In his essay “On Hegel”, political philosopher Eric Voegelin brilliantly revealed how all imaginators, in casu Hegel, shift “the meaning of existence from life in the presence under God, with its personal and social duties of the day, to the role of a functionary of history; the reality of existence will be eclipsed and replaced by the Second Reality of the imaginative project. In order to fulfill this purpose, the project must first of all eclipse the unknown future by the image of the known future; it must further endow the construction of the ages with the certainty of a science – of a Wissenschaftslehre, a ‘system of science’, a philospophie positive, a Wissenschaftlicher Sozialismus; and it must, finally, conceive the future age in such a manner that the present imaginator becomes its inaugurator and master. The purpose of securing a meaning of existence, with certainty, in a masterly role betrays the motives of the construction in the imaginator’s existential insecurity, anxiety and libido dominandi. This is megalomania on the grand scale. Still, the messiases of the early nineteenth century have left so deep an imprint on the so-called modern age that we have become accustomed to their madness; our sensitivity for the element of the grotesque in their enterprise has become dulled.”
The Übermensch
The most explicit pronouncement describing Man elevating himself in a Second Reality in which, of necessity, God has been declared dead, was handed down to us by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche. In this Godless Second Reality, Man has no other option than levitating himself to the state of Übermensch”. The word Übermensch is often translated as ‘Superman’. Strictly speaking, Übermensch means ‘Above-man’, über as in “higher” or supra. The Aboveman is still Man, but he is “Man holding himself from above”. He is capable of redeeming the shortcomings of life from the position that used to be the seat of the Supreme Being. Someone must do God’s job! And since Man as ‘Underman’ would have to accept the misery of being no more than, as Hegel put it, “but a blind link in the chain of absolute necessity”, Man can only escape misery by becoming Übermensch. In his book Die fröhliche Wissenschaft (“The Gay Science”), Nietzsche found cheerfulness in “the greatest recent event ‒ that ‘God is dead’, that the belief in the Christian god has become unbelievable”, even though this event was already beginning to “cast its first shadows over Europe.”
A generally European event
Of course, Nietzsche could not avoid presenting himself as one of the few Abovemen “the suspicion in whose eyes is strong and subtle enough for this spectacle”, the event itself being “far too great, too distant, too remote from the multitude’s capacity for comprehension even for the tidings of it to be thought of having arrived as yet.” The bringer of these happy tidings qualified himself as one of the “born guessers of riddles who are, as it were, waiting on the mountains, posted between today and tomorrow, […] firstlings and premature births of the coming century, to whom the shadows that must soon envelop Europe should have appeared by now […].” Nietzsche described “the decline of the faith in the Christian god, the triumph of scientific atheism, [as] a generally European event in which all races had their share and for which all deserve credit and honor.” Nietzsche praised “unconditional and honest atheism” as “a triumph achieved finally and with great difficulty by the European conscience, being the most fateful act of two thousand years of discipline for truth that in the end forbids itself the lie in faith in God.” (emphases added)
The Old God is dead
The consequences of this event, so Nietzsche, “are quite the opposite of what one might perhaps expect: They are not at all sad and gloomy but rather like a new and scarcely describable kind of light, happiness, relief, exhilaration, encouragement, dawn. Indeed, we philosophers and ‘free spirits’ feel, when we hear the news that ‘the old god is dead’, as if a new dawn shone on us; our heart overflows with gratitude, amazement, premonitions, expectation. At long last the horizon appears free to us again, even if it should not be bright; at long last our ships may venture out again, venture out to face any danger; all the daring of the lover of knowledge is permitted again; the sea, our sea, lies open again; perhaps there has never yet been such an ‘open sea’.” The old God is dead. The new God is Man. Aboveman, to be precise.
The Ode to Joy
Nietzsche promised that in the shadow of the dead God that envelops Europe, attentive philosophers and “free spirits” would discover a “scarcely describable kind of light, happiness, relief, exhilaration and encouragement”. Curiously enough, and contrary to what Nietzsche had in mind, this light did not shine upon a world in which God is declared dead. In 1972, the Ministers of the Council of Europe, in what was and has been celebrated ever since as a truly European event, officially adopted the theme of the prelude to the finale of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony as the EU’s supra-national anthem. Beethoven’s Ninth ends with the choral “Ode an die Freude” (Ode to Joy), which is best known for its famous line “Alle Menschen werden Brüder” (“All Men will become Brothers”).
The Heavenly One’s Wing
The Ode was written by Friedrich Schiller. The initial version of the Ode didn’t contain the words “Alle Menschen werden Brüder.” At first, this line said: “Bettler werden Fürstenbrüder”, “beggars become brothers of lords.” Later, Schiller turned the beggars into Men and the brothers of lords became brothers of Men. Also, the Ode’s title seems to have vacillated between “Ode to Joy” and “Ode to Freedom”. In any case, Schiller’s Ode was not an Ode to the brotherhood of Man. It was an Ode to Joy and Freedom.
Joy, beautiful spark of the gods,
Daughter from Elysium,
We enter, drunk with fire,
Heavenly One, thy sanctuary!
Your magic binds again
What convention strictly divides;
All people become brothers,
Where your gentle wing abides.
The Freedom to pursue Happiness
We become brothers in the sanctuary where the Heavenly One’s magic binds again what human convention fragmented and separated. Schiller never wrote that we would become brothers if we substitute life in the presence under God by the scientific atheism venerated by old and new inaugurators of all the Utopias sold to us as sanctuaries. Nor is it so that we become brothers by jointly chanting the European Union’s Anthem and slavishly behaving ourselves in strict obedience to the EU’s “harmonizing” Regulations and Directives designed primarily to unremittingly squeeze an artificial Union out of vastly different cultures, traditions and sovereign nations. The fact remains that we won’t find joy in acting towards one another as brothers on command of the European Union’s masters. Only when we are free to pursue happiness will we become brothers where the Heavenly One’s gentle wing abides.
EU’s inaugurators and masters
As things rapidly turned out, the EU’s Anthem forms part of the several unelected “functionaries’ of history” unrelentless effort to dull our sensitivity for the element of the grotesque in their enterprise to eclipse rather than establish the reality of European existence under the Heavenly One’s wing and replace it by the Second Reality of the imaginative, utopian, project called the European Union. True to form, the project’s imaginators conceive the future age of the EU in such a manner that they become its inaugurators and masters. The Anthem is no more than the thin veil behind which the EU’s messiases try to hide their existential insecurity, anxiety and libido dominandi. Their ostentatious lack of morality and honesty, their lust for power, are illustrative for the demise and destruction of their true Selves and, with their going down, the destruction of that “Europe of old”, just as it was predicted by Nietzsche.
Of Light and Darkness
Yet, Schiller’s words and Beethoven’s choral will eventually survive that “generally European event”. After all, when it comes to Light and Darkness, isn’t it so that John the Evangelist wrote: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made, and without Him nothing was made that has been made. In Him was life, and that life was the light of men. The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”
+ + + + + + + + +
