In the middle sections of “The Use and Abuse of History for Life,” philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche gets into the discussion of his main thesis: that modern education and historical knowledge can be positively dangerous to life. In the sections we just covered, Nietzsche talks about a split between the inner and outer life that develops as a result of education. With sections six and seven, the discussion turns to two more problems of history: a questionable impression that our own time has a unique access to justice that was absent in the past, and a disillusionment that comes from a scientific approach to history.
There are many ways in which we can fall into the trap of believing our time is special. It's incredibly common–witness the number of people who will call a movie from five years ago “dated” because it simply depicts something out of fashion with current mores. At any point in time, there's a self-satisfied group of people who hold the unquestioned belief that the present day holds the highest stage of moral development that has ever been reached. And one of the historical mistakes Nietzsche criticizes falls into precisely this trap: writing the history of the past from the viewpoint of today's popular moral prejudices.
We today know exactly what justice is, so we can feel free to correctly judge the past for its moral fallings. Nietzsche would find this attitude to be one of the common features of many popular histories. These histories are often less concerned with comprehending the past than they are with reassuring people that they're already right about everything. (And with securing plenty of book sales.)
One historical method that tries to avoid this trap is that of absolute scientific objectivity. The type of history that sticks to the facts and refrains from any editorializing. Nietzsche criticizes this approach to history for two reasons: first, because it fails to be objective, and second, because scientific objectivity isn't even a worthy goal in a historical account.
Ultimately, every work of history fails to be objective because it takes a narrative form. This is familiar stuff–a narrative implies a certain point of view or set of points of view. Which means the historian has to choose to focus on certain things and not on other things. Creating a narrative means deciding what is and is not relevant to the narrative–which is ultimately an arbitrary choice. If you're telling the story of World War One you have to start somewhere, but if you start anywhere after the beginning of the universe you're leaving something out.
Second, Nietzsche argues that scientific objectivity is the wrong thing to aim at. We're not doing justice to the past by simply sticking to the facts. Even if simply sticking to the facts was possible, this scientific objectivity is only a figleaf for a kind of moral cowardice. You're not being objectively scientific when you refrain from judging the past–you're just displaying the fact that you're too squeamish to take a moral stand on anything. There's no justice in playing to the crowd's moral prejudices, but there isn't any more justice in simply narrating the past and neglecting to judge anything.
Beyond all these methodological objections to the idea that our age has a monopoly on justice, there lies Nietzsche's main contention: that justice is the rarest of human virtues. What passes for justice with most individuals and most writers of history is a habit of judging in line with our own biases and preconceptions. Real justice calls for arguing against our case with the same vigor and energy we use when arguing for it–something even scientists and other “rational” people routinely fail to do. Nietzsche goes so far as to say there's an inhuman quality to people who are really just, saying it's as if these people are possessed by a demon. These people possess a profoundly rare selflessness and concern for the truth, and there's no reason to think these qualities are any more common among historians than they are anywhere else.
And even if they were, there's every reason to think that a historian who claims the present age has a higher claim on justice is at least questionable, if not an outright charlatan. Nietzsche points out quite rightly that when we're confronted with someone who talks a lot about justice, we immediately suspect we're dealing with either a con man or a fanatic. Normal people might pay lip service to justice, but we don't usually care that much about it unless we've suffered some unfairness. And when that rare human being really does exhibit the virtue of justice, people react violently. Nietzsche doesn't explicitly point to the Athenians’ treatment of Socrates, but it's one of the more remarkable examples of the violent reaction he describes here.
So far, so good. Up to this point in section six, Nietzsche makes a pretty strong case against the prejudice that the present time has any unique access to justice. At the end of the section, however, Nietzsche indulges his elitism to such a high degree that even I have to call shenanigans.
The basic idea is that only great men have the right to write the history of the greatness of the past, because only they have the proper perspective on greatness. Which is just silly. I love you, Nietzsche, but you're parodying yourself here.
The idea is something like this: we all understand things from our own level, and only a great man has an elevated enough understanding to grasp and express the history of another great man. Which… yeah, maybe, I guess. But if you take this idea seriously, nobody's going to be allowed to write history unless they've discovered America or conquered the Persians. Great men don't usually write history–and even when they do they're like Winston Churchill, making memoirs that are far from unbiased and absolutely self-serving. Your average historian might not be able to hold Britain together under threat of invasion, but your average historian can appreciate the greatness of someone who can.
It's not that Nietzsche's idea is necessarily wrong here, it's just impractical to the point of silliness and would mean pretty much no one would ever be qualified to write history.
Moving onto section seven, Nietzsche discusses a kind of disillusionment that comes from the study of history. And much like in section six, he begins with some valid criticisms that absolutely make sense, but by the end of the section he's advocating solutions that are so extreme it's hard to believe he's serious.
Early in the section, Nietzsche gives some examples of disenchantment, citing some historical studies into the lives of Mozart and Beethoven. It's easier to revere the great composer on the basis of his work than it is to revere the human being who produces the work. Because Nietzsche chooses the great composers as his examples, it's hard to imagine he's not thinking of his friendship with Richard Wagner. It's harder to admire from close up the human being with human failings than it is to admire the Great Artist from a distance.
I'm strongly reminded of today's cancel culture, where in certain circles you're expected to turn against an artist on the basis of something they did, or because they have the wrong opinion on some issue. But Nietzsche's comments here touch on something more profound–history as the revealer of painful truths.
Nietzsche has, and many of us have, a need or desire to believe in and admire greatness. But the scientific, methodical study of history can threaten this need. We find out that cherished historical anecdotes almost definitely never happened–George Washington almost definitely didn't cut down his father's cherry tree, and so on. We find out the composer we admire so much for his stirring music loves surrounding himself with flatterers to fluff his ego and isn't above having a lot of cringeworthy options. We find out the great moments of history are rarely as romantically picturesque as we'd like to imagine.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Nietzsche brings in a few criticisms of Christianity here. He hasn't yet formulated the idea of the death of God, but the Christian religion is absolutely one of the illusions he believes science (and the application of scientific methods to history) has destroyed.
Possibly the high point of this section comes when Nietzsche discusses the idea of illusions that are necessary to life. We need certain things to remain sacred to us in order to live, in order to trust life and have faith in the world as a space for action. The implicit belief here seems to be that all value and all sacredness are ultimately illusory, but that these illusions are necessary to life. This isn't quite the question Nietzsche will ask at the beginning of Beyond Good and Evil, where he examines the strangeness of our insistence on truth and on the will to truth. But it does put Nietzsche in the schizophrenic position of lamenting science's tendency to disenchant while at the same time criticizing everything great for being disenchanting. To hold up this need for greatness while simultaneously dragging down everything that seems to be great.
Nietzsche is often interpreted as a thinker grappling with and overcoming the problem of nihilism. And certainly he struggles with the problem of meaning and meaninglessness. But in passages like this, which hold up this profound need for greatness while tacitly assuming all greatness is illusory… it becomes hard to believe that Nietzsche has overcome the problem of nihilism.
Which is fair enough here, considering that “The Use and Abuse of History” is an early work from a young man. But the struggle with nihilism is a constant with Nietzsche, and he never quite seems to overcome it.
But to return to the essay: Nietzsche takes some of the reasonings here and applies them to education. Children should be educated in history in such a way that it will help them ripen–a metaphor he employs extensively in this passage. The trouble with education, says Nietzsche, is that children are exposed to certain concepts and events without being allowed to properly ripen first. He gives the example of children being taught political history when they haven't so much as worked a job yet.
Which is yet another example of Nietzsche putting forward an idea I can halfway get on board with, but taking it so far that the implications become ridiculous. There's something to be said for educating children in things that will be useful to them, but where's the endpoint here? Are we supposed to keep people from learning political history until the day they take the oath as mayor or president? And what are children supposed to do until the day when they're magically ready to receive their education–just work in the mines and factories till they're old enough to go to school?
As with so many other things in this essay, it's clear that Nietzsche wants to criticize the status quo, but it's hard to imagine an alternative that wouldn't be significantly worse than the thing he's criticizing. Nietzsche wants to criticize modern education, but it's difficult to puzzle out precisely what's so bad about it. Presumably it has something to do with educating children before they're ripe, but what does that mean? It seems unlikely that Nietzsche is advocating protecting children from disturbing knowledge on the grounds that it might traumatize them–he's not the type to go in for trigger warnings. Nor does it seem likely he wants individuals to have experience running cities before they're permitted to study political history. The practical problems grow enormous–what are you supposed to do with these kids if you're not educating them? How are we supposed to know when a child is ripe for a certain kind of knowledge, and who's to make that decision?
Sections six and seven are pretty uneven, with some good ideas mixed up with a lot of pretty questionable stuff. The upcoming sections are a bit better, beginning with the discussion of the feeling that we are latecomers in history, coming in section eight.
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