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
side of his character which leans towards Feuerbach, instead of towards
Schopenhauer. Here no narrow psychological depreciation of this great
man is intended. Judaism was to him the greatest help in reaching a
clearer understanding and assertion of the extremes within him in his
struggle to reach “Siegfried” and “Parsifal,” and in giving to German
nature the highest means of expression which has probably ever been
found in the pages of history. Yet a greater than Wagner was obliged to
overcome the Jewishness within him before he found his special vocation;
and it is, as previously stated, perhaps its great significance in the
world’s history and the immense merit of Judaism that it and nothing
else, leads the Aryan to a knowledge of himself and warns him against
himself. For this the Aryan has to thank the Jew that, through him, he
knows to guard against Judaism as a possibility within himself. This
example will sufficiently illustrate what, in my estimation, is to be
understood by Judaism.
I do not refer to a nation or to a race, to a creed or to a scripture.
When I speak of the Jew I mean neither an individual nor the whole body,
but mankind in general, in so far as it has a share in the platonic idea
of Judaism. My purpose is to analyse this idea.
That these researches should be included in a work devoted to the
characterology of the sexes may seem an undue extension of my subject.
But some reflection will lead to the surprising result that Judaism is
saturated with femininity, with precisely those qualities the essence of
which I have shown to be in the strongest opposition to the male nature.
It would not be difficult to make a case for the view that the Jew is
more saturated with femininity than the Aryan, to such an extent that
the most manly Jew is more feminine than the least manly Aryan.
This interpretation would be erroneous. It is most important to lay
stress on the agreements and differences simply because so many points
that become obvious in dissecting woman reappear in the Jew.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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