1 - Nietzsche

Summary

This chapter discusses social and political philosophy of Nietzsche within the communitarian tradition. Hegel refers share agreement as the Volksgeist, the 'spirit of the people', and says that it consists in the Sittlichkeit, the ethos or 'ethical substance' of a community. Hegel views education as essential to community because it is through it that we acquire a second nature, become habituated to the Sittlichkeit of the community. The younger Wagner's revolutionary social and political ideas were expressed in a number of theoretical works written between 1848 and 1852. Wagner's essential move is to abolish the Hegelian distinction between religion and art. Wagner's modified Hegelianism appears virtually word for word in The Birth of Tragedy. Nietzsche's descent into madness and Heidegger's birth both occurred in 1889. Nietzsche is committed to the idea that a truly enlightened society will respect Hegel's kinds of rights: freedom of speech, religion, morals, and political dissent.