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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)
