It sounds odd to say that a thinker like Nietzsche, who disbelieved in the existence of God, could be taken to task for essentialism, but that is precisely what I am prepared to say.
I have studied Nietzsche and Bataille very extensively (all their books!) and over more than a decade. I understand that there are elements of sophistry in both of these writers philosophical approaches. The veiled element in both is that they are trying to disrupt and disturb existing social hierarchies in order to usher in a new order. The means for doing this is the same, or fundamentally similar, in both Nietzsche and Bataille. In general, they want to make things very, very difficult — antagonistic. Their emphasis on the importance of having psychological strength, rather than having power due to inheriting it, is abundantly clear in the methodology they have chose to revolutionise their societies. They want to create a situation in which nothing is taken for granted and in which each of us is forced to ‘sink or swim’. Should we ‘sink’, then in Nietzsche’s terms we are among those unworthy to survive and ought to perish. (This pertains to Nietzsche’s appropriation of Darwinism). In the case of Bataille, he thought we should also ‘face death’ in order to learn the psychological lessons that would enable one to become capable of the kinds of violence that would permit a violent revolutionary overthrow of the bourgeois order. He wanted to use this same, Nietzschean paradigm of making psychological warfare necessary, in order to produce those who were capable of acting in a revolutionary manner.
The limitations of Nietzsche, from my 21st Century perspective, is that his approach tends to be more Idealistic than Materialistic. . Psychology is as much a product of our material circumstances as it is of our biological structure or anything innate. So, a very violent historical period may not so much test any innate qualities, as Nietzsche had hoped, but rather, could test the ability to buffer oneself by various means, such as material wealth — and thereby not to have to face the ‘test’ of violence, after all. There is no real Darwinism if the weak and the vulnerable within society’s presently existing social order are ‘tested’ more than the self-satisfied wealthy. So, Nietzsche’s attempt to use Darwinism in order to put in place a new social order that is governed on the basis of internal strength as an independently standing value in itself appears to be fundamentally flawed. From a 21st Century perspective, his idea that the identity has a consistent (‘essential’) quality that is not radically altered along with radically altering material circumstances seems wrong and unfounded.
I have studied Nietzsche and Bataille very extensively (all their books!) and over more than a decade. I understand that there are elements of sophistry in both of these writers philosophical approaches. The veiled element in both is that they are trying to disrupt and disturb existing social hierarchies in order to usher in a new order. The means for doing this is the same, or fundamentally similar, in both Nietzsche and Bataille. In general, they want to make things very, very difficult — antagonistic. Their emphasis on the importance of having psychological strength, rather than having power due to inheriting it, is abundantly clear in the methodology they have chose to revolutionise their societies. They want to create a situation in which nothing is taken for granted and in which each of us is forced to ‘sink or swim’. Should we ‘sink’, then in Nietzsche’s terms we are among those unworthy to survive and ought to perish. (This pertains to Nietzsche’s appropriation of Darwinism). In the case of Bataille, he thought we should also ‘face death’ in order to learn the psychological lessons that would enable one to become capable of the kinds of violence that would permit a violent revolutionary overthrow of the bourgeois order. He wanted to use this same, Nietzschean paradigm of making psychological warfare necessary, in order to produce those who were capable of acting in a revolutionary manner.
The limitations of Nietzsche, from my 21st Century perspective, is that his approach tends to be more Idealistic than Materialistic. . Psychology is as much a product of our material circumstances as it is of our biological structure or anything innate. So, a very violent historical period may not so much test any innate qualities, as Nietzsche had hoped, but rather, could test the ability to buffer oneself by various means, such as material wealth — and thereby not to have to face the ‘test’ of violence, after all. There is no real Darwinism if the weak and the vulnerable within society’s presently existing social order are ‘tested’ more than the self-satisfied wealthy. So, Nietzsche’s attempt to use Darwinism in order to put in place a new social order that is governed on the basis of internal strength as an independently standing value in itself appears to be fundamentally flawed. From a 21st Century perspective, his idea that the identity has a consistent (‘essential’) quality that is not radically altered along with radically altering material circumstances seems wrong and unfounded.
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