-Caveat Lector- <A HREF="http://www.spunk.org/library/groups/sfa/sp000507.txt"> http://www.spunk.org/.../groups/sfa/sp000507.txt</A> ----- >From an Egoist Window Pane by Iconoclast Shakespeare once said, "nothing is either good or bad, but thinking makes it so". You may say; some things are bad and some good independently of my thinking. This is to say; food is good or bad independent of my stomach. The policeman's baton is good or bad independent of its exercise on my body. The knife is good or bad independent of me, you may say. Does my thought of the use of the knife not determine for me whether it is good or bad? Does my thought of the use of the knife not determine whether the knife is lethal or of use value. In the hands of an assailant the knife is lethal to my thinking. In the hands of a soldier on the battlefield it has good value. The knife in itself is neither good nor bad but thinking makes it so. The soldier by his passion for patriotism regards the knife, bayonet or bullet indispensable. What does "for patriotism" derive from if not from thinking "rightly or wrongly"; predicates which again are derived from thought. The knife in the hand of a surgeon could be propitious in my way of thinking. Thought of course is merely one of my qualities. I also have flesh and blood and in consequence I feel pain when a blow is administered. If I am incarcerated for the violation of a law, violence may be exercised upon my person by the lickspittles of the law, in order to get me to reveal the identity of my accomplices. I may feel pain, then my thought comes to my aid. My thought like flesh and blood is mine. The thoughts of the lickspittles are not theirs; they are possessed by them; they are victims of their own creation. So I put my thought to use and bring my obduracy into play or I steer them wrongly. Yes, I tell them a lie. If I was possessed by truth I would have to be disloyal to my friends and pander to my enemies. The truth is not above me. If I was a lover of truth I would be infatuated by an abstraction. If some truths exist, what do I care? Must I genuflect before them in reverence. A truth which is unpalatable to me will be subdued if I have the power to do so. A truth which is favourable to me I will accept. Economists have convinced me that the capitalist system prevails. I accept that this is a truth but a truth which I want to make an untruth. If I had the power to annihilate this chimerical monster I would not hesitate. For the present I can only gnaw at it like excavating at a mountain with a pick and shovel until I muster sufficient dynamite to blow it out of existence and reach my destination. You, you, and a several thousand times you are the dynamite and detonator which I seek. It is self-interest but a mutual self-interest. Do you think the powers that be will listen to your moralistic platitudes? They gave you the vote as a red herring. They gave you free speech. But if they can give you it, then they can take it from you. What use is free speech to sheep? They only bleat. You have to take it and not grovel for it. You have to assert yourself by action. You fireside philosophers are of no danger to them. You can ramble on about your theories in pub and club and the powers that be only treat you for what you are : Armchair philosophers who speak like predatory eagles but are in fact barnyard fouls divested of their claws. Poets, subversive music, art, subversive song and ideals are treated with some tolerance as long as they remain idealistic expressions. But when the ideal becomes real it is no longer the ideal. This is what offends the sensitivities of the powers that be. They know the person of action intends to make the ideal real. Serve an ideal if you will so long as you will not transform it into the corporeal. To serve an ideal is to serve not yourself but another outside yourself. I may have an ideal but it is not I and I am not it. Can the ideal be anything but my possession if I am to remain my own master? If the ideal gets above for me to serve then I become a creature of my own creation. I an a possessed man. Let me ask the question. Are you a singer before you sing? Are you a dancer before you dance? Are you a speaker before you speak? Are you a thinker before you think? If I sing, if I dance, if I speak, if I think, where do these attributes stem from? I pinch myself and feel it, confirming that I'm still alive. Of course they stem from me. Your ideals, your truths are static without your activity. Can they move as you do? For some, truth is eternal or they seek eternal truth. They cannot see the wood for the trees. They have an optical illusion, they approach truth like approaching the horizon; the more they approach it the further it recedes. Their mission can be fulfilled without travelling afar. It is on their own doorstep, symbolically speaking. I am not truth, I am more than truth. In modern parlance with a twist of wit I have truth plus "vat". I do not accept absolute determinant thought or absolute truth a la Hegel and his admires Herren Marx and Engels. I am transitory and leave the absolute behind. I admire an inventor without reverence. James Watt invented the steam engine and this was subject to a transitory process. The discovery of atmospheric pressure was essential in this process and, incidentally, this process was in transition long before the advent of modern capitalism. This is a truth but it is a truth which has little or no validity for me. It has escaped by grasp. The capitalist class has wrenched control from those who have constructed it. The state machine as protector sanctions this state of affairs. The state is therefore my enemy and it exists only because of my weakness. So long as I retain my boldness of spirit; my recalcitrance; my obduracy; my intrepidity; my stealth; the state will not be secure. It is not my attributes which are a danger to the state but the multiplication of my attributes should it permeate those of like mind. The state can incarcerate me but it cannot incarcerate a bold union of many. I have a right arm which I can do many things with so long as it is mine. The state may incarcerate me. They may have my body but they won't have me; they won't have the whole of me; they won't have my mind. If they sever my arm from me they won't have my arm. Once my arm is severed from me it is no longer my arm. All they would have is a stinking corpse which would serve on further purpose. But with an anti-state union in force there would be no accumulation of arm corpses. Unity is strength. A union of determined beings who won't succumb to any master, mundane or so-called divine, is a force that no agency can vanquish. In 1952 when I was forced to accept her Majesty's hospitality in her house on the hill "Barlinnie" I was asked to lead off a rebellion against a fish diet. The prison warders were knew that I had lead off the successful revolt but did nothing. Not because they were afraid of me but because they knew I had the support of many inmates. However to make a false show for the satisfaction of their superiors, eight innocent inmates were singled out for punishment. It was a lesson in unity. Need I say more. However, that is another story. I am a conscious egoist but not egotistical. I have been asked many times to tell this story. If I told of several escapades this would seem to be egotistical and seeking notoriety. To be egotistical is to be possessed; possessed by vanity. I may want to possess something but not to be possessed by anything. I neither want to be a Mr Somebody or a Mr Nobody but merely a Mr Thisbody to merrily gratify my appetites. I have a digesting stomach, a thinking head and a social heart. For my digesting stomach I seek and consume wholesome food. Foe my thinking head I have cultural pursuits and especially acquaint myself with literature and seek rational discussion. For my social heart I have communion with others and when I love, I can love with a full heart without taking the loved one for any more than the nourishment of my passion. Otherwise my appetites would take control and I would be a servile create of my own creation. I could die for a loved one without having any abstract calling but because it gratifies me to do so. If my loved one has pain I feel pain just as inflicting. I am not a prisoner of culture, but I am not a stone or a block of wood. I have emotions. Society is anterior to man, ie before man became man. Before man became "human". My emotions are derived from society are just one of my qualities. Qualities which require nourishment which I procure from society, just as I procure nourishment from food for my digesting stomach. Our existence begins with the most intimate conjunction as we are already living with our mother before we breathe. When we see the light of day, we at once lie on a human breast. We are cradled by our mother and attached by many ties. Society is our state of nature. When we develop, we can enter into a society of our choice, not the one we were involuntary born into. The one I was born into is not to my taste. I therefore seek society anew. It once was wisely said, "the urge to destroy is also a creative urge". I seek the destruction of capitalist society and envisage the forging of a new society based on unrestrained access to the means of life and the practice of voluntary association replacing the subjugation of men and women individually and collectively by political government or the owners of property. This form of society is in harmony with conscious egoism, or, if you like, its in harmony with the aspirations of a conscious egoist such as I. Each individual I am bold enough to say categorically is an egoist. The significance of the matter is whether one is conscious of it or not. The denial of egoism leads to varying degrees of dogma and is kindled to fanaticism more often than not. Observe that pure angelic face of yon young nun? It is sad; by taking vows she has suppressed her vegetative needs. She has denied herself a natural love life. Her vegetative energy has become sublimated and so she is in love with love, which is an abstraction. To give it some semblance of corporeity she calls it god. She is no egoist, is she? She is serving "gawd". She renounces herself. By her self-renounciation she elevates herself. She is exalted and books herself in advance a reservation in heaven. She may be innocent of it but this is egoism by stealth. But we have to have something to live by. You may say, "what do you believe in?" If you change the pronoun of what to who I could give you my answer. Before the revelations about Joseph Stalin's atrocities he was the great man of steel. The Russian people thought the sun shone from his posterior. He was their"gawd".... Stalin gives us guns; Stalin gives us butter; Stalin gives us tractors. Poor old Joe must have been working night and day. Was he not pure unselfishness himself? The Russians thought; oh how lovingly he cared for his people. Ah yes, for his people. Call yourself not one of his and you are given a trip to the Siberian saltmines. All the causes which are presented to me to serve are nothing but abstractions, figments of the imagination. The good cause. God's cause. The cause of humanity. The cause of truth, of the nation, of mankind, of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the cause of "Four Freedoms" and a hundred other causes - read "shadows" for that is what they are. Like "nut" cases, we chase after shadows. The world is an insane asylum but it takes in such a huge space most of us don't notice it. To treat with so many causes would be a laborious task and my time and space is limited so I have been thrown a lifebelt. As they call in the pub, "time gentlemen please". You are consoled by the allowance of ten minutes drinking time. So there's time and space for one other hollow cause for you to ruminate. The state can call you to the colours to defend the nation. The patriots fall in bloody battle or in the struggle with hunger and want. What does the nation state care about that? For service it pays homage with some meaningless phrases. The patriots have died for the great cause of the nation state. By the manure of their corpses that state comes to its bloom; they have been thrown on the dungheap of history. They have died for an abstraction and the state is the laughing heir. I call that a remunerative kind of egoism. You law abiding fools. You think you are criminals by violating the law. You don't go far enough. Don't just violate law. Destroy it. If you cut a tree you have to cut it at the root. To cut branch by branch is folly. They only grow again. To destroy the state you must take it by the root and deprive it of its sustenance which is unjustifiable ownership of the means of production. You, You and You with your banding together in your union must disregard the law and take possession. If this is a criminal act, so what? Your violence is called crime. The violence of the state is called law. There is no difference in principle, merely a difference in terminology. Strike while the iron is hot and you will be the laughing heir. Postscript The German anarchist Max Stirner advocated a union of conscious egoists. A union which would revere no one or any external or abstract cause. This indubitably expresses antagonism to authority; human or divine. Union means getting together; organisation. In the latter days of the nineteenth century anarcho-syndicalism was in its embryonic development. This is an entity worthy of examination. Stirner is dead. If he were alive, I'm sure he would not quarrel with me. I can envisage many empty heads who would. However, if Stirner was resuscitated he would not be I and I would not be he. Anarcho-syndicalism is a union or a workforce embracing all workers irrespective of skill. I would say to Stirner "Max, if I multiply two by two the result will be four. If an anarcho-syndicalist mate uses addition and says two and two is four, am I such a lame brian to quarrel with such trivia? I a man egoist who can organise with others who will take notice of the signposts directing us to our destination. I can integrate conscious egoism with syndicalism but time and space creates and impediment for me to illuminate. I therefore have to put you in the promised land until I have time and space to give the subject its profound credibility. Meantime I recommend : "Syndicalism" by Tom Brown "Anarcho-syndicalism" by Rudolf Rocker "Syndicalism and the Cooperative Commonwealth" by Emile Protaud and Emile Pouget. These, like the Ego and Its Own, are available from A.K.Distribution. ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, Omnia Bona Bonis, All My Relations. Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End Kris DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. 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