Nietzsche’s Praise of Master Morality: The Question of Fascism Revisited

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00216275%3A25210%2F21%3A39917421" target="_blank" >RIV/00216275:25210/21:39917421 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://journals.akademicka.pl/politeja/article/view/3788/3439" target="_blank" >https://journals.akademicka.pl/politeja/article/view/3788/3439</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.12797/Politeja.18.2021.72.07" target="_blank" >10.12797/Politeja.18.2021.72.07</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Nietzsche’s Praise of Master Morality: The Question of Fascism Revisited

Original language description

One of the most disquieting facts about the totalitarian movements of communism and fascism which threatened the European political order in the interwar period is the support both these movements appear to derive from the writings of two of the most important European philosophers of the 19th century, Karl Marx and Friedrich Nietzsche. The destruction of Western civilization seems to have been engendered by Western civilization itself. It is commonplace to charge that Bolshevism represented a travesty of Marx’s ideas, just as Nazism represented a travesty of Nietzsche’s ideas. But while it is impossible to describe Nietzsche as a fascist avant la lettre, it is no less untenable to maintain that there is no connection whatsoever between his ideas and the ideological turmoil which brought Europe to the brink of destruction in the first half of the 20th century. My paper examines the locus classicus of proto-fascist elements in Nietzsche’s writings – his praise of “master morality” in the First Treatise of the Genealogy of Morality. I argue that when Nietzsche’s praise of master morality is approached with a proper appreciation of the distinction Nietzsche himself makes between “the exoteric and the esoteric,” the proto-fascist elements in his rhetoric reveal themselves to be playful, ironic and intentionally self-undermining, and subservient to Nietzsche’s goals of philosophical pedagogy. Yet, at the same time, this insight does not absolve Nietzsche of the charge of fatal irresponsibility in the rhetoric he chose to employ.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

J_ost - Miscellaneous article in a specialist periodical

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

60301 - Philosophy, History and Philosophy of science and technology

Project

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Continuities

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2021

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

Politeja

ISSN

1733-6716

e-ISSN

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Volume of the periodical

18

Issue of the periodical within the volume

3

Country of publishing house

PL - POLAND

Number of pages

20

Pages from-to

129-148

UT code for WoS article

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EID of the result in the Scopus database

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