[lit-ideas] WHo is afraid of the anti-egalitarians?
- From: "torgeir_fjeld@xxxxxxxx" <torgeir_fjeld@xxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2014 23:54:18 +0100 (BST)
...or reading Nietzsche backward
Thesis 1: Nietzsche was anti-democratic and anti-egalitarian, and these were
not minor abberations in his thought but deeply rooted and closely connected to
his other beliefs.
Thesis 2: Nietzsche was right that egalitarianism would entail a "limitless
process of levelling" (Bull, "Leveling Out"). The egalitarian ideals of the
French revolution would have "required elimination of all substantive social
advantages, generating equality betond mere formal conferral of rights" such as
is prevalent under liberal political regimes.
Nobody is seriously against equality today. What we usually hear is that the
disadvantaged should be brought up to the level of those of privilege. This is
what we should think of as a process of LEVELLING UP.
Thesis 3: Nietzsche was wrong in concluding that because of this levelling
process, one should adopt a stance AGAINST egalitarianism.
Thesis 4: In reading Nietzsche like a loser (ie. the audience Nietzsche did not
write for), it is possible to, instead, EMBRACE the levelling process, but also
to acknowledge that a process of levelling up is not, will never be,
sufficient. What is recquired is -- CONTRA Nietzsche -- a process of levelling
DOWN: We should welcome a "regime in which each individual, without exclusion
or exception, will have equal access to property, but no property rights, eiher
individual or collective, because property as such will not exist" (Malcolm
Bull, /Anti-Nietzsche/, 2011, p157).
Thesis 5: This is a notion we should refer to not as anti-egalitarianism (qua
Nietzsche) but EXTRA-egalitarianism.
Yrs,
T Fjeld
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