In the text ‘On the Advantages and Disadvantages of History for Life’, found in Untimely Meditations, Nietzsche discusses why history should serve life. However, to understand what he means by this and for the purpose of this essay, history, and life would need to be defined. According to Nietzsche, history is “the passions and loves of former centuries”, and it is where our psychological nature stems from. While Nietzsche does not give a clear definition of what life is, however from the text it can be derived that it is pledging ourselves to the future for human or cultural flourishing or being active. According to Emrys Westacott, it can also be seen as “…a deep, rich, creative engagement with the world one is living in.” Thus, the question should history serves life means should all historical knowledge be used for human flourishing. This essay will examine, the dangers of the “oversaturation” of history, different forms of history in the service of life, the ways in which it does so and its dangers, the need for balance and a ‘genuine historian’; and will conclude that monumental, antiquates and critical forms of history should indeed serve life.
According to Nietzsche history should serve life, as “…only through the power of employing the past for the purposes of life and of again introducing into history, that which has been done and is gone – did man become man…”. It is only through history being in the service of life that we get to know who we are and act. This can also be seen when Nietzsche says history is needed “…for the sake of life and action…” as history makes us act in a way that leads to human flourishing and thus it serves life. However, it could be argued that history should not serve life because of the dangers of some of its forms.
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Nietzsche’s goal which is stated in the foreword of the text is to get us to recognize that we are suffering from history which is where our values come from and is what we hold worthy of respect. “There is a degree of sleeplessness, of rumination, of the historical sense, which is harmful and ultimately fatal to the living thing…” History is fatal to us as we are intrinsically historical beings unlike animals, and thus we have always had this problem. However, if it is intrinsic how is it possible that we are suffering from it, and how can we stop ourselves from suffering? Why do we suffer from it, if it is a continuous characteristic of who we are? It is possible because history makes us self-conscious, it makes us “…cling[s] relentlessly to the past…”; and thus “…’ Each man is furthest from himself.’” Nietzsche says “…we are all suffering from a consuming fever of history and ought at least to recognize...” this. The ‘fever’ causes “conflict, suffering, and satiety” which makes us undermine ourselves. History makes “Man …brace[s] himself against the great and ever greater pressure of what is past… it encumbers his steps as a dark, invisible burden…” The past makes us question ourselves, it is a heavy weight that makes us undermine the faith we have in ourselves and is one we have to bear. This is because, “… we remain necessarily strangers to ourselves, we do not understand ourselves…”. It, therefore, makes people think that they might as well not do anything as they would be compared to or will compare themselves to thousands or millions of other people who have done the exact same thing. Thus, what exactly makes them or their actions better than the people or their actions who have existed before them? History is a dangerous tool that destroys man’s “…instincts and, having lost his trust in the ‘divine animal’, [his soul] he can no longer let go of the reins when reason falters and his path leads him into dangerous deserts. Thus, the individual grows fainthearted and unsure and dares no longer to believe in himself:” This is an ethical concern as it undermines our values and is fatal to life. Therefore, history should not be used to serve life as it undermines the condition for us to be ourselves.
Why does history give us this burden? History gives us this burden because of historical justice. Justice means to “Do, treat, or represent someone or something with due fairness and appreciation.” Historical justice thus means we need to give everything in history its due. The price of this is nihilism as historical justice means unearthing everything i.e. all aspects of the past. The cost of historical justice is “so much that is false, crude, inhuman, absurd, violent that the mood of pious illusion in which anything living can live necessarily crumbles away” It undermines our faith in ourselves and unearths all aspects of the past, including all the horrific things our ancestors have done. Why does this affect us? It affects us and is also a burden as we are not unrelated to the past, we are outcomes of it. We are the outcome of the previous generation, of their “… aberrations, passions and errors, and indeed their crimes; it is not possible to wholly free oneself from this” It reveals the historical components of our own soul. So, when we look at the past and at history, we are confronting ourselves. We cannot free ourselves from history and that is why it makes us suffer. It confronts us with certain aspects of our own soul and stops us from being able to thrive and act. Therefore, since we cannot act, we cannot flourish and thus history should not serve life.
Furthermore, history destroys the atmosphere in which life can flourish and grow as the existence of our values, needs, and desires is contingent on the past. It creates an atmosphere of illusion where we have no faith in our rights and are perfect. Thus, even though we are intrinsically historical people, history is not intrinsically valuable to us and does not serve us. Once you have started learning about history you want to open up the past, and once we do this, we would not be able to shut it. We would simply be jumping from thing to thing and studying knowledge with no purpose. We will thus become “a host of pure thinkers who only look on life...to whom the accumulation of knowledge is itself the goal” Therefore, history does not contain the nutrients we need to vitalize life. This is because “…modern man drags around within him a huge quantity of indigestible stones of knowledge” Eventually we will have a knowledge of culture rather than an existing culture. We would not create anything of our own. We become “walking encyclopedias”, and our present is looking back at the future, not taking a “glance” but staying in the past, existing there and not living in the present or future. We become “strolling spectators” to life nothing is our own, and so nothing affects us are there is nothing to commit ourselves to. Therefore, history should not serve life as it is dangerous.
However, history should serve life Nietzsche is not saying that we should do without history as he knows it is important as shown in the first paragraph of this essay. He says “…the unhistorical and the historical are necessary for equal measure for the health of an individual, of a people, and of a culture.” When it is healthy and balanced, we will be able to flourish and thus, we should “…value history … to a degree.” History is useful to an extent, and that extent is when there is balance. This is important to note as Nietzsche is not saying that we should do away with history, in the text he is “…severely hostile to academic, scholarly, and scientific history…”, but not to all of it as he provides us with three forms of history which should be used as they serve life. He argues that history is needed to a degree but not to the extent that it “oversaturates” History should serve life in a way that inspires us to act, and in a way where we are not overwhelmed by it. The knowledge we get from history has to translate to activity, if it does not that is when it becomes dangerous and it is an accumulation of knowledge for knowledge’s sake. We are to “…serve history only to the extent that history serves life…”. It is “Only when historical culture is ruled and led by a higher force…does it bring with it a powerful new stream of life … something healthy with future promise.” We have to control the extent to which it dominates and controls us. If we do this, “the demands of life [will] alone no longer reign and exercise constraint on knowledge of the past” Rather than life being subdued, history should be subdued. We are to become “historical men” where “…their occupation with history stands in the service, not of pure knowledge, but of life.” We’re meant to go to the past, boomerang back to the future and see what we can use to invigorate our activity in the future. It has to be done in just the right way to make us have self-contempt but to make us overcome it as well. There are three forms of history that do this and as such, they serve life.
The first is monumental history, which stimulates us to act in the world by “…gaining strength through reflecting on past greatness…”. This means we are inspired by the inspiration of great spirits such as Shakespeare, Plato, and Leonardo da Vinci. These historical figures make us “…inspired with the feeling that the life of man is a glorious thing…” and thus provide inspiration to transform the world. They elevate the concept of a human being and they renew our faith in ourselves as they beautify the idea “…that the greatness that once existed was in any event once possible and may thus be possible again…”. Thus, we are able to act in a way that leads to human flourishing as we are moved by what could be in the present from what has been in the past. Therefore, history should serve life as the inspiration from past figures stirs us to act.
However, Nietzsche argues it could lead to us trying to recreate the past. This can only happen when “…that which was once possible could present itself as a possibility for a second time … if … it was certain that the same complex of motives…the same catastrophe were repeated at different intervals…” This means that thinking part of the past can be recreated again can only happen if the exact same things which happened in the past, happen in the present. Since this is not possible, monumental history simply deals with “…making what is dissimilar look similar…”. Since the past cannot be repeated, it means “…the future could never again produce anything exactly similar to what it produced in the past.” In addition, the monuments become ideals and we may end up worshipping the past and bowing down to these monuments. This blocks the future as we are obsessed with the past and thus the past “becoming somewhat distorted, beautified and coming close to free poetic invention” is not real. Therefore, history should not be used in the service of life as there is the danger of just making things up.
However, maybe the second way of history serves life better. The second way is antiquated history which looks back at the past as a whole rather than on just individuals, with “love and loyalty” This means love and commitment to history and revering it. The antiquated soul, in preserving history, preserves the condition of their own existence. He learns about who he is which makes him feel at home in this great story, e.g. world war two and slavery. In some sense this part of history reaffirms who he is as he understands his existence as an outcome of that story. “one is not wholly accidental and arbitrary, but grown out of a past as its heir, flower, and fruit, and that one’s existence is thus excused and, indeed, justified” To feel like your existence is justified and is important. Unlike the scientific view of history which is objective and disinterested, this is the opposite as it is a loving view of it. Therefore, history should serve life.
However, there is danger in this, as it cuts off our vital needs. It leads to the dead burying the living as the past kills the present. This is because it provides a narrow view of history where “all his valuations are altered... one is least capable of being just; narrow-minded, ungrateful to the past, blind to dangers, deaf to warnings” The past suffers as they can only see that which is only meticulously related to themselves or their community. e.g. the dark side of history or the dark side of every story. There is no historical justice here as we are not giving everything it's due. The antiquarian soul can also get obsessed with or absorbed in the past. Thus, history should not serve life.
However, a better way to use history in the service of life is critical history as it does not have these dangers. Critical history breaks up the past and dissolves it. A critical historian dissolves narratives and mercilessly dissects history. It “takes the knife to its [history’s] roots” and as such involves a radical interrogation of the past. We need critical history to get out of constraints that make it hard to flourish. Examples of this are slavery and racism. Critical history serves a need, and that need is for us to be free. It helps us free ourselves from the restraints of the past. We are not doing this for historical justice, but we are doing it because it is going to liberate us from a certain condition, and thus history serves life in this way. However, the danger with this is that critical history demoralizes us as history becomes a series of degradation. It leads to a feeling where we are “condemned to live in the fifth act of a tragedy” Here everyone gets killed, and there is nothing beyond this and thus it leads to us asking ‘what is the point of everything?’ This means that history cannot serve life as it leads to this feeling of hopelessness and emptiness.
However, according to Nietzsche the way to overcome the problems of the three ways in which history serves life is to combine all three ways. Each one then offsets the nature of the other. This is a judgment we have to make depending on our condition. It is a context-sensitive judgment, and this is where the ‘genuine historian’ comes in. The idea is that the ‘genuine historian’ can make this “artistic” judgment through his artistic capability in such a way, that it serves life. It could be said that “The best historians work like artists to bring a previous age to life.” It is not about how much knowledge you have that matters, it is how you use the knowledge that really matters, and knowledge of history should be used for human flourishing. The ‘genuine historian’ has “objectivity” which is “a condition in the historian which permits him to observe an event in all its motivations and consequences so purely that it has no effect at all on his own subjectivity”. Thus, the ‘genuine historian’ has disciplined creativity which is used in such a way that it minimizes the dangers of history and helps us commit to the future, and therefore history can serve life.
In conclusion, Nietzsche in his text looks at how “…academic, scholarly and scientific history…” forms of history cannot serve history as it makes us self-conscious, challenge and question ourselves and it undermines the condition for us to be and have faith in ourselves. It also unearths all aspects of the past, which includes all the horrific acts our ancestors have done e.g. slavery; which affects us as we are outcomes of this and thus, we cannot free ourselves from confronting certain aspects of our own soul by confronting the past. In addition, it creates an atmosphere of illusion where we have no faith in our rights and perfection and it is not intrinsically valuable to us even though we are intrinsically historical. Nothing affects us and we have nothing to commit ourselves to as we only have knowledge of a host of different things, such as different cultures, but we do not have an existing culture or anything of our own. However, there are forms of history that can and should serve life as when they are used in balance, history is useful, and does not dominate and control us. These are monumental, antiquated, and critical histories. Monumental history is where through the inspiration of great spirits, we get inspired to act and are moved by how glorious the past was. Aquatic history is where we have love and commitment to history, and we revere it which helps us preserve the condition of our own existence. Critical history breaks up and dissolves the past by mercilessly dissecting history. It helps liberate us from certain historical conditions. Irrespective of the dangers of these forms, they can be used in the service of life as once they are all used to balance each other out by using a context-sensitive judgment, a ‘genuine historian’ can use his artistic capability, objectivity, and disciplined creativity to use them in a way that they serve life.
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