The Unique and Its Property by Max Stirner & Max Stirner

Author:Max Stirner & Max Stirner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: egoism, egoist
Published: 1845-08-14T16:00:00+00:00

2.2.1 My Power

Right[198] is the spirit of society. If society has a will, this will is simply right: it exists only through right. But since it exists only by exercising a dominance over individuals, right is its sovereign will. Aristotle says justice is the advantage of society.

All existing right is—alien right; it is a right that someone “gives” me, “does right by me.” But would I therefore be in the right if all the world granted right to me? And yet what else is the right that I obtain in the state, in society, other than a right from strangers? When a blockhead makes me out to be right, I grow suspicious of my right; I don’t like his accepting that I’m right. But even when a wise man grants that I’m right, I am still not right because of this. Whether I am right is completely independent of the fool’s or the wise man’s granting it.

Nevertheless, we have striven for this right up to now. We seek for right and turn to the court for that purpose. To which? To a royal, a papal, a people’s court, etc. Can a sultanic court speak of another right than the one that the sultan has proclaimed as right? Can it grant that I’m right when I seek for a right which doesn’t agree with the sultan’s right? Can it grant me, for example, high treason as a right, since it’s certainly not a right to the sultan’s mind? As the censorship court, can it grant me the free expression of opinion as a right, since the sultan doesn’t want to hear anything about this right of mine? What do I seek from this court? I’m seeking sultanic right, not my right, I’m seeking—alien right. As long as this alien right agrees with mine, to be sure, I will find the right in it too.

The state does not allow you to clash man to man; it opposes the duel. Even a scuffle, though neither of the fighters calls for the police, will be punished, except when it is not an I thrashing a you, but, say, a head of the family thrashing a child. The family is entitled to this[199], and in its name the father; I as unique am not.

The Vossische Zeitung[200] presents to us the “state of rights.” There everything is supposed to be decided by the judge and a court. The supreme court of censorship counts for it as a “court” where “right gets dispensed.” What sort of right? The right of censorship. To recognize the judgments of that court as right, one must regard censorship as right. But people still believe that this court offers a protection. Yes, protection against an individual censor’s error: it only protects the censorship legislator against the wrong interpretation of his will, but makes his law firmer against writers through the “sacred power of right.”

Whether I am in the right or not, there is no judge other than myself. About that others can only judge whether they agree with my right, and whether it exists for them as a right too.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.