isn’t directly beholden to received wisdom, tradition, common practice, normative behavior, etc. It tends to squelch all manifestations of authentic genius in its midst, to arrest human growth, to insure that everyone remains on its level, dwarflike. Of this stultifying dependence on the habitual at the heart of established society, Wagner says:
[P. 230] The Existing has a mighty empire over man. Our Established Society has a terrible power over us, for it has deliberately arrested the growth of our strength. The strength for this holy war can come to us [to Siegfried] from nothing save perception of the worthlessness of our Society [Siegfried finds evil in all that Mime does]. When we have clearly recognised how our existing Society disowns its task, how violently and often craftily it withholds [P. 231] us from our mission, our right, our happiness [Mime has deprived Siegfried of the knowledge of his true, heroic Waelsung heritage, and substituted his own prosaic, narrow concerns for Siegfried’s rightful destiny], we shall have won the force to fight, to conquer it.” [397W-{2/49} Man and Established Society: PW Vol. VIII, p. 230-231]
It is clear that Mime has striven to thwart what would otherwise have become Siegfried’s true mission in life, in order to exploit Siegfried for the sole purpose of winning, through Siegfried’s efforts, the power of the Nibelung Ring and Hoard.
Pursuing our examination of Wagner’s projection on to the Jews of all those social impulses which thwart the expression of true genius and the ideal, we can see from his remarks below that he accused the Jews of Germany of appropriating only the outer form of Germany’s intellectual heritage, as in literature, music, science, language, etc., but leaving behind its vital spirit, just as Mime has appropriated the knowledge of Siegfried’s true heritage, and, as we will see, the pieces of Siegfried’s father’s broken sword Nothung (the physical testimony to that heritage), which Mime is unable to re-forge. It is noteworthy in this regard that Siegfried says he would not even have learned to speak had he not forced Mime to teach him. As Wagner put it:
“Taken strictly, … our world was new to the Jews [i.e., after their political emancipation]; and all they undertook, to set them straight therein, consisted in the appropriation of our ancient heritage. This applies before all to our language – for it would be rude to refer to our money.” [904W-{2/78} Modern: PW Vol. VI, p. 44]
This aspect of Wagner’s anti-Semitism has been dealt with at some length by such writers as Bryan Magee, Paul Lawrence Rose and Mark Weiner, among others.
On the subject of Judaism as an influence which, according to Wagner, has stunted the growth and development of an authentic German culture, Cosima records Wagner’s following viewpoint:
“Friend Levi stays behind after our other friends have gone, and when he tells us that his father is a rabbi, our conversation comes back to the Israelites – the feeling that they intervened too early in our cultural condition, that the human qualities the German character might have developed from within itself and then passed on to the Jewish character have been stunted by their premature interference in our affairs, before we have become fully aware of ourselves.” [956W-{1/13/79}CD Vol. II, p. 254]
