The connection between Marx(ism) and Nietzsche(anism) has repeatedly been a topic on our blog. To what extent can the ideas of arguably the most important theorist on the left and the philosophical chameleon, who was an avowed anti-socialist and anti-feminist and inspired Goebbels and Mussolini, among others, be meaningfully combined. While there have been repeated attempts at left-wing Nietzscheanism, Estella Walter's conclusion in this controversial thesis article is skeptical: The contrast between “historical-dialectical materialism” and Nietzsche's idea of will to power is too irreconcilable. Beyond his time diagnosis, his thinking only provides little emancipatory content.

Taylor Swift is one of the most important “idols” of our time. Reason enough for our regular authors Henry Holland, Paul Stephan and Estella Walter to pick up on the Nietzschean “hammer” and get to grips with the hype a bit: Does Swift deserve the cult around her that goes down to philosophy? Is it grossly overrated? And what explains the discrepancy between appearance and reality, spectacle and life?

You can watch the entire unabridged conversation on the Halcyonic Association for Radical Philosophy YouTube channel (link).

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It is well known that Nietzsche's history of influence has been read and absorbed across all political camps. But what about our present tense? Paul Stephan examines the writings of two authors who are about the same age as himself, in their mid/late 30s, and whose perspectives on Nietzsche could hardly be more different: While French journalist and YouTuber Julien Rochedy declares Nietzsche a pioneer of a right-wing cultural struggle, the German philosopher and political scientist Karsten Schubert attacks him for a left-wing identity politics. Both positions do not really convince our authors; rather, they are entirely within the framework of the prevailing simulation of politics as a cultural struggle, which would need to be countered by focusing on the really pressing life problems of contemporary humanity.

After two previous contributions to Nietzsche in the Anglosphere For this blog, Henry Holland interviewed American thinker Daniel Tutt about his perspective on Nietzsche as the most important antagonist of the left. The discussion included Huey Newton, leader of the Black Panthers in the 1970s, and what his “parasitic” way of reading Nietzsche prompted him to read. An unedited and unabridged version of this interview, in original English, can be heard and watched on Tutt's YouTube channel (link).

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From October 7 to 11, 2024, the event organized by the Klassik Stiftung Weimar took place in Weimar Nietzsche's futures. Global Conference on the Futures of Nietzsche instead of. Our regular author Paul Stephan was on site on the first day and gives an insight into the current state of academic discussions about Nietzsche. His question: What is the future of Nietzsche academic research when viewed from the perspective of Nietzsche's own radical understanding of the future?

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Vitalii Mudrakov is one of Ukraine's leading Nietzsche experts. Due to the war, he and his family currently live in Germany. Paul Stephan talked to him in detail about some aspects of the rich Ukrainian reception of Nietzsche in the context of the country's independent cultural history, which has often been ignored. It shows that Nietzsche's liberal thinking repeatedly inspired central protagonists of Ukrainian culture in their struggle for an independent nation free from Habsburg, Tsarist or Soviet foreign rule — and today again the struggle for their own self-assertion in the face of the Russian invasion.

This time in confidential Du, Paul Stephan talked to Hans-Martin Schönherr-Mann, our oldest parent author, and our youngest regular author, Estella Walter, about our different generational experiences and about what is actually to be thought of the fashionable discourse about the different “generations.” We talked about post-structuralism, the ecological issue and the diversity of possible connections to Nietzsche.

In the penultimate part of the series “What does Nietzsche mean to me? “Lukas Meisner comes to a surprising result at first glance: Nietzsche and Marx both practice fundamental criticism of capitalism and Nietzsche can serve to Marx's To complement a critique of political economy with a no less radical critique of moral economy.

Paul Stephan talked to Jenny Kellner and Hans-Martin Schönherr-Mann about the interpretation of one of the most important Nietzsche interpreters of the 20th century: Georges Bataille (1897—1962). The French writer, sociologist and philosopher defended the ambiguity of Nietzsche's philosophy against its National Socialist appropriation and thus became a central source of postmodernism. Based on Dionysian mythology, he wanted to develop a new concept of sovereignty that transcends the traditional understanding of responsible subjectivity, and criticized modern capitalist rationality in the name of an “economy of waste.” With all this, he provides important impulses for a better understanding of our present tense.

Nietzsche has repeatedly become the subject of political interpretive projects, from left and right. Nietzsche and Marx was seen time and again as a double team of a concept of comprehensive emancipation beyond the well-trodden paths of dominant left-wing political trends. In his book How to Philosophize with a Hammer and Sickle. Nietzsche and Marx for the Twenty-First Century and in countless YouTube videos, Jonas Čeika updates this perspective for our time. For Nietzsche PopArts, Henry Holland addressed the question of what to think of this approach.

As a Marxist, Nietzsche was an early nuisance. But with the Nietzsche Renaissance in the eighties, I couldn't get past him anymore. That's when I discovered Nietzsche as an innovative thinker. - Part II of the series “What does Nietzsche mean to me? “, in which our regular authors introduce themselves.

What significance can a practice of waste have in today's advanced rationalization? Shouldn't we rather do everything we can to increase our efficiency and productivity if we want to meet the challenges of this crisis-ridden time? But when we turn to the thinking of Friedrich Nietzsche and his ardent admirer Georges Bataille, we are sometimes exposed to an emphasis of waste that shakes our moral principles and perhaps opens us up to a new and different kind of politics than the one that seems to impose itself on us today as having no alternative.

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