7
Bela Egyed
Nietzsche presents himself, behind the mask of Zarathustra, as the teacher of the Eternal Return,1 and as the one who calls out for the Overman. As difficult as this project had turned out for his interpreters, nevertheless, he declares in the subtitle of Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Z) that it is a “book for everyone and no one.” From this, one might conclude that anyone might elect oneself to be a student of that book. However, this impression is put under some strain by Zarathustra’s constant reminder that he is speaking only to his disciples. He does not specify who would qualify as a disciple, but at one crucial point, the question of audience comes to the foreground. At the end of one the most important chapters of the book, “Of Redemption,” Zarathustra is rebuked by the hunchback:
“But why does Zarathustra speak to us differently than to his disciples?” Zarathustra answered:” What is surprising in that? One may well speak in hunchback manner to a hunchback!” “Very good” said the hunchback; and with pupils one may well tales out of school. But why does Zarathustra speak to his pupils differently than to himself?” (KGW VI, 178)
Presumably, the hunchback is the one who cannot, because he does not want to, hear Zarathustra’s teachings. So, why is he there? Why is he listening? What about Zarathustra’s disciples? Presumably, they want to hear. Still, even the hunchback notes that they do not hear what Zarathustra really wants to say. Is the hunchback resentful because he knows that Zarathustra does not really want him to hear what he teaches? If this is the case, then Z is not meant for everyone. And, if even his disciples cannot know what is on Zarathustra’s mind, then who is Zarathustra really teaching? One easy answer might be that it is himself. But is this self-teaching of any use to disciples? Can anyone besides Zarathustra learn from his own self-teaching? In fact, what Zarathustra tells his disciples is that if they are to be good disciples, they must leave and teach themselves. His teaching is only a sign, pointing the way. From there on, everyone must make their own way.2
Nietzsche wrote Book II of Zarathustra, in which the chapter in question appears, in the early summer of 1883. At the same time, he is writing notes pertaining to apparently different matters.3 Among these is a passage which might serve as beacon for evaluating Nietzsche’s troubling references to the “crowd”:
Morality had up till now the limits that corresponded to that of the species: all past moralities were useful for the purpose of giving to the species, first of all, an absolute resistance: once this has been achieved, the aim could be placed higher.
The first movement is unconditional – leveling of the species, great ant-buildings, etc. . . .
The other movement: mine: is, conversely, the sharpening of all oppositions and widening of all gaps, to remove equality, the creation of over-powers.
The first created the last man. Mine the Overman.
It is absolutely not the aim to consider the last [Overman] as the masters of the first: rather: two types have to exist, one at the same time as the other – separated to the greatest possible extent: the one, like the gods of Epicurus, do not preoccupy themselves with the others. (KGW VII/1, 252 my translation.)
This passage is somewhat different in tone from other passages Nietzsche writes in which he calls for an “aristocracy” that would take an active role in “keeping down and keeping at a distance.”4 In those passages, he also calls for “higher men” to declare war on the masses.5 Significantly, in the 1883 passage, Nietzsche mentions the “Overman” rather than the “higher men.”6 The distinction, as I see it, is between those human types who have incorporated the teaching of Eternal Return, and the one who enacts it.7 Those who criticize Nietzsche for his “political perfectionism” miss his point. Nietzsche is an “elitist,” an “aristocratic radical,” as he likes to be called, but he is also an “a-political German.” He has no political program to offer. However, those same critics who are wrong about condemning Nietzsche’s political perfectionism are also wrong about praising his ethical perfectionism.8 As the above passage shows—and there are many others that say the same thing—Nietzsche is not interested in educating the masses. He thinks that they are just fine as they are, with their morality and their religion. His main fear is that the higher types will be brought down to the same level. This must be avoided at all cost, even if it means causing pain and hardship.
If Nietzsche is neither a political nor an ethical perfectionist,9 can his teaching offer any form of therapy? How can anyone benefit from his teaching? There are occasions when he admits that his writings can only hurt and cause distress.10 But how can philosophy do otherwise? In the past, philosophers from Plato to Hegel have all declared war on commonly held opinions, but Nietzsche goes beyond them. It is not enough for him to reject beliefs held by the unenlightened masses. He believes that the whole structure of valuations and interpretation presumed by the philosophical tradition itself needs to be overturned: not just new values, not just new meanings, however “deep” they might be. Nietzsche wants new ways of valuing, new ways of living, new ways of sensing. The paradox of such an endeavor, and what makes it so daunting, is that in order to accomplish it one must first destroy, even if it means threatening the life that one has cherished, and has relied upon for nourishment, hitherto.
This, I think, is one of the clearest motives behind Nietzsche’s doctrine of the Eternal Return. The realization that one’s “sins” will not be redeemed in an afterlife—for, there is no “afterlife”—and that there are no absolute criteria for judging those who have harmed us, has the potential for crushing us. But then the realization that having given up the hope for redemption in an afterlife, or even the comfort of living within the framework of long established values, could give rise to a great sense of liberation. By incorporating the past, all of it not just what floats on the surface of our consciousness, we can become creators: to learn that however much we are children of our past, we can remain innocent in the face of our becoming. Usual strategies of survival will have to be replaced by uncharted experimentations. It is doubtful if any one of us can live without any strategies of survival, without any compromise with our past—only an Overman, the one beyond humanity and its exigencies could do that—but we can risk enough of our old selves to attain a measure of “critical freedom.”11
So, if Nietzsche can offer medicine for our illness, it is bitter medicine, indeed. Curing ourselves involves risks. Still, he provides a context, one which could soothe the pains of self-overcoming. He tells us that there are forces active in us—he calls them “Will to Power”—which are far stronger then our conscious selves.12 We need only to trust them, make them our friends. He also describes for us three possible ways of life: the one in which drives are in complete chaos, the one in which drives are consciously repressed, and one in which a great number of drives are organized as a unity. He invites those who are willing to make the experiment, to cultivate the last, the best. Ordinary human beings, such as ourselves, will strive cautiously to maintain an optimum balance of unity and diversity; taking care that we do not exceed the limits of what we are capable of. But, Nietzsche demands more of those who are to be the true therapist of culture: they must risk passing over the limits of what they can. In other words, they must, if they are to be true innovators, go to the limit without any precise notion of where that limit might be. What Nietzsche considers to be a healthy culture is one which has unity, in diversity. Once such a culture is achieved, it will be possible for its members13 also to attain a healthy constitution. However, to achieve that, the “higher men” of today must be open to dangerous experiments with diversity even if they, themselves, break before attaining the required degree of unity.14
Nietzsche’s highly laudatory remarks about Spinoza in his letter to Overbeck are well-known. What is perhaps less well known is that in his later15 writings, he is sharply critical of Spinoza’s doctrine of conatus—what he often calls, misleadingly, “the instinct of self-preservation.” It is undeniable that there are deep affinities between their views on ontology (denial of transcendence, denial of teleology) and their ethics (denial of moral values, linking virtue and freedom to power). Consequently, one needs to pause at Nietzsche’s hostility to Spinoza on this point.16 He seems to interpret Spinoza’s: “Each thing, as far as it can by its own power, strives to preserve in its existence”17 as “each thing strives to conserve itself in the state that it actually finds itself.” But this is not Spinoza’s point. His point is a deeply ontological-ethical one. He wants to account for how potentia, the infinite power of the universe to be and to become (to act), is actualized in individual beings: to account for what constitutes their power to be and to act.18 Given the ambiguities I have mentioned in connection with his own doctrine of “Will to Power,” one would expect Nietzsche to be more accommodating on this point. Nevertheless, Nietzsche’s insistence that Will to Power strives to be more, to exceed and to overcome, cannot be ignored. If Spinoza’s conatus concept is to account for individuation, Nietzsche’s Will to Power concept is to account, also, for dis-individuation. But, how is one to make sense of this, especially, in view of Nietzsche’s claim that “The highest man would have the greatest multiplicity of drives, in the relatively greatest strength that can be endured?”19 Does that not suggest a striving for unity, however much diversity one is able to tolerate? Elsewhere he calls the “greatest man, the bow with the greatest tension. (KGW VII/3, 238)
It would be tempting to dismiss Nietzsche’s insistence that nothing in nature seeks to preserve itself, and that everything in nature strives to overreach itself, to overpower others, as a hasty scientific hypothesis. But, I think that the source of Nietzsche’s “overpower” doctrine lies elsewhere. Already, in the famous Spinoza letter to Overbeck, Nietzsche notes that there are “tremendous divergences due more to difference in time, culture and science” (KGB III/1, 111). As I hinted earlier, I do not think that whatever Nietzsche might have learned about cosmology or biology would present serious problems for Spinoza’s doctrine of conatus. Differences in time and culture are, on the other hand, significant. Take culture, for example. In spite of Nietzsche’s preoccupation with the sciences of his day, his is basically an artistic culture. And while Spinoza flirts with the idea of loss of self-identity,20 he does not consider how artistic creativity, or even the contemplation of works of art, might play a role in rearranging the internal structure of one’s body-soul, or the external relation one’s body-soul enjoys with others. However, by far the most significant source of difference in their divergent views on Power is the time in which they lived.
Why does Nietzsche, the great advocate for the revitalization of culture, accept that those whose task it is to carry out that task will be extremely vulnerable? Why does he warn that “Strange as it sounds, one always has to defend the strong against the weak; the fortunate against the unfortunate?” (KGW VIII/3, 96, 1888, WP 685). Or again, why does he believe that, “The richest and most complex forms – for the expression ‘higher type’ means no more than this – perish more easily?” (KGW VII/3, 109, WP 684). His answer is that this is so because “only the lowest preserve an apparent indestructibility” (ibid). There is a paradox here, how can Nietzsche, the advocate of life, have such a low opinion of the instinct of survival? How can he accept that his heroes, the champions of the future, be so extremely vulnerable? The answer, in my opinion, is that he is writing at the time when that modernity that Spinoza had championed has exhausted itself. Whereas Spinoza saw the great merit of democratic institutions in their contribution to social and political stability, for Nietzsche, the cost of this stability was too high. It led to mediocrity and to the debasing of culture. So, he cared less about the survival of individuals, even of the exceptional ones, than he cared about breathing new life into culture. The exceptional ones, the creators whom Nietzsche also calls “legislators,” will have to make the highest sacrifice for their creation: their own survival.21 This, in turn, will inspire others to cultivate new experiments in thinking and sensing and to encouraging them to take risks with new forms of life and new forms of expression.22
The conclusion is unavoidable: Nietzsche attaches a higher value to life lived intensely than to a life lived within the comfort and security of hitherto existing norms. He warns those who feel themselves superior to the present to avoid contact with those values that dominate at present. They should not seek to change the values sustaining life as it is lived at present, and certainly, they should avoid using those values as “devices of leadership”: “The values of the weak prevail because the strong have taken them over as devices of leadership.”23 Much of Nietzsche’s harsh language can be explained by this. He considered the instinct of survival, the will to deprive life of its tragic joy, as a curse. He saw this as a great danger to culture and to those who had the potential to give it a new energy. His great fear, and love, was for them, and for their task. He feared that they abandon, and betray, the calling which was theirs: to make life, here on earth, in its tragic beauty a source of joy, once more.24
If we now come back to the question “of what use is Nietzsche’s philosophy for life?” The answer I offer in this paper is that it is harmful for the life as we now live it. But, it promises another life, not an after-life, but one which we can live on this earth, in the time that is allowed to us. As beings thrown into this world we can “throw” ourselves further, once again. Is everyone today ready for this new life? Certainly not! But no one is prevented from taking a first step in its direction, if they so will. And, by taking this first step one might, if circumstances are favorable, allow for as much diversity as one’s nature, and those circumstances—their cultural surroundings—permit. But there needs to be those who embrace this new life fully, regardless of the immediate dangers it involves. These will be the ones to create a newly revived culture, and, perhaps—along the way—those who are willing to join them.
Notes
1 The idea of Eternal Return is first introduced in the penultimate section of Book Four of Gay Science (GS 341), which is immediately followed by the section entitled: Incipit Tragoedia, ushering in Zarathustra.
2 The question of audience in Nietzsche’s writings is an important one. For example, Z can easily be misread if one loses sight of who speaks, and to whom. In other works, too, it is important to know to whom Nietzsche is speaking, and in what voice. Who is his audience in The Birth of Tragedy? Is it Wagner? Is it the philological community? Or in the Second Untimely Meditations, is it his philologist critics? Is it the youth of his time? Each of his work is addressed to some specific audience, and what that is, provides a clue as to what is at stake for Nietzsche in that work. In my view, in his later writings, both published and unpublished, Nietzsche addresses an increasingly narrow audience, including himself.
3 These are the manuscripts M III 4b (7[1]-[274], of the Colli-Montinari edition. They treat of questions of morality making reference to earlier works and anticipating later ones. This passage does not occur in Will to Power, (WP) an arbitrary selection (and re-arrangement) of passages, made by Nietzsche’s sister after his death. By now, thanks to the work of Colli and Montinari, we have a reliable edition of Nietzsche’s unpublished writings. And, while I do not share Heidegger’s view that they represent Nietzsche’s essential thought, I find them to be valuable indicators of the way his thinking had developed.
4 See, for example, Beyond Good and Evil, (BG) 257 and 211. In BG 211 (KGW VI/2, 148) he says: “Genuine philosophers . . . are commanders and legislators” (Nietzsche’s italics).
5 “A declaration of war on the masses by higher man is needed!” (KGW VII/2, 56) 1884; (WP: 861).
6 In Z IV “higher man” has a rather pejorative connotation, which it does not have in later writings. But, even then, the distinction between “Overman” and “higher man” is made clearer, than it seems to be in this passage.
7 The “dice throw” as it is presented by Deleuze helps to illustrate this point. In a sense, even the higher men risk being bad “gamblers,” that is, they bring a little of their conscious memories, fears, and expectations into their actions and decisions: their “throws.” They also forget at times that they are thrown by necessity themselves. And, when they “throw” themselves unselfconsciously, they risk destruction. It is only the Overman that can act completely freely by affirming all of necessity: being destroyed and re-created eternally. That is why throwing oneself freely is to throw oneself beyond the human condition. Great historical figures, in great historical moments, can attain, but only for a moment, the highest form of freedom. These are the ones Nietzsche sees as true creators of new worlds, new values. What shocks us in Nietzsche is the human sacrifices he is prepared to tolerate in order to attain such men, in such moments: see, for example, “a good and healthy aristocracy . . . [should accept] with a good conscience the sacrifice of untold human beings who for its sake, must be reduced and lowered to incomplete human beings, to slaves, to instruments.” (BG 258: KGW VI/2, 216).
8 Richard Rorty is a prime example of such critic. See, for example, his “Moral Identity and Private Autonomy,” in Essays on Heidegger and Others, p. 194.
9 In spite of a number of vague references to the need for strong aristocratic individuals who would rule over society, there is ample evidence that, upon clear reflection, by “rule,” Nietzsche could not have meant “political rule.” He thinks that however “boring” democratic institutions may be, they are both useful and unavoidable (WS 289). Also, he thinks that any involvement in actual politics is bound to demean higher spirits (15 [79] 1888]. The reason he cannot be called an “ethical perfectionist” is that his aim is not the increase human happiness. His aim is to create the spiritual conditions for an intensified human existence.
10 See, for example, GS 325.
11 I owe this term to Paul Patton. He distinguishes between “positive freedom” as autonomy and “critical freedom” as the freedom to change. See his Deleuze & the Political (London: Routledge: 2000), pp. 83–5. In the same context, Patton introduces the distinction between “relative” and “absolute” deterritorialization. This distinction corresponds to what the “higher man” and what the Overman is capable of.
12 “Will to Power” is best seen as a direct, and unconscious, expression of power in action (what Spinoza understands by potentia); and not as a, conscious, wish to attain power under one of its representations (as a potestas, again in Spinoza’s terminology). In spite of his numerous attacks on teleology, there are times when Nietzsche speaks of power as if it were a goal sought by the will. In other words, in his many discussions of “Will to Power,” the distinction between power as potentia and power as potestas is not always clear. His most problematic comments on “Will to Power” occur in passages where he flirts with political aristocratism. See BGE 257 and 259, for example.
13 At this point, the question of whether the “crowd” will also be transformed in a revitalized (tragic) culture has to be addressed. From the passage I quoted earlier (KGW VII/1,252), it follows that Nietzsche thinks that morality will not cease to be normative for the crowd in any cultural context. Yet, it is difficult to accept that a revitalized culture would have no effect on the lives of all citizens. The way to avoid a possible tension here would be to say, that in a tragic culture the crowd will still follow moral norms, but it would recognize their contingency. These norms would still be “imposed” on it—but now only conditionally—by the example of those who have spiritual-cultural authority, and not simply by political power.
14 Some have suggested that Nietzsche made that experiment himself, and broke (down) in the process.
15 The letter to Overbeck is dated July 30 1881. There are criticisms of Spinoza already in notes written around the same time. See, for example KGW V/2, 415. However, the virulence of Nietzsche’s attacks on conatus does not appear till years later. It is possible that as time went on he began to assimilate Spinoza’s views to Darwin’s (or, more accurately to Spencer’s), thereby distorting it.
16 Some of Nietzsche’s comments on Spinoza verge on the abusive.
17 Ethics Part III, Proposition 6.
18 Although he does not say so, it is possible that Nietzsche’s aversion to the notion of “infinite force,” stated several times in the notes, written also in the summer of 1881, might also have extended to Spinoza’s notion of “infinite substance.” This question will be relevant to a more serious confrontation of the two philosophers than I am willing to enter into here.
19 KGW VII/2, 289, 1884, (WP: 966). See also BG 212.
20 See, for example, his story about a Spanish poet who lost all memory of his previous self, and Spinoza’s conjecture that one might be persuaded that one is not the same person one was as a child. Ethics Part IV, Proposition 39.
21 Schopenhauer’s vivid description of the cost to the artist involved in creating a work of art (at the end of Book III of The World as Will and Representation, Vol. I, p. 267) was, I think, a decisive factor in determining Nietzsche’s conception of those who needed to be protected, both from themselves, and from the “herd.”
22 In short, the difference between Spinoza and Nietzsche is that the first warns his best readers to be aware of their limits, whereas the second urges his best readers to transgress them. That is the reason why Spinoza is primarily a teacher of ethics: how to seek the good life; whereas Nietzsche is not. He does not teach how to be happy, he teaches how to become other, how to acquire a new sensibility.
23 KGW VIII/3, 249, 1888, WP: 863. It is significant that at the beginning of this note Nietzsche writes “NB NB” emphasizing its importance. I know of no other example where he does this.
24 The Birth of Tragedy would fit the description of “monumental history.” Notwithstanding the fact it, as well as the work introducing the concept of “monumental history”: The Advantages and Disadvantages of History for Life, are relatively early (1870–73); the “classic age of the Greeks” continued to be a key point of reference for Nietzsche’s thinking about cultural revival. He looked to it, and wanted his disciples to look to it, for inspiration.