In a pamphlet sent in a short time ago, a “significant Jewish voice" is quoted as expressing the following opinion:
“The modern world must triumph because it is incomparably better und armed than the old, orthodox world. The power of the pen has become a world power without which there is no survival in any area. And this power has almost completely passed you orthodox by. To be sure, your scholars write beautifully, intelligently, but only for their peers. Yet popularity is the shibboleth of our times. The free-thinking Jewish and Christian world has completely conquered modern journalism and romanticism. I say the free-thinking Jewish world, advisedly, for, in fact, German Jewry works so energetically, so colossally, so untiringly within modern culture and science, that the greatest part of Christendom is being led, consciously or unconsciously, by modern Jewry. With few exceptions, there is no newspaper or piece of literature which is not directly or indirectly presided over by Jews.”
How true! I have never read about this before and rather thought that our Jewish fellow-citizens would have preferred not to hear such things. Now, however, since we have been met with such open language, we may also perhaps be permitted to speak openly as well. And this without having to fear being made ridiculous, injured in various ways, or occasionally even tumultuously hissed off the stage, all because we are hateful oppressors of Jews. Perhaps, we will even succeed, with our "culture-guardians," the world power of which we do not deny, in reaching an agreement about basic principles which they may not use in quite the correct sense. For, then, if (the Jews) are being honest with us, their "colossal efforts” may have a good result for all involved.
All of a sudden, there is "the modern world.” This does not apparently refer to the world of today, the time in which we live, or—as modern German puts it so beautifully—“nowadays." No, in the heads of our latest culture bearers, it signifies a world that has never yet existed, namely a “modern" world such as the world has never known at any time. Thus, a new world that previous worlds do not even approach and that therefore must be measured completely and arbitrarily according to its own standards. To the Jews, who, as a national entity, until half a century ago stood completely outside our cultural strivings, this present-day world, which they have entered so suddenly and which they appropriate to themselves with increasing force, this world must in fact seem a wholly new and hitherto nonexistent one.
To be sure, they should conceive of themselves as the only novelty in this old world. They seem, however, to want to fend off consciousness of this and prefer, on the other hand, to believe that this old world became brand new the moment they entered it. This strikes us as erroneous, and they ought diligently to enlighten themselves on this matter. This presupposes that they are being honest with us and that they want really to help us out of our degeneracy (which up until now they have only exploited and exacerbated). Let's give them the benefit of the doubt.
Scrutinized carefully, our world was a new one for the Jews. All they required to find their way in it was contained in the attempt to appropriate our hard-earned heritage. First and foremost this concerned our language--it would be gauche here to talk of our money. I have never met Jews who make use of their own original mother tongue (Hebrew) among them- selves. On the other hand, I have noted again and again that in all the lands of Europe Jews understand German; unfortunately most of them speak it only in their own peculiar jargon (Yiddish). When legally allowed entrance to the German world, I believe that this immature and incompetent knowledge of the German language, which an inscrutable world destiny bestowed upon them, may have made it particularly difficult for Jews to understand or really assimilate. The descendants of the French Protestants, who were cast out of their homeland, have become completely German. Chamisso, who as a boy spoke only French when he came to Germany, grew up to be a master of German language and thought.
It is extraordinary how difficult this seems to be for Jews. We may suppose that they went too hastily to work in appropriating what was too alien to them and that their unripe knowledge of our language, that is, their jargon, may have led them astray. It belongs to another discussion to illuminate the character of language falsification and what we owe to Jewish journalism for the intrusion of "the modern" into our cultural development. To elaborate further on the present theme, however, we must point out the weighty destiny under which our language had to labor for so long and how it took the most ingenious instincts of our greatest poets and sages to restore it to its productive character. And how this remarkable, linguistic-literary process of development was encountered by decadents who frivolously abandon the deadly seriousness of their predecessors and proclaim themselves “Moderns."
We cannot, however, while awaiting their original creations, attribute the invention of the “modern" to our Jewish fellow citizens. This they found as a weed in the field of German literature. I witnessed the youthful first bloom of this plant. It was called, at the time, “Young Germany." Its cultivators began with a war waged against literary "orthodoxy," by which was meant the faith in our great poets and sages of the previous century. They attacked the succeeding, so-called "romantics" (not to be confused with the above-mentioned "significant Jewish voice's" reference to journalism and romanticism!), went to Paris, studied Scribe and E. Sue,trans- lated them into a flashy, sloppy German, and ended in part as theater directors and in part as journalists for the philistines.
This was good preparation, and on its foundation, without further invention but well supported with the power of money, the “Modern" could easily be outfitted to become "the modern world," which could then stand victorious over "the orthodox old world."
For the Moderns to explain what we ought to think about this term “modern” is not so easy, especially if they concede that it is something quite lamentable and even dangerous, particularly to us Germans. We will not suppose this because we are assuming that our Jewish fellow citizens mean well by us. Shall we, on this assumption, believe that they don't know what they are saying and only talk twaddle? It is useless here to trace the historical paths of the concept "modern," a term originally coined for the plastic arts of Italy to differentiate them from those of the classical age. It suffices that we have come to know the significance of "modishness" for the French national character. With an idiosyncratic pride, the French- man can call himself "modern,” for he creates fashion and thereby domi- nates the external appearance of the entire world.
If, presently, the Jews, by dint of their "colossal efforts, in common with liberal Christians," are making us into articles of fashion, then let the God of their fathers reward them for "doing so well by us" poor German slaves of French fashion! For the time being, it still appears otherwise, however. For, in spite of all their power, they have no remedy for their lack of originality. And this applies particularly to the employment of that power that they insist none can deny them: "the power of the quill." They can deck themselves out with foreign feathers (quills), just as they can with the delicious names under which our new Jewish fellow citizens come to us—as surprising as they are enrapturing—and this while we poor old peasants and burghers have to satisfy ourselves forever with quite wretched names like "Schmidt," "Müller," "Weber," "Wagner," etc.
Foreign names don't have all that much to do with the matter. But feathers must grow out of our own hides, especially if we do not merely want to decorate ourselves with them, but to write from within ourselves. This is especially true if we hope to conquer the entire old world, some- thing that did not even occur to a Papageno. This old world—or should we say—this German world still has its originals, whose feathers grow without benefit of second blooms. Our "significant (Jewish) voice" does concede that our scholars write "beautifully" and "intelligently." But, alas, we have reason to fear that the constantly obtruding influence of Jewish journalism will eventually undermine this beautiful/intelligent writing, too. It already speaks or remains silent, just as the modern pens would self- evidently have it. Yet "liberal Jewry" still has "colossal" efforts to make in this direction before all the original talents of their German fellow citizens have been completely ruined. They have a long way to go before the feath- ers grown out of our own hides can only play word games with incompre- hensible slogans, badly translated and absurd pet phrases, etc., or before all our musicians have assimilated the remarkable art of composing without imagination.
Possibly, Jewish originality will reveal itself fully in the field of German intellectual life only when no one can any longer understand his own words. Among the lower classes, for example, among our peasants, thanks to the intercession of our colossally striving liberal Jewry, it has almost come to this pass. Even the most sensible (peasant) can no longer get out a reasonable word and thinks he understands the purest nonsense.
Honestly, it's difficult for us to expect much in the way of salvation from the victory of the modern Jewish world. I have got to know serious, gifted individuals of Jewish descent who have made real and strenuous efforts to support the striving of their German fellow citizens and to understand the German language and German history. They have so far turned away from the world-conquering struggles of their former coreligionists that they have even befriended me. These few abandon the "moderns," while the journalist and essayist have succeeded in gaining their full acclamation.
Unclear and difficult to discover is the meaning of that "orthodoxy" that "the significant voice" expects to conquer with his retinue of “Moderns." I fear that this word, like so many others in our current intellectual world, has been rather confusedly understood and vaguely employed. If it is supposed to refer to Jewish orthodoxy, we might then think it relates to the teachings of the Talmud. But our Jewish fellow citizens appear to have turned away (from the Talmud), and advisedly so, for what we know of it suggests that following its doctrines would make any well-meaning cooperation with us uncommonly difficult. (Such behavior) would antagonize the German nation, which, as we know, liberal Jewry only wants to help out...
Certainly, it is not Christian orthodoxy that the liberal Jews are going after again. That would be like them undergoing baptism out of pure liberalism and in a weak moment. Therefore, it is probably the orthodoxy of the German spirit in general that they mean-orthodoxy with regard to the prevailing faith in German science, art, and philosophy. This faith, too, is difficult to understand and surely difficult to define. Many believe, many doubt. Even without the Jews, it has been much debated and much criticized, without resulting in much that is positive. The German, too, has his loves and joys. He enjoys the pain of others, and he "loves to blacken the radiant ones." We are not perfect. This is a fatal theme, better left un- touched today. So, too, is the “Popularity" that the "significant voice” has elevated to the shibboleth of our times. I skip over this passage all the more gladly because this word shibboleth fills me with horror. On closer inquiry into the meaning of this word, I discovered that it was used by the ancient Jews to earmark the members of a tribe whom they intended to exterminate. Whoever could not pronounce the sound, "sh," was struck down. This is a fittingly fatal word in the battle for popularity. If liberal/modern Jewry should ever wage all-out war for popularity, there could be no more fittingly fatal password, especially destructive for us Germans if we leave off the Semitic "sh" sound.
This ever-so-brief discussion must suffice for now as a closer illumi- nation of "the modern."