The Voltaire you don't expect: racist and anti-Semitic, by Giorgio Enrico Cavallo

Given that it is not wise to look at history with the paradigms of the present, it is however interesting to observe that Voltaire, the great apostle of modern times, He wasn't exactly the holy man you might imagine. Moreover. In our era, the "mortal sin" condemned by all is racism. Well, the father of modern thought was not only "racist", but he was also a shareholder in slave ships through the India Company (1). In the Treatise on Metaphysics, Voltaire had written that blacks are inferior because they are halfway between Europeans and monkeys (2). In the Essay on the customs and spirit of nations we read: «A blind person is only allowed to doubt white people, negri, albini, Hottentot, Lapps, Chinese, Americans, they are completely different races" (3). And again, comparing Africans to beasts: «The same providence that produced the elephant, rhinoceros and blacks, he created another moose world, condor […]» (4). And again: «The white people, i negri, the reds, the Lapps, Samoids and albinos certainly don't come from the same soil." (5). He also had it with the Jews. In his Philosophical Dictionary (1764) he accused them completely gratuitously of anthropophagy. Read it under “Anthropophagi”: «And indeed, because the Jews would never have been anthropophagous? It would have been the only thing the people of God lacked to be the most abominable people in the world" (6).

And again: «The Jewish people were, I confess it, very barbaric. It mercilessly slaughtered all the inhabitants of an unfortunate country over which it had no more rights than it has today over Paris and London." (7). Voltaire targeted Jews primarily because they were the “ancestors” of Catholics, towards whom the "pontiff" of the philosophes harbored blind hatred. And the squeamish intellectual superiority he demonstrated towards Catholics is also evident towards blacks, Jews and other races. «Voltaire thought that human history had developed within the hierarchy constituted by the different human species; today we would say, from the races. Even though the words “racism” and “racist” did not exist then, ask yourself (as has been done many times) whether Voltaire was racist or not seems absolutely legitimate" (8). How can we explain this thought of Voltaire, since he professed himself an enemy of obscurantism and barbarism? As said at the beginning, it is not wise to judge history with hindsight: our moral judgment is profoundly different from that of the eighteenth century (o, simply, to that of the last generation...). At the time of Voltaire, everyone was racist. Convinced racists. E, go da se, also anti-Semitic. But racism and anti-Semitism did not constitute a "crime of opinion" like today. No one would have cried foul if it had been publicly stated that blacks were inferior to whites. But, Today's mentality is the daughter of the Enlightenment mentality; and Voltaire was, if not the father, at least one of the fathers of the Enlightenment. This is where the surprise we undoubtedly have when faced with these statements by Arouet comes from: they seem to clash with the principles that have shaped our mentality.

1 C. Ginzburg, The thread and the traces: real fake fake, Feltrinelli, Milano, 2006.

2 M. Ghiretti, History of anti-Judaism and anti-Semitism, Mondadori, Milano, 2002, p. 164.

3 Voltaire, Oeuvres complete, Paris, 1820, vol XIII, p. 7.

4 Ivi, p. 39.

5 Ivi, p. 286.

6 Voltaire, Philosophical writings, Laterza, 1962, p.40.

7 Ivi, p. 508.

8 C. Ginzburg, op. cit.

source – http://www.centrostudifederici.org/voltaire-cortocircuito-dellilluminismo-oscurantista/