nietzsche and the bourgeois spirit

7/27/2019 Nietzsche and the Bourgeois Spirit

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Nietzsche and the Bourgeois SpiritAuthor(s): Paul TillichReviewed work(s):Source: Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 6, No. 3 (Jun., 1945), pp. 307-309Published by: University of Pennsylvania PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2707294 .

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NIETZSCHE AND THE BOURGEOIS SPIRITCOMMENT BY PAUL TILLICH

None of the three papers on Nietzsche printed above dealsdirectlywith Nietzsche as the critic of bourgeois society, thougheach of thempoints to his criticismas one element n his wholephilosophicalattitude. It is indeed impossible to neglectthis ele-ment in Nietzsche's work; explicitlyor implicitly t permeatesevery part. Even his sense of being "out of season" (unzeitge-mass) is primarily a way of expressing his negation of his owntime. It cannotbe interpreted, s Mr. Lowith seems to do, as anabstracttimelessness. It makes,ofcourse,a supratemporal claim,like everytruth;but it is essentially related to the particular agehe is trying to overcome in himself. If he calls this age "deca-dent," this implies a definite nterpretationof history, n whichhis ownappearance-the appearance of "Zarathustra" before the"great midday"-has a definiteplace. This sense of having apropheticmandate, of standing at the most crucial moment ofhistory, annotbe leftout of thepicture.In expressing the eternal weight of everymoment of time intermsof the doctrineof "Eternal Recurrence," Nietzsche is usinga classical idea whichcontradicts his consciousness of the "full-ness of time"-just as his ecstatic love of fate contradicts theclassical resignation to fate-cf. Lowith. This is the reason whyhis philosophy reveals a dominatingdramatic impulse,as Morrisbrings out. But this dramatic form s no mere aesthetic prefer-ence of Nietzsche's; it is not due to the fact that "Nietzsche wasnourishedon Greek tragedy," as Morris remarks. It is ratherhisfeelingfor thedramatic moment n worldhistory n which"man"has come to an end and a being "beyond man" is beginning toappear. The decadence to which Nietzsche opposes his "will topower" is not decadence in general, as Huszar seems to indicate.It is the great decadence in whichhumanityreaches the stage ofthe"last man," who is a completely ationalized cog in a machinewithoutcreative vitality; and in which t reaches at the same timethe beginningof the stage "beyond man," the stage of a higherlife, embodied in more exalted, more powerfuland more creativebeings.It is in thelight of this" eschatologicalconsciousness" that we307


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308 PAUL TILLICHmust understandNietzsche's attack on bourgeois society. Since"life" is the divine-demonic ymbolwhichtakes theplace forhimof the idea of God, whatever is opposed to "life" he challengeswitha propheticwrath. And since thegreatestobstacle to "life"is the "objectivating" nature of bourgeois thinking nd acting,he wages war against bourgeois society n thename of his ultimateprinciple, creative life.There were other attacks on the bourgeois system as it de-veloped after the middle of the nineteenthcentury. Marx chal-lenged the dehumanizationof an economic order in which man isestrangedfromhimself, romsocietyand theworld,and is trans-formed nto a commodity, "thing," a mereobject. Kierkegaardchallenged the logical necessity of "reason," in Hegel's sense,whichdestroysman's real existence,his abilityto decide and hisliving in passion and faith. Stirner preached the absolute indi-vidual. Dostoievski revealed the demonic forces underneathman's rationality,Jacob Burckhardtprophesied the catastropheof mass culture. And at the beginning of the twentieth enturythe creative men in the arts, poetry and philosophywere awareof the approaching earthquake in Western civilization.We cannotconsider Nietzsche apart fromthis world-historicalframe. In his writings there are analogies to some of the ideasof all these men. Like Marx, he describes the development ofmankind into a monstrousmachine, to serve which has becomethe only meaningin life. Like Kierkegaard, he defends "becom-ing" against knowledgeand demands a non-detached nd passion-ate attitude towards truth, especially towards historical truth.Like Stirner, he proclaims the value of the strong Ego as overagainst its dissolution into conventionalbehavior and moralisticor sentimental elf-surrender. Like Dostoievski,he looks into thedangerous forces in the depths of man which control his rationalaction. Like Burckhardt, he foresees the self-destruction ofEurope. And he has influencedmost of the critics of bourgeoissociety and most of the prophets of doom during the beginningof the twentieth entury.

Nietzscheshared the fate of many of thegreat fighters gainst"objectivation" during the nineteenth entury:he fell into a sub-jectivity the passionate maintenance of which betrayed its owninner insecurity. The paradoxical character of his oracles, thepredominanceof aggression, his unconquerablehatred for enemies


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NIETZSCHE AND THE BOURGEOIS SPIRIT 309who representelementsofhimself, he mannerismof his style: allthis reveals the desperate situation of those who were fightingagainst a foe theywerenot able to conquer evenwithin hemselves.This foe was the world created by the victoriousbourgeoisie, theworld nwhichmeans replaced ends, and everything,man included,had become an object of analysis and control. But it was justanalysis and controlthat Nietzsche applied in his attemptto over-come the world based on them. The tragic implications of thiscontradiction have become manifest today in the anti-bourgeoisrevolutions of the twentieth entury, ne of which, Fascism, haswrongly nd rightly een linkedto Nietzsches philosophy.

No interpretationof Nietzsche should neglect his grand andtragic war against the spirit of his age, the spirit of bourgeoissociety. As it does not lessen the proportions of Socrates toemphasize his struggleagainst the spirit of his age, the spirit ofsophistic disintegration, o Nietzsche's stature is not diminishedby a strong emphasis on the spirithe was fighting gainst in hisday. The moredeeplya man is rooted n theKairos (the creativemoment ftime) thebetter s he able to reach the Logos (universaltruth). Nietzsche was great because he struggled against histimesout of the deepest experience ofhis times.Union Theological Seminary.

nietzsche and the bourgeois spirit

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