DOCSLIB.ORG

THE INEQUALITY of HUMAN RACES the RENAISSANCE by ARTHUR, COUNT GOBINEAU

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
THE INEQUALITY of HUMAN RACES the RENAISSANCE by ARTHUR, COUNT GOBINEAU C&e Li&rarp of t|>r (Elntoerisitp of Bout Carolina THE LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA ENDOWED BY THE DIALECTIC AND PHILANTHROl C SOCIETIES CB 195 .G52 V S ' TY ° F NC AT CHAp r n!| ,^. EL HILL 10000725477 ft LIBRARY on This book is due at the WALTER R. DAVIS If not on hold it the last date stamped under "Date Due." may be renewed by bringing it to the library. DATE DATE RET. RET. DUE DUE DE5J6"<flj — '6 ?004 TErr^w MAY 2 7 2W NOV 2 5 20 » r' 20Q ! wy ' warns "> JUL v VLUUl Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2011 with funding from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill http://www.archive.org/details/inequalityofhumapOgobi THE INEQUALITY OF HUMAN RACES THE RENAISSANCE By ARTHUR, COUNT GOBINEAU. With an Introductory Essay on Count Levy. Gobineau's Life-Work by Dr. Oscar net One Vol., Demy 8vo, Illustrated 10s THE YOUNG NIETZSCHE By FRAU FORSTER NIETZSCHE. One Volume, Demy 8vo, Price 15s net THE LONELY NIETZSCHE By FRAU FORSTER NIETZSCHE. One Volume, Royal 8vo. Price 15s net NIETZSCHE By GEORGE BRANDES One Volume, Demy 8vo, 6s net HEINEMANN LONDON : WILLIAM THE INEQUALITY OF HUMAN RACES BY ARTHUR DE GOBINEAU TRANSLATED BY ADRIAN COLLINS, M.A. INTRODUCTION BY DR. OSCAR LEVY, EDITOR OF THE AUTHORISED ENGLISH VERSION OF NIETZSCHE'S WORKS \<&> WILLIAM HEINEMANN LONDON MCMXV London William Heinemann 1915 CONTENTS CHAP. PAGB INTRODUCTION vii FROM THE AUTHOR'S DEDICATION xi AUTHOR'S PREFACE xvii I. THE MORTAL DISEASE OF CIVILIZATIONS AND SOCIETIES PROCEEDS FROM GENERAL CAUSES COMMON TO THEM ALL i II. FANATICISM, LUXURY, CORRUPTION OF MORALS, AND IRRELIGION DO NOT NECESSARILY LEAD TO THE FALL OF SOCIETIES 7 III. THE RELATIVE MERIT OF GOVERNMENTS HAS NO INFLUENCE ON THE LENGTH OF A NATION'S LIFE 19 IV. THE MEANING OF THE WORD " DEGENERATION " ; THE MIXTURE OF RACIAL ELEMENTS; HOW SOCIETIES ARE FORMED AND BROKEN UP 23 V. RACIAL INEQUALITY IS NOT THE RESULT OF IN- STITUTIONS 36 VI. NATIONS. WHETHER PROGRESSING OR STAGNATING ARE INDEPENDENT OF THE REGIONS IN WHICH THEY LIVE S4 VII. CHRISTIANITY NEITHER CREATES NOR CHANGES THE CAPACITY FOR CIVILIZATION 63 VIII. DEFINITION OF THE WORD ** CIVILIZATION " ; SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT HAS A TWO-FOLD ORIGIN 77 IX. DEFINITION OF THE WORD " CIVILIZATION " (con- tinued); DIFFERENT CHARACTERISTICS OF CIVI- LIZED SOCIETIES; OUR CIVILIZATION IS NOT SUPERIOR TO THOSE WHICH HAVE GONE BEFORE 89 X. SOME ANTHROPOLOGISTS REGARD MAN AS HAVING A MULTIPLE ORIGIN 106 rr O O Q cv O CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE XI. RACIAL DIFFERENCES ARE PERMANENT 117 XII. HOW THE RACES WERE PHYSIOLOGICALLY SEPA- RATED, AND THE DIFFERENT VARIETIES FORMED BY THEIR INTER-MIXTURE. THEY ARE UN- EQUAL IN STRENGTH AND BEAUTY 141 XIII THE HUMAN RACES ARE INTELLECTUALLY UN- EQUAL ; MANKIND IS NOT CAPABLE OF INFINITE PROGRESS • 154 XIV. PROOF OF THE INTELLECTUAL INEQUALITY OF RACES {continued). DIFFERENT CIVILIZATIONS ARE MUTUALLY REPULSIVE; HYBRID RACES HAVE EQUALLY HYBRID CIVILIZATIONS 168 XV. THE DIFFERENT LANGUAGES ARE UNEQUAL, AND CORRESPOND PERFECTLY IN RELATIVE MERIT TO THE RACES THAT USE THEM 182 XVI. RECAPITULATION j THE RESPECTIVE CHARAC- TERISTICS OF THE THREE GREAT RACES ; THE , SUPERIORITY OF THE WHITE TYPE, AND, WITH- IN THIS TYPE, OF THE ARYAN FAMILY 205 — INTRODUCTION TO GOBINEAU'S ''INEQUALITY OF HUMAN RACES" Though many people have accused this age of irreligion, there is at least one point of similarity between modern Europe and that pre-Christian Era to which our present religion is due. Just as in ancient Palestine, there are living amongst us two kinds of prophets—the prophets of evil and disaster, and those of bliss, " or, as Europe likes to call it, of progress." As in Palestine of old the public usually sides with the lighter, the optimistic, the more comfortable sort of people, with the prophets of bliss, while Time and Fate invariably decide in favour of the sterner and gloomier individuals, the prophets of evil. In the world to-day as well as in Palestine of old, the prophets of bliss are the false prophets ; the prophets of evil, to-day as of yore, are the true ones. Such a true prophet was Count Arthur de Gobineau. Even his friends—those few friends whom he gained at the end of his life—still thought him unduly pessimistic. Old Wagner, who introduced him to the German public, thought of brightening his gloom by a little Christian faith, hope, and charity, in order to make the pill more palatable to that great public, which he, the great Stage-manager, knew so well. Other Germans—Chamberlain, Schemann, and the Gobineau school poured a great deal of water into his wine, sweetened it with patriotic syrups, adulterated it with their own pleasant inventions, which were all too readily swallowed by a gullible and credulous generation. But stern old Gobineau knew the world better than his young and cheerful offspring. He had seen through all that boisterous gaiety of the age, all its breathless labour, all its technical advancement, all its materialistic progress, and had diagnosed, behind it that muddle of moral values which our forefathers have bequeathed to us and which in our genera- tion has only become a greater muddle still. The catastrophe which Gobineau had prophesied to an Aristocracy which had vii INTRODUCTION forgotten its tradition, to a Democracy which had no root in reality, to a Christianity which he thought entirely inefficient, is now upon us. Under the stress of the present misfortunes, we frequently hear that all our previous opinions need revision, that we have to forget many things and to learn afresh still more, that we must try to build up our civilization on a safer basis, that we must reconsider and re-construct the values received from former ages. It is therefore our duty, I think, to turn back to those prophets who accused our forefathers of being on the road to destruction, all the more so as these prophets were likewise true poets who tried as such to point out the right road, endeavouring to remedy, as far as their insight went, the evil of their time. This is the best, and I trust a perfectly satisfactory, reason for the translation of " The Inequality of Human Races." This book, written as early as 1853, is no doubt a youthful and somewhat bewildering performance, but it gives us the basis of Gobineau's creed, his belief in Race and Aristocracy as the first condition of civilization, his disbelief in the influence of environ- ment, his distrust in the efficacy of religion and morality. The latter kind of scepticism brings him into relationship with Nietzsche, who has even accentuated Count Gobineau's sus- picions and who has branded our morality as Slave-Morality, and consequently as harmful to good government. What a Europe without Masters, but with plenty of Half-masters and Slaves, was driving at, Gobineau foresaw as well as Nietzsche. I sincerely hope that no intelligent reader will overlook this sceptical attitude of Gobineau towards religion, because that is a point of great importance at the present time, when our faith will certainly thrive again on a misfortune, which, by the pro- pagation of slave-values, it indirectly has caused. It is this scepticism against the Church and its Semitic values, which separates a Gobineau from Disraeli, to whom otherwise—in his rejection of Buckle, Darwin, and their science, in his praise of Race and Aristocracy, and in his prophecy of evil—he is so nearly related. Disraeli still believed in a Church based upon a revival viii INTRODUCTION of the old principles, Gobineau, like Nietzsche, had no hope whatever in this respect. It is the great merit of both Nietzsche and Gobineau, that they were not, like Disraeli, trying to revive a corpse, but that they frankly acknowledged, the one that the corpse was dead, the other that it was positively poisoning the air. The occasional bows which Gobineau makes to the Church cannot, I repeat, mislead any serious critics of his work, especially if they likewise consult his later books, about which, by the way, I have spoken at greater length elsewhere.* Both Spinoza and Montaigne had the same laudable habit, and they did not mean it either. For the first business of a great free- thinker is not to be mistaken for a little one ; his greatest misfor- tune is to be "understood " by the wrong class of people, and thus an occasional bow to the old and venerable Power—apart from the safety which it procures—protects him from an offensive handshake with enthusiastic and unbalanced disciples and apostles. OSCAR LEVY Geneva, July 1915 " * See my Introduction to Count Gobineau's " Renaissance (Heinemann). — FROM THE AUTHOR'S DEDICATION (1854)* TO HIS MAJESTY GEORGE V, KING OF HANOVER The great events—the bloody wars, the revolutions, and the breaking up of laws—which have been rife for so many years in the States of Europe, are apt to turn men's minds to the study of political problems. While the vulgar consider merely im- mediate results, and heap all their praise and blame on the little electric spark that marks the contact with their own interests, the more serious thinker will seek to discover the hidden causes of these terrible upheavals. He will descend, lamp in hand, by the obscure paths of philosophy and history ; and in the analysis of the human heart or the careful search among the annals of the past he will try to gain the master-key to the enigma which has so long baffled the imagination of man. Like every one else, I have felt all the prickings of curiosity to which our restless modern world gives rise.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Ex Oriente Tenebrae!
    Duncan Large Ex oriente tenebrae! Orientalism and Anti-Semitism in Oscar Levy’s Nietzsche 1 Introduction: Oscar Levy on Nietzsche’s Ecce Homo As general editor of the first Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche in English translation,1 Oscar Levy (1867–1946) played a vital part in the first wave of Nie- tzsche reception in England. Patrick Bridgwater argues: “rarely can a translation of a modern œuvre have exercised such powerful influence on so many important writers”.2 None of the translations in Levy’s English Nietzsche edition is by Levy himself (although he was translating two of Benjamin Disraeli’s novels into Ger- man at the same time);3 instead, in addition to negotiating the rights, corralling the translators and financing the edition, he proselytised for Nietzsche in his own writings through introductions and other essays. These certainly had the desired effect of winning readers for Nietzsche and raising awareness of the recently de- ceased German philosopher at an otherwise highly sensitive period of Anglo-Ger- man relations in the lead-up to the First World War. At the same time as Levy was promoting Nietzsche, though, he was not doing him any favours in the longer term by aligning him with various other causes which were dear to him person- ally, attaching Nietzsche’s name to his own dubious political programme. In this essay I want to examine Levy’s Nietzsche more closely by focussing on one of the less prominent – but none the less symptomatic – among his Nietzsche essays, his introduction to Nietzsche’s late autobiographical text Ecce homo.
    [Show full text]
  • Nietzsche and Wagner: Their Influence on National Socialism
    NIETZSCHE AND WAGNER: THEIR INFLUENCE ON NATIONAL SOCIALISM By Ethel Celeste Johnston Submitted as an Honors Paper In the Department of History TIE WOMAN'S COLLEGE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA GREENSBORO, NORTH CAROLINA 19U9 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page I. THE ACCUSATION 1 Connecting "Links" Heresay and Proof II. THE FATE OF GERMAN LIBERALISM. 3 The Revolution of 18U8 in Germany The Final Defeat of the German Liberals III. NIETZSCHE 5 The Prematurity of his Thought Biographical Sketch The Scope of his Work The Philosophy of the Superman Possible Perversion of his Thought Leading German nationalists of his Century 17. WAGNER 23 Gobineau's Influence on Wagner's Political Thought Wagner's Ideas on Nation and Race Biographical Sketch His Nationalistic Music His Part in the Revolution of 18U8 His Theories of Volk and Fuehrer His Anti-Semitism V. NIETZSCHE AND WAGNER: THEIR FRIENDSHIP AND PARTING.... 31 Nietzsche's Early Misinterpretation of Wagner's Purpose in Music The Effect of the Bayreuth Festival on Nietzsche's Idealism Reasons for their Parting VI. NIETZSCHE AND WAGNER AMONG THE NAZIS 35 Nietzsche as a Nazi National Hero Contrast of the Thinker's principles with Those of Hitler Wagner's Place in the Hierarchy of Nazi Heroes Comparison of Wagner's and Hitler's Ideas Influence of Wagner's Music on the Masses NIETZSCHE AND WACKIER: THEIR INFLUENCE ON NATIONAL SOCIALISM In 19U3 during the blackest days of World War II the United States Department of State issued a booklet on National Socialism— a summary of our enemy's ideology, its background, and its present application.
    [Show full text]
  • Nietzsche's Orientalism
    Duncan Large Nietzsche’s Orientalism Abstract: Edward Said may omit the German tradition from his ground-breaking study of Orientalism (1978), but it is clearly appropriate to describe Nietzsche as Orientalist in outlook. Without ever having left Western Europe, or even having read very widely on the subject, he indulges in a series of undiscriminating stereotypes about “Asia” and “the Orient”, borrowing from a range of contemporary sources. His is an uncom- mon Orientalism, though, for his evaluation of supposedly “Oriental” characteristics is generally positive, and they are used as a means to critique European decadence and degeneration. Because he defines the type “Oriental” reactively in opposition to the “European”, though, it is contradictory. Furthermore, on Nietzsche’s analysis “Europe” itself is less a type or a geographical designation than an agonal process of repeated self-overcoming. He reverses the received evaluation of the Europe-Orient opposition only in turn to deconstruct the opposition itself. Europe first emerged out of Asia in Ancient Greece, Nietzsche claims, and it has remained a precarious achieve- ment ever since, repeatedly liable to “re-orientalisation”. He argues that “Oriental” Christianity has held Europe in its sway for too long, but his preferred antidote is a further instance of European “re-orientalisation”, at the hands of the Jews, whose productive self-difference under a unified will he views as the best model for the “good Europeans” of the future. Keywords: Orientalism, Edward Said, Asia, Europe, Christianity, Jews, good Europeans. Zusammenfassung: Auch wenn in Edward Saids bahnbrechender Studie Orienta- lismus (1978) die deutsche Tradition nicht vorkommt, lässt sich Nietzsches Haltung doch als ‚orientalistisch‘ beschreiben.
    [Show full text]
  • The New Europe Group and New Britain Movement (1931–1935)
    Pioneers of European Federalism: the New Europe Group and New Britain Movement (1931–1935) By: David Graham Page A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy The University of Sheffield Faculty of Arts and Humanities Department of History October 2016 ABSTRACT This thesis is the first in-depth study of the early 1930s Bloomsbury-based New Europe Group (NEG) and New Britain Movement (NBM), which constituted a politicised social movement led by Dimitrije Mitrinović. The Introduction situates the NEG/NBM as the British manifestation of the nouvelles relèves , the northwest European cluster of extra-parliamentary political groups that were neither plainly left-wing nor right-wing, but rather were infused with a spiritually based ideology influenced by the Personalist philosopher Emmanuel Mounier. Chapter 1 scrutinises the NEG/NBM as an antisystem challenger to the National Government, and analyses the movement’s ‘political perfectionist’ antisystemness in the context of the syncretic turn in British extra- parliamentary politics. Chapter 2 discusses the dynamics of the NEG/NBM, including its ‘prefigurative politics’ and Mitrinović’s use of ‘strategic ambiguity.’ Chapter 3 contextualises the European federalist thought of Mitrinović and other prominent figures in the NEG/NBM, and examines their understanding of the ‘European civil war’ and perception of the European and world ‘crisis.’ Chapter 4 begins with a comparative analysis of the proposals for European unity advanced by Richard Nikolaus von Coudenhove-Kalergi, Aristide Briand, and Mitrinović and the NEG/NBM. The chapter then details the lines of reasoning the NEG/NBM used to make a case for Eurofederalism, and explains the movement’s proposals for European governance and federal institutions.
    [Show full text]
  • The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche VOL
    FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE Or, How to Philosophise with the Hammer THE ANTICHRIST NOTES TO ZARATHUSTRA, AND ETERNAL RECURRENCE TRANSLATED BY ANTHONY M. LUDOVICI The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche The First Complete and Authorised English Translation Edited by Dr Oscar Levy Volume Sixteen T.N. FOULIS 13 & 15 FREDERICK STREET EDINBURGH: AND LONDON 1911 Downloaded from https://www.holybooks.com CONTENTS TWILIGHT OF THE IDOLS TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE PREFACE MAXIMS AND MISSILES THE PROBLEM OF SOCRATES "REASON" IN PHILOSOPHY MORALITY AS THE ENEMY OF NATURE THE FOUR GREAT ERRORS THE "IMPROVERS" OF MANKIND THINGS THE GERMANS LACK SKIRMISHES IN A WAR WITH THE AGE THINGS I OWE TO THE ANCIENTS THE ANTICHRIST THE ETERNAL RECURRENCE NOTES TO ZARATHUSTRA TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE The Twilight of the Idols was written towards the end of the summer of 1888, its composition seems to have occupied only a few days,—so few indeed that, in Ecce Homo (p. 118), Nietzsche says he hesitates to give their number; but, in any case, we know it was completed on the 3rd of September in Sils Maria. The manuscript which was dispatched to the printers on the 7th of September bore the title: "Idle Hours of a Psychologist"; this, however, was abandoned in favour of the present title, while the work was going through the press. During September and the early part of October 1888, Nietzsche added to the original contents of the book by inserting the whole section entitled "Things the Germans Lack," and aphorisms 32-43 of "Skirmishes in a War with the Age"; and the book, as it now stands, represents exactly the form in which Nietzsche intended to publish it in the course of the year 1889.
    [Show full text]
  • The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, by H
    Project Gutenberg's The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, by H. L. Mencken This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook. Title: The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche Author: H. L. Mencken Release Date: June 29, 2015 [EBook #49316] Language: English *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PHILOSOPHY OF FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE *** Produced by Clare Graham & Marc D'Hooghe at http://www.freeliterature.org (Images generously made available by the Internet Archive.) THE PHILOSOPHY OF FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE BY H. L. MENCKEN I shall be told, I suppose, that my philosophy is comfortless—because I speak the truth; and people prefer to believe that everything the Lord made is good. If you are one such, go to the priests, and leave philosophers in peace! Arthur Schopenhauer. Third Edition BOSTON LUCE AND COMPANY 1913 PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION When this attempt to summarize and interpret the principal ideas of Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was first published, in the early part of 1908, several of his most important books were yet to be translated into English and the existing commentaries were either fragmentary and confusing or frankly addressed to the specialist in philosophy.
    [Show full text]
  • New Age, Vol. 16, No. 10, Jan 7, 1915
    PAGE PAGE NOTES OF THE WEEK . .233 READERSAND WRITERS. By P. Selver and E. X. B. 248 CU RR EN T CANTCURRENT . .235 MEMOIRS : X DIALOGUE. By Rudolf Presber FOREIGNAFFAIRS. By S. Verdad . 236 (translated by P. Selver) . 250 MILITARYNOTES. By Romney . .237 LETTERSFROM RUSSIA. By C. E. Bechhöfer . 252 LETTERSTO A TRADEUNIONIST-I. By Rowland CURRENTVERSE . .”53 Kenney .237 THE IDEALISTICREACTION AGAINST SCIENCE.By WARAND RELIGION. By DmitriMerezhkovski . 239 CoomaraswamyAnanda . .255 THE CASEOF EGYPT. By MarmadukePickthall . 240 PASTICHE.By P. Selver, H. H., FitzgeraldLane, “THEMENACE OF ENGLISHJUNKERDOM.” By A Arthur F. Thorn . 256 Publicist . 241 LETTERSTO THE EDITOR from C. H. Norman, Per GOBINEAUAND CHAMBERLAIN.By Dr.Oscar Levy 242 Sona, X, A. C. Nash,Arthur Kitson, J. M., THE HYPHENATEDSTATES OF AMERICA--I.By E. H. K. C., Harold Lister, Pteleon, For Rich E. A. B. .“43 and Poor, Millar Dunning, Upton Sinclair, An IMPRESSIONS OF PARIS.By Alice Morning . .245 Admirer of Mosesand Isaiah, Frederick, H. AFFIRMATIONS-I. ARNOLDDOLMETSCH. By Ezra Evans, A. F. T., Fair-to-All, John Duncan, Pound . 246 M. K. Hull, A Music-hallArtiste . 258 NOTES OF THE WEEK. Chancellor of the Exchequer, it will be recollected, stated definitely in the House of Commons that the Stock Ex- FROM time to time during the last four or five months change wouldbe opened under such conditions that the Government has relieved public anxiety by denying there could not be a “bear raid’’ on the new loan. plausible rumours of British disasters or defeats on land *** and sea. In recent weeks so relatively many adverse in- cidentshave become known tothe public, andthe Anotherpoint.
    [Show full text]
  • The Influence of Friedrich Nietzsche Upon Gabriele D'annunzio's
    THE “POLITICS OF POETRY”: THE INFLUENCE OF FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE UPON GABRIELE D’ANNUNZIO’S LEADERSHIP OF FIUME An Honors Thesis Submitted to the Department of Politics in partial fulfillment of the Honors Program By Samuel Cohen Aprill 2020 Spring 2020 Politics Department Honors Thesis Table of Contents Chapter I: Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 1 Chapter II: Gabriele D’Annunzio ............................................................................................................. 7 Chapter III: The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche ............................................................................. 23 Chapter IV: Nietzsche in Fiume .............................................................................................................. 36 Chapter V: Conclusion ............................................................................................................................. 59 Bibliography .............................................................................................................................................. 61 Chapter I: Introduction Proposal The aesthetics of Fascism are relatively ubiquitous: parades, uniformed paramilitaries, quasi-religious political symbolism, balcony speeches and massed crowds that blur the line between the individual and the state. These seemingly hallmark attributes did not begin with Hitler’s speeches in Nuremburg, or even Mussolini’s march on Rome.
    [Show full text]
  • Ex Oriente Tenebrae!
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by University of East Anglia digital repository Duncan Large Ex oriente tenebrae! Orientalism and Anti-Semitism in Oscar Levy’s Nietzsche 1 Introduction: Oscar Levy on Nietzsche’s Ecce Homo As general editor of the first Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche in English translation,1 Oscar Levy (1867–1946) played a vital part in the first wave of Nie- tzsche reception in England. Patrick Bridgwater argues: “rarely can a translation of a modern œuvre have exercised such powerful influence on so many important writers”.2 None of the translations in Levy’s English Nietzsche edition is by Levy himself (although he was translating two of Benjamin Disraeli’s novels into Ger- man at the same time);3 instead, in addition to negotiating the rights, corralling the translators and financing the edition, he proselytised for Nietzsche in his own writings through introductions and other essays. These certainly had the desired effect of winning readers for Nietzsche and raising awareness of the recently de- ceased German philosopher at an otherwise highly sensitive period of Anglo-Ger- man relations in the lead-up to the First World War. At the same time as Levy was promoting Nietzsche, though, he was not doing him any favours in the longer term by aligning him with various other causes which were dear to him person- ally, attaching Nietzsche’s name to his own dubious political programme. In this essay I want to examine Levy’s Nietzsche more closely by focussing on one of the less prominent – but none the less symptomatic – among his Nietzsche essays, his introduction to Nietzsche’s late autobiographical text Ecce homo.
    [Show full text]
  • Breeding Superman Nietzsche, Race and Eugenics in Edwardian and Interwar Britain
    Breeding Superman Nietzsche, Race and Eugenics in Edwardian and Interwar Britain DAN STONE LIVERPOOL UNIVERSITY PRESS Oscar Levy: A Nietzschean Vision insights into the coming European cataclysm. Although many of his claims, CHAPTER ONE stemming as they do from his belief in the need to overthrow decadent Judeo- Christian values and replace them with an aristocratic conception of society, are inimical to today’s mainstream beliefs, they are consistent, compelling, and Oscar Levy: A Nietzschean Vision not easily dismissed. That they also led Levy into the arms of some of Britain’s most eccentric extremists, notably George Lane-Fox Pitt-Rivers, is only one of the conundra that I hope to address in this analysis of one of the most tal- ented, committed and ‘untimely’ of British intellectuals. Shortly after arriving in London, where he set up a doctor’s practice, Levy had a ‘moment of realization’ during one of his trips to the British Museum, a moment described in his autobiography as follows: I have the sudden thought that Monotheism etc. may not be ‘Progress’ after all, as I had been taught in school and life under the (unconscious) influ- . it was the Jews who started the slave revolt in morals; a revolt with two ence of Hegel. My Damascus: ‘But then the Jews were wrong!?’ The Chosen millennia of history behind it, which we have lost sight of today simply People not chosen for Beauty like the Greeks? Only for Morality, and what because it has triumphed so completely . Let us face facts: the people a Morality: the curses of J.C.! I have never recovered from my ‘Damascus’, have triumphed - or the slaves, the mob, the herd, whatever you wish to call and today at the age of 75, I hold it even with more fervour than 50 years them - and if the Jews brought it about, then no nation ever had a more uni- ago.
    [Show full text]
  • Dissertation Universität Trier, Fachbereich III 1
    Dissertation Universität Trier, Fachbereich III 1. Berichterstatter: Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schieder 2. Berichterstatter: Prof. Dr. Christof Dipper Datum der letzten mündlichen Prüfung: 13. Februar 1997 Marita Knödgen Die frühe politische Nietzsche-Rezeption in Großbritannien, 1895-1914 Eine Studie zur deutsch-britischen Kulturgeschichte INHALTSVERZEICHNIS I. Einleitung 1 1. Nietzsche in Großbritannien 1 2. Stand der Forschung 2 3. Nietzsche und sein Leser 7 4. Methode und Vorgehensweise 15 II. Zwischen Viktorianismus und Moderne 20 1. Die Jahrhundertwende - eine Übergangszeit 20 2. Massengesellschaft, Arbeiterbewegung und große Depression 21 3. Parlamentsreform, Irland und Imperialismus 23 4. Bildungsreform, New Journalism und Decadence 27 5. Die Säkularisation der britischen Gesellschaft 29 6. Die Ankunft von Nietzsches Philosophie in England 30 III. Der Levy-Zirkel: Nietzsche und Sozialdarwinistischer Konservativismus 33 1. The Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche 33 2. Oscar Levy: Die Wiedergeburt der Aristokratie 44 3. Thomas Common: Die Organisation der Philosophen 52 4. Anthony Mario Ludovici: Die Verteidigung der Aristokratie 60 5. John Macfarland Kennedy: Eine Ideologie für die Tory-Party 68 6. Maximilian Alexander Mügge: Eugenik und Übermensch 73 7. Zusammenfassung 80 IV. Die Fabian Society: Nietzsche und Kollektivistischer Sozialismus 88 1. Die Fabian Society 88 2. George Bernard Shaw: Life Force und Superman 97 3. Herbert George Wells: Die Elite der Samurai 105 4. Holbrock Jackson: Die Fabier als Künstler-Philosophen 114 5. Zusammenfassung 120 V. The New Age: Nietzsche und Gildensozialismus 127 1. Eine Wochenzeitung für die Avantgarde 127 2. Alfred Richard Orage: Ein Forum für neue Philosophen 139 3. Herbert Read: Eine Philosophie des Anarchismus 151 4. Edwin Muir: Gegen die Moderne 157 5.
    [Show full text]
  • Introduction
    Notes Introduction 1. Walter Rehm, ‘Der Renaissancekult um 1900 und seine Überwindung’, Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie 54 (1929): 298, my translation. Throughout this volume, most translations from the German are my own. In the cases of Jacob Burckhardt, Thomas Mann, Friedrich Nietzsche, and several others, however, I have used standard English translations, and provided my own translation of the original only when conciseness rendered such intervention necessary. 2. Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality Volume 1: An Introduction, trans. Robert Hurley (New York: Vintage Books, 1980). 3. Robert Crawford, ‘Pater’s Renaissance, Andrew Lang, and Anthropological Romanticism’, ELH 53 (1986): 849–79; Richard Dellamora, Masculine Desire: The Sexual Politics of Victorian Aestheticism (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990); Linda C. Dowling, Hellenism and Homosexuality in Victorian Oxford (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994). 4. Dowling, Hellenism, xiii. 5. I do not wish to suggest that any and all writers in Europe during this period who felt same-sex sexual attraction had the same experiences. My point is that those intellectuals who were aware of, or identified with, this new class of person (the homosexual) clearly shared an interest in fin-de-siècle dis- courses of sexuality; and that for some, those discourses were understood in the context of other, less taboo discourses (Oxford Hellenism, the Renaissance revival, socialism, anarchy, individualism, and so on). 6. Anna McCarthy, ‘Crab People From the Center of the Earth’, GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 11:1 (2005): 98; Gustavus T. Stadler, ‘Queer Guy for the Straight “I” ’, GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 11:1 (2005): 109.
    [Show full text]