WHAT WE LEARN FROM CHOMSKY v. BUCKLEY

a LEFT hook
RIGHT to the face

The 1969 televised spectacle of debacle between Messrs. William F. Buckley and Noam Chomsky is widely available on the various free viewing “tubes” of the World Web. Mr. Buckley is a titan of neo-conservative punditry whose fabulously resonant simpering and hyper-articulate ejaculations helped shape a generation on the Right wing of American politics. His formidable opponent, Mr. Chomsky, holds a similar status on the Left and is renown for his bewilderingly competent grasp of the published facts and his arch-rational speaking style.

Left vs. Right. Morality vs. Ethics. The Intellectual Consensus of the Culture vs. the Critical Consensus of the International Arena.

This video is little gem whose flashiest facet is the unexpectedly REAL threat that Mr. Buckley makes re: punching Mr. Chomsky right in the face. Both men are used to dominating conversations, eluding questions, and talking over other people while maintaining a pose of righteous reasonableness. The tension runs high and we can delight in their nearly domestic refusal to fully listen to each other's comments. In some sense they cease to be mere historical men and become the avatars of twin tendencies within the cultural field of modern democratic capitalism, the White & Red dragons of myth... or the White & Red wings of one dragon.

When their frustration mutually peaks we see that Mr. Chomsky struggles to get “on top” of his anger and tries to confess it within the stream of social discourse. Mr. Buckley, on the other hand, embodies his rage in a quick flash that betrays more than a little of the narcissistic poseur. One climbs up out out his uncomfortable feelings, heading for the mind, while the other descends into physicality and general theatrics. Is this a key to the Left/Right split in social dynamics? It is the little known position of the Neo-Reichians that Conservative Emotional Pathology maintains a vital but perverted connection to the bodily core – the “gut” -- while the Liberal Emotional Pathology orbits up the surface of the body and replaces the gut with the mind. These are hardly firm divisions but they are endlessly suggestive... and fit very nicely with theories like the following:

Conservatives are interiorists, locating the source of social problems within the feelings, beliefs and choices of individuals while Liberals are exteriorists who locate the trouble in the actual conditions, materials and habits of the society.

(And if you are too frail for general categorizations please insert “tends to” wherever you like...)

Another gorgeous facet of the discussions dazzles out when they come upon the question of whether Imperialism totally or only partially characterizes any given political regime. Mr. Buckley leaps upon this point, calling it a clear “observable” difference. Mr. Chomsky blurts out a correction, saying it obviously a “conceptual” distinction. Each is citing his own medium when he tries to assert his message.

Even more wonderful! Mr. Chomsky denounces hypocrisy among rapacious and idealistic States... but he does admit “some exceptions.” Mr. Buckley naturally assumes this as a reference to the class of morally laudable exceptions who can truly “walk their talk.” He is quickly corrected by Mr. Chomsky who, it turns out, meant only to say that a few Nations are entirely rapacious and do not even bother with the rhetoric of virtue.

Our Leftist believes that the hidden, problematic motives in rational societies are revealed by a negative sub-class of pure maniacs. Our (curiously effeminate) Rightist assumes that a positive sub-class must be elevated over the obviously problematic nature of society. The former is illuminating the difficulties in the actual implementation of ethical agendas, while the latter is highlighting the ideals that must be incorporated at the site of the social dilemma being considered. I read these as complementary assignments, mutual functions – the healthy Left and Right wings of the same bird.

One group is built to locate the precise site of the antagonism by raising a flag of cultural ideals above this pit. It does this intuitively, by feeling out its own refined responses and filtering them through the matrix of traditionally-established popular concepts. In my mind the Right is the diagnostician and the Left is the giver of prescriptions. An adequate strategy cannot be produced by gut-feeling and idealism since, it is endless revealed through history, the best intentions lead straight to Hell. A decent program for action must bypass the specific cultural ideals and harness all the available data in an manner that is orchestrated by the ethical operating-instructions for beneficial engagements with Others.

Conservatives are not built for analysis or strategic implementation. Progressive Social-Liberals are not built to identify the actual sources of trouble.

We need Liberal Solutions to Conservative Problems. Not a third-way fusion but a re-engagement of the natural sociological function which both parties are already attempting to perform.

Among, say, the abortions, we might look to the Right to locate the fundamental question and mark it with an imperative ideal. So "We must not kill babies!" is read as meaning that the question of babyhood is THE essential site of the dilemma which assails us its pressurized moral potency. Yet the destruction, banning, etc. of abortion clinics is a feeble and barbaric solution. The Right is not solution oriented. There are too many ambiguities and troubling feelings among the facts upon which good, ethical strategy must be based -- they are too sensitive for that. They would rather reject the dissonance by turning it over to a God, Law or the motives of Heathens. The trend to seek solutions in ancient myth, gossip and popular emotionalism is quite obviously an abdecation of Implementation.

Or consider the right-wing instinct toward social hierarchy -- a fine idea, except... that conservative authoritarians do not occupy the upper levels.

The trend to It must be left to Liberals to make the fine distinctions between a mere fetal mass and a functional, anthropomorphic utero-person... taking their cue from the general (but demystified) Conservative estimation, marked by an absolute/ideal flag. Without such guidance, the Progressive sentiments may simply produce a suffocating mass of rules against offensiveness, set against a backdrop of paralyzing relativism.

In the matter of having a Left and Right hand we would be complete fools to fuse them, to cut one off, to deny their difference or to take turns – switching every four or eight years.

Our “permissive culture” is organically sensed by the Conservative as a problem of the absence of shared disciplinary virtues. When they propose virtues that are found in dusty tomes from ancient lands which they themselves pervert and deny in their “unwatched private spaces” we know simply that they are not in the business of providing those disciplinary virtues. The source of practical virtues must come from those variation-tolerating, fact-admitting, self-critical Liberal Progressives.

The last beautiful bit to mention is that Chomsky slips his tongue and refers to “The Greeks” simply as “Greek” -- mistaking the people for their language-category. Exquisite!

What the heck does "uber-dubious" mean?

WHAT THE HECK DOES “UBERDUBIOUS” MEAN

I coined this term to describe an increasingly common event in literary & dramatic structure, “a state of extreme cahoots betwixt the narrative and its own contents in which is attempted a doubling of sublime mistrust.” Uber (ultra) dubious material is designed to enhance the direct experience of the mutual core that is shared between faith & mistrust. It violates the categories of belief and disbelief and thus immediately displays their common functioning principle.

It is this sort of function that motivates human societies in the collective-ideological dimension of their being. It is generally invisible, concealed by its subtlety when in juxtaposition with crude stories & representational suggestions – such as comprise the obvious bulk of any communicative work. Only by short-circuiting our messages, in a skillful manner, can we stare directly into this other dimension at which site is manufactured the un-proclaimed operating instructions for social beings.

One powerful way to gain such access is through the experience of harmlessly suspected mistrust. Think of the feelings and subliminal ideation that occurs in the viewer when Rod Serling suddently steps from behind a door and explains that the story you are watching is contained within a weird, distorted semantic field he names THE TWILIGHT ZONE. It isn't dangerous, but still – what the heck is he up to??? This is normal pleasant distrust. We experience it when we watch a kitten or a puppy being obvious in their attempt to sneak up on us and pounce! Whenever Calvin, from Watterson's CALVIN & HOBBES, approach the door of his home he is seized by the ordinary emotion of playful yet ominous suspicion. Already this experience draws us intimately towards the screen of deeper sub-symbolic exchanges – but for many this is a damnably elusive pursuit and so attempts are made to amplify the experience. Such magnifications are what I happily refer to as uber-dubious.

To better explain the distinction between the merely dubious & the uber-dubious I usually invoke the comparison of Melville's MOBY DICK with Hurwitz's three-season sit-com ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT. Remember Melville's opening passage: Call me... Ishmael. We the readers are instantly invited to regard the narrator-protagonist as a highly suspect personage (HSP). If the the text is willing to deceive to you immediately and openly concerning the identities of its own characters then how can we possibly believe any of it? It opens by casting doubt upon its own capacity to function as the “I” who tells the tale.

Melville's first authorial act is to require a suspension of belief to overlap the ordinary suspension of disbelief that enables access to an imagined storyline. In order to believe him – you must suspect him of not being believable. This should cause us considerable alarm! If the Narrator cannot be relied upon then THERE IS NO STORY. And yet... the story goes on.

Although widely denounced in its day for being “terrible writing” it slowly ascended into that still rare circle of modern texts that can compete with the Sacred Classics of the older civilizations. Despite its perverse denial of the very premise of literature it exerts powerful literary influence. We all recall the archetypical Captain Ahad in his obsessive, peg-legged pursuit of God & that god damned White Whale. He was played for us by the original George Clooney -- Gregory Peck -- and later by the inimitable and hilarious Patrick Stewart. And what about Starbuck? His name has entered the public lexicon along with a vague recollection of the great tattooed Aborigine: Queequeg. How has this occurred if the text denies us the opportunity to enter its world by relinquishing its claim to minimal validity?

The answer, clearly, is that we can enter into this world despite the dubiousity of Narrator. In fact it turns out that belief in the text and its claims are not essential to the effects of the works. We must assume that faith in the Speaker, in his claims, and in his attitude toward what he enunciates is not considerably important to the functioning of the work.

Obviously this has grave implications for social theory. It suggest the premise that “beliefs” are not significant motivators. The stories exchanged as belief systems, the apparent attitudes toward these stories & the references to authoritative structures ARE NOT the signals that define our social space and behaviours. These are mere narration-factors.

This is a dubious matter, sure, but electronica has gone even further – though with less depth and consideration --than Herman Melville. In order to see how this revelation of the disbelieving kernel of belief can be magnified let us consider ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT. The Voice Over narration is provided by the wholesome child-star and populist film director Ron Howard whose sense of nostalgic sincerity is rivalled only by the narrator of “The Wonder Years” and the paternal benevolence of Ronald Reagan. It is the sound of the well-meaning rural volk. Hurwitz deploys it alongside the sinister ignorance and obscenely layered misinterpretations of the once-prominent Bluth clan. Periodically a contradiction will arise between the claims of the narrator and those of a character. For example, the emotionally retarded stage-magician G.O.B. (George Oscar Bluth, a.k.a. “Jobe”) announces that he has sexually consummated his marriage to a woman who sells seals. Ron Howard, hovering like the watchful Jehovah in his primal garden, denies and has already denied claim. Now we are at that place of absurdity which Melville invoked – the impossible contradiction in which the narrator's status is cancelled by its pretense. Jobe did not catch God -- the text itself -- off guard with his claim! Very dubious. It becomes uber-dubious when this failed magician, apparently oblivious to the narrator, nonetheless restates him claim as if it had been challenged.

Variations on this pattern occur through the three seasons of the show. The dubious narrator routine is intensified by the disagreement of narrated characters who are embedded in the text only by means of their pretended alienation from the self-expression of the text which they reveal by a deliberately falsified attempt to act if their conflict with the narrative were totally coincidental and in no way a response to the dubious narrator.

This is UBER-DUBIOUS narration.

HOW WAS THE CIRQUE DU SOLEIL?

or: THE CIRQUE JERK


Don't get me wrong. I did have a good time at the Cirque du Soleil. I had to have a good time at the Cirque du Soleil. It's the Law. And it is about this very legislation that I wish to speak.

Wait -- was the performance very impressive? Yes.

Was their visionary SALTIMBANCO SHOW a delirious matrix of colour & sound that mixed the aesthetic of hyper-spatial elves with the vigorous posturing of a 19th century dance instructor? Yup! Was it a psychedelic potpourri of “old world charm” with a liberal dash of cool futurism” to dazzle the audience? Sure. Of course it was. And so I liked it. I really did. But I also felt obliged to like it (which I did not like).

Perhaps I shouldn't be saying this out loud. I ought to have just clear, simple emotions. Vague and complicated emotions are highly suspicious. One should never say in public: “Of course I'm against Hitler, but...” Ambiguity may be severely misconstrued.

The Law says: I have to enjoy the Cirque du Soleil. Everyone enjoys the Cirque du Soleil! The People have agreed. So my ambiguity puts me at risk. My little words might be misunderstood as a revelation of wickedness.

Yet, I beg you, before denouncing me, before calling me “Scrooge McAudienceMember,” or some other equally bizarre insult (that no one but me would ever come up with) please try to remember -- I found Cirque to be very, very enjoyable. In fact, I found that “it” was very enjoyable even if I didn't enjoy myself!

You follow?

No, of course you don't. How could I NOT enjoy that which I found to be enjoyable? Aren't I the subject of my own enunciation? Yeesh. I am now speaking a language of two-faced abstractions, gibber-jabberish which is normally reserved for discussing “European post-structuralist cultural theories.” If such things even exist!

I'll try to explain more simply:

I was astonished. Which is what I expected. So in that respect, I was not astonished.

Simple but loopy. Two things where every One thing should be. Footage & bonus footage on the same screen. Am I advanced or insane? Or do both these options give me too much credit? When I told folks that my wonderful extended family (and they really, truly are wonderful) was giving me a FREE TICKET to the Cirque du Soleil, and maybe -- if the Gods of Valhalla were on our side – a BACKSTAGE PASS.... well, I had mixed feelings. After all, how could I tell if I really, really wanted to go? Maybe my desire was being manipulated by the invisible social context in which I am embedded? Perhaps I assumed that people-in-general want to see Cirque and so I reflected “their” desire back onto myself?

Is there even such as thing as “really wanting”?

I decided to ask around. I told my problems to lovely young café baristas, street bums, bus stop waifs & various bourgeois business owners of my acquaintance. I said, Listen: I get to go to Cirque du Soleil but I'm not sure I should. I wanted to get a mixed set of opinions.

No luck.

Every single person told me the same damned thing. I mean Every Single Person I talked to gave me a variation of this one response: “What? You've got to go! Cirque du Soleil is great. I saw them Somewhere or heard Something about them once. They're very entertaining & sophisticated. You have to go.”

I have to go. There it is -- the Law.

They didn't try to sell me on the significance of the event. No one said, “Hey, Cirque is a lively, colourful window into the thrilling depths of the body's own imagination, a lifting of the cellular mystery-power into such refinement that it reveals the first authentic glimmerings of a truly GLOBAL form of human culture.” Nope, no one said that. Nobody tried to astound me by claiming that Cirque is “basically like David Lynch directing a kindergarten performance of 'Puff the Magical Dragon' with a cast of all Olympic athletes.”

Instead, they invoked a moral argument:

A. It is the solemn duty of all citizens to be entertained.
B. Cirque du Soleil is GOOD entertainment
C. Thus all citizens must go to Cirque.

Who can argue with pure logic?

So off I went. Of course I did. I had to. I sat watching acrobats, dancers, gymnasts, jugglers & innumerable juicy-jigglers as they interlaced their well-toned & well-trained bodies into a seemingly endless cavalcade of unnatural hieroglyphs of the flesh. Just as I expected. And, while they got the spotlight, my own Herculean efforts went undetected in the darkness.

I did all that “audience work.” The Law decrees I must. I had to constantly recollect what normal body movements look like, comparing & contrasting them to the acrobatics on stage. I had to note all the pertinent differences and then pump out the appropriate brain chemicals. I was required to pick out certain “best moments in the show” after which I had to enthusiastically holler & clap and -- to top it all off -- I had to to synchronize all my actions with the rest of my fellow audience members.

Exhausting. Too bad I had no choice.

Hopefully, therefore, you will understand that when people ask me, “How was it?” I shall be forced by truthfulness to say: “Well, I liked it, but....”

My over-all conclusion about Cirque du Soleil?

“I liked it, but!”

(And don't go editing this footage later so it sounds like I'm saying: I LIKE BUTT! That would be childish & just plain WRONG.)

WHY SHAKESPEARE IS HILARIOUS

why shakespeare is hilarious


Hamlet: Denmark's a prison.
Rosencrantz: Then is the world one.
Hamlet: A goodly one; in which there are many confines, wards & dungeons – Denmark being one o' the worst.
Rosencrantz: We think not so, my lord.
Hamlet: Why then 'tis none to you – for there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so; to me it is a prison!
Rosencrantz: Why then your ambition makes it one; 'tis too narrow for your mind.
Hamlet: O God! I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space -- were it not that I have bad dreams...

-Wm. Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act II Scene II



What's the joke?

Hamlet is depressed. Rosencrantz (and Guildenstern) are trying are trying to cheer him up. Their strategy is to affirm that his melancholy is the natural result of his life circumstances being too small for his vast intellect. This is such a crude and superficial attempt at manipulation that Hamlet is prompted to mock them – announcing that his intellect is so tiny, so insignificant that it would fit neatly in a nutshell with enormous spaciousness left over.

Hilarious.


Rosencrantz is the conventional self-serving idiot. He cannot understand the depth of the philosopher's considerations. And by 'philosopher' we always also mean Shakespeare himself -- whomever he might really turn out to have been. Rosencrantz imagines that Hamlet's trouble must be local, based on simple events, and readily corrected by easy flattery. This is the same idea as when the buffoonish seducer allows his lust to persuade him that a young woman's reluctance to embrace him is evidence of her own lack of self-esteem. Of course he resolves to help her overcome this problem!

He thinks he is a “good man” in two senses – he is doing a benevolent deed and he is also trying to accomplish a personal goal. These are not inherently bad motives, but they are quite crude and too often veil selfishness & insensitivity. Rosencrantz is the altruistic friend or family member who tries to “correct” Hamlet's ambiguity and world-weariness. He is the salesman who superficially believes his own logic -- that rephrasing into positive terms is already to have solved the problem. Thus he maintains the problem pertually by his own attempt to easily escape. A very American scheme of “winning friends and influencing customers.”

It is obvious to the philosopher Hamlet that his “helpful” friend is simplistically selfish -- trying to keep his own heart apart from any deep encounter with the ambiguous universe. Insult, deception, idealism, success, failure, contempt, irony, playfulness and and exaggerated metaphor all at once. Comedy.

This is the kind of multi-layered, trans-ironic humour found in sitcoms like “The Office” or “Arrested Development.” It plays off the valid rhythms of speech and follows their logic until it invalidates itself. The momenum of its reasoning is perptually spilling over the edges of the word-containers, overflowing with a surplus of harmless meanings. Pathos mixes with mockery to illuminates the insipid quality of whomever wishes to “succeed” at the expense of intelligently responding to other people and circumstances. We are confrontes by the limits of our social logic through a half-serious juxtaposition one reasoning against another. High intellect and ridiculous motivation are blended together into one delicious stew.

But if it's so damned funny & cutting edge -- why aren't people falling in the aisles at Shakespeare's plays?

Or do they just not laugh at the 'tragedies'?

That is unlikely. We must doubt that an author so instinctively comfortable with the rhythms of parody and comedic dance would be able to thoroughly keep jokes out of his long "dramatic" plays. And does Hamlet's interaction with Rosencrantz not show that the gags have crept in? Perhaps the distinction between farce and drama has always been mostly in the incomprehending emotional response of audiences.

So why don't people laugh more at Shakespeare?


There two likely answers:

1. People simply do not put the necessary effort into following the linguistic rollercoaster of the dialogue. Since they are not tracking the logic they miss the unexpected logical revsersals. Without noting the set-up a punchline will go undetected.

2. People have become semi-professional "Shakespeare-advocates" and “theater-goers.” They miss what would have entertained the unruly author because they are otherwise occupied about the business of dressing up & congratulating themselves for appreciating high culture.

Probably both.

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WHY NIETZSCHE WAS NOT INSANE

(why nietzsche was not insane)

We get a nice feeling when life reflects philosophy. We can take a strange pleasure in hearing that the author of many works concerning tragedy and madness has gone insane – tragically. It satisfies us to know that author of the sentence “God is dead” was struck down by a mysterious malady. Poetic justice doubles as divine retribution.


The damned malcontent & philosopher Frederick Nietzsche proclaimed that life was pointless and all our values are arbitrarily invented. It was simply the Universe's good etiquette to put this bizarre man into a semi-comatose state which no sensible meaning could penetrate.


Yet – if we should discover, by some accident, or by careful reading and re-reading of his actual commentary, that his philosophy was sublimely optimistic, rationally spiritual, sensitive, community-oriented, even – faithful? What then? Surely we might be tempted to find a different story concerning the fate of this beautiful and lonely man, a fate updated by our understanding, a fate more appropriate...


There can be an alternative to the widely gossiped hypothesis that Nietzsche went tragically insane from sexual disease – or from “too much thinking!”


Here is another life & death of Nietzsche:


Consider that his peculiar intellectual work and his well-documented daily health practices are equivalent to what Hindus would call the life of a yoga-saint. It is know that each day he set himself to contemplation of beauty, to the minimal and organic regulation of diet, to various disciplines of self-overcoming, and endless toward deep meditation upon the singular energy which gives rise to all the appearances in the universe – the Will to Power. It is recorded often in Nietzsche's writings that he was in pursuit of a “creative surplus of power... the Great Health.”


A good Oriental education would presume that such a life moves radically toward a point of benevolent psychological mutation. This shift is expected to involve an increase of good humour, an intensification of compassion, and the identification of oneself with the infinite & transcendent power of creation. These are precisely the qualities that were reported by those who observed Nietsche's early “descent” into madness.


His letters became more joyful, more mythical and full of benevolent hilarity. He cannot resist describing his sense that he is God or Dionysus or whatever universal power those words could positively signify. And as for compassion? Nietzsche was initially arrested after trying to protect a horse that was being brutally beaten in the town square. German authorities incarcerated in a psychiatric hospital – “for his own good.”


Reports from his visiting friends describe him as being in excellent spirits, even unusually overflowing with wit and empathy. His closest philosophical companion, Peter Gast, recollects, “[...] He does not seem to be mad. If anything, it strikes me merely an intensification of the humorous part of his nature. Also his piano playing has improved immensely.” These sympathizers rejected the hasty diagnosis of syphillis – an explanation also later dismissed by the analysis of the Journal of Medical History. Unfortunately, Nietzsche's sister Elizabeth can not be counted among his sympathizers.


Herr Nietzsche had a deep fondness for his sister and always treated her very cordially. She, however, had not been able to tolerate the more organic and free-spirited aspects of his nature. Her own tastes ran toward domination and cruelty. In his letters, Nietzsche repeated chides for her for slanderous, self-serving gossip that she has been spreading about him and his ideas. When she marries a fanatic racist and would-be cult leader he finally disowns her... and she spends the next few years helping her husband run an Aryan compound in Paraguay. Abuse and mismanagement lead to overthrow and suicide of her husband, Herr Forster.


Now, without any other means of pursuing her domineering ambitions, she hears that her “dear brother” has been institutionalized for erratic behaviour. She sets sail for Europe and personally takes charge of his treatment. His health begins a hasty deterioration.


One possible explanation is that Nietzsche had an hereditary brain disease. He becomes moody, incoherent, infantile and prone to absence-seizure of increasing duration. These symptoms could be produced by a poisonous or radioactive element in his diet or, most troubling of all, by primitive electroshock experiments. These latter were certainly being conducted at the time. We must recall that the management of psychiatric institutions in 19th century Germany would hardly have met contemporary standards of ethical and rational procedures. In fact this particular psychiatric hierarchy would soon be diagnosing the terrible disease of sympathizing with Jews... and proscribing therapeutic “gas chambers.” Even the best of these institutions at that time must be described as dangerous, fanatical, political and highly experimental. A bad situation for Nietzsche with only his psychotic sister to protect him.


Whatever the specifics of his mistreatment it is clear that his initially overflowing vitality was rapidly extinguished, replacing a transformed man with an increasingly vegetative husk. He no longer made trouble for anyone. Instead he was a compliant martyr symbol for Elizabeth to interpret however she wished. She took him him and quite literally began to exploit his semi-conscious body as a tourist attraction – trotting him out for paying visitors and selling post-cards of his mindless, slumping body. She explained his philosophy as one of racial supremacy for the Aryans and revised his writings accordingly. Years later she would personally assure Adolf Hitler that he was fully supported by Nietzsche's works. This is the kind of woman who had both opportunity and motive to ensure her brother's total compliance.


This tale is still tragic in the extreme – but it shifts the onus of blame from Nietzsche's own body and mind to that of his sister and his untimely social circumstances. Of course we are not seeking to divorce him from responsibility for his life but instead to establish a new reconciliation between Nietzsche's personal history and that profound spirit of health and illumination that dazzles any sensitive reader of his work.


Revisionism?
Yes -- but not entirely unwarranted.


This gentle hermit of the Alps has been denounced as a racist, sexist, war-mongering nihilist, latent homosexual, compulsive masturbator, possible Antichrist, unlovable weirdo & an emotionally inadequate loner who probably went insane from Siphyllis because prostitutes were the only women who would have sex him!


What a malign and oddly “redneck” set of accusations – gossip that puzzles us all the more when we learn that this fellow was a tireless anti-nihilist, outspoke enemy of anti-semites, advocate of a post-nationalist Europe, lover of community, and a deeply spiritual philosopher whose most widely quoted negative remarks about women are usually pieces of dialogue from characters in his novel Thus Spake Zarathustra.

So perhaps revisionism is sorely needed.


Our alternative history is not proven, but neither is the conventional rumour. We must admit that there is, at least, a reasonable doubt...

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