[P. 103] “Although he [Wotan] compels her [Erda] with his magic (‘she can only withdraw when he allows her to,’ Wagner said) she is his superior in that it is from her lips that he hears the inexorable voice of his conscience which nothing can silence.” [877W-{6-8/76} WRR, p. 103]
Similarly, in a passage previously cited Wagner observed that Alberich’s accusations that Wotan is a hypocrite, that he is motivated by the same egoism that motivates Alberich, and that Wotan is a sinner, are accurate, and that Alberich’s accusations are just. “From the depths of Nibelheim the conscience of their [the gods’] guilt cries up to them … .” [See 376W] Alberich, like Erda, it seems, is the gods’ conscience. Alberich, we must remember, affirms Erda’s knowledge, while Wotan sins against it by denying it. Since Wotan in S.3.1 will consign Erda and her wisdom to the oblivion of sleep, describing her as the embodiment of “mothers’ fear,” Porges’ remembrance of Wagner’s observation that Erda is Wotan’s conscience has special resonance.
And last, since so often Wagner equates Judaism with the stance of modern, secular, scientific thought, and described the Jews as condemned to the reality of this world (i.e., condemned to egoism), it should not surprise us to find him here describing Judaism as the evil conscience of modern civilization (i.e., Alberich as the conscience of the gods in Valhalla), and therefore equating Judaism with both Alberich and Erda, in this sense:
“ … Judaism is the evil conscience of our modern Civilisation.” [460W-{8/50} Judaism In Music: PW Vol. III, p. 100]
Curiously, Adolf Hitler gave a speech in the early 1930’s, prior to becoming Chancellor of Germany, in which he called on the Germans to purge the Judaism in their own nature. [@@@@@@@@@@@]. Setting aside for just a moment the obviously racist meaning of this remark, it is relevant for helping us understand not only perhaps one of the deepest and least understood motives behind racist hatred, but also the problem Wagner sets before us in the relationship of Wotan and his proxies (the Waelsungs and Bruennhilde) to Alberich and his proxy Hagen. The reader should have surmised by now, thanks to all the documentary evidence in Wagner’s Ring and other relevant sources, that Wotan and the gods are to all intents and purposes Nibelungs [lowly, mortal humans driven by egoism] who are posing as gods. And, after Wotan has cast aside his son Siegmund as unfit to be the free hero to whom Wotan looked for redemption from Alberich’s curse, because Wotan has discovered even in the immensely sympathetic Siegmund nothing more than Wotan’s own loathsome nature, Wotan’s greatest and most promising hero, Siegfried, will in the end serve Alberich and Hagen and in so doing betray his true love Bruennhilde. Siegfried himself is, in this sense, also a Nibelung, who has enjoyed the advantage of being unaware of his true identity. According to this reading Wotan, in his quest for redemption, motivated even in his desire to transcend his loathsome egoism and thereby neutralize Alberich’s curse on his Ring (which declares that all men ultimately seek their own welfare, and when tested will renounce love) by that very egoism he wishes to purge from his nature, is undertaking a fool’s errand. His efforts are futile because, no matter what he thinks, feels, says, or does, he must express his egoistic nature and true identity. This then is the true meaning behind Wagner’s assertion above that Judaism is the evil conscience of modern civilization. Had Wagner’s thinking not been corrupted by racism, he would have said that man’s true, egoistic nature is his evil conscience.
