Alien causes, alien movements, alien issues, old and alien to each of us: the Good Cause, God’s Cause, the cause of freedom, the cause of mankind, the cause of man, the cause of world peace — each meant for someone or some group to throw on us to get us to serve when we should serve ourselves. We should live for ourselves, not for liberation, and we should beware of those who get us to do various chores for liberation. That is a trick that appears to accomplish progress when it accomplishes nothing but more alienation.
We have our own causes — the cause of myself and the cause of yourself. These are important causes. When you hear of issues of national importance, no, the cause of you is most important. What have you done for yourself today? How have you poured your energies completely into your own life?
There is the cause of serving no authority. Why should we?! It’s an old expectation to accept obedience and be glad in it, but why is it so wrong to make all of your decisions for yourself? Because it’s sinful, or it’s just wrong.
What are you working on? Why aren’t you occupied with yourself? Why aren’t you being yourself, fulfilling every whim and desire? The cause of oneself is belonging to no one and being one’s own possession, and this cause does not isolate but seeks out similarly self-determined individuals to live out this life.
We are everything despite still being told that God is most important. No, we are the most important. We are more important than an entire million-dollar church. At the same time, we’re nothing. Our past, our personal histories, our legends and accomplishments don’t mean shit, but what we want to do means everything or at least it should. There is nothing to tie us down, nothing to serve, not even our personas or what we promised yesterday. Perfection is a lost cause again serving an idea and the protracted ascent to it. We’ve arrived to our destinations without traveling; we’re perfect as we are. Ideas and spirituality can waste days into weeks, months and years if we consider them as much as possible rather than no more than they come and go. Clubs do not mean more than ourselves. They’re the ones who need members. The President, a deacon or a country are hyped-up symbols that we need to desecrate in order to take back our lives. Only we matter, and the others get in the way.
We’ve been interrupted from our concerns by our families’ docile morality and our obligation to the state — school. As children, we didn’t live for emancipation of the working class or for activism. That’s a religion that left-wing politics teaches. We also learned to stop ourselves from being unreasonable, ungodly or unpatriotic, but letting oneself go is not modern behavior; it is hundreds and, in some cases, thousands of years old although it can appear especially recent and wicked. It can appear alien and repulsive, turn us off from being ourselves, and the repercussions can scare us back into normality. The Bible even tells Christians not to be patriotic but to be strangers and foreigners on earth; Heaven is their homeland, but this paradise after life is what I have a problem with. Life should be what I want it to be, but I haven’t made it anymore than what’s allowed.
That everlasting heavenly treasure is of course a pacifier that working people have held onto to get them through long days and nights of labor ever since the Egyptian slaves made it up under the Nubians’ prevailing crazy religion and tyranny. Christianity was the dialectical synthesis of Jewish worldliness and its philosophical antithesis as well as every other religion in Asia minor at that time, so this is why Christians can still wear business suits and not be laughed out of institutions. Their charity is for the poor as long as individual elements of mankind do not display feelings that are rude, uncivilized and barbaric or anything besides meek and grateful beneficiaries. To such purists, these hidden emotions are filthy, and the people who don’t control themselves are filth.
I could speak more about Christianity, but I’ll close with a thought about the ancient philosophers from that period. With city-states turning into another empire, they based their thought against or outside a natural order instead of in harmony with it; the planet was another obstacle to be conquered just as all of its inhabitants. There are some truthspeakers who seek attention to gratify themselves for choosing such an honorable higher purpose b/c, remember, there’s nothing lower than ourselves, amirite? We’re so dirty and mundane unless we live for the people. We’re boring, or so some think and consequently must pursue lofty, exciting ideas. It’s more important to lose our dignity and become the creatures that we keep caged. We’re wonderful people!
We should feel entitled to everything. Anything less is a ruling class success long in the making like a pet owner beating the dog. This is the morality that replaced the piety of religion which was Latin for binding or obligating. The former middle class of merchants have come to the fore, running their courts and basing their laws on liberalism and humanity. We are expected to carry that tyrant, the law, within our hearts, so justice prevails in all its glory! Lawful opposition loses the will for autonomy and engages in activism as a plea for freedom.
Self-willed people oppose governments with their might instead of petitioning for rights. To build a majority to replace the current injustice never works because waiting for strength in numbers doesn’t produce the kind of people who will take what is forbidden. These rules appear as unbridled freedom and protection of such freedom, so godawful people like ourselves don’t ruin the good thing they got going. Who minds working forty hours a week, forty-some weeks a year for his or her entire adult life?? That’s the liberty umbrella that covers all citizens but doesn’t quite nurture an individual’s uniqueness.
Can we listen to ourselves if we doubt our beliefs, or do they have us? The culture we learn makes us feel as though we are ascending into superiority, but we are only learning to cope by living with predictable outcomes. We should be humble neither before the stars whom we adore nor the law that terrifies us with its punishments. We are a part of both extremes, and we should not allow them to live through us. Crime can be terrible, and I can understand why some people choose to argue against all crime. On the other hand, even if a crime doesn’t cause the slightest damage to certain people or their loved ones, they nevertheless denounce it, and that doesn’t make sense. It also doesn’t make sense to treat such a criminal as a monster, but that is society. Those are the brainwashed fools who are stacked against us.
Humans should respect people more than their ideals, but the establishment and its obedient dogs still have not put down for good the worldly ones. Desire will always exist because it comes before, after and during servile ideology no matter how “awesome” it is to wear a uniform decorated with stars before a crowd of seated officers focusing on you. Being unique and allowing ourselves self-ownership is about fulfilling our wants rather than arguing for egoism and against everything else. Crusades are not an egoist’s duty.
For more information besides the book and the late Mr Schmidt’s reply to his critics, Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed # 68-69 has a couple articles, and they point out Max Stirner: Recensenten Stirners (english / deutsch), i-studies: max stirner and Max Stirner within the LSR project (English). Also, The Anarchist Library has an egoist tag for similar authors as well as the two writings I mentioned at the beginning of this paragraph. The picture is from http://www.flickr.com/photos/jonask/2775464625/.