Jean-Michel Zazzi: Friedrich Nietzsche (2019)
To read what one commentator writes, you'd think that Nietzsche's entire project (assuming it's possible to ascribe such a notion of purity and wholeness to his work) was based on the concept of Schadenfreude and that the greatest thing about his revaluation of values was that it allowed one to revel in the misfortune of others - including malignant ex-girlfriends - in good conscience.*
That would be very much mistaken, however.
For whilst it's true that Nietzsche rejects the Christian virtue of pity [Mitleiden] and speaks of the positive role that cruelty has played in the formation of man (often using Grausamkeit as synonymous with Kultur), so too does he privilege terms such as Wohlwollen in his text - what we in English-speaking countries term benevolence.
For Nietzsche, like the rest of us, doesn't merely 'deal in damage and joy', he also deals in goodwill and affirms the idea of having a cheerful, friendly disposition. This is particularly true in his mid-period writings.
In Human, All Too Human, for example, Nietzsche writes of those little, daily acts of kindness that, although frequent, are often overlooked by those who study morals and manners; those smiling eyes and warm handshakes, etc., that display what D. H. Lawrence terms phallic tenderness, but Nietzsche simply calls politeness of the heart.**
These things have played a far more important role in the micropolitics of everyday life and the construction of community than those more celebrated virtues such as sympathy, charity, and self-sacrifice.
Of course the power of malice also plays a key role in human relations - and Nietzsche affirms an emotional economy of the whole - but, as I have said, it's profoundly mistaken to read from this that he is some kind of sadistic psychopath.
In other words, moving beyond good and evil does not mean behaving like an unethical little shit and I would remind Dr Solomon that "the state in which we hurt others is rarely as agreeable [...] as that in which we benefit others; it is a sign that we are still lacking power".**
Criminal lunatics who carry out atrocities and seek to justify their actions by calling on Nietzsche's name are invariably bad and/or partial readers; individuals as confused in their thinking as they are unrestrained and immoderate in their actions.
In other words, moving beyond good and evil does not mean behaving like an unethical little shit and I would remind Dr Solomon that "the state in which we hurt others is rarely as agreeable [...] as that in which we benefit others; it is a sign that we are still lacking power".**
Criminal lunatics who carry out atrocities and seek to justify their actions by calling on Nietzsche's name are invariably bad and/or partial readers; individuals as confused in their thinking as they are unrestrained and immoderate in their actions.
* See the remarks made by Simon Solomon following my recent post on the subject of schadenfreude: click here.
** Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human, trans. R. J. Hollingdale, (Cambridge University Press, 1996), I. 2. 49.
** Nietzsche, The Gay Science, trans. Walter Kaufmann, (Vintage Books, 1974), I. 13.
** Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human, trans. R. J. Hollingdale, (Cambridge University Press, 1996), I. 2. 49.
** Nietzsche, The Gay Science, trans. Walter Kaufmann, (Vintage Books, 1974), I. 13.
