"Will to power" sounds like a candidate for a good expression of the essence of the ruling classes' consciousnesses from slaveowners to lords to bourgeoisie.
Yet, could Nietszche's rational kernel be some perception and collection of ruling class "wisdom". That is, ruling classes have to have materialist or aethistic sense, knowledge, whatever, to remain on top. The sense that lots of left intellectuals have that N. is onto something may be a sense of this "wisdom", these all time aristocratic smarts. Charles Brown ^^^^^^^ I've melded my last batch of posts, with some improvements, into another blog entry, which will also make for ease of reference: Anti-Nietzsche (5) http://www.autodidactproject.org/my/blog-culture.html#e29 Thus, the relationship between Nietzsche and reactionary politics demands a more sophisticated correlation. This is one reason I reference Raymond Williams' The Politics of Modernism. In any event, the 20th century was filled with avant-garde artists and thinkers sympathetic to fascism but who never would have been accepted into fascist circles due to the latter's conservative, philistine cultural tastes, which also figured into their manipulation of the masses. I believe the Italian Futurists were an exception; I don't know about others. ^^^^^ CB: Ezra Pound Romantics are very problematic politically especially by the 20th Century. As I read further, I see you get into romanticism and politics. ^^^^^^ Well, Nietzsche's contempt for the common herd doesn't seem to be supplemented by any social understanding of what makes the herd a herd, because he is completely lacking a social theory and has only his idealist genealogy and crackpot (non-racist) racialism to offer. ^^^^ CB: Yea, one thing that always strikes me is his mythical version of history. With the Landa article I'm thinking it's a sort of cartoon amalgam of the core of ruling class mythology. In other words, what ruling classes have been thinking to themselves while the working classes were fed the line we know from history. But I might be trippin'. ^^^^ His rage against the perceived mediocrity of the proletariat as well as the bourgeoisie (the two forming, perhaps, a social unity in his mind-Nietzsche as a non-dialectical, anti-marxist Marx?-an anti-Kautsky!) exemplifies a sensibility itself molded by a mystified relation to society. Nietzsche has a harsh view of his society-perhaps he is justified in it-he's got a bad attitude toward the poor and miserable, seeing them as the enemy; he even needs their mediocrity so his genius can stand out so much the more ^^^^^^ CB: Nietzche is a genius at opportunism, according to Landa's thesis. N is just coming up with a new line for the ruling class in light of atheist erosion of religion. I don't know how I call myself a Marxist in looking at Nietzsche when I didn't think that he represents the "third" class , the aristocrats, as well the petit bourgeoisie. I mean Germany had a Kaiser still until after WWI. Nietzsche grewup in a Germany that had been purged of the Left after the defeat of the rev of 1848, a very reactionary location. The growth of its bourgeoisie was stunted by the feudal vestiges lasting longer than other capitalist countries. This is an connection to the Nazis too, who it would seem reflected reactionary ruling class ghosts in their ideology. Landa makes me imagine Nietzsche's "people" as a feudal ruling class ghosts who try to enter the "body" , possess, modern locations such as darwinism. _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list [email protected] To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
