Taking Nietzsche seriously

The Gray Area with Sean Illing

Vox Media Podcast Network

Society & Culture, News, Politics, News Commentary, Philosophy

4.6 • 10.8K Ratings

🗓️ 23 February 2023

⏱️ 63 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Sean Illing talks with political science professor Matt McManus about the political thought of Friedrich Nietzsche, the 19th-century German philosopher with a complicated legacy, despite his crossover into popular culture. They discuss how Nietzsche's work has been interpreted — and misinterpreted — since his death in 1900, how his radical political views emerge from his body of work, and how we can use Nietzsche's philosophy in order to interpret some key features of our contemporary politics. Host: Sean Illing (@seanilling), host, The Gray Area Guest: Matt McManus (@MattPolProf), lecturer, University of Michigan; author Referenced works by Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900): Ecce Homo (1888; published posthumously), Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883), Beyond Good and Evil (1886), Twilight of the Idols (1888), The Birth of Tragedy (1872), The Antichrist (1888; published posthumously), The Gay Science (1882) References: Nietzsche and the Politics of Reaction: Essays on Liberalism, Socialism, and Aristocratic Radicalism, ed. Matthew McManus (Palgrave; 2023) The Political Right and Equality: Turning Back the Tide of Egalitarian Modernity by Matthew McManus (Routledge; forthcoming) Nietzsche's Great Politics by Hugo Drochon (Princeton; 2016) Nietzsche's Letter to Georg Brandes (Dec. 2, 1887) Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist by Walter Kaufmann (Princeton; 2013) “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers?” from Nietzsche's The Gay Science, §125 (1882; tr. W. Kaufmann) "Atheist bus campaign spreads the word of no God nationwide" by Riazat Butt (The Guardian; Jan. 6, 2009) "Since Copernicus man has been rolling from the center toward X," from Nietzsche's The Will To Power, published posthumously in 1901. Immanuel Kant, Metaphysics of Morals (1797) Kierkegaard's Attack Upon "Christendom", 1854-1855 (tr. Walter Lowrie) Nietzsche, the Aristocratic Rebel by Domenico Losurdo (Brill; 2019) Joseph de Maistre, Considerations on France (1797) "Does Liberalism Mean Supporting Communism?" by Matthew McManus (Liberal Currents; Jan. 4, 2022) Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth (1963) United States of Socialism by Dinesh D'Souza (All Points; 2020) "The alt-right is drunk on bad readings of Nietzsche. The Nazis were too" by Sean Illing (Vox; Dec. 30, 2018) The Third Reich series by Richard J. Evans Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged (1957) Enjoyed this episode? Rate The Gray Area ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ and leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Subscribe for free. Be the first to hear the next episode of The Gray Area. Subscribe in your favorite podcast app. Support The Gray Area by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts This episode was made by: Producer: Erikk Geannikis Engineer: Patrick Boyd Editorial Director, Vox Talk: A.M. Hall Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	I know my feet.
0:06.1	Someday my name will be linked to the memory of something monstrous, of a crisis as yet
0:13.3	unprecedented on earth.
0:16.2	The most profound collusion of consciences, a decision conjured up against everything
0:23.6	hitherto believed, demanded, hallowed.
0:28.8	I am not a man.
0:31.9	I am dynamite.
0:37.2	Those are the words of Friedrich Nietzsche.
0:40.6	Nietzsche's philosophy has been a huge influence in my life.
0:44.3	If you listen to the show, you already know that.
0:47.9	But the guy is full of contradictions.
0:51.9	He's in the rare echelon of philosophers who've managed to cross over into popular culture.
0:57.6	He's at Nietzsche.
0:59.9	You don't speak because of Friedrich Nietzsche.
1:03.3	All right.
1:05.6	That's from Little Miss Sunshine, an Oscar winning 2006 movie.
1:10.8	For a 19th century German philosopher, that's pretty mainstream.
1:17.8	And yet, when it comes to his actual philosophy, his ideas are hard to pin down.
1:25.3	He wrote in many different voices and in many different and often contradictory ways.
1:32.1	Nietzsche challenged readers to live heroically, to transcend the banalities of a sick, decadent
1:38.9	culture.
1:40.4	The irony, of course, is that he himself was very sick.
	...

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