Jewish Superiority

From Beyond Good and Evil (1886)

Section 251

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“Let no more Jews in! And especially bar the doors to the east (also to Austria)!” So orders the instinct of a people whose type is still weak and uncertain, so that it could be easily erased, easily dissolved away by a stronger race. But the Jews are without any doubt the strongest, most tenacious, and purest race now living in Europe. They understand how to assert themselves even under the worst conditions (better even than under favourable conditions), as a result of certain virtues which today people might like to stamp as vices—thanks, above all, to a resolute faith which has no need to feel shame when confronted by “modern ideas.” They always change, if they change, only in the way the Russian empire carries out its conquests— as an empire that has time and was not born yesterday—that is, according to the basic principle “as slowly as possible!” A thinker who has the future of Europe on his conscience will, in all the designs which he draws up for himself of this future, take the Jews as well as the Russians into account as, for the time being, the surest and most probable factors in the great interplay and struggle of forces. What we nowadays call a “nation” in Europe is essentially more a res facta [something made] than a res nata [something born] (indeed sometimes it looks confusingly like a res ficta et picta [something made up and unreal]—), in any case something developing, young, easily adjusted, not yet a race, to say nothing of aere perennius [more enduring than bronze], as is the Jewish type. But these “nations” should be very wary of every hot-headed competition and enmity! That the Jews, if they wanted to—or if people were to force them, as the anti-Semites seem to want to do—could even now become predominant, in fact, quite literally gain mastery over Europe, is certain; that they are not working and planning for that is equally certain. Meanwhile by contrast they desire and wish––even with a certain insistence—to be absorbed into and assimilated by Europe. They thirst to be finally established somewhere or other, allowed, respected, and to bring to an end their nomadic life, to the “Wandering Jew.” And people should pay full attention to this tendency and impulse (which in itself perhaps even expresses a moderating of Jewish instincts) and accommodate it. And for this, it might perhaps be useful and reasonable to expel the anti-Semitic ranters out of the country.