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

by Max Stirner

Let us therefore not aspire to community, but to one-sided-ness. Let us not seek the most comprehensive commune, “human society,” but let us seek in others only means and organs which we may use as our property! As we do not see our equals in the tree, the beast, so the presupposition that others are our equals springs from a hypocrisy. No one is my equal, but I regard him, equally with all other beings, as my property. In opposition to this I am told that I should be a man among “fellow-Men” (Judenfrage, p. 60); I should “respect” the fellow-man in them. For me no one is a person to be respected, not even the fellow-man, but solely, like other beings, an object in which I take an interest or else do not, an interesting or uninteresting object, a usable or unusable person. And, if I can use him, I doubtless come to an understanding and make myself at one with him, in order, by the agreement, to strengthen my power, and by combined force to accomplish more than individual force could effect. In this combination I see nothing whatever but a multiplication of my force, and I retain it only so long as it is my multiplied force. But thus it is a—union. Neither a natural ligature nor a spiritual one holds the union together, and it is not a natural, not a spiritual league. It is not brought about by one blood, not by one faith (spirit). In a natural league—like a family, a tribe, a nation, yes, mankind —the individuals have only the value of specimens of the same species or genu...