Twilight of the Idols
Mini Teaser: Nietzsche thought God was dead and used philosophy as a hammer to force others to recognize his unhappy insight. The Bush Administration has used public diplomacy as a hammer to force recognition of changes in the global security environment. But
ROUGHLY A year ago, James Ceaser interpreted George XV. Bush's post-September 11 foreign policy rhetoric as a direct attack on Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophic legacy--a legacy that ironically finds its most vocal contemporary cheerleaders on the Left, which Nietzsche despised.1 In calling evil by its name, wrote Ceaser, the President was engaging in what amounted to a broad assault on the dishwatery moral relativism that (post)modem liberalism clumsily drew from the pages of Nietzsche's writing.
This is completely correct. As a man who identified Jesus Christ as his favorite political philosopher, President Bush is the natural antithesis to a philosopher who gleefully described himself as the Antichrist, as well as to those liberals who today peddle misunderstandings of Nietzsche as moral dogmas. The President and his administration detest nihilistic destructiveness; they do not worship the will to power. They are certainly attackers of Nietzsche misunderstood, but perhaps they share something in common with Nietzsche properly understood. Obvious interpretive errors aside, shades of similarity do seem to exist between the Bush Administration's approach to foreign policy and Nietzsche's approach to philosophy.
The Dawn
The greatest events and thoughts--the greatest thoughts, however, are the greatest events--are longest in being comprehended: the generations which are contemporary with them do not experience such events--they live past them.
--Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, 1886
With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, our security environment has undergone profound transformation.... But new deadly challenges have emerged from rogue states and terrorists... It has taken almost a decade for us to comprehend the true nature of this new threat.
--The National Security Strategy, September 2002
IN "THE Parable of the Madman" from The Gay Science (1882), Nietzsche describes the individual who first grasps the horrific reality of nihilism while everyone else lives in ignorance of it. Holding a lantern burning brightly in the early morning hours, "the Madman" enters town seeking God and confronts a crowd of nonbelievers who do not share his religious passion. He is suddenly overcome with the realization that these modern men, feeling as though they have outgrown such antiquated superstitions, have murdered God in their impious hearts. The Madman offers the townspeople his knowledge of the death of God, but they fail to grasp either the reality or the cataclysmic nature of this event. "I have come too early ... my time is not yet", the Madman proclaims as he shatters his lantern and retreats.
Taken as the metaphorical point of departure for Nietzsche's philosophy, this allegory precipitates the attempt of the knowing individual to dispel the illusions of the unenlightened, forcing them to accept the terrible implications of God's death. Nietzsche thought the recognition of nihilism, though harsh and discomforting, was more intellectually honest and psychologically healthier than the continued denial of it, and so he chose to force the issue. Only in this way could modern man overcome his spiritual decadence. Desiring to awaken his fellow men to this realization, Nietzsche willingly courted their ire and ridicule. His approach to philosophy--the candid, strong-willed embrace of provocation and, if necessary, destruction--was fundamentally unilateral and sustained by little more than Nietzsche's own courage.
On September 11, 2001, the world felt the first major shockwave of the presumably new and unknown era of international relations that rumbled into existence over a decade ago with the collapse of the bipolar order. That morning's terror attacks were the symptom of a larger geopolitical condition: the "unipolar" world, now stripped of its illusions of order and seen in the reality of its violent resentment and upheaval. Though it had been a long time coming, a U.S. administration finally awoke to the collapse of the old order and began working through the attendant implications.
In order to ground U.S. foreign policy in this new world, the Bush Administration critically examined post-September 11 reality from both a strategic and moral standpoint. America's national interest was recalculated and recast. Longstanding dogmas about law and alliances, established by many as fundamental truths of international politics, were re-evaluated. The utility of deterrence was weighed against the perceived need for pre-emptive strikes and preventive wars. The Westphalian norm of external sovereignty was reexamined in light of America's compulsion to intervene forcibly in the internal affairs of other states. The relevance of Cold War alliances and security architectures was no longer assumed; they had to be proven effective in the post-9/l 1 world. The traditional practice of amoral realpolitik was challenged by a new strategic logic rooted in moral principles: "a balance of power that favors freedom", as September's National Security Strategy proclaimed. In a world of murky, deadly threats from non-state actors and their patrons, the Bush Administration claimed the United States had no choice but to address the internal character of foreign regimes, not just their external behavior.
Such a dramatic reconstitution of national security by the world's evident hegemon could not but elicit suspicion and anxiety from other states. What, wondered weaker states, was to be of international law, the United Nations, the International Criminal Court and other mechanisms useful for controlling American power? From the perspective of foreign states, the Bush Administration demonstrated a frightening willingness to question the strategic and moral value of institutions and ways of thinking that much of the world viewed as the pinnacle of historical progress. Hence, what the September 11 attacks (supposedly) revealed about the nature of the unipolar world compelled the Bush Administration to initiate an unprecedented revaluation of international political thinking. Foreign states could come along willingly, reluctantly or not at all with the new U.S.-wrought dispensation, but they certainly would not be allowed to "live past" this monumental event. They would be compelled to realize not that God was de ad, but that the old order was no more.
Thus Spoke W.
Our institutions are no longer fit for anything.... But the fault lies not in them but in us. Having lost all the instincts out of which institutions grow, we are losing the institutions themselves, because we are no Ionger fit for them.
--Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, 1888
We created a United Nations Security Council so that, unlike the League of Nations, our deliberations would be more than talk, our resolutions would be more than wishes.... Will the United Nations serve the purpose of its founding or will it be irrelevant?
--George W Bush, September 12, 2002
NIETZSCHE intended his philosophy to be provocative. He thought the illusory promises of Platonic metaphysics and Christian otherworldliness had produced the gradual degeneration of Western civilization. These old ideas were undergoing a crisis of meaning in the modern era as human beings lost faith in their professed rewards. As the idols declined and fell, they revealed the fundamental meaninglessness of life. Nietzsche wanted his readers to cast off hope for moral and metaphysical certainty and accept the reality of nihilism so as to be able to overcome it. He thus approached his philosophy, as he was so fond of saying, with a hammer-smashing the old to make room for the new. This act of destructive ground-clearing was cruel but necessary, for it would set human history down an illusion-free, life-affirming path.
Ontological hand-wringing aside, the Bush Administration has engaged over the past year in a similar act of provocation. On September 12, 2002, President Bush stood before the United Nations and systematically called to account its member-states for their failure to address the threat of Ba'athi Iraq. The President's speech, however, served a much broader end: it was an intentional provocation designed to compel the (so-called) international community to dispense with illusions of security that veil "gathering dangers", and to accept the unipolar world in all of its frightening instability. The message was similar to the command of Zarathustra: "Become hard!" Like Nietzsche, the Bush Administration views a bitter but necessary dose of reality as redemptive, and both intend to be forceful with the spoon.
A significant point of difference, however, must be noted: The Bush Administration is no Nietzschean wrecker of the contemporary international order. Nietzsche took great joy hammering into fine powder anything that smacked of Christian morality or Platonic metaphysics. The administration-at least the majority of it anyway-- never sought to destroy the United Nations, nor did it wish to kill off time-tested traditional alliances. That said, one should not confuse the administration 's reluctance with irresolution. Though it sought the counsel and blessings of other states regarding its policies, the Bush Administration demanded that these states and the institutions they formed must accept its way of thinking about international politics. And this way of thinking is certainly unpleasant: a long-enduring, unipolar imbalance of power that is threatened constantly by transnational terrorist groups and their rogue state allies, both of which are getting closer by the day to acquiring weapons of mass destruction.
As Nietzsche understood, the idols and orders that human beings imposed on the world possessed one fundamental purpose: to enable human life to flourish. If, instead, they spawned decadence and retarded human achievement, they must be destroyed and replaced with something new. As the Bush Administration insisted throughout the past year, such is the case also with the traditional dogmas, institutions and alliance systems of international politics. They exist as means, not as ends in themselves. For this reason, one might say the Bush Administration made its foreign policy with a hammer throughout the entire Iraq debate--using this tool, as Nietzsche advocated, as a tuning fork to "sound out" the integrity of international institutions and normative behavior. This constituted a form of shock therapy applied to its allies in the United Nations and NATO, as well as to the institutions themselves and the strategic thinking that underpinned them. It tested whether they were "relevant" for this nasty world of terr orists, rogue states and proliferating weapons of mass destruction. If the idols of international politics rang hollow, then new arrangements would have to be made.
The most significant development in this regard was the promulgation of the Bush Administration's National Security Strategy in September 2002, which sought to shatter illusions of security and critically challenge conventional dogmas. Much of the serious debate over this document concerned the alleged tactlessness with which the administration brandished a "doctrine of pre-emption." Many argued that pre-emptive military attacks against clear and mounting threats were rarely required in international politics, and when necessary, they were justified by common sense and hardly deserved doctrinal enshrining. Philip Zelikow, however, who had a hand in creating the document, argued differently in these pages:
The new strategy is somewhat provocative, but it is deliberately so. It must be provocative if it is to foster the painful worldwide debate that must occur in order to condition the international community to think hard about these new dangers, and about how the cadence of security threats has changed.2
Of course the administration expected harsh reactions from those it soaked with this glass of cold water. But then no one who initiates a Gotterdammerung should expect to make many friends.
Human, All Too Human
Our highest insights must--and should--sound like follies and sometimes crimes when they are heard without permission by those who are not predisposed and predestined for them.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, 1886
We meet here during a crucial period in the history of our nation, and of the civilized world. Part of that history was written by others; the rest will be written by us.
--George W. Bush, February 26, 2003
CRITICS OF the Bush Administration's foreign policy; like many early critics of Nietzsche's philosophy, are discovering the great difficulty of their task. This is because both the current administration and the German philosopher put forward a way of thinking that clashes head-on with accepted idols and dogmas. In so doing, both Bush and Nietzsche force their critics to acknowledge the intellectual challenge they advance before formulating their disagreements with it. An adequate defense against their ideas, therefore, must first begin with a thoughtful consideration of them. Bush and Nietzsche both win initial victories over their critics by forcing them onto their provocative intellectual turf. That, or the critics relegate themselves to the sidelines with cheap ad hominem attacks, empty partisan ballyhoo or outright silence.
Leo Strauss once wrote that it was intellectually insufficient to refute a way of thinking simply by labeling it a "reductio ad Hitlerum"; it must instead be shown to be a reductio ad absurdum. One cannot simply criticize Nietzsche or the Bush Administration because one finds distasteful the implications of their thinking. It is not enough merely to bemoan the cruel vision of a dead God, a meaningless world and the doctrine of the will to power; one must concede its possibility before attacking it.
Likewise, it is logically unsatisfactory to claim that pre-emptive military strikes against gathering threats, or a foreign policy that focuses on the internal nature of regimes, is too challenging to conventional security dogmas. One can only successfully contest the Bush Administration's strategic thinking by first addressing the conception of world politics that lies at its center. Criticisms that fail to do so cannot hold up beneath the weight of the different provocations that Nietzsche and the Bush Administration advance.
Reviewing the worldwide debate that transpired over military action against Saddam Hussein's regime, few critics of the Bush Administration confronted the central ideas from which its strategic thinking followed. They refused to acknowledge, first and foremost, that America's hegemonic power is the sole guarantor of international security and normative moral order. Furthermore, most critics failed to address the premise that Western civilization's core principles are besieged by apocalyptic terrorist groups and their rogue state allies, both of which crave weapons of mass destruction to further their agenda of devastation. Unlike traditional combat between the mass armies of nation-states, threats in this new environment emerge instantly and catastrophically. Rather than genuinely engaging these provocative ideas, dissenting opinion from Paris to Berlin, Cambridge to Berkeley, Moscow to Beijing, only evaded it. A vast majority of the Bush Administration's critics employed a determined will to ignorance that asserted an unbridled American will to power as the root cause of the September 11 attacks. Such thinking could neither understand nor refute the urgency of disarming the Iraqi regime by whatever means necessary'.
America's post-9/l 1 foreign policy has been radical. With a peck of carrots and a mighty stick, the Bush Administration has determined to coax and prod a large pocket of hold-outs down that inevitable path toward history's end. For those critics willing to engage the administration's provocation, but choosing to travel at a different strategic trajectory thereafter, there is, of course, the possibility for vindication. The Bush Administration may well turn out to be mistaken for having adopted a messianic response to a potentially isolated incident of apocalyptic violence. History, albeit with no end in sight, could ultimately prove either side of this debate terribly wrong.
THERE ARE those, however, for whom the Bush Administration's strategic thinking is highly appealing. Nietzsche, too, found his allies among this same group: the young. Unlike their elders, the young have not yet been shaped by traditional convictions and are thus more willing to examine them critically. It might seem implausible that the Bush Administration's greatest domestic support would come from younger Americans. Their parents and professors have preached mostly of their peace movement experiences with the use and abuse of American power. They have warned how every American war could fast become a bloody quagmire. One could have reasonably expected to find large numbers of young Americans opposed to war in Iraq particularly, and to the Bush Administration's grand strategy more generally.
Yet this is not the case. Prior to war in Iraq, a Time/CNN poll found that 63 percent of Americans 18-29 years of age supported military action against Ba'athi Iraq; this was eight percentage points greater than any other age group, and support for war decreased as age increased. On April 5, 2003, the New York Times reported even more interesting trends on many elite college campuses: "Across the country, the war is disclosing role reversals, between professors shaped by Vietnam protests and a more conservative student body traumatized by the attacks of September 11, 2001." Speaking of his student's political disposition, Yale historian John Lewis Gaddis remarked: "These are the kids of Reagan. When I lecture on Reagan, the kids love him. Their parents are horrified and appalled." Their teachers are too, as a whiny professor of women's studies at Amherst College made clear: "Vie used to like to offend people.... We loved being bad, in the sense that we were making a statement. Why is there no joy now?" The Bush Administration seems to find its greatest champions in the young, who appear eager to hoist "Bush/Cheney" reelection placards while some of their parents and more of their professors go marching beneath protest banners that equate Bush with Hitler.
In this same vein, is it really so surprising that "Old Europe" cast itself as the Bush Administration's antagonist, while "New Europe" rallied to America's side? Is it surprising that the administration 's strategic thinking is inherently appealing to "new" European states that have a fresh memory of tyranny, and that have not grown self-satisfied beneath the U.S. security blanket? These young democracies have been eager to jump aboard a lifeboat of English-speaking peoples brandishing riches and rifles for the common defense while Europe itself begins taking on water. These states also had material incentives to do so, it is true; but one should not be so quick to debunk nobler aspirations, especially considering that "New Europe" has been eagerly waiting in line to board an overcrowded European vessel. These states only court disfavor with their elders by affirming the Bush Administration's provocative strategic thinking; and for his part, French President Jacques Chirac, ever the dyspeptic parent, has alr eady given a spanking of sorts to his "poorly brought up" children. But the blood of these new democracies is hot, and they are captivated by the American vision of a better world once the war against terrorism is won--a desire that will surely get them grounded by their EU elders on more than one future occasion.
FRIEDRICH Nietzsche's goal was to chart a path "beyond good and evil" for his intellectual descendents to follow. With an entirely different purpose, but in much the same manner, the Bush Administration appears resolved to lead the United States (and, for that matter, the rest of the civilized world) beyond Cold War thinking and security architecture--to exactly where, however, no one is quite sure. Bush and his principals have dared to provoke conventional wisdom about interstate relations in light of post-Cold War strategic realities. Those old doctrines, institutions and norms certainly served their historical purpose, but wondering whether they have finally reached their twilight is now necessary; not foolish. Perhaps a new day is indeed dawning; perhaps even the most cherished "truths" of international relations are showing inevitable signs of mortality. But as Nietzsche discovered, and as the Bush Administration is learning, the life of the provocateur--the "Madman" whose insights arrive before their ti me--is a lonely one. He is hated in the present and only understood much later, if ever or at all.
As was the case with Nietzsche's philosophy, the provocateur can be extremely successful at smashing old idols and winning young, impassioned hearts and minds. But what can he build in their place? If the traditional thinking about international politics now rings hollow, what new alternative that embraces present realities will achieve a comparable amount of enduring stability and broad-based legitimacy?
Though the Iraq War appears to have been a success that (temporarily) quieted the chattering doomsayers, the Bush Administration, along with its youthful allies at home and abroad, is now charged with winning the peace. In that light, it is perhaps fitting to recall Prince Faisal's aphorism from Lawrence of Arabia:
Young men make wars, and the virtues of war are the virtues of young men: courage and hope for the future. Then old men make the peace, and the vices of peace are the vices of old men: mistrust and caution.
Whether they be U.S. policymakers and legislators, or America's "old" European allies who recall how the story of their empires ended, "old men" will be summoned in due course (and with all their "vices") to undertake what it is they do best. This is not entirely regrettable, for the United States will undoubtedly need help chewing what it has bitten off. After all, provocateurs are known more for their courage than for their prudence, and the young are defined more by their exuberance than by their judgment. Though the Bush Administration views courage in the service of liberty as no vice, one hopes it still understands moderation in the pursuit of justice to be a virtue. Nietzsche did not, and look where it got him.
1Bush vs. Nietzsche", The Weekly Standard, April 1, 2002.
2Philip Zelikow, "The Transformation of National Security", The National Interest (Spring 2003), p. 27.
Christian D. Brose is assistant editor of The National Interest.
Essay Types: Essay