thumb|The Unique and Its Property

The Ego and Its Own (), also known as The Unique and Its Property, is an 1844 book by German philosopher Max Stirner. It presents a post-Hegelian critique of Christianity and traditional morality on one hand; and on the other, humanism, utilitarianism, liberalism, and much of the then-burgeoning socialist movement, advocating instead an amoral (although importantly not inherently immoral or antisocial) egoism. It is considered a major influence on the development of anarchism, existentialism, nihilism, and postmodernism.

Content

The material that follows is based on the first known English translation, by Steven T. Byington, first published in 1907.

In the first realistic stage, children are restricted by external material forces. Upon reaching the stage of youth, they begin to learn how to overcome these restrictions by what Stirner calls the "self-discovery of mind". However, in the idealistic stage, a youth now becomes enslaved by internal forces such as conscience, reason and other "spooks" or "fixed ideas" of the mind (including religion, nationalism and other ideologies). The final stage, "egoism", is the second self-discovery, in which one becomes self-conscious of oneself as more than his mind or body.

Throughout the book, Stirner applies this dialectical structure to human history. Part one is a sustained critique of the first two periods of human history and especially of the failure of the modern world to escape from religious modes of thinking. Stirner's analysis is opposed to the belief that modern individuals are progressively more free than their predecessors. Feuerbach's critique, "The Essence of Christianity in Relation to The Ego and Its Own", called the work "ingenious" and "intelligent" but also criticizes it as "eccentric, one-sided and falsely defined".</blockquote>

However, Marx and Engels would later collaborate on a lengthy criticism of Stirner's book in The German Ideology (1845, published 1932). The critique is a polemical tirade filled with ad hominem attacks and insults against Stirner (Marx calls him a "petty bourgeois individualist intellectual").

The argument in The German Ideology critiquing The Unique and Its Property is that Stirner's central concept is the same kind of "ghost" that Stirner argues does not exist. For Marx and Engels, Stirner's "egoism" simply presented a modern religiosity that, according to L. Dallman, "stands in a privileged relationship to non-conceptual reality". Marx and Engels would therefore derisively and repetitively refer to Stirner as "Saint Max".

Stirner also had a lasting influence in the tradition of individualist anarchism. American individualist Benjamin R. Tucker, editor of the journal Liberty, adopted Stirner's egoism in 1886 while rejecting conceptions of natural rights. This led to a bitter split in American individualist anarchism between egoists such as James L. Walker and John Beverly Robinson, and the proponents of natural rights anarchism such as that of Lysander Spooner. Other individualist anarchists influenced by Stirner include Lev Chernyi, Adolf Brand, Renzo Novatore, John Henry Mackay, Enrico Arrigoni, Miguel Giménez Igualada, and Émile Armand.

Although initially influenced by American individualist anarchist, S.E.P. was influenced more by European individualists and eventually by Dora Marsden, which led to him discarding anarchism, as did Dora Marsden some 70 years before him, which would go on to influence others associated with him. Other egoists who rejected anarchism include Stephen Marletta, William J. Boyer, Ragnar Redbeard, Malfew Seklew and Svein Olav Nyberg, among others.

Recently, Stirner has been an influential source for post-left anarchist thinkers such as Jason McQuinn, Bob Black and Hakim Bey.

Other publications

Publication attempts

He who destroyes a good Booke, kills reason it selfe, a 1955 exhibition by University of Kansas Library, noted the following regarding the book's initial publication:

See also

  • Geschichte des Materialismus
  • Solipsism

Notes

References

  • .
  • .
  • ; engl. trans. Nietzsche's Initial Crisis.
  • The Ego and His Own at Project Gutenberg
  • The Ego and Its Own Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought edition (Cambridge University Press, 1995) ed. D. Leopold.
  • The Ego and Its Own from the Marxists Internet Archive.
  • Stirner's Critics. Stirner's reply to his critics, (addendum to The Unique).
  • The Unique and Its Property.