Spring 2000 Cyberseminar in Objectivist Studies
Nietzsche and Objectivism

Unit Three: March 20 - April 16

Stephen Hicks, Kevin Hill, and David Potts Discuss
"Blonde Beasts" in David Potts' Review Essay(s)
on Nobility, Civilization, and Breeding
In Friedrich Nietzsche's
The Will to Power and Beyond Good and Evil

To: TOC Cyberseminar <cybersem@objectivistcenter.org>

Sent: Friday, April 07, 2000 7:34 AM

Subject: Cyberseminar: Blond beasts

[From: Stephen Hicks]

David Potts presses harder on the issue of Nietzsche's use of "blond beast,"
questioning whether Nietzsche's use of it is primarily metaphorical in
referring to the lion, or primarily referring to the German/Nordic type.

There are three mentions of the blond beast in GM I:11:

"One cannot fail to see at the bottom of all these noble races the beast of
prey, the splendid blond beast, prowling about avidly in search of spoil and
victory; this hidden core needs to erupt from time to time, the animal has
to
get out again and go back to the wilderness: the Roman, Arabian, Germanic,
Japanese nobility, the Homeric heroes, the Scandinavian Vikings -- they all
shared this need."

"One may be quite justified in continuing to fear the blond beast at the
core
of all noble races and in being on one's guard against it."

"The deep and icy mistrust the German still arouses today whenever he gets
into a position of power is an echo of that inextinguishable horror with
which Europe observed for centuries that raging of the blond Germanic beast
(although between the old Germanic tribes and us Germans there exists hardly
a conceptual relationship, let alone one of blood)."

And as David points out, another appears at GM II:17:

"I used the word 'state': it is obvious who is meant by this -- some pack
of
blond beasts of prey, a conqueror and master race which, organized for war
and with the ability to organize, unhesitatingly lays its terrible claws
upon
a populace perhaps tremendously superior in numbers but still formless and
nomad. That is after all how the 'state' began on earth: I think that
sentimentalism which would have it begin with a 'contract' has been disposed
of."

So the questions are: Is Nietzsche's use of "blond beast" to be interpreted
racially, as many Nazis interpreted him and as many interpreted him who
wanted to associate him with Nazism? Or is the "blond beast" merely a
metaphor, referring to the lion?

Here is the non-racial interpretation. The blond beast is the lion.
Metaphorically, the lion's predatory mode of living is similar to the spirit
and actions of the human master type. Whether a given individual is a lion
or a lamb is largely a matter of biology. Individuals are grouped racially
and culturally. However, no race or culture has or has had a monopoly on
the
lions. Within each race and culture there are lions and lambs. In some
races and cultures the lions come to dominate the lambs; those cultures then
become ascendant and achieve greatness -- as did for a time the Romans, the
Arabs, the Japanese, the old Germans, and others. But the lions do not
necessarily pass on their greatness racially -- in fact, no great culture
has
survived for very long before slipping into decline. The blond beast then
has no special connection to the old Germans: the Germans merely happened
to
have lighter skin and hair; and as many cultures of different skin and hair
colors before them, the Germans had their time of greatness.

Here is the racial interpretation: In Nietzsche's judgment, the latest
great
European culture was the old German one. That culture was at root defined
physiologically and racially: it had a much higher percentage of blond
individuals with a certain facial structure, etc. And that culture's gains
were mostly at the expense of darker cultures in southern Europe down to and
including the Mediterranean basin, the near east, and Africa. The
connection
to the lion, then, is not merely metaphorical and spiritual but also
literally physiological: the blondness and the associated biology of both
beasts is for Nietzsche the significant point. It is that specific
physiology that makes greatness possible (at least in Europe). The
significance would then have to be that if we are to find the hope for a
renewal of European culture, we will find it only in the German/Nordic
racial
type. Thus, Nietzsche's prescription is that in order to improve the
culture
it is imperative to seek out the purest German/Nordic individuals, and
perhaps make the next generation more purely so by eugenics.

So now the question is, where do we place Nietzsche on the spectrum defined
by the racial and non-racial interpretations above?

Stephen Hicks


*****************************************************
Spring 2000 Cyberseminar in Objectivist Studies
cybersem@objectivistcenter.org

All Cyberseminar posts are working papers with copyright
reserved to the author. They may not be published or adapted
without permission, but may be circulated for purposes of
scholarly discussion.

*****************************************************

To: TOC Cyberseminar <cybersem@objectivistcenter.org>

Sent: Tuesday, April 11, 2000 10:41 PM

Subject: Cyberseminar: Re: Blond beasts

[From: David L. Potts ]

Stephen has laid out a useful pair of antipodal interpretations of
Nietzsche's use of "blond beast" and asks where we might place Nietzsche on
the spectrum that lies between them. Readers of my review essay will know
that I would place Nietzsche near to the racial end. However, I think
there's a distinction we ought to make between what racial divisions
Nietzsche thinks existed in the remote past and what he is looking for in
the future. In the past, he evidently thinks there was a master race in
Europe and it was blond. _Genealogy of Morals_ makes this clear, especially
i.5.

But that doesn't mean Nietzsche thinks the future can be secured by
re-concentrating the Aryan strain anew. Indeed, if that's what he thought
it's strange he didn't say so. He never advocates, for example, breeding
blond (or otherwise Aryan) people together. This despite plenty of talk
about the importance of blood and breeding for developing a strong race of
the future, even to the extent of giving the community a hand in the
marriage practices of private individuals (WP 732-734). He also speculates
in several places (e.g., WP 960, _Human, All Too Human_ i.475) that a
stronger breed may emerge from racial mixing (including mixing with the
Jews).

Therefore, although Nietzsche was a racialist (in the sense I gave in the
review essay) interested in breeding and even eugenics, and although he
thought the blond Aryan race was the master race of early Europe, he was not
interested in reviving the Aryans as a program for racial revivification. At
least, it seems to me that the largest portion of the textual evidence can
be accommodated by this interpretation.

-David


*****************************************************
Spring 2000 Cyberseminar in Objectivist Studies
cybersem@objectivistcenter.org

All Cyberseminar posts are working papers with copyright
reserved to the author. They may not be published or adapted
without permission, but may be circulated for purposes of
scholarly discussion.

*****************************************************

To: TOC Cyberseminar <cybersem@objectivistcenter.org>

Sent: Tuesday, April 11, 2000 9:29 AM

Subject: Cyberseminar: Re: Blond beasts

[From: Kevin Hill ]

[snip]

> the Roman, Arabian, Germanic, Japanese nobility,
> the Homeric heroes, the Scandinavian Vikings -- [snip]

> the blond beast at the core of *all* noble races and in
>being on one's guard against it."
[snip]

> the old Germanic tribes and us Germans there exists hardly
>a conceptual relationship, let alone one of blood)."

Hello all:

This whole issue was admirably disposed of by Walter Kaufmann fifty years
ago ("The Master Race", _Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist_).

(1) "Blondness" is by no means a universal commodity among Germanic nobility
or in Scandanavia. One would be hard pressed to find much of it among "the
Roman, Arabian... Japanese nobility, [or] the Homeric heroes." The lion
interpretation is inescapable.

(2) "The old Germanic tribes" refers to the populations that migrated into
the Roman Empire--Franks, Visigoths, etc.--but these are founder populations
for *every* Western European country.

(3) When Nietzsche speaks *explicitly* about eugenics policy (or what we,
more enlightened folks call "immigration policy"), he consistently speaks in
favor of mixing as many groups as possible to bring about a "European man"
and "the strongest possible European mixed race." "One should not be afraid
to proclaim oneself simply a good European and actively work for the
amalgamation of nations." The means by which this is to be accomplished?
"Trade and industry, the post and the book-trade, the possession in common
of all higher culture, rapid changing of home and scene, the nomadic life
now lived by all who do not own land" and their consequence, "a weakening
and finally abolition of nations." [Human, I: 475]

(4) Nietzsche, for better or worse, was a Lamarckist (inheritance of
acquired characteristics) who saw no fundamental distinction between
biological and cultural activity. So one way to bring about a particular
"race" is by imposing a specific *cultural* discipline on a population. When
Nietzsche talks about changes he would like to see, it is usually by way of
either harvesting past cultural investments or introducing new ones by
bringing certain "powerful" *ideas* into circulation. For example, Nietzsche
refers to the doctrine of the eternal recurrence as an instrument of
"breeding" [Zuchtung]. The fact that "Zuchtung" readily lends itself to
translation as "breeding" "cultivation" and "education" reinforces, and
perhaps in part explains Nietzsche's "psycho-bio-cultural" Lamarckism.

(5) The closest we get in GM I of a suggestion of what he wants to do with
the "master" legacy is in GM I:16-17. Despite the crude origins of systems
of valuation, as values become internalized, they become more subtle,
refined and "spiritual" (an earlier example was the development of ideas
about and experiences of spiritual purity from what were originally bodily
cleanliness customs). What is now at issue is not whether or not there
should be rampaging blond beasts, but what should become of the internalized
*attitudes* that we have received. The best people not only aren't
barbarians, they have internalized and sublimated *both* master and slave
valuations and have become "a genuine battleground of these opposed values".
What is to become of them? Nietzsche's fear is that inner exhaustion over
being such a battleground will lead to psychological decadence, which itself
promotes the success of the slavish (and ascetic) attitudes. Since only
slave values have a good conscience on their side now (see GM II), this
danger must be opposed by restoring to master attitudes a good conscience.
Only in this way can we strengthen such fruitful cultural developments which
depend upon master attitudes. Previous such developments (the Renaissance)
failed because they were overwhelmed by subsequent cultural developments
rooted in slave attitudes (the Reformation).

[Kevin Hill]


*****************************************************
Spring 2000 Cyberseminar in Objectivist Studies
cybersem@objectivistcenter.org

All Cyberseminar posts are working papers with copyright
reserved to the author. They may not be published or adapted
without permission, but may be circulated for purposes of
scholarly discussion.

*****************************************************

To: TOC Cyberseminar <cybersem@objectivistcenter.org>

Sent: Thursday, April 13, 2000 8:09 AM

Subject: Cyberseminar: Re: Blond beasts

[From: David L. Potts ]

Kevin Hill writes:

> This whole issue was admirably disposed of by Walter Kaufmann fifty years
> ago ("The Master Race", _Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist,
Antichrist_).

What is "this whole issue"? I don't ask in order to be pedantic but because
I think whether we agree or disagree depends very much on what exact
question we are asking. Are you talking about the meaning of the blond beast
metaphor? Or the question whether Nietzsche thought a higher race could be
bred through eugenics alone? Or required eugenics in part? Or the question
whether Nietzsche believed there had been a blond Aryan master race in the
distant past? Or whether he wanted to resurrect or create such a race in the
future? To each of these questions I have already said what I think, more or
less, in my review essay and in my follow up message to Stephen Hicks's
original post on this thread. In what follows I will restrict myself to
commenting on a few of Kevin's points.

> (1) "Blondness" is by no means a universal commodity among Germanic
nobility
> or in Scandanavia. One would be hard pressed to find much of it among "the
> Roman, Arabian... Japanese nobility, [or] the Homeric heroes." The lion
> interpretation is inescapable.

Concerning the blond beast metaphor, that a lion or similar animal is part
of the meaning has not been denied by anybody here. The question I have
raised is whether the ancient, conquering, blond Aryan race, to which
Nietzsche alludes several times in GM, is an additional part of the meaning.
Therefore whether other noble races, outside Indo-Europe or in modern times,
were/are blond is not to the point. As for the Homeric heroes, they _were_
blond. For example, Achilles (Iliad i.197, xxiii.141), Menelaus (Iliad
xvii.6, xxiii.293), and Meleagar (Iliad ii.642). I think this was important
to Nietzsche, and I thought I said as much in the review essay, but perhaps
I wasn't explicit enough.

> (2) "The old Germanic tribes" refers to the populations that migrated into
> the Roman Empire--Franks, Visigoths, etc.--but these are founder
populations
> for *every* Western European country.

If the blond beast metaphor is the issue, then the above is fully consistent
with my proposal. However, I doubt whether "the old Germanic tribes" refers
primarily to the tribes that toppled the Roman empire. Surely _much_ earlier
invasions, the ones that created the Aryan cultures of ancient Greece, Rome,
India, and others, are what he mainly has in mind. See GM i.5.

> (3) When Nietzsche speaks *explicitly* about eugenics policy (or what we,
> more enlightened folks call "immigration policy"), he consistently speaks
in
> favor of mixing as many groups as possible to bring about a "European man"
> and "the strongest possible European mixed race."

I realize, and I have said a couple of times already, that Nietzsche
sometimes advocates mixing of races. However, he is _not_ consistent about
it. See for example WP 864 where cultural decline and undercutting of the
strong are blamed on "the social hodgepodge" in which "those orders that
have long been kept down, mingle with the blood of all classes: two, three
generations later the race is no longer recognizable - everything has become
mob."

In general I don't think we should try to whitewash Nietzsche, and in
particular I don't think we should be trying to say that he wasn't
interested in breeding human beings, to eliminate the sickly and enhance the
noble, in just the way people breed plants and other animals. It is not hard
to produce passages that show that he was (my review essay provides
several).

-David


*****************************************************
Spring 2000 Cyberseminar in Objectivist Studies
cybersem@objectivistcenter.org

All Cyberseminar posts are working papers with copyright
reserved to the author. They may not be published or adapted
without permission, but may be circulated for purposes of
scholarly discussion.

*****************************************************