Nietzsche
et la question politique by S. Goyard-Fabre (Paris: Editions J Sirey, 1977). 198 pp.*
Reviewed
by W. B. Allen
This work is haunted by
an imminent contradiction. Starting from a declaration of Nietzsche’s political
innocence (especially as to his influence upon Nazism), it nonetheless undertakes
progressively and always more insistently to reveal the clarity of Nietzsche’s
political wisdom. An entire emphasis is placed upon Nietzsche’s (transcendent)
notion of the “philosopher as the doctor of civilization.” This argument
attains a dramatic if not historic pitch at p. 116, where Nietzsche’s immense
superiority to other radicals is affirmed: “Ainsi, ni le révolutionnaire, ni le
socialiste, ni l’anarchiste ne peuvent ętre médecins de la civilisation . . .”
Conceded: Goyard- Fabre distinguishes Nietzsche’s metaphysical politics from
genuine pratique. Accordingly, “La pensée nietzschéenne ne se developpe
nullement en politologie; elle n’est pas une philosophie pratique; ce
n’est meme qu’en la transposant dans un registre qui n’est pas le sien que l’on
croit lire en elle les thčmes d’une philosophie opérative.” Nevertheless, one
may remind the author that medicine is not a theoretical science. To proceed
from diagnosis is to be politologiste by necessity.
Any review could give
greater place to the manifestly thorough character of Goyard-Fabre’s research
(following upon her earlier Nietzsche et la conversion metaphysique).
But this review is sidetracked by her obtuse use of those researches in an
attempt to deny the obvious. It is certainly not the case that anyone ever
suggested that Hitler, or even his “theoreticians,” were good students of
Nietzsche. The argument that they misunderstood Nietzsche little exculpates
Nietzsche as a cause of some of the excesses of this century. At a minimum one
must recognize that it was largely Nietzsche who made it possible for men to speak
without blenching of a legitimating, brutalizing will, just as a Machiavelli in
his way or a Hobbes in his removed the stigma attaching to motivations of
strict self-interest. Hence, it is more
legitimate than Goyard-Fabre believes to debate the issue of Nietzsche’s
responsibility for certain forms of political expression and endeavor in our
time.
A good way to begin that
debate would have been to defend Nietzsche by refuting the serious argument of
E. R. Dodds that Nietzsche is but Callicles in modern wool. Dodds’ “Socrates, Callicles and Nietzsche”
is not discussed by Goyard-Fabre.
Nonetheless, Goyard-Fabre recognized that access to the dizzying heights
of Nietzsche’s thought “pardelŕ toute idéologie et toute praxis” depends upon
the denial that Nietzsche agreed with Callicles that “force fait droit.” So well does Goyard-Fabre recognize the
force of this argument that she virtually open her book with the declaration
that Nietzsche’s view of life as “a power of conquest,” “a powerful dynamism,”
and a “creative energy,” “ne célčbre point en cela la culte de la force tel
que Calliclčs. . .” This very
insistence brings the reader to wonder how Nietsche’s celebration of power
differs from that of Callicles.
Dodds answers that
Nietzsche is indeed a Callicles for the very reason that Goyard-Fabre finds
Nietzsche a “doctor of civilization”: that is, Nietzsche’s opposition to
Socratic nihilism (Goyard-Fabre) is but identical to his anti-Platonism (Dodds)
and thus accounts for his assumption of the anti-Platonic persona which
is Callicles. One may question whether
in politics Callicles is the anti-Plato. Goyard-Fabre does not do so other than implicitly. Accordingly, she fails to refute Dodd’s
argument that Nietzsche accepted the standard of ψύσις
or nature as the standard of opposition to
νομος or convention.
Callicles accepted that standard before Nietzsche. Dodds may be too little sensitive to
Nietzsche’s historicism and the failure of the natural standard which led to
historicism. That is probably the reason
he can recover an “ethics” from the fine distinction between being “beyond good
and evil” and being “beyond good and bad.”
Nevertheless, Goyard-Fabre is unable to exploit Dodds’ weakness since in
order to explain Nietzsche’s transcending morality she liberate his thought
from politics as if to shield it from the natural judgment. She too flattens out history.
Nietzsche’s response to
Socratic nihilism is the timeless development of will over against reason. Goyard-Fabre takes Nietzsche as uncircumstanced
will, uncircumstanced save as to being the first wholly irresponsible
will. Hence, Nietzsche is hardly to
blame (responsible) for any political endeavors at any time by
definition. This is an entirely
nonhistorical denial (which is not to say refutation) of Dodds’ unhistorical
argument from the peculiar force of the history of ideas. “Nietzsche,” Dodds writes, “was . . . the
illegitimate and undesired offspring of Plato, as the Nazis were to be in turn
the illegitimate and desired offspring of Nietsche.” Dodds’ closing footnote graciously exonerates Nietzsche from the
Nazi claim to his paternity. In doing
so he points implicitly to the significant fact that such a claim might be
made. This parallels Goyard-Fabre’s
account of Nietzsche’s self-proclaimed struggle with Socrates. There is in each case a seriousness apart
from the justice of the claim.—W. B. A.