I've recently enjoyed the German philosopher Max Stirner's liberal usage of em-dashes to add, at the end of his sentences — great emphasis.
> Before the sacred, people lose all sense of power and all confidence; they occupy a powerless and humble attitude toward it. And yet no thing is sacred of itself, but by my declaring it sacred, by my declaration, my judgment, my bending the knee; in short, by my — conscience.
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In any case, the "en-dash", as you seem to suggest, is not equivalent to the "em-dash", but typically used to express ranges or contrast between two words, i.e. "1990–1992" or "push–pull configuration".
No.
In Robert Bringhurst's The Elements of Typographic style – pretty much a bible amongst typographers – he states:
We should “[u]se spaced en dashes – rather than close-set em dashes or spaced hyphens – to set off phrases.” Bringhurst then adds this devastating indictment:
The em dash is the nineteenth-century standard, still prescribed in many editorial style books, but the em dash is too long for use with the best text faces. Like the oversized space between sentences, it belongs to the padded and corseted aesthetic of Victorian typography.
I have no excuse: I read that book, and I thought I was quoting his advice from memory.
…in en-US. In en-GB, the en-dash surrounded by normal spaces, as per GP, is used where the US would use an em-dash flanked with hair spaces.
Edit: I dug out the original text of your translated phrase to see if it was Stirner’s or the translator’s use of em-dashes, and it looks like it was direct from Stirner: https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_sQ5RAAAAcAAJ_2/page/n89/m...