The next entry in Strauss and
Cropsey’s History of Political Philosophy
is Werner J. Dannhauser’s take on the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, who is
perhaps one of the most original philosophers featured in the book. Dannhauser
begins his essay by first examining the thought of the young Nietzsche. At this
point in his life, Nietzsche saw the philosopher as being the physician of
culture and was supposed to diagnose a problem with the culture and then search
for a cure. Initially, Nietzsche saw this cure as being found in music.
Eventually, Nietzsche lost faith that music could produce a cure for the
problems of a culture and began to search for other ways to achieve this task.
This search preoccupied most of the rest of his life and for Dannhauser;
Nietzsche would most fully articulate this search in Thus Spoke Zarathustra.
One of the major problems Nietzsche
saw in modern philosophy was its dependency on historicism and a belief in
world progress. According to Nietzsche, both this problems largely laid at the
feet of Hegel. Humans are seen as historical creatures because they can
remember the past, and it is this that both makes humans fully human and also
slaves. Therefore, according to Nietzsche, the task before us is to strike a
balance between remembering and forgetting the past. Nietzsche does not want to
do way with history, as he sees it has great value. In particular, Nietzsche
thinks that there are three types of history that can serve life. These three
types of history are as follows: 1) Monumental history provides the man of
action with models of greatness by its depiction of the great men of the past,
2) Antiquarian history addresses itself to the preserving and revering element
in man, imbuing him with salutary love of tradition, and finally 3) Critical
history, which places obsolete aspects of the past before the bar of judgment
and condemns them and by doing this, it brings to light injustices surviving
from the past so that they can be abolished in the present. Still, even though
Nietzsche sees positive aspects to these three types of history, he also sees
ways in which all three are open to abuse. For example, Monumental history may
hinder the development of present greatness while Antiquarian history may
preserve current injustices. Critical history can also be abused as it can
separate people from their past.
Historical science is seen as
disrupting life as it places more emphasis on the desire to know than on the
desire to serve life. Connected to this is Nietzsche’s idea that Hegel has
removed the challenge of dealing with calamites from the historical process.
Furthermore, for Nietzsche, a major failing of historicism was that it placed
man below history and with this; it also placed wisdom over life. Nietzsche was
this as a problem because for him, life should be placed above wisdom. This is
not to say Nietzsche wants to do away with wisdom as his ultimate goal is to
actualize what he sees as a unity between wisdom and life. Nietzsche also
thinks that history should be viewed as being made by great men. Because of
this, for Nietzsche there is no objective history, but rather only
interpretations of historical facts. History must be viewed as being entirely
man made. The ancient Greek civilization understood this and is viewed as the
height of humanity due to their emphasis on master morality and conflict. And
just as the ancient Greeks are seen as the height of humanity, Greek tragedy is
seen as the height of ancient Greek civilization.
Socrates however is seen as
initiating the beginning the fall of this civilization, a trend that was
further developed with the rise of Christianity and with that, the triumph of
slave morality. What Nietzsche means by “master/ slave morality” is that all
morality involves the imposing of values, a fact that master morality fully
understands, accepts, and embraces. Slave morality rejects this and thus tries
to elevate the weak. Despite Nietzsche’s contention that pagan societies,
particularly the ancient Greek one, understood the true nature of morality
better, it should not be inferred from this that Nietzsche is seeking a
restoration of pre-Christian morality. Rather, Nietzsche’s goal here is to
create a reformulated version of master morality.
Slave morality as rooted in
Christianity has also brought with it other egalitarian movements such as
democracy and socialism. This is greatly troublesome for Nietzsche as he feels
that this will bring about the triumph of mediocrity. The attack on democracy
and socialism also ties closely in with Nietzsche’s contention that modern
society, far from destroying the old idols like they thought that had, merely
produced new idols to replace the old ones. And much like the old idols if the
past, these new idols must be destroyed. Needless to say, Nietzsche is indeed
an atheist, but his atheism is atypical from the rest of the atheism of the day
in three major ways. These ways are as follows: 1) it is explicitly stated, 2)
it is of the political right and rooted in aristocracy, and 3) it is
historical. All this ties into the idea of the Death of God and with that the
realization that God and morality are the products of human creation. Though he
is a staunch critic of the left, Nietzsche rejects conservatism for four major
reasons. These reasons are as follows: 1) It has been forces to make
concessions, 2) it embraces nationalism, 3) it relies on the old nobility, and
4) it is allied with Christianity.
What all this means is that
initially, only decline can happen, but from this decline and collapse a better
order will be able to emerge. The highest goal in life then is seen as the
ability to enact the will to power and overcome problems, a move which leads
Nietzsche to see humans as primarily being a creative being rather than a
rational one. Nietzsche’s radicalization of human will and creativity creates a
problem as it creates a question as to if all problems could ever be overcome
and what would happen if this ever was the case. Nietzsche’s ideal on this
radicalization is what he calls the Übermensch,[1] an
absolutely creative and unique individual, a move that shows Nietzsche’s
indebtedness to radical individualism. In the last part of the essay,
Dannhauser addresses the most controversial aspect of Nietzsche’s thought, his
supposed connection to Nazism. Here Dannhauser notes that while Nietzsche
abhorred the nationalism, racism and anti-Semitism of what would later become
fascism, his ideas on the radicalization of creativity and his anti-egalitarian
Übermensch did indeed help lay the groundwork for the development of fascism.
[1]
The essay actually uses the term “Superman”, an older translation of
Nietzsche’s term that is now rejected as inaccurate by virtually all Nietzsche
scholars.
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