Off Topic: Nietzsche and the Nazis
computeruser
There is a YouTube preview of this DVD which can be found at this link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-WaeXHMeho
Stephen Hicks - Nietzsche and the Nazis (preview)
I also located this article reviewing the DVD.
Nietzsche and the Nazis
By Tibor Machan
Jun 5, 2007
Last weekend I had the good fortune to watch a fascinating, informative, and
very disturbing DVD, titled Nietzsche and the Nazis. It is produced and
written by Professor of Philosophy Stephen Hicks of Rockford College in
Illinois.
I am an avid fan of the History Channel and other forums exploring the theme
that ideas have consequences but this piece of work was better than nearly
everything else along these lines I have seen.
The Nazis, who murdered roughly 12 million people - among them the 6 million
plus or minus Jews we have all heard of - were a really vicious bunch. But
what is more interesting and important is that they were not barbarians but
came from Europe's most educated population, the Germans.
Their main theme was the idealization of Das Volk, "The People," not
severally but collectively, as a noble tribe for the welfare and advancement
of which everything could be sacrificed, especially individual liberty and
independence.
Here was a group of fanatics who wholeheartedly believed in the
righteousness of their own zealotry and urged it upon all their followers,
of whom there were millions - the Nazi party was voted into power several
times and by the end some 90% of Germans voted for it. Hitler came to power
democratically, by "the will of the people" (a phrase we have recently heard
in these United States as well).
Nazism was openly in favor of irrationalism, championing instinct over
reason, order over liberty, and self-sacrifice over the pursuit of
happiness.
Nazis hated the classical liberal ideals represented by the United States of
America; they despised free enterprise and imposed a version of socialism -
national socialism, to be precise - wherever they could. The main difference
between their version of socialism and that of the Soviet Union was that
they advocated socialism for the nation, unlike the Soviets who wanted it
spread internationally.
A persistent question that has bothered historians, psychologists,
sociologists, and nearly anyone who has given the matter any thought is how
this horrid regime could arise in the midst of a relatively civilized place
like Western Europe and its crown jewel of a culture, Germany.
Many hypotheses have been advanced, including one in particular which has
always been both intriguing and controversial. This is that certain ideas
dominant in German culture had a great deal to do with the Nazi's rise to
power. And the central figure who has been proposed as responsible for these
ideas is the 19th century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche.
I will not give away the story Professor Hicks tells with such clarity and
subtlety but I do wish to mention that as far as I can tell - and I have
studied some of these matters over my career as a philosophy teacher - he
gives a very well balanced presentation of just why Nietzsche did in fact
encourage the Nazis and in what way his views differ from theirs quite
significantly.
On first inspection, for example, it is not easy to believe that the Nazi's
demand for subservience and unselfishness fit well with Nietzsche's ideal of
"the will to power." But if one looks deep enough one will realize that the
will to power was not to be put in the service of the individual person but
of the tribe or culture.
Individual flourishing didn't interest Nietzsche; collective triumph did.
And on this the Nazis fully agreed with him. No wonder they invoked his
legacy over and over again in their literature.
On the other hand, Nietzsche would not likely have favored the sort of
politicization of the ideal of the superman that the Nazis promulgated. He
would have left politics aside concerning how the future of humanity was to
unfold so long as it involved a revolution in our moral values. (He deemed
conventional - especially Judeo-Christian morality - perverse, an enemy of a
fully flourishing, instinct-driven human life!)
Professor Hicks' presentation is immensely rich with facts, quotations,
analysis, and insight. Especially fascinating is the list of erudite
Europeans - Noble Laureates and the like - who eagerly supported the Nazis,
as well as the beloved Nazi slogans which are often exactly what our own
politicians urge us to internalize - for example, about the superiority of
the public interest over the private one.
Anyone with just an ounce of interest in recent intellectual and political
history will find watching this DVD a disturbing as well as riveting
experience.
Nietzsche and the Nazis is available for purchase from Amazon.com.
Tibor Machan is the R. C. Hoiles Professor of Business Ethics & Free
Enterprise at Chapman University's Argyros School of B&E and is a research
fellow at the Pacific Research Institute (San Francisco, CA) and the Hoover
Institution (Stanford University, CA).
Chronos
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