Regarding my style: many philosophies have both a function and a form. In writing, some philosophies have a message to convey and a style that it is often conveyed in. There is a style to objectivist essays, Maoist essays, Buddhist essays, and often there is a style to less wrong essays. I wrote my egoist essay in the egoist style, in honor of those egoists who led to me including Max Stirner, Dora Marsden, Apio Ludd and especially Malfew Seklew. Egoism—it’s not for everybody.
The things that make your writing style unapproachable are not features of “the egoist style”, at least according to what my superficial inspection of “the egoist style” discovered. What makes your writing style unapproachable is the lack of indication you give of what you’re trying to prove.
I decided to investigate the first name on your list, Max Stirner, who has the admirable character trait of being long dead and therefore available to read on Google Books for free. I skimmed the bit of The Ego and His Own which was under the heading “All Things are Nothing to Me”. Here is what I found.
Stirner begins by saying “People want me to care about everything—God, country, and so on—except myself. Is this reasonable? Let us look at what God and country have to say about it.” He then fulfills his promise by explaining, in the next few paragraphs, how those causes are selfish; addressing, in turn, “God”, “country”, and “and so on”. He ends by giving his own answer to what he thinks he should care about.
You, on the other hand, begin with oranges. I follow along with this game for a few paragraphs, and eventually discover that you did not mean oranges when you said oranges. I considered re-reading those paragraphs to see what you did mean, but get bored and skip to the end, where you tell me that it’s okay to like things I like. Well, okay. This doesn’t seem like a controversial conclusion; if you were arguing for this all along, then maybe I was right to skip to the end. Maybe I skipped the bit where you explained how some people disagree, so I can believe that your conclusion is interesting. Oh well.
Stirner signposts. Stirner makes promises about what he will talk about and then keeps them. If I had been interested in engaging with the substance of Stirner, rather than his style, I would have read carefully the paragraphs where he explains why God’s cause is a selfish cause. Not having done that, I can still point to those paragraphs, because Stirner told me where he would explain this. I can summarize Stirner’s argument, not because I am good at summarizing, but because Stirner gave me several summaries.
If you don’t tell me where you are and where you’re going, I have no means or inclination to follow along with you.
The things that make your writing style unapproachable are not features of “the egoist style”, at least according to what my superficial inspection of “the egoist style” discovered. What makes your writing style unapproachable is the lack of indication you give of what you’re trying to prove.
I decided to investigate the first name on your list, Max Stirner, who has the admirable character trait of being long dead and therefore available to read on Google Books for free. I skimmed the bit of The Ego and His Own which was under the heading “All Things are Nothing to Me”. Here is what I found.
Stirner begins by saying “People want me to care about everything—God, country, and so on—except myself. Is this reasonable? Let us look at what God and country have to say about it.” He then fulfills his promise by explaining, in the next few paragraphs, how those causes are selfish; addressing, in turn, “God”, “country”, and “and so on”. He ends by giving his own answer to what he thinks he should care about.
You, on the other hand, begin with oranges. I follow along with this game for a few paragraphs, and eventually discover that you did not mean oranges when you said oranges. I considered re-reading those paragraphs to see what you did mean, but get bored and skip to the end, where you tell me that it’s okay to like things I like. Well, okay. This doesn’t seem like a controversial conclusion; if you were arguing for this all along, then maybe I was right to skip to the end. Maybe I skipped the bit where you explained how some people disagree, so I can believe that your conclusion is interesting. Oh well.
Stirner signposts. Stirner makes promises about what he will talk about and then keeps them. If I had been interested in engaging with the substance of Stirner, rather than his style, I would have read carefully the paragraphs where he explains why God’s cause is a selfish cause. Not having done that, I can still point to those paragraphs, because Stirner told me where he would explain this. I can summarize Stirner’s argument, not because I am good at summarizing, but because Stirner gave me several summaries.
If you don’t tell me where you are and where you’re going, I have no means or inclination to follow along with you.