The Jewish problem reveals the limitations of liberalism: liberal society, constituted by universal morality rather than by religion (which it regards as private), seems to offer Jews equal membership; but, precisely because it recognizes a private sphere, it also recognizes, and can offer no guarantee against, private anti-Jewish feelings and the consequent social inequality. More important, by holding up assimilation as THE model , liberal society deprives Jews of self-respect deriving from loyalty to their own heroic tradition, while it gives in return too often only shallow self-satisfaction and membership in a nonexistent universal human society. Yet, for all its inadequacies, this nonsolution is manifestly superior to the solutions resulting from the destruction of the Jewish state by the anti-Jewish states of National Socialism and Communism. As for political Zionism, that attempted solution offers Jews assimilation not as individuals but as a people, with their own liberal secular state like those of other peoples. The otherwise empty form of that state, however, requires Jewish culture as its content. And Jewish culture in any serious sense means first and foremost Jewish faith, as faith or trust in God rather than in men, must regard as blasphemous the notion of a human solution to the Jewish problem. -- Epilogue The History of Political Philosophy
Posted on: Wed, 12 Mar 2014 15:58:05 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015