RadixJournal - January 14, 2018


Bowden! - 2 - The Uses and Abuses of Nietzsche


Episode Stats

Length

55 minutes

Words per Minute

147.97174

Word Count

8,160

Sentence Count

239

Misogynist Sentences

2

Hate Speech Sentences

30


Summary

Jonathan Bowden is a Renaissance man in our movement. He is a political and cultural commentator, a novelist, a painter, a writer, a thinker, and an orator. In this episode, Jonathan talks about a thinker of immense importance for our movement and the world: Friedrich Nietzsche.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Welcome to Vanguard, a podcast of radical traditionalism.
00:00:24.480 Here's your host, Richard Spencer.
00:00:28.380 Hello, everyone.
00:00:30.000 It's a pleasure to welcome back to the program, Jonathan Bowden.
00:00:34.880 Jonathan is a Renaissance man in our movement.
00:00:38.840 He is a political and cultural commentator, a novelist, a painter, and an orator.
00:00:45.520 And if you'd like to find out more about Jonathan, you can visit his personal website,
00:00:50.620 which is jonathanbowden.co.uk.
00:00:56.580 So, Jonathan, welcome back.
00:00:58.080 Yes, hello. Nice to be back.
00:01:01.320 Well, I hope you had a joyful Yuletide and Christmas and New Year's holiday.
00:01:08.760 Yes, it was good, but you can't but not want to pick up the reins again.
00:01:13.760 Oh, that's true.
00:01:15.720 That's true.
00:01:16.780 Well, today we're going to talk about a thinker of immense importance for our movement and the world,
00:01:24.540 and that is Friedrich Nietzsche.
00:01:27.680 In the allotted amount of time, there's no possible way to cover all of the ground of Nietzsche's thought.
00:01:34.800 However, I thought a good place to start for our purposes would be with the contemporary consciousness of Nietzsche.
00:01:45.360 That is, what do people think of him today, educated people, maybe even average people,
00:01:51.240 and how is that idea of him false and so on and so forth.
00:01:55.140 But I think that's a good place to start, and then we could maybe go a little deeper later on in the interview
00:02:00.340 and get at the core of Nietzsche's thought and spirit.
00:02:03.700 But just to set everything up, it's worth mentioning that Nietzsche is certainly a famous and infamous,
00:02:13.840 greatly admired, also kind of notorious philosopher.
00:02:17.040 He's also one of the precious few philosophers that an average American would have heard of,
00:02:24.780 and I think it's probably the same in the U.K. and maybe a little bit different on the continent.
00:02:30.140 But they've probably heard of Plato and Aristotle, maybe Descartes, but they've also heard of Nietzsche,
00:02:37.220 and they know him mostly through his maxim of God is dead, which, of course, might inspire some and infuriate others.
00:02:49.380 But also, there's an interesting point that Jonathan actually mentioned off-air,
00:02:53.980 and that is that he's one of the only philosophers whom one could call a radical traditionalist
00:03:03.200 or an archaeo-futurist or someone connected to the new right,
00:03:08.420 who is actually taught and indeed embraced in the leftist academy.
00:03:15.200 So people like Spangler or, for an example, Lothrop Stoddard or some of these interesting figures
00:03:24.020 whose spirits are certainly akin to Nietzsche's are dismissed or ignored or ridiculed, so on and so forth.
00:03:33.320 However, Nietzsche is someone who is embraced by the leftist academics
00:03:39.280 as a kind of brother of Foucault and Descartes and so on and so forth.
00:03:45.380 So after I've set the table there, Jonathan, why don't you talk just a little bit about Nietzsche today?
00:03:53.600 What does he mean for the average person?
00:03:57.400 What does he mean for an educated person who's gone through a Nietzsche course at his university?
00:04:05.060 Yes, I think those are two very radically different things.
00:04:10.620 I think, to turn it around slightly and begin with the educated echelon first,
00:04:17.000 there's a Nietzsche that survives today, which is in some ways a misreading of his actual text,
00:04:22.900 although because his own texts are so multiple and binary, piled upon binary rhythm,
00:04:28.840 that you have a sort of concatenation of viewpoints and philosophical tendencies,
00:04:35.100 which makes it very difficult to grasp him and to present him in a whole or holistic manner.
00:04:42.060 But nevertheless, there is a left-wing Nietzsche which is around today,
00:04:45.820 and this celebrates his tearing down, the fact that he tore down the curtain of Christianity,
00:04:50.960 that he's not a metaphysical traditionalist at the level of pure philosophy in certain respects.
00:05:00.320 The way into a left-wing interpretation of Nietzsche, as in Deleuze and Guattari's book,
00:05:05.820 Nietzsche, which is a sort of hymn to a left-wing version, a left-wing shadow version of him,
00:05:11.420 is to concentrate on epistemology, which is thinking about thinking.
00:05:15.920 Because you could argue that Nietzsche's a radical subjectivist at one level,
00:05:21.760 and also that he doesn't believe that there are totally objective standards,
00:05:26.600 cosmic standards outside time, history, place, and circumstance.
00:05:32.160 This renders him a relativist by some accounts,
00:05:35.880 and he can then be used to engage in exercises of moral relativism,
00:05:41.020 particularly in relation to traditional religiosity.
00:05:43.700 All of this, in Deleuze and Guattari's version, is filtered into discourse against Christianity.
00:05:51.580 That's one of their primary goals.
00:05:53.860 It's almost as if Christianity hasn't been kicked enough.
00:05:57.460 But of course, in North America, Christianity is very powerful in a way that is not the case in Europe.
00:06:06.680 It's certainly not in Western Europe.
00:06:08.220 In Western and Northern Europe, it's a bit sacrilegious in a strange sort of way.
00:06:13.060 It's a bit like kicking a corpse.
00:06:14.760 It's regarded as unfair or sort of slightly sort of kicking a man when he's down on the ground in a field game.
00:06:23.660 And in Western Europe, there is this view of Nietzsche that he's one of the great destructive philosophers,
00:06:32.000 that he bulldozes an enormous amount of prior,
00:06:34.500 by which they mean traditional or archaic or hierarchical or conservative ground.
00:06:40.840 And this prepares the way for a new sunny upland and a new beginning post-Christianity.
00:06:47.420 And so this is one of the many ways in which he's interpreted now.
00:06:51.280 He's seen also in the light of contemporary literary theory,
00:06:54.980 which is very fashionable in the Western Academy and has been for the last 40 years.
00:06:59.320 There is a theory called post-structuralism and the later version of the same thing called deconstruction,
00:07:06.080 whereby manuscripts and texts are taken apart in a new sort of new left scholasticism,
00:07:12.840 drawing on quite a lot of the thinking of the Middle Ages about language in a strange sort of way.
00:07:17.120 And the text is then considered to be independent of its own author and to be a thing in its own right
00:07:24.540 and to be studied in a deep way, which brings to forth all of its manifold contradictions
00:07:29.480 to such a degree that no one can affirm anything.
00:07:32.800 And this is related to Nietzsche's force-filled way of writing,
00:07:37.880 whereby one point will lead to another, which often overturns it,
00:07:41.440 and then he flips back upon himself.
00:07:43.260 And although there are constant returning themes,
00:07:47.720 it's sometimes difficult for some people to grasp what he's actually trying to say,
00:07:52.320 because his method is always one of attack rather than defence,
00:07:55.980 attack being the best form of defence, if you like.
00:07:58.620 So there is this left-wing interpretation of Nietzsche,
00:08:01.120 which has gained quite a lot of ground and has provided a shield to many critics in the centre and on the left.
00:08:07.980 He would point to Nietzsche's unswerving political incorrectness in all sorts of areas.
00:08:13.880 His hostility to feminism, his hostility to human equality,
00:08:18.940 his advocacy of human inequality of quite a radical type,
00:08:23.040 the suspicion that he entertains certain racial or national views which are sublimated.
00:08:30.240 In other words, he's not a German nationalist, but he's a European one, and so on,
00:08:34.560 which never quite leaves the liberal zeitgeist and always means there's a smell around him of some sort or another.
00:08:40.800 His hostility to democracy, which is one of the most scandalous aspects of his thought,
00:08:46.700 and which is largely overlooked.
00:08:49.000 It's just he's considered to be a creature of his time.
00:08:51.740 The aristocratic attitudes of the late 19th century were anti-democratic,
00:08:55.580 and he's parceled up historically in that way.
00:08:58.480 That's because people who wish to preserve him for other reasons overlook tendencies in his thought,
00:09:04.200 which they wouldn't overlook otherwise.
00:09:06.220 So, first of all, there's this left and centre-left interpretation of him,
00:09:10.360 which is a reinterpretation.
00:09:12.500 It's a form of cultural revisionism, actually,
00:09:14.900 although none of the people involved in it ever say so.
00:09:17.500 Now, I might just add real quickly that there certainly is a kernel of truth or a basis for this interpretation
00:09:25.420 in the sense that Nietzsche did want to deconstruct, if you will, the worldview and the epistemology
00:09:33.680 and a lot of prior thinking.
00:09:37.020 And he would say things like there's no one objective standard.
00:09:40.520 It's always perspectives around an object and so on and so forth.
00:09:44.600 So, obviously, there is a basis for that,
00:09:47.440 but I guess they want to hold on to that aspect of him that you can find in maybe some works,
00:09:55.760 in the genealogy of morals and maybe even earlier works,
00:09:58.060 but then they want to totally disregard the radical, aristocratic nature of his thought.
00:10:06.160 That's right.
00:10:07.820 It's a la carte.
00:10:09.000 It's a smorgasbord where you take the bits you like and object or silence.
00:10:13.040 Or refuse to comment on the bits that you detest or don't otherwise care for.
00:10:19.680 I think that interpretation only goes so far, though,
00:10:24.060 because although he tore down for half his career up until about, like, Zarathustra,
00:10:30.220 most of his philosophical writing is aphorol, destructive.
00:10:33.820 After that, he constructs.
00:10:37.220 He's very unusual in that he's a very constructive philosopher once you get past the wreckage
00:10:41.920 of what he considered to be late 19th century civilization and its antecedents.
00:10:47.500 So then you have the constructive nature where he basically puts a whole new Western philosophy
00:10:51.860 or ideology or semi-metaphysic in place, which is his own teachings, really.
00:10:58.960 His own quasi-Bible, thus spake Zarathustra, which is a sort of combination of the Psalms
00:11:05.560 and the 1611 authorized version of the Bible.
00:11:08.140 The King James Bible totally reworked in his own language and in his own meta-ethic
00:11:13.960 and using his own style, but is meant in some ways to be a sort of heretical holy book,
00:11:19.540 whereby the new philosophy, the philosophy of the Superman and of the future will be laid out.
00:11:25.420 And with that, there are sort of other, Corolli's other runners,
00:11:29.700 like on the genealogy of morals, which, although it appears to be a speculative
00:11:34.300 and relativist work up to a point, is really a desire to return to the morality of the ancient world,
00:11:40.500 to return to the morality of the pre-Christian world,
00:11:43.800 and a sort of aristocratic attitude or logos that was contemporaneous with that.
00:11:49.320 So he constructs as much as he destroys, which is rather unusual,
00:11:53.580 because most contemporary philosophy only pulls down or pulls apart
00:11:58.680 prior to the prospect of just reconfiguring it as a part of that gesture.
00:12:02.980 But it doesn't really construct anything.
00:12:05.060 There are a few great constructions in philosophy today.
00:12:07.780 In fact, there are hardly any. Structuralism is just analysing through various means what exists.
00:12:14.580 It's rather a passive version of what the contemporary media says it does,
00:12:18.300 which is just to reflect society rather than the 60s idea that there was any intention to change it.
00:12:24.040 That's tendentious in the case of the media.
00:12:26.740 But in Nietzsche's case, there's a total new philosophy which is pushed out and made to do service.
00:12:32.760 And on the whole, that's dealt with in a slightly embarrassed silence
00:12:37.660 by all of his left-wing post-structural and deconstructionist champions.
00:12:42.420 They leave that on one side.
00:12:44.360 I think as to the common man's view of Nietzsche,
00:12:47.260 he's thought of as the great philosopher of atheism and of 20th century existentialism,
00:12:53.440 whereby a man is cast in an anxious guise, waiting for death,
00:12:58.120 and not knowing whether there are any ultimate truths or not.
00:13:01.180 I think in relation to the sort of common person who's heard some intellectual talk but no more,
00:13:07.780 possibly through the higher end of the television and radio type of media
00:13:11.960 and a few things that they partook, if not at college, then at high school
00:13:16.900 or the equivalent in Western Europe,
00:13:20.120 they would look upon Nietzsche as somebody who was the great coping stone of 19th century doubt
00:13:27.580 and scepticism about prior religious truths and possibly came up with some alternative truths of his own.
00:13:34.540 But in some ways, they would consider him to be an existential philosopher,
00:13:38.420 which is very much how he was packaged in the 1950s and 60s,
00:13:41.900 when prior to post-structuralism and deconstruction,
00:13:44.840 existentialism, which is one of the intellectual vogue of the last century,
00:13:48.600 and which is not a purely Marxian vogue at all, actually.
00:13:52.020 It contains strong elements of it, which are religious in origin,
00:13:56.000 looked in Nietzsche as one of its founding gods, you know,
00:14:00.340 from its founding anti-gods.
00:14:01.860 And it's the sort of, the person who's slightly skim-read an Albert Camus novel,
00:14:08.420 the person who's vaguely aware of the currents that run into intellectual atheism,
00:14:15.020 I think those are the ways in which he's perceived in a common way,
00:14:20.220 and also in a stereotypical way,
00:14:22.780 as a philosopher who's some way linked up with German National Socialism or Nazism,
00:14:28.340 and as somehow, in a complicated way, a philosopher who goes with that,
00:14:34.060 and yet at the same time repudiates it one and the other,
00:14:37.260 so he retains a certain negative demonic cachet by virtue of the affiliation,
00:14:42.620 and yet at the same time isn't regarded by elite opinion
00:14:46.520 as in any sense a philosopher of National Socialism.
00:14:50.380 So I think that melange, a sort of sinister figure,
00:14:55.900 who yet is the surviving one of the triumvirate, Marx, Freud, Nietzsche,
00:15:02.780 these three big thinkers who come out of the 19th century,
00:15:06.580 early 20th century in Freud's case, as well,
00:15:10.900 and yet Nietzsche's the only one left standing.
00:15:14.760 That's quite true.
00:15:17.220 Let's actually put a little pressure on what you were talking about before
00:15:21.320 in terms of Nietzsche's construction of a new philosophy,
00:15:25.520 and I want to talk specifically about morality.
00:15:29.380 And I think this also touches on another important point that you brought up,
00:15:34.000 which is that you can find plenty of lines in Nietzsche
00:15:39.060 in which he repudiates German nationalism.
00:15:41.200 He thinks it's stupid and for beer drinkers and so on and so forth,
00:15:45.320 but then there's no, anyone who's read him,
00:15:49.320 who's really experienced him and not just an interpretation of him,
00:15:52.700 knows that there is this almost demonic or radical traditionalist,
00:15:57.420 right-wing in a crude manner spirit to Nietzsche.
00:16:02.760 Aristocratic radicalism is one of the terms that I like.
00:16:06.600 And maybe you could talk a little bit about that in terms of morality,
00:16:12.420 because in the genealogy of morality,
00:16:14.540 which the genealogy of morals, on the genealogy of morals,
00:16:18.100 one of his, certainly his best works.
00:16:20.080 And I remember reading it for the first time when I was a young person.
00:16:24.120 I was probably around 20 years old.
00:16:26.100 And his differentiation between the ancient world's good and bad
00:16:31.340 and the Christian world's good and evil, to use a colloquial phrase,
00:16:39.480 it kind of blew my mind.
00:16:40.920 It really made me reconsider a lot of some of the most basic precepts
00:16:48.120 of my own worldview.
00:16:50.860 And maybe you could talk a little bit about that,
00:16:52.280 because I think it brings all these threads together
00:16:56.180 in terms of someone who is both deconstructive,
00:16:59.920 someone who's willing to pull the rug out
00:17:02.540 from under the post-Christian worldview of his time,
00:17:06.880 but then also someone who's trying to revive
00:17:10.240 and reinvent an older morality.
00:17:15.700 Yes, that's right.
00:17:17.960 I think probably in terms of morals and ethics,
00:17:21.320 that part of philosophy that deals with them.
00:17:24.340 He's one of the most revolutionary thinkers
00:17:26.320 of the last two, three, four, 500 years.
00:17:28.960 And in some respects, his views on morality
00:17:31.900 have not been totally taken on board,
00:17:34.040 because they can't be in a liberal, democratic, humanist,
00:17:37.340 and egalitarian age.
00:17:39.180 His views on morality are regarded as interesting,
00:17:41.800 academically, in inverted commas.
00:17:43.940 But that's because they must be kept,
00:17:45.800 rather like a germ or some sort of antibody,
00:17:48.980 locked up in the laboratory.
00:17:51.260 Normally, he's an anti-humanist,
00:17:53.740 and he's an inverse Christian,
00:17:57.120 and he's a pagan with a small p, maybe,
00:18:00.100 of a very extreme sort.
00:18:02.680 And he wishes to return in a starlized way
00:18:06.100 via the renaissance of the Borgias
00:18:08.680 to the morality of what he perceives
00:18:11.660 as the aristocracy or the ruling classes
00:18:14.520 of the ancient world.
00:18:15.960 And he wishes to miss out completely
00:18:18.120 the morality that Christianity put in place,
00:18:20.980 and which is considered,
00:18:21.980 even by many people who've repudiated Christianity,
00:18:24.720 to be the basis for human morality.
00:18:27.420 In the course of doing that,
00:18:28.660 he repudiates a significant proportion,
00:18:31.640 but not all, of Jewish morality,
00:18:33.900 humanist and not-so-humanist at all,
00:18:36.740 and also Islamic morality as well.
00:18:39.080 So, in a way,
00:18:41.000 the three great moral sort of lexicons
00:18:45.520 of the Abramaical tradition
00:18:47.820 are repudiated in one full swoop,
00:18:51.360 and you have a return
00:18:52.720 to, put very crudely,
00:18:55.540 to go back to the idea of the commoners
00:18:57.240 against the more elite reader,
00:18:59.240 a mighty's right philosophy.
00:19:01.020 But that's a very crude way of looking at it,
00:19:03.080 because the mighty's right doctrine
00:19:04.580 as epitomized by social Darwinian texts
00:19:07.540 like Ragnar Redbeard's of that name and so on,
00:19:10.320 is the lowest level of moral reality
00:19:13.100 as far as Nietzsche's concerned,
00:19:15.100 that of sheer domination
00:19:16.340 and what has been called by some
00:19:18.400 the morality of the Doss House,
00:19:19.820 of each against all,
00:19:21.360 and morality is the laughter of the strongest man.
00:19:24.020 That, in a crude sense,
00:19:25.800 certainly in a crude anti-Nietzschean
00:19:27.920 left-wing sense,
00:19:29.460 is what Nietzsche's moral discourse amounts to.
00:19:32.080 But that's the lowest form of morality
00:19:34.340 as he advocates it,
00:19:36.100 but also as he believes it exists biologically
00:19:38.320 and in nature.
00:19:39.780 What happens is that more advanced forms
00:19:41.940 like human beings sublimate these things
00:19:44.560 and they self-over-become them,
00:19:46.960 so that what is crude and violent and sterile
00:19:49.720 and sort of semi-criminal,
00:19:51.820 as it could be configured at one level,
00:19:54.320 is cast adrift
00:19:55.420 and becomes something more noble
00:19:57.320 as it's hierarchicalized and spiritualized
00:20:00.320 and as it's taken up
00:20:01.840 from its more crudely lethal
00:20:04.580 and sort of each-against-all
00:20:07.820 and Hobbesian sort of points of departure.
00:20:10.860 Now, when he considers an aristocratic morality,
00:20:15.840 he does so against almost all the currents
00:20:18.120 that were then bubbling away
00:20:19.460 at the end of the 19th century
00:20:20.780 and would become dominant and hegemonic
00:20:23.300 in the 20th century.
00:20:24.380 And yet, he survived having done this
00:20:27.400 because usually somebody is condemned
00:20:29.300 by their morality.
00:20:31.460 And I think it's because he did,
00:20:33.540 he cast his morality
00:20:34.840 not in terms of a return to barbarism,
00:20:38.680 but in a return to the ancient world
00:20:40.820 which contained a barbaric sliver
00:20:43.020 far greater than the modern
00:20:45.140 or the medieval one.
00:20:46.920 The paradox is, of course,
00:20:48.160 much early modern life,
00:20:49.840 much modern life,
00:20:50.840 and all of medieval life
00:20:52.300 would run exactly along
00:20:54.000 Nietzschean lines of moral constraints
00:20:56.660 or the absence of such constraints.
00:20:59.340 It's a Christian myth, of course,
00:21:01.440 that the Christian centuries
00:21:02.640 are in accordance with Christian morality.
00:21:05.460 As all deeply moral Christians know,
00:21:08.220 Christian morality is so hard to live,
00:21:10.480 it's almost an impossible standard
00:21:12.400 to which humans have to aspire
00:21:15.280 and only one man could ever reach it
00:21:18.060 and he wasn't a man anyway
00:21:19.360 in the course of that theology.
00:21:22.380 So Nietzsche's morals
00:21:24.140 are probably the most revolutionary part
00:21:27.100 of his entire discourse.
00:21:29.720 I think what's happened
00:21:31.940 is that because he's perceived
00:21:33.320 as a relativist in some ways,
00:21:35.640 you can adopt a relativistic standpoint
00:21:37.540 about his morals
00:21:38.660 and say, oh, well, that's his view
00:21:41.320 and he's got these aristocratic
00:21:43.180 and particularist attitudes
00:21:44.520 and he wants to go back
00:21:46.560 and he doesn't understand the progress
00:21:48.400 that we've made in the moral area
00:21:50.240 and you can therefore take his epistemology
00:21:53.240 and you can take his critique of modernity
00:21:55.800 and you can take his critique of decadence
00:21:58.560 and you can take his critique of German nationalism
00:22:01.420 and you can take his lauding of Wagner
00:22:05.480 and his extreme critique of Wagnerism
00:22:07.700 and you can take all the bits that you want
00:22:10.120 and relativize the morality out
00:22:12.500 but morally, his view is hierarchical
00:22:16.060 rather than either or.
00:22:19.040 Jewish, Christian and Islamic moralities
00:22:21.340 tend to be either or,
00:22:22.680 good or evil or a synonym for evil
00:22:26.460 whereas his morality is hierarchical.
00:22:29.560 It depends what's being done to somebody
00:22:32.020 and why it's being done
00:22:33.780 and it depends on who they are
00:22:35.820 and it depends upon the levering of suffering
00:22:39.240 which is engendered
00:22:40.480 and it depends whether they were born
00:22:42.320 for a higher level of suffering or not
00:22:44.520 because life isn't equal
00:22:46.160 and suffering is a part of life.
00:22:48.440 You can't have a birth of a child
00:22:49.820 without intense suffering on the mother's behalf
00:22:52.020 and therefore his attitude towards morality
00:22:54.360 is partly less pre-configured,
00:22:58.940 less a priori,
00:22:59.900 less sentimental,
00:23:01.400 less humane,
00:23:02.380 more aesthetic.
00:23:03.860 It's an aesthetic morality
00:23:05.300 as much as anything else
00:23:06.780 and that's deeply shocking.
00:23:09.420 It's still even deeply shocking today.
00:23:12.400 There's also elements of it
00:23:14.140 which confound conservatism as perceived
00:23:17.880 and go outside of conservatism.
00:23:20.200 I'm thinking particularly of the chapter
00:23:22.340 about the pale criminal
00:23:23.800 in Vespae Zarathustra
00:23:25.660 when Nietzsche says
00:23:27.120 the criminal in the dark
00:23:28.440 who looks pale and aesthetic
00:23:29.800 and who is a fanatic
00:23:31.080 and in some ways a moral retard
00:23:33.260 and about who everyone adopts
00:23:35.840 a moralising attitude.
00:23:38.100 He should very possibly be hanged
00:23:42.580 or done away with
00:23:43.700 or whatever the form of execution
00:23:46.540 would have been in the gym
00:23:47.780 and in his time.
00:23:49.140 But at the same time,
00:23:51.040 don't make such a moral fuss about it.
00:23:53.640 Don't compute that he's a different species to you,
00:23:57.320 that he's a desperate individual
00:23:58.980 who committed a desperate act
00:24:00.300 in a particular time
00:24:01.480 that had its own form
00:24:02.980 of vainglorious courage
00:24:04.560 but which is antisocial
00:24:06.000 to the degree it can't be tolerated
00:24:07.900 if humans are to live together.
00:24:09.600 So that comes quite close
00:24:13.080 to a relativistic excuse
00:24:16.640 for certain fines of vicious criminality
00:24:18.780 that you often hear on the new left
00:24:20.980 more on the new right.
00:24:23.840 And at the same time,
00:24:24.680 it immediately snaps back
00:24:25.960 into the fact that
00:24:26.860 by carrying out those actions,
00:24:31.520 the individual has opened himself up
00:24:33.600 to a ferocious retribution
00:24:35.960 by the state
00:24:36.680 and its authoritarian power.
00:24:38.880 And he sees nothing wrong with that
00:24:40.360 because that's how things have always been.
00:24:43.280 Right.
00:24:43.500 You know,
00:24:43.740 there are two important points
00:24:45.480 that come to mind.
00:24:46.820 The first one is that
00:24:48.100 there's a continuity
00:24:49.740 with what you're saying
00:24:51.020 with Nietzsche's first book
00:24:52.860 from 1872,
00:24:54.760 The Birth of Tragedy,
00:24:55.780 and that is the dialectic
00:24:57.600 he establishes
00:24:58.500 between the Dionysian
00:25:00.200 and the Apollonian worldview.
00:25:02.600 And in many ways,
00:25:03.760 the Dionysian is,
00:25:05.540 could be thought of
00:25:06.200 as drunkenness in some sense,
00:25:08.080 but it's pure frenzy
00:25:09.920 and it's maybe even
00:25:11.080 the darkest possible concept of life,
00:25:14.560 of, you know,
00:25:14.920 life is not,
00:25:15.680 it's better that you were not born.
00:25:17.340 Life is suffering
00:25:18.940 and, you know,
00:25:20.280 unadulterated emotion
00:25:21.780 and so on and so forth.
00:25:23.160 Maybe even sexual frenzy
00:25:24.660 can be added in there.
00:25:25.900 And then there's
00:25:26.400 the Apollonian worldview,
00:25:27.840 which is one
00:25:29.320 which he associates
00:25:30.220 with sculpture
00:25:30.820 and that is the,
00:25:33.500 you know,
00:25:33.900 it certainly involves
00:25:34.640 things like the state
00:25:35.560 and the artist,
00:25:36.180 but it's a way
00:25:37.480 to give life
00:25:38.720 an order
00:25:39.900 and a meaning.
00:25:42.120 And, you know,
00:25:42.680 and I think, you know,
00:25:43.500 to go back to your,
00:25:44.560 to his image
00:25:45.560 of the criminal,
00:25:47.180 I think they both work together
00:25:49.720 in the sense that,
00:25:50.880 you know,
00:25:52.280 even the great artist
00:25:54.200 who is, you know,
00:25:55.920 admired
00:25:56.680 and does life-affirming
00:25:58.920 and works of art
00:26:00.900 like that,
00:26:01.440 he has to have
00:26:02.240 a little bit of that
00:26:03.180 frenzy underneath it
00:26:05.700 that he can contain
00:26:06.940 and maybe even channel
00:26:09.060 into more productive aspects.
00:26:11.600 But he's not fundamentally
00:26:13.180 different than
00:26:14.220 the cruder criminal
00:26:16.140 who's kind of,
00:26:17.640 you know,
00:26:18.480 who lacks that Apollonian
00:26:20.340 component to his soul
00:26:22.680 to channel
00:26:24.080 those dark forces.
00:26:25.100 Yes, that's quite true.
00:26:27.840 And he doesn't see
00:26:29.220 life compartmentalised
00:26:31.640 in that sense.
00:26:32.820 He sees binary
00:26:33.760 and other than binary
00:26:35.340 oppositions in life
00:26:36.560 which go together.
00:26:38.120 Right.
00:26:38.340 Because, of course,
00:26:38.940 he does correlate
00:26:40.420 to Freud and Marx
00:26:41.740 in certain respects.
00:26:43.340 Not many,
00:26:44.360 but one of them
00:26:45.140 is the resolution
00:26:46.700 of the tension
00:26:47.620 between opposites.
00:26:48.840 Mm-hmm.
00:26:49.140 For him, opposites
00:26:50.060 are necessary
00:26:50.780 or things which are
00:26:52.200 in partial opposition
00:26:53.140 to each other
00:26:53.840 synthesised and fused
00:26:55.260 together to give
00:26:56.080 new forms of meaning
00:26:57.140 and to open up
00:26:58.460 the prospect of a reversal,
00:27:00.960 a reversal which will be
00:27:02.280 a transvaluation
00:27:02.940 of all values
00:27:04.100 and which will be
00:27:05.520 moral, aesthetic,
00:27:07.500 legal, civic,
00:27:09.320 political,
00:27:10.600 structural,
00:27:11.880 linguistic,
00:27:12.960 musical,
00:27:14.380 and all sorts
00:27:15.060 of other things.
00:27:15.860 And in the sort of dualism
00:27:20.140 between the classical urge,
00:27:23.000 the urge to classicise,
00:27:24.680 the Apollonian urge
00:27:25.860 from the birth of tragedy,
00:27:27.700 and the Dionysian urge,
00:27:29.600 which is the undercurrent
00:27:30.740 of tragedy
00:27:31.320 in all forms of life,
00:27:32.920 other things can be cut,
00:27:34.860 whether they're crude,
00:27:36.000 like the gibbering
00:27:36.740 of a criminal in the dock
00:27:37.940 and the plaintiff excuses
00:27:39.560 of his barrister,
00:27:40.840 or whether they're
00:27:41.560 much more exalted,
00:27:42.660 the man who lies
00:27:43.780 on his back
00:27:44.980 to paint
00:27:45.900 in the lead
00:27:46.720 that's dripping down
00:27:47.560 on him
00:27:47.900 the Sistine Chapel ceiling.
00:27:49.540 The one and the other
00:27:50.780 are connected
00:27:51.580 because there has to be
00:27:53.040 a fire in the belly
00:27:54.020 to do something
00:27:55.300 like the Sistine Chapel ceiling.
00:27:57.740 And although it's hardly
00:27:58.880 dared to be associated
00:28:02.820 with something
00:28:03.560 like criminality,
00:28:04.980 there is a semblance
00:28:06.980 of uniformity
00:28:07.980 in the passions
00:28:08.740 out of which
00:28:09.780 all of these things stem.
00:28:11.660 It's the level
00:28:12.260 of sublimation,
00:28:13.060 it's the level
00:28:13.620 to which things
00:28:14.220 are hierarchicalised,
00:28:15.720 it's the level
00:28:16.180 to which they're
00:28:16.700 taken away
00:28:17.620 from the sort
00:28:18.720 of sulfurous origins
00:28:20.700 that they all share.
00:28:22.180 That's the key point.
00:28:23.660 This is why morality
00:28:24.620 is a matter of distancing.
00:28:26.680 It's a matter
00:28:27.440 of the pathos
00:28:28.160 of difference
00:28:28.700 between one form
00:28:29.640 and another,
00:28:30.520 between one action
00:28:31.360 and another,
00:28:32.280 between one man
00:28:33.100 and another.
00:28:34.220 And morality
00:28:35.160 is therefore discriminatory.
00:28:37.960 In the present parlance,
00:28:39.640 there's nothing worse
00:28:40.440 than discrimination.
00:28:41.240 That's true.
00:28:42.900 Because discrimination
00:28:43.540 is the basis
00:28:44.860 of all equal moral worth.
00:28:47.160 Where it is used,
00:28:48.100 discrimination
00:28:48.420 is the basis
00:28:49.200 of morality
00:28:49.860 because everything
00:28:51.200 that one chooses
00:28:52.000 from a sort of
00:28:53.780 clean item of food
00:28:54.960 to a sort of
00:28:55.600 dirty item of food
00:28:56.620 that one wishes
00:28:57.100 not to cut
00:28:57.760 with one's knife and fork,
00:28:59.460 everything is a matter
00:29:00.480 of discrimination.
00:29:02.000 And that goes
00:29:02.760 for individuals,
00:29:03.860 for cities,
00:29:04.500 for cultures,
00:29:05.680 and for all
00:29:06.360 of the contemporary
00:29:06.960 discriminations,
00:29:07.900 which you now
00:29:08.780 have to sign forms
00:29:09.740 if you want a job
00:29:10.540 in the Western world
00:29:11.460 to say that you
00:29:12.360 won't engage in.
00:29:13.560 Yes.
00:29:14.620 And which the employer
00:29:15.740 sort of goes along
00:29:17.100 with and so forth.
00:29:18.920 Now,
00:29:20.140 those are minor forms
00:29:21.400 of discrimination
00:29:21.900 in a way,
00:29:22.640 but he would regard
00:29:23.400 them all as a taxonomy
00:29:24.600 of the aristocratic,
00:29:26.340 but the eye
00:29:26.960 that immediately
00:29:28.480 hierarchicalizes
00:29:30.200 everything into
00:29:30.940 different orders
00:29:31.680 of meaning
00:29:32.360 depending where they are
00:29:34.000 in a particular hierarchy.
00:29:35.180 And the eye that judges
00:29:36.500 where things are
00:29:37.200 in a hierarchy
00:29:37.840 will change
00:29:38.800 from individual
00:29:39.520 to individual
00:29:40.540 of an august type.
00:29:42.660 Maybe their ranking
00:29:43.840 will be rather
00:29:44.840 prior ordained
00:29:45.700 to a degree,
00:29:47.000 but there is a degree
00:29:47.900 to which the ranking
00:29:49.180 is not completely
00:29:50.100 superimposed.
00:29:51.740 So certain standards
00:29:52.740 that certain people
00:29:53.460 may think are very high
00:29:54.620 may be judged less so
00:29:56.040 by another august spirit.
00:29:58.040 That's the danger
00:29:58.780 that you take
00:29:59.700 with a rather
00:30:00.700 individualistic,
00:30:01.860 cantankerous,
00:30:03.160 and aristocratic morality.
00:30:04.580 But not everything
00:30:05.920 will work out
00:30:06.740 to be the smoothest
00:30:07.780 possible run
00:30:08.980 in all possible worlds.
00:30:11.340 But who wants
00:30:12.360 a life like that?
00:30:13.400 This is his view.
00:30:14.680 It's rather like
00:30:15.560 the end of
00:30:16.180 Brave New World
00:30:17.000 by the dystopian
00:30:19.060 satire on the
00:30:19.800 welfare state
00:30:20.540 by Aldous Huxley
00:30:21.440 when the savage
00:30:22.820 is polled
00:30:23.360 by one of the controllers.
00:30:24.840 You basically want
00:30:25.840 the right to be unhappy
00:30:26.740 or you want the right
00:30:28.120 to unfold tragedy
00:30:30.160 as part of life's plenitude.
00:30:32.820 And that's the case,
00:30:33.960 you see.
00:30:34.480 You can't have...
00:30:36.300 If life is to resemble
00:30:37.160 more of a Greek tragedy
00:30:38.320 than an episode
00:30:39.500 of The Simpsons,
00:30:41.100 then you have to allow
00:30:43.200 for all sorts of things
00:30:44.220 which are knotty
00:30:45.040 and gnarled
00:30:46.360 and irresolvable
00:30:47.680 and not capable
00:30:49.580 of moralization.
00:30:51.620 This is one of his key points.
00:30:53.640 One of the key points
00:30:54.540 about liberal humanist discourse
00:30:56.220 and Christian morals.
00:30:57.540 And he would consider,
00:30:59.860 as I dare say we would
00:31:01.120 in many ways,
00:31:02.480 that Christian morality
00:31:03.420 and secular liberal humanist morality
00:31:05.340 are very close.
00:31:06.340 Yes.
00:31:06.720 The one is a secularization
00:31:08.000 of the other
00:31:08.600 to a large degree.
00:31:10.160 that he would consider
00:31:11.800 their type of morals
00:31:13.160 to be universalizing
00:31:17.200 and platitudinous
00:31:19.820 and also capable
00:31:21.760 of far too wide a remit
00:31:23.460 and extent
00:31:24.160 because this morality
00:31:25.860 essentially judges
00:31:27.000 everything morally
00:31:28.000 from perspective
00:31:29.440 of is anyone harmed
00:31:30.980 or is the rubric
00:31:33.860 of egalitarianism
00:31:34.940 run through properly
00:31:36.040 and efficaciously.
00:31:36.940 political correctness
00:31:38.300 is just a shorthand
00:31:39.480 to corral the instincts
00:31:41.340 to make sure
00:31:42.460 that those standards
00:31:43.260 are re-observed.
00:31:44.820 But he would,
00:31:45.580 he's very much against
00:31:46.520 the moralization
00:31:47.440 of much of morality.
00:31:50.160 Morality is a very specific thing
00:31:51.820 that accords
00:31:52.820 with certain honor codes
00:31:54.240 and certain standards
00:31:55.620 of behavior
00:31:56.320 and he doesn't believe
00:31:58.060 in a blanket morality,
00:31:59.880 moral unction
00:32:00.620 and a blanket moral response
00:32:02.640 to life.
00:32:03.460 In some ways,
00:32:04.000 his response to life
00:32:05.040 is not moral
00:32:06.240 in the accepted sense.
00:32:09.180 It's a morality
00:32:10.020 which is aesthetic
00:32:12.340 and nuanced
00:32:13.960 and hierarchical
00:32:15.840 and poetic
00:32:17.160 but it is not really
00:32:19.320 a moral view of life
00:32:21.740 that regards every statement
00:32:23.480 from an abstract moral position.
00:32:26.140 That's why
00:32:26.820 he would have contempt
00:32:28.040 for people being judged
00:32:29.300 by their occasional remarks,
00:32:31.380 particularly if they were
00:32:32.200 quote-unquote outrageous
00:32:33.600 because he always likes
00:32:35.260 making outrageous
00:32:36.140 throw away the marks
00:32:37.680 because they're part
00:32:38.620 of one's individuality,
00:32:39.900 you see?
00:32:40.760 I agree.
00:32:41.740 I think it's worth
00:32:42.640 putting a little more pressure
00:32:44.460 on this point
00:32:45.200 and that is that
00:32:46.240 the secular humanist
00:32:49.040 or post-modernist
00:32:50.520 academics
00:32:52.320 and moral thinkers
00:32:54.960 and so on and so forth
00:32:55.780 are,
00:32:56.700 from a Nietzschean standpoint,
00:32:57.840 still in the Judeo-Christian
00:33:00.500 wake,
00:33:01.700 so to speak,
00:33:02.920 in the sense that
00:33:03.960 even if they
00:33:05.480 don't believe
00:33:06.280 in God themselves,
00:33:07.860 even if they embrace
00:33:09.060 all sorts of
00:33:10.280 sexual deviations
00:33:12.300 and so on and so forth,
00:33:14.400 they still do have
00:33:16.300 that similar
00:33:16.840 moral worldview
00:33:17.900 that wants to judge
00:33:19.660 everyone as equal
00:33:20.860 before some kind of
00:33:22.980 abstract morality
00:33:24.580 that in some ways
00:33:26.840 sees the
00:33:28.040 violence of greatness
00:33:30.680 or the pathos
00:33:31.640 of distance
00:33:32.180 as something
00:33:32.960 that's terrible
00:33:34.140 and needs to be
00:33:35.540 brought back
00:33:37.860 into inequality
00:33:38.700 and so on and so forth.
00:33:39.800 So in some ways,
00:33:41.400 despite the fact
00:33:42.940 that,
00:33:43.780 say,
00:33:44.280 the contemporary
00:33:44.840 American elite
00:33:45.840 have totally
00:33:47.160 abandoned
00:33:48.060 the, say,
00:33:49.900 medieval Christian
00:33:50.700 heritage
00:33:51.120 and things like that,
00:33:52.940 they're still,
00:33:53.940 thinking in that way
00:33:55.920 from a Nietzschean
00:33:57.020 perspective.
00:33:58.680 Yes, they are.
00:33:59.740 And they're sort of,
00:34:01.500 possibly because
00:34:02.360 they dump the religion
00:34:03.300 in their own hearts,
00:34:04.760 they're thinking
00:34:06.680 in a more radical way
00:34:08.140 because Christianity,
00:34:09.800 of course,
00:34:10.120 because Christianity
00:34:10.760 has a transcendent element
00:34:12.140 which is genuinely
00:34:14.180 religious
00:34:14.740 and which therefore
00:34:16.500 creates a pathos
00:34:17.460 of difference
00:34:18.020 between forms.
00:34:19.620 This enables
00:34:20.340 many Christians
00:34:21.040 to be,
00:34:21.580 without knowing it
00:34:22.420 particularly,
00:34:23.020 partly right-wing
00:34:25.280 by default
00:34:26.040 and therefore
00:34:27.880 many Christians
00:34:29.300 aren't that Christian
00:34:30.420 in their morals
00:34:31.320 in a strange sort of way.
00:34:32.960 Their morals
00:34:33.400 are often much harsher,
00:34:35.540 by which I don't mean
00:34:36.560 just puritanical.
00:34:38.240 Their morals
00:34:38.880 are much more realistic
00:34:39.900 than the religion
00:34:41.080 would give you
00:34:42.120 a tendency to think
00:34:43.460 would be likely.
00:34:45.000 Whereas when you
00:34:45.960 get rid of the religion,
00:34:47.100 you get rid of that
00:34:47.880 hieratic,
00:34:49.040 that steeple-chasing
00:34:50.400 or exalted element
00:34:51.940 and you close down
00:34:54.640 the discourse
00:34:55.320 pretty much
00:34:56.120 to its morals
00:34:57.020 and what is like
00:34:58.920 is the moral unction,
00:35:00.500 which of course
00:35:00.920 many Christians themselves
00:35:01.900 have been aware of.
00:35:02.840 There was a Methodist
00:35:04.060 and a socialist
00:35:04.900 soapbox orator
00:35:06.480 here in the middle
00:35:07.140 of the 20th century
00:35:07.900 called Lord Soper
00:35:08.920 who was quite,
00:35:09.940 he's forgotten now,
00:35:10.680 but he was notorious
00:35:11.300 during his life
00:35:12.320 and he once said
00:35:13.980 that the part of Christianity
00:35:14.920 he was loyal to
00:35:15.780 was the New Testament.
00:35:16.860 He didn't like
00:35:17.540 the Old Testament
00:35:18.240 and he wasn't making
00:35:19.700 some remarks
00:35:20.440 about Judaism
00:35:21.200 as a faith.
00:35:22.280 What he didn't like
00:35:23.060 about the Old Testament
00:35:24.000 is that the Old Testament
00:35:25.400 was too brutish,
00:35:26.960 too pagan
00:35:27.560 in terms of a specific
00:35:29.080 people and its rights,
00:35:30.940 too violent,
00:35:32.340 too unredeemed
00:35:33.180 by the compassion
00:35:34.100 that the New Testament
00:35:35.000 would bring to it.
00:35:36.320 And of course
00:35:36.800 Christianity works
00:35:37.760 because it's
00:35:38.280 a dialectical discourse
00:35:39.660 because the humanism
00:35:41.700 seen in divine terms
00:35:43.700 and the charity
00:35:44.860 of the New Testament
00:35:45.840 balances the patriarchal
00:35:47.600 fury of the Old
00:35:48.580 and together
00:35:49.540 they form a oneness.
00:35:51.200 If Christianity
00:35:51.660 had no harsh sides
00:35:52.820 at all
00:35:53.400 it would never
00:35:55.180 have got anywhere
00:35:55.800 and would have collapsed
00:35:56.820 because it would have been
00:35:59.820 too monodimensional
00:36:01.320 to construct a faith.
00:36:03.260 All faiths have this.
00:36:04.860 Judaism is essentially
00:36:05.940 just a faith
00:36:06.660 for one specific people
00:36:08.080 and a few individual
00:36:09.340 converts
00:36:10.020 but it doesn't seek
00:36:11.020 conversion as a maxim
00:36:12.140 and Islam
00:36:13.320 which seeks the maximum
00:36:14.600 conversion of all
00:36:15.600 even beyond Christianity
00:36:16.860 to a degree
00:36:17.680 retains the pagan dimension.
00:36:20.120 So when you get rid
00:36:20.980 of religion
00:36:21.420 you don't get rid
00:36:22.320 of many of these complexities
00:36:23.600 you just allied them
00:36:25.140 into another form.
00:36:26.540 There's an added complexity
00:36:27.360 in the United States
00:36:28.380 because the elite
00:36:29.520 still gives
00:36:30.560 ritualistic obeisance
00:36:32.100 to forms of normative
00:36:33.460 Christianity
00:36:34.000 as we discussed
00:36:35.860 last time.
00:36:36.840 the elite
00:36:38.680 in the United States
00:36:39.520 worships in a Christian way
00:36:41.160 which the elite
00:36:42.180 in Western Europe
00:36:42.920 does not
00:36:43.440 or does not
00:36:43.860 feel the need to.
00:36:45.200 But you're right
00:36:46.560 in thinking
00:36:47.120 as I would
00:36:47.840 that that is largely
00:36:48.860 synthetic now
00:36:50.900 and it's got to the point
00:36:52.160 where
00:36:52.580 it's only because
00:36:53.900 of popular pressure
00:36:54.900 and a form of conformism
00:36:56.640 that they go along
00:36:57.920 with this social Christianity
00:36:59.140 which they've long
00:37:00.440 since ceased
00:37:01.100 to believe in.
00:37:02.340 But in relation
00:37:04.200 to Nietzsche's morals
00:37:05.240 Nietzsche's morals
00:37:06.240 are a total reputation
00:37:07.580 of sort of
00:37:10.020 radical Christianity
00:37:11.120 something like
00:37:12.300 Quakerism in the middle
00:37:13.460 as Christianity
00:37:14.020 begins to leave
00:37:14.880 off of itself
00:37:15.700 and secular humanist norms.
00:37:17.980 It's a sort of
00:37:18.920 it's a reversal
00:37:20.340 of all of those
00:37:21.600 and that's why
00:37:22.860 left-wingers
00:37:23.640 who dislike Nietzsche
00:37:24.580 will retreat
00:37:25.160 into saying
00:37:25.840 he's a fascist
00:37:27.300 and he's an anti-humanist
00:37:28.840 and he's somebody
00:37:29.940 who advocates
00:37:31.180 the brutality of strength
00:37:32.980 and he's somebody
00:37:34.120 who's got no time
00:37:35.040 for the weak at all
00:37:36.100 and think that the weak
00:37:37.300 enjoy and have no rights
00:37:38.800 when of course he does
00:37:40.120 he thinks the weak
00:37:40.840 have the right
00:37:41.280 to be dominated.
00:37:44.080 Yes I completely agree.
00:37:45.720 Just to add
00:37:46.620 one quick thing
00:37:48.000 on top of that
00:37:48.980 in terms of the
00:37:49.980 loss of the
00:37:51.240 religiosity of Christianity
00:37:52.720 and it's
00:37:53.540 almost
00:37:54.080 it's
00:37:55.460 dissolution
00:37:56.820 and to just
00:37:57.360 abstract morality
00:37:58.180 it's
00:37:59.680 worth saying
00:38:00.820 that someone
00:38:01.140 like Charles Martel
00:38:02.160 his idea
00:38:02.920 of the Christendom
00:38:03.840 that he was defending
00:38:04.700 was a very
00:38:06.220 particularist
00:38:07.840 kind of thing
00:38:08.540 he was defending
00:38:09.280 his people
00:38:10.040 his way of life
00:38:11.100 Europe
00:38:12.760 as a whole
00:38:13.480 and once
00:38:14.780 we've lost
00:38:15.800 those things
00:38:16.600 either through
00:38:17.720 you know
00:38:18.320 the post-modern
00:38:19.540 consumerist world
00:38:20.760 or through
00:38:21.380 political correctness
00:38:22.320 that Christianity
00:38:24.100 becomes something
00:38:25.220 altogether different
00:38:26.340 and something
00:38:26.700 that might even
00:38:27.380 might even
00:38:28.020 be kind of
00:38:28.440 anti-civilizational
00:38:29.440 at some level
00:38:30.100 but without
00:38:31.740 without going
00:38:32.260 further into that
00:38:32.960 I'd like to
00:38:34.060 bring our
00:38:35.440 conversation
00:38:36.240 to a close
00:38:37.120 in a somewhat
00:38:38.340 more speculative
00:38:39.060 fashion
00:38:39.600 and that is
00:38:40.980 to talk
00:38:41.500 a little bit
00:38:42.720 about
00:38:43.260 Nietzsche's
00:38:44.140 political philosophy
00:38:45.260 even though he
00:38:46.000 he never
00:38:46.940 codified that
00:38:49.360 in the way
00:38:50.100 that he did
00:38:50.520 his moral philosophy
00:38:51.420 and epistemology
00:38:52.560 and let me
00:38:54.720 just throw out
00:38:55.700 a couple
00:38:56.620 of ideas
00:38:57.440 here that
00:38:58.100 have always
00:38:58.680 struck me
00:38:59.080 interesting
00:38:59.460 as I mentioned
00:39:00.660 early in our
00:39:01.260 conversation
00:39:01.820 and as you
00:39:02.560 mentioned too
00:39:03.060 Nietzsche
00:39:03.700 had a kind
00:39:04.840 of contempt
00:39:05.660 for German
00:39:06.400 nationalism
00:39:07.080 and anti-Semitism
00:39:08.380 he thought
00:39:09.180 it was
00:39:09.440 provincial
00:39:10.440 and stupid
00:39:11.940 and worthy
00:39:13.140 only of beer
00:39:13.920 drinkers
00:39:14.480 but he was
00:39:16.100 hardly some
00:39:16.760 citizen of the
00:39:17.420 world
00:39:17.800 or a libertarian
00:39:19.900 or anything
00:39:20.320 like that
00:39:20.900 he had this
00:39:22.580 concept
00:39:23.160 of a
00:39:24.200 European
00:39:24.840 empire
00:39:25.580 arising
00:39:27.320 in the future
00:39:28.060 and certainly
00:39:28.860 if you look
00:39:29.440 at his later
00:39:30.100 works
00:39:30.520 like
00:39:30.820 Ecce Homo
00:39:31.580 his autobiography
00:39:33.300 he sees
00:39:35.260 this
00:39:35.660 his political
00:39:36.260 philosophy
00:39:36.780 as arising
00:39:38.320 in some
00:39:38.980 kind of
00:39:39.340 apocalyptic
00:39:40.200 explosion
00:39:41.700 of hurricanes
00:39:43.100 and earthquakes
00:39:44.380 and tornadoes
00:39:45.260 I mean he
00:39:45.540 uses all
00:39:46.080 all of those
00:39:47.080 words
00:39:47.520 and you
00:39:48.860 can see
00:39:49.260 even something
00:39:49.700 like the
00:39:49.980 will to
00:39:50.260 power
00:39:50.700 he'll
00:39:51.300 speculate
00:39:51.860 about
00:39:52.560 major
00:39:53.440 eugenics
00:39:54.120 projects
00:39:54.680 and
00:39:55.500 he
00:39:56.340 talks
00:39:56.940 about
00:39:57.120 some
00:39:58.180 letters
00:39:58.560 I like
00:39:59.060 the idea
00:39:59.600 that Europe
00:40:00.140 is rearming
00:40:00.880 there's going
00:40:01.440 to be a
00:40:01.820 cataclysm
00:40:02.500 so maybe
00:40:04.060 Jonathan
00:40:04.480 I think
00:40:04.900 all of
00:40:05.240 these ideas
00:40:05.740 are quite
00:40:06.580 exciting
00:40:07.220 just talk
00:40:09.620 a little
00:40:09.940 bit about
00:40:10.580 what you
00:40:11.040 think
00:40:11.440 Nietzsche
00:40:12.000 what his
00:40:13.400 political
00:40:14.060 vision
00:40:14.720 or meta
00:40:15.480 political
00:40:15.840 vision
00:40:16.380 was
00:40:16.840 for the
00:40:17.860 future
00:40:18.240 this idea
00:40:18.840 of Europe
00:40:19.360 and also
00:40:20.320 this idea
00:40:21.140 of a
00:40:22.540 Christian
00:40:23.380 European
00:40:23.880 civilization
00:40:24.820 self-destructing
00:40:27.220 and almost
00:40:28.560 destroying
00:40:29.100 itself
00:40:29.520 which is of
00:40:29.960 course a
00:40:30.220 quite prophetic
00:40:30.900 thought
00:40:31.360 on his part
00:40:32.960 so talk a little
00:40:33.880 bit about that
00:40:34.500 of Nietzsche's
00:40:35.260 meta-politics
00:40:36.520 yes I think
00:40:38.360 it's important
00:40:38.800 to stress
00:40:39.200 it's a
00:40:39.480 meta-politics
00:40:40.360 because as
00:40:40.800 you say
00:40:41.240 he never
00:40:42.060 adambrated
00:40:42.640 clearly a
00:40:43.320 political
00:40:43.680 stance
00:40:44.380 or clearly
00:40:45.280 a political
00:40:45.740 profile
00:40:46.420 most
00:40:47.660 philosophers
00:40:48.140 do sketch
00:40:48.900 in a
00:40:49.260 political
00:40:49.680 philosophy
00:40:50.300 even if
00:40:51.360 they disregard
00:40:51.880 it
00:40:52.380 or even
00:40:53.000 if they
00:40:53.240 regard
00:40:53.480 it as
00:40:53.700 a minor
00:40:54.060 part
00:40:54.360 of
00:40:54.480 their
00:40:54.640 vision
00:40:55.040 you can
00:40:55.900 regard
00:40:56.260 Heidegger's
00:40:56.880 involvement
00:40:57.340 in a
00:40:57.740 very
00:40:57.940 controversial
00:40:58.480 type
00:40:58.840 of
00:40:59.000 politics
00:40:59.400 only
00:40:59.920 for a
00:41:00.300 brief
00:41:00.520 moment
00:41:00.980 as part
00:41:01.880 and parcel
00:41:02.340 of that
00:41:02.800 but although
00:41:03.700 he didn't
00:41:04.120 sketch out
00:41:04.660 a narrowly
00:41:05.400 drawn
00:41:05.700 politics
00:41:06.500 meta-politically
00:41:08.200 Nietzsche's
00:41:08.700 ideas in
00:41:09.160 many ways
00:41:09.680 are quite
00:41:10.100 clear
00:41:10.600 there's a
00:41:11.940 famous chapter
00:41:12.660 on Nietzsche
00:41:13.280 in Bertrand
00:41:13.920 Russell's
00:41:14.440 history of
00:41:14.840 western
00:41:15.040 philosophy
00:41:15.520 in which
00:41:16.920 Bertrand
00:41:17.880 Russell
00:41:18.240 who disliked
00:41:19.500 Nietzsche
00:41:19.720 intensely
00:41:20.300 looked up
00:41:21.680 and could
00:41:23.360 hear the
00:41:23.780 German aircraft
00:41:24.600 overhead
00:41:25.060 because it
00:41:25.600 was during
00:41:25.980 the blitz
00:41:26.620 and said
00:41:28.000 Nietzsche's
00:41:28.520 children are
00:41:29.100 bombing me
00:41:29.720 even as I
00:41:30.460 write these
00:41:30.900 paragraphs
00:41:31.280 about him
00:41:32.100 and there's
00:41:34.080 a degree to
00:41:34.600 which
00:41:35.020 although
00:41:36.360 Russell later
00:41:38.020 apologised for
00:41:38.820 the crudity
00:41:39.440 and the
00:41:39.760 propagandistic
00:41:40.660 worth of
00:41:41.460 that chapter
00:41:42.100 there's
00:41:42.900 that
00:41:43.160 meta-political
00:41:43.860 element of
00:41:44.360 truth there
00:41:45.000 even in
00:41:46.220 its falsehood
00:41:46.920 it's true
00:41:47.360 and false
00:41:47.940 at one
00:41:48.240 and the
00:41:48.460 same time
00:41:49.100 indeed
00:41:49.600 many of
00:41:49.960 the things
00:41:50.260 one can
00:41:50.540 say about
00:41:50.980 Nietzsche's
00:41:51.400 politics
00:41:51.820 and political
00:41:52.540 stance
00:41:53.160 meta-politically
00:41:54.180 derived
00:41:54.840 is true
00:41:55.880 and false
00:41:56.320 simultaneously
00:41:56.980 it's like
00:41:58.020 there was a
00:41:58.340 famous pamphlet
00:41:59.140 about him
00:41:59.760 in the first
00:42:00.620 world war
00:42:01.300 by a
00:42:02.220 classist
00:42:02.820 I think
00:42:03.280 Barker
00:42:03.940 of Oxford
00:42:04.700 University
00:42:05.400 he talked
00:42:06.560 about Nietzsche
00:42:07.160 being the
00:42:07.540 great philosopher
00:42:08.160 of the
00:42:08.560 German Reich
00:42:09.360 and the
00:42:10.220 German
00:42:10.500 authoritarian
00:42:11.180 militarism
00:42:11.920 and
00:42:12.140 Kaiserdom
00:42:12.780 and Prussianism
00:42:13.980 by which
00:42:14.700 of course
00:42:15.020 he meant
00:42:15.300 the forces
00:42:15.740 of the
00:42:16.280 second
00:42:17.000 imperial
00:42:17.600 Germany
00:42:18.160 that Britain
00:42:19.000 was then
00:42:19.400 waging war
00:42:20.100 with with
00:42:20.560 France
00:42:20.960 and so on
00:42:21.740 so there's
00:42:23.520 always been
00:42:23.960 this misinterpretation
00:42:25.320 at a
00:42:25.960 callow level
00:42:26.860 that Nietzsche
00:42:27.980 is a
00:42:28.420 fundamentally
00:42:28.960 Germanic
00:42:29.660 thinker
00:42:30.340 who represents
00:42:31.600 if you like
00:42:32.220 Germandom
00:42:33.180 and a
00:42:33.920 German
00:42:34.260 nationalist
00:42:35.260 desire for
00:42:36.160 dominion
00:42:36.760 when
00:42:37.700 the spirit
00:42:39.300 of Nietzsche
00:42:39.780 probably does
00:42:40.540 represent that
00:42:41.360 but the
00:42:42.020 textual facts
00:42:42.960 do not
00:42:43.720 and
00:42:44.760 Nietzsche
00:42:45.400 was in
00:42:45.940 rebellion
00:42:46.400 against
00:42:47.200 the centre
00:42:48.680 right and
00:42:49.120 right conformist
00:42:50.100 attitudes of
00:42:50.820 his era
00:42:51.340 as particularly
00:42:52.500 epitomized in
00:42:53.540 his own
00:42:53.880 family by his
00:42:54.720 brother-in-law
00:42:55.340 Forster
00:42:55.900 who he
00:42:57.220 regarded as
00:42:57.840 a blockhead
00:42:58.520 or a
00:42:58.900 dummkopf
00:42:59.480 and he
00:43:00.480 had all
00:43:01.060 of the
00:43:01.320 views
00:43:01.940 that
00:43:02.760 Nietzsche
00:43:03.220 Nietzsche's
00:43:04.520 liberal
00:43:04.800 supporters
00:43:05.380 enabled
00:43:05.880 Nietzsche to
00:43:06.380 escape from
00:43:06.980 in the middle
00:43:07.360 of the
00:43:07.600 20th century
00:43:08.380 because without
00:43:09.660 the Walter
00:43:10.180 Kaufman's of
00:43:10.880 this world
00:43:11.420 and without
00:43:11.820 their revisionist
00:43:12.760 cultural job
00:43:13.920 on Nietzsche
00:43:14.520 Nietzsche might
00:43:15.700 have gone down
00:43:16.320 the memory
00:43:16.760 hole
00:43:17.140 right
00:43:17.840 that's
00:43:19.040 a lot of
00:43:20.320 liberal thinkers
00:43:21.080 who admired
00:43:21.900 Nietzsche for
00:43:22.660 different reasons
00:43:24.080 of their own
00:43:24.840 either because
00:43:25.700 they weren't
00:43:26.200 Christians
00:43:26.760 or because
00:43:27.840 they had
00:43:28.320 pagan attitudes
00:43:29.100 or because
00:43:30.300 they just
00:43:30.720 liked dissident
00:43:31.420 nonconformity
00:43:32.260 for its own
00:43:32.860 sake
00:43:33.400 or because
00:43:34.380 they realized
00:43:34.940 he was a
00:43:35.340 complicated
00:43:35.660 thinker who
00:43:36.500 shouldn't be
00:43:36.920 politically
00:43:37.300 introduced
00:43:37.980 whatever the
00:43:39.080 reasons
00:43:39.500 people like
00:43:40.660 R.J.
00:43:41.240 Hollendale
00:43:41.780 who did
00:43:42.200 many of the
00:43:42.740 translations of
00:43:43.500 Nietzsche in
00:43:43.960 the middle of
00:43:44.280 the 20th century
00:43:45.020 in the British
00:43:45.880 Isles
00:43:46.380 and Kaufman in
00:43:47.500 the United
00:43:47.800 States who did
00:43:48.580 likewise
00:43:49.120 were important
00:43:50.460 for preventing
00:43:51.420 him from going
00:43:52.140 down the memory
00:43:52.700 hole
00:43:53.020 just because
00:43:53.860 he's a great
00:43:54.320 philosopher
00:43:54.740 there's no
00:43:55.600 reason that
00:43:56.160 that couldn't
00:43:56.660 have happened
00:43:57.120 it could have
00:43:57.620 happened very
00:43:58.180 very easily
00:43:58.860 where his
00:44:00.580 views were
00:44:01.060 conflated in a
00:44:01.940 complicated way
00:44:02.840 with those of
00:44:03.720 his brother-in-law
00:44:04.520 and he would
00:44:05.240 have been
00:44:05.520 thought as
00:44:06.040 just a
00:44:06.400 German
00:44:06.680 nationalist
00:44:07.140 with everything
00:44:08.140 in Nietzsche
00:44:09.680 one comes up
00:44:11.160 against
00:44:11.660 sublimation
00:44:13.140 you come up
00:44:14.060 against
00:44:14.440 exteriorization
00:44:15.560 the car
00:44:16.140 thing beyond
00:44:17.100 itself
00:44:17.620 to create
00:44:18.540 larger and
00:44:19.200 larger lines
00:44:19.940 of force
00:44:20.540 so he's
00:44:21.560 not a
00:44:21.900 German
00:44:22.140 nationalist
00:44:22.620 or a
00:44:23.300 nation-state
00:44:23.880 nationalist
00:44:24.280 but he's
00:44:25.040 a European
00:44:25.480 nationalist
00:44:26.140 and he's
00:44:27.320 a western
00:44:27.680 nationalist
00:44:28.240 and he's
00:44:29.340 a civic
00:44:29.740 nationalist
00:44:30.260 of western
00:44:30.820 culture
00:44:31.360 so what
00:44:33.020 would be
00:44:33.920 national
00:44:34.380 in another
00:44:34.860 person
00:44:35.480 is
00:44:36.160 transliterated
00:44:37.680 into something
00:44:39.080 broader and
00:44:40.380 bolder and
00:44:41.040 in some ways
00:44:41.820 more august
00:44:42.660 in some ways
00:44:43.680 more religious
00:44:44.320 given his
00:44:45.660 sort of
00:44:46.100 obviously
00:44:48.140 religiosity
00:44:48.940 of temperament
00:44:49.900 at least
00:44:50.580 at one
00:44:50.940 level
00:44:51.320 it's the
00:44:52.780 same with
00:44:53.180 the vexed
00:44:53.980 issue of
00:44:54.520 what is
00:44:55.160 called
00:44:55.500 anti-semitism
00:44:56.340 and what
00:44:56.680 is not
00:44:57.200 from a
00:44:58.000 literal
00:44:58.280 perspective
00:44:59.040 Nietzsche
00:44:59.740 is the
00:45:00.060 least
00:45:00.300 anti-semitic
00:45:01.040 of thinkers
00:45:01.580 particularly
00:45:02.360 in the
00:45:02.660 Germany
00:45:03.000 of his
00:45:04.120 era
00:45:04.440 again he
00:45:05.680 reacted very
00:45:06.360 badly
00:45:06.720 against his
00:45:07.260 brother-in-law's
00:45:08.480 volkish
00:45:09.180 anti-semitism
00:45:10.260 of that era
00:45:10.980 and yet of
00:45:11.940 course the
00:45:12.440 extremity of
00:45:13.360 Nietzsche's
00:45:13.740 anti-Christianity
00:45:14.840 the radicalism
00:45:16.760 with which he
00:45:17.260 belabours
00:45:18.240 the Christian
00:45:18.860 religion
00:45:19.340 the degree
00:45:20.400 to which he
00:45:20.840 holds itself
00:45:21.680 in contradistinction
00:45:22.640 to a European
00:45:24.240 ethic of man
00:45:25.220 or a European
00:45:26.400 aesthetic of man
00:45:27.740 there's driven
00:45:28.940 rise to some
00:45:29.800 thinkers
00:45:30.200 who see that
00:45:31.680 his anti-Christianity
00:45:33.020 is a form
00:45:34.920 of anti-semitism
00:45:35.960 because although
00:45:37.080 he never
00:45:37.800 curses the Jews
00:45:40.000 for creating
00:45:40.560 the circumstances
00:45:41.280 out of which
00:45:41.820 Christianity arose
00:45:43.000 there is a
00:45:43.980 degree to which
00:45:44.900 he considers
00:45:45.880 Christianity
00:45:46.420 to be poisonous
00:45:47.500 in relation
00:45:48.640 to the European
00:45:49.360 inheritance
00:45:50.020 so put rather
00:45:51.740 tendentiously
00:45:52.540 what in a
00:45:53.680 cruder or more
00:45:54.440 basic character
00:45:55.480 might have been
00:45:56.780 German
00:45:57.200 volkishness
00:45:58.020 and anti-semitism
00:45:59.260 in him
00:46:00.180 is civilizational
00:46:01.640 Europeanness
00:46:02.760 and anti-Christianity
00:46:03.980 so it's almost
00:46:06.740 as if
00:46:07.280 he won't be
00:46:08.620 hidebound
00:46:09.620 by the forces
00:46:10.700 of lesser men
00:46:11.660 he's rather
00:46:12.620 a similar
00:46:13.100 figure to
00:46:13.600 Ernst
00:46:13.880 younger
00:46:14.200 later in
00:46:14.740 the 20th
00:46:15.240 century
00:46:15.680 and although
00:46:16.700 he's complicit
00:46:17.500 with all sorts
00:46:18.160 of things
00:46:18.640 he was never
00:46:19.480 entirely of
00:46:20.380 them
00:46:20.720 and therefore
00:46:21.800 he remained
00:46:22.420 apart
00:46:23.000 aloof
00:46:23.560 and alone
00:46:24.260 and there's
00:46:25.120 this sort of
00:46:25.640 lonely
00:46:26.140 demigod
00:46:26.840 trajectory
00:46:27.440 outside of
00:46:28.680 things
00:46:29.120 to come back
00:46:30.480 to the idea
00:46:31.220 of a cataclysm
00:46:33.580 and things
00:46:34.060 changing
00:46:34.640 certainly he was
00:46:35.960 aware of all
00:46:36.760 of the nationalistic
00:46:37.440 tensions in
00:46:38.220 Europe
00:46:38.520 building from
00:46:39.580 the defeat of
00:46:40.220 France at Sedan
00:46:41.140 in the Franco-Prussian
00:46:41.900 War
00:46:42.240 which he of course
00:46:43.160 took part in
00:46:43.860 as a medical
00:46:44.340 orderly
00:46:44.980 as an ambulance
00:46:46.340 driver
00:46:46.860 he was well aware
00:46:49.600 that a combustion
00:46:50.400 was coming
00:46:51.200 and he could sense
00:46:52.400 the energies
00:46:52.880 that would lead up
00:46:53.700 to the first world
00:46:54.440 war
00:46:54.840 this great outpouring
00:46:56.280 of force
00:46:56.920 between the European
00:46:57.760 peoples
00:46:58.360 as they battled
00:46:59.460 in alliance
00:47:00.040 with each other
00:47:00.640 for supremacy
00:47:01.360 he could also
00:47:02.860 probably
00:47:03.440 understand
00:47:04.980 some of the
00:47:05.660 tremors
00:47:06.080 which would
00:47:07.080 shape the world
00:47:07.780 in relation
00:47:08.220 to what
00:47:08.780 later would
00:47:10.140 be the
00:47:10.700 Bolshevik
00:47:11.060 revolution
00:47:11.560 and attendant
00:47:12.600 revolutions
00:47:13.260 certainly he saw
00:47:14.940 that
00:47:15.800 he never quite
00:47:18.280 said it
00:47:18.920 but you can
00:47:19.340 imagine if he'd
00:47:20.080 lived a bit
00:47:20.580 longer
00:47:20.980 he would have
00:47:21.580 realised that
00:47:22.220 one of the
00:47:22.640 masks that
00:47:23.280 Caesarism would
00:47:24.220 wear in the
00:47:25.240 20th century
00:47:25.960 would be a
00:47:26.520 mass mask
00:47:27.480 whereby the
00:47:28.800 masses would be
00:47:29.480 enslaved all over
00:47:30.520 again by an
00:47:31.880 ideology such as
00:47:32.880 communism that said
00:47:33.760 it was seeking
00:47:34.280 nothing but their
00:47:34.960 liberation
00:47:35.500 because his
00:47:37.140 view of life
00:47:37.860 was paradoxical
00:47:38.860 and he loved
00:47:40.340 paradox which is
00:47:41.820 the essence of
00:47:42.400 tragedy and he
00:47:44.180 saw life in
00:47:44.880 tragic terms
00:47:46.020 or in tragic
00:47:47.140 hues and
00:47:48.420 therefore a
00:47:50.040 Nietzschean
00:47:50.380 analysis of the
00:47:51.220 entire prognosis
00:47:52.140 of communism
00:47:52.880 whereby you have
00:47:54.600 in the 1870s a
00:47:56.180 purely idealistic
00:47:57.100 ideology which by
00:47:59.060 1917-18 has
00:48:01.020 taken over one
00:48:01.840 of the foundational
00:48:03.100 European states
00:48:04.240 and created a
00:48:05.460 charnel house
00:48:06.220 which will later
00:48:07.240 become a slave
00:48:08.060 labour society
00:48:09.060 which will then
00:48:10.280 ossify and harden
00:48:11.480 until liberals
00:48:12.680 within that system
00:48:14.020 take it over at the
00:48:14.940 end and dissolve it
00:48:16.240 peacefully from within
00:48:17.360 something that was
00:48:18.380 not discernible
00:48:19.400 earlier on by any
00:48:21.100 means and now it's
00:48:22.260 collapsed into
00:48:22.800 history and you
00:48:23.900 wonder even though
00:48:24.800 it's only 20 years
00:48:25.620 back if it was ever
00:48:26.720 there that's one
00:48:28.120 area about which he
00:48:29.000 couldn't comment
00:48:29.660 because of course it
00:48:30.660 lay after his death
00:48:31.800 but it's part and
00:48:33.080 parcel of these
00:48:33.720 cataclysms that he
00:48:34.740 senses is coming
00:48:35.700 he's not definitive
00:48:37.420 in relation to a
00:48:38.520 new caesarism the
00:48:39.460 way spengler is at
00:48:40.580 the end of the
00:48:41.120 time of the west
00:48:41.920 when spengler says
00:48:43.200 although we're
00:48:43.600 living in an
00:48:44.080 era of decline
00:48:45.000 there will be
00:48:46.260 revanches there
00:48:47.640 will be attempts
00:48:48.440 at a counter
00:48:49.580 intuitive thrust
00:48:50.620 against the
00:48:51.120 prospect of decline
00:48:52.100 of which caesarisms
00:48:53.780 in europe will be
00:48:54.620 won but he
00:48:56.480 certainly thought
00:48:57.200 that the masses
00:48:58.160 can't leave a
00:48:58.940 civilization which
00:48:59.800 means they have to
00:49:00.520 be led
00:49:01.020 you either dupe
00:49:02.260 them by saying
00:49:03.060 that you lead
00:49:03.680 them on behalf
00:49:04.260 of their own
00:49:04.800 ideology in other
00:49:06.160 words you're doing
00:49:06.760 it from the
00:49:07.200 interest of the
00:49:07.780 masses and you're
00:49:08.980 doing it in the
00:49:09.520 name of their
00:49:10.140 safety quality of
00:49:11.460 worth and purpose
00:49:12.320 or you do it
00:49:14.220 with something
00:49:14.760 harsher and
00:49:15.520 essentially
00:49:16.000 stentorian and
00:49:17.620 more old world
00:49:18.640 and against the
00:49:19.580 interest of the
00:49:20.140 masses
00:49:20.500 some people of
00:49:23.080 course would think
00:49:23.840 that his mental
00:49:24.460 illness that was
00:49:25.120 catching up with
00:49:25.760 him towards the
00:49:26.280 end of his life
00:49:26.940 particularly in
00:49:27.580 texts like
00:49:28.640 Eke Homo
00:49:29.240 when there's
00:49:30.020 much talk of
00:49:30.580 philosophizing with
00:49:31.400 a hammer and
00:49:32.280 that sort of
00:49:32.820 thing and in
00:49:33.580 certain sections
00:49:34.180 of will to
00:49:34.660 power are
00:49:35.800 catching up with
00:49:36.540 him in his
00:49:37.000 talk of
00:49:37.440 cataclysms and
00:49:38.640 bursting dams and
00:49:40.620 psychonic frenzies and
00:49:41.820 such like but
00:49:43.220 there's a degree to
00:49:44.100 which I think
00:49:45.740 these are emotional
00:49:47.040 rhapsodies which are
00:49:48.000 musical in a way
00:49:49.160 and just as his
00:49:50.280 first book was
00:49:51.060 heavily impregnated
00:49:52.260 with Wagner's
00:49:53.000 presence and was
00:49:54.340 heavily to do with
00:49:55.640 music
00:49:56.240 music was a key
00:49:58.960 art form for
00:49:59.800 Nietzsche because
00:50:01.000 you can lose
00:50:02.160 yourself in music
00:50:03.040 and become
00:50:03.580 something else
00:50:04.400 the idea of
00:50:05.640 enclosure that
00:50:07.620 somebody who
00:50:08.060 listens to
00:50:08.500 Beethoven becomes
00:50:09.520 if only for a
00:50:10.800 couple of moments
00:50:11.780 Beethoven or
00:50:13.120 analogies to the
00:50:13.880 spirit of
00:50:14.340 Beethoven and
00:50:15.940 somebody who
00:50:16.680 intoxicates
00:50:17.300 themselves with
00:50:17.940 Europe's future
00:50:18.740 can in language
00:50:19.980 become part of
00:50:21.120 that very forward
00:50:22.840 progression into the
00:50:23.980 future which
00:50:25.780 none of us can
00:50:26.420 entirely chart but
00:50:27.920 which we all have
00:50:28.680 a glimpse of
00:50:29.420 I think in
00:50:30.580 relation to the
00:50:31.340 current state of
00:50:32.900 present modernity
00:50:34.460 the fact that he
00:50:35.560 survived the fact
00:50:36.500 that Freud and
00:50:37.120 Marx have
00:50:37.600 weared far less
00:50:38.680 well is a
00:50:40.620 notable and
00:50:41.200 interesting point
00:50:42.020 for the future
00:50:42.780 I also think that
00:50:44.580 any right that's
00:50:46.040 got a future
00:50:46.760 will have to
00:50:48.040 partly base itself
00:50:49.100 around Nietzsche's
00:50:49.960 thinking as I
00:50:51.180 have always done
00:50:52.000 this is very
00:50:53.880 difficult
00:50:54.320 electorally
00:50:54.920 because there's
00:50:55.400 so much of a
00:50:56.040 charge left in
00:50:56.900 Christianity
00:50:57.360 so much of a
00:50:58.520 condenser cell
00:50:59.460 battery you know
00:51:00.820 with a big charge
00:51:01.740 on it left there
00:51:03.100 in terms of
00:51:03.860 practical politics
00:51:04.780 particularly in a
00:51:05.440 society like the
00:51:06.180 United States
00:51:06.940 but I think the
00:51:08.060 sad truth is
00:51:09.060 that for an
00:51:09.940 elite
00:51:10.420 Nietzsche's way
00:51:13.920 without antagonizing
00:51:15.060 Christianity too
00:51:16.000 much by a bit of
00:51:17.880 sleight of hand
00:51:18.740 texts like
00:51:19.900 Antichrist can be
00:51:20.840 put down towards
00:51:21.620 the bottom of
00:51:22.140 the pile and
00:51:23.300 texts like
00:51:24.100 Thus Spake
00:51:24.740 Zarathustra can
00:51:25.520 be put on top
00:51:26.480 so a few games
00:51:27.840 may have to be
00:51:28.520 played just as
00:51:29.660 left wing
00:51:29.980 interpretations of
00:51:31.400 Nietzsche,
00:51:31.960 Labai,
00:51:32.400 Deleuze,
00:51:32.820 Gattari and
00:51:33.300 others are also
00:51:34.280 playing their own
00:51:35.060 games may have
00:51:37.180 to be done
00:51:37.940 but I do think
00:51:39.380 that a new
00:51:41.860 right that calls
00:51:42.640 itself such will
00:51:43.540 have to base
00:51:44.140 itself around the
00:51:45.500 greatest thinker of
00:51:46.720 the non-left
00:51:47.720 that can be found
00:51:49.200 who is visible
00:51:50.380 who is
00:51:51.660 determined to
00:51:53.880 exist in this
00:51:54.740 current time on
00:51:55.840 his own terms
00:51:56.700 as well as
00:51:58.020 that of his
00:51:58.440 more shallow
00:51:59.020 conspirators and
00:52:00.180 detractors and
00:52:01.500 also the very
00:52:02.660 fact that he is
00:52:03.600 there and is
00:52:04.900 admired and is
00:52:06.260 partly revered by
00:52:07.640 all sorts of
00:52:08.200 people who have
00:52:08.760 no time for a
00:52:09.560 proportion of his
00:52:10.200 views.
00:52:11.140 We haven't even
00:52:11.560 discussed his
00:52:12.360 views about
00:52:12.860 feminism for
00:52:13.560 example which is
00:52:14.860 so out of sync with
00:52:15.840 this current
00:52:16.320 era as to be
00:52:17.660 almost sort of
00:52:18.500 obsolete forms of
00:52:21.540 19th century
00:52:22.300 prestige because he
00:52:24.100 wouldn't have even
00:52:24.560 given women the
00:52:25.240 vote.
00:52:25.980 He wouldn't have
00:52:26.720 even tolerated
00:52:27.540 female involvement
00:52:28.460 in practical
00:52:29.120 politics and
00:52:32.020 there's a great
00:52:32.940 silence about his
00:52:33.980 attitudes on all
00:52:34.760 of those fronts.
00:52:36.380 So the very fact
00:52:37.900 that in the
00:52:39.340 Reclaim the Night
00:52:40.220 campuses of North
00:52:41.280 America, you
00:52:43.380 know, one of the
00:52:43.880 most quote-unquote
00:52:45.100 sexist philosophers
00:52:46.100 of all time can
00:52:47.280 be worshipped as
00:52:48.940 a bit of a
00:52:49.320 demigod is
00:52:50.300 itself an
00:52:50.920 interesting
00:52:51.360 conundrum.
00:52:53.740 It also shows
00:52:54.820 you how far
00:52:55.640 people can go to
00:52:56.700 avoid things about
00:52:57.740 somebody that they
00:52:58.900 otherwise admire.
00:53:00.580 Yes, I think
00:53:01.100 that's true.
00:53:01.860 You know, to
00:53:02.240 bring this
00:53:03.220 conversation to a
00:53:04.380 close, I think
00:53:05.240 to sum up what
00:53:06.660 you're saying in
00:53:07.340 this past passage
00:53:09.140 is that Nietzsche's
00:53:10.340 day hasn't come
00:53:12.200 yet, that he is
00:53:13.320 not reducible to
00:53:14.740 German nationalism.
00:53:16.800 And in a way, in
00:53:17.760 his kind of
00:53:18.500 European nationalism
00:53:19.940 or his concept
00:53:22.020 of European
00:53:22.500 empire, he is
00:53:24.540 very much with
00:53:25.820 us on the
00:53:27.280 avant-garde of
00:53:28.400 right-wing
00:53:29.080 thinking today.
00:53:30.120 I think, you
00:53:31.380 know, if there
00:53:31.800 is a vanguard in
00:53:34.200 our movement, I
00:53:35.540 think it's saying
00:53:36.300 if you think of
00:53:37.200 someone like
00:53:37.620 Guillaume
00:53:37.900 Fay and
00:53:38.500 others, we're
00:53:40.800 saying that the
00:53:42.080 provincial nationalism
00:53:44.020 can have its
00:53:44.700 problems.
00:53:45.140 And in our
00:53:46.400 current geopolitical
00:53:47.700 situation, a
00:53:49.100 concept of
00:53:50.080 Europe and
00:53:50.760 European nationalism
00:53:51.820 is the one that
00:53:53.500 is most relevant
00:53:54.480 and is the one
00:53:55.380 that can defeat
00:53:56.920 our enemies.
00:53:58.340 So hopefully,
00:53:59.640 Nietzsche's day
00:54:00.220 will come.
00:54:01.920 But, Jonathan,
00:54:02.860 I'd certainly like
00:54:04.120 to have probably
00:54:05.240 another hundred
00:54:06.520 conversations with
00:54:08.080 you about
00:54:08.600 Nietzsche and
00:54:09.760 other topics, but
00:54:10.680 I think we should
00:54:11.540 put a bookmark in
00:54:14.500 this conversation
00:54:15.280 for the time
00:54:16.740 being.
00:54:17.140 I think we
00:54:17.460 ended up at a
00:54:18.220 very interesting
00:54:18.740 place.
00:54:19.740 But thank you
00:54:20.400 for your time and
00:54:21.660 your insight on
00:54:22.540 Nietzsche, and I'd
00:54:23.240 love to have you
00:54:24.120 back again on the
00:54:25.120 program soon.
00:54:27.160 Yes, thanks very
00:54:28.280 much.
00:54:28.780 I'll be welcome
00:54:29.980 to the end of
00:54:30.780 this week.
00:54:31.060 Thanks again.
00:54:31.600 Thank you.
00:54:38.120 Thank you.
00:54:38.760 Transcription by CastingWords