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After experience had taught me that all the usual surroundings of social life are vain and futile; seeing that none of the objects of my fears contained in themselves anything either good or bad, except in so far as the mind is affected by them,
Beyond good & evil before beyond good & evil
“Alfred, I have a thought about Hitler’s change in behavior toward you. I think it’s linked to his change in demeanor, his assumption of a visionary posture. It seems he is trying to re-create himself, to become larger than life. And I think he wishes to distance himself from all those who knew him when he was simply an ordinary human being. Perhaps that lies behind his detaching himself from you.”
You see, before he went to jail, I was the official party philosopher. In fact, some of the leftist papers regularly published such statements as “Hitler is Rosenberg’s mouthpiece” or “Hitler commands what Rosenberg wills.” This vexed him no end,
‘Follow Hitler. He will dance. But remember it is I who called the tune.’ After his death Hitler called him the ‘pole star’ of the Nazi movement. But, as with me, Hitler never credited him with teaching him anything specific.”
Please, Alfred, give me some substantial evidence for your premises. Give me evidence that Kant or Hegel or Schopenhauer would respect.” “Evidence, you say? My blood feelings are my evidence. We true Aryans trust our passions, and we know how to harness them to regain our rightful place as rulers.” “I hear passion, but I still hear no evidence. In my field we search for causes of strong passions.
Tribal psychology
Alfred Adler, a Viennese physician, has written much about the universal feelings of inferiority that accrue simply as a result of growing up as a human and experiencing a prolonged period in which we feel helpless, weak, and dependent. There are many who find this sense of inferiority intolerable and compensate by developing a superiority complex, which is simply the other side of the same coin. Alfred, I believe that dynamic may be at play in you.
“I believe you’re making the same error as the Jews, who for two millennia have thought of themselves as a superior people, as God’s chosen people. You and I agreed that Spinoza demolished that argument, and I have no doubt that, if he were alive, the power of his logic would demolish your Aryan argument as well.”
“Perhaps I haven’t been clear. I love religion, but I hate superstition.”
“First, Franco, I use the term ‘Nature’ in a special way. I don’t mean the trees or forests or grass or ocean or anything that is not manmade. I mean everything that exists: the absolute necessary, perfect unity. By ‘Nature’ I refer to that which is infinite, unified, perfect, rational, and logical. It is the immanent cause of all things. And everything that exists, without exception, works according to the laws of Nature. So when I talk about love of Nature, I don’t mean the love you have for your wife or child. I’m talking about a different kind of love, an intellectual love. In Latin I
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I wonder, do you deify Nature or naturalize God?”
The problem is Hitler, always Hitler. The more I think about it, the more certain I am that my decline began the day I heard that Goebbels had been telling everyone Hitler had thrown down the Mythus after reading just a few pages and exclaimed, “Who can understand this stuff?” Yes, that was the moment of the deadly wound. In the end it’s only Hitler’s judgment that matters. But if he didn’t love it, then why did he have it placed in every library and have it listed as essential reading on the official Nazi Party card? He is even ordering the Hitlerjugend (Hitler youth) to read it. Why do this
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‘When a man is prey to his emotions, he is not his own master, but lies at the mercy of fortune.’
“He was a universalist. He expected conventional religions to fade away as greater and greater numbers of men devoted themselves to seeking the fullest understanding of the cosmos. We talked about some of this years ago. Spinoza was the supreme rationalist. He saw an endless stream of causality in the world. For him there is no such entity as will or will power. Nothing happens capriciously. Everything is caused by something prior, and the more we devote ourselves to the understanding of this causative network, the more free we become.
“No, no, I must disagree. My goal is not to change Judaism. My goal of radical universalism would eradicate all religions and institute a universal religion in which all men seek to attain blessedness through the full understanding of Nature.
It seems paradoxical to say that men are most useful to one another when each pursues his own advantage. But when they are men of reason, it is so. Enlightened egoism leads to mutual utility.
“The prisoner cannot free himself. No doubt you’re suggesting I can free others but not myself?”
“And why is your vision sharper than his?” “Just as you described a few minutes ago: your own self is in the way and obstructs your vision.
You are right: my words about Sabbatai Zevi, Rabbi Aboab, and gullible fools are not in accord with reason. A free man does not disturb his peace with such feelings of scorn or indignation.
Suffer fools kindly.
“Yes, we are of one mind if you believe we should use enough ceremony to appeal to that part of our nature that still requires it but not so much as to enslave us.”
By cover of night, the ten bodies were taken to Dachau, where the ovens were fired up one last time to incinerate their makers. Sixty pounds of ash, all that remained of the Nazi leaders,
“History is fiction that did happen. Fiction is history that might have happened.”
