Democracy and the Nietzschean Pathos of Distance

In this paper I discuss the Nietzschean notion of a pathos of distance, which some democratic theorists would like to recruit in the service of a democratic ethos. Recently their efforts have been criticized on the basis that the Nietzschean pathos of distance involves an aristocratic attitude of essentializing contempt towards the common man that is incompatible with the democratic demand to accord everyone equal respect and dignity. I argue that this criticism is misguided and that the pathos in question involves encouraging the fl ourishing of higher types that give meaning and justification to the social order. For Nietzsche, the experience of living under a society that is thus organized leads to the psychological demand to search for spiritual states within a person that can make life worth living. I conclude by considering whether, so conceived, the pathos of distance is compatible with democracy.

Power ≠ Power: Against the Mix-Up of Nietzsche and Spinoza

The reception of Nietzsche’s philosophy is still predominated by a widespread “hermeneutics of innocence” (Losurdo) that dissimulates Nietzsche’s elitist perspectives. This article challenges a core element of this hermeneutics, the conflation of Spinoza and Nietzsche. The assumption of a continuity of their power concepts overlooks that the late Nietzsche took a sharp anti-Spinozian turn and introduced his “will to power” against Spinoza’s “conatus.” Whereas Spinoza’s potentia agendi designates a collective and cooperative capacity to act, which can be reconceptualized with the help of Gramsci’s theory of hegemony, Nietzsche’s “will to power” naturalizes the principle of domination. An ethics inspired by Nietzsche can never get rid of its inherent “pathos of distance,” which manifests itself even in its most “leftist” forms as a celebration of social distinctions against ordinary people. Recourse to Spinoza can help redefine life affirmation in a democratic-socialist way and thus provides an ethics for a hegemony from below.