The irrational anti-semitism of 19th century radicals

[S. Caserio]

Many socialists held anti-semitic views. Views completely ignorant, and lacking the typical materialist analysis. Why is that?

[QueerVanguard]

Many socialists held anti-semitic views. Views completely ignorant, and lacking the typical materialist analysis. Why is that?

Because they were utopian idealist shits? Marx brought materialism *into* socialism and we can thank him for anti-semitism being eliminated in leftism for it.

[RedWorker]

Which genuine socialists had anti-Semitic views?
Certainly not the ones who understood Marxist analysis.

Engels on anti-Semitism: https://www.marxists.org/archive/mar...1890/04/19.htm

[DOOM]

Because they were utopian idealist shits? Marx brought materialism *into* socialism and we can thank him for anti-semitism being eliminated in leftism for it.

You don't really believe this, do you?

[Rafiq]

Socialism necessarily frees the intellect of bourgeois superstitions, but this "blank space' does not make a scientific understanding of the social dimension an inevitability - just a possibility. Opposing feudalism could just as mean obscure mysticism and superstitious ritual, though the space for questioning the designation of the natural world that was present is still there.

It is not that these individuals, for their respective time periods, were not "real" socialists. It is that they articulated their anti-capitalism in a way that led them to darkness and reaction. But it is no accident that the figure of the Jew was associated with big capital. Engels correctly understood this in terms of the decaying feudal society, and the association of Jews with finance (usury), but this analysis does not extend far enough to explain the anti-semitism of Nazism (which was by no means a feudal reaction, it was, as coined, "reactionary modernist"), even that of present-day society.

Marx, in The Jewish Question, an allegedly anti-semitic text, talks about the Judaism of modern society. But Marx here isn't being a paranoiac anti-Semite: rather, he is asserting precisely the NON INTRUDING and NON EXTERNAL nature of Jews in capitalism - for Marx, Judaism, just as much as Christianity, is an inevitable part of modern society, with the former having been developed alongside the latter throughout the history of the middle ages. The reason this is a blow to anti-semitism is precisely because the claim is: Even if there were no Jews individually or particularly, the "Judaism" of modern society would persist - this is simply the assertion of the notion of a Judeo-Christian tradition - and for Marx, he identifies Judaism with practical self-interest. The Nazis, after all, spoke of "defeating the Jew in themselves" - which proves after all it is absolutely not reducible to individual Jews, but to elements constitutive and inherent to every modern society which some individual Jews happen to represent (but also a great many - mostly in fact - non-Jews, including the German Fascists).

His conclusion is simply that the emancipation of the Jews, or the elevation of the particular interest to a universal one, can only be wrought from the destruction of capitalism. And it is a problem, a conundrum that persists today: Is Israel not the product of the failure of the world revolution, the inability for many socialist Jews to have faith in the crazy dreams, to find safety and security in returning to the ancient, mythic homeland? Isn't the national myth more easy to buy into than dreams of world revolution, to constitute "just another nation", a desperately conformist process that was facilitated by Jewish capitalists (according to the Bolsheviks, at least)?

For this reason Zionism is reactionary - but only in juxtaposition to Communism. It, to paraphrase another, represents the betrayal of the enlightenment after Fascism.

In conclusion, the Jewish question is still a question today. It has not been solved. The Israel situation, absolutely encapsulates a deadlock that is inherent to present day society (It's existence is, after all, merely the bare truth of the existence of ALL nation states - sustained by violence, national oppression, etc.). More than ever, anti-semitism is on the rise today, not simply among the Left. It is not a question of JUST the safety of individual Jews, but a question of the barbaric lengths society will go to to preserve itself - in the absence of a radical critique of present day capitalism, there you will find anti-semitism. It is the degeneration of reason itself - and this anti-semitism is something even many Zionist Jews are complacent in DIRECTLY in forming a tacit alliance with the European far-right in their mutual hatred of the skeptical, Left (even liberal) Jews who are always suspected of disloyalty. Speaking to an Israeli, for example, I was surprised to hear about how they talk about American Jews caring "too much about the Left" rather than their identity, traditions, and Israel. When we speak about anti-semitism among Socialists, we cannot speak about it in the past tense. The problem remains.

[Os Cangaceiros]

The so-called "Jewish Question" was big back in the 19th century. Many figures of note wrote at least some words on it, including pre-socialist figures like Kant and Hegel. Anti-Semitism is a complex & varied phenomenon which dates as far back as ancient Rome but I'll give you the crux of the question as it was posed in the 19th century:

Figures who viewed their belief system as one that was an ascendant revolutionary philosophy in the modern era (we're talking mostly about secular humanism here, Christian anti-Semitism is a separate issue) envisioned an enlightened, altruistic "brotherhood of man"-type society of rational thinkers. The Jewish community in Europe was seen as an outlier in this plan, because the primary Jewish trait as these thinkers saw it was egoism, and because of this trait they could never properly be incorporated into this new society that was being constructed.

That basic idea, that humanity and human society were evolving but that the Jews were a dead weight holding everyone down, was something that was expounded upon by a range of thinkers in the 19th century, including quite a few socialists (some of whom, like Moses Hess, were actually Jewish).