Repeating the key point of the previous entry, calling Nietzsche a poet captures the essence of his genius. It is his sublime poetry, rather than what his critics call his doctrine, which ought to be considered first in any discussion of his legacy. This is indeed my central focus in thinking and talking about Nietzsche.
Generally speaking, the reader already knows my negative opinion of all systematic philosophical doctrines, which I have always found inferior to the same thinker’s splashes of spontaneity and extemporaneous asides or deliberate aphoristic dicta.
But this so-called Nietzsche’s “doctrine,” being an unceasing topic of critical discussions, is still a matter to reckon with, and in the present entry I shall talk about it at some length following the critical line delineated by another superior philosophical mind, Lord Bertrand Russell, in the Nietzsche Chapter of his masterpiece The History of Western Philosophy.
Russell starts his critique with this clever reconciliation of a seeming contradiction in Nietzsche’s outlook. He describes this outlook as aristocratic anarchism, akin to Byron’s.---
“He (Nietzsche) seems to combine two sets of values that are not easily harmonized: on the one hand, he likes ruthlessness, war, and aristocratic pride; on the other hand, he loves philosophy, and literature, and the arts, especially music. Historically, these values coexist in the Renaissance. Pope Julius II, fighting for Bologna and employing Michelangelo, might be taken as the sort of man whom Nietzsche would wish to see in control of governments.”
A ruthless warrior and a generous patron of genius. Such a person has indeed existed, as Russell is pointing out, and his reference frame is the Renaissance, which identifies Nietzsche as a ‘Renaissance Man,’ in more senses than one. A very thoughtful observation on Russell’s part!
Russell observes, however, that Nietzsche has his own objects of admiration: Wagner before Parsifal, and… Napoleon. In Nietzsche’s admiration for the latter, Russell sees his affinity with Machiavelli, who, after all, did admire the controversial to the bone Cesare Borgia. To both, their heroes were very great men defeated by petty opponents. (In Napoleon’s case, however, I would certainly ascribe his historical defeat to his own arrogant folly, as he swallowed the poisoned pill of his self-serving wellwishers’ advice and invaded Russia, on a predictably disastrous misadventure.)
…Before proceeding with Nietzsche’s objectionable theories, Russell, with a commendable fairness, points out what objectionable vices he does not possess. (All underlinings below are mine.)---
“Nietzsche’s ethic is not of self-indulgence in any ordinary sense; he believes in Spartan discipline and the capacity to endure as well as inflict pain for important ends. He admires strength of will above all things. He regards compassion as a weakness to be combated, and prophesies with a certain glee an era of great wars.
“He is not a worshipper of the State, far from it. He is a passionate individualist, a believer in heroes. The misery of the whole nation, he says, is of less importance than the suffering of a great individual.
“He is not a nationalist, and shows no excessive admiration for Germany. He wants an international ruling race to be the lords of the earth… He is also not anti-Semitic, though he thinks Germany contains as many Jews as it can assimilate, and ought not to permit any further influx… He dislikes the New Testament, but not the Old, of which he speaks with admiration.”
On the sharply negative side, Russell singles out Nietzsche’s contempt for women and his fervent critique of Christianity. Nietzsche’s bad opinion of women is “offered as self-evident truth, not backed up by evidence from history or from his own experience.” I look at it, however, as a very personal peeve (as I understand it, Nietzsche may have been infected with an incurable STD in his early contact with a prostitute), and, for this reason, I am not inclined to take it all too seriously as a “philosophical” attitude. His attack on Christianity, though, is a far more serious, and philosophically interesting, matter.
“…Nietzsche’s objection to Christianity is that it caused acceptance of what he calls “slave morality.” He is not interested in the metaphysical truth of either Christianity or any other religion; being convinced that no religion is true, he judges them by their social effects… Buddhism and Christianity, he says, are both “nihilistic” religions, in the sense that they deny any difference of value between one man and another.”
In other words, I might add, Nietzsche’s objection to these religions is their egalitarian character, whereas he himself is a dedicated elitist. We may argue, in this case, about his oversimplistic reduction of religion to its egalitarian principles, but I see Nietzsche’s bigger weakness in overlooking the egalitarian underpinnings of nationalism, conveyed in the egalitarian principle of fatherland (or motherland) and the very nationalistic slogan of “Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer” made politically unacceptable only by its immediate association with the defeated Nazi regime in Germany, but, otherwise, reflecting the totalitarian essence of nationalism remarkably accurately. Russell’s observation that Nietzsche “is not a nationalist,” and that he “wants an international ruling race to be the lords of the earth,” highlights Nietzsche’s essential failing to recognize and acknowledge the universal character of nationalism, which leads him to a further misjudgment of the nature of Russian nihilism, which he, for some inexplicable reason, differentiates from nihilism in religion (he does abhor religion!), mistaking it for a harbinger of the Nietzschean elitist revolution, whereas it was an unquestionably egalitarian force, inimical to Nietzsche’s peculiar brand of aristocratic anarchism, unfurled in the service of Great-Russian patriotic nationalism. It is possible, however, to explain Nietzsche’s mistake about Russian nihilism by his mistake about Mikhail Bakunin, the consummate Russian aristocrat-turned-anarchist, credited with the theoretical expounding of the principles of nihilism. Bakunin was hardly what Nietzsche expected of him (which was, unsurprisingly, a Nietzschean hero), but a peculiar type of Russian nationalist, easy to mistake for what he was not. (For more on this subject, see my entry Egalitarianism And Aristocratism As Two Faces Of Nationalism in the Collective section.)
Nietzsche’s most effective anti-Christian diatribe, in Russell’s opinion, has been the following:
“What is it that we combat in Christianity? That it aims at destroying the strong, at breaking their spirit, at exploiting their moments of weariness and debility, at converting their proud assurance into anxiety and conscience-trouble, that it knows how to poison the noblest instincts and to infect them with disease, until their strength, their will to power, turns inwards against themselves-- until the strong perish through their excessive self-contempt and self-immolation: that gruesome way of perishing, of which Pascal is the most famous example.”
And now Russell thus continues his critique:
“…In place of the Christian saint, Nietzsche wishes to see what he calls the “noble” man, by no means as a universal type, but as a governing aristocrat. The “noble” man will be capable of cruelty and, on occasion, of what is vulgarly regarded as crime; he will recognize duties only to equals. He will protect artists and poets, all who happen to be masters of some skill, but he will do so as himself a member of a higher order than those who only know how to do something.” (There is an uncanny resemblance here with what Stalin used to tell my father. “A baker only knows how to bake bread, but he cannot make boots for himself. An accomplished cobbler knows how to make boots, but he cannot bake bread. A statesman does not have to bake bread or make boots, but he must go into the depth of all things, to make sure that each skill is there and working properly.” Was Stalin perhaps a Nietzschean adept? I would not be at all surprised!) “From the example of warriors he will learn to associate death with the interests for which he is fighting; to sacrifice numbers, taking his cause sufficiently seriously not to spare men; to practice discipline; to allow himself cruelty, violence, cunning in war… The “noble” man is essentially the incarnate will to power.” (And once again, this description fits the profile of Stalin with an incredible precision!)
Having thus finished expounding Nietzsche’s theories, Russell makes the sharp observation that Nietzsche’s influence has been the greatest not among the “technical philosophers,” but among the people of literary and artistic culture. He could easily have added: “among the Russian Intelligentsia,” which amounts to virtually the very same thing, provided the understanding that this Russian Intelligentsia, apart from being people of literary and artistic culture, which they all certainly are, belongs, as a whole, to the class of “non-technical” philosophizers, preoccupied with all the usual questions of philosophy, but having its own, “non-technical” way of going about them. To this very distinctive group I am proud to belong, and in the course of reading through the present massive volumes of my writings on diverse subjects, the reader may probably get some feel of what these words entail.
The Nietzsche chapter of Bertrand Russell’s History of Western Philosophy continues thereafter, for a few more pages, with his arguments against the Nietzsche Doctrine. These arguments are of some interest, and I recommend them to the reader, along with the suggestion to read Russell’s whole worthy book. But for the purposes of this entry, my journey through his comments has now come to an end. Once again, I repeat that I place the greatest value on Nietzsche’s spontaneous insights and gems of original thinking, rather than on some general theories of his, which have become known to his critics as The Nietzsche Doctrine.
Generally speaking, the reader already knows my negative opinion of all systematic philosophical doctrines, which I have always found inferior to the same thinker’s splashes of spontaneity and extemporaneous asides or deliberate aphoristic dicta.
But this so-called Nietzsche’s “doctrine,” being an unceasing topic of critical discussions, is still a matter to reckon with, and in the present entry I shall talk about it at some length following the critical line delineated by another superior philosophical mind, Lord Bertrand Russell, in the Nietzsche Chapter of his masterpiece The History of Western Philosophy.
Russell starts his critique with this clever reconciliation of a seeming contradiction in Nietzsche’s outlook. He describes this outlook as aristocratic anarchism, akin to Byron’s.---
“He (Nietzsche) seems to combine two sets of values that are not easily harmonized: on the one hand, he likes ruthlessness, war, and aristocratic pride; on the other hand, he loves philosophy, and literature, and the arts, especially music. Historically, these values coexist in the Renaissance. Pope Julius II, fighting for Bologna and employing Michelangelo, might be taken as the sort of man whom Nietzsche would wish to see in control of governments.”
A ruthless warrior and a generous patron of genius. Such a person has indeed existed, as Russell is pointing out, and his reference frame is the Renaissance, which identifies Nietzsche as a ‘Renaissance Man,’ in more senses than one. A very thoughtful observation on Russell’s part!
Russell observes, however, that Nietzsche has his own objects of admiration: Wagner before Parsifal, and… Napoleon. In Nietzsche’s admiration for the latter, Russell sees his affinity with Machiavelli, who, after all, did admire the controversial to the bone Cesare Borgia. To both, their heroes were very great men defeated by petty opponents. (In Napoleon’s case, however, I would certainly ascribe his historical defeat to his own arrogant folly, as he swallowed the poisoned pill of his self-serving wellwishers’ advice and invaded Russia, on a predictably disastrous misadventure.)
…Before proceeding with Nietzsche’s objectionable theories, Russell, with a commendable fairness, points out what objectionable vices he does not possess. (All underlinings below are mine.)---
“Nietzsche’s ethic is not of self-indulgence in any ordinary sense; he believes in Spartan discipline and the capacity to endure as well as inflict pain for important ends. He admires strength of will above all things. He regards compassion as a weakness to be combated, and prophesies with a certain glee an era of great wars.
“He is not a worshipper of the State, far from it. He is a passionate individualist, a believer in heroes. The misery of the whole nation, he says, is of less importance than the suffering of a great individual.
“He is not a nationalist, and shows no excessive admiration for Germany. He wants an international ruling race to be the lords of the earth… He is also not anti-Semitic, though he thinks Germany contains as many Jews as it can assimilate, and ought not to permit any further influx… He dislikes the New Testament, but not the Old, of which he speaks with admiration.”
On the sharply negative side, Russell singles out Nietzsche’s contempt for women and his fervent critique of Christianity. Nietzsche’s bad opinion of women is “offered as self-evident truth, not backed up by evidence from history or from his own experience.” I look at it, however, as a very personal peeve (as I understand it, Nietzsche may have been infected with an incurable STD in his early contact with a prostitute), and, for this reason, I am not inclined to take it all too seriously as a “philosophical” attitude. His attack on Christianity, though, is a far more serious, and philosophically interesting, matter.
“…Nietzsche’s objection to Christianity is that it caused acceptance of what he calls “slave morality.” He is not interested in the metaphysical truth of either Christianity or any other religion; being convinced that no religion is true, he judges them by their social effects… Buddhism and Christianity, he says, are both “nihilistic” religions, in the sense that they deny any difference of value between one man and another.”
In other words, I might add, Nietzsche’s objection to these religions is their egalitarian character, whereas he himself is a dedicated elitist. We may argue, in this case, about his oversimplistic reduction of religion to its egalitarian principles, but I see Nietzsche’s bigger weakness in overlooking the egalitarian underpinnings of nationalism, conveyed in the egalitarian principle of fatherland (or motherland) and the very nationalistic slogan of “Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Führer” made politically unacceptable only by its immediate association with the defeated Nazi regime in Germany, but, otherwise, reflecting the totalitarian essence of nationalism remarkably accurately. Russell’s observation that Nietzsche “is not a nationalist,” and that he “wants an international ruling race to be the lords of the earth,” highlights Nietzsche’s essential failing to recognize and acknowledge the universal character of nationalism, which leads him to a further misjudgment of the nature of Russian nihilism, which he, for some inexplicable reason, differentiates from nihilism in religion (he does abhor religion!), mistaking it for a harbinger of the Nietzschean elitist revolution, whereas it was an unquestionably egalitarian force, inimical to Nietzsche’s peculiar brand of aristocratic anarchism, unfurled in the service of Great-Russian patriotic nationalism. It is possible, however, to explain Nietzsche’s mistake about Russian nihilism by his mistake about Mikhail Bakunin, the consummate Russian aristocrat-turned-anarchist, credited with the theoretical expounding of the principles of nihilism. Bakunin was hardly what Nietzsche expected of him (which was, unsurprisingly, a Nietzschean hero), but a peculiar type of Russian nationalist, easy to mistake for what he was not. (For more on this subject, see my entry Egalitarianism And Aristocratism As Two Faces Of Nationalism in the Collective section.)
Nietzsche’s most effective anti-Christian diatribe, in Russell’s opinion, has been the following:
“What is it that we combat in Christianity? That it aims at destroying the strong, at breaking their spirit, at exploiting their moments of weariness and debility, at converting their proud assurance into anxiety and conscience-trouble, that it knows how to poison the noblest instincts and to infect them with disease, until their strength, their will to power, turns inwards against themselves-- until the strong perish through their excessive self-contempt and self-immolation: that gruesome way of perishing, of which Pascal is the most famous example.”
And now Russell thus continues his critique:
“…In place of the Christian saint, Nietzsche wishes to see what he calls the “noble” man, by no means as a universal type, but as a governing aristocrat. The “noble” man will be capable of cruelty and, on occasion, of what is vulgarly regarded as crime; he will recognize duties only to equals. He will protect artists and poets, all who happen to be masters of some skill, but he will do so as himself a member of a higher order than those who only know how to do something.” (There is an uncanny resemblance here with what Stalin used to tell my father. “A baker only knows how to bake bread, but he cannot make boots for himself. An accomplished cobbler knows how to make boots, but he cannot bake bread. A statesman does not have to bake bread or make boots, but he must go into the depth of all things, to make sure that each skill is there and working properly.” Was Stalin perhaps a Nietzschean adept? I would not be at all surprised!) “From the example of warriors he will learn to associate death with the interests for which he is fighting; to sacrifice numbers, taking his cause sufficiently seriously not to spare men; to practice discipline; to allow himself cruelty, violence, cunning in war… The “noble” man is essentially the incarnate will to power.” (And once again, this description fits the profile of Stalin with an incredible precision!)
Having thus finished expounding Nietzsche’s theories, Russell makes the sharp observation that Nietzsche’s influence has been the greatest not among the “technical philosophers,” but among the people of literary and artistic culture. He could easily have added: “among the Russian Intelligentsia,” which amounts to virtually the very same thing, provided the understanding that this Russian Intelligentsia, apart from being people of literary and artistic culture, which they all certainly are, belongs, as a whole, to the class of “non-technical” philosophizers, preoccupied with all the usual questions of philosophy, but having its own, “non-technical” way of going about them. To this very distinctive group I am proud to belong, and in the course of reading through the present massive volumes of my writings on diverse subjects, the reader may probably get some feel of what these words entail.
The Nietzsche chapter of Bertrand Russell’s History of Western Philosophy continues thereafter, for a few more pages, with his arguments against the Nietzsche Doctrine. These arguments are of some interest, and I recommend them to the reader, along with the suggestion to read Russell’s whole worthy book. But for the purposes of this entry, my journey through his comments has now come to an end. Once again, I repeat that I place the greatest value on Nietzsche’s spontaneous insights and gems of original thinking, rather than on some general theories of his, which have become known to his critics as The Nietzsche Doctrine.
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