Philosophers on social media, blogs, and other platforms have been increasingly discussing the Student Union ban on the Nietzsche Club at University College London in the last day or so. Sorry I'm not providing links, because I'm not looking for an online rumble, but here are some links to news stories. The first thing to say is that this ban is horrendous and the second is that it has been lifted pending legal advice. What also needs to be understood is that the student union decision was not an attempt to ban discussion of Nietzsche, though it certainly circumscribes discussion of Nietzsche in UCL student union facilities.
The ban was in reaction to a poster of the 'Nietzsche Club' advertising discussion of Alain de Benoist and Julius Evola, alongside Heidegger and Nietzsche. Benoist is the founding and presiding figure of the 'Nouvelle Droite' (New Right, but not to be confused with the Anglosphere free market New Right of the 1980s) in France, which is anti-globalist and anti-free market, also opposing cultural pluralism within nations. Julius Evola (1898-1974) was a writer on southern Asian religion and spirituality, and known to some only in that role. He was also an advocate of authoritarianism, hierarchy and 'tradition', with tradition to be understood as inherently anti-democratic, anti-egalitarian, and anti-modern. Like Benoist now, he liked to present
himself as a thinker above political parties, and had some disagreements with the Italian Fascist regime through which he lived. However, his thought clearly connects with Fascism in various ways, and was certainly not fighting Fascism in Italy, or connected movements in other European countries. His criticisms of Fascism in Italy and National Socialism in Germany are from the point of view of aristocratic elitism and a desire for rule by a spiritual-aristocratic elite. He is frequently classified as a 'Traditionalist', which is to say anti-modern elitist way of thinking. It is a way of thinking that overlaps with Fascism, but is not necessarily the same thing. There is after all more than one way of being anti-democratic and anti-modern.
There are clearly some ways in which Nietzsche overlaps with this current, and there are reasons why ultra-conservative anti-democrats might be interested in his work. I don't think that Nietzsche's thought can be fully contained within such a doctrine, for reasons which include his consistent rejection of the supernatural and his way of using science an antidote to metaphysics and tradition.
The 'Nietzsche Club' at UCL was previously known as 'Tradition UCL' and it is clear enough in the main news reports that the Student Union is targeting 'Traditionalism' rather than Nietzsche. The Student Union in this case means the Council, which appears as if often the case, to be dominated by members of far left groups elected by a very small proportion of students with voting rights. Its assumption that is has the right to form a kind of Committee of Public Safety directed against fascism and associated dangers including 'anti-worker' ideology, through bans on freedom of speech and association is profoundly depressing and wrong.
It must also be said that a lot of people who are shocked and outraged at the supposed ban on a Nietzsche club would be a lot less so if they have spent enough time reading the news reports to realise that the ban is on a far right 'Traditionalist' club. Sadly at least some of the people who are horrified by a ban on Nietzsche discussion would be more accepting of a ban on far right activity on campus. Presuming such activity is peaceful, and while recognising there is some debate to be had about what constitutes 'peaceful', it should be clear to anyone who claims to be a democrat or a liberal of any kind that students have the right to form 'Traditionalist' clubs as much as they have the right to form clubs purely about the philosophy of Nietzsche. Those who doubt this might like to think about how it is possible to exclude bans on notable thinkers like Nietzsche, who have been taken up some on the far right, whatever you might think about their understanding.
On some broader issues round the ban and the reaction to it. I don't think it is a good idea to assume that Traditionalism equals Fascism equals Nazism. I oppose all three, and they have areas of overlap, but an enthusiasm for Evola's spiritual-aristocratic elitism is not the same as advocating the crimes of the Third Reich. Mussolini was appalling but rather less so than Hitler. National Socialism in Germany was influenced by Italian Fascism, but was always more extreme and had its own roots in the extremes of social darwinism, anti-Semitism, and Nordic-Aryan race fantasies.
On the broad issues of Nietzsche interpretation, I do not think it is a good idea to try to extract Nietzsche from unpleasant political associations by suggesting he was straightforwardly non or anti-political. He did not write an obvious treatise on political philosophy, though Cambridge University Press have treated the Genealogy in this way by publishing it in the Cambridge Texts in the History of Poltical Thought series, but the totality of remarks in Nietzsche on the state, law, justice, political leaders, the politics of his time and various moments in history, ideas of 'contract' and other concepts in political philosophy, and so on, do add up to a very considerable legacy in political thought.
A legacy confirmed by the large bibliography of political discussion of Nietzsche. That bibliography contains a very wide range of views on how to take Nietzsche politically, so it is surely best to be reserved about saying what Nietzsche was for or against politically. Nietzsche was certainly a critic of socialism and egalitarianism, this is a very different matter to to support for the authoritarian right, and certainly any attempt at totalitarian politics.
New APPS 
Leave a comment