I got it, and read it. I've been posting on it on other lists. Thanks for your summary below. I may post it elsewhere (?)
Oh, it's on the website. Thanks Charles ^^^^^^ Ralph D You really must get hold of this article, which just appeared in the past month or two: Landa, Ishay. "Aroma and Shadow: Marx vs. Nietzsche on Religion," Nature, Society, and Thought, vol. 18, no. 4, 2005, pp. 461-499. http://webusers.physics.umn.edu/%7Emarquit/nst.html This has got to be one of the most important articles on Nietzsche I have read. ^^^^ CB: Likewise ^^^^ The author's thesis is that Nietzsche's atheism is not only not similar to Marx's, but its direct opposite. That is, Nietzsche's atheism was constructed in conscious opposition to socialism and egalitarianism and thus to Marxism. Atheism as such was not a novelty in Nietzsche's time. It was linked to humanism and it already had a role in demystifying and combatting the right to rule of the ruling classes. The minions of the ruling classes, e.g., John Henry Cardinal Newman, were quite anxious about this. The Death of God was the key issue for Nietzsche, in that the positive value of religion was its ability to sustain hierarchy, and what he most despised about Christianity was its egalitarian and democratic dimension, and thus the Death of God must be exploited as an occasion for the transvaluation of egalitarian values into a new apologia for hierarchy. God "humanized" the universe; but the pessimistic nihilism issuing from the Death of God is the frisson of coldness and heartlessness. How does the naturalization of humanity according to Nietzsche's prospectus differ from Marx's? Since the universe does not strive to imitate man, "_humans_ should _imitate the universe_, bow before the indifference and absurdity of existence and rearrange their lives accordingly. . . .Thus, it does not suffice to affirm that the world is nonhuman; somehow we must all exult in this nonhumanity, come to applaud the magnificence of the void; we may even wish to consider a glorious plunge into its 'chaotic' depths." (472) This is in direct opposition to the vision of socialist atheism. Above all, Nietzsche's Zarathustra dissociates himself from "these poisonous spiders" the "preachers of equality." Socialists are excoriated as continuators of the Christian disease. (479-83) To me this sounds akin to the Nazi Heidegger. Heidegger is not mentioned, but this peculiar 'naturalism' is linked to the Nazi desecularization and reenchantment of the world. (474) The view of nature as alien, hostile, pitiless, and meaningless is of course a staple of existentialism, and Marxists--Frederic Jameson is cited--have fooled themselves into thinking it compatible with Marxism, though it is in contradiction with Marx's conception of de-alienation (cf. 1844 mss.). (475) Since life is not about peace and self-preservation but war and conflict, the the affirmation of life entails the affirmation of cruelty and death, and ultimately a "yes-saying to death," i.e. a death cult. This is one paradox of Nietzsche's Lebensphilosophie; another is the curious reification of life (apart from concrete lives) as an abstract force, linked to the Ubermensch. (483-5) The final section of the article is devoted to Marx's and Engels' refutation of the Ubermensch. Landa analyzes their critique of Eugene Sue's _The Mysteries of Paris_ in _The Holy Family_. Religion is criticized as a dehumanizing and inegalitarian force. 'Good' and 'evil' are criticized as moralistic abstractions in contradistinction to the empirical experience of good and evil of the poor. The overcoming of moralism and metaphysics for Marx and Engels lead to conclusions diametrically opposed to Nietzsche's 'beyond good and evil'. Working class 'anthropomorphism' is an anticipatory manifestation of the drive to humanize the world, in opposition to Nietzsche's dehumanizing naturalization of the human. Marx and Engels provide only an indirect preemptory refutation of Nietzsche in retrospect. But Engels' critique of Carlyle's aristocratic Romantic anti-capitalism cuts closer to the bone. Carlyle is remarkably observant of the realities of capitalist "progress", but from a mistaken metaphysical, moralistic and aristocratic perspective. Engels accepts Carlyle's empirical observations but directly attacks Carlyle's mysticism and all notions of the superhuman. On the contrary, for Engels "Man's own substance is far more splendid and sublime then the imaginary substance of any conceivable 'God'. . ." Engels also defends democracy, limited and transitory as it is, against Carlyle's anti-democratic perspective. In other words, to hell with irrationalism, pantheism, vitalism, and all the alternative mysticisms. Landa concludes with the ironies of the ensuing century: with secularism and religious revivals crossing back and forth between social classes and political loyalties, with both God and godlessness fighting on both sides, at various times. The ideology of contemporary society is ruled by a schizophrenic God. References to note: Engels, Frederick. "The Condition of England. Past and Present by Thomas Carlyle, London, 1843" http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/df-jahrbucher/carlyle.htm Gedö, András. "Why Marx or Nietzsche?", Nature, Society, and Thought, vol. 11, no. 3, 1998, pp. 331-346. http://webusers.physics.umn.edu/%7Emarquit/gedo113.htm _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list [email protected] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
