Nietzsche and Jews

[pilgrimofdark]

Here's more Nietzsche on anti-Semites (Jew-haters):

What I have noticed in the real Jew-haters is more their affinity with Judaism than their dissimilarity -- it is a tremendous jealousy.

- SUP Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche. Vol. 6, p. 440, Autumn 1881.

As is typical for Nietzsche, he is almost always on the attack. Attacking Jews and attacking anti-Semites.

Elsewhere, he explains Wagner's anti-Semitism by guessing Wagner must be a Semite himself. Only a Jew could be as obsessively anti-Jewish as Wagner. Attacking Jews and attacking Wagner.

In BA's quote, Nietzsche is saying that Jews (who lie CONSCIOUSLY) are better than anti-Semites (who lie all the time, UNCONSCIOUSLY). Attacking Jews and attacking anti-Semites.

To sum up, he's hardly pro-Jewish, even when he's also anti-anti-Semite.

[Archie]

Here's more Nietzsche on anti-Semites (Jew-haters):

What I have noticed in the real Jew-haters is more their affinity with Judaism than their dissimilarity -- it is a tremendous jealousy.

- SUP Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche. Vol. 6, p. 440, Autumn 1881.

As is typical for Nietzsche, he is almost always on the attack. Attacking Jews and attacking anti-Semites.

Elsewhere, he explains Wagner's anti-Semitism by guessing Wagner must be a Semite himself. Only a Jew could be as obsessively anti-Jewish as Wagner. Attacking Jews and attacking Wagner.

In BA's quote, Nietzsche is saying that Jews (who lie CONSCIOUSLY) are better than anti-Semites (who lie all the time, UNCONSCIOUSLY). Attacking Jews and attacking anti-Semites.

To sum up, he's hardly pro-Jewish, even when he's also anti-anti-Semite.

Here's an interesting bit from The Gay Science (sec 361).

As regards the Jews, however, the adaptable people par excellence, we should, in conformity to this line of thought, expect to see among them a world-historical institution from the very beginning, for the rearing of actors, a genuine breeding-place for actors; and in fact the question is very pertinent just now: what good actor at present is not—a Jew? The Jew also, as a born literary man, as the actual ruler of the European press, exercises this power on the basis of his histrionic capacity: for the literary man is essentially an actor,—he plays the part of "expert," of "specialist."—

https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/52 ... l#Page_319

You could try to argue this is pro-Jewish, I suppose, but nowadays saying that Jews are the masters of the European press would be an "anti-Semitic conspiracy theory" or "anti-Semitic trope." So the worldview would be "anti-Semitic" by today's standards even if (on the surface) it appears to be spun as as praise in some instances.

[pilgrimofdark]

Here's an interesting bit from The Gay Science (sec 361).

As regards the Jews, however, the adaptable people par excellence, we should, in conformity to this line of thought, expect to see among them a world-historical institution from the very beginning, for the rearing of actors, a genuine breeding-place for actors; and in fact the question is very pertinent just now: what good actor at present is not—a Jew? The Jew also, as a born literary man, as the actual ruler of the European press, exercises this power on the basis of his histrionic capacity: for the literary man is essentially an actor,—he plays the part of "expert," of "specialist."—

https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/52 ... l#Page_319

You could try to argue this is pro-Jewish, I suppose, but nowadays saying that Jews are the masters of the European press would be an "anti-Semitic conspiracy theory" or "anti-Semitic trope." So the worldview would be "anti-Semitic" by today's standards even if (on the surface) it appears to be spun as as praise in some instances.

Yes, the heading for that section is "On the Problem of the Actor," then he writes about Jews being actors and "what good actor today is not -- a Jew?"

It's interesting reading through Nietzsche's critical comments on Jews. Some are very harsh.

And yet, he's apparently a "Jewish Supremacist."

I'm old enough to remember when "histrionic porno-Jews are parasitically nesting themselves in our countries and taking over the world with their money and shabby overcharges, leading to monstrous moral mendacity, and who count the entire world as their opposite and portray themselves as innocence itself, and who proclaim a religion of terror and contempt" was an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory.

But I was wrong. This is what Jewish Supremacists think about Jews!

Thomas Dalton's collection Classic Essays on the Jewish Question has a number of essays that echo many of the same themes from around the same era. All of the authors would probably be considered anti-Semites.

Nietzsche, though? Jewish Supremacist.
And Jew-haters, according to Nietzsche? Secret Jew-lovers.

[Wahrheitssucher]

From The Antichrist (1888), Section 24:
"Die Juden sind das merkwürdigste Volk der Weltgeschichte, weil sie, mit der Frage des Seins oder Nichtseins konfrontiert, mit einer vollkommen unheimlichen Bewußtheit das Sein um jeden Preis vorgezogen haben: dieser Preis war die radikale Fälschung aller Natur, aller Natürlichkeit, aller Realität, der ganzen inneren Welt wie der äußeren."

Translation:
"The Jews are the most remarkable people in the history of the world, for when they were confronted with the question, to be or not to be, they chose, with perfectly unearthly deliberation, to be at any price: this price involved a radical falsification of all nature, of all naturalness, of all reality, of the whole inner world, as well as of the outer."

[bombsaway]

It's not that tricky, Nietzsche is a Jewish supremacist, not because he thinks the Jews are totally unimpeachable, but because of repeated statements that they should be the ruling caste of Europe.

[bombsaway]

Nietzsche, though? Jewish Supremacist.
And Jew-haters, according to Nietzsche? Secret Jew-lovers.

It's kind of true. For people who valorize race, Jews are an exemplar, given their much higher than average levels of endogamy.

Your quote in bold is not really a quote btw, but rather combination/interpolation of various quotes correct?

[pilgrimofdark]

Your quote in bold is not really a quote btw, but rather combination/interpolation of various quotes correct?

Right, collated from the quotes on the first post I did with the big dump of quotes. Shortened "private parts easily aroused" to "porno-" since that's the more typical anti-Jewish stereotype.

For balance, if I find time and anyone is interested, I can go through the SUP books and get a cross-section of positive and neutral quotes about Jews. At least from the ones not on Z-lib.

A fuller analysis of Nietzsche's thoughts on Jews might be awaiting SUP releasing his earliest and latest notebooks.

[Wetzelrad]

It's not that tricky, Nietzsche is a Jewish supremacist, not because he thinks the Jews are totally unimpeachable, but because of repeated statements that they should be the ruling caste of Europe.

From reading this thread, he doesn't do that.

Jewish Supremacy is not observing that Jews hold powers of position and influence.
Jewish Supremacy is not saying nice things about Jews.
Or else Henry Ford, Thomas Dalton, and nearly every antisemite would fit that bill.
Jewish Supremacy requires the desire for Jews to hold power. Nietzsche lacks that.

Or if he had it, he had it only for the duration of Daybreak 205, if that. Outside that possible example, any inkling you might have that Nietzsche desired for Jews to hold power over his people should be evaporated by his various characterizations of them with words like "worst people on earth", "mendacity", and "repugnant".

I do however see two passages where Nietzsche actually used the words "ruling caste", and those are worth commenting on.

The Germans should cultivate a ruling caste: I confess that there are qualities inherent in Jews that are indispensable to their serving as an ingredient in a race that is supposed to practice world politics. The sense for money has to be learned, inherited and inherited a thousand fold: even now the Jew is a match for the American.

- Vol. 16, 32 (April-June 1885)

You (bombsaway) characterize this as Nietzsche wanting Jews to be the ruling caste, whereas it's clear from the text that he sought to breed them with Germans to create a ruling caste from the characteristics he liked. Exactly the same is true of this other passage:

It would be interesting in all sorts of ways to see whether the genius of gold and patience (and above all of some spirit and spirituality, which are seriously deficient in the [European nations]) could be added to and bred into the inherited art of commanding and obeying [...] the breeding of a new ruling caste for Europe.

http://nietzsche.holtof.com/reader/frie ... 17fdb.html

To be clear, I think low of Nietzsche for this idea. It reads as a naive attempt to peacefully solve the JQ by intermarriage, something he should already have known wasn't working. Doomed to fail. But this is contrary to your characterization, and not what is meant by the term Jewish Supremacist.

Nietzsche's breeding program, for comparison, is not unlike Adolf Hitler's laws designed to breed mischlings into Aryans. Those Aryans could then take up leadership positions, so perhaps Hitler was also a Jewish Supremacist.

[pilgrimofdark]

It would be interesting in all sorts of ways to see whether the genius of gold and patience (and above all of some spirit and spirituality, which are seriously deficient in the people just referred to) could be added to and bred into the inherited art of commanding and obeying - in both of which the land mentioned above is nowadays a classic example. But at this point it's fitting that I break off my cheerful Germanomania [Deutschthümelei] and speech of celebration. For I'm already touching on something serious to me, on the "European problem," as I understand it, on the breeding of a new ruling caste for Europe.-

http://nietzsche.holtof.com/reader/frie ... 17fdb.html

To be clear, I think low of Nietzsche for this idea. It reads as a naive attempt to peacefully solve the JQ by intermarriage, something he should already have known wasn't working. Doomed to fail. But this is contrary to your characterization, and not what is meant by the term Jewish Supremacist.

I extended the quote a bit because Nietzsche had an interesting part of the second draft of this aphorism that was not included in the published version.

It comes after the bolded sentence.

and I am pleased in this respect to be in agreement with a famous expert on horses [referring to Bismark] about a recipe to be recommended here ("Christian stallions, Jewish mares").

- SUP edition of BGE.