Jewish Philosophical Politics in Germany, 1789-1848

Locating Themselves in History { 109

tive interests in the service of the universal interests of the state.^61 If the Verein

is to integrate Jews into the state by “curing” problematic Jewish subjectivity,

the Verein must itself model such self-transcendence. The Vereinler saw in their

own superior intelligence, their universal Wissen and Wissenschaft, the correc-

tive to oppositional subjectivity; and in so doing they understood their conceptual

talents and pursuits not only in academic but also in decidedly political terms.

Gans’s subsequent addresses remain steeped in Hegel’s political philosophy

and philosophy of history, the latter of which Hegel sketched out at the end

of Philosophy of Right and began lecturing on in winter 1822 – 23.^62 In theorizing

the Verein’s mission and significance Gans draws heavily on Hegel’s idealiza-

tion of the bureaucracy and his theorization of the family, corporation, and the

state as different institutional embodiments of ethical community. On October

28 , 1821 , Gans assures his audience that history is progressing ineluctably from

separation to unity, from particularity to universality, despite certain recent phe-

nomena that might suggest atavistic backsliding.^ Echoing Hegel’s iteration of

a prevalent orientalist geographical notation in the section on world history at

the end of Philosophy of Right, Gans locates humanity’s childhood in the Ori-

ent and its culmination in the present age, which, unmistakably, is a version of

Hegel’s state. This age puts an end to medieval social divisions and, for Jews,

oppression and exclusion. Gans tells his colleagues that doors will open to their

coreligionists, as long as they spare no effort to open them.^63 The opponents

of historical progress are powerless: “they would like to obstruct the spokes of

the wheel of the world [Weltrad], and the rattling and creaking would not kill

them?”^64 Gans’s effusive praise for the Vaterland shows the extent to which he

at this stage saw Prussia as the—emerging—embodiment of Hegel’s state:

We have a fatherland and may rejoice over this fatherland. We are citizens

[Bürger] of a state, subjects [Unterthanen] of a gentle ruler, and we may re-

joice over this. As we are gathered here, we have the educational institutions

and the various benevolent provisions and facilities of our state to thank for

the level of insight that we have attained, as well as for the knowledge we have

come to posses [die unser Eigenthum geworden]; and so grateful loyalty to

this fatherland and its ruler, the most devout fulfillment of our duty, is written

on our hearts in a never-extinguishing script of flame [mit nie zu erlöschender

Flammenschrift].^65

The question Gans goes on to raise for the Vereinler is how to reconcile their fierce

loyalty to the fatherland with their fealty to their fellow Jews, an iteration of the Ver-

ein’s central question of how to harmonize the Jewish community and the state.

Here Gans reimagines the nature of Jewish communal bonds in a distinctly