Sources of Nietzsche’s Knowledge and Critique of Anarchism

: Hundreds of books and articles have been written on Nietzsche and anarchism, but the overwhelming number of them concern how later anarchists have viewed and have been inspired by, or have been critical of, Nietzsche. In the present contribution, I will instead emphasize how his views of anarchism changed, why he was so critical of anarchism and what were his main sources of knowledge of anarchism and the stimuli for his statements.

Nietzsche also emphasized the importance of individual autonomy. This, together with his general iconoclasm and critique of conventional morality and Christianity, has attracted many anarchists to Nietzsche's writings. In fact, he was aware of that his critique of the state could lead to him being mistaken for an anarchist, and in a letter to his publisher Ernst Schmeitzner, on April 2, 1883 (no. 399, KSB 6.355), in which he refers to his claims about the state in Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883-85), he comments: "By the way, concerning 'the state': I know what I know. One may count me among the 'anarchists', if one wants me ill." Hundreds of books and articles have been written on Nietzsche and anarchism, but the overwhelming number of them concern how later anarchists have viewed and have been inspired by, or have been critical of, Nietzsche.2 In the present contribution, I will instead emphasize how his views of anarchism changed, why he was so critical of anarchism and what were his main sources of knowledge of anarchism and the stimuli for his statements.
Let us examine Nietzsche's statements about anarchism in chronological order. He makes almost one hundred explicit references to anarchy, anarchism and anarchists in all of his writings. The young Nietzsche, before he became professor at the age of 24, seems to have made no relevant reference to anarchism, or even anarchy. In fact, from 1872 until 1884 all his references are to anarchy -never anarchism or anarchists -with one exception, when he argues in Dawn (1881) that anarchists and socialists need strict laws since they are unrestrained, and that they would make ironclad laws themselves if they came to power.
The state as a product of the anarchists. -In the lands where man is restrained and subdued there are still plenty of backsliding and unsubdued men: at the present moment they collect in the socialist camps more than anywhere else. If it should happen that they should one day lay down laws, then you can be sure they will put themselves in iron chains and practise a fearful discipline: they know themselves! (D 184)3 Not surprisingly, on the relatively few occasions during this long period that he refers to anarchy, equating anarchy with chaos, he is critical, but on the whole he does not show any interest in anarchy or anarchism. Nonetheless, on a few occasions anarchy is described as partially useful, for instance, for breaking something stale4 and for allowing the greatest possible individual development.5 Nietzsche's earliest comments about anarchy do not concern politics directly, but they refer to Bildung and culture -they were made in connection with On the Future of Our Educational Institutions, five public lectures he held in 1872, and in notes from that time, in which he warns against anarchy.6 Nietzsche seems to always have been sceptical and critical of anarchism, but he does not begin to explicitly discuss and criticize it until 1885.7 When Nietzsche began to refer to anarchism in 1885, he was consistently critical and hostile. His very first use of the term was: "I am disinclined towards 1) socialism, since it in a naïve way dreams of the herd-idiocy of 'the good, true and beautiful' and about equal rights: also anarchism wants the same ideal, only in a more brutal way" (Nachlass 1885, 34[177], KSA 11.480).
Subsequently, he treats anarchism as a political movement and ideology, with about 25-30 brief statements in all, almost completely without any serious written analysis or more detailed discussion. Frequently, Nietzsche engages in a more analytical approach in his notebooks than can be witnessed in his published works, but that is not the case for anarchism (with one possible exception, discussed below). From his notebooks, it appears as if he intended to discuss anarchism, or possibly merely use it as a symptom of modernity and decadence, for in many notes written in 1885 and 1886 he lists anarchism on several occasions as a topic to be discussed in the future.8 His most extensive discussions of anarchism in his published works can be found in Beyond Good and Evil, On the Genealogy of Morality and also to some extent in the fifth book of The Gay Science, i. e. from 1886 and 1887.
In BGE 202, Nietzsche points out: Morality is in Europe today herd-animal morality […], the democratic movement inherits the Christian. But that the tempo of this movement is much too slow and somnolent for the more impatient, for the sick and suffering of the said instinct, is attested by the ever more frantic buying, the ever more undisguised fang-baring of the anarchist dogs which now rove the streets of European culture: apparently the reverse of the placidly industrious democrats and revolutionary ideologists, and even more so of the stupid philosophasters and brotherhood fanatics who call themselves socialists and want a "free society", they are in fact at one with them all in their total and instinctive hostility towards every form of society other than that of the autonomous herd (to the point of repudiating even the concepts "master" and "servant" -ni dieu ni maître says a socialist formula -); at one in their tenacious opposition to every special claim, every special right and privilege […] at one in their mistrust of punitive justice […] but equally at one in the religion of pity (BGE 202).9 The source of these and other discussions of anarchism and anarchists in Beyond Good and Evil, On the Genealogy of Morality (perhaps most explicit in GM I 5, GM II 11 and GM III 26), and in the fifth book of The Gay Science have a single origin as I will show below. Thereafter, in Twilight of the Idols (1889) and The Antichrist (1888), his main addition to this is to regard Jesus, the early Christians and Christianity as closely allied with anarchism. TI, Skirmishes 34, with the title "Christian and Anarchist" -added to the text after The Antichrist was finished -is a severe critique of Christians (and anarchists and socialists) as representing a "declining stratum of society" and as motivated by resentment and desire for revenge.10 Furthermore, he argues that what is often regarded as two opposing attitudes toward life and the world, and on the opposite sides of the religious and political scale, the Christian (traditionalist) and the anarchist (revolutionary) are, in fact, all but identical in the eyes of an immoral-ist (i. e. Nietzsche). They are both life-denying and governed by ressentiment. They need to blame someone or something, and to vent their suffering by revenge (or by the expression of feelings of revenge), and they can be characterized as denying and befouling the world and society, respectively. He furthermore claims in TI, Skirmishes 41, that modern instincts are turned against one another leading to individual and social anarchy and nihilism.

General Sources of Nietzsche's Knowledge of Anarchism
Nietzsche seems to never have read any of the more influential of the anarchists, such as Charles Fourier, Max Stirner, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, William Godwin, Mikhail Bakunin, and Peter Kropotkin. Nor does he explicitly discuss any of them, except very briefly mentioning Proudhon and Bakunin in the early 1870s (see below). This lack of direct knowledge of the main anarchists should perhaps not surprise us, for Nietzsche's use and critique of anarchism almost always proceeds along polemical and general lines, not by means of an analysis of specific claims (which at least sometimes is the case for pessimism and Christianity, and perhaps also for socialism and nihilism). His critique of, and comments about, anarchism, which only began in 1885, are usually more psychologically and axiologically oriented than academically or philosophically.
Anarchism is a vague and ill-defined movement, and Nietzsche reinforces this aspect of it by associating it closely with many other movements and tendencies, especially with decadence, socialism, nihilism, pessimism, Christianity, and anti-Semitism. Thus, a full treatment of Nietzsche's relation to anarchism would have to also treat his relation to these other movements of thought, most of which Nietzsche was much better informed about.
Most of Nietzsche's knowledge of anarchist thought probably came from one of these three sources: 1. Personal discussions: probably especially Wagner (who at least earlier had sympathised with and knew several important anarchists), but surely also with others. However, most of this would have been significantly before 1879, when he resigned his professorship and thereafter lived much more isolated. We see very little of this in Nietzsche's writings from either before or after 1879.
2. From newspapers and contemporary journals: Nietzsche read such material in the 1870s and continued to read it in the 1880s, but less than earlier. Although we can name some of the newspapers and journals he occasionally read, we have no certain information about if and what he read in relation to anarchism in these sources.
3. Discussions of anarchism and anarchists in books he read: this is likely to be the most important source of information and stimulus for his comments, at least in the 1880s, as I will show below, and it is the only source about which we have definitive knowledge.
Nietzsche referred to three specific thinkers as anarchists, in the sense of being thinkers and writers in this tradition; primarily Eugen Dühring,11 and much more vaguely Shelley12 and Tolstoy, and even more vaguely, early Christians and Jesus.13 No single work of great importance for Nietzsche's view of anarchism has until now been identified. Likely candidates that have been discussed are Philipp Mainländer, Dühring, Eduard von Hartmann, Dostoevsky, Turgenev and Tolstoy, but for none of them has it been shown that they have been of great importance for Nietzsche.14 Other likely sources that need to be confirmed are the many books Nietzsche read discussing radical politics and political economy, which I have discussed elsewhere.15 Nietzsche read Wagner and Hartmann mainly in the 1870s, and Tolstoy is too late (1887/88), so they are unlikely to explain Nietzsche's increasing criticism and concern with anarchism in 1885 and thereafter. In the 1870s, in spite of Wagner's positive interest and at least earlier sympathy, Nietzsche makes very few references to this tradition, and these are mostly descriptive or conventional. The early 1870s is also the only time Nietzsche refers to any of the more famous anarchists, such as Bakunin and Proudhon.16 Much later, Georg Brandes, in a letter to Nietzsche (December 15-17, 1887, 16 In Nachlass 1873, 27[2], KSA 7.588, Nietzsche refers to a specific page in Strauss' Der alte und der neue Glaube (1872), claiming that Strauss weakens a strong statement of Proudhon's. Nietzsche later also mentions that, together with the Overbecks, he had met a "Herr Cook," who was a friend of Proudhon, but he says nothing more about it. His only reference to Bakunin is in Nachlass 1873, 26[14], KSA 7.580. Its origins are almost certainly conversations with Cosima and Richard Wagner, since Cosima claims in her diaries that they discussed Bakunin with Nietzsche present, May 28, 1871: "At midday no. 505, KGB III 6.131), says he feels somewhat wounded by Nietzsche's comments about radical politics and defends anarchism, claiming that "the anarchism of Prince Kropotkin, e. g., is not stupid." Nietzsche, however, does not respond to this in his reply to Brandes from January 8, 1888 (no. 974, KSB 8.227), nor does he ever mention Kropotkin. There is no discussion or treatment at all of the ideology of anarchism by Nietzsche in the 1870s, and therefore no obvious sources to be identified.
However, his reading of Dühring can explain this as we will see below. As we have seen above, Nietzsche really began to discuss anarchism only in his notes from 1885, and then in the published works Beyond Good and Evil, On the Genealogy of Morality and later ones. Is it possible to identify what caused Nietzsche to begin discussing anarchism in 1885? The answer is yes, and it turns out that it is Nietzsche's reading of Dühring's Cursus der Philosophie (1875), together with developments in Nietzsche's own thought, that lie behind all, or almost all, of his discussions of anarchism in 1885 and thereafter, although in 1887 and 1888 a new emphasis on Jesus and Christianity was added.
To fully appreciate Nietzsche's view and criticism of anarchism it is necessary to see it as part of the whole set of similar movements and ways of thought he closely associates it with, such as decadence, socialism, nihilism, pessimism, Christianity, and anti-Semitism.

Dühring's Importance for Nietzsche's View of Anarchism
With the possible exception of Plato and Schopenhauer, the philosopher of whom Nietzsche has read the most books is the Schopenhauerian Eugen Dühring . He can reasonably be regarded as one of Nietzsche's most important philosophical "teachers," although when he began to read Dühring in 1875 -at a time when Nietzsche himself had already left Schopenhauerian views behind -he seems to have disagreed with Dühring more often than not. Nietzsche knew of, and spoke well of, Dühring, as a Schopenhauerian, already in 1868, and he may have read something by him at this time, but he only began to consider Dühring's ideas more extensively only in 1875.17 arrival of Prof. Nietzsche (with sister), whom Richard had summoned (over the signature Lindhorst) by telegram. R. speaks sharply to him about the fire and its significance: 'If you are not capable of painting pictures again, you are not worthy of possessing them.' Prof. N. says that for the scholar such events mean the end of all existence. Spoke of Bakunin -whether he was among the arsonists." Nietzsche's note in which he mentions Bakunin for the only time seems clearly critical: he observes that Bakunin, due to his hatred of the present, wants to destroy history and the past. 17 Nietzsche sent one of Dühring's books to Cosima Wagner in 1869, probably his Der Werth des Lebens, see KSA 15.11. However, no reading before 1875 for Nietzsche has been identified.
That year he bought seven works by Dühring, and all but two contain annotations and were thus cleary read by him. Later, in 1884, he also purchased, read, and annotated Dühring's autobiography Sache, Leben und Feinde: Als Hauptwerk und Schlüssel zu seinen sämmtlichen Schriften (1882), which stretched over 434 pages. The work does not contain much explicit discussion of anarchy and anarchism, but the latter are mentioned and briefly discussed on a few pages annotated by Nietzsche.18 He may also have read other works by Dühring. Without implying that he actually had read the book, he makes a brief allusion, for example, to Dühring's Robert Mayer, der Galilei des XIX Jahrhunderts (1880), which was about to be published in 1879 by Nietzsche's own publisher, Ernst Schmeitzner,19 and Dühring was often discussed in letters between Schmeitzner and Nietzsche.
Dühring was not only a philosopher but also a political economist with socialist affiliations, and strongly nationalist and anti-Semitic, but otherwise with wide interests, including the natural sciences. In his books he attempted to give a broad summary of present knowledge, seeking to develop a philosophy that suited the modern world. His philosophy was broadly speaking positivist in orientation with clear debts to Schopenhauer, Ludwig Feuerbach and Auguste Comte.20 Although he retained many metaphysical tenets, Dühring denounced metaphysics and argued that philosophy must construct a worldview in accordance with the results of the natural sciences. He called his philosophy Wirklichkeitsphilosophie, philosophy of reality or reality-philosophy.
Of the books by Dühring that Nietzsche owned, four are specifically philosophical, but most of the others also contain philosophically relevant texts. For example, Dühring's Kritische Geschichte der Nationalökonomie und des Socialismus (2nd edn., 1875) contains extensive discussions of socialism, including a detailed and hostile account of Marx' views in the chapter "Der neuere Socialismus: Zweites Capitel: Gestaltungen in Deutschland" and also some limited discussions of anarchists and of Bakunin in the third edition of 1879.21 The first work by Dühring we know for certain that Nietzsche read, in great detail during the summer of 1875, was his Der Werth des Lebens: Eine philosophische Betrachtung (1865).22 Nietzsche wrote a commentary and summary of 50 printed pages of Dühring's work for one of his notebooks23 -with the explicit intention of re-examining his own relation to Schopenhauer. Nietzsche's copy of the book is sparingly annotated, mostly in places where Dühring discusses ressentiment and revenge. In a note outlining his intentions, which shows that his original interest in Dühring was engendered by his interest in Schopenhauer, Nietzsche wrote: "3) To study Dühring, as the attempt to sort out Schopenhauer and to see what I have in Schopenhauer, what not. Thereafter, yet again read Schopenhauer." (Nachlass 1875, 8[4], KSA 8.129)24 At this time he also lists Dühring (together with Schopenhauer, Aristotle, Goethe, and Plato) under the somewhat enigmatic title "Books for 8 years," possibly implying that he wanted to write books about these five authors (Nachlass 1875, 8 [1], KSA 8.128).
Nietzsche read Cursus der Philosophie als streng wissenschaftlicher Weltanschauung und Lebensgestaltung (1875) in 1881, 1883 and 1885 (and perhaps also in 1875 and 1888).25 He has annotated the book fairly extensively with two different pens, and it is probably one of the most important philosophical works Nietzsche thoroughly examines and enters into dialogue with. In Dühring's Cursus der Philosophie Nietzsche encountered a somewhat idiosyncratic account of many of the fields and aspects of philosophy. It is not impossible that reading the volume in 1881 was an important stimulus for his discovery of the idea of eternal recurrence,26 but there are also several other possible sources and none which is fully confirmed.
The late Nietzsche becomes increasingly hostile toward Dühring and frequently attacks him, including for his political and social views on socialism, anarchism, and anti-Semitism. Many, albeit certainly not all, of Nietzsche's references to these political positions have Dühring as their primary stimulus.27 Nietzsche begins to use the word anarchism in the summer of 1885, and in the autumn he makes his only more detailed discussion or description of anarchism in his notebooks (Nachlass 1885, 44[8], KSA 11.707).28 This note is based on his reading of Dühring's Cursus der Philosophie -as are probably the few earlier notes from summer 1885 in which he mentions anarchism, even though these notes are too brief to pinpoint any specific source.
It turns out that Dühring is by far the most important single source for Nietzsche's comments on and about anarchism, and this is also true, albeit less so, for socialism, for which there are more sources, even though Dühring remains the most important one. Dühring is not a well-known name in relation to anarchism, but he was a highly influential nineteenth-century German socialist and philosopher, and prolific writer, with sympathies for anarchism. In nineteenth-century Germany, he is usually regarded as one of the most read philosophers, at least outside the universities. In the twentieth century, he was probably best known because Friedrich Engels wrote a massive book against him called Anti-Dühring (1878), but with the actually ironic title Herrn Eugen Dührings Umwälzung der Wissenschaft.
Nietzsche's note from the autumn of 1885 (44[8], KSA 11.707), with the title "The New Japan," begins with the unfinished sentence: "I read, with much malice in my mind, what a German anarchist [means] with the concept 'free society'", and the halfpage note ends with Nietzsche claiming that he has seen all this, perhaps without love but also without spite, with the curiosity of a child that stands before the most colourful and fantastic peep box -presumably meaning that Dühring's text is highly symptomatic and revealing about anarchist thought, values and psychology. In his comments and observations in the note, Nietzsche states that the description of a "free society" contains all the idealism "of a small species of herd animal." He continues and refers to, paraphrases, quotes (the "quotes" being very loose), and comments: "Justice" and the morality of equal rights -the Tartuffery of moral predicates "the press," the idealizing of it "the abolition of the workers" "the breakthrough of the pre-Aryan race": and generally the oldest sorts of society the decline of women [Dühring writes much about women and marriage, especially on forced marriages in this chapter, emphasizing equal rights for women -so the "decline" is due to Nietzsche's evaluation; T. B.] the Jews as the ruling race [this seems to be a response to Dühring's explicit anti-Semitic views; T. B.] noble and base culture [it is probably Nietzsche who makes this dichotomy, compare the whole last chapter of Beyond Good and Evil, "What is Noble?" -for Dühring has little to say about the noble and aristocratic; T. B.] the scholar overvalued.