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Assimilation als Untergang Ludwig Gumplowicz ' Judentum und die Frage des Antisemitismus

2012; Brill; Volume: 64; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1163/157007312801604852

1570-0739

Abstract In his book The Destruction of Reason , Georg Lukács declared the Jewish sociologist Ludwig Gumplowicz (1838-1909) to be a forerunner of National-Socialist race theory. Although Gumplowicz's philosophy of history undoubtedly features social-Darwinism and a certain category of “race,” for obvious reasons he could not approve of the central element of contemporary and subsequent German race-theories: AntiSemitism. But rather than resolutely opposing Jew-hatred, Gumplowicz rationalized the everlasting persecution of the Jews and favoured a strong affirmation of Jewish assimilation as an effective antidote. As little space as the theory of anti-Semitism takes up in Gumplowicz's works, as much it seems to be the key to discover the motives of this resigned Enlightener and former civic-nationalist revolutionary.