Re: Gobineau, the "Bayreuth Circle" and Schemann

On Thu, 27 Nov 2003 13:32:46 -0800, Laon wrote:


> For a long time I've been puzzled by Wagner's apparent piety at the end
> of "Heroism and Christianity". It's clear that Wagner meant to reject
> Gobineau's racism, and to argue that allow all people of all races could
> again achieve "heroism" in the sense indicated above, through the
> sacrifice of Christ.

It has to be acknowledged that "Heroism and Christianity" (in Ellis'
strange translation, "Herodom and Christendom") is a difficult essay that
can easily be misunderstood on a first reading.  It has to be read against
the background of Wagner's earlier writings and in the context of his
interaction with Gobineau, with whom he was attempting a reconciliation.
If anything is clear about it, however, it is, as you say, that Wagner
meant to reject Gobineau's racism.  Although the essay takes as its
starting point the hypothesis, "what if Gobineau is right?"

Many people, including writers about Wagner and visitors to this newsgroup
who have read their books, appear to believe that Wagner accepted
Gobineau's racist theories, citing (the first two pages of) "Heroism and
Christianity" as evidence of this.  It is not.  It is evidence of the
exact opposite. Some writers, notably Gutman, go further, and attribute
some of the ideas expressed in "Heroism and Christianity", which Wagner
had heard from Gutman, to Wagner himself.  This is not only wrong, it is a
great injustice.



> But that seems unlikely to have been Wagner's position. Wagner was not
> generally a believer in the supernatural, which means he was hardly an
> orthodox Christian. So it's hard to think that he really meant that the
> Christian god existed and would intervene to redeem us, provided we took
> part in communion rituals. In "Heroism and Christianity" he praised
> Brahminism, but declared it inferior to Christianity, saying it was a
> race-based religion which privileged one racial group over another,
> while Christianity was for all humanity. That is, Wagner didn't favour
> Christianity over Brahminism because Christianity was more "true"; he
> favoured Christianity over Brahminism on the essentially moral and
> practical grounds that Christianity is not racist, while (he said)
> Brahminism is.
> 
> 
I do not entirely understand Wagner's statement that Brahminism (the kind
of Hinduism practised by the Brahmins, together with their philosophies,
especially Vedanta) is or was a "racial" religion.  He might have been
thinking that it was confined to one country, or he might have been
thinking of the caste system (with the Brahmins at its top) and its
possible origins, which he had discussed with Gobineau.  Recall that his
abandoned "Buddhist" drama, "Die Sieger", is based on a story that relates
how the Buddha preached against the caste system, and in which the Buddha
argues with the Brahmins in a scenario that resembles biblical accounts of
Christ arguing with the Pharisees.  It might be that Wagner's ideas about
Brahminism were a little muddled, or that he was trying to develop and
argument that involved stretching the facts.  It would not be the first
time he did so.

-- 
Derrick Everett   (deverett at c2i.net)
==== Writing from  59°54'N 10°36'E ====
http://home.c2i.net/monsalvat/index.htm