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> > > Here is an old post of mine that I wrote on Nietzsche some years ago. ( > http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/marxism/2007w27/msg00166.html). > > I think that any discussion of Nietzsche and politics has to take into > account the fact that he has long been a popular figure on the left as well > as the right. Even in his own lifetime, German Social Democrats were > already striving to integrate his ideas into their brands of Marxism. In > Russia, following the failed 1905 revolution, certain Russian Marxists like > Anatoli Lunacharsky began to take a great interest in him. Trotsky wrote a > famous polemic against Nietzsche but one can't help feeling that the Old > Man himself was influenced by Nietzsche. > > Jim Farmelant > http://independent.academia.edu/JimFarmelant > http://www.foxymath.com > Learn or Review Basic Math > Jim, I remember this; I was knocking around the list at the time and responded by referencing N.'s pseudo-scientific racism in *On the Genealogy of Morals*. I don't think Gary or I are denying that there are many arguably leftist figures, like Foucault or Deleuze, who are explicitly admirous of Nietzsche -- and I would not be surprised to learn that the "god-builders" of early Bolshevism took a lively interest in him. What we are saying is that the "liberal" Nietzsche who has been made an idol of in modern intellectual life by Walter Kaufmann and people like him is really several shades too close to fascism -- an inegalitarian internationalist is not really such a good friend to have -- and at this juncture in social movement, Lukacs is a much better guide than say Derrida as to what will put worthy "boots on the ground". I think by including a link to the online edition of Colli-Montinari -- for "further research" as Robert Christgau puts it -- I was not denying that Nietzsche is interesting, or worth of study by revolutionary socialists, just that the traditional story told about him is too simplistic. What can be said for Nietzsche as "the Chinese Worker's Friend" (as it was once put in NLR): this is a touchy subject because many comrades are keenly interested in metaphysics, epistemology and value theory as exciting topics of debate -- despite years of training, my personal attitude is more the doctrinaire Marxist one that philosophy is merely a propaedutic to social transformation -- and Nietzsche, as someone for whom thinking was a "feast", a philosopher's philosopher, will deeply appeal to them. And the "Continental" tradition, which many people outside Europe take as definitive, can not be neatly classed into fascist and anti-fascist camps: Heidegger, whom I was defending recently as a deluded fool rather than a total goon, was Herbert Marcuse's *Doktorvater* and himself someone marked by Nietzsche's influence throughout his whole work -- his omnibus lectures on Nietzsche are certainly a very interesting attempt to enact his promised "destruction" of the history of metaphysics -- though one might well note their placement in history near and in WWII. Additionally, I'm sure that the professional historians here would have us note that Nietzsche is a respectable member of the class of mostly German intellectuals sidling up to a forth Critique, the "Critique of Historical Reason"; Hayden White is not exactly a blackshirt, but Nietzsche of course receives an extensive treatment in his *Metahistory*. Finally, Foucault's generalization of Marxist class theory to cover other domains of social struggle and formation of the individual almost makes Nietzsche more radical than Marx. *Fast nur*, though; Foucault is an excellent example of postwar enthusiasm for a "leftist" melding of anti-liberal social energies once quite comfortable in unfree Europe (Remember his famous statement about "the sun of Polish liberty"? He wasn't talking about Solidarnosc yet) and a slightly liberalized capitalist cash nexus -- if we find Francois Hollande disappointing, and I don't see how you couldn't, this "leftist Nietzsche" is partially to blame. (Although I have been reading Carnap's *Aufbau*, and he does cite Nietzsche more than a little bit, I move to table the question raised by your earlier comments of Nietzsche's influence on positivism; although the "phenomenalist" moment in analytic philosophy was not without echo in the Nietzschean corpus, and you later see "liberal" people like Bernard Williams taking up Nietzschean cudgels in moral philosophy, it is not quite the thing Gary is talking about). So, yes, the history of philosophy since 1890 is deeply marked by the understandable influence of Nietzsche; but I think what we are saying is that social history since 1990 suggests "such friends are dangerous", and that Marxist activists do need to clearly articulate a "regime of truth" open to and respectful the cognitive rights of all people regardless of their "will to power". Jeff Rubard ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@greenhouse.economics.utah.edu Set your options at: http://greenhouse.economics.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
