summary of The Unique and Its Own (also translated as The Ego and Its Own) by Max Stirner:

Max Stirner’s The Unique and Its Own (1844) is one of the most radical and provocative works in modern philosophy, presenting a sweeping critique of all forms of authority, ideology, and abstract principles in the name of the sovereignty of the individual. Stirner begins by attacking religion, philosophy, morality, politics, and even humanism itself, arguing that throughout history people have allowed themselves to be dominated by “spooks” (Spuk)—intangible abstractions such as God, the State, Humanity, or Truth—that demand submission and sacrifice. Even when Enlightenment and post-Hegelian thinkers sought to liberate individuals from religious dogma, Stirner contends, they merely replaced one tyranny with another, elevating concepts like “Reason,” “Man,” or “Morality” into new sacred ideals. Against this domination by abstractions, Stirner asserts the primacy of the Einzige (the Unique), the concrete, living individual who is irreducible to any category or universal. He calls for the individual to embrace their Eigenheit (ownness), a self-affirming stance that recognizes no higher authority than one’s own will and creative power. Rather than binding themselves to fixed principles or duties, individuals can form voluntary associations based on mutual benefit, which Stirner calls “unions of egoists,” fluid and temporary arrangements that dissolve once they no longer serve the participants’ interests. Stirner’s radical egoism is not a crude selfishness but a rejection of any cause, ideology, or moral order that claims priority over the individual’s lived reality. His work challenges the very foundations of political, moral, and religious thought, anticipating anarchist, existentialist, and post-structuralist critiques of power and ideology. With its uncompromising defense of individual freedom, The Unique and Its Own remains one of the most unsettling and influential manifestos of radical individualism in the modern era.