| THE OWNER 251 |
the coal-mines or at the loom? Are these not birthrights, rights
that have come down to me from my parents through birth?
You think -- no; you think these are only rights improperly so
called, it is just these rights that you aim to abolish through
the real birthright. To give a basis for this you go
back to the simplest thing and affirm that every one is by birth
equal to another -- to wit, a man. I will grant
you that every one is born as man, hence the new-born are therein
equal to each other. Why are they? Only because they
do not yet show and exert themselves as anything but bare -- children
of men, naked little human beings. But thereby they are at
once different from those who have already made something out
of themselves, who thus are no longer bare "children of man,"
but -- children of their own creation. The latter possesses more
than bare birthrights: they have earned rights. What
an antithesis, what a field of combat! The old combat of the birthrights
of man and well-earned rights. Go right on appealing to your birthrights;
people will not fail to oppose to you the well-earned. Both stand
on the "ground of right"; for each of the two has a
"right" against the other, the one the birthright of
natural right, the other the earned or "well-earned"
right.
If you remain on the ground of right,
you remain in -- Rechthaberei*. The other cannot give
you your right; he cannot "mete out right" to you. He
who has might has -- right; if you have not the former,
*"I beg you, spare my lungs! He who insists
on proving himself right, if he but has one of those things called
tongues, can hold his own in all the world's despite!" [Faust's
words to Mephistopheles, slightly misquoted. -- For Rechthaberei
see note on p. 185.]
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252 THE EGO AND HIS OWN |
neither have you the latter. Is this wisdom so hard to attain?
Just look at the mighty and their doings! We are talking here
only of China and Japan, of course. Just try it once, you Chinese
and Japanese, to make them out in the wrong, and learn by experience
how they throw you into jail. (Only do not confuse with this the
"well-meaning counsels" which -- in China and Japan
-- are permitted, because they do not hinder the mighty one, but
possibly help him on.) For him who should want to make
them out in the wrong there would stand open only one way thereto,
that of might. If he deprives them of their might, then
he has really made them out in the wrong, deprived them
of their right; in any other case he can do nothing but clench
his little fist in his pocket, or fall a victim as an obtrusive
fool.
In short, if you Chinese or Japanese
did not ask after right, and in particular if you did not ask
after the rights "that were born with you," then you
would not need to ask at all after the well-earned rights either.
You start back in fright before
others, because you think you see beside them the ghost of
right, which, as in the Homeric combats, seems to fight as
a goddess at their side, helping them. What do you do? Do you
throw the spear? No, you creep around to gain the spook over to
yourselves, that it may fight on your side: you woo for the ghost's
favor. Another would simply ask thus: Do I will what my opponent
wills? "No!" Now then, there may fight for him a thousand
devils or gods, I go at him all the same!
|
THE OWNER 253 |
The "commonwealth of right,"
as the Vossische Zeitung among others stands for it,
asks that office-holders be removable only by the judge,
not by the administration. Vain illusion! If it were
settled by law that an office-holder who is once seen drunken
shall lose his office, then the judges would have to condemn him
on the word of the witnesses. In short, the law-giver would only
have to state precisely all the possible grounds which entail
the loss of office, however laughable they might be
(e. g. he who laughs in his superiors' faces, who does
not go to church every Sunday, who does not take the communion
every four weeks, who runs in debt, who has disreputable associates,
who shows no determination, etc., shall be removed. These things
the law-giver might take it into his head to prescribe, e.
g., for a court of honor); then the judge would solely have
to investigate whether the accused had "become guilty"
of those "offenses," and, on presentation of the proof,
pronounce sentence of removal against him "in the name of
the law."
The judge is lost when he ceases
to be mechanical, when he "is forsaken by the rules
of evidence." Then he no longer has anything but an opinion
like everybody else; and, if he decides according to this opinion,
his action is no longer an official action. As judge
he must decide only according to the law. Commend me rather to
the old French parliaments, which wanted to examine for themselves
what was to be matters of right, and to register it only after
their own approval. They at least judged according to a right
of their own, and were not willing to give themselves
|
254 THE EGO AND HIS OWN |
up to be machines of the law-giver, although as judges they must,
to be sure, become their own machines.
It is said that punishment is the
criminal's right. But impunity is just as much his right. If his
undertaking succeeds, it serves him right, and, if it does not
succeed, it likewise serves him right. You make your bed and lie
in it. If some one goes foolhardily into dangers and perishes
in them, we are apt to say, "It serves him right; he would
have it so." But, if he conquered the dangers, i.e.
if his might was victorious, then he would be in the
right too. If a child plays with the knife and gets cut,
it is served right; but, if it doesn't get cut, it is served right
too. Hence right befalls the criminal, doubtless, when he suffers
what he risked; why, what did he risk it for, since he knew the
possible consequences? But the punishment that we decree against
him is only our right, not his. Our right reacts against his,
and he is -- "in the wrong at last" because -- we get
the upper hand.
But what is right, what is matter
of right in a society, is voiced too -- in the law.*
Whatever the law may be, it must
be respected by the -- loyal citizen. Thus the law-abiding mind
of Old England is eulogized. To this that Euripidean sentiment
(Orestes, 418) entirely corresponds: "We serve the gods,
whatever the gods are." Law as such, God as such,
thus far we are today.
People are at pains to distinguish
law from arbi-
*[Gesetz, statute; no longer the same German word as "right"]
| THE OWNER 255 |
rary orders, from an ordinance: the former comes from
a duly entitled authority. But a law over human action (ethical
law, State law, etc.) is always a declaration of will,
and so an order. Yes, even if I myself gave myself the law, it
would yet be only my order, to which in the next moment I can
refuse obedience. One may well enough declare what he will put
up with, and so deprecate the opposite of the law, making known
that in the contrary case he will treat the transgressor as his
enemy; but no one has any business to command my actions,
to say what course I shall pursue and set up a code to govern
it. I must put up with it that he treats me as his enemy,
but never that he makes free with me as his creature,
and that he makes his reason, or even unreason, my plumb-
line.
States last only so long as there
is a ruling will and this ruling will is looked upon
as tantamount to the own will. The lord's will is -- law. What
do your laws amount to if no one obeys them? What your orders,
if nobody lets himself be ordered? The State cannot forbear the
claim to determine the individual's will, to speculate and count
on this. For the State it is indispensable that nobody have an
own will ; if one had, the State would have to exclude
(lock up, banish, etc.) this one; if all had, they would do away
with the State. The State is not thinkable without lordship and
servitude (subjection); for the State must will to be the lord
of all that it embraces, and this will is called the "will
of the State."
He who, to hold his own, must count
on the absence of will in others is a thing made by these others,
as
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256 THE EGO AND HIS OWN |
the master is a thing made by the servant. If submissiveness ceased,
it would be over with all lordship.
The own will of Me is the
State's destroyer; it is therefore branded by the State as "self-will."
Own will and the State are powers in deadly hostility, between
which no "eternal peace" is possible. As long as the
State asserts itself, it represents own will, its ever-hostile
opponent, as unreasonable, evil; and the latter lets itself be
talked into believing this -- nay, it really is such, for no more
reason than this, that it still lets itself be talked into such
belief: it has not yet come to itself and to the consciousness
of its dignity; hence it is still incomplete, still amenable to
fine words, etc.
Every State is a despotism,
be the despot one or many, or (as one is likely to imagine about
a republic) if all be lords, i. e. despotize one over
another. For this is the case when the law given at any time,
the expressed volition of (it may be) a popular assembly, is thenceforth
to be law for the individual, to which obedience
is due from him or toward which he has the duty
of obedience. If one were even to conceive the case that every
individual in the people had expressed the same will, and hereby
a complete "collective will" had come into being, the
matter would still remain the same. Would I not be bound today
and henceforth to my will of yesterday? My will would in this
case be frozen. Wretched stability! My creature
-- to wit, a particular expression of will -- would have become
my commander. But I in my will, I the creator, should be hindered
in my flow and my dissolution. Because I was a fool yesterday
I must remain
|
THE OWNER 257 |
such my life long. So in the State-life I am at best -- I might
just as well say, at worst -- a bondman of myself. Because I was
a willer yesterday, I am today without will: yesterday voluntary,
today involuntary.
How change it? Only be recognizing
no duty, not binding myself nor letting myself
be bound. If I have no duty, then I know no law either.
"But they will bind me!"
My will nobody can bind, and my disinclination remains free.
"Why, everything must go topsy-turvy
if every one could do what he would!" Well, who says that
every one can do everything? What are you there for, pray, you
who do not need to put up with everything? Defend yourself, and
no one will do anything to you! He who would break your will has
to do with you, and is your enemy. Deal with him as such.
If there stand behind you for your protection some millions more,
then you are an imposing power and will have an easy victory.
But, even if as a power you overawe your opponent, still you are
not on that account a hallowed authority to him, unless he be
a simpleton. He does not owe you respect and regard, even though
he will have to consider your might.
We are accustomed to classify States
according to the different ways in which "the supreme might"
is distributed. If an individual has it -- monarchy; if all have
it -- democracy; etc. Supreme might then! Might against whom?
Against the individual and his "self-will." The State
practices "violence," the individual must not do so.
The State's behavior is violence, and it calls its violence "law";
that of the
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258 THE EGO AND HIS OWN |
individual, "crime." Crime, then* -- so the individual's
violence is called; and only by crime does he overcome* the State's
violence when he thinks that the State is not above him, but he
is above the State.
Now, if I wanted to act ridiculously,
I might, as a well-meaning person, admonish you not to make laws
which impair my self-development, self-activity, self-creation.
I do not give this advice. For, if you should follow it, you would
be unwise, and I should have been cheated of my entire profit.
I request nothing at all from you; for, whatever I might demand,
you would still be dictatorial law-givers, and must be so, because
a raven cannot sing, nor a robber live without robbery. Rather
do I ask those who would be egoists what they think the more egoistic
-- to let laws be given them by you, and to respect those that
are given, or to practice refractoriness, yes, complete
disobedience. Good-hearted people think the laws ought to prescribe
only what is accepted in the people's feeling as right and proper.
But what concern is it of mine what is accepted in the nation
and by the nation? The nation will perhaps be against the blasphemer;
therefore a law against blasphemy. Am I not to blaspheme on that
account? Is this law to be more than an "order" to me?
I put the question.
Solely from the principle that all
right and all authority belong to the collectivity
of the people do all forms of government arise. For none
of them lacks this appeal to the collectivity, and the despot,
as
| THE OWNER 259 |
well as the president or any aristocracy, acts and commands "in
the name of the State." They are in possession of the "authority
of the State," and it is perfectly indifferent whether, were
this possible, the people as a collectivity (all individuals)
exercise this State -- authority, or whether it is only
the representatives of this collectivity, be there many of them
as in aristocracies or one as in monarchies. Always the collectivity
is above the individual, and has a power which is called legitimate,
i.e. which is law.
Over against the sacredness of the
State, the individual is only a vessel of dishonor, in which "exuberance,
malevolence, mania for ridicule and slander, frivolity,"
etc., are left as soon as he does not deem that object of veneration,
the State, to be worthy of recognition. The spiritual haughtiness
of the servants and subjects of the State has fine penalties against
unspiritual "exuberance."
When the government designates as
punishable all play of mind against the State, the moderate
liberals come and opine that fun, satire, wit, humor, must have
free play anyhow, and genius must enjoy freedom. So not
the individual man indeed, but still genius,
is to be free. Here the State, or in its name the government,
says with perfect right: He who is not for me is against me. Fun,
wit, etc. -- in short, the turning of State affairs into a comedy
-- have undermined States from of old: they are not "innocent."
And, further, what boundaries are to be drawn between guilty and
innocent wit, etc.? At this question the moderates fall into great
perplexity, and everything reduces itself to the prayer that the
State (govern-
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260 THE EGO AND HIS OWN |
ment) would please not be so sensitive, so ticklish
; that it would not immediately scent malevolence in "harmless'
things, and would in general be a little "more tolerant."
Exaggerated sensitiveness is certainly a weakness, its avoidance
may be praiseworthy virtue; but in time of war one cannot be sparing,
and what may be allowed under peaceable circumstances ceases to
be permitted as soon as a state of siege is declared. Because
the well-meaning liberals feel this plainly, they hasten to declare
that, considering "the devotion of the people," there
is assuredly no danger to be feared. But the government will be
wiser, and not let itself be talked into believing anything of
that sort. It knows too well how people stuff one with fine words,
and will not let itself be satisfied with the Barmecide dish.
But they are bound to have their
play-ground, for they are children, you know, and cannot be so
staid as old folks; boys will be boys. Only for this playground,
only for a few hours of jolly running about, they bargain. They
ask only that the State should not, like a splenetic papa, be
too cross. It should permit some Processions of the Ass and plays
of fools, as the church allowed them in the Middle Ages. But the
times when it could grant this without danger are past. Children
that now once come into the open, and live through an
hour without the rod of discipline, are no longer willing to go
into the cell. For the open is now no longer a supplement
to the cell, no longer a refreshing recreation, but its
opposite, an aut-aut. In short, the State must
either no longer put up with anything, or put up with
|
THE OWNER 261 |
everything and perish; it must be either sensitive through and
through, or, like a dead man, insensitive. Tolerance is done with.
If the State but gives a finger, they take the whole hand at once.
There can be no more "jesting," and all jest, such as
fun, wit, humor, becomes bitter earnest.
The clamor of the Liberals for
freedom of the press runs counter to their own principle, their
proper will. They will what they do not will,
i.e. they wish, they would like. Hence it is too that
they fall away so easily when once so-called freedom of the press
appears; then they would like censorship. Quite naturally. The
State is sacred even to them; likewise morals. They behave toward
it only as ill-bred brats, as tricky children who seek to utilize
the weaknesses of their parents. Papa State is to permit them
to say many things that do not please him, but papa has the right,
by a stern look, to blue-pencil their impertinent gabble. If they
recognize in him their papa, they must in his presence put up
with the censorship of speech, like every child.
If you let yourself be made out
in the right by another, you must no less let yourself be made
out in the wrong by him; if justification and reward come to you
from him, expect also his arraignment and punishment. Alongside
right goes wrong, alongside legality crime. What are
you? -- You are a -- criminal!
"The criminal is in the utmost
degree the State's own crime!" says Bettina.* One may let
this senti-
*"This Book Belongs to the King,", p. 376.
|
262 THE EGO AND HIS OWN |
ment pass, even if Bettina herself does not understand it exactly
so. For in the State the unbridled I -- I, as I belong to myself
alone -- cannot come to my fulfillment and realization. Every
ego is from birth a criminal to begin with against the people,
the State. Hence it is that it does really keep watch over all;
it sees in each one an -- egoist, and it is afraid of the egoist.
It presumes the worst about each one, and takes care, police-care,
that "no harm happens to the State," ne quid respublica
detrimenti capiat. The unbridled ego -- and this we originally
are, and in our secret inward parts we remain so always -- is
the never-ceasing criminal in the State. The man whom his boldness,
his will, his inconsiderateness and fearlessness lead is surrounded
with spies by the State, by the people. I say, by the people!
The people (think it something wonderful, you good-hearted folks,
what you have in the people) -- the people is full of police sentiments
through and through. -- Only he who renounces his ego, who practices
"self-renunciation," is acceptable to the people.
In the book cited Bettina is throughout
good-natured enough to regard the State as only sick, and to hope
for its recovery, a recovery which she would bring about through
the "demagogues";* but it is not sick; rather is it
in its full strength, when it puts from it the demagogues who
want to acquire something for the individuals, for "all."
In its believers it is provided with the best demagogues (leaders
of the people). According to Bettina, the State is to**
|
THE OWNER 263 |
"develop mankind's germ of freedom; otherwise it is a raven-mother*
and caring for raven-fodder!" It cannot do otherwise, for
in its very caring for "mankind" (which, besides, would
have to be the "humane" or " free" State to
begin with) the "individual" is raven-fodder for it.
How rightly speaks the burgomaster, on the other hand:** "What?
the State has no other duty than to be merely the attendant of
incurable invalids? -- that isn't to the point. From of old the
healthy State has relieved itself of the diseased matter, and
not mixed itself with it. It does not need to be so economical
with its juices. Cut off the robber-branches without hesitation,
that the others may bloom. -- Do not shiver at the State's harshness;
its morality, its policy and religion, point it to that. Accuse
it of no want of feeling; its sympathy revolts against this, but
its experience finds safety only in this severity! There are diseases
in which only drastic remedies will help. The physician who recognizes
the disease as such, but timidly turns to palliatives, will never
remove the disease, but may well cause the patient to succumb
after a shorter or longer sickness." Frau Rat's question,
"If you apply death as a drastic remedy, how is the cure
to be wrought then?" isn't to the point. Why, the State does
not apply death against itself, but against an offensive member;
it tears out an eye that offends it, etc.
"For the invalid State the
only way of salvation is to make man flourish in it."***
If one here, like Bettina, understand by man the concept "Man,"
she
*[An unnatural mother]
**P. 381.
***P. 385
| 264 THE EGO AND HIS OWN |
is right; the "invalid" State will recover by the flourishing
of "Man," for, the more infatuated the individuals are
with "Man," the better it serves the State's turn. But,
if one referred it to the individuals, to "all" (and
the authoress half-does this too, because about "Man"
she is still involved in vagueness), then it would sound somewhat
like the following: For an invalid band of robbers the only way
of salvation is to make the loyal citizen nourish in it! Why,
thereby the band of robbers would simply go to ruin as a band
of robbers; and, because it perceives this, it prefers to shoot
every one who has a leaning toward becoming a "steady man."
In this book Bettina is a patriot,
or, what is little more, a philanthropist, a worker for human
happiness. She is discontented with the existing order in quite
the same way as is the title-ghost of her book, along with all
who would like to bring back the good old faith and what goes
with it. Only she thinks, contrariwise, that the politicians,
place-holders, and diplomats ruined the State, while those lay
it at the door of the malevolent, the "seducers of the people."
What is the ordinary criminal but
one who has committed the fatal mistake of endeavoring after what
is the people's instead of seeking for what is his? He has sought
despicable alien goods, has done what believers do who
seek after what is God's. What does the priest who admonishes
the criminal do? He sets before him the great wrong of having
desecrated by his act what was hallowed by the State, its property
(in which, of course, must be included even the life of those
who belong to the State); instead of this,
|
THE OWNER 265 |
he might rather hold up to him the fact that he has befouled himself
in not despising the alien thing, but thinking it worth stealing;
he could, if he were not a parson. Talk with the so-called criminal
as with an egoist, and he will be ashamed, not that he transgressed
against your laws and goods, but that he considered your laws
worth evading, your goods worth desiring; he will be ashamed that
he did not -- despise you and yours together, that he was too
little an egoist. But you cannot talk egoistically with him, for
you are not so great as a criminal, you -- commit no crime! You
do not know that an ego who is his own cannot desist from being
a criminal, that crime is his life. And yet you should know it,
since you believe that "we are all miserable sinners";
but you think surreptitiously to get beyond sin, you do not comprehend
-- for you are devil-fearing -- that guilt is the value of a man.
Oh, if you were guilty! But now you are "righteous."*
Well -- just put every thing nicely to rights** for your master!
When the Christian consciousness,
or the Christian man, draws up a criminal code, what can the concept
of crime be there but simply -- heartlessness?
Each severing and wounding of a heart relation, each
heartless behavior toward a sacred being, is crime. The
more heartfelt the relation is supposed to be, the more scandalous
is the deriding of it, and the more worthy of punishment the crime.
Everyone who is subject to the lord should love him; to deny this
love is a high treason worthy of death. Adultery is a heartlessness
*[Gerechte]
**[macht Alles hübsch gerecht]
|
266 THE EGO AND HIS OWN |
worthy of punishment; one has no heart, no enthusiasm, no pathetic
feeling for the sacredness of marriage. So long as the heart or
soul dictates laws, only the heartful or soulful man enjoys the
protection of the laws. That the man of soul makes laws means
properly that the moral man makes them: what contradicts
these men's "moral feeling," this they penalize. How,
e. g., should disloyalty, secession, breach of oaths
-- in short, all radical breaking off, all tearing asunder
of venerable ties -- not be flagitious and criminal in
their eyes? He who breaks with these demands of the soul has for
enemies all the moral, all the men of soul. Only Krummacher and
his mates are the right people to set up consistently a penal
code of the heart, as a certain bill sufficiently proves. The
consistent legislation of the Christian State must be placed wholly
in the hands of the -- parsons, and will not become pure
and coherent so long as it is worked out only by -- the parson-ridden,
who are always only half-parsons. Only then will every
lack of soulfulness, every heartlessness, be certified as an unpardonable
crime, only then will every agitation of the soul become condemnable,
every objection of criticism and doubt be anathematized; only
then is the own man, before the Christian consciousness, a convicted
-- criminal to begin with.
The men of the Revolution often
talked of the people's "just revenge" as its "right."
Revenge and right coincide here. Is this an attitude of an ego
to an ego? The people cries that the opposite party has committed
"crimes" against it. Can I assume that one commits a
crime against me, without assuming
|
THE OWNER 267 |
that he has to act as I see fit? And this action I call the right,
the good, etc.; the divergent action, a crime. So I think that
the others must aim at the same goal with me; i.e.,
I do not treat them as unique beings* who bear their law in themselves
and live according to it, but as beings who are to obey some "rational"
law. I set up what "Man" is and what acting in a "truly
human" way is, and I demand of every one that this law become
norm and ideal to him; otherwise he will expose himself as a "sinner
and criminal." But upon the "guilty" falls the
"penalty of the law"!
One sees here how it is "Man"
again who sets on foot even the concept of crime, of sin, and
therewith that of right. A man in whom I do not recognize "man"
is "sinner, a guilty one."
Only against a sacred thing are
there criminals; you against me can never be a criminal, but only
an opponent. But not to hate him who injures a sacred thing is
in itself a crime, as St. Just cries out against Danton: "Are
you not a criminal and responsible for not having hated the enemies
of the fatherland?" --
If, as in the Revolution, what "Man"
is apprehended as "good citizen," then from this concept
of "Man" we have the well-known "political offenses
and crimes."
In all this the individual, the
individual man, is regarded as refuse, and on the other hand the
general man, "Man," is honored. Now, according to how
| 268 THE EGO AND HIS OWN |
this ghost is named -- as Christian, Jew, Mussulman, good citizen,
loyal subject, freeman, patriot, etc. -- just so do those who
would like to carry through a divergent concept of man, as well
as those who want to put themselves through, fall before
victorious "Man."
And with what unction the butchery
goes on here in the name of the law, of the sovereign people,
of God, etc.!
Now, if the persecuted trickily
conceal and protect themselves from the stern parsonical judges,
people stigmatize them as St. Just, e. g., does those
whom he accuses in the speech against Danton.* One is to be a
fool, and deliver himself up to their Moloch.
Crimes spring from fixed ideas.
The sacredness of marriage is a fixed idea. From the sacredness
it follows that infidelity is a crime, and therefore
a certain marriage law imposes upon it a shorter or longer penalty.
But by those who proclaim "freedom as sacred" this penalty
must be regarded as a crime against freedom, and only in this
sense has public opinion in fact branded the marriage law.
Society would have every one
come to his right indeed, but yet only to that which is sanctioned
by society, to the society-right, not really to his right.
But I give or take to myself the right out of my own plenitude
of power, and against every superior power I am the most impenitent
criminal. Owner and creator of my right, I recognize no other
source of right than -- me, neither God nor the State nor nature
nor even
*See "Political Speeches," 10, p. 153
|
THE OWNER 269 |
man himself with his "eternal rights of man," neither
divine nor human right.
Right "in and for itself."
Without relation to me, therefore! "Absolute right."
Separated from me, therefore! A thing that exists in and for itself!
An absolute! An eternal right, like an eternal truth!
According to the liberal way of
thinking, right is to be obligatory for me because it is thus
established by human reason, against which my reason
is "unreason." Formerly people inveighed in the name
of divine reason against weak human reason; now, in the name of
strong human reason, against egoistic reason, which is rejected
as "unreason." And yet none is real but this very "unreason."
Neither divine nor human reason, but only your and my reason existing
at any given time, is real, as and because you and I are real.
The thought of right is originally
my thought; or, it has its origin in me. But, when it has sprung
from me, when the "Word" is out, then it has "become
flesh," it is a fixed idea. Now I no longer get
rid of the thought; however I turn, it stands before me. Thus
men have not become masters again of the thought "right,"
which they themselves created; their creature is running away
with them. This is absolute right, that which is absolved or unfastened
from me. We, revering it as absolute, cannot devour it again,
and it takes from us the creative power: the creature is more
than the creator, it is "in and for itself."
Once you no longer let right run
around free, once you draw it back into its origin, into you,
it is your right; and that is right which suits you.
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270 THE EGO AND HIS OWN |
Right has had to suffer an attack
within itself, i.e. from the standpoint of right; war
being declared on the part of liberalism against "privilege."*
Privileged and endowed
with equal rights -- on these two concepts turns a stubborn
fight. Excluded or admitted -- would mean the same. But where
should there be a power -- be it an imaginary one like God, law,
or a real one like I, you -- of which it should not be true that
before it all are "endowed with equal rights," i.
e., no respect of persons holds? Every one is equally dear
to God if he adores him, equally agreeable to the law if
only he is a law- abiding person; whether the lover of God and
the law is humpbacked and lame, whether poor or rich, etc., that
amounts to nothing for God and the law; just so, when you are
at the point of drowning, you like a Negro as rescuer as well
as the most excellent Caucasian -- yes, in this situation you
esteem a dog not less than a man. But to whom will not every one
be also, contrariwise, a preferred or disregarded person? God
punishes the wicked with his wrath, the law chastises the lawless,
you let one visit you every moment and show the other the door.
The "equality of right"
is a phantom just because right is nothing more and nothing less
than admission, a matter of grace, which, be it said,
one may also acquire by his desert; for desert and grace are not
contradictory, since even grace wishes to be "deserved"
and our gracious smile falls only to him who knows how to force
it from us.
*[Literally, "precedent right."]
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THE OWNER 271 |
So people dream of "all citizens
of the State having to stand side by side, with equal rights."
As citizens of the State they are certainly all equal for the
State. But it will divide them, and advance them or put them in
the rear, according to its special ends, if on no other account;
and still more must it distinguish them from one another as good
and bad citizens.
Bruno Bauer disposes of the Jew
question from the standpoint that "privilege" is not
justified. Because Jew and Christian have each some point of advantage
over the other, and in having this point of advantage are exclusive,
therefore before the critic's gaze they crumble into nothingness.
With them the State lies under the like blame, since it justifies
their having advantages and stamps it as a "privilege."
or prerogative, but thereby derogates from its calling to become
a "free State."
But now every one has something
of advantage over another -- viz., himself or his individuality;
in this everybody remains exclusive.
And, again, before a third party
every one makes his peculiarity count for as much as possible,
and (if he wants to win him at all) tries to make it appear attractive
before him.
Now, is the third party to be insensible
to the difference of the one from the other? Do they ask that
of the free State or of humanity? Then these would have to be
absolutely without self-interest, and incapable of taking an interest
in any one whatever. Neither God (who divides his own from the
wicked) nor the State (which knows how to separate good citizens
from bad) was thought of as so indifferent.
| 272 THE EGO AND HIS OWN |
But they are looking for this very
third party that bestows no more "privilege." Then it
is called perhaps the free State, or humanity, or whatever else
it may be.
As Christian and Jew are ranked
low by Bruno Bauer on account of their asserting privileges, it
must be that they could and should free themselves from their
narrow standpoint by self-renunciation or unselfishness. If they
threw off their "egoism," the mutual wrong would cease,
and with it Christian and Jewish religiousness in general; it
would be necessary only that neither of them should any longer
want to be anything peculiar.
But, if they gave up this exclusiveness,
with that the ground on which their hostilities were waged would
in truth not yet be forsaken. In case of need they would indeed
find a third thing on which they could unite, a "general
religion," a "religion of humanity," etc.; in short,
an equalization, which need not be better than that which would
result if all Jews became Christians, by this likewise the "privilege"
of one over the other would have an end. The tension*
would indeed be done away, but in this consisted not the essence
of the two, but only their neighborhood. As being distinguished
from each other they must necessarily be mutually resistant,**
and the disparity will always remain. Truly it is not a failing
in you that you stiffen*** yourself against me and assert your
distinctness or peculiarity: you need not give way or renounce
yourself.
*[Spannung]
**[gespannt]
***[spannen]
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THE OWNER 273 |
People conceive the significance
of the opposition too formally and weakly when they want
only to "dissolve" it in order to make room for a third
thing that shall "unite." The opposition deserves rather
to be sharpened. As Jew and Christian you are in too
slight an opposition, and are contending only about religion,
as it were about the emperor's beard, about a fiddlestick's end.
Enemies in religion indeed, in the rest you still remain
good friends, and equal to each other, e. g. as men.
Nevertheless the rest too is unlike in each; and the time when
you no longer merely dissemble your opposition will be
only when you entirely recognize it, and everybody asserts himself
from top to toe as unique.* Then the former opposition
will assuredly be dissolved, but only because a stronger has taken
it up into itself.
Our weakness consists not in this,
that we are in opposition to others, but in this, that we are
not completely so; that we are not entirely severed from
them, or that we seek a "communion," a "bond,"
that in communion we have an ideal. One faith, one God, one idea,
one hat, for all! If all were brought under one hat, certainly
no one would any longer need to take off his hat before another.
The last and most decided opposition,
that of unique against unique, is at bottom beyond what is called
opposition, but without having sunk back into "unity"
and unison. As unique you have nothing in common with the other
any longer, and therefore nothing divisive or hostile either;
you are not seeking
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274 THE EGO AND HIS OWN |
to be in the right against him before a third party,
and are standing with him neither "on the ground of right"
nor on any other common ground. The opposition vanishes in complete
-- severance or singleness.* This might indeed be regarded
as the new point in common or a new parity, but here the parity
consists precisely in the disparity, and is itself nothing but
disparity, a par of disparity, and that only for him who institutes
a "comparison."
The polemic against privilege forms
a characteristic feature of liberalism, which fumes against "privilege"
because it itself appeals to "right." Further than to
fuming it cannot carry this; for privileges do not fall before
right falls, as they are only forms of right. But right falls
apart into its nothingness when it is swallowed up by might, i.e.
when one understands what is meant by "Might goes before
right." All right explains itself then as privilege, and
privilege itself as power, as -- superior power.
But must not the mighty combat against
superior power show quite another face than the modest combat
against privilege, which is to be fought out before a first judge,
"Right," according to the judge's mind?
Now, in conclusion, I have still
to take back the half-way form of expression of which I was willing
to make use only so long as I was still rooting among the entrails
of right, and letting the word at least stand. But, in fact, with
the concept the word too loses its meaning. What I called "my
right" is
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THE OWNER 275 |
no longer "right" at all, because right can be bestowed
only by a spirit, be it the spirit of nature or that of the species,
of mankind, the Spirit of God or that of His Holiness or His Highness,
etc. What I have without an entitling spirit I have without right;
I have it solely and alone through my power.
I do not demand any right, therefore
I need not recognize any either. What I can get by force I get
by force, and what I do not get by force I have no right to, nor
do I give myself airs, or consolation, with my imprescriptible
right.
With absolute right, right itself
passes away; the dominion of the "concept of right"
is canceled at the same time. For it is not to be forgotten that
hitherto concepts, ideas, or principles ruled us, and that among
these rulers the concept of right, or of justice, played one of
the most important parts.
Entitled or unentitled -- that does
not concern me, if I am only powerful, I am of myself
empowered, and need no other empowering or entitling.
Right -- is a wheel in the head,
put there by a spook; power -- that am I myself, I am the powerful
one and owner of power. Right is above me, is absolute, and exists
in one higher, as whose grace it flows to me: right is a gift
of grace from the judge; power and might exist only in me the
powerful and mighty.
In society the human demand at most can be satisfied, while the egoistic must always come short.