He who refuses to spend his powers for such limited societies as family,
party, nation, is still always longing for a worthier society, and
thinks he has found the true object of love, perhaps, in "human society"
or "mankind," to sacrifice himself to which constitutes his honor; from
now on he "lives for and serves _mankind_."
_People_ is the name of the body, _State_ of the spirit, of that _ruling
person_ that has hitherto suppressed me. Some have wanted to transfigure
peoples and States by broadening them out to "mankind" and "general
reason"; but servitude would only become still more intense with this
widening, and philanthropists and humanitarians are as absolute masters
as politicians and diplomats.
Modern critics inveigh against religion because it sets God, the divine,
moral, etc., _outside_ of man, or makes them something objective, in
opposition to which the critics rather transfer these very subjects
_into_ man. But those critics none the less fall into the proper error
of religion, to give man a "destiny," in that they too want to have him
divine, human, and the like: morality, freedom and humanity, etc., are
his essence. And, like religion, politics too wanted to "_educate_" man,
to bring him to the realization of his "essence," his "destiny," to
_make_ something out of him,--to wit, a "true man," the one in the form
of the "true believer," the other in that of the "true citizen or
subject." In fact, it comes to the same whether one calls the destiny
the divine or human.
Under religion and politics man finds himself at the standpoint of
_should_: he _should_ become this and that, should be so and so. With
this postulate, this commandment, every one steps not only in front of
another but also in front of himself. Those critics say: You should be a
whole, free man. Thus they too stand in the temptation to proclaim a new
_religion_, to set up a new absolute, an ideal,--to wit, freedom. Men
_should_ be free. Then there might even arise _missionaries_ of freedom,
as Christianity, in the conviction that all were properly destined to
become Christians, sent out missionaries of the faith. Freedom would
then (as have hitherto faith as Church, morality as State) constitute
itself as a new _community_ and carry on a like "propaganda" therefrom.
Certainly no objection can be raised against a getting together; but so
much the more must one oppose every renewal of the old _care_ for us, of
culture directed toward an end,--in short, the principle of _making
something_ out of us, no matter whether Christians, subjects, or freemen
and men.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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