Postmodernism, Christianity and Nietzsche

Postmodernism, Christianity, Nietzsche

Posted by Jennifer Armstrong

Postmodernism, in general, constructs a situation of having a sense of movement and of going somewhere whilst not actually being able to move. Why is this?Postmodernists will always have their own views as to what postmodernism(s) is(are) about. At the level of the capacity to espouse an intellectual idea, you will certainly see quite a bit of variation – as much as acquiescence to the systems of late Capitalism will allow.At the level of actual behaviour, however, the capacity to adapt or transform one’s situation seems to be limited by the fact that postmodernism(s) generally enjoy a philosophical blend that is an equal mix of Nietzsche and Christianity. Nietzsche and Christianity are, however, intrinsically opposed. One can dilute one’s basic Christian attitude and disposition with some Nietzsche and this MAY improve your overall personality in terms of making your religious drives somewhat impotent. This is about as far as postmodernism goes, in my opinion.

As a particular example, consider how Nietzsche, in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, notices that “up to now [revenge] has been mankind’s chief concern”. (Penguin 1961: 162) Nietzsche’s Zarathustra counsels against this spirit of revenge — and in it’s place a mental state of affirmation.

Yet, herein we have a problem: there are those who would misread an injunction against ‘revenge’ as an injunction to remain passive, simply because Christianity has taught them over the ages to equate inaction (allowing the Lord to avenge one) with ‘morality’ — and, also because religiously inspired action (that is mistaken for all kinds of action) is inevitably reactive rather than creative.

Christianity has so dominated the general culture’s understanding of what it means to act (courageously, for instance), that it even gives Nietzsche’s writings a false flavour of moral prohibition: Instead of “thou shalt act to morally justify oneself as being good Christians”, the postmodernist who has internalized Christian values reads the Nietzschean injunction as: “thou shalt prohibit thyself from acting, since any acting only takes place on a moral basis — and you ought to be above that.”

So that is the danger of mixing Nietzsche and Christianity. It leads to a feeling that one is prohibited — by morality, as it were — to act. Nietzsche, however, holds that a noble person acts nobly, without any need for a specifically moral framework to give meaning or direction to one’s actions.

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