Resurgent Nobility and the Problem of False Consciousness
Daniel Conway
1 Introduction
What does Nietzsche mean to accomplish in The Antichrist? On the one hand, his aims are fairly clear and oft-repeated: he is determined to disclose for the first time the full truth of Christianity, including “its real history [echte Geschichte]” (A 39), and to reckon the (prohibitive) costs of allowing it to continue in its accustomed (but no longer warranted) position of cultural and moral authority. In other words, he openly conceives of his project as revelatory, that is, as delivering to its target readership a decisive cognitive upgrade. He thus claims, for example, to have “drawn back the curtain from the corruption of humankind” (A 6), an achievement that should position his best readers to appreciate (and perhaps repeat) the “curse” he pronounces on the whole of Christianity.
On the other hand, the cognitive upgrade his best readers may expect to receive is unlike any they have ever known. The clarity to which Nietzsche aspires in The Antichrist is advertised as sufficiently compelling that his intended readers will not return to their previous way of life. Having come to see (and understand) the world differently, they also will come to feel differently about the world and their placement in it (Owen 2007: 46–49; Janaway 2007: 44–50). In short, they will be changed, and permanently so, by their encounter with the truth Nietzsche reveals. As he explains in Ecce Homo, which he intended as a prelude to The Antichrist, his “destiny” ordains that he step forward, “in opposition to the lies of millennia,” as the truth teller par excellence, as the bearer of a truth that must and will be received as “terrible” (EH “destiny” 1). As he indicates in Ecce Homo, his best readers may expect to be reborn (or rebooted) in their reception of the truth he dispenses in The Antichrist.
Our consideration of Nietzsche’s dual aims suggests that we are meant to receive The Antichrist as a kind of manifesto, wherein the author lays bare a vital truth that has been obscured, distorted, or hidden from view. As with other manifestoes, the reception of this vital truth was intended (and promised) not simply to educate and edify its readers, but also to catalyze in them a permanent transformation, for which Tracy Strong has astutely suggested the term transfiguration (2001). Nietzsche’s best readers will come to see Christianity as beneath them, as unworthy of their continued allegiance, and as a source of propulsive shame and self-reproach. He thus describes the anticipated publication of The Antichrist, in an “agitation edition” no less, as “an event that will very probably split history into two halves” (KSB 8: 482).1
An additional (and often neglected) reason to receive The Antichrist as a manifesto is its intended role in liberating Nietzsche’s best readers from the fog of their as-yet-unacknowledged false consciousness. Whereas Marx and Engels appealed in their more famous manifesto to oppressed workers who had nothing to lose but their chains, Nietzsche appeals in The Antichrist to readers who are alienated from the optimal expression of their anti-Christian animus. In both cases, the “chains” in question are understood to designate internal constraints, which prevent their unsuspecting captives from fully immersing themselves in the emergent and empowering reality from which they are unwittingly estranged.
This particular focus of Nietzsche’s critique of Christianity—namely, its success in producing and sustaining an alienating false consciousness—is a relatively new arrow in an already bulging quiver of complaints. Well established in 1888 as a staunch critic of Christian morality, Nietzsche attempts in The Antichrist to address the perplexing phenomenon of an unacknowledged renascence of noble values. In the aftermath of the “death of God,” or so he believes, the worthiest of Europeans have already begun to enact the selfishness (Selbstsucht) he has long championed as a healthier alternative to Christian selflessness (Selbstlosigkeit) (Janaway 2007: 245–52). As he explains to his best readers, for example,
We ourselves, we free spirits, are nothing less than “a revaluation of all values,” an incarnate [leibhafte] declaration of war and triumph over all the ancient conceptions of “true” and “untrue.” (A 13)2
For the most part, however, this remarkable shift in values has transpired without the recognition, much less the affirmation, of those in whom it has taken place. While understandably pleased to note the resurgence of nobility in late modern Europe, Nietzsche laments the ongoing alienation of his contemporaries from the noble values they practice but do not preach (A 38).
The genre of the manifesto also suits the indirect rhetorical strategy Nietzsche pursues in The Antichrist. Here two points are salient. First, he refrains from directly imparting to his best readers his diagnosis of the cause or source of their current (and as-yet-unacknowledged) enchainment. Instead, he develops a contentious critique of various third parties (e.g., the “statesmen,” “prince,” “judge,” and “patriot” [A 38]), in whom his best readers are meant, if they can, to behold mirror images of their own false consciousness. As we shall see, in fact, it is essential to the envisioned success of The Antichrist that his best readers arrive on their own at the crucial realization that will motivate their liberation.
Second, the motivating insight in question is decidedly unappealing to his best readers in their current condition. In order to liberate themselves from their false consciousness, they must come to the (negative) realization that they are not, and never will become, the “anti-Christians” and “free spirits” whom they currently take themselves to be. As we shall see, in fact, the liberation to which they may (and should) aspire will yield only a limited (i.e., historically contextualized) measure of freedom and agency. For them, it will never be the case, as it was (supposedly) for the “invincible order of Assassins,” that “everything is permitted” (GM III: 24). Nietzsche’s best readers are welcome to “dance in their chains” (BGE 226), and to do so at the expense of the Christian priesthood, but in no event should they expect to lose or escape the historical “chains” that bind them (Franco 2011: 184–87). If they are to overcome their alienation and liberate themselves from their false consciousness, they will need to acknowledge (and affirm) their nonnegotiable standing within the historical sweep of Christianity.
Nietzsche is well aware that his best readers will not arrive happily at this realization. Having asserted themselves as “anti-Christians” and “free spirits,” and having been cheered as such by Nietzsche himself, they will be understandably reluctant to accept a lesser role or a demotion in status. If they fail or refuse to arrive at this realization, however, they will be of no use to him in his efforts to “break history in two.” If they persist in their false consciousness, in fact, they may cause him to squander the unique historical opportunity that he wishes to share (and exploit) with them. As becomes increasingly clear in his writings from 1888, he is dependent upon them for companionship, assistance, and support. Despite his delusions of grandeur and expressions of chest-thumping bravado, he cannot do this alone.
Still, all is not lost. As self-identified Christians, Nietzsche’s best readers may yet attain the optimal, albeit imperfect, freedom and agency that are available to them. As willing agents of the ascendant regime of “Christian truthfulness,” he advises, his best readers may yet become what they are—namely, lethal opponents of the fading regime of “Christian morality” (Conway 2015: 243–48). They will do so, he offers, in the event that they join him in declaring “Christian morality” to be untruthful, immoral, and, therefore, beneath their recently reclaimed dignity.
2 The “Death of God” and the rise of the Antichrist
In certain respects, Nietzsche may be seen to reprise in The Antichrist the rhetorical strategy devised by Zarathustra. After failing in his initial attempts to claim the attention of his unimpressed auditors, Zarathustra resolved to appeal to their “pride,” which, he believed, would cause them to recoil from the harrowing prospect of being implicated in the emergence of the “last man” (Z P5).
As we know, this particular strategy did not work well for Zarathustra, in large part because he misjudged his audience and overestimated his authority as the self-appointed teacher of the Übermensch. As Zarathustra eventually acknowledged, he was not yet prepared to deliver this particular teaching to the audiences he tended to attract. Plagued by a chronic failure to practice what he preached, habitually unable to reckon the correct “time of day,” and allergic to the unflattering feedback he received from his perceptive auditors, Zarathustra was obliged to return to solitude so that he might “become mellow,” that is, grow into the role he had prematurely arrogated to himself.
According to Nietzsche, he is bound by no such limitations in The Antichrist, the success of which stands or falls on the merits of its (and its author’s) various claims to timeliness (Shapiro 2016: 102–10).3 As Nietzsche makes abundantly clear throughout The Antichrist, he suffers from none of the self-misunderstandings that doomed the pedagogy of the callow Zarathustra. In Ecce Homo, which he hoped would secure for A a sympathetic (or at least curious) audience, he explains that he has become what he is—namely, a “destiny” (Schicksal). Having unexpectedly bodied forth the prescribed “revaluation of all values” (EH “Destiny” 1), he now offers to escort his best readers to similar milestones of maturation. In other words, we are meant to take very seriously his authority to execute the particular intervention he stages in The Antichrist. According to him, he has earned the prerogative to lift his best readers out of the false consciousness to which they are captive. But how has he done so? Whence the confidence he exudes in pronouncing a summary “curse” on the whole of Christianity?
The supposed timeliness on display in The Antichrist is a product of Nietzsche’s evolved understanding of the “meaning” of the “death of God,” which is his preferred (and typically misunderstood) designation for the “event” (Ereigniss) that defines and contours the late modern condition (GS 343).4 In opposition to those doomsayers who, like the Madman (GS 125), rush to a hasty and overly negative assessment of their prospects for a post-theistic existence, Nietzsche emphasizes the opportunities afforded him and his unknown mates by the death of God (Pippin 2010: 47–51; Conway 2010: 122–30). Notwithstanding the disruptions that are certain to follow in the wake of this catastrophic vacancy of meaning and value, he hails the “clear horizon” and “open sea” that now beckon (GS 343). Although it is possible that things may yet deteriorate and spin out of control, just as the Madman has prophesied, right now there is insufficient warrant for the Madman’s overwrought and desperate forecast. Nietzsche thus launches The Antichrist by revealing his “formula” for the “happiness” that awaits those who have removed themselves from the “gloom” of nihilism: “A Yes, a No, a straight line, a goal” (A 1).
Discombobulated by his own insight into the death of God, the Madman jumped to the conclusion-cum-indictment for which he is best known: “We have killed him—you and I. All of us are his murderers” (GS 125). Although he is of course mistaken in convicting himself and his contemporaries of the murder of God, his mistake is understandable (Pippin 2010: 49–51). Traumatized by the prospect of navigating a godless cosmos, the Madman ingeniously holds himself responsible for the death of God, thereby ensuring his permanent connection, in the form of guilt, to the dead God. Doing so not only attests, absurdly, to his supposed victory over God, but also absolves him of any share in the responsibility for charting a post-theistic course for the development of humankind. Consigned by his (supposedly) monstrous “deed” to a lifetime of irremediable guilt, he will not join his “cheerful” contemporaries as they explore the “open sea.” For the Madman and his lunatic ilk, it is preferable to be known (and convicted) as the murderers of God than to be expected to contribute to the task of deriving meaning from and for a post-theistic epoch (Conway 2010: 122–25). Undone by the prospect of making his way without the guidance of the deity whose panoptic surveillance he resented, he is content to languish in whatever cell or asylum awaits the murderer of God.
What the Madman correctly understands is that our awareness of the death of God lags the onset of the “event” itself. The “deed” (That) in question—which is, of course, no deed at all, assignable to no doer—is so grand and momentous that it has not yet entered the consciousness of those who are obliged to respond accordingly. Aware that “our ships” remain as yet stranded and unmanned, the Madman doubles down on his jeremiad, warning that the newly “open” sea may remain permanently unexplored. According to Nietzsche, however, the Madman is mistaken to conclude that our lives have not been touched by the death of God. Slowly but surely, and unbeknownst to most of us, the “event” of the death of God has already begun to reshape our habits, practices, and routines. As Nietzsche reveals in The Antichrist, in fact, his contemporaries already display a resurgently noble way of life, albeit one from which they remain as yet estranged (A 13, 38). (Even the Madman evinces a quasi-noble sense of prerogative and entitlement, as if he were equal to the “deed” for which he falsely claims credit.) Hence the full “meaning” of the “cheerfulness” to which Nietzsche so proudly attests in GS 343: in the aftermath of the death of God, a life oriented to noble values is not simply possible once again, but possible by virtue of being actual, as evidenced by the as-yet-unrecognized exploits of “good Europeans” like Nietzsche and his best readers.
In The Antichrist, Nietzsche takes it upon himself to address the Madman’s central concern: although the heroes whom we need are in fact on the way, their rise has been obscured by our (and their) failure to recognize, much less appreciate, their resurgent nobility. Inasmuch as the “event” of the death of God has not yet entered our consciousness, we continue to evaluate these heroes, along with everyone else, by appealing to the familiar terms and categories of Christian morality. According to Nietzsche, that is, the aforementioned lag between the “event” of the death of God and our awareness of this “event” has been filled in the interim by a compensatory false consciousness. Even as our bodies, habits, and routines are being reconfigured in the wake of the death of God, our consciousness remains centered on our previous relationship to God. As a result, Nietzsche observes, our “words” (or consciousness) and “deeds” (or practices) are currently misaligned: we act and live, increasingly, as if God were dead, but we continue to think and speak about ourselves as if we were still subject to the judgment and approval of this God (A 38).
Thus we see that Nietzsche’s chief rhetorical aim in The Antichrist is to make his best readers aware of a renunciation that is already underway in their lives. According to him, their deeds already express—and, so, attest to—their resurgent nobility, from which they nevertheless remain estranged. The challenge, then, is to prompt his readers to assert full, secure, conscious ownership of a truth they already in some sense possess (A 38). Indeed, the story he tells in The Antichrist is their story, though they have neither recognized nor accepted it as such. What they require at this decisive juncture is not simply an additional insight or a conventional cognitive upgrade, which they conceivably might receive from any critic of Christianity, but an intervention that compels their assent and catalyzes their subsequent transformation. In short, to borrow the Pindarian motto of Ecce Homo, they must be helped to become what they are, such that their consciousness of themselves reflects (and celebrates) their newly revaluated practices and routines.
What this means for Nietzsche’s best readers is that they are not yet the “Hyperboreans,” “anti-Christians,” and “free spirits” to whom he speaks in The Antichrist. As he does in many of his post-Zarathustran books, he favors a first-person plural presumptive mode of address: although he engages his best readers as if they were (near) equals, partners in an exclusive “we,” they have not yet earned the privilege to be addressed as such. His reliance on this proleptic mode of address is not simply an attempt at flattery, though it certainly is that as well. He speaks to them as his presumptive partners precisely so that they might acquire the momentum and will needed to become what they are. Throughout the text of The Antichrist, in fact, he speaks to his best readers not as the selves they currently are, but as the selves they may yet become. In particular, he addresses himself to a “we” that is meant to come into existence and take shape as a consequence of being addressed (and treated) as such.
3 We knowers, strangers to ourselves
Although he nowhere advances a fully developed theory or account of false consciousness, Nietzsche is intimately familiar with the cognitive deficit that besets his best readers. For example, he opens GM with a diagnosis of the very problem that he is determined to tackle once again in The Antichrist:
We are unknown to ourselves, we knowers [Wir sind uns unbekannt, wir Erkennenden]—and with good reason. We have never sought ourselves—how could it happen that we should ever find ourselves? (GM P1)
As he goes on to explain, this particular cognitive deficit has served humanity well, allowing us (in the collective) to accumulate knowledge untroubled by extraneous concerns, for example, pertaining to the value (for life) of what we do and do not know. Like earnest honeybees, we “knowers” have only ever cared “from the heart” about one thing: “Bringing something home” and storing it in our beehives (GM P1). Remaining “unknown” to ourselves, he thus suggests, has been a necessary and welcome precondition of the accumulation of knowledge by a species that boasts few other sources of comparative advantage. That we “knowers” have remained “strangers” to ourselves has enabled us to survive, adapt, and thrive. We have not sought ourselves, much less found ourselves, precisely because we have never had good reason to do so. Being “unknown to ourselves” thus rounds into view as the opportunity cost, thus far, of being (and surviving as) “knowers” at all.
As Nietzsche cautions in Ecce Homo, in fact, the misdirected imperative to “know oneself” is likely to terminate (or prematurely arrest) the development of individuals who otherwise might grow into “tasks” and “destinies” worthy of their talents. Exaggerating to productive effect, he avers, “To become what one is, one must not have the faintest notion what one is” (EH “Clever” 9). Unlike Socrates, that is, Nietzsche does not defend the general value or desirability of coming to know oneself. For many or most human beings, he warns, nosce te ipsum may in fact be a “recipe for ruin” (EH “clever” 9). At the same time, however, he also believes that his best readers can no longer afford the luxury of this particular cognitive deficit. They must become (better) known to themselves, precisely so that they may complete the “revaluation of values” that is now underway in their lives. Once they have done so, they may join Nietzsche in determining (and willing) a particular future for humankind (A 3).
In GM and the books of 1888, including The Antichrist, Nietzsche is increasingly determined to prompt his best readers toward a degree of self-knowledge that he knows to be both disruptive and potentially harmful. He apparently envisions himself as the great awakener, even as he acknowledges the collateral damage he is likely to cause along the way. As he sees it, there is no choice but to urge his best readers to become “knowers” with respect to themselves. (In particular, as we shall see, they must become aware of the extent to which they remain dependent on the authority of Christian morality, even as they pride themselves on constituting an anti-Christian vanguard.) In plotting this intervention, moreover, Nietzsche actually displays the callous disregard that he notoriously claims for himself. Modeling his intervention on the labors of the autumnal harvester, he endeavors to contribute to the grim process of selection that will be required, or so he supposes, to secure a viable future for humankind (A 3). He justifies his dangerous intervention, as we have seen, by appealing to his keen sense of timing. If he awakens his best readers now, at the right time, he (and they) may yet contribute to the renewal of the unified European culture that he sees slipping away.5
Nietzsche also presents himself as a product of the kairos he is determined to exploit (Shapiro 2016: 102–10). He is the right person to deliver the truth about Christianity because, as he tells us, “[he] was the first to discover the truth by being the first to experience lies as lies” (EH “Destiny” 1). As a consequence (or corollary) of this discovery, the “revaluation of all values,” which he identifies as his “formula for a supreme self-examination on the part of humanity,” has “become flesh and genius in [him]” (EH “Destiny” 1). His words will be received as true—and, so, as compelling—because they bespeak the transformation he already has completed. Having already succeeded in aligning his words with his deeds, he communicates with palpable authority to those who suffer from the misalignment he has corrected in his own life. In sum, he may speak of a “we” that is not yet because he is in a credible position to guide its prospective members toward a (partial) realization of their aspirations to become the “free spirits” they take themselves to be.
Nietzsche’s approach in The Antichrist thus reflects his more general ambivalence toward the project of European Enlightenment. Notwithstanding his (occasionally shrill) remarks concerning the limits of reason and its most familiar technical applications, he too wishes to enlighten his best readers and to do so for the good of humanity as a whole (as he understands its dubious prospects). He thus redoubles his efforts to expose the truth of Christianity, to reveal the genuine aims and ulterior motives of the priests, to tear away the veils and illusions that have shrouded the aggressively secular objectives of the church, and, thereby, to break the spell of Christian morality.
At the same time, however, he concedes that much of what he aims to disclose to his best readers is already known to them (A 38). If he is to exert the desired influence on them, he also will need to disclose their ongoing complicity (and the benefits thereof) in the Christianity they profess to oppose. In other words, they must be made conscious of their failure thus far to mobilize fully the insights they already possess. Unimpressed by the low-hanging fruit plucked by village atheists and other self-satisfied champions of Enlightenment, Nietzsche wishes to expose the source of the lingering attraction of Christianity for those who should (and do) “know better” (A 38).
We might say, then, that Nietzsche is involved in a project of radical enlightenment, wherein the penetrating light of reason is trained, finally, on the very cultural institutions—most notably, religion and science—that have vouchsafed its authority thus far (Owen 2007: 55–59; Franco 2011: 203–16). As Horkheimer and Adorno acknowledged in their own idiom, the project of European Enlightenment finally must be called to account for the shadows it casts, even as it sheds welcome light on various institutions and other forms of cultural order. Ideally, as we shall see, this project of intensive self-examination will be reproduced on a personal level in those bold readers whom Nietzsche encourages to tell the truth about their ongoing investments in the Christianity they are pledged to oppose. Just as late modern European culture is obliged, finally, to acknowledge its unscientific faith in the redemptive power of truth (GM III: 27), so the intrepid anti-Christians who propose to lead this effort must interrogate (and eventually mobilize) their nonnegotiable stake in the authority of Christianity itself (Conway 2015: 240–48).
Hence the irony of the emphasis he so heavily lays on the supposedly exquisite timing of the “curse” he dares to pronounce on Christianity. A prepublication casualty of his sudden slide into madness, The Antichrist did not appear in print at the appointed time. As a result, the self-avowed harvester failed to arrive on schedule. Finally published in 1895, A saw the light of day a full thirteen years earlier than the book that was supposed to cultivate for it the sympathetic audience that Nietzsche believed it needed. Never having received his plea to “behold the man” responsible for pronouncing a “curse” on Christianity, his best readers may have mistaken him for someone else (EH “Preface” 1). Some may have pronounced him “holy” and hailed him as the founder of a new religion (EH “Destiny” 1). As the new century dawned, neither the author of The Antichrist nor the document he intended as its introduction was available to curious and confused readers.
In addition to landing prior to its intended introduction, The Antichrist arrived several years later than expected. Did it arrive too late to accomplish its task? Had his best readers become reconciled in the meantime to the “indecent” misalignment of their words and deeds? In light of Nietzsche’s own emphasis on the timing of the intervention he intended to stage, it would seem that we must either call into question his knack for determining (and exploiting) the kairos or judge The Antichrist to be a late-born (and perhaps obsolete) manifesto.
4 Righteous disgust
The decisive transition to be found in The Antichrist occurs in Sections 37–39. In the first of these sections, Nietzsche flatters his target readership, including them in his “we” and addressing them as the “free spirits” they take themselves to be. In Section 38, he lays out the rhetorical challenges he faces in disclosing the truth of Christian morality. According to him, “everyone” already knows what he wishes to convey, which means that he somehow must disrupt the false consciousness that grips his best readers. In Section 39, he promises (and begins to deliver) the genealogical account that is intended to meet the challenges he outlines in the previous section. If The Antichrist is to be judged a success on the terms Nietzsche prefers, he must identify correctly the challenges he faces while also providing his best readers with a compelling alternative account of “the genuine history of Christianity” (A 39).
Nietzsche begins The Antichrist 38 with a “sigh” (Seufzer), which not only signals his digression from the main narrative, but also diverts the reader’s attention to the suddenly lively (= embodied) expression of his response to the decadence that besets his epoch. Having made his case discursively, he now offers his readers a complementary glimpse, in real time, of how he actually feels about his contemporaries. We already know that they suffer from an unfortunate misalignment of words and deeds; we now learn how this misalignment affects Nietzsche, and how it may yet affect his best readers.
The timing of this digression is also important, for it immediately follows a rousing celebration of the “liberation” achieved by his best readers, who, he crows, have “restored” the venerable contrast between “noble” values and “Christian” values (A 37).6 Having honored them as the “free spirits” they take themselves to be, Nietzsche turns now to conduct a sober reckoning of the limits of the freedom his best readers have attained thus far. As we have seen, the point of this digression is to inform his best readers, albeit indirectly, of the extent to which they are not yet free from the Christian morality they mean to oppose. As it turns out, in fact, they belong as yet only provisionally to the “we” in which Nietzsche has enrolled them.
Reprising a theme that is well known to readers of his Zarathustra, Nietzsche admits his “contempt for humanity” (Menschen-Verachtung), which, he now explains, is inflamed by the persistent obtuseness of his contemporaries (A 38). On occasion, he confides, he even “despises [verachte] the man of today” (A 38). (His faithful readers will note that contempt (Verachtung) is the signature, reflexive response of those nobles who find themselves in uncomfortably close proximity to those who are merely and permanently schlecht (GM I: 10).) Although he is able to tolerate (with “bleak caution”) the madness of bygone epochs, the continuation of this madness into late modernity threatens to exhaust his stores of “generous self-restraint” (A 38). Referring obliquely to the epoch-defining “event” of the death of God, he complains to his best readers that
our age knows better. . . . What used to be just sickness is indecency today—it is indecent to be a Christian these days. And this is where my disgust [Ekel] begins. (A 38)
We thus learn that the liberation celebrated in the previous section is not without its burdens. In Nietzsche’s own case, as his best readers now know, the liberation he (presumptively) honors in them has opened him to a potentially dispiriting welter of negative experiences. Although he has freed himself from the toxic influence of Christian morality, he is not free from the indirect effects of its influence on others. To possess the truth about Christianity, in an epoch that stubbornly refuses to acknowledge this truth, means that one eventually will be disgusted by one’s epoch and contemptuous of one’s contemporaries.
Nietzsche’s intention here is to prepare his best readers for the bouts of disgust they are likely to endure if they continue along the path he has traveled. If his best readers are like him, they may become distracted or diminished by their feelings of disgust. In that event, they may find themselves in danger of losing heart and hope, which he (and they) cannot allow to happen. Hence the renewed emphasis in this section on the “we” that Nietzsche is determined to build, a “we” to which his best readers as yet belong only provisionally. As is often the case in his post-Zarathustran writings, a disclosure on his part yields an acknowledgment of his vulnerability more generally and of his dependence on the specific “we” he means to cultivate. He needs his best readers, and his recognition of this need is integral to his rhetorical aims in The Antichrist.
Nietzsche’s confession of disgust also links his task in The Antichrist to themes that are already familiar to his best readers. In Z, we recall, the central character traces his debilitating “disgust with humankind” to his consideration of (what he takes to be) the negligible differences separating the “greatest” from the “smallest” human beings (Z III: 13.2).7 In GM, a book in which Nietzsche is similarly concerned to rally his best readers, he also confesses his disgust. Having earlier warned his best readers of the “great disgust” that was “bound to grow out of” the ascetic ideal (GM II: 24), he confirms to them, while calling them his “friends,” that “the great disgust at humankind” counts (along with “the great pity for humankind”) as “one of the two worst contagions that may be reserved just for [them]” (GM III: 14; cf. EH “Destiny” 6). The context of this passage in GM also bears noting, for it appears just as Nietzsche is set to reveal his profile of the ascetic priest, whom he proceeds to identify, somewhat surprisingly, as a kindred agent in the service of life (GM III: 16). As is the case in The Antichrist, that is, Nietzsche warns of the threat posed by disgust as he prepares to reveal to his best readers that a presumed opposition on their part in fact betokens an unacknowledged alliance.
But Nietzsche does not simply confess (or report) his past lapses into disgust, as if these experiences were somehow removed from or unrelated to his aims in The Antichrist. Upon considering various contemporary types whose “indecency” sickens him, he proceeds to indulge his disgust, in real time, working himself into a lather that some readers may find inappropriate or even disturbing. Although it may be the case that “Nietzsche is at his best when he manages to restrain himself,” as Kaufmann opines with respect to The Antichrist (1982: 567), Nietzsche also may have good reason on occasion not to restrain himself, especially if he suspects that his self-restraint may reinforce the false consciousness—and, so, the arrested development—of his best readers.
Gudrun von Tevenar has drawn welcome attention to the distinctly positive valence assigned by Nietzsche to those experiences of disgust that may be traced to
sights and smells of bodily corruption, disease, putrefaction, and similar, to which we tend to react instantly with revulsion, aversion, and loathing, usually accompanied by violent bodily spasms like vomiting, shuddering, or turning away. These entirely instinctive reactions of Ekel are positive because they (1) signal danger and (2) protect us by either distancing us from or vehemently ejecting the offending items. (2013: 278–79)
Building on Tevenar’s analysis, I wish to claim that Nietzsche’s seemingly gratuitous expression of disgust, in excess of his more restrained confession of disgust, is actually central to his overall rhetorical strategy in The Antichrist.8 That is, he is determined not simply to prescribe a therapeutic regimen that involves the expression of righteous disgust, but also to model it to his best readers. As they in turn endure bouts of disgust like those he has confessed to them, they will know (or be reminded) that he already has traveled the path they now tread. In time, his motto may become theirs as well: “Only my sickness brought me to reason” (EH “clever” 2).
Nietzsche’s expression of disgust in this section of The Antichrist also reinforces his efforts to induce in his readers an experience of bodily transformation. As we have seen, he is not content in this book simply to reveal the truth of Christianity, as if his best readers were simply ignorant or ill informed. He also intends for his disclosure to catalyze in his readers a transformation of the ways in which they experience (and, so, enact) their ongoing implication in Christian morality. The transformation in question is meant to involve a reorganization of the instincts, a recalibration of the affects, and a reorientation of the body to the mortal rhythms of its earthly existence.9 As we also have seen, Nietzsche’s plan for inducing in his readers the prescribed transformation is to model it to them (Tevenar 2013: 277–79), thereby encouraging them to follow his lead in expressing the disgust they otherwise might only report. Indeed, the uneven tempo of his prose in this section of The Antichrist, especially as “his rhetoric gets out of hand” (Kaufmann 1982: 567), is largely attributable to his determination to perform this divided office.
In recommending that his best readers indulge their disgust, Nietzsche also invites them to discover who they really are, independent of who they may think they are. This is possible, or so he believes, inasmuch as expressions of disgust have the effect of temporarily dispersing the fog of false consciousness. When enacted as a fully engaged corporeal response, disgust is revelatory (to oneself and others) of the deepest, most stable stratum of one’s character (Tevenar 2013: 278). In this respect, Nietzsche’s expression of disgust presents his best readers with a test or measure of their authenticity. If they, too, were to indulge their feelings of disgust, they would be likely to regain access to the noble (or nobility-friendly) stratum of their character, which, Nietzsche suggests, is impervious to the false consciousness produced by Christian morality. If they experience no disgust, or if they decline to express the disgust they experience, then they are not likely to be the readers and companions he seeks. The Antichrist, as we know, is by no means a book “for all.” Only those who indulge their disgust and, subsequently, convert their disgust into shame, will reveal themselves as Nietzsche’s best readers, that is, those who will join him in determining a new direction for the development of humankind (A 3).
5 Revenant virtues
It is no accident that Nietzsche’s expression of disgust in this section of The Antichrist leads him to invoke—and, so, to name—the virtues that account for his visceral aversion to the misalignments enacted by his contemporaries. Rather than simply rail against the “indecency” of his contemporaries, he fleshes out what he takes to be the signal traits and characteristics of those in whom righteous disgust may become productive. As he does so, he builds a compelling profile of the kind of person whom his best readers should (and perhaps will) wish to become. As this profile rounds into view, the virtues Nietzsche invokes in this section suggest the presence in him of a sturdy bulwark, heretofore neglected, against the machinations of the priests.
It will come as no surprise to Nietzsche’s faithful readers that the virtues his disgust prompts him to cite bear a strong family resemblance to the old-fashioned virtues traditionally associated with nobility (Solomon 2003: 147–58). As it turns out, in fact, these old-fashioned virtues have not been extinguished after all, despite the best efforts of the priests and their minions. As the case of Nietzsche is meant to confirm, moreover, these virtues are subject to recall by those among his readers who are willing to indulge their disgust. By expressing his own disgust, Nietzsche thus models to his best readers the therapeutic process of retrieval that allowed him to become, and enables him to remain, what he is. In this respect, the experience of disgust is presented as distinctly positive (if disruptive), but only in the event that his best readers are able to endure its cathartic spasms without losing heart. In (or as a result of) their own expressions of disgust, he believes, they may come into full, secure possession of those virtues that are indicative of their resurgent nobility.
Let us turn, briefly, to consider four of the virtues to which Nietzsche’s expression of disgust confirms a renewed allegiance:
Decency (Anstand): “What was formerly just sick is today indecent [unanständig]—it is indecent to be a Christian today. And here begins my disgust [Ekel]” (A 38).10 Nietzsche’s implication here is that he would not feel the disgust he expresses if he were not predisposed to the value of decency.11 Only the (potentially) decent among us would object as he does to the indecency of those who continue to identify (and confess) themselves as Christians. We should bear in mind, moreover, that those whom Nietzsche decries as indecent are among the best the late modern epoch has produced, “anti-Christians through and through in their deeds” (A 38).12 Nevertheless, he is disgusted by the misalignment of their false consciousness with the resurgent nobility they display. In other words, the virtue of decency is closely associated with the aspiration to pursue an appropriate alignment of one’s words and deeds (Jaspers 1965: 386–95).
Integrity (or Rectitude) (Rechtschaffenheit): “If we have even the slightest claim to integrity, we must know today that a theologian, a priest, a pope, not merely is wrong in every sentence he speaks, but lies—that he is no longer at liberty to lie from ‘innocence’ or ‘ignorance.’ The priest too knows as well as anyone that there is no longer any ‘God’” (A 38).13 In the aftermath of the death of God, Nietzsche suggests, integrity has emerged once again as a core virtue. Integrity is a virtue possessed (and expressed) by those scholars who not only expose erroneous teachings, but also object to the morality of the priestly types who traffic in prevarications. As such, the virtue of integrity attests to an expectation (and subsequent demand) that the late modern epoch will acknowledge the nonnegotiable reality of its post-theistic setting, in which priestly lies and fables have no place.
Seriousness (Ernst): “Seriousness, the profound self-overcoming [Selbstüberwindung] of the spirit, no longer permits anybody not to know this” (A 38). Here Nietzsche indicates what he confirms elsewhere—namely, that the seriousness to which he proudly lays claim is a byproduct of the historical ascendancy of the (science-friendly) regime of “Christian truthfulness” (GM III: 27). Owing to the recent (and improbable) merger of science and religion, seriousness has become a moral virtue. To be serious, he implies, is to see the world not as one wishes or needs to see it, but as modern science demands that it be seen. The only credible way forward, Nietzsche insists, is to understand who we are (and have become) and where we stand. Whether we like it or not, the crescent influence of science, and especially of scientific rigor, obliges us to renounce the lies that are the priest’s stock in trade. Here we might note, moreover, that Nietzsche elsewhere presents seriousness as productive of cheerfulness (Heiterkeit) (GM P7), which, we know, characterizes his reception thus far of the death of God (GS 343).
Self-respect (Achtung vor sich selbst): “Everybody knows [weiss] this, and yet everything continues as before. Where has the last feeling of decency and self-respect gone when even our statesmen . . . call themselves Christians today and attend communion?” (A 38). This passage suggests that feelings of decency and self-respect oblige one (and, so, motivate one) to pursue ever more perfect alignments of one’s words and deeds. It is this pursuit of alignment that we may associate more generally with the positive value attached to a life of authenticity (Solomon 2003: 142–44).
As we know from BGE, Nietzsche regards self-respect—or, as he puts it there, self-reverence (Ehrfurcht vor sich) (BGE 287)—as perhaps the single most reliable index of a “noble soul.”14 This characterization of self-respect is especially relevant in those epochs, like late modernity, in which the material conditions (and trappings) of nobility have largely disappeared from view. In the twilight epoch of late modernity, Nietzsche thus suggests, “noble souls” are known only through the alignment of their words and deeds, which may mean that they are known only to one another. (Here we may think of his recently established epistolary friendships with Georg Brandes and August Strindberg.) Although these (noble souls) need not fear material loss or social reproach if they lapse into misalignment, their reverence for themselves prevents them from adopting habits of thought and speech that are inimical to the nobility of their reclaimed way of life.
Several points are worth noting about these virtues. First of all, the virtues named in this section are distinctly moral virtues. Or, at any rate, they formerly were recognized as such, before Christian morality claimed the mantle of the one true morality. Challenging this claim, and doing so in the name of “Christian truthfulness,” Nietzsche wishes to demonstrate that a rival morality, a noble morality, has survived the otherwise totalizing onslaught conducted by the regime of “Christian morality.” While it is true that the noble morality is in retreat, unacknowledged even by those whose misaligned exploits it silently directs, it remains alive and (reasonably) well, gathering itself for the sudden and violent upsurge that Nietzsche elsewhere predicts (GM I: 17).
Second, Nietzsche’s aim in The Antichrist is not to claim (or pretend) to stand beyond morality, as he is often understood to mean, but to deliver a moral indictment of the fading regime of “Christian morality.” As I have suggested elsewhere, Nietzsche’s attack on morality is prosecuted as an internecine affair, with the intent of delivering a moral critique of Christian morality (Conway 2014a: 288–97). In mounting this critique, he appeals to the authority of old-fashioned, noble virtues, especially as these virtues have been reinvigorated of late within the truth-seeking enterprise of modern science. Notwithstanding his various criticisms of contemporary science, that is, Nietzsche regards its animating will to truth as the most reliable vehicle available to him for his campaign to restore the beleaguered noble morality (GM III: 24; GS 344).
Here, too, Nietzsche rests his case on the timeliness of the challenge he forwards. In the aftermath of the death of God, the regime of “Christian morality” no longer enjoys the luxury of an unimpeachable claim to cultural authority. Citing the inexorable progress of the “law of life,” he explains that the (fading) regime of “Christian morality” is now ripe for displacement by the (ascendant) regime of “Christian truthfulness” (GM III: 27). Although it may be somewhat confusing to speak of issuing a moral challenge to the authority of Christian morality,15 this is precisely what Nietzsche is up to in The Antichrist. He launches his critique and hurls his “curse” from a standpoint beyond (or outside) the ambit of “Christian morality,” but not from a standpoint beyond (or outside) morality itself.16 In doing so, as we have seen, he avails himself of the moral authority resident within the regime of “Christian truthfulness,” wherein the virtues of decency, integrity, seriousness, and self-respect are grounded in the pursuit of truth (Conway 2014a: 302–09; Conway 2014b: 202–09). According to him, the discredited regime of “Christian morality” is now known to be immoral, owing primarily to its excessive reliance on the kinds of falsehoods and fabrications that “Christian truthfulness” expressly denounces. In short, Nietzsche’s morality, on the strength of which he condemns the immoral regime of “Christian morality,” is a historically specific, science-friendly morality, in which the virtues he cites are cultivated, practiced, recognized, and rewarded.
Hence the upshot of Nietzsche’s disgust-fueled rant in this section: even in the twilight epoch of late modernity, a noble way of life is viable. Not to be confused with the knightly warriors of old, Nietzsche and his mates are better known by the designation he reserves for them: Versucher, intrepid researchers and scholars, daredevils of truth (BGE 42). According to Nietzsche, this is precisely what the times demand. Under the aegis of the regime of “Christian truthfulness,” which sponsors their pursuit of the truth, they will attain the greatest expression (and feeling) of freedom that is available to them.
We thus have an answer, the answer we expected all along, to the rhetorical question Nietzsche raised at the conclusion of Essay I of GM: no, this is not the end of “the greatest of all conflicts of ideals,” the conflict between the noble morality (or “Rome”) and the slave morality (or “Judea”). The “ancient fire” may yet roar once again, perhaps even “much more terribly, after long preparation” than ever before (GM I: 17).
6 Conclusion
Nietzsche is not content simply to encourage his best readers to indulge the disgust aroused in them by the indecency of their misaligned contemporaries. Whereas expressions of disgust may disclose the virtue-laden stratum of one’s authentic self, they are not sufficient in their own right to liberate this self and its would-be bearer from the fog of false consciousness. Nietzsche’s ultimate objective in The Antichrist is to encourage his best readers to redirect their righteous disgust toward themselves, in the potentially liberating form and expression of shame.
His point here, apparently, is that simply indulging one’s disgust with one’s contemporaries is a surefire way of remaining tied to them, as if their shortcomings were required as proof of one’s (comparative) claims to nobility. Those who express their disgust with their late modern contemporaries may seize the moral high ground (and congratulate themselves for having done so), but they risk becoming satisfied with this minor victory. For those disgusted parties who become inured to the attendant feelings of (slight) superiority, the experience of disgust may be symptomatic not of their progress toward liberation, but of the persistence (or permanence) of their misalignment, to which they are in danger of resigning themselves. For Nietzsche, the point of indulging one’s feelings of disgust is not to secure a minor comparative advantage over insignificant others, especially if one thereby acquires an incentive to persist indefinitely in the enjoyment of this advantage, but to be free of one’s contemporaries, to need no longer to compare oneself to them.
This is why the next step, the recommended conversion of disgust into shame, is so important to Nietzsche’s rhetorical aims in The Antichrist. If he can induce shame in his best readers, or so he believes, he will have advanced them along the path to becoming the “free spirits” they already believe themselves to be.
While shame itself cannot be considered a virtue (much less a revenant virtue), Nietzsche suggests that his best readers are distinguished, potentially, by their capacity to feel shame and to be moved by such feelings to improve themselves (Cavell 1990: 50–57; Conway 1998: 297–306). As he explains, the realization that his best readers remain dependent on a consciousness polluted by Christian morality is likely to occasion in them a potentially liberating shudder of shame:
Every practice of every moment, every instinct, every valuation that is translated into a deed is today anti-Christian: what a miscarriage of falseness must modern man be that he is not ashamed [schämt] to be called a Christian in spite of all this! (A 38)
With this sentence, which concludes the section under consideration, we finally glean the psychological insight that drives Nietzsche’s rhetorical strategy in The Antichrist. Appealing to a select group of readers in whom he may reasonably expect to arouse feelings of righteous disgust, he reveals the truth of their ongoing (but heretofore unacknowledged) investments in the discredited regime of “Christian morality.” Although his best readers take themselves to be opponents of Christian morality, and free spirits to boot, this is not yet the full truth of their existence. While their deeds reflect a principled resistance (and alternative) to Christian values, their words and thoughts do not. According to Nietzsche, the condition that triggers their disgust, a condition they have acknowledged thus far only in others, is one in which they in fact share. Unbeknownst to them, they too think and speak of their presumed opposition to Christian morality in terms that actually presuppose—and, so, confirm—its continued authority. In short, Nietzsche wishes to reveal to his best readers that they, too, suffer from a disgust-inducing misalignment of words and deeds. The point of this exercise is to encourage them to convert their feelings of disgust, which are typically other-directed, into feelings of shame, which are typically self-directed (Cavell 1990: 46–57; Conway 1998: 301–07).
Although he does not say so explicitly, Nietzsche apparently believes that feelings of shame are potentially liberating only in the event that they arise in response to sincere gestures of self-reproach. Rather than directly humiliate his best readers, which would be relatively simple for him to accomplish, Nietzsche opts instead to prompt his best readers to reproach themselves. As we have seen, he has no trouble shaming those among his contemporaries whom he treats as third parties, precisely because he does not consider them ripe subjects for self-reproach and the liberation it promises. (That they are not the least bit ashamed of their hypocrisy is perhaps sufficient proof of the wisdom of Nietzsche’s decision to focus his efforts more selectively.)
If he were to shame his best readers, those who stand to gain from the intensive regimen of self-examination he associates with the “revaluation of all values,” he would risk encroaching upon, and perhaps contaminating, the space in which they must decide for themselves that their current lives are as yet unworthy of the nobility to which they aspire. Engaging in direct efforts to shame his best readers would be more likely to stall their development than to contribute to their eventual liberation. The most he can do is to prod them to see themselves in those misaligned third parties—for example, the “judge,” the “soldier,” and the “patriot” (A 38)—who trigger their righteous disgust.
The intimate relationship between disgust and shame is central to Nietzsche’s rhetorical aims in sections 38–39 of The Antichrist. If his best readers may be made to feel something like his disgust with his (and their) underperforming contemporaries, thereby proving themselves in the process to be his best readers, they subsequently may be encouraged (or trained) to express their disgust productively, as shame. Motivated by their experience of shame, or so he hopes, his best readers will finally divest themselves of their remaining attachments to the fading regime of “Christian morality.” Only in doing so will they become what they are—namely, the “anti-Christians” whom he addresses (and cajoles) throughout the text of The Antichrist.
Notes
1 Translated by Whitlock in Montinari 2003: 109.
2 Nietzsche makes a similar claim about himself in EH “Destiny” 1.
3 On the importance Nietzsche attaches to the timing of his intervention, see Shapiro’s contribution to this volume.
4 For an extended analysis of Nietzsche’s reference(s) to the “death of God,” see Hatab’s contribution to this volume.
5 For an illuminating discussion of Nietzsche’s reliance on the language and imagery of “accelerationism,” see Shapiro’s contribution to this volume.
6 Here I follow Sommer 2013: 184–85.
7 My interest in Nietzsche’s expression of disgust in this section was piqued by a fascinating lecture presented by Gudrun von Tevenar on the topic of Ekel (Southampton 2010). My interpretation here of the positive (i.e., cathartic, clarifying) properties of Ekel is both generally and substantially indebted to her lecture.
8 For a summary statement of the case against the productive use or repurposing of disgust, see Nussbaum 2004: 99–107.
9 For an elaboration of the political implications of the transformation Nietzsche means to induce in his best readers, see Strong’s contribution to this volume.
10 See Sommer 2013: 187.
11 In Ecce Homo, Nietzsche introduces himself as “the first decent human being” (EH “Destiny” 1).
12 See Sommer 2013: 13–14.
13 See Sommer 2013: 71–72. See also the contributions to this volume by Loeb, 93–98; and Shapiro 247–49.
14 As Nietzsche elaborates, “It is not the works, it is the faith that is decisive here, that determines the order of rank—to take up again an ancient religious formula in a new and more profound sense: some fundamental certainty that a noble soul has about itself, something that cannot be sought, nor found, nor perhaps lost” (BGE 287).
15 Something like Bernard Williams’s distinction between ethics and morality, which may in fact be of Nietzschean provenance, may be useful here (1985: 174–96). Williams regards morality as a “special system” (1985: 174), that is, a wayward, overly theoretical, obligation-freighted offshoot of the more general enterprise of effectively organizing (and husbanding) the precious resources of ethical life. Like Nietzsche, Williams urges his readers to reject the unrealizable demands of morality in favor of a more traditional, if less distinct, approach to ethics. Like Nietzsche, that is, Williams seeks to displace a monistic (or monopolistic) approach to ethical life with a pluralistic appreciation for many, equally valuable approaches to the organization of ethical life.
16 For a complementary account of the virtues associated with the project of revaluation, see Owen’s contribution to this volume. For a cogent theoretical defense of the morality to which Nietzsche appeals in The Antichrist, see Katsafanas 2018: 85–96.
Works cited
Cavell, S. (1990), Conditions Handsome and Unhandsome: The Constitution of Emersonian Perfectionism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Conway, D. (1998), “Love’s Labour’s Lost: The Philosopher’s Versucherkunst,” in S. Kemal, I. Gaskell, and D. Conway (eds.), Nietzsche, Philosophy and the Arts, 287–309, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Conway, D. (2010), “Life After the Death of God: Thus Spoke Nietzsche,” in A. Schrift and D. Conway (eds.), The History of Continental Philosophy, Volume II, 103–38, London: Acumen Publishing.
Conway, D. (2014a), “We Who Are Different, We Immoralists,” in M. Knoll and B. Stocker (eds.), Nietzsche’s Political Theory, 287–311, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
Conway, D. (2014b), “Nietzsche’s Immoralism and the Advent of ‘Great Politics’,” in K. Ansell-Pearson (ed.), Nietzsche and Political Thought, 197–217. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Conway, D. (2015), “Almost Everything is Permitted: Nietzsche’s Not-So-Free Spirits,” in R. Bamford (ed.), Nietzsche’s Free Spirit Philosophy, 233–52, London: Rowman & Littlefield International.
Franco, P. (2011), Nietzsche’s Enlightenment: The Free-Spirit Trilogy of the Middle Period. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Janaway, C. (2007), Beyond Selflessness: Reading Nietzsche’s Genealogy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Jaspers, K. (1965), Nietzsche: An Introduction to the Understanding of his Philosophical Activity, C. Wallraff and F. Schmitz (trans.). South Bend, IN: Regnery/Gateway.
Katsafanas, P. (2018), “The Antichrist as a Guide to Nietzsche’s Mature Ethical Theory,” in P. Katsafanas (ed.), The Nietzschean Mind, 83–102. London: Routledge.
Kaufmann, W. (1982), The Portable Nietzsche, W. Kaufmann (ed. and trans.). New York: Viking Penguin.
Montinari, M. (2003), Reading Nietzsche, G. Whitlock (trans.). Champaign-Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Nietzsche, F. (1980), Sämtliche Werke: Kritische Studienausgabe in 15 Bänden, eds. G. Colli and M. Montinari. Berlin: dtv/de Gruyter.
Nietzsche, F. (1986), Sämtliche Briefe: Kritische Studienausgabe in 8 Bänden, eds. G. Colli and M. Montinari. Berlin: dtv/de Gruyter.
Nietzsche, F. (1974), The Gay Science, W. Kaufmann (trans.). New York: Random House/Vintage Books.
Nietzsche, F. (1982a), The Antichrist, in W. Kaufmann (ed. and trans.), The Portable Nietzsche, 565–656, New York: Viking Penguin.
Nietzsche, F. (1982b), Twilight of the Idols, in W. Kaufmann (ed. and trans.), The Portable Nietzsche, 463–563, New York: Viking Penguin.
Nietzsche, F. (1989a), Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future, W. Kaufmann (trans.). New York: Random House/Vintage Books.
Nietzsche, F. (1989b). On the Genealogy of Morals, W. Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale (trans.). 3–163 and Ecce Homo, W. Kaufmann (trans.), 201–335, New York: Random House/Vintage Books.
Nussbaum, M. (2004), Hiding from Humanity: Disgust, Shame, and the Law. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Owen, D. (2007), Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morality. Stocksfield: Acumen Publishing.
Pippin, R. (2010), Nietzsche, Psychology, & First Philosophy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Shapiro, G. (2016), Nietzsche’s Earth: Great Events, Great Politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Solomon, R. (2003), Living with Nietzsche: What the Great “Immoralist” Has to Teach Us. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sommer, A. (2013), Kommentar zu Nietzsches Der Antichrist, Ecce Homo, Dionysus-Dithyramben, Nietzsche contra Wagner. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
Strong, T. (2001), Friedrich Nietzsche and the Politics of Transfiguration, third edition. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press.
von Tevenar, G. (2013), “Zarathustra: ‘That Malicious Dionysian’,” in K. Gemes and J. Richardson (eds.), The Oxford Handbook to Nietzsche, 277–79, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Williams, B. (1985), Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.