Date: Wed, 20 Dec 1995 08:56:04 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: Re: N. & fascism


Nietzsche was brilliant at addressing fascism?

Political topics would not be so hard to take if they were not approached
by most with the liberal/demcratic ethos that Nietzsche himself disliked
so much. Behind this ethos of course is the christian bad conscience. As far
as political discussions of Nietzsche goes, I have never really heard or
read one that I found worthwhile. I have, however, read an "introduction"
to Nietzsche's political thought I liked: Ansell-Pearson, Keith. _An 
Introduction to Nietzsche as Political thinker_. Cambridge UP, 1994.

For now I shall go on toiling in that dreaded "irony," ignoring those
who speak of "lessons."

                

      We "conserve" nothing; neither do we want to return to any past periods;
      we are not by any means "liberal"; we do not work for "progress"; we do
      not need to plug up our ears against the sirens who in the marketplace
      sing of the future: their song about "equal rights," "a free society,"
      "no more masters and no servants" has no allure for us. We simply do not
      find it desirable that a realm of justice and concord should be estab-
      lished on earth (because it would certainly be the realm of the deepest
      leveling and _chinoiserie_); we are delighted with all who love, as we
      do, danger, war, and adventures, who refuse to compromise, to be captured,
      reconciled, and castrated; we count ourselves among conquerors; we
      think about the necessity for new orders, also for new slavery-- for
      every strenghtening and enhancement of the human type also involves a 
      new kind of enslavement. Is it not clear that with all of this we are
      bound to fell ill at ease in an age that likes to claim the distinction
      of being the most humane, the mildest, and the most righteous age that
      the sun has ever seen? It is bad enough that precisely when we hear
      these words we have the ugliest suspicions. What we find in them is 
      merely an expression--and a masquerade--of a profound weakening, of
      wearines, of old age, of declining energies. What can it matter to us
      what tinsel the sick may use to cover up their weakness? Let them
      parade it as their _virtue_; after all, there is no doubt that weak-
      ness makes one mild, so righteous, so inoffensive, so "human"!

      _The Gay Science_, 377.

Marty


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