Y'all know exactly what I'm talkin' about, and I'm sure you've grappled with it before. Egoism offers the world the very useful concept that English-speakers translate to "spooks". However, that word has been used for a long time in america as a racist slur against Black people. It's not a good word.

I would love to be able to talk about your ideas without saying a slur, so please consider changing it. Alternative translations of Stirner's idea could include: spectre, ghost, illusion. All of these have historical grounding as names for the concept. And, really, should a True Egoist really be so attached to the name of an idea?

Again, I love the idea, but hate the current English word. Here's a based passage in which Stirner describes the concept in The Ego and Its Own:

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. God, Emperor, Pope, 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.

:ghost: specters :specter: ghosts :ghost: illusions :specter:

  • Gorn [they/them,he/him]
    hexagon
    ·
    4 years ago

    Yup, hence the 'maybe', and further proving my point haha.

    Saying 'every word has been a slur' is intellectual laziness, because you don't want to confront the actual slur in front of you.

      • Gorn [they/them,he/him]
        hexagon
        ·
        4 years ago

        Yup, gotta keep the whole picture in mind, always. There will always be debate around which words are marginalizing as we try to move beyond racism/sexism/classism/ableism, etc. And there will be chuds trying to chip away at us the whole time haha. It's also important, though, to be fluid and adaptable, so that we can change and grow as we learn more context .