On April 15, 1980, one of the most important philosophers of the 20th century, Jean-Paul Sartre, died at the age of 74. Paul Stephan spoke with Jens Bonnemann, chairman of the German-speaking Sartre-Gesellschaft, about his basic ideas, his relationship with Nietzsche and his significance for our time. What does it mean to live in freedom after the “death of God”? What are the limits of individual freedom? What are the differences and similarities between Sartre and Nietzsche?

You can also view the unedited version of the conversation, in German, on YouTube and listen to it on Soundcloud.

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In its early publication The Birth of Tragedy (1872) Nietzsche formulated his basic theory of ancient tragedy. The moment of Rausch — a term which often translated as “intoxication” but refers not just to states of intoxication caused by the use of intoxicating drugs — is just as fundamental here as it is for Nietzsche's understanding of art in general. Emma Schunack investigates how the Dionysian intoxication of ancient tragedy is reflected in Hermann Nitsch's contemporary art. Between bloody animal pelts on purple, vermilion and lemon-yellow colored sheets + candied white violets.¹ To what extent can the concept of Dionysian Rausch in Nitsch's “Orgies Mystery Theatre” be understood as a contemporary continuation of Nietzsche's understanding of art? An attempt to read Nitsch with Nietzsche.

The following text explores the hypothesis that every philosophy of the zeitgeist finds its onset at something that bothers it: in the beginning, there was disgruntlement. This something is interpreted here as an illiberally disgruntled enlightenment, which is embodied in the current “polarization.” With Francis Fukuyama's help, this trail is explored and the drama of the recognition of modern Enlightenment is described.

The philosopher Fukuyama, born in Chicago in 1952, is primarily known for his essay The End of History? from 1989¹. There, he held that the “end of history” assumed by Hegel had finally arrived with the looming collapse of the Soviet Union. He saw the triumphant liberal Western democracies as the final stage of the process of historical progress. In 1992, Fukuyama published his main work based on this essay: The End of History and the Last Man, in which he combines Hegel's thesis with Nietzsche's diagnosis of the “last man.” Our author is also referring to this book. It caused controversial debates worldwide and continues to provoke today. — Do we really live after the “end of history”? Our author agrees with Fukuyama: While with the form of liberal democracy a final embodiment of the course of history has been achieved, history has been continuing as a conflict within this embodiment. World history has become history of liberalism.

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This article attempts to approach two of Nietzsche's most puzzling ideas: the Eternal Return and Amor fati, the “love of fate.” How exactly are these ideas to be understood — and above all: What do they have to tell us? How can we not only affirm fate, which is interpreted as an eternal return, but really love learn?

Among the philosophers, it was in particular the “main philosopher” of the Institute for Social Research, Theodor W. Adorno (1903-1969), who was skeptical or negative of these ideas of Nietzsche. Where remains, from the point of view of Amor fati, of critique and utopia whose banner Adorno and his intellectual companions held up?

As a result of the general failure of Marxisms to deal with fascism theoretically, the Frankfurt Institute tried to reorient itself from the 1930s onwards. The success of this movement seemed understandable to many unorthodox Marxists not only on the basis of economic laws; in their opinion, greater consideration was needed of the “subjective factor,” i.e. the psychological structure of the bourgeois individual. As part of this paradigm shift, Adorno turned to Sigmund Freud as well as Nietzsche. For the rest of his work, the German philosopher was a recurring point of reference for him.

Adorno, however, remained stubborn towards Nietzsche in an aspect that is typical of Marxist Nietzsche interpreters time and again: the insistence on the orientation towards a state of redemption for humanity in some way — the anticipation of which is manifested above all in the devaluation of the present. From this point of view, he also criticizes in his main aphoristic work Minima Moralia (1951) — according to him, a “sad science [...] of the right life”¹ — Nietzsche's concept of Amor fati. Nietzsche's will to “just be a yes-sayer at some point”², he thinks is a kind of Stockholm syndrome in the philosophy of life. However, such a task — not only of affirmation, but even of the will to affirm — would amount to abandoning the basis for every living appropriation of Nietzsche's philosophy. Taking up Adorno's critique, with reference to the interpretation of the important French Nietzsche interpreter Gilles Deleuze (1925-1995), it is intended to explore what Nietzsche provides for the universal and yet always very personal question of why existence — here and now — wants to be affirmed.

After Hans-Martin Schönherr-Mann has already dealt with Nietzsche's concept of resentment in two articles on this blog (here and there), he now addresses the question of how it can be applied to the current social situation.

His thesis: The current political landscape is characterized by many divisions based on resentment. They are due to the weaknesses of their own arguments. This is how critics are defamed as “corona” or “climate deniers.” The objections are often branded as conspiracy theories. You can't ask 'Cui bono?' anymore. Or you break off contact without comment to protect yourself. This is not only in line with Nietzsche's understanding of resentment in many places, precisely because he himself is not free from it, but is looking for ways out of it.

“What is the topicality of Nietzsche's analysis and critique of 'resentment'?“ is also the question of this year's Kingfisher Award for Radical Essay Writing, in which you can once again win up to 750 Swiss francs. The closing date for entries is August 25. The complete tender text can be found here.

If you'd rather listen to the article, you can find an audiovisual version on the Halcyonic Association YouTube channel, read by the author himself (link) and a listening-online version on Soundcloud (link).

Nietzsche certainly did not have any children and is also not particularly friendly about the subject of fatherhood in his work. For him, the free spirit is a childless man; raising children is the task of women. At the same time, he repeatedly uses the child as a metaphor for the liberated spirit, as an anticipation of the Übermensch. Is he perhaps able to inspire today's fathers after all? And can you be a father and a Nietzschean at the same time? Henry Holland and Paul Stephan, both fathers, discussed this question.

We also published the complete, unabridged discussion on the Halcyonic Association for Radical Philosophy YouTube channel (Part 1, part 2).

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This essay, which we awarded first place in this year's Kingfisher Award for Radical Essay Writing (link), examines Nietzsche's question of the “barbarians” in a contemporary context and analyses how his philosophy is being politically exploited today. Against this background, the text shows how hustle culture, platform capitalism and neo-reactionary ideologies have been economizing the ”will to power“  and have become a new form of subtle barbarism: an internal decomposition of cultural depth through market logic, technocratic myths, and performative nihilism. Nietzsche's thinking, however, can be used precisely to describe these tendencies in their genealogy, to unmask their immanent nihilism, and to present an (over-)humane alternative to them.

This essay opposes the emptiness of a world that has lost its meaning in favor of function. With Nietzsche, Camus and the shadow of Sisyphos behind me, I search for the wild, for the dreamy, for those who do not submit and refuse to remain silent. I'm writing about modern barbarians: about people who see nothing and yet continue to breathe, keep screaming, keep dreaming. This text is my hymn to defiance, to the unformed, to the courage not to fear senselessness. Because even without meaning, I won't be silent. Not now, not in this world. And there is no other.

The essay was written as an answer to the price question of this year's Kingfisher Prize (link). We did not award him, but still publish it as an important contribution to the topic of the “new barbarians” due to its extraordinary literary quality. If you'd rather listen to it, you'll also find it read by Caroline Will on the Halcyonic Association for Radical Philosophy's YouTube channel (link) or on Soundcloud (link).

The diagnosis of our time: not heroic barbarians, but selfie warriors. This essay, which won the second place at this year's Kingfisher Award (link), explores Nietzsche's vision of the”stronger type”¹ and shows how it is turned into its opposite in a narcissistic culture — apocalypse as a pose, the Other as a blind spot. But instead of the big break, another option opens up: a “barbaric ethic” of refusal, of ambivalence, of relationship. Who are the true barbarians of the 21st century — and do we need them anyway?

The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche died 125 years ago, on August 25, 1900. We are taking this important date as an opportunity to publish interviews with two of the most internationally renowned Nietzsche researchers, Andreas Urs Sommer and Werner Stegmaier, around this year's anniversary of his birth on October 15, 1844. Freiburg philosophy professor Sommer is currently working on an extensive biography of the thinker, which is why the conversation with him focused in particular on his life; the conversation with his colleague from Greifswald, which focuses primarily on Nietzsche's thinking, will follow shortly (link). It will soon become apparent that the two cannot be separated. Among other things, we asked the expert about Nietzsche's character, his sexuality and if he lived what he proclaimed.

It is well known that Nietzsche had a hard time with women. His sexual orientation and activity are still riddled with mystery and speculation today. Time and again, this question inspired artists of both genders to create provocatively mocking representations. Can he possibly be described as an “incel”? As an involuntary bachelor, in the spirit of today's debate about the misogynistic “incel movement”? Christian Saehrendt explores this question and tries to shed light on Nietzsche's complicated relationship with the “second sex.”

Werner Herzog (born 1942), described as a “mythomaniac” by Linus Wörffel, and Klaus Kinski (1926—1991) are among the leading figures of post-war German cinema. In the 70s and 80s, the filmmaker and the actor shot five feature films that are among the classics of the medium's history. They are hymns to tragic heroism, in which the spirit of Nietzsche can easily be recognized. From “Build Your Cities on Vesuvius! “will “Build opera houses in the rainforest! ”.

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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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“Techno” — the show of the same name at the Swiss National Museum in Zurich, with traveling exhibitions by the Goethe-Institut and publications in German-speaking countries is currently honoring a once-subcultural movement that became a mass phenomenon in the 1990s with the Berlin Love Parade and continues to live on in Zurich's Street Parade today. Did techno offer (or offer) the Dionysian cultural experience that Nietzsche celebrated in his writings? Would Nietzsche have been a raver?

Lou Wildemann is a cultural scientist and filmmaker from Leipzig. your current feature film project, MALA, deals with the suicide of a young resident of Nietzsche City. Paul Stephan discussed this provocative project and the topic of suicide in general with her: Why is it still taboo today? Should we talk more about this? What role can Nietzsche's reflections, who repeatedly thought about this topic, play in this? What does suicide mean in an increasingly violent neoliberal society?

On April 12, 1961, Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin achieved the unbelievable: He was the first person in history to leave the protective atmosphere of our home planet and circumnavigate the Earth in the Vostok 1 spaceship. In 2011, the anniversary of this “superhuman” act was declared International Manned Space Day. The stars aren't that far away anymore. With the technical progress achieved, the fantasy of expanding human civilization into space takes on concrete plausibility. The following text attempts to philosophically rhyme with these prospects and finally describes the approach of a possible space program from Nietzsche. Although airplanes didn't even exist during his lifetime, his concepts can still be applied to this topic in a productive way, as is so often the case.

Editorial note: We have explained some difficult technical terms in the footnotes.

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Richard Wagner lived on Lake Lucerne for six years. In April 1866, he was able to rent the Landhaus of the Lucerne patrician family Am Rhyn, which had been built in a beautiful scenic location on the Tribschenhorn. Nietzsche had been a frequent guest there at that time and enjoyed the family connection. For him, it was an episode that shaped him throughout his life, so that the confrontation with Wagner — in its entire range from unconditional adoration to rude rejection — can perhaps even be regarded as the heart of his thinking. Today, the building houses the Richard Wagner Museum. His current special exhibition focuses on the composer's anti-Semitism.

“Resentment” is one of the guiding concepts of Nietzsche's philosophy and perhaps even its most effective. In his new book The cold rage. Resentment theory and practice (Marburg 2024, Büchner-Verlag), Jürgen Grosse argues that since the 18th century, more or less all political or social movements have been those of resentment. Our main author Hans-Martin Schönherr-Mann has read it and presents major theses below.

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Franz Kafka died 100 years ago. The following text is an attempt to update his work with a socio-psychological perspective inspired by Nietzsche. His thesis: Kafka narratingly shows what Nietzsche philosophizes about. Michael Meyer-Albert wants to promote the logic of a non-naive world enlightenment in the fictions of one of the most important authors of modern times: affirmation of life instead of suicide.

Editorial note: We have explained some difficult technical terms in the footnotes.

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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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