206
PARTISAN REVIEW
it still raIses uncomfortable questions. For inevitably, one must ask
whether this was entirely accidental. Could a more liberal philoso–
pher-for argument's sake John Locke or Thomas Jefferson-have been
misused with equal ease? In all probability, most people would answer
in the negative. However, it is worth noting that Immanuel Kant (usu–
ally considered a touchstone for ethical humanism in German thought)
had more advocates than Nietzsche among the academic philosophers
in the Third Reich, which suggests that the possibilities for manipula–
tion are vast.
It
could perhaps be argued that Nietzsche's pathos, his imaginative
excesses as well as his reputation as a prophet-seer and creator of myths,
were especially conducive to abuse by fascists . More importantly, the
radical manner in which Nietzsche thrust himself against the boundaries
of conventional (Judeo-Christian) morality and dramatically proclaimed
"God is dead" undoubtedly appealed to something in Nazism that
wished to transgress and transcend all existing taboos. The totalitari–
anisms of the twentieth century (of both the Right and Left) were forged
out of this breakdown of all authority and moral norms, of which Niet–
zsche was indeed a clear-sighted prophet, precisely because he had diag–
nosed nihilism as the central problem of his society. For him there was
no way back to the old moral certainties about "good" and "evil, " no
way to regain firm ground under one's feet . Humanity had (spiritually
speaking) already burned its boats. Nietzsche was convinced that there
was no escape from the "nihilism" of the age, except to go forward into
a more "perfect nihilism," a more radical activist position that embraced
goal-Iessness as a necessary step in the overcoming of nihilism. In that
sense, he was indeed a harbinger of the twentieth century.
Nietzsche believed that only by honestly facing the stark truth that
there is no truth, no goal, no value or meaning in itself, could he pave
the way for a real intellectual liberation and a revaluation of all values.
There was nothing fascistic per se in this call for a radical and critical
self-examination, though Nietzsche's
Lebensphilosophie
(by giving
precedence to the needs of life over those of the spirit) had some poten–
tially dangerous implications. Nietzsche's call in
Ecce Homo
(1888)
to
form that "new party of life which undertakes the greatest of all tasks,
the improvement of mankind, including the ruthless destruction of all
that is degenerate or parasitical" could assume frightening dimensions
in the hands of Nazi eugenicists. Yet it cannot be emphasized too
strongly that Nietzsche never envisaged any attempt to appeal to the
masses or to engage in any form of political activism in his own day.
