Ishay Landa
Nietzsche, the Chinese Workers Friend
New Left Review I/236, July-August 1999
Landa reviews the fancy dancing that the French poststructuralists do to
cover up the textual specificity of Nietzshe's reactionary politics. He
recommends to cut through the verbal fog of Netizsche's interpreters and go
right to the texts themselves>
------------------
The premise of most critics when evaluating Nietzsches politics is
profoundly idealist: the ideas are regarded as the solid ground upon
which a fitting political construction erects itself; the fundamental
motifs are aesthetic and epistemological, and a socio-political
direction is taken only in response to the philosophical meditation.
Nietzsche is, for instance, the great spokesman of the life-instinct,
the defender of the joy of conquest and self-assertion, to which all
other considerations, notably the social and the moral, should
succumb. It is this underlying idea, this fundamental conviction,
which drives Nietzsche along his path:
[L]ife itself is essentially appropriation, injury,
overpowering of the
strange and weaker, suppression, severity, imposition of ones own
forms, incorporation and, at the least and mildest, exploitation...
On no point, however, is the common European consciousness more
reluctant to learn than it is here; everywhere one enthuses, even
under scientific disguises, about coming states of society in which
there will be no more exploitationthat sounds to my ears like
promising a life in which there will be no organic functions.
Exploitation does not pertain to a corrupt or imperfect or
primitive society: it pertains to the essence of the living thing as a
fundamental organic function, it is a consequence of the intrinsic
will to power which is precisely the will to life.15
One may debate the ethical implications of such a vision, but it is
hard to deny its coherence and transparency, which other, more subtle
systems, can only envy. But Nietzsche, as mentioned earlier,
mistrusts all systems and avoids them. And, if the system itself is
lacking, no primordial element, whether it is called the life-instinct,
Dionysian energy or the will to power, may be viewed as its
ontological premise. Nietzsche, in fact, clearly does not establish
appropriation, injury, overpowering, suppression, severity,
imposition, incorporation or exploitationin other words, power
as the driving force of his philosophy. He by no means sanctions just
any manifestation of potency: throughout his philosophical corpus,
there emerges a series of strict qualifications, a firm conditioning of
the use of power, the outcome of which is a taming of Dionysus,
whose initial roar of joy at being unleashed of all restrictions is turned
into a disheartened grumble, as he is escorted back to his cage. The
new code of power consists of various dictates; to start with, power
should not be subversive. Any surge of power from below, any social
mutiny is vehemently reprehended. For example:
There is nothing more terrible than a class of barbaric slaves who
have learned to regard their existence as an injustice, and now
prepare to avenge, not only themselves, but all generations.16
As a further obstacle that any legitimate use of power must
surmount, Nietzsche emphasizes that there is very little anarchism or
individualism in the volcanic eruptions of the will to power. Its
burning lava, the overflowing essence of life, only threatens to flood
the world but in reality pours itself with consummate ease into the
conventional moulds of class society: . . . . .
Future interests are preferred over immediate gratification; self-preservation
ranks higher than sheer use of power in Nietzsches order
of priorities. Summing up the socio-political meaning of power in
Nietzsches thought, one finds that it should ultimately serve and
protect the strong, the noble, the aristocratic, but should not be
exploited when it may damage their position and turn against them;
in no case should it benefit the weak, the lower classes, the rabble,
the slaves. So it turns out that, in Nietzsches chaotic, Dionysian
cosmos, of permanent danger, perilous seas, wars and struggles, pain
and competition, the socially privileged are hermetically shielded
from even the most insignificant challenge.
------------
Landa goes on to clarify how even thinkers who recognize the reactionary
dimension of Nietzsche's thought defuse this criticism by sloughing it all
off on Nietzsche's aestheticism. Both Mann and Habermas do this. Landa
gives it to both of them between the eyes, e.g.:
------------------
All the twists and turns of Nietzsches aesthetic epistemology are
followed and described, but there is no suggestion of a pre-existing or
simultaneously operating political drive. Characteristic of this line of
interpretation are the assumptions that Nietzsche rebels against
everything normative, and that he trusts only in art. Nietzsche,
however, did not reject norms as such, but usually only those
prejudices which he esteemed socially destructive; nor did he yield
to artistic drives in automatic preference to other considerations. We
have seen how he opposed potentially dazzling eruptions of violence
in favour of a much more calculated and responsible use of power,
when he warned against over-abusing the worker. It is on that
account that Habermass treatment of Nietzsche, harshly critical as it
certainly is, stops short of providing a wholly satisfying analysis.
Both Mann and Habermas conduct an idealist confrontation with
Nietzsche, refuting and proposing modifications to the philosophers
notions of good, evil, true, or false, while quite overlooking the
fact that the real point of dispute is a political one. This explains,
among other things, how Mann can indignantly reproach Nietzsche
with ignoring Novaliss wise admonition against the artistic
glorification of power, as if Nietzsche were a wayward child, only in
need of a better example.26
---------
Most damning are the numerous quotations from Nietzsche himself.
_______________________________________________
Marxism-Thaxis mailing list
[email protected]
To change your options or unsubscribe go to:
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
