Stephen Hicks, Ph.D.

Hayek on intellectuals and the Nazis

This week in my Contemporary European Philosophy course, we are reading Friedrich Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom, published in 1944 at the height of World War 2.

“It is a common mistake to regard National Socialism as a mere revolt against reason, an irrational movement without intellectual background. If that were so, the movement would be much less dangerous than it is. But nothing could be further from the truth or more misleading. The doctrines of National Socialism are the culmination of a long revolution of thought, a process in which thinkers who have had great influence far beyond the confines of Germany have taken part. Whatever one may think of the premises from which they started, it cannot be denied that the men who produced the new doctrines were powerful writers who left the impress of their ideas on the whole of European thought. Their system was developed with ruthless consistency. Once one accepts the premises from which it starts, there is no escape from its logic. It is simply collectivism freed from all traces of an individualist tradition which might hamper its realization.” (p. 167)

Which thinkers and powerful writers? Hayek has named Hegel, Marx, and Nietzsche as the major 19th-century influencers. But isn’t it too much to expect politicians to read philosophers? Did Hitler actually read Hegel and Nietzsche? Perhaps. (Though we know that Dr. Goebbels was well read in them and a great admirer of Marx.)

So of great importance were the transitional thinkers of the generation from 1900 to 1933, the year the Nazis came to power. In Chapter 12, “The Socialist Roots of Naziism,” Hayek devotes a few paragraphs each to Werner Sombart, Johann Plenge, Friedrich Nauman, Paul Lensch, Moeller van den Bruck, and Oswald Spengler. All of them were steeped in combinations of Hegel, Marx, and Nietzsche, and all of them were socialists; but their value-added (so to speak) was as public intellectuals and as intellectual activists who applied the abstract theories to the particular German context.

National Socialism, then, as Hayek reads it, resulted from over a century of intellectual and development: Germany’s brightest minds developed the theory and laid the cultural groundwork for the Nazi political transformation.

Related:
Quotations on Nazi socialism and fascism [pdf], which is Appendix 2 of Nietzsche and the Nazis.

What Postmodernism Is [EP audiobook]

The first chapter of the audiobook version of my Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault.

Chapter One: What Postmodernism Is [mp3] [YouTube] [38 minutes]

The postmodern vanguard: Foucault, Lyotard, Derrida, Rorty [mp3] [YouTube]
Modern and postmodern [mp3] [YouTube]
Modernism and the Enlightenment [mp3] [YouTube]
Postmodernism versus the Enlightenment [mp3] [YouTube]
Postmodern academic themes [mp3] [YouTube]
Postmodern cultural themes [mp3] [YouTube]
Why postmodernism? [mp3] [YouTube]

Forthcoming:

Chapter Two: The Counter-Enlightenment Attack on Reason [mp3] [YouTube]
Chapter Three: The Twentieth-Century Collapse of Reason [mp3] [YouTube]
Chapter Four: The Climate of Collectivism [mp3] [YouTube]
Chapter Five: The Crisis of Socialism [mp3] [YouTube]
Chapter Six: Postmodern Strategy [mp3] [YouTube]

Related:
The Explaining Postmodernism page.

Zarathustra’s predatory collectivism

Nietzsche is usually labelled an individualist. One of the more controversy-generating claims of my Nietzsche and the Nazis appears in Section 34, where I argue that Nietzsche is more collectivist than individualist.[1]

Re-reading Zarathustra I came across two more relevant quotations. In both cases, Zarathustra is speaking:

“A thousand goals there have been until now, for there have been a thousand peoples. Only the fetters for the thousand necks are still missing, the one goal is missing. Humanity still has no goal.
“But tell me, brothers: if humanity still lacks a goal, does it not also still lack — humanity itself? — “[2]

Note three things about this passage: Nietzsche/Zarathustra speaks not of individuals‘ having goals but of humanity’s having a goal; he says that humanity should have one goal; and he says that fetters are needed to direct humanity’s quest for that one goal.

The second relevant passage develops the “fetters” theme more explicitly. Zarathustra is the embodiment of the creative spirit who will forge the new values, and he identifies the traits necessary for such a being: “To take the right to new values — that is the most terrible taking for a carrying and reverent spirit. Indeed, it is preying, and the work of a predatory animal.”[3]

Predators are no respecters of individuals; rather they reduce other individuals to tools, means, raw materials. In this, Zarathustra’s claim is consistent with Nietzsche’s other and regular claims that life is zero-sum, e.g., at BGE 259 and 265, WP 369 and 656, and the note at the end of the first essay of GM.

Sources:

[1] “Anti-individualism and Collectivism,” Section 34 of Nietzsche and the Nazis. Note Nietzsche’s repudiation of individualism: “My philosophy aims at ordering of rank not at an individualistic morality.” And his call for the sacrifice of most individuals in the name of improving the species: “mankind in the mass sacrificed to the prosperity of a single stronger species of man—that would be an advance.”
[2] Nietzsche, “On a Thousand and One Goals”, Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Translated by Adrian Del Caro and edited by Del Caro and Robert Pippin (Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 44.
[2] Ibid., “On the Three Metamorphoses,” p. 17.

The servile state — Belloc’s 1913 prediction

One hundred years ago, Hilaire Belloc published The Servile State, with this provocative claim about his mixed intellectual world: “the effect of Socialist doctrine on Capitalist society is to produce a third thing different from either of its two begetters — to wit, the Servile State.”

The nineteenth century was largely capitalist. The twentieth century saw many socialist experiments and increasing state interventions. Now in 2013, we are neither capitalist nor socialist — but what exactly are we? We know about we the sheeple, the entitlement and victim mentalities, the growth of the imperial presidency, and more. Has Belloc’s prediction come true?

Source: Footnote 2 in Chapter 1 of Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom (1943).

The best logical fallacy — a competition

(A list received via email, originally credited to Brian McGroarty.)

Ad Hominem: This is the best logical fallacy, and if you disagree with me, well, you suck.

Appeal to False Authority: Your logical fallacies aren’t logical fallacies at all because Einstein said so. Einstein also said that this one is better.

Appeal to Emotion: See, my mom, she had to work three jobs on account of my dad leaving and refusing to support us, and me with my elephantitis and all, all our money went to doctor’s bills so I never was able to get proper schooling. So really, if you look deep down inside yourself, you’ll see that my fallacy here is the best.

Appeal to Fear: If you don’t accept Appeal to Fear as the greatest fallacy, then THE TERRORISTS WILL HAVE WON. Do you want that on your conscience, that THE TERRORISTS WILL HAVE WON because you were a pansy who didn’t really think that Appeal to Fear was worth voting for, and you wanted to vote for something else? Of course not, and neither would the people you let die because THE TERRORISTS WILL HAVE WON.

Appeal to Force: If you don’t agree that Appeal to Force is the greatest logical fallacy, I will kick your ass.

Appeal to Majority: Most people think that this fallacy is the best, so clearly it is.

Appeal to Novelty: The Appeal to Novelty’s a new fallacy, and it blows all your crappy old fallacies out the water! All the cool kids are using it: it’s OBVIOUSLY the best.

Appeal to Numbers: Millions think that this fallacy is the best, so clearly it is.

Appeal to Tradition: We’ve used Appeal to Tradition for centuries: how can it possibly be wrong?

Argumentum Ad Nauseam:
Argumentum ad nauseam is the best logical fallacy.
Argumentum ad nauseam is the best logical fallacy.
Argumentum ad nauseam is the best logical fallacy.
Argumentum ad nauseam is the best logical fallacy.
Argumentum ad nauseam is the best logical fallacy.
Argumentum ad nauseam is the best logical fallacy.
Argumentum ad nauseam is the best logical fallacy.

Begging The Question:
Circular reasoning is the best fallacy and is capable of proving anything.
Since it can prove anything, it can obviously prove the above statement.
Since it can prove the first statement, it must be true.
Therefore, circular reasoning is the best fallacy and is capable of proving anything.

Burden Of Proof: Can you prove that Burden of Proof isn’t the best logical fallacy?

Complex Question: Have you stopped beating your wife and saying Complex Question isn’t the best fallacy?

False Dilemma: I’ve found that either you think False Dilemma is the best fallacy, or you’re a terrorist.

False Premise: All of the other fallacies are decent, but clearly not the best as they didn’t come from my incredibly large and sexy brain.

Gambler’s Fallacy: In all the previous talks about this subject, Gambler’s Fallacy lost, so I just know the Gambler’s Fallacy is going to win this time!

Guilt by Association: You know who else preferred those other logical fallacies? *(insert pictures of Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot here)*

Non Sequitur: Non Sequitur is the best fallacy because none of my meals so far today have involved asparagus.

Post Hoc/False Cause: Since I’ve started presuming that correlation equals causation, violent crime has gone down 54%.

Red Herring: They say that to prove your fallacy is the best requires extraordinary evidence, because it’s an extraordinary claim. Well, I’d like to note that “Extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence” is itself an extraordinary claim.

Relativism: Well maybe all those other fallacies are the best for you, but to me, the relativist fallacy is the greatest logical fallacy ever.

Slippery Slope: If you don’t like Slippery Slope arguments, you will do poorly in class, drop out of school, commit crimes, go to prison, and die of AIDS.

Special Pleading: I know that everyone is posting about their favorite fallacies, but Special Pleading is out-and-out the best, so it should just win with no contest.

[More entrants here.]

Mussolini and Kant on war and the sacrifice of individuals

In his 1932 The Doctrine of Fascism, Benito Mussolini quotes approvingly historian Ernst Renan for his “pre-fascist intuitions”:

“The maxim that society exists only for the well-being and freedom of the individuals composing it does not seem to be in conformity with nature’s plans, which care only for the species and seem ready to sacrifice the individual.”

In his 1784 “Review of Herder,” Immanuel Kant wrote: “nature allows us to see nothing else than that it abandons individuals to complete destruction and only maintains the type.” (37/53)

And in “Idea for a Universal History with Cosmopolitan Intent” (1784), Kant wrote: “It appears that nature is utterly unconcerned that man live well, only that he bring himself to the point where his conduct makes him worthy of life and well-being.” (31/20)

Also this from Kant’s “Speculative Beginning of Human History” (1786): “this path that for the species leads to progress from the worse to the better does not do so for the individual.” (53/115)

So: A connection from 18th-century philosopher Kant to 19th-century historian Renan to 20th-century politician Mussolini. It’s important to note that between Kant and Mussolini stand Hegel, Marx, and Nietzsche, all of whom developed the sacrifice-individuals-to-improve-the-species theme.

Further, both Kant and Mussolini state approvingly that nature uses war to improve the species.

Here is Kant: “Man wills concord; but nature better knows what is good for the species: she wills discord.” (”Idea …” 32/21)

Kant again: “At the stage of culture at which the human race still stands, war is an indispensable means for bringing it to a still higher stage.” (”Speculative …” 58/121) Note the “indispensable.”

And again: “Thus, thanks be to nature for the incompatibility, for the distasteful, competitive vanity, for the insatiable desire to possess and also to rule. Without them, all of humanity’s excellent natural capacities would have lain eternally dormant.” (”Idea …” 32/21)

Now Mussolini: “Fascism does not, generally speaking, believe in the possibility or utility of perpetual peace. It therefore discards pacifism as a cloak for cowardly supine renunciation in contradistinction to self-sacrifice. War alone keys up all human energies to their maximum tension and sets the seal of nobility on those peoples who have the courage to face it.”

Again, between Kant and Mussolini were Hegel, Marx, and Nietzsche, all of whom urged violence and war as necessary steps towards human progress.

Sources:
The Kant essays are collected in Perpetual Peace and Other Essays, translated by Ted Humphrey (Hackett, 1983).
Here is an online version of Mussolini’s The Doctrine of Fascism, which was co-authored with Giovanni Gentile.
For more on the development of German political philosophy from Kant to the early 20th century, see “The Climate of Collectivism” and “The Crisis of Socialism,” which are Chapters 4 and 5 of my Explaining Postmodernism.

22 points from Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Morals

This week in Contemporary European Philosophy we finished our discussion of Friedrich Nietzsche’s 1887 Genealogy of Morals, which is an essentialized and more systematic presentation of themes from his 1886 Beyond Good and Evil.

Here is my digest of the main line of argument of Genealogy’s first essay:

1. Evolution and psycho-biology: Humans are an evolved bundle of inbuilt drives that assert themselves.
2. The most basic drive is the will to power.
3. Humans divide into two basic types: those whose drives are strong, and those whose are weak.
4. Humans also divide into those who drives are focused, and those whose drives are diffuse.
5. The strong/focused types exhibit master psychology. The weak/diffuse type exhibit slave psychology.
6. Masters are energetic, adventurous, fearless, delight in self-expression, etc.
7. Slaves are passive, fearful, envious, etc.
8. Moral codes are conscious formulations of one’s needs and interests.
9. So one’s morality is an expression of one’s psycho-biological type.
10. So there are two basic types of morality.
11. Master morality affirms pride, ambition, independence, assertiveness, danger.
12. Slave morality affirms dependence, safety, passivity, humility.
13. Life is essentially conflict and expropriation.
14. Masters are confident in the face of conflict, so the master morality embraces using others for one’s own ends.
15. The slave morality is fearful of conflict and expropriation, so it condemns them.
16. The battle between the master and slave moral codes is of long genealogy.
17. Historically, the master morality dominated first.
18. But the master morality declined and slave morality ascended.
19. Currently the slave morality is winning.
20. The major symptoms of this are the cultural dominance of socialists, democrats, Judeo-Christian priests, egalitarians, and the like.
21. The slave morality’s dominance is a threat to the advancement of man.
22. So master morality or a new form of it must be rejuvenated.

Related:
Journal article: “Egoism in Nietzsche and Rand” [pdf] and Professor Lester Hunt’s rejoinder [pdf].
Book: Nietzsche and the Nazis.
Blog post: Nietzsche as public choice theorist.

Romantic advice to women — Nietzsche version

Nietzsche comments wryly on contemporary religious morality:

“One believes one must disapprove of Cesare Borgia; that is simply laughable. The church has excommunicated German emperors on account of their vices: as if a monk or priest had any right to join in a discussion about what a Frederick II may demand of himself. A Don Juan is sent to hell: that is very naive. Has it been noticed that in heaven all interesting men are missing? — Just a hint to the girls as to where they can best find their salvation.”

Source: The Will to Power, Section 871.