CHAPTER EIGHT

MAX STIRNER: HANGING OUT WITH ONE’S OWN

The ideas of Max Stirner (1806–1856), which derive almost completely from his principal work, The Ego and Its Own (1844), have been compared with those of Nietzsche, existentialism, and anarchism, and were criti- cized in the author’s time by thinkers of no less stature than Feuerbach and Marx. In this chapter, it is suggested that perhaps the discussion might more fruitfully focus on less metaphysical issues than those which have preoccupied many of the interpreters of Stirner, and rather treat the value of his writings today as being, in accordance with the goal of the present volume, to provide some inspiration for contemporary political concerns. This would appear to be how Benjamin Tucker, the subject of Chapter One, saw Stirner’s work, and, as was noted there, the influence of Stirner upon Tucker was considerable: it caused Tucker to reorient his own philosophy. Stirner’s real name was Johann Caspar (or Kaspar) Schmidt. Eltzbacher (1958), Martin ([1962] 2005), and Schiereck (1981) spell his middle name with a “K.” Basch (1904), Carroll (1974b), Carus (1914), Mackay ([1898] 1914a), Paterson (1971), and Welsh (2010) prefer a “C.” As a boy, he had a long forehead, the size of which tended to be embellished by his hairstyle, causing some of his classmates to coin the nickname, “Stirner”; “Stirn” means “forehead” in German. Stirner, who was not offended by this appel- lation eventually came to accept it as his name, and that is how he is almost always known today (Dematteis 1976, 55; Mackay [1898] 1914a, 85; Paterson 1971, 3; Welsh 2010, 6). Carroll (1974b, 18) comments that “with his individualist fancy tickled and his romantic ambitions stirred by the allusion to the stars (… Gestirn = star), the plebeian name of Schmidt was abandoned.” Stirner was born in Bayreuth in Bavaria, where his family had lived for several generations, in a house located in the center of town, on October 25, 1806. He went on to study at the universities of Erlangen and Königsberg, as well as Berlin, where Hegel was a professor, and Feuerbach was another student, and it is likely that both Stirner and Feuerbach attended Hegel’s classes on religion and philosophy at the University of Berlin during 1827. Although Stirner and Feuerbach also attended the

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University of Erlangen at the same time, in the fall of 1828, it does not appear that they ever met. From 1839 to 1844, Stirner enjoyed a successful teaching career, employed at a private girls’ school called the “Institute for the Instruction and Cultivation of Superior Girls,” which was managed by a Madame Gropius. Stirner’s first marriage was brief, spanning just 1837–1838, as his wife, Agnes Clara Kunigunde Burtz, soon died in childbirth (Basch 1904, 2; Carroll 1974b, 19; Carus 1914, 54, 55; Dematteis 1976, 9, 57; Paterson 1971, 6; Stepelevich 1974, 326, 1978, 451–452, 1985, 602–603; Welsh 2010, 8). Stirner was one of Die Freien (which has been translated variously as “the Free,” “the Free Men,” and “the Free Ones”), a group of Young Hegelians that included Friedrich Engels – who thought Stirner to be the most talented among his cohorts – which met at Hippel’s Weinstube, a restaurant in Berlin (Carus 1914, 55; Mackay [1898] 1914a, 57–59; Martin [1962] 2005, ix; Paterson 1971, 7–8; Stepelevich 1985, 602). A spin-off from the earlier Doctors’ Club, to which Marx had belonged and at whose meet- ings he had been temporarily influenced by the discussions, Die Freien was an assemblage known for its partying prowess as well as for its continua- tion of intellectual position-taking. Hippel’s appears to be where Stirner met his second wife, Marie Wilhelmine Dähnhardt, the daughter of a druggist who possessed a significant financial nest egg; she smoked cigars, and had come to the big city to escape the social limitations of small town life, reveling in the bawdy atmosphere, sometimes dressing as a man, even accompanying some of the men when they visited a brothel (Carroll 1974b, 21; Carus 1914, 57; Dematteis 1976, 57; Mackay [1898] 1914a, 115; McLellan 1980, 50, 52, 91; Paterson 1971, 9; Welsh 2010, 10). Max and Marie were married on October 21, 1843 in a mocking, avant- garde quasi-religious ceremony. The wedding rings, obtained at the last minute, were copper fasteners purloined from fellow Young Hegelian Bruno Bauer’s purse. The relationship lasted three years, until Marie’s money was lost in an enterprise designed to sell milk, much of which the couple were unable to dispose of. Dähnhardt moved to England and became a teacher before emigrating to Melbourne, Australia, and eventu- ally returning to London where as an old lady she would respond in writing to some questions sent to her by the German poet, John Henry Mackay; she characterized Stirner as self-absorbed and “sly,” saying that she had never loved him (Basch 1904, 5–6; Carroll 1974b, 22–24; Carus 1914, 55, 57; Mackay [1898] 1914a, 12, 117; Paterson 1971, 10). Not much is known about Stirner’s life after he published his book and responded to its inevitable critics; he worked as a translator, and spent two short periods in jail for debt, before dying following an insect bite in 1856 (Carus 1914, 58; Eltzbacher 1958, 62).

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