9.3.10
Jewish Superiority
From Beyond Good and Evil (1886)
Section 251
Link
Selection:
“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.
Section 251
Link
Selection:
“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.
Human All Too Human (1878)
Link
The European man and the abolition of nations.
Trade and industry, books and letters, the way in which all higher culture is shared, the rapid change of house and scenery, the present nomadic life of everyone who is not a landowner—these circumstances necessarily produce a weakening, and finally the abolition, of nations, at least in Europe; and as a consequence of continual intermarriage there must develop a mixed race, that of the European man. . . . It is not the interest of the many (of peoples), as is often claimed, but above all the interest of certain royal dynasties and also of certain classes in commerce and society, that drives to nationalism. Once one has recognized this, one should declare oneself without embarrassment as a good European and work actively for the amalgamation of the nations. In this process the Germans could be helpful by virtue of their long proven skill as interpreters and mediators among peoples.
Incidentally, the whole problem of the Jews exists only in nation states, for here their energy and higher intelligence, their accumulated capital of spirit and will, gathered from generation to generation through a long schooling in suffering, must become so preponderant as to arouse mass envy and hatred. In almost all contemporary nations, therefore—in direct proportion to the degree to which they act up nationalistically—the literary obscenity is spreading of leading the Jews to slaughter as scapegoats of every conceivable public and internal misfortune. As soon as it is no longer a matter of preserving nations, but of producing the strongest possible European mixed race, the Jew is just as useful and desirable an ingredient as any other national remnant. Unpleasant, even dangerous, qualities can be found in every nation and every individual: it is cruel to demand that the Jew be an exception. In him, these qualities may even be dangerous and revolting to an unusual degree; and perhaps the young stock-exchange Jew is altogether the most disgusting invention of mankind. In spite of that I should like to know how much one must forgive a people in a total accounting when they have had the most painful history of all peoples, not without the fault of all of us, and when one owes to them the noblest man (Christ), the purest sage (Spinoza), the most powerful book, and the most effective moral law in the world. Moreover, in the darkest times of the Middle Ages, when the Asiatic cloud masses had gathered heavily over Europe, it was Jewish free-thinkers, scholars, and physicians who clung to the banner of enlightenment and spiritual independence in the face of the harshest personal pressures and defended Europe against Asia. We owe it to their exertions, not least of all, that a more natural, more rational, and certainly unmythical explanation of the world was eventually able to triumph again, and that the bond of culture which now links us with the enlightenment of Greco-Roman antiquity remained unbroken. If Christianity has done everything to orientalize the Occident, Judaism has helped significantly to occidentalize it again and again: in a certain sense this means as much as making Europe's task and history a continuation of the Greek.
The European man and the abolition of nations.
Trade and industry, books and letters, the way in which all higher culture is shared, the rapid change of house and scenery, the present nomadic life of everyone who is not a landowner—these circumstances necessarily produce a weakening, and finally the abolition, of nations, at least in Europe; and as a consequence of continual intermarriage there must develop a mixed race, that of the European man. . . . It is not the interest of the many (of peoples), as is often claimed, but above all the interest of certain royal dynasties and also of certain classes in commerce and society, that drives to nationalism. Once one has recognized this, one should declare oneself without embarrassment as a good European and work actively for the amalgamation of the nations. In this process the Germans could be helpful by virtue of their long proven skill as interpreters and mediators among peoples.
Incidentally, the whole problem of the Jews exists only in nation states, for here their energy and higher intelligence, their accumulated capital of spirit and will, gathered from generation to generation through a long schooling in suffering, must become so preponderant as to arouse mass envy and hatred. In almost all contemporary nations, therefore—in direct proportion to the degree to which they act up nationalistically—the literary obscenity is spreading of leading the Jews to slaughter as scapegoats of every conceivable public and internal misfortune. As soon as it is no longer a matter of preserving nations, but of producing the strongest possible European mixed race, the Jew is just as useful and desirable an ingredient as any other national remnant. Unpleasant, even dangerous, qualities can be found in every nation and every individual: it is cruel to demand that the Jew be an exception. In him, these qualities may even be dangerous and revolting to an unusual degree; and perhaps the young stock-exchange Jew is altogether the most disgusting invention of mankind. In spite of that I should like to know how much one must forgive a people in a total accounting when they have had the most painful history of all peoples, not without the fault of all of us, and when one owes to them the noblest man (Christ), the purest sage (Spinoza), the most powerful book, and the most effective moral law in the world. Moreover, in the darkest times of the Middle Ages, when the Asiatic cloud masses had gathered heavily over Europe, it was Jewish free-thinkers, scholars, and physicians who clung to the banner of enlightenment and spiritual independence in the face of the harshest personal pressures and defended Europe against Asia. We owe it to their exertions, not least of all, that a more natural, more rational, and certainly unmythical explanation of the world was eventually able to triumph again, and that the bond of culture which now links us with the enlightenment of Greco-Roman antiquity remained unbroken. If Christianity has done everything to orientalize the Occident, Judaism has helped significantly to occidentalize it again and again: in a certain sense this means as much as making Europe's task and history a continuation of the Greek.
Christmas 1887: Letter to Elisabeth Forster-Nietzsche
[...] You have committed one of the greatest stupidities—for yourself and for me! Your association with an anti-Semitic chief expresses a foreignness to my whole way of life which fills me again and again with ire or melancholy. [...] It is a matter of honor with me to be absolutely clean and unequivocal in relation to anti-Semitism, namely, opposed to it, as I am in my writings. I have recently been persecuted with letters and Anti-Semitic Correspondence Sheets. My disgust with this party (which would like the benefit of my name only too well!) is as pronounced as possible, but the relation to Förster, as well as the aftereffects of my former publisher, the anti-Semitic Schmeitzner, always brings the adherents of this disagreeable party back to the idea that I must belong to them after all. [...] It arouses mistrust against my character, as if publicly I condemned something which I have favored secretly—and that I am unable to do anything against it, that the name of Zarathustra is used in every Anti-Semitic Correspondence Sheet, has almost made me sick several times. [....]
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