Nietzsche has an interesting view of history; he saw it as a necessity for men, but that we also need to forget it. He saw history as a service to life and that the necessity of history is for man to be a historical being. However, Nietzsche also saw too much history as being detrimental and creates a generation of cynical people. He used the term “inwardness” defined as man’s “chaotic inner world” filled with “knowledge, taken in excess without hunger, even contrary to need” that “no longer acts as a transforming motive impelling to action and remains hidden” (Nietzsche 24). Nietzsche believed that history should be a balanced contemplation between historical and unhistorical to preserve life. He writes in his scholarship On the Advantage and Disadvantage of History for Life that “the unhistorical and historical are equally necessary for the health of an individual, a people and a culture” (10). Within the historical, Nietzsche named the three types the monumental, antiquarian and the critical.
Nietzsche approaches history as monumental, which is examining the past to inspire greatness for present and future actions. Monumental history examines the past to use it as a teacher or model for future greatness. The monumental history is concerned with the greatest moments in history of humanity and uses it as leverage to emulate or surpass those historical moments. This kind of history attempts to emulate the greatness of the past, but Nietzsche is skeptical of this idea by asking can the past be replicated by monumentalizing? Can the greatness that once was become again in the same fashion? Nietzsche answered by saying not unless we distort the past in order to get the same effect. This type of history belongs to the powerful and ac...
... middle of paper ...
... Monarchy and the traditions of the past which he had a deep appreciation for.
Karl Marx is the historian that most closely relates to the model of critical history. His work the communist manifesto was an appeal to the proletariat class to take up arms in the class struggle. This struggle was between the working class (Proletariat) and the bourgeoisie (owners of production). Marx was critical of the capitalist system because he believed that once the wealth became concentrated in the hands of the few capitalist, chaos would ensue with the dissatisfied proletariat class breaking out into violence. Marx was critical of the capitalist system because he judged it by saying it contained the seed of destruction. Marx was appealing to the working class who was suffering at this point in class rise up against the wealthy class and the fight for economic freedom.
In The Communist Manifesto written by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, the two German philosophers saw history as the struggle between the working class and the Bourgeois, or middle class (textbook 708). The Communist Manifesto was written in 1848, during the peak of the Industrial Revolution, a time when the Bourgeois made huge profits in manufacturing at the expense of the working class. According to Marx and Engels, the fruits of the Industrial Revolution created a new class of the oppressed modern working class, the Proletariat, which had never before existed because it was neither like serfdom or slave hood in that it was dependent on the Bourgeois to hire them for wage labor. This was the class the two philosophers envisioned would set off a revolution that would overthrow capitalism to end the perpetual class struggle and create a fair society known as Communism.
From The Birth of Tragedy, where Wagner's music represented the hope for the re-birth of pre-Socratic Greek culture to The Case of Wagner, where Wagner was the artist of German decadence par excellence, Richard Wagner always personified nineteenth century Germany for Nietzsche. By examining Nietzsche's relationship to Wagner throughout his writings, one is also examining Nietzsche's relationship to his country of birth. In this paper, I carry out such an investigation with a focus on the late period (the writings after Thus Spoke Zarathustra) in order to clarify Nietzsche's view of his own project regarding German (and by extension European) culture. I show that in the late period Nietzsche created a portrait of Wagner in which the composer was a worthy opponent; meaning someone with whom Nietzsche disagreed but viewed as an equal. Nietzsche himself took on several worthy opponents, and he claimed that in his battle with "these objects of resistance" he learned about himself. Wagner was such an object of resistance because he represented the disease of decadence which plagued the culture and from which Nietzsche emphasized his overcoming. The goal of this portraiture was to demonstrate on an individual level what could be done on a cultural level to revitalize the culture and make it healthy.
The study of past events have been a common practice of mankind since the verbal telling of stories by our ancestors. William Cronon, in his article “Why the Past Matters,” asserts that the remembrance of the past “keeps us in place.” Our individual memories and experiences shape how we act in our daily lives. In addition to influencing us at an individual level, our collective history binds us together as a society. Without knowing where we have been or what we have experienced, it is nearly impossible to judge progress or know which courses of action to pursue. The goal of the historian is to analyze and explain past events, of which they rarely have firsthand memory of, and apply the gained knowledge to make connections with current and future events.
the monarchy of his efforts and achievements and it was he who took all of the
One can see where many pieces of the Nietzschean philosophy of the late 1800's could have been the underpinnings of much of Nazi thought and propaganda. If indeed Hitler was fighting the battle for dominion of the earth, than his loss is a loss for the overmen everywhere. If, on the other hand, Hitler was an insane man, as Nietzsche became, than the victory over totalitarianism and tyranny is a sweeping victory for the freedom for mankind, and a defeat for the philosophies of Nietzsche. But of course, as Nietzsche said, there are no facts, only interpretations.
In the first sections of the The Communist Manifesto, the writer, Karl Marx, explains the views of the communist party and its inevitability in becoming the main power in society. He does so by first describing why it was necessary for this manifesto to be written and how capitalist society came to be. Afterwards, Marx moves onto naming the main players and describing their own individual developments and eventual respective demises or ascensions.
Marx views history as being determined by economics, which for him is the source of class differences. History is describe in The Communist Manifesto as a series of conflicts between oppressing classes and oppressed classes. According to this view of history, massive changes occur in a society when new technological capabilities allow a portion of the oppressed class to destroy the power of the oppressing class. Marx briefly traces the development of this through different periods, mentioning some of the various oppressed and oppressing classes, but points out that in earlier societies there were many differentiations of social classes. Marx sees the modern age as being distinguished from earlier periods by the simplifications of the class conflict, splitting up society into two great hostile groups: the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.
In The Landscape of History, John Lewis Gaddis makes a cohesive argument concerning about the debate over the objectivity of truth by stating “objectivity as a consequence is hardly possible, and that there is, therefore, no such thing as truth (Gaddis 29). The question for objective history has long been debated by numerous historians, and the differing viewpoints of history have led to a transition in our ways of thinking in the modern world. Ultimately, the question that this paper focuses on is: to what extent is history objective? Along with this, the relation to historical consciousness and the challenges of living in modernity will also be assessed. This paper will analyze the texts of John Lewis Gaddis, Nietzsche and the Birth of Tragedy, Modernity and Historical Vision, Living in Modernity, and Hermeneutics. Finally, the paper will argue that history is not largely objective, and is fundamentally shaped through the historian’s subjectivity.
In 1848 Karl Marx wrote the Communist Manifesto which was a formal statement of the communist party. “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles […] we find almost everywhere a complicated arrangement of society into various orders, a manifold graduation of social rank” (Cohen and Fermon, 448). Marx believed that throughout the past the great societies of the world have all experienced class struggle in all their internal conflict. Marx felt that the class struggle that exists in capitalism would become the main internal conflict surpassing all other struggles. Marx illustrated class distinctions in both ancient history and modern history. Marx explained, “In ancient Rome we have patricians, knights, plebeians, (and) slaves; in the middle ages, feudal lords, vassals, guild masters, journeymen, and apprentices” (Cohen and Fermon, 448). Marx makes this point to show that if a knight fought a slave then it was a class struggle, the oppressor vs. the oppressed.
Karl Marx’s critique of political economy provides a scientific understanding of the history of capitalism. Through Marx’s critique, the history of society is revealed. Capitalism is not just an economic system in Marx’s analysis. It’s a “specific social form of labor” that is strongly related to society. Marx’s critique of capitalism provides us a deep understanding of the system to predict its pattern and protect ourselves from its negative sides.
...nd his morality. His practicality ties him to the throne. A part of him still depends on approval, on the “worldly symbols” he was never truly able to relinquish.
This crucial opening to The Communist Manifesto holds the key to understanding Karl Marx's conception of history. Marx outlines history as a two dimensional, "linear" chain of events. A constant progression of class divisions being created and overthrown, one after the other, until the result is the utopian endpoint, otherwise known as communism.
“Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it.” This famous quote from Edmund Burke is one that many of us are familiar with. In spite of this, many people disregard history, branding it as unimportant or irrelevant to modern-day situations. However, history is actually a quite important subject with a myriad of lessons to be learned for anybody to apply now and in the future. Additionally, history gives us much needed information about our past, keeping us from forgetting why our nations became the way they are. It allows us to draw parallels between modern events and past events to collect our best judgment and gives us the important knowledge of the origin of our modern world, giving extra credibility
Though our history may bring back horrible memories of the ?grimmest dimensions of human nature? (Limerick 472), it is necessary to have a good historical background. History gives us the ability to improve future outputs, satisfy our unending need for knowledge, and understand how many policies and regulations have come to be. Without history mankind would be very primitive and ununified. Our complete molding of the world today is almost completely dependent on the fact that we study our history. Without history present day humans would be nothing more than cavemen.
History is a story told over time. It is a way of recreating the past so it can be studied in the present and re-interpreted for future generations. Since humans are the sole beneficiaries of history, it is important for us to know what the purpose of history is and how historians include their own perspective concerning historical events. The purpose and perspective of history is vital in order for individuals to realise how it would be almost impossible for us to live out our lives effectively if we had no knowledge of the past. Also, in order to gain a sound knowledge of the past, we have to understand the political, social and cultural aspects of the times we are studying.