Part 7 of Nietzsche’s “Thus spoke Zarathustra” and the Identaria project
Another important theme which is common to the Identaria project and Nietzsche’s Zarathustra is the quest for knowledge which should be carried out free from the constraints of the mainstream academia. As a former academic Nietzsche had extensive experience with the European academia in the second half of the 19-th century. At the age of 25 he earned a professorship in Classical philology at the University of Basel in Switzerland. When 10 years later, in 1879 Nietzsche resigned from the university he claimed ill health, which was true enough, and he obtained a pension. Clearly, however, he also felt that his further development called for a break with his academic career as a professor of philology. As he states in the chapter “On scholars” in Zarathustra:
“I have moved from the house of the scholars and I even banged the door behind me. My soul sat hungry at their table too long; I am not, like them, trained to pursue knowledge as if it were nutcracking. I love freedom and the air over the fresh earth; rather would I sleep on ox hides than on their decorums and respectabilities.”
In “Thus spoke Zarathustra” Nietzsche provides valuable and highly critical insights on scholars and science as a whole which are very relevant for the Identaria project. Nietzsche’s views on science and scholars are presented in several chapters throughout Zarathustra: “On scholars”, “On immaculate perception” and, of course, “On science”. He refers very often to “the lovers of knowledge”. In the chapter “On old and new tablets” Zarathustra links evil, truth and science, stating: “Alongside the bad conscience, all science has grown so far. Break, break, you lovers of knowledge, the old tablets!”
Very original and profound is Nietzsche’s critique against the claim for immaculate perception of knowledge in the methodological chapter “On immaculate perception”. The reference to the immaculate conception of Virgin Mary is pretty obvious. Although laid out in poetic terms Nietzsche’s critique against the “pure perceivers” and against “the pure methods” of scientific observation is very well-grounded. Indeed, every knowledge comes along with the original sin of subjectivity and normative assumptions. Knowledge gathering and production is in a certain way sinful and sensual as some of Zarathustra’s verses suggest: “Verily, like the sun I love life and all deep seas. And this is what perceptive knowledge means to me: all that is deep shall rise up to my heights.”
The autobiographical chapter “On scholars” is a remarkable prophesy about the degradation of the Western academia. It presents a fierce and well-grounded critique of the emerging academic profession in Europe in the second half of the 19-th century. In this chapter scholars are being described consecutively as sheep, flour bags and frogs: “their wisdom often has an odor as if it came from the swamps; and verily, I have also heard frogs croak out of it.” Nietzsche describes with contempt “their falseness and their loaded dice”:
“I have always seen them carefully preparing poison; and they always put on gloves of glass to do it. They also know how to play with loaded dice; and I have seen them play so eagerly that they sweated.”
“And when I lived with them, I lived above them. That is why they developed a grudge against me.”
“For men are not equal: thus speaks justice. And what I want, they would have no right to want!”
It should be noted that the shortcomings identified by Nietzsche have even been exacerbated over the years and led to the present-day degradation of the academic establishments all over Europe and the U.S.
In the chapter “On science” a most interesting attempt to account for the origin of science in terms of fear is presented by one of Zarathustra’s followers:
“For fear is the original and basic feeling of man; from fear everything is explicable, original sin and original virtue. From fear my own virtue too has grown, and it is called: science… Such long old fear, finally refined, spiritualized, spiritual — today, it seems to me, this is called science.”
Of course, Nietzsche’s negative experience in the academia and, respectively his negative attitude to scholars does not mean that scholarship and research are, by and large, useless. This is certainly not the case for a research and innovation project as Identaria. “Thus spoke Zarathustra” itself is to a great extent the result of Nietzshe’s many years of research, scholarship and the knowledge gathered (and duly suffered) throughout his life. What we can get from Nietzsche’s views on science is that scholarship, scientific research and knowledge production must be set free from the decadent Western academia. A new European identity-based scholarship must be developed outside the institutional frameworks of the mainstream academia. A possible organizational solution is the establishment of an independent Research Programme of the patriotic forces in Europe or, more generally of the European New Right. A blueprint for such a Programme is being developed and published under the Identaria project. The principal objective is to develop a European nationalist counter-science in the longer term. The rationale behind the Research Programme is that a free European patriotic research area could be the ideal testbed for experimenting the Identaria homeland concept.
Nikolay Pavlov