Sophia Gottfried - 2021 Mitra Scholar

2020-21 Mitra FAMILY GRANT Recipient Break the Old Tablets: How Emma Goldman Utilized Nietzschean Philosophy for Anarchism Sophia Gottfried

Break the Old Tablets: How Emma Goldman Utilized Nietzschean Philosophy for Anarchism

Sophia Gottfried 2021 Mitra Family Scholar Mentors: Mrs. Meredith Cranston, Dr. Shaun Jahshan April 14, 2021

Gottfried 2 Everyone from the postmodernists, to Nazis, to socialists, to capitalists draw from the philosophy of Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche. 1 Nietzsche once wrote that “Every deep thinker is more afraid of being understood than of being misunderstood.” 2 Perhaps the reason why disparate movements utilize his thought so ubiquitously is that he deliberately sought to be misunderstood. Perhaps the reason is that his ideas are so universal every individual can draw upon them. Perhaps the reason is that he never had a political philosophy, thereby allowing his readers to construct one for him, as scholars debate whether he had opinions on government affairs at all.

Currently, there are two prominent schools of thought surrounding Nietzsche’s politics in modern academia. There are scholars like Walter Kaufman, who believe that Nietzsche was apolitical because of his constant derisive attitude toward politics and political groups as well as his focus on individual triumph over the collective advancement of the masses. 3 Opposing those who believe in an apolitical Nietzsche are those who believe that his politics are best described as “aristocratic radicalism,” in which an elite group of philosophers direct society. 4 In this conception, Nietzsche would believe in a similar politics to Plato’s philosopher kingdoms, but also have the philosophers be exemplars of culture. 5

1

Matt McManus, “On Left and Right Nietzscheanism,” Areo, July 19, 2020, https://areomagazine.com/2020/08/19/on-left-and-right-nietzscheanism/.

2

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, trans. Helen Zimmern (2003), Project Gutenberg.

3

Brian Leiter, “Nietzsche's Moral and Political Philosophy.” In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N. Zalta. Last modified April 2, 2021. Accessed April 13, 2021. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2021/entries/nietzsche-moral-political/.

4

Ansell-Pearson, Keith. An Introduction to Nietzsche as Political Thinker: The Perfect Nihilist, 2002 ed.

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 95.

5

Ansell-Pearson, 204-205.

Gottfried 3 The association between Friedrich Nietzsche and the Nazis can be traced to his sister Elisabeth Nietzsche who was a virulent antisemite, but Friedrich looked down upon that aspect of her. 6 After Friedrich Nietzsche’s death, Elisabeth aggressively sold her brother’s philosophy to the Nazis, heavily editing his texts postmortem, and actively working to refashion her brother as her political ally, even going so far as to set up a photo of Hitler at the Nietzsche archives. 7 Sometimes those who suspect him of being discriminatory also mention his friendship with Richard Wagner, who was a proto-Nazi known for his German nationalism, but Nietzsche also broke away from him, because of Wagner’s aforementioned antisemitism and nationalism. 8 Nietzsche often is associated with other forms of bigotry as well, as he is also characterized as one of the most intense misogynists in philosophy. 9 In fact, originally, Nietzsche inspired leftists, as radical anarcho-feminist Emma Goldman was one of the first people to relish his work enough to propagate it and appropriate it.

She was heavily reliant on the philosopher for the foundation of her political theories and often modulated the clash between Nietzschean thought and anarchism in revolutionary ways, influencing the way that Nietzsche’s intellectual legacy has developed. To this end, Emma Goldman repurposed Friedrich Nietzsche's genealogical criticisms of Christian morality, conformity, and the state to build a robust anarcho-feminist philosophy while simultaneously introducing his work into the anarchist canon.

6

Jacob Golomb and Robert S.. Wistrich, eds., Nietzsche, Godfather of Fascism?: On the Uses and Abuses of a Philosophy (Princeton, NJ.: Princeton U Press, 2002), 96, ProQuest Ebook Central.

7

Golomb and Wistrich, 14; Golomb and Wistrich, 112.

8

Golomb and Wistrich, 18-19.

9

Lawrence J. Hatab, “Nietzsche on Women,” Southern Journal of Philosophy, 1981, 333, Academia.edu.

Gottfried 4 Nietzsche’s Life In 1844, years before he proclaimed the death of God, Friedrich Nietzsche was born to a religious family. 10 His father worked for the church as a Lutheran minister, before his death when Nietzsche was five years old. 11 Throughout childhood, young Friedrich often engaged with music, theater, and art, as he began taking piano lessons around the age of seven, wrote a play around twelve, and compiled forty-six poems at fourteen. 12 However, he was a sickly child, who grew into a sickly adult. Nietzsche suffered from many medical difficulties, including everything from eye strain to fatigue to headaches, which caused him to have to occasionally take time off school. 13 Originally he went to university on an academic path to study theology, but he switched to philology (the study of classical civilizations) at the beginning of 1865, because of his interest in and talent for the classics, as well as his pivotal loss of faith. 14 In 1867, Nietzsche was enrolled in the military by German law, but he was swiftly discharged due to an injury he sustained falling off a horse. After leaving martial service, Nietzsche got appointed to a philology professorship at the University of Basel when he was only twenty-four years old. 15 During the same year the university hired him, he decided to reject Prussian citizenship. He never took up citizenship with any other country, so he lived his remaining life without being

10

R. Lanier Anderson, “Friedrich Nietzsche,” in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta, last modified March 17, 2017, accessed April 17, 2021, https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2017/entries/nietzsche/.

11

Anderson, “Friedrich Nietzsche.”

12

Malcolm Brown, “Nietzsche Chronicle,” Nietzsche Chronicle, last modified May 5, 2011, accessed November 26, 2020, http://www.dartmouth.edu/~fnchron/.

13

Brown.

14

Brown.

15

Anderson, “Friedrich Nietzsche.”

Gottfried 5 subject to any government. 16 It is worth noting that in 1874, when all the professors at Basel were given the opportunity to decide on a motion that would allow women to attend the university, Nietzsche cast an affirmative ballot, voting to admit female students. 17 The act failed, because a slim majority of professors voted against it. 18 A few years later, he came to Sorrento at the request of his friend Malwida von Meysenbug (1816-1903), an author, a radical egalitarian, a worker’s rights advocate, and a feminist, to live and learn with fellow free spirits Paul Rée and Albert Brenner. 19 In a letter to von Meysenbug almost a decade later, he fondly writes about the trip: “With regard to what you so kindly said to me at the last moment, I wonder whether it might not prove both refreshing and fruitful for us both once more to join our two solitudes in closest and heartiest proximity!...I should prefer above all to return to Sorrento once more.” 20 In the 1870s, Nietzsche resigned from his professor position at the University of Basel because of his physical ailments. 21 In his postprofessor wanderings, he met Lou Andreas-Salomé (1861-1937), a prominent psychoanalyst who would later become a close friend and a love interest. 22 Lou Salomé was an influential mind in her own right. She helped Freud formulate psychoanalysis, wrote tributes of her friends and

16

Brown, “Nietzsche Chronicle,” Nietzsche Chronicle.

17

Brown.

18

Sue Prideaux, “Far Right, Misogynist, Humourless? Why Nietzsche Is Misunderstood,” The Guardian (London, UK), October 6, 2018, accessed August 8, 2020, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/oct/06/explodingnietzsche-myths-need-dynamiting.

19

“Malwida Rivalier von Meysenbug,” in Encyclopedia of 1848 Revolutions (James Chastain, 1999, 2005), https://www.ohio.edu/chastain/ip/meysenb.htm; Brown, “Nietzsche Chronicle,” Nietzsche Chronicle.

20

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Selected Letters of Friedrich Nietzsche, ed. Oscar Levy, trans. Anthony M. Ludovici (London, UK: William Heinemann, 1921), 196, The Internet Archive.

21

Brown. “Nietzsche Chronicle,” Nietzsche Chronicle.

22

Brown.

Gottfried 6 mentors, and published autobiographical essays. She wrote a poem that Nietzsche enjoyed so much he wrote music for it. 23 Then, the intellectual trio of Salomé, Nietzsche, and Rée cofounded a commune of sorts, focused upon free writing (see fig. 1). 24

Figure 1. Salomé, Rée, and Nietzsche posed together for a picture. Salomé brandishes a whip.

The picture was taken at Nietzsche’s request. Kurt Wolff and Helen Wolff, Photograph of Lou Andreas-Salomé, Paul Rée and Friedrich Nietzsche, Yale University Library Digital Collections.

In 1883, there was trouble in paradise as Nietzsche got into a major fight with Rée and Salomé, possibly because he and Rée harbored romantic feelings for Salomé. 25 Also that year, Nietzsche published the first part of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, one of his most well-known

23

Rudolph Binion, “Lou Andreas-Salomé,” in Europe 1789-1914: Encyclopedia of the Age of Industry and Empire, ed. John Merriman and Jay Winter (New York, NY: Charles Scriber's Sons, 2006), Gale In Context.

24

Binion, “Lou Andreas-Salomé.”

25

Brown, “Nietzsche Chronicle,” Nietzsche Chronicle.

Gottfried 7 books. 26 In 1884, he broke off relationships with his sister because of her intense antisemitism and marriage to well-known white supremacist Bernhard Förster. 27 Nietzsche's health steeply decayed in the last ten years of his life. 28 He became less and less capable of writing and caring for himself, and instead was cared for by his friends and family members. 29 His sister began to plant the seeds for what would become the Nietzsche archive when he was still alive, buying the publishing rights to her brother’s texts, working with comrades to get a building ready, and trying to forge her own work out of Friedrich’s notes. 30 Having already lost the ability to walk, write, and critique, Nietzsche perished in August 1900. 31 Nietzsche’s Methods As a philosopher, Nietzsche is not merely known for his determinations, but also the epistemological methods he used to reach those determinations. Unlike most of the Western philosophical canon that attempts to construct a clear, unified weltanschauung (philosophy or worldview), Nietzsche often played with ideas that conflict with each other. 32 Thus, scholars have deeply conflicting interpretations of what he actually means to convey via his nebulous aphorisms. 33 He engaged with so many ideas because he believed that the ideal thinker is a “free spirit” or a “free mind,” which is exemplified by constantly considering new ideas to prevent 26

Brown.

27

Brown.

28

Brown.

29

Brown.

30

Brown.

31

Brown.

32

Bernard Reginster, “Honesty and Curiosity in Nietzsche's Free Spirits,” Journal of the History of Philosophy 51, no. 3 (July 2013), 441, ProQuest Research Library.

33

Reginster, 441.

Gottfried 8 oneself from becoming entrenched in “dogmatism.” 34 This mindset values being free to play with differing perspectives, being curious about other perspectives, and questioning one’s own reasoning, rather than becoming too comfortable or emotionally attached to a fixed worldview.” 35 Also, he put a strong emphasis on being intellectually honest without having to fear being incorrect or heretical; that is, he believed that a free spirit would be open and not attempt to avoid conceptions that were taboo or distasteful. 36 This ideal explains why he often made his form paradoxical, purposefully confusing, and polemic, as his style of thinking both attempted to embody the paragon of the free thinker, but also to encourage free thinking in others.

Another method that Nietzsche is famous for utilizing a genealogical method. Like a family genealogy, this method involves a historical investigation into the intellectual roots of an idea or sentiment. Particularly, genealogies involve looking at the legal, linguistic, and psychological development of a concept, instead of looking at it as a purely logical idea bound to the present purpose society ascribes. 37 This method of examination involves looking both at the essence, which is the stable, immutable aspect of an idea, as well as the constructed meaning ascribed throughout various cultures and epochs in history. 38 Nietzsche used the genealogy of an idea to interrogate its value by demonstrating how it rose out of socio-cultural circumstances. 39

34

Reginster, 442.

35

Reginster, 442-43.

36

Reginster, 446-48.

37

Brian Leiter, Nietzsche on Morality (London, UK.: Routledge, 2002), 165-68, Academia.edu.

38

Leiter, 167-68.

39

Leiter, 167.

Gottfried 9 This strategy functioned as an act of iconoclasm for Nietzsche, as his genealogies aimed to reveal that sacred, universal rules, such as morality, punishment, and justice are not usually as benevolent or immutable as one is led to believe.

Nietzsche’s genealogies are distinct from the utilitarian style that his ex-friend Paul Rée employed where the genealogist gages the pragmatic impact of a concept throughout history, and are separate from the materialist genealogies that Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels employed which focused on how physical events affect ideas and mind, thereby tending to avoid psychology. 40 Nietzsche had a different aim than the English genealogies, because he did not dive into his investigations assuming that all the concepts that he studied would possess any value. Nietzsche focused on the mind more than Marx and Engels and less on structures of oppression, as Nietzsche’s philosophy advocates for individual change, whether that be change to an individual or change brought about by that individual. This method is useful to anyone who is dissatisfied with the status quo and wishes to place skepticism on conventional values. The appeal may also be the reason Nietzsche’s method appears everywhere. However, Nietzschean genealogies have the added benefit of placing psychological investigation on the center stage, as it allowed him to interrogate motivation behind the creation of concepts as well as their consequences.

Nietzsche’s Criticisms One of the conceptions that Nietzsche subjected to investigation was morality. He most famously scrutinized ethical values in his book The Genealogy of Morals. He charted the development of ethics from the Greeks to the modern age, concluding that conventional morals

40

Jesse Prinz, “Genealogies of Morals: Nietzsche's Method Compared,” Journal of Nietzsche Studies 47, no. 2 (Summer 2016), JSTOR.

Gottfried 10 are not motivated by the goodness of man, nor do they possess any logical transcendent properties, rather, they are motivated by ressentiment (Middle French for resentment) and ultimately are detrimental to human flourishing. 41 He reached this conclusion by first investigating the etymology of words used to denote good, revealing that originally “good” was used to refer to expressions of power and joy such as: “war, adventure, hunting, dancing, jousting, and everything else that contains strong, free, happy action.” 42 This original ideal of the good was held by those who were allowed to engage in such pursuits because of their position: the aristocrats. 43 They were able to affirm themselves with this idea of good. However, there was another class of people prohibited from the aristocratic conception of the good: the slaves.

According to the Nietzschean account, slaves were envious of aristocrats’ ability to do as they wished, and concocted a way to cope with their suffering by constructing their own values. 44 These slave-constructed values were the opposite of aristocratic ideals so that the slaves could cast themselves as “good,” as a way to bolster their self-satisfaction, and cast their masters as “evil” as a form of mental revenge. 45 Since the slaves resented the masters’ pride, they began to esteem humility as a virtue. 46 Since the slaves resented the masters’ privilege to engage with luxury, self-control became a virtue. 47 However, somewhere in history, Nietzsche hypothesized

41

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, ‘On the Genealogy of Morality’ and Other Writings, ed. Keith Ansell-Pearson, trans. Carol Diethe (Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 20.

42

Nietzsche 17, 21.

43

Nietzsche, 12.

44

Ansell-Pearson, An Introduction, 155; Nietzsche, ‘On the Genealogy, 28.

45

Nietzsche, ‘On the Genealogy, 23.

46

Leiter, Nietzsche on Morality, 152.

47

Leiter, 152.

Gottfried 11 that the slaves engaged in a trans-evaluation of values, a revolution of sorts where the slave morality became the triumphant system of ethics in culture, and master morality sank into the shadows. 48 The average modernist would say that this event signals progress, that society was shedding its old barbaric value system in favor of a more enlightened, kinder ideology.

Nietzsche, on the contrary, thought slave morality destroyed the pinnacles of human achievement, the loss of the appreciation of artistic suffering, mediocrity, and suppression of instincts. 49 He charged Christianity with sanctifying slave morality. In The Genealogy, Nietzsche uses the terms “slave morality,” “priestly morality,” and “Christian morality” interchangeably, suggesting that Christianity values are the latest iteration of slave values. 50 Christianity, in the Nietzschean view, holds a “hostility against life” by punishing natural emotions (lust, pride, and ambition.) via guilt, erasing truth with faithfulness, and sanctifying the regressive, vengeful morality. 51 Nietzsche claimed that the most disastrous effect of morality and religion is nihilism or the belief that the world has no objective value. In particular, he rejected negative nihilism, the idea that without an objective meaning one ought to take an antagonistic relationship toward life, looking at it as horrendous, a punishment, or a burden to be suffered. With the death of God and the banality of modern life, negative nihilism became a blight upon humanity, destroying the

48

Nietzsche, ‘On the Genealogy, 33-34.

49

Leiter, Nietzsche on Morality, 129-35.

50

Nietzsche, ‘On the Genealogy, 10-36.

51

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, “The Antichrist,” in The Portable Nietzsche, trans. Walter Kaufmann (London, UK.: Penguin Group, 1954), 574, Internet Archive; Nietzsche, “The Antichrist,” in The Portable, 575; Nietzsche, Beyond Good.

Gottfried 12 individual’s ability to give value to life. 52 He outlined the position of the nihilist with this quote in Thus Spoke Zarathustra: And I saw a great sadness descend upon mankind. The best grew weary of their works. A doctrine appeared, accompanied by a faith: “All is empty, all is the same, all has been!”

And from all the hills it echoed: “All is empty, all is the same, all has been!” 53 If every action, every life, every achievement is the same value, a value close or equal to zero, then the summation of those components also has a near-zero value, and there is no point striving for the types of great deeds, meaningful lives, or genius works of art that Nietzsche believed redeem human existence. Thus, Nietzsche attributes much of his era’s sickness to nihilism because it stripped man of meaning.

Nietzsche’s Solutions Nietzsche proposed two solutions, which some scholars deem contradictory, to the lack of meaning and overabundance of ressentiment. The first was amor fati (love of fate), which is also called life affirmation. In The Gay Science, Nietzsche posed the thought experiment of the eternal recurrence: imagine that a higher being reveals to you that instead of life being a linear process from birth to death to some great beyond, life is cyclical, meaning that once you die you are born again to repeat your existence exactly as it was over and over again eternally. 54 One’s reaction to this condemnation revealed how much they love their fate, how much value one puts upon life in itself rather than life as a means to some transcendent cause. 55 He believed that if 52

Nietzsche, ‘On the Genealogy, 25-26.

53

Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None, trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Modern Library, 1995), 133.

54

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs, trans.

Walter Kaufmann (New York: Random House, 1974), 273-74.

55

Nietzsche, 274.

Gottfried 13 one does not already embrace every moment of their past and future, even the painful or undesirable ones, they should strive to do so. 56 This challenge encourages a particularly hearty joyous affirmation of all of life, the end is supposed to be an unconditional love for one’s existence. 57 He described this goal as the following: “I want to learn more and more to see as beautiful what is necessary in things; then I shall be one of those who make things beautiful.

Amor fati: let that be my love henceforth! I do not want to wage war against what is ugly… someday I wish to be only a Yes-sayer.” 58 This iteration of the Nietzschean ideal is characterized as a perceptive optimist and a generous lover rather than a brutal fighter.

His ideal counteracts nihilism because where negative nihilism decries one’s life as empty, thereby encouraging one to find meaning by serving a transcendent purpose such as God or morality, amor fati encourages the individual to fill their life with self-imbued value. Life affirmation runs contrary to Christian devaluation, as glorification of the self and one’s life necessitates acceptance of so-called sin. 59 Thus, amor fati cuts away the self-hating, selfdestructive tendencies that Nietzsche believed to stem from the guilt that Christianity and other forms of slave morality plant in peoples’ souls.

The second solution Nietzsche posited is to become an exemplary type of individual who exists beyond good and evil, and he used terms like übermensch, sovereign individual, and new philosopher to articulate this idea. 60 To become one of these “great-souled” individuals, one

56

Ansell-Pearson, An Introduction, 111-12.

57

Anderson, “Friedrich Nietzsche.”

58

Nietzsche, The Gay Science, 223.

59

Anderson, “Friedrich Nietzsche.”

60

Anderson; Ansell-Pearson, An Introduction, 135.

Gottfried 14 must consistently overcome and improve upon oneself, to be able to shed one’s values in order to grow stronger. 61 But what ideal did Nietzsche aim at? First, he invoked the sovereign individual, also called the “philosopher of the future,” who is a person that both exercises authoritative selfcontrol, or the ability to keep in sight what holds importance to them, and subordinates all other concerns of morality, religion, and herd opinion under these endeavors. 62 The übermensch (overman) is an elusive concept in Nietzsche, as he both appeared to invoke historical examples of humans close to the archetype such as Goethe, Da Vinci, and Napoleon, but also implied that it is an ideal that has not yet been realized. “Man is a rope, tied between beast and overman—a rope over an abyss. A danger across, a dangerous on-the-way, a dangerous looking-back, a dangerous shuddering and stopping.” 63 The übermensch, is essentially a more radical version of the sovereign individual, as he (Nietzsche uses only male examples) through unbound creativity has the potential to bring about another cataclysmic re-evaluation of values, to “break the old tablets” as he writes in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, and replace the old rules with proactive, life-affirming values, instead of the reactive, nihilistic, slave morality. 64 The common ground between these two ideals illustrates that Nietzsche esteemed joyous, artistic, creative, powerful, individuals who have the ability to rise above the herd and manufacture new values.

Nietzsche’s Political Thought

61

Nietzsche, Thus Spoke, 115-16, 118.

62

Julian Young, Friedrich Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge U Press, 2010), 467, Ebook Central.

63

Ansell-Pearson, An Introduction, 105-06; Nietzsche, Thus Spoke, 17.

64

Nietzsche, 198-200.

Gottfried 15 Within political philosophy, Nietzsche’s world view is hard to pin down. Most notably, he attacked the state. While Zarathustra, Nietzsche’s prophet in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, is talking to a hellhound in a volcano he draws a comparison between the beast and the government: “Like you, the state is a hypocritical hound; like you, it likes to talk with smoke and bellowing—to make himself believe, like you, that he is talking out of the belly of reality. For he wants to be by all means the most important beast on earth, the state; and they believe him too.” 65 This comparison reveals the government to be an impostor, as the state fashions itself as a god, a new idol, a self-centered replacement for religion and arbiter of morality, and holds up its illusion of authority with fanciful propaganda. Nietzsche considered the state to be the ultimate liar, and reiterated the concept of the government as a beastly being: State? What is that? Well then, open your ears to me, for now I shall speak to you about the death of peoples. State is the name of the coldest of all cold monsters. Coldly it tells lies too; and this lie crawls out of its mouth: “But the state tells lies in all the tongues of good and evil; and whatever it says it lies—and whatever it has it has stolen.” 66 This polemic highlights the epistemic damage of the state, how it deceives citizens to believe that the laws, which the government enacts are for moral benefits, are objective determiners of right and wrong rather than expressions of a certain will or perspective.

Furthermore, Nietzsche despised the state for destroying culture, thieving individuality, covering up the truth, and suppressing “great souled” individuals. 67

65

Nietzsche, 132.

66

Nietzsche, 50.

67

Nietzsche, 48-51.

Gottfried 16 Although he was no ally of the government, he wrote virulent critiques of anarchists. In The Genealogy he claims that “... ressentiment ... thrives best amongst anarchists and antisemites ...” 68 Nietzsche considered ressentiment to be at the root of the most life-denying behaviors, and disavowed anarchists’ cultivation of envy. Also, he considered anarchists and communists among the “preachers of equality” that degrade mankind because of their pursuit of a purely egalitarian society. 69 For Nietzsche, egalitarian movements deny basic realities about the world, foremost that hierarchy always exists and always will exist, and discourage people from pursuing the type of greatness that übermenschen or sovereign individuals signify. Another objection he held against the anarchists is that they are deconstructive rather than constructive; that they want to destroy conventions out of dissatisfaction but have not themselves imagined a vision for society. 70 This opposition would make sense if one agreed with the school of thought that Nietzsche believed in a type of “aristocratic radicalism” or “Great Politics” in which he glorified hierarchy and wished for a sort of adventurous and philosophical ruling class, which is ideologically in conflict with anarchism. 71 In a letter to his friend Nietzsche wrote, “If we win, we have overcome the absurd boundaries between race, nation, and classes (Stände): there exists from now on only order of rank (Rang) between human beings”. 72 His discernment suggests that Nietzsche favored certain forms of hierarchy, which would likely be ordered according to one’s aesthetic abilities or one’s capacity to properly affirm life, over systems of ranking based on

68

Nietzsche, ‘On the Genealogy, 49.

69

Nietzsche, Thus Spoke, 100-02.

70

Young, Friedrich Nietzsche, 467.

71

Ansell-Pearson, An Introduction, 148-49.

72

Young, Friedrich Nietzsche, 427.

Gottfried 17 physical characteristics or monetary resources. Perhaps Nietzsche was a greater preacher of equality than he himself realized?

Nietzsche, who is often pegged as an aggressive misogynist, held paradoxical opinions on women throughout various stages of his life. As mentioned in the biographical section, he always kept a large entourage of feminists around him, and early in life, he advocated for women, especially in education. 73 However, after Lou Salomé rejected his advances and their friendship decayed, he seemed to be set against the women’s rights movement, even though he still attracted a large feminist following and maintained fond friendships with suffragettes. 74 However, some of his friends were upset at his disparagement of the women’s movement. 75 Although he became caustic towards feminism, he maintained that both men and women could engage with his philosophy even after he turned on women’s rights. In Zarathustra, he clearly states: “Thus I want man and woman: the one fit for war, the other fit to give birth, but both fit to dance with head and limbs.” 76 Nietzsche often used the concept of dancing to denote the action of engaging with life-affirmation, particularly in the form of amor fati, value creation, or aesthetic revelation. 77 So, although he considered men and women to have different secondary roles, he considered them to have the same primary role in his philosophy. Also, he criticized Christian ideals of pure women in his aphorism “On female chastity,” pointing out that society has the illogical tendency to imbue women with shame and encourage a lack of education

73

Young, 398-400.

74

Young, 398.

75

Young, 398.

76

Nietzsche, Thus Spoke, 210.

77

Nietzsche, 41; Nietzsche, 112; Nietzsche, 179; Nietzsche, 191.

Gottfried 18 regarding sexuality, then expect them to lose all resolutions against sex and embrace it fullheartedly as part of their role in marriage. 78 He also appeared to consider some traits that he considers naturally feminine to be admirable. 79 Madness, nature, chaos, are traditionally feminine concepts and ones that Nietzsche highly esteemed, while reason, civilization, and order are traditionally masculine concepts he criticized harshly. 80 However, he also wrote some famously sexist aphorisms and put forth biting critiques of the women’s rights movement. He penned the very famous quotation, written the same year as his break with Lou Salomé, “You are going to women? Do not forget the whip!” 81 These words, taken at face value, exhort the reader to take a domineering, perhaps even violent, stance towards women. He also stated: All women are subtle in exaggerating their weakness; they are inventive when it comes to weaknesses in order to appear as utterly fragile ornaments who are hurt even by a speck of dust. Their existence is supposed to make men feel clumsy, and guilty on that score.

Thus they defend themselves against the strong and “the law of the jungle.” 82 It is difficult to determine the tone of the above passage, as Nietzsche consistently wrote negatively about guilt as a self-destructive emotion that acts as a plight on human consciousness, but he also called women “inventive” for this chameleonic tactic of self-defense and seems to have suggested that women are stronger than they appear. Furthermore, some evidence suggests

78

Nietzsche, The Gay Science, 127.

79

Lawrence J. Hatab, “Nietzsche on Women,” Southern Journal of Philosophy, 1981, 335, 337, Academia.edu.

80

Hatab, 337-39.

81

Nietzsche, Thus Spoke, 67.

82

Nietzsche, The Gay Science, 125.

Gottfried 19 that the reason why Nietzsche grew to oppose feminism as a movement was because he believed that it made women less feminine. 83 Goldman’s Life Shortly before her death, Emma Goldman wrote a small pamphlet titled “Was My Life Worth Living?” She painted a picture of herself as fighting for the same ideals of joy and freedom all her life, even when thrown in jail, even when none of her comrades nor popular opinion stood with her, and even when she did not see material gains or ideological victories. 84 Even though the very editors that published her memoir called her “a lost cause,” she did not consider herself unfortunate or bemoan the fact her ideals were no longer popular. 85 About her existence, she wrote “If I had my life to live over again, like anyone else, I should wish to alter minor details. But in any of my more important actions and attitudes I would repeat my life as I have lived it.” 86 Goldman was born in 1869 to a Jewish family in Kovno, Lithuania. 87 In her young life, she was harassed by her abusive father, made to sacrifice her education to support her family, and sexually assaulted by a hotel clerk. 88 At age fifteen, she left her country by boat, coming to Rochester, New York to avoid being trapped in an arranged marriage. 89 In America, she was 83

Hatab, 339.

84

Emma Goldman, Was My Life Worth Living? (Anarchist Library, 1934), 1-9, The Internet Archive.

85

Goldman, 3.

86

Goldman, 9.

87

Mary Ellen Snodgrass, “Goldman, Emma (1869-1940),” in Civil Disobedience: An Encyclopedic History of Dissidence in the United States (Armonk, NY: Myron E. Sharpe, 2008), 1:143.

88

Paul Avrich and Karen Avrich, Sasha and Emma: The Anarchist Odyssey of Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman (Cambridge, MA.: Harvard U Press, 2012), 15-16, Ebook Central.

89

Snodgrass, “Goldman, Emma,” 1:143.

Gottfried 20 outraged by the execution of the anarchists involved in the Haymarket Riot, a workers’ rights protest that turned violent when police became involved. 90 The anarchists were punished by execution for the violence while the police received no legal punishment, and the injustice of this event pushed her toward anarchist philosophy. 91 In 1889, she met Alexander Berkman, a fellow anarchist who would remain Goldman’s lifelong friend and lover, and they clicked because of mutual admiration as well as similar political sympathies. 92 In 1890, she journeyed upon her first lecture tour, the beginning of her long, successful career in public speaking. 93 In 1892 a labor demonstration against Carnegie Steel in Homestead, Pennsylvania turned bloody. Known as the Homestead Strike, the incident drove Goldman and some of her comrades to New York City to radicalize people moved by the Andrew Carnegie’s cruel crackdown. 94 They also began to plan the assassination of the man behind the Homestead Strike’s brutality, Henry Clay Frick, but the attempt on his life failed, and the assassination plot was heavily publicized to vilify the anarchist movement. 95 In late 1892, a fellow anarchist and later lover Edward Brady introduced Goldman to classical literature, including Rousseau, Voltaire, Blake, and Mill. 96 While she was digesting political theory, her political activism continued. She was sent to Blackwell’s Island prison for a yearlong sentence, because she was found guilty of

90

Snodgrass, “Haymarket Riot,” 1:152.

91

Snodgrass, “Haymarket Riot,” 1:152-53.

92

Avrich and Avrich, 21; Avrich and Avrich 33.

93

Avrich and Avrich, 40.

94

Avrich and Avrich, 50, 58.

95

Avrich and Avrich, 58, 68, 77.

96

Avrich and Avrich, 111-12.

Gottfried 21 inciting violence. 97 While in prison, she read, building on the classical literature by engaging with the transcendentalists, who would influence her later writings. 98

Figure 2. E. Goldman, two views - profile and frontal. Goldman’s mugshot. 1901. Publisher Bain News Services. The Library of Congress.

After she was released, she went to Germany to study medicine, and there she became acquainted with Nietzsche’s philosophy. 99 Goldman fell in love with his work, as she puts in her autobiography: I had to do my reading at the expense of much-needed sleep; but what was physical strain in view of my raptures over Nietzsche? The fire of his soul, the rhythm of his song, made life richer, fuller, and more wonderful for me. I wanted to share these treasures with my beloved, and I wrote him long letters depicting the new world I had discovered. His

97

Snodgrass, “Goldman, Emma,” 1:143; Avrich and Avrich, Sasha and Emma, 114, 116.

98

Avrich and Avrich, 118.

99

Emma Goldman, Living My Life (New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1931), The Anarchist Library.

Gottfried 22 replies were evasive; Ed evidently did not share my fervour [sic] for the new art. He was more interested in my studies and in my health, and he urged me not to tax my energies with idle reading. I was disappointed, but I consoled myself that he would appreciate the revolutionary spirit of the new literature when he had a chance to read it for himself. 100 After her sojourn in Germany, she traveled all over the world speaking. 101 When President McKinley was assassinated in 1901, and Goldman was blamed for inciting the crime and her engagements fell away. 102 Theodore Roosevelt attempted to characterize all anarchists as unsavory criminals, and Goldman became extremely unpopular in the public sphere, which forced her to retreat from political activism for a while. 103 She founded the anarchist magazine Mother Earth in 1906, edited by Alexander Berkman and her other similarly minded friends, but it was not purely political but also published literature and drawings. 104 In 1919 her citizenship was taken from her after her imprisonment, and the United States banished her from its soil. 105 However, years later she found her way back into the country. 106 In 1936, at the age of 67, she journeyed to unstable Spain to help the anarchists’ cause, by supporting the troops with her

100

Goldman.

101

Snodgrass, “Goldman, Emma,” 1:144.

102

Avrich and Avrich, Sasha and Emma, 167.

103

Avrich and Avrich, 168-69.

104

Avrich and Avrich, 187, 252.

105

Snodgrass, “Goldman, Emma,” 1:144.

106

Snodgrass, “Goldman, Emma,” 1:144-145.

Gottfried 23 medical skills, oratorical ability, and strategic knowledge. 107 Goldman met her end in 1940, not on the battlefield or in a prison, but in a hospital, after having suffered two strokes. 108 Goldman’s Anarchism The political philosophy of anarchism in general concerns itself with the deconstruction of unfounded hierarchies, often those systems held up by the state, and the foundation of communities in which exploitation is extinct.109 Throughout Goldman’s life, particularly in the 20th century, a large-scale debate raged between individualistic anarchists, such as Stirner, de Cleyre and Tucker; and collectivist anarchists, such as Kropotkin. Goldman belonged mostly to the former. 110 The root of Goldman’s anarchist philosophy dwells her critique of conventional morality.

The best example of this critique appears in her essay “The Hypocrisy of Puritanism,” in which Goldman objects that Puritanism, which came to the United States via the pilgrims, sowed the seeds for contemporary American moral values, values that are harmful because they prohibit art and culture from flourishing, unbounded joy from appearing, and anyone straying from conformity. 111 The content of this critique is extremely similar to Nietzsche’s attack on conventional European values, as they isolate almost the same harms, and are both concerned with the suppression of greatness and natural instincts. As she writes on the suppressive

107

Avrich and Avrich, Sasha and Emma, 391.

108

Avrich and Avrich, 398-99.

109

Andrew Fiala, "Anarchism," in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ed. Edward N. Zalta, last modified February 12, 2018. Accessed April 13, 2021. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2018/entries/anarchism/.

110

Kevin Morgan, “Herald of the Future? Emma Goldman, Friedrich Nietzsche and the Anarchist as Superman,” Anarchist Studies 17, no. 2 (Autumn-Winter 2009): Gale in Context: Opposing Viewpoints.

111

Emma Goldman, Anarchism and Other Essays (New York-London, NY-UK: Mother Earth Publishing Association, 1911), 75, The Anarchist Library.

Gottfried 24 worldview of Puritanism, “In order to redeem himself man must … repudiate every natural and healthy impulse, and turn his back on joy and beauty.” 112 In accordance with her Nietzscheanism, Goldman is clear that the most detrimental impact of this self-hatred and ideological tyranny is the destruction of meaning to life as well as the fettering of “free spirit.” 113 Particularly, she invokes historical examples of how conventional morality harmed Oscar Wilde, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Percy Shelley, figures who she considered great minds, as evidence for why puritanical ethics should be done away with. 114 This argument aligns well with Nietzsche’s contention that societal morals repress creative, eccentric individuals. Goldman worried more about the harm that came to innocent people than Nietzsche did, and she raised concerns about how Puritanism created issues in bodily health, economic disparity, and general quality of life for the masses. None of these were a concern for the German philosopher, as he would have considered worrying about such matters to be indicative of life-denying pity. 115 “The Hypocrisy of Puritanism” is similar in form to The Genealogy, as Goldman employs a genealogical criticism as Nietzsche does, by examining the cultural significance of these values over time and how the enforcement of mores changed with an intent to critique. 116 Although, instead of making a claim about all Western values and all Western victims, Emma localized her critique to both the English-speaking world and decided to focus on how Puritanism particularly affected women. 117 112

Goldman 72.

113

Goldman 75.

114

Goldman 75.

115

Goldman 74-75.

116

Goldman, 72-73.

117

Goldman, 73-74.

Gottfried 25 Particularly, she focused on how Puritanism controls women via the concept of moral purity, specifically in regards to sexuality. 118 In her worldview, chastity is an unreasonable expectation of women that leads to “limited enjoyment of life, sleeplessness and preoccupation with sexual desires” among other negative side effects. 119 She expanded this argument in “The Traffic in Women,” proclaiming that because women are treated as sex objects while also being taught that their supposed usage is shameful, leads to psychological issues, which in turn, she claimed, led to prostitution. 120 The reason that prostitution was so prevalent, according to Goldman, is manifold. She believed that in some cases the Puritan prohibition on female sexuality led women to counteract their sexual repression by becoming prostitutes, while simultaneously the societal encouragement of women becoming sexual commodities also drove some women toward the sex trade. 121 Goldman utilized a very Nietzschean idea to examine a politically relevant social issue of her time. Her theory echoed Nietzsche’s aphoristic observation about the hypocrisy of societal expectations for women.

Goldman considered the state a thief of individuality and a destroyer of relationships. She particularly focused on the American state, and within it, patriotism and the prison system. She considered the former a type of “superstition,” a worship of the state as an idol fostered by constant propaganda. 122 “Patriotism is inexorable and, like all insatiable monsters, demands all

118

Goldman, 73.

119

Goldman, 74.

120

Goldman, 79-90.

121

Goldman, 77-78.

122

Goldman, 55.

Gottfried 26 or nothing. It does not admit that a soldier is also a human being …” 123 Note the similar rhetoric to the passages on the state from Zarathustra, as Goldman and Nietzsche both compare the state to hungry beasts. The ideas in both texts are also similar, as both thinkers believe the state holds a godlike status in society, that allegiance to one’s state destroys individual thought, that the state destroys interpersonal relationships as well as tribal communities based on familial relationships and shared beliefs. 124 Localizing the critique of morality and connecting it to larger social issues let Goldman metamorphose Nietzschean philosophical ideas into political ones. Much of Nietzsche’s work is made up of wider, more nebulous psychological speculation about the zeitgeist, human nature, language, and culture. 125 His ideas are meant to be applied to the unique individual, rather than sweep through the masses to create wider societal change. 126 Goldman made Nietzsche’s ideas political by adding specificity to them. Whereas he criticized the morality of the entire European continent or the entire world, Goldman focused on the particular issues of the United States’ conventional morality. She focused on how morality and religion affected certain subgroups, particularly the proletariat and women. This strategy allowed her to reach a wider audience by connecting with already existing movements: workers’ rights and feminism. Furthermore, she connected her immaterial ideas to contentious political issues, such as the funding of the military, prostitution, the police force, and free speech. Whereas Nietzsche’s open-ended ideas leave the reader to interrupt who are the slaves of spirit and who are the sovereign individuals, allowing

123

Goldman, 60.

124

Goldman, 59, 61-62.

125

Anderson, “Friedrich Nietzsche.”

126

Leiter, “Nietzsche's Moral.”

Gottfried 27 any ideology to appropriate them, Goldman narrowed the focus of these ideas to their application.

Goldman’s Ideal Emma Goldman’s ideal is a society built on free relations, the absence of both mentally and physically oppressive forces, and joyous creation. As she wrote in her own words: “Anarchism, then, really stands for the liberation of the human mind from the dominion of religion; the liberation of the human body from the dominion of property; liberation from the shackles and restraint of government.” 127 These words paint a picture of a paradise founded on negative liberties, where each person has the ability to construct themselves and their own values. She also wished to allow each person to live according to their will, making every banal occupation “an instrument of joy, of strength, of color, of real harmony, so that the poorest sort of a man should find in work both recreation and hope.” 128 Her goals of “joy” and “strength” are extremely Nietzschean, notice that she mentioned those values as opposed to freedom from pain, equality, or other common anarchist motifs.

She held on to an idea of a hierarchy of spirit, believed that certain individuals will propel society forward with their inventions and creations. Unlike the majority of anarchists, she appeared to have elitist sympathies. 129 In her essay “Minorities Versus Majorities,” she berated the masses, almost as much as Nietzsche berated the herd, and she conceptualized a select few of

127

Goldman, 27.

128

Goldman, 26.

129

Morgan, “Herald of the Future?”

Gottfried 28 educated, artistic types would propel society forward. 130 This tendency is exceedingly strange for an anarchist, but not so strange for a Nietzschean.

Her favor for the idea of higher individuals manifests in this passage: “The individual educator imbued with honesty of purpose, the artist or writer of original ideas, the independent scientist or explorer, the non-compromising pioneers of social changes are daily pushed to the wall by men whose learning and creative ability have become decrepit with age.” 131 Thus, Goldman idolized the same sovereign individual, or übermensch, that Nietzsche espoused. 132 Like Nietzsche, her worldview valued creation, will, originality, and free-spiritedness, as she believed these qualities bring higher meaning to life. 133 Because she believed in a communist society, she diagnosed the status quo as mainly to blame for the herd’s banality, because it is capitalism upholding poverty, the state suppressing freedom, and other oppressive forces that render men so unremarkable. 134 Through these critiques, she was able to reconcile her egalitarianism with her praise of the individual. In her free society, she believed that even the lowliest wretch would find some value to their life and create something worthwhile. As she iterated while defending Nietzsche that “this vision of the Uebermensch [sic] also called for a state of society which will not give birth to a race of weaklings and slaves.” 135 Her tendency to ascribe all the great achievements of humanity to a select few privileged individuals, and to

130

Goldman, Anarchism and Other, 31.

131

Goldman, 31.

132

Morgan, “Herald of the Future?”

133

Morgan; Goldman, 75, 90.

134

Goldman, 30-31, 33-34.

135

Goldman, 19.

Gottfried 29 idolize their personal qualities, was a product of the inequalities present in her status quo. 136 She particularly blamed a dearth of liberal education for the mediocrity of the mob. 137 In an ideal society, where everyone would have access to adequate materialistic and academic resources, her emphasis on selective souls becoming great individuals would lessen, instead the plenitude of material resources would allow the majority of people an opportunity to achieve the status of a great individual. An idea central to Goldman’s philosophy is that human nature has the power to be changed by societal conditions. She thus constructed many of her policy proposals with the goal to create a world in which more worthy individuals would be able to achieve the status of greatness.

Goldman’s Feminism Like Nietzsche, Goldman had a deeply ambivalent relationship with the contemporary feminist movements of her time. Most of early twentieth-century feminism was defined by the suffrage movement. Mainstream feminists focused on writing pamphlets, protesting, and organizing conferences in order to pressure all levels of government to give women the ability to vote. 138 However, Goldman was against suffrage, on the grounds that bourgeois women often opposed the labor movement, that women are indoctrinated by the illusion of conventional morals, and that the right to vote acts as a chain to bind citizens to the state. 139

136

Goldman, 64-66.

137

Goldman, 69-70.

138

“Suffrage in the 20th Century: Introduction,” in 19th Century, Topics and Authors, ed. Jessica Bomarito and Jeffrey W. Hunter, vol. 2, Feminism in Literature: A Gale Critical Companion (Detroit, MI: Gale, 2005), Gale Ebooks.

139

Goldman, Anarchism and Other, 104-14.

Gottfried 30 She started her polemic essay against women’s suffrage with Nietzsche’s memorable whip aphorism to reveal how women are often the most adamant supporters of the systems that oppress their individuality. 140 Goldman observed that suffragettes used arguments from Christianity, that all humans are equal under God; from conventional morality, that women are naturally more pure than man; or from the concept of citizenship to justify their right to vote, that participating in politics makes them become better servants of the state. 141 Goldman considered these systems harmful to women and society as a whole but also believed that her contemporary women, especially bourgeoisie women, were more moralizing than men, as she pointed to the high amount of anti-alcohol and anti-labor sentiments in prominent political feminists. 142 These sentiments propagate Puritanical moral values, which Goldman believed are harmful to humans in general, but particularly women. 143 Goldman advocated for the rejection of mainstream feminism based on “superficial equalization” while embracing the idea of creating a society in which people can interact without gendered expectation or patriarchal organizations. 144 Goldman believed that the issue with popular feminism ran deeper than their suffrage proposals, and deemed the movement hostile toward love, childbearing, and men, which she believed to be sources of “deep, entrancing joys.” 145 The more policy-oriented side of her alternative-feminism was made up of advocating

140

Goldman, 84.

141

Goldman, 84-85.

142

Goldman, 87-88.

143

Goldman, 88-90.

144

Goldman, 91.

145

Goldman, 92.

Gottfried 31 for free love, decriminalization of prostitution, and the destruction of the institution of marriage. 146 Goldman was opposed to marriage because she claims that marriage strips women of legal rights, economic independence, the option to leave abusive partners, and the opportunity to love freely. 147 On the socio-moral side of her feminism, Goldman posits that the first step is mental. “Her development, her freedom, her independence, must come from and through herself.” 148 This iteration of feminism is far less political than her contemporaries, as she first claims that women must exile moral inhibitions and obedience to the state from their minds before they can truly be free.

How Goldman Injected Nietzsche Into the Anarchist Canon Goldman appropriated Nietzsche as an anarchist thinker via her own writings, her speeches, and her journal, permanently inserting him into the anarchist canon. The first task Goldman had to engage in was defending Nietzsche against other anarchists and demonstrating to them his worth to their cause. For example, Edward Brady, the man who showed Goldman a great deal of enlightenment literature and was for a time her lover, did not appreciate Nietzsche. 149 In fact, she eventually ended her amorous relationship with Brady because of his derisive attitude toward Nietzsche. 150 In order to make his love of hierarchy less offensive to other anarchists, she repeated the mantra “…Nietzsche was not a social theorist but a poet, a rebel and innovator. His aristocracy

146

Goldman 76-77, 97-98; Snodgrass, “Goldman, Emma,” 1:144.

147

Goldman 96.

148

Goldman, 90.

149

Goldman, Living My Life.

150

Goldman.

Gottfried 32 was neither of birth nor of purse; it was of the spirit. In that respect Nietzsche was an anarchist, and all true anarchists were aristocrats…” 151 This interpretation, similar to Kaufman’s later approach, allowed Goldman’s movement to recruit Nietzsche, whereas an interpretation of him as an aristocratic radical would not allow such usage.

In terms of printed work, Goldman published an essay in Mother Earth advocating for the value of Friedrich Nietzsche to the anarchistic cause. 152 The essay, written by the mysterious “B.M.,” highlights Nietzsche’s opposition against the traditions of the past and of the Christian religion while painting him as a revolutionary that spurned oppressive morals. 153 B.M. idolizes his prophet Zarathustra as “great destroyer, pathfinder, and breaker of old images,” eliciting a similar rebel poet persona that Goldman invokes, as she had edited it and likely commissioned it. 154 Conveniently, the same edition of the magazine that contains the essay advertising Nietzsche to anarchists also offers “The works of Friedrich Nietzsche … for the first time [has] been published in this country in a complete English edition,” for sale. 155 Goldman’s anarchist journal chose to propagate and distribute the work of Nietzsche over explicitly anarchist authors.

This choice aligns Nietzsche as an anarchist author in the public conscience, especially as Mother Earth was the first to offer a full English translation for sale. Furthermore, Goldman published many excerpts from Nietzsche and his poetry in the journal itself, as well as further commentary on his philosophy through an anarchist lens. 156 These decisions were based less on 151

Goldman.

152

B. M., “Friedrich Nietzsche,” Mother Earth VII, no. 11 (January 1913): 383-89, The Anarchist Archives.

153

B. M.

154

B. M.

155

B. M.

156

Morgan, “Herald of the Future?”

Gottfried 33 Nietzsche’s utility for the movement and more on Goldman’s personal aesthetic penchants, as she often reserved space in Mother Earth for literature she found compelling. Regardless, the frequent appearance of Nietzsche in the journal framed him as an anarchist. 157 Goldman also lectured extensively in support of her Nietzschean anarchism. She presented over twenty-three lectures utilizing Nietzsche’s ideas, which were confiscated by legal officials in a raid upon her home. Consequently scholars only have evidence of such presentations from Dr. Leigh Starcross’s reconstruction. 158 Goldman lectured on Nietzsche’s ideas when public opinion was mostly against her, and when the government most ardently surveilled her, so she clothed radical ideas under the guise of philosophical academic speculation. 159 After Emma Goldman, Nietzsche was chronicled as an anarchist thinker in history. This trend was exemplified by the influential individual anarchist Voltairine de Cleyre’s account of him as an influential author in anti-statist history. 160 Goldman’s inclusion of Nietzsche among great anarchist authors like Kropotkin and Stirner parallels his inclusion in Mother Earth. 161 De Cleyre’s esteem of him as an author beneficial for the anarchist movement showcases how he was recontextualized as an anarchist through Goldman’s appropriation. 162

157

Morgan.

158

Morgan.

159

Morgan.

160

Votairine de Cleyre, Selected Works of Voltairine de Cleyre, ed. Alexander Berkman (Mother Earth Publishing Association, 1914), Gutenberg.org.

161

de Cleyre.

162

de Cleyre.

Gottfried 34 After World War II, and Adolf Hitler’s reappropriation of Nietzsche, the anarchist connotations of the German philosopher were superseded by the Nazi ones in the public conscience. The term übermensch became associated with the eugenicist dreams of fascists, like Oswald Spengler and Martin Heidegger. Had he lived to witness the politicization of his work, Nietzsche would probably railed against it. 163 This intellectual legacy contributed to the philosopher being renowned in contemporary alt-right spheres, as the well-known white supremacist Richard Spencer listed Nietzsche among his main influences. 164 However, Emma Goldman’s noetic relationship with Nietzsche demonstrates how political ideologies from the opposite end of the social, political, and economic spectrum can utilize his ideas. Through localizing his critiques, making his ideals rely upon materialistic goals, defending him from external critique, and spreading his writings, Goldman transformed Nietzsche’s doctrine into a political mantra that demanded concrete action.

163

McManus, “On Left.”

164

Prideaux, “Far Right.”

Gottfried 35 Bibliography Anderson, R. Lanier. “Friedrich Nietzsche.” In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N. Zalta. Last modified March 17, 2017. Accessed April 13, 2021. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2017/entries/nietzsche/.

Ansell-Pearson, Keith. An Introduction to Nietzsche as Political Thinker: The Perfect Nihilist.

2002 ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

Avrich, Paul, and Karen Avrich. Sasha and Emma: The Anarchist Odyssey of Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman. Cambridge, MA: Harvard U Press, 2012. Ebook Central.

This book details the lives and loves of Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman, from birth till death. Paul Avrich was a lifelong historian of anarchism, writing over ten books. He received his graduate degree from Columbia University and taught at Queens College. Karen Avrich is his daughter, who writes for the New York Times, she finished her father's book as he was dying. The book was used to sketch Emma Goldman's life.

Binion, Rudolph. “Lou Andreas-Salomé.” In Europe 1789-1914: Encyclopedia of the Age of Industry and Empire, edited by John Merriman and Jay Winter. New York, NY: Charles Scriber's Sons, 2006. Gale In Context.

B. M. “Friedrich Nietzsche.” Mother Earth VII, no. 11 (January 1913). Anarchy Archives.

Brinker, Menahem. “Nietzsche and the Jews.” In Nietzsche, Godfather of Fascism?: On the Uses and Abuses of a Philosophy, edited by Jacob Golomb and Robert S.. Wistrich. Princeton, NJ: Princeton U Press, 2002. Ebook Central.

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Accessed November 26, 2020. http://www.dartmouth.edu/~fnchron/. de Cleyre, Votairine. Selected Works of Voltairine de Cleyre. Edited by Alexander Berkman.

Mother Earth Publishing Association, 1914. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/43098/43098-h/43098-h.htm#In-Defense-of-EmmaGoldman.

E. Goldman, two views - profile and frontal. 1901. Photograph. Library of Congress.

Fiala, Andrew. “Anarchism.” In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N. Zalta. Last modified February 12, 2018. Accessed April 13, 2021. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2018/entries/anarchism/.

Goldman, Emma. Anarchism and Other Essays. New York-London, NY-UK: Mother Earth Publishing Association, 1911. https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emma-goldmananarchism-and-other-essays.pdf.

———. Living My Life. New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1931. The Anarchist Library.

Gottfried 36 ———. Was My Life Worth Living? Anarchist Library, 1934. The Internet Archive.

Hatab, Lawrence J. “Nietzsche on Women.” Southern Journal of Philosophy, 1981.

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Leiter, Brian. Nietzsche on Morality. London-New York, NY-UK: Routledge, 2002.

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———. “Nietzsche's Moral and Political Philosophy.” In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, edited by Edward N. Zalta. Last modified April 2, 2021. Accessed April 13, 2021. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2021/entries/nietzsche-moral-political/.

“Malwida Rivalier Von Meysenbug.” In Encyclopedia of 1848 Revolutions. James Chastain, 1999, 2005. https://www.ohio.edu/chastain/ip/meysenb.htm.

McManus, Matthew. “On Left and Right Nietzscheanism.” Areo, July 19, 2020. https://areomagazine.com/2020/08/19/on-left-and-right-nietzscheanism/.

Morgan, Kevin. “Herald of the Future? Emma Goldman, Friedrich Nietzsche and the Anarchist as Superman.” Anarchist Studies 17, no. 2 (Autumn-Winter 2009). https://go-galecom.puffin.harker.org/ps/i.do?p=OVIC&u=harker&id=GALE%7CA214471680&v=2.1& it=r&sid=summon.

Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm. “The Antichrist.” In The Portable Nietzsche. Translated by Walter Kaufmann. New York, NY: The Viking Press, 1954. The Internet Archive.

———. Beyond Good and Evil. Translated by Helen Zimmern. 2003. Project Gutenberg.

———. The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs. Translated by Walter Kaufmann. New York: Random House, 1974.

———. ‘On the Genealogy of Morality’ and Other Writings. Edited by Keith Ansell-Pearson.

Translated by Carol Diethe. Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2017.

———. Selected Letters of Friedrich Nietzsche. Edited by Oscar Levy. Translated by Anthony M. Ludovici. London, UK: William Heinemann, 1921. The Internet Archive.

———. Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None. Translated by Walter Kaufmann.

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Prideaux, Sue. “Far Right, Misogynist, Humourless? Why Nietzsche Is Misunderstood.” The Guardian (London, UK), October 6, 2018. Accessed August 8, 2020. https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/oct/06/exploding-nietzsche-myths-needdynamiting.

Gottfried 37 Prinz, Jesse. “Genealogies of Morals: Nietzsche's Method Compared.” Journal of Nietzsche Studies 47, no. 2 (Summer 2016): 180-201. JSTOR. Reginster, Bernard. “Honesty and Curiosity in Nietzsche's Free Spirits.” Journal of the History of Philosophy 51, no. 3 (July 2013): 441-63. ProQuest Research Library.

Snodgrass, Mary Ellen. “Goldman, Emma (1869-1940).” In Civil Disobedience: An Encyclopedic History of Dissidence in the United States, 143-45. Vol. 1. Armonk, NY: Myron E. Sharpe, 2008.

———. “Haymarket Riot.” In Civil Disobedience: An Encyclopedic History of Dissidence in the United States, 152-53. Vol. 1. Armonk, NY: Myron E. Sharpe, 2008.

Wolff, Kurt, and Helen Wolff. Photograph of Lou Andreas-Salomé, Paul Rée and Friedrich Nietzsche. Yale University Library Digital Collections.

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Young, Julian. Friedrich Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge U Press, 2010. Ebook Central.

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