Re: Contra-Nietzsche

[Sam Pawlett <rsp@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Why We Are Not Nietzscheans by Luc Ferry
>
> Review by Fredrick Appel
>
> The familiar view of Friedrich Nietzsche as a philosopher of emancipation
> can be traced back to Walter Kaufmann, whose role as Nietzsche's foremost
> English-language translator and interpreter can scarcely be underestimated.
> In the pervasive annotations accompanying his translations and his own
> scholarly studies, Kaufmann challenged the prevailing (and largely
> unjustified) postwar reputation of Nietzsche as a proto-Nazi by portraying
> the volatile German iconoclast as an heroic figure worthy of membership in
> the Canon of Enlightenment thinkers.
>

Walter Kaufmann was a rabid right winger. See his introduction to
Richard Schacht *Alienation* (a good book). I think it's no accident
that the texts where Nietzsche comes across as his most anti-socialist
(Beyond Good and Evil, Will to Power) were translated by Kaufmann.I
think ,generally, there
are two Nietzsches; the  one studied by English speaking philosophers
and the one studied by European philosophers. The Europeans tend to give
more political readings of Nietzsche (except for Heidegger, but who on
earth knows what he is talking about) while Anglo-Americans focus
more on what N had to say on the traditional questions e.g. the nature
of truth and reality, objectivity vs. subjectivity of values etc.
   I think N was a kind of social darwinist, an early socio-biologist
and a kind of proto-Ayn Randian.
Socialism for him ,as he states explicitly in Beyond Good and Evil, Will
to Power etc., is a
mutation of what N calls the "ascetic ideal" a phrase he uses to
castigate the  christian moral impulses in the yearning for
objectivity.. Socialism and
Christianity are philosophies of the herd,  attempts  by the weak to
gang up on the strong. The result is mediocrity, death of creativity and
conformity. Many philosophers read N's polemics against the "ascetic
ideal" as a metaphor for the impulses towards objectivity and
correspondance theory of truth (see Hubert Dreyfus, A.Nehamas). The
ascetic ideal is an attempt to mask the ultimately perspectival or
relativist nature of reality and truth. Proponents of the "ascetic
ideal" are merely trying to foist their version of the world which they
mask as "objective" over other interpretations. Objectivity and
disinterested inquiry are a will to power of the weakest hence no such
thing as the disinterested subject.An interesting
book
arguing agains tthis view is Maudmarie Clark *Nietzsche on Truth and
Philosophy.* Also Nancy Love Marx and Nietzsche on Modernity.

Sam Pawlett