Jewish Philosophical Politics in Germany, 1789-1848
amelia
(Amelia)
#1
108 } Jewish Philosophical Politics in Germany
inhibited and hindered us. Rather, it will then be revealed that we did not
will and grasp what was right, or, what amounts to the same thing, that we
did not approach it in the right way, [nicht auf die rechte Weise in dasselbe
eingegangen sind], and, to remain within the previous metaphor [Bild], if
the Idea, which we all seemed to revere, proves itself, at the moment we
would seize control of it utterly and completely [da wir uns ganz und gar
ihrer bemeistern wollen], to be the noli me tangere, then this surely occurs
not because it has once and for all conspired against all contact, but rather
because we lack the fingers to touch it, because in us there is, instead of a
higher sense of touch, blind groping and, instead of fine antennae, coarser
tools.^59
Precisely because of his brimming confidence that their conceptual labor
portends ineluctable empirical transformation—that their Auffassen of the idea
is essentially identical with its eventual Aufführen—Gans is eager to insist that
failed execution would necessarily indicate a flawed conception.
In his insistence that the Verein’s (still hypothetical) failure would bespeak
intellectual shortcomings on the part of its members, Gans links the two related
problematics with which I am chiefly concerned: the relation of theory and real-
ity and the project of refashioning Jewish subjectivity so as to harmonize with a
“scientifically” comprehended structure of ethical totality. Should reality belie,
not fulfill, the Verein’s theoretical vision, Gans reasons that the failure must be
attributed to personal flaws, and in a sense to the flaw of personality (or bad
subjectivity) itself. These links become clearer in the remarks with which Gans
closes this speech:
No cause, I’ve often said in this assembly, requires more true enthusiasm than
ours: whoever allows personality to prevail here, or places personal aims over
ours, acts not only traitorously vis-à-vis our cause but also nonsensically and
inconsistently; for since joining with us precisely demonstrates [beweist]
that each personality has been relinquished and removed [aufgegeben und
beseitigt], he must be called shallow and empty who, having the great wide
world beyond us at his disposal for his ego, intrudes into our circle in order
to install it here [um es hier gelten(d) zu machen].... We do not need forces
but rather one living force, and this has never been made up of the mere ag-
gregate of individuals.^60
Gans defines the Verein’s success as contingent on the suspension of personal-
ity. His call to leave personality at the door and to devote oneself to the Verein’s
cause echoes Hegel’s theorization of how civil servants overcome their subjec-