| This
brilliant and absorbing study examines the image of Judaism and the
Jews in the work of two of the most influential modern philosophers,
Hegel and Nietzsche. Hegel was a proponent of universal reason and
Nietzsche was its opponent; Hegel was a Christian thinker and Nietzsche
was a self-proclaimed "Antichrist"; Hegel strove to bring modernity
to its climax, and Nietzsche wanted to divert the evolution of modernity
into completely different paths. In view of these conflicting attitudes
and philosophical projects, how did each assess the historical role
of the Jews and their place in the modern world?
The mature Hegel partly overcame the fierce anti-Jewish attitude
of his youth yet continued to see Judaism as the alienation of its
own new principles. Post-Christian Judaism no longer had a real
history, only a contingent protracted existence, and although modern
Jews deserved civil rights, Hegel saw no place for them in modernity
as Jews.
Nietzsche, on the contrary, who grew to be a passionate anti-anti-Semite,
admired Diaspora Jews for their power and depth and assigned them
a role as Jews in curing Europe of the decadent Christian culture
that their own ancestors, the second-temple Jewish "priests," had
inflicted upon Europe by begetting Christianity. The ancient corrupters
of Europe are thus to be its present redeemers.
Through his masterly analysis of the writings of Hegel and Nietzsche,
Yovel shows that anti-Jewish prejudice can exist alongside a philosophy
of reason, while a philosophy of power must not necessarily be anti-Semitic. |
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