Nietzsche's Animal Philosophy: Culture, Politics, and the Animality of the Human Being

Politics and Promise

2 Politics and Promise For Nietzsche, the possibility of human self-overcoming is represented by the promise of the overhuman. In this chapter, I investigate the idea of this promise through a reevaluation of Nietzsche’s distinction between promise as an artifact of civilization (the memory of the will [Gedächtnis des Willens]) and promise as an artifact of culture (the promise of the sovereign individual) (GM II: 1, 2). The promise of the overhuman has been traditionally understood to be either antipolitical or nonpolitical. While, in an antipolitical interpretation, Nietzsche figures as a precursor to totalitarian and authoritarian ideologies, in a nonpolitical interpretation, he figures as a moral perfectionist who can be assimilated to liberal democracy .1 In this chapter I argue that, from the perspective of Nietzsche’s animal philosophy, the promise of the overhuman embraces an idea of freedom as responsibility, which inherently concerns the political life of human animals. What distinguishes Nietzsche as a political thinker is that he believes politics should be studied from the perspective of life, and not, as the Western tradition of political thought largely assumes, as a means to protect human life against the animality of the human being.2 This assumption is exemplified by Hobbes, who maintains that the human being is a wolf to other human beings and, therefore, social and political organization should be thought of as a mechanism to control the animality of the human being.3 My reading of Nietzsche as a political thinker centers on the claim that the antagonism between human and animal life forces is 30 the principal feature of human development. When the human being either defines itself against its animality and animal forgetfulness or denies them a productive role, cultural and political life assume forms that hinge on domination and exploitation of humans by humans. The breeding of the memory of the will (Gedächtnis des Willens) as an attempt to transcend or extirpate animality is an example of one of these forms of domination. Contrariwise, when the human being engages with its animality, it gives rise to forms of cultural and political life that are rooted in individual selfresponsibility .4 Individual self-responsibility is centered on an experience of freedom, which is inherently antagonistic in the sense that it stands for a continuous resistance to the institutionalization of freedom.5 Nietzsche does not object to the need for political institutions (and for the breeding of the memory of the will). On the contrary, he welcomes strong institutions but believes they require a counterforce that calls into question the fact that they were founded on domination and exploitation. This chapter argues that Nietzsche addresses the question of how to counteract a politics of cruelty, based on animal taming and breeding, through his conception of the promise of the sovereign individual. The promise of the sovereign individual is a counterpromise to the memory of the will, which protects the freedom and plurality of human life through the practice of what could be called an agonistic politics of responsibility. What distinguishes the latter, however, is not antagonism toward animality and forgetfulness. Rather, the very promise of the sovereign individual betrays the features of animality and animal forgetfulness indicating that, in the promise of the sovereign individual, the animality of the human being has become creative and productive. The Promise of Civilization Generally speaking, Nietzsche considers forgetfulness and memory to be two different forces of life. Whereas forgetfulness is an articulation of singularity as something that cannot be shared, memory is an articulation of universality as something that can only be shared. While forgetfulness gives rise to an equality rooted in difference, that is, in the radical otherness of singulars, memory gives rise to an equality rooted in identity, that is, in the radical sameness of universals. Memory and forgetfulness are involved in an agonistic struggle against one other. In this struggle, memory dissolves singularity into a universal form while forgetfulness disrupts universality in the name of the cultivation of singularity. In On the Genealogy of Morals, this antagonism takes the form of a conflict between the Politics and Promise 31 memory of the will as an artifact of civilization and the promise of the sovereign individual as an artifact of culture. What distinguishes the memory of the will is that it overcomes singularity in favor of establishing a uniform, stable, and fixed identity that is characteristic of a...