NIETZSCHE HAS HAD enormous influence on the twentieth century, and he seems to be starting out as the premier philosopher of the twenty-first. Of all of his various doctrines and images, perspectivism is probably the aspect of his bequest that has been most widely disseminated through Western culture and thought. The position that every outlook is relative to the perspective in which it is formulated has infiltrated the intellectual climate such that even those who still insist that there are absolute and universal values nevertheless tend to avoid the pose of dogmatic assertion, recognizing that dogmatism does not have the ring of authority it once had. Perspectivist assumptions provide the underpinning for several scholarly disciplines that have developed in the aftermath of Nietzsche’s thought, including cultural anthropology and the fields of comparative religion, literary theory, and a good deal of philosophy (for example, the discipline of hermeneutics).
More generally, perspectivism has fostered the development of pluralism in the increasingly global intellectual community. It is now generally acknowledged that there is always more than one approach to any given discipline, and such diversity is necessary to the vitality of the field. Some theorists, notably under the banners of “deconstruction” and “postmodernism,” emphasize that perspectivism implies that every theoretical outlook is limited and use this position to criticize theoretical dogmatists. These recent strategies are unquestionably influenced by Nietzsche. Ironically, given Nietzsche’s own tendency to make outrageous pronouncements, Nietzsche’s perspectivism requires us to practice intellectual humility regarding our own theoretical assertions. The polemicists of deconstruction, such as Jacques Derrida, and postmodernists such as Jean-François Lyotard, regularly remind their readers and their targets that they do not have the God’s-eye view that their rhetoric sometimes suggests.
The intellectual world is not entirely sanguine about the influence of Nietzsche’s perspectivism, however, and this is particularly true in debates about moral values. Nietzsche has been blamed by many cultural commentators (such as Allan Bloom and Alasdair Maclntyre) for the demise of shared values in Western culture. We might note that even these analysts are indebted to Nietzsche, for their critiques depend on the Nietzschean insight that a society’s moral values have evolved over time and may even change into its opposites. But Nietzsche, as we have argued, firmly advocated ethical values—even “a more severe morality,”1 so the complaint that he has personally had a hand in the supposed collapse of moral values is certainly debatable.
Nietzsche’s critics are right, however, in claiming that he rejected certain traditional approaches to ethical values, including the focus on moral rules and the elevation of a single type of person as the moral ideal. Nietzsche’s alternative approach encourages individual quests for self-realization. This very different nonmoral quest was picked up most famously by the philosophical movement of existentialism, which developed in the middle of the twentieth century. Instead of starting with rules that one attempts to apply to the situation, existentialists insist that ethics should begin by focusing on the concrete moral situation, which is often confusing and rarely ideal. Values are not given in advance by God or society. Instead, human beings create and re-create values. What one values becomes clear through one’s concrete moral choices. Thus Jean-Paul Sartre may be viewed as the heir to Nietzsche’s insistence that one legislates values through action. Through the choices one makes, one both creates and endorses a way of living.
The existentialists follow Nietzsche in his moral relativism, another consequence of his perspectivism that is sometimes criticized. Nietzsche considers his own willingness to acknowledge a diversity of moral outlooks as healthy and desirable. From his point of view, we would be better off resisting the rigid moralities that make us feel competent to judge others harshly. Instead, we would be better served by making nonjudgmental efforts to understand others as well as ourselves. Nietzsche attempts to put moralities and moralists in their place by stressing that everyone’s moral outlook reflects the limitations of a personal perspective. So, too, the existentialists attack in various guises the pretensions of self-righteousness. Sartre attacks the “Champion of Sincerity” in Being and Nothingness.2 Camus, in turn, attacks Sartre for his moralizing self-righteousness with such essays as The Rebel.
Those who denounce Nietzsche’s approach to moral value may be more appreciative of another of his perspectivist claims. Nietzsche considers the scientific worldview to be one perspective among others, however valuable it may be within its own spheres. While he was impressed by the discoveries of science and its potential to help us untangle ourselves from superstitions, Nietzsche is concerned that scientific reductionism, “scientism” (which takes scientific accounts to be the only intelligent accounts), will replace the proper concern about the value of life, the value of our lives. Too often science has become so celebrated that it undermines all religion (not just Judeo-Christianity) and seems to eliminate the need for myth. Nietzsche’s enthusiasm for culture and the arts reflects his opposition to scientism, as does his insistence that we still have a psychological need for myth, for imaginative accounts that address our spiritual needs.
Nietzsche’s defense of the continuing importance of myth has had an influence in a variety of fields. Writers such as Thomas Mann and artists such as Isadora Duncan have drawn thematic material from Nietzsche’s analysis of the myths of Apollo and Dionysus as complementary accounts of the human being’s place in the scheme of things. The pioneers of psychoanalytic theory have also taken inspiration from Nietzsche’s suggestion that mythic accounts reflect our psychological needs. Sigmund Freud, for example, used the myth of Oedipus to track the individual’s development, and C. G. Jung drew widely from the world’s mythologies to develop models for the complex activities of the mind. The psychoanalytic movement also drew some of its basic presuppositions from Nietzsche: that we are often not aware of our own objectives, that human motivation is so complex that we may never get to the bottom of it, though it is possible to gain some insight into the motives behind our apparent aims, even when they are distasteful.
Nietzsche himself saw the desire for power as a fundamental drive, at times describing it as the fundamental drive in human beings. Psychologist Alfred Adler made this premise the foundation of his own brand of psychoanalytic theory, which postulated that an “inferiority complex” was often the basis for neurotic behavior. French philosopher Michel Foucault drew from Nietzsche’s postulation of the will to power, as well as from his account of master and slave morality, in analyzing cultural institutions such as prisons and various practices connected with human sexuality. Martin Heidegger and those influenced by him (for example, French philosopher Gilles Deleuze) tend to give particular prominence to the will to power in Nietzsche’s thought. Heidegger himself considered the will to power the central principle in what he takes to be Nietzsche’s metaphysical system, and this idea has retained currency among many contemporary Nietzsche scholars, even those who resist Heidegger’s contention that the notes compiled as The Will to Power was Nietzsche’s greatest work.
Although the relative importance of will to power in Nietzsche’s thought is still debated, and it is doubtful that he had anything resembling a systematic political philosophy, one cannot dispute the fact that Nietzsche’s thought has had considerable influence on political thinkers. In fact, Nietzsche has been claimed as a patron by many diverse, incompatible political movements.3 Nietzsche has also been attacked as sexist, elitist, anti-Semitic, racist, protofascist, a romantic aestheticist, and an arch-conservative. Fascists, anarchists, social Darwinists, liberals, conservatives, progressives, and feminists have all attempted to appropriate him, as have those who treat the whole political arena with disdain. The tendency of politicos of every stripe to read Nietzsche as endorsing their views is a fascinating phenomenon that requires complex analysis. However, part of the explanation is surely to be found in Nietzsche’s defense of the individual against the pressures of prevailing cultural winds. Members of various political movements have various interpretations of the aspects of the status quo that call for change, but many can visualize their own pet peeves as among the targets in Nietzsche’s cultural criticism. Nietzsche’s contention that one’s perspective inevitably conditions one’s understanding is certainly apt with respect to the range of politically tinged interpretations of his work.
Attempts to commandeer Nietzsche as part of the support structure for particular political doctrines, however, do seem to fly in the face of another of Nietzsche’s own proposals: that we respond to the recognition of the limitations of our outlook by becoming more playful and lighthearted. If we lack the capacity to build conceptual structures on absolutely firm ground, then we may as well treat our theories as artistic creations, meaningful as self-expression and as modes of engagement with reality, but never immune from challenge. Their seriousness is precisely the seriousness of children’s play, the sphere of experimentation in responding to the world. This insight, too, is part of Nietzsche’s legacy, appreciated by some across the philosophical spectrum, from postmodernism to the best of analytic philosophy.
A century after his death, Nietzsche’s influence continues to reverberate. He summarizes the artistic endeavor of his philosophizing in Twilight of the Idols: “To create things on which time tests its teeth in vain; in form, in substance, to strive for a little immortality—I have never yet been modest enough to demand less of myself.”4
Thus far, Nietzsche lives.