A man’s political inclination is based on a series of experiences and expectations from the society and the idea of political thought is an instant reaction from the brain to counter/support the arguments made on the particular situation. A man’s political philosophy cannot be limited to his personal good but it has to be extended to a society in which he has his own goals to achieve and make a political statement which has its implications beyond his reach and would impact other generation. The Next–Gen impact is not accidental to the political philosophy, but a conscious decision and decisive perception of the man who intends to spread it irrespective of time and geography.
The question of ‘morals and politics’, ‘ethics and politics’, ‘greed and politics’, ‘humanity and politics’, ‘Development and politics’ and ‘Barmecidal and Politics’ are sophomoric arguments in context of active players. Politics is almost a necessity of mankind. The power of Power in the political arena is underrated; it is the driving force behind frenzy political activity. Politics is a path for the quest for power and man’s ‘Will to Power’ should not be ignored in this process.
An anarchist’s propriety should be scrutinized in a society and his scorn for politics cannot be just based on his claims of evil in politics. The sacred texts, mythology and society has very much proven that anarchism is no less evil that bad politics but a greater evil than shoddy politics. Ayn Rand has edifying views about anarchism ….
“Anarchy, as a political concept, is a naive floating abstraction. A society without an organized government would be at the mercy of the first criminal who came along and who would precipitate it into the chaos of gang warfare. But the possibility of human immorality is not the only objection to anarchy, even a society whose every member was fully rational and faultlessly moral, could not function in a state of anarchy, it is the need of objective laws and of an arbiter for honest disagreements among men that necessitates the establishment of a government. “[1]
In a democracy and particularly in a developing country, the debate of the role of state is vehemently argued by Left, Right and Centre. The left has always presented its simple solution which goes smooth with its ideology, the Centre as always has never made a their stand clear and the Right has its own dilemma in having a rigid opinion about the role of state in the life of an individual and in society. Is it politically possible for an Authoritarian state with limited control? Can such a government exist in a democracy? Is it practically possible to accommodate such a scenario? Does it pass political Rectitude?
Friedrich Nietzsche was not in favor of Democracy. He equates Democracy with Christianity “The democratic movement is the heir to Christianity” [2] and waylays Socrates and Plato by asking , “How could the most beautiful growth of antiquity, Plato, contract such a disease? Did the wicked Socrates corrupt him after all? Could Socrates have been the corrupter of youth after all? And did he deserve his hemlock?” [3]
Sigmund Freud’s praise for Nietzsche is obvious in its recognition of Nietzsche’s philosophical finesse and Freud’s theories have often exposed the Marxist grotesqueness. Sigmund Freud declared that Nietzsche is “a philosopher whose guesses and intuitions often agree in the most astonishing way with the laborious findings of psychoanalysis.” I reference Sigmund Freud to make a strong base to support Nietzsche’s Political Philosophy which is often criticized for the lack of political-ness in it and it’s often said that Friedrich Nietzsche’s works do not reflect the true politics and it’s a misadventure, but his political philosophy has made me feel the other way and I am glad to say that he was one of best political philosopher and an underrated one.
It’s just not literary romanticism or a political manifestation or an antipathy towards a political class, it’s a view of an individual with his bionic grasp of society and man as it pivotal element in shaping the future of the society. As always, man is a superman – his strong belief that man is something has to be surpassed is not rhetoric, but an actual postulation of the animal instinct which is hidden deep inside a man.
“‘Why so hard?’ the kitchen coal once said to the diamond. ‘After all, are we not close kin?’
Why so soft? O my brothers, thus I ask you: are you not after all my brothers?” [4]
Friedrich Nietzsche on Communism/Socialism:-
“When the exceptional man handles the mediocre man with more delicate fingers than he applies to himself or to his equals, this is not merely kindness of heart—it is simply his duty… . Whom do I hate most heartily among the rabbles of today? The rabble of Socialists, the apostles to the Chandala, who undermine the workingman’s instincts, his pleasure, his feeling of contentment with his petty existence—who make him envious and teach him revenge… . Wrong never lies in unequal rights; it lies in the assertion of “equal” rights… . What is bad? But I have already answered: all that proceeds from weakness, from envy, from revenge. The anarchist and the Christian have the same ancestry… .”[5]
“A question of power, not justice. For men who always consider the higher usefulness of a matter, socialism, if it really is the uprising against their oppressors of people oppressed and kept down for thousands of years, poses no problem of justice (with the ludicrous, weak question: “How far should one yield to its demands?”), but only a problem of power ( “To what extent can one use its demands?”). So it is like a natural power-steam, for example-which is either forced by man, as a god of machines, into his service, or, when there are mistakes in the machine (that is, errors of human calculation in its construction), wrecks itself and the human with it. To solve that question of power, one must know how strong socialism is, and in which of its modifications it can still be used as a mighty lever within the current political power game; in some circumstances one would even have to do everything possible to strengthen it. With every great force (even the most dangerous), humanity must think how to make it into a tool of its own intentions.
Socialism gains a right only when the two powers, the representatives of the old and new, seem to have come to war, but then both parties prudently calculate how they may preserve themselves to best advantage, and this results in their desire for a treaty. No justice without a treaty. Until now, however, there has been neither war in the indicated territory, nor treaties, and thus no rights, and no “ought” either.”[6] .
“Socialism in respect to its means. Socialism is the visionary younger brother of an almost decrepit despotism, whose heir it wants to be. Thus its efforts are reactionary in the deepest sense. For it desires a wealth of executive power, as only despotism had it; indeed, it outdoes everything in the past by striving for the downright destruction of the individual, which it sees as an unjustified luxury of nature, and which it intends to improve into an expedient organ of the community. Socialism crops up in the vicinity of all excessive displays of power because of its relation to it, like the typical old socialist Plato, at the court of the Sicilian tyrant;11 it desires (and in certain circumstances, furthers) the Caesarean power state of this century, because, as we said, it would like to be its heir. But even this inheritance would not suffice for its purposes; it needs the most submissive subjugation of all citizens to the absolute state, the like of which has never existed. And since it cannot even count any longer on the old religious piety towards the state, having rather always to work automatically to eliminate piety (because it works on the elimination of all existing states), it can only hope to exist here and there for short periods of time by means of the most extreme terrorism. Therefore, it secretly prepares for reigns of terror, and drives the word “justice” like a nail into the heads of the semi-educated masses, to rob them completely of their reason (after this reason has already suffered a great deal from its semieducation), and to give them a good conscience for the evil game that they are supposed to play. Socialism can serve as a rather brutal and forceful way to teach the danger of all accumulations of state power, and to that extent instill one with distrust of the state itself. When its rough voice chimes in with the battle cry “As much state as possible,” it will at first make the cry noisier than ever; but soon the opposite cry will be heard with strength the greater: ‘As little state as possible.’”[7]
“It is a lie! Creators were they who created peoples, and hung a faith and a love over them: thus they served life. Destroyers, are they who lay snares for many, and call it the state: they hang a sword and a hundred cravings over them. Where there is still a people, there the state is not understood, but hated as the evil eye, and as sin against laws and customs. This sign I give unto you: every people speaketh its language of good and evil: this its neighbour understandeth not. Its language hath it devised for itself in laws and customs. But the state lieth in all languages of good and evil; and whatever it saith it lieth; and whatever it hath it hath stolen. False is everything in it; with stolen teeth it biteth, the biting one. False are even its bowels.”[8]
“As little State as possible! All political and economic matters are not of such great value that they ought to be dealt with by the most talented minds: such a waste of intellect is at bottom worse than any state of distress. These matters are and ever will be the province of smaller minds and others than the smaller minds should not be at the service of this workshop: it would be better to let the machinery work itself to pieces again! Yet as matters stand at the present time when not only do all people believe that they must know all about it day by day but wish likewise to be always busy about it and in so doing neglect their own work. it is a great and ridiculous mistake. The price that has to be paid for the “public safety “is far too high and what is maddest of all we effect the very opposite of “public safety” a fact which our own dear century has undertaken to prove as if this had never been proved before! To make society secure against thieves and fire and to render it thoroughly fit for all kinds of trade and traffic and to transform the State in a good and evil sense into a kind of Providence—these aims are low mediocre and not by any means indispensable; and we should not seek to attain them by the aid of the highest means and instruments which exist—means which we should reserve precisely for our highest and rarest aims! Our age, however much it may chatter about economy is in fact wasteful: it wastes spirit the most precious thing of all.”[9]
“The stupidity — at bottom, the degeneration of instinct, which is today the cause of all stupidities — is that there is a labor question at all. Certain things one does not question: that is the first imperative of instinct. I simply cannot see what one proposes to do with the European worker now that one has made a question of him. He is far too well off not to ask for more and more, not to ask more immodestly. In the end, he has numbers on his side. The hope is gone forever that a modest and self-sufficient kind of man, a Chinese type, might here develop as a class: and there would have been reason in that, it would almost have been a necessity. But what was done? Everything to nip in the bud even the preconditions for this: the instincts by virtue of which the worker becomes possible as a class, possible in his own eyes, have been destroyed through and through with the most irresponsible thoughtlessness. The worker was qualified for military service, granted the right to organize and to vote: is it any wonder that the worker today experiences his own existence as distressing — morally speaking, as an injustice? But what is wanted? I ask once more. If one wants an end, one must also want the means: if one wants slaves, then one is a fool if one educates them to be masters.” [10]
References:
1. Virtue of Selfishness by Ayn Rand.
2. Beyond Good and Evil
3. Twilight of the Idols
4. Thus Spoke Zarathustra
5. The Antichrist
6. Human, All Too Human
7. Human, All Too Human
8. Thus Spoke Zarathustra
9. The Dawn
10. Twilight of the Idols
Most of the works of Friedrich Nietzsche are in Public Domain.
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