I don’t get the fascination with Nietzsche. I just read Beyond Good and Evil, and it is entertaining for the over-the-top bravado, but it seems all attitude and no substance. Or what substance there is comes in a kind of rambling teenage blog – this and that about philosophy, a dozen or so pages devoted to witty but dubious generalizations about race and nationality, occasional 2- or 3-page romps into witty but dubious generalizations about women, a sudden chapter on music. If you enjoy the bullying wit of a Simon Cowell or a Gordon Ramsay (or Trump for that matter), Nietzsche is your guy. But I can’t figure out how to take him seriously as a philosopher.
When he does venture into critiquing previous philosophers, it again seems all attitude and no substance. In sweeping dismissals, he attacks Kant, Plato, et al., not with argument but with attitude – as if being critical with enough attitude, enough wit and passion, will, in the absence of any real argument, bully people into agreeing with you for fear of your ferocious wit – your ill-natured “will to power” (if you will). It’s like Trump mowing over his opponents by name-calling and verbal bullying.
This approach might partly be explained by one of Nietzsche’s well-taken points – that psychology is the hidden key to philosophy and other quests for knowledge. “Every great philosophy up to now has consisted of … unconscious autobiography,” in which the philosopher “creates the world in [his] own image” (Chap. 1).
When Nietzsche turns this shrewd analytical model on his favorite nemesis, “old Kant” as Nietzsche flippantly likes saying, some elements of Beyond Good and Evil become clear to me. Regarding Kant’s categorical imperative, Nietzsche says: ”Apart from the value of such assertions as ‘there is a categorical imperative in us,’ one can always ask: What does such an assertion indicate about him who makes it?” (Chap. 5)
Two things here. First is Nietzsche’s dismissal of the cornerstone of Kant’s ethics, the “categorical imperative” – not because he has any argument against it, but merely because a universal ground of ethics is anathema to Nietzsche’s pet theory of one morality for the master class and a different morality for the slave class. Kant’s universal ground of ethics – basically behaving in a way that is universalizable – the way that you would wish all people to behave in similar circumstances, irrespective of any ‘interest’ you may have in the situation – this might lead one, in Nietzsche’s words, to treat “public spirit, kindness, deference, industry, temperance, modesty, indulgence, sympathy … as the peculiarly human virtues” (Chap. 5). Of course, for Nietzsche these are NOT human virtues generally but virtues that apply to the slave-morality, to we everyday sufferers who would value sympathetic relations with our fellow sufferers. For those “destined to command,” a different morality applies, a morality that values “certain strong and dangerous instincts, such as the love of enterprise … revengefulness … rapacity, and love of power” (Chap. 5). These qualities, which were considered good in the old heroic age and are now considered “evil” in our debauched age of democracy and mediocrity, need to be restored as applicable for the “higher orders of men” (Chap. 3) while the great mediocre majority sticks to their slave morality of compassion and so forth. On this issue, I’ll take Kant over Nietzsche – not only because Kant at least takes the time to make a logical argument for his case, but also because a Kantian world where people treat each other as they would like to be treated just sounds better than a Nietzschean aristocracy equipped “to accept with good conscience the sacrifice of a legion of individuals, who, for its sake, must be suppressed and reduced to imperfect men, to slaves and instruments”; i.e., an aristocracy whose “fundamental belief must be precisely that society is not allowed exist for its own sake, but only as a foundation and scaffolding, by means of which a select class of beings may be able to elevate themselves” (Chap. 9). It sounds a little bit like roaming gangs in the service of strongmen plundering the rest of society at will. It seems this has been tried, e.g., in medieval times before the great monarchies rose to establish widespread law and order, albeit through absolutist rule, or in more modern times, the battling warlords of Somalia, each following his own “will to power,” believing in “rank and NOT in equality” (Chap. 1) and rising above the “shallow-mindedness” of “equal rights, equal training, equal claims and obligations” (Chap. 7). I am as amused as the next reader at Nietzsche’s bracing bravado, but forgive me if it all sounds a little dystopic if taken seriously.
The second takeaway from Nietzsche’s dismissal of the categorical imperative arises from his psychological focus. “Every great philosophy …[is] unconscious autobiography” indeed. Nietzsche’s rejection of the categorical imperative, though no argument against it, reveals Nietzsche’s own attachment to his double morality for master and slave classes, just as his grounding of human nature to the “will to power” says more about him than about human nature generally. (Might not others be driven by a will to love or will to harmony or Nietzsche’s much-maligned will to truth?) One suspects that as a child he was chastised to obey the rules of good behavior and not throw tantrums to put his own will above the rights and well-being of others. Consequently, he devoted his life’s work to justifying his own impetuous will to power. Good for him. But don’t drag the rest of us into the same dark and narcissistic space. (One similarly imagines Ayn Rand being told as a child not to be so selfish and hence devoting her life’s work to a justification of selfishness.)
Nietzsche’s autobiographical/psychoanalytical caveat may further explain his appeal. Most kids want to be “in” with the bully who exhibits the most bravado in the schoolyard. And most do not outgrow this with age (witness Trump’s popularity). The masses have no interest in systematic argument. They prefer an autocrat’s withering derision of “the idiot masses,” as it (1) makes them feel aligned with the autocrat’s power, and (2) makes them feel that they themselves are superior to “the masses.” #1 might at first seem to support of Nietzsche’s view of the primacy of “will to power,” but — sadly for “old Nietzsche” — it is specifically the “lower order of human beings,” not his “higher order,” who get suckered in on #1. D. H. Lawrence’s Apocalypse, a death-bed plea for a spiritual and cultural rejuvenation, shares much of Nietzsche’s world view, but Lawrence is much clearer about this latter point — that the “will to power” crowd are not the cream of the crop, as Nietzsche presumes.
Let me pause to say that there are parts of the book I appreciate. The willingness to defy convention and carve your own path – e.g., the push to liberate sensuality from conventional moralities – is certainly admirable to me. Some of the historical looks at morality are good. The emphasis on the psychology behind philosophical systems is indeed enlightening and still underworked as far as I can see in my limited view of modern philosophy. Some of his critical points about religion and the soul seem well-taken, though they don’t require much heavy lifting intellectually. But even the solid points suffer from the megalomaniacal side of his thought. E.g., that untruth (as well as truth, one might say) is a condition of life (Chap. 1) is an interesting and solid point, but that “a philosophy which ventures to” base itself on that proposition “place[s] itself beyond good and evil” is a huge leap in logic, although Nietzsche treats it as if the one follows seamlessly from the other – a willingness to play sloppy with logic that you would never find in Plato or Kant.
Along these lines, the emphasized “will to power” seems all too often to simply mean that bluster is sufficient, without logic or evidence. And indeed, his critique of other philosophers is largely just that – bluster without argument. It’s like Trump giving second-grade name tags to his opponents – fallacious at best, but a good way to hook the masses. Most Trumpian/Orwellian of all, Nietzsche reviles Kant’s pride – here, in the midst of a book that opens with a breathtaking dismissal of all Platonists, Stoics, Kantians, etc., as idiots who stand to be corrected in this volume!
When he does seem to make an argument against Kant (though not mentioning Kant in this passage), his argument seems an almost childlike misunderstanding of Kant. “Others say even that the external world is the work of our organs. But then our body, as a part of this external world, would be the work of our organs … reductio ad absurdum” (Chap. 1). One would have to misunderstand the relation between noumenal and phenomenal worlds in a very fundamental way to think this is a critique of Kant.
The same with cogito ergo sum. He mocks those who say “I think” presupposes an “I” (Chap. 1). His point that too much, post-Descartes, has been presumed about this subjective ‘I’ doing the thinking and doubting may be well-taken and yet his adolescent need for bluster takes the reins, and here too he lets what could have been a good argument devolve into an exercise in attitude. To give Nietzsche his due, bluster gets ratings with the masses, whether it’s the bluster of Simon Cowell, Chef Gordon Ramsay, or Donald Trump. These public figures may have bits of good as well as bad to offer, but it’s the bluster that gets the ratings. In the case of Nietzsche and Descartes, the idea that even if I deny reality exists, I cannot dispute that ‘I’ am denying it – in terms of reasoned argument, this idea seems more convincing than Nietzsche’s mockery of it.
A common defense of Nietzsche on this issue is that he is deliberately unsystematic and should not be judged by the terms of systematic philosophers like Plato or Kant. I am unconvinced. This is like a student in an academic writing class saying, “I don’t believe in systematic reasoning so you can’t judge me on whether I actually support my claims with logic or evidence.” I suspect that would not fly, even in Nietzsche’s own courses in classical philology. So why do people tolerate it in Nietzsche’s philosophy? Because people tend to give a wide berth to the schoolyard bully. And then they find a rationalization.
It may be that how we choose to define philosophy is what’s at stake here, so let me be clear. To me, philosophy is (1) partly defined by the kind questions you ask — not what is the speed of light but questions about the nature of reality, of human experience, of ethics, knowledge, values, etc.; and (2) partly defined by the process you follow. Even if we grant there’s no absolute truth, philosophy should be reasoning things forward, drawing upon logic and evidence to get closer and closer to a more accurate or useful endpoint. So, yes, for me, Plato and Kant are definitive philosophers; Nietzsche is just a blogger before his time. (Nothing against bloggers — I am a blogger myself — but if you want to disregard systematically supporting your claims, just admit you are a blogger and not a philosopher — you cannot compete with Plato and Kant on their own turf.)
Returning to Nietzsche’s caveat, “Every great philosophy …[is] unconscious autobiography,” I believe that is indeed the keynote of the book. Nietzsche is perhaps more of a psychoanalyst of philosophy than a philosopher himself. And when one turns the psychoanalysis back upon Nietzsche, the rest of the book does make more sense. It is by using himself as a standard that he concludes that the “will to power” is the cardinal instinct of humankind (Chap. 5), that as one of “the higher class of men,” he has a RIGHT to ramble through generalizations about nationalities, women, music, whatever, and no need to justify any of it to the mediocre masses of the slave morality (presumably, us).
It is demagoguery in the manner of Trump. For the noble man, “morality equals self-glorification” (Chap. 9). “Egoism belongs to the essence of the noble soul, I mean the unalterable belief that to a being such as ‘we’, other beings must naturally be in subjection, and have to sacrifice themselves” (Chap. 9). You can’t find a better definition of Trump narcissism than that.
And if the bravado of these quotes seems over the top, there are plenty more.
“A man who has depth of spirit … can only think of women as orientals do; he must conceive of her as a possession, as confinable property, as a being predestined to service ….[The problem today is] she is unlearning to fear man: but the woman who ‘unlearns to fear’ sacrifices her most womanly instincts … she is daily being made more hysterical and more incapable of fulfilling her first and last function, that of bearing robust children” (Chap. 7).
“Resist all sentimental weakness: life itself is essentially appropriation, injury, conquest of the strange and weak, suppression … exploitation” (Chap. 9).
These passages sound an awful lot like what we would today call social media trolling.
I suppose the clearest counterpoint to the ethical base of Beyond Good and Evil is the Dalai Lama:
“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.”
Ah, compassion! The bete noire of Beyond Good and Evil, the lynchpin to the democratic forces “threaten[ing] a new Buddhism” in Europe, with their belief “in the herd … in their religion of sympathy, in their compassion for all that feels, lives, and suffers” (Chap. 5). Sorry, but as with Kant above, I’ll take the Dalai Lama over Nietzsche on this one.
And at the end, a curiosity. The final passage of the book throws in a disarming bit of humility. “I, the last disciple and initiate of the God Dionysus: and perhaps I might at last begin to give to you, my friends, as far as I am allowed, a little taste of this philosophy? In a hushed voice, as is but seemly…” (Chap. 9). After a text of breathtaking arrogance in its dismissal of all previous philosophers and of equal rights for all but the master class, it is hard to tell if this humble bit is tongue-in-cheek or a revelation that the real Nietzsche is not the pompous bully who just delivered the book-length harangue but a companionate fellow traveler who was just bantering us the whole time. I tend to favor the “pompous bully” theory, but the trolling nature of the outlandish rhetoric gives me second thoughts. Maybe he was just trolling, bantering. Maybe the whole thing was ironic. I don’t know. For one thing, I haven’t read other bits and books by Nietzsche in many years, so I’m just giving my own bemused reactions to this one. Some of you Nietzsche supporters and scholars can reply with chuckles, clarifications, or merciless attacks. Anything to liberate my readers from the now-public quagmire of my own thoughts.
* * * Click covers for links * * *
shakemyheadhollow 