THREAD ON EGOISM:
Egoism claims that the subject has been corrupted in various ways by institutions - state, morality, civilization, etc. These institutions inhibit a true expression of an individual's subjectivity, they channel his desire and reduce him to an object.
(1/20)

My problem with this position is firstly the essentially Cartesian view of the subject as an abstract unity that exists somewhere deep down. In other words, a pure "self" lies below all the corruption that is waiting to be liberated from the constraints of institutions...
(2/20)

and establish true subjectivity, that is exclusion of the other, of the object. In reality, what we experience, our "ego", our subjectivity is in itself a projection, agglutination of signifiers, libidinal investments, etc.
(3/20)

When we get rid of the baggage of the symbol and the image what we are left with is not a metaphysical substance of the self but Nothing - with capital N - a pure negation of subjectivity, the primordial lack, gap, "misrecognition".
(4/20)

In other words, egoism fails to deconstruct the most ideological of the institutions - the subject itself. If we are serious about what egoism tried to achieve - liberation o desire from the realm of pseudo-objects, ...
(5/20)

we have no reason to readily accept such an a priori proposition as an immutable essence of the self lying somewhere there. This is the essence of Lacanian psychoanalysis - what one is is the chain of signifiers and images - a self-constituting autopoietic structure.
(6/20)

Egoism takes the ego as its starting point (what a surprising right) but the ego itself is an agglutination of drives, reified wishes and longings lying above the "subconscious". But even the subconscious is as Lacan put it "structured like a language", ...
(7/20)

,in other words it has a certain pattern, it is that aforementioned chain which ultimately reflects the external world.
At the heart is the lack (could be interpreted as Death) which is the source of desire ("I need to make myself whole again")
(8/20)

, the object of desire is primary to need in the sense that you will never fill that gap - you can only desire more and more. The objects never quite satisfies you. There lies the other problem. The subject - this whole agglutination - is always "of something",...
(9/20)

, "towards something", i.e. the external world is always its part and it can never be conceived in isolation as a purity infringed by the world. So, is this a reason to reject the whole idea of egoism? I do not think so.
(10/20)

Its basic premise - we are pseudo-objects ruled by pseudo-subjects (capital, state, etc.) is essentially correct, it just naively assumes the ego in abstract and immutable, as a totality, a coherent oneness with a single "need" which it fulfils.
(11/20)

This view provides a very useful tool for conceptualizing the communist society or the union of egoists if you wish. The book The Right To Be Greedy explains communism as a "resonance of egoisms" and this is very fitting.
(12/20)

It is a society where the subject has ceased to be a pseudo-object and the object as an Other has ceased to be separated. Both exist in a dynamical resonance where each appropriates and becomes part of the other. The subject ceases to be a reified entity, ...
(13/20)

, but it does not function as a rational egoist agent in abstraction - it is still a Symbolic and Imaginary structure - within the resonance of egoism. The vectors of desire are omnipresent towards both "other subjects" and "objects".
(14/20)

In a sense, the "ego" in the Lacanian sense would disappear, actualizing the notion of a subjectivized world. An egoist approach (not a philosophy) is also useful in contemplating revolutionary practice and revolution.
(15/20)

The communist revolution represents a facing of the Real, of the Nothing, perceiving the gap in its fullest shattering the subject. But, mind you, it does not expose a true self with true desires and needs. It merely restructures the always-neurotic-to-the-core psyche,...
(16/20)

on the basis of resonance structure rather than fixed, dead structure that dominates our lives today. The process of communism is the realization and clearing of all horizons, constructions and imaginations - psychic as well as social.
(17/20)

The ego does not finally return to its rightful place, instead it is shattered, the subject goes on a journey of facing the Real, the unknown, the truth about the arbitrariness of institutions and abstractions both psychic and sociological.
(18/20)

That is the essence of the communist revolution -subjectification and expanded validation of desire. In that sense the egoist is right in not wanting to "sacrifice" to the revolution, he does it for himself but the revolution is a totality,...
(19/20)

,a process which transcends the ego. Not in the sense of positing an abstraction above it, but forcing it confront its own radical ruptures and "spooks" within itself. I highly recommend looking into Lacan and the aforementioned book by the For Ourselves collective.
(20/20)