An essay by John Beverley Robinson
There is no word more generally misinterpreted
than the word egoism, in its modern sense. In the first place, it is supposed
to mean devotion to self interest, without regard to the interest of others. It
is thus opposed to altruism - devotion to others and sacrifice of self. This interpretation
is due to the use of the word thus antithetically by Herbert Spencer.
Again,
it is identified with hedonism or eudaimonism, or epicureanism, philosophies that
teach that the attainment of pleasure or happiness or advantage, whichever you
may choose to phrase it, is the rule of life.
Modern egoism, as propounded
by Stirner and Nietzsche, and expounded by Ibsen, Shaw and others, is all these;
but it is more. It is the realization by the individual that he is an individual;
that, as far as he is concerned, he is the only individual.
For each one
of us stands alone in the midst of a universe. He is surrounded by sights and
sounds which he interprets as exterior to himself, although all he knows of them
are the impressions on his retina and ear drums and other organs of sense. The
universe for him is measured by these sensations; they are, for him, the universe.
Some of them he interprets as denoting other individuals, whom he conceives as
more or less like himself. But none of these is himself. He stands apart. His
consciousness, and the desires and gratifications that enter into it, is a thing
unique; no other can enter into it.
However near and dear to you may be
your wife, children, friends, they are not you; they are outside of you. You are
forever alone. Your thoughts and emotions are yours alone. There is no other who
experiences your thoughts or your feelings.
No doubt it gives you pleasure
when others think as you do, and Inform you of it through language; or when others
enjoy the same things that you do. Moreover, quite apart from their enjoying the
same things that you enjoy, it gives you pleasure to see them enjoy themselves
in any way. Such gratification to the individual is the pleasure of sympathy,
one of the most acute pleasures possible for most people.
According to
your sympathy, you will take pleasure in your own happiness or in the happiness
of other people; but it is always your own happiness you seek. The most profound
egoist may be the most complete altruist; but he knows that his altruism is, at
the bottom, nothing but self-indulgence.
But egoism is more than this.
It is the realization by the individual that he is above all institutions and
all formulas; that they exist only so far as he chooses to make them his own by
accepting them.
When you see clearly that you are the measure of the universe,
that everything that exists exists for you only so far as it is reflected in your
own consciousness, you become a new man; you see everything by a new light: you
stand on a height and feel the fresh air blowing on your face; and find new strength
and glory in it.
Whatever gods you worship, you realize that they are your
gods, the product of your own mind, terrible or amiable, as you may choose to
depict them. You hold them in your hand, and play with them, as a child with its
paper dolls; for you have learned not to fear them, that they are but the "imaginations
of your heart."
All the ideals which men generally think are realities,
you have learned to see through; you have learned that they are your ideals. Whether
you have originated them, which is unlikely, or have accepted somebody else's
ideals, makes no difference. They are your ideals just so far as you accept them.
The priest is reverend only so far as you reverence him. If you cease to reverence
him, he is no longer reverend for you. You have power to make and unmake priests
as easily as you can make and unmake gods. You are the one of whom the poet tells,
who stands unmoved, though the universe fall in fragments about you.
And
all the other ideals by which men are moved, to which men are enslaved, for which
men afflict themselves, have no power over you; you are no longer afraid of them,
for you know them to be your own ideals, made in your own mind, for your own pleasure,
to be changed or ignored, just as you choose to change or ignore them. They are
your own little pets, to be played with, not to be feared.
"The State"
or "The Government" is idealized by the many as a thing above them, to be reverenced
and feared. They call it "My Country," and if you utter the magic words, they
will rush to kill their friends, whom they would not injure by so much as a pin
scratch, if they were not intoxicated and blinded by their ideal. Most men are
deprived of their reason under the influence of their ideals. Moved by the ideal
of "religion" or "patriotism" or "morality," they fly at each others' throats
- they, who are otherwise often the gentlest of men! But their ideals are for
them like the "fixed ideas" of lunatics. They become irrational and irresponsible
under the influence of their ideals. They will not only destroy others, but they
will quite sink their own interests, and rush madly to destroy themselves as a
sacrifice to the all-devouring ideal. Curious, is it not, to one who looks on
with a philosophical mind?
But the egoist has no ideals, for the knowledge
that his ideals are only his ideals, frees him from their domination. He acts
for his own interest, not for the interest of ideals. He will neither hang a man
nor whip a child in the interest of "morality," if it is disagreeable to him to
do so.
He has no reverence for "The State." He knows that "The Government"
is but a set of men, mostly as big fools as he is himself, many of them bigger.
If the State does things that benefit him, he will support it; if it attacks him
and encroaches on his liberty, he will evade it by any means in his power, if
he is not strong enough to withstand it. He is a man without a country.
"The
Flag," that most men adore, as men always adore symbols, worshipping the symbol
more than the principle it is supposed to set forth, is for the egoist but a rather
inharmonious piece of patch-work; and anybody may walk on it or spit on it if
they will, without exciting his emotion any more than if it were a tarpaulin that
they walked upon or .spat upon. The principles that it symbolizes, he will maintain
as far as it seems to his advantage to maintain them; but if the principles require
him to kill people or be killed himself, you will have to demonstrate to him just
what benefit he will gain by killing or being killed, before you can persuade
him to uphold them.
When the judge enters court in his toggery, (judges
and ministers and professors know the value of toggery in impressing the populace)
the egoist is unterrified. He has not even any respect for "The Law." If the law
happens to be to his advantage, he will avail himself of it; if it invades his
liberty he will transgress it as far as he thinks it wise to do so. But he has
no regard for it as a thing supernal. It is to him the clumsy creation of them
who still "sit in darkness."
Nor does he bow the knee to Morality - Sacred
Morality! Some of its precepts he may accept, if he chooses to do so; but you
cannot scare him off by telling him it is not "right." He usually prefers not
to kill or steal; but if he must kill or steal to save himself, he will do it
with a good heart, and without any qualms of "conscience." And "morality" will
never persuade him to injure others when it is of no advantage to himself. He
will not be found among a band of "white caps," flogging and burning poor devils,
because their actions do not conform to the dictates of "morality," though they
have injured none by such actions; nor will he have any hand in persecuting helpless
girls, and throwing them out into the street, when he has received no ill at their
hands.
To his friends - to those who deserve the truth from him, - he will
tell the truth; but you cannot force the truth from him because he is "afraid
to tell a lie." He has no fear, not even of perjury, for he knows that oaths are
but devices to enslave the mind by an appeal to supernatural fears.
And
for all the other small, tenuous ideals, with which we have fettered our minds
and to which we have shrunk our petty lives; they are for the egoist as though
they were not.
"Filial love and respect" he will give to his parents if
they have earned it by deserving it. If they have beaten him in infancy, and scorned
him in childhood, and domineered over him in maturity, he may possibly love them
in spite of maltreatment; but if they have alienated his affection, they will
not reawaken it by an appeal to "duty.
In brief, egoism in its modern interpretation,
is the antithesis, not of altruism, but of idealism. The ordinary man - the idealist
- subordinates his interests to the interests of his ideals, and usually suffers
for it. The egoist is fooled by no ideals: he discards them or uses them, as may
suit his own interest. If he likes to be altruistic, he will sacrifice himself
for others; but only because he likes to do so; he demands no gratitude nor glory
in return.
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