As Christian and Jew are ranked low by Br. Bauer on account of their asserting privileges, it must be that they could and should free themselves from their narrow standpoint by self-renunciation or unselfishness. If they threw off their "egoism," the mutual wrong would cease, and with it Christian and Jewish religiousness in general; it would be necessary only that neither of them should any longer want to be anything peculiar.
But, if they gave up this exclusiveness, with that the ground on which their hostilities were waged would in truth not yet be forsaken. In case of need they would indeed find a third thing on which they could unite, a "general religion," a "religion of humanity," and the like; in short, an equalization, which need not be better than that which would result if all Jews became Christians, by which likewise the "privilege" of one over the other would have an end. The tension[150] would indeed be done away, but in this consisted not the essence of the two, but only their neighborhood. As being distinguished from each other they must necessarily be mutually resistant,[151] and the disparity will always remain. Truly it is not a failing in you that you stiffen[152] yourself against me and assert your distinctness or peculiarity: you need not give way or renounce yourself.
People conceive the significance of the opposition too formally and weakly when they want only to "dissolve" it in order to make room for a third thing that shall "unite." The opposition deserves rather to be sharpened. As Jew and Christian you are in too slight an opposition, and are contending only about religion, as it were about the emperor's beard, about a fiddlestick's end. Enemies in religion indeed, in the rest you still remain good friends, and equal to each other, e. g. as men. Nevertheless the rest too is unlike in each; and the time when you no longer merely dissemble your opposition will be only when you entirely recognize it, and everybody asserts himself from top to toe as unique.[153] Then the former opposition will assuredly be dissolved, but only because a stronger has taken it up into itself.
Our weakness consists not in this, that we are in opposition to others, but in this, that we are not completely so; i. e. that we are not entirely severed from them, or that we seek a "communion," a "bond," that in communion we have an ideal. One faith, one God, one idea, one hat, for all! If all were brought under one hat, certainly no one would any longer need to take off his hat before another.
The last and most decided opposition, that of unique against unique, is at bottom beyond what is called opposition, but without having sunk back into "unity" and unison. As unique you have nothing in common with the other any longer, and therefore nothing divisive or hostile either; you are not seeking to be in the right against him before a third party, and are standing with him neither "on the ground of right" nor on any other common ground. The opposition vanishes in complete—severance or singleness.[154] This might indeed be regarded as the new point in common or a new parity, but here the parity consists precisely in the disparity, and is itself nothing but disparity, a par of disparity, and that only for him who institutes a "comparison."
The polemic against privilege forms a characteristic feature of liberalism, which fumes against "privilege" because it itself appeals to "right." Further than to fuming it cannot carry this; for privileges do not fall before right falls, as they are only forms of right. But right falls apart into its nothingness when it is swallowed up by might, i. e. when one understands what is meant by "Might goes before right." All right explains itself then as privilege, and privilege itself as power, as—superior power.
But must not the mighty combat against superior power show quite another face than the modest combat against privilege, which is to be fought out before a first judge, "Right," according to the judge's mind?
Now, in conclusion, I have still to take back the half-way form of expression of which I was willing to make use only so long as I was still rooting among the entrails of right, and letting the word at least stand. But, in fact, with the concept the word too loses its meaning. What I called "my right" is no longer "right" at all, because right can be bestowed only by a spirit, be it the spirit of nature or that of the species, of mankind, the Spirit of God or that of His Holiness or His Highness, etc. What I have without an entitling spirit I have without right; I have it solely and alone through my power.
I do not demand any right, therefore I need not recognize any either. What I can get by force I get by force, and what I do not get by force I have no right to, nor do I give myself airs, or consolation, with my imprescriptible right.