The Persistence of the Old Regime and its Culture: Friedrich Nietzsche and the Aristocratic-Bourgeois Bloc

Abstract The recent English edition of Nietzsche, the Aristocratic Rebel has reopened the debate on the re-rereading of Nietzsche proposed by Domenico Losurdo in 2002. When dealing with the German philosopher, two opposite errors are to be avoided: interpreting him as directly paving the way for Nazism culturally, or making him a prophet of ultra-individualism and anarcho-libertarianism who anticipates the postmodern turn. The point is to understand Nietzsche in his own time and hence to proceed based on a precise historical and political survey. Following the line of research suggested by Arno J. Mayer and Charles Maier, this article challenges the idea of a Sonderweg that supposedly led German modernisation inexorably to Nazism. It then defines the sociological and cultural characteristics of the aristocratic-bourgeois bloc that furnished the ruling classes of Europe between the late nineteenth century and the First World War. Finally, it shows how Nietzsche gave consummate expression to this bloc culturally and philosophically, in a (vain) attempt to rejuvenate its hegemony.