Nietzsche and the Politics of Reaction

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiii

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2. Introduction

   • Matt McManus

   Pages 1-5

3. Nietzsche and the Political Right

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 7-7

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   2. Nietzsche’s Critique of Egalitarian Post-Christianity

      • Matt McManus

      Pages 9-35

   3. Nietzsche, Politics, and Truth in an Age of Post-truth

      • Ronald Beiner

      Pages 37-59

   4. Nietzsche as Muse to the Extreme Right

      • Stephen L. Newman

      Pages 61-85

   5. The Genealogy of Socialist Morality: Some Preliminary Thoughts on Nietzsche, G.A. Cohen and the Argumentative Value of Moral Disgust

      • Ben Burgis

      Pages 87-100

   6. Marx or Nietzsche? On Self-Actualization and Its Modern Discontents

      • Igor Shoikhedbrod

      Pages 101-121

4. Nietzsche’s Critique of Modernity

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 123-123

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   2. Nietzsche on the Enlightenment and the French Revolution

      • Edward Andrew

      Pages 125-147

   3. Not Beyond Politics: The Metapolitical Dimensions of Nietzsche’s Anti-Democratism in Beyond Good and Evil

      • Matthew Sharpe

      Pages 149-179

   4. “Unhappy the Land Where Heroes Are Needed”: Nietzsche’s Overman in Dark Times

      • Nancy S. Love

      Pages 181-207

   5. Nietzsche, Aristotle, and Aristocratic Being

      • Jordan DeJonge

      Pages 209-242

5. The Aesthetic Politics of Value

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 243-243

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   2. Nietzsche’s Dionysus vs. The Nihilism of Social Media Shitposting

      • Mike Watson

      Pages 245-261

   3. Animals Sick with Language: From Syntax to Socialism in Nietzsche

      • Elliot Murphy

      Pages 263-286

   4. Recurrent Reaction: Nietzsche and the Thought of the French Middle Strata

      • Conrad Bongard Hamilton

      Pages 287-328

   5. Negative Politics: Nietzsche

      • Sarwar Ahmed Abdullah

      Pages 329-351

   6. The Warnings of Nietzsche’s Works: Rhetorical Persuasion in Triumph of the Will (1935) and Death of a Nation (2018)

      • David Hollands

      Pages 353-379

6. Back Matter

   Pages 381-386

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This book is intended as a major interdisciplinary contribution to the study of Nietzsche’s thought in particular, and the political right more generally. Historically the assessment of Nietzsche’s politics has ranged from denouncing him as a forerunner to Nazism to claiming he effectively did not have articulated political convictions. During the latter half of the 20th century he surprisingly became a major theoretical influence on a variety of post-structuralist radical critics, who saw in his perspectivism and genealogy of power useful tools to critique existent structures of domination. This collection of essays reframes the debate by looking at Nietzsche’s constructive political project defending aristocratic values from the levelling influence of the herd and its liberal, socialist, and democratic spokesmen. The essays will also explore how this defense of aristocratic values continues to have an influence on the political right, inspiring moderates like Jordan Peterson and farright authors and activists like Aleksandr Dugin and Steve Bannon.

• Nietzsche
• Democracy
• Liberalism
• Socialism
• Conservatism
• Aristocratic values

• Department of Sociology,, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada

  Matthew McManus

Matthew McManus completed his Ph.D. in Socio-Legal Studies at York University, Ontario, in 2017 under the supervision of Dr. Lesley Jacobs. After completing his postdoctoral research and working on the Committee for International Justice and Accountability, Matthew assumed a Professorship teaching politics, international relations and law at Tec de Monterrey in the State of Mexico. Matthew McManus teaches at the University of Calgary and is the author of The Rise of Post-Modern Conservatism amongst other books.

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