Saul Ascher is probably only known to specialists today, but his diagnoses of the period of upheaval around 1800 actually belong in every textbook on the history of political ideas. Without Ascher, any discussion about the connection between the Enlightenment and modern racism or about the origins of a nationalism understood in a völkisch way remains historically under-complex. Kant’s embarrassing statements about Jews and people of color or Fichte’s crass anti-Semitic outbursts are not the first thing that come across to today’s readers. A fundamental critique of the two dominant forms of proto-racism in the 18th century can already be found in Ascher: the modern “science of hatred of Jews” (Ascher), which ethnically turned from Christian anti-Judaism to national anti-Semitism, and the biologistic-anthropological dehumanization of non-white, supposedly deficient “human race”.
200th Anniversary of the Death of Saul Ascher: The Last Enlightener – Culture
