A Grande Política como proposta de superação do niilismo em Nietzsche

Abstract

This work aims to develop an interpretative hypothesis about the Nietzschean concept of great politics, considering its meaning under the light of his diagnosis concerning the global phenomenon of devaluation of values — nihilism —, understood as the event par excellence that characterizes the condition of Western modernity. Initially, we have established a dialogue with Keith Ansell-Pearson’s interpretation of great poltics, which is interpreted as proposing the establishment of an aristocratic and Machiavellian form of government — in order to respond to this reading and to other interpretations that understand great politics in the manner of a traditional political proposal. Secondly, after a brief discussion in which we establish the reading criteria that will guide our work, we started the analysis of those passages in which this expression occurs, seeking to highlight the two different meanings with which the philosopher employs it. The concept of great politics appear both in reference to the nationalist and militarist policy of the German Reich and as referring to his own proposal for the cultivation of a new type of man. Still in the second chapter, in order to clarify the context out of which the thinker’s concern with great politics emerges and his respective critique of the political practices of his time, we present and discuss the philosopher’s reflections concerning his diagnosis about the condition of Western Modernity as being fundamentally marked by the phenomena of décadence and nihilism. Finally, in the third and final chapter, we seek to develop great politics in its second sense, ie, as a proposal for the cultivation of a caste of spiritually prominent men. For that purpose, we consider this expression in its morphological aspect, analyzing the reinterpretation of the words “great” and “politics” operated by the philosopher, as well as the major spiritual positions which integrate this exercise of cultivation and self-legislation: the evaluation of conflict as an occasion for the strengthening of the spirit and the establishment of a hierarchy between men according to their different degree of psychic forces, through the pathos of the distance, from what we believe to be possible to conclude that this strengthening and cultivation would be precisely the means proposed by the philosopher to deal with the problem of nihilism, not in the sense of avoiding this event, but seeking its overcoming.