12
Daniel Conway
We shall have wars like there have never been, but not between nations, not between classes: everything will be tossed about into the air. . .1
Friedrich Nietzsche, (draft) letter to Georg Brandes in December of 1888
My aim in this chapter is to elucidate the relationship between Nietzsche’s avowed immoralism and his alleged contribution to the inauguration of the era of ‘great politics.’ As he indicates in Ecce Homo, or so I propose to show, he is an immoralist not simply in the sense that he denies the validity and efficacy of Christian morality, but also in the sense that he does so in the name of morality itself. As an immoralist, that is, Nietzsche asserts himself as a particular kind of moralist – in particular, one who may turn the authority and power of morality against itself. Owing to the unique conditions of his historical situation, moreover, this ‘first immoralist’ presents himself as belonging, potentially, to the last generation of moralists. Under his direction, the historically dominant regime of morality will have no choice but to pronounce itself immoral and, therefore, ripe for destruction and collapse. Indeed, Nietzsche’s goal as an immoralist is to deliver and enact the final, self-consuming decree of morality – its decree against itself.
This characterization of Nietzsche’s immoralism positions us in turn to understand why he claims to have contributed to the inauguration of the era of ‘great politics.’ As morality suffers shipwreck, the business of politics will become ‘great’ in the sense that its practitioners may and will proceed unfettered by traditional constraints. Especially when compared to nineteenth-century European politics, ‘great politics’ is likely to be global, trans-national, geopolitical, and, perhaps, apocalyptic.2 As Nietzsche correctly foresaw, the warfare of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries has been and remains broadly ideological in nature, with the future of the earth hanging in the balance.3 He claimed to welcome this outcome, despite its collateral disruptions,4 especially inasmuch as humanity might avail itself thereby of the opportunity to undertake a ‘revaluation of all values.’ In this sense, then, we may think of the era of ‘great politics’ as delivering humankind to that fateful ‘day of decision,’ whereupon the continued existence of a wounded, wayward species finally might be determined.
In pronouncing morality itself to be immoral, finally, Nietzsche does not mean to exempt himself from this indictment.5 The most recent stage in the development of morality has positioned him (qua immoralist) to understand – and to affirm – that all practitioners of morality, including him, are implicated in an enterprise that is unsustainable, irreparably nihilistic, and nearing exhaustion in any event. The simple aim of his opposition – namely, to disclose the full truth of ‘Christian morality’ – is thus meant to exploit the unique conditions of his historical situation, such that his simple act of truth telling might trigger a collapse of world-historical significance.
1 The era of ‘great politics’
Only since I came on the scene has there been great politics on earth. (EH: ‘Destiny’ 1)
Thus wrote Nietzsche in 1888, in the first section of the final chapter of his Ecce Homo, a book in which he offers to explain, among other things, why he is a destiny [Schicksal]. He proceeds here under the compulsion of urgency, owing both to his professed need to introduce himself to his likely readers and to the general failure thus far of his readers to ask him, much less to understand, what he is up to. At this juncture, of course, he alone appreciates the tactical role that this book is meant to play in cultivating a sympathetic readership for his next book, which was supposed to have been The Antichrist(ian).6 Whether real or contrived, however, the urgency that drives him in Ecce Homo contributes to the drama he wishes to build in this, the final instalment in his campaign to influence his best readers’ reception of his ‘good books.’
Remarkably, however, Nietzsche has very little to say in Ecce Homo about his role in the dawning of the era of ‘great politics.’ Upon recommending himself as an improbably sturdy vessel of truth, he proceeds to explain that
[W]hen the truth squares up to the lie of millennia, we will have upheavals, a spasm of earthquakes, a removal of mountain and valley such as have never been dreamed of. (EH: ‘destiny’ 1)
Having aroused our curiosity with this seemingly incongruous biblical flourish, he issues a more concrete and timely warning:
The notion of politics will then completely dissolve into a spiritual war [Geisterkrieg], and all configurations of power from the old society will be exploded—they are all based on a lie: there will be wars such as there have never yet been on earth. (EH: ‘destiny’ 1)7
Apparently, that is, the ‘terrifying’ truth that he harbours will expose the grand lie on which these unnamed ‘configurations of power’ trade for their continued authority and viability. But how are we to understand the stipulated relationship between his practice of truth telling and the detonations that are to follow?
Nietzsche’s correspondence from the period offers additional context and clarification. In a letter to Paul Deussen on 26 November 1888, he proclaims himself a dealer of lightning strikes, while boasting of ‘the power to alter the calculation of time.’8 Later that year, in a draft letter to Georg Brandes, he reveals the extent of his designs on world domination:
Since [The Antichrist] is a deathblow to Christianity, it is in the cards that the single international power that possesses an instinctive interest in the nullification of Christianity is the Jews. . . . Consequently, we must secure for ourselves all the decisive power of this race in Europe and America—moreover, such a movement requires enormous capital. . . . All in all, the officer corps will share our instinct that it is in the highest degree ignoble, cowardly, impure, to be a Christian; one invariably carries away this judgment from my “Antichrist.”. . . Concerning the Kaiser, I know the art of handling such brown idiots: that makes an officer who has turned out well lose his moderation.9
Granted, this is only a draft of a letter, which was neither posted nor received. It was furthermore intended for Brandes, whom Nietzsche was generally keen to impress. Still, the sentiments conveyed in this draft are noteworthy, both for the details they reveal and for their consistency with his less hysterical characterizations of his envisioned contributions to the era of ‘great politics.’10
Here as elsewhere, for example, he describes The Antichrist(ian) as delivering a ‘deathblow’ to Christianity, whose collapse will create the geopolitical power vacuum that he proposes to exploit. Here, moreover, he reveals his understanding of how, and on whom, The Antichrist(ian) is supposed to produce its intended effect. Those readers who share in the ‘aristocratic’ sensibilities that (supposedly) join Nietzsche and Brandes will understand that Christianity is now unworthy of their continued allegiance. The best among his contemporaries, including the military officers,11 will recoil instinctively from Christianity and seek the alternative guidance that he and his fellow immoralists will be quick to offer them. Similarly, he expects the Jews among his readers to be intrigued by, and perhaps grateful for, the opportunity to make their home in the post-Christian, philo-Semitic Europe he envisions on their behalf.12 Here, finally, we learn that his preferred imagery for this supposed contribution to the era of ‘great politics,’ typically involving the disposition of artillery, dynamite and other concussive materiel, is actually meant to characterize a relatively quiet explosion of light and truth.13 The noise and heat of actual detonations, he believed, would come later.
Even if these clues were to pan out, however, Nietzsche’s reference to his contribution to the era of ‘great politics’ would remain obscure. How is it possible, we might wonder, that the twilight epoch of late modernity, emaciated by pandemic decay and crippled by a pervasive ‘weakness of will’ (BGE 212), could launch the era of ‘great politics’? Are we meant to understand that Nietzsche commands a secret reserve of volitional resources, such that he is exempt from the terms of his otherwise comprehensive critique of late modern European culture?14
While the rhetoric of Ecce Homo bears witness to the superlative standing that Nietzsche arrogates to himself vis-à-vis his enervated contemporaries, the autobiographical narrative of the book records a more modest reckoning of his supposed accomplishments. Like Odysseus, we learn, Nietzsche is ‘clever’ in the sense of displaying pluck in the face of a daunting procession of obstacles and reversals. Not so much a hero as a survivor, the subject of Ecce Homo receives precious little credit for his active role in becoming what he is.15 Although he draws our attention to his ‘choice’ [Wahl] of those ‘little’ things’ – for example, recreation, nutrition, place, climate, etc. – that have contributed to his seemingly modest triumphs of self-overcoming (EH: ‘Clever’ 10),16 he also concedes that he arrived at this ‘choice’ only via trial and (nearly fatal) error, under the pressure exerted against him by the material and physiological conditions of his precarious existence. While demonstrably superior to the vast majority of his late modern contemporaries – on this point, he simply will not budge – he is careful not to claim for himself redemptive powers that would be incongruent with the general conditions of the late modern epoch. He is, as he admits, a décadent, even as he ‘opposes’ the decadence that afflicts him (EH: ‘Wise’ 2). As such, any contribution he might claim to make to the dawning of the era of ‘great politics’ must be understood as a product of the decadent culture he represents and the decadent condition he embodies.
That he would be in a position to inaugurate the era of ‘great politics’ is an irony that was not entirely lost on Nietzsche. Indeed, his wish to re-introduce himself in his Foreword to Ecce Homo arises in part from his understanding that even his best and most loyal readers will find this claim difficult to comprehend. In particular, he realizes, it behoves him to explain why the seemingly simple act of telling the truth about Christianity should have the far-reaching and devastating consequences that he brazenly claims for it. After all, he is not the first critic of Christianity to question its authority, efficacy and legitimacy. What makes his reckoning of Christianity different from those delivered by predecessor critics, including such influential figures as Voltaire, Spinoza and Luther?
The answer, in short, has to do with the timing of his particular disclosure. Owing to the unique historical conditions that obtain in the aftermath of the ‘death of God,’ all he needs do is tell the truth about Christian morality – a task he believes he has accomplished in writing The Antichrist(ian) – and the rest will follow in due course. Christianity will cancel itself, morality will perish, the ascetic ideal will decline, and the late modern epoch in European culture will lurch towards a fitting conclusion. A very particular strain of narcissism thus informs the task he sets for himself in Ecce Homo: Although he is not a hero in any traditional sense, he is in the right place at the right time. A single word from him, a timely disclosure, and the whole rotting edifice of late modern European culture will come crashing down.
While the timing of the disclosure is optimal, so is the unlikely hero to whom the disclosure has been entrusted, the man whom we are urged in Ecce Homo to behold as such. To this unusual man we now turn.
2 Nietzsche’s immoralism
Immediately following his introduction of the theme of ‘great politics,’ Nietzsche volunteers a ‘formula for a destiny like that, which becomes man’ (EH: ‘Destiny’ 2).17 Immodestly fitting himself to this ‘formula,’ he announces,
I know the pleasure in destroying to an extent commensurate with my power to destroy—in both I obey my Dionysian nature, which is incapable of separating no-doing from yes-saying. I am the first immoralist: hence I am the destroyer par excellence.— (EH: ‘Destiny’ 2)
No monster of excess or wanton breaker of laws and tablets, Nietzsche presents himself here as an eminently ‘obedient’ creature. He is a destroyer, to be sure, and nothing less than morality itself has drawn his wrath. Unlike all previous destroyers, however, he engages in ‘no-doing’ only in accordance with his ‘yes-saying.’ Like the birds and beasts of prey whose cruel artistry he idealizes, he now destroys only in concert with the rhythms and cadence of Life itself.18 As we shall see, in fact, this ‘first immoralist’ is uniquely prepared to destroy all regimes of moral authority, including his own, and to discredit all moralists, including himself, in the process. He is the ‘destroyer par excellence,’ that is, because he does not spare himself in the performance of his service to Life.
In his writings prior to 1888, Nietzsche tended to employ the terms immoralist and immoralism to identify the practice, whether his own or another’s, of using morality to secure specific political objectives, which were meant to contribute in turn to the cultural elevation of the people or nation in question.19 As such, this practice has been understood to confirm the achievement, by him or some other law-giver, of a critical distance from the application and authority of the morality in question.20 It is this critical distance, he believed, that allows the canny law-giver to employ patently immoral means, for example, the pia fraus, to establish or deploy morality in the service of noble political ends (TI 7: 5). In declaring himself an immoralist, that is, he meant to pledge his allegiance to the political realism espoused and practised by Thucydides, Plato, Manu, Machiavelli, and others.21
In his writings from 1888, however, Nietzsche endeavoured to adapt the terms immoralist and immoralism to the unique historical situation that made possible his envisioned contribution to the dawning of the era of ‘great politics.’22 While renewing his allegiance to the tradition and practice of political realism,23 that is, he also meant to acknowledge, and vowed to exploit, his placement within the specific moral tradition he sought to challenge. As he notes, for example, he is the first immoralist who need not resort to lies to advance his larger aims (WP 749). This means, among other things, that he need not divide his office and energies in catering simultaneously to multiple audiences. Capitalizing on the unique opportunity afforded to him in the aftermath of the ‘death of God,’ he is free to deploy the truth with impunity as he single-handedly confronts the ‘lies of millennia’ (EH: ‘Destiny’ 1).
As an immoralist, Nietzsche now understands that he may presume to speak with the full authority of Christian morality. He may do so, moreover, not simply as a ruse or stratagem, but as an expression of the moral legacy this is rightfully his – and, more importantly, strategically advantageous – to pursue. In short, the writings from 1888 reflect his understanding that he may lay legitimate claim to the mantle and authority of morality, even as he attempts to steer it towards exhaustion and collapse. As an immoralist, that is, he both opposes morality and trades upon the limited validity of its residual authority. While predecessor immoralists have vowed to use morality, Nietzsche vows to use it up, expending its authority once and for all.24 In short, as we shall see, he believes that in him, morality has inadvertently produced its other, in excess of its intended aims and acknowledged norms.
3 The self-overcoming of morality
Having introduced himself as the ‘first immoralist’ (EH: ‘destiny’ 2), Nietzsche proceeds to explain how he came to earn this nom de guerre. In response to a question that no one yet has bothered to ask him, he offers the following:
The self-overcoming [Selbstüberwindung] of morality, out of truthfulness, the self-overcoming [Selbstüberwindung] of the moralist into his opposite [Gegensatz]— into me—that is what the name of Zarathustra means in my mouth. (EH: ‘Destiny’ 3)
We will return in due course to consider the ‘meaning’ of the ‘name of Zarathustra.’ For now, let us attend to the twin processes of self-overcoming reported in this passage.
On the one hand, this passage describes a process of self-overcoming that is familiar to us from the conclusion of GM. As Nietzsche explains there, morality will ‘perish’ when its representatives finally question the truthfulness of its own operation as an emanation of the will to truth (GM III: 27). On the other hand, this passage also describes a related process of self-overcoming that may strike Nietzsche’s readers as potentially unfamiliar and perhaps surprising: He identifies himself as the ‘opposite’ of the moralist, that is, as the product of the ‘self-overcoming of the moralist.’ In him, apparently, morality has produced its other, which is why Ecce Homo adopts the celebratory tone of a (re)birth announcement.
He thus presents his seemingly insignificant labours of personal self-overcoming as integral to the self-overcoming of morality. Indeed, we are now in a position to understand why he is so concerned in Ecce Homo to draw our attention to the ‘little’ things that contributed to his realization of his destiny (EH: ‘Clever’ 10).25 That he has managed to re-orient himself to ‘the basic concerns of life itself’ confirms that he already has begun the process of ‘relearning’ what is important and what is not (EH: ‘clever’ 10). Fortunately for us, that is, the narrative of his seemingly unremarkable life in fact essays a ‘formula’ for the ‘revaluation of all values’ that he soon will direct us to undertake (EH: ‘clever’ 10). Having already completed this ‘act of supreme self-examination’ in his own right, he is confident that he is now qualified to conduct his best readers towards a similar moment of self-reckoning and a similar achievement of self-overcoming (EH: ‘Destiny’ 1).
How is such a transformation possible? Aside from any doubts that we may harbour about Nietzsche himself, we may wonder more generally how such a claim could be advanced, much less defended. In order to appreciate the nature of the achievement he claims for himself, let us review his understanding of his relationship to the enterprise of morality, which, in his writings from 1888, he tends to reduce to its most recent (and odious) incarnations. Why he comes to favour this hostile, reductive approach to morality, as opposed to the more balanced approach that characterizes his earlier writings, will become clearer as we proceed.
For the most part, Nietzsche observes, morality has had the effect of weakening, diminishing and domesticating human beings, remaking them in the sordid, self-loathing image of those wretched moralists in whom the authority of morality typically resides (TI 5:6). For the most part, moreover, the measures that moralists have employed to achieve this end have wrought the intended effects of dividing human beings against themselves, suborning suspicion of the instincts and contempt for the body, and enforcing compulsory uniformity and homogeneity. In a precious few cases, however, the moralists also have succeeded, albeit unwittingly, in producing their other – known to us now as the immoralist – who, having survived the levelling assault of morality, turns his power and authority against the moralists. Inadvertently coaxed into being by the overly stringent application of the moralists’ prescriptions, the immoralist thus represents the self-overcoming (i.e. the natural outgrowth and development) of morality into its other.
As is often the case with Nietzsche’s ‘just-so’ accounts of contingent historical development,26 strictures designed to enforce uniformity and homogeneity eventually produce multiform exceptions – I prefer the term excessions – to the norms they legislate. So it was, for example, that the rampaging beasts of prey unknowingly created in their hapless victims the fertile conditions of the ‘bad conscience’ (GM II: 17). So it was, indeed, that the ancient creditor-debtor relationship, rigged from the outset to favour creditors and abuse debtors, eventually yielded credible promise-keepers (GM II: 5). So it was, moreover, that the sterile, normalizing apparatus of the ‘morality of mores’ actually produced the ripe fruit of the ‘sovereign individual’ (GM II: 2). And, finally, so it was that the ascetic priest unwittingly nurtured the development of the new ‘philosopher,’ who, we are promised, will depose the priest in due course (GM III: 10).
The crucial point here, I take it, is that these examples of excession all partake of the logic of self-overcoming [Selbstüberwindung], for which Nietzsche favours a model of filial (or familial) antagonism. It is by dint of their enactment of this antagonism, moreover, that the aforementioned excessions secure for themselves the fully individuated status they naturally seek to establish. In this light, in fact, the immoralist appears as a newly emergent species of moralist, different in degree but not in kind from those moralists who contributed, inadvertently, to his emergence. As the other of the moralist, the immoralist is neither estranged from the authority of morality nor unfamiliar with its general aims and methods. We should not be surprised, in fact, if the immoralist were to exhibit a strong family resemblance to those moralists whom he seeks to supplant.
The persistence of this family resemblance is on display, and self-consciously so, throughout Nietzsche’s writings from 1888. In Ecce Homo, as we have seen, he does not attempt to prosecute his case against Christianity by simply expressing an alternative preference, which he is either unable or unwilling to defend. Nor does he promote an anarchic free-for-all in which rival ideals of human flourishing amorally contend for preponderance in a lawless cosmos. Rather, he builds and presses a distinctly moral case against a historically specific cadre of regnant moralists. When, for example, he condemns the ‘good’ man’s practice of lying, especially inasmuch as it offends ‘the truth’ and beggars ‘the future’ (EH: ‘destiny’ 4), he clearly means to object to this practice on recognizably moral grounds. Despite his avowed familiarity with various forms of non- or extra-moral objections to morality, that is, he consistently expresses his ‘denial’ [Verneinung] of morality in the form of a moral objection (EH: ‘Destiny’ 4). While it is true that he uniquely appeals to a newly ascendant standard of truthfulness, which reflects the recently negotiated rapprochement between morality and science, this appeal nevertheless essays a moral objection.
That the author of The Antichrist(ian) feels entitled to the soapbox of the moralist is evident on virtually every page of this pugnacious book, even (or especially) as he rails against morality itself. Here too Nietzsche delivers an unmistakably moral critique of Christian morality, objecting in particular, as he did in the final chapter of Ecce Homo, to the systemic mendaciousness of Christianity.27 From its fabricated account of the life and death of Jesus to its denigration of the natural world, Christianity has consolidated its secular authority by weaving a formidable network of lies. These lies are presented as objectionable, we might note, neither on aesthetic nor theological grounds, but on moral grounds.28 They are affronts to the truth, which Nietzsche readily acknowledges as the reigning, albeit last, moral ideal (and, in fact, as the successor to the recently deceased God of Christianity). It is on the strength of this ideal, in fact, that he feels justified in amplifying the angry, strident tone of this book. No longer obliged to attack Christianity obliquely, tentatively, surreptitiously, or from afar, he takes full advantage of his position at the forefront of a historically specific shape of morality that values truthfulness above all else.
Finally, he concludes The Antichrist(ian) with a summary condemnation that is difficult to interpret as anything but moral in tone, ferocity and authority:
I call Christianity the one great curse, the one great innermost corruption, the one great instinct of revenge, for which no means is poisonous, stealthy, subterranean, small enough—I call it the one immortal blemish of humankind. (A 62)
This condemnation is noteworthy, of course, for its tactical reprise of the evaluation offered by Christianity of the natural world it confronted and found wanting. Responding in kind, Nietzsche pronounces a curse upon the curse that Christianity originally deigned to cast upon the shabby world of becoming.
This condemnation is warranted, moreover, only in the event that the lies disseminated by Christianity are regarded as objectionable. In itself, to be sure, the practice of lying merits no automatic rebuke, and certainly not by Nietzsche, who often praises lying as ingredient to the prerogative of the law-giver and the genius of the artist. While it may be tempting to assume that he means to appeal here to an extra-moral basis for his condemnation, no such appeal (and no such basis) is evident in The Antichrist(ian). The crime perpetrated by Christianity, like the condemnation Nietzsche proffers, is presented as moral in nature. And this is as it should be, for the moral authority available to Nietzsche is alone sufficient to motivate the intensity of criticism that he wishes to muster. In this light, in fact, his recourse in the writings of 1888 to the authority of morality appears as neither a mistake requiring correction, nor a relapse in need of forgiveness, nor a tell-tale symptom of incipient madness. He concludes his case against morality by acceding to the strongest critical standpoint available to him – namely, as the self-appointed arbiter of morality in its loftiest, most recently articulated, and final historical form.29
In sum: The world that emerges from the calamitous era of ‘great politics’ may find itself resting comfortably beyond the reach of morality. But the world that Nietzsche discloses to the readers of Ecce Homo awaits one final moral judgement, which he was pleased to deliver, in the form of a condemnation and curse, in The Antichrist(ian). This latter book ends with the proposal to ‘reckon time’ from the ‘last day’ of Christianity, which, he offered, tempting fate one time too many, might as well be ‘today’ – meaning, presumably, 30 September 1888.30
4 ‘Christian truthfulness’ vs. ‘Christian morality’
Nietzsche’s own moral authority is newly viable, he explains, as a result of the larger developments that have shaped the late modern epoch in European history. As a consequence of its mutually formative confrontation with modern science, Christianity has reconstituted itself in several discernible permutations. In a well-known passage, he explains that
Christianity as a dogma was destroyed by its own morality; in the same way Christianity as morality must now perish too: we stand on the threshold of this event. After Christian truthfulness has drawn one inference after another, it must end by drawing its most striking inference, its inference against itself; this will happen, however, when it poses the question “what is the meaning of all will to truth”? (GM III: 27)
Of particular relevance to our present discussion is the current, ongoing stage in this development, wherein ‘Christian truthfulness’ has emerged to pose what Nietzsche takes to be a fatal challenge to ‘Christian morality.’
What he has in mind here, apparently, is a bifurcation internal to Christianity itself, wherein truth-seeking, science-friendly Christians have stepped forward to question the authority, integrity and standing of the ruling cadre of truth-challenged, unscholarly Christian moralists. Appealing in particular to the newly ascendant standard of truthfulness, this former group declares the latter group to be immoral and, therefore, generally unfit to represent Christianity. At the same time, or so we are meant to understand, the former group asserts its own alternative claim to the mantle and authority of morality. As we shall see, in fact, it is this challenge that Nietzsche has in mind when, in Twilight and Ecce Homo, he envisions the epoch-concluding clash between immoralists (i.e. agents of ‘Christian truthfulness’) and moralists (i.e. proponents of ‘Christian morality’).31
For precisely this reason, in fact, the particulars of the charge levelled by the agents of ‘Christian truthfulness’ against the proponents of ‘Christian morality’ are worth noting. In Ecce Homo and The Antichrist(ian), as we have seen, Nietzsche is primarily concerned to expose Christianity as pathologically mendacious. At the conclusion of GM, however, his analysis is more subtle and incisive: Like all expressions of the will to truth, Christian morality rests on an unacknowledged faith in the inestimable value of truth (GM III: 24).32 Prior to the ‘death of God,’ this unacknowledged tenet of faith may have remained either unnoticed or unobjectionable. In the wake of the ‘death of God,’ however, Nietzsche is neither inclined nor constrained to exclude the will to truth from the scope of his interrogation. Applying the newly enshrined standard of Christian truthfulness, he finds Christian morality to be untruthful and, therefore, immoral. In telling the truth about the moralists, that is, Nietzsche (qua immoralist) intends to bring the full force and authority of morality to bear against them. In doing so, moreover, he also means to celebrate the eclipse of their heyday as the acknowledged arbiters of morality.
As presented thus far, of course, Nietzsche’s critique of contemporary morality might be dismissed as rehearsing a very old story: An upstart moralist challenges a regnant cadre of moralists for the mantle and authority of morality. Declaring the regnant moralists to be immoral, this upstart calls for morality to transform itself in accordance with a new, supposedly higher standard of human flourishing. As we have seen, however, Nietzsche’s particular contribution to the era of ‘great politics’ is meant to precipitate a decisive break from the past. How, then, does he propose to graft a new twist (and divergent conclusion) onto this very old story?
The struggle between the immoralists and the moralists is not simply a matter of providing morality with yet another new shape and direction as it wends its way through the modern period of European history. As we have seen, Nietzsche raises the stakes considerably by placing this struggle in the context of a much larger process of historical development, which, he warns, is approaching an inevitable, and tumultuous, conclusion. In the passage cited above, we recall, he observes that ‘All great things bring about their own destruction through an act of self-cancellation [Selbstaufhebung]’ (GM III: 27).33 Presumably, the ‘great thing’ in question here is Christianity, which Nietzsche describes as nearing the completion of its development through three successive stages and three corresponding regimes of authority. As it approaches the conclusion of this third stage, Christianity is now poised to undertake the ‘act of self-cancellation’ that will ensure its demise, just as the ‘law of life’ has ordained.
This means, however, that the ascendant regime of ‘Christian truthfulness’ must perish along with (or soon after) the deposed regime of ‘Christian morality.’ As Nietzsche explains, ‘Christian truthfulness . . . must end by drawing its most striking inference, its inference against itself’ (GM III: 27). This it will do, he elaborates, ‘when it poses the question: “what is the meaning of all will to truth?”’ (GM III: 27), which is a question, as we shall see, whose answer no form of morality can survive. What Nietzsche apparently means here is that the regime of ‘Christian truthfulness’ will both triumph and end once its agents have managed to steer the will to truth into a fateful confrontation with itself.34 Having authorized an interrogation of all extant forms and expressions of moral authority, the will to truth eventually must call itself to order, fixing its withering gaze on its own newly disclosed claim to moral authority. According to Nietzsche, the will to truth is in fact the ‘kernel’ of the ascetic ideal (GM III: 27), which he also reveals as the animating core of both modern science and the regime of Christian truthfulness (GM III: 25). As such, the will to truth expresses itself as a recognizably moral authority, especially inasmuch as it presents the pursuit and possession of truth as justifying the suffering and meaninglessness of the human condition.35
Prior to the ‘death of God,’ apparently, the will to truth operated under the burden of the fairly restrictive constraints imposed upon the scope and sweep of its activities. So long as its interrogations remained carefully scripted, strictly circumscribed, and closely monitored, the will to truth was allowed to propel the advance of both Christianity and science. In the wake of the ‘death of God,’ however, the will to truth has exceeded the containment structures that previously had limited its reach and mobility. It now roams freely across the overlapping domains of Christian morality and modern science, demanding adherence to ever more stringent standards of truthfulness wherever it turns its gaze.36
Rather than attempt to recapture the fugitive will to truth, or limit the reach of its errant inquisitions, Nietzsche resolves instead to hijack the will to truth and direct its programme of interrogation. (In so doing, as we shall see, he both complements and completes the destructive mission entrusted to Zarathustra.) As a willing agent of ‘Christian truthfulness,’ he goads the will to truth to assume its purest and most powerful form.37 He does so, moreover, by wrangling his own will to truth – for it now resides only in him and those kindred idealists whom he targets for inclusion in his ‘we’ (GM III: 24, 27) – into the service of his immoralism. As we have seen, he hopes thereby to steer the will to truth into an unprecedented confrontation with itself, that is, with its own shaky commitment to truthfulness. He is sufficiently impressed by the progress of ‘Christian truthfulness,’ in fact, that he anticipates the occasion of ‘its most striking inference, its inference against itself’ (GM III: 27). When it completes this final inference, he believes, both regimes – ‘Christian morality’ and ‘Christian truthfulness’ – will fall.
5 Nietzsche’s self-overcoming
Nietzsche’s role is revealed, finally, in the context of his attempt to explain what the ‘name of Zarathustra’ now means to him (EH: ‘Destiny’ 3).38 That he authorized Zarathustra to put right the calamity wrought by the historical Zoroaster is well known. That he regarded the appearance of his Zarathustra as a decisive moment in the self-overcoming of morality is also well known. What we now learn, however, is that he was changed in the process of birthing his Zarathustra. By naming Zarathustra and recording his speeches, or so it turns out, Nietzsche unwittingly inserted himself into a process of self-overcoming that precipitated his transformation into the ‘opposite’ [Gegensatz] of the moralist, that is, the immoralist.
As we have seen, Nietzsche’s anticipation of the endgame sequence of Christianity places an unusual emphasis on the uniquely destructive properties of truthfulness as a moral ideal.39 These properties have only recently come to light, and they remain largely unknown outside the intimate circle that Nietzsche describes around himself and his unknown mates. In this respect, in fact, he claims to follow none other than Zarathustra, who alone ‘posits truthfulness [Wahrhaftigkeit] as the highest virtue’ (EH: ‘Destiny’ 4). His claim here, apparently, is that the practice of truthfulness has only recently been liberated from the constraints associated with the dogmas, superstitions, customs and taboos that have been variously observed by scholars and priests alike. Although both modern science and Christianity have claimed to place a premium on the value of truth, neither has suffered itself to be called to defend the depth and reach of its own commitment to truthfulness. In particular, as we have seen, neither has endeavoured hitherto to determine the genuine value of truth. Prior to the ‘death of God,’ that is, the quest for truth had been conducted with relative caution and restraint, thereby restricting the development of the practice of truthfulness and the cultivation of the virtue of truth telling.
In the aftermath of the ‘death of God,’ however, the quest for truth has received new life and a renewed charter. As science and religion have exchanged their ages-old antagonism for a merger of sorts, truthfulness has been promoted to the rank and status of a cardinal virtue. According to Nietzsche, the demand for truth now may be pressed to a degree previously unthinkable, and in precincts formerly declared off limits. As the ascendant regime of ‘Christian truthfulness’ has gained currency and authority, in fact, it has positioned its most intrepid representatives to ask after the truthfulness of the will to truth (GM III: 27). Once this question is properly raised – at the right time, by the appropriate inquisitors, directed towards the relevant historical authorities, and so on – we may prepare ourselves to witness the end of the deposed regime of ‘Christian morality,’ of the (briefly) triumphant regime of ‘Christian truthfulness,’ of the ‘great thing’ known as Christianity, and, perhaps, of morality itself.
In GM, as we have seen, Nietzsche tends to characterize ‘Christian truthfulness,’ the ‘will to truth’ and so on, as if they were autonomous, trans-personal agencies, fully capable of acting on and with one another to accomplish the inevitable downfall of Christianity. In other words, he proceeds there as if individual human beings will (or need) play no significant agential role in the larger Schauspiel that he foresees for the next several centuries of European modernity (GM III: 27). To a certain extent, of course, this is precisely the impression he wishes to make at the conclusion of GM, for he is concerned there to chart the larger historical processes at work in the transformation of those ‘great things,’ for example, Christianity, that have infused European culture with its distinctive meaning and direction.40
In Ecce Homo, however, his aims are different. Having identified the larger historical forces responsible for the self-cancellation of Christianity, he now must account for the agency of those who will trigger the particular endgame sequence that he envisions for late modern European culture. In particular, he believes, someone must speak for Christian truthfulness when it finally gathers itself to inquire after the value of the will to truth. Similarly, someone must volunteer to host the process of intensive self-reflection that will prompt the will to truth to become ‘conscious of itself as a problem’ (GM III: 27). In the former case, or so it would appear, that someone is Nietzsche himself, especially inasmuch as he lives up to his destiny as the ‘first immoralist.’41 In the latter case, or so we might speculate, that someone, as yet unknown to us, will belong to the target audience of Ecce Homo and The Antichrist(ian).
Here it becomes clear, in fact, that the seemingly impersonal historical process described at the conclusion of GM depends for its prescribed completion on the intimately personal process that is associated with ‘the self-overcoming of the moralist.’ In Ecce Homo, that is, Nietzsche not only identifies an important role for human agency in the anticipated endgame sequence of Christianity, but also claims this role for himself. In becoming the ‘opposite’ (or other) of the moralist, he has positioned himself to deliver the final inference on the part of the regime of ‘Christian truthfulness,’ which, as we have seen, is ‘its inference against itself’ (GM III: 27). Once he has succeeded in this venture, the larger, impersonal process of self-overcoming will proceed towards its own inevitable completion. Christian morality will fall, and the entire enterprise of morality will collapse in due course.
We are finally in a position, in fact, to articulate the following division of labour between Zarathustra and Nietzsche. While it may be the case that ‘Zarathustra’s doctrine, and his alone, posits truthfulness [Wahrhaftigkeit] as the highest virtue’ (EH: ‘Destiny’ 3), Zarathustra is prevented by his historical-fictional status from actually speaking the truth that will seal the demise of morality. (In this respect, it is both sensible and appropriate that he defers his final Untergang until such a time as his ‘children’ arrive on the scene to receive his blessing (Z IV: 20).) This latter task thus falls to Nietzsche, who improbably survived the birth of his Zarathustra and now bears the marks of a (discarded) vessel of divine inspiration (EH: ‘Books,’ z 3–5). In both Ecce Homo and The Antichrist(ian), in fact, he aims to expand the practice of Zarathustran truthfulness beyond its known limits, such that his truth telling will exceed (and eventually shatter) the very frame in which it is situated – namely, that of morality itself.
He will do so, as we have seen, by making productive, novel and outrageous use of his probity [Redlichkeit], which he identifies as the sole virtue remaining to those who count themselves among the immoralists (BGE 227).42 Having pushed the Zarathustran practice of truthfulness to (and beyond) its very limits, he and his fellow immoralists are now poised to disclose those ‘terrible’ truths that heretofore have defied articulation and expression. This is why it is so important for Nietzsche to claim that he – and not Zarathustra – is the vessel in which ‘the self-overcoming of the moralist’ has been accomplished. Indeed, it is his ‘lot’ to speak the truth that will break history in two (EH: ‘Destiny’ 1). In him, that is, the Wahrhaftigkeit of Zarathustra must give way, in real time, to the Redlichkeit of the immoralist.43
6 The will to truth
If this were the full extent of Nietzsche’s challenge to Christian morality, however, he would still be entangled in a very old – and very Christian – story of altruistic self-sacrifice. If he simply means to offer himself for the sins of his fellow moralists, thereby permitting morality to be reborn under the halo of a second innocence, his supposed challenge to Christian morality would hardly count as either radical or devastating.44 Nor would it illuminate the decisive contrast – Dionysus vs. The Crucified One – with which he concludes Ecce Homo.
As it turns out, however, Nietzsche cannot tell the truth about Christianity without also exposing the truth about morality itself. As it also turns out, the truth about morality is every bit as lethal as the truth about Christianity. Just as the disclosed truth of ‘Christian morality’ is supposed to seal the destruction of that ‘great thing’ known as Christianity, so too will it ensure the demise of that even greater thing known as morality.45 It will do so, we are now in a position to understand, because truthfulness makes for an unstable, self-consuming moral ideal. Simply put, no historical shape or form of morality can accommodate this ideal in the pure form that Nietzsche goads it to assume. In order to see why this is so, let us return, briefly, to his extremely compressed account in GM of the endgame sequence in the Selbstaufhebung of Christianity.
When the will to truth finally confronts itself, Nietzsche believes, it will have no choice but to expose and denounce its unacknowledged reliance on a blind, unquestioned faith in the inestimable value of truth.46 (In doing so, of course, the will to truth will expend its final quantum of moral authority, discrediting itself as it subverts the regimes of ‘Christian morality’ and ‘Christian truthfulness.’) As it turns to confront itself, moreover, the will to truth will concentrate its power and shed all remaining vestiges of its previous disguises, pretexts, husks and integuments. For the first time in thousands of years, that is, (some) human beings will be in a position to behold the will to truth as it really is, in its pure, naked, and most potent form.
In attaining this form, however, the will to truth also will reveal itself as a will to nothingness (GM III: 28). Heretofore masked, mantled and swaddled in myriad guises, its inconvenient truth hidden from the not-so-prying eyes of uncurious mortals, the will to truth now appears before Nietzsche as it has never before been seen: as the will never to will again. Seeded by the existential refrain – Umsonst! – that haunted the earliest civilized hominids, domesticated by the ancient priestly hatred of all things knightly and aristocratic, and expressed in periodic eruptions of ‘death-seeking mass deliria’ (GM III: 21), the will to nothingness emerges in the aftermath of the ‘death of God’ as a blindly anarchic destructive impulse. No longer encumbered by the cultural bulwarks that were devised to contain its wrathful expression, the will to nothingness threatens to level or disaggregate any and all expressions of order, beauty, form and nobility. This revelation in turn ensures the demise not simply of the regime of ‘Christian morality,’ which is the nominal and proximate target of Nietzsche’s immoralism, but also of morality itself.
Rather than sponsor a genuine alternative to the ‘suicidal nihilism’ that tempted the earliest civilized hominids (GM III: 28), morality has perpetrated an elaborate, culturally-sponsored ruse, enrolling its adherents in a disguised programme of protracted auto-destruction. Rather than discredit or refute the wisdom of Silenus, that is, the will to truth has repackaged its pithy nihilism for popular, leisurely consumption. It has done so, Nietzsche explains, under the aegis of the ascetic ideal, which promises salvation to all those who submit themselves to a prescribed regimen of self-surveillance, self-evaluation and self-castigation. As we learn only in the final section of GM,47 the ascetic ideal arose in response to the temptation of ‘suicidal nihilism,’ which had become increasingly attractive to the earliest civilized hominids as an effective treatment for the meaningless suffering they endured (GM III: 28).48 As we are now in a position to understand, moreover, the rise of the ascetic ideal lent credence to the claims of morality to preside over projects of genuine self-improvement. That these projects have been improbably successful, endowing human beings with an untested complement of acquired capabilities, powers and virtues, is a source of the cautious hope that Nietzsche tentatively invests in the future of humankind (or its emergent outgrowths) (GM III: 27).
Operating within the ‘closed system’ of the ascetic ideal (GM III: 23), morality has prescribed the laws, commandments, proscriptions and prohibitions that collectively have provided sufferers with a framework for their quest for salvation. Thus sheltered, these otherwise desperate sufferers have embarked upon arduous projects of self-improvement, which, they have believed, will redeem (or mitigate) their sinful animal origins. While pretending to renew their attachment to life, however, morality in fact has diverted their attachments to a simulacrum of life, wherein they derive a feeling of power from their efforts to damp down (and eventually extirpate) their most powerful affects. Under the guidance of morality, that is, the earliest civilized hominids learned how to exhaust their animal vitality – and, so, to end their lives – slowly, gently and meaningfully. As revealed by Nietzsche, the secret of the success of Western civilization thus lay in its subterranean nihilism, its refractory recoil from the horror vacui of the human will (GM III: 28).
We are now in a position to see why Nietzsche presents himself in Ecce Homo as opposed not only to Christian morality, but also to morality itself. As it turns out, the enterprise of morality has failed, by its own lights and standards, to promote the cause of human flourishing. It has failed, moreover, neither by accident, nor miscarriage, nor as a result of bad luck or faulty leadership. Nietzsche’s full reckoning of morality reveals that it was never intended to launch humankind towards the realization of its highest aspirations. As an artifice of the ascetic priest (though of necessity misunderstood by him), morality was never meant to accomplish anything more ambitious than to nudge the sick and suffering away from the brink of suicidal nihilism. It did so, as Nietzsche explains, by distracting them from their existential suffering, focusing their attention instead on the ‘deserved’ suffering that arises from their unpaid debts and broken promises.
Although exotic, singular individuals have appeared on occasion, they have emerged only as indirect, unintended products of morality, in excess of its normalizing and stultifying prescriptions. As we have seen, Nietzsche (qua immoralist) is one such excession. As we now learn, he is also the last. Subsequent to his disclosure, or so he believes, there is no longer any point in attempting to rethink, repurpose, reboot or retool morality. (It does not follow, however, that nothing can be made of, or done with, the second nature that we have acquired as a result of our moral acculturation.49) As an enterprise meant to support our efforts to improve and perfect ourselves, morality is done, spent, kaput. All that remains to be done – ostensibly, as we have seen, by Nietzsche and his unknown mates – is to steer morality towards a conclusion that is maximally conducive to the founding of the new ‘tragic age’ that he dares to promise his readers (EH: bt 4).
7 Conclusion
Here it becomes clear, in fact, that Nietzsche means in Ecce Homo to restrict the focus of his challenge to what he elsewhere identifies as but one among many actual and possible forms or families of morality.50 Although he does not say so, he may mean to suggest here that the appearance of Christian morality in its most recently consolidated historical shape has allowed some critics – most notably, him – to discern and chart the larger decadent lineage to which it belongs. As the regime of ‘Christian truthfulness’ gains ascendancy, that is, it cannot help but empower its most intrepid agents to seek (and disclose) the heretofore hidden truth about the rogue species from which it has emerged.51 He thus defines morality fairly strictly, as ‘the idiosyncrasy [or idiopathy]52 of décadents, with the ulterior motive of revenging themselves on life—and succeeding’ (EH: ‘Destiny’ 7). As we have seen, moreover, he is particularly concerned in Ecce Homo to situate the nominal target of his challenge, Christian morality, in a decadent lineage that he traces back to the founding labours of Zoroaster, whom he holds responsible for the ‘translation of morality into the metaphysical, as strength, cause, and goal in itself’ (EH: ‘Destiny’ 3).
Throughout his writings from 1888, in fact, Nietzsche presents himself as determined to halt the spread of an invasive species of morality that has proliferated at the expense of a formerly rich diversity of human types and kinds. Having overgrown, starved or crowded out most other species of morality, this particular species now lays exclusive, proprietary claim to the name and title of morality. It does so, of course, at its own expense, for it can no longer disguise its true identity from Nietzsche and his mates. Caught in the act, as it were, this invasive species is powerless to resist the direction and guidance that its most perfectly evolved specimens now propose to impart to its remaining development. Although he does not say so explicitly, Nietzsche proceeds as if morality became an apt target of scrutiny and meaningful challenge only in the fullness of its development, as marked by his emergence in excess of its norms and prescriptions. Having flushed morality from the nooks and shadows that sheltered its previous incarnations, Nietzsche and his mates now may compel it to assume its final – and, supposedly, self-consuming – historical form.
This means, I take it, that the subtraction (or eradication) of this invasive species should be sufficient to encourage the restoration of diverse expressions of ethical life.53 Owing, apparently, to his most recent rebirth, Nietzsche realizes (and affirms) that Life neither needs nor desires nor favours an avenging swain.54 In his case, in fact, Life requires nothing more than the services of a humble gardener (or vintner), who will eradicate the invasive species of morality. As a disciple of Dionysus, that is, Nietzsche is tasked only with the denial [Verneinung] and destruction [Vernichtung] of this rogue species of morality. The subsequent tasks of seeding and nurturing diverse, alternative expressions of ethical life, unrelated to the toxic lineage that Nietzsche targets for destruction, will fall to other agents, as yet unknown to us, of Life itself.55 He thus gestures hopefully, if vaguely, to a future graced by the echoes and accents of pre-modern ethical life, whether that of the spectator-worthy nobility of ancient Greece or of the straight-shooting heroes of Persian antiquity.
As we have seen, finally, Nietzsche proposes to bring the full force of morality to bear against its generative source. In the aftermath of this momentous act of self-directed disclosure, moral authority will reside in no one. Once morality is finally exposed as a disguised expression of the will to nothingness, it will have exhausted itself as a viable engine of cultural advancement. Much like astrology, alchemy and phrenology before it, morality will be relegated to a status of merely historical (or antiquarian) relevance. At such a point, or so we are promised, the survivors of morality will acknowledge that their ‘old morality’ was actually ‘part of the comedy,’ staged for the perverse amusement of the ‘grand old eternal comic poet of our existence’ (GM P7). If and when the survivors of morality arrive at this happy realization, they will have Nietzsche to thank for it. Their post-moral existence, should it come to pass, will have been made possible by the experimental, truth-telling labours that culminated in his emergence as the first immoralist.56
Notes
1 Sämtliche Briefe 8/1170, p. 500; translated by Whitlock in Montinari, p. 109.
2 Here and throughout this chapter, I follow the broad outline sketched by Jaspers, pp. 249–84. See also Strong, pp. 210–13; Bergmann, pp. 161–5; Detwiler, pp. 54–8; Ansell-Pearson, pp. 200–6; Dombowski, pp. 47–52; and Emden, pp. 299–308.
3 See Shapiro (2008), especially pp. 24–7; and Conway (2009), pp. 48–58.
4 An earlier discussion of the theme of ‘great politics’ hints, broadly and ominously, at the self-sacrificial fervour of the ‘masses’ and their subsequent manipulation at the hands of those ‘great conquerors’ who ‘elevated’ their language, if necessary, to mask the brute reality of their designs on power (D 189).
5 See also Leiter, pp. 279–81; Janaway, pp. 236–9; Owen (2007), pp. 128–9; and Loeb (2010), pp. 234–7.
6 See, for example, his letter to Heinrich Köselitz (aka Peter Gast) on 30 October 1888. Sämtliche Briefe, 8/1137, pp. 460–3.
7 Bergmann offers this passage as evidence that ‘Nietzsche’s antipolitics would conclude by drawing politics back irresistibly into his prophetic vision’ (p. 164)
8 Letter to Paul Deussen on 26 November 1888; translated by Greg Whitlock in his translation of Montinari, p. 109.
9 Draft of letter to Georg Brandes in December 1888; translated by Greg Whitlock in his translation of Montinari, p. 109.
10 A notebook entry bears witness to similar delusions of geopolitical grandeur: ‘The princes of Europe should consider carefully whether they can do without our support. We immoralists—we are today the only power that needs no allies in order to conquer: thus we are by far the strongest of the strong’ (WP 749).
11 Nietzsche also refers to his anticipated influence over Prussian military officers in BGE 251.
12 I discuss Nietzsche’s plans for the Jews in Conway (2009).
13 See Conway (1997), pp. 215–25.
14 This concern is productively explored by Strong, 287–93; Warren, pp. 6–8, 207–11; and Ansell-Pearson, pp. 221–4.
15 See Leiter, pp. 83–6.
16 See Domino, pp. 55–7.
17 Suggesting that his arrival ‘on the scene’ was foretold in his Zarathustra, he cites from the speech ‘On Self-Overcoming’: ‘whoever wants to be a creator in good and evil . . . must first be an annihilator and shatter values. Thus does the highest evil belong to the highest good: but this latter is the creative’ (EH: ‘Destiny’ 1).
18 I am indebted here to Benson, pp. 175–87.
19 In one notebook entry, Nietzsche relates his immoralism to what he calls ‘the grand politics of virtue’, which he presents as the political task of legislating the table of virtues that will secure one’s larger ends (WP 304). An important lesson for anyone who would learn ‘how virtue is made to dominate’ is that ‘one automatically renounces becoming virtuous oneself’ (WP 304).
20 It is on the basis of this critical distance that Nietzsche distinguishes between his ‘immoralism’ and the position or stance of the ‘moralists’. Whereas the immoralist forbids himself the virtues that he legislates, the moralists see themselves, whether originally or over time, as willing exemplars of the virtues they legislate to others (WP 304). The suggestion here is that the moralists eventually fall captive to the virtues they legislate, thereby squandering both the freedom and the desire to deploy morality as a means to grander political ends.
21 See Emden, pp. 216–28.
22 For my understanding of Nietzsche’s immoralism, I am indebted to conversations with Paul Loeb and to his unpublished essay on the topic.
23 He thus suggests that his immoralism affords him the freedom to fulfil what appears to be a straightforwardly moral obligation—namely, to ‘inspire’ if possible, but in any event not to ‘corrupt’ those ‘innocents . . . whom life offers nothing other than their innocence’ (GS 381).
24 See Staten, pp. 143–4; and Loeb (2010), pp. 238–40.
25 See Domino, pp. 58–60.
26 See Dennett, p. 461.
27 While this is by no means the sole objection he raises in The Antichrist(ian), it is the objection that he makes most consistently throughout the book.
28 Similar claims about The Antichrist(ian) have been advanced by Shapiro, pp. 124–31; Berkowitz, pp. 100–2, 108–9; and Benson, pp. 160–3.
29 As Owen (2007) puts it, ‘we are compelled by a reason deriving from the core of “morality” to engage in the project of re-evaluation to which Nietzsche enjoins us’ (p. 129).
30 This is the date that appears above Nietzsche’s name at the conclusion of his Preface to Twilight of the Idols, a date that he identifies as ‘the day on which the First Book of the Revaluation of All Values was completed’ (TI P). In his (draft) letter to Georg Brandes in December 1888, Nietzsche refers to his preparations for ‘an event that will very probably split history into two halves, such that we would have a new calculation of time from 1888 as the year 1’ (Montinari, p. 109).
31 A similar interpretation is advanced by Owen (1995), pp. 89–93.
32 See also Ridley, pp. 97–9; Leiter, pp. 266–73; Owen, Janaway, pp. 231–5; and Hatab, pp. 153–61.
33 In translating Selbstaufhebung as ‘self-cancelation’, I follow the suggestion of Clark and Swensen, p. 117.
34 Here I follow Ridley, pp. 124–6. See also May, pp. 90–2;
35 Here I follow Ridley, pp. 100–4.
36 See also Hatab, pp. 166–8.
37 See also May, pp. 137–8.
38 The emphasis of this section is properly placed, I believe, on Nietzsche’s announcement of his emergence as ‘the first immoralist’. What no one has bothered yet to ask him, apparently, is what the ‘name of Zarathustra’ now means to him, that is, now that he commands the recently attained ‘immoralist’ perspective on display in EH. In other words, or so it seems to me, he wishes to convey the new insight that he has most recently gained into the meaning of his Zarathustra.
39 See also Ridley, pp. 124–6; May, pp. 177–80; Leiter, pp. 264–9; Owen, pp. 126–9; Janaway, pp. 229–39; and Hatab, pp. 166–71.
40 As Janaway observes, ‘Nietzsche appears here as the instrument of a process that morality is inflicting upon itself’ (p. 239).
41 See Ridley, pp. 124–6; Leiter, pp. 180–1; Loeb (2010), pp. 240–2; and Janaway, pp. 237–9.
42 Here I follow Owen (1995), pp. 79–82; and Owen (2007), pp. 135–7. See also Loeb (2010), pp. 208–13.
43 See Loeb (2010), pp. 234–40.
44 Along these lines, Schotten maintains that Nietzsche ultimately betrayed the revolutionary promise of his critical project, falling back instead into a familiar masculinist hope for Christian redemption (pp. 167–70).
45 Nietzsche concludes GM III: 27 by confirming that morality (and not simply Christian morality) ‘will gradually perish now’.
46 For an instructive account of what this investigation might involve, see May, pp. 151–2, 163–4; Leiter, pp. 269–74; and Janaway, pp. 231–5.
47 He previews this conclusion in GM III: 1.
48 See Leiter, pp. 283–6.
49 The project of identifying productive uses of morality, focusing on the Nietzschean ideals of ‘self-affirmation’ and ‘self-satisfaction’, is taken up by Janaway, pp. 252–60.
50 For more general accounts of the conception of morality that Nietzsche seeks to challenge, see May, pp. 104–7; Leiter, pp. 78–80, 127–36; Owen (2007), pp. 129–30; and Hatab, pp. 233–42.
51 See also Owen (1995), pp. 93–7.
52 Large translation, p. 116.
53 Here I follow the suggestion advanced by May, pp. 179–80.
54 This is the lesson that Zarathustra was unable to learn. Insistent on receiving preferential treatment in exchange for his love, he jilted Life in favour of a more suitable consort, whom he called, leaving nothing to the imagination, Eternity (Z III: 16).
55 As Clark suggests (Clark and Swenson, pp. xvii–xxi), some version of Bernard Williams’s influential distinction between ‘ethics’ and ‘morality’ – a distinction that always has struck me as Nietzschean in spirit – may be helpful in sorting out Nietzsche’s challenge to morality. This is especially true, I would add, in the case of his writings from 1888.
56 Several sections of this chapter were presented at the 2012 MANCEPT workshop. My thanks to Barry Stocker and Manuel Knoll for organizing the workshop, and to all of the participants for their generous comments. I am also grateful to the students enrolled in the graduate seminar I offered in 2012 at Texas A&M University. Finally, I am pleased to thank Keith Ansell-Pearson for his incisive editorial interventions and for two decades of rich, rewarding friendship.
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