Nietzsche, Godfather of Fascism?

[cathy ramirez]

--- Dave Monroe <davidmmonroe at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Note as well ...
> 
> "One has to ask if there is not something in
> Nietzsche's philosophy with its uninhibited
> cultivation of a heroic individualism and the will
> to
> power, which may have tended to favor the fascist
> ethos. 
> 
> Recalling ...
> 
> "'Ever heard of D'Annunzio?'  Then: Mussolini?
> Fiume?
> Italia irredenta? Fascisti?" (V., Ch. 9, p. 242)


_Modernity Without Restraint_ presents three of Erik
Voegelin's essays on the modern political religions,
including Marxism, National Socialism, Hegelianism,
Nietzschianism, and Heideggerianism. To Voegelin,
these
thinkers are all best described as "gnostics" and in
their effort to create God's Kingdom on Earth seek to
"immanentize the Christian eschaton". In "The
Political Religions", Voegelin traces back the origin
of political religion to the Egyptian worship of the
Sun, the cult of Akhenaton. He traverses the history
of the Middle Ages, and he shows how the archetype of
the Christian apocalypse (a heresy to the orthodox
Christian) came to occupy a central role in political
religion. He includes a good discussion of the
leviathanic state of Thomas Hobbes. Finally he
ends with a compelling picture of the National
Socialist state embodied in the Fuehrer. Although he
was criticized in this essay for not outrightly
condemning the National Socialists, Voegelin stated
that this in fact just reveals the satanic allure that
this political religion holds. To Voegelin,         
National Socialism is "satanic". In "The New Science
of Politics", Voegelin examines various modes of
representation from Plato and Aristotle through the
Roman Empire. He then discusses the idea of
gnosticism; he views the modern political religions as
a restoration of the Gnostic heresy (condemned by
early Christianity), an attempt to replace            
  faith with certainty and bring about the Kingdom of
God on Earth. This idea arose in the apocalyptic
tradition, transmitted through the Middle Ages by the
followers of Joachim de Fiore. He discusses in
particular the
case of the English Puritans. According to Voegelin,
the modern political philosophies of liberalism,
communism, and the philosophy of Thomas
Hobbes are under the spell of gnosticism. In "Science,
Politics, and Gnosticism", the most interesting of the
essays presented, Voegelin delves into the thinkers
Hegel, Marx ("an intellectual swindler"),             
Nietzsche ("the murder of God"), Heidegger, and
psychoanalysis and National Socialism. To Voegelin,
these thinkers are all "gnostics", and the
movements spurred by their philosophies are "ersatz
religions". Voegelin represents an interesting
alternative to modernity and liberalism.
And this book among his collected works serves as an
excellent introduction to the thought of this profound
thinker, philosopher of gnosticism. 




__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Faith Hill - Exclusive Performances, Videos & More
http://faith.yahoo.com