David
York
In Nietzsche’s Uses and
Disadvantages of History for Life, Nietzsche makes the point that history
is something that is only beneficial if used in the right manner and in the
right proportion. If misused or used excessively, history becomes not only
counter- productive, but physically dangerous. He writes Uses and Disadvantages of
History for Life because he believes that German culture at the time of his
authorship to be one that suffers from an excess of history. In particular he
seems to have targeted several different specific cultural phenomena for his
criticism. These primary targets of the work were: the treatment of history as
a science, the popularity of Hegel, and a broader phenomenon, the involvement
of history with Christianity. What he seemed to observe in these phenomenon was
neither the tendency toward the encouragement of will to power in individuals
nor the encouragement of right actions. In fact, not only does the misuse
demonstrated in these phenomena not encourage right action, but instead often
weakens the involved individual’s ability to act in any way. This is the
explanation for his beginning quote of Goethe. “In any case, I hate everything
that merely instructs me without augmenting or directly invigorating my
activity.”
A significant way history can be
used or misused is in the proportions of different types of history to each
other. Nietzsche makes a distinction between three types of history, each
needing to be balanced with the other two. In the following, I will lay out
these varying types of history in order to specify Nietzsche’s rhetoric of the
use and abuse of history. Nietzsche aims
at an attunement or acknowledgement of these three types of history in order to
apprehend that which we are – our existence.
The first type of history is monumental history. This type of history, is
History, which serves life in that in its proper amount, it inspires or
encourages the striving of individuals to better themselves.
It is a type of history in which excess causes the individual involved to
become overzealous and unreasonable.
Another type of history is antiquarian history. Antiquarian history, as I
understand it, acts as a preservative of society. It offers examples of what
was, so that what is will hopefully
not sink beyond the flaws of what was and be carried forward in part by
monumental history. An excess of antiquarian history causes an excess of
novelty and an overemphasis on all historical information. Perhaps with respect
to religious history, excess causes an emphasis on ritual centered around less important aspects of the religion, where the
true significance of religion is lost amongst superfluous emphasis.
The third type of history is
critical history, which is destructive. Not in the sense of it being
universally undesirable, more in the sense that it breaks down the wrong and
the unnecessary. It paves the way for that which is truly important to be
emphasized and valued. The problem of its excess is that it tears down too
much. It also destroys that which is significant or helpful.
Nietzsche says that there are five
main dangers of history as a whole being in excess. These five dangers seem to
result from the unbalance of the three types of history and perhaps also from a
lack of what he termed the unhistorical, which I will cover later. He says that
the first of the five dangers is that the excess leads to a contrast between
inner self and the outer self, which leads to a weakened personality. This
weakened personality seems to be the result of an over criticism of that which
is built into the individual's personality for the sake of an overvaluation of
being that which the person truly has no desire to be. In other words, it leads
the involved individual to value being a particular way, not because the person
has an honest commitment to change for the sake of being a better person, as in
monumental history’s proper usage, but instead to pursue something so that they
may be valued for their merit in the same way in which the historical is
valued, inappropriately by the antiquarian and perhaps monumental history
types.
The second danger of excessive
history is that it leads the individual to the mistake of believing that he has
the virtue of being just, which is possibly very destructive. According to
Nietzsche few human beings have the ability to be just, which requires a
combination of the rarest traits. As I understand it, justice requires that the
individual judge be extremely accurate, perhaps always precisely correct in his
judgments. It also requires that each judgment be given with the utmost
unwavering confidence and coldness. He must be impervious to appeals to pity,
threats, and any sort of influence of popular opinion. This combination of
coldness and strength in one individual should make that person appear
monstrous to people, and is almost universally hated.
I think that part of the reason that he conceives justice in this manner
is the product of his conception of the basis of the vitality of all things,
will to power, and his belief that pity weakens both the person who pities and
the pitied. It is also important to distinguish the difference between pitying
someone and trying to help them out of compassion. Compassion encourages one
person to help another become stronger, it encourages vitality. Pity on the
other hand, encourages one person to sustain another so that rather than
encourage that person to be strong it rewards them for having a weakness and
encourages them not to change their weakness. It also burdens the pitier with the weight of the pitied, and
prevents the pitied from striving and growing to be better. Pity can
often be a difficult thing to overcome, as a lack of it is often seen as a lack
of compassion. This creates immediate popular resistance to the person who has
a lack of pity and that person must strive to become strong enough to move
through life without the help of those who would normally assist him if he had
pity. Thus the bearer of justice must be strong enough to be just and must have
an understanding of what judgments are right and what judgments are wrong.
Furthermore, Nietzsche says that great harm can be done by those who
falsely believe that they have the ability to act justly. It seems that often
if a person critically examines enough history, that person may be lead to
believe they can discern the just actions from the unjust in history. It is
very easy for a person to go from this interpretation of history to a belief
that they can judge between right and wrong in day to day life situations. When
a person does try to judge without having the strength to be just, that person
ends up merely tolerating the situation or adding to whatever problem is
already existent. This is similar to the way in which pity can worsen an
already present problem.
The third danger of an excess of
history is that it can impair the instincts and hinder the maturation of
individuals or groups. It does this both by drawing conceptions from a criticism
of history, which undermines the illusions which allow a person to feel
emotions towards things. When a thing is seen in a purely ‘objective’ way it
becomes difficult to then feel emotions, such as love, for something that
simply is. Nietzsche also says that this undermining of illusion and
consequently emotion also undermines vitality. Again, I think his reasoning for this ties
in to his understanding of will to power as that which is being. For something to
undermine emotions, such as love, is for something to undermine the emotional
supports for the will to live, which for living things could in some ways be
considered the will to power, or at least a significant part of it.
Also, this particular effect of the
excess of historical thinking is one which exposes people to an overabundance
of historical information, which does not necessarily contribute to their day
to day living. Instead, in a sort of antiquarian excess, it presents an array
of trivial facts and information as valuable, so that the learner becomes
disgusted with the uselessness of the learning and begins to see all the
historical information, including the pertinent and useful, as worthless. In
this way also does the excess of history interfere with the instincts and
maturation of the involved individual.
The fourth danger of an excess of
history is that it suggests that man is nearing his historical end. What this
means is that certain varieties of history suggest a developmental process, in
which we are approaching the end. This sort of concept is found in Hegel’s
historical-philosophical system. What it basically amounts to is that the whole
process of history has a purpose to it and that purpose is found in the
right-now or the shortly coming. In Hegel’s case, though he did not realize it
at the time, it was that Hegel himself had existed and thereby God had realized
himself. This manner of thinking, that the purpose of all history is nearing or
at its end lends itself, and perhaps inevitably leads to the manner of thinking
that everyone who has come into being at this point or later cannot possibly
contribute to the meaning of history. It lends itself to the idea that nothing
else great can be done, and that anything attempted now would surely pale
before the significance of what has come before. In other words this is a sort
of waning of the monumental in the face of the antiquarian.
The fifth and last mentioned major
sort of danger presented by an excess of the historical sense is that it leads
one to view oneself in the moods of irony and cynicism. It ties in closely with
the fourth danger in that the mood of cynicism is one that is created by the
sense that the historical process is inescapable, and that anything meaningful
will be achieved by that historical process and not by the works of an
individual who strives to do great things. The mood of irony is similar, but
lacks the conviction that this is the case. Instead, it is more the fear that
nothing that is accomplished now will last into the future.
These
various results are the products of different sorts of history in excess. The
manner in which the historical sense may be checked, and thereby the
aforementioned five dangers may be avoided is through the balancing of the
historical and the unhistorical. The unhistorical is a sort of forgetting, a
change of focus from what has been done to what must be done. Nietzsche says
that only by the unhistorical, with its focus on doing, can a creature live. If
a creature could not live un-historically at all it would die, and yet if it
could not think historically, that is to say if it could not remember, it would
end up much like an animal. It would end up living the most simple of lives,
which is not particularly desirable either. This unhistorical sense allows us
only to focus on what must be done. However, it allows us to forget, which then
helps us heal from the damage done to our illusions, our emotions, and thereby
go on living.
The balance of the historical and unhistorical is necessary in order to
live a life which is one in which we can learn, but learn in such a way that we
are not harmed by that learning. Historical sense gives that learning, if
appropriately, in such a way that we can draw from the past that which will
help us become better, preserve the beneficial and destroy harmful historical
acquisitions from the past. Thus the appropriate use of history,
and balance of the historical and unhistorical sense becomes a significant part
in the effort to become “stronger”.
David York is a Senior majoring in Philosophy at Ferrum College.
Nietzsche, Frederich. On the Uses and Disadvantages of History for
Life,
Nietzsche, Frederich. The http://www.geocities.com/thenietzschechannel/wtp.htm,
Will to Power, Kaufman, (1901),
Nietzsche, Frederich. http://www.fns.org.uk/ac.htm,
The Antichrist, Mencken, (1920),