"WAR IS ANOTHER MATTER..."

This entry is obviously about war as Nietzsche sees it, but from my vantage point of time. Here I can introduce a concept unknown to Nietzsche, that of cold war, and see how Nietzsche’s discussion of the only type of war known in his time, hot war, can be applied to the concept first developed only in the middle of the twentieth century. It goes without saying that Nietzsche’s use of the word “war,” as applied to himself, is essentially metaphorical, but this does not change the fact that the only kind of reality he can draw his metaphor from, is, as I have just said, hot conventional war.

The whole following passage from Why I Am So Wise (Section 7, in Nietzsche’s Ecce Homo) is important for the understanding of my “great boxers” metaphor, as I have applied it to the Russian cold-war attitude vis-à-vis the United States. I am employing the Nietzschean idea of the noble enemy to clarify the point which I am trying to drive in, the part that official American Academia, even closely familiar with Nietzsche’s idea, refuses to apply to international politics, deliberately persisting in the gross misjudgment of Russia no matter what, because for Washington and its militant brigade within the American Academia, it is a matter of ideology, and we know, of course, that the goddess of ideology is equally blind both to reason and to common sense.

(As a matter of pure convenience I have retained in this entry the standard format of my commentary in the appropriate section of Ecce Homo in the Sources And Comments Folder.)

War is another matter. I am warlike by nature.

It is obvious that Nietzsche’s challenge is more in the figure of speech than in what any nitpicker has the right to attack him for, from the literal standpoint. Nietzsche is for war as a healthy force of nature, and the qualifications he employs in this section reveal his main argument: He is for a moral war, a war of principle. He is not for a war that is immoral, such as the war of the strong against the weak. Throughout his writings, the impression may be formed that he is an apologist of war, but, I repeat, not of any war, and only of the noble war! The reason why I keep dwelling on this point is that it is critically insightful when applied to international politics and to the concept of justice. Nobility is a virtue accepted as such by every great culture without exception, and in coming up with the common absolute in the process of developing certain universal principles of international justice, one must fully realize that a straightforward condemnation of war is hardly a productive stance in such a project. There will always be different opinions among the nations on the morality of specific wars, and of wars in general. But there can be no controversy on the general principle of the nobility of purpose, and in this matter Nietzsche’s insight is of greater value by far, than anything coming out of the whole peace-mongering community combined. These are all, at best, wishful thinkers. He is a thinker both at his best, and at his worst!

Attacking is one of my instincts. Being able to be an enemy, being an enemy, that, perhaps, presupposes a strong nature; in any case, that belongs to every strong nature. It needs objects of resistance; hence it looks for what resists.

The strength of those who attack can be measured in a way by the opposition they require: every growth is pointed out by the search for a mighty opponent --- or for a problem; for, a warlike philosopher challenges problems to a single combat. The task is not simply to master what happens to resist, but what requires us to stake all our strength, suppleness, and fighting skill: opponents that are our equals.

Is this true that the point which Nietzsche is making is that the challenge, a respect for the other’s strength, the competition, not confrontation, and not the will to overpower, but the will to match wits, is in the nature of any noble war? In that case, he is perfectly right, even as I focus my argument on the modern historical dichotomy of America and Russia!

Equality before the enemy is the first presupposition of an honest duel. Wherever one feels contempt, one cannot wage war;--- where one commands, where one sees something beneath oneself, one has no business to wage a war.

Cold war was more or less such an ‘honest duel.’ There were some serious misconceptions, of course, and plenty of them. But, at least, contempt was never a part of the equation: America feared Russia, and fear brings respect. (A respect for your peer: this is what Nietzsche means, when he talks about the equality of opponents!) Today, and actually ever since the fall of the Soviet Union, America has lost her former fear of Russia and, with that fear, her respect for the erstwhile ‘noble’ enemy. Contempt, this is the real name of the game called “America’s friendship.” But the war is by no means over! Only its character has changed dramatically. Instead of a noble war, such as was the cold war, we have entered the phase of the dirty war, where the Russians secretly, and not so secretly, hate America for her contempt, while America, because of her irrational contempt for Russia --- which is a disease of sorts, a dangerous self-infecting disease at that, which is nothing but the strongest projection of her general contempt for the rest of the world in an allegedly unipolar universe --- who on earth has infected America with this delusion, in the first place?! --- yes, America, because of her overpowering contempt, is incapable of fighting… let us say, competently.

Just as Nietzsche has put it so brilliantly:

“Wherever one feels contempt, one cannot wage war.”

In this case, “cannot” means not “unwilling,” but… being incapable of!!!