In Search of the Wanderer and Free Spirits: The Ascetic Absence of Nietzsche in American Sociology

Introduction: Whither Nietzsche in Sociology?

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) is one of the most recognizable names in the history of western thought, and yet the question of his rightful place within the canon of social theory remains unanswered within the discipline of sociology, especially among sociologists trained in the United States. This is the case for both conventional (bourgeois) and critical (Marxist) sociology. Unlike in the humanities and neighboring disciplines in the social sciences like political science—where Nietzsche is widely read and has become the subject of a voluminous number of journal articles and books—Nietzsche’s work remains relatively unknown in American sociology (Antonio, 1995; Aspers, 2007), if not purposefully excluded by those seeking to police the boundaries of our discipline (Frank, 1992; Runciman, 2000). What do our neighbors in political science know that we do not?

A small number of important articles by sociologists who make effective use of Nietzsche do exist, including TJ Berard’s (1999) excellent article that reveals how the perspective provided by Nietzsche is a provocative compliment to Bourdieu (1984) for framing empirical research on the relationship between culture and politics, but these are very few and far between. One has only to consult nearly any textbook on social theory to find very little, if any mention of Nietzsche, including texts written and edited by American sociologists trained in critical-social theory like Calhoun (1995), Lemert (2013) and Seidman (1991). The absence of Nietzsche in American sociology is particularly peculiar given the widespread “linguistic turn” in social theory that occurred decades ago, a move that was made possible by European thinkers who were profoundly influenced by Nietzsche (Derrida, 1978; Foucault, 1977). Robert Antonio (1995) raised the issue of Nietzsche’s absence in sociology in an article published by the American Journal of Sociology at a time when Nietzsche studies had become a cottage industry in political theory and literary criticism (Babich, 1994; Brown, 1993; Connoly, 1988; Deleuze, 1983; Irigaray, 1991; Love, 1986; Nehamas, 1987; Patton, 1993; Ryan, 1982; Strong, 1988; Warren, 1991; Yack, 1992). Is it the case, that when compared to other academic disciplines, American sociology is too conservative (Stauth and Turner, 1988) to accommodate Nietzsche’s radical critique of the culture of modernity? Perhaps, but the alleged conservatism of sociology in the United States is belied by the inclusion of historical materialism. According to Antonio (1995), “in contrast to Marx, who has finally been included among the founders of ‘sociological theory,’ Nietzsche is glaringly absent in sociological discourse. In the United States, he is left out entirely” (p. 3). It remains a question why political theorists are open to an engagement with both Marx and Nietzsche, while sociological theorists are not.

Nietzsche’s exclusion from sociology in the United States is largely the result of how our discipline was entrenched inside academia during the early years of the Cold War due in part to the work of Talcott Parsons’ structural-functionalism. It is marked by his celebration—which he shared with the consensus of historians of his day like Daniel Boorstin, Louis Hartz, and Richard Hofstadter—of “American exceptionalism” as the shining star of modernity. It was in the USA, according to Parsons (2016), that democracy was perfected and poverty conquered. Both of these accomplishments were made possible, in part, by the uniquely American brand of capitalism, which was said to be able to develop a productive relationship with scientific knowledge and its practical applications. Parsons argued further that American exceptionalism was the fruition of the cultural values unleashed by the Protestant Reformation and the Enlightenment. His celebration of capitalism and the culture of modernity meant that Marx and Nietzsche, respectively, were not welcome inside the house of American sociology.

Parsons exerted his influence by creating a canon out of what he considered to be the great books in sociological theory. In Parsons’ (1961) expansive two-volume anthology of sociological theory, Marx is given very little space (two short selections from the Communist Manifesto and A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, which incorrectly portray Marx as an economic determinist) while Nietzsche is completely excluded. On the other hand, Parsons picked numerous selections from the works of Weber, Durkheim, Spencer, Mead, and Freud, among the several other entries culled from modern philosophers like Locke, Malthus, and Smith. It was not only through his creation of the canon of sociological theory that Parsons excluded Nietzsche. Parsons also exercised his influence over American sociology through the publication of his own books, including, most importantly, the two-volumes of The Structure of Social Action (1968 [1937]) and The Social System, (1951) both of which exclude any discussion of Marx or Nietzsche.

Perhaps most problematic in the erasure of Nietzsche from American sociology is: (a) Parsons’ interpretation of Weber in terms of a peculiar Anglo-American version of “value freedom” in the social sciences, a phrase that was closely linked to a belief in the “end of ideology” and, (b) his controversial translation of Max Weber’s classic text, the Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (PESC). On the one hand, Parsons’ (1971) emphasis on value-freedom (objectivity) in Weber’s work is a truncated, if not incorrect reading of Weber’s essay “Science as a Vocation,” a text that was deeply influenced by Nietzsche’s critique of science and positivism in the Genealogy of Morals (GM) and the Will to Power. In the third essay of GM Nietzsche demonstrates that science, far from being a complete break from Christianity, is but the latest manifestation of the ascetic ideal (Nietzsche, 1989). Indeed, Weber’s now canonical notions of “rationalization” and “disenchantment” are direct appropriation of Nietzsche’s diagnosis found in Book One of the Will to Power that the culture of modernity is plagued by nihilism. In short, the Enlightenment should not be seen as “progress” (Horkheimer and Adorno, 2002; Aronowitz, 1990).

Parsons’ selective reading of Weber also involved removing crucial Nietzschean themes from Weber’s texts. While Nietzsche’s influence on Weber is hardly a secret, it is no thanks to Parsons. In the closing paragraphs of PESC, Parsons erases the presence of Nietzsche by translating Weber’s phrase “last men”—which is taken word-for-word from Thus Spoke Zarathustra—as “last stage.” Weber mentions Nietzsche’s “last men” again in the “Science as a Vocation” lecture when he says “naïve optimism … led people to glorify science … as the road to happiness. But after Nietzsche’s annihilating criticism of those ‘last men’ ‘who have discovered happiness’ I can probably ignore this completely” (Weber, 2004: 17). The phrase that Weber quotes is from aphorism 5 of Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Nietzsche, 1954: 129). Weber, following Nietzsche, condemns modern Europeans, the so-called “last men” for their desire to escape suffering because for both thinkers suffering is necessary in the quest for great cultural achievements. The desire for “happiness” on the other hand, leads to indolence and cultural decline. Parsons chose to ignore this aspect of Weber’s position on science. In a move that runs in the opposite direction of Nietzsche’s future-oriented perspective that seeks the overcoming of the “last” men, the phrase “last stage” is used by Parsons to signify the end of history that follows from the perceived supremacy of capitalism over socialism. Parson’s mistranslation of PESC has recently been corrected by a more recent English translation of the text by Baehr and Wells (Weber, 2002).

Other translation problems include the terms Wirtshaft and Gesellshaft, which according to Tracy Strong (2012: 103) should be understood to mean in English, “economic and social concerns,” but in Parsons’ hands they became known in American sociology as “The Theory of Economic and Social Organizations,” which again folds Weber into the empiricism and politics of the Anglo-American tradition of sociological theory (emphasis mine). One reason why Parsons avoids any discussion of Weber’s treatment of nihilism is because he was largely in agreement with Daniel Bell’s (1960) argument that in the western world (the so-called capitalist democracies) we have reached the “end of ideology,”—or the end of history, the last stage—meaning that we have moved beyond the need for political and/or cultural revolution, because whatever the social problems that remain in the capitalist West, these are technical in nature, not political. Thus, it should be the job of social scientists to provide technical forms of knowledge exclusively, as it would be inappropriate to move from the “is” to the “ought” due to the fact that we have finally reached the best possible political, socio-economic system. All that remains for us today is to tinker with the given system in order to attempt to improve upon it.

In the rare cases where Nietzsche is given consideration within sociology, it usually entails a brief mention in passing about his relative influence upon certain classical social theorists like Max Weber or Georg Simmel (Dodd, 2012). This kind of treatment relegates Nietzsche to a small corner of our field as a mere footnote, having significance only for historians of social thought. There is more at stake, however, than simply pursuing a revisionist history of social thought that would reveal the crucial influence of Nietzsche upon our discipline. While such an intellectual history is valuable in its own right—sociologists should have an intimate knowledge of their intellectual lineage—contemporary critical theorists adjacent to sociology in the areas of feminist theory, critical-race theory, queer theory, science studies and cultural studies continue to push the boundaries of their fields in provocative and valuable ways by finding innovative connections to Nietzsche and the Nietzschean tradition of critical theory that stems from the Frankfurt School and post-structuralism (Babich, 1994; Bauer, 1990; Brown, 1993; Cocks, 1991; Emden, 2014; Gemes and May, 2011; Lemm, 2010; Oliver and Pearsall, 1998; Patton, 1993; Roberts, 1995; Schotten, 2009; Scott and Franklin, 2006; Yack, 1992). Such creative appropriations that combine Nietzsche’s insights with Marxist, feminist, queer and critical-race theory opens up new ways of conducting research that point toward emancipation (for more on this issue, see the articles in this volume by Schotten, Payne, and Roberts). It is to the detriment of our field that we have been so late to the game when considering the importance of Nietzsche’s intellectual legacy.

The rest of this article provides a brief analysis of the contrast between Nietzsche and the conventional (bourgeois) sociology of Durkheim and Weber in order to make an appeal to critical sociologists that Nietzsche’s work deserves serious consideration for inclusion in the canon of what we consider to be the key texts in critical sociology. Firstly, I argue that it is a mistake to claim that sociologists do not need to read Nietzsche because we already read Weber. There are important aspects to Nietzsche’s perspective that are at odds with Weber. Secondly, I contrast Nietzsche’s aestheticism to Durkheim’s asceticism in order to demonstrate that Nietzsche’s critique of morality is essential material for critical sociology, if what we mean by critical sociology includes a concern for freedom.

Towards a Nietzschean Critique of Bourgeois-Classical Sociological Theory

The practice of reducing Nietzsche’s role to one that merely provides intellectual support for other social and cultural theorists like Weber is a mistake, because there are important theoretical and political differences that have important implications for the emancipatory aims of critical-social theory. On the issue of political differences, Nietzsche, unlike Weber, was not a nationalist, and the claim that Nietzsche’s thought lends itself to fascist aims actually fits Weber better than Nietzsche himself. Unlike Nietzsche, who demanded a radical and total restructuring of morality, Weber hoped that the secularization of a religious ethic would induce a desire among the masses for a leader who would fulfill the role of the redeemer. Such a moral impulse was precisely what Nietzsche warned against (Strong, 2012: 145). Along these lines, Wolfgang Mommsen has demonstrated how the Nazi political theorist Carl Schmitt was able to develop Weber’s concept of “charismatic-plebiscitary leadership” into a program for the development of fascism. According to Mommsen (1984), “we have to concede that Weber’s theory of charismatic leadership combined with the radical formalization of the meaning of democratic institutions helped, if only marginally, to make the German people receptive to support of a leader, and to that extent to Adolf Hitler” (p. 410). To reveal Weber’s politics as Mommsen has is not to deny that it was Nietzsche, not Weber, who was glorified by the Nazis. Thus, while scholars like Kaufman (1950) have made a good case that Nietzsche was neither an anti-Semite nor a nationalist, it remains the case that Nietzsche’s writings are susceptible to a wide variety of appropriations by the Left and the Right. Even today, Nietzsche continues to be used by fascists like Richard Spencer, the mouthpiece of the Alt-Right. My intervention, it should be clear, seeks to contribute to an ongoing Left appropriation.

In terms of theoretical differences involving the methods of historical research, Weber’s version of historical-comparative sociology diverges sharply from that of another disciple of Nietzsche, Michel Foucault. Whereas the methodology of Weber’s “cultural science” presupposes a transcendental, meaning-giving subject, much in the same way as Immanuel Kant (1998), Foucault, following Nietzsche’s (1989) genealogical critique of Kant’s transcendental subject, analyzes the histories of the formation of said subject, rather than take the subject, a priori, as simply given (Dean, 1994: 71; Foucault, 1977). And where Weber’s (2002) pessimism sees only an “iron cage,” or “a shell as hard as steel” at the end of the project of modernity, Foucault’s (1984) genealogical approach to the history of modernity goes in the opposite direction, seeking to reveal contingency rather than determinism in history. Compare Weber (2002): “when asceticism moved out of the monastic cells and into working life … it helped build the mighty cosmos of the modern economic order … Today this mighty cosmos determines, with overwhelming coercion, the style of life not only of those directly involved in business but of every individual who is born into this mechanism” (p. 120, emphasis mine) to Foucault (1984):

Criticism is no longer going to be practiced in the search for formal structures with universal value, but rather as an historical investigation into the events that have led us to constitute ourselves … In that sense, this criticism is not transcendental, and its goal is not that of making a metaphysics possible: it is genealogical in its design … this critique will be genealogical in the sense that it will not deduce from the form of what we are what it is impossible for us to do and to know; but it will separate out, from the contingency that has made us what we are, the possibility of no longer being, doing, or thinking what we are, do, or think … The critical ontology of ourselves has to be … conceived as … a philosophical life in which the critique of what we are is at one and the same time the historical analysis of the limits that are imposed on us and an experiment with the possibility of going beyond them … I do not know whether it must be said today that the critical task still entails faith in the Enlightenment; I continue to think that this task requires work on our limits, that is, a patient labor giving form to our impatience for liberty. (pp. 46, 50, emphasis mine)

In these particular examples, it would seem that Foucault’s analyses are closer in spirit to Nietzsche than Weber’s, insofar as whatever pessimism that Nietzsche expressed about modernity, his genealogical analyses did not close off the possibility for the radical transformation of everyday life. It is for this reason that critical theorists like Marcuse (1974), Bloch (1991) Lefebvre (2003) and Foucault (1977) find elements in Nietzsche’s diagnoses of modernity that lend themselves to a critical-social theory that has emancipatory aims: in short, the study of the contingent formation of moralities and subjectivities in history reveals that the horizon remains open for us to become something new while overcoming that which we have become. This perspective provides an alternative to conventional sociology in terms of methods and aims. The Kantian quest for what Foucault calls “formal structures with universal value,” is shared by the founders of conventional sociology, including Weber, Durkheim and Parsons, all of whom seek to deduce what we cannot do or know from the form of what we are. In a manner similar to Kant (1998), who sought to uncover the conditions that make knowledge possible in order to find and enforce the boundaries of what reason should be allowed to do, conventional-bourgeois sociology seeks to locate and enforce limits—for knowledge and for action—rather than advocate the transgression of them in the quest for freedom. Parsons goes so far as to throw the very possibility of freedom in doubt when he places the word free inside scare quotes. “In a completely ‘free’ orientation relationship ego is free,” writes Parsons (1951). “But here we are talking about social structures. It is taken for granted that social structure through institutionalization places limits on the range of legitimized orientation of an actor in a given status of ego” (p. 139). In other words, structural functionalism takes social structures as the object of analysis for sociological theory, and thereby “takes for granted” the impossibility of freedom, because whatever it is that actors in the social system are able to do is deduced from the form of the system.

We can see the Kantianism of conventional sociology in Durkheim (1984) whose sociology becomes ontology with statements like the following: “in reality our capacity for happiness is very restricted … Not without reason does human experience see the aurea mediocritas as the condition of happiness … we understand what limits happiness: it is the constitution of man itself” (pp. 181–183, emphasis mine). Nietzsche finds morality lurking inside such statements as these that claim to be scientific. In other words, sociologists in the Durkheimian tradition unconsciously code their normative view—in this case the affirmation of the value of mediocrity—in the language of science. Nietzsche argues (1967b) that “everywhere the Christian-nihilistic value standard has to be pulled up and fought under every mask; e.g., in present-day sociology” (p. 32). Although Nietzsche was responding to the sociology of Hebert Spencer, his critique applies equally well to functionalism in the tradition of Durkheim and Parsons. Durkheim’s notion that the golden mean or the moderate course is the condition of happiness is for Nietzsche, an unconscious expression of the herd instinct, which places a value upon mediocrity. According to Nietzsche (1967b):

Even the ideals of science can be deeply, yet completely unconsciously influenced by decadence: our entire sociology is proof of that. The objection to it is that from experience it knows only the form of decay of society, and inevitably it takes its own instincts of decay for the norms of sociological judgment. In these norms the life that is declining in present-day Europe formulates its social ideals … The herd instinct, then—a power that has now become sovereign … the value of the units determines the significance of the sum—Our entire sociology simply does not know any other instinct than that of the herd, i.e., that of the sum of zeroes … where it is virtuous to be zero. (p. 33, emphasis mine)

While Nietzsche might seem like an elitist when he uses terms like “herd,” a better way to frame Nietzsche’s intervention is through asking questions like: Why do we persist in mediocrity? Or, from what perspective can one claim that it is virtuous to be zero? A main concern for Nietzsche is the way in which the Enlightenment has contributed to the liquidation of individuality and particularity, the denial of difference as such. Durkheim’s emphasis on the notion of equilibrium in his functionalist theoretical framework is one such example of this phenomenon. As Deleuze (1983) argues:

What Nietzsche attacks in science is … the scientific mania for seeking balances, the utilitarianism and egalitarianism proper to science. This is why his whole critique operates on three levels; against logical identity, against mathematical equality and against physical equilibrium. Against the three forms of the undifferentiated … What is the significance of this tendency? In the first place, it expresses the way in which science is part of the nihilism of modern thought. The attempt to deny differences is part of the more general enterprise of denying life, depreciating existence and promising it a death. (p. 45)

Nietzsche sought to analyze social and cultural phenomena in terms of whether or not they indicate an ascending or descending life (decay). Those who are not free and who cannot act, become resentful, and develop a negative perspective upon life. As a way to cope with their suffering, they create an imaginary afterlife where they will eventually find happiness. A particular mode of being in the world gives rise to a certain valuation of life. A descending life (sickness) finds expression in attitudes that negate the material world, including the human body in terms of the will, or desire. In order to make such diagnoses of society—determining whether it is sick (decaying) or healthy—Nietzsche sometimes referred to himself as a physician of culture (Ahern, 1995). A main sickness in society that Nietzsche seeks to overcome is the ailment of masochism or asceticism, the hatred of the body and desire that has its roots in the ancient history of the development of Christian morality and which eventually led to the period of nihilism that Nietzsche claims is characteristic of modernity after the triumph of Enlightenment over Christianity. Hatred of the body and of life more generally, creates the conditions for a deadly and destructive politics.

The key figure for Nietzsche is the ascetic priest who redirects the resentment of those who suffer back onto the sufferers themselves, creating what Nietzsche (1989) calls the “bad conscience” a concept later re-signified by Freud as the superego. Rather than discharge their resentment—through revolution for example—slaves are encouraged by the ascetic priest to internalize resentment and blame themselves for their suffering (original sin). One of Nietzsche’s (1989) main concerns is what happens when resentment become creative, that is to say when resentment gives birth to particular values that form a system of morality. According to Nietzsche (1989) this negative view upon life—what he calls slave morality—eventually became the dominant perspective in society at large thanks to the work of the ascetic priest. This is why Nietzsche (1989) makes the ironic claim that after Christian morality achieved cultural hegemony it is the strong who must now be defended against the weak, which is to say those who refuse to conform to the dominant morality. This is a focus on culture rather than structure, because in the era of modernity, those in structural positions of power over others perpetuate the deadly culture of slave morality. Fascism and white supremacy more generally would be an example of how resentment can generate a deadly form of politics (Nealon, 2000). A key feature of slave morality for Nietzsche is the seeking out of scapegoats, an Other that is to blame for why we suffer. In today’s reactionary political discourse in the USA, the so-called “immigrant” plays this role. In short, slave morality has its origins in structural relations of power and domination—unfree labor—but it eventually developed into the dominant cultural form that now seems to have a life of its own, so to speak, independent of its origins in the material, structural relations of master and slave. This is a crucial point to make because as Deleuze (1983) argues:

this shows the extent to which the Nietzschean notion of the slave does not necessarily stand for someone dominated, by fate or social condition, but also characterizes the dominators as much as the dominated once the regime of domination comes under the sway of forces which are reactive and not active. Totalitarian regimes are in this sense regimes of slaves, not merely because of the people that they subjugate, but above all because of the type of “masters” they set up. (p. x)

According to Nietzsche (1989), the ascetic priest is the one who is “filled with disgust at themselves, at the earth, at all life” (p. 117). The attack upon pleasure by the figure of the ascetic priest involves the prescription of work as a means to cope with the suffering that follows from looking into the horror and absurdity of existence. Suffering is an existential condition, but we also compound suffering by pursuing an ascetic mode of life where we deny ourselves pleasure, especially sexual pleasure. Hatred and anger are amplified by asceticism, so the priest must find some way to control such anger and frustration. The ascetic mode involves various techniques and practices that aim to make us numb to suffering, by releasing us from the burden of desire that stirs inside of us. Work is perhaps the most common of such techniques. In aphorism 18, Nietzsche (1989) writes that

“mechanical activity” is a kind of “training” that “alleviates” an existence of suffering to a not inconsiderable degree: this fact is today called, somewhat dishonestly, “the blessing of work” … Mechanical activity and what goes with it—such an absolute regularity, punctilious and unthinking obedience, a mode of life fixed once and for all, fully occupied time … how thoroughly the ascetic priest has known how to employ them against pain! When he was dealing with sufferers of the lower class, with work-slaves or prisoners … he required hardly more than a little ingenuity in name-changing and re-baptizing to make them see benefits and a relative happiness in things they formerly hated [work]. (emphasis mine)

The question of “name-changing” by the figure of the ascetic priest is addressed by Nietzsche in the first essay of Genealogy of Morals, where he conducts an historical etymology of two ideal types of value binaries: “good/bad” and “good/evil.” The first pairing is the perspective of the master, and the second pairing is the perspective of the priest, which attempts to represent the interests of slaves. From the point of view of master morality, “good” is associated with happiness and “signifies one who is, who possesses reality, who is actual and true” (p. 29). Elsewhere Nietzsche characterizes “aristocratic value judgments” in master morality as flowing from “an abundant, even overflowing health, together with … vigorous, free, joyful activity” (p. 33). What is of particular importance is Nietzsche’s (1989) philological analysis of the various definitions of “bad” from the perspective of master morality. “Bad,” in the ancient tongue, means simultaneously: “unlucky,” “oppressed by toils,” “cowardly,” “woeful,” “unfortunate” and “toilsome” (p. 38). This enquiry points to work as the necessary if not sufficient condition for the development of the unhappy, or “bad conscience.” According to Nietzsche (1989):

The judgment “good” did not originate with those whom “goodness” was shown! Rather it was “the good” themselves, that is to say, the noble, powerful … who felt and established themselves and their action as good … in contradistinction to … the common and plebian. It was out of this pathos of distance that they first seized the right to create values and to coin names for values. (pp. 25–26)

Rather than interpret the phrase “pathos of distance” as simply the affirmation of class domination as some scholars have, the expression “pathos of distance” should also be understood to mean the phenomenological difference between leisure and work, for it is in the sphere of leisure that we experience health and happiness in free, joyful activity, that which provides us the capacity to create values and give names. Cultivation of the human being begins where work ends. The one who is, the “possessor of reality” is the one whose lived experience is inside the realm of leisure.

Slave morality, on the other hand, stems from the perspective which denies life in this world in the name of paradise in the afterlife. Slaves are encouraged by the priest to deny this life, according to Nietzsche (1989) because “man would rather will nothingness than not will” (p. 163). For those who are unable to act freely because they are “oppressed by toils,” life is given a negative evaluation. “A condemnation of life by one who is alive is, in the end,” writes Nietzsche (1997), “just a symptom of a particular kind of life … A judgment made by which kind of life? … the answer: declining, weakened, tired and condemned life” (p. 28). Toil is that which explains, in part at least, a declining, tired and weakened life. Nietzsche argues that an active bad conscience can overcome feelings of resentment—which are feelings of hostility toward the world accompanied by a feeling of powerlessness—but when the ascetic priest appropriates such feelings and redirects them back onto the slave, self-overcoming (the process of discharging resentment) mutates into self-hatred which results from an endless feedback loop of resentment directed against the self.

The “good/evil” binary is an inversion of the “good/bad” binary and issues forth out of the priestly organization and interpretation of resentment. According to Nietzsche (1989) it was the priest who,

Dared to invert the aristocratic value-equation (good=noble=powerful=happy … and to hang on to this inversion … saying “the wretched alone are the good; the poor, important, lowly alone are the good; the suffering, deprived, sick … alone are pious … blessed by God—and you, the powerful and noble, are on the contrary the evil, the cruel … the godless to all eternity.” (p. 34)

What accounts for this inversion? For Nietzsche the answer lies in the condition of impotence. “It is because of their impotence,” writes Nietzsche (1989), “that hatred grows to monstrous and uncanny proportions, to the most spiritual and poisonous kind of hatred. The truly great haters in world history have always been priests” (p. 33). Nietzsche’s main concern is with how much damage has been done by slave morality once it becomes the dominant morality in society, irrespective of class or status positions. With what does this have to do with conventional sociology?

Aesthetic vs Ascetic Mode of Life

For starters, Nietzsche’s analysis of the labor question is at odds with Durkheim’s. Nietzsche (1989) emphasizes the unfreedom of work as the basis for the development of the unhappy consciousness (bad conscience), while Durkheim (1984) celebrates work as the means to find happiness and he even goes so far as to recommend limiting the amount of education that workers should receive so that they do not develop a taste for an aesthetic mode of life outside of work, which would provide an alternative to a moral mode of life (pp. 307–308). When Nietzsche (1989) says that one of the historic tasks of the ascetic priest has been to get slaves (workers) to “see benefits and happiness in things [work] they formerly hated” he may as well have been talking about Durkheim. Consider the following passage from Durkheim (1984) who considers the problem of workers being reduced to “lifeless cogs” in the division of labor:

Occasionally the remedy [for alienated labor] has been proposed for workers, that besides their technical and specialized knowledge, they should receive a general education [liberal arts]. But assuming that in this way some of the bad effects attributed to the division of labor can be redeemed, it is still not a means of preventing them … Moreover, who can fail to see that that these two types of existence [work and leisure] are too opposing to be reconciled or to be lived by the same man! If one acquires the habit of contemplating vast horizons, overall views, and fine generalizations, one can no longer without impatience allow oneself to be confined within the narrow limits of a specialized task. (p. 307, emphasis mine)

What then, does Durkheim propose as the solution to the problem of alienated labor if not an increase in leisure time (the vast horizon)? The solution for Durkheim is to restructure the workplace so that workers can find happiness and satisfaction at work, in other words to have them see benefits in things they formerly hated. “What resolves this contradiction,” writes Durkheim (1984), “is the fact that, contrary to what has been said, the division of labour [work] does not produce these consequences [destruction of the mind] through some imperatives of its own nature, but only in exceptional and abnormal circumstances.” Thus, if the division of labor develops “normally” workers would not be alienated because “normally the operation of each special function demands that the individual should be not closely shut up in it, but should keep in constant contact with neighboring functions, becoming aware of their needs and changes that take place in them, etc.” (p. 308). In short, if workers interact more, then, somehow, they will not feel like cogs in a machine, but rather “living cells” in a “living organism.” In this “normal” organization of work, the worker “feels that he is of some use. For this he has no need to take in very vast areas of the social horizon; it is enough for him to perceive enough of it to understand that his actions have a goal beyond themselves. Thenceforth … however uniform his activity may be, it is that of an intelligent being, for he knows that his activity has a meaning” (p. 308, emphasis mine). The solution, then, involves limiting what workers are allowed to experience. There is only so much “horizon” (art) that should be given to workers, and it is up to sociologists like Durkheim to make that decision for them.

Against Durkheim, the aesthetic mode of life is precisely what Nietzsche advocates. For Nietzsche (1967a) art is crucially important because it “makes life possible and worth living” (p. 35). Nietzsche was interested in examining the Greek culture of antiquity because the Greeks had a different way of dealing with, and giving meaning to, suffering. The difference is that the ancients found a way of dealing with suffering that did not negate life, unlike the Christian-moral perspective. On the one hand, Nietzsche (1967a) notes that “the Greek knew and felt the horror of existence” (p. 42). The question becomes, what do we make out of that horror or what kind of meaning can we give to suffering? One option is the road taken by Schopenhauer who argued that because the world is characterized by endless strife, we must attempt to remove ourselves from it through restricting or repressing our will (desires). The aim of such an ascetic mode of life is the achievement of a more tranquil state of mind.

Nietzsche of course goes in the other direction, toward affirming the will. Nietzsche (1967a) reveals the aesthetic solution to this problem when he writes:

When the danger to his will is greatest, art approaches as a saving sorceress, expert at healing. She alone knows how to turn these nauseous thoughts about the horror or absurdity of existence into notions with which one can live: these are the sublime as the artistic taming of the horrible, and the comic as the artistic discharge of the nausea of absurdity. (p. 60)

Most important for Nietzsche is that the aesthetic response to suffering was developed such that art became a means for “seducing one to a continuation of life” (p. 43, emphasis mine). When Nietzsche speaks of the “danger to the will,” he is indicating his break from Schopenhauer who sought out “will-less knowing” as the path to bliss if not happiness. In short, Nietzsche is arguing against what he sees as the “Buddhistic negation of the will” (p. 59), a view which contrasts sharply with Durkheim, who sides with Schopenhauer on the question of the necessity to negate desire in order to find peacefulness of mind (Mestrovic, 1988). “Freedom consists,” writes Durkheim (1974) “in the deliverance from blind unthinking forces” (p. 72). In this way, Durkheim construes desire as if it were a tyrant that exists in us, an insatiable monster that causes us to suffer. The best way to confront that suffering is to desire less from life. To do that, however, Durkheim (1974) argues that we need the help of the major institutions in society like the school, the church and the family, because on our own, we are incapable of controlling our wants. To continually want more than what society can offer leads to death.

Durkheim (1984) follows in the tradition of Plato insofar as he poses art as a problem. “Too much artistic sensibility,” writes Durkheim (1984), “is a sign of sickness that cannot be generalized without danger to society” (p. 185). Durkheim uses the same set of terms in his analysis as does Nietzsche, that is to say the difference between morality and aesthetics, where pursuing one means the reduction or abandonment of the other. The main difference is that Durkheim advocates morality (asceticism) against an aesthetic mode of life. The danger posed by art to society results from the desire of the “ploughman,” who might, after being exposed to art, prefer play over work. According to Durkheim (1984) “it is true that aesthetic … activity, because it is not regulated, appears free of any constraint or limitation. Yet in reality it is closely circumscribed by activity that is properly of a moral kind” (p. 184). According to Durkheim (1984) on the other hand:

If we expend too much of our strength upon what is superfluous, we have not enough left to do what is needful. When too large a share is given to the imagination in morality, obligatory tasks are neglected. Any discipline must needs appear intolerable when one has grown over-accustomed to acting without rules … The need to play, to indulge in acting without any purpose and for the pleasure of so doing cannot be developed beyond a certain point without detaching oneself from the serious business of life … The ploughman, if he is at one with the conditions of his existence, is and must remain, shut off from aesthetic pleasures which are normal with the man of letters. (p. 185, emphasis mine)

It follows then, that the main issue for the Durkheimian tradition is to find ways to make sure that the “ploughman,” or factory worker, is always “at one with their existence,” never desiring anything more than a life of perpetual work. Durkheim sets the bar very low in terms of what a worker can expect from life. Perhaps Nietzsche might agree that slaves cannot indulge in aesthetic activity without posing a threat to social order, but at least Nietzsche (1997: 77) recognizes workers for what they are under the conditions of capitalism: namely, “slaves.” For Durkheim, on the other hand, workers are not seen as unfree or unhappy, but as individuals who are able to find meaning and happiness in work. If nothing else, at least Nietzsche is honest about what work is under capitalism. To expect, as Durkheim does, that anyone should find happiness with such a limited horizon of existence is problematic to say the least.

It should be noted that neither thinker is able to fully imagine an alternative to work for those that suffer the burden of toil, unlike Marx who argues that automation has at least the potential to free workers from labor and allow them to enter the sphere of leisure where aesthetic activity reigns supreme. This can only be achieved, however, if workers are able and willing to force a reduction of working hours (see the article by Roberts in this volume for more on this particular point).

Whereas Durkheim (1984: 308) argues that workers find happiness and community at work, both Marx and Nietzsche argue that those conditions can only be found in the sphere of leisure, in aesthetic activity. Indeed, Nietzsche (1967a) is at his most democratic in his discussion of music in the Birth of Tragedy, where he argues that:

The Greek man of culture felt himself nullified in the presence of the satyric chorus; and this is the most immediate effect of the Dionysian tragedy, that the state and society and, quite generally, the gulfs between man and man give way to an overwhelming feeling of unity leading back to the very heart of nature. The metaphysical comfort—with which, I am suggesting even now, every true tragedy leaves us—that life is at the bottom of things, despite all the changes of appearances, independently powerful and pleasurable- this comfort appears in the incarnate clarity in the chorus of satyrs, a chorus of natural beings who live ineradicably, as it were, behind all civilizations and remain eternally the same, despite the changes of generations and the history of nations. (p. 59)

To return to the question of transgressing limits that Foucault emphasizes in the passage above, Nietzsche (1967a) finds in the music festival an escape from the drudgery of work in the mundane everyday world that threatens to suck the life out of workers, or “folk” as Nietzsche refers to them. In this way, the pursuit of aesthetics is an example of the transgression of limits that Foucault advocates, a pursuit that aims at liberty. According to Nietzsche (1967a):

For the rapture of the Dionysian state with its annihilation of the ordinary bounds and limits of existence contains, while it lasts, a lethargic element which all personal experiences of the past become immersed. This chasm of oblivion separates the worlds of everyday reality and the Dionysian reality. But as soon as this everyday reality re-enters consciousness, it is experienced as such, with nausea: as ascetic, will-negating mood is the fruit of these states. (p. 60)

This distinction that Nietzsche refers to as the “chasm of oblivion” that “separates the everyday reality and Dionysian reality (music festival)” is shared by Marx (1992) who refers to this distinction as the difference between “work time” and “life time” (p. 377). This is also the point at which Lefebvre (2014) seeks to merge Marx with Nietzsche when he demands that we must have a radical transformation of everyday life in addition to the traditional Marxist demand that workers seize the means of production. It is not enough to change the ownership of the means of production. All is lost without a radical transfiguration of everyday life world beyond the confines of work and morality. As Durkheim correctly points out, the necessity of morality is indeed a labor question, but if automation means that there is—potentially—much less work to do, then what have we to do with morality?

Like Nietzsche, Durkheim’s functionalism is also frequently understood in metaphorical terms as the perspective of a physician, insofar as functionalism seeks to see society as if it were an organism like a human body. The sociologist’s role in the functionalist framework is to provide diagnoses for society, using particular criteria to judge whether or not it is sick, what Durkheim refers to as “abnormality.” But the criteria that Durkheim and Nietzsche use in order to offer such diagnoses are at odds, because what Durkheim would consider “healthy” and “normal” about society, is precisely what Nietzsche would consider sickness. This difference can be explained by looking at how it turns upon the question of asceticism, or self-denial, what Durkheim (1972) refers to as the need to “limit the passions” in order to find happiness (p. 176). Thus, while Nietzsche is quite critical of asceticism, Durkheim affirms it. The kind of sickness that Nietzsche seeks to cure—the hatred of the body—is exemplified by Durkheim’s (1961) statement that “we must see people as they are … in their ugliness and wretchedness—if we want to help them” (pp. 271–272). What makes people ugly, and how exactly do we help them? For Durkheim, the ugliness is found in the body, in our passions. Therefore, to help people, Durkheim advocates that certain institutions in society must help the individual free themselves from their own desires. Here we see the secularization of Christian morality in the social sciences as the conventional-bourgeois sociologist steps into the shoes of the ascetic priest. In short, science—in this case sociology—remains rooted in the ascetic ideal. The act of limiting and denying the outward expression of our passions is precisely what Nietzsche considers a sickness. In aphorism 11 of the Genealogy, Nietzsche (1989) writes:

Read from a distant star, the majuscule script of our earthly existence would perhaps lead to the conclusion that the earth was the distinctively ascetic planet, a nook of disgruntled, arrogant, and offensive creatures filled with a profound disgust at themselves, at earth, at all life, who inflict as much pain on themselves as they possibly can out of pleasure … For consider how regularly and universally the ascetic priest appears in almost every age … he prospers everywhere; he emerges from every class of society … an ascetic life is a self-contradiction: here rules a ressentiment without equal, that of an insatiable instinct and power-will that wants to become master not over something in life but over life itself, over its most profound, powerful, and basic conditions: here an attempt is made to employ force to block up the wells of force; here physiological well-being is viewed askance, and especially outward expression of this well-being, beauty and joy; while pleasure is felt and sought in … decay, pain … self-mortification, self-flagellation, self-sacrifice. All this is in the highest degree paradoxical: we stand before a discord that wants to be discordant, that enjoys itself in this suffering and even grows more self-confident and triumphant the more its own presupposition, its physiological capacity for life decreases. (p. 118)

When Nietzsche asks us to consider how the ascetic priest appears regularly in every age, he is, in part, arguing that (conventional) sociology is but one example of the modern-scientific appropriation and expression of asceticism. In this way, Nietzsche’s genealogy of morals is a critical alternative to Durkheim’s science of morals because not only does Nietzsche provide a critique of asceticism that saturates classical sociology—with the important exception of Marx—but also because he provides a way for finding contingency and the possibility of freedom where sociology finds inertia, limits, and the necessity of self-denial. Nietzsche should, therefore, find a home in the critical sociology that rejects Kantian universalism and morality. The very notion of critique which grounds what we call “critical” sociology is a concept that changes its orientation as it travels from its Kantian origins through Marx to Nietzsche. Perhaps it is time to develop another kind of sociology, one that seeks, in Nietzsche’s (1974) words, “to stand above morality … to float above it and play … And as long as you are in any way ashamed before yourselves, you do not yet belong with us” (p. 154, emphasis mine).