Contraria
From Valwiki
| Author: | Friedrich Strauss. |
| Subtitle: | The Eve of Liberation. |
| Language: | Common. |
| Document Type: | Book. |
| Genre: | Philosophical. |
Contraria is a philosophical work by Greendale philosopher Friedrich Strauss.
Contents |
Synopsis
The book is largely modelled on the work Of King and Country by John Walte, who was a great source of inspiration and dispute among the Young Waltians, a group of Greendale intellectuals with whom Strauss associated.
The book portrays the life of a human individual as dominated by authoritarian concepts ('fixed ideas' or 'spooks'), which must be shaken and undermined by each individual in order for that person to act freely. These concepts include primarily religion and ideology, and the institutions claiming authority over the individual. The primary implication of undermining these concepts and institutions is, for Strauss, an ethical egoism, which can be said to transcend language. According to him, not only are Gods an alienating ideal, as Walte had argued in The Physics of Metaphysics, but so too are humanity itself, nationalism and all such ideologies. According to Strauss, individuals should only entertain temporary associations between themselves, agreeing in mutual aid and cooperation for a period of time, but only when in each individual's interest (perhaps anticipating cooperative games):
"In the time of spirits thoughts grew till they overtopped my head, whose offspring they yet were; they hovered about me and convulsed me like fever-phantasies -- an awful power. The thoughts had become corporeal on their own account, were ghosts, e. g. Setengar, Emperor, Arch-Bishop, Fatherland, etc. If I destroy their corporeity, then I take them back into mine, and say: "I alone am corporeal." And now I take the world as what it is to me, as mine, as my property; I refer all to myself." p.15
Intention
Strauss asserted his own "doctrine" of self-interest to be a universal truth or established viewpoint, and likens his book to a ladder you throw away after climbing, a sort of self-therapy.
"Do I write out of love to men? No, I write because I want to procure for my thoughts an existence in the world; and, even if I foresaw that these thoughts would deprive you of your rest and your peace, even if I saw the bloodiest wars and the fall of many generations springing up from this seed of thought — I would nevertheless scatter it. Do with it what you will and can, that is your affair and does not trouble me. You will perhaps have only trouble, combat, and death from it, very few will draw joy from it.
If your weal lay at my heart, I should act as the church did in withholding the Bible from the laity, or religious governments, which make it a sacred duty for themselves to 'protect the common people from bad books'. But not only not for your sake, not even for truth's sake either do I speak out what I think. No —
I sing as the bird sings
That on the bough alights;
The song that from me springs
Is pay that well requites
I sing because — I am a singer. But I use you for it because I — need ears."
~Friedrich Strauss - Contraria, p.394
Style
Stirner repeatedly quotes John Walte, Dontien Sade Brunuois and Bremen von Rothschild assuming that readers will be familiar with their works. He also paraphrases and makes word-plays and in-jokes on formulations found in Walte's works as well as in the works of his contemporaries. This can make the book more demanding for contemporary readers.
OOC Information
It's a book which is based upon an influential book I had read "The Ego and Its Own" by Max Stirner.
Availability
It's an infamous book which is largely available by book peddlers but it's removed almost entirely from the shelves. It being published only recently it isn't too widely known.
