Nietzsche and Politicized Identities

Nietzsche and Politicized Identities is a timely addition to Nietzsche scholarship that emphasizes the relevance of Nietzsche’s thought to pressing political and philosophical issues today. Noting that contemporary political struggles are often organized around social group identities—race, religion, region, gender, sexuality, class, (dis)ability—the editors, Bamford and Merrick, propose that Nietzsche’s philosophy can offer conceptual tools to better understand politicized identities, which have direct impacts on the material conditions of our lives. Nietzsche’s philosophy may seem an odd place to look for such conceptual tools, given his controversial comments about women, his (arguably) aristocratic leanings, and his individualism. Yet, as this volume demonstrates, Nietzsche’s philosophy contains insights into politicized identities that intersect with the concerns of feminism, Black studies, (dis)ability studies, and decolonial philosophy.The editors cite BGE 6 as an inspiration for this volume. In BGE 6 Nietzsche links great philosophy to personal identity, arguing that philosophy is a form of autobiography: “a type of involuntary and unself-conscious memoir.” The editors suggest that BGE 6 “prompts us to interrogate the prejudices and assumptions that we all bring to the practice of philosophy” and “opens up space in which we may consider how to respond to the personal as already forming a constituent part of our philosophical engagements” (2). As such, the editors note that they encouraged contributors to include autobiographical components in their essays to emphasize that the personal is political. A second cornerstone to this volume is, as the editors note, a return to genealogy. They define genealogy as both (i) engagement with Nietzsche’s GM as a work of political philosophy and (ii) application of Nietzsche’s concept of genealogy as an analytic tool for examining social and political issues that impact diverse social groups.The volume is organized into three parts. The first, entitled “On the Origins of Identities and Modes of Subjection,” considers questions of identity formation and development and how this connects to Nietzsche’s discussion of subjectivity and drive psychology. The chapters in this section explore the implications of Nietzsche’s philosophy for identity formation, agency, and action among different types of politicized identities.The first two chapters in this section—Lawrence Hatab’s “Contending Selfhood: Nietzschean Contributions to the Question of Political Identity” and Paul Kirkland’s “Nietzsche and Tragic Identity”—address the implications Nietzsche’s theory of identity has for contemporary identity politics. Both accounts emphasize agon, contest, and multiplicity as essential to Nietzsche’s conception of personal identity. For Hatab, Nietzschean selfhood is a combination of conscious and unconscious agonistically positioned perspectives. Kirkland emphasizes the tragic nature of identity, arguing that the Nietzschean self should be understood as a site of unresolved conflicts that maintain a dynamic tension. Hatab applies his reading of Nietzschean identity to claims to ethnicity or nationality, arguing that they have a similar structure. Kirkland contrasts his view of tragic identity with Kimberlé Crenshaw’s theory of intersectionality and Kwame Anthony Appiah’s account of solidarity, arguing that Nietzsche’s theory of contested identity “could expand the way we think about identity as a source of solidarity and originality” (52).In chapter 3, “Passionate Actors and Wounded Apes: Nietzsche on Identity Formation,” Robert Guay offers a novel interpretation of Nietzschean identity based on the relationship between ideals and identity. Through an analysis of Nietzsche’s remarks on actors and apes, Guay argues that, for Nietzsche, identity formation is a form of striving to meet an ideal. Since the ideals one strives toward are often unreflectively internalized, they produce a form of self-estrangement: “one can only stand in the relationship to them that an actor does to a role” (65). As Guay argues, “identity itself is defective” because “it requires accepting self-definitions that one can never come to terms with” (69). Through engagement with Judith Butler’s treatment of gender, Guay demonstrates how gender can function as a self-estranging ideal that is realized through performance. Guay uses Wendy Brown’s account of “wounded attachments” and the work of Frantz Fanon to identify ways that identity can be less estranging.Allison Merrick argues, in chapter 4, “How We Became Who We Are: Retracing Nietzsche’s Genealogy of Politicized Identity,” that, for Nietzsche, there is a relationship between individual psychological structures and historical, sociopolitical conflicts. For Nietzsche, identity formation is politicized. Historical, sociopolitical conflicts and contexts organize self-experience. Merrick argues against Bernard Williams, who worries that the collective and social nature of Nietzsche’s account of morality is incompatible with the idiosyncratic and personal nature of psychology. Instead, she contends that Nietzsche in fact questions the individualistic understanding of psychology in favor of a view that unifies the psychological with the sociohistorical: “Forms of psychological organization are shown to be the results of interpersonal conflicts at once socially produced and historically conditioned” (90). Merrick concludes by considering the ways that bell hooks, Angela Davis, Gina Dent, Erica R. Meiners, and Beth Richie apply a genealogical method to urgent social issues, including racism, sexism, and ableism, demonstrating the contemporary significance of Nietzsche’s account of psychology.Rebecca A. Longtin’s contribution, “Perspectivism, World-Traveling, and the Multiplicitous Self: Rereading Nietzsche through Latinx Decolonial Feminist Philosophy” (chapter 5), demonstrates the affinities between Nietzsche’s perspectivism and the work of Gloria Anzaldúa, María Lugones, and Mariana Ortega. Longtin holds that while Nietzsche’s perspectivism “recognizes the way that social practices, culture, and power shape knowledge and values” (104), it nonetheless is limited by Nietzsche’s attachment to strength as a value, which ultimately excludes perspectives historically associated with dependency. As such, the liberatory potential of Nietzschean perspectivism can be drawn out through its relationship to Lugones and Anzaldúa’s concepts of world-traveling and the multiplicitous self.The second part of the book, entitled “Elitism and Political Hierarchies,” is less cohesive than the first. In chapter 6, “Shame, Humiliation, and Whiplash: The Case of the Ascetic Priest,” Daniel Conway argues that the character type of Nietzsche’s ascetic priest uses shame to shape identity. He makes this argument through a detailed analysis of the 2014 Damien Chazelle film Whiplash, which tells the story of a sadistic music teacher, Terence Fletcher (played by J. K. Simmons), and his talented protégé, Andrew Neiman (played by Miles Teller). Conway uses the film to explore the relationship between shame and the production of genius, in this case, musical genius. The chapter generates fruitful questions about the necessity of suffering in self-overcoming and the use of shame as an instrument of elevation. However, it is not clear how the chapter fits into the rest of the volume, as the film Whiplash portrays the relationship between two (white and male) individuals striving for musical greatness, without reference to a larger political context.In chapter 7, “Freedom Against Equality: Nietzsche’s Aristocratic Politics,” Rebecca Aili Ploof argues that while, for Nietzsche, freedom furthers the end of human flourishing or affirmation of life, the democratic value of equality threatens and undermines it. Ploof offers a reading of GM, in which Nietzsche “advances an argument for the cultivation of freedom over and against equality, stipulating, finally, that such cultivation is for the benefit of an aristocratic few” (154). While Ploof offers a compelling reading of Nietzsche’s aristocratic politics, she does not explicitly relate this reading to any contemporary political issues. She merely alludes, in the last paragraph of the chapter, to the fact that Nietzsche’s nineteenth-century worry about the threat modern democracy poses to freedom can provide a clearer conceptual formation of the problem than contemporary democratic political thought.C. Heike Schotten’s chapter, “Masters, Slaves, ‘Terrorists’: On Elitism and Existential Threats,” argues that Nietzsche’s critique of slave morality can be used “to diagnose the misplaced resentment of the Right” (174). Like Longtin, Schotten recognizes that Nietzsche’s critique of slave morality emanates from the perspective of those in power. Schotten reads Nietzsche’s account of slave morality from the perspective of the oppressed (a term Nietzsche would not have used). In doing so, she argues that what Nietzsche finds contemptible is not oppression, subordination, or political abjection, but rather the moralizing that accompanies slavishness. She argues that if we read GM I from the perspective of the oppressed, we can see that Nietzsche’s real problem with slave morality is not slavishness, per se, but a form of resentful, vengeful moralizing. Schotten argues that this form of moralizing is characteristic of the political right and their rhetoric around terrorism as it has been used in contemporary U.S. popular and political discourses. The recalcitrance of Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism can be explained by reference to the right’s moralizing ressentiment.The chapters in Part II don’t have the same cohesion as the chapters presented in Part I. As mentioned above, Conway’s chapter does not directly address the topic of politicized identities, focusing instead on an agonistic relationship between a mentor and a mentee. Ploof’s chapter does a fine job discussing Nietzsche’s aristocratic elitism but does not apply Nietzsche’s reading to contemporary concerns regarding politicized identities. Schotten’s article, in contrast, is primarily concerned with applying an interpretation of Nietzsche’s ressentiment to contemporary politics.The third part of the book, entitled “Emancipatory Possibilities,” is organized around the question of whether Nietzsche’s work offers a descriptive account of the formation of politicized identities or if his work offers a normative political agenda, along with possibilities for therapeutic responses for those struggling under the weight of their politicized identities. These contributions consider whether Nietzsche’s work is descriptive or if it offers a therapeutic or normative political agenda.In chapter 9, “Nietzsche and Feminine Subjectivity,” Elif Yavnik considers what it is like to read Nietzsche as a woman. While Nietzsche’s philosophy offers valuable theoretical tools that have been taken up by feminists—his anti-essentialism, genealogical method, and questioning of “eternal” truths—his work is nonetheless written from a male perspective that involves the marginalization of women. Yavnik questions the possibility of feminine subjectivity in Nietzsche. She argues that while Nietzsche’s thought does not explicitly allow for feminine subjectivity, this denial “constitutes an important possibility for the emergence of feminine subjectivity” (212). Nietzsche’s performative summoning of the feminine can be interpreted as a call to live differently.Kaitlyn Creasy’s contribution (chapter 10), “Sexism Is Exhausting: Nietzsche and the Emotional Dynamics of Sexist Oppression,” explores the theoretical tools Nietzsche offers for understanding the emotional and psychophysiological impacts of sexist oppression. On Creasy’s reading, Nietzsche’s account of the social and cultural production of emotional experience serves as a conceptual resource for “understanding the detrimental emotional impacts of social norms, beliefs, and practices that systematically devalue certain of one’s ends and interests” (230).In chapter 11, “‘The Great Seriousness Begins’: Nietzsche’s Tragic Philosophy and Philosophy’s Role in Creating Healthier Racialized Identities,” Jacqueline Scott argues that adopting a tragic view of our racialized lives in the contemporary world can help affirm our lives as racialized subjects in a racialized society. Unlike Kirkland, who emphasizes the agonist elements of the tragic, Scott defines tragic philosophy as a counterpoint to the bad conscience of the ascetic ideal. Tragic philosophy responds to weak decadence—or the psychological underpinning of nihilism—that involves physiological and philosophical health and leads to the cultivation of a new type of philosopher. A tragic philosopher is capable of “contending with the profound nihilistic truth of life but not drowning in the despair it inspires” (275). On Scott’s reading, this can be accomplished by adopting an artistic approach to value creation, self-formation, and self-procreation. Scott applies Nietzsche’s tragic approach to those who struggle with racialized identities, claiming that it can offer courage to understand one’s racialized self (which includes unconscious racialized instincts and habits) and to adopt an artistic approach to revaluing and redefining one’s racialized identity that can lead to the affirmation of life.Jeremy Fortier’s chapter, “‘To Affirm while Resisting’: Ralph Ellison and Friedrich Nietzsche on Overcoming History,” focuses on the affinities between Ellison and Nietzsche on the topic of life affirmation. Fortier argues that both Nietzsche and Ellison grapple with the “awareness of one’s world and one’s self as the product of a deeply troubling, unwanted historical inheritance” (291). For both, personal development involves coming to terms with one’s “embeddedness in a larger world history (as the inheritor of traditions, values, and obstacles that one would not choose for oneself but which shape one’s position and possibilities in the world)” (291). The challenge is to accept the fact that one is a product of history, without becoming entirely defined by it. While Nietzsche and Ellison both argue that self-knowledge is intertwined with historical knowledge, Nietzsche’s interest in life affirmation stops at the individual level. Fortier argues that, for Ellison, Nietzschean life affirmation would seem myopic or stunted. Instead, Ellison extends life affirmation beyond the individual to the political principles that can be affirmed with others.In the final chapter, “Disability, Power, and Life,” Rebecca Bamford develops a unifying account of the liberatory resources for disability within Nietzsche’s critique of Mitleid (pity or compassion). She argues that Nietzsche’s critique of Mitleid has implications for social power relationships and offers resources for understanding disability as a positive political identity on the levels of the individual and the collective. It has the potential to identify the structural conditions that underlie ableism, promote the agency of disabled people, and understand how philosophical prejudices regarding the moral correctness of Mitleid prevent the elimination of ableism from philosophy and society at large.Through its various contributors, Nietzsche and Politicized Identities demonstrates the value of applying Nietzschean thought to contemporary social and political issues. Nietzsche’s philosophy of identity is a rich resource for understanding how our identities are shaped by the social and political world that we live in. The volume is successful in generating a productive tension between Nietzsche’s worrisome comments on gender, race, religion, and other politicized identities and the critical tools that Nietzsche’s philosophy nonetheless offers for understanding the impacts that sociopolitical forces have on identity formation. The volume offers an array of approaches to this topic. Some chapters stay within the bounds of traditional Nietzsche scholarship, while others offer personal anecdotes, political critiques, or therapeutic offerings. Overall, the volume demonstrates the continued significance of Nietzsche’s thought today.