Current Events > When I was in uni I tried to organise an intellectual circle

(+) Yeah! (+)

I invited a bunch of smart people into a secret facebook group and posted some really cringe amateur philosophy, and they were like "why are you so weird"

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it's still one of my goals

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sometimes it's better to not

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It begins and ends with Stirner

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EnvoyOfTheLight posted...

sometimes it's better to not

what, make topics?

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Doe posted...

It begins and ends with Stirner

pill me on Stirner, the picture of him is funny but his shit doesn't seem magical enough

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MedeaLysistrata posted...

pill me on Stirner, the picture of him is funny but his shit doesn't seem magical enough

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I used to think I was smart, then I met actual smart and driven people. I realized I'm just moderately good at faking competence. Mind you that's a very useful skill, but actual smart folks are something else entirely.

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Doe posted...

idk what a 'spook' is but I'm guessing something that doesn't really exist. i ain't gonna read it

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AldousIsDead posted...

I used to think I was smart, then I met actual smart and driven people. I realized I'm just moderately good at faking competence. Mind you that's a very useful skill, but actual smart folks are something else entirely.

yeah haha i know what this is like for sure

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MedeaLysistrata posted...

yeah haha i know what this is like for sure

Yeah same.

Yeah I kind of joined the socratic society back in undergrad but ultimately it wasn't very fun. More of a social club than an intellectual group. That's probably different at a more serious university though

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Balrog0 posted...

Yeah same.

Yeah I kind of joined the socratic society back in undergrad but ultimately it wasn't very fun. More of a social club than an intellectual group. That's probably different at a more serious university though

oh wow is that a thing? we had a program called The Socrates Project which let undergrads be TA for lower years, in addition to some conferences and stuff. My grades were way too low for me to be in it though, cryinglol.

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MedeaLysistrata posted...

idk what a 'spook' is but I'm guessing something that doesn't really exist. i ain't gonna read it

Stirner has the idea that the "self" is indescribable, it can't be dissected. "Spooks" are constructions in the world by people that attempt to define individuals but instead just limit, diminish or control them. The ultimate spook is the idea of society itself.

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MedeaLysistrata posted...

I invited a bunch of smart people into a secret facebook group and posted some really cringe amateur philosophy, and they were like "why are you so weird"

LMFAO

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Funny wrinkle in the history of philosophical dialogues: In Stirner's manifesto he concludes that revolutionary social movements are statist and anti-egoist because they intend to replace the original state with a new one. They don't solve the problems encountered by egoists because all the spooks still exist, just retooled to benefit the cause of the revolutionaries. Thus instead Stirner advocated an individual rejection of the state which he compared to Christ's actions before the crucifixion.

Marx was so incensed by the idea that he wrote more words in his critique against it than there exist in Stirner's entire lifetime body of work.


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Doe posted...

Stirner has the idea that the "self" is indescribable, it can't be dissected. "Spooks" are constructions in the world by people that attempt to define individuals but instead just limit, diminish or control them. The ultimate spook is the idea of society itself.

I see, it might be a bit hard to participate in anything if you view everything as a limitation- I don't see that there would be any worthwhile activities for Stirner since anything you do ultimately just limits the Self. I imagine he has a list of things that aren't spooks, maybe? Other than the self. Given the title of the book, and what I remember from lit, I guess he also talks about property or something like that.

280 pages is a lot >_>

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Imagine if philosophy prioritized economy of words as a discipline.

Might actually be comical.

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MedeaLysistrata posted...

I see, it might be a bit hard to participate in anything if you view everything as a limitation- I don't see that there would be any worthwhile activities for Stirner since anything you do ultimately just limits the Self. I imagine he has a list of things that aren't spooks, maybe?

Well spooks are higher concept than activities. Playing poker, even if that makes you a Poker Player, isn't a spook. Spooks are abstractions that people cede power to by believing in them.

Ironically, if someone body lived their life while being constantly preoccupied with avoiding possible 'spooks', to the detriment of their own happiness, that person would be under the influence of a spook.

Spooks are problematic when our believing them causes us to do irrational things that harm or limit us.

Private property is a spook because because there's no magic force or derive-able proof showing that someone has an immutable claim of owning something because they found it first or bought it. Stirner would say that in reality property is enforced afterwards with force, either personally or on your behalf by the state (ie police come if someone's vandalizing your cornfield or snatch your purse). But that doesn't mean it's a good idea to start stealing corn from people when you're hungry, because the state's violence is real whether or not it's spooky.

Identifying spooks is meant to be liberating rather than limiting, Stirner is just encouraging you to see the world through material consequences and not abstracted ideas.

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Doe posted...

Well spooks are higher concept than activities. Playing poker, even if that makes you a Poker Player, isn't a spook. Spooks are abstractions that people cede power to by believing in them.

Ironically, if someone body lived their life while being constantly preoccupied with avoiding possible 'spooks', to the detriment of their own happiness, that person would be under the influence of a spook.

Spooks are problematic when our believing them causes us to do irrational things that harm or limit us.

Private property is a spook because because there's no magic force or derive-able proof showing that someone has an immutable claim of owning something because they found it first or bought it. Stirner would say that in reality property is enforced afterwards with force, either personally or on your behalf by the state (ie police come if someone's vandalizing your cornfield or snatch your purse). But that doesn't mean it's a good idea to start stealing corn from people when you're hungry, because the state's violence is real whether or not it's spooky.

Identifying spooks is meant to be liberating rather than limiting, Stirner is just encouraging you to see the world through material consequences and not abstracted ideas.

Ok, so activities are separate from spooks.

Stirner obviously believes reason is an element of the Self since he is already thinking at a social level, and implying that we can do things like behave irrationally. Any philosophy that says we can do things rationally or irrationally is already predicating reason of humanity, so how is that not a spook? But I guess that only matters if it's a bad spook, whatever.


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