“I decide whether it is the right thing in me; there is no right outside me. If it is right for me, it is right. Possibly this may not suffice to make it right for the rest; that is their care, not mine: let them defend themselves. And if for the whole world something were not right, but it were right for me, that is, I wanted it, then I would ask nothing about the whole world. So every one does who knows how to value himself, every one in the degree that he is an egoist; for might goes before right, and that – with perfect right.”
— Max Stirner
— Max Stirner
Dionysian Anarchism
Max Stirner and the philosophy of might: some clarification (The following arguably applies to Nietzsche as well, at least partially) Stirner's statements such as "might makes right" or "might goes before right" are sometimes, unfortunately, mistaken for…
“On the natural history of rights and duties. — Our duties – are the rights of others over us. How have they acquired such rights? By taking us to be capable of contracting and of requiting, by positing us as similar and equal to them, and as a consequence entrusting us with something, educating, reproving, supporting us. We fulfil our duty–that is to say: we justify the idea of our power on the basis of which all these things were bestowed upon us, we give back in the measure in which we have been given to. It is thus our pride which bids us do our duty – when we do something for others in return for something they have done for us, what we are doing is restoring our self-regard – for in doing something for us, these others have impinged upon our sphere of power, and would have continued to have a hand in it if we did not with the performance of our ‘duty’ practise a requital, that is to say impinge upon their power. The rights of others can relate only to that which lies within our power; it would be unreasonable if they wanted of us something we did not possess. Expressed more precisely: only to that which they believe lies within our power, provided it is the same thing we believe lies within our power. The same error could easily be made on either side: the feeling of duty depends upon our having the same belief in regard to the extent of our power as others have: that is to say, that we are able to promise certain things and bind ourselves to perform them (‘freedom of will’). – My rights – are that part of my power which others have not merely conceded me, but which they wish me to preserve. How do these others arrive at that? First: through their prudence and fear and caution: whether in that they expect something similar from us in return (protection of their own rights); or in that they consider that a struggle with us would be perilous or to no purpose; or in that they see in any diminution of our force a disadvantage to themselves, since we would then be unsuited to forming an alliance with them in opposition to a hostile third power. Then: by donation and cession. In this case, others have enough and more than enough power to be able to dispose of some of it and to guarantee to him they have given it to the portion of it they have given: in doing so they presuppose a feeble sense of power in him who lets himself be thus donated to. That is how rights originate: recognised and guaranteed degrees of power. If power-relationships undergo any material alteration, rights disappear and new ones are created – as is demonstrated in the continual disappearance and reformation of rights between nations. If our power is materially diminished, the feeling of those who have hitherto guaranteed our rights changes: they consider whether they can restore us to the full possession we formerly enjoyed – if they feel unable to do so, they henceforth deny our ‘rights’. Likewise, if our power is materially increased, the feeling of those who have hitherto recognised it but whose recognition is no longer needed changes: they no doubt attempt to suppress it to its former level, they will try to intervene and in doing so will allude to their ‘duty’ – but this is only a useless playing with words. Where rights prevail, a certain condition and degree of power is being maintained, a diminution and increment warded off. The rights of others constitute a concession on the part of our sense of power to the sense of power of those others.”
— Friedrich Nietzsche,
The Dawn of Day (112)
— Friedrich Nietzsche,
The Dawn of Day (112)
Leftism, anarchism, revolution, organizing, action, guilt etc
It's an obvious truism that we need some action to make a change... most would also agree that some (philosophical) understanding would also be important.
But while it might be good to encourage or emphasize action, I feel that sometimes it turns into a sort of pressure on helpless comrades; even some kind of feeling of guilt etc
Suppose that you are from a region where a libertarian socialist movement was practically absent. And you are poor, so struggling and have very few resources to do anything. And neurodivergent, which makes it difficult for you to interact with people, especially offline... etc etc.
And most of the people you could find, especially in offline circles—already quite small—are apolitical liberals with absolutely no interest in radical politics (or in anything not normie); any leftists in your region might most likely be just liberals with a leftist label, or the fewer (aesthetically) "radical" ones – again liberals, but "radically" so... (tankies)
You might already be doing things—however small—your way... perhaps online more than offline
But you shouldn't be subjected to pressure saying that you aren't doing anything for the movement! Don't have to face more pressure than what the shitty system already subjects you to (which is such an immense pressure already)!
To hell with those annoying liberals who say: "it is no use having ideas, only actions count"... Well, fuck you! this is all I can do, and I'm doing what I can do and what I want to do...
(Usually their idea of action, especially if they're a bit privileged, is like "charity" and stuff... well, fuck you! I'm the poor person, whom do I give charity and from where!; or, often, something so narrow and stupid like becoming a powerful government officer (like "IAS" — I lost count of how many times I heard this silly suggestion)...)
(What's most annoying, however, is probably that people who make such judgements, apart from regular liberals, tend to be MLs — the irony being that in spite of MLs having been predominant on the left (even more in regions like India), and having had very significant power and influence in many cases, all they have done is shit, again and again... and at best only established a (much) more (bureaucratically) regimented version of social "democracy", calling it "socialism")
(P.S. this is not an angry rant, even if it sounds like that... just thought perhaps some comrades could relate to this)
It's an obvious truism that we need some action to make a change... most would also agree that some (philosophical) understanding would also be important.
But while it might be good to encourage or emphasize action, I feel that sometimes it turns into a sort of pressure on helpless comrades; even some kind of feeling of guilt etc
Suppose that you are from a region where a libertarian socialist movement was practically absent. And you are poor, so struggling and have very few resources to do anything. And neurodivergent, which makes it difficult for you to interact with people, especially offline... etc etc.
And most of the people you could find, especially in offline circles—already quite small—are apolitical liberals with absolutely no interest in radical politics (or in anything not normie); any leftists in your region might most likely be just liberals with a leftist label, or the fewer (aesthetically) "radical" ones – again liberals, but "radically" so... (tankies)
You might already be doing things—however small—your way... perhaps online more than offline
But you shouldn't be subjected to pressure saying that you aren't doing anything for the movement! Don't have to face more pressure than what the shitty system already subjects you to (which is such an immense pressure already)!
To hell with those annoying liberals who say: "it is no use having ideas, only actions count"... Well, fuck you! this is all I can do, and I'm doing what I can do and what I want to do...
(Usually their idea of action, especially if they're a bit privileged, is like "charity" and stuff... well, fuck you! I'm the poor person, whom do I give charity and from where!; or, often, something so narrow and stupid like becoming a powerful government officer (like "IAS" — I lost count of how many times I heard this silly suggestion)...)
(What's most annoying, however, is probably that people who make such judgements, apart from regular liberals, tend to be MLs — the irony being that in spite of MLs having been predominant on the left (even more in regions like India), and having had very significant power and influence in many cases, all they have done is shit, again and again... and at best only established a (much) more (bureaucratically) regimented version of social "democracy", calling it "socialism")
(P.S. this is not an angry rant, even if it sounds like that... just thought perhaps some comrades could relate to this)
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Dionysian Anarchism
Leftism, anarchism, revolution, organizing, action, guilt etc It's an obvious truism that we need some action to make a change... most would also agree that some (philosophical) understanding would also be important. But while it might be good to encourage…
Now it would be a whole another—long—thread, as to what counts as action, or different ideas of revolution etc... not going into that
But to elaborate a bit on the reference about MLs doing shit....
yeah, they have had state power to themselves in many regions; for decades even, in a few provinces in India as well; not to mention USSR and other ML states.
It is a misfortune that we even have to specially mention this, but: Leninism (in whatever variant) has nothing to do with socialism (except as its anti-thesis)!
In the name of socialism they have destroyed socialism and continue to do so... they have killed and suppressed workers — in the name of workers' liberation. They have actively sabotaged anarchist, genuinely socialist projects every time and now they ask us: "what have you anarchists done?"
They probably did more harm to socialism than the (non-red) bourgeoisie themselves
In India it's largely reformist, and the more radical ones are no less reactionary in being authoritarian.
Our "socialists" cannot imagine a socialist society! They cannot imagine a world without capitalism. No wonder they have helped capital so much, and continue to do so....!
But to elaborate a bit on the reference about MLs doing shit....
yeah, they have had state power to themselves in many regions; for decades even, in a few provinces in India as well; not to mention USSR and other ML states.
It is a misfortune that we even have to specially mention this, but: Leninism (in whatever variant) has nothing to do with socialism (except as its anti-thesis)!
In the name of socialism they have destroyed socialism and continue to do so... they have killed and suppressed workers — in the name of workers' liberation. They have actively sabotaged anarchist, genuinely socialist projects every time and now they ask us: "what have you anarchists done?"
They probably did more harm to socialism than the (non-red) bourgeoisie themselves
In India it's largely reformist, and the more radical ones are no less reactionary in being authoritarian.
Our "socialists" cannot imagine a socialist society! They cannot imagine a world without capitalism. No wonder they have helped capital so much, and continue to do so....!
“…at some distant future there will be a new language for all – first as a commercial language, then as the language of intellectual intercourse in general – just as surely as there will one day be air travel.”
— Nietzsche the prophet, 1878
XD
— Nietzsche the prophet, 1878
XD
Dionysian Anarchism
Now it would be a whole another—long—thread, as to what counts as action, or different ideas of revolution etc... not going into that But to elaborate a bit on the reference about MLs doing shit.... yeah, they have had state power to themselves in many regions;…
Leninism, USSR, special pleading
Leftist defense of USSR or other ML regimes, or of Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, Mao etc, is extremely absurd and largely depends on special pleading for these regimes/leaders, and on baseless assumptions generally.
If the same arguments were used in other situations, for other countries or leaders, it would look extremely absurd even for our Leninists. The dogma here is that SOMEHOW, no matter how remotely, these regimes must be seen as representative of socialism, as having SOMETHING to do with socialism. They have to be special because they claimed to be Marxist.
But it is only socialism in name. We have many other examples of that kind: from less extreme ones like the Indian Constitution (its preamble says India is socialist) to more extreme ones like the Nazis.
Leninists would dismiss most of these cases immediately without any argument, but when it comes to ML regimes there's all sorts of special pleading.
(Now outrage: "what! you compare USSR with Nazi Germany?? Daddy Stalin single-handedly killed every single Nazi including Hitler!!!!" Point missed again: it's not to say these regimes or their ideologies were equivalent, but to point out that calling oneself a socialist isn't enough to make one a socialist, be it an individual or a regime; or put it another way, not all these versions of socialism are equivalent, and just being "socialist" does not necessarily mean good... no more than Nazism is)
Calling it socialism, the pretentious aesthetic of "workers" or "the people" etc... remove all these, you end up with horrible regimes which are not essentially different from other imperialist regimes.
Some point to some vague pretension of democratic structure within USSR to claim it was democratic.
First, it's doubtful whether such a pretension of democracy means anything in such a highly centralized dictatorial regime. It is highly doubtful if people could, through that "democracy", have any meaningful influence on the top-level decisions.
Second, I haven't seen USSR but I see all the time, first-hand, how fanatically people here support leaders that are obviously corrupt and bourgeois from head to toe. No Leninist would say that these leaders are anything but bourgeois. So it is recognized well that this pretension of democracy doesn't mean anything, that it is democracy only in name. Popular support and a pretension of democracy doesn't mean anything, something our Leninists recognize as well as we do — unless the regime has "Communist" or "Marxist" somewhere in its party name or official documents (then special pleading begins).
Another thing they point to are some supposedly progressive policies in these regimes. But almost none of them are essentially different from what's in other bourgeois regimes. Difference in style or aesthetics, difference in implementation, difference in degree etc... but nothing that necessarily and essentially distinguishes them from other bourgeois regimes.
As I said, at best these regimes were highly regimented versions of social "democracy"; usually with a lot of extra shit.
"But social democracy is nothing but capitalism!" Yes, and so is it with these ML regimes — they are state capitalism. Engels, Lenin, Mao etc all recognized that such structures would amount to state capitalism (a term that's neither invented nor used solely by anarchists). That it is just capitalism, but their illusion being that somehow it is different when a party that calls itself Communist directs it, that it will then somehow lead to socialism. But it is neither socialistic in any way, nor could it lead to socialism, as has been proved again and again.
"But USSR was first to give women rights" "USSR was the first to do XYZ" Nah, still doesn't make it essentially different from other bourgeois regimes.
These same Leninists understand the baloney in pointing out to the women's rights in law-books if it's any other country... but if it is an ML regime it has to be different, it has to be special, right?
Leftist defense of USSR or other ML regimes, or of Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, Mao etc, is extremely absurd and largely depends on special pleading for these regimes/leaders, and on baseless assumptions generally.
If the same arguments were used in other situations, for other countries or leaders, it would look extremely absurd even for our Leninists. The dogma here is that SOMEHOW, no matter how remotely, these regimes must be seen as representative of socialism, as having SOMETHING to do with socialism. They have to be special because they claimed to be Marxist.
But it is only socialism in name. We have many other examples of that kind: from less extreme ones like the Indian Constitution (its preamble says India is socialist) to more extreme ones like the Nazis.
Leninists would dismiss most of these cases immediately without any argument, but when it comes to ML regimes there's all sorts of special pleading.
(Now outrage: "what! you compare USSR with Nazi Germany?? Daddy Stalin single-handedly killed every single Nazi including Hitler!!!!" Point missed again: it's not to say these regimes or their ideologies were equivalent, but to point out that calling oneself a socialist isn't enough to make one a socialist, be it an individual or a regime; or put it another way, not all these versions of socialism are equivalent, and just being "socialist" does not necessarily mean good... no more than Nazism is)
Calling it socialism, the pretentious aesthetic of "workers" or "the people" etc... remove all these, you end up with horrible regimes which are not essentially different from other imperialist regimes.
Some point to some vague pretension of democratic structure within USSR to claim it was democratic.
First, it's doubtful whether such a pretension of democracy means anything in such a highly centralized dictatorial regime. It is highly doubtful if people could, through that "democracy", have any meaningful influence on the top-level decisions.
Second, I haven't seen USSR but I see all the time, first-hand, how fanatically people here support leaders that are obviously corrupt and bourgeois from head to toe. No Leninist would say that these leaders are anything but bourgeois. So it is recognized well that this pretension of democracy doesn't mean anything, that it is democracy only in name. Popular support and a pretension of democracy doesn't mean anything, something our Leninists recognize as well as we do — unless the regime has "Communist" or "Marxist" somewhere in its party name or official documents (then special pleading begins).
Another thing they point to are some supposedly progressive policies in these regimes. But almost none of them are essentially different from what's in other bourgeois regimes. Difference in style or aesthetics, difference in implementation, difference in degree etc... but nothing that necessarily and essentially distinguishes them from other bourgeois regimes.
As I said, at best these regimes were highly regimented versions of social "democracy"; usually with a lot of extra shit.
"But social democracy is nothing but capitalism!" Yes, and so is it with these ML regimes — they are state capitalism. Engels, Lenin, Mao etc all recognized that such structures would amount to state capitalism (a term that's neither invented nor used solely by anarchists). That it is just capitalism, but their illusion being that somehow it is different when a party that calls itself Communist directs it, that it will then somehow lead to socialism. But it is neither socialistic in any way, nor could it lead to socialism, as has been proved again and again.
"But USSR was first to give women rights" "USSR was the first to do XYZ" Nah, still doesn't make it essentially different from other bourgeois regimes.
These same Leninists understand the baloney in pointing out to the women's rights in law-books if it's any other country... but if it is an ML regime it has to be different, it has to be special, right?
Dionysian Anarchism
Leninism, USSR, special pleading Leftist defense of USSR or other ML regimes, or of Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, Mao etc, is extremely absurd and largely depends on special pleading for these regimes/leaders, and on baseless assumptions generally. If the same…
"These gentlemen think that when they have changed the names of things they have changed the things themselves. This is how these profound thinkers mock at the whole world."
Actually MLs agree on a lot of things with liberals/conservatives, their arguments (not to mention the ideologies) being very similar.
"Why don't you recognize all the achievements of our regime!!!!" "Why do you oppose it entirely, can't you appreciate the good parts!?" "Our regime has lasted for so long!" "yeah there were all these "mistakes" (i.e., horrible atrocities and oppression and exploitation), but the system is good and just needs a few reforms" etc etc
The conservatives, regular liberals, and Marxist-Liberals all agree on these regimes being the representation of socialism. Yet somehow anarchists are supposed to be the ones agreeing with (non-red) liberals & conservatives, while all of them think socialism is nothing but a version of social democracy (MLs are just more selective; the social democracy also has to have less "democracy" and have "Communist" or "Marxist" somewhere in its name).
"JUST ACCEPT THAT IT IS SOCIALISM EVEN IF YOU DISAGREE WITH IT!! REEEE!!!!"
But gotta admit still: Lenin, Stalin, Mao and all the others were genuinely revolutionaries. Bourgeois revolutionaries. Or, in our sense, counterrevolutionaries. Perhaps with genuinely good intentions? Doesn't make them any less counterrevolutionary.
No less anti-socialist for us. For, socialism for us is "the emancipation of the working classes" that is "conquered by the working classes themselves", to use Marx's words... not something directed dictatorially by counterrevolutionaries with socialist aesthetics, where exploitation is glorified as workers' liberation.
Actually MLs agree on a lot of things with liberals/conservatives, their arguments (not to mention the ideologies) being very similar.
"Why don't you recognize all the achievements of our regime!!!!" "Why do you oppose it entirely, can't you appreciate the good parts!?" "Our regime has lasted for so long!" "yeah there were all these "mistakes" (i.e., horrible atrocities and oppression and exploitation), but the system is good and just needs a few reforms" etc etc
The conservatives, regular liberals, and Marxist-Liberals all agree on these regimes being the representation of socialism. Yet somehow anarchists are supposed to be the ones agreeing with (non-red) liberals & conservatives, while all of them think socialism is nothing but a version of social democracy (MLs are just more selective; the social democracy also has to have less "democracy" and have "Communist" or "Marxist" somewhere in its name).
"JUST ACCEPT THAT IT IS SOCIALISM EVEN IF YOU DISAGREE WITH IT!! REEEE!!!!"
But gotta admit still: Lenin, Stalin, Mao and all the others were genuinely revolutionaries. Bourgeois revolutionaries. Or, in our sense, counterrevolutionaries. Perhaps with genuinely good intentions? Doesn't make them any less counterrevolutionary.
No less anti-socialist for us. For, socialism for us is "the emancipation of the working classes" that is "conquered by the working classes themselves", to use Marx's words... not something directed dictatorially by counterrevolutionaries with socialist aesthetics, where exploitation is glorified as workers' liberation.
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“The ways by which you may get money almost without exception lead downward. To have done anything by which you earned money merely is to have been truly idle or worse. If the laborer gets no more than the wages which his employer pays him, he is cheated, he cheats himself. If you would get money as a writer or lecturer, you must be popular, which is to go down perpendicularly. Those services which the community will most readily pay for, it is most disagreeable to render. You are paid for being something less than a man. The State does not commonly reward a genius any more wisely.”
— Henry David Thoreau,
Life Without Principle
— Henry David Thoreau,
Life Without Principle
"Apolitical" normies are more dangerous than zealots of any kind. It is masses of such people which made Nazi, Fascist regimes possible.
They make such regimes possible by not resisting them, by even supporting them "apolitically" 🤡
To them anything is either boring or exciting, something superficial like that... can easily be manipulated by a fascist party if it manages to come to power first
Liberals, without knowing it. Can be turned into: fascists, without knowing it.
They make such regimes possible by not resisting them, by even supporting them "apolitically" 🤡
To them anything is either boring or exciting, something superficial like that... can easily be manipulated by a fascist party if it manages to come to power first
Liberals, without knowing it. Can be turned into: fascists, without knowing it.
🤡2
Forwarded from Polar Flares (Ky • The S-Star System)
First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action;" who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a "more convenient season."
Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
...
In spite of my shattered dreams of the past, I came to Birmingham with the hope that the white religious leadership of this community would see the justice of our cause, and with deep moral concern, serve as the channel through which our just grievances would get to the power structure. I had hoped that each of you would understand. But again I have been disappointed. I have heard numerous religious leaders of the South call upon their worshippers to comply with a desegregation decision because it is the law, but I have longed to hear white ministers say, "follow this decree because integration is morally right and the Negro is your brother." In the midst of blatant injustices inflicted upon the Negro, I have watched white churches stand on the sideline and merely mouth pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities. In the midst of a mighty struggle to rid our nation of racial and economic injustice, I have heard so many ministers say, "those are social issues with which the gospel has no real concern.", and I have watched so many churches commit themselves to a completely other-worldly religion which made a strange distinction between body and soul, the sacred and the secular.
So here we are moving toward the exit of the twentieth century with a religious community largely adjusted to the status quo, standing as a tail-light behind other community agencies rather than a headlight leading men to higher levels of justice.
—
Martin Luther King, Jr. Letter From The Birmingham Jail April 16, 1963
Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.
...
In spite of my shattered dreams of the past, I came to Birmingham with the hope that the white religious leadership of this community would see the justice of our cause, and with deep moral concern, serve as the channel through which our just grievances would get to the power structure. I had hoped that each of you would understand. But again I have been disappointed. I have heard numerous religious leaders of the South call upon their worshippers to comply with a desegregation decision because it is the law, but I have longed to hear white ministers say, "follow this decree because integration is morally right and the Negro is your brother." In the midst of blatant injustices inflicted upon the Negro, I have watched white churches stand on the sideline and merely mouth pious irrelevancies and sanctimonious trivialities. In the midst of a mighty struggle to rid our nation of racial and economic injustice, I have heard so many ministers say, "those are social issues with which the gospel has no real concern.", and I have watched so many churches commit themselves to a completely other-worldly religion which made a strange distinction between body and soul, the sacred and the secular.
So here we are moving toward the exit of the twentieth century with a religious community largely adjusted to the status quo, standing as a tail-light behind other community agencies rather than a headlight leading men to higher levels of justice.
—
Martin Luther King, Jr. Letter From The Birmingham Jail April 16, 1963
United Anarchists
Counterpoint: liberals knowingly become fascists because capital is more important than lives in their heuristics
True enough... but that sort of (consciously) ideological liberals are not really the vast majority of the population in most countries
Most people, in the West of the early 20th century and throughout the global South of today (and to a lesser extent, even in the West), don't really stand to gain anything from the domination of capital...
the privileged were and still are a relatively small minority
What prompted me to write that post is actually this "Modi selfie point" shit... they seem to have established them in Indian railway stations everywhere, and it's actually quite costly too
That so many people would think it's just so cool, that shit like this makes people think Modi is a cool leader, without reflecting upon his shitty personality or his horrible fascist politics... is just so infuriating! Shitty politics of aesthetics, shallow masses...
(This thing is not exceptional in any way, worse shit of this kind has been happening throughout the last few years since BJP has come into power)
Most people, in the West of the early 20th century and throughout the global South of today (and to a lesser extent, even in the West), don't really stand to gain anything from the domination of capital...
the privileged were and still are a relatively small minority
What prompted me to write that post is actually this "Modi selfie point" shit... they seem to have established them in Indian railway stations everywhere, and it's actually quite costly too
That so many people would think it's just so cool, that shit like this makes people think Modi is a cool leader, without reflecting upon his shitty personality or his horrible fascist politics... is just so infuriating! Shitty politics of aesthetics, shallow masses...
(This thing is not exceptional in any way, worse shit of this kind has been happening throughout the last few years since BJP has come into power)
ERNEST: My friend, you are a dreamer.
GILBERT; Yes: I am a dreamer. For a dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.
ERNEST: His punishment?
GILBERT: And his reward.
— Oscar Wilde, The Critic as Artist
GILBERT; Yes: I am a dreamer. For a dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.
ERNEST: His punishment?
GILBERT: And his reward.
— Oscar Wilde, The Critic as Artist
“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 [fixe Idee]!
Do not think that I am jesting or speaking figuratively when I regard those persons who cling to the Higher, and (because the vast majority belongs under this head) almost the whole world of men, as veritable fools, fools in a madhouse. What is it, then, that is called a ‘fixed idea’? An idea that has subjected the man to itself. When you recognize, with regard to such a fixed idea, that it is a folly, you shut its slave up in an asylum. And is the truth of the faith, say, which we are not to doubt; the majesty of (e.g.) the people, which we are not to strike at (he who does is guilty of — lese-majesty); virtue, against which the censor is not to let a word pass, that morality may be kept pure; — are these not ‘fixed ideas’? 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? Touch the fixed idea of such a fool, and you will at once have to guard your back against the lunatic’s stealthy malice. For these great lunatics are like the little so-called lunatics in this point too — that they assail by stealth him who touches their fixed idea. They first steal his weapon, steal free speech from him, and then they fall upon him with their nails. Every day now lays bare the cowardice and vindictiveness of these maniacs, and the stupid populace hurrahs for their crazy measures. One must read the journals of this period, and must hear the Philistines talk, to get the horrible conviction that one is shut up in a house with fools.”
— Max Stirner
* An alternative, if equally unliteral, translation of »Du hast einen Sparren zu viel!« might be ‘you have a screw loose’.
Do not think that I am jesting or speaking figuratively when I regard those persons who cling to the Higher, and (because the vast majority belongs under this head) almost the whole world of men, as veritable fools, fools in a madhouse. What is it, then, that is called a ‘fixed idea’? An idea that has subjected the man to itself. When you recognize, with regard to such a fixed idea, that it is a folly, you shut its slave up in an asylum. And is the truth of the faith, say, which we are not to doubt; the majesty of (e.g.) the people, which we are not to strike at (he who does is guilty of — lese-majesty); virtue, against which the censor is not to let a word pass, that morality may be kept pure; — are these not ‘fixed ideas’? 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? Touch the fixed idea of such a fool, and you will at once have to guard your back against the lunatic’s stealthy malice. For these great lunatics are like the little so-called lunatics in this point too — that they assail by stealth him who touches their fixed idea. They first steal his weapon, steal free speech from him, and then they fall upon him with their nails. Every day now lays bare the cowardice and vindictiveness of these maniacs, and the stupid populace hurrahs for their crazy measures. One must read the journals of this period, and must hear the Philistines talk, to get the horrible conviction that one is shut up in a house with fools.”
— Max Stirner
* An alternative, if equally unliteral, translation of »Du hast einen Sparren zu viel!« might be ‘you have a screw loose’.