Table Of ContentWARSPEAK
Nietzsche’s Victory over Nihilism
Lise van Boxel
TORONTO •
CHICAGO
Publisher’s Note
L B approached us with the manuscript of this book in
ISE VAN OXEL
September 2019. She presented it to us as a finished work, indicating that
she planned to add an Introduction and to ask Michael Grenke to write a
Foreword.
During van Boxel's illness, which began shortly after we undertook this
project, she reaffirmed that the work was complete, she chose the title, and
she expressed her desire for it to be published as it is here, with an
Introduction written by Michael Grenke. Only a small number of superficial
changes have been made to the text to prepare it for publication, all of them
approved in consultation with Michael Grenke.
This is the authoritative version of Warspeak: Nietzsche’s Victory Over
Nihilism, as Lise van Boxel directed it. It is an extraordinary book by an
extraordinary thinker, and it is our honor to publish it.
Lewis Slawsky and Alexander Wall,
Publishers – Political Animal Press,
October 2020
Introduction*
Nothing. Too often that is the answer we give ourselves these days to our
most important and defining questions. What can I know? Nothing. What
ought I to do? Nothing. What can I hope? Nothing. When we think of the
future, either our own future or the future of humanity more generally, what
do we find? Nothingness. Perhaps not a pure absence but a set of
possibilities for which we do not long or in which we are not interested.
Everything that the future seems to offer looks already pre-tested and
prejudged, empty of promise, worn out. This is nihilism as Friedrich
Nietzsche came to understand it. Such nihilism means a settled, weary
despair regarding all future possibilities of human growth or improvement
(See GM 1,12).
Some who are deeply concerned by nihilism seek to escape it by a return
to the conditions of earlier times, times when people were not so worn out
and believed in truth. But such projects of return do not offer viable means.
Aside from the fact that projects that seek to recreate the conditions of the
past are by their very own actions of recreation never the same as the past
was, the return to the truth as it has been known for millennia is no way out.
Nihilism is not primarily a disbelief in truth, rather nihilism is the result of a
belief in truth of a certain kind. The belief in a truth that is based upon a
realm of absolute and unchanging beings is a belief that ultimately leads to
the weary despair of nihilism. The ascetic ideal, which for a long time has
been the only ideal, has told us that the source of what is good and true is
not the world we experience with its continually changing and perishing
beings, rather it is the other world of unchanging and absolute being. The
ascetic ideal offers otherworldly goals and goods that lead us away from all
this-worldly goals and goods. The goods of this world are made to look
dissatisfying in comparison to goods of another world that we have never
experienced. By this comparison, this world has been denigrated for a long
time, and our attachment to this world has been worn down and tired out.
The nihilism that we encounter today, the nihilism that Nietzsche already
saw in his today, is the product of the long rule of the ascetic ideal.
The confrontation that is required to win a victory over nihilism does not
just involve encountering and solving a thought problem. It involves
recognizing that a psychological war has been waged with all manner of
secrecy, subterfuge, and dishonesty against all healthy and growing human
life. The ascetic ideal has to be recognized as a product of and an
instrument of this secret war against all that is high. And with this
recognition, what needs to be done is to engage this war on its own grounds.
The means to victory here is a superior psychology, a physio-psychology.
These means are employed here by a new kind of writing, one that attempts
to capture the dynamic liveliness of beings that are ever changing and
growing, one infused with courage and other warlike virtues, warspeak.
The subtitle of On the Genealogy of Morals is “Streitschrift,” “A
Polemic.” This is often taken to mean that the rhetoric of the work is
skewed or corrupted by its warlike purpose. Some interpreters have taken
Nietzsche to exaggerate certain things here, again in the service of waging a
war. This present book reveals that the language appropriate to war,
warspeak, is not to be understood as being in need of a correction by the
reader. Warspeak is the correction. To combat the psychology employed as
a weapon by the ascetic ideal, a psychology that treats words as
unchanging, dead beings; words must come alive as the actions of, and thus
the very becomings of, living beings. Streitschrift, polemic, fighting
writing, is the proper way to address the psychological war that has been
waged for millennia against all that is high. And warspeak is the proper
language of a life affirming ideal that can replace the nihilistic ascetic ideal.
In order to see this life affirming ideal emerge in its fullness and vitality
this book focuses its attention on Nietzsche’s ownmost problem as it
develops and transforms into his confrontation with nihilism in On the
Genealogy of Morals. This book offers a close and focused reading of
Nietzsche’s book, making much of seemingly small details. Although one
might expect or even fear a certain narrowness from a close reading, this
fear should be alleviated by the focus here on the central issue of Friedrich
Nietzsche’s thought, the problem of nihilism. The fact that a victory over
nihilism emerges from a careful reading of On the Genealogy of Morals
decisively marks the Genealogy as a central work within Nietzsche’s
corpus. Around the center swirls everything else. Nietzsche’s philosophy is
his attempt to say what is, what can be, and what cannot. His whole
philosophy is necessary both to diagnose the problem of nihilism in its full
extent and to marshal the resources to overcome nihilism. Thus, the
investigation of the central issue is necessarily a comprehensive
investigation of his thought as a whole.
One gets to the whole through the details. A truly close reading respects
the text and pays attention to all the details, no matter how small. For
example, this present book makes much of one small detail presented in the
Preface to the Genealogy. The moral-theological prejudice, mentioned in a
story about Nietzsche’s thirteen-year-old theological efforts turns out to be a
key that unlocks many doors. It helps to understand the related prejudice
involved in the faith in opposite values. It shows itself to be equivalent to
the ascetic ideal. Again and again, it appears as the underlying belief
propping up some obstacle to any way of human life that offers genuine
hope for the future.
In this biographical attention to early Nietzsche is an example of the
genealogical presentation of the evolution of the philosophic type that
winds like a guiding path throughout this entire book. In what could be
brushed off as an indulgent or meaningless anecdote, Nietzsche calls our
attention to two prejudices early on in the Preface to On the Genealogy of
Morals. The two prejudices are entangled as one, the moral-theological
prejudice. Their combined effect prevents a very young Nietzsche from
making progress with the problem that he thinks is his problem, the
problem of evil. Learning to disentangle the two prejudices let Nietzsche
see them as the prejudices they are and freed him substantially from their
sway. In thinking through the separated moral and theological prejudices,
Nietzsche’s approach transforms. He sees a world of things that come into
being out of modified forms of what was there before. “Only that which has
no history is capable of definition” (On the Genealogy of Morals 2, 13.). By
definition here, Nietzsche means a unified, unchanging statement. What is
needed in the place of such a definition is a genealogical account. To say
what a moving, changing thing is, philosophy must be genealogy.
From the same thinking about the moral and theological prejudices,
Nietzsche’s attention is directed to the human inventors of the systems of
moral value. The realm to be investigated is no longer some other world
behind the world we experience, it is now the world that we do in fact
experience, understood as the world comprised by the human experience
and significantly shaped by our mind and its creations. Nietzsche turns to
the psyche, the mind, the soul, of the human being as the place where the
genealogical history of the world is to be investigated. Philosophy must
become psychology (again).
This turn to psychology is not a turn to a subjective interior realm separate
from some outer realm of matter. To think of it this way is to continue under
the sway of the moral-theological prejudice. Instead mind and matter have
to be understood as one and the same. This is not to reduce mind to matter,
rather it is to rethink both. Psychology, which is the science of souls, must
become physio-psychology, the science of souls that are understood to be
something about the body. What thinks and what does not must be
reconsidered. Even what is alive and what is not. Thoughts become events,
actions.
Through unentangling the moral and theological prejudices, Nietzsche’s
ownmost question transforms from the problem of evil to the problem of the
value of any system of good and evil. Here Nietzsche begins to confront
nihilism
Now, not all of this book is occupied with a painstaking interpretation of
each and every detail. This close reading is mingled with selected
deployments of lively literary interludes. Here the reader is shown a special
kind of respect and courtesy. Not every detail is worked out thus leaving
plenty of opportunity for the readers to employ their own powers of
observation and interpretation. In these interludes we return to the spirit of
warspeak. These interludes broaden out the picture and remind the reader of
the overarching themes. Within this broadening out, many aspects of
Nietzsche’s thought are addressed and developed.
It is worth highlighting two examples here. These ideas are not the central
concern of this book, but they are developed as the presentation of the life-
affirming ideal unfolds and they both help to flesh out that ideal. First there
is a very big claim Nietzsche makes in Beyond Good and Evil 257. It has
attracted a good detail of attention and has puzzled many. Beyond Good and
Evil 257 begins, “Every enhancement of the type “human being” has been
up till now the work of an aristocratic society…” Nietzsche roots this claim
in the growing pathos in the soul that aims ever to widen the gap between
its low and high parts. The analysis of pro-active human beings and their
creations, in this book, offers another, perhaps better foundation for
Nietzsche’s big claim. What is shown in this book is that only pro-active,
superabundantly vital human beings, who create spontaneously out of their
own fullness, can create new things. The pro-active are super-full. Their
needs are fulfilled. They do not depend upon external stimuli to prompt
their actions. The only antecedent for their actions is their own inner self. In
this way they are spontaneous. Enhancement of the human type depends
upon the creation of new things. The reactive type of human being does not
produce new things, only responses to existing things. If there is to be a
better future, it depends upon the creation of new things, and the only
sources of humanly new things are pro-active human beings.
Second is the revelation that true love also is the province of pro-active
human life. In fact, in Chapter Three love is presented as the teaching of
Thus Spoke Zarathustra and as the genuine experience of the super
abundant vitality that is the supreme good for human beings. This
presentation should help us to understand why Nietzsche says at the end of
Beyond Good and Evil 260, “love as a passion … must be of noble origin.”
It should also help us to understand differently the well known statement of
Beyond Good and Evil 153, “Whatever is done out of love, always occurs
beyond good and evil.” If we take Nietzsche’s hint from the end of On the
Genealogy of Morals, 1.17, that beyond good and evil does not mean
beyond good and bad, then we see section 153 is not saying that the actions
of love are simply outside the moral realm. But he is saying love is
incompatible with the morality, good and evil, that is professed by the
reactive type.
The two examples above are not the biggest concerns in the Genealogy,
nor are they the narrowest. The task of reading well requires that one read
on multiple levels. It is not just the details, but their sum that offers
challenges. In the Genealogy, Nietzsche has woven a text of dizzying
complexity. The incoherence that sometimes seems to inhabit Nietzsche’s
texts is artful. Nietzsche himself left many clues to teach us how to read his
works. It takes a subtle and multifarious art of reading to see how it all fits
together. To match Nietzsche’s many ways of conveying his message the
reader must pay attention not only to the twists and turns of the argument
but also to the gestures and music of the writing. Passions must be engaged
as well as reason. The human being, who is not merely a calculating
machine, must allow as many parts of his being as possible to be enlivened
by the kind of writing that is meant to engage and enliven their whole
being.
This is why the section of Thus Spoke Zarathustra entitled “On Reading
and Writing” is so important for understanding On the Genealogy of
Morals. Not only is a part of that section pinned to the beginning of the
third essay of the Genealogy, but reading and writing, interpreting and
acting, are a large part of the solution to the problem of nihilism. The third
essay is presented by Nietzsche as an example of exegesis. Nietzsche is
offering a school for reading. Learning to read such lively writing, and
maybe learning how to write along the way, is itself also a school for living.
The affirmative ideal requires a reinterpretation and a rewriting of the
narrative of the world.
The ascetic ideal has controlled how we see the world and what the words
we use mean. The vast cultural edifice that has grown out of and around the
ascetic ideal has to be torn down or repurposed. The world needs to be un-
poisoned. Reinterpretation and re-writing invade the psychic realm of the
ascetic interpretation of the world. It takes the ascetic interpretation’s own
terms and subverts and transforms them. The universal good that is the
same for all and is based upon a world of absolute being is gone. But there
is a supreme good that is between being and becoming and is recognized by
all human beings. Creation ex nihilo in the strict sense is gone, but there is a
real genesis of new things in the “spontaneous” creations of pro-active
human beings. There is a kind of resurrection in the continuous self-
regeneration of living beings. There is transcendence, not of the kind that
escapes this world, but of the kind, in comedy, that escapes the seriousness
of this world. Giving these old words new meanings is part of the practice
of warspeak. This reinterpretation and re-writing make the inherited
traditions of the ascetic interpretation speak a new language and convey
new affirmative messages. This clears away or repurposes the old traditions
to create a context suited to the new, affirmative ideal.
The big problem with the war against the nihilism that stems from the
ascetic ideal is that a viable counter-ideal has been lacking. But the
Genealogy gives us a viable counter-ideal in the concept of super abundant
vitality. Super abundant vitality turns out to be the consensus supreme good
from the stand point of both types of morality, pro-active and reactive.
Within the pro-active moralities this is rather straightforwardly evident.
Within the reactive moralities the fact that they secretly honor and admire
superabundant vitality is shown by their envy and by the way they portray
the goods they expect to receive as rewards in the other world.
Superabundant vitality is the consensus supreme good, but it cannot serve
its purpose if it remains merely a formal concept. At any given time, the
most highly evolved human being must manifest superabundant vitality in
order to give it content. This embodied manifestation makes superabundant
vitality an affirmation of this world. It also makes superabundant vitality a
changing thing. With each subsequent growth of the highest human type
new content is added. In considering the highest human type, the fullest
expression of superabundant vitality, the philosophic type emerges as the
highest type so far. A genealogical account of the evolution of the
philosophic type is thus woven throughout the narrative of this book.
At the end of this book the challenge is posed that we human beings take
charge of our own future, our own evolution. The term evolution, as used in
this book, means not just change but progress, improvement. Its alternative
is degeneration, decline, devolution. Taking charge of our own evolution is
a daunting task, but we are given guidance both by the supreme good of
super abundant vitality in general and by the genealogy of the philosopher.
What is possible for the immediate future is determined by the state in
which we find ourselves, what we have inherited. At each stage of
development, the highest human being offers new possibilities to explore,
and the concept of the supreme good helps us to determine which
experiments are likely to yield the best results.
There is no easy choice available to us by which we could play it safe. We
could try to choose not to experiment. But if we leave things alone, they
still will not stay the same. They will change. And they will change in a
direction that has no intrinsic relation to our hopes for the future. An
experiment will have been carried out without intention and without making
use of the guidance we have. Only if we take our future into our own hands
can we be sure that it will be a genuine future that offers genuine hope.
There is only one direction that offers us hope – forward.
Michael Grenke,
Tutor, St. John's College
October 2020
* Before her passing, Lise van Boxel intended to add an introduction to her book. That task has fallen
to me. I am not working blind here, as I discussed the introduction with Lise a couple of times. I
have tried to produce here an introduction in accord with the author’s intentions. Lise wanted an
introduction that would make some of the major ideas and methods of the work immediately clear
and easily accessible. To do that, I have presented some of the ideas as simpler than they are. I have
neither offered proper genealogical accounts of things that are moving and changing nor have I
written in the lively literary style that is meant to engage the fullness of the reader’s humanity. Thus,
while I have attempted to present the ideas of the book in accessible clarity, both this accessibility
