The
Nietzscheanization of the Left or Vice Versa
Critical Summary
Introduction
Allan Bloom in
his famous 1987 book The Closing of the
American Mind describes how “higher education has failed democracy and
impoverished the souls of today’s students”. The book has been divided into
three parts, namely: 1.) Students, 2). Nihilism, and, 3). The University.
The present essay “The Nietzscheanization of the Left
or Vice Versa” has been taken from the second part of the book titled,
‘Nihilism.’
Marx – No
more Resonates in the Souls of Young Americans of Today
In this essay, Allan says that the whole world is
divided into two parts, one of which traces its intellectual lineage back to
Locke and the other to Marx. But, the present day young Americans find Karl
Marx boring.
In addition, even in the power centres, where
decisions and ideologies are made and implemented, Marx has been dead for a
long time. Today, Marx’s famous “Manifesto” seems naïve, and out of place, and
his “Das Kapital” does not persuade its readers anymore as it used to, in the
past.
Although the Left still continue to call themselves
Marxist, they no more find their nourishment in Marx. It comes from elsewhere.
Marx does not resonate in souls of young Americans today, as do Sartre, Camus,
Kafka, Dostoyevski, Nietzsche, Heidegger
or Rousseau.
The Term
Ideology Passes from Contempt to Honour - from Marx to Nietzche
To Marx, the term ideology was a mask and a false
system of thought elaborated by the ruling class to justify its rule in the
eyes of the ruled, while hiding its real selfish motives. Hence, in Communist
society there will be no ideology.
Because, only the pure mind, to use Nietzsche's
formulation, has the possibility of knowing the ways things are. Hence,
ideology is a term of contempt; it must be seen through in order to be seen for
what it is.
However, by 1905, Lenin was speaking of Marxism as an
ideology, which means that it too can make no claim to truth.
Hence, in less than half a century Marx's absolute
had been relativized. This was the beginning of the inner rot that has finally
made Marxism unbelievable to anyone who thinks. Marxism itself became ideology.
Today, ideology, in popular speech, is, in the first
place, generally understood to be a good and necessary thing—unless it is
bourgeois ideology.
Men and societies need myths, not science, by which
to live. In short, ideology became identical to values, and that is why it
belongs on the honor roll of terms by which we live.
Real Marxism
becomes Vulgar Marxism
Hence, when one talks to Marxists these days and asks
them to explain philosophers or artists in terms of objective economic
conditions, they smile contemptuously and respond, "That is vulgar Marxism,"
as if to ask, "Where have you been for the last seventy-five years?"
No one likes to be considered vulgar, so people tend
to fall back into embarrassed silence.
So, real Marxism of the past has now become Vulgar
Marxism. Nonvulgar Marxism is Nietzsche, Weber, Freud, Heidegger, as well as
the host of later Leftists who drank at their trough— such as Lukacs, Kojeve,
Benjamin, Merleau-Ponty and Sartre—and hoped to enroll them in the class
struggle.
The Effect of
Nietzsche on Marxism
From this century onwards, the effect of Nietzsche
slowly began to be felt within Marxism.
An example is the significance of revolution.
Revolution and the violence that accompanies are
justified today, and it has taken the place of rebellion, faction, or civil
war, all of which are obviously bad things, while revolution is the best and
greatest event—in the popular imagination of Englishmen, Americans, Frenchmen
and Russians, with the exception of Germans.
Importance on
Nietzschean Term ‘Will’ in Marxism of Today
In the new order, Will has become the key word, to
both the Right and Left. In the past it was thought that will is necessary but
secondary—that the cause came first. But it was Nietzsche who formulated the
new way most provocatively when he said, "A good war makes sacred every
cause."
The causes have no status; they are values. While the
older revolutionaries were ‘will’ing peace, prosperity, harmony and reason,
i.e., the last man. The newer breed ‘wills’ chaos. Self-assertion or will, and
not justice, was the crucial element.
Sympathy for
Terrorists in the Nietzschean takeover of Marxism
In the new revolutionary charm of today,
determination, ‘will’, commitment, caring, concern have become the new virtues.
Hence, there is great sympathy even for terrorists, because "they
care."
Therefore, it is shocking to observe that, young
people, and older people too, who are good democratic liberals, lovers of peace
and gentleness, have become ‘dumb with admiration’ for individuals threatening
or using the most terrible violence for the slightest and tawdriest reasons.
They have a sneaking suspicion that they are face to
face with men of real commitment, which they themselves lack. And commitment,
not truth, is believed to be what counts.
The ‘Mutant
Breed of Marxists’ of Today
Allan Bloom calls the present breed of Marxists as
the mutant breed of Marxists, who have sought to derationalise Marx and turn
Nietzsche into a leftist.
It was Georg Lukacs, the most prominent Marxist
intellectual of this century, who set the ball rolling.
Marx adapted
‘forcefully’ in other Domains
Bourgeois is associated in the popular consciousness,
especially in America, with Marx. The mature Marx had almost nothing to say
about art, music, literature or education, but since the Nietzscheans spoke so
marvelously well about all these things, these terms were quietly appropriated
into Marxism.
To take another example: Freud talked about
interesting things not found anywhere in Marx, and the whole psychology of the
unconscious was completely alien to Marx.
But, Marx moved into the Freudian scene, by
interpreting the cause of neuroses and his treatment of the maladjusted as
bourgeois errors that serve enslavement to the capitalist control of the means
of production.
How the
Bourgeois became a friend of the Left!!!
"The last man" interpretation of the
bourgeois is reinforced by a certain ambiguity in the meaning of the word
"bourgeois." Bourgeois is associated in the popular consciousness,
especially in America, with Marx.
Most of the great European novelists and poets of the
last two hundred years were men of the Right; and Nietzsche is in that respect
merely their complement. For them the problem was in one way or another
equality, which has no place for genius.
Thus they are the exact opposite of Marx. But somehow
he who says he hates the bourgeoisie can be seen to be a friend of the Left.
Therefore when the Left got the idea of embracing
Nietzsche, it got, along with him, all the authority of the nineteenth- and
twentieth century literary tradition.
From hating
the Vulgar ‘Bourgeoisie’ to hating just Vulgarity
The later Marxists in Germany were repelled by the
vulgarity of the bourgeoisie. One can easily see this in Theodore Adorno. But,
as prosperity increased, the poor began to become embourgeoise. Instead of an
increase in class consciousness and strife, there was a decrease. One could
foresee a time, at least in the developed countries, when everybody would be a
bourgeois. So another prop was knocked out from under Marxism. So, now, the
issue is not really rich and poor but vulgarity. Thus, ironically, Marxists
were coming perilously close to the notion that egalitarian man as such is
bourgeois, and that they must join him or become culture snobs.
Nietzschean
Marxism as Sophisticated Marxism
Thus, in other words, sophisticated Marxism became
cultural criticism of life in the Western democracies, but none of it came from
Marx or a Marxist perspective. It was, and is, Nietzschean, variations on our
way of life as that of "the last man."
Conclusion
So, Nietzsche came to America. His conversion to the
Left was easily accepted here as genuine. Nietzsche's naturalization was
accomplished in many waves: some of us went to Europe to find him; Heidegger
and Nietzsche now come under their own names, treading on the red carpet rolled
out for them by their earlier envoys. Academic psychology, sociology,
comparative literature and anthropology have been dominated by them for a long
time. But their passage from the academy to the marketplace is the real story.
A language developed to explain to knowers how bad we
are has been adopted by us to declare to the world how interesting we are.
Somehow the goods got damaged in transit.
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