Eugen Dühring: Elimination of All Judaic Elements, Chapter Four, Seventh Point
Ausscheidung alles Judäerthums, Kapitel Vier, Siebter Punkt
Source Material: German Scan | German Corrected
Editor’s Note: This work is part of a series; refer to Table of Contents.
Seventh Point:
Heightened Emergence of the Full Inhumanity of Jewish Impulses with the Retreat of Crude Superstition. Economic and Literary Judaization. Role of a Creative Self-Awareness of Modern Peoples.
From yet another perspective, something can be learned about the incompatibility of the Jewish racial spirit with modern national views by referring to Spinoza. Suppose all Jews had abandoned their cruder superstitions and developed into Spinozists or even adherents of still freer views: in that case, religious Judaism in the usual sense of the synagogue would disappear, but it would persist in their racial ways of thinking and inclinations. But what is even more decisive is that, even apart from the somewhat naturalistically shaped religious conceptions that still exist in Spinoza according to a Jewish framework, the core of Jewish racial morality—which sees virtue in personal gain, i.e., elevates egoism to a principle—would emerge as authoritative, all the more starkly and unrestrainedly.
The original, truly religious Jews still had the thunder and lightning from Sinai before their eyes and ears. They were, to some extent, tamed among themselves by the terror of Jehovah, and this terror was indeed a necessity for the Jewish race. Spinoza himself states that it was a matter of breaking Jewish stubbornness, and accordingly, Jehovah attacked the Jews not with reasons but with thunder and lightning.
Indeed, even today and into all future time, nothing can be achieved against Jewish impulses with reasons. The ancestral rein is a system of terror, and this fact can serve as a guiding thread throughout all further Jewish history.
The core of Jewish racial morality—which sees virtue in personal gain, i.e., elevates egoism to a principle—would emerge as authoritative, all the more starkly and unrestrainedly.
If, therefore, the actual superstition were ever to completely disappear—which, despite all modern intellectual powers, might take the longest to happen precisely due to Jewish tenacity—it could only result in making the racial Jewish essence even more shameless and even more unbearable for modern peoples. The Jewish impulses would then persist as a natural fact; they would no longer be sanctioned by a religion that supports them, but they would also no longer be restricted in any way from that side. In such a state, it would become palpable what the natural racial constitution itself entails.
Exploitation and the so-called struggle for existence would strive to assume an even more depraved form toward modern peoples than before. A restriction through new intellectual motives would be unthinkable. If they came from the Jews themselves, they would only further increase their selfishness; if they came from the better peoples, they would, being dissimilar, bear no fruit.
The receptivity for this would be racially absent, and if modern peoples want to achieve anything against the Jews, they must follow Jehovah’s example; as stated, they must attack them with thunder and lightning rather than with reasons and intellectual elements. Nothing can ever come from the Jewish race that is compatible with the better peoples. This applies to material as well as intellectual conditions; it applies to economics and politics on the one hand and to literature and art on the other.
In this regard, I must refer to my other writings, particularly to “The Jewish Question” and the supplementary text on “The Overestimation of Lessing.” Here, however, it should be particularly emphasized how presently the incompatibility of the Jewish essence and the modern national essence—especially the opposition between Judaism and Germanness—emerges, indeed one might say erupts, in all areas, from the most subtle theoretical to the most tangible practical.
I hardly need to say anything here about the racial economy of the Jews in itself. It is the truly tangible element in the fact of incompatibility. Moreover, as previously hinted, it is a piece of their religion, namely with regard to gaining dominion over all peoples through lending to them.
This racial economy also primarily explains the presence of a large number of Jewish associates; for the latter consist mostly of elements that are financially dependent on the Jews. In material terms, modern peoples—foremost the Germans and Slavs—are now visibly resisting Jewish absorption and accumulation of wealth. Without energetic measures, such as the mediatization of Jewish financial princes and money institutes that I have proposed, and without exceptional laws that apply only to Jews but do not affect general freedom—i.e., the freedom of the better peoples—nothing significant can be achieved in the face of the existing Jewish power, especially given the forms of our societal conditions.
Economics and the material are a matter of religion for the Jews. But what resulted from this self-rejection as an isolated trait of Christianity—namely, the ascetic renunciation of worldly striving—has harmed modern peoples enough, insofar as it truly impaired the health of their thinking, and played into the hands of the Jews.
For the Jewish race, the exploitation of other peoples remained in harmony with their religion, while Christianity sought to set these better peoples at odds with themselves and divert them from cultivating material well-being toward otherworldly concerns. The Jewish race thus gained a double advantage from what had originated with it. On the one hand, it exploited unimpeded, and on the other, it paralyzed the economic considerations and efforts of those being exploited through the imported religion.
Something similar can be observed regarding the pernicious influence of the racial servile mindset. This originates from the fear of power and cowardice inherent to the Jewish race, which aligns very well with its domineering, enslaving nature. In Israeli Christianity, however, that servile mindset became something voluntary, which, for example, was to be exercised toward authority—not only with regard to its power but almost as if it were a piece of love.
Under this paralysis of inner vitality, which stemmed from the Christian variant of Judaism, modern peoples have indeed suffered and continue to suffer. Political institutions and ideas have been all too often infused and falsified by this freedom- and nation-contrary import. But this is only for comparison, showing how, in economics and politics, the absorption of the vital forces of better nations has had a Israeli origin and is rooted in the same racial character.
Nothing can ever come from the Jewish race that is compatible with the better peoples. This applies to material as well as intellectual conditions; it applies to economics and politics on the one hand and to literature and art on the other.
As regards the press, literature, and art, it is well-known that newspapers, fiction, and the theater are in the hands of the Jews. They are so first and foremost financially, but then also further in terms of personal involvement.
At the very least, the press and a large part of fine—or rather, light—literature are operated by Jews as a business. This is palpably the case with the so-called liberal press; but in conservative newspaper editorial offices, Jews wield almost as much influence, albeit more discreetly. Moreover, Jews also push into the theaters, where they bring hypocrisy but not aesthetic qualities.
In all these areas, they document their lack of nobler intellectual abilities and morality. Among the Germans, the Judaization of literature began primarily with Lessing, who visibly belonged to Jewish blood, but it made its most significant strides only in the 19th century, such that it reached its peak during the undisturbed heyday of the Jews, 1860–80. Finally, it has been somewhat recognized that this Judaization is incompatible with the intellectual existence of the nation.
Indeed, reading literary Jewish productions, whether newspapers or books, is hardly possible anymore for a refined sensibility without moral or aesthetic revulsion. For the connoisseur, the Jewish corruption visible everywhere in them is downright nauseating. I do not even need to speak here of the power exerted by the press to dominate all affairs, as this goes beyond the perspective that must primarily be maintained in the context of this writing.
But even the immoral and unaesthetic infection that goes hand in hand with literary Judaization creates a condition that is unbearable in the long run. German spirit and German literature are incompatible with the characteristics of the Jewish race. If the latter, with its literary claims to dominance, is not pushed back and out again, our national literature will cease to exist.
Indeed, something similar can be said of the press and literature of modern peoples in general; for the dominance of Jewish literati branches out across the world and oppresses all continents and countries where there is anything to be gained. During the aforementioned heyday of the Jews, legislation also became significantly Judaized, and it is precisely through this that the gulf between that worst Semitic tribe and the Germans became quite apparent. Inherent to the Jew, along with crass selfishness, is also injustice, which has accompanied him throughout history.
Selfishness differs from legitimate self-interest precisely in that it becomes unjust toward others by feeding off them. And the Jews form the prime example of a people that enriches itself at the expense of others by all bad means. As these means have come to include the influencing of legislation—indeed, personal participation in it—the national impossibility of such cooperation and coexistence has become even more decisively evident than in other respects.
To Judaize the justice system of modern peoples means to transform it into its opposite. To afflict German justice with Jewish-style legislation and flood it with lawyers and judges of Jewish descent means not only to uproot it nationally but to strip the Germans of their rights altogether. We, and other modern peoples as well, still have some ancestral concepts of serious justice that could only perish along with the better national character itself.
But such a downfall would occur if the Jewish influence continued as it has so far—that is, if, in addition to the material possessions of the peoples, the business-like making of right and wrong were also handed over to the Jews. I hardly need to mention the specific commercial legislation. Here, mere customs are to take precedence; that is, all bad practices, as primarily exercised by the Jews, have been granted the force of primary law.
Yet in this area, the Jewish business still somewhat hides behind a more general commercial corruption. Far worse is that, through the participation of Jews, the more general legislation—which does not deal with material exceptional laws or trade-related jurisdictional privileges—has greatly lost its better principles and has indeed been substantively and formally corrupted in new, significant revisions.
The procedural regulations of Germany, introduced toward the end of that Jewish heyday, have been characterized by me elsewhere with regard to their failure in the sense of the Jewish character, and their spirit—concerning compulsory legal representation, lawyers’ fees, court costs, the arbitrariness of individuals, lack of procedural oversight, etc.—is already sufficiently well-known. Overall, they give the impression as if justice as a business, with its most complicated machinery, were the actual purpose, and the affairs of the public were merely material for it.
But the rest of the legislation has also provided enough traits in which the material interests—or rather, impulses—of the Jews manifested themselves through privilege-creating maneuvers. It goes without saying, however, that all modern measures have always been influenced by the Jews in such a way that the exploitation of the nation through Jewish money—that is, through large and small Jewish manipulations—proceeded most abundantly. Behind this lies the striving for a politically shaped dominion over the other peoples.
If modern peoples want to achieve anything against the Jews, they must follow Jehovah’s example; as stated, they must attack them with thunder and lightning rather than with reasons and intellectual elements.
If, in view of the outbreak of the racial incompatibility of all Jewish interference with the well-being of the better peoples, no fundamental remedy is applied and all Judaism is not removed from modern nations, then only calamity and corruption can follow. Good morals and good law would then ultimately vanish entirely, and the nations would succumb, both materially and spiritually, to the infection as if to a bad disease.
Consider only what is already being imposed on the German. He must let extracts from ancient counter-writings and Israeli commandments be impressed upon him as his supposed morality, and he must watch as the living generation of Jews disfigures his current legislation with their racial stamp. Already thousands of years ago, he had something better in his forests.
His family, stemming from there, grew into noble customs out of his own better character, and he must find himself, along with it and indeed with his law and the entire soulful shaping of all conditions, strangely affected when the pronouncements from Sinai are forced upon him as a model by which he must guide himself. Such a thing is indeed a complete reversal of truth and nature. The noble must not let itself be mastered by the bad and backward.
Israeli Christianity, too, as shown, stands far lower than what the Germanic and modern peoples possess in their own national characteristics and must purely develop from them. The elimination of Judaism from all areas will therefore only be complete when the spirit required for this among modern peoples has not only consciously broken entirely with that Jewish tradition called Christianity but has also created a replacement for religion.
This higher creation can only emerge from the predispositions of modern nations, and it will first be a German task to demonstrate how spiritual emancipation from all old Jewish traditions is to be combined with material emancipation from all new Jewish interference. In this way, it will become clear how modern nations are called not only to an upsurge in industry and natural science but also to a fundamentally altered foundation of their entire intellectual leadership—that is, to the creation of a spiritual power that will penetrate deeper and have greater impact than any religion, let alone a Israeli one, has ever achieved.
For this, however, a self-awareness of modern peoples is required, one that has not yet been conceived of until now. The better modern peoples must realize that they are not only to cast off Asianism but also to become the bearers themselves of a new world era of the highest intellectual expressions.