Friedrich Nietzsche and the Politics of the Soul: A Study of Heroic Individualism

by Leslie Paul Thiele

Book Overview

Reading Nietzsche's works as the "political biography of his soul," Leslie Thiele presents an original and accessible essay on the great thinker's attempt to lead a heroic life as a philosopher, artist, saint, educator, and solitary. He takes as his point of departure Nietzsche's conception of the soul as a multiplicity of conflicting drives and personae, and focuses on the task Nietzsche allotted himself "to make a cosmos out of his chaotic inheritance."...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0691020612
• ISBN13: 9780691020617
• Release Date: August 1990
• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.71 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

A book about a hero's philosophy

Could Friedrich Nietzsche actually have a hero? For those familiar with his works, the answer to this question would not be an easy one, for the reason that Nietzsche's writings are so honest as to be almost obscure. It is not common in literature or philosophy to find an author so willingly an exhibitionist. It is as though Nietzsche were himself trying to figure out who he was in his writings, and he never hesitates to reveal his thoughts. But maybe exhibitionist is not the right term to describe Nietzsche, as such a characterization would imply that he needed another's look to justify himself. But it seems as though Nietzsche was not writing for another, but for himself, feeling perhaps that his self-analysis was best done on paper. The author addresses this book to the readers of Nietzsche's works who are "victims" and have swallowed the bait, and consequently "carried along by the flights of his thought". She makes sure immediately to caution the reader that the expression "heroic individualism" is not found in any of Nietzsche's writings. But the equation "individual = hero" holds throughout his works. The author does a fine job of extracting this mathematics of individuation from the the writings of Nietzsche. One finishing the book, one carries away a deeper appreciation of the playful seriousness of Nietzsche's philosophy and his admonition to do philosophy while always looking in the mirror, and seeing one's own reflection, not someone else's. Nietzsche was always celebrating, according to the author, the death of gods, and his project was to inspire a passion for greatness in a world without gods. But idols are to be smashed, and the grandeur of man is not to be found in a divine origin. It is making use of the dynamism of the flux, and the achieving of fame, and not its achievement, that is true heroism. The hero is a "dragon-slayer" who must achieve in life the highest value, and it (life) is never to be squandered. Caution though must be ever present, lest one use heroism not as a stimulus to self-development but as a means of avoiding it. "Sentimental dirge" and Wagnerian romanticism must be rejected. The great man does not seek the admiration of the many, as the author again characterizes Nietzschean heroism: "go silently through the world and out of the world". The temptation for recognition must be avoided; one must not succoumb to the illusion of fame. The golden calf is not to replace the true self as the object of worship. Glory is always self-administered. So how rare or common today is the hero of the Nietzschean type? Well, quite common...thousands...maybe hundreds of thousands. They are to be found in dance, in science, in literature, on the battlefield, behind the counter, sitting in the classroom and also standing in front of it, in the laboratory....indeed everywhere....the 21st century has no paucity of heroism.

A well-written guide to what makes Nietzsche important.

This short book from Princeton University Press (only about 200 pages) is popular scholarship at its best. Thiele cuts through the many difficulties of Nietzsche's work to present, in prose accessible to any bright undergraduate, the essence of Nietzsche's project: the creation of a self that gives a noble and passionate answer to the question what it means to be fully conscious, fully human, fully engaged in creating one's values and one's life. I've been reading Nietzsche for some ten years now, and had lately begun writing about what makes him so fascinating--when Thiele's book made my own effort unnecessary. If you want to know (1) why Nietzsche looms large in the modern mind and (2) whether you want to read him yourself, this is the place to start