The Ego and His Own: The Case of the Individual Against Authority

by Max Stirner

It is at once quite another situation if, as in North America, society determines to let the duelists bear certain evil consequences of their act, such as withdrawal of the credit hitherto enjoyed. To refuse credit is everybody’s affair, and, if a society wants to withdraw it for this or that reason, the man who is hit cannot therefore complain of encroachment on his liberty: the society is simply availing itself of its own liberty. That is no penalty for sin, no penalty for a crime. The duel is no crime there, but only an act against which the society adopts counter-measures, resolves on a defense. The State, on the contrary, stamps the duel as a crime, as an injury to its sacred law: it makes it a criminal case.