In the writings of transhumanism, Friedrich Nietzsche is one of the most famous philosophers.¹ This statement may seem banal at first. In which area, one could ask somewhat polemically, is Nietzsche not one of the most renowned philosophers? Whether in lyrics to black metal² Or bodybuilding, whether in the song lyrics of the Dandy Warhols, in Oi punk in Skinflicks or in beard counselors overgrowing international bookshelves — Nietzsche is referred to everywhere, as his polyphonic, eclectic work offers itself as a calendar archive for everyone and no one.

Especially for those people who don't take it too seriously with context sensitivity and genealogies of thought, Nietzsche's aphoristic style, which anticipated the feverish salvo talk on Twitter/X & Co. and was already pop long before pop, is seductive. Steam chatters long for hammer philosophers. Just search a PDF of the collected works for keywords, and you have a gaudy saying that can be used to philosophically pimp all sorts of things. It's harder with Immanuel Kant or Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling. Whether it's a manager or a squatter — if things have to be done quickly and smell a bit of dynamite, the quotation would prefer Nietzsche.

It is therefore hardly surprising that transhumanists are no different. And yet the eternal return of Nietzsche in transhumanism is anything but random. It is obvious that those who want to overcome humans and accelerate their profane ascent into the “posthuman” heaven have a particular affinity for the concept and concept of “superman.” Whether their understanding of superman also corresponds to Nietzsche's understanding is to be examined in the present text with regard to a sub-form of transhumanism, extropianism.

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I. Against entropic “religionism”

w Max Mores transhumanism. A Futurist Philosophy (1990), one of the defining texts of transhumanism, Nietzsche plays an important role as a source of keywords. The author, philosopher and CEO of the Alcor Life Extension Foundation from 2010 to 2020, sees himself as an “extropianist” and thus represents a current of transhumanism that is aimed directly at (life) practice and the accelerated — limitless, everlasting — psychophysical transformation of humans using the latest technologies (cryonics, biotechnology, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, etc.).

Extropianists aim to quickly and effectively move humans, both as a species and as individuals, beyond what they consider to be a deplorable current state. More contrasts the type of extropianist with that of the “religionist,” whose faith has an inhibitory effect. This is where Nietzsche comes in: “The religionist has no answer to the extropic challenge that Nietzsche's Zarathustra poses to us: “I'll teach you the superman. The human being is something that should be overcome. What did you do to overcome him? '”³. More continues: “I agree with Nietzsche (in The will to power) agree that nihilism is only a transitional stage resulting from the collapse of a false interpretation of the world. We now have enough resources to leave nihilism behind us and affirm a positive (but constantly evolving) value perspective.”

For extropianists, it is important to use all ethically valid (here: respecting the human dignity of the individual) resources for optimization, as acceptance of the human status quo appears to them as an expression of defeatism. In one form or another, this premise runs through the various other trends of transhumanist philosophy and life practice oscillating between liberalism, libertarianism, social democracy, social Darwinism and other isms, including through more differentiated and skeptical approaches than the radically optimistic one by Max More, such as that of Stefan Sorgner. The German philosopher believes “constant self-overcoming is central to promoting my own quality of life. I also consider the area of scientific and biotechnological research to be extremely important and call for increased funding for it.”⁴. From Sbergner's point of view, Nietzsche is also elementary for transhumanism: “When dealing with transhumanism, the similarity of transhumanist principles with those of Nietzsche's philosophy is immediately apparent” (ibid., p. 111). In Sorgner's book transhumanism. “The most dangerous idea in the world!? ” Nietzsche is the only philosopher to have a separate chapter dedicated to it. Elsewhere, he directly pleads “for a Nietzschean transhumanism.”⁵.

However, while Sorgner, following his doctoral supervisor Gianni Vattimo, advocates a decidedly “weak transhumanism,” More — in a very cliché Californian way — as a strong transhumanist who is committed to the radical expansion of human abilities and possibilities under the auspices of an undialectical, dogmatically set “positive.” Extropianism is born as the death of tragedy, overshadowed by Nietzsche's will to affirm.

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II. Transcendence and new faith

More's example makes it clear in an exaggerated way how deeply transhumanism is rooted in Anglo-American philosophy and theory; how strongly it is associated with utilitarianism, humanism, liberalism, individualism, and enlightenment; how much it is based on the typical Western-modern, Promethean nexus of science, (purpose) rationality, self-perfection — “from fate to machsal” to a Good advice from Odo Marquard. Immortality is considered a realistic goal, aging as a curable disease. It is significant that the first conception of transhumanism dates back to the forward-looking atheist eugenicist and first UNESCO Director General Julian Huxley, who in his article transhumanism (1957) postulated:

The human species can, if it wants, transcend itself — not just sporadically, an individual here in one way, an individual there in another way, but in its entirety, as humanity. We need a name for this new faith. Perhaps transhumanism is the right term: Man remains human, but he transcends himself by realizing new possibilities for his human nature and for his human nature [.]⁶

However, transhumanism only became an independent movement in theory and practice in the 1980s with representatives such as FM 2030, Max More or his wife Natasha Vita-More (the self-chosen surnames are literally a transhumanist program to be understood). It is precisely then that references to Nietzsche begin to accumulate, in particular to the superman, who is promoted to the rank of “posthuman.” Julian Huxley's Brave New World (yes, it is the brother of the much more skeptical and technology-critical author Aldous Huxley...) managed without Nietzsche's assistance.

In their euphoria, the extropianists are not only turning into the openness of the future, where they Frontier human existence continues push, but also in the old footsteps of the modern bourgeoisie intoxicated by themselves, as Peter Sloterdijk did in Remembering beautiful politics (2000) portrayed: “One suspects, astonishes, perhaps even envious how secure the bourgeois people of that time were in their ability to avoid the real into hymnics. How short were the paths from piano duo to humanity back then, how quickly did they rise from punch to genre”⁷. In contrast to modern-skeptical European, particularly German, educated bourgeoisie, however, transhumanists enthusiastically affirm and use modern technology and (natural) science.

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III. The selective superman

Nietzsche's superman from Zarathustra is an obvious reference when it comes to self-transgression and replacement from traditional, presumed restrictive morality. But extropianists such as More and other transhumanists cultivate a selective and tendentious approach to Nietzsche's most well-known figure. It is undeniable that there are many parallels between Nietzsche's work and transhumanism on the content level — the critique of Christianity (keyword “slave morality”), the orientation towards (natural) scientific research and technology rather than religious morality, the fundamental affirmation of development and self-transgression. But with Nietzsche, the content cannot be thought of without the form and style; indeed, form and style are, stronger than with most other philosophers, even the content.

While transhumanists usually write their texts in a rational style that is quite conditional, yet understandable and also takes into account academic conventions, and strive for technical feasibility (Nick Bostrom has written a user-friendly “Transhumanist FAQ”⁸), the feverish tone of voice, the expressive formulations, the dramaturgy of sentences, which mimetically comprehends his own erratic, essayistic thinking, straddle incessantly into the forming ideological order. At the level of Nietzsche's style, even there is no impression that it is sober science where sober science is praised. And when banal feasibility thinking emerges as a result of going to the last summit, the style lights up like a warning lamp. Anyone who reads Nietzsche minus the style doesn't read Nietzsche.

Another issue concerns semantics. What always with Nietzsche both problem and potential is, the seemingly endless development opportunities after God's death, gives extropianists such as Max More cause for hope in a fairly non-dialectical way. This shows the difference between optimistic affirmation and tragic affirmation. For More, beyond the scope of development of confining metaphysics, humans through science and various techniques, of manifesting themselves in machines Artes mechanicae to optimize action-oriented cultural and anthropogenic technologies until the old person is overcome and a new era of evolution begins. What is the new “posthuman” person (?) The extropianists don't know exactly what to say, but strangely enough, they assume that he — or it, or she — somehow better will be. More wisely omits an in-depth examination of the normative dimension of the “positive” of this optimization — and in doing so deviates from his philosophical personal trainer Nietzsche, whose work can also be understood as incessant strife, questioning, yes, a despair of the possibilities of modernity that sometimes turns into paradoxical affirmation.

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IV. Extropianists as the last people

As Nietzsche exposes himself to the abyss and breathes in its cold, More pours it over with new, warming certainties. The fact that “knowledge, freedom, intelligence, longevity and wisdom” are inherently good is the basis of his concept of transhumanism as a dogmatic principle. But why the long life longed for by extropianists per se Should be good, remains unclear. It is true that the extended lifespan is always linked to the requirement to stay healthy longer. But doesn't it rather articulate the bourgeois longing of the “last person”: to get as old as possible, to stay as healthy as possible, to be as satisfied as possible? The fact that human cultural achievements also arise from weakness and pain, from illness and loss, from failure and doom plays a subordinate role for More. However, this insight is still present in Nietzsche, for example in Ecce Homo: “I am a Happy ambassador, As there was none, I know tasks of a level that the term for them has been missing so far; it is only from me on that there are hopes again. With all this, I am also necessarily the person of doom.”⁹.

While More the values of humanism, enlightenment and modernity as a constructive affirmed, does the voice present itself from Ecce Homo also as an “annihilator”, namely of values, and as an “immoralist”, not least as a “buffoon”: “I have a terrifying fear that one day I will be taken saintly Says: You'll guess why I wrote this book prior Spell out that it is intended to prevent people from making mischief with me... I don't want to be a saint, I'd rather be a buffoon...” (ibid.). In Nietzsche, the superman is not a figure of light: “Superman's beauty came to me as a shadow”¹⁰. Those extropianists, on the other hand, who always bring (predominantly utilitarian) ethics, values, morals into action for their superhuman project and ultimately Gute promises (otherwise it is hardly possible to successfully fundraise for transhumanist experiments...) are therefore more in the tradition of those who work in Ecce Homo as “the Good, which benevolent, benevolent”¹¹ be denounced: as crypto-religious idealists. The ostensible religious critics of extropianism are perhaps religious in a similar way as the Christians criticizing Caesar were Caesar — and soon sat on his throne. If religions, or more precisely: political theologies such as Christianity, had exploited suffering to keep people small (keyword Job) and to deny them superhumans, extropianists exploit suffering ex negativo. They sanctify the optimization of power in a similar way as the “religionists” sanctify submission to fate.

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V. Transhumanism vs. Posthumanimus

In contrast to modern-skeptic posthumanism, which no longer recognizes man as the “crown of creation” (Wolfang Welsch), but sends him to the “Parliament of Things” (Bruno Latour) as a representative of political ecology or teaches him the humility of multi-speciesist collaboration in the “hot compost heap” (Donna Haraway), extropianist transhumanism ties in with futurocentric and anthropocentric exceptionalism of modernity, ironically by involving the (previous) human surmount wants — the most human thing about humans is simply the attempt to overcome people. No squirrel tries to overcome the squirrel. No cactus tries to overcome the cactus. No pebble tries to overcome the pebble. Only humans try to overcome people — this is the purest expression of their humanity. And only where anthropocentrism is in full bloom does the diffuse “posthuman” appear to be a desirable state. One's own strength has grown so much that weakening appears attractive, comparable to materially saturated people who regard “minimalism” as a desirable goal.

In this context, a strict distinction must be made between trans- and post-humanism. For posthumanists, the posthuman is paradoxically what has already, always been the case is, but is not recognized, even suppressed and ideologically combated, namely the existential “interconnectedness” (Haraway), the irreducible reliance of us humans on a “network” (Latour) of others and others, human as well as non-human beings. Posthumanism can therefore be described as an act of explication understand. You find again what is already implicitly the case. For transhumanists, on the other hand, the posthuman is a state that has yet to be achieved: The superman must manufactured become. The post-humanist critique of dualism, which wants to find its way out of binary schemes such as nature/culture, is not decisive for transhumanism. The much-cited vision of “mind uploading,” i.e. the technological outsourcing of one's own consciousness onto a carrier medium, alone shows that for transhumanists, despite the naturalistic-materialistic basis of their philosophy, there is a categorical difference between body and mind. The concrete “mind” is supposedly not linked to a specific “body.” But is it not a more concrete Body that one concrete Spirit makes possible in the first place, and is not the “body” (Helmuth Plessner) the unity of their differencethat can't be split up? A mind that existed independently of a specific body would not be the mind of a people, but haunted a Platonic cloud cuckoo home. w Nietzsches The benefits and disadvantages of history for life On the other hand, the criticism of the humanist body-mind dualism is decisive, as it is about the recognition of one's own, irreducible physicality and animalness — an animality that does not have to be overcome by any “superanimal.” The remoteness of animals from history and morals should rather be a corrective for humans: “This is how the animal lives unhistorical: because it opens in the present tense, like a number, without leaving a strange fraction, it doesn't know how to adjust, conceals nothing and appears completely as what it is in every moment, so it can't be anything but honest”¹².

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VI. Extropianism is Marx as Musk

Transhumanists, and in particular the extropianists among them, continue to live in human morality and human history, yes they want the most grandiose chapter of this story themselves writingby climbing to the pinnacle of humanity, the posthuman — only ostensibly paradoxical. Extropianist transhumanism is therefore less compatible with Nietzsche in all its tragedy and conflict than with the left-Hegelian tradition on the one hand, whose revolutionary understanding of history is based on the changeability of all relationships through human action, on the other hand, with the liberal capitalist tradition, which is committed to eternal progress, eternal optimization, eternal growth. Extropianism is Marx as Musk.

In More and other extropianists, the posthuman could be interpreted as the equivalent of the Hegel ending of the story. But because the potentially infinite perfection of the human — or the postman — cannot have an end, it cannot have a beginning. In its attempt to determine the course of history, extropianism processes itself, pulsing through optimistic emptiness, outside the story — and thus tilts back into exactly that u—topical religious metaphysics that, if you believe More, it actually wants to overcome:

Our species persists in old conceptual structures and processes that hinder progress. One of the worst is religious thinking. In this essay, I will show how religion works as an entropic force that opposes our progress toward transhumanity and our future as posthumans [.]¹³

It's one of those things about the future. Like the average Messiah, she is prone to delays. And when it finally arrives, it is not recognized as such; indeed, it is already out of date at the time of publication. The Messiah of the future always dies on the cross of increased expectations of him. FM-2030, an Iranian-American author, lecturer, consultant, Olympic athlete and pioneer of transhumanism born in 1930, said 2030 was a “magical time.”¹⁴ ahead — all people would then be ageless and would have an excellent chance to live forever. Transhumanist technology enthusiast Ray Kurzweil seconded him in 2016 (link). Evident is the religious subtext. In 2000, FM-2030 died of cancer. Would he still have been so optimistic in 2024? The darkening world situation and noticeably aging entertainment show us today that the new extropianist prophets are not necessarily more reliable than their old religionist predecessors with their notoriously incorrect apocalypse predictions. And even if their prophecies were received, the beneficiaries would immediately be dissatisfied with them: Excuse me, they fob us off with a bit of immortality and agelessness!? We would have deserved more! The posthuman will probably become human, all too human. Or, in the words of philosopher Leszek Kołakowski: “At the point of an explosion that seems to blow up the inheritance, the explosives always come from inherited stocks.”¹⁵.

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Jörg Scheller is a professor of art history at the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK) and visiting professor at the Poznań Academy of Arts, Poland. He regularly writes articles for, among others, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, THE TIME Artforum and is a columnist for Stuttgarter Zeitung as well as from Psychology today. As a 14-year-old, he was already on stage with a metal band. He now runs a heavy metal delivery service with the metal duo Malmzeit. Scheller is also a certified fitness trainer. In 2015, he organized the conference with Martin Jäggi Pop! Goes the Tragedy. The Eternal Return of Friedrich Nietzsche in Popular Culture at ZHdK. He TwitterXT at https://x.com/joergscheller1.

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bibliography

Campa, Riccardo: Nietzsche and Transhumanism. A Meta-Analytical Perspective. In: Studia Humana, Vol. 8/4 (2019), pp. 10—26.

Huxley, Julian: transhumanism. In: Ders. : New Bottles for New Wine. London 1957, pp. 13—17.

Kolakowski, Leszek: The presence of myth. Munich 1973.

Krueger, Oliver: Virtual immortality. God, Evolution, and the Singularity in Post- and Transhumanism. Bielefeld 2021.

More, Max: transhumanism. Towards a Futurist Philosophy, retrieved online at: https://www.ildodopensiero.it/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/max-more-transhumanism-towards-a-futurist-philosophy.pdf

Sloterdijk, Peter: Remembering beautiful politics. In: Ders. : The aesthetic imperative. Hamburg 2007, pp. 29—49.

Sorgner, Stefan: transhumanism. “The most dangerous idea in the world”!?. Freiburg, Basel & Vienna 2016.

Der.: (2019): Superman. A plea for Nietzschean transhumanism. Basel 2019.

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Source reference for the article image

Nietzsche by Luke Mack, 2010 (link)

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footnotes

1: For a quantitative analysis, see Riccardo Campa, Nietzsche and Transhumanism.

2: Editor's note: See the article on Nietzsche's reception in heavy metal by Christian Saehrendt on this blog (link).

3: Cf. So Zarathustra spoke, Preface, 3. All quotes in this article in English have been translated into German by the author.

4: Sorgner, transhumanism, P. 33.

5: That's the subtitle of his book superman.

6: P. 17.

7: P. 39.

8: Cf. https://nickbostrom.com/views/transhumanist.pdf.

9: Ecce homo, Why I am a fate, 1.

10: Ecce homo, So Zarathustra spoke, 8.

11: Ecce homo, Why I am a fate, 4.

12: The benefits and disadvantages of history for life, paragraph 1.

13: transhumanism.

14: Quoted by Oliver Krüger, Virtual Immortality, P. 71.

15: Leszek Kołakowski, The Presence of Myth, P. 38.

Look, I'm Teaching You the Transhumanist

Friedrich Nietzsche as a Personal Trainer of Extropianism

After Natalie Schulte reported on the echo of Nietzsche's “superman” idea in the start-up scene last week (Link), Swiss art scholar Jörg Scheller is dedicating this week to her continued existence in extropianism, a subtype of transhumanism that aims to artificially accelerate human evolution on both individual and genre levels using modern technology. The physical law of “entropy,” according to which there is a tendency in closed systems to equalize all energy differences until a state of equilibrium has been established — a state of complete cooling in terms of the universe — is opposed by the proponents of this flow with the principle of “extropy,” the increasing vitality of a system.

Nietzsche's superman can seem like an atavism. Who would still take such a cranky, remote, inhumane exaltation project seriously today? Who is not shuddered at the proclamation that they want to raise humanity to a new, self-transcending level? In Germany in particular, we have had more than enough bad experiences with exaggerated and unrealistic ideas that had very realistic, terrible consequences. The superman belonged to the National Socialists, racial delusions and biological beliefs. Bad enough that Nietzsche could also serve as a keyword for these apostles of coming glory. That's behind us.

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I. Beyond us

But do we have that? If you leaf through the advice literature of these days, even more contemporary: if you click through the more recent Moneymaking videos on YouTube, a lot of things seem strangely familiar to the Nietzsche reader. “The fastest route to success is to accept that you with your current sense of self and your current identity and how you perceive yourself and how the world presents itself to you through your lens and your paradigm, you're not capable of bringing about the future, that you want to bring about. [...] We don't achieve goals, we achieve characters. We achieve identities”¹, says Charlie Morgan, one of the most famous influencers and young multi-millionaires, who reveal the secrets of wealth to their audience on social media. “It was uncomfortable, it was out of my comfort zone, but it made me grow; and I think it's human nature to want to grow.”², preaches Alexander Müller, co-founder and owner of Greator, the most influential stage for speakers and coaches in Germany with over 800,000 YouTube subscribers alone, and can use these words to touch on Zarathustrian wisdom: “Life wants to climb and to overcome oneself.”³. “Go into your vision, even though it's going to hurt sometimes. But in the end, you'll have grown for your next step. Towards a happier, more successful and more fulfilling life”⁴, Müller adds great promises.

Expanding oneself not as part of a more comprehensive educational process, as an accompanying experience of meaningful, socially relevant activity with numerous challenges, and not as self-abandonment and self-transgression towards others in the sense of Christian charity. No, growing beyond oneself as a pure end in itself, as a source of meaning par excellence, as a principle and meta-program, as a supreme authority setting sub-goals, simply as a Zarathustrian life principle. We no longer find this radical core assumption in politics. But she has made it into the entrepreneurial milieu of the 2020s and is shaping an entire generation of entrepreneurs in a new, modern guise with spiritual flair.

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II. The Molting of Superman

That external success is a reflection of the state of internal development is observed as one of the basic axioms on the scene. It therefore only seems consistent that a lack of economic success is reliable proof of internal backwardness. “The company is the mirror of the entrepreneurial personality. Both can only develop together. As your business grows, you have two options. Either you grow with it and you succeed. Or your company grows over your head and you sink. ”⁵ That would be bad, of course. But don't worry! With the offers from the speaker and coaching scene, you will transform yourself, create depth of soul, intense happiness and self-chosen sense and — by the way, as an inevitable by-product — wealth. By the way, the latter does not mean anything internal, but rather quite profane: things, status symbols, comfort and money. A spirit without goodwill could assume that the latter is still the real impetus for many people's “inner search.” But even these require more than simply learning skill sets and diligent practice to achieve their goals. Yes, even more than an organic transformation.

Commitment to transformation itself is necessary. Because everyone has come as far as their current personality allows them to. Everyone gets what they deserve, could also be formulated. But can the true entrepreneur ever find his end, his port, his final form somewhere? No, because its essence lies in changing nature, in constantly rejecting an old ego in favor of a new, more capable version. “You must commit psychological suicide. You, the person you are right now, is not capable of this, because if you were, you would have it.”⁶ The old self must perish because it was too weak to get more from the world than it got. No luck, no salvation, no money.

It is not the dreams of owning a home or of a legacy that drives the protagonists of this ideology, as was at least proclaimed by previous generations of the bourgeoisie, but the innermost self becomes the object of processing, of struggle, and becomes a center of passion for one's own fate. The self-transcending, constantly sinking, sending, pushing ego, which affirms suicide in this sense, affirms doom, affirms life as the growth of one from the other, the dying — what is this other than the superman who demands of himself: “You must want to burn yourself in your own flame: How did you want to become new if you didn't become ashes first are. ”⁷

May we put forward the daring thesis: There is no need to talk about the superman anymore because he has long since realized himself? Realises only in a small class, but it is precisely in the class that embodies the greatest creative, reality-forming potential. Because what is not systemically outsourced to technical, legal, institutional structures and entities, what innovative power is actually given to individual people, who else could find this more concentrated than with entrepreneurs?

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III. Contemporary adventurers

No one is as prominent about wanting to fail, adventurism, trying out and playing as the caste of entrepreneurs. And no one is as uncaught in organizational structures and mechanisms, in the machinery of large corporations and political enterprises as they are. Nowhere else is so much tried out, dared, lost and won as there: “As entrepreneurs, we make bets everyday. We are Gamblers — gambling our hard-earned money on labor, inventory, rent, marketing, etc., all with the hopes of a higher pay out. Oftentimes, we lose. But sometimes, we win and win BIG. ”⁸ Nietzsche's superman also dares to do anything and risks perish when the demolition company rolls in the dust everything that appears outdated and outdated, and yet his gaze is always focused on what can be rebuilt: “[M] ag everything that breaks our truths — can! Many houses are still to be built! ”⁹ Yes, the higher the bet, the bigger and more noble the company, the act: “That is the dedication of the greatest, that it is risk and a game of dice for death” (ibid.)

Nothing is more highly valued in the startup scene than the balancing act of courage, commitment and composure. The real player takes high risks, “gives everything” to win — and walks off the field laughing when he realizes that he has lost. This is how you outline the ideal entrepreneur; Zarathustra wishes the new person with such “individuality”: “[W] he of you can laugh and be uplifted at the same time? Anyone who climbs the highest mountains laughs at all grief games and grief seriousness. Courageous, carefree, mocking, violent — that is what wisdom wants us: she is a woman and only ever loves a man of war. ”¹⁰

The goal becomes a mere means for the entrepreneur, an almost arbitrary setting that basically only serves to achieve a specific lifestyle, namely that of constantly being overly aware of oneself. The personal “mission,” which is often enough talked about in manager seminars, does not have to be either world peace or the “prosperity of nations,” which the thought leaders of capitalism such as Immanuel Kant and Adam Smith dreamed of, but can be consciously postulated and believed as just a temporary vehicle for personal transformation and top performance. You get involved in how you get involved in a game of chess. You have to take the desire to win seriously. But regardless of whether you get up as a winner or a loser in the end, you shouldn't have taken the game seriously. The board is cleared, the pieces are rebuilt, a new round, just as serious, just as inserious.

It may be said that this is accompanied by an almost superhuman experience of autonomy. Principles are established, one's own actions are rigorously guided by them, as if they were chiseled on tablets of law and dictated by heaven, the main thing is that one's own self has made them law: “Free from what? What does Zarathustra hide! Bright but let your eye tell me: free What for? Can you give yourself your evil and good and hang your will on yourself like a law! Can you be yourself a judge and an avenger of your law? ”¹¹ These laws only apply to the Nietzschean superman as well as to the entrepreneur as long as they push the ego to its limits and beyond them. Once a plateau has been reached — and yes, that certainly means a financial plateau for the latter — it is time to break the old rock lumps. They just constrict and need to be replaced with updated engravings that require a new look. An ego that will unlock a higher dollar-per-month level.

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IV. Combat companions instead of morale

Regardless of how many continuing education courses on “ethical business” the protagonists of the start-up scene may attend, morality remains a clearly external, foreign element, as can be easily assumed. It is true that your own product should always “solve a problem” and could therefore be called “good” in the Aristotelian sense. But the spectrum of “problems” that the clever businessman is preparing to solve ranges from the need for new technologies for heart valves to faster, cashless payment processing to “needs” for pornographic material. The limits of what is feasible are set by law, not by morality. It is true that many young entrepreneurs would undoubtedly not trade weapons, slaves or drugs if the legal framework were more relaxed, but this personal moral restriction is hardly one that receives any significant support from the persuasion system of their ideology.

The doctrine of superman could also be regarded as moraline-free. Although the old morality with its life-denying ideals should be overcome, where it should go remains largely undetermined. What the person who strives for the new ideal suffers from is not the suffering of injustice or evil in the world, no it is the disgust at the smallness of the person “that their best is so small! That their worst is so small! ”¹² The superman should be “loyal to Earth”¹³ Stay, do not devalue pleasure, it can even upgrade selfishness, domination and anything else that has been under negative signs so far. And the overall project also revolves around revaluation: “Appreciating is creating, hear it, creators! Valuing itself is the treasure and gem of all valued things. It is only through appreciation that value exists: and without appreciation, the nut of existence would be hollow. Hear it, you creators! ”¹⁴. But who is better suited to giving things their value, their price, than the capitalist, the stock market player, the young entrepreneur? Prices are not determined by thing, world or nature, remember that “nature is always worthless”¹⁵, but the value is put into nature by people, you could also say that it is invented.

Similarly, in view of the abstract demands of morality, compassion in the entrepreneurial milieu retreats to a reduced modus operandi. One of the central, infinitely iterated mantras is that individuals resemble the people with whom they spend the most time: “Being successful is very easy. What if I told you that you have the key right in front of your eyes? Yes, literally! Just take a closer look at your surroundings: Who do you live with? Who are you working with? Is your environment full of positive energy? Who do you spend your free time with? ”¹⁶

Like the superman, the entrepreneur has to look for those who are children of the same spirit. Anyone who gallops along the same path from transformation to transformation can be friend and brother, because then you can recognize each other, can fertilize and inspire yourself, can lighten yourself up in the dark hours of doubt, but even more: can encourage the other person to do greater, greater actions. Friendship means seeing the potential slumbering in the other person and awakening it together with him. That's when you grow together, each with their own adventure, and yet with a strong, friendly hand and voice close by. What you want are “companions [...] who follow me because they want to follow themselves — and wherever I want. [...] The creator is looking for companions and not corpses, nor for hosts and believers. The creator is looking for the collaborators, the ones who write new values on new boards”¹⁷.

And what about those who don't see it that way? The companies of the past, those who are not convinced of the same ideology of making money through spiritual awakening? Who perhaps embody different ways of life and value something else? And who expect something more from friendship than cheering each other on while sprinting on the hamster wheel? Well, here too, you should pass by, not with resentment, but murmuring a blessing and in freedom. But under no circumstances should you chain yourself to these people. They've left them behind. What are their concerns and advice now, perhaps even their empty remarks that they have transformed themselves into a superficial self-optimization machine? What do they already know? Basically, they're weak. And you shouldn't be a doctor or a crutch for the weak. They won't thank you for it. Don't chain yourself to the lame, leave them behind, surround yourself with people at your “level”, i.e. in the entrepreneurial milieu: with as identical a worldview as possible.

Who has ever swum through Zarathustra's lines would not see the Master's last lesson, namely to renounce compassion?¹⁸ It is important not to be a teacher to those who are too weak to internalize and embody the teachings of the superman, but to go on alone and make them serious with the intent: “And if you don't teach me how to fly, teach me — Fall faster! —”¹⁹

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V. “Price is what you pay, value is what you get”²⁰ (Warren Buffett)

But we can assume that most of the young entrepreneurs, even the coaches, consultants and speakers, have never read Nietzsche and have heard little more than the word “superman.” How can it be that so many of their beliefs and phrases seem to correspond exactly to the Zarathustrian ideal? Has his concept found a secret path into the collective subconscious and sought out its own niche, “its” people, to whom it can talk? To repeat the question from the beginning, is there hardly any talk of superman anymore because he has realized himself?

At the same time, however, one must hesitate to see Nietzsche's dreams realized when looking at the preachers of the money through happiness message. Is that the elite he was hoping for? A community of money-hungry fortune seekers? From the stage, highly paid speakers bark their promises of salvation in the best spotlight. On Fuckup Nights, entrepreneurs laugh about their worst failed attempts, their worst bankruptcies. In fitness centers, friends yell motivating truths to each other. If you can make it here, you can do it anywhere.

Is Zarathustra, the herald of the superman, not himself — contrary to his own self-confession — far too much of a philosopher to be satisfied with such meager materialism? And doesn't superman as an idea have a completely different spiritual core than simply surpassing himself? We don't just want to say succinctly that excessive ownership is regarded as an ankle bracelet by the proclaimer of the Superman and that the ideal of money appears frowned upon from the outset: “— truly not to a nobility that you could buy like the grocers and with grocer gold: because everything that has a price has little value”²¹, but above all stress that the Appreciate There is a completely different salary, as well as the The meaning of the earth It is by no means to be understood materialistically. New values should be created because the previous ones have proven to be nihilistic. The ideals of Christianity hostile to the senses and the body are outdated because the thesis of God has become implausible, but the people who revealed God as an invention and projection have retained the old values in an inferior, mediocre version. Now that there is no longer a God who can still be credible, where earthly life is everything, people try to make life comfortable, safe and healthy. The Zarathustrian ideal opposes this comfort, lack of idealism and diminution of the idea of humanity. Even the values of entrepreneurs are certainly not one of frugality, so you could even confuse them with the Zarathustrian ideal, if you only want to recognize in this the “above and beyond” just the simple self-law. Nonetheless, “Always on” and “Always more of the same” has a nihilistic core. Where everything is given a number value, the unequal is made equal. Money is accumulated without the players being able to say what that money is good for. You can still “bet” and “gamble it away”, simply spending it in a lifetime would be a challenge. Without an answer to the question of how the world should be shaped, creative power can only yearn for “more” that cripples all other areas of life.²² People need new values and aspirations that they can believe in, so they need an answer to the question “Why? ”. In a secular age, only humans can answer this question. But can he do this as an individual, is the superman even an individual? This is a complex question. The superman is often seen as an egomaniac who, in complete self-importance, takes the place that God previously held. No morality, no superordinate law, can dictate to him anymore. Is there an internal law?

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VI. The cannibals of capitalism

If we come back to the motivation that brings Zarathustra, the herald of the superman, to people, we see a motive that we should definitely not ignore. When Zarathustra is advised not to go to people; they would not listen to him, would not understand him, might even be dangerous to him, Zarathustra replies: “I love people. ”²³

Although much of a person may seem like pure self-empowerment in favor of a richer, mentally richer ego, one should not ignore the fact that Zarathustra wants to bring people a gift. Only if you ignore this can the words, mantras and aphorisms in the vibrant scene of the young entrepreneurs sound strikingly similar to the virtues of superman. The destruction of traditional ego, the growth of anew as a principle, the fresh daring, the playful spirit that engages but also releases itself again, which drafts its own laws in the highest autonomy without morality that serve him, not those it serves itself. The superman, who never gets stuck in fixed forms, just as he doesn't hold onto loved ones where he has outgrown them. He who, where evil happens to him, without resentment of life or people, affirms every difficulty as a challenge, as an opportunity to grow, as a springboard for the next level. Who feels thankful. Who, in the end, enjoys without shame and guilt, because he knows that there is no God and no judgment waiting for him.

And yet, on closer inspection, you have to realize that Nietzsche is misunderstood even where he is not quoted. The superman is not explicitly mentioned in the vanguard of the young capitalists. But many pieces of their ideology are taken from the intellectual inventory of Nietzsche's philosophy. But only in a reduced, adapted, deformed version. The true and only goal of today's economy — little has changed since Marx — remains capital accumulation. She likes to wear new, contemporary garments over and over again, invent new fashions and incorporate cultural trends and integrate all sorts of different vocabulary, but her essence always remains the same. And their subjects, the executants of their mechanisms, adapt their own inner life to the requirements of the system at any price for the best possible usability — from their point of view for “success”.

Nietzsche's superman, however, has another promise. An idea of humanity and human development that has dispelled the grievances and misunderstandings of a multi-entangled spiritual tradition and is able to start its own, ungodly future with freedom. In order to explore this, however, it might be a good idea to talk about Superman again.

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literature

Beck, Tobias: Unbox your life! Resident-free: The secret to your success. Offenbach 2018. 7th edition 2022.

Hormozi, Alex: $100M offerte. How To Make Offers So Good, People Feel Stupid Saying No. Ebook, Aquisition.com 2021.

Meerath, Stefan: The path to becoming a successful entrepreneur. How you and your company gain new momentum. Offenbach 2008. 21st edition 2021.

Morgan, Charlie: I told myself I was rich until it came true. Online: https://youtu.be/IUxn7vT104Y (published on 19.03.2023, retrieved on 26.5.2024).

Müller, Alexander: It's In You. Visions, success, fulfilled life. Ebook, Munich 2024.

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footnotes

1: Morgan, I told myself I was rich until it came true, minute 21:16 & 22:14. Translation: “The fastest way to success is to accept that with your current self-image and your current identity and how you perceive yourself and how the world presents itself to you through your lenses and your paradigmthat you are unable to bring about the future that you want to bring about. [...] We don't achieve goals, we make personalities happen. We create identities. ”

2: Miller, It's In You, position 198.

3: So Zarathustra spoke, Of the tarantulas.

4: Miller, It's In You, position 215.

5: Meerath, The path to becoming a successful entrepreneur, P. 59.

6: Morgan, I told myself I was rich until it came true, minute 20:58. Translation: “You must commit psychological suicide. You, the person you are now, is unable to do that, because if it were you, you would already have it. ”

7: So Zarathustra spoke, From the creator's path.

8: Hormozi, $100M Offers, p. 11. Translation: “As entrepreneurs, we make bets every day. We're players — we bet our hard-earned money on manpower, inventory, rent, marketing, etc., all in the hope that it will pay off. Losing often. But sometimes we win and win A LOT. ”

9: So Zarathustra spoke, About overcoming yourself.

10: So Zarathustra spoke, About reading and writing.

11: So Zarathustra spoke, From the creator's path.

12: So Zarathustra spoke, From the old and new tables, 2.

13: So Zarathustra spoke, Preface, 3.

14: So Zarathustra spoke, Of a thousand and one goals.

15: The happy science, Aph 301.

16: Beck, Unbox your life!, position 102.

17: So Zarathustra spoke, Preface, 9.

18: Cf. So Zarathustra spoke, The sign.

19: So Zarathustra spoke, From old and new boards, 20th

20: Translation: “Price is what you pay; value is what you get. ”

21: So Zarathustra spoke, From old and new boards, 12.

22: Cf. So Zarathustra spoke, Of redemption.

23: So Zarathustra spoke, Preface, 2.

“A Gods’ Table for Divine Dice Throws and Dice Players”

Nietzsche's Superman Visits the Start-Up Scene

Nietzsche's superman is dead. Hardly anyone can do anything with this obscure idea anymore. You'd think so. And yet, in the current startup environment, you encounter numerous set pieces from Zarathustra's promise. What is it all about? — On the occasion of Nietzsche's 180th birthday, Natalie Schulte dedicates herself to this peculiar continuation of one of the philosopher's best-known concepts. A plea for taking a closer look at Nietzsche's idea despite its past and present misinterpretations.

Editor's note: We have translated longer English quotations into German in the footnotes ourselves.

I. Nietzsche in Ukraine — A rough overview

Paul Stephan: Dear Dr. Mudrakov, thank you very much for agreeing to this discussion about Nietzsche in Ukrainian culture. Perhaps it is best to start with a very general question: What role does Nietzsche play in your country? Is there and was there a strong interest in the German philosopher that had a significant effect on Ukrainian culture? Or is it more of an exotic fringe figure? At the last Nietzsche conference, you already spoke about the author Olha Kobylianska in this regard, We reported, which strongly receives Nietzsche in at least one text. Was it therefore more of an exception — or are there any other such examples?

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Vitalii Mudrakov: In fact, it is a great honor and joy for me to talk about such a connection as “Nietzsche and Ukraine,” because Ukraine is, so to speak, my ontological growth context, it is my home country, and Nietzsche is one of the most important intellectual 'fertilisers' for this growth. So since we're talking about such important things, I feel a huge responsibility. I therefore thank you for giving me the opportunity to have such a conversation. I also hope that this discussion will not only be insightful but also reflect my inner feelings in a certain way.

To answer your question in general, we can use the suggested wording to say that this is an “exotic fringe figure” — but this exoticism has left its mark. In this regard, I would like to deepen your question by explaining when exactly Nietzsche had significance in my country.

His role in Ukrainian intellectual life should therefore not be underestimated, but it was very different in different periods of time! I would therefore like to start our exchange with a periodization of Ukrainian receptions. And since parts of the Ukrainian regions belonged to different state structures in different periods (the Austro-Hungarian and Russian Empires, the Soviet Union and independent Ukraine), it is also essential to talk about the geography of Ukrainian receptions. So that we can better orient ourselves, I suggest the following preliminary, perhaps somewhat political, periodization:

(1) I would describe the first period as “imperial”, spanning the end of the 19th century until the fall of the empires. At this point, Nietzsche entered the territory of the Ukrainian lands, which belonged to different empires and were granted very different cultural and political rights. And this is where the writer Olha Kobyljanska (1863-1942) comes to the fore. After all, she is, among other things, the one who very actively introduced Nietzsche's ideas into Ukrainian literature and thus established modernist tendencies in it. For this reason, she is actually considered one of the key authors of early modernism in Ukraine.

Numerous leading intellectuals of the time pointed out Nietzsche's excessive influence on the writer.¹ They referred in particular to the ideas of the “strong person” or “strong woman” introduced by the author, particularly in her early works. With these, she had a significant impact on the dominant feminist movement of the time in the region and therefore we can say that the — mediated — influence of Nietzsche was very significant here. Kobylianska can therefore be regarded as the first Ukrainian Nietzschean woman who lived in Austria-Hungary. And also the first Ukrainian Nietzschean woman ever, because her interest in Nietzsche preceded similar tendencies in the rest of Ukraine, which was then part of the Russian Empire.

Overall, the Nietzschean influence in this part of Ukraine dominated by Russia is rather superficial; it can be seen, for example, in anti-Christian criticism and the experimentation with various mythologies, such as motifs from the pre-Christian Slavic tradition, in some works. In turn, he can be traced back to wife, the writer Lessya Ukrainka (1871-1913). She came from Volhynia, which was then part of the Russian Empire. Volodymyr Vynnychenko (1880-1951), Vyacheslav Lypynsky (1882-1931) and Dmytro Dontsov (1883-1973) can also be included in the galaxy of the “Russian part” of Ukrainian authors, in which the influence of the German philosopher is obvious. These authors are united not only by their reception of Nietzsche, but also by their political work. Although their interpretations of Nietzsche were very different, in view of this synthesis of philosophy and politics, we can still speak of a divided ideological aggravation inspired by Nietzsche's philosophy. This aggravation was based on the desire to change the life and existence culture of the Ukrainian nation. The authors mentioned above spoke, for example, of the “need for a revolutionary transformation of a new person's life,” the “problems of popular will,” or the “ideal of a strong person.”

(2) I can't say much about the second Soviet period, as Nietzsche was banned during this period — the approximately 70 years of the existence of the Soviet Union — and there were hardly any opportunities to work with his texts. During this period, Nietzsche was only seen through the filter of the phrases of Soviet encyclopedias, as follows: “A reactionary idealistic philosopher, an outspoken apologist of bourgeois exploitation, aggression and fascist ideology.” Nietzsche was therefore unable to compete with the Bolshevik interpretations of Marx for the attention of the Soviet proletarians.² And the initial attempts of the 1920s and 30s to continue to receive Nietzsche, in particular through literary visions, ended in the tragedy of the “shot Renaissance”: the Ukrainian futurism of Mykhailo Semenko (1892-1937), who sought to embody a type of strong-willed “iron man” on an artistic nihilistic platform, or the echo of the “superhuman” images as Leader of the masses, who was responsible for his own homeland, by Mykola Khvylovyj (1893-1933), met with the effects and consequences of Stalinism.

It is important to emphasize that the authors of both periods lived in empires and suffered in different ways under the Soviet regime (some were forced to emigrate, others were imprisoned, and some immediately paid with their lives). They were therefore part of both periods, so that the peculiarity of this periodization consists primarily in pointing out the specific possibility of reappraising Nietzsche's philosophy or working with the principles of his worldview in general.

(3) The third period, which can obviously be described as “independent” — from the early 1990s to today — once again opened up the opportunity to get to know Nietzsche and to develop a number of research projects on his philosophy. However, I would not be talking about general cultural influence here, but rather of growing Nietzsche research and translation. In the 1990s, Anatoly Onyshkos published translations of So Zarathustra spoke and Petro Tarashchuks from The Antichrist; At the beginning of the 2000s, Onyschkos were translations of Beyond good and evil and On the genealogy of morality published. Another very important Nietzsche translation project was started in 2004 by Oleh Feschovets and Kateryna Kotiuk in cooperation with the publisher Astrolabe. Its significance was that the translation was based on the critical edition by Colli and Montinari, which Nietzsche opened up to the Ukrainian public in a completely different way, a “de-Nazified” Nietzsche. The website of the publishing house Astrolabe states that seven volumes of the translation have currently been completed. Unfortunately, progress is a bit slow. There are also other contemporary translations, such as the one translated by Wakhtang Kebuladze Morgenröthe, which was published a few years ago, and some of the German philosopher's ideas are discussed in a philosophical translation laboratory led by the named author and translator.

It is interesting to note that the first studies dedicated to the Ukrainian reception of Nietzsche were written right around the philosopher's anniversary years. For example, the more programmatic articles by Ihor Bytschko (Nietzsche in Ukraine, on the 150th anniversary) and Volodymyr Zhmyr (In the footsteps of Nietzsche in Ukraine, on the 160th anniversary). The recently published article Ukrainian Nietzscheanism by Taras Ljutyj underlines the previous two.

This year's 180th anniversary of Nietzsche gives reason to hope that, despite all the burdens of Russian aggression and the war, this event will also be addressed to some extent in the Ukrainian region. At least I have a few ideas that will not only have a unique effect but will hopefully have a lasting effect. — That's why I would say that Nietzsche is just beginning his journey in Ukraine.

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II. Nietzsche and the development of Ukrainian national consciousness

PS: Thank you very much for your detailed and very detailed answer. Let me ask you a question about each period. Zur first period I would like to note that I see great parallels here with Nietzsche reception in general. There were numerous feminists and emancipated women who took from Nietzsche such a mission statement from a “strong woman,” sometimes even a “referee.” Nietzsche was read not least by women — and this in a completely different sense than can be inferred from some of his texts. Against his will, he became an important catalyst of feminism and general emancipation of women — I think it is here to distinguish between the political movement and the cultural movement — but also, as you also note, a catalyst for political and cultural radicalization processes in general. What I am interested in is whether the consciousness of a Ukrainian There was literature or whether the authors saw themselves more as subjects of the imperial or tsarist empire.

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VM: If we talk about the time frame of this period, namely the late 19th and early 20th century, then a full-fledged awareness of Ukrainian literature was definitely and unequivocally formed during this period. In addition, what can be conditionally described as “the next generation of this consciousness” is already taking place during this time, because the understanding of an independent Ukrainian national literature had already developed before that. I primarily mean the phenomenon of Taras Shevchenko (1814-1861). He lived and worked in the Russian Empire in the middle of the 19th century and is regarded as the founder and promoter of Ukrainian national consciousness in literature in a political sense. Even today, Shevchenko's work is regarded as the spiritual basis for the formation of the modern Ukrainian nation and as a source of national and political consciousness, and the writer himself is a symbol of Ukraine — similar perhaps to Shakespeare for England or Goethe for Germany. But of course we can also talk about writers who lived before him or at the same time and who have also made their contribution to this awareness. Ivan Kotlyarewskyj (1769-1838), for example, and then Petro Hulak-Artemovskyj (1790-1865). The former is regarded as a classic of new Ukrainian literature, but his contribution to the development of Ukrainian national culture is of a more aesthetic and linguistic nature; the latter, despite his literary, translation and educational merits, is accused by researchers of excessive loyalty to the tsarist office. For this reason, the turn of the century already marks a certain germination of this foundation for Ukrainian literature. However, these tender seedlings were always under the hot sun of political pressure from the tsarist empire: official non-recognition, opposition, or complete prohibition of the Ukrainian language and all literary production.

When it comes to figures of Taras Shevchenko's stature in Austria-Hungary, Ivan Franko (1856-1916) is the undisputed favorite. He drew his stories from the life and struggles of his home people, which he wanted to see united in an independent state. Although the general situation of the Ukrainians in the Empire was much better than in the Tsarist Empire and the Ukrainian language, for example, had the status of a “marginal language,” the topics of struggle and freedom for his people are at the center of Franko's work. They represent very well the national consciousness conceived and established by Shevchenko. It should be emphasized that awareness of Ukrainian literature in both parts of Ukraine is focused primarily on the eastern center of the country, i.e. Dnipro Ukraine (Naddnipryanska Ukrayina), which developed a somewhat deeper impetus for national unification. This is likely due to the harsher conditions of existence there.

This is how Nietzsche's seeds grow on the “soil” of these national impulses. In other words, the “radicalizations” mentioned, nourished by his philosophy, first appear in the aesthetic and cultural coding of the above-mentioned authors at the beginning of the 20th century (and in Kobyljanska even earlier, from 1890), and in political coding — but a little later, at the turn of the first decades of the 20th century.

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III. Between censorship and subversion — Nietzsche during the Soviet period

PS: To second period I would like to ask whether Nietzsche was not read in opposition circles after all and acted as a source of ideas there. In the GDR, it was certainly the case that Nietzsche was thoroughly read and discussed in such circles despite official censorship and was therefore able to have a subliminal effect that was also (semi) official in the 1980s. But it would also have been almost impossible to completely suppress Nietzsche there, if only because of its proximity to West Germany and Nietzsche's prominence before 1945.

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VM: Even the period of Soviet occupation was not too homogeneous and was always the same. A look back at the history of censorship in the Soviet Union would be proof of this. The most terrible thing, however, is that not only were Nietzsche or a number of other authors banned, but that the inevitable need to work exclusively with Leninist-Stalinist Marxism was enshrined. Philosophy became a “servant of ideology.” The challenge for intellectuals was therefore to keep philosophical discourse alive in a hidden way and in clandestine form. In addition to developing purely philosophical and theoretical questions, however, it seems important to me to talk about a factor in reading Nietzsche, namely the desire to further develop one's own national culture and identity. This factor had different dynamics in the various Soviet republics. He was always very important in Ukraine. Therefore, the search for sources of confirmation of one's own cultural identity and thus independence could by no means dispense with such fertile ground for rethinking as Nietzsche's philosophy. And it is obvious that it was an underground matter. Here I would like to make an interesting point from the above-mentioned article by Volodymyr Zhmyr, In the footsteps of Nietzsche in Ukraine, mention. In it, he tells how he visited his neighbor's apartment once, in 1964, and saw an open 1:32 book on the table. It was an edition of So Zarathustra spoke from 1903, translated by an author named A. V. Perelhina (unfortunately I couldn't find out her first name). He had traded this translation for another book, and only then could he become familiar with this text. I am telling this story to show how Nietzsche could have been available to read by pure chance. In other words, this work has been lying around on the shelves of private libraries since the days of the previous empire, the period we call “imperial,” without falling victim to the purges of the Bolshevik authorities. Only in this way could an “academic philosopher” read his work by chance. There was no such close “West Germany” from which some works could have come and finally the total number of publications and Nietzsche's actual influence in pre-war Germany was much higher, which was not so easy and quick to eliminate. In the USSR, it was the ideology that cleaned the shelves of many private libraries of such books, while in university or state libraries, special services did this.

The underground inspirations I spoke of would be a good topic for future research, but they are not very well developed at the moment. However, the example of a group of Ukrainian intellectuals who worked to protect the national language, culture and the freedom of artistic creation and were certainly looking for impulses for their own progress — the sixties (Schistdesyatnyky). To illustrate, let us take one of the dissidents and representatives of this movement who was tortured to death by the Soviet authorities, Vasyl Stus (1938-1985). One of his fellow students at the institute testified that he had always been very interested in philosophy and had read Nietzsche very intensively in addition to other thinkers. Since he spoke German very well, it is possible that he read Nietzsche's German-language works that could have been known to him from earlier times. We also know of his diary, in which he wrote down and commented on quotes from philosophers, particularly Nietzsche. The actual ideological influences remain to be investigated here, but the fact that the German philosopher was well known and intensively discussed in these circles cannot be denied.

In this context, I remember a story from my mentor, a well-known translator and specialist in Kantian philosophy, Vitalii Terletsky. He told us students how he studied at the Faculty of Philosophy in Kyiv at the turn of the 80s to the 90s. An extraordinary irony of fate was that back then, in order to read Nietzsche, you had to visit the most important religious and cultural site in Ukraine, the Lavra (the Kyyiv Cave Monastery or Holy Assumption Monastery). This question must also be addressed: How and when did these books get into the church library? But in any case, it is remarkable that it was precisely this ecclesiastical library that “protected” Nietzsche and made his works available for reading.

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IV. Nietzsche and the Ukrainian future and present

PS: What the third period As far as concerns, it may need to be emphasized for our German-speaking readers that these are translations into the Ukrainian language. Russian translations do exist, I suppose, but these translations are part of the effort to establish the Ukrainian language suppressed during the Soviet period, and probably even before, — which is by no means a dialect of Russian, but is perhaps more comparable with Dutch, which would hardly be regarded as a dialectic of German — as a language of education. In general, it is a problem that, for a long time, the West regarded Ukraine as a kind of “Little Russia,” just like Putin. Just recently, the German philosopher Christoph Menke spoke disparagingly of an independent Ukrainian nation as a propaganda “invention.”³ But it is clear that the struggle for an independent cultural identity as a condition for creating a democratic, self-determined community is always moments of reconstruction and Construction includes, especially in the case of nations that have been denied independent cultural development for centuries. Just think of Ireland's revival of the Celtic language or Israel's corresponding efforts — for which Nietzsche was also an important source of keywords, as the Zionists were concerned with the heroic project of constructing a “new Jew” who no longer endures anti-Semitism, but aggressively fights, and stops being as submissive as the “old Jews” or denying their own Judaism like the Millified. As far as I know, Nietzsche did not make a single comment about the Ukrainian countries, even though he was very interested in Eastern Europe, especially in Russia and Poland, with which he even identified himself (cf. my article on this topic on this blog). In this regard, we must finally give up our perhaps imperial, neo-imperial, arrogance and ignorance and accept the independence of Ukrainian culture.

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VM: Dear Paul Stephan, you have raised many topics with this question or comment. I will therefore only talk about each of them very briefly. First of all, to The subject of translations. Yes, of course we talked about Nietzsche's translations into Ukrainian, because why should I talk about other translations, for example into Russian? There were also translations into other languages, such as Polish. However, as you correctly remarked, many Russian translations of philosophical literature are the result of Soviet policy towards languages in general and their opportunities in science (philosophy, literature) in particular. But in the 1990s, more modern translations, particularly by Nietzsche, were also produced in Russia.

I would like to make it clear that all (especially German-speaking readers and researchers) who are accustomed to speaking about Ukrainian culture or language exclusively within the framework of Russian culture or language should reconsider their approaches, because they are outdated and have the aftertaste of imperialism for me personally. You said that very well. And Nietzsche's first translations, which were created in the pre-Soviet period, at the turn of the 19th and 20th century, also testify to an attempt to establish and develop his own culture, especially a linguistic one: Both Russian and Ukrainian translations appeared around the same time. But under very different conditions. It is obvious that only the Russian translations could be officially supported, while the Ukrainian ones were made unofficially in prisons in the form of notes on scraps of paper. I am referring here to the already mentioned Ukrainian writer Volodymyr Vynnychenko. He made one of the first Ukrainian translations of So Zarathustra spoke At some point in the early years of the 20th century, when he was in a tsarist prison, when Ukrainian was not even recognized as a language and was forbidden in every respect. This notebook is now in the Kyiv State Archives. As we see, the translation of Nietzsche for the Ukrainians was carried out by the official bodies of the various periods that were located in Moscow Barely greeted. And coming to terms with such moments of struggle and attempts at resistance should open the eyes of many Western intellectuals to the fact that Ukrainian culture and language are absolutely independent.

What does “Little Russia” actually mean? Serhiy Plokhiy showed in his popular study The Gates of Europethat the “Little Rus” referred to the original core of Rus. “Klein” only meant that there was a smaller number of dioceses there. The “Grosse Rus” was only created later. The Ukrainian countries were therefore never an “offshoot” of Russia, as the term suggests — it is the other way around. At least the term did not originally mean a minority and certainly inferiority, as Putin would like to understand it today. These intellectuals should address this story seriously before they speak of the Ukrainian nation as an “invention.” On the contrary, a propaganda “invention” is the narrative of Russia as a legitimate “original Russia” with Ukraine as an “inferior offshoot.” And it is those Invention that is used to deprive Ukrainians of any opportunity for democratic self-determination — as the Russians have been trying for centuries, although, as described, large parts of the Ukrainian countries were not even part of the Russian Empire for a long time and developed culturally independently of it.

And finally, I'm not sure whether we can use historical or cultural analogies as a template for an explanation. Every nation has its own story, which must first be written, and then parallels can be drawn with other stories of cultures and languages. For a European, although not for all intellectuals, Ukrainian history is still unknown, and unfortunately this often underpins its Russian interpretation. However, if this is a good tool for such and similar intellectuals to understand this issue, then thank you, dear Paul Stephan, for pointing out such parallels.

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PS: You yourself are not only an observer, but also a participant in this, if you will, “third wave” of Ukrainian Nietzsche reception and, as you told me in advance, want to use the mentioned anniversary to found a Ukrainian Nietzsche Society for the first time in the country's history. What I would be interested in in in this regard would be what you yourself, as a Ukrainian Nietzsche recipient, can deduce from his works and what do you think Nietzsche's significance for Ukraine in general could lie in your current situation?

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VM: Yes, there is such an idea and even a plan to found such a community named after Nietzsche. I am currently in the preparation phase. I am trying to understand the possible response of Ukraine's intellectual class to such an initiative and to understand the potential potential of this initiative. We'll see what happens because it's no easy task under the current conditions.

You know, at different times I liked different topics or concepts and Nietzsche's description of them. That has gradually changed. The only thing that remains unchanged is my interest in Nietzsche's methodology. At least that's what I call them. It is a way of analyzing various phenomena as a necessity in order to see something else there that can reveal processes of degeneration or some negations that are often forgotten or suppressed. It is therefore about a constantly incomplete thought project that is driven by dissatisfaction with the prevailing stubbornness. This approach is also known as Nietzsche's “perspectivism.” I have held this opinion for a long time, and we discussed it in our discussions during our joint stay in Weimar in 2017 and beyond, for which I am very grateful to you, and it is also discussed in our article on Nietzsche and the Ukrainian revolution of self-overcoming (link) Treated to some extent.

On this basis, it can be said that the first struggles to overcome one's own slavery (in a spiritual sense, which was almost always imposed by Moscow as an inferiority) took place in the form of revolutions, and now a decisive battle is under way, in which everything is at stake. But overcoming this stage will not be the last, because then we will have to overcome ourselves again, create a new perspective (in the Nietzschean sense). And that will be another major challenge, because now the Ukrainian mind is enveloped in “war mode,” a state in which you easily lose the objective parameters of thinking. They can be overridden by a strong sense of patriotism and a strong desire to establish justice. And that's not bad, it's normal. Because in the War with Evil, in the struggle for one's own identity, one must mobilize all necessary means to strengthen the sources of one's own identity. But as soon as this battle is won, it is important to switch back to another, more open mode so as not to fall into the clutches of “resentment” and the “spirit of revenge,” which Nietzsche so talks about. This is a very serious challenge in the post-war period! And this is where the Nietzsche perspective can be very useful.

For today's Ukraine, however, it is first important to set in motion a wave of Nietzsche studies in general, not only with popular theses aimed at making sharp statements about the reevaluation of the old, but also to understand this methodology of deep and extraordinary thinking. That means: Nietzsche as not a doctrinal philosopher, but as a methodologist. Very different versions of his philosophy are important than the ones we already know. With this in mind, I am currently working on a small project to discuss his philosophy in Ukraine, in particular for the philosophical community otherwise known to make. It will be a series of articles about Nietzsche published by European researchers to mark his 180th birthday. This perspective is very important because I am almost certain that only a few universities — perhaps none — have access to at least some Nietzsche studies of a different kind.

What I mean by that is that Nietzsche should encourage critical, in-depth analysis while promoting creativity. It seems to me that his philosophy has great potential even today to inspire very unusual combinations. I would even say: the potential for provocation, especially intellectually, of course. By the way, there is even artistic proof of this, the painting Nietzsche in ice, or the birth of music from the spirit of tragedy by Oleksandr Rojtburd, a Ukrainian artist, from 2017.⁴ This is an aesthetic vision of his philosophy, which is obviously not without a provocative element. However, this artistic puzzle has yet to be solved and interpreted.

PS: Dear Vitalii Mudrakov, thank you for this extremely enriching insight into the Ukrainian reception of Nietzsche and I sincerely wish your country and family all the best for the future!

VM: Thank you for your interesting question and your friendly attitude.

Vitalii Mudrakov is a philosopher who was born in Ukraine. He studied music, ethics and aesthetics at the Humanities University (Khmelnytzkyi, Ukraine) and then philosophy and religious studies at the Yuri Fedkovych University in Chernivtsi (Ukraine). He has lived permanently in Germany since 2022 and was a scholarship holder at the Friedrich Nietzsche College (Klassik Stiftung Weimar) and at the Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics” (University of Münster). He has recently received a scholarship at the “Center for Religious Studies” (CERES) at Ruhr-Universität Bochum. He is currently working on a concept of “identity security.” His current research also focuses on Nietzsche's metaphor as a methodological concept of epistemology and axiological transformation as well as the Ukrainian reception of Nietzsche.

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Source reference for the article image

Oleksandr Rojtburd: Nietzsche in Ice, or the Birth of Music From the Spirit of Tragedy (2017). Online: https://www.wikiart.org/en/alexander-roitburd/nietzsche-in-ice-or-the-birth-of-music-from-the-spirit-of-tragedy-2017

Footnotes

1: These include historian Mykhailo Hrushevsky, literary critic Serhiy Yefremov, language and cultural critic Ahatanhel Krymsky and writer Lessya Ukrainka.

2: Although I know and will try to prove it in an upcoming essay that this ban was only official. Behind the scenes, Nietzschean ideas were certainly present among Bolshevik ideologues and inspirers.

3: “Another undemocratic entity in this war is the 'nation', whose deep and long history is discovered (until recently they would have said: invented) and sung about.” (Dear Etienne, dear Christoph... Online: https://www.philomag.de/artikel/lieber-etienne-austausch.)

4: Editor's note: This is the article image.

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Nietzsche and Ukraine

A Conversation with Vitalii Mudrakov

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.

Visitors from the north immediately feel that they have reached a magical place: The view sweeps across Lake Sils towards Italy, the southern light flatters the eyes, the warm Maloja wind surrounds the face, a thermal airflow that blows all day in wind force 4 to 5 in some weather conditions. At the tip of the Chastè peninsula, which stretches far into Lake Sils, it is particularly noticeable when it rustles the pine trees.

Chastè was one of Friedrich Nietzsche's favorite places, who spent seven summers in the nearby village of Sils Maria. In the 1880s, he lived in a simple guest room in the Durisch family's house several times for a few weeks. In the dry and sunny climate of the Upper Engadine, the philosopher, tormented by frequent migraine complaints, hoped to find favourable conditions for his health and ability to work. Important works were designed in Sils and some were written down: The Happy Science, Beyond Good and Evil, On the Genealogy of Morals, The Wagner Case, Götzen-Twilight Among others, especially in his main poetic work So Zarathustra spoke Nietzsche's interpretation of the Engadin landscape as “heroic” and “invigorating” is palpable.

During his stays in Sils, he imposed a strict daily schedule with fixed working and meal times and several hours of exercise. The wide, flat valley allowed long walks in the area, where you didn't spend too much and had the opportunity to fill the notebooks you carried with you with flashes of thought at any time. Even his first stay in Sils is said to have given him a key idea on a distinctive, pyramid-shaped stone on the shores of Lake Silvaplana, which gave direction to his further philosophizing: that “idea of eternal return” that in So Zarathustra spoke should play an important role. The pyramid stone is marked on current hiking maps and Google maps, so that even today everyone can check the aura of this rock while walking.

The 200-year-old house in the historic town center of Sils Maria, where Nietzsche lived as a regular summer guest, was acquired in 1959 by the “Nietzsche House Foundation in Sils Maria”, which was founded specifically for this purpose, and furnished with exhibits. On August 25, 1960, on the sixtieth anniversary of Nietzsche's death, the Foundation opened a museum in the house. The concept of the foundation, which is still the owner of the house today, is based on two pillars: On the one hand, an exhibition provides information about the life and work of the philosopher, and on the other hand, the house is intended as a living place of living, working and research. The Munich Nietzsche Forum awards a “Werner Ross Scholarship” every year. This is aimed at young academics, writers and authors who work on texts and projects on the extended subject area of Nietzsche. The scholarship offers a free four-week stay in the Nietzsche House in September with final participation in the Nietzsche Colloquium, which takes place annually at the neighboring luxury hotel Waldhaus.¹ The 14 scholarship recipients so far came from Germany, Canada, France, Italy, Finland and China. This shows that international scientific interest in Nietzsche has therefore stabilized and the Nietzsche scientific community is constantly rejuvenating. But scholarship holders are not the only ones who can live in a room in the house to write in an inspiring environment. Other guests, i.e. “civilians”, also have the option of renting a room in the house. The aim of this mix of users is to promote dialogue and networking among researchers, Nietzsche readers and tourists. In addition, the Foundation has been holding exhibitions of contemporary art related to Nietzsche in the house since the mid-1980s; after all, Nietzsche, like no other thinker before, had repeatedly strongly inspired artists and encouraged them to engage productively with his ideas and person. After guest performances by Gerhard Richter and Helmut Federle, among others, the Graubünden artist Not Vital was also a guest: A monumental white plaster moustache was his main exhibit, which he deposited on Nietzsche's bed.

Since 2021, the Nietzsche House has been showing a renewed presentation of Nietzsche's life and work, which was curated by Matthias Buschle and Wolfram Groddeck. In addition to biographical and chronological facts, important terms from Nietzsche's world of thought are explained to an audience that consists not only of Nietzsche experts, but also of curious people and random visitors to tourists. Over the decades following the opening, this audience has become noticeably more international. In addition, during the corona years, an increasing number of Swiss people, including many French-speaking French-speaking Swiss from Western Switzerland, discovered the house. For this reason, a multilingual concept of the memorial site was necessary, which included the digital dimension and met the contemporary public's need for easy-to-process and well-portioned information.

The exhibition rooms were designed in 2021 in a uniform design, on the background color of the original Zarathustra books, i.e. in a subtle turquoise. The sequence of showcases follows Nietzsche's life chronologically. Rarities such as various first editions and a small, regularly changing selection of valuable original manuscripts from the important Rosenthal-Levy Collection are on display. The individual exhibits are rather concisely labelled — due to the current reading habits of a predominantly tourist audience — and the explanations in four languages can be read in a text booklet or on a mobile website. Panels integrated in the display cases provide information on basic concepts and important keywords in Nietzsche's thinking.

You can stay overnight in simple double rooms with historic flair (minimum three nights, maximum three weeks, for groups one week) during the two seasonal opening hours from mid-June to mid-October and from mid-December to mid-April. Unfortunately, the room that Nietzsche himself lived in is excluded; it is part of the museum presentation. The building also houses a reference library for Nietzsche research, which comprises around 4,500 titles. A kitchen is also available for house guests to enjoy lively conversations around the fireplace.²

In less than half an hour from the Nietzsche House, you can reach the Chastè peninsula, which was visited by Nietzscheans from all over the world in the past and today. Some expect an encounter with the recurring spirit of the philosopher there. For example, the renowned Belgian architect and designer Henry van de Velde. He told of a vision that came over him on August 25, 1918, the 18th anniversary of Nietzsche's death, while visiting the Chastè peninsula: “There I felt a shiver as if I were suddenly standing in front of a temple, a mausoleum, where I would come into contact with Nietzsche himself. ”³ The aura of the place is unwavering: Anyone who is on the rocky peninsula today will repeatedly meet contemporaries who, reading or pondering, linger on benches and in the countryside and are also ready for an appearance of Nietzsche's spirit.

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Article Image Information

View of Chastè, photo by Christian Saehrendt, 2024

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Footnotes

1: See also https://www.nietzsche-forum-muenchen.de/.

2: Cf. https://nietzschehaus.ch/das-nietzsche-haus-i/wohnen/.

3: Letter from Henry van de Velde to Elisabeth Foerster-Nietzsche, August 25, 1918, National Research and Memorial Center of Classical German Literature in Weimar. Goethe and Schiller Archive, collection by E. Förster-Nietzsche = signature 72.

Musing in a Southerly

Visiting Nietzsche's Summer House in Engadin

The Inn River rises at an altitude of just under 2,500 m in southeastern Switzerland, in the canton of Graubünden. Over a distance of 80 km, it first flows through a high-mountain valley called the Engadin. Here, not far from the sophisticated spa town of St. Moritz, it crosses two small lakes, Lake Sils and Lake Silvaplana, between which lies the idyllic mountain village of Sils Maria. The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche spent several summers in this exquisite landscape and was inspired by it to write some of his most important works. Christian Saehrendt set out to search for clues at what is perhaps the most important “pilgrimage site” on the Nietzsche scene.

Paul Stephan: Dear Estella, dear Hans-Martin, we met today in virtual space to talk about the “generational question.” A “millennial,” myself, a “zoomer,” and a “boomer.” The discourse about these different “generations” is right now In vogue, on social media, you can hardly avoid corresponding memes and videos; the features section is also full of them. “Zoomer”, “Boomer” —would you call yourself that?

Hans-Martin Schönherr-Mann: I'm probably a bit too old for the baby boomers, I'm more of a pre-baby boomer. On the other hand, I am also too young for the right sixty-eight — I turned 16 in 1968 — more of a post-sixty-eight who was politicized and intellectualized by the experience of the 1968 period. My generation of young teachers, about a decade older than me, was partly influenced by Nietzsche and Hesse. It is not clear to me whether they still belonged to the “apolitical generation” of the early Federal Republic. But with Nietzsche and Hesse, they developed an individual understanding of their situation so that they no longer saw themselves as part of a community, as had been self-evident since the 19th century.

Estella Walter: Dear Paul, dear Hans-Martin, I myself am somewhat baffled by the question of generations, perhaps because my age group is in the middle of it right now and reflection is therefore difficult. However, the (increased) interest in generations as a diagnostic tool is definitely very exciting. Accordingly, I do not see myself as belonging to the generation assigned to my age group. Rather, I see it as a sometimes rather cumbersome template that makes sense in some analyses and not in others. In any case, it seems to me that Nietzsche himself has little influence on Gen Z than thinkers who relate to him, such as Michel Foucault and Judith Butler, or even public figures such as Jordan Peterson.

PS: I myself think that there is definitely such a thing as “generational experiences” and the resulting common characteristics of certain age cohorts. I can find myself in some stereotypes about the “millennials,” less so in others. But of course, from a scientific point of view, it would be necessary to add that other formative factors such as social and local origin, gender, ethnicity, etc. also play a role. And I also believe that individuals are never completely determined by these numerous factors, but that their identity is always the product of individual choice — especially if you know about this generational discourse and can consciously distance yourself from the respective stereotypes; or not.

SM: I can only agree with that. But we are asking ourselves the question of generations here. Other factors are important when they affect this question. My generation, insofar as it was political, was rather hostile to Nietzsche from a Marxist perspective. At the beginning of the seventies, the new edition by Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari was also not as widespread and well-known — in non-Nietzschean circles —; the first volume in German was published in 1967, the complete critical study edition only in 1980. But there were also more artistically oriented contemporaries in my generation who also referred to Nietzsche. Of course, I can no longer say to what extent the various new questions of interpretation have already been addressed. They were probably more inspired by older Hesse fans.

Those who were artistically oriented probably reflected on his understanding of Dionysian art. In particular, such an element has spread massively through rock music, combined, of course, with drug experiences, which in any case were aimed at expanding consciousness or at least new experiences, which are then also associated with the Zarathustra can connect: invent new values. The politicians in my generation were certainly influenced by Marx and Adorno and followed the widespread rejection of Nietzsche based on the interpretation that Nietzsche's sister had promoted. If you let yourself be influenced by French existentialism, then you came closer to Nietzsche again. But the closeness between the two was not too well known.

PS: As for Nietzsche, I would also say that other thinkers are far more important to my generation. So did Foucault and Butler, but many also read Adorno and Marx in their formative years anyway. I like the “generation education strike” attribute better than “millennial,” even though it doesn't describe my entire age cohort, of course. But I think everyone who studied around 2010 and was halfway interested in politics was somehow influenced by the big educational strike movement. We only came to Nietzsche through detours and always from a political perspective, even though his thoughts about the education system partly corresponded with our demands for real education rather than mere education. In some cases, however, Nietzsche also served as a springboard to break out of the strong politicization of discourse and to consider things from a more existentialist, individual and artistic perspective.

EW: It is not so easy to find a common denominator between students (outside of university I rarely come across someone who has points of reference to Nietzsche). I think that similar to you, Paul, you are more likely to come across his works through detours or coincidences. Of course, there are the (left-wing) politically oriented people who come from post-structuralism, but then there are also the armchair philosophy students who are strictly interested in him professionally and regard those, mostly from analytical philosophy, who Nietzsche, if at all, as a literary pastime, not as an object of philosophical discussion. Of course, there are also those here and there who let Nietzsche degenerate into a self-help guru. This may be due, among other things, to the fact that Nietzsche offers such a wide projection screen; rhetorically, there is a suitable slogan for everyone. His ambiguity is what makes him so interesting.

For the events concerning Gen Z, which are witnesses of our contradictory times (climate change, reactionary division of societies, identity politics, colonial hangover, global exploitation relations, etc.), Nietzsche's own contradiction is undeniable topicality, it is like a mirror, a confrontation with ourselves. However, he plays a minor role in the political discussion of all these events and how to deal with them. Unlike Marx or Adorno, he usually stays in seminars and textbooks, rarely making it onto the streets.

SM: First about education: My generation and those of 68 were diligently calling for reforms — think of the slogan: “Under gowns, the muff of 1,000 years.” But they ultimately received a remuneration, which they later implemented themselves. This has little to do with Nietzsche, at most the associated claim to self-development, which seemed to obscure these generations by the old university — what a mistake, the old university still offered more opportunities for this than the later Reformed universities. The politicians among us had no problem even with a division of society. It always seemed divided and today's talk about it is a strange romanticization following the integration of the left and the Greens into politics. My generation of the seventies was ecologically oriented — at most a certain romantic nature suited Nietzsche. I then read Nietzsche ecologically as a science critic in the eighties — a reading that no one likes to this day. But there was also a political direction that turned away from dogmatic Marxism, which I might like to call “spontaneist,” and which came to Nietzsche via the post-structuralists. How quickly Foucault's genealogical turn of the seventies spread after that is questionable. However, it is likely to have been leaked by the end of the seventies. Nevertheless, Nietzsche and Foucault's moral criticism has probably spread rather little. After all, ethics boomed in those decades. Hardly anyone wanted to hear a critique of ethics, which I still lean towards today following Nietzsche and Foucault.

EW: I'm familiar with the post-structuralist way of reading, but how exactly can Nietzsche's scientific criticism be read ecologically?

SM: According to Nietzsche, you don't understand nature as it really is. Then you have to be all the more careful with her. Ecological technology would then not be the answer, at least not in the sense that the sciences really tell us what is happening there.

EW: I see. However, the argument now seems widespread to me. Or at least skepticism about a technological solution in view of limited knowledge about nature.

SM: But then the last generation would not be able to claim that they were the last that could still do anything about climate change — with Nietzsche, climate change cannot be more than a prophecy. The Greens have long been scientistic and technicistic.

PS: “skepticism” is a good keyword. The “millennials” seem to be a very skeptical and hesitant generation. Whether in private, political, philosophical: You don't want to commit yourself and keep all options open. Sometimes we push it to the point of excess. The previous and subsequent generations often seem to me to have more courage and determination.

In my opinion, this is reflected in Foucault's dominance in my generation. At least the humanities and columnistic discourse are completely under the spell of shallow post-modernism. A bit of hedonism, a bit of relativism, a lot of skepticism, but no outright skepticism either. A bit like South Park or Vice. Nietzsche actually fits in with this, but only a specific Nietzsche, always read from the perspective of postmodernism. I think that in order to free ourselves from our generational paralysis, we must leave this way of thinking behind us. A rediscovery of Nietzsche — but certainly also of the real Foucault, for example, who from his common sense-Distorted image is of course very different — could help with that.

EW: This way of thinking that you're talking about runs through the generations. The feeling of powerlessness and paralysis, of insignificance in the face of the desperate situation, is no less evident in subsequent generations. It is precisely the nihilism of the “last person” that Nietzsche is talking about. The politicization of Gen Z, for example, may contradict this; after all, it requires change and new beginnings. But the paths and methods must also be looked at there. Activism takes place on social media, but it sounds more like moral cries that don't touch on the material basis of the problems. The same applies to activism that takes place on the streets: demonstrations on the scale as we know them are primarily symbolic. Subversive disruptions and interruptions in some small groups may provoke an outcry, but change little in the long term unless collective organization develops from them.

I would like to briefly comment on Hans-Martin's objection: I agree with you on that. However, there are certainly always voices that criticize technological solutions as long as they still follow capitalist laws. I also associate this with the objection that nature is unpredictable and our knowledge of it is necessarily limited. Subjecting them to technology, whose development is particularly linked to profit-maximizing laws, poses risks. Although that is perhaps another aspect...

What kind of ecological approach would you envisage against the background of epistemological problems? You have to start somewhere, even if not under scientific and technical supremacy.

SM: Of course, I see both objections differently from the perspective of my generation. It seems to me that there is more political self-importance and the skepticism among the population is not a philosophical one that really focuses on the sciences in the style of Nietzsche Morgenröthe would doubt. People no longer know where they are heading because a doubt about progress has spread. — On the other hand, many still expect their salvation from the institutions, as a state faith is returning here. I can't classify this generationally. But my generation and the next generation still sit in management positions and they determine public opinion, which of course no longer controls the new media — hence the whining. At the same time, all generations think they have no power or influence. You should check out Foucault for that. Everyone influences what happens. But intellectuals, not least Nietzsche, are constantly complaining that they are so indiscriminate, yet they know it for sure. But even the intellectual is only an individual person and expert rule allows him even less influence than the rule of state and capitalism. Capitalism dealt with the environment better than former socialism. There are no alternatives in sight. I'd rather keep it that way with Nietzsche recipient Heidegger. Man is not the master of being. With supposed drive, at least as many problems arise as this solves. Instead of action, Heidegger demands thinking. Of course, if the sciences asked the question of the meaning of being, they would no longer be as successful. But maybe that would be the right thing to do. — You have to reverse the 11th Feuerbach thesis: If you want to change the world, you must first understand it differently. And that is exactly what Marx did, and so did Nietzsche. Who was more influential? With the idea of the eternal return of the same, perhaps today Nietzsche.

EW: I actually agree with most of the points you raised. That is why I believe that the feeling of powerlessness is a cross-generational phenomenon and gives oneself ever new material for self-affirmation. This is followed by the search for new gods (state, identity, capital, truth, etc.) as a consequence of the propagated, alleged, powerlessness. — In my opinion, thought and action are not mutually exclusive. Anyone who buries themselves inside and only lives in platonic clouds will change just as little as those who allow themselves to be driven by thoughtless pressure to act. (However, “action” should not be understood in the sense of a rational cause-effect chain).

But you still don't give me an answer to the question of what kind of ecological approach you would envisage against the background of epistemological problems.

SM: That is ultimately the question of how important ecological issues are given, which are currently receiving great attention. And a lot has also happened since the seventies. This was the result of left-wing citizens from my generation. Many have opened organic stores. This should be addressed individually rather than by the state. That seems more sustainable to me. Statesmen, including women, cannot do that. Citizens must do it themselves and get the state to support them in doing so. But political problems are not monocausal, but there are many different ones that are just as important. I think that you can learn a lot from Nietzsche. But it is clear that this primarily concerns intellectuals, although Nietzsche is certainly one of the few philosophers who is also received outside the philosopher's guild.

PS: Yes, it seems to me that there is a generational difference again. With my generation, my perception is that for us, at least around 2010, the ecological issue was completely secondary. We didn't care so much about that, but rather about the mentioned question of a good and fair education system, the issue of peace (keyword Iraq war) and the collapse of the financial system that seemed possible to us as a result of the crisis of 2008. A bit funny, in retrospect. Perhaps we also wanted to differentiate ourselves from older people, for whom this issue was so important. And despite all the politicization, we were also very individualistic and would not have dreamt of giving up our cheap flights across Europe and meat — these are all topics that only came up a little later, even though my generation has now “caught up” in this regard, if you like to speak that way.

But I also find the last aspect that you raised, Hans-Martin, important to highlight. I know a great many people who have never studied but have read Nietzsche and know what to do with him. He's a bit like Kafka, Marx too. These are all authors who are “popular.” You can't just write the story of Nietzsche's reception as a story of his academic commentaries, but you have to tell it much more broadly, otherwise you're just looking at the tip of the iceberg.

Boomers, Zoomers, Millennials

How Do the Respective Perspectives on Nietzsche Differ?

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.

It is a fascinating part of the country, the Thuringian chain of cities. In the west, the Lutherstadt of Erfurt with its medieval core and its somewhat different Art Nouveau “bacon belt”; in the east, Jena, the heart of German idealism and German Romanticism in equal measure; in its midst Weimar, in turn the center of German classical music, music academies, the First Republic, the Bauhaus — but also: Nietzsche's place of death.

Naumburg is located not far from this chain of cities, which is significant in terms of intellectual history, in the idyllic Saale-Unstrut Delta. In this beautiful city, Nietzsche spent his schooling and those years of 'spiritual absentence' in which he was cared for by his mother. He returned here again and again — throughout his life — from his extensive hikes in Switzerland and Italy. Here, in Weingarten 18, where Nietzsche's mother lived from 1858, there is still the Nietzsche House today, in which a new permanent exhibition presents the philosopher's thinking and biography in an unusually aesthetic way. Five extended audio tracks — in German or English — lead to 1, 2, 3... Nietzsche the guests through nine rooms, sometimes cramped, across two floors. Children are just as much thought of as those who consider Nietzsche's closeness to animals and things to be fundamental; for man is not a backworld, not a transcendental appendage, but an earthly, local and thus a reality that acts both physically and materially.

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In the audio track of the exhibition on Nietzsche's life, in addition to his appointment at the age of 24 to a professorship in Basel (even before he received his doctorate) and his extended years of wandering after early retirement due to his health condition, his “Turin experience” is particularly fascinating. In this, according to tradition, he threw himself around the neck of a tormented horse as if protective, which, according to the official story, marks the beginning of his “madness.” Madness is still conveyed so sensually; the anecdote acts as evidence against doctrine for all those who are open to him: From the will to the power of the tormenting, from the compassionate of the rulers, the person Nietzsche was apparently less pleased than his teaching would suggest. Yes, it seems that he was as repulsed by “blond beasts” and their brutal “superhumanity.” Although the museum does not suggest this conclusion, it treats Nietzsche's animal epiphany with appropriate sympathy.

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The new permanent exhibition also demonstrates a contemporary sense of taste. But Nietzsche was not a Untimely? Was he not a despiser of taste and fashion? In any case, text boards have 1, 2, 3... Nietzsche Hardly any and all the more gimmicks, which in a certain sense fit into Naumburg's cityscape during post-reunification times — where only the facades are still colorful. In this way, the museum's presentation reflects the museum environment, although the early Nietzsche would certainly not have been pleased with this. It also provides visitors with superficial and uncritical knowledge rather than profound or new knowledge. In terms of form and content, the addressees therefore appear to be more confessors than experts of Nietzsche — more informed by popular culture than by philosophical studies. On the other hand, it provides important corrections to tried and tested prejudices, especially for these addressees.

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For example, she explains that Nietzsche just none He was a nihilist (but, at least according to his own claim, an anti-nihilist) and that his quip “God is dead” is to be understood more complex (yes, ultimately different) than as a summing up of one-dimensional modern faith. Hitting in the same notch but cliching on his part, seems to be the main enemy of 1, 2, 3... Nietzsche to be the Habermash problematization of the Nietzschean levelling of the difference between philosophy and literature. This problematization, however, fails on its part to Habermas' over-identify Nietzsche with post-structuralism (from Philosophical discourse of modernity known) to question what could have opened paths both beyond the hegel of the Federal Republic of Habermas and across the neoconservatives of the new spirit of capitalism — the post-structuralists.

Accordingly, it also remains questionable whether, in the case of Nietzsche, as the exhibition suggests, from terms — in terms of “will to power” or “eternal return” — although the selection of these in the museum rooms is quite convincing. After all, a wanderer philosophized here with his shadows and a hammer, not a systematist with an encyclopedia and dialectical method. Yet the Nietzsche-curious person in 1, 2, 3... not only about his countermethod of genealogy and aesthetics (appearances come before consciousness!) but also about today — not least politically — central concepts such as “resentment” or “nihilism.” The latter, however, is questionably discussed as “influenced by Nietzsche” and as a mere description of the present tense of the late 19th century, instead of bringing it beyond its Russian conditions of origin — and with Nietzsche — into a dual connection with religion and scientism that would continue to this day.

Last but not least, it is unlikely to convince Nietzschekenner to find nothing but a defense of “diversity” in his “Earth Government,” which was intended to instigate slavery, feudality and inequality (as the cynical post-critic Sloterdijk recalled), such as 1, 2, 3... suggests that Nietzsche, of all people, was the first left-liberal. The defense of “faraway love”, on the other hand, which excludes all nationalism and some anti-Semitism (although unfortunately hardly any racism in Nietzsche's case), as den Highlighting Nietzsche's essential anti-essentialist contribution during the period of neo-chauvinism is definitely thanks to the new exhibition in the Nietzschehaus.

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Regardless of criticism, offers 1, 2, 3... gives visitors an enjoyable, light, entertaining and, as it were, educational afternoon, even on weekdays when the museum is open from 2 pm to 5 pm (except Mondays). It should be a suitable period of time to listen to the various audio tracks and — along their — to experience various acoustically conveyed experiences of the same haptically retrievable spaces. Even the new exhibition does not completely resist the temptation to romanticize or heroize Nietzsche; people who have been reading Nietzsche for years and decades are still likely to get a whole lot closer to the person who wrote about Superman through them. It is precisely this bringing the people Nietzsche is most grateful in our era of hegemonic human self-abolition, which is being tried ideologically to be overtaken ahead of time by anti-, trans- and post-humanist avant-gardes. In any case, Nietzsche was still a person who only lacked the goal and thus the species, but not humanity when it came to the suffering of an animal.

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In the best sense of the word, could 1, 2, 3... In this respect, they contribute to reopening places such as Naumburg, Jena and Weimar, figures such as Nietzsche, Hegel and Goethe in terms of intellectual history: because Nietzsche's proteleological question of the self-determined goal of man, the ideal of authenticity of German Romanticism, the rational society of German idealism and the adequate order of good life (German classical music) belong together beyond all bourgeois resentments of education — especially But: beyond all Germanness.

Link to the Nietzsche House website with further information.

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Information about the pictures

All images in this article are taken by the author unless otherwise stated.

Article image: Front of the Nietzsche House in Naumburg

1, 2, 3…

About the New Permanent Exhibition in the Nietzsche House in Naumburg

Since 1994, the house in Naumburg where Nietzsche lived with his mother for several years after his mental collapse in 1889 has had a museum dedicated to life and work. On the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of its existence, the permanent exhibition of the Nietzsche House was completely redesigned, curated by Berlin philosopher Daniel Tyradellis. Our regular author Lukas Meisner was there and took a look at them.

“Not too much sun, the light is misunderstood, twilight is the actual lighting of humanity.” (Benn, Three old men)

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I. Well-tempered cosmopolitanism

You can't just live in houses. A language, a legal system, customs or dream worlds can also be homes. Wherever strangers are transformed into familiarity and familiarity gains a liveliness that becomes a “beautiful stranger” (Eichendorff), people live. Life creates a house of existence through symbols, fantasies and rituals. It inspires itself through its work. “People live on this earth full of merit, yet poetic.” (Hölderlin) Architecture is therefore just another form of an existential world friendship movement. Life can light up in the twilight of structures.

Starting from aesthetic speculations about Greek tragedy, Nietzsche arrived at an existential-architectural understanding of life early on in his philosophy. He sees reality as an existential dialectic of the forces of Dionysian — ecstatic, eruptive — and Apollonian — as a dreamlike transfiguration and formation. Central, and this applies to Nietzsche's entire dramatic philosophy — even though, after his “turn” in Bayreuth in 1876, a marked change from tragedy to comedy prevailed in his thinking — is the primacy of order over chaos. Because existence is confronted with an excess of strangers, life that lives is constitutively Apollinan. All Dionysian outbreaks also only occur as a result of this vital transfiguration integration:

Could we ourselves an incarnation of dissonance think — and what else is a human being? — so this would dissonanceIn order to be able to live, you need a wonderful illusion that covers a veil of beauty over your own being. This is the true artistic purpose of Apollo: in whose name we summarize all those countless illusions of beautiful appearance which make existence worth living in every moment and urge us to experience the next moment.¹

In Nietzsche's phase of “free spirit,” following the painful break with Wagner, Apollinian then gains an expanded meaning in the term “appearance.” Appearance becomes a vital compensation for the abysses of truth that you cannot live with. Successful life requires an architecture of illusion. For Nietzsche, the aesthetic transfiguration of the Apollonian dream is transformed into a gentle theory. This is embodied on the one hand in benevolent, encouraging interpretations and on the other hand in a therapeutic suppression of facts that cannot be integrated. Nietzsche thus describes the enlightened non-enlightenment as a “decision to ignorance, to indiscriminate closure, to close his windows, an inner saying no to this or that thing, not letting it come close, a kind of state of defense against much that is known, a satisfaction with the darkness, with the final horizon, a saying yes and approving ignorance. ”²

One could see Nietzsche's thought as a prelude to an established understanding of the humanum established in 20th century anthropology as a being that, unlike the animal guided by its instincts, is cosmopolitan. “Cosmopolitanism” — a term coined by Max Scheler and preformed in Johann Gottfried Herder's thinking — appears in philosophy in substantial power first with Heidegger in Being and time on. There, a conceptual specification is achieved, which formally expresses Nietzsche's entire understanding of the rational existence of the free spirit: “The mood of state of mind existentially constitutes the cosmopolitanism of existence. ”³

Nietzsche's existential-architectural thinking is addressed in Heidegger's words. The mindset of the free spirit, which needs a house of appearances in order to be able to live in cosmopolitanism, must be located in a housing of good moods. As an architect of the vital, you build on your vitality by exposing yourself to certain influences — such as mountain lakes, magnanimous people, music from Bizet, the climate of Liguria, etc. What Heidegger does not reflect is the aspect of regulatable “Throwing” as a conscious will to transfigurative appearance. Only a well-tempered state of mind in Apollinian can develop an openness to cosmopolitanism at all. The chaos of nerves differentiates itself partially sealed into a cosmos that motivates life to live as a cosmopolitan citizen. It is only when realities are dimmed proportionally that twilight is created, which presents the contours of the world in an orderly manner to a highly nervous cosmopolitanism and enables a life that “world trust” (Heidegger) has and can pass on. Therefore, the”Not yet identified thiers”⁴ Man a filter, a shelter, a house for being, in order to Vita contemplativa to follow up. Only when the world is not annoying can it “worlds” (Heidegger). Without a stimulating interior and a protective outdoor architecture of life, there can be no cosmopolitan philosophy.

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II. Against the tree

In his recently published book Nietzsche's architecture of the discerning⁵ Geneva-based city planner and professor of architecture Stephen Griek has written a large-scale essayistic meditation on the connection between thinking and building. He took the title of the work from a Nietzsche aphorism, which he also prefaced it as a motto. It states:

Once and probably soon, we need to understand what our big cities in particular lack: quiet and vast, expansive places to think about, places with spacious long hallways for bad or overly sunny weather, where no sound of the cars and the caller penetrates [...] Buildings and facilities which, as a whole, represent the grandeur of Sit-Express reflection and sideways. [...] We want to express ourselves into Have translated stone and plant, we want into us walk walkwhen we into Transform these halls and gardens.⁶

Griek is inspired by these formulations and strives to highlight the related basic structure of thought and architecture. For him, the common feature lies in the fact that both shape reality in the form of the draft (see p. 46). Through this idea, he can understand architecture as a form of conceptionality through which people interpret the world. Griek is close to Nietzsche in that thinking is regarded as an art whose creativity is primarily to be understood negatively. Art omits, reduces thinking, limits architecture: “Architecture [...] is therefore an cutting out, simplifying, reducing, abstracting the outside, the world (space is not simply there, but a conscious excerpt from the outside, creating space is elimination).” (p. 214) Architecture thinks and thinking is architecture as creating space from chaos through “regulatory fictions” (p. 160).

Nietzsche's idea of appearances is thus received and emphatically polemically opposed to a concept of truth that is based on the understanding of a hierarchical order; a truth whose essence is established and whose structure only needs to be developed. For Griek, the image of the tree (see p. 21 f.) is emblematic. He cites the text as the origin of this idea A City Is Not a Tree by Christopher Alexander from 1965 and notes how Gilles Deleuze applied this image to the entire history of Western ideas. (Cf. p. 20f.)

However, Griek is rubbing himself up against criticism of this totalitarian concept of truth, which in his eyes is hostile to innovation. As a result, his immense range of facts and ideas used is clumped together. His interesting approach that structures of architecture are structures of thought and Vice Versa present and his sometimes comprehensible plea for a “culture of becoming” (p. 39) thus fizzles out in a very erudite polemic. Criticism of the tree does not result in a sketch of an alternative organic; instead, everything is subordinated to a monotonous attack on classical existence. As essay-like as Griek's text may look, he will become predictably tree-like even in his confrontational attitude.

In addition, Griek's approach wants to show an openness to becoming, which presents his text as a “construction site accessible to everyone and completely comprehensible” (p. 36). Even though it is sympathetically intended to pursue a philosophy that also wants to show what it says, the Greek does not succeed. The subject matter does not expand, but degenerates into the expected result of a critique of the truth of the tree over and over again. The polemic scares away the phenomena. An experienced architect in particular would have been expected to provide more specific explanations of individual buildings in order to explain his ideas using real designs, as the works he has positively emphasized Learning from Las Vegas (Brown/ Venturi) and Delirious New York (Koolhaas) afford. It also doesn't help if quotes from Nietzsche are not used as evidence of thought processes, but usually only serve as associative hints, and often only as a kind of sound backdrop. They appear like posters on the fences of a construction site. If books are houses that make you a guest as a reader and get an impression of the quality of their respective living experience: Why should you then move into accommodation in unfinished construction sites that obviously do not want to achieve this quality?!

By failing to elaborate his theses on specific details and Nietzsche's philosophy, Griek is missing the opportunity to illustrate the conceptual innovations highlighted by Nietzsche. In particular, the significance of the body for Nietzsche, which then continues to have an effect in the body phenomenology inaugurated by Heidegger and systematized by Hermann Schmitz, which recognizes moods and atmospheres as substantial realities, is not specified. Yet it is architecture that, like music, cultivates the form of being and provokes an absorption. A philosophical examination of the connection between thinking and construction should have focused on the topic of how moods and buildings, atmospheres and living are connected and how the concept of participation is enriched by these topics.⁷ But since Griek is fixated on the violent dominance of a culture of tree-like existence, he is concerned with standing up for chaos, change, entropy. From this static of being present, he cannot think of an extended static of being, which always requires his own seclusion and conservative order. Because of the axe, you no longer see the alternative to a tree.

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III. Fake architecture

The deeper reason why Griek is unable to work out decisive reflections that characterize Nietzsche's thinking is that he has taken a polemical stance against an ontology of the tree, which legitimizes itself by overemphasizing the concept of “will to power.” Nietzsche's idea of appearances is thus regarded by him almost exclusively as a form of conquest. Life is accentuated as a permanent revolution of creativity against the existence of facts. Only autonomy as active determination is free and everything else is obedience to a totalitarian truth itself, which is “hostile to life” and “always tyrannical” (p. 138). Through his critical reflex, Griek does not sufficiently specify the dimension of the defensive in appearance, which has priority in Nietzsche. The connection between a sense of creativity and the necessary artificial remoteness to the directness for the fragile, uncertain and sometimes also creative animal human is therefore not clearly explained. Even though Griek admirably imaginatively describes the city as “ontological [] immunization machines” (p. 248) and profoundly characterizes the meaning of the house as “dosed openness to becoming cosmic” (p. 233): The understanding of appearance as protection against too much cosmopolitanism is neglected. Yet it is precisely in the preceding motto that this dimension of Nietzsche's thinking dominates as an anti-Christian form of a peripatetic Vita contemplativa.

Greek's ideal of a non-tree-like design as an “open architecture” that respects the “necessary drifting of life” (p. 322) is thus found in designs that are open to being easily replaced by other designs. After all, there should be no compulsion through manifest construction that could possibly block future construction. All gestures as a temporary measure. Instead of the tree, the eternal construction site. However, buildings are not just bossy, virile designs that replace other designs, but when they can achieve the dimension of Apollonian “comfort” as a resonance room design, they are opportunities to enrich life through a redesigned interior. It would be possible here to recall the classic meaning dimensions of the term “power” and inscribe it in architectural contexts: Power as Auctoritas is the competence to design spaces that impresses with the attractiveness of their creativity and not simply Potestas, which forcibly imposes a will on someone else to their rooms. The experience of existing multiple good living creates the desire to design your own space as an individual combination of traditional domesticity. Open architecture is not a building that counteracts the will to build new buildings with unrestrained expressivity through buildings that can be demolished easily. Truth is what makes you live.

In his intentionally incomplete designs, Griek sits down for an unfinished architectural and reflexive design of fundamental confusions that are laid out in Nietzsche's way of thinking. Nietzsche does not point out clearly enough the two basic dimensions of the architecture of appearance: Appearance is a protective wall and appearance is an animating imagination. In addition, especially in Nietzsche's later thinking, there is an “obscuring” (Celan) “will to power” (Celan) overemphasis on the “will to power.” Nietzsche falsely substantiates the vulnerability of the truthful animal to be transfigured into an ontology of chaos, which then legitimizes a naturalism of power.

If Nietzsche had read himself more carefully, he would have noticed the underdifferentiated variety of meanings of the sham. Schein has existential, cultural, physiological, psychological, philosophical and philological connotations: Existentially, it acts as an Apollinian protection against the “original joke.” Or appearance can also take the form of meaning that orders the chaos world. Appearance as a cultural entity protects against the depressing obscurations of a culture that suffers from the loss of its substantial metaphysical interpretation. However, appearances can also be defined as a filter against attacks by resentful sham constructs by angry and embittered people. Physiological appearance indicates that undisturbed life requires a diet of sounds, places, feelings, etc. as a basis in order to adjust stably into bright, lucid states. Psychologically, appearance means the state of emotional stability as complacency. Philosophical appearance as an overall understanding justifies one's own way of life. Philological appearance finally expresses itself in self-encouraging language games, which can be used as “fake bridges” to others. From all this, it could be speculated that a comprehensive architecture of knowledge according to Nietzsche would have to see itself as a mental, physiological, symbolic and philosophical pseudo-construction. The “House of Being” (Nietzsche) is a house of appearance, whose rooms are to be designed in six dimensions in such a way that they make it possible to live in as a walk within oneself.

Despite all sympathy for the contemporary topic, the impressive wealth of knowledge — for example by pointing out the effect of a more efficient protein variant (through the amino acid arginine instead of lysine), which played a role in the evolutionary development of nerve cells in the frontal lobe of the neocortex (see p. 186) — and also the sometimes ingenious wording of Greek — “symbolic big bang” (p. 248), “Boosting the tree” (p. 21) —, the impression of redundant polemic prevails when reading. That's a shame, because as a small plea, the book could certainly have released an innovative, axe-like impulse. However, in the present 300-page version of this exuberant controversy, signs of fatigue arise quite quickly. You soon know how the wind blows and there are ten oh-yes effects on an aha effect. The reviewer openly admits that, on his reading trips, he does not easily want to forego the comfort of clearly structured bookhouses in which you can take a walk and that, despite all philosophical openness, he likes to avoid the airy openness of becoming uninhabitable sign building sites — however innovative, non-intrusive and enthusiastic they may be.

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sources

Greek, Stephen: Nietzsche's architecture of the discerning. The world as science and fiction. Bielefeld 2024.

Heidegger, Martin: Being and time. Tübingen 1953.

Sloterdijk, Peter: spheres I—III. Frankfurt a.M. 1998—2004.

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footnotes

1: The birth of tragedy, paragraph 25.

2: Beyond good and evil, Aph 230.

3: Heidegger, Being and time, P. 137.

4: Beyond good and evil, Aph 62.

5: Published in 2024 by “transcript” publishing house and quoted in body text below.

6: The happy science, Aph 280.

7: Sloterdijks opus magnum spheres explores exactly these questions on thousands of pages and comes to the conclusion that the essential minimal architecture of the House of Being must be designed with a nine-fold emotional and social covering.

In the House of Semblance

Preludes on the Connection Between Architecture and Thought in Nietzsche with Constant Reference to a Book by Stephen Griek. A Review

A fruitful method within philosophy can be addressed seemingly minor, everyday topics. For example, the relationship between thinking and architecture, as this text is based on the newly published book Nietzsche's architecture of the discerning By Stephen Griek tried to show. With Nietzsche in mind, according to Michael Meyer-Albert, protecting a dwelling — both literally and figuratively — from the chaos of reality is essential for a successful world relationship. He neglects this in Greek's post-modern approach, which aims at maximum openness and wants to replace clear spatial structures with diffuse nomadic networks. Architecture as an art of non-violent rooting thus becomes unthinkable; the “house of appearance” that supports human existence collapses.

I. Nietzsche and 19th-century dietetics

Dietetics experienced a major upsurge with the Enlightenment. Dietetics and hygiene meant not only eating and washing, but also all aspects that specifically affected the human way of life. In the 19th century, dietetics was considered practical and less dependent on theory, for some even as the only area of healing art that was not at the mercy of many changes in scientific knowledge. It was therefore natural to think about the connection between dietetics and intellectual activity. A whole series of popular books such as the The art of living for mentally busy people by Joseph Henri Réveillé-Parise, the Chemical letters by Justus von Liebig or The book of health or the art of living according to the institution and laws of human nature by Daniel Gottlob Moritz Schreber. The latter contains a chapter on “Rules of Life Relating to the Spiritual Side of Man.” This dietary discourse had a particular influence on the philosophers of the 19th century.

I have argued extensively in other texts that dietetics is decisive in Middle Nietzsche and there in particular in The Wanderer and His Shadow as well as in the Morgenröthe finds its way into Nietzsche's thinking and life.¹ Especially between 1877 and 1879, it is noticeable that Nietzsche uses dietary counselors. Especially in the late 1870s, Nietzsche complained that nutrition was not made an object of general reflection. Simple things such as eating, living, heating or dressing should become the primary matter of philosophical self-employment. This teaching of the “next things” is remarkably closely linked to his reading of the popular literature on advice and dietetics at the time.

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II. gazebo, Schreber & indoor gymnastics

Medical room gymnastics by Daniel Gottlob Moritz Schreber published in 1855.² Room or home gymnastics refers to regular physical exercises in living rooms, which are mostly carried out without additional equipment. Schrebers indoor gymnastics was the most popular guide. Nietzsche ordered this book (15th edition from 1877) on August 29, 1878 and shortly afterwards reported to mother and sister that he had just done “room gymnastics.”³ He writes to his publisher: “Therapeutic exercises have arrived and have already been used eagerly. ”⁴ Because of the well-known indoor gymnastics, it is no longer necessary to mention a book or an author.

However Nietzsche came up with the words “next” and “very closest” things, they are certainly part of popular contemporary discourse. Right in the first issue of the German family magazine gazebo Do you read the following statement in 1853: “And strange! Perhaps the closest thing that surrounds us, the closest thing to ourselves, is something most people don't know. ”⁵ Nietzsche, in turn, writes in similar wording: “All the more may one admit that the Very close things seen very poorly by most people, very rarely noticed. ”⁶ When Schreber spoke of disdain for the “simple, natural and obvious,” Nietzsche speaks of “disregard [...] Of all the closest things. ”⁷ In both cases, the argument is initially formulated independently of health. Schreber's weighting on contempt and Nietzsche on contempt is directed against the educated: they would mistakenly regard everyday life and the study of their own body as something trivial and low. The reaction to this state of general ignorance was similar among Schreber and Nietzsche: According to Schreber, the “physical needs” must be “thoroughly explored in their essence,” while Nietzsche demands comprehensive knowledge of the “next things.”⁸

Nietzsche sometimes argues provocatively from a dietary point of view: For example, he attributes the high culture of the Greeks to their better way of life in terms of “food and drink.”⁹ The belief that good nutrition improves blood flow to the “brain” and would therefore think better is common in dietary guides due to emerging brain research since the 18th century. Schreber, for example, describes extensively in the indoor gymnastics the metabolic process of nutrition, exercise, blood and physical-mental “freshness” and “strength.”¹⁰ Schreber's hygienic methods as well as Nietzsche's knowledge of the “next things” can never be completed, but must be constantly reworked depending on the phase of life, gender, age, physique, social situation, climate and location. That is why Nietzsche and Schreber only offer individual healing methods and health conditions. In this sense, Nietzsche also demands — once again taking up a popular dietary argument — that everyone should be transplanted into their nutritionally suitable environment.¹¹ This should have made it clear that contemporary dieters did not simply stop at nutrition or health prevention, but also pursued a philosophical claim. Schreber regards his room gymnastics as part of a “hygienic health philosophy.” It is ultimately about “happiness” and the most important art of all, the “art of living.”¹²

Nietzsche uses room gymnastics as a philosophical model for morality in one of his aphorisms. In aphorism”Most necessary gymnastics“from The Wanderer and His Shadow is asked to fail yourself something every day.¹³ This is essential daily exercise if you want to remain joyful and independent. And in Human, all-too-human Gymnastics even became a model for the question of why philosophy makes you want: “First and above all, because it makes you aware of your strength, i.e. for the same reason that gymnastic exercises are pleasurable even without spectators. ”¹⁴ It is not an intellectual theorem, but the everyday experience of room gymnastics — feeling one's own strength through daily practice — which is able to explain the desire for philosophy.

The doctrine of “next things” in the context of popular culture is the precursor to Nietzsche's philosophical connection of body and soul or body and spirit. Many passages in Nietzsche's works testify to this narrowing: For example, in the dictum of the “guideline of the body” in the required philosophy of nutrition.¹⁵ The figure of Zarathustra says: “For truly, my brothers, the spirit is a stomach! ”¹⁶ In addition, popular dietetics is not only reflected in Nietzsche's works, but also in his everyday life: Nietzsche eagerly practiced indoor gymnastics, tried out meat substitutes such as malto legumes and was a big fan of Liebig's meat extract, the first preservable meat broth. Last but not least, after giving up his professorship, he lived in a lot of popular tourist resorts, some of which were overcrowded, such as St. Moritz, where he came into contact with popular culture in an almost concentrated way. Nietzsche described the interrelationships between location, climate, dietetics and philosophy one year after Wanderer and his shadow blunt in aphorism”In a roundabout way“from the Morgenröthe. Here, what was lived in concrete and practical terms in the writing situation in St. Moritz is expressed philosophically: philosophy as an “instinct for a personal diet” (not the other way around!).¹⁷ And the draft of the aphorism states: “This whole philosophy — is it more than a drive to prove that ripe fruit, unleavened bread, water, loneliness, order in all things taste best to me and are the most beneficial? So an instinct for a right dieting in everything? And a mild sun! ”¹⁸

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III. Nietzsche research struggles with popular culture

In philosophical research, popular literature is often underestimated and its philosophical claim is thus overlooked. I vaguely remember a presentation about Nietzsche when I was a student. A philosopher explained to us that Nietzsche was an excellent, original thinker because he had only read “big” literature. This meant the “classics” such as Goethe, Kant or Schopenhauer from recent times; Plato, Aristotle or Homer from antiquity. Nietzsche evaded all trivial literature and only dealt with the great ghosts. Even then, I doubted this ingenious aesthetic author image, which is still used today by “researching” Nietzsche admirers. Authorship, on the other hand, seemed exciting to me precisely because the most diverse living conditions, peculiarities, hobbies, reading and methods of thinking influence people who write philosophically. Creativity doesn't care about differences between high and popular culture. Reading different types of literature simply corresponds to the reading practices of a popular person, such as Nietzsche. In fairness, it must be noted that Nietzsche himself sometimes quoted little and presented himself as a little-reading, lonely philosopher. At the same time, however, he criticized the aesthetics of genius and, with his passages on writing, reading and authorship, also left enough clues to critically question his own self-portrayals. In addition, current editions, bibliographies and case studies allow research with historical-critical standards.

The influences of popular culture on Nietzsche and his thinking (as on every philosopher living in society) are relevant. Two disguised forms of interpretation repeatedly attempt to diminish this relevance. They thus practice genius aesthetics, i.e. promote an idea of authors as geniuses who act incomprehensibly, acontextually, independently of historical-cultural contexts and therefore produce incomparably brilliant works. Such an attitude towards authorship gets in the way of a scientific approach, especially when it is believed, as is today, that we have long since overcome the aesthetic of genius. Two such ingenious aesthetic strategies persist:

Popular cultural influences are firstly replaced by “classic” positions of well-known philosophers. In this way, an idealized “intellectual story” is constructed: At the end of explanations of Nietzsche's philosophy of nutrition, people like to read that this is a direct reaction to Feuerbach (“You are what you eat”), Epicurus or other “classical” sources of ideas. Such interpretations relativize cultural influences and actions in favor of an idealized primacy of original thoughts and decisions made by individual authors. The claim to be able to contextualize and classify a philosophy historically and critically is not just a philological project. Rather, reading, working and living styles provide important resources for philosophical engagement.

Second Popular cultural influences are put into perspective as small building blocks of “big” ideas. Although Nietzsche's philosophy of nutrition is addressed, it is teleologically related to “overarching” ideas such as superman, the will to power, or Nietzsche's metaphysical critique. The “material” diet is the “small” thing, the spiritual-conceptual metaphysical critique is actually the “big” or the philosophically relevant part of the work. It is not at all easy to analyse popular cultural influences independently and “let” their relevance stand.

This not only interprets inadmissibly, but sometimes ignores Nietzsche's own reversal of this relationship. It is thanks to Nietzsche that his work and way of life as philosophical To have understood practices. He has rediscovered the life-world aspects of everyday life for philosophy and as a philosophy thematized. For example, he wrote rhetorically about the relationship between his diet and “big” thoughts as in Ecce Homo: “In a completely different way, I am interested in a question on which the “salvation of humanity” depends more than on any theologian curiosity: the question of sustenance. [...] these little things — nutrition, location, climate, recreation, the whole casuistry of selfishness — are more important than anything that has been taken important up to now. You just have to start here relearn”.¹⁹ More subtly in a tongue-in-cheek letter: “It occurred to me these days that I had done 'The Dawn, ''Happy Science,' and the 'Zarathustra: 'Considering that this literature belongs to the term 'Liebig Meat Extract,' I mustn't get angry about my 'health' — rather amaze! ”²⁰

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Tobias Brücker has a doctorate in cultural studies and is head of internal continuing education at the Zurich University of the Arts. He has researched Nietzsche's working methods and published the monograph Auf dem Weg zur Philosophie. Friedrich Nietzsche schreibt „Der Wanderer und sein Schatten“ in 2019. He is interested in all facets of diets, authorship, and creativity techniques in philosophy and the arts.

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Sources

Brücker, Tobias: Auf dem Weg zur Philosophie. Friedrich Nietzsche schreibt „Der Wanderer und sein Schatten“. Wilhelm Fink 2019.

Dr. l-N [anonymous]: Vom Baue des Menschen. In: Die Gartenlaube (1853). Leipzig 1853, p. 91.

Schreber, Daniel G.M.: Aerztliche Zimmer-Gymnastik. Leipzig 1862.

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Photo credits

Figure for “Rumpfaufrichten”, from Schreber, Aerztliche Zimmer-Gymnastik, p. 62.

Figure of “Leg throws forwards and backwards” and “sideways”, from Schreber, Aerztliche Zimmer-Gymnastik, p. 81.

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Footnotes

1: See esp. Brücker, Auf dem Weg zur Philosophie, chapter 3.3 on “Writing and Dietetics” and the paragraph “Nietzsche's Reading Popular Dietetics”, p. 173 ff.

2: I quote Schreber here and subsequently after what is available to me 8th edition from 1862.

3: N. to Franziska and Elisabeth Nietzsche, 21.09.1878, No. 759.

4: N. to Schmeitzner, 10.09.1878, No. 754.

5: Gartenlaube (1853): Dr. L-n, p. 91. This is an anonymously published series of articles.

6: Schreber, Aerztliche Zimmer-Gymnastik, p. 5; The Wanderer and His Shadow, 6.

7: The Wanderer and His Shadow, 5.

8: Schreber, Aerztliche Zimmer-Gymnastik , p. 12; The Wanderer and His Shadow, 6.

9: The Wanderer and His Shadow, 184.

10: Schreber, Aerztliche Zimmer-Gymnastik, p. 14.

11: Cf. The Wanderer and His Shadow, 188.

12: Schreber, Aerztliche Zimmer-Gymnastik, S. 28.

13: The Wanderer and His Shadow, 305.

14: Human, all-too-human Vol. I, 252.

15: Cf. The happy science, 7.

16: Thus Spoke Zarathustra, From old and new boards, 16.

17: Morgenröthe, 553.

18: precursor Subsequent fragments 1880, 7 [15].

19: Ecce homo, Why I'm so smart, 1.

20: N. to Overbeck, 28.03.1884, No. 497.

Everyday Life Contributes to Thoughts

Nietzsche and Dietetic Popular Culture

Nietzsche did not just influence popular culture. He himself was part of a contemporary popular culture and was significantly influenced by it. As a spa tourist, he chased after the trendy health resorts, studied popular magazines and non-fiction books as a popular reader, ate his way through various (self-prescribed) diets as a diet freak and used modern technologies from telegrams to Malling-Hansen's writing ball. In the following article, Swiss Nietzsche researcher Tobias Brücker summarizes some influences from contemporary dietetics in order to exemplify how Nietzsche's life and thinking were shaped by popular cultural factors.