[This is Section 30 of Nietzsche and the Nazis.] 30. On anti-Semitism: valid or disgusting? The most repulsive sign of Germany’s decline, Nietzsche writes—and this may be initially surprising—is its hatred of the Jews, its virulent and almost-irrational anti-Semitism. Nietzsche, we know, has said some harsh things about the Jews—but again, that is a set […]
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[This is Section 16 of Nietzsche and the Nazis.] 16. Eugenics Nazi education and censorship attempted to control people’s minds. The Nazis also controlled the bodies of their citizens as much as possible. Milder controls involved new public-health measures such as an aggressive campaign against smoking: the Nazis banned smoking in certain public places, ran
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[This is Section 17 of Nietzsche and the Nazis.] 17. Economic controls Through education and censorship, the Nazis attempted to socialize the German mind. Through public health measures and eugenics, they attempted to socialize the German body. A natural extension of both policies was to socialize German economic production. As would be expected by the
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[This is Section 18 of Nietzsche and the Nazis.] 18. Militarization The most important part of the new Germany was the military. On a historically unprecedented scale, the German economy became a war economy. Conscription had been reintroduced in 1935, and in 1936 Hermann Göring took over as Germany’s economic minister. Under Göring’s direction, Germany
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Following up on an earlier post contrasting modernism with pre-modernism, I here contrast post-modernism to both. Postmodernism as a philosophical system is defined by means of its characteristic claims in the five major branches of philosophy: metaphysics, epistemology, human nature, ethics, and politics. Postmodernism as a historical movement is defined by the time of its
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Intellectual systems and movements are defined philosophically by means of their characteristic claims in the five major branches of philosophy: metaphysics, epistemology, human nature, ethics, and politics. As historical movements, they are defined by the time of their formulation and most vigorous activity. So in the following table I offer a definitions of pre-modernism and
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[This is Appendix 4 of Nietzsche and the Nazis. Sources for the quotations are at the end of this post.] Appendix 4: Quotations on German militarism Immanuel Kant (1724-1804): “War itself, if it is carried on with order and with a sacred respect for the rights of citizens, has something sublime in it, and makes
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[This is Section 8 of Nietzsche and the Nazis.] 8. Economic socialism, not capitalism The second theme of the Program is a stress upon socialism and a strong rejection of capitalism. Numerically, socialism is the most emphasized theme in the Nazi Program, for over half of the Program’s twenty-five points—fourteen out of the twenty-five, to
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