As we grow up, no one tells us that we are "thing-makers" and "thing-users." No one tells us that some of the THINGS we make and use have turned into "master things" that no longer serve but rule the human. Jonesburg opens the human eye to reality of thing-making. Look around you --- whether it is the computer, the house, the office, the rules set by government, the police, teacher, food, and essentially anything else we can think of --- they are all "things" created by humans. Government is a "complex thing" made by humans. Education system is a "complex thing" made by humans. Workplace is a "complex thing" made by humans. We constantly interact with these "complex things," searching to satisfy our needs. Yet, according to Jonesburg, some time in human history, these "complex things" ceased to merely become artifacts made by humans to serve human needs, and instead turned into what Jonesburg calls --- master artifacts. Each master artifact uses a system of brute force coupled with conditioning exercises to control those who must serve than be served. The book is definitely an eye-opener on social structure. However --- it also leaves a very bad taste in one's mouth. It is sort of like the movie MATRIX. --- Have you seen it? Reading this book makes one wake up and find oneself chained to all sorts of super-things, super-machines, super-structures, each controlling and dictating some aspect of one's life. For those accustomed to serving the "masters" and having no "revolutionary genes," this would not be a good reading! According to Jonesburg, many never seek reality but only masters to serve.

Mr. Jonesburg provides for the reader an excellent tool for someone that is seeking to evolve to a higher self. In effect, his perspective is one of being outside of human society altogether, looking in. You could say that he is seeing things from a very soul-ful perspective. Having read his book, I am better able to understand semantics of words, and how labels are used by people, and as well, how concepts are utilized by people. He is correct in quoting Bhudda's three points- that suffering is because of the perspectives that we hold, and the belief systems that we adhere to.

His perspective has added much depth to my own personal perspective. If you are a free-thinker, this book has value.

P.S. You may wish to check to see if the library has this one before you buy.

The concepts presented in this book are verry inspiring and are presented clearly and to the point. Ways of living and dying presents an existencial viewpoint that shows how our tools are granted essences by us, allowing them to no longer be tools. they become entities which enslave us as the tools.

I can only compare this book to great works in the field of philosophy. Hegel and Schopenhauer started writing before this book was written, and both were famous for being slower than their peers to impress anyone. Hegel and Stirner wrote anonymous articles in journals before publishing a large major work. It still isn't clear to some people what Hegel's philosophy was supposed to accomplish, and students took a lot of notes at his lectures, trying to figure it out. For Max Stirner, THE EGO AND ITS OWN was his only major accomplishment, and it doesn't seem that hard to figure out.

The education of Max Stirner, as outlined on pages xxxiii-xxxiv, included philosophy at the University of Berlin, University of Erlangen, University of Konigsberg, completion of formal studies at the University of Berlin, but after taking oral exams, was only awarded a conditional status and spent an unpaid probationary year teaching, "followed by a period of private study and irregular work." He was a teacher "at a respectable private girls' school in Berlin" from 1839 to 1844, when his book was published.

Compared to the brilliant writings of Nietzsche, the contents of this book seem to me more like the fate of philosophy that has fallen into the hands of a Lutheran. Of a fellow philosopher who sought to liberate our thinking, this book says, "But from this it also appears how thoroughly theological is the liberation that Feuerbach is labouring to give us." (p. 33). I can relate to that kind of thinking, but Max Stirner doesn't accomplish much for himself until he gets to the second part of the book: I Ownness (pp.141-154) II The owner (pp. 155-319) III The unique one (pp. 320-324).

Isaiah Berlin, in his book KARL MARX, notices how closely Marx and Max Stirner associated with the same people, though Marx thought of them as "three sordid peddlers of inferior metaphysical wares" (Berlin, p. 105) and wrote of Max Stirner, "Under the title of St Max he is pursued through seven hundred pages of heavy-handed mockery and insult." (Berlin, p. 106). The idea of a man being master of himself is called a "doctrine, which had a great influence on Nietzsche and probably on Bakunin (perhaps because it anticipated Marx's own economic theory of alienation too precisely), is treated as a pathological phenomenon, the agonised cry of a persecuted neurotic, belonging to the province of medicine rather than that of political theory." (Berlin, p. 106). At least Berlin isn't talking about religion.

Max Stirner is listed in the index of THE SOCIOLOGY OF PHILOSOPHIES by Randall Collins and occupies such an interesting place in Figure 14.2. Young Hegelians and Religious/Political Radicals, 1835-1900: DIE FREIEN and the Nihilists (Collins, p. 766) that I expected this book to fill me on on the details about a lot of people. Martin Luther is mentioned by Max Stirner about six times in the text of THE EGO AND ITS OWN, but the mystery of his importance is not as clear as the confusion leading up to his appearance near the end, with a paragraph before, about "There are crazy people who imagine that they are God the Father, God the Son, or the man in the moon, and so too the world swarms with fools who seem to themselves to be sinners; but, as the former are not the man in the moon, so the latter are ~ not sinners." (Stirner, p. 317). Sometimes Nietzsche wrote in that same style.

"The Ego and His Own", the testament of the philosophic incendiary Max Stirner, remains, one hundred and fifty years after its appearance, the most subversive, the most antisocial, the most radical book in the history of political thought. Writing in a highly idiosyncratic idiom, Stirner launches an extreme and uncompromising attack on Christianity, the state, society, the family, socialism and revolts against the monarchy of abstract ideas, as exemplified by the entire rational tradition of Western philosophy. His book represents the culmination of Left Hegelianism. In the place of moral imperatives, he postulates the will of the sovereign egoist, who lives untrammelled by convention or authority. Rights, obligations, duties do not exist. The might of the ego is the sole determining factor in conduct. He takes his doctrine to its logical conclusion and, at times, to its illogical extreme by urging reasons for crime against all institutions and in the egoist's bid for power in the war of each against all, the arena of which is the embattled socius. He has been interpreted as a harbinger of Fascism and, among other things, an important proto-Nietzschean thinker. He bears many resemblances to his successor Nietzsche, as in how he champions egoism, celebrates the passions, and also in his call for a transvaluation of existing values and the need to create one's life anew. But there is a crucial difference: Stirner, a disciple of Hegelian idealism, is critical; Nietzsche, assertive. Stirner's egoism is spontaneous and capricious while Nietzsche's semi-altruistic egoism always has the highest social end in view. A must for those who want to discover a forgotten classic of political thought.

Max Stirner was ahead of the game, to say the least. was published when Nietzsche was a mere toddler and prior to Marx's reign as political guru. Stirner beat both philosophical sages to the gun at what would later come to be known as Marxism and Christian Nihilism. Then why is the name "Stirner" hardly heard in the realm of philosophy?

In many cases Stirner is abrasive and objectively unsympathetic to his audience (moreso than Rand ever thought of being). Stirner wasn't nearly as lucid as Nietzsche, though his themes were conducive to the latter's thought. As far as Marx is concerned, Stirner dictated what would later become Marxism and went 12 steps further and renounced it. Stirner is a staunch advocator of liberal anarchism, renouncing property via individualism a la Rand.

Though it is marketed as a political tract, the work transcends the boundaries of mere politics and becomes a universal thesis in the vein of Machiavelli's This is a work of vast stature, covering the realms of theology, sociology, psychology, politics, and aesthetics. A must read for all thinkers.

This book provides an interesting survey of the ideas of Stirner, Nietzsche, and Dostoevsky, asserting that they advocate individualist anarchism on psychological grounds. This is certainly true of Stirner, and probably true of Nietzsche (though he can be interpreted in other ways), but rather odd for Dostoevsky. In any case it makes good reading for anyone interested in psychology and anarchism. Also present are some brief comparisons with later psychologists of freedom.