 section 13 of the ego and his own this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Anna Simon the ego and his own by Max Sterne section 13 political liberalism part 2 political liberty means that the police the state is free freedom of religion that religion is free as freedom of conscience signifies that conscience is free not therefore that I am free from the state from religion from conscience or that I am rid of them it does not mean my liberty but the liberty of a power that rules and subjugates me it means that one of my despots like state religion conscience is free state religion conscience these despots make me a slave and their liberty is my slavery that in this they necessarily follow the principle the end hellos the means is self-evident if the welfare of the state is the end war is a hallowed means if justice is the state's end homicide is a hallowed means and is called by its sacred name execution the sacred state hellos everything that is serviceable to it individual liberty over which civic liberalism keeps jealous watch does not by any means signify a completely free self-determination by which actions become altogether mine but only independence of persons individually free is he who is responsible to know man taken in this sense and we're not allowed to understand it otherwise not only the ruler is individually free that is irresponsible to it man before God we know he acknowledges himself responsible but all who are responsible only to the law this kind of liberty was won through the revolutionary movement of the century to wit independence of arbitrary will or tell and not to please you hence the constitutional prince must himself be stripped of all personality deprived of all individual decision that he may not as a person as an individual man violate the individual liberty of others the personal will of the ruler has disappeared in the constitutional prince it is with the right feeling therefore that absolute princess resist this nevertheless these very ones profess to be in best sense Christian princes for this however they must become a purely spiritual power as the Christian is subject only to spirit God is spirit the purely spiritual power is consistently represented only by the constitutional prince he who without any personal significance stands there spiritualized to the degree that he can rank as a sheer uncanny spirit as an idea the constitutional king is a truly Christian king the genuine consistent carrying out of the Christian principle in the constitutional monarchy individual dominion that is a real ruler that wills has found its end here therefore individual liberty prevails independence of every individual dictator of everyone who could dictate to me with a tell another pleasure it is the completed Christian state life a spiritualized life the behavior of the commonality is liberal through and through every personal invasion of another sphere revolts the civic sense if the citizen sees that one is dependent on the humor the pleasure the will of a man as individual that is as not as authorized by a higher power at once he brings his liberalism to the front and shrieks about arbitrariness in fine the citizen asserts his freedom from what is called orders ordinance no one is any business to give me orders orders carries the idea that what I am to do is another man's will while law does not express a personal authority of another the liberty of the commonality is liberty or independence from the will of another person so-called personal or individual liberty for being personally free means being only so free that no other person can dispose of mine or that what I may or may not do does not depend on the personal decree of another the liberty of the press for example is such a liberty of liberalism liberalism fighting only against the coercion of the censorship as that of personal willfulness but otherwise showing itself extremely inclined and willing to tyrannize over the press by press laws that is the civic liberals want liberty of writing for themselves for as they are law abiding their writings will not bring them under the law only liberal matter that is only lawful matter is to be allowed to be printed otherwise the press laws threaten press penalties if one sees personal liberty assured one does not notice at all how even new issue happens to arise the most glaring unfreedom becomes dominant for one is rid of orders indeed and no one has any business to give his orders but one has become so much the more submissive to the law one is enthralled now in due legal form in the citizen state there are only free people who are compelled to thousands of things for example to deference to a confession of faith etc but what does that amount to why it is only the state the law not any man that compels them what does the commonality mean by invading against every personal order that is every order not founded on the cause on reason it is simply fighting in the interest of the cause footnote such which commonly means thing and footnote against the dominion of persons but the mind's cause is the rational good lawful etc that is the good cause the commonality wants an impersonal ruler furthermore if the principle is this that only the cause is to rule man to it the cause of morality the cause of legality etc then no personal balking of one by the other may be authorized either as formerly for example the commoner was barred of the aristocratic offices the aristocrat of common mechanical trades etc free competition must exist only through the thing footnote such and footnote can one bark another for example the rich man barking the impecunious man by money a thing not as a person henceforth only one lordship the lordship the state is admitted personally no one is any longer lord of another even at birth the children belong to the state and to the parents only in the name of the state which for example does not allow infanticide demands their baptism etc but all the states children furthermore are of quite equal account in its eyes civic or political equality and they may see to it themselves how they get along with each other they may compete free competition means nothing else than that everyone can present himself assert himself fight against another of course the feudal party set itself against this as its existence dependent on absence of competition the contests in the time of the restoration in France had no other substance than this that the bourgeoisie was struggling for free competition and the feudalists were seeking to bring back the guild system now free competition has won and against the guild system it had to win see below for the further discussion if the revolution ended in a reaction this only showed what the revolution really was for every effort arrives at reaction when it comes to discrete reflection and storms forward in the original action only so long as it is an intoxication an indiscretion this question will always be the cue of the reaction because this question sets limits and liberates what was really wanted that is the principle from the initial unbridledness and unrestrain us while young fellows punctious students who set aside all considerations are really Philistines since with them as with the letter considerations form the substance of their conduct only that as swaggerers they are mutinous against considerations and a negative relations to them but as Philistines later they give themselves up to considerations and have positive relations to them in both cases all they're doing and thinking turns upon considerations but the Philistine is reactionary in relation to the student he is the wild fellow come to discrete reflection as letter is the unreflecting Philistine daily experience confirms truth of this transformation and shows how the swaggerers turn to Philistines in turning gray so to the so-called reaction in Germany gives proof that it was only the discrete continuation of the war-like jubilation of liberty the revolution was not directed against the established but against the establishment in question against a particular establishment it did away with this ruler not with the ruler on the contrary the French were ruled most inexorably it killed the old vicious rulers but wanted to confer on the virtuous ones a securely established position that is it simply set virtue in the place of vice vice and virtue again are on their part distinguished from each other only as a wild young fellow from a Philistine etc to this day the revolutionary principle has gone no farther than to assail only one or another particular establishment that is be reformatory much as may be improved strongly as discrete progress may be adhered to always there's only a new master set in the old ones place and the overturning is a building up we are still at the distinction of the young Philistine from the old one the revolution began in bourgeois fashion with the uprising of the third estate the middle class in bourgeois fashion it dries away it was not the individual man and he alone as man that became free but the citizen the citoyen the political man who for that very reason is not man but a specimen of the human species and more particularly a specimen of the species citizen a free citizen in the revolution it was not the individual who acted so as to affect the world's history but a people the nation the sovereign nation wanted to affect everything a fancied I an idea for example the nation is appears acting the individuals contribute themselves as tools of this idea and act as citizens the commonality has its power and at the same time its limits in the fundamental law of the state in a charter in a legitimate or just prince who himself is guided and rules according to rational laws ensured in legality footnote legitimate or righteous German just good and footnote the period of the bourgeoisie is ruled by the British spirit of legality an assembly of provincial estates for example is ever recalling that its authorization goes only so and so far and that it is called at all only through favor and can be thrown out again through this favor it is always reminding itself its vocation it is certainly not to be denied that my father begot me but now that I am once begotten surely his purposes in begetting do not concern me a bit and whatever he may have called me to do I do what I myself will therefore even a cold assembly of estates the French assembly in the beginning of the revolution recognized quite rightly that it was independent of the caller it existed and would have been stupid if it did not avail itself the right of existence but fancy the self-dependent as on a father the cold one no longer has to ask what did the caller want when he created me but what do I want after I have once followed the call not the caller not the constituents not the charter according to which their meeting was called out nothing will be to him a sacred inviolable power he is authorized for everything that is in his power he will know no restrictive authorization will not want to be loyal this if any such thing could be expected from chambers at all would give a completely egoistic chamber severed from all naval string and without consideration but chambers are always devout and therefore one cannot be surprised if so much halfway or undecided that is hypocritical egoism parades in them the members of the estates are to remain within the limits that are traced for them by the charter by the king's will etc if they will not or cannot do that then they are to step out what beautiful man could act otherwise could put himself his conviction and as well as the first thing who could be so immoral as to want to assert himself even if the body corporate and everything should go to ruin over it people keep carefully within the limits of their authorization of course one must remain within the limits of his power anyhow because no one can do more than he can my power or if it be so powerlessness be my soul limit but authorizations only restraining precepts should I profess this all-suppersive view no I am a law abiding citizen the commonality professes a morality which is most closely connected with its essence the first demand of this morality is to the effect that one should carry on a solid business an honorable trade lead a moral life immoral to it is the sharper the demirabh the thief robber and murderer the gamester the penniless man without a situation the frivolous man the doubty commoner designates the feeling against these immoral people as his deepest indignation all these lack settlement the solid quality of business a solid seemingly life a fixed income etc in short they belong because their existence does not rest on a secure basis to the dangerous individuals or isolated persons to the dangerous proletariat they are individual bowlers who offer no guarantee and have nothing to lose and so nothing to risk the forming of family ties for example binds a man he who is bound furnishes security can be taken hold of not so the street walker the gamester stakes everything on the game ruins himself and others no guarantee all who appear to the commoner suspicious hostile and dangerous might be comprised under the name vagabonds every vagabondish way of living displeases him for there are intellectual vagabonds to whom their redditary dwelling place of their fathers seems too cramped and oppressive for them to be willing to satisfy themselves with the limited space anymore instead of keeping within the limits of a temperate style of thinking and taking his inviolable truth what furnishes comfort and tranquility to thousands they overlap all bounds of the traditional and run wild with their impudent criticism and untamed mania for doubt these extravagating vagabonds they form the claws of the unstable restless changeable that is of the proletariat and if they give voice to their unsettled nature are called unruly fellows such a broad sense has the so-called proletariat or poprism how much one would if on believe the commonerty to be desirous of doing away with poverty poprism to the best of its ability on the contrary the good citizen helps himself for the incomparably comforting conviction that the fact is that the good things of fortune are unequally divided and will always remain so according to God's wise decree the poverty which surrounds him in every alley does not disturb the true commoner further than that at most he clears his account with it by throwing an alms or finds work and food for an honest and serviceable fellow but so much the more does he feel his quiet enjoyment clouded by innovating and discontented poverty by those poor who no longer behave quietly and endure but begin to run wild and become restless lock up the vagabond thrust the breeder of unrest into the darkest dungeon he wants to arouse dissatisfaction and incite people against existing institutions in the state stone him stone him but from these identical discontented ones comes a reasoning somewhat as follows it need not make any difference to the good citizens who protects them and their principles whether an absolute king or a constitutional one a republic if only they are protected and what is their principle whose protector they always love not that of labor not that of birth either but that of mediocrity of the golden mean a little birth and a little labor that is an interest bearing possession possession is here the fixed the given inherited birth interest drawing is the exertion about it labor labouring capital therefore only no immoderation no ultra no radicalism right of birth certainly but only hereditary possessions labour certainly yet little or none at all of one's own but labour of capital and of the subject labourers if an age is imbued with an error some always derive advantage from the error while the rest have to suffer from it in the middle ages the error was general among Christians that the church must have all power or the supreme lordship on earth the hierarchs believed in this truth not less than a layman and both were spellbound in the like error but by it the hierarchs had the advantage of power the layman had to suffer subjection however as the saying goes one learns wisdom by suffering and so the layman at last learned wisdom and no longer believed in the medieval truth a like relation exists between the commonality and the labouring class commoner and labourer believe in the truth of money they who do not possess it believe in it no less than those who possess it the layman therefore as well as the priests money governs the world is the keynote of the civic epoch a destitute aristocrat and a destitute labourer as starvelings amount to nothing so far as political consideration is concerned birth and labour do not do it but money brings consideration footnote that's gelt give geltum and footnote the possessors rule but the state trains up from the destitute its servants to whom in proportion as they are to rule govern in its name it gives money a salary I receive everything from the state have I anything without the state's ascent what I have without this it takes from me as soon as it discovers the lack of a legal title do I not therefore have everything through its grace its ascent on this alone on the legal title the commonality rests the commoner is what he is through the protection of the state through the state's grace he would necessarily be afraid of losing everything if the state's power were broken but how is it with him who has nothing to lose how with the proletarian as he has nothing to lose he does not need the protection of the state for his nothing he may gain on the country if that protection of the state is withdrawn from the protégé therefore the non possessor will regard the state as a power protecting the possessor which privileges the letter but does nothing for him the non-possessor but to suck his blood the state is a commoner's state is the state of the commonality it protects man not according to his labor but according to his tract of illness loyalty to it according to whether the rights entrusted to him by the state are enjoyed and managed in accordance with the will that is laws of the state under the regime of the commonality the laborers always fall into the hands of the possessors of those who have at their disposal some bit of the state domains and everything possessible in state domain belongs to the state and is only a thief of the individual especially money and land of the capitalist therefore the laborer cannot realize on his labor to the extent of the value that it has for the consumer labor is badly paid the capitalist has the greatest profit from it well paid and more than well paid are only the laborers of those who heighten the splendor and dominion of the state the laborers of high state servants the state pays well that its good citizens the possessors may be able to pay badly without danger it secures to itself by good payment its servants out of whom it forms a protecting power a police open brackets to the police belong soldiers officials of all kinds for example those of justice education etc ensured the whole machinery of the state close brackets for the good citizens and the good citizens gladly pay high tax rates to it in order to pay so much lower rates of their laborers but the class of laborers because unprotected in what they essentially are open brackets for they do not enjoy the protection of the state as laborers but as its subjects they have a share in the enjoyment of the police a so-called protection of the law close brackets remains a power hostile to this state this state of possessors this citizen kingship its principal labor is not recognized as to its value it is exploited a spoil of the possessors the enemy footnote exploited is auscuboited spoil is creekspoiter and footnote the laborers have the most enormous power in their hands and if they once became thoroughly conscious of it and used it nothing would withstand them they would only have to stop labor regard the product of labor as theirs and enjoy it this is the sense of the labor disturbances which show themselves here and there the state rests on the slavery of labor if labor becomes free the state is lost end of section 13 section 14 of the ego and his own this is a Libervox recording all Libervox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libervox.org recording by Anna Simon the ego and his own by Max Stena section 14 social liberalism we are freeborn man and wherever we look we see ourselves made servants of egoists are we therefore to become egoists too heaven forbid we want rather to make egoists impossible we want to make them all ragamuffins all of us must have nothing that quote all may have end quote so say the socialists who is this person that you call all it is society but is it corporeal then we are its body you why you are not a body yourselves you sir are corporeal to be sure you too and you but you all together are only bodies not a body accordingly the united society may indeed have bodies at its service but no one body of its own like the nation of the politicians it will turn out to be nothing but a spirit its body only semblance the freedom of man is in political liberalism freedom from persons from personal dominion from the master securing of each individual person against other persons personal freedom no one has any orders to give the law alone gives orders but even if the persons have become equal yet their possessions have not and yet the poor man needs the rich the poor the former the rich man's money the latter the poor man's labor so no one needs another as a person but needs him as a giver and thus as one who has something to give as holder or possessor so what he has makes the man and in having or in possessions people are unequal consequently social liberalism concludes no one must have as according to political liberalism no one was to give orders that is as in that case this state alone obtained command so now society alone obtains the possessions for the state protecting each one's person and property against the other separates them from one another each one is his special part and has his special part he who is satisfied with what he is and has finds this state of things profitable but he who would like to be and have more looks around for this more and finds it in the power of other persons here he comes upon a contradiction as a person no one is inferior to another and yet one person has what another has not but would like to have so he concludes the one person is more than the other after all for the former has what he needs the letter has not the former is a rich man the letter a poor man he now asks himself further are we to let what we rightly buried come to life again are we to let this circuitously restored inequality of persons pass no on the contrary we must bring quite to an end what was only half accomplished our freedom from another's person still lacks the freedom from what the other's person can command from what he has in his personal power ensured from personal property let us then do away with personal property let no one have anything any longer let everyone be a ragamuffin let property be in personal let it belong to society before the supreme ruler the sole commander we had all become equal equal persons that is nullities before the supreme proprietor we all become equal ragamuffins for the present one is still in another's estimation a ragamuffin I have nothing but then this estimation seizes we are all ragamuffins together and as the aggregate of communistic society we might call ourselves a ragamuffin crew when the proletarian shall really have founded his proposed society in which the interval between rich and poor is to be removed then he will be a ragamuffin for then he will feel that it amounts to something to be a ragamuffin and might lift ragamuffin to be an honorable form of address just as the revolution did with the word citizen ragamuffin is ideal we are all to become ragamuffins this is the second robbery of the personal in the interest of humanity neither command nor property is left to the individual the state took the former society the leather because in society the most oppressive evils make themselves felt therefore the oppressed especially and consequently the members of the lower regions of society think they found the fault in society and make it their task to discover the right society this is only the old phenomenon that one looks for the fault first in everything but himself and consequently in the state in the self-seeking of the rich etc which yet have precisely our fault to thank for their existence the reflections and conclusions of communism look very simple as matters lie at this time in the present situation with regard to the state therefore some and they the majority are at a disadvantage compared to others the minority in this state of things the former are in a state of prosperity the latter in state of need hence the present state of things that is the state itself must be done away with and what in its place instead of the isolated state of prosperity a general state of prosperity a prosperity of all through the revolution the bourgeoisie became omnipotent and all inequality was abolished by everyone's being raised or degraded to the dignity of a citizen the common man raised the aristocrat degraded the third estate became sole estate that is namely the estate of citizens of the state now communism responds our dignity and our essence consist not in our being all the equal children of our mother the state all born with equal claim to her love and her protection but in our all existing for each other this is our equality or herein we are equal in that we i as well as you and you and all of you are active or labor each one for the rest in that each of us is a laborer then the point for us is not what we are for the state citizens not our citizenship therefore but what we are for each other that each of us exists only through the other who caring for my once at the same time sees his own satisfied by me he labors for example for my clothing tailor i for his need of amusement comedy writer rope dancer he for my food farmer i for his instruction scientist it is labor that constitutes our dignity and our equality what advantage the citizenship bring us burdens and how high is our laborer praised as low as possible but labor is our sole value all the same that we are laborers is the best thing about us this is our significance in the world and therefore it must be our consideration too and must come to receive consideration what can you meet us with surely nothing but labor too only for labor or services do we owe you a recompense not for your bare existence not for what you are for yourselves either but only for what you are for us by what have you claims on us perhaps by your high birth no only about what you do for us that is desirable or useful be it thus then we are willing to be worth to you only so much as we do for you but you are to be held likewise by us services determine value that is those services that are worth something to us and consequently labors for each other labors for the common good that each one be in the other's eyes a laborer he who accomplishes something useful is inferior to none or all labors labors of course in the sense of labors for the common good that is communistic labors are equal but as the laborer is worth his wages let the wages too be equal footnote in german an exact quotation of luke 10 7 and footnote as long as faith suffice for man's honor and dignity no labor however harassing could be objected to if it only did not hinder a man is his faith now on the contrary when everyone is to cultivate himself into man condemning a man to machine-like labor amounts to the same thing as slavery if a factory worker must tire himself to death 12 hours and more he is cut off from becoming man every laborer is to have the intent that the man be satisfied therefore he must become a master in it too that is be able to perform it as a totality he who in a pin factory only puts on the heads only draws the wire works as it were mechanically like a machine he remains half trained does not become a master his labor cannot satisfy him it could only fatigue him his labor is nothing by itself as no object in itself is nothing complete in itself he labors only into another's hands and is used exploited by this other for this laborer in another service there is no enjoyment of a cultivated mind at most crude amusements culture you see is barred against him to be a good christian one needs only to believe and that can be done under the most oppressive circumstances hence the christian minded take care only of the oppressed laborer's piety their patience submission etc only so long as the downtrodden classes were christians could they bear all their misery for christianity does not let their murmurings and exasperation rise now the hushing of desires is no longer enough but their satan is demanded the bourgeoisie has proclaimed the gospel of the enjoyment of the world of material enjoyment and now wonders at this doctrine finds adherence among us poor it has shown that not faith and poverty but culture and possessions make a man blessed we proletarians understand that too the commonality freed us from the orders and arbitrariness of individuals but that arbitrariness was left which springs from the conjuncture of situations and may be called the fertility of circumstances favoring fortune and those favored by fortune still remain when for example a branch of industry is ruined and thousands of laborers become breadless people think reasonably enough to acknowledge that it is not the individual who must bear the blame but that the evil lies in the situation let us change the situation then but let us change it thoroughly and so that its fertility becomes powerless and the law let us no longer be slaves of chance let us create a new order that makes an end of fluctuations let this order then be sacred formally one had to suit the lords to come to anything after the revolution the word was grasp fortune luck hunting or hazard playing civil life was absorbed in this then alongside this the demand that he who has obtained something shall not frivolously stake it again strange and yet supremely natural contradiction competition in which alone civil or political life unrolls itself is a game of luck through and through from the speculations of the exchange down to the station of offices the hunt for customers looking for work aspiring to promotion and decorations the second-hand dealers petty haggling etc if one succeeds in supplanting and outbidding his rivals then the lucky throw is made for it must be taken as a piece of luck to begin with that the victor sees himself equipped with an ability even though it has been developed by the most careful industry against which the others do not know how to rise consequently that no abler ones are found and now those who ply their daily lives in the midst of these changes of fortune without seeing any arm in it are seized with the most virtuous indignation when their own principle appears in naked form and breeds misfortune as hazard playing hazard playing you see is too clear to bear faced a competition and like every decided nakedness offense honorable modesty the socialists want to put a stop to this activity of chance and to form a society in which men are no longer dependent on fortune but free in the most natural way in the world this endeavor first utters itself as hatred of the unfortunate against the fortunate that is of those from fortune has done little or nothing against those for whom it has done everything but properly the ill feeling is not directed against the fortunate but against fortune this rotten spot of the commonality as the communists first declare free activity to be man's essence they like all work day dispositions need a sunday like all material endeavors they need a guard and uplifting an edification alongside their witless labor that the communist sees in you the man the brother is only the sunday side of communism according to the work day side he does not by any means take you as man simply but as human labor or laboring man the first few has in it the liberal principle in the second illiberality is concealed if you were a lazy bones he would not indeed fail to recognize the man in you but would endeavor to cleanse him as a lazy man from laziness and to convert you to the faith that labor is man's destiny and cooling therefore he shows a double face with the one he takes heed that the spiritual man be satisfied with the other he looks about him for means for the material or corporeal man he gives man a twofold post an office of material acquisition and one of spiritual the commonality had thrown open spiritual and material goods and left it with each one to reach out for them if he liked communism really procures them for each one presses them upon him and compels him to acquire them it takes seriously the idea that because only spiritual and material goods make us man we must unquestionably acquire these goods in order to be man the commonality made acquisition free communism compels the acquisition and recognizes only the acquirer him who practices a trade it is not enough that the trade is free but you must take it up so all that is left for criticism to do is to prove that the acquisition of these goods does not yet by any means make us man with a liberal commandment that everyone is to make a man of himself or everyone to make himself man that was posited the necessity that everyone must gain time for his labor of humanization that is that it should become possible for everyone to labor on himself the commonality thought it had brought this about if it handed over everything human to competition but gave the individual a right every human thing each may strive after everything social liberalism finds that the matter is not settled with the may because may means only it is forbidden to none but not it is made possible to everyone hence it affirms that the commonality is liberal only with the mouth and in words supremely illiberal in act it on its part wants to give all of us the means to be able to labor on ourselves by the principle of labor that of fortune or competition is certainly outdone but at the same time the laborer in his consciousness that the essential thing in him is the laborer holds himself aloof from egoism and subjects himself to the supremacy of a society of laborers as the commoner clung with self-abandonment to the competition state the beautiful dream of a social duty still continues to be dreamed people think again that society gives what we need and we are under obligations to it on that account owe it everything footnote prudon création de l'ordre prize out page 414 in industry as in science the publication of an invention is the first and most sacred of duties and footnote they are still at the point of wanting to serve a supreme giver of all good that society is no ego at all which could give bestow or grand but an instrument or means from which we may derive benefit that we have no social duties but solely interests for the pursuance of which society must serve us that we owe society no sacrifice but if we sacrifice anything sacrifice it to ourselves of this the socialists do not think because they as liberals are imprisoned in the religious principle and zealously aspire after a sacred society for example the state was hitherto society from which we have everything is a new master a new spook a new supreme being which takes us into its service and allegiance the more precise appreciation of political as well as social liberalism must wait to find its place further on for the present we pass this over in order first to summon them before the tribunal of humane or critical liberalism end of section 14 chapter 3 section 3 part 1 of the ego and his own this is a libra vox recording all libra vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit libravox.org recording by eris allen the ego and his own by max sternum chapter 3 section 3 part 1 as liberalism is completed in self-criticizing critical liberalism in which the critic remains a liberal and does not go beyond the principle of liberalism man this may distinctively be named after man and called the humane the laborer is counted as the most material and egoistical man he does nothing at all for humanity does everything for himself for his welfare the commonality because it proclaimed the freedom of man only as to his birth had to leave him in the claws of the unhuman man the egoist for the rest of life hence under the regime of political liberalism egoism has an immense field for free utilization the laborer will utilize society for his egoistic ends as the commoner does the state you have only an egoistic end after all your welfare is the humane liberals reproach to the socialist take up a purely human interest then i will be your companion but to this there belongs a consciousness stronger more comprehensive than a laborer consciousness the laborer makes nothing therefore he has nothing but he makes nothing because his labor is always a labor that remains individual calculated strictly for his own want a labor day by day in opposition to this one might e.g. consider the fact that Gutenberg's labor did not remain individual but begot innumerable children and still lives today it was calculated for the want of humanity and was an eternal imperishable labor the humane consciousness despises the commoner consciousness as well as the laborer consciousness for the commoner is indignant only at vagabonds at all who have no definite occupation and their immorality the laborer is disgusted by the idler lazy bones and his immoral because parasitic and unsocial principles to this the humane liberal retorts the unsettledness of many is only your product philistine but that you proletarian demand the grind of all and want to make drudgery general is a part still clinging to you of your pac mule life up to this time certainly you want to lighten drudgery itself by all having to drudge equally hard yet only for this reason that all may gain leisure to an equal extent but what are they to do with their leisure what does your society do that this leisure may be passed humanly it must leave the gained leisure to egoistic preference again and the very gain that your society furthers falls to the egoist as the gain of the commonality the masterlessness of man could not be filled with a human element by the state and therefore was left to arbitrary choice it is assuredly necessary that man be masterless but therefore the egoist is not to become master over man again either but man over the egoist man must assuredly find leisure but if the egoist makes use of it it will be lost for man therefore you ought to have given leisure a human significance but you laborers undertake even your labor from an egoistic impulse because you want to eat drink live how should you be less egoist in leisure you labor only because having your time to yourselves idling goes well after work done and what you are to while away your leisure time with is left to chance but if every door is to be bolted against egoism it would be necessary to strive after completely disinterested action total disinterestedness this alone is human because only man is disinterested the egoist always interested if we let disinterestedness pass unchallenged for a while then we ask do you mean not to take an interest in anything not to be enthusiastic for anything not for liberty humanity etc oh yes but that is not an egoistic interest not interestedness but a human i.e a theoretical interest to wit an interest not for an individual or individuals all but for the idea for man and you do not notice that you too are enthusiastic only for your idea your idea of liberty and further do you not notice that your disinterestedness is again like religious disinterestedness a heavenly interestedness certainly benefit to the individual leaves you cold and abstractly you could cry fiat libertas periat mundus you do not take thought for the coming day either and take no serious care for the individuals once anyhow not for your own comfort nor for that of the rest but you make nothing of all this because you are a dreamer do you suppose the humane liberal will be so liberal as to ever that everything possible to man is human on the contrary he does not indeed share the philistines moral prejudice against the strumpet but that this woman turns her body into a money-getting machine makes her despicable to him as human being his judgment is the strumpet is not a human being or so far as a woman is a strumpet so far as she unhuman dehumanized further the jew the christian the privileged person the theologian etc is not a human being so far as you are a jew etc you are not a human being again the imperious postulate cast from you everything peculiar criticize it away be not a jew not a christian but be a human being nothing but a human being assert your humanity against every restrictive specification make yourself by means of it a human being and free from those limits make yourself a free man i recognize humanity as your all determining essence i say you are indeed more than a jew more than a christian etc but you are also more than a human being those are all ideas but you are corporeal do you suppose then that you can ever become a human being as such do you suppose our posterity will find no prejudices and limits to clear away for which our powers were not sufficient or do you perhaps think that in your 40th or 50th year you have come so far that the following days have nothing more to dissipate in you and that you are a human being the men of the future will yet fight their way to many a liberty that we do not even miss what do you need that later liberty for if you meant to esteem yourself as nothing before you had become a human being you would have to wait to the last judgment to the day when man or humanity shall have attained perfection but as you will surely die before that what becomes of your prize of victory rather therefore invert the case and say to yourself i am a human being i do not need to begin by producing the human being in myself for he belongs to me already like all my qualities but ask the critic how can one be a jew and a man at once in the first place i answer one cannot be either a jew or a man at all if one and jew or man are meant to the same thing one always reaches beyond those specifications and let isix be ever so jewish a jew nothing but a jew he cannot be just because he is this jew in the second place as a jew one assuredly cannot be a man if being a man means being nothing special but in the third place and this is the point i can as a jew be entirely what i can be from samuel or moses and others you hardly expect that they should have raised themselves above judiism although you must say that they were not yet men they simply were what they could be is it otherwise with the jews of today because you have discovered the idea of humanity does it follow from this that every jew can become a convert to it if he can he does not fail to and if he fails to he cannot but what does your demand concern him what the call to be a man which you address to him as a universal principle in the human society which the humane liberal promises nothing special which one or another has is to find recognition nothing which bears the character of private is to have value in this way the circle of liberalism which has its good principle in man and human liberty it's bad in the egoist and everything private it's god in the former it's devil in the latter rounds itself off completely and if the special or private person lost his value in the state no personal prerogative if in the laborers or ragamuffin society special private property is no longer recognized so in human society everything special or private will be left out of account and when pure criticism shall have accomplished its arduous task then it will be known just we must look upon as private and what penetrated with a sense of our nothingness we must let stand because state and society do not suffice for humane liberalism it negates both and at the same time retains them so at one time the cry is that the task of the day is not a political but a social one and then again the free state is promised for the future in truth human society is both the most general state and the most general society only against the limited state is it asserted that it makes too much stir about spiritual private interests e.g. people's religious belief and against limited society that it makes too much of material private interests both are to leave private interests to private people and as human society concern themselves solely about general human interests the politicians thinking to abolish personal will self-will or arbitrariness did not observe that through property our self-will gained a secure place of refuge the socialist taking away property too do not notice that this secures itself a continued existence in self-ownership is it only money and goods then that are a property or is every opinion something of mine something of my own so every opinion must be abolished or made impersonal the person is entitled to no opinion but as self-will was transferred to the state property to society so opinion too must be transferred to something general man and thereby become a general human opinion if opinion persists then i have my god why god exists only as my god he is an opinion or my faith and consequently my faith my religion my thoughts my ideals therefore a general human faith must come into existence the fanaticism of liberty for this would be a faith that agreed with the essence of man and because only man is reasonable you and i might be very unreasonable a reasonable faith as self-will and property become powerless so must self-ownership or egoism in general in this supreme development of free man egoism self-ownership is combated on principle and such subordinate ends as the social welfare of the socialists etc vanish before the lofty idea of humanity everything that is not a general human entity is something separate satisfies only some or one or if it satisfies all it does this to them only as individuals not as men and is therefore called egoistic to the socialist welfare is still the supreme aim as free rivalry was the approved thing to the political liberals now welfare is free and we are free to achieve welfare just as he who wanted to enter into rivalry competition was free to do so but to take part in the rivalry you need only to be commoners to take part in the welfare only to be laborers neither reaches the point of being synonymous with man it is truly well with man only when he is also intellectually free for man is mind therefore all powers that are alien to him the mind all superhuman heavenly unhuman powers must be overthrown and the name man must be above every name so in this end of the modern age age of the moderns there returns again as the main point what had been the main point at its beginning intellectual liberty to the communist in particular the humane liberal says if society prescribes to you your activity then this is indeed free from the influence of the individual i.e the egoist but it still does not on that account need to be a purely human activity nor you to be a complete organ of humanity what kind of activity society demands of you remains accidental you know it might give you a place in building a temple or something of that sort or even if not that you might yet on your own impulse be acted for something foolish therefore unhuman yes more yet you really labor only to nourish yourself in general to live for dear life's sake not for the glorification of humanity consequently free activity is not attained till you make yourself free from all stupidities from everything non-human i.e egoistic pertaining only to the individual not to the man in the individual dissipate all untrue thoughts that obscure man or the idea of humanity in short when you are not merely unhampered in your activity but the substance too of your activity is only what is human and you live and work only for humanity but this is not the case so long as the aim of your effort is only your welfare and that of all what you do for the society of ragamuffins is not yet anything done for human society laboring does not alone make you a man because it is something formal and it's object accidental the question is who you that labor are as far as laboring goes you might do it from an egoistic material impulse merely to procure nourishment and black it must be a labor furthering humanity calculated for the good of humanity serving historical i.e human evolution in short a human labor this implies two things one that it be useful to humanity next that it be the work of a man the first alone may be the case with every labor as even the labors of nature e.g of animals are utilized by humanity for the furthering of science etc the second requires that he who labors should know the human object of his labor and as he can have this consciousness only when he knows himself as man the crucial condition is self-consciousness unquestionably much is already attained when you cease to be a fragment laborer yet therewith you only get a view of the whole of your labor and acquire a consciousness about it which is still far removed from a self-consciousness a consciousness about your true self or essence man the laborer has still remaining the desire for a higher consciousness which because the activity of labor is unable to quiet it he satisfies in a leisure hour hence leisure stands by the side of his labor and he sees himself compelled to proclaim labor an idling human in one breath yes to attribute the true elevation to the idler the leisure enjoyer he labors only to get rid of labor he wants to make labor free only that he may be free from labor in fine his work has no satisfying substance because it is only imposed by society only a stint a task a calling and conversely his society does not satisfy because it only gives work his labor ought to satisfy him as a man instead of that it satisfies society society ought to treat him as a man and it treats him as a ragtag laborer or a laboring ragamuffin labor and society are of use to him not as he needs them as a man but only as he needs them as an egoist such is the attitude of criticism toward labor it points to mind wages the war of mind with the masses and pronounces communistic labor unintellectual mass labor averse to labor as they are the masses love to make labor easy for themselves in literature which is today furnished in mass this aversion to labor begets the universally known superficiality which puts from it the toil of research therefore humane liberalism says you want labor all right we want it likewise but we want it in the fullest measure we want it not that we may gain spare time but that we may find all satisfaction in it itself we want labor because it is our self development but then the labor too must be adapted to that end man is honored only by human self-conscious labor only by the labor that has for its end no egoistic purpose but man and his man's self-revelation so that the saying should be laborer go soon i labor therefore i am a man the humane liberal wants that labor of the mind which works up all material he wants the mind that leaves no thing quiet or in its existing condition that acquiesces in nothing analyzes everything criticizes anew every result that has been gained this restless mind is the true laborer it obliterates prejudices shatters limits and narrowness and raises man above everything that would like to dominate over him while the communist labors only for himself and not even freely but from necessity in short represents a man condemned to hard labor the laborer of such a type is not egoistic because he does not labor for individuals neither for himself nor for other individuals not for private men therefore but for humanity and its progress he does not ease individual pains does not care for individual wants but removes limits within each humanity is pressed dispels prejudices which dominate an entire time vanquishes hindrances that obstruct the path of all clears away errors in which men entangle themselves discovers truths which are found through him for all and for all time in short he lives and labors for humanity end of section three part one recorded by eris allen section 16 of the ego and his own this is a lipovox recording all lipovox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit lipovox.org the ego and his own by max sterner humane liberalism part two now in the first place the discoverer of a great truth doubtless knows that it can be useful to the rest of men and as a jealous withholding furnishes him no enjoyment he communicates it but even though he has the consciousness that his communication is highly valuable to the rest yet he has in no wise sought and found his truth for the sake of the rest but for his own sake because he himself desired it because darkness and fancies left him no rest till he had procured for himself light and enlightenment to the best of his powers he labors there for for his own sake and for the satisfaction of his want that along with this he was also useful to others yes to posterity does not take from his labor the egoistic character in the next place if he did labor only on his own account like the rest why should his act be human those of the rest of the unhuman i.e egoistic perhaps because this book painting sympathy etc is the labor of his whole being because he has done his best in it has spread himself out wholly and is wholly to be known from it while the work of the handicraftsman mirrors only the handicraftsman i.e is still in handicraft not the man in his poems we have the whole skillar in so many hundred stoves on the other hand we have before us only the stove maker not the man but this does mean more than in the one work you see me as completely as possible in the other only my skill it is not me again that the act expresses and it is not more egoistic to offer oneself to the world in a work to work out and shape oneself than to remain concealed behind one's labor you say to be sure that you are revealing man but the man that you reveal is you you revealed only yourself yet with this distinction from the handicraftsman but he does not understand how to compress himself into one labor but in order to be known as himself must be searched out in his other relations of life and that your want through his satisfaction that work came into being was a theatrical want but you will reply that you reveal quite another man a worthier higher greater a man that is more man than that other i will assume that you accomplish all that is possible to man that you bring to pass what no other succeeds in wherein then does your greatness consist precisely in this that you are more than other men the masses more than men ordinarily are more than ordinary men precisely in your elevation above men you are distinguished beyond other men not by being man but because you are a unique man thankless you show what a man can do but because you a man do it this by no means show that others also men are able to do as much you have executed it only as a unique man and are unique therein it is not man that makes up your greatness but you create it because you are more than man and mightier than other men it is believed that one cannot be more than man rather one cannot be less it is believed further that whatever one attains is good for man insofar as i remain at all times a man or like skillar as srobium like Kant or Prussian like Gustaf Adolphus a nearsighted person i certainly become my superior qualities a notable man srobium prussian or nearsighted person but the case is not much better with that than with fendric the great king which became famous for fendric's sake to give god the glory corresponds with the modern give man the glory but i mean to keep it for myself criticism issuing the summons to man to be human enantiates the necessary condition of sociability what only as man among men is one companionable herewith it makes known its social object the establishment of humane society among social theories criticism is indisputably the most complete because it removes and deprives the value everything that separates man from man all prerogatives down to the prerogative of faith in it the love principle of christianity the true social principle comes to the purest fulfillment and the last possible experiment is trying to take away any exclusiveness and repulsion from them the fight against egoism in its simplest and therefore hardest form in the form of singleness exclusiveness itself how can you live a truly social life so long as even one exclusive still exists between you i ask conversely how can you be truly single so long as even one connection still exists between you if you are connected you cannot leave each other if a tide clasps you you are something only with another and 12 of you make a dozen thousands of you are people millions of you humanity only when you are human can you keep company with each other as men just as you can understand each other as patriots only when you are patriotic all right then i answer only when you are single can you have intercourse with each other as what you are it is precisely the keenest critic who is hit hardest by the curse of his principal putting from him one exclusive thing after another shaking off churchiness patriotism etc he undoes one tie after another and separates himself from the churchly man from the patriot until at last when all ties are undone he stands alone he of all men must exclude all that have anything exclusive or private and when you get to the bottom what can be more exclusive than the exclusive single person himself or does he perhaps think that the situation would be better if all became man and gave up exclusiveness right for the very reason that all means every individual the most glaring contradiction is still maintained for the individual is exclusiveness itself if the humane liberal no longer concedes to the individual anything private or exclusive any private thought any private folly he criticizes everything away from him before his face since his hatred of the private is an absolute and fanatical hatred if he knows no tolerance toward what is private because everything private is unhuman yet he cannot criticize away the private person himself since the hardness of the individual person resists his criticism and he must be satisfied with declaring this person a private person and really leaving everything private to him again what will the society that no longer cares about anything private do make the private impossible no but subordinate it to the interests of society and e.g. leave it to private world to constitute holidays as many as it chooses if only it does not come in collision with the general interest everything private is left free i.e it has no interest for society by their raising barriers against science the church and the religiousness have declared that they are what they always were only that this was hidden under another semblance when they were proclaimed to be the bias and necessary foundation of the state a matter of purely private concern even when they were connected with the state and made a christian they were only the proof that the state had not yet developed his general political idea that it was only in situating private rights they were only the highest expression for the fact that the state was a private affair and had to do only with private affairs when the state shall at last have the courage and strength to fulfill its general destiny and to be free forever when therefore it is also able to give separate interests and private concerns their true position then religion and the church will be free as they never have been hitherto as a matter of their most purely private concern and a satisfaction of purely personal what they will be left to themselves and every individual every congregation and ecclesiastical communion will be able to take care for the blessedness of their souls as they choose and as they think necessary everyone will care for his soul's blessedness so far as it is to him a personal want and will accept and pay as spiritual caretaker the one who seems to him to offer the best guarantee for the satisfaction of his want science is at last left entirely out of the game what is to happen though is social life to have an end and all affiliability all fraternization everything that is created by the love or society principle to disappear as if one will not always seek the other because he needs him as if one must accommodate himself to the other when he needs him but the difference is that then the individual really unites with the individual while formally they were bound together by a tie son and father are bound together before majority after it they could come together independently before it they belong together as members of the family after it they unite as egoists sonship and fatherhood remain but son and father no longer pin themselves down to these the last privilege in truth is man with it all are privileged or invested for as Bruno Berra himself says privilege remains even when it is extended to all thus liberalism runs across in the following transformations first the individual is not man therefore his individual personality is of no account no personal will no arbitrariness no orders or mandates second the individual has nothing human therefore no mine and thine or property is valid third as the individual neither is man nor has anything human he shall not exist at all he shall as an egoist with his egotistic belongings be annihilated by criticism to make room for man man just discovered but although the individual is not man man is yet present in the individual and like every spook and everything divine has its existence in him hence political liberalism awards to the individual everything that pertains to him as a man by birth as born by man among which there are counted liberty of conscience the progression of goods etc in short the rights of man socialism grants to the individual what pertains to him as an active man as a laboring man finally humane liberalism gives the individual what he has as a man i.e everything that belongs to humanity accordingly the single one has nothing at all humanity everything and the necessity of the regeneration preached in christianity is demanded unambiguously and in the completest measure become a new creature become man one might even think himself reminded of the clothes of the lord's prayer to man belongs to the lordship their power or dynamists therefore no individual may be lord but man is the lord of individuals man's is the kingdom i.e the world consequently the individual is not to be the prior to but man all commanded the world as property to man is due renown glorification or glory doxer from all for man or humanity is the individual's end for which he labors thinks lives and for whose glorification he must become man here the two men have always driven to find out a fellowship in which their inequalities in other respects should become non-essential they strove for equalization consequently for equality and wanted to come all under one hat which means nothing less than that they were seeking for one lord on one tie one faith tears in one god we all believe there cannot be for men anything more fellowly or more equal than man himself and in this fellowship the love craving has found its contentment it did not rest till it had brought on this last equalization leveled all inequality laid man on the breast of man but under this very fellowship decay and ruin becomes most glaring in a more limited fellowship the Frenchman still stood against the German the Christian against the Mohammedan etc now on the contrary man stands against men or as men are not man man stands against the unman the sentence god has become man is now followed by the other man has become I this is the human eye but we invert it and say I was not able to find myself so long as I sought myself as man but now that it appears that man is aspiring to become I and to gain a core priority in me I note that after all everything depends on me and man is lost without me but I do not care to give myself up to be the shrine of this most holy thing and I shall not ask hence forward whether I am man or unman in what I said about let this spirit keep off my neck humane liberalization goes to work radically if you want to be or have anything he special given in one point if you want to attain for yourself even one prerogative above others to claim even one right that is not a general right of man you are an egoist very good I do not want to have or be anything special above others I do not want to claim any prerogative against them but I do not measure myself by others either and do not want to have any right whatever I want to be all and have all that I can be and have whether others are and have anything similar what do I care the equal the same they can neither be nor have I cause no detriment to them as I cause no detriment to the rock by being ahead of it in having motion if they could have it they would have it to cause other men no detriment is the point of the demand to possess no prerogative to renounce all being ahead the strictest fairly of renunciation one is not to count himself as anything he special e.g a Jew or a Christian well I do not count myself as anything he special but as unique about us I have similarity with others yet that holds good only for comparison or reflection in fact I am incomparable unique my flesh is not their flesh my mind is not their mind if you bring them under the gen realities flesh mind those are your thoughts which have nothing to deal with my flesh my mind and can least of all issue a call to mind I do not want to recognize or respect in you anything neither the proprietor nor the ragamuffin nor even the man but to use you insult I find that it makes food palatable to me therefore I dissolve it in the fish I recognize an element therefore I eat it in you I discover the gift of making my life agreeable therefore I choose you as a companion or insult I study crystallization in the fish animality in you men etc but to me you are only what you are for me to wit my object and because my object therefore my property in humane liberalism ragamuffin hood is completed we must first come down to the most ragamuffin like most property stricken condition if we want to arrive at illness for we must strip off everything alien but nothing seems more ragamuffin like than naked man it is more than ragamuffin hood however when I throw away man too because I feel that he too is alien to me and that I can make no potensions on that basis this is no longer mere ragamuffin hood because even the last rag has fallen off here stands real nakedness the new addition of everything alien the ragamuffin has stripped off ragamuffin hood itself and therewith has ceased to be what he was a ragamuffin I am no longer ragamuffin but have been one up to this time the discord could not come to an outbreak because probably there is current only a contention of modern liberals with antiquated liberals a contention of those who understand freedom in a small measure and those who want the full measure of freedom of the moderate and measureless therefore everything turns on the question how free must man be that man must be free in this or belief therefore all are liberal too but the un man who is somewhere in every individual how is he blocked how can it be arranged not to leave the un man free at the same time with a man liberalism as a whole has a deadly enemy and invincible opposite as god has the devil but the side of man stands always the un man the individual the ego test state society humanity do not master this devil humane liberalism has undertaken the task of showing the other liberals that they still do not want freedom if the other liberals had before their eyes only isolated egoism and work for the most part lined radical liberation has a game it's egoism in mass throws among the masses all do not make the cause of freedom their own as it does so that now man and un man rigorously separated stand over each other as enemies to wit the masses and criticism namely free human criticism as it is called in opposition to food that is religious criticism criticism expresses the hope that it will be victorious over all the masses and give them a general certificate of insolvency so it means finally to make itself out in the right and to represent all connection of the faith-hearted and timorous as an egoistic stubbornness as pettyness characteriness all wrangling losses significance and pretty dissensions are given up because in criticism a common enemy enters the field you are egoists all together no one better than another now the egoists stand together against criticism really the egoists no they fight against criticism precisely because it accuses them of egoism they do not plead guilty of egoism accordingly criticism and the masses stand on the same basis both fight against egoism both repudiate it for themselves and charge it to each other criticism and the masses pursue the same goal freedom from egoism and wrangled only other which of them approaches nearest to the goal or even attains it the Jews the Christians the absolutists the men of darkness and men of light politicians communicists all in sort hold the reproach of egoism far from them and as criticism brings against them this reproach in plain terms and in the most extended sense all justify themselves against the accusation of egoism and combat egoism the same enemy with whom criticism rages war both criticism and masses are enemies of egoists and both seek to liberate themselves from egoism as well by clearing or whitewashing themselves as by ascribing to the opposite party the critic is the true spokesman of the masses who gives them the simple concept and the phrase of egoism while the spokesman to whom the triumph is denied were only bundlers he is their prince and general in the war against egoism for freedom what he fights against they fight against but at the same time he is their enemy too not only the enemy before them but the friendly enemy who wields the knot behind their timorous to force courage into them hereby the opposition of criticism and the masses is reduced to the following contradiction you are egoists no we are not i will prove it to you you shall have our justification let us then take both for what they give themselves out for non-egoists and what they take each other for egoists they are egoists and are not probably criticism says you must liberate your ego from all limitness so entirely that it becomes a human ego i say liberate yourself as far as you can and you have done your part but it is not given to everyone to break through all limits or more expressively not to everyone is that a limit which is a limit for the rest consequently do not tire yourself with toiling at the limits of others enough if you tear down yours who has ever succeeded in tearing down even one limit for all men are not countless persons today as at all times running about with all the limitations of humanity he who overturns one of his limits may have showed others the way and the means the overturning of their limits remains their affair nobody does anything else either to demand of people that they become holy men is to call on them to cast down all human limits that is impossible because man has no limits i have some indeed but then it is only mine that concern me any and only they can be overcome by me a human ego i cannot become just because i am i am not merely man yet let us still see whether criticism has not taught us something that we can lay to heart i am not free if i am not without interests not man if i am not disinterested well even if it makes little difference to me to be free or man i do not want to leave unused any occasion to realize myself or make myself count criticism offers me this occasion by the teaching that if anything clients is self-cerning in me and becomes indissoluble i become its prisoner and servant i.e a possessed man an interest yet rewarded me has kidnapped a slave in me if i cannot get away from it and is no longer my property but i am its let us therefore accept criticism's lesson to let no part of our property become stable and if they are comfortable only in dissolving it so if criticism says you are man only when you are restlessly criticizing and dissolving then we say man i am without that and i am i likewise therefore i want only to be careful to secure my property to myself and in order to secure it i continually take it back into myself annihilate it in every movement toward independence and swallow it before it can fix itself and become a fixed idea or a mania but i do that not for the sake of my humane calling but because i call myself to do it i do not struct about dissolving everything that is possible for a man to dissolve and e.g while not yet 10 years old i do not criticize the nonsense of their commandments but i am man all the same and act humanely in just this that i still leave them uncriticized in short i have no calling and follow none not even that to be a man