NIETZSCHE’S “GREAT POLITICS” AND THE AESTHETICIZATION OF POWER: SORTING THE AESTHETIC-POLITICAL DIALECTIC IN “THUS SPOKE ZARATHUSTRA”

Abstract

Nietzsche’s later aesthetics is not simply an expression of “art for art’s sake,” but is embedded within a political vision he calls the “Great Politics,” which fundamentally opposes liberal democracy. This paper challenges dominant Western readings that ascribe liberal democratic commitments to Nietzsche, demonstrating instead that his philosophy envisions a great, kinetic war waged against “those who have not turned out well,” a phrase Nietzsche uses broadly for those he deemed unfit. This war is a brutal conflict that rejects the democratic ideal of universal inclusion, even in the variant where agonistic struggle is necessary to improve all participants. The Dionysian age of art, ushered in by this conflict, is waged by individuals who embrace the creative sacrifice demanded by the will to power, confronting nihilism by recognizing it as rooted in the moralizing falsehood that suffering is “punishment” (a “Lügenwort”) and that guilt is irredeemable. Nietzsche identifies this as a lie about humanity’s capacity for evolutionary speciation. His concept of tragic pathos begins as an aesthetic experience — an artistic affirmation of suffering — but is transmuted philosophically into the pathos of eternal recurrence, transforming aesthetic affect into knowledge opposing the spiritualization of revenge and leading humanity into the “World of Truth.” The internalization of this knowledge is not a universal capability — those designated “unfit” are those excluded from it. The work of art emblemizes this new “World of Truth” and symbolizes humanity’s evolutionary potential. The political implications of this transfiguration challenge liberal democracy’s premises in any variation. This interpretation resonates with contemporary political currents that embrace conflict as essential for cultural and political renewal. By unifying Nietzsche’s aesthetics, politics, and philosophy, this reinterpretation offers a significant contribution to Nietzsche studies and the political theory of aesthetics.