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Nietzsche
contra Democracy
FREDRICK
CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS
Ithaca
and London
Nietzsche
contra Democracy
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©
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Nietzsche contra democracy
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versity Press
and materials to the
(alk.
Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm,
political science. 2.
First published
/
—dc2I
1998
98-27125
memoiy of iny father^ LARRY MORRIS APPEL To the
[V
M i
ifi
I
ri.
contents Acknowledgments,
ix
Notes on the Use of Primary Sources, Introduction,
xiii
i
1
Science, Nature, and Nietzschean Ethics,
2
Nietzschean Consciousness-Raising,
3
Negation and
4
Overcoming
5
The Higher Breeding
6
The
Its
Overcoming, 6^
Solitude, 8 i
of Humanity, 705
Art of Politics, 777 based on woi'k with Ruth Abbey
i
6
7
The
Evil of the Strong,
Conclusion; Index, 771
Vlll
CONTENTS
The
Perils of Agonistic Politics,
acknowledgments Many last
of the ideas in this book have been presented over the
few years
at
Association, the
annual meetings of the American Political Science
Midwest
Political Science Association, the
North-
eastern Political Science Association, the Amierican Philosophical
Association (Eastern and Pacific Divisions), the
North American
Nietzsche Society, and the Canadian Political Science Association.
thank
all
of
my
respondents, especially
toph Cox, and Leon Craig. scholars
who commented on
My
Maudemarie
I
Clark, Chris-
gratitude also extends to the fine
or challenged the arguments
various parts of this book: Peter Berkowitz,
made
Monique Deveaux,
in
Je-
remy Goldman, David Kahane, Brian Leiter, Pratap Mehta, Louis Miller, David Owen, Mark T. Reinhardt, Alan Ryan, James Tully, Brian Walker, and Bernard Yack. Wdiile
from them
as
I
I
have not learned as
should have, their advice has
made
this a better
much book.
IX
I
also
acknowledge the inspiration (both professional and personal)
my
received during
postgraduate years from Charles Taylor. His
strong encouragement of this project came at an especially crucial
A
word of appreciation is due to my friend, colleague, and sometime collaborator Ruth Abbey, who has been uncommonly generous with her time and comments and who grajuncture.
special
ciously allowed
Chapter portant
6.
me
The
to include a revised version of our joint essay as
reader will note the pervasive influence of her im-
work on Nietzsche
acknowledge the
I
in
what
follows.
financial assistance of the Social Sciences
Humanities Research Council of Canada during the years this
book was
first
toral fellowship
chercheurs et
conceived and researched. Because of
a
in
and
which
postdoc-
awarded by the Quebec government’s Fonds pour
I’aide a la recherche, I
les
had the privilege of revising the
manuscript in the congenial and stimulating atmosphere of Harvard University.
I
am
grateful to
Kenneth A. Shepsle,
chair of the Depart-
ment of Government, and Charles S. Maier, director of the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, for their kind hospitality. Without the strong support of Roger M. Haydon at Cornell University Press, this book might never have been published. As a young author I could not have wished for a more patient, thoughtful, engaged
—and engaging—
editor.
I
am
also grateful to Priscilla Hurdle,
Nancy J. Winemiller, manuscript editor, and to Liz Holmes and John LeRoy for their fine copyediting. Finally, a word of heartfelt thanks to my immediate family. More than anyone else, my wife, Marilyn Besner, made this book possible with her magnanimous understanding, love, and support. The birth managing
editor,
of our older daughter, Lottie, coincided with the
and Martine joined our complement
as
it
have no doubt that the great joy they have
touched
this
book
—indeed,
all
of
my
start
entered all
of this project,
its final
brought to
endeavors
—
in
phase.
my life ways
I
I
has
can
scarcely imagine.
•
•
•
Portions of Chapter tive
Viewpoint:
i
have appeared in
A Nietzschean
ACKNOWl.EDGMENTS
my
articles
“The Objec-
Account,” History of Philosophy Qiiar-
1
4 (October 1996): 483-502, and “Nietzsche’s Natural Hierarchy,” hitemational Studies in Philosophy 29, 3 (1997): 49-62. Chapterly 13,
4 contains material published in “The Uhennensch''s Consort: Nietzsche and the ‘Eternal Feminine,”’ History of Political Thought ter
18, 3 (1997),
Much sche’s
512-530, copyright
of Chapter 6 appeared in
Will to Politics,” an
Review of Politics, 60,
i
article
© Imprint Academic, Exeter, U.K. a slightly different
me
as
“Nietz-
coauthored with Ruth Abbey
(Winter 1998): 83-1 14
of these journals for giving
form
.
in the
thank the publishers
permission to reproduce this work
here.
F.
A.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
SV
notes on the use of p
r
i
ni
ary sources
References to Nietzsche’s writings are documented parenthetically in the text, with the exception of references to Nietzsche’s per-
sonal correspondence, which are cited in standard note style. Translations are
by Walter Kaufinann and/or R.
J.
Hollingdale, with the
exception of The Binh of Tragedy, translated by Shaun Whiteside, and the Selected Letters of Friedrich Nietzsche, translated by Christopher
Middleton.
I
use the following abbreviations of translated works:
A
“The
AOM
Assorted Opinions and Maxhns, in
BGE
Beyond Good and
Antichrist,” published with
TI
Evil, trans. R. J.
(see below).
HAH,
vol. 2 (see below).
Hollingdale (Harmonds-
worth: Penguin, 1990).
NOTES ON THE USE OF PRIMARY SOURCES
XIII
BT
The Bhth of Tragedy, trans. Shaun Whiteside (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1993). (The 1886 preface to this 1872 text, the seven-part “Attempt at Self-Criticism,”
“BT
D
is
referred to as
Preface.”)
Daybreak: Thoughts on the Frejudices of Alorality, trans. R.
J.
Hollingdale (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982).
EH
Homo,
Ecce
trans. R. J.
Hollingdale (Harmondsworth: Pen-
guin, 1992).
GM
The Genealogy of Morals, Hollingdale
(New
trans.
Walter Kaufmann and R.
J.
York: Vintage, 1969). Also referred to in
the text as The Genealogy.
GS
The Gay
Walter Kaufmann (New York: Vin-
Science, trans.
tage, 1974).
HAH
Human, All
Too
Hollingdale
Human:
A
Book for Free
Spirits, trans.
Cambridge
(Cambridge:
University
R. J.
Press,
1986). (All references with this abbreviation concern vol.
except for references to the Preface of vol.
HC
“Homer’s Contest,” ed.
in
The Portable
i,
2).
Nietzsche,
trans.
and
Walter Kaufmann (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1982),
PP- 32-39-
SE
“Schopenhauer
as
timely Meditations,
Educator,” the third of Nietzsche’s Untrans.
Cambridge University
TI
Hollingdale (Cambridge:
Press, 1983), pp.
“Twilight of the Idols,” published with light
UD
R. J.
1
27-194.
A (see
of the Idols and The Antichrist, trans. R.
J.
Hollingdale
(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1990). “On the Uses and Disadvantages of History for Life,” the of Nietzsche’s Untimely Mediatmis, trans. R.
WP
above) in Twi-
J.
third
Hollingdale
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), pp. 59-123. The Will to Power, trans. Walter Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale
(New York:
Vintage, 1968).
WS
The Wanderer
Z
Thus Spoke Zarathustra,
arid
His Shadow, in
HAH,
vol. 2 (see above).
trans. R. J. Hollingdale
(Harmonds-
worth: Penguin, 1969). Also referred to in the text as Zarathustra.
When
referring to the
German
original,
I
Werk: Kiitische Gesamtausgabe, ed. Giorgio Colli nari (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1967-1978).
XIV
NOTES ON THE USE OF PRIMARY SOURCES
on the standard and Mazzino Monti-
rely
1
Roman
numerals refer to major divisions or parts in Nietzsche’s
books; Arabic numerals refer to sections and subsections, not pages. So, for example,
(WP
and (Z
refers to
III, 1 1, i)
300) refers to The Will
Spirit of Gravity”), subsection
cated,
emphases are Nietzsche’s own.
A
brief explanation
is
Power, section 300,
Thus Spoke Zarathustra, part
(“Of the all
to
warranted for
i.
my
III,
section
1
Unless otherwise indi-
routine departure in this
book from the accepted practice of gender-neutral language. A book on Nietzsche that scrupulously avoids the use of sexual stereotypes and sexist language would obscure, rather than highlight, Nietzsche’s
own
sexism.
Hence my repeated use of phrases such
rather than “higher
human
beings.” As
I
hope
is
of
that
wish to highlight, rather than endorse,
I
it
will
4,
men”
Nietz-
capable of the highest
be clear in what follows
levels
I
“higher
argue in Chapter
sche believes that only a certain type of man
human achievement.
as
this
Nietzschean view.
NOTES ON THE USE OF PRIMARY SOURCES
XV
Introduction
F
riedrich Nietzsche’s great concern
those few
He
whom
believes that
is
for the flourishing of
he considers exemplary of the
we can
—and should—make
tinctions betv^een higher, admirable
human
qualitative dis-
modes of human
existence and
lower, contemptible ones, and that these distinctions should his target readership to foster higher
cost to the
many who cannot
Such
he
a project,
fears,
modern world because thrust of modernity
is
forms of human
species.
life at
compel
whatever
aspire thereto.
has
become
increasingly difficult in the
the dominant social, political, and ethical
undermining the very
possibility of
human
greatness. Christian and post-Christian ethical and spiritual ideals
have attained hegemonic status
in the
Western world and are
effec-
human beings into a leveling, egalitarif unchecked, may eradicate human excellence. Nietz-
tively indoctrinating superior
ian ethos that,
I
sche sees his project as nothing
from
and he
this degradation,
instincts of those superior
less
than the rescue of the species
initiates
it
by appealing to the deepest
specimens of humanity
now in
the grips of
“herd morality.” By attempting to help them wean themselves from values that are manifestly bad for them, Nietzsche sees himself as laying the foundation for a new, aristocratic political order in in
which the herdlike majority and
whose only concern would be
sche’s project
its
own
understatement to say that
letters. Political theorists
excellence.
of Nietz-
this picture
and moral philosophers
consider themselves radical democrats have grown accustomed to
viewing Nietzsche as interests ized.
for the cultivation of
not often encountered in the contemporary Anglo-
American world of
who
is
a gross is
preferred values are put in
under the control of a self-absorbed master caste
their proper place:
It
its
Europe
As
a useful
resource in their efforts to champion the
and concerns of those who are disadvantaged and marginalefforts to draft Nietzsche’s
democracy have multiplied,
his
thought into the service of radical
popular association with emancipation
and “progressivism” has become ever more entrenched and patendy inegalitarian
political project
This book challenges Nietzsche.
More
this
specifically,
it
his
ignored or summarily dismissed.
popular,
“progressive” reading of
takes issue with a claim being
made
with increasing confidence and frequency, namely that an embrace of Nietzsche’s emancipatory message
is
easily reconcilable with a stead-
commitment to egalitarian ideals. Although Nietzsche claims in a late work to develop his own, superior brand of “philanthropy” [Menschenliebe] (A 2), this book argues that his work is best underfast
stood as an uncompromising repudiation of both the ethic of benevolence and the notion of the equality of persons in the ically aristocratic
commitment
to
human
critique of modern democratic sensibilities I
.
The
first
Georg Brandes.
and practices
I
have read about myself
till
was
a
is
it is
as central
contemporary of
In a letter to Brandes dated
1887, Nietzsche endorses this characterization, saying that that
rad-
excellence.^ Nietzsche’s
to refer to Nietzsche as an aristocratic radical
Nietzsche’s, the Danish critic
name of a
2
December
“the shrewdest remark
now.” Selected Letters of Friediich Nietzsche, ed. and
Christopher Middleton (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1996), p. 279. Although my approach differs from that of Bruce Detwiler in some important respects, I find the tide trans.
of his book apt: Nietzsche and the of Chicago Press, 1990).
INTRODUCTION
Politics
ofAris'tocratic Radicalism (Chicago: University
commitment
to his
to excellence as his seemingly less objectionable
evocations of self-overcoming.
The
objections and dismissals that will greet this
ready been rehearsed a
many
times.
Many will
book have
al-
claim that Nietzsche
is
“protean” thinker whose writings can be (and have been) twisted in
innumerable ways.^
It
readiness or reluctance
may be conceded
—that
—with varying degrees of found in the
textual evidence can be
Nietzschean corpus for the reading proposed here. But, so the argu-
ment
goes, any suggestion that
rious; indeed, ile
and
the “right” interpretation
is
spu-
any project attempting to “get Nietzsche right”
is
ster-
a colossal
it is
waste of time.
Partisans of this view tend to be enthusiastic followers of Foucault’s cavalier
approach to the interpretation of texts. His suggestion
that “the only valid tribute to [Nietzsche’s] thought ...
use
it,
to
deform
it,
to
make
it
is
precisely to
groan and protest” provides conve-
nient cover for those wishing hastily to proclaim the irrelevance of Nietzsche’s illiberalism and antiegalitarianism. ^
Thus William Con-
nolly cautions democrats against responding too single-mindedly to
Nietzsche’s antidemocratic remarks, for such a reaction “represses
dimensions in those same formulations that speak
democrat
2.
tions
critically to the
as a democrat.”'^
See, for example, William E. Connolly, ldentity\Dijference: Demoa'atic Negotia-
of Political Paradox (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991),
p. 185. Cf. his
more
recent The Ethos of Pluralization (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995), pp. 26, 206.
Michel Foucault,
3.
Powe?'/Kjto'wledge:
Selected Intervieovs
and Other
Writings,
7972-/977 (New York: Pantheon, 1980), pp. 53-54. Connolly, for one, does not always adhere consistently to this “protean Nietzsche” line. For example, he criticizes Charles Taylor’s “selective reading” of “the Nietzschean stance” things, “underplay[ing] the role of ization, p. 15). In this
Honig
passage
it
in Nietzsche’s
other
thought” {Ethos of Plural-
seems that getting Nietzsche right
matters.
Bonnie
similarly suggests that a democratic appropriation of Nietzsche produces a
truer reading.
WTien Honig speaks of “radicalizing” Nietzsche’s thought
gested by Nietzsche’s
own
texts,” the implication
better than rival accounts because sition
amor fati
among
for,
more rigorously or
fully
it
than
“in
ways sug-
seems to be that her interpretation
is
follows or highlights the logic of Nietzsche’s poa less radical rival.
Honig,
Political
Theory and the
Displace7nent of Politics (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993), p. 65. 4.
Connolly, Identity\Dijference,
p.
19 1.
INTRODUCTION
With assumed
the infinite malleability of Nietzsche’s writings conveniently as a point
of departure, postmodern theorists of democracy
approach Nietzsche with the following question in mind: to what purpose can and should we use (or abuse) his work in the pursuit of
our ends? Since we happen to be interested theory and making
tic
a
more
pluralistic
ceivable (so their reasoning goes),
in radicalizing
democra-
democratic practice con-
we should
focus
on those elements
of his opus that seem especially conducive to radical democracy and jettison the rest as retrograde
and
unusable.*’
Just which element to begin with
is
a
matter of some disagree-
ment among those determined
to fashion a Nietzschean pedigree for
and
pluralist visions of liberal (or social)
their radically egalitarian
Romand
democracy.
Coles’s point of departure
of Zarathustra’s “gift-giving
virtue,”*^
which
reading
Mark Warren
whereas
leges Nietzsche’s conception of agency,
a particular
is
is
privi-
said to undergird a
“positive political vision” that “include [s] the values of individuation,
communal
intersubjectivity, egalitarianism,
Honig, for her
part, joins
and pluralism.”^ Bonnie
with Connolly in lauding Nietzsche’s cele-
bration of agonistic conflict and contest, which she claims
is
exem-
plary of a virtu politics that fosters the contestability of concepts and identities
Owen similarly prizes Nietzsche’s
David that
5.
and valorizes dissonance, resistance, and disruption.^ agonistic politics and claims
one of the most useful elements of Nietzsche’s philosophy In this spirit,
Mark Warren
latter in
the former. Warren, Nietzsche and Political Thought (Cambridge:
See also David Owen, Nietzsche,
p. 2
1 1.
p.
71. Richard Rorty, a
1
his
speaks of a postmodern “gentle Nietzsche” along-
and of the need to dispose of the
side a “bloody Nietzsche”
is
order to recover
MIT
Press, 1988),
and Modernity (London: Sage, 1995), self-declared postmodern liberal, is not as interested in radiPolitics,
calizing democratic theory, but he remains similarly confident that
we can
safely dis-
miss Nietzsche’s darker musings as “mad” while profiting from Nietzschean notions
of self-overcoming. See “The Priority of Democracy to Philosophy,” in Relativmn, and Truth (Cambridge:
more 6.
to say about Rorty’s
Romand
flections 2
Cambridge University
argument
in the
Press, 1991), p. 187.
I
have
concluding chapter.
Coles, “Liberty, Equality, Receptive Generosity: Neo-Nietzschean Re-
on the Ethics and
Politics of Coalition ,”
Political Science
Review go,
(June 1996): 375-388. 7.
8.
Warren, Nietzsche and Political Thought, Honig,
Political Theory.
p.
INTRODUCTION
247;
cf. p.
157.
Both Honig and Connolly attempt to democratize
Nietzsche by seeing the Ubennensch as part of
4
Objectivity,
all
selves rather than a particular elite.
— development of potential that elitist
a “perspectivist”
detached from Nietzsche’s embarrassingly
easily
is
epistemology with emancipatory
may not have meant seriously,
rantings (which he
Indeed, to draw attention to the latter also
(we are told)
politically suspect.
is
in
any
case).^
not only wrong-headed but
As Tracy Strong seems
to sug-
only “Straussians” and others with right-wing political agendas
gest,
would be interested tions of rank
in treating seriously Nietzsche’s attraction to
no-
and hierarchy.^®
One obvious
objection to this “progressive” reading readily comes
to mind. Let us put aside the considerable textual evidence against for the
moment and assume
thinker whose work, with
some
appropriated in limitless ways. radical
in
amount of
that Nietzsche creative
WTy,
protean
bending and twisting, can be
then,
would anyone interested
creative energy required to adapt Nietzschean thought
WTy
bother making Nietzsche’s work
“groan” and “protest” when there are so
and present with
less
dubious credentials
inspiration? If all of this
is
a
democratic theory want to expend the considerable
for democratic purposes?
“Nietzsche”
call it
indeed
is
it
many other thinkers past who could provide ready
bending and twisting turns the end-product
—into
a
mirror image of one’s
own
hard to imagine the point of such an endeavor.
A
convictions,
it
Nietzsche thus
sanitized or domesticated can teach nothing that could not be
learned directly from dozens of contemporary writers.
There is another, deeper objection tion which I develop in the course of claims
is
to the progressive appropriathis
book.
that Nietzsche’s radically aristocratic
One
of
my
central
commitments pervade
every aspect of his project, making any egalitarian appropriation of his
work exceedingly problematic. Thus my
to point out
how
advocate for
illiberal
Owen,
9.
ments
1990); and Daniel 10.
to
ideals. (If this
not simply
W. Conway,
Nietzsche, ed.
were the extent
and Modernity. For other recent book-length
Alan WTiite, Within Nietzsche's Labyrinth
Cambridge University 1 1.
and inegalitarian
Nietzsche
Tracy B. Strong, “Nietzsche’s
Companion
is
fervently Nietzsche wished to be understood as an
Nietzsche, Politics,
in this vein, see
intention
and the
Political
(New York:
(New York:
treat-
Routledge,
Routledge, 1996).
Political Misappropriation,” in
The Catnbridge
Bernd Magnus and Kathleen M. Higgins (Cambridge:
Press, 1996), pp. 128-129.
This point was suggested to
me by
Bernard Yack.
INTRODUCTION
of
my
argument, the Foucaultian
critic
could readily concede
my
point and blithely reply that evidence of Nietzsche’s authorial inten-
need not
tions
freedom.
restrict oiir interpretive
ignore his intentions, the
Why shouldn’t we
and mine
critic will suggest,
work
his
for
nuggets that would prove useful to a project that he himself shunned?) Instead,
intend to argue for the all-encompassing nature of Nietz-
I
sche’s elitist predilections. I
show
coming
in the
rank order
how assumptions
chapters, for example,
among human
of
beings undergird not simply his political
stance but also his epistemology and his understanding of concepts
such as nature. Nietzsche claims to perceive the existence of different types of human nature that represent higher and lower orders of
human self)
existence.
Only higher-order human beings (such
can sense the truth of
geously, joyfully
of a contingent ity that
as
him-
normative ranking and coura-
this
embrace the “hard truths” that science provides us
life
without God. Only members of the tiny minor-
embodies truly noble
instincts are, in Nietzsche’s view, “nat-
ural” in the fullest, finest sense, that
ing and order on chaos and
who
who impose mean-
creators
is,
thus serve as paradigms for the
species as a whole.
Nietzsche aims
at
persuading these noble types
books are written
his
to reorient their views
own visceral
spect for their
tempt
—
instincts
a nostalgic return to the
and
drives.
—those
toward
The
for
whom
a greater re-
idea
is
not to
at-
“blond beast” of antiquity but rather
to learn the lessons of this distant ancestor’s downfall in order to pro-
modern nobility into political and cultural ascendancy in Europe. By revealing his own trials and tribulations at the hands of pel a new,
mediocre
sensibilities
places his
own
suffering in context
historical struggle
hopes to
and by weaving
—that
between master and
jar his readers
genealogical narrative that
a
is,
in the context of a
slave moralities
out of their lethargy into
pan-
—Nietzsche
a healthier, greater
form of existence. I
also
examine
bound up with of those tion of
fit
his celebration of contestation (agonism)
compete and an easy contempt
for
—and dehumaniza-
Nietzsche’s version of
tio-
who would
re-
or magnanimity, highly touted by those
INTRODUCTION
is
warrior ethos that legitimates both a quasi-deification
— those unworthy of the contest.
hlesse oblige
6
to
a
how
claim him for egalitarian thought, will be revealed as a highly uncertain safeguard against the
beings.
Dionysian excesses of his highest human
argue that Nietzschean magnanimity refers ultimately to
I
nothing more than
a sense of
good
taste
and to the higher man’s
we
obligation to himself (rather than to others). Nietzsche, as
no duty
see, recognizes
to (inferior) others based
able right to personal security, respect, or dignity.
upon any
The
may
fashion, but
it is
from innocent
over his inferiors in
it
inalien-
studied indif-
ference that passes for merciful forbearance in his thought
suade the noble type from lording
shall
a
dis-
vulgar
not meant to halt any unintended harm that results
acts of creative self-assertion. In Nietzsche’s view, the
benefits of such self-assertion far outweigh any accidental, destructive
by-products of the creative process.
Posmiodern
racy would do well to examine
more deeply what
to unlimited agonistic struggle this task, in it
up
might
entail.
a politics
The
best
given over
way
or otherwise) with our liberal democratic scruples.
what may well be the
lies
those of us
who
real
importance of Nietzsche for
subscribe to the broad egalitarian consensus.
may
de-
antiegalitarianism.
An
Nietzsche’s usefulness to contemporary democratic theory
from
rive, paradoxically,
engagement with
his
uncompromising
“untimely meditations” about rank, domina-
his
and nobility can enliven the
tion,
stripes
by forcing them to account
he holds
12.
in
to begin
my view, is to revisit Nietzsche’s politics without dressing
(tacitly
Herein
democ-
theorists attracted to the notion of agonistic
sensibilities
for
of egalitarians of
all
and defend those convictions
contempt: concern for the weak, belief in the equal moral
Following Will Kymlicka,
I
assume that
all
contemporary
political
and moral
philosophy, whether of a liberal, libertarian, utilitarian, socialist, feminist, or other
on an
bent, works
are of equal moral
“egalitarian plateau”
where
How these
rights are conceived
but the conviction that licka,
agreed
(a) that all
human
worth and are equal bearers of certain basic rights and
of the main tasks of the political community rights.
it is
Contanporary
we
all
share
Press, 1990), pp. 4-5, 49.
The
An
notion of
is
one
of course highly contested;
(or should share them)
Introduction a
(b) that
the defense and promotion of these
and adjudicated
them
Political Philosophy:
is
beings
(New
is
not. See
Kym-
York; Oxford University
broad consensus on equality
is
also dis-
cussed by Ronald Dworkin in Law's E?npire (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986); and
Amartya Sen,
Inequality
Reexamined (Cambridge: Harvard University
Press, 1992).
INTRODUCTION
worth of
human
all
beings and the desire to preserve and promote
liberal institutions^^
The view
that alien ideas have these salutary antidotal benefits
one Nietzsche himself occasionally
professes,
and
is
underlies his fa-
it
mous
claim that “what does not destroy us makes us stronger” as well
as his
repeated insistence upon the value of enemiesd"^ This view, inci-
dentally,
no stranger
is
Mill’s defenses
and
of free speech
who oppose
those
livelier
Ironically,
to the liberal tradition:
that
is
impression of truth produced by
its
by drawing attention away from the
democracy from the
theorists
a
view
is
silenced, even
suffer because they lose “the clearer perception
it
ian elements of Nietzsche’s project
rary
when
one of John Stuart
full
may be doing their
collision with error.”^^ illiberal
and
inegalitar-
and thereby sheltering contempo-
force of his critique, radical democratic
fellow democrats a disservice.
Nietzsche’s Anglo-American Reception
The
construction of an essentially benign, emancipatory Nietzsche
in the collective
imagination of the Anglo-American academy can be
traced back to Walter
Kaufmann, whose
role as Nietzsche’s foremost
English-language translator and as author of an oft-cited study can scarcely be
1950 book and
overestimated.^^ In his now-classic
throughout the lengthy and ubiquitous editorial comments
13.
As Laurence Lampert puts
it,
“Nietzsche’s politics broadens the political per-
spective instead of shrinking itself into
Thnes:
A
in his
some modern option.”
Study of Bacon, Descartes, and Nietzsche
(New Haven:
Nietzsche
and
Modem
Yale University Press,
1993), p. 431. 14.
The
claim can be found in
of enemies, see 15.
erty
AOM
This citation
and Other
is
191;
GAl
I,
\\T 934 and TI ii;
from chapter
Essays, ed.
Z
2
I,
22, 3;
I,
EH
8; cf. I,
7;
D 507, GS 19. On the value EH II, 6; and TI V, 3.
of “On Liberty.” See John Stuart Mill,
John Gray (Oxford: Oxford University
On
Lib-
Press, 1991), p. 21.
Nietzsche’s faith in the antidotal value of opposing ideas and forces can be added to the convergences between in their “Mill, tics
I
16.
him and Mill
identified
Nietzsche, and the Identity of Postmodern lAherAism," Journal of Poli-
(Eebruary 1995): 1-23.
Walter Kauftnann, Nietzsche:
Philosopher,
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974).
8
by Gerald Mara and Suzanne Dovi
INTRODUCTION
Psychologist,
AntiChi'ist,
4th ed.
translations, Kauftnann’s
main concern was
postwar view of Nietzsche
to counter the prevailing
proto-Nazi, a view that had been en-
as a
couraged by Elisabeth Foster-Nietzsche’s selective editing of her
work and by
brother’s unpublished
the Nazis’
own embrace
of this
doctored product. By highlighting Nietzsche’s contempt for conventional anti-Semitism, for nineteenth-century racism,
man
chauvinism,
Kaufmann provided
and for Ger-
us with a valuable corrective.
In trying to bring his subject into line with prevailing liberal sensibil-
however, his gesture ironically mirrored that of Nietzsche’s
ities,
sister.
Kaufmann’s Nietzsche,
heroic figure aligned with other lu-
a
minaries of the Western canon such as Socrates, Christ, and the En-
lightenment
philosophes,
turned out to be scarcely more accurate
depiction than the Nazis’ Aryan version (albeit from a
a
much more
palatable perspective).
A
decided shift in Nietzsche scholarship began in the 1970s and
when an important part of Kaufmann’s question. Under the influence of Jacques Der-
accelerated in the 1980s,
legacy was called into
Michel Foucault, and other representatives of French post-
rida,
modern or
poststructuralist thought, a
on the Anglo-American
“new Nietzsche” appeared
intellectual scene,
one who turned from
torch-bearer to gravedigger of the Western philosophical tradition.^' In this enthusiastic nouvelle
fluence, Nietzsche
normative
was pictured
vague of French postmodern in-
as a playful
and conceptions of
language
debunker of all truth.
ethical-
Ironically,
this
repudiation of one part of Kauftnann’s reading served to solidify an-
other part of the Kaufmannian legacy: namely, his picture of Nietzsche as an essentially benign, admirable figure. For the postmod-
17.
The
New
Nietzsche
is
the
title
of an influential collection of articles on Nietz-
sche in English translation, ed. David B. Allison (1977; Cambridge:
The French-language work
MIT Press,
1985).
that inspired this collection included book-length studies
by Gilles Deleuze, Nietzsche and
Philosophy, trans.
Hugh Tomlinson
(1962;
New York:
Columbia University Press, 1983); Sarah Kofman, Nietzsche and Metaphor, trans. Duncan Lange (1972; London: Athlone Press, 1993); and a few short pieces by Michel Foucault ’trans.
(in, e.g.,
Power/Knowledge). See also Jacques Derrida, Spurs: Nietzsche's
Barbara Harlow (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979); and, more re-
cently, Eric Blondel, Nietzsche, the Body, trans.
Styles,
Sean
Hand
and Culture: Philosophy as
Philological Genealogy,
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991).
INTRODUCTION
Nietzschean thought
ernists held that
is
emancipatory
bare of the oppressive, stultifying dogmatism of
all
in its laying
philosophical
categories or grand narratives, especially those dealing with “morality”
and “truth.”i8
Seen through the lens of a Derrida or cized version, an Alexander
spectivism”
from
all
came
Nehamas
a
Foucault
the angli-
(or, in
or Rorty), Nietzschean “per-
to represent a dizzying, radical type of
thought and practice. As Peter Ber-
traditional forms of
kowitz has recently noted,
it
freedom
became standard
practice to follow
Fou-
concern with “regimes of truth” into the assumption that
cault’s
Nietzsche’s main significance tory potential
—
epistemology.^^
ernism, such as
—indeed the source of
his
emancipa-
lay in his critical treatment (or deconstruction) of
Even philosophers out of sympathy with postmodAllan Bloom, Alasdair MacIntyre, and Alain Renaut,
routinely associate Nietzsche with the epistemic and value relativism
of his postmodern champions.^®
Among
more prominent works in this line are Arthur Danto, Nietzsche as Philosopher (Ntvc York: Columbia University Press, 1980); Bernd Magnus et al., Nietzsche's Case: Philosophy as/and Literature (New York: Routledge, 1993); Alexander Ne1
8.
the
hamas, Nietzsche: Life as Literature (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985); and
Tracy B. Strong, Friedrich Nietzsche and
the Politics of Transfguration,
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988).
known
as
Among
expanded ed.
philosophers not generally
Nietzsche scholars, Rorty has been particularly influential in promoting this
view. See the reference in note 5 along with his Contingency, Irony, Solidarity
bridge: 19.
Cambridge University
(Cam-
Press, 1989).
Peter Berkowitz, Nietzsche: The Ethics of an hntnoralist (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 1995). attention
It is
from Nietzsche’s
indeed strange that Foucault, after resolutely deflecting
and
ethical
political concerns, revealed his
own normative
concerns more clearly near the end of his career, in the context of his work on Hellenistic
conceptions of “care of the
as a Practice
self.”
See Foucault, “The Ethic of Care for the Self
of Freedom,” interview with Paul Fornet-Betancourt et
Gautier, in The Final Foucault, ed. Press, 1988). It
J.
trans. J.
Bernauer and D. Rasmussen (Cambridge:
seems that Foucault did not come to
cient philosophy through Nietzsche, nor (to
Nietzsche shared in
al.,
my
his interest in this aspect
D.
MIT
of an-
knowledge) did he acknowledge that
this interest.
Bloom, The Closing of the Atnerican Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Detnocracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today's Students (New York: Simon and 20. See Allan
Schuster, 1988); Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue:
Dame: University of Notre Dame naut, The Era of the Individual:
10
INTRODUCTION
A
A
Study in Moral Theoty (Notre
Press, 1984), especially chapter 9;
Contribution
to
and Alain Re-
a History of Subjectivity, trans.
M.
B.
Fortunately, the vogue of forcing Nietzsche into a triad with Fou-
and Derrida has diminished markedly
cault
in
more recent
years,
thanks to the appearance of fine studies that have effectively chal-
lenged
many aspects
of the postmodernist reading.
logical front, recent studies have
On the epistemo-
argued convincingly that the Nietz-
schean critique of conventional morality
is
undergirded by serious
appeals to a notion of truth. According to these scholars, Nietzsche
understood that the implausibility of positivism and Platonic realism
need not impel us into an embrace of
relativism. Nietzsche
is
de-
scribed as carving out a position for himself in that vast middle
ground between these
tv^o extremes.^'
Recent authors have also begun to unearth the strong ethicalnormative component in Nietzsche’s project.
comes
easier
tinction
once we employ something
like
Its identification
be-
Bernard Williams’s
dis-
between “ethics” and “morality.”’^ Nietzsche’s repeated
self-description as an amoralist
—indeed, an w/moralist—and
pudiation of “morality” are best understood in light of his native conception of
standpoint.^ ^
And
human
his re-
own
alter-
flourishing: his (Nietzschean) ethical
alongside this salutary shift toward the normative
dimension of Nietzsche’s thought,
it is
now
increasingly accepted
DeBevoise and Franklin Philip (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), chapter 5. See my review of Renaut in the Bosto 7 Book Review 4, 10 (December 1997): 14. i
21. See, for example,
Richard Schacht, Nietzsche (London: Routledge and Kegan
Paul, 1983); Alaudemarie Clark, Nietzsche on Truth
and Philosophy (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1990); and Brian Leiter, “Nietzsche and Aestheticism,” Jo/zrnal of the Histoiy of Philosophy 30,
2
(April 1992): 275-290. Cf. Leiter, “Perspectivism in
Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morals,” in Nietzsche, Genealogy, Morality: Essays on Nietzsche's "'On the
Genealogy of Morals," ed. Richard Schacht (Berkeley: University of Cali-
fornia Press, 1994), pp. 334-357; and his “Nietzsche and the Critique of Morality:
Philosophical Naturalism in Nietzsche’s
Theory of Value” (Ph.D.
diss..
University of
Michigan, 1995). 2 2 Bernard Williams, Ethics and the Lhnits of Philosophy (Cambridge: Harvard Uni.
versity Press, 1985), pp. 6-7. 23.
For some recent attempts
at
exploring Nietzsche’s normative dimension, see
Lester Hunt, Nietzsche and the Oi'igin of Virtue (London: Routledge, 1991); Ophelia Schutte, Beyond Nihilisin: Nietzsche without Masks (Chicago: University of Chicago
and Berkowitz, whose 1995 hoo\i Nietzsche canny subtitle. The Ethics of an Inmioi'alist.
Press, 1984); in its
reflects Williams’s distinction
INTRODUCTION
that Nietzsche
saw himself
an educator of sorts and wished to
as
share his ethical-normative vision with others.
work represents an undeniable advance. Yet with very few exceptions, the Kaufmann legacy of tidying up Nietzsche All of this recent
for
contemporary
(liberal-
or social-democratic) sensibilities remains
the rule in the Anglo-American academy.^^
The
consensus around
the picture of Nietzsche as an essentially benign figure
many of
lenged and underlies Nietzsche’s
name and
is
rarely chal-
the scholarly skirmishes that invoke
spirit. It is
shared even by those
who
disagree
over the political significance of his writings.
Nietzsche and
Politics
For some, Nietzsche tuous of for
politics.
he was the
is
a thinker
wholly uninterested
in or
contemp-
Kaufmann’s shadow looms particularly large here,
first
to adopt the now-familiar strategy of exonerating
Nietzsche from the charge of proto-Nazism by dismissing or downplaying the political content of his writings. Kaufmann’s claim that “the leitmotif of Nietzsche’s antipolitical individual
who
life
and thought [was] the theme of the
seeks self-perfection far from the
ern world” has resonated through
24. See, for example,
Nietzsche:
A
Critical
many approaches
ed.
Peter R.
Sedgw'ick (Oxford:
pp. 222-249; and Laurence Lampert, Nietzsche's Teaching:
Spoke Zarathnstra"
to Nietzsche’s
Richard Schacht, “Zarathustra/Zarathustra
Reader',
(New Haven:
An
mod-
as
Educator,” in
Blackw'ell,
1995),
Interpretation of ‘‘'Thus
Yale University Press, 1987).
25. Exceptions include Berkowitz, Nietzsche:
The Ethics of an
bnnroralist; Schutte,
Beyond Nihilis?n; Stanley Rosen, The Mask of Enlightenment: Nietzsche's Zarathnstra
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995); andj. P. Stern, H Study of Nietzsche (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979). Charles Taylor also evokes a less than comforting Nietzsche in his Sources of the
Self:
The Making of Modein
Identity
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989), pp. 444-455, 516-520. In Erance, meanwhile, a younger cohort of moral and political philosophers has for the last decade been engaged
in a serious ree.xamination
of the Nietzsche
who had been trum-
peted by the generation of Deleuze, Derrida, and Eoucault. See, for e.xample, the essays in
Why We Are Not Nietzscheans,
ed.
Luc
Eerr\^
and Alain Renaut,
Loaiza (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), and the Boston Book Review 4, 9 (November 1997): 26-27.
12
INTRODUCTION
my
trans.
Robert de
re\dew of this book in
thought, even those rejecting other aspects of Kauftnann’s interpreNietzsche’s focus
tation.^*^
on
stress
individuality, his
on himself and contempt
his
own
experiences, his
for egalitarian collectivism, his
disdain for the “petty politics” of his day, and his abhorrence at the idea of providing others with blueprints and prescriptions
all
seem
to ^
obviate (in this view) any substantive political vision for the future.
For others, tics
this
equation of Nietzsche’s criticism of modern poli-
with an opposition to politics in general
is
tendentious. Along-
side his castigation of petty politics, Nietzsche
toward what he considers
what follows
I
endorse
a different,
this position
is
said to gesture
grander uq^e of
—although,
as
politics.^^ In
noted above,
I
think there are grave difficulties with the widespread “left-wing” variant
—and attempt
to
show how
Nietzsche’s politics emerge out of
concern for the flourishing of the “higher,” “stronger” type of
his
human
being.
explore
and the
power
To
I
take
up
his aesthetic
approach to
political action
and
some of the qualities he believes future rulers would need mechanisms they could use to exercise and legitimate their
in a revitalized
call for political
European
political
and cultural order.
and cultural revitalization
is,
of course, to em|
some vision of sociability, for politics cannot be a solitary affair. / Here we encounter one of the deepest tensions in Nietzsche. I argue/
brace
that he
is
genuinely torn between two competing
tion of autarchy and an Aristotelian sense of our
ideals: a stoic
dependence on the
right sort of company for the fullest cultivation of our virtue.
26.
Kaufmann,
Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, AutiChrist, p. 418.
antipolitical readings that
come
no-
Both
More
in
recent
mind include the aforementioned works well as Ted Sadler, Nietzsche: Truth and Re-
readily to
of Magnus, Nehamas, and Schacht, as
(London: Athlone, 1995); and Leslie Paul Thiele, Friedrich Nietzsche and Politics of the Soul: A Study of Heroic Individualism (Princeton: Princeton Univer-
dejnption the sity
Press,
1990). Although he acknowledges passages that suggest otherw'ise,
Berkowitz similarly concludes that Nietzsche “radically denigrates” See his Nietzsche: The Ethics of an hmnoralist, pp.
2, 19,
political life.
91, 102, 123, 148, 151, 161,
166, 238, and 246-247. 27.
Among
wiler, Nietzsche
those alive to the political dimension of Nietzsche’s thought are Det-
and
the Politics of Aristoa-atic Radicalis?n;
and Modeniity (New York: Columbia University
An
Introduction to Nietzsche as Political Thinker
Press, 1994);
Nancy Love, Marx,
Nietzsche,
Press, 1986); Keith Ansell-Pearson,
(Cambridge: Cambridge University
and Lampert, Nietzsche and Modern Times.
INTRODUCTION
own
his
voice and in that of his literary creation, Zarathustra, Nietz-
sche urges his readers to take on a higher, noble “selfishness” by es-
caping their
proximity to the majority and fleeing into
stifling
As
itually cleansing solitude.
argue below, however, he
I
concerned that the indefinite maintenance of healing isolation might eventually
My examination gender
harm
also
is
this initially salutary,
rather than foster nobility.
of his agonistic type of friendship and his views on
relations, family,
embrace of an
a spir-
and “breeding” strongly suggests that
aristocratic
form of sociability mitigates (but does not
completely subsume) his more extreme position on individual
The
sufficency.
his
latter retains its
most
self-
telling expression in the so-
we
called eternal return of the same, which, as
shall see, functions in
Nietzsche’s thought as both a daunting thought experiment and a
healing epiphany. often noted, rightly, that Nietzsche abhors strict blueprints
It is
and does not provide us with
a draft constitution for a
new
society
ruled by Ubermenschen. If one believes that the appellation “political
philosopher” ought to be reserved exclusively for those with such blueprints in hand, he clearly
view
is
to opt for an exceedingly
losophy.
Under such
The
Zarathustra text.
bill.
But to hold
from
many elements
even Plato would find his creden-
how
settled. It
seriously to take the
would be
foolish to
title
character of Thus Spoke
deny the ironic elements
in the
of “wicked and malicious” parody in Za 7 'athustra (GS Pref.
i). I
unconvinced, however, by Robert Pippin’s argument that the redemptive message
of this work
is
entirely
undermined by
irony.
See Pippin, “Irony and Affirmation in
Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra," in Nietzsche's Aesthetics,
a 7id
versity of
Chicago
Politics, ed.
New
Seas: Explo 7 -atio 7is in Philosophy,
Michael Allen Gillespie and Tracy B. Strong (Chicago: Uni-
Press, 1988), pp. 45-71. Nietzsche e.\plains in his personal corre-
spondence that “behind deepest seriousness and
all
the plain and strange words” of
my whole
philosophy.
It is
Za 7 -athustra “stand
Nietzsche,
p.
213.
EH
suggests that free-spirited types
INTRODUCTION
my disclosure of Letters of F -iedrich 7
Other professions of the profound seriousness undergirding
Zarathust7 -a can be found in
grave and serious
my
the beginning of
myself.” Letter to Carl von Gersdorff, 28 June 1883, in Selected
14
this
Indeed, in an 1886 preface to The Gay Science Nietzsche himself alerts his readers
to the
am
far
the
narrow conception of political phi-
rigid criteria
question of just is
fit
philosopher called into question, for his Republic
tials as a political
28.
would not
human
beings”
Foreword 4 and
EH XL
More
who engage
in all sorts of
(GS
BCE 94,
107;
cf.
232).
generally, Nietzsche
mockery “are
at
bottom
contains no such nuts-and-bolts analysis.^^ Nietzsche deserves his place in the canon of political philosophy not because he provides a detailed institutional account of the optimal type of polity, but rather
because his sweeping denunciation of liberalism, democracy, socialism, feminism, and other offshoots of modernity leads late (albeit in a
I
am
to
formu-
sketchy and unsystematic manner) an alternative, rad-
ically aristocratic
29.
him
model of
politics that bears serious examination.
indebted to Leon Craig for this point. (Admittedly, in his Laws Plato did
get around to the
more
detailed policy prescriptions lacking in The Republic.)
INTRODUCTION
one
Science, Nature,
and Nietzschean Ethics
The Hardest Service t is
I
sometimes argued that Nietzsche’s embrace of the language
of scientific rigor and method extends no further than his sup-
posedly uncritical, science-worshipping “positivist” period of the
late
1870s. After this time he
skeptical view of artistic creativity I.
modern
said to have
adopted
a resolutely
science and to have prized
unbounded
is
over scientific discovery.^ WTiile this view seems to
See, for example, Arthur Danto, Nietzsche as Philosopher
(New
York:
Columbia
University Press, 1980); and Alexander Nehamas, Nietzsche: Life as Literature
16
(Cam-
be suggested in appears to
mere
is
few passages of Nietzsche’s
many commentators
where he
later writings,
to be offering a picture of science as
subjective projection of the desires of the scientist onto the
world, tific
a
I
think
it is
pedigree of Nietzsche’s view of the
much
that
is
may think of the scienhuman condition and there
mistaken. Whatever one
—
tendentious and disputable in his “scientific” account
of reality in general and humankind in particular tral role
finest
upon
human
—he bestows
a
cen-
science in his politico-philosophic enterprise.
The
beings, claims Nietzsche, celebrate science as “the wis-
of the world” (A 47; cf. GS 335; \\T 442, 443). He speaks in glowing terms of a new type of philosopher who would be “hardened
dom
by the
discipline of science”
and decries traditional
beliefs
and prac-
tices for their
ignorance of and/or contempt for scientific method
(BGE 2 3 o).2 The acerbic
treatment of positivist notions of science in the later
works
is all
too often mistaken for
generalized skepticism toward
a
the very possibility of science. In his criticisms of positivism,
Nietzsche professes support for an empiricist principle charac-
ever,
teristic
of modern science: namely, the importance of sense experi-
ence to the generation of Beyojid
Good and
all
genuine knowledge.^ As he proffers in
Evil, “all credibility, all
good conscience,
(BGE
dence of truth comes only from the senses [ 5'/>7 wew]”
TI
how-
III, 3).
all
134;
cf.
Rightly exercised by those with the proper instincts (see
below) and correct “breeding,” sense perception allows for the
tainment of real tivity.
evi-
—
as
opposed to bogus,
The Nietzschean
positivistic
—
at-
scientific objec-
free spirit has the capacity for “delineat[ing]
more recent
bridge; Harv’ard University Press, 1985). For a
articulation of this view,
see Leslie Paul Thiele, Friedrich Nietzsche and the Politics of the Soul:
A
Study of Heroic
Individualism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), pp. 103-118. 2. tific
See, for example, the derision directed at priests
knowledge (A
8, 12)
against science” (A 47; 3.
cf.
who
claim to be “above” scien-
and Nietzsche’s condemnation of religious
A 48,
faith for its “veto
49).
Brian Leiter, “Perspectivism in Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morals,” in Nietzsche,
Genealogy, Morality: Essays on Nietzsche's
“On
the Genealogy of Moj-a Is," ed.
Richard
Schacht (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), pp. 336-337. Laurence Lampert also notes that Nietzsche rejects the nineteenth century’s reigning scientific
paradigm Descaites,
name of science. Nietzsche and Modem and Nietzsche (New Haven: Yale University Press, in the
SCIENCE, NATURE,
Thnes:
A
Study of Bacon,
1993), p. 301.
AND NIETZSCHEAN ETHICS
I
7
a
reality as
art “of
it is''
(EH
XIV,
5) and, like the
being able to read off a
good
philologist, learns the
fact without falsifying
it
by interpreta-
tion” (A 52).
Nietzsche castigates positivism not for
—
true nature of reality
this
a goal
is
count of scientific objectivity that with
goal of uncovering the
its
—but rather
he shares
is
for an ac-
both naive and cowardly.
(I
deal
supposed naivete here and take up Nietzsche’s charge of
its
cowardice below.)
It is
naive because of
accurate account of the facts
is
implausible view that an
its
possible only after the observer be-
comes “impartial” by purging himself of
all
“bias,” that
is, all
affec-
normative, and/or theoretical orientation to the object in ques-
tive,
In
tion.
a
passage
echoed
often
in
contemporary philosophy,
Nietzsche claims that the positivist conception presupposes “an eye that
is
completely unthinkable, an eye turned in no particular direc-
which the
tion, in
active
and interpreting
forces,
through which
alone seeing becomes seeing somethings are supposed to be lacking
(GM III,
”
12).
In proposing a completely unmediated, neutral grasp of reality,
presume that the attainment of knowledge and truth de-
positivists
pends on privileged access to an unearthly, disembodied realm
world which then serves
“real”
as the
Archimedean point
ment
in the imperfect, “apparent”
world of embodied
ions,
and other corrupting
Thus
biases.
—
for judg-
feelings, opin-
positivists unwittingly repli-
cate the metaphysical realism of Plato and Platonic Christianity.'^
Whereas
pher’s eternal
One
4.
Forms, the Judeo-Christian God, and Kant’s Ding-an-
should keep Nietzsche’s repudiation of allegedly “higher,” more real realms
of existence in mind there
is
when reading
passages such as the following: “In the ‘in-itself
nothing of ‘causal connection,’ of
‘follow the cause,’ there
(BGE
have banished the Platonic philoso-
positivists claim to
21).
sation that
The is
no
‘law’ rules. It
target of this critique
is
‘necessity’. is
;
there ‘the effect’ does not
not causation as such but rather the bogus cau-
part of the equally bogus realm of the “in-itself.”
make use of that “sound conception of cause and
Once we
this (the
effect”
refrain
only) world,
from
we can
he associates with science (A
and the Critique of Morality: Philosophical Natu-
49). See Brian Leiter, “Nietzsche
Theory of Value,” (Ph.D. diss.. University of Michigan, 1995), p. and Maudemarie Clark, Nietzsche on Truth and Philosophy (Cambridge: Cam-
ralism in Nietzsche’s
bridge University Press, 1990),
18
.
we alone who have fabricated causes”
speaking of higher realms and focus our attention on
177;
.
p.
217.
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
sich
from legitimate
scientific discourse, their talk
mediated access to “the cal gesture (cf.
facts”
of an unbiased, un-
simply replicates this same metaphysi-
WP 481).^
Nietzsche claims that one of the “hardest” truths to embrace the existence of only one world.
There
is
no
escape,
is
no transcendent
appeal from our embodied, natural world of sense, instinct, and
thought to erned by
more
a
“real” world.
Although the universe may be gov-
scientifically discernible natural laws,
supra-human
ethical law; apart
nothing
is
good or bad,
nounces
in
The Gay
from
it is
(or before)
not governed by
human
intervention,
right or wrong. “Let us beware,” he an-
Science,
of attributing to [nature] heartlessness and unreason or their opposites: it is
to
become any of
imitate it.
neither perfect nor beautiful, nor noble, nor does
.
.
.
these things;
it
it
wish
does not by any means strive to
man. None of our aesthetic and moral judgments apply to
Let us beware of saying that there are laws in nature. There
nobody who commands, nobody who obeys, nobody who trespasses. (GS 109; cf. \\T 708, 711)^ are only necessities: there
The supposed
is
truth of this proposition, which essentially relegates
traditional religious fairy-tale status,
and philosophical notions of transcendence to
deemed “hard” or
is
“terrible” because very
few
people are said to be constitutionally equipped to willingly and joyfully
embrace what
hardest service,”
Z
cf.
it
it
implies. Because “the service of truth
remains within the purview of
a
is
the
minority (A 50;
III, 12, 7).
Repudiating the tenets of metaphysical realism and limiting oneself to earthly
—to what Zarathustra
refers to
humanly-conceivable, the humanly-evident, the humanly-
as “the
5.
forms of transcendence
Nietzsche does credit positivism, however, for making an
initial
attempt to
break with traditional metaphysical frameworks. See, for example, his reference to the
dawning of a new age of know ledge 6.
As
I
as “the
cock crow of positivasm”
in
TI
IV, 4.
read this passage, the “laws in nature” against which Nietzsche warns are
those of explicitly normative content, for example, the supposed “natural laws” (of self-preservation, duty to others, etc.)
forming the
basis of seventeenth-century social
contract theories, or Romanticism’s claim to be in tune with Nature’s “voice” 16).
His further claim that “there are only necessities”
modern
scientific
notion that
all
natural
is
(cf.
Z II,
perfectly compatible with the
phenomena obey
SCIENCE, NATURE,
the “laws” of physics.
AND NIETZSCHEAN ETHICS
palpable”
—
order (Z
a tall
is
II,
2).
Historically,
obsessions onto the natural
its
jection, to see “life” scientifically, as neither
rather “essentially amoral,” as Zarathustra says
This
is
why Nietzsche
(BT
fearsome prospect
a
is
moral nor immoral but
of himself and those
exception with us” (Z IV,
are told, hu-
own normative preoccupations and world (D 1 7). To come to see this as pro-
mankind has always projected
But
we
like
him,
Preface
^‘‘fear
—
5).
the
is
15).
charges those
who
subscribe to any form of
metaphysical realism not merely with error and naivete but with
who
cowardice. In his view, the majority (including most of those
themselves scientists) cling to the metaphysical
To
of fear.^
face
up
to the reality of what
scribe as a disenchanted universe
realist
framework out
Max Weber would
would drive
call
later de-
lesser sorts of
men
“to
nausea and suicide” (GS 107). This truth would produce profound disillusionment in such individuals,
who would
the weight of contempt” for a
that
meaning (BT Preface
value or religious
5).
would be seen
Hence
as bereft
by providing
pretation for
(GM
human
III,
28).
a
of
the recourse to mendacious
and philosophical worldviews that closed the door to
dal nihilism”
tion
life
be “crushed beneath
“suici-
supposedly externally grounded inter-
existence and suffering and the
This embrace of error
is
hope of redemp-
said to be
due to
cowardice rather than to mistaken but easily correctable reasoning:
“Error
(
—belief
in the ideal
[IrrtJim ist Feigheit]
knowledge
is
.
.
.
—
)
is
not blindness, error
ity”
in
EH XIV,
3).
the result of courage ”
(EH Eoreword in
such
3; cf.
lies,
while others do
Whence the cowardice of those “who take flight in face of real(EH XIV, 3) and the intellectual integrity and courage of those
who
can face
it
unblinkingly? Nietzsche’s characteristic response
to trace the intellectual
what he sees
as their
Even
as
fundamental character or disposition
Nietzsche trumpets the
scientific nature
i;
day
EH
who 20
as the
X,
2;
embodiment of a
EH
III, i;
BGE
—back,
in
And human
own approach, he derides “average man of science” of
of his
the positivist “scientificality” [Wissenschaftlichkeit] and the his
is
and normative stances of individuals back to
other words, to the “type” of person they really are.
7.
cowardice
Every acquisition, every step forward
Why do some people need to believe not?
is
fearful flight
from
truth. See, for example,
204, 206, 211;
GM
III,
25;
BT Preface
and VVP 120, 420. Scholars
consider Nietzsche a debunker of science tend to refer to passages such as these.
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
“types,” as they are presented in Nietzsche’s brand of science, are
ranked according to different sorts of instinct.
The Primacy Nietzsche’s
of Instinct
many and
human comportment
varied accounts of
are
punctuated with affirmations of our inescapably embodied condition as animals. Zarathustra claims, for
man”
man
example, that “the enlightened
refuses to repudiate his animality and instead refers to the hu-
being as “the animal with red cheeks” (Z
II, 3).
Nietzsche has no
patience for the belief he associates (perhaps unfairly) with the Platonic and Christian traditions,
human
“We
species
to help
is
it
namely that the only way
transcend
its
bodily, animalistic instincts.
philosophers,” he declares, “are not free to divide body from
“we” have grasped the
soul as the people do,” presumably because scientific truth that
Preface
3).
word
for
ganz
something
willing as he [Seele]^
our entire being
is
tind gar]^
in the
inescapably corporeal
is
man
Zarathustra ’s enlightened
tirely [Leib bin ich a
insists that
body” (Z
4; cf.
I,
Z I,
Nietzsche
II,
is
no more prepared
“body en-
3;
WP
2 29).
is
only
As un-
to
make concessions is
to the
prepared to talk
know
the
body bet-
i7).8
As human animals, our conduct mal
is
(GS
to attribute an independent existence to the soul
of spirit only in a figurative sense after coming to
(Z
he
and nothing beside; and soul
idea of a disembodied “spirit” [Gmt]. Zarathustra
ter
to exalt the
is
said to
instincts or drives [Tidebe] rooted in
aware of this or not. Casting aside
all
be shaped by certain pri-
our bodies, whether we are
notions of a disembodied form
of transcendence, Nietzsche claims that “we can
rise
or sink to no
(BGE
36).
He
other
8.
much
‘reality’
And
than the reality of our drives”
yet Nietzsche also claims that the value of a
truth a “spirit” can bear
(EH Foreword
sche’s propensity for appropriating
also
seem
terms
3).
—such
human
life is
maintains
measured by how
Peter Berkowitz rightly notes Nietzas “spirit,” “soul,”
and “virtue”
—that
to be attacked and discarded in other passages. Berkowitz, Nietzsche: The
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995), pp. 5-6. In attempting to describe his notion of embodied agency, Nietzsche repeatedly makes use
Ethics of an bmftoralist
of traditional terms with unmistakably metaphysical connotations.
SCIENCE, NATURE,
AND NIETZSCHEAN ETHICS
into his late period the view formulated earlier in his career that our intellect “is drive'"
(D
only the blind instrument
Reason should be seen not
109).
Werkzeu^ of another
[das blinde
as
an independent faculty
but as “a system of relations between various passions and desires”
(VVP 387). The philosophers’ claim that reasoning is independent of instincts is merely a “misunderstanding of the body,” and any attempt to repudiate one’s bodily only
result, paradoxically, in a
clearly
(Z
name of Reason can
affects in the
deformation of one’s
ability to think
I, 3).
In a crucial passage early in the Zarathustra narrative, Nietzsche
underscores
this
tween “the Self’ as
primacy of instinct
[das Selbst] as creative
a distinction be-
body and “the Ego”
The
conscious thought and feeling.
through
thesis
latter,
[das Ich]
though proud of
imaginative leapings and prone to vainglorious celebration of legedly independent power,
“Your Self laughs
at
is
its
its al-
portrayed as the former’s handmaid:
your Ego and
its
proud leapings. ‘What are these
leapings and flights of thought to me?’
it
says to
itself.
‘A by-way to
my goal. I am the Ego’s leading-string and I prompt its conceptions’” (Z
I,
4).
Ego
In this section the
[kleine Veiniimft] that
is,
is
described as a
in fact, “an
“little
intelligence”
instrument of your body,
instrument and toy of your great intelligence
[grofien
a little
Vemunft]."
Nietzsche suggests elsewhere that to think of oneself as exercising free will over
and against
this
embodied
self
temerity characteristic of the “half-educated”
proponents of metaphysical realism,
who
is
a
form of hubristic
(BGE
2 1).^
Against the
insist in various
ways on
the possibility of rising above instincts, desires, and interests into a
higher realm of knowledge and Truth, Nietzsche claims that the pursuit
of knowledge
instincts, desires,
But what
is
is
both intertwined with and driven by these same
and
interests.
the status of his primacy of instinct thesis? Is
to be a value-neutral, scientific account of the
9.
Thirty years
later
“human megalomania”
Sigmund Freud would echo
this
it
meant
way
the natural world
view
in his criticism of the
that clings to “a deeply rooted faith in
undetermined psychical
events and in free will.” Freud, Introductory Lectu?'es on Pyscho-Analysis, trans. and ed.
James Strachey (New York: W.
Norton, 1966), pp. 353, 130. tween Nietzsche and Freud, see Paul Laurent Assoun, Freud VV.
Presses Universitaires de France, 1980).
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
On
the relation be-
et Nietzsche
(Paris:
works from
a perspective
textual passages
seem
wholly outside the realm of ethics? Certain
When,
to support this reading.
for example,
Nietzsche declares that “every table of values, every ‘thou
known
to history or ethnology”
ought to be subject to the
shalt’
critical as-
sessment of “medical science,” he seems to be looking upon
all
forms
of ethical discourse with the same detached, scientific manner; sets
all
of values are determined by the same natural laws and processes
and are to be distinguished (rather than ranked) according to various types of physiology
(GM I,
distances himself from
all
7).
According to
this reading,
forms of ethical valuation and
how and why
causal story about
tific
1
Nietzsche
tells a
values (including his
scien-
own)
are
held and asserted.*® This reading has the merit of logical coherence,
but
is it
a sufficient
account of Nietzsche’s view?
Bodily Knowledge, Bodily Ignorance
I
do not think
this interpretation
can withstand the weighty textual
evidence suggesting something quite the contrary: namely, that a
normative vision of
human
flourishing
ence” and that the rhetoric of science
is
is
driving Nietzsche’s “sci-
invoked primarily to infuse
that vision with added respectability. Nietzsche
story about the causal impact of instinct tion,
but the story does not end there.
is
indeed proposing
on human thought and
He
goes
much
a
ac-
further in ad-
vancing an ambitious truth-claim for his ranking of different types of
human
instincts and, concomitantly, for the superiority of certain
types of human being over others.
Nietzsche slides effortlessly and almost imperceptably from an ostensibly value-neutral, “scientific” account of instincts to a normative prise de position in favor
of certain types of instinct over others. Ac-
cording to the laws of what he refers to as rank order [Rangoi'dimng], each living species
and more
divided generally into “different kinds of
specifically into “ascending”
species in question as
is
he suggests by
10. This, as
I
(WP
592, 857).
his repeated
understand
it, is
life”
and “decaying” forms of the
Human
beings are no different,
mention of an “unalterable innate or-
Leiter’s position (see notes 3
SCIENCE, NATURE,
and 4 above).
AND NIETZSCHEAN ETHICS
man and man” (BGE 263; cf. BGE every human being as first and foremost a
228).^^
der of rank between
Nietzsche regards
ological representative” or “carrier” [Triiger] of
of existence ing
“physi-
one of the two types
—strong/healthy/ascending and weak/unhealthy/declin-
—and therefore “may be regarded
as representing the
ascending
WP
(TI IX, 33; cf. TI VI, 2; 287). This rank order, he insists, is not merely his own way of looking at
or descending line of
life”
human world (although of course he does not deny, and indeed goes out of his way to confirm, that it is his view); on the contrary, the
Nietzsche claims that his proposed account would be apparent to any healthy, well-bred individual capable of grasping the “hard” truths of
Our
the natural world. K/isten] ... is
the
place in the “order of castes [Die
only the sanctioning of
Ordnung der
a natural order, a natural
law of
rank over which no arbitrary caprice, no ‘modern idea’ has
first
any power” (A
57).
Anyone capable of examining reality without
illu-
sion can grasp the truth that the representatives of “a higher, brighter
humanity” are “very small
by
number
nature rare),” while those
its
weakness are many: there
in
is
a surplus
(for everything outstanding
who
“Among men,
represent degeneration and
among
as
every other species,
of failures [Mifiratenen], of the sick [Kranken], the
degenerate [Efitartenden], the fragile [Gebrechlichen], of those
bound
to suffer; the successful cases are,
(WP 993; BGE 62; cf. BGE
exception”
among men
29, 126;
Given Nietzsche’s repeated insistence that “animal” instinct,
visceral,
it is
scend animality. Whereas both is
EH III,
all
lie in
human
who
are
too, always the i;
WP 420).
of us are driven by
clear that the key difference
strong and weak persons cannot
the issue
is
between
the former’s ability to tran-
types evince an animal nature,
the type of animality, or (what
is
for Nietzsche the
same
thing) the quality of the instincts and drives in the individual in question.
Nietzsche never
hominem
fails
to underline the
ability to discriminate
and people; indeed, he thinks II.
part of
Passages such as
human
24
ad
different types of instinct
takes priority over any independent
where Nietzsche
identifies
Ra 77gordnung
of any “necessary and pennanent characteristics of
condition.” Tracy B. Strong, Friedrich Nietzsche and the
expanded
this
as an intrinsic
existence, create difficulty for Strong’s suggestion that Nietzsche re-
jects the existence
man
this,
it
among
importance of
Politics
ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), p. 26;
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
a so-called
hu-
of Transfiguration, cf. p.
37.
— assessment of action as such: “An action
depends on who performs
it all
tion, feeling, or
it”
perfectly devoid of value:
is
(WP
292).^^
The
value of an ac-
sentiment can be assessed only with reference to the
value of the actor
—that
the value of that person’s character and
is,
A backward inference must always be made “from the deed doer, from the ideal to those who need />” (GS 370; cf. BGE
instincts.
to the
221;
WP 675).
So, for example,
someone who can grasp the
true nature of the
universe and reject any notion of a “higher,” “real” world of Being
embodies strong, healthy weariness” leads weaker
“other [higher] world”
instincts,
human
(WP
whereas an “instinct of
types to mendacious beliefs in the
586c).
Those who claim
chant for metaphysical transcendence nitely higher than instinct
—
faith, for instance,
or reason
but “a cloak,
is
behind which the instincts played their game
ness to the
dominance of certain
instincts
that their pen-
driven by something
is
ply deluding themselves. Religious faith sa'een^
life-
.
.
.
—
a
infi-
—are sim-
a pretext, a
shrewd
blind-
[Ojne has always spoken
of faith, one has always acted from instinct” (A 39). Whereas religious ascetics
may
sincerely believe themselves to have transcended their
bodily instincts, close observation reveals that these same (morbid) instincts are at play in their efforts to flee earthly reality.
For
their
all
transcendental longing, the “afterworldsmen” gain an almost sensual pleasure from their flights of fantasy, thereby exposing the
core of
all
metaphysical
realist
is
Z
15;
categorical:
“To
the
frameworks: “To what do they owe
the convulsion and joy of their transport?” asks Zarathustra.
swer
lie at
their bodies
and to
this earth”
(Z
I,
The
3; cf.
an-
Z II,
III, 12, 17).
Whether one can come
and affirm these truths
to recognize
—of
the primacy of bodily instinct and the rank order of human beings
depends very much on where one
WTereas and
(as
we
is
situated in the rank order.
shall see in the next chapter) the prudential interests
instincts of lower-order
human
beings lead them to deny the
very existence of the Rangordnung and to affirm instead the menda12. in
Robert Solomon has recently drawn attention to Nietzsche’s ad hominem
“Nietzsche ad hoin'mem: Perspectivism, Personality, and Ressentiment,”
Ca?fih-idge Cofnpavion to Nietzsche, ed.
bridge:
Cambridge University
in
style
The
Bernd Magnus and Kathleen Higgins (Cam-
Press), pp. 180-222.
SCIENCE, NATURE,
AND NIETZSCHEAN ETHICS
— human
cious notion of
equality,
at least potentially within the
it is
reach of all “higher” or “stronger” persons to understand and rejoice in their superiority to the
“weak.”
Nietzsche claims to possess sort.^^ In
him
a superior,
discriminating sense of this
speaking of his innate “psychological antennae” that allow
who
to identify the essential servility of those
wash” the
“dirt” at the
bottom of
attempt to “white-
book
their natures with
learning,
Nietzsche describes a type of discriminating knowledge that
is
less
self-consciously rational than instinctive and visceral. In this context
(EH
he sings the praises of his senses of
human being
I, 8).
The
described as an organ of which “no philosopher
is
has ever spoken with due respect” yet which entific [physikalisch]
in
is
my
nose of a higher type
instrument in existence”
he declares
nostrils,”
“perceive physiologically parts, the ‘entrails’
is
“the most delicate sci-
(WP
Homo, lauding
in Ecce
—the proximity or
smell
of every soul”
(EH
XIV,
i;
EH
“My
461).
.
.
.
genius
his ability to
the innermost Similarly, in
I, 8).
The Genealogy Nietzsche confesses that he finds “utterly unendurable” the smell of “the entrails of some ill-constituted soul”
TI
12; cf.
I,
IX, 20).
“Where
(GM
we are inOne should
the people eat and drink,”
formed, “even where
it
worships, there
not go into churches
if
one wants
is
usually a stink.
to breathe pure air”
(BGE
30).
Nietzsche makes use of the metaphor of taste just as often as that of smell
when
discussing the
human rank
order and his lofty place in
The finest human beings, Zarathustra teaches us, are not those who know how to “taste” everything. On the contrary, they have the it.
most “obstinate,
fastidious tongues
Wanting
to be in
agreement with the many
taste, for
the simple fact of the matter
and stomachs” (Z
is
is
III,
ii, 2).
taken as a sign of bad
that the “average
man”
is
uninterested in that which most stimulates every “higher nature and
more
refined and fastidious taste”
13. It
(BGE 43,
might be objected that Nietzsche claims to be “experienced”
decadence” and thus denies holding any superior view
decadent tendencies ^'sinmna is
220).
mminarinu
.
crucially mitigated
is .
.
healthy”
(EH
by
II, 2).
(EH
i).
I,
But
his assertion in the
To have
a
in “questions
of
this confession
of
same work
that he
is
decadent streak, for Nietzsche,
not the same thing as being part of the mediocre majority.
I
argue below that he sees
the “master” or “strong” types of his era as both decadent (in the sense of misguided as to their true interests
26
and deepest inclinations) and
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEiMOCRACY
(at least potentially)
redeemable.
Thus, to and persons sensibility.
is
discernible only to those of higher rank and superior
Only good
good and bad
taste.
This
and aesthetics”
that Nietzsche
ation might
can recognize the distinction betvv^een
taste
why the
is
basic question of whether to pre-
men
of lower or higher
fer the cultivation taste
Nietzsche claims that the rank order in things
reiterate,
(WP
makes
seem
353;
cf.
is
“at
a
question of
WP 878). But here my suggestion
entry into the domain of ethical valu-
a partisan
compromised. Does
to be
bottom
this
emphasis on
taste
not suggest that his perceptions and valuations are matters of mere subjective preference? It
would seem so only
Nietzsche’s use of the notion of taste cor-
if
responds to our typical usage. In everyday language the qualifier
“mere”
is
often placed in front of “taste” to highlight the
posedly idiosyncratic nature
like
“merely”
a
—or
if
he subscribes to
Weber’s view that aesthetics has become an au-
tonomous value sphere ethics
is
Nietzsche shares our habitual associ-
taste. If
ation of taste with idiosyncratic preference
something
sup-
someone claims
for example,
Hollywood movies over opera
that her preference for
matter of her personal
—when,
latter’s
and science
in the
modern world, wholly
from
distinct
—the aforementioned passages could be read sim-
ply as assertions of his
own
subjective preference for certain types of
people over others. But Nietzsche does not in fact subscribe to the
common,
subjectivist
view of taste. By insisting on the normative and
cognitive significance of judgments rooted in taste, he rejects the
Weberian notion
that the aesthetic, the moral,
and the
scientific
op-
erate according to separate, mutually exclusive logics.
Of course, Nietzsche’s
incessant highlighting of the intensely per-
sonal nature of his predilections can easily be mistaken for a deliberate attempt to
undercut their objective truth-value. In Ecce Homo, for
example, he refers twice to “his” morality, and in Beyond Good and Evil he “grants” that his will to
“only interpretation”
(EH
in these constructions his
of truth from the
I
5;
BGE
22).
is
Rather than see
think they are most profitably looked
aimed
lies
EH III,
thesis (discussed below)
an attempt to relativize or otherwise mitigate
own views, however,
as rhetorical devices
II, i;
power
at distinguishing his (accurate)
that historically have
guage of truth. Against those
who
insist
upon
evocation
monopolized the
lan-
upon the impersonal nature
SCIENCE, NATURE,
AND NIETZSCHEAN ETHICS
who
of truth,
claim that objectivity involves attaining an Archi-
medean point denuded of all perspective, Nietzsche insists that there is no contradiction between the deeply personal, embodied perspective
of
human being and objective truth. and objectivity can be made only from an inperspicacious
a superior,
Claims to truth
escapably personal point of view
HAH
BT Preface
12;
5;
GS
374;
Preface 6 ).^^
I
When
Zarathustra describes the body as a “great intelligence”
Venmnft] and declares that to the “discerning
[gfvfien detj\
(GM III,
instincts are holy,”
all
credited with something
erences (Z
I,
4;
Z
I,
22,
it
man
[Erkennen-
appears that bodily instinct
is
being
more than simply reflecting subjective pref2). “Of all forms of intelligence [alien Arten
von Intelligenz] discovered hitherto,” Nietzsche proffers elsewhere, “‘instinct’
a cognitive
(BGE
the most intelligent”
is
element
quantum of reason”
in
(WP
wisdom ence.^^ tra’s is
human
We
learn that there
our passions, that every passion contains 387;
cf.
Z IV,
to be suggesting in these passages
of exceptional
218).
is
is
“its
What Nietzsche seems
13, 9).
that the
embodied
inclinations
beings can result in a form of knowledge or
rather than simply a manifestation of subjective prefer-
This
is
the reasoning that forms the background to Zarathus-
coupling of subjective perception and knowledge claim: “There
wisdom
in the fact that
Nietzsche repeatedly
much in insists
the world smells
(Z
ill”
III, 12, 14).
on the incommunicability of
this
The “goodness” [Gut] that his embodies can never become a “common good”
“bodily knowledge” to most people.
imagined higher caste 14.
This, in
my view, is how Nietzsche’s celebrated “perspectivism” should be read.
A fuller discussion of Nietzsche’s attempt to reconcile the ubiquity of perspective with the possibility of objective truth is found in my “The Objective Viewpoint: A Nietzschean Account,” History of Philosophy Quaitej-ly 13, 4 (October 1996): 483-502. The popular association of Nietzschean perspectivism with pure subjectivism owes a great deal to
Nehamas’s
Nietzsche: Life as Literature.
For an
effective critique of
reading, see Brian Leiter, “Nietzsche and Aestheticism,” losophy 30, 2 (April 1992): 15.
as
that Nietzsche “enthrones” taste
an “organ of knowledge,” he ignores Nietzsche’s insistence on
when he
Habermas thereby a subjectivistic
refers to
joins those
it
who
as
“beyond true and
Pan pour Pan. Habermas, The
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
false,
its
cognitive and nor-
beyond good and
see Nietzsche as a purveyor of nothing
evil.”
more than
Philosophical Discourse of Modernity:
Twelve Lectures, trans. Frederick Lawrence (Cambridge:
28
of the History of Phi-
275-290.
Even though Jurgen Habemias acknowledges
mative import
Nehamas’s
MIT Press,
1987), p. 96.
1
the very notion of which
what can be
common
has ever but
little
sheer folly to attempt to teach the
overcoming, II
and
of
III
“a self-contradiction: [for]
is
(BGE 43).
value”
many about rank
is
as Zarathustra discovers early in his odysseyd*^ this
work, Nietzsche’s
alter
By
parts
ego has concluded that one III, 12, 17).
among them because they represent a fundamenhuman type and possess instincts foreign to the supe-
man, whose teachings cannot possibly
ing response (Z
III, 9; cf.
Thus Nietzsche select”
self-
in vain
tally different
rior
would be
order and
should not attempt to be physician to the “incurable” (Z All speech
It
Z IV,
4).
sympathetic, know-
Z III, 8, i; WS 131). those whom he considers
13, 9;
writes only for
(EH Eoreword
elicit a
“most
Like Christ, both Nietzsche and his
liter-
ary creation describe themselves as “fishers of men,” but with one crucial difference: in rejecting Christianity’s universalizing message,
Nietzsche/Zarathustra claim to be
much more
(EH
and catch
their choice of fishing hole
X,
i).
cast their fishing rods into
swamps “where
Zarathustra seeks “the fairest
human
stinctive
(Z
fish”
discriminating in
Unlike those
who
there are no fish,”
III, 8, 2;
Z
IV,
i).
In-
knowledge can be shared only with those who are “predis-
—those who,
posed and predestined” for
it
instincts similar to Nietzsche’s
(BGE
in other words, possess
30).
Once again, the language of embodiment is invoked to home this point. Alongside the references to taste and touch,
drive
audi-
tory metaphors are also prominent. His teachings are only for the
most
sensitive ears
(EH II,
7;
Z I,
12).
They are
certainly inaccessible
whom
Zarathustra long ago
to those with donkeylike “long ears” for
“unlearned consideration” (Z FV,
3, i).
Moving from
the auditory to
the gastrointestinal, Nietzsche further delimits his readership by referring to Zarathustra’s teaching variously as “man’s fare” [Meiiie
Manns- Kost], “warriors’ food” [Ef’oberer-Kost]
(Z IV,
17,
predestined” for his insights
.
am
not the
speaking, of course, of the story of Zarathustra’s repudiation and ridicule
hands of the people
in the
marketplace (Z Prologue). By part IV Zarathustra
considers his early attempt to share his folly”
is
thing, however, as having a guaranteed grasp of them. Despite
same
at the
and “conquerers’ food”
i).
To be “predisposed and
16
[Knieger-Kost],
(ZrV,
13,
i;cf.ZrV,
wisdom with
the
many
to have been a “great
12).
SCIENCE, NATURE,
AND NIETZSCHEAN ETHICS
their strong stomachs, sharp ears,
him
share membership with
pened their
I
higher
in the caste of stronger,
modern
beings have fallen into grave difficulty in the
chapter
examine Nietzsche’s account of
how
era. In the
next
could have hap-
this
“awakening”
as well as his various rhetorical strategies for
dormant noble
who human
and sensitive noses, those
Before these strategies can be ex-
sensibilities.
amined, however, Nietzsche’s characterization of “strong” and “weak”
human beings must be fleshed out. One crucial element of this hierarchy
human life is measured by how much truth can a spirit dare'"’ 1041). One is stronger and thus of
Nietzsche believes that the value of
“how much
truth can a spirit bear^
(EH Foreword
BGE 39; WP
3; cf.
greater value than
most
if
one
is
has already been discussed.
a
constitutionally equipped not sim-
ply to recognize the hard truths of reality but “to be
cheerful” in their presence
(EH III,
3).
This
hy Jasagen: “Recognition, affirmation of Jasagen ziir Realitdt]
as
is
much
happy and
what Nietzsche means
is
reality” [Die Erkenntnis^ das
a necessity for the
man
as its
for the
weak
strong
of reality”)
opposite (“cowardice
flight in the face
(EH
not the only way in which the strength-
IV, 2).
But
this is
weakness distinction
is
distinguishes the strong
framed. Below
from the weak
we
shall see
(a) in
is
how
Nietzsche
terms of “will to power”
and, in a related way, (b) using a normative standard of nature.
Power Thesis
Strength, Weakness, and the Will to
Many commentators from Heidegger and
Jaspers to the present
have assumed the will to power to be Nietzsche’s cosmological theory of the innate workings of the universe, and admittedly there are textual passages that appear to vindicate this reading. Zarathustra’s
teaching “about
life
and about the nature of
encapsulated in the observation that “where
found
there
I
voice
we
strength
will to
power” (Z
30
cf.
living creatures”
found
Moreover,
—
life as
such
in Nietzsche’s
GM
II,
12;
.
power” and that “the
is
will to
.
aims at the expansion
.
GM
III, 7;
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
WP
is
a living creature,
are told that “a living thing desires above
mental instinct of life 349;
II, 12).
I
all
ofpower’’^
all
own
to vent
its
really funda-
(BGE
13;
GS
1067). Occasionally Nietzsche
frames the will to power thesis
as
an ostensibly value-neutral, scien-
tific
observation rather than a form of approbation; that a “body
will
want
to grow, expand,
draw
to
itself,
gain ascendancy”
.
.
.
.
power”
[that] life fr will to
(BGE
.
due
is
not to “any morality or immorality” but simply to the fact that lives
.
“it
259).
In light of the obvious weakness of any reductionist account of life that purportedly “explains”
Kaufmann and
several
sentient behavior in terms of “power,”
all
more recent commentators have argued
against the cosmological interpretation in order to save Nietzsche’s
reputation as a serious philosopher. After noting that the bulk of Nietzsche’s references to the will to
power stem from
his observa-
human psychology, they conclude that the will to power speaks to the human world (rather than to “life” in general) and emerges from Nietzsche’s own preference for power-seeking, agtions of
grandizing individuals. Nietzsche, as Maudemarie Clark suggests, believes that “every
enhancement of the human type depends on
strengthening of the will to power.”
Wdiile
a
do not share these
I
commentators’ goal of “saving” Nietzsche from an indefensible cosmological thesis,
vance of the
I
will to
think they are right to highlight the primary relethesis for Nietzsche’s assessment of human
power
relations.
Strong, ascendant forms of human
power
in a joyous
life
are said to
embody a
will to
and unflinching manner. In Beyond Good and
for example, Nietzsche speaks of an “unconditional will to
Evil,
power”
that revels in the “art of experiment and devilry of every kind,” a
view also reflected in the notebooks unpublished in Nietzsche’s time
where we learn
(the so-called Nachlass),
that
it is
“the supreme will to
power” to “impose upon becoming the character of being”
(BGE 44;
WP 617). Turning to those whom he identifies as weak, Nietzsche of two minds.
On
possess the will to
is
the one hand, he claims that those “in decline”
power only
in pitiably small quantities, as in this
passage from The AntiChrist: “I consider
life
itself instinct
for
growth, for continuance, for accumulation of forces, for power:
where the is
will to
decline” (A 6;
power cf.
A
lacking [wo der Wille zur Macht fehlt] there
is
17;
17. Clark, Nietzsche on Tiiith
WP
and
98, 855).
If,
in this vein, the will to
Philosophy, p. 226.
SCIENCE, NATURE,
AND NIETZSCHEAN ETHICS
— power
associated with everything “that heightens the feeling of
is
power”
in
man, then those who cannot
through their
They might
On
creative agency cannot “be” will
embody an urge
instead
the other hand
—and,
I
\
able
amount of will
nies
its
own
to
power
in a
for the
most part
of mustering
as capable
—but
power in and to power (A 2).
to survive in relative comfort.
would suggest,
Nietzsche also depicts the weak
\
I
own
feel their
a
consider-
form so misguided that
it
de-
Consider, for example, his derisive treatment of
reality.
modern democracies who delude themselves into thinking that they are not really commanding but rather “obeying” or “serving” the people, God, or something else (Z III, 5, 2; cf. BGE 199; A 38). Such hypocrisy is the outcome of an essentially dishonest worldview that denies the fact that will to power those political “leaders” of
1
\l
M
drives everything. will
of the servant
As Zarathustra observes I
found the
will to
Nature and ArtificeiThe Highest
in this spirit,
be master” (Z
“even in the
II, 12).
Human Type
Although Nietzsche describes both higher and lower human beings as “natural” in the sense described
mals with
instincts),
human being
is
he also
above (both
insists that the higher,
tive
stronger type of
term that
“The Ethics,
recalls a classi-
moral philosophy. As we examine Nietzsche’s norma-
view of reality should come out even more
“neither by nature nor against nature” first
(i
io3a2 5).^^
it
does not develop spontaneously, without edu-
cation or upbringing. In this sense hardly anything in “natural,” including the use of language.
18. Aristode,
The mean-
part of this cryptic phrase seems straightforward: virtue
“unnatural” in that
19.
clearly.
virtues arise in us,” declares Aristode in the Nico?nachean
ing of the
Nicmnachean
As Bernard Williams notes
in his
p. 47.
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
The second
human
beings
is
part, that virtue
Terence Irwin (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1985). Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (Cambridge:
Ethics, trans.
Harvard University Press, 1985),
32
—nat-
use of nature, the ethical vision that undergirds his ostensibly
scientific
is
types are ani-
much more natural than the lower and weaker
ural in a specifically normative sense of that cal tradition in
human
is
not “against nature,” suggests that an ethical disposition
is
part of
human development, where “natural” certain essential human attributes in the
the natural culmination of refers to the cultivation of
context of an
artificial
Virtuous action that in that
it
is
(human-constructed) culture or community.
part of the creative artifice of culture
represents the
of the correct development of
telos
human
kind of animal: the
is
being.
From
natural
a certain
this Aristotelian perspective,
the standard nature-culture dichotomy popularized both by
Romanticism and Kantian philosophy simply does not make
modern
sense.
Without ever acknowledging an intellectual debt to Aristotle, Nietzsche was drawn to this Aristotelian perspective on nature.^^ In opening remarks to the early essay “Homer’s Contest” (1872), Nietzsche stakes out a recognizably Aristotelian position from his
which,
I
would argue, he never
When tal
departs:
one speaks of hiiinanity
that this
idea
reality,
however, there
together.
Man,
in his highest
[gaiiz Natia‘]
who
and noblest
and embodies
ter \iinheimlichen Doppelcharakter].
20. Scholars
no such separation: “nat“human” are inseparably
is
ural” qualities and those called truly
wholly nature
fundamen-
something which separates and distinguishes man
is
from nature. In
grown
is
capacities,
is
uncanny dual charac-
its
(HC)^^
have recognized Nietzsche’s rejection of the nature-culture di-
chotomy include Bruce Detudler,
Nietzsche
and
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), tal Revolution: Philosophic Sources
the Politics of Ai'istoa'atic Radicalism
p. 80;
Bernard Yack, The Longing for To-
of Social Discontent fivm Rousseau
to
Marx and Nietzsche
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), pp. 317-318; and Eric Blondel, Nietzsche,
The Body, and Culture: Philosophy as
Philological Genealogy, trans.
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991), p. 43. Blondel, however, classical
antecedent and appears to assume that Nietzsche was the
have thought 21.
first
to note any
philosopher to
this way.
Kaufmann, whose rendition of “Homer’s Contest”
the entire piece for his Portable Nietzsche volume. translations have recently appeared:
Competition,” Pearson and
fails
Sean Hand
as a
trans.
pp. 187-194), and a
Schacht (Urbana,
I
use here, did not translate
Two new
and complete English
one by Carole Diethe (with the
supplement to On
title
the Genealogy of Morality, ed.
“Homer on
Keith Ansell-
Carole Diethe [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994], second by Christa Davis Acampora in Nietzscheana #5, ed. Richard
111 .:
North American Nietzsche
Society, 1996).
SCIENCE, NATURE,
AND NIETZSCHEAN ETHICS
a
Nietzsche maintains the view that fulfillment of the highest being’s true nature
—that
is,
the attainment of
human
excellence
to be found in “artificial” realms of creativity rather than
any rediscovery of
by
a
human
—
is
through
purportedly authentic, “natural” self unsullied
(BGE i88). A fragment from 1887 succinctly states his po“Man reaches nature only after a long struggle he never ‘re-
artifice
—
sition:
turns’”
(WP
120).
Nietzsche’s critique of Romanticism can be understood in light of this insistence
on
“artificiality.”
His profound objection to the view
one could “return to nature” (and thus to
that
by sloughing
virtue)
off the artifice of culture and recovering a pristine, “natural” self
well illustrated in part
IV of Zarathiistra^ where Nietzsche burlesques making one of his two kings
the nostalgia for the noble savage by so-called “higher
day
man”
—declare that the
a healthy peasant,
is
rV, 3,
The
i).
is
“finest
and dearest
—
man
to-
uncouth, cunning, obstinate, enduring” (Z
fact that the
lowly peasant
is
thoroughly “natural”
is
no
reason to show him the respect due to higher orders of humanity.
Nietzsche despises the intellectual and
fashion of his
artistic
Natu—associated both with Romanticism and with the ralism of Zola — that on the inherent worth of everything nattime
literary
insists
He
ural.
Romantic
asserts that the fashionable
manners and the indiscriminate
idealization of rustic
curiosity of the literary Naturalists
toward everything “natural” embody an assault against that true nobility
sider
and decency he sees himself it
as
championing: “Today we con-
matter of decency not to wish to see everything naked, or to
a
be present at everything, or to understand and ‘know’ everything”
(GS Preface
4).^^
Nietzsche’s highest
human
type, to recapitulate,
high degree of naturalness in virtue of being tifice”
and discrimination.
He
is
a
man
embodies
a
of cultural “ar-
the type described in the third es-
say of The Genealogy as a “great experimenter with himself, discon-
tented and insatiable, wrestling with animals, nature, and gods for ultimate dominion,” a being things, braved
22.
ace 4;
34
who
more and challenged
For some examples of Nietzsche’s
GS
347;
TI
“has dared more, done
IX,
7;
and \\T 821.
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
fate
more than
all
more new
the other an-
distaste for literary Naturalism, see
GS
Pref-
(GM
imals put together”
III, 13).
listen to nature’s “voice” a la
Such
a
man
does not attempt to
Rousseau. As noted above, Nietzsche
considers the amoral natural world to be an inappropriate model
human beings. In aspiring “to be other than this nasuperior man becomes one of a very few “genuine artists
for superior ture,” the
of
life”
(BGE
Nature That
9, 32).
Is
Also against Nature
Although Nietzsche privileges the sort of in the creation of
normative values, he
will to
insists that
power
resulting
not
forms of
all
value creation are equally praiseworthy. Debased forms originate
with those at
all
who would
—those
who,
prefer to think of themselves as not creating
like
the aforementioned democratic political
something “higher”
“leader,” consider themselves to be obeying
than themselves. This, he claims, flight
is
a
monumental
self-delusion, a
from truth that diminishes the value of the creation.
Consider
as well the character
of the ascetic
sche treats as a higher, stronger type of
priest,
whom
Nietz-
human being gone bad
(or
“decadent”). Nietzsche often evinces a grudging admiration for
those “ingenious” [Geistirich] individuals
who
have founded and per-
petuated those religions with mass following and universalistic pretensions as
(GM
I, 7).
He
he acknowledges
recognizes their inherent
own extended
his
he identifies himself as their kin
(GM
flirtations
warm
its
Such
qualified praise
ascetic priests
tity
is
also illustrated in his
The a
ascetic project of service to
God and
kind of disciplined self-overcoming in
way.^^
sche’s identification of a
.
2).
he concedes, evinces
own
23
with “decadence,”
treatment of the solitary hermit character in the Prologue of
Zarathustra (Z Prologue truth,
and insofar
Nietzsche’s qualified
II, 24).
respect for creativity in the service of religion
ability,
show
is
crucially mitigated, however,
paradox
at the center
of such
a life.
by Nietz-
Although
great creativity in producing highly sophisti-
As Charles Taylor observes
in his Sources of the Self:
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989),
p.
The Making of Modern Iden-
453.
SCIENCE, NATURE,
AND NIETZSCHEAN ETHICS
human
cated
that calumniate
and attempt to
capacity to
so “new, profound, unheard of, enigmatic, contradictory” as to
6).
And
(GM II,
worthy of “divine spectators”
constitute a “sublime” spectacle 1
core values
products
This bizarre spectacle of creativity-that-calumniates-creativity
create. is
embody stamp out the human
artifacts, their resulting
while Nietzsche concedes that this turning of the
human
chamber” may have made humankind more
soul into a “torture
“in-
teresting” (in the sense that the inner turmoil thereby generated has
added depth to the human psyche),
one could
call it that
—
is
his praise of this spectacle
balanced by the claim that
it
i6;GMII,
II,
The
of animals (A
world, ours is,
those
is
Out of
a
“gruesome hybrid of sickness and
against something that rally creative will to
4; is
WP
179).
A truly noble and
power
He
that denies
its
(WP
will to
is
whose expression
an example of “nature
own
He who
way of life openly and
who
the universe and
24.
informed by
this
and bases
on the honesty and
who
can do
honesty
[Redlichkeit]"
(Z
refuses to fudge or run
YV, 13, 8; cf.
D
and
contrast, itself
on
integrity
—who cre-
honestly^*^
a realistic grasp
more Preface 4; WTP
declares, “I count nothing
natu-
can scarcely be exaggerated.
of the workings of
away from “hard”
—performs the task that Nietzsche claims he As Zarathustra
a
228).
of the sort of individual
ates a table of values
embodies
creative nature
in external sources
the truths of science. Nietzsche’s stress
this
The aspower” who
form of value creation, by
fully natural
from seeking meaning
embodies
innova-
creativity,
also nature” because he
discourages this creativity in others
truths
the
order to extirpate these same drives.
(EH Foreword
refrains
is
the species in the animal
all
continually “[denies] and condemn[s] the drive [he] is”
man
proof positive that
marshal healthy species drives (for
tion, originality, etc.). in
cetic priest
14).
is
the only one that produces decadent individuals, that
is
who
man”
22).
case of the ascetic priest
“sickliest”
if
has been re-
sponsible for “the most terrible sickness that has ever raged in
(GM
—
first set
for
him-
valuable and rare today than 404). Berkowitz perceptively
highlights Nietzsche’s identification of honesty as a cardinal virtue for the superior
man. See
36
his Nietzsche:
The Ethics of an hmnoralist, pp. 40, 102, 128, 250.
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
self in artist,
The Birth of Tragedy: “to see science under the lens of the but art under the lens of life” (BT Preface 2).
But what of those unable to
attain this
represent, in Nietzsche’s eyes, the vast majority
the dual character of
human
distinction in the first
good
life,
How do those who
summit? fit
into this account of
beings? In an echo of Aristotle’s famous
book of The
between mere
Politics
and the
life
Nietzsche refers disparagingly to the so-called virtue that
put into play merely “in order to bdi'inlicheti
BehagenY (Z
noblest part of human
I,
6;
life,
cf
live
long and in
Z Prologue
3).
a
miserable ease
is, its
[er-
Turning away from the
the majority pursues what Nietzsche refers
to as “the happiness of serfs” [Gliick der Kjiechte] in
tence,” that
is
pursuit of the base ideal of
physical health, and comfort (Z
II, 8;
Z
mere
12; cf.
II,
its
“will to exis-
self-preservation,
WP 944). Having
neither the capacity nor the desire for greatness, the majority
cused of “depriv[ing] existence of
its
g/rat character”
(EH
is
ac-
XIV,
4).
Again and again the many are revealingly described with animal imagery; they
move
together as a “herd” or “swarm,” succumbing to the
temptations of a merely animal-like existence focused on the
From
fulfill-
ment of immediate,
basic needs.
man, they are
the ape and treated as “a laughing-stock or a
like
painful embarrassment”^^ (Z Prologue
While
this
language
is
the standpoint of the creative
3; cf.
GS
reminiscent of the
351).
more
familiar nature-
culture dualism and seems at times to suggest that superior ings
somehow
human
be-
transcend animality altogether,^*^ Nietzsche subverts the
standard dualist picture by insisting on the “unnaturalness” of the table
of values that undergirds the majority’s bovine existence
Targeting “slave morality,” as he terms the
predominant
in
Western
mode
civilization since the
(WP
204).
of ethical valuation
dawn of
rabbinical Ju-
daism and the early days of its Christian offspring, Nietzsche speaks of his '^attentat
(EH
IV, 4). It
25. is
on two millennia of anti-nature and the is
not,
he confesses,
Bovine imagery takes over
violation of
just slave morality’s epistemic errors
in the fourth part
of Zarathiistra
when
portrayed as cows whose cud-chewing masquerades as reflection (Z IV, 26.
man”
Bernard Yack argues that Nietzsche
falls
the majority 8).
into the familiar Kantian dualism of
nature and culture in early works such as “Schopenhauer as Educator.” Yack, The
Lo 7igmgfor
Total Revolution, pp.
318-319.
SCIENCE, NATURE,
AND NIETZSCHEAN ETHICS
— that horrify
courage in
ghasdy
and offend him, not
spiritual affairs
.
.
.
—
lack “of discipline, of decency, of
its
the lack of nature,
it is
it is
the utterly
honors
fact that anti-natiire itself has received the highest
morality,
and has hung over mankind
(Higher) Nature
as law”
(EH XIV,
is
man”
at the
height
confidently accurate in actions taken and judgments
made; he considers
and Evil echoes
EH III, 5).
in Peril
Zarathustra suggests that the superior, “discerning
of his powers
7; cf.
as
all
this
of his instincts “holy” (Z
view in
Beyond Good
22, 2).
suggestion that such a
its
“fundamental certainty which
I,
man
evinces a
noble soul possesses in regard to
a
it-
something which may not be sought or found and perhaps may
self,
not be plete
lost either”
(BGE
“com-
287). Elsewhere Nietzsche speaks of a
automatism of instinct”
as “the
precondition for any kind of
mastery, any kind of perfection in the art of living,” and suggests that
noble and maganimous types should “follow
end”
if
they
know what
is
good
for
them (A
[their]
57;
GS
own
senses to the
3).
Eor Nietzsche, however, the great calamity of the modern age that higher
human
beings
—with the exception of himself and
a
is
few
modern figures such as Goethe and Napoleon no longer know what is good for them. The picture of the superior man who listens to his bodily instincts is drawn as a normative ideal perhaps as wishful thinking rather than treated as a common occurrence. All too often, superior types have been led away other extraordinary
—
—
from
their instincts into beliefs
for them. in its
Having been
and practices that are objectively bad
raised in
modern herd
society and inculcated
erroneous post-Christian democratic values, superior
men no
longer experience and revel in their authentic corporeal instincts.
Their rational part lies
—
—claims Zarathustra, often
“spirit” [Gc/yf]
about the soul” [Seek] (Z
of the sorry state of higher
III, 1 1, 2). It is
human
38
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
to Nietzsche’s diagnosis
beings in the
his projected rescue operation, that
“tells
modern
we must now
turn.
age,
and to
two I
Nietzschean Consciousness-Raising see
them already coming,
slowly, slowly;
something to speed their coming vicissitudes,
upon what
paths,
I
if I
see
A tion
is
s
we have
of the
I
shall
do
describe in advance what
them coming?
—Human, All The Ressentiment
and perhaps
Too
Human
I Preface 2
Herd
seen, Nietzsche traces “slave morality” back to the
cowardly inability of an essentially weak, declining type of
human being
to joyfully
“artifice,” a construct
embrace the
fact that ethical valua-
of human agency. But this
is
not his only
genealogical account of “herd” values. In a second, complementary
genealogy, slave morality
is
explained as a defensive and vengeful
39
outgrowth of the majority’s resentment of the superior individuals its
in
midst.
The
root of slave morality, ressenthnent,
essential lack of self-sufficiency,
mote
on vanity
The
attributed to the herd’s
understand and pro-
inability to
an autonomous, noncomparative way. Nietzsche’s ob-
itself in
servations
its
is
[Eitelkeit] as a servile trait are instructive in this
whose entire spirit is consumed with ensuring that others watch them because their sense of self-worth is wholly dependent upon the validation of others (Z II, 22). Zarathustra refers to them derisively as self-conscious singers “whose voices are softened, whose hands are eloquent, whose regard.^
vain are “good actors” [Schauspieler]
eyes are expressive, is
(Z
full”
who
III,
II,
whose i; cf.
hearts are awakened, only
Z
II,
15).
When
when
the house
Nietzsche ridicules those
ostentatiously display “the heaving bosom,”
who
are quick to
invoke “the big moral words ... of justice, wisdom, holiness, virtue”
and
in
whom
moral seriousness
and gestures,” he
is
[Ernst]
becomes “imprinted on
criticizing a particularly
form of this dependency (TI
I,
19;
GS
tawdry and
faces
distasteful
359).
Nietzsche considers the need for applause to be a sure sign that real
human
excellence
is
absent. “Subtle fabricators and actors,”
claims Zarathustra, can evince only “pretended virtues” [Aushange-
Tugenden] and “glittering, false deeds” (Z IV, 13, virtue
is
manifest away from an audience
is
dependency and evince the courage of
“which not even
a
Only when
a
move beyond such hermit or an eagle,
god observes any more,” rather than the so-called
courage manifested only “in the presence of wimesses” (Z IV,
The
in his
and praise
destined to
fail.
shift in Nietzsche’s
—
as
“human,
all
too
many” and
Abbey, “So Polyphonous
a
human”
—
period discussions ofvanity include
D
of
as part
works
of the
it
human con-
becomes
a servile table
a
weak-
of values. See
Being: Friedrich Nietzsche in His Middle Period” (manu-
University of Western Australia, 1997).
and
in the late
a central attribute
In his heart of hearts
treatment of vanity: whereas
middle period he was more inclined to identify vanity
ness of the “many, too
50;
is
Ruth Abbey notes an important
dition in general
script,
13, 4).
vain man’s attempt to develop a positive self-image by at-
tracting attention
I.
a
a truly virtuous disposition
present. Zarathustra challenges his “brothers” to servile
8).
385, 558.
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
HAH 89,
Some
of the more important middle-
137, 158, 170, 527, 545;
AOM 234; WS
he can never praises
feel in
confident possession of the virtues he so loudly
and to which he
equipment
lays claim
—the proper
instincts
because he simply lacks the natural
—
for
human
excellence. His public
exertions are like those of a flat-footed dancer;
world
will
the effort in the
all
not bring about what Zarathustra describes
“dancing virtue” [Tanzers Tugend] (Z
III, i6, 6).
own
as his
awkward pos-
In his
mere pretender remains one of those “beasts” whom Zarathustra describes as “clumsy-footed from birth,” who can only turing the
“exert themselves strangely, like an elephant trying to stand
head” (Z IV,
13, 19). In general,
“poor, sick type” of
know how
on
he observes, representatives of the
human being have “heavy
and “do not
feet”
to dance” (Z IV, 13, 16).
Unaided by
^dight feet,” that
is,
those healthy bodily instincts and
human
elevated passions that are the sme qua non of
studied effort goes for naught, and
may even be
an objection,”
a
view echoed
excellence,
a late
work,
in the Nachlass: “All perfect acts are
conscious and no longer subject to
will;
consciousness
WP 430; EH
“is
un-
the expres-
is
sion of an imperfect and often morbid state in a person” (TI VI, cf.
all
taken as evidence of
an inner deficiency. “Effort,” as Nietzsche suggests in
WT 289;
its
2;
II, 9)."
Nietzsche claims that the
of
futility
search for validation
this
through self-conscious, awkward performance tenders to virtue themselves. Although they
is
not
may
on the pre-
lost
flee
from the hard
truth about themselves and find temporary solace in each other’s
com-
pany, they remain tormented by inchoate, scarcely conscious feelings
of inadequacy. Nietzsche speaks of the pervasiveness of “that inwardturned glance of the born failure which betrays to himself
—that glance which
sighs this glance: ‘but there at the
outcome of a
ity gives
2
.
The
way
is
is
a sigh! ‘If
how such a man speaks
only
no hope of that’”
I
were someone
(GM III,
natural lottery that has relegated
14).
them
else,’
Sadness
to inferior-
to outrage; Zarathustra notes that because the “despisers
notion that fine action emerges out of visceral, inner compulsion rather
than self-conscious effort also appears in the third essay of The Genealogy, sche explains that the
maxim “he who
possesses
is
possessed”
is
when Nietz-
held by his imagined,
higher philosophers not because of a self-conscious “will to contentment and simplicity”
aimed
mands
this
at attracting
popular approval but rather because “tbeir supreme lord de-
of them, prudently and inexorably”
(GM
III, 8).
NIETZSCHEAN CONSCIOUSNESS-RAISING
of the body” are unable “to create beyond [them] selves” they become
“angry with
life
and with the earth” (Z
This frustration
in the face
I,
4).
of inadequacy
is
twinned with resent-
ment and seething envy toward those who seem and sure-footed tra
naturally graceful
in their dealings. In the passage just cited Zarathus-
speaks in this context of “unconscious envy” [imgewiifiter Neid]^
comments on the spectacle of those disheaving bosom” who “at the same time look with envy
while elsewhere Nietzsche playing “the
on the advantages enjoyed by those who
live for
the day” (TI
In such passages the herd appears to have an accurate scarcely articulate
—understanding of
its
own
inferiority.
I,
—
19).
albeit
In the same
vein Zarathustra warns one of his select, youthful interlocutors to be
on guard against those who one
finds the noble
man
“still feel
you are noble” (Z
I,
8).
“Every-
an obstruction,” he observes, because the
presence of innate grace in the midst of awkwardness serves to re-
mind most people of
their
own inadequacy
(ibid.).
As Zarathustra
cautions another of his interlocutors, “Before you they feel themselves small.”
Gewissen] to
Thus
[his]
the higher type
neighbors” (Z
I,
becomes
“a bad conscience [bose
12).
Superior types unintentionally antagonize and exasperate the
mediocre simply by being
who
(or what) they are.
By
refusing, for
example, to resort to the pretentious moral phraseology that serves others as a crutch, they evince a “silent pride” that “offends [the] taste” of the
mediocre
calm, polite
way
in
(ibid.).
Moreover, the crowd cannot abide the
which they
refrain
from
flattery, envy,
and other
obvious signs of dependency on the opinion of others. Zarathustra notes, for example, that the people in the marketplace cannot forgive
him for not being envious of their “virtues” (Z III, 5,2). Most unforgivable in the eyes of the majority, however, is the superior man’s innate, instinctive contempt of those who do not share his lofty sensibility. Despite the higher type’s magnanimous displays of polite, reserved gentleness, his disdain unquestionably shines through. “Even
when you
are gentle towards them,” Zarathustra in-
forms his youthful comrades, “they
still
feel
you despise them; and
they return your kindness with secret unkindness” (Z 17). In
an apparent allusion to Nietzsche’s
among
his university colleagues, Zarathustra
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
own
I,
12; cf.
Z
I,
early experiences
remarks that when he
among
lived
me
scholars,
for that. /
They
he “lived above them. They grew angry with
want
did not
over their heads” (Z
II,
i6).
know
to
The
that
someone was walking
idea that the herd’s ressentiment
is
fueled by an inchoate perception of the condescension directed to-
ward
revisited in Nietzsche’s late autobiographical reflections:
is
it
“He whom tence
I
I
despise divines that
I
despise him: through
enrage everything that has bad blood in
its
my mere exis-
veins”
(EH
II, lo).
Nietzsche’s use of the term “tarantulas” to refer to those experi-
encing “repressed envy” reveals the link between herd ressentiment
and the vengeful desire to “sting” everyone
As suggested by Zarathustra’s
6).
who is
unleashed indirectly,
its
will to
power openly and unapologetically (Z
In their “tyrant-madness of impotence,” the
project of revenge III,
14).
II,
because of the majority’s innate weakness and cowardly
inability to evince 12).
not herdlike (Z
allusions to the herd’s “secret un-
kindness” and “hidden vengeance,” the sting in large part
is
upon “everything
Nietzsche identifies
that has
this project
many launch
power” (Z
with
a
I,
their
II, 6; cf.
GM
“slave revolt in
morals” in which noble values are calumniated and herd values proclaimed the only true, respectable form of normative valuation.
The Moral Imperialism
of the
Herd from nobler
In his Gejiealog)! Nietzsche distinguishes slave morality
forms of valuation by highlighting what he sees tially reactive
nobility
thy and
is
nature
(GM
I,
10;
GM
as
an afterthought
one’s level as bad [schlecht]
Whereas the essence of oneself as good and praisewor-
II, 1 1).^
to be self-regarding, to take
—almost
as the former’s essen-
—to dismiss what cannot
attain
and undesirable, those incapable of such
psychological autarchy can only trumpet themselves as good by stig-
matizing the dispositions of others
Although Nietzsche occasionally describes
3.
ishing as a higher (master or noble) morality II, i;
—the
V\T
268, 404),
to associate the
I
—
noble sort
as evil [bose].
his alternative vision of
(e.g.,
BGE
202, 260;
GM
I,
human 10;
24;
EH
prefer to speak of Nietzsche’s “ethics” or “normative vision” and
term “morality” with
a large,
extended family of religious and secular
discourses that Nietzsche regards as questionable because of their emphasis tarian
A
flour-
and benevolent values
(BGE
on
egali-
228).
NIETZSCHEAN CONSCIOUSNESS-RAISING
The
herd sees
itself as
“good” only
in the
wholly negative sense of be-
ing not-evil, of not evincing the capacities of stigmatized others.
That Nietzsche finds this a spiritually inferior form of valuation is no surprise. That he does not call for its utter eradication is less apparent, but nonetheless true. Nietzsche believes that the world will
always be
with unselfsufficient types needing some form of
filled
consolation and meaning. for people leading
gious belief
thus “understandable and forgivable”
It is
“empty and monotonous”
(HAH
lives to slide into reli-
same middle-period passage, Nietz-
115). In this
sche lauds Christianity’s usefulness in this regard: “Within Chris-
assumes the appearance of
tianity servility
astonishingly beautiful” see the majority
and
quite
is
WP 216). Hence his desire not to
(ibid.; cf.
wrenched from
a virtue
dogmatic convictions. As he pro-
its
claims in his notebooks, “the ideas of the herd should rule the herd”
(WP
287).
God may be
have exposed him as an
dead, “murdered” by those in the artifact
know who
of human ingenuity, but the fact that
the majority continues to believe in his existence
is
by no means un-
desirable, so long as those capable of perceiving “the greatness of this
deed” are allowed to do so and to
live
This crucial proviso, however, of hand.
The
“secret desire” of
everyman,” to
(BGE 43;
cf.
insist that
BGE 202,
is
accordingly
what
its
125).
“slave morality” rejects out
purveyors
is
“to be a truth for
only their values are true and universal
221, 228;
GS
345;
An; WP
175, 185).
What
really enrages
Nietzsche about a so-called “herd religion” such as
Christianity
this “revolting”
186). It
is
is
of
human
claim to unique conceivability
one thing for the majority to
illusions alongside life;
“virtues that
it
“teaches obedience” and fosters in the mass
make [them]
and convert everyone to and monotonous
bition
useful
a
and submissive”
lives, asserts
apparent in his
5; cf.
BGE
216). It
is
competing modes of valuation
Those with empty Nietzsche, “have no right to demand
mind when he speaks of this hegemonic am1886 preface to The Binh of Tragedy, when he speaks of in
“Christian, unconditional morality” [christlichen, das
Preface
(WP
herdish belief system."^
That Nietzsche has Christianity is
according to comforting
future rulers might even “patronize and applaud” a
quite another to attempt to banish
4.
live
(WP
and under the domination of other, higher forms
herd religion because
44
(GS
203).
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
heifit
unbedingten Moral]
(BT
religiosity of those
(HAH
1
1
whose
By asserting
5).
daily
its
not empty and monotonous”
life is
own system
system, the majority overreaches
itself
of valuation as the one, true
by proclaiming
ceral experiences of suffering, jealousy, resentment,
normative framework for ization
(BGE
Nietzsche takes
all.
this
and
own
fear as the
form of general-
is
impermissible” as a sign of baseness
“What
is
right for one,” he insists,
198, 221, 272).
One form ticularly galls
(BGE
'"'‘cannot
Nietzsche
tend to love
228).^
is
the ascetic slander of worldly (especially
unimpeded
life as
they love themselves, seeing in
life
sensibili-
“a fountain
of delight” and adopting a life-affirming stance, they tend to the hands of “consumptives of the soul”
tence by projecting their self-loathing
Z
III, 10, 2;
(Z
I,
part III their
III, II, 16).
The
latter
who
calumniate
oumards (Z
I,
9;
all
Their base
—
own
filter
out
instincts all
of
into
fall
of exis-
Z II,
6; cf.
Z
can see “only one aspect of exis-
namely the misery, meanness, and ugliness of their own
9).
by
of herd imperiousness in the realm of values that par-
bodily) pleasure. Although those with fine and
tence,”
vis-
“where generalization
any means therefore be right for another”
ties
its
—referred to
as
lives
“aching stomachs” in
beauty and goodness, allowing only
life’s
ugly projections to pass through (Z
III, 1 1, 16).
Those who calumniate worldly pleasure and vitality are also predisposed to promote “moderation” as a universal virtue. In the hands of the hoi polloi and
its
priestly representatives, this notion
confused with mediocrity and associated with tion for comfort and ease satirical portrait
in part
man”
I
(WP
870;
Z
a
is
contemptible aspira-
III, 5, 2;
Z
Prologue
3).
The
of the self-proclaimed preacher of “opium virtues”
of Zarathustra illustrates the same sentiment. This “wise
counsels against sinning
—indeed,
against
all
innovative
life
experiments because they would be inconsistent “with good sleep.”
He
claims that accruing a great deal of honor for oneself, in the
manner of
man, would
Aristotle’s great-souled
much, while possessing no honor the solution, he concludes,
is
at all
would make one sleep badly;
to seek out a
mediocre) form of honor: “a good name”
(Z
“excite spleen” too
“moderate”
(read:
in the eyes
of the majority
Roudedge and Kegan
Paul, 1983), p. 455.
I, 2).
5.
Cf. Richard Schacht, Nietzsche (London:
NIETZSCHEAN CONSCIOUSNESS-RAISING
Following the jaundiced view of the French moralist tradition typified
by writers such
as
this risk-averse “virtue” as
La Rochefoucauld, Nietzsche unmasks an inadequacy or deficiency. “In truth,”
who
confides Zarathustra, “I have often laughed at the weaklings
think themselves good because their claws are blunt!” (Z
WP
355).^
“virtue that
Herd “moderation” makes small” (Z
III, 5,
not that such a “virtue” exists virtues” are
is
truly a verkleinemde Tiigend, a
Nietzsche’s grave concern
i).
—he
needed for “small people”
thinks, after
—but that
universalization,
its
stunting the
is
growth of finer human beings and thus leading to
ing of the horizon of
The moral
human achievement and
a
potential (Z
narrow-
III, 5, 2).
injunction that one ought not overreach oneself
be fine for those whose reach
upon those with the
is
When
short to begin with.
much
potential for reaching
farther,
may
imposed however,
the consequences can be disastrous. Indeed, Nietzsche considers
matter of principle that “the demand for one morality for
mental to precisely the higher man” detriment in the
lies
(BGE
228;
precisely in the key role this
herd project of revenge.
When
normative game in town, noble types
cf.
is
that “small
all,
along with the universalization of other “herd values,” spiritual
13; cf.
II,
all is
BGE 62,
it
a
detri-
82).
hegemonic demand
The plays
herd values represent the only
who
internalize
them
experi-
ence great spiritual torment because of the disjuncture between these alien values and their innate instincts.
The
spectacle of their
torment, however, provides perverse satisfaction to the herd, compensating 6.
it
for
own
its
feelings of inadequacy.
Compare La Rochefoucauld, Maxhnes pour borner I’ambition des grands
tion,
de leur peu de fortune
et
“On
308:
hommes
et
a fait
une vertu de
pour consoler
les
la
modera-
gens mediocres
de leur peu de merite” [Moderation has been elevated into
virtue in order to curb the ambitions of the great
a
and to console the second-rate for A
their lack of
good fortune and the mediocrity of
their talents] {\iaximes [Paris: Edi-
Gamier, 1961], p. 87; The Maxhns of the Due de la Rochefoucauld, trans. ConstanFitzGibbon [London: Millington, 1974], p. 92). On the influence of La Roche-
tions tine
foucauld on Nietzsche, see Ruth Abbey, “Dissent and Descent: Nietzsche’s Reading of
Two French
Moralists” (Ph.D.
eration” as a plot of the
weak
McGill University, 1994). The notion of “moddiffuse the threat from the strong can be traced back
diss.,
to
to the ancient sophists. See especially Callicles’ speeches in Plato’s Gorgias. Brian
Leiter notes the affinity between Nietzsche and at least
some elements of
cleanism in “Nietzsche and the Critique of Morality” (Ph.D.
Michigan, 1995), pp. 125-128.
46
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
diss..
Calli-
University of
Consciousness and “Free Will”
False
Having been
modern herd
raised in
society and steeped in Christian
men no
values (or in secular, Christian-influenced values), superior
longer seem capable of experiencing and reveling in their corporeal
Their
instincts.
“spirit” [Geist] often “tells lies
and not simply because lations
(Z
it
When
III, II, 2).
made some
has
to
its
deepest instincts
easily correctable miscalcu-
—
made “mankind it
and
“Illusion”
will” in Nietzsche’s
.
.
.
false
prosperity,” he does
not presume that the instincts of the finest have been 2).
itself
to the point of worshipping the inverse
values to those which alone could guarantee
(EH Foreword
[Seele]^^^
Nietzsche suggests that the deep inter-
nalization of otherworldly ideals has
down
about the soul
left
untouched
and “blundering” have “become body
imagined readers (Z
I,
22, 2).
Through
the
propagation of sophisticated but misanthropic transcendental notions of self-perfection, “everything has
down
to
its
very bottom” (Z
been distorted and twisted
III, 12, 28).
Nietzsche identifies two complementary weapons used in the
on noble bodily knowledge: the Christian view of free and the dualistic form of philosophy introduced into Western
herd’s assault will
civilization
by Socrates.
I
discuss Nietzsche’s assessment of Socrates’
we should examine
significance later in this chapter. First, however,
account of
his
stition
the defenders of slave morality used “the super-
of free will” as
men (GS
rior
how
a club
Duping
345).
with which to beat
because
it
healthy, supe-
these latter into an embrace of the free
will doctrine represents a crucial victory
sensibilities
down
over noble inclinations and
leads strong individuals to believe that they
can (and should) “freely choose” not to manifest their strength against others. Their
weak and the
to be
embrace of the
bird of prey to be a lamb”
dential interests of “lambs”
(GM
I,
13).^
Once caught
the instincts” 7.
cal
belief “that the strong
who want
in the
is,
is fi-ee
of course, in the pru-
to avoid being preyed
web of herd
becomes “second nature”
man
upon
valuation, “mistrust of
in the strong; indeed, these
In The Genealogy Nietzsche also presents the free will doctrine as a psychologi-
device that bolsters the herd’s fragile self-esteem. In embracing free will the multi-
comforted by the
tude
is
truth
— that
their
illusion that
weakness
is
innate
it
has “chosen” to be weak.
—would be unbearable (G.M
To confront I,
the hard
13).
NIETZSCHEAN CONSCIOUSNESS-RAISING
47
very instincts become “confused” aggressive
(EH
XIV,
8).
Being true to one’s
and exerting strength against weakness are
instincts
henceforth stigmatized as “sin.”^ Infused with a Christian notion of free will and sin and thus pre-
vented from joyfully and spontaneously embracing stincts, the
noble psyche turns into
a
own
its
lofty in-
scene of self-torture as an alien
“conscience” seeks to extirpate the body’s intelligence.
The
guileless,
open savagery evinced by the pre-Christian nobles of antiquity and praised in The Genealogy
turned inward in the strong but
is
human
lascerating” and “ill-constituted”
“self-
beings of modernity (A 22).
Obliged to deny powerful instincts that refuse to ebb, the superior
man
in the grip of plebeian false consciousness seeks
out “new
.
.
.
subterranean gratifications,” developing a secretive, guilt-ridden personality that
combines public self-abnegation with covert enjoyment
of stigmatized and shameful inclinations
(GM II,
counts this
psychological
“And now your
ashamed
it
that
pathology:
must do the
and lying-ways to avoid
its
will
16).
Zarathustra respirit
is
of your entrails and follows by-ways
own shame” (Z
II, 15).
This sad spectacle comes to pass without any overt coercion on the part of the majority. “Morality,” observes Nietzsche in one of his
Prefaces of 1886,
does not merely have at
its
command
every kind of means of
frightening off critical hands and torture-instruments:
reposes far
it
in a certain art
—
it
has at
its
disposal
lyzing the critical will against drives
The ity to
security
of enchantment [Kunst der Beza-
knows how to ‘inspire’. With this succeeds, often with no more than a single glance, in para-
ubemn^ art
more
its
its
sting into
finest
its
own
it
itself,
body.
so that, like the scorpion,
(D Preface
3; cf.
Z
I,
it
8)
have been “enchanted” by the hegemonic slave moral-
such an extent that herd sensibility becomes their “good con-
8. Interestingly,
will in his
Nietzsche
flirted briefly
with
a
very different genealogy of free
middle period. In “The Wanderer and His Shadow” the origins of the free
will doctrine are traced
back to the strong rather than the weak; the
latter,
reasoned
Nietzsche in 1880, could never have conjured up such an idea because they had no experience of strength or freedom (see pletely in the later works.
48
I
owe
this
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
WS 9). This alternative account disappears compoint to Ruth Abbey.
science” and drives
“As long
viduality:
away any expression of independent, proud as the
good conscience
[giite
Gewissen]
herd, only the bad conscience [schlechte Gewisse??] says: I” (Z
called
is I,
indi-
To
15).
make matters worse, the “heavy words and values” of the herd are hammered into noble types at an impressionable age, taught and preached to them “almost in the cradle” (Z III, ii, 2). All nonconformity is stamped out early on by “old idol-priests” whose “palates” are “excited” by the prospect of taking on impressionable young people as charges (Z
Although
a
12,6).
III,
may
superior type raised in herd society
into thinking that the struggle for equal rights for
all is
be tricked
synonymous
with “justice,” Nietzsche aims to show his readers that such ostensibly high-minded rights talk masks the herd effort at exacting re-
venge. “To hunt
him
[the free spirit]
from
his hiding place
ple always called that ‘having a sense of right’” (Z
Nietzsche refuses to take the preting
it
call for
as a vehicle for the herd’s
—the peo-
II, 8; cf.
Z
II, 6).
equal rights at face value, inter-
attempted domination of the
tal-
ented few. In an invective launched at the “preachers of equality,” Zarathustra claims that the appetite” (Z will,”
II, 6).
The
demand
mystification, another
crafty strategy for convincing the strong to refrain their will to
power on the weak. “One speaks
Nietzsche,
when “one wants
growing
power”
The
in
(WP
strong, talented
a “tyrant-
rhetoric of equal rights, like that of “free
deemed another form of herdish
is
masks
for equality
equal
from exerting rights’,^'
claims
to prevent one’s competitors
86).
man who embraces
such ideas and
who
takenly comes to think the multitude worthy of his guidance Nietzsche’s eyes, a tragic spectacle. In flock,
he
lets
He
becoming
a
misis,
in
shepherd to the
go of the discriminating sense of Rangordnung that pro-
common
or-
what Nietzsche describes metaphorically
in
tects finer sensibilities
ders.
from
imitates
by keeping them apart from the
Zarathustra as that “weight-bearing spirit,” the camel, in his willingness to kneel
(Z
I, i).
down
before the herd and take
its
cares
This camel wades into “dirty water,” ignoring
upon
his
back
his innate, dis-
criminating sense by refusing to disdain anyone: not even “cold frogs
and hot toads.” bases itself” by
The
camel-like creature, argues Zarathustra, “de-
“making friends with the
deaf,”
by loving “those who
NIETZSCHEAN CONSCIOUSNESS-RAISING
despise” those of noble sensibilities turns to the image of the camel,
who
“bears too
many
(ibid.).
In part III Zarathustra re-
bemoaning the on
foreign things
misguided weight-bearing,
who
who
Here
(Z
III,
man 2).
1 1,
takes advantage of
drains the life-energy of the tal-
ented few, as “the most offensive beast of parasite (ibid.).
of the higher
his shoulders”
Zarathustra denounces the type of person this
lot
man
a
I
ever found”; the
again, Nietzsche’s tendency to associate the
many with lower forms of animal life comes to the human beings, unable to create but profiting from
the creations of
warmth from
light-givers” (Z
others, spend their lives “extract[ing] II, 9; cf.
Z
IV,
1 1).
willed conspiracy; their
own
innocent of praise,”
This shameless exploitation need not be part of a
on the
contrary, parasites
may be
parasitism, “want[ing] blood ... in
Neither should
fore. Parasitical
quite
unaware of
innocence” (Z
all
I, 8).
be imagined that their often obsequious flattery
it
this parasitism.
“They buzz around you even with
their
remarks Zarathustra to an interlocutor, “and their praise
They want may seem
importunity.
Although
it
to be near
that “he
your skin and your blood”
who
is
(ibid.).
praises” the talented wishes
thereby to “give back,” the truth of the matter given more!” (Z
is
that “he wants to be
is
III, 5, 2).
Given the routine association these days of Nietzsche with the debunking of
all
normative categories,
Nietzsche speaks of injustice
it
may seem
when denouncing
surprising that
of
this exploitation
the strong by the weak. Just as Aristotle argues in The Politics that
would be unjust Nietzsche tial
to treat the better sort of
insists that “justice itself’
man
like
everyone
it
else,
supports his belief that deferen-
treatment and privilege, rather than expectations of service to the
“common good,” are the due of those like him (BGE 265).^ “For men are not equal,” intones Zarathustra, “thus speaks justice” (Z II, 16; cf.
Z
II,
7).
Conversely, injustice
“lies in the
claim to ^equaP
rights,” in a social order that has the temerity to “call into question
9. “Justice is
thought by [men] to be, and
only for equals.” Aristotle, The
Politics, ed.
is,
—
equality
not, however, for
Stephen Everson,
trans.
all,
but
Benjamin Jowett
with revisions by Jonathan Barnes (Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press, 1988),
i28oaio-i3. Leiter notes that “while Nietzsche might not dispute the general moral imperative that
‘like cases
should be treated
are, in fact, all like cases." Leiter,
50
alike’
he clearly rejects the idea that we
“Nietzsche and the Critique of Alorality,”
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
p. 15.
HAH
the higher, greater, richer” (A 57; I Preface 6).^® Nietzsche claims that his approach to political and social life is premised on a
—and better—notion of
different
justice. Nietzsche’s
“new philoso-
phers” claim as their motto the words of Charlemagne’s Anglo-
Saxon advisor, Alcuin: “prava corrigere, sancta sublimare” [Correct what
what
raise
Stepping
is
holy]
(WP
Out from
et recta corroborate, et
wrong, strengthen the
is
right,
and
977).
the Domination of Chance
and the Priesthood
While hopeful (most of the time) that a small number of individuals like himself do in fact exist,'* Nietzsche is far from certain that his “slow search for those related to [him]”
human
higher
will
be successful and that
beings will emerge to claim their rightful place in a re-
and cultural order
vitalized political
(EH
X,
i).
In Beyond Good and
Evil he anxiously contemplates “the terrible danger that they might
not appear or might
types have always been
much
(BGE
224;
GM
.
.
.
man, he
BGE
explains,
276,
\\T
684). Indeed, “the higher
due not “to any special
is
on the notion of equal
rights
is
fatality
given further attention in
We
should note, however, Nietzsche’s occasional suggestion that he
come
into being. See, for example,
is
writing
WP 958: “I write
for a species of man that does not yet exist: for ‘the masters of the earth.’” Cf. the in Ecce
Ho?no that his Zarathustra,
ought to communicate oneself 12. at the
or
6.
for a readership that has yet to
ment
that
a
10. Nietzsche’s attack
11.
good luck
flashing up” and as “lucky hits” [GliicksfdlkY^
III, 14; cf.
man
tion of a higher
Chapter
history than mediocre
pieces of
little
Higher
203).'^
man represents, the greater the improbability he out weir (BGE 62; cf. Z IV, 13, 15). The premature destruc-
the type of will turn
come
human
rarer in
ones; they are described as “brief
here and there
(BGE
or might degenerate”
fail
.
.
.
will
Laurence Lampert understates
who
“is still
looking” for those “to
have to look for this fear
when he
a
long time yet!”
com-
whom
(EH
one
III, 4).
writes that “Nietzsche stood
head of an army not yet mustered and outfitted, an army formed for public bat-
tles still a
long way off and
Tmies:
A
1993X
P- 389-
won
in the
mind of their
Study of Bacon, Descaites, arid Nietzsche
instigator.” Nietzsche ajid Modeivi
(New Haven:
Yale University Press,
NIETZSCHEAN CONSCIOUSNESS-RAISING
— a
malevolence of nature, but simply to the concept ‘higher type’:
—
the higher type represents an incomparably greater complexity
sum of co-ordinated elements: so its disintegration is also incomparably more likely. The ‘genius’ is the sublimest machine
greater
there
is
—consequently the most
In the
modern
(WP
fragile”
684).
by those with “the
age, moreover, the danger faced
become extraordinary” (BGE 282). At a time when sickliness has taken on hegemonic ambition, “the corruption, the ruination of higher human beings, of more desires of an elevated, fastidious soul
strangely constituted souls,
.
the rule;
is
rule always before one’s eyes”
.
(BGE
.
has
dreadful to have such a
it is
269;
BGE 62,
cf.
268;
EH II, 8).
Alongside that traditional obstacle to the higher type’s flourishing capricious Fortima
— the
priestly leadership
have been added to the mix.
petty vindictiveness of the herd and
its
Nietzsche’s dread at the prospect of the extinction of higher types like
himself becomes even more understandable in light of his belief
that the fate of the species as a
whole depends on the condition of
these talented few. If the exemplars of the species are slave morality
to ensure “a
largement”
and be
lost
succeed in securing
will
current spiritual torpor, the struggle
left in their
new greatness of man, will
(BGE
abandoned to
a
new untrodden path
to his en-
212). Left unchecked, herd morality
itself as
the only viable table of values, thus
ensuring what Nietzsche considers “worst of species-wide “degeneration” [Entartun^ (Z
22,
I,
an irreversible
all”: i).
Instead of se-
curing the preservation and enhancement of the higher type of hu-
man (EH
being,
we
\n[I, 2).*^
will witness “the physiological ruination
The somber pronouncement
in his
of mankind”
notebooks that
“man as a species is not progressing” suggests that in his moods Nietzsche believed that this feared degeneration was 13. Nietzsche’s talk
belies
of the need to preserve and protect
a
blacker already
higher form of human
life
William Connolly’s suggestion that Nietzsche rejected the notion of preserva-
tion in favor of self-overcoming. Ide7itity\Dijference: Democratic Negotiations of Political
Paradox (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991),
fragment from 1884, although
“rarer, subtler,
and
p.
less
186.
As Nietzsche argues
men”
average
in a
(himself, for ex-
ample) are “enraged” by the instincts of self-preservation of that “profoundly average creature, the species
men
man”
[das tiefe Durchschnittswesen, der Gattnngsmensch], superior
are themselves eager to declare,
se 7 -er Ei-haltnng] is
‘“We
more important than
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
are nobler {Edleren]
that of those cattle!”’
\
Our
preservation [un-
(WHP 873;
cf.
EH
II, 8).
under way
(W^
684). His picture of
memorable Prologue
to Zarathustra^
besetting higher
threat this poses to
human
evoked
in the
mob becomes
master
terminus
where the
is
“last
man” emerges triumphant.
human
beings and the imminent
and the comfortable nihilism of the
The danger
its
excellence adds urgency to Nietzsche’s
proselytizing. Despite his occasional signs of despairing pessimism,
Nietzsche refuses in the end to adopt deed, he takes to task those
noble instincts with
who
time to act
enough”
a “fatality that lies
is
now: whereas the
ideas’”
(BGE
humanity may
“soil” of
for such a task
203).
still
be “rich
soon
(Z Prologue
The
it
will
Those
5).
share his views are said to “have no other choice” but to direct
hopes “toward new philosophers
enough
original 203).
concealed in the idiotic guile-
for the cultivation of a noble ethos, “one day”
become too “poor and weak” their
continue to face the onslaught on
and blind confidence of ‘modern
lessness
who
posture of resignation. In-
a
One must
to
make
a start
on
.
.
.
toward
spirits
strong and
antithetical evaluations”
begin, he claims, by calling
(BGE
upon “tremendous
counter-forces” to combat the contemporary “progress” toward uni-
(BGE
formity
Genealogy
Among
268).
as Edification
the “tremendous counter-forces” posited by Nietzsche, his
genealogical account of the battle between “slave” and “master” tables of value in antiquity plays a central role.
say
“On
As early
as his
1874 the Uses and Disadvantages of History for Life,” he urged
those like
him
to take the examination of ancient societies (“classical
studies”) seriously, “for the benefit of a time to
come,”
as part
of
a
broader struggle against the dominant, servile ethos of the modern age (UD, Eoreword).
backwards
as
When
he suggests that the noble type “goes
everyone goes backwards
who wants
jump,” Nietzsche’s intention might be to entice vate themselves by learning from the mistakes
the past
The feat
(BGE
to take a big
his readers to culti-
made by
fine
men
in
280).
account in The Genealogy of the origins of injustice
—the de-
of the original, pre-Christian nobility at the hands of the NIETZSCHEAN CONSCIOUSNESS-RAISING
herd
—
edify.
an example of an unhappy, cautionary
is
Whereas the tormented,
consider his
own
tale that
meant
is
may
guilt-ridden noble type
well
inner turmoil and struggles to be aberrant, Nietz-
sche aims at drawing him out of his isolation and convincing that he
is
The
not alone in his anguish.
meant to serve recognition from a reader who “blond beast”
is
this is
purpose by eliciting
encouraged to see
No longer an idiosyncratic,
beast’s downfall.
him
sad story of the infamous
shock of
a
his
own
mis-
began with the
takes and suffering as part of a long, sad history that
blond
to
isolated case, the
noble-spirited reader can thus take heart in viewing his struggle in
terms of a millennial meta-struggle between master and slave forms of
By recounting
life.^“^
the genesis of a form of valuation that has
caused sensitive, creative individuals throughout the ages such
Nietzsche wants his readers to understand an heir to
How
how dangerous
grief,
to be
it is
this struggle.
did the noble types of antiquity allow themselves to be
tricked by the clever, vengeful machinations of the herd? Nietzsche
points to three factors, the
being identified in both The Geneal-
first
ogy and Zarathustra as the superior man’s “indifference to and con-
tempt for
security, body, life,
comfort”
(GM
I, 1 1).
The high-minded
“imprudence” [Unklugheit] of the strong, their “bold recklessness
whether
in the face of
danger or of the enemy,”
is
contrasted favor-
who
evince
Z III,
lo, 2).
ably with the “timid mistrustfulness” of “cowardly souls” a
cautious self-concern in their every gesture
Given
their
tendency to channel
all
(GM
I,
lo;
resources into creative activity,
the strong and resourceful have neither the time nor the energy for self-defensive prudence.
“everything small”
is
Their resulting “helplessness”
caused by the suspension of
sive capabilities” in the face
supposed by every
They
creative
all
in the face of
“minor defen-
of the “tremendous expenditure
deed”
(EH
IX,
.
.
.
pre-
5).
tend, moreover, to shun the prospect of constant vigilance
against the attacks of resentful inferiors. “I ?mist be without caution,” insists
14. In
54
my fate
Zarathustra, “so
“So Polyphonous
sume
all
slaves
emerges only
a
Being,”
will
have
Abbey notes
it”
(Z IV,
5, 2).
Refusing to
that Nietzsche’s tendency to sub-
of his psychological observations into a meta-narrative of masters versus in his later period.
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
— defend oneself against the thousand pinpricks or stings of the com-
mon
folk
prove
fatal. “I will
light of you,” Zarathustra says to the insect-
folk surrounding him, “since I have heavy things to
bundle!” (Z
sicht]
make
and what do
carry;
care
I
II,
if
beetles and dragonflies
sit
themselves on
Better to be “without foresight” [ohne Vor-
14).
than “to be prickly towards small things,” which Zarathustra
dismisses as “the
wisdom of a hedgehog” (Z
III, 5, 2; cf.
Such freedom from suspicion, claims Nietzsche, sword; although he portrays that
may
honorable, even though their gradual accumulation
common
like
my
is
it
renders the
magnanimous
8).*^
double-edged
a
of nobility he also concedes
as a sign
it
is
EH II,
soul highly vulnerable to the
machinations of lower types.
A
premodern noble psyche, and one
third vulnerable area of the
that Nietzsche treats as (at least in principle) excisable in his targeted
contemporary audience,
Even the
finest
“were rather
is
its
lack of critical self-understanding.
of ancient men, he concedes, held concepts that
uncouth, coarse, external, narrow,
at first incredibly
meaning to a degree Possessing what to our
straightforward, and altogether wisy?nbolical in
we can scarcely conceive” (GM I, 6). modern sensibilities must appear as an impoverished that
one stretched thinly II,
16)
— and relying
“as
it
solely
were
on
.
.
.
between two membranes”
development: the emergence of
and
(GM
their admirable “unconscious drives,”
noble types were highly vulnerable to
tellectual
inner world
a
a
completely unprecedented
morally charged and vengeful in-
spiritual revolt erupting
from the masses and
led
by the
standard-bearer of self-conscious reflection, Socrates.
15.
As Martha Nussbaum points out, the view that chronic suspicion and mistrust-
fulness are signs of a base character can be traced back to the ancient Greeks. “Euripides, Aristotle,
and Thucydides concur
in the
view that
which can come to an agent through no moral the bad things in
life,
can be
a
failing,
poison that corrodes
all
... a mistrustful suspiciousness,
but only through e.xperience of of the excellences, turning them
to forms of vindictive defensiveness.” The Fragility of Goodness: Luck
and Ethics
Tragedy and Philosophy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 16. “Socrates
Greek
418.
belonged, in his origins, to the lowest orders: Socrates was rabble
[H]e contained within him every kind of foul vice and lust” (TI that the essential morbidity of Socratic philosophy “sick” multitude
p.
in
—
is
II, 3).
—and hence
its
II, i,
.
.
Nietzsche claims affinity
proven by Socrates’ apparent denigration of mortal
ing embrace of death, as recounted by Plato in the Phaedo (TI
.
12;
life
GS
with the
and
will-
340).
NIETZSCHEAN CONSCIOUSNESS-RAISING
Socrates’ public dialogues were
embraced by Athenian
aristocrats,
new and appealing way the Athenian desire for agonistic competition: “He introduced a variation into the wrestling-matches among the youths and young men” (TI II, 8; cf. TI IX, 23). In the end, however, Socratic diin Nietzsche’s view,
alectics
because they seemed to satisfy in a
proved to be the undoing of noble types with “small
and spacious souls” (Z
II, 4).
More
at ease issuing
intellects
commands than
giving reasons, habituated to act spontaneously on instinct, these naive aristocrats were reduced to shadows of their former selves, “to thinking, inferring, reckoning, co-ordinating cause and effect” II,
16).
Henceforth they were
at their
“weakest and most
(GM
fallible,”
highly vulnerable to the noxious influence of morbid and vengeful types
who were
well schooled in logic and metaphysics
Critical self-consciousness thus
the weaker
(ibid.).
became the Trojan horse allowing
—though more “clever”—majority
and minds of the strong (TI IX,
to capture the hearts
Nietzsche believes that
14).^^
philosophers since the time of Plato have been, with only ceptions, learned vulgarians
who
proselytize
a
on behalf of the
few exsort of
Platonic and Christian metaphysics that teaches higher types to ig-
nore or extirpate their bodily knowledge. Since the time of Socrates, “the weaker dominate the strong again and again,” largely through the propagation of a conceptual and normative package that calumniates the
body and the earth and
instills
self-misunderstanding,
doubt, bad conscience, and self-loathing in the souls of the healthy (ibid.; cf.
TI X,
2).
Zarathustra illustrates this view of the unsavory
normative role of philosophy since Socrates when he bemoans the fact that “hitherto all knowledge [Wissen] has
conscience [bdsen Gewisse 7i\V^ (Z
grown up
beside the
bad
III, ii, 7).
However, Nietzsche does not
call
upon
his readers to
emancipate
themselves by repudiating rational self-consciousness altogether and returning to the
One
noble.
blissful,
naively confident state of the pre-Socratic
simply cannot “take mankind back, force
it
back, to an
standard of virtue” (TI IX, 43; cf. GS 377). The Pandora’s box of reflexive self-consciousness opened by Socrates and his followers earlier
17.
Nietzsche often associates cleverness [Klugheit] with
prudence. See, for example,
56
Z
I,
12;
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
Z
II,
16;
Z
III, 5, 2;
GS
3.
a cowardly, calculating
— can never be shut again. evitability
Zarathustra expresses this sense of in-
when he reminds
the incomprehensible
can you be
veniiinftige]
Nostalgia
is
imagined comrades that “neither
his
[Unbegreifliche]
home” (Z
at
nor
II, 2; cf.
the irrational
in
Z I,
10;
Z III,
in
[U?i-
15, 2).
—we
ruled out of court not only because of its futility
can never recapture the prerational innocence of the “blond beast” but also because of
would
its
entail a servile
ignominy. To pine for
sche’s great
manner reminiscent of
man
feels viscerally
tems that equate
long-lost antiquity
conformity with received tradition that would
be antithetical to Nietzsche’s idea of tion.^^ In a
a
fine action
something outside of the
self.
a truly
noble form of valua-
Aristotle’s jfiegalopsiichos^
Nietz-
compelled to rebel against moral sys-
and motivation with obedience to
This
refusal of
all
mimicry forms the
background to Nietzsche’s famous declaration that “we must over-
come even the Greeks” (GS 340). Yet we should be cautious about assuming
that Nietzsche’s rejec-
on
his part to take a stand
tion of romantic nostalgia entails a refusal
between “master” and “slave” modes of valuation.-^ As Nehamas has
Bernard Williams rightly notes that the complexity of Nietzsche’s attitude to-
18.
ward modernity stems,
“from
in part,
his ever-present sense that his
ness
would not be possible w ithout the developments
view^
of things
wardness
that,
.
.
.
depended on
he thought,
it
a
own
conscious-
that he disliked. In particular his
heightened reflectiveness, self-consciousness, and in-
w^as precisely
one of the charms, and indeed the
powder, of
the Greeks to have done without.” Williams, Sha?fie and Necessity (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1993), p- 9- Nietzsche’s genealogy of heightened inw'ardness and self-consciousness can be profitably compared with Charles Taylor’s discussion of the “radical reflexivity” of the Identity 19.
UD
2
modern
identity in Sources of the Self The
Making ofMode?!?
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1989), pp. 1 30-1 31, 176-178. Cf. Nietzsche’s early assessment of the limitations of “antiquarian history”
and
3.
Peter Berkowitz’s discussion of these passages in his Nietzsche: The Ethics
of an bnjnoralist (Cambridge: Harv^ard University Press, 1995), pp. 32-36, ful.
in
is
very' use-
Nietzsche’s criticism of nostalgic longing recalls Machiavelli’s polemic against the
fashionable cult of things ancient in his prefaces to The Piince and The Discourses. 20.
Such caution
is
notably absent in
many
Nietzsche. Nietzsche’s emphasis on creation trality
between the “masters” and the
Nietz. Living in close proximity to the herd
loss
may
moreover, to the
lead,
of the essentially optimistic, affirmative embrace of
sine qua
non of
all
healthy, higher types.
oneself only with good things and good one’s
optimism (Z
IV, 13, 15).
company if one
Such optimism
ing fool” character encountered in part cizes for having
likened to a
One ought
III,
is
III, 7).
whom
By remaining near
that
is
a
to surround is
to preserve
absent in the “frothZarathustra
remained within shouting distance of
swamp (Z
life
the
criti-
a city that
city,
is
the fool has
been overwhelmed by the vulgarity of its inhabitants and reduced to a caricatural
upon
prophet of doom, spewing overwrought damnations
passers-by.
He would
have done better to have fled “into the
forest” or to have explored “the sea” for
lands”
The
some of its many “green
is-
(ibid.).
figure of the frothing fool
is
meant
to
warn those whose
re-
peated exposure to plebeian vulgarity threatens to overwhelm their 3.
\Tjlgar
Brian Leiter similarly discerns Nietzsche’s link between the “overcoming” of
elements within the self and the importance of maintaining distance from the
herd in his “Morality
in the Pejorative Sense:
On
the Logic of Nietzsche’s Critique of
Morality,” British Journal for the History of Philosophy
68
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
3
(1995): 113-145.
optimism. Nietzsche claims that the best way to protect one’s capacity to affirm
life is
where one
to seek out environments
The
constant contact with that which should be negated.
No
say
which
as
little
To
as possible.
no longer
is
idea
is
in
“to
separate oneself, to depart from that to
No would be required again and again” (EH II, 8). When one is
forced repeatedly to negate, one’s defensive posture becomes “a rule, a habit” that leads to “an extraordinary and perfecdy superfluous impov-
erishment,” a siphoning off of valuable energies ation, the temptations of nihilism can
contempt
In such a situ-
(ibid.).
become overwhelming:
a
noble
for vulgarity could easily be perverted into an indiscriminate
“contempt for men”
in general.
When
this
coming the vulgar and creating new values
happens,
all
hope of over-
abandoned."^
is
Zarathustra’s treatment of the “frothing fool” reveals yet another
reason for effecting what Nietzsche refers to as solitude”
(GS Preface
nunciatory rhetoric praise.
As Zarathustra sees
at
them,
might have cause
revenge” (Z
III, 7).
the fool’s violent, de-
for
The
much
down
revenge\
fool’s great
beside this
For
filth ...
all [his]
disappointment
—and
many
acknowledge
he
flatter the fool to his satisfaction,
“[sitting]
ognized and valued by the for their failure to
it,
driven by a desire for the herd’s flattery and
Because the herd did not
began “grunting” [he]
is
i).
a “radical retreat into
at
frothing ...
is
not being rec-
vengeance
his desire to seek
his “greatness”
so that
—reveal
misguided
a
dependency on the opinion of those who ought to be despised. In presenting the episode of the fool as one of his
many
caution-
ary tales, Nietzsche demonstrates his concern that his readers’ close
proximity to mainstream European culture and society might tempt
them to take the same embittered, vengeful turn. Life in or near a big, modern city, he suggests in an almost Rousseauian spirit, is pervaded with the obsessive pursuit of honor, fame, and tra
glory. Zarathus-
speaks disparagingly in this context of the “lusting for eminence”
4. In
the Nachlass Nietzsche asserts that the nihilist tables of value are
is
guilty of a pathological “gen-
empty and
eralization”: the
assumption that
one
of values has been exposed as empty and
(servile) set
all
false
false
simply because
(\\T
3).
1
transcend the level of negation, the nihilist deems himself and the w'orld as
be “valueless”
(WP
12a). Cf. Zarathustra’s allusion to the nihilistic error
whose wrong-headed from the “rabble” (Z
rejection of
life
began with an
initially sensible
Unable a
to
whole to
of “hermits,” turning away
II, 6).
NEGATION AND
ITS
OVERCOMING
characteristic of “the ambitious” (Z
17).
I,
As we have already seen,
Nietzsche believes that high-minded and high-spirited people in
full
possession of themselves reject this sort of other-dependency. But in
order to achieve and retain self-possession, a flight away from the
crowd
advisable.
is
Although solitude
should be dissuaded from
[it]”
son” for unselfsufficient types
is
not for everyone
because solitude
—
it
is
—“many
invariably a “poi-
seems the best medicine for those
wishing to wean themselves from beliefs contrary to the highest
form of human flourishing (Z
The
IV, 13, 13;
GS
359).^
Discipline of Suffering
Nietzsche talks of solitude in terms of a therapeutic “recovery” \Gene-
which one “returns” to oneself (EH
j7/wg], a state in
II, 8).
Something
“voiceless” counsels Zarathustra to “go back into solitude,” for only in this state will
he “grow mellow” (Z
even personified as
a
woman who,
II,
in a
22). Solitude [Einsamkeit] is
memorable dialogue with
Zarathustra, contrasts herself favorably with the loneliness [Verlassen-
how much better she is for him than his previous life among the many (Z III, 9). Nietzsche understands that such words may seem like cold com-
heit\
experienced in crowds and reminds him
fort to those
who, because of their upbringing
in a
herd community,
can contemplate the prospect of abandoning their past loyalties and affections only with great reluctance.
Given the deeply internalized
nature of the false consciousness of his imagined readers, he readily
concedes that
a definitive
break with the communities that breed
slave morality will cause spiritual torment. Zarathustra forewarns his
youthful interlocutors that “the voice of the herd will
panions (Z
one of his
17).
I,
disciples, a
munity of origin, 5.
Nietzsche
healthy type
still
insists
(e.g.,
discover they
as their herdlike
former com-
prophesies in particular the inner torment of
young man who, upon breaking with finds
its
his
“conscience” ringing in his ears.
com-
“No
on distinguishing between the solitude sought by the un-
the religious ascetic
strong and healthy (Z
70
He
ring within
when they
[them]” and that they will “lament” the day
no longer have “the same conscience”
still
III, 6; cf.
EH II,
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
who 10).
flees to
the desert) and that chosen by the
one speaks to me,” the youthful rebel laments, “the
me
tude makes
made him
frost of
my soli-
tremble.” His wish to “rise into the heights” has
a pariah
among
former comrades, and
his
his resulting
misery makes him doubt the wisdom of ostracizing himself:
do
I
want
Someone
Z I,
8; cf.
12).
may succumb once
mistresses of seduction,” slave morality,
back into the familiar warmth and comfort of
slink
community (D Preface midst of
all
I,
concedes Nietzsche,
in this position,
again to “the greatest of
and
(Z
in the heights?”
a
A beleaguered,
3).
“What
self-imposed desert exile
may
his
former
suffering noble type in the
“blink thirstily at the islands
with springs where living creatures rest beneath shady trees” (Z
filled
While aware of the temptation, Nietzsche has only contempt for those who succumb to it. These are the backsliders who abandon their II, 8).
higher vocation,
who succumb
with hindsight slander
“common, comfortable” life and “their morning boldness” (Z III, 8, i). Wdiereas
they once “lifted their legs
to the
now
like a dancer,”
they return to the
abnegating beliefs of their childhood, “creep[ing] to the Cross” In the end, speculates Zarathustra, they true nobility after
all,
few, fine exemplars of
for they
fail
may
(ibid.).
not have had the stuff of
to demonstrate that
humanity have
self-
which only the long-enduring
in their hearts: “a
courage and wantonness” (ibid.).Their cowardice in retreating to the herd for comfort reveals their
Hoping
with the many-too-many.
affinity
and comfort to like-minded
to bring aid
Nietzsche
souls,
exhorts his readers to take pride in their internal turmoil and anguish.
The
suffering that results
normal but ethical
it
One
spiritual self-remaking.*^
prematurely and seek
affliction”
(Z
I,
1
7).
to radical
should not, he
relief in the “pitiable
stresses,
comfort” of
herd existence. “The way to yourself,” claims Zarathustra,
way of your
not only
is
commitment
also desirable as a sign of serious
and
abandon
from ostracism and loneliness
is
also “the
Throughout Nietzsche’s account of
Zarathustra ’s odyssey, suffering consistently appears as a reliable indicator of the authenticity of one’s efforts at self-improvement:
^ —that
uine [Wahrhafti
is
what
I call
him who goes
deserts and has broken his venerating heart” (Z
6.
honor
That Nietzsche considers is
suggested in
BGE
a pariah status
30, 43,
and 220;
Z
among
II, 8;
into god-forsaken
II, 8).
Zarathustra ’s chastisement of the so-called higher
“Gen-
In the midst of
men
of part IV,
we
the majority to be a badge of
Z II,
6;
and
A 46.
NEGATION AND
ITS
OVERCOMING
learn that
one of the
their not having “suffered
In his
own
impoverishment
clearest signs of their spiritual
enough” (Z
is
IV, 13, 6).
voice Nietzsche makes a clear distinction between the
—the suffering
many
suffering of the
we noted
that, as
chapter, leads to ressentiment toward the talented few
experienced by those few
who
in the last
—and the pain For the
are of concern to him.
latter,
he considers “suffering, desolation, sickness, ill-treatment, indignibe formative. “I wish them the only thing that can prove to-
ties” to
day whether one 910). It fied
is
is
worth anything or not
revealing that one of the features of slave morality identi-
by Nietzsche
as
most contemptible
glish happiness,” a life
denuded of
all
sche,
aspiration for an
is its
(BGE
228).
measure of the depth of our examination of is
the depth of our suffering \das Leiden] (Z
gestion that suffering
a
claims Nietz-
life,
III,
2,1).
precondition for the cultivation
The sugof human
made powerfully in Beyond Good and Evil: “The disof suffering, of great suffering do you not know that it is this
excellence cipline
is
'‘'‘En-
suffering and dedicated solely
to the pursuit of “comfort and fashion”
A
—that one endures” (WP
is
also
—
discipline alone
(BGE
which has created every elevation of mankind hith-
BGE
There is “much bitter dying” in the life of the creative individual; one must be prepared to countenance repeated reexaminations and even rejection of one’s most chererto?”
225;
cf.
270).
—
—
ished beliefs and closest relationships in order to reemerge as a “child
new-born” (Z
II, 2).
In drawing out this metaphor of child-
birth, Zarathustra claims that
one who aspires to be
knowledge and insight “must
also be willing to be the
endure the mother’s pain”
(ibid.).
Gay
Science,
made once
is
when Nietzsche
give birth to our thoughts out of our pain.
ultimate liberator of the spirit”
“newborn”
.
(GS Preface
insists that .
.
in
mother and
This association of creative
ing with maternal pain in childbearing preface to The
a
striv-
again in the
“we have
Only great pain
is
to
the
3).
absence to
comtempt them
into “hecom[ing] like these comfortable creatures: for
where there
Nietzsche exhorts his readers not to allow their panionship and their fear and anguish in
are oases there are also idols” (Z
II, 8).
its
thirst for
Courageous are those who,
while having an intimate knowledge of the fear and pain of social disapprobation, refuse to
let
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
these emotions dominate
them (Z
TV,
An important step in this
13, 4)-^
overcoming of the
self-mastery, this
suffering associated with the overthrow of slave or herd morality,
is
—many would say
successful passage through a particularly difficult
dreadful
The
—thought experiment.
Eternal Return as Psychological Problem
Nietzschean higher types,
as
we have
seen,
must pass through
ods of tremendous personal upheaval and anguish in order to
The
their lofty potential.
a
daunting hypothetical
they had the opportunity to relive their
if
fulfill
crucial phase of their suffering arrives,
however, only after they decide to confront choice:
peri-
would they do so unhesitatingly and
joyfully,
thing in their past would recur unaltered?
lives in perpetuity,
knowing
Would
that every-
they have the
forti-
tude, in other words, to relish the prospect of a continual repetition
of the sorrows, humiliations, and defeats of the past along with past
moments of joy and victory? become true lovers of fate
If they
—
attain “the highest
and boundless declaration of Yes and
Ethics,
1 1
A
8.
1
(EH IX,
—and
They thereby
i).
man
Amen” (Z
w'ell-known alternative interpretation of eternal return
it.
—
Nkoinachean
eternal return as
Nietzsche’s cosmological theory of the actual workings of the universe criticized
as a
III, 4).^
of virtue knows fear but masters
5 a I o-b 2 o.
they
amor fati
few capable of what Zarathustra refers to
Cf. Aristotle’s view that the
7.
this prospect,
in Nietzsche’s sense of
formula of affirmation”
join the ranks of those
“vast
can stomach
—
is
effectively
by Maudemarie Clark, Nietzsche on Tnith and Philosophy (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1990), pp. 245-270, and Alexander Nehamas, Nietzsche: Life
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985), pp. 141-169. As they indithe texts that Nietzsche himself published provide little support for this interpre-
as Literature cate,
tation.
One
possible exception
animals appear to formulate thing ad infinitum (Z
III,
a
is a
passage in TMrathustra where the
cosmological doctrine of the
13, 2).
Clark and
Nehamas
literal
title
character’s
recurrence of every-
rightly obser\^e, however, that
Zarathustra himself treats his animals’ cosmological musings with condescension and chastizes
though low),
how
I
them
my
for turning his idea into a tiresome “hurdy-gurdy song” (ibid.). Al-
reading of Nietzsche’s thought experiment differs from Clark’s (see be-
think she
is
right to interpret
it
“as a practical doctrine, a directive concerning
to live, rather than a theory^ concerning the nature of the universe.” Clark, Nietz-
sche on Ti'uth
and Philosophy,
p. 247.
NEGATION AND
ITS
OVERCOMING
— Nietzsche presents amor fati as an inescapable precondition for noble self-love.
One must
affirm everything that has directly or indi-
rectly contributed to one’s personal
“The
errors:
turnings
.
.
blunders of
have their
.
life,
the temporary sidepaths and
own meaning and
this austere
wrong
They are an expressupreme sagacity” (EH II, 9). Ulti-
sion of a great sagacity, even the
mately
development, even the so-called
value.
and uncompromising formula for affirmation re-
quires an embrace of everything. Since “in the actual world
everything
bound
is
to
and conditioned by everything
think away anything means to
(WP
else,
.
.
.
... to
condemn and think away everything”
584). All things in the universe are causally interconnected
—and should
“chained and entwined together,” as Zarathustra puts
it
thus be affirmed as having contributed to what one
(Z IV,
Not one
is
19, 10).^
shred of regret for the past can be tolerated; the pain and
suffering caused by physical illness, the death of close friends or family
members, public humiliation and ostracism
at the
hands of the herd,
and even the most horrific of human-made or natural catastrophes all
have played a role in making one what one
interlocutors that
(ibid.). If, in
After inquiring of his
they had ever said “Yes to one joy,” Zarathustra
if
they have done
if
is.
other words,
woe as well” what we have become, we should be
“then [they] said Yes to
so,
we
love
insists
all
prepared to say yes to ijasagen) the eternal return of all past things unchanged, in order to ensure the reappearance of our noble selves.
easy to understand
It is
to such a prospect as
(GS
341).
For
his
why Nietzsche
one of horror,
presents his
initial
as the suggestion
reaction
of a “demon”
thought experiment requires higher types to posit
and affirm “without reservation” the unending recurrence “even of suffering, even of guilt, even of all that
existence”
(EH
IV, 2).
One
is
strange and questionable in
prescient interpreter of the eternal recur-
Maudemarie Clark, shares Nietzsche’s initial resistance to the uncompromising nature of this idea. “Why,” she asks, “cannot I afrence,
firm
life
precisely
by preferring
the exact recurrence of life
to
all
Why isn’t
it
its
horrors to
a greater affirmation
of
TI \1
,
8;
I
of the horrors do too does not seem like a
For some other references to
III, 16, 4;
74
life?
of
want the repetition of the past without the bad things? That
cannot recur unless 9.
my
a history stripped
this
notion of interconnectivity, see
and \\T 293, 331, 333, 634, and 1032.
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
Z
III, 2, 2;
Z
very good or a very Nietzschean answer.”^® Writing near the end of the bloodiest century of
human
Clark takes
history,
a stance that is
readily understandable; she, like
most of us, would prefer
eternal return of “a world that
just like ours except for the
of Hitler.”^
And
^
Nietzsche, she
is
is
to will the
absence
sunny view of
since she maintains an unreservedly
inclined to assume that he cannot maintain a posi-
tion that seems so horrific.
But
this
benign view
distorts.
Nietzsche openly derides as “farcical”
the expression “that should not have been”
(WP 584). To will the eter-
—
nal recurrence of only a selective version of the past alized past
denuded of
its
horrors, suffering, and ugliness
view, to remain in a brooding state of ressentiment
away
for “another”
“Strong,
to recuperate,
“So rich
10).
—
by
contrast, have “the
power
is
joy,” explains Zarathustra, “that
it
of graveside tears” that
is
will be.
to form, to mold,
thirsts for
(ibid.).
it
(GM
I,
woe, for
(Z IV,
world’"'
This type of joy wants both the “honey” and the “dregs”; just the “gilded sunsets”
in his
where one pines
and to forget” even the “misdeeds” of the past
Hell, for hatred, for shame, for the lame, for the
not
is,
world that never has been and never
natures,”
full
a prettified, ide-
19,
1 1).
demands
but also the “graves” and “the consolation
As Nietzsche
can be subtracted, nothing
is
insists in Ecce
dispensable”
(EH
Homo, “nothing IV, 2).
Nietzsche’s version of an affirmative Jasageji-'m^ stance toward life insists
on an unconditional affirmation not only of
and suffering but also of inferior forms of human
all
life.
past evil
“He who
climbs upon the highest mountains,” claims Zarathustra, “laughs all
tragedies, real or imaginary” (Z
I,
7).
at
Nietzsche understands, of
course, that such a prospect cannot be faced lightly; he concedes that
the “hardest test of character” and makes
it is
initial
reactions to
it
highly unfavorable
(WP
some of Zarathustra 934).
WTen
’s
positing
the notion of an “eternal recurrence even for the smallest” and most
contemptible, Zarathustra, like Maudemarie Clark, in “disgust”
(Z
baseness strikes
hard
him
as
1.
very idea of
a ceaseless
recurrence of
an “abysmal thought,” and he confesses
And
in Ecce
Homo Nietzsche
10. Clark, Nietzsche on Titith 1
The
“to understand that small people are necessai’y" (Z
it is
III, 5, 2).
III, 13, 2).
initially recoils
and
how
III, 3;
Z
gives voice to these sentiments
Philosophy, p. 281.
Ibid.
NEGATION AND
ITS
OVERCOMING
in a strikingly personal
way when he
jection to the ‘Eternal Recurrence’,
my mother and my sister” (EH
confides that “the deepest ob-
my idea
generate
—even
—without losing
(b) faith in the possibility
own
to his
(a)
abyss,
intestinal fortitude
the existence of the
always
can learn
weak and de-
healthy contempt for these latter and
He
points
“who
to an
of a higher form of human lifed^
human
Zarathustra as an example of a
unheard-of degree says No,
is
3).^^
I,
But Nietzsche claims that those with to Jasagen everything
from the
does
No
type
to everything to
hitherto said Yes,” and yet remains “nonetheless
.
.
.
which one has
the opposite of a
(EH IX, 6). Nietzsche hopes that his readers will feel disdain toward the many while, like Zarathustra, affirming their existence as “bridges” or “steps” [Stufen] upon which higher men must
spirit
of denial”
tread in their journey to greamess^"^ (Z IV,
The
1 1).
Eternal Return and the Battle against “Lord Chance’’
Once we would
and joyfully that we
are prepared to declare unreservedly
of the past
will the ceaseless repetition
whole idea of “misfortune”
claims, the
cious force loses
12.
See Chapter
13.
Thus
I
its
5,
hold over our
lives.
as
if
we
could, Nietzsche
an independent, menda-
Through sheer
force of will,
note 16.
disagree with Robert Pippin’s suggestion that the eternal recurrence
image “suggests to Zarathustra
a radical deflating
“Irony and Affirmation in Nietzsche’s
of the Ubetynensch ideal.” Pippin,
Thus Spoke
Seas: Explorations in Philosophy, Aesthetics,
and
Zarathustra,” in Nietzsche's
Politics,
New
Michael Allen Gillespie and
ed.
Tracy B. Strong (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), p. 54. Pippin’s claim that the eternal recurrence is a “profoundly antiredemptive thought” appears to turn
on the assumption
that Nietzsche/Zarathustra believes
nally (ibid., pp. 55-57, 64). If Pippin
able any
hope
were
all
redemptive
ideals.
Nietzsche’s declared opposition to “the
II, 12).
Once
now
14. In
Chapter 6
I
literal
engender
would indeed a
dis-
thoroughgoing
interpretation
is
at
odds with
prevalent instinct and taste” in democra-
upon “the mechanistic senselessness of all
eternal recurrence
demptive ambition becomes
is
seen as
a
thought experiment,
its
re-
clearer.
suggest that this need for lower
occasional claim that higher types can
76
But the
countries for fatalistic theories that insist
events” (GAI
things do in fact recur eter-
right, eternal recurrence
for cultural renewal and, as he suggests,
ironic stance toward
tic
all
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
become
human
beings subverts Nietzsche’s
(in principle)
completely
self-sufficient.
that
which had once been seen
One
choice.
misfortune becomes
as
product of
thereby graduates from “milk[ing]” the cow of
tion” to “drink[ing] the sweet milk of her udder” (Z cise
a
of willpower over fate
Once
vulnerability.^^
fills
the superior
man
I, 5).
with
“afflic-
This exer-
a feeling
of in-
the gauntlet of the eternal return has been run,
tragic misfortune can never break one’s spirit again.
At times Nietzsche seems to believe
empowering
thought experiment so
his
banish the very notion of accidental occurrence in
as to
the lives of superior men. Zarathustra gloats that “the time has
passed
come
when
me
to
accidents [Znfalle] could befall me, and what could
was not already
that
“Chance”
struggle with
am
over his victory: “I in
my
my
pot.
will
.
.
And
.
spoke to
on
ploringly
its
my own?”
(Z
III, i).
predominantly featured,
is
Zarathustra the Godless:
truly,
many a chance came
I
knees” (Z
Zarathustra’s
is
his boasting
cook every chance
imperiously to me: but
even more imperiously, then
it
as
it
went down im-
III, 5, 3).
Zarathustra’s declaration in part III that he has freed chance
“servitude under purpose” might
sche wished higher 4). If
we
still
seem
from
its
to refute the view that Nietz-
men to subdue contingency to their purposes (Z III,
read this passage in context, however,
it
becomes
clear that
Zarathustra means to liberate contingency only from metaphysical notions of purpose
than from a god;
it
for example, the “eternal reason-spider”
purposes
(ibid.).
rivals
WTiether
(Z
IV,
this talk
tion of “free will”
is
6).'*^
of willing
—
as
whom
of the higher man’s will
One
an important question.
is
is
there
consistent with Nietzsche’s rejec-
obvious answer, w'hich w'ould require
no contradiction because Nietzsche’s
opposed to the metaphysical notions of will he
criticizes
—
refers to
an embodied sense of agency emerging out of (rather than against) healthy, affirming instinct. Ruth
Abbey argues
here in “So Polyphonous script,
16.
a
as
In this vein Zarathustra urges like-minded
an argument absent here, would be that there talk
—rather
Fortune cannot, must not, be honored
must serve the ends of the superior man, before
can be no 15.
all
—
that Nietzsche
falls
life-
into serious inconsistency
Being: Friedrich Nietzsche in His Middle Period” (manu-
University of Western Australia, 1997).
Peter Berkowitz rightly highlights the ethic of self-deification developed in
The Ethics of an hmnoralist (Cambridge: Harv'ard University Press, 1995), pp-4, 15-20, 150, 207-210. lam not as convinced by of Zarathustra and the y)Osx.-Zarathustra wTitings exemplify a his claim that part
works such
as Tjirathustra in his Nietzsche:
W
prudent retreat from
this hubristic goal.
TI
I,
3
serves as
one example of the continued
importance of self-deification.
NEGATION AND
ITS
OVERCOMING
own
souls to consider themselves their fates [Schicksale], if
with me?” (Z
you
will
men
“And
if
you
not be
will
—
how can you conquer who counsels prospective
not be inexorable:
Like Machiavelli,
III, 12, 29).
political leaders to forcibly
superior
“fate”:
subdue the female Fortuna^ Nietzsche urges
to subordinate
all
of life to their dictates.
Zarathustra readily admits that becoming a “redeemer of chance” in this sense requires a breathtaking
arrogance beyond the reach of
those destined to remain Fortune’s “prisoner” (Z 3).
The mob,
forces
from “will
its
control,
he
is
the sport of every wave,” a fact that
“God” or
cards that
weak man
III, 12, 16; cf.
how the weak,
unable “to go backwards,” its
itself:
its
it
own impotence
the
Invulnerable
Z IV,
1 1).
III, 12,
stemming
fills
man
him with
will’s
only
regret
Ziifall]
has dealt him,
(Z
II, 20).
servile will turns ill-tempered
awareness of its
takes revenge (ibid.).
“is
Bitterly resentful of the
“dreadful chance” \gimiser
takes to “teeth-gnashing” in
venge
as
finds his predilection for revenge intensified
Zarathustra observes
suffer for
Z
or as completely independent and capricious. Unable to
and recrimination (Z
the
whether these are understood
backwards” in the sense described above, the herd
‘willed’,
cf.
claims Nietzsche, tends to think itself at the behest of
beyond
God
20;
II,
and
own impotence. Being
on others and makes them
“This alone,” he explains,
antipathy towards time and time’s
‘It
was’”
“is re(ibid.).
Men?
In positing invulnerability to fortune as a normative ideal, Nietzsche
evinces an indebtedness to a long-standing tradition in Western
moral and
political
philosophy associated primarily with Stoicism
and ultimately traceable back to Socrates. In
its
many guises,
this tra-
dition gives expression to the pervasive desire to believe that acting
and living only on
well, as
human
Martha Nussbaum
effort, things that
no matter what happens
17.
and
Martha Nussbaum, “Tragedy and
ton University Press, 1992),
p.
263.
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
human
depend
beings can always control,
world around them.”^^ Nussbaum
in the
Pity,” Essays on Aristotle's Poetics, ed.
writes, “are things that
Self-Sufficiency: Plato
and Arisotle on Fear
Amelie Oksenberg Rorty (Princeton: Prince-
identifies the first philosophical expression of this desire in Plato’s
Apology^
The
where Socrates claims
that a
good man cannot be harmed.
Stoics later radicalized this thought, insisting that the
good man
ought to disengage himself psychologically from that which fortune controls or influences: the “external goods” of wealth, political free-
dom,
friendship,
and community. In the Stoic view, one could be
bereft of all these goods and
With
still
lead an upstanding, admirable
his doctrine of the eternal return
Nietzsche aims
life.^^
at radical-
izing the Socratic-Stoic ideal of invulnerability. For the Stoics, as
well as for later thinkers such as Machiavelli, fortune remains a for-
midable force in the
What
of even the most admirable men.
lives
separates the virtuous from the majority
is
the former’s ability to
erect barricades of a psychological and/or political nature to stem fortune’s tide.
The
adoption of compensatory strategies, such
psychological disengagement from
all
as the
external goods and Machiavel-
acknowledges fortune’s great power.
lian political vinii, implicitly
Nietzsche, by contrast, urges upon his ideal readers a mindset that ostensibly
would
banish the role of contingency in their lives. Al-
though pure contingency always plays of the weak, the same, he
can cry out “once more!”
insists,
when
determinant role in the
lives
cannot be said for those few
who
a
faced with the prospect of the eternal
recurrence of all that has been. In light of this sometimes delusional stress invulnerability,
it
man
importance of “external goods” such
of superior men.
How
tain inherently contingent I
While drawn
invulnerability, Nietzsche
an alternative view of the
is
as friendship
could he hold that the superior insist that cer-
goods are necessary for
his full flour-
intend to argue that he
successfully.
and
same time
can master contingency while
ishing?
self-sufficiency
might seem incongruous to suggest that Nietzsche
also argues for the in the lives
on
at the
tries to retain
both views
—un-
to the Stoic-Socratic ideal of personal also pulled in another direction,
human
toward
condition whose roots in the West-
ern tradition are just as deep. Associated with the great tragedians of ancient Greece and given
1
8.
its first
philosophical expression in Aristo-
See Julia Annas, The Morality of Happiness
(New York: Oxford
University Press,
1993), pp. 262-290, 385-411.
NEGATION AND
ITS
OVERCOMING
tie,
this tradition recognizes, as
ously powerful,” that
“it is
Nussbaum
possible for a
says, that luck
good person
is
“seri-
to suffer seri-
ous and undeserved harm.”*^
The
next chapter shows that Nietzsche feels the force of this dis-
course even as he clings tenaciously to Stoic ideals of personal autarchy.
The
result
is
problematized body of thought.
a seriously
Perhaps the most significant problems emerge in Nietzsche’s treat-
ment of friendship and community.
19.
Martha Nussbaum, The
Philosophy (Cambridge:
Fragility of Goodness:
Cambridge University
Williams also gives voice to reality [acting] to crush a
this perspective
Luck and Ethics
Press,
when he
1986), pp.
in
Greek Tragedy and
384-385. Bernard
speaks of the possibility of “social
worthwhile, significant, character or project without display-
ing either the lively individual purposes of a pagan god or the world-historical signifi-
cance of
a Judaic, a Christian,
or a Marxist teleology.” Williams, Shame ayid Necessity
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), p. 165.
80
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
Overcoming Solitude
foil r All
company is bad company except the company of one’s
equals.
—Beyond Good and Evil 26 The
Limitations of Solitude
G
iven Nietzsche’s repeated praise of the therapeutic effects
of solitude and his insistence on intensely personal, inimitable paths to ethical-spiritual
to read into his
work an unremitting
development,
hostility
form of sociability and community.’ His
I.
broad
The field,
consensus view of Nietzsche
in
tempting
toward any and every
radical individualism
as a radical individualist
encompassing scholars who disagree
it is
many
seems
extends over a v^ery
other respects.
Some
of the
81
apparent
when he
“stand [s] out”
teaches that the exceptionally creative individual
abzuheben] and should value himself as one to
[sich
whom preferences,
Montesquieu’s sense, are owed (TI IX,
in
great man,” observes Nietzsche, “finds
(WP
tasteless to
it
37).
“A
be familiar”
962).
Nietzsche, moreover, finds that noble self-sufficiency
is
woefully
absent in the “gregarious” [heerdenhaft] lower orders, where an ethic
of “love thy neighbor” reigns out of necessity rather than virtue 886).
He
(WP
detects a spiritual void and even self-loathing in the sort of
sociability that feeds
upon the glances of others and
eats praise out of
the hands of flatterers. In Beyond Good and Evil he speaks of a “sub-
is
a “lover of his
Such
a
who
and un-self-sufficient species of man”
servient, unauthoritative
neighbor” out of weakness rather than strength.
man performs
“good works” (including
his
scientific research)
with an eye for “honor and recognition” because a “constant affirma-
and
tion of his value
of self-worth
(BGE
his utility”
206).
is
needed to shore up
The dependent
the thought of existence without the
proximity to other herd animals
(ibid.;
his
shaky sense
type of person cannot bear
warmth generated by
Z Prologue
5).
close
As Zarathustra
observes, such a person can hardly endure to be alone with himself
and
flees to the
company of his neighbor (Z
better-known studies making
this
Philosopher, Psychologist, AntiChrist,
16).
assumption include Walter Kaufmann, Nietzsche: 4th ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1974), p. 162; Richard Schacht, Nietzsche (London: p.
I,
407; Tracy Strong, Friedrich Nietzsche and the
Roudedge and Kegan
Politics
of Transfiguration, expanded ed.
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), p. 112; and
and
Political
Thought (Cambridge:
theorists not
known
as
MIT Press,
Nietzsche scholars
Paul, 1983),
Mark Warren,
Nietzsche
1988), p. 61. Philosophers and political
who
also
view Nietzsche as
a strictly
“no-
madic” thinker include William Connolly, Ide7itity\Dijference: Detnocratic Negotiations of Political Pa?-adox (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991),
p. 187;
Bonnie Honig, Po-
Theoiy and the Displacement of Politics (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993), 230; Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory (Notre Dame: Uni-
litical
p.
versity of Notre
Dame
Press, 1984), p. 258;
and Martha Nussbaum, “Pity and Mercy:
Nietzsche’s Stoicism,” in Nietzsche, Genealogy, Morality: Essays on Nietzsche's ''On the
Genealogy of Morals," ed. Richard Schacht (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), p. 158.
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
Yet
it
would be hasty
to infer that passages such as these reflect an
uncompromising repudiation of all forms of sociability. Although the radical individualist reading
seem
is
vindicated in textual passages that
to posit an austere vision of personal autarchy,
sche’s praise of solitude
and self-sufficiency emphasizes
of Nietz-
a selective
company of the mass of ordinary human beings and
distaste for the
open the prospect of
leaves
much
“a refined conception of friendship” in
(BGE
the lives of stronger, healthier individuals
Repudiating the “pitiable comforts” of herd
260). life
and successfully
passing through a psychologically trying thought experiment
necessary as preconditions for suffice.
full
human
may be
flourishing, but they
do not
Beyond the imperative of breaking with mediocre communities
and joyfully willing the gestures (at least
infinite repetition
it
tasteless to
be familiar
try suggesting that these
great communities”
Nietzsche
felt
Nietzsche
life,
most of the time) toward another, higher type of so-
ciability required for self-overcoming.
consider
of one’s past
is
The
suggestion that great
men
balanced by another notebook en-
same great ones “want to embed themselves
in
(WP 964). Even at his most isolated and friendless,
that his “cure
very least to dream of
and self-restoration” required him
a “relatedness
and identity
in eye
and
at the
desires, a
reposing in a trust of friendship, a blindness in concert with another
without suspicion or question-marks” nealogy^
(HAH
Preface
I
moreover, unending solitude appears as
than the most desired
Or solitude,
if it
state:
essein miiss]V''
In The Ge-
a fail-back plan rather
“Let us have good company,
must be [warn
i).
(GM III,
oiir
company!
14).
In his later writings, the perceived need for a higher form of solidarity pervades Zarathustra in particular, relief at
gives
having escaped the
way
to a
stifling
where the
deep yearning, often couched
Ruth Abbey argues that Nietzsche’s treatment of
pales in
character’s
atmosphere of herd society soon in
metaphor, for new,
meaningful connections with like-minded others.^
2.
title
The
pursuit of
sociability in his later
comparison with the rich evocations of friendship and solidarity
in the
work
middle
period and speculates that this change can be traced back to the aggravation of Nietzsche’s personal isolation in the
mid- to
late 1880s.
Abbey, “Nietzsche and the Ex-
cluded Middle,” presented to the Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, April 1997.
OVERCOMING SOLITUDE
I
wisdom,
as
we have
seen, requires a period of “voluntary living in ice
and high mountains”
(EH Foreword
3).
But once solitude has been
“My hand
attained, Zarathustra cannot help but cry out,
with
ice!
.
.
.
[N]ow
long for speech panions
my longing breaks (Z
[Rede]'''
II, 9). It
from
me
burned
is
—
like a well-spring
seems that the “speech” of com-
needed to counteract the “threatening, suffocating, heart-
is
tightening” effects of a solitude that encircles and embraces the isolated,
ostracized seeker of truth. This view of the
emptiness of unending solitude
from 1886, when
samun^ on
morbid
“this
the icy peaks
is
reiterated in
of spirit”
spiritual
one of the prefaces
isolation” [dieser krankhaften Verein-
described as but “a long road to that
is
tremendous overflowing certainty and health
dom
now-
... to that
mature free-
(HAH I Preface 4).
Zarathustra clearly does not wish to end up like the hermit he
meets in the Prologue. While he does
by
ascetic loner (suggested later
comments suggest
feel a kinship
warm
their
parting from each other), his
if
unchecked by
able companions. In the
company might lead an ate the many-too-many
a
more mature,
first place,
initially
may
turned away from ble” (Z
lead to certain
selective search for suit-
the absence of the right sort of
sound and healthy desire to repudi-
into a nihilistic repudiation of humankind in
In this vein Zarathustra notes sadly that
toto.
life” initially
“many
a
one who
had “turned away only from the rab-
II, 6).
Second, too long
a
period of self-imposed isolation
the ostracized superior type so “needy,” so starved for tact, that fall
how-
that the radical retreat into solitude,
ever laudable as a self-protective measure,
pathologies
of sorts with this
he
may
may render human con-
ignore the warning of his discriminating taste and
back into the mediocre companionship from which he escaped
in the first place.
“The
hand too quickly
to
solitary,”
observes Zarathustra, “extends his
anyone he meets” (Z
I,
1
7).
This message
is
re-
iterated in his declaration that the greatest danger for the solitary
man (Z
is
an indiscriminate love,
a
84
is
folly to
when,
of any thing if only
it is
aliveV
Farther along in the text this lapse of the instinct for Ran-
III, i).
gordnung
a “love
criticized as “the folly of hermits” [die Einsiedler-Torheit]
which Zarathustra himself succumbs
after a
long period of solitude, he
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
sets
in the Prologue,
out to speak to every-
one
in the marketplace. In retrospect, Zarathustra claims to
under-
stand that by attempting to speak to everyone, he “spoke to no one”
(ZIV,i3,
i).3
Alternatively, a
bereft of all friendship
life
mit’s folly: excessively
between
allel
too
many
his
own,
depths” (Z
versation that
may lead
morose introspection. Zarathustra solitary self and the hermit, for
I,
14).
Without
2,
spirits
whom “there are
would draw him out of himself, Zarathustra
Nietzsche ruthlessly mocks as
may
is
that, as
in a in
II, 13).
life:
A sociable
of self-loathing and
a sign
19; cf.
world where conversation among kindred
spirits
there
that
is,
Zarathustra ’s
3.
I,
more
is
“Where
How sweet it
in
repeatedly go over past slights and personal failures,
remains possible
ward
danger
we saw
turning bitterly resentful and lusting secredy after revenge (Z
Z
con-
unending solitude even the most optimistic
ressentiment. In prolonged,
of
offers a par-
engage him
a friend to
of falling into the same humorless moral pedantry
Chapter
to another her-
own
an affirmative stance to-
likely to preserve is
talking, the
world
is
like a
garden to me.
exist”
(Z
words and sounds of music
company
acceptance of some highly suspect
odyssey seems to cast doubt on the depth of his
III, 13, 2).^
in part
own understanding
IV of his
of this lesson.
Robert Pippin notes that the quality of Zarathustra ’s interlocutors scarcely improves
from the Prologue
IV and
to part
interprets this clear lack of progress as evidence of
Nietzsche’s ironic undercutting of Zarathustra’s redemptive project. “Irony and Affir-
mation
Thus Spoke Zarathustra
in Nietzsche’s
Philosophy, Aesthetics,
and
Politics,
ed.
rV of Zarathustra
moralist (Cambridge:
as a “retreat
Averse to
from the extremes.”
Nietzsche:
Harvard University Press, 1995), pp.
facile,
2
The Ethics of an Im-
11-227. There
of his sort
may have
pollyannaish happy endings, Nietzsche
lous characters near the end of the
who
to Today, neither
men
is,
how-
of part FV.
placed these ridicu-
book to underline the great difficulty facing anyone
attempts to find (or create) suitable companions. As noted above,
Zarathustra declares at the beginning of part
do we speak
to the
IV
Never” (Z
an indication that the redemptive hope
cally
Peter Berkowitz similarly sees
p. 62.
another way of interpreting the presence of the so-called higher
ever,
as
Seas: Explorations in
Michael Allen Gillespie and Tracy B. Strong
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), part
New
in Nietzsche's
named “higher men,” moreover,
is
that he and his destiny “do not speak
IV,
i). I
retained,
take the last part of this phrase
however chastened. (The
ironi-
serve as important vehicles for Nietzsche’s ped-
agogy, as further negative examples to his imagined readers.) 4.
The image
of a dialogical commimity of superior
lowing Nachlass passage: “What dawns on philosophers longer accept concepts as a create
gift,
men
last
is
also
of all
[is
evoked that]
nor merely purify and polish them, but
them, present them and make them convincing”
in the fol-
they must no first
make and
(WP 409). OVERCOMING SOLITUDE
85
Yet Nietzsche’s preferred
life
of rarefied sociability would not be
one of constant bavardage. Paradoxically, the herd in order to
of kindred
comes
overcome
loneliness, so
one needs
from
to flee
one requires the company This insight
spirits to attain a healthy, peaceful silence.
to Zarathustra after years of self-imposed isolation: “I have be-
longed to solitude too long: thus II, i).
just as
I
have forgotten
how to
be silent” (Z
This same idea of a healthy, mature silence that paradoxically re-
companions reappears
quires the presence of worthy
Zarathustra speaks of having attained a “silence to betray itself
by silence” (Z
III, 6).
not to destroy the satisfying silence
He
in part III,
when
has learned not
[that]
has learned, in other words,
among
friends
by retreating once
again into the forced introspection of solitude. Elsewhere in part III
Zarathustra similarly observes that the “lonely height” of isolation
may not always be That
solitude
“sufficient to itself’ [selbst begniige]
is
meant
his
his “childen
upon
and companions” to
trees,
learn solitude and defiance and foresight” (Z
he explains,
my kind and my race”
is
meant
to determine
is
sug-
his admirers in part III.
duty to “uproot” them and “set each one up by
isolation,
III, lo, 2).
to be a temporary, transitional state
gested by the test Zarathustra springs
Comparing
(Z
he
insists that it is
itself,
III, 3).
that
(ibid.).
may
This enforced
whether each
[meinerArt imd Abkunft]
it
At
tree “is of
this
point in
the narrative, Zarathustra ’s devotees have not yet proved their mettle to his satisfaction.
Although they have taken the important
first
negating their communities of origin, he believes them to be
step of still
in
new, servile cult of devotion and worship, with
danger of forming
a
Zarathustra as
godhead. Unless they are pushed onto solitary
its
may come to resemble the pathetic “higher men” burlesqued in part IV, who hang onto Zarathustra’s every word and find meaning and value only in his person (Z IV, 1 1). To those who pass the paths, they
test,
him on an
Zarathustra crucially extends an invitation to rejoin
equal footing, to
become
his
“companion
[Gefdhrte]
and
a fellow-
creator and fellow-rejoicer [Mitschajfender und MitfeiemderY (Z
With terms such
as “fellow-creator”
Nietzsche evokes
III, 3).
a rarefied
notion of companionship that recalls the Aristotelian model of a friendship of
he makes
magnanimous men grounded
a hierarchical distinction
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
Like Aristotle,
between lower-order
and the comradeship of kindred, noble 86
in virtue.
spirits
solidarities
bound together
in
equality and virtue.^ Lower-order
man loves most about his friend:
Zarathustra claims the virtuous
eye and the glance of eternity” (Z
I,
fine instincts, they
recognize themselves in the reflection of each other’s face, claims Zarathustra, “is
imperfect mirror”
(ibid.).
upon
Nietzsche’s noble soul bestows
reference as
it
own
his
(BGE
applies to itself’
an expression of self-love.
is
your own
Recognizing
And
is
Thus
not
another
same
.
.
.
tender
one of
friends Nietzsche also suggests that healthy self-love
pendent upon maintaining
when one
oneself aright
a love for friends.
ceases to give
self,
love for one’s friend in a letter to
all;
eye.
rough and
face, in a
his equal “the
this
undimmed
in the friend
265).
“the
14).
Because true friends are equally endowed with
A friend’s
become
beings cannot
they simply do not possess what
friends in the highest sense;
undimmed
human
“One
is
de-
ceases to love
oneself exercise in loving oth-
ers.”6
Like Aristode, moreover, Nietzsche sees
form of
in the highest
friendship an essential vehicle for self-discovery. In light of the culty
we
experience in seeing our
own
lives clearly
and without
particularly useful to study ourselves secondhand, as
is
ied in another fact
good
end up being
ourselves.
from
his
life.
Blinded as
a greater
are
by our
bias,
it
embodwe may in
were,
it
partiality,
source of insight for our friends than for
As Zarathustra puts
own
we
diffi-
it,
chains and yet he
is
“many
a
one cannot deliver himself
his friend’s deliverer”
(Z
I,
14).^
The Bestowing Virtue “I
want to go
to
man once more,” announces Zarathustra.
under among them 5.
Ethics
Of the
\iinter
ihnen will ich imtefgehen],
want
want to go
to give them,
three grounds for friendship identified by Aristotle in the Nicomachean
—pleasure, advantage or
utility,
and good character
best by far (i I57a30-b2 2). Friendship rooted in virtue it
I
“I
involves a “sharing of conversation and thought”
herdlike “sharing
[of]
the same pasture”
(i
i
is
—the
third
is
said to be the
considered superior because
among virtuous men,
yob 1 2-14). In The
Politics
rather than a
he notes that the
highest type of friendship presupposes “likeness and equality” (i287b32). 6.
and
Letter to Peter Cast, 18 July 1880, in Selected Letters of Friedrich Nietzsche, ed.
trans. 7.
Christopher Middleton (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1996),
Cf. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics,
i
p. 173.
i69b2 8-i i7oa4.
OVERCOMING SOLITUDE
dying,
my
(Z
richest gift!”
the desire to “go under”
—
That Zarathustra should express
III, 12, 3).
that
is,
to
undergo
process of radical self-transformation
—
a figurative “death” in the
in the
midst of others reveals
the great importance of companionship to Nietzsche’s whole project. also reveals the
importance of the act o{ giving to fellow higher humans.
Just as the brilliance of the sun and every other star depends
shining on objects external to themselves, so
is
on
a
the happiness and
man dependent on
virtue of Nietzsche’s superior others.
It
his “shining
on”
At the very beginning of his adventures and again near their
end, Zarathustra gives voice to his feelings of kinship with the sun
when he
cries,
“Great
had not those for
star!
What would your
whom you shine!”
(Z Prologue
Zarathustra and his animals bless the sun for fliifi]
and draw strength from
from each
other’s overflow.
abundant”
it,
happiness be,
its
so do lofty
Z IV,
i;
if
you
20). Just as
“superfluity” [Uber-
men draw
sustenance
Both Zarathustra and the sun are “super-
requiring others to take in their energy.
[iiberreiches]^
Switching metaphors but in a similar
spirit,
Zarathustra compares
himself at the start of his journey to a bee gathering too
much honey
that needs “hands outstretched to take it” (Z Prologue
Until others
have experienced his overflow, he cannot claim to be a the highest sense of the word; “This cup wants to be
Zarathustra wants to be
man again
The
more worthy
and
comes
as
to see his
misguided and
recipients of his beneficent overflow.
idea of the necessity of giving, however, of the “bestowing virtue”
[der schenkenden Tiigend\,
remains the same. Hence the highest man’s
sense of thankfulness for the presence of others to give the giver cessity?” a
again,
[wieder Mensch werden]’^ (ibid.). After
toward the mass of ordinary people
begins to search for
human being in
empty
the debacle in the marketplace, of course, Zarathustra earlier generosity
i).
owe thanks (Z
bestowal
III, 14).
to:
“Does not
to the receiver for receiving? Is giving not a ne-
The
idea that the
upon others
is
given
full
expression of virtue requires
metaphorical
expression
when
Zarathustra compares his compulsion to share with that of a stream that flows inexorably into the sea. Further
on
in the
same section he
speaks of needing to release a storm of cloudlike “tension” (Z 8.
11 , i).^
Invoking yet another metaphor from nature, Nietzsche has Zarathustra com-
pare the exceptional man’s need to share his “superabundance” with others with the
mother’s physical need to nurse her child (Z
88
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
III, 14).
— As suggested
earlier,
however, these evocations of mutual depen-
dency coexist uneasily with Nietzsche’s occasional insistence that any such arrangement
metaphors are
tantamount to
is
servility.
also pressed into service to
evoke
The this
star
and sun
opposing vision
of the creative individual as a completely self-contained source of
When
light.
light, I
know
Zarathustra
insists, for
example, that “I
my own
live in
drink back into myself the flames that break from me. /
1
do not
the joy of the receiver,” he seems to repudiate the dimension of
reciprocity so crucial to the sustenance of any long-term, satisfying
human relationship (Z 11, 9 ). Creative beings, in this section, appear doomed to remain isolated from other sources of meaning and value: “Many suns circle in empty space: to all that is dark they speak with their light
that the
—
to
me
human
they are silent”
(ibid.).
This passage
also suggests
contact experienced by the emitters of light tends to be
asymmetrical and exploitative, as uncreative, “obscure, dark ones” scramble to “extract warmth” and “comfort” from them while giving
nothing of worth in return
(ibid.).
The same
Nietzsche
who
insists
on
the necessity of giving as a precondition for virtue here faces a Nietz-
sche the
who
belies these insights
most talented and
and refuses to acknowledge that even
self-sufficient
needs to receive as well as to give.
Agonistic Friendship
Early on in his personal journey Zarathustra becomes aware of the temptations of a
facile, lazy
type of happiness that must be rejected in
favor of more difficult paths that precipitate ethical-spiritual growth.
He
has this sort of “desire for love” in
desire [Begeh7^en ]
—that now means
to
mind when he
me: to have
Nietzsche exhorts his readers to cultivate
3 ).
sort because of
from the ace
3 ).
its
sets
The
(Z
III,
human
of perpetual self-improvement
beings away
(HAH
I
Pref-
out to convince those predisposed to understand that
the best form of love
each other
lost myself’
“To
“hatred of love” of this
potential for steering higher
difficult task
He
a
declares:
—shuns
—the love of noble types
for themselves
and for
this ersatz variety.
finest sort of love
both in oneself and
should actually precipitate suffering
in others
—
in order to facilitate constant self-
OVERCOMING SOLITUDE
betterment. As Zarathustra claims, “there
of even the best love: thus thus
it
is
a bitterness in the
arouses longing for the Superman,
it
arouses thirst in you, the creator!” (Z
loved in man,” after
is
all,
cup
I,
20).
“What can be
not his ability to serve as
a
source of
commiseration and sympathetic ear for our complaints but rather his
being “a going-across [Ubergan^ and
(Z Prologue
4; cf.
Z
IV, 13, 3).
The
a
down-going [Untergan^'’’’
self-loving noble type rejects
self-indulgence, cultivates “harshness” [Hdrte] as one of his habits
who takes own indulgence” (EH III,
and never “spares” himself because he knows that he the easy path “sickens at last through his
3;ZIII,
I).
Nietzsche’s suspicion of complacency and comfort explains his insistence that his “refined conception of friendship” has
no room
for the “soft” sort of love that excuses
and even encourages expres-
sions of weakness and vulnerability.
Echoing Goethe’s
“the world will other’s
humane
become
a large hospital
and each
will
fear that
become
the
nurse,” Nietzsche counsels a stoic “hardness” as an
Only when life becomes “harder and harder,” claims Zarathustra, will “man grow to the height where the lightning can strike and shatter him” (Z IV, 13, 6). “Creators,” we learn elsewhere, “are hard” (Z III, 12, 29; cf. Z III, antidote to overindulgent commiseration.^
i).
Their virtue has
easy I,
life,
22,
origin and beginning” in a rejection of the
of “the soft bed and what
is
pleasant [das AngenehmeY^ (Z
i).
The first
“its
we
hardness with which
and foremost
a reflection
treat
our loved ones, he argues,
our loved ones, those tra
who
and
self-love,
are a mirror
proposes that the finest sort of love
9.
The
quoted
in
citation
from Goethe
is
a
we man-
we
spare
of the stringent standards to which
hold ourselves accountable. If our refusal to spare ourselves ifestation of self-concern
is
from
why, then, should
image of ourselves? Zarathusis
that
his letter to
Kauftnann, Nietzsche: Philosopher,
is
which spurs our friends
Frau von Stein, 8 June 1787,
Psychologist, AntiChrist, p. 369.
evokes the hated hospital model of society in
GM
III,
14.
Nietzsche
Martha Nussbaum notes
Nietzsche’s debt to the ancient Stoics in this regard; the Stoics were also fond of using
images of softness and hardness “to contrast vulnerability to external conditions with dignified absence of such v^ulnerability.” icism,” p. 146.
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
Nussbaum, “Pity and Mercy: Nietzsche’s Sto-
to achieve their highest potential (Z
and
we ought
longing for the Superman,”
a
Representing “an arrow
lo).
I,
to provide
them not an
oasis of easy respite but rather “a resting-place like a hard bed, a
camp-bed: thus you
ward our difficult
will serve
him
friends, in other words,
may be
it
best” (Z
is
II, 3).
A hard
stance to-
in their best interests,
however
to maintain in practice.
Zarathustra acknowledges that resisting the temptations to mollycoddle
is
one might
no easy initially
“Where have (Z
II, 9).
In the act of “being hard” toward friends
feat.
think oneself insensitive and cry out plaintively,
the tears of my eye and the
bloom of my heart gone?”
But our hearts’ tendency to melt
at the sight
of
a
loved
we remind ourselves of the probable consequences of soft-heartedness. The indulgence of the softhearted [We ich lichen] toward their comrades is more likely to contribute to the dissipation of their creative potential. Through our harsh treatment we cultivate in our friends the same qualities of one’s suffering can be resisted
if
harshness so necessary for ethical-spiritual epanouissement: “In or-
der to ffrow
hiv. a tree
wants to strike hard roots into hard rocks!”
(zni.;,). Nietzsche
particularly derisive toward the notion that higher-
is
order companions ought to pity one another and counts the over-
coming of
pity [die Uberwindung des Mitleids]
(EH
virtues”
4; cf.
I,
Z
II, 3).
Why
is
this so?
among
Why
the
^'"nohle
does he think
that “the hands of pity can under certain circumstances intrude
downright destructively into sions of pity, in his view,
own
(EH
a great destiny”?
disempower the
pitied
sense of powerlessness and victimhood.
I,
4).
Expres-
by reinforcing their
To
pity
someone
is
presuppose his or her vulnerability to the vagaries of fortune.
who
pity the person
tained ter,
a
to
We
has fallen victim to bad luck and has thus sus-
serious loss of
however, Nietzsche
some is
sort.^^
As noted
convinced that
a
in the previous
mature noble type
chapis
ca-
pable of taking charge of his destiny and mastering fortune through
10.
ethical
I
have profited from Martha Nussbaum’s reflections on the psychological and
dynamic underlying
Apeiron 20,
2
pity.
See “The Stoics on the Extirpation of the Passions,”
(1987): 129-158, and “Therapeutic
sire,” Differences 2,
i
Arguments and Structures of De-
(1990): 46-66.
OVERCOMING SOLITUDE
91
an imaginative form of “willing backwards.” Thus to treat such
man
as requiring pity
condescend to him, to consider him
to
is
a
as
an inferior because of his apparent inability to take charge of his life.ii
This,
would argue,
I
why Nietzsche
is
middle period that “to offer pity
He
135).^^
considers
it
is
as
work from
claims in a
good
as to offer
especially insidious because
its
nign, nurturing face masks a noxious leveling effect,
his
contempt” (D ostensibly be-
whereby noble
types are gently but assuredly discouraged from continuing their up-
—and
ward trek Pity
is
worse) even rewarded for abandoning
numbered alongside
thus
is
(what
“friendliness” [Freimdlichkeit] as
cried as “the
tion”
(BGE
most
sinister
260;
GM
one’s
sympathy” and
impose one’s ingly,
on
ideal
and thus exert
one of the
5).
one’s friends in commiseration,
on
patience, humility, and insipid slavish virtues
and
symptom of our sinister European
Preface
it.
is
de-
civiliza-
Instead of indulging oneself and
one should “keep
“persist in one’s
own
one’s fellow beings
reign
a nice tight
ideal of man;
one should
and on oneself overpower-
a creative influence!”^^
Nietzsche introduces an explicitly martial dimension to his austere, edifying
notion of friendship, suggesting that
late
works
in particular, a conflict-ridden socia-
One might suppose that Nietzsche would ward weaker individuals who (in his view) must 11.
chance. This, however,
is
be prepared to countenance pity toinvariably remain the playthings of
not the case. Alongside his disapproval of expressions of pity
toward higher men, Nietzsche also considers “active sympathy ill-constituted
spirits
becomes almost indistinguishable from
the hardness of friendship
pure enmity. In the
among free
[das Mitleiden] for the
and weak” to be “more harmful than any vice” (A
2).
Chapter
7
exam-
ines why. 12.
Abbey argues
Daybreak also evoke
a
that middle-period
works such
more benign notion of pity,
form worthy of higher,
as
Human, All
Too
a discreet, sensitive
free-spirited individuals. Abbey,
Human and
and respectful
“So Polyphonous
a Being:
Friedrich Nietzsche in His Middle Period” (manuscript. University of Western Australia,
1997).
As the
this alternative
The his
idea of a
work by
citation
from
D
135 suggests, however, even in the middle period
view coexisted uneasily with Nietzsche’s more
fonn of pity suitable
for higher
human
GS
345;
view of
pity.
beings completely drops out of
the early 1880s.
Malwida von Meysenbug, August 1883, Selected Letters of F?-iedrich 216. For some other examples of Nietzsche’s disparagement of pity, see
13. Letter to
Nietzsche, p.
common
BGE
199, 202, 222, 225;
TI
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
IX, 37; and
A
7.
bility is
contrasted repeatedly and favorably with a contemptible de-
sire for
peace and tranquility. Given his self-characterization in Ecce
Homo
as “warlike”
by nature,
unsurprising that he imagines his
it is
ideal friends as “brothers in war,” at
against a
common
adversary
(EH
his youthful admirers that they
enemy” and that their “when you oppose him” (Z I, best
war with each other
I, 7;
Z
I,
10).
as
Zarathustra reminds
should consider their friend “[their]
hearts should feel closest to a friend 14).
The friend/enemy is valued
role in providing the free spirit with the “resistances”
(EH
maintain the sharpness of his heightened instincts over, as Zarathustra parts
much
as
from
his
for his
needed to
I, 7).
More-
admirers into another long period
of therapeutic, self-imposed isolation, he suggests that the heartfelt intimacy experienced by his type of friend can quite appropriately
encompass
der Erkenntnis]
must be able not only
hate his friends” (Z
Friendship across
Is this
“man of knowledge [Der Mensch
feelings of hatred: the
I,
22,
enemies but also to
to love his
3).^“^
Gender
Lines?
“refined conception of friendship” applicable to male-female
relationships?^^
To
struggle and
salutary effect remains
its
a limited extent
it is,
theme of agonistic
for the
prominent
in Nietzsche’s de-
piction of the ideal sort of relationship between a free spirit and his
female consort. Even in his relations with the opposite sex the Nietz-
schean warrior male
is
expected to shun the
safe, pitiable
Mann] he consorts with “woman, as the
sought by the herd male. Because “the true man”
wants “danger and play” out of life,
most dangerous plaything
means of
14.
—
as
opposed to contempt
—
is
amorous
treated
love.
— For he
a
15. In this section I
10:
draw
freely
upon
512-530, copyright
first
my
article
“The
As
a
he seeks
as a sign
of respect
“How much
—
Nietzsche and the ‘Eternal Feminine,”’ 18, 3 (1997):
I,
18).
I,
man for his enemies! and such reverence is enemy for himself, as his mark of distinction.”
noble
desires his
GM
(Z
relations,
by Nietzsche
for one’s equals, be they friend or foe. See, for example,
ence [Ehifurcht] has
[der dchte
[das gefdhrlichste Sp/V/zfz/g]”
testing his mettle even in his
Hatred
comforts
a
rever-
bridge to
Ubermensch's Consort:
published in History of Political Thought
© Imprint Academic, Exeter, U.K. OVERCOMING SOLITUDE
93
out not the submissive shrinking violet of a lesser man’s fantasies but rather a “strangely wild” creature, a “dangerous, creeping, subter-
ranean
little
beast of prey”
(BGE
she poses
239;
whose
EH III,
attractiveness lies in the challenge
5).
man
neither possible nor desirable for the free-spirited higher
It is
to subdue this “wild” creature completely. Nietzsche imagines that
such
a
woman,
and “fear” her
indeed of her society, just as
cf.
239;
BGE
text of “the world’s
1
31).
Nietzsche speaks approvingly in
most powerful and
men
women
influential
their
(BGE
women
While
with their warrior mates.
con-
this
(most re-
power and ascen-
precisely to the force of their will”
Nevertheless, he balks at the idea of such
women
239).
attaining agonis-
believing that “healthy”
can attain certain specifically female forms of excellence
which he
of
life
many strong-willed women
mother of Napoleon),” who “owed
dancy over
tic equality
presence in the
a forceful
have exercised considerable power behind the scenes
in the past
cently the
would remain
[Furcht],
man and
(BGE
possessing an “inner savagery” that inspires “respect”
attributes greater value than “herd virtues”
form of human flourishing
that the ultimate
male exemplars of the
species.
is
—
to
—he maintains
reserved only for a few
As we have already seen, Zarathustra’s
teachings are characterized as “man’s fare” or “warriors’ food” that
would be
indigestible to children
young.” Thus he concludes:
16.
Here, once again,
writings.
I
am
“I
am
and “fond
little
women,
old or
not their teacher and physician” (Z
speaking primarily of Nietzsche’s better-known later
Ruth Abbey suggests that the works of Nietzsche’s middle period counte-
nance the prospect of
middle period,
it is
a truly equal relationship
between the
sexes.
But even
easy to find evidence of the masculinist views that later
dominant. See Abbey, “Beyond Misogyny and Metaphor:
in the
became
Women in Nietzsche’s Mid-
dle ^tv'xody Journal of the History of Philosophy 34, 2 (April 1996): 244-256. 17.
Sarah Koftnan recognizes Nietzsche’s view that “some
mative than
.
.
.
women
are
more
affir-
some men.” Koftnan, “Baubo: Theological Perversions and
Fetishism,” in Nietzsche's
New
Seas: Explorations in Philosophy, Aesthetics,
and Politics,
ed.
Michael Allen Gillespie and Tracy B. Strong (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988), p. 193. Berkowitz hmnoralist, p. 170. as a misogynist.
makes
Thus my
See
The Ethics of an disagreement with Bruce Detwiler’s labeling of Nietzsche a similar observation in his Nietzsche:
his Nietzsche
and
the Politics of Aristocratic Radicalism (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1990), pp. 15, 193.
and practice of gender equality without being sition
94
is
both unfamiliar and objectionable in
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
It is
a hater
possible to be against the idea
of women (although such
a feminist era).
a
po-
.
IV, 17,
woman
also of note that Ecce
i). It is
Ho?no compares the healthy sort of
who were the female followers rather than equals of Dionysus (EH III, 5). However much of a challenge they may pose to their male partners, healthy women are said to find their deepest fulfillment in service to dewith the Maenads of ancient Greek mythology,
—
—
“The man’s happiness [Gb'ick] is: I He will” (Z I, 18). At some deep level,
serving men. As Zarathustra puts
The woman’s
will.
happiness
claims Nietzsche, the finest
is:
it:
women
admire only strong and audacious
men and crave to be dominated by them. This point is made in a passage wisdom metaphorically
that identifies
as a
woman, when Zarathustra
claims that she “never loves anyone but a warrior” (Z
Beyond Good and Evil
in the preface to
supposes truth to be a
woman,
certain type of virtuoso,
when
I,
7).^^ It
Nietzsche,
who
reappears this
time
suggests that she reveals herself only to a
one without the “gruesome eamesmess” and
“clumsy importunity” that have characterized dogmatic philosophers heretofore sisted the
(BGE
Preface;
cf.
GS
Only those men who have
345).
re-
emasculating efforts of centuries of servile moral teaching are
deemed worthy of a fine woman’s attentions. To those whose constitutions predispose them to servility, respect is neither owed nor given. “In
women [die Weihlein] play the deuce with selfless, with merely objective men [ans selbstlosen, aiis blofi objektiven ManneimY (EH III, 5). This same idea is apparent in part I of ZarathustJ^a when the title character asks, “Whom does woman hate most?” and immediately provides his own answer: “Thus spoke the iron the long run,” as Nietzsche suggests, “the
to the magnet:
‘I
little
.
.
hate you most, because you attract me, but are not
me towards you’” (Z I, 18). superior man and his consort could form
strong enough to draw
The
idea that a
ship of equals ideal
woman
is is
further belied by Nietzsche’s view that even the
inherently “shallow” and thus unable to
the depths of the superior man’s nature 18.
Compare
a friend-
(ibid.).*^
most
comprehend
As evidence of
Machiavelli’s infamous suggestion at the end of chapter 25 in The
woman,” she will be “well disposed” to young men “because they are less cautious and more aggressive, and treat her more boldly.” The Prince, ed. Quentin Skinner and Russell Price (Cambridge: Cambridge University Pj ince that “since fortune
is
a
Press, 1988), p. 87. rp.
man
See also Nietzsche’s comparison of woman’s shallowness with that of the Ger-
in Ecce
Homo: “With the German, almost
the bottom, he has none: that
is all”
(EH
XIII,
as
with the woman, one never gets to
3).
OVERCOMING SOLITUDE
"
woman’s
Nietzsche points to her ostensibly inferior
superficiality
manner of
whereas the woman’s love for
loving:
a
characterized by “total devotion
.
.
.
man
a
typically
is
with soul and body without any
consideration or reserve,” presupposing an “unconditional renuncia-
man such a desire for total devotion would be “alien” (GS 363). “A man who loves like a woman,” he concludes, “becomes a slave; while a woman who loves like a woman becomes a more perfect woman'' (ibid.). Passages and
tion of rights”
a “will to renunciation,” for a healthy
such as these highlight the resemblance of Nietzsche’s picture of malefemale friendship to Aristotle’s. Aristotle also posits a hierarchy of philoi in the polis,
with the friendship between virtuous males deemed
most perfect and
the
that
—although hardly
children an inferior
The
man
between the
of virtue and his wife and
—
insignificant
variety.^^
paragraph from The Gay Science quoted above highlights an
important aspect of Nietzsche’s view of women and gender relations that has been either studiously avoided or dismissed outright
commentators who invoke Nietzsche antiessentialism.^^
As
in the
name of
by
feminist
a
have argued at greater length elsewhere,
I
Nietzsche’s attack on nineteenth-century feminists for their attempt “to enlighten
men
about ‘woman as such’
[das
Weih an
and for
sich\
‘woman in herself’” should broader combat against an essen-
their hubristic “elevation of themselves as
be seen not tialist
as
an illustration of
a
view of the feminine but rather
on one
particular
—
liberal
as
feminist
an attempt to cast aspersions
—interpretation
of women’s
name of another (ostensibly more accurate) BGE 232).^^ That Nietzsche considers himself a
essence in the
version
(EH
connois-
III, 5;
seur of
woman’s nature
20. Cf.
Nicomachean
is
suggested in the obvious pride with which
Ethics, bk. 8, chaps.
7-12; The
21. See, for example, the collection Nietzsche
and
Politics,
bk.
chaps.
i,
2, 5, 12, 13.
the Fetninine, ed. Peter J.
(Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1994),
Burgard
and especially Burgard ’s intro-
duction, pp. 1-32. See also the contributions to Nietzsche, Feminism, and Political Theory, ed.
Paul Patton (London: Routledge, 1993).
22. Fredrick Appel,
“The
Ubermensch's Consort: Nietzsche and the ‘Eternal Femi-
nine.’” Nietzsche does not take a consistent line with the ever.
While
at times criticizing its
women’s movement, how-
proponents for putting forward
a faulty
conception
of feminine essence, he accuses them in other passages of commiting a great error “stupidity”
—by attempting
nally, necessarily
96
to talk
men
out of the idea “that there
feminine [Ewig- and Notwendig-Weibliches]”
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
is
(BGE
something 239).
—
eter-
Notwith-
— he reports to
him
his friend Peter
Cast that August Strindberg regards
“as the greatest psychologist of women.
The
“dangerous plaything” role discussed above
form of service to men that Nietzsche assigns to
The second is directly related mentarity of these two roles are
many things
the
same time
III, 12, 17).
his superior
encapsulated by Zarathustra: “There
is
and pleasant
women’s
[niitzlich zugleich
breasts: at
und angenehmY (Z
Another remark relating more direcdy to the division of
labor between the sexes makes the same point: “This
man and woman:
have
women.
His view of the comple-
to procreation.
so well devised that they are like
useful
not the only
is
the one
fit
for
war
III, 12,
23; cf.
Z I,
18;
BGE
how
[kriegstiichti^, the
for bearing children [gebdiTtiichtig]^ but both
and heels” (Z
is
fit
I
would
other
for dancing with
fit
head
239).
Greatly respectful of women’s procreative capacity, Nietzsche believes that
lance
(Z
—
woman’s
virtue
—her “highest hope”
consists in part in bearing the next Ubetynenschlich generation
Zarathustra includes the following
18). Earlier in this section,
I,
in Zarathustra ’s par-
homily: “Everything about
woman
is
a riddle,
and everything about
woman has one solution: it is called pregnancy. / Eor the woman, the man is a means: the end is always the child” (ibid.).^”^ The great importance he attributes to this role
is
further demonstrated in his crit-
icism of Christianity’s “abysmal vulgarity” with respect to “procre-
standing this inconsistency, the
throughout tialist
tion
his
commitment
to gender essentialism remains constant
mature period. In an attempt to recuperate Nietzsche for an antiessen-
feminism, Maudemarie Clark suggests that Nietzsche’s decision to place quota-
marks around the phrase “woman
as
such” (das IVeib an
sich) in
paragraph
231
of
Beyond Good and Evil reveals an ironic stance toward essentialist categories as such. See Clark, “Nietzsche’s Misogyny,” International Studies in Philosophy 26,
While she
is
does not entail
a
23. Letter to
331
7.
an
sich, I
argue in “The Ubermensch's Consort” that this
manner of talking about woman’s essence. Peter Cast, 9 December 1888, in Selected Letters of Friedrich break with
all
Nietzsche,
-
24. Cf. Ecce
‘redeems’ the
(1994):
surely right that Nietzsche wishes to dissociate himself from the Kantian
flavor of a phrase such as Weib
P-
3
man
—
is
a
Homo: “Has
my
answer been heard to the question
woman? One makes
always only the means: thus spoke
Beyond Good and EviPs declaration that strong children”
(BGE
The woman Zarathustra” (EH
a child for her.
a
woman’s
“first
and
last
how one
cures
has need of children, III, 5).
Also of note
profession
is
is
to bear
239).
OVERCOMING SOLITUDE
ation
[die
Zeugiin^
.
.
.
women,
[and] marriage” (A 56).
of Christianity’s ascetic strain to “slander” the body
is
The tendency said to involve
an unwarranted and disrespectful vilification of female procreative functions.
By
contrast, he contends, the Indian
Law
of Manu treats
these matters “seriously, with reverence [Ehrfiircht], with love and trust.”
The
Indian caste society, he believes, “have a
women which
as
elitism pervading
women
to
embody
[arti^ to
(ibid.).
Source of Corruption
all
leave his treatment of
the laws of
way of being polite
has perhaps never been surpassed”
The Feminist Woman
The
who composed
“old greybeards and saints”
aspects of Nietzsche’s thought does not
women
unaffected. Far from believing
all
certain “essential” characteristics simply in vir-
tue of their gender, he presents certain “feminine” roles and dispositions as paradigmatic virtues that
exemplify. ity
Those who
reject
only superior (“healthy”)
women
gender stereotypes and fight for equal-
of the sexes, such as the suffragettes and salon
women
of Nietz-
bottom run of the Rangordnung of
sche’s day, are relegated to the
femininity.
Given Nietzsche’s predilection
for tracing
all
normative claims
and psychological orientations back to physiology and
instinct,
it is
not surprising that he attributes feminist demands for the vote and other legal rights to physiological pathology. rights,”
he diagnoses,
(EH
knows
that”
idea of
woman’s
“is
III, 5).
even
a
“The
struggle for equal
symptom of sickness: every physician
A woman who
tries to talk
inferiority clearly evinces “a
nine instinct [weiblichen InstinkteY'
(BGE
men
crumbling of the femi-
239). Specifically, she
women
are said to
vices: biological reproduction.
‘emancipated’
who
just
perform one of their greatest
ser-
women,
the
Feminists are ^^abonive
lack the stuff for children”
(EH
III, 5).
In this portrait the feminist’s alleged infertility linked to a morbid set of instincts that produces a
envious of and bitterly resentful toward the healthy,
98
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
is al-
we have
leged to be physiologically deficient in an area where, as seen, healthy
out of the
is
inextricably
woman secretly fertile woman of
Nietzsche’s imagination. His account of a feminist activism driven by
envy and ressentiment mirrors
his
more
familiar account of the moti-
who
vations of the feminist’s degenerative male counterpart,
also
is
preoccupied with the secret plotting of revenge upon superior types:
‘“Emancipation of woman’
who who
has nmted out
that
ill,
—
is
is
the instinctive hatred of the
to say
woman
incapable of bearing, for her
is
has turned out well. ... At bottom the emancipated are the an-
world of the ‘eternal-womanly’, the underprivileged
archists in the
whose deepest sentful
woman
instinct
revenge”
is
(ibid.).^^
Nietzsche’s sterile, re-
thus shares with the herd male the mantle of the ple-
beian or lower sort of human being.
Although the feminist
working
woman
remains convinced that she
for the true interests of her sex, Nietzsche claims that she
ensures a contrary result.
A “real woman”
[ein
wohlgeratenes Weib] in
touch with her “most womanly instincts” understands
more
a
is
woman is a woman
[Das Weih,je mehr Weib
es /Jt]
“The more she
this:
the
(BGE
defends herself tooth and nail against rights in general”
239;
EH III, 5). It would be in women’s best interests to submit to the natural order of unequal
gender
relations, for they
would thereby
retain
the advantages of their abilities in one crucial area where, as
we
noted above, he thinks they can exert great power: that of personal relations with
men. “The
war between the
state of nature, the eternal
sexes puts her in a superior position by far”
vate realm of gender relations,
men
(EH
In this pri-
III, 5).
of honor provide
a “tribute
of re-
spect” [Achtungszoll] to their consorts, something that modern, de-
generate
women
have perversely come to see as “almost offensive,”
preferring as they do the “competition for rights”
But when they
insist
on “equal
“grammar school education,
rights,” that
(BGE is,
equal access to
trousers and the political rights of vot-
ing cattle [Stimmvieh-Rechte],^'
women
actually
abandon
natural advantages in exchange for the opportunity to
men in woman”
a
239).
their great
compete
witli
man’s game, thereby “lower[ing] the general rank of
[das allgemeine
25. Nietzsche considers
Rang-Niveau
anarchism to be no
des Weibes ^'heninter'^ bringen] less
an exemplification of modern herd
morality than socialism, liberalism, democracy, or feminism. For tigation of anarchists
and anarchism, see
D
Preface
3;
GS
370;
a
sampling of his cas-
GM
I,
5;
and
A
58.
OVERCOMING SOLITUDE
(EH
III, 5).^^
“Since the French Revolution,” he concludes, “the in-
fluence of woman in
Europe has grown
less
her rights and claims have grown greater”
We
have already seen
Chapter
(in
doctrine of equal rights as a rhetorical
2)
in the
(BGE 239). how Nietzsche
weapon used by
against their natural superiors. This, he argues,
healthy
women
use rights
dominate
talk: to
and domestic spheres. Zarathustra female who, as
behind
a veil
a
“dressed-up
same proportion
men
treats the
the mediocre
exactly
is
how un-
in
both the public
raises the specter
of the ambitious
lie,”
conceals her domineering streak
of submissiveness during courtship, only to unleash
upon an unsuspecting,
gullible
as
groom
after
marriage (Z
20).
I,
it
Hav-
ing sought after a bride and believing himself to have found “a hand-
maiden with the finds himself “the
The
virtues of an angel,” the naive
handmaiden of a woman”
husband suddenly
(ibid.).
unhealthy woman’s success in dominating her
man
in this
—
—
manner is attributed to the basic servility unmanliness of the modern herd male. “If one tests your virility,” Zarathustra declares mockingly to the “men of the present,” “one finds only sterility!” (Z II, 14). Echoing the civic humanist discourse of Aristotle, Machiavelli,
as
and Rousseau, Nietzsche points out instances of what he sees
female domination in his age and interprets them as unmistakable
signs of widespread cultural degradation and decline.^^ In a corrupt
The
26.
parallel
passage from Emile:
makes use of her
with Rousseau
“Woman
is
is
striking.
worth more
as
rights, she has the advantage.
remains beneath us.” Emile, or
On
Education,
Compare,
woman and
for example, the following less as
man. Wherever she
Wherever she wants to usurp ours, she trans. Allan Bloom (New York: Basic
Books, 1979), pp. 363-364. Cf. Penelope Deutscher, ‘“Is it not remarkable that Nietzsche should have hated Rousseau?’ Woman, Femininity: Distancing Nietzsche .
.
.
from Rousseau,”
in Nietzsche, Eeminism,
and
Political Theory, ed.
Paul Patton (London:
Routledge, 1993), pp. 162-188. 27. Nietzsche also adopts the classical civic humanist association of public virtue
with tight male control over women: the ancient Greeks “from Pericles,”
“more
he believes, understood “how necessary [notwendi^”
strict
with
women”
it
to the age of
was
to
become
[strenger gegen das Weib\ “with the increase of their culture
and the amplitude of their powers”
100
Homer
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
(BGE
238;
cf.
HAH 259).
— society,
where men’s
religious-ascetic
power
will to
is
weak or channeled
into either
or lazy self-indulgence,
self-renunciation
many
women seize the opportunity to step outside the domestic sphere and assert themselves publicly.
Decadent European
culture, bereft of the
“manliest drives and virtues” [mannlichsten Tugenden und Ttieben]^ has
women
allowed unhealthy, resentful
(A
17;
TI
I,
28).
“There
is little
to begin aping the
male virtues
manliness here” [Des Marines
wenigj, observes Zarathustra of the ambient, “herd” society.
ist
hier
“There-
women make themselves manly. For only he who is suffiman will redeem the woman in woman” (Z III, 5, 2).^^
fore their ciently a
Nietzsche’s concern for the cultivation of a disposition of “hard-
ness” should be understood in light of this fear of the “castrating” influence of a degenerate, emasculated culture that prefers a tranquilizing, self-indulgent
benevolence over robust acts of creative
Zarathustra issues an ominous warning that “what [IVeibsart],
what stems from
slavishness [Knechtsart]
become master of mankind’s
.
.
.
womanish
now wants
to
no ac“the whole of European
entire destiny” (Z IV, 13,
cident that Nietzsche refers disparagingly to
is
will.^^
3). It is
on everything that annoys him about modern European civilization (D Preface 4).
feminism'''' in
the course of a polemical harangue
“Woman,” he opines
28.
in the Nachlass, “has always conspired
See also Nietzsche’s disparaging comments about the “literary
Litleratur- IVeib] of eighteenth-
and nineteenth-century Europe
and Beyond Good and Evil (TI IX, scribed as a “masculinized
BGE
27;
woman”
233).
Madame
with the
woman”
[das
in Twilight of the Idols
de Stael, for one,
is
de-
of “unbridled presumption,” apparently because
she engaged in scholarship, an inherently masculine pursuit
(BGE
209;
cf.
BGE
144).
Malwida von
Only Meysenbug and complimenting her on her books, another indication that his views on women underwent a marked shift by the early i88os. See, for example, the letter of ten years earlier Nietzsche was corresponding with the writer
14 April 1876 in Selected Letters of Friedrich Nietzsche, p. 142. 29. “To demand that everything should become ‘good man’, herd animal, blueeyed, benevolent, ‘beautiful soul’, character,
would mean
(EH
4).
his
XIV,
day
is
to castrate
.
.
.
would mean
mankind and
to deprive existence of
to reduce
it
to a paltry
Nietzsche’s critique of the “emasculation of social
noted by Keith Ansell-Pearson
in
An
Introduction
life” in
to
its
great
Chinadom”
the Europe of
Nietzsche as Political
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp. 180-199.
OVERCOMING SOLITUDE
lOI
types of decadence, the priests, against the ‘powerful,’ the ‘strong,’
the
men
love”
—
.
(WP
Woman
brings the children to the cult of piety, pity,
864 ).^o
In calling for the cultural regeneration of Europe, Nietzsche
hopes to see the reappearance of warrior figures
emerged out of
a
a soupgon
Napoleon, who
make Europe “virile” example gave modern Euro-
plebeian political culture to
[Vermdnnlich] again. Napoleon’s virile
peans
like
of what
it
would be
like for
“over the businessman and the philistine
man
—and
to regain control
perhaps even over
‘woman’ who has been pampered by Christianity and the enthusiastic
spirit
(GS
ideas’”
30.
of the eighteenth century, and even more by ‘modern 362).
Sarah Kofrnan notes that for Nietzsche, “the weak act
like
women: they
try to
seduce, they charm, by misrepresenting and disguising nihilistic values under gilded trim.” Kofrnan, “Baubo; Theological Perversions and Fetishism,” p. 179. that slave morality evinces seductive feminine qualities
Good and duction leged”
102
Evil,
also
expounded
where Nietzsche speaks of “every unegoistic morality”
[Vei-filhriin^
(BGE
is
221;
cf.
as
and injury [Schddigun^ for precisely the higher,
D Preface
3).
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
The view in
Beyond
both “a serarer, privi-
2
five You
The Higher Breeding of Humanity shall
your
make ajnends to your children
fathers: thus
you
shall
redeem
all
for being the children of
that
is
past!
—Thus Spoke Zarathustra
///,
12, 1
Breeding Companions
W
hen the prospect of finding those worthy of pany seems remote, Nietzsche
38).
stratagems.
“haunted by
ing blacker than the blackest melancholy” and
tempted to throw off all hope and embrace
man” (A
feels
a nihilistic
To combat such pessimism he
The
his
is
coma feel-
sorely
“contempt of
resorts to
numerous
eternal return thought experiment, for one, permits
103
— him
to believe
—
some of
at least
the time
—
in his
own immunity
to
By “willing backwards” Nietzsche convinces himself that “lack of adequate company” is both necessary and salutary, hence insistence that friendlessness has never prevented him “from be-
misfortune. his his
(EH
ing brave and cheerful”
Another strategy to
II, 2).^
fulfill
the psychic need for comradeship in-
volves the creation of a fantasy world populated by idealized friends.
At an early stage of the Zarathustra narrative the sels his interlocutors to
title
character coun-
follow this route, deeming
it
preferable to
“create your friend and his overflowing heart out of yourselves” than to
“endure
.
any kind of neighbor” (Z
.
.
16).
I,
In an 1887 preface to
an earlier work, Nietzsche admits to having recourse to “companions” of this sort:
Thus when spirits’ to
needed to
I
whom
need of them
rounded by
at that
ills
as
1.
ing
time
if I
did not exist in
good
See Chapter
when one
3. It is difficult,
“Where may
himself, at the least for
Devil
I
I
lacked.
(ELAH
[meinew
BediirfniJI]
a letter
“constantly being
wounded” by “not hearing any answer,
Preface
2)-
my kind
of philosopher
last
(WP 464).
years of sanity
from 1888,
after
is
having
profoundest book” (presumably Zarathiistra), he confesses to
own
(why
tedious
of new philosophers?”
its
share, to shed
one can
however, to detect any cheerfulness in the follow-
look with any kind of hope for
my need
I
of companionship clearly disturbed Nietzsche in his
one’s
had
I
while sur-
whom
when they become
“given humanity
on
—but ...
laughing and chattering,
feels like
even more evident in his personal correspondence. In
terribly,
dedicated:
is
spirits
brave companions and familiars with
compensation for the friends
a lack
exist,
was to keep
whom one can send to the
cri de coeur:
That
melancholy-valiant book ...
‘free
(sickness, solitude, unfamiliar places, acedia, inac-
laugh and chatter
and
once also invented for myself the
of this kind do not
‘free spirits’
tivity): as
this
I
[by]
shoulders, alone, the burden which one
else
having to bear, most
would have
liked to
should one write?).” Letter to Malwida von Aleysenbug, end
of July 1888, in Selected Letters of Friedrich Nietzsche, ed. and trans. Christopher Aiiddleton (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1996), 2.
about
p.
In 1885 Nietzsche confessed to his
302.
mother and
sister that “there is
nobody
living
whom I care much; the people I like have been dead for a long long time — for ex-
ample, the Abbe Galiani, or Henri Beyle, or Montaigne.” Letter to Franziska and Elisabeth Nietzsche, 31
104
March
1885, in Selected Letters of Friedrich Nietzsche, p. 238.
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
Given Nietzsche’s avowed commitments bodiment, however, vices for creating his arsenal
(Z
would be odd
it
if
to worldliness
these purely imaginative de-
“companions and children of
III, 3).
There
is
and em-
his
hope” exhausted
clear evidence that Nietzsche envisions
other ways of seeking out suitable companions that involve action in the real world. As
we noted
in
Chapter
2,
he never abandoned hope
of finding the “raw material” for worthy friends and companions. flesh-and-blood
Real,
friends, are
That will
companions,
as
distinct
in the offing:
still
free spirits of this kind could
one day
exist, that
have such active and audacious fellows
morrow and as in
my
from imaginary
among
our Europe
its
sons of to-
the next day, physically present and palpable and not,
merely phantoms and hermit’s phantasmagoria: /
case,
should wish to be the slowly, slowly
.
.
.
last to
doubt
(HAH I Preface
it.
I
see
them already
comings
2)
This reference to the slowness of their appearance
—and to the —appears
patience required by those wishing to hasten their arrival
elsewhere in Nietzsche’s later writings. As
knows
that patience
III, 8, 2; cf. .
.
EH X,
do not speak
.
is
i).
a cardinal virtue for
of men,” he
those with his vocation (Z
Zarathustra informs us that he and his “destiny
to Today, neither
patience and time and
a “fisher
do we speak to the Never: we have
more than time” (Z
IV,
i).
He reassures his in-
may be unable to produce a An] overnight, they “could
terlocutors that although they
“beautiful
new
transform
race” \neuen schonen
[themselves] into forefathers and ancestors [Vdtem und Voifahren] of
Superman” (Z II, 2; cf. Z III, 12, 12). I argue below that Nietzsche’s “slow search
the
for those related to
[him]” includes a serious consideration of questions of lineage and inheritance and even a desire to instigate forms of selective breeding that
(EH
would ensure the continued propagation of higher human types X,
i). I
argue further that the notion of breeding
service not only his
need for companionship but
is
invoked to
also his politics
one of the “tremendous counter-forces” required to stem the
—
as
tide of
mediocrity that, in Nietzsche’s view, threatens to engulf Europe
(BGE
268).
THE HIGHER BREEDING OF HUMANITY
Literal
and Figurative Breeding
Recent studies have tended to follow Kaufmann
in either dismissing
outright or underplaying the idea that Nietzsche seriously coun-
tenanced the notion of breeding in the
sense of eugenics.^
literal
Although the pervasiveness of procreative imagery readily acknowledged, pretation.
The
it is
work
in his
often given a strictly metaphorical inter-
apparent strength of this reading
lies in
Nietzsche’s
undeniably frequent use of procreative imagery to metaphoric
When
he refers to the “continually creative person”
type in the grand sense” [eine erly
human
ativity
with
type”
is
'‘'Mutter^'
[die miitterliche
(GS
fertility is clear
effect.
as “a ‘mother’
von Mensch] or as “the moth-
Art Mensch] the association of cre-
369;
GS
376).“^
As early
as Daybreak^
no more in conscious control of the ideas or deeds gestating within him than the mother is in control of her offspring’s rate of growth or time of birth (D 552). The
Nietzsche declares that the creative type
“birthing” of ideas and deeds
is
is
equated with that of infants
when he
exhorts his readers to “give birth to our thoughts out of our pain and, like
mothers,
endow them with
all
we have of blood,
sure, passion, agony, conscience, fate, cf.
Z
II, 2).
ness” of the
and catastrophe” (GS Preface
philosopher
is
creator as the child
is
to
“Nietzsche looked to
man above Christ,
its
art,
mother
learn that the “fruitful-
work
(GM III,
[Werk],
8; cf.
religion and philosophy
which
BGE
— and not to race—to elevate
4th ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974),
to breed, raise, rear,
a literal
p- 285; cf. p. 303.
dimension to Nietzsche’s
grow or cultivate,
a
word normally used
animals or plants.” But despite his claim to have taken the value,” Strong shies
away from seriously examining
transfigured world.” This vision, he claims,
tempts”
panded
its
206).
breeding in his book, noting that Nietzsche “repeatedly uses the word
“new
to
is
the beasts.” Walter Kaufrnann, Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Anti-
Strong briefly takes up the possibility of
means
3;
to be found not in the sphere of
biological reproduction but rather in his
3.
we
In The Genealogy, moreover,
new (male)
heart, fire, plea-
at description.
is
its
in
call for
ziichten,
Tracy
talk
of
which
connection with
breeding “at face
role in Nietzsche’s vision of a
“so complex as to defy ...
Strong, Friedrich Nietzsche and the
Politics
all at-
of Transfiguration, ex-
ed. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988), pp. 274,
viii,
292.
And as we noted in the previous chapter’s discussion of “infertile” (feminist) women, mediocrity is analogously described as a type of barrenness. Zarathustra considers uncreative, herd men to be “unfruitful” [Unfnichtbare] and “sterile” (Z II, 14; cf. 4.
Z 106
IV, 13, 9).
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
These and
rhetorical tropes have, of course, a long history in moral
political philosophy,^
Nietzsche’s writings
and the importance of that tradition in
beyond
is
rhetoric of procreation
is
dispute.
I
maintain, however, that his
most profitably seen on
a
continuum, with
the metaphorical treatment at one end, the evocation of “breeding”
form of education and/or upbringing
as a
in the
middle range, and
a
frank consideration of experimentation in eugenics at the other ex-
treme.
The
uum
a delicate one,
is
task of placing various textual passages along the contin-
complicated by the fact that the
for breeding, Ziichtung, has (like tural
its
English counterpart) both cul-
and biological connotations. In English
“well-bred”
is
German term
German
as in
the term
used typically as a synonym for “well-trained.”*^ Nietz-
German term
sche’s use of the
for discipline, Zucht^ alongside
its
ety-
mological cousin Ziichtun^ further highlights the importance of the cultural
dimension
in Nietzsche’s treatment of
breeding and reminds
namely
his desire to cultivate
us of what was discussed in Chapter a
“new
own
nobility” {neuen Adel\
children (Z
2,
whose members
are not literally his
III, 12, 12).
When Nietzsche speaks of breeding in this nonliteral, pedagogicaltherapeutic sense, his preference for the term Zilchtimg
by
his suspicion
of the standard
culture. In his eyes Bildung
is
of
is
for education
by
irretrievably tainted
with slave morality,^ and in Ecce education, Erziehimg^
German terms
Homo
reinforced
is
the other
its
and
association
common term
for
treated with equal suspicion: “All questions
ordering of society, education \der Erziehun^ have
politics, the
down
been
falsified
men
have been taken for great
to their foundations because the
inclined, however, to invoke
men” (EH
EiHehung for
II,
his
Nietzsche
10).
own
most injurious is
also
purposes. His de-
scription in his notebooks of the new, higher sort of philosopher as a example, claims in the Nicornachean Ethics that “a
5. Aristotle, for
originates and fathers his 6.
own
actions as he fathers his children”
As Bruce Detwiler reminds us
in his Nietzsche
and
(i
i
human being
I3bi8).
the Politics ofAnstocratic Radi-
Chicago Press, 1990), p. 1 1 1. Nietzsche envisages “great enterprises and collective experiments
calism (Chicago: University of 7.
and breeding [Zucht und Zuchtun^' 8.
14;
For
a
BGE
203.
sampling of some caustic remarks on European Bildung, see
and TI VIII,
dung
in
5.
Mark Warren
in his Nietzsche
in discipline
GS
86;
Z
II,
notes Nietzsche’s preference for Ziichtung over Bil-
and Political Thought (Cambridge:
MIT Press,
1988), p. 262.
THE HIGHER BREEDING OF HUMANITY
comes
“great educator” [Erzieher]
to mind, as does a middle-period
passage which evokes an expansive notion of breeding that has both biological
and cultural components: “Education [Die Erziehimg]
is
a
continuation of procreation [der Zeugiing], and often a kind of sup-
(WP 980; D
plementary beautification of it”
As
this latter passage suggests, a serious
397).
^
concern for breeding
as
education need not imply a lack of interest in questions of propagation. Indeed, in Nietzsche’s
fectual
view the former ultimately becomes inef-
without serious attention to the
Sound pedagogical
latter.
practices and institutions ultimately are ineffectual in the absence of
means of ensuring the appearance of future generations of freethinking, high-spirited individuals predisposed by instinct to live and
a
learn in a healthy manner. His aim
which people
stitutions ... in
and teaching”
(EH
that of marriage^®
panions in mind.
III,
i).^
live
Such
is
to help
fulfill
and teach
as
institutions
I
understand living
—including,
—are of course discussed with
More
the need for “in-
his
imagined com-
important, however, Nietzsche wants his in-
stitutions to flourish over the longiie diiree, in
what Zarathustra gran-
diosely envisages as a “thousand-year empire” (Z IV,
need for measures to ensure the breeding of [regierenden Kaste] for
notably,
Europe,”
a truly
a
i).
“new
Hence
ruling caste
“master race” [Herren-Rasse]
that could avail itself of these institutions over the long haul
251;
WP 960;
It is
cf.
BGE in
(BGE
208).
Nietzsche’s view that the children born of superior
women and raised
the
men and
an environment that encourages self-expression
and self-esteem (rather than conformity and self-abnegation) would stand a better chance at becoming exemplars of excellence than those
whose
birth
ing, as
we noted
and upbringing are in
Chapter
2,
left
to the vagaries of chance. Believ-
that the appearance of higher
human
beings has always been irregular and infrequent heretofore, he an-
nounces
a
grandiose aim of bringing about a society in which these
“brief little pieces of good luck” are “willed” into being
9.
Chapter 6 provides
a
more
(BGE
224;
A
extensive discussion of Nietzsche’s interest in insti-
tution building. 10.
Nietzsche
is
especially desirous of fostering marriage because of
its
status as
“the most enduring form of organization” that provides “security” for society “to the
most
108
distant generations” (TI IX, 39).
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
3;
cf.WP
979).
The key question, he
declares,
being one ought to
breeds
thy of life” (A
EH IV, 4; WP 957).
One
3; cf.
ought to
as
TDill^
is
more
“what type of human
more wor-
valuable,
of the best-kept secrets of recent scholarly commentary on
Nietzsche
toward childbearing and child rear-
his positive stance
is
ing. In the course of his critique of ascetic “preachers of death,” for
example, Nietzsche identifies as particularly noxious their deprecation of a
of child raising. These ascetic “consumptives of the
life
soul,” observes Zarathustra,
cause of their view that “lust
renounce the begetting of children besin,” that “giving birth
is
laborious,”
and that “one gives birth only to unhappy children” (Z
I,
9).
is
In light of the aforementioned “fruitfulness” of the
new
comment
in
The Genealogy that the
philosophers will manifest
thing other than children,
we might be
thustra ’s repeated talk of children
itself in
some-
disinclined to interpret Zara-
literally.
WTen, however, one con-
siders his repeated suggestion that the “garden of marriage” can assist
one
in
propagating oneself “not only forward but upward,” and
that marriage can best be described as “the will of
one who
more than those who
is
created
it,” it
two
to create the
seems plausible that
Nietzsche countenances the propagation of future generations as an
human beings can manifest their 12, 24). The propagation and nurture
important way in which higher
(Z
fruitfulness
I,
20;
cf.
Z
III,
of children as potential creators the only
—
way
for the healthy
is
—although of course not
one way
body
to “create
beyond
(Z
itself’
I,
4).
Breeding and Inheritance Nietzsche’s enthusiasm for marriage and reproduction
tended to
all
is
hardly ex-
marital and reproductive arrangements. In Zarathustra to those prospective parents
who
have gone through an intense period of self-examination and
self-
propagation
is
recommended only
development: “You should build beyond yourself [Uberdich bauen\.
But
first
you must be
.
.
.
hinaus-
built yourself [selber gebaut sein]^ square-
body and soul” (Z I, 20). One should take steps, in other words, to “become what one is” and throw off all false consciousness built in
before taking on the responsibility of raising the next generation.
THE HIGHER BREEDING OF HUMANITY
However, no amount of preparation the appearance of children
for
parenthood
“more worthy of
will
guarantee
the prospective
life” if
upon the offspring of
parents are “decadent.” Nietzsche looks askance
those whose desire to reproduce has been driven by “the animal and necessity,” or “isolation,” or
“disharmony with yourself’ (ibid.).When
Zarathustra asks rhetorically, “Are you a
man who
ought to desire a
child?” (ibid.), the implication seems to be that only certain reproductive
arrangements are especially praiseworthy.
A child born from spir-
weak parents can hardly be considered a potential creator of values. As we learn in Beyond Good and Evil^ “it is quite impossible that a man should not have in his body the qualities and preferences of his itually
may
parents and forefathers: whatever appearances
(BGE
trary”
Thus
264).
say to the con-
the sterile, conformist propensities of
ern scholars are traced back to deficiencies in their lineage,
more
creative, free-spirited types are
free-spirited parents desirous of
their “victory
The made
link
and
.
.
.
liberation”
likely to issue
(GS
348, 349;
Z I,
more
creative,
20).
instinct
and birth
is
Beyond Good and Evil:
For every elevated world one has to be born pressed
while
producing “living memorials” to
between superiority/inferiority of
explicitly in
from
mod-
clearly, bred \geziichtei\ for
—taking the word
losophy
in the
it:
[geboren] or, ex-
one has
grand sense
a right to phi-
—only by
virtue of
one’s origin [Abkiinft\\ one’s ancestors [Vorfahren], one’s ‘blood’ [Gebliit] are
the decisive thing here too.
Many
generations must
have worked to prepare for the philosopher; each of his virtues
must have been individually acquired, tended, rated.
(BGE
213)
A similar conclusion is “there
1 1
.
is
inherited, incorpo-
found
in the Nachlass,
only nobility of birth
The tendenq^
[Gebiirtsade[\^
where we discover that only nobility of blood
to attribute normative-spiritual inferiority to low birth
is
also
evident in Nietzsche’s criticism of Socrates. Socrates’ valorization of reason over instinct
is
possible to grasp the lofty notion of trust in one’s instincts (TI ilarly,
the plebeian nature of the Protestant Reformation
II, 3; cf.
is
peasant origins and allegedly consequent vindictiveness (A 61;
GMIII,
made it imTI X, 3). Sim-
explained by pointing to his plebeian origins, which supposedly
22). t
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
attributed to Luther’s cf.
GS
358;
BGE
50;
[Gebliitsadel],
.
.
When
.
one speaks of
of the
‘aristocrats
sons are usually not lacking for concealing something. alone does not
make noble
(WP
quired? Blood [Des Gebliits]”
spirit.
is
typical nineteenthrity”
For
spirit
is
re-
942). is
convention-
understanding of who should be consid-
from conventional
in
its
rejection of the
more
and twentieth-century obsession with the “pu-
Declaring that he has taken the concept of “gentle-
of blood.
men” more
far
.
—What then
Although the emphasis on inheritance and blood ered an aristocrat
.
rea-
[Geist allein ndmlich adelt nicht]; rather,
there must be something to ennoble the
ally aristocratic, Nietzsche’s
.
spirit,’
“radically” than
it
has ever been taken heretofore, Nietz-
sche finds the blood of Europe’s nineteenth-century aristocracy
wanting
(EH
X,
2).
The
so-called aristocrats of the
claims Zarathustra, far from being well-bred in his strate their
accuses
a
He
decadence by serving plebeian, mercantile values.
them of selling
their supposedly high birth to “shopkeepers
with shopkeepers’ gold” (Z
come
modern world, sense, demon-
III,
12, 12).
Moreover, they have “be-
bulwark to that which stands,” knee-jerk defenders of a woe-
ful political status
quo
in
which
the hands of herd politicians
real political
(ibid.).
power has
Having abdicated
all
fallen into real
power
and reponsibility, they are accused of debasing the very notion of nobility
by subsuming
it
into servile Hoflichkeit, that
and gestures. These aristocrats at courts,”
name
courdy manners
only, having
“grown courtly
have “learned to stand for long hours in shallow pools,
motley-coloured
like a
with courtiers; and
12.
in
is,
all
flamingo: / for being able to stand
a
merit
courtiers believe that part of the bliss after
Benedict Anderson argues that modern
Comte de Gobineau,
is
racist doctrine,
developed by the
flowed easily from earlier aristocratic preoccupations with
blood. In the age of nationalism, the notion of superior races characterized by pure
blood was “democratized” to include whole nations or peoples See Anderson, Imagmed Communities:
Reflections on the Origin
(London: Verso, 1991), pp. 149-150. Strong rightly notes that in Nietzsche’s view “there
in the privileged elite.
and Spread of National-
ism, rev. ed. 13.
who
is
no reason why someone
occupies the status of a president or king might not be slavely moral.
One
does
not have slave morality in the same manner as one has social-economic status.” Fnedrich Nietzsche and the
Politics
of Transfiguration, p. 239. Peter Berkowitz makes a
similar point in his Nietzsche: The Ethics of an Immoralist (Cambridge: sity Press, 1995), p.
1
Harvard Univer-
19.
THE HIGHER BREEDING OF HUMANITY
I I I
— death
— being allowed to
is
sit!” (ibid.).
the whole of virtue with being able to
less servility that associates
wait endlessly in courts (Z IV,
Thus even
as
Zarathustra decries the mind-
3, 2).
he attributes the possession of fine instincts to the
right sort of blood, Nietzsche associates the latter neither with
any
conventional European aristocracy nor with a particular race or eth-
Aryan or otherwise.
nic group,
made
that the
raw material
In Zarathustra the suggestion
who
societies,
from individuals
have broken with the mainstream. Zarathustra issues his
them: “You
solitaries
[ihr Ausscheidenden],
who
you,
of today, you
you
come
for a noble order of the future will
from the margins of contemporary herd
shall
who
is
call to
have seceded from society
one day be
a people [ein Volk\\
from
have chosen out yourselves, shall a chosen people spring
and from
this
chosen people, the Superman” (Z
I,
22, 2).
Nietzsche
imagines these marginals and deviants coming together to form a
new “master race” that character (GS 377).
is
multiracial (rather than “pure-blooded”) in
In The Genealogy he claims that noble types have arisen in areas of the world and spring
from many peoples
Japanese, and Arabic, for example
many
—Scandinavian,
—and never suggests that the
ori-
gins of the future ruling caste will be anything other than cosmopoli-
tan
(GM
emerge out of racial
Hence
ii).
I,
—and
his
view that the new ruling caste would
—“international
be continually replenished by
unions” [intemationalen Geschlechts-Verbdndeji]
comments on how
(WP
960).
His
the “slave revolt” led to an unfortunate, promis-
cuous mingling of the races might appear to suggest something quite
—
different
a
concern for the purity of the ruling
and
14. Cf. Detwiler, Nietzsche
ception must be
made
caste’s
blood
the Politics of Ariston'atic Radicalis?n, p.
Germanocentrism of an
work such
(GM I,
1 1 1.
An
ex-
The Birth of Tragedy. After throwing off the early influence of Wagner, Nietzsche invariably imag-
ines his readership as ity
for the
early
as
“good Europeans” rather than members of a particular national-
or ethnic group. Carl Pletsch notes that the shift tow^ard cosmopolitanism began
with the appearance of Human, All Too Hutnan in 1879. Pletsch, Young Nietzsche: Be-
coming a Genius sche’s 6;
1
12
GS
(New
York: Free Press, 1991),
understanding of higher 377;
BGE
Preface;
BGE
human
202. For
some examples of Nietz-
beings as good Europeans, see
241, 256; and
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
p.
\\T
132.
HAH II Preface
BGE
9; cf.
difficulty
is
200).^^ In the offending passages, however, Nietzsche’s
not with interracial breeding
in principle;
he
is
well dis-
posed toward an interbreeding of disparate individuals deemed (by
him) superior.
What
he frowns upon
is
the genetic mixture of “bad
—belonging to those he deems of “the lower
blood”
[schlechtes Bltit]
orders”
—with the blood of
EH II,
10).
Nowhere
essentially noble types
in Nietzsche’s
work
(EH
are “lower
EH
I, 3;
human
I,
8;
beings”
associated with a particular racial or ethnic group.
Ascription
vs.
Achievement
Notwithstanding
this
unusual insistence on the multiracial character
of nobility, the emphasis on inheritance remains
not exclusive) concern of Nietzsche’s
later
(although
a central
works. In scoffing at the
expression “aristocracy of the spirit” in the Nachlass passage quoted
above, he aims to expose what he sees as the wishful thinking implied
Enlightenment
in the
in favor of merit.
to just
call for
an overthrow of inheritance and birth
Ascension to the real aristocracy simply
any educated individual. The idea that genealogy
prescribes one’s potential and determines one’s fate
is
is
not open
essentially
strongly sug-
gested in Zarathustra’s advice to his interlocutors; “Eollow in the footsteps of your fathers’ virtue,” he counsels, for “it
would be
a
piece of folly” to “pretend to be saints in those matters in which your fathers
were vicious” (Z
Science speaks of
from generation
is
II, 7).
Moreover, The Gay
governed by certain “capacities”
to generation, becom[ing] domineering, unreason-
and intractable” (GS 361).
This because
stress it
on lineage
forces
him
strong, higher type
15.
character
Z
transmitted through the bloodline and “accumulated
[Veiynbgen]
able,
how
IV, 13, 13; cf.
This
is
is
rather
awkward
to reconcile his
^^sn 7n?na
for Nietzsche personally
own
sinmnanmT with
self-understanding as his
a
view of his immedi-
the conclusion of Hubert Cancik in his ‘“Mongols, Semites, and the
Pure-Bred Greeks’; Nietzsche’s Handling of the Racial Doctrines of His Time,” Nietzsche aiid Jewish Culture, ed. Jacob
Golomb (London:
Routledge, 1997),
in
p. 61.
THE HIGHER BREEDING OF HUMANITY
common
ate family as
view
is
his father,
I, i;
Homo. The Protestant
mother and
EH
Nietzsche
I, 3).
be a blasphemy against
is
mother and
sister],”
my divinity” (EH
which involves clinging
German”
“To be
re-
he declares, “would
I, 3).
redeem
his “divinity.”
The
steadfastly to the aristocracy of birth
a scarcely lucid
and rather pathetic vaunting of
wholly reinvented personal lineage: bleman,” he
and “morbid” and
[zart]
well aware of the problem:
separate strategies are invoked to
model, involves
all
minister’s son reveals that
sister for their “incalculably petty” instincts
lated to such canaille [as his
first,
his
That he held this latter comments on his imme-
although “lovable,” was “delicate”
derides his
Two
[canaille].
borne out by an examination of
diate family in Ecce
(EH
and vulgar
am
“I
a
pure-blooded Polish no-
a
whom there is no drop of bad blood, least of On a charitable reading of this move, Nietz-
insists, “in
(ibid.).^^
sche thereby stakes a claim to a hybrid genealogy, a “two-fold origin .
.
from the highest and the lowest rung of the ladder of life,” with
.
the dominant “Polish” side of his constitution allowing
come decadence (EH
A
him
to over-
I, i).
second, less fanciful track has Nietzsche returning to a
strictly meritocratic
In a
riod.
more
view of nobility characteristic of his middle pe-
work such
as
Human, All
aristocracy “of the spirit” that
rather than ridiculed
(HAH
is
Human
Too
the notion of an
independent of birth
210, 261).
The
criteria
is
embraced
of free spirited-
ness include the ability to break not only with established customs
and
beliefs
(HAH
but also with one’s “origin, environment
225). In this
acquiring abilities
work Nietzsche
—rather than
.
.
.
[and] class”
gestures toward the possibility of
simply inheriting them
—when
he
balances a discussion of “inborn talent” with an emphasis on “ac-
quired toughness, endurance and energy” this
summed up
approach,
16.
(HAH
was suppressed by Nietzsche’s
sister,
edition used by Hollingdale for his translation,
trumpeting
Georg Brandes, 10
14
later reinserted into the
make use of here. Another efbackground is made in a letter to
which
a fictitious Polish aristocratic
sis-
Elisabeth Forster-Nietzsche, in her
I
April 1888, in Selected Letters of Friedrich Nietzsche, p. 293.
See Ruth Abbey, “Descent and Dissent: Nietzsche’s Reading of
Moralists” (Ph.D.
I
thrust of
admirably by the declaration that free
posthumous edition of his works. The suppressed passage was
17.
The
This passage, which also includes the reference to Nietzsche’s mother and
ter as canaille,
fort at
263).
diss.,
McGill University, 1994), pp. 213-224.
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
Two French
spiritedness represents a “victory of education over the arrogance of ancestry,” jostles uneasily with an aristocracy of birth
tures a side to Nietzsche that
ment
(HAH
embraced the
model and cap-
ideals of the Enlighten-
237).^^
Although the aristocracy of birth model becomes more prominent in the late works, its meritocratic rival
still
makes
forceful appear-
ances and competes for attention, notably in Zarathustra’s exhortation to his interlocutors to “let
where you are going, not where you
come from, henceforth be your honor” (Z III, may stem “from the race of the hot-tempered
12, 12).
Although one
or of the lustful or of
the fanatical or of the vindictive,” with the proper encouragement
one might ils
[into]
The
find the resources within oneself to turn
angels” (Z
all
of one’s “dev-
I, 5).
meritocratic view also seems to
fit
well with the sort of un-
conditional affirmation of the past and present implied in the eternal
return thought experiment. Nietzsche speaks in this context of how, after a
long period of shame and despair
reason to weep over
its
parents?”
—“What child has not had
—he learned
to affirm even his fa-
him early on toward an ethereal transcendentalism, Nietzsche came to appreciate how its project of service to God and truth instilled in him a “heroic” discipline and suspicion of laissez-aller that became important in his own, worldly project of self-overcoming (Z II, 4). Thus he learned to ther’s priestly asceticism
embrace the to it
its
title
(Z
I,
20).
Although
it
tilted
of “heir” [Eben] to this self-discipline and to accede
(hypothetical) eternal recurrence even as he pledges to redirect
(D Preface
in ostensibly healthier directions
4).
After acknowledging and even affirming his tainted ancestry in this
manner, Nietzsche finds himself
immediate parentage and embrace
“One
genealogy:
is
in a position to transcend his
a loftier, fanciful (that
least related to one’s parents.
.
.
.
we should understand 18.
(EH
I, 3). It is
willed)
Higher natures
have their origins infinitely farther back, and with them
be assembled, saved and hoarded”
is,
much had
to
in this context that
Nietzsche’s claims to be “related” to political
Middle-period passages that perpetuate the aristocracy of birth model include
HAH 442
and
of the spirit”
tendency
D
205, 272. Nietzsche’s use of the perplexing phrase “born aristocrats
[die geborejien
in these
Aristokraten des Geistes] in
works to
slide
between the
HAH 2 10 highlights his frequent
tw'o models.
THE HIGHER BREEDING OF HUMANITY
figures such as the thirteenth-century antipapist
the Second
(EH
IX,
ble type can find a
4).
new
Having made
emperor Friedrich
his peace with his past, the
sort of kinship “through loftiness of will”
no-
(EH
III, 3).
This reference to
a kinship resting
ogy should caution us against remarks on breeding tion.
As
ing”
is
on the
will rather
hastily interpreting
as a call for controlled
all
than physiol-
of Nietzsche’s
eugenic experimenta-
have argued above, however, the instances where “breed-
I
discussed as a nurturing form of pedagogy are not inconsis-
tent with calls for procreation in the literal sense. Indeed, Nietzsche’s literary surrogate
evokes their compatibility
interlocutors that talents developed in
aspects of one’s lineage can be used to shall
make amends
thers: thus
you
to
shall
redeem
ation, pedagogy, or both) its
eminently
institutional
Now we
all
that
I
16
is
often
to ensure
is
his left
political nature
framework
must turn
suggests to his
overcoming the unfortunate
become
a better parent:
“You
your children for being the children of your
Although the exact nature of about
when he
past!”
(Z
III, 12, 12).
breeding project
procreis
clear
a political-
establishment and sustenance.
to the matter of Nietzsche’s politics.
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
(as
ambiguous, Nietzsche
— about the need for
its
fa-
I
The Art of
X
The first part of this
chapter^
thored by Ruth Abbey
Politics up
to '‘'Plato
V Peifect State, ”
and Fredrick Appel and has been
is
coau-
revised by
Fredrick Appel.
Beyond Petty
G
iven Nietzsche’s ical
many deprecatory remarks about the
realm and his self-description
tics, it is
as a thinker
I.
Politics?
understandable that
as a thinker
many have
unconcerned with or despairing of
polit-
above poli-
characterized
politics in
him
general^
See the Introduction, note 26 for some examples of influential antipolitical in-
terpretations of Nietzsche.
He
undeniably derides the “long-drawn-out comedy of [Europe’s]
petty states and the divided will of its dynasties and democracies” and
condemns Germany’s
German
imperialist pretensions
(BGE
208).
He
scorns
movements in general as examwith which Europe is sick, [an] eternaliz-
nationalism and nationalist
ples of a “nevrose nationale
ing of the petty-state situation of Europe, of petty politics [kleinen PolitikY’
(EH XIII,
GS
2; cf.
377;
tiness clearly has a great deal to
interests
WP Preface WP 748). Such pet2;
do with democratic catering
and needs of the majority. Zarathustra “turned
to the
back
[his]
upon the rulers” after finding their political activity to be nothing more than “bartering and haggling for power with the rabble!” (Z II, 6) Only small-minded people, in his view, entertain ambitions for strive power in herd society: only the “superfluous [Ubeijiiissigen]
—
.
towards the throne” (Z
Does
this
I
mean, however, that Nietzsche reduces
all
beneath the dignity of his higher
politics to
human
be-
argue that equating his criticisms of the modern state and his
condescending treatment of democratic to politics in general
sage from Ecce
Homo
is
a
way out of
politics
with an opposition
premature.^ Indeed, the aforementioned pas-
castigating petty politics gestures toward a dif-
ferent and higher type of politics
know
.
I, 1 1).
petty, herdlike behavior,
ings?
.
by asking, “Does anyone except
this blind alley?
again to unite the peoples?”
...
(EH XIII,
2).
A
enough once
task great
Some
me
alternative
is
evoked
again in Nietzsche’s prediction that “the compulsion to grand politics”
supersede “petty politics”
will
(BGE
the declaration that “political and
208). In Daybreak^ moreover,
economic
affairs are
being the enforced concern of society’s most gifted diately followed cal
by
a critique
not worthy of
spirits”
is
imme-
of contemporary economic and politi-
arrangements and attitudes, in particular the idea that the
state
should provide universal security (D 179). Even in the earlier
man, All Too Human, the requirement that “a few must
first
of
Hu-
all
be
flowed, now more than ever, to refrain from politics and to step a little aside” is followed by the anticipation of a time wJigjjj^e^e few 2.
Gerald Mara and Suzanne Dovi similarly caution against the
antipolitical read-
ing in their “Mill, Nietzsche, and the Identity of Postmodern Liberalism,”
57 (February 1995): 5. See also Bruce Detwiler, Nietzsche and the tocratic Radicalis?n (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), p. 59. Politics
I 1
8
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
Jownal of
Politics
ofAris-
Thus while
“permission to speak”
will take
those
who
read Nietzsche as nonpoliti^ or antipolitical are correct in claiming that he denounces “petty politics,” they ity that this
might be
in the
name of a
to consider the possibil-
fail
higher, grander conception of
the political, one that includes cultural-cum-ethical concerns.
The
reading of Nietzsche as a thinker uninterested in or
mately scornful of politics can be buttressed by
on
tion of his aestheticism.^ His accent
an
artist
of the self
for social
valry
exist.
art in the conventional, limited sense
types of
engaged
human
in the
existence.
ethical
does
“What does it
all
art
not select? does
it
That
do? does
it
is
not praise? does
not highlight?
among
encompass any form of bold,
3.
fied
.
.
.
[this is] cf.
aesthetics, ethics,
original creativity.
artist to
he
Artists,
TI
it
not glorify?
the prerequisite III, 6;
and
WP 821).
will to
power
is
often taken to
He
repeatedly in-
convey an action-oriented, produc-
As Martha Nussbaum observes, Nietzsche’s remarks about existence being justi-
only as an aesthetic phenomenon
(e.g.,
BT Preface
imply some sort of moral aestheticizing of existence,
and
iso-
suggested in Twilight of the
runs deeper, for the aesthetic in Nietzsche’s work
vokes the image of the
not
art inspires discriminating, practical
for the artist’s being an artist at all” (TI IX, 24;
Yet the relationship
judgment.
is
eminently ethical endeavor of ranking
judgments about human flourishing Idols:
ri-
ethical or the political does not
from questions of power and
claims, are
cultivating the individual as
For Nietzsche, however, such
political projects."^
Even
narrow interpreta-
often taken to be incompatible with a concern
is
between the aesthetic and the
always lated
and
a
ulti-
political categories in the
name of detached
GS
107) are often “taken to
a playful
overturning of all moral
5;
aesthetic values.”
Nussbaum, “Trans-
figurations of Intoxication: Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, and Dionysus,” Avion
i,
2
(Spring 1991): loi. 4. See, for
the
artist,
example, Walter Kauftnann’s claim that Nietzsche “was concerned with
the philosopher, and those
who
achieve self-perfection.
.
.
.
[Those who]
af-
firm their
own being and
morrow.”
Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, AntiChrist, 4th ed. (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1974),
p.
all
eternity,
backward and forward, have no thought of to-
322. Echoes of this reading can be found in Alexander
Ne-
hamas, Nietzsche: Life as Literature (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985), pp. 136-137; Leslie Paul Thiele, “The Agony of Politics: The Nietzschean Roots of Foucault’s
Thought,” American
and Bonnie Honig,
Political
(September 1990): 913; Displacement of Politics (Ithaca: Cornell Uni-
Political Science
Theory and the
Review 84,
3
versity Press, 1993), p. 231.
THE ART OF POLITICS
“productive” species-type “to the extent that
tive life. Artists are a
(WP
they actually alter and transform”
impulse
(WP
mighty want to form” His “ardent, creative .
.
will” drives
drives the
[I]t
.
941).
(EH IX,
8).
him “again and again ...
to
an ugly stone which requires the sculptor”
ness, material,
mankind
human beings, for “the strong, the To Zarathustra, “man is formless-
characteristic of higher
is
585a). This broad aesthetic
hammer
to the stone” (ibid.;
cf.
As the capacity to create and transform includes the
work
human
on, shape, order, and organize
beings,
Z
II, 2).
ability to
unsurprising
it is
that Nietzsche construes politics as aesthetic activity. Barbarians
“who come from
the heights: [are] a species of conquering and ruling
natures in search of material to mould”
(WP
We
900).
the violent beginnings of the polity were forged by
command, act
.
.
.
who
and bearing.
.
.
[are] .
by nature
Their work
1
7).
.
.
.
.
who
[are]
violent in
egoism”
artists’
artists
(GM II,
violence” and to “those artists
“artists’
of violence and organizers [Gewalt-Kimstlem und Organisatoren] build states” (ibid.;
over
feels
a
GM
II, 18).^
can
an instinctive creation and impo-
[T]hey exemplify that terrible
Nietzsche refers to their
.
.
men “who
most involuntary, unconscious
sition of forms; they are the
there are.
is
‘master,’
are told that
Discussing the power the great
who man
people, he speaks of the desire “to give a single form to
(WP 964).
the multifarious and distorted”
Nietzsche’s general claim that the great
man
is
“always intent on
making something out of’ the people he comes into contact with
who work “on
by Caesar and Napoleon,
illustrated
whatever the cost in men”
(WP
WP
962;
(WP
of government so far”
129). Christians,
gated as “not high or hard enough for the
mankind"
5.
(BGE
62).
As Julian Young
for talking about artists rapists
(TI LX,
8)
—
—he
refers to
is
them
continually emphasizes
.
.
.
action.
the ranks of
‘artists.’” Nietzsche's
versity Press, 1993), P-
this.
-
casti-
refashioning of
artistic .
.
.
some
divine
Nietzsche’s activist vocabulary
And
it is
this perspective
and
on the
as
artist
and builders of states and empires
Philosophy ofArt
(New
York:
Cambridge Uni-
Cf. Peter Berkowitz, Nietzsche: The Ethics of an Immoralist
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1995),
120
by contrast, are
as creators, makers, doers, violators
that provides the basis for inclusion of conquerors
among
Napo-
as the “great artists
Nietzsche envisages one “with
writes, “art, in short,
their marble,
975). Confucius,
and the Imperium Romanum are numbered
leon,
is
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
p. 88.
hammer
in his
hand” reacting to the sight of the distorted humanity
wrought by Christianity by
wailing,
“Was
this
work
for
your hands!
How you bungled and botched my beautiful stone!” (ibid.). These remarks abundantly
illustrate Nietzsche’s
broad notion of
the aesthetic and his thinking about grand politics as aesthetic activity.
human
Indeed, he imagines the goal of redeeming the
from
its
current decline as the ultimate
artistic project.
species
His “higher
concept of art” encompasses the “artist-philosopher,” and he wonders
how
men
that he can
such
politics will
a
have
man
“can place himself so far distant from other
form them” a different
(WP
The time is coming “when meaning” [wo man iiber Politik unlemen master race of the future working “as
wird\,
and Nietzsche sees
a
artists
upon ‘man’ himself’
(WP
Politics as
795).
960).
Architecture
In light of passages such as paragraph 287 of Beyond Good and Evil,
which underline the importance of the quality of motivation determination of nobility,
many
in the
recent commentators follow Kauf-
mann’s conclusion that Nietzsche “does not write to endorse course of action” and that his “primary concern
tions.
a
Many
stress
passages illustrate Nietzsche’s view that an individual’s
worth depends on the quality of derives partly certain
when
not with particu-
on the importance of motive need neutral stance toward the content and outcome of ac-
lar actions.”^
not entail
However, the
is
a
from
way cannot
his deeds.
his
life’s
work and
that his identity
Simply thinking about oneself
in a
create self-transformation; this can occur only
actual behavior
is
attended to and
life
projects altered. Nietz-
sche dismisses the belief that “mere evaluation should produce
6.
Kaufmann,
Nietzsche: Philosopher,
Psychologist,
AntiChjist, p.
248. Cf. Tracy
Strong’s assertion that Nietzsche does not concern himself with “actual behavior” in his Friedrich Nietzsche af7 d the Politics of Trafisjiguration,
versity of California Press, 1988), p. 13;
cf. p.
expanded
ed. (Berkeley:
91. Similar claims are
in Nietzsche: Life as Literature, p. 203. Berkowitz’s
Uni-
made by Nehamas
Nietzsche locates nobility not in ac-
tions but in “the self-knowledge of the noble soul.” Nietzsche: The Ethics of an Intmoi-alist, p.
252;
cf. p.
255.
THE ART OF POLITICS
12
I
‘works’” as “unnatural.” Instead, “one must practice deeds, not
strengthening of one’s value-feelings”
of the definition of nobility
is
(WP
192;
cf.
WP
one constantly contradicts the
“that
great majority not through words but through deeds”
Becoming what one
210). Part
(WP
944).
requires the discharge of talents and tough-
is
ness “in works and actions”
(HAH
263).
The power of actions
to de-
condemnation of Chris-
fine identity also appears in Nietzsche’s tians, for
they do not engage “the works which Jesus demanded”
(WP
cf.
191;
A 38).
Nietzsche thus parallels his Rangordnung of higher and lower hu-
mans with worthy ity.
the
a hierarchy
actions, the
“How And
mediocre and contemptible engage
why his
This explains
human
of deeds: superior individuals perform praise-
species are
complaints about the decrepit condition of
accompanied by claims such
few ‘works’ for the sake of which
alas
no more
in base activ-
‘deeds’ whatever!”
life
(WP
as the following:
on earth
is
worth while!
395).
What, for Nietzsche, characterizes a great deed? This same passage from the Nachlass refers to great works that have remained and not been washed away by the waters of time,” which illustrates his focus on formal properties of fine action such as its ambition and long-term scope
(ibid.).
The doer of great
create things of lasting value. “It
deeds possesses the will to
must seem
bliss to
you,” remarks
Zarathustra to an imagined comrade, “to press your hand upon the millennia as
upon wax,
upon metal”(Z
upon the will of millennia as comes to politics, Nietzsche en-
/ bliss to write
III, 12, 29).
When it
dorses Machiavelli’s claim that “the great goal of statecraft should be duration^
which outweighs everything
Nietzsche’s
model
works that endure ways inspired
is
else”
(HAH
for those farsighted artists
the architect:
224).
who
strive to create
“The most powerful men have
architects; the architect has always
al-
been influenced by
power. Pride, victory over weight and gravity, the will to power, seek to render themselves visible in a building; architecture
rhetoric of power,
now
a
kind of
persuasive, even cajoling in form,
bluntly imperious” (TI IX, ii). In the
human
is
now
modern world, however,
the
type based on the architect [der Baiimeister\ has been super-
seded by that based on the actor [der Schauspeiler], with baneful consequences:
122
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
— The
make
strength to build becomes paralyzed; the courage to
plans that encompass the distant future
is
discouraged; those with
undertake projects that
become scarce: who would still dare to would require thousands of years for their
completion? For what
is
a genius for organization
would enable us
namely, the faith that is
a stone in a
is
the fundamental faith that
to calculate, to promise, to anticipate the future
in plans of such scope,
he
dying out
and to
man
sacrifice the future to
them
has value and meaning only insofar as
gt'eat edifice.
(GS 356)
Nietzsche follows Machiavelli and Aristotle by likening the work of the master legislator to that of the architect.
The
task of the great-
resembles that of founders of constitutions
est architects
“[eternalizing] a grand organization of society, the
who aim
at
supreme condi-
tion for the prosperity of life” (A 58). This approach
is
most evident
immense admiration for the political and constitutional achievements of ancient Rome. “Nobody stronger and nobler has yet existed on earth” in large part because of the Romans’ audacity to his
in
enact plans for social and political engineering that were millennial in
scope
(GM
I,
16; cf.
A 38). They established institutions so sturdy
as to survive “the accident of persons”
(A
Nietzsche marvels
58).
at
the development of a “most grandiose form of organization ... in
comparison with which everything before and everything since patchwork, bungling, dilettantism” “this
most admirable of all works of art
ginning, this
its
The
in the
hnperiinn Roinamnn,
grand
D
style,
was
a
structure was calculated to pi'ove itself by millennia
day there has never been such building, to build
ner snb cf.
(ibid.).
specie
aetemi has never been so
much
as
is
in such a
dreamed
be-
—
to
man-
of!” (ibid.;
71).
Nietzsche bemoans the subversion of the impressive structure by the Christian table of values and political.
Faced with the
Roman
Christians could only ask,
its
hostility
edifice of institutions
“What
is
the point of public
Roman
toward the
and practices, spirit,
what
is
the point of gratitude for one’s descent and one’s forefathers, what is
the point of co-operation, trust, of furthering and keeping in view
the general welfare? ...
from the
‘right road’”
So many ‘temptations,’ so many diversions
(A 43).
The
political
quietism of Paul
is
also
THE ART OF POLITICS
I
23
condemned: “There
is
nothing more
false
declares Zarathustra, than to say, ‘“Let
and
or deceitful in the world,”
him who wants
and harass and swindle the people; do not
kill
to slaughter
raise a finger
Thus they will yet learn to renounce the world’” (Z III, 12, 15).^ Paul, we are informed, drew his followers from an “absolutely unpolitical and withdrawn species of little people^^ (WP 175). Once it against
it!
gained popularity, the Christian ideal proved destructive of the political
and
because
social
it
detaches the individual from people, risdiction;
it
—
lets
it
the usefulness and value of man.
ther aggressive nor defensive
.
.
.
Unpolitical, anti-national, nei-
life,
asites to proliferate at public expense.
who
ju-
everything go that comprises
—possible
firmly ordered political and social
Christians are “parasites”
community,
knowledge, cultivation of good
rejects education,
manners, gain, commerce
state, cultural
only within the most
which allows these holy par-
(WP
221;
cf.
WP 204,
21 1)
focus on otherworldly goals while
achievements of lofty-minded,
living off the political-architectural
worldly others, even as they denigrate the achievements of the latter as “vainglory.”
lution
is
A modern
political
movement
like the
French Revo-
“the daughter and continuation of Christianity,” for one of
the things
it
inherits
is
the Christian devaluation of politics, which
“destroy[s] the instinct for a grand organization of society” 90).
The
pervasive influence of Christianity
on
political
(WP
184,
thought and
why Nietzsche finds so much to condemn in modernity: “No one any longer possesses today the
action helps to explain
the politics of
courage to claim special privileges or the right to courage for
a pathos
of distance.
lack of courage!” (A 43;
In
what he
cf.
.
.
.
Our
politics
is
rule,
moi'bid
.
the
from
this
.
.
WP 212).
sees as a vital
first
step in the establishment of the
“thousand year empire” envisioned by Zarathustra, Nietzsche exhorts his imagined readers to overthrow this antipolitical Christian
7.
Nietzsche echoes the criticism of Christian quietism advanced by Machiavelli in
The Discourses
II. 2
and Rousseau
in
The
Social Contract. IV. 8.
As we
shall see below,
however, Nietzsche follows Machiavelli (but not Rousseau) in deeming Christian quietism wholly appropriate for the mass of ordinary people.
124
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
and post-Christian mindset and to recapture the sort of political that gripped the ancient
Romans. The
latter
owed
their
to the fact that their political vision and ambition
and Nietzsche hopes that
their will,
one day manifest
again in
itself
will
achievement
were matched by
same quality of will could Europe. “Europe would have to this
.
.
.
new caste dominating all Europe, a protracted terrible will of its own which could set its objectives thousands of years ahead” (BGE 208; cf. BGE 212, 213). Thus acquire a single will by means of a
Nietzsche’s insistence that “strength of the will” be listed as part of
becoming the
the “preparation for
legislators of the future, the
mas-
of the earth” (\VP 132).
ters
The Most Comprehensive
Responsibility
Nietzsche’s occasional talk of a healthy form of “selfishness” would
seem
at first glance to
suggest that his nobles have obligations only
However, obligation toward
to themselves and their self-perfection.
the self and obligation to others need not be mutually exclusive; rather, his preferred index of value
and rank concerns “howy^r one
could extend one’s responsibility”
(BGE
instinctively seek
nobility not to
(WP
want
BGE
944;
heavy
responsibilities,
212). Nietzschean nobles
and
cf.
BGE
213).^
The
(WP
in
.
.
a sign
of
responsibilities”
majority of
by contrast, “weak and growing weaker
are,
own
to “relinquish or share our
272;
considered
it is
.
human
beings
responsibility”
898).
Nietzsche’s political vision cannot be understood apart from this
notion of the highest types’ responsibility.
and concerns of free
spirits is
Among
the proper cares
whether leaders who can sustain the
weight of responsibility for transvaluing modern democratic
Bernard Williams notes that
8.
thought
one
is
.
.
.
that
one can be under
and of one’s
a
has been in every society a recognizable ethical
(moral) requirement
social situation.” Ethics
Harvard University Press, 1985), philosophy in
“it
this regard.
(This
p. 7.
is
political
and
.
.
.
the Limits of Philosophy
Nietzsche resurrects the
no way means
simply because of who
spirit
(Cambridge:
of ancient moral
that Nietzsche thinks higher
human
beings ought to be responsible for the security and well-being of their ostensible inferiors.
Chapter
7 explains why.)
THE ART OF POLITICS
emerge and endure (BGE
values will
men
highest
entails a
compares the
of the future to Caesar or Napoleon, for they too must
“bear the greatest
As we noted
203). Nietzsche
in
responsibility
Chapter
and not collapse under
2, this
it”
(WP
“most comprehensive responsibility”
concern not simply with the
spiritual self-perfection of su-
perior individuals but with the fate of the species as a whole 61). Nietzsche’s politics
is
therefore driven by the conscience his
philosophers will share for collective evolution of
new
Nietzsche’s fare
of the great
Whereas under
a particular
mankind”
new
kind of creative activity: “the
(ibid.).
dispensation reverses the
is
(BCE
way
in
which the wel-
currently interwoven with that of the many.
the democratic status
quo those with the
potential for
bound up with (and held down by) the many, Nietzsche’s new politics would require that the majority of orgreatness are beholden to and
human
dinary
order. It
beings be restored to their proper place in the social
must be
realized that society
tion and scaffolding
upon which
raise itself to its highest task
258;
cf.
BCE
126;
“mankind
in the
species of
man
It is,
and
is
justified
a select species
“only as a founda-
of being
is
able to
in general higher existence”
(BCE
WP 679, 681, 898, 997). As The Genealogy decrees,
mass
sacrificed to the prosperity of a single stronger
—that would be an advance” (CM
II, 1 2).
therefore, the responsibility of the few to restore this proper
balance to social and political organization and to appreciate that the
mass
them in their quest for heightened nobility. They must grasp and act upon the fact that “this homogenizing is
there to serve
species requires a justification:
it lies
in serving a higher sovereign
species that stands
upon the former and can
only by doing this”
(WP
raise itself to its task
898).
Robert Solomon, by contrast, suggests that Nietzsche’s philosophy “does not about ‘responsibility’ or ‘authenticity.’” Introduction to Reading Nietzsche, ed.
9.
talk
Robert C. Solomon and Kathleen 1988), p. 10. Laurence
and Evil
“is a
book
Lampert
is
M. Higgins (New York: Oxford University Press, closer to the mark when he argues that Beyond Good
that assigns the greatest responsibility to the philosopher as
one
who knows what religions are good for, who knows how to order the politics of fatherlands, who commands and legislates how the world ought to be, and who has the whole future of mankind on 'Thus Spoke Zarathiistra"
126
his conscience.” Nietzsche's Teaching:
(New Haven:
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
An
Interpretation of
Yale University Press, 1987), p. 247.
Commanding and Obeying Nietzsche’s catalogue of complaints about contemporary politics in-
cludes the almost complete ignorance of “the art of commanding”
(BGE
Kunst des Befehlens] art
is
BGE 203). Worse still is the way this
2 1 3; cf.
by those who exercise power;
discredited and disavowed, even
The herd
instinct of
obedience has been inherited best and
expense of the art of commanding. If taken to
its
from
a
we
men
at
command would
order to be able to
in
commanders
they existed, they would suffer
all; or, if
bad conscience and
at the
think of this instinct
ultimate extravagance there would be no
or independent
[des
have to practise a deceit upon themselves: the deceit, that
is,
that
they too were only obeying. This state of things actually exists in
Europe
(BGE
today.
199)
Nietzsche thus imputes to the noble personality ical
capacity
ability to
—the
ability to rule.
Sometimes
a traditionally polit-
this
coupled with the
is
be ruled, echoing Aristode’s belief that citizens of the polis
only the capacity
command and obey.^® At other times, however, to command is seen as vital to higher types and the
of obeying
relegated to inferiors. In a fragment from 1887, for
should be able to
art
is
example, Nietzsche
lists
command” along
the “will and capacity to
with the will to power and to enjoyment as features of “the relatively strong and well-turned-out type of
were
effects
still
unbroken
Following the
.
)”
.
.
classical view,
man
(WP
(those in
whom
the grand
98).^^
Nietzsche requires the capacity to
new aristocracy The truly sover-
rule others to be coupled with that for self-rule: the is
“based on the severest self-legislation” 10. Aristotle,
totelian
The
1261322;
Politics, II, 2,
dictum “to rule and be ruled
(WP 960).
III, 4.
in turn” are
Nietzschean echoes of the Aris-
found
in
GS
283;
BGE 251; WT 912
and 918. 11.
Nehamas
by rendering
it
characteristically depoliticizes the Nietzschean capacity to
self-reflexive
question whether one
is
or
is
one can indeed command and
“Who Are
and confining not
a
it
to the personal realm.
genuine philosopher
legislate,
is
just the
whether one can fashion
‘The Philosophers of the Future’?:
Robert C. Solomon and Kathleen M. Higgins,
A
command
For him, “the
question whether
a life
of one’s own.”
Reading of Beyond Good and Evil”
eds.,
Reading Nietzsche
in
(New York: Ox-
ford University Press, 1988), p. 65.
THE ART OF POLITICS
I
2
7
eign individual
is
necessarily gives
able creatures” ual
acutely aware of how his “mastery over himself also
him mastery over
(GM II,
And
12).
of the herd: “Small
greatness’’'
(WP
984).
command
human
—shouts
is
less reli-
— hence a
is
character-
cannot possess
“herd instinct of
crude appetite for direction that “accepts
a
whatever any commander Nietzsche
obey
Such types can only evince
obedience” and show
public opinion
must
spirits
and
just as the great individ-
capable of command, so the inability to
is
istic
Z II,
2; cf.
... all weaker-willed
—parent,
in its ears”
teacher, law, class, prejudice,
(BGE
199;
cf.
WP 279).
even audacious enough to contend that lower-order
beings would be better off submitting to the domination of
their betters.
Once
again echoing Aristotle, Nietzsche claims that
the natural slave-type “needs
someone who
liberal-democratic society this need leads to the majority’s perversion.
will use
frustrated
is
him” (A
54). In a
and regrettably
Encouraged by an ambient demo-
cratic culture to forswear a natural, healthy instinct of deference to
one’s betters, the herd develops distasteful character traits, notably
“untoward intemperance,” “narrow enviousness,” and “a clumsy obstinate self-assertiveness”
has
become so much
(BGE
a part
264;
cf.
A 57).
of mainstream
Democratic ideology
common sense
that
all
im-
knowledge of rank order and of the “need” of the weak-willed for “a master, a commander,” is lost (BGE 242). “The mob,” obplicit
serves Zarathustra, “does not straight
and honest” (Z
know what
IV, 13, 8).^^
is
great or small, what
Encouraged
to think of
is
them-
no worse than anyone else and as capable of anything, the lower orders succumb to what he refers to as the “evil falsity” of willing beyond one’s powers (ibid.). Democratic reformers think they are working in the best interests of the majority, but in fact they accomselves as
“He who makes the lame man walk,” intones “does him the greatest harm: for no sooner can he walk
plish the opposite:
Zarathustra,
than his vices run away with him” (Z
1
2
.
Nietzsche sees his
own
II,
20).^^
compatriots as particularly damaged in this regard: “In
Germans have no idea whatever how common [gemein] they are; but that is the superlative of commonness [der Gemeinheit they are not even ashamed of being mere Germans” (EH XIII, 4). 13. Mark Warren rightly observes that Nietzsche “registers occasional sympathy the end the
]
for the
128
working
classes.” Nietzsche
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
and
—
Political
Thought (Cambridge:
MIT
Press,
Nietzsche’s proposed hierarchical political order redeems the ple-
beian in the plebeian, allowing the mass to evince the “herd virtues” [Heerdentiigenden] of which they are capable:
That which
natures and makes their existence possible
even dissipation
disbelief,
—would,
if it
where industriousness
is
moderation giing''] cf.
The
—
fruitful
leisure, adventure,
—and
to
me-
actually does.
[Arbeitsamkeit], rule
firm “conviction”
[die Mdfiigkeit],
have their place
—
were available
them
diocre natures, necessarily destroy
This
and most
available only to the strongest
is
[die Regel],
[die fest ^^Ube?‘zeu-
in short, the “herd virtues.”
(WP
901;
WP 356)
inferior,
untalented individual would be liberated of all unrealis-
hopes (along with their attendant disappointments and resent-
tic
ments) and would
at last follow the
path that Zarathustra associates
with (lower-order) virtue: “Thus speaks virtue: vant, then seek
Thus
—
ner
in
him
whom you
the natural slave
can serve best’” (Z
would
and through service to
your
thrive with
lord’s spirit
flourish
—
his master:
and
must be
‘If you
in his
a ser-
II, 8).
own
limited
man-
‘“Thus you yourself will
virtue!”’ (ibid.). In a properly or-
dered society the natural slave finds an intrinsic satisfaction in the fulfillment of his or her limited capacities:
cog, a function,” claims Nietzsche,
is
“To be
a public utility, a
a “natural vocation” or a “kind
of happiness of which the great majority are alone capable, which
makes
intelligent
machines of them. For the mediocre,
happi-
it is
ness to be mediocre” (A 57).
Modernity’s Self-Overcoming
Despite his very real concern that higher his call
and
1988), p. 224.
1
solidarity with
will
remain in the grips of
would argue, however,
them but
that his
beings will not heed
a servile false
consciousness.
sympathy stems not from any
rather from his reading of
movements have perverted
human
how
egalitarian ideas
feeling of
and
political
their originally docile psyches.
THE ART OF POLITICS
I
29
Nietzsche believes that the seeds for their ascendancy are being sown within the liberal-democratic order itself. One of democracy’s unin-
tended consequences
a
is
general weakening of the people’s will,
which increases the opportunities for strong-willed individuals to
command. The
majority’s descent into nihilism “brings to light the
weaker and
secure
less
among them and
thus produces an order of
rank according to strength, from the point of view of health: those
who command are recognized as those who command, those who obey as those who obey” (WP 55). What is required for realizing the potential inherent in this situation is that the new elite hearken to Nietzsche’s urgings and “employ democratic Europe
as their
most
pliant
and supple instrument for
getting hold of the destinies of the earth”
Without subscribing
(WP
any doctrine of historical
to
mains hopeful that they
will
do
960;
cf.
WP
inevitability,
898).
he re-
so:
have as yet found no reason for discouragement.
Whoever
has
preserved, and bred in himself, a strong will, together with an
am-
I
ple spirit, has
more
favorable opportunities than ever. For the
men has become very great in this democratic Eumen who learn easily and adapt themselves easily are the
trainability of
rope;
herd animal, even highly intelligent, has been prepared. Whoever can command finds those who must obey; I am thinking, rule: the
e.g.,
of Napoleon and Bismarck.
intelligent wills,
which
is
rivalry with strong
the greatest obstacle,
is
small.
and un-
(WP
128;
WP 898, 956)
cf.
Thus Nietzsche
discerns a double
while weakening the majority,
—
“the breeding of tyrants
most
The
spiritual”
(BGE
it
movement
in democratization:
creates circumstances propitious for
in every sense
of that word, including the
242).
Along with democratization, Nietzsche identifies the burgeoning industrial and commercial culture as creating enabling conditions for a
new 14.
elitist
This
order.
issue
is
works, although as passages include
Far from oblivious to economic change and
more thoroughly
we
shall see
it
30
discussed in the middle period than in the later
does not vanish altogether. Pertinent middle-period
HAH 585; WS 218, 220, 278-280, 283, 288; D
31, 42, 188.
I
its
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEiVIOCRACY
175, 186, 308;
GS
21,
some contend, Nietzsche applauds industritransformation of “mankind into a machine” (WP
salience for politics, as alization for
866). His
its
endorsement stems not from an enthusiastic embrace of
the ethos of capitalism for the
—Nietzsche never
lost his aristocratic disdain
rampant materialism and “indecent and perspiring haste” of
his era^^
—but rather from
a belief that industrialism
generates the
large caste of “weak-willed and highly employable” types required to facilitate the leisure
Modern
of a higher-order
elite
(BGE
242;
cf.
“new
industrialism, in other words, provides the
required for Nietzsche’s
“new order” (GS
human
ing and enhancement of the
new kind of enslavement”
377).
HAH 439). slavery”
“Every strengthen-
type,” he insists, “also involves a
BGE
(ibid.; cf.
257). Nietzsche speaks not
simply of enslaving manual laborers, but also of exploiting the expertise
“The
ideal scholar”
deemed “one of
the most pre-
of the specialized technician and
possessing “the scientific instinct” cious instruments there are”
powerful”
(BGE
who
is
scientist.
“belongs in the hand of one more
207).
The problem with capitalist industrialism,
for Nietzsche, has
been
the “lack of noble manners” of the employers, whose sudden accu-
mulation and ostentatious, vulgar display of wealth seem to
call into
question the very idea of a natural rank order, thereby lending cre-
dence to egalitarian ideologies. alist
leads the factory
The
spectacle of the vulgar industri-
worker to think “that
it is
only accident and
luck that have elevated one person above another. Well then, he reasons: let us try accident
cialism
is
and
throw the
luck! let us
born” (GS 40). But while casting
a
dice!
And
thus so-
disapproving glance at
“the notorious vulgarity of manufacturers with their ruddy, fat
hands” 15.
(ibid.),
Nietzsche applauds their relegation of the majority to
Keith Ansell-Pearson claims that Nietzsche “ignored the changed conditions
of work through
modern
industrialized production.”
An bitroduction
to
Nietzsche as Po-
Thinker (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 214. Karl Lowith writes similarly of Nietzsche’s “lack of concern for social and economic questions.” litical
Fro?n Hegel 16.
to Nietzsche, trans.
D Preface 5. Cf. HAH
sche’s criticisms of the ideal
of a leisured
David E. Green (London: Constable, 1965), 285;
D
elite is
It is
GS
21, 40;
BGE
189;
\VP
943. Nietz-
worship of money cast doubt on Nancy Love’s claim that
more
his
bourgeois and thus an ideological support for capitalism.
Love, Marx, Nietzsche, and Modernity pp. 18, 189, 200.
203, 204;
p. 176.
(New
likely that his
York:
model
is
Columbia University
Press, 1986),
the ancient slave economy.
THE ART OF POLITICS
.
.
.
who
machines”
“intelligent
and general
“exist for service
utility
and
only for that purpose” (A 57; BGE 6i)d^ However, this evocation of the need for a new, industrial form of
may
exist
own occasional endorsement of a stoic noself-sufficiency. The autarchic ideal, already problema-
slavery subverts Nietzsche’s tion of noble
by Nietzsche’s
tized
when he
even further
on the importance of
stress
speaks of
willed and unreliable creatures”
self-mastery
(GM
II,
how
friendship, recedes
mastery over
a
“all
more
short-
part and parcel of the noble type’s
is
Nietzschean self-sufficiency ultimately suc-
2).
cumbs to the superior type’s need for lower individuals as “steps” to tread upon in the ascent toward the summit of human development (Z II, 7; cf.
that
BGE
which
is
heavy dwarfs
259). In the
danced
—
iipon^
words of Zarathustra, “must there not
exist
danced across? Must there not be moles and
for the sake of the
nimble
.
.
.?”
(Z
III, 12, 2).^^
Mastering Christianity
When
Nietzsche declares that
“it is
the intrinsic right of masters to
create values,” a nonpolitical reader such as to
mean
interprets this
that Nietzschean philosophers of the future could only be
concerned with themselves “and perhaps
(BGE
Nehamas
261).^^
To subdue
a
few others
like
them”
the herd politically, he reasons, would entail
subsuming both the herd and the
under the same
elite
set of values.
Nietzsche, given his concern for maintaining a “pathos of distance”
between
castes,
could look upon such a prospect only with distaste.
Hence, concludes Nehamas, those preoccupied with value creation must remain completely uninterested in politics. 17.
Apart from
its
infrastructural role of
making
leisure possible for the elite,
man-
ual labor also has the salutary effect of dulling the pain that necessarily attends the inferiority
of the majority (GAl
manual) labor
III,
1
8).
Of course, any kind
of specialized (and especially
with noble sensibilities (A 57, VVP 943). 18. Keeping this in mind helps us interpret comments such as the following: “We is
totally unsuited for those
must think of the masses species”
(WP
760).
as
unsentimentally as
Such passages
call
19.
and
think of nature: they preserve the
into question Tracy Strong’s insistence that
Nietzsche’s masters and slaves do not depend Nietzsche
we
on each other
in
any way. Friedrich
the Politics of Transfiguration, p. 353.
Nehamas,
“Who Are
‘The Philosophers of the Future ’?”
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
p. 57.
We need not follow Nehamas and other Nietzsche scholars in adhering to
this familiar “either-or” scenario
as value creators are
—either the Ubeiynenschen
completely disengaged from the herd or they
must mix higher and lower together by creating one overarching set of values for all. It would be more fruitful to pursue another possibility:
that a key aspect of the Nietzschean
power
hegemony
elite’s
the
is
to prescribe different values for different sections of society.
upon those like him to move “beyond good and evil,” Nietzsche “demand [s] that herd morality ... be held sacred unconditionally” (WP 132). His elite would not only create new values but would also respect Zarathustra’s observation that “small people” need “small virtues” (Z III, 5, 2). Nietzsche’s new rulers would endorse some existing values including Christian ones insofar as Even
as
he
calls
—
—
they serve to legitimate the
Thus
in a
Nietzschean
new
elite’s
rule in the eyes of the many.
polity, Christianity
would not become com-
pletely obsolescent.^^
There
is
no shortage of passages
in the
Nietzschean opus where
Christianity joins nihilism, democracy, and industrialization as a
way
force inadvertently preparing the
for the rise of a
new
elite.
Consider, for example, the admission in Nietzsche’s notebooks that
although “we good Europeans the present
we support
stinct: for these
hands” ruler,
(WP
prepare
.
.
.
are atheists and immoralists, for
the religions and moralities of the herd in-
type of man that must one day
a
fall
into our
132). Anticipating the future tasks of the philosopher-
Beyond Good arid Evil acknowledges the need to “make use of
work of education and breeding, just as he make use of existing political and economic conditions” (BGE the religions for his
The
strategic value of religion
defines
it
20. Pace
as
is
further underlined
61).
when Nietzsche
“one more means of overcoming resistance so
Nehamas’s claim that “the view that Christianity and
will
its
as to
be
morality have out-
runs through the whole of Nietzsche’s later work.”
lived
their usefulness
p. 60.
Karl Lowith shares this view of Christianity’s utter obsolescence in a Nietzschean
polity
when he
suggests that “the
unbelieving masses.”
Fi'ojn
Hegel
that Nietzsche’s political vision
is
new
I-
Ibid.,
masters of the earth shall ‘replace God’ for the
to Nietzsche, p.
262.
WTien Ansell-Pearson complains
bereft of any account of
how
his
new
political organi-
zation will be justified to the ruled, he similarly assumes that Nietzsche’s pronounce-
ment of the death of God prevents See
An
his
new
elite
from using religion to legitimate
itself.
Intfvduction to Nietzsche as Political Thinker, pp. 42-43, 51, 153-158.
THE ART OF POLITICS
I
33
able to rule: a
bond
that unites together ruler
and ruled and betrays
and hands over to the former consciences of the latter” (ibid.). Nietzsche thus considers a central question in the history of political
thought
erful
(HAH 472). This
be-
especially apparent in a fragment noting that “moralities
and
and
comes
—how religion can be used to the advantage of the pow-
in the service
of the best social order
means by which one can make whatever one wishes out of man, provided one possesses a superfluity of crereligions are the principal
and can assert one’s
ative forces
will
over long periods of time
the form of legislation, religion and customs” virtues Christianity
promotes
As
for future rulers.
a
in the
(WP
144).
—
in
Some of the
mass of people could be useful
“herd religion,”
“teaches obedience.
it
Christians are easier to rule than non-Christians”
(WP
.
.
.
216). Future
might “patronize and applaud” this faith because it fosters in the mass “virtues that make their subjects useful and submissive” rulers
(ibid.).
Nietzsche
a doctrine
is
highly cognizant of the fact that
and religion of “love,” oi suppression of self-affirmation,
of patience, endurance, helpfulness, of cooperation in word and deed, can be of the highest value within such classes [of decaying
and atrophying people] even from the point of view of the for
it
—the
all
deifies a life
of
suppresses feelings of rivalry, of ressentbnent^ of envy
too natural feelings of the underprivileged
—
slavery, subjection, poverty, sickness,
inferiority for
and
der the ideal of humility and obedience.
As noted
in
Chapter
(WP
even
them un-
373)
moreover, Nietzsche believes that the mass
2,
of ordinary people need religion a solace for suffering
it
rulers:
and
—
specifically, Christianity
—both
as
obedience (GS 347). It can give meaning to their mediocrity by providing servility with “the appearance of a virtue” that is “quite astonishingly beautiful” (HAH 1
1
5; cf.
WP
216).
From
as a rationale for
Nietzsche’s political vantage point, then,
Christianity has redeeming features. His call to superior types to ac-
knowledge God’s death and to overcome Christian values does not, therefore, preclude Christianity from fulfilling a civic function by inculcating obedience in the masses. Nietzsche outlines the proper role of religion in Beyond
that
134
it is
strictly for the
Good and
Evil, arguing, as
use of the rulers
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
Hobbes
does,
— they are not to be ruled by
— dear and terribly
“It costs
it:
when
means of education and breeding
own
but in their
right as soverei^^
religions hold sway, not as a
hands of the philosopher,
in the
when they themselves want
(BGE
ends and not means beside other means”
final
The
62).^^
obvious objection to Christianity playing even an instrumen-
role in a Nietzschean politics of the future
tal
to be
obedience,
that while
is
also preaches the “equality of souls”
it
—an
Christian faith Nietzsche repudiates incessantly.^^ Given
of fundamental Christianity stratified
human
article
of
premise
its
equality because of equal worth before
would seem an unsuitable ideology
and unequal
teaches
it
God,
for the sort of highly
Nietzsche promotes.
political organization
This emphasis on equality destroys the pathos of distance so essential
for the resurgence of nobility.
However, the idea that equality lated into secular equality
rights
—
is
a particular,
—into
modem
of
in the eyes
God must
be trans-
equality before the law and equal
reading of Christianity. While liberal
philosophers such as John Locke,
Mary
Wollstonecraft, and Alexis de
Tbcqueville grounded their arguments for secular equality in such Christian ideas, not
all
adherents of Christianity have inferred an im-
perative to secular equality. In the history of Christian-influenced political all
thought,
it
has been argued to the contrary that precisely because
individuals are, as God’s creatures, essentially equal, their worldly
status
is
of little or no importance.^^
A form of Christianity could serve
as a doctrine legitimating hierarchical
provided that
it
did not
mle
in a transvalued future
demand some form of secular
Ronald Beiner argues cogently that “Nietzsche
21.
ern tradition of Beiner,
civil
religion as set forth
is
equality.
entirely faithful to the
mod-
by Machiavelli, Hobbes and Rousseau.”
“George Grant, Nietzsche, and the Problem of a Post-Christian Theism,”
in
George Grant and the Subversion of Modernity, ed. Arthur Davis (Toronto: University of
Toronto Press, 1996), p. 126. 2 2 Passages where Nietzsche associates Christianity with the doctrine of human .
equality include
BGE 62,
202,
2 19;
GM
III, 14;
TI
IX, 37;
A 43,
46, 57; and
WT 684
and 898. 23. See St. Augustine’s City of God, ity” in
litical
12, 15
Press, 1991).
The
writings of Sir Robert Filmer
another example of the marriage of Christian hierarchy. See Filmer, Patriarcha
“On Secular AuthorHarro Hopf (Cambridge:
and Luther’s
Luther and Calvin on Secular Authority, ed. and trans.
Cambridge University stitute
XIX,
and Other
faith
and belief in
Writings, ed.
Johann
(d.
1653) con-
social
P.
and po-
Sommerville
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).
THE ART OF POLITICS
Thus
many
despite his
on Christianity and
virulent attacks
modern Europe, Nietzsche does not
legacies for
insist that it
be
its
jet-
tisoned. Christianity could have a place in a transvalued future, but a
much more “The
pies:
chastened and circumscribed one than
it
ideas of the herd should rule in the herd
out beyond
it;
currently occu-
—but not reach
the leaders of the herd require a fundamentally differ-
ent valuation for their
own
lieve in the truth-claims
(WP
actions”
287). Rulers
need not be-
of a lying religion that they grant to the
all-
too-human.
Plato’s Perfect State
The
structure of Nietzsche’s envisioned political order can be de-
scribed as
man
two concentric
circles,
beings surrounded by
jority population that
instrumental for that Nietzsche’s
a
with an inner circle of higher hu-
much
larger circle representing a
both subordinate to the ruling minority and continued flourishing.^*^ It is important to note
its
main
is
interest
is
in fact in the inner circle.
important the subjugation of the majority of elite
the “main consideration”
activity,
higher species in leading the lower
which it
[the]
merely
own
a
(WP
.
.
,
its
is
may
be to the sustenance
“not to see the task of the
but the lower as
own
However
tasks
a
base
upon
—upon which alone
901). Nietzsche envisages and tries to inspire “not
master race whose sole task
is
to rule, but a race with
its
sphere of life, with an excess of strength for beauty, bravery, cul-
manners
ture,
may grant
to the highest peak of the spirit, an affirming race that
itself
sphere of
over inferiors?
(WP
every great luxury”
however, Nietzsche’s vision
If,
own
.
higher species performs
can stand”
ma-
life,”
how
is
898).
that of a “master race” with “its
could he also countenance
The answer becomes
tween Nietzsche and Plato on clared in The Republic that
if
this
clearer
question
the finest
is
human
when
its
political rule
the parallel be-
considered. Plato de-
beings refused to rule
This section takes issue with Bernard Williams’s suggestion that Nietzsche has “no coherent set of opinions” about how politics ought to be organized in the modern 24.
world.
I
36
Shame and Necessity
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993), pp. lo-i
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
i.
their inferiors they
when he
evinces
would be ruled by them,
sentiment Nietzsche
observes “with anguish and contempt the politics of
present-day Europe, which
web of the
at the
a
is,
under
circumstances, also working
all
men” (WP 367). Since the politics of effect on human excellence, oppressing
future of all
herd society has a corrosive
those of potentially great talent and stature, the latter should create a
more
politics
keeping with their needs.
in
In light of Nietzsche’s vilification of Socrates and his identification of Platonic metaphysics with the “slave revolt” in morals
seem strange
may
to argue for the resemblance of Nietzsche’s imagined
order to Plato’s ideal
political
it
As others have noted, however,
polls.
Nietzsche’s view of Socrates/Plato
is
not entirely negative.^^ His
greatest difficulty with Plato relates to the latter’s notion of the
Forms, which
we
is
rooted in
noted in Chapter
first
a i,
metaphysical realist framework that, as
Nietzsche resolutely
rejects.
As
far as
Plato’s politics are concerned, however, their unapologetic elitism
and authoritarianism are heartily embraced.^^
One element drawn is
is
of The Republic to which Nietzsche
the notion of a martial class of “guardians”
to insulate the inner circle of nobles
class.^^
This
is
particularly
whose function
from the majority plebeian
especially apparent in The AntiChrist,
the prospect of a “predominantly spiritual type” Geistigen] directing a
is
where he evokes [die
vofiviegend
“predominantly muscular and temperamental
type” that in turn would relieve the former of “everything coarse in the
work of ruling”
[alles ^^Grobe^^ in
Nietzsche’s suggestion that the
der Arbeit des Herj'schaft] (A 57).
management of “mediocre
types” be
delegated to an intermediary buffer class can be explained by his belief that
the close proximity of the higher to the lower would be nox-
ious for the former.
25.
See, for example,
Nehamas,
Nietzsche: Life as Literature,
Berkowitz, Nietzsche: The Ethics of an Iminoralist, 26.
As early
ments about
as the
24-34, and
p. 45.
1872 essay “The Greek State,” Nietzsche makes admiring com-
“Der griechische and Mazzino Montinari,
“Plato’s perfect state” [Der vollkommne Staat Platos]. See
Staat,” Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe, ed.
30
pp.
vols. (Berlin:
de Gruyter, 1967-197"''
III,
Georgio Colli
2:258-271, and his discussion of Plato in
the essay “Schopenhauer as Educator" in the collection Unthnely Meditations (SE 27.
The Republic
III,
41 2C-42
8).
ic.
THE ART OF POLITICS
— A higher human in
Chapter
3, is
majority.
sitical
type in close quarters with the herd, as
we noted
always in danger of being “sucked dry” by the para-
Hence
the imperative of maintaining a form of
A
apartheid between master and slave types.
“master race”
at its
highest level of development simply cannot remain preoccupied with the
mundane
tasks involved in ruling over inferiors. In this context
Nietzsche refers approvingly to the Indian caste system, singling out the Brahmins as an admirably disciplined order that “have themselves the
power of nominating
their kings for the people, while
keeping and feeling themselves aside and outside
and more than kingly tasks”
(BGE
61;
cf.
TI
VII,
ors
—
self-rule of higher-order peers
free,
political rule
and the rule over
inferi-
we reconducted among
also recalls Aristotelian political philosophy. Aristotle,
associates the best type of rule with a politics
call,
of higher
3).
This division of labor between different types of
between the
men
as
self-governing
men and
slaves or slavelike persons,
contrasts
who,
economic deprivation,
ciencies,
it
with the despotic rule over
for whatever reason (innate defi-
cannot govern themselves.^^
etc.),
Nietzsche similarly deems the kind of rule “over select disciples or brothers” to be best and “most refined,” whereas the direction of the larger
community of unequals
“the necessary dirt of Politik-Machens]
all
(BGE
is
said to require a cruder
form of rule,
politics” \dem ''notwendigen'' Schmiitz alles
61).
Nietzsche believes that
this “dirty” type
of rule over inferiors
should be structured by “the entire administration of law [RechtY'
which would serve
as a crucial tool in the efforts
of the rulers to sub-
due the mob’s “reactive feelings”
(GM II,
cratic societies of antiquity, so
should be in the future: rulers must
use “the institution of law”
it
[die
1 1).
As
it
was
in the aristo-
Aufrichtimg des Gesetzes] “to impose
measures and bounds upon the excesses of the reactive pathos and to
compel
it
to
come
to terms” (ibid.). This,
sistent with the claims of justice, for
wherever
28. “All the different kinds of rule are not, as
For there jects
who
is
some
are
by nature
slaves.” Aristotle,
The
affirm, the
Politics,
i295bi8-22; i324b3i-35.
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
I,
is
it “is
one rule exercised over subjects who are by nature
a2C>-24; ii6oaio-b32;
138
he proffers,
7,
entirely con-
practiced and
same
free,
as
each other.
another over sub-
I255bi6-i7. Cf. 1253
maintained one sees
a
stronger power seeking a means of putting an
end to the senseless raging of ressentiment among the weaker powers that stand
under
it” (ibid.).
The just political is
order
is
therefore one in which the vast majority
regulated by stringent legal codes. This
is
as
among
an instrument in the power struggle
it
should be, for law
social forces
and
is
is
one
of the most valuable tools in the hands of the artist-tyrant: “Lawgiving moralities are the principal
means of fashioning man accord-
ing to the pleasure of a creative and profound
such an
make
of the
artist’s will
its
first
rank has the power in
Political
(WP
the majority, Nietzsche
is
rights
is ^^hostile to life,
man” because
bidly weak, those
who
BGE
ii;
historically
“One
The
by the
Especially galling to
universal application of
an agent of the dissolution and
works to the advantage of the mor-
safety,
comfort and an easier
44). In Nietzsche’s view, the
tions of “equal rights”
and constrain
have conspired together to secure rights in
order to enjoy “security, II,
it
vital.
to
a bearer of natural, inalienable
is
and thus deserving of respect.^^
destruction of
(GM
must apply
—even the strongest and most
such egalitarianism
purpose of disciplining
highly critical of liberal democracies for
the notion that everyone
is
957).
for the
their insistence that systems of law
him
hands and can
Agon
While countenancing the use of law
everyone
its
provided that
creative will prevail through long periods of time, in the
form of laws, religions and customs”
The
will,
life
for all”
complementary no-
and “the rule of law” have been employed
inferior as devices for controlling the strong:
speaks of “equal rights”
—
.
.
.
as
long as one has not yet gained
superiority one wants to prevent one’s competitors from growing in
power”
(WP
86;
cf.
29. In arguing thus,
I
WP 80). The weak have always had an interest draw upon Ruth Abbey’s paper, “In
a
Similar Voice: Nietz-
sche on Rights,” presented to the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Chicago, August 1995.
THE ART OF POLITICS
— in
perpetuating the idea that rights are fixed
state
of affairs”
(WS
39)
—rather than
—“a sacred, immutable contingent manifesta-
fluid,
tions of power.^^
In light of his view, expressed in Beyond Good and Evil, The Geneal-
and Zarathustra, that struggle, domination,
ogy,
injury, violence,
why
appropriation are inescapable features of existence, one can see
Nietzsche prefers to look upon of the strong
man
(WP
120).^^ In his
and
rights as provisional “conquests”
all
imagined
political order,
higher hu-
beings are “beyond the law” \Jenseits des Rechts] in the sense that
their negotiations
and struggles with others are not
artificially
con-
strained by an independent juridical system of rights and entitle-
ments
(GM
II,
10).^^
On
the contrary, everything
is
based on merit
and remains perpetually open to negotiation, contestation, and struggle. Instead of equal rights for
Nietzsche proposes a vision
all,
who are “equal-inof sheer ability (BGE 265). This is
of a minority inner circle composed of those rights” [Gleichberechtigen] in virtue
the
meaning of the Nietzschean
The
agon.
agon thus plays as central a role in Nietzschean politics as
it
does in his understanding of friendship. In an early essay entitled
“Homer’s Contest” (1872), he argues that the institutionalized competitions of the Greek agon provided a constructive outlet for the potentially destructive wills of competitors,
Greek community
life
and fostering
its
thereby preserving
high culture. Casting his
eyes to the future, Nietzsche wishes to foster a space of contest and rivalry with a similar function.
obey
that
is
“Who
experimented hereV’ (Z
III,
must be constant and never-ending, tics
“The
12.25).
is
The
who
can
experimentation
one of the basic characteris-
for
of Nietzsche’s higher individuals
can command,
their
burning desire to
rule.
best shall rule,” proclaims Zarathustra, “the best wants to rule!
And where
it is
taught differently, there
—the best
is
lacking'’
(Z
III,
12, 21).
30.
This view,
also
on
offer in
D
1
12
and
HAH 93, casts
tention that in his middle period Nietzsche looked favorably
doubt on Warren’s con-
on
“political cultures that
include equal rights.” Warren, Nietzsche and Political Thought, p. 72.
BGE
GM
See
32.
Detwiler notes Nietzsche’s “repudiation of all
259;
II,
ii;
thought” in his Nietzsche and the
140
Z III,
31.
and
Politics
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
12, 10. legalistic
approaches to
ofAristocratic Radicalism, p. 192.
political
Whereas
variants of slave morality hypocritically discourage
all
and disparage the desire for aside
crisy
When
power”
for
“lust
hypo-
evinced by the loftiest of men,
desire scarcely warrants the appellation “lust”: “Lust for
a
power: but
who shall
call it lust,
power! Truly, there
after
open and honest
favor of an
in
[HeiTschsucht\ (Z III, lo, 2).
such
rule, Nietzsche’s ago 7i tosses all
descent!”
(ibid.).
The open
aristocratic inner circle
Whatever inner circle
no
is
is,
when
sickness and lust in such a longing and
clash of
competing
wills to
power
in the
for Nietzsche, a thing of beauty.
tentative, provisional stability there
is
down
the height longs to stoop
in this agonistic
is
the result not of any notion of “social contract” but
rather of the relative equality or equilibrium of strength and virtue that leads to a guarded sense of mutual respect and recognition.^^
Like the nobles of antiquity, Nietzsche imagines his higher types constraining themselves through “custom, respect, usage, gratitude,
and even more by mutual suspicion and jealousy”
with
as well as
“consideration, self-control, delicacy, loyalty, pride, and friendship”
(GM
GM
ii; cf.
I,
equality,
II,
In a sociopolitical context of relative
2).
noble types would quite naturally “exchange
and rights” and consider
“from mutual
BGE
injury,
it
“good manners”
.
.
.
honors
[guten Sitteij] to refrain
mutual violence, mutual exploitation”
(BGE
Given the agonistic nature of this community of rivals, however, any social peace would be tentative and temporary, repeatedly giving way to challenges and contests of an unspecified 265;
259).
nature.
With
respect to this inner circle, then, Nietzsche proposes replac-
ing the juridical state and
allegedly small-minded rules and regu-
its
lations with a self-policing
community of outstanding
individuals.
Impartial legal codes would be replaced by the self-governing instincts
who
of those
design their
own punishments this
Rousseauian
when he
claims that
promises and other infractions. Zarathustra evokes scenario of a self-policing citizen-legislator
“when he 33.
ciety
is
See a
[the living creature]
GM
II,
17.
contract (Z
elsewhere that the
for breaking
commands himself
.
.
.
also
must he
Zarathustra similarly decries as “soft-hearted” the view that so-
III, 12, 25).
demand
Contractarianism
is
the likely target
for “oaths instead of looks
temptibly “timid mistrustfulness” (Z
when he
and hands” reveals
claims a
con-
III, 10, 2).
THE ART OF POLITICS
make amends
for his
avenger and victim of his
This cle.
state
of affairs,
What of the mass
elite that itself is
own
enough
34. In his “calls
himself he
is
cir-
Would
we
rule of law in the conventional
turn to the lot of the majority in a
the noble sensibility of their betters be
them from oppression?
middle period Nietzsche advances
is
only to the inner
of ordinary people, subjected to the laws of an
a similar picture
himself to account and publicly dictates his
ing that he
judge and
II,
recall, applies
exempt from the
polity.
to save
law” (Z
we should
sense? In the final chapter
Nietzschean
He must become
commanding.
of a transgressor
own punishment,
in the
proud
who feel-
thus honoring the law which he himself has made, that by punishing exercising his power, the
power of the lawgiver” (D
187;
cf.
D
437).
Ansell-Pearson perceives the Rousseauian nature of this passage in his Nietzsche contra Rousseau:
A
Study of Nietzsche's Moral and
University Press, 1991),
p. 215.
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
Political
Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge
seven
The
Evil of
the Strong
Noblesse Oblige
A
s
we have
just seen,
Nietzsche rejects the view that the mass
human
beings have inalienable rights and legal
of ordinary
recourse against their betters. In his ideal polity there
right “that
is
not supported by the power of enforcement”
Whereas noble
types
may
at all to the majority
complete license to act toward them
“injustice”
is
i
no
id).
well have obligations toward themselves
and their peers, they owe nothing
WP 943). There
(WP
is
no such thing
as
as
they think best
committing
toward the many-too-many, for
and have
(GM
II, 2;
acts of “justice” or
“justice
can be hoped for
143
.
.
.
only inter pares [among equals]”
926). Against this in
which
background
GM
943;
I,
ii; cf.
WP
hard to avoid imaging a scenario
it is
trampled on by their superiors.
lesser types are
Those
(WP
inclined to dismiss such a scenario often try to deflect con-
cern by pointing to Nietzsche’s repudiation of overt, malicious cru-
Their case seems strong
elty.*
Nietzsche does
at first glance, for
evince an undeniable repugnance for the idea of lording inferior.
weak”
As
early as Daybreak^ he writes that
it is
[das Bose der Schwdche] that ''wants to
the signs of the suffering
it
has caused”
(D
over an
only the “evil of the
harm
371).
it
others and to see
From
the standpoint
of nobility, the idea of gratuitous cruelty toward those clearly infe-
“An easy prey is something contemptible for proud natures” (GS 13). Only vulgar pretenders to virtue take advantage of their positions of power to “scratch out the rior in strength
is
abhorrent:
eyes of their enemies with their virtue”; in Zarathustra’s words, they
lower others” (Z
“raise themselves only in order to
Zarathustra teaches us to “mistrust strong” (Z
II, 7).
He
is
in
whom
it
a
the antithesis of nobility (Z
III, 12,
torment of the abjectly vulnerable would be
We
ment with view,
is
ness
is
1
1).
through malicious
in the
it.
from vulgarity than
Being “prickly toward small things,”
but “the wisdom of a hedgehog” (Z
When
and suffering
worst possible
have already seen, moreover, that Nietzsche
clined to counsel disengagement
contact with inferiors
is
is
more
active
in-
engage-
in Zarathustra’s
III, 5, 2).
unavoidable, a measured polite-
sometimes recommended. Zarathustra claims to exemplify
such politeness “towards every small vexation,” and Nietzsche I.
is
form of “despotism” [Gewalt-
Clearly, the flaunting of one’s superior position
taste.
Elsewhere
the urge to punish
identifies the effort to inflict pain
with bitter resentment and deems HeiTischen\ that
all
II, 5).
insists
Alexander Nehamas, for example, argues that “Nietzsche’s ‘immoralism’
the crude praise of selfishness and cruelty with which
it is
is
not
often confused.” Nietzsche:
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1985), p. 167; cf. p. 2 16. In a passage that wonderfully encapsulates a core assumption of the popular “progressive”
Life as Literature
reading of Nietzsche, Alan WTiite invites us to be “as charitable to Nietzsche as to Aristotle: let us grant that those
who
are
most noble, admirable and self-affirming
not attempt to exploit others.” Within Nietzsche's Labyrinth 1990), p. 130.
nism,”
Political
Bonnie Honig
cites this passage
Theory 21,3 (August 1993): 533.
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
(New
approvingly in
will
York: Routledge,
“The
Politics
of Ago-
in his
own voice
him
that his “nature” directs
to be “mild
and benev-
olent towards everyone” and “full of consideration for the basest
EH
II,
magnanimity by restraining
all
people” his
(ibid.;
EH
and maintaining
XIII, 4;
10).
The
noble type also reveals
signs of annoyance at the canaille
a lofty forbearance.
“There
is
often
more bravery
in
containing oneself and passing by,” suggests Zarathustra, “/w order to spare oneself for a worthier enemy!” (Z
There
is
a distinct
GS
III, 12, 21; cf.
echo of ancient moral philosophy
on moderation and forbearance
in one’s interactions
276).
in this stress
with inferiors.
how the niegalopsuchos believes that “an atbe impressive among inferiors is as vulgar as a display of against the weak.”- And when Nietzsche praises mercy
Aristotle also speaks of
tempt to strength
\Gnade\ as the “privilege of the most powerful man,” he seems to
memory of Seneca’s Nero, “On Mercy” (GM
evoke the
influential tract for the
peror
II,
lieves that the gentleness
10).
Like Seneca, Nietzsche be-
with which an exceptional
handles those under his power
is
duty (A
a
young em-
57).
human being
But whereas Seneca
(and Aristotle) crucially speak of the duty of princes towards their charges,^ the
more
radically elitist Nietzsche insists that higher types
any way. They are bound only
cannot be accountable to inferiors
in
by duties to themselves, to
own
those equal in power and
their
sense of good taste, and to
stature."^
Nietzsche assures us that in
a
new order under the
control of well-
bred, high-spirited types with natures that “are the antithesis of the vicious and unbridled,” complete confidence can be invested in their tact,
judgment, and good
taste
(WP
871).
They can be
abuse their absolute freedom, for they possess
a
trusted not to
“dominating
spiritu-
ality” that “put[s] a
check on an unrestrained and
irritable pride
wanton
(GM III,
selves evince a ha-
sensuality”
tred of laisser
aller,
Their disciplined
of “blind indulgence of an affect,” which
2.
Aristotle, Nico 7nachean Ethics,
3.
In
“On Mercy,”
8).
14.1,
i
is
or a
con-
i24b22-23.
Seneca likens the duties of the prince to those of “good
which evokes the notion of strong emotional and ethical bonds. Seneca: Moral and Political Essays, ed. and trans. John M. Cooper and J. F. Procope (Camparents,”
bridge: 4.
Cambridge University
Press, 1995), p- 146.
Peter Berkowitz similarly contends that the Nietzschean nobleman’s politeness
toward inferiors
is
rooted in “considerations of enlightened self-interest.” Nietzsche:
The Ethics of an Inmioralist (Cambridge: Har\'ard University Press, 1995),
THE
EVIL OF
p. 120.
THE STRONG
demned
as “the cause
of the greatest evils”
(BGE
Nietzsche explains that although the noble self
manner (EH
plined
II, 9).
“a
WP
928).
tremendous
and creative impulse,
multiplicity,” full of passionate intensity
“nonetheless the opposite of chaos” and
is
i88;
is
tightly
bound
it is
in a disci-
Bhth
In the language of his early essay The
of Tragedy, the exceptional man’s protean substratum of Dionysian
energy
is
given form and order by an Apollonian discipline.
Yet despite this stress on self-discipline and aristocratic disdain for malicious cruelty, the mass of ordinary people in a Nietzschean polity
might
safety.
The violence
still
have reason for grave concern about their personal
them would have
less to
do
with malicious cruelty than with thoughtless, destructive behavior
is-
that could well befall
suing from the self-absorbed higher type’s creative experimentation.
Violence and the Second Innocence
As noted tially
in the previous chapter,
Nietzsche suggests that the poten-
violent drives of the exceptional
are, for the
most
men
part, tightly controlled in
in his aristocratic
agon
order to maintain a sense
of mutual respect and tenuous order. The Genealogy reveals, however, that the “constraints and conventions” of an agonistic society of
equals create a great psychological tension which cries out for sporadic release.
This
is
illustrated in
The Genealogfs
first essay,
which
depicts the ancient warriors’ need for brief periods of respite
the
agon'’s
from
self-imposed rigor, periods in which their “hidden core”
\verborgenen G?imd\
porarily liberated
would be allowed
to “erupt”
(GM
I,
ii).
Tem-
from the constraining
discipline of their peers,
men found
themselves in a state of
these innocent, high-spirited
nature-like “wilderness” and set about purging their inner tension
by metamorphosing into “triumphant monsters” \frohlockende Ungehener] bent
on
torture” (ibid.).
a
“disgusting procession of murder, arson, rape, and
Thus purged, they rejoined
undisturbed of soul,” as a students’
A
prank”
if
the agon “exhilarated and
their violent savagery
“were no more than
(ibid.).
sympathetic account of this unleashing of murderous destruc-
tion during periods of respite also appears in Ecce Homo's brief, idio-
146
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
syncratic
comments on
evil in
the serpent in the garden of perat[ing]
There it is suggested that none other than God “recu-
the Bible.
Eden
is
from being God” (EH X,
The
2).
formed, “had made everything too beautiful. the idleness of
God on
perfect world that
its
.
.
seemed
to require
Raiibtiei-Gewisseiis]
is
gone
Having created
a
forever, Nietzsche
modern analogue
“innocent conscience”
(GM
merely
toward destruction and mischief-making.-'*
instincts
of prey-like
is
strength in further cre-
its
appears intent on encouraging something like a beast
Devil
are in-
no further improvement, the
Although the era of the “blond beast”
his
The
that seventh day” (ibid.).
divine creative will, unable to discharge ation, turned
.
we
Almighty,
I,
1 1).
Such an analogue
[die is
to
Unschuld des
suggested in The
where Nietzsche evokes the prospect of
Genealogy^s second essay,
postreligious, noble “second innocence” [zweiter Unschidd]
(GM
a
II,
Only when the Christian legacy of guilt and self-abnegation is purged will the modern type be free, as Nietzsche claims elsewhere, to innocently, joyfully “do things that would convict a lesser man of 20).
and immoderation”
vice
(WT
In Nietzsche’s view, there sort of instinctive
a malicious,
weak and
defenseless.
former
—described
simply no comparison between this
is
need to purge creative tension and the violence
unleashed by the
871).
vulgar character
While the
in a felicitous
his view) the higher type
it
is
enjoys lording
clearly in
bad
it
—
over
taste,
middle-period passage as the
the
“evil
positively life-affirming
(D
an innocent form of cruelty because
(in
of the strong” [das Bose der Starke] 371). Nietzsche considers
latter
who
is
simply cannot do otherwise. As
a
concate-
nation of drives and instincts, a product of forces beyond his conscious control, the exceptional
TI
man
is
“a piece of fate” (TI VI, 8;
cf.
V, 6).
In light of this strong streak of fatalism one must qualify the pre-
vious chapter’s claim that Nietzsche associates nobility with responsibility.
Whereas he hopes
to galvanize his higher
men
into feeling
responsible for raising the species as a whole, he also wishes to dis-
suade them from feeling responsible in any way to ostensibly inferior
5.
Cf. Bruce Detwiler, Nietzsche
University of Chicago Press, 1990),
and
the Politics of Aristoa'atic Radicalism (Chicago:
p. 167.
THE
EVIL OF
THE STRONG
human
beings. Indeed, in his account the path to species improve-
ment entails a willful disregard of any accountability to the majority. To berate innocent nobles for their lack of consideration or remorse would betray an adherence
same
to the
slave morality that at-
tempts to engender shame and bad conscience in noble types for
and inclinations. As Nietzsche
their essentially healthy instincts
claims in The Gay Science, the feeling of remorse
“something goes wrong” only for servdle types
reckon with
(GS
sult”
a
beating
of one’s actions
as a result
who “have received when his lordship is
41). In place of
shame,
Zarathustra prefers his sort of
and mendacious systems of
.
have to
.
with the re-
to be “shameless” [Schanilosen]
and impervious to attacks of conscience (Z guilt
.
and vacillating self-doubt,
guilt,
men
satisfied
when
appropriate
is
orders and
not
Rene]
[die
belief,
II, 4).^
Once purged of all
noble souls are expected to
affirm unconditionally their every instinct; they implicitly under-
stand that
the end” (Z
[ShiJie] to
holy” and “follow
“all instincts are
instinct,” after
all, is
I,
22, 2;
Z
II, 2).
A
[their]
own
senses
“complete automatism of
“the precondition for any kind of mastery, any
kind of perfection in the art of living” (A 57; cf. BGE 287). Apart from the destructive venting of built-up tension, Nietzsche
evokes a complementary scenario just as likely to perturb the safety of the many: the prospect of “collateral damage” caused by the creative activity of those obsessively self-absorbed
thing but the task at hand. As
I
argued in the previous chapter, one of
Nietzsche’s favorite images of his the creative sculptor is
if,
in the
new
hammering away
modern humankind. Absorbed
care
sort of political actor
in his
midst of his creative rage, stone fragments are sent
“WTat
me?”
directions:
ments
fly
from the blows of his “raging hammer” (Z
if
is
that to
be in their path? Nietzsche’s likely answer
6.
learn to sacrifice
“From what one hears of it,
anything respectable. 7.
sche’s
I
a
should not
many and
is
—
e.g.,
the
hammers
who happen
does not seem to
an act in the lurch afterwards''
hammer
that “sound out idols” and reveal
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
EH IX, to
found in the Nachlass:
[Geu'issaisbifi]
Eric Blondel interestingly discusses other forms of
work
II, 2; cf.
to take one’s cause seriously
pang of conscience like to leave
fly-
asks Zarathustra, as frag-
the fragments strike unfortunate innocents
“One must
that of
work, the sculptor does not
all
And
is
at the “formless” material that
ing in
8).^
148
and oblivious to any-
(EH
me
11 , i).
imagery^ in Nietz-
them
as
hollow
in
enough not
men” (WP
to spare
by-product of creative activity the grandeur of the
The cendy
also
of
Any
little
suffering produced as a
consequence compared to
artist’s oeuvre.^
possibility of
is
is
982).
evoked
widespread havoc that could be wreaked inno-
in the course of Zarathustra’s descriptions of the
“overflowing” namre of the highest sort and of the need for sudden releases
of the flow. Virtue has
ing” of a heart “broad and a
danger to those
who
origin and beginning” in the “surg-
full like a river”
live
metaphor of the surging
“its
nearby” (Z
river
is
that I,
22,
storm” that
may
we
we
that of a raging
are told,
be mistaken by his “enemies” for
In part IV, moreover,
i).
Further on, the
i).
complemented by
storm: Zarathustra’s “happiness and freedom,” a
both “a blessing and
is
come
“like
(Z
a great evil
II,
learn that the “laughing storm” that
is
Zarathustra’s free-spirited nature has a tendency to “blow dust” in the
eyes of “the dim-sighted and ulcerated” (Z IV, 13, 20).
Once
gression toward an inconsequential plebeian element
is
again, ag-
shrugged off
product of the inner workings of creativity.
as the inevitable, ancillary
Sublimation of Cruelty?
That Nietzsche even countenances such innocent valued future
is
resisted
the foreword to Twilight of the
by those who argue that Nietzschean Idols.
by Nietzsche to the hammer
is
and Culture: Philosophy
as
that of the destruction of mass.” Blondel, Nietzsche, the Body,
p. 106.
lent
For
a similar
hammer
Sean
attempt
self-
Holding an unreser\'edly benign vdew of Nietz-
sche, he insists that “the least important use assigned
Philological Genealogy, trans.
cruelty in a trans-
Hand
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1991),
at deflecting attention
away from Nietzsche’s more
imagery, see Laurence Lampert, Nietzsche and
Modem
Times:
A
\do-
Study of
and Nietzsche (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993), pp. 401-402. Nietzsche’s exceptional men bear a striking resemblance to Hegel’s “world-
Bacon, Descaites, 8.
historical individuals” in this respect. In his lectures a figure”
that gets in his way.” Introduction anapolis: Hackett, 1988), p. 35. sche’s higher
human
to the
This
Philosophy of Histoiy, trans.
parallel,
of course, has
its
Leo Rauch
limits: unlike
(Indi-
Nietz-
beings, Hegel’s world-historical individuals are unwitting ser-
vants of the unfolding Geist.
my attention
history,
who “commits himself unreservedly to one must “necessarily trample on many an innocent flower, crushing much
Hegel describes how “so great purpose alone”
on the philosophy of
My
thanks to Brian Walker and Ruth Abbey for calling
to the parallel.
THE
EVIL OF
THE STRONG
overcoming involves the sublimation of the primitive humanity.
Kaufmann,
cruel, savage impulses of
for example, suggests that Nietzsche
approves of the transformation of overt violence toward others into a “spiritualized” cruelty toward oneself.^ Nietzsche’s
comments
yond Good and Evil and elsewhere on the sublimation and ization” [Vergeistigiin^ of cruelty as preconditions for
in Be-
“spiritual-
modern “high
culture” are said to illustrate his abhorrence of anything like the
oppression found in ancient warrior societies. Nietzsche’s brand of
concludes Kaufmann,
cruelty,
individual’s attitude
is
concerned exclusively with “the
toward himself’ and involves “man’s conquest
of his impulses, the triumph of reason and
—
one word
in
—
self-
overcoming.”^®
would be
It
however, to assume that a description of a
a mistake,
historical process implies
an endorsement of
it.
When we
recall
Nietzsche’s assertion that a “sweetening and spiritualization” [Versiifiimg
und Veigeistigun^
is
“virtually inseparable”
poverty of blood and muscle,”
author of Ecce
mations
it
would seem
from an “extreme
at least possible that the
Homo is not nearly as enamored
with modernity’s subli-
commentators would have us believe
as recent
(EH
I,
i).
Nietzsche does indeed associate the sublimation and interiorization of cruelty with the
mean
of “high culture” in Europe,
rise
by “culture” we
the development and increasing sophistication of the arts and
letters,
and science and technology. But he never considered
culture to be “high” in the sense of noble or lofty; is
if
on the
often referred to depreciatingly as Zivilisation and
vorably with an idealized realm of Kidtur, that
is,
this
high
contrary,
it
compared unfa-
a truly
noble sphere
of human achievement. Nietzsche imagines himself to be clearing the path for a true cultural revitalization in this second sense of the term:
“Only
after
me
are there again hopes, tasks, prescribable paths of cul-
ture \uorziischreihende
9.
Wege der KulturY^
Walter Kaufinann, Nietzsche:
(EH XII,
2).^^
Philosopher, Psychologist, AntiChrist,
4th ed. (Prince-
ton: Princeton University Press, 1974), p. 228. 10. Ibid., p. 246. Similar
don: Routledge and Literature, pp. 2 11.
1
7-2
Kegan 1
views are expressed in Richard Schacht, Nietzsche (Lon-
Paul, 1983), pp. 276, 331, and
Nehamas,
Nietzsche: Life as
8.
Blondel notes that for Nietzsche, ^Kultur and Zivilisation are opposites from
the point of view of values: the former implies the ‘noble’ values of an intellectual or
I
50
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
While
certainly true that Nietzsche dismissed as nostalgic
it is
nonsense the prospect of
a
return to the unreconstructed “blond
beast” of antiquity, part of his pedagogical-therapeutic project in-
unmanly “tam-
volves urging his imagined readers to throw off the
ing” of their instincts perpetrated by those civilized purveyors of “intolerance against the boldest and most spiritual natures” In The Genealogy
we
inizing spiritualization and sublimation
openly and honestly took pleasure
“Without cruelty there
is
(GM
by contrast, our pleasure
that
is
chical
to say
it
no
festival:
In
(ibid.)-
modern
in cruelty perversely requires “a cer-
and subtilization [Sublmtiemng und Subtilism’im^,
has to appear translated into the imaginative and psy-
and adorned with
II, 6;
one
thus the longest and
.
.
.
innocent names”
(GM II,
Hence the animal “man” in
modern culture that has tamed the by convincing him to repudiate his still intense
(GM
it
upon
in seeing cruelty inflicted
tartuffery of a
part
Previously,
II, 6).
most ancient part of human history teaches” tain sublimation
moderns,
form under the weight of centuries of fem-
lingers only in a debased
times,
12 i)d^
are told that although the “thirst for cruelty”
[Lust an der Grausamkeit] of yesteryear remains with us
others:
(WP
GM
7).
love of cruelty
II,
The Inhuman and the Superhuman Nietzsche believes that the
when
human
species as a
whole
will
advance
most perfect exemplars conduct themselves in accordance with “Dionysian pessimism” and unconditionally embrace an
only
its
spiritual end, while the latter
is
linked to the pejorative appreciation of realizations
considered ‘simply’ material.” Nietzsche, the Body, and Culture, 12.
The
p. 42.
association of Zivilisation with the domestication of higher natures
ther highlighted in
\\T
is
fur-
871: “Struggling ‘civilization’ (taming) needs every kind of
irons and torture to maintain itself against terribleness and beast-of-prey natures.” 13.
Schacht seems to acknowledge Nietzsche’s view of the deleterious effects of
“sublimation” on the will to power
when he
notes that Nietzsche deems
‘sickness’ in relation to the ‘healthy animality’ of a kind
of
life
it
“a
fonn of
governed by an un-
disrupted, smoothly functioning and comprehensive instinct-structure.” Nietzsche, p.
277;
cf.
pp. 389, 434. But he hastens to add that Nietzsche “is far from supposing
that the latter
is
inherently preferable to
it” (p.
277).
THE
EVIL OF
THE STRONG
eternal, “terrible” truth: the inescapably violent, cruel nature of life
(GS
370).
Speaking admiringly of the ancient Greek tragedians for
their recognition of “everything terrible, evil, cryptic, destructive
and deadly underlying existence,” Nietzsche lauds their tragedies for
(BT
laying bare the fearfulness of reality
Philosophers in
Preface
EH XIV,
4; cf.
4).
Hellenistic Greece are taken to task for having
later,
turned away from this important lesson and thus for precipitating their culture’s decline this
.
Preface
A society that turns its back on
i).
hard truth, that sublimates and spiritualizes the cruelty implicit
in existence .
(BT
and embraces an “optimistic, world”
logical interpretation of the
.
doomed
to
go under
hands of
at the
superficial [obafldchlkher], is
already in decline and
courageous enough to embrace the truth (BT Preface
want
257). Nietzsche, for his part, does not
make
honest and
rival cultures still
4; cf.
kindred
his
the mistake of the Hellenistic Greeks. “Terribleness
BGE
spirits to is
part of
greatness” [Zur Grdjse gehdi~t die Furchtharkeit], he intones in his
notebooks, “let us not deceive ourselves”
Once
(WP
1028).
touch with their deepest inclinations and
in
men
sche’s higher
will
come
olence within themselves.
face to face with primordial evil
It is
no accident
exploration of his inner “depths”
in part III,
man
is
este]
in
where Zarathustra declares
is
his best strength
Z
III, 13, 2; cf.
I,
.
.
.
is
that “the wickedest in
[A] 11 that
Part of what
19).
hard
truth:
“man
is
[Untnensch] and III, 13, 2;
growing “better”
that
all
it
is
is
most wicked
means
superhuman
\VP
1027;
cf.
to discover an espe-
also
means growing
[Ubeiynensch]: these
GM
16).
I,
first
cautionary example of someone
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
man
is
in-
belong to-
The Genealogy speaks
between ‘animal and angel’”
“well constituted, joyful mortals”
“pale criminal” of the
[Bbs-
to attain the
beast and superbeast; the higher
similarly of the “unstable equilibrium
a
is
and the hardest stone for the highest
gether” (Z
The
5).
The most evil The same point .
him
“wickeder,” that
within
.
“Evil [das Bose],''
him
heights of normative-spiritual development
human
vi-
necessary for the best in
creator” (Z
cially
evil. .
necessary for the Superman’s best” (Z IV, 13,
made
and
described repeatedly as an en-
is
man’s best strength.
“is a
Nietz-
that the exceptional man’s
counter with an inner core of dreadfulness and claims Zarathustra,
instincts,
(GM III,
part of Zay^athustra
who had
initially
2). is
presented as
made
this discov-
ery
—who took the
initially
courageous step of exploring and revel-
ing in his noble, beastly side morality led
him
in the
erating, all-too-fleeting
committed an
end to
—but whose recoil
indoctrination in slave
and take
moment of mad
flight
from
blood-lust, the pale criminal
thirsted for the joy of the knife [Glilck des Messe 7 's]V^ (Z act,
In a lib-
“wanted blood, not booty: he
act of violence; his soul
immediate wake of the liberating
it.
I,
6).
In the
however, the criminal’s “simple
mind,” slavishly caught up in the dictates of plebeian morality and not wanting “to be ashamed of his madness,” drew him back from his joyous reveling. “‘What
denly taking
not
at least
own,
as a
the good of blood?’” he asks himself, sud-
small-minded, utilitarian view of his action. ‘“Will you
commit
how
imagine its
a
is
a theft too?
Take
a
(ibid.).
Unable
the joyously performed act of violence could stand
monument
to
on
of passionate, innocent self-expression, the
criminal then performs a base action
tempt to
revenge?”’
—he
steals
—
in a pathetic at-
“justify” his violence.
Nietzsche’s point seems to be that only one of refined sensibility
and good breeding, the
initial
fully in
murderous attack
touch with his dark self-justifying.
is
fected by) the herd, this deed could only ried to a vulgar act that ensures
pale criminal
is
some
side,
could see that
But for those of (or
make
in-
sense by being mar-
sort of material “payoff.”
The
thus a “heap of diseases” not because of his terrible,
violent crime but because of a “simple-mindedness” unequal to his
deed
(ibid.).
Nietzsche longs for
a society in
which creative
their actions in the lurch like the pale criminal.
joyfully
hind
it
embraces
(Z
I, 7).
his
destructive consequences.
Only
this
man
beast of prey and serpent in
Rnubtier- iind Schlangeiihafte
man
am
[alles Bose,
Menschen]
Erhbhwig der Spezies
Further on in Beyond Good and
all
free rein,
vestiges of
whatever the
type of society, moreover, would
benefit the species as a whole, for “everyiTing
specific,
His free-spirited
Affirming one’s dark side frees one from
species ‘man’ [zur
longer leave
“madness” and understands the “method” be-
bad conscience and allows the healthy impulses
cal,
men no
Fz;//
dreadful, tyranni-
evil,
Fwchthai'e, Tyraimische, serv^es
to
"'''Meiisch'''’ dieiitY’’
enhance the
(BGE 44).
Nietzsche becomes even more
noting that “certain strong and dangerous drives, such as
enterprisingness, foolhardiness, revengefidness, craft, rapacity, [and]
THE
EVIL OF
THE STRONG
ambition,” while today calumniated and stigmatized by mainstream
must be allowed
morality,
full
expression
(BGE
201). In particular
circumstances, as Zarathustra readily suggests, life-affirming
may
require killing and stealing: “Is there not in
ing and killing?” [ 1st in alle?n Lebeii selber nicht gen] (ZIII, 12, 10).
any universalistic highest sort,
opposes
is
To
all life
itself—steal-
—Raiiben
iind Totschla-
claim the contrary, warns Zarathustra, to place
moral constraints on the actions of the
legal or
to preach “a
all life (ibid.; cf..
sermon of death”
GS
that contradicts
In “the general
and
economy of the
whole,” the unleashing of such potential destructiveness would be a far better
thing than the maintenance of a safe and prudent humani-
tarianism:
“The
fearfulness of reality (in the affects, in the desires, in
the will to power) are to an incalculable degree
more necessary than
any form of petty happiness, so-called ‘goodness’; since the conditioned by granting
it
falsity
latter
is
of instinct one must even be cautious about
a place at all”
(EH XIV,
4).
Nietzsche could not help but profess
a
grudging admiration for
the audacity of an ascetic moral project that sublimates healthy drives and turns the psychic inner
ber”
(GM
II,
16).
As
I
life
of
man
argued in Chapter
i,
into a “torture
however,
this
cham-
grudging
profession of respect for otherworldly asceticism hardly amounts to
strong support. Nietzsche gestures toward the possibility of
a cul-
order that both permits and endorses outward forms of aggression with an openness and innocence of conscience that would outtural
rage
modern
liberal
sign that he was
democrats.
on the
And he would
see their outrage as a
right track.
Against Pity
Although Nietzsche wants
his
higher
men to maintain
connection with their kindred
spirits,
he
slide
from empathy toward
a softening,
calls
an empathetic
upon them
to resist the
feminizing commiseration.
Passages such as these create difficulties for those who, like William Connolly, assume only “fools” think that the Nietzschean conception of nobility could sanction 14.
murder. Connolly, review of Within Nietzsche's Labyrinth by Alan WTiite, ory 29,
154
4 (November
1992): 705.
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
Political
The-
His disparaging treatment of pity can be explained partly by
his
view
of the deleterious consequences that expressions of pity have for
development
friend’s spiritual
(see
Chapter
4).
To
pity a friend
a
to
is
both insult and mollycoddle him: mollycoddle, because the comforting gestures of the pitier invariably encourage the pitied to
become
reconciled to his weakness rather than overcome
because
insult,
it;
the very act of pitying presumes that the object of pity to misfortune,
when
in fact a truly
mounting and mastering But eration is
a
this is
is
all
noble type
is
is
vulnerable
capable of sur-
fortune.
only one side of Nietzsche’s critique of pity. If commis-
an inappropriate expression of empathy for one’s equals,
also seen as ill-advised
toward
inferiors.
Wherein
lies
it
the danger of
human being showing pity for an inferior? Nussbaum has reminded us how pity can serve to reconfirm and
higher
reinforce the view that both pitier and pitied are tied together by the
bonds of
their
common
for misfortunes befalling
knowledge the just as easily
humanity.*^ In pitying other
them through no
of our
fact
own
vulnerability
have fallen prey to
words, “contains
a
fault
a similar
thought experiment
in
human
beings
we acwe could
of their own,
—the
fact that
misfortune. Pity, in other
which one puts oneself
in
the other person’s place, and indeed reasons that this place might in fact be, or
become, one’s own.”^*^
Nietzsche
and
is
is all
too aware of these cognitive and affective linkages
deeply concerned that any pity for the weak and inferior would
generate bonds of solidarity and commonality that would undermine the psychological distance and feeling of superiority he wishes to foster.
In Ecce Ho?f70 he candidly reveals that his “reproach against those ,
who
practice pity
is
that shame, reverence [die Ehifiircht]^ a delicate
feeling for distance [das Zangefiihl vor Distanzen] easily elude
(EH
I,
4).
To
forming an
down
pity the sufferings of the herd
affective
would be tantamount
a slippery slope
toward
a disastrous identification
of his voca-
As we have seen,
Martha Nussbaum, “Pity and Mercy: Nietzsche’s Stoicism,”
nealogy, Morality, ed.
to
bond with them, leading the exceptional man
tion with the servicing of their needs and interests.
15.
them”
in Nietzsche,
Ge-
Richard Schacht (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994),
pp. 139-167. 16. Ibid., p. 157.
THE
EVIL OF
THE STRONG
Nietzsche sees the free of self-indulgence that as a
spirit’s
vocation as lying elsewhere, in
a
form
said to lead to the flourishing of the species
is
whole. Hence the need to combat anything that would tear the
noble type away from himself and those of his kind.
By relegating
the vast majority of the
human
species to an inferior
plane of existence, Nietzsche constructs a lofty imaginative space that remains impervious to the suffering of the many. Zarathustra’s
“mind and longing” “go the remote things” (Z IV,
[only] out to the few,” to “the protracted, 13, 6).
As
for the petty travails of the weak,
haughty and dismissive: “What are your many, little, brief miseries to me!” (ibid.). In light of his inability or unwillingness his attitude
is
to recognize the
common humanity
he shares with these sufferers,
Zarathustra reacts predictably. Indeed, the psychology that undergirds his arrogant imperviousness
was outlined over
a
century earlier
by Rousseau:
Why are kings without pity for their subjects? Because they count on never being mere men. Why are the rich so hard towards the poor? It is because they have no fear of becoming poor. Why does the nobility have so great a contempt for the people? a
noble will never be
Because the talented in their difference
a
It is
because
commoner.'^
men of Nietzsche’s new order are
taught to revel
and superiority and to understand the eternal na-
ture of the rank order, the likelihood of their ever feeling compassion for the majority
is
remote indeed.
nated as canaille must
It
would appear
that those desig-
make do with nothing more than
Nietzsche’s
condescending promise of “gentleness” toward them. {Bien entendu, this is a promise the nobleman makes only to himself; it can always be overridden
The
when
pledge of
the need for venting creative tension a
gentle stance toward the majority
is felt.)
becomes even
more tenuous in light of the naked contempt that Nietzsche’s exceptional humans are expected to hold toward their inferiors. In and of themselves, “the great majority of [ohiie
Recht zu?n DaseinY’
17.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau,
Basic Books, 1979), p. 224.
872).
Einile, or
Nussbaum
Mercy: Nietzsche’s Stoicism,”
156
(WP
p. 144.
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
On
men
have no right to existence
Their right to
exist
Education, trans. Allan
puts this passage to
is
“a thou-
Bloom (New
good use
York:
in “Pity
and
sand times” smaller than that of their noble betters,
hope
for the future perfectibility of
humankind
who embody the
(GM III,
14).^^
This
unbridled and shameless contempt undergirds Nietzsche’s conviction that the
mass of ordinary humans should be spared the rigors of
Under
the agon.
schajfenen] duel
the presumption that there
[recht-
between unequals, he declares that “where one de-
spises [verachtet]
one cannot wage war” (EH
marked contrast
In
no “honest”
is
I, 7).
mid- to
to his occasional tendency in the
1870s to speak of “the human,
too human,” the foibles of
all
late
human
beings as such, the mature Nietzsche deems the less-than-human majority to be unworthy opponents. In a particularly graphic refer-
ence to those
whom
he
calls
declares that “wherever there
there they crawl like
lice;
from cracking them” (Z
who
morality
“teachers of submission,” Zarathustra is
anything small and sick and scabby,
and only
my
disgust \niein Ekel\ stops
In his eyes, the champions of slave
III, 5, 3).
have been honored hitherto do not count “as belong-
ing to mankind at
all
—to me they are the refuse of mankind
chnfi der Menschheit]^ abortive offspring of sickness
stincts”
(EH
[Anss-
and vengeful
Man
Nietzsche claims that an open expression of fear and trembling
omnipotent
caste of self-aggrandizers
aging sign of social progress
human
—
18. Cf. the third
on
a
wide
and respect for the
scale.
A passage from the
of Nietzsche’s early (1874) “untimely meditations,” “Schopen-
hauer as Educator”: “The question
is this:
how
the highest value, the deepest significance?
can your
How can
it
life,
be
the individual
least
19.
Kxmiplai'e],
squandered? Certainly
and not for the good of the majority, that
individually, are the least valuable [wettlosesteij] exemplars”
Like
many
is
(SE
[selteristen
to say those 6).
recent Nietzsche scholars, Schacht chooses to “pass over Nietzsche’s
rhetorical excesses” because he believes that “dwelling
coming
upon them
my
view'
is
way of
gets in die
to terms with the substance of his philosophical thought.” Nietzsche, p.
Schacht,
receive
life,
only by your living for the good of the rarest and most valuable exemplars
who, taken
at the
would be an encour-
a sign that reverence
species had been reinstated
und weitvolL^en
in-
9 II, io).i
Retrieving the Fear of
sight of his
me
xv Pace
that Nietzsche’s “rhetorical excesses” shed important light
basic politico-ethical stance
and thus should be subjected to
on
his
critical scrutiny.
THE
EVIL OF
THE STRONG
157
middle period suggests that fear “has promoted knowledge of
more than
(D
love has”
Whereas
309).
love often leads us to erect
images of our beloved, visceral terror concentrates the mind and
false
obliges us, for prudential reasons, “to divine
can do, what he wants”
(ibid.).
When
who
the other
is,
likely to
remain foremost
ments on the
is
in their minds. Zarathustra similarly
more com-
desirability of plebeian fear: because the souls of the in-
—the “good and
ferior
a very
what he
the majority are in abject terror
of the strong, in other words, the eternal truth of rank order
is
men
just”
good sign indeed
bar] in their eyes
(Z
—
the higher
if
21).
II,
are “so unfamiliar with
If,
on the
man
what
is
great,”
appears “fearful”
it
\fiircht-
contrary, the majority felt per-
fecdy safe in his presence, something would be terribly wrong. Indeed, in Nietzsche’s view something has gone terribly wrong in
modern Europe, where fear has been replaced with comfort, security, and the maxim “love thy neighbor.” Lamentably, many “naive peoples and men” have succumbed to “the pleasing effect produced by the ‘good man’
[^‘‘giite
keine Fiircht\, he permits
take)”
(WP
386).
The
Mensch’’’^
one
(
—he arouses no
to relax,
fear [er erweckt
he gives what one
cultivation of the
“good man”
is
is
able to
but the
side of the active persecution of the fearful, predator-type
flip
man,
whose near extinction has resulted in a “diminution and leveling of European man” that Nietzsche claims is “owr greatest danger” (GM “Together with the fear of man,” he insists, “we have also lost our love of him, our reverence for him, our hopes for him, even the I,
12).
will to
him”
(ibid.; cf.
D
551;
BGE
201).
Nietzsche believes that a social order dedicated to human greatness must involve a recovery of the healthy fear of one’s betters. Eor him, the choice fear
is
where one can
clear:
“Who
would not
a
hundred times sooner
admire than not fear but be permanently condemned to the repellent sight of the ill-constituted, dwarfed, atroalso
phied, and poisoned?”
echoes
this
(GM
I,
ii; cf.
WP
91, 386). Zarathustra
sentiment, declaring that he “would rather have noise
and thunder and storm-curses than this cautious, uncertain feline repose and uncertain, hesitating passing clouds” (Z III, 4). Elsewhere he insists that “petty thoughts” are far worse than cruelty: .
.
.
“Truly, better even to have tily!”
158
(Z
II, 3).
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
done wickedly than
to have thought pet-
Conclusion:
The
C
Perils of Agonistic Politics
ompared with political,
his often detailed critique
and cultural institutions and practices and
nealogical explanations of
qualities
how
would take are
him open
to the
left
same
like is just that: a sketch.
would
high-spirited warriors
fight over
might respond that his
new
I.
is
politics
Exactly what his
this
may seem
criticism of emptiness leveled at a
his task
his ge-
and what form their strug-
undetermined. While
philosophical champion of the agon^
social,
they came to exemplify the
he despises, Nietzsche’s sketch of what an agonistic
of the future would look
gles
of modern
Hannah
to leave
more recent
Arendt,^ Nietzsche
not to prescribe in precise detail
how
philosopher-rulers should exercise power. Providing a de-
Hanna
Pitkin, “Justice:
On
Relating Private and Public,”
Political
Theory 9
(1981): 327-352.
159
tailed blueprint for political action
to
showing disrespect
for the
would, in his view, be tantamount
agency of his free
However, even considering
spirits.
this steadfast refusal to
provide firm,
prescriptive rules for future conduct, the broad outlines of a Nietz-
schean agonistic politics are nevertheless
clear.
that a castelike society, offering unparalleled
competitive challenges to the finest of men,
Nietzsche believes
freedom and unending is
essential for revivify-
ing the creative capacities of the species. Political action aimed at instituting the new order would put a stop to the centuries-old effort of “public opinion” to condition the finest specimens of humanity to serve the interests of the mediocre majority. Living in a sphere un-
by the close proximity of ordinary human beings, Nietzsche’s high-spirited aristocrats would devote themselves to artistic-political achievement in an intensely competitive ag07i. Constrained only by a tainted
sense of respect for and gratitude toward their peers and focused on the contests and challenges at hand, they think nothing of using the
mass
as
fodder for their creative enterprises.
They
also accept with
equanimity the prospect of widespread destruction and loss of that occur as a by-product of their innocent experimentation.
This model
how
example,
is
pervaded with unresolved tensions.
It is
life
unclear, for
the long-term institutional stability so prized by
Nietzsche could become
a reality in light
of his refusal to counte-
nance any brake on the experimentation of his highest men beyond the restraints imposed by powerful rivals. In his unwillingness to consider the idea that a stable social and political order requires even the finest specimens of humanity to submit to a more systematic
regime of
discipline,
Nietzsche compares unfavorably to
ber, his great successor in
German
social
and
Max We-
political thought. Al-
though Weber expressed some rather Nietzschean reservations about bureaucratic routinization the process whereby the achieve-
—
ments of charismatic, innovative leaders are transformed into stable institutional forms he at least took this phenomenon seriously and
—
accepted (albeit unenthusiastically) the prospect of a tradeoff. Nietzsche cannot bring himself to do this; his aristocratic radicalism runs too deep. As
order
is
avowed
interest in a durable sociopolitical
compromised. Another source of tension
writing, as
i6o
a result, his
we have
seen,
is
the lack of fit
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
bemeen
in Nietzsche’s
his insistence
upon
the dependency of higher types inferiors) for full
human
on others (both friends/enemies and
flourishing and his occasional evocation of a
form of self-sufficiency incompatible with any form of sociability or dependency.^ Despite these
many contemporary
difficulties,
political theorists
philosophers and
have been quick to reclaim the Nietzschean agon
for egalitarian political purposes. Despite Nietzsche’s repeated insis-
tence that a natural hierarchy of
human
types
is
one of the unalter-
able “hard truths” of existence, they assure us that his aristocratic
radicalism
is
but
detachable module in
a readily
a
broader, subversive
philosophical project that could be pressed into service for radically
democratic ends. His unmasking of the dishonesty, hypocrisy, and
and
ressentiment of ruling classes political,
his insistence
on the primacy of the
of struggle and contestation, are seen as useful tropes for
those interested in celebrating the fact of pluralism, diversity, and difference and
—more
—championing the
specifically
interests of the
marginalized and disadvantaged.^ Nietzsche’s transfer into the
of radical democracy, as already noted,
is
often expedited by collaps-
ing his work into that of Foucault, whose well-known
conformism and resistance of the agon I
much more
remain
skeptical,
camp
call for
non-
to oppressive “normalization” render talk
palatable for democratic sensibilities.
however, about recent theoretical efforts to
reconcile a radical Nietzschean agon with egalitarian political aspira-
2.
Those who
take Nietzsche to be a forerunner of
postmodern philosophy may
well be tempted to dismiss such concerns for consistency by pointing to his alleged de-
construction of such “logocentric” categories. This view Nietzsche’s belief that the
impels him to “demand.
. .
mand
3.
difficult to reconcile
Preface
greater and greater precision.” Philosophers of his sort de-
and buts
.
.
.
[are]
evidence of one
all
of their “values,”
will, one health, one soil, one
sun”
2).
Nietzsche
has been
“ifs
with
of knowledge” of his ideal philosopher
consistency: they have “no right to isolated acts of any kind”;
“yeas and nays,”
(GM
will
is
is
deemed
not the only radically antidemocratic modern thinker whose work helpfully subversive by radical democrats.
Mark
Lilia has recently
written of a similar attraction of opposites in the curious left-wing admiration for the
Nazi-sympathizing constitutionalist Carl Schmidt. “In the view of some European leftists,
Schmitt was
a radical (if
right-wing) democrat whose brutal realism can help
us today to rediscover ‘the political’ distinction
is
said to
remind us that
emy of Liberalism,” New
.
.
.
[H]is unabashed defense of the friend-enemy
politics
is,
York Review of Books,
above
May
all,
struggle.” See Lilia,
“The En-
15, 1997, p. 42; cf. p. 39.
THE
PERILS OF AGONISTIC POLITICS
tions.
The
notion of unending struggle or competition has an unde-
niable appeal, of course, in particular, circumscribed fields of en-
Open-ended
deavor.
many
fields,
from
struggle does indeed have a salutary effect in
ual contestability of one’s
will
political struggle
perpet-
achievements and victories guards against
complacency and keeps one on one’s tumble
The
philosophy to figure skating.
political
Moreover, rough-and-
toes.
among and between
individuals and groups
always remain an integral component of any democratic politics
worthy of the name. one thing to acknowledge the necessity of these circum-
It is
scribed forms of struggle;
it
quite another, however, to follow
is
Nietzsche in celebrating a universalization of struggle, to posit per-
Those who do so in theory would have us believe that its actualization in practice would improve our democracy. The unending, unbounded nature of agonistic struggle, in this view, would guard against any imposition of a petual contestation as a normative goal in
stultifying,
permanent hierarchy. But
consistently
Could
it
worked
is
such
out, truly inimical to
not conceivably lead to
a
itself.
a vision,
all
once
debunking of key liberal-democratic suffrage,
as
rights
as
it
and
forms of domination?
equal —such our notions of universal human the establishment of —even
verities
fully
resists
respect, a
and
permanent
structure of hierarchy?
Postmodern
theorists, as
good democrats,
rightly (and thankfully)
shrink from such imaginings. But their adherence to the contemporary democratic consensus reveals a crucial disjuncture between their
bold rhetoric of unbounded struggle and their more constrained substantive politics.
The
theoretical call for a politics constituted
an “endless subversion of codes”
is
routinely belied by a
in the face of the
wants and needs of
of previous ages were
less reluctant to
others."^ Political
make
The
phrase in quotation marks comes from
Dana
sense of this willingness
R. Villa,
the Public Sphere,” American Political Science Revieu' 83,
should note that in this
upon Nietzsche,
article Villa
in his depiction
moral su-
“Postmodernism and
(September 1992): 719. I draws upon Foucault and Arendt, rather than
of a postmodern
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
will
philosophers
theoretically; John Stuart Mill, for example, claims that the
4.
humane,
demands of one’s
liberal-democratic willingness to attenuate the
by
politics.
3
— periority of
modern
civilization lies in
—what he
disciplined restraint
successful inculcation of
its
the “social principle”
calls
—
in those
of “strong bodies or minds.”^
Postmodern
political thinkers balk at this language, preferring a
politics that resists all
forms of discipline and “normalization.” Mil-
lian talk of social discipline, in this view,
carries within
And
sion.
it
a subtle, insidious
is
but
a
Trojan horse that
form of domination and repres-
the fact that Mill evokes the need for discipline and civi-
lization in order to justify the British imperialism of his time
seems
to strengthen the argument.
am
I
concerned, however, that
dismiss Mill’s views in
toto
a
key insight
Postmodern democra-
are,
modern
civilization.^ Fragile
they remain achievements; although
it
has
unfashionable to say so in contemporary political theory, that
a
because they take for granted the (admittedly ten-
uous) moral and legal achievements of
me
when we
can make blithe assumptions about the benignity of
politics of struggle
though they
lost
because of his ideological implication in
the nineteenth-century imperialist enterprise. tic theorists
being
is
one of liberal democracy’s great
historical
it
become
seems to
achievements has
been the establishment of institutional barriers that prevent the into the type of radically politicized competitive space for
slide
which
“On Liberty,” chapter 3, in John Stuart Mill, On Liberty and Other Essays, ed. John Gray (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 67. Mill, of course, was con5.
See
cerned that modern democratic societies were succeeding straint
all
too well in their con-
of individuality and spontaneity, and struggled to oudine a vision of the
politi-
would combine the necessity of disciplined restraint with the encouragement of forms of human excellence that would not endanger the public safety. Nietzsche, who in \VP 30 dismisses Mill as a “flathead,” was disdainful of any endorsement cal that
however 6.
which
qualified
—of modern
civilization’s
“taming” of strong individuality.
See, for example, William Connolly’s picture of a “politics of disturbance” in “friends, lovers,
tual appreciation
and adversaries” restrain themselves
in the
end “through mu-
of the problematical bases from which they proceed.” Connolly, The
Ethos of Plia-alization (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995), p. 29. If this picture of self-restraint through radical self-doubt
mind, to
a preexistent, taken-for-granted
of something
at the
at all attractive,
achievement of
like Mill’s social principle.) I
and Modernity” (paper presented
is
it is
civilization. (I
due, to
am
my
thinking
argue this at greater length in “Agonism
annual meeting of the American Political Sci-
ence Association, Boston, September 1998).
THE
PERILS OF AGONISTIC POLITICS
Nietzsche yearns. At their very best dition
—
liberal
—
sadly,
an all-too-rare con-
democracies provide protection and means of
self-
betterment for society’s most vulnerable members.^ Nietzsche
is
certainly correct in pointing out that the entrench-
ment of notions of universal and equal
rights in liberal democracies
serves to inhibit the strong and aggressive. But
some
version of the egalitarian ideal, ^ should
if
we
subscribe to
we not embrace what
Nietzsche decried about modern liberal democracies, namely that they treat rights as something very different from the booty of victors?
Competing Conceptions of the Agon As
suggested above,
I
it
would be
a grave
mistake to denigrate the
of contestation in liberal-democratic politics altogether.
role
A
regime that takes individual and group rights seriously must include an agon of sorts
—although not of the Nietzschean
variety.
Once we
turn to the Western philosophical tradition in search of an ideal of political contestation
more
in line with liberal-democratic sensibili-
Aristotle appears to be of
ties,
Seeing the former
much
greater help than Nietzsche.
an agonistic thinker of any sort has until re-
as
cently been difficult in light of the popular “communitarian” association of Aristotle with
communal harmony and shared understand-
ings. Fortunately, Aristotle has
role in the “liberal vs.
Among
been wrenched out of
his confining
communitarian” debates of the 1980s by those
many contemporary political theorists who criticize the inability or unwillingness of our governments to make good on these commitments are those who argue that a truly just political order must make room for forms of political expression 7.
the
not readily suited for agonistic competition
— for example, the more
tentative, concil-
and consensual forms that are often associated with the feminine. See, for example, Iris Marion Young, “Communication and the Other: Beyond Deliberative iatory,
Democracy,”
in Deynocracy
and
Difference: Contesting the Boundaries of the Political, ed.
Seyla Benhabib (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), pp. 8. Just why we
subscribe to
it is
no
idle question.
As
I
why we adhere
to views about the equal
beings.
164
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
20-1 35.
argue below,
with Nietzsche can provoke us into usefully articulating what ered self-evident:
1
a
confrontation
too often
is
consid-
moral worth of
all
human
all
who
rightly highlight his clear-eyed
cal conflict in
even the most stable regimes.^ But what
democratic eyes than the
a suspicion
The
assumptions
elitist
of democracy into his political models?
aristocratic tastes
chos are undeniable, as
is
and gestures of the Aristotelian inegalopsu-
Aristotle’s
tendency to
as a yardstick^®
However, the
from the Nietzschean Ubemtensch
Nietzsche,
of virtue should be
inegalopsuchos
one key
in
insist, like
man
that the perceptions and intuitions of the
looked upon
about
it
possess an aristocratic sensibility and build heavy
and
is it
politi-
more promising to liberalNietzschean variety? Did not Aristotle also
agonism that makes
Aristotelian
countenance of perpetual
respect: the
is
distinct
former
is
not granted the absolute discretionary power that Nietzsche’s excep-
man demands
tional
Even the
as his right.
best of us, argues Aristo-
can have our judgment distorted by personal interest and pas-
tle,
sion: “Desire
is
a wild beast,
when they
even
and passion perverts the minds of rulers,
are the best of men.”^^
Hence
the need for law,
which, as a mechanism denuded of passion and particular attachments, ensures the constancy and stability required for the mainte-
nance of public order. By declaring the rule of law to be “preferable to that of any individual,”^^ Aristotle tempers the agon in a
unacceptable to the self-policing hubristic
man
manner
of Nietzsche’s fan-
tasies.
At one point Aristotle does seem to toy with the prospect of spiriand moral
tual
individual
who
perfectibility as far
is
above mortals. Such
from
all
when he imagines
the discovery of an
above other citizens in virtue
as the
gods are
he concedes, should be exempt
a divine being,
law and given absolute power.
Aristotle’s skepticism
dent, however, in his conclusion that “since this
is
is
evi-
unattainable, and
kings have no marked superiority over their subjects,”
all
should sub-
own
are
more upon
mit to the 9. tice,
law.^"^
“In our
day,” he observes,
See especially Bernard Yack, The
and
P -oble fis of a
Conflict in Aristotelian Political
7
7
“men
Political
Annual: Coftwtunity, Jus-
Thought (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1993). 10. See, for
example, Aristotle, Nico?nachean
11. Aristotle,
The
Ethics,
i
i66ai2-i3;
i
lydaiy-ip.
Politics,
12. Ibid.,
i287a2o.
13. Ibid.,
I284a3-i5;
14. Ibid.,
i332b22-30.
cf.
i332bi5-2o.
THE
PERILS OF AGONISTIC POLITICS
an equality, and no one
is
so immeasurably superior to others” as to
warrant blanket exemption from the lawsd** Aristotle’s refusal to seriously
countenance the prospect of human
him to suggest that the best polls would allow less talented citizens some share of political power. Whereas an allpowerful individual “is liable to be overcome by anger or by some other passion” and have his judgment perverted, the demos is “less perfectibility also leads
easily corrupted”
Although
and can thus serve
as individuals “they
have special knowledge, as
a
as a safeguard to
may be worse
body they
good
order.
judges than those
are as
good or
who
better,” pro-
vided, of course, they have not been “utterly degraded” by poverty, disease, and/or oppression.
Nietzsche, by contrast,
contempt
is
much more
inclined to maintain a lofty
for the less resourceful, insisting
on
self-evident fact and scornfully dismissing the
their degradation as a
poor
taste
of Aristo-
suggestion that the artist-legislator might have something to
tle’s
from those subject
learn
unlike Aristotle’s,
is
to his laws.^^ Nietzsche’s artist-legislator,
an artist-tyrant
who
can accept challenges to his
authority only from a select circle of peers. sists
that respect for the dignity
found
disrespect for the
needs and wishes of the vast majority,
maintains that there
totle
Whereas Nietzsche inof humankind requires showing pro-
is
Aris-
something worthy of respect and
admiration even in the lowliest.
The
can sustain
of shared interest in the Aristotelian
polls,
a political friendship
talented and the less able,
who
can experience only contempt and fear for each other in the
community envisioned by Nietzsche. 15. Ibid.,
131336-9.
16. Ibid.,
1286332-35.
17. Ibid.,
1282315-17.
“There 3re some
18. 3 rtists
3rts
whose products
3re not judged of solely, or best,
by the
themselves, n 3 mely those arts whose products are recognized even by those
who do
not possess the
art; for
example, the knowledge of the house
is
not limited to
the builder only; the user, or, in other words, the master, of the house will actually
be
a
better judge than the builder, just as the pilot will judge better of a rudder than
the carpenter, and the guest will judge better of a feast than the cook.” Ibid.,
1282317-25. 19.
“The weak and
ill-constituted shall perish [zu
o«r philanthropy ['nnsrer' Menschenliebe]" (A
166
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
2).
Griwde gehn]:
first
principle of
Democracy
Nietzsche’s Importance for Liberal
If,
as partisans
in favor of the Aristotelian variety,
sche’s legacy?
we
of liberal democracy,
reject
Nietzschean agonism
what are we
make of Nietzpre-Walter Kaufmann era,
Are we to return to the
to
when Nietzsche was banished from all respectable academic discourse? Some have suggested this might be for the best; Alasdair MacIntyre, for example, considers the Nietzschean Uben?iensch better suited for a bestiary
than for serious philosophical scrutiny.^®
Friends of democratic equality might be better advised, however, to
The
attend seriously to his message.
point
is
not to “discredit”
Nietzsche but rather to invite democracy’s friends to face the depth of his challenge head-on with
mocratic
a
reasoned and effective defense of de-
ideals.
Like other keen nineteenth-century European observers of modern Western civilization, Nietzsche feared that the post-Christian, liberal,
and democratic emphasis on equality and rights was eroding
the sociopolitical conditions for the flourishing of
He, no
less
than J.
S.
human
greatness.
Mill and Alexis de Tocqueville, uncovered the
penchant of “democratic man” for the “pitiable comforts” associated with a terial
life
dominated by the narrow pursuit and accumulation of ma-
goods.^^ All of these thinkers
warned of the “leveling” of mod-
ern culture as democratic majorities lose their traditional deference and, through prurient, suffocating attention and envy, chase those still
capable of grand achievement to the margins.
In
many ways
thinker such as Tocqueville
a
is
more
palatable for
the egalitarian-minded, largely because his worries are balanced by a
genuine admiration for democratic virtues and the hope that countervailing factors (especially religious belief)
would check
its
narrow
some element of transcendent
striving in the
democratic populace. Perhaps Nietzsche’s continuing
ability to dis-
materialism and sustain
concert
lies in his
calls for
21.
rejection of
countervailing measures.
We
A
Study
20. Alasdair
versity of
uncompromising
Notre
Macintyre, After Virtue:
Dame
Tocquevillian
must choose, he in
insists,
be-
Moral Theory (Notre Dame: Uni-
Press, 1984), p. 22.
See Alexis de Tocqueville, Dernoa'acy
vol. 2, part 2, chaps, i,
all
14 and part
4,
chaps. 6,
in
America, vol.
i.
Part
i,
chaps.
3, 5;
7.
THE
PERILS OF AGONISTIC POLITICS
— tween democratic equality and cultural entropy on the one hand and inequality and heightened levels of
Contemporary
political
human
flourishing
philosophy has “responded” to
schean claim with either silence or obfuscation.
minded philosophers and cially
on the
political theorists
—
I
this
Nietz-
Many egalitarianam thinking espe-
of partisans of liberalism in the Anglo-American academy
consider talk of such a choice both distasteful and dangerous. the insistence that is,
other.
all
Hence
such “perfectionist” talk be marginalized, that
barred from political debate and relegated to
a private
sphere of
aesthetic self-expression. In order to join in respectable political dis-
we
cussion,
are told,
we must
already be part of the “overlapping
consensus” that accepts certain beliefs
moral worth of for the
weak
—
—
for example, in the equal
human beings, and in the importance of concern givens. To try to articulate and defend publicly the
all
as
assumptions behind these beliefs would be divisive and
futile,
be-
cause (they claim) such efforts invariably introduce metaphysical
may not be to everyone’s liking in a modern pluralistic society. To ensure maximum inclusiveness, they conclude, public debate must simply accept equality as a given and move and/or religious values that
on
to matters of procedural justice
and rights adjudication.^^
Citi-
zens whose lives exemplify particular conceptions of human flourishing and
who complain
that the public
commitment
to equal treat-
ment undermines these conceptions must not expect order to accommodate their concerns in any way.
One
self-declared
this view,
“postmodern
liberal,”
the political
Richard Rorty, echoes
claiming that the optimal arrangement for those
who
share
the “moral intuitions” of Western liberal democracies involves a politics
that excludes public debate over basic values and a private
given over to expressivist and perfectionist urges.
life
Although Rorty
invokes Nietzsche as an inspiration for the “private,” expressivist
component of
convenient arrangement, he ignores Nietzsche’s
2 2.
Both John Rawls and Jurgen Habermas
23.
Richard Rorty, “The Priority of Democracy to Philosophy,” in
ativism,
and
ty^pify this attitude.
Objectivity, Rel-
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991). See also his Conand Solidarity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).
Ti'iith
tingency, Irony,
168
this
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
own profound skepticism about such easy compartmentalization. As we have seen in Chapter 3, Nietzsche casts doubt on the very possiof
bility
and admirable form of “private” expression
a satisfying
in
the face of an ambient political culture that discourages innovation.
Much
modern
like
feminists, he wants to
unmask
conventional lines between the personal and the
as spurious the
political, insisting
that self-overcoming at the individual level can succeed only with a radical
revitalization
of culture.
(Unlike
modern
feminists,
of
course, he insists that such revitalization entails a forceful public reassertion of antiegalitarian and masculinist values.)
We
would do well
sion to ignore Nietzsche’s charges.
simply as
wisdom of the popular deciBy taking the belief in equality
to question the
given in debates about justice, by encouraging inarticu-
a
paramount questions as “why equality?” and “equalof what?,” political philosophy abandons rigorous argument in
lacy over such ity
good faith. It is sometimes asserted that democracies have no need of a reasoned defense because an-
favor of pious wishes and liberal
tidemocratic visions of a Nietzschean sort are increasingly marginalized in the West.
But even
if
we
grant the accuracy of this socio-
logical claim, the
assumption that democratization eliminates the
need for reasoned
justification
to Rorty,
tendentious. In a recent response
is
Adam
Stephen Mulhall and
Swift put the matter co-
gently:
may well be
It
that the ethical and political vocabularies of Nietz-
sche and Loyola are losing their grip on Western culture as a
whole; but any individual
who
thing and wants to speed
it
regards this development as a good up,
must do so by revealing the
poverty, ugliness and irrelevance of these vocabularies in argu-
ment^ not by declaring that development to have been completed
24.
Daniel
“‘healthy’
W. Conway
self-creation
is
rightly notes Nietzsche’s unequivocal
never
strictly
private”
because
it
insistence that
always involves “a
Dionysian element of excess or superfluity” that could not abide being stricted to a private sphere. Nietzsche p. 129. litical
Keith Ansell-Pearson makes
and
a similar
the Political
point in
(London: Routledge, 1997),
An Introduction to Nietzsche as Po-
Thinker (Camhndge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp.
THE
artificially re-
1
70-1 72.
PERILS OF AGONISTIC POLITICS
already. be,
it
However devoutly
will
So long
to be wished this
not be brought about by wishing alone.^^
as political theorists
and philosophers dismiss Nietzsche’s
radical aristocratism as uninteresting
against
25.
consummation may
democracy
will
Stephen Mulhall and
and
trivial, his
serious charges
remain unanswered.
Adam
Swift, Liberals
and Com?n Unitarians (Oxford: Black-
247 (emphasis added). 26. In arguing thus I draw upon Ruth Abbey and Fredrick Appel, “Domesticating
well, 1992), p.
Nietzsche:
170
A Response
to
Mark Warren,”
NIETZSCHE CONTRA DEMOCRACY
Political
Theory 27:1 (February 1999).
1
Index Beiner, Ronald, 135
Abbey, Ruth, 40, 46, 48, 54, 77, 83, 92, 94,
1
14, 139, 149,
Berkowitz, Peter, 10-13, 21, 36, 57, 77,
170
85, 94, III, i2C^2i, 145
Acampora, Christa Davis, 33 Anderson, Benedict,
“Blond beast,”
1 1
Blondel, Eric,
Annas, Julia, 79
Aristode, 37, 50, 73, too, 107, 127-28, on 138, 164; on friendship, 86-87, 96;
164-66; on
Augustine, Saint, 135
114
inheritance, 109-16; religion as a tool
133-35
and
otherworldly transcendence, 25, 61,
Assoun, Paul Laurent, 22
2,
Burgard, Peter J., 96
Ascetism, 35,45,98, loi, 109, 115, 154; ascetic priest, 35-36, 70;
Brandes, Georg,
for,
and nature, 32-33
and the
Booth, Wayme, 58 Breeding, 61, 106-9, 130; and
the great-souled man, 45, 57, 145,
virtue
also
Instinct
Arendt, Hannah, 159
political agon,
148-50
Body, 21-22, 28, 47, 62-63.
133, 142, 169
on the
9, 33,
Bloom, Allan, 10
Ansell-Pearson, Keith, 13, loi, 131,
165;
6, 54, 57, 60, 147, 151
1
15
Cancik, Hubert, 113 Christianity,
i,
18, 29, 37, 64, loi,
147; ascetic strain in, 97-98;
171
5
2
1
C'hristianity, (cont.) antipolitical nature
123-25; and free
of,
1
1
will,
47-48;
political usefulness of, 44,
133-36
Clark, Maudemarie, 18, 31, 73-75, 97
Romand, 4 Commanding. See Ruling C.oles,
Fortuna. See
1
Luck
Foucault, Michel,
9-1
3,
161
1,
Freud, Sigmund, 22 Friendship, 14, 79, 83, 155; agonistic,
86-93, 141? male-female, 93-96
Connolly, W^illiam E., 3-4, 52, 82,
Gobineau, Joseph-Arthur de,
1 1
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von,
154, 163
Contempt:
of nobility, 42-43,
as sign
65-66, 76, 157 Conway, Daniel VV.,
5,
38,
90
Habermas, Jurgen,
169
28, 168
Courage, 40, 60, 62, 71-72, 145; to embrace hard truths, 6, 20, 38
Health, 24, 26, 37, 60 Hegel, Georg Wlhelm Friedrich, 149
Craig, Leon,
Herd
1
Cruelty: innocent, 147-49; sublimation of,
150-52
Danto, Arthur,
10, 16
prelude to grand
130-31, 133. See
Honig, Bonnie, 3-4, 82, 119, 144 Hunt, Lester, 1
Instinct, 21-25, 28-32, 38, 41,
Decadence, 24, 26, 35, 52 Democracy: characteristic vices 128-29;
morality. See iMorality: slave
47-48,
55-56, 62, no, 148, 153-54. See of,
also
Body
politics,
also Equality;
Justice, 50-51,
143-44
Modernity Derrida, Jacques, 9-1 Detwiler, Bruce, 1
18, 140,
2, 13, 33,
Kaufmann, Walter, 8-10, 94, 107, 112,
147
Deutscher, Penelope, too
82, 90, 106,
1
19, 12
Kofrnan, Sarah,
9,
Kymlicka, Will,
7
1,
13, 33, 57,
150, 167
94, 102
Diethe, Carole, 33
Domination, 128, 140 Dovi, Suzanne, 8, 1 18
Lampert, Laurence,
Drives. See Instinct
La Rochefoucauld,
Duty,
Law, 138-42, 165-66; ofManu, 98;
7,
143-44, 147-48
Dworkin, Ronald,
7
8, 12, 17, 51,
126, 149
natural, 19, Leiter, Brian
,
le
Due
de,
46
23-24 17-18, 23, 28, 46,
50, 68 Lilia,
Mark, i6i
Love, Nancy,
13, 13
Lowith, Karl, 131, 133 Luck, 51-52, 76-80, 108 Eternal return, 73-76, 103-4; ^”^1
Luther, Martin,
no, 135
unconditional affirmation, 64
Feminism, 96, 98-102, 169
Machiavelli, Niccolo, 57, 78-79, 95, too, 122, 124
Ferry, Luc,
MacIntyre, Alasdair,
1
Filmer, Sir Robert, 135
INDEX
Magnus, Bernd,
ro, 82,
10, 13
167
3
Mara, Gerald, Mill,
8,
1
Ressenthnent, 40, 139;
Romanticism,
19,
150-51, 163-64; and industrialism,
Rorty, Richard, 4,
130-32
Rosen, Stanley, 1
1;
master, 6, 43; slave,
2, 6,
37-52, 129
38, 102, 120,
Sadler, Ted,
126
10, 13, 16, 28,
57-58, 73, 119, 121, 127, 132-33,
150-51, 157
Schmidt, Carl, 161 1
,
9, 76,
1
14 Nietzsche, Friedrich: antipolitical
17-19; against nostalgia,
of, 3-5,
9-10,
17-18, 20
Selfishness, 14, 64-65, 125
Socrates, 47, 55-56, 78-79,
1
55, 78, 80, 82,
25, 126
Solomon, Robert, Stern, J. R, 12
155-56
19,
and suffering,
70-73
Nihilism, 20, 53, 69, 130
Nussbaum, Martha,
no
Solitude, 13-14, 81-83; pernicious effects of, 84-85;
161-63
9(^91,
of,
Seneca, 145
6,
56-58; as pedagogue, 12, 59-61;
postmodern readings
Science, 16, 22-23, 36; positivist notions
Sen, Amarty'a, 7
interpretations of, 12-13, 1
1
Schutte, Ophelia,
44 150
Nietzsche, Elisabeth Foster-, 104,
156
Schacht, Richard, 12-13, 45, 57, 82,
Nehamas, Alexander,
^
1
Ruling, 32, 127-32, 140
Nature, 19, 32-38
137,
33-34 10, 168-69
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 100, 124; on pity,
Mulhall, Stephen, 169-70
Napoleon,
and revenge,
43,69
Moderation, 45-47 Modernity, i, 38, loi, 122-25,
Morality,
1
Renaut, Alain, 10, 12
18
Stuart, 8, 162-63, 167
John
2
Stoicism, 13, 66-67, 78-80
Strong, Tracy B.,
Owen, David, 4-5
5, 10, 24, 57,
82, 106,
III, 121, 132
Perspectivism,
Swift,
28
5,
Adam, 169-70
Pippin, Robert, 14, 76, 85 Pitkin, Pity,
Taste, 26-27, 59, 144-47; ethical
Hanna, 159
significance of, 27-28
91-93, 154-57
Plato, 14-15, 46, 56, 136;
ofFonns,
18,
1
140-41, 146,
119-23, 148-49
art,
3, 12,
35, 57
Thus Spoke Zarathustra: irony
12
Politics: agonistic, 4, 6-7,
Taylor, Charles,
Thiele, Leslie Paul, 13, 17, 119
137
Pletsch, Carl, 61,
159-62; as
and the theory
in, 14;
Nietzsche’s assessment of, 104; the “pale criminal”
in,
152-53
Tocqueville, Alexis de, 135, 167
Racism,
9,
1 1
i-i
2
Rangordnung. See Rank order
Rank
order, 6, 23-30, 49, 65, 122,1 26,
Transcendence: earthly,
19, 62
Truth, II, 18-19, 22, 24-28, 30, 36, 152
128, 156, 158
Rawls, John, 168
Vanity, 40-41
Reason, 22, 25, 55-56
Villa,
Dana
R.,
162
INDEX
173
Virtue, 13, 21, 32, 34, 39-41, loi, 105, 149; of the herd, 64, 82, 92, 94, 129;
and nature, 32-35; woman’s, 97-98. See also Courage; Duty; Moderation
Williams, Bernard, ii, 32, 57, 80, 125, 136
Will to power, 27, 30-32, 35-36, 43, 49, loi, 119, 127, 154
Women, 93-102 Walker, Brian, 149
Warren, Mark,
174
4, 82, 107, 128,
Weber, Max,
20,
WTiite, Alan,
5,
INDEX
160
144, 154
140
Yack, Bernard,
Young,
Iris
5, 33, 37,
Marion, 164
Young, Julian, 120
165
I
i:
V