Synopsis
Stirner argues that all abstractions like state, society, morality, and God are spooks, and that the unique self owes loyalty to nothing beyond its own interest.
Core passage idea
Paraphrase · Public domainEvery cause higher than yourself, whether God, state, or humanity, is a phantom that enslaves you; nothing matters above your own unique self.
It pushes individualism to its most radical extreme, dissolving every fixed ideal into self-interest.
To avoid a bubble
Pair with The Social Contract.
Reading note
Read it as deliberate provocation; its relentless egoism is meant to detonate inherited pieties.
Best paired with
The Social Contract