Nietzsche and Early German and Austrian Sociology 9783110911480, 9783110181098

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Franz Graf zu Solms-Laubach Nietzsche and Early German and Austrian Sociology

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Monographien und Texte zur Nietzsche-Forschung Begründet von

Mazzino Montinari · Wolfgang Müller-Lauter Heinz Wenzel Herausgegeben von

Günter Abel (Berlin) Josef Simon (Bonn) · Werner Stegmaier (Greifswald)

Band 52

Walter de Gruyter · Berlin · New York

Nietzsche and Early German and Austrian Sociology by

Franz Graf zu Solms-Laubach

Walter de Gruyter · Berlin · New York

Anschriften der Herausgeber: Prof. Dr. Günter Abel Institut für Philosophie TU Berlin, Sekr. TEL 12/1 Ernst-Reuter-Platz 7, D-10587 Berlin Prof. Dr. Josef Simon Philosophisches Seminar A der Universität Bonn Am Hof 1, D-53113 Bonn Prof. Dr. Werner Stegmaier Ernst-Moritz-Arndt-Universität Institut für Philosophie Baderstr. 6−7, D-17487 Greifswald Redaktion Johannes Neininger, Aschaffenburger Str. 20, D-10779 Berlin

앝 Gedruckt auf säurefreiem Papier, 앪 das die US-ANSI-Norm über Haltbarkeit erfüllt. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication-Data A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

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쑔 Copyright 2007 by Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co. KG, D-10785 Berlin. Dieses Werk einschließlich aller seiner Teile ist urheberrechtlich geschützt. Jede Verwertung außerhalb der engen Grenzen des Urheberrechtsgesetzes ist ohne Zustimmung des Verlages unzulässig und strafbar. Das gilt insbesondere für Vervielfältigungen, Übersetzungen, Mikroverfilmungen und die Einspeicherung und Verarbeitung in elektronischen Systemen. Printed in Germany Satz: Christoph König, Berlin Einbandentwurf: Christopher Schneider, Berlin

In fond memory of my brother Ferdinand Graf zu Solms-Laubach (* .. – † ..)

Table of Contents Preface ....................................................................................................... XI ) The sociocultural implications of Nietzsche’s writings ............................ XI ) The individual chapters of the book..................................................... XIV ) Prelude to a conclusion........................................................................ XIX ) The Nietzsche reception and his “unpublished writings” or Nachlaß ........ XX Acknowledgements ................................................................................ XXV Chapter I Introduction and statement of the problem – The sociological Nietzsche reception in perspective...............................................................  ) Nietzsche and the history of sociology ..............................................  ) Recent Weberian responses to Nietzsche’s influence on Max Weber’s sociology.....................................................................  .) Nietzsche, Max Weber and the question of value-free social science..  .) Nietzsche, Max Weber and the question of Wissenschaft...................  ..) W.G. Runciman and Nietzsche’s notion of Wissenschaft...................  .) Can there be a Nietzschean Sociology? ............................................  ) The phases of the Nietzsche reception ..............................................  Chapter II The traditional Nietzsche reception in its historical context........................................................................................ ) Nietzsche’s influence on German cultural and intellectual history ... ) Nietzsche’s influence on philosophy, literature and art ..................... .) Nietzsche and philosophy ................................................................ .) Nietzsche and literature ................................................................... .) Nietzsche and art .............................................................................

     

Chapter III Nietzsche and the Sociology of his Times .......................... ) The emergence and origins of sociology ........................................... ) Nietzsche’s comments on sociology.................................................. .) Nietzsche and Auguste Comte ......................................................... .) Nietzsche and Herbert Spencer ........................................................

    

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Chapter IV The legacy of Nietzsche’s philosophy in Max Weber’s sociology ............................................................................... ) Nietzsche’s influence on Max Weber................................................ ) Nietzsche’s influence on Max Weber’s notion of the “Protestant Ethic” .................................................................. ) Nietzsche, Max Weber and early German sociological thought: an assessment.....................................................................

   

Chapter V On the inherent problems in the dualistic modes of interpreting modernity..........................................................................  ) The problematic nature of dualistic conceptions of “modernity” .....  ) Theories of “modernity” – old and new...........................................  .) The nature of “modernity” in modern social theory ........................  .) Nietzsche on “modernity” ...............................................................  .) On the sociogenesis of the dichotomy of “culture vs. civilisation” in Germany...............................................  .) Nietzsche on “culture” and “civilisation”.........................................  Chapter VI Nietzsche’s cultural critique and his views on educational ideals......................................................................................  ) Nietzsche’s cultural philosophy and the “genealogy of cultural sociology in Germany” ......................................................  ) Nietzsche as a critic of culture.........................................................  .) Nietzsche’s critique of culture in Die Geburt der Tragödie................  ) Nietzsche as Educator .....................................................................  .) Nietzsche’s “threefold typology of mankind” ..................................  ) Nietzsche’s notion of the Übermensch and early sociology ...............  .) The sociological rejection of Nietzsche’s notion of the Übermensch ...........................................................................  ..) Nietzsche’s influence on Ferdinand Tönnies ...................................  ..) Nietzsche, Ferdinand Tönnies and Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft ...............................................................................  ..) Die Geburt der Tragödie as impetus for Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft ..........................................................  ..) Nietzsche’s notion of the Übermensch as seen by Ferdinand Tönnies..........................................................................  ..) Nietzsche and Ferdinand Tönnies on “freethinking” and “educational ideals”.................................................................. 

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Chapter VII Rosa Mayreder’s response to Nietzsche’s philosophy ........  ) Rosa Mayreder and Nietzsche in dialogue.......................................  ) Rosa Mayreder’s discovery of Wagner and Nietzsche ......................  .) Rosa Mayreder, Wagner and Christianity .......................................  .) Rosa Mayreder, Nietzsche and Christianity ....................................  ) Rosa Mayreder’s dismissal of the Nietzsche cult..............................  .) The “Telyn Society” and the “Pernerstorfer Circle” .........................  .) Rosa Mayreder and Übermenschentum ............................................  ) Rosa Mayreder’s gendered critique of () “culture” and “civilisation” and () of “ascetic ideals”....................................  .) Rosa Mayreder’s fundamental opposition to social roles................. 206 .) Rosa Mayreder’s gendered critique of “culture” and “civilisation”... 209 .) Rosa Mayreder’s critique of “ascetic ideals” ...................................  ..) Nietzsche and “ascetic ideals”.........................................................  ..) Rosa Mayreder’s “ascetic eroticism”................................................  ..) Understanding Rosa Mayreder’s “ascetic eroticism” .......................  Chapter VIII Alfred Weber’s response to Nietzsche’s philosophy ........ ) Alfred Weber and Nietzsche in dialogue ........................................ ) Alfred Weber’s farewell to European history .................................. .) Alfred Weber’s farewell to Nietzsche .............................................. ) Alfred Weber and the origins of Kultursoziologie ............................ ) The theory of Kultursoziologie......................................................... ) Nietzsche and Alfred Weber’s “fourfold typology of mankind” ..... ) Nietzsche, Alfred Weber and the notion of tragedy in history........

       

Conclusion............................................................................................... Appendices............................................................................................... Bibliography............................................................................................ Name Index ............................................................................................. Subject Index ...........................................................................................

    

Preface Nietzsche is widely acknowledged as a seminal thinker in 19th century philosophy and greatly influenced the literature and art of the time. Yet while these influences are widely recognised in the secondary literature on Nietzsche, his decisive influence on early sociology is frequently overlooked. For many of the “founders” of German and Austrian sociology an intellectual engagement with Nietzsche’s thought became a formative intellectual experience and an important source of inspiration for both their private worldviews and their public sociological endeavours. This study re-evaluates the responses to Nietzsche’s philosophy by Max Weber, Ferdinand Tönnies, Rosa Mayreder and Alfred Weber in order to demonstrate the exceptional creativity with which they approached and re-interpreted the sociocultural implications of both his writings and his wider influence on the educated public of fin-de-siècle Germany and Austria. Even though it is hard to generalise about the sociological Nietzsche reception, it seems clear that Nietzsche was mainly perceived as a “cultural critic” by the sociologists and social thinkers in question. Nietzsche’s radical critique of “modernity”, of religion, of morality and of “culture” and “civilisation” more generally, left a decisive mark on the fundamental sociological positions these thinkers later developed. It is, therefore, very surprising to find little mention of Nietzsche in the standard accounts of the history of sociology, and in the secondary literature on Tönnies, Mayreder and even Max and Alfred Weber. While it might be true that the relation between Nietzsche and early sociology largely took the form of a hidden dialogue, it is, nonetheless, also true that the discourse on “culture” which characterised the academic debates of early German and Austrian sociology in the 19th century cannot be understood without its “Nietzschean” impetus. This book, therefore, concludes that the development of cultural sociology in both countries is deeply shaped by: a critical engagement with Nietzsche’s sociocultural critique.

1) The sociocultural implications of Nietzsche’s writings Nietzsche had commented on what is commonly referred to as the rise of “modernity” in quite a number of ways. This is already very apparent in his re-

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marks on the “woman question” or Frauenfrage, which formed the basis for my unpublished Sussex masters dissertation,1 but it is even more apparent in Nietzsche’s more general sociocultural critique, which radically questions the foundations and structures of bourgeois society, i.e. he questions its morality, its belief systems and consequently also the cultural conditions which these produced. Nietzsche particularly attacked the “insincerity” that morality has produced and which, therefore, renders morality obsolete. Nietzsche uses the “genealogical method”, the historical derivation of moral terms, to reveal the façade-like nature and general emptiness of morality. This is also an important aspect of his theory of “nihilism”. Like many other German thinkers in the 19th century Nietzsche believes that “culture” and “civilisation” were essentially antagonistic forces and mutually exclusive concepts. In consequence, Nietzsche is very sceptical about the excessive influence of Christianity on western “civilisation” and the decadent culture it helped to produce. From his point of view the humanistic ideals of modern “civilisation” are a far cry from the harsh political and social reality of modern life. Nietzsche, however, says that there lies also a world of difference between the demands and challenges life threw at the ancient Greeks (whom he always holds up as an ideal to his own society) on the one hand, and the relatively comfortable and safe daily life in the 19th century on the other. This is, in short, also why Nietzsche radically questioned the sociocultural foundations and structures of bourgeois society. Nevertheless, Nietzsche is not the quasi-religious prophet of “nihilism” his frequently 1 This study draws on my interests in 19th century continental European philosophy and classical sociology, and their respective influence on the intellectual history of the 20th century. It is a follow-up project on my analysis of the complexities that characterise Nietzsche’s treatment of the subject of “women” in my unpublished masters dissertation entitled Reflections on Nietzsche’s image of woman. Metaphors, projections and wishful thinking (Unpublished masters dissertation, University of Sussex at Brighton, 1996), where I argued for an open-minded philosophical discourse on Nietzsche’s writings – one that also includes Nietzsche’s highly complex Frauenbilder – and which tries to incorporate them into an overall reassessment of his philosophy that is open to discussing the many ambiguities of Nietzsche’s positions. In analysing Nietzsche’s image of “women” in this way, I became increasingly aware of the highly interesting and multifaceted sociocultural implications of Nietzsche’s writings, which seemed to be a largely neglected area of Nietzsche scholarship. Whether Nietzsche’s images of “women” have any philosophical depth or are just the dubious statements of some kind of “misogynist”, is a concern which does not have any relevance for answering the question as to whether they are philosophical or not. A “bad” philosophy is still a philosophy and so, too, is a “bad” image of women still an image of women. What that means for Nietzsche’s philosophy as a whole, is a totally different question and cannot be bypassed by simply dismissing – as is frequently the case – his comments as frauenfeindlich. On the contrary, they are, I would argue, an essential feature of his thought and should, therefore, not be underestimated. In particular in the light of Jacques Derrida’s positive appraisal of Nietzsche’s “woman” as representing an alternative to patriarchal “truth” and an “otherness” of reason, which he outlined in his groundbreaking book Spurs: Nietzsche’s Styles and which set the tone for a far more positive re-evaluation of Nietzsche’s comments on the subject, a simple dismissal of Nietzsche’s comments on “women” does not seem justified. Jacques Derrida, Spurs: Nietzsche’s Styles (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993). For a useful introduction to the topic, see: Mike Gane, “Nietzsche’s Imaginary Lovers”, in Economy and Society, 21:2 (London: Routledge Publishers, 1992).

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uncritical followers wanted him to be; his works are fundamental diagnostic analyses of the final third of the 19th century with strong and provocative elements of social criticism. This is also the way in which Max Weber, Ferdinand Tönnies, Rosa Mayreder and Alfred Weber, the early sociologists and social thinkers we are mainly looking at in this study, perceived Nietzsche’s writings. But as we will clearly come to see they did not fall victim to the “cult” that emerged around the life and work of Friedrich Nietzsche at the end of the 19th century; they were, in fact, harsh critics of this “cult”. Yet while they also criticised the excesses that were to be found in Nietzsche’s provocative positions, they by and large, however, still remained “faithful” to Nietzsche’s philosophy itself. It should, therefore, be clear that they were obviously aware of the fundamental sociocultural implications of Nietzsche’s writings, which manifested themselves not only in an unprecedented popular reaction to his philosophy, but also in the effectiveness of Nietzsche’s own sociocultural criticism; yet each of these thinkers reacted differently to these underlying connotations. Nevertheless, for a large part of their own writings, Nietzsche became an inspirational source of important influence for the fundamental positions they aimed to outline. Consequently, I will argue that their sociocultural critiques are largely shaped by their respective response to Nietzsche’s influence, and should, thus, always be read with their “Nietzschean” context in mind. It seems very strange to me that Nietzsche is largely neglected as an important point of reference in the history of sociology and particularly in the secondary literature on Ferdinand Tönnies, Rosa Mayreder and Alfred Weber. Yet for all of these thinkers Nietzsche certainly was an important source of inspiration, which is, nevertheless, mostly overlooked in recent assessments of their work (Max Weber, of course, and to some extent also Georg Simmel have become the standard points of reference for Nietzsche’s influence on sociology). But even if the early sociological responses to Nietzsche’s philosophy are generally overlooked in standard readings of the influence of Nietzsche’s philosophy, they still represent a highly original access to Nietzsche’s philosophy and to the influence his thoughts have had on many different intellectuals and cultural actors at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. It will, therefore, be the main aim of this book to try to re-establish and re-evaluate the responses to Nietzsche’s philosophy by a selected group of early German and Austrian sociologists and social thinkers at the turn of the 19th century and to thereby also demonstrate the fruitfulness of the intellectual dialogue between “Nietzsche and sociology” at that time. In the following this preface outlines the background and purpose of the book and the main problems to be discussed, the principal sources used, and the extent to which this study is based upon and indebted to secondary authorities.

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2) The individual chapters of the book The sociological Nietzsche reception did not take place, however, in an isolated cultural vacuum, but rather has to be seen and analysed in the particular historical and sociocultural context of fin-de-siècle Germany, which is why this study is also engaged in the wider assessment of the cultural phenomenon commonly referred to as “Nietzscheanism”. Important overall assessments of the sociological Nietzsche reception have been provided by Lichtblau and Häußling on whose work I will draw throughout this book on the subject and who clearly demonstrate the importance of the hidden dialogue between Nietzsche and sociology.2 Chapter 1 of this book sets the stage for our wider analysis of the sociological Nietzsche reception. I will mainly look at the relation between the history of sociology and Nietzsche’s philosophy. Moreover, I will also engage in an analysis of the notions of “founders”, “canon” and “classics” in the writing of the history of sociology, from which Nietzsche is, generally speaking, excluded. This part of the chapter is mainly based on a close reading of Peter Baehr’s and Mike O’Brien’s discussion of “Founders, Classics and the Concept of a Canon”3 in sociology, where the authors also point to an important “backdoor” for Nietzsche into the history of sociology, which is the recent postmodern meta-sociological “Nietzschean” look at the corpus of sociological texts and traditions. I will, moreover, look at recent “Weberian” responses to Nietzsche’s influence on Max Weber’s sociology, which specifically includes a discussion of Nietzsche’s and Weber’s respective approaches to a “value-free” science and of their respective notions of Wissenschaft more generally. This part of the chapter is mainly based on W.G. Runciman’s discussion of “Can there be a Nietzschean sociology?”,4 which in many ways is also a guiding question for our whole investigation. In the final section, I turn to the particular problems associated with the establishment of the historical phases of the Nietzsche reception, which will have to be verified for the sociological and philosophical responses to Nietzsche’s philosophy. In analysing these different phases I will mainly rely on the model developed by Alfredo Guzzoni.5 2 Klaus Lichtblau, Kulturkrise und die Soziologie um die Jahrhundertwende: Zur Genealogie der Kultursoziologie in Deutschland (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1996); Roger Häußling, Nietzsche und die Soziologie: Zum Konstrukt des Übermenschen, zu dessen anti-soziologischen Implikationen und zur soziologischen Reaktion auf Nietzsches Denken (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2000). 3 Peter Baehr and Mike O’Brien, “Founders, Classics and the Concept of a Canon”, in Current Sociology, 42:1 (London: Sage Publications, 1994). 4 W.G. Runciman, “Can there be a Nietzschean sociology?”, in Archives européennes de sociologie, XLI:1 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 3-21. 5 Alfredo Guzzoni (ed.), 100 Jahre philosophische Nietzsche Rezeption (Frankfurt am Main: Verlag Anton Hain Meisenheim, 1991).

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Chapter 2 engages with the traditional Nietzsche reception in its historical context. A general account of Nietzsche’s influence on German cultural and intellectual history at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century will, therefore, provide the background for a wider analysis of some of the parallels between the “philosophical” and the “literary” responses to his work as well as of the influence Nietzsche’s philosophy has had on “art”. I will also try to highlight some of the similarities, but more importantly also the differences that arise in the various responses to Nietzsche’s work in order to differentiate the sociological Nietzsche reception from other forms of replies to Nietzsche’s philosophy. This chapter will mainly be based on the groundbreaking studies on Nietzsche’s philosophical legacy by Manfred Riedel, Stephen E. Aschheim and Ernst Nolte.6 I will also rely on more specialised accounts of Nietzsche’s influence on particular cultural sectors.7 Chapter 3 examines the relation between Nietzsche and the sociology of his times. In this section I will, therefore, firstly try to analyse the emergence and origins of sociology in Germany in the 19th century, and will then analyse Nietzsche’s comments on the discipline’s main representatives during his lifetime – Auguste Comte and Herbert Spencer, whose philosophical and sociological world-views Nietzsche utterly rejected. For the arguments of the first part of the chapter I will rely on the standard accounts of the history of sociology, and for the arguments of the second part of the chapter I will mainly rely on Nietzsche’s own writings as well as on the writings by Comte and Spencer respectively.8 Chapter 4 analyses the legacy of Nietzsche’s philosophy to Max Weber’s sociology. I therefore briefly look at Nietzsche’s influence on Max Weber’s sociology, which has already been the subject of intense debate elsewhere, but which allows me to highlight more general features of the sociological Nietzsche reception, and to introduce strongly “Weberian” notions which have also influenced some of the other sociologists and social thinkers we are in the main looking at. Max Weber was deeply impressed by Nietzsche’s philosophy. Par-

6 Manfred Riedel, Nietzsche in Weimar: Ein deutsches Drama (Leipzig: Reclam Leipzig Verlag, 1997); Stephen E. Aschheim, The Nietzsche Legacy in Germany: 1890–1990 (Berkley: University of California Press, 1992); Ernst Nolte, Nietzsche und der Nietzscheanismus. Mit einem Nachwort: Nietzsche in der deutschen Gegenwart (München: F.A. Herbig Verlagsbuchhandlung, 2000). Whatever one thinks about Ernst Nolte and his infamous contributions to the “Historikerstreit” of the 1980s and 1990s in Germany, one thing is for sure: he knows his Nietzsche. 7 Bruno Hillebrand (ed.), Nietzsche und die deutsche Literatur. I. Texte zur Nietzsche Rezeption 1873– 1963, vol. 1 (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1978); Heinz Friedrich (ed.), Friedrich Nietzsche: Philosophie als Kunst. Eine Hommage herausgegeben von Heinz Friedrich (München: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag DTV, 1999). 8 Heinz Maus, A Short History of Sociology (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd., 1962); Raymond Aron, German Sociology (Melbourne/London/Toronto: William Heinemann Ltd., 1957).

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ticularly after the time of his nervous breakdown, Weber seemed to have read Nietzsche’s writings with great enthusiasm, and later in his life he even tried to amalgamate his readings of Nietzsche with his analytical indebtedness to the philosophy of Karl Marx, to formulate a distinctively “Weberian” notion of sociocultural critique. Weber, however, repeatedly addressed himself to Nietzsche’s writings, even if this is not directly reflected in his publications, and also cultivated a life-long admiration for Nietzsche and his work, which is not surprising due to the argumentative closeness of their thoughts. In particular Max Weber’s two articles Die Protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus from 1904/05, cannot be conceived without his reading of Nietzsche: the notion of an “innerworldly asceticism” is essentially a “Nietzschean” concept. This chapter will focus particularly on Arthur Mitzman’s, Wilhelm Hennis’ and Thomas Mann’s contributions to this debate.9 Chapter 5 will scrutinise the inherent problems in the dualistic modes of interpreting “modernity”. I will try to evaluate the problematic nature of dualistic conceptions of “modernity” by analysing how different commentators have interpreted the vast changes that affected central Europe during the period in question on the basis of an assumed “fundamental antagonism” between different, yet seemingly interconnected concepts. For this part of my chapter I will mainly rely on the arguments made by William Outhwaite.10 Moreover, I will try to demonstrate the persistence of dualistic conceptions of “modernity” in social theory today, by looking at some recent attempts by Ernest Gellner, Peter Wagner and Gerard Delanty at writing a “sociology of modernity”.11 I will then briefly contrast these recent attempts at writing a “sociology of modernity” to Nietzsche’s notion of “modernity” to highlight some of the differences, but more importantly also the similarities between these accounts of “modernity”. In the final section of this chapter I will – as a historical example of dualistic modes of interpreting “modernity” – discuss the sociogenesis of the “culture vs. civilisation” dichotomy which – to a large extent – characterised the academic dialogue and discourse on “culture” of fin-de-siècle Germany. This will be fundamental for our discussions of Nietz-

9 Wilhelm Hennis, Max Weber: Essays in Reconstruction (London: Unwin Hyman Ltd., 1988); Arthur Mitzman, The Iron Cage: A Historical Interpretation of Max Weber (New York: The Universal Library/ Grosset & Dunlap, 1969); Thomas Mann, Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen (Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Verlag, 1956). 10 William Outhwaite, “The Myth of Modernist Method”, in European Journal of Social Theory, 2:1 (London: Sage Publications, 1999). 11 Ernest Gellner, Thought and Change (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1964); Peter Wagner, A Sociology of Modernity: Liberty and Discipline (London/New York: Routledge, 1994); Gerard Delanty, Social Theory in a Changing World: Conceptions of Modernity (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1999).

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sche’s notion of “culture” later on, because the fateful binary debate on “culture” and “civilisation” strongly influenced both Nietzsche and the sociologists and social thinkers we are looking at. In this section of my analysis I will mainly rely on the arguments on the sociogenesis of the “culture vs. civilisation” dichotomy by Norbert Elias.12 Chapter 6 discusses Nietzsche’s cultural critique and his views on educational ideals. My discussion of Nietzsche’s notion of culture mainly follows Robert E. McGinn’s line of argument, while my discussion of Nietzsche’s notion of education mainly follows Timothy F. Murphy’s arguments.13 Nietzsche was both a radical critic of the “culture” of his society as well as a radical proponent for a renewal of the “educational ideals” of this society. In both respects Nietzsche’s philosophy offered a radical critique of the status-quo of his society and posed a strong challenge for the intellectual debates among early sociologists and social thinkers in Germany, even far beyond the immediate historical context in which his concerns were voiced. I, therefore, analyse the main arguments Nietzsche makes with regard to his position on both “culture” and “education” in some detail. As an important example of the impact of Nietzsche’s “cultural critique” and his views on “educational ideals” on the intellectual debates among early German sociologists, I also discuss the response by Ferdinand Tönnies to the challenges posed by Nietzsche’s thoughts on these issues. Tönnies was thoroughly impressed by Nietzsche’s early writings of the 1870s and tried to accommodate their most important claims into his major analysis of the rise of “modernity” in his book Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft (1887). Therefore, I will argue that his magnum opus cannot be fully understood without an awareness of its reliance on Nietzsche’s work. Moreover, the conception of the particular forms of will [“Wesenwille und Kürwille”], which characterise these two different stages of sociocultural development for Tönnies, are also clearly influenced by Nietzsche’s thoughts on the subject (and to a lesser degree also by Schopenhauer’s metaphysics of the will). In his later writings Nietzsche still plays an important role for Tönnies, even if only in the form of a “hidden” partner in dialogue, because in 1893 (“Nietzsche Narren”) and 1897 (Der Nietzsche Kultus) respectively, Tönnies seemingly broke with Nietzsche and his thought, as he was appalled by the “cult” that had emerged 12 Norbert Elias, Über den Prozeß der Zivilisation, vol. 1 (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1997), particularly pp. 89-131. 13 Robert E. McGinn, “Culture as Prophylactic: Nietzsche’s Birth of Tragedy as Culture Criticism”, in Nietzsche Studien: Internationales Jahrbuch für die Nietzsche Forschung, vol. 4 (Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 1975); Timothy F. Murphy, Nietzsche as Educator (Lanham/London: University Press of America, 1984).

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around the philosopher’s writings. Yet we will clearly come to see that Tönnies still relies heavily on Nietzsche’s philosophy when he formulates his alternative educational philosophy, epitomised by the term Freidenker two decades later on. In my assessment of Tönnies’ response to Nietzsche’s philosophy, I will in the main discuss and further develop Jürgen Zander’s provocative arguments about Nietzsche’s lasting influence on Tönnies.14 Chapter 7 examines Rosa Mayreder’s response to Nietzsche’s philosophy. Rosa Mayreder was a life-long admirer of Nietzsche and his philosophy. Her formative intellectual influences were Nietzsche, Schopenhauer and Wagner. While she later abandoned the latter two thinkers on ideological grounds, she remained a “Nietzschean” throughout her career. Mayreder’s analysis concerned itself with the sociocultural processes at work behind the formation of gender roles. The processes she was furthermore concerned with, were the forces that had led to the rift between female culture and modern patriarchal civilisation. Mayreder mainly expressed these concerns in her book Geschlecht und Kultur (1923), where she, however, does not discuss Nietzsche in much detail. Yet Nietzsche remained an important factor in the formation of her gendered cultural critique, as well as in her critique of Christianity which she obviously shared with him. Her dismissal of “total asceticism” as practised in Christianity and her endorsement of a limited form of (“innerworldly”) asceticism cannot be conceived without her Nietzsche reception. She was very critical, however, of the excesses of the “cult” around Nietzsche and his writings, but unlike Tönnies, she did not hold that cult against Nietzsche and his philosophy, but rather against the “false prophets” and admirers who had forged and thrived on it. Very little has been written about Mayreder’s Nietzsche reception so that the best sources are actually her own writings. But the pioneering work of Harriet Anderson and Hanna Bubeniček, who “rediscovered” Mayreder in the mid eighties of the last century, at least hints at Nietzsche’s influence on the Austrian feminist.15 Chapter 8 closes our argument and criticises Alfred Weber’s response to Nietzsche’s philosophy. Like Ferdinand Tönnies before him, Alfred Weber became very disillusioned with Nietzsche and his philosophy in his later life after a very strong and long lasting initial endorsement of the philosopher’s 14 Jürgen Zander, “Ferdinand Tönnies und Friedrich Nietzsche. Mit einem Exkurs: Nietzsches Geburt der Tragödie als Impuls zu Tönnies” Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft”, in Lars Clausen and Franz Urban Pappi (eds.), Ankunft bei Tönnies: Soziologische Beiträge zum 125. Geburtstag von Ferdinand Tönnies (Kiel: Walter G. Mühlau Verlag, 1981). 15 Harriet Anderson, Utopian Feminism: Women’s Movements in fin-de-siècle Vienna (New Haven/ London: Yale University Press, 1992); Harriet Anderson, Beyond a critique of Femininity. The thought of Rosa Mayreder – 1858–1938 (Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University College London, 1985); Hanna Bubeniček (ed.), Rosa Mayreder oder Wider die Tyrannei der Norm (Wien/Köln/Graz: Böhlau Verlag, 1986).

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positions as a young man, but for very different reasons. After World War II Weber feared that Nietzsche’s writings had been at least partly responsible for the ideological excesses that were embodied in national socialism. Before World War II, however, Weber clearly was a “Nietzschean” in many respects. His books Kulturgeschichte als Kultursoziologie (1935) and Das Tragische und die Geschichte (1942), which in many ways mark the end of the first phase of the sociological Nietzsche reception, and which were largely based on material Weber had worked on since 1909, are clear responses to Nietzsche’s cultural critique and the fundamental sociocultural and historical assumptions the philosopher had outlined in his Geburt der Tragödie (1873). Weber claimed that the real historical foundations of great cultures always lie with the characteristic type of social organisation in question and hence wanted to describe the historical and developmental stages of these organisational types, as well as the kind of human actor that brought along social and cultural change. Apart from the obvious similarities in their understanding of the historical patterns of cultural change, it is also Weber’s “human typology” which is clearly “Nietzschean” in character. The main source for Alfred Weber’s Nietzsche reception are again his own writings, because, as in Mayreder’s case, very little has been written about it. Yet Lichtblau and Häußling at least hint at the relation between Nietzsche’s philosophy and Weber’s Kultursoziologie.

3) Prelude to a conclusion What should be clear from the brief outlines of the respective “Nietzschean” concerns of Max Weber, Ferdinand Tönnies, Rosa Mayreder and Alfred Weber is that it is hard to generalise about the sociological Nietzsche reception. There is, however, a very clear line of argument emerging, that Nietzsche was mainly perceived as a “cultural critic” by the sociologists and social thinkers in question. These thinkers looked at the sociocultural implications of Nietzsche’s own writings as well as the sociocultural implications of the Nietzsche reception by his “naive” adepts and “false succeeding prophets”. Yet there never was a single line of inquiry or argument that was dominant in both the history of sociology as well as the sociology of the “founders” of this discipline. The main reason for this is that, historically speaking, sociology evidently developed within particular ideological, metaphorical and temporal frameworks, which are diverse and not cumulative in nature. In their assessment of the history of sociology Dirk Kaesler and Ludgera Vogt also emphasise this diverse nature of sociology, particularly when they stress that sociology is not only an “empirical science”, but rather a culturally determined theory:

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“Wenig vom eigenartigen Charakter der wissenschaftlichen Soziologie hat verstanden, wer sie als eine sich kumulativ entwickelnde Wissenschaft bestimmt. Wer seine Kritik daran ausrichtet, daß die Soziologie von solcher Zielvorstellung abweicht, verkennt, daß diese keineswegs nur eine Erfahrungswissenschaft ist, sondern daß sie zugleich immer auf einem zeitgebundenen, ideologischen und metaphorischen Rahmen aufsitzt.”16

In my opinion, Nietzsche’s writings clearly were at some point regarded and, for various reasons, should certainly still be considered part of this particular “ideological”, “metaphorical” and “temporal” framework on which sociology was built, because as far as early German and Austrian sociology are concerned, Nietzsche was an important, even a decisive reference point.

4) The Nietzsche reception and his “unpublished writings” or Nachlaß A final aspect which I would like to focus on in this “Preface” are the problems associated with the “thematic and chronological dimensions”17 of the Nietzsche reception, particularly as far as the differentiation which has to be made between his published and his unpublished work is concerned. This differentiation is crucial as it has been the matter of some debate in the history of the Nietzsche reception and so every Nietzsche scholar is forced to make his or her position clear in this respect. Therefore, this differentiation is also crucial to our considerations, particularly insofar as much of the early Nietzsche reception – which we are focusing on here – was solely based on Nietzsche’s published writings. In short, the debate about Nietzsche’s published and his unpublished writings moves along the following lines: The purists among the Nietzsche scholars say that the published editions are the only part of his work that can claim true “Nietzschean” approval and hence hold an absolute authority with regard to his most fundamental arguments. The more speculative Nietzsche scholars have claimed that the unpublished work is far more important, as it seems to hold the key to Nietzsche’s true legacy; while the more progressive Nietzsche scholars say that both Nietzsche’s published and unpublished writings are equally important and that consequently a viable balance has to be struck between them, if Nietzsche’s philosophy is to be assessed adequately. Stephan Lorenz Sorgner summarises the different opinions expressed in this ongoing debate about the legacy of the published and unpublished editions of Nietzsche’s work in the following way:

16 Dirk Kaesler and Ludgera Vogt (eds.), Hauptwerke der Soziologie (Stuttgart: Kröner Verlag, 2000), p. xiv. 17 Aschheim, The Nietzsche Legacy in Germany, p. 3.

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“One can distinguish three main camps which the principal Nietzsche interpreters have taken: Firstly, there are the interpreters like Maudemarie Clark who rely almost exclusively on Nietzsche’s published work. Secondly, there are the ones who agree with Derrida’s position which accords an equality of value between the published, and unpublished work. Thirdly, there are the followers of Heidegger who regard the unpublished work to be of superior value in comparison to the published work.”18

In many respects I believe that there are – for once – good arguments in support of Derrida’s position, as an understanding of many of Nietzsche’s published writings clearly benefits from a comparison with the material Nietzsche wrote around the same time, but which he did not see fit for publication or which he just delivered in public lectures. One of the books where this is clearly the case is Nietzsche’s Geburt der Tragödie aus dem Geiste der Musik (1873), because the writings from the same period which, for whatever reason, remained unpublished, largely have to be seen as complementary views or even as extensions of the original position, which clearly move beyond the arguments Nietzsche makes in his first major publication.19 The claim made by Heidegger and many of his followers that Nietzsche’s unpublished work is far superior to the published work, and that the philosopher himself had said so, cannot be confirmed on the basis of the, now definite and in many respects final “critical edition” (KGW and KSA)20 of Nietzsche’s published and unpublished writings. In fact, a lot of damage has been done to Nietzsche scholarship by an uncritical reading of Nietzsche’s posthumously published book Der Wille zur Macht (First edition 1901; Second and extensively revised edition 1906/07) which was falsified to a sometimes irreversible extent by Peter Gast and Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche.21 But it is not just the book, which was used uncritically; it is also the concept, which 18 Stefan Lorenz Sorgner, Metaphysics without Truth: On the Importance of Consistency within Nietzsche’s Philosophy (München: Herbert Utz Verlag, 1999), p. 13. 19 This is particularly true for Nietzsche’s lectures on: “The Future of our Educational Institutions”, and his fragment on: “Philosophy in the Tragic Age of Greek Antiquity”, both written in 1872, which provide clear extensions of Nietzsche’s original positions in Die Geburt der Tragödie, as they aim to move beyond the “aesthetic evaluation” of Greek antiquity by assessing the moral worth and the sociocultural merits of this evaluation for modern society. Friedrich Nietzsche, “Über die Zukunft unserer Bildungsanstalten”, in Friedrich Nietzsche, Geburt der Tragödie, KSA 1, pp. 641-752; Nietzsche, “Die Philosophie im tragischen Zeitalter der Griechen”, in Ibid. pp. 799-872. 20 Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari (eds.), Friedrich Nietzsche, Werke, Kritische Gesamtausgabe (KGW), 33 vols. (Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 1967f.); Colli and Montinari (eds.), Friedrich Nietzsche, Sämtliche Werke, Kritische Studienausgabe (KSA), 15 vols. (Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 1988). 21 More details of the particular problems associated with the current editions of Der Wille zur Macht will be discussed in later chapters of this book. On this topic see also: Mazzino Montinari, “Vorwort”, in Nietzsche, Kommentar zu Band 1-13, KSA 14, p. 7-17.

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was frequently misunderstood.22 It should, therefore, be noted that there is no such book as Der Wille zur Macht, at least not one that can be genuinely ascribed to Friedrich Nietzsche. Mazzino Montinari also emphasises this point in his “Introduction” to the “Commentary” on his critical edition of Nietzsche’s writings (KSA), where he writes: “Hier möchte ich nur noch einmal betonen, daß diese Einsicht – daß nämlich Nietzsche kein Werk unter diesem Titel geschrieben hat noch zuletzt schreiben wollte – eine ausgemachte Tatsache war, als man zu einem neuen Beginn in der Nietzsche Edition Anfang der dreißiger Jahre im Nietzsche Archiv selbst schritt.” 23

A critical reading of the Nachlaß was first made possible with the publication of what is now commonly referred to as the “Schlechta Ausgabe” in 1956, which for the first first time published the genuine Nietzschean fragments of the 1880s, on which the earlier falsified editions of Der Wille zur Macht had been based.24 This is also the main reason why I will be using this edition of Nietzsche’s writings in conjunction with the KSA as the basis of my work and as the authoritative editions of Nietzsche’s writings throughout this book, but I will also refer to Der Wille zur Macht, where this is done in the secondary literature on his philosophy.25 Where appropriate and necessary I will also refer to the “critical edition” of Nietzsche’s letters (KSB), particularly where this is done in the secondary literature on his philosophy, but also at some other crucial points.26 Hence the purist’s claim that only Nietzsche’s published work possesses absolute authority (particularly over his unpublished fragments) is obviously the easiest to defend. Therefore, I agree with Karl Schlechta’s assessment that while there definitely might be some additional insights to be gained from the Nachlaß for a deeper understanding of Nietzsche’s original positions (which he had firstly outlined in his published writings), there is “kein neuer zentraler 22 Günter Abel argues that Nietzsche’s concept of the “will to power” has frequently been mistaken as a naturalistic or socioeconomic concept. The “will to power”, Abel argues, has been understood as a “physikalischer Naturalismus, als Sozioökonomismus oder als Biologismus”, yet either of these interpretations is misleading. And Abel continues: “Nietzsche nennt ‘Willen-zur-Macht’ die dynamischen und in sich vielheitlich organisierten Kraftzentren, deren relationalem Tätigsein sich jedes Wirkliche und Lebendige in seinem Was, in seinem Wie und in seinem fortwährenden und prinzipiell unabschließbaren Fluß des Werdens und Vergehens verdankt.” Günter Abel, Nietzsche (Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 1998), p. 5. 23 Ibid. p. 12. 24 Karl Schlechta (ed.), Friedrich Nietzsche: Werke in drei Bänden, 3 vols. (München: Carl Hanser Verlag, 1982). 25 Friedrich Nietzsche, Der Wille zur Macht (Stuttgart: Kröner Verlag, 1996). 26 Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari (eds.), Friedrich Nietzsche, Sämtliche Briefe, Kritische Studienausgabe (KSB), 8 vols. (Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 1975.ff.).

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Gedanke”27 to be gained from his unpublished writings. Schlechta makes this point quite clear when he says that Nietzsche consciously published certain parts of his writings while others clearly seemed unfit for publication to him. As a consequence of this radical view Schlechta writes: “Aber sonst ist, wie ich glaube, nicht entschieden genug darauf hinzuweisen, daß auch dieser Nachlaß kein zufälliger ist. Was Nietzsche zu sagen hatte, ehe ihn der Wahnsinn umfing, das hat er vernehmlich gesagt. Ja, ein vehementeres Hervorrücken des Nachlasses scheint mir insofern geradezu gefährlich, als dieser die feineren Akzente in der Gedankenführung verwischt: so kommt z.B. das, was ich die zweite Stimme in dem geheimnisvollen Gespräch, das Nietzsche so oft mit sich selbst führt, nennen möchte, im Nachlaß kaum zur Geltung. Der Nachlaß vergröbert also – nicht von ungefähr hat er die Nietzsche Enthusiasten immer so sehr angezogen. Überdies scheint es mir ein Erfordernis des geistigen Taktes, einen Autor primär so zu verstehen, wie er sich in der literarischen Öffentlichkeit verstanden wissen wollte.”28

In this study of Nietzsche’s influence I shall, therefore, mostly rely upon the published editions of Nietzsche’s writings as these are clearly the writings which were available to the sociologists and social thinkers I am considering here, and as they are clearly also the writings to which these thinkers explicitly replied. The Nachlaß will only be important insofar as certain positions of Nietzsche (e.g.: Nietzsche’s comments on “sociology” as an emerging wissenschaftliche discipline or his positions on “culture” and “civilisation” as important antagonistic forces which are inherently characteristic of “modernity”) can only be fully understood and verified with reference to both the Nachlaß as well as the main published editions of his writings. In some cases, therefore, a careful reading of the Nachlaß becomes crucial to the overall project of this book as certain positions that help to describe Nietzsche’s influence and intentions can only be explained with the help of a comparison of the published works and the unpublished fragments. Yet the bulk of material considered, however, will come from Nietzsche’s published writings. Nevertheless, the decision to be made between the Nachlaß and/or the published editions of his work is still a relatively recent one, and certainly does not concern the “first phase of the Nietzsche reception”29 to the same extent as it does the modern Nietzsche scholar, who has

27 Schlechta “Nachwort”, in Schlechta (ed.), Werke und Briefe III (München: Carl Hanser Verlag, 1982), p. 1433. 28 Ibid. 29 More details of the particular problems associated with the different phases of the Nietzsche reception will be discussed in the next chapter of this study.

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the full critical edition of Nietzsche’s writings available to him. Nonetheless, I entirely agree with Sorgner that, as a serious scholar of Nietzsche’s philosophy today, one has to make one’s position clear with regard to this issue. It has to be remembered, however, that the falsified edition of Der Wille zur Macht was already published in 1901 and 1906/07 respectively, and that the misappropriation of Nietzsche’s writings started there and then and to a certain degree also influenced the sociologists and social thinkers, whose reaction to Nietzsche’s writings we will be analysing in some detail throughout this book.

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Acknowledgements In preparing and revising this book on Nietzsche and sociology, I should especially like to thank Professor William Outhwaite and Professor Edward Timms of the University of Sussex at Brighton for providing me with much valuable advice. It is entirely to their credit that I have managed to complete this study and I could certainly not have done so without their continuous support and encouragement over the years. Their creative impulses for my work have, however, been far too important to merely acknowledge. The final synthesis and interpretation is, of course, my responsibility alone. Moreover, I would like to thank the Stiftung Weimarer Klassik und Kunstsammlungen and in particular Professor Lothar Ehrlich and Dr. Thomas Föhl, for granting me a research scholarship in the fall of 2003. The work in the NietzscheArchive and in the Herzogin Anna-Amalia Library certainly helped me to clarify important aspects of the history and chronology of the Nietzsche reception. In addition, I would like to thank the Axel-Springer-Stiftung and in particular Professor Ernst Cramer for granting me a generous print scholarship, which covers the considerable costs of this publication. For their generous support and patience I would like to thank my family, particularly my mother Madeleine and my eldest brother Karl-Georg, who made this book possible. Yet this study is also clearly the result of numerous discussions on Nietzsche, culture and many other, and far more important aspects of “life” with the people around me who have always been an important source of inspiration over the last couple of years: Ariane and John Dieter Brinks, Madeleine Koenigs, Wolfgang Georg Jordan, Goranka Crnković, Marcos Baer, Kika Tabet, Jorge InestaBurgos, Sana Immonen, Bernhard Heinrich Momberger, Karl Clausen, Burkhardt Wellenkötter, and finally Frau Erika Hauser. With regard to waking me from my “dogmatic slumber” on all aspects regarding the Frauenfrage, the resilient feminism of Jacquie Lorber Kasunic proved to be a particularly productive challenge for my convictions over the last years. I would, therefore, like to take this opportunity and thank all of these people for their support and patience over the last years, because without their help I would certainly still be stuck with Chapter 1. Last but not least, special thanks go, of course, to Barbara Stecher whose friendship has always been and still is an invaluable source of strength and inspiration for my life and work.

Chapter I Introduction and statement of the problem – The sociological Nietzsche reception in perspective

Introduction and statement of the problem

3

Chapter I Introduction and statement of the problem – The sociological Nietzsche reception in perspective To look at Friedrich Nietzsche’s influence on early German and Austrian sociology demands at least some justification. Only very few commentators would regard Nietzsche’s writings as being part of the historical canon of sociologically relevant literature (he himself would have fiercely objected to both the notion of “canon” as well as a possible “link” between his writings and sociology). This is because many commentators regard his writings either as part of philosophy, more specifically Lebensphilosophie, or alternatively as part of cultural critique, more specifically as part of the critique of the increasing objectification of culture and art within modernity. Sociology, moreover, was an area where Nietzsche’s influence was not particularly apparent, not at least when compared to that of Karl Marx: while Marx’s impact on sociology is largely unquestioned, for many a “Nietzschean sociology” seems not to have existed.1 Only in recent years has there been some interest in developing such a notion. Yet although Marx and Nietzsche are by no means founders of sociology, their respective analyses inspired many of the crucial concerns of early sociology. As Horst Baier put it, they raised various important questions, which sociology aimed to answer later on: “Die großen Themen der Soziologie, zumal der deutschen, sind ihr von Marx und Nietzsche gestellt.”2 But we should not forget: Marx predates Nietzsche as a social thinker, while Max Weber, Ferdinand Tönnies, Rosa Mayreder and Alfred Weber – whose response to Nietzsche’s philosophy we are in the main considering throughout this book – are sociologists and social thinkers after Nietzsche.3 1 For a brief but provocative discussion of Nietzsche’s relation to sociology, see also my short essay on the subject in the WLA: Franz Solms-Laubach, “Nietzsche als Soziologie?”, in Wissenschaftlicher Literaturanzeiger, 42:1 (Fernwald: Litblockin Verlag, 2003). 2 Horst Baier, “Die Gesellschaft – ein langer Schatten des toten Gottes. Friedrich Nietzsche und die Entstehung der Soziologie aus dem Geist der Décadence”, in Nietzsche-Studien: Internationales Jahrbuch für die Nietzsche Forschung, vol. 10/11 (Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 1981/1982), p. 32. 3 I shall not discuss Nietzsche’s influence on Georg Simmel in much detail in this book, as I am currently working on a separate study on Simmel’s highly complex reception of Nietzsche’s philosophy. For a

4

Introduction and statement of the problem

So while Max Weber, Tönnies, Mayreder and Alfred Weber were able to draw on Nietzsche’s and Marx’ writings, the two great German philosophers – frequently even referred to as antipodes in 19th century thought – “were largely unaware of each others existence, yet both were called back in the 20th century to engage in a dialogue d’outre-tombe.” 4 This dialogue between Marx and Nietzsche also played an important part in the formation of early sociological thought in Germany and Austria where its leading representatives were trying to come to terms with the fundamental challenges these two thinkers had posed. Particularly since Marx and Nietzsche provided the “benchmarks” for modern intellectuals – as the German sociologist Max Weber (1864–1920) had so aptly expressed it – “For Weber, Marx and Nietzsche were the twin poles of modern intellectual life: ‘the seriousness of a contemporary scholar can be measured by how he stands in relation to Marx and Nietzsche’.”5 But while Marx was a social and political thinker before sociology was established as an independent academic discipline, Nietzsche reflected on the sociocultural transformations characterising modern society when the establishment of sociology had already begun. This helps, in part at least, to explain why Nietzsche became so influential for both the writings and the world-views of many early sociologists and social thinkers, because as Klaus Lichtblau consistently emphasises in his study of the genealogy of sociology, they were all: “von einer [...] philosophisch und zeitdiagnostisch artikulierten Kulturkritik geprägt”,6 which was strongly determined by Nietzsche’s writings. Still the fact remains, that formal sociology – as an institutionalised academic discipline – is largely a 20th century phenomenon.7 The position Nietzsche occupies in the history of ideas, therefore, clearly has important implications for an assessment of his influence on sociologists and social thinkers of his times. Some of these implications relate to the fact that Nietzsche was very influential in many cultural fields other than sociology at the turn of the 19th century, and that consequently his influence was more clearly visible in the dialogues and conversations of other and more di-

brief introduction to the issues related to Simmel’s reading of Nietzsche, see: Franz Solms-Laubach, “Nietzsche and Sociology”, in Studies in Social and Political Thought, vol. 6 (Brighton: University of Sussex Graduate Programme in Social and Political Thought, 2002), pp. 24-45. 4 Howard Caygill, “The return of Nietzsche and Marx”, in Paul Patton (ed.), Nietzsche, Feminism & Political Theory (London: Routledge Publishers, 1993), p. 189. 5 William Outhwaite, “Nietzsche and Critical Theory”, in Peter Sedgwick (ed.), Nietzsche: A Critical Reader (London: Blackwell Publishers, 1995), p. 204. The source for Weber’s reference to Nietzsche and Marx is, of course, the account of his statement by his nephew Eduard Baumgarten. Eduard Baumgarten, Max Weber: Werk und Person (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1964), pp. 554.ff. 6 Lichtblau, Kulturkrise und die Soziologie um die Jahrhundertwende, p. 36. 7 For an account, see: Aron, German Sociology (1957).

Introduction and statement of the problem

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verse groups of cultural actors of the time. Sociology seemed not to be a discipline where Nietzsche’s influence was very strong, particularly in so far as Nietzsche’s comments on sociology – fragmented as they were – are almost all very negative. Yet even if they do not regard Nietzsche as a social thinker of the first rank, most of his commentators would, however, agree that his writings provided a radical critique of modern society in general, and of Wilhelminian Germany in particular. His views were both ruthless and original to such a degree, that they sparked off an unprecedented reaction in many academic and non-academic disciplines, as well as among the educated public. This reaction found a very clear expression in philosophy, literature as well as in the arts, and only began to lose some of its momentum after more than fifty years. In his assessment of the early responses to Nietzsche’s philosophy Bruno Hillebrand confirms this lasting influence when he says that: “Die geistige Situation der Zeit war von Nietzsche mit einer bis dahin nicht gekannten Rücksichtslosigkeit aufgerissen worden. Die Verzögerung des Begreifens dauerte Jahrzehnte. Erst nach einem halben Jahrhundert war die gründliche Aufarbeitung geleistet, hatte sich die Initialzündung verzehrt.”8 Nietzsche’s philosophy became very fashionable for a certain period of time, so much so that in 1890 Paul Ernst even wrote that: “Nietzsche ist ja jetzt auf dem besten Wege, Modephilosoph zu werden.”9 The attention, however, which Nietzsche’s ideas had received in the writings of many aspiring sociologists and social thinkers throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, went by almost unnoticed. Even today these comments are largely neglected, even though they contain very important impulses for a possible re-evaluation of current trends in Nietzsche scholarship. This study, therefore, tries to re-establish and re-evaluate the responses to Nietzsche’s philosophy by a selected group of early German and Austrian sociologists and social thinkers at the turn of the 19th century. Hence, it will be the aim of this book to engage in an assessment of some of the peculiarities of the early Nietzsche reception, and in particular to engage with the form its sociological “Aufarbeitung”10 took. In my discussion of Max Weber’s, Ferdinand Tönnies’, Rosa Mayreder’s and Alfred Weber’s responses to Nietzsche’s writings, I will particularly emphasise and re-examine Nietzsche’s position as a thought provoking critic of modern culture, as this aspect of his thought seems to have been very influential on all of the four thinkers to be discussed.

8 Bruno Hillebrand, “Vorwort”, in Hillebrand (ed.), Nietzsche und die deutsche Literatur, p. xi. 9 Hillebrand, “Einführung: Die frühe Nietzsche Rezeption in Deutschland”, in Ibid. p. 65. 10 Ibid. “Vorwort”, p. xi.

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Introduction and statement of the problem

1) Nietzsche and the history of sociology Sociology as an academic discipline itself is frequently thought to be in a state of crisis.11 At the same time there is, however, a growing desire to emphasise that: “sociological perspectives and concepts continue to play a significant role in western culture.”12 This significant role of sociology is mainly linked to the importance and continued relevance of “classical” sociological texts for modern sociological analysis. Hence, its relevance today is due: “in no small part to those writers and texts we think of, and recurrently constitute, as ‘classic’.”13 Not everyone, however, is so optimistic about sociology, and about its recurring reference to classical sociological texts. Ralf Dahrendorf, for example, believes that economics and history have long overtaken sociology as the leading disciplines in the social sciences. At the same time he believes that it is the lack of willingness on the part of many modern sociologists or – to be more precise – their failure to go beyond the disciplinary boundaries in an attempt to explore new areas of investigation, which makes them recur to their already established “classical sociological canon”. Dahrendorf regards this as a sign of the general decay of the discipline, which coincides with the strengthening of others: “Es gibt natürlich in einer zerfasernden Disziplin auch eine gewisse Heroensehnsucht und insofern sieht es gut aus, wenn man Gesamtausgaben der Großen hat, an denen man sich in der Vergangenheit festmacht.”14 He is not alone in arguing that the public image of sociology has changed. Frank Welz and Uwe Weisenbacher, for example, argue that many no longer trust in the discipline’s ability to theoretically explain social phenomena: “Ihrem Versprechen theoretischer Erklärung des Sozialen wird derzeit nur verhalten getraut.”15 Where does Nietzsche, however, enter into this process of a meta-critical reflection on sociology? Nietzsche’s attempt to undermine traditional values and to question the authoritative claims made by scientific rhetoric, makes

11 See for example: Alvin W. Gouldner, The Coming Crisis of Western Sociology (New York/London: St. Martin’s Press, 1970); Frank Welz and Uwe Weisenbacher (eds.), Soziologische Theorie und Geschichte (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1998); Otto Nigsch, “Kanon und Krise der Soziologie”, in Schweizer Revue für Soziologie (Basel: Schweizer Gesellschaft für Soziologie, 1994), also published online at the following website address: . 12 Baehr and O’Brien, “Founders, Classics and the Concept of a Canon”, p. 128. 13 Ibid. 14 Franz Solms-Laubach, “Sozialwissenschaft in der Diskussion: “Soziologie als Forschungsansatz für beliebige Themen” – ein Gespräch mit Lord Ralf Dahrendorf ”, in Wissenschaftlicher Literaturanzeiger, 40:2 (Fernwald: Litblockin Verlag, 2001), p. 67. 15 Welz and Weisenbacher (eds.), Soziologische Theorie und Geschichte, p. 9.

Nietzsche and the history of sociology

7

him a very dynamic and at the same time potentially dangerous ally for sociology. The “dynamic” capacity of Nietzsche’s contribution to sociology lies in his ability to function as a creative and radical critic of both the insincerity and hypocrisy that modern men live by, as well as of the general decadence that characterised his society. Moreover, the exceptionally insightful character of his own social criticism could or should also turn Nietzsche into a “dynamic” ally for sociology. The “dangerous” aspect of Nietzsche’s contribution to sociology on the other hand, lies in two factors: Firstly, Nietzsche saw all belief systems as undermined by being only the particular expressions of the will to power in the world, which made all their claims necessarily false, since all possible perspectives as such are only relative with regards to the particular power constellation they are themselves subject to or serve.16 Secondly, Nietzsche did not think very highly of sociology and did not believe that it could provide a life-enhancing perspective from within its mode of analysis. He simply did not trust sociology’s scientific claims. It can, therefore, safely be argued that Nietzsche, as an ally who is taken in too close, would necessarily undermine the credentials of sociology. Bruno Hillebrand aptly summarised the “dynamic” as well as “dangerous” aspects of the social implications of Nietzsche’s writings by stressing the consequences Nietzsche’s shattering and uncompromising critique of bourgeois culture in the following way: “Nietzsche hatte seismographisch die Bewegung seiner Zeit erfaßt, er registrierte den Erdrutsch, der dem Bürgertum den Boden entzog – zu einer Zeit, als sich dieses Bürgertum sicher fühlte wie nie zuvor. Er decouvrierte die bürgerliche Moral, klopfte an die hohlen Statusformen, deckte brutal das wertlose Fundament dieser Gesellschaft auf. Er tat das nicht materialistisch auf Kollektivinteressen ausgerichtet, er tat das idealistisch in dem Glauben an die Individualstruktur des Menschen. Sein Kampf galt den aufgeblasenen Pseudoidealen einer ideenlosen Gesellschaftsschicht. Darum hingen an ihm von Anfang an die rebellierenden Söhne des Bürgertums, die Renegaten, vielfach vom jenem Milieu geprägt, gegen das sie vorgingen. [...] Die Auflehnung der frühen Nietzsche Adepten zeigt mit perspektivischer Verzerrung das Spiegelbild der bürgerlichen Szenerie vor und nach 1890. Nietzsche war im Munde der falschen Propheten.“17

It was, as we will come to see more clearly in later sections of this book, one of the main intentions of the early sociologists and social thinkers, whose response to Nietzsche’s writings we are in the main considering here, to analyse this: “Spiegelbild der bürgerlichen Szenerie”,18 both with the help of, as well as 16 Sorgner, Metaphysics without Truth, p. 122. 17 Hillebrand, “Einführung: Die frühe Nietzsche Rezeption in Deutschland”, pp. 6-7. 18 Ibid.

8

Introduction and statement of the problem

with the intention of understanding the: “perspektivische Verzerrung”,19 which Nietzsche’s writings described, enabled and caused at the same time. Nietzsche was not only a radical critic; he was also an “explosive” phenomenon.20 But why then is Nietzsche not generally speaking associated with the emergence of sociological thought? In their brief but very thoughtful introduction to their recent book Hauptwerke der Soziologie,21 Dirk Kaesler and Ludgera Vogt argue that it is very useful to try and imagine the history of sociology with the help of the parable of a “house” and the construction plan according to which it was built. What they try to achieve is to reconstruct the historical origins of the modern “Haus der Soziologie”22 and the historical foundations on which it is built. What they, however, also fail to acknowledge is the importance of Nietzsche as an inspirational source for the work of many early sociologists and social thinkers of the late 19th and early 20th century. The parable of the “house of sociology” which they use to describe the current status-quo of modern sociology is, nevertheless, a useful point of reference for a demonstration of the wider problems associated with (a) a discussion of a possible canon of sociological literature, and (b) a discussion of Nietzsche’s influence on early sociology. Moreover, it also helps to elucidate the general problems as well as the advantages and disadvantages associated with the notion of a “canon” of “classical” literature written by the “founders” of sociology.23 Yet even the notion of the “house of sociology” is not without its problems (and Nietzsche would probably have fiercely attacked it).24 In their description of the “house of sociology” Kaesler and Vogt argue that sociology basically emerged from the analytical methods of social philosophy: “Erst sehr allmählich im Laufe des 19. Jahrhunderts wurden die geistigen Fundamente dieses Hauses gelegt, geformt aus dem Baumaterial insbesondere der Philosophie und der Staatswissenschaften. Das konzentrierte, kultur- und periodenübergreifende wissenschaftliche Projekt Soziologie von Gelehrten im Okzident des 19. Jahrhunderts begonnen, wurde insgesamt und vor allem ein Gebilde des 20. Jahrhunderts. Während der vergangenen hundert Jahre wurde aus 19 Ibid. 20 Nietzsche himself was not really shy about this fact, for he wrote: “Ich bin kein Mensch, ich bin Dynamit.” Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, KSA 6, § 1, p. 300. 21 Kaesler and Vogt (eds.), Hauptwerke der Soziologie, pp. ix-xviii. 22 Ibid. p. xi. 23 For an excellent discussion of the problems associated with the three terms mentioned and their function in sociology, see: Baehr and O’Brien, “Founders, Classics and the Concept of a Canon” (1994). 24 Franz Solms-Laubach, “Probleme der Kanonbildung in der Soziologie”, in Wissenschaftlicher Literaturanzeiger, 41:1 (Fernwald: Litblockin Verlag, 2002), pp. 62-63.

Nietzsche and the history of sociology

9

dem anfänglich recht einfachen Haus ein verzweigter Komplex zahlreicher Gebäude mit vielen Stockwerken und einer Unmenge von Räumen, in denen heute eine erhebliche Anzahl von Menschen in allen Teilen dieser Welt lebt und arbeitet.“25

Nietzsche’s place in this house is certainly not comparable to that of Émile Durkheim (1858–1917), as Nietzsche should at best be conceived as an uncomfortable, and for large parts of this “house” also an unwelcome guest. But the implications of Nietzsche’s thoughts for the cultural critique expressed by many early sociologists and social thinkers, for example, are – as we will come to see throughout this book – “profound” (in both a literal and figurative sense). Nietzsche’s writings were in many respects very important for the development of the fundamental positions of sociologists like Ferdinand Tönnies and Max and Alfred Weber in Germany and the Austrian social thinker Rosa Mayreder. Their writings on culture in particular cannot be conceived without Nietzsche’s influence, which is why their individual responses to Nietzsche’s thought are the main focus of this study. We will come to see that in questioning Nietzsche’s philosophy, these four thinkers also radically questioned their own ideas and positions. From there, they then developed their own, but, nevertheless, distinctively “Nietzschean” cultural and social critiques of modern society. In their discussion of “founders, classics and the concept of canon in sociology” Peter Baehr and Mike O’Brien also stress the importance of Nietzsche’s critical analysis of and meta-philosophical reflections on the structure of textual arguments for modern sociological concerns. Baehr and O’Brien systematically question the nature of notions like “founders, classics and canon”, which brings them close to the concerns they found expressed in Nietzsche’s work. The authors argue that the notions of “founders and canon” in sociology are essentially “mythological” or at root “religious” in character, as they try to spell out a sacrosanct body of almost untouchable thinkers and texts, that have virtually gained absolute authority over the issues raised in the academic discipline their writings once helped to give rise to.26 The notion of “classics” on the other hand warrants at least some merits for Baehr and O’Brien, as it can help to value the importance of a selection of certain texts for sociological analysis if used in moderation.27 These “classical” texts can, however, by no means be regarded as being sacred or untouchable, and they are certainly not timeless cultural monuments either. They depend on 25 Kaesler and Vogt (eds.), Hauptwerke der Soziologie, p. xi. 26 For a discussion of the notion of “founders”, see: Baehr and O’Brien, “Founders, Classics and the Concept of a Canon”, pp. 3-52; and for a discussion of the concept of a “canon”, see: Ibid. pp. 105-126. 27 For a discussion of the notion of “classics”, see: Ibid. pp. 53-104.

10

Introduction and statement of the problem

the continued questioning by sociologists and other thinkers, who try to assess their relevance today. In this sense the notion of “classics” refers to an unstable and merely contingent group of texts that can vary according to the needs of their interpreters. This is where the analysis of Baehr and O’Brien meets with the arguments put forward by Kaesler and Vogt as they also emphasise the need for a critical re-examination of classical texts to bring forth new sociological insights, rather than to portray them for the sake of largely anachronistic concerns. Modern sociologists, therefore, have to demonstrate that: “sie nicht nur in rückwärtsgewandter Blickrichtung Soziologie dadurch betreiben, daß sie die Begrifflichkeit und die Perspektiven der beiden zurückliegenden Jahrhunderte endlos rekombinieren, sondern tatsächlich zu neuen soziologischen Erkenntnissen kommen.”28 The reason why Baehr and O’Brien believe that Nietzsche was important for sociology is precisely because of this quality of his writing: Nietzsche was one of the first thinkers to question the absolute authority of meta-narratives and claims to absolute Truth, including any selected “canon” of authoritative literature. Of course, Baehr and O’Brien do not include Nietzsche in the “classical” group of sociological thinkers, but they, nevertheless, admit that it was Nietzsche who first and certainly most ruthlessly questioned the Socratic nature of any purely textual activity, where philosophical “perspectives, methods, arguments and facts are enshrined in books and articles” in an attempt to “convince the reader of the force and validity of an argument”.29 Many traditional philosophical texts and approaches (like Platonism and – as Nietzsche would say – its “watered down” or “vulgar” version, Christianity) claimed absolute authority in all questions regarding Truth. Nietzsche, however, strongly believed in the futility of any such exercise and even argued that it is essentially harmful to pursue it: It is harmful, because it is hostile to the diversity and vitality of life itself. This is why Nietzsche heavily criticised the Socratic aporia which consists of the fact that Socrates claimed that man could not only gain knowledge, but could also change his existence as well as the world around him with the knowledge he obtained.30 For Nietzsche this was an illusion, an aporia. Catherine Zuckert summarises Nietzsche’s resistance to this position as follows: “Modern men know that Socrates and the philosophic way of life he represents constitute an illusion, because 28 Kaesler and Vogt (eds.), Hauptwerke der Soziologie, p. xvii. 29 Baehr and O’Brien, “Founders, Classics and the Concept of a Canon”, p. 62. 30 Aporia (from the Greek word: a-poros; a = no or non; poros = way, bridge): A perplexing difficulty. Alternatively: “J. Smith, Myst. Reth. 150: Aporia is a figure whereby the speaker sheweth that he doubteth, either where to begin for the multitude of matters, or what to do or say in some strange or ambiguous thing.” J.A. Simpson and E.S.C. Winter, The Oxford English Dictionary, vol. 1 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), p. 555.

Nietzsche and the history of sociology

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we have learnt from Kant that the search for knowledge culminates only in the knowledge that we cannot know.”31 This insight might not have been intended by Kant, but Nietzsche’s critique of Socrates went even further than that, for he did not believe that Socrates’ notion of dialectics was anything other than an undoubtedly forceful form of rhetorical expression. This is where Baehr and O’Brien see Nietzsche’s main relevance for sociology today, as he radically questioned the authority attributed to the linguistic tricks embedded in textual arguments, from which modern sociological analysis itself is not free: “His critique of Socratic dialectics sought to demonstrate that the dialectical method, far from avoiding rhetorical tropes, was itself an especially effective, if dissimulated, form of rhetoric – designed to cudgel and humiliate its opponents, the Sophists and their supporters, into intellectual submission. Its claim to Truth was a rhetorical trick, a linguistic fiction, as all claims to Truth are.”32 From this fierce Nietzschean critique of Socrates and the tradition for which he stands, sociology can, and increasingly has taken a lesson of self-critical examination, as Baehr and O’Brien argue. Even if the character of sociology’s attempt to question itself is not always Nietzschean, it clearly has Nietzschean roots, as the authors proceed to emphasise: “With the advent of postmodernism in sociology, Nietzsche’s reputation is on the rise. Foucault’s work, too, and that of deconstructionists like Derrida and de Man have also served to amplify his iconoclastic voice. Even so, the surge of interest in the structure of sociological texts has not for the most part been Nietzschean in character”,33 but they have been – and this is crucial – to some extent at least. The attempts to incorporate a self-critical Nietzschean look at the corpus of sociological texts by modern sociologists, to which Baehr and O’Brien are referring here, are obviously relatively recent ones. In these attempts Nietzschean philosophy is not used to investigate social phenomena – which would be a bold attempt to re-integrate Nietzsche into social analysis – but rather to investigate the claims made by, as well as in the structure of the arguments that have been forged to describe social phenomena. A similar argument has been put forward by W.G. Runciman, whose reflections on Nietzsche and sociology will become of greater relevance in section b) of this chapter. Here it is just important to emphasise that, in his discussion of a possible Nietzschean sociology, Runciman also concludes that: “if nothing else [...] Nietzsche’s sociology of sociol31 Catherine Zuckert, “III. Nietzsche“s Rereading of Plato”, in Political Theory, 13:2 (London: Sage Publications, 1985), p. 213. 32 Baehr and O’Brien, “Founders, Classics and the Concept of a Canon”, p. 62. 33 Ibid.

12

Introduction and statement of the problem

ogy is a sociology.”34 Runciman proceeds by suggesting what could be called a meta-sociology. It is a meta-sociology in so far as it proposes a “sociology of sociology” that critically examines itself as it goes along arguing its case. Even if the arguments put forward by Baehr and O’Brien as well as by Runciman about the possibility for establishing a Nietzschean meta-sociology are interesting and important, they are clearly not everything that can be said about “Nietzsche and Sociology”. Nietzsche’s influence on the discipline was far greater than the postmodern Nietzschean reflection on the subject of sociological analysis conveys. As we will clearly come to see throughout this book, Nietzsche’s writings were for some of the most influential early sociologists and social thinkers an inspirational source of great importance, which helped them to formulate, sharpen and then question their own positions. In the first phase of the Nietzsche reception – between 1890 and 1930 (the necessary subdivisions of this and other phases will be discussed in more detail in section 3 of this chapter) – many sociologists and social thinkers took Nietzsche’s writings very seriously as a challenge to their own investigations of social phenomena and many, therefore, tried to incorporate certain aspects of his views. Many of these thinkers can, therefore, and also have been, referred to as “Nietzscheans”, and the grounds for this claim lie not only in the fact that they have read Nietzsche and responded to numerous of his thought provoking positions – which is what many other thinkers in various academic disciplines of the early 20th century have done as well – but that they have actually tried to accommodate Nietzschean perspectives into their own analyses of social phenomena, and that – in many cases – they have also made the wider (public) influence of Nietzsche’s thought – which is an interesting social phenomenon as such – the subject of their own social investigations. All this will become much clearer in later chapters of this book, when I will discuss the early sociological Nietzsche reception in more detail. In the following section, however, I will look at recent “Weberian” responses to Nietzsche’s influence on Max Weber’s sociology, which specifically includes a discussion of Nietzsche’s and Weber’s respective approaches to a “value-free” science and of their respective notions of Wissenschaft more generally. This discussion is mainly based on a critical engagement with W.G. Runciman’s debate on: “Can there be a Nietzschean sociology?”,35 which in many ways is also a guiding question for the whole book and a prelude to my chapter on Max Weber’s Nietzsche reception.

34 Runciman, “Can there be a Nietzschean sociology?”, p. 7. 35 Ibid. pp. 3-21.

Recent Weberian responses to Nietzsche’s influence on Max Weber’s sociology

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2) Recent Weberian responses to Nietzsche’s influence on Max Weber’s sociology In a recent article, W.G. Runciman posed the question: “Can there be a Nietzschean sociology?”. Runciman then attempts to pursue this question from a strongly Weberian perspective. Therefore, Runciman proceeds by asking what are the merits – if there are any – of Nietzsche’s philosophy for sociology; and to what extent Nietzsche’s thought (or parts of it) are actually sociological in nature or at least to some degree relevant for sociological analysis in a more general sense. Runciman takes a distinctively Weberian approach in answering this question and compares the two thinkers on their respective merits for sociological analysis – with Weber’s systematic approach to social phenomena easily gaining the upper hand over Nietzsche’s more unsystematic and intuitive philosophy in Runciman’s conclusion. This is not problematic as such, but in a certain way clearly amounts to a prejudgement of the guiding question of the inquiry. In his article, Runciman identifies a passage from Nietzsche’s posthumously published book Der Wille zur Macht as the central focus for his attention in looking at Nietzsche’s philosophy for the traces of what might be called a “Nietzschean sociology”.36 It is § 462 which begins with two words in brackets and italics with which Nietzsche seems to designate the following paragraph to put forward “principal changes” that ought to be introduced (however, this time the words in brackets and italics clearly can be attributed to Peter Gast and Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche)37: “§ 462 [Prinzipielle Neuerungen:] [...] An Stelle der »Soziologie« eine Lehre von den Herrschaftsgebilden.”38 On a somewhat critical note, I would like to point out that for a start, the problem with this passage is, as we will come to see, at least twofold: First of all, it

36 Nietzsche, Der Wille zur Macht, § 462, p. 323. 37 Walter Gebhard “Editorische Notiz”, in Nietzsche, Der Wille zur Macht, p. 705. 38 Here is the whole paragraph 462 from Der Wille zur Macht: “§ 462 [Prinzipielle Neuerungen:] An Stelle der moralischen Werte lauter naturalistische Werte. Vernatürlichung der Moral. An Stelle der »Soziologie« eine Lehre von den Herrschaftsgebilden. An Stelle der »Gesellschaft« der Kultur-Komplex, als mein Vorzugsinteresse (gleichsam als Ganzes, bezüglich in seinen Teilen). An Stelle der »Erkenntnistheorie« eine Perspektivenlehre der Affekte (wozu eine Hierarchie der Affekte gehört). Die transfigurierten Affekte: deren höhere Ordnung, deren »Geistigkeit«.” Nietzsche, Der Wille zur Macht, § 462, p. 323. The question is: why would a “Lehre von den Herrschaftsgebilden” not be a sociology? Nietzsche makes it quite clear that he does not believe that sociology is capable of providing a “theory of the forms of power and domination”, otherwise he would not have included sociology in his “balance sheet” of antagonistic concepts. In Section 4 of Chapter 6 we will come to see more clearly that in opposing sociology as his main competitor in the field of analysing “social structures”, Nietzsche tried to preserve the credibility of his own counter-theory by defending it resolutely against the fundamental ideological flaws he discovered in sociology and its object of analysis.

14

Introduction and statement of the problem

is a passage that even within the book Der Wille zur Macht does not have a wider or more specific context to which it belongs. Secondly, it is taken from Nietzsche’s very controversial book Der Wille zur Macht which was composed posthumously by Peter Gast and Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche and was falsified to a large, and in many cases irreversible, extent (we have already discussed the problems associated to the current editions of Der Wille zur Macht in section 4 of the “Preface” of this book in some detail). Any passage from this book should, therefore, be treated with some suspicion, the more so, when the context does not make its meaning any clearer.39 Now, this should not mean that Runciman’s view of a possible Nietzschean sociology is illegitimate right from the start, but rather suggest some suspicion about the central Nietzschean quote he refers to. Otherwise the problems associated with a falsified – even if historically speaking influential – reading of Nietzsche’s philosophy will remain in place as long as weak translations, “illegitimate” texts and “standard readings” of his philosophy exist, and especially as long as an uncritical use is made of Der Wille zur Macht. While it seems largely unnecessary to rehabilitate Nietzsche, it seems very “timely” to read his work in a different and more creative way. Particularly since he has been: “a key figure on the intellectual and cultural landscape for over a hundred years, and [since, F.S.L.] his thought [clearly, F.S.L.] has to be reckoned with.”40

2.1) Nietzsche, Max Weber and the question of value-free social science Nevertheless, Runciman still asks himself: “What sort of sociology do we get if we (sociologists, that is) take Nietzsche’s arguments about human history and psychology as seriously as we can?”41 Even if we grant that different people say different things when judging what is sociological or not, it has to be emphasised

39 In his book Nietzsche and the Promise of Philosophy, Wayne Klein comments on this problem by saying that: “many, if not most, of the notes assembled in the book Der Wille zur Macht cannot genuinely be ascribed to Nietzsche. Even if we assume, as one must, that an author’s intentions cannot be said to constitute or exhaust the meaning of his or her work, this assumption can never constitute a reason for ascribing legitimacy to a collection of notes that have been tampered with to such a degree so as to make it, in the words of Montinari, ‘editorially indefensible and at bottom materially questionable’ (KSA 12, 8). On the basis of this evidence there is only one possible conclusion: The compilation and arrangement of Der Wille zur Macht cannot in any sense of the word be regarded as defensible. Although nearly two decades have passed since the publication of the last of Nietzsche’s notebooks, scholars, particularly in the English-speaking world continue to make uncritical use of Der Wille zur Macht.” Wayne Klein, Nietzsche and the Promise of Philosophy (Albany/New York: State University of New York Press, 1997), pp. 198f. 40 Keith Ansell-Pearson, An Introduction to Nietzsche as Political Thinker: The Perfect Nihilist (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 1. 41 Runciman, “Can there be a Nietzschean sociology?”, p. 3.

Recent Weberian responses to Nietzsche’s influence on Max Weber’s sociology

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that the answer Runciman finds is not a clear-cut one, and in my opinion has to be viewed with some reservation.42 Runciman argues that despite Nietzsche’s well-known tendency to: “undermine the credentials of any and all intellectual enterprises which result in the establishment of ostensibly authoritative schools”, he still holds that there are: “at least some propositions to be advanced about human history and psychology which require assent because of the strength of the arguments.”43 Runciman strongly connects his search for a Nietzschean sociology with Nietzsche’s concept of Wissenschaft. Yet given his own Weberian assumptions Runciman seems incapable of seeing any scope for what he might call a “value-free” social science in Nietzsche, for he argues that Nietzsche on the one hand proposes (1) an “ordered hierarchy of values” (making a value-free social science virtually impossible since, for Nietzsche, all sciences shall contribute to that exercise), and on the other hand Nietzsche believes that (2) “all sciences have achieved little more than to take away the self-respect of men” (making a science devoted to “men” seemingly impossible or at least a futile exercise, as Runciman says). On the first count Nietzsche argues: “Alle Wissenschaften haben nunmehr der Zukunftsaufgabe des Philosophen vorzuarbeiten: diese Aufgabe dahin verstanden, daß der Philosoph das Problem vom Werte zu lösen hat, daß er die Rangordnung der Werte zu bestimmen hat.”44 It seems somewhat strange to hold this against Nietzsche, the more so since Nietzsche’s comments appear in a chapter on the “Good” and the “Bad”. It is, if anything something that could be a vital part of a Nietzschean sociology that attempts to overcome the lapses inherent in the concept of a “value-free” social science, a notion which is critical since hard to put into practice anyway. In his earlier work on Weber though, Runciman was more critical of this notion himself and alluded to a more direct link between Weber’s position and Nietzsche’s philosophy on this matter. In the “Introduction” to his 1978 collection of Weber’s writings entitled Weber: Selections in Translation, Runciman claims that if anything differentiates Weber’s work from that of Marx and Comte as well as that of Spencer, it is: “[...] the assumption deriving from the joint influence of Kant and Nietzsche that reality cannot be objectively grasped by the human mind as a meaningful whole. Any view of the world must, Weber holds, be limited and partial, and such meaning as it has is given to it only in terms of the observer’s values. It is 42 By “sociology” Runciman means the: “study of why human communities, institutions and societies of different kinds are as we find them. This excludes by definition value-judgements about either the Good (or Bad) Life or the Good (or Bad) Society.” Ibid. pp. 3-4. 43 Ibid. p. 3. 44 Nietzsche, Genealogie der Moral, KSA 5, § 17, p. 289.

16

Introduction and statement of the problem

not that sociology, economics or history cannot be “value-free” in the sense that validated statements of cause and effect are true or false irrespective of what may be the moral or political preferences of the sociologist. It is that the sociologist’s conceptualisation of the world is, and can only be, formed and directed by what is of historical and cultural significance to him.”45

Criticising the lack of engagement by modern sociologists, and the pitfalls of Weber’s proposals in practice, Ralf Dahrendorf argues on this point in a much more critical way, as he believes that the findings of the social sciences can develop a moral dynamic of their own: “die, wenn sie nicht bewußt gezügelt werden, mit so großer Macht gegen die Werte der Freiheit und der Individualität wirken, daß eine von aller Wissenschaft unabhängige Moral sie nicht mehr aufzuhalten vermag. Was Weber in seiner starken Persönlichkeit noch vereinen konnte – die Unerbittlichkeit der wertfreien Wissenschaft und die Leidenschaft der moralischen Position – fiel bald auseinander. Es blieb der wertfreie Soziologe, und es verschwand der Mensch in der Würde seiner Freiheit und Individualität.” 46 Nietzsche’s “ordered hierarchy of values” could, therefore, have been a starting point for a Nietzschean sociology, rather than a dead end, even if this would result in a negation of the notion of a “value-free” social science. On the second count, Runciman quotes Nietzsche’s critique of science in § 25 of Zur Genealogie der Moral, where Nietzsche argues that Wissenschaft has taken away all self-respect from human beings, just as if that self-respect had been some fundamental flaw in the human character that had to be overcome. But Nietzsche clearly wants to rectify this mistake committed by traditional science. Nietzsche writes: “Alle Wissenschaft (und keineswegs nur die Astronomie, über deren demütigende und herunterbringende Wirkung Kant ein bemerkenswertes Geständnis gemacht hat, “sie vernichtet meine Wichtigkeit” ...), alle Wissenschaft, die natürliche, sowohl wie die unnatürliche – so heiße ich die Erkenntnisselbstkritik – ist heute drauf aus, dem Menschen seine bisherige Achtung vor sich auszureden.”47

What Nietzsche thereby criticises is the increasing influence of what he calls “Socratic reasoning” in modern society. “Logic”, Nietzsche argues, is valued

45 Runciman, “Introduction”, in Runciman (ed.), Weber: Selections in Translation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), p. 4. 46 Ralf Dahrendorf, Homo Sociologicus: Ein Versuch zur Geschichte, Bedeutung und Kritik der Kategorie der sozialen Rolle (Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1977), p. 92. 47 Nietzsche, Genealogie der Moral, KSA 5, § 25, p. 404.

Recent Weberian responses to Nietzsche’s influence on Max Weber’s sociology

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much higher than “intuition” in modern science, which is why, as we will come to see more clearly in the following section, Nietzsche advances an “aesthetical” notion of Wissenschaft that relies on the “creativity” inherent in the “vantage point of the artist”, rather than on “abstract reasoning” and “scientific cunning”, in its attempts to assess the sociocultural reality of society. With the help of his “aesthetical” notion of Wissenschaft, Nietzsche wants to reinstate the natural “greatness” of men and ensure the lasting “naturalisation of mankind”, particularly because all traditional “sciences have achieved little more than to take away the self-respect of men”. This is also why in § 462 of Der Wille zur Macht, Nietzsche demands “naturalistic values” in place of “moralistic values”, as this would lead to an increasing “naturalisation of morality”: “An Stelle der moralischen Werte lauter naturalistische Werte. Vernatürlichung der Moral.”48 What Nietzsche means by this becomes clearer in another fragment from the Nachlaß, where he speaks about the “increasing naturalisation of mankind in the 19th century”, which basically results in the fact that mankind is “no longer ashamed of its utmost instincts”.49 But the “increasing naturalisation of mankind in the 19th century” does not mean a naive desire to “return to nature”, because for Nietzsche an increasing “naturalisation” means to be as “immoral as nature”: “Die Natur: d.h. es wagen, unmoralisch zu sein wie die Natur.”50 Since Nietzsche believes that “all sciences have achieved little more than to take away the self-respect of men”, Nietzsche wants to reinstall the “greatness” of men and conceptualises: “alles Groß-sein als ein Sich-außerhalb-stellen in Bezug auf Moral.”51 In our discussion of Nietzsche’s notion of “culture vs. civilisation” in section 2.4 of Chapter 5 of this book, we will come to see that for Nietzsche the morality of the many, i.e. the morality of “civilisation”, is a morality that enslaves and “paralyses” the individual. Consequently, Nietzsche believes that it takes a definite degree of strength to admit to one’s: “unconditional naturality, i.e. one’s immorality” [“sich einmal seine unbedingte Natürlichkeit d.h. seine Unmoralität einzugestehen”].52 Only the exceptional “few” are able to do that. This increasing “naturalisation” of mankind, Nietzsche argues, also finds a clear expression in mankind’s relation to “art”, where there is no longer any need for: “schöne Scheinlügen”, but where the world is “mercilessly shown as it is”, 48 Nietzsche, Der Wille zur Macht, § 462, p. 323. 49 Nietzsche, Nachlaß 1885–1887, KSA 12, Herbst 1887 10 [53], “Die Vernatürlichung des Menschen im 19. Jahrhundert”, pp. 482-484. 50 Ibid. p. 482. 51 Ibid. p. 483. 52 Ibid.

18

Introduction and statement of the problem

because: “es herrscht der brutale Positivismus, welcher konstatiert, ohne sich zu erregen.”53 According to Nietzsche, only an “aesthetical” notion of Wissenschaft that relies on the “creativity” inherent in the “vantage point of the artist”, rather than on “abstract reasoning” and “scientific cunning”, is, therefore, able to adequately assess the sociocultural reality of society.

2.2) Nietzsche, Max Weber and the question of Wissenschaft Since Nietzsche values the individual above everything else, Runciman argues that an artificially constructed notion of a “Nietzschean sociology” could get into the same kind of trouble as the traditional sciences which Nietzsche himself radically attacks; that is, it could run the risk of valuing its “wissenschaftlichen Anstand”54 and its systematic focus on the sociocultural processes that shape the human condition more than the actual meaning of the “individual” itself. The problem for Runciman then is, how a Nietzschean sociology could avoid that pitfall: “without compromising its own credentials in the act of doing so.”55 Nietzsche’s own position on Wissenschaft in § 25 of Zur Genealogie der Moral is somewhat ambiguous. While it might be true that Wissenschaft helped to discover the superstitious character of notions like “God, the soul, freedom and eternal life”,56 it has not yet helped to overcome the strong human desire for these kinds of ideals, as Nietzsche argues. Moreover, Wissenschaft has placed itself above and outside of human life by trying to get rid of one belief system (i.e. Christian values) and replacing it with another (i.e. the infallibility of Wissenschaft itself). Furthermore, there is a tendency in Wissenschaft to take away the responsibility of the individual for his or her own actions, and to reduce them to physiological processes, biological or psychological drives as well as various other external or internal forces, but in either case clearly measurable factors – a position which Nietzsche would naturally oppose. In the same § 25, Nietzsche refers the reader to the “Vorrede”57 of Die Geburt der Tragödie for his notion of: “Wissenschaft als Problem gefaßt”,58 where he says that his book (Die Geburt der Tragödie) had: “das Problem der Wissenschaft [...] 53 Ibid. 54 Nietzsche, Genealogie der Moral, KSA 5, § 25, p. 405. 55 Runciman, “Can there be a Nietzschean sociology?”, p. 4. 56 Nietzsche, Genealogie der Moral, KSA 5, § 25, p. 405. 57 Nietzsche says “Vorrede”, but the actual title of the section he refers to is “Versuch einer Selbstkritik”. 58 Nietzsche, Genealogie der Moral, KSA 5, § 25, p. 403.

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hingestellt auf den Boden der Kunst – denn das Problem der Wissenschaft kann nicht auf dem Boden der Wissenschaft erkannt werden.”59 Nietzsche’s aim in doing so is: “die Wissenschaft unter der Optik des Künstlers zu sehen, die Kunst aber unter der des Lebens.”60 This seems to be an odd combination “Wissenschaft – Kunst – Leben”, which Nietzsche is proposing here, but it is important to keep in mind that the “Vorrede” was written in 1886 when he republished Die Geburt der Tragödie. In the same year he also republished his book Menschliches, Allzumenschliches. There Nietzsche had written that: “Der wissenschaftliche Mensch ist die Weiterentwicklung des künstlerischen”,61 and it might well be that he had this idea in mind when he wrote the “Vorrede” of Die Geburt der Tragödie. Because then the “Problem der Wissenschaft” becomes the fact that Wissenschaft has detached itself too decisively or has departed too much from “life”, and that only a fusion of the “Optik des Künstlers”62 and of a “wissenschaftlicher Anstand”63 will help to establish a Wissenschaft that serves “life” (and not belittles it). But rather than be placed close to the “ascetic ideal”, “Wissenschaft und asketisches Ideal [...] stehen ja auf einem Boden [...] nämlich auf der gleichen Überschätzung der Wahrheit (richtiger: auf dem gleichen Glauben an die Unabschätzbarkeit, Unkritisierbarkeit der Wahrheit)”,64 Wissenschaft should merge with “art”, because: “Die Kunst, [...] in der die Lüge sich heiligt, der Wille zur Täuschung das gute Gewissen zur Seite hat, ist dem asketischen Ideal viel grundsätzlicher entgegengestellt als die Wissenschaft.”65 This would then clearly make it possible to incorporate into Wissenschaft what usually is exclusively reserved for the artist in his work: The most useful preconditions for his “art”, being: “das Phantastische, Mythische, Unsichere, Extreme, den Sinn für das Symbolische, die Überschätzung der Person, den Glauben an etwas wunderartiges im Genius.”66 Therefore, the triangular constellation of “Wissenschaft – Kunst – Leben”, as the central complex of culture, comes closest to what I believe Nietzsche expects of “science”. It is, as one might call it, an “aesthetical” notion of Wis59 Nietzsche, Geburt der Tragödie, KSA 1, § 2, “Versuch einer Selbstkritik”, p. 13. 60 Ibid. page 14. 61 Nietzsche, Menschliches, Allzumenschliches I, KSA 2, pp. 185f. 62 Nietzsche, Geburt der Tragödie, KSA 1, § 2, “Versuch einer Selbstkritik”, p. 14. 63 Nietzsche, Genealogie der Moral, KSA 5, § 25, p. 405. 64 Ibid. p. 402. 65 Ibid. 66 Nietzsche, Menschliches, Allzumenschliches I, KSA 2, § 146, p. 142.

20

Introduction and statement of the problem

senschaft that relies on “intuition” rather than on “logic”. A similar point of view about Nietzsche’s notion of Wissenschaft has been expressed by Peter Pütz in his essay “Der Mythos bei Nietzsche”,67 where he analyses the use of the term “myth” in Nietzsche’s philosophy and argues that it gains particular importance in his early writings where: “Kunst und Erkenntnis [...] ihre Rollen vertauschen.”68 Pütz argues that this primacy of “art” over “knowledge” is particularly important for Nietzsche’s analysis of the Geburt der Tragödie aus dem Geiste der Musik, where instead of turning to abstract theorising, Nietzsche turns to the images of mythological deities (i.e. Apollo and Dionysos) to describe the forces that propelled sociocultural change in ancient Greece. In his essay Pütz writes: “Wichtig erscheint weniger die ‘logische Einsicht’ als die ‘unmittelbare Sicherheit der Anschauung’. Die postulierte ästhetische Wissenschaft profitiert also nicht von der Theorie der Abstraktion, sondern von der Evidenz sinnlicher Präsentation. Sie bedient sich nicht der Begriffe (vgl. dazu im Gegensatz Hegels Ästhetik), sondern mythischer Bilder griechischer Gottheiten. Sie zeigt diese nicht in ontologisch festen Relationen der Über- oder Unterordnung, des Gegensatzes oder der Synthesis, sondern nähert sich den Bildern in Bildern, die die spannungsgeladene Korrelation und Polarität beider Prinzipien umschreiben.”69

Nietzsche’s turn to the images of mythological deities instead of abstract theorising to describe the forces that propelled sociocultural change, is all the more important for our analysis here, as Nietzsche’s Geburt der Tragödie, in my opinion, aimed at what can be referred to as a “cultural revolution” formed on the basis of “art”. The basic metaphor for Nietzsche’s concept of “art” and a “cultural revolution” is his (irrational) notion of “life” or “Leben”, which remains an important preoccupation in Nietzsche’s philosophy throughout his writings. About this preoccupation with “life” in Nietzsche’s philosophy Pütz writes: “Die später entfaltete Lebensphilosophie kündigt sich bereits an in Nietzsches Interpretation des griechischen Mythos, dessen Elemente ihm anfangs als Fundament der Kunstentwicklung, später als Grundlage des gesamten ‘Lebens’ gelten.”70 This whole complex of Nietzsche’s understanding of culture as a fusion of: “Wissenschaft – Kunst – Leben”, will be of great relevance once again in Chapter 6 of this book, where I will try to establish more precise67 Peter Pütz, “Der Mythos bei Nietzsche”, in Helmut Koopmann (ed.), Mythos und Mythologie in der Literatur des 19. Jahrhunderts (Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1979), pp. 251-262. 68 Ibid. p. 251. 69 Ibid. pp. 254-255. 70 Ibid. p. 252.

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ly what I will throughout this study refer to as Nietzsche’s “cultural sociology” or Kultursoziologie. First let us see, however, what W.G. Runciman has to say to Nietzsche’s complex, yet highly unsystematic notion of Wissenschaft.

2.2.1) W.G. Runciman and Nietzsche’s notion of Wissenschaft To repeat the earlier point: Since Nietzsche values the individual above everything else, Runciman argues that a “Nietzschean sociology” could get into the same kind of trouble as the traditional sciences which Nietzsche himself radically attacks; that is, it could run the risk of valuing its “wissenschaftlichen Anstand”71 and its systematic focus on the sociocultural processes that shape the human condition more than the actual meaning of the “individual” itself. Runciman asks how a Nietzschean sociology could avoid this pitfall and still remain a Wissenschaft at the same time. In answering this question, Runciman goes to some lengths to convince his reader that Nietzsche: “never forswore the practice of the kind of rigorous scholarship which had secured him his professorship at Basle”72 (forgetting that it was through the support of his professor, Friedrich Wilhelm Ritschl [1806–1876], that he had received the post without even having completed his doctorate). Runciman, thereby, wants to show – particularly by quoting § 204 of Jenseits von Gut und Böse, where Nietzsche (ironically) calls himself a “wissenschaftlichen Menschen”73 – that Nietzsche stayed true to Wissenschaft, even when he most openly attacked its achievements, because it had helped mankind – among other things – to move beyond the fallacies of “superstition”. Cause and effect, as well as other scientific explanations, might even constitute some agreeable form of truth for Nietzsche, even if at other occasions he might have rejected claims to “absolute truths” as being nothing but illusions, Runciman says. But, nevertheless, Nietzsche still remains critical of Wissenschaft, as he holds that there are “many truths” and not a single authoritative one that can claim infallibility, and hence Wissenschaft is only one among an infinite number of possible perspectives that can be taken.74 But Wissenschaft can also become: “eine der dümmsten, das heißt sinnärmsten aller möglichen Weltinterpretationen”,75 if it seriously claims to have found the “first and last laws” that constitute the irrefutable foundations of “all things being” (in emphasising this point

71 Nietzsche, Genealogie der Moral, KSA 5, § 25, p. 405. 72 Runciman, “Can there be a Nietzschean sociology?”, p. 4. 73 Nietzsche, Jenseits von Gut und Böse, KSA 5, § 204, p. 130. 74 Runciman, “Can there be a Nietzschean sociology?”, p. 5. 75 Nietzsche, Fröhliche Wissenschaft, KSA 3, § 373, p. 626.

22

Introduction and statement of the problem

Nietzsche refers to the principles of mechanics in particular, as they have been named as such “ultimate laws”). Runciman, however, detects an apparent paradox in Nietzsche’s theory of truth. Nietzsche seems to want to claim two different things at the same time: First, he wants to deny the existence of “absolute truth”, and secondly, Nietzsche wants to put forward many different perspectives and many different truths with no single one taking the lead. Fair enough, but, as Runciman consistently argues, Nietzsche also advances a radical claim to “veracity” or Wahrhaftigkeit,76 but limits it only to the likes of Zarathustra and hardly anyone else, as Zarathustra would certainly embody, what Nietzsche calls the: “Heroismus des Wahrhaftigen”.77 In § 344 of Die fröhliche Wissenschaft Nietzsche writes: “der Wahrhaftige, in jenem verwegenen und letzten Sinne, wie ihn der Glaube an die Wissenschaft voraussetzt, bejaht damit eine andere Welt als die des Lebens, der Natur und der Geschichte; und insofern er diese ‘andere Welt’ bejaht, [...] muß er nicht ebendamit ihr Gegenstück, diese Welt, unsere Welt – verneinen?”78 If Wahrhaftigkeit is indeed separated from “truth”, and reserved for the few in Nietzsche then, Runciman claims, there can be no Nietzschean sociology at all (which in my opinion makes no sense), or only one that would look exactly like Max Weber’s. Runciman says that Weber was certainly concerned with establishing a: “Lehre von den Herrschaftsgebilden”, but that Weber’s version lacked any of the psychological components of Nietzsche’s “will to power”: “Weber, one could say, was both sociologist and Nietzschean; but he was not a Nietzschean sociologist.”79 In Chapter 4 of this book, where I will discuss the legacy of Nietzsche’s philosophy in Max Weber’s sociology, we will clearly come to see that Runciman is wrong here, because Weber clearly was both. The way forward from this dilemma for Runciman is Nietzsche’s demand for a theory of the “structures of power and domination in place of sociology”,80 as already mentioned above. Runciman connects this theory with Nietzsche’s notion of “psychology as the developmental theory of the will to power” as voiced in § 23 of Jenseits von Gut und Böse: “Die gesamte Psychologie [...] als Morphologie und Entwicklungslehre des Willens zur Macht.”81 This is where Runciman wins his focus and justification for claiming that Nietzsche must have believed that: “at least some propositions [can, F.S.-L.] be advanced about human history 76 Runciman, “Can there be a Nietzschean sociology?”, p. 6. 77 Nietzsche, Jenseits von Gut und Böse, KSA 5, § 230, p. 169. 78 Nietzsche, Fröhliche Wissenschaft, KSA 3, § 344, p. 577. 79 Runciman, “Can there be a Nietzschean sociology?”, p. 8. 80 Nietzsche, Der Wille zur Macht, § 462, p. 323. 81 Nietzsche, Jenseits von Gut und Böse, KSA 5, § 23, p. 38.

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and psychology which require assent because of the strength of the arguments”,82 as he would thus not have spoken of an: “Entwicklungslehre”.83

2.3) Can there be a Nietzschean Sociology? In Runciman’s theory of a Nietzschean sociology, human history would be covered by Nietzsche’s: “Lehre von den Herrschaftsgebilden”,84 while psychology would be covered by the: “Entwicklungslehre des Willens zur Macht.”85 But is that enough for the development of a distinctive Nietzschean sociology? The answer Runciman gives is ambiguous on that point. Runciman gives an example of the actual formation of societies guided by the “will to power in action”, in order to overcome objections to his claim that a theory of the “structures of power and domination” adequately describes what sociologists are doing. Runciman says: “The objection is sometimes made to this view that many people have no say, and indeed may not want any say, in how power is distributed and exercised in the society to which they belong. But the answer is that it is precisely those who do seek to realise their will to power in action, including those whose Sklavenaufstand is a reaction against those more powerful than they, who cause communities, institutions and societies to be the kinds of communities, institutions and societies that they are.”86

Nevertheless, even Nietzsche did not, as Runciman consistently stresses, believe that everyone was always driven by the “will to power”. But Nietzsche strongly believed that knowledge was a key tool of power: “Die Erkenntnis arbeitet als Werkzeug der Macht. So liegt es auf der Hand, daß sie wächst mit jedem mehr von Macht”87 For Nietzsche’s philosophical followers this meant that: “all acquisition and diffusion of knowledge”88 became an expression of the “will to power”. Somewhat mysteriously Runciman concludes: “if nothing else [...] Nietzsche’s sociology of sociology is a sociology.”89 Runciman 82 Runciman, “Can there be a Nietzschean sociology?”, p. 3. 83 Nietzsche, Jenseits von Gut und Böse, KSA 5, § 23, p. 38. 84 Nietzsche, Der Wille zur Macht, § 462, p. 323. 85 Nietzsche, Jenseits von Gut und Böse, KSA 5, § 23, p. 38. 86 Runciman, “Can there be a Nietzschean sociology?”, p. 7. 87 Nietzsche, Der Wille zur Macht, § 480, p. 336. 88 Runciman, “Can there be a Nietzschean sociology?”, p. 7. 89 Ibid.

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Introduction and statement of the problem

proceeds by suggesting what could be called a meta-sociology. It is a metasociology in so far as it proposes a “sociology of sociology” that critically examines itself as it goes along arguing its case, along the following lines proposed by Runciman:

– First, the will to power is the driving force of history: it explains the observed outcome of human sociocultural evolution as nothing else does.

– The will to power expresses itself differently in different historical and social contexts.

– These propositions apply to the explanation of human beings’ own attempts to explain their history and impose their chosen explanations on one another.

– Since

these three propositions are themselves a product of the will to power, they can be assessed only by reference to the particular historical and social contexts in which the will to power has found expression.90

The form which Nietzsche’s sociology is to take, according to Runciman, is the stylistic shape of the aphorism: “which has to be grounded in an observation of human behaviour which both the aphorist and the reader can agree to be accurate.”91 This is also in line with a more general or Encyclopaedic definition of aphorism, which states that it is: “a concise expression of doctrine or principle or any other generally accepted truth conveyed in a pithy, memorable statement.”92 According to Runciman, Nietzsche’s aphorisms, therefore, aim for the: “correction of the ‘aspect-blindness’ of the reader”,93 that causes him to mistake a conceptual connection for a causal one. Moreover, Nietzsche’s aphorisms also help to unfold the distinctively “Nietzschean” sociology of sociology and its crucial reliance on the ‘will to power’ as Runciman argues. Runciman says: “The implicit Lehre von den Herrschaftsgebilden is the Entwicklungslehre of the ‘will to power’ as it finds different expression in different social contexts, most if not all of which either distort or repress what

90 Ibid. p. 9. 91 Ibid. p. 11. 92 Simpson and Winter, The Oxford English Dictionary, vol. 1, p. 480. 93 Runciman, “Can there be a Nietzschean sociology?”, p. 13.

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only a Nietzschean sociology can reveal to be its workings.”94 But does Runciman believe that there can be a Nietzschean sociology? Runciman agrees with Nietzsche’s theory of perspectival views and accounts that depend on the personal, social and historical context of the person giving that account, because: “no sociologist’s writings can be causally independent of whatever his or her social context may be.”95 Yet he believes that Nietzsche asks a lot of his readers, who not only have to follow his theory of the will to power, but who also have to accept it as the driving force of all events. Therefore, according to Runciman, Nietzsche clearly does fall victim to the: “apparently self-defeating, self-referential implications of his own perspectivism”,96 since Nietzsche only allows for his own value system and accepts no other values next to his. And so, Runciman is undecided on the question he posed at the beginning or at least leaves it open, since he prefers to go with Weber’s: “‘polytheism’ [...] of values [...] where those whose values are different from his own are as fully entitled to theirs as he is to his own”,97 than with Nietzsche’s “ordered hierarchy of values” and his “developmental theory of the will to power”. What Runciman, however, fails to realise is that a: “sociology of sociology is not just a specialism among others, but an essential tool of sociological reflexivity.”98 It is also a particular strength of Nietzsche’s writings to draw attention to the need for a greater degree of self-reflexivity in any analytical endeavour. As argued before, what sociology could learn from Nietzsche’s radical critique of its outlook on and approach to society is, that it should be far more self-critical about its theoretical scope, as well as its ability to explain social phenomena from within the sociocultural processes it is part of. Yet it would appear that Runciman does not see the relevant sociological arguments in Nietzsche’s philosophy, which is in my opinion (a) due to the lack of Runciman’s engagement with Nietzsche’s sociological arguments and his arguments on sociology (quoting § 462 of Der Wille zur Macht is certainly not enough with reference to Nietzsche’s comments on sociology),99 as well as (b) due to Runciman’s attempt to radically separate Weber’s sociology from Nietzsche’s philosophy. It, therefore, also seems clear

94 Ibid. p. 14. 95 Ibid. p. 17 96 Ibid. p. 20. 97 Ibid. 98 Outhwaite, “The Myth of Modernist Method”, p. 19. 99 We will come to see the true scope of Nietzsche’s comments on sociology more clearly in Section 2 of Chapter 3 of this book.

26

Introduction and statement of the problem

that Runciman regards Weber’s approach to “science” as being far superior to Nietzsche’s, and so consequently Runciman dismisses virtually all claims that Nietzsche’s philosophy warrants any scientific (or thematic) merits for the theory and practice of sociology. Yet I believe that both Runciman’s harsh critique and ultimately also his dismissal of a Nietzschean sociology can be strongly criticised on at least two counts: (1) While it is certainly true that Nietzsche saw all belief systems (including his own) as undermined on the basis of their being only the particular expressions of the will to power in the world, which made all their claims necessarily false, since all possible perspectives as such are only relative with regards to the particular power constellation they are themselves subject to or serve,100 he still believed, as Stefan Lorenz Sorgner argues, that his own philosophy was close to – what might be referred to as – “the truth” as it appealed to the “spirit of the times”, which Nietzsche regarded as the “scientific spirit”. Sorgner writes: “Nietzsche did not regard his philosophy to be only his own truth. He thought that it would be dominant in forthcoming millennia because human beings will have become more powerful, their ‘spirit’ longs for a more demanding theory, and his philosophy is suitable for this purpose. Nietzsche’s philosophy appeals to the ‘scientific spirit’ which will govern the forthcoming centuries. This claim also explains why Nietzsche is not inconsistent in holding that all perspectives are equally false in respect to ‘the truth’, but that his philosophy is superior to others; it is so because it appeals to the ‘spirit of the times’, i.e. the ‘scientific spirit’. So, according to Nietzsche, the ‘age of science’ began with himself.”101 While Runciman is readily prepared to accept that all possible perspectives as such are only relative with regards to the particular power constellation they are themselves subject to or serve, he is not prepared to take this thought to its radical conclusion as Sorgner, for example, clearly does in his analysis of Nietzsche’s Metaphysics without Truth. (2) Runciman briefly discusses § 462 of Der Wille zur Macht, where Nietzsche advocates “a theory of the forms of domination and power instead of sociology”, yet fails to engage with Nietzsche’s analysis of these forms of domination (including their institutional set up, as the German word Herrschaftsgebilde, “forms of domination”, means both abstract as well as concrete structures of domination). But what did Nietzsche actually think of the “structures of power and domination”? Runciman never asks this question and consequently fails to engage with Nietzsche’s highly complex notion of the state. For Nietzsche, as much as for Weber, the natural place to look for Herrschafts100 Sorgner, Metaphysics without Truth, p. 122. 101 Ibid. p. 150.

Recent Weberian responses to Nietzsche’s influence on Max Weber’s sociology

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gebilde or “structures of power and domination” in any given society, would be to look at the function, the institutions and the set-up of its state system. And Nietzsche clearly developed a distinctive notion of the state, even if he developed it – ex negativo – as a rather “unsystematic” critique of the modern state, which he frequently contrasted with the ancient Greek city states.102 There is no room here to engage with Nietzsche’s notion of the “state” in any detail other than to say that an analysis of this aspect of Nietzsche’s philosophy could once again have been a starting point in the development of a Nietzschean sociology, but once again Runciman clearly fails to engage with this notion. Most of these aspects clearly remain unexplored by Runciman and it is certainly not enough to simply claim that Weber and Nietzsche differ somewhat or even fundamentally on their notion of “science” (even if the differences in their respective notions of science are important). I would assume that this was blatantly obvious. But there are also some clear merits in Runciman’s analysis: The first one lies with the fact that he seriously poses the question: “Can there be a Nietzschean sociology?”. The second one lies in his attempt to analyse the differences and similarities between Nietzsche’s and Weber’s notion of Wissenschaft, which is fundamental to any assessment of Nietzsche’s influence on sociology as it is here, as we have come to see throughout this chapter, where a conflict between the two counterparts (i.e. Nietzsche and Sociology) clearly arises. In this chapter we have so far also clearly seen that modern sociology seriously doubts Nietzsche’s notion of “science” as well as his claims about sociocultural reality, yet in our discussion of “Nietzsche and the Sociology of his Times” in Chapter 3 of this book we will come to realise that Nietzsche in turn seriously doubts the scientific claims as well as the mode of analysis of sociocultural reality put forward by early sociology. Yet both Nietzsche as well as early sociology tried to make sense of the wider sociocultural transformations as well as of the ambiguities and paradoxes that characterised “modernity” in their analysis of social reality and, therefore, obviously shared the same object in their wider sociocultural anal102 In his essay on Nietzsche’s concept of the “state”, Raymond Polin argues that Nietzsche never developed a systematic “political” (nor “sociological” for that matter) analysis of the state and continues by stressing that only in as much as the state became an integrative part of his philosophical analysis of “culture” and “civilisation”, did Nietzsche ponder upon the notion of the state. And when Nietzsche touches upon the notion of the “modern state”, it is either to discredit it or to compare it to the ancient Greek city states: “Nur in dem Maße, in dem politische Probleme integrierende Bestandteile jener Kultur und Zivilisation sind, die den eigentlichen Gegenstand seiner Philosophie bilden, hat er sie eigentlich berührt. [Gerade deswegen aber verfolgt Nietzsche die “Politik eines Einsamen” und, F.S.L.] seine Anschauungen über Politik und Staatswesen sind in der Tat die eines Einzelgängers.” Raymond Polin, “Nietzsche und der Staat oder die Politik eines Einsamen”, in Hans Steffen (ed.), Nietzsche: Werk und Wirkungen (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1974), p. 27.

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Introduction and statement of the problem

yses.103 Nietzsche’s influence on Max Weber’s sociology (to be discussed in more detail in Chapter IV is a good example of this tendency, but the shared object of their wider sociocultural analyses will also become very clear when we analyse Tönnies’, Mayreder’s and Alfred Weber’s responses to Nietzsche’s sociocultural critique of “modernity” in later chapters of this book.

3) The phases of the Nietzsche reception Due to the multi-layered nature of the sociological Nietzsche reception – of which I have given an indication already in the previous sections – it becomes obvious that it is very hard to generalise about it. That being said, one has to acknowledge that it is immensely helpful to try and systematise the reception Nietzsche’s philosophy received into a chronological order. This is all the more necessary and important in the light of critical claims like the one made by Wolfgang Jordan (and others), who argues that the recent critique of Nietzsche’s philosophy largely attempts to actually avoid discussing Nietzsche’s writings themselves: “Die Rezeption von Friedrich Nietzsches Philosophie kommt stellenweise ganz ohne die Lektüre der Werke Friedrich Nietzsches aus.”104 Even if that seems to be an extreme overstatement of the current philosophical reaction to Nietzsche’s philosophy, it bears more than a grain of truth, because for a large part the most recent discussions of Nietzsche’s philosophy have not been taking place on the basis of scholarly research on his own texts, but more often through the mediated and deconstructed version of Nietzsche’s philosophy as represented in, for example, Derrida’s writings. This is not to say that Derrida’s reading of Nietzsche is unoriginal or without its merits, but it is not enough to simply read Nietzsche through the eyes of Derrida or other Deconstructionists. Peter V. Zima, for example, argues, that in: “its commercialised form, Deconstruction (both French and American) has been reduced, in a diversity of intellectual circles, to a mere catch-phrase, a reduction that has removed this strand of thinking from the historical and intellectual context of its development.”105 An acute awareness of Nietzsche’s own texts as well as of the different historical phases of the various responses to his work – including Deconstruction and Critical Theory – is, therefore, essential for appropriating

103 More on the shared elements in the respective analyses of “modernity” by Nietzsche and Sociology will be discussed in Chapter 5, where I will scrutinise the inherent problems in the dualistic modes of interpreting “modernity”. 104 Wolfgang Jordan, “Das Ende aller Irrtümer”, in Wissenschaftlicher Literaturanzeiger, 38:1/2 (Fernwald: Litblockin Verlag, 1998), p. 15. 105 Peter V. Zima, Deconstruction and Critical Theory (London/New York: Continuum, 2002), p. vi.

The phases of the Nietzsche reception

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not only one’s understanding of Nietzsche’s philosophy and its influence, but also of the intellectual movements and thinkers he had a decisive influence on in intellectual history, like e.g. Derrida and Deconstruction. For our purposes here a useful distinction of different reception phases has been attempted by Alfredo Guzzoni, who argues that there are in the main three distinct periods or phases of the philosophical Nietzsche reception. For Guzzoni the first phase started in 1890 and ended in 1930. But what Guzzoni fails to recognise is that there clearly were also distinct shifts taking place in the responses to Nietzsche’s work within this first phase, which he is quite obviously not accounting for. The reasons for the shifts in the first phase of the Nietzsche reception are mainly linked to the years 1914 and 1918/19. These periodical breaks at the beginning of the 20th century clearly demonstrated: “das Scheitern der intellektuellen Auseinandersetzungen mit der Moderne”,106 which was in part at least linked to Nietzsche’s radical critique of bourgeois culture, as Klaus Lichtblau argues. And as a consequence of its huge impact Nietzsche’s philosophy was – rightly or wrongly – at least partly blamed for this “failure”. We will come to see this more clearly in Chapter 6 of this book, when we will discuss Lichtblau’s arguments about this failure in more detail. Guzzoni proceeds to argue that the second phase of the philosophical Nietzsche reception lasted throughout the 1930s and that the third phase started in the 1960s. Yet what also differentiates these three phases, despite their chronological succession, are the topics and aspects of Nietzsche’s philosophy that became important for his commentators. In the first phase it were mainly certain singular aspects of Nietzsche’s writings that dominated the ongoing debates, like his critique of morality or his critique of culture. The second phase then turned to the metaphysical aspects of Nietzsche’s work and tried to produce all-encompassing views and analyses of his thoughts. The third phase, however, turned to these “established”, all-encompassing views and analyses of Nietzsche’s thoughts in an attempt to critically re-evaluate their claims and to bring forth new and hitherto uncharted aspects of his philosophy. Alfredo Guzzoni summarises the history of the first one hundred years philosophical Nietzsche reception in the following way: “Sieht man auf die zurückliegenden 100 Jahre Philosophiegeschichte, so läßt sich die Nietzsche Rezeption in drei Perioden gliedern. Die erste – etwa 1890 bis 1930 – ist gekennzeichnet durch die Herausstellung einzelner Aspekte, im wesentlichen derselben, die auch die außerphilosophische Wirkung markieren: Nietzsche als Moralphilosoph, als Kulturkritiker. Die Themen sind also vor allem: Immoralismus, Antichristentum, Übermenschentum. Die Hinwendung 106 Lichtblau, Kulturkrise und die Soziologie um die Jahrhundertwende, p. 25.

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Introduction and statement of the problem

zu den metaphysischen Grundlagen von Nietzsches Denken und in eins damit die Ausarbeitung von geschlossenen Nietzsche Darstellungen kennzeichnen die zweite Phase, deren Schwerpunkt in den 30er Jahren liegt. Eine dritte und bisher letzte Periode mit dem Ende des Zweiten Weltkriegs beginnen zu lassen, ist nicht frei von Bedenklichkeit. Es findet seine Rechtfertigung darin, daß die Auseinandersetzung mit dem metaphysischen Grundgerüst von Nietzsches Denken um diese Zeit im Wesentlichen abgeschlossen ist. Die Wirkung jener großen Interpretationen dagegen, die zu einer verbreiteten philosophischen Nietzsche Rezeption führte, wird eigentlich erst nach dem Krieg faßbar und erstreckt sich bis tief in die 60er Jahre. In dieser Hinsicht wäre es sicherlich richtiger, die Zäsur um die Mitte der 60er Jahre zu legen; erst danach werden, von Ausnahmen abgesehen, neue Ansätze sichtbar, die aus der Auseinandersetzung mit den genannten geschlossenen Nietzsche Deutungen erwachsen.” 107

Guzzoni’s schematic conception also roughly corresponds to the views proposed by Manfred Riedel, Stephen E. Aschheim and Ernst Nolte in their respective assessments of the legacy of “Nietzscheanism” in Germany, but as mentioned before Guzzoni fails to acknowledge the fundamental shifts within the first phase. Yet in combining their views, however, we are able to provide a very systematic chronology of the different historical phases of the Nietzsche reception. Aschheim, Riedel and Nolte all date the beginning of the Nietzsche reception in Germany with the year 1890. Like Guzzoni they all agree that Nietzsche’s madness paved the way for the success of his writings – an ironic and, at the same time, telling coincidence perhaps. Nietzsche’s fierce critique of the rigid structures and the corrupted spirit of the Wilhelminian era, as well as his attempt to overcome the culture and morality it had produced, are – as we will come to see – the main reasons for his appeal to numerous groups of German intellectuals from the 1890s onwards. Aschheim argues that “this complex process can only be grasped by examining both its thematic and chronological dimensions”108 and so he focuses on: “group patterns and organised clusters of influence” as well as “on institutions, movements, and broad ideational currents.”109 Aschheim’s focus, therefore, is the broad picture of Nietzsche’s historical legacy. The focus of this book, however, lies with selected individual attitudes and relationships to Nietzsche’s life and work, as represented in the writings of four of his contemporaries. This selection has been made in the hope that its focus will illuminate (a) more general trends in early Nietzscheanism as well as in the hope that it will also help to 107 Guzzoni (ed.), 100 Jahre philosophische Nietzsche Rezeption, pp. vii-viii 108 Aschheim, The Nietzsche Legacy in Germany, pp. 2-3. 109 Ibid. p. 3.

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demonstrate (b) the continued relevance of the often overlooked sociological responses to Nietzsche’s work. Like Aschheim, Riedel also aims to provide an assessment of Nietzsche’s influence on the different: “Weltanschauungsparteien des europäischen Bürgerkriegs im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert”,110 but at the same time he also wants to show the distance which is so clearly present in Nietzsche’s writings – and even as a frequently very outspoken force – which separates him from these opposing parties in the “European civil war” as well. This is why Riedel’s thematic and chronological dimension largely follows the “spirit of the times”: “Die Analyse führt uns in mehreren Gängen durch das Labyrinth des Zeitgeistes.”111 But Riedel’s approach to the thematic and chronological dimensions of the Nietzsche reception differs from Aschheim’s in a further respect, in so far as he grants a lot of space to the more specific differences in East and West German attitudes to Nietzsche, and to the historical problems inherent in the particular political aims of the work of the Nietzsche archive in Weimar (or to be more precise the people in charge of it) in the different historical periods of Germanys past. Nolte’s approach to the thematic and chronological dimensions of the Nietzsche reception on the other hand, is different to both Aschheim’s as well as Riedel’s attempts. Unlike Riedel and Aschheim, Nolte focuses exclusively on the period between 1890 and 1914. This is important, because Nolte believes that with the beginning of the First World War a different tone had entered the reception of Nietzsche’s philosophy. Nietzsche (and for that matter also Karl Marx, who was generally perceived as his antipode) then – rightly or wrongly – became the principal ideologues for what Nolte refers to as the “battlefield of the European civil war”.112 And, therefore, Nolte makes the changing attitudes towards Nietzsche’s philosophy after 1914 very clear: “Nach dem Ausbruch des ersten Weltkrieges nehmen die Dinge ein anderes Gesicht an: Der Zarathustra im Sturmgepäck zahlreicher deutscher Soldaten, die alliierte Propaganda gegen den angeblichen Vorkämpfer des deutschen Imperialismus und Nachkriegsschriften wie das hymnische Buch von Ernst Bertram: Versuch einer Mythologie (zuerst 1918) würden in ein neues und weit umfangreicheres Kapitel gehören.” 113

110 Riedel, Nietzsche in Weimar, p. 17. 111 Ibid. 112 Nolte, Nietzsche und der Nietzscheanismus, pp. 295-306. And which is, by all means, a very problematic concept. 113 Ibid. p. 11.

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Moreover, Nolte says that the term Nietzscheanism, which he chose to characterise the thematic dimension of his study, is not without its problems, as: “der Umfang des Begriffs [...] ja schwer zu bestimmen [ist, F.S.L.]”.114 Nolte also tries to show that his study of “Nietzscheanism” differs from many “standard readings” of the reception of Nietzsche’s philosophy, but that the borderlines between the two methodological approaches are hard to draw: “Letzten Endes ist sogar die Grenze zur sogenannten ‘Rezeptionsgeschichte’ schwer zu ziehen, und gerade die Aussagen von Anhängern können oft genug nicht aus dem Zusammenhang mit den Polemiken der Gegner herausgelöst werden.”115 I really do not believe that the latter part of his statement – a possible disentanglement of arguments made by Nietzscheans and their adversaries – is desirable at all, as a study of the reception of Nietzsche’s philosophy will necessarily have to entail both aspects: critique as well as appraisal. This will become much clearer in later chapters of this study, when I, for example, discuss Mayreder’s critique of and polemic against the Nietzsche cult which goes hand in hand with her appraisal of the philosopher’s writings. Nolte, however, is very critical of any attempts at a Rezeptionsgeschichte, as he says that it is imperative to develop the criteria by which one assesses the Nietzsche reception from within Nietzsche’s own positions and writings, otherwise one is neither true to Nietzsche nor to his commentators and critics.116 Many writers seem to neglect this factor Nolte says. I entirely agree with Nolte on this point, which is why throughout this book I will always compare the arguments put forward by his critics – i.e. Max Weber, Tönnies, Mayreder and Alfred Weber and their respective discussion of Nietzsche’s life and work – with the arguments made by Nietzsche himself. My hope is that I will thereby achieve more than just the creation of a mere: “Kuriositätenkabinett”.117 Even though Nolte’s concerns about the cataclysmic date 1914 and the changes it caused in the responses to Nietzsche’s philosophy are justified, I believe that a slightly broader categorisation is not without its advantages.

114 Ibid. p. 10. 115 Ibid. 116 Nolte is very critical of attempts at a Rezeptionsgeschichte, as he believes that in earnest this is hardly possible at all, as one would, for example, have to be fluent in every language in a which a book, an article, a poem or any other form of response to Nietzsche has been written: “Eine Rezeptionsgeschichte nun wäre ein so gut wie unmögliches Unterfangen, und es ist schwerlich ein Zufall, daß es derartiges bisher bloß in der Form bibliographischer Versuche gibt: Der Autor müßte mit der gesamten philosophischen und literarischen Weltliteratur vertraut sein, und das Ungarische müßte ihm so wenig Schwierigkeiten bereiten wie das Russische. Wenn man dem Begriff dagegen die engste Bedeutung gibt und ihn auf die Gruppe der ausgeprägten “Jünger” beschränkt, würde man Gefahr laufen, ein Kuriositätenkabinett einzurichten und urteilslos darin herumzugehen, solange man nicht aus Nietzsche selbst heraus Urteilskriterien entwickelt hat.” Ibid. pp. 10-11. 117 Ibid. p. 11.

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Therefore, I agree in principle with Guzzoni’s categorisation of the phases of the philosophical Nietzsche reception, as long as the important shifts within the first phase are also accounted for. But Guzzoni offers a very general view which is not very helpful if one wants to make even further and more minute distinctions between the many books (the number frequently given is “more than 10.000” books and in-depth expositions)118 that have been written about Nietzsche. It is clear, however, that the books which have been written about Nietzsche are – as with any other philosopher – of a very mixed quality and also of a very diverse nature, which makes it even more difficult to systematise the Nietzsche reception into more detailed segments beyond the very general pattern established by Guzzoni. Any further categorisations should in my opinion be thematically clustered, which is why I focus on Nietzsche’s influence on early sociology throughout this book, which broadly speaking falls into the first phase Guzzoni mentions (1890–1930), and was characterised by the emphasis on Nietzsche’s critique of culture and morality. But in order to give an impression of the wider Nietzsche reception in the first half of the 20th century in the following chapter, I will try to provide a general account of Nietzsche’s influence on German cultural and intellectual history at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, as well as an outline of Nietzsche’s influence on philosophy, literature and art in the same period. In my opinion, this will help to demonstrate the differences as well as the similarities between the sociological reception of the philosophers’ thoughts and other forms of responses to Nietzsche’s writings.

118 Josef Rattner, Nietzsche: Leben – Werk – Wirkung (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2000), p. 306.

Chapter II The traditional Nietzsche reception in its historical context

The traditional Nietzsche reception in its historical context

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Chapter II The traditional Nietzsche reception in its historical context Nietzsche’s challenge to modernity is comparable to that of an earthquake. No one will, therefore, dispute that the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche has been and still is exceptionally influential. The numbers of volumes written about his writings fill numerous library shelves, if not indeed minor libraries themselves. Therefore it is little surprising that the German philosopher Jakob J. Hollitscher said as early as 1904 that: “ein neues Buch über Nietzsche scheint überflüssig zu sein, wenn man bedenkt, wie viele und eben nicht schlechte Bücher über ihn geschrieben wurden.”1 In fact today Hollitscher’s book – a fairly harmless account (“Darstellung und Kritik”)2 of Nietzsche’s major concepts – is only worth mentioning for this opening sentence. It goes to show how the Nietzsche reception had already established itself quite firmly in the academic world of philosophy in 1904. Its influence was mainly due to the exceptional creativity with which Nietzsche had identified, analysed and deconstructed the “spirit of his times”. Bruno Hillebrand also seems to confirm this view when he says that: “Insgesamt war das Werk [Nietzsches, F.S.L.] ein Magazin von ungeheurer Sprengkraft. Der Leser war aufs äußerste gefordert. Die geistige Situation der Zeit war von Nietzsche mit einer bis dahin nicht gekannten Rücksichtslosigkeit aufgerissen worden.”3 In later sections of this book we will clearly come to see that Friedrich Nietzsche was a fierce and uncompromising critic of “culture”, “civilisation” and “society” who both witnessed, as well as indirectly influenced, the emergence of 20th century sociological thought. This chapter therefore aims to provide a brief overview of the general trends of the Nietzsche reception in the late 19th and early 20th centuries to set the stage for our analysis. Hence a general account of Nietzsche’s influence on German cul1 Jakob J. Hollitscher, Friedrich Nietzsche: Darstellung und Kritik (Wien/Leipzig: Wilhelm Braumüller Verlag, 1904), p. vii. 2 Ibid. Subtitle of the book. 3 Hillebrand, “Vorwort”, in Hillebrand (ed.), Nietzsche und die deutsche Literatur, p. xi.

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tural and intellectual history will provide the background for a wider investigation of some of the parallels between the philosophical and the literary responses to his work as well as of the influence Nietzsche’s philosophy has had on art. His writings are, however, no less insightful into the workings of society than the writings of many other social thinkers and cultural critics of his times. If anything, I would argue that Nietzsche’s writings are more insightful than the writings of many of his contemporaries, which, in my opinion, is basically due to the exceptional creativity of Nietzsche’s analysis of the sociocultural reality of his society. Although it is true that Nietzsche focuses on particular angles (i.e. culture and morality) and sometimes partly or even totally neglects others (i.e. economics and class-structure), he is still mainly concerned with the “grand scope of things”. In Nietzsche’s focus on particular aspects of the sociocultural development of modern society there also lie the particular strengths of his arguments: The diversity of the explanatory views offered for one large aspect of social transformation, i.e. of sociocultural development. This particular strength of his writings was, as we will clearly come to realise in later chapters of this book, very much appreciated by all four sociologists and social thinkers we are looking at. However, before I turn to the particular thematic niche of the early sociological Nietzsche reception and Nietzsche’s comments on sociology in more detail, I will in this chapter briefly outline some of the general features of the wider Nietzsche reception in the first half of the 20th century in Germany in order to be able to highlight some of the similarities, but more importantly also the differences that arise in the various responses to Nietzsche’s work.

1) Nietzsche’s influence on German cultural and intellectual history Important overall assessments of Nietzsche’s influence on German cultural and intellectual history are the groundbreaking studies by the East German philosopher Manfred Riedel from Halle and by the intellectual history scholar Stephen E. Aschheim from Jerusalem University.4 These two books are complementary in so far as they are both trying to emphasise the exceptional cultural importance of Nietzsche’s philosophical legacy in Germany. Aschheim, for example, stresses the significance of a Nietzsche reception which is: “sensitive to the openended, transformational nature of the Nietzsche legacy [as only in this way one, F.S.L.] will be able to appreciate its rich complexity.”5 Riedel on the other hand emphasises that while Nietzsche’s influence on German culture is certainly very 4 Riedel, Nietzsche in Weimar (1997); Aschheim, The Nietzsche Legacy in Germany (1992). 5 Aschheim, The Nietzsche Legacy in Germany, pp. 3-4.

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complex, it is at the same time fundamental to analyse his: “furchtbare [...] Verflechtung mit dem Weltgeschehen des Jahrhunderts”.6 This is essential, Riedel argues, as Nietzsche’s philosophy – rightly or wrongly – is closely associated with the rise of fascist ideology. Another important, though thoroughly conservative contribution to this field of study is Ernst Nolte’s book on “Nietzscheanism” in Germany, where he argues that: “Nietzsche neben Marx der zweite der intellektuellen Protagonisten war, deren Konzeptionen den ideologischen Bürgerkrieg vorwegnahmen und doch zugleich überschritten, welcher einen so großen Teil der ersten Hälfte des 20. Jahrhunderts bestimmte.”7 Hence Nolte aims to analyse the conditions and circumstances under which Nietzsche’s philosophy managed to grow in importance during the first two decades of the 20th century. All three books, however, are important contributions to the subject of Nietzsche studies, yet all of them come to the topic from a different angle. None of the three versions, however, provides an “exhaustive” account (nor claims to be providing one) of Nietzsche’s influence on German intellectual history. They rather have to be seen as complementary pieces of a puzzle that aims to establish a full picture as well as an overall assessment of the Nietzsche reception (of which these three studies themselves are also part). Hence they are corresponding parts: “jener großen Komödie des Geistes, ohne deren Grundlegung – das stand nur wenigen so klar vor Augen wie Friedrich Nietzsche – die Geschichte des philosophischen Denkens nicht wäre, was sie ist.”8 What is telling about all of these three books is that they were all published during the 1990s, which on the one hand is due to the fact that this decade marked the first 100 years of Nietzsche reception in Germany. But on the other hand, and on a more complex level, this decade also marked the beginning of a new and critical look at this Nietzsche reception itself, one that clearly aimed to move beyond the ideological demarcation lines that had marked much of the beginning of 20th century and the subsequent reading of Nietzsche’s philosophy in the years between 1930 and 1990.9 In this respect Riedel’s study is clearly a good starting point, for he tries to show that the fate of Nietzsche’s philosophy and the influence it exerted on very diverse groups of sociocultural actors in Germany is also a paradigm for the political history of the 20th century of that country: “Das Schick-

6 Riedel, Nietzsche in Weimar, p. 13. 7 Nolte, Nietzsche und der Nietzscheanismus (2000), p. 8. 8 Ralf Kronermann, “Slapstick im Engadin. Traurig, komisch: Bernhard Setzweins Roman über Nietzsche”, Nietzsche in der FAZ. Sonderdruck zum Nietzsche-Symposium der Johann Wolfgang Goethe Universität, Frankfurt am Main, 1./2. Dezember 2000 (Frankfurt: FAZ Verlag, 2000), p. 16. 9 If this move beyond the ideological demarcation line is so clear cut in Nolte’s case, is a matter of some debate.

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sal von Nietzsches Philosophie ist ein philosophiehistorisches Politikum ersten Ranges. Anhand ihrer Wirkungsgeschichte läßt sich die Geschichte des 20. Jahrhunderts – bis in die jüngsten Tage hinein – rekonstruieren.”10 Consequently, the traces of the political history of the 20th century that are connected to Nietzsche and the reception of his philosophy in Germany, are in many ways intertwined with the general misunderstandings his philosophy was subject to. Riedel finds the origin of these traces in the pan-German movement of the outgoing Wilhelminian era and the unsolved problems it carried forward into the Weimar Republic. These unsolved problems, Riedel argues, found their expression in the particular politics of “power” and “domination” that characterised national socialism and the way in which it later interpreted its power politics with reference to Nietzsche’s doctrine of the “will to power”. After the collapse of national socialism the traces of Nietzscheanism and German politics intertwine again in the particular paths taken by the two separate German states. While West Germany was not particularly fond of the kind of thought Nietzsche represents but was open to discussing it, East Germany was embarking on an anti-fascist Sonderweg where a legitimacy for the communist East German state, its government and its general “otherness” was among other things achieved on the basis of its opposition to Nietzsche as a perceived “ideological precursor to fascism”. Nietzsche becomes a target of the anti-fascist resistance that the GDR believed itself to embody, a position which it also – hesitantly but clearly – undermined, according to Riedel, by gradually allowing the publication of the Nietzsche Nachlaß in the late sixties. The only justification that the GDR was to give itself (and others) for allowing this seemingly compromising act was that Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari, the editors of the Nietzsche Nachlaß, were Italian communists. By analysing the history of Germany and the Nietzsche reception in this way, Riedel wants to defend Nietzsche against the radical misunderstandings, the falsifications and the frequent misappropriations of his writings. This seems all the more necessary to Riedel as he says that it seemed to have been part of Nietzsche’s fate to be frequently misunderstood and misappropriated in German history: “Es war ein Teil von Nietzsches Schicksal, als Philosoph erst von den deutschen Nationalisten und dann von den Nationalsozialisten mißbraucht zu werden, so daß sich bis in die vierziger Jahre unseres Jahrhunderts hinein alles, was Nietzsche philosophisch beabsichtigte, ins Gegenteil verkehrte – bis hin zur Verkehrung des Verkehrten als vermeintlicher Absicht seiner Philosophie durch deutsche ‘Realsozialisten’ während vier Jahrzehnten DDR Zeit.” 11 10 Riedel, Nietzsche in Weimar, book cover. 11 Ibid. p. 20.

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In many respects Riedel’s approach is not very different from Aschheim’s. In principle Aschheim agrees with the eminent American Nietzsche scholar Walter Kaufmann that Nietzsche’s philosophy as well as German “life” and “culture” more generally, were or indeed are intertwined to such a degree that a study of their reciprocal relationship would necessarily become: “a cultural history of twentieth-century Germany, seen in a single, but particularly revealing perspective.”12 This is exactly what Aschheim sets out to do, as he wants to understand the peculiarities of German “life” and “culture” and the Sonderweg on which it embarked, as partly or indeed crucially being shaped by the politics of “Nietzscheanism” in Germany. This is as far as Riedel’s and Aschheim’s studies overlap, but it is also where they begin to differ as Riedel focuses on the peculiarities of East and West German attitudes towards Nietzsche and the particular role played by the Nietzsche archive, while Aschheim wants to provide a much broader view of German intellectual history, one which is sensitive to the history of the filtering and reshaping process of Nietzschean motives and philosophical concepts in all spheres of cultural life in Germany and which tries to: “chronicle and analyse the nature and dynamics” of this process at the same time.13 Aschheim outlines his position on this filtering process as follows: “Nietzsche’s historical legacy must be understood as a product of the dynamic interaction between the peculiar, multifaceted qualities of his thought and its appropriators. This was always a relatively open-ended, reciprocal, and creative process that entailed selective filtering and constant reshaping of Nietzschean thematics according to divergent perceived needs. It was a fluid heritage that both affected, and was affected by, different circles of men and women responding to the concrete and changing circumstances of the Wilhelminian Kaiserreich, World War I, the Weimar Republic, national socialism, and beyond. Through these politically interested mediations Nietzsche was turned into a persistent and vital part of the fabric of national life.”14

It is certainly true that Nietzsche’s thought was subject to a process of constant reshaping by his commentators who wanted to make him and his philosophy serve their own particular needs, and this is precisely why one should try and distinguish between Nietzsche and “Nietzscheanism”. It is entirely misleading (and methodologically questionable) to hold Nietzsche responsible – as is frequently 12 Walter Kaufmann, Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist (Princeton N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1974), p. 9. Quoted from: Aschheim, The Nietzsche Legacy in Germany, p. 2. 13 Ibid. p. 2. 14 Ibid.

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the case – for every misappropriation his philosophy has experienced or was subject to. It is clear that the frequent ambiguities of his statements made his thought exploitable, but it is also clear that this does not mean that he himself would have approved of these misreadings (for example, there is no such book as Der Wille zur Macht, at least not one that can be genuinely ascribed to Nietzsche). But this complex relationship between Nietzsche an his admirers and/or critics was, as Aschheim consistently stresses, mainly due to the unique chord that Nietzsche’s concerns touched upon in the minds and lives of his readers. The liberating forces that were so clearly part of Nietzsche’s fierce cultural and social criticism gave rise to numerous creative misunderstandings (as one could come to call them) among his early commentators, which have characterised many a debate of his thought for years to come. Again Aschheim gives an insightful description of this complex process of the reading and re-reading of Nietzsche’s thought: “Admirers, opponents, and critics alike agreed that one did not simply read Nietzsche; rather, as Thomas Mann put it in 1918, one ‘experienced’ him. In a uniquely intense and immediate manner, Nietzsche touched upon what contemporaries regarded as the key experiential dimensions of their individual and collective identity. From the beginning, canonisers and condemners alike tended to regard him as critic and maker of a new kind of European modernity characterised by the predicament of nihilism and its transvaluative, liberating, cataclysmic potential. Although many of his opponents portrayed him as reactionary and anti-modern, the dominant perception was that Nietzsche pointed dramatically forward, embodying a force that strove to go beyond the conventions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.” 15

It is exactly this kind of potential of “experience” and “adventure” that promises to open up new horizons and which is present in Nietzsche’s philosophy throughout his writings, that – as we will come to see – strongly appealed to the early sociologists and social thinkers whom we are mainly considering throughout this book. The general tendency to “experience” Nietzsche (which is in my opinion linked to the widespread misunderstanding with which Nietzsche’s early commentators reacted to the irrational notion of “life” or Leben in his writings), rather than to engage in a rational “exploration” of his positions, was in my opinion the main single factor which made his thought the subject of grave misappropriations. The recent conservative reaction to Nietzsche and his philosophy is also not free of misunderstandings. A good example of this tendency is the work of Ernst Nolte. In his study of “Nietzsche and Nietzscheanism” Nolte also wants 15 Ibid. p. 10.

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to show how Nietzsche was subject to forces that filtered, shaped and reshaped his writings. Nolte, however, aims to interpret Nietzsche as an “intellectual” who wanted to change his society through a radical critique of its sociocultural reality.16 Hence Nolte wants to highlight the “contradictions” Nietzsche pinpointed in his own society and which in turn also reflect the inherent “contradictions” in Nietzsche’s writings as well, as Nolte argues. These contradictions are then in turn also frequently reflected in the reactions and comments on Nietzsche’s life and work by his contemporaries. Outlining his closely focused approach to “Nietzsche and Nietzscheanism”, Nolte writes: “Ich will Nietzsche, den Zeitgenossen der Bismarck Ära und des europäischen ‘fin-de-siècle’, auf historische Weise ins Auge fassen. Das bedeutet, daß die konkreten Stellungnahmen zu Phänomenen seiner Zeit besonders beachtet werden und damit die ‘Widersprüche’, die in Nietzsches Stellungnahmen erkennbar sind. Gerade diese Widersprüche sollen als besonders aufschlußreich gelten, weil in ihnen ein Grundcharakter der Gesellschaft zum Vorschein kommt, in der Nietzsche lebte. Aber darüber darf allerdings nicht übersehen werden, daß Nietzsche sich auch im Widerspruch zu dieser Gesellschaft im ganzen erblickte und daß dieser Gegensatz eng mit Ideen verknüpft war, die gerade nicht bloß die Ideen seiner Zeitgenossen waren, sondern allgemeinen, d.h. philosophischen Charakter tragen. So wenig es angebracht wäre, den Nietzscheanismus auf den engsten Kreis der Enthusiasten zu beschränken, so wenig darf Nietzsche nur als Zeitgenosse der Mitlebenden verstanden werden.” 17

The more than just a simple “Zeitgenosse”18 which Nietzsche clearly represented for his contemporaries lies, according to Nolte, with Nietzsche’s exceptional ability to radically “think and live through the great insecurities of modernity” and to take them to their logical, intellectual consequences (yet at the same time, Nietzsche is in turn also able to dismiss these consequences and the society that has produced them, as being essentially “nihilistic”).19 Nolte regards Nietzsche as a “Philhellene”20 who was deeply rooted in the perceived consciousness of ancient Greece and hence strongly rejected the “otherness” that his own contemporary society represented in comparison to his idealised version of life in ancient Greece. Nietzsche thus always longed for the sociocultural reality of ancient Greece, as Nolte consistently argues. This is also why

16 Nolte, Nietzsche und der Nietzscheanismus, pp. 12-17. 17 Ibid. pp. 11-12. 18 Ibid. p. 11. 19 Ibid. p. 296. 20 Ibid.

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Nietzsche made such an exceptional impression on his contemporaries: He radically criticised the status-quo of Wilhelminian Germany and seemingly opened up far-reaching philosophical avenues for a fundamental sociocultural renewal of his own society. Hence Nolte summarises the influence of Nietzsche on the very mixed and diverse group of “Nietzscheans” at the turn of the 19th century in the following way: “Was in Nietzsche widerspruchsvoll beieinander lag, hat sich auf verschiedene Persönlichkeiten und Gruppierungen verteilt: Nietzsches hohe Selbsteinschätzung wird akzeptiert oder verworfen, sein Aristokratismus wird zum Banner der einen, und den anderen gilt Nietzsche vornehmlich als Befreier von den Banden der Moral und der Konvention; seine ‘Kulturkritik’ wird übernommen; seine Preisung des ‘Lebens’ nimmt die Gestalt eines Neuheidentums oder des Ästhetizismus an; er dient als Wegbahner neuer Synthesen, etwa von Aristokratismus und Sozialismus; man betrachtet ihn als den Gründer einer sozialdarwinistischen Ethik oder als Verteidiger des Irrationalen gegen die todbringenden Tendenzen des szientistischen Rationalismus. In allen diesen Wirkungen und Gegenwirkungen vollzieht sich ein beträchtlicher Teil der Geistesgeschichte zwischen 1890 und 1914: Lebensphilosophie und Symbolismus, Zionismus und Anarchismus, Frauenbewegung und Sozialismus stehen unter Nietzsches Einwirkung oder erhalten doch wesentliche Anstöße von ihm.” 21

This is all very important and initially not so very different from Aschheim’s and Riedel’s approach to the subject, but this is also as far as the similarities between their respective writings go, as Nolte’s political motive in writing his study on Nietzsche is clearly a different one to the intentions of both of the aforementioned authors. Nolte attempts to “implicitly” demonstrate (and, I would also say, to “explicitly” demonstrate) the relationship between national socialism and Nietzsche (“wenngleich nur auf indirekte Weise”), 22 but he makes it very clear from the start that: “daraus keine Anklage abgeleitet wurde.”23 Nolte has been heavily criticised for the way in which he links Nietzsche to national socialism and it has been argued that his statements about Nietzsche’s ideological role are in line with his general attempt to “relativise” the crimes of national socialism.24 But Nolte’s book still remains an important contribution to the analysis of historical Nietzscheanism and it is also a good example of a study that continues the tradition (to which Nolte 21 Ibid. p. 295. 22 Ibid. p. 7. 23 Ibid. 24 For an extensive argument against Nolte’s position on national socialism and its relationship with Nietzsche’s philosophy, see: Aschheim, The Nietzsche Legacy in Germany, pp. 323-327.

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ironically himself alludes in his book) of “conservative misappropriations” of Nietzsche’s thought.25

2) Nietzsche’s influence on philosophy, literature and art We have seen so far that Nietzsche’s writings were very influential on the intellectual and cultural history of Germany in the late 19th and throughout the 20th century in the big or macrocosmic picture. Now I will try to put forward a more detailed portrayal of Nietzsche’s influence on three particular aspects – philosophy, literature and art – of the intellectual and cultural history of Germany, in a small or microcosmic picture. Therefore, I will in this section follow through some traces of a clear Nietzschean influence that can be discovered in all three of these cultural fields. This will allow me to highlight some of the similarities, but more importantly also the differences that arise in the various responses to Nietzsche’s work.

2.1) Nietzsche and philosophy The first major philosophical evaluation of Nietzsche’s writings was provided by the Danish Germanist Georg Brandes in a series of lectures held at the University of Copenhagen in 1887/88. Brandes in fact delivered the only lecture on Nietzsche and his writings, of which the German philosopher himself was ever aware. Moreover he coined a term that – unlike many other attributes used to summarise Nietzsche’s philosophy – actually touched the core of his thought: “Aristokratischer Radikalismus”.26 Even Nietzsche himself was impressed by the term and comments on Brandes’ categorisation in a letter to the Danish Germanist himself by saying: “Der Ausdruck ‘aristokratischer Radikalismus’, dessen sie sich bedienen, ist sehr gut. Das ist, mit Verlaub gesagt, das gescheiteste Wort, daß

25 Aschheim, for example, argues that Nolte wrongly claims that Nietzsche’s exterminatory thoughts and statements are much stronger than the one’s made by the national socialists. Aschheim also shows that this is in line with Nolte’s more general argument about national socialism: “In Nolte’s new book, Nietzsche and Nietzscheanism (1990), Nietzsche remains the inspirational centre of the Nazi exterminatory drive. [...] Nietzsche is thus ensconced in Nolte’s dubious reduction of nazism and its atrocities to a reaction to an earlier Marxist version of the same thinking, and in which the holocaust is an anticipatory act of German self-defence against the perception of genocidal intentions.” Aschheim, The Nietzsche Legacy in Germany, pp. 325-327. Hence I entirely agree with Aschheim, when he says that: “Nolte’s Nietzsche has become neatly embedded within his post-Historikerstreit ideological framework.” Ibid. p. 326. 26 Georg Brandes, “Aristokratischer Radikalismus”, in Guzzoni (ed.), Nietzsche Rezeption, pp. 1-15. This book delivers an excellent overview of the philosophical Nietzsche reception by providing excerpts or full versions of important contributions to the field that have been made over the last century. It also includes an excellent – if somewhat brief – introduction to the subject.

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ich bisher über mich gelesen habe.”27 What Brandes meant by the term “aristocratic radicalism” was Nietzsche’s tendency to elevate great individuals above the meaning and importance of the masses, for which Nietzsche saw an adequate fate only as “meaningless figures of statistics” or as “prey for the devil”. Brandes argues that the making of “great human beings” was the ultimate aim of culture for Nietzsche (we will come to see more clearly that Brandes was basically right in this assessment of Nietzsche’s philosophy, in section 2.1 of Chapter 6 of this book, where I will be discussing Nietzsche’s philosophy of culture in some detail). But in most cases the “masses” as well as their most powerful institutions (i.e. the state and the church) have worked against the emergence of great personalities and individuals. These institutions thereby destroy the happiness of the few exceptional individuals who despite of an institutionalised resistance against them have still managed to flourish. But for Nietzsche true cultural progress is only possible if the right of great personalities and individuals to thrive and fulfil themselves is not tampered with, that is if their freedom of will determines their own life. Brandes summarises Nietzsche’s position as follows: “In Übereinstimmung mit seiner aristokratischen Geistesrichtung greift er demnächst die Benthamsche Formel: ‘Das größtmögliche Glück für die größtmögliche Anzahl’ an. Das Ideal war ursprünglich, das Glück aller Menschen zu schaffen. Da sich das nicht tun läßt, erhält das Prinzip die angeführte Begrenzung. Aber warum Glück für die größte Anzahl? Man könnte sich denken für die Besten, die Edelsten, die Genialsten, und es muß erlaubt sein, zu fragen, ob dürftiger Wohlstand und dürftiges Wohlsein wirklich jeder Ungleichheit der Lebensbedingungen vorzuziehen sind, deren Stachel die Kultur zu stetigem Steigen zwingt.” 28

In his reflections on Brandes’ Nietzsche essay Josef Rattner argues that: “Brandes sieht das Hauptanliegen Nietzsches in der Kritik der moralischen Vorurteile.”29 And in his analysis of the term “aristocratic radicalism” Rattner, moreover, emphasises the: “ausgezeichnete Charakterisierung”30 of Nietzsche’s philosophy which Brandes offers. Yet at the same time Brandes does not agree with Nietzsche’s complete rejection of the English welfare principle, but admits that it was in line with a more general ignorance and prejudice towards this principle held in Germany at the time: “Die englische Wohlfahrtsmoral hat

27 Quoted from a letter to Georg Brandes, dated December 2 1887, which Nietzsche wrote in Nice. Nietzsche, Sämtliche Briefe, KSB 8, No. 960, p. 206. 28 Brandes, “Aristokratischer Radikalismus”, pp. 1-2. 29 Rattner, Nietzsche: Leben – Werk – Wirkung, p. 336. 30 Ibid. p. 118.

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in Deutschland nicht angeschlagen”.31 Brandes claims that while Nietzsche might have been right in at least some respects, cultural progress could still achieve a general welfare, if only at the expense of some degree of individuality. And in consequence of this view Georg Brandes writes: “Nietzsche mag hierin Recht haben, ohne deshalb mit diesem Angriff Entscheidendes gegen das Wohlfahrtsprinzip in der Moral hervorgebracht zu haben. Er faßt die Begriffe Lust und Glück zu eng. Wenn der Kulturfortschritt auch manchmal auf seiner Bahn das Glück der Individuen vernichtet, so zielt er doch in letzter Instanz darauf, die allgemeine Wohlfahrt zu fördern. Das sogenannte Glück des Wilden ist nicht nur nicht das höchste, es ist kein echtes.”32

Brandes always attempts to stay true to his interpretation of Nietzsche’s philosophy as entailing a form of “aristocratic radicalism” and delivers quite perceptive interpretations in this respect. In his reflections on the thoughts of the German philosopher Brandes, for example, attempts to show how Nietzsche understood the notion Mensch within his writings, and summarises his understanding as follows: “Eine Definition des Menschen würde für Nietzsche die folgende sein: Der Mensch ist ein Tier, das Gelübde geben und halten kann. Er erblickt den eigentlichen Adel des Menschen darin, daß er etwas versprechen, für sich selbst einstehen, eine Verantwortung übernehmen kann – da der Mensch mit der Herrschaft über sich selbst, welche dieses Verhältnis voraussetzt, auch Herrschaft über die äußeren Umstände und die übrigen Geschöpfe erlangt, deren Wille nicht so anhaltend ist.” 33

Nietzsche himself is far more ambivalent on the subject. He writes: “die gelungenen Fälle sind auch beim Menschen immer die Ausnahme und sogar in Hinsicht darauf, daß der Mensch das noch nicht festgestellte Tier ist, die spärliche Ausnahme.” 34 One year later Nietzsche refined this position even more: “der Mensch ist kränker, unsicherer, wechselnder, unfestgestellter als irgendein Tier sonst, daran ist kein Zweifel, – er ist das kranke Tier”.35 Nevertheless Brandes clearly managed to capitvate the essence of Nietzsche’s usage of the notion Mensch. Even today – over one hundred years after Nietzsche’s death – there

31 Brandes, “Aristokratischer Radikalismus”, p. 1. 32 Ibid. p. 2. 33 Ibid. p. 8. 34 Nietzsche, Jenseits von Gut und Böse, KSA 5, § 62, p. 81. 35 Nietzsche, Genealogie der Moral, KSA 5, § 13, p. 67.

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are not many philosophical accounts of Nietzsche’s writings that display a similar command of the subject and a similar clarity in the analysis of the complex positions outlined in his writings to Georg Brandes’ lectures on “aristocratic radicalism”. And there is certainly no better label for the core of Nietzsche’s writings than the term used to describe Nietzsche’s position by Brandes. In his assessment of Nietzsche’s overall influence on the intellectual traditions in Europe after his “mental collapse”, Alfredo Guzzoni argues that finally, after years of neglect, the influence of Nietzsche’s writings on cultural life in Germany – particularly on the intellectual positions of the different youth movements – gained a strong momentum in the 1890s: “was, nach Jahren fehlender Resonanz, kurz nach Nietzsches ‘Zusammenbruch’ plötzlich die Zeitgenossen, vor allem die Jugend, zu bewegen anfing und bis in die zwanziger Jahre hinein bewegte [war, F.S.L.]: Nietzsche als Zertrümmerer der als leer und abgeschmackt, als Fessel empfundenen Werte und Inhalte der eingerichteten bürgerlichen Gesellschaft – und: Nietzsche als Befreiung, als Aufbruch zu neuen Ufern. Diese Wirkung zeigte in beiden Hinsichten vor allem der Zarathustra: als Immoralist und Verkünder.”36 But within these early grains of Nietzsche’s influence lie already the reasons for many of the misunderstandings that were to emerge as part of the philosophical Nietzsche reception. In many cases the one-sided focus on Nietzsche’s book Zarathustra led to a reverse and non-chronological reading of his works that did not see the wider context of his later concepts and the earlier positions to which they are so crucially connected. None of his concepts was probably more misunderstood than the notion of the Übermensch. It gave rise to various misinterpretations of which Nietzsche himself had already warned towards the end of his life: In Ecce Homo, for example, Nietzsche warned against a reading of his idea as a Darwinist notion – his philosophical concept, Nietzsche says, has wrongly been portrayed as an: “‘idealistischer’ Typus einer höheren Art Mensch, halb ‘Heiliger’, halb ‘Genie’”37 and even as a Darwinist concept, but, Nietzsche says, this “Heroen-Kultus”38 is fundamentally wrong. Nevertheless many philosophers actually read his concept that way and it was particularly Alfred Baeumler39 who

36 Guzzoni, “Vorwort des Herausgebers”, in Guzzoni (ed.), Nietzsche Rezeption, p. vii. 37 Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, KSA 6, § 1, p. 300. 38 Ibid. 39 Alfred Baeumler, “Der Wille als Macht”, in Guzzoni (ed.), Nietzsche Rezeption, pp. 35-56. Baeumler provided his notorious views in a series of essays on Nietzsche, published throughout the 1920s and 1930s. See, for example: “Nietzsche” (1930); or “Nietzsche und der Nationalsozialismus” (1934), in Alfred Baeumler, Studien zur deutschen Geistesgeschichte (Berlin: Junker und Dünnhaupt Verlag, 1937).

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pushed in this direction and provided the basis for the fateful “Vereinnahmung”40 of Nietzsche’s work by the national socialist movement. In his essay on “Nietzsche und der Nationalsozialismus”,41 Baeumler, for example, argues that national socialism did not originally turn to Nietzsche as a source of inspiration: “Der Nationalsozialismus hat in seinen Ursprüngen kaum unmittelbar aus Nietzsche geschöpft.” 42 This was so, Baeumler says, because national socialism did not emerge as part of the bourgeois tradition – to which Nietzsche himself eventually belonged even if, as Baeumler argues, he had tried very hard to place himself outside its narrow confines – but had rather developed quite separately from bourgeois culture “in the mind of a single man” (Baeumler refers to Adolf Hitler here).43 But Baeumler wanted to end this separation between Nietzsche’s work and national socialism as he regarded Nietzsche as the “great liquidator of the nineteenth century”44 who simultaneously offered both a philosophy of heroism and a philosophy of activism.45 In opposing the liberal ideals of the 19th century Nietzsche was, according to Baeumler, the prototype of the kind of thought that also characterises the: “nordische Bewegung”.46 This is why Baeumler wanted to superimpose Hitler’s rejection of the Weimar Republic onto Nietzsche’s philosophical positions: “Indem Hitler der Republik von Weimar den Kampf ansagte, sagte er einer Entwicklung von Jahrhunderten, ja Jahrtausenden den Kampf an. Indem Nietzsche die Bildung, die Kultur, die Politik seines Jahrhunderts zu kritisieren unternahm, begann er zugleich den Kampf gegen die Entwicklung von Jahrtausenden. [...] Jenseits der Überlieferungen des deutschen Bürgertums also stehen Nietzsche und der Nationalsozialismus.” 47

It is very clear that Baeumler was struggling very hard to make Nietzsche fit in with the national socialist ideology, but it was an uncomfortable “Vereinnahmung” for both parties, as in reality Nietzsche’s philosophy was not fascist in tone and outlook, and national socialism was certainly also not “Nietzschean”. It was a grave and intentional misunderstanding of Nietzsche’s writings on behalf 40 Guzzoni, “Vorwort des Herausgebers”, p. x. 41 Baeumler, “Nietzsche und der Nationalsozialismus”, pp. 281-294. 42 Ibid. p. 281. 43 Ibid. 44 Ibid. p. 283. 45 Ibid. p. 289. 46 Ibid. p. 283. 47 Ibid.

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of Baeumler that made him try to accommodate Nietzsche within national socialism. It was his personal obsession. There is no room here to engage extensively in an evaluation of Nietzsche’s impact on fascist ideology and the wider implications of his political philosophy. Numerous commentators have tried to do so and the evaluations they give are often contradictory.48 As early as 1940 the American philosopher Crane Brinton argued that it is precisely: “Nietzsche’s contempt for the nineteenth century and all its works, his attacks on Christianity, on humanitarian movements, on parliamentary government, that ‘destructive’ part of his writings which in verve and clarity is the best part – all this is just what the convinced Nazi wants to hear.” 49

In recent years though Nietzsche’s political philosophy has received a far more positive reception. David Owen, for example, takes a much more open minded approach to the topic in saying, firstly, that Nietzsche: “can be appropriately read as a significant political thinker and, secondly, that in offering a sustained critique of liberalism from an agnostic perspective, Nietzsche elaborates a political theory which restates the case for civic humanism without eliding the fact of pluralism and without abrogating the autonomy of citizens.”50 Nevertheless, Owen admits that this is by no means the only political theory that can be drawn from Nietzsche’s philosophy, but – as he sees it – it is the position which: “offers most of interest in terms of Nietzsche’s ongoing relevance to contemporary debates.”51 There certainly is a lot of ambiguity in Nietzsche’s writings which makes them prone to misinterpretations and misrepresentations of the kind Baeumler was providing and this clearly is part of the problem of Nietzsche’s political philosophy. Nevertheless, it is also clear that Nietzsche’s writings are not the blueprints for fascist ideology which some commentators have falsely accused them to be. But as our discussion of the philosophical responses to Nietzsche’s writings by Georg Brandes and Alfred Baeumler clearly demonstrates, Nietzsche’s writings are highly complex and have meant and can still mean “all things to 48 Among the many assessments of Nietzsche’s political philosophy the following are particularly noteworthy: Mark Warren, Nietzsche and Political Thought (Cambridge Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1988); David Owen, Nietzsche, Politics and Modernity (London: Sage Publications, 1995); and Bernhard H.F. Taureck, Nietzsche und der Faschismus: Eine Studie über Nietzsches Politische Philosophie und ihre Folgen (Hamburg: Junius, 1989). 49 Crane Brinton, “The National Socialist’s use of Nietzsche”, in Journal of the History of Ideas, vol. 1 (Lancaster, Pa./New York: College of the City of New York, 1940), p. 134. 50 Owen, Nietzsche and Modernity, p. 171. 51 Ibid.

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all people”, with Brandes and Baeumler standing at opposite ends of the long line of numerous Nietzsche adepts at the time.

2.2) Nietzsche and literature Nietzsche was certainly not only influential in the field of philosophy. His influence clearly stretched – and maybe crucially so – beyond the narrow scopes of the academic discipline itself, to permeate much of the avantgarde literary movement of Germany in the late 19th and the early 20th centuries. It was Bruno Hillebrand who made the first systematic attempt to portray and analyse the early literary Nietzsche reception in Germany. He placed his discussion of this particular aspect of the early responses to Nietzsche’s writings in a wider effort to depict: “Das Typische der frühen Wirkung [...] in seinem Pro und Contra”.52 Nietzsche’s philosophy became widely influential among German writers, as Hillebrand consistently argues. This was particularly due to the revolutionary elements in his writings which tried to overthrow hardened traditional perspectives. It is interesting to note that Hillebrand stresses the very same factors inherent in Nietzsche’s philosophy as having appealed to the German literary movement of the late 19th and early 20th centuries as Guzzoni does for the philosophical movement. Hillebrand writes: “Die Nietzsche Einwirkung seit 1890 ist ein Stück Geistesgeschichte, vergleichbar in etwa dem Einfluß Rousseaus zu seiner Zeit, Geistesgeschichte gedeutet als Geschichte der Umwandlung geistiger Erfahrungen und Sehweisen. Nietzsches Umwertung ist der Umsturz festgefahrener Perspektiven. Die Art und Weise, Welt zu sehen, zu deuten, zu werten, wird umgestoßen, die Immobilität des Denkens wird gesprengt, Tendenzen geistiger Verhärtung werden attackiert.” 53

Hillebrand, however, argues that most of the more than 180 writers he looks at generally misunderstood that Nietzsche’s philosophy was – despite its obvious resistance to traditional metaphysics – “vom Kern her metaphysisch strukturiert.”54 What initially seemed to have impressed these writers with regards to Nietzsche’s philosophy was the vitality and liveliness of Nietzsche’s language and aphorisms: “Nietzsches Vitalismus, insgesamt die Betonung des Lebensaspektes, die Aufbruchsstimmung, der Züchtungsgedanke, von Darwin herrührend und im Phantom des Übermenschen kulminierend; es faszinierte die mitreißende Sprache, das Pathos, der exorbitante Lebenswille, der 52 Hillebrand, “Vorwort”, in Hillebrand (ed.), Nietzsche und die deutsche Literatur, p. xi. 53 Hillebrand, “Einführung: Die frühe Nietzsche Rezeption in Deutschland”, in Ibid. pp. 2-3. 54 Ibid. p. 3.

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sich als Rhythmus des Denkens und Sprechens niederschlug.”55 The examples of writers whom Nietzsche influenced are plentiful and, according to Hillebrand, include such illustrious characters as: Hugo von Hofmannsthal, Arthur Schnitzler, Rainer Maria Rilke, Hermann Hesse and many others. Yet to varying degrees these writers were all not only influenced by Nietzsche, but also by each other, as Hillebrand emphasises. For a large part, however, Aschheim is very critical of the literary reaction to Nietzsche as he believes that it mainly emphasised the “irrational” and “immoral” aspects of Nietzsche’s writings which have always been subject to grave misunderstandings. Some feminist novels of the fin-de-siècle, Aschheim argues, even interpret Nietzsche’s book Zarathustra as a guide to sexual liberation. Hence for some writers and philo-Nietzscheans these aspects of his writings were also a guide to a new lifestyle, which functioned as a hindsight justification for a: “not-so-discrete Nietzscheanism of the avant-garde”.56 Aschheim, therefore, writes: “With their stridently anti-scientific, anti-rationalist bent and their wild Dionysian rhetoric the novels, poems, and polemics of the literary Nietzscheans sought to unleash the immoralist possibilities of the unconscious. [...] At the same time there appeared a slew of feminist novels – such as Mathieu Schwann’s Liebe – preaching a Zarathustrian poetics of love and a longing for sexual liberation. This radical Nietzschean libertarianism and emancipating eroticism was not limited to literary fiction. For some it was actualised into a determined alternative lifestyle conducted outside and against the mainstream.” 57

There remains, however, a certain degree of difficulty to always clearly show that a particular writer was actually influenced by Nietzsche, as Hillebrand consistently stresses. Nolte also emphasises this point when he says that it is not always Nietzsche who might have acted as an influence on particular authors, as some of his concerns have also been expressed by other influential thinkers of the 19th century. Yet a fairly objective, but somewhat superficial indication would be the clear reference to established Nietzschean terms, as Nolte emphasises in his reflections on Nietzsche’s influence on literature: “Darf man ohne weiteres von Nietzsche Einfluß sprechen, wenn bestimmte Schriftsteller ein Renaissance Ideal des Lebens voller Schönheit und Rausch entwerfen, wie etwa Heinrich Mann in seiner Trilogie Die Göttinnen – nicht erst Nietzsche hat bekanntlich, wie wir uns erinnern, die Renaissance zum Thema

55 Ibid. 56 Aschheim, The Nietzsche Legacy in Germany, pp. 51-84. 57 Ibid. pp. 56-57.

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gemacht, sondern Burckhardt, Gobineau und andere gingen ihm voran. Ein verläßlicher Indikator Nietzscheschen Einflusses ist sicherlich die Verwendung von Termini wie ‘dionysisch’, ‘Zarathustra’, ‘Übermensch’, ‘Evoe’, usw., aber es mag sich dabei um recht oberflächliche Einflüsse handeln.” 58

A factor that should not be underestimated in this respect is Nietzsche’s own ability to write poetry and products of high literary quality. Albert von Schirnding also emphasises this point in his reflections on “Nietzsche als Lyriker”.59 There Schirnding stresses that Nietzsche was mainly concerned with unleashing the kind of creative powers that had once, a long time ago, characterised ancient Greek tragedy, because: “In der Tragödie verbinden sich dionysische Musik und apollinische Plastik.”60 These were the forces that had once made the cultural heights of ancient Greece possible. Yet the arrival of the Socratic method of scientific inquiry had destroyed this unity of cultural elements and their symbolic fusion in Greek tragedy. Consequently, Nietzsche’s Geburt der Tragödie set out to attack Socrates for this apparent “destruction” and to argue for a radical cultural renewal, as Schirnding argues (this point will become important again in section 2.1 of Chapter 6 of this book, where I will be discussing Nietzsche’s notion of a radical cultural renewal in more detail). But Nietzsche’s book remained a pledge for change and did not in itself bring forth the kind of cultural renewal he had hoped for. This is also why Nietzsche turned to poetry with his Dionysos Dithyramben, as he wanted to set the record straight, as Schirnding comes to conclude in his analysis: “Nietzsche’s Plädoyer gegen Sokrates und für Dionysos-Apollon, gegen Wort und argumentierende Rede, für Musik und Bild wies freilich einen schwerwiegenden Mangel auf: eben daß es ein Plädoyer war. Hier wurde mit sokratischen Mitteln gegen Sokrates polemisiert. [...] Man kann die Dionysos Dithyramben als die Wiedergutmachung des seinerzeit versäumten ansehen.” 61

This return or advance to lyrics and poetry, which the late Nietzsche resorted to, was also a return to his roots embodied in the Geburt der Tragödie, which was a very poetic and strongly aesthetic book. Nietzsche himself, how-

58 Nolte, Nietzsche und der Nietzscheanismus, p. 259. Nolte also emphasises the “kontinuierliche Wirkung” (p. 268) of Nietzsche on essayists and publicists, who can, however, in real terms hardly be distinguished from the other writers he mentions. Ibid. pp. 268-278. 59 Albert von Schirnding, “Nietzsche als Lyriker”, in Friedrich (ed.), Philosophie als Kunst, pp. 217-254. 60 Ibid. p. 218. 61 Ibid. pp. 219-220.

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ever, wanted to be close to the “spirit of music” again, as Schirnding argues, because: “Der Lyriker steht dem Ursprung, dem Geist der Musik, aus dem die Tragödie entstand, noch näher.”62 Schirnding is not alone in arguing that the Geburt der Tragödie and the Dionysos Dithyramben are intrinsically connected. In his considerations on Nietzsche’s notion of the “absurd”, Oliver Dier also speaks of: “jener unterirdischen Linie des Zusammenhangs, die sich, ausgehend von der Tragödienschrift, vor allem im Zarathustra und den Dionysos Dithyramben ein Denkmal setzt”.63 Yet this fairly late Nietzschean move to poetry, Schirnding argues, was a source of inspiration for many German poets – like Stephan George and Gottfried Benn. Particularly since they too, wanted to achieve what Nietzsche had managed to do with the best of his poems: “In den geglücktesten Momenten der Dionysos Dithyramben findet beides zusammen: Wort und Melodie, Sinn und Lied, Reden und Singen. Aber keineswegs immer.”64 Hence Nietzsche was both, an inspirational source as well as a stimulating example for many German poets and writers in the first half of the 20th century.

2.3) Nietzsche and art In his assessment of Nietzsche’s influence on German cultural life Guzzoni also emphasises the importance of Nietzsche for the literary movement in Germany, but stresses yet another field where Nietzsche became influential – modern art. Consequently, Guzzoni highlights Nietzsche’s exceptional: “Wirkung auf Literatur und Kunst, auf das geistige Klima und die kulturgeschichtliche Situation”, which in general was based on the: “Faszination einerseits durch die Sprache, andererseits durch die geübte Entlarvungstechnik”.65 In his considerations on the “aesthetic” in Nietzsche’s philosophy, Heinz Friedrich argues that Nietzsche essentially understood philosophy as a “form of art” and even tried to combine the two in a “unity of experience”. This is one of the main reasons why Friedrich believes that Nietzsche was not a “systematic” philosopher, but rather a “musical composer of thought”. Friedrich therefore writes: “Nietzsche war entgegen aller Schulphilosophie kein logischer Systematiker, sondern ein musischer Denker. Er betrieb Philosophie als Kunst. Er prakti-

62 Ibid. p. 218. 63 Oliver Dier, Die Lehre des Absurden: Eine Untersuchung der Philosophie Nietzsches am Leitfaden des Absurden (Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 1998), p. 36. 64 Schirnding, “Nietzsche als Lyriker”, p. 222. 65 Guzzoni, “Vorwort des Herausgebers”, p. vii.

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zierte ‘fröhliche Wissenschaft’, indem er Kunst und Philosophie zu einer Erfahrungs- und Erlebnis-Einheit verband. Das Leben, so sagte er, sei im Grunde nur ästhetisch gerechtfertigt.” 66

It is precisely this “aesthetic justification of life” which is proposed in Nietzsche’s writings that appealed to the different modern art movements of the fin-de-siècle. This influence derives directly from Nietzsche’s unique propagation of the triangular constellation of “life, art and philosophy” (which we have already discussed in Chapter 1). In consequence, Nietzsche’s “aesthetic justification of life” is based on his understanding of philosophy as a form of art, that attempts to provide both an instinctual aesthetic outlook on as well as a creative and intuitive appreciation of aesthetic phenomena in the world as such. This fusion of “instinct” and “intuition” would then lead to a unity between the philosopher’s aesthetic experience of life as well as his creative engagement with it, as Friedrich argues. In a second step this fusion would then also justify “life” as an aesthetic phenomenon for Nietzsche. Consequently, this is also a very important factor in understanding the immense influence Nietzsche has had on different groups of the creative arts movement in the German speaking world, as Wieland Schmied convincingly argues in his reflections on Nietzsche’s influence on the arts: “Kein anderer philosophischer Geist hat an der Wende zum 20. Jahrhundert – und durch weite Strecken dieses Jahrhunderts – auf die Bildende Kunst größeren Einfluß geübt und nachhaltiger gewirkt als Friedrich Nietzsche. Die beginnende Moderne steht auch dort, wo sich Widerspruch gegen ihn artikuliert, in seinem Zeichen.”67

The only exception may be the fact that most artists who had turned to Nietzsche also turned to the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer, and: “mischten [folglich, F.S.L.] ihrem von Nietzsche stimulierten Lebensgefühl einen guten Schuß Schopenhauerschen Pessimismus bei.”68 What, therefore, really appealed to the different groups of modern artists at the turn of the 19th century were several different factors embedded in Nietzsche’s writings: For a start Nietzsche was certainly one of the most ruthless cultural critics of his time, who accepted no taboos and hence provided a well founded refutation of the “spirit of his times”,69 which he had diagnosed with the term “nihilism”. Moreover, Schmied stresses the symbolic character of Nietzsche’s individual fate as a “philosophical 66 Friedrich, “Vorwort”, in Friedrich (ed.), Philosophie als Kunst, p. 10. 67 Wieland Schmied, “Im Namen des Dionysos: Friedrich Nietzsche und die Bildende Kunst”, in Ibid. p. 149. 68 Ibid. p. 152. 69 Ibid. p. 169.

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artist” as being a very important factor in the dissemination of Nietzsche’s influence on different groups of modern artists at the turn of the 19th century, which – in some respects at least – gave him the role of a “martyr”, whose life had ended in insanity, “als hätte er zu viel gewagt und die Götter herausgefordert”.70 This argumentation is certainly overdoing it in some respects, but Schmied might be right at least with regards to the “empathetic appeal”, which this personal development of Nietzsche might have had to some modern artists, whose lifestyle was sometimes so extravagant that its borderlines certainly reached beyond “normality” and was hence – in popular concerns at least – frequently considered as ver-rückt (in both a literal as well as figurative sense). Hence Schmied is arguing rather convincingly that what appealed to many modern artists in Nietzsche, was a thinker who was highly interested in radical questions regarding the “arts” as well as more general “aesthetic phenomena”, and who thereby seemed to reassure their own far-reaching positions: “Es war der von allem Künstlerischen faszinierte Denker, der wie kein anderer das Selbstwertgefühl der Künstler stärkte, der den Instinkt über den Intellekt stellte, wie der unvergleichliche Wortkünstler, der Dithyrambiker und Aphoristiker, das artistische Sprachgenie, das betörte. Sicher war es auch der Mann, der zu Abenteuer und Wagnis rief und einlud, um der Erkenntnis willen ‘gefährlich zu leben’, wie der Verdammer allen Mitleids, der Bejaher aller Tiefen und Höhen menschlicher Existenz, der Philosoph der freien Geister, der keine Bindungen kannte, der eine Umwertung aller Werte forderte, der die Verachtung des Staates predigte und den Rausch der Einsamkeit verkündete.” 71

Nietzsche not only seemed to be able to theorise about tragedy: he even seemed to have lived through it to the last consequence, and to such a degree that his life and thought became virtually inseparable. This was seemingly also what many modern artists desperately wanted to achieve: a “creative” unity of life and work (even if this “unity” necessarily also contained “destructive” elements). Hence there is no surprise in the fact that Nietzsche’s writings developed a “unwiderstehliche Sogkraft”72 on the very different artistic movements that emanated with “modernity”: “Keine der um die Jahrhundertwende oder in den ersten Jahrzehnten danach entstehenden Strömungen der Moderne hat sich ihm entziehen können oder wollen, weder Jugendstil noch Expressionismus und Fauvismus, weder die Futuristen noch Dada, noch die Leitsterne

70 Ibid. 71 Ibid. 72 Ibid. p. 154.

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des Surrealismus, und die pittura metafisica schon gar nicht.”73 There is both no room and no need here to expound the claims about Nietzsche’s influence on the modern art movement much further than we have done already. Nietzsche’s influence literally speaks for itself sometimes, as Guzzoni convincingly argues, particularly as a: “Losung wie ‘Jenseits der Malerei’ (Max Ernst 1921) ohne Nietzsche nicht zu denken [ist, F.S.L.].” 74 As a consequence of our analysis of Nietzsche’s influence on philosophy, literature and art, I would tend to agree with Aschheim in saying that an analysis of the history of the Nietzsche reception or – as he calls it – the “Nietzsche legacy” helps to elucidate both the “rich complexity” of Nietzsche’s own writings, as well as the “rich complexity” of the different responses to Nietzsche’s philosophy.75 It should now be clear from our analysis of Nietzsche’s influence on German cultural and intellectual history in general, and from our analysis of his influence on philosophy, literature and art in particular, that his philosophy exerted a decisive influence on intellectual life in Germany in general, and in particular on many diverse groups of sociocultural actors and thinkers around the fin-de-siècle. Hence, Nietzsche functioned as an inspirational source for many different individuals and movements, and the most obvious point of reference they all shared in concerning his writings, was Nietzsche’s “cultural critique”. But in order to be able to fully appreciate the peculiarities of the sociological Nietzsche reception and its differences from other spheres of Nietzsche’s influence, I shall in the following chapter focus briefly on the historical development of sociology as an independent academic discipline, as well as on Nietzsche’s comments on this new subject, which are scattered throughout his published and unpublished writings.

73 Ibid. 74 Guzzoni, “Vorwort des Herausgebers”, p. vii. 75 Aschheim, The Nietzsche Legacy in Germany, p. 4.

Chapter III Nietzsche and the Sociology of his Times

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Chapter III Nietzsche and the Sociology of his Times Both the history of sociology as well as Nietzsche’s relationship with this academic discipline are incredibly complex. Therefore, I will in this chapter firstly try to take a brief look at the emergence and origins of sociology in the 19th century, and secondly at Nietzsche’s comments on the discipline’s main representatives during his lifetime – i.e. on Auguste Comte and Herbert Spencer. As with the lives and thoughts of many other philosophers of his times, Nietzsche knew Comte and Spencer as well as their respective writings only in part or through the mediated interpretations of general introductions to their work. Nietzsche attacked both social philosophers and their work on the basis of a profound mistrust in society and its institutions, which formed the basis of both Comte’s and Spencer’s analysis. While it is true that Nietzsche criticises the respective sociological analysis which both thinkers propose from the vantage point of the philosopher and as part of his philosophical critique of culture and metaphysics, the resulting critique and the theoretical approach to society which Nietzsche is proposing, bears strong features of what we refer to as “cultural sociology” today. So even if Nietzsche’s critique starts out from his philosophical concerns, we will come to see that the concluding alternative he is proposing is in essence a sociological model. In our considerations on these matters, we will clearly come to see that Nietzsche regarded sociology as an embodiment of the “spirit of the times”, and hence he believed that the discipline could never provide a viable account of the social processes it was itself part of. For Nietzsche, sociology lacked (to phrase it ironically) the “pathos of distance”. In order to be able to demonstrate the full scope of Nietzsche’s critique it will be necessary to compare the published and unpublished fragments on sociology from Nietzsche’s writings throughout this chapter. This will help us to put his comments into perspective and to follow the development of his alternative model of sociocultural progress more closely.

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1) The emergence and origins of sociology “Hegel und Nietzsche sind die beiden Enden, zwischen denen sich das eigentliche Geschehen der Geschichte des deutschen Geistes im 19.Jahrhundert bewegt.”1 The “revolutionary break” within 19th century philosophy, which Karl Löwith mentions in the subtitle to his book From Hegel to Nietzsche is characterised in short by the decline of Hegelian idealism, as well as the break-up of the Hegelian school into left and right. Moreover, it is marked by the arrival of positivism, of scientific empiricism as well as of a vulgar and a dialectical form of materialism. This is also why Löwith believes that the path which leads from: “Hegel zu Nietzsche [...] durch die Namen des Jungen Deutschland und der Junghegelianer bezeichnet [wird, F.S.L.], die Hegels System zu seiner geschichtlichen Wirkung brachten, indem sie es als solches zersetzten.”2 In general the tendency was to move away from Hegel’s philosophy of “spirit” (the main arguments among the young Hegelians related to Hegel’s philosophy of religion) and Schelling’s speculation about “nature”, and to turn instead to the seemingly more “realistic” or “objective” natural sciences like biology, chemistry, medicine and physiology, especially since they were holding the promise of practical use and the option of financial exploitation. This is why Karl Heinrich Höfele is eventually right in arguing that the 19th century was characterised by a strong desire for reality and practicality and was certainly tired of a philosophy that only provided abstract “idealisms”.3 Even if Nietzsche’s unsystematic philosophy is in part also a reaction to the rigidity of Hegel’s philosophical system, it is clearly also a reaction against the “spirit of his times” as Löwith consistently argues: “Weil Nietzsche in seinem Verhältnis zur Zeit und zur zeitgenössischen Philosophie ein ‘Unzeitgemäßer’ war und unzeitgemäß auch geblieben ist, war er und ist er auch ‘zeitgemäß’, ein philosophischer Maßstab der Zeit.”4 It is precisely because of this “untimely” quality of Nietzsche’s thought that his responses to sociology should be, and also increasingly are of particular interest to scholars of the history of sociology, as sociology emerged as a very “timely” or zeitgemäße reaction to the social, economic and political developments of the late 19th century. Even more so, since sociology specifically tried to make sense of these wider developments as well as of the more general sociocultural shifts 1 Karl Löwith, Von Hegel zu Nietzsche. Der revolutionäre Bruch im Denken des 19. Jahrhunderts (Frankfurt: Fischer Verlag, 1969), p. 7. 2 Ibid. p. 193. 3 Karl Heinrich Höfele, Geist und Gesellschaft der Bismarckzeit 1870–1890 (Göttingen/ Zürich/Berlin/Frankfurt: Musterschmidt Verlag, 1967), p. 13. 4 Löwith, Von Hegel zu Nietzsche, p. 209.

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at the time. Hence it is exactly here – as we will come to see throughout this chapter – where Nietzsche’s reservations regarding the theoretical and ideological scope of the new discipline originate.5 We should note, however, that according to Ferdinand Tönnies, there: “was hardly any mention of ‘sociology under that name before the year 1880’ in Germany.”6 And as far as the self-affirmation of sociology as an academic discipline in Germany is concerned, it is clear that until: “the beginning of [the 20th century, F.S.L.], an independent sociology seems hardly to have existed in Germany.”7 Yet when sociology first surfaced as a new discipline in Germany in the second half of the 19th century, it found itself competing with many other branches of learning, particularly with the already established Kulturwissenschaften. This clearly limited the argumentative scope of sociology to some extent, since it led to an: “eingeengte Lage der neu entstehenden Soziologie zwischen den bereits etablierten Kulturwissenschaften im Kaiserreich.”8 Initially at least, this had severe consequences for the discipline’s self-affirmation or Selbstbehauptung. Yet another factor: “which hindered the development of an independent sociology was the existence of a science of the state and of politics.”9 Moreover, sociology was also clearly limited in the broadening of its theoretical scope at an early stage, by the division between “anthropology” and “sociology” in Germany. As the “study of men” anthropology, rather than sociology – as the “study of society” – got hold of that part of the analysis of “culture” which the already established Kulturwissenschaften did not deal with. While Kulturwissenschaften dealt with the totality of philosophical attempts that concerned themselves with a clarification of the notion of “culture”,10

5 There never actually was a university chair for sociology in Germany during Nietzsche’s lifetime. The first German university chair for sociology was established in 1925, at the University of Leipzig and was held by Hans Freyer (1887–1969), whose views on the sociocultural development of “modernity” were incidentally also strongly influenced by Nietzsche’s “cultural critique”. For Nietzsche’s influence on Freyer, see: Häußling, Nietzsche und die Soziologie, p. 194. The first book written in German, which carried the term “sociology” in its title, was a magnum opus by the Vienna based Polish emigrant Ludwig Gumplowicz (1838–1909), entitled Grundriß der Soziologie (First edition published in Vienna, 1885). Nietzsche, however, seemed not to have been aware of this book. 6 Maus, A Short History of Sociology, p. 22. 7 Aron, German Sociology, p. 1. 8 Cornelius Bickel, “Nachwort’‚ in Ferdinand Tönnies, Die Entwicklung der sozialen Frage bis zum Weltkriege (Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 1989), p. 158. 9 Aron, German Sociology, p. 1. 10 From the Latin word “colere” which means: to care for, to build upon, to develop, to actively cherish. This traditional meaning can still be found in the word “agriculture”, which derives from the Latin word “agricultura” and means: to care for or cultivate the ground. This meaning also indicates a broader philosophical link between the notion of “culture” and the subjugation of “nature”.

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as well as its division into cultural sub-sectors and their inherent structural-, hierarchical- and value-based laws, sociology still struggled to find its wissenschaftlichen or scientific focus. But since “culture” only gains reality, and finds expression within human history, Kulturwissenschaften became almost identical with the more traditional and already established study of history.11 This is also the way in which Kulturwissenschaften were defined by their main representatives like Wilhelm Windelband.12 Anthropology on the other hand, tried to grasp the totality of human existence scientifically, by analysing both its position within and its relation to the world. Anthropological surveys of primitive tribes and societies in backward areas of the then “modern world” were to serve as “case studies” (as one might call them) for the origins of men and culture, which were in turn to be contrasted to the status-quo of modern society. But while anthropology tried to determine and document the “inner logic” of these “primitive” tribes and societies, it also helped to relativise – whether willingly or unwillingly is not the point here – the “inner logic” of western societies. Particularly since it became increasingly clear that there were also valid alternatives to the preponderant self-image and “inner logic” of western societies, and that on top of this, these alternatives had to be neither overlooked nor oppressed. There was a growing conviction that these primitive societies could instead even be appreciated for their “otherness”. This was an important development, because as Gabriele Cappai emphasises in her reflections on the relation between “culture and sociology” with regards to this context: “Die Kultur einer Gruppe ist nicht ein zum Gebrauch fertiges und unveränderliches Wesensattribut dieser Gruppe. Die Gruppe greift bei der Konstruktion der eigenen kulturellen Identität bestimmte Seiten der eigenen Geschichte heraus und blendet andere aus.”13 Both anthropology and sociology, therefore, also contributed to the “construction of a cultural identity” within modern society or “modernity” more generally, in their own peculiar ways. While in the 18th century news and reports of newly discovered cultures only served as a tool of stark contrast to Europe’s social history and offered ample material for satirical literature as in the case of Swift and Voltaire, in the

11 For an account of this development, see: Klaus Lichtblau, “Soziologie als Kulturwissenschaft? Zur Rolle des Kulturbegriffs in der Selbstreflexion der deutschsprachigen Soziologie”, in Soziologie: Forum der deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie, vol. 1 (Opladen: Verlag Leske & Budrich Verlag, 2001), particularly pp. 11-17. 12 See for example: Wilhelm Windelband, Geschichte und Wissenschaft: Rede zum Antritt des Rektorats der Kaiser-Wilhelm-Universität Straßburg (Straßburg: Heitz & Mündel, 1900). 13 Gabriele Cappai, “Kultur aus soziologischer Perspektive. Eine metawissenschaftliche Perspektive”, in Heide Appelsmeyer and Elfriede Billmann-Mahecha (eds.), Kulturwissenschaft: Felder einer prozeßorientierten wissenschaftlichen Praxis (Weilerswist: Velbrück Wissenschaft, 2001), p. 93.

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19th century the growing number of reliable reports of visits to distant “cultures”, and the discoveries made of other highly (or not so highly) developed “civilisations”, led to a period of critical self-examination in western societies. But any radical change of perspective was, therefore, only made possible at the cost of the violent imperialist expansion that took place during the second half of the 19th century as well as by the “acquisition” of new territories (or colonies) that were conquered and discovered (not at all peacefully, however) by France, Britain, Germany and other colonial powers, who were competing for their individual “place in the sun” [“Platz an der Sonne”]. The academic disciplines in Germany that dealt with the psychological processes at work in the formation of human communities – which were frequently even thought of as “living organisms” – were in the main: Völkerkunde, Völkerpsychologie and Volkskunde. Although it is sometimes hard to distinguish between these disciplines, it has to be noted that they co-existed for quite some time, only to be slowly but surely pushed into the background by the increasing dominance of anthropology and the gradually developing relevance of sociology. This development was supported by the fact that completely secluded cultures with a unique “cultural identity” (on which disciplines like Völkerkunde depended) became harder and harder to find. Until in the 20th century they had almost all vanished. This was due in no small part to their gradually increasing contact with the outside world, which had led these cultures more and more in the direction of what could be called “open cultures” or, to phrase it more lyrically, in the direction of “paradise lost”. As a consequence, they were increasingly characterised by an amalgamation of cultural influences. In the midst of these turbulent times of wissenschaftlicher “segregation”, sociology tried to establish itself as a valid alternative account of the origins and workings of society. It was Auguste Comte who gave sociology its name and its first scientific system: For Comte the practical aim of sociology was to systematically re-organise human society.14 He tried to superimpose the methods of the natural sciences onto the study of society itself, and thereby provided the groundwork for the emerging social sciences. Hence: early “sociological thought was broadly optimistic [in so far as it believed that, F.S.L.] the certainties of the natural sciences could be applied to the social sciences unproblematically.”15 This optimism also becomes apparent in Comte’s naive hope that his method of sociology was to uncover the true “forces promoting historical

14 Auguste Comte, The Foundation of Sociology (London: Thomas Nelson and Sons Ltd., 1976), p. 48. 15 Alan Swingewood, A Short History of Sociological Thought (Basingstoke/London: MacMillan Press, 2000), p. viii.

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change.”16 We will clearly come to see that unlike many other thinkers in the 19th century, Nietzsche will not share this optimistic view of Auguste Comte. But why then is sociology a child of the “spirit of its times”? Even if today anthropology and sociology both share in the analysis of contemporary society, it should be remembered that when sociology first surfaced in the 19th century, it was created in order to explain the rapid developments spurned by the effects of industrialisation with the help of a systematic account of these apparent transformation processes: “Eighteenth and nineteenth century Europe gave birth to both industrial society and to the discipline of sociology which self-consciously examined it.”17 But while sociology was investigating the vast changes that were affecting modern society, it increasingly became part of these changes too. Yet many of these rapid changes would have seemed unthinkable only a few decades earlier on: “Was das Gesicht der Erde in diesem Zeitraum stärker verändert hat, als es alle früheren Abschnitte der Weltgeschichte vermochten, ist zugleich das die widersprüchlichen Hälften des Säkulums Verbindende, seinen Gesamtcharakter Bestimmende: der gigantische Aufschwung der Technik mit seinen wirtschaftlichen, sozialen und politischen Folgen.”18 But even the very notion of “modernity” – which is commonly used to describe the historical period and the sociocultural changes in question, and which we will turn to in more detail in Chapter 5 of this book – is heavily entangled with the transition from pre-modern “associations” to modern industrial “societies”.19 Yet in his critical reflections on the relation between “sociology” and “modernity”, Peter Wagner even goes a step further, for he asks: “What else is sociology, if not the systematic attempt to come to an understanding of modern society? […] If sociology grew with modernity, as its mode of self-monitoring, then it could never achieve the distance to the object that every analytical endeavour requires.”20 As we will come to see more clearly in the next section of this chapter, Nietzsche expressed very similar concerns about the (ideological) nature of sociology, its patronising self-image as well as its failure to realise its own embeddedness in the “spirit of the times”, i.e. the spirit of “decadence” and “nihilism”.

16 Ibid. 17 Joe Bailey (ed.), Social Europe (London: Longman, 1998), p. 2. 18 Höfele, Geist und Gesellschaft der Bismarckzeit, p. 13. 19 For an account, see: Swingewood, “Modernity, Industrialisation and the Rise of Sociology”, in Swingewood, A Short History of Sociological Thought, particularly pp. 3-27. Or alternatively a seminal text: Ferdinand Tönnies, Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1991). 20 Wagner, A Sociology of Modernity, p. ix.

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2) Nietzsche’s comments on sociology Nietzsche’s comments on sociology as an emerging discipline are scarce and scattered widely throughout his books (including certain fragments from the unpublished works or Nachlaß ). In these comments and in his less obvious references to sociology, Nietzsche’s relation to the subject is incredibly complex. Nietzsche criticises the early sociologists Auguste Comte and Herbert Spencer, as well as the discipline itself of being the products of a “spirit of décadence”. Nietzsche’s comments bear witness to his negative stance towards that discipline, but at the same time also show that this is the result of a misunderstanding concerning the true potential of the new discipline. In consequence of this misunderstanding, Nietzsche underestimated sociology’s rightful scope, which was only to fully unfold itself later. There were at least two reasons for this: first of all the discipline itself was still in a stage of “infancy” when Nietzsche observed it, and secondly Nietzsche believed that he himself could provide much deeper insights into the workings of society. Consequently Nietzsche himself regarded the emerging discipline of sociology to be both a symptom as well as a part of modernity and, therefore, directed a fundamental ideological suspicion towards it. He suggests that sociology was a discipline that employed a decadent mode of analysis: “Mein Einwand gegen die ganze Soziologie in England und Frankreich bleibt, daß sie nur die Verfalls-Gebilde der Societät aus Erfahrung kennt und vollkommen unschuldig die eigenen Verfalls-Instinkte als Norm des soziologischen Werturteils nimmt. Das niedergehende Leben, die Abnahme aller organisierenden, das heißt trennenden, Klüfte aufreißenden, unter- und überordnenden Kraft formuliert sich in der Soziologie von heute zum Ideal.” 21

Hence sociology only investigates the process and elements of decline and decadence, of which itself is a part, and which form its true framework of experience. In consequence sociology elevates these processes and elements of decline to a normative status and can, therefore, be regarded as essentially “nihilistic”. This nihilistic discipline is thus not able to provide a viable perspective for the future from within its process of analysis and is for this reason itself decadent. But Nietzsche was also very critical of statistics as a tool for either deeper insights to be gained about society or as a tool for the acquisition of knowledge more generally, as he could see no analytical depth emerging from it. His sentiments are aptly summarised in his notorious statement: “Die Massen, [...] hole sie der Teufel oder die Statistik! Wie, die Statistik beweise, daß es Gesetze in 21 Nietzsche, Götzen-Dämmerung, KSA 6, § 37, pp. 138-139.

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der Geschichte gäbe? Gesetze? Ja, sie beweist, wie gemein und ekelhaft uniform die Masse ist: soll man die Wirkung der Schwerkräfte Dummheit, Nachäfferei, Liebe und Hunger Gesetze nennen?”22 Statistics, therefore, is nothing more than a vulgar “science of the masses” for Nietzsche. The main representatives of sociology when Nietzsche observed it were: Auguste Comte (1798–1857) with his notion of “positivism”, and Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) with his notion of “evolutionism” (while the notion of “evolutionism” is more clearly associated with Spencer, Comte’s model of sociology is also of course “evolutionary”). Therefore, it will be helpful in our assessment of Nietzsche’s relationship to early sociological thought to provide a brief overview of some of the many comments he makes about Comte and Spencer and to combine these comments with brief introductory remarks about their sociological projects. This will not only help to provide an authentic feeling for Nietzsche’s cynicism about sociology, but it will also help to determine how mistaken Nietzsche actually was about the writings of both Comte and Spencer, which he hardly seemed to have read at all. In his commentary on Nietzsche’s philosophy, Mazzino Montinari emphasises that Nietzsche knew about Comte’s sociology only by having read John Stuart Mill’s summary and exposition of the writings by the French sociologist. Therefore – when Nietzsche for example accuses Comte of aiming to create his own legend as a “binding institution for future mankind” by trying to “canonise himself and his work” – “[ist, F.S.L.] die Quelle Nietzsches über Auguste Comte: John Stuart Mill, ‘Auguste Comte und der Positivismus’, Gesammelte Werke, IX, 89141.”23 Nevertheless, Nietzsche at least seems to have read one book by Spencer, as Montinari also stresses, because when Nietzsche, for example, accuses Spencer of confusing “the systems of morality with the origins of morality”, “bezieht [Nietzsche, F.S.L.] sich auf Herbert Spencer, Die Tatsachen der Ethik, Übersetzt von B. Vetter, Stuttgart 1879.”24 It is, therefore, clear that Nietzsche knew only very little about the sociological projects of both Comte and Spencer, but in the next two sections of this chapter we will clearly come to see, that Nietzsche did not at all think that his own “ignorance” should keep him from either heavily criticising or even from radically attacking their respective world-views. On the contrary, because the very fact that Nietzsche regarded the discipline as a whole as both a symptom and part of “modernity” allowed him to conveniently integrate his radical critique of sociology into his more 22 Nietzsche, Unzeitgemäße Betrachtungen II, KSA 1, § 9, p. 320. 23 Mazzino Montinari, “Kommentar zu Band 3: Morgenröte”, in Nietzsche, Kommentar zu Band 1-13, KSA 14, p. 227. 24 Montinari, “Kommentar zu Band 9: Nachgelassene Fragmente 1880–1882”, in Ibid. p. 625.

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fundamental and structural critique of the apparent features of “nihilism” and “decadence” which, according to Nietzsche, characterised modern society at the end of the 19th century.

2.1) Nietzsche and Auguste Comte “Auguste Comte: Das ist der Geist einer ganzen Epoche in einer einzigen Person”,25 as Ferdinand Fellmann points out. And in short, this is also why Nietzsche opposed Comte’s sociology. Comte saw historical development as manifesting itself in determinate laws, that made historical change proceed through definite succeeding stages.26 Moreover, he rejected any kind of “metaphysics” and believed that the development of the human spirit would take place in three different stages of development: (1) the theological stage, (2) the metaphysical stage, and finally (3) the positivist stage.27 In the first stage – the stage of domination by priests and warriors – humans aim to explain all natural phenomena as stemming from a particular will of the things themselves or out of the will of a supernatural being. In the second stage – the stage of philosophers and jurists – humans turn to abstract reasoning, ideas and other theoretical “powers” that are to explain all natural phenomena. Comte’s approach to the third stage – the stage of the amalgamation of “theory” and “praxis” – was that humans then concern themselves with observations and experiments in order to gain an understanding of all natural phenomena and to formulate as laws these conditions and connections that seem to have emerged as constants from the process of experimental observation.28 The motto of positivism henceforth became: “Know to foresee, foresee to forewarn”.29 Thus, sociology’s aim for Comte was to re-organise human society.30 In order to stimulate progress, Comte believed that great feelings had to be stirred up by some form of world religion whose “highest entity” (Grand Etre) was “mankind” itself. Or as Kenneth Thomson puts it: “Religion and morals supply the ‘cement’ that binds society together in a common cult, and that excites affective attachments to the social order and beliefs that

25 Ferdinand Fellmann (ed.), Geschichte der Philosophie im 19. Jahrhundert (Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, 1996), p. 19. 26 Comte, The Foundation of Sociology, p. 39. 27 Ibid. pp. 39-40. 28 Ibid. p. 163. 29 “Savoir pour prévoir, prévoir pour prévenir” [my translation]. 30 Comte, The Foundation of Sociology, p. 48.

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legitimate the social order.”31 For Comte the basis of that religion was to be: love as principle, order as foundation and progress as aim. This turn to religion – but not only that – particularly provoked Nietzsche’s scorn: with his famous moral notion of “vivre pour autrui”, Nietzsche says that Comte had even managed to “outchristian Christianity” [“das Christentum überchristlicht”].32 Consequently, Nietzsche asks himself how the exceptional amount of pleasure that Comte seems to gain from his “altruism” can be explained and concludes that it must be his desire for love – “amour”.33 Moreover, Comte’s positivism (as a mere representation of observed facts with no value system or ordered hierarchy attached) did not help Nietzsche to like the “roman logic” of Comte’s work, which he even referred to as inherently “catholic” and deeply “un-German”. Nietzsche wrote: “Wie katholisch, wie undeutsch riecht uns Auguste Comtes Soziologie mit ihrer römischen Logik der Instinkte!”34 On top of that, Comte’s logic reduces mankind to “one eternal ideal” [“Ein ewiges Ideal”],35 as Nietzsche says. And Comte’s desire to advocate “charity” [“Nächstenliebe”] only goes to show that his character is composed of a bad mixture of virtues, which clearly give away the weariness of his mind, as Nietzsche puts it.36 For Nietzsche, Comte’s altruism, therefore, is the result of a general “désintéressement within morality” [“désintéressement in der Moral”].37 On the other hand though, Comte still was – above all his German and English “competitors” – an “embracer and conqueror of the strict sciences” [“Umschlinger und Bändiger der großen Wissenschaften”],38 as Nietzsche argues. But sadly Comte aimed to create his own legend as a “binding institution for future mankind” [“bindende Institution für die zukünftige Menschheit”] by trying to “canonise himself and his work” [“Indem er sich selber kanonisiert, hat er auch das Zeugnis des Todes über sich ausgestellt”].39 This is, by the way, a clear indication that Nietzsche did not think very highly of any attempt at establishing a “canon of authoritative literature”. Yet what disappointed Nietzsche even more, was the fact that Comte completely misunderstood the fact that “mankind”

31 Kenneth Thomson, “Introductory Essay”, in Comte, The Foundation of Sociology, p. 15. 32 Nietzsche, Morgenröte, KSA 3, § 132, p. 123. 33 Nietzsche, Nachlaß 1880–1882, KSA 9, Ende 1880 8 [71], p. 398. 34 Nietzsche, Jenseits von Gut und Böse, KSA 5, § 48, p. 69. 35 Nietzsche, Nachlaß 1880–1882, KSA 9, Ende 1880 7 [217], p. 362. 36 Nietzsche, Nachlaß 1884–1885, KSA 11, Frühjahr 1884 25 [291], pp. 85f. 37 Ibid. Sommer-Herbst 1884 26 [389], p. 253. 38 Nietzsche, Morgenröte, KSA 3, § 542, p. 311. 39 Ibid. p. 313.

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[“Menschheit”] is not the ultimate aim of history, but the “Übermensch”.40 If Nietzsche’s comments already seem rather harsh and unjust regarding Comte and his overall sociological project, his comments about Herbert Spencer, outlined below, are certainly no less so.

2.2) Nietzsche and Herbert Spencer “Mit dem Namen Spencers ist der Begriff Evolutionismus eng verbunden”,41 as Fellmann argues. And Spencer’s notion of “evolutionism” could have – more than Comte’s “positivism” did – appealed to Nietzsche, as it also speaks of “antagonistic forces” within the universe that determine its progress and hence ultimately also its “evolution”. We will, however, come to see that Nietzsche did not think very highly of Spencer’s work. Spencer’s “synthetic philosophy” tried to formulate a universal law that was, by definition, to cover the natural phenomena of the entire universe within a single epistemological framework, and which was, therefore, to be consistent and sufficient in and by itself. In a more tangible sense, what: “Spencer was trying to reconstruct was not a history of concrete social aggregates but a genealogy of types of social structure, although he never explicitly made this distinction”,42 as Stanislav Andreski convincingly argues. Spencer wanted to superimpose the discoveries that had been made in the natural sciences onto the study of the social processes and social realities around him.43 These processes were to be analysed on the basis of “scientific laws”. For Spencer, sociology was to be grounded on observable facts, and hence the exact science of “biology” became the role-model sociology had to live up to.44 This was so, because Spencer (like many other of his contemporaries) regarded biology as the most complex and sophisticated science in existence, whose findings could consequently be imposed uncritically onto all other scientific disciplines and approaches to the world. Spencer believed that he had discovered the universal law he was looking for in the process of “evolution”: “Das Prinzip der Evolution besagt, daß alle Naturvorgänge einschließlich der kulturellen Entwicklung vom Einfachen zum Komplexen verlaufen.”45 This process of evolution, Spencer

40 Nietzsche, Nachlaß 1884–1885, KSA 11, Sommer-Herbst 1884 26 [232], p. 210. 41 Fellmann (ed.), Geschichte der Philosophie im 19. Jahrhundert, p. 69. 42 Stanislav Andreski, “Introduction”, in Herbert Spencer, Principles of Sociology (Basingstoke/ London: MacMillan Press, 1969), pp. xvii-xviii. 43 Spencer, Principles of Sociology, § 208, p. 1. 44 Ibid. 45 Fellmann (ed.), Geschichte der Philosophie im 19. Jahrhundert, p. 69.

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argues, is dominated by the principle of the conservation or retainment of matter and energy, and consists of an integration of material objects and the simultaneous dissipation of movement. This dissipation of movement leads from an initial “homogeneity” of material objects to their eventual “heterogeneity”. For Spencer the cycle of evolution ends with the dissolution of material objects and the absorption of movement. This in turn leads back to the disintegration of material objects, and the restart of the whole process. As the universe itself is generally speaking also determined by these antagonistic forces, it has to undergo the process of development and disintegration eternally, as Spencer argues. Even though certain aspects of Spencer’s theory of “evolutionism” could clearly have appealed to Nietzsche – as they bear some ephemeral closeness to his own positions (particularly the notion of “eternal recurrence”, to say the least) – Nietzsche did not think very highly of Spencer and regarded him – along with Charles Darwin and John Stuart Mill – as a “respectable but mediocre Englishman” [“achtbaren, aber mittelmäßigen Engländer”], who are only fashionable with their own kind – the mediocre spirits.46 Spencer, Nietzsche argued, was, however, on the right track when he claimed that the term “good” was qualitatively the same as the concepts of “useful” or “practical” [“‘gut’ als wesensgleich mit dem Begriff ‘nützlich’, ‘zweckmäßig’ ansetzt”].47 But following Huxley, Nietzsche says that Spencer embodies the typical form of an “administrative nihilism” [“administrativen Nihilismus”].48 Moreover, Nietzsche believes that Spencer is a “décadent – as he sees in the victory of altruism something desirable!” [“décadent – er sieht im Sieg des Altruismus etwas Wünschenswertes!”].49 And hence Nietzsche can only feel “contempt” [“Verachtung”]50 for the kind of society Spencer favours, because for Nietzsche, Spencer’s “altruism” is fairly similar to a “voluntary donation of urine” [“freiwilliges Abgeben von Urin”].51 According to Nietzsche, Spencer’s sociology merely holds up “declining life as the ideal” [“niedergehende Leben ... zum Ideal”].52 Therefore, Nietzsche also damns Spencer’s “ethics”, because “one should not imitate the strict sciences, when the time has not yet come to be strictly scientific” [“Man muß nicht Wissenschaft affektieren, wo es noch nicht Zeit

46 Nietzsche, Jenseits von Gut und Böse, KSA 5, § 253, p. 196. 47 Nietzsche, Genealogie der Moral, KSA 5, § 3, p. 261. 48 Ibid. § 12, p. 316. 49 Nietzsche, Götzen-Dämmerung, KSA 6, § 37, p. 139. 50 Nietzsche, Fröhliche Wissenschaft, KSA 3, § 373, p. 625. 51 Nietzsche, Nachlaß 1884–1885, KSA 11, Sommer-Herbst 1884 26 [303], p. 231. 52 Nietzsche, Götzen-Dämmerung, KSA 6, § 37, p. 139.

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ist, wissenschaftlich zu sein”].53 So for Nietzsche, Spencer’s theory presupposes the “equality of mankind” [“Gleichheit der Menschen”],54 but completely misunderstands the question of the origins of morality because it constantly confuses “the systems of morality with the origins of morality” [“die Systeme der Moral ... mit der Entstehung der Moral”].55 In the last instance, Nietzsche says, Spencer’s sociology and its trivial mode of investigation can, therefore, only arrive at a “superficial-English judgement” [“englisch-oberflächliches Urteil”].56 As we can clearly see, Nietzsche’s comments on both thinkers are more polemical or cynical in nature than informative, objective or indeed well informed. The main thrust of his critique is, as we can envisage, clearly directed at Comte’s and Spencer’s respective notions of “altruism”, which Nietzsche – the radical individualist – must necessarily reject. In short, “altruism” would basically stand in Nietzsche’s way of defining and propagating the truly “selfdetermining individual” who is able to make his own values and who thereby also overcomes the limiting and debilitating effects of traditional “morality”, as well as the more general effects of “nihilism”. In his reflections on “Nietzsche, Spencer, and the Ethics of Evolution”, Gregory Moore raises important general concerns regarding Nietzsche’s: “naturalistic critique of traditional morality”,57 which seem to encapsulate Nietzsche’s major objections as well as differences to both Comte’s and Spencer’s positions. Moore summarises Nietzsche’s and Spencer’s respective approaches to “moral evolution” by stressing Spencer’s view of a gradual progression from “egoism” to “altruism”, and by contrasting it with Nietzsche’s notion of an advancement from “egoism” to a total form of “self-legislation”: “Whereas Spencer posits a gradual advancement from egoism to altruism, Nietzsche argues the opposite: altruism is an underdeveloped form of egoism, the egoism of the herd. He does not demand a return to a pre-moral animality, as many of his interpreters have supposed – for that would mean an atavistic regression to a lower form of egoism. Moral evolution involves for him a refinement of these egoistic impulses, with the individual progressing from being merely part of a whole, an organ within a social organism, to a self-legislating ‘cell-state’. Where Spencer’s ‘ideally moral man’ is the embodiment of herd consciousness, Nietzsche’s Übermensch is a being who can master the conflicting perspectives and impulses that 53 Nietzsche, Nachlaß 1884–1885, KSA 11, Mai-Juli 1885 35 [31], p. 522. 54 Nietzsche, Nachlaß 1880–1882, KSA 9, Anfang 1880 1 [98], p. 27. 55 Ibid. Anfang 1880 1 [106], p. 28. 56 Nietzsche, Nachlaß 1884–1885, KSA 11, August-September 1885 40 [4], p. 630. 57 Gregory Moore, “Nietzsche, Spencer, and the Ethics of Evolution”, in The Journal of Nietzsche Studies, vol. 23 (London: Friedrich Nietzsche Society, 2002), p. 2.

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constitute his existence, who has emancipated himself from the alienating experience of serving ends that are not his own, and who is thus free to posit his own goals and values.” 58

Yet Nietzsche’s knowledge of Comte’s and Spencer’s respective sociologies as well as of their philosophical outlooks more generally, is clearly limited. Nevertheless, Nietzsche’s critique of Comte and Spencer is not without its merits for sociological analysis, but it has – so far – hardly been taken seriously by sociologists. What “sociology” could learn from Nietzsche’s radical critique of its outlook on and approach to society is that (a) it should be far more self-critical about its theoretical scope as well as its ability to explain social phenomena from within the sociocultural processes it is part of, and that (b) sociology’s objectively scientific and reasonably systematic approach to society is – despite all its best efforts – still not able to accommodate every aspect of social existence in one grand explanatory framework (which Comte and Spencer clearly set out to do, since their sociology: “was concerned with the whole of history and social life of man”),59 and in many cases clearly lacks the “creativity” and “intuition” of Nietzsche’s own – if “untimely”, “fragmented” and “unsystematic” – philosophy, as well as of his very challenging sociocultural criticism. But given that Nietzsche was so critical about sociology, is it still possible for there to be a constructive Nietzschean contribution to sociology? I would say that this is indeed possible and I will argue that the responses to Nietzsche’s philosophy by the early sociologists and social thinkers we are in the main looking at, provide ample evidence of Nietzsche’s lasting contribution to the intellectual development and refinement of sociology. It particularly was Nietzsche’s cultural critique which sparked off a fundamentally important academic dialogue on “culture” among many early sociologists of fin-de-siècle Germany. In the following chapter I will, therefore, briefly look at how the sociologist Max Weber reacted to the challenges Nietzsche’s philosophy posed to his own attempts at explaining the sociocultural reality of modern society.

58 Ibid. p. 19. 59 Aron, German Sociology, p. 1.

Chapter IV The legacy of Nietzsche’s philosophy in Max Weber’s sociology

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Chapter IV The legacy of Nietzsche’s philosophy in Max Weber’s sociology In this chapter I mainly look at Nietzsche’s influence on Max Weber’s sociology, which has already been the subject of intense debate elsewhere, but which allows me to (a) highlight more general features of the sociological Nietzsche reception and (b) to introduce strongly “Weberian” notions which have also influenced some of the other sociologists and social thinkers we are looking at. In particular, our understanding of Mayreder’s and Nietzsche’s notions of a “limited form of asceticism” in later chapters of this book will benefit from our analysis of Weber’s notion of an “innerworldly asceticism” here. Max Weber was deeply impressed by Nietzsche’s philosophy. Particularly at the time of his nervous breakdown (at the end of the 1890s), Weber seemed to have read Nietzsche’s writings with great enthusiasm.1 Apparently Weber read Nietzsche’s philosophy from the mid 1890s onwards.2 Later in his life he even tried to amalgamate his readings of Nietzsche with his analytical indebtedness to the philosophy of Karl Marx, to formulate a distinctively “Weberian” notion of sociocultural critique.3 First and foremost this is, of course, reflected in Weber’s Protestant Ethic from 1904/05, where he tried to connect his analysis of the foundations of modern society with the influence of the protestant “ascetic ideal”. As a result, Weber gave rise to an understanding of sociology that, instead of providing purely positivist descriptions and accounts of social phenomena, aimed to get to the bottom of concrete historical manifestations of social organisations, such as the spirit of capitalism in modern society. Weber, however, repeatedly addressed himself to Nietzsche’s writings particularly after his breakdown, even if this is not directly reflected in his publica1 Mitzman, The Iron Cage (1969), pp. 181-185. 2 Hennis, Max Weber: Essays in Reconstruction (1988), pp. 148f. 3 Georg Stauth and Bryan S. Turner, Nietzsche’s Dance: Resentment, Reciprocity and Resistance in Social Life (Oxford: Basil Blackwell Ltd., 1988), p. 105.

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tions, and also cultivated a life-long admiration for Nietzsche and his work, which is not surprising due to the argumentative closeness of their thoughts. In particular Max Weber’s two aforementioned articles Die Protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus from 1904/05, cannot be conceived without his reading of Nietzsche’s writings: The notion of an “innerworldly asceticism” is essentially a “Nietzschean” concept. And there is, as we will come to see more clearly in the following sections of this chapter, certainly a case to be made for the argument put forward by Stauth and Turner, who argue that “Nietzsche is the unrecognised presence in Weber’s sociology”.4

1) Nietzsche’s influence on Max Weber The case of Max Weber has become the standard point of reference for Nietzsche’s influence on German sociology. Hardly any recent publication on Weber’s sociology fails to acknowledge his indebtedness to Nietzsche’s writings in some form or other. It is almost fashionable to establish this link. A good example of this trend is also the republication of Eugène Fleischmann’s influential essay “De Weber à Nietzsche” in the 40th anniversary edition of Archives européennes de sociologie in summer 2001, an essay which was originally published in 1964 and which was one of the first major attempts to explore the relation between Weber’s sociology and Nietzsche’s philosophy in any detail.5 This is also why in his assessment of the relationship between “Nietzsche, Weber and the Question of value-free Social Science”, Thomas Poell can argue with some justification that to “call attention to the similarities and links between the work of Max Weber and Friedrich Nietzsche has become a common thing in contemporary social sciences.”6 It is, therefore, not surprising to find that Nietzsche’s influence on Max Weber has been analysed in much detail already.7 The general tendency of these accounts is to emphasise the: “similarity in the philosophical and cultural problems [Nietzsche

4 Stauth and Turner, Nietzsche’s Dance, p. 100. 5 Eugène Fleischmann, “De Weber à Nietzsche”, in Archives européennes de sociologie: 40ème anniversaire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), pp. 243-291 (reprint from 1964). 6 Thomas Poell, “Nietzsche, Weber and the Question of value-free Social Science”, Section 1 “Introduction”, was published online only at: “http://huizen.dds.nl/˜tpoell/Nietzsche.html”. 7 For an account, see: Hennis, Max Weber: Essays in Reconstruction (1988), particularly Chapter 4 “Traces of Nietzsche in the work of Max Weber”, pp. 146-162; Mitzman, The Iron Cage (1969), particularly Chapter 6 “Marx, Nietzsche and the Spirits of Defiance”, pp. 181-191; Stauth and Turner, Nietzsche’s Dance, particularly Chapter 3 “The Priest is a Beefsteak Eater – Rationalisation and Cultural Control in Weber”, pp. 98-122; Häußling, Nietzsche und die Soziologie (2000), particularly Chapter 10.4.ff. “Max Webers gesammeltes Schweigen”, pp. 165-203; Lichtblau, Kulturkrise und die Soziologie um die Jahrhundertwende (1996), particularly Chapter II.4 “Die Genesis des ‘kapitalistischen Geistes’ als moderner ‘Sklavenaufstand in der Moral’”, pp. 158-177.

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and Weber, F.S.L.] are confronting, and the differences between their analyses of these problems and the solutions they come up with.”8 There are, however, also many problems associated with the exact verification of the degree of Weber’s reading of Nietzsche’s philosophy, as Häußling consistently emphasises: “Denn es ist ja gerade Weber, der sich nie eindeutig über sein Verhältnis zu Nietzsche’s Denken geäußert hat und dessen Texte nur sehr sporadische und versteckte Bezüge zu Nietzsche enthalten, jedoch – gemäß einer mehr oder weniger spekulativen Textinterpretation – um so öfters eine implizite bzw. allusorische Stellungnahme vermuten lassen.”9 This is also the main reason why the opinions among modern “Weberians” are divided on the issue of Weber’s “Verhältnis zu Nietzsches Denken”,10 with the clear majority claiming that Nietzsche exerted a “positive” or even a “decisive” influence on the intellectual development of Max Weber, and with a relative minority claiming that Nietzsche’s influence on Weber was only “marginal”.11 But even if Weber himself is fairly ambiguous with regards to his own “relation to Nietzsche’s thought”, his positive assessment of the exceptional importance and general cultural significance of Nietzsche’s thought for the intellectual history of the 20th century is documented beyond doubt (at least if one is to trust his nephew Eduard Baumgarten, who noted down the famed statement which Weber seemingly made in a discussion with some of his students, but which, according to Webers critic Roger Häußling, results in a “nicht unbedenkliche Quellenlage”)12: “In February 1920, a few weeks before his death, Max Weber took part in a discussion with Oswald Spengler. Returning home along the Ludwigstraße, he said to the students accompanying him: ‘The honesty of a present-day scholar, and above all a present-day philosopher, can be measured by his attitude to Nietzsche and Marx. Whoever does not admit that considerable parts of his own work could not have been carried out in the absence of the work of these two, only fools himself and others. The world in which we spiritually and intellectually live today is a world substantially shaped by Marx and Nietzsche.’” 13

8 Poell, “Nietzsche, Weber and the Question of value free Social Science”, Section 1 “Introduction”. 9 Häußling, Nietzsche und die Soziologie, p. 167. 10 Ibid. 11 Ibid. pp. 167-168. 12 Ibid. p. 167. 13 Hennis, Max Weber: Essays in Reconstruction, p. 146. Alternatively, see: Baumgarten, Max Weber, pp. 554f.

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Not everyone, however, trusts in the authenticity of this statement, particularly so since it contains largely self-contradictory and vague elements. Häußling, for example, argues that if Weber was indeed so critical about Spengler’s failure to credit Nietzsche as an inspirational source for his own positions, then this must surely also apply to Weber’s own writings, because his “collective silence”14 on Nietzsche is certainly no different than Spengler’s, whose study Der Untergang des Abendlandes (1923) was basically a debate of Nietzsche’s concept of nihilism and its cultural consequences.15 “Hat sich Weber wirklich derart positiv über Nietzsche geäußert, so müßte man konsequent schlußfolgern daß diese auf Spenglers Bemerkung gemünzte Kritik in erheblicher Weise Weber selbst (be)trifft. [...] Jedenfalls gehen die kontroversen Diskussionen, die sich an der Frage des Einflusses Nietzsches auf Weber entzündeten, weitgehend auf das Konto Webers selbst: Er hat es eben nicht, wie seine Soziologenkollegen Tönnies und Simmel, für nötig erachtet, eine explizite Auseinandersetzung mit Nietzsche zu führen.”16

But whether or not this statement was actually made by Weber in its currently accepted famous form, even Häußling admits that there is a clear “Parallelität der Gedanken”17 in the writings of Nietzsche and Weber which even finds an expression in their seemingly shared language of analysis: “findet sich doch in Webers Werk an manchen Stellen ein regelrecht Nietzschescher Sprachduktus.”18 But what is more is that Weber’s sociological thought clearly was shaped significantly by Marx and Nietzsche, who were “the twin poles of modern intellectual life” for him.19 Consequently, I believe that there are good arguments in support of the view that Weber was strongly influenced by Nietzsche, particularly because of the “parallels in their arguments” (which will become more apparent in section 2 and 3 of this chapter). Moreover, I entirely agree with Georg Stauth and Bryan S. Turner, who claim that: “Nietzsche is the unrecognised presence in Weber’s sociology which gave his sociology a central theme around the problems of morals in relation to rationality.”20 Even

14 Häußling, Nietzsche und die Soziologie, p. 165. 15 Oswald Spengler, Der Untergang des Abendlandes. Umrisse einer Morphologie der Weltgeschichte (München: Beck’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1923), p. 1047. 16 Häußling, Nietzsche und die Soziologie, p. 167-168. 17 Ibid. p. 168. 18 Ibid. p. 167. 19 Outhwaite, “Nietzsche and Critical Theory”, p. 204. 20 Stauth and Turner, Nietzsche’s Dance, p. 100.

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if this is a rather strong statement as such, it is at the same time also an obviously fairly vague, almost “postmodern”21 reference to Nietzsche’s importance for Weber’s intellectual positions, particularly since it avoids defining what the term “presence” actually refers to, but it is definitely not without its merits, especially since it draws considerable attention to the complex relationship between the two thinkers. According to Bryan S. Turner, this “unrecognised presence” of Nietzsche’s thought in Weber’s sociology mainly manifests itself in two essential points of intersection, which define the broader conception of his sociology: “The first relates to the process of secularisation which has rendered human existence meaningless and threatened to undermine the legitimacy of social institutions; the second is a conception of history as the endless struggle of groups for social dominance as an expression of the ‘will to power’ and ‘ressentiment’.” 22

But the debate on Nietzsche’s legacy in Weber’s sociology is by no means as straightforward as it might seem from these statements, because for a long time – particularly in the immediate period after World War II, when Weber’s sociology became very popular in the USA – his reputation would have been seriously tainted by too close an association with Nietzsche’s philosophy. Wilhelm Hennis, for example, writes that Weber entered the textbooks as: “a founding father of a universally applicable value-free empirical sociology open to ‘starting points’ and ‘reconstructions’, and also as a relatively ‘good’ German – certainly a man of his times in respect of nationalism, but a Liberal, a democrat even.”23 But in the aftermath of World War II, Weber: “would never have been received in this way if his writing had been suspected of closer relation to Nietzsche.”24 Today, however, this relationship seems largely unproblematic and its importance for Weber’s intellectual development can hardly be refuted, yet the extent to which this influence should be taken into account when assessing Weber’s sociology is – as we will come to see throughout this chapter – still a matter of some debate among modern Weberians, who, as we have seen in chapter 1 of this book, also struggle with the question of whether there can be a Nietzschean sociology at all. But the biographical aspects of Max Weber’s work in particular, strongly suggest that

21 As we will come to see in section 3 of this chapter, Stauth and Turner later on repeat this claim and say: “To use modern jargon, we wish to suggest that Nietzsche is the absent centre of Weberian sociology”, which clearly yields an underlying postmodern connotation to their claim. Ibid. p. 101. 22 Bryan S. Turner, Max Weber: From History to Modernity (London/New York: Routledge Publishers, 1992), p. 188. 23 Hennis, Max Weber: Essays in Reconstruction, p. 146. 24 Ibid.

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the encounter with Nietzsche’s philosophy marked a decisive turning point in the development of his personal and philosophical world-view. Particularly, since in most of his important post-breakdown writings from the late 1890s onwards, Weber was clearly strongly influenced by Nietzsche (as well as by Marx) as Arthur Mitzman consistently argues: “The ultimate basis of Weber’s cultural pessimism […] and the theoretical structures which arose from this basis can hardly be understood without some comprehension of Weber’s confrontation with the two men around whose ideas much of twentieth-century European thought has revolved: Marx and Nietzsche.”25 In our considerations here, we shall, however, focus exclusively on Weber’s response to Nietzsche’s philosophy as this will help us to understand the true nature of the Nietzschean legacy in Weber’s sociology (and I will just assert that in general there are clear “parallelisms” in the works of Marx and Weber). But instead of reviewing the numerous assessments of Nietzsche’s influence on Max Weber in unnecessarily elaborate detail here, I will, in the following sections, rather concentrate on certain particular aspects of Nietzsche’s influence on Max Weber which help to (a) frame our discussion and (b) set the tone for our wider debate on the sociological Nietzsche reception in this study. But a re-evaluation of Nietzsche’s influence on Weber is also important in another respect, because it clearly helps to demonstrate that Weber was definitely both a “Nietzschean” and a “Nietzschean sociologist”: “Recent scholarship, partly of course under the influence of postmodern perspectives or at least provocations, has given us a much more Nietzschean Weber, a non-moralising moralist as much as or more than a methodologist.”26 In my analysis of Nietzsche’s influence on Weber I will, therefore, particularly focus on Wilhelm Hennis’, Arthur Mitzman’s and Thomas Mann’s contributions to this debate as they strongly affirm Nietzsche’s relevance for Weber’s sociology.27

2) Nietzsche’s influence on Max Weber’s notion of the “Protestant Ethic” For our discussions here, it is useful to remember that Weber partly developed his notion of Die Protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus 28 on 25 Mitzman, The Iron Cage, p. 182. 26 Outhwaite, “The Myth of Modernist Method”, p. 9. 27 Hennis, Max Weber: Essays in Reconstruction (1988); Mitzman, The Iron Cage (1969); Mann, Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen (1956). 28 Max Weber, Die Protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus, 2 vols. (Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, 1965).

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the basis of his perception of “ascetic ideals”, which he had first encountered in detail while reading Nietzsche’s moral philosophy in his book Zur Genealogie der Moral. This important point is also emphasised by Klaus Lichtblau, who argues: “[daß man, F.S.L.] Webers Protestantismusstudie durchaus auch den Sinn eines unterschwelligen Dialogs mit Nietzsche abgewinnen [kann, F.S.L.]”.29 At the same time, however, Weber was also trying to come to terms with Karl Marx’s notion of the development of capitalism. It is in my opinion, therefore, fairly unproblematic to argue that in his famous study Weber clearly attempted a fusion of Marxian and Nietzschean elements of analysis, at least for large parts of his own argument.30 This view also seems to be confirmed by the ongoing debate on the question of: “inwieweit Webers Schrift Die Protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus nicht doch in kritischer Auseinandersetzung mit dem marxistischen Materialismus und der Einschätzung des Kapitalismus durch ihn entstanden ist.”31 The fact that Max Weber tried to accommodate his reading of Marx and Nietzsche in this way is at the same time also a clear confirmation of their lasting influence on him. In his analysis of the development of capitalism, Weber described what he called the “cage of bondage” or the “Gehäuse der Hörigkeit”. Weber claimed that this was one of the main characteristic features of modern Western rationalised societies. Yet on a further level though, the “Gehäuse der Hörigkeit” for Weber was also the result of the influence of the increasingly rationalised character and milieu of the cultural actors in the late 19th century, and of the importance “social role play” had assumed over hitherto independent or at least individual lives within mass societies. According to Arthur Mitzman, Weber had partly arrived at his “vision of the world, whose Leitmotiv is the birth and rise to world dominance of the capitalist spirit, whose catalyst is the ethic of Calvinism, and whose dreary outcome is the ‘iron cage’ of total rationalisation”32 with the help of a fusion of a his own public, historical Weltanschauung that was based on Marx and his private, ahistorical Ethik that was based on Nietzsche: “Weber, in his post-breakdown Weltanschauung shared with Marx the perception of an ever-increasing rationalisation and efficiency of social sys29 Lichtblau, Kulturkrise und die Soziologie um die Jahrhundertwende, p. 141. 30 To my knowledge this was the first and probably the most fruitful attempt in early sociological thought to synthesise Marx and Nietzsche. It probably is the only fruitful attempt to do so ever since, as many other attempts at a fusion of Marx and Nietzsche have clearly failed. For a groundbreaking study on Marx’s and Nietzsche’s respective critiques of “modernity” and their different approaches to “history”, i.e. historical materialism and the genealogical method, see: Nancy S. Love, Marx, Nietzsche and Modernity (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986). 31 Häußling, Nietzsche und die Soziologie, p. 167. 32 Mitzman, The Iron Cage, p. 188.

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tems, but, for many reasons, he saw this as a dead-end progress, leading only to the ‘cage of bondage’ (‘Gehäuse der Hörigkeit’). Unable to accept this bondage in his inner life, he tended to divide his thought into a public, historical Weltanschauung (comparable to Marx, but without the utopian dialectic) and a private ahistorical ethic (comparable to Nietzsche, but abandoning the sphere of reason and philosophy altogether to the Devil of rationalisation).”33 It was, however, Thomas Mann who first argued that Weber could not have arrived at his analysis of “Protestantism and the spirit of capitalism” without his knowledge of Nietzsche’s moral philosophy. This might be a slight overstatement, but there is at least a grain of truth to be found in its main argument, because as Stauth and Turner convincingly argue: “Weber drew significantly from Nietzsche’s moral critique of modern society and [...] they shared a number of concepts and also to some extent a perspective on the centrality of the value struggle in the shaping of the modern world.”34 Yet Thomas Mann goes even further in his assessment of Nietzsche’s influence on Weber, than Stauth and Turner do, because for Mann this influence was entirely “unquestionable”, if not even “absolute”. In drawing a parallel to his own “experience” of Nietzsche’s philosophy, Mann argues that his literary character “Thomas Buddenbrook” in many ways was an aesthetic or literary anticipation of Max Weber’s (as well as Ernst Troeltsch’s and Werner Sombart’s) arguments about the intrinsic linkages between the terms “Calvinism, Bourgeoisie and Heroism” as outlined in the Protestantische Ethik. In his Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen (1918) Mann summarises his provocative position as follows: “Was ich aber als neu hinzufügen möchte, ist die Vermutung, welche einer Gewißheit gleichkommt, daß unsere Übereinstimmung über die psychologische Reihe ‘Calvinismus, Bürgerlichkeit, Heldentum’ durch ein höheres, das höchste Mittel besteht: durch das Mittel Nietzsche; denn ohne dies zeitbeherrschende Erlebnis, das alles geistige Erleben der Epoche bis in seine letzten Zuteilungen beeinflußt, und das ein auf unerhört neue, moderne Art heroisches Erlebnis war, wäre unzweifelhaft der Sozialwissenschaftler so wenig auf seinen protestantisch-heroischen Lehrsatz verfallen, wie der Romandichter die Gestalt seines ‘Helden’ hätte sehen können, wie er sie sah.” 35

Hennis comments on this passage from Thomas Mann’s book by emphasising that: “Mann thereby poses the question of the place of Nietzsche in Weber’s

33 Ibid. 34 Stauth and Turner, Nietzsche’s Dance, p. 121. 35 Mann, Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen, p. 137.

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work with an authority that is beyond question.”36 This view is also confirmed by Lichtblau, who speaks of an inherent: “‘Wahlverwandtschaft’ zwischen Webers Protestantismusstudie und [den, F.S.L.] Buddenbrooks”.37 Consequently, I believe that in essence Mann is right in emphasising this link, but the details of his arguments as well as the pathos with which they are expressed might be a bit too strong and slightly overstated. Yet the aesthetical connotations of their respective positions are clearly very similar and certainly propose the same kind of sociocultural relevance of the ideals of ascetic Protestantism for the socioeconomic development of modern capitalist societies. But for our analysis of Nietzsche’s influence on Weber, we should also remember, that Weber’s study Die Protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus was trying to analyse the “different historical trajectories”38 that shaped modern Western capitalist societies. It was, therefore, essentially an analysis of the civilisatory process of these societies.39 Weber held that the development of modern Western capitalism and the later industrial revolution partly took place on the basis of the influence of “ascetic ideals” that shaped the ideas and lives of the people who forged historical change. What Weber called “innerworldly asceticism” refers to the usage of creative energies and capacities in the process of engaging in hard labour or one’s given vocation, which were set free by an outright rejection of “total religious asceticism” (as practised by, e.g. medieval catholic monks) and resulted in an exceptional individual productivity that was in essence ethically grounded. It is precisely at this point where clear “parallelisms” between Weber’s and Nietzsche’s positions emerge as both thinkers clearly emphasise the relevance of “ascetic ideals” for the sociocultural development of the history of mankind. Weber’s analysis clearly contains an implicit reference to Nietzsche’s philosophy at this point, as it was Nietzsche

36 Hennis, Max Weber: Essays in Reconstruction, p. 147. 37 Lichtblau, Kulturkrise und die Soziologie um die Jahrhundertwende, p. 139. 38 Michael H. Lessnoff, The Spirit of Capitalism and the Protestant Ethic (Aldershot: Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd., 1994), p. 1. 39 Weber’s thesis “can be represented schematically as a causal chain involving four terms” where the first term gives rise to the second and so forth. These four terms are: the protestant ethic (essentially being a “secular ethic”), the spirit of capitalism (essentially being a “profit ethic”), modern Western capitalism (essentially being a “gain seeking enterprise”) and finally the industrial revolution (essentially referring to the “industrialisation of European countries”). Lessnoff, The Spirit of Capitalism and the Protestant Ethic, p. 2. Even if Lessnoff’s account presents Weber’s argument in the Protestantische Ethik in a much stronger causal role than Weber intended, it should be kept in mind that Weber himself was initially fairly ambiguous about the causal determination of this development, and only later moved more clearly away from the causal implications of his argument. See for example: Max Weber, “Die protestantischen Sekten und der Geist des Kapitalismus”, in Weber, Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Religionssoziologie, vol. 1 (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr/Paul Siebeck Verlag, 1920), pp. 207-236.

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who had first posed the question about the meaning of “ascetic ideals” in a profound moral manner. This view is also confirmed by Lichtblau, who writes: “Webers Analyse der Kulturbedeutsamkeit des asketischen Protestantismus [beinhaltet, F.S.L.] eine implizite Bezugnahme auf Nietzsches Frage: ‘Was bedeuten asketische Ideale?’ [womit, F.S.L.] seine Rekonstruktion der ethischen Grundlagen des modernen bürgerlichen Lebensstils sich somit zumindest indirekt jenem Typus der von Nietzsche provozierten moralhistorischen Untersuchungen zuordnen läßt.” 40

It is, therefore, clear that Weber’s discussion of an “innerworldly asceticism” as well as the development of capitalism out of the protestant work ethic is strongly based on Nietzsche’s notion of “ascetic ideals”. In the Antichrist Nietzsche, for example, writes that those who are strongest in spirit will find their happiness where others would necessarily find their end: “Die geistigsten Menschen, als die Stärksten, finden ihr Glück, worin andere ihren Untergang finden würden: im Labyrinth, in der Härte gegen sich und andere, im Versuch; ihre Lust ist die Selbstbezwingung: Der Asketismus wird bei ihnen Natur, Bedürfnis, Instinkt. Die Schwere Aufgabe gilt ihnen als Vorrecht, mit Lasten zu spielen die andere erdrücken, eine Erholung [...] Erkenntnis – eine Form des Asketismus.”41 For Weber it was particularly Calvinism that had advocated a rejection of any form of “total asceticism” and thereby provided the basis for the “spirit of capitalism”, as Weber consistently argues. This rejection of “total asceticism” is, so Weber, also extended to the world as such, which no longer bears a sacred status. This means – taken to its extreme – that “innerworldly actions” no longer have an imprint on one’s salvation. This form of the radical “demystification of the world” [“radikale Entzauberung der Welt”]42 is corresponding to the complete rationalisation of the world as achieved through the protestant work ethic. For Häußling it seems largely clear that Weber’s notion of the “demystification of the world” is in many ways only an extension of Nietzsche’s notion of the “death of God”: “Weber vertritt eine ganze Reihe von Grundüberzeugungen, die sich für uns heute mit dem Denken Nietzsches unmittelbar verknüpfen: Vor allem ist hier Nietzsches Rede vom ‘Tod Gottes’ zu nennen, die ja viel mehr ist als eine atheistische Parole. Sie steht ja bei Nietzsche für das Ende jeglicher Hinterwelten und dem Erfordernis, einen radikalen diesseitigen Lebensentwurf zu lancieren. Diese Rede Nietzsches findet [...] ihr Pendant in Webers Formel von der ‘Entzauberung der Welt’.” 43

40 Lichtblau, Kulturkrise und die Soziologie um die Jahrhundertwende, p. 139. 41 Nietzsche, Der Antichrist, KSA 6, § 57, p. 243. 42 Weber, Protestantische Ethik, vol. 1, p. 161. 43 Häußling, Nietzsche und die Soziologie, p. 166.

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This is particularly true insofar as Nietzsche’s notion of the “death of God” also implies the end of all limitations for mankind: “Nach dem Wegfall der einschüchternden Grenze ‘Gott’ gibt es – so Nietzsche – keine unumstößlichen Grenzen für den Menschen mehr.”44 Therefore there is also no limit to what a strong willed individual can achieve. For Weber, however, this ability to transcend the debilitating limitations imposed by traditional religious concerns and restraints mainly results in a completely secularised world, where the aim, however, cannot be a Nietzschean “Vereinzelung [...] die auf die umfassende Entfaltung schaffender Kräfte aus ist”, as Häußling argues, but where the aim is rather: “die Beibehaltung der Handlungs- und Entscheidungsmöglichkeiten innerhalb der entzauberten sozialen Wirklichkeiten auf der Folie eines kritisch-analytischen Diskurses.”45 The protestant work ethic was, however, only the “‘Vorfrucht’ rein rationalistischer Lebensanschauungen”46 for Weber. Protestantism or to be more precise Puritanism and Calvinism completely rejected the catholic notion of Werkgerechtigkeit as the sole way to salvation and grace. For the Calvinists, these were not corruptible or acquirable but predestined states. This predestination, however, gave rise to a stark sense of loneliness of the individual Calvinist believer: “Der Einzelne ist hier, und wiederum auf dem Boden des asketischen Protestantismus unendlich schroffer als auf dem Boden des Luthertums, [...] einzig auf sich selbst: auf seinen Gnadenstand [...] seinem Gott gegenübergestellt.”47 The result was an absolute demystification of the world which demanded a path of “innerworldly asceticism” as Weber argues: “Die radikale Entzauberung der Welt ließ einen anderen Weg als die innerweltliche Askese nicht zu.”48 To then prove oneself in the world entailed the ability to gain knowledge of one’s own state of grace.49 In compari-

44 Ibid. p. 186. 45 Ibid. 46 Kaesler and Vogt, Hauptwerke der Soziologie, p. 452. 47 Weber, Protestantische Ethik, vol. 2, p. 308. 48 Weber, Protestantische Ethik, vol. 1, p. 161. 49 In his study of Weber’s sociology Johannes Weiß interprets the outcome of this process in the following way: “Der Bewährungsgedanke wies unter den gegeben theologischen Voraussetzungen den einzigen Weg, ein Wissen über den eigenen Gnadenstand zu gewinnen. Entscheidend ist, daß die (positive) Bewährung nicht als Realgrund (das wäre wieder Werkheiligkeit), sondern bloß als Erkenntnisgrund der ewigen Berufung aufgefaßt wurde. Damit hängt innerlich auch zusammen, daß die rationale Methodik als solche (die Form des Handelns also) das primär Wichtige war, nicht die Früchte solchen Handelns, denn in der asketisch-rationalen Seelenstärke erwies sich die zugeteilte Begnadung zuerst. Allerdings konnte dann der Wohlstand (der als notwendige Folge solcher Methodik der Lebensführung eintrat und auch so verstanden wurde) als äußeres Indiz des Gnadenstandes und als Grund subjektiver Heilsgewißheit fungieren.” Johannes Weiß, Max Webers Grundlegung der Soziologie (München: Saur Verlag, 1992), p. 143-144.

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son to Weber, Nietzsche had commented on the reason why men desire or cherish “ascetic ideals” by saying: “Daß aber überhaupt das asketische Ideal Menschen so viel bedeutet hat, darin drückt sich die Grundtatsache des menschlichen Willens aus, sein horror vacui: er braucht ein Ziel, – und eher will er noch das Nichts wollen, als nicht wollen.”50 To will nothing rather than not to will at all, this is the basic desire of the ascetic human being as far as Nietzsche is concerned, which is in essence very close to Weber’s position on the subject. It is in this respect that Hennis can argue that there are indeed “a great number of positions adopted by Weber that run back directly to Nietzsche”51 and that many of these positions: “cannot, therefore, be attributed to general cultural conditions; [as, F.S.L.] they evidently relate to a specific reading of Nietzsche.”52 One of these positions clearly is their shared notion of the meaning of ethically secularised forms of “ascetic ideals” for the socioeconomic and sociocultural development of human history. It is in my opinion entirely clear that Weber could not have arrived at his notion of the relevance of “ascetic ideals” without the influence of Nietzsche’s philosophy, but as Häußling emphasises, Weber drew significantly different conclusions from the sociocultural processes around him which are mainly due to his attempt to separate his systematic sociological analysis from the more speculative account of social reality offered by Nietzsche.53 Yet this desire might also have been due to the fact that Weber wanted to create a field of study for modern sociology that could implicitly draw on Nietzsche’s positions, but that was not specifically linked to it, so that in a certain way even Weber ultimately tried to keep a distance from the excesses that were to be found in Nietzsche’s positions: “Weber hat andererseits durchaus andere, zum Teil diametral entgegengesetzte Konsequenzen aus den geistigen und ‘sozialen’ Verhältnissen der Zeit für sein Selbstverständnis als Theoretiker, für sein Aufgabenfeld und seine Zielsetzungen gezogen.” 54

But even if Weber and Nietzsche differ fundamentally on the “conclusions” they draw from their respective analyses of the sociocultural processes around them, there are also fundamental similarities in their respective approaches to these processes. Nevertheless, while: “Max Weber die überkommene Ordnung

50 Nietzsche, Genealogie der Moral, KSA 5, § 1, p. 339. 51 Hennis, Max Weber: Essays in Reconstruction, p.147. 52 Ibid. p.148. 53 Häußling, Nietzsche und die Soziologie, p. 166. 54 Ibid.

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trotz ihrer Gebrechen [bejaht, F.S.L.]”,55 Nietzsche is more clearly concerned with an absolute overthrow of traditional values and accepted truths.

3) Nietzsche, Max Weber and early German sociological thought: an assessment In our evaluation of recent “Weberian” responses to Nietzsche’s influence on Max Weber’s sociology, particularly of W.G. Runciman’s debate on “Can there be a Nietzschean sociology?” in section 2 of Chapter 1, which included a discussion of Nietzsche’s and Weber’s respective notions of Wissenschaft, we have come to see that Runciman believes that: “Weber, one could say, was both sociologist and Nietzschean; but he was not a Nietzschean sociologist.”56 Yet on the basis of our discussion of Nietzsche’s influence on Max Weber in this chapter, I believe that Runciman is fundamentally wrong here, because Weber clearly was both. In my opinion, Runciman basically overlooks the fact that in a certain, if “hidden” or “speculative” way, Weber’s sociology is already a form of “Nietzschean sociology”, particularly because of its vital and constitutive “Nietzschean” elements.57 Among these elements are, for example, Nietzsche’s “genealogical critique of rights”, of “power” and of the “state”. Darrow Schecter, for example, argues that, historically speaking, in the “period intervening between Hegel and Weber, political theory registers a dramatic shift in thinking about the state”58 not least because of Nietzsche’s contribution to the subject. And Nietzsche’s contribution to political theory was particularly influential on Weber’s notion of legal-rational domination, as Schecter argues. He writes: “Weber’s notion of legal-rational domination is inspired by Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morals, in which Nietzsche convincingly argues that legality and other forms of ostensibly neutral or objective discourses are in fact legitimisations of domination. Weber underpins this analysis with a sociological investigation of the rise of demagogues and plebiscites within modern parliamentary democracy.”59 But it seems also clear, however, that contrary to Nietzsche, Weber had “his feet more firmly on the ground” (as one could probably phrase it) regarding the result as well as the effects of this process. Unlike Nietzsche, Weber accepted that there was an increasing rational55 Gertraud Korf, Ausbruch aus dem “Gehäuse der Hörigkeit”? Kritik der Kulturtheorien Max Webers und Herbert Marcuses (Frankfurt am Main: Verlag Marxistischer Blätter GmbH, 1971), p. 67. 56 Runciman, “Can there be a Nietzschean sociology?”, p. 8. 57 Runciman briefly hints at this view only to dismiss it entirely. Ibid. p. 8. 58 Darrow Schecter, Sovereign States or Political Communities? Civil Society and Contemporary Politics (Manchester/New York: Manchester University Press, 2000), p. 119. 59 Ibid.

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isation taking place as a result of the modern civilisatory process, but he was also aware that there was a high price to pay for this development in so far as its outcome would be a growing sense of “alienation” and “estrangement”: “The central theme in Weber’s work is the rationalisation of all spheres of life, which is characteristic of modernity and has its particular origins in Western Europe. [...] In a negative sense, the spread of rationalisation can be understood as the progressive ‘disenchantment of the world’, which is the elimination of magical thought and practice. [...] In broader perspective, the rationalisation of western culture is pushed forward by its penetration by science.”60 When Weber was drawing his conclusions with regards to the effects of rationalisation on the modern civilisatory process, he was, therefore, obviously closer to the “teleological analysis of history” offered by Marx than to the “diagnostic pessimism” offered by Nietzsche (even if his preceding analysis incorporates a synthesis of both Marx’s and Nietzsche’s views). A similar argument is also expressed by Bryan S. Turner, who says that while: “Weber shared Nietzsche’s critique of modern culture, the important difference between them was that Weber turned his personal experience of social and political crisis into an object of empirical historical research. He objectified his experience in the thesis of disenchantment.”61 What the example of Max Weber also clearly demonstrates is that the influence of Nietzsche on early German sociological thought is a complex process and cannot simply be analysed by picking and comparing certain quotations. Nietzsche’s pervasive influence on the discipline is clearly multi-layered and hence requires an analysis of the “structural arguments” Nietzsche and early sociology share. Yet at the same time an analysis of Nietzsche’s influence on sociology suggests a very creative entry into the origins of sociological thought. And as we will clearly come to see, there are many independent and creative attempts to be found in the critique of Nietzsche by early German and Austrian sociologists and social thinkers, like Tönnies’ Nietzsche Kultus, Simmel’s lectures on Schopenhauer und Nietzsche and Mayreder’s short story “Klub der Übermenschen”, which stand out as great singular achievements with unique critical methods, but have largely been neglected in the established Nietzsche reception and the “standard philosophical Nietzsche interpretation”. About the apparent lack of creativity in the standard philosophical readings of Nietzsche’s writings, Roger Häußling writes: “Nichts erscheint der Auseinandersetzung mit Nietzsche abträglicher als eine in festgefahrenen Bahnen sich bewegende Rezeption und Kritik seiner Werke. Nietzsches ‘Philosophie der Interpretationen’ ist nicht nur ein radi60 Poell, “Nietzsche, Weber and the Question of value free Social Science”, Section 4 “Historical Analysis of Modernity”. 61 Turner, Max Weber: From History to Modernity, p. 189.

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kales Deutungskonzept menschlicher Wirklichkeiten jenseits von Wahrheit und Schein, es nimmt auch uns, die wir nach Nietzsche denken bzw. deuten müssen, wesentlich in die Pflicht. Die Deutung seines ‘Werks’ muß sich mit seinem anspruchsvollen Deutungsprogramm messen lassen, um nicht wieder hinter Nietzsche zurückzufallen.” 62

The “intellectual deficit” which resulted from the long neglect of the sociological interpretations of Nietzsche’s philosophy is, Häußling argues, reason enough to try and develop a transformed reading of Nietzsche on the basis of these early sociological Nietzsche interpretations, which, in comparison to many other standard readings seem to be providing a fresh and unconventional “flavour”.63 This uncompromising view seems particularly true and important in the light of the radical claim made by Stauth and Turner that Nietzsche is not only the “absent centre of Weberian sociology” in particular, but also of the “whole of modern social science” in general: “To use modern jargon, we wish to suggest that Nietzsche is the absent centre of Weberian sociology and this argument could be extended to modern social science as a whole where, as we have suggested, Nietzsche’s themes of language, morality and reason form the framework for the modern analysis of the character of modernism and postmodernism.”64

I have already argued in the previous chapter that Nietzsche seriously doubted the scientific claims as well as the mode of analysis of sociocultural reality put forward by early sociology, while we have clearly seen in Chapter 1 that, to some degree at least, modern sociology seriously doubts Nietzsche’s notion of “science” as well as his claims about sociocultural reality. Yet both Nietzsche as well as early sociology tried to make sense of the wider sociocultural transformations as well as of the ambiguities and paradoxes that characterised “modernity” with their respective analysis of the social reality of the 19th century and, therefore, clearly shared in the same object in their wider sociocultural analyses. This is also true for the respective analyses of Nietzsche and Weber, as Nietzsche clearly wanted to provide a radical, if sometimes ambiguous “Kritik der Modernität”,65 including a critique of sociology, while Weber’s sociology tried to make sense of the ambiguities which he regarded as inherently characteristic of “moderni-

62 Häußling, Nietzsche und die Soziologie, p. 245. 63 Ibid. p. 246. 64 Stauth and Turner, Nietzsche’s Dance, p. 101. 65 Nietzsche, Götzendämmerung, KSA 6, § 39, p. 140.

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ty”, with the help of an indirect reference to Nietzsche’s philosophy. Stauth and Turner comment on this complex relation between Nietzsche’s critique of sociology and Weber’s sociological thought in a similar way: “Nietzsche linked the emergence of sociology [...] with the collapse of traditional forms of moral authenticity and regarded sociology itself as part of the development of a profane and secular world. Weber’s attempt to construct a sociology of meaning for action and to understand the intentions which lie behind such actions can therefore be seen as part of this secularisation of culture where morality becomes simultaneously a problem and an object of inquiry.” 66

The complex, yet ambiguous approaches to “modernity” by Nietzsche and Weber, therefore, clearly have to be seen as part of a wider tendency for theoretical interpretations of “modernity”, where frequently the “problem and the object of inquiry” become seemingly identical. In the following chapter of my study I, therefore, try to evaluate the problematic nature of dualistic conceptions and interpretations of “modernity” by analysing how different commentators have interpreted the vast changes that affected central Europe during the period in question on the basis of an assumed “fundamental antagonism” at work within these fundamental processes of sociocultural transformation. We will also come to see that Nietzsche too, viewed and analysed “modernity” on the basis of such assumed “fundamental antagonisms”, as he wanted to describe the ambiguities of the sociocultural development in the 19th century, which he regarded as inherently “modern”, with reference to even more: “Gegensätze”, and: “Gegensatzwerte”.67

66 Stauth and Turner, Nietzsche’s Dance, p. 102. 67 Nietzsche, Der Fall Wagner, KSA 6, “Epilogue”, pp. 52-53.

Chapter V On the inherent problems in the dualistic modes of interpreting modernity

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Chapter V On the inherent problems in the dualistic modes of interpreting modernity In this chapter of my book I try to evaluate the problematic nature of dualistic conceptions and interpretations of “modernity” by analysing how different commentators have interpreted the vast changes that affected central Europe during the period in question on the basis of an assumed “fundamental antagonism” between different, yet seemingly interconnected concepts. Moreover, I will try to demonstrate the persistence of dualistic conceptions of “modernity” in social theory today, by looking at some recent attempts at writing a “sociology of modernity”. I will then briefly contrast these recent attempts at writing a “sociology of modernity” to Nietzsche’s notion of “modernity” in order to set the stage for an analysis of his notion of “culture” in the next chapter. In the final section of this chapter I will – as a historical example of dualistic modes of interpreting “modernity” – discuss the sociogenesis of the “culture vs. civilisation” dichotomy which – to a large extent – characterised the academic dialogue and discourse on “culture” of fin-de-siècle Germany. I will then briefly discuss Nietzsche’s contribution to this debate surrounding the antithesis between “culture” and “civilisation”, as this is fundamental for our discussions of Nietzsche’s notion of “culture”, because the binary debate on “culture” and “civilisation” strongly influenced both Nietzsche and the sociologists and social thinkers we are looking at.

1) The problematic nature of dualistic conceptions of “modernity” In analysing the use of dualistic paradigms as explanatory conceptions of “modernity” I will focus on their appearance in recent – i.e. 20th century as well as 19th century – interpretations of “modernity”. In doing so I hope to shed some light on the methodological problems we face in looking at Ferdinand Tönnies’, Rosa Mayreder’s and Alfred Weber’s responses to Nietzsche’s philosophy of “culture”

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(and “civilisation”) in later chapters of this study. In formulating the fundamental categories of their respective cultural critiques on the basis of opposing terms or antagonisms – i.e. “apollinisch und dionysisch” (in the case of Nietzsche), “Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft” (in the case of Tönnies), “Geschlecht und Kultur” (in the case of Mayreder) and finally “das Tragische und die Geschichte” (in the case of Alfred Weber) – all four thinkers became part of an intellectual tradition in Germany which uses “dualistic paradigms” as explanatory conceptions for an analysis of “modernity”. This methodological approach seems to have been a theoretical preoccupation of many 19th and 20th century German thinkers. But contrary to Nietzsche’s rather “unsystematic” Aphorismendiagnostik, the analyses of Tönnies, Mayreder and Alfred Weber still remain firmly sociologically grounded and hence bear all the advantages of a more “systematic” approach. Yet despite their efforts to provide a “systematic” analysis of society and culture, Nietzsche’s “untimely” and “unsystematic” sociocultural critique of culture clearly remains an important inspiration for their own positions – as we will come to see more clearly in later chapters of this book – particularly since it offered a more “speculative” and “intuitive” approach to the topic. What will also become clear throughout this chapter, is that “dualistic reductions” or “dichotomies” of complex sociocultural processes – which were frequently used by the thinkers we are looking at – even today seem to exert a certain degree of “seductiveness” as explanatory modes to fall into for modern social theorists, not least because of the simplicity of their argumentative nature.1 The problem starts with the fact that the basic assumption in many theories of “modernity” is to assert that: “the problem of dualism was fundamental to the problem of modernity.”2 Just a few lines later in the same text Gerard Delanty formulates this view in an even more compelling manner, in so far as there now even seems to be an: “essential problem of dualism [which, F.S.L] expresses the central conflict of modernity.”3 I would, therefore, tend to agree with Zoë Hepden, who argues that virtually: “all theories of modernity are characterised by a reference to dualism, namely to the idea of two forces in conflict which have been consistently present throughout modernity and which reflect its deep ambivalence.”4 Yet many varying antagonistic notions have been

1 Examples include: Wagner, A Sociology of Modernity (1994); Gellner, Thought and Change (1964); Delanty, Social Theory in a Changing World (1999), particularly pp. 5-41. 2 Delanty, Social Theory in a Changing World, p. 9. 3 Ibid. 4 Zoë Hepden, “Delanty and Dualism: the Problem of Mediation”, in Studies in Social and Political Thought, vol. 3 (Brighton: University of Sussex Graduate Programme in Social and Political Thought, 2000), p. 64.

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advanced in social theory as being of central importance to the transformations that characterise modernity, but neither of these dichotomies seems to do this period and the sociocultural developments which characterise it any real justice. A good example of this kind of methodological approach to modernity is Karl Heinrich Höfele’s summary of “antagonistic concepts” or Begriffspaare (as he calls them), frequently seen as characteristic of the 19th century: “Idealismus und Realismus, Geist und Tat, Klassizismus und Naturalismus, romantischer Überschwang und technisch-rationale Nüchternheit, Spiritualismus und Materialismus, Glaube und Wissen, Intellektualismus und Voluntarismus, Philosophie und Einzelwissenschaft, Individualismus und Kollektivismus, Autokratie und Anarchie, Weltbürgertum und Nationalstaat – mit solchen und anderen Begriffspaaren hat man die Wandlung der Welt im 19.Jahrhundert zu charakterisieren versucht.” 5

It is quite clear that all of these Begriffspaare are in one way or another important and characteristic of the developments that took place in the 19th century, but it is also clear that different commentators with different backgrounds, different points of view as well as different aims would tend to disagree on which of these antagonistic notions are the most important ones. We should, nevertheless, be aware, however, that both Nietzsche as well as the classical sociologists and social thinkers we are looking at (along with many other thinkers of the 19th century) used these or similar “antitheses” to explain the world around them and thereby clearly helped to reinforce the kind of intellectual tradition and historical understanding which views “modernity” as an “essentially dualistic” period. But in reality there is nothing “essentially dualistic” about it, nor is there anything “essential” about the many “dualisms” which have been used to describe it. For our purposes here, it is not important to answer the fruitless question of which of these opposing notions are the most accurate in determining the transitions which are characteristic of the 19th century, but rather to (a) realise that many social thinkers consciously used and continue to use these (or similar) dichotomies in their analyses of “modernity”, and to (b) establish the main methodological and argumentative elements as well as pitfalls of the intellectual tradition which reinforced the use of dualistic conceptions of “modernity” in social theory and philosophy. I will attempt to analyse the argumentative elements of this intellectual tradition with the help of a particular focus on as well as an analysis of the problematic utilisation of the “culture vs. civilisation” dichotomy in the widespread German philosophical debates on “culture” at the turn of the 19th century. 5 Höfele, Geist und Gesellschaft der Bismarckzeit, p. 13.

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In short, my argument will be that even the most recent attempts to explicate “modernity” with the help of the “fundamental problem of dualism” are mainly the result of the intellectual traditions and dialogues which characterised the outgoing 19th century.6 It should be noted, however, that in the background of the notions about the “essentially dualistic” nature of modernity there lurks the unsolved problem posed by Hegel’s idealism as well as by his notion of dialectics. Following Hegel’s account of historical development as well as his account of the development of consciousness, it became very convenient to give in to the “seductiveness” of thinking about and understanding sociocultural change in dualistic terms. Yet there are always numerous loose ends in the dualistic conceptions used to explain sociocultural change, which are hardly ever accounted for (and which – if identified – either expose these conceptions as one-sided, over-simplistic or even as false). Only by identifying these loose ends in the dualistic conceptions of modernity will modern social theory be able to work with their creative parts – which undoubtedly exist – on the establishment of something new. It would appear that in many cases there is more to make of the loose ends that are to be found in the theories about “modernity” than of the actual theories themselves. So, for example, in the theory of modernity and the city: Modernity is frequently said to be a feature of big city life in the late 19th century, with little if no effect on the countryside where predominantly pre-modern structures and ideals still prevailed. This is also why the term “cosmopolitan modernism” became a demonic slogan of the radical political right in the late 19th century. A good example of the tendency to associate modernity with the lifestyle of the metropolis, is Georg Simmel’s groundbreaking essay on “Die Großstädte und das Geistesleben”, written in 1903, where Simmel argues that the main difference between the city and the countryside is first and foremost a psychological one, which manifests itself in an “existentially” different, respective world-view of city and country: “Indem die Großstadt gerade diese psychologischen Bedingungen schafft – mit jedem Gang über die Straße, mit dem Tempo und den Mannigfaltigkeiten des wirtschaftlichen, beruflichen, gesellschaftlichen Lebens – stiftet sie schon in den sinnlichen Fundamenten des Seelenlebens, in dem Bewußtseinsquantum, das sie uns wegen unserer Organisation als Unterschiedswesen abfordert, einen tiefen Gegen-

6 The fact that many social theorists used and continue to use dualistic concepts in order to understand the transformations that happened to their own societies does not mean that the society and period in question actually were dualistic in nature. Their arguments, however, emerged as a devolving set of paradigms which – if necessary – could be traced in a more or less chronological order, but they could also be interpreted as “creative-false-hypotheses” (Lebenslügen) or “sweeping generalisations” which tend to dominate their views for quite some time.

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satz gegen die Kleinstadt und das Landleben, mit dem langsameren, gewohnteren, gleichmäßiger fließendem Rhythmus ihres sinnlich-geistigen Lebensbildes. Daraus wird vor allem der intellektualistische Charakter des großstädtischen Seelenlebens begreiflich, gegenüber dem kleinstädtischen, das vielmehr auf das Gemüt und gefühlsmäßige Beziehungen gestellt ist.” 7

But it is obvious that even this sophisticated Stadt versus Scholle dichotomy is once again only making a complex story look very easy or – to be more precise – it is clearly oversimplifying the issue. If anything metaphorical in terms of rural or cosmopolitan influences is needed to describe modernity, then modernity would be “suburbia”, neither city nor countryside, but even this simple metaphorical description does not do the complex developments that characterised modernity any justice.8 That is to say that modernity is more like an intermediate state of werden, of times in flux: always becoming never to be.

2) Theories of “modernity” – old and new When we speak of the problematic nature of dualistic conceptions of “modernity”, the frame of reference will generally be Western Europe, where France is commonly regarded as modernity’s “birthplace” (especially as an art category, but also in many other respects).9 The focus of this book, however, will be Germany and – to the extent that Rosa Mayreder and 19th century cultural Vienna are important for our analysis – also Austria. The developments in Germany are particularly interesting since it was there, where the sociocultural “backwardness”10 – which Marx so aptly analysed – led to the violent eruption of the “crisis of modernity” in the “Great War”. One of the reasons for this is that in Germany the radical sociocultural transformations of the 19th 7 Georg Simmel, “Die Großstädte und das Geistesleben”, in Otthein Rammstedt (ed.), Georg Simmel Gesamtausgabe, vol. 7 (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1995), p. 117. 8 It was mainly with the work of Robert Redfield (1897–1958) that a systematic account of this “metaphor” first gained a prominent place in sociology, where it became known as the notion of the “ruralurban continuum”, which – in short – stated that there were many important nuances to be found in the shifts and transitions between “urban” and “rural” areas, and that there is consequently no clear dividing line to be found between them (and there is definitely also no “fundamental antagonism”, I should probably add). There are only “shades of grey”, so to speak. Redfield first developed this insight in his groundbreaking study on Mexican folk life: Robert Redfield, Tepoztlan, a Mexican Village: A study of folk life (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1930). 9 At the beginning of the 20th century, the Berlin based art collector Julius Graf, for example, said: “French modernism is the climax of the Enlightenment as it finally freed the individual”, which clearly goes to show that “modernism” was initially mainly associated with France. 10 Anthony Giddens, Capitalism & Modern Social Theory: An analysis of the writings of Marx, Durkheim and Weber (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. xiii.

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century happened so fast that Geist und Tat (to use one of Höfele’s “reductive” antagonisms) could not be reconciled peacefully. This crisis culminated with World War I – i.e. with the ultimate failure of all intellectual dialogues on modernity, which finally demonstrated: “das Scheitern der intellektuellen Auseinandersetzungen mit der Moderne”,11 as Klaus Lichtblau convincingly argues (an argument to which we will come back in section 1 of Chapter 6 of this book, where we will discuss the relation between the “genealogy of cultural sociology in Germany” and “modernity” in more detail). It is, therefore, pivotal for our analysis to establish a clear understanding of the nature of the different approaches to the study of “modernity”. For our purposes here, it is useful to distinguish between two different approaches to the study of “modernity”: The first one relies on a conception of “modernity” (i.e. industrial “societies”, capitalism, democracy etc.) as simply being something distinctly different from what is taken to precede it (i.e. pre-modern agricultural “communities”, bartering, feudalism etc.) or to coexist with it outside Europe and in the Europeanised societies of North America. The second approach is represented by the commentators on “modernity” who say: “Yes, modernity is different, but it is different because there are fundamental antagonisms at work within it, that make it appear dualistic in nature”, and who then proceed to explain the sociocultural developments of 19th century Europe with the help of “perceived” (but, nevertheless, “artificially constructed” or even “stylised”) sociocultural antitheses. Rightly or wrongly, the first approach seems to be common ground for most 19th and early 20th century thinkers while the second approach seems to have emerged as a recent option both within as well as out of the conclusions reached in the “first wave” of analyses.12 The continued use of dualistic conceptions and interpretations of “modernity” might, with apologies to William Outhwaite and his notion of the “myth of modernist method”, be referred to as the “myth of a dualistic modernist method”.13 While the representatives of the first approach to the study of “modernity” – like Ferdinand Tönnies, Georg Simmel or Max Weber, who were much more in a position to judge – were making a genuinely creative (but, nevertheless, still “reductive”) use of the “ambiguities of modernity” in their analyses, the representatives of the second approach to the study of “modernity” – like Peter Wagner or Gerard Delanty – have in my opinion been inclined to be far too “reduc-

11 Lichtblau, Kulturkrise und die Soziologie um die Jahrhundertwende, p. 25. 12 An example of the first approach would be: Tönnies, Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft (1991). An example of the second approach would be: Wagner, A Sociology of Modernity (1994). We will be discussing both texts in more detail in later sections of this book. 13 Outhwaite, “The Myth of Modernist Method”, pp. 5-25.

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tive” and “simplistic” in their method of analysis, as it seems somewhat outdated to still rely on Hegel’s notion of dialectics as the only valid tool of social analysis, because this particular claim is in essence, what the representatives of the second approach to the study of “modernity” seem to imply. Another element of methodological critique in this respect is the fact that: “Aside from anything else, the founding fathers [of sociology, F.S.L.] mostly had an acute sense of the paradoxes and ambiguities of modernity – more so perhaps than more recent theorists who have tended to adopt one-sided and simplistic accounts”,14 as Outhwaite convincingly argues. But despite the fact that dualistic conceptions and interpretations of “modernity” might be tempting oversimplifications and convenient modes of analysis to fall into, they still possess some insightful qualities (but only if one is also aware of their shortcomings as well). But that being said, it seems to me that modern social theory seems to have forgotten that the: “problem is not that of binary oppositions in an abstract sense [...], but with discriminating within a complex reality which does not slot into simple categories”,15 as Outhwaite puts it. There exists a significant – yet methodologically questionable – gap between the current mode of analysis in modern social theory and the actual object of this analysis, i.e. between the “theory of modernity” and “modernity” itself. Among the main differences between the two approaches to the study of “modernity” lies their inherent divergence with regards to the interpretation of the term “modernity” itself. A useful starting point for understanding these differences is what Ulrich Beck calls “first” and “second” modernity or what Zygmunt Bauman calls “heavy” and “liquid” modernity.16 Yet Beck’s and Bauman’s notions are virtually identical in their argumentative content. In his recent review of Bauman’s book Liquid Modernity (2000), Mark Lacy summarises the differences between these two terms as follows: “‘Heavy modernity’ is the modernity represented by the work of Karl Marx and Max Weber, the modernity of the panopticon and the factory, instrumental rationality, the ‘job for life’ and territorial conceptions of space, economy, identity and politics. ‘Liquid modernity’ is the modernity of uncertainty (regarding ethics and our belief in expert systems), flexible forms of work organisation, informational war, and deterritorialised politics and economy.”17 In my opinion, there is no

14 Ibid. p. 9. 15 Ibid. p. 20. 16 Ulrich Beck, Anthony Giddens and Scott Lash, Reflexive Modernisation: Politics, Tradition and Aesthetics in the Modern Social Order (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1994); Zygmunt Bauman, Liquid Modernity (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000). 17 Mark Lacy, “A review of: Zygmunt Bauman, Liquid Modernity (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2000)”, published online at: .

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compelling “inner logic” related to these different notions of “modernity” that would make it necessary to refer to dualistic conceptualisations of their respective nature, in order to provide an assessment of their inherent sociocultural transformations. And if it is true that: “great thinking embodies the contradictions of the period in which it is set, exhibits massive self-reflexivity with respect to these conditions, provides some transcendence of the limitations of existing patterns of thought and finally creates an anticipation of transformation and resolution of contradictions”,18 then many examples of the two different approaches to the study of “modernity”, which we are investigating here, are falling short of this definition of “great thought” on at least one count (if not on more than one). Particularly so, since many representatives of the two approaches fail to provide fundamental “resolutions of the contradictions” they describe in their analysis of “modernity”. This failure is mainly due to the fact that their simplistic and reductive explanatory conceptions evidently fall short of the much more complex sociocultural realities they set out to describe and explain in the first place. But to fully understand the differences between these two approaches and their implications for an understanding of the term “modernity” as well as for the sociocultural transformations implied by it, I will in the following provide an overview of recent approaches to the study of “modernity”, which I will then try to briefly contrast to corresponding parts of Nietzsche’s sociocultural critique of “modernity”. This will clearly help us to understand that both Nietzsche, who inspired the writings of many early sociologists and social thinkers, and modern social theory fall short of explaining and analysing “modernity” in a satisfactory way, as both rely heavily on binary antitheses and dualistic conceptions of “modernity”, which tend to oversimplify the much more complex “sociocultural realities” they set out to describe in the first place. Yet while modern social theory could by all means be expected to discriminate “within a complex reality which does not slot into simple categories”,19 and to thereby provide more profound analyses, Nietzsche did not set out to analyse “modernity” in a systematic way, yet provided a radical – if fragmented – critique of the sociocultural reality of his society, which became so influential at the end of the 19th century that I would tend to agree with Lichtblau’s argument that: “Nietzsches Werk selbst [bildete, F.S.L.] einen konstitutiven Bestandteil der ästhetisch-literarischen Moderne [...] und [konnte, F.S.L.] entscheidenden Einfluß auf deren weitere Entwicklung nehmen”.20 18 Stauth and Turner, Nietzsche’s Dance, p. 123. 19 Outhwaite, “The Myth of Modernist Method”, p. 20. 20 Lichtblau, Kulturkrise und die Soziologie um die Jahrhundertwende, p. 97.

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Thereafter, I will turn to the “sociogenesis of the dichotomy of culture vs. civilisation in Germany”, which represents a widely used, yet particularly virulent binary oversimplification of far more complex matters in German intellectual history, and which is, therefore, of particular relevance to our wider debate of the influence of Nietzsche’s “critique of culture” on early sociology, as he also used this dichotomy to analyse the sociocultural reality of modern society, and thereby clearly helped to reinforce its use by those thinkers, who turned to his philosophy as a source of inspiration.21

2.1) The nature of “modernity” in modern social theory In his book A Sociology of Modernity Peter Wagner argues, that the region of Western Europe: “is considered the birthplace of modernity, [and, F.S.L.] that its practices and discourses have [always, F.S.L.] provided the reference point in the construction of modern societies.”22 For Wagner the nature of modernity is one of an ambiguous Janusköpfigkeit, since many “intellectuals of the late nineteenth century [...] were more inclined to see a tragic double nature in modernity, combining unalienable gains with unacceptable losses”23 than to see an actual chance for progressive or even radical sociocultural advances. Consequently they observed a rupture rather than a continuity of events. But what is the tragic “double nature” of modernity? An account of “gains and losses”? For Wagner it is the struggle between “liberty and discipline”. From here Wagner proceeds to describe “discipline” as the image of the process of the individual’s disciplinisation by modern legal-rational institutions. Correspondingly he describes “liberty” as the image of the process of the liberation of the individual from the constraints imposed by the structural power of modern legal-rational institutions. For Wagner then, the: “double notion of liberty and discipline [therefore, F.S.L] captures the ambivalence of modernity in three major dimensions, namely the relations between individual liberty and community, between agency and structure, and between locally situated human lives and widely extended social rules.”24 By analysing the fundamental opposition between these terms Wagner basically wants to maintain and preserve the ambiguity and ambivalence which he sees as inherent in the process of “modernity”. I would, nevertheless, argue that Wagner fails to move beyond 21 This will, of course, include a critical evaluation of the arguments put forward by Norbert Elias about this process. Elias, Über den Prozeß der Zivilisation, vol. 1 (1997), particularly pp. 89-131. 22 Wagner, A Sociology of Modernity, p. x. 23 Ibid. p. xii. 24 Ibid.

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the identification of an ambiguity that has been acknowledged many times before already (not least in the texts of classical sociologists like Max Weber), and which consequently only repeats the oversimplifying binary reductions of earlier theoretical frameworks. In my opinion, it is not the case that Wagner turns the ambiguity of earlier theoretical approaches into a clearer or more precise duality or dualism. The analytical progress to classical sociological texts and positions is thus not apparent, as the inherent approach to the study of “modernity” remains essentially the same. The problem, however, already starts with the attempt to situate the project of “modernity” in time, as Ernest Gellner consistently argues. In his classic book Thought and Change Gellner consequently argues that even though societies exist in time, notoriously: “the ways in which various societies conceive themselves to be situated in time, differ a good deal.”25 Yet the nature and mechanisms of social and historical change within any given society, Gellner argues, will remain a secret to us as long as we do not know “a great deal about the antecedent state as well as the end-product one”26 of the particular historical period or society in question. For Gellner the problem of sociocultural and/or historical transitions, therefore, turns into a philosophical question of “metamorphosis”. Hence, he argues that any kind of metamorphosis or transition is accompanied by an “essential conflict” which characterises the “being” or “entity” undergoing that metamorphosis. Forces of “restoration” are in fundamental conflict with forces of “revolution” – i.e. “conservation” struggles with “progress”, so to speak. Gellner writes: “The general consequences of metamorphosis are both obvious and well known: a disorientation and bewilderment, a sense of chaos and contradiction, and an attempt to restore some kind of order or direction.”27 If the sociocultural transition in question is progressing in a slow and orderly fashion, objective criteria of what “should and should not be admitted into the restored order, to identity regained”28 can and will be applied. But if change happens fast and dramatically, the process of sociocultural transformation will not follow any objective rules, but will rather gain an independent momentum and driving force of its own. This rapid change, however, has the benefit of generating new insights into our: “habitual lives [...] our surrounding atmospheres and illusions”, and it also bears the ben-

25 Gellner, Thought and Change, p. 1. 26 Ibid. p. 18. 27 Ibid. p. 50. 28 Ibid. pp. 50f.

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efit of creating an “atmospheric disturbance”29 that brings about new “truths” and “reorganised” or even radically “changed” social realities. But either way, the antagonistic forces that bring about sociocultural change, always remain resilient within this ongoing process of transformation and metamorphosis, as far as Gellner is concerned, which clearly demonstrates that Gellner’s theory is not able to provide a solution to the dualistic conflict it helps to identify. Again it seems to be an implicit problem of the dualistic methods of interpreting modernity, that a solution to the antagonisms they identify could only be provided by a Hegelian notion of dialectics, and a resulting “antithesis”. But as Nietzsche convincingly argues: “Die Antithese ist die enge Pforte, durch welche sich am liebsten der Irrtum zur Wahrheit schleicht.”30 A similar argument to Gellner’s has been put forward by Gerard Delanty in his recent book Social Theory in a Changing World. There Delanty argues that “modernity” entails a “cultural” as well as a “social” project, both of which manifest themselves in a constant processes of self-renewal and transformation. Moreover, Delanty argues that modernity is characterised by the “essential” or even “fundamental” tension of “autonomy and fragmentation”. He writes: “On the one side, modernity as a cultural project refers to the autonomy of the Subject, the self-assertion of the self, or individual, and the progressive expansion of the discourses of creativity, reflexivity and discursivity to all spheres of life. On the other side, modernity entails the experience of fragmentation, the sense that modernity as a social project destroys its own cultural foundations.”31 Nevertheless, modernity was still able to develop a more or less coherent form of “self-understanding [...] in its dual nature”32 as Delanty emphasises. Yet on a more concrete level Delanty’s dualism of “autonomy and fragmentation” is – like in Wagner’s analysis – one of “agency vs. structure”, i.e. of the priority of the individual against the priority of society.33 Delanty now argues that this tension between “agency” and “structure” has not been resolved hitherto, and that we consequently still live in an age of “modernity” – even if it is new “modernity” – but nevertheless still “modernity” (and not “postmodernity” as other commentators frequently argue). Hence Delanty’s project turns into one of “mediation”. It is a mediation of the conflict between “agency” and “structure” or of the conflict between the priority of the individual against the priority of society. The solution

29 Ibid. p. 51. 30 Nietzsche, Menschliches, Allzumenschliches I, KSA 2, § 187, p. 163. 31 Delanty, Social Theory in a Changing World, p. 2. 32 Ibid. p. 2. 33 Ibid. p. 9.

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to this conflict for Delanty lies with its realisation and appropriation within the realm of “culture”. Consequently Delanty argues that: “the problem of mediation must be theorised in terms of a theory of culture. Agency and structure are mediated by culture, which is to be seen as a public system of communication.”34 Yet if this form of cultural mediation fails, the fundamental dualism of “autonomy vs. fragmentation”, which represents the central conflict of modernity in Delanty’s theory, prevails and clearly remains unsolved.

2.2) Nietzsche on “modernity” If we contrast these dualistic notions of and approaches to the study of “modernity”, to the way in which Nietzsche looks at and defines “modernity” in his writings, we will find a surprising continuity in the argumentative structure of their positions. For a start, Nietzsche’s notion of “modernity” is (a) also full of ambiguities, and (b) Nietzsche also tries to describe the ambiguities of his theory with reference to even more “Gegensätze” and “Gegensatzwerte”.35 In describing the essence of the Fall Wagner as a conflict of antagonistic world-views, Nietzsche – in one of his more astonishing moves – proceeds to define “modernity” in a similar way, as Klaus Lichtblau points out: “Nietzsche erschien nämlich nicht nur das Wesen der Wagnerschen Musik, sondern auch das Wesen der ‘Moderne’ dahingehend auf den Begriff gebracht, daß diese im Grunde genommen ohne die Aussicht auf eine definitive Entscheidung über das eigentlich Wünschenswerte beständig zwischen zwei weltanschaulichen Extremen hin- und herschwanke, was ihre innere romantische Unentschiedenheit nur umso deutlicher unterstreiche.”36 In his assessment of the Fall Wagner (1888) Nietzsche writes: “Diese Unschuld zwischen Gegensätzen, dies ‘gute Gewissen’ in der Lüge ist [...] modern par excellence, man definiert beinahe damit die Modernität. Der moderne Mensch stellt, biologisch, einen Widerspruch der Werte dar, er sitzt zwischen zwei Stühlen, er sagt in Einem Atem Ja und Nein [...] wir Alle haben, wider Wissen, wider Willen, Werte, Worte, Formeln, Moralen entgegengesetzter Abkunft im Leibe [...] Eine Diagnostik der modernen Seele – womit begönne sie? Mit einem resoluten Einschnitt in diese Instinktwidersprüchlichkeit, mit der Herauslösung ihrer Gegensatzwerte.” 37

34 Ibid. p. 10. 35 Nietzsche, Der Fall Wagner, KSA 6, “Epilogue”, pp. 52-53. 36 Klaus Lichtblau, “Die ‘Moderne’ um 1900 – Zur Physiognomie einer Epoche”, in Klaus Lichtblau, Transformation der Moderne: Kulturwissenschaftliche Studien (Bodenheim: Philo Verlagsgesellschaft, 2002), p. 333. 37 Nietzsche, Der Fall Wagner, KSA 6, “Epilogue”, pp. 52-53.

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In our analysis of “modernity”, we have so far precisely resorted to what Nietzsche calls a “Herauslösung ihrer Gegensatzwerte”,38 as part of our exposition and evaluation of the antagonistic concepts which have frequently been used to describe modernity. But Nietzsche’s critique of “modernity” was not just concerned with a: “Herauslösung ihrer Gegensatzwerte”, it was also concerned with an assessment of the concrete sociocultural structures that determined “modernity”. In a letter to Georg Brandes, written in February 1888, Nietzsche argues that he shares the concerns Brandes expresses with regards to “modernity”, and that he also shares his view of the general importance which Brandes attaches to the term. But, in a typical Nietzschean move, Nietzsche only wants to engage with the problems associated with “modernity” from a “birds-eye perspective”, even if he regards it as a “value-question of the first order”. Nietzsche writes: “gerade in diesem Winter ziehe ich in weiten Kreisen um diese Wertfrage ersten Ranges herum, sehr oberhalb, sehr vogelmäßig und mit dem besten Willen, so unmodern wie möglich aufs Moderne herunterzublicken.”39 It is, therefore, not surprising to find a harsh “Kritik der Modernität”40 in Nietzsche’s book GötzenDämmerung, which was published only one year later. Nietzsche’s harsh critique of “modernity”, for example, holds that “modern man” does no longer posses the kind of “instincts” which are needed to create lasting institutions and that he has, as a consequence, only been able to create “life-denying” and “decadent” Verfallsformen.41 In § 39 of his book Götzen-Dämmerung Nietzsche writes: “Nachdem uns alle Instinkte abhanden gekommen sind, aus denen Institutionen wachsen, kommen uns Institutionen überhaupt abhanden, weil wir nicht mehr zu ihnen taugen.”42 This means that we ourselves are entirely to blame for the failure of our institutions, because we have departed too strongly from the vital instincts that have once upon a time given rise to these institutions as well as to the prohibitory structures which characterised the communal life of, for example, ancient Greece. This is our fault, not the fault of our institutions, as Nietzsche argues.43 An he continues: “Damit es Institutionen gibt, muß es eine Art Wille, Instinkt, Imperativ geben, antiliberal bis zur Bosheit: den Willen zur Tradition, zur Autorität, zur Verantwortlichkeit auf

38 Ibid. 39 Quoted from a letter to Georg Brandes, dated February 19 1888, which Nietzsche wrote in Nice. Nietzsche, Sämtliche Briefe, KSB 8, No. 997, p. 258. 40 Nietzsche, Götzen-Dämmerung, KSA 6, § 39, p. 140. 41 Ibid. p. 141. 42 Ibid. p. 140. 43 Ibid.

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Jahrhunderte hinaus, zur Solidarität von Geschlechter-Ketten vorwärts und rückwärts in infinitum.” 44 The “unmodern, birds-eye perspective”, which Nietzsche wants to assume with regards to his judgement of “modernity”, is also apparent in this paragraph, as Nietzsche associates his critique of “modern institutions”, in particular of the “state”, with a harsh critique of the institution of “marriage”, which seems to have lost all its meaning for Nietzsche, as it is no longer founded on the basis of the: “Geschlechtstrieb, [...] auf den Eigentumstrieb (Weib und Kind als Eigentum), [oder, F.S.L.] auf den Herrschaftstrieb”,45 but rather on “love”. But, Nietzsche argues, only a “will to rule” or a: “Herrschaftstrieb, der sich beständig das kleinste Gebilde der Herrschaft, die Familie, organisiert, der Kinder und Erben braucht, um ein erreichtes Maß von Macht, Einfluß, Reichtum auch physiologisch festzuhalten, um lange Aufgaben, um InstinktSolidarität zwischen Jahrhunderten vorzubereiten”, can ensure the endurance of the institution of “marriage”.46 Marriage is, therefore, a microcosm of “society” – “der größten, der dauerhaftesten Organisationsform [...] Gesellschaft”47 – and their respective fates are consequently intrinsically linked for Nietzsche. It is in this sense that Nietzsche also defines “modernity” as a “physiological self-contradiction” [“physiologischer Selbst-Widerspruch”],48 which like a dying organism denies itself its utmost vital instincts and is consequently surely doomed for decline. This is also why Nietzsche chose to “look down upon modernity” [“aufs Moderne herunterzublicken”],49 as he essentially regards all things modern as “decadent” and “life-denying”. In the next chapter of this book, we will come to see more clearly that Nietzsche’s critique of “modernity” is intrinsically linked with his radical critique of “culture”, which basically argues: “daß unsere Europäische Kultur ein ungeheures Problem und durchaus keine Lösung ist”,50 particularly since modern “culture”: “von allen denen gefördert [wird, F.S.L.], welche sich eines häßlichen oder langweiligen Inhaltes bewußt sind und über ihn durch die 44 Ibid. p. 141. 45 Ibid. p. 142. 46 Ibid. It is very clear that Nietzsche speaks of “marriage” like “the blind man speaks of colours” [“wie der Blinde von den Farben”]. 47 Nietzsche, Götzen-Dämmerung, KSA 6, § 39, p. 142. 48 Ibid. § 41, p. 143. 49 Quoted from a letter to Georg Brandes, dated February 19 1888, which Nietzsche wrote in Nice. Nietzsche, Sämtliche Briefe, KSB 8, No. 997, p. 258. 50 Quoted from: Nietzsche’s letter to Georg Brandes, dated January 8 1888, which Nietzsche wrote in Nice. In Ibid. No. 974, p. 227.

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sogenannte ‘schöne Form’ täuschen wollen.”51 Modern “culture” is, therefore, nothing but an “appearance” or a Schein for Nietzsche. This is also why, from the Geburt der Tragödie onwards, one of Nietzsche’s main concerns remained a radical renewal of “culture” which he believed would help to counter the apparent sociocultural decline of modern society. “Culture”, therefore, largely represents a tool of “prophylaxis” for Nietzsche (this point will become much clearer in section 2.1 of Chapter 6 of this study, where I will discuss Nietzsche’s “critique of culture” in more detail). In our discussions here, however, it is just important to remember that Nietzsche’s understanding of “modernity” is also in another sense close to the modern theories we have discussed so far. So, for example, when we compare the importance which Delanty attributes to the “mediating function of culture” in his theory of “modernity” to the role Nietzsche himself ascribes to this term in his writings. But even if, in his writings, Nietzsche advances a notion of “mediation in public communication”, which is fairly similar to Delanty’s, it has to be noted that Nietzsche’s notion is a very pessimistic one. In describing the state of modern society, Nietzsche – who was always an observant, though selective commentator on the developments around him – advances a notion of “mediation in public life” which at first sight would seem to turn Delanty’s understanding of this notion upside down: “Heute, in der Zeit wo der Staat einen unsinnig dicken Bauch hat, gibt es in allen Feldern und Fächern, außer den eigentlichen Arbeitern noch ‘Vertreter’ z.B. außer den Gelehrten noch Literaten, außer den leidenden Volksschichten noch schwatzende prahlerische Tunichtsgute, welche jenes Leiden ‘vertreten’, gar nicht zu reden von den Politikern von Berufswegen, welche sich wohl befinden und Notstände vor einem Parlament mit starken Lungen ‘vertreten’. Unser modernes Leben ist äußerst kostspielig durch die Menge an Zwischenpersonen; in einer antiken Stadt dagegen […] trat man selber auf und hätte nichts auf einen solchen modernen Vertreter und Zwischenhändler gegeben – es sei denn einen Tritt.” 52

This passage is not only a good example of Nietzsche’s critique of his own society, but relates this critique in a typical Nietzschean move to an appraisal of the conditions in ancient Greece, which Nietzsche – in many ways – held up as an ideal to his own society. We will come to see this more clearly in the next chapter in our discussion of Nietzsche’s Geburt der Tragödie and its implicit proposal of “culture as prophylactic”.53 Even though Nietzsche’s categories are in most 51 Nietzsche, Unzeitgemäße Betrachtungen III, KSA 1, § 6, p. 389. 52 Nietzsche, Der Wille zur Macht, § 75, p. 59. 53 McGinn, “Culture as Prophylactic: Nietzsche’s Birth of Tragedy as Culture Criticism”, pp. 75–138.

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cases fundamentally aesthetic in nature and are hence more concerned with “cultural critique” rather than with actual “sociological structures” – which admittedly is a somewhat anachronistic dualism – he still voices important concerns about the sociocultural realities of his own society within his critique of culture, which are not very much unlike the concerns expressed in both early and modern social theory. It is, therefore, important to realise the vital role played as well as the important influence exerted by Nietzsche’s philosophy, and particularly by his critique of culture, for the critical assessment of “modernity” by Tönnies, Mayreder and Alfred Weber. As we will come to see later on, all three of these thinkers largely responded to the challenges posed by Nietzsche’s critique of the culture of modernity, by taking over large parts of his analysis while formulating their own notions of cultural critique. This view of the entangledness of the cultural critiques posed by leading sociologists at the turn of the 19th century with Nietzsche’s comments on culture, has also been advanced by Klaus Lichtblau in his book on the genealogy of Kultursoziologie in Germany, where he analyses the “attempts of a disciplinary self-affirmation and academic dialogue of modern sociology against the backdrop of a specific generational discourse on culture” which dominated the years between 1890 and 1930 in Germany.54 It will, therefore, be useful for our analysis of both this “specific generational discourse on culture” as well as for our analysis of the “problematic nature of dualistic conceptions of modernity”, to evaluate an important component of their explicitly shared historical background, which is why I will look at the sociogenesis of the “culture vs. civilisation” dichotomy in Germany in the following section of this chapter, as this was a particularly influential – yet equally reductive and oversimplifying – dualistic mode of interpreting “modernity”. It was, historically speaking, a decisive element of the intellectual debates in Germany and the pervasive force of its highly irrational arguments had – as we will come to see in the following section – wideranging sociopolitical as well as sociocultural consequences. I will, thereafter, also analyse Nietzsche’s contribution to this debate in some detail.

2.3) On the sociogenesis of the dichotomy of “culture vs. civilisation” in Germany “Culture” and “Civilisation” – these two terms have become the twin poles by which a large community of 19th and 20th century thinkers has measured and criticised the rise of “modernity” and sometimes even the whole history of

54 Lichtblau, Kulturkrise und Soziologie um die Jahrhundertwende, book cover (my translation).

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the “Occident”.55 But even though the sociogenesis of this dichotomy in German intellectual history has been extensively analysed by thinkers like Norbert Elias, Carl-Friedrich Geyer and others, its impact on both Nietzsche’s thought as well on early sociology has been largely neglected.56 Describing the influence of this powerful dichotomy, Geyer writes: “Am Beginn des postidealistischen philosophischen Diskurses über die Kultur steht, zumindest was den deutschsprachigen Raum betrifft, eine verhängnisvolle Konfiguration, nämlich der konstruierte und auf intellektuell fragwürdige Weise zu plausibilisieren versuchte Gegensatz zwischen ‘Zivilisation’ und ‘Kultur’.”57

The “dubious way” in which this dichotomy was to be explained by many German thinkers, was on the basis of a mutual exclusion of the constitutive parts of the two terms, where the elements of “culture” were clearly regarded as superior to the elements of “civilisation”. But at a closer look, it would appear that the constitutive elements of the two terms are in most cases not at all mutually exclusive, even though they have frequently been argued to be, particularly in the virulent debates on “culture” of fin-de-siècle Germany. In these debates “culture” was explicitly associated with Germany, while “civilisation” on the other hand was closely associated with England and France, where the term was more commonly used.58 The two terms, therefore, clearly held a different meaning in different national contexts. But, nevertheless, Elias argues that the main difference between the terms “culture” and “civilisation” is one of progress and/or movement on the one hand, and achievement and/or status-quo on the other: “‘Zivilisation’ bezeichnet einen Prozeß oder mindestens das Resultat eines Prozesses. Es bezieht sich auf etwas, das ständig in Bewegung ist, das ständig ‘vorwärts’ geht. Der deutsche Begriff ‘Kultur’, wie er gegenwärtig gebraucht wird, hat eine andere Bewegungsrichtung: er bezieht sich auf Produkte des Menschen, die da sind, wie ‘Blüten auf den Feldern’, auf Kunstwerke, Bücher, religiöse oder philosophische Systeme, in denen die Eigenart eines Volkes zum Ausdruck kommt. Der Begriff ‘Kultur’ grenzt ab.”59 55 Oswald Spengler for example argued that “civilisation” is the end product of the inevitable decline of “culture” and that these terms, therefore, represent a historically speaking logical “organisches Nacheinander”. Oswald Spengler, Der Untergang des Abendlandes. Umrisse einer Morphologie der Weltgeschichte (München: Beck’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1923), p. 43. 56 For an account, see: Elias, Über den Prozeß der Zivilisation (1997); Lichtblau, Kulturkrise und die Soziologie um die Jahrhundertwende (1996); Carl-Friedrich Geyer, Einführung in die Philosophie der Kultur (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1994). 57 Geyer, Philosophie der Kultur, p. 6. 58 Elias, Über den Prozeß der Zivilisation, p. 93. 59 Ibid. p. 91.

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But while the notion of “civilisation” allows for and even encourages national differences (or at least “relativises” them to a certain degree), the German notion of “culture” emphasises these differences as well as the particular peculiarities of any given people (which is partly why the German notion of “culture” gained such a strong influence on disciplines like ethnology and anthropology world-wide, as Elias convincingly argues).60 This “exclusive” (in the literal sense of the word) nature of the German notion of “culture” regained a particular relevance in the debates on “culture” and “civilisation” in Germany after World War I, as Elias consistently points out. Particularly so, “weil im Namen der ‘Zivilisation’ gegen Deutschland ein Krieg geführt wurde”,61 and because Germany also heavily struggled to regain a sense of “selfconfidence” as well as a new “self-understanding”, as Elias argues. In part at least, this fact helps to understand why the debates on “culture” and “civilisation” were so virulent during the time in question. This fatefully influential antithesis, however, had not been shaped in the 19th nor the 20th century, but rather in the 18th century and goes back to Immanuel Kant, as Elias points out in his analysis of the process of civilisation. Kant wrote: “Wir sind in hohem Grade durch Kunst und Wissenschaft kultiviert. Wir sind zivilisiert bis zum Überlästigen, zu allerlei gesellschaftlicher Artigkeit und Anständigkeit [...] die Idee der Moralität gehört [...] zur Kultur; der Gebrauch dieser Idee aber, welcher nur auf das Sittenähnliche in der Ehrliebe und der äußeren Anständigkeit hinausläuft, macht bloß die Zivilisierung aus.”62

Since Kant’s statement this dichotomy was shaped and reshaped by various other authors until it finally received a more and more ideological slant, which “culminated” or “exploded” with the experiences and events of World War I. It then became apparent from the German debates on “culture”, that this: “Gegensatzpaar [ein, F.S.L.] Spannungsverhältnis [beschreibt, F.S.L.], das ideenpolitisch als das Pendant zu jenen politischen ‘Sonderwegen’ der Deutschen bezeichnet werden darf, deren faktisches Ergebnis eine Distanzierung vom Westen, einschließlich einem angeblich ‘undeutschen’ Rationalismus gewesen ist.”63 Consequently, the “German vs. French” conflicts between 1806 and 1945 were – apart from obvious questions over power political constellations/alliances 60 Ibid. pp. 91-92. 61 Ibid. p. 95. 62 Immanuel Kant, Ideen zu einer allgemeinen Geschichte in weltbürgerlicher Absicht (First edition published in Königsberg, 1784). Quoted from: Elias, Über den Prozeß der Zivilisation, p. 96. 63 Geyer, Philosophie der Kultur, p. 6.

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and the struggle over political spheres of influence – very much characterised by the philosophical antagonism between “culture” and “civilisation”. At least as far as the German as well as French intellectual discourse on the nature of these conflicts at the time in question is concerned. While the German contribution to this debate consisted largely of a stigmatisation of the French notion of “civilisation” as intrinsically “universalistic” in nature and as, therefore, embodying an inherent tendency of social levelling and equalisation within society; the French contribution to this debate consisted largely of an attack on the apparent German tendency of resorting to a notion of “cultural exclusivity” as the basis for her political self-legitimisation. The French arguments were thus concerned with the largely fictitious nature of the German notion of a völkische Kultur, which was essentially regarded as pre-modern and at root nothing more than barbaric. I have argued before that the way in which the “culture vs. civilisation” dichotomy was explained by German thinkers who referred to it, was very dubious (to say the least): It was explained with reference to a mutual exclusion of the constitutive parts of the two terms, where the elements of “culture” were clearly regarded as superior to the elements of “civilisation”.64 This meant that – to put it in very simple, binary terms – while the French were argued to have, for example, “literature”, the German side argued that it provided “art” (of which “literature” was thought of to be only a minor subcategory).65 Or to give another example, that allows us to phrase these binary oppositions in political terms: While the French had “liberté” as a result of the French Revolution and of democracy, the German side argued that it possessed – what Schiller had called – “innere Freiheit”.66 Of course this is not much more than “binary nonsense”, but, historically speaking, it was very influential, even fateful nonsense indeed. But if this debate was, as Elias argues, mainly based on a particularly German notion of “culture”, why was this dichotomy becoming so influential then? The problem starts already with an adequate definition of the two terms since both concepts hold a multiplicity of meanings. Geyer for example argues that – similarly to the notion of “nature” – the notion of “culture” is an almost all-

64 A good example of this trend is: Thomas Mann, Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen (1956). 65 Thomas Mann puts it like this: “Der römische Westen ist literarisch: das trennt ihn von der germanischen – oder genauer – von der deutschen Welt, die, was sie sonst nun sei, unbedingt nicht literarisch ist.” Ibid. p. 43. 66 Again Thomas Mann is a good example of this kind of thought: “Wessen Bestreben es wäre, aus Deutschland einfach eine bürgerliche Demokratie im römisch-westlichen Sinn und Geiste zu machen, der würde ihm sein Bestes und Schwerstes, seine Problematik nehmen wollen, in der seine Nationalität ganz eigentlich besteht; der würde es langweilig, klar, dumm und undeutsch machen wollen und also ein Anti-Nationalist sein, der darauf bestünde, daß Deutschland eine Nation im fremden Sinne und Geiste würde.” Ibid. pp. 46-47.

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encompassing term.67 As a consequence of this wide-ranging understanding of the notion of “culture”, its meaning became henceforth equivalent to the totality of intellectual and artistic expressions within the life-world as such, which – in a more general sense – are directed at a refinement and an elevation of life itself: “Träger und Instanz der so verstandenen Kultur ist der Geist. Dieser löst sich würdevoll aus dem Taumel des blinden Existenzkampfes und herrscht über das Reich einer wahren Welt, die den wesenhaften Kern von Mensch und Geschichte umfaßt. ‘Kultur’ wird zur Chiffre für eine Sphäre der Innerlichkeit, des NichtPolitischen und des Erhabenen.”68

Georgi Schischkoff argues that “culture” also became synonymous with the unique historical process which both generated and gave rise to all kinds of human creations, inventions and ideas, all of which could never have been brought forward by nature alone.69 These all-encompassing definitions of “culture”, however, also contain a strong element of vagueness as Geyer emphasises: “Das [alles, F.S.L.] beinhaltet zwangsläufig eine gewisse Unschärfe. Sie läßt Begriffe wie Kultur, Gesellschaft [...] Wirklichkeit oder Zivilisation austauschbar erscheinen, freilich ist damit [jedoch, F.S.L.] nicht Beliebigkeit angesagt.”70 The very fact that the perceived antagonism between “culture” and “civilisation” became so influential on the intellectual dialogues on culture in the 19th and 20th centuries, already demonstrates that these terms are neither interchangeable nor elective in nature. Yet the vagueness or Unschärfe inherent in notions like “culture”, “society”, “reality” and “civilisation” is also an important reason why the dichotomy of “culture vs. civilisation” actually worked and even continues to work so well.71 Moreover, the fact that these notions have not been regarded as exchangeable by many German thinkers 67 Geyer, Philosophie der Kultur, p. 1. 68 Dirk Rustemeyer, Historische Vernunft, politische Wahrheit (Weinheim: Deutscher Studienverlag, 1992), pp. 111f. Quoted from: Geyer, Philosophie der Kultur, p. 6. 69 Georgi Schischkoff (ed.), Philosophisches Wörterbuch (Stuttgart: Kröner Verlag, 1982), p. 384. 70 Geyer, Philosophie der Kultur, p. 1. 71 The notion of “culture vs. civilisation” continues to be used in social theory today. A recent example of this tendency is a book by Barbara Ballis Lal on the Chicago school of American sociology in general, and the work of the eminent sociologist Robert E. Park (1864–1944) in particular. The book is called The Romance of Culture in an Urban Civilisation (1990). Describing Park’s approach to “culture and civilisation”, Ballis Lal writes: “Park was a spokesman for a view and a tradition that may be identified as ‘the romance of culture in an urban civilisation’. Civilisation, he thought, tends to subvert and secularise cultures. [...] Park noted that civilisation, which is governed by secular and universalistic principles of social organisation, lacks the moral authority to regulate behaviour inherent in tradition and culture. Civilisation releases individuals from traditional mechanism of social control.” Barbara Ballis Lal, The Romance of Culture in an Urban Civilisation (London/New York: Routledge Publishers, 1990), p. 11.

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in the 19th and 20th century clearly helped to reinforce and confirm their – maybe artificially constructed and intellectually dubious, but, nevertheless, influential – fundamental opposition to each other, which found a clear expression in the philosophical (and sociological) debates surrounding them. Elias now defines “civilisation” as a continuous and ongoing process. For him it is the process of a refinement of the standards of living, the standards of technology, the character of manners, the scientific and philosophical advances as well as of many other variables over time. This process, Elias argues, helped to differentiate the state of “self-confidence” and “self-understanding” of the Occident from that of earlier or more primitive periods and/or societies: “Der Begriff ‘Zivilisation’ bezieht sich auf sehr verschiedene Fakten [...]: [er, F.S.L.] bringt das Selbstbewußtsein des Abendlandes zum Ausdruck. Man könnte auch sagen: das Nationalbewußtsein. [...] Durch ihn sucht die abendländische Gesellschaft zu charakterisieren, was ihre Eigenart ausmacht, und worauf sie stolz ist: der Stand ihrer Technik, die Art ihrer Manieren, die Entwicklung ihrer wissenschaftlichen Erkenntnis oder ihrer Weltanschauung und vieles andere mehr.”72

Again, it becomes apparent that the borders between the two terms “culture” and “civilisation” are relative rather than absolute, for their constitutive elements also seem exchangeable. Yet the influence of the dichotomy of “culture vs. civilisation” was in no way affected by this apparent weakness of its inherent arguments. On the contrary, the fact that “reason” dictated a criticism of the illogical nature and the artificially constructed differences of the seemingly fundamental antagonism between the two terms, only reinforced their prevalence, since important parts of the arguments in support of “culture” were directed against the ostensibly “un-German” rationality and the scientific reasoning, believed to be characteristic or even part of “civilisation”: “Mit der zivilisatorischen Sphäre der Profaneität, des Effizienten und Nützlichen konfrontierte man die ‘Kultur’ als den Bereich höherer Errungenschaften und Leistungen, jenseits von Naturbeherrschung und politischem Tagesstreit dem ‘Wahren, Guten und Schönen’ verpflichtet.”73 Moreover, “civilisation” was linked to everything that made the life-world more comfortable or in general easier to bear, as Schischkoff consistently argues. Consequently, “civilisation” was also accused of corrupting mankind (simply) by “civilising” it. For Schischkoff this means that the “civilised” human being is (intellectually) so dependent on, as well as (physically) so absorbed by the comforts he surrounds himself with, that he neither has the time nor the necessary will to actively 72 Elias, Über den Prozeß der Zivilisation, pp. 89-90. 73 Geyer, Philosophie der Kultur, p. 6.

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engage in “culture”, let alone that he feels the need: “außer zivilisiert [etwa, F.S.L.] auch noch kultiviert zu sein.”74 The success and influence of the antithesis between “culture” and “civilisation”, partly has to be seen then as a result of the seductiveness to give in to the simplicity of its argumentative logic. Even the greatest German thinkers and writers used the dualistic paradigm offered by the terms “culture” and “civilisation”, in order to engage in the then fashionable tone of “cultural war mongering” of their times. A good example of this trend is, as mentioned before, the work of the young Thomas Mann, who – in 1918 – coined the term Zivilisationsliteraten or “writers of civilisation” to attack those writers and thinkers in Germany (and elsewhere), who sided with England and France in their declaration of war against the German Reich, which was fought in “the name of civilisation”. Mann says that the “writers of civilisation” regarded the troops of France and Britain as: “die Heere des Geistes [...] mit denen die Zivilisation [gegen Deutschland, F.S.L.] marschiert.”75 Only much later did Mann turn into one of the: “entschiedensten Anwälte der Überwindung der artifiziellen Trennung von Kultur und Zivilisation [...] zugunsten eines universalen Humanismus”,76 despite or maybe even because of his earlier youthful mistake of arguing for and through this antithesis. The inert and problematic nature of dualistic conceptions of “modernity” should, however, by now be fairly obvious from our discussions of both the historical as well as the recent attempts to utilise these modes of interpreting social reality for an analysis of the sociocultural transformations that characterised the historical period in question. A particularly problematic example of this methodological approach is the dichotomy of “culture vs. civilisation”, which characterised large parts of the intellectual dialogue on “modernity” in fin-de-siècle Germany, and which gave rise to numerous “creative misunderstandings” (as one might call them) as well as to far more serious misappropriations regarding the nature and the state of sociocultural change during the time in question. Yet this dichotomy clearly was (and still is) a fateful (if somewhat “convenient” or “seductive”) oversimplification of a much more complex social reality. But it is clear that it does not live up to rigorous scientific analysis, yet it still occupies an exceptionally influential position in intellectual history even though it clearly fell short of the “natural” or “real world”: “Die kulturphilosophische Reflexion markiert mit anderen Worten Differenzen [...]

74 Schischkoff (ed.), Philosophisches Wörterbuch, p. 771. 75 Mann, Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen, p. 52. 76 Geyer, Philosophie der Kultur, p. 8.

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zu dem, was man alltagssprachlich die ‘natürliche Welt’ nennt.”77 In the next section of this chapter, we will clearly come to see that Nietzsche also contributed to this debate on “culture” and “civilisation” as part of his development of a more general notion of cultural critique. Moreover, we will also come to see that as a consequence, Nietzsche was falling victim to the “seductiveness” of the argumentative simplicity of this antithesis as well.

2.4) Nietzsche on “culture” and “civilisation” In his fragmentary comments on the subject Nietzsche claims that “culture” and “civilisation” were antagonistic forces. For example, he argues that civilisation essentially “wants” something entirely different than culture, maybe even the exact opposite, and hence he poses “culture versus civilisation” [“Kultur contra Zivilisation”].78 He says that in reality cultural and civilisatory peaks are miles apart, but that in our imagination we often falsely interpret them as being close or even identical. They are, however, essentially antagonistic in nature for Nietzsche: “Die Höhepunkte der Kultur und der Zivilisation liegen auseinander: man soll sich über den abgründlichen Antagonismus von Kultur und Zivilisation nicht irreführen lassen. Die großen Momente der Kultur waren immer, moralisch geredet, Zeiten der Korruption; und wiederum waren die Epochen der gewollten und erzwungenen Tierzähmung des Menschen (‘Zivilisation’ –) Zeiten der Unduldsamkeit für die geistigsten und kühnsten Naturen. Zivilisation will etwas anderes, als Kultur will: vielleicht etwas umgekehrtes.”79

Civilisation as the forced “domestication of mankind” [“Tierzähmung des Menschen”]80 would always foster the morality of the masses and would consequently not tolerate or even fear the true “virtues” of the exceptional few. The effect of this on culture should be clear, as only in periods of the predominance of strong individual virtues within society and a relatively weak influence of herd morality would culture be able to flourish in a truly Nietzschean sense.81 A brief comment on Nietzsche’s differentiation between “virtue” [“Tugend”] and “morality” [“Moral”] might help to clarify his views on this matter: Nietz77 Ibid. p. 3. 78 Nietzsche, Werke und Briefe III, p. 837. 79 Ibid. 80 Ibid. 81 For a discussion of Nietzsche’s use of the terms “virtue” and “morality”, see: Lester H. Hunt, Nietzsche and the Origin of Virtue (London: Routledge Publishers, 1991).

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sche’s notions of “morality” and “virtue” are highly complex. For our argument here, an extended discussion of his notions does not seem necessary, however, there are some implications of his notions that should be kept in mind. To put it very simply: According to Nietzsche, “virtues” are almost always positive,82 whereas “morals” are almost always negative in their implications for mankind [“an sich hat keine Moral Wert”].83 There is an exception, however, which Nietzsche refers to as “aristocratic morality” [“aristokratische Moral”].84 Nietzsche thus attributes “true virtue” only to “exceptional” and “noble” individuals and argues that those who are indeed “truly noble”, will also be able to both “make” and “rank” their own values.85 These virtues are “aristocratic” or “elitist” in nature, and hence not “universal”. Quite the contrary is true, because in order for virtues to be truly “desirable” in a Nietzschean sense, they have to be exclusive to the few. One virtue for all is inconceivable to him as this would turn them into a Gemeinplatz or a “common place”: “Jede Tugend hat ihre Zeit.”86 Yet “common place” is the space already occupied by “herd morality”. Therefore, “common place” is occupied by the “morality” of the many which aims to domesticate the life-enhancing “instincts” of the few. Hence, the morality of the many, i.e. the morality of “civilisation”, is a morality that enslaves and “paralyses” the individual. The belief in a universality of both “morals” and “virtues” is only the false belief of the mass for Nietzsche, and is as such, therefore, utterly despicable to him. Furthermore, Nietzsche believes that it takes a definite degree of strength to admit to ones: “unconditional naturality, i.e. ones immorality” [“sich einmal seine unbedingte Natürlichkeit d.h. seine Unmoralität einzugestehen”].87 Only the exceptional “few” are able to do that. In his discussion of Nietzsche and the origin of virtue, Lester H. Hunt makes an interesting point for our discussion of Nietzsche and the social implications of his views on “virtue” and “morality” here, by saying that: “the entire point of the society he envisions is that it permits the formation of virtue in those who are able to achieve it”.88 This is also why Nietzsche feels

82 Nietzsche, Götzen-Dämmerung, KSA 6, § 37, p. 138. 83 Ibid. p. 137. 84 Nietzsche, Jenseits von Gut und Böse, KSA 5, § 262, 215. 85 See: Nietzsche, Fröhliche Wissenschaft, KSA 3, § 266, p. 518. Alternatively: Nietzsche, Der Wille zur Macht, § 767, p. 512. 86 Nietzsche, Fröhliche Wissenschaft, KSA 3, § 159, p. 497. 87 Nietzsche, Nachlaß 1885–1887, KSA 12, Herbst 1887 10 [53], “Die Vernatürlichung des Menschen im 19. Jahrhundert”, p. 483. 88 Hunt, Nietzsche and the Origin of Virtue, p. 163.

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such “discontent” with regards to modern “civilisation” as it seemingly grants all the “fruits” that had once, in ancient times, only been attributed to the most virtuous and thoughtful exemplars of society, to ordinary “cowards” as well: “die Zivilisation [zielt, F.S.L] darauf, alle guten Dinge, Ehren, Schätze, schöne Weiber, – auch den Feigen zugänglich zu machen.”89 Nietzsche’s preference for “culture” over “civilisation” is obvious, and in section 2.1 of Chapter 6, we will come to see that Nietzsche believes that true cultural advance only arises from the antagonistic struggle between the respectively structuring and destructive forms of “will” inherent in “culture” and “civilisation”. Nietzsche makes this particular claim mainly in his book Geburt der Tragödie, but he also warns us elsewhere: “do not confuse the dissolving and necessarily decadent means of civilisation with culture” [“Wovor ich warne: [...] die auflösenden und notwendig zur décadence treibenden Mittel der Zivilisation nicht mit der Kultur zu verwechseln”].90 Nietzsche is convinced, however, that the ultimate “goal of culture is to promote the production of true human beings and nothing else”.91 But this aim of the cultural movement is met by its opposite: the tendency of social levelling and equalisation embedded in the civilisatory process, because there is a “fundamental contradiction between the elevation of mankind and civilisation” [“Grundwiderspruch in der Zivilisation und der Erhöhung des Menschen”].92 Yet the elevation of culture can only be achieved and made possible by a “process of selection that disregards the masses” [“Ermöglichung einer Auswahl auf Unkosten einer Menge”].93 This, however, seems impossible for Nietzsche, given the trend to an ever increasing civilisation, because civilisation favours the morbid and mediocre elements over the exceptional ones; it favours a “social mish-mash: an ever increasing civilisation necessarily entails the increase of the morbid elements, it encourages a social mixing. Under such circumstances mediocre spirits will necessarily gain the greatest standing” [“die zunehmende Zivilisation, [beinhaltet, F.S.L.] zugleich notwendig auch die Zunahme der morbiden Elemente [...] der soziale Mischmasch. [...] Das Schwergewicht fällt unter solchen Umständen notwendig den Mediokren zu”].94 This will make a process of “selection that disregards the masses” virtually impossible 89 Nietzsche, Morgenröte, KSA 3, § 153, p. 143. 90 Nietzsche, Werke und Briefe III, pp. 809–810. 91 Nietzsche, Unzeitgemäße Betrachtungen III, KSA 1, § 6, p. 387. 92 Nietzsche, Werke und Briefe III, p. 493. 93 Ibid. p. 493. 94 Ibid. pp. 708–709.

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[“einer Auswahl auf Unkosten einer Menge”].95 In consequence, the civilisatory process – as the opposite pole of culture – only brings forth a general instinct against privileges of all kinds: “The result therefore is a general instinct against selection and against privileges of all kinds more generally” [“Hieraus resultiert ein Gesamtinstinkt gegen die Auswahl, gegen das Privilegium jeder Art ”].96 It should be clear by now that Nietzsche also contributed to the virulent debate on “culture” and “civilisation” which characterised large parts of the academic dialogue and discourse on “culture” of fin-de-siècle Germany, particularly as part of his development of a more general notion of “cultural critique”. It should be noted, however, that most of Nietzsche’s comments on “culture and civilisation” are (a) very fragmented pieces of writing and are (b) mostly part of the Nachlaß. There might be good reasons for this, because, generally speaking, Nietzsche’s “cultural critique” is far more complex than the “black-and-white” arguments of the “culture vs. civilisation” dichotomy allow for. In this respect Karl Schlechta’s critical assessment of the actual merits of the Nachlaß is not without its justification here. Schlechta argues: “Aber sonst ist, wie ich glaube, nicht entschieden genug darauf hinzuweisen, daß auch dieser Nachlaß kein zufälliger ist. Was Nietzsche zu sagen hatte, ehe ihn der Wahnsinn umfing, das hat er vernehmlich gesagt. [...] Überdies scheint es mir ein Erfordernis des geistigen Taktes, einen Autor primär so zu verstehen, wie er sich in der literarischen Öffentlichkeit verstanden wissen wollte.”97 It is, therefore, no exaggeration to claim that the frequent misunderstandings and misappropriations of Nietzsche’s philosophy are, to a large extent at least, the result of an overrating of the importance of selected fragments from the Nachlaß. Yet to some degree in any event, Nietzsche was, like many other German thinkers before and after him as well, also clearly falling victim to the “seductiveness” of the argumentative simplicity of the antithesis between “culture and civilisation”, even if he eventually decided not to publish his comments on this subject at all. Here I included a debate of Nietzsche’s contribution to the subject in order to demonstrate the development of his arguments on “culture”, as well as to show the continuity of the debate on “culture” and “civilisation” to which Nietzsche also contributed. In the next chapter we will, however, come to see that Nietzsche did not give up entirely on the “culture vs. civilisation” dichotomy, but that his arguments are rather subsumed into his more general critique of the “culture” of his society as well as into his radical proposition for a fundamental renewal of the “educational ideals” of his society. 95 Ibid. p. 493. 96 Ibid. pp. 708. 97 Schlechta “Nachwort”, p. 1433.

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Chapter VI Nietzsche’s cultural critique and his views on educational ideals Nietzsche was both a radical critic of the “culture” of his society as well as a radical proponent for a renewal of the “educational ideals” of this society. Therefore, it is not surprising to find both elements of his philosophy – i.e. the critique of culture as well as the proposition of new educational ideals – as a consistent, yet “unsystematic” and certainly “untimely”, theme throughout his writings. In both respects Nietzsche’s philosophy offered a radical critique of the status-quo of his society and posed a strong challenge for the intellectual debates among early sociologists and social thinkers in Germany, even far beyond the immediate historical context in which his concerns were voiced. I will, therefore, in this chapter analyse the main arguments Nietzsche makes with regards to his position on both “culture” and “education”. As an important example of the impact of Nietzsche’s “cultural critique” and his views on “educational ideals” on the intellectual debates among early German sociologists, I will in this chapter, moreover, discuss the response by Ferdinand Tönnies to the challenges posed by Nietzsche’s thoughts on these issues.

1) Nietzsche’s cultural philosophy and the “genealogy of cultural sociology in Germany” One of the most important contributions to the debate on Nietzsche’s decisive function as a pre-eminent philosopher of “culture” at the turn of the 19th century, was Alois Riehl’s book Friedrich Nietzsche. Der Künstler und der Denker, which was first published in 1897.1 It was particularly important since it was also

1 Alois Riehl, Friedrich Nietzsche. Der Künstler und der Denker (Stuttgart: Fr. Fromanns Verlag, 1897).

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“one of the first rigorous scientific monographs”2 on Nietzsche’s philosophy. As we will clearly come to see, Riehl primarily interpreted Nietzsche’s philosophy as an astute analysis and a radical diagnosis of the experience of the “cultural problematic” at the turn of the 19th century. And Riehl’s account was exceptionally influential, particularly among the early sociologists and social thinkers we are looking at, specifically so since Riehl was a close friend of both Max and Alfred Weber as well as of Georg Simmel.3 It is, therefore, with a considerable degree of justification that Guzzoni can argue that Riehl’s analysis set the tone for the “philosophical image of Nietzsche at the beginning of the 20th century” [“(Es war Riehl, F.S.L.) der das philosophische Bild Nietzsches zu Beginn des Jahrhunderts prägte”].4 But Riehl’s categorisation of Nietzsche as the primary “philosopher of culture” not only set the general tone for the philosophical responses to Nietzsche’s writings in Germany at the end of the 19th century, it also determined the early sociological responses to Nietzsche’s thought. To a certain degree, therefore, Riehl’s categorisation also captures the essence of Klaus Lichtblau’s thesis on the “genealogy of cultural sociology in Germany”, on which important aspects of our discussions throughout this book are based, particularly in so far as Lichtblau also emphasises Nietzsche’s pre-eminent function as radical critic of modern culture, who had realised: “daß unsere Europäische Kultur ein ungeheures Problem und durchaus keine Lösung ist”.5 The title of Lichtblau’s book makes his views on this topic very clear, as the term “genealogy” is certainly more than just a passing reference to Nietzsche.6 Due to the exceptional influence of Riehl’s monograph on Nietzsche, I will in this section firstly look at the particular arguments of his Nietzsche interpretation which seem important for our discussions of Nietzsche’s overall influence at the turn of the 19th century, before concentrating on Lichtblau’s analysis of the formative historical phase of, as well as the formative intellectual influences on German cultural sociology at the beginning of the 20th century. As part of our analysis of his arguments, we

2 Hennis, Max Weber: Essays in Reconstruction, p. 150. 3 Ibid. p. 236. Hennis comments on the cultural significance of Riehl’s Nietzsche interpretation by emphasising that what is “lasting and central to Nietzsche’s teaching for Weber is [...] Nietzsche’s ‘ethic of distinction’ – he had thus read him as a moralist. This is exactly how Simmel [...] understood him, as well as Weber’s colleague from Freiburg, Alois Riehl [...] Simmel, like Riehl, saw in Nietzsche, far beyond all cult of genius, the deep moral philosopher, the important scholar of morality and culture.” Ibid. p. 150. 4 Guzzoni, “Vorwort des Herausgebers”, in Guzzoni (ed.), Nietzsche Rezeption, p. viii. 5 Quoted from: Nietzsche’s letter to Georg Brandes, dated January 8 1888, which Nietzsche wrote in Nice. Nietzsche, Sämtliche Briefe, KSB 8, No. 974, p. 227. 6 Lichtblau, Kulturkrise und die Soziologie um die Jahrhundertwende: Zur Genealogie der Kultursoziologie in Deutschland (1996).

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will come to realise that Riehl’s position on Nietzsche’s writings not only helped to set the tone for a much wider discussion of Nietzsche’s “philosophy of culture”, but also for a discussion of Nietzsche’s notion of the Übermensch. Riehl had interpreted the Übermensch as an idealised notion of Nietzsche’s aim of the “elevation of mankind” which, according to Riehl, can only be realised as a “sociocultural goal” in the real world in the form of profound “spiritual values” [“geistige Werte”].7 Building on Riehl’s interpretation, I will mainly understand the Übermensch as an “educational ideal” based on “spiritual values”, which largely is, as we will come to see in later sections of this study, also how many of the sociologists and social thinkers we are looking at throughout this book, conceived of Nietzsche’s notion. In his pioneering book on Nietzsche, the neo-Kantian thinker Alois Riehl (1844–1924), who had previously published widely on the philosophies of “culture” and “art”, primarily regarded Nietzsche as an exceptionally thought provoking philosopher of “culture” – “Nietzsche ist der Philosoph der Kultur”8 – who was both artist and thinker at the same time: “‘Wir Philosophen sind für nichts dankbarer, als wenn man uns mit Künstlern verwechselt’, schrieb Nietzsche an Brandes. Er selbst ist ein Künstler, den man mit einem Philosophen verwechseln könnte.”9 Consequently, Nietzsche aimed to solve the problems of “culture” with the help of a renewal of “culture” itself, based on the “intuitive” powers of radically “aesthetic ideals” concerning the nature of “art” and even of “life” itself. Therefore, Riehl convincingly argues: “Die ganze Welt ist nur um der Kunst willen da, unser Dasein ein fortwährender künstlerischer Akt. Das Kunstwerk und der Mensch, beide sind nur eine Wiederholung des Urprozesses, aus dem die Welt entstanden ist.”10 It is in this sense that Riehl’s arguments are close to the position taken by Peter Pütz, which we have already discussed in some detail in Chapter 1, as Pütz consistently argues that “art” and “knowledge” clearly seem to exchange their place in Nietzsche’s philosophy, particularly in his early writings: “Kunst und Erkenntnis [vertauschen, F.S.L.] ihre Rollen.”11 Riehl summarises his exceptionally thoughtful position on Nietzsche’s philosophy of “culture” by emphasising the importance of the “all-encompassing nature” of his understanding of the term in the following central passage from his book: 7 Riehl, Friedrich Nietzsche. Der Künstler und der Denker, p. 156. 8 Ibid. p. 53. 9 Ibid. p. 25. The letter to Georg Brandes, which Riehl refers to is dated May 4 1888, and was written while Nietzsche was still in Turin. Nietzsche, Sämtliche Briefe, KSB 8, No. 1030, p. 309. 10 Riehl, Friedrich Nietzsche. Der Künstler und der Denker, p. 47. 11 Pütz, “Der Mythos bei Nietzsche”, in Koopmann (ed.), Mythos und Mythologie in der Literatur des 19. Jahrhunderts, p. 251.

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“Nietzsche ist der Philosoph der Kultur. – Die Kultur ist das Problem, um welches sich alle seine wesentlichsten Gedanken gruppieren lassen. Diese Aufgabe wird von dem Wandel seiner Anschauungen nicht berührt; sie verbindet die Perioden seines Denkens und steht im Mittelpunkt seiner Philosophie. Erst ist Kultur Kunst, ‘die Einheit des künstlerischen Stiles in allen Lebensäußerungen eines Volkes’ oder die ‘Herrschaft der Kunst über das Leben’, dann ist sie Erkenntnis, endlich ist ihr Ziel die ‘Erhöhung des Typus Mensch’. Auch das Problem der Moral, Nietzsches bekannteste Fragestellung, ordnet sich bei ihm dem Kulturprobleme unter und ist daher nur im Zusammenhange mit diesem richtig zu verstehen. – Der Weg zu einer künftig möglichen Kultur, deren Bild seinem Geiste vorschwebt, führt, wie Nietzsche glaubt, über die gegenwärtig herrschende Moral hinweg.” 12

In his reflections on the “question of pessimism in Nietzsche’s thought”, written in 1903, Riehl once again emphasises the importance of Nietzsche’s thought for our understanding of the terms “culture” and “morality”, but he also warns us of the inherent excesses in Nietzsche’s position: “In seiner ‘Argonautenfahrt’ nach neuen Idealen ist dieser ‘Wage- und Versuchergeist’ gewiß oft in die Irre geraten.”13 But Riehl believes that Nietzsche’s attempt to reach out to ever greater horizons and future possibilities of “life”, made him question the very boundaries of “mankind” itself and to propose a new ideal for humanity to strive towards – the Übermensch or the “synthetic human being” as Riehl calls it – as eventually even the greatest human being “ihm zu klein erscheinen [mußte, F.S.L.]”.14 Humanity in its current state was not able to fulfil the high demands Nietzsche posed to it or to even make the best of the possibilities that lay ahead. Riehl argues that this new cultural ideal in particular represents Nietzsche – the “artist”: “Der ‘synthetische Mensch’, der ‘Übermensch’ [...] ist das Ideal des Menschen, und nur die Kunst vermag sein Bild zu zeigen. Dort, von der Decke der Kapelle di San Sisto schauen sie nieder, die Übermenschen und Halbgötter, alles Große des Menschen erscheint in ihnen vergrößert, das Hohe gesteigert, aber auch sie sinnen dem noch Höheren, dem Göttlichen nach.” 15

The importance of this passage lies in the perceptive interpretation of Nietzsche’s notion of the Übermensch, which Riehl offers and the way in which he links it to his own understanding of Nietzsche as embodying both thinker and

12 Riehl, Friedrich Nietzsche. Der Künstler und der Denker, pp. 53-54. 13 Alois Riehl: “Zur Frage des Pessimismus”, in Guzzoni (ed.), Nietzsche Rezeption, p. 24. 14 Ibid. p. 19. 15 Ibid.

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artist at the same time. The Übermensch is an ideal that has hitherto only found artistic articulation; hence Nietzsche wants to release it from these fetters and to realise it in the real world. This interpretation has several implications which are clearly very important for the wider background of this book: (a) there are the implications of Nietzsche’s philosophy for the “arts” (which we have already discussed in Chapter 2 of this study), and (b) there are the idealised implications of Nietzsche’s notion of the Übermensch, which can only be realised in the real world in the form of “spiritual values”: “Dieses Übermenschliche, Vorbildliche ist die Welt der geistigen Werte”16 as Riehl convincingly emphasises. And in later sections of this chapter I will consequently argue that due to the nature of these “spiritual values”, the notion of the Übermensch should largely be interpreted as an “educational ideal”. In the final section of his book on Friedrich Nietzsche. Der Künstler und der Denker, Riehl elaborates his position on Nietzsche’s notion of the Übermensch, by stressing its largely “idealistic” nature, which Riehl regards as being “intrinsically linked” with the more general progress of both “mankind” and “culture” in Nietzsche’s thought: “Der Einzige Weg den Typus Mensch zu erhöhen, ist die Hebung des Niveaus der Menschen, der Menge. Je höher das Postament gehoben wird, um so höher erhebt sich auch die das Postament überragende Säule. Aber auch der höchste Einzelne bleibt ein Mensch. Er wird nicht den Dünkel hegen, etwas Übermenschliches, der ‘Übermensch’ zu sein, – und je größer er ist um so weniger. Mit der Größe wächst auch die Höhe der Ziele und das Gefühl des Abstandes der Werke von den Zielen. Immer wird der Mensch an das Übermenschliche glauben, mag er es nun das Göttliche nennen, oder das Ideale. Ohne ein Ideal über sich zu haben, kann der Mensch im geistigen Sinne des Wortes nicht aufrecht gehen. Dieses Übermenschliche, Vorbildliche ist die Welt der geistigen Werte; – auch der Größte hat diese Welt noch über sich, wie er sie zugleich in sich trägt. Diese Werte aber, die das Handeln des Menschen leiten und seine Gesinnung beseelen, werden nicht erfunden, oder durch Umwertung neu geprägt; sie werden entdeckt und gleichwie die Sterne am Himmel treten sie nach und nach mit dem Fortschritte der Kultur in den Gesichtskreis des Menschen. Es sind nicht alte Werte, nicht neue Werte, es sind die Werte.” 17

In his reflections on Nietzsche und der Nietzscheanismus Ernst Nolte also alludes to these aspects of Riehl’s analysis. In his interpretation of Riehl’s position, Nolte stresses the important practical implications for philosophy, if it is indeed to be seen as the driving force of “culture”, in the sense outlined by both Nietzsche and Riehl respectively: “Die eigentliche Bestimmung des Philosophen besteht 16 Riehl, Friedrich Nietzsche. Der Künstler und der Denker, p. 156. 17 Ibid. pp. 155-156.

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darin, Kultur zu schaffen. An dieser praktischen Bestimmung der Philosophie hat Nietzsche immer festgehalten.”18 This is also the main reason why both Nietzsche’s “critique of culture” as well as Riehl’s categorisation of Nietzsche as the “philosopher of culture”, who is both artist and thinker at the same time, became so important for the “genealogy of cultural sociology in Germany”. This becomes very clear in Klaus Lichtblau’s book Kulturkrise und die Soziologie um die Jahrhundertwende: Zur Genealogie der Kultursoziologie in Deutschland, where he argues that the historical and intellectual development of German sociology in general, and of German cultural sociology in particular, cannot be understood without reference to Nietzsche’s writings. Lichtblau argues that it were particularly the intellectual challenges which Nietzsche’s radical critique of culture had posed to the wider debate as well as to the more general experience of a fundamental “cultural crisis” in Germany, which were of great importance as formative intellectual experiences for many early German sociologists and social thinkers.19 This is why Lichtblau specifically attempts to investigate: “den Einfluß des Werkes von Friedrich Nietzsche auf die klassische deutsche Soziologie”.20 This influence is part of Lichtblau’s wider assessment and analysis of the “origins”, the “nature” as well as the proposed (and eventually failed) “solutions” to the “crisis” and “Eigenart der kulturellen Moderne”.21 We have already learned in Chapter 5 that Nietzsche also made an important contribution to the debate of this “crisis” of modernity. Yet it particularly was the experience of this fundamental crisis of “modernity”, which sparked of an unprecedented intellectual discourse on “culture” in Wilhelminian Germany, “dessen innere Spannungen, Antinomien, ungelöste innergesellschaftliche Konflikte und sich bereits unheilschwanger abzeichnende kulturelle Pathologien zu einer außergewöhnlichen Produktivität des intellektuellen Diskurses geführt haben”.22 This “productive discourse” soon manifested itself in a specific generational dispute on “culture” among many early sociologists and social thinkers, as Lichtblau consistently argues. This is also why his study is in many ways intertwined with an analysis of the: “Versuche einer disziplinären Selbstverständigung der modernen Soziologie vor dem Hintergrund eines übergreifenden generationsspezifischen Kulturdiskurses.”23 18 Nolte, Nietzsche und der Nietzscheanismus, p. 252. 19 Lichtblau, Kulturkrise und die Soziologie um die Jahrhundertwende, p. 14. 20 Ibid. p. 10. 21 Ibid. p. 9. 22 Ibid. p. 13. 23 Ibid. book cover.

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What Lichtblau is clearly able to demonstrate by rigorously scrutinising the various sociological responses to Nietzsche’s philosophy by thinkers like Georg Simmel, Max Weber, Karl Mannheim et. al., is the fact that their multifacetted approaches to Nietzsche’s critique of “culture” and “modernity” are not simply attempts to take over and amalgamate Nietzschean positions with their own world-views, but rather represent genuine reinterpretations and expansions of Nietzsche’s thought.24 Yet Nietzsche’s radical critique of sociology, which we have discussed in some detail in Chapter 3 of this book already, seemingly did not impinge on the various sociological responses to Nietzsche’s philosophy. This view is also supported by Roger Häußling, who argues that within Nietzsche’s highly complex critique of “modernity”, there is – despite of his occasionally very strong anti-sociological slant – evidently also room for what could be referred to as “sociological perspectives”, and precisely these “sociological perspectives” of Nietzsche’s philosophy seemed to have been very clear to the “founding fathers” of German (cultural) sociology.25 Yet this generationally specific discourse on “culture” among many early sociologists and social thinkers, is not only important because of its centrality with regards to the intellectual history of Germany in the late 19th and the early 20th century, but it is also highly reflective of as well as symptomatic for Germany’s political history as a whole, as Lichtblau emphasises.26 In his assessment of Nietzsche’s “place” in German intellectual history, Manfred Riedel makes a fairly similar point to Lichtblau, as he argues that the fate of Nietzsche’s philosophy and the influence it exerted on diverse groups of sociocultural actors in Germany can also be seen as a paradigm for Germany’s more general political history during the 20th century (an argument which we have already discussed in more detail in Chapter 2 of this book).27 Summarising his exceptionally thoughtful position with regards to the nature of this process, Lichtblau argues that the recent “cultural turn” in German sociology and the re-emergence of the debate on Kulturwissenschaften (which, as we have already discussed in Chapter 3, also characterised the German academic debates of the late 19th century) is largely typified and inspired by the theories of “culture” and of “cultural development” which have been developed in the first

24 Ibid. pp. 102f. 25 “Ihre bewußte und produktive Auseinandersetzung mit Nietzsches Kritik der Moderne läßt vermuten, daß im Aktionsraum soziologischer Theoretisierung auch Positionen beziehbar sind, die sich zumindest den unmittelbaren Einwänden Nietzsches gegen diese Disziplin zu entziehen suchen.” Häußling, Nietzsche und die Soziologie, p. 206. 26 Lichtblau, Kulturkrise und die Soziologie um die Jahrhundertwende, pp. 23-33. 27 Riedel, Nietzsche in Weimar, book cover.

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three decades of the 20th century. Consequently, Lichtblau asks whether this particular period of German history can be referred to as the formative phase of German cultural sociology, particularly insofar as it was then that the “intellectual dialogues on modernity” seemed to ultimately fail and as it was then that they gave rise to an unprecedented cultural pessimism: “Vielleicht ist der Zeitraum der Jahrhundertwende wissenschaftsgeschichtlich und kulturhistorisch ja gerade deshalb so interessant und für unsere eigenen Selbstvertändigungsversuche nach wie vor hoch aktuell, weil er die ungelösten Antinomien, Paradoxien und Pathologien des modernen Zeitalters gleichsam im Reagenzglas vorführt, und zwar so, daß auch das Scheitern der intellektuellen Auseinandersetzungen mit der Moderne in diesem Zeitraum, welches durch die Jahreszahlen 1914, 1918/19 und 1933 markiert wird, sowie die sich daran anschließende kollektive Regression und mythologische Besetzung des eigentlichen historischen Erfahrungsraumes und Erwartungshorizontes im Spiegel einer soziologiegeschichtlichen Gleichnisrede exemplarisch veranschaulicht und begreifbar gemacht werden kann.” 28

The reason why Nietzsche was frequently held responsible for, or at least named in connection with this “Scheitern der intellektuellen Auseinandersetzungen mit der Moderne in diesem Zeitraum”29 was because of the exceptional influence of his writings on very diverse groups of sociocultural actors in fin-de-siècle Germany. Many of them clearly misunderstood and, whether consciously or unconsciously is not the point here, clearly misappropriated Nietzsche’s writings. But can Nietzsche really be held responsible for the misappropriation of his writings? Maybe the frequent embezzlement of Nietzsche’s thought during this period should also rather be seen as the result of what Lichtblau calls: “die ungelösten Antinomien, Paradoxien und Pathologien des modernen Zeitalters”,30 than as the outcome of the seemingly inherent antinomies, paradoxes and pathologies of Nietzsche’s writings themselves. Maybe even more so since Nietzsche’s philosophy frequently ended up in the “hands of the wrong people” as Hillebrand consistently emphasises: “Nietzsche war [oftmals, F.S.L.] im Munde der falschen Propheten.”31 Nevertheless, the productive generational discourse on, as well as the many multi-faceted approaches to Nietzsche’s critique of “culture” and “modernity”, which are reflected in the writings 28 Lichtblau, Kulturkrise und die Soziologie um die Jahrhundertwende, p. 25. 29 Ibid. 30 Ibid. 31 Hillebrand, “Einführung: Die frühe Nietzsche Rezeption in Deutschland”, in Hillebrand (ed.), Nietzsche und die deutsche Literatur, p. 7.

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of many early sociologists and social thinkers at the end of the 19th century, not only provided genuine reinterpretations and expansions of Nietzsche’s thought, but also engaged very critically with the emerging “cult” around Nietzsche’s life and work (a point which will become much clearer in our discussion of Tönnies’ and Mayreder’s response to Nietzsche’s writings in later sections of this book). Therefore, the “genealogy of cultural sociology in Germany” is tied up with Nietzsche’s philosophy in at least two ways: First of all, Nietzsche’s writings on culture served as an important inspirational source for the cultural theories of many early sociologists and social thinkers. Second, the process as well as the outcome of Nietzsche’s influence on many diverse groups of sociocultural actors of fin-de-siècle Germany also became the subject of sociological analysis, as it clearly represented a highly interesting and very suggestive social phenomenon of “modernity” as well. This view is also confirmed by Bruno Hillebrand, who writes that: “die Auflehnung der frühen Nietzsche Adepten [...] mit perspektivischer Verzerrung das Spiegelbild der bürgerlichen Szenerie vor und nach 1890 [zeigt, F.S.L.].”32 An analysis of the “genealogy of cultural sociology in Germany”, therefore, clearly demonstrates the way in which an analytical engagement with Nietzsche’s cultural critique specifically helped to shape the “cultural theories” of early German sociology, as well as the way in which an uncritical reading and misinterpretation of Nietzsche’s philosophy more generally became a fateful, yet important feature of the wider social phenomenon referred to as “Nietzscheanism”.33 But even though Nietzsche’s cultural critique was very influential in the development of German sociological thought, there are many inherent problems in his critique of culture, which have to be taken into account if his influence on early German sociology is to be assessed adequately. Among them is the irrational notion of Leben or “life” in Nietzsche’s writings, which basically was a: “reaction against what was seen as the excessive rationalism of traditional philosophy”.34 In his essay on “Friedrich Nietzsche”, published in 1909, Samuel Lublinski sums up the general problems associated with Nietzsche’s irrational understanding of the term Leben in a very thoughtful manner as he stresses its “quasi religious”, almost metaphysical character: “Hier war seine Religion, hier war seine Metaphysik, die aber deshalb nicht zu einer synthetischen Kultur wurde, weil er hartnäckig verschmähte, seine Fülle mit der wirklichen Realität der Zeiten, mit der Zivilisation auf technischer und 32 Ibid. 33 Lichtblau, Kulturkrise und die Soziologie um die Jahrhundertwende, p. 101. 34 William Outhwaite, Understanding Social Life: The Method called Verstehen (Lewes: Jean Stroud Publisher, 1986), p. 25.

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demokratischer Grundlage, zu einer Einheit organisch zu vermählen. So erklärt sich der Zwiespalt seiner Ausdrucksweise. In besonnenen Zeiten sagte er Kultur, und dann ahnte er eine künftige Zusammenfassung, während er, wenn seine Subjektivität gewaltig durchbrach, das hohe Lied vom Leben anstimmte, so daß dieses Wort in seinem Mund ein Gleiches bedeutete, wie dem Frommen Gott und dem Mystiker sein Allgefühl.” 35

We will, therefore, in thefollowing section of this chapter focus on Nietzsche’s challenging and highly complex “cultural critique” and its intrinsic relation with his irrational notion of Leben, which refuses to accept the “realities of his times”.36

2) Nietzsche as a critic of culture From our discussion of Riehl’s arguments about Nietzsche as the pre-eminent philosopher of culture at the turn of the 19th century as well as from our discussion of Lichtblau’s arguments about the “genealogy of cultural sociology in Germany” in the previous section of this chapter, we have learned that the academic dialogue and discourse on “culture” in fin-de-siècle Germany strongly influenced Nietzsche’s writings as well as the sociologists and social thinkers we are looking at. And in our discussion of Nietzsche’s contribution to the virulent debate on “culture” and “civilisation” in Chapter 5 of this book, we have come to see that in his fragmentary comments on the subject Nietzsche, like many other German thinkers at the time, claims that “culture” and “civilisation” were antagonistic forces. As a consequence, true cultural advance only arises from the antagonistic struggle between the respectively structuring and destructive forms of will inherent in “culture” and “civilisation” for Nietzsche. Nietzsche’s preference for “culture” over “civilisation” is, therefore, obvious. Particularly since only culture is able to produce a desirable “morality” (i.e. an “aristocratic morality”)37 in a truly Nietzschean sense. Hence, Nietzsche favours the “most virtuous and thoughtful exemplars of culture” [“die geistigsten und kühnsten Naturen”],38 and resists their “domestication for the sake of civilisation” [“erzwungenen Tierzähmung des Menschen”].39 Yet comments about “culture” and “civilisation” are scattered widely throughout Nietzsche’s writings, while his more systematic and fundamental arguments about the development and 35 Samuel Lublinski, “Friedrich Nietzsche”, in Hillebrand (ed.), Nietzsche und die deutsche Literatur, p. 156. 36 Ibid. 37 Nietzsche, Jenseits von Gut und Böse, KSA 5, § 262, 215. 38 Nietzsche, Werke und Briefe III, p. 837. 39 Ibid.

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function of “culture” and “society” can already be found in his early masterpiece Die Geburt der Tragödie aus dem Geiste der Musik. But even though Nietzsche’s more detailed comments concerning the nature of “culture” only appear with the Unzeitgemäße Betrachtungen, the earlier book and the fragments from its period provide ample material to establish the core of his “sociocultural critique”. In Die Geburt der Tragödie Nietzsche attempts to analyse many particular aspects of what he also calls the “culture complex” for the first time.40 It is not a systematic, but rather an intuitive attempt to address certain questions regarding the sociocultural development of individual cultures (both ancient and modern) which Nietzsche outlines there, but it is precisely this “intuitive”, “creative” and if eventually even “speculative” character of his analysis which at least partly explains the lasting influence of his first book.

2.1) Nietzsche’s critique of culture in Die Geburt der Tragödie Nietzsche believes that true cultural advance only arises from the antagonistic struggle between the different forms of will inherent in “culture” and “civilisation”. In more general terms, the two antagonistic wills inherent in culture and civilisation can also be described as the two fundamental forces in human beings and also in the rest of the world: Dionysos, creative but also destructive, and Apollo, structuring but also contemplative. Out of the antagonistic imbalance between these two poles, Nietzsche says, arises the kind of tension that brings forth cultural advance. It is apparent that Nietzsche connects his cultural critique very early on with his notions of the Dionysian and the Apollinian, which Ivo Frenzel calls: “the fundamental categories of Nietzsche’s rather unsystematic philosophy” [“Sie können gewissermaßen als Fundamentalkategorien seiner an sich so unsystematischen Philosophie bezeichnet werden”].41 Hence, these two terms are clearly part of Nietzsche’s world-view or Weltanschauung and strongly determine the wider elements of his philosophy from then onwards. In his Geburt der Tragödie aus dem Geiste der Musik (1871), Nietzsche’s cultural critique starts out from the presumption that the decline and eventual “death” of Greek tragedy provided the origin for the cultural wrong-turn that characterises the history of the West. Nietzsche writes: “All that is now called culture, education, civilisation will one day have to appear before the 40 In his book Der Wille zur Macht Nietzsche uses the term “culture complex” to designate what could be referred to as the “cultural realm and its cultural tools”. The word “complex” should not be associated with the psychological connotations it evokes in English. The German word “Komplex” has a much wider meaning and usage than the English word. Nietzsche, Der Wille zur Macht, § 462, p. 323. 41 Ivo Frenzel, Nietzsche (Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, 1966), p. 48.

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incorruptible judge, Dionysos” [“Alles was wir jetzt Kultur, Bildung, Zivilisation nennen, wird einmal vor dem untrüglichen Richter Dionysos erscheinen müssen.”].42 It is clear that Nietzsche does not hold the current state of “culture”, “education” and “civilisation” in high esteem. In this context it is interesting to note that both Marx and Nietzsche shared the view of Greek antiquity as representing the highest embodiment of art, and hence both shared an almost metaphysical notion of an idealised past age.43 For Nietzsche – more than for Marx probably – this notion became a crucial element of his critique of culture. In a fragment entitled “The Struggle between Science and Wisdom” [“Wissenschaft und Weisheit im Kampfe”], which explicitly deals with this subject, Nietzsche makes his point quite clear: “So much depends on the development of Greek culture, as the whole realm of the Western world has received its main impetus from these roots” [“Es hängt so viel von der Entwicklung der griechischen Kultur ab, da unsre ganze abendländische Welt daher ihre Antriebe bekommen hat ”].44 The cultural realm of the Western world is, according to Nietzsche, basically an extension of the cultural realm of ancient Greece. And since the “original” cultural realm had experienced a steady decline and even an eventual collapse, Nietzsche believed that the seeds for a similar development soon to take place in modern Western societies had already been implanted in their cultural foundations. The spirit of decadence, embedded in the historical origins of the Western world, was clearly beginning to show increasing signs of virulence, as well as of its capacity to initiate sociocultural decline. In consequence, Nietzsche believed that the fate of Greek culture and society could also become the fate of modern culture and society as well, unless some drastic form of sociocultural renewal took place. With the naivety of all his youthful passion Nietzsche seemingly discovered the possibility for a radical cultural renewal in the music of Richard Wagner, but in many ways he clearly confused Wagner’s music with the composer’s early writings on “drama, art and revolution”, which Nietzsche had read with great interest and enthusiasm. In these writings Wagner proposed a radical form of “personal” and “cultural” change with the help of the “liberating spirit of music”. In a letter to Theodor Uhlig, written in December 1849 – around the time of the publication of his book Die Kunst und die Revolution – Wag-

42 Nietzsche, Die Geburt der Tragödie, KSA 1, § 19, p. 128. 43 It was, however, quite a widespread phenomenon among German intellectuals in the 19th century to idealise the virtues and the society of ancient Greece. Examples include thinkers like Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Friedrich Schiller and to some degree even Friedrich Engels and August Bebel. 44 Nietzsche, Werke und Briefe III, p. 335.

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ner wrote: “das Kunstwerk kann jetzt nicht geschaffen, sondern nur vorbereitet werden, und zwar durch revolutionieren, durch zerstören und zerschlagen alles dessen, was zerstören- und zerschlagenswert ist. Das ist unser Werk, und ganz andere Leute als wir werden erst die wahren schaffenden Künstler sein.”45 Behind this idea of a radical revolution of “art”, lies: “Wagners Fernziel einer ebenso grundlegenden wie umfassenden künstlerischen und gesellschaftlichen Erneuerung, eingeleitet durch eine möglichst umgehende Revolutionierung der bestehenden Verhältnisse.”46 This is also why Wagner decided to actively participate in as well as to intellectually support the Revolution of 1848/49 in Germany. But after the revolution was crushed by the forces of restoration, Wagner had to go into exile and fled to Tribschen in Switzerland. For our analysis of Nietzsche’s Geburt der Tragödie aus dem Geiste der Musik, it is important to note that Wagner had already advanced a fairly similar view to Nietzsche’s about the historical development and the cultural meaning of Greek tragedy in his influential book Die Kunst und die Revolution, which was published in 1849. In his most famous and influential book Wagner wrote: “In Wahrheit ist unsere moderne Kunst nur ein Glied in der Kette der Kunstentwicklung des gesamten Europa, und diese nimmt ihren Ausgang von den Griechen. [...] Bei den Griechen war das vollendete, das dramatische Kunstwerk, der Inbegriff alles aus dem griechischen Wesen Darstellbaren [...] Mit dem späteren Verfall der Tragödie hörte die Kunst immer mehr auf, der Ausdruck des öffentlichen Bewußtseins zu sein; das Drama löste sich in seine Bestandteile auf: Rhetorik, Bildhauerei, Malerei, Musik, usw. verließen den Reigen in dem sie sich bewegt hatten, um nun jede ihren Weg für sich zu gehen, sich selbständig, aber einsam, egoistisch fortzubilden. [...] Nur die große Menschheitsrevolution, deren Beginn die griechische Tragödie zertrümmerte, kann auch dieses Kunstwerk uns [zurück, F.S.L.] gewinnen; denn nur die Revolution kann aus ihrem tiefsten Grunde das von neuem und schöner, edler, allgemeiner gebären, was sie dem konservativen Geiste einer früheren Periode schöner, aber beschränkter Bildung, entriß und verschlang.” 47

Later Wagner clearly abandoned these radical “youthful principles” for far less revolutionary ideals. But even if: “Wagner’s intellectual prestige in the 19th century now seems incomprehensible. ... [Many, F.S.L.] of its seminal figures, among them Nietzsche and Baudelaire, took him very seriously as a philoso-

45 Richard Wagner, Oper und Drama (Stuttgart: Philipp Reclam jun., 1984), p. 404. 46 “Anmerkungen”, in Ibid. p. 404. 47 Richard Wagner, Die Hauptschriften (Leipzig: Kröner Verlag, 1937), pp. 137-140.

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pher and poet.”48 Important for our context here is, therefore, Nietzsche’s firm belief in the possibility of a radical cultural renewal and the dawn of a new form of “tragedy” that could serve as a unifying element for the now brokendown instinctual structures which had once upon a time characterised life in ancient Greece. Nietzsche had at least partly arrived at this view by reading Wagner’s early writings on “drama, art and revolution”. And as a consequence of this influence, “culture”, therefore, became a means of “prevention” for Nietzsche: the prevention of the elevation of declining life into a normative ideal. Hence Nietzsche’s notion of culture became a prophylactic. Robert E. McGinn argued strongly for this view in his essay on “Culture as Prophylactic: Nietzsche’s Birth of Tragedy as Culture Criticism”.49 McGinn, for example, argued that Nietzsche’s Geburt der Tragödie was mainly to be seen as an exposition of his: “sociocultural thought as it finds expression in his treatment of Greek tragedy.”50 In analysing the decline and eventual demise of Greek tragedy and culture, Nietzsche tried to hold up a mirror to his own society and to issue a warning of imminent sociocultural decline. The political dimension, however, is not very strong in Nietzsche’s account of the development of ancient Greek tragedy, but, nevertheless, “Nietzsche at least points to the political implications of tragedy.” 51 Here a strong link emerges between Nietzsche’s critique of modern culture and his objections to sociology in that: “Declining life, the diminution of all organising power, that is to say the power of separating, of opening up chasms, of ranking above and below, formulates itself in the sociology of today as the ideal” [“Das niedergehende Leben, die Abnahme aller organisierenden, das heißt trennenden, Klüfte aufreißenden, unter- und überordnenden Kraft formuliert sich in der Soziologie von heute zum Ideal”].52 The progressive decline

48 Paul Robinson, “Nice but dim: Wagner may be one of the greatest opera composers. He just wasn’t much of a thinker”, in THE GUARDIAN, G2 section, Thursday July 7th 2002, p. 8. But Wagner seems entirely out of the question as a philosophical thinker today: “Still no responsible student of European intellectual history would now take his inconsistent and largely derivative pronouncements as a significant contribution to the history of philosophy or social theory. Strictly as a thinker, Wagner was a hopeless third-rater. If the operas did not exist, no one today would bother to read the prose writings. His powers of mind found expression not in his writings, but in his operas, which exhibit an unparalleled control over musical and dramatic argument. Much the same can be said about his purely literary accomplishments. Without their music the texts have little life beyond the academy.” Ibid. p. 8. 49 McGinn, “Culture as Prophylactic: Nietzsche’s Birth of Tragedy as Culture Criticism”, pp. 75-138. 50 Ibid. p. 83. 51 Elliot L. Jurist, Beyond Hegel and Nietzsche: Philosophy, Culture and Agency (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2000), p. 82. On this point see also: McGinn, “Culture as Prophylactic”, pp. 90-91. 52 Nietzsche, Götzen-Dämmerung, KSA 6, § 37, pp. 138-139.

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of “all organising power” [“aller organisierenden [...] Kraft ”]53 was a terrible loss for Nietzsche and was the root cause of the decadence of modern culture and its nihilistic features. Moreover, the perceptible loss of all “unifying” cultural elements in modern society (i.e. the Greeks had tragedy, while, for Nietzsche, modern culture feasts on nothing but “declining life” [“Das niedergehende Leben”]54) has also given rise to this phenomenon. In addition, Nietzsche says, the increasing tendency of social levelling and equalisation embedded in the “civilisatory process” seems to prevent all forms of “the elevation of mankind” [“Erhöhung des Menschen”]55 within modern society, in both cultural as well as social respects. The ancient powers of “separating and ranking above and below” [“das heißt trennenden, Klüfte aufreißenden, unter- und überordnenden Kraft”],56 which had once helped to define the order and structure of sociocultural life in ancient Greece, are gone. And due to the gradual decline of these powers modern man is unable to renew his sociocultural realm on his own. Instead modern man adheres to a morality for which there is no longer any foundation and which only elevates “declining life” into a normative ideal, while ancient Greek “tragedy” (and, therefore, also ancient Greek “society”) was, as Nietzsche consistently maintains, “free of the preoccupation with morality.”57 This is why McGinn believes that in the Geburt der Tragödie Nietzsche tried to analyse and underscore: “the significance of two crucial features of modern, post-traditional society: the absence of compelling integrative symbol structures and the correlative emerging scarcity of prohibitory structures which give needed definition and depth to the individuals and cultures they inform.”58 We can interpret McGinn’s term “absence of compelling integrative symbol structures” as referring to the function played by “myth” – in the sense of a representation of the unity of life and death – which was symbolically acted out in the performance of tragedy in ancient Greece. According to Nietzsche, these performances had a unifying effect on the sociocultural life of ancient Greek communities. McGinn interprets this “unifying power” performed by tragedy within Greek sociocultural life as a: “prophylactic against the debilitating effects of an unmediated encounter with the horror and terror of human exist53 Ibid. 54 Ibid. 55 Nietzsche, Werke und Briefe III, p. 493. 56 Nietzsche, Götzen-Dämmerung, KSA 6, § 37, pp. 138-139. 57 Jurist, Beyond Hegel and Nietzsche, p. 82. 58 McGinn, “Culture as Prophylactic”, pp. 137-138.

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ence”.59 Through the mediated encounter with his own finite existence, which became apparent to the individual by watching the death of a particular hero (say, Oedipus) on stage, he was able to put his own life “in perspective” and to once again relate to other individuals and to nature as well as to his “true self” without the degree of “alienation” he would otherwise feel in relation to them: “The spectacle of the shattering of the tragic hero helps the individual to keep the importance he attaches to his own finite existence in proper perspective.”60 According to Nietzsche, tragedy, therefore, served to make the individual face up to the harsh and uncompromising features of life (and death). Correspondingly we can interpret McGinn’s term “emerging scarcity of prohibitory structures” as referring to the “haunting absence of an art form” within modern societies which is related “in a particularly intimate way” to the “rigours of the human condition” and which, therefore, manages to advocate the “courageous acceptance and joyous affirmation” of these rigours rather than to permit the individual’s surrender into apathy or fear.61 For Nietzsche, modern man does not face up to the reality of his finite existence and has no prohibitory structures that enable him to do so. Instead modern society idealises declining life as an ideal. This is why, as McGinn believes, Nietzsche looked for a way to radically renew culture by reinstating its pre-Socratic heights, as Nietzsche firmly believed that the fundamental structures of life were much more intact then. Nietzsche was quite intolerant with regard to this matter, as Runciman also argues, because: “any reader who fails to agree with him about those virile, clear-eyed, life enhancing pre-Socratic Greeks is by implication morally decadent”,62 and would only help to confirm Nietzsche’s claim of the ever increasing decadence of modern culture and society. For Nietzsche the only way forward from the condition of an ever growing idealisation of declining life within the modern civilisatory process, and the resulting cultural crisis, is what can be referred to as an analysis of his own society “from the vantage point of the artist” [“unter der Optik des Künstlers”].63 This was one of the main goals of the Geburt der Tragödie, which aimed to enable a “cultural revolution” formed on the basis of “art”, with Nietzsche’s irrational notion of “life” as its Leitmotiv. Nietzsche believed that only a renewed unity of “life” and “culture” could halt their – otherwise 59 Ibid. p. 101. 60 Ibid. p. 95. For a discussion of McGinn’s use of the term “alienation” in this context, see: Ibid. pp. 94-98. 61 Ibid. pp. 100 + 104. 62 Runciman, “Can there be a Nietzschean sociology?”, p. 7. 63 Nietzsche, Geburt der Tragödie, KSA 1, “Versuch einer Selbstkritik”, § 2, p. 14.

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inescapable – respective declines. Moreover, “if Greek tragedy or its Wagnerian surrogate were to flourish in civil society during a given historical epoch, young Nietzsche would see no need for overthrowing that order”64 as McGinn convincingly argues. But since Wagner’s music failed to provide the cultural renewal Nietzsche hoped for,65 his “cultural revolution” was increasingly to be achieved with “educational” means (which I will only hint at here by saying that they – as we will clearly come to see in the next sections of this chapter – found their clearest expression in his Unzeitgemäße Betrachtungen as well as in his Also sprach Zarathustra). In his essay on “Schopenhauer als Erzieher” Nietzsche, therefore, consequently speaks to the exceptional cultural actor who is satisfied that the sole aim of culture is to bring forth the true human being; he speaks to the one “who really is convinced that the goal of culture is to promote the production of true human beings and nothing else” [“von jenem Ziele der Kultur überzeugt ist, daß sie die Entstehung der wahren Menschen zu fördern habe und nichts sonst”].66 It is in this respect that Nietzsche’s cultural critique was surely more than just critique: it was indeed, as McGinn consistently stresses, a prophylactic.

3) Nietzsche as Educator In the previous section we have learnt that Nietzsche does not hold the current state of “culture”, “education” and “civilisation” of his own society in high esteem. Nietzsche writes: “All that is now called culture, education, civilisation will one day have to appear before the incorruptible judge, Dionysos” [“Alles was wir jetzt Kultur, Bildung, Zivilisation nennen, wird einmal vor dem untrüglichen Richter Dionysos erscheinen müssen.”],67 who – in a truly Nietzschean sense – would basically “judge” these spheres according to the way in which they have helped to enhance “life”. It is in this sense that Nietzsche’s role as “educator” is intrinsically linked with his sociocultural analysis of ancient Greece, as it made him acutely aware: “wie elend wir modernen Menschen uns gegen die Griechen und Römer ausnehmen, selbst nur in Hinsicht aus das Ernst- und Streng-Verstehen

64 McGinn, “Culture as Prophylactic”, p. 101. 65 “Erst begrüßt er sie emphatisch als den Ausdruck eines allgemeinen kulturellen Neubeginns. Dann aber erblickt er in ihr ein Symptom des Verfalls. Nun auch erscheint ihm seine Gegenwart überhaupt als eine Zeit der Décadence.” Wilhelm Weischedel, “Nietzsche oder Macht und Ohnmacht des Nihilismus”, in Wilhelm Weischedel, Die Philosophische Hintertreppe (München: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag DTV, 1975), p. 260. 66 Nietzsche, Unzeitgemäße Betrachtungen III, KSA 1, § 6, p. 387. 67 Nietzsche, Die Geburt der Tragödie, KSA 1, § 19, p. 128.

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der Erziehungsaufgaben.”68 While writing his book Geburt der Tragödie, Nietzsche still firmly believed that Wagner’s music could provide the kind of cultural renewal he himself had envisaged, but since Wagner’s music failed to provide the radical cultural renewal Nietzsche hoped for, his “cultural revolution” was, as argued before, increasingly to be achieved with “educational” means. This is all the more important, as Nietzsche’s move away from Wagner also clearly initiated a radical shift in his concerns: “Wagnern den Rücken zu kehren war für mich ein Schicksal; irgend Etwas nachher wieder gern zu haben ein Sieg.”69 It is therefore essential for our discussion of “Nietzsche as Educator”, to formulate the main arguments Nietzsche advances with regards to his vision of “educational ideals”, as these ideals determined large parts of his thought from the Geburt der Tragödie onwards.70 This will also enable us to understand the more specific connection of Nietzsche’s “educational ideals” with his “threefold typology of mankind”, which I will be discussing in subsequent sections of this chapter, where I will also highlight the objections that have been raised against this typology in early German sociological thought.71 A radical view of Nietzsche’s role as “educator” has been advanced by Timothy F. Murphy, who argues that Nietzsche’s writings “can often only be understood in terms of their educational import” and adds that this is “particularly evident in the central Also sprach Zarathustra.”72 A few lines later, Murphy makes his views even more explicit, since he says that it “would seem, that [Nietzsche’s, F.S.L.] very notion of philosophy cannot be understood but as being educative in nature.”73 I entirely agree with Murphy on this point, particularly with regards to the central role occupied by Nietzsche’s book Also sprach Zarathustra as the crucial volume of Nietzsche’s later “educational philosophy”. Yet this is not to say that Nietzsche was a philosopher of “education” on par with thinkers like Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835) or Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (1746–1827), but rather that Nietzsche himself believed to 68 Nietzsche, Unzeitgemäße Betrachtungen III, KSA 1, § 2, p. 343. 69 Nietzsche, Der Fall Wagner, KSA 6, “Vorwort”, p. 11. 70 Nietzsche’s role as “educator” has been discussed very little in the secondary literature on his philosophy. The main contributions to this debate have been: Timothy F. Murphy, Nietzsche as Educator (Lanham/London: University Press of America, 1984); and David E. Cooper, Authenticity and Learning: Nietzsche’s Educational Philosophy (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1983). 71 A creative reading of Nietzsche’s notion of the Übermensch as an “educational ideal”, which is very important for our arguments throughout this book as a whole, has been provided by: Christian Niemeyer, Nietzsches andere Vernunft. Psychologische Aspekte in Biographie und Werk (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1998), particularly Chapter 7, pp. 339-369. 72 Murphy, Nietzsche as Educator, p. 1. 73 Ibid.

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be an “educator” whose aim it was to teach: “men how to live and, more specifically, how to live as man.”74 This is also why Nietzsche’s “threefold typology of mankind”, as outlined in his book Also sprach Zarathustra, is of central importance to his expression of “educational ideals”, because, for Nietzsche, “men” make their own destiny, yet in the majority of cases their moral and legal-rational institutions clearly keep them from realising their “true” goals. Murphy argues that in construing “men as self-creative beings, [Nietzsche, F.S.L.] exhorts men to be responsible for their own destinies. He advocates experiment with life, life becoming even the criterion of truth, goodness, and beauty. Towards the possibility of human experiment in life, he instructs in the art of living, and indeed he would seem to make philosophy itself responsible for this instruction.”75 Consequently, Nietzsche strongly connects his critique of the current state of “culture, education and civilisation” of his society, with a radical critique of the moral and legal-rational institutions that determine these spheres of “life” and limit the extent to which “life” itself can flourish. This critique is intrinsically linked with Nietzsche’s radical critique of “modernity” (which we have already discussed in Chapter 5 of this study), which holds that “modern man” no longer possesses the kind of “instincts” that are needed to create lasting institutions and that he has, therefore, only been able to create lifedenying and decadent Verfallsformen.76 In § 39 of his book Götzen-Dämmerung, Nietzsche writes: “Was aus Institutionen Institutionen macht, wird verachtet, gehaßt, abgelehnt: man glaubt sich in der Gefahr einer neuen Sklaverei wo das Wort ‘Autorität’ auch nur laut wird.”77 Yet with an “authority” that is beyond question Nietzsche’s lyrical I Zarathustra will later assume the role of “educator” for his disciples, who are then, in a first step, asked to struggle entirely on their own to gain a sense of self understanding, in order to be able to fully understand Zarathustra and to appreciate the worth of his teachings, in a second step. For Murphy this means that Zarathustra’s disciples “must assume the [heavy, F.S.L.] burden of education.”78 But as far as his own society is concerned, Nietzsche is very pessimistic about the social institutions that determine contemporary “education”, including the modern “state”. According to Nietzsche, the “state” suffers from a virulent form of Selbstsucht that makes true culture and education

74 Ibid. p. 3. 75 Ibid. p. 2. 76 Nietzsche, Götzen-Dämmerung, KSA 6, § 39, p. 141. 77 Ibid. 78 Murphy, Nietzsche as Educator, p. 4.

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almost impossible to attain.79 Nietzsche writes that this is mainly due to the state’s intrinsic aim of egoistic self-preservation: “Überall, wo man jetzt vom ‘Kulturstaat’ redet, sieht man ihm die Aufgabe gestellt, die geistigen Kräfte einer Generation so weit zu entbinden, daß sie damit den bestehenden Institutionen dienen und nutzen können: aber auch nur soweit; wie ein Waldbach durch Dämme und auf Gerüsten teilweise abgeleitet wird, um mit der kleineren Kraft Mühlen zu treiben – während seine volle Kraft der Mühle eher gefährlich als nützlich wäre. Jenes Entbinden ist zugleich und noch viel mehr ein In-Fesseln-Schlagen.” 80

Out of sheer Selbstsucht,81 the “state”, therefore, only reinforces and advances the kind of “culture” and “education” that help to perpetuate and strengthen its own life-denying and decadent Verfallsformen,82 instead of fostering the “true basis” or Grundgedanke of “culture”, which is: “die Erzeugung des Philosophen, des Künstlers und des Heiligen in uns und außer uns zu fördern und dadurch an der Vollendung der Natur zu arbeiten.”83 Murphy argues that by giving: “a critique of existing social institutions and reigning values which impede experimentalism with life, Nietzsche criticises the institutions, the process and the product of contemporary education. Moreover, he criticises the failure of philosophy to provide viable alternatives to the existing ways of living and learning.”84 A similar point is also expressed by Elliot L. Jurist in his reflections on Nietzsche’s cultural legacy, where he argues that: “Nietzsche’s scepticism toward institutions leads him to conclude that Bildung must be realised outside the social order”.85 Nietzsche as “educator”, therefore, wants, like his lyrical I Zarathustra, to release those who are able to assume the heavy burden of education and those who are able to truly understand themselves, from the “fetters” [“In-Fesseln-Schlagen”]86 and constraints imposed by the current state of “culture, education and civilisation”, by ena-

79 Nietzsche, Unzeitgemäße Betrachtungen III, KSA 1, § 6, p. 388. 80 Ibid. p. 389. 81 Ibid. p. 388. 82 Nietzsche, Götzen-Dämmerung, KSA 6, § 39, p. 141. 83 Nietzsche, Unzeitgemäße Betrachtungen III, KSA 1, § 5, p. 382. 84 Murphy, Nietzsche as Educator, p. 2. 85 Jurist, Beyond Hegel and Nietzsche, p. 62. 86 Nietzsche, Unzeitgemäße Betrachtungen III, KSA 1, § 6, p. 389.

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bling them to attain their “full force” [“volle Kraft”]87 and their full abilities of personal development. It is in this sense that Murphy convincingly argues that: “Nietzsche’s writings are patently aimed at the few, and his theory of education is no less so”,88 and it is also in this sense that Nietzsche wanted to provide a viable and radical alternative to the “existing ways of learning and living” from within his philosophy. This is also the reason why Nietzsche is very pessimistic about the current state of “culture” and “education” of his own society, as he believes that his society has only brought along the decadent means and ways of what he calls the Bildungsphilister, i.e. the true representative and product of life-denying western culture as well as the true embodiment of “nihilism”.89 Elliot L. Jurist consequently argues that for Nietzsche, “Bildung has connotations of philistinism and thus is often regarded with disdain. There are times, however, in which Nietzsche expresses hope for a rejuvenated form of Bildung. It is most perspicuous, therefore, to say that Nietzsche distinguishes between a kind of Bildung that he likes and admires and a kind that he criticises and condemns.”90 What Nietzsche referred to as Bildungsphilister, where those representatives of western culture, who claimed to be “true” Kulturmenschen, while it was patently obvious that they lacked (a) any kind of “true” knowledge of themselves as well as (b) any kind of “true” education (in a strictly Nietzschean sense). Summarising his view on the current state of “culture”, “education” and their combined result – the Bildungsphilister – Nietzsche writes that in real terms their decadent understanding of culture can, of course, only lead to a decadent (socio)cultural result: “Die deutsche Jugenderziehung geht [von einem, F.S.L.] falschen und unfruchtbaren Begriff der Kultur aus: Ihr Ziel [...] ihr Resultat, recht empirisch-gemein angeschaut, ist der historisch-ästhetische Bildungsphilister, der altkluge und neuweise Schwätzer über Staat, Kirche und Kunst, das Sensorium für tausenderlei Anempfindungen, der unersättliche Magen, der noch nicht weiß, was ein rechtschaffener Hunger und Durst ist. Daß eine Erziehung mit jenem Ziel eine wider-

87 Ibid. 88 Murphy, Nietzsche as Educator, p. 4. 89 It is clear that Nietzsche is very critical of what could be referred to as the “cult” surrounding the Bildungsbürger in the late 19th century. Nietzsche writes: “Aus uns haben wir Modernen gar nichts; nur dadurch, daß wir uns mit fremden Zeiten, Sitten, Künsten, Philosophien, Religionen, Erkenntnissen anfüllen und überfüllen, werden wir zu etwas Beachtenswertem, nämlich zu wandelnden Enzyklopädien.” Nietzsche, Unzeitgemäße Betrachtungen II, KSA 1, § 4, p. 274. This Nietzschean view is also echoed in the modern German Spontispruch (i.e. a spontaneous form of graffiti): “Wer sein Wissen nur aus Büchern hat, den kann man getrost ins Regal stellen.” 90 Jurist, Beyond Hegel and Nietzsche, p. 44.

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natürliche ist, das fühlt nur der in ihr noch nicht fertig gewordene Mensch, das fühlt allein der Instinkt der Jugend.” 91

What Nietzsche as “educator”, therefore, aims to achieve, is what David E. Cooper calls “authenticity and learning”, i.e. to enable a mode of being that moves beyond the means and ways of “nihilism”, a phenomenon which, for Nietzsche, is generally speaking only constantly reinforced by the life-denying and decadent Verfallsformen of the modern state.92 Cooper argues that the fundamental question which Nietzsche tries to solve with his views on “education” and “culture”, is: “How to live authentically without collapsing into nihilism of the familiar, iconoclastic, negative kind?”93 Cooper argues that the “threat” of “inauthentic living” seems “to become ‘the normal condition’, and [that consequently, F.S.L.] Nietzsche’s effort is devoted to struggling against that threat.”94 What “inauthentic living” in this respect would mean, is a: “comfortable acceptance of inherited values”, or a: “comfortable evasion of questions of value” as Cooper consistently argues.95 And Cooper continues: “But these are not authentic alternatives, for we should hardly describe those who side-step nihilism in these ways as ‘creating anew’, or ‘deriving values from themselves alone’”96 which Nietzsche, as well as his lyrical I Zarathustra, seem to rigorously demand of their disciples at any one time.97 In my opinion, the solution to this problem is for Nietzsche embodied in what he refers to as the 91 Nietzsche, Unzeitgemäße Betrachtungen II, KSA 1, § 10, p. 326. 92 Nietzsche, Götzen-Dämmerung, KSA 6, § 39, p. 141. 93 Cooper, Authenticity and Learning, p. 3. It is clear that Cooper looks at Nietzsche’s writings from a strongly Heideggerian perspective and values the Nachlaß much higher than the published editions of Nietzsche’s work. As the central passage for his assessment of Nietzsche’s notion of “authenticity”, Cooper identifies § 767 from Nietzsche’s posthumously published book Der Wille zur Macht, where Nietzsche writes: “Das Individuum ist etwas ganz Neues und Neuschaffendes, etwas Absolutes, alle Handlungen ganz sein Eigen. Die Werte für seine Handlungen entnimmt der einzelne zuletzt doch sich selber: weil er auch die überlieferten Worte sich ganz individuell deuten muß. Die Auslegung der Formel ist mindestens persönlich, wenn er auch keine Formel schafft: als Ausleger ist er immer noch schaffend.” Nietzsche, Der Wille zur Macht, § 767, p. 512. Cooper comments on this passage in the following way: “The appropriateness of the label for the kind of value expressed here is clearer in the case of the German word ‘Eigentlichkeit’ which, in the philosophical literature at least, is standardly translated as ‘authenticity’. The word comes from the adjective ‘eigen’, one of whose main meanings is ‘own’, but which can also mean ‘individual’ or ‘peculiar to’.” Cooper, Authenticity and Learning, p. 146. Cooper’s interpretation of Nietzsche is also “eigen” in its own Heideggerian way, but not at all without its merits. 94 Ibid. 95 Ibid. 96 Ibid. 97 For Nietzsche’s demand to “create new values for and from yourself ”, see: Nietzsche, Der Wille zur Macht, § 767, p. 512. Or alternatively: Nietzsche, Also sprach Zarathustra, KSA 4, p. 149, where Nietzsche speaks “Von der Selbst-Überwindung.’

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Übermensch, a person who will successfully transform the values and the identity of Western culture. Along the lines proposed by Alois Riehl (outlined in section 1 of this chapter), I have argued before that due to the idealised implications of Nietzsche’s notion of the Übermensch, this concept can only be realised in the real world in the form of “spiritual values”. Riehl writes: “Dieses Übermenschliche, Vorbildliche ist die Welt der geistigen Werte”.98 In the following section of this chapter I shall, therefore, argue that due to these “spiritual values” embodied in the notion of the Übermensch, it should clearly be interpreted as an “educational ideal” and that it should consequently be seen as the highest goal and the possible fulfilment of Nietzsche’s “educational philosophy”. I shall, therefore, in the following section briefly outline Nietzsche’s “threefold typology of mankind”, on which large parts of my interpretation and understanding of “Nietzsche as educator” rest.

3.1) Nietzsche’s “threefold typology of mankind” Throughout the history of the Nietzsche reception, there has not been another concept that has been more thoroughly misrepresented and misinterpreted as Nietzsche’s notion of the Übermensch.99 And in section 3.2 of this chapter we will clearly come to see that it was particularly due to Nietzsche’s notion of the Übermensch that the emerging discipline of sociology and its “founding fathers” had problems in coming to terms with his philosophy. Yet Nietzsche’s notion of the Übermensch is an important element of his much discussed, yet frequently misunderstood, “threefold typology of mankind”, which he mainly devised in his book Also sprach Zarathustra. In this book, Nietzsche describes three basic human types: In the first instance Nietzsche devises (a) the last man – the mediocre product of liberal democracy. A herd animal, conforming to a morality for which there is no longer any foundation. He has no capacity to create and has not realised the significance of God’s death. He is also the “Verächtlichste”100 of all human types, as far as Nietzsche’s lyrical I Zarathustra is concerned. With respect to the sociological responses to Nietzsche’s writings, I should probably emphasise that there is – as we will come to see more clearly in the final chapter of this book – some resemblance to Alfred Weber’s “fourth” human

98 Riehl, Friedrich Nietzsche. Der Künstler und der Denker, p. 156. 99 For a useful introduction to the general problems associated with Nietzsche’s notion of the Übermensch, see: Margot Fleischer, Der “Sinn der Erde” und die Entzauberung des Übermenschen: Eine Auseinandersetzung mit Nietzsche (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1993). 100 Nietzsche, Also sprach Zarathustra, KSA 4, “Vorrede”, § 5, p. 19.

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type in Nietzsche’s “last man” as both types are typical embodiments of an Untertan or of a bureaucratic conformist. Nietzsche writes: “‘Wir haben das Glück erfunden’ – sagen die letzten Menschen und blinzeln [...] Wer will noch regieren? Wer noch gehorchen? Beides ist zu beschwerlich. [...] Kein Hirt und eine Herde! Jeder will das gleiche, jeder ist gleich: wer anders fühlt, geht freiwillig ins Irrenhaus.”101 Glück comes to mean the total “lack of responsibility” for the “last man”. This lack of responsibility corresponds to “conforming” and “sameness”, as well as to a tendency of levelling out (social/ political/cultural) differences, where extreme positions are being regarded as anti-social or “irre”,102 and are consequently considered as “dangerous”. Yet this kind of “danger” confronts the herd-like existence of the “last man” from all possible angles, but rather than revolt against or face up to this danger, he is ready to submit to an existence that is comparable to that of a “cog in a machine”, where completely externalised forces determine his individual fate as well as that of the “sociocultural” movement of his times: “sie empfinden es nicht überhaupt als Schande, dergestalt, wie es geschieht, als Schrauben einer Maschine und gleichsam als Lückenbüßer der menschlichen Empfindungskunst verbraucht zu werden!”103 In the second instance Nietzsche then devises (b) the higher man – whom he regards as the highest specimens of life-denying Western culture, who stood above the herd of the “last man” and who, in principle at least, understand the basis for “life”, but lack the “strength” to transcend the decadence of Platonic-Christian cultures and to thereby finally overcome “nihilism”. Initially, however, Nietzsche’s hope lay somewhere in between the “higher man” and the Übermensch, because he says that: “das Ziel der Menschheit kann nicht am Ende liegen, sondern nur in ihren höchsten Exemplaren.”104 But Nietzsche became less and less optimistic about this process, as it became more and more clear to him that the “higher man” was, right from the beginning in fact, doomed to an eventual decline and to his ultimate downfall: “Die Verderbnis, das Zugrundegehen der höheren Menschen, der fremder gearteten Seelen ist nämlich die Regel.”105 Nevertheless, the “higher man” still is and was an important: “Kampfplatz für jene Gegensätze [und jene, F.S.L.] entgegengesetzten Werte ‘gut und schlecht’, ‘gut und böse’”,106 101 Ibid. pp. 19-20. 102 Ibid. p. 20. 103 Nietzsche, Morgenröte, KSA 3, § 206, p. 183. 104 Nietzsche, Unzeitgemäße Betrachtungen II, KSA 1, § 9, p. 317. 105 Nietzsche, Jenseits von Gut und Böse, KSA 5, § 269, p. 223. 106 Nietzsche, Genealogie der Moral, KSA 5, § 16, pp. 285f.

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that determine sociocultural advancement. Yet the “higher man” is, nonetheless, asking for a fundamental contradiction; he even wishes for one, in order to finally gain an insight into his deepest flaw, i.e. his lack of justice, which basically remains unknown to him until he is confronted with a fundamental or existential contradiction or with a viable and radical counterpart. Yet this is probably also the best quality and virtue of the “higher man” as: “Jeder weiß jetzt, daß Widerspruch-Vertragen-können ein hohes Zeichen von Kultur ist.”107 For Nietzsche this “fundamental contradiction” or “fundamental counterpart” to the “higher man” is eventually epitomised in the notion of the Übermensch. In the third and last instance Nietzsche finally devises (c) the Übermensch – who is to be a radical new form of person and who will transform the values and the identity of Western culture. Über- in this sense means that he has refined and transgressed “humanity” and that he radically rejects its inherited values, which the “last man” as well as the “higher man” still had so comfortably accepted. The Übermensch is the kind of person who derives his values from himself alone and does not rely on the decadent traditions that shaped the “last man” or even the “higher man”. It is in this sense that the idealised implications of Nietzsche’s concept of the Übermensch can only be realised in the real world in the form of “spiritual values” [“geistige Werte”].108 These “spiritual values” are neither “old” nor “new” values, they are the values as Riehl convincingly emphasises: “Es sind nicht alte Werte, nicht neue Werte, es sind die Werte.”109 This is also why Nietzsche’s advice to those who are able to accept this heavy burden, is to follow their highest ideals – particularly the “göttliche Gefühl” embodied in “Menschlichkeit”110 – and to act on them at each moment, since what one does now will recur repeatedly through all eternity: “The Übermensch is the being who is prepared to say ‘yes’ to whatever comes along, because joy and sorrow are, as always for Nietzsche [...] inseparable.”111 It is in this sense that the Übermensch is finally also able to overcome “nihilism”, as he transcends the conditions that have created it. Contrary to widely held negative positions on Nietzsche’s concept of the Übermensch, I propose to look at his notion in a different light. In section 3.2 we will come to see that, for some part at least, early sociology regarded Nietzsche’s concept as anti-sociological. While it is true that Nietzsche’s Übermensch

107 Nietzsche, Fröhliche Wissenschaft, KSA 3, § 297, p. 537. 108 Riehl, Friedrich Nietzsche. Der Künstler und der Denker, p. 156. 109 Ibid. 110 Nietzsche, Fröhliche Wissenschaft, KSA 3, § 337, p. 565. 111 Michael Tanner, Nietzsche (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), p. 50.

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is not concerned with the “masses”, whom Nietzsche’s protagonist Zarathustra frequently refers to as a Herde of cattle-like beings, it is, in my opinion, not an anti-sociological ideal per se. As is well known, Nietzsche is not very fond of the “masses” and makes basically no secret of it: “Die Massen [...] hole sie der Teufel oder die Statistik”112 aptly expresses Nietzsche’s sentiments on the issue. Clearly sociology does not, generally speaking, “meet” with Nietzsche on this point, particularly since sociology emerged as a discipline to specifically make sense of “mass-societies” and “mass-structures” (among other things at least, but see also our discussion in Chapter 3 on this point). Yet Nietzsche’s age is “the age of the masses” for him [“Das Zeitalter der Massen”], where the masses bow to everything that seems remotely “massenhaft” – particularly when it comes to politics.113 The Übermensch, now is the very opposite of someone who could be referred to as: “massenhaft”. Quite the contrary is true, since the Übermensch amounts to someone whom Nietzsche himself would call truly Great – a tribute he would not pay to the masses. The Übermensch, for Nietzsche, is a category that refers to a: “Typus höchster Wohlgeratenheit im Gegensatz zu ‘modernen’ Menschen, zu ‘guten’ Menschen, Christen und anderen Nihilisten”,114 but in the same passage in Ecce Homo Nietzsche indicates that he is consciously aware of the many misunderstandings which have emerged in relation to his concept and which have been falling short of explaining his conception of the Übermensch adequately. His concept, Nietzsche says, has wrongly been portrayed as an “‘idealistischer’ Typus einer höheren Art Mensch, halb ‘Heiliger’, halb ‘Genie’”115 or even as a Darwinist concept, but this “Heroen-Kultus” is fundamentally wrong.116 In short I, therefore, believe that Nietzsche’s Übermensch is at least two things, which the radical sociological critique of the concept (to be discussed in section 3.2), epitomised by the writings of Ferdinand Tönnies and Roger Häußling largely underestimates: first of all – and I am following Christian Niemeyer117 on this point – I believe it to be a “bildungsphilosophisches Konstrukt”118 that aims for the “Menschwerdung des Menschen”.119 Or to be more precise Nietzsche aims for the “education of man112 Nietzsche, Unzeitgemäße Betrachtungen II, KSA 1, § 9, p. 320. 113 Nietzsche, Jenseits von Gut und Böse, KSA 5, § 241, p. 181. 114 Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, KSA 6, § 1, p. 300. 115 Ibid. 116 Ibid. 117 Niemeyer, Nietzsches andere Vernunft, particularly Chapter 7, pp. 339-369. 118 Ibid. pp. 342f. 119 Ibid. p. 346.

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kind” towards the “essence” of the “educational ideal” embodied in the term Übermensch. Niemeyer writes: “Schon Nietzsche hat [...] der Bildsamkeit des Menschen in Richtung des Übermenschen Motivs als Bildungsideal das Wort geredet, auf das, wie er in geradezu klassisch-pädagogischer Pose sagt, ‘man den Glauben an den Menschen festhalten darf!’”120 Secondly – and I am following Rosa Mayreder121 on this point – I believe that what Nietzsche, moreover, aims for is the ideal of a “higher humanity”, based on “self-determining” individuals who hold the capacity to renew “culture” by transcending the decadent traditions of the past, and which will thereby lead to what Nietzsche calls the: “göttliche Gefühl” embodied in “Menschlichkeit”.122 Harriet Anderson summarises Mayreder’s position as follows: “On the individual level, Mayreder’s goal is that of the self-determining personality, the embodiment of a ‘higher humanity’ (Mayreder). This is the person who has transcended the limitations of sex teleology to achieve inner freedom and harmony. Yet each generation has to achieve this synthesis anew; it cannot be made into a norm but is ‘an inexhaustible source of new possibilities of development and new forms of existence’ (Mayreder). On the collective level such a development means a new culture dominated by the exceptional individual.”123 Support for these two propositions can also be drawn from Martin Heidegger and his lecture on: “Wer ist Nietzsches Zarathustra?”124 In this lecture, Heidegger also emphasises the educational dimension of Nietzsche’s ideal of the Übermensch, by radically stressing Zarathustra’s function as teacher and preacher of the Übermensch, from whom we have to learn about our own destiny – i.e. the Übermensch. Before we can, however, learn the worth of Zarathustra’s teachings of the Übermensch, we first have to learn to learn from the teacher: “So gilt es denn, daß wir zuerst lernen, von dem Lehrer zu lernen, und sei es auch nur dies, über ihn hinauszufragen”.125 And this “hinauszufragen” will lead us to the understanding that Zarathustra – who is not the Übermensch yet, in the same way as Nietzsche is not

120 Ibid. p. 346. Niemeyer quotes from Nietzsche’s Genealogie der Moral, where Nietzsche speaks of the “highest triumph” mankind can wish for: “Auf einen Menschen, der den Menschen rechtfertigt, auf einen komplementären Glücksfall des Menschen, um dessentwillen man den Glauben an den Menschen festhalten darf.” Nietzsche, Genealogie der Moral, KSA 5, § 12, p. 278. 121 Rosa Mayreder, Geschlecht und Kultur: Essays (Jena/Leipzig: Eugen Diederichs Verlag, 1923). 122 Nietzsche, Fröhliche Wissenschaft, KSA 3, § 337, p. 565. 123 Anderson, Utopian Feminism, p. 177. 124 Martin Heidegger, “Wer ist Nietzsches Zarathustra?”, in Martin Heidegger, Holzwege (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1967), pp. 101-125. 125 Ibid. p. 107.

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Zarathustra – is but only the one who searches for the essence of the Übermensch. Zarathustra consequently teaches in showing; he contemplates the essence of the Übermensch and thereby gives birth to a vision of him: “Er lehrt indem er zeigt. Er blickt in das Wesen des Übermenschen voraus und bringt es in eine sichtbare Gestalt. Zarathustra ist nur der Lehrer, nicht schon der Übermensch selbst. Und wiederum ist Nietzsche nicht Zarathustra, sondern der Fragende, der Zarathustras Wesen zu erdenken sucht.”126 This “preconception” or “vision” of the essence of the Übermensch shows us that the Übermensch is the kind of being that exceeds “men”. The “vision” is being introduced to show where Zarathustra’s teachings will lead us to, and to show where “men” stand at now: “Der Übermensch ist vielmehr, das Wort ganz wörtlich genommen, derjenige Mensch, der über den bisherigen Menschen hinausgeht, einzig um den bisherigen Menschen allererst in sein noch ausstehendes Wesen zu bringen und ihn darin fest zu stellen.”127 This “noch ausstehende Wesen” is the educational concept embodied in the Übermensch, who then assumes the role of an “ideal” or a “spiritual value” for mankind to aspire to. As a consequence, I would, therefore, argue that Nietzsche’s notion should be seen as an “educational ideal”, i.e. as a heuristic tool for the “educational” as well as the “sociocultural” advancement of “mankind”. Moreover, I would argue that Nietzsche’s notion of the Übermensch should also be seen as an “existential challenge” that forces us to live our life “authentically” by creating values anew and by deriving them from ourselves alone, and to not side-step “nihilism” by comfortably accepting “traditional” or “inherited” values, as David E. Cooper consistently argues.128 This understanding of Nietzsche’s wider “educational ideals” will become of great relevance again in section 4.1.5 of this chapter, when I will try to assess the stark resemblance to Nietzsche’s philosophy in the writings of Ferdinand Tönnies. This resemblance becomes particularly apparent with regards to their mutual concern with the “rightful education of mankind”, which Tönnies seems to connect to his understanding of the notion of a Freidenker, and which Nietzsche, apart from the immediate context of his “educational ideal” of the Übermensch, mainly expresses with regards to his understanding of the notion of a Freigeist. But our interpretation of Nietzsche’s notion of the Übermensch as an “educational ideal”, will also be of great importance for our assessment of Rosa Mayreder’s ideal of a “higher humanity” of self-determining individuals, as well as for our assessment of 126 Ibid. 127 Ibid. p. 106. 128 Cooper, Authenticity and Learning, p. 3. See also: Nietzsche, Der Wille zur Macht, § 767, p. 512.

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Alfred Weber’s idealised version of what he calls the “third” human type – i.e. a strong willed democratic individual with compellingly humanistic ideals, in later chapters of this study. In the following section I will portray the main reasons why it was particularly due to Nietzsche’s seemingly antisociological notion of the Übermensch that the emerging discipline of sociology and its “founding fathers”, particularly Ferdinand Tönnies, had problems in coming to terms with his philosophy.

4) Nietzsche’s notion of the Übermensch and early sociology In his recent book Nietzsche und die Soziologie Roger Häußling argues that Nietzsche provided an anti-sociology.129 His principal argument is that Nietzsche tried to find a way of analysing certain elements of society he was sure sociology could not analyse adequately or at all. Häußling argues that Nietzsche tried to radically oppose sociology with his own writings. Particularly with his formulation of the concept of the Übermensch, Nietzsche tried to establish a radical anti-sociological position.130 Why is the Übermensch a radically anti-sociological concept? Because it is not just individualistic and – on the surface of it – “elitist” in nature; it is also an explicit attempt to devise the possibility of embarking on a way with mankind that leads a small number rather than the great mass of people towards a future beyond the – in Heidegger’s terminology – “average-everydayness of mediocrity”. Häußling argues that it was particularly due to Nietzsche’s notion of the Übermensch that the emerging discipline of sociology and its “founding fathers” had problems in coming to terms with his philosophy. Hence the responses of many early sociologists and social thinkers largely took the form of a hidden and implicit (rather than explicit) dialogue with Nietzsche, which was frequently overshadowed by his apparent anti-sociology.131 We have already noted in our discussions of Nietzsche’s critique of the “sociology of his times” in Chapter 3 of this book that, as far as Nietzsche is concerned, sociology only investigates the processes and elements of decline and decadence, of which it is itself a part, and which, therefore, form its true framework of experience. In consequence, Nietzsche argues that sociology elevates these processes and elements of decline to a normative status and can, therefore, be regarded as essentially nihilistic. In turn, however, for Nietzsche this means that the nihilistic discipline “sociology” is thus not able to provide a viable perspective for the future from within its process of analysis and is 129 Häußling, Nietzsche und die Soziologie, p. 10. 130 Ibid. p. 11. 131 Ibid. pp. 85f.

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for this reason itself “decadent”. In essence, therefore, Nietzsche suggests that sociology was a discipline that employed a decadent mode of analysis which is intrinsically linked to the decadence of the society in which it emerged.132 Therefore I would tend to agree with Häußling, when he argues that Nietzsche developed: “einen gleichsam an Karl Mannheims Wissenssoziologie gemahnenden Ideologieverdacht der Soziologie gegenüber [...] indem er sie als Kind ihrer Zeit und hoffnungslos dem Schicksal dieser Zeit anheimgegeben deutete.”133 Häußling goes on to argue that Nietzsche believed that sociology’s understanding of the world only operated on a very superficial level, where the true elements of power and the processes of structural force at work within the sociocultural transformations of society could not be grasped. But even though the “founding fathers” of sociology seemed largely unaware of Nietzsche’s harsh critique of their academic discipline, it seems in retrospect that the position taken by early sociology in relation to Nietzsche was largely ambivalent. Häußling argues that the sociologists who were indeed affected by Nietzsche’s writings often replied by taking over certain elements of his philosophy which Nietzsche himself might have thought could not be accommodated within sociology: for example the analysis of the “forms of power and domination”. This particular aspect of Nietzsche’s resistance against sociology goes back to a passage of his posthumously published book Der Wille zur Macht, where he outlines some “fundamental innovations” he would like to introduce: “An Stelle der ‘Soziologie’ eine Lehre von den Herrschaftsgebilden. An Stelle der ‘Gesellschaft’ der Kultur-Komplex, als mein Vorzugs-Interesse (gleichsam als Ganzes, bezüglich in seinen Teilen).”134 Here Nietzsche makes it quite clear that he does not believe that sociology is capable of providing a “theory of the forms of power and domination” (including their institutional set up, as the German word Herrschaftsgebilde, “forms of domination”, means both abstract as well as concrete structures of domination); otherwise he would not have included sociology in his “balance sheet” of antagonistic concepts (see also our discussion of Runciman’s analysis of § 462 of Der Wille zur Macht in section 2 of Chapter 1 of this book). For our assessment of Nietzsche’s relation with early German sociology, it is important to note that in their analysis of Nietzsche’s notion of culture, Daniel R. White and Gert Hellerich interpret this paragraph of Der Wille zur Macht as an indication that an understanding of the wider implications of “culture” will help to understand all the “fundamental” positions Nietzsche outlines 132 Nietzsche, Götzen-Dämmerung, KSA 6, § 37, pp. 138-139. 133 Häußling, Nietzsche und die Soziologie, p. 247. 134 Nietzsche, Der Wille zur Macht, § 462, p. 323.

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as “antagonisms” in § 462: “If we take culture as Nietzsche’s main interest [...] this passage may be read as saying that the understanding of the ‘cultural complex’ is the key to understanding the other areas mentioned: values, power relations, social formations, ways of knowing, popular and philosophical about reality and god.”135 Hence analysing and understanding “the forms of power and domination” becomes part of Nietzsche’s wider attempt to analyse and understand “culture”, a task which he obviously believed could not be achieved adequately by sociology. Yet we have already seen in our discussion of Lichtblau’s arguments about the “genealogy of cultural sociology in Germany” in section 1 of this Chapter, that the historical and intellectual development of German sociology in general, and of German cultural sociology in particular, cannot be understood without reference to Nietzsche’s writings. Nevertheless, the principle point of connection between early sociology and Nietzsche’s writings still seems to be the analysis of “modernity”, as Häußling convincingly argues,136 but here Nietzsche’s constructive counter-ideal to “modernity” was still viewed with some suspicion to say the least. But it particularly was Nietzsche’s notion of the Übermensch that seemed hardest to accommodate within the confines of sociological analysis. Nevertheless, even Nietzsche seemed to have been aware that there was at least some ephemeral closeness between his own analysis of the structural elements of “modernity” and the main concerns of sociology. The elements Nietzsche’s analysis clearly shared with sociology were an analysis of the structural elements of society and the state (as mentioned before, Nietzsche developed a rather distinctive notion as well as critique of the modern state, which he frequently contrasted with the ancient Greek city states).137 Hence Häußling argues that Nietzsche tried very hard to use a different hermeneutic horizon from that of sociology: In opposing sociology as his main competitor in the field of analysing social structures, Nietzsche tried to preserve the credibility of his own counter-theory by defending it resolutely against the fundamental ideological flaws he discovered in sociology and its object of analysis. Without this strategic element of Nietzsche’s thought, his harsh critique of sociology cannot be understood properly, as Häußling consistently argues: “Ohne den Einbezug dieses strategischen Gesichtspunktes bleibt die Deutung der Vehemenz von Nietzsches Soziologiekritik unvollständig.”138 135 Daniel R. White and Gert Hellerich, “The Liberty Bell: Nietzsche’s Philosophy of Culture”, in The Journal of Nietzsche Studies, vol. 18 (London: Friedrich Nietzsche Society, 1999), p. 1. 136 Häußling, Nietzsche und die Soziologie, p. 206. 137 But within Nietzsche’s philosophy these particular elements of analysis have not always been formulated as explicitly and coherently as they have been in sociology. 138 Häußling, Nietzsche und die Soziologie, p. 246.

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In the following section we will, however, clearly come to see that this harsh critique of the respective positions occupied, was a mutual characteristic of the relation between Nietzsche and early German sociology. As an example of this harsh critique, I will in the following section particularly focus on Nietzsche’s significant influence on Ferdinand Tönnies as well as on the ideological and methodological problems Tönnies had to face, when he tried to come to terms with Nietzsche’s seemingly anti-sociological notion of the Übermensch.

4.1) The sociological rejection of Nietzsche’s notion of the Übermensch Support for Häußling’s proposition that it was particularly due to Nietzsche’s notion of the Übermensch that the emerging discipline of sociology and its “founding fathers” had problems in coming to terms with his philosophy, can be drawn, in particular, from two – largely polemical – texts written by the sociologist Ferdinand Tönnies (1855–1936). These texts are “Nietzsche Narren” (1893) and Der Nietzsche Kultus (1897).139 Yet these polemical responses to Nietzsche’s philosophy by Tönnies cannot be understood properly without an insight into the wider implications of Nietzsche’s influence on Ferdinand Tönnies. Therefore, I will in the following section of this chapter try to summarise the main implications of Nietzsche’s influence on Tönnies, before turning to Tönnies’ radical critique of Nietzsche’s philosophy (particularly of his notion of the Übermensch) in more detail in subsequent sections.

4.1.1) Nietzsche’s influence on Ferdinand Tönnies “Tönnies’ Verhältnis zu Nietzsche muß als durchaus ambivalent angesehen werden. Neben einer positiven Beeinflussung fühlte sich Tönnies von Nietzsches Denken auch durchaus abgestoßen.”140 It is, therefore, important for our assessment of Tönnies’ response to Nietzsche’s philosophy to analyse this obvious change in attitude which Tönnies experienced with regards to Nietzsche’s writings, because as the main result of this change in attitude: “hat Tönnies [...] den ‘Fall Nietzsche’ [...] zu Recht als ein soziologisches Problem ersten Ranges in das Zentrum einer fachspezifischen Erörterung gestellt”.141 In

139 Ferdinand Tönnies, “Nietzsche Narren”, in Tönnies, Der Nietzsche Kultus. Eine Kritik (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1990), pp. 98-104; Tönnies, Der Nietzsche Kultus, in Ibid. pp. 6-96. 140 Häußling, Nietzsche und die Soziologie, pp. 96-97. 141 Lichtblau, Kulturkrise und die Soziologie um die Jahrhundertwende, p. 101. Lichtblau also provides a useful general introduction to Nietzsche’s influence on Tönnies. Ibid. pp. 90-101.

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his assessment of Nietzsche’s influence on Ferdinand Tönnies, Jürgen Zander argues that Tönnies: “zeitlebens an Nietzsche interessiert war, wenn auch in abnehmendem Grad [...] und als Zeitgenosse das Werk des um 11 Jahre Älteren in statu nascendi miterlebte.”142 Consequently, Zander believes that it is hardly surprising that Nietzsche had a very strong influence on Tönnies, particularly so since Tönnies first read Nietzsche’s book Die Geburt der Tragödie when he was just 17 years old. In his autobiography, written in 1923, Tönnies summarises the “existential experience” or “revelation” he encountered while reading Nietzsche’s Geburt der Tragödie in the following way: “Aus meinem ersten Semester möchte ich noch erwähnen, daß ich im Doebereinerschen Schaufenster ein Bü chlein liegen sah, dessen Aufschrift mich mächtig ergriff: Die Geburt der Tragödie aus dem Geiste der Musik von Friedrich Nietzsche. – Wer achtete damals darauf? [...] Das Nietzsche-Büchlein zu kaufen konnte der Student sich nicht entschließen; er fand es aber in den Sommerferien 1873 in seiner alten Husumischen Schulbibliothek und las es mit Genuß, ja beinahe mit dem Gefühl einer Offenbarung.” 143

Such was the impression which Nietzsche’s book had made on Tönnies, that he tried to get hold of all of Nietzsche’s other books as soon as they were published. It is, therefore, clear that: “Von da an verdichtete sich Tönnies’ Interesse an Nietzsche.”144 Nietzsche’s “genialische Schrift”145 – as Tönnies will later call it – might even have influenced Tönnies’ decision to study philology in Leipzig where he attended the lectures of Nietzsche’s former Professor and personal mentor Friedrich Wilhelm Ritschl.146 Another interesting parallel which emerges from this shared interest in philology, is a mutual concern with the sociocultural development of ancient Greece. Most of Nietzsche’s writings of the early 1870s are in one way or another devoted to the study of ancient Greece, while Tönnies’ vivid interest in the same subject found a clear expression in his inaugural Dissertation of 1877, where he analysed the changing images of the god Zeus/Amman, who was worshiped by the ancient Greeks

142 Jürgen Zander, “Ferdinand Tönnies und Friedrich Nietzsche. Mit einem Exkurs: Nietzsches Geburt der Tragödie als Impuls zu Tönnies’ Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft”, in Lars Clausen and Franz Urban Pappi (eds.), Ankunft bei Tönnies: Soziologische Beiträge zum 125. Geburtstag von Ferdinand Tönnies (Kiel: Walter G. Mühlau Verlag, 1981), p. 185. 143 Ibid. p. 186. 144 Häußling, Nietzsche und die Soziologie, p. 97. 145 Tönnies, Der Nietzsche Kultus, p. 33. 146 Häußling, Nietzsche und die Soziologie, p. 97.

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as well as by the ancient Egyptians alike.147 This initially shared interest in ancient Greece by both Nietzsche and Tönnies, as well as the oeuvre of “sociocultural criticism” which came with it, was followed up by both thinkers with a move towards more contemporary concerns as Zander argues.148 For Nietzsche this move towards more contemporary concerns, meant the publication of his Unzeitgemäße Betrachtungen (1873–1876), a book or a collection of essays which had a clear emphasis on philosophy and psychology, and, moreover, provided a radical and provocative critique of modern society. For Tönnies, it meant a turn to the sociological and sociocultural aspects of human life, which resulted in his magnum opus on Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft (1887). But apart from the Geburt der Tragödie, which had already strongly influenced the young Tönnies, Nietzsche’s Unzeitgemäße Betrachtungen, with their clear move towards more contemporary concerns, also seemed to have made a lasting impression on Tönnies, who admits as much when he writes: “In Leipzig fand ich Nietzsche’s Unzeitgemäße Betrachtungen, erstes Stück ‘David Strauß, der Bekenner und der Schriftsteller’ [...] Keineswegs die erste Kritik, die ich kennenlernte, aber die erste, die starken Eindruck auf mich machte. Eines Tages sah ich dann in einem Buchladen die zweite Unzeitgemäße Betrachtung: ‘Vom Nutzen und Nachteil der Historie für das Leben’. Ich kaufte sie und war tief bewegt. Seitdem habe ich jedes Nietzsche Werk gleich nach Erscheinen mir zu eigen gemacht, wenn auch mit allmählich abnehmender Begeisterung.” 149

As a result of this initially very enthusiastic reading of Nietzsche’s early writings, Tönnies – similar to Alois Riehl by the way, but far less optimistically – also acknowledged the two-fold talent of the “artist” and “philosopher” in Nietzsche, but he evidently believed that Nietzsche had not succeeded in striking an adequate balance between these two talents, so that neither his Künstlertum nor his philosophy ever reached the peaks they actually might have: “Dies Problem [d.h. das Verhältnis von Wissenschaft und Kunst, F.S.L.] bleibt das Thema von Nietzsches höchst mannigfachem Philosophieren, das selber zwischen Kunst und Wissenschaft schwankt, indem es ihm nicht gelingt, seine Fähigkeiten für beide so auszubilden, daß sie sich vereinigen, daß ihm die Wissenschaft zur Kunst wird, ohne an ihrem Charakter als Wissenschaft einzubüßen, wodurch die Höhepunkte der Philosophie bezeichnet werden, die Nietzsche nicht erreicht hat.”150

147 Zander, “Ferdinand Tönnies und Friedrich Nietzsche”, p. 188. 148 Ibid. p. 187. 149 Ibid. 150 Tönnies, Der Nietzsche Kultus, p. 34.

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Zander consequently argues that the major criticism Tönnies held against Nietzsche was the latter’s lack of “wissenschaftlich-begrifflicher Konsistenz”151 and the resulting contradictions and ambiguities in his writings. This, in short, is also why Tönnies preferred Nietzsche’s early works – “seine nüchternen Reflexionen”152 as Tönnies will later call them – as they still adhered to an undeniably Nietzschean, yet strictly speaking “consistent” scientific terminology. Even if in the very peculiar form and the language of an “aesthetical science”. As far as Tönnies is concerned, Nietzsche’s early writings had not yet been affected by the full-scale pathos of Nietzsche’s later works (like Also sprach Zarathustra or other writings from this period), which Tönnies read with “growing dissatisfaction” [“zunehmender Ablehnung”], as Häußling argues.153

4.1.2) Nietzsche, Ferdinand Tönnies and Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft But even though, as we have clearly come to see, Tönnies commented in some detail on his fundamental “experience” of Nietzsche’s philosophy, the actual degree of Nietzsche’s influence on the eminent German sociologist has been the subject of fierce debates in recent years.154 The position generally taken is epitomised by the belief expressed by Jendris Alwast, who argues that, while Tönnies was strongly influenced by Nietzsche’s writings on a personal level, his professional side, i.e. his sociology seems to have been largely unaffected by Nietzsche’s philosophy: “Die Philosophie Nietzsches [...] hat für die philosophische Grundlagengestaltung, die Wissenschaftssystematik und die Kategorienbildung der ‘reinen Soziologie’, wie überhaupt für die soziologische Optik im Werk Tönnies’ keine Bedeutung gehabt.”155 This “standard reading” of the relationship between Nietzsche and Tönnies has, however, been the subject of some dispute in recent years. The most important contribution to this debate has been an essay written by Jürgen Zander – entitled “Ferdinand Tönnies

151 Zander, “Ferdinand Tönnies und Friedrich Nietzsche”, p. 193. 152 Ferdinand Tönnies, “Rezension: Friedrich Nietzsche, Also sprach Zarathustra. Ein Buch für alle und Keinen. Vierter und letzter Teil”, in Deutsche Literaturzeitung, vol. 13 (First edition published in Berlin, 1892). Quoted from: Zander, “Ferdinand Tönnies und Friedrich Nietzsche”, p. 223. 153 Häußling, Nietzsche und die Soziologie, p. 97. 154 For a critical account of Nietzsche’s influence on Tönnies, see: Zander, “Ferdinand Tönnies und Friedrich Nietzsche”, in Clausen and Urban Pappi (eds.), Ankunft bei Tönnies (1981), pp. 185-227; Jendris Alwast, “Die Wertung der Philosophie Nietzsches bei Tönnies”, in Ibid. pp. 228-240; Günther Rudolph, “Friedrich Nietzsche und Ferdinand Tönnies. Der ‘Wille zur Macht’ widerlegt von den Positionen eines ‘Willens zur Gemeinschaft’”, in Ferdinand Tönnies, Der Nietzsche Kultus, pp. 107-139. 155 Alwast, “Die Wertung der Philosophie Nietzsches bei Tönnies”, p. 229.

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und Friedrich Nietzsche. Mit einem Exkurs: Nietzsches Geburt der Tragödie als Impuls zu Tönnies’ Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft” – in which Zander argues that Nietzsche’s Geburt der Tragödie provided the decisive impetus for the development of Tönnies’ method of historical sociology, epitomised by the analytical terms Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft.156 In short, Zander believes that Nietzsche’s description of the development of Greek culture from its preSocratic heights, which were characterised by a unity of the vital ritualistic and instinctual elements of the dionysian and apollinian forces of communal life,157 to the eventual downfall of Greek tragedy and the subsequent decline of Greek culture, which were initiated by the arrival of the Socratic culture of “abstract reasoning” that finally ended the unity of the vital ritualistic and instinctual elements of the dionysian and apollinian forces of communal life,158 provided the impetus as well as the “ästhetische Vorform”159 for Tönnies’ systematic analysis of the shift from “organic communities” to “mechanistic societies”. In his book Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft (1887) Tönnies argued that the sociocultural development of “modernity” (Tönnies never uses this term, as he clearly preferred to use the term Neuzeit, which seemed more “neutral” to him)160 can be explained by the historically traceable differences in the ways and common features of human social life, which characterise pre-modern organic “communities” and modern mechanistic “societies” respective-

156 Tönnies, Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft (1991). 157 As we have clearly come to see in section 2.1 of this Chapter already, Nietzsche’s cultural critique as well as his assessment of the sociocultural development of ancient Greece, are epitomised by the names Dionysos and Apollo. Nietzsche writes: “Apollon und Dionysos [...] Diese Namen repräsentieren im Bereich der Kunst Stilgegensätze, die fast immer im Kampf mit einander neben einander einhergehen und nur einmal, im Blütemoment des hellenischen ‘Willens’, zu dem Kunstwerk der attischen Tragödie verschmolzen erscheinen. In zwei Zuständen nämlich erreicht der Mensch das Wonnegefühl des Daseins, im Traum und im Rausch.” Nietzsche, “Die dionysische Weltanschauung”, KSA 1, § 1, p. 553. 158 Nietzsche holds that the “death of tragedy” was brought about by the Socratic disregard for the “organic function” of communal instincts in the sociocultural life of ancient Greece and the introduction of an “aesthetics of consciousness” with the plays of Euripides: “Dieser Todeskampf der Tragödie heißt Euripides, die spätere Kunstgattung ist als neuere attische Komödie bekannt. In ihr lebte die entartete Gestalt der Tragödie fort, zum Denkmal ihres überaus mühseligen und schweren Hinscheidens. [...] Euripides ist der Dichter des sokratischen Rationalismus.” Nietzsche, “Sokrates und die Tragödie”, KSA 1, pp. 533 + 540. 159 Zander, “Ferdinand Tönnies und Friedrich Nietzsche”, p. 218. 160 Tönnies comments on the term Neuzeit by saying: “Das Wort ist beinahe nichtssagend, jedes Zeitalter ist für sich selber ein neues und junges solange es dauert. [Neuzeit ist ein, F.S.L.] noch im Flusse befindlicher [...] Abschnitt [der Geschichte, F.S.L.] von 430 Jahren nebst der noch zukünftigen, die diesen Abschnitt vollenden und beschließen wird.” Tönnies, “Geist der Neuzeit”, in Ferdinand Tönnies, Gesamtausgabe: TG. Band 22 – 1932–1936 (Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 1998), pp. 17-18.

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ly.161 Tönnies summarises the relationship between the individuals who make up a “community” and a “society” respectively, as well as their corresponding social (and to some degrees at least also cultural) identities, in the following way: “Das Verhältnis selber, und also die Verbindung [der Menschen, F.S.L.], wird entweder als reales und organisches Leben begriffen – dies ist das Wesen der ‘Gemeinschaft’, oder als ideelle und mechanische Bildung – dies ist der Begriff der ‘Gesellschaft’. [...] Gesellschaft ist die Öffentlichkeit, ist die Welt. In Gemeinschaft mit den Seinen befindet man sich, von der Geburt an, mit allem Wohl und Wehe daran gebunden. Man geht [hingegen, F.S.L.] in die Gesellschaft wie in die Fremde. [...] Gemeinschaft ist das dauernde und echte Zusammenleben, Gesellschaft nur ein vorübergehendes und scheinbares. Und dem ist es gemäß, daß Gemeinschaft selber als ein lebendiger Organismus, Gesellschaft [aber, F.S.L.] als ein mechanisches Aggregat und Artefakt verstanden werden soll.” 162

In the social realm of Gemeinschaft, people are, therefore, “essentially connected” [“wesentlich verbunden”] with each other, while they are “essentially separated” [“wesentlich getrennt”] from each other in the social realm of Gesellschaft.163 The result of this is, that while people are “essentially connected” with each other in the social realm of Gemeinschaft, despite what might separate them individually [“dort verbunden bleiben trotz aller Trennungen”], they are “essentially separated” from each other in the social realm of Gesellschaft, despite what might connect them individually [“hier getrennt bleiben trotz aller Verbundenheit”].164 This decisive difference in the relationship between the individuals who make up a “community” and a “society” respectively, as well as their different corresponding social identities, are also reflected in the two forms of “will” Tönnies associates with the terms Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft respectively. Tönnies argues that on a “psychological level” the antagonistic pair of Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft coincides with the chasm between what he calls Wesenwille and Kürwille, where Wesenwille is the form of “will” characteristic of “community”, and where Kürwille is the form of “will” characteristic of “society”. The theory 161 In this sense Tönnies’ notion of Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft is clearly an example of the first of the two different approaches to the study of “modernity”, which we have discussed in section 2 of Chapter 5 already. Particularly since his distinction relies on a conception of “modernity” (i.e. industrial “societies”, capitalism, democracy etc.) as simply being something distinctly different from what is taken to precede it (i.e. pre-modern agricultural “communities”, bartering, feudalism etc.) or to coexist with it outside Europe and in the Europeanised societies of North America. 162 Tönnies, Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft, pp. 3-4. 163 Ibid. p. 34. 164 Ibid.

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of “community”, therefore, asserts a total and organic “unity” of collective communal “wills”, while the theory of “society” asserts a total and inorganic (or even mechanistic) “separation” of individual “wills”.165 In his book Philosophische Terminologie in psychologisch-soziologischer Ansicht, first published in 1906, Tönnies explains the nature of the two different forms of will as “natural” on the one hand, and as “artificial” on the other: “Natürlich nennen wir den Willen, in dem die Gefühle, künstlich den Willen, in dem die Gedanken überwiegen.”166 Wesenwille is consequently understood as a real and natural unity of emotions, drives and desires which influence the thoughts and actions of the individuals who comprise a Gemeinschaft (qualitatively their actions are, therefore, characterised by virtue, honesty, kindness and loyalty). Wesenwille is thus best described as a “unity of life”: “Wesenwille ist das psychologische Äquivalent des menschlichen Leibes, oder das Prinzip der Einheit des Lebens, sofern dieses unter derjenigen Form der Wirklichkeit gedacht wird, welcher das Denken selber angehört [...] Er involviert das Denken”.167 Zander argues that Wesenwille essentially means that the strong desire to will one’s own Ursprung or “origin”, determines the social identities of the individuals who make up a “community”: “Wesenwille bedeutet mithin nicht nur, den eigenen Ursprung zu wollen, sondern zugleich auch, des Ursprungs bewußt zu sein, ihn zu kennen und zu wissen. Der Fortbestand der Gattung Mensch hängt daher (im Gegensatz zu Tier und Pflanze) auch von einem Wissen ab, allerdings von einem Wissen um den Ursprung.”168 Kürwille, however, is defined as an artificial construct of the process of thinking, which is originally conditioned by the communal features of Wesenwille, but is mainly shaped by an egoistic element of Bestreben or “striving” as well as by an egoistic element of Berechnung or “cunning”,169 that outweigh the communal and altruistic features of the original condition: “Kürwille ist ein Gebilde des Denkens selber, welchem daher nur in Beziehung auf seinen Urheber – das Subjekt des Denkens – eigentliche Wirklichkeit zukommt; wenn auch diese von anderen erkannt und als solche anerkannt werden kann.”170 165 Ibid. pp. 7f. 166 Tönnies, Philosophische Terminologie in psychologisch-soziologischer Ansicht (First edition published in Leipzig, 1906), p. 11. Quoted from: Norbert Sebastian Blüm, Willenslehre und Soziallehre bei Ferdinand Tönnies: Ein Beitrag zum Verständnis von “Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft” (Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität zu Bonn, 1967), p. 53. 167 Tönnies, Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft, p. 73. 168 Zander, “Ferdinand Tönnies und Friedrich Nietzsche”, p. 207. 169 Tönnies, Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft, pp. 96-102. 170 Ibid. p. 73.

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Zander argues that Kürwille essentially means that a definite degree of Willkür (Tönnies actually used this term to describe the form of “will” characteristic of society until the third edition of his book when he changed it to Kürwille)171 or a “will at random”, i.e. an “arbitrary will”, determines the social identities of the individuals who make up a “society”, which thus gives rise to a meaningless “uniformity of life”: “Der Kürwille hingegen beginnt mit der Abstraktion von allem Realen, Konkreten und Ursprünglichen und sucht dessen Auflösung in der inhaltleeren Allgemeinheit, unter die alles fällt, wenn es untereinander gleich und von ihr nicht verschieden ist.”172 It is in this respect that the antagonistic pair of Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft which, as we have clearly come to see so far, coincides with the chasm between Wesenwille and Kürwille in Tönnies’ theory of sociocultural development, bears a close resemblance to the dichotomy of “culture vs. civilisation”, as Christian Krockow convincingly argues: “der Gegensatz von ‘Gemeinschaft’ und ‘Gesellschaft’ [nimmt, F.S.L.] einen anderen, weit älteren in sich [auf, F.S.L.]: den von ‘Kultur’ und ‘Zivilisation’.”173 As we have clearly come to see in Chapter 5 of this book, the “culture vs. civilisation” dichotomy was at least partly explained with reference to a mutual exclusion of the constitutive parts of the two terms, where the elements of “culture” were clearly regarded as superior to the elements of “civilisation”, and where important aspects of the arguments in support of “culture” were directed against the ostensibly “unGerman” rationality and the scientific reasoning, believed to be characteristic or even part of “civilisation”. Even though Tönnies’ arguments about the sociocultural development from Gemeinschaft to Gesellschaft are, generally speaking, much more “sophisticated” than the narrow-minded “black-and-white” simplicity of the “culture vs. civilisation” dichotomy allows for, the fundamental binary opposition as well as large parts of the arguments on which their shared comparison rests, essentially remains the same. A good example of this similarity is Tönnies’ approach to what he regards as the “intrinsic” relationship between “art” [“Kunst”] and “community” [“Gemeinschaft”] on the one hand, and “science” [“Wissenschaft”] and “society” [“Gesellschaft”] on the other,174 where “art” is consequently also linked with “Wesenwille [als dem, 171 For the development of Tönnies’ term Kürwille, see also: Blüm, Willenslehre und Soziallehre bei Ferdinand Tönnies, p. 163. 172 Zander, “Ferdinand Tönnies und Friedrich Nietzsche”, p. 211. 173 Christian Graf von Krockow, Die Deutschen in ihrem Jahrhundert 1890–1990 (Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, 1992), p. 63. 174 Tönnies argues that “art” is essentially connected to “community” and “beruht auf Gedächtnissen”, while “science” is essentially connected to “society” and “beruht auf Begriffen”. Tönnies, Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft, p. 216.

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F.S.L.] Prinzip der Einheit des Lebens”175 and where “science” is consequently also linked with “Kürwille [als dem, F.S.L.] Gebilde des Denkens”.176 Here, the argumentative closeness of Tönnies’ categories of Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft to the dichotomy of “culture vs. civilisation” is blatantly obvious and can hardly be disputed, which is also in many ways why his analysis was so easily open to misinterpretation and misappropriation. Tönnies’ book and the various perspectives it offered gained a considerable influence on mainstream sociology, especially after the publication of the extensively revised and enlarged second edition of 1912. Even though Tönnies just wanted to define fundamental sociological categories and explicitly warned of: “mißverständlichen Auslegungen und sich klug dünkenden Nutzanwendungen”,177 his critical analysis of “society” and his seemingly implicit preference for and appraisal of “community”, gained a strong ideological momentum in movements like the Jugendbewegung and more openly nationalist movements, which were keen to show the dangers of modern “society” and wanted to re-establish the values inherent in and, generally speaking, associated with the concept of “community”. Against his own will, Tönnies’ concept of Gemeinschaft became part of many right-wing ideologies and was misinterpreted by the national socialist ideologues, who applied a völkisch reading to it and coined the dangerous phrase of a Volksgemeinschaft, whose aim was conceived of as the: “Kampf für das Echte und Eigentliche, als ein deutscher Traum vom wahren Leben, der in selbstloser Hingabe an die Gemeinschaft dereinst Wirklichkeit werden soll.”178 How mistaken, yet fateful this interpretation actually was, is well known, but many of the ambiguities of Tönnies’ book are at least in part due to the fundamental flaws inherent in binary antitheses like “Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft” or “culture and civilisation”.

4.1.3) Die Geburt der Tragödie as impetus for Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft It is, therefore, not surprising that Jürgen Zander argues that vital and constitutive parts of Tönnies’ theory of the different forms of “will” inherent in Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft are based on his reading of Nietzsche,179 whose 175 Ibid. p. 73. 176 Ibid. 177 Tönnies, Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft, p. xlvii. 178 Krockow, Die Deutschen in ihrem Jahrhundert 1890–1990, p. 65. 179 On this point, see: Zander, “Ferdinand Tönnies und Friedrich Nietzsche”, pp. 204-211. Blüm, however, argues that it was mainly Schopenhauer, who inspired Tönnies’ theory of the different forms

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book Geburt der Tragödie Tönnies had read: “mit Genuß, ja beinahe mit dem Gefühl einer Offenbarung”.180 The similarity to Nietzsche’s position is striking. We have already discussed in section 2.1 of this chapter, that Nietzsche believes that true cultural advance only arises from the antagonistic struggle between the different forms of “will” inherent in “culture” and “civilisation”. I have then proceeded to argue that, in more general terms, the two antagonistic “wills” inherent in “culture” and “civilisation” can also be described as the two “fundamental forces” Nietzsche ascribes to both human beings as well as to the rest of the world: Dionysos, creative but also destructive, and Apollo, structuring but also contemplative. Out of the antagonistic imbalance between these two poles, Nietzsche argues, arises the kind of tension that brings forth sociocultural progress, and in the following parts of his analysis Nietzsche specifically connects the capacity of “aesthetical intuition” with the former, and the capacity of “abstract reasoning” with the latter of the two “fundamental forces” he identifies. This clearly corresponds to the attributes Tönnies identifies with Wesenswille and Kürwille respectively. Jürgen Zander argues that the main parallels between Nietzsche’s and Tönnies’ account of sociocultural development lie in their shared analysis of the origin and decline of individual cultural epochs and forms. Zander describes this as a “two phase theory of sociocultural development”.181 He writes: “Die Entwicklung einer Kultur geschieht in zwei aufeinanderfolgenden Phasen. 1. Abschnitt ist die Entwicklung vom Allgemeinen zum Besonderen (Von der Frühzeit dieser Kultur zu ihrem ‘Mittelalter’ hin); 2. Abschnitt ist die Gegenbewegung vom Besonderen zum Allgemeinen (Vom Mittelalter der betreffenden Kultur zu deren ‘Neuzeit’).”182 The main difference, however, between Nietzsche’s and Tönnies’ account of this form of sociocultural development of individual cultures, lies in their respective use of “aesthetical” and “sociological” perspectives, as Zander convincingly argues: “Nietzsche’s Geburt der Tragödie enthält – wenn auch etwas schillernd – ihrer ganzen Grundform nach die Tönniessche Zwei-Phasen-Theorie, allerdings wurden bei jenem die beiden Schritte nicht als soziologische ausgeführt mit dem Ziel der Darstellung der sozialen Welt und ihres Zerfalls, sondern als ästhetische Entwicklung, in der die Kunst als ein-

of “will” inherent in Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft (Blüm, Willenslehre und Soziallehre bei Ferdinand Tönnies, pp. 40.ff.), but this view is on the whole rejected by Zander, who argues that Tönnies actually dismissed Schopenhauer’s theory of “will” as “metaphysical”. Zander, “Ferdinand Tönnies und Friedrich Nietzsche”, p. 224. 180 Ibid. p. 205. 181 Ibid. p. 211. 182 Ibid. p. 221.

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zige Möglichkeit der Daseinsbewältigung des Menschen erscheint, deren Zerfall auch den Zerfall des Menschentums nach sich zieht.”183 But even though Zander convincingly argues for a parallel in their respective approach to the sociocultural development of individual cultures, Tönnies does not at all refer to Nietzsche’s writings in his famous analysis of the terms Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft, even when he – in a truly Nietzschean sense – tries to demonstrate and emphasise the intrinsic relationship between “art” and “community” on the one hand, and “science” and “society” on the other.184 Consequently, I tend to agree with Roger Häußling who argues that: “Einen konkreten, die angegebenen Parallelen aufzeigenden Hinweis von Tönnies auf Nietzsches Tragödienschrift, in der der Gegensatz von Kunst und Wissenschaft pointiert herausgearbeitet wird, sucht man in dessen Werk allerdings vergebens.”185 But even if Tönnies does not mention Nietzsche’s Geburt der Tragödie in his book Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft, it should be noted that he explicitly and favourably mentions Nietzsche’s analysis of the apparent parallels between Greek “antiquity” and “modernity” in his book Nietzsche Kultus, even though this book was originally meant as a radical critique of Nietzsche’s positions: “Die Geburt der Tragödie aus dem Geiste der Musik war eine genialische Schrift [und enthält, F.S.L.] eine bedeutende Wahrheit [...] Nietzsche weist auf den Parallelismus der antiken und der modernen Entwicklung in Leben, Kunst, Denken, zaghaft und ohne Klarheit, aber doch mit Bedeutung, hin. Er betont in gehöriger Schärfe das merkwürdige, zum Antagonismus notwendig sich entfaltende Verhältnis von Kunst und Wissenschaft in seiner allgemeinen Beschaffenheit und Wirkung.”186 In essence, therefore, I believe that Zander is eventually right in arguing that Nietzsche’s Geburt der Tragödie was the “aesthetical preconception” of Tönnies’ theoretical analysis of Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft, and that: “wenn man die Geburt der Tragödie als ästhetische Vorform von Tönnies’ Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft ansieht, schon bei Nietzsche der Ansatz zu einer Verallgemeinerung jenes Geschichtskonzepts über Griechenland hinaus zu einer universalhistorischen Theorie enthalten war”.187 It should, moreover, be clear that Tönnies aimed to provide a “universalhistorische Theorie”188 with his analysis of the sociocultural transition from Gemeinschaft to Gesellschaft, and that they consequently also share this universal theoretical goal. 183 Ibid. p. 212. 184 Tönnies, Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft, p. 216. 185 Häußling, Nietzsche und die Soziologie, pp. 114-115. 186 Tönnies, Der Nietzsche Kultus, pp. 33-34. 187 Zander, “Ferdinand Tönnies und Friedrich Nietzsche”, p. 218. 188 Ibid.

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But even if Tönnies was clearly influenced by Nietzsche’s philosophy while outlining his major sociological concerns in his early masterpiece Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft – in many ways “the standard text of German sociology”189 in the 19th century – there is no denying that Tönnies tried very hard to distance himself “from the demon of his youth”190 in his later writings, whom he had even tried to visit when he went to Sils-Maria on a holiday trip (but eventually did not dare to approach when he saw him across the street). Hence in some of his later writings Tönnies clearly tried to radically oppose Nietzsche’s book Also sprach Zarathustra and other writings form the same period, particularly because of their strong pathos. Yet when Nietzsche died, Tönnies wrote a very telling personal letter to Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche in which he expressed his deep sympathy and admiration for the philosopher as well as his work. The letter is dated on the first of September 1900, and is largely interpreted as a justification of the radical change in Tönnies’ (public) attitude with regards to Nietzsche’s philosophy.191 But his position still remains somewhat ambiguous in his statement: “Vielleicht gehöre ich zu denen – wenn mein Name Ihnen bekannt ist – die in ihrem Hause als Feind oder als Gegner Friedrich Nietzsches gelten. Ich fühle mich aber vollkommen sicher, daß Nietzsche selber, wenn seine Seele noch gelebt hätte, mich nicht dafür gehalten, daß er den Freund, den Bewunderer in mir erkannt hätte. Ich habe ihn geliebt, seit frühen Tagen; seit ich im Jahre 1873 das ‘Zweite Stück’ der ‘Unzeitgemäßen Betrachtungen’ erwarb und mir zu eigen machte; nachdem ich schon die Geburt der Tragödie mit wahrem Entzücken, ‘David Strauß’ mit tiefinnerlicher Zustimmung gelesen hatte [...] Zu schreiben [an Nietzsche, F.S.L.] hatte mich immer eine Schüchternheit und Scheu [...] abgehalten – entworfen habe ich Briefe an Nietzsche manchmal [...] Unsere Versäumnisse können wir nicht nachholen – aber ich darf mich freuen, daß ich gar manche auf den großen Autor aufmerksam gemacht habe, in jenen Jahren; ich glaube, daß auch Georg Brandes seinen Namen zuerst von mir gehört hat, im Winter 1879/80 im Hause Friedrich Paulsens.” 192

Here you can clearly see the ambivalent character of Tönnies’ response to the personal and philosophical challenge of Nietzsche’s philosophy, which was on the one hand full of praise and on the other full of rejection. This letter is also a good example of what Häußling calls the hidden and implicit (rather than explicit) dialogue with Nietzsche in which many early sociologists and

189 Hennis, Max Weber: Essays in Reconstruction, p. 150. 190 Ibid. 191 Lichtblau, Kulturkrise und die Soziologie um die Jahrhundertwende, p. 92. 192 Zander, “Ferdinand Tönnies und Friedrich Nietzsche”, p. 189.

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social thinkers apparently engaged,193 with Tönnies taking over certain elements of his philosophy which Nietzsche himself might have thought could not be accommodated within sociology, while it now seems more or less clear that indeed they can. But in order to fully understand the change in Tönnies’ attitude to Nietzsche’s philosophy, we have to analyse his polemical reaction to Nietzsche’s writings from the Zarathustra period. In the following section of this chapter I will, therefore, briefly summarise the main implications of Tönnies’ radical critique of Nietzsche’s philosophy, in particular of Nietzsche’s notion of the Übermensch, as this will help us to (a) understand Häußling’s proposition that it was particularly due to Nietzsche’s notion of the Übermensch that the emerging discipline of sociology and its “founding fathers” had problems in coming to terms with his philosophy, as well as to (b) distinguish my own interpretation of Nietzsche’s notion of the Übermensch which argues that his concept should be seen as an “educational ideal”, i.e. as a heuristic tool for the “educational” and “sociocultural” advancement of “mankind”, from more “standard readings” of Nietzsche’s concept and from the radical sociological critique of this notion.

4.1.4) Nietzsche’s notion of the Übermensch as seen by Ferdinand Tönnies The major essays which Tönnies wrote about Nietzsche and Nietzscheanism were all published between 1892 and 1904 – if one also includes the obituary for Paul Rée, published in 1904, among them. These essays include a brief review of Nietzsche’s book Also sprach Zarathustra, which was written in 1892, a brief critique of the increasing number of misled “Nietzscheans” in Germany, published in the form of an essay entitled “Nietzsche Narren” in 1893, and finally a fundamental critique of the increasing paradoxes associated with the virulent cult surrounding Nietzsche’s life and work, entitled Der Nietzsche Kultus, published in 1897. After 1900 Tönnies did not seem to make his intellectual engagement with Nietzsche’s philosophy an explicit subject for his publications any more, as Zander argues.194 In his very short and very polemical essay “Nietzsche Narren”, Ferdinand Tönnies looks, amongst other things, at Nietzsche’s conception of morality.195 Tönnies begins his analysis by pointing to the fact that the origins and the development of moral ideas are much more complex than Nietzsche, even in 193 Häußling, Nietzsche und die Soziologie, pp. 85f. 194 Zander, “Ferdinand Tönnies und Friedrich Nietzsche”, p. 189. 195 Tönnies, “Nietzsche Narren”, in Der Nietzsche Kultus, pp. 98-104.

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his most brilliant expositions, portrays them. In his blind fury against Christianity, Tönnies says, Nietzsche “smashed” the subjects he wanted to analyse to bits and pieces: “In seinem blinden Eifer schlägt er die Gegenstände in Scherben, die er untersuchen wollte.”196 What follows is a brief analysis of Nietzsche’s “master” and “slave” morality and other Nietzschean notions as the archetypal concepts of a “philosopher of capitalism” in which Tönnies uses mildly socialist undertones: “Nietzsche könnte füglich sein Genügen haben an der Herrenmoral, wie sie zu gegenwärtiger Frist in Blüte steht. [Da, F.S.L.] eine internationale Klasse von ‘Herren’, d.h. Reichen, Frohen, Üppig-Genießenden, vom Volke sich abgelöst und als die ‘Nation’ oder als die ‘Menschheit’ sich konstituiert hat. [...] Nicht ohne Recht hat man ihn, nach dieser Seite seiner Sinnesart, den Philosophen des Kapitalismus genannt.”197 But Tönnies particularly criticises Nietzsche’s formulation of the doctrine of the “will to power” as well as his glorification of “strength”, and their common means of enunciation via the prophetic role of Zarathustra, the advocate and preacher of the Übermensch, as being nothing but “hollow poetic constructs with little meaningful content”: “rhetorische Wendungen und Blendungen [...] in triumphierenden und grotesken Faltenwürfen”.198 In his assessment of their deeper meaning Tönnies says that the essence of these concepts is twofold: Firstly, the Übermensch or “genius” (Tönnies actually mistakes the Übermensch as a “genius” at this point, a misinterpretation which Nietzsche, as outlined in section 3.1 of this chapter already, actually foresaw)199 does what he wants, because he can do what he wants. This alone, apart from the firm belief that no “good and evil” exists for him at all, entails “greatness”, “glory” and “honour” for the “heroic” Übermensch: “Der Übermensch oder der geniale Mensch tut was er will, er soll tun was er will: das allein ist groß, erhaben, bewunderungswürdig, gut. Für diese Helden gibt es sonst kein Gut und Böse.”200 Secondly, Tönnies regards Nietzsche as a theoretical thinker about “morals”. Nietzsche examines the origins of morality and designates, broadly speaking, as “master” and “slave” morality [“Herren- und Sklavenmoral”] the two historical forms morality has assumed. The former of these two is the only form of morality acceptable for the Übermensch, although he is obviously bound by neither of them, as Tönnies stresses.

196 Ibid. p. 101. 197 Ibid. p. 103. 198 Ibid. p. 100. 199 See: Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, KSA 6, § 1, p. 300. 200 Tönnies, “Nietzsche Narren”, p. 101.

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The first of these two lines of Nietzsche’s thought received its clearest expression in Also sprach Zarathustra, the second in Jenseits von Gut und Böse, Zur Genealogie der Moral and Götzen-Dämmerung, as Tönnies emphasises. Tönnies is aware that Nietzsche is not the first thinker who voiced a concept like the Übermensch, but he acknowledges that it has never been voiced with more pathos and desire. Tönnies, for example, points to Aristotle and his exceptional human beings for whom “there is no law, for they themselves are law” [“Deren gibt es kein Gesetz; denn sie selber sind Gesetz.”].201 The same is true for the Herrenmensch of the Renaissance onwards for whom the only rule was to do as he pleases as only his own strength legitimates the ends of his deeds and nothing else. This extreme theory, Tönnies argues, has been arrived at under completely false schematic presumptions about the multiple practices of “life” which should actually have been considered far more carefully. This carefulness could, for example, have led to the view that the so called “stronger sex”, was, historically speaking, always at liberty to do things that morals and other cultural practices clearly prohibited for women.202 Another point which Tönnies holds against Nietzsche’s conception is the fact that men of status, men of talent, men of wealth and men of will, almost always get away with immoral or offensive behaviour, while the same behaviour by an average person of weak social standing will always be condemned by society: “Und den Hochgeborenen, wie den Hochbegabten, denen von großem Vermögen, wie denen von großem Willen, wird alleweile viel Dreistes, Übermütiges, Unsittliches nachgesehen, was von Kleinen und Schwächeren getan, mit Unwillen und Strenge verfolgt wird.”203 Here you can clearly hear the class-conscious social scientist speaking, who has little – if any – sympathy for the privileged few, and has a far greater concern than Nietzsche does for social inequalities. So here lies one of the roots for an argument in support of Häußling’s claim, that Tönnies regards Nietzsche’s Übermensch as embodying an anti-sociological position, because Tönnies regards this fact as “das eigentliche Skandalon”,204 that Nietzsche does not at all object to these inequalities, but that he instead even seems to encourage them. Tönnies goes on to argue that Nietzsche exactly wants this kind of double-standard, as only the Übermensch himself would be able to judge his own deeds. Particularly since according to Nietzsche, the Übermensch is not sub201 Ibid. p. 100. 202 Ibid. p. 100. It is interesting to note here that Tönnies takes Nietzsche’s concept of the Übermensch to designate its qualities solely for men, whereas Nietzsche’s writings are far more ambiguous on that point: In his book Also sprach Zarathustra Nietzsche writes, for example: “Eure Hoffnung heiße: ‘möge ich den Übermenschen gebären!’” Here women give life to the Übermensch and, therefore, clearly partake in his or her creation. Nietzsche, Also sprach Zarathustra, KSA 4, p. 85. 203 Tönnies, “Nietzsche Narren”, p. 101. 204 Häußling, Nietzsche und die Soziologie, p. 123.

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ject to average or ordinary moral concerns at all. Tönnies, however, is not convinced that this double standard is justified. The words that might support such a proposition might easily be found, he says, but any subtle moral or ethical sense should reject this double-standard unconditionally by referring to the common sense wisdom: “Wem viel gegeben, von dem wird viel gefordert.”205 In his essay Tönnies is, however, somewhat stubborn in equating Nietzsche with Zarathustra and vice versa. He says, for example, that for Nietzsche as Zarathustra this mundane moral perspective on social inequalities is irrelevant, as he wants to portray and not simply justify the immoral acts of the Übermensch as the only valuable acts to be committed. It is a bit surprising to find that Tönnies – even if his essay “Nietzsche Narren” is a polemical text – should be so negligent as to forget a simple rule of interpretation: an author is never identical with the lyrical I of his book. Particularly not, when it is a book like Also sprach Zarathustra. But in a blatant move Tönnies even equates Zarathustra and the Übermensch and that is in my opinion rather asking too much. Tönnies says that Nietzsche/Zarathustra are well aware that they are measuring with a double standard, but this does not matter to them since this is exactly what they want to do, as they see themselves as embodiments of the Übermensch, who stands far beyond “good and evil” and any form of ordinary moral concerns: “Für Nietzsche als Zarathustra ist der gewöhnliche Maßstab gleichgültig. Er will ja ein, wenn nicht un- so doch ohnsittliches Gebaren nicht passieren lassen, sondern als das allein Wertvolle darstellen. Er weiß sehr wohl, daß die blöde Menge seinem kühnen Fluge nicht folgen wird. Er dünkt sich ja selber ein Übermensch, seine Art zu urteilen soll eine Heldentat sein, die aus einsamer Gletscherwelt auf uns hinabsieht. Aber eine kleine Schar von Jüngern will er in seine Höhle locken, die ihn hören und verstehen und seine heimliche Weisheit fortpflanzen mögen. Diese Weisheit ist gegen alle Arten und Begründungen von Moral gleichgültig.”206

This passage does not only show that Tönnies was “very ambivalent”207 on the issue of the Übermensch, but it also indicates that Tönnies’ was well aware of the “educational” dimension of Nietzsche’s concept, without, however, acknowledging or pursuing it in any further detail. One of the reasons for this is the fact that in his essay on the Nietzsche Kultus, Tönnies himself propagates

205 Tönnies, “Nietzsche Narren”, p. 101. 206 Ibid. 207 Häußling, Nietzsche und die Soziologie, pp. 121f.

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a notion of a “higher type” or a “höherer Typus”208 who warrants “breeding”, and whom he clearly favours over Nietzsche’s largely ambiguous concept. Tönnies even believes that this “higher type” could be the saviour and propagator of a new “organic culture”, and the embodiment of a “refinement of the essence of humanity”: “Wir sehen aber auch ziemlich deutlich die Keime einer neuen organischen Kultur mitten in den Trümmern der alten sich langsam, mühsam entfalten, und diese zu befördern, zu hegen und zu pflegen, das erkennen wir als die Aufgabe des Freundes der Weisheit und der menschlichen Veredlung.”209 This is also why Tönnies wants to elevate “mankind” above its past achievements with the help of his notion of a “higher type” who could eventually be realised in real world on the basis of science: “Auch wir wollen den Menschen über seine Vergangenheit hinausheben und einen höheren Typus ‘züchten’. Wir sind aber gar nicht damit zufrieden, daß es, wie Nietzsche sagt, ‘ein fortwährendes Gelingen einzelner Fälle an den verschiedensten Stellen der Erde und aus den verschiedensten Kulturen heraus’ gebe, womit ‘etwas sich darstelle, das im Verhältnis zur Gesamtmenschheit eine Art Übermensch’ sei,210 ganz abgesehen davon, daß wir solche Übermenschen wie Cesare Borgia und Napoleon lieber ausrotten als züchten wollen. Auch wenn Nietzsche etwas besseres meint – er nennt ja selber Napoleon ‘Synthesis von Unmensch und Übermensch’ 211 – so meinen wir dagegen, daß die gesamten Bedingungen für die Bildung des Menschen durch bewußte Anwendung der Wissenschaft unvergleichbar günstiger gestaltet werden können, auch wenn wir nicht vorauszusagen wagen, daß es geschehen werde.” 212

There apparently seems to be a “biological” dimension in Tönnies’ notion of the “higher type”, as he speaks of the aim of “breeding” this type of man on the basis of scientific principles, which is a very worrying dimension indeed (but one which is clearly “borrowed” from Nietzsche, who also uses the term “breeding” in relation to the Übermensch, but which does not, I believe, capture the essence of Nietzsche’s multi-faceted notion at all). Yet Tönnies is fairly ambiguous on his use of the term “breeding”, particularly since he places it in inverted commas. It is, therefore, not at all clear what kind of “breeding” Tönnies has in mind with regards to his notion of a “higher type”. It should, however, be kept in mind that in many other respects the theme of “breed208 Tönnies, Der Nietzsche Kultus, p. 86. 209 Ibid. 210 Tönnies quotes from Nietzsche’s book Antichrist. Nietzsche, Der Antichrist, KSA 6, § 4, p. 171. 211 Tönnies quotes from Nietzsche’s book Genealogie der Moral. Nietzsche, Genealogie der Moral, KSA 5, § 16, p. 288. 212 Tönnies, Der Nietzsche Kultus, p. 86.

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ing” or “eugenics” is not at all alien to Tönnies, as he engages quite actively in the then fashionable academic dialogue on the guiding and controlling of the biological determination of mankind, euphemistically entitled as “sociobiology”. Yet it has to be remembered that “eugenics” (a term which, strictly speaking, goes back to Plato’s Politeia) was, at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century in particular, for large parts considered as a progressive, almost “left-wing” policy. This does not, however, in any way relativise its fateful implications for the history of the 20th century, but only helps to place Tönnies’ comments in their rightful historical context. Even if Tönnies clearly proves to be a “streitbarer Zeitgenosse”213 in these matters, it is very disappointing to find him engaging in the dubious academic dialogue on “eugenics” in this manner. There is, however, also a significant “sociocultural dimension” to Tönnies’ notion of the “higher type”. Particularly in his essay “Nietzsche Narren”, where Tönnies also briefly engages with this notion and describes this person as a “creative genius” who is characterised by a: “künstlerisches Gemüt [und einer, F.S.L.] innerlich freien und in sich beruhenden Seele”, and who, therefore, represents a “rare kind” of a person in our “shining yet lying civilisation” which, generally speaking, hitherto only gave rise to nothing but: “dürftige und mittelmäßige Halbgenies”.214 Häußling comments on Tönnies’ notion of a “higher type” by saying that Tönnies essentially follows through a Marxist analysis of the distribution of power in society where the capitalist class not only exploits and rules over the proletariat but also determines the sociocultural reality of society.215 Eventually, however, according to Tönnies, this ruling class and the sociocultural reality it maintains, will stumble over their inherent contradictions, because: “Jede ausbeutende Klasse verzehrt sich selber.”216 But in the last instance, however, only a collective form of action based on a unity of individual wills that aim to realise a communal goal could, for Tönnies, initiate a lasting: “Überwindung der Verhältnisse [...] welche die menschlichen Entfal-

213 Arno Mohr, “Vorwort”, in Tönnies, Gesamtausgabe: TG. Band 9 – 1911–1915 (Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 2000), pp. xix. On the topic of “eugenics”, see for example: Tönnies, “Der erste internationale Rassenkongreß in London: Eine Umschau”, in Ibid. pp. 185-195. Tönnies, “Die Anwendung der Deszendenztheorie auf Probleme der sozialen Entwicklung. Teile 1-6”, in Ferdinand Tönnies, Gesamtausgabe: TG. Band 15 – 1923–1925 (Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 2000), pp. 205-447. Or alternatively: Tönnies, “Eugenik”, in Ibid. pp. 455-476, where Tönnies praises and defends Francis Galton’s book Restrictions in Marriage. Studies in National Eugenics (1904), because of its aim of a “reproduction of the best individual specimens”: “Das allgemeine Ziel: Reproduktion der besten individuellen Exemplare”, in Ibid. p. 45 6 214 Tönnies, “Nietzsche Narren”, p. 104. 215 Häußling, Nietzsche und die Soziologie, p. 122. 216 Tönnies, Der Nietzsche Kultus, p. 89.

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tungsmöglichkeiten einschränken”,217 as Häußling emphasises. And Häußling continues: “Damit schwebt Tönnies gerade nicht Nietzsches, im ‘Pathos der Distanz’ formulierte Forderung nach ‘Vereinzelung’, die dem ‘Einzelnen’ eine umfassende Entfaltung seiner vitalen Machtwillen garantiert, vor. [Sondern er, F.S.L.] steht für die Beendigung machtgeleiteter Prozesse selbst.”218 But while Nietzsche completely rejects the moral and legal-rational fetters imposed upon the individual by the modern state and society, and strongly argues for the individual’s self-determination as well as his absolute individualisation, Tönnies still wants to realise the necessary sociocultural change from within as well as for the communal aspects of the sociocultural reality of society. Consequently, Häußling argues: “Im Gegensatz zu Nietzsche glaubt Tönnies jedoch an gemeinschaftlichen Formen des Zusammenlebens festhalten zu müssen.”219 For Tönnies this would mean that the “higher type” would not be, like in Nietzsche’s case, a self-determining individual, who derives all values from himself and from the freedom of his own will, but that the “higher type” would rather be a constitutive part of the organic communal will that aims to recreate an entirely “organic culture”.220 Consequently, Häußling argues: “Der höhere Typus Mensch wäre für Tönnies demnach der sich ganz auf den in ihm virulent gebliebenen ‘Wesenswillen’ einlassende, in der Gemeinschaft aufgehende Mit-Mensch. Zur Erreichung eines solchen Typus muß Tönnies allerdings analog zu Nietzsche von der radikalen Überwindung der bestehenden, den Einzelnen umgreifenden Gesellschaftsverhäl tnisse ausgehen.”221 But this radical overcoming of the existing social reality, was only a means of recreating and instituting a less alienating and unjust form of society, which marks a major difference to Nietzsche’s position, as Zander convincingly argues: “Im Gegensatz zu Nietzsche hielt Tönnies an der Hinnahme und Akzeptierung der abfallenden Linie der Kulturentwicklung fest: wo Nietzsche von der ‘Dekadenz’ zum ‘Übermenschen’ weiterschreiten wollte, verblieb Tönnies bewußt auf dem nüchternen Terrain der ‘Gesellschaft’”,222 because even his largely ambiguous notion of the “higher type” is eventually firmly grounded in Tönnies’ analysis and understanding of the nature of “society”. 217 Häußling, Nietzsche und die Soziologie, p. 122. 218 Ibid. 219 Ibid. p. 121. 220 Tönnies, Der Nietzsche Kultus, p. 86. 221 Häußling, Nietzsche und die Soziologie, p. 122. 222 Zander, “Ferdinand Tönnies und Friedrich Nietzsche”, p. 218.

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Yet the ambiguities inherent in Tönnies’ interpretation on Nietzsche’s notion of the Übermensch as well as the ambiguities inherent in his own notion of a “higher type”, are clearly the result of his tendency to (secretly) agree with Nietzsche, in principle at least, about the need for an “elevation of mankind”, but to fundamentally differ with Nietzsche as to how this elevation could and should best be achieved, and to whom this elevation actually refers. Häußling summarises this problem of mediation as follows: “Die Ambivalenz gegenüber Nietzsches Konstrukt des Übermenschen läßt sich auf folgenden Widerstreit im Denken von Tönnies zurückführen: Zum einen begrüßt er Nietzsches Rede vom Übermenschen; in ihr sieht er eine Forderung nach Beendigung jener (sozialen) Verhältnisse, durch welche gerade die kreativen Potentiale der Menschen beschränkt werden; zum anderen wählt Tönnies, was ihre Realisierung betrifft, andere Prämissen, Inhalte und Ziele. Folglich muß er in Nietzsches Konzept eine Elitetheorie erblicken, die nur noch einmal die bestehenden Verhältnisse dupliziert, ohne sie tatsächlich hinter sich zu lassen.” 223

Nevertheless, even Tönnies admits that: “das tiefere Denken Nietzsches [mit, F.S.L.] soziologischen Erwägungen [...] gespielt [hat, F.S.L.], aber es [...] ihm nicht gelungen [ist, F.S.L.], einen solchen Gedanken durchzuführen oder auch nur streng zu verfolgen.”224 A similar point has also been raised a few years later by the German philosopher and sociologist Max Horkheimer (1895–1973), who argues: “An der Gegenwart hat er [Nietzsche, F.S.L.] alles verstanden, nur nicht ihren inneren Zusammenhang.”225 Both Tönnies and Horkheimer admit to the insightful character of Nietzsche’s philosophy, yet but both deny Nietzsche’s thoughts a deeper understanding of the true workings of society. But in this respect, Tönnies clearly underestimates the true potential of Nietzsche’s “cultural critique” as well as his notion of the Übermensch. This view is also supported by Klaus Lichtblau, who argues that while Tönnies seemed to take Nietzsche’s challenging world-view very seriously, he largely connected it with an “aristocratic radicalism” for which there seemed to be no place in modern society. Therefore, Tönnies failed to recognise that Nietzsche was a constitutive part “der ästhetisch-literarischen Moderne”, and 223 Häußling, Nietzsche und die Soziologie, p. 122. 224 Tönnies, Der Nietzsche Kultus, p. 26. 225 Max Horkheimer, “Bemerkungen zur Philosophischen Anthropologie”, in Max Horkheimer, Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 3 (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1988), p. 265. Horkheimer was also clearly strongly influenced by and indebted to Nietzsche’s philosophy and it is by no means a complete break with the philosopher, which is signaled here. For a brief discussion of Horkheimer’s Nietzsche reception, see: Outhwaite, “Nietzsche and Critical Theory” (1995).

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consequently helped to forge and determine its sociocultural development to a large extent.226 This misunderstanding of Nietzsche’s fundamental contribution to the sociocultural development of “modernity” was particularly due to the fact that Tönnies regarded the immediate consequences of “modernity” only as a: “Verfall und Untergang der traditionellen künstlerischen Formen und sittlichen Werte”.227 This, therefore, means that even though Tönnies was: “ein entscheidender Befürworter von gesellschaftlichen Reformen und in diesem Sinne selbst ‘Modernist’”, he did not find: “einen positiven Zugang zur kulturellen Moderne im engeren Sinne.”228 It is in this sense, as Lichtblau convincingly argues, that Tönnies’ sociology clearly remained: “noch diesseits jener Wasserscheide, welche nicht zuletzt die von Nietzsche verkündete ‘Umwertung aller Werte’ für die weitere Entwicklung der deutschen Soziologie der Jahrhundertwende darzustellen begann.”229

4.1.5) Nietzsche and Ferdinand Tönnies on “freethinking” and “educational ideals” Yet there is also another level on which there clearly is a stark resemblance to Nietzsche’s philosophy in the writings of Ferdinand Tönnies, despite his overt resistance to Nietzsche’s intellectual positions. This level is their mutual concern with the “rightful education of mankind”. Yet Tönnies does not connect the “educational ideal” he advances to his notion of a “higher type”, but to his understanding of the notion of a Freidenker, which more or less corresponds to Nietzsche’s notion of a Freigeist. Both of these notions obviously refer to the freethinker movement, which was originally conceived of as a form of Christianity that was to be based outside the rigid and formalistic structures of the church. Yet in some instances, particularly in France, this movement was also linked to “atheism” more generally. During the late 19th and early 20th century the freethinker movement in Germany was, however, increasingly linked to the emancipation of the socialist worker movement and its long struggle for recognition. Yet all of these different strands of “freethinking” more or less adhered to the original idea of a radical form of an ethical and philosophical personalism that advocated an individually grounded resistance to the structural powers of conformity embodied in both the church and the state.

226 Lichtblau, Kulturkrise und die Soziologie um die Jahrhundertwende, p. 97. 227 Ibid. 228 Ibid. p. 98. 229 Ibid.

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The fact that Nietzsche does not use the term Freidenker but rather chooses to speak of a Freigeist clearly indicates that he wanted to distance himself from the Christian background of the movement as this meant that it still believed in “ideals”, but not, however, from its radical individualism and its “ethic of distinction”. On this point, Nietzsche is fairly unambiguous for he argues that the: “pathologische Bedingtheit seiner Optik macht aus dem Überzeugten den Fanatiker [...] den Gegensatztypus des starken, des freigewordenen Geistes.”230 As examples of these kinds of “fanatics”, Nietzsche names Luther, Robespierre, Saint-Simon and a few others. Yet Nietzsche makes this separation from the Christian undercurrent of the freethinking movement even stronger when he argues that his attack on David Friedrich Strauß – “den ersten deutschen Freigeist” – brought along an entirely new form of “freethinking”: “In der Tat, eine ganz neue Art Freigeisterei kam damit zum ersten Ausdruck: [...] Ich bin der erste Immoralist.”231 Nietzsche’s form of freethinking is new, because it does not believe in any “ideals” any more as other forms clearly do.232 Nietzsche unequivocally demands and expects that the Freigeist truly frees himself from all forms of “certainty” and “belief”, and that he gains all of his strength from this newly acquired “freedom of his will”: “Wo ein Mensch zu der Grundüberzeugung kommt, daß ihm befohlen werden muß, wird er ‘gläubig’; umgekehrt wäre eine Lust und Kraft der Selbstbestimmung, eine Freiheit des Willens denkbar, bei der ein Geist jedem Glauben, jedem Wunsch nach Gewißheit Abschied gibt, geübt wie er ist, auf leichten Seilen und Möglichkeiten sich halten zu können und selbst an Abgründen noch zu tanzen. Ein solcher Geist wäre der freie Geist par excellence.”233 For Nietzsche then, the true Freigeist has to be willing to assume the heavy burden of being able to think “freely” even about Geist itself and to accept the uncomfortable truths and objections this might convey to him: “Der wahrhaft Freie im Geiste wird auch über den Geist selber frei denken und sich einiges Furchtbare in Hinsicht auf Quelle und Richtung desselben nicht verhehlen. Deshalb werden ihn die anderen vielleicht als den ärgsten Gegner der Freigeisterei bezeichnen und mit dem Schimpfund Schreckwort ‘Pessimist des Intellekts’ belegen.”234 Only a total form of “freedom of the will” as well as a total form of “uninhibited thinking” would,

230 Nietzsche, Der Antichrist, KSA 6, § 54, p. 237. 231 Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, KSA 6, § 2, p. 319. 232 Ibid. 233 Nietzsche, Fröhliche Wissenschaft, KSA 3, § 347, p. 583. 234 Nietzsche, Menschliches, Allzumenschliches II, KSA 2, § 11, pp. 384-385.

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therefore, entail true historical progress in matters of free thinking for Nietzsche, it would entail a true “Fortschritt der Freigeisterei.”235 We have already come to see that, according to Nietzsche, this form of “authenticity”, i.e. a “Kraft der Selbstbestimmung [und, F.S.L.] eine Freiheit des Willens”,236 can only be achieved with a fundamental change in the means and ideals of education, which is why Nietzsche wanted to provide a radical alternative to the existing ways of learning and living from within his philosophy, as the current state of “culture” and “education” has only brought along the decadent means and ways of what he calls the Bildungsphilister (of which David Friedrich Strauß was a “prime example”, as Nietzsche consistently argues). The way in which Tönnies thinks about these matters is, as we will come to see, not very different from Nietzsche’s position. It is clear that Tönnies spent much of the time between 1911 and 1915 contemplating questions regarding “culture” and “education” as well as questions regarding the validity and influence of the social sciences and social research more generally. His writings from this period are much less “rein wissenschaftlich-systematische Arbeiten” and it is, therefore, not surprising that Tönnies “eher als Essayist [überzeugt, F.S.L.]”,237 as Arno Mohr emphasises. Tönnies mainly contemplates his alternative to established “educational ideals” and his understanding of the term Freidenker in two short articles published before World War I. These articles are: “Akademie der Zukunft”, written in 1911,238 and “Eine Freidenker Hochschule”, written in 1914.239 Both titles bear some resemblance to Nietzsche’s collection of six lectures, delivered in 1872 under the heading of “Über die Zukunft unserer Bildungsanstalten”, where Nietzsche moves away from interpreting the sociocultural development of ancient Greece, and turns instead to the evaluation of the moral worth of this interpretation and its specific relevance for modern education.240 In his lectures Nietzsche consistently points to the fateful connection between “education”, “culture” and the “modern state” which controls and shapes them to maintain its own power and to serve its best interests. Nietzsche believes that this tendency manifests itself in two seemingly contradictory characteristics of the state of modern education: 235 Ibid. § 4, p. 382. 236 Nietzsche, Fröhliche Wissenschaft, KSA 3, § 347, p. 583. 237 Mohr, “Vorwort”, in Tönnies, Gesamtausgabe: TG. Band 9 – 1911–1915, pp. xvii-xviii. 238 Tönnies, “Akademie der Zukunft”, in Ferdinand Tönnies, Gesamtausgabe: TG. Band 9 – 1911–1915, pp. 160-162. 239 Tönnies, “Eine Freidenker Hochschule”, in Ibid. pp. 492-496. 240 Nietzsche, “Über die Zukunft unserer Bildungsanstalten”, in Nietzsche, Geburt der Tragödie, KSA 1, pp. 641-752.

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“Einmal der Trieb nach möglichster Erweiterung und Verbreitung der Bildung, dann der Trieb nach Verringerung und Abschwächung der Bildung selbst. Die Bildung soll aus verschiedenen Gründen in die weitesten Kreise getragen werden – das verlangt die eine Tendenz. Die andere mutet dagegen der Bildung selbst zu, ihre höchsten edelsten und erhabensten Ansprüche aufzugeben und sich im Dienste irgendeiner anderen Lebensform, etwa des Staates zu bescheiden.” 241

In relation to the first characteristic of modern education – the widening of education to the general public – Nietzsche argues that the “educational ideal” of modern society is intrinsically linked with and suited to the: “herandrängende Menge der Lernenden”,242 which, however, is only interested in the use-value of education. Education, therefore, loses its status as a privilege for the few and becomes a “common place” for the many: “Man demokratisiert die Rechte des Genius”.243 And in relation to the second characteristic of modern education – the devaluing and watering down of education – Nietzsche argues that as a result of the modern “educational ideal” which is suited to the masses and their interest in the use-value of education, “classical education”, i.e. an education that arouses a: “Sehnsucht [...] nach Griechenland”,244 is sacrificed for the sake of an “education in the sciences”, which only helps to perpetuate the legal-rational structures of state and society, as it is even financially exploitable: “Hier haben wir den Nutzen als Ziel und zum Zweck der Bildung, noch genauer den Erwerb, den möglichst großen Geldgewinn.”245 But if “classical education” is sacrificed for the sake of an “education in the sciences”, then the true “goal” of education is also sacrificed in the process, because “scientific man” is an entirely different species than “educated man”, as Nietzsche consistently argues: “Und wer die ‘Bildung zur Wissenschaft’ als das Ziel des Gymnasiums aufstellt, gibt damit die ‘klassische Bildung’ und die sogenannte formale Bildung, überhaupt das ganze Bildungsziel des Gymnasiums preis; denn der wissenschaftliche Mensch und der gebildete Mensch gehören zwei verschiedenen Sphären an, die hier und da sich in einem Individuum berühren, nie aber miteinander zusammenfallen.” 246

Yet this sacrifice of “classical education” for the sake of an “education in the sciences”, is a terrible loss for Nietzsche, as for him the main goal of modern edu241 Ibid. p. 667. 242 Ibid. p. 666. 243 Ibid. 244 Ibid. p. 686. 245 Ibid. p. 667. 246 Ibid. p. 683.

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cation can only be to reinstate a “Gefühl für das Klassisch-Hellenische” which is clearly the result “des angestrengtesten Bildungskampfes” of the exceptional individual, who is able to truly uncover his “künstlerische Begabung” in the process.247 This can only be achieved if education is free from obligations to the state and does not have to serve any form of use-value, but is only concerned with the education and “production of true human beings and nothing else”.248 This also entails a proper instruction in “classical education” of which modern educational institutions seem incapable, because: “was mit einem landläufigen und nicht beanstandeten Euphemismus jetzt als ‘klassische Bildung’ bezeichnet wird, [hat, F.S.L.] eben nur den Wert einer anspruchsvollen Illusion”.249 Yet a proper instruction in “classical education” can only be achieved, Nietzsche argues, by the teachings and supervision of a “philosopher”, who teaches a lesson in “freethinking” and “individuality”, and not by our “educational institutions”, which only teach a lesson in “submission” and “conformity”. For Nietzsche, the result of this kind of “renewed classical education” would clearly be a true Freigeist, whose life is based on a “freedom of the will” as well as on a total form of “uninhibited”, creative and free thinking. In his reflections on “Eine Freidenker Hochschule”, written shortly before the outbreak of World War I, Tönnies also points to the fateful connection between “education”, “culture” and the “modern state” which controls and shapes them. He particularly accuses the German university system of failing to foster and encourage free and uninhibited thinking, as well as of failing to advocate a: “Wahrhaftigkeit und Unabhängigkeit in Angelegenheiten des Gewissens”.250 In this context Tönnies voices, like Nietzsche has done before him, almost “timeless” questions regarding education: “Sind nicht die Universitäten innig verwachsen mit der offiziellen Politik, mit den Gesinnungen der herrschenden Kreise [...]?”251 The solution to this problem for Tönnies, lies with what he playfully calls the establishment of a: “Freidenker Hochschule, [einer, F.S.L.] Zentralstelle für Aufklärung [also, F.S.L.]”, which will encourage free and uninhibited thinking and which will: “aussprechen, darstellen, lehren was ist, sie wird die Konsequenzen des wissenschaftlichen, philosophischen Bewußtseins rücksichtslos ziehen. Sie wird als eine moralische,

247 Ibid. p. 687. 248 Nietzsche, Unzeitgemäße Betrachtungen III, KSA 1, § 6, p. 387. 249 Nietzsche, “Über die Zukunft unserer Bildungsanstalten”, p. 693. 250 Tönnies, “Eine Freidenker Hochschule”, p. 494. 251 Ibid. p. 495.

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reinigende Macht wirken.”252 Similar to Nietzsche, Tönnies proves to be very naive as to what an “institution” like this could achieve, but this has to be seen in relation to his conviction that the influence of the social sciences and social research more generally will have a profound effect on the shaping and reshaping of modern culture, as he was convinced that the: “kultur- oder sozialwissenschaftliche Entwicklung für das Schicksal dieser Kultur eine steigende und zuletzt grenzenlose Bedeutung haben werde und müsse.”253 This is also why Tönnies propagates an “Aristokratie des Geistes und der ethischen Gesinnung” as the only way to counterbalance the apparent degeneration of both “civilisation” and “society”, i.e. as the only way: “unsere Zivilisation vor der ferneren Amerikanisierung, unsere Gesellschaft vor der Zerrüttung zu bewahren und zu retten.”254 Tönnies does not define his notion of an “Aristokratie des Geistes”255 in much detail and it is not clear whether it simply is a refinement of his earlier notion of a “higher type”, but it seems clear, however, that he means a form of “ethical personalism” and a “spiritual worldview” which, according to Arno Mohr, “in der Begründung und Beachtung ethischer Regeln eine zumindest geistige Vervollkommnung menschlicher Existenz anzustreben [versucht, F.S.L.].”256 But even if Tönnies’ notion of an “Aristokratie des Geistes”257 essentially sounds very Nietzschean, there is a decisive difference to Nietzsche’s position, because for Tönnies this radical form of “aristocratic freethinking” is to emerge: “aus den Tiefen des Volkslebens”,258 a position which Nietzsche would definitely not share. In fact, Nietzsche relates his understanding of the term “Aristokraten des Geistes”259 specifically to a group of exceptional human beings who exceed the common goals of the ordinary “productive types” characteristic of modern society. Nietzsche summarises his views as follows: “Die geborenen Aristokraten des Geistes sind nicht zu eifrig; ihre Schöpfungen erscheinen und fallen an einem ruhigen Herbstabend vom Baume, ohne hastig begehrt, gefördert, durch Neues verdrängt zu werden. Das unablässige Schaffen252 Ibid. 253 Tönnies, “Akademie der Zukunft”, p. 162. 254 Tönnies, “Deutscher Adel im neunzehnten Jahrhundert” (1912), in Tönnies, Gesamtausgabe: TG. Band 9 – 1911–1915, p. 286. 255 Ibid. 256 Mohr, “Vorwort”, in Tönnies, Gesamtausgabe: TG. Band 9 – 1911–1915, p. xviii. 257 Tönnies, “Deutscher Adel im neunzehnten Jahrhundert”, p. 286. 258 Ibid. 259 Nietzsche, Menschliches, Allzumenschliches I, KSA 2, § 210, p. 172.

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wollen ist gemein und zeigt Eifersucht, Neid, Ehrgeiz an. Wenn man Etwas ist, so braucht man eigentlich Nichts zu machen, – man tut doch sehr viel. Es gibt über dem ‘produktiven’ Menschen noch eine höhere Gattung.” 260

But a fairly similar view about the “rightful education of mankind” is also expressed in Tönnies’ essay on the “Akademie der Zukunft”, where he argues for the establishment of independent and well financed research institutes in order to ensure the well founded analysis of the: “Tatsachen des gesellschaftlichen und staatlichen Lebens”.261 Tönnies strongly believes that: “der echte Forscher [...] ein echter Denker sein [muß, F.S.L.]”, because then he will truly embody all features of great “art” and of a great “artist”, “jener Kunst, in der die Wissenschaft in Philosophie übergeht.”262 This understanding of “art, science and philosophy” is very close to Nietzsche’s interpretation of these notions in the Geburt der Tragödie, which we have discussed in previous sections of this chapter. But his view becomes even more Nietzschean, when Tönnies proposes that research and teaching should be separated so that the scientist can develop his full personal and professional potential, and that only when he has “fully matured”, is the scientist to have worthy “followers”: “Und doch kann er seine Kunst lehrend mitteilen: als ein Meister, nicht als ein Lehrer; Jünger wird er neben sich wachsen lassen, die von seinem Geiste sich nähren, nicht Schüler mit Stoffen, die aus anderem Geiste entsprossen sind, füttern.”263 Is it not Nietzsche’s Zarathustra who lurks in the back of this vision of the “Meister” and his faithful group of “Jünger”? Could this be Zarathustra’s final “descent”, this time into the realm of “art, science and philosophy”? If it indeed is Zarathustra or a similar “educator”, what then is his new role for mankind going to be like? Particularly if his original plan of teaching the ideal of the Übermensch has failed to leave its decisive mark? For Tönnies this role is clear, as he believes that the synthesis of “Forscher” and “Denker”, i.e. a truly creative and freethinking “artist” of the mind, is: “denkend, forschend, Vorbild stiftend [fähig, F.S.L.] das neue Menschheitsgewissen konstruieren [zu, F.S.L.] helfen.”264 Here Nietzsche’s philosophy clearly enters Tönnies’ writings again, but only in the disguised form of a hidden or implicit dialogue between Tönnies and Nietzsche on the “rightful education of mankind”, which is not yet

260 Ibid. 261 Tönnies, “Akademie der Zukunft”, p. 161. 262 Ibid. p. 160. 263 Ibid. pp. 160-161. 264 Ibid. p. 162.

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present in his critical assessment of Nietzsche’s philosophy a decade or so earlier. Then Tönnies was, of course, primarily concerned with drawing a visible line between his sociology and Nietzsche’s philosophy. As a result of our discussion of Tönnies’ critique of the Übermensch, I would tend to argee with Häußling who essentially argues that it was particularly due to Nietzsche’s notion of the Übermensch that the eminent German sociologist Ferdinand Tönnies, who was one of the discipline’s “founding fathers”, had problems in coming to terms with his philosophy. It is not, however, as Häußling consistently argues “early German sociology” in general, that had problems in coming to terms with Nietzsche’s philosophy because of his notion of the Übermensch, but mainly Ferdinand Tönnies. Moreover, Häußling clearly fails to recognise that Tönnies advances a very similar “educational ideal” to Nietzsche’s, which is based on his understanding of the notion of a Freidenker and roughly corresponds to Nietzsche’s notion of a true Freigeist. Both of these notions are not religious in character, but are rather based on what could be referred to as an “ethical personalism” or an “ethic of distinction”. Contrary to the position advanced by Häußling, we will in the following chapters of this book also come to see, that Rosa Mayreder and Alfred Weber were in fact much less alarmed by Nietzsche’s notion of the Übermensch than Tönnies was. Quite the contrary is true, since in many ways they clearly tried to develop Nietzsche’s notion of the Übermensch into the image of a “self-determining personality” who holds and utilises the capacity to create his own destiny and who thereby also makes and determines history.

Chapter VII Rosa Mayreder’s response to Nietzsche’s philosophy

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Chapter VII Rosa Mayreder’s response to Nietzsche’s philosophy 1) Rosa Mayreder and Nietzsche in dialogue Today the work of the Austrian writer, women’s rights activist and social thinker Rosa Mayreder (1858–1938), who was born in Vienna, is largely forgotten, at least by researchers in social studies.1 This is an astonishing development, because when the Sociological Association of Vienna was initiated by Rudolf Goldscheid and others in 1907, Mayreder became a founding member and the only woman involved. Moreover, she published widely on social issues like the women’s movement and public health and was in many ways the “pioneer of Austrian feminism”.2 In her writings Mayreder was surprisingly appreciative of the work of Nietzsche. She read his books with great interest and cultivated a life-long admiration for him, which is reflected in many of her major publications where she either explicitly or implicitly refers to Nietzsche’s writings. In a short autobiographical reflection on her personal “discovery” of and “experience” with Nietzsche’s philosophy in an intellectual shift she made from Wagner to the philosopher, she calls this experience a “Jugenderlebnis.”3 It is an almost melancholic reflection on the formative intellectual influences of her youth.

1 There is a somewhat strange consolation to be derived from the fact that Mayreder became the image on the 500 Schilling note in 1992 when Austria issued new bank notes (which has, of course, been rendered obsolete by the introduction of the Euro). This commemoration was largely due to the Mayreder Renaissance in Austria that had been brought about by the pioneering work of Harriet Anderson and Hanna Bubeniček, who had “rediscovered” Mayreder in the mid eighties. Harriet Anderson, Utopian Feminism: Women’s Movements in fin-de-siècle Vienna (1992); Anderson, Beyond a critique of Femininity. The thought of Rosa Mayreder – 1858–1938 (1985); Hanna Bubeniček (ed.), Rosa Mayreder oder Wider die Tyrannei der Norm (1986). This recognition culminated in an exhibition at the Historische Museum der Stadt Wien in 1989 with the title: Aufbruch in das Jahrhundert der Frau? Rosa Mayreder und der Feminismus in Wien um 1900, 125. Sonderausstellung des Historischen Museums der Stadt Wien. Katalog zur Ausstellung (Wien: Historisches Museum der Stadt Wien, 1989). 2 Mary-Ann Reiss, “Rosa Mayreder: Pioneer of Austrian Feminism”, in International Journal of Women’s Studies, 7:3 (First edition published in London, 1984), pp. 207-216. 3 Rosa Mayreder, “Von Wagner zu Nietzsche. Ein Jugenderlebnis”, in Die Glocke. Wiener Blätter für Kunst und geistiges Leben. 2:23/24 (First edition published in Vienna, 1936), pp. 8-15.

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Mayreder was, nonetheless, very critical of the excesses of the emerging cult around Nietzsche’s philosophy, but she did not hold that cult against Nietzsche and his philosophy, but rather against the petty bourgeois clientele that forged this cult to give some deeper meaning to their mundane lives. Hence she criticised the emergence of what she calls the “Klub der Übermenschen” and the strong pathos that surrounded it, in a short story, published in 1897, in a volume that bears the telling title Übergänge – i.e. “transitions”.4 Mayreder’s concern was the sociocultural process at work behind the formation of gender roles. In her books Zur Kritik der Weiblichkeit (1907) and Geschlecht und Kultur (1923) Mayreder developed a gendered distinction between “culture” and “civilisation”, where “culture” had lost its constitutive feminine elements due to the dominance and preponderance of patriarchal “civilisation”.5 The processes she was mainly concerned with were the forces that had led to the rift between “culture” and modern patriarchal “civilisation”, which had finally been ripped apart from each other by the catastrophe of the First World War, but which had been undergoing a process of disintegration and separation long before 1914. However, her gendered critique of “culture” and “civilisation” is not only indebted to the wider debate and use of the “culture vs. civilisation” dichotomy, which was, historically speaking, a decisive element of the intellectual debates in fin-de-siècle Germany and Austria with wide-ranging sociopolitical as well as sociocultural consequences (which we have already discussed in section 2.3 of Chapter 5); it is also strongly linked with Nietzsche’s more specific critique of modern culture which advocated culture as a prophylaxis against the “decadent” and “nihilistic” spirit of the times. But in Chapter 5 we have, of course, also learned that Nietzsche, for example, argues that “civilisation” essentially “wants” something entirely different than “culture”, maybe even the exact opposite and hence posed “Kultur contra Zivilisation.”6 As we will come to see, Mayreder holds a similarly simplistic black-and-white image of the conflict between “culture” and “civilisation”, but in addition she extends Nietzsche’s analysis of “culture” as a prophylaxis against the “decadent” and “nihilistic” spirit of the times with a “gender” dimension. Nietzsche also establishes a link between “gender” and “culture” in his writings, but it is not a central element of his critique of “culture”, as it clearly is for Mayreder. In my opinion it is no coincidence that Nietzsche’s ambiguous writings on the subject of gender relationships and particularly his writings on women, which are 4 Mayreder, “Klub der Übermenschen”, in Bubeniček (ed.), Wider die Tyrannei der Norm, pp. 157-186. 5 Mayreder, Zur Kritik der Weiblichkeit: Essays (Jena/Leipzig: Eugen Diederichs Verlag, 1907); Mayreder, Geschlecht und Kultur: Essays (Jena/Leipzig: Eugen Diederichs Verlag, 1923). 6 Nietzsche, Werke und Briefe III, p. 837.

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so ambivalent and multi-layered in their approach to the subject, did not shatter Mayreder’s continued appreciation of the philosopher’s writings. Nietzsche’s comments on women, nonetheless, won him almost contradictory attributes among his critics, ranging from “Nietzsche the misogynist” to “Nietzsche the postmodern feminist”.7 Interestingly Mayreder did not see Nietzsche’s work in this light. On the contrary, Nietzsche’s views only seemed to have reaffirmed Mayreder’s appreciation of and interest in his work or – if that seems too strong an argument – she at least met them with a benevolent neutrality or even turned a blind eye to them. When she actually quotes Nietzsche in the context of her discussion of 19th century views on women in her book Zur Kritik der Weiblichkeit (1907), he almost always seems to be a positive point of reference for her, while other thinkers like Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) and Otto Weininger (1880–1903) are more clearly and openly rejected on the grounds of their arguments about women.8 I tend to explain this somewhat strange and selective attitude with the help of Mayreder’s substantial dept to Nietzsche’s positions, that characterises many of her major theories. Particularly her preference for the “exceptional individual” (be it male or female) that steps out of “dem Geleise des Herkömmlichen”,9 and thereby gives rise to a “persönliche Schicksalstiefe”10 of his or her sufferings, as well as of his or her more happy moments, is a direct reflection of her readings of Nietzsche and his extreme individualism, epitomised by the notion of the Übermensch. Moreover, the particular strength of Nietzsche’s critique of “culture” was clearly very influential on Mayreder. In this chapter we will, therefore, in the main consider the striking parallels between certain aspects of Nietzsche’s and Mayreder’s respective cultural critiques. From this position Mayreder, therefore, also develops her notion of a “higher humanity” and the new cultural achievements to be ascertained through the active engagement of women in the civilisatory process of her hitherto predominantly male oriented society. All of these criticisms clearly result from her read-

7 For an account of the different, often contradictory readings of Nietzsche’s image of women, see: Kelly Oliver and Marilyn Pearsall (eds.), Feminist Interpretations of Friedrich Nietzsche (Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998); Carol Diethe, Vergiß die Peitsche. Nietzsche und die Frauen (Hamburg: Europa Verlag, 2000); Heide Schlüpmann, “Zur Frage der Nietzsche-Rezeption in der Frauenbewegung gestern und heute”, in Sigrid Bauschinger, Susan L. Cocalis and Sara Lennox (eds.), Nietzsche heute: Die Rezeption seines Werkes nach 1968 (Bern/Stuttgart: Frankke Verlag, 1988). 8 Schopenhauer and Weininger had, of course, provided notoriously negative contributions to the gender debate. Arthur Schopenhauer, “Über die Weiber”, in Parerga und Paralipomena, vol. 2 (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1986), pp. 719-735. Otto Weininger, Geschlecht und Charakter (München: Matthes und Seitz Verlag, 1980). 9 Mayreder, Zur Kritik der Weiblichkeit, p. 4. 10 Ibid.

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ing of Nietzsche. Yet in her later writings – written in the late 1920’s – on the (very Nietzschean) topics of “ascetic ideals”, “love” and “marriage” – recently republished in a single volume entitled Askese und Erotik – Mayreder becomes a bit more critical of Nietzsche’s comments on the subjects she discusses, but does not abandon her overall appreciation of his philosophy.11 It remains central to her arguments, particularly as far as they concern the sociocultural history and development of “ascetic ideals”. Mayreder’s appreciation of Nietzsche went so far that Hanna Bubeniček, her Austrian commentator, justly called her a “Nietzscheanerin”12 in her introductory “Impressionen zu Rosa Mayreder” which clearly shows that her work was by no means untouched by her reading of Nietzsche.13 To establish an argumentative foundation for Bubeniček’s claim will be the major aim of this chapter. The chapter starts with an assessment of Mayreder’s discovery of Wagner and Nietzsche to summarise the formative intellectual experiences of her youth. I then turn to Mayreder’s dismissal of the Nietzsche cult, which leads on to an attempt to put Mayreder’s opposition to socially constructed gender roles in perspective by analysing and evaluating her gendered critique of society as essentially being based on her (1) views regarding (female) culture and (male) civilisation as well as (2) ascetic ideals and eroticism. It should be noted right from the start, however, that Mayreder’s critique of “culture” and “civilisation” is not confined to her theoretical texts: It also – and as I believe – crucially found expression in the formation of her fundamental intellectual positions that draw significantly on both Richard Wagner’s and Friedrich Nietzsche’s writings. This influence was a conscious choice by Mayreder. Moreover, her cultural criticism is also expressed by Mayreder in her fictional stories, particularly in her short story “Klub der Übermenschen”, where she defends her own world-view against its exploitation by a band-wagon of looting cultural philistines that seem to threaten and ridicule the very foundation of her own cultural critique: Nietzscheanism.

2) Rosa Mayreder’s discovery of Wagner and Nietzsche In this section I outline when and how Mayreder became acquainted with Wagner’s and later also with Nietzsche’s work and how her intellectual shift from the former to the latter thinker became the decisive influence on the for-

11 Mayreder, Askese und Erotik – Ideen der Liebe – Krise der Ehe (Dornach: Verlag am Goetheanum, 2001). 12 Bubeniček, “Impressionen zu Rosa Mayreder”, in Bubeniček (ed.), Wider die Tyrannei der Norm, pp. 20+21. 13 Ibid. pp. 9-26.

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mation of her fundamental intellectual positions which dominate both her fictional and theoretical texts. Harriet Anderson argues that Mayreder’s first intensive phase of reading Nietzsche’s writings – along with her study of Wagner and Schopenhauer (“Beschäftigung mit Wagner, Schopenhauer und Nietzsche”)14 – falls into the period between 1874–1881. Apparently the order of this Beschäftigung with the two authors and the musician is significant, as Mayreder herself refers to this episode in an autobiographical reflection on the subject as a move from Wagner to Nietzsche, and calls this formative process a “youth experience”: “Von Wagner zu Nietzsche. Ein Jugenderlebnis.”15 Mayreder was, therefore, only sixteen when she first encountered the potent Dreigestirn of German intellectual life in the late 19th century. These three main representatives of German intellectual diversity in the late 19th century seem to have had a lasting influence on Mayreder’s life and thought. The reasons for this influence are fairly obvious: Initially Mayreder appeared to have cherished Wagner for his critique of Christianity which he had provided in his writings on Die Kunst und die Revolution of 1849 as well as other theoretical texts from around that period, which Mayreder “read with enthusiasm and approval”,16 but when the composer “returned” to Christianity in his later writings under the influence of Schopenhauer’s philosophy, she became disillusioned with him and turned to Nietzsche’s writings instead. Along with Kant and Goethe, these three thinkers seem to have been her major intellectual influences as Anderson consistently emphasises: “Zu dieser Zeit vertiefte sie sich vor allem in die Schriften Richard Wagners, ein Leseerlebnis, das eine bleibende Wirkung auf ihr Leben und Denken zeitigen sollte. Wagners spätere Wendung zum Mystizismus und seine Erlösungsidee stießen sie jedoch ab, und so wandte sie sich, unter der geistigen Führung Ecksteins [a philosopher friend and mentor of Mayreder, F.S.L.], Schopenhauer und Nietzsche zu. Zusammen mit Goethe und Kant waren es diese drei Denker, die den wichtigsten Einfluß auf sie haben sollten.” 17

In order to understand her shift away from Wagner, one must remember the development of the composer’s thought. Initially Wagner accused Christianity of estranging mankind from its true being by sowing the seeds of a double-dealing morality as well as a desire for an after-life. Moreover, Wagner

14 Harriet Anderson (ed.), Rosa Mayreder: Tagebücher 1873–1937 (Frankfurt: Insel Verlag, 1988), p. 317. 15 Mayreder, “Von Wagner zu Nietzsche. Ein Jugenderlebnis”, pp. 8-15. 16 Anderson, Beyond a critique of Femininity, p. 19. 17 Anderson, “Einleitung”, in Anderson (ed.), Rosa Mayreder: Tagebücher, p. 16.

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held that Christianity was essentially hostile to life and art, and had, therefore, departed strongly from the true essence of humanity which had still flourished in the pre-Christian era of Greek antiquity where “culture”, “life” and “art” were essentially one.

2.1) Rosa Mayreder, Wagner and Christianity Wagner consistently repeats these points in some of his major early writings, so for example in Oper und Drama of 1852 where he argues that Christianity has estranged man from himself: “Im christlichen Mythos war das, worauf der Grieche alle äußeren Erscheinungen bezog und was er daher zum sicher gestalteten Vereinigungspunkt aller Natur- und Weltanschauungen gemacht hatte – der Mensch, das von vornherein Unbegreifliche, sich selbst Fremde geworden.”18 Later on he argues against the Christian church as cultivating an essence that was in the last instance nothing but death itself; hence it was also hostile to life as well as to art, since art embodied both a creative and consequently also a live-giving capacity: “Auch die christliche Kirche hatte nach Einheit gerungen: alle Kundgebungen des Lebens sollten in sie, als den Mittelpunkt des Lebens, auslaufen. Sie war aber nicht ein Mittelpunkt, sondern ein Endpunkt des Lebens, denn das Geheimnis des wahrsten christlichen Lebens war der Tod.”19 It is precisely here where Wagner connects the Christian essence – i.e. death – with its inherent hostility to the sphere of art: “Dieses Sterben, und die Sehnsucht nach ihm, ist der einzige wahre Inhalt der aus dem christlichen Mythos hervorgegangenen Kunst: er äußert sich als Scheu, Ekel und Flucht vor dem wirklichen Leben, und als Verlangen nach dem Tode.”20 Mayreder was very much impressed by Wagner’s refutation of Christianity on the basis of its hostility to “life” and “art”. His viewpoints quite clearly foreshadow the arguments which Nietzsche will later make on the same subject, and, therefore, help to understand what Mayreder will regard as a continuation of Wagner’s early thoughts in Nietzsche’s philosophy later on. They also help to explain Nietzsche’s initially enthusiastic appreciation of the versatile composer. Contrary to Wagner, however, Nietzsche never wavers on this point: his critique of Christianity is entirely consistent. With regards to Mayreder’s appreciation of Wagner Anderson argues that: “Wagner’s claim that Christianity had severed man from his true being and raised him in hypocrisy correspond with

18 Wagner, Oper und Drama, p. 165. 19 Ibid. pp. 174-175. 20 Ibid. p. 167.

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Rosa’s own rejection of Christianity’s dualism.”21 Mayreder interpreted Christianity’s dualism as its tendency to downgrade the value and meaning of man’s life on earth in order to fix all his strivings onto an imagined after-life (this view will again be important in section 4.3 for our understanding of Mayreder’s notion of “asceticism”). This dualism does not at all agree with her own tendency – as Mayreder sees it – to advocate the improvement of our life here and now as the main goal of humanity.22 In her reflections on the intellectual shift from Wagner to Nietzsche, she elaborates on this point, when she says that it particularly was the inherent tendency embedded in Christianity to put “death” before “life” which finally alienated her: “Seine Tendenz das Erdenleben herabzusetzen, um das Streben des Menschen auf das Jenseits zu lenken, vertrug sich nicht mit der Aufgabe, die mir als die wichtigste des Menschen erschien: das Diesseits zu höherer Vollkommenheit zu bringen.”23 Mayreder had found this very interpretation of Christianity’s influence in Wagner’s early work as well, for on the 8th of January 1906 she confided to her diary that: “Richard Wagner hat mit den Schriften seiner ersten Periode die besten Instinkte meines Wesens bestätigt. Er hat formuliert, was unklar in meiner Tiefe lag. Daher seine ungeheure Wirkung auf mich.”24 It is interesting to note the obvious parallels in Mayreder’s and Nietzsche’s admiration for Wagner, as well as the parallels in their reasons for their later break with the composer and the influence Wagner had had on them. Interesting in this respect is that Nietzsche found yet another important reason to break with Wagner: his open anti-Semitism. Although Mayreder was of Jewish origin, but Catholic in upbringing, this seemed to have been less significant to her than Wagner’s Christian mysticism. But overall, Mayreder’s break with Wagner’s philosophy came relatively late and was – like Nietzsche’s – not a complete one. To emphasise this important point again: It is clear from the passages quoted above from Wagner’s book Oper und Drama that his thoughts were very close to the views which Nietzsche was to express 25 years later, which is why Mayreder so easily took a liking to the latter’s philosophy later on. It was – as we have briefly seen already – Wagner’s turn to Christian mysticism and religious salvation that made Mayreder change her mind about him. It was mainly Julius Mayreder, the brother of her husband Karl, with whom she particu21 Anderson, Beyond a critique of Femininity, p. 19. 22 This view corresponds to her highly Nietzschean notion or – to be more precise – her highly Nietzschean “ideal” of a “higher humanity”, which I will elaborate upon in a later section of this chapter. 23 Mayreder, “Von Wagner zu Nietzsche. Ein Jugenderlebnis”, p. 8. 24 Quoted from: Anderson, Beyond a critique of Femininity, p. 20.

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larly shared her approval for Wagner. This was true until Julius mentioned that: “the ‘master’ was preparing a work (Parsifal) in which Christianity, far from being hostile to art as a celebration of life on this earth, was seen to be man’s spiritual saviour, an (as she saw it) obvious contradiction to Wagner’s earlier position.”25 Mayreder then also turned to other writings of Wagner, particularly his book Über Staat und Religion (1864) to look for answers to this apparent contradiction, only to find further questions. One of them was the new dimension of Schopenhauerian pessimism and negation which had entered his work. Schopenhauer, Anderson argues, was then unknown to Mayreder and so she could not understand the apparent shift inherent in Wagner’s new position to an open appraisal of the: “Christian creed of selfsacrifice and renunciation”.26 Even when her friend Eckstein introduced her to Schopenhauer’s philosophy: “this failed to answer Rosa’s questions and his philosophy of negation filled her with disgust.”27 Still the influence of Schopenhauer’s extreme position or the vivid impression it left her with, remained strong on Mayreder until her reading of Nietzsche finally “freed her from his influence”.28 Nonetheless, Mayreder was so confused that on the 16th of May 1882 she even decided to write a letter to Wagner asking him for a clarification of the issue: “a request which, however, was not fulfilled.”29

2.2) Rosa Mayreder, Nietzsche and Christianity It was again her friend Eckstein who, a few years later, introduced her to Nietzsche’s Der Fall Wagner (1888), which appeared to hold the key to an understanding of Wagner’s intellectual development and to Schopenhauer’s pessimism. In any case it clearly marked a new intellectual dawn for Mayreder. These were the formative years of her ideas, and it is important to note that while she abandoned Wagner – largely because of his turn to mysticism in his later writings and his idea of spiritual salvation (particularly expressed in his opera Parsifal) – she enthusiastically turned to Nietzsche. It is within Nietzsche’s philosophy that she found the continuation and further development of Wagner’s critique of Christianity, which had – so she thought – been so close to her own rejection of the issue. In Nietzsche, however, Mayreder found a fierce critic of morality

25 Ibid. p. 19. 26 Ibid. 27 Ibid. 28 Mayreder, “Von Wagner zu Nietzsche. Ein Jugenderlebnis”, p. 14. 29 Anderson, Beyond a critique of Femininity, p. 19.

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who ruthlessly attacked the insincerity that morality has produced and who even believed that his criticism would eventually help to render morality obsolete. Nietzsche – like Mayreder herself – also seemed to advocate the improvement of our life here and now as the main goal of humanity, rather than to superstitiously wait for an after-life for which there was no basis in rational thought and consequently no logical justification. To understand Mayreder’s appreciation of Nietzsche and the link to Wagner’s early writings which she established, it is important to briefly look at Nietzsche’s position regarding nihilism. This is all the more necessary as his position also clearly influences Mayreder’s later writings. For Nietzsche the modern world faces a crisis. It has been brewing for a long time, having its origins ultimately in Socratic and Platonic philosophy, as well as Christianity. The most immediate manifestation of this crisis is what Nietzsche calls: “den Tod Gottes”,30 or the general phenomenon he calls nihilism. By these terms he means the state in which humans continue to look for a principle of moral authority, while making it and its coming impossible to attain. Nietzsche had coined his diagnostic term nihilism to describe the development which his abendländische Gegenwart was very likely to take unless “all values were to be reevaluated” as part of a positive “Gegenbewegung”31 against the apparent trend of cultural decline. Describing his programme of diagnosis entitled “Nihilism and the Fate of European Culture”, Nietzsche writes: “Unsere ganze europäische Kultur bewegt sich seit langem schon mit einer Tortur der Spannung, die von Jahrzehnt zu Jahrzehnt wächst, wie auf eine Katastrophe los: unruhig, gewaltsam, überstürzt: wie ein Strom, der ans Ende will, der sich nicht mehr besinnt, der Furcht davor hat, sich zu besinnen.” 32

In line with my characterisation of Nietzsche’s term “nihilism” as a programme of diagnosis, I entirely agree with the brief, but punchy statement by Wilhelm Weischedel, who argues that there are at least three different, but closely interlocked dimensions to “nihilism”: “Nihilismus bedeutet also zum ersten: Es ist nichts mit der Wahrheit. [...] Nihilismus bedeutet zum zweiten: Es ist nichts mit der Moral. [...] Nihilismus heißt zum dritten: Es ist nichts mit der Religion.”33 In the first instance nihilism, therefore, means that there is no absolute truth and that consequently humanity does not have the capability to search

30 See for example: Nietzsche, Also sprach Zarathustra, KSA 4, “Zarathustras Vorrede”. 31 Nietzsche, Der Wille zur Macht, “Vorrede”, § 4, p. 4. 32 Ibid. § 2, p. 3. 33 Weischedel, “Nietzsche oder Macht und Ohnmacht des Nihilismus”, in Weischedel, Die Philosophische Hintertreppe, pp. 261f.

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for absolute truth.34 What remains as the only certainty is the view that every accepted belief and every accepted truth is necessarily false. The best that can be said about any established belief is that it is only one among a seemingly infinite number of perspectives. In the second instance nihilism means that there is nothing to be gained from adopting the morals that dominate modern society, for there is no justifiable basis for them. They are nothing more than empty shells, as they propose an ethical structure which is not matched by the actions of those who demand morality as the basis for their social lives.35 This is the most apparent feature of nihilism. Hence nihilism will help to overthrow all moral conventions, because they have turned themselves against life; they have become a Widernatur. Consequently, life and nature itself will turn against moral conventions for the sake of truthfulness and Natürlichkeit. It is a truthfulness that is concerned with the: “Vernatürlichung des Menschen”,36 and it is one which readily accepts that mankind and nature are essentially “unmoralisch”,37 as Nietzsche says. In the third instance nihilism means that there is nothing to be gained from religion. In consequence of his nihilistic world-view Nietzsche comes to reject Christianity entirely. Christianity undermined itself right from the start as it is hostile to life and is, therefore, obviously essentially nihilistic, as this hostility to life is what “nihilism” is essentially concerned with.38 The ultimate collapse of Christianity is thus already inherent in its structures: “Alle großen Dinge gehen durch sich selbst zu Grunde, durch einen Akt der Selbstaufhebung: so will es das Gesetz des Lebens”.39 Its downfall will come out of its self-incurred instinct for absolute truthfulness and an absolute authority in moral questions: “das Christentum als Dogma [geht, F.S.L.] an seiner eigenen Moral [zugrunde, F.S.L.]”.40 Moreover, the collapse of religion will reveal what it always was: simply a human made product invented for the general domestication of mankind. This is also why Nietzsche said: “Christentum ist Platonismus fürs ‘Volk’.”41 This state of affairs will dominate, Nietzsche says, the 34 Ibid. 35 Ibid. 36 Nietzsche, Nachlaß 1885–1887, KSA 12, Herbst 1887 10 [53], “Die Vernatürlichung des Menschen im 19. Jahrhundert”, p. 482. 37 Ibid. 38 Weischedel, “Nietzsche oder Macht und Ohnmacht des Nihilismus”, pp. 261f. 39 Nietzsche, Genealogie der Moral, KSA 5, § 27, p. 410. 40 Ibid. 41 Nietzsche, Jenseits von Gut und Böse, KSA 5, “Vorrede”, p. 12. There is an obvious similarity to the

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next two hundred years: “Was ich erzähle, ist die Geschichte der nächsten zwei Jahrhunderte. Ich beschreibe, was kommt, was nicht mehr anders kommen kann: die Heraufkunft des Nihilismus.”42 It is exactly this aspect of Nietzsche’s critique of modern culture and the nihilistic spirit of the times, which Mayreder particularly endorses. Moreover Nietzsche argues that Christianity took off on the “wrong foot”, as its main instrument was “charity” [“Nächstenliebe”] and “pity” [“Mitleid”], which made people forget their utmost instincts, the will to live and the will to power.43 Between the realisation of these instincts and the true meaning of human life lie the obstacles of reason for Nietzsche. These obstacles, Nietzsche argues, arose particularly from Christianity and its influence on humanity. And consequently humanity – in a first step – has to be made aware of the pitfalls of Christianity in order to also be able to discover the pitfalls of reason – in a second step – and to set free the healthy instincts that had once dominated human life. This is why Nietzsche hopes for a: “Vernatürlichung des Menschen”, because in his view: “gab [es, F.S.L.] noch niemals eine natürliche Menschheit.”44 Terry Eagleton clearly refers to this envisaged development, when he says: “Healthy vital instincts, unable to discharge themselves for fear of social disruption, turn inward to give birth to the ‘soul’, the police agent within each individual. [...] For Nietzsche, the breaking down of the old, reliable instinctual structures is on the one hand a catastrophic loss [...] and on the other hand, this declension marks a major advance: [...] it also opens up at a stroke fresh possibilities of experiment and adventure.”45 Mayreder was also concerned with a “Vernatürlichung des Menschen”46 which was a reaction to her reading of both Goethe and Nietzsche. It is, therefore, important to note here that Mayreder was a “critical” follower “von Nietzsche und Goethes Naturphilosophie.”47 Yet at the same time Mayreder also clearly appreciated “the possibilities of experiment and adventure”48 which Nietzsche’s analysis entailed. This is critique of religion offered by Karl Marx here, as Marx also argues that in essence “religion” “ist das Opium des Volks.” Karl Marx, Die Frühschriften (Stuttgart: Kröner Verlag, 1971), p. 208. 42 Nietzsche, Der Wille zur Macht, “Vorrede”, § 2, p. 3. 43 Nietzsche, Menschliches, Allzumenschliches I, KSA 2, p. 120. 44 Nietzsche, Nachlaß 1885–1887, KSA 12, Herbst 1887 10 [53], “Die Vernatürlichung des Menschen im 19. Jahrhundert”, p. 482. 45 Terry Eagleton, The Ideology of the Aesthetic (Oxford: Basil Blackwell Ltd., 1990), pp 237-238. 46 Nietzsche, Nachlaß 1885–1887, KSA 12, Herbst 1887 10 [53], “Die Vernatürlichung des Menschen im 19. Jahrhundert”, p. 482. 47 Anderson, “Einleitung”, in Anderson (ed.), Rosa Mayreder: Tagebücher, p. 17. 48 Eagleton, The Ideology of the Aesthetic, p. 238.

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why she says that: “Eine neue Welt des Geistes tat sich vor mir auf ”,49 after having read Nietzsche’s Der Fall Wagner which helped her to finally free herself from both the pessimistic Schopenhauerian world-view (which seemed to have been a “Joch”50 for her which she was unable “aus eigener Kraft zu sprengen”)51 as well as from the lasting influence of Wagner.52 It was also the beginning of her second and more systematic phase of reading Nietzsche’s philosophy, which brought about a life-long commitment to the spirit of his thought which continually marks her writings throughout her career. The experiments and adventures which her thorough reading of Nietzsche enabled, were the formulation of her own – but strongly “Nietzschean” – notions of: a “higher humanity”, a radical form of gendered individualism; of a gendered critique of “culture and civilisation”; as well as of a critique of “asceticism” and an appraisal of “eroticism”. But as Mayreder herself admitted in her reflections on this episode, there were clear limitations both to the early Wagnerian approach to Christianity and to Nietzsche’s lifelong struggle against it. That is also why she believes that only in her later life – she was by now sixty-eight – she came to realise that there was more to Christianity than she had found in either of the analyses of the two thinkers who had influenced her in the past so strongly: “Daß aber auch bei Nietzsche keine letzte Lösung der Probleme, die mich so glühend beschäftigten, zu finden war, weil im Christentum eine ganz andere Geistesmacht lag, als er sowohl wie der junge Wagner meinte – das zu erleben, blieb den späteren Jahrzehnten meines Lebens vorbehalten.” 53

One can see from this quote that Mayreder is indicating an important shift in her intellectual development in her later life: It is a greater independence from Nietzsche in her later writings and a more critical reflection on his overall achievements. But she was still very much: “die Nietzscheanerin von reinstem Wasser”,54 as her friend the composer Hugo Wolf had called her in one of his letters, otherwise she would not have taken the time to portray her fundamental youth experience with the philosopher’s work in 1936. This is also why she had

49 Mayreder, “Von Wagner zu Nietzsche. Ein Jugenderlebnis”, p. 14. 50 Ibid. 51 Ibid. 52 Ibid. 53 Ibid. p. 15. 54 Hugo Wolf, Briefe an Rosa Mayreder. Mit einem Nachwort von der Dichterin des “Corregidor” (First edition published in Vienna and Berlin, 1921), p. 91.

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radically defended Nietzsche against the emerging cult around his philosophy in a philosophical short story published in 1897.

3) Rosa Mayreder’s dismissal of the Nietzsche cult In this section I outline how Mayreder reacted to the emerging cult around Nietzsche’s philosophy shortly before his death in 1900. I also try to assess whether there is a difference in her response to Nietzsche between her fictional and her theoretical texts. Moreover, I will briefly compare Mayreder’s claims about the cultural climate of Nietzscheanism in Vienna, as depicted in her short story, to a historical example – the “Pernerstorfer Circle”. In this context I will also engage in an analysis of certain elements of her story which deal with the structures of power in social groups with reference to elements in Max Weber’s sociology. Despite her enthusiastic appraisal of Nietzsche in her youth, which I have briefly portrayed in the previous section, Mayreder was very critical of the excesses of the emerging cult around Nietzsche’s philosophy. This is a point where her analysis most clearly meets with Tönnies’ Nietzsche Kultus of 1897, but it is also the point where her text most clearly differs from his. Nonetheless, her text on the subject of the Nietzsche cult even appeared in the same year as Tönnies’ polemic. What this mainly shows is how high emotions were running already with regards to Nietzsche’s philosophy in both Germany and Austria three years before his death. The parallel publication of the two critiques also clearly indicates the influence that Nietzsche’s philosophy had then gained in the German and Austrian mind. But as argued before, unlike Tönnies, Mayreder did not hold the emerging cult around the philosopher and his work against Nietzsche and his writings. She rather held them against the petty bourgeois clientele that forged this cult to give some deeper meaning to their mundane lives and to justify any immoral act they might want to commit. We will clearly come to see that Mayreder’s view is very different from Tönnies’. In his short article entitled “Nietzsche Narren” Tönnies, for example, says: “Das widerwärtige Schauspiel ist dieses. Nietzsche hatte ehemals feine und geistvolle Bücher verfaßt – er blieb unbekannt. Er verfaßte einige halbtolle Bücher – und wurde berühmt.”55 Yet even though Mayreder too criticises the many wrong interpretations of Nietzsche’s work, she still remains a “Nietzschean” through and through, which Tönnies clearly does not (at least in the immediate context of his polemical texts on the Nietzsche cult). In her short story on the topic of the Nietzsche cult, Mayreder criticised the emergence of what she calls the “Klub der Übermenschen”56 (1897) and the 55 Tönnies, “Nietzsche Narren”, p. 99. 56 Mayreder, “Klub der Übermenschen”, in Bubeniček (ed.), Wider die Tyrannei der Norm, pp. 157-186.

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pathos that surrounded it. Bubeniček consistently argues that the story also describes: “die verzahnten Mechanismen von Macht und Hörigkeit umgeben von der Aura eines männerbündlerischen Pseudo-Nietzschekults kleinbürgerlicher Prägung.”57 Mayreder portrays a circle of friends in the middle-class or Bildungsbürger milieu of 19th century Vienna which struggles to find a platform for the expression of its shared concerns about and interests in the “spirit of the times”. This spirit of the times was certainly Nietzschean, or at least it increasingly became so in the years between 1870 and 1900 in the flamboyant cultural climate of Vienna,58 where: “as early as the 1870s this philosopher attracted an intensely loyal following among the student population.”59 There are, therefore, at least three levels in Mayreder’s story: the first is the fictional character of her story (it was originally published as part of her collection of “Novellen” entitled Übergänge in 1897); secondly, there are the theoretical underpinnings in her story that expose the “Kreislauf von Herrschaft und Unterdrückung”60 in the forces that unfold themselves as part of the gender based social role play in 19th century Vienna; thirdly, there is the historical background to the story which is the influence and pervasiveness of Nietzsche’s philosophy in Vienna in the late 19th century. Mayreder manages very well to interlock all of these three levels in her story and I would, therefore, entirely agree with when Jane Sokolosky and in her analysis of the theoretical elements in Mayreder’s fiction, where she stresses that: “Mayreder’s fiction differs from her theoretical works significantly in form, but not in content.”61 They differ only insofar as her sociocultural critique of the Viennese bourgeoisie is explicitly formulated in her theoretical texts and implicitly formulated in her fictional texts.62 It is clear that Mayreder had an insightful knowledge of the Nietzsche reception among the Viennese avantgarde (to which she herself belonged), and it is in this respect that her fictional treatment of the subject can also be trusted as reproducing an authentic 57 Bubeniček, “Impressionen zu Rosa Mayreder”, p. 19. 58 For an assessment of the influence of Nietzsche on various youth groups in Vienna around 1870– 1900, consult the excellent study of the “Telyn Society” and the “Pernerstorfer Circle” by William J. McGrath. McGrath’s arguments are also very important for my discussion of Mayreder’s critique of the Nietzsche cult in Vienna in this chapter of my book. William J. McGrath, Dionysian Art and Populist Politics in Austria (New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 1974). 59 Ibid. p. 2. 60 Bubeniček, “Impressionen zu Rosa Mayreder”, p. 19. 61 Jane Sokolosky, “Primitive or Differentiated? Constructions of Femininity in Rosa Mayreder’s Theoretical and Fictional Texts”, in Modern Austrian Literature, 30:2 (Riverside: University of California Press, 1997), p. 79. 62 Ibid. p. 65.

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image of the cultural climate of her home town at the turn of the 19th century – which was indeed a time of important Übergänge. Therefore I would tend to agree with Sokolosky, who argues that: “Mayreder’s writings did not reproduce unrealistic representations of life [they rather, F.S.L.] challenge the reader to confront the actuality and implications of the situations depicted.”63 To show that Sokolosky’s point about the “actuality and implications of the situations depicted” in Mayreder’s fictional stories is indeed a valid argument, I will take a brief look at the description and the history of the “Telyn Society” and the “Pernerstorfer Circle” in William J. McGrath’s study of “Nietzscheanism” in Vienna, before turning to Mayreder’s short story itself.

3.1) The “Telyn Society” and the “Pernerstorfer Circle” As far as the story “Klub der Übermenschen” itself is concerned, there is also a historical example of a similar club that existed in Vienna at the time the story takes place, and of which Mayreder must have been aware, even though she does not mention it anywhere. This historical group is the “Telyn Society” and the “Pernerstorfer Circle” to which the former belonged. This “Circle” was, as McGrath consistently stresses, the: “most important single agency in the dissemination of the influences [...] which Nietzsche and Wagner exerted on Austrian intellectual history during this period.”64 Mayreder must have been aware of the group because she even knew some of its members, for example Gustav Mahler and Victor Adler. The circle’s background has been extensively researched and portrayed by W.J. McGrath in his study of Dionysian Art and Populist Politics in Austria, where he analyses: “the intellectual biography of a group: its origins, the principal influences in the development of its collective outlook, and its subsequent impact on the cultural history of Vienna during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.”65 McGrath believes that in “response to the political and cultural crises of the brief liberal era [in Austria, F.S.L.], the members of the circle were drawn with increasing force to the ideas of three great thinkers whose works expressed profound alienation from liberal ideals: Schopenhauer, Wagner and Nietzsche.”66 What these two quotations already demonstrate is that the historical and cultural climate in Vienna actually provided a fertile ground for the influence of the potent Dreigestirn under 63 Ibid. p. 79. See also: Anderson, Utopian Feminism: Women’s Movements in fin-de-siècle Vienna, pp. 242-245 on this issue. 64 McGrath, Dionysian Art and Populist Politics in Austria, p. 3. 65 Ibid. p. 1. 66 Ibid. p. 2.

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whose “spell” even Mayreder herself had fallen, as we clearly saw in the previous sections of this chapter. It has to be remembered, however, that only an awareness of the full-scale “economic, social and political crises of Austrian liberalism”67 helps to explain the generational reaction inherent in the political and cultural critique put forward by the “Pernerstorfer Circle”. This critique found expression in the group’s turn to the perceived “communitarian ideal”68 promised in Nietzsche’s “Schopenhauer als Erzieher”,69 which supposedly hailed the fulfilment of their deeply missed sense of belonging as a reaction to the crisis of their own society as well as to the perceived decline of the culture it had produced. In his essay Nietzsche, for example, speaks to the exceptional cultural actor who is “convinced that the sole aim of culture is to bring forth the true human being an nothing else”; he speaks to the one who: “von jenem Ziele der Kultur überzeugt ist, daß sie die Entstehung der wahren Menschen zu fördern habe und nichts sonst”.70 Only in this way, Nietzsche argued, could a viable cultural “community” be created. McGrath now argues that the “Pernerstorfer Circle” readily accepted Nietzsche’s ideal of a “cultural community” and actually tried to behave accordingly: “In accepting Nietzsche’s ideal of the cultural community, the members of the ‘Pernerstorfer Circle’ committed themselves to self-transcendence, to an overcoming of individual limitations in pursuit of the cultural ideal.”71 Whatever the limitations of such an attempt in real life are, it is clear from McGrath’s study that the group at least actually tried to live up to its ideal of a “communitarian spirit”, and that it cultivated its bonds as ideals of a shared spiritual and cultural embeddedness. But the members of the “Pernerstorfer Circle” also “played their cards” – so to speak – on very concrete levels: They helped each other throughout their lives and many of them stayed very close to each other on a personal level, even though over time – in some cases at least – fundamental political differences emerged between them. Many of the members became exceptionally influential in the shaping of the Austrian cultural identity of the fin-de-siècle, while others are completely forgotten.72 The point of this section on the “Pernerstorfer Circle” is mainly to demonstrate the: “actuality and implications of the situation” Mayreder 67 Ibid. p. 6. 68 Ibid. p. 248. 69 Nietzsche, Unzeitgemäße Betrachtungen III, KSA 1, pp. 335-428. 70 Ibid. § 6, p. 387. 71 McGrath, Dionysian Art and Populist Politics in Austria, pp. 249-250. 72 McGrath seems not to have come across Mayreder, let alone her short story “Klub der Übermenschen” in the course of his research, as he mentions neither of them in his study (neither in the Index nor in the main text itself).

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depicts in her fictional short story, and to show that she did not “reproduce unrealistic representations of life”.73

3.2) Rosa Mayreder and Übermenschentum Mayreder’s short story about the Nietzsche cult is also (partly at least) a story about herself. It is the story of what did not happen to her under the influence of Nietzsche’s philosophy. She did not become a blind and uncritical “follower” of Nietzsche, although on a more critical note I should probably say that many of the inconsistencies in Mayreder’s own writings are the result of a largely unresolved “Nietzscheanism”. In her short story Mayreder consequently analyses or, to be more precise, caricatures the very intellectual forces that had influenced her, as well as many other members of her generation. But Mayreder describes an influence to whose excesses she had still managed to keep a critical distance, unlike many of her other contemporaries. What Mayreder, therefore, looks at in her story is the fate of the people who could not keep a similar distance to Nietzsche, which she, for a large part at least, had managed to keep. Mayreder’s story is centred around a character called Christian Ritter, who becomes the “piggy in the middle” in the display of opposing interests and Mauscheleien in the newly formed Klub der Übermenschen. The story mostly takes place in a shabby Viennese pub, which the group chose as its venue in order to prove its outright disregard for moral conventions. It, therefore, effectively depicts the bigotry on which much of the social life in Vienna had rested. Mayreder gives a vivid description of the milieu and microstructures in which the fake Nietzscheanism and misread Übermenschentum that had sprung up in Vienna (as well as many other cultural melting pots throughout the German speaking world at that time) had managed to flourish: “Das Klublokal der Übermenschen war eine kleine, verräucherte Spelunke in der Anna Gasse, wo sich vorzugsweise jene Klasse von weiblichen Wesen mit Kaffee zu stärken pflegte, die von der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft wegen ‘unmoralischen Lebenswandels’ ausgeschlossen ist. Gerade um seiner Verrufenheit willen hatten die Übermenschen dieses Lokal für ihre Versammlungen erwählt, obwohl es im übrigen wenig Annehmlichkeiten bot. Aber da sie keine Gelegenheit versäumen wollten, die immoralische Stärke ihrer Gesinnung zu manifestieren, setzten sie ihren Stolz darein, ein Lokal bei Tag zu frequentieren, in welchem die moralische männliche Jugend nur bei Nacht aufzutreten pflegte.” 74

73 Sokolosky, “Primitive or Differentiated? Constructions of Femininity in Rosa Mayreder’s Theoretical and Fictional Texts”, p. 79. 74 Mayreder, “Klub der Übermenschen”, pp. 158-159.

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Mayreder’s main character Christian is someone who: “mit der vollen Begeisterung seiner zwanzig Jahre an seinen Beruf zum Übermenschen glaubte. Er erwartete von dem Klub zuversichtlich die Erfüllung der höchsten Aufgaben.”75 His high hopes are not fulfilled. On the contrary, they are shattered: He has to serve as a Mädchen-für-Alles in the club, a role in which he is thoroughly exploited by his fellow members. Christian is frequently ridiculed by his friends, who let not the slightest possibility pass “ohne [ihren, F.S.L.] Witz an ihm zu üben.”76 On another occasion a member of the group hides in Christian’s flat after having stolen money from his own uncle. He makes Christian believe that he has stolen the money on the grounds of an “immoralistischen Heldentat”,77 and in order to secure funds for a possible newspaper to be set up by the club as a platform for communicating their ideals of “cultural renewal” to a wider audience. Christian blindly falls for this obvious lie, only to find out later that the money was merely stolen by his friend: “um sich elegante Kleider und elegante Dirnen zu kaufen”.78 To an ever greater extent Christian has to endure humiliating treatment and opportunist battles between rival friends who carry out their power struggles “on his back” until he was finally completely “blamiert vor allen seinen Gesinnungsgenossen!”79 The “fatal blow” to the willing and entirely obedient Untertan comes when Christian’s much admired friend Renitz – president of the club – tells him: “Du hast ein gewisses Bedürfnis, den Märtyrer zu spielen, scheint mir.”80 After that every attempt to find a sense of belonging and support with the help of his hollow Nietzschean beliefs ends with desperate a “Griff ins Leere”81 by Christian. It is not so much the actual story line that matters here, but rather the mixture of fiction and reality that Mayreder plays with, in an attempt to ridicule a kleinbürgerliche revolution of a misread Übermenschentum that had emerged in Vienna around 1900. It is also an attempt to save Nietzsche’s philosophy from these groups of misguided followers. Nevertheless, Mayreder mixes in a play with Nietzschean phrases and quotes with her knowledge of the cultural developments that took place in Vienna. When she, for example, describes the discussions about a possible name for the club, she says that Renitz, the then presi75 Ibid. p. 160. 76 Ibid. 77 Ibid. p. 185. 78 Ibid. 79 Ibid. p. 181. 80 Ibid. p. 185. 81 Ibid. p. 186.

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dent-elect, did not believe that the catch-phrase “Klub der freien Geister”82 was strong enough. He argues: “Sie hätten die Aufgabe, ihr Ziel höher zu stecken, über alles Dagewesene hinaus – und deshalb lautete sein Antrag auf: Klub der Übermenschen.”83 In the previous chapter we have already learnt that Nietzsche also advocated a notion of Freigeister, who are to be the representatives of a new form of “uninhibited freethinking”, but it should be fairly clear that he did not mean the likes of Christian Ritter and his friend Renitz. And in his book Also sprach Zarathustra Nietzsche writes: “Ich lehre Euch den Übermenschen. Der Mensch ist etwas das überwunden werden soll. Was habt ihr getan, ihn zu überwinden?”84 While it seems clear that the parallel Mayreder draws is more with Nietzsche’s thought in general, his famous sentence certainly seems to be echoed in Mayreder’s story: “Sie hätten die Aufgabe, ihr Ziel höher zu stecken, über alles Dagewesene hinaus”.85 Therefore, Mayreder’s satirical extension of Nietzsche’s high flying demand into the: “verräucherte Spelunke in der Anna Gasse”,86 where her fictional characters seemingly translate Nietzsche’s thoughts into practice, is certainly both a critique of the excesses to be found in Nietzsche’s writings, as well as in the responses to his philosophy. This is why I tent to support Hanna Bubeniček’s assessment that Mayreder’s story certainly accuses the somewhat charlatan character of “Nietzscheanism”: “Hinter der Fassade des Übermenschentums und des moralischen Führungsanspruchs einer neuen Generation mit Durchblick verbergen sich die Unduldsamkeit des Halbwissens und suggestive Scharlatanerie ebenso wie das Spiel mit der Ohnmacht und Unsicherheit der Gutgläubigen. [...] Am Modellfall des ‘Klubs der Übermenschen’ taucht ebenso wie in der Geschlechtertypologie die Frage auf, inwieweit das politische und soziale Verhalten von Individuen und Gruppen durch Charakter und Milieu bestimmt ist.” 87

It is in this respect that Mayreder’s short story is also a study of the true character of the cultural climate in Vienna at the turn of the 19th century. But apart from the obvious direct reference to Nietzsche, which Mayreder’s text clearly offers, there is also an indirect or contextual one, as Mayreder criticises what could be referred to (using Max Weber’s terminology) as the 82 Ibid. p. 158. 83 Ibid. 84 Nietzsche, Also sprach Zarathustra, KSA 4, “Zarathustras Vorrede”, p. 14. 85 Mayreder, “Klub der Übermenschen”, p. 158. 86 Ibid. 87 Bubeniček, “Impressionen zu Rosa Mayreder”, pp. 19-20.

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“Gehäuse der Hörigkeit” that resulted from the increasing institutionalisation of the social and political behaviour of individuals within modern rationalised societies. This is not to say that Mayreder’s story is based on Max Weber’s notion, but rather to propose Weber’s analysis of the effects of the development of the increasing rationalisation of modern society as a useful tool for interpreting Mayreder’s story. It is mainly Mayreder’s concern with the “Charakter und Milieu”88 of the sociocultural climate in Vienna at the end of the 19th century, which Bubeniček indicated in her assessment of Mayreder’s short story, that comes to play in my interpretation here. While it is true that Weber relates his analysis of the “iron cage of bondage” mainly to the professional vocation of any given individual in modern society, it is certainly also an analysis of the effects of the increasing institutionalisation of power and the increasing institutionalisation of individual behaviour in modern society, the price for which is a considerable degree of alienation for Weber. The extreme loyalty to and identification with an association to which one belongs (as, for example, depicted in Mayreder’s “Klub der Übermenschen”) would be an example of the kind of institutionalisation of individual behaviour which I am suggesting here. I believe that in essence this is also what Mayreder’s short story aims to depict, as in her story she clearly attempts to portray “die verzahnten Mechanismen von Macht und Hörigkeit”89 in modern society. On a further level though, the “Gehäuse der Hörigkeit” was for Weber also the result of the influence of the increasingly rationalised character of the actions, and the increasingly rationalised milieu of many sociocultural actors in the late 19th century, and the importance social role play and unquestioned conformity had assumed within mass societies over hitherto independent or at least individual lives. But as Bubeniček coonsistently argues, Mayreder’s story also contains: “Ansätze zu einer Soziologie und Psychologie der Macht”,90 particularly insofar as it is the fate of the weakest individual in the inner circle of power that becomes the focus of attention in Mayreder’s story. Hence I tend to agree with Bubeniček’s assessment that: “Aus Furcht vor der Freiheit wird in der Erzählung der Adept Christian Ritter zum Spielball von skrupellosen Freunden, die ihre Macht über andere mißbrauchen. [...] Hinter der Fassade des schönen Scheins und der Phrase moralischer Verantwortung erscheint das Spiel von der Korrumpierbarkeit der Macht bzw. der an die

88 Ibid. p. 20. 89 Ibid. p. 19 90 Ibid. p. 18.

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Macht gelangten, in dem Erfolg mit Stärke verwechselt wird und die Reaktionen moralischer Entrüstung den Willen zu tatsächlichen Veränderungen ersetzen.”91

Yet even though she had obviously read all of the major “soziologischen und psychologischen Abhandlungen ihrer Zeit”,92 Mayreder does not analyse these relations of power and their inherent expression of value judgements from a primarily sociological perspective, but rather from a distinctively “Nietzschean” perspective, as Bubeniček argues in her assessment of Mayreder’s work: “Und die Nietzscheanerin überprüft die Kriterien von Werturteilen; sie hinterfragt die landläufigen Meinungen, nach denen Personen oder Anschauungen als schwach oder stark gelten.” 93

What Mayreder, therefore, aims to achieve is a transcendence of the common or traditional value judgements which characterise modern society, on the basis of an amalgamation of Nietzsche’s cultural critique as well as his critique of morality, with her own bourgeois feminism, her gendered cultural critique and her opposition to gender based social roles, in a radical approach at sociocultural transformation. In the next section of this chapter I will, therefore, mainly focus on Mayreder’s gendered critique of “culture” and “civilisation”, and the extent to which her critique is based on her specifically feminist reading and interpretation of Nietzsche’s philosophy.

4) Rosa Mayreder’s gendered critique of (1) “culture” and “civilisation” and (2) of “ascetic ideals” Mayreder’s feminism was not merely a theoretical concern, it also, and probably crucially so, affected her own life: “The goal of life, Mayreder insisted, is to cultivate aspects of personality that both sexes share, such as intelligence, charity and aestheticism.”94 But Mayreder did not see this goal being realised in her own society and essentially criticised both male and female conceptions of “femininity” and “masculinity” as being equally guilty for the lack of “greater rights” for women. This is also why she renounced: “the dominant theories on women, which were being propagated in her society by both men and women, as inimical to the

91 Ibid. pp. 19-20. 92 Ibid. p. 17. 93 Ibid. p. 20. 94 William M. Johnston, The Austrian Mind: An Intellectual and Social History 1848–1938 (Berkeley/ Los Angeles/London: University of California Press, 1972), pp. 156-157.

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development of women.”95 The main result of this view was that unlike most feminists at the time, “Mayreder deplored allowing the accident of sex to mould every attitude”96 she held. This also becomes very clear in the opening sentence of her groundbreaking book Zur Kritik der Weiblichkeit, where Mayreder argues that: “Das Problem der Geschlechterpsychologie, in deren Vordergrund die Weiblichkeit steht, bewegt sich der Hauptsache nach um die Frage: Ist das Weib als Persönlichkeit durch das Geschlecht an eine bestimmt umschriebene Geistigkeit gebunden, oder liegt in der weiblichen Psyche die gleiche Möglichkeit einer unumschränkten Differenzierung nach Individualität wie in der männlichen?” 97

As we will come to see in the following sections of this chapter, this question is also the main source for Mayreder’s gendered critique of “culture” and “civilisation” which radically probed: “the [social, F.S.L.] roles prescribed to men and women in a society controlled by men.”98

4.1) Rosa Mayreder’s fundamental opposition to social roles Yet to fully understand Mayreder’s gendered critique of “culture” and “civilisation” as a fundamental critique of her own partriarchal society, one has to remember that she was fundamentally opposed to all social norms which severely constrained the roles played by women in her partriarchal society. As argued before, this opposition is strongly apparent as a prevailing constant in her life as well as her writings.99 Rosa Mayreder, therefore, largely provided a gendered 95 Sokolosky, “Primitive or Diffeentiated? Constructions of Femininity in Rosa Mayreder’s Theoretical and Fictional Texts”, p. 67. 96 Johnston, The Austrian Mind: An Intellectual and Social History, p. 156. 97 Mayreder, Zur Kritik der Weiblichkeit, p. 7. 98 Sokolosky, “Primitive or Differentiated? Constructions of Femininity in Rosa Mayreder’s Theoretical and Fictional Texts”, p. 66. 99 In political terms Mayreder had strongly advocated equal rights for women (she was one of the founding members of the “Allgemeiner Österreichischer Frauenverein” in Vienna), was active in the international peace movement (Mayreder was elected as the chairwoman of the “Internationale Frauenliga für Frieden und Freiheit” after 1918), wrote well received poetry and other literary products that always contained strong elements of social criticism (Mayreder was one of the few members of the very exclusive “Verein der Schriftstellerinnen und Künstlerinnen in Wien”), and finally provided a strong social as well as cultural criticism of her own patriarchal society. Moreover, she strongly agitated for social reform and openly accused abuses of power wherever she detected them. And I have already mentioned before that when the “Wiener Soziologische Gesellschaft” was initiated by Rudolf Goldscheid, Wilhelm Jerusalem, Karl Renner and others in 1907, Mayreder became a founding member and the only woman involved. All this would seem more or less normal or at least not worth mentioning if Mayreder had been born in the second half of the 20th century, but as she was born in the second half of the 19th century this outstanding number of memberships in astonishingly modern and progressive associations is rather exceptional and highly reflective of the

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critique of society which aimed to redress the general imbalance between men and women: “Bisher war der Mann das Maß aller Dinge; es könnte aber wohl sein, daß in Hinkunft die Auffassung bestimmend werden muß: Die Frau ist das Maß aller Dinge.”100 She expressed her personal opposition to the restricting effects of social norms with a full fledged engagement with the world around her, which ironically makes it difficult for some of her commentators to sum up Mayreder’s own “role”. A good example is Jane Sokolosky’s attempt to do so. She writes: Mayreder was a: “prominent writer and activist in turn-of-the-century Vienna, wrote plays, fables, sonnets, aphorisms, short stories and theoretical essays.”101 All this is correct, but Sokolosky is clearly struggling to do justice to Mayreder’s talents. In many ways, this is also the essence of Mayreder’s resistance to social norms: She did not want to be pinned down by other people’s expectations to fixed, unwanted roles. Mayreder consequently argued: “Man wird erst wissen, was die Frauen sind, wenn ihnen nicht mehr vorgeschrieben wird, was sie sein sollen.”102 There clearly is also a somewhat “Nietzschean” dimension to this statement, as it could be argued that Nietzsche would wholeheartedly support this view, if the specific term Frauen was replaced by the more general term Menschen. Yet this statement can also be regarded as Mayreder’s life-long political credo which, moreover, provides the background to all of her other writings and to her forceful gendered critique of “culture” and “civilisation”. But Mayreder was not only a radical critic of the partriarchal structures of her own society, she was also a critic of feminism. In a somewhat satirical, though in essence very serious note, Mayreder said that an important, even “revolutionary” factor in the promotion of feminism had been athleticism in general, and the invention of the bicycle in particular. Athleticism, Mayreder argued, was not only a good way to strengthen the “camaraderie” between the sexes (and an effective way of overcoming their social segregation), it also required rapid and inelegant movements by women and, therefore, helped to counter the image of the “gentlewoman” or Dame. The same was, of course, also true for the bicycle which in her opinion had achieved more for the emancipation of women than the whole history of the feminist movement put together. Mayreder writes:

various political and cultural interests/talents Mayreder possessed. She clearly used these different talents and interests also as a “weapon” against much hated social norms, which would not allow for her liberal activities. 100 Mayreder, Geschlecht und Kultur, p. 34. 101 Sokolosky, “Primitive or Differentiated? Constructions of Femininity in Rosa Mayreder’s Theoretical and Fictional Texts”, p. 65. 102 Mayreder, Zur Kritik der Weiblichkeit, p. 199.

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“Zu diesen verlarvten, revolutionären Elementen gehört vor allem jeder Sport, der anstrengende Leibesübungen in sich begreift, rasche und heftige, nicht auf Grazie, sondern auf Treffsicherheit gestellte Bewegungen oder selbst nur seelische Abhärtung, die sich der Gefahr kleinerer Entstellungen unbedenklich aussetzt, beinhaltet. [...] Gerade auf dem Gebiet des Sportes ist das Kameradschaftliche im Verkehr der Geschlechter nicht auszuschließen. [...] Man kann [...] wohl behaupten: Das Bicycle hat zur Emanzipation der Frauen aus den höheren Gesellschaftsschichten mehr beigetragen als alle Bestrebungen der Frauenbewegung zusammen.” 103

On a further level, therefore, Mayreder’s fictional as well as theoretical texts both provide unique and progressive constructions of femininity, which in her writings appear as a counterweight to the “tyranny of social norms” in the partriarchal world around her and the culture it had produced.104 Yet Mayreder was not a revolutionary. She was an elitist bourgeois feminist with strongly humanistic ideals. But on the other hand, her comfortable liberal middle-class background did not prevent her from exposing the artificiality of the socially pressured role play in the relationships between men and women within her own society. She particularly criticised the social forces that turned women into what they were commonly expected to be; and which thereby prevented them from realising their own true potential by binding them with the fetters of partriarchal conventions for which, as Mayreder argues, there was no longer any foundation.105 Even though she never wavered in this fundamental critique and in her doubts about the social structures of her own society, she always criticised it with a full awareness of her middle-class background and bourgeois status. She did not try to be what she was not – a working class socialist critic of society – but rather aimed at expanding the roles which women could take up and be engaged in more generally.106 Mayreder, however, always remained a conscious representative of the Bildungsbürgertum throughout her life, but this was not a disadvantage for her, because “by being moderate she proved [far, F.S.L.] more persuasive”107 than many of her more radical and utopian contemporaries, as Johnston coonsistently argues. To sum it up in a nutshell: Mayreder was a liberal

103 Ibid. p. 155. 104 On this point see also: Sokolosky, “Primitive or Differentiated? Constructions of Femininity in Rosa Mayreder’s Theoretical and Fictional Texts”, pp. 65-85. 105 Mayreder, Zur Kritik der Weiblichkeit, pp. 199-209. 106 On this point see also: Helga H. Harriman, “Women Writers and Artists in fin-de-siècle Vienna”, in Modern Austrian Literature, 26:1 (Riverside: University of California Press, 1993), pp. 1-13. 107 Johnston, The Austrian Mind: An Intellectual and Social History, p. 158.

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at heart, a feminist in deeds, and a “Nietzscheanerin”108 in mind and outlook. Yet the full degree of her “Nietzscheanism” which I have partly described in the previous sections of this chapter is only to be really understood with a detailed look at her gendered critique of “culture” and “civilisation”.

4.2) Rosa Mayreder’s gendered critique of “culture” and “civilisation” In the following section I mainly analyse Mayreder’s gendered critique of (female) “culture” and (male) “civilisation” which argues that only a transcendence of the traditional understanding of gender roles and the emergence of strongly independent “synthetic individuals”, who represent both male and female qualities, will prevent the inevitable decline of “culture” into “civilisation”. In her analysis Mayreder attempts to position the two “opposite poles” – (female) “culture” and (male) “civilisation” – in the social arena, and claims that their opposition to each other is largely the result of the modern rift between male “reasoning” and female “intuition” which strongly characterises her own society at the beginning of the 20th century. As we have seen so far, Mayreder’s main concerns were the sociocultural processes at work behind the formation of gender roles. Yet the processes she was, furthermore, concerned with were the forces that had led to the rift between female “culture” and modern patriarchal “civilisation”, which had finally been ripped apart by the catastrophe of the First World War, but which had been undergoing a process of disintegration and separation long before 1914. Mayreder’s critique is strongly indebted to Nietzsche’s more specific critique of modern culture which, as we have seen in section 2.1 of Chapter 6, in the main proposed “culture” as a tool of prophylaxis against the “decadent” and “nihilistic” spirit of the times. Mayreder, however, extended Nietzsche’s analysis of “culture” (and “civilisation”) by a component that can most broadly speaking be called the “gender” dimension. This view is also expressed by Johnston, who argues that Mayreder combated: “nihilism by campaigning to improve woman’s lot.”109 What Mayreder does in emphasising the relevance of the gender dimension in her analysis of the relationship between Geschlecht und Kultur, is to establish, well before it took shape as an academic discipline, what Christina Braun will later call the credo of gender studies – to emphasise the: “Bedeutung des Geschlechts für Kultur, Gesellschaft und Wissenschaften”.110 108 See also: Bubeniček, “Impressionen zu Rosa Mayreder”, pp. 20+21. 109 Johnston, The Austrian Mind: An Intellectual and Social History, p. 156. 110 Christina von Braun and Inge Stephan (eds.), Gender Studies: Eine Einführung (Stuttgart: Metzler Verlag, 2000), p. 3.

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The value of this approach for Braun lies in the fact that the “gender” dimension is not an “exclusive” but a complementary tool of analysis. For Braun it is a: “Mißverständnis, gender als totalisierende und verdrängende Kategorie zu verstehen. Die gender Kategorie eröffnet vielmehr neue Felder und schafft Möglichkeiten der interdisziplinären [...] Zusammenarbeit [und dient daher als, F.S.L.] kritisches Instrumentarium der kulturellen Reflexion und gesellschaftlichen Kritik”.111 The same is definitely also true for Mayreder’s extension and reinterpretation of Nietzsche’s critique of culture: It opens up new dimensions of analysis for a sociocultural critique of modern society. Her analysis is, therefore, complementary to Nietzsche’s, not diametrically opposed as one might expect with regards to Nietzsche’s ambivalent attitude to “feminism” in general, and the “second sex” in particular. Similar to the structure and content of the wider German and Austrian debates on “culture” and “civilisation”, which we have discussed in section 2.3 of Chapter 5, Mayreder’s notion of “culture” assumes an almost moral capacity which, for her, is clearly superior to the immoral features of modern “civilisation”. For Mayreder “civilisation” is explicitly linked with “modernity” or modern industrial society, because she argues that only with the rise of the mechanistic features of industrialisation, did a significant change in the sociocultural realm of society take place. Even though these changes were initially regarded as a positive or desirable form of progress, they have increasingly been seen as negative or undesirable, and as clearly having a detrimental effect on the development of “culture” as such. Mayreder summarises her position as follows: “Es ist kein Zufall, daß ein Gegensatz zwischen Kultur und Zivilisation von dem Zeitpunkt an sichtbar zu werden beginnt, als die Folgen des maschinellen Betriebes sich in den sozialen Zuständen der Kulturgesellschaft bemerkbar machen. Von diesem Zeitpunkt an verändern sich die Lebensbedingungen in entscheidender Weise. Die Veränderung wird allerdings zunächst als Fortschritt ausgelegt, und die Bezeichnung einer ‘hochzivilisierten’ Epoche als Vorzug gemeint. Nichtsdestoweniger heftet sich immer deutlicher an den Begriff der Zivilisation etwas herabsetzendes gegenüber dem der Kultur. Das erwachende Bewußtsein eines ungünstig veränderten Zustandes scheint nach einem Ausdruck zu suchen, der sich erst allmählich mit einem bestimmt abgegrenzten Inhalt füllt.” 112

In her book Geschlecht und Kultur, Mayreder engages extensively in a debate of the particular meaning of the two terms and argues that Houston Stewart Chamberlain (1855–1927) had provided the most useful distinction between these two terms, particularly since he speaks of the internal effects of “culture” 111 Ibid. p. 11. 112 Mayreder, Geschlecht und Kultur, p. 3.

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and the external effects of “civilisation”.113 Chamberlain defines “civilisation” as: “ein beständig höher potenziertes, zunehmend emsigeres, bequemes und unfreies Ameisenstaatendasein”,114 where all aspects of life are determined by external factors. Correspondingly, Chamberlain defines “culture” as the “creative freedom” to truly build ones own world, as: “die Tochter der schöpferischen Freiheit, mit welcher der große Einzelne Künstler oder Philosoph die Welt mikrokosmisch in freier Erfindung erschafft und gestaltet.”115 It is not only the negative view of “civilisation” which Mayreder will adopt from Chamberlain, it is also his idea of the “creative freedom” to build ones own world, inherent in his definition of “culture” which Mayreder tries to develop further. Mayreder herself defines culture in the broadest possible sense as a general way of life based on ideas: “Kultur als ein soziales Phänomen bedeutet eine allgemeingültige Lebensform, in der ein ideeller Inhalt zum Ausdruck kommt”.116 But as far as Mayreder is concerned there is also a more “communitarian” element to “objective culture”, an argument which bears a clear resemblance to the position outlined by Ferdinand Tönnies (who distinguishes between Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft),117 and Georg Simmel (who distinguishes between “subjective” and “objective” culture) respectively,118 and which even uses the same sociological terms to discuss the intrinsic relation between “culture” and “community” in modern society: “Unter Kultur in ihrer objektiven Bedeutung ist eine Gemeinschaftserscheinung zu verstehen, die nur innerhalb einer Gesellschaft verwirklicht werden kann. Kultur in diesem Sinne ist ein Zustand der sozialen Ordnung, durch den die äußeren Mittel der Lebensführung in eine bestimmte, gesetzmäßige Beziehung zu inneren psy-

113 Ibid. p. 6. 114 Quoted from: Ibid. 115 Quoted from: Ibid. 116 Ibid. p. 10. 117 For a discussion of Tönnies’ notion of Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft, see: Section 4.1.2 of Chapter 6. 118 In his essay “Weibliche Kultur” (1911), Simmel defines “objective” and “subjective” culture in the following way: “Man kann Kultur als die Vervollkommnung von Individuen ansehen, die vermöge des in der geschichtlichen Gattungsarbeit objektivierten Geistes gewonnen wird. [...] Allein da diesem Vervollkommnungsprozeß die Inhalte des objektiven Geistes erst als selbständige, von dem Schaffenden wie von dem Aufnehmenden gelöste, gegenüberstehen müssen, um dann als seine Mittel oder Stationen in ihn einbezogen zu werden, so mag man diese Inhalte: all das Ausgesprochene und Geformte, das ideell Bestehende und real Wirksame, dessen Komplex den Kulturgrad einer Zeit ausmacht, als deren ‘objektive Kultur’ bezeichnen. Von ihrer Feststellung unterscheiden wir das Problem: in welchem Maße, nach Ausdehnung und Intensität, die Individuen an jenen Inhalten teilhaben – als das Problem der ‘subjektiven Kultur’.” Georg Simmel, “Weibliche Kultur”, in Otthein Rammstedt (ed.), Georg Simmel Gesamtausgabe, vol. 12 (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2001), p. 251.

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chischen Vorgängen gesetzt werden; sie ist die Steigerung der Naturbeherrschung durch die Überordnung geistiger Werte im Gemeinschaftsleben.” 119

But what Mayreder means by Gemeinschaftsleben is not simply the social life of any particular community, it is the life of the smallest community possible, the community between individual men and individual women. For Mayreder the decline of “culture” and the rise of “civilisation” is thus intrinsically linked to the socially constructed separation and the general artificiality of the role play between men and women in a society intellectually and socially dominated by men. Mayreder now defines “civilisation” as the systematic theoretical and practical subjugation of nature for the sake of greater comfort in the life-world as such: “Im allgemeinsten Sinn kann man unter Zivilisation jenen Zustand einer Gesellschaft begreifen, in dem eine hochgesteigerte Beherrschung der Natur zum Zweck erleichterter Lebensführung theoretisch und praktisch die oberste Stelle einnimmt.”120 On the other hand, Mayreder also defines “civilisation” ex negativo, i.e. by saying what it is clearly not: “In der abendländischen Zivilisation ist der Mensch wohl der Herr der Natur, aber nicht der Herr des Lebens: er lebt nicht, er wird gelebt.”121 Here it is her definition of “civilisation” as determining our lives externally, and preventing us from living them “authentically” by following our utmost inner impulses, that is not only “Chamberlainian”, but clearly also “Nietzschean” in tone, because as we have seen in section 3 of Chapter 6, Nietzsche clearly demands that we constantly create anew and derive our values from ourselves alone in order to gain a meaningful depth in our life.122 Yet if these rather vague and in some ways also unoriginal definitions of “culture” and “civilisation” had been the entire contribution Mayreder made to this debate, they would hardly be worth mentioning. But Mayreder’s arguments are far more original than that, because she mainly seeks to propagate the vital role of women as a prophylactic force against the apparent decline of “culture” and the seeming excesses of “civilisation”. Mayreder now argues that the general inability to reconcile the internal effects of “culture” and the external effects of “civilisation” in society, is also reflected in the way in which the social roles of men and women are both determined by and perceived in modern society. 119 Mayreder, Geschlecht und Kultur, pp. 9-10. 120 Ibid. p. 6. 121 Ibid. p. 22. 122 For Nietzsche’s demand to “create new values for and from yourself ”, see: Nietzsche, Der Wille zur Macht, § 767, p. 512. Or alternatively: Nietzsche, Also sprach Zarathustra, KSA 4, p. 149, where Nietzsche speaks “Von der Selbst-Überwindung.”

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While women are made to determine themselves socially by their role as mothers and are, therefore, largely confined to their function as carers, men are more or less free to determine themselves in whichever way they want, and are hence largely seen as makers or as homo fabers. In the last instance society, therefore, grants women no other role than that of mothers which consequently results in a strong sense of Geschlechtsgebundenheit of the women in modern society, as Mayreder consistently argues.123 But while women remain socially confined to their biological functions and, therefore, largely become prisoners of their own “nature”, men’s seemingly natural freedom to determine themselves in whichever way they like, leads to a: “Maßlosigkeit [ihres, F.S.L.] Lebens”.124 And for this “Maßlosigkeit”,125 there are apparently no boundaries and limiting factors which can, therefore, only mean that in the end it can only lead to the destructive and alienating excesses characteristic of partriarchal “civilisation”, as well as to the ultimate failure of the otherwise “natural humanity” of men, as Mayreder argues.126 Mayreder writes: “So groß seine Geschlechtsfreiheit von Natur aus ist, die Zivilisation, die keine Beziehung zu den Gattungspflichten als Maß kennt, reißt ihn schließlich von den Wurzeln los, an denen seine Menschlichkeit hängt.”127 Because of the fact that this fateful degree of “Maßlosigkeit”128 can only lead to the technical excesses of “civilisation” and not to the spiritual heights of “culture”,129 it can only be effectively controlled and altered by the active cultural engagement as well as the active balancing influence of women in the form of a counterweight to the male civilisatory excesses in modern society, as Mayreder consistently argues. This is also why she propagates that: “Bisher war der Mann das Maß aller Dinge; es könnte aber wohl sein, daß in Hinkunft die Auffassung bestimmend werden muß: Die Frau ist das Maß aller Dinge.”130 Particularly since the excesses of male “civilisation” are mainly the result of the intrinsically excessive “male nature” itself, as Mayreder emphasises: “Jene Tendenz zur Ausschweifung, zur sinnlichen wie zur geistigen, die mit der männlichen Natur im allgemeinen einhergeht und in der modernen Zivilisati-

123 Mayreder, Geschlecht und Kultur, p. 34. 124 Ibid. 125 Ibid. 126 Ibid. 127 Ibid. p. 32. 128 Ibid. p. 34. 129 Ibid. p. 7. 130 Ibid. p. 34.

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on ihren letzten Ausdruck genommen hat, kann ein Gegengewicht in der weiblichen Natur mit ihrer Tendenz zur Ausgeglichenheit, zur in sich geschlossenen Ruhe, zur formgebenden Ordnung finden, in der so wertvolle Kulturelemente enthalten sind.” 131

Yet the new cultural role for women, is not so much due to a transcendence of gender, than it is due to a new reading of traditional gender roles, as Mayreder argues: “Gerade in der vermeintlichen Unzulänglichkeit der weiblichen Konstitution, in ihrer strengeren Naturgebundenheit, liegt eine der Hoffnungen auf Wiederherstellung des Gleichgewichts in den Lebensbedingungen der Kulturvölker.”132 But if these new cultural achievements by women are ever to be fully realised, women first have to learn to understand their own “sexboundness” [“Geschlechtsgebundenheit”]133 as a particular source of power which can be successfully utilised for the renewal of culture, and indeed for a renewal and a re-evaluation of the meaning of “life” itself, as Mayreder argues: “Allerdings müssen die Frauen verstehen lernen, ihre Geschlechtsgebundenheit als Kulturmacht gegenüber der männlichen Geschlechtsfreiheit einzusetzen. [...] An den Frauen ist es ihrer neuen Stellung im Gemeinschaftsleben jenen Sinn zu geben, die sie haben muß, wenn sie ihnen selbst wie den Männern auch ein Lebensgewinn werden soll.”134 In this way women would then be able to actively contribute to the renewal of “culture” and to counter the debilitating effects of “civilisation” at the same time, particularly since they could obviously also counter and eventually even end the apparent “one-sidedness of male culture” [“Einseitigkeit der Männerkultur”].135 It is clear that to a certain extent at least, Mayreder’s differentiation between (female) “culture” and (male) “civilisation” is based on Georg Simmel’s notion of “subjective” and “objective” or “female” and “male” culture. This, for example, becomes particularly apparent when Mayreder speaks of “culture in its objective meaning” [“Kultur in ihrer objektiven Bedeutung”].136 This view is also expressed by Harriet Anderson, who argues that Mayreder was well aware of Simmel’s concepts (as well as of the sociology of Ferdinand Tönnies) 131 Ibid. p. 33. 132 Ibid. 133 Ibid. p. 34. 134 Ibid. 135 Mayreder, Kritik der Weiblichkeit, p. 68. 136 Mayreder, Geschlecht und Kultur, p. 9.

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and was to a large extent appreciative of them.137 For Mayreder the decline of “culture” and its separation from “civilisation” had been the result of the rift between “objective” and “subjective” or “male” and “female” culture as Simmel had famously called it.138 Within Simmel’s sociology the terms “objectivemale-culture” are virtually inseparable. Mayreder strongly criticised him for this, as she believed that the very problem of modern culture is that it is essentially male or patriarchal. Yet in her discussion of Georg Simmel’s contribu137 Anderson, however, argues that Mayreder believed that her interpretations of social reality were far superior to those offered by the two sociologists: “What was formerly culture has, Mayreder agrees with the sociologist Ferdinand Tönnies, been converted into a state-ridden civilisation in which culture is at risk of total suffocation. […] The one sided masculinity, Mayreder claims, is in urgent need of a counterweight – the feminine. This gendered distinction comes closest to that of [...] Georg Simmel. Mayreder recognised this herself, and on 22 October 1915 confided to her diary that his distinction between objective and subjective culture is exactly hers between civilisation and culture – except that she has expressed it better.” Anderson, Utopian Feminism: Women’s Movements in fin-de-siècle Vienna, pp. 170f. Even though the immediate context was that of Simmel and Tönnies, the terrain on which Mayreder’s criticism moves, had in Anderson’s view been conquered first by Nietzsche. It is still somewhat strange that Mayreder made such a “possessive claim” to this distinction, because as we have clearly seen in section 2.3 of Chapter 5, the “culture vs. civilisation” dichotomy was a widespread intellectual tool of understanding the sociocultural processes associated with “modernity” in the 19th century, particularly among German thinkers. What is more is that Mayreder herself even summarises the major contributions to this debate in her book Geschlecht und Kultur, which makes her possessive claim in her dairy entry in October 1915 even more surprising. Yet when she publishes her book eight years later, this claim does not reappear. What emerges, however, is Mayreder’s specifically “feminist” modification of Simmel’s argument and the gendered dimension she extends it by. Mayreder, Geschlecht und Kultur, pp. 1-35 and pp. 87-89. 138 Simmel’s notion of “culture” is, of course, also strongly influenced by Nietzsche. His writings offer a wide-ranging perspective on the social and philosophical concerns that characterised the final third of the 19th as well as the first two decades of the 20th century. But many of his theoretical concerns have lost nothing of their validity today. Simmel shared many of these concerns with Nietzsche, even though Nietzsche had expressed them more clearly in philosophical rather than sociological terms. Simmel, however, was very appreciative of Nietzsche’s philosophy and throughout his life he either explicitly or implicitly tried to come to terms with, as well as to develop, the challenges Nietzsche had posed in his writings. David Frisby, for example, argues that Simmel largely took over: “Nietzsche’s association of modernity with fashion and the extension of this negative association of the merely fashionable and the stylised with the modern into areas extending beyond clothing to architecture and other spheres.” David Frisby, “Introduction to the Texts”, in David Frisby and Mike Featherstone (eds.), Simmel on Culture: Selected Writings (London: Sage Publications, 2000), p. 13. Consequently, Simmel repeatedly addressed himself to Nietzsche’s writings, which is not surprising due to the obvious similarities in their style of writing and the, generally speaking, fragmentary character of their thoughts. Simmel’s lectures on Schopenhauer und Nietzsche (1907), for example, provide exemplary studies of the two great philosophers that largely regard their work as possible pathways for an escape from the alienation and estrangement that was caused by the decline of the meaning of the subject within “modernity”. Above all, however, Simmel regarded Nietzsche as a philosopher of culture and incorporated Nietzsche’s views into one of his most noticeable concepts in his 1909–1911 essay “Der Begriff und die Tragödie der Kultur”, and which encapsulates most of his cultural criticism throughout his writings, but represents their intellectual culmination. See for example: Simmel, Schopenhauer und Nietzsche (Hamburg: Sammlung Junius, 1996); Simmel “Der Begriff und die Tragödie der Kultur”, in Rammstedt (ed.), Georg Simmel Gesamtausgabe, vol. 14 (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1996), pp. 385-416. For a more detailed account of Nietzsche’s influence on Simmel, see: Solms-Laubach, “Nietzsche and Sociology”, in Studies in Social and Political Thought (2003), pp. 36-38.

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tion to the debate on female culture,139 Mayreder also emphasises that his essay on “Das Relative und Absolute im Geschlechterproblem” (1911)140 was one of the most important and thoughtful contributions to the gender debate since her publication of Zur Kritik der Weiblichkeit in 1907, particularly since Simmel tries: “das typisch Weibliche dem typisch Männlichen als gleichberechtigt gegenüberzustellen, [was, F.S.L.] ihn vorteilhaft von vielen seiner Vorgänger [unterscheidet, F.S.L.]; haben doch die Frauen selbst [inzwischen, F.S.L.] ihre Gleichberechtigung durch Annäherung an das Denken und Tun des Mannes zu erweisen gesucht!”141 But this is as far as her praise for Georg Simmel goes, because for Mayreder Simmel’s new (sociological) terminology cannot hide the fact that it still only relies upon and reiterates traditional social norms and traditional anticipations of gender roles, for which there is no rational or justifiable basis in Mayreder’s view: “[Man, F.S.L.] erkennt aber trotz der neuen Terminologie alsbald die Grundzüge der alten Norm, die der Frau das in sich geschlossene, harmonische Sein, dem Manne das in Willensrichtung und Triebrichtung gespaltene, auf das Wirken nach außen eingestellte Werden als Wesenheit zuspricht. Was da von der weiblichen Wesenheit ausgesagt wird, leidet, mit der Wirklichkeit verglichen, wie die meisten Generalisierungen an der Verwechslung eines subjektiven Idoles mit den realen Erscheinungen.”142

Mayreder dismantles Simmel’s theory of gender on the basis that he actually argues that whatever kind of activity women engage in, they essentially remain “sexbound” and, therefore, necessarily have to abandon the theoretical sphere and the practical domain of “objective” culture to the intellectual and sociocultural activities of men. This is, of course, unacceptable to Mayreder so that in the end she dismisses his views on the sociocultural contribution of women in modern societies almost entirely: “Allerdings bleibt nach Simmel ihr [d.h. der Frauen, F.S.L.] ganzes Tun und Sein immer an ihre Geschlechtlichkeit gebunden, von der sie zwar rein physisch unabhängiger sind als der Mann, aber doch durch sie in allen Wesensäußerungen bestimmt. Daraus folgt, daß das Frauentum trotz seiner inneren Absolutheit, die ‘übergeschlechtliche objektive Welt, die theoretische und die normative, die dem Ich gegenübersteht’, die Welt, die durch Ideen bewegt wird, 139 Mayreder, Geschlecht und Kultur, pp. 87.ff. 140 Simmel, “Das Relative und Absolute im Geschlechterproblem”, in Rammstedt (ed.), Georg Simmel Gesamtausgabe, vol. 12 (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp Verlag, 2001), pp. 224-250. 141 Mayreder, Geschlecht und Kultur, pp. 87-88. 142 Ibid. p. 88.

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dem männlichen Prinzip überlassen muß. Die Frauen hätten also nicht teil an dem, was das Höchste und Auszeichnendste der menschlichen Gattung ist – an dem ideenbildenden Vermögen, der Grundkraft der Kultur.” 143

This is also exactly why Mayreder believes that there is a fundamental crisis of culture: Women are basically excluded from the processes of the creation of cultural ideas. Mayreder’s resolution to the crisis of (female) “culture” and (male) “civilisation”, and the resulting fundamental doubt about her own society in short is, therefore, to ask for the Ursprung of this crisis and its “threads that lead from the past to the present and to the future” [“Linien die von der Vergangenheit über die Gegenwart in die Zukunft führen”],144 in order to counter the “Entartung der Kultur zur Zivilisation”145 with the ideal of a “higher humanity” of “synthetic individuals” who represent both male and female qualities, and the new cultural achievements accomplished through the active engagement of woman in the civilisatory process. Yet while Mayreder’s differentiation between (female) “culture” and (male) “civilisation” is mainly based on Georg Simmel’s notion of “subjective” and “objective” or “female” and “male” culture,146 her notion of the “synthetic individual” is, as we will see, obviously very strongly based on her understanding of Nietzsche’s notion of the “self-governing individual” that freely determines his or her own life according to his or her own inner impulses with complete disregard for all external influences.147 This becomes very clear when Mayreder briefly discusses Nietzsche’s notion of the “autonomous individual” and the sociocultural function it is to serve in his view of the world: “Bei Nietzsche erscheint als das Ziel aller Entwicklung das souveräne Individuum, der Einzelne, der, unabhängig von dem Einfluß äußerer Umstände, sein Leben nach inneren Impulsen frei gestaltet.”148 Nietzsche himself phrases his notion in a fairly similar way and argues that the autonomous being is the master of his or her own “will”: “das souveräne Individuum, daß nur sich selbst gleiche, das von der Sittlichkeit der Sitte wieder losgekommene, das autonome übersittliche Individuum (denn ‘autonom’ und ‘sittlich’ schliesst sich aus),

143 Ibid. pp. 88-89. 144 Ibid. p. 11. 145 Ibid. p. 12. 146 Ibid. pp. 87f. 147 Ibid. p. 15. 148 Ibid.

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[ist der, F.S.L.] Herr des freien Willens”.149 Mayreder interprets Nietzsche’s notion of the “self-governing individual” as a heuristic approach to a radical form of individual self-fulfilment, which despite its individualist exclusivity also entails a secondary element of the creation of the greater good for all, i.e. of a community of autonomous individuals who reinforce their individual achievements reciprocally and thereby also help to elevate the life of all: “Aber die Bedeutung des souveränen Individuums erschöpft sich nicht darin, daß es als Einzelerscheinung, losgelöst von der Gesamtheit, die höchsten Möglichkeiten der menschlichen Gattung verwirklicht; sie besteht ebenso sehr in seiner schöpferischen Tätigkeit, dem Leben auch für andere Form und Inhalt zu verleihen.”150 Despite of Nietzsche’s fundamental resistance to the possibility of concerning himself with the greater good of the masses of society, Mayreder insists that he was, nevertheless, aware of the fact that the elevation of the autonomous few, would also entail the elevation of the rest of society, as they are intrinsically linked to each other even if at times they try very hard to separate themselves from each other: “Dadurch wird sein [d.h. des autonomen Individuums, F.S.L.] Bezug zur Gesamtheit hergestellt, dessen sich Nietzsche trotz aller Losgelöstheit voll bewußt war.”151 Yet Nietzsche himself clearly refused to emphasise this point in the same way as Mayreder does, as he was more clearly concerned with the creation of the exceptional individual and the exceptional sociocultural actor than Mayreder was, who despite her individualism mainly wanted to liberate women (and to some degree also men) from the fetters of sex teleology and “sexboundness” in the process of fostering autonomous individuals. But like Nietzsche, Mayreder also strongly distinguishes the strong “individual personality” from the anonymous character of the “masses” of society. In her collection of poems and aphorisms entitled Gaben des Erlebens, published in 1935, Mayreder, for example, writes: “Die Geschichte der Persönlichkeit ist die Loslösung des Menschen als Einzelner von den Menschen als Masse. Ohne die Kraft, einzeln zu sein, kann man nicht Persönlichkeit sein.”152 On this basis Mayreder also develops here view of a “synthetic individual” [“der synthetische Mensch”],153 which describes a state of humanity that is to be based on a union of male and female qualities. Yet this synthesis is not meant in a physiological sense, but rather in a spiritual or psychological

149 Nietzsche, Genealogie der Moral, KSA 5, § 2, p. 293. 150 Mayreder, Geschlecht und Kultur, p. 15. 151 Ibid. p. 15. 152 Mayreder, Gaben des Erlebens: Sprüche und Betrachtungen (First edition published in Darmstadt, 1935), p. 16. Quoted from: Anderson, Beyond a critique of Femininity, p. 152. 153 Mayreder, Kritik der Weiblichkeit, particularly pp. 261-298.

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sense.154 Therefore, I tend to agree with Harriet Anderson’s assessment that “the synthesis implies only that the desirable qualities of each sex are united to create the purely human.”155 This purely human essence of mankind (a notion that, in some respects at least, goes back to Mayreder’s reading of Kant but also finds an equivalent expression in Nietzsche’s notion of the “göttliche Gefühl” embodied in “Menschlichkeit”156) which unites male and female attributes, has always been an important feature of human history, as Mayreder argues, despite the apparently very strong separation between men and women in out modern society: “das Gemeinsame, das im menschlichen Denken den Gattungscharakter des Menschen bezeichnet [...] hat, wie sehr auch scheinbar im realen Leben die Geschlechtstrennung dominiert, zu allen Zeiten eine große Bedeutung besessen.”157 Mayreder’s aim is, therefore, to re-enact and re-unite the shared features of men and women in a “synthesis” that will overcome the detrimental effects of Geschlechtstrennung, which are most apparent in the consequences of the: “Entartung der Kultur zur Zivilisation”.158 Yet neither sex can achieve this “synthesis” on its own, it has to be achieved by a “sittliche Anstrengung der Persönlichkeit”159 of both sexes in an attempt to overcome the differences that seemingly separate them in order to create their natural unity anew, and to finally give a deeper meaning to their shared lives. Hence Mayreder summarises her views of this “synthesis” by stressing that without the cultural contribution of women it would be impossible to attain: “Ohne die Mitwirkung der Frau als ebenbürtiger Gefährtin ist die Gemeinsamkeit, auf der das Ideal einer höheren Menschlichkeit ruht, nicht zu verwirklichen; und der Einsatz, den das weibliche Geschlecht gemäß seiner historischen Entwicklungsbahn in die Kultur zu geben hat, bildet eine notwendige Ergänzung zur Leistung des männlichen. Es ist eine Auszeichnung des weiblichen Geschlechtes, daß es vornehmlich Frauen sind, die in der geistigen Kultur der Gegenwart das Ideal der Gemeinsamkeit vertreten; und damit ist auch die Bürgschaft gegeben, daß die Frauen dazu beitragen werden, es zu verwirklichen.”160

154 Ibid. p. 278. 155 Anderson, Beyond a critique of Femininity, p. 140. 156 Nietzsche, Fröhliche Wissenschaft, KSA 3, § 337, p. 565. See also my discussion of this notion in Section 3.1 of Chapter 6. 157 Mayreder, Kritik der Weiblichkeit, p. 264. 158 Mayreder, Geschlecht und Kultur, p. 12. 159 Mayreder, Kritik der Weiblichkeit, p. 297. 160 Ibid. pp. 297-298.

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Only the resulting self-determining “synthetic” individual, Mayreder argues, will be able to bring forward a life-enhancing refinement and renewal of “culture” which is otherwise “at risk of total suffocation”,161 mainly due to the debilitating effects of “civilisation”. I have argued before that the civilisatory tendency of male “Maßlosigkeit”162 can only be controlled and altered by the active cultural engagement of women, as Mayreder consistently argues; yet on an individual level this also means a “synthesis” and balance of the male and female elements in every individual sociocultural actor. This synthesis has hitherto seemed impossible for Mayreder, because in essence, “culture” and “civilisation” want something entirely different: while “culture” aims for the spiritual refinement of life, civilisation aims for the technical refinement of life. Mayreder writes: “Der Mangel der Zivilisation als technischer Lebensvervollkommnung besteht vor allem darin, daß sie keine leitenden Ideen einer höheren Lebensvervollkommnung hervorbringt und sich nach Gesetzen entwickelt, die mit den Zielen der Kultur nicht übereinstimmen.”163 But for Mayreder the aim of the sociocultural process can only be a perfected “synthetic” form of life – “der synthetische Mensch”164 – who transcends these opposing tendencies inherent in “culture” and “civilisation” and who, therefore, also entails the possibility of overcoming the traditional fetters inherent in socially determined gender roles. “Synthetic” existence is, therefore, a form of life, “in der die Möglichkeit liegt die Bande des Geschlechtes ohne Verneinung zu überwinden. Nur die synthetischen Menschen können die Schöpfer dieser Lebensform sein.”165 In her evaluation of Mayreder’s concept, Harriet Anderson emphasises that in many ways Mayreder’s notion of the “synthetic ideal” is: “highly resonant of Nietzsche’s ideal of the Übermensch”, particularly since Nietzsche also: “stressed the individual’s autonomy and emancipation from the constraints of conventional social morality, religion and education (although not also of sex, as the early Mayreder did)”.166 Anderson repeats this claim in her introduction to a collection of excerpts from Mayreder’s diaries, where she says that it was particularly Nietzsche’s cult of the individual that appealed to Mayreder: “Die Gesellschaft und ihre Erneuerung sollten [für Mayreder, 161 Anderson, Utopian Feminism: Women’s Movements in fin-de-siècle Vienna, p. 170. 162 Mayreder, Geschlecht und Kultur, p. 34. 163 Ibid. p. 7. 164 Mayreder, Kritik der Weiblichkeit, particularly pp. 261-298. 165 Ibid. p. 297. 166 Anderson, Beyond a critique of Femininity, p. 152.

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F.S.L.] vor allem durch Individuen inspiriert und geleitet werden, durch diejenigen Persönlichkeiten, die sich selbst von Traditionen und Konventionen befreit haben, um persönlichen und höheren Idealen zu folgen.”167 Yet there clearly is also another dimension to Mayreder’s reading of Nietzsche’s ideal of the Übermensch which is Nietzsche’s educational ideal of “uninhibited freethinking”, an ideal Mayreder in many ways certainly also encountered in the writings of Johann Wolfgang Goethe (1749–1832). There is, therefore, a strong probability of a fusion of Nietzschean and “Goethean idea[s] of selfcultivation (Bildung)”168 in Mayreder’s writings, “which grant every individual the right to self-determination”,169 as Sokolosky convincingly emphasises. Like Nietzsche’s educational ideal, Goethe’s view of self-cultivation or Bildung in the last instance also aimed at the “autonomy of the individual”: “Bildung und Erziehung zielen also [für Goethe, F.S.L.] darauf ab, jedem einzelnen die Fähigkeit zu vermitteln, das, was ihm an Möglichkeiten offen steht, zur Wirklichkeit zu bestimmen, eben selbstbestimmungsfähig zu werden.”170 To be selbstbestimmungsfähig is in my opinion also the ultimate aim of Nietzsche’s notion of the Übermensch which clearly influenced Mayreder in many ways (see also Sections 3 and 3.1 of Chapter 6 on this topic). Yet Mayreder did not always read Nietzsche’s notion of the Übermensch in this way. In her brief reflections on Nietzsche’s notion of the Übermensch in her book Der letzte Gott (1933), Mayreder, for example, writes that Nietzsche’s concept is in essence a very “ineffective notion”, because it basically evades all clarity of definition and all “power of imagination”: “Nicht daß alle Entwicklung so unabsehbar langsam vor sich geht, macht die Idee des Übermenschen im letzten Grunde unwirksam, sondern daß wir uns von einem Wesen, das sich vom Menschen so unterscheiden soll wie der Mensch vom Affen, keine Vorstellung machen können.” 171

As a consequence, Mayreder argues that the Übermensch could only find a realisation in the real world and as an: “Überschreitung der Gattungsgrenze

167 Anderson, “Einleitung”, in Anderson (ed.), Rosa Mayreder: Tagebücher, p. 33. 168 Sokolosky, “Primitive or Differentiated? Constructions of Femininity in Rosa Mayreder’s Theoretical and Fictional Texts”, p. 68. 169 Ibid. 170 Claus Günzler, Bildung und Erziehung im Denken Goethes (Köln: Böhlau Verlag, 1981), p. 201. Quoted from: Sokolosky, “Primitive or Differentiated? Constructions of Femininity in Rosa Mayreder’s Theoretical and Fictional Texts”, p. 81. 171 Mayreder, Der letzte Gott (First edition published in Stuttgart, 1933), p. 134. Quoted from: Anderson, Beyond a critique of Femininity, p. 152.

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[Mensch, F.S.L.]”,172 in the form of the vague possibility of a future: “Erhöhung der Erkenntnisfähigkeit”,173 and of the general intellectual facilities of mankind [“die Vervollkommnung des zerebralen Apparats als Bewußtseinsorgan, als Spiegel der Welt”].174 This aim, Mayreder argues, would be the “only worthy goal in the striving” for the Übermensch [“das einzig würdige Ziel für ein Trachten nach dem Übermenschen”].175 Yet despite her resistance to Nietzsche’s concept, there are, of course, also apparent similarities in their respective ideals. Not least because both concepts avoid any form of clarity in relation to their “actual realisations”.176 It is clear that both concepts are in certain ways only “ideal types” of human beings, that have no corresponding matches in social reality, but rather are ideals to aspire to (they are, as Riehl had called it with reference to the Übermensch, profound “spiritual values” or “geistige Werte”).177 But if the Übermensch is indeed to be seen as an individual cultural ideal of self-overcoming, then it obviously also foreshadows Mayreder’s as well as many other feminist attempts at an individual (sexual) liberation and self-transformation. A similar view is also expressed by Stephen E. Aschheim who argues that many feminist thinkers and novelists at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century seemed to be inspired by Nietzsche’s notion of the Übermensch, and as a consequence preached: “a Zarathustrian poetics of love and a longing for sexual liberation. This radical Nietzschean libertarianism and emancipating eroticism was not limited to literary fiction. For some it was actualised into a determined alternative lifestyle conducted outside and against the mainstream.”178 What is also clear is that Mayreder radically modifies Nietzsche’s concept of the Übermensch, insofar as she turns the individualistic elements of his philosophy into substantial and constitutive parts of her own humanistic alternative of a “synthetic ideal” of a “higher humanity”. Nietzsche, however, would certainly have rejected her naive and optimistic humanism, despite of the argumentative closeness of their respective educational ideals. It seems, therefore, largely clear that Mayreder not only shares Nietzsche’s concern about “civilisation” and his preference for “culture”, but also his

172 Mayreder, Der letzte Gott, p. 136. Quoted from: Ibid. p. 154. 173 Mayreder, Der letzte Gott, p. 136. Quoted from: Ibid. 174 Mayreder, Der letzte Gott, p. 136. Quoted from: Ibid. 175 Mayreder, Der letzte Gott, p. 136. Quoted from: Ibid. 176 On this point see also: Anderson, Beyond a critique of Femininity, pp. 154f. 177 Riehl, Friedrich Nietzsche. Der Künstler und der Denker, p. 156. 178 Aschheim, The Nietzsche Legacy in Germany, pp. 56-57. On this point see also my discussion of Nietzsche’s influence on literature in Section 2.2 of Chapter 2.

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“cultural elitism”. What she, on the other hand, does not share with Nietzsche, is his apparent neglect of the social world. In her own summary of her books Zur Kritik der Weiblichkeit and Geschlecht und Kultur, Mayreder clearly emphasises that she essentially regards the individual as a “social being” that is substantially determined by the “sociocultural processes” surrounding it. But Mayreder’s concern lies not so much with the state of these processes themselves, as with the individual’s ability to transcend them in a not too distant future.179 As in Nietzsche’s case, it is, therefore, the individual that seems to be Mayreder’s main concern, which is one of the reasons why Mayreder was sometimes accused of fostering an inherent “elitism”. This “elitism” is in my opinion mainly the result of Mayreder’s uncritical reading of Nietzsche. Harriet Anderson also seems to confirm Mayreder’s Nietzschean “elitism” when she says that Mayreder’s emphasis on the freedom of personal and individual development, led her to formulate an anti-egalitarian cult of great personalities: “So zum Beispiel führt ihre Betonung der Freiheit der individuellen persönlichen Entwicklung sie dazu, sich einem anti-egalitären Kult der großen Persönlichkeit anzuschließen; die ursprünglich emanzipatorische Tendenz entpuppt sich [somit, F.S.L.] als unvereinbar mit dem Prinzip der Gleichheit.”180 Even though Anderson is fairly cautious in “blaming” Mayreder’s “elitism” at her reading of Nietzsche, she definitely hints at this possible link: “Das autonome Individuum, das in mancher Hinsicht Züge von Nietzsches Übermenschen trug, war für sie das Ziel der menschlichen Entwicklung.”181 Yet Mayreder herself is fairly ambiguous on this point. And the introduction to her book Geschlecht und Kultur, for example, only seems to confirm Anderson’s critique of an anti-egalitarian cult of great personalities in Mayreder’s writings, as Mayreder clearly emphasises the highly “individualist” view she takes on the sociocultural influences that have, historically speaking, always shaped gender relationships: “Freiheit der Selbstbestimmung nach Individualität ist der eine Pol der Entwicklung; Lebensformung im Sinne höherer Kultur

179 “In der Kritik der Weiblichkeit habe ich mich vornehmlich mit der Geschlechtspsychologie als einem Problem der individuellen Anlage beschäftigt – eine Untersuchung, die in der Freiheit der Individualität von apriorischer Beschränkung durch das Geschlecht ihr Ergebnis fand. Hier aber [in Geschlecht und Kultur, F.S.L.] betrachte ich in erster Linie die Werte sozialer und kultureller Art, die den Lebensformen der Geschlechter zugrunde liegen und über den Einzelnen, soweit er ein soziales Wesen und durch Kultureinflüsse bestimmbar ist, Macht ausüben.” Mayreder, Geschlecht und Kultur, p. iii. 180 Anderson, “Einleitung”, in Anderson (ed.), Rosa Mayreder: Tagebücher, p. 34. 181 Ibid. p. 33.

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der andere.”182 But surprisingly, Mayreder directs her book not at the ones who have already been able to free themselves from the fetters of gender based social norms by themselves alone, and who have consequently also managed to: “kraft ihrer Persönlichkeit das Gesetz ihres Lebens selbst zu schaffen”,183 but rather at the ones who have not yet been able to so, because it is mainly for them, Mayreder argues, that: “die historische Entwicklungsbahn des weiblichen Geschlechts auch in einer künftigen Kultur maßgebend sein [wird, F.S.L.].”184 Yet the problematic gendered relationship between “culture” and “civilisation” is, as Mayreder later argues, also expressed in the phenomenon called “asceticism”, which is why my discussion of Mayreder’s views on the subject of “asceticism” in the following sections of this chapter largely has to be seen as complementary to our analysis of her gendered critique of “culture” and “civilisation”.

4.3) Rosa Mayreder’s critique of “ascetic ideals” In this section I mainly discuss Mayreder’s view of “ascetic eroticism” and argue that it essentially is an extension of Nietzsche’s notion of “ascetic ideals”. Mayreder’s discussion of this topic also provides the basis for a more differentiated approach to Nietzsche’s philosophy in her late writings, which obviously becomes more critical of Nietzsche’s positions, without, however, failing to stay loyal to the idol of her youth. In interpreting Mayreder’s notion of a “limited form of asceticism”, I will again propose that Max Weber’s analysis of the effects of the development of the increasing rationalisation of modern society is a useful tool for understanding Mayreder’s position. Particularly Weber’s concept of an “innerworldly asceticism” seems to bear interesting parallels to Mayreder’s arguments on the subject.

4.3.1) Nietzsche and “ascetic ideals” Mayreder holds a very peculiar notion of ascetic ideals and eroticism, which clearly owes the main thrust of its argument to Nietzsche. Therefore, I will in this section briefly outline Nietzsche’s main arguments about the subject and the theoretical basis on which he forged them. For the Nietzschean context of Mayreder’s debate – which is strongly apparent – it is important to remember that “ascetic ideals” had their roots in ancient Greece where they originally served as the basis for the training of athletes in 182 Mayreder, Geschlecht und Kultur, pp. iii-iv. 183 Ibid. p. iv. 184 Ibid.

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their preparation for traditional competitions. Later – particularly with stoic philosophy – ascetic ideals also became a method of ridding oneself of vices and undesirable virtues. Christianity took over the latter form of asceticism through the apostle Paul, whose speculative thought about Christianity relied on stoic as well Judaic traditions. Paul emphasised the supranational character of Christianity and its universal notion of salvation and thereby transcended the traditional and national character of the early Judenchristentum.185 The important aspects in our consideration here are the fundamental dichotomies inherent in Christianity which Paul consistently emphasised: “Auf Paulus gehen die in der christlichen Philosophie enthaltenen und vom Luthertum verschärften Gegensatzpaare Fleisch und Geist, Gesetz und Gnade, Gerechtigkeit aus Werken und Gerechtigkeit aus Gnade usw. zurück.”186 These different dichotomies were the grounds on which “ascetic ideals” entered Christianity, and in many respects they largely reflect Paul’s – as Nietzsche would call it – “ausschweifende Herrschsucht” that seems to have been his answer to the weakness of his own: “Fleischlichkeit”.187 Hence Christian asceticism: “denotes any practice which places self-denial at the centre of its understanding of life.”188 In Christianity ascetic ideals came to dominate the lifes of monks and other ascetics, who strove for religious and moral purity in an attempt to overcome Fleisch for the sake of Geist in order to be closer to God, and who, therefore, suppressed all sensual longings of their human nature that were in any way related to worldly deeds: be they sexual, visual, audible or “tasteful”. In his letter to the Hebrews, Paul quoted the Old Testament: “Wen der Herr liebhat, den züchtigt er.” (Hebräer 12,6) Yet what Paul actually seems to want to indicate, was however a bottom-up view of this matter: “Wer den Herr liebhat, der züchtigt sich selbst.” Züchtigung and its variant form “asceticism” clearly became a virtue for Paul. Nietzsche would not have this suppression of sensual longings as practised in “asceticism” referred to as a virtue: “was hat diese Art Mensch mit Tugenden zu schaffen!”189 Quite on the contrary, as Nietzsche believes that the ascetic – the prime representative of this ideal – turns virtues into wants:

185 Nietzsche comments on this influence by saying: “Daß das Schiff des Christentums einen guten Teil des jüdischen Ballastes über Bord warf, daß es unter die Heiden ging und gehen konnte, – das hängt an der Geschichte dieses Einen Menschen, eines sehr gequälten, sehr bemitleidenswerten, sehr unangenehmen und sich selber unangenehmen Menschen.” Nietzsche, Morgenröte, KSA 3, § 68, p. 65. 186 Schischkoff (ed.), Philosophisches Wörterbuch, p. 517. 187 Nietzsche, Morgenröte, KSA 3, § 68, p. 66. 188 Ansell-Pearson, An Introduction to Nietzsche as Political Thinker, p. 141. 189 Nietzsche, Genealogie der Moral, KSA 5, § 8, p. 352.

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“Der Asket macht aus der Tugend eine Not.”190 And in his book Also sprach Zarathustra, Nietzsche’s lyrical I states that he will like only those who are prepared to punish their own God: “Ich liebe Den, welcher seinen Gott züchtigt, weil er seinen Gott liebt: denn er muß am Zorne seines Gottes zu Grunde gehen.”191 This essentially represents a reversal of Paul’s position and reflects Nietzsche’s fundamental objection to the Christian variant of total asceticism as a form of triumph over one’s own Fleischlichkeit, as Nietzsche believed this to be truly hostile to life itself. Keith Ansell-Pearson also confirms this view when he says that: “Nietzsche criticises the ascetic ideal, and the power it has exerted over humanity, because, in its Christian form, it is an ideal which has been placed in the service of a devaluation of life.”192 Nietzsche is convinced that it has been and can only be destructive. Bernhard Taureck comments on Nietzsche’s reversal of Paul’s position in the short but punchy passage in Also sprach Zarathustra by stressing that: “Nicht mehr der Mensch, sondern der Gott ist der Bestrafte. Mit und in einem Satz sind die Werte umgewertet. Aber die Rechnung wird nachgereicht, der Zorn Gottes wird toben und den Züchtiger verderben. Ironische Hybridbildung. Zarathustra imitiert die Drohung der Priester.”193 This view can be supported by the fact that Nietzsche relates his analysis of ascetic ideals – which he also refers to as the “Priester Ideal”194 – to his critique of priests in general. For priests, Nietzsche says, ascetic ideals essentially become an important tool for their dominance and superiority. He says, that they are: “ihr bestes Werkzeug der Macht, auch die ‘allerhöchste’ Erlaubnis zur Macht”.195 This, however, is only one aspect of Nietzsche’s critique of ascetic ideals, but nevertheless still a very important one. The clearest discussion of ascetic ideals in Nietzsche’s writings can be found in the third part of Zur Genealogie der Moral, where Nietzsche talks about what ascetic ideals mean in general – “was bedeuten asketische Ideale?”196 – and where their “incredible power” – “ungeheure Macht”197 – comes from. Nietzsche’s answer to this question is – as always with his philosophy – not a clear cut one. His approach to the topic is very complex. From the start it 190 Nietzsche, Menschliches, Allzumenschliches I, KSA 2, § 76, p. 84. 191 Nietzsche, Also sprach Zarathustra, KSA 4, p. 18. 192 Ansell-Pearson, An Introduction to Nietzsche as Political Thinker, pp. 140-141. 193 Bernhard H.F. Taureck, Nietzsche ABC (Leipzig: Reclam Leipzig, 1999), p. 250. 194 Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, KSA 6, p. 353. 195 Nietzsche, Genealogie der Moral, KSA 5, § 1, p. 339. 196 Ibid. pp. 339-412. 197 Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, KSA 6, p. 353.

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should be noted that Nietzsche is very critical of the excesses that the Christian ascetic ideal has produced, but admits that there are also some positive aspects of the restraints they have helped to incur: “It would be mistaken to suppose that Nietzsche opposes ascetic practices completely, since the kind of greatness which he esteems requires sacrifice and self-discipline.”198 Nietzsche’s comments on the topic are, therefore, very ambivalent. On the one hand he regards ascetic ideals as: “ein Kunstgriff in der Erhaltung des Lebens”,199 but on the other hand they represent a: “Wille zur ‘Wüste’”,200 or even a: “Wille zum Ende”.201 This can, however, easily be understood when we remember that an “ascetic life is a self-contradiction for Nietzsche since it expresses a will which does not simply want to attain mastery over something in life, but over life’s most basic and powerful conditions.”202 Nietzsche also asks what the historical basis for ascetic ideals is, and finds the answer in the basic structure of the human will: it desperately needs an aim, it rather wills nothing than not to will at all. He writes: “Das aber überhaupt das asketische Ideal Menschen so viel bedeutet hat, darin drückt sich die Grundtatsache des menschlichen Willens aus, sein horror vacui: er braucht ein Ziel, – und eher will er noch das Nichts wollen, als nicht wollen.”203 To will nothing rather than not to will at all is, therefore, the basic desire of the ascetic. He even becomes a “sportsman of holiness” [“sportsmen der Heiligkeit”],204 as Nietzsche argues, in his (un-) successful attempt to “triumph over himself”.205 It provides the ascetic with a true sense of happiness and luck to pursue his harsh path of “Entselbstung”206: “das Glück [dabei, F.S.L.], als das lebendigste Gefühl der Macht gedacht, [das, F.S.L] in den Seelen abergläubischer Asketen [steckt, F.S.L.]”.207 In an ironic turn one could refer to this triumph as the “triumph of the will”. This “triumph of the will”, however, takes the form of a triumph of a: “Wille zum Ende”,208 as

198 Ansell-Pearson, An Introduction to Nietzsche as Political Thinker, p. 141. 199 Nietzsche, Genealogie der Moral, KSA 5, § 13, p. 366. 200 Ibid. § 8, p. 352. 201 Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, KSA 6, p. 353. 202 Ansell-Pearson, An Introduction to Nietzsche as Political Thinker, p. 141. 203 Nietzsche, Genealogie der Moral, KSA 5, § 1, p. 339. 204 Ibid. § 17, p. 379. 205 Nietzsche, Morgenröte, KSA 3, § 113, p. 103. 206 Nietzsche, Genealogie der Moral, KSA 5, § 17, p. 377. 207 Ibid. 208 Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, KSA 6, p. 353.

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it results in a complete form of self-denial, according to Nietzsche. Therefore, the ascetic essentially is a: “lebensfeindliche Spezies”,209 whose ascetic ideal: “entspringt dem Schutz- und Heilinstinkt eines degenerierenden Lebens”.210 Nietzsche is, nonetheless, not always as negative as this about ascetic ideals and those who adhere to them. He even needs a limited form of ascetic ideals to convincingly forge his own counter-ideal against them. What AnsellPearson points out convincingly, is that what Nietzsche “is opposed to are the practices of self-denial which devalue earthly, sensual life.”211 In the Antichrist Nietzsche, for example, writes that those who are strongest, will always find their happiness where others would find their end: “Die geistigsten Menschen, als die Stärksten, finden ihr Glück, worin andere ihren Untergang finden würden: im Labyrinth, in der Härte gegen sich und andere, im Versuch; ihre Lust ist die Selbstbezwingung: Der Asketismus wird bei ihnen Natur, Bedürfnis, Instinkt. Die Schwere Aufgabe gilt ihnen als Vorrecht, mit Lasten zu spielen die andere erdrücken”.212 Important here is the notion of “instinct”, which Nietzsche also expressed in his earlier considerations on the subject in his Genealogie der Moral, where he said that historically speaking asceticism had a tendency to become the: “dominierende Instinkt, der seine Forderungen bei allen anderen Instinkten durchsetzte”.213 The main demands which asceticism makes, are its three grand “Prunkworte”,214 as Nietzsche calls them. These are: “Armut, Demut, Keuschheit: und nun sehe man sich einmal das Leben aller großen fruchtbaren erfinderischen Geister aus der Nähe an, – man wird darin alle drei bis zu einem gewissen Grade wiederfinden.”215 Another element of Nietzsche’s positive comments about asceticism is its capacity to restrain an excessive and consequently (or possibly) destructive “sensuality”. Nietzsche believes that ascetic ideals have the power: “einer mutwilligen Sinnlichkeit Zügel anzulegen”.216 Nietzsche had already praised this capacity of asceticism in his earlier book Morgenröte, where he famously stated that ascetic restraint was the right option for those, whose sensual drives turned into “wild beasts”, but – he characteristically adds – only for those: “Der Asketismus ist für Solche 209 Nietzsche, Genealogie der Moral, KSA 5, § 11, p. 362. 210 Ibid. § 13, p. 366. 211 Ansell-Pearson, An Introduction to Nietzsche as Political Thinker, p. 141. 212 Nietzsche, Antichrist, KSA 6, § 57, p. 243. 213 Nietzsche, Genealogie der Moral, KSA 5, § 8, p. 353. 214 Ibid. p. 352. 215 Ibid. 216 Ibid. p. 353.

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die rechte Denkweise, welche ihre sinnlichen Triebe ausrotten müssen, weil dieselben wütende Raubtiere sind. Aber auch nur für Solche!”217 But Nietzsche is not at all consistent on this issue, for he is also defending the “wild nature” of the human essence as the vital otherness to its “unnatural” feature of “intellectualism”. He writes: “Man erholt sich in seiner wilden Natur am besten von seiner Unnatur, von seiner Geistigkeit.”218 What these passages from Nietzsche’s texts clearly indicate is his ambivalence on the issue. He obviously holds a multi-layered view of the subject that cannot be easily entangled. In the end it is fair to say that Nietzsche regards the ascetic ideal as “das schädliche Ideal par excellence”,219 it is nothing but a “décadence-Ideal”,220 and hence represents a clear sign and a tool of “nihilism”. Nietzsche was not at all content with the “ungeheure Macht”221 which was embodied in the historical manifestations of the ascetic ideal and the source of divinely sanctioned power it represented for all priests of all times. Its immense power, Nietzsche says, derived from the fact that it was the only ideal hitherto; it had no serious competitors. This is also where Nietzsche’s book provides the answer to the question of where the power of ascetic ideals comes from, as he shows: “[daß, F.S.L.] es das einzige Ideal bisher war, weil es keinen Konkurrenten hatte.”222 But Nietzsche was clearly intent on providing a counter ideal – a “Gegen-Ideal”223 as he calls it – and does so with his book Also sprach Zarathustra. There it is his notion of the Übermensch as an ideal to aspire to and as a spiritual value to live up to, that represents his notion of a counter ideal. This is one of the main reasons why I essentially interpret Nietzsche’s concept of the Übermensch as an educational ideal, as outlined in earlier chapters of this book. Yet this is also where Mayreder again meets with Nietzsche’s philosophy, as she also proposed a “counter ideal” to the historical ideal of total asceticism: this counter ideal for Mayreder was again – as we will see in the following section – her “synthetic ideal” of a “higher humanity” which she had already formulated in her first major book Zur Kritik der Weiblichkeit, but restated in the later work Askese und Erotik.

217 Nietzsche, Morgenröte, KSA 3, § 331, p. 234. 218 Quoted from: Werner Ross, Der wilde Nietzsche (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlagsanstalt DVA, 1994), p. 2. 219 Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, KSA 6, p. 353. 220 Ibid. 221 Ibid. 222 Ibid. 223 Ibid.

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4.3.2) Rosa Mayreder’s “ascetic eroticism” In her essay on ascetic ideals and eroticism entitled “Askese und Erotik”224 originally published in 1926, Mayreder tries to portray the ambivalent attitudes reflected in the cultural phenomenon called “asceticism”. This is an important and necessary task, so Mayreder, in order to overcome the confusion that can result form a failure to understand the influence of past historical stages and the public attitudes concerning sexuality which they shaped. These historical attitudes still influence the present in basically two ways: “in sozialen Zuständen wie in unserer Seele.”225 It is in this respect that Mayreder’s critique of asceticism becomes an extension of her critique of “culture” and “civilisation”. Mayreder attempts a “kulturgeschichtliche”226 analysis of the subject that tries to answer the question of the origin of the fierce criticism and hatred which questions concerning sexuality have inspired in moral thinkers of all times.227 Hence Mayreder shares with Nietzsche the view that it were always the most contemplative and thoughtful thinkers who have seen something essentially “obscene” and “sinful” in their “sensual” and “sexual” longings. Mayreder says that: “gerade die Ernstesten, die am stärksten von höheren Lebensideen Ergriffenen haben die Sexualität verneint, sie zum Gegenstand der Scham, des schlechten Gewissens, der sittlichen Auflehnung gemacht.”228 This clearly corresponds with Nietzsche’s position, which I have outlined before, when he says that: “Die geistigsten Menschen, als die Stärksten, finden ihr Glück, worin andere ihren Untergang finden würden: [...] in der Härte gegen sich und andere [...]; ihre Lust ist die Selbstbezwingung: Der Asketismus wird bei ihnen Natur, Bedürfnis, Instinkt.”229 An even clearer parallel emerges when Nietzsche says that self-imposed poverty, humbleness and celibacy have always characterised the lives of great thinkers: “Armut, Demut, Keuschheit: und nun sehe man sich einmal das Leben aller großen fruchtbaren erfinderischen Geister aus der Nähe an, – man wird darin alle drei bis zu einem gewissen Grade wiederfinden.”230 224 Mayreder, Askese und Erotik, pp. 19-62. 225 Ibid. p. 21. 226 Ibid. 227 Ibid. p. 22. 228 Ibid. 229 Nietzsche, Antichrist, KSA 6, § 57, p. 243. 230 Nietzsche, Genealogie der Moral, KSA 5, § 8, p. 352.

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But Mayreder is not at all happy with this position: “Haben nicht diese höheren Menschen eine verhängnisvolle Verwirrung in das menschliche Gefühlsleben getragen und es mit den unerläßlichen Forderungen der Natur heillos entzweit?”231 It is clear that Mayreder responds to Nietzsche’s views on “asceticism” here, and the term “diese höheren Menschen”232 – which Mayreder uses to name the Jewish prophets, the Greek and Roman philosophers, and the Buddhist and Christian saints as the ones who are responsible for giving rise to the self-denial and restraint embodied in the ideal of “total asceticism” which has characterised our collective cultural history233 – is also an overt reference to Nietzsche’s notion of the “higher man”. Nietzsche regarded the “höhere Menschen” as the highest specimens of life-denying Western culture, who stood above the herd of the “letzten Menschen” and who, in principle at least, understand the basis for life, but lack the “strength” to transcend the decadence of Platonic-Christian cultures and to thereby finally overcome nihilism.234 Mayreder was well aware of Nietzsche’s position and her criticism of “diese höheren Menschen”235 essentially refers to their inability to overcome the deeply and historically grounded notion of “asceticism” and its essentially life-denying nature or general hostility to life. It certainly is no coincidence that she uses the term in this context. The result of this process of inserting an essential feeling of abasement against sensual longings and bodily desires into cultural history was, for Mayreder, the introduction of the: “metaphysische Bedeutung der Askese in jeder Weltanschauung, die den Menschen höheren Zuständen entgegenführen will”.236 Again there is a clear link to Nietzsche’s view on asceticism here, as he had also aimed for a “Erhöhung des Menschen”237 in “culture”, which I have already indicated in Section 2.4 of Chapter 5 in my discussion of Nietzsche’s distinction between “culture” and “civilisation”. Mayreder hence describes “asceticism” as the intentional or “willing” subjugation of bodily needs and desires for the sake of higher ideals: “Askese – das heißt, die durch den Willen bewirkte Eindämmung oder auch völlige Ertötung der aus dem körperlichen Leben herstammenden Begierden und Affekte zugunsten einer höheren Idee.”238 231 Mayreder, Askese und Erotik, p. 22. 232 Ibid. 233 Ibid. 234 See also my discussion of this topic in Section 3.1 of Chapter 6 of this book. 235 Mayreder, Askese und Erotik, p. 22. 236 Ibid. 237 Nietzsche, Werke und Briefe III, p. 493. 238 Mayreder, Askese und Erotik, p. 26.

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Even though Mayreder is concerned with the wider historical background and influence of different cultural traditions, religions and philosophies on the notion of “asceticism”, she also attributes an important role – as Nietzsche had done – to the apostle Paul in the process of making ascetic ideals the: “dominierende Instinkt, der seine Forderungen bei allen anderen Instinkten durchsetzte”,239 as Nietzsche came to phrase it. According to Mayreder, Paul had overemphasised the: “Zwiespalt zwischen den Ansprüchen des geistigen Lebens und denen des sinnlichen”240 to such a degree that the Christian position can be summarised thus: “Je stärker die Ansprüche des Geistes werden, desto mehr fühlt er sich durch die Ansprüche der Sinnlichkeit beeinträchtigt.”241 Hence Paul became the first Christian “witness”242 of this position, and so his ascetic tendency became visible in many different facets of his life, making him the first in a long row of Christian saints “die den Weg zu Gott in der Abtötung des Fleisches suchten.”243 But even outside the Christian tradition Mayreder is convinced that “asceticism” has always been the main feature of strongly vergeistigte thinkers, who – partly due to shame or a bad conscience – have always renounced their sexuality as part of their ethical struggles in life. Mayreder argues that this form of “asceticism”, with its inert hostility towards life and sexuality, has finally lost its foundation with the increasing incredulity towards religious beliefs and other meta-narratives that characterises modern society. As argued before, Mayreder partly arrives at her opposition to grand belief systems from her reading of Nietzsche’s philosophy. Mayreder is convinced that: “Askese in ihrer absoluten Gestalt, als Verneinung des irdischen Lebens, als Überwindung der Sexualität um ihrer Verwerflichkeit Willen, mit den Glaubensillusionen, auf die sie sich stützte, ihre Rechtfertigung verloren hat. Sie ist die letzte Konsequenz einer Weltanschauung, die den Sinn des Lebens in ein Jenseits verlegte, und sie ist absurd wie alle letzten Konsequenzen.”244 This form of “absolute asceticism”, Mayreder argues, is always hostile to life and is also entirely “unnatural”, but a limited and life-affirming form of “asceticism” is the very opposite: it is creative and even life-giving as it becomes a tool for the “inner freedom” of the individual in the world “here 239 Nietzsche, Genealogie der Moral, KSA 5, § 8, p. 353. 240 Mayreder, Askese und Erotik, p. 31. 241 Ibid. p. 27. 242 Ibid. 243 Ibid. p. 28. 244 Ibid. p. 37.

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and now”. Particularly since it also entails the possibility of turning “sexuality” into “eroticism”: “Askese in ihrer bedingten Gestalt, als Vermittlerin zwischen Körper und Geist, als Ausgleichung polarer Ansprüche der menschlichen Natur im Individuum selbst, als Werkzeug der inneren Freiheit bleibt auf dem Boden der diesseitigen Welt, obwohl sie gleichfalls nach höheren Daseinszuständen zielt. Ihr großes Werk ist die Umwandlung der Sexualität zur Erotik – eine Erscheinung, die erst in ihren Anfängen begriffen ist und dem menschlichen Seelenleben noch unendliche Bereicherung verspricht.” 245

Mayreder expects a “synthesis” between the elements of a “limited form of asceticism” and a balanced Geistigkeit to be the perfect basis for any harmonious love and any well balanced existence – if it is present in both partners of the relationship in question. This balance will help to stimulate both partners – the male and female – to enjoy what is best of both influences in their shared Weiblichkeit and Männlichkeit. Elements of this “femaleness” and “maleness” are present in any given individual, yet every individual has to develop an awareness of these elements on their own, in order to be able to finally share them with someone else. This “synthetic” balance of Weiblichkeit and Männlichkeit will also allow for a unity of the intellectual and sensual longings which are present in both of these aspects of the human psyche: “Die sexuellen Impulse verbinden sich konstitutionell mit Antrieben aus dem Gebiete des höheren Seelenlebens und verlieren auf diese Weise den Charakter des Herabsetzenden, der freien Persönlichkeit Feindlichen. Dieser Zustand des Gleichgewichtes kann ein angeborener sein, als eine organische Wesensharmonie Werk der Natur, oder er kann als Erstrebung eines der Wesensanlage möglichen, aber erst durch Willensanspannung zu erreichenden Ausgleichs Werk der persönlichen Kultur sein.” 246

This view is based on Mayreder’s belief that most human beings will need both elements to enjoy an ideal equilibrium in life: Sexual intercourse for the individual or shared level, and intellectual intercourse for the collective or social level. Both these aspects can, however, become destructive if they do not fulfil their designated equilibrium and shift into extreme disproportions or if they become part of an essentially egoistic striving for or will to power and domination over the other. In the case of an extreme imbalance between these two poles of life, Mayreder would certainly give a lot of credence to Nietzsche’s view 245 Ibid. p. 62. 246 Ibid. p. 46.

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expressed in his book Morgenröte that ascetic restraint was the right option for those, whose sensual drives turned into “wild beasts”, but, he characteristically adds, “only for those”: “Der Asketismus ist für Solche die rechte Denkweise, welche ihre sinnlichen Triebe ausrotten müssen, weil dieselben wütende Raubtiere sind. Aber auch nur für Solche!”247 But Mayreder would certainly add “only in this case!” as well, as her preference for a “limited form of asceticism” is an uncompromising feature of her thought.

4.3.3) Understanding Rosa Mayreder’s “ascetic eroticism” A useful tool in understanding Mayreder’s “limited form of asceticism” is Max Weber’s notion of an “innerworldly asceticism”. Weber partly developed his notion of Die Protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus248 on the basis of his perception of “ascetic ideals”. In Chapter 4 of this book I have argued that what Weber called “innerworldly asceticism” refers to the individual usage of creative energies and capacities in the process of engaging in hard labour or ones given vocation, which were set free by an outright rejection of “total religious asceticism” (as practised by, e.g. medieval catholic monks). It was particularly Calvinism that had advocated this rejection of total asceticism and thereby provided the basis for the “spirit of capitalism”, as Weber argues. This rejection of total asceticism is, so Weber, also extended to the world as such, which does no longer bear a sacred status and where consequently only human actions determine human history. Even if Weber explicitly relates his notion of an “innerworldly asceticism” to ones given vocation, there is no reason why it could not be transferred to other cultural spheres as well. It is not entirely clear if Mayreder has read Weber’s Protestantische Ethik, but her knowledge of the work of Simmel, Tönnies, Engels and Marx is well documented in her major writings as well as her diaries, and as Bubeniček convincingly argues, Mayreder was very familiar with the wider sociological and philosophical literature of her time.249 An indication that Weber’s notion of “innerweltliche Askese” might well have been known to Mayreder is maybe also to be gained from the title of a central section of her youth memoirs Das Haus in der Landskrongasse (written between 1915-20, several years after the publication of Weber’s book) which is entitled: “Erschließung der inneren Welt”.250 There Mayreder describes the 247 Nietzsche, Morgenröte, KSA 3, § 331, p. 234. 248 Weber, Die Protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus, 2 vols. (1965). 249 Bubeniček, “Impressionen zu Rosa Mayreder”, p. 17. 250 Mayreder, Das Haus in der Landskrongasse: Jugenderinnerungen (Wien: Mandelbaum Verlag, 1998), pp. 144-162.

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formative influences on her early intellectual development, and proceeds to portray how she felt a strong dualistic “rift” in her personality: a “systematische Spaltung in eine Geistesperson und eine Naturperson”.251 Moreover, Mayreder argues that she developed her notion of a strong “individuality” and her ideas of the need for women’s “emancipation” at the same time. She basically understood these notions as symptoms of a certain “Kulturzustand” or even the symptoms of a wider “menschliche Entwicklungsstufe” whose origins she decided to systematically uncover from then on, in order to set an example for a “neue[s] Menschentum”252 that was “created” according to new and hitherto unseen laws and standards,253 which would be totally different from the one’s that characterised her own society. Her envisaged method of self-determination at that time was to be one of rigorous “self-discipline”, “asceticism” [“die alle Unmittelbarkeit des Empfindens zerstörte”],254 and a general “Kultus der Selbstbeherrschung”.255 This is not very different from the positions outlined by both Weber and Nietzsche respectively. Mayreder’s notion of “asceticism” is certainly also an “innerworldly” one, but she turns Weber upside down and reinserts Nietzsche’s fear of eroticism into his analysis. But Mayreder also did this out of fear. Her fear, however, was that “total asceticism” would make the world an even colder place than it already was, as it was prone to alienate mankind from its true essence; on the other hand total libertinage would also be destructive, as it would only bring the other extreme into domination. For both Weber and Mayreder their respective understanding of asceticism as an “innerworldly” phenomenon presents their respective “ascetic ideals” as very peculiar forms of self-affirmation. Telling on this point is probably the impression which Mayreder gained of Max Weber when she finally met him at a conference in Vienna, where Joseph Schumpeter and her friend Rudolf Goldscheid were also presenting their philosophical concerns in forms of public lectures, and which she confided to her diary on the 15th of May 1918: “Er macht den Eindruck eines tief ernsten Mannes von unterdrückter Leidenschaftlichkeit.”256 She regarded this characteristic feature of Weber’s personality also as the fundamental problem of most modern intellectuals in general: the “lack

251 Ibid. p. 155. 252 Ibid. p. 161. 253 Ibid. p. 160. 254 Ibid. p. 154. 255 Ibid. 256 Anderson (ed.), Rosa Mayreder: Tagebücher, p. 179.

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of passion” or “Mangel an Leidenschaft”257 as she calls it. The consequences of this apparent “lack of passion” of many intellectuals (like Weber) were severe, so Mayreder, for it meant that these thinkers were nothing but “burned out craters” on whose soil there might flourish some beautiful yet innocent “flower”, but who lack “all eruptive capacities” for creative change: “er ist ein ausgebrannter Krater. Es wächst allerhand Hübsches auf diesem Boden, aber er besitzt nicht mehr die eruptive Kraft der Umgestaltung.”258 And so in her vision of the world the “synthetic ideal” of a “higher humanity” was to finally overcome this modern lapse, because with the help of the “synthetic ideal” the antagonistic struggle between the sexes would be reconciled in a: “union of sex characteristics”,259 which would end the fetters of the determination of personality and individuality on the basis of “gender”,260 and introduce the important cultural counterweight of the “feminine essence”, “in der so wertvolle Kulturelemente enthalten sind.”261 It is very clear that Mayreder is discussing the relationship of “ascetic ideals” and “eroticism” as part of her response of Nietzsche’s philosophy who was one of the first thinkers to radically question the meaning of ascetic ideals, and who tried to systematically analyse the influence of ascetic ideals on the sociocultural history of the Western world. Although there is only one direct reference to Nietzsche in her essay – which deals with Nietzsche’s claim that Christianity emerged from Judaism and which links the rise and flourishing of love and sexuality as our “höchstes seelisches Erleben”262 to the rise and flourishing of Christianity itself – it seems very clear form our discussions in the previous sections of this chapter that her debate of ascetic ideals is essentially an extension of her reading of Nietzsche. Yet Mayreder’s views emerge at a time when she developed a more critical or differentiated reading of Nietzsche’s philosophy than can be found in her early works, particularly in her book Zur Kritik der Weiblichkeit of 1905, but also in her study on Geschlecht und Kultur of 1923. This increased criticism of Nietzsche is also reflected in her essays on “Ideen der Liebe” (1927) and “Krise der Ehe” (1929),263 but her criticism is still only 257 Ibid. 258 Even though Mayreder speaks of the average Austrian intellectual in particular, I believe her analysis can also be extended to include others as well, as her earlier reference to Weber clearly seems to indicate. Ibid. pp. 179-180. 259 Anderson, Utopian Feminism: Women’s Movements in fin-de-siècle Vienna, p. 140. 260 Mayreder, Zur Kritik der Weiblichkeit, p. 295. 261 Mayreder, Geschlecht und Kultur, p. 33. 262 Mayreder, Askese und Erotik, p. 50. 263 Both to be found in: Mayreder, Askese und Erotik, (2001). “Ideen der Liebe”, pp. 63-102; “Krise der Ehe”, pp. 103-151.

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a very mild one and largely represents a more objective discussion of Nietzsche’s views on women, eroticism and marriage. All of these issues are classical “Nietzschean” topics which Mayreder did not discuss in her earlier works in any detail, partly – I would argue – in order to prevent herself from accusing the very foundation of many of her arguments – i.e. Nietzschean philosophy – of ambivalence. Even in these three late essays Mayreder is not criticising Nietzsche in much detail, but rather uses some of his arguments as a counterpoise to her own views. Yet she still – maybe even more than before – relies on Nietzsche’s arguments as the fundamental basis for her own theories. This is clearly the case in her discussion of “ascetic ideals” and “eroticism”, but also marks the other two essays to some extent. Mayreder, however, essentially remained a “Nietzschean” even if her reading of his philosophy became more differentiated. Maybe one can go so far as to say that this differentiation even helped to reaffirm her appreciation of Nietzsche’s work, which can be supported by the fact that her views expressed in these essays are not altogether new, and certainly not entirely dismissive of Nietzsche’s thoughts either. There are, therefore, various levels on which Mayreder reinterprets Nietzsche’s philosophy. Her formative intellectual influences as a young woman were essentially Wagnerian and Nietzschean, although Goethe and Kant where also important to her. Mayreder, for example, reinterprets Nietzsche’s concept of the Übermensch with the help of Kant’s notion of “humanity”, but also with Nietzsche’s own understanding of the “göttliche Gefühl” called “Menschlichkeit”,264 to arrive at her notion of a “higher humanity” based on the “synthetic ideal” of mankind. Yet her reinterpretation of Nietzsche also clearly influenced her personal life, finds expression in her radical critique of her own “decadent society” and the rigid social roles that characterise it. Mayreder also extends her reading of Nietzsche into an overall gendered critique of “culture” and “civilisation”, which is also closely linked to many of her other theoretical concepts. On a final level though, her reinterpretation of Nietzsche’s writings takes shape in her discussion of “ascetic ideals”, to which she also finds an answer with her ambivalent notion of a person who embodies the “synthetic ideal”. This ideal is also linked to her notion of “love” as essentially living one’s life as a necessary and complementary part of another human being, but at the same time – and this is crucial – managing to keep one’s individuality fully in tact: “Ihr Bild der Liebe ist eines der Gleichheit der Geschlechter, die eine Synthese bewirkt, und beinhaltet das erotische Selbstbewußtsein der Frau”, 265 as Eva Gerber argues. 264 Nietzsche, Fröhliche Wissenschaft, KSA 3, § 337, p. 565. 265 Eva Gerber, “Vorwort”, in Mayreder, Das Haus in der Landskrongasse, p. 11.

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It should be clear by now that Mayreder’s response to Nietzsche’s philosophy is very complex and provides a good example of what Häußling calls the “hidden dialogue” between Nietzsche and sociology; with Mayreder taking over certain elements of Nietzsche’s writings or taking him as a source of inspiration, but by still keeping a safe distance to the excesses that could be found within Nietzsche’s writings, and particularly from the cult that emerged around his work after his death in 1900. But a lot of Mayreder’s dialogue with Nietzsche is not at all “hidden”, but – as we have clearly seen – it is very “explicit” and, therefore, represents a conscious choice by her. But the sociological reception of Nietzsche’s cultural critique becomes even more complex and ambivalent when we now turn to Alfred Weber’s notion of Kultursoziologie in the final chapter of this book.

Chapter VIII Alfred Weber’s response to Nietzsche’s philosophy

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Chapter VIII Alfred Weber’s response to Nietzsche’s philosophy 1) Alfred Weber and Nietzsche in dialogue Nietzsche’s cultural critique and his view of the role played by tragedy in ancient Greece found its clearest expression, as argued previously, in his Geburt der Tragödie. This book in many ways foreshadows or presents an early version of the mode of historical and cultural analysis later proposed by Alfred Weber who – partly on the basis of his readings of Nietzsche – developed a distinct “sociology of culture” or Kultursoziologie. This view is also confirmed by Roger Häußling, who argues that Alfred Weber was one of the few early German sociologists who dealt intensively with Nietzsche’s philosophy and whose writings represent: “weitere originelle Facetten des Wechselbezugs zwischen der Soziologie und Nietzsches Denken”.1 Rather disappointingly this is all the attention Alfred Weber’s highly original response to Nietzsche’s philosophy gains in Häußling’s analysis of the relation between Nietzsche and sociology, but it becomes very clear throughout this chapter that this response surely deserves a far more detailed consideration, not least because this response is largely unexplored. Alfred Weber (1868–1958), who was born in Erfurt, was the younger brother of the eminent German sociologist Max Weber. Like his brother, Alfred Weber worked on a wide range of subjects, including economics, bureaucracy and most importantly cultural history: “Die Wortprägung ‘Kultursoziologie’ stammt von Alfred Weber.”2 Weber first publicly conceived of Kultursoziologie in a speech delivered to the 2. Deutsche Soziologentag in Berlin in 1912 which received a very critical response, particularly by the Marxist Georg Lukács who argued that instead of providing a strictly sociological terminology of “culture”, Weber’s approach rather relied on a

1 Häußling, Nietzsche und die Soziologie, p. 192. 2 Justin Stagl, “Ethnosoziologie und Kultursoziologie”, in Karl Acham (ed.), Geschichte der österreichischen Humanwissenschaften (Wien: Passagen Verlag, 2001), p. 437.

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vague and unclear method of “intuition”.3 However, a series of articles, published between 1913 and 1931, in various German journals and encyclopaedias followed, and helped to clarify and specify the particular analytical elements of Weber’s new methodology.4 But the: “endgültig kanonisierte Fassung der von Alfred Weber vertretenen Konzeption der Kultursoziologie [folgte, F.S.L.] in seinem Artikel ‘Kultursoziologie’ in Alfred Vierkandts (Hg.), Handwörterbuch der Soziologie”,5 published in 1931. Weber’s views were, however, most clearly and systematically expressed and developed in his major book Kulturgeschichte als Kultursoziologie (1935), which he himself referred to as: “mein eigentliches Lebenswerk”,6 where Weber tried to suggest the use of sociological tools for an analysis of the development and function of culture on the basis of an investigation of the different social structures which different sociocultural actors have produced and lived by from past historical stages up to the present. What Weber tried to do with his Kultursoziologie was, according to his critic Eberhard Demm, to establish: “seinen grundlegenden geschichts- und kultursoziologischen Forschungsansatz gegen die in Deutschland bereits herrschende empirische Soziologie amerikanischer Prägung”.7 This is why Alfred Weber is so central for my overall argument about the influence Nietzsche had had on the debate about “culture” and its apparent decline around the turn of the 19th century, because in many ways Weber is a “second wave” sociologist, who lived in the shadow of his elder brother Max as well as other “giants” of early German sociology. Moreover, Weber’s multi-layered response to Nietzsche in many ways also marks the end of the “first phase” of the sociological Nietzsche reception. He, nevertheless, came back to Nietzsche and his writings in a similar way as Tönnies, Mayreder and for that matter his brother Max Weber had done, to formulate central parts of his notion of Kultursoziologie with reference 3 Alfred Weber, “Der soziologische Kulturbegriff”, in Verhandlungen des 2. Deutschen Soziologentages (First edition published in Tübingen, 1913), pp. 1-20. For a discussion of Weber’s debate with Lukács on the subject and analytical content of “cultural sociology”, see: Lichtblau, Kulturkrise und die Soziologie um die Jahrhundertwende, pp. 473-480. 4 A. Weber, “Der Kulturtypus und seine Wandlung”, in Heidelberger akademischer Almanach, vol.1 (First edition published in Heidelberg, 1909), pp. 31-47; A. Weber, “Prinzipielles zur Kultursoziologie (Gesellschaftsprozeß, Zivilisationsprozeß und Kulturbewegung)”, in Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik, vol. 47 (First edition published in Heidelberg, 1920/21), pp. 1-49; A. Weber, “Kultursoziologische Versuche: Das alte Ägypten und Babylonien”, in Archiv für Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialpolitik, vol. 55 (First edition published in Heidelberg, 1926), pp. 1-59. 5 Lichtblau, Kulturkrise und die Soziologie um die Jahrhundertwende, pp. 475f. 6 Eberhard Demm, “Einführung in Leben und Werk Alfred Webers”, in A. Weber, Kulturgeschichte als Kultursoziologie (Marburg: Metropolis Verlag, 1998), p. 14. 7 Demm, “Einführung in Leben und Werk Alfred Webers”, p. 15.

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to Nietzsche’s philosophy, and thereby tried to establish an alternative account to the increasingly dominant positivist or purely empirical form of sociology in Germany. Consequently, I will suggest that there are striking “hidden” parallels, as Roger Häußling would call them, between Nietzsche’s notion of culture as prophylactic, read in the sense proposed by Robert E. McGinn,8 and Weber’s sociological attempt at “cultural history”. These “hidden” parallels with Nietzsche’s work become even more evident when we look at Weber’s book Das Tragische und die Geschichte (1942),9 which tried to interpret the epic Greek tales as expressions of a tragic world-view or a “tragic habitus” that still holds important consequences for the cultural development of our own historical and cultural age. In both of his main books Weber “explicitly” refers to Nietzsche at certain crucial points to highlight his theories about the sociocultural development which characterised Greek antiquity. But it is his “implicit” dialogue with Nietzsche in these two books and in his overall development of the notion of cultural sociology, which is even stronger than the “overt” references to Nietzsche in his writings on the subject reveal. It will be the purpose of this chapter to analyse the extent to which Weber is in fact indebted to Nietzsche in his writings, and the extent to which the parallels between their respective cultural critiques or sociocultural investigations of Greek antiquity can be verified and uncovered. Yet in his later book Abschied von der bisherigen Geschichte (1946), published shortly after World War II, Weber clearly changed from a more or less “hidden” dialogue with Nietzsche to an “overt” one, when he obviously completely denounces the philosopher as an ideological precursor to fascism.10 This is also why I start my analysis of Weber’s response to Nietzsche’s philosophy by analysing the main argumentative elements of Weber’s “farewell to European history and to Nietzsche”, because this seemingly paradoxical change in attitude (which will become much clearer in the following section) does, however, not change Weber’s overall indebtedness to Nietzsche’s writings, and has to be explained by his apparent attempt to distance himself from his initially very strong endorsement of Nietzsche’s philosophy. Yet at the same time Weber’s seemingly paradoxical change in attitude towards Nietzsche also hints at an important parallel in the intellectual development of Alfred Weber and Ferdinand Tönnies. As we have previously discussed in Sections 4.1.ff. of Chapter 6, Tönnies, of course, also tried to “aban8 McGinn, “Culture as prophylactic”, particularly pp. 137-138. 9 A. Weber, Das Tragische und die Geschichte (Marburg: Metropolis Verlag, 1998). 10 A. Weber, Abschied von der bisherigen Geschichte: Überwindung des Nihilismus? (Hamburg: Claaßen und Coverts Verlag, 1946).

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don” the enthusiastic Nietzsche reception of his youth with his demystifying essays “Nietzsche Narren” (1893) and Der Nietzsche Kultus (1897), which he had written as a polemical response to the emerging cult around the philosopher and his writings towards the end of the 19th century. But we have also seen that Tönnies was not entirely consistent in his rejection of Nietzsche’s philosophy and still engaged in a “hidden” dialogue with his writings in many of his later works. As we will clearly see, a similar tendency is also true for Alfred Weber’s response to Nietzsche’s philosophy. Nevertheless, Weber’s earlier endorsement of Nietzsche’s philosophy also shares yet another crucial element with that of Tönnies, and more crucially that of Mayreder,11 which can be summarised with the descriptive term the Austrian feminist had so cleverly used to describe her enthusiastic interest in Nietzsche: it was a Jugenderlebnis.12 After discussing the main aspects of Weber’s rejection of Nietzsche’s philosophy outlined in his book Abschied von der bisherigen Geschichte, I turn to the origins of Weber’s “cultural sociology” – including the important influence of Oswald Spengler’s writings – as well as the principal theoretical arguments made about cultural sociology by Weber in his main book Kulturgeschichte als Kultursoziologie. This discussion also includes a detailed analysis of his “fourfold typology of mankind” which bears a close resemblance to Nietzsche’s “threefold typology of mankind” outlined in his book Also sprach Zarathustra. I mainly argue that Weber’s notion of the “third” human type and Nietzsche’s notion of the Übermensch, as well as Weber’s notion of the “fourth” human type and Nietzsche’s notion of the “last man” share many important characteristic features. I will then look at Weber’s book Das Tragische und die Geschichte, and his analysis of the cultural development of ancient Greece and the vital sociocultural role played by “tragedy” therein, in order assess where his comments overlap with and where they sometimes seem to differ from Nietzsche’s analysis of ancient Greece. The resulting differences can, I argue, mainly be explained by the more systematic approach to be found in Weber’s historical analysis, which Nietzsche’s attempt clearly lacks, as well as by the sociological dimensions which Weber tends to highlight, and which were only of secondary interest to Nietzsche, if they were not directly linked to the notion of “tragedy” itself or in some way vital to its origins. 11 Mayreder’s reception differs, however, somewhat from Tönnies’ and A. Weber’s, as she remained very appreciative of Nietzsche’s writings throughout her life – as indeed Simmel and Max Weber did – but, like Tönnies, and to an extent also Alfred Weber, completely denounced the emerging cult around Nietzsche’s philosophy. Alfred Weber and Tönnies had, however, changed their positions with regards to the idol of their youths more or less completely towards the end of their lives. 12 Mayreder, “Von Wagner zu Nietzsche. Ein Jugenderlebnis” (1936). It does not greatly matter here that Weber wrote his book Abschied von der bisherigen Geschichte: Überwindung des Nihilismus? only in 1945/46, as he had first conceived of his theory of the “sociology of culture” much earlier on (see above), and as he had also confronted Nietzsche’s philosophy as a young man already.

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Weber himself regarded his three major books – which we are in the main considering in this chapter – as a trilogy which attempted to provide an analysis of both the sociocultural as well as the sociohistorical development of different ancient cultures and the wider connections between them. In a methodological sense his analysis tried to offer an insight: “auf ganz anderer Erfahrungsebene”,13 than ordinary accounts of this development had hitherto provided, as his analysis did not rely on using “euphemisms” regarding the description and analysis of past historical ages [“Verzicht auf jede Beschönigung”].14 In a philosophical sense his analysis attempted the “transcendence” of being with the help of a “generelle Daseinssicht im historischen Tiefengrund”,15 which, according to Weber, remained the principal aim of all three books, as well as his various later attempts at the topic of cultural sociology.16 At this point it is important to acknowledge yet another key parallel between Weber’s notion of “culture”, and the respective notions proposed by Nietzsche, Mayreder and – if to a lesser extent – also the one proposed by Tönnies on the subject, right from the start, which is an underlying current of “cultural pessimism” or “critique” in their writings that has culture “toppling over its own feet” or standing on tönernen Füßen, as a colloquial German expression puts it. For all of them, however, there was still an element of optimism embedded in their respective critique, an element that – as in Nietzsche’s Geburt der Tragödie with its yearning for what I have come to call a cultural revolution forged on the basis of “art” – in many ways longed for a cultural renewal based on fundamentally humanistic educational ideals. It is also in this respect that Weber’s comments on and his development of Kultursoziologie provide the closing chapter for our considerations here, as it is with his writings that the sociological debate on modern culture, which had been sparked of by the radical “cultural critique” provided by Nietzsche, gained its most systematic sociological response. Judging from Weber’s writings on the topic of cultural sociology, it becomes very clear that he was: “von einer [...] philosophisch und zeitdiagnostisch artikulierten Kulturkritik [stark, F.S.L.] geprägt”,17 which was in turn deeply determined by Nietzsche’s provocative writings. Moreover, Weber’s approach to “cultural sociology” is in many respects also the most “untimely” response to Nietzsche’s philosophy which we are con-

13 A. Weber, Kulturgeschichte als Kultursoziologie, p. 53. 14 Ibid. 15 Ibid. p. 52. 16 Ibid. p. 53. 17 Lichtblau, Kulturkrise und die Soziologie um die Jahrhundertwende, p. 36.

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sidering in this study, as “standard” approaches to sociology then and now were and are more readily associated with strictly confined “empirical investigations” rather than with: “sozialwissenschaftlicher Gesamtanalyse”,18 a major exception maybe being the work of Pierre Bourdieu (1930–2002).19 This is not to say that social thinkers like Anthony Giddens or Niklas Luhmann (1927–1998) have not been concerned with establishing a form of sozialwissenschaftliche Gesamtanalyse, but rather to emphasise the unusually “grand scope” of Bourdieu’s work.

2) Alfred Weber’s farewell to European history Whatever Weber’s position with regards to Nietzsche’s philosophy might have been in his early work on “cultural sociology” before World War II, there is no denying that Weber completely denounces Nietzsche in his later book Abschied von der bisherigen Geschichte (1946), as a spiritual arsonist, who is partly to be held responsible for the ideological excesses that led to the catastrophes of WorldWar II.20 This, however, does not change the fact of Weber’s “hidden” and frequently also “explicit” dialogue with Nietzsche’s philosophy during the formulation of his major works on Kultursoziologie, as part of a wider “generationsspezifischen Kulturdiskurses”21 of early German sociology with Nietzsche’s writings, and can easily be understood and sympathised with, when we remember that Weber’s book was written with the fresh memories of the horrors of national socialism. In his book Weber looked at the changes in the European “habitus” (i.e. the sociocultural manifestation of the Geistesrichtung and “ethos” of a particular social group or of a particular historical period which is also frequently identical with the mentality of a community or the individuals comprising it) by analysing the lives and works of selected writers, painters and philosophers from Dante 18 This point was also confirmed by Ralf Dahrendorf, who stresses that, generally speaking, sociology has turned its back on attempts at a “total analysis of society and history”: “und hingewendet hat zu den Spezialsoziologien und der Forschung in einer Fülle von Themen, die das Ganze fast bewußt aus dem Auge lassen und aus dem Auge verlieren. [...] Was Bourdieu betrifft, so kann man folgendes sagen: es gibt eine Art der Zeitanalyse, die manchmal von Soziologen vorgenommen wird. Aber nur manchmal!” SolmsLaubach, “Sozialwissenschaft in der Diskussion: ‘Soziologie als Forschungsansatz für beliebige Themen’ – ein Gespräch mit Lord Ralf Dahrendorf”, in Wissenschaftlicher Literaturanzeiger, 40:2, pp. 66-67. 19 Similar to A. Weber, Bourdieu’s analysis also relies on the notion of a sociocultural “habitus”, but as Eberhard Demm stresses, he seems to have developed it independently of Weber’s use of the term. Eberhard Demm, “Einleitung”, in A. Weber, Kulturgeschichte als Kultursoziologie, pp. 27-28. Yet I believe that this can only partly be true, because Weber’s notion of “habitus” is very distinctive. And in my opinion both Pierre Bourdieu and Norbert Elias (1897–1990) will later draw on his definition in their work (even though they only reluctantly admit to it). 20 A. Weber, Abschied von der bisherigen Geschichte (1946). 21 Lichtblau, Kulturkrise und die Soziologie um die Jahrhundertwende, book cover.

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to Rembrandt and finally up to Nietzsche.22 It is with Nietzsche that Weber discovered an obvious “break” or, as Eberhard Demm puts it, a “deutliche Zäsur”23 in the progression of intellectual history, which led him to oust Nietzsche – the radical diagnostician of “nihilism” – as a main source of inspiration for the very phenomenon he had so vividly warned of: “In einer scharfen Abrechnung mit diesem Philosophen warf er ihm Verrat an den ‘Mächten der aktiven Menschlichkeit in ihrer Verbindung mit Freiheit’ und eine Mitschuld am Heraufkommen des Nihilismus vor.”24 This is also why in the very brief, but, nevertheless, important “Preface” or “Vorbemerkung” to his most widely read book, Weber stresses that he wants to uncover “die furchtbare Logik der Gesamtvorgänge”25 which have led to the cataclysmic catastrophes in Germany and Europe. Weber wants to radically uncover Germany’s historical “Gesamtmitverantwortung”26 by placing the sociocultural developments that culminated in the events of World War II in the wider context of the cumulative development of European intellectual history which, Weber argues, has experienced a dramatic and radical change during the 19th century. This dramatic change was marked internally by a: “geistige Zerreißung”,27 and a: “Verlust der Tiefe”,28 which had its main origins in the continued questioning of what could be referred to as the traditional “meta-narratives” of capitalist society by radically critical ideological movements like Marxism, and by radically individualist philosophers like Max Stirner (1806–1856), Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855) and finaly also Friedrich Nietzsche.29 For Weber, however, it was particularly Marxism as well as the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche which had radically questioned all existing traditional conceptions of reality, of morality and of bourgeois culture, and which had thereby demonstrated and diagnosed the complete “relativity” of all inherited spiritual values which had hitherto given life an “inner unity”.30 In the social realm this 22 Weber defined the aim of looking at the “habitus” of ancient cultures as the process of the: “uncovering of the essence, the character, the physiogn my and the patterns of individual cultural units on the basis of their historical and sociological embeddedness and their role as a distinct part of the whole movement of history.” A. Weber, Kulturgeschichte als Kultursoziologie, p. 518 (my translation). 23 Demm, “Einführung in Leben und Werk Alfred Webers”, p. 15. 24 Ibid. 25 A. Weber, Abschied von der bisherigen Geschichte, p. 8. 26 Ibid. p. 9. 27 Ibid. p. 104. 28 Ibid. 29 Ibid. pp. 113-116. 30 Ibid. p. 112.

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radical questioning pointed dramatically towards an inherent gulf in society (commonly referred to as the “social question” or “die soziale Frage”)31 that could no longer be simply ignored, and urgently required a systematic intervention by state authority.32 But in the philosophical realm this continued radical questioning also had severe consequences, particularly insofar as: “mit der gesellschaftlichen Relativierung nicht bloß der Ideen, sondern auch des Denkens und Erkennens, [die, F.S.L.] in einer soziologischen Übersophistik zum mindesten in Deutschland die geistige Verwirrung bis zum Gipfelpunkt hinauftrieb”,33 a fundamental intellectual crisis of bourgeois culture emerged. This process, Weber argues, consequently also led to a gradual “dissolution of the universal, ideal values of life” [“Auflösung der universellen, ideellen Daseinsgehalte”],34 and even became the “dominant spiritual symptom” [“seelisch-geistige Untergrunderscheinung”]35 of the late 19th century, which in many ways clearly paved the way for the sociopolitical tragedies of the 20th century: “Für jemand, der mehr als menschliches Gehör oder übermenschliche Aufnahmekräfte besäße, müßte das gesamte neunzehnte Jahrhundert, vor allem aber seine zweite Hälfte gewirkt haben wie ein immer stärker werdendes gurgelndes Sichwälzen von Wogen, die irgendwann irgendwie einmal zusammenprallen konnten und dann für eine alles umfassende unbeschreibliche Katastrophe die Bedingungen schaffen mußten.” 36

This catastrophe was, for Weber, eventually, of course, epitomised by World War II. Yet even though Weber tries to hold Nietzsche accountable for the gradual “dissolution of the universal, ideal values of life”, and the severe sociocultural consequences of the continued radical questioning of all existing traditional conceptions of reality, of morality and of bourgeois culture as such, Nietzsche’s own account of the progressively detrimental development of the 19th century was not so very different from Weber’s. Nietzsche, of course,

31 In his book Die Entwicklung der sozialen Frage bis zum Weltkriege, first published in 1917, Ferdinand Tönnies describes this “social question” as an attempt to tackle the following: “Die Frage des friedlichen Zusammenlebens und Zusammenwirkens der in ihren wirtschaftlichen Lebensbedingungen, ihren Lebensgewohnheiten und Lebensanschauungen weit voneinander entfernten Schichten, Ständen, Klassen eines Volkes: das ist der allgemeine Inhalt der ‘sozialen Frage’.” Tönnies, Die Entwicklung der sozialen Frage bis zum Weltkriege, p. 7. 32 A. Weber, Abschied von der bisherigen Geschichte, p. 112. 33 Ibid. p. 115. 34 Ibid. p. 114. 35 Ibid. p. 115. 36 Ibid. p. 110.

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famously defines “the dawn of nihilism” [“die Heraufkunft des Nihilismus”] 37 in his book Der Wille zur Macht in the following way: “Unsere ganze europäische Kultur bewegt sich seit langem schon mit einer Tortur der Spannung, die von Jahrzehnt zu Jahrzehnt wächst, wie auf eine Katastrophe los: unruhig, gewaltsam, überstürzt: wie ein Strom, der ans Ende will, der sich nicht mehr besinnt, der Furcht davor hat, sich zu besinnen.” 38

The parallels between Weber’s “cultural sociology” and Nietzsche’s analysis are probably more striking than Weber would like to admit. First of all, Weber’s analysis also assumes that the history of the Western world has progressed towards the inevitable arrival of “nihilism”, and secondly, Weber argues that the catastrophic events of World War II epitomised the culmination of this process of crisis. Nietzsche, of course, only predicted a (spiritual) crisis of similar proportions and not the actual historical events themselves. The main aim of Weber’s book was, however, to contribute to Germany’s attempt to be “triumphant” over its self-inflicted downfall, and to thereby become an: “Überwinder seines eigenen Schattens”.39 Even in this brief formulation of his theoretical aim, Weber’s language bears clear similarities to the expressions Nietzsche frequently uses.40 Yet Weber clearly intends to dismantle the spiritual and philosophical colossus Nietzsche for “marking the origins and the basic conditions of the present crisis”, because it was with him that a “period of radiation and explosion” opened up a new and possibly more dangerous “life-world”, with totally different prospects, perspectives and values: “Ist bis 1850 in der praktischen Lebensumwälzung beinahe alles noch Versuch, noch ungewohntes Anfangen, bevölkerungsmäßig beginnendes Sichdrängen in den zu enge werdenden Räumen, so ist die seelisch-geistige Sphäre damals teilweise noch Nachklang der Übergangsperiode, teilweise erstmaliges erstauntes Tasten und Gewahren der neuen Sichten, – im Gesamt gesprochen unruhig gärende Bewegung im noch kleinräumig gebliebenen europäischen Dasein. Die zweite Hälfte, die gewaltige Ausstrahlungs- und Explosionsepoche, gibt plötzlich weite Räume und wirklich neue Existenz mit gänzlich anderen Sichten frei. Sie und vor allem ihr späterer Abschnitt, an deren Anfang Nietzsche steht, geht 37 Nietzsche, Der Wille zur Macht, “Vorrede”, § 2, p. 3. 38 Ibid. 39 A. Weber, Abschied von der bisherigen Geschichte, p. 8. 40 For Nietzsche’s use of the term “Schatten”, see: Nietzsche, Menschliches, Allzumenschliches II, KSA 2, “Der Wanderer und sein Schatten”, pp. 535-704. For Nietzsche’s use of the term “Überwindung”, see: Nietzsche, Also sprach Zarathustra, KSA 4, pp. 146-149, where Nietzsche speaks “Von der SelbstÜberwindung.’

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uns vor allem an, da sie die inneren Bedingungen der Krise unmittelbar in sich erstehen läßt.” 41

In Weber’s “farewell to European history” – rightly or wrongly – Nietzsche, therefore, becomes the main reason for the sociocultural and sociohistorical wrong-turn of German as well as of European political and cultural history.

2.1) Alfred Weber’s farewell to Nietzsche It is particularly in chapter VI of his book, entitled “Nietzsche und die Katastrophe”, that Weber tries to substantiate his claim of Nietzsche’s fateful connection with the political history of the first half of the 20th century.42 Weber argues that despite Nietzsche’s own efforts to place himself outside of “everything German” in voicing his radical critique of German culture, Nietzsche very much remained a child of the “wider German problem” he described.43 Nietzsche, Weber argues, certainly took his stand “near the edge” of the “dawn of a new and tragic period in human history”: “Er wuchs an der durch die Konstellation geschichtlich entscheidend werdenden Stelle, gewissermaßen an der Nahtstelle der Geschichte, man kann sagen, der Kratermitte des aufquellenden Weltgefahrenherdes.”44 For his reflections on Nietzsche’s decisive influence on the general oeuvre of cultural pessimism, and of a deep mistrust in the “mass character” of democracy which characterised German society at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, Weber particularly refers to Nietzsche’s books Also sprach Zarathustra – “die Nietzsche gemäßeste Art der Mitteilung, nämlich die poetisch gehobene”45 – and Der Wille zur Macht – “[Obwohl, F.S.L.] hier aber [...] zugleich die großen Fehlgänge sichtbar [werden, F.S.L.], die diese Schrift in ihrem populären Verständnis oder Mißverständnis zu einem wahren Pulverfaß gemacht haben.”46 For Weber it is, therefore, obviously the late writings of Nietzsche which evoke the most problematic philosophical concerns, particularly with their propagation of new visions of a “great illuminated will” [“geklärten großen Wollens”].47 41 A. Weber, Abschied von der bisherigen Geschichte, p. 118. 42 A. Weber, “Nietzsche und die Katastrophe”, in Ibid. pp. 144-217. 43 Ibid. p. 144. 44 Ibid. 45 Ibid. p. 146. 46 Ibid. 47 Ibid.

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Even though Weber believes that Nietzsche’s book Also sprach Zarathustra is “without parallel in German literature”, as it is written in a “prose and style hitherto unknown to the German tongue”, this is also where its great weaknesses lie, as Weber convincingly argues, because it is the “language of seduction” that is at work here and not the “seduction of the analytical strength of the arguments” which Nietzsche puts forward.48 It is the “aesthetic sensation” [“der ästhetische Reiz”]49 which has a particular quality to it, and which might lead one to conclude that Nietzsche’s writings can be “selectively read”, and appreciated for the richness of their concepts and the beauty and originality of their literary style (with the parts that are hard to accommodate in a “positive sense” just being omitted), but this seems increasingly impossible for Weber who argues that it was Nietzsche’s fateful influence on the minds of the German Terrordiktatoren which has put an end to the possibility of this benevolent reading.50 This problem particularly manifests itself, Weber argues, in Nietzsche’s notion of the Übermensch which Weber interprets as part of Nietzsche’s “great rejection” [“große Abstoßung”]51 of his age and of the (decadent) spirit of his times: “Daß der Mensch überwunden werden muß ist voll zu verstehen nur aus der ‘großen Abstoßung’ Nietzsches. Diese richtet sich zunächst gegen sein Zeitalter und den Menschen seiner bürgerlichen Zeit des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts. Sie erweitert und vertieft sich dann mit Hilfe dessen, was man sein dionysisches Erlebnis nennen kann, zur Verwerfung des Menschen in seiner gegenwärtig höchsten Gestalt.” 52

Yet Nietzsche’s “great rejection” is also directed against all forms of “democratisation and humanisation” of his time [“alle Demokratisierungs- und Humanisierungstendenzen der eigenen Zeit”],53 i.e. against the fin-de-siècle atmosphere of a “peaceful harmonisation of the world and the resulting wave of mediocrity” [“die scheinbar heraufziehende Weltbefriedung und damit angeblich verbundene Vermittelmäßigung”],54 which seemingly “preaches” to the Vielzuvielen rather than to the exceptional few, and which clearly char48 Ibid. p. 147. 49 Ibid. p. 193. 50 Ibid. 51 Ibid. p. 147. 52 Ibid. 53 Ibid. p. 163. 54 Ibid. p. 150.

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acterises the essence of modern society, according to Nietzsche. The “masses” are, of course, both a source and a subject of utter indifference for Nietzsche, whose aim, according to Weber, lies rather with the creation of “noble”, “aristocratic” beings who, in general terms, “live by their own law and also create it for themselves” [“leben nach dem eigenen Gesetz und es selber schaffen”].55 This is also why, as Weber consistently argues, Nietzsche utterly rejects the seemingly mediocre means of “democracy” and “civilisation”, as he fears that their ultimate result will only be the inevitable decline of “true culture” and the rise of entirely anarchistic forms of “cultural chaos”, and as they clearly favour the “many” instead of the “few”: “Angst also vor der zivilisatorischen Domestikation, vor der Pöbeldemokratie, vor einem aus Denk- und Weltmüdigkeit geborenen, letztlich nihilistischen Pessimismus und vor Willensmattigkeit, dahin hat sich die ursprünglich aus der Kritik am chaotisch historisierenden bürgerlichen Bildungsmischmasch geborene, zeitbedingte Abstoßung Nietzsches, seine eigene Schopenhauersche Vergangenheit mit abstoßend, verschärft und erweitert.” 56

According to Weber, Nietzsche’s ideal of the Übermensch now is to “overcome” and “surpass” exactly the kind of human being who represents all these seemingly “decadent” features of modern society, and who consequently has to be surpassed not only in his currently given and increasingly dominant “historical form”, but altogether [“sowohl in seiner zeitgeschichtlichen Form, die herrschend wird, wie überhaupt”].57 But in interpreting Nietzsche’s notion of the Übermensch in this way, Weber mainly relies on the arguments of the “standard philosophical readings” of his time, which emphasise the notions of “discipline” or Zucht and “breeding” or Züchtung in relation to Nietzsche’s concept, and which largely read it as a tool for the evolutionary elevation of mankind in a strictly speaking biological sense, but which also manifests itself in an individual sense of “selfculture”. Accordingly, Weber interprets discipline or Zucht in the sense of selfculture, self-training and enhancement of will; and “breeding” or Züchtung in the sense of a conscious propagation and multiplication of the ensuing individual result wherever possible.58 This is, of course, exactly what national socialism claimed it was doing with its policies on “eugenics” and “race”, which is also why Weber is so concerned about the fateful historical influence of Nietzsche’s philos-

55 Ibid. p. 154. 56 Ibid. pp. 149-150. 57 Ibid. p. 151. 58 Ibid. p. 156.

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ophy on leading national socialists who, to some extent at least, even claimed to put his philosophy into practice or who at least used his philosophical language to create and justify their own inhumane policies as well as their cynical terminology, and to commit unspoken acts of barbarity.59 Yet in order for Nietzsche to be able to claim or advocate the creation of truly “noble” and “aristocratic” human beings, he also had to radically question all existing moral values, as Weber consistently argues.60 According to Weber, this is also why Nietzsche wanted to re-evaluate all existing values and all forms of traditional morality, which Nietzsche increasingly regarded as “relative”. But this increasing sense of the “relativity” of morality which characterised the end of the 19th century, was not only the result of Nietzsche’s “deconstruction” or debunking of traditional morality; it was also the result of the increasingly significant influence of Marxist historical materialism which had certainly also served to demystify all inherited ideals as innately “class based ideologies” which were, therefore, clearly only “relative” or “subjective”, as Weber also argues: “Die gesamte zweite Hälfte des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts hatte [...] für jeden der näher hinsah, alle Moral tatsächlich in ihrem Untergrunde relativiert und subjektiviert. So [vor allem, F.S.L.] in der bildungsbürgerlichen Schicht.”61 As a consequence of the populist appeal of Nietzsche’s “amoral ethics” (as one might come to call it), his view of the “re-evaluation of all values” finally penetrated large parts of the German intellectual and educational elite who were thus mainly interested in the “sociological manifestation” of Nietzsche’s propagation of “noble” and “aristocratic” human beings as these would ultimately transcend traditional morality and its inherited values, as Weber argues. Weber describes this “sociological manifestation” of Nietzsche’s propagation in the following way: “Für die Herrenschicht, die die neue ‘außermoralische Moral’ tragen soll, werden auch hier wieder die später weiter ausgesponnen soziologischen Bedingungen namhaft gemacht; die schon genannten der ‘Zucht und Züchtung’. Aber ihre Moral oder Charakterhaltung ist bei Nietzsche nicht einfach von selbst gegeben, mechanisches Produkt ihrer sozialen Lage, sondern, da alles Leben, weil im Innersten Willen zur Macht, spontan willensmäßig fundiert ist, von ihr gewollte, von Nietzsche ihr gepredigte Setzung. Sie besteht in Werten, neuen Werten, die die neuen Vornehmen, die ‘Schaffenden’ schaffen.” 62

59 I have already discussed particular aspects of the fateful consequences of the misguided Vereinnahmung of Nietzsche’s philosophy by national socialism, and some of its leading ideologues in Section 2.1 of Chapter 2. 60 A. Weber, Abschied von der bisherigen Geschichte, p. 158. 61 Ibid. p. 168. 62 Ibid. p. 169.

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I have already described the sociocultural effects of the influence of this elitist aspect of Nietzsche’s philosophy in some detail in Chapter 2 of this book, here I just want to briefly repeat Bruno Hillebrand’s convincing claim that as a consequence of the popular success of his philosophical writings: “[war, F.S.L.] Nietzsche [häufig, F.S.L.] im Munde der falschen Propheten.”63 But it is not just Nietzsche’s (biological) “elitism” and his “great rejection” of his times, i.e. of the spirit of his times, and of all forms of “democratisation” and “humanisation” in the 19th century, which Weber dismisses as entirely “unacceptable” and even as “irresponsibly dangerous” from a post World War II perspective. It is also Nietzsche’s more practical concern with a future political order and with the concrete social constructions on which this future order is to be based, which Weber dismisses entirely as well and which, as he convincingly claims, has strongly influenced and inspired many of the leading national socialists in Germany.64 These aspects of Nietzsche’s thought, Weber argues, received their clearest expression in Nietzsche’s Der Wille zur Macht, but are in statu nascendi already present in certain parts of his book Also sprach Zarathustra. Yet it is particularly Nietzsche’s book Der Wille zur Macht which arouses Weber’s anger with Nietzsche’s provocative positions. It seems clear, however, that at the same time Weber was also falling victim to the general trend of regarding this falsified composition of Nietzsche’s fragments from the Nachlaß as a legitimate text by Nietzsche.65 Even though Weber is fully aware that Nietzsche did not publish the book himself, and that it was only posthumously compiled by Peter Gast and Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, he still believes that due to its “consistent argumentative nature”, and its obvious tendency to carry much of what Nietzsche had advocated in earlier writings to “its logical conclusion”, one has to conclude that it is an “adequate and authentic expression” of his intentions: “daß man es doch als einen im ganzen getreuen Ausdruck seiner Intention ansehen muß.”66 I believe that it is fair to say that Weber was completely wrong on this point, particularly since the “authenticity” of the philosophical intentions expressed in Der Wille zur Macht cannot be verified with absolute certainty as representing original Nietzschean positions. Yet Weber is at least right in so far as the “popularisation” of Nietzsche’s thought in the period intervening between the 63 Hillebrand, “Einführung: Die frühe Nietzsche Rezeption in Deutschland”, pp. 6-7. 64 A. Weber, Abschied von der bisherigen Geschichte, p. 193. 65 For a critical discussion of the problems associated with an uncritical use of the current editions of Der Wille zur Macht, see: Section 4 of the “Preface”, and Section 2 of Chapter 1 of this book. 66 A. Weber, Abschied von der bisherigen Geschichte, p. 171.

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two World Wars, was in large part due to the success of his books Also sprach Zarathustra and Der Wille zur Macht.67 Nevertheless, the fact that Nietzsche’s Zarathustra was found “im Sturmgepäck zahlreicher deutscher Soldaten”68 in World War I, did, in many ways at least, certainly not prove the Allied propaganda against the seeming philosophical advocate of German imperialism and military expansionism wrong. But for his: “tief verhängnisvolle Popularausstrahlung kommen ganz wesentlich die praktischen Zuspitzungen in Betracht, die in dem [...] Willen zur Macht enthalten sind”,69 as Weber emphasises. Here it is particularly Nietzsche’s accentuation of his earlier criticisms of culture, morality, politics, the state and, of course, of democracy and masssociety, and their seemingly logical conclusion in the phenomenon called “European nihilism”, which becomes the subject of Weber’s intense critique. Alfred Weber, therefore, believes that the popular dissemination of Nietzsche’s positions gave rise to the kind of cultural and intellectual climate which ultimately provided a fertile ground for the rise of national socialism. As early as 1940 though, Crane Brinton had made a fairly similar point about Nietzsche’s philosophy, as he had argued that it was precisely: “Nietzsche’s contempt for the nineteenth century and all its works, his attacks on Christianity, on humanitarian movements, on parliamentary government, that ‘destructive’ part of his writings which in verve and clarity is the best part – all this is just what the convinced Nazi wants to hear.” 70

Weber on the other hand, interprets Nietzsche’s total rejection of the constitutive elements of the history of the 19th century, not only as a form of critique and a diagnosis of “nihilism”, he also understands it as a Handlungslehre which basically advocates concrete sociopolitical and even (im-)moral behaviour, and describes the unsatisfactory relation between the individual, the state and society in fairly explicit terms.71 Moreover, his analysis of these structures also clearly hints at their, for Nietzsche, desirable future shape.72 It is particularly book 4 of Der Wille zur Macht, entitled “Zucht und Züchtung”73 which encapsulates the essence of Nietzsche’s fateful contribution to the “irrational undercurrent” of 67 Ibid. 68 Nolte, Nietzsche und der Nietzscheanismus, p. 11. 69 A. Weber, Abschied von der bisherigen Geschichte, p. 171. 70 Brinton, “The National Socialist’s use of Nietzsche”, p. 134. 71 A. Weber, Abschied von der bisherigen Geschichte, p. 171. 72 Ibid. 73 Nietzsche, Der Wille zur Macht, “Viertes Buch: Zucht und Züchtung”, pp. 581-698.

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the destructive intellectual climate of the early 20th century, as Weber argues. There are clear parallels, Weber says, between the aims proposed in sections like “Die Starken und die Schwachen”74 or “Die Herren der Erde”,75 and the slant and ideology of national socialism, and it, therefore, seems utterly clear to Weber that one can plainly see how dangerous Nietzsche’s philosophical image was to become [“wie verhängnisvoll es werden konnte, ja mußte”].76 The common feature of these two sections is, according to Weber, their contempt for the masses of society and everything that is even remotely associated with them. This indifference with regards to the masses of society clearly brings Nietzsche’s late writings close to the Menschenverachtung embodied in the national socialist ideology, as Weber consistently argues. Particularly Nietzsche’s more practical concern about a future political order, and about the “concrete social constructions” on which this future order is to be based, share significant characteristics with the inherent ideological features of national socialism which seemingly also measured “life” according to its self-established and self-referential qualitative theory of the “will to power” as the dominant principle of existence: “Dies soziale Aufbauprogramm, von dem man nicht sagen kann, daß es nur antidemokratisch und aristokratisch ist, das vielmehr in eigentümlicher Art mit Hypokrisie und Machiavellismus untermischt ist, in dem nicht bloß die Arbeiter, sondern auch alles ‘Mittlere’ bloß Material ist, wird nun eingereiht in die Kategorien ‘Zucht und Züchtung’, in denen die Vision eines gesellschaftlichen Gesamtzukunftsaspekts hervortritt, sehr merkwürdige Prognosen vollzogen werden und doch in Wahrheit nur die letzten Konsequenzen gezogen werden aus dem Kern des Werks, der Qualitätstheorie des Willens zur Macht als Daseinsprinzip.” 77

Yet in his apparent “phobia of the masses” which clearly was more psychologically motivated than sociologically or indeed politically grounded, as Weber convincingly argues, Nietzsche clearly proved to be “sociologically naive”, as he obviously confused the questions of the empowerment of the masses with his own concerns about their social control, and the sociopolitical basis of the “will to power” of a future ruling elite.78 Moreover, Weber argues that, as a consequence of this “naivety”, Nietzsche clearly projected his: “Abstoßung gegen die Mediokrität [...] dann in das gänzlich anders geartete Massendasein und

74 Ibid. pp. 583-627. 75 Ibid. pp. 636-641. 76 A. Weber, Abschied von der bisherigen Geschichte, p. 188. 77 Ibid. p. 184. 78 Ibid. pp. 202-203.

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seine Problematik.”79 The final reason why Weber believes that Nietzsche was “sociologically naive” with regards to the masses was because he had completely misunderstood and underestimated the fact that the “masses are a dynamic factor”, and should consequently also be a much valued and active part in “any form of historical and cultural progress” [“Die Masse ist ein dynamischer Faktor und also auch ein aktiver und aktiv zu bewertender, in jedem Geschichtsund Kulturprozeß”].80 In his assessment of Søren Kierkegaard’s (1813–1855) hostility towards the masses, the German philosopher Theodor W. Adorno (1903–1969) detects a similarity to Nietzsche’s philosophy and his phobia of the masses. It is their shared insight into the mechanisms of social control and the cultural conditions which shape humans into the average everydayness of (mass) conformity: “In Kierkegaards Massenfeindschaft, so konservativ er sich gebärdet, steckt ähnlich wie bei Nietzsche etwas von der Einsicht in die Verstümmelung des Menschen durch die Beherrschungsmechanismen, die ihn zur Masse machen.”81 Even though Nietzsche is aware of the fact that humans are socially and culturally conditioned into the acceptance of a mass character, he still objects to their uncritical acceptance of that condition as well as to the outcome of the conditioning process they go through – i.e. to the “masses” themselves. Not least because of his phobia of the masses, therefore, Nietzsche remained firmly embedded within the “timely” framework of the sociocultural conditions of his own society, which he had originally aimed to transcend. Consequently, his attempt to overcome “nihilism”, by re-evaluating the meaning of all inherited values, and by transcending the “decadent” state of contemporary culture, morality, politics, and the modern state, and their ensuing logical conclusion in the phenomenon he calls “European nihilism”, also has to be regarded as a “failure”, as Weber provocatively argues.82 According to Weber, Nietzsche did not overcome “nihilism”, because in essence he was basically unable to do so. Nietzsche was unable to so, because he was too “timely”, i.e. he was too much conditioned by his own times: “Er mußte wegen dieser Zeitbedingtheit bei solchem Versuch in jenem veräußerlichenden Naturalismus und relativierenden Subjektivismus, den er überwinden wollte und doch bewußt zugleich vertrat, stecken bleiben.”83 79 Ibid. p. 203. 80 Ibid. p. 205. 81 Theodor W. Adorno, “Kierkegaards Lehre von der Liebe”, in Theodor W. Adorno, Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 2 (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1998), pp. 229-230. 82 Ibid. p. 198. 83 Ibid.

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As far as Nietzsche’s propagation of an elite of truly “noble” and “aristocratic” human beings is concerned, Weber is also very sceptical, and not only because of Nietzsche’s association of this goal with the terms “Zucht und Züchtung”. For Weber it seems impossible and nothing short of “arrogant” [“vermessen”],84 to even image anything that “moves beyond humanity”. Even if one was just to imagine the conditions that shaped such exceptional human beings as, for example, Dante, Rembrandt, Goethe and others, one would already have to be able to re-experience the “vision” [“Sicht”]85 of the objective values and the sociocultural powers that found a particular and, historically speaking, unique expression in the “souls” of these men, and which, therefore, strongly shaped their daily lives and struggles. But: “Nietzsche hatte diese Sicht nicht”,86 as Weber categorically argues. These “great men of human history”, Weber argues, were basically formed on the very basis of the kind of forces Nietzsche constantly attacks: the “universal” and in many ways also “eternal” notions of “humanity” and “freedom” which naturally encompass all parts of human society: “Darum schließlich, daß muß hier zum Schluß sehr deutlich ausgesprochen werden, der Verrat, den Nietzsche an den seelisch-geistigen Grundkräften begangen hat, die das Abendland als neu entdeckte in die Welt gebracht hat, den Mächten der aktiven Menschlichkeit in ihrer Verbindung mit Freiheit. – Beide haben die abendländische Gegenwart durch die Jahrtausende begleitet. Und nichts hat diese Geschichte entscheidender gestaltet.”87

This is also why Nietzsche’s philosophy fell on a fertile ground in national socialism which he was bound to influence in a “dangerously explosive manner”, as “humanity” and “freedom” were the two objective values which this ideology most clearly attacked.88 Yet Nietzsche himself had also substantially contributed to the “systematic destruction” of the most fundamental ideals of western civilisation, as his aggressive struggle clearly was so one-dimensionally yet, nevertheless, effectively directed at the elevation of the “exceptional few”, over the plight and the equality of the “many”: “Es waren wie gesagt gewaltige Weltspannungen, in die der reife Nietzsche trat, und auf die er, sobald er anfing zu wirken, nicht beruhigend, sondern verschärfend und von einem bestimmten Moment an gefährlich explosiv einwirken muß84 Ibid. p. 205. 85 Ibid. 86 Ibid. 87 Ibid. p. 206. 88 Ibid. p. 207.

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te. [...] Sein Verhängnis war, bei seiner Kampfposition gegen die Niveaulosigkeit und für die Hebung dieses Niveaus, die Unterlage desselben, das breite, lebendige Leben, das abendländische Leben in seinen ureigensten Idealen mit zertrümmert zu haben. Wir sehen die Resultate davon heute.” 89

Yet even if Weber strongly criticises the excesses in Nietzsche’s writings as well as the excesses in the reception of his philosophy, it has to be remembered that these two thinkers also share many of their crucial philosophical positions. One of these positions is their shared notion of a cultural “elite”. Despite Weber’s obvious resistance to Nietzsche’s propagation of a truly “noble” and “aristocratic” elite, he also advances the view of an elevation of mankind, yet contrary to Nietzsche Weber relates this notion to the universal term Menschheit as such. For Weber, the fostering of an “elite” based on their contribution to the common goals of Menschheit as such, would certainly not only secure the achievements of any well functioning democracy, it could also clearly represent an ideal to which the masses could aspire to: “Denn sinnvoll – sinnvoll im universellen Sinne gemeint – erhebt sich eine Auslese über den breiten Schichten erst und allein dann, wenn sie die Erhöhung des durch sie selber wieder zu erhöhenden Niveaus der Massen darstellt.”90 The envisaged means for the fostering of this “democratic elite” were for Weber basically associated with their “rightful education”. While Weber acknowledges that Nietzsche also values “education” as a tool of the elevation of mankind, he believes that Nietzsche has not stressed this point strongly enough and has more clearly relied on what he regarded as the merits of “breeding”.91 Yet any moderate intellectual standpoint taken on the subject would surely convey the importance of “education”, particularly of “intellectual education”, as the prime factor in the fostering of an intellectual elite which will in turn also help to elevate the general sociocultural and educational level of the masses.92 In the following sections of this chapter we will see that Weber had particularly emphasised this cultural function of “education” in his earlier writings on “cultural sociology” or Kultursoziologie, where he predominantly relates it to his idealised version of what he calls the “third” human type – i.e. a strong willed democratic individual with compellingly humanistic ideals.

89 Ibid. pp. 207-208. 90 Ibid. p. 207. 91 Ibid. p. 185. 92 Ibid.

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3) Alfred Weber and the origins of Kultursoziologie In the very brief, but nevertheless important preface or “Vorbemerkung” to his major book Kulturgeschichte als Kultursoziologie Weber stresses that he had already conceived of his main lines of thought regarding “cultural sociology” before the tragedy of World War I,93 and that he had phrased it in terms of a process of the disintegration of traditional culture or a “Zersetzung des alten Kulturellen”94 that – as a wider sociocultural phenomenon – has its roots or origins firmly grounded in the past. Weber was, as we have seen so far, not operating in an argumentative “vacuum”, as he was not alone – so to speak – with his severe concerns about culture. In his considerations on the origins of cultural sociology in Germany, Klaus Lichtblau describes the most important aspects of the historical background of the sentiments that fed into the apparent Kulturkrise which was so pre-eminent at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century in Germany, and to which Weber also strongly reacted,95 in a very clear manner. Lichtblau names the inner antagonisms of German society, the unresolved social conflicts, as well as the already apparent “cultural pathologies” that lurked somewhere in a not so distant horizon, as some of the main sources for the exceptional productivity of the “intellectual discourse on culture” among leading German thinkers, whose generational concerns he sees as strongly overlapping and interlocking. This strongly intertwined generational discourse functioned on the basis of a shared notion of “cultural pessimism”, which basically held that “culture” had lost its inner unity, and is particularly characteristic of the writings of the “founding fathers” of German sociology, as Lichtblau consistently argues: “Dieses antinomische Spannungsverhältnis [ist, F.S.L.], auch in den zentralen kulturwissenschaftlichen und kulturphilosophischen Schriften der ‘Gründerväter’ der deutschen Soziologie festzustellen”.96 This feature of the intellectual life of the Gründerzeit is, of course, also very characteristic for the work of Alfred Weber, even if his main writings all date after World War I. Speaking of the origins of his concerns about “culture”, as expressed in his writings on Kultursoziologie, Weber writes: “Der Anstoß kam von dem Bewußtsein des kommenden Umschwungs aus der damals nur aufgeschobenen oder verschleierten Zersetzung des alten Kulturellen.”97 Hence traditional culture

93 See, for example, as mentioned before: A. Weber, “Der Kulturtypus und seine Wandlung” (1909). 94 A. Weber, Kulturgeschichte als Kultursoziologie, p. 51. 95 Lichtblau, Kulturkrise und die Soziologie um die Jahrhundertwende, pp. 13-23. 96 Ibid. p. 16. 97 A. Weber, Kulturgeschichte als Kultursoziologie, p. 51.

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had, as Weber sees it, gradually been “disintegrating” for quite some time, but only the full scale horror of the cataclysmic events of World War I made the true extent of this disintegration clear to him, and made him try and understand this development from the “analytical depth” to be gained from the study of history, where the true origins of this disintegration were to be uncovered from: “Es galt, die Tiefe der Zersetzung zu erkennen aus der Tiefe der Geschichte.”98 If the experiences and the events of World War I finally made Weber see these historical connections of cultural decline and disintegration more clearly, his epistemological position can easily be understood: “Was eintrat, führte von einer Einsicht zur nächsten.”99 Eberhard Demm interprets Weber’s fundamental experience of “crisis” as being basically connected to two things: firstly, to the general spiritual crisis around 1900 that occurred in German intellectual life, and secondly, to the apparent change in the German sociocultural “habitus” in particular. Hence Demm writes, that Weber detected: “eine erschreckende Veränderung des deutschen Habitus: vom humanistisch und universal gebildeten Weltbürger der deutschen Klassik zum physisch und geistig ‘kurzgeschorenen’ energischen, organisatorischen Realisten des Neogermanentums, dem ‘rebarbarisierten Menschen’ des Wilhelminischen Reiches.”100 This insight was to have a strong influence on Weber’s concept of “cultural sociology”, particularly with regards to his interpretation of the different historical “human types” he identified, which we will discuss in more detail in Sections 4 and 5. At this point a clear link to the writings of Rosa Mayreder becomes obvious, as she was also strongly reacting to the crisis of “culture” brought about by World War I, and also wanted to – as we have come to see in the previous chapter – trace the historical origins or the Ursprung of this crisis and its prevailing “threads that lead from the past to the present and to the future” [“Linien die von der Vergangenheit über die Gegenwart in die Zukunft führen”],101 in order to counter a further disintegration of “culture” and the devastating effects of its complete separation from “civilisation” with the help of a cultural renewal brought about by a redefinition of the role played by the feminine in its formative sociocultural processes. Mayreder, therefore, clearly held an ultimately optimistic notion of culture, at least as far as its prophylactic possibilities for the future are concerned, which Weber – in the last instance – shares, as he also aimed for a

98 Ibid. 99 Ibid. 100 Demm, “Einleitung”, p. 28. 101 Mayreder, Geschlecht und Kultur, p. 11.

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renewal of culture which was to be helped by his historical analysis, and was to be based on the identification of “befreiende Kräfte”102 with whose assistance the bleak perspectives of the present were ultimately to be transcended. This bleak present for Weber in 1935, when he had finally finished his book, was of course the draconian rule of national socialism in Germany. Weber had instantly decided to become professor emeritus when the national socialists seized power, and thereby entered a period of: “innere Emigration”.103 Weber tried to publish his Kulturgeschichte als Kultursoziologie in Germany in 1935, only to find his book rejected by Gustav Kilpper of the Deutsche Verlagsanstalt as being: “unzeitgemäß”,104 which in a certain way gives it an ironic closeness to Nietzsche’s Unzeitgemäße Betrachtungen. Weber had to publish his book in Holland instead, and it did not become a commercial success until well after World War II.105 Not only, but also from the historical circumstances surrounding his analysis, it becomes clear that Weber was responding to the wider debate of Untergangserwartung (in a twofold sense of intellectual and political decline) and “cultural crisis” that had been growing stronger and stronger in intellectual debates ever since Nietzsche had coined his diagnostic term “nihilism” to describe the development which his abendländische Gegenwart was very likely to take if not “all values were to be re-evaluated” as part of a positive “Gegenbewegung”106 against this apparent cultural decline.107 Other elements Weber took over from Nietzsche were, for example, the concerns about the view of the emergence of “tragedy” as a sociocultural and “tragic” habitus in ancient Greece, particularly since Weber believed that it was Nietzsche who first opened the: “Zugang [...] zu dem, was hier einmal als die Metaphysik der tragischen Daseinssicht bezeichnet sei,”108 regardless of what his immediate

102 A. Weber, Kulturgeschichte als Kultursoziologie, p. 53. 103 Hildegard Hamm-Brücher, “Geleitwort”, in A. Weber, Kulturgeschichte als Kultursoziologie, p. 7. 104 Gustav Kilpper wrote a letter to Weber on the 4th of March 1935 outlining the reasons for his rejection of the book: “Auch wenn es, wie Sie sagen, keinerlei politische Stellungnahme zu Gegenwartsfragen enthält, so wird doch die geistige Haltung des Buches von der politisch eingestellten Kritik als unzeitgemäß empfunden werden.” Quoted from: Demm, “Einleitung”, p. 25. 105 In 1937 37 copies of the book were sold, in 1939 68. When it was reissued in 1950 with some new sections included and minor changes made to the original text, it sold more than 31 000 copies in several unchanged editions within a few years of its republication. On this point see also: Demm, “Einleitung”, pp. 25-26. 106 Nietzsche, Wille zur Macht, “Vorrede”, § 4, p. 4. 107 Describing his programme of diagnosis entitled “Nihilism and the fate of European culture”, Nietzsche writes: “Was ich erzähle, ist die Geschichte der nächsten zwei Jahrhunderte. Ich beschreibe, was kommt, was nicht mehr anders kommen kann: die Heraufkunft des Nihilismus.” Ibid. § 2, p. 3. 108 A. Weber, Das Tragische und die Geschichte, p. 60.

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intentions were in doing so, and also regardless of the language in which he veiled his analysis. For Weber the development of the “tragic habitus” becomes the key example of when a change in the sociocultural habitus of individual cultures and peoples takes place over centuries of time, and can be analysed by looking at the concrete cultural achievements (the tragic theatrical plays of ancient Greece etc.) of the period in question. The notion of the “tragic habitus” that unfolds itself in ancient Greece is also of central importance to Weber’s overall development of Kultursoziologie, as it (a) helps to illuminate the “unterirdische Verbundenheit”109 of different cultural periods, particularly the powerful sociological influence of “Eurasien”110 which it continuously exerted on other cultures for thousands of years; and (b) provides the clearest test case for many of his key assumptions throughout his work – for example the notion of the “third” human type as the key cultural actor and creator in history, and the later fate of this “reiterliche Herrenmensch”111 within the period of dramatic change taking place in “modernity” – and (c) represents a lifelong thematic obsession of Weber (to which he admitted in both the CV’s he had written in 1887 and 1947 respectively).112 This thematic obsession with Greek antiquity is largely a result of his classical education as well as his enthusiastic appraisal of Nietzsche’s account of ancient Greece.113 We will come to see all this more clearly in Section 6 of this chapter, which reflects on Nietzsche, Alfred Weber and the notion of tragedy in history. If Alfred Weber was replying “indirectly” to Nietzsche with his Kultursoziologie, he certainly replied “directly” to Oswald Spengler (1880–1936) and his book Der Untergang des Abendlandes (1923).114 Weber had read Spengler’s book with great interest, and in a letter to his wife Else Jaffé-Richthofen, to whom he dedicated his own book, he said that it was his reading of Spengler

109 Ibid. p. 64. 110 Ibid. 111 Ibid. pp. 451-453. 112 “In seinem Lebenslauf von 1887 spricht er beim Gedanken an das bevorstehende Studium nicht nur von seinem hervorgehobenen Interesse für ‘Kulturgeschichte und die ästhetischen Gegenstände’, sondern bekräftigt ausdrücklich ‘stark [...] haben die Produkte des literarischen Griechischen Geistes auf mich gewirkt.’ 60 Jahre später schreibt er – wohl ein Zeichen für die Intensität dieser Einwirkung – über sich: ‘Die Schule hat ihm [...] vor allem große Freude am Griechentum mitgegeben’.” Quoted from: Richard Bräu, “Einleitung”, in A. Weber, Das Tragische und die Geschichte, p. 7. 113 We will come back to this important issue in later sections, for now the lasting influence of Nietzsche on Weber – of which I have given a few examples in all brevity here – should, nevertheless, be noted. On this issue see also: Bräu, “Einleitung”, pp. 7-27. 114 Oswald Spengler, Der Untergang des Abendlandes. Umrisse einer Morphologie der Weltgeschichte (München: Beck’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1923).

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which had helped him: “zu endgültiger Erleuchtung”.115 Nevertheless, Weber had vividly rejected Spengler’s book on both methodological as well as ideological grounds, particularly with regards to the pessimistic prognosis about the fate of the Western civilised world and its corresponding culture which Spengler openly advocated. Alfred Weber, for example, was very critical of Oswald Spengler’s approach at cultural history and his description of the decline of “culture” into its “logical”, but “disastrous” outcome “civilisation”. Spengler in the main aimed to identify the lines of historical development that characterise this decisive change. Weber, however, wanted to do more than just to identify Entwicklungslinien that lead from the past to the present and to a possible future, as the modern pessimistic prognosis of culture put forward by Spengler had done, which – in Weber’s opinion – leads to nothing more than just a strong form of scepticism and an: “eisigen Mut zum Generalpessimismus gegenüber der Zukunft unserer oder der ganzen Menschheit”.116 Weber’s conception of Kultursoziologie was, therefore, basically a reply to Spengler’s dogmatic theory of history and decline, as well as his dubious Kulturkreistheorie, as outlined in his notorious book Der Untergang des Abendlandes, which Weber believed to be the typical product of “a time of cultural prognosis characterised by a lack of faith” [“Eine Zeit der Kulturprognosen ohne Glauben”].117 But Weber also wanted to escape other “clutches of historical dogmatism” – “Abschnürung durch Dogmen”118 – mainly those represented by the different strands of Marxism of his time, which is one of the main reasons why his work was met with utter rejection by the Marxist Georg Lukács who bluntly accused it of “irrationalism” and argued that he represented the spirit of the times, but whose comments on Weber’s methodology were, nevertheless, very significant for Weber as they helped him to clarify his views on “cultural sociology” more systematically, and as they helped him to sharpen his analytical focus.119

115 The letter is dated on the 31st of August 1919. Else Jaffé-Richthofen even arranged a meeting between Spengler and Alfred Weber in September 1920, whom she had met while visiting Alfred’s brother Max in Munich in April 1920. The correspondence between Max and Alfred Weber does, however, not convey any further details of the meeting. On this point see also: Demm, “Einleitung”, p. 33. 116 A. Weber, Kulturgeschichte als Kultursoziologie, p. 64. 117 Ibid. 118 Ibid. p. 53. 119 Lukács, for example, later argued that Alfred Weber’s: “Methodologie die Tendenzen der Nachkriegsreaktion in der Irrationalismusfrage mitmacht”, and that he on top of that connects his irrational methodology “mit einem entschiedenen Kampf nach links.” Georg Lukács, Die Zerstörung der Vernunft (Berlin: Aufbau Verlag, 1955), pp. 491 + 494. While it is true that Weber fought a personal

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In his infamous book Oswald Spengler attempted to provide the “philosophy of the future” with the help of his “Umrisse einer Morphologie der Weltgeschichte”,120 which in the main attempts to see: “Welt als Geschichte, die im Gegensatz zur Morphologie der Natur [...] alle Gestalten und Bewegungen der Welt in ihrer tiefsten und letzten Bedeutung noch einmal [...] zu einem Bilde des Lebens, nicht des Gewordenen, sondern des Werdens zusammenfaßt.” 121

Spengler regarded the different historical and cultural periods – i.e. each historically succeeding or partially overlapping culture – which have emerged around the world, as “organisms” [“Kultur als Organismen”],122 with an inherent and clearly limited lifeline, which Spengler says is on average around 1000 years long. He goes on to argue that his abendländische Gegenwart has now reached the final stage of its existence. Spengler partly arrives at this conclusion with the help of his comparison between the “culture” of his contemporary society seen as part of the wider cultural heritage of the Occident, and the already surpassed cultural stages of Greek and Roman antiquity – which broadly rests on the following assumption: “jede Kultur hat ihre eigene Zivilisation”.123 With this move Spengler also wanted to determine the future of his own cultural age. According to Spengler, his contemporary cultural period has already entered the “inorganic” stage of “civilisation”, characterised by a: “Dasein ohne innere Form [und, F.S.L.] ohne symbolischen

battle against Marxism, he was certainly not part of the “irrational tradition” which Lukács attacks in the same way as Spengler was. What can be called “irrational” in Weber is his use of the term: “immanente Transzendenz” (A. Weber, Kulturgeschichte als Kultursoziologie, p. 71) which holds that human actions are determined by transcendental powers that manifest themselves internally as well as externally as a: “seelische Entelechie” (Ibid. p. 71). It can lead human action to positive heights, but also holds a dark, almost manichean capacity. This is not unlike Nietzsche’s notion of the “dionysian” and “apollinian” forces at work within us and the rest of the world, or even as Freud’s distinction between “Eros” and “Thanatos”. In this sense Lukács’ critique clearly holds some weight here. But what separates Weber from both the Marxist Lukács and the cultural pessimist Spengler, is the fact that he did not fundamentally question capitalism: “Alfred Weber stellte zwar nicht wie seine marxistischen und kulturpessimistischen Zeitgenossen den Kapitalismus in Frage, aber er schlug verschiedene Reformen vor, um die Entfremdung des Menschen im modernen Produktionsprozeß zu beenden und die Arbeitswelt zu humanisieren. Damit vertrat er die idealistisch liberale Auffassung vom Vorrang des Menschen und seiner Selbstverwirklichung gegenüber den Sachzwängen der Institutionen.” Moreover, he advocated a third way between capitalism and communism which he called free socialism. Demm, “Einführung in Leben und Werk Alfred Webers”, pp. 15-16. 120 Spengler, Der Untergang des Abendlandes (1923), subtitle. 121 Ibid. p. 7. 122 Ibid. pp. 140-146. 123 Ibid. p. 43.

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Gehalt”,124 and is, therefore, doomed to enter its “farewell period” of ultimate decline. The terms “culture” and “civilisation” devise a strong and even necessary or logical “organisches Nacheinander”125 for Spengler, which holds severe consequences for the relational development of each of the two historical stages of development. The consequences are “disastrous”, as it is the “unavoidable fate” of every “culture” that it reaches its end in the step it takes towards “civilisation”; it is – so to speak – its “inner logic” to take this step and thereby give way to its own downfall, as Spengler consistently argues.126 It is very clear that Spengler was falling victim to the simplistic and overreductive dichotomous trap of the widely used antagonism between “culture and civilisation” in 19th century Germany, which is also at least partly the reason why his analysis was criticised so heavily.127 For Spengler the main difference between the already surpassed cultural stages of Greek and Roman antiquity, lies in the apparent division between the Greek soul and the Roman intellect, which for him also becomes the paradigmatic formula for the difference he sees between “culture” and “civilisation” more generally. Spengler argues: “Griechische Seele und römischer Intellekt – das ist es. So unterscheiden sich Kultur und Zivilisation. [...] Damit erst wird man den Römer als den Nachfolger des Hellenen verstehen.”128 This is also the central point of his dogmatic theory of history and his arguments about cultural decline – not only in the past, but even more so today: “Der Übergang von der Kultur zur Zivilisation vollzieht sich in der Antike im 4., im Abendland im 19. Jahrhundert.”129 From this conclusion Spengler argues that historical development does not happen in a linear sense, but rather in a sphere of “separated cultural circles”, i.e. Kulturkreisen, as well as in a cyclical mode of development where ascent and rise are necessarily (Spengler would say: “logi124 Ibid. pp. 71f. 125 Ibid. p. 43. 126 Ibid. 127 Spengler’s notion of history was met with very mixed feelings in academia, as it seemed to be based on an intense investigation of historical facts and even proposed the supremacy of facts over truths (“Tatsachen sind wichtiger als Wahrheiten”, Ibid. p. 43). For some commentators like Ernst Jünger (1895–1997) or Ludwig Klages (1872–1956) and many other right-wing intellectuals, this apparent resistance of a fact based historical analysis against the philosophical pre-eminence of “objective spirit” or Geist was a welcome justification for their own irrational positions, while others, like Georg Lukács, who incidentally called all three (Spengler, Jünger, Klages) protofascists or “Präfaschisten” (Lukács, Zerstörung der Vernunft, p. 417) – as well as many other left-wing commentators – strongly attacked Spengler’s all too obvious “philosophical dilettantism” (Ibid. p. 366), as he had openly stated his distrust in “pure philosophy for philosophy’s sake”. 128 Spengler, Der Untergang des Abendlandes, p. 44. 129 Ibid.

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cally”) followed by decline and collapse.130 Weber will follow both Spengler and Nietzsche in their analysis of Greek antiquity, but in many ways – as we will clearly come to see – presents us with a fusion of cyclical and linear elements of historical development. But Alfred Weber is, of course, very critical of Spengler for both ideological as well as methodological reasons. The ideological reasons were that Weber did not share Spengler’s: “eisigen Mut zum Generalpessimismus”,131 with regards to the completely bleak outlook on the future of “culture” and “civilisation” which was in essence what Spengler’s account had – in the main – only offered. The methodological reasons for Weber’s rejection of Spengler’s position were that, despite the fact that there might be some positive merits in his analysis, Spengler offered little more than just some vague, if important, trends of historical development. Weber argues: “mag die moderne Kulturprognostik bei der Verarbeitung des Geschichtsstoffes sehr wichtige Erkenntnisse gewisser großer, durch die Geschichte hindurchgehender unumkehrbarer, daher – so kann man vermuten – auch in die Zukunft fortlaufender Entwicklungslinien geliefert haben”,132 it – i.e. the modern cultural prognosis in the sense proposed by Spengler – has, nevertheless, completely overlooked the importance of positive occurrences of “spontaneous cultural change” enacted by different sociocultural actors throughout the past, which – as we will come to see more clearly in the next section – is what Weber’s analysis mainly tries to emphasise in distinction to Spengler’s. And even though there might have been some valuable merits in Spengler’s analysis, it ultimately takes away the positive and vital Lebensbedeutung 133 of historical analysis – which is particularly worrying in historically crucial, sensitive or nervous, and hence decisive times of cultural decay (where a hope for cultural renewal is what is really needed) like the present state of his own soci130 Hence Spengler’s cyclical notion of history is – to provide an example which we have already briefly discussed – completely distinct from the linear version of history as put forward by the early sociologist Auguste Comte in his concept of the historical development of the human spirit, which for him – as we saw in Section 2.1 of Chapter 3 – takes place in three different stages of development: (1) the theological stage, (2) the metaphysical stage, and finally (3) the positivist stage. Spengler is closer to a Nietzschean version of history, but in many ways presents us with a misinterpretation of Nietzsche, as he, for example, could not see the essential demand made of mankind and evoked by Nietzsche’s notion of eternal recurrence: which is to face up to the absurdity of everyday life and to joyously affirm it despite the senselessness that seemingly characterises it. Nietzsche writes: “Das schreckliche oder das Absurde ist erhebend, weil es nur scheinbar schrecklich oder Absurd ist.” Nietzsche, “Die dionysische Weltanschauung”, KSA 1, § 1, p. 553. For an excellent discussion of Nietzsche’s notion of the “absurd”, see: Dier, Die Lehre des Absurden (1998). 131 A. Weber, Kulturgeschichte als Kultursoziologie, p. 64. 132 Ibid. 133 Ibid. p. 63.

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ety which, for Weber, was, of course characterised by the frightening anticipation of a “kommenden Umschwung”,134 which did not necessarily mean “positive” change. Consequently, Weber strongly distanced himself from Spengler’s approach which he believes is separated from his own attempts by a more than clearly visible divide, as his attempt at Kultursoziologie: “in der wissenschaftlichen Überzeugung und der geistigen Haltung durch einen breiten Graben von derartigen Kulturprognosen getrennt [ist, F.S.L.]”,135 and in contrast to Spengler’s approach, but again similar to Nietzsche’s attempts (at cultural critique and the educational ideal embodied by his notion of the Übermensch), aims to offer an outlook on the positive possibilities of “cultural renewal”: “die für unser Handeln und Gestalten von den historischen Tiefenperspektiven her sich ergeben”.136 In many ways, however, it is paradigmatic for the turn sociology took in the 20th century – particularly after World War II – that Weber’s writings have nearly been forgotten while Spengler’s dogmatic rigidity and philosophical extremism are still remembered. Particularly Weber’s Kultursoziologie – which avoids the pitfalls of the ideological radicalism of both the Marxist and the Protofascist (Spengler) analysis – is hardly acknowledged in standard canonical accounts of the history of sociology.137

4) The theory of Kultursoziologie In his book Kulturgeschichte als Kultursoziologie Weber tried to combine sociology with the structural elements of historical analysis in order to better under-

134 Ibid. p. 51. 135 Ibid. p. 64. 136 Ibid. p. 65. 137 Norbert Elias and Pierre Bourdieu being, of course, the exceptions as they both hold a notion of sociocultural “habitus”, but both say it does not derive from Weber. There is, however, some doubt to be expressed about their failure to credit Weber’s theory, particularly in Elias’ case, who was even a student of Weber. Eberhard Demm states that Elias went as far as calling the investigation into the historical “habitus” of a people, which he proposed in his book Studien über die Deutschen. Machtkämpfe und Habitusentwicklung im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (1990), a “broad, hitherto uncharted and new field of research”, without crediting his teacher Weber. In his book Elias wants to analyse: “wie sich das Schicksal eines Volkes im Laufe der Jahrhunderte im Habitus seiner einzelnen Angehörigen niederschlägt”, without admitting that Weber had investigated this very subject ever since 1909. Norbert Elias, Studien über die Deutschen. Machtkämpfe und Habitusentwicklung im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1990), p. 27. Quoted from: Demm, “Einleitung”, p. 25. On the problems of the exclusion of Alfred Weber from the classical canon of sociological literature, see: Solms-Laubach, “Probleme der Kanonbildung in der Soziologie”, in Wissenschaftlicher Literaturanzeiger, 41:1, pp. 62-63.

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stand the reasons for cultural change and historical development. In Weber’s opinion, his new approach becomes a unique sociology of culture in as much as it is embedded in the main views held about “universal history” as well as in its main subject of concern, i.e. history itself. Only in this sense – in as much as it looks at both of these aspects – can it also be referred to as a “cultural history”. Weber says: “Es ist eine Kultursoziologie, die eingebettet ist in die Anschauung und den Stoff der Universalgeschichte. Nur insofern ist es auch Kulturgeschichte.”138 The term Universalgeschichte is, of course, problematic as such already, as it seems hardly conceivable to “write” a history of everything that ever happened, which also encompasses the whole history of the universe including all forms of knowledge, all forms of sociocultural developments and all singular events that have happened over time. Despite this problematic framework, Universalgeschichte tries to analyse, understand and explain individual historical events and individual historical periods with reference to this overwhelming superstructure of the “totality” of events. This form of historical thinking was, of course, most prominent in the philosophy of Hegel, but it seems clear that Weber also frequently uses this specific element of Hegelian terminology as part of his wider analysis of cultural history, with the help of his new method of “cultural sociology”. But it also seems clear that Weber does not want to provide an all encompassing “cultural history” with his book, but rather gave the book its title in order to “ease the access to its inherent subject” [“um den Zugang zu seinem Stoffgebiet zu erleichtern”].139 Weber’s aim was to confront the past with the present: “Geschichte und Gegenwart zu konfrontieren”,140 in order to provide a “gegenwartsbezogene”141 analysis of “cultural history” that helps to illuminate the present with knowledge to be gained about its general historical foundation. In a somewhat obscure linguistic turn Weber writes that “the past becomes the mirror of the present, while the present becomes the pyre of the past” [“das Vergangene ist der Spiegel des Gegenwärtigen, das Gegenwärtige ist der Scheiterhaufen des Vergangenen”].142 With an interpretation of their intrinsic relationship Weber hoped to gain a: “Zugang zum Lebendigen”143 – thereby rescuing what he can from the “pyre” of the present in an attempt to 138 A. Weber, Kulturgeschichte als Kultursoziologie, p. 51. 139 Ibid. 140 Ibid. 141 Ibid. 142 Ibid. p. 52. 143 Ibid.

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sharply separate himself from Spengler’s negative analysis, which looked at the “ultimate” and – as far as Spengler was concerned – “inescapable” degeneration of “culture” into “civilisation”, and was hence – in the last instance – only concerned with pessimistic arguments about “dead forms”. Spengler summarised his views as follows: “Die reine Zivilisation als historischer Vorgang besteht in einem stufenweisen Abbau anorganisch gewordener, erstorbener Formen.”144 Weber did not at all share this point of view, because he was, as Friedrich Nietzsche was before him, far more concerned with the life “here and now”. This life-oriented actuality and relevance of Weber’s cultural critique, and its potential meaningfulness for his own contemporary society, is stressed by him once again when he makes clear that his historical analysis will only take account of those cultural phenomena that have become meaningful or important in the wider context of “universal history” or in as much as they can be regarded as “milestones” of “cultural history” as such. So Weber looked at: “diejenigen Teile der menschlichen Kulturphänomenologie, die universalgeschichtliche Bedeutung gewonnen haben”.145 His analysis was, nevertheless, not as deeply sociological (in a strict methodological sense) as the title suggests, because first of all Weber could only provide an: “exakt soziologische Analyse an den wichtigsten Stellen des Buches”,146 in order to make his task manageable at all, and secondly, Weber focused on the more general aspects of the economic and political factors out of which certain cultures and cultural periods emerged. Weber’s Kultursoziologie, therefore, does not try to provide an almost impossible: “soziologische Vollanalyse einzelner Kulturen”,147 but rather aimed for the: “Deutung des zentralen Gehalts der Kulturen durch ihre Einstellung in das universalhistorische Ganze”,148 as this promised to be the more fruitful of the two possible analytical approaches. Again it seems clear that there are strong Hegelian elements in Weber’s analysis which are reflected in the philosophical outlook he takes, but, nevertheless, certain elements of his analysis clearly remained “sociological”, even if only insofar as they became constitutive elements of a “historical” as well as “cultural” sociology that aimed for the: “Herausarbeitung von Wesen, Charakter, Physiognomie und Ablauf einzelner Kultureinheiten auf der Grundlage ihrer geschichtssoziologischen Bedingtheit und ihrer Einstellung als Glieder

144 Spengler, Der Untergang des Abendlandes, p. 44. 145 A. Weber, Kulturgeschichte als Kultursoziologie, p. 71. 146 Ibid. p. 51. 147 Ibid. 148 Ibid.

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in den Gesamtverlauf der Geschichte.”149 This method was to help him find the “inner rhythm” of history. It was also to overcome a tendency inherent in modern sociology, which for Weber was characterised by the “retreat into an analysis of the present” or a: “Rückzug der Soziologen auf die Gegenwart”,150 as Norbert Elias would later come to call it, with the microcosmic focus on small aspects of human life clearly dominating as its main object of analysis. For Weber this kind of petty sociology only tries to avoid the grand picture of the “total analyses” put forward by historical sociology with its macrocosmic view of the world which aims to analyse: “kollektive Phänomene wie Kultur, Staat, und Recht”,151 as Demm consistently argues. In the same way as Weber was critical of an “exact empirical sociology”, he was also very critical of an “exact empirical analysis of history”, as Demm stresses, because both of these methods were, according to Weber, characterised by a grave single-mindedness and a tendency of: “Faktenhuberei”.152 What, therefore, separates Weber from a pure form of (analytical and methodological) sociology, as well as from the Marxist notion of historical materialism, is first and foremost the crucial central view of his analysis which states that within history there always emerged a strong and completely “spontaneous” thread or current of “creative” human behaviour, that was based on a unique constellation of a: “noch nie dagewesenem Zusammen der Bedingungen und Möglichkeiten, das [das, F.S.L.] schöpferische menschliche Handeln spontan hervorbringt.”153 These “unique constellations of possibilities and factors” present themselves to different sociocultural actors at the particular – or suitable – points in time, which allow for historical and cultural change, and which are then fully exploited by these actors to ascertain new cultural achievements. Hence Weber emphasised: “das Einmalige und Besondere der kulturellen Phänomene sowie die Spontaneität und Unvorhersehbarkeit des menschlichen Handelns.”154 If this underlying thread of emerging creative behaviour, that brings about cultural (and historical) change on the basis of completely new historical conditions and possibilities, is indeed “spontaneous”, then it is unlike historical change as seen in the Marxist notion of historical 149 Ibid. p. 518. 150 Norbert Elias, “Vom Rückzug der Soziologen auf die Gegenwart”, in Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie, 35:2 (Köln: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1983), pp. 29-40. Quoted from: Demm, “Einleitung”, p. 31. 151 Ibid. 152 Ibid. p. 32. 153 A. Weber, Kulturgeschichte als Kultursoziologie, p. 64. 154 Demm, “Einleitung”, p. 35.

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materialism not totally determined, but rather conditional or to be more precise it is depending on the emergence of certain, completely new, structural constellations of a: “Zusammen der Bedingungen und Möglichkeiten”.155 To identify these unique constellations is one of the main objectives of Weber’s analysis of the important “milestones” of “cultural history”. To achieve his goal of identifying the possibilities and factors of sociocultural change: “die für unser Handeln und Gestalten von den historischen Tiefenperspektiven her sich ergeben”,156 Weber looked back at the changes in what he came to call the sociocultural “habitus” [i.e. the “Wesen, Charakter, Physiognomie und Ablauf größerer Kultureinheiten auf der Grundlage ihrer geschichtssoziologischen Bedingtheit”]157 of ancient peoples and cultures over centuries of time, to identify the cultural creations and exceptional achievements that obviously marked the real historical changes and advances in these societies. Weber’s sociology thereby aimed at providing new tools for understanding the different cultural and social realities of history, as well as the present. This goal, however, meets with a counter-tendency in Weber – his personal attempt to provide a contemporary sociocultural analysis that looks at the “Probleme der Gegenwart”158 in order to offer a “aktuelle Standortbestimmung.”159 Consequently, Weber’s sociology has always to be seen as a critique of his contemporary society, as well as a project aiming at new dimensions for historical and cultural understanding and sociocultural development. Weber’s analysis of history then essentially becomes an analysis of different historical spheres that determine historical progress. Demm stresses that Weber had originally started out by looking at the process of historical development with the help of the traditional dichotomy between “culture” and “civilisation”, which had been a pre-eminent feature of German thought since Immanuel Kant had first devised it,160 but as a result of his enlightening reading of Spengler’s pessimistic analysis of these two terms, which incidentally also included a harsh critique of his own society, Weber devised a third sphere, the “social” sphere of development, to elaborate a triangular constellation of historical advancement.161 Consequently, his socio-

155 A. Weber, Kulturgeschichte als Kultursoziologie, p. 64. 156 Ibid. p. 65. 157 Ibid. p. 518. 158 Demm, “Einleitung”, p. 27. 159 Ibid. 160 Ibid. p. 33. 161 It is fair to say that Spengler had woken Weber from his “dogmatic slumber”, just as the work of the Scottish philosopher David Hume (1711–1776) had done for Immanuel Kant.

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logical analysis in Kulturgeschichte als Kultursoziologie looked at the following three spheres: the social, the civil and the cultural – the Gesellschaftsprozeß, the Zivilisationsprozeß and finally the Kulturbewegung – which all, to varying degrees, reinforce and influence each other. Weber argues that the social sphere is characterised by a: “geschlossene Körperhaftigkeit”,162 whose “external” appearance can be grasped as something almost visible and transparent: i.e. as “ihre sozial-strukturellen Formationen und deren Wandlungen”.163 The civil sphere, Weber argues, carries forward the whole of the historical process and is characterised by the changing tools of social engineering that emerge over time. It stages: “die Darbietung veränderter Mittel für den Sozialaufbau, eine veränderte physische und geistige Objektwelt für die seelisch-geistige Gesamtformung; durch beides nichts anderes als eine jeweils veränderte Umwelt”.164 The cultural sphere or cultural movement is the sphere of sociocultural action by the historically determined human actors, whose “kulturelles Wollen”165 meets with the specific conditions enabled by the social and the civil sphere. These conditions then either allow for sociocultural change or they don’t, but once the process of historical change or the cultural movement begins, it seems entirely irreversible, because it then gains a developmental dynamic of its own: “[D]as seelisch-geistige Wollen [wirkt, F.S.L.] gleichsam durch uns hindurch auf die gegebene Lebenssubstanz und deren von uns selbst gewandelte Gestaltungsbildungen [...], spontan, heilig, unzerstörbar, mit der Tendenz, das, was wir erhaben, heilig, vollendet nennen, hinzustellen, Gesamtformungen, Haltungen und Werke entstehen zu lassen, an deren Teilverwirklichung wir jede Hochkultur erkennen, auf Grund deren wir sie allein so benennen dürfen.” 166

About the relationship between the three separate spheres of development (the social, civil, and cultural sphere) which Weber has identified, his commentator Eberhard Demm writes that the first one – the social sphere – is comprised of the state and society, and is inexorably linked with the second – the civil sphere – which is comprised of scientific progress and capitalism which move in a logical and irreversible process towards ever higher levels of self-affirmation. These two spheres constantly influence each other and thereby give rise to a histori-

162 A. Weber, Kulturgeschichte als Kultursoziologie, p. 70. 163 Ibid. 164 Ibid. 165 Ibid. 166 Ibid. p. 71.

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cal and sociological “aggregation of life”, as Weber famously calls it. They are met by and, therefore, intertwined with the third sphere, the cultural movement, which is comprised of the waves of spontaneous human creativity which emerge as groundbreaking constants in history. In his introduction to Weber’s main book Demm summarises this complex process as follows: “Der Gesellschaftsprozeß umfaßt Staat und Gesellschaft und verläuft in allen Geschichtskörpern in ähnlichen Phasen. Der Zivilisationsprozeß manifestiert sich im wissenschaftlichen Fortschritt sowie im Kapitalismus, er verläuft logisch-kausal und ist unumkehrbar und unaufhaltsam. Gesellschaftsund Zivilisationsprozeß beeinflussen sich wechselseitig, dynamisieren so den geschichtlichen Prozeß und bilden die ‘Lebensaggregierung’, auch historischsoziologische Konstellation genannt. Auf sie trifft die Kulturbewegung, in der die Kreativität des Menschen in Wellenbewegungen als ‘ein protuberanzenhaftes Herausbrechen der Produktivität’ spontan auftritt und sich in Ideen und Kunstwerken manifestiert, aber auch religiöse und moralische Wertvorstellungen hervorbringt, die als Ausdruck der ‘Selbstentfaltung der Seele’ unmittelbar das Handeln der Menschen bestimmen.” 167

It is in these different historical spheres that human sociocultural actors engage with each other, and it is within these spheres that the “third” human type – as Weber goes on to name the supreme creator of culture whom he has identified within history168 – can unfold his spontaneous creative talent to bring forth cultural, religious or moral advancement, if the conditions, possibilities and external factors are such that they favour change.169 The three spheres of historical development influence each other in such a way that a significant change in one of them will necessarily – sooner or later – entail a change in the other two, for it is inconceivable for Weber that there will be a long historical imbalance between them. It is wrong to regard Weber’s “three sphere theory” as being a completely rigid structure or “absolute” tool of analysis, for he was always more than willing to incorporate other views into his understanding of human history.170 His threefold approach to historical development had certainly more of a heuristic function as an “ideal type”,

167 Demm, “Einleitung”, p. 33. 168 We will see what Weber exactly means by this categorisation in the next section of this chapter which reflects on Weber’s “fourfold typology of mankind”. 169 A moment when such changes were brought forward was, for example, the emergence of the “tragic habitus” in ancient Greece, which we will analyse in more detail in later sections of this chapter. 170 Like, for example, elements of Marx’s analysis of the development of capitalism and his description of alienation, or Nietzsche’s account of the emergence of “tragedy” in ancient Greece.

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than as an exact representation of real life, as Demm convincingly argues.171 This approach helped Weber to highlight what he was mainly concerned about: the repressive character of the social and the civil sphere as one of the most fundamental structural problems of our time.172 Weber was very concerned about the possibility (and actual threat) that all individuality and human freedom could be lost in a society which increasingly consisted of the “fourth” human type, the: “physisch und geistig ‘kurzgeschorenen’ energischen, organisatorischen Realisten des Neogermanentums, dem ‘rebarbarisierten Menschen’ des Wilhelminischen Reiches”,173 who was willing to give up all his individuality under the command of increasingly powerful bureaucratic institutions. While human freedom is definitely not totally determined by the social and civil sphere, it is certainly curtailed by them, but it can find full expression in the cultural sphere, which is determined by the uniqueness and particularity of cultural phenomena, as well as by the spontaneity and unpredictability of human actions, as Weber argues: “Wir können in der Geschichte stets nur äußere Bedingungen samt den in ihnen enthaltenen Möglichkeiten und die Ausnutzung dieser Möglichkeiten durch spontane Eingriffe erkennen. Was geschieht, ist kontingent, Erfüllung einer unter vielen Möglichkeiten in dem auf diese Art geschaffenen Rahmen.” 174

This is why Weber also spoke of a “relationism” or Relationierung of thought and cultural factors, and their resulting cultural embeddedness,175 similar to Spengler by the way, who also held that different cultures have different “morals” and different notions of “truth”. For Weber, any given culture can, therefore, only be determined by the kind of thought its leading sociocultural actors (e.g. the “third” or “fourth” human type) epitomise. But what Weber would have completely rejected was to devise a total and apodictic determination or prognosis of the future of any given culture and its prevailing mode of thought, simply on the basis of some observed lines of historical development – what Spengler, for example, had clearly tried to do. Despite the negative consequences of the sometimes repressive character of the social and civil sphere that partly determine human history, Weber, nevertheless, believes himself to have observed a positive constant in human history and the cultural movement with 171 Demm, “Einleitung”, p. 39. 172 See for example: A. Weber, “Kommt der vierte Mensch?”, in A. Weber, Kulturgeschichte als Kultursoziologie, pp. 465-515. 173 Demm, “Einleitung”, p. 28. 174 A. Weber, Abschied von der bisherigen Geschichte, p. 15 175 Demm, “Einleitung”, p. 37.

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the help of his analysis of the historical conditions of cultural change: it is the seemingly omnipresent move from naiveté to consciousness or spiritual darkness to enlightenment, a process that might experience minor setbacks, but a process that on the whole never failed so far, in its description of a: “Fortgang von Naivität zu Bewußtheit, von Dumpfheit zu immer intensiverem und ausgebildeterem Aufgehelltsein aller Daseinssphären; welch letzterer Vorgang [...] ein universalgeschichtlicher Einheitsvorgang ist.”176 This process takes us to the actual sociocultural actors involved in the arena of historical change, who play an important role in Weber’s theory of cultural sociology, as he devises a “fourfold typology of mankind” which shows a clear affinity to Nietzsche’s “threefold typology of mankind”, mainly devised by him in his book Also sprach Zarathustra. Thus it is one of the main aims of the following section of this chapter to establish a clear link between these two different yet somehow fairly similar typologies.

5) Nietzsche and Alfred Weber’s “fourfold typology of mankind” With the help of devising four different historical human types who have dominated the cultural periods they have shaped, Weber wanted to develop a particular tool for Kultursoziologie which aimed to show the process of human change and development over time. Consequently, he tried to provide a cultural sociology: “welche die in der Geschichte vor sich gehende Entfaltung und Umwandlung des Menschenwesens zum Hauptthema hat”.177 Weber tried to show – as outlined in some detail before – that the real foundations of great cultures always lie with the characteristic type of social organisation in question, and hence wanted to describe the historical and developmental stages of these organisational types with the help of the: “Herausarbeitung eines geschlossenen in sich strukturierten geschichtlichen Gesamtaufbaus, des Herauswachsens der Kulturphänomene aus ihm und des darin eingeschlossenen Kulturschicksals der Menschheit”.178 It was – so to speak – an investigation into the change of the sociocultural habitus of particular cultures and their people over time. Weber’s notion of Menschheit (which in many ways clearly goes back to Kant’s concept of Menschheit of a unity of all peoples and races of all times, and of their resulting universal equality) distinguishes between four different historical human types or sociocultural actors: He calls them the: “erste, zweite, dritte und vierte Men176 A. Weber, Kulturgeschichte als Kultursoziologie, p. 70. 177 Ibid. p. 469. 178 Ibid. p. 52.

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sch” respectively, a distinction that even without much detailed explication of their deeper meaning, already shows a strong affinity to Nietzsche’s threefold typology of different (historical) human types, which I have outlined in Section 3.1 of Chapter 6. This affinity will become much clearer, when we now try to understand the true impact of Weber’s human typology.179 But before turning to his typology, it is important to understand what Weber believes to be the major capacity of Menschheit. Weber is certain that the dominant feature of being “human” or to be more precise its defining moment – the “human essence” so to speak – is the ability to bring forth cultural and spiritual artefacts as well as unique cultural propositions against all odds, and with full exploitation of the natural resources at hand. Hence humans are defined by the fact that they: “unter einer unwiderstehlichen Gewalt mit und in dieser Welt lebendige überzweckmäßige, eben kulturelle Dinge, Gestalthaftigkeiten und seelische Haltungen zu vollbringen oder an ihnen teilzuhaben versuchen”.180 The four human types whom Weber devises are all to different or varying degrees “cultural actors” of this kind, but they also have to be seen as part of the specific historical context to which they belong. In short, Weber’s book Kulturgeschichte als Kultursoziologie covers the history of mankind from the period of pre-history and the first primitive human antecedents – the Neanderthal and the Aurignac – whom he describes as the “first” and “second” human type respectively, to cover the early “highcultures” or Hochkulturen from 4000 BC onwards, which brought along the “third” human type who represents, for Weber, the prime sociocultural creator per se. This exceptional sociocultural actor and his prime achievements are, however, threatened in our present time by the danger of a re-primitivisation of human life through the possible arrival of a dangerously conformist

179 There is also, of course, some resemblance to Eduard Spranger’s (1882–1963) analysis of different Lebensformen (translated as Types of Men), published in 1928, where Spranger outlines his theory of the different manifestations of “types of men”, who are determined and shaped by their respective value systems and world-views, and engage in the sociocultural realm in a certain, yet theoretically predictable way. According to their attitudes, Spranger identifies six main historical “types of men” which he calls “the ideally basic types of individuality”: (1) the theoretical attitude, (2) the economic attitude, (3) the aesthetic attitude, (4) the social attitude, (5) the political attitude, and finally (6) the religious attitude. About the nature of these “ideally basic types” Spranger writes: “It must be borne in mind that the basic types which we develop are not photographs of real life but are based upon an isolating and idealising method. In this way eternal and ideal types are developed which are to be used as constructions or normal structures in connection with the phenomena of historical and social reality.” Eduard Spranger, Types of Men: The Psychology and Ethics of Personality (Halle: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1928), p. 104 + 107. In my opinion it can certainly be argued that Nietzsche’s as well as Weber’s respective “typologies of mankind” are also meant as “ideal types”, and are thus always to be seen “as constructions or normal structures in connection with the phenomena of historical and social reality” and not as “photographs of real life”. 180 A. Weber, Kulturgeschichte als Kultursoziologie, p. 64.

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“fourth” human type, an almost ahistorical being that gives up all individuality under the all-encompassing power of modern institutions and their anonymous chains of command. Weber’s “fourfold typology of mankind”, however, starts out with the period of pre-history. The period of pre-history and the reign of the first primitive human antecedents was characterised by only marginal achievements in sociocultural advancement, yet elements of these early advancements – as marginal as they might be – are still with and even in us, as Weber argues. When Weber refers back to the period of pre-history and the early primitive stages of human development, he certainly does not to want provide a: “Primitiven Romantik”,181 but instead aims to explain our: “menschliches Anfangsschicksal, dessen Relikte uns in der Mehrzahl der Lebensinhalte und Kulturformen der Primitiven noch umgeben”,182 with the help of a a more general “Aufdeckung von Wurzeln”.183 This “re-rooting” is, nevertheless, not meant as a re-primitivisation, but as an attempt to sketch out the primitive, but important “kulturelle Wesensqualität”184 of this cultural epoch, whose relicts and “after effects” [“Nachwirkungen”]185 have also imprinted themselves on our present cultural stage of development. Weber takes the Neanderthal to be the “first” human type, who left us little more than just a few “adapted tools” [“einfachste Steinwerkzeuge vor allem”],186 as early documents or “Leitmotive”187 of his primitive existence. Nevertheless, he seems to have had a primitive form of religion already, combined with a belief in an after-life (which one can clearly deduce from the graves and burial rituals he left behind), but on the whole his sociocultural advancements consist of little more than that, for, generally speaking, he was a: “simples, sammelndes und jagendes okkupatorisches Wesen”.188 The Aurignac is the “second” human type for Weber, who has come to achieve a more systematic approach to hunting and fishing, or who has even turned from a simple “gatherer” to a more sophisticated “cultivator” of plants. Thereby the Aurignac was clearly able to subjugate the forces of nature, even if 181 Ibid. p. 73. 182 Ibid. 183 Ibid. 184 Ibid. p. 82. 185 Ibid. p. 80. 186 Ibid. p. 73. 187 Ibid. p. 75. 188 Ibid. p. 74.

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only in a very primitive way. But even the little success he had with this subjugation made him realise that there might be higher forces at work within the world that determine his fate, and hence led him to develop an existential “Angst um sein Schicksal”.189 As a consequence, he tried to overcome the coincidences of successful harvests etc., by trying to perfect his cultivating skills, but he never managed to entirely overcome this: “Lebensangst und Alltagstranszendenz”,190 which thus became increasingly characteristic for his existence. His primitive cultural achievements are now mainly documented by the paintings and artefacts, present in certain caves throughout the world, which display a: “rätselhafte Formenfülle [die, F.S.L.] mit jener seinstranszendenten Tiefe behaftet [ist, F.S.L.]”.191 Echoes of this existential Angst still seem to be present in us moderns sometimes in what Weber comes to call the feeling of: “immanente Transzendenz”.192 Like Weber, Nietzsche also holds a notion of Urzeit and the function it serves in our modern consciousness. Its function, according to Nietzsche, is similar to the role described by Weber, as it bears the imprints of: “alles empfindenden Seins”,193 as part of a – maybe even collective – “dream”. A “dream” that might, however, be nothing more than a mere Schein. Nietzsche sums up this obscure view of pre-history as follows: “Wie wundervoll und neu und zugleich wie schauerlich und ironisch fühle ich mich mit meiner Erkenntnis zum gesamten Dasein gestellt. Ich habe für mich entdeckt, daß die alte Mensch- und Tierheit, ja die gesamte Urzeit und Vergangenheit alles empfindenden Seins in mir fortdichtet, fortliebt, forthaßt, fortschließt – ich bin plötzlich mitten in diesem Traum erwacht, aber nur zum Bewußtsein, daß ich eben träume und daß ich weiterträumen muß, um nicht zugrunde zu gehen.” 194

Weber argues that with the arrival of the first Hochkulturen of the primary character – Egypt, Babylon, China and India – as well as of the secondary character – the Jewish Empire, the Persian Empire, the Greek and Minoian cultures – the “third” human type entered the historical stage. The early form or early human manifestation of this important sociocultural actor, could be referred to as the “knight on horseback” or “dominant invader” – the “reiterli189 Ibid. p. 75. 190 Ibid. 191 Ibid. 192 Ibid. p. 71. 193 Nietzsche, Fröhliche Wissenschaft, KSA 3, § 54, p. 417. 194 Ibid. pp. 416-417.

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che Herrenmensch”195 – who ever since then, Weber argues, is the main intellectual representative and creator of culture per se, for with his arrival the fate of humanity seems to have turned dramatically. In particular Weber believes that what we call “history” emerged with the successive invasions of equestrian tribes into the geographical realm of the Western world since 1200 BC. Yet out of the seemingly never-ending struggles between these tribes, and the peoples they encountered and attempted to overthrow, an increasingly productive cultural interchange and cross-fertilisation materialised, and gave rise to hitherto unseen and sometimes even revolutionary cultural advancements and contents. Weber summarises this decisive development of world-history as follows: “Im Westen dagegen, daß heißt westlich des Hindukusch, war durch die Reitervölker ‘Geschichte’ entstanden, das Sichablösen von Staaten, Reichen und Kulturkreisen, die in gegenseitig fremdem Sein durch Eroberung, Unterwerfung und Zerstörung wechselten, die wohl in gegenseitigem Austausch und gegenseitiger Befruchtung standen, zugleich aber durch die Jahrtausende von 1200 v. Chr. bis 1800 n. Chr., also durch dreitausend Jahre, in fortwährender Rivalität sich befanden; einer Rivalität, die als letztes Mittel stets durch Krieg entschieden wurde und die nie vollendeten, allumfassenden Reichsimperien zustrebte, diese in vergeblicher Bemühung nie erreichend, unaufhörlich zu neuen Totalumwälzungen und neuen Herrschaftsgliederungen mit neuen Kulturinhalten führend.” 196

The “reiterliche Herrenmensch”197 is, therefore, the prime achiever of new cultural heights, as well as the prime implementer of new cultural deeds and revolutionised: “fast den ganzen eurasiatischen Kontaktbezirk”,198 because he basically rids the area he invades of its backwardness, even if he only passes through this particular region on his way to even more distant horizons: “denn der volle Herrenmensch, dem gegenüber der Ochsentrott seines Vorgängers im Raum verschwindet und der als reitender Beherrscher des edelsten Tieres sich, wo er auftritt, den Göttern verwandt fühlt, ist erst der einmal wesentlich Pferdenomade gewesene Mensch”,199 and, therefore, in principle constantly “on the move” (both physically and intellectually). His arrival on the stage of world-history, however, led to a last epoch of “tragedy” in human history, i.e. the “tragedy of the seemingly never-ending power struggles between differ-

195 A. Weber, Kulturgeschichte als Kultursoziologie, p. 88. 196 A. Weber, Abschied von der bisherigen Geschichte, pp. 13-14. 197 A. Weber, Kulturgeschichte als Kultursoziologie, p. 88. 198 A. Weber, Das Tragische und die Geschichte, p. 65. 199 A. Weber, Kulturgeschichte als Kultursoziologie, p. 88.

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ent human tribes and races” [“Tragödie der scheinbar endlosen Machtkämpfe der menschlichen Stämme und Rassen”],200 a process whose final curtain will only fall today in our own times, but whose outcome cannot be predicted, as Weber convincingly argues.201 Nevertheless, it seems clear to Weber that as a result of this historical process weaker cultures are almost always most likely to be: “knechtisch unterworfen”,202 and later assimilated. However, the main enemy the reiterliche Herrenmensch has to conquer though, is not any particularly weak culture, but the impact of the forces of nature he has to tame in order to achieve real cultural advancement. Historically speaking the “knight on horseback” increasingly manages to do so even though – and that is where Weber is close to Nietzsche’s analysis of the influence of Raubmenschen on cultural history in § 257 of Jenseits von Gut und Böse, as we will see in a moment – he lives: “In dem Bewußtsein der dunklen Kräfte der Natur doch über diesen stehend und zugleich ihnen nachbarlich verbunden.”203 Therefore, the “third” human type acts on all levels to finally subjugate nature, and when he in the end achieves this aim, he has also absorbed the somewhat dark, manichean side of the forces of nature within his personality. But out of the resulting antinomies in his reflective contemplation on the world the “knight on horseback” also gives rise to: “wunderbare, in kathartische Höhen ragende ‘ewige Leistungen’, die wir als große Kunst, Philosophie, Literatur heute registrieren”,204 and which can also be referred to as: “sichtbar materialisierte Urentselbstungen”.205 They are the products of a period of struggle between the antagonistic forces at work within the human soul, best expressed by what Weber calls the “Selbstverdunkelung und Selbsterleuchtung” of being or Dasein.206 Nietzsche also propagates a notion of the “barbaric origin” of culture, where “Raubmenschen”207 with virile masterly instincts conquer weak and dying cultures by storm, only to attain new and unseen cultural heights. The characteristic feature of these “barbaric invaders” is their: “natürlichere 200 Ibid. p. 89. 201 World War II, in many ways, represented a new fundamental change in world-history, which was , for Weber, ultimately the result of the unresolved conflicts between the: “im seelisch-geistigen Habitus aus ritterlichem Geist geborenen europäischen Staaten mit ihrem nie zu sättigenden Wolfshunger”. A. Weber, Abschied von der bisherigen Geschichte, p. 14. 202 A. Weber, Kulturgeschichte als Kultursoziologie, p. 89. 203 Ibid. 204 Ibid. p. 90. 205 Ibid. 206 Ibid. 207 Nietzsche, Jenseits von Gut und Böse, KSA 5, § 257, p. 206.

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Natur”,208 which is superior to the “will” of the culture they invade. There are good reasons to believe that Weber was aware of this particular passage in Nietzsche’s book Jenseits von Gut und Böse, as he was very familiar with his work, and as it appears in the first paragraph of the famous ninth book entitled: “Was ist vornehm?”.209 In his book Abschied von der bisherigen Geschichte, Weber even argues that in his famous reflections on Jenseits von Gut und Böse, Nietzsche tried to give many of his claims about morality a theoretical, philosophical and sociological foundation, even if this theoretical underpinning resulted only in a strong sense of sociological naivety.210 In § 257 of his book Jenseits von Gut und Böse, Nietzsche summarises the barbaric “origins of all higher cultures” as follows: “Sagen wir es uns ohne Schonung, wie bisher jede höhere Kultur auf Erden angefangen hat! Menschen mit einer noch natürlichen Natur, Barbaren in jedem furchtbaren Verstande des Wortes, Raubmenschen, noch im Besitz ungebrochener Willenskräfte und Machtbegierden, warfen sich auf schwächere, gesittetere, friedlichere, vielleicht handeltreibende oder viehzüchtende Rassen, oder auf alte mürbe Kulturen, in denen eben die letzte Lebenskraft in glänzenden Feuerwerken von Geist und Verderbnis flackerte. Die vornehme Kaste war im Anfang immer die Barbarenkaste: Ihr Übergewicht lag nicht vorerst in der physischen Kraft, sondern in der seelischen, – es waren die ganzeren Menschen (was auf jeder Stufe auch so viel bedeutet als ‘die ganzeren Bestien’–).” 211

Even if Weber would be very reluctant to admit it, there are clear parallels in their respective descriptions of the beginning of “great cultures”, particularly since both Nietzsche and Weber emphasise the aspect of the “conquering” of weaker cultures by “natural”, “virile” and “uncorrupted” Raubmenschen or reiterliche Herrenmenschen respectively, whose “last resort” in their attempts to solve ongoing conflicts was always “war”. It can hardly be a coincidence that both thinkers voice such similar views on the “barbaric” origins of culture. Nevertheless, Weber’s explication of the characteristics of the “third” human type is also closely linked with his notion of “Der Genius und die Geschichte”,212 expounded in the first section of his book Das Tragische und die Geschichte, where he describes the vital role played by the “genius” in 208 Ibid. p. 205. 209 Ibid. “Was ist vornehm?”, pp. 205-240. 210 A. Weber, Abschied von der bisherigen Geschichte, particularly pp. 156-161. 211 Nietzsche, Jenseits von Gut und Böse, KSA 5, § 257, pp. 205-206. 212 A. Weber “Präludium: Der Genius und die Geschichte”, in A. Weber, Das Tragische und die Geschichte, pp. 35-57.

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human history. For Weber, the “genius” embodies a mixture of the qualities represented by or belonging to either of the following “groups of great” people: prophets, founders of religion, philosophers, statesmen or finally “künstlerische Verkünder”213 in the form of poets and artists. This “Gruppe von Großen”,214 who are characterised by a “weltgeschichtliches Wesen”,215 become aware of their own “geschichtlichen Auftrag”,216 and also gain an awareness of the fact that they are “Träger eines Überpersönlichen, das Gefühl mit unsichtbaren Kräften in Verbindung zu stehen”.217 They are the representatives or even the embodiments of a “historical mission” so to speak. For Weber, it is the “genius” who also advances (cultural) history, and who becomes the personalised cultural creator per se in modern times. This clearly is the moment where the “genius in history” essentially becomes a cultivated or tamed and idealised version of the reiterliche Herrenmensch, or the similar historical category of the “third” human type. Nietzsche, of course, also has a notion of the “genius in history”, but as with most of his concepts it is highly ambivalent. On the one hand, Nietzsche praises the abilities of the “genius”, because: “Er strömt aus, er strömt über, er verbraucht sich, er schont sich nicht, – mit Fatalität, verhängnisvoll, unfreiwillig, wie das Ausbrechen eines Flusses über seine Ufer unfreiwillig ist.”218 On the other hand, Nietzsche clearly despises the modern cult of the “genius” as well, because in the end: “[fördert nur, F.S.L.] unsere Eitelkeit, unsere Selbstliebe den Kultus des Genius.”219 But ultimately even Nietzsche admits, as Weber does as well, that the human desire to aspire to the ideal of the “genius”, is the ultimate “root” of all forms of “culture”: “Jeder Mensch [...] trägt [...] als intellektuelles Wesen, ein tiefes Verlangen nach dem Genius in sich. Hier ist die Wurzel aller wahren Kultur.”220 It is, therefore, not surprising that when Weber discusses the appearance of the “genius” on the historical stage [“das Erscheinen des weltbedeutsamen Genius”], 221 he even explicitly refers to and

213 Ibid. p. 36. 214 Ibid. p. 43. 215 Ibid. 216 Ibid. p. 42. 217 Ibid. 218 Nietzsche, Götzen-Dämmerung, KSA 6, § 44, p. 146. 219 Nietzsche, Menschliches, Allzumenschliches I, KSA 2, § 162, p. 151. 220 Nietzsche, Unzeitgemäße Betrachtungen III, KSA 1, § 3, p. 358. 221 A. Weber, Das Tragische und die Geschichte, p. 54.

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discusses Nietzsche’s view that: “Das Genie ist die sublimste Maschine, die es gibt, und folglich die zerbrechlichste und nur ein Glücksfall.”222 Accordingly, Weber argues that Nietzsche is indeed right in his assessment that the “genius” is a fragile “machine”, as he can only attend to certain specific tasks, and that he is not, as Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) had claimed, a “universal machine” who is: “zur Bewältigung jeder Aufgabe [...] fähig”.223 Hence Weber essentially agrees with Nietzsche’s notion of the “genius”, when he says that Nietzsche was right in pointing to his or her fragility: “Denn die Leidenschaftswinde der ganzen Welt wehen in [ihm, F.S.L.] und können leicht alles zerrütten oder an der Entfaltung verhindern, finden sie nicht den der ganz besonderen Note der Begabung entsprechenden Ausweg. Nur die aus dem eigenen Kräfteempfinden der Überbegabung und dem überall vorhandenen Gefühl des geheimen Verbundenseins mit überpersönlichen Kräften stammende Unzerbrechlichkeit des Genies hält die Großen aufrecht oder richtet sie aus, bis ihre geschichtliche Aufgabe, wenn überhaupt, an sie herantritt, durch die hindurch sie zu ihrer Weltmission kommen.” 224

Yet in Weber’s writings on the theory of cultural development there is also a different “modern” version of the “third” human type, particularly when he refers to this character most clearly as a purely “idealised” personification of a sociocultural actor. This basically means that for Weber there is a difference between the “third” human type as a “historical category”, and the “third” human type as an “ideal”. As a “historical category” it refers to the exceptional individuals and reiterliche Herrenmenschen that furthered cultural change in the past, particularly so in Greek antiquity. As an “ideal” the “third” human type becomes an educational ideal which is intended to transform and transcend the bleak cultural and political prospects of the present, and to hint at the possible dawn of a more valuable form of culture in the future. This is, in many ways, very similar to the cultural purpose of Nietzsche’s notion of the Übermensch, which I have outlined in my interpretation of Nietzsche’s educational ideals in Section 3 and 3.1 of Chapter 6, where I have argued that, when seen as an educational

222 Quoted from: Ibid. 223 Ibid. 224 Ibid. pp. 54-55. Again there is, of course, a clear resonance of the philosophical language used by Hegel in Weber’s statement. Particularly Weber’s notion of the “genius in history”, and its inherent Weltmission is in many ways similar to Hegel’s notion of the “world-historical-individual”. Hegel, for example, argued that world history and its ultimate aim (i.e. freedom) are furthered by: “welthistorischen Individuen, welche den Beruf hatten, die Geschäftsführer des Weltgeistes zu sein.” Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Geschichte (Stuttgart: Philipp Reclam jun., 1961), p. 71.

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ideal, Nietzsche’s notion of the Übermensch aims for the: “Menschwerdung des Menschen”.225 Weber’s educational ideal is, however, to help stimulate strongly humanistic ideals in modern society, and a greater willingness to actively engage in politics, as well as a readiness to forcefully resist whenever individuality and liberty are threatened. In modern political terms this, therefore, means that Weber’s “third” human type can be described as: “das Ideal des ‘dritten Menschen’, eines selbstverantwortlichen, politisch engagierten und stets zum Widerstand gegen übermächtige Strukturen bereiten Individuums”,226 as Eberhard Demm convincingly argues. It is the modern idealised version of the historical “third” human type, whose highest achievement was his “total humanity”, as Weber consistently argues – “dessen höchststehende Prägung in zur Bewußtseinshöhe gebrachte selbstverständliche Allmenschlichkeit auslief.”227 For Weber the present is, however, in stark danger of a re-primitivisation, as it is supporting a dangerous development of technological overload, whose outcome can neither be predicted nor controlled, and thereby generates an existential Angst that serves as a bleak reminder of the primitive stages of human cultural development. The fear of re-primitivisation is a key concept in Weber’s cultural sociology, and it is also one of the main reasons why he turns away from Nietzsche’s philosophy in his book Abschied von der Geschichte (1946), as Nietzsche’s philosophy – rightly or wrongly – had become part of the “primitive” ideology of national socialism. The result of this process of re-primitivisation, for Weber, was the arrival of what he called the “fourth” human type – der vierte Mensch – a new kind of spineless and manipulative being, who offered fertile ground for authoritarian regimes to take control. In his essay: “Kommt der vierte Mensch?” (1950), which was included as the new final chapter in the second edition of his book Kulturgeschichte als Kultursoziologie,228 Weber argues that after World War II, it is hard to anticipate the future shape of the sociocultural structures: “[des, F.S.L.] Miteinanderlebens der Menschheit”,229 but that the present form of “cold war” conflict between the system of managerial capitalism of the West, and the authoritarian state communism of the East, can only lead to the almost inevitable arrival of the “fourth” human type: “Wie ein Gespenst erscheint ein vierter Menschentyp hinter dem ‘dritten Menschen’, der in Jahrtausenden über die Synthese von Herrentum und Anti-Herren225 Niemeyer, Nietzsches andere Vernunft, p. 346. 226 Demm, “Einführung in Leben und Werk Alfred Webers”, p. 21. 227 A. Weber, Kulturgeschichte als Kultursoziologie, p. 467. 228 A. Weber, “Kommt der vierte Mensch?”, in Ibid. pp. 465-515. 229 Ibid. p. 465.

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tum zur vollen Vermenschlichung fortschritt. Ein neuer Mensch voller Möglichkeiten der Selbstverwandlung und, wie wir es noch fühlen, vor allem auch der Selbsterniedrigung scheint aufzustehen, in einer Umordnung der geschichtlichen und transzendenten Wesensschichten, vor der uns bangt.” 230

Eberhard Demm refers to Weber’s “fourth” human type as the description of a: “völlig angepaßtes und manipulierbares Wesen, das als Bürokrat im totalitären Regime blindlings selbst die unmenschlichsten Befehle seiner Vorgesetzten befolgt, aber auch als Manager in der wirtschaftlichen Großorganisation den Arbeitsprozeß enthumanisiert und die Umwelt zerstört.”231 For Weber, the “fourth” human type is a totally: “fragmentarisiertes, pluralistisches Wesen ohne regulierende und integrierende Menschlichkeitsmitte”.232 This is partly the result of the creation of both bureaucratic and technocratic institutions, and other generally alienating social structures which only reinforce the estrangement of mankind from the true essence of humanity by an integration of an increasingly specialised human actor into a completely lifeless superstructure: “es baut [sich, F.S.L.] auch überall eine Struktur auf, in der der zum Spezialisten gewordene Mensch Funktionär dieser Struktur wird.”233 In a first step, this process, Weber argues, leads to an ever increasing “emptiness of the personality” of modern individuals,234 and in a second step it even becomes the basis for the entire “dissolution of their personality” [“Persönlichkeitsauflösung”].235 This process goes so far that the ensuing Funktionärswesen is able: “Dinge zu vollziehen, die von äußerster Unmenschlichkeit sind”.236 Weber summarises the overall effects of this “decisive” (if excessively “negative”) historical development as follows: “Diese Umwälzung schafft den Verwaltungsleviathan als äußere Gebildform des Daseins, sei es in der wirtschaftlichen, sei es in der mit ihr verschmolzenen staatlichen Sphäre wie im übrigen Leben – überall. Und ihre Prinzipien der inneren Spezialisierung und Funktionalisierung beschwören die Gefahr herauf, daß der bisherige Menschentyp auf- oder abgelöst wird.” 237

230 Ibid. pp. 465-466. 231 Demm, “Einführung in Leben und Werk Alfred Webers”, p. 20. 232 A. Weber, “Kommt der vierte Mensch?”, in A. Weber, Kulturgeschichte als Kultursoziologie, p. 478. 233 Ibid. 234 Ibid. p. 479. 235 Ibid. p. 480. 236 Ibid. 237 Ibid.

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There clearly is a strong resemblance to Nietzsche’s notion of the “last man” in Weber’s conception of the “fourth” human type, as both constructs refer to herd-like beings that operate and function in a largely spineless existence as a “cog in a machine”, who are always on the receiving end of the chain of commands, and create nothing valuable or culturally relevant on their own, but only serve to reinforce the worst excesses of the inhumanity of both capitalism and state communism. As argued before in Section 3.1 of Chapter 6, Nietzsche regards the “last man” as the typical embodiment of an Untertan or of a bureaucratic conformist. Nietzsche writes: “‘Wir haben das Glück erfunden’ – sagen die letzten Menschen und blinzeln [...] Wer will noch regieren? Wer noch gehorchen? Beides ist zu beschwerlich. [...] Kein Hirt und eine Herde! Jeder will das gleiche, jeder ist gleich: wer anders fühlt, geht freiwillig ins Irrenhaus.”238 Glück comes to mean the total “lack of responsibility” for the “last man” who is consequently ready to submit into a herd-like existence, which is comparable to that of a “cog in a machine” and where completely externalised forces determine his individual fate as well as that of the “sociocultural” movement around him.239 While Nietzsche largely advocates the pursuit of the educational ideal of the Übermensch as a solution to fundamental crisis of the human condition epitomised by the characteristics of the “last man”, Weber’s solution to the crisis epitomised by the appearance of the Gespenst of the “fourth” human type, is to advocate a Weltverständigung and a: “Zeitalter der Erddomestikation”,240 which is based on the highest achievement of the “third” human type – his “total humanity” [“Allmenschlichkeit”].241 This would, of course, also result in a “taming” and a “domestication” of the resolute qualities of the historical category of the “third” human type – the reiterliche Herrenmensch – and would finally also turn his qualities into spiritual values and educational ideals for modern mankind to aspire to. For Nietzsche, however, this form of “domestication” would, of course, be unacceptable as he would essentially regard this as a “civilising process”, and as the forced “domestication of mankind” [“Tierzähmung des Menschen”],242 which would necessarily always foster the morality of the masses, and would consequently not tolerate or even fear the true “virtues” of the exceptional few. Weber is well aware of this fundamental Nietzschean objection to his proposed

238 Nietzsche, Also sprach Zarathustra, KSA 4, “Vorrede”, § 5, pp. 19-20. 239 Nietzsche, Morgenröte, KSA 3, § 206, p. 183. 240 A. Weber, Kulturgeschichte als Kultursoziologie, p. 514. 241 Ibid. p. 467. 242 Nietzsche, Werke und Briefe III, p. 837.

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position, and even without direct prior reference to Nietzsche’s philosophy in his discussion of the “fourth” human type, he feels obliged to respond to the philosopher’s world-view in order to defend his own position against a possible “Nietzschean” objection to his proposal for the “domestication of the world” [“Erddomestikation”].243 This is the main reason why Weber writes: “Die Menschenart würde sich in solchem Zeitalter auf die Dauer wohl wandeln, tritt es wirklich auf lange Sicht ein. Aber der äußerlich domestizierte Zukunftsmensch braucht nicht trivial zu sein, wie Nietzsche es befürchtete. Auch in dieser Welt arbeiteten die abgründigen Daseinsmächte, innerhalb deren der Mensch steht, in irgendeiner Art weiter.”244

These “abgründige Daseinsmächte, innerhalb deren der Mensch steht”,245 and to which Weber is referring here, are precisely the historical and argumentative grounds on which both Nietzsche and Weber investigate the origins of the “tragic” world-view or the “tragic habitus” in ancient Greece, and on which we shall consequently focus in more detail the following section of this book.

6) Nietzsche, Alfred Weber and the notion of tragedy in history The parallels to Nietzsche become even more evident when we look at Weber’s book Das Tragische und die Geschichte (1942), which tried to interpret the epic Greek tales as expressions of a tragic world-view or “tragic habitus” that still holds important consequences for the cultural development of our own historical and sociocultural age. Summarising his views on the topic of “tragedy” and “history”, Weber argues: “Das Tragische und die Geschichte, das heißt die Art, in der das Tragische als eine Daseinssicht aus dem Geschichtsablauf herauswächst, und was sich als Wesenhaftes an dieser Daseinssicht enthüllt, als sie zum ersten Male in der Geschichte auftrat und dadurch geprägt wurde.”246

The strong link to Nietzsche’s view on the subject is already evident from this quote. It becomes even more apparent when we remember that for Nietzsche “tragedy” was also a Daseinssicht that characterises a certain historical stage of cultural development, and was, therefore, close to or even represented its “essence”,

243 A. Weber, Kulturgeschichte als Kultursoziologie, p. 514. 244 Ibid. 245 Ibid. 246 A. Weber, Das Tragische und die Geschichte, p. 33.

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as it had something indispensable or wesenhaftes about it. For Nietzsche, the essence of this Daseinssicht was the antagonistic struggle between fundamental forms of “will” in the natural world, symbolised by the gods Apollo and Dionysos. Nietzsche argues, that for the ancient Greeks these two deities symbolised the “secret teachings” inherent in or associated with their “tragic worldview”: “Die Griechen, die die Geheimlehre ihrer Weltanschauung in ihren Göttern aussprechen und zugleich verschweigen, haben als Doppelquell ihrer Kunst zwei Gottheiten aufgestellt, Apollon und Dionysos.”247 The consequences of this world-view are severe for Nietzsche, and also hold important implications for the cultural development of our own historical and cultural age as they represent our cultural roots. In a fragment entitled “Wissenschaft und Weisheit im Kampfe”, which explicitly deals with this subject, Nietzsche makes his point quite clear: “so much depends on the development of Greek culture, as the whole realm of the Western world has received its main impetus from these roots”.248 Weber clearly shares Nietzsche’s view of the importance of Greek antiquity for the whole sociocultural realm of the western world, as he firmly believes that if the Occident is to ever experience a meaningful cultural renewal, it would only be possible on the basis of a particular “cultural will” that measures itself according to the “cultural essence” of Greek antiquity,249 because this is still one of the main elements of our “spiritual” and “cultural” existence.250 Weber summarises his optimistic view of this intrinsic relationship between the culture of ancient Greece and its somehow more differentiated legatees in modern society in the following way: “[Die Antike, F.S.L.] muß und wird in allen weltabendländischen Gebieten, soll irgend verbundene neue Kultur in ihnen wachsen, soll der spröde moderne Lebensstoff bewältigt werden, einer der Maßstäbe und eine der Grundlagen der seelisch-geistigen Existenz bleiben, gewiß in komplizierterer und distanzierterer Art als früher, wie die Abendländer selbst durch die Geschichte verwickelter geworden sind.” 251

Consequently, not only Nietzsche, but also Weber regards the development of the “tragic habitus” as the key example of when a radical change in the sociocultural development of individual cultures and peoples takes place at a particular

247 Nietzsche, “Die dionysische Weltanschauung”, KSA 1, § 1, p. 553. 248 Nietzsche, Werke und Briefe III, p. 335 (my translation). 249 A. Weber, Kulturgeschichte als Kultursoziologie, p. 535. 250 Ibid. p. 536. 251 Ibid.

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point in time. Both thinkers also believe that this change can thus be analysed (at least in theoretical terms) by looking at the concrete cultural achievements, in this case, of course, the tragic theatrical plays of ancient Greece, which signified, symbolised or even epitomised this decisive historical change. So Weber and Nietzsche clearly share the view of the emergence of tragedy as a socioculturally significant “tragic habitus” (even if Nietzsche does not use this sociological term) in ancient Greece. Nietzsche, for example, argues that only for a very brief time did this tragic world-view fully emerge on the historical stage, basically as the result of the cultural peak of the Hellenic will: “Apollon und Dionysos [...] Diese Namen repräsentieren im Bereich der Kunst Stilgegensätze, die fast immer im Kampf mit einander neben einander einhergehen und nur einmal, im Blütemoment des hellenischen ‘Willens’, zu dem Kunstwerk der attischen Tragödie verschmolzen erscheinen. In zwei Zuständen nämlich erreicht der Mensch das Wonnegefühl des Daseins, im Traum und im Rausch.” 252

Weber makes a very similar point about the origins of “tragedy”, when he argues that only in ancient Greece did the “tragic habitus” fully emerge as an all-encompassing world-view that even dominated the sociocultural life of the community or polis in which it originated and where it fully developed: “Nur im antiken Griechentum ist es zur tragischen Sicht und ihrer Symbolisierung in der Tragödie als der kultisch eingerahmten Verkörperung einer vollständigen Daseinsinterpretation gekommen. Nur ganz kurz, durch wenige Jahrzehnte, hat die Tragödie diese Stellung als seelischer Mittelpunkt behalten. Aber diese kurze Zeit hat genügt, ein Aufreißen der Sicht des Menschlichen in einer Fülle, einer Breite und einer Tiefe zu schaffen, das wie ein unzerstörbares Licht neben den spekulativ philosophischen und prophetisch religiösen Existenzerfassungen bis heute die westliche Welt, soweit sie sich im Abendland entfaltet hat, beherrscht.” 253

While Nietzsche regards the result of the existential challenge posed by “tragedy” as a fusion of the elements of Rausch and Traum, Weber regards the result of this existential challenge as an: “Aufreißen der Sicht des Menschlichen”.254 Both thinkers, however, entirely agree that this challenge also holds significant meanings for our modern age, not least because for both Nietzsche and Weber modern man seems largely incapable of facing the fundamental existential challenges that confronted the Greek audience during the tragic theatrical performances in ancient Greece, as he or she basically evades the immediacy of the “tragic” expe252 Nietzsche, “Die dionysische Weltanschauung”, KSA 1, § 1, p. 553. 253 A. Weber, Das Tragische und die Geschichte, p. 62. 254 Ibid.

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rience of his or her finite existence by engaging in all kinds of forms of distinctively modern “artificial mediations”. But for Nietzsche and Weber, “life” has to be consciously grasped by the individual without the influence of “artificial mediations”, in order for him or her to be able to fully understand and appreciate its true meaning, and to make the most of the life “here and now”. In his brief reflections on the “transcendence of being” in his book Kulturgeschichte als Kultursoziologie Weber, for example, argues that: “Am positivsten spricht uns ja auch stets das ohne Zwischenkonstruktion erfaßte Leben und die in ihm und im Gesamtdasein verborgene Transzendenz an.”255 Nietzsche makes a fairly similar point when he argues that the main result of the tragic Daseinssicht was the radical insight that “nur als ästhetisches Phänomen ist das Dasein und die Welt ewig gerechtfertigt”,256 and which basically means that a truly liberated human being is living his or her life in harmony with the “immediacy” of the liberating feeling experienced, for example, in the performance of music or drama despite of the horrors and the absurdity of the life around him or her. For Nietzsche, only this kind of “immediacy” of all aspects of “life” (including its cruelty as well as its most beautiful moments) entails a meaningful transcendence of our existence “here and now”. This is also the capacity of Nietzsche’s philosophy which Weber believes to be strongest. In his book Abschied von der bisherigen Geschichte, which was, as we have seen before, in many ways meant as Weber’s “farewell to Nietzsche”, he, nevertheless, argues that Nietzsche was essentially on the right track when he radically exposed the inability of his “superficial age” and his seemingly “realist” society to admit to the fact that suffering is always an essential part of life, and that the eternal “process of becoming” always necessarily entails elements of suffering and destruction.257 This is Nietzsche’s greatest achievement, as Weber consistently argues, because in exposing this apparent inability of his own times to face up to the uncompromising facts of life, Nietzsche tried to force Wilhelminian society to admit to the tragic: “Tiefensicht des Daseins”,258 and to develop the courage to face up to and live with the uncompromising consequences it entails, even if they fundamentally challenge the comfortable “bliss of ignorance” guaranteed by the latent “shallowness” of this seeming age of reason.259 Weber summarises Nietzsche’s achievement – who viewed the

255 A. Weber, Kulturgeschichte als Kultursoziologie, p. 53. 256 Nietzsche, Geburt der Tragödie, KSA 1, § 5, p. 47. 257 A. Weber, Abschied von der bisherigen Geschichte, p. 194. 258 Ibid. 259 Ibid. p. 195.

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spirit of his times more sharply than his contemporaries ever could, because he basically looked at it from a “self-imposed and lonely distance” [“der seiner Zeit und diesem Jahrhundert aus der Entfernung einer selbstgewählten oder durch das Schicksal aufgezwungenen Einsamkeit schärfer ins Gesicht sah”]260 – in the following way: “Und gleicherweise war es richtig, wenn Nietzsche der Zeit zurief, und das gilt auch für die realistisch gewordene Zeit der achtziger Jahre, sie wolle nicht wissen und nicht wahrhaben, daß Leiden essentiell zum Leben gehört, daß der Werdeprozeß des Lebendigen immer zugleich Leiden und Zerstörung darstellt. Dies gesehen und mit stärkster Wucht seinem oberflächlichen Zeitalter immer wieder ins Gesicht gesagt zu haben, ist wohl Nietzsches unsterblichstes Verdienst.” 261

This uncompromising view of “life”, however, leads to the question of why mankind should be continuously forced to confront the existential challenge posed by the “immediacy” of the “tragic” experience? Or to phrase it in Weber’s terms: “Was ist das Sinnhafte daran, daß man den tragischen Vorgang, der dies Sehen umschließt, und das Leiden, das heraufgeführt wird, immer wieder sich vergegenwärtigt? Was [ist, F.S.L.] ... der Sinn der klassischen Tragödie also?”262 Weber believes that it was Nietzsche who had first posed this important question with great emphasis (even if also with a great deal of pathos),263 and who had answered it in a: “geniale Weise”,264 particularly insofar as he offered a: “Lösung, die bis heute nach allen Seiten ausgestrahlt hat als die bisher tiefste, am meisten an die Wurzel gehende.”265 In Section 2.1 of Chapter 6, I have argued that Nietzsche’s analysis of Greek tragedy particularly looked at the function played by “myth” – in the sense of a representation of the unity of life and death – which was symbolically acted out in the performance of tragedy in ancient Greece. According to Nietzsche, these performances had a unifying effect on the sociocultural life of ancient Greek communities. McGinn interprets this “unifying power” performed by tragedy within Greek sociocultural life as a: “prophylactic against the debilitating effects of an unmediated encounter with the horror

260 Ibid. 261 Ibid. p. 194. 262 A. Weber, Das Tragische und die Geschichte, p. 291. 263 Ibid. 264 Ibid. 265 Ibid.

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and terror of human existence”.266 Through the mediated encounter with his own finite existence, which became apparent to the individual by watching the death of a particular hero (say, Oedipus) on stage, he was able to put his own life “in perspective”, and to once again relate to other individuals and to nature as well as to his “true self ” without the degree of “alienation” he would otherwise feel in relation to them: “The spectacle of the shattering of the tragic hero helps the individual to keep the importance he attaches to his own finite existence in proper perspective.”267 According to Nietzsche, tragedy, therefore, served to make the individual face up to the harsh and uncompromising features of life (and death). Weber’s answer to this question is not very different from Nietzsche’s, as he regards the inherent function of tragedy as the: “Wiedergabe des Typischen im Menschenschicksal, wie es in den Kosmos und in das Gemeinwesen – Polis – einverleibt ist, wenn Moira und Dike über ihm walten, wenn es heroisch, und das heißt im griechischen Sinne menschlich ist.”268 It is in this sense that the heroic “tragic” habitus gained a particular sociocultural relevance in ancient Greece, as it not only confronted the citizens of the polis with their utmost existential fears, but as it also provided them with an alternative to the fear experienced in the face of these harsh and uncompromising features of life and death, as Weber convincingly argues. Particularly so, because it unequivocally demanded a “heroic act” of self-overcoming, which allows for and finally also enables an access to the “Sinnfrage des Daseins”,269 as Weber emphasises: “Wo uns im Mythos der tragische Tatbestand entgegentritt, stellt er genuin dar eine unlösliche Verschlingung göttlicher und dämonischer Gewalten, in welche das Menschentum verstrickt ist, – dämonisch dabei etwa in dem Sinne der dunklen, das Dasein bedrohenden und gefährdenden Gewalten. Eine Lage, in der es für alles Große, will sagen den Zwang der Umstände Überragende, nur heldenmütigen Kampf gibt, fast immer bis zum Untergang, stets bis zur äußersten Gefährdung. [...] eben das Verstricktsein des Menschlichen in diese Verschlungenheit ist nach der tragischen Daseinssicht der Zugang zum Wesenhaften der Hintergründe oder Untergründe des Daseins selbst, der Grund, weswegen sie mit dem Bewußtsein bei diesen Widersprüchen haltmacht und an den Untergang des Großen die Sinnfrage des Daseins anknüpft.” 270

266 McGinn, “Culture as Prophylactic”, p. 101. 267 Ibid. p. 95. 268 A. Weber, Kulturgeschichte als Kultursoziologie, p. 183. 269 A. Weber, Das Tragische und die Geschichte, p. 61. 270 Ibid. pp. 60-61.

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There are, therefore, clear parallels between Nietzsche’s and Weber’s analyses of the origins of Greek tragedy, and at many crucial points in his main books, particularly when he tries to assess the “soziologische Dynamik” of ancient Greece,271 Weber even explicitly refers to Nietzsche’s book Geburt der Tragödie. Moreover, Weber specifically acknowledges Nietzsche’s importance for his own analysis when he argues that it was Nietzsche who first opened the “Zugang [...] zu dem, was hier einmal als die Metaphysik der tragischen Daseinssicht bezeichnet sei”,272 regardless of what Nietzsche’s immediate intentions were in doing so, and regardless also of the poetic language in which he veiled his analysis. In particular, the origin and the essence of Greek tragedy as a “symbolische Kulthandlung”273 of great sociocultural significance for the life of the Greek polis (and, therefore, also for modern society), was only fully acknowledged with Nietzsche’s writings, as Weber consistently argues. But it is not only Weber’s approach to what he calls the “Metaphysik der tragischen Daseinssicht”,274 which is essentially Nietzschean in character, it is also his particular perspectival analysis of the “tragic habitus” or of the metaphysical world-view represented by Greek “tragedy”, which is in essence clearly very “Nietzschean”: “Sie ist eine Sicht in Tiefen, die durch menschliches Erfassen nicht auszuschöpfen, auch sinnhaft niemals ganz aufzuhellen sind, in dieser Art ein perspektivisches Sehen des einen Gleichen, das als Ganzes nie umfaßt, vielmehr nur von verschiedenen Blickpunkten her zu erhellen ist.” 275

According to Weber, this tragische Daseinssicht developed into a unique and socioculturally significant epochal world-view in ancient Greece, as the result of the growing “Spannungen zwischen den seit 1200 v. Chr. eindringenden Reitervölkern und den Ureinwohnern [Griechenlands, F.S.L.],”276 because the resulting antinomies between these different tribes, which were solved by mili271 Ibid. p. 187. 272 Ibid. p. 60. 273 A. Weber, Kulturgeschichte als Kultursoziologie, p. 183. 274 A. Weber, Das Tragische und die Geschichte, p. 60. 275 Ibid. p. 61. Nietzsche, of course, regarded “das Perspektivische”, as the “Grundbedingung alles Lebens.” Nietzsche, Jenseits von Gut und Böse, KSA 5, “Vorrede”, p. 12. Moreover, Nietzsche argued: “Du solltest das Perspektivische in jeder Wertschätzung begreifen lernen – die Verschiebung, Verzerrung und scheinbare Teleologie der Horizonte und was alles zum Perspektivischen gehört; auch das Stück Dummheit in Bezug auf entgegengesetzte Werte und die ganze intellektuelle Einbuße, mit der sich jedes Für, jedes Wider bezahlt macht.” Nietzsche, Menschliches Allzumenschliches I, KSA 2, “Vorrede”, § 6, p. 20. 276 Demm, “Einführung in Leben und Werk Alfred Webers”, p. 14.

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tary conflict, also gave rise to new cultural achievements. This was basically the result of the seemingly never-ending struggles between the different equestrian tribes, and the peoples they encountered and attempted to overthrow, which increasingly stimulated a productive cultural interchange and cross-fertilisation that gave rise to hitherto unseen and even revolutionary cultural advancements and contents. In the last instant, this development also gave rise to the fundamental question of the sense of “being”, because it also represents the historical moment “in dem die Sinnfrage des menschlichen Daseins in der Geschichte aus ihren Hüllen hervortritt”,277 and the moment when this Sinnfrage can no longer be comfortably ignored, but has to be addressed fundamentally, or “life” will lose all of its deeper meaning: “Auf dem Gewoge alter magischer und mythischer Vorstellungen sehen wir in allen von Reitervölkern (Reitervölker sind im soziologisch-psychischen Habitus [auch, F.S.L.] immer identisch mit seefahrenden Völkern) gegründeten Hochkulturen seit 1200 v. Chr. sich die Gipfel erheben, in denen das menschliche Schicksal erstmals durchleuchtet erscheint. Die Kräfte, die tragen, heben und senken, durcheinanderwerfen und gestalten, treten vor das innere Auge. Sie werden nicht mehr hingenommen, so oder so von der Phantasie ergriffen und geformt. Sie sollen Auskunft geben über ihr Wesen – woher, wohin, wozu des Spiels, das sie treiben. Es kann nicht blind sein. Oder wenn es blind ist, muß es ein zweites Entscheidenderes neben ihm, hinter ihm, in ihm, über ihm geben. Dies will man fassen, daß es Antwort gebe.” 278

An answer to these radical questions of the sense of “being” is then partially found by the “third” human type or the reiterliche Herrenmensch, as he struggles with these seemingly natural antagonistic forces inherent in the world around him, until he finally manages to subjugate nature. When he in the end achieves this aim, he has, nevertheless, also absorbed the somewhat dark, manichean side of the forces of nature within his personality. But out of the resulting antinomies in his reflective contemplation on the world the “knight on horseback” also gives rise to: “wunderbare, in kathartische Höhen ragende ‘ewige Leistungen’, die wir als große Kunst, Philosophie, Literatur heute registrieren”.279 An important part of his resulting achievements are also the systematic existential reflections on human existence as part of the development of the “tragic habitus” which for Weber, of course, finds its clearest aesthetic expression in the theatrical plays of ancient Greece, “an denen sich die Menschheit in 277 A. Weber, Das Tragische und die Geschichte, p. 59. 278 Ibid. 279 A. Weber, Kulturgeschichte als Kultursoziologie, p. 90.

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Alfred Weber’s response to Nietzsche’s philosophy

unbewußter Zwiesprache mit dem Unheimlichen, das sie in sich trägt, erschüttert und erhebt.”280 As argued before, Weber’s notion of “tragedy in history” is, therefore, not only a good example of the kind of ideas that emerge as a result of the creative engagement of the “third” human type in the wider sociocultural process of historical development, but it is also a good example of where Weber’s analysis clearly meets with Nietzsche’s philosophy over the importance of a particular idea or Daseinssicht that comes to define, dominate and signify a particular historical period – Greek antiquity and its inherent development of a “tragic habitus”. Nietzsche’s influence on Weber is, therefore, without doubt decisive for his understanding of the sociocultural development of ancient Greece, and the appearance of the “tragic habitus” in its highest cultural achievements. It is on the basis of these strong parallels in their analyses of ancient Greece that I have proposed a link between their respective Kultursoziologien. This link can only be partly explained by what Lichtblau called the specific generational discourse on cultural issues among leading German thinkers around the turn of the 19th century, and it goes back to Nietzsche’s cultural critique; for the personalities of Weber and Nietzsche also shared some significant propensities, which make their “hidden” dialogue a particularly fruitful one, not least because they shared an enthusiastic appraisal of classical Greek authors, particularly the classical Greek writers of tragedy. It is out of this interest that both thinkers come to regard ancient Greece as the basis of modern culture, and it is also out of this interest that both thinkers aim to uncover the roots of the metaphysical tragic Daseinssicht which not only characterises the world-view of ancient Greece, but more significantly also of the modern world. Only if this shared view between Nietzsche and Weber is fully understood and placed in its ensuing context, will we be able to appreciate Alfred Weber’s vision that: “Die pagane Antike aber ist [...] Geschichte, an deren Höchstleistungen wir uns erheben, von der wir viel in unserem Wesen spüren, die uns Maßstab sein kann, aber nur im Rahmen eines sich nicht mehr nach ihren äußeren Formen, ja manchen ihrer Inhalte richtenden Wollens.” 281

It seems clear to me that Weber shares this view with Nietzsche, and it is also revealing in this context that Weber speaks of a possible modern “will” that cherishes the “content” rather than the “external appearance” of Greek culture, as it was Nietzsche who had radically questioned the tendency of modern man 280 Ibid. 281 Ibid. p. 535.

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to content himself with external appearances or the Schein, as he frequently calls it, rather than with the true essence of “life”. Vital parts of Weber’s method of cultural sociology – like his “fourfold typology of mankind” or his analysis of the tragic Greek “habitus” – are, therefore, clear reflections of his reading of and response to Nietzsche’s philosophy. They cannot be conceived without this important influence. As argued before, it cannot be denied that Weber completely denounces Nietzsche in his book Abschied von der bisherigen Geschichte as a spiritual arsonist who is partly to be held responsible for the spirit of “nihilism” and the ideological excesses that led to the catastrophes of World War II.282 Yet in many ways Weber’s “great rejection” of Nietzsche’s philosophy can, as indeed can Nietzsche’s “great rejection” [“große Abstoßung”]283 of his historical age and the spirit of his times, partly be explained by their unsuccessful attempts to overcome what they were seemingly unable to truly distance themselves from: For Nietzsche this means that his analysis of his time is wholly conditioned by it, and for Weber this means that his cultural sociology is to a large extent, or to be more precise in its vital constitutive parts essentially “Nietzschean” in character.

282 A. Weber, Abschied von der bisherigen Geschichte (1946). 283 Ibid. p. 147.

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Conclusion It is certainly clear that Nietzsche was not the first social thinker to criticise modern culture, but it is also clear that Nietzsche criticised it in a very powerful and thought-provoking way which inspired many different intellectuals and cultural actors of his times. Among the many responses to Nietzsche’s life and work, the writings of early sociologists and social thinkers like Max Weber, Ferdinand Tönnies, Rosa Mayreder and Alfred Weber – all of whom developed unique critical methods of reading Nietzsche – have largely been forgotten. Yet they represent important contributions to the “specific generational discourse on culture” around the turn of the 20th century to which Klaus Lichtblau alludes in his more general thesis on the “genealogy of cultural sociology” in Germany, and which we have discussed in some detail in earlier chapters of this book.1 On the basis of the particular responses to Nietzsche’s philosophy of culture by Max Weber, Ferdinand Tönnies, Rosa Mayreder and Alfred Weber, I would certainly agree with Horst Baier’s assessment that Nietzsche (along with Marx) provided the emerging discipline of sociology with themes which it then developed further.2 But Baier also emphasises that Nietzsche regarded sociology as a “child of the spirit of decadence”, and that it consequently only attempts to elevate its own decadent ideals into a “normative” and “scientifically founded” status.3 Yet for Nietzsche, this tendency also manifests itself in the discipline’s “advocates” themselves, as Baier consistently argues: “Die Soziologen sind nicht nur Epigonen – man denke an die Melancholie des Epigonalen bei Weber und Simmel, Tönnies behielt sich in norddeutscher Hartköpfigkeit und Langlebigkeit eher einen gewissen Optimismus – , sondern auch décadents: nicht nur ihre Antworten sind ihnen von den Größeren vor ihnen vorgegeben, sondern ihre Fragen sind zudem in verkehrten Verhältnissen verkehrt gestellt. Nietzsche ist dafür Zuchtmeister.” 4 1 See: Lichtblau, Kulturkrise und die Soziologie um die Jahrhundertwende (1996). 2 Baier, “Die Gesellschaft – ein langer Schatten des toten Gottes. Friedrich Nietzsche und die Entstehung der Soziologie aus dem Geist der Décadence”, p. 32. 3 Ibid. p. 6. 4 Ibid. p. 32.

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In this respect it certainly is somewhat ironic that Georg Lukács dismissed four of the thinkers discussed here – Friedrich Nietzsche, Max Weber, Ferdinand Tönnies and Alfred Weber – as representatives of the irrational tradition in German thought, whose work had contributed to the “destruction of reason”.5 Still, Lukács was right in one respect since he claimed that all four had something in common. The purpose of this book has been to demonstrate that what they particularly have in common is a shared concern with culture. Moreover, I also wanted to demonstrate Nietzsche’s important contribution to the intellectual debates of early sociology more generally, where, as we have seen, his influence clearly was very fundamental. In arguing this I have hoped to draw attention to a largely neglected area of Nietzsche scholarship: the early sociological Nietzsche reception. For a long time the misuse of his work by the völkische element in German history ruled Nietzsche out entirely from further serious consideration within sociology by writers other than the “first generation” of sociological thinkers like Max Weber, Ferdinand Tönnies, Rosa Mayreder, Georg Simmel and – if to a somewhat lesser extent – also Alfred Weber.6 As we have clearly come to see, all five of these thinkers frequently refer back to Nietzsche’s work in their writings, which can hardly be understood without this peculiar context. It was mainly the advent of national socialism in Germany, and the attempts by some of its leading ideologues (particularly Alfred Baeumler) to accommodate Nietzsche’s philosophy within their wider world-view, which discredited Nietzsche’s thought for many of his commentators.7 There is, however, in my opinion little evidence to be found in Nietzsche’s writings that could substantiate the claims that have been made against him of providing a “proto-fascist” philosophy.8 It is exactly this kind of one-sided categorisation of Nietzsche’s philosophy as “irrational” and in essence “proto-fascist”, advocated by Lukács among others, which made it difficult to seriously accommodate Nietzsche within sociological analysis for several decades after World War II. But as we have seen in the last chapter, Alfred Weber also accused Nietzsche’s

5 Lukács, Die Zerstörung der Vernunft (1955). 6 Exceptions, of course, being Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer and to some degree also Walter Benjamin, all of whom responded to Nietzsche’s philosophy in various ways and to some degree even tried to amalgamate their reading of Marx and Nietzsche. For a discussion of this topic, see: Outhwaite, “Nietzsche and Critical Theory” (1995). 7 For one of Baeumler’s most notorious essays, see: Baeumler, “Nietzsche und der Nationalsozialismus” (1937). 8 Particularly noteworthy studies of Nietzsche’s politics are: Owen, Nietzsche, Politics and Modernity (1995) and Taureck, Nietzsche und der Faschismus: Eine Studie über Nietzsches Politische Philosophie und ihre Folgen (1989).

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late writings of seemingly providing the philosophical foundations for the national socialist policies of “Zucht und Züchtung”, as well as of providing the main ideological impetus for the national socialists fusion of “Machiavellian” and “Nietzschean” notions of power politics. Moreover, Alfred Weber argued that in many of his philosophical assumptions, Nietzsche proved to be “sociologically naive”, as he did not see the importance of the masses. As a consequence, Alfred Weber argues, Nietzsche adopted a dangerously elitist worldview which was not only “anti-sociological” as such, but it essentially was also “anti-humanist”, as it failed to acknowledge the: “Vielschichtigkeit der Menschen”.9 For Alfred Weber it was, therefore, “absolute folly” to evoke the image of the Übermensch: “Es war eine vermessene Torheit, den Übermenschen, einen gespenstigen geistigen Luxusausschuß, bilden zu wollen”.10 According to Alfred Weber, the future task for sociology could, therefore, only be the elevation of the general sociocultural and educational level of the masses of society, in order to create: “einen Menschen, der in der Masse charaktervoll und frei [ist, F.S.L.]”.11 For Alfred Weber, Nietzsche’s philosophy could have no part in this future task of sociology, which is why after World War II he sought to free himself as well as his academic discipline from the lasting influence of Nietzsche’s philosophy. As we have come to see in our discussion of Baehr and O’Brien’s arguments about the canon of sociology, this has only changed relatively recently, with the advent of postmodernism in sociology and with increasing attempts by modern sociologists to incorporate a self-critical or meta-sociological “Nietzschean” look at the corpus of sociological texts and traditions. Moreover, it has also lead to an increased interest in Nietzsche’s writings in social theory and the history of social thought more generally. This development, therefore, clearly hints at a significant change in the sociological Nietzsche reception. There is, however, also another lesson that can be learned from our analysis of the relationship between Nietzsche and Sociology. It is not so much the fact that Nietzsche has meant and can mean “all things to all people” which matters here, but that Nietzsche’s writings had a strong impact on the formative intellectual experiences of some of sociology’s foremost scholars, whose writings laid the discipline’s foundations for many years to come. Nietzsche was a seminal thinker in the late 19th century and represents a largely neglected, but important source of inspiration in early sociological dialogue, and particularly in the early writings of the sociologists and social thinkers we have been considering through9 A. Weber, Abschied von der bisherigen Geschichte, p. 253. 10 Ibid. 11 Ibid.

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out this study, including, of course, Alfred Weber whose notion of Kultursoziologie seems largely inconceivable without his specific reading of, and response to Nietzsche’s philosophy. A similar indebtedness to Nietzsche’s philosophy is also true for Max Weber and Georg Simmel, whose respective world-views have not only been shaped significantly by the writings of Nietzsche and Marx, but who also specifically formulated many of their central assumptions on the basis of a critical engagement with Nietzsche’s most fundamental positions. For an assessment of Weber’s sociology this influence seems very important, particularly in the light of the radical claim made by Stauth and Turner that Nietzsche is not only the “absent centre of Weberian sociology” in particular, but also of the “whole of modern social science” in general.12 A similar statement could certainly also be made about Nietzsche’s influence on Simmel. Even if we leave aside the “trendy” postmodern Nietzschean self-critical reflection on sociology, and only consider the evidence from our analysis of, for example, Tönnies’ and Mayreder’s (“Nietzschean”) contributions to social science, Stauth and Turner seem to me to be very much on the right track. For Ferdinand Tönnies, Nietzsche was both an important impetus for his development of the dichotomy between Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft, as well as the prime representative of a wider intellectual phenomenon with an unprecedented popular influence. Tönnies strongly criticised the emerging cult around Nietzsche’s life and work at the end of the 19th century, but at the same time increasingly engaged with Nietzsche’s writings in a “hidden” or “implicit” dialogue, in an attempt to develop and build upon the challenges and provocations Nietzsche’s philosophical writings had posed. Rosa Mayreder was also very critical of the cult that emerged around Nietzsche’s life and work at the end of the 19th century, but unlike Tönnies she did not hold that cult against Nietzsche’s philosophy, largely, I would argue because of the substantial dept to Nietzsche’s positions that characterises many of her major sociocultural theories. So, for example, her gendered critique of “culture” and “civilisation”. Mayreder’s theory is in large parts a reflection of her response to Nietzsche’s insightful cultural critique, but she clearly extends Nietzsche’s analysis of “culture” as a prophylaxis with a specifically feminist “gender” dimension. But Mayreder’s preference for the “exceptional individual”, and her ensuing proposition of the “synthetic ideal” of a “higher humanity”, is also a direct reflection of her readings of Nietzsche, and his extreme individualism, epitomised by the notion of the Übermensch.

12 Stauth and Turner, Nietzsche’s Dance, p. 101.

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All of these specific responses to Nietzsche’s thoughts suggest a very strong affinity between Nietzsche’s philosophy and early sociology which seems somewhat surprising, when we keep in mind: “wie Nietzsche Soziologie versteht, nämlich als ein sich selbst nicht verstehendes Verhältnis zur Gesellschaft.”13 This “Nietzschean” understanding of sociology is in many ways not unlike Karl Mannheim’s (1893–1947) meta-critical concept of the “sociology of knowledge” or Wissenssoziologie which basically directed a fundamental ideological suspicion towards sociology: “indem er sie als Kind ihrer Zeit und hoffnungslos dem Schicksal dieser Zeit anheimgegeben deutete”,14 as Roger Häußling emphasises. Yet this meta-critical dimension of Nietzsche’s philosophy does not seem to have interfered with his lasting influence on Max Weber, Ferdinand Tönnies, Rosa Mayreder and Alfred Weber, as all four of them largely conceived of Nietzsche as a highly original philosopher and critic of “culture”, as well as a radical and inspiring critic of modern bourgeois society. It seems, therefore, very clear that the sociological dialogue at the turn of the 19th century had a very strong cultural undercurrent which became of increasing importance when the experience of a virulent cultural crisis became inevitable with the advent of World War I. It was then that Alfred Weber, Ferdinand Tönnies, Rosa Mayreder and to some extent also Max Weber used Nietzsche’s writings as reference points for their critique of bourgeois culture, which Nietzsche had attacked as vividly and effectively as perhaps Marx had done with the capitalist economy. Whether Nietzsche’s philosophy can have as important an influence on sociology in the future as it had in the past remains to be seen. There is not much evidence to suggest that it will, but it is clear that an active engagement with Nietzsche’s writings can only be beneficial for modern sociology. Whether this engagement should take the form of a postmodern self-critical reflection on sociology or a more traditional approach is more a matter of taste.

13 Baier, “Die Gesellschaft – ein langer Schatten des toten Gottes. Friedrich Nietzsche und die Entstehung der Soziologie aus dem Geist der Décadence”, p. 23. 14 Häußling, Nietzsche und die Soziologie, p. 247.

Appendices

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309

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Nietzsche, Friedrich Der Wille zur Macht (Stuttgart: Kröner Verlag, 1996).

Schlechta, Karl (ed.) Friedrich Nietzsche: Werke in drei Bänden, 3 vols. (München: Carl Hanser Verlag, 1982).

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Acham, Karl (ed.) Geschichte der österreichischen Humanwissenschaften (Wien: Passagen Verlag, 2001).

Adorno, Theodor W. Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 2 (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1998); “Kierkegaards Lehre von der Liebe”, in Theodor W. Adorno, Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 2 (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1998).

Alwast, Jendris “Die Wertung der Philosophie Nietzsches bei Tönnies”, in Lars Clausen and Franz Urban Pappi (eds.), Ankunft bei Tönnies: Soziologische Beiträge zum 125. Geburtstag von Ferdinand Tönnies (Kiel: Walter G. Mühlau Verlag, 1981).

Anderson, Harriet Beyond a critique of Femininity. The thought of Rosa Mayreder – 1858–1938 (Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University College London, 1985).

Anderson, Harriet (ed.) Rosa Mayreder: Tagebücher 1873–1937 (Frankfurt am Main: Insel Verlag, 1988); Utopian Feminism: Women’s Movements in fin-de-siècle Vienna (New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 1992).

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Ansell-Pearson, Keith An Introduction to Nietzsche as Political Thinker: The Perfect Nihilist (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).

Appelsmeyer, Heide, and Billmann-Mahecha, Elfriede (eds.) Kulturwissenschaft: Felder einer prozeßorientierten wissenschaftlichen Praxis (Weilerswist: Velbrück Wissenschaft, 2001).

Aron, Raymond German Sociology (Melbourne/London/Toronto: William Heinemann Ltd., 1957).

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Baehr, Peter, and O’Brien, Mike “Founders, Classics and the Concept of a Canon”, in Current Sociology, 42:1 (London: Sage Publications, 1994).

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Baier, Horst “Die Gesellschaft – ein langer Schatten des toten Gottes. Friedrich Nietzsche und die Entstehung der Soziologie aus dem Geist der Décadence”, in Nietzsche-Studien: Internationales Jahrbuch für die Nietzsche Forschung, vol. 10/11 (Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 1981/1982).

Bailey, Joe (ed.) Social Europe (London: Longman, 1998).

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Baumgarten, Eduard Max Weber: Werk und Person (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1964).

Bauschinger, Sigrid, Cocalis, Susan L., and Lennox, Sara (eds.) Nietzsche heute: Die Rezeption seines Werkes nach 1968 (Bern/Stuttgart: Francke Verlag, 1988).

Beck, Ulrich, Giddens, Anthony, and Lash, Scott Reflexive Modernisation: Politics, Tradition and Aesthetics in the Modern Social Order (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1994).

Bickel, Cornelius “Nachwort"‚ in Ferdinand Tönnies, Die Entwicklung der sozialen Frage bis zum Weltkriege (Berlin/New York: de Gruyter, 1989).

Blüm, Norbert Sebastian Willenslehre und Soziallehre bei Ferdinand Tönnies: Ein Beitrag zum Verständnis von “Gemeinschaft und Gesellschaft” (Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Rheinische FriedrichWilhelms-Universität zu Bonn, 1967).

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322

Appendices

323

Name Index Abel, Günter XXII Acham, Karl 241 Adler, Victor 199 Adorno, Theodor W. 257, 302 Alwast, Jendris 157 Anderson, Harriet XVIII, 149, 185, 189–192, 195, 199, 214, 215, 217–223, 235, 236 Andreski, Stanislav 71 Ansell-Pearson, Keith 14, 225–228 Apollon 53, 158, 289, 290 Appelsmeyer, Heide 64 Aron, Raymond 4, 63, 74 Aschheim, Stephen E. XV, XX, 30, 31, 38, 41, 42, 44, 45, 52, 57, 222 Baehr, Peter XIV, 6, 8–12, 303 Baeumler, Alfred 48–51, 302 Baier, Horst 3, 301, 305 Bailey, Joe 66 Ballis Lal, Barbara 114 Baudelaire, Charles 135 Bauman, Zygmunt 101 Baumgarten, Eduard 4, 79 Bauschinger, Sigrid 187 Bebel, August 136 Beck, Ulrich 101 Benjamin, Walter 302 Benn, Gottfried 54 Bentham, Jeremy 46 Bertram, Ernst 31 Bickel, Cornelius 63 Billmann-Mahecha, Elfriede 64 Bismarck, Otto 43 Blüm, Norbert Sebastian 160–163 Bonaparte, Napoleon 170 Borgia, Cesare 170 Bourdieu, Pierre 246, 268 Brandes, Georg 45–48, 50, 51, 107, 108, 124, 125, 165

Bräu, Richard 263 Braun, Christina von 209, 210 Brinton, Crane 50, 255 Bubeniček, Hanna XVIII, 185, 186, 188, 197, 198, 205, 209, 234 Burckhardt, Jakob 53 Cappai, Gabriele 64 Carlyle, Thomas 284 Caygill, Howard 4 Chamberlain, Houston Stewart 211 Clark, Maudemarie XXI Clausen, Lars XXIII, 155, 157 Cocalis, Susan L. 187 Colli, Giorgio XXI, XXII, 40 Comte, Auguste VIII, XV, 15, 61, 65–71, 73, 74, 267 Cooper, David E. 140, 144, 150 Dahrendorf, Ralf 6, 16, 246 Dante, Alighieri 246, 258 Darwin, Charles 44, 48, 72, 148 Delanty, Gerard XVI, 96¸ 100, 105, 106, 109 Demm, Eberhard 242, 246, 247, 261, 262, 264, 265, 268, 271, 272–275, 285, 286, 294 Derrida, Jacques XII, XXI, 11, 28 Dier, Oliver 54, 267 Diethe, Carol 187 Dike 293 Dionysos 20, 53–55, 133, 134, 139, 158, 289, 290 Durkheim, Émile 9, 99 Eagleton, Terry 195 Elias, Norbert XVII, 103, 111–113, 246, 268, 271 Engels, Friedrich 134, 234 Euripides 158 Featherstone, Mike 215 Fellmann, Ferdinand 69, 71 Fleischer, Margot 145 Fleischmann, Eugène 78

324

Appendices

Förster-Nietzsche, Elisabeth XXI, 13, 14, 165, 253 Foucault, Michel 11 Frenzel, Ivo 133 Freud, Sigmund 265 Freyer, Hans 63 Friedrich, Heinz XV, 54 Frisby, David 215 Galton, Francis 171 Gane, Mike XII Gast, Peter XV, 13, 14, 253 Gebhard, Walter 13 Gellner, Ernest XVI, 96, 104, 105 George, Stephan 54 Gerber, Eva 237 Geyer, Carl-Friedrich 111–116 Giddens, Anthony 99, 101, 246 Gobineau, Joseph Arthur Comte de 53 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang 134, 188, 189, 195, 221, 237, 258 Goldscheid, Rudolf 185, 206, 235 Gouldner, Alvin W. 6 Graf, Julius 99 Gumplowicz, Ludwig 63 Günzler, Claus 224 Guzzoni, Alfredo VIV, 29, 30, 32, 45, 48, 49, 51, 54, 57, 124, 136 Hamm-Brücher, Hildegard 262 Harriman, Helga H. 208 Häußling, Roger VIV, XIX, 63, 78–81, 86–88, 90, 91, 129, 148, 151–155, 157, 164, 166, 168, 169, 171, 172, 173, 181, 238, 241, 243, 305 Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich 20, 62, 89, 98, 101, 105, 269, 270, 284 Heidegger, Martin XXI, 144, 149, 151 Hellerich, Gert 152, 153 Hennis, Wilhelm XVI, 77, 78, 79, 81, 82, 84, 85, 88, 123, 124, 165 Hepden, Zoë 96 Hesse, Hermann 52 Hillebrand, Bruno XV, 5, 7, 37, 51, 52, 130, 132, 254 Hitler, Adolf 49 Höfele, Karl Heinrich 62, 66, 97, 100 Hofmannsthal, Hugo von 52 Hollitscher, Jakob J. 37 Horkheimer, Max 173, 302

Humboldt, Wilhelm von 140 Hume, David 273 Hunt, Lester H. 117, 118 Jaffé-Richthofen, Else 263, 264 Jerusalem, Wilhelm 206 Johnston, William M. 205, 206, 208, 209 Jordan, Wolfgang 28 Jünger, Ernst 169 Jurist, Elliot L. 136, 137, 142, 143 Kaesler, Dirk XIX, XX, 8–10, 87 Kant, Immanuel 10, 11, 15, 16 112, 125, 189, 219, 237, 272, 273 Kaufmann, Walter 41 Kierkegaard, Søren 247, 257 Kilpper, Gustav 262 Klages, Ludwig 266 Klein, Wayne 14 Koopmann, Helmut 20, 125 Korf, Gertraud 89 Krockow, Christian Graf von 163, 164 Kronermann, Ralf 39 L. Cocalis, Susan 187 Lacy, Mark 101 Lash, Scott 101 Lennox, Sara 187 Lessnoff, Michael H. 85 Lichtblau, Klaus VIV, XIX, 4, 29, 64, 78, 83, 85, 86, 100, 102, 106, 111, 124, 128– 132, 154, 165, 173, 174, 211, 213, 242, 245, 296, 301 Love, Nancy S. 83 Löwith, Karl 62 Lublinski, Samuel 131, 132 Luhmann, Niklas 246 Lukács, Georg 241, 242, 264, 266, 301 Luther, Martin 175 Mahler, Gustav 199 Mann, Heinrich 52 Mann, Thomas XVI, 42, 82, 84, 85, 113, 116 Mannheim, Karl 129, 152, 305 Marx, Karl XVI, 3, 4, 15, 31, 39, 77–80, 82–84, 90, 99, 101, 134, 171, 195, 234, 277, 301, 304, 305 Maus, Heinz XV, 63 Mayreder, Julius 191 Mayreder, Karl 191 Mayreder, Rosa IX, XI, XIII, XVIII, XIX, 3, 4, 9, 28, 32, 77, 90, 95, 96, 99, 110,

Index

131, 149, 150, 181, 183, 185–238, 242, 244, 245, 261, 301, 304, 305, 307 McGinn, Robert E. XVII, 109, 136–139, 243, 292 McGrath, William J. 198–200 Mill, John Stuart 68, 72 Mitzman, Arthur XVI, 77, 78, 82, 83 Mohr, Arno 171, 179 Moira 293 Montinari, Mazzino XXI, XXII, 14, 40, 68 Moore, Gregory 73 Murphy, Timothy F. XVII, 140–143 Niemeyer, Christian 148, 149, 285 Nietzsche, Friedrich VII–IX, XIX–XXV, 3–33, 37–57, 61–63, 66–74, 77– 92, 95– 97, 102, 103, 105–111, 117–120, 123–158, 160–181, 185–205, 207, 209, 210, 212, 215, 217, 218–238, 241–259, 262–264, 267, 268, 270, 274, 279, 281–285, 287– 294, 296, 297, 301–305 Nigsch, Otto 6 Nolte, Ernst XV, 30–32, 39, 42–45, 52, 53, 127, 128, 255 O’Brien, Mike XIV, 6, 8–12, 303 Oedipus 138, 293 Oliver, Kelly 187 Outhwaite, William XVI, XXV, 4, 25, 80, 82, 100–102, 131, 173, 301 Owen, David 50, 301 Park, Robert E. 114 Patton, Paul 4 Paulsen, Friedrich 165 Paulus 225 Pearsall, Marilyn 187 Pestalozzi, Johann Heinrich 140 Platon 10, 193 Poell, Thomas 78, 79, 90 Polin, Raymond 27 Pütz, Peter 20, 127 Rammstedt, Otthein 99, 211, 216 Rattner, Josef 33, 46 Redfield, Robert 99 Rée, Paul 166 Rembrandt 247, 258 Renner, Karl 206 Reiss, Mary-Ann 185 Riedel, Manfred XV, 30, 31, 38–41, 44, 129 Riehl, Alois, 123–128, 132, 145, 147, 156, 224

325

Rilke, Rainer Maria 52 Ritschl, Friedrich Wilhelm 21, 155 Robespierre, Maximilien de 175 Robinson, Paul 136 Ross, Werner 229 Rousseau, Jaques 51 Rudolph, Günther 157 Runciman, W.G. VII, XIV, 11–16, 18, 21–27, 89, 138, 152 Rustemeyer, Dirk 114 Saint-Simon 175 Schecter, Darrow 89 Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph 62 Schiller, Friedrich 113, 134 Schirnding, Albert von 53, 54 Schischkoff, Georgi 114–116, 225 Schlechta, Karl XXI, XIII, 120 Schlüpmann, Heide 187 Schmied, Wieland 55, 56 Schnitzler, Arthur 52 Schopenhauer, Arthur XVII, XVIII, 55, 90, 139, 162, 163, 187, 189, 199, 200, 215, 252 Schumpeter, Joseph 235 Schwann, Mathieu 52 Sedgwick, Peter 4 Simmel, Georg XIII, 3, 4, 80, 90, 98–100, 124, 129, 214–217, 234, 244, 301, 302, 304 Simpson, J.A. 10, 24 Socrates 10, 11, 53, 138, 158, 193 Sokolosky, Jane 198, 199, 201, 206–208, 221 Solms-Laubach, Franz V, 3, 4, 6, 8, 215, 246, 268 Sombart, Werner 84 Sorgner, Stefan Lorenz XIV, XV, XVIII, 7, 26 Spencer, Herbert VIII, XV, 15, 61, 67, 68, 71–74 Spengler, Oswald 79, 80, 111, 244, 263–270, 272, 275 Spranger, Eduard 277 Stagl, Justin 241 Stauth, Georg 77, 78, 80, 81, 84, 91, 92, 102, 304 Steffen, Hans 27 Stephan, Inge 209 Stirner, Max 247 Strauß, David Friedrich 156, 165, 175, 176 Swingewood, Alan 65, 66

326

Appendices

Swift, Jonathan 64 Tanner, Michael 147 Taureck, Bernhard H.F. 50, 226, 302 Thomson, Kenneth 69, 70 Tönnies, Ferdinand VIII, IX, XI, XIII, XVII, XVIII, XIV, 3–5, 9, 28, 32, 63, 66, 80, 90, 95, 96, 100, 110, 148, 150, 154– 181, 197, 211, 215, 234, 242–245, 248, 301, 303, 304, 305 Troeltsch, Ernst 84 Turner, Bryan S. 77, 78, 80, 81, 84, 90, 91, 92, 102, 304 Uhlig, Theodor 134 Urban Pappi, Franz XVIII, 155, 157 Vetter, B. 68 Vierkandt, Alfred 242 Voltaire 64 Vogt, Ludgera XIX, XX, 8–10, 87 Wagner, Peter XVI, 66, 96, 100, 103–106 Wagner, Richard IX, XVIII, 92, 106, 134–140, 185, 188–196, 199, 237, 244 Warren, Mark 50 Weber, Alfred IX, XI, XIII, XVIII, XIX, 3–5, 9, 28, 32, 95, 96, 110, 124, 145, 151, 181, 238–268, 270–305 Weber, Max VII, VIII, XI, XIII–XVI,

XIX, 3–5, 9, 12–19, 21–23, 25–27, 32, 74–92, 99, 100, 101, 104, 123, 124, 129, 165, 197, 203, 204, 224, 234–236, 241, 242, 244, 301, 302, 304, 305 Weininger, Otto 187 Weischedel, Wilhelm 139, 193, 194 Weisenbacher, Uwe 6 Weiß, Johannes 87 Welz, Frank 6 White, Daniel R 152, 153 Windelband, Wilhelm 64 Winter, E.S.C. 10, 24 Wolf, Hugo 196 Zander, Jürgen XVIII, 155, 156, 158, 160–166, 172 Zarathustra 22, 31, 48, 52–54, 139, 142, 144, 145, 148–150, 157, 168, 169, 180, 193, 203, 212, 222, 226, 229, 244, 249– 251, 254, 255, 276, 287 Zeus/Amman 155 Zima, Peter V. 28, 29 Zuckert, Catherine 10, 11

327

Subjects

Subject Index Ancient Greece Nietzsche’s view of, XI–XIX, 109, 132–139;

Ascetic Ideals Mayreder’s critique of, 223, 224, 230–238, Nietzsche’s critique of, 224–229, Max Weber’s concept of, 77, 78, 82–89, 234–236;

Civilisation Norbert Elias’ concept of, 110–117, Tönnies on, 157–164, Nietzsche’s critique of, XI, XII, 117–120, Mayreder’s “patriarchal civilisation”, 209–224, Alfred Weber’s concept of, 273–276;

Community concept of, 157–166, Tönnies on, 157–163; Nietzsche’s sociocultural critique of, XI–XIII, 3–8, 37–45, 117–120, 130–133, Nietzsche’s “cultural community”, 199, 200;

Culture Norbert Elias’ concept of, 110–117, Mayreder’s concept of “male” and “female” culture, 210–217, Nietzsche’s critique of, 133–145, Nietzsche on “culture”, XI–XIII, 49–54, 117–120, 123–133, Nietzsche on “cultural renewal”, 53, 54, 133–139, Tönnies’ concept of, 161–166, Alfred Weber’s concept of, 272–276;

Gender Nietzsche’s concept of, XI, 145–151, 186–188, 224–230, Mayreder’s concept of, 206–238, Simmel’s concept of, 211–217;

History Nietzsche’s influence on cultural history, 37–57, on philosophy, 45–51, on literature, 51–54, on art, 54–57, notion of tragedy in history Nietzsche and Alfred Weber on, 288–297;

Mankind Alfred Weber’s “fourfold typology” of, 276–288, Eduard Spranger’s “sixfold typology” of, 277, Mayreder’s notion of a “higher humanity”, 187–189, 217–224, Nietzsche’s “threefold typology” of, 145–151;

Modernity nature of modernity, 103–106, interpretations of modernity “dualistic concepts” of, 95–101, “inner antagonisms” of, 99–103, Nietzsche’s influence on, 37–57, Nietzsche’s concept of, XI–XIII, 106–110;

National Socialism Nietzsche’s influence on, 37–45, 250–259, abuse of Nietzsche’s thought, 48–51, 302, abuse of Tönnies’ thought, 161, 162;

Nietzscheanism phenomenon of, 3–5, 28–33, 37–57, Nietzsche cult Mayreder’s critique of, 185–188, 197–205, Tönnies’ critique of, 151–157, 166–174, Alfred Weber’s critique of, 241–259, 276–288, reception of Nietzsche’s philosophy, 28–33, 37–57, 77–92, 151–181, 185–190, 192–205, 220–238, 241–297;

328

Appendices

Nihilism diagnostic use of the term, XI–XIII, 193–197;

Science (WISSENSCHAFT) Nietzsche’s concept of, 14–23, Nietzsche’s “aesthetical science”, 18–21, 125, Max Weber’s concept of, 14–23, Max Weber’s “value-free science”, 14–18;

Society concept of, 157–166, Tönnies on, 157–164, Nietzsche’s sociocultural critique of, XI–XIII, 3–8, 37–45, 117–120, 134, 135;

Sociology cultural sociology Alfred Weber’s concept of, XVIII, XIX, 260–276, Nietzsche’s influence on, XIX, 123–132, 241–246, 248–250, early sociology canon, classics and founders, XIV, 9–12, 303, 305, Nietzsche’s influence on, 3–12, Nietzsche’s comments on, 66–74, history of sociology, 3–12, 61–66, Nietzschean sociology, 6–12, 23–28,

post-modern sociology, 9–12, 301, 303, 305;

ÜBERMENSCH concept of, 139–151, sociological critique of, 151–154, as an educational ideal Nietzsche on the Übermensch, 139–145, Mayreder on the Übermensch, 197–205, Tönnies on the Übermensch, 154, 155, 166–174, Alfred Weber on the Übermensch, 250–260, 276–288;

Weberianism Nietzsche’s influence on Max Weber, XV, XVI, 13–28, 77–92, 301, 304, 305, Max Weber’s Protestant Ethic, 77, 78, 82–89, notion of “innerworldly asceticism”, 85–89, 234–236;

Will forms of, 163–165, Tönnies’ concept of arbitrary will (Kürwille), 159–162, communal will (Wesenwille), 159–162, metaphysics of, 54–57, 163, Nietzsche view of Der Wille zur Macht, XX–XXIV, 13–14, 28–33, 254–258.