DIALECTICAL EGOISM

The beginnings of a description of the way I am thinking.

(The following draws very heavily on MAX STIRNER'S DIALECTICAL EGOISM by John F. Welsh – Lexington Books 2010 – especially Chapter 8: Dialectical Egoism – Elements of a Theoretical Framework, p.267.)

The basic elements of a theoretical framework:

Dialectical Egoism (DE) is interested in:

1. Using the dialectical as the primary methodological tool without Marxist and Hegelian constraints;
2. The State as the object of critique as an obstacle to individual freedom;
3. The focus and goal of inquiry is a concept of “ownness” and self-ownership;
4. The individual is a totality, an irreducible unit, that confronts organisations and others.

“Dialectical analysis includes a conviction that there is no terminus to the historical process, that social reality is multidimensional, and that humans do not know all there is to know. Dialectical methods aim at the demolition of externally imposed constraints on individual action and thought, … “

Welsh, p.269

Dialectical theory and egoism are both:

1. Philosophies of freedom;
2. Give liberty and the self a central role in philosophy and politics.

A conversation between dialectics and egoism should produce:

“ … a vision of individuality and society freed of domination and the collectivist reduction of persons to abstract political and social categories.”

Welsh, p.270

Hegel's 'free subject' and Stirner's 'unique one' are similar, and both describe a self-conscious and sel-determining individual.

“The anti-utopianism of Hegel and Stirner are based on an objection to the imposition of a rationally concocted plan on individuals and society by political or cultural elites.”

Welsh, p.270 (my emphasis)

Individuals and Social Organization:

Three level model of the interaction between individuals and social organization.

1. Thoughts and actions of individuals expressed in everyday life;
2. Role of culture and ideology in shaping individual thought and action;
3. Macro level political and economic structures.

(A) AT THE BASE – is the perspective of everyday experience. The cognition and behaviour of the individual. The individuals perspective on his/hers everyday experiences. This includes the sense of ownership or alienness. “It attempts to capture how the person navigates everyday life … “ (Welsh, p. 271)

“Dialectical egoism is the theory and practice of individual opposition to preexisting formula for thought and behaviour whether these come the state, the church or the school. There are no extant, external measures that provide a person with definitive guidance about thinking and acting.”

(Welsh, p.271)

“Nothing is more to me than myself” - Stirner

Dialectical egoism attacks every cultural construct, every social fact (reifications) that have an external existence to and a coercive impact on the individual.

This includes all political, cultural and ethical codes. It includes concepts like 'god', 'humanity', 'morality' and 'authority'. These are deconstructed into spectres or spooks that are created and imposed by others.

Morality, rationality and legitimacy are external concepts that function as ideological social control. Individuals ACT. What matters to DE is whether the individual is sovereign – does the individual own the act?

(B) THE MIDLEVEL – focus on those elements of culture and ideology that promote, perpetuate or challenge the structure of social relations.

Examination of the interaction between the individual and the culture to understand how social systems cultivate compliance and subordination to authority.

The 'RAGAMUFFIN' is the archetypical individual who surrenders their ownness and accepts dispossession as an appropriate and just response to the demands that individuals think of themselves as part of a collectivity.

The ragamuffin …. “ …, gleefully abandons the boundary between self and culture, uncritically adopting prevailing values and meanings as his or her own.” (Welsh p.272)

DE objects to the power that abstractions acquire – abstract terms (reifications) like 'humanity', 'nation', 'class' and 'race' used as if they are real historical actors and become tools of church, state and other institutions or movements. These things are spooks to be challenged at every level.

(C) The MACROLEVEL – this is essentially a critique of monopoly capitalism comprising the four elements of monopoly. Monopoly of banking, land, trade and intellectual property.

Monopoly capitalism cannot be challenged by another monopoly (socialism, communism, humanism). These collective responses create a new form of monopoly.

The 'unique one' is permanently opposed to all collectivities. Society cannot be reconstructed at the macrolevel without reconstituting political authority in another form and thus generating new forms of opposition.

Resistance means resistance to 'ragamuffinhood', humanist ideology and monopoly capitalism.

Five methodological precepts:

1. The individual is the totality – not culture and not the state. The thinking and acting subject is the foundation of any reality humans create.
2. Conflict is inherent in the everyday experience of persons – chief of these are (a) the conflict between the state and the liberty of the individual; (b) conflict between the prevailing abstractions, reifications, in society and the individuals struggle to define reality for themselves; (c) conflicts among people and groups for desirable things. “Persons are born into a society that intends to impose its physical and mental dominion. Individuals … tend to resist constraints on their behaviour and to assert ownness.” (Welsh p.276) There is no escape from conflict.
3. Life is processual – ever thing is in movement and no form of society or interaction is permanent.
4. The behaviour of the person is indeterminate – rejects the reduction of human behaviour and experience to procedures of natural science. (This is a major issue for me – I believe that we can understand humans through the procedures of natural science.)
5. Inquiry appropriates and challenges the world -

This has been a rough outline. Points to take up include:

• refining the concept of the dialect;
• how does the challenge of our scientific understanding of human behaviour fit in here?