Germany -- Foreign relations; Germany -- Intellectual life; Germany -- Politics and government; World War, 1914-1918
Even if we take the Jewish race, which seems to show extraordinary
fixity and stability of type, there is not one dominant Jewish type;
there are fully fifty different Jewish types. There is hardly any
resemblance between the Jew of Tiflis and the Jew of Tangier, between
democratic Ashkenazim and the aristocratic Sephardim. Race is not a
cause, but an effect. It is not biology which explains politics, it is
politics which dominate biology. It is not the physical which explains
the moral, it is the moral which produces the physical. It is not the
racial type which produces a racial belief and a racial community, it
is the religion which produces the race. It is not the Hindu caste
which produces the religion, it is religion which produces the caste.
Similarly, it is the religious and political conditions which have
kept the Jew apart, and which have preserved the characteristics of
the race. Even so, religion and persecution have kept the
characteristics of the Armenians or the Parsees and the Greek colonies
in the Levant.
VII.
A highly gifted race is invariably the outcome of complex elements, of
many cross-currents. Invariably it is the outcome of moral, spiritual,
and political factors. It is the outcome of unity of language, of
unity of religion, of community of traditions and institutions. It is
mainly religion which keeps apart the French and the Anglo-Saxon races
in Canada, and which divides the Celt from the Ulsterman in Ireland.
Let the religious boundary break down, and the Irish Celt will blend
with the Ulster Scot, the French Canadian will mix with the
Anglo-Saxon. The race heresy in its modern form is the sinister shadow
projected by the biological materialism of the early Darwinians. It is
the same materialistic conception which has triumphed in German
Marxism and in the economic interpretation of history. It is the same
conception which has triumphed in the _Realpolitik_ and _Weltpolitik_,
and the elimination of the moral factor from the activities of high
policy. The tyranny of the race dogma permeates the majority of the
German historians and publicists from the early nineteenth century. We
find it in Mommsen’s “History of Rome.” It has found a striking
expression in his famous chapter on the Celts, which is only a veiled
attack against the French, who are assumed to be the lineal
descendants of the Gauls. The same dogma is the dominant idea of
Treitschke’s “History.” We find it in the _bionda bestia_ of
Nietzsche. We find it in the “Foundations of the Nineteenth Century”
of Houston Stewart Chamberlain. We find it in the works of Count de
Gobineau, who, after working unnoticed in his own country, has been
heralded as the apostle of Pan-Germanism in the Vaterland. The race
heresy has been the _leitmotiv_ of all political controversies in the
Empire. We find it equally in the anti-Semitic, in the anti-Russian,
in the anti-French propaganda. It has culminated in the triple dogma
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account