On the Advantage and Disadvantage of History for Life:

Hegelian Historiography as the Deadening of Life

Friedrich Nietzsche’s On the Advantage and Disadvantage of History for Life is as difficult a work to examine as it is intriguing. Also known as The Use and Abuse of History, it was published in 1874 after Hegel’s Reason in History and Marx’s The Communist Manifesto. The two latter works had great influence over the state of German historical studies in the 19th century. Nietzsche sought to critique and protest against, what he believed to be, the sorry state of modern historicism. Hegelian thought dictated that the historical process was a rational process, either driven by Spirit (Hegel) or social relationships (Marx). If this process could be understood, mankind could achieve its final purpose of absolute freedom and truth. For Nietzsche, this historical method is undesirable for it would not lead to freedom and truth, but to the degeneration of life. To preserve the life of the individual, history should be a balanced contemplation of the unhistorical and historical. Within the historical, Nietzsche describes three types which should also be balanced: monumental, antiquarian, and critical. This is the ongoing conflict between historical truth and life. The following will discuss Nietzsche’s view of Hegel’s Reason in History and Marx’s The Communist Manifesto under the context of On the Advantage and Disadvantage of History for Life, and will end with Hegel and Marx’s response.
If they met face to face, Nietzsche might have said bluntly to Hegel, “G.W., you are killing me”, figuratively of course. Nietzsche speaks of the individual’s inability to live life in the present as long as German historiography views history as a dialectical and rational process. Nietzsche views Hegel’s interpretation of history as harmful for man: “the past must be forgotten if it is not to become the gravedigger of the present” (Nietzsche, 10). But he is not dealing with extremes, “the unhistorical and the historical are equally necessary for the health of an individual, a people, and a culture” (Nietzsche, 10). Nietzsche mentions that at times, a fog of the unhistorical must surround an individual in order for that individual to achieve a great act or even to act in life. Furthermore, Nietzsche criticizes the Hegelian idea of “world-process” culminating in the modern German state. He states, “I believe that there has been no dangerous change or turn in the German education of this century which has not become more dangerous through the enormous influence . . . of this philosophy, the Hegelian” (Nietzsche, 47). Hegel believed that the nation-state was the ultimate solution for universal freedom. He considered the 19th century constitutional monarchy of Prussia as ideal. This is certainly connected to Nietzsche’s criticism that “the belief that one is a late arrival of the ages is paralyzing and upsetting” (Nietzsche, 47). The developmental view of human history can be seen as creating arrogance about human achievement, in effect, leading to a stagnation of ideas and change. In addition, Nietzsche attacks Hegelian historians for claiming that they could achieve true objectivity: “Those naïve historians call measuring past opinions and deeds by the common opinions of the moment “objectivity”: here they find the canon of all truths; their work is to make the past fit the triviality of their time” (Nietzsche, 34). This Hegelian method occurs even today, as the idea that as time passes, future historians are supposedly able to better understand the past and view history “objectively” and rationally. Nietzsche not only mocks this notion, but sides against trying to achieve it. He supposes that history should not be methodologically scientific, in search of some absolute and rational truth. He believes that turning history into a scientific process resulted in the individual man being incapable of ever acting in life and making history themselves.

Nietzsche never mentions Karl Marx explicitly in his work, but judging by his critique of Hegelian ideas, Nietzsche would have disagreement with Marx’s historical methodology as well as the content of the dialect. Needless to state, Nietzsche does not subscribe to the view of history as a dialectical process. Like Hegel, Marx believes that mankind is capable of making their own history though understanding the course and ultimate end of history. He departs from Hegel by replacing the “spirit” and god with material forces such as labor and class-conflict. Inherent in the historical process is the destruction of the current market system and the seed for a new synthesis, socialism. Of course the content of the message does not change the fact that Marx still views history (perhaps even more so than Hegel) as scientific and rational. With the rational study of economic and social history, true freedom can be achieved through proletariat revolution. Nietzsche would probably not draw any distinctions between Marx’s socialist utopia as the “end of history” and Hegel’s constitutional nation-state. In fact, what Marx is advocating is the degradation of the individual and life itself: “one need only to continue to write history from the standpoint of the masses and to look in it for those laws . . . . of motion of the lowest loam and clay strata of society” (Nietzsche, 55). Nietzsche clearly believes that mass culture and ideology only serve to dilute the vibrant nature of individual life. He may have a valid point, but it is irresponsible and infuriating to read such an opinion. Nietzsche seems to conveniently ignore the social and economic aspects of dialectical materialism when criticizing it. Perhaps this follows the trend of Nietzsche’s own methodology, which is to provoke independent thought through paradoxical arguments. In addition, Nietzsche continues on stating, “The masses seem to me worthy of notice in only three respects: first as blurred copies of great men, produced on bad paper with worn plates, further as resistance to the great, and finally as tools of the great; beyond that, may the devil and statistics take them” (Nietzsche, 55). Excerpts like the previous show Nietzsche’s implicit political philosophy in direct conflict with that of Marx’s. Marx’s utopia would be Nietzsche’s hell on earth. Uniform masses controlling society, economy, culture, and life. The extraordinary would be lost in the sea of mediocrity. This is less of an attack against Marx’s desire for proletariat liberation, but rather an expression of Nietzsche’s fear of a world without culture. He sees the individual man as the only being capable of achieving great things, thus he is opposed to Marxism.

If they had been able to, Karl Marx and G.W.F. Hegel would probably have responded to Nietzsche’s work. To speculate on their opinions of Nietzsche does a great disservice to their distinguished minds and eloquent language, but regardless of that, I present a brief rebuttal on Nietzsche by Hegel and Marx. Hegel’s criticism of Nietzsche would include the same facts Nietzsche mentions on Hegel. In effect, Hegel agrees to disagree. He would critique the style in which Nietzsche presents his work. Hegel’s work is organized and separated into instructional sections, ready to be taught and discussed in Prussian universities. In contrast, Nietzsche’s ideas flow fluidly on each page, but their relevance is sometimes disconnected. Nietzsche’s style of composition is like a long run-on sentence explaining the state of the world, with some profound and cryptic statements inserted at unpredictable moments. Mostly, Hegel might actually note the similarities they share as well as some of Nietzsche’s self-contradictions. Both Hegel and Nietzsche share an almost nostalgic view of ancient Greece: “the Greeks achieved a victory over all other cultures and that every increase of truthfulness must also be a preparatory advancement of true culture” (Nietzsche, 64). But Hegel could also note that it appears Nietzsche has lapsed into the blunder which he accused German historians of perpetuating. According to previous Nietzsche, his own historical study of ancient Greece and the “truth” of classical Greek culture can only be interpreted in the context of the current time, in Nietzsche’s case 19th century Germany. So any conclusions drawn from his research in fact has no objectivity and no truth, other than to himself. Hegel can point to inconsistencies in the text to attack Nietzsche’s own historical method. Karl Marx would be less subtle in his critique. Marx could begin by criticizing Nietzsche’s convenient dismissal of social, economic, and political factors. Marx could argue that Nietzsche’s work is an unrealistic philosophy on history as thought. Real history is dialectical materialism. History for Marx is something observable and logical. Nietzsche is a bourgeois thinker; his philosophy is only a byproduct of the mode of production which exists between the bourgeois and proletariat. Art, culture, politics, religion, and everything mentioned by Nietzsche as important to the individual are only elements of the greater false consciousness. Nietzsche’s philosophical arguments are just an abstraction of that consciousness. While Nietzsche is contemplating the balance between historical, unhistorical, and super-historical, the proletariat is trapped in the bondage of industrial wage-slavery. The false consciousness is a blindfold used on the masses, only when they realize this, can revolution occur. “Working men of all countries, [ignore Nietzsche and] unite!” (Marx, 96).