. Now masterlessness is indeed at the same time freedom from service, possessionlessness at the same time freedom from care, and godlessness at the same time freedom from prejudice: for with the master the servant falls away; with possession, the care about it; with the firmly-rooted God, prejudice. But, since the master rises again as State, the servants appears again as subject; since possession becomes the property of society, care is begotten anew as labor; and, since God as Man becomes a prejudice, there arises a new faith, faith in humanity or liberty.
89
postscript
90
The critic is afraid of becoming “dogmatic” or setting up dogmas. Of course: why, thereby he would become the opposite of the critic — the dogmatist; he would now become bad, as he is good as critic, or would become from an unselfish man an egoist, etc. “Of all things, no dogma!” This is his — dogma. For the critic remains on one and the same ground with the dogmatist — that of thoughts. Like the latter he always starts from a thought, but varies in this, that he never ceases to keep the principle-thought in the process of thinking, and so does not let it become stable. He only asserts the thought-process against the thought-faith, the progress of thinking against stationariness in it. From criticism no thought is safe, since criticism is thought or the thinking mind itself.
same song ness.. because: defense ness; thinking we have to think; et al
91
I am no opponent of criticism, i.e. I am no dogmatist, and do not feel myself touched by the critic’s tooth with which he tears the dogmatist to pieces. If I were a “dogmatist,” I should place at the head a dogma, i.e. a thought, an idea, a principle, and should complete this as a “systematist,” spinning it out to a system, a structure of thought. Conversely, if I were a critic, viz., an opponent of the dogmatist, I should carry on the fight of free thinking against the enthralling thought, I should defend thinking against what was thought. But I am neither the champion of a thought nor the champion of thinking; for “I,” from whom I start, am not a thought, nor do I consist in thinking. Against me, the unnameable, the realm of thoughts, thinking, and mind is shattered.
Criticism is the possessed man’s fight against possession as such, against all possession: a fight which is founded in the consciousness that everywhere possession, or, as the critic calls it, a religious and theological attitude, is extant. He knows that people stand in a religious or believing attitude not only toward God, but toward other ideas as well, like right, the State, law; i.e. he recognizes possession in all places. So he wants to break up thoughts by thinking; but I say, only thoughtlessness really saves me from thoughts. It is not thinking, but my thoughtlessness, or I the unthinkable, incomprehensible, that frees me from possession.
to me.. why ie: david on creative refusal et al.. is a spinning of our wheels.. killing energy/time
A jerk does me the service of the most anxious thinking, a stretching of the limbs shakes off the torment of thoughts, a leap upward hurls from my breast the nightmare of the religious world, a jubilant Hoopla throws off year-long burdens. But the monstrous significance of unthinking jubilation could not be recognized in the long night of thinking and believing.
“What clumsiness and frivolity, to want to solve the most difficult problems, acquit yourself of the most comprehensive tasks, by a breaking off!”
But have you tasks if you do not set them to yourself? So long as you set them, you will not give them up, and I certainly do not care if you think, and, thinking, create a thousand thoughts. But you who have set the tasks, are you not to be able to upset them again? Must you be bound to these tasks, and must they become absolute tasks?
the it is me ness
92
In the kingdom of thought, which, like that of faith, is the kingdom of heaven, every one is assuredly wrong who uses unthinking force, just as every one is wrong who in the kingdom of love behaves unlovingly, or, although he is a Christian and therefore lives in the kingdom of love, yet acts un-Christianly; in these kingdoms, to which he supposes himself to belong though he nevertheless throws off their laws, he is a “sinner” or “egoist.” But it is only when he becomes a criminal against these kingdoms that he can throw off their dominion.
This last now, to make thinking an affair of egoistic option, an affair of the single person,[“des Einzigen”] a mere pastime or hobby as it were, and, to take from it the importance of “being the last decisive power”; this degradation and desecration of thinking; this equalization of the unthinking and thoughtful ego; this clumsy but real “equality” — criticism is not able to produce, because it itself is only the priest of thinking, and sees nothing beyond thinking but — the deluge.
It may now, to conclude with this, be clear that in the critic’s new change of front he has not transformed himself, but only “made good an oversight,” “disentangled a subject,” and is saying too much when he speaks of “criticism criticizing itself”; it, or rather he, has only criticized its “oversight” and cleared it of its “inconsistencies.” If he wanted to criticize criticism, he would have to look and see if there was anything in its presupposition.
94
Second Part: I
96
I. Ownness
It will explain itself to one who has read Part First intelligently]
oi
If you think it over rightly, you do not want the freedom to have all these fine things, for with this freedom you still do not have them; you want really to have them, to call them yours and possess them as your property. Of what use is a freedom to you, indeed, if it brings in nothing? And, if you became free from everything, you would no longer have anything; for freedom is empty of substance. Whoso knows not how to make use of it, for him it has no value, this useless permission; but how I make use of it depends on my personality.[Eigenheit]
I have no objection to freedom, but I wish more than freedom for you: you should not merely be rid of what you do not want; you should not only be a “freeman,” you should be an “owner” too.
i don’t think it’s b&w like that.. i think there’s a middle/diff ground (that we have no idea of).. where we would be both free and not need/want (even think of) to own anything
Free — from what? Oh! what is there that cannot be shaken off? The yoke of serfdom, of sovereignty, of aristocracy and princes, the dominion of the desires and passions; yes, even the dominion of one’s own will, of self-will, for the completest self-denial is nothing but freedom — freedom, to wit, from self-determination, from one’s own self. And the craving for freedom as for something absolute, worthy of every praise, deprived us of ownness: it created self-denial. However, the freer I become, the more compulsion piles up before my eyes; and the more impotent I feel myself. The unfree son of the wilderness does not yet feel anything of all the limits that crowd a civilized man: he seems to himself freer than this latter. In the measure that I conquer freedom for myself I create for myself new bounds and new tasks: if I have invented railroads, I feel myself weak again because I cannot yet sail through the skies like the bird; and, if I have solved a problem whose obscurity disturbed my mind, at once there await me innumerable others, whose perplexities impede my progress, dim my free gaze, make the limits of my freedom painfully sensible to me. *“Now that you have become free from sin, you have become servants of righteousness.”
*huge.. socrates supposed to law et al
97
What a difference between freedom and ownness! One can get rid of a great many things, one yet does not get rid of all; one becomes free from much, not from everything. Inwardly one may be free in spite of the condition of slavery, although, too, it is again only from all sorts of things, not from everything; but from the whip, the domineering temper, of the master, one does not as slave become free. “Freedom lives only in the realm of dreams!” Ownness, on the contrary, is my whole being and existence, it is I myself. I am free from what I am rid of, owner of what I have in my power or what I control. My own I am at all times and under all circumstances, if I know how to have myself and do not throw myself away on others. To be free is something that I cannot truly will, because I cannot make it, cannot create it: I can only wish it and — aspire toward it, for it remains an ideal, a spook. The fetters of reality cut the sharpest welts in my flesh every moment. But my own I remain. Given up as serf to a master, I think only of myself and my advantage; his blows strike me indeed, I am not free from them; but I endure them only for my benefit, perhaps in order to deceive him and make him secure by the semblance of patience, or, again, not to draw worse upon myself by contumacy. But, as I keep my eye on myself and my selfishness, I take by the forelock the first good opportunity to trample the slaveholder into the dust. That I then become free from him and his whip is only the consequence of my antecedent egoism. Here one perhaps says I was “free” even in the condition of slavery — to wit, “intrinsically” or “inwardly.” But “intrinsically free” is not “really free,” and “inwardly” is not “outwardly.” I was own, on the other hand, my own, altogether, inwardly and outwardly. Under the dominion of a cruel master my body is not “free” from torments and lashes; but it is my bones that moan under the torture, my fibres that quiver under the blows, and I moan because my body moans.
krishnamurti partial law via itch-in-the-soul ness as guide ish
98
Yet between freedom and ownness there lies still a deeper chasm than the mere difference of the words.
All the world desires freedom, all long for its reign to come. Oh, enchantingly beautiful dream of a blooming “reign of freedom,” a “free human race”! — who has not dreamed it? So men shall become free, entirely free, free from all constraint! From all constraint, really from all? Are they never to put constraint on themselves any more? “Oh yes, that, of course; don’t you see, that is no constraint at all?” .. t
huge huge huge.. the it is me ness
Soon we no longer hear anything but the clashing of the swords of the disagreeing dreamers of freedom.
same song.. again .. why david on creative refusal et al is a spinning of our wheels.. time/energy suck
The craving for a particular freedom always includes the purpose of a new dominion, as it was with the Revolution, which indeed “could give its defenders the uplifting feeling that they were fighting for freedom,” but in truth only because they were after a particular freedom, therefore a new dominion, the “dominion of the law.”
99
Freedom you all want, you want freedom. Why then do you haggle over a more or less? Freedom can only be the whole of freedom; a piece of freedom is not freedom. You despair of the possibility of obtaining the whole of freedom, freedom from everything — yes, you consider it insanity even to wish this? — Well, then leave off chasing after the phantom, and spend your pains on something better than the — unattainable.
krishnamurti partial law and this is not ridiculous ness (we have no idea what is ‘attainable’)
“Ah, but there is nothing better than freedom!”
What have you then when you have freedom, viz., — for I will not speak here of your piecemeal bits of freedom — complete freedom? Then you are rid of everything that embarrasses you, everything, and there is probably nothing that does not once in your life embarrass you and cause you inconvenience. And for whose sake, then, did you want to be rid of it? Doubtless for your sake, because it is in your way! But, if something were not inconvenient to you; if, on the contrary, it were quite to your mind (e.g. the gently but irresistibly commanding look of your loved one) — then you would not want to be rid of it and free from it. Why not? For your sake again! So you take yourselves as measure and judge over all. You gladly let freedom go when unfreedom, the “sweet service of love,” suits you; and you take up your freedom again on occasion when it begins to suit you better — i. e., supposing, which is not the point here, that you are not afraid of such a Repeal of the Union for other (perhaps religious) reasons.
huge to undisturbed ecosystem ness
*Why will you not take courage now to really make yourselves the central point and the main thing altogether? Why grasp in the air at freedom, your dream? Are you your dream? Do not begin by inquiring of your dreams, your notions, your thoughts, for that is all “hollow theory.” Ask yourselves and ask after yourselves — that is practical, and you know you want very much to be “practical.” But there the one hearkens what his God (of course what he thinks of at the name God is his God) may be going to say to it, and another what his moral feelings, his conscience, his feeling of duty, may determine about it, and a third calculates what folks will think of it — and, when each has thus asked his Lord God (folks are a Lord God just as good as, nay, even more compact than, the other-worldly and imaginary one: vox populi, vox dei), then he accommodates himself to his Lord’s will and listens no more at all for what he himself would like to say and decide.
*huge.. like pearson unconditional law .. need to set free then trust us
Therefore turn to yourselves rather than to your gods or idols. Bring out from yourselves what is in you, bring it to the light,.. t bring yourselves to revelation.
already on each heart ness
imagine if we just focused on listening to the itch-in-8b-souls.. first thing.. everyday.. and used that data to augment our interconnectedness..
How one acts only from himself, and asks after nothing further, the Christians have realized in the notion “God.” He acts “as it pleases him.” And foolish man, who could do just so, is to act as it “pleases God” instead. — If it is said that even God proceeds according to eternal laws, that too fits me, since I too cannot get out of my skin, but have my law in my whole nature,.. t i.e. in myself.
But one needs only admonish you of yourselves to bring you to despair at once. “What am I?” each of you asks himself. An abyss of lawless and unregulated impulses, desires, wishes, passions, a chaos without light or guiding star! How am I to obtain a correct answer, if, without regard to God’s commandments or to the duties which morality prescribes, without regard to the voice of reason, which in the course of history, after bitter experiences, has exalted the best and most reasonable thing into law, I simply appeal to myself? My passion would advise me to do the most senseless thing possible. — Thus each deems himself the — devil; for, if, so far as he is unconcerned about religion, etc., he only deemed himself a beast, he would easily find that the beast, which does follow only its impulse (as it were, its advice), does not advise and impel itself to do the “most senseless” things, but takes very correct steps. But the habit of the religious way of thinking has biased our mind so grievously that we are — terrified at ourselves in our nakedness and naturalness; it has degraded us so that we deem ourselves depraved by nature, born devils. Of course it comes into your head at once that your calling requires you to do the “good,” the moral, the right. Now, if you ask yourselves what is to be done, how can the right voice sound forth from you, the voice which points the way of the good, the right, the true, etc.?
huge huge huge.. need to let go of this.. for all of us
socrates supposed to law et al
If your efforts are ever to make “freedom” the issue, then exhaust freedom’s demands. Who is it that is to become free? You, I, we. Free from what? From everything that is not you, not I, not we.
huge
brown belonging law.. eudaimonia\tive surplus.. et al
Think that over well, and decide whether you will place on your banner the dream of “freedom” or the resolution of “egoism,” of “ownness.” “Freedom” awakens your rage against everything that is not you; “egoism” calls you to joy over yourselves, to self-enjoyment; “freedom” is and remains a longing , a romantic plaint, a Christian hope for unearthliness and futurity; “ownness” is a reality, which of itself removes just so much unfreedom as by barring your own way hinders you. What does not disturb you, you will not want to renounce; and, if it begins to disturb you, why, you know that “you must obey yourselves rather than men!”
101
Freedom teaches only: Get yourselves rid, relieve yourselves, of everything burdensome; it does not teach you who you yourselves are. Rid, rid! So call, get rid even of yourselves, “deny yourselves.” But ownness calls you back to yourselves, it says “Come to yourself!” Under the aegis of freedom you get rid of many kinds of things, but something new pinches you again: “you are rid of the Evil One; evil is left.” As own you are really rid of everything, and what clings to you you have accepted; it is your choice and your pleasure. The own man is the free-born, the man free to begin with; the free man, on the contrary, is only the eleutheromaniac, the dreamer and enthusiast.
Or, more clearly: Just recognize yourselves again, just recognize what you really are, and let go your hypocritical endeavors, your foolish mania to be something else than you are.
need 1st/most: means to undo our hierarchical listening to self/others/nature ie: tech as it could be
102
The cry for “freedom” rings loudly all around. But is it felt and known what a donated or chartered freedom must mean? It is not recognized in the full amplitude of the word that all freedom is essentially — self-liberation — i.e. that I can have only so much freedom as I procure for myself by my ownness. Of what use is it to sheep that no one abridges their freedom of speech? They stick to bleating. Give one who is inwardly a Mohammedan, a Jew, or a Christian, permission to speak what he likes: he will yet utter only narrow-minded stuff. If, on the contrary, certain others rob you of the freedom of speaking and hearing, they know quite rightly wherein lies their temporary advantage, as you would perhaps be able to say and hear something whereby those “certain” persons would lose their credit.
the structural violence in whalespeak et al
If they nevertheless give you freedom, they are simply knaves who give more than they have. For then they give you nothing of their own, but stolen wares: they give you your own freedom, the freedom that you must take for yourselves; and they give it to you only that you may not take it and call the thieves and cheats to an account to boot. In their slyness they know well that given (chartered) freedom is no freedom, since only the freedom one takes for himself, therefore the egoist’s freedom, rides with full sails. Donated freedom strikes its sails as soon as there comes a storm — or calm; it requires always a — gentle and moderate breeze.
yeah that.. but .. too.. imagine a turtle ness
103
The man who is set free is nothing but a freed man, a libertinus, a dog dragging a piece of chain with him: he is an unfree man in the garment of freedom, like the ass in the lion’s skin. Emancipated Jews are nothing bettered in themselves, but only relieved as Jews, although he who relieves their condition is certainly more than a churchly Christian, as the latter cannot do this without inconsistency. But, emancipated or not emancipated, Jew remains Jew; he who is not self-freed is merely an — emancipated man. The Protestant State can certainly set free (emancipate) the Catholics; but, because they do not make themselves free, they remain simply — Catholics.
104
Ownness includes in itself everything own, and brings to honor again what Christian language dishonored. But ownness has not any alien standard either, as it is not in any sense an idea like freedom, morality, humanity, etc.: it is only a description of the — owner.
105
II. The Owner
As Tom you would not be his equal, because he is Jim, therefore not Tom; as man you are the same that he is. And, since as Tom you virtually do not exist at all for him (so far, to wit, as he is a liberal and not unconsciously an egoist), he has really made “brother-love” very easy for himself: he loves in you not Tom, of whom he knows nothing and wants to know nothing, but Man.
whoa.. huge .. to pearson unconditional law et al
106
but he who chose to have regard for me only as a man, or as a Berliner, would pay me a regard that would be very unimportant to me. And wherefore? Because he would have regard only for one of my qualities, not for me.
the it is me ness.. brown belonging law ness.. et al
118
Every State is a despotism, be the despot one or many, or (as one is likely to imagine about a republic) if all be lords, i. e. despotize one over another. For this is the case when the law given at any time, the expressed volition of (it may be) a popular assembly, is thenceforth to be law for the individual, to which obedience is due from him or toward which he has the duty of obedience. If one were even to conceive the case that every individual in the people had expressed the same will, and hereby a complete “collective will” had come into being, the matter would still remain the same. Would I not be bound today and henceforth to my will of yesterday? My will would in this case be frozen. Wretched stability! .. t My creature — to wit, a particular expression of will — would have become my commander. But I in my will, I the creator, should be hindered in my flow and my dissolution. Because I was a fool yesterday I must remain such my life long. So in the State-life I am at best — I might just as well say, at worst — a bondman of myself. Because I was a willer yesterday, I am today without will: yesterday voluntary, today involuntary.. t
find the bravery to change your mind et al.. voluntary compliance et al
How change it? Only be recognizing no duty, not binding myself nor letting myself be bound. If I have no duty, then I know no law either.. t
huge.. huge.. and only if we org around legit needs.. sans any form of m\a\p
120
If you let yourself be made out in the right by another, you must no less let yourself be made out in the wrong by him; if justification and reward come to you from him, expect also his arraignment and punishment.
The people (think it something wonderful, you good-hearted folks, what you have in the people) — the people is full of police sentiments through and through. — Only he who renounces his ego, who practices “self-renunciation,” is acceptable to the people.
brown belonging law over structural violence.. aka: any form of m\a\p
There are diseases in which only drastic remedies will help. The physician who recognizes the disease as such, but timidly turns to palliatives, will never remove the disease, but may well cause the patient to succumb after a shorter or longer sickness.”
healing (roots of) ness.. et al
122
The men of the Revolution often talked of the people’s “just revenge” as its “right.” Revenge and right coincide here. Is this an attitude of an ego to an ego? The people cries that the opposite party has committed “crimes” against it. Can I assume that one commits a crime against me, without assuming that he has to act as I see fit? And this action I call the right, the good, etc.; the divergent action, a crime. So I think that the others must aim at the same goal with me; i.e., I do not treat them as unique beings[Einzige] who bear their law in themselves and live according to it, but as beings who are to obey some “rational” law. I set up what “Man” is and what acting in a “truly human” way is, and I demand of every one that this law become norm and ideal to him; otherwise he will expose himself as a “sinner and criminal.” .. t But upon the “guilty” falls the “penalty of the law”!
any form of m\a\p
Crimes spring from fixed ideas..t The sacredness of marriage is a fixed idea. From the sacredness it follows that infidelity is a crime, and therefore a certain marriage law imposes upon it a shorter or longer penalty. But by those who proclaim “freedom as sacred” this penalty must be regarded as a crime against freedom, and only in this sense has public opinion in fact branded the marriage law.
123
According to the liberal way of thinking, right is to be obligatory for me because it is thus established by human reason, against which my reason is “unreason.” Formerly people inveighed in the name of divine reason against weak human reason; now, in the name of strong human reason, against egoistic reason, which is rejected as “unreason.” And yet none is real but this very “unreason.” Neither divine nor human reason, but only your and my reason existing at any given time, is real, as and because you and I are real.
The thought of right is originally my thought; or, it has its origin in me. But, when it has sprung from me, when the “Word” is out, then it has “become flesh,” it is a fixed idea. Now I no longer get rid of the thought; however I turn, it stands before me. Thus men have not become masters again of the thought “right,” which they themselves created; their creature is running away with them. This is absolute right, that which is absolved or unfastened from me. We, revering it as absolute, cannot devour it again, and it takes from us the creative power: the creature is more than the creator, it is “in and for itself.”
124
But they are looking for this very third party that bestows no more “privilege.”.. t Then it is called perhaps the free State, or humanity, or whatever else it may be.
any form of m\a\p.. huge
Truly it is not a failing in you that you stiffen [spannen] yourself against me and assert your distinctness or peculiarity: you need not give way or renounce yourself..
brown belonging law et al
126
II. My Intercourse
128
A people cannot be free otherwise than at the individual’s expense; for it is not the individual that is the main point in this liberty, but the people. The freer the people, the more bound the individual; the Athenian people, precisely at its freest time, created ostracism, banished the atheists, poisoned the most honest thinker.
whalespeak ness
130
The word Gesellschaft (society) has its origin in the word Sal (hall). If one hall encloses many persons, then the hall causes these persons to be in society. They are in society, and at most constitute a parlor-society *by talking in the traditional forms of parlor speech. When it comes to **real intercourse, this is to be regarded as independent of society: it may occur or be lacking, without altering the nature of what is named society. Those who are in the hall are a society even as mute persons, or when they put each other off solely with ***empty phrases of courtesy. Intercourse is mutuality, it is the action, the commercium, of individuals; society is only community of the hall, and even the statues of a museum-hall are in society, they are “grouped.” People are accustomed to say “they haben inne [“Occupy”; literally, “have within”] this hall in common,” but the case is rather that the hall has us inne or in it. So far the natural signification of the word society. In this it comes out that society is not generated by me and you, but by a third factor which makes associates out of us two, and that it is just ****this third factor that is the creative one, that which creates society.
*language as control/enclosure
**scary close et al
***evans polite\ness law et al
****whalespeak ness
Just so a prison society or prison companionship (those who enjoy the same prison). Here we already hit upon a third factor fuller of significance than was that merely local one, the hall. Prison no longer means a space only, but a space with express reference to its inhabitants: for it is a prison only through being destined for prisoners, without whom it would be a mere building. What gives *a common stamp to those who are gathered in it? Evidently the prison, since it is only by means of the prison that they are prisoners. What, then, determines the manner of life of the prison society? The prison! What determines their intercourse? The prison too, perhaps? Certainly they can enter upon intercourse only as prisoners, i.e. only so far as the prison laws allow it; but that they themselves hold intercourse, I with you, this the prison cannot bring to pass; on the contrary, it must have an eye to guarding against such egoistic, purely personal intercourse (and only as such is it really intercourse between me and you). That we jointly execute a job, run a machine, effectuate anything in general — for this a prison will indeed provide; but that I forget that I am a prisoner, and engage in intercourse with you who likewise disregard it, brings danger to the prison, and not only cannot be caused by it, but must not even be permitted. For this reason the saintly and moral-minded French chamber decides to introduce solitary confinement, and other saints will do the like in order to cut off “demoralizing intercourse.” Imprisonment is the established and — sacred condition, to injure which no attempt must be made. **The slightest push of that kind is punishable, as is every uprising against a sacred thing by which man is to be charmed and chained.
Like the hall, the prison does form a society, a companionship, a communion (e.g. communion of labor), but no intercourse, no ***reciprocity, no union. On the contrary, every union in the prison bears within it the dangerous seed of a “plot,” which under favorable circumstances might spring up and bear fruit.
*marsh label law et al
**structural violence et al
***reciprocity.. still a red flag we’re doing it/life wrong
131
Yet one does not usually enter the prison voluntarily, and seldom remains in it voluntarily either, but cherishes the egoistic desire for liberty. Here, therefore, it sooner becomes manifest that personal intercourse is in hostile relations to the prison society and tends to the dissolution of this very society, this joint incarceration.
Let us therefore look about for such communions as, it seems, we remain in gladly and voluntarily, without wanting to endanger them by our egoistic impulses.
ie: ‘in undisturbed ecosystems ..the average individual, species, or population, left to its own devices, behaves in ways that serve and stabilize the whole..’ –Dana Meadows
that deep
133
If disorder were victorious, the State would be at an end.
carhart-harris entropy law et al
In this consists the sort of civilization and culture that the State is able to give me: it brings me up to be a “serviceable instrument,” a “serviceable member of society.”
aka: whales
134
So I saw my I always above me and outside me, and could never really come to myself.
I never believed in myself; I never believed in my present, I saw myself only in the future. The boy believes he will be a proper I, a proper fellow, only when he has become a man; the man thinks, only in the other world will he be something proper.
135
The State does let individuals play as freely as possible, only they must not be in earnest, must not forget it. Man must not carry on intercourse with man unconcernedly, not without “superior oversight and mediation.” I must not execute all that I am able to, but only so much as the State allows; I must not turn to account my thoughts, nor my work, nor, in general, anything of mine.
The State always has the sole purpose to limit, tame, subordinate, the individual — to make him subject to some generality or other.. The State seeks to hinder every free activity by its censorship, its supervision, its police, and holds this hindering to be its duty, because it is in truth a duty of self-preservation. The State wants to make something out of man, therefore there live in it only made men; every one who wants to be his own self is its opponent and is nothing. “He is nothing” means as much as, the State does not make use of him, grants him no position, no office, no trade, etc.
142
they stick to this, that State is more than the individual and exercises a justified revenge, called punishment.
143
and this popular rage for the moral protects the police institution more than the government could in any way protect it.
structural violence and evans polite\ness law and socrates supposed to law et al.. any form of m\a\p
144
Under religion and politics man finds himself at the standpoint of should: he should become this and that, should be so and so. With this postulate, this commandment, every one steps not only in front of another but also in front of himself.
socrates supposed to law et al.. any form of m\a\p
For the religious consists in discontent with the present men, in the setting up of a “perfection” to be striven for, in “man wrestling for his completion.” (“Ye therefore should be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect.” Matt. 5, 48): it consists in the fixation of an ideal, an absolute. Perfection is the “supreme good,” the finis bonorum; every one’s ideal is the perfect man, the true, the free man, etc.
145
Hence freedom of the person; but only the rightful or human person is free, the other is locked up. Your life is your property; but it is sacred for men only if it is not that of an inhuman monster.
pearson unconditional law et al
What a man as such cannot defend of bodily goods, we may take from him: this is the meaning of competition, of freedom of occupation. What he cannot defend of spiritual goods falls a prey to us likewise: so far goes the liberty of discussion, of science, of criticism.
146
endnote: [it should be remembered that to be an unmensch (un man) one must be a man.. the word means an inhuman or unhuman man, a man who is not man.. a tiger, an avalanche a drought, a cabbage is not an un man’
154
But, since it is no use trying it with the manufacturer, I will compete with that professor of jurisprudence; the man is a booby, and I, who know a hundred times more than he, shall make his class-room empty. “Have you studied and graduated, friend?” No, but what of that? I understand abundantly what is necessary for instruction in that department. “Sorry, but competition is not ‘free’ here. Against your person there is nothing to be said, but the thing, the doctor’s diploma, is lacking. And this diploma I, the State, demand. Ask me for it respectfully first; then we will see what is to be done.”
diplomacy ness.. credentials ness.. oi
This, therefore, is the “freedom” of competition. The State, my lord, first qualifies me to compete.
competition ness.. oi
155
Free competition, therefore, has only the following meaning: To the State all rank as its equal children, and every one can scud and run to earn the State’s goods and largesse. Therefore all do chase after havings, holdings, possessions (be it of money or offices, titles of honor, etc.), after the things.
What “man” requires furnishes by no means a scale for measuring me and my needs; for I may have use for less or more.
we have not idea what our legit needs are.. need to get back/to garden-enough ness
endnote: .. what the state gives for such purposes it pays out form interested motives, to educate ‘servants’ for itself
157
If it is said that competition throws every thing open to all, the expression is not accurate, and it is better put thus: competition makes everything purchasable.
But the would-be buyers mostly lack the means to make themselves buyers: they have no money
161
Whether money is to be retained among egoists? To the old stamp an inherited possession adheres. If you no longer let yourselves be paid with it, it is ruined: if you do nothing for this money, it loses all power. Cancel the inheritance, and you have broken off the executor’s court-seal. For now everything is an inheritance, whether it be already inherited or await its heir. If it is yours, wherefore do you let it be sealed up from you? Why do you respect the seal?
perhaps let’s try/code money (any form of measuring/accounting) as the planned obsolescence w/ubi as temp placebo.. where legit needs are met w/o money.. till people forget about measuring
*But why should you not create a new money? Do you then annihilate the ware in taking from it the hereditary stamp? Now, money is a ware, and an **essential means or competence. For it protects against the ossification of resources, keeps them in flux and brings to pass their exchange. If you know a better medium of exchange, go ahead; ***yet it will be a “money” again. It is not the money that does you damage, but your incompetence to take it. Let your competence take effect, collect yourselves, and there will be no lack of money — of your money, the money of your stamp. But working I do not call “letting your competence take effect
*because marsh exchange law et al.. graeber exchange law.. any form of m\a\p
***oi oi oi
169
His fatherly care deprives us of all independence. We can do nothing sensible without its being said, God did that, and can bring upon ourselves no misfortune without hearing, God ordained that; we have nothing that we have not from him, he “gave” everything. But, as God does, so does Man. God wants perforce to make the world blest, and Man wants to make it happy, to make all men happy. Hence every “man” wants to awaken in all men the reason which he supposes his own self to have: everything is to be rational throughout. God torments himself with the devil, and the philosopher does it with unreason and the accidental. God lets no being go its own gait, and Man likewise wants to make us walk only in human wise.
171
I love men too — not merely individuals, but every one. But I love them with the consciousness of egoism; I love them because love makes me happy, I love because loving is natural to me, because it pleases me. I know no “commandment of love.” I have a fellow-feeling with every feeling being, and their torment torments, their refreshment refreshes me too; I can kill them, not torture them. Per contra, the high-souled, virtuous Philistine prince Rudolph in The Mysteries of Paris, because the wicked provoke his “indignation,” plans their torture.
You love man, therefore you torture the individual man, the egoist; your philanthropy (love of men) is the tormenting of men.
help\ing ness et al
If I see the loved one suffer, I suffer with him, and I know no rest till I have tried everything to comfort and cheer him; if I see him glad, I too become glad over his joy.
How now, has anybody or anything, whom and which I do not love, a right to be loved by me? Is my love first, or is his right first? Parents, kinsfolk, fatherland, nation, native town, etc., finally fellowmen in general (“brothers, fraternity”), assert that they have a right to my love, and lay claim to it without further ceremony. They look upon it as their property, and upon me, if I do not respect this, as a robber who takes from them what pertains to them and is theirs. *I should love. If love is a commandment and law, then I must be educated into it, cultivated up to it, and, if I trespass against it, punished. Hence people will exercise as strong a “moral influence” as possible on me to bring me to love. And there is no doubt that one can work up and seduce men to love as one can to other passions — if you like, to hate.
*any form of m\a\p.. socrates supposed to law t al
But love is not a commandment, but, like each of my feelings, my property. Acquire, i.e. purchase, my property, and then I will make it over to you. A church, a nation, a fatherland, a family, etc., that does not know how to acquire my love, I need not love; and I fix the purchase price of my love quite at my pleasure.
Selfish love is far distant from unselfish, mystical, or romantic love. One can love everything possible, not merely men, but an “object” in general (wine, one’s fatherland, etc.). Love becomes blind and crazy by a must taking it out of my power (infatuation), romantic by a should entering into it, i.e. by the “objects” becoming sacred for me, or my becoming bound to it by duty, conscience, oath. Now the object no longer exists for me, but I for it.
Love is a possessedness, not as my feeling — as such I rather keep it in my possession as property — but through the alienness of the object. For religious love consists in the commandment to love in the beloved a “holy one,” or to adhere to a holy one; for unselfish love there are objects absolutely lovable for which my heart is to beat, e.g. fellow-men, or my wedded mate, kinsfolk, etc. Holy Love loves the holy in the beloved, and therefore exerts itself also to make of the beloved more and more a holy one (a “man”).
The beloved is an object that should be loved by me. He is not an object of my love on account of, because of, or by, my loving him, but is an object of love in and of himself. Not I make him an object of love, but he is such to begin with; for it is here irrelevant that he has become so by my choice, if so it be (as with a fiancée, a spouse, etc.), since even so he has in any case, as the person once chosen, obtained a “right of his own to my love,” and I, because I have loved him, am under obligation to love him forever. He is therefore not an object of my love, but of love in general: an object that should be loved. Love appertains to him, is due to him, or is his right, while I am under obligation to love him. My love, i.e. the toll of love that I pay him, is in truth his love, which he only collects from me as toll.
obligation ness as huge red flag
Every love to which there clings but the smallest speck of obligation is an unselfish love, and, so far as this speck reaches, a possessedness. He who believes that he owes the object of his love anything loves romantically or religiously.
oi
Family love, e.g. as it is usually understood as “piety,” is a religious love; love of fatherland, preached as “patriotism,” likewise. All our romantic loves move in the same pattern: everywhere the hypocrisy, or rather self-deception, of an “unselfish love,” an interest in the object for the object’s sake, not for my sake and mine alone.
Religious or romantic love is distinguished from sensual love by the difference of the object indeed, but not by the dependence of the relation to it. In the latter regard both are possessedness; but in the former the one object is profane, the other sacred. The dominion of the object over me is the same in both cases, only that it is one time a sensuous one, the other time a spiritual (ghostly) one. My love is my own only when it consists altogether in a selfish and egoistic interest, and when consequently the object of my love is really my object or my property. I owe my property nothing, and have no duty to it, as little as I might have a duty to my eye; if nevertheless I guard it with the greatest care, I do so on my account.
oi.. spinach or rock ness is killing us.. ie: obligated to love vs love because it’s my property.. neither.. oi
184
The Revolution aimed at new arrangements; insurrection leads us no longer to let ourselves be arranged, but to arrange ourselves, and sets no glittering hopes on “institutions.” It is not a fight against the established, since, if it prospers, the established collapses of itself; it is only a working forth of me out of the established. If I leave the established, it is dead and passes into decay. Now, as my object is not the overthrow of an established order but my elevation above it, my purpose and deed are not a political or social but (as directed toward myself and my ownness alone) an egoistic purpose and deed.
186
III. My Self-Enjoyment
190
Only a few, however, are so imbecile that one could not get ideas into them. Hence, people usually consider all men capable of having religion. In a certain degree they may be trained to other ideas too, e.g. to some musical intelligence, even some philosophy. At this point then the priesthood of religion, of morality, of culture, of science, etc., takes its start, and the Communists, e.g. want to make everything accessible to all by their “public school.” There is heard a common assertion that this “great mass” cannot get along without religion; the Communists broaden it into the proposition that not only the “great mass,” but absolutely all, are called to everything.
Not enough that the great mass has been trained to religion, now it is actually to have to occupy itself with “everything human.” Training is growing ever more general and more comprehensive.
no train ness and all the red flags
You poor beings who could live so happily if you might skip according to your mind, you are to dance to the pipe of schoolmasters and bear-leaders, in order to perform tricks that you yourselves would never use yourselves for. And you do not even kick out of the traces at last against being always taken otherwise than you want to give yourselves. No, you mechanically recite to yourselves the question that is recited to you: “What am I called to? What ought I to do?” You need only ask thus, to have yourselves told what you ought to do and ordered to do it, to have your calling marked out for you, or else to order yourselves and impose it on yourselves according to the spirit’s prescription. Then in reference to the will the word is, I will to do what I ought.
oi oi oi socrates supposed to law… any form of m\a\p
191
Now, for this reason that forces always of themselves show themselves operative, the command to use them would be superfluous and senseless. To use his forces is not man’s calling and task, but is his act, real and extant at all times. Force is only a simpler word for manifestation of force.
Now, as this rose is a true rose to begin with, this nightingale always a true nightingale, so I am not for the first time a true man when I fulfil my calling, live up to my destiny, but I am a “true man” from the start. My first babble is the token of the life of a “true man,” the struggles of my life are the outpourings of his force, my last breath is the last exhalation of the force of the “man.”
The true man does not lie in the future, an object of longing, but lies, existent and real, in the present. Whatever and whoever I may be, joyous and suffering, a child or a graybeard, in confidence or doubt, in sleep or in waking, I am it, I am the true man.
And, as one stormily pursues his own self, the never-attained, so one also despises shrewd people’s rule to take men as they are, and prefers to take them as they should be; and, for this reason, hounds every one on after his should-be self and “endeavors to make all into equally entitled, equally respectable, equally moral or rational men.”
Yes, “if men were what they should be, could be, if all men were rational, all loved each other as brothers,” then it would be a paradisiacal life. — All right, men are as they should be, can be. What should they be? Surely not more than they can be! And what can they be? Not more, again, than they — can, than they have the competence, the force, to be. But this they really are, because what they are not they are incapable of being; for to be capable means — really to be. One is not capable for anything that one really is not; one is not capable of anything that one does not really do.
192
The singularity of this assertion vanishes when one reflects that the words “it is possible that.” almost never contain another meaning than “I can imagine that…,” e.g., It is possible for all men to live rationally; e.g., I can imagine that all, etc. Now — since my thinking cannot, and accordingly does not, cause all men to live rationally, but this must still be left to the men themselves — general reason is for me only thinkable, a thinkableness, but as such in fact a reality that is called a possibility only in reference to what I can not bring to pass, to wit, the rationality of others. So far as depends on you, all men might be rational, for you have nothing against it; nay, so far as your thinking reaches, you perhaps cannot discover any hindrance either, and accordingly nothing does stand in the way of the thing in your thinking; it is thinkable to you.
As men are not all rational, though, it is probable that they — cannot be so.
If something which one imagines to be easily possible is not, or does not happen, then one may be assured that something stands in the way of the thing, and that it is — impossible. Our time has its art, science, etc.; the art may be bad in all conscience; but may one say that we deserved to have a better, and “could” have it if we only would? We have just as much art as we can have. Our art of today is the only art possible, and therefore real, at the time.
The thought, it was just now shown, rules the possessed world. Well, then, possibility is nothing but thinkableness, and innumerable sacrifices have hitherto been made to hideous thinkableness. It was thinkable that men might become rational; thinkable, that they might know Christ; thinkable, that they might become moral and enthusiastic for the good; thinkable, that they might all take refuge in the Church’s lap; thinkable, that they might meditate, speak, and do, nothing dangerous to the State; thinkable, that they might be obedient subjects; but, because it was thinkable, it was — so ran the inference — possible, and further, because it was possible to men (right here lies the deceptive point; because it is thinkable to me, it is possible to men), therefore they ought to be so, it was their calling; and finally — one is to take men only according to this calling, only as called men, “not as they are, but as they ought to be.”
193
Thus the thinkers rule in the world as long as the age of priests or of schoolmasters lasts, and what they think of is possible, but what is possible must be realized. They think an ideal of man, which for the time is real only in their thoughts; but they also think the possibility of carrying it out, and there is no chance for dispute, the carrying out is really — thinkable, it is an — idea.
But you and I, we may indeed be people of whom a Krummacher can think that we might yet become good Christians; if, however, he wanted to “labor with” us, we should soon make it palpable to him that our Christianity is only thinkable, but in other respects impossible; if he grinned on and on at us with his obtrusive thoughts, his “good belief,” he would have to learn that we do not at all need to become what we do not like to become.
History hitherto is the history of the intellectual man. After the period of sensuality, history proper begins; i.e. the period of intellectuality,[Geistigkeit] spirituality,[Geistlichkeit] non-sensuality, supersensuality, nonsensicality. Man now begins to want to be and become something. What? Good, beautiful, true; more precisely, moral, pious, agreeable, etc. He wants to make of himself a “proper man,” “something proper.” Man is his goal, his ought, his destiny, calling, task, his — ideal; he is to himself a future, otherworldly he. And what makes a “proper fellow” of him? Being true, being good, being moral, etc. Now he looks askance at every one who does not recognize the same “what,” seek the same morality, have the same faith, he chases out “separatists, heretics, sects,” etc.
No sheep, no dog, exerts itself to become a “proper sheep, a proper dog”; no beast has its essence appear to it as a task, i.e. as a concept that it has to realize. It realizes itself in living itself out, in dissolving itself, passing away. It does not ask to be or to become anything other than it is.
Beasts too are “trained,” and a trained beast executes many unnatural things. But a trained dog is no better for itself than a natural one, and has no profit from it, even if it is more companionable for us.
no train ness.. domesticate ness.. et al
Exertions to “form” all men into moral, rational, pious, human, “beings” (i.e. training) were in vogue from of yore. They are wrecked against the indomitable quality of I, against own nature, against egoism. Those who are trained never attain their ideal, and only profess with their mouth the sublime principles, or make a profession, a profession of faith. In face of this profession they must in life “acknowledge themselves sinners altogether,” and they fall short of their ideal, are “weak men,” and bear with them the consciousness of “human weakness.”
195
If they no longer name it calling, but “task” or, very likely, “duty,” the change of name is quite correct, because “man” is not, like God, a personal being that can “call”; but outside the name the thing remains as of old.
In fact, the child who tears it to pieces or plays with it, the Inca Atahualpa who lays his ear to it and throws it away contemptuously when it remains dumb, judges just as correctly about the Bible as the priest who praises in it the “Word of God,” or the critic who calls it a job of men’s hands. For how we toss things about is the affair of our option, our free will: we use them according to our heart’s pleasure, or, more clearly, we use them just as we can. Why, what do the parsons scream about when they see how Hegel and the speculative theologians make speculative thoughts out of the contents of the Bible? Precisely this, that they deal with it according to their heart’s pleasure, or “proceed arbitrarily with it.”
197
“Absolute thinking” is that which forgets that it is my thinking, that I think, and that it exists only through me. But I, as I, swallow up again what is mine, am its master; it is only my opinion, which I can at any moment change, i.e. annihilate, take back into myself, and consume.
find the bravery to change your mind ness et al
198
Nothing at all is justified by being. What is thought of is as well as what is not thought of; the stone in the street is, and my notion of it is too. Both are only in different spaces, the former in airy space, the latter in my head, in me; for I am space like the street.
The professionals, the privileged, brook no freedom of thought, i.e. no thoughts that do not come from the “Giver of all good,” be he called God, pope, church, or whatever else. If anybody has such illegitimate thoughts, he must whisper them into his confessor’s ear, and have himself chastised by him till the slave-whip becomes unendurable to the free thoughts. In other ways too the professional spirit takes care that free thoughts shall not come at all: first and foremost, by a wise education. He on whom the principles of morality have been duly inculcated never becomes free again from moralizing thoughts, and robbery, perjury, overreaching, etc., remain to him fixed ideas against which no freedom of thought protects him. He has his thoughts “from above,” and gets no further.
oi
It is different with the holders of concessions or patents. Every one must be able to have and form thoughts as he will. If he has the patent, or the concession, of a capacity to think, he needs no special privilege. But, as “all men are rational,” it is free to every one to put into his head any thoughts whatever, and, to the extent of the patent of his natural endowment, to have a greater or less wealth of thoughts. Now one hears the admonitions that one “is to honor all opinions and convictions,” that “every conviction is authorized,” that one must be “tolerant to the views of others,” etc.
?.. oi
199
But “your thoughts are not my thoughts, and your ways are not my ways.” Or rather, I mean the reverse: Your thoughts are my thoughts, which I dispose of as I will, and which I strike down unmercifully; they are my property, which I annihilate as I list. I do not wait for authorization from you first, to decompose and blow away your thoughts. It does not matter to me that you call these thoughts yours too, they remain mine nevertheless, and how I will proceed with them is my affair, not a usurpation. It may please me to leave you in your thoughts; then I keep still. Do you believe thoughts fly around free like birds, so that every one may get himself some which he may then make good against me as his inviolable property? What is flying around is all — mine.
The thought is my own only when I have no misgiving about bringing it in danger of death every moment, when I do not have to fear its loss as a loss for me, a loss of me. The thought is my own only when I can indeed subjugate it, but it never can subjugate me, never fanaticizes me, makes me the tool of its realization.
201
But I want to have the thought, want to be full of thoughts, but at the same time I want to be thoughtless, and, instead of freedom of thought, I preserve for myself thoughtlessness.
lanier beyond words law et al.. rumi words law et al..
*If the point is to have myself understood and to make communications, then assuredly I can make use only of human means, which are at my command because I am at the same time man. And really I have thoughts only as man; as I, I am at the same time thoughtless.[Literally, “thought-rid”] He who cannot get rid of a thought is so far only man, is a thrall of **language, this human institution, this treasury of human thoughts. Language or “the word” tyrannizes hardest over us, because it brings up against us a whole army of fixed ideas. Just observe yourself in the act of reflection, right now, and you will find how you make progress only by becoming thoughtless and speechless every moment. You are not thoughtless and speechless merely in (say) sleep, but even in the deepest reflection; yes, precisely then most so. And only by this thoughtlessness, this unrecognized “freedom of thought” or freedom from the thought, are you your own. Only from it do you arrive at putting language to use as your property.
*what if that’s not the point
**language as control/enclosure et al
To the believer, truths are a settled thing, a fact; to the freethinker, a thing that is still to be settled.
same song if think have to have settle ness (now or in future)
202
The Christian man is the man with faith in thinking, who believes in the supreme dominion of thoughts and wants to bring thoughts, so-called “principles,” to dominion.
oi.. intellect ness et al
On the other hand, one can say thus: Whether you will further occupy yourself with thinking depends on you; only know that, if in your thinking *you would like to make out anything worthy of notice, many hard problems are to be solved, without vanquishing which you cannot get far. There exists, therefore, no duty and no calling for you to meddle with thoughts (ideas, truths); but, if you will do so, you will do well to utilize what the **forces of others have already achieved toward clearing up these difficult subjects.
*oi.. whalespeak
**history ness and research ness.. 1\ all non legit data 2\ even if legit.. dead once we think it’s truth/thought/fixed-idea.. et al
203
No thing,[Sache] no so-called “highest interest of mankind,” no “sacred cause,”[Sache] is worth your serving it, and occupying yourself with it for its sake; you may seek its worth in this alone, whether it is worth anything to you for your sake. *Become like children, the biblical saying admonishes us. **But children have no sacred interest and know nothing of a “good cause.” They know all the more accurately what they have a fancy for; and they think over, to the best of their powers, how they are to arrive at it.
*yeah that
and **that is why.. not yet scrambled ness et al
Thinking will as little cease as feeling. But the power of thoughts and ideas, the dominion of theories and principles, the sovereignty of the spirit, in short the — hierarchy, lasts as long as the parsons, i.e., theologians, philosophers, statesmen, philistines, liberals, schoolmasters, servants, parents, children, married couples, Proudhon, George Sand, Bluntschli, etc., etc., have the floor; the hierarchy will endure as long as people believe in, think of, or even criticize, principles; for even the most inexorable criticism, which undermines all current principles, still does finally believe in the principle.
need 1st/most: means to undo our hierarchical listening to self/others/nature ie: tech as it could be
The secret of criticism is some “truth” or other: this remains its energizing mystery.
But I distinguish between servile and own criticism. If I criticize under the presupposition of a supreme being, my criticism serves the being and is carried on for its sake: if e.g. I am possessed by the belief in a “free State,” then everything that has a bearing on it I criticize from the standpoint of whether it is suitable to this State, for I love this State; if I criticize as a pious man, then for me everything falls into the classes of divine and diabolical, and before my criticism nature consists of traces of God or traces of the devil (hence names like Godsgift, Godmount, the Devil’s Pulpit), men of believers and unbelievers; if I criticize while believing in man as the “true essence,” then for me everything falls primarily into the classes of man and the un-man, etc.
Criticism has to this day remained a work of love: for at all times we exercised it for the love of some being. All servile criticism is a product of love, a possessedness, and proceeds according to that New Testament precept, “Test everything and hold fast the good.” “The good” is the touchstone, the criterion. The good, returning under a thousand names and forms, remained always the presupposition, remained the dogmatic fixed point for this criticism, remained the — fixed idea.
why i don’t see ie: creative refusal as a way out
The critic, in setting to work, impartially presupposes the “truth,” and seeks for the truth in the belief that it is to be found. He wants to ascertain the true, and has in it that very “good.”
Presuppose means nothing else than put a thought in front, or think something before everything else and think the rest from the starting-point of this that has been thought, i.e. measure and criticize it by this. In other words, this is as much as to say that thinking is to begin with something already thought. If thinking began at all, instead of being begun, if thinking were a subject, an acting personality of its own, as even the plant is such, then indeed there would be no abandoning the principle that thinking must begin with itself. But it is just the personification of thinking that brings to pass those innumerable errors. In the Hegelian system they always talk as if thinking or “the thinking spirit” (i.e. personified thinking, thinking as a ghost) thought and acted; in critical liberalism it is always said that “criticism” does this and that, or else that “self- consciousness” finds this and that. But, if thinking ranks as the personal actor, thinking itself must be presupposed; if criticism ranks as such, a thought must likewise stand in front. Thinking and criticism could be active only starting from themselves, would have to be themselves the presupposition of their activity, as without being they could not be active. But thinking, as a thing presupposed, is a fixed thought, a dogma; thinking and criticism, therefore, can start only from a dogma, i. e. from a thought, a fixed idea, a presupposition.
With this we come back again to what was enunciated above, that Christianity consists in the development of a world of thoughts, or that it is the proper “freedom of thought,” the “free thought,” the “free spirit.” The “true” criticism, which I called “servile,” is therefore just as much “free” criticism, for it is not my own.
oi.. the proper
205
The truth is dead, a letter, a word, a material that I can use up. All truth by itself is dead, a corpse; it is alive only in the same way as my lungs are alive — to wit, in the measure of my own vitality. Truths are material, like vegetables and weeds; as to whether vegetable or weed, the decision lies in me.
naming the colour ness.. blinding/killing us
The truth is certain to me, and I do not need to long after it.
209
What, therefore, has your philanthropy [love of man] found? Nothing but unlovable men! And where do they all come from? From you, from your philanthropy! You brought the sinner with you in your head, therefore you found him, therefore you inserted him everywhere. Do not call men sinners, and they are not: you alone are the creator of sinners; you, who fancy that you love men, are the very one to throw them into the mire of sin, the very one to divide them into vicious and virtuous, into men and un-men, the very one to befoul them with the slaver of your possessedness; for you love not men, but man. But I tell you, you have never seen a sinner, you have only — dreamed of him.
210
III. The Unique One
212
yeah.. not a binary.. either or.. has to be both – ie: the it is me and i’m never just me.
ie: ‘in undisturbed ecosystems ..the average individual, species, or population, left to its own devices, behaves in ways that serve and stabilize the whole..’ –Dana Meadows
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be you. 