Beyond Good and Evil: 8. Peoples and Fatherlands Summary & Analysis

Describing the music of Richard Wagner, Nietzsche finds it expresses an important quality of the German spirit. This spirit, both old and young, is paradoxically of the past and the future but cannot belong in the present, which Nietzsche believes speaks directly to the German national character. Moving on to the subject of “fatherlandishness,” Nietzsche argues that it is inevitable for cultures and societies to have bouts of nationalist fervor in the course of their “metabolism.” Then, in a parodic dialogue, he presents opposite perspectives on such an episode, questioning whether a statesman who encourages such nationalism could be considered great.

Taking the ideals of “civilization” and “progress”—humanism—as synonymous with the democratic movement in Europe, Nietzsche argues that Europe has become more homogenous. This erosion of racial and class character leads to the new European, who is adaptable above all else. This new European is the herd man too, and Nietzsche paradoxically finds that, in creating this kind of human, the democratic movement has paved the way for slavery and new tyrants. Coming back to the German soul, Nietzsche claims that while Germans used to be renowned for their profundity, their character has changed. The German soul, he argues, has a medley of diverse origins; Germans therefore cannot “be” but must actively “become.”

Returning to the subject of music, Nietzsche distinguishes between the ways that Mozart and Beethoven express their cultural and historical contexts, the former as a swan song, and the latter as a transition. Nietzsche finds music after Beethoven lacking and too influenced by romanticism, with the exception of Mendelssohn; Schumann is particularly disagreeable to him. Moreover, he finds Schumann’s music to be exclusively German where the others’ is European, a loss of a greater ideal and descent into “fatherlandishness.” Nietzsche then angrily criticizes the German language, which he finds tonally and rhythmically unpleasant. Germans, he argues, do not read aloud by default. He unfavorably compares this to the reading practices of the ancient world, where reading aloud was the norm. There is one art of rhetoric the Germans have mastered, however: preaching from the pulpit. To Nietzsche, the masterpiece of German prose remains Luther’s translation of the Bible.

Nietzsche suggests that there are two different kinds of creative, which he compares to fertilizing and giving birth, respectively, and considers related to national characters. He then argues that the Jews are the origin of many of European cultures’ greatest achievements and worst failures in philosophy, stemming from the “infinite demands” and “infinite meanings” first found in the Old Testament. He then turns to the subject of anti-Semitism and other xenophobic attitudes in German society, harshly criticizing their advocates. Nietzsche finds that Germans are hostile to Jews because their race is “still weak” and vulnerable to dilution, whereas the Jews are the “strongest, toughest, and purest” race in Europe. He suggests that while conspiracy theories about Jewish domination are false, the Jews could seize control of Europe if they so desired. Indeed, Nietzsche thinks that Jewish influence will benefit Germany, and that anti-Semites should be expelled from the country instead.

Nietzsche attacks the English, arguing that their national character is incompatible with philosophy. He singles out Hobbes, Hume, and Locke as having held back European philosophy, and praises the German philosophers he harshly criticized earlier for resisting the English. What the English lack is true spirituality, profundity, and aptitude for philosophy. This, to Nietzsche, explains English Christianity, as they require its moralizing and humanizing influence; their natural predilection is for “spleen and alcoholic dissipation.” The English, moreover, have no sense of music. Nietzsche then attacks Darwin, Mill, and Spencer for their theories of evolution and utilitarianism, which he finds narrow and mediocre; they produce mere knowledge, not philosophy. Indeed, Nietzsche finds in England the origin of the modern ideas he so strongly opposes, which then move outward and infect the rest of Europe.

France, on the other hand, is to Nietzsche the most sophisticated culture in Europe, despite the bourgeoisie’s increasing power and relevance there too. Paradoxically, Nietzsche ascribes this French spirit to several notable Germans, including Schopenhauer, Heine, and Hegel. France’s superior culture is due to three factors: their artistic tradition, their old “moralistic” culture, and their racial synthesis of north and south, barbarian and Mediterranean. Returning to music, Nietzsche weighs the successes and failures of German music, and imagines a “supra-European” music of the future that transcends the division of north and south.

Nietzsche argues that nationalism counterintuitively enables the growing homogenization of Europe, and that “fatherlandishness” and the herd man are very much in sync, due to their cynical manipulation by politicians. At the same time, all great Europeans of the time only lapsed into “fatherlandishness” in moments of weakness or old age; before that they were dedicated to “the European of the future.” To Nietzsche, this explains the case of Wagner, whose own self-explanations should be disregarded. Despite their heroic efforts, Nietzsche finds that this quest has been largely aimless and only partially successful, as they strove to teach the crowd about “higher man.” All these artists and philosophers, but Wagner in particular, are to Nietzsche something greater than their national origin. Ultimately, in the case of Wagner, it is precisely his embrace of the German spirit that made his art hollow and disappointing, to Nietzsche.