The German-Jewish Relationship Question In the Light Of Human Cultural Evolution

Copyright © Gebhard Deißler, 2012

Interkulturelles- u. Transkulturelles Management (German)

Intercultural &Transcultural Management (English)

Gestion Interculturelle et Gestion Transculturelle (French)

Gerencia Intercultural y Gerencia Transcultural (Spanish)

Gerência Intercultural e Gerência Transcultural (Portuguese)

跨文化的智慧精髓 - kua wen hua de zhi hui jing sui (Chinese)

транскультурная компетенция - transkulturnaja

kompetencija (Russian)

toransukaruchā 　・ manējimento (Japanese)

トランスカルチャー　・　マネジメント

Vishua Chaytana (Sanskrit)

ZAKAA AL-TA'ALOF AL-THAQAFEE (Arabic)

THE GERMAN-JEWISH RELATIONSHIP QUESTION IN THE LIGHT OF HUMAN CULTURAL EVOLUTION

“Question” is used here in its noble sense referring to an inquiry into something which as yet has no answer, but rather constitutes a problem and which is formulated so as to lead to an answer. The answer may reside in more questions and even in seemingly insoluble dilemmas which in turn may raise more complex questions. I preclude any hue of a connection to other ideological and unethical handling of such questioning inquiry. Only a fresh inquiry can possibly shed a light on it which might be helpful for those touched by it. - Yet a question with a single subject as an equation with only one unknown variable might be less challenging.

Why should I as a non-expert of Semitic studies nor even German history dare touch upon such a delicate issue, which even the best minds do not deal with in a way so as to provide really meaningful answers? Well, I touch upon it, because it touches me! So, whatever I write I wish the reader to interpret it in a way that credits me with good will and the best of intentions, although some aspects of the question are blasphemous beyond human language so utterly and completely that they defy any pen and oceans of ink. Who could capture in words that which defies words and the human mind alike? Neither is it possible to capture God the Almighty in words nor the abysses of the human soul whether it be those of the perpetrators of evil or of the suffering victims or of those who would never pardon and thus feed the never ending spiral of conscious or unconscious mutual hate. There are areas of lived experience that elude the word. They rather require humility and silence.

And yet, if it is no thematized at an altruistic and ethical discursive level its deep undercurrents might erupt as presumably extinguished volcanoes now and then here and there across the earth and it may forever remain a means to psychologically hold the other at ransom. It may remain or become a legitimization for extorting endless concessions from the counterpart. And the longer one maintains this attitude the more one can take advantage of the other and justify it before one’s conscience as a legitimate compensation for unpardonable damages. That is certainly a logic, but that of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. The price of it is that of suffering and of life itself on both sides, a roller coaster that cyclically produces the same eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth configurations.

Neither do Jews have the right to continue personalizing the “crucifixion” of Christ in individual members of Christianity and on the basis of the Shoa, Nor do Christians have a right to fight Jews on the basis of that Crucifixion and assumed historical misconduct.

Without an education of consciousness on both sides there can be no change, in spite of symbolical reconciliation that cannot reach but rather confirms these quasi archetypal pseudo-justifications of deeply rooted patterns of behaviour. -

At one time in the cycle one side holds the upper hand, at another time the other side holds the upper hand. Supposed guilt on both sides legitimizes the unspeakable, insatiable demands for compensation. It is a logic, namely that of a labyrinth without exit, an ever escalating irreversible spiral that can only be reinforced due to longer and longer, deeper and deeper conditioning. When the assumption of guilt is focalized and specified the question of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth becomes specific requiring measures against a specific assumed enemy, although the real guilt, if one can use this category, is maybe diffusely spread across humanity and possibly in the nature of the human mind at a particular moment in its evolution. But the psyche needs consistency and therefore it appoints scapegoats on both sides at certain times.

That reminds us of an archetypical scenario that has been enacted 2000 years ago and which is still enacted today. Then it was assumed that the sacrifice of one man could solve a vaster problem. The Jewish high priests had advised the Jews on the occasion of Jesus Christ’s trial that it would better that one man dies for the people. In the same way, still today, man seems to follow that advice, which allows pinpointing a victim to solve a much larger problem which cannot easily be dealt with. Yet the specification, the personification and victimization seems to assuage man’s thirst, at least for a while.

But this demanding false god in man, that juggernaut has had insatiable appetite for human blood throughout human history right into the present. One goes on sacrificing individuals or groups to that false god who can be acquiesced by choosing and identifying representative substitutes for more complex problems. That juggernaut is within the human mental structure. It is a man-made juggernaut which acts as a device for solving physical and metaphysical problems alike. And it is being used continuously. Most cultures have had this cannibalistic feature of substituting scapegoats for vaster, more difficult problems to be solved and destroying them with assumed personal and collective, physical and metaphysical benefit. Such cathartic cleansing seems to clear the mental horizon for some time.

The older cannibalistic parts of the brain seem to be behind that juggernaut and man’s ability to symbolically appoint representatives and justify it legally and philosophically by the principle of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, which subconsciously prevails still today over Roman law and its progressive development over the centuries which is only representative of rational man. But this represents only a wink in the eye of time compared to the evolutionary history of man; a wave in the ocean of time. And that deeper rooted “programming” than the fairly recent modern perception of a more rational brain still seems to direct human actions with regard to fundamental issues such as identity and survival. The cradle of Western civilization responded to the pre-rational era by rationalism. The ensuing struggle between pre-rational darkness and the light of rationalism constituted a dilemma which is still in the process of resolution. Maybe Christian civilization has introduced a formula that can bridge, reconcile and integrate the two phases of man’s evolution which also is a process.

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