Notes on Antisemitism

8/2/2019 Notes on Antisemitism

1/10

Published by CommonSense, clo Werner Bonefeld,Department of Politics; University of York, Heslington, York,Y01 5DD. ContentsPrinted by Clydeside Press, Glasgow.Typeset in 9pt New Century Schoolbook.1997 Copyright August 1997, by Common Sense and theindividual authors indicated. All rights reserved.

An Uncommon View of the Birth of an Uncommon MarketAlfred Mendez

Editorial CommitteeZapatista Discourse: What is New. .Alejandro Giullermo Baiter & Irene Ines Munoz

Reappropriations ofPublic SpaceToni NegriWerner BonefeldRichard GunnDerek KerrBrian Jy.[cGrailOlga TaxidouAdrian Wilding

II The Autonomy ofthe Economy and Globalisat ionMassimo DeAngelis

Notes for ContributorsPlease send articles on 3.5 inch Apple Mac or IBM computerdisc, including one copy in the ASCII format, or send bye-mailto [email protected]. Otherwise send articles inclean typescript.

I~

IIIII,I

IiiKeith Jenkins On 'What;is history?' - From Carrand Elton to Rorty and. White .Derek Kerr

Notes on Anti-SemitismWerner Bonefeld

&yiew ArticleRevolutionary Theory in1579Richard Gunn

BookReyiew

SubscriptionsPlease see backpages for subscription rates.ISSN: 0957 -240X

7

18

31

41

60.

77
mailto:[email protected]:[email protected].


2/10

60 Common Sense No, 21

Notes onAntt-Semitism'Werner Bonefeld

PrefaceThese Notes arose from teaching a course on Political Identity in (theformer West-) Germany. The Jewish Question in the German questionof political/national identity is, of course, an important one; better: it isthe fundamental question. Some commentators, for example Dinar(1987) and Rabinbach (1986), speak about a 'negative symbiosis'between the Jewish Question and the German Question post-l945. Thisis a neat way of focusing and posing the issue. It is a 'negative'symbiosis for basically two reasons. First, after 1945, hardly any Jewsremained in Germany and beyond - the Nazis' war aim ofexterminatingEuropean Jewry has been frightfully 'successful'. Thus, and this is thesecond aspect of 'negative symbiosis', the 'dead Jews" confront the livingGermans in their quest for 'normality'. The so-called 'coping with thepast'2.was a coping with a past in which Jews were exterminated forthe sake of extermination. A measure of this 'coping' can be gleanedfrom Henryk Broder's remark about the Germans: 'They will neverforgive the Jews for Auschwitz!'3 Did the desecration of Jewishcemeteries after German unification happen because or despite. ofAuschwitz? What dowemake ofthe student-left of 1968 that respondedto the Six-Day War of 1967 by suggesting that Israel behaved likeGermany had in occupied Poland. What, indeed, do we make of theleft's response to the Lebanon War of 1982 when Begin, Israel's thenPrime Minister, was said 'to be a Nazi?4 Paraphrasing Broder, 'copingwith the past' has more often than not taken the form of exorcising theburden ofthe dead by persecuting the living Jews in the present.Auschwitz has, time and time again, been identified, byConservative historians as well as concerned left-liberals like Habermas,as an obstacle to the reconstruction of national identity in Germany.5However, 'Auschwitz', the word of horror, has become sidelined andreplaced by the term 'Holocaust'. This replacement creates a muchmore abstract, intangible relationship with the deed. Indeed, the wordHolocaust not only removed Auschwitz from the vocabulary, its use hasalso proliferated and has become a generalism: ecological holocaust,global holocaust, etc. The word Auschwitz signals horror. The wordHolocaust, however, 'normalises' the horror through its popular usage(Clausen, 1995). The killing of millions is normalised as all trace ofannihilation is erased through relativism.

Notes on Anti-Semitism 61It is, however, not just Auschwitz that is being normalised but,

also and importantly, the very conditions through which anti-Semitismexisted and persists to this day. Of course, there is a difference betweenthe anti-Semitism that culminated in Auschwitz and the anti-Semitism ofthe post-1945 world. However, and within the context of these Notes,whether anti-Semitism persists because or despite of Auschwitz is,ultimately, an idle question. This is for two reasons: Firstly, the notions'despite' and 'because' presuppose that the power of anti-semitic thoughtwas somewhat put to rest at Auschwitz. It thus gives credence toAuschwitz as a factory ofdeath that is assumed to have destroyed anti-Semitism. Furthermore, and connected, anti-Semitism is viewed as aphenomenon ofthe' past, that merely casts its shadowon the present. Inthis way, overt expressions of anti-Semitism are deemed 'ugly' merely aspathological aberrations ofan otherwise civilised world. The assumptionthus is that anti-Semitism belongs to capitalism's past historyf However,and anticipating much of the following argument, it is not anti-semiticthought that is anti-semitic in itself. Rather, anti-Semitism belongs toaform of thought that not only rejects reason's historical role to demandhuman conditions but, also, confuses reason with instrumentalrationality. In short, 'reason' is confused with a form of thought thattreats the social practice of human labour as a resource for the'

e accumulation of abstract wealth. Anti-Semitism does not 'need' Je"";s.For anti-Semitism to rage, the existence of 'Jews' is neither incidental norrequired. 'Anti-Semitism tends to occur only as part 'of aninterchangeable program', the basis ofwhich is the 'universal reductionof all specific energy to the one, same abstract form of labor, from thebattlefield to the studio' CHorkheimer and Adorno: 207). Thus, anti-Semitism belongs to a social world in which sense and significance aresacrificied in favour of compliance with the norms and rules of apolitical and economic reality that poses sameness, ritualised repitition,and object-less subjectivity as the citizen's only permitted mode ofexistence. Difference, and therewith the elevation ofhuman dignity to apurpose .ofsocial existence, beyond and above the ritualised mentality ofempty and idle thought thus stands rejected. The mere existence ofdifference, a difference that signals happiness beyond a life ofrationalised production, fosters the blind resentment and anger that anti-Semitism focuses and exploits but does not itself produce . 7

IntroductionThe following notes are not concerned with recent attempts atnormalising Auschwitz. Neither are they concerned with the desecrationofJewish cemeteries after the fall ofthe Berlin wall and nee-nazi attackson passers-by because of their 'Jewish' looks. The focus is on that anti-Semitism which found its raison d'etre in Auschwitz. Is anti-Semitismonly a form of racism, a mere prejudice which can be overcome byeducation and good-will?; or is it a 'hatred of capitalism', a 'hatred ofinen against money and exploitation', as the late left wing terroristUlrike Meinhof suggested?8 These notes suggest that anti-Semitism is


3/10

62 Notes on Anti-Semitismommon Sense No. 21different from racism and that it has a direct relationship with'modernity's' attempt at reconciling its constituting contradiction, that isthe class antagonism between capital and labour. These notes go thusbeyond a mere commentary on anti-Semitism: the issue is not just 'anti-Semitism' but, rather, the negative dialectic ofthe Enlightenment. In thisway, the notes provide a critique of the 'Enlightenment' through thelenses "Ofanti-Semitism', The argument, in short, is that anti-Semitismhas to be seen as subsisting in and through the negative dialectic oftheEnlightenment, Without a critique ofthe Enlightenment, a study ofanti-Semitism would merely allow a historical-sociological argument thatalready presupposes what it wants to show It presupposes the 'eternity'of anti-Semitism regardless of historical circumstances and 'thus thechanging mode ofexistence of anti-Semitism, In this way, anti-Semitismbecomes to be seen as a 'fate to which one has to resign oneself, a fatethat cannot beput into the museum ofhistory,

In what follows, I have freely borrowed from Horkheimer andAdorno (1989) and Postone (1986). In their Dialecti c of the Enl ight-enment, Horkheimer and Adorno emphasise that Enlightenment's'reason' obtains fundamentally and substantially as 'instrumentalreason', Theirs is not a denunciation of 'reason' as such, that is of'reason' as the illuminating power of human practice and as thecategorial imperative that we all live a good, a dignified life, On thecontrary, their concern was to criticise instrumental reason in andthrough which 'reason' subsists in a mode of being denied. Thus, theynegate that 'reason' and 'instrumental reason' relate to each other in anexternal way. They belong together without being identical with eachother; The determination of 'reason' as reason being denied in the formof'instrumental reason' entails that instrumental reason is reason's falsefriend and that, as such a friend, negates reason's promise to destroy allrelations where humanity exists as a' resource 9 The first four thesessupply an introductory interpretation of Horkheimer and Adorno'sanalysis of anti-Semitism, Postones work on anti-Semitism elaboratesHorkheimer and Adorno's insights by analysing anti-Semitism throughthe lenses ofMarx's critique of fetishism, These insights will be drawnupon towards the end of these Notes when the argument deals withNazism's 'anti-capitalist capitalism','

finance capital are seen as uprooting powers and as entities of reason,both of these are seen as the property and project of the rootlessintelligence of 'Jews'. The 'Jew, in view of the anti-Semite, is rootlessand seeks to impose rootlessness upon the 'community', Thus the 'Jew is .projected as some-body whois not part ofthe family. Itis essential not toconfuse racism with anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism is based on the ideasthat 'the Jews are not a nation. They do not speak a language oftheirown. They have no roots in a nature, like the European nations, Theyclaim to have their roots in a book' (Lyotard: 159). 10

IIThe desecration ofJewish cemeteries is not a mere excessof anti-Semitism - it is anti-Semitism in its essence(Horkheimer and Adorno: 183).

The 'uprooting' ofthe final resting place denies not only peace in death italso, and importantly, empties the place of rest, the final place of peace.This refusal of peace appears like a preventive action. on the part of theanti-Semiteithe Jews who are said to bewithout roots, .are prevented tofind roots in death. The depiction 'Jewsas rootless ~.he 'wandering Jew- concerns thus not only the living but also the dead. The 'Jew is refused'humanity's' mercy to rest in peace. The refusal ofa 'homeland' found indeath finds its emblematic articulation in the refusal of a peacefulgrave. 11 "

II IAnti-Semitism as a.national movement was always based onan urge which its instigators held against the SocialDemocrats: the urge for equality (Horkheimer and Adorno:170),

I

Social Democracy saw equality as emanating from the project of theEnlightenment. Iturged equality to achieve a just and fair society. Thisdemand focused on citizenship rights for all and on the sphere ofdistribution where equality of opportunity is seen as a civil goodcompensating for the absence of humanity at the point of production.Anti-Semitism urges a different sort, of equality. Anti-Semite equalityappears, at first sight, to be the complete opposite to the form of equalityproposed by the project of the Enlightenment. Equality is derived from'membership in a volkisch community. This equality is one of 'property',the property of land and soil defined by the bond ofblood. Blood and soilare configured as the bond of community, of Yolk. The notion of theorig;inal possession ofland and the purity ofblood amount to a mythicalconception of community insofar as possession is construed as a blood-tied property.

Community, then, is the community of equals: Volksgenossen.Their perceived original bond with nature is seen to be threatened by the

In anti-Semitism, the 'Jewish Question' is posed as one between 'society'and 'community'. 'Society' is identified as 'Jewish'; whereas community'is posed as a counterworld to society. Community is seen to beconstituted by nature and 'nature is seen to beundermined by evil socialforces. The attributes given by the anti-Semite to Jews include mobility,intangibility, rootlessness and conspiracy against the values andintegrity of a traditional community. The presumed 'health' of thiscommunity is seen to be at the mercy ofevil powers: sexualperversion,intellectual thought, abstract rules, and laws and the disintegratingforces of communism and finance capital. Both, communism and

63


4/10

64 Common Sense No. 21dark forces emanating from 'society'. Society stands rejected not onlybecause it ' is ' rootless but , also, because i t declares ' rootlessness: as it spurpose: abstract equality before the law is presented as theorganisational form of appropriating and accumulating monetarywealth. Tb.enotion ofequality based, as it is, on the conception ofthe soiland blood, defines the Other as a parasite whose objective is to oppress,undermine and pervert the 'natural community' into a society based onthe accumulat ion of abstract and intangible values. 'If the Jew did notexist , the anti-Semite would invent him' (Sartre: 13).12 It is the inventionof the 'Jew' as the Other the one that deviates from, and is not allowedto participate in, the co~muni ty of blood and soil , who serves to pr~videequali ty where class conflict and struggle rages: the Volksgenosse IS anentity defined in terms of natural equality by virtue of its construedantagonistic relationship to the construct 'Jew'. The concept 'Jew'knows no individuality, can not be a man or a woman, and can not beseen as a worker or beggar; the word 'Jew' relates to a non-person. 'T~eJew is one whom other men consider a Jew' (Sartre: 69). Their'equality' as Jews obtains as a construct to which al l those belong whodeviate from the conception of the Volksgenosse. In this way, then, 'theportrai t of the Jews that the nationali sts offer to the world is in ~act. theirown self-portrai t: (Horkheimer and Adorno: 168). The natural isat ion ofthe Volksgenosse as a Genosse of and through blood and soil .subsiststhrough the denaturalisation of the Jew as a rootless entity. TheVolksgenosse portrays himself as rooted in blood and tradition so as todefend his own faith in the immorality of madness, 'The true benefit ofthe Volksgenosse lies in collective approval of .anger ' ( ibid. : 170). Thisanger is di rected towards civi lisation's supposed vic tory. over nature, avictory that is seen as condemning the Volksgenosse to sweat, toil andphysical effort,whereas the Other is seen to live a life as banker andsexual perver t. This the Volksgenosse aspi res for himself wi th murderbecoming the climax of his aspiration. .For the Volksgenossen, the Jews 'are the scapegoats not only forindividual manoeuvres and machinations but in a broader sense,inasmuch as the economic injustice of the whole class' is attributed tothem' (Horkheimer .and Adorno: 174). The liberation, then, ofcommuni ty from society is not only conceived as a liberat ing act ion but ,also, as a moral obligat ion: anti-Semitism calls for a just revenge on thepart of the 'victimised' community against the powers of rootlesssociety. Extermination is thus onceived as the 'victim's' just cause.'Community' is seen to be both victimised and 'strong'. Strength isderived from the biological conception of community: blood constitu'tedpossession and tradition. The Volkgenosse sees himself as a son ofnature and thus as a natural being. This biologisation of conununityfinds.Iegitimation for murder in the biologisation of the 'action': biologyis conceived as a destiny. From this follows the demand to overturn a~dbreak society' s hold on community in order for the la tter to reassert it s'purity. The purpose. legitimates the means. In this view, then, thosevictimised have the moral high ground on their side, reinforcing theclaim to liberation as a moral obligation, whatever the means. 'As a

Notes on Anti-Semitism 65perfect madman or absolutely rational individual, he destroys hisopponent by individual acts of terror or by the carefully conceivedstrategy of extermination' (Horkheimer and Adorno: 191). Thus thenegative dialectic of the Enlightenment where the 'victory of societyover nature changes everything into pure nature' (ibid.: 186). ,. The organised anti-Semite mob does not pretend not to bedriven by the thirst of blood: indeed, it is the liberation of 'blood' fromVampire like society which reinforces the mythical conception of theoriginal possession of land, a conception that anticipates the commondeed as a bond of shared identity. The urge for destruction and its cold,dispassionate execution - the cruelty of silence in the house of thehangman - realises the project of 'equality' where Social Democracyfailed: the rationally executed extermination of millions created aninvisible horror far stronger than the invisible hand of the market that'social democracy set out to direct in a just way. Why is this horrorinvisible? True, . the horror was visible , even for those who cla imed not tohave smelled, seen and known. However, invisible still: the commondeed remains invisible through its . incomprehensibi lity, -Auschwitz isbeyond comprehension. 'The soul, as the possibility of self-comprehending guilt , is destroyed' (Horkheimer and Adorno: 198).In a world where the ' true socia l individual ' (cf . Marx) subsistsagainst it se lf and thus in the sta te of individuality denied, the passion fordeadly deed is far stronger than the attempt to tame, through a policy ofsocial justice, the invisible hand of the market through the applica tion ofreason. The power of reason finds it s claim to reason .limited by the veryforces upon which it depends. The dark side of reason .is .the invisiblewhich Adam Smith praised for its just and impartial power ofdistribution. And it is this same power of the invisible which anti-Semitism claims for itself. 'Pogroms demonstrate the impotence ofsense, significance, and thus reason and ultimately truth', The negativedialectic of instrumental reason finds its synthesis at the place whereone should expect its presupposition to stand: the cruelty ofits beginning,that is the primitive accumulation of capital. Reason that. escorted theprimitive accumulation of capital with. the promise of human dignity,appears transformed into the idle occupation of killing for the sake ofkilling; Kant's claim. that only science is able to' lead the commonindividual io dignity13 formulated reason's c laim to think beyond itselfin order to f ind salvat ion in signi ficance and meaning, in humani ty. Thisis reason's moral and indeed. revolutionary imperative. However, reasonis not one-sided; it has a darker side as de Sade showed. The darker sideof reason subsists as instrumental rationality, a joyless 'r'ationalityinterested only in. calculability be it in terms of a market. rationality orfordist production processes.Js Indeed, in instrumental rationality,humanity is denied its ex is tence as i t is merely conceived as a resource to .be integrated into the well-oiled .systems of economic production andpolitical machines. Thus, in instrumental reason, significance and. meaning are bereft of thei r revolut ionary imperat ives and its theoreticalproject. 'The Cartesian dual ism between subject and matter emphasisespure reason as an abstract reason devoid of social content and thus in


5/10

66 Common Sense No. 21 Notes on Anti-Semitismsharp contrast to reason's cla im to lead humanity 's exodus from it s self-imposed immaturity. file forward march of instrumental reasonduring the last century does not amount to a destruction of reason 'asLukacs (1980) claims. Within the negative dialectic of theEnlightenment, instrumental rationality is reason's other - itsconstituting - sel f (Horkheimer, 1985). The moral obliga tion to lead theexodus to a better worldand the immorality of instrumental reason arehistor ical ly and theoret ical ly two halves of the same walnut: Revolutionand its containment in the name of revolution itself. 'The thought ofhappiness without power is unbearable because it would then be. truehappiness' (Horkhe imer and Adorno: 172). In st rumental reason is themode of existence of the expanded reproduction of the status quo. Itallows merely technological revo lutions and se rves .the continuousproject of bourgeois revolution by fashioning human existence as aresourceful tool for profitable calculation. .Thus, the idle occupation of killing does not deny 'reason'. Infact, it is reason's constitutive other and affirmed itself as such. Theindustrial ised slaughter of mil lions reinforces reason's ins trumentalra tiona lity whose concern with e ffici ency denies both sense and t ruth.All it knows is how best to achieve the optimum result, how best toincrease e ffici ency be i t in te rms of produced cars or gassed corpses. Theimmora li ty of slaughte r only confirms instrumental reason's cla im forimpar tial ity, the value-neutral rat ionali ty ofcalculation where no-body isat the same time rio-one . Its dispassionate appl ica tion i s mi rrored by it sdis regard for . individuality: corpses all look the same when counting theresults and they are . equal to each other; and nothing di st inguishes anumber from a number except, of course, the difference in quantity. Inanti-Semitism, the urge for equality confirms thus ins trumental reason' sconception of equality where the mere existence of happiness is aprovocat ion to the ra tiona l application of physical effort. Judgement issuspended. 'The morbid aspect of anti-Semitism is not projectivebehaviour as such, but the absence from it of re flec tion' (Horkhe imerand Adorno: 189). The VolksgenQssen are thus equal in blindness.'Blindness is all-embracing because it comprehends nothing ' ( ibid .: 172).

'Jew'. Both, thus, the 'concrete' and the 'abstract' are .biologised: onethrough the possession of land (the concrete as rooted in nature, bloodand tradition) and the other through the possession of 'poison' (theabstract as the rootless power of intelligence ami"money). The myth(and biology) of national unity is counterposed to the myth (andbiology) of the Jew.' Tradition is counterposed to reasoning, intelligence;and self-reflection; and the possession of soil is counterposed to theabstract value of international finance and communism. All theseabstract values are deemed to be Jewish values: Jewry is.seento standbehind the urban world of c rime,prostitution, and vulga r, mate rial istculture. "I'he illusory conspi racy of corrupt Jewish bankers financingBolshevism is a sign of innate impotence' (Horkheimer and Adorno:172). Hence, the above reported notion:

'pogroms demonstrate the impotence of sense,sign ificance and ultimately truth. The idle occupa tion of 'killing confirms the stubbornness of the life to which one .has to conform, and to resign oneself (Horkheimer andAdorno: 171).The elevation of soil and tradition to the good, and' the stigmat isation ofreason and money as evil, confirms .the view that those with a 'home','t radit ion', 'root s' and 'soil ' a re expropriated by vulga r powers. In' thestruggle between 'good' and 'evil' reconciliation appears neitherposs ible nor des irable. Evil needs to be eradicated in order for the 'good'to be set free. The paradox of this claim seems clear, or so it seems. Theattack on 'reason' rests on the employment of reason's other self:instrumental rationality, confirming, rather than denying, thec ircumstance that Naz ism was less an-aberrationIn the forward marchof instrumental reason than the transformation of the forward marchitself into delusion. 'The unleashed colossi of the manufacturingindustries did not overcome the individual by granting him fullsatisfaction but by eliminating his character as a subject. This is thesource of their complete rat ionali ty , which coincides with their madness '(Horkhe imer and Adorno: 205). Civili sa tion's supposed victory overna ture i s assumed to have overcome its own law. of impover ishment.This 'notion which justified the whole system; that of man as a person, abearer ofreason, is des troyed ' ( ibid .: 204). Auschwitz, then, confirms the'stubbornness' of the principle of 'abstraction' not only through masskilling but also, and because of it, through 'abstractifieation'. Thebiologisation of the. abstract as 'Jew' denied not only humanity,as the'Jew' stands. expe lled from the biologi sed communi ty of the concrete .The abstract i s also made abstract: all that can be used is used like teeth, .hear, skin; l abour-power; and, finally, the abstract is made abstract andthus invisible itself through gas, The invisible hand of the market .identif ied as the abs tract-biological power of' 'the ' Jew', is transformed'into the invisible itself. Within the negative dialectic of theEnlightenment, Auschwitz s tands for the 'victory' of instrumental reasonover reason's 'moral imperative that we all live, a good life in dignity.Reason' s claim to lead humanity out of self- imposed immatur ity showed

1.

Iv 15'Anti-Semitism is a passion' [which is] 'not caused byexperience but by hatred and fear'. 'There is a passionatepride among the mediocre, and anti -Semi tism is an att emptto give value to medioeracy, as such, to create an elite of theordinary' (Sartre, 1976: 10; 11; 23).

The biologically defined possession of land and tradition is, as wasagreed, counte rposed to the possession of universal, abst ract values,The. terms 'abstract, rationalist, intellectual ... take a pe jorat ive sense ; itcould not be . otherwise, since the anti-Semite lays claim to a concreteand irrational possession of the values of the nation' (ibid.: 109). Theabstrac t va lues themse lves are biologised, the abstract is identi fied as

j.. 1:It

67

;~,

. !


6/10

68 Common Sense No. 21itself as smoked-filled air.

v. No analysis ofNational Socialism that cannot account for theextermination of European Jewry, extermination forthe sakeofextermination is fully adequate (Postone: 303).

National Socialism projected itself as an anti-capitalis movement. Thisprojection should not be dismissed out of hand. Yet, National Socialismalso embraced industrial capital and new technology. Indeed, accordingto Aly and Heym (1991), the preparation of the Final Solution inoccupied Poland was based less on anti-Semitism as an ideology, but, infact, followed the instrumental reasoning of resource management. Itwas 'based', they argue, on meticulous research concerned with therational planning ofresources. Their argument is that, for.the Nazis, theeconomic viability of occupied Poland depended on the reduction of thepopulation. per capital in order to secure that capital exported to Polandcould be applied efficiently.. How do we approach the apparent contradiction betweenNazism's anti-capitalist ideological projection and the rationalcalculation that proposes mass murder as a 'solution' to capitalistprofitability? Nazi anti-Semitism is, as the above has tried to make clear,different from the anti-Semitism of the old Christian world. This doesnot mean that it did not exploit the anti-Semitism of the old Christianworld. '

In Christian anti-Semitism, the 'Jew was also construed as anabstract social power: The 'Jew stands accused asfhe assassin of-Iesusand is thus persecuted as the son of a murderer. In national anti-Semitism, the Jew was chosen because of the 'religious horror the latterhas always inspired' (Sartre: 68). .The 'Jew, in the Christian world, was also a social-economicconstruct by virtue ofbeing forced to fill the. vital economic function oftrafficking in money (cf.Horkheimer and Adorno). Thus, the economiccurse that this social role entailed, .reinforced the religious curse. (cf.Satre), .

National anti-Semitism not only uses and exploits thesehistorical constructions but, also, transforms them: The Jew standsaccused and is persecuted for following unproductive activities. Hisimageis that of an intellectual. 'Bankers and intellectuals, money andmind, the exponents of circulation, form the impossible ideal ofthosewho have been maimed by domination, an image used by domination toperpetuate itself (Horkheimer and Adorno: 172).Thus, in national anti-Semitism, the Jew is portrayed as anentity which stands behind international capitalism and Bolshevism,both at the same time. The Jew as international banker and Bolshevikrevolutionary? Aswas already discussed, Jewry has powers attributedto them which can not be defined concretely. The 'Jew is seen as onewho is notrooted and as such accused to stand behind phenomena: They

Notes on Anti-Semitism: 69

f. I

represent an immensely powerful, intangible, international conspiracydeemed to u proot the concrete (cf. Postone, 1986). . ..Why did national anti-Semitism a secular anti-Semitism -coincide with the political .emancipation of Western European Jewryduring the 19th Century?l~ The opening of social and political spacemeant that 'Jews' became visible in society. They entered professionsfrom which they had previously been barred. Itwas these thatexpanded during the turn of the century. There appeared to baa suddenincrease of Jewish lawyers, scientists, University teachers,hospitaldoctors, etc. Although, in Germany, only a small percentage of Jewsoccupied these professions, they became, nevertheless visible. Theybecame visible in areas which were associated with modernity,universality, intellectuality and reason (Postone, 1986),

The political emancipation of European Jewry coincided with arapid industrialisation with all its 'effects': risk of unemployment,inflationary wage erosion, urbanisation and overcrowding, destruction.of crafts and the risk of bankruptcy, The old liberal idea of the self-determining individual mastering his affairs came to an end. Whathappened to reason's espousal of the self-determining individual? Theentrepreneur of laissez-faire capitalism was increasingly replaced by a'much more globally organised capitalism which seemed to operateindependently from the individual entrepreneurial decision making.This change was captured by Hilferding and others who analysed thisdevelopment in terms of finance capitalism, The result was thetransformation of judgement into compliance with instrumentalrationality. 'In spite of, ana because of, the evident evilnature ofdomination, the latter has becomes so supremely powerful that eachindividuaUn his impotence can exorcise his fate only by blind obedience'(Horkheimer and Adorno: 199) to the delusion of the invisible hand andits insane politicalreality.As was reported above, anti-Semitism identifies 'society' as aperverting force and sees this perversion to be personified by the 'Jews'.Instead of the entrepreneur making independent decisions, it is themurky. world of international finance that sets the conditions ofmarketsuccess. ,Theinvisible hand ofthe market and the hard hitting 'power' ofmoney are rejected as 'Jewish'. At the same time, communism isdenounced as a threat to the ruled because it would deliver them fromsweat and toil. .'The rulers are only safe as long as the people they ruleturn their longed-for goals into hated forms of evil' (ibid.), The Jewsseem ready made for the projection ofhorror ..'No matter. what the Jewsas such may belike, their image, as that ofthe defeated people;.has thefeatures to which totalitarian domination must be completely hostile:happiness without-power, wages without work, a home withoutfrontiers, religion without myth. These characteristics are hated by therulers because the ruled secretly long to possess them' (ibid.). Anti-Semitism invited the ruled to stabilise domination by urging them todestroy, suppressing the very possibility and idea of happiness throughparticipation in the Aryan enterprise of robbing the Others of allpossession, including their life.

-: ~


7/10

70 Common Sense No. 21 Notes on Anti-Semitism

VIaccumulation and social community as,industrial enterprise, it is moneywhich calls the shots. In this view, industry and enterprise are 'made'capitalist by money: money penetrates all expressions of industry andthus perverts and disintegrates community in the name of financecapital 's abstract values. This destructive force puts claim on and soperverts: the individual as entrepreneur; the creative in terms of apaternalist direction ofuse-value production; the rooted in terms ofVolk,the community in terms of a natural community. Instead ofcommunity's natural order ofhierarchy and position, money's allegedlyartificial and rootless force is judged to make the world go round byuprooting the natural order of the Volksgenossen. In this way, then, it ispossible for the Volksgenossen not only to embrace capitalism but, also,to declare that the exploitation oflabour creates freedom: Arbeitmachtfrei. 'They declared that work was not degrading, S o as to control theothers more rationally. They claimed to be creative workers, but inreality they were still the grasping overlords of former times',(Horkheimer and Adorno: 173). By separating what fundamentallybelongs together, that is 'industrial' exploitation and money, thedifferentiation between money on the one hand, and industry andenterprise, onthe other; allows the attack on reason and universality inthe name of instrumental rationality set to work to improve capitalefficiency. , "'" " ','

With the biologisation of creative activity, the unfetteredoperation of the exploitation of labour in the name of blood and soil isrendered attainable by the elimination of the cajoling and pervertingforces ofthe abstract; European Jewry. In this way, the ideology ofbloodand soil, on the one hand, and machinery and unfettered industrialexpansion, on the other, rather than relating to each other as opposites,became instead the image ofa healthy nation that stands ready, to purgeitself from the perceived perversion of industry by the abstract,universal, rootless, mobile, intangible, international 'vampire' of'J.ewishcapitalism'. .The projection of the 'Jew as the personification ofcapitalism rests on the celebration of the Aryan- Volksgenosse as ~epersonification of the concrete, of blood, soil, tradition,' and industry. TheVolksgenosse manifests a stubbornness of the most industrial kind:killing as an idle and efficiently discharged occupation, Theirstubbornness only serves to, strengthen: their sense of destiny. AsVolksgenossen they have all committed the same deed and have thusbecome truly equal to each other: their occupation only confirmed whatthey already knew, namely that they had lost their' individuality .assubjects.

'Fascism is also totalitarian in that it seeks to make therebellion of suppressed nature against domination directlyuseful to domination. This machinery needs the Jews'(Horkheimer and Adorno; 185).

This insight poses the issue ofNazism's espousal of capital~st enterpr~seand its tirades against 'Jewish capitalism'. To answer this, the earlierinsights .into the biologisation of the concrete and the personification ofthe abstract need to belooked at again.There has been a long 'radical' tradition which sought to curecapitalism from Its social and economic ills. This tradition, whichincludes, for example, Proudhon, straddles the politi~al,


8/10

!I!ffI~[I

72 Common Sense No. 21 Notes on Anti-Semitismrobbed of their subjectivity as a socialindividual to whom reason hasmeaning and significance. While reason subsists in and through thecritique of social relations, the Volksgenosse has only faith in the terrorof instrumental rationality. The collection of gold-teeth from thosemurdered, the collection of hair from those to be killed, and theoverseeing of the slave-labour ofthose allowed towalk on their knees forno more than another day, only requires good organisation. Besides,there might befun. 'Onecan beat and torture Jews without fear' (Sartre:47). . (

Everything is thus changed into pure nature, The abstract wasnot only naturalised in the form of the 'Jew, it was also 'abstractified',Auschwitz was a factory 'to destroy the personification of the abstract.Its organization was that of a fiendish industrial process, the aim ofwhich was to "liberate" the concrete from the abstract. The first stepwasto dehumanize, that is; to strip away the "mask" of humanity t ofqualitative specificity, and reveal the Jews for what "they really are" -shadows, ciphers, numbered' abstraction'. Then followed the process to'eradicate that abstractness, to transform it into smoke, trying in theprocess to wrest away the last remnants of the concrete material "use-values": clothes, gold, hair,' soap' (Postone: 313-14).The concrete (industry) and the abstract (money) belong notonly together as each other's presuppositions (cr. Marx). Also, theconcrete is abstract as the category of abstract labour indicates, andconversely, the abstract is concrete as social relations exist as relations ofexploitaiton (cf, ibid.). To separate the two, that is the concrete and theabstract, amounts to a politics ofterror. Nazism's attempt to liberate theconcrete from the abstract emphasised the internal relationship betweenthe constitution and synthesis of the negative dialectics of theEnlightenment. The treatment of humanity as a resource and thedemand that huinanity is a purpose, both of these ideas, belong to thetradition ofthe Enlightenment. The treatment ofhumanity as a resourcehas, at times, been overshadowed by the social democratic dream ofequality. This project could not succeed: the attempt to humanise. theinhuman finds itself confronted by the paradox that. the effort of"humanising presupposes inhuman conditions. Humanising ofinhuman conditions amounts merely to tinkering. Thus, the limits ofreason within the tradition of the Enlightenment whose project of'civilisation' presupposes the continuous guarantee ofprivate property. ~

Nazism signalled not so much the end of reason but theapplication of reason to its own presuppositions, that is. the primitive.accumulation of capital. Nazism's 'anti-capitalist capitalism' showedthat the Enlightenment's project of th e self-determining individual thatforeshadowed better things in the name ofreason, had transformed intomadness. This transformation does not represent a 'pathological'aberration of the Enlightenment's forward march. Rather, this'madness' constitutes the violence ofits beginning. Just as the primitiveaccumulation of capital, Auachwitz has been written into the annals ofhuman history, The difference between primitive accumulation andAuschwitz should not be overlooked. Primitive accumulation has beenwritten into the annals of human history with blood and tears.

Auschwitz has been written into the annals ofhistory with industrialisedslaughter. Whileprimitive accumulation launched the negative dialecticof reason and with it humanity's hope to leave behind self-imposedimmaturity, Auschwitz destroyed the hope in the Enlightenment'scivilising project. 'The dialectic of Enlightenment is transformedobjectively into delusion' (Horkheimer and Adorno: 204).

PostscriptAttempts at 'normalising' Auschwitz have also to normalise ethe delusionthat the Enlightenment presents. Is that possible? The dream ofa humancapitalism persists and has become even stronger since the fall of theBerlin wall. The end of history has been announced and with it thenotion that everything is possible within the limits of what is calleddistributive justice. The dream of a human capitalism has alreadyshown itself to be a nightmare. And what should one call'the idea of adistributive justice without history? There is only one name: Deceitfulpublicity.. !I\

1!! .It!j! .

Notes1. I would like to thank Olga Taxidou and Adrian Wilding for ,their very

helpful comments. The usual disclaimers apply.2. On this see Adorno (1986)..3 . Quoted in Wistrich (1992: 96) .4. Onthis and also onthe reaction ofthe ~tudentleft in 1968 tothe Six Day

War see: Dinar (1987); Markovits (1984); Initiative Soaialistischee Forum(1990, eh, 3); see also Wistrich (1979).

5. See the so-called Historians'Dispute ofthe 1980s where conservativehistorian's attempted to restore German national identity by interpreting theNazi-regime as an understandable reaction to Communism. Habermas, whotriggered the debate by rejecting the conservative interpretation, argued .instead in favour ofa 'constitutional patriotism'. Both camps, despite theirobvious differences, seemed, nevertheless, to agree that a nation state requiresa patriotic public: one emphasising history as a resource for identity, the otherconstitutional value-orientations. The documents of this dispute are availablein English inForever in the Shadow ofHitler?(1993).

6. The notion of anti-semitism as merely an historical phenomenon ofcapitalism's past is conceived in 'analogy to Noltes attempt toput gooddistance between post-war capitalism and pre-war capitalism. In his viewfascism Was no more than an era in the development of capitalism. Once i thas gone through this era, the epoch offascism is ofmerely historical interest(Nolte, 1965). Noltes emphasis On'discontinuity' served an important role: itlegitimised post-war capitalism in general, and the Federal Republic of .Germany in particular.

7. The above paraphrases an insight bor~owed.from Horkheimer andAdorno (1989: 207-8).8. Quoted in Rose


9/10

74 Common Sense' No. 21 Notes on Anti-Semitismcri tique of revolut ionary th ink ing. For a thorough assessment of there la tionship between the revolut ionary Left and ant i-Semi tism, see Clausen(1987). For a cri tique ofleft -wing ant i-Semi ti sm in (West -) Germany andbeyondpost-1945: Initiative Sozialistisches Forum (1990); Poliakov (1992);and Clausen's (1992) preface to Poliakov's book. ,9. This is the basis of their claim that 'enlightenment which is inpossess ion of i tsel f and coming to power can break the bounds ofenl igh tenment ' ( page 208). Their cri tique of the cont radictory const itution ofthe enl igh tenment has often been misunderstood , see , for example , Offe (1996;.ch. 2 ), to mean that their cri tique of inst rumental reason is ident ical wi th thedenucia tion of r eason as such. Offe's 'misunderstanding' i s ' systemat ic ' inthat h is theoret ical project i s no t concerned wi th the ' rescue ' o f reason 'shistor ical .r ole bu t, r ather, the endorsement o f inst rumenta l reason as acivilising force. .10. Of course racism can go as far as murder, arson and destruction ofcommuni ties. However, compared with racism, the hatred of Jews is di ff erentin that the Jews are seen to have come from no-where. .

1l. The desecrat ion ofcemeteries should no t be seen as isolated eventscommitted by a minori ty. Their ' ac tion' subs ist s in a context which inventedJews.as the Other. Lyor tad makes this po int well when he argues that 'Jewsrepresent something that Europe does not want toor cannot know anythingabout. Even when they are dead, it abolishes their memory and refuses them ,burial in its land. ... When the deed is done in full daylight, Eurcipe is seizedfor an instant by the horror and the terror of confronting .its, own desire(Lyotard: 159). An assessment o fLyortard' s pos t-modernist concept ion of, ' di fference' , impor tant though that migh t be , can not be attempted here .12 . On this see, amongst o thers , Rabinbach and Zipes (1986), Fetscher(1990), Enderwitz (1991).13. Quoted in Agnoli (1992).14. On the connection between 'Ford ism' and concen tra tion camps seeGambino 's ' ins igh tfu l analys is o f the origins of so-called Ford ism. He showsthat Ford ism' s total itarian product ion sys tem amounted to a facto ry of fearwhose summit is nothing less than a s lave-labour camp: ' the assembly l ineis, together wi th total itarian s ta te ' systems and racist nat ionali sm, one of theoriginating s tructu res which broadly exp la in the concen tra tion-camp crimesperpet ra ted on an industr ia l scale' . Of course, the h istory of so-cal led Fordismis often seen as a phase where' capitalism took on reforming itself in a social-democratic manner. However, as Gambino emphasises, 'Fascism andNazis~ were not in their origins the losing versions of Fordism, but werefo rced to become such thanks to the social and working-class s trugg les of the19308 in the United Sta tes' (Gambino, 1996 , p. 48). These s truggles led to thecons ti tut ion of a more ' social -democratic' version of 'Ford ism' which , today,i s seen as something that merely fo llowed the funct ional' needs of, andob ject ive logic inherent in, ' capi ta l' ( on this see , amongst others, Hi rsch/Roth ,1986). ,15. The purpose ofthis section is to condense the previous argument .Though it repeats what has already been said, the aim is to take stock beforemoving on to an assessment o fNazism's ' ant i-cap ital ist capi ta li sm' .

16. On this see Fetscher (1990) and Enderwitz (1991).

BibliographyT. Adorno(1986), 'What does Coming to Terms with the Past Mean?', in G.Hartman (ed.) Bitburg in Moral and Political Perspective, IndianaUniversity Press, Indiana.J . Agno li (1992), 'Destruction as the Determination of the Scholar in Miserable

Times', Common Sense, no. 12.G. Aly and S. Heym (1991) , 'The Economic~ of the Final. So lut ion ', CommonSense, n o . 11. " ,.D. Dinar (1987) , 'Negative Symbiose' , in D. Dinar (ed.) , 1stderNaiionalsozialismue Geschichte?, Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt.D. Clausen (1987), Vom Judentum zum. Antisemitismus Sammlung

r Luchterhand, Darmstadt., .D. Clausen (1991), 'Versuch t iber den Ant iz ion ismus . Ein Ruckbl iek', Prefaceto L. Poliakov (1991). , .D. Clausen (1995), 'Die Banali sierung des Bosen ', in M. Werz(ed. ) AntiSemitismus undGesellschaft, Verlag Neue Kritik, Frankfurt.U . Enderwitz (1991), Anti-Semitismus und Volksstaat, Ca 1 1 ' 8 . , Freiburg .I.Fetscher (1990), 'Poli tica l Anti -Semi ti smus in Germany: It s Rise and

Funct ion' , in K. Harms, L.R. Reute r and V. Durr (eds.),Coptng With-thePast, The Universi ty of Wis' consin Press , Wiscons in.Forever in the Shadow of Hitler? (1993), Original documents of- the.Historikeretreit, ' translated by J. Knowlton and T. Cates, Humanities'Press, NeVI(Jersey.F . Gambino (1996), 'ACri tique of the Fordism of the Regulat ion School ',Common Sense, no . . 19. '

J. Hirsch and R. Roth (1986),Das neue Gesicht des .Kapitalismus, VSA,.Hamburg.M. Horkheimer (1985), ZUI'Kritik der instrum~ntellen Yernunft; Fischer,'Frankfurt. .M. Horkheimer and T. Adorno (1989),Dialectic of Enlightenment, Verso," London.

.Initiative Sozialistisches Forum (1990), Das Ende des Sozialismus, dieZukunft der Revolution, Ca Ira, Freiburg,G. Lukacs (I9BO), The Destruction of Reason, Merlin. Press, London. 'J.-F. Lyotard (1993), Political Writings, University College London Press,London.A. Markov itz (1984) , 'Germans and Jews: The Continuation of an Uneasy

Relationship', Jewish Frontier, April.E.Nolte (1965), Three Faces of Fascism, Weidenfeld and Nieclson , London.C. Offe (1996), Modernity and the State, Polity Press, Cambridge. .L. Poliakov (1991), Vom Anti-Zionismus zum Anti-Semitismus, Ca ira,Freiburg.M. Pos tone (1986), 'Ant i-Semi ti sm 'and National Socia li sm' , in A. Rabinbach.and J. Zipes (eds.) (1986) . .A. Rabinbach (1986), 'I nt roduct ion: Reflections on Germans and Jews sincethe Holocaust ', in A. Rabinbach and J . Zipes (eds .) (1986) .A. Rabinbach and J. Zipes (eds.) (1986), Germans and Jews since theHolocaust, Holmes & Meier , New York.

ttIt1 .i11

!

75


10/10

76 Common Sense No. 21 Revolutionary Theory in 1579P. L. Rose (1990), German Question/Jewish Question, Princeton University

Press, Princeton.J.-P. Sartre (1976),Anti-Semite and Jew, Schocken Books, New York.R. S. Wistr ich (1992), Anti-Semitism, Thames Mandarin, London .R. S. Wistrich (ed.) (1979), The Left Against Zion, Vallentine Mitchell,

London. Revolutionary Theoryin 1579*Richard Gunn

Stephanus Junius Brutus, theCelt .VINDIClAE, CONTRA TYRANNOS: or, concerning the legit imatepower of a prince over the people , and of the people over a princeEdited and translated by aedrge Garnett 'Cambridge University Press 1994 .ISBN 0 52134209 045 (hardback)JUnius Brutus.A DEFENCE OF LIBERTY AGAINST TYRANTS or, Of the lawful. ' pouier of the Prince over the People and of the People over the Prinee :,VINDIClAE CONTRA TYRANNOS ) .Reprinted from the 1689translation: Limited EditionStill Waters Revival Books 1989 .ISBN 0 9211148 45 33.50 (paperback)

,If '!

. .Some explanation is necessary before more substantive questions can beaddressed .. The two books here under review are two differingtranslations of one and the same Latin text. The text was first publishedin 1579 and both it s author ( 'Junius Brutus ') and i ts place of publica tion( 'Edinbp.rgh' ) are fict it ious. I ts t itle might best be translated as 'A Claimagainst Tyrants' but its nuances are difficult to pin down and so the.Latin title - which should, indeed, have a comma - is most frequentlyretained, As the work's subti tles imply, Yindiciae, Contra Tyrannos is atreatise on the nature and origins and limits of p olitical authority. "The two edit ions before us, each offering it s respect ive Englishtranslation, could hardly differ from one another more. Garnett's is therecent ly published, and perhaps definit ive, scholarly edition: it comescomplete with an analytical introduction, a glossary which. unpacksterms in Roman and feudal law and an apparatus of Biblical and other ..footnotes. These notes are indispensable for anyone intending toapproach the Vindiciae in a serious way. By contrast, the Still WatersRevival Books edition has the interest of being a (modernised) .republica tion of the seventeenth-century translation of 1648 and 1689.

77,. i.,l

i. ,

~.

Notes on Antisemitism

Documents

Transcript of Notes on Antisemitism