Against Normative Morality
If amoralists are gathered in the history of philosophy, the initial catalog features two figures: Stirner and Nietzsche. The former appeared first, which has led to speculative claims of plagiarism by the latter. However, it is more appropriate to place Stirner among the individualists and hedonists, both before and during his time, rather than with Nietzsche, especially given his incipient analysis—a disruptive break in the amoralist position.
Stirner’s stance entails a rejection of normative morality, not only of Christian religiousness but also of the secular morality of the Enlightenment that permeated the European cultural climate. Amoralism is not what drives Stirner’s discourse; freedom does.
First, the freedom-from: from God, State, Community—Morality. He sees the obvious. ‘From’ is only a part of the act, the negative one. A replacement is necessary from the other side: positive freedom. He critiques the secular liberals, who have supposedly found a non-religious basis for this positivity, yet remain unconsciously bound to freedom-from.
A fact evident to the few: the comparable nature of Christianity and Liberalism. In the image of God, the Christian is made. For Liberalism, a substitution occurs—Ideal-Man for God, Christian for the Liberal. In Platonic fashion, the images do not reflect the ideal. Thus, a lifetime is spent pursuing a perfect reflection, closing the distance, repeatedly inspecting the reflection, the God (Ideal-Man). Even a resigned acceptance of the impossibility of closing in still acknowledges the existence of the Ideal.
Therefore the liberal too revolves in the same circle as the Christian. Because the spirit of mankind, man, dwells in you, you are a man, as when the spirit of Christ dwells in you you are a Christian; but, because it dwells in you only as a second ego, even though it be as your proper or ‘better’ ego, it remains other-worldly to you, and you have to strive to become wholly man. A striving just as fruitless as the Christian’s to become wholly a blessed spirit!1
Thus, Stirner’s critique of secular morals: a structural resemblance of Christianity, the Ideal-Man, an implicit freedom-from. Note that while it may resemble the Kantian-Lacanian line of ethical action, this differs from the former – for it allows for the implicit to become explicit, the Imaginary addressed through the Symbolic. For the Liberal, there is only the obvious, the Imaginary, and nothing else.
Ownness
What follows the contexture after the negative freedom-from, the positive project of the act? Ownness. Not an exact substitution, the positive for the negative, rather a concatenation to the freedom-from. There is seldom any exposition of what Ownness is, apart from circular assertions of the act of Ownness, bordering on tautology.
I am my own only when I am master of myself, instead of being mastered either by sensuality or by anything else (God, man, authority, law, state, church); what is of use to me, this self-owned or self-appertaining one, my selfishness pursues.2
But am I not still unrestrained from declaring myself the entitler, the mediator, and the own self? Then it runs thus: My power is my property. My power gives me property. My power am I myself, and through it am I my property3
I decide whether it is the right thing in life; there is no right outside me. If it is right for me, it is right.4
A simpler interpretation is Ownness as hedonism. Even Stirner provides enough signposts to travel in that direction.
A vast interval separates the two views. In the old I go toward myself, in the new I start from myself; in the former I long for myself, in the latter I have myself and do with myself as one does with any other property – I enjoy myself at my pleasure. I am no longer afraid for my life, but ‘squander’ it.5
However, due to its simplicity, not to mention its lack of charity, it is an uninteresting interpretation. Just as there are signs pointing to the road taken, there are also ones against it.
Driven by the thirst for money, the avaricious man renounces all admonitions of conscience, all feeling of honour, all gentleness and all compassion; he puts all considerations out of sight; the appetite drags him along.6
Or the ambitious man, who offers up all his desires, wishes, and satisfactions to the single passion, or the avaricious man who denies himself everything to gather treasures, or the pleasure-seeker? He is ruled by a passion to which he brings the rest as sacrifices.7
So an avaricious man is not a self-owned man, but a servant; and he can do nothing for his own sake without at the same time doing it for his lord’s sake – precisely like the godly man.8
Perhaps he seeks to assert Egoism-in-itself, a self-determination of the act, that moment of hesitation before the act, rather than being possessed by the particular act undertaken.
Criticism offers me this occasion by the teaching that, if anything plants itself firmly in me, and becomes indissoluble, I become its prisoner and servant, a possessed man9
Now, more questions emerge. What is the criterion for indissolubility? One could accuse Stirner of indissolubility, given the relatively predictable way he lived his life. With the ambiguity of the criterion for indissolubility in mind, consider an instance where the criterion of Ownness is made clear.
Now I know what is expected of me, and the new catechism can be written. The subject is again subjected to the predicate, the individual to something general; the dominion is again secured to an idea, and the foundation laid for a new religion. This is a step forward in the domain of religion, and in particular of Christianity; not a step out beyond it.
To step out beyond it leads into the unspeakable. For me paltry language has no word, and ‘the Word’, the Logos, is to me a ‘mere word’.10
A non-linguistic affirmation, a phenomenal one, drives Ownness. Although there are instances where Stirner rejects phenomenally driven acts, deeming them acts of false-Ownness, still rooted in implicit freedom-froms. For example, the case of the pliable girl, the Anti-Juliet.
But now sometimes a wish glimmers in a less passionate and wilful heart than Juliet’s. The pliable girl brings herself as a sacrifice to the peace of the family. One might say that here too selfishness prevailed, for the decision came from the feeling that the pliable girl felt herself more satisfied by the unity of the family than by the fulfillment of her wish. That might be; but what if there remained a sure sign that egoism had been sacrificed to piety? What if, even after the wish that had been directed against the peace of the family was sacrificed, it remained at least as a recollection of a ‘sacrifice’ brought to a sacred tie? What if the pliable girl were conscious of having left her self-will unsatisfied and humbly subjected herself to a higher power? Subjected and sacrificed, because the superstition of piety exercised its dominion over her!11
The girl chose her family over romantic love. Note that the love itself is, in all probability, a concealed version of familial love as repetition automatism (repetition compulsion). Furthermore, if one were to question her choice—Why have you forsaken love for family? Why can’t you sacrifice familial relations?—there would be no linguistic answers from the Anti-Juliet. As analytical experience teaches us, the response is likely a signification toward an ‘unthinkable,’ too ‘painful’ to even consider, a phenomenal negativity as motive. Thus, she makes the sacrifice.
A similar argument can be made for the avaricious man. Moreover, phenomenal feelings are productions of the Symbolic. As Žižek mentioned, the torturing devices called ‘ball crushers’ used in Nazi concentration camps are now used for sado-masochistic pleasure. Note the absence of any moral judgment here, but rather an allusion to the production of phenomenal feelings and their inescapable relation with the Symbolic.
Perhaps Stirner would respond with the case of phenomenal affirmation instead of negation. However, it has not yet been fully conceptualized, certainly not by Stirner. It would be irresponsible to reject the possibilities of a conception of phenomenal acts not driven by the Imaginary. Yet, Stirner—perhaps due to the lack of tools available at the time—remains incomplete in his pursuit. A problem arises when Egoists take this incomplete conception and proceed with it, thus still living in the Imaginary, misconstrued as Ownness.
The Landstreicher Controversy
David Leopold produced the most well-known English translation of Stirner’s Der Einzige und sein Eigentum, titled The Ego and Its Own. However, the independent anarchist Wolfi Landstreicher—hereafter referred to as L—later published The Unique and Its Property. Having read both, mostly Leopold’s version, I would not object if a case were made for Landstreicher’s translation as the superior one. In other words, L is a competent resource for Stirner.
It also serves well to analyze the halted egoist. In the controversial essay, Child Molestation vs. Child Love, Landstreicher asserts an inversion: normative love of children as molestation, and normative acts of molestation as love.
A child is scolded, restricted, forced to conform to schedules and social norms, limited, bribed with rewards and threatened with punishments. This is called love. A child is kissed, caressed, played with, gently fondled and given erotic pleasure. This is called molestation. Something is obviously twisted here.12
Many anarchists have critiqued the essay, accusing it of being authoritarian and exploitative, drawing all their arguments from the moral quiver. What can be said about the essay, with indifference to the moral register? I aim to reveal the immanent contradictions in his claim, while also demonstrating the method of immanent ethical analysis.
Immediately, a false dichotomy stands out. Both normative acts of love and normative acts of molestation can be condemned, given their mutual exclusivity. Note that the analysis at hand is not concerned with whether to condemn the practices but rather to indicate that the condemnation of the first can extend to the second:
Next, L claims the child-adult dichotomy as “fallacious” on natural grounds. One of the main dichotomies of this society is the child/adult dichotomy. It has no basis in any real needs or natural ways. It is a totally arbitrary conception which only serves to reinforce authority.13
If he implies ‘natural-as-science,’ as I presume, then unless he introduces a new and creative modality of scientific analysis, a child-adult dichotomy does exist. Moreover, he proceeds to impose an inverted dichotomy of child and adult.
The child-lover encourages the free expression of the child’s sensuality and so undermines the entire education process. And the child, who has not yet been as repressed as her/his adult lover, helps to break down the repression within the adult. 14
esponding to the consent argument that a child can’t freely consent to sexual intercourse, presenting an inversion. It bypasses the consent argument, portraying children as the truly free and adults as the repressed. Here, the issue is not challenged but rather inverted to resolve it. L is not merely concerned with sex, but with ‘Love.’ What does L implicitly accept? Freedom as a precursor to Love— for it to be Love, it must be ‘Free.’ Whatever that ‘Freedom’ entails, I am presently unconcerned with the broader imminent contradiction of the signification of Love and Freedom.
A possible joke emerges, immanently, about the case of reverse rape: the repressed adult as a victim of the child. Nonetheless, if L uses ‘Freedom’ in the Symbolic sense, then Freedom in Love allows for the possibility of negation, something a child lacks due to their natural susceptibility to persuasion. This also extends to adult relationships, but that is another conversation. L has no response to this, as the problem of Stirnerian freedom leaves him in limbo.
Finally, as the critical annotators rightfully show, L seeks a return. For Landstreicher, “child love – molestation – is a ritual with which he can become feral and return to an Adamic state of “beauty and ecstasy”.15
Is the return not comparable to the image of God, the Ideal-Man? Is the only difference not in the particularity of the conception? The myth of a primitive instinctual essence, the primitive Adamic instinctual as a form of freedom—a notion even Stirner would oppose.
The Genius of Nietzsche
Nietzsche, like Stirner, understood the problem of the freedom-from. What is Nietzsche’s positive proposal? Radical ontological creation—a creation of values that have not existed before. Such an act of creation is juxtaposed against the freedom-froms that continue to haunt us.
Behold the good and the just! Whom do they hate most? The man who breaks their tables of values, the breaker, the lawbreaker; yet he is the creator.16
Even posing a God rhetoric, similar to Stirner, more fleshed out. Now it is clear, God cares only for what is his, busies himself only with himself, thinks only of himself, and has only himself before his eyes; woe to all that is not well-pleasing to him! He serves no higher person, and satisfies only himself. His cause is – a purely egoistic cause.17
Lonely one, you are going the way of the creator: you would create a god for yourself out of you seven devils.18
God is to be differentiated by creation, not by mere egoism, but by creation and adherence to that creation. That is the completion of the context for Nietzsche. It involves the destruction of old ideas, tables of values, and laws, allowing a freedom-from all that has existed before. Then, there is the creation of the Radical New, a freedom-for the Radical New. This is a perpetual (eternal return) repetition of the cycle—the Übermensch.
Free from what? As if that mattered to Zarathushtra! But your eyes should tell me brightly: free for what?19
It overtakes the problem of Stirner, the problem of any non-theistic action, whether moral or amoral. How can one be sure that the act is not pious, either normatively or subjectively? The creation of new values resolves this standstill, for the creator can never be pious. What existed before constituted the pious; however, the new value—something that did not exist previously—can only be non-pious. Certainly, the radical creative act requires further structural and historical analysis. Has it been done before, even by Nietzsche?
Nonetheless, a possibility has emerged. Atheists no longer have to be pious.20