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THE UNMUTUAL BOOK 3: BATTLE OF THE IDEAS

1. IONIAN SCIENCE AND THE PRE-SOCRATICS

It was the dawn of an era that would define are own and yet it is from but mere fragments with which our world is has based itself upon. The task that we face today of living beyond eternal deceptive values is not the first such attempt. In ancient Greece before the coming of the golden age, before the famous figures of later antiquity, there was an early effort to transcend the metaphysical and to understand the world in real terms. Such inquisitive healthy mindedness did not last long, yet it was a first failed attempt at that which occupies us today. This form of rational enquiry did not last long but it offered a brief moment of sanity in a history that is otherwise devoid of it. It was an era before the coming of Christianity and although it eventually lead to the Christian mindset it was in its prime utterly alien to it. For instance the Greeks had no notion of sin. For them all wrongdoing was merely disapproval, an error to be corrected. This was a far healthier and responsible attitude than to suggest upon damnation, it appealed to people’s minds instead of scaring them into submission. With this and many of their other methods, the Greeks achieved a richness of human life, a full development of human gifts and faculties, which form the basis for anything forward thinking and progressive to this day. The stoic’s conception of morality was a logical outlook. The essential nature of man lies in his reason, and goodness consists in obeying reason. If anything defined these minds it was a not trying to take things too easily on ones mind, in a way a ‘truth at all costs’ as the Russian nihilists would have had it or a ‘whatever is presently the most likely case’ as stated by the stoic and eclectic schools. They recognised that nature is of itself and does not conform to any form of intelligence, as the later thinkers would have it. In a way many of their theories were completely wrong. They were not scientists in the way we understand today testing theories against empirical evidence. Yet they were the founders, the first to attempt to understand the world properly. These along with the Epicureans were contemporary with the time of Socrates and briefly posed opposition to the Socratic method, which went against every instinct definably Hellenic. Anaximander was one of the first rational inquirers. He brought a form of understanding to how the Greeks thought about the world whilst some of his ideas almost showing an early form of Darwinism. His view of the world was as natural not supernatural.Democritus could be said to predate Heidegger when he said, “there is no more reason for a ‘thing’ to exist than for ‘no-thing’ to exist.” This became a key issue in early 20th century phenomenological theory, trying to understand why there is ‘something’ and not ‘nothing’. Democritus is of extreme interest for his healthy minded scepticism and his tendency to question all accepted norms. He recognised that “nothing is true or at least unclear to us” His early existential style of mannerisms characterise his attitude towards the meaningless nature of the universe:

“Democritus used to laugh at everything, since he regarded all human affairs to be ridiculous.”1

Antiphon the Sophist could have held an idea towards authentic existence, which would come to dominate 20th century thought. He recognised the difference between acts performed for their own sake and those performed for their appearance to others. He also questioned the discrepancies between justice and natural law, and believed that just acts only counted if they became known, whereas acts against nature bring harm regardless.

1 Hippolytus, ‘Refutation of All Heresies.’

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From this he concluded that man-made laws are hostile to nature, and can be transgressed in order to follow laws of nature. This brings to mind the likes of Rousseau with his debates on the difference between social liberty and natural laws.Heraclitus is perhaps the most well known of the pre-Socratics, but not necessarily the best understood. His writings, which have survive are perplexingly cryptic, yet it is in the contradiction embracing essence of his thought that it most parallels contemporary dialectics. It was his opinion that the things that exist are harmonised by the transformation of opposites, this is almost an anticipation of Hegel’s theory of dialectics, with everything existing in its antithesis.

“Cold things become Hot, hot cold, wet dry, parched moist… Gods are mortal, men immortal living their death, dying their life… We step and do not step into the same rivers, we are and we are not.”2

The most notable of his observations however was in his acceptance of the world as irrational and not controlled nor created by any form of intelligence, which could be in line with that of our own. He recognised that the noblest harmony comes from things that differ and that everything comes about in accordance with strife. It was this recognition above all that puts him in direct opposition to the type of philosophy that would come to dominate the coming centuries, the recognition that the world is hostile towards our temperament and is not a play ground designed for us to inhabit. Gorgias had a similar line on this form of enquiry, his argument having at its heart the problem of being, which would still trouble thinkers right up to the present day.

“If there is nothing with being, then he says demonstrations are deceptive. For every object of thought must have being, and something without being, if it has no being cannot be an object of thought. If this is so, there would be no such thing as a lie, not even if someone were to speak of chariots racing in the sea as all such things would have no being.”3

This idea that there can be no such thing as a lie, or untruth, takes onboard the post modernist conception of temporary and relative truths. It does away with the illusion we have of any eternal values and recognises the inherent flaws that will occur when we try to understand ‘what is the case’.

2. JESUS AND SOCRATES

The Socratic philosophy was a reaction against this materialist drift of physical science. In order to discover the spiritual world philosophy abandoned the search for material substance in external nature and turned its eyes inward to the human soul. This with time became known as the Delphic injunction, characterised by Socrates’ dictum: ‘know thyself’. It is here that the initial characteristics of what would become Christianity took root. The Socratic way is therefore against the nature of all things Greek. If earlier Greek thought had had the chance to develop its more healthy minded form of enquiry the pagan world could have developed into a renaissance. The Epicureans and stoics briefly continued into the Roman world yet, the persecution of Marcus Aurelius made sure that stoicism would not direct the minds of the ruling class beyond the classical age.

2 Heraclitus, ‘Fragments.’

3 Aristotle, ‘On Melissus, Xenophanes and Gorgias.’

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Thucydides is a rare example of a later Greek who boar a healthy mindset. His speeches took the position that people care less for justice than for their own narrow interests, a more truthful acceptance of human nature than the Socratics naïve conception of ‘the good’. Christianity was able to take the place of all other Hellenic thought systems. It was its veil of Maya, which enabled it to survive, its appeal to the weak, contrasted to the strong willed nature of the Hellenic mind. It was only when Epicurean physics were rediscovered in the 17th century that the basis of modern science could establish itself. We can see through this that if not for the Hellenic deformity into Christianity, Europe could possibly have bypassed the dark ages and found itself a thousand years further ahead in progression.Why did the Greeks study nature first and only find the need to ‘know himself’ until the time of Socrates?

The essence of life in the modern world stems from two sources: Palestine and Greece. The condensing of the Hellenic religion from the crude and unorganised traditional polytheism of Homeric gods into a rational belief in god, turned the pre-Socratic world view into a literal account of the world and created the natural theology which Christianity used as the substructure of its theological scheme. Originally the Hellenic conception of god was ‘idea of the good’ or ‘first mover’ or ‘ruling principle’. These concepts now took on however, the purpose not of a healthy inquirous temperament towards origins but a fantasy to which submission was required.The Hellene begins with man and works his way to the metaphysical, but it is always man that is essentially the issue. As Sophocles stated: ‘there are many wonderful things and nothing more wonderful than man’. The Palestine approach was more the opposite. God is taken as the main premise, not the conclusion. It is here that the two doctrines met and also here that their main differences of emphasis were shifted into a synthesis. As Nietzsche said the difference between the two is in the western minds ability to give reasons for what he believes. However with the abstract now taking centre stage it was not long before the practical and life affirming qualities of the pre-Socratic mind were abandoned for the sake of the metaphysical. Inevitably religion replaced man in the centre of life as the greatest of interests. Speculatively it drove the invisible world into the foreground, it filled men with the sense that behind the scenes of life their existed an ultimate reality which must hold the key to their destiny and which therefore must hold the clue towards the correct form of conduct. Its main damaging effect however was in its insistence that the things, which are seen, are temporal and therefore should be of no interest. This pointed to a way of thinking that if things are not seen they must be eternal and of vital importance.

Socrates’ new conception of the beyond then became manifest. With his death at the hands of the Athenian government, he became a martyr in the same sense and as a precursor to Christ. Jesus and Socrates then both represent supposed ‘virtuous’ men. Socrates’ plagiarism by anticipation of Christ’s sacrifice lead the way to escapist romanticism for dubious moral convictions. Socrates knew exactly that which Nietzsche exposed centuries later, that to be a martyr does not make a cause more worthy and yet in the eyes of the Hellenic world about to come under the intellectual influence of Socrates’ protégés, he knew it would be perceived as such. Why else did he accept his fate so readily taking that final hemlock toast? The Athenians were more in favour of banishment than execution, Socrates brought about his own end in the knowledge of the mythical status which he would now take on. His philosophical exposition upon his death bed as to why it was pointless to fear death gave further credence, in the eyes of those present, to his doctrine of the beyond. The way in which Socrates talks of and legitimizes a beyond is by Ionian standards insane. To suggest that death and life necessitate each other in turn as they are opposites, supposedly swinging between ying and yang is a great simplification. The fact that the

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natural cycle of life itself has an ‘eternal recurrence’ does not point at all to an individual soul or person recurring throughout. Plato and his ilk were Socrates’ sidekicks and after his death they submitted utterly to the Socratic method. It is well known how Plato burnt all of his poetry in order to become a disciple of Socrates. He negated himself to become like Socrates. It is then perhaps an irony of Socratic proportions that Plato ignored himself to follow through Socrates’ know thyself’ he became other than himself, to become Socrates. If Socrates therefore was such an expert at knowing his-self and becoming what he was, does this mean to say that Plato became what he was or merely that which he mythologized Socrates to be? The man of self-deception who then became contrary to himself in his obsession to be like his master. Socrates himself never wrote a thing. It is to Plato, Xenothon and the others to which we look to find what at least they considered the man to be. If we look at Socrates’ final words as glorified by Plato that great mythologizer of humble men, we find the idea that things have an essence of size. Some essences are ‘big’ and others ‘small’. Following this line of inquiry if a thing is in the middle ground it contradicts itself through its being bigger than tiny yet smaller than huge. This logic defies logic! Things are independent of one another; it is only in comparison that they can take on such terms. This out look then is a mistake, things are not born into competition, and whether we compete or compare things socially is of another matter from this type of pure semiotic comparison. Then it is easy to say that things usually are put into comparison with each other whether size or other wise. Yet they are not born out of it. Some pre-Socratic thinkers thought that there was a plurality of things meaning that all elements were alien to one another whilst some believed that all was one, meaning that all elements are forged from a primary element. These thinkers predated the atomists in their attempts to discover what the world really was.The tendency to appropriate Socrates as a precursor to Christianity was not at all restricted amongst the pagan thinkers. The later Christian apologist Justin from the 2nd century CE viewed Socrates in the same light. Comparing Socrates’ denouncement by the Athenian government, to the similar accusations of atheism made towards the Christians. He claimed that Socrates was put to death as he rejected the existence of the Olympian gods and urged worship towards the one ‘true’ god. Socrates then is here seen as having had a particular understanding of the coming age in which Christ would take his place as a savior.

“We can recognise in the Socrates of The Clouds (Aristophanes) at least three different types which were never united to perfection in any single person: first the Sophist, who teaches the art of making a good case out of a bad one; second the atheistic natural philosopher like Anaxagoras; and third the ascetic moral teacher, ragged and starving through his own indifference to worldly interests.”4

Here we see that other connection between Socrates and his logical successors the Christians. In the Sophistic technique employed of ‘making the weaker argument defeat the stronger’, a slogan associated with the Sophist Protagoras, and the combat between the two arguments, in which the morality of the stronger, juster argument succumbs to the sophistry of the weaker. This is exactly the kind of destruction of healthy mindedness, which becomes over thrown by the stupidity that has characterised epochs since.

“With Socrates Greek taste undergoes a change in favour of dialectics. It is above all the defeat of a nobler taste; with dialectics the rabble gets on top. –Is Socrates’ irony an expression of revolt? Of the resentiment of the rabble? The moralism of the Greek philosophers from Plato downwards is

4 Guthrie, W.K.C. ‘A History of Greek Philosophy.’

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pathologically conditioned: one must imitate Socrates and counter the dark desires by producing a permanent daylight, -the daylight of reason: that bizarrest of equations and one which has in particular all the instincts of the older Hellenes against it.”5

Yet as all earlier philosophers had understood it was precisely these dark desires that lead to a deeper understanding. The Hellenic temperament until then was that of a healthy acceptance of all our nature and the irrational nature of the world. This was characterised by the Greek gods, who were not so much aloof perfect figures, but had human failings and desires and insatiable passions, which they did not hesitate to fulfil. However from now on desire becomes associated with sinfulness and the pursuit of ‘the good’ takes on an altogether ethical paradigm. It is this permanent daylight, which from then on blinded the Greeks to the fact that the pursuit of truth is no pleasant affair. From here on Greek thought ignores the healthy acceptance of the ecstatic state and would lead onwards but not upwards towards Christianity and the debasement of all human passions and feeling.

“The profoundest instinct of life, the instinct for the future of life, for the eternity of life, is in this word experienced religiously – The actual road to life, procreation, as the sacred road… it is only Christianity, with its resentiment against life in its foundations, which made sexuality something impure, it threw filth on the beginning, on the prerequisite of our life.”6

It was in tragedy that the Greeks came face to face with this awe-inspiring terribleness of reality and a brave acceptance of the true nature of our instincts and passions along with the world in which we must inhabit. From Socrates onward philosophy, ever more interested in metaphysics and the beyond, decides to run away from the world and away from any other terrible or ugly truths. From then on the only truth that could be tolerated would be that which upheld beauty or goodness at all costs.

3. TRAGEDY

“An oriental sage always included in his prayers the request that the gods spare him from living in an interesting age. Our own age is extremely interesting, that is to say it is tragic.”7

The Greek tragedians were the highest upholders of life as through that state they achieved a level of intensity never paralleled since. Aristotle completely missed the point when he proposed a moderate life as the best way forward. Those pre-Socratic ecstatic geniuses recognised in tragedy the highest emotive state. It is where we can realise our true potential and the full range of our powers. This is usually something regarded with scorn, even Schopenhauer recognised that:

5 Nietzsche, Friedrich, ‘The Birth of Tragedy.’

6 Nietzsche, Friedrich, ‘On The Genealogy of Morals.’

7 Camus, Albert, ‘The Future of Tragedy.’

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“All cruelty of which the world is full is in fact merely the necessary result of the totality of the forms under which the will to life is objectified and thus merely a commentary on the affirmation of the will to live.”8

In this case unjust or supposed wicked or immoral actions are merely signs of the strength of the affirmation to the will to life. Therefore if we are to act and really put ourselves forward we cannot help but interfere with the happiness of others, but it is a way of shaking us out of this happy peaceful and complacent negation of life. To remain in this state is not only dangerous to our own existence but also to all as we are avoiding our responsibility to things in the wider world.It therefore follows that whatever initially seems dangerous and harmful to life is under closer scrutiny that which is really uplifting to life. For instance why are people so afraid of the rain? Is it any coincidence that they hold hostile the substance that sustains them, in much the same manner as they do all else which is truly life affirming? The genius of tragedy then is that it heightens the emotive responses beyond that of ordinary stimulants. It represents the extremes and creates pleasure out of that which we would usually find unpleasant.

“Objects which in themselves we view with pain, we delight to contemplate when reproduced with minute fidelity.”9

Tragedy is directed towards pathos not action, there is no need for suspense. What occurs appears all the more tragic when faced with its inevitability.What makes true works of art and experiences seem life affirming is their fleetingness, like a bubble ready to burst at any moment. We attach value to these things and thereby supposed profound beauty. All that is temporary we long for as it cannot ever be possessed beyond the moment. This aspect of what we consider beauty suggests that these things are really decadent. That which is fleeting is also therefore ‘of the moment’ and of a frivolous affair. That which is deemed beautiful is therefore whatever is common, that which defines an age through its fickle desires and has no business lasting beyond them. It is that which the majority blindly accept that becomes considered as the beautiful as most aesthetic perceptions are in conformity with the whims of the present.That which is truly life affirming is that which is recognised by the tragedians as such. Not the fleeting complacent whims of public opinion and life but that, which perhaps seems to endanger life but in actuality affirms it. Here we have the two divisions: the ecstatic state against mindless cheerfulness. The happy life of ‘the good’ or the ‘just’ as Socrates would have them is anti-life. It descends, from a healthy questioning temperament, into its eventual evolution into Christianity, a state of tame unquestioning contentment. Socrates himself was a questioner but that which he preached inspired its antithesis.The genius of tragedy is that it recognises the fact that all forces in confrontation with one another are always equally legitimate. There is no self-deceptive reliance upon ‘good and evil’, tragedy recognises the fact that all are justified. In this way tragedy is far more ambiguous and complex compared to that which followed it.

“Whatever exists is alike just and unjust, and in both cases equally justified.”10

8 Schopenhauer, Arthur, ‘On The Suffering of The World.’

9 Aristotle, ‘Poetics.’

10 Nietzsche, Friedrich, ‘The Birth of Tragedy.’

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Drama is by comparison simple minded. In tragedy each force is at one and the same time good and bad, whilst drama is always one sided. This is perhaps why in our own age drama is ubiquitous as it serves the propaganda purposes of nations with an 'us against them' mentality. These plays and indeed right up to the latest Hollywood blockbuster are nothing, in essence, beyond the resurrection of melodrama or that form of Christian mystery play which was all that existed for the twenty century gap between the two tragic eras. The tragic conception shows this form of drama up to its true self-deceptive nature. In tragedy no one is just, all have ulterior motives. This is the healthy minded acceptance of reality, the will to power, the 'everything is permitted', which the Greeks past down to us. If we are to do away with the life negating philosophies, first introduced by Socrates it is no use merely exercising them from our way of life. Nihilism was the first attempt to live beyond these limits and has only caused equal mediocrity. If we are to truly move into a higher sphere of existence, we must somehow bring about a new age of tragedy. But in order to do this we must look into how previous tragic ages have come about. There are perhaps but two real examples in our history both separated by an expanse of time and neither lasting longer than a century. It seems that the life affirming energies are too easily and quickly burnt out and perhaps it can be no other way. All things of true greatness by their nature do not last. We need only look towards any great figure in history is characterised as such, not through what he perhaps could achieve but through wasted potential. Great men are by their nature not only tyrants but impatient, their impact on an age being both spontaneous and devastating. These figures usually appear in times of social ease and complacency to set things into flux once again.The first age of the tragic was that of the fifth century BCE, in ancient Greece. As we have seen this is the age that was brought to an end by Socrates. The second age of the tragic was that mainly of the 17th century CE. This era was not confined to one country but was isolated to Western Europe and included the Elizabethan theatre, the Spanish golden age of theatre and French 17th century tragedy. It runs approximately from the time of Shakespeare to that of Goethe. The historical conditions in which tragedy can thrive then have only been met twice in the 3000 years that we call civilisation. To a large extent throughout this period the mass of human kind have lacked the full range of emotive states required to properly appreciate tragedy and to really push life to its extents. They fall into the habits of nature and religion; on the whole they prefer security to the open road. However now is perhaps the first time in human history that the material conditions to emancipate the majority from their isolation from higher tasks.Great periods of tragic art occur in history, in centuries of crucial change, at moments when the life of nations is heavy both with glory and with threats, when the future is uncertain and the present dramatic. The tragic arts in their essence seem to unify cosmic thought and divine holiness with individualist and rational concepts. In the history of ideas, it seems that the individual manages to free himself gradually from the majority of sacred laws and institutions passed down throughout the ages. It is a moment when unmutual figures appear and begin to question the old ways of life and values. Such moments in history are rare as most of the population do not consider the real show which takes place behind the veil, yet there will always be figures capable of a new word, who can stand up to the true terror of existence without the need for self preserving deceptions. However the eventual triumph of this form of individual reason seems to be just as destructive of the tragic as life under the religious thumb has been. In both 4th century BCE Greece and 18th century Europe, this was the case, respectively by Socrates and Descartes managing to dry up tragic production for centuries.

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The tragic ages then, always seem to coincide with an evolution, in which human kind, through conscious emancipation or not, moves on from a previous form of civilisation and finds itself in an ethical void with the pursuit of finding new values by which to conduct itself.The absolute absence of tragedy in the renaissance is easily explained through its reliance upon the church. There can be no tragedy when man is subservient to religion. Christianity obliterates Humankinds sense of responsibility towards itself. Under any such divine order there is no such tension between the forces in the world and humanity. It merely stands for ignorance to material realities, and the desire to renounce all desires but those for which this world does not cater. There is no room for the questioning temperament, of the quest for truth that tragedy inspires, under such orders all must obey. Tragedy takes up the representation of the forces and confrontations, which affect the world. Under both religious and atheist forms of drama the main tension of life is absent as all of these types of problems are found already solved or set aside. These forms of art always have a single hero or side to which they adhere, and it is in his rejection of the established order that oppresses, that he finds the route towards tragic authenticity.

4. THE DEATH OF TRAGEDY

As with the degeneration of philosophy, which took place upon the arrival of Socrates we find the same debasement in the art form of tragedy. The Greeks at this point were at their intellectual and cultural height, can it be mere coincidence that all the major art forms undertook a radical change at this particular point? Socrates was contemporary with the last of the great tragic artists, Euripides. In fact it was recognised by Nietzsche that Euripides was almost like a mask for Socrates or the Socratic philosophy on stage. The tragic it seems losses its impact when it is brought down to the level of the people. It is no longer a fine art, nothing but the latest detraction. As soon as the everyman has a say it loses its greatness. As with Socrates, Euripides saw himself as an educator:

“I taught them subtle rules they could apply, how to turn a phrase neatly! I taught them to see to observe, interpret; to twist, to contrive; to suspect the worst, take nothing at its face value”11

According to Aristophanes Euripides claimed to “free tragic art from its pompous corpulency”. It is argued that Euripides ended the tragic arts in ancient Greece. Through his concentration upon the individual and psychology his work can perhaps be seen as prelude to the individualistic dramas that followed in the wake of the tragic worldview. Euripides was contemporary with Socrates, in an era that was bringing about the end of the Hellenistic worldview and as a bringer of Christianity. Just as Engels compared the 19th century socialist struggles to that of the early Christians, Euripides can also be said to represent an early form of socialism within the Athenian democracy. It was he who first brought the audience onto the stage, his chorus representing the voice of the masses. Through his works such as Medea, The Women of Troy and Hecuba, Euripides explores issues such as equal rights for women for the first time to an extent that none previously had undertaken. Euripides plays a pivotal spiritual role in the rise of democracy, bringing the majority into the spot light. For the first time the downtrodden are represented on the stage and tragedy takes on a humanism. It becomes less about the clash between gods and mortal heroes and becomes about the individual.

11 Aristophanes, ‘The Frogs.’

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The emancipation of the masses overthrowing state power is represented in Euripides’ masterpiece The Bacchae. Dionysus, although one of the gods, leads the women of Thebes in a Bacchaic rite throughout the mountains and forests in direct opposition to the establish rule of the city. Dionysus, a central figure in tragedy, has never performed the same position as that of other gods. Most are seen similarly to the state, as figures of authority to be obeyed. Dionysus represented by wine and bacchaic revelry is the antithesis to this form of authoritarianism. Dionysus is the very heart of tragedy in that he is the rebel who promotes excess, and life affirming passion, which is the ecstatic state of being central to the tragic message. The Bacchae is the very final great tragedy and it is the only one that has survived the ravages of time where the central figure of Dionysus is directly represented. Yet in tragedy Dionysus is ubiquitous, represented in turn by human figures throughout various plays. As Oedipus, searching for truth at all costs and discovering the monstrosity at the heart of all that is truly great. As Prometheus, atop his rocky crag, for deifying the established order of the Greek gods and representing the primordial pain of being. Yet it is an ambiguity as to what message, in the Bacchae, Euripides meant to put across to us, as we are unsure whether he is affirming or denouncing Dionysus and his tragic way of life that he would teach us. There is no doubt that Nietzsche thinks the latter as he saw Euripides as a decadent and as the main cause for the death of tragedy. Euripides own opinion however, is believed to be expressed through the figures of Cadmus and Tiresias.A similar pattern can be found in 17th centuries tragic run. Shakespeare seems to represent the rebirth of tragedy and can be compared to Aeschylus, as an inheritor of the tragic approach. This era comes to an end with Corneille who, much like Euripides before him, brings about the end of tragedy once more in the completion of the individualist approach. The Christian worldview was called into question by the reformation with the rediscovery of Epicurean physics and the renewed questioning temperament of the scientific approach. In the ancient world it was the combination of Euripidian drama and Socratic philosophy that lead to the end of an age. As Corneille followed the part played by Euripides, it was Descartes who played the Socratic, ending the tragic era in the renaissance. This was an era in which Romanticism was to flourish, which however failed to find its way back to tragedy.Tragedy then it seems is formed through the tension between natural and religious forces. It is fundamentally about humanity yet; to suggest that it ignored the divine would refute all Greek tragedy. The gods, although not always taking an active part, in the action are always present in presence.

“Tragedy swings between the two poles of extreme nihilism and unlimited hope as we in our present epoch seem to do. It affirms existence at the very moment when that existence is called into question. In accepting the mystery of existence and the limitations of man.”12

Tragedy opposes the rule of the divine and yet tragedy is inconceivable in a secular format. The gods often represent our inner demons and conceptual conflicts, as our own age has shown, Sisyphus being a metaphor for Marxism, just as much as Oedipus has been for Freud. It may be the case then that tragedy comes about as a consequence of human society being on the verge between secular and sacred. The Palestine/ Hellenic duality, which spawned the first great era, confirms this. These were the two key opposing viewpoints of the ancient world, which finally merged into a synthesis to create the Christian and the prevailing ideological systems that have since dominated the world. Our own world today is a world set in amongst similar ideological turmoil. The conflicts of secular, nihilist

12 Camus, Albert, ‘The Future of Tragedy.’

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and communist concepts with Christian, Islamic fundamentalist ones characterise a world of more fragmented and opposing ideas than any other. Rational and excessive in the same breath, this is an age in which humanity has expressed revolt against existing orders to a higher degree than ever before, and yet for the first time finding both the true limits of its abilities along with newfound forms of responsibility towards itself and the world as a whole. In the contradiction of consolidation now possible, humanity is taking on more than ever the appearance of Dionysus, torn to pieces in the knowledge of his own and his historical ambiguity, this is the path towards tragic man, and the rebirth of life.

5. THE HAMMER VS. THE SICKLE

In this era that we find ourselves much is made of democracy. Yet democracy is not merely a word and there is by no means only one form of democracy. It was fundamentally the style of democracy, which the Greeks had, that was understood by Nietzsche as healthy to the spirit and to the mind. Unlike our present form of democracy that encourages high culture only when it can be manipulated for the sake of profits. This ancient form of democracy had its many flaws yet in the material conditions of the time these were necessary measures if human greatness was to be achieved for the first time. All of Greece’s cultural and philosophical achievements could not have been achieved otherwise. It is this kind of greatness that ultimately leads us forward whether towards socialism or to the New Jerusalem. Yet all of the alternative systems, which have promoted freedom so far, such as socialism, have denounced greatness as an individualism against the benefit of the people. All systems on the other hand, which promote greatness, such as Fascism, inspire nothing but mediocrity of thought and vulgarity of culture when put into practice. It seems no ideology can maintain itself in practice. The main spearhead ideological figures of the 19th and which in turn influenced the 20th century were undoubtedly Karl Marx and Friedrich Nietzsche. Yet there could not be any two philosophers who proposed such radically opposed viewpoints. On first sight it seems the only thing these figures had in common was the extremity of their teachings. Yet the absurdity of a Nietzschean Marxist is not the contradiction it at first seems, the lines between Marxist communism and Nietzsche’s aristocratic individualism not to mention the use to which the Fascists and Stalinists have put them seem to show that these ideas are poles apart. In many ways both philosophers have been similarly misused in the years of the 20th century. Take Marxism today for example: Does it make sense to remind people that Marx was not ‘a Marxist’ in the sense that most socialist groups believe?The point being, however that you can take what elements you like from either philosophy. It’s not necessarily a case of the hammer versus the sickle! Nietzsche was about, the individual, the Overman, whilst Marx is about the collective, but all collectives need individuals. What where Marx, Lenin and Trotsky, if not individuals? The idea of the Overman works for socialism. It is about a form of self overcoming that is essential in these people, Overman types, who have new ideas in order to bring about new and more just forms of society. Raskolnikov from Dostoyevsky’s Crime & Punishment is the perfect example of this type, a socialist Overman, or a Nietzschean Marxist. Someone who over steps the bounds and limitations of morality, who acts beyond the law in the name of a future society. Nietzsche wasn’t alone in recognizing all great men in history as criminals, through their bringing about of new orders at the expense of the blood of the old. Lenin and Trotsky were continuing in this process by transgressing against Tsarist Russia and attempting to install a new and more just form of society.

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If an idea is for the benefit of the whole of society then it is in everyone’s interest that that person should take individual action. There are many parallels that go beyond mere atheism, and contempt for religious dogma. To talk about communism as if it has happened is a mistake. As we have never yet seen communism on this Earth neither have we seen true anarchism. Somalia represents no more an anarchist state than North Korea does a Socialist one. Yet Communism and anarchism are in their aspirations the exact same thing. The difference being that anarchism wants to jump straight ahead to the final classless, stateless level, whereas communism sees things in more practical terms as a long process necessary to wean people off the ways we conduct ourselves under capitalism. The idea of a communist ‘party’ or ‘state’ is contradictory as the whole point is to achieve this form of party less/ stateless society. The dictatorship of the proletariat is the necessary first stage, but a first stage never the less and so far the only stage we have seen. The Russian revolution underwent a reactionary faze with the advent of Stalin to power. Under Stalin the revolution ceased to be revolutionary and became bureaucratic. To maintain itself it stagnated at the first stage of the process on the way to socialism. The true tragedy of this however was not in Russia itself but in the socialist countries that followed. Stalinism was portrayed as ubiquitous and along with the persecution and exile of Trotsky, who represented the true Marxist/ Leninist approach, all socialist countries that followed the Soviet Union took on the form of Stalinist style Deformed workers states, under the illusion of socialism. The Russian revolution therefore in its first years under Lenin, was the only true workers revolution. China, Cuba and all, along with the USSR Stalin onwards were all bureaucratic in essence. The idea that contemporary socialists hold, however, that these countries were ‘state capitalist’ is a complete distortion. These countries still provided certain gains for their people such as free education and health care along with guaranteed housing and employment, which should not be forgotten. However true revolution, for the people to represent themselves should be supported and is needed in these countries as anywhere else. In its essence then socialism is a higher form of democracy and not the totalitarian nightmare with which many associate it. It is a democracy at the level of the working class, in which all not only engage in passive voting but take an active part in the future of society.

“Mistakes on the question of defence of the USSR most frequently flow from an incorrect understanding of the methods of ‘defence’. Defence of the USSR does not at all mean rapprochement with the Kremlin bureaucracy, the acceptance of its politics, or conciliation with the politics of her allies. We are not a government party; we are the party of irreconcilable opposition, not only in capitalist countries but also in the USSR. Our tasks, among them the ‘defence’ of the USSR, we realise not through the medium of bourgeois governments and not through the government of the USSR, but exclusively through the education of the masses through agitation, through explaining to the workers what they should defend and what they should overfrow. Such a defence cannot give immediate miraculous results. But we do not even pretend to be miracle workers.”13

It could and has been argued that the form of society which appeared in the USSR, with the advent of Stalin to power, was paradoxically closer in line to Nietzsche’s view of the ideal society than it ever was to the Marxist/ Leninist rhetoric from which it came and of which it distortedly used to justify its actions. This was the idea of an aristocratic cast living in privilege above the oppressed masses.

13 Trotsky, Leon, ‘The USSR in war’.

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“Every elevation of the type "man," has hitherto been the work of an aristocratic society --a society believing in a long scale of gradations of rank and differences of worth among human beings, and requiring slavery in some form or other. Without the pathos of distance, such as grows out of the incarnated difference of classes, out of the constant out-looking and down-looking of the ruling caste on subordinates and instruments, and out of their equally constant practice of obeying and commanding, of keeping down and keeping at a distance--that other more mysterious pathos could never have arisen, the longing for an ever new widening of distance within the soul itself, the formation of ever higher, rarer, further, more extended, more comprehensive states, in short, just the elevation of the type "man," the continued "self-surmounting of man," to use a moral formula in a super moral sense. To be sure, one must not resign oneself to any humanitarian illusions about the history of the origin of an aristocratic society (that is to say, of the preliminary condition for the elevation of the type "man"): the truth is hard. Let us acknowledge unprejudiced how every higher civilisation hitherto has originated! Their superiority did not consist first of all in their physical, but in their psychical power they were more complete men.”14

As true as it is that Stalinism was in no way close to Lenin’s own line, nor to real socialism, Stalin did to a certain extent follow through with some progressive social plans for the soviet system and did install some reforms which Lenin had begun. Yet the fact remains that Stalin always saw the peasant class as his enemy. While providing for all he made sure that none had more than the basics. The idea of Stalin representing Nietzsche’s ideal style of society however has its problems. Stalin, whilst no intellectual or political beginner, was in no way the kind of noble genius that Nietzsche saw as fit to rule an aristocratic golden age. The whole point of this form of system for Nietzsche was to enable the small elite to attain human greatness unparalleled before. Cut off from material necessity the purpose of such a cast was to be enabled to achieve ultimate human potential. Stalinism did not encourage any form of higher mindedness of this kind, either in the elite nor in the proletariat. Stalin’s own manic paranoia and megalomania, although it could be compared to that of Nietzsche’s in his final years, meant that the whole upper cast of Soviet society were perpetually infighting and backstabbing in order to survive. This elite cast lived above the rest of society in more of a similar fashion to the Tsarist monarchy than any true Marxist ideology would have allowed, but neither was it in line with the Nietzschean philosophy. Stalinism therefore is about a bureaucratic cast, which leeches off of the rest of society in order to maintain itself, and this served all its purposes. It used the illusion of ‘building socialism’ but this highly costly form of rule did not advance the oppressed nor did it see to its own advancement. All it meant was for its own survival and to maintain the status quo of détente with the west. It did not seek to fulfil any higher form of culture or human potential, which is the vital reasoning in Nietzsche’s thought for such a society.The Stalinist conception of ‘socialism in one country’ and peaceful co-existence with the west was a naïve betrayal of true socialism. It is an irony that during the cold war the west viewed the USSR with distrust and convinced themselves that it was out for world domination, which was nowhere near the Stalinist doctrine. This internationalist outlook sounds more like Trotsky’s vision of permanent revolution. It is in fact a shame that the West’s prediction was so far from the case.Trotsky was the ideological heir to Lenin. His understanding of Marx and theory of permanent revolution are far more in line with the interests of the worlds underprivileged than Stalin’s cowardly self-preserving and serving doctrine of socialism in one country. For

14 Nietzsche, Friedrich, ‘Beyond Good & Evil’.

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all his faults however it is the height of ignorance to compare Stalin to Hitler. The atrocities committed in the USSR were no different than those committed and yet somehow ‘acceptable’ atrocities of any ‘respectable’ capitalist country. The main difference being the fact that Stalin was faced with the combined conditions of the world war and the industrial revolution. How many died in the British era of industrial revolution? Yet we do not question the necessity of that sacrifice, it sits cosily away in the previous century away from our consciences. Stalin was in charge of a backward country in the face of fascism and the greatest military machine yet seen on Earth.It is not contradictory to internally criticise something while externally support it. Stalinism whilst flawed can be defended against capitalist aggressors. Yet it was Stalinism coupled with the historic conditions of the world war, which laid the seeds of the USSR’s destruction. There was really no such thing as a first and second world war as these wars were opposites in essence. The Great War (1914 – 18) was an inter-imperialist war, over the spoils of the collapsing 19th century empires. The world war (1939 – 45) was a war between imperialism and other ideologies. It was philosophy on the warpath. To oppose this form of imperialist warmongering and yet support or even passively accept capitalism is the height of hypocrisy. The first is a necessity to maintain the second. It is pointless in capitalist society to help any ’just cause’ except the primary root political cause. For instance, it is pointless to recycle if you care about the environment. In capitalist society waste is a necessity of the system. If you care about the homeless it is pointless to help shelter organisations, as in capitalist society it is a necessity that there are not enough housing for the poor. To give blood does not necessarily save lives more the decrepit system that we rely on. To combat effects will lead nowhere. Liberal organisations who do not get involved in politics are naïve if they think their efforts can do more than influence a temporary respite. The many effects will be solved only by combating the one cause. It is the working class have always needed to be enlightened to this, their historical place and potential significance. But it is in their nature to act contrary to their interests. Anyone who has ever spent five minutes in the environment with the English working class will see that they do not deserve a revolution. It is for the sake of those abroad that our system exploits, that it is vital to give them one. It is said of what a peaceful nation England has been and Nietzsche is right that peaceful nations are cowardly ones. During the world war, thousands of home guard working class men had guns under their pillows. The Russian revolution came out of the conditions of the Great War. It is a sign of the passive, political ignorance of the English that they could not conceive of any other form of threat than that posed by another country. Hitler was the enemy mainly towards Germany’s own people as Churchill was to the British. Both sides were fooled by Nationalist patriotic propaganda. The German state was only considered Fascist by the severity of, yet by no means unsimilarity of its conduct to that of the other advanced capitalist nations. The capitalist and Fascist nations have always been closer to one another than to the communist. Fascism is really an advanced extremist stage of capitalism. It is a form of society, which the ruling class succumb to as a last resort when all other forms of internal repression have failed. That is why Hindenburg, faced by the strongest working class movement in Europe accepted the coalition with Hitler as the last resort to prevent revolution.

The Wall Street crash signified as Marx predicted, the end of capitalism. He did not however predict the conditions for its survival. –Fascism. The world war was an absolute necessity for the survival of the capitalist system; it would not have been able to cope in an era of prolonged peace. The wall street crash would have been the end if not for Europe’s dependence upon the American means of production, which as a consequence enabled the stagnating American economy to survive and grow by an enormous rate, and emerge from

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the war as a super power. It is the utter waste of war that enables capitalism to constantly maintain itself.

The world war was the pivotal event that not only enabled capitalism to survive, but also that, which would one day kill the USSR. If the world war had not occurred, the atomic age would have been delayed into the indefinable future. Weapons of these kind would only have been realised under conditions of their necessity and with the great German scientists now leaving to the countries that would become the post war worlds super powers, it is an incredible irony that if not for Hitler and Nazism the German nation would most probably have been a great power in that coming era. Instead with his anti-Semitic doctrine Hitler managed to alienate the people who would have been most capable of winning the war for him.The USSR was not overthrown from without but from within. It was neither US capitalism nor Islamic fundamentalism in Afghanistan that lead to the final collapse. Due to the huge draining effect of maintaining its position as a superpower, the bureaucratic cast which ruled had no option than to continue ridiculous military funding to maintain détente with the west instead of paying for that which was the whole point of the communist system, health, education, employment and housing.The Spanish civil war is of vital interest to anyone involved in the study of the clash of ideologies. This war confined to a country cut off from the rest of Europe contained in essence, all the later worldwide clashes contained in one country. The Spanish civil war was a clash between a coalition of leftist ideologies under the directions of the Republican government and the Fascist revolt lead by general Franco. The ideological struggle of power was not contained in a left versus right situation as within the left many differeing ideologies struggled for power. It is a gross simplification and distortion to suggest the falling apart and eventual defeat of the Spanish republicans was caused by one faction or another. The revolution in Spain was voluntarily cut short and did not survive because it relied too heavily on the republican government instead of overthrowing it. To understand matters an observation of each faction’s intentions and ideas is necessary.

Adherence to a political doctrine is of another matter to alliance to its historical adherents. The Spanish Stalinists believed, that Franco and the Fascists were the main problem and that capitalist democracy was necessary for Spain. In this way they were towing the line from Moscow that revolution for Spain would be counter revolutionary on the world scene. Stalin had abandoned the idea of world revolution in favour or ‘socialism in one country’ and so he did all that was possible to prevent further foreign revolutions. This seems strange that communists would fight for capitalism, yet is in line with the Hegelian/ Marxist idea that capitalism was a necessary prerequisite to socialism in order to industrialise. Yet this was not in line with how the USSR itself was formed, as Trotsky had shown with his idea of the permenant revolution that it was possible for Tsarist Russia to bypass the capitalist stage altogether. This was the possision upheld by the Spanish Trotskyists that the Revolution if it is to survive anywhere must be extended on the international scene.The anarchists held similar positions to the Trotskyists. Yet in their support for the republican government they alienated themselves from a truly revolutionary perspective. The Trotskyist’s held the position of permanent revolution, and along with the anarchists believed that there was no difference between capitalist democracy and fascism and that both had to go. The Trotskyist’s followed the approach of Marx and Lenin, whilst the Stalinists used the appearance of doing such. Yet the big mistake made by Trotskyists and Anarchists alike was in stopping at the point of creating a workers state by allowing the republican government to continue. As the war continued and no foreign support arrived except from Moscow, the Stalinists gained influence with the republican government. As

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with the Stalinist witch hunts in the Soviet Union itself, any side advocating revolution was suppressed. With Trotsky himself long having been on Stalin’s deathwatch. It was a time when Stalinism was misguidedly associated with socialism and so the Trotskyist’s faced accusations of betrayal and fascist collaboration. We can see here, in microcosmic form, the clash of ideologies that in the larger world have been fought out on a much larger scale.

6. THE CLASH OF CONTRADICTIONS

The main reason for the collapse of communism and the continued prosperity of capitalism is to be found in the material conditions of the world. We live in a war like age in constant upheaval. Capitalism relies on and thrives under these conditions along with perpetuating them as it grows and so war with it. Socialism is the opposite. It can only thrive in conditions where we have moved on from war and operate to help our neighbours and the oppressed. Its economy is based on need not profit and can only become fully effective were there is no waste of resources, to use them responsibly. Capitalism thrives on waste and destruction. It is the ethical barbarity of capitalism that will not allow even its own illusions to be unveiled. The idea of the USSR, whilst being far from perfect, held by the west has been so distorted and to compare the USSR as the ‘evil empire’ whilst upholding capitalism as ‘the good’ is utter absurdity. Both systems have acted with equal imperialist inclinations throughout their history yet the underlying philosophies expose them beyond their myths.The western myth is in line with Leo Strauss and the need for the masses to see everything in terms of good and evil. (Its not hard to guess who they consider the good!) This philosophy is inherently flawed as it sees liberalism and individualism also as evil, yet points towards the USSR, the antithesis of these traits as the enemy to engage! This philosophy is elitist hence the republican rights adherence to it. It takes Plato’s line of thought that the masses need a lie such as religion, good and evil in order to keep them secure from any unpleasant truths, however the ruling class itself was not immune to this lie and believed it themselves. This ideology borrows from Nietzsche, the elitist aristocratic core, which presides over the majority of the ignorant herd, yet negates the anti-religious meanings of that philosophy and embraces religious fundamentalism. They have never been, however a ruling class of either noble or intellectual power in the way Nietzsche had hoped. As we shall see power based on money leads to a completely different type of ruling class. The USSR rejects individualism on a completely different basis, yet embraces the godless nature of writers like Nietzsche. The west sees things in terms of good and evil, the USSR in terms of action or reaction. The USSR however, whilst godless still embraced and took morality and moral feelings to a new height. It is only when we do away with religion and morality that we shall see events in their own light, when we see that there is no morality that can bind us and we are forced to find our own way, responsibly taking our lives into our own hands. In a way we can talk of ethics as a philosophical concept in the way that morality has been a religious one, the difference being subtle but decisive. So the USA, whilst Christian fundamentalist, embraces individualism and nihilistic tendencies and the USSR, whilst godless, embraces morality and conformity. It seems each side has swapped intentions, each ideology swapping its inner meaning.

The current battle between capitalism and Islamism is less complicated. Both sides were spawned out of the battle with the USSR, and are both fundamentally fundamentalist. These forces split as a consequence of the destruction of the USSR, turning upon one another in their insecurities of needing an enemy to perpetuate their hold on power. Both of these sides see things in simple-minded terms of good vs. evil. We need to realise that all morality blinds us to real cause and effect. The attempt to live ‘beyond values’ then is where we must

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proceed, if we want to avoid all previous mistakes. The idea that this only leads to corruption is misguided. The fact that ‘everything is permitted’ does not point to irresponsibility but to an acceptance of the true nature of the world. It is only here that we realise that there never was good or evil and that all are justified, all have had their reasons for taking action. It is only here that we can accept responsibility for these actions and take responsibility for all of mankind. This is the kind of existential socialism that we must fight for.

7. THE WILL TO MISUSE POWER

But Nietzsche believed that for any higher society to function, it was necessary to have oppressed classes. If we achieve equality then all it means is debasement and mediocrity. For him everything great about the human spirit would be crushed beneath the mediocrity and narrow mindedness of the masses. This was true in Nietzsche’s own day, and true in the days of the ancient Greek democracy, as the material conditions to support a higher form of society with out slavery or inequality did not exist. Yet in our present era the wealth to do this exists many times over. Thanks to capitalism having now played and bypassed its progressive part in the historical process, we are ready for the next stage in the evolution of society, and those less likeable aspects of Nietzsche’s philosophy that boarder on the level of Fascism are no longer necessary. This is a mistake in the way people have previously interpreted Nietzsche, as a prototype for the Nazis. It wasn’t as much lower and inferior peoples that he wanted to destroy more the inferior elements in us all! That’s what the concept of the Overman means: “the man of today is something to be overcome,” here Nietzsche isn’t necessarily referring to any specific race of people as being inferior. When it comes to it he stood for the advancement of the species, in its refined undefiled form that’s what fascism means: the improvement of the human race. It’s not necessarily fascism that is bad, only when it is combined with nationalism, which breed’s dubious patriotism and hostility towards other races. Unfortunately this is the only form of fascism we have ever seen. It doesn’t lead to the advancement of anything but nihilistic self-destruction. Philosophical suicide. All fascist states have ever done is to lower and vulgarized the intellectual capacity of the people, it is a well-established fact that even Nazi intellectuals are notorious for their limited I.Q levels.Whilst the countries that have achieved not only the highest but also the most culturally rounded education levels are the socialist countries. In the present age Cuba has the highest literacy rate in the world. But it isn’t merely on a level of basic literacy, which would prove Nietzsche correct about education for all debasing true intellectual greatness, as the Cubans have the most culturally rounded education, along with free education all the way up to University level. Look at that achievement in a country on the verge of the third world compared to our supposedly ‘privileged’ countries! Capitalist countries only really want to give the majority a basic education in order to fulfill basic functions to produce surplus value for their ruling class for the rest of their lives. In these countries higher education is available to all in theory but at a price, and all higher education is directed at becoming more useful towards capital. In short then a full rounded and cultured education has been provided better in socialist countries like Cuba than in privileged countries, whose elite are not necessarily the higher minded aristocrats whom Nietzsche had in mind but merely those who are richer, greedier or luckier.

The idea of socialism contradicting that of democracy is another illusion, which must cease. Socialism in its essence is the highest form of true democracy. The democracy in the west is that of deformed democratic states. The leaders of these countries are really tyrannical, and the systems totalitarian. They use the system of total administration to keep the citizens

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in line through feeding them false desires to sell commodity after commodity, to perpetuate the increase of capital. They use the notion of a rotating figurehead every ballet box to obscure the true nature of the state, as we are only used to totalitarianism having a fixed figurehead. The agenda stays the same. The media and government fool us with democratic semiotics, using the terms ‘free’, ‘freedom’ in constant repetition. We hear these terms all the time. ‘Free trade’ therefore sounds like a great thing where in fact it means nothing but poverty for those who live under its ‘freedom’. To ‘liberate’ means also to have western semiotic freedom imposed.All is propaganda used to maintain the illusion of freedom. At the end of the world war the art forms that were embraced by the west such as abstraction were chosen purely for political purposes. ‘In the west you are free to paint however the hell you want.’ This was the message sent out to maintain the illusion that there could be no better form of democracy. We see how in a similar manner to how Stalinism tricked the revolutions that followed into a false form of socialism, the same could be said of the form of democracy that is being exported by the west at present. Democracy then can only work properly when power is divorced from capital. This capitalist form of deformed democracy relies upon ignorance to trick its subjects into maintaining it, just the same as Stalinism operated. True democracy is further in line with socialism as both these systems stand to educate and enhance consciousness.

True democracy then could be said to be more closely in line with the socialist model. True socialism is more like how the ancient Greeks would have seen democracy, had it not been destroyed by another group of republicans. – The Romans.The Greeks had a pure form of democracy in that it was not a system that was subservient to capital. Anyone who was a citizen could debate in parliament. It was a citizen’s state, much in the same way that a true socialist country would be a workers state, with workers democratically debating in government and all parliament members only receiving a workers wage. In the elections of Cuba, although a deformed bureaucratic state, we can still see the closest model to this form of governing. Cuba contrary to the opinions of most in the western world is a country formed through elected leadership. Perhaps the reason why the Cuban elections go unnoticed beyond its shores is that its form of elections are very different from what most would today consider a ‘democratic’ country. As we have seen most consider democracy in its deformed capitalistic state. Where money determines freedom and political aspiration. It is impossible under this form of system to engage with the ‘democracy’. The most that the majority can do, and all in fact they consider to be democratic rights, is to vote every ballot box for which section of the ruling class will control them. It is in effect a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie just as Marx predicted communism as being the dictatorship of the proletariat. There will always be those in power, the question is really about which class it is who has access to this power. In most advanced capitalist nations it is impossible to run for government, or indeed for presidency unless you have sufficient funds for the severe demands of election campaigns. These not only put a limit on who can afford to run, but also conforms to the medias idea of an election being a media circus, the idea of the politician as another form of celebrity. Celebrities are another form of how capitalist nations keep their populance doctile, as the majority will live their dreams through fantasy alter egos on TV as opposed to going out and achieving those dreams themselves. It is another way, in which, people live through others and not genuinely, not through their own volition. In Cuba the election process is very different. It is not a media circus of who will lead; it is more concerned with each individual within the party system. There is only one political party in Cuba and there is no form of protest from the outside, but any member of the community can stand for government. It is not so much a case of being a millionaire that makes a political career but true grass roots social responsibility. Within

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each community the populace elect their own representatives, this system is free and totally transparent. The money saved from electioneering goes instead, straight to the community. However Cuba certainly has its problems and should not be ignored, but it is far from the repressive state which we hear so much about. In fact it is perhaps a world leader in the case of promoting human rights. Both for its own people and many another third world country to which it has extended its gains.

To denounce the Athenian form of democracy because it operated on slavery is not really a fair criticism. The material conditions in which we live today are far away from that earliest of starting points. Bearing in mind Hegel’s idea of the historic process, it was not possible for true democracy to survive at that point in time as the material conditions would not have sufficed. The fact that slavery still existed was unfortunate yet necessary at that point in the historical, materialist process, in just the same way as it was not democratic in regards to women, who were still second class citizens. As Nietzsche painfully reminds us, a higher class cannot survive without the subjugation of a certain percentage. Now however for the first time in history we have achieved a level where this is no longer the case. The first stage of Hegel’s theory leading from dominion to ultimate freedom has been arrived at. We can now discard the reliance on the aristocratic part of Nietzsche’s thought that stated that higher culture was not possible without a repressed class, as we have now acquired the material wealth to benefit all, without discarding the parts of his thought, which offer to restore the quality to any individuals life. Trotsky theorised that if socialism were given the right amount of time to develop there was no reason why anybody could not achieve the high levels of culture and intellect of as great a figure as Goethe or Shakespeare. This along with the cultural achievements of Cuba is far from the idea that all socialism aspires to be is equality through ubiquitous mediocrity.

“The average member of Socialist society may yet rise, as Trotsky anticipated, to the stature of Aristotle, Goethe, Marx, who, whatever their sexual instincts and aggressive drives, embody some of mankind’s highest achievements so far. And we assume that “above these heights new peaks will rise.” We do not see in socialist man evolution’s last and perfect product, or the end of history, but in a sense only the beginning of history. Socialist man may indeed feel the unbehagen, the unease and discomfort, that civilisation imposes upon the beast in man. More over, this may, indeed, be the most essential of his own inner contradictions and tensions that will impel him to evolve further and scale heights which are beyond our imagination.”15

Here we see how Nietsche’s will to power or Schopenhauer’s Buddistic conception of suffering lead the way towards the man of the future whether he be ‘Socialist’ or otherwise. The Buddists were correct about the nature of the world, that it is to strive forever towards goals whose fulfilment does little to satisfy us. The realisation of this should not be to withdraw from it but to embrace it. It is the eternal striving of the will from need to fulfilment, from pleasure to pain that enables historical progress to exist. It is precisely this ‘eternal striving’ that enables us to move from beast to Overman, or from tyranny to freedom.The Greeks therefore were at the starting point for democracy 3ooo years ago, in much the same way that the Bolsheviks were at the starting point for socialism, the next step in Hegel’s historical process, in 1917. Both these events were first attempts, although flawed, at a new and more just system. The fact that there is a gap between Greek democracy and our own time only shows how long these things can take. We can therefore see the Bolsheviks in their true historic position; Stalin overthrew the Russian gains made in 1917 in

15 Deutscher, Isaac, ‘Marxism In Our Own Time: On Socialist Man’.

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just the manner that the previous Athenian democracy encountered reaction, as did the French revolution. It seems that every progressive era inevitably encounters a reactionary period, which can last from a length of decades to centuries.

If you look at Nietzsche’s intellectual legacy, like the existentialists, who could be said to be further in line with socialism, than with any other doctrine. Self-overcoming becomes a case of responsibility. The lack of god means that ‘everything is permitted’, but it also means a responsibility for our own destiny that we could never have had if we were subservient to god. This also means a responsibility for the human race as a whole.If we’re to talk in terms of the whole human race, it is a simple fact to understand that there will always be mediocre people in any race just as there will be exceptional ones, but not until we deliver socialism to all, will we be able to discover the true extent of these great people who are out there, previously unknown. In this sense Nietzsche is correct when he says that another ten years of Goethe’s life would have been worth more than the entire lives of a hundred mediocrities. Yet give those hundred mediocrities the material benefits necessary and you will find at least one or two among them that could rival him.Being inferior, either intellectually or physically is a whole other thing to living in inferior material conditions, as the majority of the worlds population do. Not until we have a system that provides for all will we be able to find the potential for greatness and the true extent of all great individuals. How many Einstein’s, how many Goethe’s and Shakespeare’s have we lost through third world destitution? How many Plekhanov’s and Trotsky’s in all the Stalinist purges?The main point of divergence between the ideologies of Marx and Nietzsche is that of freedom and liberty. It is time to accept that socialism is not about the totalitarian nightmares it has till now been associated with. Capitalism has no tie to democracy beyond that it is that system that allows it to plunder most effectively. Under capitalism the majority lose their sense of selfhood just as effectively as under Stalinism. Wage slavery is a far more subtle form of terror, as it offers the illusion that anyone can become one of the elite.It is this aspect of capitalism, the free for all struggle of the rat race, the will to power of corporate domination that most brings to mind that which Nietzsche warned us about. But Nietzsche was no capitalist. He himself recognised the aspiration to make money as among the highest forms of irrational folly.

‘Main deficiency of active people: Active men are usually lacking in higher activity. I mean individual activity. They are active as officals, businessmen scholars, that is, as generic beings, but not as quite particular, single and unique men. In this respect they are lazy. It is the misfortune of active men that their activity is always a bit irrational. One must not inquire of the money gathering banker what the purpose for his restless activity is: it is irrational. Active people roll like a stone, conforming to the stupidity of mechanics. Today as always, men fall into two groups: slaves and free men. Whoever does not have two thirds of his day for himself, is a slave, whatever he may be: a statesman, a businessman, an official or a scholar.’

It is worth pointing out at this point that to a certain extent Nietzsche was apolitical. He was interested in culture, politics merely being the route to higher levels of culture. He was dismissive of communism but just as dismissive of capitalism. The republican right is a fundamentalist Christian movement not only in essence but also in excess. As we discovered earlier however it seems that today ideologies have become divorced from their roots, as we have seen with the conservative Christian style societies embracing immoralism and nihilism whilst the revolutionary and godless societies embracing morality and conformism. It could be said that the republican right (and also the

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democratic left: left here meaning not actual left but merely not as far to the right as the right wing!) embrace the idea of will to power and that because ‘everything is permitted’, might is right (or might is correct as well as right wing!) These terms could easily be used to describe the conduct of the republican right in recent times, yet it is based on a misunderstanding of these ideas. To start with the phrase ‘might is right’ originates in a system of thought that denies all existence of any such eternal concepts as right and wrong. Such things only exist within the narrow constraints of religion. A more accurate term would be that ‘might’ self decides that it is ‘right’. Nietzsche didn’t necessarily say that the will to power was a good thing; it is a terrible truth and a struggle to which we all are engaged. This is how the world we inhabit is, all in flux as Heraclitus would say. All is flux and competition between ideologies or individuals. Individual ways inevitably if they cannot accept one another will lead to antagonism. It is more of an ugly truth being faced than a wish that this be the case. Schopenhauer, Nietzsche’s early intellectual influence was correct when he recognised the suffering of the world, that pain is the fundamental state of our existence, and that all is endless futile striving after the fulfilment of an unsatable will. Yet as we have seen he missed the point. As Marx said the philosophers have observed the world, but the thing is to change it. In a way Schopenhauer’s endless striving resembles the path from beast to Overman or as Hegel and Marx would see it: from tyranny to freedom. So by accepting these ugly truths about the world we do not mean merely a passive pessimistic acceptance this is but the first step. Nietzsche’s observations about the world take on existentialist notions of action and responsibility. It has to be understood that the capitalism of Nietzsche and Marx’s day was far apart from how capitalism is today. In the times that these two thinkers operated the capitalists were merely small businessmen in competition with other feudal and craft methods of production. The form of capitalism, which Marx talked about and understood, however was far more in line with that which we see today than in his own day. It is to his credit that he foresaw how this self-destructive system could one day eat up all the earth’s resources and destroy the human dignity of the population of the world.Nietzsche could not have predicted the vulgar monster which capitalism would become, to say that today’s capitalists embrace the will to power denies that which Nietzsche saw and understood as power: As Nietzsche was interested in power in the form of intellectual and spiritual superiority not mere greed and riches. The idea that capitalist imperialist war mongering is in the essence of what Nietzsche preached is a distortion. When he talked about peaceful societies as cowardly ones he was not referring to mindless aggression, the form of war mongering that we see performed by capitalism. In fact the powerful countries of today would be defined, by Nietzsche, precisely as the weak. What here is meant by ‘weak’ is the lack of noble courage, spiritual and intellectual courage that defines todays ruling class. Who on the other hand, seem to lash out merely through fear of losing their grip upon the world. Through their status as a super power the USA has had more impact on the world scene than any other nation in history. Yet this is no victory for a higher form of life, which Nietzsche aspired to. It is only the triumph of greed and vulgar stupidity over everything noble. The fact that the most powerful leader in the world has among the most mediocre I.Q levels among leaders is surely enough to make this point clear. The most dominant nation on earth being barely literate shows just how much contempt Nietzsche would have had and fits perfectly with his opposition to the rabble getting power, of stupidity and intellectual obsolescence taking over. It is precisely what he talks about in the Genealogy of morals. Of the revenge of the weak upon the strong. Here we are not talking about the weak as the down trodden of the earth but those who rule. Those in power are the ones who continue the Christian slave revolt against everything that would benefit humankind in ruling for themselves. In short a re-analysis is needed in the absence, in Nietzsche, of the relation between ‘power’ and ‘capital’. The way he saw power is not in this

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sense and it would be unwise to attribute his philosophy to the capitalist monopoly of power, which we see in the world today.We can now clearly see that the current holders of Imperialist power in no way embody the will to power in the way in which it was understood by Nietzsche.

8. THOSE WHO DARE TO RAISE THEIR BOOT

The idea that in today’s world the American republican right are the inheritors of the Nietzscean/ Raskolnikov philosophy of this kind of will to power is a grave distortion. It seems that we never learn a thing as these philosophies get attributed to the most debased form of influence since the Nazi era. We have seen how Nietzsche in no way stood for the unhinged battle for capital that we see in the world today. Yet it could still be argued that todays elite, through their Social criminality and corporate ‘laws unto themselves’ somehow inherited Raskolnikov’s idea, that all great men have to act criminally in order to advance.In Crime & Punishment Dostoyevsky put forward the idea that all great men, great leaders were inevitably criminals as through their actions they dared to step over corpses and old ways in favour of the new. The idea put forth that the republican right embrace this idea, which was first recognised by Dostoyevsky, through his fictional character of Raskolnikov in the novel Crime & Punishment, is equally notorious. As already discussed Raskolnikov really represents the closest thing to a socialist Overman.

‘I simply intimate that the ‘extraordinary man has the right in himself to permit his conscience to overstep certain obstacles but only in the event that his ideas, which be salutary for all mankind, require it for their fulfilment. If the discoveries of Kepler and Newton could not have become known to the world in any other way than by sacrificing the lives of one, or ten, or a hundred people then Newton would have had the right, or might even have been under an obligation to remove those ten or a hundred people, so that his discoveries might be revealed to all mankind. The law givers and regulators of human society, beginning with the most ancient, and going on to Lycurgis, Solon, Mohomet, Napoleon and so on, were without exception transgressors by the very fact that in making a new law they ipso facto broke an old one, handed down from their fathers and held sacred by society: and of course, they did not stop short of shedding blood. In a word, I deduce that all of them not only the great ones but also those who diverge ever so slightly, who are just barely capable of saying something new, must by their nature, inevitably be criminals.’

This is precisely why certain people have drawn a parallel between the ideas that Dostoyevsky put forth, through his fictional character Raskolnikov and the current administrations of western imperialism. These administrations however, criminal though it can be argued their actions to be, are impotent in the area of ideas. Raskolnikov justified his actions by the greatness of the idea in whose name he dared to transgress. Ideas that would benefit the whole of human kind. The republican right of today do use similar rhetoric along the lines of ‘spreading democracy’ yet as we have seen the form of democracy, which they promote, is that of a degenerate deformed state, the true motives being the spread of capitalism on a global scale. Raskolnikov’s theory can be seen as almost Fascist in essence yet it is always only for the benefit of the majority for which he acts. Great men then are not great unto themselves but still a part of the world and have equal responsibility for their place in it as any one else.

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‘The first (the masses) preserve the world, increase and multiply: the second (the greats) move the world and guide it to its goal. Both have an absolutely equal right to exist. In short for me all men have completely equivalent rights.’

Raskolnikov sighted Napoleon as his role model and named him in a line of great leaders who had brought humanity forth. Napoleon represents the degeneration of the French revolution in a similar way to which Stalin represents the degeneration of the Russian. Ideas of liberty and human freedom being ground into the dust as power manifests itself in a new form. According to Hegel’s historical process the Napoleonic revolution, though bureaucratic in essence, was a pivotal step on the way towards socialism and ultimate freedom. The Napoleonic era ended the concepts of feudalism and monarchism, and brought about the conditions in which the bourgeois and capitalism could flourish. The likes of Napoleon therefore were necessary steps in process on the way towards freedom, the bourgeois French revolution preceding the Russian socialist.Hegel’s idea of the historic process is sound in its Marxist context, yet we take it more in the vein of Schopenhauer. That existentially it has no meaning or that its logical outcome was somehow preordained. We reject any implications of religion and assert that this process was not a set plan, but takes on meaning afterwards. In other words it explains the truth behind history but does not point to there being a ‘first cause’ or a meaning of life that can be attached to it. What history has become is the meaning we attribute to it through our interpretation, and how we use it to inspire our actions as we continue the process onward.

9. HOW HISTORY WAS GROUND TO A HALT

We come now to that other aspect of Hegel’s historical theory, the idea of ‘ everything in its antithesis’. It was Hegel’s view that the great ideologies that have governed the path that history has taken follow a set pattern. We start with a thesis that in turn inspires its antithesis. The twin opposing views then become antagonistic until they form through this process a synthesis or a new idea which leads us forward into a new age. This synthesis then becomes the thesis of the new age which in turn inspires a new antithesis and onward. This is the conceptual will to power that has moved ideas on ward from astrology to astronomy, from paganism to religion, from metaphysics to science. The 20th century was radical in the speed of which the Hegelian process of history has not accelerated, as many may have thought, but almost unnoticed the process of ‘everything in its antithesis’ has in fact reversed. Antagonisms no longer seem to inspire syntheses but split from their foundations into an ever-increasing whirlwind of chaotic destructive opposed forces. If we take the main confrontations of the 20th century for example:

Allies v FascismFascism defeated

Allies split into:Capitalist v Communist

Communist defeated

Capitalist split into:Christian v Islamic fundamentalism

?

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And onwards. Many forget that the USA and USSR were allies during the World War. But with the defeat of Fascism their differences became all too clear. The same situation applies to the world situation of today. The battle between Christian and Islamic fundamentalism (I avoid the use of the word ‘terrorist’ as either side, whether officially sanctioned or not, use terror in equal proportion) is a knock on effect of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Many forget that the Taliban and many other reactionary forces in the middle east came into power backed by the USA to oppose the spread of Communism in Afganistan and further on through the middle East . This is the stage we have arrived at now, is it possible to predict the future using Hegel’s process? It seems that following this form of Hegelian logic the next confrontation will come about through the split of the next surviving thesis. The thesis and antithesis are no longer merging to produce the synthesis but moving away from it. This may explain the bankruptcy of ideas that is taking place with the leading powers of today. Following this line of thought to its ultimate conclusion we will have all ideas boiled down to their essences. All separate all individual and solipsistic in nature. The nihilistic degeneration of ideas will either lead to ultimate destruction, until all has been boiled down to the most simplified and primitive of ideologies, having destroyed all aspects of themselves, or we can embrace the solipsistic nature of personal values and truths as the only way to halt further conflict and contradiction.The problem with this reversal of the Hegelian system is that it forces us to see all in terms of good and evil, us against them. In this way it tricks people into thinking they have to choose a side instead of thinking for themselves and taking the beneficial aspects from any system of values. Many think they have but the limited choice between two sides, a tick in conceptual box A or B, whilst those no longer in the limelight offer no form of possible alternatives. It is not merely a case of Christ or Islam, of Republican or Democrat. We have to realise that all of these things sprung from the same cause and are in their reactionary ways the same thing. It seems in this way that the ‘powers that be’ have found a way to highjack Hegel’s historical process from the course leading to ultimate freedom and set it upon the course of détente and mere semiotic freedom. By reversing the process of everything in its antithesis, they have destroyed the progressive nature of history and reversed it in order to perpetuate their system of choice – capitalism. Under Hegel’s historical process as Marx saw, capital had its position in history to play, but would lead the way to socialism, the next level. The self-destructive nature of capitalism saw to this. Now however through the reversal of everything in its antithesis, they have found a way to maintain the unmaintainable. This means misery, destitution and poverty for the majority of human kind. The very idea of postmodernism reinforces this propaganda. That history is over. The mistake people make and have always made here, is in taking the idea of ‘man’ as an eternal concept. There has always been change and Capitalism only has a shelf life like all previous dominant systems. It is pointless to argue against future modes of society with the logic that ‘people have always been this way’. As the existentialists noted, Man is different to all other species, as he does not have an essence. Human beings would operate differently under socialism just as they have under capitalism, feudalism, monarchism, paganism etc. It is not so much a question of essence that ‘man is a certain way’ but that a specific social order will make him act in this or that way. Essence follows existence and it is either we ourselves, or those we passively allow to shape us, who are our true ‘creators’. The question now however is not how long today’s rulers can sustain this present system but whether humanity will last long enough to survive its destructive tendencies.When the right wing say that communism brain washes people, in order to achieve its ends, in a certain sense they are correct. But what we have to recognise is that all forms of society, even all forms of human conversing is a form of brain washing. When we speak we

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do not do so objectively, we put forth a certain world view. All societies brain wash in the name of their predominant ideologies, we merely do not notice that inoculation in our own society as it is second nature. However we always notice it when new forms of society are evolving, when they are still in their embryonic phases. As man has no essence potentially he can create his way as he sees fit adapting it to his will at his whim. But historically speaking we see his essence is generally determined by the society within which he finds himself existing. Thus we can clearly see all forms of society religious and secular as a form of brain washing. Yet within those societies there will always be unmutuals with the ability to recognise this. It is these figures who have the ability to go forth. If we can accept mans brainwashing into ignorance, insecurity, barbarism, fear and hatred… can we really condemn his brain washing into enlightenment, social concern, harmony, self security and sufficiency?

On the field of history the defeated ideologies still exist in the world however and still engage their own will to power to their own extents. But they are no longer the focal point of aggression on the world stage nor any longer seen as the semiotic ‘source of all evil’. Out of the limelight perhaps to regain a footing? It has to be said that these ideologies have also reversed the concept of ‘everything in its antithesis’ with socialism creating in turn, communism, Marxism, Leninism, Stalinism, Trotskyism etc. How do we bring about a renewal of the Hegelian system of historical progress? Lenin was really the final figure, in this process, on the historical scale so far. With the deformity of the USSR under Stalin and its consequent battle with the west this process has ceased to move forward. The post modernist period seems to strengthen this concept in our minds that history is over and all has been done before. Yet this is not so, it is only an illusion to trap us in our collective sense of lassitude. We need new thinkers to take us onward and to continue in the tradition of the last great thinkers that stood for the progressive nature of our potential. It seems Marx as thesis with Nietzsche as antithesis should make the next great synthesis to combat both capitalist greed and mediocrity. These ideologies are the only ones so far to escape the trappings of religion and dogma. They are perfect for the present to reveal the limitations of both sides in the current world struggle. Drawing on the image of the socialist Overman, we need a philosophy to inspire individuals and masses alike. To discover the great in the world population we must fight to liberate all from all forms of exploitation and subservience both religious and capitalist.

10. THE DIALECTIC BROTHERHOOD

Here we can at last recognise the true genealogical, dialectic essence of both Communism and Fascism, not as opposites but as having been generated as thesis and antithesis from the central problem of Nihilism. The Romantic movement in Germany gave birth to Nihilism and it is fundamentally the problem of Nihilism that we are still engaged with and forms the main focus of this work. Both communism and fascism are symptoms of Nihilism as they are in fact, although radically different, by no means opposites as they are both attempts to deal with the problem of Nihilism. It is how Nihilism evolved through the 19th century, particularly in Germany and Tsarist Russia; that gave birth to the ideologies that came to dominate the following century. In Germany during the 18th and 19th centuries Nihilism evolved along with Romantic movement. The values upheld by this movement were predominantly of the suffering individualist poet, who lives alone and conceptually above the rest of society, which he considers unworthy of his time from its spiritual depravity. It evolves, through works like

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Shiller’s ‘Wilhelm Tell’, with ideas that ‘The strong man alone is best’, which eventually leads to Fascist ideology.In the Mid1800’s Nihilism and its ideas were imported into Russia and here it evolved in an altogether different way. Under the regime of the Tsar freethinking Romantics, such as those seen in Germany, could hardly flourish as they had done elsewhere. This being so, the Russian intelligencia became engaged in the battle for social emancipation of the Russian people, from the Tyranny of the Tsar.

“The educated classes owe a debt to the people whose toil has made their education possible, and they must repay the debt by establishing a new social order. Liberation of the people should not be the work of a vanguard of professional revolutionaries but of the people themselves. The people must be politically educated, hence the task of our generation is political propaganda.”16

In this way the Russian Nihilist movement evolved along the lines of socialist politics. The 1860’s movement in particular was intense in the new values that it pronounced, taking women’s liberty to the extreme in that it should be less about equality but women who should dictate to men. The Russian Nihilist movement was an elite of thinking realists. It could be argued that to actually be willing to fight for something, that ‘something’ must be actually believed in, which is hardly nihilistic. Yet many of the early Russian revolutionaries did not as such concern themselves with the theoretical construction of a future society. That they left to future generations. They saw their task merely in terms of agitation and to prepare for when action became possible. Their main distinctively nihilistic qualities were more apparent in their conduct of ridding themselves of all prejudices and traditions, accepting nothing from their elders. Pisarev, one of the most prominent Nihilists of the time saw to it to scrap the whole field of morality, culture and the (socially negligible) arts.

“The final aim of all our thinking and of all the activity of every decent man amounts to this – to solve forever the unavoidable question of hungry and naked people; apart from this question there is definitely nothing which it would be worth worrying, thinking and fussing about.”17

It was further elaborated that the hereditary Tsar should be replaced with a ‘simple mortal’, a man of the soil who would be able to understand the life of the people. Zaichnevsky put forth that, instead of following the disasters of Europe, a ‘young Russian Republic’, operating from central and regional assemblies would be based upon village communes with ‘social factories’ elected by the workers. From these examples it is easy to gain an understanding of how Russian Nihilism evolved into Socialist politics. Thus Nihilism came to signify antipodal values but it is important to recognise that they all stem from the same cause and only through their synthesis can the historical process continue.Marx used Hegel’s concept of Historical dialectics to justify his reasoning that Communism was the logical heir to capitalism, yet in so doing he ignored the ‘Everything from its antithesis’ structure that Hegel used to understand that process so far. It is always a dubious pastime when postulating upon the future, yet philosophy has never been about exact science. It is an illusion that Communism and Fascism (Fascism here being taken as the term also for capitalism in its extreme sense) are opposites. They can only move

16 Lavrov, ‘Historical Letters.’

17 Pisarev, ‘The Realists.’

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forward in synthesis. Raskolnikov, the Socialist Overman or Nietzschean Marxist is the way forward towards unmutual man.