Nietzsche's Remarks on the Classical Tradition: A Prognosis for Western Democracy in the Twenty-First Century

Summary

In this article I consider several statements Nietzsche made about the classical tradition, which form the basis of Nietzsche's prognosis for the future. This prognosis, I shall argue, is composed of both a political prognosis of the state in terms of liberal democracy, and a scientific prognosis of the human being as a living biological system. In the first part I consider the following four statements regarding the classical tradition: first, one made by Nietzsche in a lecture in 1872 on ancient rhetoric; second, and third, statements made by him in Daybreak; and finally, a statement found in the first volume of Human, All Too Human (aphorism 472). Taken together these remarks form the basis of Nietzsche's prognosis of the state. Then, in the second part of this paper, I shall examine Nietzsche's prognosis of the human being examined through the prism of Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

The first of Nietzsche's remarks about the classical tradition to be considered here pertains to orators, and their influence in antiquity. It appears in are on ancient rhetoric given by Nietzsche in the winter semester of 1872, where he quotes a statement the ancient orator Diodorus is thought to have said:

“No one will be able easily to name a higher prerogative than oratory. For it … is by oratory alone that one individual acquires authority over many; but in general everything appears only as the speaker's power represents it.”