Glorious, Accursed Europe

7. Manifold Europes

– 121 – Manifold EuropEs Germany—Thought; England—Action; France—Pleasure. morris winchevsky, “A Letter from the Diaspora”1 Winchevsky’s words echo a widespread motif in European culture: the categorization of Europe’s various cultures according to seemingly inherent fundamental traits that determined their unique identities and differentiated among them. One of many examples is the variety of stereotypes that Goethe articulated in his conversations with Eckermann in September 1829. Goethe described the Germans as a people concerned with great ideas and profound philosophical questions, while the English possessed a highly practical intellect and were actively engaged in conquering the world.2 Nietzsche also devoted more than a few aphorisms to typical German, French, and English traits, particularly in the chapter “Peoples and Fatherlands” in Beyond Good and Evil. For example, he wrote: “The German soul is above all manifold, of diverse origins, more put together and superimposed than actually built.” Indeed, while industrial England’s model seemed fit for admiration and emulation in the eyes of nineteenthcentury German liberals, Volkists regarded England as a provincial nation of merchants, lacking in depth and soul.3 During the nineteenth century, the concept of race was frequently used notonlytodefineethnicgroupsandthesourceoftheircharacteristictraits, but also to define various nations within Europe. Each nation or group of nations was associated with a repertoire of stereotypes meant to denote its individuality and distinctiveness. It was possible to disagree with the validity of these stereotypes—Ahad Haam, for example, described the use of generalizations in characterizing Jews as part of the “European consensus ” that created accepted perceptions4—but, as we have seen in chapter 4, it was difficult not to employ them.5 Modern European Jews sometimes spoke of Europe (and European civilization) in general terms, but at the same time, they knew that Europe was not cut from a single cloth. 122 glorious, accursed europe In BeyondGoodandEvil, Nietzsche wrote about a general European spirit characterized by boundless curiosity and declared that in Europe there existed a continual movement interweaving the various races and prompting a process of assimilation, even with respect to physiology. He added: “We have found that in all major moral judgments Europe is now of one mind, including even the countries dominated by the influence of Europe.”6 Here Nietzsche was ignoring the age of patriotism and nationalism that emphasized particularistic basic traits, whether real or imagined. Thus, as we have seen, he perceived the German soul as being essentially different from the souls of other European nations. He described it as characterized by a tendency to metaphysical rumination and intense spirituality—an intensity absent among the English, who were mediocre and plebian. Nietzsche considered France a nation exceptional in its noble spiritual culture and traditionalism. In 1815, Christian Friedrich Rühs described the French as a “repellent, withering race.”7 Heine differentiated between the narrow English view of liberty and the broader French perception, which dealt with liberty for all humanity.8 According to Heine, the French were a social people, while the Englishman’s home was his castle; and the Germans were a “speculative nation dreaming of the past and of the future, but not existing in the present.”9 The characters in Thomas Mann’s Doctor Faustus offer a distinction between the Italian Renaissance (renascimento) and the German revival (Bildungserneuerung, literally “renewal”): the latter was the German ability to shake off the shackles of a civilization that had lost its vitality. The “young and forward-looking” German spirit was represented by individual and national adolescence; this was a “metaphysical endowment”10 unique to the Germans.11 The Russian Slavophiles, as noted, believed that there was an absolute antinomy between the Russian soul and the European soul, represented primarily by France. In French nature and Western nature in general, Dostoevsky wrote, there was no place for human comradeship; instead “what shows up is a principle of individuality, a principle of isolation, of urgent self-preservation, self-interest.”12 image, model, and influence The repertoire of traits and characteristics, of which we have presented only a tiny sample, made its way into Jewish literature. Here is just one example of the writings of the radical Revisionist Jewish thinker Aba Achimeir, who made the following general (and unfounded) observations about the different characteristics of various European nations: Manifold Europes 123 This columnist’s generation was educated at the knees of Russian or Ashkenazi [German] culture, and more’s the pity. What Russian culture and...