In the first section of “The Use and Abuse of History,” Nietzsche sets out the idea that the value of history is its value for life. That is, that knowledge in itself is not inherently valuable, but only because of the use it serves in practical life. (If this sounds like an obvious point, don't worry, as the later sections of the essay get into the details of how knowledge can get in the way of life. Especially in the modern day.) In sections 2 and 3, Nietzsche describes three different approaches to history and the ways they can be used or abused for life: the monumental, antiquarian, and the critical modes of history.
Nietzsche starts the second section by briefly defining these three approaches in terms of the needs they serve: “History is necessary to the living man in three ways: in relation to his action and struggle, his conservatism and reverence, his suffering and his desire for deliverance.” Action and struggle relates to monumental history, which is “for the few” in a typically Nietzschian way: the history of great deeds in the past, for the example of those who may do great deeds in the present. Conservatism and reverence leads to antiquarian history, which upholds one’s roots and celebrates what's valuable in the tradition one comes from. It's the sort of history a self-respecting nation teaches to its high school students, perhaps. Suffering and desire for deliverance takes us to critical history, which at its best expresses a genuine grievance against past injustice.
Now, Nietzsche doesn't explicitly make any value judgments on these three approaches to history. But if “screen time” is any indication, he dedicates all of section two to monumental history. Most of section three covers antiquarian history, while critical history gets only a couple of paragraphs right at the end. Which doesn't necessarily mean anything, although it might also give a big hint where our author's sympathies lie.
So: at its best, what is the value of monumental history? Nietzsche is unabashedly elitist: monumental history is the record of great men of the past, for the benefit of potential great men in the present. It's a consolation in failure to look back at the failures of the ones who came before us. We can learn from the political acumen of a Lincoln, the systematic determination of an Edison, or the moral authority of a Gandhi. Monumental history is a model of the ways that greatness has manifested itself in the world, and it's a reminder that even in the modern world, greatness is possible.
Nietzsche cites the historian Polybius, who says that the best way to learn to govern a state is by learning political history. And there is a value in this: political history generally shows us glimmers of how certain patterns take shape, the forces that make situations possible. Although to be perfectly honest, reading about this only made me nostalgic for a time long before I was born, when we could be reasonably sure our politicians had a grasp of political history.
There's a little sketch of the great men of history here, where Nietzsche makes out every great man since the dawn of time to be a world-weary ascetic like himself. The great man, the man of action, is the one who knows, “His life is sweetest who thinks least about life.” There's still a strong scent of Schopenhauer in “The Use and Abuse of History,” where Nietzsche makes every great figure on the historical stage seem like some kind of mendicant friar walking lightly upon the face of the earth while proclaiming that all is vanity.
There's nothing new in a philosopher explaining exactly why the ideal man is a man who just so happens to resemble himself. And there's some genuine force in this passage, but it's mostly in spite of the way Nietzsche portrays great men as if they're only motivated by fame and tragic insight into the emptiness of things. The Khans did not conquer all of Asia because they thought this world wasn't worth much and they merely wanted to be a model of human potential to the generations, Nietzsche. I'm pretty sure they got a few side benefits out of the deal.
That's as may be. But even though Nietzsche pretty clearly likes monumental history, about half of section two goes into examining its flaws and shortcomings. The first of which is the self-flattering comparisons we can make because we want to see ourselves as great, or at least potentially great. There's nothing in the world quite so massive as the human capacity for believing whatever we want to believe about ourselves. So since people are tempted to see analogies with themselves in every story about the great men of the past, even if their actual lives give them no real reason to see themselves in such a way.
Which is a harmless enough thing when it's only a matter of your local lunatic claiming to be Jesus Christ or Alexander the Great. The real trouble comes when people with real influence start to think they're great men when they're not. This can lead to all sorts of destruction and wars taking place unnecessarily. Which you might think would be just fine by Nietzsche's lights, but he says otherwise here. Go figure.
One of the other effects of monumental history is that it can tempt us to oversimplify both the past and the present when we're making analogies. We might, for example, decide to ignore the particulars of a certain place and a certain time in order to compare a politician we don't like to an Austrian corporal with funny facial hair. History is a complex thing with complex causes, and the more you know about it the less you're tempted to make superficial comparisons between the past and the present.
Of course, Nietzsche wouldn't be Nietzsche if he could go five pages without discussing art. So the last abuse of monumental history applies particularly to art, even if it's true in other areas as well.
The danger here is in certain poisonous individuals who like to use the greatness of the past as a club to wield against any potential greatness in the present. They're generally spiteful, vengeful types who have a sincere appreciation and reverence for (let's say) great writers. But the comforting thing about the writers of the classics is that they all have the decency to be long dead. These reverent individuals like to use their reverence as an excuse to attack any innovations in form or style. They may lack the patience or talent to make anything remarkable themselves, but they're more than willing to make life harder for anyone who dares to try.
These people are often paragons of good taste, who conscientiously keep abreast of the best received opinions. And Nietzsche doesn't say this in so many words, but we might as well mention that a good many of them work as editors, or at any rate somewhere in the publishing industry.
With that we'll move on to section three, and with it the second mode of history Nietzsche describes: the antiquarian. The wellspring of good antiquarian history comes from honest roots: it's born in a healthy and natural gratitude for the circumstances that gave us birth. And the mention of roots is fortuitous here, because the operative metaphor in this passage is one of a tree and its branches. If you want to think of antiquarian history as equivalent to patriotic conservatism of various stripes, you wouldn't be far off.
Antiquarian history works through a kind of identification–it's the history of our institutions, our people, and how our way of life came into being. Nietzsche points out that the we of antiquarian history is always also somehow I. There's a kind of identification that takes place here, in which I am somehow part of the tradition before I've even been born. And this is the good of antiquarian history–in fostering a sense of continuity of tradition, in giving us grounds for the perfectly natural love we have for the people and places that made our existence possible.
Which I think is an admirable enough thing, even if you don't happen to be of a conservative frame of mind. We all want to believe we belong somewhere, that we're part of a larger story that is bigger than our individual existence. Community, tradition, and all that.
The great flaw with antiquarian history is exactly what you'd expect–it's exactly the thing conservatives have been criticized for ever since the first conservative thought the wheel was a pretty dumb idea. Nietzsche expresses it wonderfully, saying that antiquarian history is concerned with preserving life, but has no idea how to create it. Much like the reverent people who use the great works of the past to stifle any new great works from coming into being, the antiquarian has an instinctive hostility to anything new. Sure, old traditions must have begun somewhere, but that's no reason to go beginning any new traditions!
Nietzsche compares this development to a living tree that has already begun to mummify, with the dead wood choking and preventing new growth from taking place. Eventually the tree dies because its mummified remains crush out any new life instead of allowing it to flourish. Which is a real danger, although you might say Nietzsche sells the virtues of antiquarian history a little short. There's nothing small or contemptible in carrying a tradition onward for the next generation.
Nietzsche closes out section three with a brief discussion of the third type of history: the critical. The underlying metaphor here is a judicial one, where the historian is putting the past on trial for its injustices. The past is put on trial and is inevitably found wanting with respect to the morality of the present day.
This kind of history can and does come about as a response to real injustice. In a strange phrase, Nietzsche says that “it is not justice but life itself” that sits in judgment over the past in critical history. Critical history serves some salient need of life that can't be answered in any other way–because there is always a level of danger and desperation in critical history.
Why isn't it justice that sits in judgment with critical history? Partly because critical history blinds itself to just how harrowing life and human history are by their very nature: “It requires great strength to be able to live and forget how far life and injustice are one.” There is not and cannot be a social order without injustice–it is a necessary part of life, and to get rid of all the injustice would be to get rid of life itself. But the critical historian, the activist, and the revolutionary have to forget this in order to get on with their work. In terms of the tree metaphor, the tree has begun to attack its own roots.
Nietzsche points out that critical historians are dangerous people, and necessarily blind to their own injustice. (Most of them would agree with the first part of that and even feel flattered by it.) One of the strange things about this is that Nietzsche says they're dangerous like it's a bad thing, even though under normal circumstances he loves to celebrate danger and living dangerously. And it's not like he's wrong, either–radical change in a society always creates a degree of chaos, and many’s the time in history that that chaos has gotten out of control in a destructive way.
Another little wrinkle here is that, although he may not know it yet, Nietzsche's authorial project could be fairly characterized as a critical history of philosophy. He's a young man writing his second book at the time he writes this, but surely he already has a vague notion of the criticisms he'll be making a decade later in Beyond Good and Evil or Twilight of the Idols. I'm not sure if this is a lack of self-awareness on Nietzsche's part, or if he simply doesn't care. Either way, I'll bookmark that thought, let you know if I find anything later.
With the end of section three, Nietzsche finishes this brief description of the three types of history. I'll have something a little different for you next week, but I'll be back to “The Use and Abuse of History” two weeks from now. We'll get into sections four and five, where Nietzsche discusses the dangers of our modern attitudes to history.
Comments