If the deserving count as the
free, then the " servants " are the—free. The obedient servant
is the free man ! What glaring nonsense !
Even at birth the children belong
to the State, and to the parents only in the name of the State, which, e. g.,
does not allow infanticide, demands their baptism, etc. But all the State's
children, furthermore, are of quite equal account in its eyes (" civic
or political equality "), and they may see to it themselves how they get
along with each other; they may compete. Free competition means nothing else
than that one can present himself, assert himself, fight against another.
It is labor that constitutes
our dignity and our—equality. What advantage does citizenship bring us
? Burdens ! And how high is our labor appraised ? As low as possible ! But labor
is our sole value all the same; that we are laborers is the best thing about
us, this is our significance in the world, and therefore it must be our consideration
too and must come to receive consideration.
The cry for " freedom "
rings loudly all around. But is it felt and known what a donated or chartered
freedom must mean ? It is not recognized in the full amplitude of the word that
all freedom is essentially— self-liberation,—i. e., that I can have
only so much freedom as I procure for myself by my ownness. Of what use is it
to sheep that no one abridges their free tian, permission to speak what he likes:
he will yet utter only narrow-minded stuff. If, on the contrary, certain others
rob you of the freedom of speaking and hearing, they know quite rightly wherein
lies their temporary advantage, as you would perhaps be able to say and hear
something whereby those " certain " persons would lose their credit.
To say in blunt words what an
un-man is is not particularly hard: it is a man who does not corre- spond to
the concept man, as the inhuman is something human which is not conformed to
the concept of the human. Logic calls this a " self-contradictory judgment."
Would it be permissible for one to pronounce this judgment, that one can be
a man without being a man, if he did not admit the hypothesis that the concept
of man can be separated from the existence, the essence from the appearance?
They say, he appearsindeed as a man, but is not a man.
Can I change a piece of nonsense
into sense by reforming it, or must I drop it outright
Be it ever so little, if one
only has somewhat of his own,—to wit, a respected property! The more such
owners, such cotters, the more " free people and good patriots " has
the State.
What a slave will do as soon as
he has broken his fetters, one must—await to know.
The press does not become free
from what I am not free from. Language or " the word " tyrannizes
hardest over us, because it brings up against us a whole army of fixed ideas. v The ideal "
Man " is realized when the Christian apprehension turns about and becomes
the proposition, " I, this unique one, am man." The conceptual question,
" what is man ? "—has then changed into the personal question,
" who is man ? " With " what " the concept was sought for,
in order to realize it; with " who " it is no longer any question
at all, but the answer is personally on hand at once in the asker: the question
answers itself.