/lit/ - Literature

Stirner is a spook

how can you choose when you're my property? p. spooky post.

whatever happened to this guy's milk shop?

>>19629345
How can I be your property when I redefine what it means to own property?

>>19629343
no he was just cuckmaxxing his conterparts

>>19629337
You're not "supposed" to do shit, why do you need an objective authority to tell you what to do in the first place?

I don't know much about Stirner but Butters seems to like him, which is enough to discredit his ideas entirely.

>>19629358
>redefine
oh, my property, don't spook out on me now.

>>19629388
because what do I do then?
>just do what you want bro
The problem is, I define what I want, which means while there's no wrong answer, there's also no right answer which leads to a more unsatisfactory "what now?" feeling then anything else

>>19629391
Who's butters?

>>19629404
>writing words
language is a spook

>>19629405
Well, yes, that's just reiterating what you already said. No right or wrong answer just means you can do whatever, if you don't want to do anything that just is what it is. You define what you want based on your actual desires, and those don't require rational justification.

>>19629457
What are my actual desires? Even Stirner admits we're just "the unique" and there's no defining features to what we are - with the power of being anything there's no value in becoming something

>>19629337
Yes, even "I" and the ego are a spook.

>>19629503
>it's over Stirner bros

>>19629474
There are no "defining" features beyond perhaps that incomprehensible individuality itself, but the desires are still there, whether defining or not. No one is stipulating that they have to be there, and if they aren't that isn't somehow wrong, but they are. Value doesn't matter because it doesn't exist, but desire alone is sufficient for motivation.

>>19629530
The fact that I'm asking the question "what do I desire?" proves I don't have an innate desire, or anyone for that matter

>>19629337
Stirner at first looks cool but then you realize his philosophy is just trolling

>>19629658
"Innate desire" isn't necessary, any desire at all will do. If you never have any desires then that's just the reality you have to accept I guess, but that would make you an exception among exceptions and I'd say the mere fact you are still here breathing proves it false.

>>19629503
The ego is not a spook.

>>19629677
My problem with his philosophy is it's so right I don't even know what to do with my life anymore

>>19629693
I get what you mean, I have a natural desire to not die and eat - very basic desires - but these are all overcome with my reasoning/ the idea that I've got no clue how to define my life around 'not dying'

>>19629696
just keep living as before
everything you do is for your own ego sake anyways

>>19629735
I guess, I remember getting into philosophy because it was such a 'meta' discipline about 6 years ago, I thought it'd give me a purpose in life but now I've gone full circle with philosophy actually confirming there is no purpose in life - I'm left with nothing

>>19629776
Based

>>19629696
The problem is it's so wrong that there is nothing you can do as long as you believe it.

>>19629658
You’ve just discovered (correctly) that Stirner is basically retarded. Doesn’t mean he’s not worth reading or wholly uninteresting. But once you get that your ownmost desire is always already socially/culturally mediated (if not imposed) you realize how nonsensical pure egoism is.

>>19629717
You don't need to, you are free to go looking for something you find interesting, or if you feel the need for that objective standard you can just spend your time trying to prove all this false and go looking for that too.

>>19629800
Okay - I've stopped believing it, now what do I do?

>>19629834
What I find interesting is up to me, I've even experienced it in my own life; I used to be heavily into video games until one day I just said "nah, I don't want to do this anymore" and just sold everything by the next week, most of my friends who are still gamers thought I'd go into some addiction episode but no, just said I didn't want to spend the money anymore and stopped. Same with money, after that my girlfriend told me to start spending more money as I'm usually a tight git and I started just spending more and felt no 'betrayal' to my character - I define who I am and what I'm interested in - I thought becoming God would be great but it's left me aimless

>>19629337
>So everything is a spook, right?
Depends on how you mean it. The generality with which the term is use on /lit/ is definitely not what he's writing.
Stirner is also reacting to Hegel and, just like the themes of his literal contemporaries (as in beer buddies, Marx etc.), he does a lot of metaphysics and talk about consumption etc., maybe in a more general sense than Marx. What I mean is that the book in the end aims at a transient, self-consuming and always (i.e. continuously reconstituting) self, the "I", the "creative nothing."
I will agree with the criticism of Stirner ITT, that you can end up with a "what now," but I also think it's unfair. He's not like Nietzsche who tries to push you towards an Übermensch goal or anything. Instead he develops a metaphysics of the individual, what constitutes that individual and it's relation to the world (It's called "the unique one and its propery".) And from those metaphysical conclusion he starts to derive a critique of what's deemed ethical in society. He's again and again of interest to people because of how radical he dares to go, given his premise. E.g. rejecting "Human rights", in the humanism he's born into (basically on the basis of pointing out that rights are something given and can always be seen as just a positive formulation or a restriction: To have the right to pass the street at Green light is just a positive framing of being forbidden to pass the street at Red light.) And of course he's an edgelord and knows well what the reaction will be if he says Human Rights should be rejected, even if on the face of it he has a good justification - at least if you take for granted that living the egoist life is a good idea in the end. His life might be a counterpoint to that hypothesis. My tl;dr is that it's annoying if people read the first 10 pages or less (where he's parodying Hegels chapters), and where he's introducing the spook idea and gives examples, and on /lit/ people end up using the word "spook" as a substitute for "meme." That doesn't make sense.
So again, Stirner wants you to be able to drop all your properties, or self-descriptions at any time. As in you don't own them if you're clinging to them. That's his property concept, you also gotta be able to let yourself go and reconstitute yourself. What's a spook? If you declare yourself a vegan and are then unable to eat meat because you tied yourself to that idea. Instead he says you can always anew choose not to eat meat - if you don't want to anymore. Living as a vegan is your choice. Telling yourself that you're a vegan and drawing conclusions from that, that's falling for a spook.

>>19629924
(Obviously both the traffic light and the vegan example are mine, not his)

>>19629819
The man himself admits there's a wealth of desires and that many of them relate to other people. It's only when you start believing in motivations above and beyond your desires that you get into irrationality.

>>19629391
Butters from South Park?

>>19630213
he's likely refering to this

>>19629337
If you have to over think what Stirner is saying - you've missed the point completely. Nothing he's saying he's complicated, and none of his arguments are new. He's essentially one of the many proto-Nietzcheans, but there were many before him.

>>19630332
I would familiarize yourself with Daoism and Zen before engaging with Stirner. That'll help significantly in getting his message, but you should also read about the historical context of Zen during the Tang Dynasty and the historical context of Stirner's lifetime. There are striking similarities, and they explain his beliefs perfectly.

>>19630332
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relationship_between_Friedrich_Nietzsche_and_Max_Stirner

>>19630396
>historical context of Zen during the Tang Dynasty
where does one learn of that?