Friedrich Nietzsche

nationality

American

occupation / innovator as

businessperson

entrepreneur

Governor

politician

religion

Episcopal Church

scientific organization

Peace Corps

is responsible for having predicted the decadence or decay of western culture, the turn away from God but not to something better, rather to barbaric brotherhoods, and barbaric relativism embodied by skepticism, cynicism, irony, contempt, and the Intellectual.

But if there was decadence, what was decaying? Religious faith and moral codes that had been in place since time was, said Nietzsche, who in 1882 made the most famous statement in modern philosophy — "God is dead" — and three startlingly accurate predictions for the twentieth century. He even estimated when they would begin to come true: about 1915. (1) The faith men formerly invested in God they would now invest in barbaric "brotherhoods with the aim of the robbery and exploitation of the non-brothers." Their names turned out, in due course, to be the German Nazis and the Russian Communists. (2) There would be "wars such as have never been waged on earth." Their names turned out to be World War I and World War II. (3) There no longer would be Truth but, rather, "truth" in quotation marks, depending upon which concoction of eternal verities the modem barbarian found most useful at any given moment. The result would be universal skepticism, cynicism, irony, and contempt. The First World War began in 1914 and ended in 1918. On cue, as if Nietzsche were still alive to direct the drama, an entirely new figure, with an entirely new name, arose in Europe: that embodiment of skepticism, cynicism, irony, and contempt, the Intellectual. Both Nietzsche and Marx did their greatest work seeking to explain the mystery. The term both used was "decadence."

Tom Wolf

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Tom Wolf