Sex & Character: Authorised Translation from the Sixth German EditionWeininger, Otto
Philosophy
Sex & Character: Authorised Translation from the Sixth German Edition
Weininger, Otto
Character; Sex; Sex (Psychology); Sexual ethics
Thus the fact is explained that the bitterest Antisemites are to be
found amongst the Jews themselves. For only the quite Jewish Jews, like
the completely Aryan Aryans, are not at all Antisemitically disposed;
among the remainder only the commoner natures are actively Antisemitic
and pass sentence on others without having once sat in judgment on
themselves in these matters; and very few exercise their Antisemitism
first on themselves. This one thing, however, remains none the less
certain: whoever detests the Jewish disposition detests it first of all
in himself; that he should persecute it in others is merely his
endeavour to separate himself in this way from Jewishness; he strives to
shake it off and to localise it in his fellow-creatures, and so for a
moment to dream himself free of it. Hatred, like love, is a projected
phenomenon; that person alone is hated who reminds one unpleasantly of
oneself.
The Antisemitism of the Jews bears testimony to the fact that no one who
has had experience of them considers them loveable--not even the Jew
himself; the Antisemitism of the Aryans grants us an insight no less
full of significance: it is that the Jew and the Jewish race must not
be confounded. There are Aryans who are more Jewish than Jews, and real
Jews who are more Aryan than certain Aryans. I need not enumerate those
non-semites who had much Jewishness in them, the lesser (like the
well-known Frederick Nicolai of the eighteenth century) nor those of
moderate greatness (here Frederick Schiller can scarcely be omitted),
nor will I analyse their Jewishness. Above all Richard Wagner--the
bitterest Antisemite--cannot be held free from an accretion of
Jewishness even in his art, however little one be misled by the feeling
which sees in him the greatest artist enshrined in historical humanity;
and this, though indubitably his Siegfried is the most un-Jewish type
imaginable. As Wagner’s aversion to grand opera and the stage really led
to the strongest attraction, an attraction of which he was himself
conscious, so his music, which, in the unique simplicity of its motifs,
is the most powerful in the world, cannot be declared free from
obtrusiveness, loudness, and lack of distinction; from some
consciousness of this Wagner tried to gain coherence by the extreme
instrumentation of his works. It cannot be denied (there can be no
mistake about it) that Wagner’s music produces the deepest impression
not only on Jewish Antisemites, who have never completely shaken off
Jewishness, but also on Indo-Germanic Antisemites. From the music of
“Parsifal,” which to genuine Jews will ever remain as unapproachable as
its poetry, from the Pilgrim’s march and the procession to Rome in
“Tannhäuser,” and assuredly from many another part, they turn away.
Doubtless, also, none but a German could make so clearly manifest the
very essence of the German race as Wagner has succeeded in doing in the
“Meistersingers of Nurnberg.” In Wagner one thinks constantly of that
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