KEITH ANSELL-PEARSON
11
ON THE MISCARRIAGE OF LIFE & THE FUTURE
OF THE HUMAN:
THINKING BEYOND THE HUMAN CONDITION
WITH NIETZSCHE
Ich schreibe für eine Gattung Menschen, welche
noch nicht vorhanden ist [...] (KSA 11, 25[137])
I write for a species of human which does not
yet exist (WP 958)
If we define one of the key tasks of philosophy äs thinking beyond the
human condition, where this condition refers to quite specific mental habits of
representation and social forces of Utility and control, we can then ask of
Nietzsche: to what extent does the overhuman signal something genuinely other
to the human, all too human? Or might it remain trapped within the limits of
the human condition? (a condition, I insist, that is bound up with evolution and
not simply an existential predicament). In this contribution to the furtherance
of an active reading of the question of <cNietzsche and philosophy", I want to
demonstrate the extent to which this question can only be adequately addressed
by taking cognizance of Nietzsche's battie with Darwin (or, more accurately,
Darwinism). There has been in the literature to date important and valuable
contributions that have aided our understanding of Nietzsche's relation to both,1
but my view is that we have yet to fully appreciate and comprehend just exactly
what is at stake in this encounter for Nietzsche, and for we ourselves, still largely
unknown to ourselves, äs readers of Nietzsche. At the heart of this encounter
with the puzzle that is "Nietzsche contra Darwin", there is another, namely,
with the highly complex and problematic role the "will to power" plays in his
thinking of life and of the human condition.
1
See, for example: Henke, Dieter: Nietzsches Darwinismuskritik aus der Sicht gegenwärtiger
Evolutionsforschung. In: Nietzsche-Studien 13 (1984), pp. 189-210; Stegmaier, Werner: Darwin, Darwinismus, Nietzsche. Zum Problem der Evolution. In: Nietzsche-Studien 16 (1987),
pp. 264-88; Stack, George J.: Darwin and Teleology. In: Lange and Nietzsche. Berlin, New
York 1983, pp. 156-95.
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Kctth Ansell-Pcftnnn
Nietzsche contra Damin
In kcy placcs in bis tcxts Nietzsche develops a potent cridque of mechanism
and materialistic atomism. In Beyond Good and Evil (JGB 36) Nietzsche aims to
dctermine "efficient Force" univocally äs the "will to power" and in terms of
cultivating thc "conscience of method" (Gewissen der Methode). The life of the
drives (Triebleben), all organic functions, äs weil äs the solution to the problems
of nourishment and procreation, would then be traceable to the development
of this one basic form of the will. This is to "risk the hypothesis" that "will"
affects only "will" whercver "effects" are observed, and thus, "whether all mechanicai occurrences are not, insofar äs a force (Kraft) is active in them, will force
(Willens-kraft)y effects of will" (JGB 36). The Darwinian picture of evolution by
natural selection, in which the emphasis is placed on adaptation to external
circumstances is, for Nietzsche, based on a mechanistic model. So we might
think that the doctrine of the will to power pffers an alternative conception of
evolution or becoming. This is indeed how Nietzsche presents it in an important
section of the second essay of the Genealogy ofMoralify The reality of the matter,
however, is much more complicated.
Nietzsche begins this crucial section of the Genealogy (section 11) by arguing
that questions of current purpose and questions of origin (Ursprung) and emergence (Entstehung Herkunft) should not be conflated. That is, the origin and
development of a thing - a tool, a custom, a biological organ — and its "ultimate utility, its practical application, and incorporation into a System of ends",
are altogether separate. It is this Separation, and the fact that everything from a
legal custom to a biological organ enjoys a functional indeterminacy, which
makes history possible äs a becoming. Anythirig in existence, Nietzsche says,
"having somehow come about" is subject to new interpretations and redirected
to meet new purposes by some superior power. To this extent any historical
becoming simply follows the patterns established in the organic world at large,
where events take place in terms of an "overpowenng* and "dominating*', these
phenomena themselves in turn are nothing more than processes of Interpretation and readjustment. As a result of these transformations the "meaning" and
"purpose" of something can change, and does change, dramatically. The history
of a thing, then, is to be read äs a continuous chain of signs that continually
reveals new inte retations and new adaptations. Now these signs are said to be
indications that a will to power is operative in evolution. This is' a will to grow
in which a stronger power-will achieves mastery over something less powerful
and impresses upon it its own conception of a function and a use. So, the logic
of "life" is a logic of Utility and adaptation, but the events of evolution - the
fact that there is change and transformation — are not due to purely random
and chance mechanical processes, but rather owing to the peculiai: inner will
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On the Miscarriage of Life
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155
that characterizes the forces of life, a will to power. This is the level on which
Nietesche is arguing contra Darwinism. He writes:
Ich hebe diesen Haupt-Gesichtspunkt der historischen Methodik hervor, um so mehr
als er im Grunde dem gerade herrschenden Instinkte und Zeitgeschmack entgegen
geht, welcher lieber sich noch mit der absoluten Zufälligkeit, ja mechanistischen Unsinnigkeit alles Geschehens vertragen würde, als mit de^ Theorie eines in allem Geschehn sich abspielenden M ach t-Willen s (GM II 12).
I lay stress on this major point of historical method because it runs counter to the
prevailing instinct and fashion which would much rather come to terms with absolute
randomness, and even die mechanistic senselessness of all events, than the theory
that a power-will is played out in all that happens.
Nietzsche takes issue with the emphasis placed on "adaptation" (Anpassung
by Darwinism in its account of evolution. This, he argues, is to miss the primacy
of those expansive and aggressive "fbrm-shaping forces" (die gestaltenden Kräfte}
which provide life with new directions and new interpretations. Nietzsche's key
claim - and we know that he derived this conception of "form-shaping forces"
from his reading of Wilhelm Roux2 — is that diese forces emerge spontaneously
and so do not represent some inner adaptation to external.ckcumstances. Their
expression is prior to any logic of adaptation and selection; rather adaptation
follows only when diese forces have had their effect. The "essence of life",
then, i s "will to power", a cfeative drive that does not conform to the economy
of life äs depicted by Darwinism.
The will to power is not offered by Nietesche äs a metaphysics if we mean by
this some self-subsisting unitary being or substance (Wolfgang Müller-Lauter's
contribution to this issue remains one of the most important).3 Having said this,
however, it is important to appreciate that the will to power does seem to be
playing a transcendental role in Nietzsche's thinking, serving äs a condition of
possibility of there being "evolution" or becoming (we place "evolution" in scare
quotes simply because of the connotations of a logical and linear progressus the
term has and which Nietesche does not adhere to). It is only in these terms that
it is possible to make sense of the following curious claim made by Nietesche:
Mann kann das, was die Ursache dafür ist, daß es überhaupt Entwicklung giebt, nicht
selbst wieder auf dem Wege der Forschung über Entwicklung finden; man soll es
2
See Wolfgang Müller-Lauter's excellent analysis of Roux's influence on Nietzsche: Der Organismus als innerer Kampf. Der Einfluß von Wilhelm Roux auf Friedrich Nietzsche. In: NietzscheStudien 7 (1978), pp. 189-223. See also the chapter on Nietzsche and Darwin in my book:
Viroid Ijfe. Perspectives on Nietzsche and the Transhuman Condition. lx>ndon, New York
1997, pp. 93 ff.
3
Müller-Lauter, Woifgang: Nietzsches Lehre vom Willen zur Macht. In: Nietzsche-Studien 3
(1974), pp. l -60; translated äs: Nietzsche's Teachingof Will to Power. In: Journal of NietzscheSrudies 4/5 (Autumn 1992/Spruig 1993), pp. 37-103.
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156
Kcith Anteil·Pcanon
nicht als „werdend** vcrstchn wollen, noch weniger als geworden... der „WUlc xur
Macht" kann nicht geworden sein (KSA 13, 11 [29]).
()nc cannot discovcr thc causc of thcre bcing any cvolurion at all by studying evoluticm; onc shoidd not wish to think of it äs "bccoming", even Icss äs having bccomc.
Thc **will to power*1 cannot havc becomc (WP 690).
Lct us note an important point: Nietzsche is not contesting the idea that
evolution is charactcrized by adaptation and udlity. Rather, he is challenging the
Darwinian claini diät a purely exogenous mechanism can account for the complcxity of both the materiaJ that evoludon works on and the patterns of transformation that actually take place, and attribudng change and transformation to
a desire or drive to manifest power and to perpetually seek the enhancement of
power.
An ultra-Danvinian, such äs the American philosopher Daniel Dennett
righdy asks whether this is to be "anti-Darwin at all" and whether it does not,
ultimately, (a) rest on a superficial reading of Darwin — Dennett argues that the
insight into the difference between the cause of something and its eventual
utility is "pure Darwin"4 (indeed Nietzsche's knowledge of Darwin's Origin of
Species appears cavalier and secondhand),5 and, more contentiously, (b) rest on a
metaphysical conception of evolution, in which an appeal is made to a miraculous "skyhook" to explain certain features of evolution. I cannot in the confines
of this essay respond fully and properly to Dennett, but it is clear that
Nietzsche's "contra Darwin" position is more complex than meets the eye, including Dennett's eye. It is also clear that Dennett singularly fails to grasp the
transcendental role the will to power plays in Nietzsche's thinking on evolution,
in which it is advanced in terms of a regulative idea of experimental thinking
and research into the matter of "life".6 This is not to say that the doctrine is
4
Dennett, Daniel G: Darwin's Dangerous Idea. Evoludon and the Meanings of Life. London
1995, p. 465.
5
Several passages in Nietzsche indicate this, for example, his argument that "there are no transitional forms" or there cannot be found anywhere examples of "unconsctous natural selection"
(KSA 13, 14[133], pp. 315 — 16). Darwin discusses "uncohscious selection" in the opening chapter of his Orig/n ofSperiest Middlesex 1985, "Variation under Domestication" and treats "transitional forms" on pp. 206 ff.
6
For some recent helpful insights into this aspect of Nietzsche's construal of will to power see
the article by Landolt, Stephan: Nietzsches Metaphysik-Skizze: "Der Wille zur Macht*' und die
Beziehungen dieser Skizze zu den zeitgenössischen Naturwissenschaften. In: Kriterion. Zeitschrift für Philosophie 8 (1994), pp. 21-40. Landolt focuses on the question, "why does .
Nietzsche choose to describe force äs will to power?", and considers whetjier'it ought to be
considered äs a hypothesis or in terms of metaphysical dogmatism. Landolt righdy notes
Nietzsche's preference, within what today we call the "philosophy of science", for regulative
principles of research (somewhat in the manner of Karl Popper's critical and constructivist
rationalism). Landolt notes the construct "will to power" is not for Nietzsche a mere irrational
or voluntaristic rebelüon against previous and dominant metaphysics. Rather, it gains its signiflcance when it is viewed in the context of its strong relation to the natural sciences: <tNietzsche,"
writes Landolt, "versteht seine WzM-These als Kritik und Gegenentwurf zu clep damaligen
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On the Miscarriage of Life
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not problematic on this level, it dearly is; still', the task remains to understand
this role and exanüne the kind of challenge it purports to present to Darwinism.
An essential part of Nietzsche's conception of life äs will to power is an
energetics of force and an economy of energy. Nietzsche does not argue that
self-preservation is not a feature of life, simply that it is not the primary or
overriding drive. Hence the need within the economy of principles that informs
Nietzsche's method to get rid of "superfluous teleological principles" (which
might not be the same äs getting rid of teleological principles altogether) (JGB
13). He argues that a protoplasm "takes into itself absurdly more" than is necessary to preserve it. As a specialized and later form of this drive, "hunger"
belongs to more complicated organisms, and even then needs to be thought in
terms of a division of labour that is always in the Services of a higher drive that
rules over it (KSA 13, 11 [121]; WP 651). After having noted the origins of
ic
English Darwinism" in the "musty air" of "overpopulation" - the theory of
natural selection, Nietzsche argues in one of his more reductive moments, has
the smell of the distress of an overcrowded small people — he maintains that
in nature it is not conditions of distress and scarcity that are dominant, but, on
the contrary, "overflow and squandering, even to the point of absurdity" (a
Darwinian would argue that there are good evolutionary reasons for this excess
and squandering). Moreover:
Der Kampf um's Dasein ist nur eine Ausnahme, eine zeitweilige Restriktion des
Lebenswillens; der grosse und kleine Kampf dreht sich allenthalben um's Ueberge\vicht, um Wachsthum und Ausbreitung, um Macht, gemäss dem Willen zur Macht,
der eben der Wille des Lebens ist. (FW 349)
The struggle for existence is only an exception, a temporary restriction of the will
to life. The great and small struggle always revolves around superiority, around growth
and expansion, around power — in accordance with the will to power which is the
will of life,
Nietzsche finds it necessary to make the move firom a mechanistic conception of energy to an "economic" one. He understands the former in terms of
a constancy principle with regard to the energy "of the totality of becoming",
clearly having in mind the first law of thermodynamics. The latter moves beyond
this principle of conservation and refers to the "transforwanon of energy into life"
(my emphasis). This important transformation refers to the way in which force
Naturwissenschaften, zur (mechanistischen) Physik und zur (darwinistischen) Biologie** (p. 31).
l tf>o have explored Nietzsche's affinity with this trajectory in philosophy of science, also
in the context of a treatment of his utilization of Boscovich and the need to think beyond
epistemological sensualism and the limits of human perception, in my essay: Nietzsche's Brave
New World of Force. Thoughts on Nietzsche's 1873 "Time Atom Theory" Fragment & on the
influencc of Boscovich on Nietzsche. In: Pli. The Warwick Journal of Philosophy 9 (2000),
pp.6-36.
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158
Kchh AfUtcU-Peanon
is uscd up within an cconomy nf "high points" and desccnts. 1t is äs if Nietzsche
is thinking of thc bccoming of evolution in terms of a model of punctuated
et]uilibrium. Within this "eternal circle" of stasis or constancy and explosions
and interruptions, "life at its highcst potcncy" eppears thc goal: "Thc same
quantum of encrgy means differcnt things at diffcrent stages of evolution" (KSA
12, 10(138]; WP 639). There is anothcr aspect to this economics of life - and
Ict us notc that Darwin in the Oriyn ofSpecies is also expJicidy offering an economics and polity of Nature 7- whidrconcerns the "growth in life". This essentially conccrns how more and more energy is achieved through the use of less
and less force, it is an "ever more thrifty and more far-seeing economy".
Nietzsche concludes by arguing that the world is not striving toward any stable
condition and its climactic conditions are not conditions of equilibrium.
In his thinking of will to power Nietzsche accords a privilege to centres of
force in their active and reactive formations of becoming (the will to power "is"
not, there is only the perpetual becoming of/dynamic quanta of power). The
will to the acaiMulation of force — to become more — is then viewed äs special
or unique to a whole array of phenomena, including nourishment, procreation,
inheritance, society, state, custom, and authority, and even äs the motive cause
in chemistry and the entire cosmic order (KSA 13, 14[81]; WP 689). This supposes that die driving force is not merely a conservation of energy but rather
"maximal economy in use". This can only mean for Nietzsche that the primary
reality is the "will to grow stronger of every centre of force", and what he calls
"the will to appropriate, dominate, increase, grow stronger" (ibid.). Mechanics is
simply the "semiotics of the results" of this primary reality. Mechanism is a
"sign language for the infernal factual world of struggling and conquering quanta
of will..." The concepts that inform mechanistic theory, such äs matter, atoms,
gravity, pressure and stress, etc., are to be regarded not äs "facts-in-themselves"
but rather äs "interpretations" that are produced with the aid of "psychical
fictions" (ibid.). It is here that we encounter the paradoxical character of
Nietzsche's thinking on life and its evolution in terms of will to power, with
regard to our forms of knowledge and mental habits: mechanism is itself a
highly successful expression and application of our will to power, even though
it completely misunderstands the character of this power-will. Mechanism works:
it enables us to discharge our strength, to attain mastery over the world, arid to
enhance our feeling of power.
The innovative character of Nietzsche's analysis of mechanism -should not be
overlooked since it succeeds in exposing the fact that much of the scientific
concepts used for diagramming life, nature, matter, and energy are based on
psycbical fictions. These fictions in turn have their basis in our own evolutionary
7
See Darwin: Origin ofSpecies, loc. cit., p. 168.
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conditions of life, conditions of Utility and of our own adaptive needs (which is
\vhy they cannot be so easiiy overcome). For example, the mechanistic conception of motion is a translation of an original process of qualitative duration into
a sign language of sight and touch, that is, a translation into "the sense language
of man" (KSA 13, 14[79]). Our concept of movement is inherently spatial and
atomistic (äs in the famous paradoxes of Zeno, for*example). The illusion is
then generated that something i s known once we have a mathematical formula
for an event, when, in effect, it has only become designated and described.
Nietzsche, like Bergson after him, will give the example of music to counter the
idea that an event has been understood once it has been reduced to a formula
and broken down into components that can be enumerated or calculated.
Equally important, however, is the need to appreciate the extent to which
Nietzsche is committed to a new metaphysics^ one that can only become intelligible, I would argue, when viewed in terms of a praxis of thinking "beyond
the human condition". It is in the context of this still modern project that we
can appreciate the experimental character of his philosophy of nature, of life,
and of science. Nietzsche refuses to accept a sensualist epistemology and demands that we think beyond the senses (beyond sight and touch). Nietzsche's
thinking has little in common with the vacuous relativism and anthropic perspectivism of what passes today for "postmodern" thinking and his critiques of
mechanism and atomism contain valuable resources for a philosophy of nature
and of science today, one that has not given up on the project of metaphysics
conceived in transhuman or overhuman terms.
Let us return to the inquiry into Nietzsche's doctrine of will to power and
its rapport with Darwinian thinking. It is important to appreciate the extent to
which the movement of centres of force is bound up for Nietzsche with a
perspectival logic of Utility. He argues that every centre of force necessarily
adopts a perspective toward the whole in order to enhance its own particular
valuation and modes of action and resistance. Out of this perspectival character
a centre of force constructs an "apparent worid" in accordance with its selection
of values, notably, from the "viewpoint of Utility in regard to the preservation
and enhancement of the power of a certain species of animal" (KSA 13,14[184];
WP 567). Hence, on this model Nietzsche rightly insists that the world is reducible to the sum of apparent worlds adopted by perspectival centres of force. There
is no "world" that remains over once we have deducted these perspectives: "By
doing that one would deduct relativity!" (ibid.). This means that "reality"'a's such
consists only of the "particular action and reaction of every individual part
toward the whole -" (ibid.). Nietzsche gives the example of the world of the
physicist, seeking to show that his "world picture", äs he calls it, is a subjective
one in the specific sense that die notion of atoms upon which it relies conforms
to a "logic of the perspectivism of consciousness - and is therefore itself a
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Ktrith AmelJ-Peamm
subjcctivc fiction" (this rcmains thc case cvcn if wc say that it draws upon
extcndcd scnscs, sincc thcsc arc "onr scnscs noncthclcss"). Thc "worid", dien,
is dctcrminccl and shapcd by a "necessary pcrspcctivism by virtue of which
cvcry ccntrc of Force — and not only man — constructs all thc rcst of thc worid
from its own viewpoint, i. e., measures, fecls, forms, according to its own force
-..." (KSA 13, 14(186]; WP 636). This is not simply a Kantian conception of
die worid in terms of a distinction betwcen appearance and reality, but rather a
diinking of it in tertns of a relation between parts and a constandy cvolving and
mutating whole. And neither does this perspectivism condemn us to remaining
trapped within our own narrow horizons of being and knowing; on the contrary,
Nietzsche shows, perhaps better than any other modern philosopher, how it is
possible dirough perspectivism to think beyond oneself (one has to have more
eyes and to expand one's affective capacities). His analysis shows not that there
is simply a relativity of truth but rather that there becomes a truth of the relative.
This difference is crucial and makes all the difference between Nietzsche and
his postmodern heirs.
The will to power operates in Nietzsche both in terms of a theory of knowledge and a theory of life and the two aspects frequendy work discordandy in
his writings. In terms of the theory of knowledge the doctrine of will to power
often appears to trap us within a strict logic of Utility and adaptation. But when
Nietzsche thinks outside of the confines of the theory of knowledge he often
succeeds in showing that "life" exceeds the cätegories of consciousness. However, a problem persists, which can be stated äs follows: it is not simply the case
that Nietzsche is "contra" Darwin in any simple-minded manner; on the contrary, he is compelled to respond to die challenge that Darwinism presents to
his onm innermost thinking on life and becoming. At this stage in our presentation the
only tentative conclusion that can be reached is the following: both the drive of
self-overcoming and that of self-preservation are modalities of will to power
and work in concert. The spontaneous, expansive, and aggressive form-shaping
forces do not initially articulate a need of self-preservation, but eventuaüy and
inevitably they become implicated in a logic of survival and serve to provide
the material which makes possible new interpretations and new adaptations.
Evolution remains in Nietzsche a story of utilitarian success and survival. This
is key: Nietzsche accepts that even on the level of culture and history Darwinism
proves "correct".8 This becomes clear when one examine Nietzsche's wellknown theory of knowledge and truth, which I shall engage with in the next
section. For now, let us take cognizance of some highly revealing remairks
8
This is, in fact, an insight that dawned on Nietzsche äs early äs 1872/3: "The horrible consequences of Darwinism, which, by thc way, I consider to be correct" (KSA 7, 19[132]).
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Nietzsche makes in his reflections on Darwinism with regard to the question of
"man".
Nietzsche takes serioüsly the "struggle föi existence" on the level of biological evolution and on the level of our own historical becoming. We are wrong to
imagine that there takes place in either a continual growth in perfection simply
because in the struggle of existence chance serves the weak äs well äs the strong.
If we credit natural selection with the power of slow and endless metamorphosis,
in which every advantage is inherited and grows stronger with succeeding generations, and in which new adaptations result from the influence of the environment, we go wrong if we suppose that this process favours the cultivation of
the highest types. Nietzsche argues diät "higher types" are attained but they do
not endure. Hence his claim that "the level of species is not raised". This is
because "the richest and most complex forms" (which is what is meant by the
expression "higher type") perish more easily. Heredity involves only types. But
then a type is "nothing extreme, no "lucky stroke"". Nietzsche does not ascribe
this failure of evolution to any "malevolence of nature". Rather, it is the result
of the complexity of the higher type: the fact that it involves a greater sum of
co-ordinated and multifarious elements means that its disintegration is also more
likely: "The genius is the sublimest machine there is — consequently the most
fragile" (ibid.). Considered äs a species, then, we cannot say that "man" is progressing, or that it represents any kind of progress compared with other animals
and forms of life (KSA 13, 14[133]; WP 684). Nietzsche is thus content to
accept the insight that the victory of reactive values is not antibiological. Rather,
it needs to be explained in terms of the interest life has in "preserving the type
"man"", which is carried out through the dominion of the weak. Without this
method of preservation, Nietzsche notes, "man would cease to exist" and we
would then have a "problem" (KSA 13, Hfl82]; WP 864).
Given these conditions, we find ourselves reaching the inevitable conclusion
that the survival of the fittest even at the level of will to power translates itself into
an evolution that favours the organization and dominion of the weak over the
"lucky strokes" and "select types". 7f reality can be translated into a "morality",
then this would be one in which life shows itself to favour the mediocre over
the rare and the exceptional (KSA 13, Hfl23]; WP 685). For example, among
the weaker forms of life we see the cultivation of specific virtues, such as^cunning, patience, dissimulation, and mimicry, placed in the Service of self-preservation. The task of culture, äs Nietzsche sees it then, is to produce conditions
under which this natural evolution can be arrested and the "highest types" can
flourish. It is not a question of manufacturing genius, which is impossible, but
rather of establishing the conditions that are favourable to the appearance of
the unique, singular, and the incomparable. When Nietzsche declares that he
writes for a species that does not yet exist, he is not, strictly speaking, invoking
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Kcith Aruell-Peaiwn
a ncw "spccies" (on Nietzschc's deflnition a spccies is thc dominion of thc
averäge over ihe rare and thc cxceptional), The task is to make "the scales more
dclicate and hopc for thc assistance of favourable accidents" (KSA 11, 26[117];
WP 907).
Nietzsche says that hc sees all philosophers and the whole of modern science
"knccling before a reality that is the reverse of thc struggle for existence äs
taught by the school of Darwin". By this he means that Darwinism has demonstrared that it is the weak and mediocre that prevail in the actual course of
evolution (which explains why for Nietzsche "duration" - considered in relation
to qucstions of evolution — has no value). Evolution, is characterized by a law
of gregarity diät favours the survival of large numbers or molar aggregates,
leading to the formation of herd moralities and specific types of social organization. Darwinism can thus only lend its support to those who "compromise life
and the value of life". The selective pressures of evolutionary life serve to regularize and normalize singularities. We should not be surprised, therefore, when
Nietzsche writes, that "The error of the school of Darwin becomes a problem
to me: how can one be so blind äs see so badly at this point?" It is on "this
point" then that Nietzsche will go on to elaborate his thinking on culture and
politics with die explicit aim of putting an end to "gruesome dominion of
nonsense and accident that has so far been called "history"" (JGB 203).
Nietzsche's engagement with Darwinism thus becomes a contest over the value
of "life" and necessitates in his work the articulation of a politics of life or
existence — in the sense of a deliberate fashioning of culture. Nietzsche insists
that Darwinism lends itself to the "morality" that the mediocre is worth more
than the exceptions, and within which the will to nothingness gains the upper
hand over the will to life. He thus declares the he rebels "against the translation
of reality into a morality: therefore I abhor Christianity with a deadly hatred,
because it creates sublime words and gestures to throw over a horrible reality
the cloak of justice, virtue, and divinity" (KSA 13, 14[123]; WP 685). Indeed, it
is evident in Beyond Good and Evil'that Nietzsche's recognition of his own singular
task äs a philosopher emerges out of his engagement with "Englishmen", the
"unphilosophical race" par excelleme. In section 252 he takes to task the likes of
"Hobbes, Hume, and Locke" for what he regards äs their "debasement" of the
concept of philosophy; accusing them of lacking a "real power of spirituality, real
profundity of Spiritual perception; in brief, philosophy"; while in section 253 he
then speaks of "the spirit of respectable but mediocre Englishmen", naming
"Darwin, John Stuart Mill, and Herbert Spencer", and accusing the'm bf promoting a "plebeianism of modern ideäs". The only vision of the highest type which
this English diligence and industriousness can offer is that of a "Salvation
Army" type. The need for iphilosopby of life is thus bound up in Nietzsche with
an expanded "spiritual perception" (geistiger Blick) ^ a perception that he argues is
distinctly lacking in English Darwinism.
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But we must ask: what is the nature and "ttieaning" of this rebelllonl Is it a
rebellion against the evolution of life itself ? Does Nietzsche's contra Darwinism
mean that he favours an anti-tiatttral evolution of the human, the deliberate cultivation of higher types through a new discipline and breeding? Is this the kind
of "great politics" that is at stake and at issue in a Nietzschean politics, a tyrannical politics where die word "tyranny" is to be takefldn its most Spiritual sense
(JGB 208)? If \ve read Nietzsche's battle with Darwin along the lines I have
outlined here, we inevitably reach the conclusion that if the triumph of "reactive" forces is natural, in the sense diät it conforms to and obeys the actual
conditions of /tfey then Nietzsche's thinking amounts to a quite different kind or
order of selection, We may even no longer be talking about "life" in any evolutionary sense. In order to better stage an encounter with the kind of politics
this may involve, and to outline a possible other becoming of the human, it is
now necessary to probe more deeply into Nietzsche's thinking, this time in
relation to his views on knowledge and the formation of consciousness. This
will complicate further the role the doctrine of will to power plays in his work
and his attempt to think beyond the human condition. What type of existence
— with respect to life and to evolution — is imagined in the figure of the
overman?
The Body of Knowledge
For Nietzsche the possibility of thinking and going beyond the human condition (an evolutionary and not an existential predicament) emerges out of the
development of knowledge itself. A central issue concerns whether the knowledge that challenges our deeply ingrained habits can be incorporated within our
bodies of knowing, acting, feeling, etc., so constituting what one might call a
new logic of Sensation and perception. In section 110 of The Gay Säeme entitied
"Ursprung der Erkennttiiss" Nietzsche argues that the intellect is a product of
evolution; it conforms to and obeys the conditions of life (adaptation, Utility,
etc) and, äs a result, it dwells in the domain of error. The errors that the intellect
produces — through the need to simplify reality, to make it something uniform,
regulär, and calculable - proved useful and so helped to preserve the species:
"those who hit upon or inherited these had better luck in their struggle for
themselves and their progeny". These erroneous articles of faith, culturally
transmitted from generation to generation, eventually become a key part of the
"basic endowment of the species", and include the following: "that there are
things, substances, bodies; that a thing is what it appears to be; that our will is
free; that what is good for me is good in itself". Now "truth" äs such - truth
meaning here practices of knowledge that are independent of the human need
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Kdth Amcli-Pcareon
to imposc a regulär and uniform ordcr on thc flux of bccoming, for cxamplc
- onJy cmcrgcs reladvcly late In thc evolurion of human culture and initially
constitutcs thc wcakcst form of knowlcdgc. The rcason for this is simply that
"truth" is tbund to bc unliveable:
Es schien, dass man mit ihr nicht zu leben vermöge, unser Organismus war auf ihren
Gegensatz eingerichtet; alle seine höheren Functionen, die Wahrnehmungen der Sinne
und jede Art von Empfindung überhaupt, arbeiteten mit jenen uralt einverleibten
Grundirrthümern. (FW 110)
1t secmed that one was unable to live with it; our organism was prepared for the
opposite; all its higher functions, senseperception and every kind of sensadon worked
with those basic errors which had been since time immemorial.
Clearly, then, when Nietzsche speaks of truth and the future of knowledge,
he has in mind a different kind of incorporation and new modes of existing. To
date \ve have incorporated knowledge in terms of its strength of age, not its
truth, and transformed into a condition of life. Life and knowledge came to
exist in harmony and deniai and doubt were simply held to be forms of madness.
A school such äs the Eleatics developed a way of living that sought to live in
accordance with the opposites generated by the natural errors. But in order for
the sage to live äs "One and All" at the same time, to exist äs unchangeable
and impersonal, it is necessary to deceive oneself about our own state by, for
example, attributing to oneself a fictitious impersonality and by positing a
changeless duration, and, in the process, misunderstanding the nature of the
knower and denying the role of the Impulses in knowledge. A more subtle form
of skepticism develops wherever two contradictory propositions about the world
appeared to be applicable to life, simply because both were compatible with the
basic errors; the only criterion of "truth" was one of anthropological regulation,
that is, the argument revolved around degrees of Utility for life. Gradually,
Nietzsche says, the human brain becomes so füll of antinomical judgeraents and
convictions that a "lust for power" develops in this tangle of knowledge. It is
in this context that knowledge and a striving for truth become one of our new
needs and desires: "Henceforth not only faith and conviction but also scrutiny,
deniai, mistrust, and contradiction became a power, all "evil" instincts were subordinated to knowledge, employed in her Service, and acquired the splendour
of what is permitted, honoured, and useful..." (FW 110) This is a most interesting and promising stage in human evolution because it is the "moment" when
knowledge becomes "a piece of life itself". The significance of this devdopment
is profound because, äs Nietzsche draws out, it means that the philosopher or
thinker is that being in whom there Stands the two Impulses of self-preservation
and self-overcoming (the impulse of clinging on to life-preserving, even lifeenhancing, errors and the impulse for truth which also shows itself to be a similar
power of preservation and enhancement). In other words, the human .condition
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165
and the need and desire to think beyond it aire both incorporated in philosophy
äs we moderns practise it Nietzsche concludes by posing a decisive quesrion,
one which invites the event of truth to be incorporated and to become an
integral part of an art of living:
Im Verhältniss zu der Wichtigkeit dieses Kampfes ist alles Andere gleichgültig: die
letzte Frage um die Bedingung des Lebens ist hier gesteUt, und der erste Versuch
wird hier gemacht, mit dem Experiment auf diese Frage zu antworten. Inwieweit
verträgt die Wahrheit die Einverleibung? - das ist die Frage, das ist das Experiment.
(FW 110)
Compared to the significance of this fight, everything eise is a matter of indifference:
the ultimate question about the conditions of life has been posed here, and we confront the first attempt to answer this question by experiment. To what extent can
truth endure incorporation? That is the question; that is the experiment.
A great deal of the character of our forms of knowledge has been shaped
and informed by our will to power. While, conceived äs an impulse towards
overpowering and domination, the will to power cannot be completely overcome
- since this would require an overcoming of the conditions of life - one can
imagine this primary drive and elemental pathos undergoing dramatic transmutations. It is these transmutations that are part of our experiment today. I shall
return to this point in my conclusion.
Nietzsche's theory of will to power, thought in relation to an account of
evolutdon, is part of a broader critical unravelüng in bis work of what we might
call the mechanism of mechanism. Mechanical thinking creates a world that is
uniform and regulär. This need for a world that is constant and stable accounts
for our reliance — in common sense and science — on artificially dividing the
flux of becoming, and the multiplicities of forces that characterize i t, into atoms,
unities, things, discrete subjects (the Separation of doers and deeds), and so on.
Consciousness is a phenomenon of evolution and bound up with the becoming of the body. Nietzsche is quite extreme in his view on this point:
Es ist unwahrscheinlich, dass unser „Erkennen" weiter reichen sollte als es knapp zur
Erhaltung des Lebens ausreicht. Die Morphologie zeigt uns, wie die Sinne und die
Nerven, sowie das Gehirn sich entwickeln im Verhältniß zur Schwierigkeit der Ernährung. (KSA 11, 36 [l 9])
It is improbable diät our "knowledge" should extend further than is strictly necessary
for the preservation of life. Morphology shows us how the senses and the nerves, äs
well äs the brain, develop in proportion to the difficulty of flnding nourishment (WP
494).
The inteJlect is to be regarded äs a consequence of conditions of existence. 1t is a
phenomenon of necessity:
wir hätten ihn nicht, wenn wir ihn nicht nöthig hätten und hätten ihn nicht so, wenn
wir ihn nicht s o nöthig hätten, wenn wir auch anders leben könnten. (KSA 11,26 [l 37])
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Kcith AnseU-Pcarson
wc would not havc it if we diel not netil to havc it, and we would not have it #/ // />
if wc did not nccd to havc it // />, if we could live othrra'ise (WP 498).
The inteUcct is bound to thc sphcre of nced and enjoys no "free" evolution.
If thc Job of die intcllect is to aid survival and thc prcservation of lifc, thc way
in which it achievcs dnis is by cancclling out thc shock of the new. Thc fabrication of conccpts follows this specific logic of lifc:
„Denken" in primitiven Zustande (vor-organisch) ist Gestalten - Durchsetzen,
wie beim Crystalle, - In unserem Denken ist das Wesentliche das Einordnen
des neuen Materials in die alten Schemata (= Prokrustesbett), das Gleich machen
des Neuen. (KSA 11, 41 [l l])
"Thinking" in primitive conditions (pre-organic) is the crystaUization of forms, äs in
the case of crystal. In ottr thought, thc essential feature is fitting new material into
old Schemas ( = Procrustes* bed), making equal what is new. (WP 499)
We reach the paradoxical and enigmatic insight that the apparatus we have
developed for acquiring knovvledge is not "designed" for knowledge. What is
the knowledge spoken of here? Does it mean we are trapped within a world of
our own making? Nietzsche writes: "We can comprehend only a world that we
ourselves have made" (KSA 11, 25[470]; WP 495). There is a biological perspectivism in Nietzsche, which is why, in the case of the human, he insists on an
anthropology of knowledge. This is an anthropology which, because it is an
anthropology, gives us no rights to truth. If our forms of knowledge are bound
up with our preservation then it cannot be assumed that "the preservation of
man were a proof of truth!" (KSA 11, 26[12]; WP 497). However, we shpuld
not overlook that in unravelling the anthropological character of forms of truth
and modes of knowledge Nietzsche must, at the same time, be appealing to and
relying upon a quite different kind of thinking, what I have called a thinking
"beyond the human condition". In his analysis of knowledge and its functions
he is showing that in order to develop and cultivate this new way of thinking
beyond the human condition one must also give an account of that condition.
Only an ignorant and foolish philosopher thinks that this condition can be
bypassed or laid to waste, just äs only a buffoon thinks that man can be simply
jumped over.
It is the body that commands, establishing and informing the conditions
under which the outside is allowed to enter the inside and become assimilated
and incorporated.
— dieselbe gleichmachende und ordnende Kraft, welche im Idioplasma waltet, waltet
auch beim Einverleiben der Außenwelt: unsere Sinneswahrnehmungen sind bereits
das Resultat dieser Anähnlichung und Gleichsetzung in Bezug auf alle Vergangenheit in uns; sie folgen nicht sofort auf den „Eindruck" —. (KSA 12, 2[92])
The same equalizing and ordering force that rules in die idioplasma, rules also in the
incorporation of the outer world: our sense perceptions are already the result of this
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167
assiirulaüon and equalization in regard to aJ/uic past in us; they do not follow direcdy
upon the "impression" (WP 500).
Perception is a mode of comparison which both posits equality between
disparate things and makes them equal. This process is identical to the process
of incorporation in the arrioeba. It is possible to construe memory äs initially
evolving to enhance die need to classify and pigeonhole (KSA 12, 5 [65]; WP
501). There is a "becoming-conscious" only of diät which is useful to the organic process and faciJitates preservation, which means that certain kinds of
perceptions are excluded (he mentions the "electric" ones). Tt follows, then, that
"Couscwustiess hpresent only to the extent that it is usefal" (KSA 12, 2[95]; WP 505).
Sense perceptions are permeated with "value judgements" regarding what is
held to be useful or harmful, and pleasant and unpleasant.
Truth is a value in the specific sense that it is a "holding-to-be-true", a
holding that is entirely an expression of conditions of preservation and growth.
Our faith in reason and the categpries of logic is evidence of the usefiilness of
such epistemic tools - useful in reiation to the problems of life - but not of
their essential "truth". What would such an "essentia!" truth amount to or mean
outside of an evolutionary account of needs and habits, outside of an andiopologic? The origins of logic are protoplasmic, that is, a rendering-equal of what
is appropriated and assimilated, a process that takes place in accordance with a
horizon of adapn've success. The categories of reason prevail only after much
groping and fumbling, and a testing of their rektive Utility. It is through such
an e\Olutionary process that their a priori chafacter for our species becomes
established:
Es kam ein Punkt, wo man sie zusammenfaßte, sich als Ganzes zum Bewußtsein
brachte, — und wo man sie befahl...d. h. wo sie wirkten als befehlend...
Von jetzt ab galten sie als a priori..., als jenseits der Erfahrung, als unabweisbar...
Und doch drücken sie vielleicht nichts aus als eine bestimmte Rassen- und GattungsZweckmäßigkeit, - bloß ihre Nützlichkeit ist ihre „Wahrheit" -. (KSA 13, 14[105])
There came a point when one collected them together, raised them to consciousness
äs a whole — and when one commanded them, i. e., when they had the effect of a
command. From then on, they counted äs a priori, äs beyond experience, äs irrefutable. And yet perhaps they represent nothing more than the expediency of a certain
race and species — their utility alone is their "truth" (WP 514).
Knowledge is a matter of schematization, involving an imposition of regularity and uniformity upon a "chaos" and dictated by our practical needs. Nietzsche
is insistent on this point: in the formation of reason, logic, and the categories
what was authoritative and decisive was need. This is not a need to know but to
subsume for the purposes of calculating and making-intelligible. If there is "finalitv" at work this is merely an "effect" and not a cause. The following is a
key passage in this regard and with respect to my argument that thinking beyond
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Keith AnsdJ-Pcüfxon
thc human condition may require thinking bcyond the logic of will to powcr
conccivcd äs a law of sclf-overcoming always subjcct to the perpetual return of
a logic of nccd, Utility and domination:
bei jeder anderen Art Vernunft, zu der es fortwährend Ansätze giebt, missräth das
Leben, - es wird unübersichtlich - zu ungleich (KSA 13, 14(152]).'
life miscarries with any other kinds of rcason, to which thcre is a continual impulse
- it becomes too difflcult to survey - too unequal (\VP 515).
We have in Nietzsche, then, an intimaüon that other forms of life, including
other forms of reason, are possible but that evolution dictates something quite
specific and particular, namely, utilitarian forms of knowledge that are ruled over
by a criterion of adaptive success. Nietzsche makes it quite dear: the subjective
compuision not to contradict here is a biological one. The "instinct" for the
Utility of making certain inferences that has informed our evolution, is a part of
us to the extent that we can claim that "we almpst are this instinct". Any creation
of concepts must conform to this logic of compuision. This explains for
Nietzsche why we are not dealing in philosophy with "truth" but with something
eise, namely, the need to impose order on chaos and to develop forms of knowledge that aid the interests of survival and adaptation. This applies to all our
concepts and categories, including the fictitious worid of subject, substance, the
ego, etc. Out of the need to master and control we have developed the power
to order, to simplify, to falsify, and to make artifidal distinctions. By dassifying
phenomena into definite categories we are able to master a multiplicity of sensations. However, the will to power that has informed our forms of truth and
modes of knowledge can be overcome but, and this is a crucial point, only in
the name of another will to ponw\ one that speaks of new forces and affects, äs
well äs new possibilities of existence and new becomings.
In bis thinking on "becoming" Nietzsche comes dose to Bergson's argument
on "creative" evolution: a "continual transition" makes it impossible for us to
speak, except in artificial terms, of "individuals" since the ""number" of beings
is itself in flux".9 The principle of identity can only be established on the assumption that things remäin the same in the midst of this flux. Like Bergson,
Nietzsche argues that a world in a state of becoming cannot, stricdy speaking,
be "comprehended" by the mtellect since this intellect can only encounter a
9
See: Bergson, Henri: Creative Evolution (1907), Trans. A. Mitchell. Lanham MD 1983. For
further insight into Bergson see the opening chapter of my Gerrninal L/fe, London 1999. I
explore the Bergson-Nietzsche connection and rapport much further in my forthcoming study,
Virtual &fe. For a comparison of Nietzsche and Bergson on questions of truth and knowledge
see: Delhomme, Jeanne: Nietzsche et Bergson. La Representation de la Verite. In: Les Etudes
Bergsonnienes 5 (l 965), pp. 39-62.
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On the Miscarriage of Life
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169
coarse, already-created and pre-fabricated worid (KSA 11, 36[23]; WP 520).10
The intellect has evolved äs an organ of Utility. This is apparent in our very
thinking of evolution which assumes relative states of equilibrium and which
rests on the transcendental illusion of "species" (KSA 12, 9[144]; WP 521). The
notion of species serves to punctuate the continual flux of evolution and gives
it the appearance that a goal has been attained in thfe creation of a particular
species. So notions like "form", "species", "law" and "purpose" are all implicated in this falsification of the reality of a continual becoming. Through such
notions a world is created that is calculable, siniplified, and rehdered comprehensible "for us". The logic of identity thinking is a logic of recognition: "The world
seems logical to us because we have made it logical" (KSA 12, 9[144]; WP 521).
Again, like Bergson, Nietzsche argues that many of the problems of philosophy
arise because of the way we think through the constraint of language. Our
language is not made for dealing with nuances, with rhythm, with the colour of
life. Consciousness on this level is for Nietzsche, äs it is for Bergson, only a
means of communication and social intercourse (KSA 13, 11 [l 45]; WP 524; see
also FW 354). This suggests that any attempt to think beyond the human condition must break with both the habits of the intellect and with the unconscious
metaphysics that informs science and its practices.
"Life" is not, in fact, the supreme value for Nietzsche. Although life is a
"unique case" it is necessary to "justify existence and not only life". A justifying
principle will be one that also explains life. Thus, Nietzsche arrives at the position that life is only a means: "it is the expression of forms of the growth of
power" (KSA 12, 9[13]; WP 706). In the same spirit Nietzsche argues that
consciousness cannot be posited äs the aim and purpose of the "total phenomenon of life" simply because it constitutes only a small section of the "total life"
(KSA 12,10[137]; WP 707). The same goes for spirituality or morality. AU these
phenomena are to be treated äs means towards the enhancement of the powers
of life, including life itsel£ and including mankind:
Werth..
Das höchste Quantum Macht, das der Mensch sich einzuverleiben vermag
der Mensch: nicht die Menschheit...
die Menschheit ist viel eher noch ein Mittel, als ein Ziel. Es handelt sich um den
Typus: die Menschheit ist bloß das Versuchsmaterial, der ungeheure Überschuß des
Mißrathenen, ein Trümmerfeld...(KSA 13, 14[8])
Value is the highest quantum of power that a man is able to incorporate —' ä man:
not mankind!
!<>
For Bergson's critiquc of the intellect, which shares striking affinities with Nietzsche, see: Bergson, Henri: The Creative Mind. Trans. M. L· Andison. Totowa NJ 1975, pp. 34-40; and: Creative Evolution, loc cit., pp. 44-5 and pp. 152-7. For Bergson's response to Kant see: ibid.,
pp. 356-62.
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Kcith AnwtM'carsrm
Mankind is cvcn a mcans sooner fhan an cnd. h: is a question of the type: mankind
IN mcrcly thc cxpcrimcncal matcral, the trcmcndous surplus of failures (Mißratbenen):
a fiele! of ruins (W 713).
"Spirit" (Gast) for Nietzsche is bound up with the life that is will to power.
With key dcvelopments in the natural sciences, and ncw scienccs such äs
psychology, we arc now cntcring "the phase of the modesty of consciousness".
We no longer bclicvc that \ve arc explaining bodüy motions and changes when
wc come up with a consciousness that supposedly supervenes and determines
purposes. Instead, we develop a knowledge of the body that is far more subtle
and sophisricated, one which cliscovers that the motions of die body have little
to do with cither consciousness or feit sensations. Purposiveness needs, in fact,
to be re-situated since it can be shown to rule over all kinds of small events
that go beyond what our understanding, planning, and selectivity deems. There
are numerous influences acring on us at every moment — those of air and
electricity - which the reified intellect does not detect or pick up on. Similarly,
we can say that pleasure and pain are rare appearances in comparison with the
countless Stimuli that a cell or an organ exercises upon another cell or organ.
In short, we reach the condusion, no doubt with the aid of our intellectual
conscience, that the evolution of the spirit is a question of the body, more, of
a higher body in which the organic rises to yet higher levels, The following
passage is perhaps one of the most important in Nietzsche's corpus, bringing
him into our contemporaneity with a remarkable resonance:
Das Organische steigt noch auf höhere Stufen. Unsere Gier nach Erkenntniß der
Natur ist ein Mittel, wodurch der Leib sich vervollkommnen will. Oder vielmehr:
es werden hunderttausende von Experimenten gemacht, die Ernährung, Wohnart,
Lebensweise des Leibes zu verändern: das Bewußtsein und die Werthschätzungen in
ihm, all Arten von Lust und Unlust sind Anzeichen dieser Veränderungen
und Experimente. Zuletzt handelt es sich gar nicht um den Menschen:
er soll überwunden werden. (KSA 10, 24[16])
The organic is rising to yet higher levels. Our lust for knowledge of nature is a means
through which the body desires to perfect itself, Or rather: hundreds of thousands
of experiments are made to change the nourishment, the mode of living and dwelling
of the body; consciousness and evaluations in the body, all kinds of pleasure and
displeasure, are signs of diese changes and experiments. In the long run, it is not a
question of man at all: he is to be overcome (WP 676).
The critical question now becomes: how are to underständ the overcoming
of man heralded in this passage? This is our contemporary concern, and perhaps
has been for some decades, now reaching an intensification with the developments in artificial life and intelligence and the new human-machine symbioses
they herald. Nietzsche portrays the overcoming of man in terms of the evolution
of a higher body and a superior life. The question, however, concerns whether
this vision of the overhuman is modelled solely on the order of the human and
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its specific perspectivism and will to power, amounting to an enhancement of
it in terms of a more successful and expansive body. Is the overhuman still life
and only "life"?11 Jt is insufficient to describe Nietzsche äs a superior philosopher because he privileges the body over consciousness, äs is done all too
readily, simply because his conception of the body, äs depicted in the above
striking passage for example, may be modelled on l ä human, all too human
conception that is derived from the habits of consciousness and the intellect.
The fact that Nietzsche privileges the becoming of the body over the evolution
of consciousness does not necessarily amount to a radical break with the philosophical tradition on his part, simply because it might still be being made subservient to the same logic of life that has informed and governed the life of consciousness.
In my book l^roid Life: Perspectives on Nietzsche and the Transhuman Condition
(1997), I argued that contemporary depictions of evolution which herald Kposthuman phase or stage, in which the human is conceived äs ktcorrüngpostbiological
and subject to an emergent technological vitalism, not only produce a dubious
global conception of "evolution", which amounts to a mystification and reification of the term, but equally they misrepresent crucial aspects of Nietzsche's
figuration of the overhuman — namely, that for Nietzsche the human Inas, from
the begnning, been implicated in a postbiological becoming. This memory of the
human in Nietzsche's texts, notably the Genealogy of Morality, needs to be recovered and repeated, since it may prove crucial to how we figure the promise of
the over-human today.
Nietzsche's Politics ofUfe: Overcoming tbe Human?
The politics of life names a site of contestation and can be spoken of in
many senses and in multifarious ways. Here I shall address it in two senses,
looking firstiy at Nietzsche's troublesome avowal of a politics of discipline and
cultivation designed to put an end to Darwinian evolution; and then moving on
to unfolding what I think is a more interesting and complicated post-evolutionary account of the human/overhuman matrix that lies concealed in Nietzsche's
genealogy of morals.
The context of Nietzsche's own framing of the notion of the overman is the
dramatic rethinking of evolution he is compelled to articulate out of his engage11
For a vitally important reccnt contribution to the study of'life', see: Agamben, Giorgio: Homo
Sacer. Sovcreign Power and Bare life. Trans. D. Heller-Roaxen. Stanford 1998. See also his
indstve essay on Deleuze on life: Absolute Lmmancnce. In: Potentialiries. Collected Essays in
PhiJi>sophy. Stanford 1999, pp. 220 - 39.
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Kciih Anscil-Pearson
mcnt \vith Darwinism, including thc manncr in which thc rcactivc forces are
nccessiirily - in thc biological sense - victotious within history. Whencvcr
Nietzsche cnvisages a politics of thc cnhanccmcnt of life he docs so in terms
of a quitc specific rcading of thc ovcrman and that bears on thc notion of the
"higher type". As we havc sccn, this notion etnerges out of thc context of
Nictzsche's critique of Darwinian thinking and his rebellion against the translation
of thc rcality of evolution into a "morality". But it also appears to have quitc
specific material and historical conditions. Thus the overman is depicted in
terms of a "secretion of the luxury surplus of mankind" that is madc possible
by the machinery of mankind's intcrests and needs becoming intcgrated in more
and more mtricate terms. On the plane of human cultural evolution there will
occur, Nietzsche andcipates, a stationary adaptadon. Once the common management of the earth has been attained, mankind will find its ultimate meaning
äs a machine placed in the service of this economy. Economic and technical
development will result in such an intelligent symbiosis of man and machine
that the need for command and domination will become superfluous. On another plane, however, evolution can be steered in a quite different direcrion,
away from a specialized utility and leading to the producrion of a "synthetic,
summarizing human". The existence of the common stock of humanity into a
machine is a precondidon of the cultivation of this new higher type, and it is
die production of the higher type that is able to give this maximum exploitation
a "meaning" and legitimacy (KSA 12, 10[17]; WP 866).
Nietzsche is also situating this conception of the overman in the context of
what he detects äs certain major shifts in European culture. He seeks to crack
open further these tectonic shifts so äs to force humanity down the road of a
"great politics", a politics beyond nadon and race: "The time is coming when
politics will have a different meaning" (KSA 12, 2[57]; WP 960). If this promise
of a new politics is fulfilled, then we are faced witb a tremendous question and
a great task: <chow shall the earth äs a whole be governed? And to what end
shaJl "man" äs a whole — and no longer äs a people or a race — be raised and
trained?" (KSA 11, 37[8]; WP 957). Nietzsche then outlines his plans for a new
aristocracy of self-legislators and artist-tyrants who will "be made to endure for
millenia" and who will "employ democratic Europe äs their most pliant and
supple Instrument for getting hold of the destinies of Europe, so äs to work äs
ardsts upon "man" himself" (KSA 12, 2[57]; WP 960).
The question that now has to be confronted is this: does the pecuüar character of the human animal have any evolutionary — or rather^0j/-evolutionary —
significance? Not in the sense that we could claim that evolution has been
searchlng for man in order to further its own extra-humän and neg-entropic
designs — which is how evolution is being construed in some quarters today —
but in Bergson's sense, which gives due regard to contingency and to the diverse
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173
tendencies of life, of nature creating in man a machine that goes beyond a mere
mechanism — ?
The human condition - the condition of thinking in terms of mechanistic
and spatial habits of representation — can be explained in terms of our species'
interest in survival and adaptation. Our forms of knowledge are necessarily the
expression of our will to power, which within evolutidri manifests itself äs a will
to simplify and calculate reality in order to gain mastery and control of it. And
yet, this is deeply paradoxical: within bis thinking on life äs will to power
Nietzsche is clearly hinting at other possibilities of existing and of thinking
beyond a logic of survival and preservation through mastery and control. Why
is life characterized by "success": by the success of the weak and the mediocre
and by the success of a dominating reason? What may still become of life's
miscarriages, its squanderings, monstrous excesses, and failures? In short, is it
possible for Nietzsche — and for us — to think beyond anthropological perspectivism, and, crucially, beyond the narrow horizons of the human condition?
It is in terms of calculation that Nietzsche construes the formation of the
human qua human animal, a curious animal of time and memory. In other words,
for Nietzsche it is not simply the case that world itself has to be rendered
something regulär, uniform, and calculable — this much Nietzsche perhaps
learned from Hume - but radier that the human itself must also be made into
something regulär and calculable. The second essay of GM begins by raising the
decisive question: "To cultivate an animal that has the capacity to make promises. Is this not the paradoxical task nature has set itself in the case of man?
Is this not the real problem regarding man?" ("Ein Thier heranzüchten, das
versprechen darf — ist das nicht gerade jene paradoxe Aufgabe selbst,
welche sich die Natur in Hinsicht auf den Menschen gestellt hat? ist es nicht
das eigentliche Problem vom Menschen?" (GM II 1)). This is a cultivation that
is achieved through a prehistoric labour, the labour of the morality of custom,
and with the aid of the forces of an outside, such äs a mnemotechnics. Out of
the forces, practices, and disciplines of habit and memory — all mediated
through social and technical machines — there is produced the promise of a
creative being. In short, and in essence, we can say that the human animal,
through a process of naturalistic evolution, has become an animal that is not
subject to a strictly biological evolution. Its evolution is also mediated by tecjhnics — including a technics of memory-formation — and by social and historical
forces in general. When we say that man, like all other animals, adapts to bis
environment we have to appreciate that this is, in large part, a fiilly artificialized
environment. This is not to say that this is not an evolution fully informed by
the order of habit and of Utility. The distinguishing features of human existence,
such äs language and complex social organization, clearly operate for Nietzsche
on this level. But concealed within genealogical history there can be found a
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174
Kcnh Amcll-Pearson
crcative cxpcrimcntation of thc human animal with itsclf which contains cnormous potentialities for an ovcrhuman becoming - a becoming that is also
implicatcd in the forccs of an "outside" (animais, machines, inorganic Ufe, etc).
Man is the animal who, oncc "encloscd in the walls of socicty and peace",
becomes thc subjcct of a process of internalization (Verinnerlubun^^ in which he
not only experimcnts on nature but rather engages in inventive forms of stfexperiff/enfatwti. With impatience man rips himself apart, gnaws at himself, and
subjects himself to self-abuse. He is so füll of emptiness in his natural state —
his genetic endowment bcstows far too litdc, we might say — that he is forced
to create for himself a "hazardous wilderness" entirely within. The invention of
thc bad conscience reprcsents his "forcible breach with his animal past",
amounting to both a leap and a fall into new condirions of existence. The sight
of an animal turning against itself in this way is something deeply puzzling,
profound, and contradictory. It amounts to a momentous event that has
changed the "whole character of the world" in an essential way. It is for
Nietzsche a spectacle too wonderful and paradoxical to be allowed "to be played
out senselessly on some ridiculous planet" (GM II 16). It is on account of this
self-experimentation that man can be defined äs the "sick aäimal" par excellence.
As the great experimenter and insatiable struggler for control over "animais,
nature, and gods", all accomplished with the aid of the "iinscrupulous inventiveness
of technkiam and engineers" (GM III 9; my emphasis), man remains "the stillunconquered futurist" whose very futurity "digs mercilessly into the flesh of
every present like a spur"; to the extent that even the "No" that he brings to
life contains within it a wealth of tender affirmations. And, although he is the
animal who deliberately wounds himself, it is these wounds — and the memory
of them — which forces this self-vivisectionist and master of self-destruction to
live. Human self-experimentation does not for Nietzsche reveal a desire for salvation, but more a fascination with the infectious character of sickness and suffering, to the extent that Nietzsche is able to declare that "people who make us ill
seem even more necessary for us today than any medicine men and saviours".
So, while hubris may well be the distinctive feature of our attitude towards
nature and machines, such self-experimentation ultimately takes us beyond ourselves and puts to the test our self-certainties and any fixed estimates of value
and worth of life. It is through the human, in fact, that the question of the value
of life gets opened up. The art of living now assumes the form of ,a praxis of
experimentation. We live dangerously:
— denn wir experimentiren mit uns, wie wir es uns mit keinem Thiere erlauben
würden, und schlitzen uns vergnügt und neugierig die Seele bei lebendigem Leibe auf:
was liegt uns noch am „Heil" der Seele! Hinterdrein heilen wir uns selber: Kranksein
ist lehrreich, wir zweifeln nicht daran, lehrreicher noch als Gesundsein [...]. Wir
vergewaltigen uns jetzt selbst, es ist kein Zweifel, wir Nussknacker der -Seele, wir
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On the Miscartiage of Life
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175
Fragenden und Fragwürdigen, wie als ob Leben nichts Anderes sei, als Nüsseknacken;
ebendamit müssen wir nothwendig täglich immer noch fragwürdiger, würdiger zu
fragen werden, ebendamit vielleicht auch würdiger — zu leben?...(GM III 9)
— we experiment on ourselves in a way which we would never allow on animals, we
merrily vivisect our souls out of curiosity: diät is how much we care about the "salvation" of the soul! Afterwards we heal ourselves: beingl ijl is instructive, we do not
doubt, more instructive than being well...We violate ourselves these days, no doubt,
we are nutcrackers of the soul, questioning and questionable, treating life äs though
it were nothing but cracking nuts'; whereby we have to become daily more deserving
of being questioned, more deserving of asking questions, more deserving - of
living?...
Conchisiou
Are the forces of life expressed within the human simply human, all too
human ones? Or do the forces of the very cosmos assume their play within this
form of life? It is no doubt impossible to answer such a crazy question; what
we can say is that, and äs i s becoming more and more evident with the increasing
virtualization of existence, the forces of the human are not forces that either
belong to it or forces that it is able to master and control. In this respect
Nietzsche was right: the fizture can only be monstrous by definition (see especiaüyJGB262).
In conclusion, then I want to suggest that zfuie vision and riddle of the
overman is to retain any meaning or significance for us today it will be in terms
of the relation of forces within the human and which are bound up with outside
forces and durations (nonhuman and inhuman forces and durations). It is in
these terms that Deleuze stages an encounter with the overman in his book on
Foucault, and notably the appendix entitled "On the Death of Man and Superman". Here the "meaning" of the overman is read in terms of an emancipation
of life from "man" and the release of new, affirmative powers and energies of
life:
...it is in man himself that we must liberate life, since man himself is a form of
imprisonment for man. Ijfe becomes resistance to power when power takes life äs
its object...it is in man himself that we must Jook for the set of forces and functions
which resist the death of man.12
For Deleuze the concern with the overman, or the overhuman, today has to
be situated in the context of modern biopolitics and an emergent biotechnics.
To advocate life is to advocate resistance to new forces of controL "Life" always
excceds the categories of law, which is why the philosopher can only become
12
Deleuzc, GilJcs: Foucault. Trans. S. liand. London 1988, pp. 92-3.
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176
Kcith /YnscIJ-Pciurson
an advocatc of iifc and not law (or äs in Nictzsche's case, an advocatc of ehe
vcry law 0/Titie, that of sclf-overcoming). The diagram of powcr or control today
is no longer onc of sovcrcignty but of a disclplinary modcl that scrves to block
movcment and the transversal communication of affcctive forces. tfl jfe" itself,
in the form of bio-power and bio-politics, has become an object Of power. One
is resisting, thcreforc, neithcr bios nor technics, but the attempt to utilize their
forces for the purposes of social control and normalization. The resistance to
power places itself on the side of life in order to turn life against power. The
dcsire is not to conserve the human or to preserve the dignity and rights of the
human iftbe human is faketi äs a being, not a btcoming, wthßxed forms and deferminate
junctions. Such a defence of the human represents the death of life. When
Nietzsche adopts the biological point of view äs the "highest point of view" in
order to argue that states of legality are exceptional states, "pandal restrictions
of die will to life", he is defending power against power, namely the growth of
the will to power against the power of normälized control, a power that conforms to the law of gregarity (GM II 11). Today, of course, it is no longer
possible or desirable to restrict life to the purely "biological" realm or to the
sphere of a solely "natural" evolution. In the becoming of the human the law
of selectdon has been "crossed".
Transfigured äs the overhuman, the human is implicated in a new responsibility for life. This is not a responsibility before the law but before life, and so
requires a different kind of ethics and politics than has been advanced or cultivated so far. This presupposes a new conception of nature and thought, freed
from the relentless and remorseless logic of survival and from the imperial law
of self-preservation. Deleuze himself has recourse in his later work to a distinctly
Spinozist rendition of the will to power, removing it from its Darwinian contamination, and conceiving the pathos of its becomings in terms of the power of
affect the power to affect and the power to be affected. If bodies are primary,
then these have to be constructed äs forces that no longer refer to a centre and
that simply confront obstacles. A force confronts only other forces that affect
it and that it affects.13 It is on this basis that Deleuze constructs a critical and
clinical distinction between a transformative will to power, one that is open to
affective becomings, that increases the power to live, and opens up new possibilitdes, and an impotent will to power that no longer knows how to transform
itself and can only engage in self-ruination and annihilation. The latter mode of
will to power "is nothing but a will-to-dominate, a being for death, which thirsts
for its own death, äs long äs it can pass through that of others". This is the will
to power of revenge and ressentiment, What Deleuze provides in place of the
13
Deleuze, Gilles: Cinema 2. The Time-Image. Trans. Tomlinson, H. / Galeta, R. London 1989,
p. 139.
-'·
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On the Miscarriage of Life
177
discredited politics of life (biopolitdcs, statism, universalism, etc.), is a geology of
life which asks: what may still become of the earth and its deterritorialized
becomings?14 What is the fate of the human in these deterritorializations? The
forces that constitute the human come from the "outside" and create him äs a
precarious form (every living being is only a precarious form). But the human
can only become what it is - nothing other than a becoming — through forming new rektions with endogenous and exogenous forces and with durations
diät are "inferior" and "superior" to its own. The privileged position the human
enjoys witliin nature is that of the promise of the overhuman: a machine that
has gone beyond mechanism and automatism, a creative being capable of traversing the various fields and folds of matter and bringing about novel modes of
communication between the affective forces of evolution.
In conclusion, then: the Interpretation contained within the genealogy of morals demonstrates that the human is from the beginning of its formation and
deformation implicated in an overhuman becoming, and that this is a becoming
that is dependent upon nonhuman forces of life, both organic and inorganic.
To carry forward the overhuman in this direction requires an experimentation
with ethical practices and even society itself must become the site of an experimentation. Such experimentation takes its Inspiration from the vision and riddle
of a new earth and a new people to come. Thought today must begin to learn
how to carry the /5w/-carriages of life beyond a compulsive logic of mere evolutionary survival and species self-preservation. The liberation of the human from
its self-endosure, domestication, and gregarious normalization, might also
amount to the liberation of the greater, affirmative and creative life:
...k snrbomtne is much less than the disappearance of living men, and much more than
a change of concept it is the advent of a new form that is neither God nor man and
which, it is hoped, will not prove worse than its two previous forms (Deleuze).
14
See Dcleuzc, Gilles / Guanari, Felix: Geophilosophy. In: What is Philosophy? Trans. Tomlinson,
H. / ButchiM, G. London 1994, pp. 85-117.
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