is inability to “put oneself in other peoples’ shoes” and a personality trait which has the characteristic of regarding oneself and one’s own opinions or interests as most important or valid. It also generates the inability to fully understand or to cope with other people’s opinions and the fact that reality can be different from what they are ready to accept despite any change in their personal belief.
In psychology, Egocentrism is defined as:
the incomplete differentiation of the self and the world, including other people,
the tendency to perceive, understand and interpret the world in terms of the self, and
being over preoccupied with ones own internal world.
The term derives from the Greek and Latin ἑγώ / ego, meaning “I”, “me”, and “self”. An egocentric person cannot fully empathize, i.e. “put himself in other peoples’ shoes”. The egocentrics believe everyone should see what they see or that what they see, in some way, exceeds what most other people can see, i.e. “how I see the world now is how the world is”. To them, any different perception than their own is either considered false or non existent.
Jean Piaget (1896–1980) claimed that young children are egocentric. This does not mean that they are selfish, but that they do not have the mental ability to understand that other people may have different opinions and beliefs from themselves.
While definitely there are multitude scale levels of egocentrism, mostly it is found in children and then adolescents. Adults are also susceptible to be egocentric or react in such manners.
Eventually a mentally healthy individual evolves out of most of his or her egocentric habits. Adults unable to do so, if forced to face the issue, will often argue of having changed and widen their perception of the world and of having learned from their past mistakes. Unfortunately, despite a new mindset and a confession, they will still practice the habits of regarding oneself and one’s own opinions or interests as most important or valid and still are unable to cope properly with different frames of reference, opinions or point of views other than their own.
In younger children
It appears that this egocentric stance towards the world is present mostly in younger children. They are unable to separate their own beliefs, thoughts and ideas from others. For example, if a child sees that there is candy in a box, he assumes that someone else walking into the room also knows that there is candy in that box. He implicitly reasons that “since I know it, you know it too”. As stated previously this may be rooted in the limitations in the child’s theory of mind skills. However, it does not mean that children are unable to put themselves in someone else’s shoes. As far as feelings are concerned, it is shown that children exhibit empathy early on and are able to cooperate with others and be aware of their needs and wants. With his colleague Barbel Inhelder, Piaget did a test to investigate egocentrism called the mountains study. He put children in front of a simple plaster mountain range and then asked them to pick from four pictures the view that he, Piaget, would see.
Younger children before age 7, during the so-called pre-operational stage, picked the picture of the view they themselves saw and were therefore found to lack the ability to appreciate a viewpoint different from their own. In other words, their way of reasoning was egocentric. Only when entering the so-called concrete-operational stage at age 7–12, children became capable of de-centering and could appreciate viewpoints other than their own. In other words, they were capable of cognitive perspective-taking.
However, the mountains test has been criticized for judging only the child’s visuo-spatial awareness, rather than egocentrism. A follow up study involving police dolls showed that even young children were able to correctly say what the interviewer would see. It is thought that Piaget overestimated the levels of egocentrism in children.
Egocentrism is thus the child’s inability to see other people’s viewpoints. The child at this stage of cognitive development assumes that their view of the world is the same as other people’s, e.g. a little girl does not understand that taking another child’s ball is wrong because she views the ball as hers.
Examples:
In adolescence
Although most of the research completed on the topic of egocentrism is primarily focused on early childhood development; where in later years of development egocentrism should be declining, there are certainly other views to be had. Another view often discussed on the topic of egocentrism is the egocentrism in the adolescent population. Throughout the development of adolescence the body goes through many mental and physical changes. David Elkind was one of the first to really discover the presence of egocentrism in adolescence and late adolescence. David Elkind argues that “the young adolescent, because of physiological metamorphosis he is undergoing, is primarily concerned with himself. Accordingly, since he fails to differentiate between what others are thinking about and his own mental preoccupations, he assumes that other people are obsessed with his behavior and appearance as he is himself.” This shows that the adolescent is exhibiting egocentrism because he cannot clearly identify another person’s perception. Elkind also created terms to help describe the egocentric behaviors exhibited by the adolescent population such as, what he calls an imaginary audience and personal fable. Imaginary audience refers to the idea that most adolescents believe that there is some audience that is constantly present that is overly interested in what the individual has to say or do. Personal fable refers to the idea that many teenagers believe that they are the only ones who are capable of feeling the way that they do. Egocentrism in adolescence is often viewed as a negative aspect of their thinking ability because adolescents become consumed with themselves and are unable to effectively function in society due to their skewed version of reality.
A study was completed on 163 undergraduate students to examine the adolescent egocentrism in college students. Students were asked to complete a self-report questionnaire to determine the level of egocentrism present. The questions simply asked for the reactions that students had to seemingly embarrassing situations. It was found that adolescent egocentrism was more prevalent in the female population than the male. This again exemplifies the idea that egocentrism is present in even late adolescence.
Results from other studies have come to the conclusion that egocentrism does not present itself in some of the same patterns as it was found originally. More recent studies have found that egocentrism is prevalent in later years of development unlike Piaget’s original findings that suggested that egocentrism is only present in early childhood development. Recent studies have also implied that egocentrism is not universally present in all late adolescence. It greatly depends on the environment in which you were raised or are presently in. It is suggested that in stressful situations for example school that egocentrism can be higher. Also the sort of family life one was raised in could determine the amount of egocentric behaviors present. For example an only child is more likely to exhibit personal fable like behavior because they are constantly focused on, and often believe they are the only ones that matter. Overall this suggests that there are some inconsistencies, or at the very least qualifications, to Piaget’s model of human cognitive development.
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is a form of anarchism, as most often represented by Max Stirner and it is a school of anarchist thought that originated in the philosophy of Max Stirner, a nineteenth century Hegelian philosopher whose “name appears with familiar regularity in historically orientated surveys of anarchist thought as one of the earliest and best-known exponents of individualist anarchism.”.
Stirner’s The Ego and Its Own (Der Einzige und sein Eigentum which may literally be translated as The Unique Individual and His Property) was published in 1844. The book is considered by scholar David Leopold to be “a founding text in the tradition of individualist anarchism.” In it, Stirner outlined his view that the only limitation on the individual is his power to obtain what he desires. He proposes that most commonly accepted social institutions—including the notion of State, property as a right, natural rights in general, and the very notion of society—were merespooks in the mind. In the words of Ulrike Heider, Stirner wanted to “abolish not only the state but also society as an institution responsible for its members.”
Egoist anarchists argue that there are no rational grounds for any person to recognise any authority above their own reason or to place any goal before their own happiness.Hence they reject morality, concluding that no one has any reason to accept any principles of conduct, except insofar as accepting those principles is strategically effective in promoting one’s own interests. The consistent anarchist, they argue, should accept no unchosen constraints, moral or political, on their own sovereign will.
Stirner argued that property simply came about through might:
Whoever knows how to take, to defend, the thing, to him belongs property.” And, “What I have in my power, that is my own. So long as I assert myself as holder, I am the proprietor of the thing.” He says, “I do not step shyly back from your property, but look upon it always as my property, in which I respect nothing. Pray do the like with what you call my property!
This position on property is much different from the American natural law form of individualist anarchism, which defends the inviolability of the private property that has been earned through labor and trade. In 1886, American individualist anarchist Benjamin Tucker rejected the natural rights philosophy and, along with others, adopted egoism. This split the American individualists into fierce debate, as Wendy McElroy notes; “with the natural rights proponents accusing the egoists of destroying libertarianism itself.”Other egoist anarchists of the time included James L. Walker, Sidney Parker, and Dora Marsden.
Property;
Egoist anarchists reject notions of natural rights expounded by liberal economics, but reject traditional communist ideas about property and resources belonging to all of society also, presenting a view of property that is neither communist nor individualist. Stirner firmly stated that in his opinion, might meant right, and that it was the ability to physically control something which gave you the right to dispose of it how you willed. This did not mean that he was hostile to socialist desires for a greater share of the wealth labourers produce, but only that if they wanted it, they should unite and take the wealth that they felt they were owed. Stirner saw the employer-labourer relationship as exploitative, he simply refused to draw any moral conclusions from this fact. Thus, an egoist anarchist believes that nobody has a moral claim to wealth produced, and that in uniting with their fellow workers to take a greater share, they are acting rightly, in their self interest.
Egoist anarchists argue that self-welfare should be the guiding principle to follow rather than law. Stirner relates that you can get further with a handful of might than you can with a bagful of right.Template:citequote Law is argued to exist not because men recognize them as being favorable to their interests, but because men hold them to be sacred. Anyone who breaks the law is violating what is sacred. Therefore there are no criminals except against something sacred. If you do away with the sacrosanctity of the law then crime will disappear, because in reality a crime is nothing more than an act desecrating that which was hallowed by the state. There are, according to Stirner, no rights, because might makes right and an individual is entitled to everything he has the power to possess and hold. The way to gain freedom, it is then argued, is through might because he who has might stands above the law. A person only becomes completely free when what he holds, he holds because of his might. Then he is a self-owner and not a mere freeman. Stirner does not believe that a person is good or bad, nor does he believe in what is true, good, right, and so on. These are vague concepts which have no meaning outside a God-centered or man-centered world. it is argued that an individual should center his interest on self and concentrate on his own business.
Stirner then argues to reject the state, as without law the state is not possible. The state, like the law, exists not because an individual recognizes it as favorable to his welfare, but because they considers it to be sacred.
The welfare of the state is argued to have nothing to do with one’s own welfare and one should therefore sacrifice nothing to it. The general welfare is not a person’s own welfare but only means self-denial on their part. The state hinders an individual from attaining his true value, while at the same time it exploits the individual to get some benefit out of him.
The state is argued to stand in the way between individuals, tearing them apart. Egoist anarchists would transform the state into their own property instead of being the property of the state and form in its place a Union of Egoists. It is argued that the state must be destroyed because it is the negation of the individual will as it approaches people as a collective unit.
Influence and expansion of Egoist Anarchism
Europe
John Henry Mackay, scottish-german early anarchist propagandizer of Stirner´s philosophy
The Scottish born German writer John Henry Mackay found about Stirner while reading a copy ofFriedrich Albert Lange´s History of Materialism and Critique of its Present Importance. Later he looked for a copy of The Ego and Its Own and after being fascinated with it he wrote a biography of Stirner (Max Stirner – sein Leben und sein Werk), published in German in 1898. Mackay´s propaganda of stirnerist egoism and of male homosexual and bisexual rights had an impact on Adolf Brand who published the world’s first ongoing homosexual publication, Der Eigene in 1896. The name of that publication was taken from Stirner, who had greatly influenced the young Brand, and refers to Stirner’s concept of “self-ownership” of the individual. Der Eigene concentrated on cultural and scholarly material, and may have averaged around 1500 subscribers per issue during its lifetime.Benjamin Tucker followed this journal from the United States.
Another later german anarchist publication influenced deeply by Stirner was Der Einzige. It appeared in 1919, as a weekly, then sporadically until 1925 and was edited by cousins Anselm Ruest (pseud. for Ernst Samuel) and Mynona (pseud. for Salomo Friedlaender). Its title was adopted from the bookDer Einzige und sein Eigentum (engl. trans. The Ego and Its Own) by Max Stirner. Another influence was the thought of German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. The publication was connected to the local expressionist artistic current and the transition from it towards dada.
Stirnerian egoism became a main influence on European individualist anarchism including its main proponents in the early 20th century such as Emile Armand and Han Ryner in France, Renzo Novatore in Italy, Miguel Giménez Igualada in Spain and in Russia Lev Chernyi.
“For Novatore—a reader of Stirner, but not for that a disciple of stirnerism—the affirmation of the individual, the continuous tension toward freedom, led inevitably to the struggle against the existent, to the violent battle against authority and against every type of ‘wait—and see’ attitude.” Emile Armand ´s stirnerist egoism (as well as his Nietzschetianism) can be appreciated when he writes in “Anarchist Individualism as Life and Activity (1907)” when he says anarchists “are pioneers attached to no party, non-conformists, standing outside herd morality and conventional ‘good’ and ‘evil’ ‘a-social’. A ‘species’ apart, one might say. They go forward, stumbling, sometimes falling, sometimes triumphant, sometimes vanquished. But they do go forward, and by living for themselves, these ‘egoists’, they dig the furrow, they open the broach through which will pass those who deny archism, the unique ones who will succeed them.” Spanish individualist anarchist Miguel Gimenez Igualada wrote a book on Stirner. In Russia, individualist anarchism inspired by Stirner “combined with an appreciation for Friedrich Nietzsche attracted a small following of bohemian artists and intellectuals such as Lev Chernyi, as well as a few lone wolves who found self-expression in crime and violence”. They rejected organizing, believing that only unorganized individuals were safe from coercion and domination, believing this kept them true to the ideals of anarchism.
Stirner´s influence also expressed itself also in a different way in spanish and french individualist anarchism. “The theoretical positions and the vital experiences of french individualism are deeply iconoclastic and scandalous, even within libertarian circles. The call of nudist naturism(see anarcho-naturism), the strong defense of birth control methods, the idea of “unions of egoists” with the sole justification of sexual practices, that will try to put in practice, not without difficulties, will establish a way of thought and action, and will result in sympathy within some, and a strong rejection within others.”
Renzo Novatore, italian stirneristnietzschetian individualist anarchist who embraced an illegalist lifestyle
Illegalism
Illegalism was an anarchist practice that developed primarily in France, Italy, Belgium, and Switzerland during the early 1900s that found justification in Stirner´s philosophy. The illegalists openly embraced criminality as a lifestyle. Illegalists usually did not seek moral basis for their actions, recognizing only the reality of “might” rather than “right”; for the most part, illegal acts were done simply to satisfy personal desires and needs, not for some greater ideal, although some committed crimes as a form of propaganda of the deed.
Illegalism first rose to prominence among a generation of Europeans inspired by the unrest of the 1890s, during which Ravachol, Émile Henry, Auguste Vaillant, and Caserio committed daring crimes in the name of anarchism, in what is known as propaganda of the deed. The French Bonnot Gangwere the most famous group to embrace illegalism.
The illegalists broke from anarchists like Clément Duval and Marius Jacob who justified theft with a theory of la reprise individuelle (English: individual reclamation). Instead, the illegalists argued that their actions required no moral basis; illegal acts were performed not in the name of a higher ideal, but in pursuit of one’s own desires.
As a reaction to this, French anarchist communists attempted to distance themselves from illegalism and anarchist individualism as a whole. In August 1913, the Fédération Communiste-Anarchistes(FCA) condemned individualism as bourgeois and more in keeping with capitalism than communism. An article believed to have been written by Peter Kropotkin, in the British anarchist paper Freedom, argued that “Simple-minded young comrades were often led away by the illegalists’ apparent anarchist logic; outsiders simply felt disgusted with anarchist ideas and definitely stopped their ears to any propaganda.”
The United States and the United Kingdom
Benjamin Tucker
Some American individualist anarchists such as Benjamin Tucker, abandoned natural rightspositions and converted to Max Stirner’s Egoist anarchism. Rejecting the idea of moral rights, Tucker said that there were only two rights, “the right of might” and “the right of contract.” He also said, after converting to Egoist individualism, “In times past…it was my habit to talk glibly of the right of man to land. It was a bad habit, and I long ago sloughed it off….Man’s only right to land is his might over it.” In adopting Stirnerite egoism (1886), Tucker rejected natural rights which had long been considered the foundation of libertarianism. This rejection galvanized the movement into fierce debates, with the natural rights proponents accusing the egoists of destroying libertarianism itself. So bitter was the conflict that a number of natural rights proponents withdrew from the pages of Liberty in protest even though they had hitherto been among its frequent contributors. Thereafter, Liberty championed egoism although its general content did not change significantly.”
“Several periodicals were undoubtedly influenced by Liberty’s presentation of egoism. They included: I published by C.L. Swartz, edited by W.E. Gordak and J.W. Lloyd (all associates ofLiberty); The Ego and The Egoist, both of which were edited by Edward H. Fulton. Among the egoist papers that Tucker followed were the German Der Eigene, edited by Adolf Brand, and The Eagle and The Serpent, issued from London. The latter, the most prominent English-language egoist journal, was published from 1898 to 1900 with the subtitle ‘A Journal of Egoistic Philosophy and Sociology'”.
Among those American anarchists who adhered to egoism include Benjamin Tucker, John Beverley Robinson, Steven T. Byington, Hutchins Hapgood, James L. Walker, Victor Yarros and E.H. Fulton. John Beverley Robinson wrote an essay called “Egoism” in which he states that “Modern egoism, as propounded by Stirner and Nietzsche, and expounded by Ibsen, Shaw and others, is all these; but it is more. It is the realization by the individual that they are an individual; that, as far as they are concerned, they are the only individual.”
Steven T. Byington was a one-time proponent of Georgism who later converted to egoist stirnerist positions after associating with Benjamin Tucker. He is known for translating two important anarchist works into English from German: Max Stirner’s The Ego and Its Own and Paul Eltzbacher’s Anarchism; exponents of the anarchist philosophy (also published by Dover with the title The Great Anarchists: Ideas and Teachings of Seven Major Thinkers). James L. Walker (sometimes known by the pen name “Tak Kak”) was one of the main contributors toBenjamin Tucker’s Liberty. He published his major philosophical work called Philosophy of Egoism in the May 1890 to September 1891 in issues of the publication Egoism.
Nietzsche (see Anarchism and Friedrich Nietzsche) and Stirner were frequently compared by French “literary anarchists” and anarchist interpretations of Nietzschean ideas appear to have also been influential in the United States.One researcher notes “Indeed, translations of Nietzsche’s writings in the United States very likely appeared first in Liberty, the anarchist journal edited by Benjamin Tucker.” He adds “Tucker preferred the strategy of exploiting his writings, but proceeding with due caution: ‘Nietzsche says splendid things, – often, indeed, Anarchist things, – but he is no Anarchist. It is of the Anarchists, then, to intellectually exploit this would-be exploiter. He may be utilized profitably, but not prophetably.'”
Emma Goldman
Anarchist communist Emma Goldman was influenced by both Stirner and Peter Kropotkin as well as the Russian strain of individualist anarchism, and blended these philosophies together in her own, as shown in books of hers such as Anarchism And Other Essays. There she defends both Stirner and Friedrich Nietzsche when she says “The most disheartening tendency common among readers is to tear out one sentence from a work, as a criterion of the writer’s ideas or personality … It is the same narrow attitude which sees in Max Stirner naught but the apostle of the theory ‘each for himself, the devil take the hind one.’ That Stirner’s individualism contains the greatest social possibilities is utterly ignored. Yet, it is nevertheless true that if society is ever to become free, it will be so through liberated individuals, whose free efforts make society.”Usually egoism within anarchism is associated with individualist anarchism but it found admiration in the mainstream social anarchistssuch as anarcha-feminists Emma Goldman and Federica Montseny (both also admired Friedrich Nietzsche). Max Baginski was an important collaborator in Goldman´s publication Mother Earth. Bagisnki in an essay titled “Stirner: The Ego and His Own” published in Mother Earth puts forward an anarchocommunist interpretation of Stirner´s philosophy when he manifests that “Fully as heartily the Communists concur with Stirner when he puts the word take in place of demand — that leads to the dissolution of property, to expropriation. Individualism and Communism go hand in hand.”
Enrico Arrigoni (pseudonym: Frank Brand) was an Italian American individualist anarchist Lathe operator, house painter, bricklayer, dramatist and political activist influenced by the work of Max Stirner. He took the pseudonym “Brand” from a fictional character in one of Henrik Ibsen´s plays. In the 1910s he started becoming involved in anarchist and anti-war activism around Milan. From the 1910s until the 1920s he participated in anarchist activities and popular uprisings in various countries including Switzerland, Germany, Hungary, Argentina and Cuba. He lived from the 1920s onwards in New York City and there he edited the individualist anarchist eclectic journal Eresia in 1928. He also wrote for other american anarchist publications such as L’ Adunata dei refrattari, Cultura Obrera, Controcorrente and Intessa Libertaria.
Latin America
Biofilo Panclasta,Colombian stirnerist
Argentine anarchist historian Angel Cappelletti reports that in Argentina “Among the workers that came from Europe in the 2 first decades of the century, there was curiously some stirnerian individualists influenced by the philosophy of Nietzsche, that saw syndicalism as a potential enemy of anarchist ideology. They established…affinity groups that in 1912 came to, according to Max Nettlau, to the number of 20. In 1911 there appeared, in Colón, the periodical El Único, that defined itself as ´Publicación individualista´”.
Vicente Rojas Lizcano whose pseudonym was Biófilo Panclasta, was a Colombian individualist anarchistwriter and activist. In 1904 he begins using the name Biofilo Panclasta. “Biofilo” in Spanish stands for “lover of life” and “Panclasta” for “enemy of all”. He visited more than fifty countries propagandizing for anarchism which in his case was highly influenced by the thought of Max Stirner and Friedrich Nietszche. Among his written works there are Siete años enterrado vivo en una de las mazmorras de Gomezuela: Horripilante relato de un resucitado(1932) and Mis prisiones, mis destierros y mi vida (1929) which talk about his many adventures while living his life as an adventurer, activist and vagabond, as well as his thought and the many times he was imprisoned in different countries.
Jun Tsuji, first translator of Stirner into the japanese language
Japan
Jun Tsuji was a japanese anarchist, epicurean and dadaist shakuhachi musician, actor, and bohemian who after discovering and adhering to Stirner´s philosophy proceded to translate The Ego and Its Own into the japanese language. Stirner also influenced the japanese anarchist writer and activist Sakae Osugi who also received the influence of Nietzsche, Henri Bergson, Peter Kropotkin, and Georges Sorel.
Mid 20th century
French individualist anarchists grouped behind Emile Armand, published L’Unique after World War II. L’Unique, whose name was inspired by the french translation of The Ego and its Own (in french L’Unique et sa propriété) went from 1945 to 1956 with a total of 110 numbers.In 1956, the Spanish individualist anarchist Miguel Giménez Igualada published an extensive treatise on Stirner which he dedicated to fellow individualist anarchist Emile Arman. In the 1960s Daniel Guérin in Anarchism: From Theory to Practice says that Stirner “rehabilitated the individual at a time when the philosophical field was dominated by Hegelian anti-individualism and most reformers in the social field had been led by the misdeeds of bourgeois egotism to stress its opposite” and pointed to “the boldness and scope of his thought.”
Existentialist anarchism
In the United Kingdom Herbert Read was influenced highly by egoism as he later came close to existentialism. David Goodway in Herbert Read Reassessed writes that in Read’s Education Through Art (1943) “Here we have the egoism of Max Stirner assimilated in the anarchist communism of Peter Kropotkin.” He cites Read for this affirmation which shows egoism’s influence:
Uniqueness has no practical value in isolation. One of the most certain lessons of modern psychology and of recent historical experiences, is that education must be a process, not only of individuation, but also of integration, which is the reconciliation of individual uniqueness with social unity … the individual will be “good” in the degree that his individuality is realized within the organic wholeness of the community.
Albert Camus
Albert Camus devotes a section of The Rebel to Stirner. He consigns him to dwelling in a desert of isolation and negation “drunk with destruction”. Camus also accuses Stirner of going “as far as he can in blasphemy”. He proclaims that Stirner is “intoxicated with the perspective of justifying” crime although without mentioning that Stirner carefully distinguishes between the ordinary criminal and the “criminal” as violator of the “sacred”. He mishaps by misquoting Stirner through asserting that he “specifies” in relation to other human beings “kill them, do not martyr them” when in fact he writes “I can kill them, not torture them”—and this in relation to the moralist who both kills and tortures to serve the “concept of the ‘good'”. Although throughout his book Camus is concerned to present “the rebel” as a preferred alternative to “the revolutionary” he nowhere acknowledges that this distinction is taken from the one that Stirner makes between “the revolutionary” and “the insurrectionist”
Late 20th century and today
Sidney Parker is a British egoist individualist anarchist who wrote articles and edited anarchist journals from 1963 to 1993 such as Minus One, Egoist, and Ego. In “Ego and society” he writes “Against the mystique of the sociocrat, stands the conscious ego of the autocrat, whose being is pivoted within, and who regards ‘society’ simply as a means or instrument, not a source or sanction. The egoist refuses to be ensnared by the net of conceptual imperatives that surrounds the hypostatization of ‘society’ preferring the real to the unreal, the fact to the myth.”
During the 1990s in Argentina there appears a stirnerist publication called El Único: publicacion periódica de pensamiento individualista.
Situationists
In the seventies an American situationist collective called “For Ourselves: Council for Generalized Self-Management” published a book calledThe Right To Be Greedy: Theses On The Practical Necessity Of Demanding Everything in which they advocate a “communist egoism” basing themselves on Stirner.It authors say “The positive conception of egoism, the perspective of communist egoism, is the very heart and unity of our theoretical and practical coherence.” The authors there write “The perspective of communist egoism is the perspective of that selfishness which desires nothing so much as other selves, of that egoism which wants nothing so much as other egos; of that greed which is greedy to love—love being the ‘total appropriation’ of man by man.” “Communist egoism” names the synthesis of individualism and collectivism, just as communist society names the actual, material, sensuous solution to the historical contradiction of the “particular” and the “general” interest, a contradiction engendered especially in the cleavage of society against itself into classes.
Post-left anarchy
In the eighties in the United States emerged the tendency of post-left anarchy which was influenced profoundly by egoism in aspects such as the critique of ideology. Jason McQuinn says that “when I (and other anti-ideological anarchists) criticize ideology, it is always from a specifically critical, anarchist perspective rooted in both the skeptical, individualist-anarchist philosophy of Max Stirner”. Also Bob Blackand Feral Faun/Wolfi Landstreicher strongly adhere to Stirnerist egoism. A reprinting of The Right to be Greedy in the eighties was done with the involvement of Bob Black who also wrote the preface to it. Bob Black has also humorously suggested the idea of “Marxist Stirnerism” just as he wrote an essay on “groucho-marxism”. He writes in the preface to The Right to be Greedy: “If Marxism-Stirnerism is conceivable, every orthodoxy prating of freedom or liberation is called into question, anarchism included. The only reason to read this book, as its authors would be the first to agree, is for what you can get out of it.”
Bob Black, contemporary american stirnerist associated with the post-left anarchy tendency
Hakim Bey has said “From Stirner’s “Union of Self-Owning Ones” we proceed to Nietzsche’s circle of “Free Spirits” and thence to Charles Fourier’s “Passional Series”, doubling and redoubling ourselves even as the Other multiplies itself in the eros of the group.” Bey also wrote that “The Mackay Society, of which Mark & I are active members, is devoted to the anarchism of Max Stirner, Benj. Tucker & John Henry Mackay…The Mackay Society, incidentally, represents a little-known current of individualist thought which never cut its ties with revolutionary labor. Dyer Lum, Ezra & Angela Haywood represent this school of thought;Jo Labadie, who wrote for Tucker’s Liberty, made himself a link between the american “plumb-line” anarchists, the “philosophical” individualists, & the syndicalist or communist branch of the movement; his influence reached the Mackay Society through his son, Laurance. Like the Italian Stirnerites (who influenced us through our late friend Enrico Arrigoni) we support all anti-authoritarian currents, despite their apparent contradictions.”
Post-anarchism
In the hybrid of post-structuralism and anarchism called post-anarchism the British Saul Newman has written a lot on Stirner and his similarities to post-structuralism. He writes:
Max Stirner’s impact on contemporary political theory is often neglected. However in Stirner’s political thinking there can be found a surprising convergence with poststructuralist theory, particularly with regard to the function of power. Andrew Koch, for instance, sees Stirner as a thinker who transcends the Hegelian tradition he is usually placed in, arguing that his work is a precursor poststructuralist ideas about the foundations of knowledge and truth.
Newman has published several essays on Stirner. “War on the State: Stirner and Deleuze’s Anarchism” and “Empiricism, pluralism, and politics in Deleuze and Stirner” discusses what he sees are similarities between Stirner’s thought and that of Gilles Deleuze. In “Spectres of Stirner: a Contemporary Critique of Ideology” he discusses the conception of ideology in Stirner. In “Stirner and Foucault: Toward a Post-Kantian Freedom” similarities between Stirner and Michel Foucault. Also he wrote “Politics of the ego: Stirner’s critique of liberalism”.
Insurrectionary anarchism
Egoism has had a strong influence on insurrectionary anarchism, as can be seen in the work of Wolfi Landstreicher and Alfredo Bonanno. Bonanno has written on Stirner in works such as Max Stirner and “Max Stirner und der Anarchismus”.
Feral Faun wrote in 1995 that:
In the game of insurgence—a lived guerilla war game—it is strategically necessary to use identities and roles. Unfortunately, the context of social relationships gives these roles and identities the power to define the individual who attempts to use them. So I, Feral Faun, became … an anarchist … a writer … a Stirner-influenced, post-situationist, anti-civilization theorist … if not in my own eyes, at least in the eyes of most people who’ve read my writings.
In the famous Italian insurrectionary anarchist essay written by an anonymous writer “At Daggers Drawn with the Existent, its Defenders and its False Critics” there reads “The workers who, during a wildcat strike, carried a banner saying, ‘We are not asking for anything’ understood that the defeat is in the claim itself (‘the claim against the enemy is eternal’). There is no alternative but to take everything. As Stirner said: ‘No matter how much you give them, they will always ask for more, because what they want is no less than the end of every concession’.”
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Creation is the product of synchronizing our energy with the universe. Once we experience the whole and recognize it, we become aware that we are nothing but the Divine Creative Force.
♥ The Tale Of My Heart ♥ 
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