In other words, only he who acknowledges unflinchingly and without any reservations that murder is under no circumstances to be sanctioned can commit the murderous deed that is truly — and tragically — moral. To express this sense of the most profound human tragedy in the incomparably beautiful words of Hebbel’s Judith: “Even if God had placed sin between me and the deed enjoined upon me — who am I to be able to escape it?”
“Tactics and Ethics” – 1919
… we Communists are like Judas. It is our bloody work to crucify Christ. But this sinful work is at the same time our calling: only through death on the cross does Christ become God, and this is necessary to be able to save the world. We Communists then take the sins of the world upon us, in order to be able thereby to save the world.
Quoted in Daniel Lopez, "The Conversion of Georg Lukács"
Dionysus versus the “Crucified” there you have the antithesis. It is not a difference in regard to their martyrdom—it is a difference in the meaning of it. Life itself, its eternal fruitfulness and recurrence, creates torment, destruction, the will to annihilation. In the other case, suffering—the “Crucified as the innocent one”—counts as an objection to this life, as a formula for its condemnation.—One will see that the problem is that of the meaning of suffering: whether a Christian meaning or a tragic meaning. In the former case, it is supposed to be the path to a holy being; in the latter case, being is counted as holy enough to justify even a monstrous amount of suffering. The tragic man affirms even the harshest suffering ... Dionysus cut to pieces is a promise of life: it will be eternally reborn and return again from destruction.
See [0] for the direct source, and see if you can find that quote. That is actually quote by Russian revolutionary Boris Savinkov. The relevant Lukacs quote is the following
ethical self-awareness makes it quite clear that there are situations — tragic situations — in which it is impossible to act without burdening oneself with guilt. But at the same time it teaches us that, even faced with the choice of two ways of incurring guilt, we should still find that there is a standard attaching to correct and incorrect action. This standard we call sacrifice. And just as the individual who chooses between two forms of guilt finally makes the correct choice when he sacrifices his inferior self on the altar of the higher idea, so it also takes strength to assess this sacrifice in terms of the collective action.
Not much wrong with that.
> Quoted in Daniel Lopez, "The Conversion of Georg Lukács"
That is very far from a verified quote. In fact even the 'Jacobin' article you probably got it from states that it is according to an account by a Social Democratic observer [1]. Social Democrats and Georg Lukacs didn't exactly get along. It is also stylistically not Lukacs, and it would be very strange for Lukacs to talk about Judas in a positive light. Lukacs was a proponent of revolutionary asceticism and discipline. Judas being a historical embodiment of betrayal wouldn't be seen as a positive figure.
> The will to power
You can complain all you want that Hitler and whole of far right misread Nietzsche's Will to Power, extract him from his historical significance and look at his words in abstract, however the objective historical fact remains that Nietzsche had a tremendous influence on Fascism and Nazism (and likely continues to do so) and that is not an accident.
You're right to point out I misattributed the quote from "Tactics and Ethics".
The point I wanted to make is that the parallels between Nietzsche and Lukács abound in these passages. Both advocate for a kind of "ethical self-awareness" that is attuned to "sacrifice in terms of the collective action" which leads to the "most profound human tragedy".
>The tragic man affirms even the harshest suffering
"Sacrifices his inferior self on the altar of the higher idea" even sounds like Nietzsche concept of übermensch.
As for the accusation that I
>complain all [I] want that Hitler and whole of far right misread Nietzsche's Will to Power
, this wasn't my goal, and the fact you went on misinterpreting my words – whereas someone with a virgin mind with respect to these matters would have seen the obvious parallels I pointed out, and nothing more - shows how bound you are to adversariality, as you fail to realize there is heavy irony in blaming the outcome of Nazism, on top of marxist ideology, which did worse and collapsed onto itself. But I guess marxism is but an avatar of Dionysos:
>Dionysos cut into pieces is a promise of Life: it will be forever born anew and rise afresh from destruction
As Girard once said,
>The peoples of the world do not invent their gods. They deify [vilify] their victims.
>It is not difference that dominates the world, but the obliteration of difference by mimetic reciprocity, which itself, being truly universal, shows the relativism of perpetual difference to be an illusion.
κᾰτηγορέω: to speak against, especially before judges, to accuse, to denounce publicly. from κᾰτᾰ- (kata-, “against”) + ἀγορεύω (agoreúō, “to speak in assembly”).
There is a nice post-marxist reflection starting on page 2 of this paper, by someone who actually lived through it and is able to produce a cold-headed analysis of "heroism, self-denial, and altruism" without blaming nor praising it.
> this wasn't my goal, and the fact you went on misinterpreting my words
What words? I posted a quote by George Lukacs to draw attention to relationship between Nietzsche and the rise of Nazism and Fascism. You responded with two false quotes from Lukacs in an attempt to draw parallels between Lukacs and Nietzsche. I would think that affirmation of sacrifice for the greater good is not really that profound a topic to draw parallels on
Bayer starts with quoting various chronicles on atrocities committed on the Jewish population at the time of the Hungarian Council Republic in 1919, which he described as a “rat revolt” to show “how the Bolsheviks, majority-led by Jews, were dealing with people of their kind.” Subsequently, he asks, “How did these animals deal with non-Jews?” In this context, he recounts a story that has emerged again and again since the 1990s. At the end of the First World War, Lukács as a peoples’ commissar took part or even ordered the execution of seven or eight deserters while defending the Hungarian frontier against Romanian troops. The truthfulness of this anecdote has often been doubted, most recently and in detail by András Lengyel, a Hungarian scholar on the history of literature. There are no witnesses to the execution, nor graves, nor documents that would testify the funerals. The trial in this matter, which took place in 1919 after the failure of the Council Republic, condemned the allegedly executing red armist merely on the basis of the fact, that the executions might have taken place according to the usual practice. What is spicy about this episode is, that Lukács talks about the event in the autobiographical interview volume Lived thinking and says that he ordered the execution to restore morality. If the executions were carried out, their purpose was to defend the Hungarian frontier against the Western-backed Romanian troops. So questionable the practice of the execution of deserters is, the soldiers were familiar with it from the Austro-Hungarian Army in the First World War. If the execution had been ordered by Horthy or one of his officers, it would be considered a justifiable measure out of patriotic motives by those, who now claim, Lukács was a mass murderer.
Bayer not only uses this episode to insinuate double standards to Lukács’ defenders, who at the same time condemn the antisemite Hóman, but also deliberately creates a parallel between the Bolsheviks “majority-led by Jews” in 1919 and the defenders of Lukács today: “This is an announcement: enough with the intellectual terror, and with the fact, that ‘Lukácsists’ have been deciding who is in the pantheon of intellectual life for a good half century and who is not. And quite generally, it’s enough with you.”
