Scholarship and Sublimation: Walter Kaufmann s Nietzsche Monograph Considered. David Pickus. RenMin University, Beijing.

Transcription

1 Scholarship and Sublimation: Walter Kaufmann s Nietzsche Monograph Considered David Pickus RenMin University, Beijing Not for Citation In 1950 a young scholar, less than thirty years old, published a monograph on Nietzsche that all agree marked a turning point in the history of Nietzsche scholarship in the English-speaking world. Yet, the agreement does not extend much further. Exactly how this book marked a turning point, or what this transformation signified, then or now, is much less clear. A common opinion is that Nietzsche because of associations with German militarism, and perhaps just Germany in general, had gone into eclipse and lost prestige among academics and the reading public alike. A glance at Anglo-American attitudes toward Germany shows that here is some measure of truth to this. An intangible, but still visible, casualty of World War I was a tolerance for cosmopolitan intellectualism. As the US entered the war in 1917, there were numerous cases of mobs forming against German immigrants, and even, to a degree, against German culture (burning German books, etc.). Intellectuals were not immune to this, and just as, say, Thomas Mann contributed to the German war effort by disparaging a British spirit, so too Englishspeaking scholars condemned Nietzsche as part of a larger regress to barbarism. The fact that Nietzsche was indeed instrumentalized this way by German governments only served to deepen the feeling hardening against him. 1

2 Yet, before we jump to the conclusion that Walter Kaufmann ( )-for that is who this young scholar was returned Nietzsche to academic respectability, or perhaps lent him this respectability altogether, we should bear in mind that Nietzsche never entirely dropped out intellectual favor, and the fact that, in 1950, a monograph on him enjoyed a fairly high degree of acclaim does not in itself mean that that the contents of the book itself did much to influence opinions about Nietzsche. It could very well be the case that the book appeared at the right moment to help make the name Nietzsche academically fashionable. Hence, it could acquire its reputation based on what it signified, and its actual contents, while neither obscure nor concealed, were scantly regarded, and did little to influence attitudes or shape debate. Indeed, this is stance I shall take. Walter Kaufmann s 1950 monograph, Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist (Princeton University Press)was popular enough to go through three subsequent editions (1956, 1968, 1974), but there are no Kaufmann schools of Nietzsche interpretation. References to him by other academics either tend to be part of literature reviews, or are depreciating, and sometimes even hostile in tone. Concomitantly, while Kaufmann s work as a translator of Nietzsche is sometimes praised or criticized, to the best of my knowledge, no significant work of Nietzsche scholarship takes extended notice of the fact that Kaufmann was a philosopher in his own right, with his own distinctive worldview. Thus, it is true that Kaufmann s work on Nietzsche marked an epoch, but perhaps anyone who wrote on Nietzsche in the post WWII era would have marked an epoch? Somebody had to signal that from this point onward, Nietzsche would receive reverent scholarly attention in English speaking lands, even if reverent does not necessarily mean endorsing or admiring. None of this would much matter if Nietzsche today was no longer a figure of significance, and if Kaufmann s interpretations of him offered little in the way of originality or insight. However, 2

3 neither is true, at least in my eyes. To show this I would like to briefly argue three points. First, that Kaufmann s treatment of Nietzsche is philosophically meaningful. It identifies topics in Nietzsche that deserve to remain on the intellectual agenda. Second, that the best way to understand why Kaufmann s Nietzsche interpretation is meaningful is to place it in the context of a larger intellectual tradition. And, third, that looking at Nietzsche through Kaufmann s eyes will enrich our discussion of what Nietzsche has to offer readers in the present day. In fact, Kaufmann s interpretation will make Nietzsche more existential by causing us to read him with an eye toward what his thought says about ourselves. Sublimation: The Crux of Kaufmann s Interpretation As of 2016 Kaufmann s monograph is only one of dozens of English language introductions to Nietzsche and his works. Indeed, from this perspective, Kaufmann s book is now antiquated. Despite this, it remains valuable in two areas where (I feel) Nietzsche scholarship easily remains spotty and sometimes even inadequate. The first is, as Kaufmann put it, Nietzsche s life as a background to his work. Kaufmann provided his readers a thorough and detailed biographical overview, making it possible to have one s facts straight in making judgments about the relationship between Nietzsche s life and works. Second, Kaufmann described Nietzsche s thought as developing, and charted out its progression. While these chapters are somewhat plodding, and likely reveal this monograph originally started out as Kaufmann s dissertation, their cumulative impact dissuades the reader from essentializing Nietzsche (e.g., defining him by searching for an appropriate label: post-modernist, a metaphysician, a reactionary, etc.). Instead, labels undoubtedly must be accurate, but, following this approach, to characterize Nietzsche we must understand how he grew and changed. 3

4 Yet, Kaufmann is misunderstood if we see these parts of the book as anything but preparatory. Perhaps because this preparatory took up a formidable two hundred pages out of a book of over four hundred pages it may be easy to overlook this. Yet, if cast our glance wider we see that the final parts of Kaufmann s work not only idiosyncratic, offering an interpretation that finds little direct echo in the literature, they also take a forceful stand about what one should take from Nietzsche. Hence, these pages interpret Nietzsche existentially, not in the sense of using the technical terminology of existentialist philosophizing, but in the sense that reading Nietzsche is to be a call to change our lives. They key to this interpretation is sublimation, a term that Kaufmann acknowledged was little used by Nietzsche himself. Instead, Kaufmann, in a more mainstream fashion, used the notion of the will to power as an explanatory key, and then argued that the meaning of this term was to be found in sublimation. A short quotation he used to introduce his ideas on sublimation provides an overview of his thoughts as a whole I assess the power of a will by how much resistance, pain, and torture it endures and knows how to turn to its advantage.--wm 382 (1888). It for this reason that Kaufmann insisted that, while Freud made the notion of sublimation famous, and Goethe and other luminaries used it, it was Nietzsche who first gave it the specific connotation it has today. (p. 219) Hence, Nietzsche, for Kaufmann, is a kind of hinge in modern thinking, particularly modern German thinking. He took various conceptions of sublimation, sharpened and deepened them into a will to power, and then offered it as a new moral system to the world. What, exactly, did Kaufmann think Nietzsche meant by sublimation? Broadly defined, it is some life of creativity, but he neither used the language of aesthetics, nor did he use some kind of utilitarian standard, e.g., artists can influence others; creative people can maximize their enjoyment of life, etc. Rather, he used a rather grand vocabulary of ontological interests. (p. 4

5 254) This concept, which he elaborated upon in his own philosophical works, particularly his 1958 Critique of Religion and Philosophy was not a passing fancy. It was important to him and he took pains to distinguish it from similar theological notions, which to him were fuzzier. Roughly, put ontological interests are the direction point of a person s best aspirations. But to know what Kaufmann made of this, and to see why such aspiration was so meaningful to him, it is best to quote Kaufmann s own words more fully. Thus, in the following passage he takes on a, then popular idea from John Dewey that people s capacity to value originates in our experience of want or privation: Contemporary discussions of value theory often take for granted that all our privations are due either to our bodily needs or to accidental individual experiences. It is overlooked that as human beings we have ideals of perfection which we generally find ourselves unable to attain. We recognize norms and standards of which we usually fall short; we long for a triumph over old age, suffering, and death; we yearn for perfection and immortality and seem incapable of fulfillment. We desire to be "as gods," but we cannot be so. (p. 255) The first layer of allusion is to Genesis, and the snake s words to Eve that if we only eat of forbidden fruit we shall be as gods. Ontological interest, therefore, is the human response to the fact that we do not live in paradise, and that human endeavor is invariably bound up with suffering and loss. We have an interest in not letting our ultimate defeat by forces of dissolution and destruction have, as it were, the final say in terms of valuation (though they get the final say in everything else). Sublimation is the method whereby we actualize these ontological interests. To grasp the extent that this aspiration is significant for Kaufmann, it is, again, best to quote his own words. Referencing the Symposium, he begins with the claim that, for Nietzsche, all nature was pervaded with an Eros he called the will to power, then he wrote: The acorn gives up its existence to become an oak tree and thus to become more powerful. The male insect sacrifices his life to beget offspring and thus to achieve a form of immortality. In the 5

6 Indian ascetics and the Christian martyrs Nietzsche finds the same yearning for another state of being. They all crave neither the preservation of their lives, nor merely freedom from something, nor even power as a means to accomplish some specific end: what they desire is power itself; another life, as it were, richer and stronger; a rebirth in beauty and perfection. (p. 255) If I may hazard a claim of my own, it is difficult to the point of impossibility to say whether this passage is Kaufmann reporting Nietzsche s views on the sublimation of the will to power, or expressing Kaufmann s own ideas on the subject. They flow together. Yet, we should not presume that Kaufmann s idea of sublimation means becoming an Indian ascetic, or an acorn. Instead, as he put it: In this life, Nietzsche thinks, some artists and philosophers come closest to this state of being, insofar as they may be able to give style to their characters, to organize the chaos of their passions, and to create a world of beauty here and now. (P. 255) We once more do not know if this is said to inform us what Nietzsche believes, or to put forward a view that Kaufmann finds particularly compelling. It may be that Kaufmann himself would not recognize any conflict at this point. What he would draw our attention to is the fact that most people do not give that elevated style to their characters. Thus, The weak, lacking the power for creation, would fain shroud their slave souls in a royal cloak and, unable to gain mastery of themselves, seek to conquer others. (p. 255) this, I propose, is the crux of Kaufmann s view of Nietzsche. It is true that he takes up a large number of other subjects, and argues them earnestly and at length. But he returns sooner or later to this general idea of sublimation, and I think it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that, for Kaufmann, the purpose of reading Nietzsche is to set us on the path where we thusly sublimate ourselves. Whose Path? If, in thinking it over, Nietzsche s ideas, as Kaufmann presented them, do not entirely sound like they are fully Nietzsche s, there is a reason for that. Kaufmann never presented Nietzsche as 6

7 standing alone, and it makes fullest sense to see his Nietzsche as being the crystallizer of an intellectual tradition. This tradition, as we saw with the reference to the Symposium, may have some roots in the classical past, but its fullest expression is found in a tradition of German letters that starts with Goethe. Indeed, of all the authors quoted by Kaufmann to make Nietzschean points, Goethe s is the name that appears the most often. To let two examples stand for all, Kaufmann introduces his discussion of sublimation by quoting the following words by Nietzsche: The Germans think that strength must reveal itself in hardness and cruelty; then they submit with fervor and admiration: they are suddenly rid of their pitiful weakness and their sensitivity for every naught, and they devoutly enjoy terror. That there is strength in mildness and stillness, they do not believe easily. They miss strength in Goethe. (p. 228). He also, with approval, quotes the following poem on overcoming: Denn alle Kraft dringt vorwärts in die Weite, Zu leben und zu wirken hier und dort; Dagegen engt und hemmt von jeder Seite Der Strom der Welt und reisst uns mit sich fort: In diesem innern Sturm und äussern Streite Vernimmt der Geist ein schwer verstanden Wort: Von der Gewalt, die alle Wesen bindet, Befreit der Mensch sich, der sich überwindet. In this context, it is not necessary to interpret this to clarify the message that is highlighted in it. The poem says that we are tossed and turned about by life the way objects in a storm are. Only the people who overcome, liberate themselves, or earn their freedom. Overcoming, in the poem, seems to connote both a sense of agency and potency. If you overcome, your actions are your own. There is a kind of integrity to your selfhood that you would not have if you were merely pushed and pulled about. Likewise, if you overcome, you actually affect and impact things. You 7

8 have that capacity, while, presumably, those who only cover their slave souls with a royal cloak do not. So how do you overcome? That is the point of an intellectual tradition. Various authors offer various iterations of it. This idea broached poetically by Goethe could be taken up more philosophically and formulaically by Hegel. The progress of his spirit is the progress of its selfovercoming. Indeed, Kaufmann called Hegel Germany s foremost philosopher of development (p. 329), and suggests (p. 332) that not only Goethe, but also Hegel would have approved of what Nietzsche made of the concept of development. Thus, Nietzsche follows in train, taking up aphoristically and finally (should one say finally?) Kaufmann could bring it into exile and give it an American idiom. In all cases, in this line of thinking one embarks with the explicit aim of making yourself into something higher. That is the purpose and pay off. And like other literary genealogies, once one finds oneself thinking along these lines, then previous authors in the tradition make sense as precursors. Naturally, one could dispute the presence of this tradition, or, more likely, one could simply not see the tradition as a tradition and thereby not really see Kaufmann. But that is precisely the point. If we overlook this tradition, or acknowledge it briefly, but say that it is obvious then Kaufmann does not appear very special to us. Thinking about this tradition directly allows us the opportunity to consider Kaufmann and ask what, if anything, he enables us to overcome. Conclusion: Another Life for Nietzsche? In this paper I have not said much about Kaufmann s biography. The issue is important, and I will raise it in the presentation. For now, I want to suggest that the last reason Kaufmann took up this approach to Nietzsche was because other scholars were not doing it. As it happened, 8

9 Kaufmann s work in his own day and age filled a niche. However, if we focus on the content and think about why he said it we are thrown more and more to what we can call existential reasons. Kaufmann himself seemed to live by or at least want to live by the ideals he saw Nietzsche carrying and perhaps purifying. Proof of this must wait for the full presentation, but if we accept for the sake of argument that Kaufmann bought what he wrote, and believed that he was purveying valuable instruction, we should consider the issue of whether he has found a way to make Nietzsche that much more meaningful to us in our own day and age. In my judgment, he did. I will conclude by suggesting two reasons why. First, there is an interesting line in a brief biographical sketch that Goethe wrote in Speaking about himself in the third person, Goethe wrote: He can tolerate whatever results from need, art and craft, yet he must avert his eyes when people act on instinct while pretending to have a purpose. (quoted in Peter Boerner, Goethe, p.2)the value of Kaufmann s Nietzsche is that it marshals his energies as a writer against that great enemy of humanity, self-deception. Goethe s point is that is that if you re somehow refining and directing your energy, you deserve some approbation, even if everything else deserves criticism. My sense is behind this lies the conviction (spelled out in Hegel) that that this directed work reveals you to yourself. But if you just give your inclinations some high sounding name, you never know who and what you are, making it easy for the outside world to stamp you with an identity of its own. Can we find an elaboration upon and thus a more thorough reinforcement of this idea in Nietzsche? My judgment is yes, and this is an opinion that should be tried out in scholarly conversation. But do we need to go there, as the slang has it? I think the answer is also yes. Indeed, my sense is that recent events heighten the need to see Nietzsche as an exponent of sublimation. It is a depressing and dangerous situation when politicians tell people that they have nothing in 9

10 themselves to overcome. The fact that some politicians do this in more spectacular ways than others should not blind to the fact of how widespread it is. Nor should the open contempt displayed by some politicians to the need for sublimation cause us to overlook the presence of more covert versions of this contempt in other fields, including scholarship. Kaufmann s Nietzsche invites us to take up the issue head on. We may decline the invitation, perhaps because we feel we ve already answered it in some other way. But broaching the matter is what Kaufmann did, and his invitation still stands. 10