Anti-Nietzsche
Malcolm Bull
Verso
He has dominated contemporary thought, being the touchstone for Freud, Heidegger, Deleuze, Lyotard, Bataille, Foucault, Derrida, Adorno and Weber. Nietzsche remains what he wanted to be - the limit-philosopher of a modernity that never ends. In this provocative, sometimes disturbing book, Bull argues that merely to reject Nietzsche is not to escape his lure. His appeals to our desire for victory, our creativity, our very humanity are seductions we cannot resist simply by disagreeing with him. Only by 'reading like a loser', and failing to live up to his ideals can we move beyond Nietzsche to a nihilism still more destructive of our values.This opens the way to a philistinism and subhumanism that expand the boundaries of society, gradually undermining culture - and even language - until we are left with nothing in common. Social nihilism is, Bull argues, the one alternative to the logic of fascism in which the boundaries of a society contract to preserve and enhance its culture. Anti-Nietzsche is a subtle and subversive engagement with Nietzsche and his interpreters. Written with economy and clarity, it shows how a politics of failure might be a species-changing practice.