Spring 2000 Cyberseminar in Objectivist Studies
Nietzsche and Objectivism

Unit Three: March 20 - April 16

Michelle Fram-Cohen's Summary Essay
on "Nietzsche and the Jews"
In Friedrich Nietzsche's
The Will to Power and Beyond Good and Evil
and follow-up discussion

Sent: Thursday, April 13, 2000 10:51 AM

Subject: Cyberseminar: Nietzsche and the Jews, Judaism and Anti-Semitism: MFC Summary of Part III

[Moderator's note: Taking advantage of the flexibility of the summary
assignment, Michelle Cohen offers us this interesting commentary. Hopefully,
Jason Walker will also be providing a summary essay before we close out this
section of the syllabus.]

Summary of Part III - On History and Culture

Nietzsche and the Jews, Judaism and Anti-Semitism

Given the comprehensive essays written by D. J. Glombowksi and David Potts I
do not have much to add in my summary. I would like to examine further the
issue of Nietzsche's attitude toward the Jews, Judaism and anti-Semitism.

*** Introduction ***

I would like to begin by pointing out certain facts about Nietzsche's life.
While Nietzsche made a few general statements in support of the Jews and
against anti-Semitism in his writings, he did not participate in the
political and artistic attempts to advance this cause. Unlike Emile Zola,
the French writer who protested the Dreifus affair, Nietzsche did not speak
out against specific cases of bigotry against Jews. In contrast with
Gotthold Lessing and Friedrich Hebbel, the German dramatists who portrayed
noble Jewish characters in their plays, Nietzsche did not glorify any Jewish
hero in his poetry. In contrast to Lessing's life-long friendship with the
Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn, there is Nietzsche's worshipful
friendship with Richard Wagner, whom Nietzsche regarded as the
quintessential Master prototype. Nietzsche never felt a need to criticize
Wagner's obsessive anti-Semitism. When he finally broke up with Wagner, it
was because of Wagner's capitulation to Christianity.

Given the fact that Nietzsche cannot be regarded as a champion of the Jews,
the question still remains: What was the extent of his own anti-Semitism?
What was the impact of his writings on the National Socialist movement in
Germany?

*** Nietzsche and Christianity ***

The claim has been made that Nietzsche spoke against Christianity as much as
he did against Judaism. The problem is that he also spoke in favor of
Christianity as much as he did in favor of Judaism. In "Beyond Good and
Evil" he writes:

"Jesus said to his Jews: 'The law was for servants - love God as I love him,
as his son! What are morals to us sons of God!'" (BGE, 164)

Later, he glorifies "the Christian in the ecstasies of the cross" as a
manifestation of "the painful voluptuousness of tragedy." (BGE 229) In
"The Gay Science" he exonerates Jesus Christ as a single ray of sunshine
over the gloomy Jewish landscape of the wrathful Jehovah. (TGS, 137) In
"Human, All Too Human," in the section "Signs of Higher and Lower Cultures,"
he upholds Christianity as a source of high culture: "We owe to
Christianity, to the philosophers, poets, and musicians, a superabundance of
deeply agitated feelings. the hot flow of belief in ultimate truths, which
Christianity, especially, has made so wild." (HATH, 244)

Nietzsche's concept of knowledge did not only allow for contradictions. It
required them. Only total, comprehensive knowledge, which incorporated
opposite opinions, was true knowledge for him. Thus, it was possible for
him to write for and against Judaism, for and against Christianity, for and
against racism. The National Socialists could interpret his writings any
way they wished and manipulate them for their ends because of Nietzsche's
explicit rejection of reason and logic. In contrast, they could not use the
writings of Leibnitz, the 17th Century German Rationalist, whose writings
they had to ban.
*** Nietzsche's Anti-Semitism ***

Nietzsche was an emotionalist who had no scruples about expressing his true
feelings. Furthermore, he upheld emotions as superior to reason. Here is
an anti-Semitic outburst from the horse's mouth:

"Could one count such dilettantes and old spinsters as that mawkish apostle
of virginity, Mainlander, as a genuine German? In the last analysis he
probably was a Jew (all Jews become mawkish when they moralize)." (TGS,
357)

In another place, Nietzsche writes that Jewish scholars support logic
because logic "makes no distinction between crooked and straight noses."
(TGS, 348)

*** With Friends Like That. ***

One of Nietzsche's strongest statement in support of the Jews and against
anti-Semitism is found in a chapter titled "Peoples and Fatherlands" in BGE.
Nietzsche writes:

"That the Jews, if they wanted it - or if they were forced into it, which
seems to be what the anti-Semites want - could even now have preponderance,
indeed quite literally mastery over Europe, that is certain; that they are
not working and planning for that is equally certain." (BGE, 251)

Nietzsche regards the Jews as a distinct race that acquired the capacity to
dominate Europe. He alludes to conspiracy theories against the Jews, but
does not mention any by name or denounces anybody. He does not bother to
explain why he thinks the Jews do not intend to use their power. The
National Socialists agreed with Nietzsche that the Jews were a distinct race
that could take over Europe if they only wanted to. In view of Nietzsche's
persistent advocacy of "the will to power" as the proper motive power for
action, it is hard to see why the Jews will not exercise their will to power
and attempt to take over Europe. Unless, of course, they were corrupted by
their slave morality, in which case they would not merit Nietzsche's
support.

Later in the same section, Nietzsche writes that what the Jews want is to be
absorbed and assimilated by Europe. He declares that their wish should be
noted and accommodated and even recommends "to expel the anti-Semitic
screamers from the country" because they are opposed to this endeavor.
(Nietzsche was obviously not concerned with freedom of speech.) His
assimilation plan does not consist of granting rights to all the Jews as
individual citizens. The assimilation should be done by selection,
following the model of the English nobility. Only the noble specimens among
the Jews should be allowed admittance into the new European master race.
Nietzsche envisions "the cultivation of a new caste that will rule Europe."
For that end, the German "hereditary art of commanding and obeying" can be
enriched by the Jewish "genius of money and patience." Again, Nietzsche and
the National Socialists are in total agreement about the subordination of
the individual to a biological breeding plan. All the National Socialists
had to say was that they could not find any good specimens among the Jews.

Section 251 in BGE was used by the National Socialists in their first book
on Nietzsche. The author wrote:

"To wish to give proof regarding Nietzsche's thoughts in order to establish
that they agree with the race views and strivings of the National Socialist
movement would be carrying coals to Newcastle." (BGE, 251, N27)

That Nietzsche's attempt to defend the Jews against anti-Semitism could be
used by the National Socialists is a grim victory of reason and logic. As
much as Nietzsche scorned and dismissed reason and logic, the ideas he
advocated could not escape them. In "Twilight of the Idols" Nietzsche
writes, in a state of licentious daze: "Reason in language: oh, what a
tricky old woman she is! I'm afraid we're not rid of God because we still
believe in grammar." (TOI, "Reason in Philosophy," 5) Words do have
meaning, however, and the National Socialists carried the meaning of his
words to their logical conclusion.

-- Michelle Fram-Cohen


Acronyms used:
BGE - "Beyond Good and Evil"
TGS - "The Gay Science"
HATH - "Human, All Too Human"
TOI - "Twilight of the Idols"



*****************************************************
Spring 2000 Cyberseminar in Objectivist Studies
cybersem@objectivistcenter.org

All Cyberseminar posts are working papers with copyright
reserved to the author. They may not be published or adapted
without permission, but may be circulated for purposes of
scholarly discussion.

*****************************************************

To: TOC Cyberseminar <cybersem@objectivistcenter.org>

Sent: Sunday, April 16, 2000 6:25 PM

Subject: Cyberseminar: Re: Nietzsche and the Jews, Judaism and Anti-Semitism: MFCSummaryof Part III

[From: Kevin Hill ]

[Response to Michelle Cohen's "Nietzsche and the Jews..." Summary]

The claim that Nietzsche tolerated and even favored antisemitism as
evidenced by his lack of vigorous partisanship on the issue flies in the
teeth of two facts. First, Nietzsche's explicit commitment to being
"antipolitical" means that there were all sorts of things that he might have
approved of or disapproved of that he chose not to get embroiled in. One can
take exception to the concept of being antipolitical (I certainly do), but
one cannot fairly attribute views to someone on the grounds that they didn't
oppose the converse views, if one of their views is that they ought not to
get embroiled in contemporary political discussion.

The second fact that undermines the antisemitic account based on alleged
passivity is that in fact the break with Wagner, which came very early in
Nietzsche's career and transpired very publically in the publication of
_Human, All-too-human_ was very clearly understood by all participants to
have a subtext of engagement with antisemitism. It was common talk in
Wagner's circle that Nietzsche had been "seduced by that Jew Paul Ree" and
had thus betrayed his authentic Wagnerian core. For his own part, Nietzsche
went out of his way to emphasize this aspect of the break which was far from
a merely personal issue, parading his new friendship with Ree, his
Francophilic style and content, his thinly disguised attacks on "the artist"
and recurrent praise for the Enlightenment and several (taken in their
cultural context) *astonishingly* pro-Jewish remarks in print in HAH. Any
adequate account of Nietzsche's complex and evolving attitudes toward
Judaism must involve a close examination of this episode and this text. If
there is anything objectionable about Nietzsche's comments in the late
1870s, it is their strangely irrelevant and sometimes inappropriately
enthusiastic remarks about Jews. I recall in particular a letter in which
after an invitation to a social gathering, he says "will there be Jews
there? I hope so; some of my very best experiences have been with people of
that race." Here any reader with any sensitivity will detect the clear
traces of one who doth protest too much, out of a concerted effort to
overcome something within himself with which he is disgusted. This partly
explains the belligerance, rather than calm contempt, toward Wagner: he saw
a bit of himself and didn't like what he saw.

At the risk of sounding reductive, I also note that after falling out with
Ree over a romantic conflict, Nietzsche's remarks become somewhat more
negative, though a proper analysis of everything he has to say, and what's
right and what's wrong with it, in the 1880s, is too daunting for me here. I
can recommend Kaufmann, who comes to a fairly balanced view in his Nietzsche
book. Kaufmann emphasizes that Nietzsche loved to be an equal opportunity
offender, and took an especially malicious delight in tweaking Christian
antisemites by characterizing them in terms antisemites had used to
characterize Jews, sometimes going overboard and sounding antisemitic
himself. By contrast, his remarks in the 1880s when directly addressing
Judaism are much more mixed than in the 1870s. If one wishes not to be
reductive, one might say that he was trying to right a balance from his
one-sidedly enthusiastic view of the 1870s. Kaufmann, if this has any
relevance to anyone, was himself Jewish. He works over with particular care
the flaws in the Baumler book that Michelle cites (quick example: Baumler
says "Nietzsche said, 'the stock exchange Jew is the most repugnant
creature'". Kaufmann dredges up the quote, and the larger context reveals
Nietzsche saying something not quite as horrendous. Paraphrasing HAH from
memory, "if it is true that the stock exchange Jew, etc., we must ask
ourselves whether we are not ourselves to blame by virtue of our treatment
of the Jewish community over the centuries--and anyway one can forgive much
of a people who have suffered so much at our hands, and yet produced the
purest sage (Spinoza) and the most effective moral law in human
history"--and then the thing takes off into a poetic encomium of all things
Jewish. In short, the icky comment is there, sure enough, but the overall
sense is so different that the idea that "the Nazis didn't have to ban
Nietzsche" takes on a whole new meaning--with these sort of textual
manipulations, they wouldn't *needed* to have banned *anyone.*)

There is a great deal to say in detail about Michelle's interesting post; I
think much of it wrong and painted with too broad a brush, but I don't want
to waste bandwidth repeating arguments that are Kaufmann's and not mine--I
would refer those interested to him. I find much to object to in Nietzsche
and will therefore be unlikely to do scholarship on him in the future, but I
do not recognize him in her portrait.

[Kevin Hill}


*****************************************************
Spring 2000 Cyberseminar in Objectivist Studies
cybersem@objectivistcenter.org

All Cyberseminar posts are working papers with copyright
reserved to the author. They may not be published or adapted
without permission, but may be circulated for purposes of
scholarly discussion.

*****************************************************

To: TOC Cyberseminar <cybersem@objectivistcenter.org>

Sent: Sunday, April 16, 2000 11:10 PM

Subject: Cyberseminar: Re: Nietzsche and the Jews, Judaism and Anti-Semitism: MFC Summaryof Part III

[From: MICHELLE COHEN ]

I would like to thank Kevin Hill for his informative post. I am not very
familiar with Nietzsche, which is why I am taking this course. Any input
that I am getting is highly appreciated.

Let me respond briefly to each point:

1. On Nietzsche's preference not to get embroiled in contemporary
political discussion: The problem is that Nietzsche *did* get involved
with the political discussion about the Jews, but did it in a
half-hearted fashion. He spoke against "anti-Semites" without naming
anybody or referring to a specific incident. His style was so sly and
roundabout that his arguments could easily be manipulated later by the
National Socialists. See the section "With Friends Like That" in my
summary. Even the section where Nietzsche writes that Jewish scholarc
support logic because logic "makes no distinction between crooked and
straight noses" (TGS, 348), is intended to be a pro-Jewish section that
goes awry.

2. On Nietzsche's break with Wagner and friendship with Paul Ree: The
sources I read did not }ention Nietzsche's disgust with Wagner's
anti-Semitism or his friendship with Paul Ree, but I can accept the
possibility that Kevin Hill is right on both accounts.

Perhaps I can point out an interesting angle that may explain why
Nietzsche's disgust with Wagner's anti-Semitism or his friendship with
Paul Ree are not that well-known. Nietzsche's sister Elizabeth was also
very friendly with Wagner and his wife Cosima. She remained a close
friend of Cosima Wagner after the break between Wagner and Nietzsche and
after Wagner's death. As everybody probably knows, Nietzsche went insane
in 1889 and remained so until his death in 1900. His sister was the one
who took care of him and his affairs. She and Cosima Wagner had a vested
interest in keeping alive the legend about the great bond between Wagner
and Nietzsche. For that purpose, Nietzsche's personal papers, journals
and letters were probably reorganized as far as what was made public and
what was made available to biographers. Unfortunately, it was also very
helpful for the National Socialists.

3. On the fact that the National Socialists could manipulate anybody's
ideas: The fact remains that they selected Nietzsche above all other
philosophers. There was nothing that could be manipulated in the
writings of Leibnitz or for that matter, Aristotle.

To sum up: I agree that Nietzsche's writings are very mixed as far as
Judaism and the Jews are concerned. However, I could not find any
statement in his later writings in which he admitted that he was wrong
about the Jews in the past. The pro and con statements about the Jews
are not neatly divided into later and earlier statements.

Michelle Fram-Cohen


*****************************************************
Spring 2000 Cyberseminar in Objectivist Studies
cybersem@objectivistcenter.org

All Cyberseminar posts are working papers with copyright
reserved to the author. They may not be published or adapted
without permission, but may be circulated for purposes of
scholarly discussion.

*****************************************************