Nietzsche’s Earth

Nietzsche’s Earth is an ambitious work of expansive scope, which builds on several of Shapiro’s previous articles and contributions to anthologies. Shapiro’s comprehensive interpretation of Nietzsche’s reflections on time and “great politics,” while heavily informed by the thought of Deleuze, Guattari, and Agamben, remains firmly and admirably situated in the historical and ideological contexts in which Nietzsche lived and wrote. The stated goal of the book is to “triangulat[e Nietzsche’s] thought between nineteenth-century versions” of Hegel’s notion that his time was the “desired culmination of the world” (ix) and certain prevailing contemporary attitudes that in some respects look awfully close to this Hegelian idea, such as “apocalyptic religious passions” or “the apparent supremacy of the global market” (understood either as a laudable achievement or as an inevitability to which we should resign ourselves). Here, Shapiro aims to compile an instructive Nietzschean account, one that informs how we think about such attitudes and what we should do about them.According to Shapiro’s Nietzsche, we must resist Christian and Hegelian conceptions of the “world” that understand the present moment as a stage—perhaps even the final stage—in a progressive teleological process that culminates in a state of worldly perfection or completion, one in which “great events” that transform human life are no longer possible. This requires us (1) to resist an understanding of time as the unfolding of such a process. It also requires us (2) to recognize “‘world-history’ and the states, churches, and other institutions it celebrates” as “problematic shadows of God” that wrongfully claim to make sense of “significant events and exhaust all meaning” (x)—tempting us toward passively nihilistic ways of relating to and engaging the world around us—and (3) to embrace a Nietzschean conception of the “earth” (more specifically, his notion of the “human-earth [Menschen-Erde]”) that broadens earthly horizons and understands the future as radically open-ended (185). In the course of making the case for this reorientation, Shapiro argues that Nietzsche develops his notion of “earth” directly in contrast to Hegel’s notion of “world,” a provocative but surprisingly compelling claim.After reorienting ourselves in the manner described above, we must be watchful for times in which world-expanding (or, perhaps better, earth-expanding) possibilities for transformative social and political change—paradigm shifts that broaden earthly horizons, creating new possibilities for future humanity while also facilitating individual affirmation—become possible. And we must “seize the fleeting moment, the Kairos, or opportunity, as it rushes by” by recognizing and actively enabling such transformations when the proper moment arises (that is, when the significance of potentially earth-shifting “events” makes itself clear) and it is within our power to do so. Importantly, while Shapiro’s Nietzsche thinks such opportunities are rare, he does not think the individuals able to seize such opportunities—to “recogniz[e], yield[] to, and ultimately tyranniz[e]” transformative events—are. For example, they need not be Übermenschen (107).On Shapiro’s view, Nietzsche’s call for such transformative change is a call for a new “great politics” (BGE 208)—a “radically plural” (5) politics that sees new possibilities for existence and the direction of the earth emerge from hybrid, nomadic, cosmopolitan, and experimental social arrangements—in contrast to the limited, totalizing, and flattening political formation of the nation-state. Since Shapiro thinks Nietzsche’s concept of “great politics” is best characterized as a “great politics of the earth” (9, 15, 200), however, enacting these changes and envisioning future possibilities requires us to remain “loyal to the earth.” Acting in accordance with this Nietzschean command on Shapiro’s view involves not only renaturalizing humanity (KSA 9:11[211])—affirming our status as embodied animals with a host of natural instincts (Z “Prologue” 3) by creating future possibilities that leave ample room for the expression of those instincts—but also recognizing the fruitfulness of various human projects and ways of inhabiting the earth (such as “nomadic and nonstate groupings” [13]), such that these projects and engagements might inform the future direction of the earth.As hinted at above, Shapiro does not simply want to walk his reader through an interpretation of Nietzsche’s reflections on time, the “earth,” and “great politics.” He also wants these reflections to speak to our time and circumstances from out of the nineteenth century. In the first half of the book, he does this by arguing convincingly that various contemporary social, political, and economic investments—in capitalism, nationalism, notions of “technological ‘progress’” (6), and more—evince a continued and deeply problematic investment in a false and life-denying world-historical view. Later in the book, he connects Nietzsche’s call for a “great politics” that remains “loyal to the earth” to contemporary environmental concerns and the current (albeit contested) geological epoch: the Anthropocene. According to Shapiro, Nietzsche understands that Earth “has been and continues to be transformed by human habitation and industry” to such an extent that there is no “pure or natural earth to look to as a norm” (136). Not only does Shapiro’s Nietzsche recognize that we inhabit an age of humans, however; he also welcomes the Anthropocene and advocates for a “geopolitics of the anthropocene” (136), which involves a “shaping and tending of the natural, with a view to producing a rewarding result as well as the [human] enjoyment of an earthly site” (151). The world is our garden, according to Shapiro’s Nietzsche, and one potential outcome of our tending to this garden is that “garden happiness [Garten-Glück]” (Z III: “Three Evils” 2) of which Nietzsche speaks in Z.Shapiro’s book is dense but rewarding, and readers are sure to benefit from his erudition and tendency to proceed as an “old philologist” might (4). In addition to his formidable command of Nietzsche’s thought and his insistent attunement to the historical and cultural circumstances in which Nietzsche’s thought germinated, Shapiro’s laudable ambition to explain how the Nietzschean ideas he investigates in the work might be instructive for contemporary audiences—whom Shapiro understands as contending with cultural and political developments similar to many of those Nietzsche critiques—is successfully met.One place where he misses the mark, however, is in his reflections—which are some of the most interesting portions in the book—on the relevance of Nietzsche’s “great politics” for life in the Anthropocene. First, this part of Shapiro’s interpretation depends heavily on Nietzsche’s little-used concept of a “human-earth [Menschen-Erde],” a term that appears only twice in Nietzsche’s corpus (and in the same text) (Z I: “Bestowing” 1; Z III: “Convalescent” 2). Shapiro cites Nietzsche’s use of this term as evidence that Nietzsche licenses humanity’s dominion over Earth, rather than a mutually beneficial relationship between human beings and Earth. The text is ambiguous on the matter of dominion, however; it does not clearly bear out Shapiro’s conclusion. Additionally, it seems strange to claim, as Shapiro does, that Nietzsche’s concept of “garden happiness” suggests human beings should “shape and tend the natural,” given Nietzsche’s apparent use of the term in Z, where he seems to be describing lust (Wollust) (Z III: “Three Evils” 2).Additionally, such a reader as myself, with interests in the intersections between Nietzsche’s thought and environmental philosophy, would like to have seen a more nuanced take on the relevance of Nietzsche’s thought to the Anthropocene. After all, Nietzsche clearly does not welcome a human-dominated world in which industrial and economic impulses drive decision making. Nor does he claim that there will eventually be no other-than-human world from which human beings might distinguish themselves (and to which we might look for guidance). Indeed, Nietzsche’s characterizations of nature and wilderness show that he still believes parts of the world exceed the human and can potentially inform human life, if we are properly attuned (D 560). Shapiro seems to hint at this when he notes that “a deliberate shaping and arranging of earthly elements [. . .] is a form of thinking with the earth, a realization of its possibilities, and a mode of giving the earth a direction” (140). To my mind, however, his account of the Earth as a garden overemphasizes mastery of the earth in Nietzsche as involving “shaping and tending the natural.”Still, there is much to appreciate about Shapiro’s project. As Shapiro points out, scholars writing on Nietzsche’s political thought often attempt simply to place Nietzsche on one side of a political debate, attribute to him a particular political agenda, or situate him within a particular political party, “asking just where Nietzsche could be placed within a spectrum of possible positions” that “have already been mapped out” (2). This book carefully and admirably resists this tendency. In the spirit of attuning his reader to Nietzsche’s own aims, rather than allowing his reader to project contemporary concerns or political agendas onto him, Shapiro instead offers a detailed and sophisticated analysis of Nietzsche’s texts to discern what a genuinely Nietzschean “politics” might look like. This reorientation is a great virtue of Shapiro’s thought-provoking account. Ultimately, Shapiro’s Nietzsche is less concerned with recommending certain political structures or arrangements and more concerned with how human beings might presently orient themselves on the Earth of which they are a part—always with an eye toward the (open-ended) future

Astrobiology · Earth (classical element · Physics · Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, and Hegel · Philosophy · Geology · Mathematical Physics