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.

[Archie]

Full video (lecture, "On the Genealogy of Morals"): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2F-T0sJfMQ

I don't think anyone mentioned the slave/master morality yet. Nietzsche famously connects the Christianity with the slave morality which he criticizes. But he also traces this further to back to the Jews, especially in the post-exilic period. This assessment of Judaism seems a bit off to me, or at least very incomplete.

If we were to attempt to recast Kevin MacDonald's critique of Jews in Nietzschean terms, we might say that Jews pretend to have a slave morality, i.e., they promote slave morality to their hosts as a trick, to the extent it benefits them, while covertly pursuing a private master morality. That is to say, they definitely seek power, but because they are too weak to rule transparently they have to rule in secret. They have to rule while insisting that they are the downtrodden.

[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."

IN BRIEF:
According to Friedrich Nietzsche’s understanding of “the Jews”, the “price” jews are prepared to ‘pay’ to ensure the continued existence of their abstract concept of themselves involves a radical falsification of “all reality”. That includes their inner, mental ‘world’ as well as the ‘outer’ which we all share.

A good example of the truth of that observation can be witnessed here:

[Nazgul]

Those Aryans could then take up leadership positions, so perhaps Hitler was also a Jewish Supremacist.

[pilgrimofdark]

This is more about a specific interpretation of Nietzsche than Nietzsche's writings themselves, but was interesting to me.

Nietzscheism is listed in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion as an agent of Judaism, in addition to Marxism and Darwinism.

Nietzsche, an anti-Christian anti-Semite, got transformed into an anti-Christian secret Zionist.

In the Russia of the late 1800/early 1900s, where the Protocols were written, a type of Zionist perception of Nietzsche was discussed (among other interpretations). The concept of the Übermensch (overman or superman) was identified with Jewish supremacism -- a collective Superman.

This is associated with Asher Ginzberg's (aka Ahad Ha-Am) "spiritual Zionism," among other writers.

So according to a specific Russian understanding, Jews promoted Nietzscheism in combination with Darwinism and Marxism:

• Darwinism: materialism, world domination
• Marxism: mass democracy, anti-Russian autocracy, Marx being Jewish
• Nietzscheism: the people of Israel as collective Superman

These three agents of Judaism were originally mentioned in a parenthetical translator's notation, but were moved into the main body of the Protocols and attributed to the Sages/Elders themselves in the more popular version published in 1905 by Sergei Nilus.

I don't think the original 1903 version of the Protocols has ever been translated into English.

edit: typos.

[Archie]

This is more about a specific interpretation of Nietzsche than Nietzsche's writings themselves, but was interesting to me.

I discussed this issue briefly in the OP. I was not aware of this Protocols reference.

Addendum: Kaufmann and Levy

As an afterthought, I will mention that Jews have played a major role in interpreting Nietzsche in the English-speaking world. Jewish scholar Walter Kaufmann was a major translator and biographer of Nietzsche and had considerable influence over the interpretations of Nietzsche after WWII. Interestingly, prior to Kaufmann, there was a different Jew, Oscar Levy, who edited the first complete English editions of Nietzsche's works in 1909-1913. One of the main translators who worked with Levy was the far-right intellectual Anthony Ludovici. They were apparently quite close. At a glance, I do not detect much of a Jewish agenda behind Levy's efforts. I can't say the same for Kaufmann, however. Kaufmann's thing seems to have been to distance Nietzsche from the far-right associations of the Third Reich era and to package him to be more amenable to the liberal sensibilities of post-WWII America. To some extent, Kaufmann was probably correct that the interpretations of Nietzsche after his death were often not very reflective of Nietzsche himself. But I think it was inevitable that some of Nietzsche's ideas (the superman, etc) would be blended with parallel Darwinian and racialist concepts even if Nietzsche himself did not really draw such connections.

Counter Currents sells some works of Ludovici
https://counter-currents.com/product/th ... d-edition/
https://counter-currents.com/product/co ... -feminist/

---

So according to a specific Russian understanding, Jews promoted Nietzscheism in combination with Darwinism and Marxism:
Darwinism: materialism, world domination
Marxism: mass democracy, anti-Russian autocracy, Marx being Jewish
Nietzscheism: collective Superman of the people of Israel
These three agents of Judaism were originally mentioned in a parenthetical translator's notation, but were moved into the main body of the Protocols and attributed to the Sages/Elders themselves in the more popular version published in 1905 by Sergei Nilus.

Calling Nietzsche a Zionist seems a bit anachronistic/ahistorical as the Zionist movement was not very developed when he was writing. He would have to be a "proto" Zionist or something.

I suspect these three were selected for this unholy trinity in the Protocols simply because they are three anti-Christian intellectuals (Darwin indirectly).

It's interesting to contrast this view with the generally favorable NS view toward Nietzsche (and Darwin). I would attibute this to the NS emphasis on biology/race along with a deemphasis on Christianity. Needless to say, Marx was still hated in the NS era.

[pilgrimofdark]

Calling Nietzsche a Zionist seems a bit anachronistic/ahistorical as the Zionist movement was not very developed when he was writing. He would have to be a "proto" Zionist or something.

I suspect these three were selected for this unholy trinity in the Protocols simply because they are three anti-Christian intellectuals (Darwin indirectly).

Nietzsche's idea of the Übermensch may have been appropriated by Russian Jewish circles due to its compatibility with the "Chosen People" concept, and attached to Zionism as it developed.

Alternatively, the Russian right could have just imputed this interpretation of Nietzsche onto the Russian Zionists. That would explain their disdain for Nietzsche and inclusion of Nietzscheism in the Protocols.

Or a bit of both?

I'm not familiar enough with the actual historical development of this idea, and it's a bit immaterial since we know how the Protocols writers used it.

Asher Ginzberg, the spiritual Zionist thinker, has even been proposed as an author of the Protocols in its various origin legends.

It's interesting to contrast this view with the generally favorable NS view toward Nietzsche (and Darwin). I would attibute this to the NS emphasis on biology/race along with a deemphasis on Christianity. Needless to say, Marx was still hated in the NS era.

Yes, interesting how Nietzschean concepts were interpreted similarly, but used for different purposes (pro-German or anti-Jewish). Nietzsche being German himself might have something to do with it, despite all his anti-German and anti-European sentiments.