Dionysus versus the Crucified

Abstract

For a while, after the war, a great debate raged about Nietzsche's own responsibility in the Nazi exploitation of his writing for antiSemitic purposes. There was mostly silence, however, regarding his anti-Christian stance; it is too explicit and consistent to be denied. To those who felt that Nietzsche's work should not fall into neglect, the point was irrelevant anyway. Why should Nietzsche be exonerated from an attitude that a majority of intellectuals regarded as sound? No apology needed to be made. No apology was made. Nietzsche was in the clear. But the antiChristian polemics of Nietzsche has received scant attention since World War II. Why? If they were asked,-they never are-contemporary Nietzscheans would probably answer that their thinker's passionate attitude toward religion has lost its relevance. Nietzsche remains important because of some avatars of his that came to light in recent years, mostly through the ingenuity of French critics, Nietzsche the genealogist, Nietzsche the advocate of free play, Nietzsche the exponent of counter-culture. ... Different as they are from one another, at least in some respects, these avatars are all alike in their indifference to the great struggle that obsessed the last lucid years of Nietzsche. Is there some obscure reason why this should be? Is there something inopportune or embarrassing about the theme; is it strategically advisable not to insist upon it? Whatever the case may be, Nietzsche's religious problematic was already marginalized when the French critics began their work.