Synopsis
Nietzsche, the last major – and most radical – philosopher of the Enlightenment, speaks to those who have ambition to lead change, those destined to rise above the humdrum of mundanity and create new standards of excellence. He also criticises Western philosophy for being constrained by reason since the Socratic era. There is no room in his thinking for equalitarianism; philosophy is just interpretation upon interpretation, for Nietzsche. While there is value in his philosophy for leaders, his critique of reason has been appropriated by postmodernists as a weapon of emancipation from capitalism and the institutions that support it. Despite Nietzsche’s demonisation of socialism, the postmodern quest to deconstruct culture through the power of words and language energises the current Marxian quest to reorient western culture through Critical Theory.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
F. Nietzsche, 1968, Will to Power, segment 125. Another quote from the same segment reinforces Nietzsche’s critique of socialism: “—as the logical conclusion of the tyranny of the least and the dumbest, i.e., those who are superficial, envious, and three quarters actors—is indeed entailed by “modern ideas” and their latent anarchism…” Emphasis is Nietzsche’s. I should add, he was no fan of liberalism either! But not with the same vehemence as his detestation of socialism which is all the more paradoxical since some postmodernists, claiming Nietzsche as their inspiration, are cupboard socialists. This is despite postmodernists condemnation of what they call ‘metanarratives’—ideologies claiming universal validity, such as Marxism!
- 2.
Soren Kierkegaard, nineteenth century Danish philosopher cum theologian, who we’ll meet again in Part II, and nineteenth century Russian philosophical novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky who wrote the iconic The Brothers Karamazov, are also considered precursors of postmodernism—a movement they never knew—which started with the existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre in the early twentieth century. Existentialism is not important to us here, except to say it sponsored the rise of philosophical feminism and environmentalism both of which will be explored later.
- 3.
The sophists of 2500 years ago were professional teachers of rhetoric who were paid for their services. This was before sophistry was later regarded as rhetorical obfuscation, what we would regard today as surface sloganeering by elite influencers lacking substance; an art only too prevalent in contemporary politics.
- 4.
Intersectionality is a descriptor of minorities that ranks them according to the number of identities that subjugate their existence. For example, a person who is transgender, black and disabled would have a highly ranked intersectionality; but another who is gay, male and white has a lower intersectionality ranking, to the point of being completely irrelevant if he is a business leader.
- 5.
Sontag (1967), in Feuer, Lewis S. Ideology and the Ideologists, p. 15.
- 6.
Inductive logic, popular in the social sciences, is based on probabilities. For example, the number of black people stereotyped by police as a risk that justifies shooting them during policing activity is an abuse of inductive logic because it assumes black people must all be treated as potential criminals. Other popular examples of invalid inductive logic: because some fundamentalist Moslems are terrorists all Moslems must be feared as terrorists; because some white males are rapists, all white males must be shamed as potential rapists. The value of inductive logic in the social sciences as a claim defining the universal characteristics of a particular cohort group is only as good as the randomness of the survey sample, its size, the boundaries of the label used to describe the group and the appropriateness of the statistical methodology used to derive the conclusion. A laborious task too often ignored by postmodern activists.
- 7.
My interpretation of Nietzsche here is a bit more benign than some passages of his oeuvre suggest. References to the Blond Beast as the prototype for his version of the superman to overcome the current generation of the bungled and botched can be interpreted as both misogynistic and racist—inspiring Nazis and neo-Nazis. The value of many philosophical insights from the past is their adaptability to present circumstances, overlooking the bias in some parts of their origins. For example, we haven’t reached the stage, yet, where we ban Aristotle because he endorsed slavery. This book is primarily addressed to business leaders who obviously come in all genders and skin colours, attributes irrelevant to their leadership acumen.
- 8.
Leaders are tribal to the extent they share loyalty to the company vision with their fellow leaders, among stakeholders and camaraderie with other business leaders.
- 9.
Logocentricity has Semitic religious and Greek philosophical roots. For example, Christ is interpreted to be the Word of God the Father in Christian theology. In Greek philosophy, logos is often interpreted to be reason, next to godliness, all of which is very male centred. Phallocentricity is a pejorative misanthropic interpretation of masculinity in postmodern jargon.
References
Sontag, Susan. 1967. What’s Happening to America (A Symposium). Partisan Review XXXIV (Winter): 56–57.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Dawson, L. (2023). Introducing Nietzsche and Postmodernism. In: A Business Leader’s Guide to Philosophy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-33042-1_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-33042-1_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-031-33041-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-031-33042-1
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)