The Ego and His Own

Name: The Ego and His Own
Author: Stirner, Max

Stirner, Max

Egoism; Individualism

But of what concern to me is the common weal? The common weal as such is
not _my weal_, but only the furthest extremity of _self-renunciation_.
The common weal may cheer aloud while I must "down";[156] the State may
shine while I starve. In what lies the folly of the political liberals
but in their opposing the people to the government and talking of
people's rights? So there is the people going to be of age, etc. As if
one who has no mouth could be _muendig_![157] Only the individual is
able to be _muendig_. Thus the whole question of the liberty of the
press is turned upside down when it is laid claim to as a "right of the
people." It is only a right, or better the might, of the _individual_.
If a people has liberty of the press, then _I_, although in the midst of
this people, have it not; a liberty of the people is not _my_ liberty,
and the liberty of the press as a liberty of the people must have at its
side a press law directed against _me_.

This must be insisted on all around against the present-day efforts for
liberty:

Liberty of the _people_ is not _my_ liberty!

Let us admit these categories, liberty of the people and right of the
people: _e. g._ the right of the people that everybody may bear arms.
Does one not forfeit such a right? One cannot forfeit his own right, but
may well forfeit a right that belongs not to me but to the people. I may
be locked, up for the sake of the liberty of the people; I may, under
sentence, incur the loss of the right to bear arms.

Liberalism appears as the last attempt at a creation of the liberty of
the people, a liberty of the commune, of "society," of the general, of
mankind; the dream of a humanity, a people, a commune, a "society,"
that shall be of age.

A people cannot be free otherwise than at the individual's expense; for
it is not the individual that is the main point in this liberty, but the
people. The freer the people, the more bound the individual; the
Athenian people, precisely at its freest time, created ostracism,
banished the atheists, poisoned the most honest thinker.

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

Opening the text

The Ego and His OwnStirner, Max

Philosophy

The Ego and His Own

Stirner, Max

Egoism; Individualism

But of what concern to me is the common weal? The common weal as such is
not _my weal_, but only the furthest extremity of _self-renunciation_.
The common weal may cheer aloud while I must "down";[156] the State may
shine while I starve. In what lies the folly of the political liberals
but in their opposing the people to the government and talking of
people's rights? So there is the people going to be of age, etc. As if
one who has no mouth could be _muendig_![157] Only the individual is
able to be _muendig_. Thus the whole question of the liberty of the
press is turned upside down when it is laid claim to as a "right of the
people." It is only a right, or better the might, of the _individual_.
If a people has liberty of the press, then _I_, although in the midst of
this people, have it not; a liberty of the people is not _my_ liberty,
and the liberty of the press as a liberty of the people must have at its
side a press law directed against _me_.

This must be insisted on all around against the present-day efforts for
liberty:

Liberty of the _people_ is not _my_ liberty!

Let us admit these categories, liberty of the people and right of the
people: _e. g._ the right of the people that everybody may bear arms.
Does one not forfeit such a right? One cannot forfeit his own right, but
may well forfeit a right that belongs not to me but to the people. I may
be locked, up for the sake of the liberty of the people; I may, under
sentence, incur the loss of the right to bear arms.

Liberalism appears as the last attempt at a creation of the liberty of
the people, a liberty of the commune, of "society," of the general, of
mankind; the dream of a humanity, a people, a commune, a "society,"
that shall be of age.

A people cannot be free otherwise than at the individual's expense; for
it is not the individual that is the main point in this liberty, but the
people. The freer the people, the more bound the individual; the
Athenian people, precisely at its freest time, created ostracism,
banished the atheists, poisoned the most honest thinker.

Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.

The Ego and His Own

The Ego and His Own

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