Date: Wed, 20 Dec 1995 08:56:04 -0500 (CDT) From: MTP8462-AT-UTARLG.UTA.EDU 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 --- from list nietzsche-AT-jefferson.village.virginia.edu --- ------------------
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