A short, CRITICAL History of Philosophy (Chapter 18)
To What Degree Was Friedrich Nietzsche A Madman?
Friedrich Nietzsche was several different writers. He is a theoretician of aesthetics. He is a critic of religion. And he is an exponent of the concept of radical subjectivity. Each of these is of much significance, and we need to examine each.
In our time, the notion of radical subjectivity – that our personal perceptions are so warped as to make objectivity nearly or actually impossible – has wedded itself to a debased version of Marxism in which the accounts or “narratives” of whatever group of individuals may claim to be oppressed are afforded special standing. This is ironic. After all, it is hard to conceive of any writer of modern times who had so little interest or regard for the downtrodden. This was most fully revealed in what still may rank as his most influential book, On The Genealogy of Morals: A Polemic.
Cast out of academia, Nietzsche responded to its rejection by spurning its devotion to meticulous scholarship. The book evidences this scornful attitude. As he expressed the point in his Untimely Meditations: “We want to serve history only to the extent that history serves life: for it is possible to value the study of history to such a degree that life becomes stunted and degenerate.” There are more important things, he is telling us, than learning from books and scrupulousness about the facts.
Unlike most of the philosophical texts discussed in this volume The Genealogy is not offering a priori reasoning. Instead, it professes to be a historical account of the emergence of Christianity, along with an extended critique of its values. Nietzsche sees Christian piety and mercy not as admirable and decent, but as signposts of jealousy and self-abasement. It is, he says, a “slave morality.” During the Roman Empire, he argues, the religion spread among those who were without power, most especially among those in bondage. It appealed to them, he suggests, because its message of tolerance, forgiveness and love was motivated not by goodness but as a way of hypocritically empowering and assuaging feelings of resentment among those who were weak and lowly. As in all of his writing, there are no footnotes, and there is no bibliography. His claims are presented apodictically – as though they were beyond dispute. This style of argument is not that of the historian but that of the religious zealot. This serves Nietzsche well since subsequent investigation has shown that a great many of the first converts to Christianity were not slaves but rather wealthy urban sophisticates. Those who resisted the new faith tended to live in impoverished rural enclaves. Many were in conditions of servitude. This pattern of conversion is indicated in our language as the term pagan comes from a Latin word meaning villager, and heathen means heath dweller. Simply put, Nietzsche appears to have reversed matters.
Nietzsche (right) with his friend Paul Rée (center) and the great love of his life, Lou Andreas-Salomé (left). Note that the famous misogynist is neither the one holding the whip, nor the reins.
This was not all he got wrong. In setting forth his argument, he played on a notion that dated back to the eighteenth century British historian Edward Gibbon. This was that Christians were not inclined to fight on behalf of the empire and that this was a cause of its fall. This is false. The rates of Roman military service in the fifth century were lowest in the Italian peninsula. That was where the old pagan beliefs remained strongest. By contrast, around Constantinople and throughout the Near East, Rome’s armies continued to be fully manned and the level of voluntarism was high. Where Christian faith was most deeply implanted, there was no shortage of troops, and the barbarian hordes did not conquer.
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