NIETZSCHE AND THE PRESENT
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There is the inhuman desire to play along with the times, to
be superlatively up-to-date, as opposed to the humanity which
strives amid all change to make an effective standard out of that
which is eternal in each individual man; or, one might say, thought
on the basis of the age as opposed to thought on the basis of man;
and there is the classification of men in historical or other categories,
a classification which imperceptibly breaks up the relations between
men, as opposed to the light-giving communication which is forever
open to those relations.
There is intolerant faith as opposed to open reason; or one
might say, a mystification alien to communication as opposed to the
thought that aspires to a resurgence of existence from a source
oriented toward transcendence.
There is the renunciation of the scientific attitude as opposed to
the philosophical endeavor which seeks truth on a foundation of
scientific knowledge and knows that the truth has not been found un–
less the two streams characterized above come together.
A historical myth prevailing since Hegel tells us that we are abso–
lutely bound to our age, that we can act no differently than the age;
that if we are anything at all, our own reality must correspond to the
reality of the age. Otherwise we are nothing at all or we are mean–
ingless. And the supporters of this myth think that they know what
this age is.
The only truth in this is that all of us can achieve certainty of
being only as individuals in time, in historical dress,
in·
the actuality
of our origins and our factuality and our situation. But perhaps this
certainty itself is attainable on the basis of a truth cutting across all
time, and in that case it is always, or never, modern.
Our task is then twofold: to recognize the historical significance
for us of all three thinkers, and on the basis of the historical step
which their thinking represents, to restore the eternal truth. How
does this truth appear to us now that Kierkegaard, Marx and
Nietzsche have lived?
The task is primarily one which every thinking man must
perform for himself- .as to the course of things as a whole, no one
has it in his hands, no one knows what it will be. But each man
can strive to work for what he looks upon as the truth.
In this task Nietzsche helps us in a special way. We can judge
