Autor: Scheler, Max

Buch: Ressentiment

Titel: Ressentiment

Stichwort: Humanitarismus 2; Ressentiment; Sinn der Menschenliebe: nicht Sorge um Heil, sondern Förderung des Gemeinwohls

Kurzinhalt: The value of love is not supposed to lie in the salvation of the lover's soul as a member of the kingdom of God, and in the ensuing contribution to the salvation of others, but in the advancement of "general welfare."

Textausschnitt: 94a [82] Finally, the valuation of "universal love of mankind" has a foundation which widely differs from that of love in Christian morality. The value of love is not supposed to lie in the salvation of the lover's soul as a member of the kingdom of God, and in the ensuing contribution to the salvation of others, but in the advancement of "general welfare." Love is merely the X in emotional life which leads to generally useful acts, or the "disposition" for such emotions. It has positive value only insofar as it has this possible value of effectiveness. The best world, in the Christian perspective, would be the world with a maximum of love, even if that love were unaccompanied by insight in the state of mind of others (i.e., the ability to "understand" others) and in the natural and social causal relations which are indispensable if love is to effect useful rather than detrimental actions. In the modern perspective, humanitarian love itself is only one of the causal factors which can augment the general welfare. But what if we object that other feelings and instincts -- such as the instinct of self-preservation, the sexual urge, jealousy, lust for power, vanity - advance "welfare" and its development much more than love?1 The defender of modern humanitarianism can only answer that the value of love is not exclusively determined by the insignificant amount of usefulness it creates -- after all, narcotics, the antiseptic dressing of wounds, and similar inventions have allayed much more pain and dried many more tears than love! Love is also valuable because it is so much rarer than these other instincts. It needs augmenting -- an aim which is furthered in turn by its social prestige. If the "altruistic" urges (which supposedly coincide with "love") should ever happen to prevail quantitatively over the egoistic inclinations, then the latter would be more highly esteemed. It hardly needs stating that this "theory" is in complete contradiction with the evident meaning of our valuation of love. (Fs) (notabene)

95a [83] The profound inner difference between the facts and concepts of Christian and those of humanitarian love seems to have escaped Nietzsche completely. He failed to realize that everywhere many demands made in the name of humanitarian love were different from the spirit of Christian love and often diametrically opposed to it. The highly Christian period of the Middle Ages, during which Christian love reached its purest flowering as an idea and form of life, saw no contradiction between this principle and the feudal aristocratic hierarchy of secular and ecclesiastical society, including bondage. It was able to accept such phenomena as the contemplative life of the monks, which was hardly "generally useful"2; the numerous formations of territorial states and rules, the countless local customs; the rigorous discipline in education; war, knighthood, and the system of values based on them; the qualified death penalty, torture, and the whole cruel penal code; even the Inquisition and the autodafés. In fact, the judgments of the Inquisition were decreed "in the name of love" -- not merely love for the community of true believers who might be poisoned by the heretic and deprived of their salvation, but love for the heretic himself. Through the burning of his body, his soul was to be specially commended to God's grace. This intentionality of love was entirely sincere, though from our point of view it is based on superstition. Thus all these facts were quite compatible with the principle of Christian love,3 and some of them were actually justified in its name, as means to educate men to Christian love (though in part, of course, with superstitious premises). Yet in the name of the universal love of mankind they are rejected, fought, and overthrown. Humanitarian love is from the outset an egalitarian force which demands the dissolution of the feudal and aristocratic hierarchy, of all forms of bondage and personal subjection, and the abolition of the "idle" and useless monastic orders. For Bossuet it was still evident that patriotism is preferable to love of mankind, since the values invested in one's native country are of an essentially higher order than those which all men hold in common. Now it appears evident that the value of love grows with its range. Here too, the quantitative criterion replaces the qualitative one. "Universal love of mankind" becomes progressively more powerful until the French Revolution, when one head after another was struck off "in the name of mankind." It demands the removal of national and territorial "blinkers," the political and finally even the socio-economic equality of all men, the standardization of life in customs and usages, and a more "humane" and uniform system of education. It increasingly calls for universal peace and bitterly fights all those forms of life and value judgments which spring from knighthood and indeed from the whole caste of warriors. The alleviation of the penal code, the abolition of torture and of the qualified death penalty are demanded in its name. To its representatives, the Inquisition is nothing but insult and mockery, directed against the very essence of the commandment of love -- not an institution based on superstition. The attitude toward the poor, the sick, and the morally evil undergoes a fundamental change as well. Modern humanitarianism does not command and value the personal act of love from man to man, but primarily the impersonal "institution" of welfare. This is not the exuberance of a life that bestows blissfully and lovingly, overflowing out of its abundance and inner security. It is an involvement, through psychical contagion, in the feeling of depression that is manifested in outward expressions of pain and poverty. The purpose of the helping deed is to remove this specifically modern phenomenon of "sham pity," of "feeling sorry."4 Christian "Mercy" (note the force and spirit of this old-fashioned word) is replaced by the feeling expressed in the statement "it arouses my pity"!5 As early as 1787, Goethe could question the kind of "humanism" (Humanität) Herder preached under Rousseau's influence: "Moreover ... I think it is true that humanism will triumph at last; only I fear that the world will at the same time be a vast hospital, where each will be his fellow man's humane sick-nurse."6 The movement of modern humanitarianism found its first powerful literary expression in Rousseau - often, indeed, concealed in this great mind's rich and multifarious preoccupations, but quite evidently propelled by the fire of a gigantic ressentiment. His ideas are presented so suggestively that scarcely one great German of that time, except for Goethe, escaped the contagious power of Rousseau's pathos (for example, Fichte, Herder, Schiller, Kant all have their Rousseauistic phase). Humanitarianism found its philosophical expression and clear formulation chiefly in the positivistic circles, starting with Auguste Comte, who puts "mankind" as "Grand-Etre" in the place of God.7 Its most repugnant manifestations -- which in reality only develop the original germs of the idea -- are the modern realist "social" novel, the dramatical and lyrical poetry of sickness and morbidity, and the modern "social" administration of justice. (Fs)