Counter-Currents
Remembering Friedrich Nietzsche (October 15, 1844–August 25, 1900)
Greg Johnson
Phil Eiger Newmann, Friedrich Nietzsche, 2020.
723 words
Friedrich Nietzsche was born this day in 1844 in the small town of Röcken, near Leipzig, Saxony, in the Kingdom of Prussia. He died in August 25, 1900, in Weimar, Saxony, in the Second German Reich. The outlines of Nietzsche’s life are readily available online.
Nietzsche is one of the most important philosophers of the North American New Right because of his contributions to the philosophy of history, culture, and religion.
If you are thinking of reading Nietzsche’s works, the best introductions are The Twilight of the Idols and The Anti-Christ, preferably in the R. J. Hollingdale translations. The next volume should be Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future, which Nietzsche described as the prose presentation of his entire worldview. I recommend the Judith Norman translation from Cambridge University Press.
Thus Spake Zarathustra is Nietzsche’s poetic presentation of his philosophy, but it should be saved for later. It is the worst possible introduction to Nietzsche. It has been many people’s first Nietzsche book, and for all too many it has been their last.
Such Nietzsche books as On the Genealogy of Morals, The Birth of Tragedy, Untimely Meditations, and The Gay Science are highly valuable, but should be saved till later. Daybreak: Thoughts on the Prejudices of Morality and Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits are products of a brief flirtation with certain Enlightenment ideas and are thus quite misleading as introductions. Ecce Homo, The Case of Wagner, and Nietzsche Contra Wagner should be saved for last. As a rule, the Cambridge University Press translations of Nietzsche should be preferred.
The introductory books on Nietzsche are mostly disappointing. I do recommend H. L. Mencken’s The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. Julian Young’s Nietzsche’s Philosophy of Art and Nietzsche’s Philosophy of Religion are very clear and exciting books that examine the development of Nietzsche’s ideas throughout his career. Because of the importance of art and religion to Nietzsche, they serve as excellent overviews of his philosophy. Young has also published an important biography, Friedrich Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography, which combines overviews of Nietzsche’s life and works in a single volume. Although it is a long book, it is well worth the investment of time. (I recommend it despite the fact that Young has been accused of plagiarizing another biography of Nietzsche. Young’s “crime” strikes me as simply an editorial mistake. It is certainly not plagiarism of the kind practiced by Alan Dershowitz or Martin Luther King.)
Nietzsche is probably the author most often tagged on this website.
Here are the main works we have published by and about Nietzsche:
By Nietzsche:
- “Nietzsche on the Code of Manu”
- “Nietzsche on Freedom”
- “Nietzsche’s Critique of Modernity”
- “Nietzsche on Conservatism”
About Nietzsche:
- Alain de Benoist, “Jünger, Heidegger, and Nihilism”
- Kerry Bolton, “Nietzsche and Spengler”
- Kerry Bolton, “Norman Lindsay,” Part 1, Part 2
- Jonathan Bowden, “Credo: A Nietzschean Testament” (Swedish translation here)
- Jonathan Bowden, “Paganism and Christianity, Nietzsche and Evola”
- Jonathan Bowden, “Theseus’ Minotaur: An Examination of Friedrich Nietzsche’s Thought”
- Jonathan Bowden, “The Uses and Abuses of Nietzsche”
- Jonathan Bowden, “Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morals”
- Collin Cleary, “Evola’s Nietzschean Ethics: A Code of Conduct for the Higher Man in Kali Yuga”
- Collin Cleary, “What is the Metaphysics of the Left?,” Part 2
- Mark Dyal, “Nietzsche, Physiology, and Transvaluation”
- Mark Dyal, “Nietzsche’s Loneliness”
- Julius Evola, “Nietzsche for Today” (Translations: Czech, Portuguese)
- Julius Evola, “Nihilism and the Meaning of Life in Nietzsche”
- Julius Evola, “The Overcoming of the Superman”
- Guillaume Faye, “Guillaume Faye on Nietzsche” (Czech translation here)
- Greg Johnson, “Freedom, Determinism, and Destiny” (Spanish translation here)
- Greg Johnson, “Heidegger on Nietzsche, Metaphysics, and Nihilism” (Spanish translation here)
- Greg Johnson, “Historicizing the Historicists: Notes on Leo Strauss’ ‘The Living Issues of German Postwar Philosophy,'” Part 1, Part 2
- Greg Johnson, “Notes on Nihilism” (Translations: French, Spanish)
- Greg Johnson, “Ronald Beiner’s Dangerous Minds”
- Kurwenal, “Wagner, Nietzsche, and the New Suprahumanist Myth,” Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
- Anthony M. Ludovici, “Hitler and Nietzsche”
- James J. O’Meara, Review of Julian Young, Nietzsche’s Philosophy of Religion, Part One and Two
- Michael O’Meara, “Only a God Can Save Us” (French translation here)
- Sir Oswald Mosley, “Christ, Nietzsche, and Caesar” (Translations: French, Russian, Ukrainian)
- Ted Sallis, “The Overman High Culture: Future of the West” (Translations: French, Portuguese)
- Ted Sallis, Review of Abir Taha’s Nietzsche’s Coming God
- Oswald Spengler, “Nietzsche and His Century”
4 comments
Admiration for Nietzsche… the only thing Greg Johnson and Richard Spencer have in common.
Off topic, but I wonder why those two don’t get along. I think they are both erudite, well-spoken and offer a lot to the movement.
Racemix-refuser says NO to Israel Zangwill’s “Melting Pot”?
Good luck with “Your Struggle”!
“Are you a commie or a nazi?”
“My heart is left, my mind is right.”
Here’s a good write-up of Nietzsche and his effect on Aleister Crowley, a saint in the OTO’s Gnostic Catholic Church and “prophet of Thelema”: https://thelemicunion.com/aleister-crowley-friedrich-nietzsche/
Thelemic Union is basically a leftist SJW rag which distorts the actual teachings and zeitgeist of Thelema, and the author of said article, “IAO131”, is certainly no exception. But I’m willing to give credit where credit is due. Its a good write-up.
Those who’re interested in in the topic may see my recent walltext effortpost in the latest edition of CC’s yearly “Remembering Aleister Crowley” article here: https://counter-currents.com/2020/10/remembering-aleister-crowley-5/#comment-1662459
Hopefully some of more open minded of the [sic] “Thelemites Against Injustice” (and other groups purporting to be Thelemites) will see this, realize their error, and change their ways. Anyone who considers himself a warrior in the fight for liberty can’t be throwing their support behind the totalitarian globalist new world order state being enacted in-front of our eyes under the hobgoblins of global-warming, COVID19 hysteria, and this senseless fight for “equality”– no two Humans are the same, thus, no two Humans can ever be “equal”. Equality is the opposite of liberty– each individual must be allowed to live according to his True Will and maximize his natural in-born talents to the best of his abilities, which is certainly the opposite of all these authoritarian leveling tendencies being enacted presently by Western Governments, which aim to make all equal by denigrading the highest sorts of people down to the level of the lowest sorts.
These folks (“useful idiots”, as Lenin called them) will be in for a very rude awakening come January if Biden and the Democrats are allowed to steal this election and implement their totalitarian plans with zero opposition. The world that will result from a Democrat victory will be nothing akin to the utopian vision these misguided idealists envision. In fact, the starry-eyed idealists, the Starbucks Socialists, and blob-like masses of Human lumpenprole garbage who are the Antifa thugs and BLMists will likely, if history is any indication, be one of the first groups to be liquidated following the total seizure of power into the hands of the billionaire neo-liberal corporate class.
Of course, that will not happen immediately. They’ll first come after folks like me, and I’m sure they’ll cheer on such a thing. But just know that they’ll come for you too, eventually. Just like the USSR went on to eliminate the Old Bolsheviks and Trotskiists– the people who might rise up and say “wait a minute, this isn’t the kind of government we were fighting for!” after being used as nothing more than a means to an end.
You’ve been warned.
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