30
PARTISAN REVIEW
class interests. "Even the
most favorable sitrwtion
for the working class ...
however much it may improve the material existence of the worker, does
not remove the antagonism between his interests and the interests of the
bourgeoisie...." After the triumph of Communism, disinterestedness is
beside the point; under Communism everyone inevitably is disinterested
because there is no longer any cleavage "between the particular and the
common interest...."
For Marx, the key factor is not one's disinterestedness but one's con–
sciousness of the laws of economic development. "The reform of
consciousness," Marx says, "means nothing else than ... that we wake the
world up from the dream it is dreaming about itself, that we explain to the
world the nature of its own actions." This awakening, Marx argues, would
come about "not through dogma, but through an analysis of mystic con–
sciousness which is unclear to itself, be it religious or political." Marx
divided political reformers into two categories: those who are awake, that
is, who know the laws of economic development, and those who are
asleep. He says of the Italian patriot Giuseppe Mazzini: "The fact is that
Mazzini never understood anything with his old-fashioned republican–
ism." Mazzini's understanding was at fault, not his motives. According to
Marx, men like Mazzini are dreamers living in a world of illusion. Their
disinterestedness is irrelevant, since their false consciousness makes them
serve the class interests of the bourgeoisie.
Nietzsche's attack on disinterest was different from Marx's and in
many respects more radical.
It
has also been more influential in the last
twenty years. Nietzsche does not say disinterest is irrelevant; he says it is a
decadent modern ideal.
In
Beyond Good and Evil,
he attacks "the modern
popularity of praise of the 'disinterested'," and in
Tiuilight of the Idols,
he
says that "a morality in which self-interest wilts away remains a bad sign
under all circumstances.... The best is lacking when self-interest begins
to be lacking." According to Nietzsche, "strong ages, noble cultures, con–
sider pi ty, 'neighbor-love,' and the lack of self and self-assurance something
contemptible. Ages must be measured by their positive strength . .. ." An
age that praises disinterest, Nietzsche suggests, is a decadent age.
Nietzsche generally regards disinterest as a weak form of self-interest:
"the naked truth, which is surely not hard to come by, [is] that the 'disin–
terested' action is an exceedingly interesting and interested action . ..."
Although all actions are "interested," motivated by self-interest, there are
different kinds of self-interest: noble self-interest and contemptible "mod–
ern" self-interest. "Self-interest is worth as much as the person who has it:
it can be worth a great deal and it can be unworthy and contemptible."
The contemptible kind of self-interest, Nietzsche suggests, is the self–
interest of those engaged in commerce. According to Ni etzsche, the noble
