Post-enlightenment political thought and its development

¶ … post-enlightenment period we see the increasing acknowledgment, both for better and worse, of groups who had historically been marginalized or ignored by traditional European political thought. Where before Jews had been marginalized due to religious Christian anti-Semitism, now they were being marginalized because they had introduced conscience and dampened man's natural ardor. Ironically, post-modernist analysis has contributed to and/or exacerbated persecution of Jews in the post-enlightenment period when liberalism has been the most widespread by giving anti-Semitism a patina of intellectual respectability. Indeed, the earlier anti-Semitism was very simply based itself in religious exclusion. Now, Jews were subjected to this philosophical ghettoization in the garb of sociology and economics.

While on both extremes of the argument there is an attempt to lionize or demonize both Marx and Nietzsche, this author will attempt to maintain what the Jewish philosopher Maimonides called the Golden Middle path in terms of analyzing these German philosophers. As usual, reaction needs to give way to rationale and the right questions have to be asked so that hopefully the right conclusions will come out of the analysis. It is the contention of this author that in the case of both Nietzsche and Marx, their philosophical musings have ironically and tragically marginalized the long suffering Jewish people. Sadly enough, post-modernism and existentialism have not brought an end to anti-Semitism, but have exacerbated it. While there is quibbling over the degrees of anti-Jewish feelings on the part of the two philosophers, one thing is certain: the tone of post-modernist analysis is dependent upon them chapter and verse. Their less than flattering portrayals of Jews do not help the cause of Jewish people at all.

On the part of Nietzsche, a Nazi type of anti-Semitism was certainly not his intended consequence. On many an occasion, he condemned racism and anti-Semitism. It has been asserted that Nietzsche's sister misrepresented his work, especially with regard to the later work, Will to Power. Carol Diethe makes this case very convincingly in her scholarly book on the subject where she provides documents the argument that this high priestess of the Nietzsche cult in Weimar Germany was a reactionary fascist. Indeed, here later extensive ties to key members of the Nazi Party, including Hitler himself helped to define her brother's reputation as a proto-Nazi. Elizabeth did this, especially after a trip to Paraguay and was motivated as much by her need of money as of anything else. As the association with Wagner and anti-Semitism became ingrained, it became harder and harder for the Weimar minions to shake it off, especially through her promotion of Will to Power (Diethe 81-83, 94).

What Nietzsche sought was a return to the heroism that he associated with ancient Greek life in the age of Homer. He simply wished to express his thought that the values of Christianity and bourgeois morality itself prevented humanity from reaching the level of heroism. Unfortunately, by taking down Christianity, Nietzsche indirectly attacked its sister religion Judaism via his encouragement of what was essentially a new paganism. In the Genealogy of Morals, the noble Greek race of priest kings was indirectly attacked by the Jews who in their fury against their Egyptian taskmasters turned the code that Nietzsche held upside down. It is necessary to quote Nietzsche briefly:

All the world's efforts against the "aristocrats," the "mighty," the "masters," the holders of power," are negligible by comparison with what has been accomplished against those classes by the Jews…it was the Jews who, in opposition to the aristocratic equation (good=aristocratic=beautiful=happy=loved by the gods), dared with a terrifying logic to suggest the contrary equation, and indeed to maintain with the teeth of the most profound hatred…"the wretched are alone the good; the poor, the weak, the lowly, are alone the good; the suffering, the needy, the sick, the loathsome, are the only ones who are pious, the only ones who are blessed, for them alone is salvation…We know who it was reaped the heritage of this Jewish transvaluation…with the Jews that the revolt of the slaves begins in sphere of morals; that revolt which has behind it a history of two millennia…because it-has achieved victory (Nietzsche 13-14).

The Jews were at war with the noble Greek race on a philosophical level. His opposition was "professional" so to speak. While he had no personal problems or hatred to the Jews, they were in opposition with his Greek views of virtue. In this author's opinion, like a modern Epiphanius, Nietzsche represents a neo-Hellenistic tradition at loggerheads with the ancient Judaic religion in an almost Maccabean struggle. Had he analyzed Judaism from this ironic angle, he would have seen that this kulturkampf that he was reinitiating was fought and lost over 2000 years before. If he had, he might have found a will to power in the ressentiment of the Jewish people and would have seen the great power available to slaves and to the underdog.

Nietzsche portrayed Christianity and by extension Judaism as a religion glorifying weakness rather than the strength life requires. According to Nietzsche, religions demanded a useless and debilitating sacrifice of the flesh and the spirit rather than with heroic living and daring. For him, war and courage had accomplished more great things than anything else in the human experience. These skeptical currents sapped Christianity of much respectability. Under Nietzsche's influence fewer people joined the clergy. Many found they could live without Christianity. This especially appealed to those in urban areas. Nietzsche's ideas flourished in the existentialist environment following World War I. The war led many to doubt if humans were really in control. The destructive nature of war challenged the supremacy of rationality and human ability to improve. Indeed, the most terrible weapons of all were made of rational technological components. Pride in Europe in rational human achievements had dominated the nineteenth century and now this civilization was reduced to dust and ruins. Nietzsche's withering assault upon traditional morality helped further to kill out what the war had not destroyed as the shell shocked searchers looked over the devastation left by the war (Kagan, Ozment, and Turner 1095).

In Nietzsche sought not what was good or evil, but rather the psychosocial sources of the judgment of these mores. According to Nietzsche's reckoning, there was in actuality no moral phenomenon but only the moral interpretation of them. In the Genealogy of Morals, he questioned whether or not morality was valuable in and of itself since it was a made up convention that had no independent existence in and of itself in the world of reality (Kaufman 456).

In the opinion of this author Nietzsche, this discovery was liberating and led humans to create their own life affirming values instead. Christianity and its attendant bourgeois morality could be discarded as humans created their own moral order new and fresh that would affirm their strength, self-pride and assertive natures rather than the Christian mores of humility and meekness with its historically determined inevitable weakness. This new human judgment was based more on feeling and emotions and lead to a questioning of rationality. Will and determination forged the emotions of this new world. Nietzsche's views are definitely romantic and post-enlightenment. Indeed, Goethe would probably be considered a philosophical lightweight in comparison. Nietzsche indeed is a product of the Biedermeier world he was born into and his reaction against rationalism. While his life and that world were not an exact match chronologically, they certainly enjoyed a philosophical co-terminus.

The ethical systems proposed at the time by the major English philosophers such as Mill were nothing more than a manifestation of a will to power on the part of the weak. Nietzsche felt that this was the same for the popular moralities of the masses that followed religions such as Christianity and Judaism. According to Nietzsche, during his survey of the genealogy of moralities, he had found two basic kinds of moralities. One was the type of morality used by the noble classes where they overtly projected power over others and the "slave moralities" that weak people (such as meek Christians) had cooked up as schemes to acquire power over the fit and strong. The more preferred kind of morality for Nietzsche was the "master moralities" of the nobles. In terms of Christianity, Nietzsche was particularly critical of Christianity's claim to be a history of morality when it had such a lack of base in the historical reality and did not have the historical spirit. Originally, people in general would have called such people moral and would applaud their lack of ego, calling them "good" and moral (Ansell-Person 123-125).

Unlike Marx (as we shall see below) who in this author's opinion is genuinely anti-Semitic, Nietzsche's opposition to Judaism is religious and stems from his hostility to Christianity. The later hijacking of Nietzsche's philosophy by the Nazis to service their venal ends cemented in the general public mind frame the idea of Nietzsche as the racial anti-Semite. In this author's personal philosophical reading, it certainly ranks up with the hijacking of the Japanese Bushido code as developed by Musashi in the 1500's to justify the equally nauseating aspects of Japanese fascism as it gained ground in the 1920s and the 1930s.

Marx set the anti-religious tone of twentieth century political ideologies, in particular, anti-Semitism. Defenders of Marx will take scholars to task who question Marx on alleged anti-Semitism, claiming that the critics are quoting Marx out of context. Whether or not Marx is or was anti-Semitic (which this author is maintaining is the case), he was perceived so in his time and his writings were used by later Soviet regimes to help justify its anti-Jewish and anti-Israel actions as this author will demonstrate below.

It is ironic that a heretical Jew and a descendent of rabbis should have provided such powerful ammunition to anti-Semitism. The reason for his may be grounded in his Jewish background itself. Dr. Tzvi Marks of the Boston University Institute of Law concludes that Jewish law is characterized by dialectical tendencies (Marx 235). Marx, grandson of a Jewish rabbi and a Jewish attorney father was steeped in Jewish dialectical analysis. In this author's opinion, his revolt against Judaism was grounded in Hegel.

Indeed, what do we include in the repertoire of the "mature" Marx? Both Marx's admirers and critics both include the Communist Manifesto and Capital as book ends on a complete set of his developed political philosophy. Somehow, the Marx of the Manifesto has been disconnected from the early writings. Do we live in such an Orwellian situation that they get shoved down the memory hole? Mysteriously, Marxist analysts do not see them as inhabiting the same philosophical body of work as Capital and the Communist Manifesto. Marx's pamphlet on the Jewish Question does not fit at all in the secular humanist or liberally minded picture of Marx as the humanitarian and liberator of oppressed people. Rather than embrace the Jewish people, the great socialist liberator spurns them. A few off-color remarks, especially in private correspondence could possibly be excused. However, an entire pamphlet against the Jews, as well as a plethora of other statements against Jews and Judaism is not readily explained away.

Marx made very specific charges against Jews in this virulent polemic. Firstly, they worship money instead of God (quite an accusation coming from an avowed atheist). Secondly, Jews practice usury. Their true religious drive is to make money by any means. With these charges in the background, Marx declares that the emancipation of all Europeans meant their emancipation from Jewry would bring their freedom. For Marx, Judaism is a pseudo-culture that seeks only material gain for its practitioners.

Since Marx believed in man's goodness in his original state, he therefore looks on physical objects as extensions of himself. If they were not, he is alienated from them. Because in Marx's view, the "Jewish mentality" seeks only material gain, the objects produced from it are inevitably alienated. In essence, the Jew is beyond redemption. He can not create anything new or even ephemeral. Rather, since all he can produce is related to money, he is essentially parasitic in nature.

To be fair, Marx is simply reflecting the world as he sees it at that time as a true white European. All other races are also looked down upon. Marx's own auto anti-Semitism magnifies his fixation with Jews and Judaism. This is understandable since Hegel never provided for the dialectic's Weltgeist (World-Spirit) to be extended to other civilizations that those traditionally grouped as Western Civilization. Marx preserved Hegel's dialectic intact, including this as well. Since a nation that is not part of the dialectic does not exist for Marx, they stand outside of history and necessarily pass away, just as the state will. This is all inevitable and scientific for him (Leopold 34).

It would be well for a moment to consider the sources of this anti-Semitism. All throughout on the Jewish Question as well as Theses on Feuerbach, Marx exhibits a contempt and hatred for Jews and Judaism that would not be equaled for a century in Nazi Germany at Nuremburg.

While many leftist professors have dried up a lot of ink arguing over the level of Marx's anti-Semitism, his words were used extensively by leftist anti-Semites as a justification of their position. On the Jewish Question was first published in English by the Soviets during the 1950's. Viewed from the "market view" of the "good German," it is very interesting to borrow Freud's couch and to understand what was going on in Marx's young mind at the time. It is necessary to consider a short excerpt from on the Jewish Question:

Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist. Money degrades all the gods of man -- and turns them into commodities. Money is the universal self-established value of all things. It has, therefore, robbed the whole world -- both the world of men and nature -- of its specific value. Money is the estranged essence of man's work and man's existence, and this alien essence dominates him, and he worships it.

The god of the Jews has become secularized and has become the god of the world. The bill of exchange is the real god of the Jew. His god is only an illusory bill of exchange.

The view of nature attained under the domination of private property and money is a real contempt for, and practical debasement of, nature; in the Jewish religion, nature exists, it is true, but it exists only in imagination (Marx).

Marx's negative attitude towards the bourgeoisie pale in comparison to his attitudes about the Jewish people and by extension himself. Despite page upon page of spin, it is impossible to stay away from the reality of what he said. Whether Marx was speaking in Freudian slips or in non-edited nineteenth century nuanced, bigoted parlance, the statements themselves were seen as authoritative and affected the opinions of at least thousands of volumes, he accuses the Jews of doing exactly what he is doing, that is reducing reality to a material one. In addition, he more than hinted that the only solution to the Jewish question was the final one. It is little wonder that the later Socialist Zionists ran from their fellow Jew like they would from a wildfire. For instance in Marx's Theses on Feuerbach, Marx rails at Feuerbach's Das Wesen des Christentums for its lack of practical revolutionary utility due to his theoretical attitude toward revolution that is "conceived and fixed only in its dirty judaical manifestation (Arthur 121)."

What is truly ironic in Marx's writings, especially in on the Jewish Question is that he exclusively identifies a marginalized group as being part of the oppressive capitalistic class. While we have to realize that Marx is auguring for the abolishment of all religions. However, since Judaism is the basis for Western Religion, it is singled out for special treatment. To negate the traditional roots of Western Religion and Civilization and start from a premise in concert with pure human nature, one must deal with the religious opiate that is motivating them to wait for other-worldly or future fulfillment of promises. The messiahs of Judaism and Christianity must be dethroned to make room for the Marxist utopian and the revolutionary ferment that will bring it about. To make this revolutionary "omlette," "eggs" (i.e., heads) not only need to be broken, but a new frying pan is needed as well. Dialectical economic materialism provided this (Labriola 96-99).

In addition, historical determinism itself must be overthrown. The ultimate historical determinism is exhibited by Judaism with its particular, yet exclusive view of itself. While Israel has a particular place in history according to the Jewish sages, it also has a universal mission as a light unto the nations. Marx needed to appropriate and remake this mission statement in the likeness and image of dialectical materialism. It is only thinly veiled there. This "opiate" needs to be eliminated as a group. It is not hard to see how Stalinist or Hitlerite flourishes could be added to the nineteenth century public mentality that came to value materialism above all else.

Dr. Bernard Lewis of Princeton has described "On the Jewish Question" as "one of the classics of anti-Semitic propaganda (Lewis 112)." In Marx on the Jewish Question: A Meta-critical Analysis, Michael Maidan explains that even Marx's most sincere admirers are at a loss but to admit that he had deeply anti-Jewish prejudices and that it is difficult to explain this away, even though the statements have to be qualified and considered in the context of the totality of his work and development of his post-Bauer/Young Hegelian views on historical materialism (Maidan 27).

Indeed, from whichever direction one can approach this thorny problem of Marx's anti-Semitism, at a baseline level it provides a real problem in terms of the packaging and the presentation of his ideas. Historical materialism does not look so "scientific" and so rational when it seems to contain a good amount of anti-Semitism in the contents.

This author feels that quibbling and trying to qualify and quantify Marx's anti-Semitism and its authenticity. Rather, it would do well to compare the views that he expressed in on the Jewish Question with later views of individuals such as Lenin and Trotsky who speak in very similar terms. Indeed, Trotskyist Werner Cohn presents very interesting information. In his excusing of Marx's views in on the Jewish Question, he points out specifically that Lenin and Marx expressed similar views and spoke in similar terms regarding the Jewish religion, if not Jews as a race (Cohn 46-48). Again, it is this author's contention that people's perceptions, prejudices and their actual actions matter the most. Whether or not "the mature Marx" qualified his views the fact that the commissars of the Yevsektsiya or other persecutors of Jews on the left used these doctrines as a pretext in some twisted form is really the most important thing.

The victims of persecution have little to say about sociological niceties, especially on the way to the gallows, firing squad or interrogation room. Indeed, we need to consider the human costs of the development of historical materialism, regardless of the political orientation that we may have. The very fact that on the Jewish Question was not further acknowledged and read stems from the fact that it was suppressed, until of course Stalin needed it for his campaigns against the new Jewish State after he broke with it in 1949. Even if one is to allow that Marx was just speaking in the language of his time as Hal Draper does (Draper 591-608.) and that he was just like all of the other Germans, then just what is it that makes Marx different, unique and to be studied.