The French aristocrat
Arthur de Gobineau
Joseph Arthur de Gobineau (; 14 July 1816 – 13 October 1882) was a French aristocrat who is best known for helping to legitimise racism by the use of scientific racist theory and "racial demography", and for developing the theory of the Aryan ...
developed a set of ideas that were influential during his life and some of them that impacted later social thinkers, such politicians, anthropologists, and sociologists. While still alive, he was a major influence on "Gobinism", also known as Gobineauism, an academic, political and social movement formed in 19th-century Germany. An ethnically pro-Germanic while anti-national ideology, particularly against the French nation, the movement influenced
German nationalists
German nationalism () is an ideological notion that promotes the unity of Germans and German-speakers into one unified nation state. German nationalism also emphasizes and takes pride in the patriotism and national identity of Germans as one ...
and intellectuals such as
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most op ...
and
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (; or ; 15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher, prose poet, cultural critic, philologist, and composer whose work has exerted a profound influence on contemporary philosophy. He began his ...
.
Racial theories
Shocked by the Revolution of 1848, Gobineau first expressed his racial theories in his 1848 epic poem ''Manfredine''. In it he revealed his fear of the revolution being the beginning of the end of aristocratic Europe, with common folk descended from lesser breeds taking over. The poem, set at the time of the revolt in Naples against Spanish rule in 1647 (an allegory for 1848), concerns the eponymous character, a noblewoman on whom Gobineau spends a good five hundred lines tracing her descent from Viking ancestors. It features the lines:
Gobineau came to believe race created culture. He argued that distinctions among the three races—"black", "white", and "yellow"—were natural barriers; "race-mixing" breaks those barriers and leads to chaos. Of the three races, he argued blacks were physically very strong but incapable of intelligent thought. Regarding the "yellows" (Asians) he said they were physically and intellectually mediocre but had an extremely strong materialism that allowed them to achieve certain results. Finally, Gobineau wrote whites were the best and greatest of the three races as they alone were capable of intelligent thought, creating beauty and were the most beautiful. "The white race originally possessed the monopoly of beauty, intelligence and strength" he wrote, and any positive qualities the Asians and blacks possessed was due to subsequent miscegenation.
Within the white race, there was a further subdivision between the Aryans, who were the epitome of all that was great about the white race and non-Aryans. Gobineau took the term Aryan ("light one" or "noble one") from Hindu legend and mythology, which describes how the Indian subcontinent was conquered at some time in the distant past by the Aryans. This is generally believed to have reflected folk memories of the arrival of the
Indo-European
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Du ...
peoples into the Indian subcontinent. In the 19th century, there had been much public interest in the discovery by Orientalists like
William Jones of the
Indo-European languages
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, D ...
, and that apparently unrelated languages such as English, Irish, Albanian, Italian, Greek, Russian, Sanskrit, Hindi, Bengali, Kurdish, Persian and so forth were all part of the same family of languages spoken across a wide swath of Eurasia from Ireland to India. The ancient
Hindu scriptures
Hindu texts are manuscripts and voluminous historical literature which are related to any of the diverse traditions within Hinduism. A few of these texts are shared across these traditions and they are broadly considered Hindu scriptures. These ...
with their tales of Aryan heroes were of major interest to scholars attempting to trace the origins of the Indo-European peoples.
Gobineau believed the white race had originated somewhere in
Siberia
Siberia ( ; rus, Сибирь, r=Sibir', p=sʲɪˈbʲirʲ, a=Ru-Сибирь.ogg) is an extensive geographical region, constituting all of North Asia, from the Ural Mountains in the west to the Pacific Ocean in the east. It has been a part ...
, the
Asians
Asian people (or Asians, sometimes referred to as Asiatic people)United States National Library of Medicine. Medical Subject Headings. 2004. November 17, 200Nlm.nih.gov: ''Asian Continental Ancestry Group'' is also used for categorical purpos ...
in the
Americas
The Americas, which are sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North America, North and South America. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World. ...
and the blacks in
Africa
Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...
. He thought the numerical superiority of the Asians had forced the whites to make a vast migration that led them into
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
, the Middle East and the
Indian subcontinent
The Indian subcontinent is a physiographical region in Southern Asia. It is situated on the Indian Plate, projecting southwards into the Indian Ocean from the Himalayas. Geopolitically, it includes the countries of Bangladesh, Bhutan, In ...
; both the
Bible
The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus ...
and Hindu legends about the conquering Aryan heroes reflected folk memories of this migration. In turn, the whites had broken into three sub-races, namely the
Hamitic,
Semitic and
Japhetic
The term Japhetites (in adjective form Japhethitic or Japhetic) refers to the descendents of Japheth, one of the three sons of Noah in the Bible. The term has been adopted in ethnological and linguistic writing from the 18th to the 20th century ...
peoples. The latter were the Aryans of Hindu legends and were the best and greatest of all the whites.
He originally wrote that, given the past trajectory of civilization in Europe, white race miscegenation was inevitable and would result in growing chaos. Despite his opinion that whites were the most beautiful of the races, he believed Asian and black women had immense powers of sexual attraction over white men. Whenever whites were in close proximity to blacks and Asians, the result was always miscegenation as white men were seduced by the beauty of Asian and black women, to the detriment of whites. Though not expressly obsessed with antisemitism, Gobineau saw the Jews as praiseworthy for their ability to avoid miscegenation while at the same time depicting them as another alien force for the decay of Aryan Europe. Gobineau thought the development of civilization in other periods was different from that of his own, and speculated that other races might have superior qualities in those civilizations. But, he believed European civilization represented the best of what remained of ancient civilizations and held the most superior attributes capable for continued survival.
Focus on Aryans as a superior race
Gobineau asserted that the Aryans had founded the ten great civilizations of the world, writing: "In the ten civilizations no Negro race is seen an initiator. Only when it is mixed with some other, can it even be initiated into a civilization. Similarly, no spontaneous civilization is to be found among the yellow races; and when the Aryan blood is exhausted stagnation supervenes". Gobineau, mindful of his own supposed noble and Frankish descent classified the Germanic peoples as being the Aryans in Europe.
He believed Aryans had also moved into India and
Persia
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
. Gobineau used medieval Persian epic poetry, which he treated as completely historically accurate accounts, together with the beauty of Persian women (whom he saw as the most beautiful in the world) to argue that Persians were once great Aryans, but unfortunately the Persians had interbred too often with the Semitic Arabs for their own good. At the same time, Gobineau argued that in
Southeast Asia
Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical south-eastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of mainland ...
the blacks and Asians had intermixed to create the sub-race of the Malays. He classified
Southern Europe
Southern Europe is the southern region of Europe. It is also known as Mediterranean Europe, as its geography is essentially marked by the Mediterranean Sea. Definitions of Southern Europe include some or all of these countries and regions: Alb ...
,
South-Eastern Europe, the Middle East,
Central Asia
Central Asia, also known as Middle Asia, is a region of Asia that stretches from the Caspian Sea in the west to western China and Mongolia in the east, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the south to Russia in the north. It includes the fo ...
, and
North Africa
North Africa, or Northern Africa is a region encompassing the northern portion of the African continent. There is no singularly accepted scope for the region, and it is sometimes defined as stretching from the Atlantic shores of Mauritania in ...
as racially mixed.
[J. A. Gobineau: ''The Moral and Intellectual Diversity of Races''. J. B. Lippincott & Co, Philadelphia (1856), pp. 337–338]
Gobineau's primary thesis was that European civilization flowed from Greece to Rome, and then to Germanic and contemporary civilization. He thought this corresponded to the ancient
Indo-European
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Du ...
culture, which earlier anthropologists had misconceived as "
Aryan
Aryan or Arya (, Indo-Iranian *''arya'') is a term originally used as an ethnocultural self-designation by Indo-Iranians in ancient times, in contrast to the nearby outsiders known as 'non-Aryan' (*''an-arya''). In Ancient India, the term ...
"—a term that only
Indo-Iranians
Indo-Iranian peoples, also known as Indo-Iranic peoples by scholars, and sometimes as Arya or Aryans from their self-designation, were a group of Indo-European peoples who brought the Indo-Iranian languages, a major branch of the Indo-European l ...
are known to have used in ancient times. This included groups classified by language like the Celts, Slavs and the Germans. Gobineau later came to use and reserve the term Aryan only for the "Germanic race", and described the Aryans as ''la race germanique''. By doing so, he presented a racist theory in which Aryans—that is Germanic people—were all that was positive.
Gobineau described the Aryans as physically extremely beautiful and very tall; of immense intelligence and strength, and endowed with incredible energy, great creativity in the arts and a love of war. Like many other racists, he believed one's looks determined what one did, or in other words, that beautiful people created beautiful art while ugly people created ugly art. He attributed much of the economic turmoil in France to pollution of the races.
Despite his pride in being French, Gobineau often attacked many aspects of French life under the
Third Republic as reflecting "democratic degeneration"—namely the chaos that he believed resulted when the mindless masses were allowed political power—which meant that critical reception of Gobineau in France was very mixed. His contempt for ordinary people emerges from his letters, where his preferred term for common folk was ''la boue'' ("the mud"). Gobineau questioned the belief that the black and yellow races belong to the same human family as the white race and share a common ancestor. Trained neither as a theologian nor a naturalist, and writing before the popular spread of evolutionary theory, Gobineau took the Bible to be a true telling of human history.
Other views and writings
Novels and essays
Besides promoting racism, Gobineau also wrote several well received novels. Writers such as
Marcel Proust
Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust (; ; 10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) was a French novelist, critic, and essayist who wrote the monumental novel '' In Search of Lost Time'' (''À la recherche du temps perdu''; with the previous ...
,
Jean Cocteau
Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau (, , ; 5 July 1889 – 11 October 1963) was a French poet, playwright, novelist, designer, filmmaker, visual artist and critic. He was one of the foremost creatives of the s ...
and
André Gide
André Paul Guillaume Gide (; 22 November 1869 – 19 February 1951) was a French author and winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature (in 1947). Gide's career ranged from its beginnings in the symbolist movement, to the advent of anticolonialism ...
have praised him as one of France's greatest novelists. In his native France, he has been and is still often praised by literary critics as a master of French style whose novels were written with elegant verve and a superb sense of irony. French critic Pierre-Louis Rey and British historian
Michael D. Biddiss have both decried the tendency of French critics to sever Gobineau the racist from Gobineau the novelist, maintaining his novels reflect his racial theories just as much as the ''Essai''. Gobineau's 1874 novel ''Les Pléiades'' is concerned with a few exceptionally talented people who are examples of "ethnic persistence" in Europe surrounded by vast masses of morons. In his introduction to ''Les Pléiades'', Gobineau says the purpose of the novel is to advance the theory "that there are no longer classes, that there are no longer peoples, but only—in the whole of Europe—certain individuals who float like the wreckage upon the flood".
Another one of his literary works is ''Nouvelles Asiatiques'' (1876), which concerns the impact of miscegenation in modern Asia as reflected in the life stories of a diverse group of people. ''Nouvelles Asiatiques'' is unique as his only novel to feature non-white protagonists. In common with his other novels, its message is fundamentally pessimistic, but it allows Gobineau's intense
affection for Persia to shine through.
Despite its title, ''Nouvelles Asiatiques'' is a series of "Oriental" short stories set in Persia, Afghanistan and Central Asia. Its recurring theme is that the character of the people is determined by race. An example is an Uzbek noblewoman, adopted by a Russian officer, retaining the ferocity of her race by attempting to blind his biological daughter while an Afghan prince rises far above the rest because of his Aryan blood.
In his 1877 novel ''La Renaissance'', Gobineau again highlights the theme of a few gifted "Aryan" heroes such as
Cesare Borgia
Cesare Borgia (; ca-valencia, Cèsar Borja ; es, link=no, César Borja ; 13 September 1475 – 12 March 1507) was an Italian ex-cardinal and ''condottiero'' (mercenary leader) of Aragonese (Spanish) origin, whose fight for power was a major i ...
and
Pope Julius II
Pope Julius II ( la, Iulius II; it, Giulio II; born Giuliano della Rovere; 5 December 144321 February 1513) was head of the Catholic Church and ruler of the Papal States from 1503 to his death in February 1513. Nicknamed the Warrior Pope or t ...
having the misfortune to be surrounded by an endless multitude of debased inferiors. In ''La Renaissance'', he attacks the entire idea of morality as the basis of action, arguing that a superior few should not be governed by any set of universal moral values. As such, Pope
Alexander VI
Pope Alexander VI ( it, Alessandro VI, va, Alexandre VI, es, Alejandro VI; born Rodrigo de Borja; ca-valencia, Roderic Llançol i de Borja ; es, Rodrigo Lanzol y de Borja, lang ; 1431 – 18 August 1503) was head of the Catholic Chur ...
is presented as a hero in ''La Renaissance'', precisely because of the utterly ruthless way in which he advanced the interests of the
Borgia
The House of Borgia ( , ; Spanish and an, Borja ; ca-valencia, Borja ) was an Italian-Aragonese Spanish noble family, which rose to prominence during the Italian Renaissance. They were from Valencia, the surname being a toponymic from the town ...
family in defiance of morality.
Friendship with Richard Wagner
![Wagner Paris 1867 1](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5c/Wagner_Paris_1867_1.jpg)
Though a proud Frenchman, Gobineau was cosmopolitan and regarded himself as part of a cultured European elite that transcended national loyalties—a good Frenchman but even more so a "good European". Gobineau felt more affinity for fellow aristocrats of other nationalities than he did for French commoners. The Czech historian Ivo Budil called him "... a cosmopolitan thinker who did not feel wholly French", and who was obsessed with ancient Greece and Persia.
In 1876, Gobineau accompanied his close friend Pedro II on his trip to Russia,
Greece
Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders wi ...
and the
Ottoman Empire
The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University ...
. Gobineau introduced him to both Emperor
Alexander II of Russia
Alexander II ( rus, Алекса́ндр II Никола́евич, Aleksándr II Nikoláyevich, p=ɐlʲɪˈksandr ftɐˈroj nʲɪkɐˈlajɪvʲɪtɕ; 29 April 181813 March 1881) was Emperor of Russia, King of Poland and Grand Duke of Fin ...
and Sultan
Abdul Hamid II
Abdülhamid or Abdul Hamid II ( ota, عبد الحميد ثانی, Abd ül-Hamid-i Sani; tr, II. Abdülhamid; 21 September 1842 10 February 1918) was the sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 31 August 1876 to 27 April 1909, and the last sultan to ...
of the Ottoman Empire. He took his friend on a guided tour of Athens, a city he called "heaven on earth" due to its ruins. Inspired by his last visit to Greece, Gobineau began to write what became his 1878 book ''Le Royaume des Hellènes'' ("The Kingdom of the Hellenes"). In it he argues the achievements of ancient Greece were all due to the Aryans, and there existed no connection between the ancient Greeks and modern Greeks, as the Aryan blood was all gone. After leaving Pedro II in
Constantinople
la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه
, alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth (Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya (Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis (" ...
, Gobineau traveled to Rome, Italy, for a private audience with
Pope Pius IX
Pope Pius IX ( it, Pio IX, ''Pio Nono''; born Giovanni Maria Mastai Ferretti; 13 May 1792 – 7 February 1878) was head of the Catholic Church from 1846 to 1878, the longest verified papal reign. He was notable for convoking the First Vatican ...
.
During his visit to Rome, Gobineau met and befriended the German composer Richard Wagner and his wife
Cosima. Wagner was greatly impressed with the ''Essai sur l'inégalité des races humaines'' and he used his newspaper ''
Bayreuther Blätter
''Bayreuther Blätter'' (''Bayreuth pages'') was a monthly journal founded in by Richard Wagner 1878 and edited by Hans von Wolzogen until his death in 1938. It was written primarily for visitors to the Bayreuth Festival.
The newsletter carried ...
'' to popularize Gobineau's racial theories in Germany. Gobineau, in turn, was greatly impressed with Wagner's music and unusually for a Frenchman, he became a member of the
Bayreuth Circle The Bayreuth Circle (German: ''Der Bayreuther Kreis'') was a name originally applied by some writers to devotees of Richard Wagner's music who attended and supported the annual Bayreuth Festival in the later 19th and early twentieth centuries. As s ...
. Wagner was very interested in Gobineau's racial theories, and many of his writings from the period show Gobineau's influence. Field wrote that "Gobineau's chief work, ''Essai sur l'inégalité des races humaines'' contained a far more detailed and closely argued explanation for cultural decadence than anything Wagner had written. Indeed, this synthesis of anthropology, theology, linguistics and history was unquestionably the most impressive and ideologically coherent racial analysis produced in the pre-Darwinian era."
It remains a matter of dispute whether Gobineau's ideas were also incorporated into Wagner's last opera ''
Parsifal
''Parsifal'' ( WWV 111) is an opera or a music drama in three acts by the German composer Richard Wagner and his last composition. Wagner's own libretto for the work is loosely based on the 13th-century Middle High German epic poem ''Parzival ...
''. Cosima Wagner wrote to Gobineau in May 1881 to tell him: "My husband is quite at your service, always reading ''The Races'' when he is not at work with the staging." Gobineau wrote back to say: "I assure you there is no Bayreuthian more faithful than I". However, while accepting some of Gobineau's basic views into his theories, Wagner rejected Gobineau's pessimism about the fate of humanity and instead created a concept of regeneration, wherein it would return to its past purity by embracing his version of Christianity influenced by the philosophy of
Schopenhauer
Arthur Schopenhauer ( , ; 22 February 1788 – 21 September 1860) was a German philosopher. He is best known for his 1818 work ''The World as Will and Representation'' (expanded in 1844), which characterizes the phenomenal world as the pr ...
.
Gobineau and war
Despite having failed the entrance exams to St. Cyr, Gobineau had an intensely militaristic view of the world, believing different races were born to hate each other and humans have an innate desire to kill one another. He wrote war was a natural part of the human condition and for a nation: "It will either conquer or be conquered". Gobineau dismissed pacifism, writing: "Even if the friends of universal peace succeeded in making Europe disgusted with war, they would still have to bring about a permanent change in the passions of mankind" and that peace was only possible "if all races were actually gifted, in the same degree, with the same powers". Despite being a diplomat whose nominal job was to achieve French policy goals without resorting to war, and despite his personal distaste for the House of Bonaparte, Gobineau very much welcomed the militarism of Napoleon III as bringing greatness back to France. In 1854, Gobineau approved of the
Crimean War
The Crimean War, , was fought from October 1853 to February 1856 between Russia and an ultimately victorious alliance of the Ottoman Empire, France, the United Kingdom and Piedmont-Sardinia.
Geopolitical causes of the war included the ...
, writing that France would gain much prestige by declaring war on Russia, a nation that he had always hated. In a letter to his sister Caroline in October 1854, Gobineau wrote: "After twenty years of a peace that has promoted only corruption and revolution, we find ourselves in a military atmosphere which, from its very beginning, has encouraged many fine things.
..I consider war, despite its evils, as a blessing."
Empires
Paradoxically, although Gobineau saw hope in the expansion of European power, he did not support the creation of commercial empires with their attendant multicultural milieu. He concluded the development of empires was ultimately destructive to the "superior races" that created them, since they led to the mixing of distinct races. Instead, he saw the later period of the 19th century imperialism as a
degenerative process in European civilization. He continually referred to past empires in Europe and their attendant movement of non-white peoples into European homelands, in explaining the ethnography of the nations of Europe.
According to his theories, the mixed populations of Spain, most of France and Italy, most of Southern Germany, most of Switzerland and
Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
, and parts of Britain derived from the historical development of the Roman, Greek, and Ottoman empires, which had brought the non-Aryan peoples of Africa and the Mediterranean cultures to western and northern Europe. He believed the populations of southern and western Iran, southern Spain and Italy consisted of a degenerative race arising from miscegenation, and the whole of north India consisted of a "yellow" (Asian) race. Gobineau was extremely hostile towards Slavic peoples, especially Russians who, he thought, had become a semi-Asian people as a result of miscegenation under the
Golden Horde
The Golden Horde, self-designated as Ulug Ulus, 'Great State' in Turkic, was originally a Mongol and later Turkicized khanate established in the 13th century and originating as the northwestern sector of the Mongol Empire. With the fragmen ...
. He described the Slavs as "a stagnant marsh in which all superior ethnic strains after a few hours of triumph found themselves engulfed".
Chinese civilization
Gobineau argued Chinese civilization had been created by a group of Aryan conquerors from India who had brought the indigenous Malay people living there under their heel. Though he had read almost everything written in French about
China
China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...
, he believed the origins of Chinese civilization were in southern China. He posited the Aryans from India had first arrived there rather than the
Yellow River
The Yellow River or Huang He (Chinese: , Mandarin: ''Huáng hé'' ) is the second-longest river in China, after the Yangtze River, and the sixth-longest river system in the world at the estimated length of . Originating in the Bayan Ha ...
valley which all Chinese sources regard as the "cradle" of Chinese civilization.
He argued Chinese culture was "without beauty and dignity"; the Chinese were "lacking in sentiments beyond the humblest notion of physical utility", and Chinese
Confucianism
Confucianism, also known as Ruism or Ru classicism, is a system of thought and behavior originating in ancient China. Variously described as tradition, a philosophy, a Religious Confucianism, religion, a humanistic or rationalistic religion, ...
was a "resume of practices and maxims strongly reminiscent of what the moralists of Geneva and their educational books are pleased to recommend as the ''nec plus ultra'' ("ultimate") of the good: economy, moderation, prudence, the art of making a profit and never a loss".
All Chinese literature was "puerile", according to Gobineau, as the Chinese lacked the powers of the imagination that allowed Westerners to write great novels. He considered Chinese theater "flat" and Chinese poetry "ridiculous". The "great Chinese scientific works" were "verbose compilations" lacking in the analytic rigor, which according to him whites alone were capable of achieving. He asserted the Chinese were incapable of science because "the spirit of the yellow race is neither profound nor insightful to attain this quality
cientific excellencereserved for the white race". Gobineau believed China was a warning to the West of the perils of "democracy"—by which he meant meritocracy. This was because the Chinese state had attempted to promote education for the masses, the rule by the mandarins was meritocratic, and the exams to become a mandarin were open to all literate men. For Gobineau this reflected the racially "stagnant" character of the Chinese.
"Yellow Peril"
![Voelker Europas](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/Voelker_Europas.jpg)
In the last years of his life Gobineau was consumed with the fear of what was later to be known as the "
Yellow Peril
The Yellow Peril (also the Yellow Terror and the Yellow Specter) is a racial color metaphor that depicts the peoples of East and Southeast Asia as an existential danger to the Western world. As a psychocultural menace from the Eastern world ...
". He believed European civilization would soon be destroyed by a Chinese invasion. Linked to his fear of China was Gobineau's fear of Russia. During his visit to Russia in 1876 he wrote to a friend: "It is undeniable that this country is well on the way to power and aggrandizement" and in 1879 wrote Russia was about to present "the spectacle of the creation of the greatest empire that the Universe will ever have seen". He saw the growth of Russian power as opening the door for a Chinese invasion of Europe, writing to Pedro II in 1879:
In 1881, Gobineau published an article in Richard Wagner's newspaper the ''Bayreuther Blätter'' entitled "''Ein Urteil über die jetzige Weltage''" ("A Judgment on the Present World"), which was translated into German by Cosima Wagner. With a foreword by Wagner himself, Gobineau here warned the Chinese would soon overwhelm and destroy Western civilization. Gobineau also called his essay ''Ce qui se fait en Asie'' ("What is Happening in Asia") "the sequel and the present condition of the ''Essai''". Gobineau praised racist laws meant to restrict Chinese immigration to the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Hawaii and Australia as a good first step, but warned that "European civilization" was so rotten by miscegenation that it was only a matter of time before the Chinese destroyed the West.
In 1884, the French efforts to conquer
Vietnam
Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making ...
led to war breaking out between France and China. The
Sino-French War
The Sino-French War (, french: Guerre franco-chinoise, vi, Chiến tranh Pháp-Thanh), also known as the Tonkin War and Tonquin War, was a limited conflict fought from August 1884 to April 1885. There was no declaration of war. The Chinese arm ...
led to immediate revival of interest in Gobineau's anti-Asian writings in France. Several French newspapers reprinted the French original of Gobineau's 1881 article in the ''Bayreuther Blätter'' warning about the imminent Chinese threat to European civilization. Likewise, the Franco-Chinese war led to the ''Essai sur l'inégalité des races humaines'' becoming popular in France. The book had been published in four volumes (each about 1,000 pages long) in 1853–55, and remained out of print for decades. In 1884, just after the war with China began, the second and third editions of the ''Essai sur l'inégalité des races humaines'' were published in Paris. This was a direct result of the war, as many French people suddenly became interested in a book that portrayed such an unflattering picture of Asians.
Legacy and influence
Romania
Gobineau's theories were a major influence on the Romanian radical anti-Semitic politician Professor
A. C. Cuza, who embraced his biological racism as a way of "proving" the Jews were a "plague" upon modern Romanian life. Like most of Gobineau's followers, Cuza rejected his pessimism as too extreme, but he argued that Romanian people formed out of a fusion between the ancient Dacians and Romans had best preserved the Aryan blood, and that the Jews as a biologically different people simply did not belong in Romania. Cuza, who was deeply impressed with Gobineau, often used his theories and rhetoric of racial degeneration to frame his anti-Semitic arguments about the "Jewish race".
Cuza frequently described the Jews were a "plague" upon Romania. He asserted the Romanian people were in the midst of the sort of racial degeneration described by Gobineau, which for Cuza was caused by the Jews.
At various times Cuza had been a mentor to various figures on the Romanian radical right such as
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu
Corneliu Zelea Codreanu (; born Corneliu Codreanu, according to his birth certificate; 13 September 1899 – 30 November 1938) was a Romanian politician of the far right, the founder and charismatic leader of the Iron Guard or ''The Legion o ...
, the poet-politician
Octavian Goga
Octavian Goga (; 1 April 1881 – 7 May 1938) was a Romanian politician, poet, playwright, journalist, and translator.
Life and politics
Goga was born in Rășinari, near Sibiu.
Goga was an active member in the Romanian nationalisti ...
and Marshal
Ion Antonescu
Ion Antonescu (; ; – 1 June 1946) was a Romanian military officer and marshal who presided over two successive wartime dictatorships as Prime Minister and ''Conducător'' during most of World War II.
A Romanian Army career officer who mad ...
; his influence was considerable in 1930s–40s Romania.
Ottoman Empire
Gobineau's theories had a profound influence on the
Committee of Union and Progress
The Committee of Union and Progress (CUP) ( ota, اتحاد و ترقى جمعيتی, translit=İttihad ve Terakki Cemiyeti, script=Arab), later the Union and Progress Party ( ota, اتحاد و ترقى فرقهسی, translit=İttihad ve Tera ...
(CUP). The
Turks
Turk or Turks may refer to:
Communities and ethnic groups
* Turkic peoples, a collection of ethnic groups who speak Turkic languages
* Turkish people, or the Turks, a Turkic ethnic group and nation
* Turkish citizen, a citizen of the Republic ...
had originated from the land north of the
Great Wall of China
The Great Wall of China (, literally "ten thousand ''li'' wall") is a series of fortifications that were built across the historical northern borders of ancient Chinese states and Imperial China as protection against various nomadic grou ...
and migrated across
Eurasia
Eurasia (, ) is the largest continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. Primarily in the Northern and Eastern Hemispheres, it spans from the British Isles and the Iberian Peninsula in the west to the Japanese archipelag ...
to
Anatolia
Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The re ...
. Committee members called the homeland of the Turks
Turan and identified themselves with Gobineau's Aryans. He was often mentioned in CUP journals and in 1911 a journal dedicated to promoting the CUP's take on Gobineau was founded in
Salonika
Thessaloniki (; el, Θεσσαλονίκη, , also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece, with over one million inhabitants in its metropolitan area, and the capital of the geographic region of ...
.
Germany
Historians have described Gobinism as becoming
cult-like by the end of the nineteenth century, with powerful and influential followers, specifically in the
Pan-Germanism
Pan-Germanism (german: Pangermanismus or '), also occasionally known as Pan-Germanicism, is a pan-nationalist political idea. Pan-Germanists originally sought to unify all the German-speaking people – and possibly also Germanic-speaking ...
movement. The Gobineau Association (''Gobineau-Vereinigung'') was founded in 1894 by
Ludwig Schemann, who also made the first German translation of Gobineau's ''
An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races
''Essai sur l'inégalité des races humaines'' (Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races, 1853–1855) is a racist and pseudoscientific work of French writer Joseph Arthur, Comte de Gobineau, which argues that there are intellectual differen ...
''.
Becoming popular in German intellectual cliques, particularly the
Bayreuth Circle The Bayreuth Circle (German: ''Der Bayreuther Kreis'') was a name originally applied by some writers to devotees of Richard Wagner's music who attended and supported the annual Bayreuth Festival in the later 19th and early twentieth centuries. As s ...
, in the phenomena that
Walter Charles Langer
Walter Charles Langer (February 5, 1899 – July 4, 1981) was an American psychoanalyst who was best known for preparing a psychological analysis of Adolf Hitler in 1943. Langer studied psychoanalysis at Harvard University, where he worked as a pro ...
described as "Gobineau Societies", Gobinism was later adapted by the likes of
Houston Stewart Chamberlain
Houston Stewart Chamberlain (; 9 September 1855 – 9 January 1927) was a British-German philosopher who wrote works about political philosophy and natural science. His writing promoted German ethnonationalism, antisemitism, and scientific ...
and
Alfred Rosenberg
Alfred Ernst Rosenberg ( – 16 October 1946) was a Baltic German Nazi theorist and ideologue. Rosenberg was first introduced to Adolf Hitler by Dietrich Eckart and he held several important posts in the Nazi government. He was the head of ...
to forge elements of Nazi philosophy. Gobineau's
antisemitism
Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism.
Antis ...
was emphasized within Gobinism to ideologically bridge to the later Nazi movement.
Historians have made much of the significant philosophical gap between the pessimism of Gobineau himself, particularly his insistence that his vision was of mythical Aryans as a fallen and lost people, versus the optimism and themes of rejuvenation of the disciples and members of the Gobinism movement. It has been suggested that the spawning of Gobinism went on to majorly influence all future
racial theories of the period. Nietzsche's ''
Übermensch
The (; "Overhuman") is a concept in the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. In his 1883 book ''Thus Spoke Zarathustra'' (german: Also sprach Zarathustra), Nietzsche has his character Zarathustra posit the as a goal for humanity to set for itse ...
'' was largely inspired by the movement. Some historians believe the influence of Gobinism was still affecting racial discourse into the mid-20th-century.
Richard Wagner wrote positively about Gobineau in his late writings and suggested one could not exclude the correctness of his racial theory. At the same time, he also disagreed with Gobineau's conclusion that miscegenation unavoidably resulted in the decline of the human race and cultures. In his 1881 article ''Heldentum und Christentum'' ("Heroism and Christianity"), Wagner praised the ''Essai'', and accepted its premise of an Aryan master race and its denunciation of miscegenation, but he denied humanity was in unstoppable decay. He thought that Christ died for everyone, irrespective of race, and from this drew a hope for a fundamental regeneration of humanity based on acceptance of Christianity. Gobineau visited
Bayreuth
Bayreuth (, ; bar, Bareid) is a town in northern Bavaria, Germany, on the Red Main river in a valley between the Franconian Jura and the Fichtelgebirge Mountains. The town's roots date back to 1194. In the 21st century, it is the capital of U ...
, the home of Wagner, shortly before his death.
In 1894, the Wagnerite and anti-Semitic journalist
Ludwig Schemann founded the ''Gobineau Vereinigung'' (Gobineau Society) to promote Gobineau's theories in Germany, spawning the Gobinism movement.
Schemann was close to Cosima Wagner and was inspired by her to found the ''Gobineau Vereinigung''. It was a small group, but it exercised much intellectual influence, and in this way popularized the theory of an Aryan master-race in Germany. The ''Gobineauismus'' that Schemann and the ''Gobineau Vereinigung'' promoted owed as much to Wagner as it did to Gobineau for the group rejected Gobineau's pessimism and believed the Aryan race could be saved. Schemann, who was one of the most influential and best known race theorists in Imperial Germany, projected an optimistic message about the future of the Aryan race while accepting Gobineau's basic idea about an Aryan master race. Schemann was the man who popularized Gobineau in Germany and it was largely through him, rather than reading the ''Essai'' directly, that ''Gobineauismus'' was promoted in the ''Reich''. In 1937, Schemann was personally awarded the Goethe Medal by Hitler for his "services to the nation and race".
Influence on Nazism
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
and
Nazism
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...
borrowed much of Gobineau's ideology. However, although a central figure in the development of degeneration theory, Gobineau was not
antisemitic
Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism.
Antis ...
. He may be characterised as
philosemitic
Philosemitism is a notable interest in, respect for, and appreciation of the Jews, Jewish people, Jewish history, their history, and the influence of Judaism, particularly on the part of a Gentile, non-Jew. In the aftermath of World War II, the ph ...
, having written very positively about Jewish people, including a long eulogy to them in his ''Essai sur l'inégalité des races'', describing them as "a free, strong, and intelligent people" who succeeded despite the natural disadvantages of the Land of Israel. In his later years, however, he inclined, according to Paul Lawrence Rose, toward "a vague personal antisemitism."
When the Nazis adopted Gobineau's theories, they edited his work extensively to make it conform to their views,
[Sabine, George (1988). ''Historia de la Teoría Política''. Madrid: FCE.] much as they did in the case of
Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (; or ; 15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher, Prose poetry, prose poet, cultural critic, Philology, philologist, and composer whose work has exerted a profound influence on contemporary philo ...
. Extracts from the ''Essai'' were mandatory reading in German schools under the Third Reich. Gobineau's fundamental pessimism with the best days of the Aryans long gone was of little use to ''völkisch'' ("ethnic") thinkers. Several of them such as
Houston Stewart Chamberlain
Houston Stewart Chamberlain (; 9 September 1855 – 9 January 1927) was a British-German philosopher who wrote works about political philosophy and natural science. His writing promoted German ethnonationalism, antisemitism, and scientific ...
did borrow Gobineau's idea about an Aryan master race. The American historian Paul Fortier observed it was striking the contrast between the fundamental optimism and triumphant tone expressed by Chamberlain in his 1899 book ''The Foundations of the 19th Century'' about the future of the Aryans vs. the relentlessly downbeat and gloomy message of Gobineau's ''Essai''. Writing in April 1939, Rowbotham declared: "So after nearly a hundred years, the fantastic pessimistic philosophy of the brilliant French diplomat is seized upon and twisted to the use of a mystic demagogue who finds in the idea of the pure Aryan an excuse for thrusting civilization dangerously near back to the Dark Ages." The pessimism of Gobineau's message did not lend itself to political action as he did not believe that humanity could be saved from racial degeneration. Biddiss wrote:
Brazil
Despite his highly negative assessment of Brazilians, Gobineau became a hero to certain Brazilian intellectuals. In a 1906 essay, the intellectual
Sílvio Romero
Sílvio Vasconcelos da Silveira Ramos Romero (April 21, 1851 – June 18, 1914) was a Brazilian " Condorist" poet, essayist, literary critic, professor, journalist, historian and politician.
He founded and occupied the 17th chair of the Brazilian ...
cited Gobineau together with
Otto Ammon,
Georges Vacher de Lapouge
Count Georges Vacher de Lapouge (; 12 December 1854 – 20 February 1936) was a French anthropologist and a theoretician of eugenics and Racialism (racial categorization), racialism. He is known as the founder of anthroposociology, the anthropologi ...
and Houston Stewart Chamberlain as having proved that the blond
dolichocephalic
Dolichocephaly (derived from the Ancient Greek δολιχός 'long' and κεφαλή 'head') is a condition where the head is longer than would be expected, relative to its width. In humans, scaphocephaly is a form of dolichocephaly.
Dolichocep ...
(long skulled) people of northern Europe were the best and greatest race in the entire world. He wrote that Brazil could become a great nation by having a huge influx of German immigrants who would achieve the
''embranquecimento'' (racial whitening) of Brazil. In 1912, Romero praised Gobineau in an essay for "admirable, genius-like vision" and his "wise words that merit every consideration" before launching what the American historian
Thomas Skidmore
Thomas Elliott Skidmore (22 July 1932, in Troy, Ohio – 11 June 2016) was an American historian and scholar who specialized in Brazilian history.mulatto
(, ) is a racial classification to refer to people of mixed African and European ancestry. Its use is considered outdated and offensive in several languages, including English and Dutch, whereas in languages such as Spanish and Portuguese is ...
population as a racially degenerate people who should disappear from Brazil.
Oliveira Viana
Francisco José de Oliveira Viana (June 20, 1883 – March 28, 1951) was a Brazilian professor, jurist, historian, sociologist, and an ''imortal'' of the ''Academia Brasileira de Letras.''
Biography
Son of Francisco José de Oliveira Viana and ...
in his 1920 book ''As populações meridionais do Brasil'' ("The Southern Populations of Brazil") offered lavish praise of Gobineau for his denunciation of miscegenation and his disparaging remarks about black and Indian Brazilians. Vianna's solution was a plan to "Aryanise" Brazil by bringing in millions of fair-skinned European immigrants and thus achieve the "''embranquecimento''" of Brazil. Vianna served as the education minister under the dictatorship of
Getúlio Vargas
Getúlio Dornelles Vargas (; 19 April 1882 – 24 August 1954) was a Brazilian lawyer and politician who served as the 14th and 17th president of Brazil, from 1930 to 1945 and from 1951 to 1954. Due to his long and controversial tenure as Brazi ...
, where he was well known for his advocacy of the advantages of "Aryan" immigration to Brazil.
Until the Second World War, Gobineau's writings were cited in Brazil in support of the idea that miscegenation caused "physical degeneration" and there must be no interracial sex in Brazil if the Brazilian people were to have a positive future. By contrast, in reaction to intellectuals like Vianna who cited Gobineau, the Brazilian writer
Gilberto Freyre
Gilberto de Mello Freyre (March 15, 1900 – July 18, 1987) was a Brazilian sociologist, anthropologist, historian, writer, painter, journalist, congressman born in Recife, Pernambuco, Northeast Brazil. He is commonly associated with other ...
wrote a series of books in the 1920s–30s praising miscegenation and the black Brazilian culture, arguing that the fusion of white, black and Indians had given Brazil a distinctive culture and the Brazilian people a distinctive appearance, creating the theory of
Lusotropicalism
Lusotropicalism ( pt, Lusotropicalismo) is a term and "quasi-theory" developed by Brazilian sociologist Gilberto Freyre to describe the distinctive character of Portuguese imperialism overseas, proposing that the Portuguese were better colonize ...
. Freyre argued that Gobineau was a snobbish Frenchman who looked down upon Brazilians as not measuring up to Europe. This led Freyre to reject the idea that Europe should be the standard for Brazil, arguing the Brazilians had created a new civilization based on an interaction of the descendants of Indians, African slaves and European immigrants that was superior to the Europeans with their obsession with racial purity. Freyre dismissed the writings of Gobineau and Chamberlain as "diffuse, loquacious and wrong".
Baháʼí Faith
Although in no way espousing his beliefs, the
Baháʼí Faith
The Baháʼí Faith is a religion founded in the 19th century that teaches the Baháʼí Faith and the unity of religion, essential worth of all religions and Baháʼí Faith and the unity of humanity, the unity of all people. Established by ...
recognizes Gobineau as the person who obtained the only complete manuscript of the early history of the
Bábí religious movement of
Persia
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
, written by Hajji Mirzâ Jân of
Kashan
Kashan ( fa, ; Qashan; Cassan; also romanized as Kāshān) is a city in the northern part of Isfahan province, Iran. At the 2017 census, its population was 396,987 in 90,828 families.
Some etymologists argue that the city name comes from ...
, who was put to death by the Persian authorities in . The manuscript is held by the
Bibliothèque Nationale
A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vir ...
at Paris. He is also known to students of Babism for having written the first and most influential account of the movement, displaying a fairly accurate knowledge of its history in ''Religions et philosophies dans l'Asie centrale''. An addendum to that work is a bad translation of the Bab's Bayan al-'Arabi, the first Babi text to be translated into a European language.
References
Sources
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* (UK title: ''Wagner and Philosophy'', Penguin Books, )
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{{refend
Academia
Social movements