THE DESPERATE WAR:

Nihilism, Culture and Politics in Nietzsche

Bernardo Carvalho Oliveira
Tutor: Eduardo Jardim de Moraes

The concern with Culture and, more specifically, with the establishment of a
culture strong enough to “affirm life” is a general principle for any assessment
of politics in Nietzsche, both in relation to his analysis of the political situation
of his time and to the possibilities of implementing the so-called “great politics”.
However, the fact that his thought lacks a normative content that could tie idea
and action to an unequivocal direction leads interpreters to conclude that
Nietzsche was an idealist, since he doesn’t make clear how his “great politics”
would come about. At the same time, they accuse him of practicing an
aristocratic Machiavellism, with no consequences or sense of responsibility
towards human beings and society. It seems to me that such arguments are
downright disqualified, taking into consideration, for instance, the recent
studies of Henning Ottman and, in Brazil, of Oswaldo Giacóia. Nevertheless,
one may remember that, as a provoking philosopher, the author makes sure
not to indicate any prescription of prophylactic content: like Zarathrusta, he
does not accept disciples, inciting them to find their own paths.
In my PhD thesis I propose to approach elements that constitute the
issue of politics in Friedrich Nietzsche’s work from the perspective of his
criticism of culture and proposal of reevaluation and recreation of moral values.
Keeping in mind, though, that the philosopher takes as key theme the
overcoming of a historically delimited cultural crisis – nihilism – it’s
worthwhile to notice that I do not aim to extract a political philosophy from his
thought or to outline an interpretation able to “translate” his political approach
to the concerns of modern political philosophy. I’ll rather conduct a stricto
sensu study, from which I aim to analyze elements inherent to Nietzsche’s
political point of view according to his own context – essentially polemic and
unsettling. In this way, I avoid weighing Nietzsche’s thought against the
perspective of modern political philosophy, particularly Rousseau and Hegel,
authors often called upon by commentators of Nietzsche’s political ideas when
the diagnosis of the polemical philosopher sounds too unaligned with
contemporary political sensibility. I plan to work these themes with the purpose
to indicate possible interpretation paths for the following question: with the
consolidation of financial capitalism, of a juridical-institutional system and of
the “sovereign flock”, would Nietzsche’s thought have something to tell us
nowadays? Or his objections to the rule of law and to exacerbated legalism, in
pro of an improvement of the “type man”, sound today more obsolete and
idealist than ever? Would it be feasible to speculate about the political
dimension of his cultural criticism after the notorious series of political
appropriations of his work, of all the misunderstandings and editorial accidents
that turned Nietzsche into a quite problematic author for the political debate?