2 Answers

  1. Two aspects can be distinguished.

    First, but at first glance still secondary: Stirner's writings did not call for action.�

    What is his Magnum opus? � is a criticism. It goes through everything in general. A sort of purulent, snide grumbler. He understands not only religion and statehood, but the current political agenda. In return, he also offers a kind of union of Egoists. This is the problem. I'll cover it in more detail. �

    What distinguished his contemporaries? Feuerbach – criticism through humanism; Marx-criticism through communism, etc. Stirner was influenced by Adam Smith, that is, it can be deduced from this that he wanted to introduce what is called Anarcho-capitalism. But the result of his criticism is a very vague definition of the new society. 1844-the regime is boiling, a revolution is about to take place, people are hungry for change, intellectuals give them what they want – new projects for the future. Stirner says the opposite, and transfers criticism from the past, from the old order, to the orders that are still being planned. Who will support such ideas? Yes, there was a resonance. Yes, Feuerbach's response article. Yes, in my opinion, the work of Marx and Engels “German Ideology” is ridiculous (although it was published for the first time under Stalin), where the pages are devoted toThe only one is simply outweighed by Stirner's work in quantity. But this is the protection of projects. Stirner, in response to Feuerbach's article, defends his criticism.�

    [The Union of egoists, in my opinion, is a very interesting idea, which, according to my observations, was only once touched upon by D. Khaustov, but even then, only one-sidedly and superficially]

    Second (beware, idolatry is about to begin): Stirner fell into the wrong channel, or rather, did not live to see the source.�

    In order to immediately somehow try to present myself as not a fanatic, I will say: Stirner's work is very raw. It doesn't explain much, it repeats a lot, the book is more like a magazine article, the argumentation is messy – a little clumsy, etc. To this I will add that Der Einzige und sein Eigentum was not a relevant work at that time and did not meet the audience's needs (which was already described in the first reason)

    But.�

    I will try not to describe how I understand Stirner. His philosophy has a lot in common with Freudianism and post-structuralism. In his work, although not complete, but you can meet the forerunner: Lacan, Foucault, Deleuze (by the way, he touched on Stirner) and even Derrida. All these thinkers have long been clearly repelled both from each other and from Nietzsche. Many people have heard that Stirner may have influenced the latter, but there is no evidence, except for some similarity of ideas. We can say for sure that the French of the last century were influenced by Marx, who in turn was strongly influenced by Stirner; I think this will not be disputed. Of course, this way you can endlessly refer to Plato or even Thales. But still, I think it would be worth keeping in mind what place Stirner might have occupied in the development of philosophical thought.�

    Lyrical digression:

    Stirner is not an anarchist, an individualist, or a voluntarist. The attempt to describe him with the help of the apparatus used in his time led to the fact that Stirner was consigned to oblivion, and surfaced only after the hype around post-structuralism.�

    Yes, of course, I admit, this is my view on it. For many who are not as inspired as I am by Stirner and his main work, he is an ordinary small-caliber philosopher of the left-Hegelian type (which I do not agree with). But I would like those who touch it to try to go beyond labeling and the ratio of A to B, which is what Stirner himself wrote about.

  2. Stirner's anarchist ideas were in demand only in very narrow circles and were almost illegal. The same people who read his works are long dead.

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