WOLFIE "When I first read The Ego and Its Own, I recognized that there was a great deal of humor, sarcasm, and satire throughout the book. I never understood how anyone could call Stirner “humorless”—yet certain critics (particularly those who wanted to present him as a precursor of the political right or some other sort of “supreme evil” in their eyes) accused him of precisely this. After translating Stirner’s Critics and “The Philosophical Reactionaries,” I realized the extent of his mocking, sarcastic, and, at times, bawdy humor and the breadth of his wordplay. My play with these translations and talks with Jason McQuinn {1} clarified some of the flaws I had recognized in the existing English translation of Der Einzige und sein Eigentum, and the pleasure I find in the activity of translating moved me to take up the project... you could do what Stirner did and see the humor in the ultimate absurdity, recognizing that this lack of universal meaning and purpose is what gives you and I the capacity to willfully create our lives for ourselves. Stirner willfully grasped his own self-creative power and took aim at all that was considered sacred with the intention of demolishing it. He knew the best weapon for demolishing the sacred is mocking laughter. Instead of being a wise man, Stirner chose to be a wise guy, and if you don’t get the joke, the jokes on you... Stirner’s ideas and words have quite a bit to offer, but even more, his method provides a most useful and enjoyable weapon: merciless and mirthful mockery, the sarcastic use of his opponents’ methods to twist their own ideas back against them, the cruel and joyful laughter of one who sees past the delusions that keep others in chains. Stirner combined the small jokes of wordplay, (mostly) subtle lewdness, and sarcasm with an overarching joke that undermined the edifices of philosophy, religion, politics and all systems of overarching thought to demolish the foundations of the sacred. But this is a battle that each one of us has to fight for her or himself. Stirner found enjoyment in writing this. His grin stretches across the pages and reminds all of us who rebel and create for ourselves that this is all one great, wild, joyful joke played on every “higher value,” a book intended to pull the rug out from under everything that anyone holds sacred. . . " LANDSREICHER Cheap plastic-toy imitation Nietzsche fellators GO FUCK YOURSELF