wkp@lanl.ARPA (08/13/85)
I'd like to comment on the recent discussion on Nietzsche, Judaism, Christianity, and the Nazis. Anyone familiar with Nietzsche knows of his repulsion for anti-semitism. His major break with the composer Richard Wagner occurred in no small part due to the latter's increasing anti-semitism. [See "The Case Against Wagner" or "Human, All-too-human" by Nietzsche.] Not only did Nietzsche despise anti-semitism (which he blaimed in large part on Christian theology) but some of his writings even show a glimpse of admiration for the Jews. In "The Geneology of Morals" he wrote that the Jews are "possessed of an unequal ethical genius." In "Beyond Good and Evil" he hopes for integration of the Jewish people into European Culture so as to create better Europeans. More than that, he rails against German anti-semitism and predicts that this sickness more than anything else will eventually destroy German culture. While it it true that Nietzsche despised the "slave morality" of Judaeo- Christian ethics, and pointed to the Jews as the people who flipped the ethics of Europe around, he was in no sense a race-hater. Rather he hoped to show that the actions of the Jews in adopting a "kind" morality was a logical reaction to an increasingly hostile gentile world. Finally, yes, he despised Christianity. But the real reason why the Nazis adopted him as one of their "fathers" was because of the vile "sales job" of his sister in her lust for fame and fortune. There is no doubt that Nietzsche's attitude toward the Nazis would have been of the most negative kind. -- bill peter ihnp4!lanl!wkp "O Mensch! Gib Acht! Was spricht die tieffe mitternacht? Die Welt ist Tief..." --Nietzsche, "Also Sprach Zarathustra"