Who are Nietzsche’s Christians?

Abstract

ABSTRACT Nietzsche famously rails against Christian virtues such as humility and compassion. Yet he is well aware that historical Christians, especially those in positions of power, typically preached such values but did not practice them. This raises the question whom Nietzsche is really targeting in his animadversions against Christian virtues. The answer developed here is that his real targets are his contemporaries, including atheist, socialists such as Eugen Dühring, who, with their advocacy of egalitarian, democratic social and political policies, are trying to implement the values Christians long preached but rarely practiced. In nominating moderns, including those who seek the realization of enlightenment liberal democratic values, rather than past Christians, as Nietzsche’s real targets we create space for reconciling Nietzsche’s claim that he accepts the past (as embodied in his doctrine of amor fati) with his project of seeking to open up new possibilities for the future. In the concluding sections the questions are raised to what extent do Nietzsche’s attacks on Christian virtues exhibit the very ressentiment he so vehemently criticises as a source of Christian values, and whether his criticism of the modern social and political implementation of those values is really supported by his own values.