Oldal 88 [88]
Kantians, we assume that there ís a general moral law which we is
not derived from anything, but which we must assume exists, and
from which everything else can be deduced. And it makes people
cooperate with each other.
Everything is different in practice, of course. The operation of
large-scale and general legal principles has often been and continues
to be flawed. The noble idea of equality — as many have discussed
— fell with the rise of the guillotine and the Jacobin dictatorship.
The Himmelreich (celestial empire) as described by Schiller, where
“alle Menschen werden Brüder” (all men become brothers) also
seems to have slipped away. The same is true for the world of ideals
in The Magic Flute, which Monostatos cannot fit into.
“Und ich soll die Liebe meiden,
weil ein Schwarzer häßlich ist!
Ist mir denn kein Herz gegeben,
bin ich nicht von Fleisch und Blut?” ”
He asks despairingly whether he is not allowed love just because he
is black. After all, he is also a flesh-and-blood (Fleisch und Blut,
flesh and blood) man. Only the color of his skin is black, while
his blood is red, like that of a white man. The same is true of the
complaint of Shakespeare’s Moore of Venice or the Merchant of
Venice. It is as though they had just been reading Antiphon, who
considered the Greeks and barbarians equal due to the fact that
we all eat with our hands and breathe through our noses. (DK. A.
fr. 11.) Monostatos, like Papageno, is an “Unmensch” (inhuman
human), at least in relation to the others. Papageno is a bird-man,
while Monostatos is a Saracen. They are different, but both are
“Unmensch.” When they meet, they are mutually afraid of one
42 But I must forego love
because a black man is ugly!
Have I not been given a heart?
Am I not flesh and blood? (Die Zauberfléte / The Magic Flute)