Idea Transcript
Nietzsche and Hegel: Identity Formation and the Master/Slave Dialectic
Until recent scholarship, Nietzsche and Hegel were largely seen as polar opposites. This is not surprising; Hegel is a systematic philosopher of reason in the idealist tradition, while Nietzsche is an anti-systematic, counter-Enlightenment philosopher. However dissimilar these two thinkers might be, they share remarkable similarities upon closer inspection. Both are among the first thinkers to give a phenomenology of moral consciousness, genealogically tracing the thought and ethical conceptions of different time periods in history. Both examine and critique the concept of the ‘I,’ the supposed subject behind the deed. And finally, both use the master/slave dichotomy to give an account of identity and difference in the constitution of the subject. I argue that not only do Nietzsche and Hegel have similar ideas, but that the very structure of the Genealogy of Morals parallels that of “Lordship and Bondage” in the Phenomenology. If this is true, it would be quite significant to the study of these influential texts—both thinkers conceive of identity and morality as arising out of a relationship of conflict, and both find the subjugated class as the most effective and successful of the two. Also in both narratives, there is a fundamental shift in the structure of recognition, where the antagonistic relationship allows one side to define itself by negating the other—it is for itself because it is not for another. The social dialectic in Nietzsche’s Genealogy and Hegel’s “Lordship and Bondage” involves a cultural process of identity constitution based on negation, on recognizing what one is not. I give a brief introduction to the master/slave distinction in Nietzsche’s Genealogy in order to compare
2 his account of identity formation to Hegel’s in “Lordship and Bondage,” and to inform our understanding of negation and the dialectics of identity constitution in both texts.
MASTER/SLAVE IN THE GENEALOGY Nietzsche destabilizes the traditional philosophical discourse by unveiling the moral prejudices of modern philosophers, and by probing the origins of good and bad. The concept of ‘good,’ he finds, originated in those who possessed very little of today’s conception of ‘goodness.’ They were the nobles, the ruling class of aristocrats, the powerful—those who said yes to themselves. Nietzsche describes the noble classes as authentic, undeceived, self-affirming men. In Greek society they called themselves “the truthful” and “those who possess reality.” In contrast, the common men, the lowly plebeians, were transformed into the concept ‘bad;’ the ‘good’ looked down and falsified what they were not. The nobles were politically superior until the arrival of the priestly caste. The priests made a new distinction on top of good and bad—they separated the pure from the impure. At this point, pure simply meant ‘one who is clean and healthy.’ But not for long; Nietzsche asserts that the priests proved a hundred times more dangerous than the sicknesses they set out to cure. For the priests, “everything becomes more dangerous, not only cures and remedies,” but also the most fundamental human instincts; “only here did the human soul in a higher sense acquire depth and become evil” (Nietzsche 1967, I §6). By distinguishing the ‘pure’ from the ‘impure,’ the priests developed a separate political and spiritual superiority, and for the first time created a sharp distinction between ‘good’ and ‘evil.’ The priestly caste (who Nietzsche identifies as the Jews under Roman rule) set out on an act of spiritual revenge, transvaluating their enemy’s values with the slave revolt in
3 morality—a revolt based on ressentiment that Nietzsche observes nearly two thousand years later. The formulators of the new value system engaged in a war of ideals. ‘The slaves,’ ‘the mob,’ or ‘the herd,’ as Nietzsche calls them, triumph over all other, nobler ideals again and again. In contrast to a self-affirming (for-itself) noble morality, slave morality based itself on saying No to anything ‘outside,’ ‘different,’ and more importantly ‘evil;’ “this No is its creative deed. This inversion of the value-positing eye…is the essence of ressentiment: in order to exist, slave morality always needs a hostile external world” (Ibid, I §10). The transvaluation, the reversal of value judgments, came not from an act of self-affirmation, but from a negation of the other. The priestly caste possessed the concept of ‘evil’ and imposed it on anyone who was other. Consequently, after the slave revolt in morality, the herd’s weakness is turned into something ‘good.’ The existence of enemies and the concept of ‘evil’ are of necessity; the slaves, once coined with the concept ‘bad,’ later become the very essence of ‘good’ by becoming the opposite of ‘evil.’ Thus, ‘bad’ and ‘evil,’ although both are simply opposites of the concept ‘good,’ originated and were employed in very different circumstances. By examining the origins of these value judgments, Nietzsche reveals the antagonism that lies beneath powerful transvaluations. He also shows the dialectical necessity of value positing and value negation in the construction of an individual identity—one which is created in the deed. The priestly caste, the creators of the sharpest binary value judgments, used their ressentiment to create their own moral concepts, and used their repressed energy to erect a moral law universally imposed on both others and themselves. Nietzsche observes the effects of such a transvaluation; this culture becomes
4 a “workshop where ideals are manufactured—it seems to…stink of so many lies” (Ibid, I §14). Its effect on an individual level is the creation of the Christian ‘subject,’ the sovereign individual, the responsible, simple, united soul. Nietzsche finds this conception of the subject to be most harmful; we deceive ourselves by using the synthetic concept “I,” as the “will” seems to be a singular entity, but is really a manifold, complicated thing. The mistake lies in presupposing a singular will identical with action and a singular subject behind all willing; For just as the popular mind separates the lightning from its flash and takes the latter for an action, for the operation of a subject called lightning, so popular morality also separates strength from expressions of strength, as if there were a neutral substratum behind the strong man, which was free to express strength or not to do so. But there is no such substratum; there is no “being” behind doing, effecting, becoming; “the doer” is merely a fiction added to the deed—the deed is everything. The popular mind in fact doubles the deed; when it sees the lightning flash, it is the deed of a deed: it posits the same event first as cause and then a second time as its effect (Ibid, I §13).
There is no one subject behind the action, nor is there one will which chooses the action. Humans consist of “successful executive instruments, the useful “under-wills” or undersouls—indeed, our body is but a social structure composed of many souls” (Nietzsche 1989, 26). Nietzsche explains that the speech act of the promise further tricks us into a unified conception of the subject. In the promise, man wills a future act, asserting “I shall do this,” but the will is temporally separated from the actual act, the discharge of the will, by many other circumstances, events, and interactions; “Man himself must first of all have become calculable, regular, necessary, even in his own image of himself…”(Nietzsche 1967, II §1). Time invades the core of the human will, allowing the mistaken construction of the unified subject (the unchanging substratum). But, this sovereign ‘subject’ who comes into being through the promise never becomes complete in the process.
5 MASTER/SLAVE IN “LORDSHIP AND BONDAGE” Hegel too has a conception of an unstable subject who is not a fixed substratum, but is rather constantly becoming what one is in the deed; “An individual cannot know who he is before he has made himself into actuality through action… Whatever it is that the individual does, and whatever happens to him, that he has done himself, and he is that himself” (Hegel 1977, 240-2). Nietzsche and Hegel share this expressive and active element of identity formation—a subject is “actual only insofar as it is the movement of positing itself, or the mediation between a self and its development into something different” (Ibid). In this way, for both Nietzsche and Hegel, the act and the intention are fused into one. The act is not just physical movement—it is the fulfilling of intention— and it becomes the performative and constitutive event. In his essay “Lightning and Flash,” Robert Pippin summarizes this thought; “My subjective construal at any time before or during the deed has no privileged authority. The deed alone can “show” one who one is.” This continuous becoming of the self, a constitution of identity which develops in relation to the other, is illustrated by Hegel in his chapter, “Independence and Dependence of Self-consciousness: Lordship and Bondage,” which phenomenologically traces the structure and the movement of consciousness. Hegel begins “Lordship and Bondage,” by explaining that identity and selfconsciousness do not exist prior to experiencing another human; but rather, “Selfconsciousness exists…only in being acknowledged” (Ibid, 111). This is the most fundamental process of recognition, where one “self-consciousness is faced by another self-consciousness; it has come out of itself. This has a twofold significance: first, it has lost itself, for it finds itself as an other being; secondly, in doing so it has superseded the
6 other, for it does not see the other as an essential being, but in the other sees its own self” (Ibid). The self-conscious person first identifies with the other by taking on its view of the world and thus sees itself as other, and then obtains its own self-image by negating the other and asserting itself as primary. Hegel shows that self-consciousness is a social process predicated on confronting another consciousness, which becomes a battle of independence and dependence. Hegel calls the beginning of confrontation the “double movement of the two selfconsciousnesses. Each sees the other do the same as it does…In this movement we see the process which presented itself as the play of Forces, but repeated now in consciousness” (Ibid, 112). The process occurs in both self-conscious persons, and what occurs in consciousness is outwardly presented as the play of Forces.1 At this point in Hegel’s narrative, both persons are self-conscious and conscious of the other; “Each is for the other the middle term through which each mediates itself with itself and unites with itself…They recognize themselves as mutually recognizing one another” (Ibid, 112). Mutual recognition is the basis of social interaction, but in this early stage of selfconsciousness, each person finds it to be threatening; “At first, it will exhibit the side of the inequality of the two, or the splitting-up of the middle term into the extremes which, as extremes, are opposed to one another, one being only recognized, the other only recognizing” (Ibid, 112-3). Each person sees the other as a threat to one’s own independence and control. Hegel argues that for each person this interaction “involves the staking of its own life,” as each wishes to maintain its own independence; “Thus the relation of the two self1
This is similar to Nietzsche, who frequently speaks of the interplay of forces. Forces often discharge themselves in the deed, as seen in the ressentiment of the slave revolt in morality. Nietzsche depicts the self-affirming nobles as ambivalently negating the slaves, and the slaves as those who build up a resentful consciousness, and who then release it during the slave revolt in morality.
7 conscious individuals is such that they prove themselves and each other through a lifeand-death struggle. They must engage in this struggle, for they must raise their certainty of being for themselves to truth, both in the case of the other and in their own case” (Ibid, 114). This struggle for preeminence is of necessity, but Hegel finds that death, “the natural negation of consciousness,” is not the outcome of the battle, for it would be “negation without independence, which thus remains without the required significance of recognition” (Ibid, 114). For this reason, each person lives, but power is now unequally distributed between the two—a forceful agreement is made forming the master/slave dichotomy. It seems that the master emerges in the struggle because he does not fear death as much as the slave. The winner of the battle needs the recognition of the loser in order to maintain this part of his identity; “one is the independent consciousness whose essential nature is to be for itself, the other is the dependent consciousness whose essential nature is simply to live or to be for another. The former is lord, the other is bondsman” (Ibid, 115). STRUCTURAL COMPARISON OF NIETZSCHE AND HEGEL Here, the structure of Hegel’s understanding of identity in the master/slave is very similar to Nietzsche’s. The lord (master) is the consciousness that exists for itself, while the bondsman (slave) lives for another and is defined by this inferior status. In the Genealogy, the nobles are ‘good’ simply because they affirm themselves as such, while they impose the concept of ‘bad’ on the slaves simply because they are not ‘good.’ Hegel describes the lord as receiving recognition through the work the slave does on nature, and through the slave’s dependence upon his existence. Hegel also remarks that the lord, in
8 his sheer negation of nature and the slave, takes the utmost enjoyment in it.2 Thus, Hegel writes, “[the bondsman] is the pure, essential action in this relationship, while the action of the bondsman is impure and unessential. But for recognition the proper moment is lacking…The outcome is a recognition that is one-sided and unequal” (Ibid, 116). Nietzsche discusses the same concepts of ‘pure’ and ‘impure’ (created by the priestly caste) that Hegel introduces here, and Hegel moves on to destabilize and reverse the distinction between dependence and independence in the relationship (just as the priests did in the slave revolt in morality). At the very end of the section, Hegel inverts the master/slave relationship by showing that the master himself is dependent upon the slave for recognition; “his truth is in reality the unessential consciousness and its unessential action. The truth of the independent consciousness is accordingly the servile consciousness of the bondsman” (Ibid, 117). Because the lord is now dependent, he is no longer an independent being-forself, and in order to maintain his own self-consciousness he must release his reign over the bondsman and work in the world in mutual recognition. Recall the slave revolt in morality, where the priests make the same revaluation that Hegel makes here: “But just as lordship showed that its essential nature is the reverse of what it wants to be, so too servitude in its consummation will really turn into the opposite of what it immediately is; as consciousness forced back into itself, it will withdraw into itself and be transformed into a truly independent consciousness” (Ibid, 117, my emphasis). Hegel is lauding servitude and calling “independent consciousness” what Nietzsche calls the mistake of
2
Though it will not be discussed in this essay, this bares resemblance to Nietzsche’s discussion of cruelty and bad conscience—all ideals and positive concepts are given birth in a contradiction or negation—cruelty and subjugation are inherent processes of identity formation (Essay 2, §§ 7, 18).
9 slave morality, the construction of the “sovereign individual,” 3 and the beginning of “bad conscience.” For Nietzsche, “bad conscience” relates to those instincts which do not discharge themselves outward, that are not let free, and which then turn themselves inward; “the internalization of man: thus it was that man first developed what was later called his “soul” (Nietzsche 1967, II §16). When “the herd” or “the mob” is subjugated, they must turn their instinct for freedom inward, and thus create “bad conscience.” Though Nietzsche and Hegel’s conceptions of “independence” here might not be identical, the slave in Hegel and the Christian subject in Nietzsche both undergo a transvaluation in order to define themselves as independent or ‘good’ in so far as they are no longer for another. The slaves are independent because they are able to shed their previous social status and clearly define what they are not. In Hegel, the slave is no longer dependent, and in Nietzsche the slave in no longer ‘bad’ by virtue of being a slave (rather, the Christian subject becomes ‘good’ by making all others ‘evil’—it is very clear what they are not). The social dialectic shifts as the distribution of power moves between the two unequal types and as the moral concepts and social values of the culture undergo a transvaluation. Both the antagonism and the shift in recognition are remarkably similar in the structure of each text. Also in both texts, a particular mode of consciousness (the slave class) harnesses a certain kind of ressentiment towards their subjugation and the social and material conditions which sustain it. By using their social status in the struggle for independence, the slaves alter the power structure and find a way in which they can define themselves as a group and affirm their own set of values. 3
In Nietzsche’s text, the “Christian subject” or the “sovereign individual” is transformed into being ‘good’ or ‘pure’ by (religiously and morally) being different from that which is ‘evil.’ Also note that Hegel emphasizes servitude—servitude transforms the slaves from being for another to being for oneself—it becomes the characteristic of a truly independent consciousness. The same process occurs in both texts, but Nietzsche obviously does not find servitude to entail independent consciousness.
10 Hegel concludes by finding that, for the slave, consciousness cannot become explicitly for itself without “the two moments of fear and service as such, as also that of formative activity” (Hegel 1977, 119). Fear, subjugation, and formative activity are that which alienate him and also that which give him the ability to become for himself; For, in fashioning the thing, the bondsman’s own negativity, his being-for-self, becomes an object for him only through his setting at nought the existing shape confronting him. But this objective negative moment is none other than the alien being before which it has trembled. Now, however, he destroys this alien negative moment, posits himself as a negative in the permanent order of things, and thereby becomes for himself, someone existing on his own account. In the lord, the being-for-self is an ‘other’ for the bondsman, or is only for him [i.e. is not his own]; in fear, the being-for-self is present in the bondsman himself; in fashioning the thing, he becomes aware that being-for-self belongs to him, that he himself exists essentially and actually in his own right (Ibid, 118).
In this passage, many readers might find a close connection between Hegel and Marx, but I argue that an equally close connection can be made between Hegel and Nietzsche. In Nietzsche’s narrative, the slave becomes for himself by negating what he is not. In Hegel’s account, the slave posits himself as a negative against the current material conditions, the social structure, and the permanent order of things; and for the first time in the chapter, the slave achieves independence and becomes for himself. But this is not the same kind of independence which the lord possessed earlier. As discussed above, slave morality always needs a hostile external world—it must have something to negate if it wishes to affirm itself. There is a clear parallel here between the above passage and Nietzsche’s account of transvaluation in the slave revolt in morality.4 In Hegel’s account fear becomes the force by which the bondsman negates the other and becomes for himself; “he himself exists essentially and actually in his own right” (Ibid, 118). Similarly, in Nietzsche’s account ressentiment becomes the force by 4
Nietzsche applies the same process to the creditor and debtor within the sphere of legal and economic relations—the subject becomes a calculable, regular, and necessary animal with the ability to make promises. The slaves become ‘good’ rather than ‘bad’ or ‘evil’—they negate everything that is other within the social structure. And finally the slaves possess an immortal soul in the midst of a chaotic universe— through internalization they create a unified, permanent subject, and thus effectively posit themselves as a negative in permanent order of things.
11 which the slaves negate the other and transvaluate the moral concepts of the culture. The transvaluation came not from an act of self-affirmation, but from a negation of other moral concepts and modes of life. In both texts, the structure of recognition shifts in favor of the slaves. Christian morality internalizes its own value system based not only on the binary value judgments of ‘good’ and ‘evil,’ but also on a whole new category of moral concepts; Weakness is being lied into something meritorious…and impotence which does not requite into ‘goodness of heart’; anxious lowliness into ‘humility’; subjection to those one hates into ‘obedience’…patience [is] even called virtue in itself; his inability for revenge is called unwillingness to revenge, perhaps even forgiveness…They also speak of ‘loving one’s enemies’— and sweat as they do so (Nietzsche 1967, I §14).
One can imagine that this radical transvaluation under Roman rule, where meekness and humility become the basis of socially respectability, was indeed a challenge to noble morality and the status quo as it negated the power structure and the social hierarchy of values. Thus, the slaves overcome the dominion of the nobles by creating their own surrogate morality. At the end of “Lordship and Bondage,” Hegel certainly seems committed to similar Christian ideals, finding that “having a ‘mind of one’s own’ is self-will, a freedom which is still enmeshed in servitude” (Hegel 1977, 119). For Hegel, all positions in society fall under this moral assertion and the ideal of mutual recognition. In breaking down the structure of independence/dependence in the master/slave relationship, Hegel makes the same shift of recognition as seen in Nietzsche’s account. Furthermore, as seen from Nietzsche’s perspective, Hegel is actually giving a philosophical justification for the Christian transvaluation; he carries out the transvaluation himself.5 Hegel finds that the slave is the truly independent one in the relationship, as he values fear, servitude, and 5
Here, even more than other parts of the paper, is where my project goes beyond a comparative analysis of similarities to hermeneutically engage the structure of the two texts.
12 labor; for any consciousness lacking fear “is only an empty self-centered attitude” (Ibid, 119). If Nietzsche indeed read this section, as is argued here, he would certainly find Hegel guilty of hiding his motivations and perpetuating the dominant western moral and philosophical prejudices (tendencies for which Nietzsche attacked so many other philosophers and psychologists, although for some reason he does not mention Hegel in his Genealogy). Nietzsche’s slave revolt in morality, along with his more general philosophical critique, can thus be seen as a response to Hegel’s transvaluation in “Lordship and Bondage.” AFTER THE MASTER/SLAVE
In order to further assess the similarities and differences of Nietzsche and Hegel’s accounts, we must examine the master/slave within the larger context of their thought. I have presented an interpretation of Nietzsche vis-à-vis Hegel concerning the turnout of the master/slave relationship and the slave’s use of negation in overcoming social subjugation. Both Nietzsche and Hegel present a struggle which demands some kind of recognition of the other. This plays out in a social arrangement where independence, in one form or another, is fought for and achieved by the formerly subjugated group. Whether it is fueled by fear or ressentiment towards the ruling class, independence is won by means of negation. This is how their accounts of negation within the master/slave relationship are essentially similar. However, their historical accounts of what follows the breakdown of master/slave contain both similarities and differences. In the Phenomenology, after the slave becomes independent and for himself, a complete transvaluation of the social hierarchy takes place. The dialectic has moved one step closer to mutual recognition and Absolute Spirit. Hegel sublimates the negative and allows the dialectic to progress in the next wave of the history of philosophy, and in the
13 next section of the book, “Freedom of Self Consciousness: Stoicism, Skepticism, and the Unhappy Consciousness.” This is obviously an essential aspect of Hegel’s project: the dialectic itself can be reconciled. For example, unhappy consciousness is “the consciousness of self as a dual-natured, merely contradictory being” (Ibid, 126). But, just as Spirit develops within each stage consciousness, the tension and contradiction is reconciled into a new unity which incorporates the negative. And in each stage where negativity is incorporated, the process gives birth to a higher self.6 Both Nietzsche and Hegel find that negation is a necessary part of identity formation. In Hegel’s system negativity is part of the development of the selfconsciousness of Spirit. It can exist in the dialectic without having harmful effects that it does in the Genealogy. Nietzsche finds that negation remains (without any reconciliation), as it produces a culture which is unable to overcome its very origins—it constructs a detrimental process which does not come to an end.7 Nietzsche cannot sublimate negation, and instead he must observe the ways in which it prevents humans from overcoming the long-lasting effects. His account lacks a conception of closure, and his project can be seen as an attempt at subverting the original negative, which began the transvaluation of the master/slave with the slave revolt in morality. Though the relationship with otherness is of utmost significance for Nietzsche’s concept of identity, there always exists an inability to pin it down; his account reveals an asymmetry between self and other, presence and absence—the subject moves from itself towards itself, but is never quite there—it is always in motion, always becoming. In this way we again arrive 6
In this chapter, the stage of unhappy consciousness and its resolution directly relates to Christianity, priestly asceticism, and Jesus, all of which are significant elements of the Genealogy, and which also further illustrate the deep structural similarity of the texts under examination. 7 Nietzsche rejects the idea of a transcendental process with a possible end of history (especially if one considers the eternal return of the same as an objection to Hegel’s system of embedded progress), and rather chooses to affirm life by acknowledging human finitude.
14 at a similarity between the two thinkers: the subject is one who is constantly becoming who one is, and who develops through social recognition, negation, and conflict. The difference between the two, however, is that for Hegel the dialectic can be reconciled.8 For Nietzsche, no such possibility exists—though language and difference allow the subject to come into being—at the same time it prevents closure (language remains open and cannot be overcome).9 In conclusion, I have shown that, for both thinkers, identity and selfconsciousness arise out of the recognition of other self-conscious beings, and that identity formation is predicated on otherness, and thus one’s orientation towards otherness. Human consciousness and identity are deeply embedded in language, social structure, and social status. Both texts trace the social dialectic of master/slave in a way that illustrates the necessity of conflict, struggle, and negation in the formation of an identity which is always socially embedded. This is a new interpretation of Nietzsche’s relation to Hegel, which highlights the similar structures of the Genealogy and “Lordship and Bondage,” and argues that the texts possess a parallel of philosophical ideas. The close proximity and complete divergence of many of their ideas lend even more weight to my hermeneutical attempt. While Nietzsche clearly shares structural elements with Hegel’s “Lordship and Bondage,” he uses the social dialectic to critique the very transvaluation that Hegel carries out in his project. My account of Nietzsche’s critique shows how he parallels Hegel’s text and subverts his transvaluation. There is much to be said on the similarities and differences of these texts, but it is my hope that I have at least shown that 8
Some interpretations (i.e. Kojève’s) would emphasize here that the dialectic comes to an end with Hegel’s system; the subject (i.e. Hegel himself) progresses towards an end point of Absolute Knowledge. 9 But it is interesting that each thinker has a conception of a human being who overcomes or supersedes this struggle—Hegel formulates ideas of a higher man and the Absolute Subject, while Nietzsche creates the concept of the Übermensch, the transhuman, and the posthuman.
15 they share structural elements and a process of identity formation necessarily related to negation within the master/slave dialectic.
Works Cited: Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich (1977). Phenomenology of Spirit. (A.V. Miller, Trans.) New York: Oxford University Press. Nietzsche, Friedrich (1967). On the Genealogy of Morals. (Walter Kaufman, Trans.) New York: Random House, Inc. Nietzsche, Friedrich (1989). Beyond Good and Evil. (Walter Kaufman, Trans.) NewYork: Vintage.