Sunday, October 1, 2017

Henosis, Dionysian, Communitarian

Nietzsche's version of Henosis, likely based on personal experience, described in the opening sections of Birth of Tragedy under the rubric Dionysian, is non-Cognitive and collective, with all social divisions dissolved.  The experience thus seems more conducive to grounding a Holistic or a Classless Political Philosophy, e. g. that of Aristotle, Rousseau, or Marx, than the Oligarchical or Individualist one often associated with his own later writings.  However, in #45 of Human, All Too Human, he makes it clear that it is the capacity for community that is a characteristic of superior types, while petty self-interest is characteristic of the fragmentary rabble.  So, contrary to the standard interpretation, he is both a Dionysian and a Communitarian, though not necessarily Egalitarian.

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