Part 27 (1/2)
Property is recognized in the union, and only in the union, because one no longer holds what is his as a fief from any being. The Communists are only consistently carrying further what had already been long present during religious evolution, and especially in the State; to wit, propertylessness, _i. e._ the feudal system.
The State exerts itself to tame the desirous man; in other words, it seeks to direct his desire to it alone, and to _content_ that desire with what it offers. To sate the desire for the desirous man's sake does not come into its mind: on the contrary, it stigmatizes as an ”egoistic man” the man who breathes out unbridled desire, and the ”egoistic man”
is its enemy. He is this for it because the capacity to agree with him is wanting to the State; the egoist is precisely what it cannot ”comprehend.” Since the State (as nothing else is possible) has to do only for itself, it does not take care for my needs, but takes care only of how it shall make away with me, _i. e._ make out of me another ego, a good citizen. It takes measures for the ”improvement of morals.”--And with what does it win individuals for itself? With itself, _i. e._ with what is the State's, with _State property_. It will be unremittingly active in making all partic.i.p.ants in its ”goods,” providing all with the ”good things of culture”: it presents them its education, opens to them the access to its inst.i.tutions of culture, capacitates them to come to property (_i. e._ to a fief) in the way of industry, etc. For all these _fiefs_ it demands only the just rent of continual _thanks_. But the ”unthankful” forget to pay these thanks.--Now, neither can ”society” do essentially otherwise than the State.
You bring into a union your whole power, your competence, and _make yourself count_; in a society you are _employed_, with your working power; in the former you live egoistically, in the latter humanly, _i. e._ religiously, as a ”member in the body of this Lord”; to a society you owe what you have, and are in duty bound to it, are--possessed by ”social duties”; a union you utilize, and give it up undutifully and unfaithfully when you see no way to use it further. If a society is more than you, then it is more to you than yourself; a union is only your instrument, or the sword with which you sharpen and increase your natural force; the union exists for you and through you, the society conversely lays claim to you for itself and exists even without you; in short, the society is _sacred_, the union your _own_; the society consumes _you_, _you_ consume the union.
Nevertheless people will not be backward with the objection that the agreement which has been concluded may again become burdensome to us and limit our freedom; they will say, we too would at last come to this, that ”every one must sacrifice a part of his freedom for the sake of the generality.” But the sacrifice would not be made for the ”generality's”
sake a bit, as little as I concluded the agreement for the ”generality's” or even, for any other man's sake; rather I came into it only for the sake of my own benefit, from _selfishness_.[209] But, as regards the sacrificing, surely I ”sacrifice” only that which does not stand in my power, _i. e._ I ”sacrifice” nothing at all.
To come back to property, the lord is proprietor. Choose then whether you want to be lord, or whether society shall be! On this depends whether you are to be an _owner_ or a _ragam.u.f.fin!_ The egoist is owner, the Socialist a ragam.u.f.fin. But ragam.u.f.finism or propertylessness is the sense of feudalism, of the feudal system, which since the last century has only changed its overlord, putting ”Man” in the place of G.o.d, and accepting as a fief from Man what had before been a fief from the grace of G.o.d. That the ragam.u.f.finism of Communism is carried out by the humane principle into the absolute or most ragam.u.f.finly ragam.u.f.finism has been shown above; but at the same time also, how ragam.u.f.finism can only thus swing around into ownness. The _old_ feudal system was so thoroughly trampled into the ground in the Revolution that since then all reactionary craft has remained fruitless, and will always remain fruitless, because the dead is--dead; but the resurrection too had to prove itself a truth in Christian history, and has so proved itself: for in another world feudalism is risen again with a glorified body, the _new_ feudalism under the suzerainty of ”Man.”
Christianity is not annihilated, but the faithful are right in having hitherto trustfully a.s.sumed of every combat against it that this could serve only for the purgation and confirmation of Christianity; for it has really only been glorified, and ”Christianity exposed” is the--_human Christianity_. We are still living entirely in the Christian age, and the very ones who feel worst about it are the most zealously contributing to ”complete” it. The more human, the dearer has feudalism become to us; for we the less believe that it still is feudalism, we take it the more confidently for ownness and think we have found what is ”most absolutely our own” when we discover ”the human.”
Liberalism wants to give me what is mine, but it thinks to procure it for me not under the t.i.tle of mine, but under that of the ”human.” As if it were attainable under this mask! The rights of man, the precious work of the Revolution, have the meaning that the Man in me _ent.i.tles_[210] me to this and that; I as individual, _i. e._ as this man, am not ent.i.tled, but Man has the right and ent.i.tles me. Hence as man I may well be ent.i.tled; but, as I am more than man, to wit, a _special_ man, it may be refused to this very me, the special one. If on the other hand you insist on the _value_ of your gifts, keep up their price, do not let yourselves be forced to sell out below price, do not let yourselves be talked into the idea that your ware is not worth its price, do not make yourselves ridiculous by a ”ridiculous price,” but imitate the brave man who says, I will _sell_ my life (property) dear, the enemy shall not have it at a cheap _bargain_; then you have recognized the reverse of Communism as the correct thing, and the word then is not ”Give up your property!” but ”_Get the value out of_ your property!”
Over the portal of our time stands not that ”Know thyself” of Apollo, but a ”_Get the value out of thyself!_”
Proudhon calls property ”robbery” (_le vol_). But alien property--and he is talking of this alone--is not less existent by renunciation, cession, and humility; it is a _present_. Why so sentimentally call for compa.s.sion as a poor victim of robbery, when one is just a foolish, cowardly giver of presents? Why here again put the fault on others as if they were robbing us, while we ourselves do bear the fault in leaving the others, unrobbed? The poor are to blame for there being rich men.
Universally, no one grows indignant at _his_, but at _alien_ property.
They do not in truth attack property, but the alienation of property.
They want to be able to call _more_, not less, _theirs_; they want to call everything _theirs_. They are fighting, therefore, against _alienness_, or, to form a word similar to property, against alienty.
And how do they help themselves therein? Instead of transforming the alien into own, they play impartial and ask only that all property be left to a third party (_e. g._ human society). They revendicate the alien not in their own name but in a third party's. Now the ”egoistic”
coloring is wiped off, and everything is so clean and--human!
Propertylessness or ragam.u.f.finism, this then is the ”essence of Christianity,” as it is the essence of all religiousness (_i. e._ G.o.dliness, morality, humanity), and only announced itself most clearly, and, as glad tidings, became a gospel capable of development, in the ”absolute religion.” We have before us the most striking development in the present fight against property, a fight which is to bring ”Man” to victory and make propertylessness complete: victorious humanity is the victory of--Christianity. But the ”Christianity exposed” thus is feudalism completed, the most all-embracing feudal system, _i. e._ perfect ragam.u.f.finism.
Once more then, doubtless, a ”revolution” against the feudal system?--
Revolution and insurrection must not be looked upon as synonymous. The former consists in an overturning of conditions, of the established condition or _status_, the State or society, and is accordingly a _political_ or _social_ act; the latter has indeed for its unavoidable consequence a transformation of circ.u.mstances, yet does not start from it but from men's discontent with themselves, is not an armed rising, but a rising of individuals, a getting up, without regard to the arrangements that spring from it. The Revolution aimed at new _arrangements_; insurrection leads us no longer to let ourselves be arranged, but to arrange ourselves, and sets no glittering hopes on ”inst.i.tutions.” It is not a fight against the established, since, if it prospers, the established collapses of itself; it is only a working forth of me out of the established. If I leave the established, it is dead and pa.s.ses into decay. Now, as my object is not the overthrow of an established order but my elevation above it, my purpose and deed are not a political or social but (as directed toward myself and my ownness alone) an _egoistic_ purpose and deed.
The revolution commands one to make _arrangements_, the insurrection[211] demands that he _rise or exalt himself_.[212] What _const.i.tution_ was to be chosen, this question busied the revolutionary heads, and the whole political period foams with const.i.tutional fights and const.i.tutional questions, as the social talents too were uncommonly inventive in societary arrangement (phalansteries and the like). The insurgent[213] strives to become const.i.tutionless.
While, to get greater clearness, I am thinking up a comparison, the founding of Christianity comes unexpectedly into my mind. On the liberal side it is noted as a bad point in the first Christians that they preached obedience to the established heathen civil order, enjoined recognition of the heathen authorities, and confidently delivered a command, ”Give to the emperor that which is the emperor's.” Yet how much disturbance arose at the same time against the Roman supremacy, how mutinous did the Jews and even the Romans show themselves against their own temporal government! in short, how popular was ”political discontent”! Those Christians would hear nothing of it; would not side with the ”liberal tendencies.” The time was politically so agitated that, as is said in the gospels, people thought they could not accuse the founder of Christianity more successfully than if they arraigned him for ”political intrigue,” and yet the same gospels report that he was precisely the one who took least part in these political doings. But why was he not a revolutionist, not a demagogue, as the Jews would gladly have seen him? why was he not a liberal? Because he expected no salvation from a change of _conditions_, and this whole business was indifferent to him. He was not a revolutionist like _e. g._ Caesar, but an insurgent; not a State-overturner, but one who straightened _himself_ up. That was why it was for him only a matter of ”Be ye wise as serpents,” which expresses the same sense as, in the special case, that ”Give to the emperor that which is the emperor's”; for he was not carrying on any liberal or political fight against the established authorities, but wanted to walk his _own_ way, untroubled about, and undisturbed by, these authorities. Not less indifferent to him than the government were its enemies, for neither understood what he wanted, and he had only to keep them off from him with the wisdom of the serpent.
But, even though not a ringleader of popular mutiny, not a demagogue or revolutionist, he (and every one of the ancient Christians) was so much the more an _insurgent_, who lifted himself above everything that seemed sublime to the government and its opponents, and absolved himself from everything that they remained bound to, and who at the same time cut off the sources of life of the whole heathen world, with which the established State must wither away as a matter of course; precisely because he put from him the upsetting of the established, he was its deadly enemy and real annihilator; for he walled it in, confidently and recklessly carrying up the building of _his_ temple over it, without heeding the pains of the immured.
Now, as it happened to the heathen order of the world, will the Christian order fare likewise? A revolution certainly does not bring on the end if an insurrection is not consummated first!
My intercourse with the world, what does it aim at? I want to have the enjoyment of it, therefore it must be my property, and therefore I want to win it. I do not want the liberty of men, nor their equality; I want only _my_ power over them, I want to make them my property, _i. e._ _material for enjoyment_. And, if I do not succeed in that, well, then I call even the power over life and death, which Church and State reserved to themselves,--mine. Brand that officer's widow who, in the flight in Russia, after her leg has been shot away, takes the garter from it, strangles her child therewith, and then bleeds to death alongside the corpse,--brand the memory of the--infanticide. Who knows, if this child had remained alive, how much it might have ”been of use to the world”! The mother murdered it because she wanted to die _satisfied_ and at rest. Perhaps this case still appeals to your sentimentality, and you do not know how to read out of it anything further. Be it so; I on my part use it as an example for this, that _my_ satisfaction decides about my relation to men, and that I do not renounce, from any access of humility, even the power over life and death.
As regards ”social duties” in general, another does not give me my position toward others, therefore neither G.o.d nor humanity prescribes to me my relation to men, but I give myself this position. This is more strikingly said thus: I have no _duty_ to others, as I have a duty even to myself (_e. g._ that of self-preservation, and therefore not suicide) only so long as I distinguish myself from myself (my immortal soul from my earthly existence, etc.).
I no longer _humble_ myself before any power, and I recognize that all powers are only my power, which I have to subject at once when they threaten to become a power _against_ or _above_ me; each of them must be only one of _my means_ to carry my point, as a hound is our power against game, but is killed by us if it should fall upon us ourselves.
All powers that dominate me I then reduce to serving me. The idols exist through me; I need only refrain from creating them anew, then they exist no longer: ”higher powers” exist only through my exalting them and abasing myself.
Consequently my relation to the world is this: I no longer do anything for it ”for G.o.d's sake,” I do nothing ”for man's sake,” but what I do I do ”for my sake.” Thus alone does the world satisfy me, while it is characteristic of the religious standpoint, in which I include the moral and humane also, that from it everything remains a _pious wish_ (_pium desiderium_), _i. e._ an other-world matter, something unattained. Thus the general salvation of men, the moral world of a general love, eternal peace, the cessation of egoism, etc. ”Nothing in this world is perfect.”
With this miserable phrase the good part from it, and take flight into their closet to G.o.d, or into their proud ”self-consciousness.” But we remain in this ”imperfect” world, because even so we can use it for our--self-enjoyment.
My intercourse with the world consists in my enjoying it, and so consuming it for my self-enjoyment. _Intercourse_ is the _enjoyment of the world_, and belongs to my--self-enjoyment.