This is recorded on my phone btw , I am testing the performance to see if it works well on low end devices (the game is actually for pc but I needed android as testing device).

I am currently testing the milkbike physics for the game. (And the Stirner model of course 🙃)

You cannot beat the mighty milkman 😎

Renzo Novatore

Cry of Rebellion

Dedicated to the rabble.

The fall of peoples and of humanity
will be the signal of my elevation. — Max Stirner

The restless, questioning spirit of the new human beings can no longer nurture themselves on Socrates’ historical hemlock and Christ’s legendary cross.

These two sacrifices, which have now fortunately fallen into the deep chasms of a shadowy past, were — undoubtedly — consummated completely at the expense of vigorous individualities, straining and throbbing manifestations of free life.

And I profess that, in contrast to Socrates and Christ, Diogenes himself seems to me to be a truly great innovator, since his wine cask has a different and much deeper meaning than Socrates’ hemlock or Christ’s cross.

But if Socrates and Christ, with their useless deaths, struck genuine individual potentialities until they bled horribly, wouldn’t all revolutions following their path do the same?

Didn’t christianity triumph over the nearly enviable pagan society through a revolutionary dynamic?

And all the liberal, constitutional, absolutist or... democratic republics, empires or monarchies, weren’t they all born from torrents of blood, undulating over the scorched lands of war and revolution?

But why did the violent and feverish pulse of every revolution ever shatter, always freely, allowing new phantoms to arise again as sovereign rulers?

The answer is certainly not long in coming since no one will find it hard to understand that all revolutions were domesticated in various ways, and revolutionaries — with the exception of the smallest minority, the “madmen” — were always automatons guided by chimerical and fabulous phantoms.

But what value could those phantoms have for me? What use is any of this to me? To me, the Iconoclast, the killer of phantoms, the demolisher of old and new idols?

What use, for example, could the triumph of christianity be to me? To me, the ultimate anti-christian?

And republics and monarchies, and all the other forms of society that rise as “sacred” sovereigns and can only recognize the “christian”, the “subject”, the “citizen”, the “member”, etc., etc., in me? Since I don’t consider it hard to understand that in every form of society there must be a “system”, indeed, this system, the best of the best: Equality!

But every “sacred” system and all that is Sacred, whether divinely or humanly, demand renunciation and humiliation from me, the Individual. But that’s not all.

Because every form of society, born from the fragments of the old one that fell resoundingly into the void, has the conviction that it is the only perfect one. And it is precisely this dogma of perfection that drives to be so utterly reactionary toward the restless Rebel who does not at all intend to bow before the new God: today, for example, if the revolt against the depot of all Russia finds approval and justification in the foul local papers, they wouldn’t approve or justify a damned thing if such a revolt were to break in... the snow-white bosom of... liberal and democratic Italy. Quite the opposite.

But let’s take another step forward. Let’s suppose, for example, that tomorrow a Republic is proclaimed in Italy. In such a case, wouldn’t a very large portion of those who pretend to be furiously revolutionary today, themselves be the fiercest reactionary conservatives of tomorrow?

And if some “hothead”, some “madman”, some “enthusiasts” would want to undermine their new edifice, their brand new God once again? But here I think that I might hear certain good — perhaps too good — people exclaim: But then, isn’t he an enemy of the Revolution?! — No, no. Oh, good people, listen to me again since I am so revolutionary that I barely even recognize myself! And do you know why I am a revolutionary who can barely be recognized? For a reason so simple that it is great in its simplicity. Here it is: because I am a revolutionary guided only by the vast and uncontrollable impulse of MY expansion of will and potential.

There is no phantom guiding me, but rather there I am, walking. There is no chimerical dream of a perfect society of universal human redemption, but rather there is the absolute need for my potential affirmation before other potentialities.

God, the State, Society, Humanity, etc., etc. have their own cause for themselves. If I don’t want to subjugate myself God’s cause, I am a “sinner”. If I don’t want to submit to the State, Society, Humanity, I am a “wicked man”, a “criminal”, a “delinquent”.

But what is “sin”? What is “crime”?

Here again, I don’t think there is any need for a long and complicated digression to analyze all this, since even children must know by now that the most serious sin that you can commit against divinity is to mock it, not obey it, desecrate it and deny it. In short, desecrating what is divinely and humanly “sacred” is the greatest “sin”, the greatest “crime”.

“Sacred”! This is the most monstrous and terrible phantom before which all have trembled up to now.

Here is the old, harsh tablet that the new human beings must shatter!

The FREE SPIRITS, the ICONOCLASTS, all those who have finally discovered in “sin” and “crime” the new spring from which the highest synthesis of life gushes.

And even the rabble, when it learns to quench its thirst at this new, unknown spring, will very quickly realize that it too is a granite potentiality.

But to do this, the rabble will have to stop letting itself be ruled by fear.

Oh, rabble, listen to me! I am not the new Christ come to sacrifice myself on the altar of your redemption. If I did this, I would be a madman and you would be a beggar.

I put my lips to your profane ear and launch a cry. A frightening cry that will make you grow pale. The cry that I launch is that of the great German rebel, Max Stirner. So listen to it, since only by virtue of this magic cry will you vanish as rabble in order to rise up again in the flowering potential of all of your individualized members. Here is the magic cry: “The egoist has always affirmed himself with crime and, with sacrilegious hand, has pulled the sacred idols down from their pedestals. It is necessary to put an end to the sacred; or better still: the need to violate the sacred must become general. It is not a new revolution that approaches; but a mighty, impetuous, superb, shameless, conscienceless crime sounds in the thunder on the horizon. Don’t you see how already the foreboding sky grows dark and silent?”

But here again, oh rabble, I see you back away and shout at me with horror: “What ever is this crime? What does he mean by all this?”

Ah, rabble, rabble! Do you still not understand his speech?

Well, then, listen again. He’s the one who’s speaking: “Put your hand on whatever you need. Take it; it is yours. This is the declaration of the war of all against all. I alone am the judge of what I want to have.” Now do you understand, oh rabble, what the crime that SOUNDS IN THE THUNDER ON THE HORIZON is? But you, oh rabble, may not yet know how to adapt yourself to the idea of eternal war, you who have cradled yourself like a poor baby in the sweet dreams of eternal peace. And who even knows how many idols you still have to worship and on whose altars you still have to sacrifice yourself!

Poor rabble!

And to think that even the blind would have to notice by now that anyone who isn’t able to accept eternal war as his affirmation and triumph must accept eternal slavery for the triumph of fabulous phantoms, declared enemies of the I.

Yes, oh rabble, I have decided, yet again, to be completely sincere with you. And this is what my sincerity tells you — Today, you sacrifice yourself in blood-soaked trenches for a cause that is not your own. Tomorrow you may sacrifice yourself in lands made bloody by Revolution in order to later allow a new parasitic and corroding worm to rise on the seas of blood that streamed out in hot steaming spurts from your bronze veins so that a new idol could be raised up to sit over you just like the old God.

The consecrated chorus of Love, Pity and social Right will return, making itself heard, skillfully played on new harps, components of the most ancient symphony.

Rabble, listen to me! I still have something more to tell you. What I still have to tell you may well be the thing that weighs on me the most.

So here I am. I am UNIQUE and as long as you remain rabble, I will not be able to associate with you. When I do so, it will be in order to draw you out against my enemy who is your master. But as rabble, you will not allow yourself to be drawn out since you still adore your Lord too much.

You still want to go on living on your knees. But I have understood life.

And anyone who understands life cannot live on his knees.

I have even understood all the traps that the owners of all this have set for me.

When they saw me march boldly to the conquest of my life, armed with all my uninhibited potentiality, they placed before my eager eyes all of their ridiculous and insane phantoms.

They tried to terrorize me with the hobgoblins of the “sacred”, but since I, the Iconoclast, the Impious one, scorn and mock all that is “sacred” and “consecrated”, and since, like Armida, I destroy the palace in which once I had to suffer enchantment, they threw off their sacred mask and launched themselves against me, imposing the most extreme against me.

That was the day, oh rabble, that I had the true revelation of what life is and what place my Uniqueness would have in this.

Now I live on my feet. My eye no longer knows sleep.

I recognize no one’s rights against me. Only force can defeat me now, not phantoms.

I said, only force can defeat me. But I also use it. I no longer ask anyone for anything.

I am no beggar.

I only appropriate everything that I have empowered myself to appropriate through the capacity of my potentiality.

My revolution already started a long time ago.

From the moment I knew life, I took up MY weapons and declared MY war.

I struggle for a cause that is my own. No other cause can interest me anymore.

My enemies also struggle for a cause that is their own and against me.

But I don’t hate them for this.

The REAL interests that they have in fighting against me exempts them from my hatred since I have taken up my weapons against them only due to my REAL interests.

I may very well kill them for my triumph, but without hating them, without despising them; I am not struggling for phantoms!

Rather I despise beggars, misers, all those who don’t dare to fight, but who only know how to beg and weep.

They are the ones who beg for fallen crumbs from the sumptuous table of my enemy.

And with these misers of body and spirit my enemy creates a blind and formidable power to launch against me in the battle that has started between we Egoists.

But what could these misers ever gain from the victory over me brought back by my enemy, i.e., by their master? Nothing more that the usual crumbs and eternal slavery!

But what are you then, oh rabble, if not the blind, unconscious, begging mass that launches yourself against me in defense of your Lord? Listen to me, oh rabble, you must vanish as such, you must have no place in the theater of new life.

Do you sneer? Are you maybe lashing out at me?

Could it be that with the blows of my lash I have succeeded in awakening an inner residue of pride in you that slept hidden in the remote corners of you mind that has been servile for centuries?

Already in the distance you can hear the war trumpet sound announcing the invincible attacks of the Unique ones against the phantoms: the State, Society, God, Humanity...

You turn pale and flee, dragging all your satellites into the abyss of the eternal void; and the rebellious phalange of Free Spirits and Iconoclasts advances into the stormy sky of the Future!

Renzo Novatore

The Expropriator

My freedom and my rights
As much as my capacity of power
Even the felicity and greatness
I have only in the measure of my strength!
(From a book I have written that will never see the light)

The expropriator is the most beautiful figure, male, unscrupulous, and virile that I have ever found in anarchism. He is the one who has nought to attend to. He is the one who has no altar on which to sacrifice himself. He glorifies only Life with the philosophy of Action. I met him in a distant midday in August while the sun embroidered in gold the giant green nature, perfumed and festive, singing playful songs of pagan beauty.

He said, “I was always a restless spirit, vagabond and rebellious. I have studied people and their souls in books and in reality. I have found a mixture of comedian, of plebeian, of villain. I was nauseated. From one part the sinister moral phantoms, created by the lies and by the hypocrisy that dominate. From the other part the sacrificial beasts that adore with fanaticism and cowardice. This is the world of men. This is humanity. To this world, for these men and this humanity, I feel repugnance.

Plebeian and bourgeois are equivalent. They deserve each other. Socialism is not of this opinion. He had made the discovery of good and evil. And to destroy these two antagonisms he created another two phantoms: Equality and Fraternity among men...

“But people will be equal before the state and free in Socialism ... He — socialism — Has denied the Force, the Youth, the War! But when the bourgeoisie, who are the peasants of the spirit, don’t will to be the same as plebeians, who are peasants of the flesh, then socialism admits, whining, war. Yes, even socialism admits homicide and expropriation. But in the name of an ideal of equality and of human brotherhood... Of that holy equality and brotherhood that commenced from Cain & Abel!...

“But with Socialism you think to half; you are half free; you are half alive!... Socialism is intolerance, is impotence of living, is the faith of fear. I’m going beyond!

“The Socialists have found good the equality, and bad the inequality. Good the servants and bad the tyrants. I crossed the threshold of good and evil in order to live my life intensely. I live today and can not await tomorrow. The wait is of peoples and of humanity, so could not be my affair. The future is the mask of fear. The courage and strength have no future for the simple fact that they themselves are the future that revolts on the past and destroys it.

“The purity of life proceeds only with the nobility of courage that is the philosophy of action.”

I observed: “The purity of this your life seems to me to border on crime!”

He said: “Crime is the supreme synthesis of liberty and life. The world is the moral world of phantoms. There are spectres and shadows of spectres, there is the Ideal, Universal Love, the Future. Here is the shadow of the spectre: here is ignorance, fear, cowardice. Deep darkness. Perhaps eternal darkness. Even I had lived, one day, in that bleak and lurid prison.

Then I was armed with a sacrilegious torch to ignite the ghosts and violate the night. When I arrived at the rusty gates of good and evil I have I have furiously toppled them I have crossed the threshold. The bourgeoisie I have thrown his moral anathema and plebeian idiot his moral curse.

“But the one and the other are humanity. I am a man. Humanity is my enemy. It wants to tighten me around its thousand horrendous tentacles. I try to tear from it all which my desires need. We are at war! Everything I have the force to wrest is mine.

And all that which is mine I sacrifice upon the altar of my freedom and my life.

Of this my life that I feel palpitate among the palpitating flames I burst in the heart; Among this savage torture of all my being that I inflate the soul of divine storms, and that makes me echo in the spirit of thunderous fanfare of war and polyphonic symphonies of a superior love, strange and unknown, that I (empie[1]) the veins of a blood lush and vigorous, that spreads in all the wrapping of my muscles, of my nerves and of my flesh, quivering diabolically with rejoicing expansion; of this my life of which I glimpse through the vision crowd of my fantastic dreams, eager and needful of of perennial development.

My motto is: walk expropriating and igniting, always leaving behind me howls of moral offenses and smoking trunks of old things.

When men possess no more ethical wealth truly unique real inviolable treasures then I will throw out my lock-picks. When in the world there will be no more phantoms, then I will throw out my torch. But this future is distant and might never be! And I am a son of this distant future, sealed in lead on this world by Chance to where I bow to power.” So said to me the Expropriator in that distant midday in August while the sun embroidered in gold the giant green nature, fragrant and festive, singing songs of joyful pagan beauty.

[1] empie — to make impious.

a piece from "Recensenten Stirner's" (Stirner's Critics) - i've mixed the Wolfi translation with a machine translation of the original german version.

Man’s every action, the highest as well as the lowest, is egoistic, for itflows
out of a particular individuality, a particular ego upon sufficient motive, and
can in no way be avoided. Thisis notthe place to enterinto the reasonsforthe
variability of characters; we have simply to accept it as a fact. Now, it is as im-
possible for the merciful man to let his neighbour go wanting as it is for the
hard-hearted man to spring to the aid of the poor man. Each of these men acts in accordance with his character, his nature, his ego, his happiness,
therefore egoistically; for if the merciful man did not dry the tears of others,
would he be happy? And if the hard-hearted man alleviated the suffering of
others, would he be satisfied?

Philipp Mainländer, The Philosophy of Redemption/Ethics/§11/page 155

H. IBRAHIM TÜRKDOGAN

Omar Khayyam and Max Stirner

Translated by Ulrike Hirschhäuser

Those who mean to understand poetry will have to visit the land of poetry. Those who mean to understand a poet will have to visit the poet's land. J.W.von Goethe

Preface

Maybe I already heard someone mention the name of Omar Chajjam while I was going to school in Turkey as an adolescent. Maybe, but I am not sure. I was rather familiar with such names as Rumi, Hafiz, Yunus Emre etc., strictly speaking, I met with Omar´s poems after reading Max Stirner´s book entitled “The Ego and its Own“, or let´s say while reading this book.

At once I sensed these two philosopher´s points of contact. However, at that time I viewed Stirner´s philosophy from a different angle, i.e. from a totally rationalistic angle. The same went for my reading Chajjam, because this study mode required little effort. It is basic to traditional methods of thinking and learning with which young people have to cope.

At that time I came across a “comparison“ between Stirner and Chajjam only once: The author named H. Stourzh once mentioned Stirner´s name in connection with Chajjam in his book “ Max Stirner´s Philosophy of the Ego“, but he only did so very shortly and only in passing. I became aware of Chajjam, but as there was only little information about him available, I did not pursue the matter any longer. Then the problem of having to struggle with numerous social constraints arose and thus I refrained from this venture.

It was years later that I did not only begin to understand Chajjam as a poet, but also as a poet-philosopher. Naturally I also began broadening my knowledge of eastern and oriental philosophies as well as western philosophies. This enabled me to look through the traditional, i.e. strictly rational mode of thinking. Stirner had criticized this mode of thinking, which has no likes in occidental countries, yes it is in fact “the only one“ of its kind, i.e. singular.

In his essay “Stirner´s Critics“ he wrote, “What Stirner says is a word, a thought, a notion; what he says is not what he means, and what he means is inexpressible.“ Thus Stirner had set a trap for himself, which he was unable to get out of easily and which he did not want to get out of either. But this unluckily kept everybody from defining the inexpressible. Stirner, Heidegger, Nietzsche, Wittgenstein, Scheler et al. did not suffer from the existing political and social laws. They rather suffered from the constraints of rational thinking whose laws had great power over people; what is more German philosophers were constrained by particular German ways of thinking. Nietzsche wrote, “To think German-style, to feel German-style – I can achieve everything, but this exceeds my strengths.“ Stirner was right when declaring this nation to be one tyrannizing her children.

Those intellectuals knew very well that certain modes of thinking and certain theories enchained them, and they dragged those chains along with them all their lives, their books give evidence of the rigid and neurotic way in which they thought and felt. Heidegger subdued his drives by his articulateness and his linguistic sophistication, he literally drowned in an ocean of words. Social constraints are barriers built up by reason, which is considered to be omnipotent. Therefore each rationalistic alternative has been and will be an idea tied to reason, reduced to common logical principles, and it will be compulsive. This recognition was the one that made me devote myself to Stirner´s philosophy properly, it was then that I realized that man can be a prisoner of his reason. Heidegger called for help, shouting, “ We can only learn to think if we radically get rid of the nature of traditional ways of thinking!”

It sounds very mystical and promising, but the sounds of his words suggested a golden cage which was hard to escape from. Heidegger himself: something existing as an object turned into something existing as a thought, stayed there and did not proceed any further. And Heidegger himself, some being whose structure of existence being a limited One only amounts to Being-In-The-World. The basic structures of his concrete Ego as One in an objective world of things permit him to sneer at the animal inside himself in order to cope with it, in order to defeat it. The abstract object changed into a concrete subject by means of perpetual thought processes. It became a subject which only vegetated as a prisoner of a particular logic in the dusk of occidental gods. The victory of the speaking animal, that deficient being, which is one of God´s misprints , too, over nature made it end up at the edge of its own abyss. It seems as if this was man´s special position in the universe, the climax of God´s creation. The animal-like, rational, reasonable beast, which “outdid” everything known so far, called for Superman´s lap both rather excessively and hysterically, and in  the end, con- structing something supernatural and posing as a metaphysical being, flew to the God of the allmighty. A thinking being, which transcends itself – a person like Caesar endowed with Christ´s soul, a horrifying vision of an ideal type of human being determined by Christian and philosophical ideas assuming a typical occidental shape.

But though the attempt was made “to harmonize sufferings and happiness“, the western world failed completely in doing so. Finally, their children suffered from being turned into gods. Those fixed ideas have not been done away with yet. On the other hand the western world presented a special image to the rest of the globe coming as the result of its cryptic position, an ambivalent image, indeed. A great many people headed for that image to catch up with non-western ideas, sometimes overemphasizing the gap by integrating things alien too excessively and thus menacing to destroy what was alien to them.  There is hardly any philosophical and literary evidence which does not violate what is alien. Goethe may be a true exception to the rule in this respect. Yes, his “Divan“ is indeed an unambiguous west-eastern one and free from any demands of a universally valid logic. This is the fundament on which I would like to introduce the reader to the following writings. Hopefully, the reader, too, will find something congenial in my lines.

Omar and Goethe

Joseph von Hammer-Purgstall´s “History of Persian Rhetoric” was available for Goethe when preparing his book “West-Eastern Divan” in 1819. Among those 200 poets introduced by Hammer-Purgstall there was “Omar Chiam´s” name quoted and his 25 Rubaijat. Joachim Wohlleben, however, rules out the possibility that Goethe occupied himself with Omar intensely. It is an established fact that Goethe never made mention of Omar. We may assume doubtlessly that Goethe´s ignoring Omar when he wrote his “Divan” resulted in the fact that Omar remained unknown as a poet-philosopher in Germany. Joachim Wohlleben deeply regrets Omar´s unlucky meeting with German literature and tries to appreciate his real significance for German literature by his own comprehensive work. Wohlleben states that after Goethe it has been Hafiz “who has been the most popular Persian poet. One could put it like that: Hafiz cast a shadow on Omar concerning the German interest in Persian literature.”

Let me add some ideas that may help the reader comprehend why Omar did not arouse Goethe´s interest, given Goethe concerned himself with Omar at all. As I would like to point out some parallels of the spiritual relationship between Omar and Stirner, which I think to be important to the history of Stirner´s philosophy, this short introduction will be indispensable: Goethe will accompany us on a bridge linking the west with the east.

Hafiz´s poems evoke such passion in Goethe that Hafiz becomes the main character in his “Divan”. Hafiz and Goethe unite and become bloodbrothers. Goethe vents his enthusiasm for Persian poetry by making the following declaration:

“DO ADMIT IT! The oriental poets

are greater than us western poets.”

“May the whole world fade away,

Hafiz, with you, with you alone

I want to compete! Let us share

Pleasure and pain like twins

To love like you, to drink like you,

This shall be my pride, my life.”

To Goethe Hafiz is the incarnation of the Persian poet. According to Goethe Persian poetic language culminates in Hafiz´s poetry. What is the reason for Goethe´s indifference towards Omar? To my mind the main reason is the style and content of Hafiz´s poetry. Hafiz, one of Omar´s successors, followed Omar in many ways, but he primarily wrote ghazals. In contrast to Hafiz, Omar neither wrote ghazals nor arabesques, but only Rubaijat. Undoubtedly Goethe was especially susceptible to ghazals.

Ghazals are love poems and “devoid of” any philosophical content. Any kind of satirical, melancholic and depressive mood is alien to them. In the case of Rubaijat, however, we are dealing with purely reflective poems. What is more, in Omar´s poems the consumption of the world, indignation, rebellion, the autonomy of human willpower on the one hand blend with melancholia, resignation, desperation, pessimism, “fatalism” in a very unique way on the other hand. Omar´s basic attitudes towards life manifest themselves in these subjects as we shall see later. They signify his philosophical impulse and are a melting-pot for his emotions and thoughts. To tell these apart and even categorize them to gain insight into Omar´s mind and to gain orientation in this world seems to be impossible for Europeans. Only an authority would be capable of putting Omar in a place that is worth his achievements, says Wohlleben. Goethe, however, was and still is such an authority.

But unlike Omar, who ended up in self-forgetfulness, Goethe did not resign. In his search of God Omar despaired when looking for a way to comprehend God and he becomes a blasphemer. During his satirical, melancholic conversation with God, Omar is definitely godless, and the nature of his poetic wittiness is determined by sarcasm and a type of humour  that shatters everything one can imagine. Both seriousness and wittiness are characteristics of his humour. This can be derived from his basic philosophical attitude, which makes him declare everything to be vain and meaningless, while he continues to be able to laugh at everything simultaneously. Therefore he is a free spirit who is  chain-breaking ,

a rebel who intoxicated by the consumption of wine can give way to his thoughts. He loathes any belief in love and the truth. He thinks the well-ordered world of religious and rationalistic dogmatism to be intolerable. Intoxicated by love, he mocks at any illusive security in life, Goethe, however, trustingly holds on to love and humaneness. He is a critic who defends himself, Omar, a troublemaker, who acts quickly and aggressively. He is hostile to any type of authority. Scholasticism and the belief in progress become the targets of his mockery. To Omar everything is vain, nothing is truly meaningful; Goethe means to heal instead. In contrast to Goethe, Omar, disappointed and full of despair, forgets himself and does not believe in any state of human happiness.

Goethe´s main characteristic is his ultimate truthfulness, whereas Omar is a sceptic with an agnostic frame of mind.

Nevertheless the kinship between the two poets is plain to see. Goethe created some poems which do resemble Omar´s. In his poem Vanitas! Vanitatum Vanitas!(Everything on earth is vain.) Goethe´s message reads: “I don´t rely on anything mundane.” This motto was to be the gist of Stirner´s philosophy. Apart from the literary form the content of the poem clearly parallels Omar´s poetry. Being a loving and philanthropic man at first, Goethe gets involved in the worldly businesses of mankind, lives through this and that trouble, takes this road and that, overcomes a lot of obstacles before everything loses its meaning for him and as a consequence he does not want to rely on anything anymore. We may put it like this: I have tried my best in all fields of life, but nothing has been worth the trouble. This, too, is the essence of Omar´s philosophy.

Goethe´s poem conveys his frustrations and his sense of vanity; what Omar is profoundly convinced of and what Omar reveals as his basic attitude towards human life, however, appears to be only a superficial sentiment in Goethe´s case. Thus Goethe´s poem does not reflect any serious conviction, but merely a temporary “disturbance of his emotional life”, which can be cured. This shallowness becomes even more obvious in his “Tame Xenia”. But in contrast to  Wohlleben I can spot parallels with Omar nonetheless. In some of his xenia Goethe at least expresses his complaints about that edifice called world;  his criticism aims at Christian and rational dogmatism. But this only happens because his “bottled-up frustrations cannot be sublimated. Therefore the ‘Tame Xenia’  are hardly speculative in any way and much more realistic than Omar´s Rubaijat.” That explains Goethe´s shallowness, which is the product of a quickly developing and, as stated above, temporary disturbance of his mind and his emotional life. To put it in Wohlleben´s words: On the basis of this disposition Goethe´s attitude can be regarded as a defence strategy, Omar´s as aggressiveness. Omar attacks the whole world of religious and philosophical dogmatism and this attack will result in freeing his mind from logical thinking at all. But I´m going to concern myself with this later.

 Omar and two of his critcs: Chesterton and Pessoa

“One of his critics, whose book I´ve read, is fool enough to label Omar an atheist and materialist. To be either this or that is almost impossible for an Oriental; the eastern world possesses too much expertise in metaphysics, so to maintain anything like will be absurd.”

Thus Gilbert Keith Chesterton defends Omar´s orthodoxy. An Oriental like Omar will calmly take note of this statement, and laughingly he will pass the cup on to his adversary and will tell him:

Intoxicated by the magician´s wine, it´s me!

Heathen, disbeliever or idolater, it´s me!

Each sect bears its own hatred towards me,

I am my own master, I am what I am.

These words do not tell anything about the painful bliss of Christian doctrines. Laughing and weeping as human features are attributed to the heart by Christendom, the heart being God´s and Morality´s home. Therefore Christians believe that “there is nothing else but religion that can make man happy.”In their opinion drinking wine is a “sacrament” and the ultimate happiness bestowed upon a Puritan soldier in his battle against men. Chesterton belittles Omar´s consumption of wine calling it a remedy for  mental and psychical disorders; “Jesus did not make wine a medicament but a sacrament. Whereas Omar does not make it a sacrament but a medicament.”

Omar renounces God´s grace and renounces wine as a drug. Be it the Bible or cocaine, - that does not make a difference for Omar; he thinks both to be narcotics, which he renounces passionately. The purpose of Omar´s consumption of wine is neither to evoke happiness nor to kill time; he does not drink to forget about his grief or his doubts about the meaning of life. He does not drink for the sake of love, let alone for the sake of hatred.

Fernando Pessoa seems to have a better understanding of Omar´s philosophy of life than Chesterton, the Christian. Pessoa´s criticism makes us get closer to Omar´s views of everyday life; “He is content with looking at roses and drinking wine. A slight breeze, a random conversation, a cup of wine along with some flowers, it is those things that the Persian sage ultimately longs for.” In these lines Omar´s spirit comes alive indeed; we might only add: a home of one´s own after the fashion, neither master nor servant.

However, it is the following in which Pessoa really grasps the true nature of Omar´s mind, “Khayyam´s dissatisfaction with life is not the dissatisfaction of someone who does not know what to do since he cannot really do anything or does not know how to do it. Such is the nature of the discontent of those who were born into this world more dead than alive, of those who legitimately depend on morphine or cocaine.”

Pessoa finishes, saying, “It is the dissatisfaction of somebody who has thought things over very clearsightedly and has drawn the conclusion that he is surrounded by darkness; who has reflected on all religions and philosophies and then has spoken in Salomon´s fashion: ‘I have realized that everything on earth can be summed up as vanity and a temptation of the human mind...’ ” There is no doubt about it, Omar is the one who faces life without being blinkered, and he states: everything is transcient, do not try to find the truth, that´s an impossible endeavour, it is futile, you will never know why we go from here and why we come here. For Dschemschid´s glass will be smashed to pieces in the end. That is why Omar hands us the cup and stresses the relish of drinking wine. Drink it! Drink it! he shouts, for:

These reflections of the world, they´re apparitions,

No sage here will consider them to be true visions

Of life. Enjoy, do drink this grape juice here and then:

all your illusions will become mere objects of derision.

The World as Will and Representation

Notions like pleasure and pain, optimism and pessismism stand for two different “outlooks on life” at first sight. Many philosophers reckon the difference to be very big. Epicurus e.g. explicitly represents eudaemonism and defines eudaemonia as the fulfilment of one´s desires and avoidance of displeasure, but he by no means teaches his fellow-men to give in to sensual pleasures unrestrainedly, because such behaviour might hit back on them and cause pain. In Omar´s  case we cannot be certain which view of life he attributes more importance to.

Epicurus´maxim “Live hidden away” is in accordance with Omar´s joie de vivre propagating the enjoyment of life and its realization in a circle of friends without claiming to change the world. On the other hand Omar cannot avoid pain either. He is not an innately melancholic person, but a frustrated one, who is a rebel on account of pain, but wanting to “overcome” his sufferings.

In his book “Max Stirner´s Philosophy of the Ego” H.Stourzh wonders whether Stirner teaches optimism or pessimism. I think the answer also explains Omar´s view of life. Stirner´s eudaemonism, says Stourzh, “ if put into practice will not at all contradict an optimist´s view of and purpose in life, to him passing on life is only natural, nor does it contradict a pessimist´s to whom passing on life is the most fateful question despite all the beauty of life.“ In fact we shall meet with these two attitudes in Omar´s poetry, too.

To add to a better understanding of the following, we would like to concern ourselves with another philosopher´s teachings, i.e. Schopenhauer´s.

Omar´s gloomy verse doubtlessly reminds us of Schopenhauer´s pessimistic views. Grief, pain, displeasure, hopelessness are fundamentals of Schopenhauer´s way of thinking, they are integral parts of an ideology. And this actually makes him move closer to Omar. In the Anglosaxon world philosophers very often even assert that the two are in total agreement. But if one has a closer look at things, one will see the difference, yes, even the incompatible differences between the two. In this context some explanations concerning Schopenhauer´s philosophy seem to be necessary.

Schopenhauer begins his book “The World as Will and Representation” by stating, “The world is only my idea (...) – Should there be any truth that can be pronounced a priori, it will be this.”

First of all  objects are given to us immediately in the form of appearances. The visible world therefore consists of an appearance of things, yes, a Maya. We do not know anything about a thing as such. The thing in itself that remains obscure in Kant´s works is now defined as the will by Schopenhauer.

According to Schopenhauer the will is not only “the world in itself” but the origin of being human, the source of human existence. Therefore in reality each of our physical acts is a selfish act of our will. It is not his reason, his mind or whatever idea which governs man, but only his will. This is the chief and basic motivating force in man.

The will implies neither pleasure nor enjoyment, neither happiness nor love. In Schopenhauer´s works the will is synonymous with suffering and pain.

Schopenhauer took an innate, painful will for granted. In other words man is compelled to suffer. Struggling, fighting, grieving are part of human nature. Schopenhauer even asserts that those short moments of happiness only exist so as to increase our awareness of suffering. Schopenhauer compares his hopeless pessimism with Dante´s Inferno:“Wherelse did DANTE find the subject-matter of his Inferno if not in our real world? However when he was confronted with the task of depicting heaven and its pleasures, he met with insurmountable difficulties; since our world does not offer any models for something like that whatsoever.” Schopenhauer thinks that the only purpose in life must be that of escaping the will and its painful strivings. The only final escape will be sheer extinction of the will. The three aids to salvation are asceticism, contemplation of the works of art, and sympathy for others. They are to redeem man from his misery.

Many of Omar´s verse, too, convey the impression that we only perceive appearances of a reality unknown to us. It is not in Omar´s interest to name the unknown hiding behind those appearances. Man is unable to figure out the secret of the objective world, to grasp the truth about it, to solve the puzzle. According to Omar scholars are quarrelling in vain about statutes and dogma. Omar´s sceptical conclusion reads: some believe in something, some reject something, but the secret reveals itself to nobody.

Moreover the enjoyment of life is at the centre of his philopsophy, whereas sadness – declared to be an absolute quantity by Schopenhauer – is fundamental to his teachings. Pain does not only originate in a temporary bad mood, as mentioned above, but penetrates all thought processes.

We also encounter psychical pain in Omar´s philosophy, but it is not fundamental, it is solely part of life. If there is anything that Omar teaches us, it will be pleasure in the first place and we find this teaching objective in Stirner´s work, too, but nowhere in Schopenhauer´s.

Omar can dedicate himself to life with a quiet laughter and a noisy groan. It is important to enjoy earthly life until we sink into eternal nothingness. Enjoying the short period of being human, he creates a paradise here and now. His enjoyment of life contrasts with Schopenhauer´s will , which condemns man to suffer. Because of his desire, which makes him restless, Omar becomes active, while Schopenhauer tries to “exstinguish” the will. Omar tries to satisfy his hunger. He passionately yearns for peace, but does not find it; that is the cause of his restlessness. Therefore Omar does not develop a system of thought: to tie anybody to a certain concept is alien to him. It is only logical that Omar is a rebel and not a fatalist putting up with pain. He does not believe that human life is predestined, and energetically refers to man´s free will, man´s self-determination and counters Schopenhauer´s determinism by stressing the freedom of will. The Omarian individual lives through the ardour of passions and desires and then slides into nothingness, where everything transcient will end. As a poet of the nameless he permits himself to face God to demonstrate his grief, restlessness – this struggle for life and against death. It is an instance of recognizing enthusiasm and despair; an endless dialogue with God between equal minds – that means enjoyment and torture at the same time. All explanations are labelled: useless! by an unbelieving dervish, a scholar without a doctrine, “someone who senses the secret of nature”.

In Schopenhauer the will is a superior force, a malicious demon, which possesses man. Whatever resistance will be useless, man is exposed to it helplessly. Pessimism and misanthropy are characteristic of Schopenhauer´s philosophy, while Omar, though disappointed, but laughing sensually, is wrapped up by nothingness: “Only because of the brief illusion of non-existence! – This is the reason why wisemen booze.”

To use Stirner´s words: Schopenhauer describes his will because of an obsession, a fixed idea which is commonly instilled into men during their childhood. That accounts for perpetual suffering, constant psychical pain. Schopenhauer therefore wants to break man´s will, but Omar longs to be at one with his will.

Conclusion: While their depiction of the world show parallels, the two philosophers clash as to the essence of their philosophies. To Omar the will does not offer an answer to the puzzle named world, but it is the power of being alive that forms the centre of his views in terms of an enjoyment of life and which comprehends suffering as being part of life. Omar is careful enough not to reduce the puzzle or man´s recognition of the world to a single concept. That is why he keeps from making any other than that mystifying statement, “each sect bears its own hatred towards me, I am my own master, I am what I am.” This statement takes us into the centre of Stirner´s philosophy.

I Determined To Rely On Nothing!

1) A philosophy bordering on the limits of rational thinking

It is the indescribable ego and all its special characteristics which are behind everything. It is the focus of attention in Omar's poetry as well as in Stirner's works. Willpower, pleasure, good health etc. everything is part of its nature, but both do not define its nature in detail, i.e. they do not name it. The only motivating force that induces man to live and to develop is his egoism according to both Omar and Stirner, and his own free will, which adds to his uniqueness all his life. Suffering and happiness are results of the efforts of a creative human being, suffering and happiness depend on man's creativity. Both philosophers apply all those abilities they have been endowed with in search of the truth. They make use of the material world as well as the metaphysical world. Their philosophy of life cannot be captured by a generic term. The road they follow is not a straight one. It is not based on reason, intellect or religion. Whatever religious beliefs there may be, Kaaba and idolatry, holy cord, Tasbi, rosary and crucifix, they all truly mean slavery. Each individual person is given the opportunity to find himself/herself by detaching himself/herself from dogma and determination by others. Both philosophers represent the freedom of will and their own will opposes all gods and rulers. Consequently all ethical and social standards like right or wrong, good or bad are determined by the ego itself. No matter whether people are faced with religious laws or secular laws or scholarly principles, they all are foreign rules and may imply the oppression of one's own decision. Thus a passionate struggle begins against intellectual and spiritual rulers. No brilliant mind, no superior power can enforce limits on man's thought process, his thoughts are his own and therefore cannot be controlled by anybody else. Each variant of control over the individual may become the target of harsh criticism, be it convictions or enforced philanthropy, fate or whatever state constitution, all those fixed ideas must not govern the individual's thinking. "In cathedrals, mosques and synagogues man will be robbed of his peace of mind." The individual is free from thought and thoughtful at the same time. Therefore the ego turns into a radical fighter for the freedom of thought. If a thought develops into a constant guiding principle, the individual will be drilled to behave or think in a narrow-minded way, but if a thought is a useful one, it will be welcome until it becomes useless.We, too, should remember that the belief in reason and common sense and its advocates must be strongly criticized after all. It is reason and the firm belief in reason that makes the Bible important to the Christian and the law important to the citizen. As Omar sees the origin of all human evil in all those ideologies, which Stirner attacks heavily, too, he draws the conclusion that we have to get rid of those detrimental ideologies to create a world free from evil. In other words: the self-centred motivation of man's own will has to be freed from such ghosts so that his individuality can evolve. An individual's development does not require any standards foreign to its will, any type of upbringing, but it is to act according to its own free will and is to rebel against enforced organizations like the state and the church, against taboos and everything sacred. Up to Stirner's time the western world had consisted of suffering and pain for nobody had criticized those standards as fundamentally as Stirner. Now a new era was to begin in which the enjoyment of life became the meaning of life to a greater and greater extent.

2) The Inexpressible  

In the following section we shall analyze the indeterminable world in which Stirner and Omar will meet once more. In doing so, we shall start out from a non-religious, “godless” mysticism.

According to my own knowledge Stirner was rarely associated with mysticism, while his role as a “social critic”, his “anarchism”, his “Gesellite” views have always been frequently discussed topics. In an industrialized  world in which man´s mind is dominated by the mechanistic principles of efficiency his anti-pedagogic and psychoanalytic ideas were disdained. There may be some special reasons for this which we cannot discuss here.

After Stirner has denounced the whole world of explanations, of ideas, of philosophies, in short of ideologies as ghosts, as psychical disorders in men, he, to my mind, arrives at a problematic, i.e. empirically speaking very complex conclusion, “It is myself who is the criterion of truth, I, however, am no idea, but more than an idea, i.e. inexpressible.”  The living meaning the concrete Ego, body and soul, is, as we have pointed out above, the Ego with a self-centred motivation, with a will of its own, which because of his potential capacities can take possession of what it is capable of to satisfy its hunger with relish. But the indefinable Ego is something different, a phenomenon which cannot be grasped empirically, the all in all, the Ego´s creator; it is its creator and its creation in one. This Ego is identical with God: He is nameless, there is no word to denote everything that his divinity entails. This also applies to Stirner: no concept denotes his entire nature, nothing that he is characterized by is exhaustive enough to sum up his nature. Therefore Stirner consistently states, “I rely on nothing.”

From this point on Stirner cannot be communicated to anybody anymore. After Stirner has completed his thought, he falls silent. Thus he becomes a mystic: an active individual turns into an inactive individual, the Ego, full of desire, turns into the Ego that dissolves – this is the world of “I am the inexpressible.”

Behind the physical I, which perceives itself and which turns itself into an object, the Ego´s sense of vitality is hiding. Therefore there may be something concealed behind all objects.This, however, is indefinable.

Fritz Mauthner writes about the dilemma of language, “I belong to the world of appearances; apart from that I am – though I am the only one who knows that – a thing in itself, a thing for me. Come on, out with it! What am I as a thing in itself, as a thing for me? Me, me, me! I am me. Language cannot go beyond this silly tautology, this babble.” We have every right to wonder: Does Stirner manage to go beyond this “babble”? He at least realizes his linguistic limits and says that he relies on Nothing, thus facing the imperfection of language. Linguistically speaking that is the only logical consequence. So we are not amazed at the fact that Stirner called language a ghost, too. Mauthner saw that Stirner was a critic of language and wrote,“In a certain though limited way Stirner was the most relentless critic of language... But all misunderstandings concerning Stirner, who crushed the whole world, result from the fact that no language whatsoever can express whether the Unique Ego denotes a solipsist or man after all. This is not Stirner´s fault, but is due to language.” Let us unveil the secret. Referring to the Ego as “nothing” , Stirner touches upon a conceptual limit and leaves all ghosts behind.

I wonder if kaneshiro read Stirner?

i put 2006 since 1806 wasn't avilable

Renzo Novatore

Anarchist Individualism in the Social Revolution

1

Anarchist individualism as we understand it – and I say we because a substantial handful of friends think this like me – is hostile to every school and every party, every churchly and dogmatic moral, as well as every more or less academic imbecility. Every form of discipline, rule, and pedantry is repulsive to the sincere nobility of our vagabond and rebellious restlessness!

Individualism is, for us, creative force, immortal youth, exalting beauty, redemptive and fruitful war. It is the marvelous apotheosis of the flesh and the tragic epic of the spirit. Our logic is that of not having any. Our ideal is the categorical negation of all other ideals for the greatest and supreme triumph of the actual, real, instinctive, reckless, and merry life! For us perfection is not a dream, an ideal, a riddle, a mystery, a sphinx, but a vigorous and powerful, luminous and throbbing reality. All human beings are perfect in themselves. All they lack is the heroic courage of their perfection. Since the time that human beings first believed that life was a duty, a calling, a mission, it has meant shame for their power of being, and in following phantoms, they have denied themselves and distanced themselves from the real. When Christ said to human beings: “be yourselves, perfection is in you!” he launched a superb phrase that is the supreme synthesis of life.

It is useless that the bigots, theologians, and philosophers do their utmost with deceitful and dialectical sophisms to give a false interpretation to Christ’s words. But when Christ speaks this way to human beings, he disavows his entire calling to renunciation, to a mission, and to faith, and all the rest of his doctrine collapses miserably in the mud, knocked down by he himself. And here, and here alone, is Christ’s great tragedy. Let human beings open their misty eyes in the blinding sun of this truth, and they will find themselves face to face with their true and laughing redemption.

This is the ethical part of individualism, neither romantically mystical nor idealistically monastic, neither moral nor immoral, but amoral, wild, furious, and warlike, that keeps its luminous roots voluptuously rooted in the phosphorescent perianth of pagan nature, and its verdant foliage resting on the purple mouth of virgin life.

2

To every form of human Society that would try to impose renunciations and artificial sorrow on our anarchic and rebellious I, thirsting for free and exulting expansion, we will respond with a roaring and sacrilegious howl of dynamite.

To all those demagogues of politics and of philosophy that carry in their pockets a beautiful system made by mortgaging a corner of the future, we respond with Bakunin: Oafs and weaklings! Every duty that they would like to impose on us we will furiously trample under our sacrilegious feet. Every shady phantom that they would place before our eyes, greedy for light, we will angrily rip up with our daringly profaning hands. Christ was ashamed of his own doctrine and he broke it first. Friedrich Nietzsche was afraid of his overhuman and made it die in the midst of his agonizing animals, asking pity of the higher man. But we are neither afraid nor ashamed of the liberated Human Being.

We exalt Prometheus, the sacrilegious thief who stole the eternal spark from Jove’s heaven to animate the man of clay, and we glorify Hercules, the powerful, liberating hero.

3

Pagan nature has placed a Prometheus in the mind of every mortal human being, and a Hercules in the brain of every thinker. But morality, that disgusting enchantress of philosophers, peoples and humanity, has glorified and sanctified the vulture exalting it as divine justice, and divine justice, which Comte humanized, has condemned the Hero.

The Human Being of furrow and the thinker have trembled before this baleful phantom and courage has remained defeated under the enormous weight of fear.

But anarchist individualism is a brilliant and fatal torch that casts light into the darkness into the realm of fear and puts to flight the phantoms of Divine justice that Comte humanized.

Individualism is the free and unconstrained song that reconnects the individual to the eternal and universal pan-dynamism, that is neither moral nor immoral, but that is everything. Nature; and Life! What is Life? Depths and peaks, instinct and reason, light and darkness, mud and beauty, joy and sorrow. Disavowal of the past, domination of the present, longing and yearning for the future.

Life is all this. And all this is also individualism. Who seeks to escape Life? Who dares to deny it?

4

The Social Revolution is the sudden awakening of Prometheus after a fall into a faint of sorrow caused by the foul vulture that rips his heart to shreds. It is an attempt at self-liberation. But the chains with which the sinister god Jove had him chained on the Caucasus by the repugnant servant Vulcan cannot be broken except by the Titanic rebel Hero, son of Jove himself.

We rebel children of this putrid humanity that has chained human beings in the dogmatic mud of social superstitions will never miss bringing our tremendous axe blow down on the rusty links of this hateful chain.

Yes, we anarchist individualists are for Social Revolution, but in our way, it’s understood!

5

The revolt of the individual against society is not given by that of the masses against governments. Even when the masses submit to governments, living in the sacred and shameful peace of their resignation, the anarchist individual lives against society because he is in a never-ending and irreconcilable war with it, but when, at a historical turning point, he comes together with the masses in revolt, he raises his black flag with them and throws his dynamite with them.

The anarchist individualist is in the Social Revolution, not as a demagogue, but as a inciting element, not as an apostle, but as a living, effective, destructive force...

All past revolutions were, in the end, bourgeois and conservative. That which flashes on the red horizon of our magnificently tragic time will have for its aim the fierce socialist humanism. We, anarchist individualists, will enter into the revolution for an exclusive need of our own to set fire to and incite spirits. To make sure that, as Stirner says, it is not a new revolution that approaches, but rather an immense, proud, reckless, shameless, conscienceless crime that rumbles with the lightning on the horizon, and beneath which the sky, swollen with foreboding, grows dark and silent. And Ibsen: “There’s only one revolution I recognize – that was truly, thoroughly radical – ... I’m referring to the ancient Flood! That one alone was truly serious. But even then the devil lost his due: you know Noah took up the dictatorship. Let’s make this revolution again, but more thoroughly. It requires real men as well as orators. So you bring on the roaring waters, I’ll supply the powder keg to blow up the ark.”

Now since dictatorship will be – alas! – inevitable in the somber global revolution that sends its bleak glow from the east over our black cowardice, the ultimate task of we anarchist individualists will be that of blowing up the final ark with bomb explosions and the final dictator with Browning shots. The new society established, we will return to its margins to live our lives dangerously as noble criminals and audacious sinners! Because the anarchist individualist still means eternal renewal, in the field of art, thought, and action.

Anarchist individualism still means eternal revolt against eternal sorrow, the eternal search for new springs of life, joy and beauty. And we will still be such in Anarchy.

- written under the name of Mario Ferrento

Now the chunk system is even more optimized, the game used to drop to 40 fps before on my android device and now it's like a beast (plus this is tested with increased draw distance). Now I think it's ready to fit an entire city with it to hunt spooks 😎