[This is Appendix 3 of Nietzsche and the Nazis. Sources for the quotations are at the end of this post.] Appendix 3: Quotations on German anti-Semitism Martin Luther (1483-1546): “The Jews deserve to hang on gallows, seven times higher than ordinary thieves.” And: “We ought to take revenge on the Jews and kill them.”[189] Immanuel […]
Appendix 3: Quotations on German anti-Semitism [Nietzsche and the Nazis] Read More »
In his 1932 The Doctrine of Fascism, Benito Mussolini quotes approvingly historian Ernst Renan for his “pre-fascist intuitions”: “The maxim that society exists only for the well-being and freedom of the individuals composing it does not seem to be in conformity with nature’s plans, which care only for the species and seem ready to sacrifice
Mussolini and Kant on war and the sacrifice of individuals Read More »
Like many other people, I am troubled by this phrase when I hear it. The usual scenario: A successful person makes a donation to a worthy cause but downplays any praise by saying “I’m only giving back.” The usual gentle rejoinder is to point out that the phrase assumes that the giver has taken something
Thus spake Friedrich: “Kant’s joke. — Kant wanted to prove, in a way that would dumbfound the whole world, that the whole world was right: that was the secret joke of this soul. He wrote against the scholars in favor of popular prejudice, but for scholars and not for the people.” Nietzsche, *The Gay Science*,
Kant’s joke, according to Nietzsche Read More »
One of the major, major pessimists in history. I quoted him earlier in the context of contemporary anti-humanism and those calling for human extinction. But lest we think of Arthur as always grim and cranky, here’s a delightful zinger. Schopenhauer, assessing Kant’s moral philosophy: “I should liken Kant to a man at a ball, who
Schopenhauer’s sense of humor Read More »
Kleist was widely traveled, energetic, a brilliant writer — and a suicide at age 34. Why? In reviewing Selected Prose of Heinrich von Kleist, Ian Brunskill writes: “Kleist in his youth had espoused with enthusiasm all the optimism of the Enlightenment. Reason would conquer all; happiness would come with experience and understanding. In March 1801,
Kleist: How Kant ruined my life Read More »
Dietrich was a Ph.D. in Political Science from Freiburg University (where later Martin Heidegger was professor of philosophy). In a 1934 lecture delivered at the University of Köln, Dietrich bases National Socialist political philosophy directly upon the philosophy of Kant, Fichte, and Hegel. A key theme of the lecture is Universalism versus Individualism, where individualism
Dr. Otto Dietrich, Hitler’s National Press Director [on Kant] Read More »
This article by Robert Tracinski is very good. He points out that Hume woke Kant from his dogmatic slumber and that Kant then devised a fundamental shift away from the Enlightenment, thus setting the stage for Hegel, Marx, the Frankfurt School, and now Wokism. “This all goes back to Kant’s upside-down idea of what is
Tracinski on Kant as the first Woke philosopher Read More »