Culture remains a divisive issue in liberal democracies, and this article argues Nietzsche offers a principled middle ground between the conservative and progressive camps of recent and ongoing ‘culture wars’. Hence, this article challenges the ‘aristocratic’ versus ‘democratic’ Nietzsche debate by making the case that Nietzsche defended two opposed notions of culture in his early period work: a national or group culture and a cosmopolitan culture. This opposition is salutary, however, in that each form of culture moderates the excesses of the other so that both jointly can aim to perfect what Nietzsche claims is our bifurcated human nature.
The literature here is vast. The ‘aristocratic radical’ defenders include: B. Detwiler (1990) Nietzsche and the Politics of Aristocratic Radicalism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. F. Appel (1998) Nietzsche contra Democracy. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. D. Dombowsky (2009) ‘Nietzsche as Bonapartist’, in H. W. Siemens (ed.) Nietzsche, Power, and Politics: Rethinking Nietzsche’s Legacy for Political Thought, pp. 347-369, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. The liberal democratic reading has (at least) three strands - one that stems from the postmodernist reading of Nietzsche from Foucault and includes those agonist democrats like: M. Warren (1988) Nietzsche and Political Thought. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. B. Honig (1993) Political Theory and the Displacement of Politics. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. W. Connolly (2002) Identity/Difference: Democratic Negotiations of Political Paradox. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. L. Hatab (1995) A Nietzschean Defense of Democracy. Chicago: Open Court Publishing. The second arises from the liberal ‘ironist’ bourgeois appropriation of Nietzsche in R. Rorty (1989) Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. The third responds to Rawlsian liberalism with a democratic perfectionism in S. Cavell (1990) Conditions Handsome and Unhandsome: The Constitution of Emersonian Perfectionism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. J. Conant (2000) ‘Nietzsche’s Perfectionism: A Reading of Schopenhauer as Educator’, in R. Schacht (ed.) Nietzsche’s Postmoralism, pp. 181-244. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
2.
Warren (n. 1), p. 47.
3.
Nietzsche’s view of culture in some ways matches with Scruton’s view of ‘high culture’, but Nietzsche does still follow Herder in incorporating something of what Scruton calls ‘common culture’. See R. Scruton (1998) An Intelligent Person’s Guide to Modern Culture, ch. 1. South Bend, IN: St Augustine’s Press. For helpful general discussions of Nietzsche’s early view of culture, see R. McGinn (1975) ‘Culture as Prophylactic: Nietzsche’s Birth of Tragedy as Culture Criticism’, Nietzsche Studien, vol. 4, 75-138. Q.P. Taylor (1997) The Republic of Genius, pp. 69-91. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press. C. Zuckert (1976) ‘Nature, History, and the Self: Nietzsche’s Untimely Considerations’, Nietzsche-Studien, 5: 55-82, offers an illuminating discussion that seeks to synthesize the philosophy of UM, and brings out Nietzsche’s worries about the consequences of modernity for the possibility of achieving common ground among individuals. P. Franco (2007) ‘Nietzsche’s Human, All Too Human, and the Problem of Culture’, Review of Politics, vol. 69, 215-43, insightfully develops Nietzsche’s notion of culture in the middle-period works, yet wrongly, as I will argue, attributes to the early period works an excessive reliance on art at the expense of knowledge.
4.
J. Rawls (1971) A Theory of Justice, pp. 285-292. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. T. Hurka (1993) Perfectionism, pp. 75-9. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Cavell (n. 1), pp. 49-53. Conant (n. 1). For a defense of Nietzsche’s ‘perfectionism’ across his entire corpus see Daniel Conway (1997) Nietzsche and the Political, pp. 6-27. New York: Routledge.
5.
Hurka (n. 4), p. 3.
6.
For a nice elaboration of Nietzsche’s fundamental commitment to realizing ‘humanity’ throughout his writings see B. Yack (1992) The Longing for Total Revolution: Philosophic Sources of Social Discontent from Rousseau to Marx and Nietzsche, pp. 310-64. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. C. Zuckert (1983) ‘Nietzsche on the Origin and Development of the Distinctively Human’, Polity, vol. 16, no. 1 Autumn 1983, 48-71, shows that Nietzsche’s later Genealogy of Morality is concerned with locating and perfecting the ‘distinctively human’. Despite a general agreement that Nietzsche’s fundamental meta-ethical commitment is to perfecting humanity, there are dissenters. B. Leiter defends a naturalized understanding of Nietzsche’s metaethics: (2002) Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Nietzsche on Morality. New York: Routledge. While A. Nehamas and others have defended a formal understanding of Nietzsche’s ethics based on aesthetic principles of order and harmony: Nehamas (1987) Nietzsche: Life as Literature. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
7.
F. Nietzsche ( 1983) Untimely Meditations, tr. R. J. Hollingdale, 2.9. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. This is abbreviated in the text as UM.
8.
T. Hobbes ( 1994 [1651]) Leviathan, pp. 33, 34-5, 81. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing.
9.
John Locke was an important transitional figure from Hobbes to Rousseau and Kant in attempting to restore human dignity to an empiricist anthropology. See on Locke on dignity M. Zuckert (2007) ‘Human Dignity as the Basis of Justice’, The Hedgehog Review, 9(3): 32-48, Fall 2007 and on Locke’s influence on Hegel, J. Church, ‘Personhood and Ethical Commercial Life: Hegel’s Transformation of Locke’, in L. A. Ward (forthcoming) Natural Rights and Political Philosophy. Notre Dame. IN: University of Notre Dame.
10.
J.-J. Rousseau ( 1987 [1755]) Basic Political Writings, p. 44. Indianapolis : Hackett Publishing.
11.
On this point, see Kant’s remarks about the ‘Copernican revolution in philosophy’ at Bxvi in the Critique of Pure Reason, Trans. Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
12.
See Herder, Another Philosophy of History, pp. 11, 50-4; G.W.F Hegel (1991) Elements of the Philosophy of Right, Trans. H.B. Nisbet, para. 5, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
13.
See F. Schiller ( 2004 [1794-5]) On the Aesthetic Education of Man , pp. 68-89. Dover.: ‘To watch over these two impulses, and to secure for each its boundaries, is the task of culture, which therefore owes justice equally to both, and has to uphold not only the rational impulse against the sensuous, but also the latter against the former.’
14.
Nietzsche ‘establishes’ this stage only in an inchoate form in his early period work - Nietzsche’s mature period writings on the will to power and genealogy are required to fully flesh this stage out.
15.
F. Nietzsche (2001) Gay Science, ed. Bernard Williams, tr. Josefine Nauckhoff, aphorism 357. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Cited in text as GS, with aphorism number.) For a rich, illuminating discussion of Nietzsche’s approach to history, see C. Emden (2008) Friedrich Nietzsche and the Politics of History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. This article has benefited greatly from Emden’s research into Nietzsche’s skepticism about Enlightenment humanism and the modern state.
16.
The three character types representing these activities are the artist, saint, and philosopher - for insightful analysis see UM 3.5 and L. P. Thiele (1990) Friedrich Nietzsche and the Politics of the Soul: A Study of Heroic Individualism. Princeton: Princeton University Press. T. Heilke offers a useful grasp of Nietzsche’s ‘musical’ politics: (1997) Nietzsche’s Tragic Regime: Culture, Aesthetics, and Political Education. DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press. This is not to say that politics is irrelevant to cultural activity - indeed, culture and politics will always be interdependent - but rather that human beings are not ‘political animals’ in the way Hegel retrieves Aristotle’s famous claim and makes political participation the standard of a good human life.
17.
See preface to F. Nietzsche ‘Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks’, tr. Marianne Cowan (cited as PTAG in the text, with page numbers).
18.
Cf. UM 3.5 in which Nietzsche claims that ‘nature needs knowledge’, and ‘all nature presses towards man . . . [and] thereby intimates that man is necessary for the redemption of nature from the curse of the life of the animal, and that in him existence at last holds up before itself a mirror in which life appears no longer senseless but in its metaphysical significance’. The ‘fundamental idea of culture’ consists of this ‘perfecting of nature’.
19.
F. Nietzsche (1988) Sämtliche Werke: Kritische Studienausgabe, ed. G. Colli and M. Montinari, 7.19 (16-17). Dordrecht: de Gruyter . (Cited in text as KSA.)
20.
Though Nietzsche fails to distinguish explicitly the two senses of culture in his early work, he does invoke both forms in UM 3 (it is not as if he conceives of one notion of culture in BT and then drops it in UM - he stays rather consistent in his inconsistency in his early period). He does use two different German terms that are often rendered as ‘culture’ in English translations - Kultur and Bildung - but Nietzsche employs these terms interchangeably, despite the venerable tradition of German theory of Bildung. See helpful discussions of Bildung by W. Bruford (1975) The German Tradition of Self-Cultivation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. R. Geuss (1996) ‘Kultur, Bildung, Geist’, History and Theory 35(2): 151-64. However, Nietzsche does reserve scorn for the Enlightenment understanding of Bildung, represented by the ‘gebildet’ (UM 1.1), those philistines like Strauss who take themselves to be ‘cultured’ (gebildet) while reflecting the worst excesses of a shallow fashionable intellectual snobbery. In his famous discussion of the ‘last men’ in his Zarathustra, Nietzsche will again use Bildung more broadly but also derisively to refer to the modern pride in civilized society, a society Nietzsche sees as spiritually bankrupt (See F. Nietzsche (1966) Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Trans. Walter Kaufmann, preface, section 5, New York: Penguin Books). Yet despite these derogatory remarks, Nietzsche employs Bildung (and Kultur) to refer to his own positive cultural ideal.
21.
See, for instance, F. Nietzsche (n.d.) ‘On the Future of Our Educational Institutions’ (FEI), tr. Michael W. Grenke, p. 17, where Nietzsche articulates two ‘drives’ that make up a proper cultural education - on the one hand, education fosters the ‘narrowing and concentration of education’, and, on the other, education aims for the ‘strengthening and self-sufficiency of education’. These two drives roughly line up to the aims of the two kinds of culture I elicit in Nietzsche - the ‘narrowing’ pairs up with the first, particularist notion of culture, while the ‘self-sufficiency’ view matches the second, universal view.
22.
At the same time, Nietzsche thinks that this sickness is ‘like pregnancy’ - that is, it is not a fact to be regretted, but rather to be celebrated for its creative potential. See F. Nietzsche (1994) On the Genealogy of Morality, Trans. Carol Diethe, essay 2, section 19, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
23.
F. Nietzsche (1999) The Birth of Tragedy, tr. Ronald Spiers, p. 87. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Cited in the text as BT.)
24.
See, further, UM 2.9 on the deadly truths that would reveal the meaninglessness of nature and hence reintroduce Silenus’ truth on a mass scale, which, in Nietzsche’s mind would lead to the ‘people perish[ing] of petty egoism, ossification and greed’.
25.
J. Young also nicely describes Nietzsche’s early encounter with Schopenhauer as the existential concerns that animated his interest. See J. Young ( 2010) Friedrich Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography, pp. 81-98. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
26.
See A. Schopenhauer (1969 [1818]) The World as Will and Representation, tr. E. F. J. Payne, pp. 283, 309, 311-26. New York: Dover.
27.
My reading of Nietzsche takes aim at the interpretation of Nietzsche’s culture that prizes a mythology, a mere distraction from the tragic wisdom of the truth about nature and an immersion into artwork. Rather, Nietzsche’s culture specifically incorporates tragic wisdom and justifies human life nonetheless.
28.
Nietzsche emphasizes the point that it is the representation of nature, not an exact revelation of nature, that absorbs the cultured Greek - Nietzsche claims that it is not just our ‘existence’ but also the ‘world’ that is ‘eternally justified’ as an ‘aesthetic phenomenon’. For Nietzsche, the world has no ‘justification’ in itself, but rather must be supplied one by human art.
29.
Some excellent new studies have shed considerable light on Nietzsche’s debt to Kant - see, for instance, R. K. Hill (2003) Nietzsche’s Critiques: The Kantian Foundations of his Thought. Oxford: Oxford University Press. M. S. Green (2002) Nietzsche and the Transcendental Tradition. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. See also D. Owen (2009) ‘Autonomy, Self-Respect, and Self-Love: Nietzsche on Ethical Agency’, in K. G. May (ed.) Nietzsche on Freedom and Autonomy, issue 24, pp. 197-222. Oxford: Oxford University Press. K. Gemes (2009) ‘Nietzsche on Free Will, Autonomy, and the Sovereign Individual’ in K. G. May (ed.) Nietzsche on Freedom and Autonomy, pp. 33-50. Oxford: Oxford University Press. These have rightfully elicited Nietzsche’s commitment to an ethical ideal of ‘autonomy.’
30.
Immanuel Kant ( 1981) Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals. Trans. James W. Ellington, p. 19, Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing Company.
31.
Emphasis Nietzsche’s. Schiller’s elaborated Kant’s point about the difficulty in discern ing human freedom in his essay Über Anmut und Würde ( F.Schiller (2005) ‘On Grace and Dignity,’’ in Schiller’s ‘On Grace and Dignity’ in Its Cultural Context, ed. Jane V. Curran and Christophe Fricker. Rochester, NY: Camden House. pp. 123-170). Schiller argued that human freedom is most clearly revealed through ‘dignity’ (Würde), that is, through the conflict of our natural inclinations and our duties. Nietzsche is in turn appropriating this Schillerian point for his theory of culture. See BT 92 for Nietzsche’s appropriation of Schiller’s Naïve and Sentimental Poetry. See N. Martin for the judgment that BT ‘engages in a constructive and at times even deferential manner with Schiller’s aesthetic theory’ and, I think here, with the moral theory: Martin (1996) Nietzsche and Schiller: Untimely Aesthetics. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
32.
Cf. also KSA 7.19(13): the individual does not ‘stand so wholly removed, as an exception, from the people: the will [of the people] wants something of him as well. The aim is the same as in art - its very own transfiguration and redemption (Erlösung)’
33.
Nietzsche’s account of the moment of liberation of the human from nature is complicated in a further way - that is, Nietzsche wants to emphasize that the liberation from nature as represented by Prometheus is assisted by nature itself as represented by the ‘Titan Atlas, brother of Prometheus’ (BT 51). Nietzsche again wants to emphasize that human freedom is not some supernatural power, but is essentially consistent with a thoroughly naturalistic view of the world. On this matter, see Nietzsche’s ambivalence towards Schiller’s idealism on BT 38-9.
34.
For Nietzsche, ancient communities did not lead to this dehumanization or alienation of citizens from the political community, in part because politics and culture were not disentangled as they have become in the modern age. See UM 2.10 on Nietzsche’s praise of the Greeks and for further discussion J. Church (forthcoming) Infinite Autonomy: The Divided Individual in the Political Thought of G. W. F. Hegel and Friedrich Nietzsche, ch. 7. Philadelphia: Penn State Press.
35.
J. Conant does not discuss this passage from UM 2.9 where Nietzsche is explicit about the inegalitarian character of his notion of ‘exemplar’. See J. Conant ( 2000) ‘Nietzsche’s Perfectionism: A Reading of Schopenhauer as Educator’, in R. Schacht (ed.) Nietzsche’s Postmoralism, pp. 181-244. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
36.
Immanuel Kant (1996) The Metaphysics of Morals . Trans. Mary Gregor, pp. 150-1, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
37.
For an elaboration of Nietzsche’s appropriation of Socrates and eros, see J. Church (2006) ‘Dreaming of the True Erotic: Nietzsche’s Socrates and the Reform of Education’, History of Political Thought, 27(4): 685-710, Winter 2006.
38.
See Aristophanes’ account of eros as a desire to become whole in Symposium 189aff. As V. Lemm rightly points out, Cavell and Conant only emphasize this first consecration to culture in their intrapsychic account of Nietzsche’s perfectionism. They overlook the second consecration, which, in Lemm’s words, hence overlooks Nietzsche’s account of individuals’ ‘responsibility’ to culture. See V. Lemm ( 2007) ‘Is Nietzsche a Perfectionist? Rawls, Cavell, and the Politics of Culture in Nietzsche’s Schopenhauer as Educator’ , Journal of Nietzsche Studies34: 5-27.
39.
Plato (1994) Symposium, trans. Robin Waterfield, p. 216b, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
40.
See also Nietzsche’s suggestion that the ‘whole life of a people reflects impurely and confusedly the image offered up by its highest geniuses: these are not the product of the masses, but the masses show their repercussion,’ an indication of Nietzsche’s view of the second view of culture and the productive character of its individuals (KSA 7.19(1)).
41.
As Nietzsche puts it at KSA 7.19(41): ‘The culture of a people is revealed in the unifying taming (Bändigung) of the drives of this people: philosophy tames the knowledge-drive, art the form-drive and the drive for ecstasy, agape controls eros, and so forth.’ See also KSA 7.23(14) on philosophy’s role in either ‘preparing for’, ‘maintaining’, or ‘moderating’ culture.
42.
On this point, see D. Owen (2002) ‘Equality, Democracy, and Self-Respect: Reflections on Nietzsche’s Agonal Perfectionism’, Journal of Nietzsche Studies 113-31, who situates Nietzsche’s critique of the Enlightenment with other critics of mass society and defenders of human excellence, such as John Stuart Mill and Alexis de Tocqueville. See also, among other contemporary democratic theorists, J. Tully, who defends an ideal of civic participation and excellence indebted to these 19th-cent. critics (part 1): Tully (2008) Public Philosophy in a New Key. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. These theorists are defending a notion of ‘perfectionism’ that is Nietzschean - a ‘processual’ perfectionism, rather than a substantive telos, in Owen’s terms, glossing Conant.
43.
Thus, there is reason to think that Nietzsche would reject a legally exclusive or aristocratic system of education. Education, for Nietzsche, would be open to all, but the content ought not be lowered in order to accommodate a more general audience.
44.
Nietzsche makes an empirical assumption that many Enlightenment thinkers have questioned, that the cultural distinction between the few and the many is unbridgeable. Accordingly, I disagree with those theorists like Owen (n. 42) who seek to find the egalitarian elements in Nietzsche.
45.
Indeed, if we take UM 3.7 and FEI 78 as guides, Nietzsche is closest to a classical liberal in his politics, though he repeatedly makes reference to the Hobbesian ‘war of all against all’, e.g. UM 1.7.
