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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.