Max Stirner

The Anarchist Handbook: Max Stirner

Kyle

I’m going to work through the essays in The Anarchist Handbook (Amazon affiliate link), written/edited by Michael Malice, over the course of the next several weeks. It’s a collection of works by an eclectic brand of thinkers who align, at times, only on their opposition to the state.

Because Malice organized The Anarchist Handbook in chronological order, the enigmatic Max Stirner is the second person to be covered in the anthology. I like Stirner, but he’s difficult to follow. This is not entirely accidental.

There’s a reason why I joke “Never go Max Stirner, just go a little Stirner.”

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First Impression: Michael Malice’s The Anarchist Handbook

Kyle

Michael Malice is a brilliant writer and enigmatic celebrity, so I’ll let him introduce himself before I introduce his work:

Michael Malice is the author of Dear Reader: The Unauthorized Autobiography of Kim Jong Il and The New Right. He is also the organizer of the forthcoming The Anarchist Handbook, currently scheduled for release sometime last year. Malice is notorious for writing about himself in such a way as to confuse and annoy the reader, for no discernable purpose whatsoever.

Michael Malice, The Anarchist Handbook

As an anarchist without adjectives, Malice seeks to present a broad variety of anarchist thought. My own background, coming from a right-Tolstoyan perspective, differs as far as much as night differs from day when compared some of the thinkers he includes (e.g. Plunkett, whose essay “Dynamite!” is featured in The Anarchist Handbook).

I do not endorse these ways of thinking, but Malice’s intent in presenting them is as a historian and curator of thought.

It is from this perspective, then, that we should address Malice’s decisions in putting together the book, which is predominantly focused on presenting the work of others.

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