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Circumventions and confrontations: Georg Simmel, Franz Boas and Arthur Ruppin and their responses to antisemitism

2010; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 44; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/00313221003714486

1461-7331

Amos Morris‐Reich,

ABSTRACT Focusing on Georg Simmel, Franz Boas and Arthur Ruppin, three prominent sociologists or anthropologists of German Jewish descent, Morris-Reich analyses their professional responses to antisemitism. He argues that there is a close relationship between their respective epistemic definitions of society and their suggested methods for the study of social phenomena, and the respective forms and registers of their responses to antisemitism. The three cases demonstrate a range of responses, from a strategy of circumventing antisemitism as a distinct phenomenon (Simmel), to one aimed at the transformation of antisemitism into a subset of a general category of prejudice (Boas), to a direct confrontation with antisemitism as a multifaceted phenomenon that possesses universal as well as particularistic aspects (Ruppin). The analysis implies that there is a negative correspondence between the respective responses and antisemitic discourses: Simmel's social theory did not engage with antisemitic writers directly; Boas attempted to undermine antisemitic writers by addressing the shortcomings of racist methodology; and Ruppin attacked antisemitic writers on what he viewed as empirical grounds, while sharing several of their epistemic assumptions. Keywords: anthropologyantisemitismArthur RuppinFranz BoasGeorg Simmelracismsocial theorysociology Notes 1On the role of antisemitism in Simmel's academic career, see Pierre Birnbaum, ‘In the academic sphere: the cases of Emile Durkheim and Georg Simmel’, in Michael Brenner, Vicki Caron and Uri R. Kaufmann (eds), Jewish Emancipation Reconsidered: The French and German Models (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck 2003), 169–96. 2Ya‘akov Goren, Artur Ruppin: h?ayav? u-fo‘olo (Jeruslaem: Yad Tabenkin 2005), 24. 3For a comprehensive discussion, see Marcel Stoetzler, The State, the Nation and the Jews: Liberalism and the Antisemitism Dispute in Bismarck's Germany (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press 2008). See also Albert S. Lindemann, Esau's Tears: Modern Anti-Semitism and the Rise of the Jews (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press 1997), 131. 4Heinrich von Treitschke, A Word about Our Jewry [1880], ed. Ellis Rivkin and trans. from the German by Helen Lederer (Cincinnati, OH: Hebrew Union College [1958]). 5 Ethnologie refers to the empirical, strictly descriptive study of ethnographic groups, while Völkerkunde is theoretical Ethnologie, classifying and generalizing its empirical findings. Volkskunde, or folklore, is the study of the language, customs and mindsets of particular groups, not generally defined racially. See Andre Gingrich, ‘From the nationalist birth of Volkskunde to the establishment of academic diffusionism: branching off from the international mainstream’, in Fredrik Barth, Robert Parkin, Andre Gingrich and Sydel Silverman (eds), One Discipline, Four Ways: British, German, French and American Anthropology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 2005), 86–90. 6See Gary D. Jaworski, Georg Simmel and the American Prospect (Albany: State University of New York Press 1997), 94; and Klaus Christian Köhnke, Der junge Simmel—/in Theoriebeziehungen und sozialen Bewegungen (Frankfurt-on-Main: Suhrkamp 1996), 115. 7Weber's relationship to Jews has been a matter of some dispute. For a comprehensive yet controversial account of Weber, in this respect, see Gary A. Abraham, Max Weber and the Jewish Question: A Study of the Social Outlook of His Sociology (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press 1992). More recently, see Jack Barbalet, ‘Max Weber and Judaism: an insight into the methodology of The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism’, Max Weber Studies, vol. 6, no. 1, 2006, 51–67. 8Jonathan P. Spiro, ‘Nordic vs. anti-Nordic: the Galton Society and the American Anthropological Association’, Patterns of Prejudice, vol. 36, no. 1, 2002, 35–48. 9See Richard Weikart, From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany (Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2004). 10Ignaz Zollschan, Das Rassenproblem unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der theoretischen Grundlagen der jüdischen Rassenfrage, 4th edn (Vienna: Wilhelm Braumüller 1920); on Zollschan, see Sander L. Gilman, ‘Smart Jews in fin-de-siècle Vienna: “hybrids” and the anxiety about Jewish superior intelligence—Hofmannsthal and Wittgenstein’, Modernism/Modernity, vol. 3, no. 2, 1996, 45–58. Ludwig Gumplowicz, Der Rassenkampf: Sociologische Untersuchungen (Innsbruck: Wagner'sche Univ.-Buchhandlung 1883); on Gumplowicz, see Wojciech Adamek and Janusz Radwan-Praglowski, ‘Ludwik Gumplowicz: a forgotten classic of European sociology’, Journal of Classical Sociology, vol. 6, no. 3, 2006, 381–98. On Jews who wrote on race, see Veronika Lipphardt, Biologie der Juden: Jüdische Wissenschaftler über ‘Rasse’ und Vererbung 1900–1935 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht 2008). 11Werner Sombart, Die Juden und das Wirtschaftsleben (Munich and Leipzig: Duncker und Humblot 1911). See Marjorie Lambert, ‘From coexistence to conflict: Zionism and the Jewish community in Germany, 1897–1914’, Leo Baeck Institute Yearbook, vol. 27, 1982, 53–86 (72). 12Klaus Christian Köhnke, ‘Simmel als Jude’, in Köhnke, Der junge Simmel, 122–49 (145). Köhnke quotes several of Simmel's letters in which he reports of having warned younger Jewish colleagues considering an academic career in German universities about the difficulties they should expect (145, 145n217, 379n91, 146, 147). 13On the controversy over the status of race in German sociology, see Michal Bodemann's contribution to this issue. 14Georg Simmel, ‘Über sociale Differenzierung’, in Georg Simmel, Aufsätze 1887 bis 1890; Über sociale Differenzierung; Die Probleme der Geschichtsphilosophie (1892), ed. Heinz-Jürgen Dahme (Frankfurt-on-Main: Suhrkamp 1989), 109–296, esp. 115–38. 15David Frisby, ‘The study of society’, in David Frisby, Simmel and Since: Essays on Georg Simmel's Social Theory (London and New York: Routledge 1992), 15–19. 16Georg Simmel, ‘How is society possible?’, trans. from the German by Kurt H. Wolff [1959], in Georg Simmel, On Individuality and Social Forms, ed. Donald N. Levine (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1971), 6–22 (7). 17Georg Simmel, ‘How is society possible?’, trans. from the German by Kurt H. Wolff [1959], in Georg Simmel, On Individuality and Social Forms, ed. Donald N. Levine (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1971), 9. 18Georg Simmel, ‘How is society possible?’, trans. from the German by Kurt H. Wolff [1959], in Georg Simmel, On Individuality and Social Forms, ed. Donald N. Levine (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1971), 12. 19Georg Simmel, ‘How is society possible?’, trans. from the German by Kurt H. Wolff [1959], in Georg Simmel, On Individuality and Social Forms, ed. Donald N. Levine (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1971), 10. 20Georg Simmel, ‘How is society possible?’, trans. from the German by Kurt H. Wolff [1959], in Georg Simmel, On Individuality and Social Forms, ed. Donald N. Levine (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1971), 18. 21Both essays were first published in Georg Simmel, Soziologie: Untersuchungen über die Formen der Vergesellschaftung (Munich and Leipzig: Duncker und Humblot 1908). 23Georg Simmel, ‘Sociology of the senses’, in Georg Simmel, Simmel on Culture: Selected Writings, ed. David Frisby and Mike Featherstone (London: Sage 1997), 109–19 (118). For the original German text, see Simmel, Soziologie (1992), 733–4. I have used the translation here cited but Simmel's use of ‘Germanen’ is somewhat strange and might better be rendered as ‘Teutons’ to capture the slight absurdity conveyed in German. He may mean ‘Germanen’ to signify Germans who fancy themselves descendants of ancient Germanics or Teutons. This, by association, may also somewhat ‘deconstruct’ his reference to the Jews as well. 22See Georg Simmel, The Philosophy of Money, ed. David Frisby, trans. from the German by David Frisby and Tom Bottomore (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul 1978), 118; and Georg Simmel, Soziologie: Untersuchungen über die Formen der Vergesellschaftung, ed. Otthein Rammstedt (Frankfurt-on-Main: Suhrkamp 1992), 733. 24See, for example, Paul Mendes-Flohr, ‘The Berlin Jew as cosmopolitan’, in Emily Bilski (ed.), Berlin Metropolis: Jews and the New Culture 1890–1918 (Berkeley: University of California Press/ New York: Jewish Museum 1999), 23. 25Otthein Rammstedt, ‘L’étranger de Georg Simmel’, Revue des sciences sociales de la France de l'est, no. 21, 1994, 146–53. 26Georg Simmel, ‘The Stranger’, trans. from the German by Kurt H. Wolff, in Simmel, On Individuality and Social Forms, 143. 27Douglas Cole, Franz Boas: The Early Years, 1858–1906 (Vancouver: Douglas and McIntyre/ Seattle: University of Washington Press 1999), 58–9. 28Douglas Cole, Franz Boas: The Early Years, 1858–1906 (Vancouver: Douglas and McIntyre/ Seattle: University of Washington Press 1999), 59. 29Franz Boas, ‘Changes in bodily form in descendants of immigrants’, in Franz Boas, Race, Language and Culture (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1982), 60–75. 30Franz Boas, ‘Are the Jews a Race?’, The World Tomorrow, January 1923, and ‘Aryans and Non-Aryans’, Mercury, June 1934. Both were later reprinted as ‘The Jews’ and ‘The “Aryan”’, in Franz Boas, Race and Democratic Society (New York: Biblo and Tannen 1945), 38–42 and 43–53, respectively. 31Franz Boas, ‘Race: what it is’, in Franz Boaz, Race and Democratic Society (New York: Biblo and Tannen 1945), 22–3. 32Boas, ‘The Jews’, 39. 33George W. Stocking, Jr, ‘The critique of racial formalism’, in George W. Stocking, Jr., Race, Culture, and Evolution: Essays in the History of Anthropology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 1982), 161–94. 34Franz Boas, ‘On alternating sounds’, American Anthropologist, vol. 2, 1889, 47–53. 35See Michael P. Steinberg, ‘Aby Warburg's Kreuzlingen lecture: a reading’, in Aby M. Warburg, Images from the Region of the Pueblo Indians of North America, trans. from the German by Michael P. Steinberg (Ithaca, NY and London: Cornell University Press 1995), 59–114. 36Franz Boas, Anthropology and Modern Life (New York: Biblio and Tannen 1969), 19–20. 37Franz Boas, Anthropology and Modern Life (New York: Biblio and Tannen 1969), 29, 44. 38Franz Boas, Anthropology and Modern Life (New York: Biblio and Tannen 1969), 80. 39Arthur Ruppin, Die Soziologie der Juden (Berlin: Jüdischer Verlag 1930), 49. Translations, unless otherwise stated, are by the author. 40For a discussion, see Mitchell B. Hart, Social Science and the Politics of Modern Jewish Identity (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press 2000). 41Goren, Artur Ruppin, 24. 42Goren, Artur Ruppin, 33. See also Ruppin's diary entries for 23 November 1894, 7 March 1892, and 12 June 1893. 43On the relationship between young Ruppin and antisemitism, see Yehoyakim Doron, ‘Ha-tsionut ha-klasit ve-ha-antishemiut Ha-modernit: haqbalot ve-hashlachot (1883–1914)’, Ha-tsionut, vol. 8, 1983, 56–101, esp. 91. 44It is interesting to compare Ruppin's analysis with Nachman Syrkin's, who also integrated a Zionist and a Marxist interpretation. See Marie Syrkin, Nachman Syrkin, Socialist Zionist: A Biographical Memoir [and] Selected Essays (New York: Herzl Press 1961). 45Goren, Artur Ruppin, 33 (Ruppin's diary entry for 4 August 1893). 46Goren, Artur Ruppin, 33 (Ruppin's diary entry for 4 August 1893), 100. 47See their respective entries in Arthur Hertzberg (ed.), The Zionist Idea: A Historical Analysis and Reader (Philadelphia and Jerusalem: Jewish Publication Society 1997). 48Arthur Ruppin, Die Juden der Gegenwart, revd edn (Berlin: Jüdischer Verlag 1911), 197. 49Arthur Ruppin, Die Juden der Gegenwart, revd edn (Berlin: Jüdischer Verlag 1911), 198–9, 204. 50Arthur Ruppin, The Jewish Fate and Future, trans. from the German by E. W. Dickes (London: Macmillan 1940), 207. See also Ruppin, Soziologie der Juden, 35. 51Ruppin, The Jewish Fate and Future, 207. These statements greatly resemble statements made by Franz Boas, although Boas viewed this ‘group instinct’ as a remnant of a primitive organization of humanity, and Ruppin, it seems, thought it was constant and immutable. 52Ruppin, Soziologie der Juden, 35. 53Ruppin, The Jewish Fate and Future, 208. 54Ruppin, The Jewish Fate and Future, 211–14. See also Ruppin, Soziologie der Juden, 37–8. 55Ruppin, The Jewish Fate and Future, 233–43 (233–4). See also Ruppin, Soziologie der Juden, 39–43. 56Ruppin, The Jewish Fate and Future, 225. 57Ruppin, Soziologie der Juden, 41. Conversely, he criticized Aryan race theory for working under the false assumption of pure racial types (42). 58Ruppin, Soziologie der Juden, 50. Additional informationNotes on contributorsAmos Morris-Reich Amos Morris-Reich teaches in the Department of Jewish History at the University of Haifa, and is the director of the Bucerius Institute for Research of German History and Society. He is the author of The Quest for Jewish Assimilation in Modern Social Science (Routledge 2008)