leninology
> I do not think that western christian fundamentalists are always> fascists
or even like fascists. Many are merely conservative, which is> different,
maybe due to a western commitment to democracy, and nazi> types are
generally indifferent to Christianity, if not hostile to it.> They usually
prefer paganism, like Nietsche in fact.
Quite - but give Nietzsche a break: he's had to put up with decades of
association with those mystical quacks, when the truth is that he would have
laughed his head off at the preposterous poseurs of the Third Reich, and he
would also have resiled from the inherent populism of the movement.
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CB: There is a long standing thread debate here on the relationship of N to the Nazis.
I recently received Vol. 18, No. 4 of _Nature, Society and Thought_, which has an article by one Ishay Landa ( Ben Gurion University) "Aroma and Shadow: Marx vs. Nietzsche on Religion". Landa argues that "Nietzsche's atheism was an attempt to corner the market of Western atheism with a new dehumanized product, devised specifically to bankrupt the socialist competitors." He argues that "Nietzschean atheism is radically antithetical to the Marxist one. Far from accompanying or completing Marx in any way, Nietzche's atheism needs to be understood as a thorough alternative to Marxism, devised specifically to destroy it and take its place."
Basically, he says that Nietzsche develops his atheism as a social darwinist justification for exploitinng/oppressing classes ruling and exploited/oppressed classes submitting. In other words, Nietzsche attempts to substitute an atheist philosophy for the political function that God and religion had had in history. He is arguing that Nietzsche saw that socialist atheism was catching on and aiding the working classes, and so attempted to develop an atheism and naturalism that aided the ruling classes.
"Nietzsche's solution to the political problem of humanizing atheism ( that of Marxism -CB)is to attempt develop a dehumanizing atheism. By introducing a form of atheism-cum-pantheism that places nature above humanity, one can deny the political demands of humanistic socialism. Francois Bedarida, in an informative essay has characterized National Socialism as an Ersatzreligion that was meant to take the place of Christianity. It was, moreover, a "naturalistic religion," substituting imminency and this-worldliness for transcendentalism and the afterlife. At the heart of this "secular religion" lay a project - we may add, a Nietzschean project, in that is compatible with Nietzsche's teaching - of a 'naturalized humanity' "