Anarcho-Egoism

Egoism, or Egoist Anarchism, is an off-the-compass libertarian and anarchist unity ideology, that emphasizes the individual over any other kind of guiding principle; that is, the individual should do as they please, not bound by any government or moral code. He calls what he believes are social constructs and, well, everything he doesn't like a spook. In fact, web pages dedicated to the ideology are a spook, as are the author and the time and effort he spent on it... unless he enjoyed himself, in which case... well, still probably something spooky about it.

History
Egoism is a philosophy and political ideology developed by Max Stirner in 1844. Outlined in his book "Der Einzige und Sein Eigentum" (Translated as "Ego and It's Own" or more accurately as "The Unique and It's Property") Stirner critiques institutions within society such as Christianity, Nationalism, Morality, Humanism, Socialism, Liberalism, and even society itself through a heavily individualist lens. He comes to call these ideas phantasms, or as they are more commonly known, spooks. This name comes from Stirner to describe the actions of these institutions as similar to that of ghosts. They are immaterial, but can still have an affect on, or even possess the individual.

Hegel was a large influence for Stirner as he was a member of the Young Hegelians, a group of thinkers who followed and analyzed Hegel's teachings. Stirner would grow to resent many members of this group, and even antagonize or satirize them in his book. Stirner built off of the Hegelian Dialectic to form these criticisms, and even to criticize the idea of the Hegelian Dialectic. He sought to bring to the individual's attention that many institutions and ideas are of our own creation and entirely dependent on our perception of them. Stirner likens these institutions to the property of the individual, in that the individual is the one who has the real power over them. The ideas of the State, Religion, Family, etc. are all the property of the individual, and as such the individual may do as they please with these institutions. He argues the individual should strive to use their control over these institutions in order to demolish them in the pursuit of becoming truly unique. (hence Der Enzige "The Unique" in the title.)

Stirner's work was criticized with a sort of begrudging respect by many of the Young Hegelians. Including but not limited to: Marx, Engels, and Feuerbach. While each took their own issues with the idea of Egoism, they would still acknowledge the impact and profound nature of Stirner's work. Stirner would respond to these criticisms, often under pseudonyms so he could pretend he wasn't the one responding.

Self
Within Der Einzige und Sein Eigentum, Max Stirner outlines how You the individual are a fully self-contained being that is beyond full comprehension. Arguing that the "creative-nothing" being both the creator and creation of your existence is the "end point of language"

"Stirner speaks of the Unique and says immediately: Names name you not. He articulates the word, so long as he calls it the Unique, but adds nonetheless that the Unique is only a name. He thus means something different from what he says, as perhaps someone who calls you Ludwig does not mean a Ludwig in general, but means You."

Egoism
Stirner argues that the individual should follow all their desires without regard to morality, laws, rules, 'fixed ideas' or entrapments of thought. However, how this self-interest is defined is necessarily subjective, allowing both selfish and altruistic normative claims to be included.

Stirner argued that everyone is selfish and aims for their own goals, even the community only aims to benefit the community without regard to others. While those that have trapped themselves into following a 'fixed idea' or 'spook' are involuntary egoists only following a doctrine because they believe it is the right thing to do which makes them happy or fulfilled.

The difference between an unwilling and a willing egoist is that the former will be 'possessed' by an empty idea and believe that they are fulfilling a higher cause, but usually being unaware that they are only fulfilling their own desires to be happy or secure; and the latter, in contrast, will be a person that is able to freely choose its actions, fully aware that they are only fulfilling individual desires: "Sacred things exist only for the egoist who does not acknowledge himself, the involuntary egoist [...] Because he would like to cease to be an egoist, he looks about in heaven and earth for higher beings to serve and sacrifice himself to; but, however much he shakes and disciplines himself, in the end he does all for his own sake [...]. On this account I call him the involuntary egoist."

Anarchism
Stirner 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 mere illusions - spooks, or ghosts in the mind, saying of society that "the individuals are its reality". Stirner wants to "abolish not only the state but also society as an institution responsible for its members". Stirner opposed to both communism and capitalism stating that:

"All attempts to enact rational laws about property have put out from the bay of love into a desolate sea of regulations. Even Socialism and Communism cannot be excepted from this. Everyone one is to be provided with adequate means, for which it is little to the point whether one socialistically finds them still in a personal property, or communistically draws them from a community of goods. The individual's mind in this remains the same; it remains a mind of dependence. The distributing board of equity lets me have only what the sense of equity, its loving care for all, prescribes. For me, the individual, there lies no less of a check in collective wealth than in that of individual others; neither that is mind, nor this: whether the wealth belongs to the collectivity, which confers part of it on me, or to individual possessors, is for me the same constraint, as I cannot decide about either of the two. One the Contrary, Communism, by the abolition of all personal property, only presses me back still more into dependence on another, viz., on the generality or collectivity; and, loudly as it always attacks the "State," what it intends is itself again a State, a status, a condition hindering my free movement, a sovereign power over me. Communism rightly revolts against the pressure I experience from individual proprietors; but still more horrible is the might that it puts in the hands of the collectivity. Egoism takes another way to root out the non-possessing rabble. It does not say: Wait for what the board of equity will—bestow on you in the name of the collectivity (for such bestowal took place in "States" from the most ancient times, each receiving "according to his desert," and therefore according to the measure in which each was able to deserve it, to acquire it by service), but: Take hold, and take what you require! With this the war of all against all is declared. I alone decide what I will have."

Property
For Stirner property was not a case of natural rights or promised deeds of property, it only existed as an extension of the Individual: "Whoever knows how to take, to defend, the thing, to him belongs property. [...] 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" and "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 view on property has been taken by some to be very Communistic thus sparking movements such as Ego-Communism and  Post-Left Anarchism.

Union of Egoists
Stirner's idea of the "Union of egoists" was first expounded in Der Einzige und Sein Eigentum. The Union is understood as a non-systematic association, which Stirner proposed in contradistinction to the state. The Union is understood as a relation between egoists which is continually renewed by all parties' support through an act of will. The Union requires that all parties participate out of a conscious egoism. If one party silently finds themselves to be suffering, but puts up and keeps the appearance, the union has degenerated into something else. This Union is not seen as an authority above a person's own will.

Some Anarcho-Syndicalism movements have taken this Union of Egoists as a literal basis for syndicalist communes while other  Queer Anarchism groups within Catalonia argued for Stirner's non-systematic approach.

Revolution
Stirner criticizes conventional notions of revolution, arguing that social movements aimed at overturning the state are tacitly statist because they are implicitly aimed at the establishment of a new state thereafter. "He harbors the most irreconcilable hostility toward heaven, and yet builds a new heaven daily: piling heaven upon heaven, he only crushes one with another" Stirner instead suggests insurrection not as a violent uprising such as Insurrectionary Anarchism but as a tool of personal liberation: "The revolution aimed at new arrangements; insurrection leads us no longer to let ourselves be arranged, but to arrange ourselves, and sets no glittering hopes on 'institutions'. It is not a fight against the established [...] it is only a working forth of me out of the established. [...] Now, as my object is not an overthrow of the established order but my elevation above it, my purpose and deed are not political or social but (as directed toward myself and my ownness alone) an egoistic purpose indeed"

Stylistic Notes

 * Egoism usually wears Stirner's glasses, but this is not consistent nor mandatory. If you use the glasses, feel free to add reflections in the lenses.
 * Make certain that the color is distinct from other anarchists by using (#036a66). Colors are a spook though so it's really up to the ego.

How to Draw
Egoism_flag.svg Drawing Egoism is very simple:
 * 1) Draw a ball.
 * 2) Draw a line in a lighter shade of black (#141414) diagonally through the ball.
 * 3) Fill the space below the line in black, and the space above the line in teal (#036A66).
 * 4) Add the tiny glasses, and you're done!

Friendly

 * [[File:Anpostleft.png]] Post-Left Anarchism - You carry my ideas very well.
 * [[File:Annil.png]] Anarcho-Nihilism - You understand me, yet you can often be dogmatic.
 * [[File:Anqueer.png]] Queer Anarchism - Be gay, do crime. "True Femininity" and "True Masculinity" are spooks.
 * [[File:Illeg.png]] Illegalism - My praxis.
 * [[File:Insarch.png]] Insurrectionary Anarchism - Leads us no longer to let ourselves be arranged, but to arrange ourselves, and setting no glittering hope on "institutions”.
 * [[File:Awaj.png]] Anarchism - No gods, no masters.
 * [[File:Egocom.png]] Ego-Communism - If establishing communism pleases your ego, so be it.
 * [[File:Post-an.png]] Post-Anarchism - You seem to like my idea of Ownness and my deconstruction of the Dialectic, but you're extremely confusing sometimes.

Mixed

 * [[File:Mutalist.png]] Mutualism - "Property as bourgeois liberals understand it deserves the attack of... Proudhon" but not for the sake of the community, that's a spook.
 * Ormarxf.png Marxism - Fellow Young Hegelian. Him and Engels admired my work, until they called me a bourgeois liberal.
 * Clib.png Classical Liberalism - Translated some of your work to bring it to Germany, maybe that's why Ormarxf.png Marxism doesn't like me.
 * [[File:Ancom.png]] Anarcho-Communism - Your morality is my tyranny, Pious Atheist you are!
 * [[File:Soul.png]] Soulism - If it pleases your ego - share, but what is this fixed ideal of "abolishing laws of physics?"

Spooks

 * Antifa.png Antifa - You have some wheels in the head, don't you? If fighting Fascists pleases me I shall do so, but it is not my sacred obligation.
 * Republicanismpix.png Republicanism - "Every state is a despotism, whether the despot be one or many, or, as some like to imagine a republic, all be lords, i.e., play the despot over each other."
 * Ochlo.png Ochlocracy - Even more spooked than the last one.
 * [[File:Totalitarian.png]] Totalitarianism - I read Hegel.
 * [[File:Obj.png]] Objectivism - Somehow missed all my points "I told you about objectivity Bro", I pity this duped egoist who thinks only of herself, and what's this about private property?
 * Nation.png Nationalism - "With the manure of these corpses, the nation becomes a “blossoming nation.” Individuals have died for the great cause of the nation."
 * [[File:Civlibert.png]] Civil Libertarianism - Rights are phantasmic and only give authority away from myself onto some pitiful and nonexistent universal of "humanity" or "nature."
 * [[File:Christy.png]] Christian Theocracy - Why is God's cause to be my cause?
 * [[File:Communalist.png]] Communalism - I'm not giving you my glasses.

Literature

 * The Ego and Its Own by Max Stirner (Audiobook Version)
 * Stirner's Critics by Max Stirner
 * The Philosophical Reactionaries by Max Stirner
 * All Things are Nothing to Me: The Unique Philosophy of Max Stirner by Jacob Blumenfeld

Wikipedia

 * Egoist Anarchism
 * Max Stirner
 * Union of Egoists

Online Communities

 * r/fullegoism