Despite of his staunch criticism of Judaism and in
particular Christianity, does Friedrich Nietzsche qualify as anti-Semitic by
today’s standards?
By: Ringo Bones
In terms of the rules of late 20th Century
political correctness where supposedly only gay comedians are allowed to do
stand up routines criticizing themselves, one can safely say that Friedrich
Nietzsche is indeed anti Semitic by today’s standards. And yet there are a
number of Jewish scholars – like Robert Holub author of Nietzsche’s Jewish
Problem and Benjamin Silver - who had reached a consensus that goes “Friedrich
Nietzsche has many faults, but anti-Semitism isn’t one of them”. But why does
the name Friedrich Nietzsche seems to have become synonymous to anti Semitism,
especially to those college students of whom their rather “right-leaning
conservative” philosophy professor skirt through Nietzsche at an alarming pace
only to give the impression to their students that humanity’s greatest
philosopher is for all intents and purposes anti-Semitic/
In terms of historical accuracy, Friedrich Nietzsche is very
critical of what we now know as “Abrahamic Theology” – particularly Christianity
on which Nietzsche blames its rise on the Jews. A surprisingly very little
known weird fact is that much of the Nazis’ alleged affinity for Nietzsche’s
works was not when he was still in full creative control but only after his
sister Elisabeth tried to cash in on his work after he became an invalid,
especially after Elisabeth met Adolf Hitler and tried to promote her dead
brother’s writings.
Most importantly, Friedrich Nietzsche despised
anti-Semitism, especially the institutionalized one that musician Richard
Wagner embraced that often got tied in with German nationalism during the 1880s.
His sister and her husband both hated Jews and shared visions of a pure race.
Nietzsche’s sister and her husband even developed a colony in Paraguay to
realize their dream, which later failed - which is quite in contrast to the
mindset of Nietzsche during the height of his creative period. In one book - Beyond
Good and Evil – Nietzsche proposed that we “expel that anti Semitic squallers
out of the country.” In a letter to his sister, he wrote, “Your association
with an anti Semitic chief expresses a foreignness to my whole way of life
which fills me ever again with ire or melancholy.” Might it be that Friedrich
Nietzsche’s anti Semitism might be a case of his sister’s “criminal
manipulation” in order to cash in on his works?
