Goethe on "tolerance"

Battle of Valmy, September 20, 1792

 My earliest interest focused on the young Goethe, the “pre-Weimar” Goethe, which, from a literary POV encompasses the years 1765 to 1775, but I have also recently steeped myself in Goethe’s autobiography of those years, in particular Goethe’s account of an event of his youth as reported in his autobiography, which was written forty-plus years after the event. I won’t go here into the result of my labors, but having finished an article on the subject, I have decided to stay for a while with a “late Goethe” subject. I have been reading two accounts by Goethe of the events of 1792. That was the year in which Goethe accompanied Carl August and the Prussian forces in the War of the First Coalition against the French Revolutionary Armies.

 It was only in 1819 that Goethe began to consider writing his account of what would become Campagne in Frankreich, published in 1822. But Goethe also wrote a small prose work, Unterhaltungen deutscher Ausgewanderten, which concerned the Germans who, escaping the Revolutionary armies, “emigrated” (thus, ausgewandert) to the right bank of the Rhine from their properties on the left bank. It was published in 1795 in Schiller’s journal Horen, thus, much closer in time to the events. Among the emigrants in the story are the Baroness von C.  and three of her grown children, only two of whom are named, Luisa and Friedrich; and a young relative of the family named Karl who is a supporter of the Revolution.

The property where they are holed up is also the possession of the baroness, but, while they often hear the sounds of bombardment, they seem not to be lacking in daily necessities (they are accompanied by servants). In this setting they are visited by Privy Councilor von S. and his wife, who is a long-time friend of the baroness. In this time of upheaval, they are overjoyed to see each other again, but things take a bad turn when the privy councilor and Karl come to strong words concerning the Revolution. The former speaks bitterly about young people who tend to idealize things, while the latter condemns those with superannuated ideas. The outcome, to the consternation of the baroness and her friend, is that the privy councilor more or less storms out, taking his wife with him. After which, of course, a great pall suffuses the household.

Goethe does not use the word “tolerance” (as in tolerance of other viewpoints), but the baroness, seeking to bring everyone to order, begins to speak of “Gesellschaft” and of “gesellige Bildung” (social "education"), of abstaining from commenting on the beliefs and customs of others, especially those customs or beliefs we find ridiculous. A result, as she says, is that “das Interesse des Tages” has led to the abandonment of instructive and elevating conversation.

Those who have stayed with me so far can no doubt recognize the situation that we now find ourselves in, not only in the U.S., but also in most of the Western nations. Living in New York City, as I do, it’s frequently the case that people are absolutely consumed with their own particular “Steckenpferd” on the politics of the present day. I’ve learned — and I am sure it is also the modus operandi of many others — not to wade into the discussion. Nowadays, the opinions on which people disagree are not only considered ridiculous, but also abhorrent. And who wants to be considered abhorrent? Is it the case that the ideals of the French Revolution have brought about this situation? Goethe himself writes the following in Campagne in Frankreich of its effects: “Eine große Nation aus ihren Fugen gerückt und nach unserm unglücklichen Feldzug offenbar auch die Welt schon aus ihren Fugen.”(A great nation thrown out of joint, and after our unfortunate campaign the world apparently also thrown out of joint.)

I notice that the translation of Goethe's work pictured above uses “refugees” for “Ausgewanderten,”  which corresponds more to the current state of cross-borders flights and which is generally rendered in German reportage as Flüchtlinge. W.G. Sebald in Die Ausgewanderten was clearly thinking of Goethe when he used that term. Thus, in the English translation of that work, it is rendered as “The Emigrants.”

To Be Continued.