Authors: Leonard Peikoff
Tags: #Europe, #Modern, #International Relations, #German, #Philosophy, #Political, #Modern & contemporary fiction (post c 1945), #Modern fiction, #United States, #History & Surveys - Modern, #American, #Germany, #National socialism, #General & Literary Fiction, #Politics, #History & Surveys, #History
Ominous Parallels (42 page)
Men who hold such ideas are unable to take ideas seriously. They cannot believe that ideas are the motor of history.
They do ascribe some influence to political ideas, such as racist preachments; but they do not understand the nature or source of this influence, because they treat politics as a self-contained subject, without reference to the rest of philosophy. What they do not grasp is the power of wider abstractions in man’s life, such as men’s view of reality, of knowledge, of values. Thus the omission from the above quote, which in this regard is standard, of the philosopher most responsible for the condition of modern Germany and of the modern world.
Those who do not grasp the
essence
of historical events cannot discover their relationship to similar but superficially varied events in other nations or eras. If a man sees only disconnected concretes in pre-Hitler Germany, he can see no more than that in America today.
A dictator is not a self-confident person. He preys on weakness, uncertainty, fear. He has no chance among men of self-esteem. But in an age of self-doubt, he rises to the top: men who do not know their own course or value have no means to resist his promises and demands.
Men cannot know their course or value without the guidance of principles. A nation does not learn from disaster—only from discovering its cause.
The solution is the rebirth of the great science discovered by the Greeks. What it would lead to is the rebirth of the great country founded on that science.
A country with a philosophic base, freed of fundamental uncertainty and guilt, would not tolerate leaders who evade every choice, crawl down the middle of every road, and wait for the deluge. It would not tolerate any deluge by the waves of self-righteous, man-hating evil, foreign or domestic. It would not apologize for its greatness to the worshipers of weakness. It would not watch in despair while its youth turned in despair to cults, communes, and cocaine.
A country with a philosophic base would know its ideas and its direction: conviction would replace paralysis. It would know its values: moral judgment would replace appeasement, and the passion for justice would stamp out the haters. It would know what to say to its youth: it would tell them the source of human joy, and the meaning of their nation in history, and the standard to which the wise and honest can always repair, the
human
standard, reason.
Then the kind of man who loves his life—the kind who still feels hope and pride—the man who loves this country, would teach it to love itself.
And then the country, and the world, would be safe. According to the Greek legend, as the spirit of Narcissus crosses the river leading to the land of the dead, he leans over the boat’s edge to look in the waters, in order to gain a last glimpse of his own beauty.
For the spirit of man, it does not have to be a last glimpse—not if men can discover once more the land of the living.
In 1787, one of the members of the Constitutional convention, asked by a bystander what kind of government the framers were giving to the new nation, answered: “A republic—if you can keep it.”
15
He was not asked what is required to keep it, but the answer to that now would be: “A philosophy—if you can get one.”
References
Chapter One
1
Hitler at Bückeburg, Oct. 7, 1933;
cf. The Speeches of Adolf Hitler,
1922-39, ed. N.H. Baynes (2 vols., Oxford, 1942), I, 871-72; I owe this translation, and several later ones, to Professor George Reisman.
Mein Kampf,
trans. R. Manheim (Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1943), p. 298.
2
William Shirer,
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich
(New York, Simon & Schuster, 1960), pp. 969-70.
3
National Socialism,
prepared by Raymond E. Murphy
et al
; quoting Huber,
Verfassungsrecht des grossdeutschen Reiches
(Hamburg, 1939); reprinted in
Readings on Fascism and National Socialism,
selected by Dept. of Philosophy, U. of Colorado (Denver, Alan Swallow, n.d.), pp. 77, 90.
4
The Mind and Face of Nazi Germany
, ed. N. Gangulee (London, John Murray, 1942), p. 26; quoting Sieburg,
Germany: My Country.
Ley’s statement was made in Munich in 1938.
5
“The Political Doctrine of Fascism” (address delivered at Perugia, Aug. 30, 1925); reprinted in
Readings on Fascism and National Socialism,
pp. 34-35.
6
Hitler at Bückeburg;
cf
. Baynes, op.
cit.,
I, 872 (trans. G. Reisman). Gregor Ziemer,
Education for Death
(London, Oxford U.P., 1941), p. 20; quoting Bernhard Rust,
Erziehung und Unterricht
(1938). Murphy et
al.,
op.
cit.,
p. 65; quoting Gottfried Neesse,
Die Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei—Versuch einer Rechtsdeutung
(1935).
Ibid.,
p. 90; quoting Huber.
7
Ibid.,
p. 91.
8
Op. cit.,
p. 262.
9
Erich Fromm,
Escape from Freedom
(New York, Farrar, 1941), p. 233; quoting Goebbels,
Michael.
10
Fred M. Hechinger, “Educators Seek to Teach Context of the Holocaust,” May 15, 1979.
Chapter Two
1
Dialogues,
trans. B. Jowett (2 vols., New York, Random House, 1937),
Laws
739C-D.
Republic,
trans. F.M. Cornford (New York, Oxford U.P., 1945), 462C.
2
From Shakespeare to Existentialism
(Garden City, N.Y., Doubleday, 1960), p. 105. Rosenberg’s statement is from
Der Mythus
des
Zwanzigsten Jahrhunderts
(Munich, 1935).
3
Works,
ed. W.D. Ross (12 vols., London, Oxford U.P., 1910-52),
Ethica Nicomachea
1124a1-2.
4
Critique of Pure Reason,
trans. N. Kemp Smith (New York, St. Martin‘s, 1956), p. 29.
5
Philosophy of Right,
trans. T.M. Knox (London, Oxford U.P., 1967), p. 241.
6
The Philosophy of History,
trans. J. Sibree (rev. ed., New York, Colonial Press, 1900), p. 39.
7
Ibid. Philosophy of Right,
pp. 279, 156.
8
“The Doctrine of Fascism” (
Enciclopedia Italiana,
vol. xiv, 1932); trans. M. Oakeshott, Cambridge U.P., 1939; reprinted in William Ebenstein,
Great Political Thinkers
(New York, Rinehart, 1951), p. 590.
9
Cf
. Walter T. Stace,
The Philosophy of Hegel
(New York, Dover, 1955), p. 406.
10
Philosophy of Right,
p. 196.
11
“The Doctrine of Fascism,” trans. I.S. Munro, Maclehose, 1933; reprinted in
Readings on Fascism and National Socialism,
p. 10. Gangulee,
op. cit.,
p. 114; quoting Dietrich at the University of Berlin, 1937. Murphy et
al.,
op.
cit.,
p. 74.
12
The Philosophy of History,
pp. 31, 30, 66-67.
13
Hitler at Würzburg, June 27, 1937; Baynes,
op. cit.,
I, 411.
14
Philosophy of Right,
pp. 217-18.
15
Omnipotent Government
(New Haven, Yale U.P., 1944), p. 132.
16
Mein Kampf,
pp. 290, 324.
17
Ernst Nolte,
Three Faces of Fascism,
trans. L. Vennewitz (New York, Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1966), pp. 280- 81; quoting
L’Aryen, son rôle social
(1st ed., Paris, 1899).
18
The Open Society and its Enemies
(4th ed., 2 vols., New York, Harper & Row, 1963), II, 61-62.
19
Quoted in Walter Kaufmann,
Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre
(New York, Meridian, 1957), p. 18. Hartmann Grisar,
Luther.
trans. E.M. Lamond, ed. L. Cappadelta (London, Kegan Paul, 1916);
On the Jews and their Lies,
V, 405. Luther Hess Waring,
The Political Theories of Martin Luther
(New York, Putnam‘s, 1910), p. 104; quoting a sermon on “Tribute to Caesar.”
20
The Characteristics of the Present Age,
trans. W. Smith (2nd ed., London, John Chapman, 1859), p. 36.
Addresses to the German Nation,
ed. G.A. Kelly, trans. R.F. Jones & G.H. Turnbull (New York, Harper & Row, 1968), p. 177.
21
Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts,
trans. T.B. Bottomore; reprinted in Erich Fromm,
Marx’s Concept of Man
(New York, Ungar, 1966), pp. 78, 130.
Critique of the Gotha Programme;
quoted (by Lenin) in
Modern Political Thought,
ed. W. Ebenstein (2nd ed., N.Y., Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1960), p. 431.
22
Works,
ed. O. Levy (18 vols., New York, Russell & Russell, 1964);
The Genealogy of Morals,
First Essay, XIII, 40.
23
Von Treitschke,
Politics,
trans. B. Dugdale and T. deBille (2 vols., London, Constable, 1916), I, 66. Peter Viereck,
Metapolitics
(New York, Capricorn, 1965), p. 105; quoting aphorisms “from Wagner’s various works during 1847-51.” Moeller quoted by Walter Laqueur,
Weimar: A Cultural History 1918-1933
(New York, Putnam’s, 1974), p. 96.
Chapter Three
1
Rauschning,
The Voice of Destruction
(New York, Putnam‘s, 1940), p. 222. Melvin Rader,
No Compromise
(New York, Macmillan, 1939), pp. 25-26; quoting Rosenberg,
Mythus. The Nazi Years,
ed. J. Remak (Englewood Cliffs, N.J., Prentice-Hall, 1969), p. 41; quoting Neesse,
Brevier eines jungen Nationalsozialisten
(Olden-burg, 1933).
2
Rauschning,
op. cit.,
pp. 224, 184, 212, 210-11.
3
Rauschning,
The Revolution of Nihilism,
trans. E.W. Dickes (New York, Longmans, Green, 1939), pp. 49-50. Rader,
op. cit.,
p. 43; quoting
Mythus.
Johst quoted in Viereck,
op. cit.,
p. 255.
4
Rauschning,
The Voice of Destruction,
p. 224.
5
Mein Kampf,
p. 408. George L. Mosse,
Nazi Culture,
trans. S. Attanasio
et al.
(New York, Grosset & Dunlap, 1968), pp. 282-83; quoting
Hans Schemm spricht,
ed. G. Kahl-Furthmann (Bayerische Ostmark, 1935).
The Great Quotations,
ed. G. Seldes (New York, Lyle Stuart, 1960), p. 321; taken from John Gunther,
The Nation
(n.d.).
6
Mein Kampf,
p. 233. Sombart,
A New Social Philosophy
(Princeton, Princeton U.P., 1937), p. 10.
7
George L. Mosse,
The Crisis of German Ideology
(New York, Grosset & Dunlap, 1964), p. 15.
8
The Portable Nietzsche,
ed. W. Kaufmann (New York, Viking, 1954);
Thus Spake Zarathustra,
Second Part, p. 238.
9
Romanticism,
ed. J.B. Halsted (New York, Harper & Row, 1969), p. 26.
Ibid.,
p. 237; from “The Revolution,” in
Richard Wagner’s Prose Works,
trans. W.A. Ellis (London, 1899-1900).
10
Viereck,
op. cit.,
p. 7; quoting Ernst Troeltsch,
Deutscher Geist und Westeuropa
(Tübingen, 1925).
11
Koppel S. Pinson,
Modern Germany
(New York, Macmillan, 1954), p. 272; quoting Rathenau, “Zur Mechanik des Geistes” (1912).
12
Mein Kampf,
pp. 337-38.
13
Ibid., pp. 267, 459. Rauschning,
The Voice of Destruction
, pp. 239-40.
14
Rader,
op. cit.,
pp. 191-92; quoting Goering,
Germany Reborn
(London, 1934).
15
Viereck,
op. cit.,
p. 289; quoting from Eugene Lyons, “Dictators into Gods” (
American Mercury,
March 1939).
16
Ibid
.; quoting from
The New York Times,
Feb. 11, 1937.
17
Mosse,
Nazi Culture,
p. 10; quoting from a speech in Munich, April 27, 1923.
18
Rauschning,
The Voice of Destruction,
p. 224. Lothar Gottlieb Tirala,
Rasse, Geist und Seele
(Munich, 1935), p. 220 (trans. G. Reisman).