Lupus Hesperiæ ☤

Simmel's reading is bound up with the dualism of individualism and holism that runs through the currents of 19th century thought. Nietzsche is an example of this, as is Simmel, who struggled with it throughout his career. This is what makes Simmel a transitional figure between 19th century developments and the thought that crystallises around the 1920s in thinkers such as Martin Heidegger and Hans Freyer. In Simmel's reading, Schopenhauer's need for redemption leads to the negation of life. Nietzsche too needs to satisfy a similar need, but what must be satisfied in his case is the infinite historical evolution of mankind. In this endless striving all values become relative, while qualities such as will, energy, nobility, greatness, and conviction remain largely constant. These qualities, in turn, are precisely those that drive evolution. For Nietzsche values are ultimately secondary to the process of life itself. Indeed, the qualities that constitute the process of evolution - insofar as they are the conditions or causes that drive mankind upwards - are independent of particular social formations, even if they can only be realised within them. Because these qualities manifest themselves in individuals, and because individuals are necessarily fated to live in society, Nietzsche favours great men above everything else, for they are the true creators of the good. It is the struggle of and between great men that leads to the growth of the whole. In this struggle, in the conflict between wills to power, one's ascent is always relative to that of others. The masses, being mediocre at best, cannot ascend or evolve at the same pace as that of great men. For life is the accumulation of force, and therefore also of distance. Those who are composed of "more life" stand at greater heights than the masses, who instead level out into great breadth. The ascent of Nietzsche's great man depends precisely on his relative rank. Value is for this reason relational, and the higher type exists as a higher type only by virtue of the distance separating him from the lower. Nietzsche's vitalistic monism produces a hierarchy in which the extreme poles of life presuppose and depend upon one another. What this means, according to Simmel, is that Nietzsche's individualism, and his claim to stand "beyond" both "socialism" and "liberalism," are ultimately false. It is precisely because rank is relational that it is social, even if not in any traditional sense of the term. Therefore Nietzsche's beyond remains "within." Similarly, if the great man is noble, and nobility is defined by the accumulation of force and the mastery of one's surroundings, there comes into being a constant need to dominate. But Nietzsche simultaneously speaks of the obligations of nobility, which presuppose a relationship that cannot be reduced to domination or mastery. Simmel thinks that Nietzsche does not distinguish between the "inner qualities of the soul" - power in the sense of nobility and intensity - and the external fact of domination. For Simmel, this means that the will to power is suspended between these two dimensions. Nietzsche's notion of "life" is also problematic for Simmel because it remains an abstract term for various "energies." Despite this, Nietzsche still treats life as the ultimate source of value. Life can only function as this all-encompassing force if it is viewed from a metaphysical standpoint. But if this is done, individuals become merely "vessels" of a single overarching life. It is precisely through their subordination that domination can be fully justified. Nietzsche himself resists this position, however, since grounding all claims in such a metaphysical force would ultimately dissolve the very individuality he seeks to affirm. Similarly, Nietzsche rebels against normativity, or the "ought," but his "immoralism" is an ought of its own. Nietzsche seeks to negate the content of older moral systems, which, according to Simmel, makes his new position parasitic upon the very morality it seeks to overcome, while quietly restating a normative demand of its own. Nietzsche's "ought" is not necessarily teleological in any conventional sense, but life nevertheless remains an infinite process towards higher heights. The very notion of "life" is therefore doing normative work that a purely descriptive outlook would not allow. Life in Nietzsche's thought has no final end or predetermined goal but it is still given a definite direction. Life for Nietzsche should be organised around the upward striving towards the Übermensch. These points are not necessarily objections, nor do they obviously provide any solutions, but that is not Simmel's point either, for we cannot solve the great contradictions of life. If I am to add a personal note here, I would say that they are nevertheless well worth reflecting on. There is ultimately a reason why Nietzsche - like Schopenhauer - primarily influenced artists. It is very difficult to conceive of a "Nietzschean society," just as it is close to impossible for most people to live a genuinely "Nietzschean" or "Schopenhauerian" life. Nonetheless, there are some extremely useful ideas in both Schopenhauer and Nietzsche that can be taken up, developed, and applied within the social-historical sciences. Max Weber and Panajotis Kondylis are two brilliant examples of this. To finish this lengthy post, I'll leave the reader with the following remarks by Simmel from his Journal Aphorisms: "Everything that is proven can be disputed. Only the unprovable is indisputable." "Man is the hungry creature par excellence. The animal is satisfied when it has eaten." "Life's senselessness and constriction astonishes one often as something so radical and inescapable that one must utterly despair - the only alleviation is that one recognizes it and despairs about it."