|
THE DESTRUCTION OF REASON
GEORG LUKACS
1885 - 1971
The Destruction of Reason.
Georg Lukács 1952
CHAPTER III
Nietzsche as Founder of Irrationalism in
the Imperialist Period
1 It may be postulated as a general statement
that the decline of bourgeois ideology set
in with the end of the 1848 revolution. Of
course we can find many latecomers - especially
in literature and art - for whose work this
thesis by no means holds good (we need only
to mention Dickens and Keller, Courbet and
Daumier). These latter names apart, the period
between 1848 and 1870 was rife with significant
transitional figures who, while their work
does reflect features of the decline, were
in no wise party to it with regard to the
central substance of their output (e. g.,
Flaubert, Baudelaire). Certainly the decline
started much earlier in the sphere of theoretical
learning, particularly economics and philosophy;
bourgeois economics had produced nothing
original and forward-looking since the demise
of the Ricardo school in the 1820s, while
bourgeois philosophy had yielded nothing
new since the demise of Hegelianism (1830s
and 1840s). Both these fields were completely
dominated by capitalist apologetics. A similar
situation obtained in the historical sciences.
The fact that the natural sciences continued
to make enormous strides during this period
- Darwin's great work appeared between 1848
and 1870 - does not affect the picture one
bit; there have been new discoveries in this
area right up to the present. This in itself
did not forestall a certain degeneration
of general methodology, an increasingly reactionary
slant in the bourgeois philosophy of natural
sciences, and an ever-growing zeal in the
use of their findings for the propagation
of reactionary views. (We are not now speaking
of ideological evolution in Russia. Here
the year 1905 corresponded to 1848 in the
West - and only twelve years afterwards came
the socialist revolution.)
Only in the light of all these facts are
we entitled to claim - without losing a just
sense of proportion - that the years 1870-1
marked another turning-point in the development
of ideology. In the first place, it was then
that the rise of the great nation-states
in Central Europe reached completion, and
many of the most important demands of the
bourgeois revolutions their fulfilment; at
all events such revolutions had had their
day in Western and Central Europe. Some very
essential features of a real bourgeois-revolutionary
transformation were lacking in Germany and
Italy (to say nothing of Austria and Hungary),
and there still existed very many relics
of feudal absolutism, but from now on it
was only thinkable that these could be liquidated
through a revolution led by the proletariat.
And in those years, the proletarian revolution
was already clearly delineated in the Paris
Commune. Not only in a French but also in
a European context, the battle of June in
the 1848 revolution had already signified
the turning-point. Its occurrence strengthened
the bond between the bourgeoisie and the
reactionary classes, and its outcome sealed
the fate of every democratic revolution of
the period. The illusion that these bourgeois
victories had secured 'law and order' once
and for all was to crumble forthwith. After
what was only a short pause, historically
considered, the movements of the working-class
masses acquired fresh life; in 1864 the First
International was founded, and in 1871
the proletariat succeeded in gaining power,
albeit only for a relatively short time and
on a metropolitan scale: there came into
being the Paris Commune, the first dictatorship
of the proletariat.
The ideological consequences of these events
were very widespread. The polemics of bourgeois
science and philosophy were increasingly
directed against the new enemy, socialism.
While on the upsurge, bourgeois philosophy
had challenged the feudal absolutist system,
and the interpretation of this challenge
had occasioned its controversies over objectives,
whereas the chief enemy now was the proletarian
world-view. This, however, changed at once
the subject and mode of expression of each
and every reactionary philosophy. When bourgeois
society was a rising force, reactionary philosophy
had defended feudal absolutism and subsequently
the feudal remnants, the restoration. As
we have noted, Schopenhauer's special position
stemmed from the fact that he was the first
to proclaim a markedly bourgeois- reactionary
world-view. But at the same time he remained
on a par with the feudal reactionary, Schelling,
inasmuch as what they both considered the
chief enemy were the progressive tendencies
of bourgeois philosophy: materialism and
the dialectical method.
With the battle of June and with the Paris
Commune in particular, reactionary polemics
underwent a radical change of direction.
On the one hand, there was no longer a progressive
bourgeois philosophy to combat. Insofar as
ideological disputes arose - and they figured
prominently on the surface - they related
primarily to differences of opinion as to
how socialism could be disarmed most effectively,
and to class differences within the reactionary
bourgeoisie. On the other hand, the principal
foe had already appeared in theoretical as
well as palpable form. In spite of all the
efforts of bourgeois learning it was becoming
increasingly impossible to hush up Marxism;
the bourgeoisie's leading ideologues sensed
with ever-growing clarity that this constituted
their decisive line of defence, upon which
they had to concentrate their strongest forces.
True, the accordingly defensive character
of bourgeois philosophy only had a slow and
paradoxical influence. The hushing-up tactics
continued to prevail for a long while; from
time to time it was attempted to incorporate
'what was usable' from historical materialism
- correspondingly distorted - in bourgeois
ideology. But this tendency assumed a wholly
distinctive form only after the first imperialist
world war, and after the victory of the great
socialist October Revolution in Russia. Right
from the start, however, the defensive character
was manifested in the fact that bourgeois
philosophy was driven to the formulating
of questions and into methodological controversies
which did not arise out of any intrinsic
need, but were forced upon it by virtue of
the opponent's existence. It goes without
saying that the solutions corresponded in
every instance to the bourgeoisie's class
interests.
In Nietzsche, of course, we perceive solely
the initial stage of this development. But
we can already confirm some important changes
at this stage. The most telling fact is that
in the battle against Hegel's idealist dialectics,
the older irrationalists such as Schelling
and Kierkegaard were occasionally in a position
to indicate its real flaws. Although backward-looking
inferences inevitably resulted from their
critique, which was only partially accurate,
their correct critical observations are of
significance in the history of philosophy
nonetheless. The situation was completely
altered as soon as the enemy had become dialectical
and historical materialism. Here bourgeois
philosophy was no longer in a position to
exercise a real critique, or even to understand
correctly the target of its polemics. All
that it could do was either to polemicize
- at first openly, later increasingly surreptitiously
- against dialectics and materialism altogether,
or else to play the demagogue in trying to
establish a system of pseudo-dialectics by
which to counteract genuine dialectics.
Another point to consider is that the bourgeois
philosophers ceased to possess any first-hand
knowledge when the great arguments over objectives
within the bourgeoisie abated. Schelling,
Kierkegaard or Trendelenburg had still had
an exact knowledge of Hegelian philosophy.
In criticizing Hegel without knowing him
even superficially, Schopenhauer was once
again a forerunner of bourgeois decadence.
It seemed that when it came to opposing the
class enemy, no holds were barred and all
intellectual morality vanished. Scholars
who were conscientious in other areas, only
venturing to express themselves after accurately
digesting their material, now permitted themselves
the most facile assertions, which they had
gleaned from other, similarly unfounded expressions
of opinion. Even when presenting facts they
never thought of resorting to the actual
sources. This further helps to explain why
the ideological struggle against Marxism
took place on an incomparably lower level
than did, in its own day, the reactionary
irrationalist critique of Hegelian dialectics.
In view of this, how can we maintain of Nietzsche
that his whole life's work was a continuous
polemic against Marxism and socialism, when
it is perfectly clear that he never read
a single line of Marx and Engels? We believe
that the claim is still feasible, for the
reason that every philosophy's content and
method are determined by the class struggles
of its age. Although philosophers - like
scholars, artists and other ideologists -
may more or less fail to recognize it and
some times remain totally unaware of it,
this conditioning of their attitude to so-called
'ultimate questions' takes effect notwithstanding.
What Engels said of the lawyers is valid
in an even acuter sense for philosophy: 'The
reflecting of economic conditions in legal
principles operates without impinging on
the awareness of the agents, and the lawyer
imagines that he is operating with a priori
theses, whereas they are simply economic
reflexes ...' Hence each ideology is consciously
attached to 'a specific intellectual fabric
which has been transmitted by its predecessors'.[1]
But this does not alter the fact that the
selection of these traditional strands, one's
attitude towards them and method of treating
them, the results obtained from a critique
of them, etc., are, in the final reckoning,
determined by economic conditions and the
class struggles to which they give rise.
Philosophers know instinctively what is theirs
to defend, and where the enemy lurks. Instinctively
sensing the 'dangerous' tendencies of their
age, they try to combat them philosophically.
We exposed in our preceding chapter this
kind of modern reactionary defence against
philosophical progress and the dialectical
method, and we traced the essence and methodology
of modern irrationalism back to precisely
this type of reaction. In the observations
we have just made, we have likewise attempted
to outline the social reasons for the radical
change in the representation of the enemy,
and how this change was registered philosophically.
Now when we consider the period of Nietzsche's
activity, it can be clearly discerned that
the Paris Commune, the evolution of the socialist
parties of the masses, especially in Germany,
as also the manner and success of the bourgeois
struggle against them, impressed him most
profoundly. We shall postpone until later
a thorough examination of the relevant details
and their manifestations in Nietzsche's life
and work. First we intend to moot the general
possibility that for Nietzsche, as for the
other philosophers of the age, socialism
as a movement and world-view had become the
chief opponent, and that only this change
on the social front and its philosophical
consequences enable us to portray his outlook
in its true context.
What determined Nietzsche's particular position
in the development of modern irrationalism
was partly the historical situation at the
time of his appearance, and partly his unusual
personal gifts. With regard to the former,
we have already touched on the most important
social happenings of this period. Another
circumstantial factor - one favourable to
his development - was that Nietzsche concluded
his activity on the eve of the imperialist
age. This is to say that, on the one hand,
he envisaged the impending conflicts of Bismarck's
age from every perspective. He witnessed
the founding of the German Reich, the hopes
that were pinned to it and their disappointment,
the fall of Bismarck, and the inauguration
by Wilhelm II of an overtly aggressive imperialism.
And at the same time he witnessed the Paris
Commune, the origins of the great party of
the proletarian masses, the outlawing of
socialists, and the workers' heroic struggle
against it. On the other hand, however, Nietzsche
did not personally live to see the imperialist
period. He was thus offered a favourable
opportunity to conjecture and to solve in
mythical form - on the reactionary bourgeoisie's
terms - the main problems of the subsequent
period. This mythical form furthered his
influence not only because it was to become
the increasingly dominant mode of philosophical
expression in the imperialist age. It also
enabled him to pose imperialism's cultural,
ethical and other problems in such a general
way that he could always remain the reactionary
bourgeoisie's leading philosopher, whatever
the variations in the situation and the reactionary
tactics adopted to match them. Nietzsche
had already acquired this status before the
first imperialist world war, and he retained
it even after the second.
But the lasting influence whose objective
possibility we have just outlined could never
have become a reality, were it not for the
peculiar features of Nietzsche's not inconsiderable
talent. He had a special sixth sense, an
anticipatory sensitivity to what the parasitical
intelligentsia would need in the imperialist
age, what would inwardly move and disturb
it, and what kind of answer would most appease
it. Thus he was able to encompass very wide
areas of culture, to illuminate the pressing
questions with clever aphorisms, and to satisfy
the frustrated, indeed sometimes rebellious
instincts of this parasitical class of intellectuals
with gestures that appeared fascinating and
hyper-revolutionary. And at the same time
he could answer all these questions, or at
least indicate the answers, in such a way
that out of all his subtleties and fine nuances,
it was possible for the robust and reactionary
class insignia of the imperialist bourgeoisie
to emerge.
This Jekyll-and-Hyde character corresponds
to the social existence, and hence to the
emotional and intellectual world, of this
class in a triple sense. Firstly, an oscillation
between the most acute feeling for nuance,
the keenest over sensitivity, and a suddenly
erupting, often hysterical brutality is always
an intrinsic sign of decadence. Secondly,
it is very closely linked with a deep dissatisfaction
concerning contemporary culture: an 'unease
about culture' in Freud's phrase, a revolt
against it. Under no circumstances, however,
would the 'rebel' stomach any interference
with his own parasitical privileges and their
basis in society. He therefore waxes enthusiastic
if the revolutionary character of his discontent
receives a philosophical sanction, but is
at the same time deflected - with regard
to its social substance - into a rebuttal
of democracy and socialism. And thirdly,
it was just at the time of Nietzsche's activity
that the class decline, the decadent tendencies
reached such a pitch that their subjective
evaluation within the bourgeois class also
underwent a significant change. For a long
while, only the progressive opposition critics
had been exposing and condemning the symptoms
of decadence, whereas the vast majority of
the bourgeois intelligentsia clung to the
illusion of living in the 'best of all worlds',
defending what they supposed to be the 'healthy
condition' and the progressive nature of
their ideology. Now, however, an insight
into their own decadence was becoming more
and more the hub of these intellectuals'
self-knowledge. This change manifested itself
above all in a complacent, narcissistic,
playful relativism, pessimism, nihilism,
etc. But in the case of honest intellectuals,
these often turned into sincere despair and
a consequent mood of revolt (Messianism,
etc.).
Now as a diviner of the cultural psyche,
as aesthetician and moralist, Nietzsche was
perhaps the cleverest and most versatile
exponent of this decadent self-knowledge.
But his significance went further: in acknowledging
decadence as the basic phenomenon of bourgeois
development in his time, he undertook to
chart the course of its self-conquest. For
in the most spirited and vigilant intellectuals
who succumbed to the influence of the decadent
outlook, there ineluctably arose a desire
to conquer it. Such a desire rendered the
struggles of the burgeoning new class, the
proletariat, extremely attractive for most
of these intellectuals. Here, and particularly
with regard to personal conduct and morality,
they perceived auguries of a possible social
recovery and, in connection with it - naturally
this thought was uppermost - of their own
recovery. At the same time, the majority
of the intellectuals had no inkling of the
economic and social implications of a real
socialist transformation. Since they contemplated
it in purely ideological terms, they had
no clear notion how far and how profoundly
such a realignment would mean a radical break
with their own class; or how such a break,
once accomplished, would affect the lives
of the persons concerned. Confused though
this movement may have been, it did embrace
wide sections of the more advanced bourgeois
intelligentsia. Naturally enough, it revealed
itself with particular vehemence in times
of crisis (for instance, the ban on socialists,
the fate of Naturalism, the First World War
and the Expressionist movement in Germany,
boulangisme and the Dreyfus Affair in France,
etc.).
Nietzsche's philosophy performed the 'social
task' of 'rescuing' and 'redeeming' this
type of bourgeois mind. It offered a road
which avoided the need for any break, or
indeed any serious conflict, with the bourgeoisie.
It was a road whereby the pleasant moral
feeling of being a rebel could be sustained
and even intensified, whilst a 'more thorough',
'cosmic biological' revolution was enticingly
projected in contrast to the 'superficial',
'external' social revolution. A 'revolution',
that is, which would fully preserve the bourgeoisie's
privileges, and would passionately defend
the privileged existence of the parasitical
and imperialist intelligentsia first and
foremost. A 'revolution' directed against
the masses and lending an expression compounded
of pathos and aggressiveness to the veiled
egotistic fears of the economically and culturally
privileged. The road indicated by Nietzsche
never departed from the decadence proliferating
in the intellectual and emotional life of
this class. But the new-found self-knowledge
placed it in a new light: it was precisely
in decadence that the true progressive seeds
of a genuine, thorough-going renewal of mankind
were deemed to lie. This 'social task' found
itself in pre-established harmony, as it
were, with Nietzsche's talents, his deepest
intellectual inclinations and his learning.
Like those sections of society at whom his
work was aimed, Nietzsche himself was principally
concerned with cultural problems, notably
art and individual morality. Politics always
appeared as though on an abstract, mythicized
horizon, and Nietzsche's ignorance of economics
was as great as that of the average contemporary
intellectual. Mehring was quite right to
point out that his arguments against socialism
never surpassed the level of Leo, Treitschke,
etc.[2] But the very association of a coarsely
humdrum anti-socialism with a refined, ingenious,
sometimes even accurate critique of culture
and art (for example the critiques of Wagner
and Naturalism) was what made Nietzsche's
subject-matter and modes of exposition so
seductive for the imperialist intelligentsia.
We can see how great the temptation was right
through the imperialist period. Beginning
with Georg Brandes, Strindberg and Gerhart
Hauptmann's generation, its influence extended
to Gide and Malraux. And it was by no means
limited to the reactionary part of the intelligentsia.
In the essence of their overall work, decidedly
progressive writers like Heinrich and Thomas
Mann or Bernard Shaw were equally prey to
this influence. Indeed it was even capable
of making a strong impression on some Marxist
intellectuals. Even Mehring - for the time
being - assessed it as follows: 'The Nietzsche
cult is still more useful to socialism in
another respect. No doubt Nietzsche's writings
have their pitfalls for the few young people
of literary talent who may still be growing
up within the bourgeois classes, and are
initially labouring under bourgeois class-prejudices.
But for such people, Nietzsche is only a
transitional stage on the way to socialism.'[3]
We have, however, explained only the class
basis and the intensity of Nietzsche's influence,
and not its long duration. This rests on
his undoubted philosophical abilities. From
Julius Langbehn (author of Rembrandt als
Erzieher) to Koestler and Burnham in our
own day, the standard pamphleteers of the
reactionary wing have never done more than
satisfy, with more or less skilful demagogics,
whatever happened to be the bourgeoisie's
tactical needs. But Nietzsche, as we shall
see in more detail later, was able to enshrine
and formulate in his works some of the most
important lasting features of reactionary
attitudes to the imperialist period, and
to the age of world wars and revolutions.
To perceive his standing in this field, one
has only to compare him with his contemporary,
Eduard von Hartmann. The latter epitomized
as a philosopher the ordinary, reactionary-bourgeois
prejudices of the age after 1870, the prejudices
of the 'healthy' (i. e., sated) bourgeois.
This is why he at first enjoyed a much greater
success than Nietzsche, and also why he fell
into complete oblivion in the imperialist
period.
Certainly Nietzsche, as we have already noted,
achieved everything in a mythicizing form.
This alone enabled him to comprehend and
define prevailing tendencies because, lacking
any understanding of capitalist economics,
he was solely capable of observing, describing
and expressing the symptoms of the superstructure.
But the myth-form also results from the fact
that Nietzsche, the leading philosopher of
the imperialist reaction, did not live to
see imperialism. Exactly like Schopenhauer
as the philosopher of the bourgeois reactionaries
after 1848, he wrote in an age that was nurturing
only the first shoots and buds of what was
to come. For a thinker incapable of recognizing
the real generative forces, these could only
be portrayed in a utopian, mythical manner.
True, his task was facilitated both by the
expressive mode of myth and by its aphoristic
form, whose characteristics we are about
to discuss. This is because such myths and
aphorisms, depending on the bourgeoisie's
immediate interests and their ideologues'
endeavours, could be arranged and interpreted
in the most diverse, often diametrically
opposed ways. But the constant harking back
to Nietzsche - in each instance a 'new' Nietzsche
- shows that there was a definite continuity
beneath it all. It was the continuity of
the basic problems of imperialism in its
entirety from the standpoint of the reactionary
bourgeoisie's lasting interests, viewed and
interpreted in the light of the permanent
needs of the parasitical bourgeois intelligentsia.
There can be no doubt that such an intellectual
anticipation betokens a not inconsiderable
gift of observation, sense of the problematic,
and capacity for abstraction. In this respect
Nietzsche's historical position is analogous
to that of Schopenhauer. The two are also
closely associated in the fundamental tenor
of their philosophy. We shall refrain here
from raising the historio-philological questions
of influence, etc. The current attempts to
dissociate Nietzsche from Schopenhauer's
irrationalism, and to connect him with the
Enlightenment and Hegel, I regard as childish,
or rather, as an expression of history-fudging
in the service of American imperialism on
the lowest level yet see. Of course there
exist differences between Schopenhauer and
Nietzsche, growing ever deeper as Nietzsche
clarified his efforts in the course of his
development. But they are more in the nature
of differences of period: differences in
the methods of combating social progress.
From Schopenhauer, however, Nietzsche took
over the principle of the methodological
coherence in his intellectual structure,
merely modifying and extending it to suit
the age and the opponent. It amounted to
what we identified in our second chapter
as the indirect apologetics of capitalism.
Naturally this basic principle partly assumed
new concrete forms in consequence of the
conditions of a more acutely developed class
struggle. Schopenhauer's struggle against
the progressive thinking of his times could
be summed up by saying that he condemned
all action as intellectually and morally
inferior. Nietzsche, on the contrary, called
for active participation on behalf of reaction,
of imperialism. This in itself obliged him
to cast aside the whole Schopenhauerian duality
of Vorstellung and Wille, and to replace
the Buddhist myth of will-power with the
myth of the will-to-power. Similarly, a further
consequence of the heightened class struggle
was his inability to make anything of Schopenhauer's
abstract rejection of history in general.
A real history, of course, did not exist
for Nietzsche any more than for Schopenhauer,
yet his apologetics of aggressive imperialism
take the form of a mythicizing of history.
Lastly - here we can only enumerate the most
essential points - while Schopenhauer's apologetics
were indirect with regard to form, he voiced
his socio-politically reactionary sympathies
in an open, even provocatively cynical manner.
With Nietzsche, on the contrary, the principle
of indirect apologetics also permeates the
mode of exposition, his aggressively reactionary
siding with imperialism being expressed in
the form of a hyper-revolutionary gesture.
The fight against democracy and socialism,
the imperialist myth and the summons to barbarous
action are intended to appear as an unprecedented
reversal, a 'transvaluation of all values',
a 'twilight of the false gods'; and the indirect
apologetics of imperialism as a demagogically
effective pseudo-revolution.
This content and method of Nietzschean philosophy
were most intimately connected with his literary
manner of expression, namely the aphorism.
Such a literary form made the element of
change possible within the context of his
lasting influence. When a shift in interpretation
has become a social necessity - as, for example,
in the age immediately preparatory to Hitlerism,
and as again today, after Hitler's downfall
- there are no obstacles to the revision
of the enduring content such as we find with
thinkers who have expressed the coherence
of their intellectual world in a systematic
form. (Granted, the fate of Descartes, Kant
and Hegel in the imperialist period shows
that the reactionary is capable of surmounting
even these obstacles.) With Nietzsche, however,
the task was far simpler: at each stage different
aphorisms would be singled out and brought
together, in accordance with the needs of
the moment. There is one further point to
consider as well. Much as the basic objectives
accorded with the ideological outlook of
the parasitical intelligentsia, to voice
them in a systematic, brutal and open fashion
would have repelled a wide and not insignificant
circle. Thus it is far from an accident that,
with but few exceptions (notably the immediate
pioneers of Hitlerian fascism), Nietzsche-exegesis
has stuck to his cultural critique, moral
psychology and so forth, and has seen in
Nietzsche an 'innocent' thinker concerned
only with the spiritual problems of an intellectual
and moral 'élite'. Brandes and Simmel saw
him thus, as did Bertram and Jaspers later,
and as does Kaufmann today. And correctly
so from the class standpoint, since the overwhelming
majority thereby won for Nietzsche has later
been ready to take practical steps matching
this outlook. Writers like Heinrich and Thomas
Mann have been exceptions.
This, however, is merely the result of the
aphoristic mode of expression. Let us now
consider the mode itself. Academic schools
of thought have often reproached Nietzsche
with having no system, something they held
to be necessary to a real philosopher. Nietzsche
himself roundly condemned all systems: 'I
mistrust all systematic thinkers and give
them a wide berth. A deliberate systematization
means a lack of honesty.'[4] This tendency
we have already observed in Kierkegaard,
and it is not fortuitous. The bourgeoisie's
philosophical crisis, as evidenced in the
demise of Hegelianism, amounted to far more
than the recognition of a given system's
inadequacy; it signified the breakdown of
a concept that had swayed men for thousands
of years. When the Hegelian system collapsed,
so did the whole endeavour to co- ordinate,
and so to comprehend, the world's totality
and its principle of growth from idealist
sources, i. e., from elements of the human
consciousness. This is not the place to give
even a rough outline of the fundamental changes
resulting from this final breakdown of the
idealist system-concept. Granted, we know
that even after Hegel academic systems were
created (Wundt, Cohen, Rickert, etc.), but
we know also that they were totally insignificant
for the evolution of philosophy. We know
too that the demise of the system in bourgeois
thought prompted the outbreak of a bottomless
relativism and agnosticism, as though the
now obligatory renunciation of idealist systematizing
were at the same time to mean renouncing
the objectivity of knowledge, a real coherence
of the actual world, and the possibility
of knowing this. But equally we know that
the burial once and for all of the idealist
system coincided with the discovery of the
real framework of objective reality, namely
dialectical materialism. Engels, polemicizing
against Nietzsche's contemporary Eugen Düuhring,
formulated the new philosophical position
thus: 'The real unity of the world lies in
its materiality ...[5] This unity the individual
branches of learning seek (with ever greater
accuracy) both to reflect and to embrace
conceptually; the principles and laws of
this cognitive process are summed up by philosophy.
So the systematic framework has not disappeared.
It no longer appears, however, in the form,
of idealist 'essences', but always as an
approximating reflection of that unity, that
coherence, that set of laws which is objectively
- or independently of our consciousness -
present and operative in reality itself.
Nietzsche's rejection of systems arose out
of the relativistic, agnosticizing tendencies
of his age. The point that he was the first
and most influential thinker with whom this
agnosticism turned into the sphere of myth
we shall investigate later. To this outlook
his aphoristic mode of expression is no doubt
intimately related. But he also had another
motive beyond this. It is a general phenomenon
in ideological history that thinkers who
can observe a social development only in
embryo, but who can already perceive the
new element in it and who - especially in
the moral area - are striving for an intellectual
grasp of it prefer the essayistic, aphoristic
forms. The reason is that these forms guarantee
the expression most fitted to a mixture of
a mere scenting of future developments on
the one hand, and an acute observation and
evaluation of their symptoms on the other.
We see this in Montaigne and Mandeville,
and in the French moralists from La Rochefoucauld
to Vauvenargues and Chamfort. Stylistically,
Nietzsche had a great liking for most of
these authors. But a contrast in the basic
tenor of the content accompanied this formal
preference. The important moralists had already
criticized - the majority in a progressive
way - the morality of capitalism from within
an absolutist, feudal society. Nietzsche's
anticipation of the future was, on the contrary,
approvingly oriented to an impending reactionary
movement, qualitatively heightened, that
is to say imperialist reaction. It was solely
the abstract fact of the anticipation which
determined the formal affinity.
We must now ask whether, in Nietzsche's case,
we are justified in speaking of a system.
Are we entitled to interpret his individual
aphorisms in a systematic context? We believe
that the systematic coherence of a philosopher's
thoughts is an older phenomenon than the
idealist systems and can still survive when
they have collapsed. No matter whether this
systematic framework is an approximately
correct reflection of the real world or one
distorted by class considerations, idealist
notions and so forth, such a systematic framework
is to be found in every philosopher worth
his salt. Admittedly, it does not tally with
the structure which the individual philosopher
himself intends to give his work. While indicating
the need thus to reconstruct the real, consistency
in the fragments of Heraclitus and Epicurus,
Marx added: 'Even with philosophers who give
their works a systematic form, Spinoza for
instance, the actual inner structure of the
system is quite different from the form in
which they consciously present it.'[6] We
shall now venture to show that such a systematic
coherence may be detected behind Nietzsche's
aphorisms
2
In our view, it was only little by little
that the nodal point in the framework of
Nietzsche's ideas took definite shape: the
resistance to socialism, the effort to create
an imperial Germany. There is ample evidence
that in his youth, Nietzsche was an ardent
Prussian patriot. This enthusiasm is one
of the most significant factors in his early
philosophy. It cannot possibly be regarded
as a matter of chance or youthful whim that
he wanted to be involved in the war of 1870-1;
nor that, since a Basle professor could not
enlist as a soldier, he at least took part
as a volunteer nurse. It is at any rate characteristic
that his sister (although we must view her
statements in a highly critical light) recorded
the following memory of the war. At that
time, she wrote, he first sensed 'that the
strongest and highest will-to-live is expressed
not in a wretched struggle for survival,
but as the will to fight, the will to power
and super-power'.[7] At all events this bellicose
philosophical state of mind, which was an
extremely Prussian one, in no way contradicts
the young Nietzsche's other views. In his
papers of autumn 1873, for example, we find
the following: 'My starting-point is the
Prussian soldier: here we have a true convention,
we have coercion, earnestness and discipline,
and that also goes for the form.'[8]
Just as distinct as the source of the young
Nietzsche's enthusiasm are the features of
his principal enemy. Directly after the fall
of the Paris Commune he wrote to his friend,
Baron von Gersdorff:
Hope is possible again! Our German mission
isn't over yet! I'm in better spirit than
ever, for not yet everything has capitulated
to Franco-Jewish levelling and 'elegance',
and to the greedy instincts of Jetztzeit
('now-time'). There is still bravery, and
it's a German bravery that has something
else to it than the élan of our lamentable
neighbours. Over and above the war between
nations, that international hydra which suddenly
raised its fearsome heads has alarmed us
by heralding quite different battles to come.[9]
And the content of this battle, which initially
was waged directly against the movement obstructing
the full fruition of his ideology, Nietsche
moreover defined in the draft, several months
earlier, of his letter dedicating The Birth
of Tragedy to Richard Wagner. Once more the
Prussian victory was his point of departure.
From it he drew such conclusions as these:
'... because that power will destroy something
which we loathe as the real enemy of all
profounder philosophy and aesthetics. This
something is a disease from which German
life has had to suffer since the great French
Revolution in particular; ever-recurring
in spasmodic fits, it has afflicted even
the best type of German, to say nothing of
the great mass of people among whom that
affliction, in vile desecration of an honourable
word, goes under the name of liberalism.'[10]
The connection between the battle against
liberalism and that against socialism very
soon became apparent. The Strauss pamphlet
attacked the liberal 'cultural philistine',
and did so with such energy and brilliance
that it succeeded in deceiving even such
a Marxist as Mehring about its true nature,
for Mehring thought that 'indisputably' Nietzsche
had here defended 'the most glorious traditions
of German civilization'.[11] But Nietzsche
himself wrote in his notes for the lectures
'On the Future of our Cultural Institutions'
(1871-3): 'The most widespread culture, i.
e., barbarity is just what Communism presumes
... universal culture turns into a hate of
genuine culture ... To have no wants, Lassalle
once said, is a people's greatest misfortune.
Hence the workers' cultural associations,
whose aim has been often described to me
as that of creating wants ... The drive,
therefore, to disseminate culture as widely
as possible has its origins in a total secularization,
by which culture is reduced to a means of
gain and of earthly happiness in the vulgar
sense.'[12] As we see, Nietzsche's philosophical
thinking was opposed to democracy and socialism
from the beginning.
This attitude and these perspectives form
the basis of Nietzsche's understanding of
Ancient Greece. Here his opposition to the
revolutionary traditions of bourgeois development
is quite plainly perceptible. We are not
thinking mainly of the Dionysian principle
which made Nietzsche's first writings famous,
for there the idea was still, in his own
words, part of his 'artist metaphysics'.
It took on actual significance only after
the conquest of decadence had become a central
problem for the mature Nietzsche. We want
to put the chief emphasis on the principles
upon which his new image of Ancient Greece
was founded in the first place. And prominent
among these is the idea that slavery is necessary
to any real civilization.
If Nietzsche had stressed the role of slavery
in Greek culture merely from the historical
standpoint, this perfectly correct observation
would be of no great importance; he himself
referred to Friedrich Wolf, who had made
it before him.[13] It was bound to gain an
even wider currency, and not only because
of progress in historical studies. It followed
also from a review of the 'heroic illusions'
of the French Revolution, whose ideologists
had ignored the slavery issue in order to
create out of the democratic city-state the
model of a modern revolutionary democracy.
(These same views influenced the German image
of Ancient Greece in the period from Winckelmann
to Hegel.) What is new in Nietzsche is that
he used slavery as a vehicle for his critique
of contemporary civilization: 'And while
it may be true that the Greeks perished because
of their slave-holding, it is far more certain
that we shall perish because of the absence
of slavery.'[14]
So if Nietzsche - showing certain methodological
affinities with Romantic anti-capitalism
- contrasts a great bygone period with the
capitalist present which he was criticizing,
it is not the same thing as Sismondi's contrast
between the peaceful, simple trade in goods
and an age of crisis and mass unemployment.
Nor is it the same as ordered and purposeful
artisan labour in the Middle Ages, as contrasted
by the young Carlyle with the division of
labour and an age of anarchy. What Nietzsche
contrasts with present times is the Greek
dictatorship of an élite which clearly recognizes
'that work is an ignominy', and which creates
immortal art-works at its leisure. 'In more
recent times', he wrote, 'it is not the person
who needs art but the slave who has determined
the general outlook. Such phantoms as the
dignity of man, the dignity of labour are
the shabby products of a slave mentality
hiding from its own nature. Unhappy the age
in which the slave needs such ideas and is
spurred to reflect upon himself and the world
around him. Wretched the seducers who have
deprived the slave of his innocence by means
of the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge!'[15]
Now what are the qualities of this 'élite'
whose revival, assisted by a return of slavery,
aroused in the young Nietzsche the hope of
a cultural renaissance on a utopian and mythical
plane? That it springs up from a barbarian
condition is some thing we might accept as
confirming historical facts. Indeed Nietzsche
depicted it in the most lurid colours in
'Homer's Contest' (1871-2). But if we are
to understand Greek civilization, stated
Nietzsche in a polemic against the Orphic
thinkers - who held that 'a life rooted in
such an urge is not worth living' - then
'we must start out from the idea that the
Greek genius accepted this so fearfully active
urge and regarded it as justified'.[16] Thus
it is a matter not of conquering, civilizing
and humanizing the barbarian instincts, but
of constructing the great civilization on
their bedrock and diverting them into suitable
channels. Only in this context, not from
the standpoint of some vague 'artist metaphysics',
can the Dionysian principle be properly grasped
and appreciated. Moreover, Nietzsche rightly
said in a later draft of the preface to his
debut work on the Dionysian principle: 'What
a disadvantage my timidity is when I speak
as a scholar of a subject of which I might
have spoken from "experience".'[17]
For the young Nietzsche, the organ for the
social utilization of the barbarian instincts
is the contest (agon). This, as we are about
to note from Nietzsche's own statements,
was a mythicizing of capitalist competition.
He quotes from Pausanias the Hesiod passage
about the two goddesses Eris: 'She (the good
Eris, G. L.) spurs even the inept to work;
and if a man without property sees a wealthy
man, he will make haste to sow and plant
likewise and to put his house in good order;
neighbour competes with neighbour in striving
for prosperity. This Eris is beneficial for
mankind. One potter will resent another,
one carpenter the other, beggar envies beggar
and singer envies singer.'[18] And this state
of affairs he contrasted with modern depravity:
'Nowadays self-seeking is feared as "the
devil incarnate" ', whereas for the
ancients the goal of the agonal training
was 'the welfare of the whole, the commonwealth'.[19]
If we now return to slavery as the alleged
bedrock of any genuine civilization, we can
see how much of the later Nietzsche this
early work - albeit in an immature manner
- anticipated. In this context the Schopenhauer
and Wagner portraits which he produced with
such fervent eloquence resemble mythicized
pretexts for expressing something not yet
fully developed, half in poetic and half
in philosophical form. His own later criticism
of his first writings - especially in Ecce
homo - all tended in this direction: '...
that what I learnt from Wagner about music
in those years has nothing at all to do with
Wagner; that when I described Dionysian music
I was describing the music that I had heard,
- that I had instinctively to transpose and
transfigure into the new spirit all that
was latent within me. The proof of this,
the strongest possible proof, is my piece
Wagner in Bayreuth: I am the sole subject
in all the psychologically crucial pas sages
- one may automatically read my own name
or the word "Zarathustra" wherever
the text reads "Wagner" ... the
latter himself sensed this; he was unable
to recognize himself in the piece.'[20] Modified
somewhat, this also applies to the Schopenhauer
portrait in the work of Nietzsche's youth.
The third, similarly mythologized, Socrates
portrait is a totally different matter. In
the debut work the great antithesis was already
'The Dionysian and the Socratic'.[21] And
Nietzsche - at first in predominantly aesthetic
terms - enlarged this antithesis to encompass
that of instinct and reason. In Ecce homo
he reached his conclusion: the discovery
that Socrates was a 'décadent' and that one
must rate 'morality itself as a symptom of
decadence' the mature Nietzsche regarded
as 'an innovation, a discovery of the first
order in the history of knowledge'.[22]
When investigating in general the determining
causes of Nietzsche's further development,
one usually lays the chief stress on the
Wagner disappointment. But the points just
raised concerning Nietzsche's attitude to
Wagner already show us that it was a symptom
of his shift rather than its actual cause.
In Wagner, and with increasing acuteness,
Nietzsche challenged the art of his own German
period in the name of the imperialist future.
When, especially after the First World War,
it became the fashion to challenge the nineteenth
century's ideology (the age of 'security')
in the name of the twentieth, Nietzsche's
split with Wagner and late polemics against
him furnished the methodological 'model'
for this conflict. The fact that the ideological
spokesmen of the Hitler period continued
this tradition, though linking it with Wagner
idolatry, does not prove anything. Their
rejection of 'security' was combined also
with the glorification of Bismarck, whom
Nietzsche in his final period nearly always
attacked in conjunction with Wagner. For
the older Nietzsche, Wagner was the greatest
artistic expression of that decadence whose
most important political representative he
saw in Bismarck. And in going beyond the
philosophy of Schopenhauer he followed the
same direction. We must not forget that even
the young Nietzsche was never a really orthodox
disciple of Schopenhauer with regard to radical
a-historicism. From the start he had toyed
with a mythicizing of history, whereas his
master had totally avoided history. This
tendency, already present in The Birth of
Tragedy, grew more pronounced in the second
Untimely Consideration. Activism - of the
counter-revolutionary variety - was more
over gaining in significance for Nietzsche.
And thus, along with Wagner and Bismarck,
Schopenhauer too came more and more within
the area of that decadence he wanted to conquer.
This, naturally enough, did not prevent Nietzsche
from adhering all his life to Berkeley-Schopenhauer
epistemology, as we are likewise soon to
see. He adapted it, however, to suit his
own particular purpose.
Now where do we look for the real causes
behind Nietzsche's development, and for the
basic features of his so-called second period?
It is our belief that they can be found in
the aggravation of those socio- political
conflicts which governed the second half
of the seventies (cultural conflict, but
above all the anti-socialist laws). We have
observed how strongly Nietzsche's first works
were affected by the war of 1870-1 and hopes
of a general cultural regeneration in the
aftermath of victory. We have further observed
how tenuous the young Nietzsche's hopes were
and how apolitical his perspectives, despite
his general social and historico-philosophical
stand in favour of slavery. Now this changed
quite decisively in the second half of the
seventies. Not that Nietzsche by now had
acquired clear ideas on politics and more
particularly on their underlying economics;
we shall soon see his naive ignorance when
it came to the latter. But in spite of all
the facts speaking against him and the confusion
in his views, Nietzsche's cultural and historico-philosophical
studies were moving in a direction oriented
towards the concrete present and future.
Let us anticipate for a moment what we are
going to amplify on this subject. Nietzsche's
new political position was centred upon the
idea of rebutting and disarming the socialist
threat, his chief adversary now as before,
with the aid of democracy. Here we must note
that Nietzsche regarded Bismarck's Germany
as a democracy. And so - no matter how far
Nietzsche was aware of it - his hope that
here lay the cure for socialism was very
closely connected with Bismarckian politics.
We cannot take it as pure coincidence that
his first work of this period, Human, All-Too-Human,
appeared roughly half a year before the promulgation
of the socialist ban. To be sure, this was
also the date of the centenary of Voltaire's
death. And very far-reaching conclusions
have been drawn from the dedication with
which Nietzsche prefaced his first edition
on this occasion. Their validity, however,
is extremely limited. For if we read Nietzsche's
Voltaire treatise we perceive that it was
still dealing with the same conflict we have
defined as the most important in his life.
But with the difference, characteristic of
this period, that Nietzsche now thought the
evolution which he praised Voltaire for representing
was the surest antidote to revolution (i.
e., socialism). In this light he drew his
parallel between Voltaire and Rousseau (the
aphorism's title, 'A Falsity in the Doctrine
of Revolution', is typical of Nietzsche at
the time). 'Not Voltaire's moderate nature
with its bias towards ordering, purifying
and reconstructing, but Rousseau's passionate
follies and half-truths have awakened the
optimistic revolutionary spirit, and against
it I cry, "écrasez l'infâme!" It
has long been responsible for banishing the
spirit of enlightenment and progressive development.'[23]
Nietzsche was to persist in this view of
Voltaire long after he had overcome the illusions
of Human, All-Too-Human. Indeed, in line
with his later radicalism, he now saw Voltaire's
universal historical significance solely
in this opposition to Rousseau and revolution.
Thus he wrote in The Will to Power: 'Only
at this point does Voltaire (hitherto a mere
bel esprit) become the man of his century,
the philosopher and representative of tolerance
and unbelief.'[24]
Thus in the second half of the seventies,
Nietzsche became a 'democrat', 'liberal'
and evolutionist precisely because he found
in this the most effective counterpoise to
socialism. His enthusiasm for this - as he
then believed - inevitable transitional step
was very temperate; one must, he wrote, 'adapt
oneself to the new circumstances as one adapts
when an earthquake dislocates the earth's
old borders and contours'.[25] But in the
second part of the same work he thought it
possible 'that the democratization of Europe
is one link in the chain of those enormous
prophylactic measures constituting the idea
of the new times and dividing us from the
Middle Ages. Only now has the era of Cyclopean
structures arrived! At last we have stable
foundations on which the whole future can
safely build! Impossible, henceforth, for
wild and sense less mountain waters once
more to ruin the fertile fields of civilization
overnight! Stone dams and bulwarks against
barbarians, pestilence, physical and mental
thraldom!'[26] In this vein Nietzsche went
so far as even to condemn exploitation as
stupid and futile: 'The exploitation of the
worker was, as we now recognize, a piece
of stupidity, a maverick enterprise at the
future's expense which imperilled society.
Now we are already on the verge of war: from
now on, at all events, there will be a very
high price to pay for maintaining peace,
sealing contracts and winning confidence,
because the exploiters' foolishness was very
great and long-lasting.' [27] The new form
of government - and here he expressly sided
with Bismarck - was to be an admittedly unhistorical
but shrewd and useful compromise with the
people, whereby all human relations would
undergo a gradual transformation.
In Nietzsche's opinion - one which fully
harmonized with the views just quoted - the
positive value of such 'democratic evolution'
rested in its ability to rear a new 'elite'.
Thus in completing the turn to 'democracy'
ŕ la Bismarck, Nietzsche gave up none of
his youthful aristocratic convictions. For
now he still saw the salvation of culture
solely in a more resolute bestowal of privileges
on a minority, one whose leisure was based
on the hard physical labour of the majority,
the masses. He wrote: 'A higher civilization
can only come about when there are two distinct
social castes: that of the working people
and that of the leisured, those capable of
true leisure; or, to put it more strongly,
the caste of forced labour and the caste
of free labour.'[28] So close to liberalism
was he coming that temporarily he even appropriated
its concept of the State. He wrote the oft-quoted
sentence: 'Modern democracy is the historical
form of the decay of the State.' But just
how Nietzsche amplified this idea is seldom
quoted: 'The prospect opened up by this assured
decay is not, however, a gloomy one in every
respect: of all human attributes, shrewdness
and self-seeking are the most highly developed;
when the State is no longer a match for these
forces' demands, chaos will be the least
likely result. It is more likely that the
State will be defeated by an even more practical
invention than itself.'[29]
Here it becomes palpably clear why Nietzsche
arrived at the views he did. No longer did
he consider socialism to be an ally of liberalism
and democracy, their consummation carried
to radical extremes - in which guise he had
previously opposed it along with the other
two. Socialism was now 'the imaginative younger
brother of the near-defunct despotism'.[30]
And Nietzsche ended the aphorism in such
a way that his current attitude to the State
is quite plain to behold: 'Socialism can
serve to teach men most brutally and forcefully
the danger of all accumulations of State
authority, and so inspire a distrust of the
State itself. When its hoarse voice mingles
with the battle-cries of "as much State
power as possible", these will at first
become louder than ever: but soon the opposite
cry will ring out all the more strongly -
"as little State power as possible".'[31]
It is not worth examining more closely how
Nietzsche envisaged this democracy in concrete
terms. To do so would merely reveal his political
naivety and economic ignorance. If, in conclusion,
we quote one more statement by him, this
will clearly illustrate not only both the
aforesaid points but also the constant leitmotif
of all stages in Nietzsche's development:
the campaign against socialism, the chief
adversary. In the second part of Human, All-Too-Human,
Nietzsche maintained that democracy would
of all parties profit most from the general
dread of socialism, and he concluded: 'The
people are the farthest away from socialism
as a doctrine of reform in the acquisition
of property: and should they ever have access
to the taxation screw through their parliaments
large majorities, they will assault the principality
of capitalists, businessmen and stock exchanges
with progressive taxation, thus in fact slowly
creating a middle class which may forget
about socialism as it would a disease it
has recovered from.'[32] That was the focal
point of Nietzsche's utopian dream of this
period: to achieve a society where socialism
could be forgotten as easily as 'a past illness'.
For this dream's sake he regarded Bismarck's
'democracy' with - qualified
- benevolence: the 'democracy' of the anti-socialist
laws and the professed social policies, the
'democracy' of the carrot and the stick.
How far these views were associated with
reactionary illusions about the socialist
ban is indicated by the new and final turn
they took. Again this occurred side by side
with the bourgeoisie's disillusionment as
a result of the growing, and increasingly
successful, courageous resistance of the
German working class. Assuming more and more
passionate forms, Nietzsche's new line of
thought reached its peak in his final works.
We shall not retrace it step by step; our
concern here is the essential social content,
above all the fact that, despite the chopping
and changing, the actual pivot and real centre
never shifted, but was still hostility to
socialism.
The estrangement from the 'democratic' illusions
of the transitional period already takes
a very distinct form in the Joyful Science
(1882). In a passage that the fascists have
often quoted, and with understandable enthusiasm,
Nietzsche sided with military command and
subordination, officers and soldiers, playing
off this hierarchy against the capitalist
exploiters' want of refinement and aristocratic
character. Indeed he saw in the lack of aristocratic
form the very reason for the rise of the
socialists: 'Were they
(namely the capitalists - G. L.) to share
the hereditary nobility's distinction in
glance and gesture, then perhaps there would
be no socialism of the masses.'[33] What
determined the sharper tone and mounting
passion was that Nietzsche, becoming more
and more sceptical about the chances of putting
down the workers by time-honoured methods,
strongly feared - at least for the time being
- a workers' victory. Thus he wrote in The
Genealogy of Morals (1887): 'Let us face
facts: the people have triumphed - or the
slaves, the mob, the herd or what ever you
like to call them ... Masters have been abolished;
the morals of the common man have triumphed
... Mankind's 'redemption' (namely from its
masters) is well under way; everything is
becoming visibly Judified or Christified
or mobified (what do words matter!). To arrest
this poison's progress throughout the body
of mankind seems impossible ...'[34]
At this point it might be quite interesting
to glance at the differences and similarities
in the careers of Nietzsche and Franz Mehring.
We may then see what the socialist ban and
the German proletariat's resistance meant
to the crisis in bourgeois ideology. Both
authors - although always proceeding from
totally different starting-points and on
equally different lines - had a period of
illusionary perspectives: Mehring wrote a
pamphlet attacking social democracy, while
Nietzsche entered upon his 'democratic' phase.
Both under went a crisis during the workers'
ever-mounting and increasingly successful
resistance. But whereas this crisis led Mehring
into the socialist camp, it exacerbated Nietzsche's
hostility to socialism to the point of fury
and brought about the final formulation of
his mythical foreshadowing of imperialist
barbarity. 'Whom do I hate most', said Nietzsche
in his Anti-Christ, 'among the rabble of
today? The socialist rabble, the Shandala
disciples undermining the worker's sound
instinct, good spirits and sense of contentment
- making him envious and instructing him
in vengeance ... Injustice never lies in
unequal rights; it lies in the claim to equal
rights ...'[35] And it is typical of Nietzsche's
shift that in his last period, in the Twilight
of the Idols, he expressly returned to the
statement we quoted earlier, concerning democracy
as the decaying form of the State; but this
time he made it in a decidedly condemnatory
sense.[36]
In summing up, it only remains for us to
show how Nietzsche described his attitude
to the worker question in The Twilight of
the Idols:
The stupidity, at bottom the degenerate instinct,
which today is the cause of all stupidities,
rests in the fact that there is a worker
problem at all. There are certain questions
that one does not ask: number one imperative
of the instinct. I quite fail to see what
we wish to do with the European worker once
he has become a problem. The worker is faring
far too well not gradually to start asking
more questions and to ask them less modestly.
In the last resort he has the strength of
numbers in his favour. We have said good-bye
to the hope that here a humble and contented
kind of man, a Chinese type might form an
emergent class: and that would have made
sense, and would have been a downright necessity.
But what have we done? Everything to nip
in the bud even the first requirement - through
the most irresponsible thoughtlessness, we
have killed outright the instincts enabling
the worker to exist as a class, enabling
the worker himself to exist. We have taught
him military efficiency and given him the
coalition right and the political vote: so
why be surprised if now the worker is already
regarding his condition as a deprived one
(in moral terms, an injustice)? But I ask
once more: what is it we want? If we have
some end in view we must also wish for the
means. If it is slaves we want, we are fools
to raise them as masters.[37]
Two points in Nietzsche's thought warrant
particular emphasis. Firstly, the fact that
he considered the whole 'worker problem'
to be a purely ideological issue: the ruling-class
ideologues were to decide the course of conduct
that the workers should follow. Nietzsche
quite overlooked the fact that the question
had objective economic foundations. The sole
deciding factor, for him, was how the 'masters'
stood on the question; they could achieve
anything if they were determined enough.
(Here Nietzsche was a direct forerunner of
the Hitlerian view.) Secondly, this passage
unwittingly provides a historical summary
of the constant and inconstant elements in
Nietzsche's thoughts on this central problem.
It is evident both that the 'breeding' of
a slave type adapted to modern circumstances
was his permanent social ideal, and that
his hostility was directed against those
- the socialists - who were frustrating this
development. But the inconstant element is
equally clear: if Nietzsche was levelling
sharp criticisms against others of his class,
he was at the same time practising self-criticism
and overcoming the illusions of his Human,
All-Too-Human period.
At all events, since the crumbling of his
'democratic' illusions Nietzsche had been
predicting an era of great wars, revolutions
and counter-revolutions. Only out of the
resulting chaos could his ideal arise: absolute
rule by the 'lords of the earth' over a henceforth
compliant herd, the suitably cowed slaves.
In Nietzsche's jottings from the time of
The Genealogy of Morals we already find:
'The problem - whither now? The need is for
a new reign of terror.'[38] And in the prolegomenon
to The Will to Power he said of the new barbarians
and future overlords: 'Obviously they will
come into view and consolidate themselves
only after immense socialistic crises.'[39]
The older Nietzsche's optimistic perspectives
derived from this vision of the future (of
imperialism): 'The sight of the present European
affords me much hope: a daring master race
is being formed upon the broad basis of an
extremely intelligent herd of the masses.'[40]
And whilst dreaming up these goals and the
path that would lead to them, he occasionally
conceived of the future in images whose content
directly anticipates the Hitlerian saga:
'The putrid ruling classes have corrupted
the image of the ruler. For the State to
exercise jurisdiction is cowardice, because
it lacks the great man who can serve as a
criterion. There is so much uncertainty in
the end that men will kow-tow to any old
will power that issues the orders.'[41]
In order to be completely clear about Nietzsche's
socio-political line, it only remains for
us to cast some light on his attitude to
Bismarck. This is not an irrelevant question;
indeed it is central both to his influence
on basically Left-oriented circles and to
his role in fascist ideology.
The Left saw the problem thus: Nietzsche
criticized Bismarck very sharply - hence
he could not possibly be a reactionary. Since
this was a case of mistaking criticism from
the Right for criticism from the Left, our
concrete treatment of the Nietzsche-Bismarck
relationship will tacitly answer this question
to the effect that he always criticized Bismarck
from a Right-wing standpoint, and considered
Bismarck to be not decidedly enough the imperialist
reactionary.
The fascist ideologists too started out from
the contrasts between Nietzsche and Bismarck.
But since the Third Reich needed a synthesis
of all the reactionary currents in German
history, it had to regard itself as a fusion
of Nietzsche and Bismarck on a higher (i.
e., reactionary) level. Franz Schauwecker,
for example, said of the need to reconcile
Nietzsche and Bismarck in the Third Reich:
'It will be an empire guaranteeing the ultimate
world-order. It will be the empire in which
Fredric the Prussian and Goethe the German
are at one. Then the meeting which was prevented
from taking place between Bismarck and Nietzsche
will be a fait accompli strong enough to
withstand all attacks by hostile powers.'[42]
Hitler's official philosophical ideologue,
Alfred Baeumler, for his part used Nietzsche's
Bismarck critique - entirely in the spirit
of Mein Kampf - to prove the Third Reich's
superiority to the Bismarck-Hohenzollern
empire. Accordingly he passed over all Nietzsche's
chopping and changing, and summed up his
views thus: 'The history of the Empire became
the story of Bismarck's intellectual defeat.
This process took place before the horrified
eyes of the other great realist (namely Nietzsche,
G. L.) ... The empire prospered, but it was
a sham prosperity, and the concomitant philosophy
("ethical idealism") was a sham
philosophy. In the world war the ostentatious
romantic-liberal structure collapsed, and
in the same instant the two great contestants
from the past became visible.'[43]
Now let us look at Nietzsche's Bismarck critique
itself. Both men were so-called 'up-to-date'
reactionaries who, along with the usual weapons
of popular subjugation and brutal terror
- although this remained the favourite weapon
of both - attempted above all to employ individual
'democratic' measures or institutions against
the chief adversary, the proletariat. (Universal
suffrage, etc., in Bismarck's case.) Bismarck,
however, being essentially a diplomat of
the Bonapartist period, was only briefly
carried beyond the narrow aims of a Prussian
reactionary policy by the movement for German
unity. He failed to grasp the German bourgeoisie's
imperialistic aspirations, based on the reactionary
foundation of the Empire and now gradually
gaining in momentum. Nietzsche, on the contrary,
was the ideologist and prophet of this very
tendency. Hence his often bitterly ironical,
scornful criticism of Bismarck, and hence
- precisely in the last years of his active
life - his opposition to him. What Nietzsche
found wanting in Bismarck was a grasp of
the principle of the will to power, which
was why he said that he knew as little about
philosophy as 'a farmer or an army recruit'.
[44]
But that was simply a polemical invective.
The essence of Nietzsche's quarrel with Bismarck
comprised two complexes of ideas. Firstly,
in the domain of home affairs Nietzsche called
for a determined break with the semblance
of a democracy and with that form of demagogic
flirting with democracy, that is to say parliamentarianism,
which Bismarck represented. For Nietzsche
the crucial question was this: 'The increasing
emergence of democratic man, and the consequent
stultification of Europe and belittling of
European man. Hence his precept: 'A break
with the English principle of popular representation:
it is the big interests which need to be
represented.'[45] Here Nietzsche anticipated
the fascist 'class State'. The second complex
of ideas covered world affairs. In Beyond
Good and Evil - significantly, and in contrast
to Bismarck's policy at the time, in the
form of a demand that Europe unite against
Russia - Nietzsche declared: 'The time for
small politics is over: the very next century
will bring a struggle for dominion over the
earth, the obligation for great politics.'[46]
This era which Nietzsche accused Bismarck
of failing to understand was to be the era
of great wars. In Ecce homo Nietzsche expressed
himself thus on the subject: 'There will
be wars the like of which have never been
seen on earth before. Great politics on earth
are only beginning with me.'[47] That is
why Bismarck was not militaristic enough
for Nietzsche. Exactly like Hitler, he believed
that Germany's salvation depended on renewing
in up-to-date form the traditions of the
Prussian military State: 'The upholding of
the military State is the ultimate means
of adopting or sustaining the great tradition
with regard to the highest type of person,
the type that is strong.'[48] As these few
passages show us perfectly plainly, Nietzsche's
Bismarck critique rested solely on the contention
that Bismarck did not grasp the problems
of the impending imperialist period, and
was incapable of solving them by way of reactionary
aggression. He was, there fore, criticizing
Bismarck from the Right.
3
Only on the basis of the aforesaid can we
apprehend both the unity behind Nietzsche's
philosophy and its various changes. It implied
an active rejection of the chief enemy, namely
the working class and socialism. And as the
class struggle intensified and one illusion
crumbled after another, it expanded into
an intellectual anticipation of the imperialist
phase in capitalist evolution. Only in an
imperialist bourgeois state of a decidedly
aggressive reactionary hue could Nietzsche
find a sufficiently strong defence against
the socialist danger; only the emergence
of such a power inspired in him the hope
of succeeding in neutralizing the working
class once and for all. His bitterness about
the Germany of his time stemmed from its
failure to adopt this measure and its continued
hesitancy in doing so.
These tendencies are best seen in Nietzsche's
ethics. That is because Nietzsche, in view
of his class situation, his ignorance of
economics and the fact that his activity
pre-dated imperialism, was naturally in no
position to foreshadow imperialism in economic
and social terms. In his works he portrayed
the bourgeoisie's consistent imperialist
morality all the more clearly for that. Indeed
he here anticipated in theory the true course
of developments. Most of his statements on
ethics became a dreadful reality under the
Hitler régime, and they also retain a validity
as an account of ethics in the present 'American
age'.
Nietzsche was frequently associated with
the Romantic movement. The assumption is
correct inasmuch as many motives of Romantic
anti-capitalism - e. g., the struggle against
the capitalist division of labour and its
consequences for bourgeois culture and morals
- played a considerable part in his thinking.
The setting up of a past age as an ideal
for the present age to realize also belonged
to the intellectual armoury of Romantic anti-capitalism.
Nietzsche's activity, however, fell within
the period after the proletariat's first
seizure of power, after the Paris Commune.
Crisis and dissolution, Romantic anti-capitalism's
development into capitalist apologetics,
the fate of Carlyle during and after the
1848 revolution - these already lay far behind
Nietzsche in the dusty past. Thus the young
Carlyle had contrasted capitalism's cruelty
and inhumanity with the Middle Ages as an
epoch of popular prosperity, a happy age
for those who laboured; whereas Nietzsche
began, as we have noted, by extolling as
a model the ancient slave economy. And so
the reactionary utopia which Carlyle envisioned
after 1848 he also found naive and long outdated.
Admittedly the aristocratic bias of both
had similar social foundations: in the attempt
to ensure the leading social position of
the bourgeoisie and to account for that position
philosophically. But the different conditions
surrounding Nietzsche's work lent to his
aristocratic leanings a fundamentally different
content and totally different colouring from
that of Romantic anti-capitalism. True, remnants
of Romanticism (from Schopenhauer, Richard
Wagner) are still palpable in the young Nietzsche.
But these he proceeded to overcome as he
developed, even if - with regard to the crucially
important method of indirect apologetics
- he still remained a pupil of Schopenhauer
and preserved as his basic concept the irrational
one of the Dionysian principle (against reason,
for instinct); but not without significant
modifications, as we shall see. Hence an
increasingly energetic dissociation from
Romanticism is perceptible in the course
of Nietzsche's development. While the Romantic
he identified more and more passionately
with decadence (of the bad kind), the Dionysian
became a concept increasingly antithetical
to Romanticism, a parallel for the surmounting
of decadence and a symbol of the 'good' kind
of decadence, the kind he approved.
With regard therefore to the philosophy of
human behaviour (ethics, psychology and social
philosophy always coalesce in Nietzsche),
he harked back to the epoch paving the way
for bourgeois ascendancy, to the Renaissance,
French classicism and the Enlightenment.
These interests are important because they
offered connecting links both for Nietzsche's
admirers from the bourgeois Left, and for
his updating in the service of ideological
preparations for a third imperialist world
war. Kaufmann, for instance, treated Nietzsche
as the consummator of great philosophy after
Descartes (indeed after Aristotle), intending
to depict him as carrying on the Enlightenment
traditions.[49] Having been apparently compromised
by the Hitlerists' enthusiasm, he was - in
company with Hjalmar Schacht and General
Guderian - to be 'denazified' to suit the
purposes of American imperialism.
The reader will have already observed the
scientific worth of such essays from our
previous quotation concerning Voltaire and
Rousseau. Voltaire, whose work formed a great
focal point for the mobilization of all the
progressive forces of his age, was - according
to Nietzsche - to become the spiritual head
of the anti-revolutionary brigade. And it
is extremely characteristic of this so-called
link with the Enlightenment that Nietzsche,
seeking an analogy with Voltaire's conduct,
found one in the life of Schopenhauer - who
was, he stated, 'unsullied as no German philosopher
before him, living and dying a Voltairean'.[50]
We are asked to believe that Voltaire, who
used his world-wide fame effectively to combat
the antediluvian feudal absolutism of his
times, and who risked his neck to save the
innocent victims of the clerical- absolutist
reactionary party (or at least to preserve
their memory), led a life comparable to that
of Schopenhauer, whose only personal conflict
involved a family squabble over his inheritance;
who in 1848 offered the counter-revolutionary
officers his opera-glasses to help them shoot
at those fighting on the barricades; who
bequeathed part of his wealth to the counter-revolution's
disabled, etc. It is not, I think, worth
adducing similar proof with respect to all
Nietzsche's supposed ties with earlier progressive
traditions; to do so would be only too easy.
It will suffice if we quote, in conclusion,
Nietzsche's own comment about the relationship
of his 'new Enlightenment' to the 'old' for
Nietzsche, in contrast to his hypocritical
imperialist interpreters, expressed his views
with a candour leaving nothing to be desired.
He said: '... the old movement was in the
spirit of the democratic herd: a universal
levelling. The new Enlightenment aims at
showing dominant natures the way; inasmuch
as to these (as to the State), everything
is permitted that is barred to the herd mentality.'[51]
Quite contrary to those commentators who
sought to bring Nietzsche into close alignment
with the Enlightenment, he actually stood
- after the brief episode of relative propinquity
in the 'Democratic Phase' we have examined
- at extreme loggerheads with such Enlightenment
epigones as Mill, Guyau and others. The inconsistent
development in the period of bourgeois ideology's
decline found expression in this conflict.
The Enlightenment itself, under the illusion
that it was establishing the empire of reason,
had opposed the theology and the irrationalism
of feudal traditions. The bourgeoisie's victory
in the great French Revolution meant a realization
of these ideals, but the necessary consequence
was, as Engels says,[52] that the empire
of reason proved to be the bourgeois empire
idealized, with all its insoluble contradictions.
Marx says tellingly of the difference between
Helvétius and Bentham: 'Bentham only reproduces
dully what Helvétius and other eighteenth-century
Frenchmen had expressed with wit.'[53] The
contrast of wit and dullness was not just
a matter of their respective talents, however.
It illustrates two different stages in the
development of capitalism and, accordingly,
in that of bourgeois ideology. Helvétius
was capable of wit because a clairvoyant
loathing of the decayed feudal-absolutist
society, the obscurantism of church and religion,
and the ruling classes' hypocrisy lent wings
to his thinking. Bentham was bound to grow
dull because he was doggedly defending a
capitalism that had already triumphed, and
to do this he had to overlook the most significant
social phenomena or distort reality with
the aid of rose- tinted spectacles. With
the epigonal Bentham's own epigones, the
positivists Mill and Spencer, Comte and Guyau,
the bourgeoisie's further decline could only
hasten this tendency to superficiality and
dullness. Nietzsche, in turn, could become
witty once more because, as a result of his
method of indirect apologetics, he commanded
a wide field for ruthless criticism, especially
in the cultural sphere. From the artistic
character of such criticism derived his aesthetic
preference for individual Enlightenment authors,
and the French moralists in particular. But
this professional, formal allegiance must
not be allowed to conceal the ideological
antithesis in their basic lines of thought.
Occasionally Nietzsche voiced these contrasts
quite openly, as for instance when - as early
as the time of Human, All-Too-Human - he
discovered an ally of Christianity in La
Rochefoucauld's moral critique.[54]
The connecting link between Nietzsche's ethics
and those of the Enlightenment, the French
moralists and so on is the fact that they
all perceived in the egotism of the 'capitalist'
individual the central phenomenon of social
life. Since, however, they were writing in
different periods, the historical development
of the class struggle produced qualitative
differences in content and indeed incompatible
elements in orientation and evaluation. As
progressive ideologists of the era leading
up to the bourgeois-democratic revolution,
the rationalists were bound to idealize bourgeois
society and, first and foremost, the social
functions of egotism. Without any knowledge,
for the most part, of classical British economics
and often before they appeared, these ideologists
expressed in their ethics Adam Smith's basic
economic tenet that the individual's economically
self-seeking actions are the mainspring of
the productive forces' development, leading
necessarily, in the last resort, to a harmonizing
of the collective interests of society.
(Here we lack space even to outline the complicated
paradoxes occasioned by 'theory of utility',
the ethics of 'rational egotism' which flourished
in this soil among the Enlightenment's great
representatives.) It is clear, however, that
after the Adam Smith doctrine had itself
foundered on the real facts of capitalism,
it could only be preserved in economics in
the shape of popular economics (starting
with Say), and in ethics and sociology in
the form of direct apologetics for capitalism
(starting with Bentham). The Positivists'
dull-wittedness and eclecticism are indicated
by, among other factors, their inability
to adopt an unequivocal line on the question
of egotism. Their position amounted to a
generally obfuscating 'on the one hand ...
on the other hand'. Now if Nietzsche, standing
for indirect apologetics, took up once more
the question of whether to commend egotism
- and we see that in his youth, this policy
played an important role in the mythicizing
modernization of the agon and the 'good Eris'
- it was no longer, in his case, an idealization
of a rising, still progressive, and indeed
revolutionary, bourgeois society. He was,
on the contrary, idealizing those egotistic
tendencies in the declining bourgeoisie that
were burgeoning in his own lifetime and became
truly, universally prevalent in the imperialist
period. That is to say, it was the egotism
of a class which, having been condemned by
history to its doom, was mobilizing all mankind's
barbaric instincts in its desperate struggles
with its grave-diggers, the proletariat,
and was founding its 'ethics' on these instincts.
We know that in his so-called Voltaire phase,
Nietzsche was for a short while closely associated
with Paul Rée, a Positivist epigone of Enlightenment
ethics, and even fell temporarily under his
influence. Hence the motives behind his rift
and critical controversy with Rée are most
instructive with regard to our problem. He
voiced them with unambiguous clarity: 'I
challenge the idea that egotism is harmful
and reprehensible: I want to give egotism
a clear conscience.'[55]
The chief task of Nietzsche's mature period,
then, was to extend the ethics (the psychology
and, so Nietzsche thought, the physiology
as well) of this new egotism. In drafts for
a sequel to Zarathustra he set out perhaps
the most revealing programme for the task.
And significantly, he began with his aforementioned
definition of the 'new Enlightenment': '
"Nothing is true, everything is permitted."
Zarathustra: "I deprived you of everything,
a god, a duty - now you must provide the
greatest proof of a noble action. For here
is the open road for the impious - behold!"
- A contest for dominance, with the herd
still more of a herd in the end, and the
tyrant still more of a tyrant. - No secret
society! The consequences of your doctrine
must wreak fearful havoc: but countless are
destined to perish from them. - We are submitting
truth to an experiment! Maybe mankind will
perish in the process! So be it!'[56]
To accomplish this upheaval, this 'transvaluation
of all values' new men were needed. Nietzsche
intended his ethics to effect their selection,
education, breeding. But this called for
a liberation of the instincts before all
else. In Nietzsche's opinion, each previous
religion, philosophy, morality, and so forth,
had the function of opposing a liberation
of the instincts, of suppressing, neglecting
and perverting them. Only with his own ethics
did the liberating process commence: 'Every
sound morality is governed by a life instinct
... Unnatural morality, i. e., nearly every
morality that has been hitherto inculcated,
venerated and preached, is aimed, conversely,
directly against the vital instincts - it
is a condemnation, sometimes clandestine
and sometimes loud and bold, of these instincts.'[57]
Here Nietzsche emerges as a vigorous critic
of ethics past and present, philosophical
and above all Kantian as well as Christian-theological.
Taking a purely formal view, one might at
first glance assume that he had in mind a
link with the great ethical ideas of earlier
men, such as Spinoza's doctrine of the emotions.
But as soon as we consider content and programmatic
bias in concrete terms, we see how appearances
can deceived With Spinoza, the dialectics
of the conquest of one's own emotions were
an endeavour to project the ideal of a harmonious,
humanistic, self-controlled social being
through mastery over (not just the suppression
of, as in Kant) mere instinct and the anti-social
passions. With Nietzsche, on the contrary,
as we have seen already and will see again
in more detail, we have a veritable conception
of an unleashing of the instincts: the declining
bourgeoisie, he maintained, had to let loose
all that was bad and bestial in man so as
to obtain militant activists who could save
its dominion.
That is why the acknowledgement of the criminal
type was so important to Nietzsche. Here
too there is a surface affinity with certain
tendencies in the earlier literature of the
period of the bourgeois rise (the young Schiller's
Robbers, Kleist's Michael Kohlhaas, Pushkin's
Dubrovsky, Balzac's Vautrin, etc.), but once
again with a radically different content.
At that time, the injustices of feudal-absolutist
society were driving high-principled men
into crime, and the study of such criminals
constituted an attack on that society. Granted,
Nietzsche too was bent on attacking. But
where he put the emphasis was on deforming
a specific human type, on transforming it
into the criminal type. And his chief concern
was to give even the criminal a clear conscience
and thus to cancel out his degeneration and
make him a member of the new élite. In The
Twilight of the Idols he stated: 'The criminal
type is the strong type under unfavourable
conditions, a strong man rendered sickly.
What he lacks is the jungle, a certain freer
and more dangerous form of nature and existence
where all that serves as arms and armour
- in the strong man's instinctive view -
is his by right. His virtues society has
prohibited; the liveliest impulses he has
borne within him are quickly entangled with
the crushing emotions of suspicion, fear
and ignominy.'[58] And then in The Will to
Power, the necessary, organic connection
between greatness, in Nietzsche's sense,
and criminality (which means belonging to
the criminal type) was distinctly stated:
'In our civilized world we are almost solely
acquainted with the stunted criminal, weighed
down by society's curse and contempt, mistrusting
himself, often belittling and calumniating
his own deed, a failed criminal type; and
we find it repugnant to think that all great
men were criminals (but in the grand manner,
not miserably) and that crime belongs to
greatness ...'[59]
Here already Nietzsche has very plainly raised
and answered the question of 'sickness' and
'health', so central to his mature philosophy.
If we complement these statements with a
further one from his drafts for his final
works, it will not be for the sake of comprehensiveness,
for we could devote many more pages to such
quotations. We shall do so because many of
Nietzsche's interpreters, especially in recent
times, have been eager to water down all
his tendencies towards the revival of barbarity,
glorification of the white terror and moral
sanction of cruelty and bestiality - eager
indeed to eliminate them from his works.
Often they give one the impression that the
'blond beast' is only a harmless metaphor
within a delicate cultural critique. To counter
such distortions we must always refer back
to Nietzsche himself whop in all such matters,
- and in this he was a sincere thinker, no
hypocrite or sneak - wrote with a downright
cynical candour. Thus he stated in the aforesaid
passage: 'Beasts of prey and the primeval
forest show that depravity can be very healthy
and works wonders for the body. Were the
predatory species beset by inner torments,
they would have become stunted and degenerate
long ago. The dog (which moans and whines
so much) is a degenerate predator, and so
is the cat. Innumerable good-natured, depressed
people are the living proof that kindliness
is connected with a lessening of vital powers:
their feelings of anxiety predominate and
govern their organisms.'[60] As we shall
see, the biological language too is in complete
accord with the mature Nietzsche's basic
philosophical bias. But this terminology
only serves a mythicizing purpose, for the
beast of prey's 'depravity' is of course
a myth attendant on the imperialist glorification
of the bad instincts.
All this contains an explicit avowal of belief
in a revival of barbarity as the means of
saving mankind. (It is irrelevant that in
his early writings, and occasionally later,
Nietzsche also used the word 'barbarity'
in a pejorative sense; in such instances
he meant cultural philistinism, narrow-mindedness
in general.) Nietzsche stated in the same
drafts that 'today we are tired of civilization'.[61]
In even Nietzsche's eyes, to be sure, this
would simply be chaos, a state of decadence.
But it is interesting to observe the constant
growth of his optimism concerning the future
as he foresaw it. Where was the way out of
the chaos? Here again Nietzsche gave an unequivocally
clear reply: the era of 'great politics',
wars and revolutions would compel men (i.
e., the ruling class) to reverse their course.
The crucial signs of this saving transformation
would appear in no other guise than that
of the revival of barbarity. We have already
quoted several important comments by Nietzsche
on this subject in the previous paragraph.
Admirers of the 'purified' Nietzsche have
been hard put to unite his sanctioning of
barbarity with an often subtle and rarefied
cultural critique. But we can easily dispose
of this dichotomy. In the first place, the
union of ultra-refinement and brutality was
by no means a personal quirk requiring psychological
elucidation, but a universal, psychical-moral
distinguishing mark of imperialist decadence.
I have demonstrated the kinship of these
contrasting qualities in other contexts in
the oeuvre of Rilke, who practised a far
greater refinement still.[62] Secondly, in
the Genealogy of Morals Nietzsche gave an
excellent description of the type he favoured.
Unlike the passages previously quoted, it
not only reveals its psychology and ethics,
but also sheds much light on the subterranean
class basis of this contrasting duality and
unity. Here Nietzsche examined pairs of moral
opposites: the aristocratic concept of good
and bad, and the concept of good and evil
dictated by plebeian disapproval. And to
the question of how the concept of evil arose
he replied as follows:
To answer with all severity: it is precisely
the other code's 'good man', noble, powerful
and dominant, only given a different hue,
meaning and perspective by malicious, resentful
eyes. Here we are glad to admit that anyone
getting to know those 'good men' only as
enemies would find them evil enemies indeed.
The very men whom etiquette, respectful feelings,
custom and gratitude keep strictly within
the pale, as do mutual surveillance and jealousy
to an even greater extent, who, on the other
hand, prove so resourceful in consideration,
self-control, tact, loyalty, pride and friendship
- once estranged from these confines, they
will behave little better than predatory
beasts at large. For then they will enjoy
a freedom from all social constraints; out
in the jungle they are immune from the tensions
caused by long incarceration and domesticating
in the calm of the community. They step back
into the wild animal's state of innocence,
the kind of exuberant monsters that might
quit a horrible scene of murder, arson, rape
and torture with the high humour and equanimity
appropriate to a student prank. They would
do so in the conviction that the poets would
have plenty to celebrate again. Behind all
these noble breeds there is no mistaking
the beast of prey, the magnificent blond
beast in greedy search of spoils and conquest
... It is the noble races that have left
the word 'barbarian' in their tracks wherever
they prowled; even their highest culture
betrays this awareness and their pride in
the fact.[63]
To sum up: we find aesthetic, moral and cultural
refinement within the ruling class, brutality,
cruelty, barbarity towards 'the alien element',
i. e., the oppressed and those it means to
oppress. As we see, the young Nietzsche's
enthusiasm about slavery in ancient times
remained a constant - indeed constantly heightened
- motive of his philosophical work. To be
sure, a romantic element thus entered into
his 'prophetic' anticipation of the imperialist
future. For Nietzsche's prototype, for instance
the slave-holding and culturally refined
Pericles, adapts itself most awkwardly to
such persons as Hitler and Göring, McCarthy
and Ridgway. Apologetic aims aside, his ignorance
of the socio-economic differences between
two ages necessarily led to this romantic
idealism. Certainly it is no coincidence
that Nietzsche lapsed into romantic fatuity
in this particular area; after all, it is
the main problem in his philosophizing. Nietzsche's
cultural concern was definitely not just
the bait for the decadent intelligentsia,
but always occupied a central place in his
life, emotions and thoughts. In challenging
cultural decline and in trying to pioneer
a future revival he was no doubt sincere
in his own mind, albeit personally sincere
from an extremely reactionary class standpoint.
In this light the romantic dream of a culturally
highly-developed ruling stratum, representing
at the same time an indispensable barbarity,
takes on a special colouring. And the subjective
sincerity of this false prophetship was itself
an important source of Nietzsche's fascination
for the parasitic intelligentsia of the imperialist
period. With his assistance it was able to
conceal its cowardice, compliance with imperialism's
most repugnant forms and mortal fear of the
proletarian revolution behind the mask of
a 'concern about culture'.
But we can leave this subject and still find
ourselves at the heart of Nietzsche's philosophy.
Superficial commentaries have interpreted
his 'Superman' as a biologically more highly
developed form of man, a view which certain
remarks in Zarathustra tend to support. But
in the Anti-Christ Nietzsche very firmly
disavowed such a reading: 'Not what is to
supersede man in the biological series is
the problem which I am now posing (man is
an end), but what type of man we should be
breeding, willing into existence, a superior
being more worthy of life and more assured
of a future. This superior type has already
dwelt among us frequently enough, but as
a stroke of good fortune, an exception, and
never something willed.'[64] But in this
case the 'Superman' is identical with the
'lords of the earth' and the 'blond beast'
whose barbaric morality we have just examined.
Nietzsche plainly indicates that this type
has repeatedly existed in isolation, seeking
deliberately to make the rearing of it the
focal point of the social will of the ruling
class.
With this construction, Nietzsche foreshadowed
in the most concrete fashion possible both
Hitler's fascism and the moral ideology of
the 'American age'. And likewise, the fact
that barbarity and bestiality are the very
essence of such 'Supermen' was plainly stated
in The Will to Power: 'Man is a brute and
super-brute; the higher man is the monster
and Superman: thus the two go together. Whenever
man adds to his greatness and stature he
also increases in lowness and fearsomeness.
The one is not to be desired without the
other - or rather, the more thoroughly you
want the one, the more thoroughly you will
achieve the other.'[65]
What Nietzsche provided here was a morality
for the socially militant bourgeoisie and
middle-class intelligentsia of imperialism.
In this he again occupied a unique historical
position. From the objective, social angle,
there had of course been a morality of the
class struggle in bourgeois ideology from
the beginning. But during the campaign against
feudal absolutism it had a universal human,
universally humanitarian character. Because
of this bias it was progressive in its main
orientation. The abstract generalizing -
which, as regards facts, often distorted
the problems - had its own social justification
too, since it was a reflection of actual
class conditions, albeit one that never attained
to proper consciousness. For, on the one
hand, the bourgeoisie at this time was truly
the spearhead of all those classes challenging
the feudal remnants of absolutism, and thus
had a certain right to identify its own interests
with those of social evolution considered
as a whole. Admittedly this was only so up
to a point. Conflicts of policy, for example
within the Enlightenment, clearly show that
a differentiation within the 'third estate'
had already set in, at least on the ideological
plane, before the French Revolution; typically
for this social situation, each faction claimed
to represent the common interests of society
(Holbach, Helvétius, Diderot, Rousseau).
And, on the other hand, those who were acting
as the spokes men for collective capitalist
interests were equally able to declare themselves
for this commonalty with a certain subjectively
sincere, and relatively justified, pathos.
For they also identified it with society,
as opposed to the isolated endeavours of
individual capitalists or capitalist sectors
(among such spokesmen were Ricardo and moralists
like Mandeville or Ferguson).
In the nineteenth century this relative justification,
and the subjectively sincere pathos in which
it found expression, both ceased to exist.
True, capitalist ideologists spoke ever more
volubly of society's collective interests
and the universal principles of progress
and humanism. But such talk was growing increasingly
apologetic and dissembling, becoming more
and more obliged to hush up, gloss over and
misrepresent the actual facts of social life
and their immanent contradictions. The clash
of class interests between bourgeoisie and
proletariat in particular was disappearing
from these treatises, and doing so to precisely
the degree that it was moving towards the
centre of social events in objective reality.
The ethics of Nietzsche which we have briefly
outlined have the historical significance
that they are exclusively a morality of the
ruling, oppressing and exploiting class,
a morality whose content and method were
determined by this explicitly militant position.
Here Nietzsche's extension of indirect apologetics
in the ethical domain took concrete shape,
and two elements need stressing in particular.
The first point is that even here Nietzsche
defended capitalism through apologetics on
behalf of its 'bad sides'. Whereas the popular
fellow-apologists, concentrating on an idealization
of capitalist man, strove to dismiss all
capitalism's darker aspects and contradictions,
Nietzsche's writings centred exactly on what
was problematic about capitalist society,
on everything that was bad in it. Of course
he too went in for idealizing; but what he
emphasized with his ironic criticism and
poeticizing pathos were the capitalist's
egotistic, barbaric and bestial features,
seen as attributes of a type desirable for
the good of mankind (i. e., capitalism).
Thus Nietzsche likewise spoke of mankind's
interests and identified them with capitalism.
However, and this is the second point to
be stressed, unlike the neo-Kantians or Positivists,
etc., Nietzsche had absolutely no wish to
establish a morality valid for all. On the
contrary, his ethics were expressly and consciously
an exclusive code of the ruling class: beside
it and below it there was a qualitatively
differing morality - that of the oppressed
- which Nietzsche passionately rejected and
opposed. The conflict between two moral codes
which, although changing according to historical
conditions, in essence stood for two permanent
types of morality, determined all the crucial
historical questions to Nietzsche's way of
thinking. His ethics thereby acknowledged
the fact of the class struggle to a certain
extent, again in violent contrast to direct
apologetics, which sought to banish the whole
idea or at least to lower its moral tone
with the very weapon of a code eternally
valid for all. Nor would Nietzsche tolerate
such a toning down; once again he levelled
against his age the criticism that democracy
was blunting the struggle between masters
and mob, and that the master-race morality
was making too many concessions to slave
morality. In his campaign against socialism,
therefore, Nietzsche did come to recognize
up to a point the fact of the class struggle
as underlying the nature and transformation
of all morality.
Far be it from us to suggest that he had
even partially enlightened views about classes
and the class struggle. Without a doubt,
the class struggle appeared to Nietzsche
to be a conflict between higher and lower
races. This formulation, of course, already
points towards the fascist takeover of bourgeois
ideology. All those seeking to absolve Nietzsche
from any connection with Hitler now cling
to the assertion that his racial concept
was utterly different from the Gobineau Chamberlain-Rosenberg
view. And unquestionably there is indeed
a considerable difference. This holds good
in spite of the fact that Nietzsche too gave
his social categories a 'biological' basis,
that his ethics take as their premise and
seek to prove a supposedly radical and permanent
inequality between men, and that the racial
theories of Nietzsche and Gobineau fundamentally
agree, therefore, in their moral and social
conclusions. They differ in that the supremacy
of the 'Aryan' race carried no weight with
Nietzsche. Understanding master races and
slave races only in a very general and mythicized
sense, he took into account only ethico-social
considerations. Hence in this respect he
was a direct forerunner of Spengler rather
than Rosenberg. [66] Today, however, the
stressing of this difference is only a means
of 'denazifying' Nietzsche. Since, as we
have noted, Nietzsche drew the same barbaric
imperialist conclusions from a racial theory
as did Rosenberg from Chamberlain's, the
difference is - to borrow Lenin's phrase
- merely that between a yellow devil and
a blue one. We must also remember that the
obfuscating and disordering of the social
sciences in the imperialist age proceeded
largely along the lines of racial theory
(race replacing class). And in this area,
too, Nietzsche gave rise to the same obscurantist
irrationalism as Gobineau or H. S. Chamberlain.
Nietzsche's ethics further differ from those
of the idealist and Positivist epigones in
that he treated problems of the individual
as inseparable from social problems. Questions
which play a decisive part in, for instance,
neo-Kantian thought, such as those of legality
and morality, never even occur in his work.
To be sure, he was undertaking not a practical
deduction of individual morals from concrete
social conditions, but an intuitive, irrational
association of highly personal psychological
and moral problems with a society and a history
transferred to mythical realms. But just
this philosophical approach - deliberately
witty in form, in content serving the permanent
interests of the most reactionary monopoly
capitalism - is one of the most important
reasons for Nietzsche's lasting influence
in the imperialist period. Neo-Kantians (and
also neo-Hegelians) too often derived their
propositions from the age of 'security' and
too openly aimed at consolidating capitalism
for them to be of any real use to the bourgeoisie
in the great new ages of global crisis and
revolution. On the other hand, those decadent-intellectual
movements which had many affinities with
Nietzsche, and which often were in some measure
influenced by him (Gide's acte gratuit, existentialism,
etc.), proceeded all too exclusively and
narrowly from the ideological needs of the
individualistic, parasitic intelligentsia.
While expressing a nihilism similar to Nietzsche's,
though at a still higher pitch of inner disintegration,
they were however much more limited and specific
in their propositions and conclusions. They
lent themselves more readily to a philosophy
of the 'third way' than to a philosophy of
the reactionary avant-garde. Just this union
of an ingeniously decadent individualism
with an imperialist commonalty of reactionary
hue - a union full of tensions and paradoxes
- decided the duration of Nietzsche's influence
in the imperialist age and caused it to survive
particularities.
For similar reasons Nietzsche's influence
outstripped those equally resolute reactionaries
who resorted to more direct methods (e. g.,
the Pan-Germans, reactionaries in the mould
of Treitschke). Whereas the latter found
their starting-point in the type of the 'normal'
petty bourgeois, Nietzsche took his from
the type of the decadent intellectual. The
moral disintegration of bourgeois and petty
bourgeois, which became increasingly marked
as imperialist economics and politics gained
ground, confirmed the 'prophetic' foresight
of Nietzsche's ethics. And his lasting influence
had not a little to do with the fact that
he went a long way towards catering for the
needs of the decadent wing. He brought up
questions from within its sphere of interests,
answered them in its own spirit. Above all
he commended and encouraged its decadent
instincts, professing that this was just
the way to conquer decadence. Hence Nietzsche's
'dialectics' in this respect lay in a simultaneous
acceptance and rejection of the decadent
movement, whereby he could enable the militant
reactionaries to reap the benefits. For his
own part, Nietzsche gave his blessing to
these dialectics; in his Ecce homo he said:
'For granted that I am a décadent, I am also
the antithesis.'[67]
This antithesis is represented in the ethics
of barbarism which we have portrayed above.
And Nietzsche turned the whole problem of
decadence firmly on its head when he defined
as its most important sign the view that
'we are fed up with egotism'.[68] For patently
the predominance of individualist-egotistic
propensities over social ones was among the
movement's most significant features. But
it was possible for Nietzsche to 'salve'
the decadents, i. e., to induce in them absolute
self-confidence and give them a clear conscience
without fundamentally altering their psychological-moral
structure. And he did so precisely by suggesting
that they were not over-egotistic but rather
lacking in egotism, and that they must -
with a good conscience - become more egotistic
still.
Now we can also clearly discern the 'social
task' which we mentioned initially, namely
that of diverting discontented intellectuals
from socialism and driving them towards reactionary
extremes. Whereas socialism called for both
an outward and an inward change of position
(a break with one s own class plus a reform
of personal attitudes), no radical reform
was needed to conquer decadence in the manner
Nietzsche proclaimed. One could go on as
before (with fewer inhibitions and a clearer
conscience) and feel oneself to be much more
revolutionary than the socialists. And an
additional point is the socio- historical
nature of Nietzsche's answers in his ethics.
The chief manifestations of decadence he
perceived quite correctly: 'What does nihilism
signify? - That the highest values are depreciated.
A goal is absent; an answer is absent to
the question "Why?" '[69] It is
on this very point that the 'Superman', the
'lords of the earth' and company provided
the decadent intellectual of the imperialist
age with the perspective he needed and hitherto
lacked. This handful of examples may suffice
to illuminate the methodology behind Nietzsche's
relationship to the intelligentsia, one of
the most important sources of his lasting
influence. We could give umpteen examples,
but they would add nothing basically new.
By actively serving the most extreme imperialist
forces of reaction (Hitler's), decadence
'overcame' itself and became 'healthy' without
having undergone any inner change beyond
releasing its worst instincts, instincts
that were previously half or wholly suppressed.
4
Only if we proceed from Nietzsche's ethics
can we comprehend his attitude to what are
called the 'ultimate questions' of philosophy,
to religious belief or unbelief. As is widely
known, Nietzsche declared a fervent allegiance
to atheism; and with the same fervour he
denounced all religions, but especially Christianity.
That was of great importance for his influence
on the intelligentsia, large sections of
which were increasingly breaking away from
the old religions. Nonetheless, as we have
shown in the case of Schopenhauer, the resultant
movement split up into quite different directions.
On the one hand, we have an atheism truly
materialist in character and based primarily
on the development of natural sciences. This,
although Darwinian theory gave it a strong
temporary impetus (E. Haeckel), always exhibited
major weaknesses on account of its inability
to provide a materialist explanation for
social (and hence moral, political, etc.)
phenomena. Bounded by a narrowly bourgeois
horizon, it usually remained in perpetual
oscillation between pessimism and apologetics
with regard to such questions. There can
be no question of a widespread influence
of dialectical and historical materialism
upon the bourgeois classes; even within the
workers' parties its significance - except
in Russia - was continually played down through
philosophical revisionism in the imperialist
age. 'Religious atheism', on the other hand,
was constantly gaining in strength. It had
the function of satisfying the religious
need of those classes that had broken with
positive religions, and it did so in the
form of polemics against them which became
very forceful at times. This accounts for
the semblance of an 'independent', 'non-conformist',
indeed 'revolutionary' attitude in its adherents.
But at the same time, it had to preserve
the vague religiosity that mattered to the
survival of capitalist society. Thus 'religious
atheism' is another manifestation of indirect
apologetics.
Occupying a special position in this development,
Nietzsche carried religious atheism far beyond
the Schopenhauerian stage. We see this from
a negative angle above all in the fact that
Nietzsche transformed the argument of his
atheism into myth to an even greater extent
than was the case with Schopenhauer's Buddhism.
He dissociated himself more strongly still
from the connection with the natural sciences,
and his views ran increasingly and more deliberately
counter to 'vulgar' (scientifically based
equals materialistically based) atheism.
A famous passage in the Joyful Science states
that God is dead, indeed that men have murdered
him.[70] That is to say that there used to
be a God, only he no longer exists today.
Thus Nietzsche was expressly arguing that
atheism is not a result of the incompatibility
of our scientifically acquired world-view
with the idea of God (in which event the
new knowledge would have retrospective validity
for the past). On the contrary, he asserted,
it is the moral conduct of men in our time
that rules out the existence of God, which
hitherto accorded with it and found a veritable
support in it - to be sure, Nietzsche was
here referring to the long dominance of slave
morals (Christianity). Nietzsche's atheism
had therefore a pronounced tendency to base
itself exclusively upon ethics. And these,
as we have noted, meant to him both the philosophy
of history and social philosophy. On occasion
he voiced this thought quite clearly: 'The
refutation of God: to tell the truth, we
are only refuting the moral God.'[71]
No doubt traces of Feuerbach are visible
in this conception. The contrasts, however,
appear of far greater moment than the similarities.
For with the materialist Feuerbach, the idea
of God (and God for him is never more than
a human concept) was causally derived from
man's real being. Nietzsche, on the other
hand, laid down only an ineluctable reciprocal
relationship between specific moral forms
of human behaviour and mankind's gods. Whether
such gods existed independently of man's
imagining or were only projected figments
of this imagining remained - true to the
essence of Nietzsche's method, the creating
of myths - deliberately obscure. Granted,
the connecting threads are not limited to
a mere concrete co-existence - unexplained
as far as Nietzsche is concerned. Nietzsche
took over from Feuerbach the weakest, most
ideological side of his philosophizing: that
which assumed that the change in men's religious
ideas constituted the most important and
decisive part of history. Even here, though,
there is the significant difference that
for Feuerbach the man-God relationship, while
stemming from life, was in character a product
of thought and contemplation, whereas for
Nietzsche the essential determining factor
of the relation ship was to be found in men's
social actions, in their morality.
As our detailed study of Nietzsche's ethics
has demonstrated, he linked atheism - saying
that Zarathustra had deprived men of God
- with the new ethics of 'All is permitted'.
The killing of God was only one means of
liberating men from the restraints acquired
in the course of millennia and turning them
into those immoralists which the tyrannic
ally ruling class of the future was to become
in opposition to the herd. When Nietzsche
happened to touch on the theme of 'Back to
nature' he at once stressed the contrast
with Rousseau. For Nietzsche, there is only
one way that some thing purposeful can come
of this: 'nature, i. e., daring to be as
immoral as nature'.[72] And it would be equally
false to draw a parallel between such passages
and Hobbes's natural state, for the latter
was concerned with the starting-point of
man's development, with a 'Whence?', whereas
Nietzsche's concern was the goal to be realized,
the 'Whither?'. So here again we may clearly
observe the contrast with the Enlightenment,
with which individual commentators have tried
to associate Nietzsche because of his atheism.
In the Enlightenment, the idea was to prove
that belief in God might not signify any
kind of moral imperative for mankind, that
the moral laws would operate in a society
of atheists just as much as in one where
religious patronage held sway (Bayle). Nietzsche,
on the contrary, wanted to show that the
demise of the idea of God (or the death of
God) would entail a moral renaissance in
the sense we have noted above. Apart, therefore,
from the other ethical contradictions in
the 'old' and 'new' Enlightenment, about
which we again already know Nietzsche's opinion,
we find another contrast here in respect
of the socio-ethical role of religion. The
'old' Enlightenment regarded the religious
concept as irrelevant to men's morality,
actions, views etc., which in reality were
adequately determined by a combination of
society and men's reason. On the other hand,
Nietzsche - and here he far exceeded all
Feuerbach's weaknesses in the realm of historico-
philosophical idealism - regarded the switch
to atheism as a turning-point for morality.
(At this point let us just briefly remark
that here Nietzsche's world-view is very
close to certain tendencies in Dostoievsky.
Since he had only read the Notes from the
Underground, the Memoirs from a House of
the Dead and The Insulted and Injured, and
none of Dostoievsky's major novels,[73] the
parallels in the relationship of religious
atheism and morality appear all the more
striking.)
The extremely subjective and idealistic character
of Nietzsche's atheism needs stressing immediately
because on the most important philosophical
questions, he continually and effectively
stood against idealism. Later, when we discuss
the close affinity of his epistemology with
that of Mach and Avenarius, we shall see
how Nietzsche, like these, attacked idealism
passionately but mendaciously in order to
mask his principal campaign against materialism.
He was always striving to give the impression
that his philosophy represented something
new, a 'third solution' contrasting with
idealism as well as materialism. In the circumstances
we deem it necessary to point out the striking
parallels which also exist between Nietzsche
and Mach on the question of God. Just as,
for example, the Russian Machists
(Lunacharsky, etc.) gave currency to an interpretation
of religious atheism as the search for a
'new god', as the creation of a god, thus
drawing from the Nietzschean death of God
the inference of his possible resurrection
in a new form, so too did Nietzsche himself.
Here too his position is contradictory, opalescent.
On the one hand, we read in his Zarathustra
notes: 'You call it God's self-dissolution:
but it is only his fleecing - he is peeling
off his moral skin! And you shall soon see
him again, beyond good and evil.'[74] And
later, in The Will to Power: 'Again we say:
how many new gods are still possible!' Here,
to be sure, Nietzsche is expressing his own
doubts under Zarathustra's hat, and Zarathustra
is 'merely an ancient atheist believing in
neither old nor new gods'. But he ended the
train of thought with the words: 'A God-type
corresponding to the type of the "great
men's" creative minds.'[75] These comments
suffice to give a clear indication of the
whole nature and historical position of Nietzsche's
atheism. But in his last writings, on the
other hand, the antagonist he Conceived to
Christianity and the Crucified is not a world
liberated from all gods, not atheism or at
least not only that, but also - as we shall
later observe in detail - the new god, Dionuso?.
So, then, this kind of 'radical' atheism
blurs all religion's dividing lines and -
within specific limits which we are coming
to - offers an open house to the most diverse
religious tendencies. Here again the uniqueness
of Nietzsche's influence stands out: what
he created was a blanket ideology for all
the imperialist age's firmly reactionary
tendencies. Socially and hence ethically,
his mythos was quite unequivocal. In every
other respect, however, it was wrapped in
a mental haze which admitted of any interpretation
one chose; and this lack of intellectual
definition did not take away the immediate
suggestive power of Nietzsche's symbols.
That is why it was equally possible to find
in Nietzsche a prop for the (fascist) myth
of 'one's own kind' as opposed to the 'foreign'
(Christian) myth, as Baeumler[76] does, and
to bring his 'radical' atheism into an amicable
rapport with Christianity itself. This Nietzsche's
sister tried from the start to achieve by
heavy-handed Pan-Germanic methods; later
minds found for the same bent a stylistically
more refined expression. Thus Jaspers, for
instance, writes of Nietzsche's relationship
to Christianity: 'Although we may reproach
Nietzsche with atheism and point to his "Anti-Christ",
Nietzsche's atheism is not a flat straightforward
denial of God, nor is it the indifference
of a man so far from God, and so far from
seeking him out, that God does not exist.
The very manner in which Nietzsche decrees
for his age that "God is dead"
conveys his emotion ... And even when he
... is straightforward to the point of a
radical No to all faith in God whatsoever,
Nietzsche is still remarkably close to Christianity:
"It is after all the best piece of idealism
with which I have really become familiar:
since childhood I have pursued it into many
nooks and crannies, and I believe I have
never dealt it an unfair blow at heart"
' (to Peter Gast, 21 July
1881).[77] And for a contemporary American
such as Kaufmann, Nietzsche's conformity
with Christianity outweighs his departures
from it.
All these seemingly very marked contradictions
are resolved if we consider more closely
the socio-ethical content of Nietzsche's
anti-Christian polemics. Here too we must
refrain from taking tone and style as our
criterion, or else we could easily say with
Baeumler: 'He felt with acute clarity that
his own position was infinitely bolder, infinitely
more perilous than that of the eighteenth-century
Church's most daring rationalist opponents.'[78]
This paradox is not hard to account for.
Even in the case of Voltaire, no atheist,
the Enlightenment's attack on the Church
was chiefly directed against the real central
pillar of feudal absolutism. And hence its
content embraced every area of human life
and thought; it extended from the most general
questions of philosophy and epistemology
to the fields of ethics and aesthetics. Nietzsche's
polemics, on the other hand, railed exclusively
against the putative ideological forerunners
of democracy and socialism, against the spokesmen
for slave morality. The whole struggle against
Christianity thereby took on a very narrow
and firmly reactionary character, but apart
from that, it also lost its social reality.
The Enlightenment was challenging the real
ideological pillar of absolute monarchy;
but was Nietzsche not berating ideologies
and institutions that were actually his best
allies in his central campaign against socialism
and democracy? Of course there are elements
in Christian teaching, and occasional proclivities
in the development of Christian religion,
where the idea of the equality of all human
beings - which Nietzsche hated - finds powerful
expression. But the churches' development,
and also that of the dominant religious mood,
tends towards completely disarming that idea
in the social sphere by so interpreting it
that it lends itself perfectly to the system
of exploitation and oppression currently
obtaining, and to supporting the resultant
inequality. That is the social basis of the
reason why Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche was
just as assiduous as Jaspers or Kaufmann
in detecting links between Nietzsche and
Christianity or the Christian Church. And
in this they are absolutely right from the
social angle, for the political praxis of
the Pope, Cardinal Spellman, etc., has been
in total agreement with the Nietzschean ethics
we have outlined. The fact that the theoretical-ethical
declarations accompanying this praxis hardly
bear Nietzsche's frankly cynical tone is
a secondary point compared with the essential
unanimity. Hitlerian propaganda, on the other
hand, could directly exploit just this side
of Nietzsche's critique of Christianity.
We may now confine ourselves to the brief
citing of several crucial passages from Nietzsche's
works. They distinctly show that the theme
we have emphasized was not one picked at
random from others of equal value, but the
very core of Nietzsche's anti-Christianity.
We shall begin by quoting some concluding
sentences of Ecce homo. Significantly, all
that comes afterwards is the antithesis which
was decisive for Nietzsche at the close of
his career: 'Dionysos versus the Crucified'.
It is equally characteristic that the passage
about to be quoted ends with Voltaire's phrase
'écrasez l'infâme!' Precisely this passage
illustrates in the grossest way the extreme
contrast between that which Voltaire wanted
to abolish in Christianity, and that which
Nietzsche thought should be abolished. Nietzsche
wrote as follows:
The discovery of Christian morals is an event
without parallel, a veritable catastrophe
... The concept of God, devised as a rival
concept to life - it makes a horrible union
of everything harmful, poisonous and deceitful,
the whole deathly conspiracy against life!
The concept of the Beyond and the true world,
invented to devalue the only world that there
is - leaving no purpose, reason or task for
for earth-reality! The concept of soul, spirit
and, to cap it all, immortal soul, invented
to pour scorn on the body and to make it
sick - 'holy' ... The concept of sin, invented
along with the instrument of torture attaching
to it, the concept of free will, so as to
bemuse the instincts and make one's distrust
of them second nature! In the concept of
selflessness, self-denial: the real mark
of décadence, the process of being enticed
by what is harmful, the inability to see
one's purpose any more, self-destruction
being made the very sign of one's worth,
a duty, a thing that is 'sacred' and 'divine'
in man! Finally - the most dreadful thing
of all - in the concept of the good person,
supporting all that is feeble, sick, botched,
the own cause of its suffering, all that
is intended to perish - the law of selection
con founded, an ideal born of gainsaying
the proud and well-fashioned man, yea-saying,
confident, guardian of the future - this
man is now called the evil one ... And all
this passed for morality! - 'écrasez l'infâme!'[79]
This hate-inspired lyrical effusion finds
the requisite factual, ethico-social and
historical rounding-out in Nietzsche's Anti-Christ,
which also appeared in his last period. We
do not need direct quotation to show that
here Nietzsche, from first to last, was trying
to make the idea of human equality intellectually
contemptible and to wipe it out: that was
his basic aim throughout his career. Let
us just point out once more that Nietzsche
never, of course, rejected equality out of
general ethical considerations; his attitude
was the direct result of his stance with
regard to democracy, revolution and socialism,
which to his mind were necessary fruits of
the dominion of Christianity. Nietzsche wrote:
'And let us not underestimate the destiny
that has crept all the way from Christianity
into politics! Today, nobody has any longer
the courage of special rights, or rights
of command, or a sense of respect towards
oneself and one's peers - a pathos of distance
... Our politics are sick through this absence
of courage! The fib of the equality of souls
undermined the aristocratic outlook in the
most insidious way; and while faith in the
"prerogative of the most" is making
and will make revolutions - it is Christianity,
let there be no mistake about it, and it
is Christian judgements that turn every revolution
into mere crime and bloodshed! Christianity
is the revolt of all grovelling creatures
against that which has stature: the gospel
of the "lowly" makes for lowliness
...'[80] And as a kind of historico-typological
rider to this statement he added somewhat
later: 'The pathological limitation of his
perception turns a man of conviction into
a fanatic - Savonarola, Luther, Rousseau,
Robespierre, Saint-Simon - the opposite type
to the strong mind, the mind become free.
But the grand attitude struck by these sick
minds, these intellectual epileptics, acts
upon the broad masses - fanatics are picturesque,
and mankind would rather see gestures than
hear arguments ...'[81] The basic thinking
is patent: out of Christianity came the French
Revolution, out of this came democracy, and
out of this came socialism. When, therefore,
Nietzsche takes his stand as an atheist,
the truth is that he is out to destroy socialism.
5
In Nietzsche's polemics against Christianity,
as indeed in all his social and ethical writings,
the naive reader will gain the impression
that all these phenomena are being examined
as they are manifested in real, material
existence, from the angle of biological needs
and laws. But this is an illusion, and it
is highly likely that Nietzsche was labouring
under it himself. Specific branches of classical
philology apart, Nietzsche's knowledge was
certainly very extensive, and his grasp of
it lively and vivid, but this knowledge was
always superficial and acquired at second
or third hand. Jaspers concedes as much even
for the philosophical classics with which
Nietzsche was in vigorous dispute throughout
his life.[82] But much more than just superficiality
is involved. For Nietzsche, biology was one
of the means of arguing and making concrete
on quasi-scientific lines an essential element
in his methodology. The method itself, of
course, came into being long before him.
In all reactionary biologist social theories
(it may be no accident that the two make
a regular habit of appearing together), the
'biological law' - the 'organic' in Restauration
philosophy, the 'struggle for survival' in
Social Darwinism - constantly appears as
the basis from which the most diverse regressive
conclusions are drawn in the fields of society,
morals, etc. In reality the situation is
the reverse of this. Out of the 'restoration'
need to create a concept of society which
- logically and ontologically - precluded
any revolution a priori, there arose that
notion of the 'organic' which this philosophy
thereupon took as its basis without worrying
about whether the analogy was possible and
arguable in scientific terms. Any analogy
will fit the bill if, as has happened from
Adam Müuller to Othmar Spann, the corresponding
reactionary conclusions can be drawn with
some semblance of plausibility. Scientifically
speaking, this methodology has not advanced
since the famous fable of Menenius Agrippa.
In Nietzsche's time, Social Darwinism emerged
as one such ideology supporting the reactionary
presentation of social processes. The term
'reactionary' still holds good where the
thinkers concerned, e. g., F. A. Lange in
Germany, subjectively placed themselves on
the side of progress. These thinkers chose
a method which did not lead to a concrete
examination of social phenomena; on the contrary
it diverted them from concrete perception
because, in every period, the 'universal
law' of the 'struggle for survival' explains
every event in the same way, i. e., it explains
nothing at all. And with this methodology
they supported the bias of declining liberalism:
they substituted for class warfare various
freely invented forms of the 'laws of motion'
of society.[83]
In books on Nietzsche there was at one time
a violent ( controversy as to whether and
how far Nietzsche should be considered a
Darwinist. We regard this discussion as idle
for two reasons. In the first place, Nietzsche
was never more than a social Darwinist in
the aforesaid sense of the term.) And secondly,
his relationship to Darwinism is the clearest
illustration of the fact that it was not
scientific discoveries and knowledge that
guided his thinking into specific channels
and forced specific roles upon him. On the
contrary, it illustrates that the development
of his struggle against socialism determined
every single one of his pseudo-scientific
attitudes. He only differed from his like-minded
contemporaries in that the programmatic arbitrariness
of the 'scientific' argumentation emerged,
in his case, with cynical frankness and did
not put on a mask of objectivity with the
aid of a pseudo-scientific apparatus.
If we recall our study of Nietzsche's interpretation
of ancient society, we will realize that
Social Darwinism strongly influenced his
view of the agon, Eris, and so on. Darwinism
accordingly receives a positive emphasis
in this phase. For example, Nietzsche reproached
D. F. Strauss with praising Darwinism in
general terms without having the courage
to apply it rigorously to moral problems,
and so taking refuge in a form of idealism.[84]
Occasionally, moreover, and quite as a matter
of course, he used images borrowed from Darwinism
in order to elucidate individual phenomena:
'Darwinism is also right with regard to thinking
in images: the stronger image devours the
weaker ones.'[85] Darwinism played a far
slighter role for Nietzsche in the period
of Human, All-Too-Human. Although he did
not polemicize against it, he drew on it
in his explanations far less often. This
consigning of it to the background is understandable
if we consider at the same time the evolutionist
tendencies of this transitional phase that
we stressed earlier. Only when Nietzsche
had over come this illusion did he adopt
a dismissive attitude of increasing sharpness
towards Darwin and Darwinism. As early as
the Joyful Science he treated Darwinism with
irony on account of its plebeianness: 'The
whole of English Darwinism smacks of England's
stuffy air of over-population, of a provincial
whiff of misery and close confinement.' This
ironic argument ad hominem is, however, only
a prelude to the theoretical rejection: 'The
struggle for survival is only an exception,
a temporary restriction of the life-will;
big or small, the struggle revolves everywhere
around ascendancy, around growth and expansion,
around might in accordance with the will
to power, which is nothing other than the
life-will.'[86]
But we can study the actual content of this
shift only in the more detailed statements
of the last works and sketches, where its
real motives are voiced with Nietzschean
candour. In The Twilight of the Idols and
The Will to Power the decisive motive of
his - new - anti-Darwinism is now clearly
expressed. Here again it becomes patent how
Nietzsche resembled and how he differed from
the general run of 'Social Darwinists'. Instead
of considering the facts of natural evolution
itself, both sides used 'the phrase of the
struggle for survival' (Marx) from the standpoint
of their assessment of the perspective on
the present and future resulting, they thought,
from the class struggle between bourgeoisie
and proletariat. Capitalism's ordinary 'Darwinist'
apologists started with the experiences of
the age after 1860, which they superficially
generalized. If, they thought, the 'struggle
for survival' operated in society unchecked,
it would end ineluctably in the victory of
the 'strong' (the capitalists). This is where
Nietzsche's sceptical, pessimistic critique
begins. 'Normal' conditions for the social
struggle for survival will inevitably lead
the 'weak' (the workers, the masses, socialism)
to a position of command. Very special measures
must be taken to prevent this. Here Nietzsche
was not only, as in his ethics, a 'prophet'
of imperialist barbarity, but was moreover
looking for those new types of forms of dominion
which could thwart the rise of the proletariat.
The accent is on the word 'new' because Nietzsche,
as we have seen, was highly sceptical about
those methods of oppression practised in
his own times (he had witnessed the failure
of the anti-socialist laws). He did not believe
that the contemporary capitalists, politically
conservative as they were, were capable of
Carrying out such a policy. That calling
awaited none else than the 'lords of the
earth' whose deliberate training was the
principal idea behind Nietzsche's ethics.
(Here we see that he anticipated in his thinking
not only imperialism, but also fascism to
boot. Of course it was impossible for this
to happen in an even relatively concrete
form; it was only possible on a mythical,
universal level.) Now that we have presented
the sharp contrast between Nietzsche and
the ordinary direct apologists of capitalism,
we must briefly remark on the methods they
shared in connection with Darwinism. Each
side started out not by examining the objective
correctness and applicability of Darwinism
in respect of social phenomena, but from
its own political aims and the perspectives
which these provided. Thus in the last resort,
it boils down to the same method whether
the ordinary apologists, out of a narrow
optimism about capitalist evolution, are
commending Darwin, or whether Nietzsche,
as a result of the scepticism we have just
indicated, is rejecting and attacking him.
In both cases, Darwinism was only a mythologized
pretext for the ideological war against the
proletariat.
It was in the light of such considerations
that Nietzsche taxed Darwin as follows in
The Twilight of the Idols: 'Darwin has forgotten
men's wits (how English of him!), the weak
have their wits more about them ... One must
need wit in order to acquire it - one loses
one's wits when they are no longer needed.
He who has strength on his side forgoes his
wits ("Never mind all that!" is
current thinking in Germany, "we shall
still have the Empire" ...). As you
see, by wit I mean caution, patience, cunning,
dissimulation, great self-control and everything
under the heading of mimicry[87] (which covers
a large part of so-called virtue).' In the
above statements Nietzsche was, as we have
already noted, contesting the struggle for
survival as a universal phenomenon; the latter,
for him, was the will to power, and the former
only an exceptional instance. From this there
now follows his pro grammatic rejection of
the Social Darwinism of his contemporaries,
which of course appears in his book as Darwinism
itself: 'But assuming that there is this
struggle - and it does in fact occur - it
unfortunately amounts to the reverse of that
which the Darwin school desires, that which
one might perhaps be entitled to wish for:
namely to the detriment of the strong, the
privileged, the happy exceptions. The species
do not grow perfectly: the weak will always
become master of the strong - that is because
they are the great number and they are also
shrewder ...'[88]
This problem receives more detailed treatment
in The Will to Power. So as to avoid repetition,
we shall pick out only the motives which
complement these statements, and which, indeed,
became very significant for the development
of the militantly reactionary world-view
in the imperialist age. Nietzsche summed
up his opposition to Darwin in three points:
'First thesis: man is not progressing as
a species. Higher types may well be reached,
but they are not enduring. The level of the
species is not being raised.'[89] It is clear
how this thesis derives from the social reflections
we have just cited: since the class struggle
(the struggle for survival) does not automatically
bring about the higher type of human being
Nietzsche desired, it cannot possibly be
the law of evolution in nature and society.
But over and beyond this, Nietzsche's thesis
points to the reactionary future: mankind's
peak achievements are of equivalent merit,
and the spontaneous dynamics of society can
only corrupt them and condemn them to perish.
Everything depends on creating devices whereby
these peak achievements of nature can be
not only preserved but also systematically
produced. Here we have the methodological
'model' for fascist racial theory and in
particular for its practical application.
The significance of Nietzschean ideology
for Hitlerian philosophy is in no way diminished
by the fact that the latter derives from
Chamberlain's racial theory, and not Nietzsche's;
we have already remarked on the difference
between them.
The subsequent thesis contains, on the basis
of the same reflections upon the fragility
and vulnerability of the higher type, a bland
denial of any development in nature and history.
Nietzsche states that 'man as a species represents
no advance in comparison to any other animal.
The entire animal and plant world does not
develop from the lower to the higher ...
but everything at once, one thing over and
through and against another.'[90] This thesis
too, although objectively it does not go
beyond the commonest anti Darwinist argumentation,
likewise assumed no little importance in
the development of the imperialist age's
reactionary views. As we have noted, when
Nietzsche advanced beyond Schopenhauer in
indirect apologetics he made their historicizing
the main point of his advance. And we have
also indicated the cause of this change of
method, which lay in the fact that it was
now no longer the bourgeois idea of progress
which constituted the chief adversary (Schopenhauer's
denial of all historicity could serve as
a weapon against this). The new adversary
was the socialist idea of progress pointing
beyond a capitalist society. To this dialectical
view of history, irrationalism had to reply
with another, though again historical-seeming
explanation of reality if it wanted to remain
up-to-date and effective within the reactionary
sphere. But at the same time, the reactionary
content, the apologetic defence of capitalist
society as the unsurpassable peak and final
end of human evolution had to bring about
the repeal of history, evolution and progress.
This simulated keeping in step with needs
of the times (which diverted attention from
objective reality), along with a mythicizing
of history in nature and society leading
not only to the emergence of other reactionary
evolutionist contents and aims, but also
to the self annulment of evolution in the
mythical presentation - this was the most
fundamental intellectual attainment of Nietzsche
the irrationalist.
The third thesis includes nothing that is
especially new for us. In it Nietzsche is
chiefly opposed to the liberal interpreters
of Social Darwinism, such as Spencer, who
perceived in the - as Nietzsche put it -
'domestication' of man, in the taming of
barbaric instincts, an important area over
which Darwinian doctrine could be applied
to social evolution. Nietzsche wrote: 'Man's
domestication (his "culture") has
no depth to it ... Where it does go deep,
it immediately means degeneracy (the type:
Christ). The "savage" man (or,
in moral terms: the evil man) means a return
to nature - and, in a certain sense, his
recuperation or convalescence from "culture"
...'[91] Nietzsche was scoring a valid point
against the liberal apologists inasmuch as
the humanizing of the instincts cannot possibly
go truly deep in capitalism. But it is perfectly
evident from this very point how exclusively
both Spencer and Nietzsche projected their
own ideals on to Darwinism, from which they
gained no fresh insights. This apart, it
merely shows us once more the great extent
to which - notwithstanding the aphoristic
form - Nietzsche's work has a systematic
intellectual coherence, although it is only
from the real social core that we may discern
its ramifications.
The method we have described can be precisely
traced in all Nietzsche's statements in scientific
vein. These have considerable significance
for imperialist philosophy in that here again
his boldness, coupled with a rigour touching
on cynicism, made him the forerunner of methods
and theories which did not come into the
open until much later. As we have mentioned
(we shall go into details shortly), Nietzsche's
epistemology was closely related to that
of Machism. Initially, however, Machism emerged
in the guise of an agnostic 'neutrality'
regarding concrete solutions to concrete
questions; behind it, of course, lay an allegiance
to subjective idealism. To be sure, this
'neutrality' was already manifesting itself
in the period before the imperialist world
war: for Duhem, the Ptolemaic and Copernican
theories were equally true, while Simmel,
from his 'perspective of the future', placed
the great nineteenth-century discoveries
in the natural sciences on the same level
as the belief in witchcraft. But an open
mythicizing of the natural sciences on this
basis - as in the theory of the free will
of atomic particles - is, after all, a product
of a far more advanced irrationalist subversion
of scientific thinking. Thus, here again,
Nietzsche's special position is characterized
by the fact that as early as the eighties
he was resolutely starting to mythicize all
scientific categories. Having resolutely
projected the main principles of his social
philosophy on to natural phenomena, he then
read these principles in them in order to
bestow a mighty 'cosmic' background on his
constructions and to present them as manifestations
of a general world-principle. As paradigms
of this method let me quote the well-known
passage from Beyond Good and Evil where Nietzsche
claims to prove the indestructability, harmlessness
and positive merits of exploitation by demonstrating
- through the method outlined above - that
exploitation contains an irrefutably basic
and universal principle of every form of
life, which naturally includes every form
of social life. 'Here', he stated, 'one must
think things through thoroughly and beware
of all weak sensitivity: life itself is in
essence appropriation, doing injury, over
powering the alien and the weaker, oppression,
hardness, the imposing of one's own forms
upon others, physical adoption and at the
least, at the mildest, exploitation ... "Exploitation"
does not belong to a corrupt or undeveloped
and primitive society: it lies in the essence
of living things as a basic organic function,
it is a consequence of the actual will-to-power,
which is precisely the life-will.'[92]
Once this method has been devised, it is
child's play to arrive at that world-view
whereby everything animate and inanimate
is just as much a manifestation of the will-to-power
as it was a manifestation of the will for
Schopenhauer. The basic principle's mythical
concretization, applied with an equal degree
of arbitrariness, brings about the matching
acts of concretization that we have already
discussed. It naturally follows that the
body itself is a 'power structure'; [93]
that 'the supposed "natural laws"
are formulae for power relationships';[94]
that the will-to-power governs the whole
of physics: 'It is my idea that every specific
body is striving for mastery over the whole
of space, to expand its strength (its will-to-power)
and to repel everything which resists its
expansion. But it continually meets with
other bodies that are likewise engaged and
finishes by adjusting ("uniting")
itself to those which have enough affinity
with it: thus they then conspire to achieve
power. And the process goes on ...',[95]
etc. And in Beyond Good and Evil Nietzsche
- with some reservations in respect of verifiability
that are wholly absent from his later statements
- formulated his programme for natural philosophy:
'The world seen from within, the world determined
and designated with regard to its "intelligible
character" - this would be sheer "will-to-power"
and nothing else.'[96]
All these tendencies revolve round the pith
of Nietzschean philosophy, the doctrine of
'eternal recurrence'. In its farrago of pseudo-science
and wild fantasy, this doctrine has caused
many Nietzsche interpreters a lot of embarrassment.
Baeumler even tries to take it right out
of Nietzsche's 'authentic' fascist system.[97]
And he was quite correct from that particular
standpoint. For 'national socialist philosophy'
had a fully adequate substitute for the crucial
social function of eternal recurrence in
Nietzsche's thought, the function of denying
that history could produce anything that
was new in principle (such as socialism after
the class society). This substitute was the
dogma of racial immutability, which taught
that the 'Third Reich' was only a consciously
induced renewal of primal racial energies
that had never changed. Other bourgeois commentators
were hard put to treat eternal recurrence
as a harmless intellectual affair. Kaufmann,
for example, regards it as a glorification
of the passing moment (even drawing a parallel
with Faust) or as a training method; of course
he always keeps silent about Nietzsche's
purpose behind this training.[98]
For Nietzsche himself, eternal recurrence
is the decisive counter-idea to the concept
of becoming. This counter balance was needed
because Becoming cannot give rise to something
new (in the context of capitalist society)
without betraying its function in Nietzsche's
system. We have already encountered the tendency
to transform Becoming into a simulated movement,
to assign to it the mere role of providing
variations within the 'eternally cosmic'
laws of the will-to-power. Eternal recurrence
narrows the scope even more: the emergence
of something new is a 'cosmic' impossibility.
'The rotating cycle', wrote Nietzsche no
later than the time of his Joyful Science,
'is not something that has he come but a
first principle, just as mass is a first
principle, without exception or transgression.
All Becoming is within the cycle and mass.'[99]
One of the most detailed passages in the
late sketches gives a clear picture of this.
There is small interest for us in Nietzsche's
allegedly scientific argumentation,[100]
which counts for as little as his other sorties
in this field. Far more important are his
conclusions; Nietzsche regards as theologians
all who acknowledge the origination of some
thing new in the world.
'This notion - that the world is deliberately
evading a goal and can even prevent artificially
the entry into a cyclical process - is one
to which all those must succumb who would
like to decree upon the world the power of
eternal innovation, i. e., to invest such
a finite, specific, constant and immutable
force as "the world" with a miraculous
capacity for the infinite shaping anew of
its forms and conditions. They insist that
the world, even though bereft of a God, must
be capable of divine creativity, the infinite
power of transformation. It must deliberately
restrain itself from reverting to one of
its old forms, and must have not only the
intention but also the means of preserving
itself from all repetition ...'[101]
We have laid stress on the 'becoming' in
Nietzsche's ethics. This, we believe, is
right because it contains the immediate reasoning
behind these ethics and particularly their
revolutionary gestures such as the transvaluation
of all values. In order to break the old
moral 'tablets' on which 'eternal laws' of
morality were inscribed, Nietzsche used the
concept of becoming - which he often traced
back to Heraclitus - as a philosophical battering-ram.
The 'innocence of becoming' was the immediate
prerequisite for Nietzsche's activism, his
reactionary militancy, his conquest of Schopenhauerian
passivity. Hence the Nietzschean concept
of becoming had to surpass Schopenhauer's
wholly senseless, patently merely apparent
agitation of 'the world as appearance'. But
it is of the very essence of Nietzschean
philosophy that all this can be only a prelude.
Let us recall the structure of Zarathustra,
where the idea of becoming reigns supreme
in the first part, e. g., in the call to
create the Superman, but where the same type's
recurrence forms the crowning conclusion
in the 'Drunken Song'. (That the idea of
recurrence figures in several earlier episodes
does not affect the under lying construction.)
Baeumler is thinking in a very shallow and
anti- Nietzschean manner when he scents in
this a contradiction of the will-to-power.
For here Nietzsche is quite lucid about the
true hierarchy of his system. In The Will
to Power we read: 'To impress on Becoming
the character of Being - that is the highest
will-to-power ... The fact that everything
recurs is the very nearest approach of a
world of Becoming to the world of Being -
a contemplative peak.'[102] For Nietzsche,
moreover, the will-to-power, though admittedly
the moving principle of all Becoming, is
in itself - like Schopenhauer's will - something
that has not come into being: 'One cannot
locate the cause of the fact that there is
any development at all by following the same
road in one's investigation; one must not
attempt to grasp it as "becoming",
and even less as that which has become ...
The Will to Power cannot have come into being.'[103]
Here we plainly see how superficially Nietzsche
treated all Becoming, all historical events:
as merely a manifestation of 'eternal' principles.
In itself, of course, this hierarchy is -
if regarded logically - a crass contradiction.
At the same time, it is also the philosophical
expression of the fact that, after subjective
idealism and irrationalism had triumphed
over Hegel, bourgeois philosophy became incapable
of any dialectical linking of becoming and
being, freedom and necessity; it could express
their mutual relationship only as an insoluble
antagonism or an eclectic amalgam. Neither
in purely logical nor in general philosophical
terms did Nietzsche surmount this irrationalist
barrier either. His myth of eternal recurrence
as the highest fulfilment of the will-to-power
combines, we might say, hard antagonism and
picturesquely blurred eclecticism. The two
extremes, however, perform a single function
from the viewpoint of his central polemical
stance, his fight against socialism and for
imperialist barbarity. They have the function
of removing all moral restraints with a view
to the ruthless termination of this social
conflict. As we have noted, Nietzsche's boundless
freedom created for the 'lords of the earth'
the principle that everything is permitted;
fatalistic necessity led, in his view, to
the same result. In The Twilight of the Idols
he quite unequivocally posed this question:
'What can our only doctrine be? That nobody
gives man his attributes, neither God nor
society nor his parents and fore fathers,
nor he himself ... Nobody is responsible
for his being here at all, his disposition
to this and that, his existing in these surroundings
under these conditions. The fatality of his
essential being is not to be puzzled out
of the fatality of all that was and will
be ... We are necessary, a portion of destiny,
we belong to the whole, we are in the whole
- and there is nothing which could judge,
measure, compare and condemn our being, for
that would mean judging, measuring, comparing
and condemning the whole ... But there is
nothing outside the whole! ... Only then
is the innocence of Becoming restored ...[104]
And the indirectly apologetic, moral function
of eternal recurrence is exactly the same.
In Zarathustra, in fact, by way of introducing
the crucial proclamation of eternal recurrence,
the 'ugliest person' suddenly voices as an
inspiration the Nietzschean wisdom: ' "Was
that - life?" is what I would say to
death. "Well and good! One more time!"
'[105]
Thus from the standpoint of this central
motive of Nietzsche's philosophy, the - logically
disjointed - series of thoughts combine in
a unified content. From the 'innocence of
Becoming' stems Nietzsche's pseudo- revolution,
the bourgeois transition from the liberal
age of 'security' to that of 'great politics'
and the struggle for control of the earth.
Despite all the exaggerated pathos over the
change in values, this upheaval is just a
sham revolution, a mere heightening of the
reactionary contents of capitalism tricked
out with revolutionary gestures. And eternal
recurrence has the function of expressing
the ultimate meaning of this myth: the barbaric
and tyrannical social order thus created
is to be a definitive order, the conscious
realization of that which was always sought
in past history, that which usually came
to grief and enjoyed a partial success only
now and again. Now if we consider the methodological
structure of this system of thought, we see
that it fully tallies with Hitler's, except
that instead of eternal recurrence, Hitler
incorporates the Chamberlain racial theory
as the new, complementary element. Therefore
one cannot dismiss the closeness of Nietzsche's
thinking to Hitler's by disproving false
assertions, misrepresentations, etc., by
Baeumler or Rosenberg. Taken objectively,
the two were even closer than these men imagined.
6
The reader may have been struck by the fact
that we have left Nietzsche's epistemology
until the end of our study. In this way,
however, we think we can adequately represent
the real coherence of his system of ideas.
During the rise of irrationalism, epistemological
questions played a decisive role in philosophy.
It was in this very area that, for instance,
crucial collisions between idealist dialectics
and irrationalism occurred in the conflict
over the 'intellectual intuition', the 'positive
philosophy' of Schelling. And their outcome
deter mined - philosophically - the Concrete
questions of the interpretation of history,
etc. With Nietzsche this question is completely
reversed. His philosophy takes issue with
an adversary wholly unknown to it - even
in the realm of philosophical theory - that
adversary being the world-view and scientific
method of socialism. Nietzsche had not an
inkling of the philosophical problems of
dialectical and historical materialism. He
contested socialism wherever he thought he
could confront it in the flesh: socially,
historically, morally. The concrete contents
of these philosophical areas are therefore
primary to his system. For him epistemology
was only a tool whose character and disposition
were dictated by the purposes it served.
This new situation too is typical not only
of Nietzsche but of all bourgeois philosophy
in the age of its decline. The period of
its rise, whose import was determined by
the struggle against feudal ideology and
by conflicts of direction within bourgeois
ideology, accordingly evinces a great variety
of epistemological trends; idealism and materialism,
subjective and objective idealism, metaphysics
and dialectics vied with one another for
predominance. Objective idealism, whose bourgeois
perversion was considerably fostered by the
'heroic illusions' of the democratic revolution,
died out with increasing speed as this period
came to an end. After the French Revolution,
mechanical materialism lost its earlier universality;
Feuerbach's purview was already much narrower
than that of his seventeenth- and eighteenth-century
predecessors.
(While developments in Russia form an exception
to this, they were not known to contemporary
thinkers outside Russia.) After a brief period
of supremacy in natural philosophy, mechanical
materialism forfeited its leading position
in this sphere also. Although, as Lenin demonstrates,
every genuine scientist's praxis remained
spontaneously materialistic, philosophical
idealism falsified and deformed the great
scientific discoveries. So epistemology sank
very low precisely as a result of the near-total
hegemony which subjective idealism exercised
in the bourgeois philosophy of this period.
On the surface, admittedly, epistemology
governed the con tent and method of philosophizing
much more firmly than ever before; it is
as though philosophy consisted of almost
nothing else. But in actual fact an academic
scholasticism was growing up, and trivial
professorial squabbles over insignificant
nuances were replacing the great philosophical
conflicts.
The pre-imperialist period energetically
paved the way for this decline. Here the
social grounds for subjective idealism's
total control over bourgeois philosophy are
also clearly visible. This idealism, along
with the agnosticism to which it was inseparably
linked, enabled the bourgeois ideologist
to take from the progress of science, and
first and foremost the natural sciences,
all that served capitalist interests, while
at the same time avoiding taking a stand
with regard to the altered world-picture.
Hence Engels very rightly calls this period's
agnosticism a 'shame-faced materialism'.[106]
In not only the imperialist period but also
in the years immediately preceding it, the
ideological needs of the bourgeoisie underwent
a change. A mere 'abstention' from questions
of viewpoint no longer sufficed, and philosophy
was obliged to make a stand, above all a
stand against materialism: more and more
clearly the positivist agnostics' 'shame-faced
materialism' was acquiring an anti-materialist
accent. Neo- Kantianism and Machism were
their chief orientations as they completed
this shift, which was concurrent with Nietzsche's
activities.[107] The bourgeois ideological
position, however, permitted less and less
of a clear and public platform on the decisive
questions of outlook. Lenin has clearly demonstrated
the contrast between Berkeley's open war
on materialism and that which the Machists
waged behind their anti- idealist camouflage.
The very fact that bourgeois thinking was
forced - in order to defend idealism against
materialism - to take a 'third road', i.
e., to act as if it were criticizing and
rejecting both idealism and materialism from
a 'higher vantage point', indicates that
- on the world-historical scale - it had
been already forced into a defensive posture.
Its propositions, methods and so forth were
more in the nature of protective measures
than means of analysing and interpreting
objective reality in a way of its own. It
goes without saying that this defensive character
did not exclude the most violent attacks
on the declining bourgeoisie's opponents
or a passionate advocacy of its class interests,
etc. These actions even gained in intensity
with the onset of the imperialist age, where
it is precisely the ever-growing 'need of
a world- view' that characterizes the contrast
with the age which Engels described. The
'world-views' which now came about were,
however, qualitatively different from those
of the ideological heyday. Then, the bourgeois
view of the world - albeit emerging in a
more or less idealistically distorted form
- had been designed to reflect the essence
of objective reality. But now every such
'world-view' had its basis in an agnostic
epistemology, in a denial that what was objectively
real was perceptible. For that reason it
could only be a myth, something subjectively
contrived with pretentions to (an epistemologically
unarguable) objectivity, an objectivity resting
solely on an extremely subjectivist foundation,
on intuition and the like, and so never more
than a feigned objectivity. The bourgeoisie's
age of decline finds a clear expression in
this mounting and increasingly uncritical
need of myth. In the pseudo-objective form
of myth, the bourgeoisie countered real evolution
with wishful thinking. In its heyday, on
the contrary, its philosophical systems had
sought to oppose the feudal legends precisely
by appealing to real evolutionary trends
in nature and history.
Now Nietzsche's special position is determined
by the fact that he, at the same time as
Machism, introduced the new agnosticist method
into epistemology. But in doing so he went
much further than his contemporaries. Anticipating
the spread of agnosticism into the sphere
of myth, he showed in his myth-making a careless
daring that general bourgeois developments
only came close to matching at the end of
the first imperialist world war, as in the
work of Spengler. Thus Nietzsche was by no
means original in his epistemology either;
his treatment of individual problems is entirely
on the general level of Machism. To be sure,
he did strike a special note in his determination
to think reactionary bourgeois tendencies
through to the most extreme consequences
and openly to state their conclusions in
a crude and paradoxical form. This is connected
with an attitude in which we see the binding
centre of Nietzsche's philosophical system:
with his unceasing and passionate open warfare
against the peril of socialism. He subordinated
all the principal contents of his thought
to the needs of this battle; he always allowed
these needs to dictate the content.
Hence his epistemology too, though very close
to the Machist in general, far exceeded that
of his contemporaries and allies in its cynically
frank conclusions. A salient example will
clearly illustrate the similarity and difference.
Nietzsche was in complete agreement with
the Machists in respect of the 'immanence'
of philosophy, of the programmatic denial
of all 'transcendence'. But what did both
parties mean by the terms? 'Immanence' signifies
the world of our intuitions and ideas, 'transcendence'
all that in reality goes beyond these, i.
e., objective reality itself, existing independently
of our consciousness. There is a further
agreement in that both parties - so it appears
- polemicize against idealism's purported
claims to be able to perceive objective reality;
here, therefore, anti-idealist polemics mask
the denial of materialism. But Nietzsche
went still further along this road by linking
the campaign against 'transcendence' and
the Beyond with his anti-Christian views.
Hence he was capable on occasion of misleading
those who failed to see that the Christian
Heaven and the materialist view of objective
reality are mythically synthesized in his
concept of the Beyond. (Incidentally, even
the Machists criticized materialism as 'metaphysical'
theory.) But whereas the Machists were largely
content to present the 'immanence' of the
realm of ideas as the sole scientific basis
for comprehending the world, Nietzsche, with
nihilistic openness, formulated this theory
in bold paradoxes. In The Twilight of the
Idols his mocking polemics inveigh against
the conception of a 'true world' (of objective
reality), and his deductions climax in the
sentences proclaiming the 'end of the longest
error' and the 'peak of mankind': 'The true
world we have abolished: what was left? the
apparent world, perhaps? ... But no! Along
with the true world we have also abolished
the apparent one!'[108]
But Nietzsche was not content with mere epistemological
statements. His whole epistemology was for
him just one weapon in the main battle against
socialism. Hence it follows that in the same
work he should give a socially concrete definition
of that which he understood by 'immanence',
namely not only - epistemologically - the
world of ideas but also, inseparable from
it on the general philosophical level, the
actual condition of society at any given
time: in concrete terms, capitalism. And
anybody who stepped beyond this 'immanence'
was in his eyes a bad reactionary from the
philosophical angle. Here again, of course
- as we have noted in earlier sections -
Christians and socialists alike are made
to look philosophically and morally reprehensible
because they represent 'transcendence' and
are therefore reactionaries. 'But', Nietzsche
Wrote, 'even if the Christian condemns, slanders
and vilifies the "world", he does
so from the same instinct as the socialist
worker who condemns, slanders and vilifies
society: the "Last Judgement" itself
continues to offer sweet revenge - the same
revolution that the socialist worker awaits,
only carried somewhat further ... The "Beyond"
itself - what good might a Beyond have except
as a means of vilifying this world? ...'[109]
In the last analysis all 'immanence' in imperialist
bourgeois philosophy is aiming at this target:
to deduce from epistemology the 'everlastingness'
of capitalist society. Nietzsche was particularly
important because he publicly voiced in suggestive
paradoxes this common idea in imperialist
philosophy. Hence in the epistemological
field, too, he became the leading ideologist
of the militant reactionaries.
Nietzsche's individual epistemological statements
are of little interest. Where they do not
jump across to the overtly social sphere,
as in the above passage, they proceed along
well-known Machist lines. They challenge
the perceptibility of objective reality,
indeed all objectivity of knowledge (hence
Nietzsche also opposed the materialist side
of the Kantian Ding an sich or 'thing-in-itself').
They regard causality, laws, etc., as categories
of an idealism that has been conquered once
and for all. Here we wish only to dwell briefly
on those elements in which Nietzsche's special
historical individuality finds expression.
One such element is that Nietzsche's subjective
idealism and agnosticism which, while certainly
derived via Berkeley and Schopenhauer, belong
to modern imperialism - are avowedly based
on Heraclitus. This lends his agnosticism
a 'philosophical' character that exceeds
the drily scientific and helps him to transpose
agnosticism into myth-making. (Small wonder
that it is precisely his fascist followers,
such as Baeumler, who lay so much stress
on his derivation from Heraclitus. For this
makes it easier to extract him from mainstream
bourgeois philosophy, where he belongs, and
to make him a 'solitary' forerunner of Hitler.)
But even more instructive, on the other hand,
is the point that the Heraclitus-based interpretations
offer a perfect example of our general view
that in reactionary hands, dialectical problems
turn into irrationalist myths. In his notes
for Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks
(1872-3), Nietzsche touches on a central
thesis of Heraclitus's dialectics, 'Everything
always contains its opposite', and Aristotle's
polemics against this thesis. His commentary
is highly significant: 'Heraclitus possesses
the regal gift of the highest power of intuitive
thinking, while showing himself cool, insensitive
and indeed hostile towards that other type
of thinking which is accomplished in concepts
and logical combinations, i. e., towards
reason and he seems to take pleasure in any
chance to contradict it with a truth intuitively
arrived at.'[110] So we see that, for Nietzsche,
the critique of understanding (Verstand)
through its own contrariety - Heraclitus's
great dialectical discovery - is simply identical
with the sovereign supremacy of intuition
over reason.[111]
Nietzsche then goes on, quite logically,
to establish a close link between Heraclitus's
dialectics and Schopenhauer's consciously
anti-dialectical irrationalism, whereby he
likewise establishes the link with Berkeley
and Mach. The Heraclitean concept of becoming
he interprets in exactly the same con text.
In his studies from the time of The Birth
of Tragedy (1870-1) he wrote of it: 'In Becoming
is manifested the ideational nature of things:
there is nothing, nothing exists, everything
becomes, i. e., is idea.'[112] Let us not
suppose that this view belongs only to Nietzsche's
youth, when he stood under Schopenhauer's
influence. This view of Being and Becoming
dominates the whole epistemology of Nietzsche's
oeuvre. When, at the end of his career, in
The Twilight of the Idols, he again touched
on Heraclitus, he stressed the very same
idea: 'But Heraclitus will be forever right
in that Being is an empty fiction. The "apparent"
world is the one and only: the "true
world" is only a mendacious gloss ...'[113]
Indeed Nietzsche's intrepid lack of concern
for the facts of philosophical history was
continually on the increase. In the preparatory
writings for The Will to Power even the materialist
Democritus has to testify to Nietzschean
irrationalism. And the development reaches
its acme - characteristically once more -
in the Machists' patron saint, Protagoras,
who 'united in himself both Heraclitus and
Democritus'.[114]
We can properly appreciate Nietzsche's doctrine
of eternal recurrence as a victory of Being
over Becoming only if we review it in the
light of these epistemological findings.
We now see that the concept of Being employed
therein has nothing to do with real Being
(existing independently of consciousness);
on the contrary, it is invoked purely in
order to lend myth - which can be apprehended
only intuitively, through 'illumination'
- a semblance of objectivity. Nietzsche's
concept of Becoming, as we could see in his
Heraclitus interpretations, serves principally
to destroy all objectivity, all perceptibility
of reality. In The Will to Power he wrote:
'The character of the becoming world as defying
formulation, as "false", as "self-contradictory".
Knowledge and Becoming are mutually exclusive.'[115]
Quite logically for Nietzsche, the same consideration
determines the purely fictive character of
Being: 'The assumption of that which is in
being is necessary in order to be able to
think and summarize: logic only deals in
formulae for unchanging things. Hence this
act of assuming could still furnish no proof
of reality: "That which is in being"
(Das Seiende) belongs to our optics.'[116]
But if Being is a mere fiction, then how
can a Being arise in eternal recurrence which
is higher than a real Becoming - real at
least in our idea of it?
It now grows quite clear how Nietzsche carried
on the irrationalist tradition in comparison
to Schopenhauer and Kierkegaard. These authors,
in contesting idealist dialectics as the
highest form of the bourgeois conception
of progress, had likewise to oppose the dialectical
self-agitation of Being and to fall back
on a contrastingly mythical, only intuitively
apprehensible Being. But since their polemics
against Hegelian dialectics were only a conflict
of orientation within bourgeois philosophy,
they could content themselves with narrowing
and distorting dialectics in a reactionary
irrationalist spirit. (Schelling's distinction
between 'negative' and 'positive' philosophy,
Kierkegaard's 'stages'.) True, the resultant
distinctions between 'lower' and 'higher'
types of Being have an anti-scientific character
and structure, but formally they remain -
at least until Kierkegaard's 'leap' - within
the sphere of a certain logical order. One
might say that the tattered pieces of dialectics
taken over in garbled form from Hegel restore,
for Schelling and Kierkegaard, the appearance
of a modicum of rational coherence. Nietzsche,
however, did away with the connecting links
from the outset in his epistemology, which
followed the line of Berkeley, Schopenhauer
and Mach. And to the extent to which we can
speak of a logico-philosophical order in
his work here at all, it can have but one
meaning. The more fictive a concept is and
the more purely subjectivist its origins,
the higher it stands and the 'truer' it is
in the mythical scale of values. Being, so
long as its concept contains even the slightest
vestiges of a relationship to a reality independent
of our consciousness, must be displaced by
Becoming (equals idea). Being, however, when
freed from these shackles and viewed purely
as fiction, as a product of the will-to-power,
may then, for Nietzsche, be a still higher
category than Becoming: an expression of
the intuitive pseudo-objectivity of myth.
With Nietzsche, the special function of such
a definition of Becoming and Being lies in
supporting the pseudo-historicity vital to
his indirect apologetics and in simultaneously
dismissing it, confirming philosophically
that historical Becoming can produce nothing
that is new and outruns capitalism.
But the significance of Nietzschean epistemology
as a structural tool for the systematic articulation
of his thoughts exceeds this single instance,
central though it is. It encompasses the
full totality of his universe. To help complete
the picture, let us take another important
example. In contrast to contemporary neo-Kantianism
and Positivism, whose basic approach was
a specific objectivism, an avowedly solely
scientific abstention from any explicit attitude
and relation ship to praxis, Nietzsche vigorously
shifted the connection between theory and
praxis to the centre of his whole epistemology.
Here, too, he drew all the inferences of
agnosticism and of the relativism succeeding
it earlier and more radically than his contemporaries.
By rejecting any criterion of truth other
than usefulness for the biological survival
of the individual
(and the species), he became an important
precursor of imperialist pragmatism. 'We
have always', he stated,
'forgotten the main thing: why does a philosopher
want to know? Why does he value "truth"
more highly than appearance? This valuation
is older than any cogito ergo sum: even presupposing
the logical process, there is something inside
us which affirms it and denies its opposite.
Whence the preference? Every philosopher
has neglected to explain why he values the
true and the good, and none has sought to
attempt the same for the opposite. Answer:
the True is more useful (for preserving the
organism) - but not in itself more acceptable.
Enough; from the very beginning we find the
organism speaking as a whole, with "purposes"
- there fore making value judgements.'[117]
It goes without saying that this applies
to an even greater degree to the truths of
morality: 'All moralists join in drawing
lines regarding good and evil, depending
on their sympathetic and egotistic impulses.
I regard as good that which serves some end:
but the "good end" is nonsense.
For the question is always "good for
what?" Good is always merely a term
for a means. The "good end" is
a good means to an end.'[118] And in The
Will to Power, Nietzsche summed up this doctrine
in the suggestive words: 'Truth is the type
of error without which a particular type
of living being could not exist. In the last
resort the decisive value is the value for
living.'[119]
Nietzsche, however, was not satisfied with
tracing the good and true back to biological
vital interests, thereby depriving them of
all absolute, objective worth. The object
of his endeavours went even beyond his referring
in general to biological usefulness for the
species, rather than merely for the individual.
For the life of the species - this returns
us to the sphere of Becoming - is, firstly,
a historical process and, secondly, as historical
content, the uninterrupted conflict between
two human types, two races, namely masters
and slaves. In The Genealogy of Morals, Nietzsche
expressly emphasized that his starting-point
was an etymological one: the insight that
the morally positive element is identical
with the socially eminent man, and the negative
with the socially subordinate.[120] But this
'natural' condition is dissipated in the
course of history: there arises that embittered
struggle between masters and herd whose philosophical,
moral and other consequences, as well as
its perspectives for Nietzsche, we have portrayed
in detail in other contexts. And the function
which all categories acquire in this struggle
determines the degree of truth they possess.
More precisely, the determining factor is
their potential usefulness to the master
race in obtaining and establishing ultimate
control. To refer back just briefly to what
we have already expounded, let us quote the
statement, likewise from the Genealogy: 'Egotism
and a kind of second innocence go hand in
hand.'[121]
Once this condition, a 'clear conscience'
for the master race's most extreme egotism
and every sort of cruelty and barbarity,
has been fulfilled ('the innocence of Becoming'),
then - and only then this concept is finally
established and set free in the mythical
realm through eternal recurrence. Only for
the 'lords of the earth', of Course, but
then it was only for them that Nietzsche
wanted to provide a militant philosophy.
Hence he wrote of eternal recurrence: 'It
is the great disciplinary idea: those races
which cannot endure it are condemned, those
that find it of the greatest benefit are
destined for mastery.'[122] And it totally
accords with this conception that, in Nietzsche's
view, eternal recurrence must be a deadly
poison for the herd. We have already noted
that in defining epistemological 'immanence'
he launched a violent attack on all 'transcendence',
and identified the Christian belief in a
Beyond with socialism's revolutionary perspectives
on the future. But eternal recurrence revokes,
in his opinion, all transcendence and hence
the basis of all Christian (or socialist)
morality. Thus we read in The Will to Power:
'Morality protects the defeated type from
nihilism by attributing to each person of
this type an infinite, meta physical worth
and by assigning each to an order which differs
from worldly power and hierarchy: it taught
submissiveness, humility, etc. Supposing
that faith in this morality perishes, the
defeated would no longer have their consolation
- and would perish.'[123]
The 'lords of the earth' are, of course,
the decadent parasites of imperialism. This
definition of the decadent man as a central
figure in future developments, and of decadence
as a springboard for the desired future condition,
again distinguishes Nietzsche from the other
reactionary philosophers. The latter, who
wanted to save capitalist society as typified
by the 'normal' man (bourgeois and petty-bourgeois),
found themselves increasingly at loggerheads
in the course of time with the capitalist
reality, with its mounting and increasingly
total distortion of man. Nietzsche proceeded
resolutely from this distortion, which manifested
itself in his age as world-weariness, pessimism,
nihilism, dissipation, lack of self-belief,
lack of perspectives and so on. Recognizing
himself in these decadent types, he regarded
them as brothers. But in his opinion, it
was precisely these decadent attributes which
would provide the right material for the
new lords of the earth. As we have noted,
he considered himself to be decadent and
to be its antithesis at one and the same
time. This avowal is just an epigrammatic
summary of the concluding section of Zarathustra:
here the 'higher men' gather round Zarathustra
- a gallery of the most diverse decadent
types that Nietzsche characterizes with shrewd
psychology - and to them is addressed the
prophetic announcement of the Superman and
eternal recurrence. The conquest of decadence,
or its own self-conquest, is not Nietzsche's
aim. When he praises the philosophical merits
of his eternal recurrence , he is chiefly
praising its nihilistic, relativistic and
perspectiveless character. 'Let us think
this idea in its most fearful form: existence
just as it is, without meaning or goal, but
inevitably returning into nothingness without
a finale: eternal recurrence. That is the
most extreme form of nihilism. Nothingness
(the "meaningless") for ever more!'[124]
Hence this new perception was intended to
rein force decadent nihilism rather than
to supersede it. What Nietzsche wanted was
to obtain on this basis a change of direction,
a turn-round, without affecting the status
quo. All decadent attributes were to be converted
into tools for a militant advocacy of capitalism,
and the decadents them selves into activists
supporting the - both outwardly and inwardly
- aggressive and barbaric imperialist cause.
Dionysos is the mythical symbol for this
turn among the ruling class. Although the
connection between the crowning figure of
Nietzschean myth - 'Dionysos versus the Crucified
...', reads the closing line of Ecce homo[125]
- and its first, youthful version is fairly
tenuous, a very important motive does link
the two: the domination of understanding
and reason by the instincts (hence Socrates
was the contrasting figure to Dionysos in
the debut work). But with the later Nietzsche,
the liberation of the instincts poses much
wider questions - moral and social - than
did his youthful, largely artistically oriented
Dionysos sketch. At the end of his career,
the complex of ideas is summed up again in
this much transformed mythical figure. Decadence
is now, to Nietzsche's mind, a universal
problem, and Dionysos appears as a symbol
of the forward-thrusting, commendable type
of decadence, decadence in strength, as opposed
to paralysing, debilitating pessimism (Schopenhauer)
or a liberation of the instincts with plebeian
overtones (Wagner). Nietzsche said of this
pessimism of strength: 'Man now needs a "justification
of the bad" no longer, it is precisely
"justifying" that he abhors: he
enjoys the bad in its raw purity and finds
the meaningless bad the most interesting
... Under such conditions it is precisely
the good which needs "justifying",
i. e., it must have an evil and dangerous
undercurrent or incorporate a great stupidity:
then it will still find favour. Animality
now no longer shocks; a lively and cheerful
bravado in favour of the beast in man is,
in such times, the most victorious form of
mental activity.'[126] 'It is part and parcel
of this', he stated somewhat later, 'to grasp
the hitherto rejected sides of existence
not only as necessary but also as desirable:
and not only as desirable with regard to
the hitherto approved sides (as, say, their
complements or preconditions), but for their
own sake as the mightier, more fruitful and
truer sides of existence through which its
will is distinctively voiced.'[127] The god
of this decadence 'redeemed' for activity
is Dionysos; his distinguishing marks are
'sensuality and cruelty'.[128] He is the
new God: 'God, conceived as a state of liberation
from morality, cramming into himself the
whole abundance of life's antitheses and
redeeming, justifying them in divine torment:
- God as the Beyond, superior to the pitiful
workaday morality of "good and evil".'[129]
There is no need, we think, to go into any
further details of Nietzschean epistemology
and its application. As we can already see,
Nietzsche hereby created for the whole imperialist
period a methodological 'model' of the indirect
apologetics of capitalism, showing just how
a fascinating and colourful symbol-realm
of imperialist myth could be evolved from
an extremely agnosticist epistemology, a
theory of the most extreme nihilism. We have
avoided dwelling - deliberately so - on the
blatant contradictions in his myth structures.
Were we to study Nietzsche's statements in
this area from a logico-philosophical angle,
we would be confronted by a dizzy chaos of
the most lurid assertions, arbitrary and
violently incompatible. Nevertheless we do
not believe that this observation contradicts
the view we developed at the outset, the
view that Nietzsche had a consistent system.
The binding or systematic factor lies in
the social content of his thinking, in the
struggle against socialism. Regarded from
this viewpoint, Nietzsche's brightly variegated,
mutually irreconcilable myths will yield
up their ideational unity, their objective
coherence: they are imperialist bourgeois
myths serving to mobilize all imperialist
forces against the chief adversary. The fact
that the struggle of masters and herd, of
nobles and slaves amounts to a mythical counterpart,
in caricature form, to the class struggle
is not too hard to discern. We have demonstrated
that Nietzsche's challenge to Darwin was
a myth arising from the justified fear that
the normal course of history must lead to
socialism. We have also shown that behind
eternal recurrence there hides a self-consoling,
mythical decree that evolution can produce
nothing fundamentally new (and therefore
no socialism). Another point we can see quite
easily is that the Superman came about in
order to steer back on to capitalist lines,
etc., etc., the yearning spontaneously springing
from the problems of capitalist life, its
distortion and stunting of human beings.
And the 'positive' part of the Nietzschean
myths is no more than a mobilization of all
the decadent and barbaric instincts in men
corrupted by capitalism in order to save
by force this parasitical paradise; here
again, Nietzsche's philosophy is the imperialist
myth designed to counter socialist humanism.
Perhaps a point which we have expounded earlier,
viz., that the ideology of the declining
bourgeoisie was forced on the defensive,
is now becoming even clearer. It is of the
essence of bourgeois thinking that it cannot
manage without illusions. Now if, from the
Renaissance to the French Revolution, men
were projecting as a model an image of the
Greek polis that was full of such illusions,
its nucleus was nonetheless made up of real
evolutionary currents, the real evolutionary
trends of a rising bourgeois society; hence
of elements of its own social life and perspectives
of its own concrete future. But with Nietzsche,
all his contents stem from the fear - which
sought refuge in myth - of the fall of his
own class, and from an inability genuinely
to measure up to the adversary in intellectual
terms. It is material from 'enemy territory',
problems and questions imposed by the class
enemy which ultimately determine the content
of his philosophy. And the aggressive tone,
the offensive approach in each individual
instance barely disguises this underlying
structure. The epistemological appeal to
adopt the most extreme irrationalism, to
deny completely all knowability of the world
and all reason, coupled with a moral appeal
to all the bestial and barbaric instincts,
is an - unconscious - admission of this position.
Nietzsche's uncommon gift is manifest in
his ability to project, on the threshold
of the imperialist period, a counter-myth
that could exert such influence for decades.
Viewed in this light, his aphoristic mode
of expression appears the form adequate to
the socio historical situations. The inner
rottenness, hollowness and mendacity of the
whole system wrapped itself in this motley
and formally disconnected ragbag of ideas.
Notes
1. Engels to Conrad Schmidt, 27.10.1890.
Marx-Engels: Ausgewüahlte Briefe, Berlin
1953, p. 508ff.
2. Mehring: Works, Berlin 1929, Vol. VI,
p. 191.
3. Mehring: Review of Kurt Eisner's 'Psychopathia
spiritualis', Neue Zeit, Yr. X, Vol. II,
pp. 668f.
4. Nietzsche: Works, Vol. VIII, p. 64. All
quotations of Nietzsche come from the 16-volume
Complete Works published by Kröner, Leipzig.
5. Engels: Anti-Düuhring.
6. Marx to Lassalle, 31.5.1858, Ferdinand
Lassalle's posthumous Letters and Writings,
edited by G. Mayer, Berlin 1922, Vol. III,
p. 123.
7. Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche: Der einsame
Nietzsche, Leipzig 1914, pp. 433f.
8. Vol. X, p. 279.
9. Nietzsche to Baron von Gersdorff, 21.6.1871.
Works ed. Schlechta, III, pp. 1092f.
10. Vol. IX, p. 142.
11. Mehring: op. cit., Vol. VI, p. 182.
12. Vol. IX., p. 425.
13. Ibid., p. 268.
14. Ibid., p. 153.
15. Ibid., p. 149.
16. Ibid., p. 276.
17. Vol. XIV, p. 368.
18. Vol. IX, p. 277.
19. Ibid., p. 280.
20. Vol. XV, p. 66.
21. Vol. I, p. 86.
22. Vol. XV, p. 63.
23. Vol. II, p. 341.
24. Vol. XV, p. 215.
25. Vol. II, p. 325.
26. Vol. III, p. 338.
27. Ibid., pp. 349f.
28. Vol. II, p. 327.
29. Ibid., p. 349.
30. Ibid., p. 350.
31. Ibid., p. 351.
32. Vol. III, p. 352.
33. Vol. V, p. 77.
34. Vol. VII, pp. 315f.
35. Vol. VIII, pp. 303f.
36. Ibid., p. 151.
37. Ibid., p. 153.
38. Vol. XIV, p. 334.
39. Vol. XVI, p. 288.
40. Ibid., p. 336.
41. Ibid., p. 194.
42. Franz Schauwecker: 'Ein Dichter und die
Zukunft', in Des deutschen Dichters Sendung
in der Gegenwart, Leipzig 1933, p. 227.
43. A. Baeumler: Nietzsche, der Philosoph
und Politiker, Leipzig, n. d., p. 135.
44. Vol. VII, p. 205.
45. Vol. XIII, p. 352.
46. Vol. VII, p. 156.
47. Vol. XV, p. 117.
48. Vol. XVI, p. 180.
49. W. A. Kaufmann: Nietzsche, Princeton
1950.
50. Vol. V, p. 130.
51. Vol. XIV, p. 321.
52. Engels: Op. cit., pp. 18ff.
53. Marx: Capital 622.
54. Vol. XI, p. 34.
55. Vol. XIII, p. 111. There follows a critique
of Guyau, ibid., p. 112.
56. Vol. XII, p. 410.
57. Vol. VIII, p. 88.
58. Ibid., p. 157.
59. Vol. XVI, pp. 184f.
60. Vol. XIV, p. 82.
61. Ibid., pp. 207f.
62. Cf.: 'Karl Marx und Friedrich Engels
als Literaturhistoriker,' Berlin 1952, p.
31f. and 'Skizze einer Geschichte der neueren
deutschen Literatur,' Berlin 1953, pp. 115ff.
63. Vol. VII, pp. 321f.
64. Vol. VIII, p. 218.
65. Vol. XVI, p. 377.
66. Ibid., pp. 305f.
67. Vol. XV, p. 11.
68. Ibid., p. 147.
69. Ibid., p. 145.
70. Vol. V, pp. 163ff.
71. Vol. XIII, p. 75.
72. Vol. XV, p. 228.
73. L. Zahn, Friedrich Nietzsche, Dusseldorf
1950, p. 282.
74. Vol. XII, p. 329.
75. Vol. XVI, p. 381.
76. Baeumler: Op. cit., p. 99.
77. Karl Jaspers: Nietzsche, Berlin 1947,
pp. 431f.
78. Baeumler: Op. cit., p. 103.
79. Vol. XV, pp. 125f. Since such commentators
as Kaufmann (e. g. Op. cit., p. 329) associate
Nietzsche's anti-Christianity with Heine's,
let us briefly point out that the purpose
and content of Heine's polemics against Christianity
are diametrically opposed to Nietzsche's.
The similarity to which Kaufmann draws attention
is of a purely external, stylistic nature.
For Heine's world-outlook cf. my essay in
Deutsche Realisten des 19. Jahrhunderts,
Berlin 1951, pp. 39ff.
80. Vol. VIII, p. 273.
81. Ibid., p. 295.
82. Jaspers: Op. cit., p. 36.
83. Marx criticizes Social Darwinism with
annihilating acuteness in the letter to Kugelmann,
27.6.1870, Engels at length in the letter
to Lavrov, 12-17.11.1875. Engels emphasizes
that the Social Darwinists should be criticized
in the first place as bad economists, and
only then as bad natural philosophers.
84. Vol. I, pp. 220f.
85. Vol. X, p. 137.
86. Vol. V, p. 285.
87. Translator's note. Nietzsche uses this
English term.
88. Vol. VIII, p. 128.
89. Vol. XVI, p. 147.
90. Ibid.
91. Ibid., p. 148.
92. Vol. VII, pp. 237f.
93. Vol. XVI, p. 126.
94. Vol. XIII, p. 82.
95. Vol. XVI, p. 114.
96. Vol. VII, p. 58.
97. Baeumler: Op. cit., p. 79.
98. Kaufmann: Op. cit., pp. 282, 286ff.
99. Vol. XII, p. 61.
100. 'We disallow the concept of an infinite
force as incompatible with the concept of
"force". And thus - the world also
lacks the power of eternal innovation.' Vol.
XVI, p. 397.
101. Vol. XVI, pp. 396f.
102. Ibid., p. 101.
103. Ibid., p. 155.
104. Ibid., Vol. VIII, pp. 100f.
105. Vol. VI, p. 462.
106. Engels: On historical materialism in
Feuerbach, Berlin 1927, p. 85.
107. As early as 1876 Avenarius published
his 'Prolegomena', in 1888-90 his Critique
of Pure Experience; although Mach's crucial
philosophical works had not yet appeared,
he likewise emerged as a theorist in the
seventies and eighties, as too did Schuppe,
the leader of 'philosophy of immanence'.
Vaihinger, the Kantian closest to this trend,
published his Philosophy for the Common Man
only much later, but wrote the essence of
it between 1876-8. If this whole movement
subsequently claimed Nietzsche's support
- Vaihinger taking the initiative - it was
not a question of a direct influence (for
obviously Nietzsche never even came across
most of these works). It stemmed from an
essential similarity in epistemological orientation
brought about through the new ideological
needs of the bourgeoisie.
108. Vol. VIII, p. 83.
109. Ibid., p. 142.
110. Vol. X, p. 32.
111. Nietzsche had no notion of the difference
between understanding (Verstand) and reason
(Vernunft), which he employed as synonyms.
This indicates not only his ignorance of
the most important philosophers, which even
Jaspers concedes, but at the same time -
and far more importantly - the coarser, intellectually
inferior nature of irrationalism in imperialist
times. Kierkegaard, for instance, contested
Hegel with a far finer intellectual apparatus.
112. Vol. IX, p. 197.
113. Vol. VIII, p. 77.
114. Vol. XV, p. 456.
115. Vol. XVI, p. 31.
116. Ibid., pp. 30f.
117. Vol. XIV, pp. 12f.
118. Vol. XI, p. 251.
119. Vol. XVI, p. 19.
120. Vol. VII, pp. 306f.
121. Ibid., p. 388.
122. Vol. XVI, p. 393.
123. Vol. XV, p. 184.
124. Ibid., p. 182.
125. Ibid., p. 127.
126. Vol. XVI, p. 371.
127. Ibid., p. 383.
128. Ibid., p. 386.
129. Ibid., p. 379.
NEXT More Lukás
|
