Spring 2000 Cyberseminar in Objectivist Studies
Nietzsche and Objectivism

Unit Three: March 20 - April 16

Stephen Hicks' Introductory Essay
on History and Culture
In Friedrich Nietzsche's
The Will to Power and Beyond Good and Evil

To: TOC Cyberseminar <cybersem@objectivistcenter.org>

Sent: Tuesday, March 21, 2000 8:04 AM

Subject: Cyberseminar: Part 3 Introduction by SH

[Moderator's note: with this essay we kick off unit three. It appears we
will have to set unit two aside unfinished. I have appended the schedule of
assignments for this unit at the end of this message, and it can always be
found on the cyberseminar logon page.]

Friedrich Nietzsche on History and Culture
By Stephen Hicks

In this section, we raise the question: Is Nietzsche a sour, Jew-hating
proto-Nazi, or what?

Or, to put the question less technically, we explore Nietzsche's views on
contemporary culture's malaise, the issues of whether he is an anti-Semite
and the extent to which he contributed toward the climate that made the rise
of National Socialism possible.

On Decline and Slave Morality

In Part One, we explored the connection between biology/ psychology and
morality. Now, in discussing Nietzsche's analysis of contemporary culture,
we are exploring the connection between morality and culture. For Nietzsche,
psycho-biological types underlay moral types, and moral types underlay
social/ cultural types.

Nietzsche sees the 19th century as being dominated by the following cultural
trends: socialism, tepid religion, democracy, positivism, utilitarianism,
capitalism. He sees all of those trends (and others) as pathological. So
two questions:

1. Why exactly are they pathologies?
2. What is their genealogy -- that is, how are all of them connected to
either expressions of slave morality and/or the death of God?

Nietzsche's Bias?

Nietzsche sees 19th century culture as being in a significant decline phase.
Is his cultural analysis biased? For a thinker who is passionate about
creativity, Nietzsche seems blind to many 19th century creative geniuses
such
as those in art, industry, science, and politics. Here are some tendentious
examples to consider:

§ One of history's great empires, the British, seems not worthy of his
attention; a regular theme in Nietzsche' writings is sniping and sneering at
all things English. (For example, as Will Thomas pointed out to me,
Nietzsche admires Napoleon's empire-building, but not Wellington's.)
§ The American experiment seems not to be on his horizon.
§ The 19th century explosion in scientific knowledge and technology is not
seen as especially noteworthy.
§ He does not seem interested or aware of the achievements of the many
19th
century captains of industry.
§ He does not celebrate romantic art.

So four questions:

3. Is there a bias or overly-selective focus in Nietzsche's selection of
representative examples of 19th century culture?
4. If there is a bias, is it a result of Nietzsche's deeply ingrained
conflict/win/lose premises, those premises leading him not to see
accomplishments that are potentially peaceful and win/win?
5. If there is a bias, is it a result of the stereotypical humanities
intellectual's bias against science, technology, and business?
6. Or, if there is a bias, is Nietzsche another example of phenomenon of
intellectuals who are unable to identify the other creative geniuses of their
age, who survey their generation and see only mediocrities in comparison to
the brilliant lights of the last era?

Decline and Perspectivalism

Given the premise that slave morality dominates 19th century cultural trends,
how are we to integrate this with Nietzsche's epistemological and ethical
perspectivalism?

If, on the one hand, we emphasize Nietzsche's perspectivalism, we can ask:

7. Is it the case that the spread of slave culture is good from the
perspective of the slaves, and only seems nihilistic from Nietzsche's
aristocratic perspective? If so, is there a fact of the matter anywhere
here or only an expression of personal preferences?

If, on the other hand, we push Nietzsche toward non-perspectivalism, we
operate on the premise that there really are healthy and unhealthy sets of
values. Then, rephrasing a question from Part One of the CyberSeminar, we
can ask:

8. Which of the following is/are Nietzsche's position?
a) Nihilism is value-neutral. A culture's life cycle has a growth and a
decline phase, and the nihilism of the 19th century is simply one phase in
the cycle of life. By analogy, a tree's leaves turn brown in the autumn and
fall off, and that is a normal phase in the tree's life cycle; falling brown
leaves are not bad, except perhaps in the sense of causing a feeling of
melancholy or nostalgia for the spring and summer. Nihilism, then, is not
bad but only a sign that one set of values has run its natural course.
b) Nihilism is good. Cultures have a growth and decline phase, and the
nihilism of the 19th century is an opportunity for a new set of values. By
analogy, a large corporation's becoming complacent and sloppy is good for the
upstart entrepreneurs because it provides them an opportunity and a large
competitor that will make them work for their successes. Nihilism is good,
then, because the new masters will emerge stronger from the struggle
necessary to overcome nihilism.
c) Nihilism is good, option deux. Cultures have growth and decline phases,
and the nihilism of the 19th century culture means that there is lots of
untapped energy for those with new values to use ends. By analogy, last
year's fallen leaves become fertilizer for next year's leaves. Nihilism is
good, then, because it's a state of cultural potential energy that can be
actualized.
d) Nihilism is bad. Cultures can have growth and decline phases, but no
phase is necessary. So the decline into 19th century nihilism is bad because
there's no guarantee that European culture will be able to raise itself out
of its nihilism. By analogy, a tree that is dying may fail to produce new
seeds or viable seeds or it may scatter its seeds upon barren soil; so the
tree's death means its entire line could die out. Nihilism, then, is bad
because it signals the possible permanent decline into insignificance of
European culture.

On the Germans and the Jews

Anti-Semitism in Germany has a long history, among the intellectuals as much
as among individuals from other walks of life. I am struck, for example, by
the contrast between leading intellectuals in England and France, on the one
hand, and those in Germany. Taking John Locke's Letter Concerning Toleration
as an example, by the late 1600s in England intellectuals were calling for an
end to religious hatred and for toleration of religious differences, They
were willing to extend it not only to members of other Christian sects but
also to Jews and Moslems. By the mid-1700s in France, taking Voltaire as an
outstanding example, intellectuals were following the English lead. In
Germany, however, the story was different: at the end of the 1700s the
leading German intellectuals were still stoking the fires of religious
hostility.

Kant thought that the Jews were a bunch of "sharp dealers" and "a nation of
swindlers"; because of their "immoral and vile" behavior in commerce, as
evidenced by the fact that "the spirit of usury holds sway amongst them," he
thought it clear that the Jews "do not aspire to civic virtue."

Kant was a moderate. His disciple Johann Fichte wrote: "A mighty state
stretches across almost all the nations of Europe, hostile in intent and in
constant strife with all others . this is Jewry." And: "As for giving them
[the Jews] civil rights, I for one see no remedy but that their heads should
be all cut off in one night and replaced with others in which there would
not be one single Jewish idea."

Hegel wrote that the Jews could never be assimilated into German culture
since their greed led them to follow an "animal existence that can only be
secured at someone else's expense." And as for the tolerance between
Christians and Jews, Hegel wrote: "Spirit alone recognizes spirit. They [the
Jews] saw in Jesus only the man . for He was only one like themselves, and
they felt themselves to be nothing. The Jewish multitude was bound to wreck
His attempt to give them the consciousness of something divine, for faith in
something divine, something great, cannot make its home in a dunghill."

So here's the question:

9. Is Nietzsche, then, with his attacks on Judaism, simply a continuation
of the German anti-Semitic tradition?

On the one hand, Nietzsche most strongly identifies the Jewish tradition
with slave psychology and slave morality, both of which he condemns. On the
other, Nietzsche also has harsh things to say about anti-Semites, seeing
them as a case study in the psychology of ressentiment (e.g., at GM II:11).

Nietzsche and the National Socialists

10. To what extent were the Nazis justified in seeing Nietzsche as a
precursor?

In answering this question, here are some elements to consider.

Pro:
§ Nietzsche shares with the Nazis a division of society into strong and
group weak sub-cultures.
§ Like the Nazis, he specifically identifies Judaism as the root source of
contemporary cultural weakness.
§ Like the Nazis, he is a collectivist: It is justifiable to sacrifice
members of the weak group for the sake of strengthening the species (E.g.,
GM
3:14, and Zarathustra, On Free Death: "All-too-many live, and all-too-long
they hang on their branches. Would that a storm came to shake all this
worm-eaten rot from the tree!")
§ Like the Nazis, he urges the belief that bloodshed and warfare are
necessary and legitimate means to achieve ends, and that such means will
make you stronger and more real. (E.g., in GM II:6: "The beginnings of
everything great on earth [are] soaked in blood thoroughly and for a long
time.")
§ Epistemologically, like the Nazis he advocates "blood and soil" over
reason (e.g., GM II:16).

Con:
§ Nietzsche was widely mis-read in many of his statements. For example,
the "blond beast" he admires is a lion, not the Nordic racial type. E.g.,
in
GM 1:11 it is clear that his admirable type is spiritual, not racial, for he
identifies the Japanese and the Arabs as once having had the same spirit.
§ Nietzsche's anti-Judaism is in his judgment not the same as traditional
German anti-Semitism. (Cf. again GM II:11, where he states that
ressentiment
is most easily studied in anti-Semites.)
§ Given that many Nazis thought of themselves good Christians or that
Nazism was compatible with the core of Christianity, it is significant that
Nietzsche respects the Jews more than the Christians. Nietzsche sees
Christianity as a degenerate version of Judaism, while the Nazis greatly
preferred Christianity to Judaism.
§ Nietzsche held contemporary Germans to be weaklings and as unaware
second-rate copiers. (E.g., GM 1:11, and The Use and Abuse of History,
section 4.)

Feel welcome to add more elements to the list of pros and cons.

For those writing Review Essays and Commentaries, please feel welcome to
pick from among the above questions and to add your own.

-Stephen Hicks


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Spring 2000 Cyberseminar in Objectivist Studies
Moderator: William Thomas
Email: cybersem@objectivistcenter.org

All Cyberseminar posts are working papers with copyright
reserved to the author. They may not be published or adapted
without permission, but may be circulated for purposes of
scholarly discussion.

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