Nietzsche’s response to David Strauss: a case study in the Nietzschean practice of enmity

ABSTRACT

This article argues for an interpretation of David Strauss: the Confessor and the Writer as embodying the key components of the Nietzschean practice of conflict with a ‘worthier’ enemy. These are carefully considered under the headings of ‘agonism’, ‘imitation’, and a propulsion towards ‘escalation’, that is, beckoning a response from other, would-be, ‘worthier’ enemies. Adding to the standard ‘cultural’ explanation for the origins of the Strauss essay, this article explores the polemical ‘assassination’ of Strauss as ultimately ordered towards assuming Strauss’ status as the pre-eminent Post-Christian freethinker of the era. In this way, the Meditation also acts as an intentionally provocative means for Nietzsche to beckon his audience to both ‘escalate’ the struggle further, and to recognise his presence on the intellectual landscape. Nietzsche conceives greatness as facilitated through conflict; his conflict with Strauss, a worthier foe, anticipates the strategy and approach that Nietzsche will utilise in his later and more significant disputes.

KEYWORDS:

• Nietzsche
• David Strauss
• Girard
• enemy
• model
• rival

Introduction

The first of Nietzsche’s Untimely Meditations, David Strauss: the Confessor and the Writer (UM 1)¹ can be fruitfully analysed as an early case study of the Nietzschean concept and practice of enmity.² This article will begin by outlining the beginnings of Nietzsche’s relationship with Strauss, his early idolisation, followed by his enduring indebtedness to Strauss’ radical biblical criticism. It will then, more thoroughly, consider the first Meditation as a work of enmity, exploring, in the process, the significance of ‘friend’ and ‘enemy’ status attributions within Nietzsche’s writings. This discussion will reveal three important dimensions of Nietzsche’s characteristic behaviour towards his ‘worthier enemies’. These ‘battles’ embody a fruitful agonistic struggle, they are ordered towards ‘escalation’ and, consistently, feature profound notes of imitation. Given this, it is unsurprising that René Girard’s writings on mimetic rivalry have some utility in analysing Nietzsche’s conflicts, and concretely, the David Strauss affair. In Girard’s model, Nietzsche’s conflict with Strauss becomes more fully conceived as an effort to supplant Strauss as the premier freethinker of the era and not solely as a dispute on the state of German culture. Nietzsche’s vitriolic text, under Girard’s model, takes on a new light, as a duel with a ‘worthier’ foe, in which he seeks to become, or take on significant qualities, of the one whom he seemingly despises. Whilst, Girard’s psychological analysis is not persuasive as a reductive explanation, its disclosure of a more subtle purpose operating within the Strauss essay illuminates more clearly both the tone of the work and its points of emphases. Finally, it explains Nietzsche’s own later assessment of the ‘escalation’ his essay provoked, of the antagonism it fuelled between himself and German society and of its function in offering himself as the great immoralist in place of Strauss. Nietzsche’s relationship with Strauss acts as an insightful forerunner to Nietzsche’s later work, of hostile imitation of the priest in a provocative conflict which others are beckoned to continue.

Strauss and Christianity

David Strauss had risen to fame and notoriety on the back of his deeply controversial The Life of Jesus, released nearly four decades prior to the new and equally provocative work that Nietzsche’s Meditation critiques. The Life of Jesus had, whilst attempting to deconstruct the historical basis of orthodox Christianity, narrowly left the door open towards faith in Christ as a mythic figure worthy of public veneration and honour (Strauss 1997, Preface x).³ The new work, The Old Faith & The New, definitively rules out this possibility through extending his earlier ‘demythologisation’ of Christ through historical critical methods to even more radical conclusions. More fundamentally, Strauss adds a new ‘demythologisation’, a demythologisation of God and the supernatural through Darwinism and a purely materialist philosophy of nature (Strauss 1997, Preface xi). Strauss’ analysis of the Christian narrative, which is essentially unaltered between the two works, can be broken down into three elements. First, that very little can be known about the life of Christ, the historical individual, whom Strauss takes to be akin to the Buddha in his antinomian teaching, but who, additionally, possessed an imminent apocalyptic expectation (Strauss 1997, 1:66, 79). Second, that the Christian ‘religion’ preached by the disciples was a type of mythic history. A narrative tagged on, rather uncomfortably, to the original Buddha-like figure. This, Strauss argues, arose as a pathologic psychological response by Christ’s disciples to the disaster of the crucifixion of the guru figure. The ‘delusional’ disciples willed into existence ‘the resurrection’ and various other miracle stories as kind of coping mechanism that spiralled out of control, expanding in content as it spread (Strauss 1997, 1:80–85). Third, that Christian ‘morality’, although, in part, related to the teaching of the antinomian Jesus, is, to a greater degree, the results of the diverse Christian community, scattered throughout the empire, developing sentiments of kin-ship and Roman etiquette in their interpersonal relations (Strauss 1997, 1:95–98, 2:70). This morality, which Strauss insists has been sullied by Christian contempt for this life (Strauss 1997, 1:93–95), contains, for Strauss, some noble elements, elements that can and do flourish beyond Christianity.

Thus, Strauss concludes that with Christianity rejected, the moral-sensitivity of humanity can advance, based on a new ‘faith’, or, probably better put, ‘approach to life’, centred on human civilisational advancement and a Romanticist veneration of the cosmos (Strauss 1997, 2:58, 121, 216). Strauss’ exegetical methodology belongs to the tradition of the Tübingen School, of which he had been a faculty member, and strongly related to the writings of F. C. Baur (Beiser 2020, 25, 67; Neill and Wright 1998, 20–30). His theological conclusions, however, particularly his early position on Gospel narratives as völkisch myth, veered away from the conservative, albeit rationalist, form of Christianity popular among the Hegelians of Tübingen. These thinkers had posited Christ as the revelation of the Hegelian absolute in history and connected the pure essence of Christianity back to this ideal figure (Williamson, 156–165).

Strauss’ argumentation: the emergence of the Gospels as ‘myth’ and the radical disconnect between Jesus and subsequent Christology, had been singularly important to Nietzsche’s intellectual development and his early rejection of Christianity (Young 2010, 56–61). For the young Nietzsche, Strauss’ The Life of Jesus had been a moment of awakening, and Nietzsche’s later forays into biblical criticism found primarily in Daybreak (D), The Genealogy (GM) and The Anti-Christ (A) do not stray far from its fundamental presuppositions. Both the historical Jesus, and the account of the evolution and spread of Christianity will be presented under Strauss’ interpretation, with only shifts of emphasis in these areas. In private, as early as 1865, Nietzsche had written to his sister to explain, comprehensively, his Strauss-inspired conviction that Christianity was historically false (Young 2010, 57–61). From D onwards, he attempts to demonstrate this publicly (D 68). Nietzsche’s mature view will be that the Christian myth, as intrinsically ‘unhealthy’ through its moralised worldview, must necessarily be overcome, despite its proven capacity of rendering life bearable. Because Christianity’s potency in the realm of morality is based on its truth claim, Nietzsche continues to counter these truth claims as a means to undermine its moral influence (Salaquarda 1997, 101).⁴ Strauss also continued to adjust his position, both through new editions of The Life of Jesus and in subsequent works. In line with a new theoretical approach developed by Baur and Schneckenburger he came to view the Gospel as ‘myths’ in a revised sense, that is, as consciously created ahistorical religious narratives (Beiser 2020, 69, 222). This idea, of Greek and Jewish New Testament theologies as consciously crafted expressions of fundamentally opposed völksgeister, will be something Nietzsche will both engage with and re-interpret in The Anti-Christ (A 58).⁵

Despite developments, the three core elements of Strauss’ analysis of Christianity outlined above remain consistent: the Jesus figure as detached from subsequent Christology, the Gospels as ahistorical responses which reimagine the failure of Christ, and an evaluation of its morality and worldview. Of these three components, it is only in the third, concerning morality, in which Nietzsche will dramatically deviate from Strauss’ position. Even here, contrary to Kaufmann’s (2013, 134–141) presentation, Strauss stands prior to Nietzsche as a strong critic of the Christian ‘morality’ of asceticism, targeting it with the same accusation of life negation (Beiser 2020, 270). Moreover, this critique is of little prominence in Strauss’ dryly exegetical Life of Jesus; it takes importance only in the later work, which Nietzsche publicly attacks. For instance, Strauss’ discussion of the symbol of the crucifix anticipates Nietzsche’s analysis in A,

[The Crucifix] is the most one-sided, rigid embodiment of Christian world renunciation and passiveness. In a symbol of this kind, mankind rejoicing in life and action can now no longer find the expression of its religious consciousness. The continued regard accorded it in the modern Protestant Church is, after all, but one more of those compromises and untruths which make it a thing of such feeble vitality. (Strauss 1997, 1:106–107)

And again, in discussion of the Christian sentiment ‘the other world is our true home’, he asserts,

If our earthly occupations are valueless in themselves, this value cannot be imparted to them from without; but if they do possess such value, it can consist in nothing but the moral relations which are implied by them. Man's earthly existence bears its own law, its rule of guidance, its aims and ends included in itself. (Strauss 1997, 1:94)

And further still, in Strauss’ critique of Christianity’s detrimental societal influence, he writes,

All man's endeavour and striving in pursuit of such [human activity] is not only mere vanity, but actually prejudicial to the attainment of his true destiny, whether this be called heaven or Nirvana … Pernicious above all is the pursuit after worldly goods, nay, even the possession of such, in so far as one is not willing to relinquish them. The rich man in Scripture is certain to go to hell, on the sole ground, so far as appears, of his faring sumptuously every day. (Strauss 1997, 1:71)

His failing, however, for Nietzsche, is in his inability to appreciate the ‘human all too human’ genealogy of the morality of which ‘the new faith’ will consist (UM 1:7). Strauss, for instance, writes, ‘We shall retain all that was really achieved by Christianity as we have retained what was accomplished by Greece and Rome’ (Strauss 1997, 1:98). His esteem for an enlightenment morality, and his joy in seeing its societal advancement over Christian life negation (Strauss 1997, 1:66–70, 95–98), will, in Nietzsche’s later analysis, put his position within the same unhealthy genealogy as Christianity. In the Meditation, Nietzsche, more directly, points out what he sees as an inconsistency. Strauss, he asserts, who seemingly adopts a Hobbesian analysis of the universe, would be more consistent if he also adopted Hobbes’ ‘bellum omnium contra omnes’ as the basis of considering so called ‘ethical’ behaviour (UM 1:7). Still, in spite of his tone, and his attacks at Strauss’ grammar, Nietzsche has both embraced Strauss’ historical-critical interpretation of Christian origins, from his first work, and, with less acknowledgement, from the later work, strong elements of Strauss’ moral critique of Christianity.

Such significant carry-overs demonstrate in Nietzsche an underlying respect and esteem for Strauss. Indeed, it is on this basis of fundamental reverence and respect for the other’s intellectual acumen that Nietzsche’s hostility towards Strauss in UM is best understood. Even if the text itself lacks any notes of respect for his opponent, in the occasions where Nietzsche separately discusses the nature of his enemy relationships, he more clearly asserts the underlying presence of respect in certain agonistic encounters. Moreover, the presence of an agon, even a tense one, does not, for Nietzsche, necessarily preclude the opponent from being a friend.

‘Agonism’ in friendship and enmity

Ordinarily ‘friend’ and ‘enemy’ operate as antonyms. In Nietzsche’s conception, however, the two valuations do not function strictly as opposites. For instance, in Nietzsche’s ideal ‘friendship’, whilst there exists a ‘shared commitment to a common goal’ (Young 2010, 17),⁶ one that expresses itself in moments of shared ‘joy’ (HAH I:499), there is, additionally, ‘aggressive competition’ as constitutive in its attainment (Young 2010, 16; Milner, 61). A truly valuable friendship does not, notably, entail for Nietzsche, ‘exposing one’s soul to the other’ (Young 2010, 17). Accordingly, in Zarathustra (Z), Nietzsche summarises, ‘Whoever makes no secret of himself outrages others’ (Z 41), and, ‘let us also be enemies, my friends! Divinely let us struggle against each other!’ (Z 78). Whilst general ‘affability’ is a sign of healthiness, (EH, ‘Clever’, 10) a ‘higher’ friendship can only be attained among certain types of healthy individuals capable of this agonism; not with the lazy, the needy, the indiscreet or the psychologically sick (BGE 260, GM 1:10). This is because, from both parties, a ‘tensional equilibrium’ has to be maintained; balancing reserve with openness, solitude with companionship, honesty with deception (Milner 2010, 56).

Unsurprisingly, superior friendships with this agonistic quality, even though a source of joy and satisfaction, are difficult to sustain, and often transitory (BGE 273, GS 279, GM 3:8). In discussion of agonistic friendships, Nietzsche probably has in mind the relationship of Goethe and Schiller, a ‘friendship’ marked by tension; a springboard to the forging of their greatness in and through their public rivalry. Superior friendships, such as these, operate within Nietzsche’s appreciation of the interior resilience and self-overcoming which greater individuals achieve through trials and suffering (HC 178; GS 169, 297; Z 58–59; BGE 225, 284). Through even ‘friendly’ rivalry, two great individuals are drawn to a more precise posturing of ‘who they are’, a central concern in Nietzsche’s mature thinking (GS 270, 290, 335; TI, ‘Skirmishes’, 49; EH, ‘Preface’), and his ‘Zarathustrian justification’ of existence (Z 32, 66, 110, 122, 125, 157–158, 293). In self-creation and exerting one’s narrative over history, transient suffering gains meaning within the new perspective of cosmic affirmation:

Let your spirit and your virtue serve the meaning of the earth, my brothers: and the value of all things will be posited newly by you! Therefore you shall be fighters! Therefore you shall be creators! (Z 58–59)

In Homer’s Contest (HC), where Nietzsche explores the advantages of the agon at length, he notes, as he sees it, the contagious quality of the agonistic spirit, ‘the greater and more eminent a Greek man is, the brighter the flame of ambition to erupt from him, consuming everyone who runs with him on the same track.’

This productive agon, present among healthy friendships, can also, for Nietzsche, be found within certain enemy relationships, although not all. Nietzsche posits the existence of two ‘types’ of enemy, ‘the unworthy’ and ‘the worthier’ (GM 1.10, Z 168, EH, ‘Wise’, 7). Of the ‘unworthy’ little is to be said, these are ‘the rabble’, individuals for whom Nietzsche recommends little consideration, those to ‘pass by’ (Z 168). Nietzsche writes much more about his ‘worthier enemies’, individuals with whom the relationship is defined in terms of an ‘aggressive competition’, as an ‘agon’ (HC),⁷ but with whom, unlike with friends, there are non-reconcilable goals. This aggression, Nietzsche suggests, may, quite legitimately, be carried to an extreme degree, using ‘whole strength, suppleness, and skill with weapons’ (EH, ‘Wise’, 7). These individuals are ‘worthier’ since they are ‘worthy’ of being titled as ‘enemy’. Indeed, this must be underlined; being a ‘worthier enemy’ entails a deep appreciation of ‘worth’ by Nietzsche, a fundamental respect for the individual’s challenge, importance, and, indeed, ‘nobility’. Nietzsche writes, ‘To be able to be an enemy, to be an enemy, perhaps that presupposes a strong nature, in any case it is a part of every strong nature’ (EH, ‘Wise’, 7). This is a concept repeated throughout Z, for instance, ‘The spear I hurl against my enemies! How I thank my enemies that at last I may hurl it!’ (Z 64), and again, as he desires ‘bigger dragons’, indeed, an ‘overdragon’ (Z 114) as a suitable combat-rival for the overman. The single-minded, intense and yet subtly ‘reverential’ rivalry is captured somewhat in the duel between two great athletes: Benn and Eubank, Coe and Ovett, Federer and Nadal. Alongside the tacit respect before a fitting opponent there will be, as with Achilles versus Hector, a withholding of all mercy in combat, and, in victory, a delight in the rout achieved.⁸

This is how Nietzsche presents his fracas with Strauss, which he celebrates as an ‘assassination attempt’, and indeed, a ‘victory’ (EH, ‘Untimely’, 2). The difference between a ‘worthier’ and unworthy enemy will be quite manifest; Nietzsche ignores his unworthy foes, just as Achilles anonymously slaughters the great mass of Trojans (The Iliad, xxi 514–526.). The contrast between a friend and a ‘worthier enemy’ may be subtle. Achilles and Odysseus are described by Homer as ‘friends’, but this is largely circumstantial, they are nobly aloof from each other, their friendship is grounded in their shared striving to the Achaean victory (The Iliad, ix 312–313, xix 134–238).⁹ The ‘Star Friendship’ aphorism even suggests that a person might drift between the two categories like a ship driven by strange forces back and forth from the same course (GS 279). Moreover, In HC, Nietzsche, it seems, groups all of Plato’s productive agons, whether with friend or worthier enemy, in the same beneficial category,

[That which is] of particular artistic importance in Plato’s dialogues is mostly the result of a competition with the art of the orators, the sophists, the dramatists of his time, invented for the purpose of his finally being able to say: ‘Look: I, too, can do what my great rivals can do; yes, I can do it better than them … Only the contest made me a poet, sophist and orator! (HC)

For Nietzsche, it is not only the true friend who is valuable and ‘loved’, but, seeing beyond his vitriolic language, the ‘worthier enemy’ also; both are ordered towards self-overcoming and, through this, self-creation (GM 1:10).¹⁰

‘Escalation’

A straightforward reading of Nietzsche as seeking and gaining ‘victory’ over worthier foes, as has already been intimated, needs to be nuanced. Nietzsche more generally depicts his ideal agon as ongoing, with a propensity towards continual escalation. HC praises ‘the action of contest’ above the ‘struggle-to-the-death’, suggesting Achilles’ slaying of Hector was less than ideal (HC). This theme returns in Twilight of the Idols (TI) where Nietzsche discusses his ‘spiritualization of hostility’, that is, his ‘deep appreciation of the value of having enemies.’ He contrasts this approach with the Church, which, ‘has always wanted to destroy its enemies’ (TI, ‘Morality’, 3). Thus, Nietzsche presents his official position that, ‘we, on the other hand, we immoralists and anti-Christians, think that we benefit from the existence of the church’ (TI, ‘Morality’, 3). Another angle in the same work, through which Nietzsche rejects or critiques the destructive agon, is in his assessment of dialectical reasoning,

As a dialectician, you have a merciless tool in your hands; dialectics lets you act like a tyrant; you humiliate the people you defeat. The dialectician puts the onus on his opponent to show that he is not an idiot: the dialectician infuriates people and makes them feel helpless at the same time. (TI, ‘Socrates’, 7)

Thus, Nietzsche is saying that he, unlike the dialectician, neither seeks the humiliation of his routed worthy opponent nor his destruction. One way to reconcile these T passages with the previous citations would be to conclude that anyone Nietzsche evidently seeks to destroy cannot be a worthier foe. The difficulty with this approach is that the Nietzsche of Ecce Homo (EH) presents himself as destroying or replacing quite significant enemies,¹¹ his Dionysus avatar is labelled the ‘destroyer par excellence’ (EH, ‘Destiny’, 2), and, indeed, all of history prior to ‘Zarathustra’ is relegated to a ‘before’ (EH, ‘Destiny’, 8). A preferred reconciliation is to see the ‘destruction’ discourses of EH, A and other locations, as according to the polemic, agon-stimulating device considered above.¹² Indeed, this is a compelling view, for, unlike physical elimination, from which a foe will never return, in the intellectual realm the argumentation of the opponent remains extant, he is never ‘destroyed’ in an analogous way. Moreover, as Nietzsche both argues and demonstrates, even a psychically dead thinker may remain someone who needs to be figuratively wrestled with.¹³ HC approvingly gives this indicative example,

Aristotle once made a list of such hostile contests in the grand style: amongst them is the most striking example of how even a dead man can excite a living man to consuming jealousy … the root of the attack [is] the immense desire to take the place of the fallen poet and inherit his fame … Every great Hellene passes on the torch of the contest; every great virtue strikes the spark of a new grandeur. (HC)

Harold Bloom (1996, 8–12) has observed a like phenomenon in Literature, ‘the anxiety of influence’. An author gains an immortal status for his work only by misreading, borrowing, opposing and negating material from prior masterpieces, and in, great creative strength, clearing space for one’s own work's immortality. For Bloom, this agon is unavoidable between literary works, but whether it is actually ‘felt consciously’ depends on the individual writer’s temperament and circumstances (Bloom 1997, 6). Thus, the rhetoric of Nietzsche saying that the opponent has been or will be defeated, when in all honesty, he has not been and probably won’t be, has two effects. First, it bolsters Nietzsche’s credentials, asserting that the champion’s space has been taken in virtue of his own dominating presence. Second, it causes a stimulating effect upon others to intervene and escalate the battle further.¹⁴ Nietzsche’s emphatic declarations of defeat are, then, a form of proud posturing, mockingly wearing the prior champion’s armour and beckoning ‘strong’ individuals to dare to offer a worthy counter.¹⁵ In seeing the conflict ‘escalate’ Nietzsche desires to ensure his continual presence, as a figure whose ideas continually provoke confrontation and reinterpretation (EH, ‘Destiny’, 1; Nehamas 1985, 28).

‘Imitation’

A third important dynamic of Nietzschean combat now needs to be considered; the degree of replication or imitation that Nietzsche will embody in conflicts with ‘worthier foes’. HC depicted ‘envy’, ‘the good Eris’, as a healthy quality that provoked imitation of status, property and achievements. In BT Nietzsche both highlights the philosophical means Socrates had brought about world-change within culture (BT 15), whilst seeking through like philosophic means to hallow an equally momentous reversal (BT 23–24). Nietzsche explores this further in his middle period, where he discusses the advantage of replicating the ‘strategies’ an enemy has found useful. In relation to the priest, he writes,

Thus one speaks of the cunning and infamous arts of the Jesuits, but overlooks what self-overcoming every individual Jesuit imposes upon himself and that the alleviated practice of life preached by the Jesuit textbooks is intended for the benefit of the laity, not for their own. One may ask, indeed, whether, given quite the same tactics and organization, we children of the Enlightenment would be equally good instruments or equally admirable in self-conquest, indefatigability or devotedness. (HAH 1:55)

And again, echoing a like teaching on the use of even hypocritical replication, ‘The profession of almost every man, even that of the artist, begins with hypocrisy, with an imitation from without, with a copying of what is most effective’ (HAH 1:51). In Z, there are further indications of similitude with ‘worthier’ enemies, as he discusses his kinship with the priest, ‘My blood is related to theirs, and I want to know that my blood is honoured even in theirs’ (Z 70). Moreover, he describes the oscillation between rivalling and modelling as constituent to his way of life, ‘Whatever I may create and however I may love it – soon I must oppose it and my love, thus my will wants it’ (Z 90). And again, ‘You must be proud of your enemy: then the successes of your enemy are your successes too’ (Z 34). Thus, with Zarathustra’s ‘worthier enemies’ there is not solely found conflict, but a proud and hostile replication.¹⁶ The ‘creative ressentiment’ which Gemes (2023, 26–28) has identified as self-consciously present in Nietzsche’s later writings can, likewise, be taken as a further indication of this phenomenon. Similarly, Nietzsche’s self-applied, enigmatic title of ‘Anti-Christ’ can also be interpreted within this framework, as the embodied counter-figure or doppelgänger of the priest (Conway 1997, 128). Imitation, then, can be seen as a third aspect of Nietzsche’s teaching and practice of conflict, particularly with worthier enemies.

A recurring rival-model dynamic

Nietzsche’s disputes are paradigmatically battle-like, possessing struggle, ‘escalation’ and notes of hostile imitation. Seemingly truth-based disputes cannot be fully understood, for Nietzsche, outside of considerations of a power framework, as manifestations of a duel.¹⁷ Engaging in a duel necessarily entails that each contender identifies at least something that the other simultaneously has or desires. There is, at the very least, a modelling in terms of trophy, and, insofar as one figure solidly possesses the trophy there may be a modelling of strategy or means, especially if, hitherto, the opponent is unique in having possessed the trophy.

In EH, where Nietzsche outlines modi operandi for selecting and fighting worthy opponents, he depicts his paradigmatic ‘worthier’ bout as, in this way, centred on dethroning a victor. His first and guiding principle is that he ‘only attacks winners’ and that he attacks when he will ‘have no allies’ (EH, ‘Wise’, 7). In attacking and defeating a winner, one becomes the winner, and without allies, one becomes the exclusive champion. EH itself reads as a personal account of Nietzsche asserting his many perceived victories, of overcoming and replacing significant historical figures such as Wagner (‘Birth’, 4, ‘Untimely’, 3, ‘Wagner’, 1), St. Paul (‘Destiny’, 1, 4, 6–9), Strauss (‘Wise’, 7, ‘Untimely’, 2), Schopenhauer, (‘Birth’, 1, ‘Untimely’, 3) Socrates, (‘Wise’, 1, ‘Birth’, 2) and indeed, it seems, God Himself (‘Preface’, 1). Whilst this ‘victory’ statement is provocative rather than final, nevertheless, from Nietzsche’s perspective, he has set himself up as the new champion, even if this acquired status remains a simultaneous taunt beckoning further challengers. There is then, a rival-model dynamic within Nietzsche’s thinking, consistent with the agonistic posture outlined above. Nietzsche views the opponent’s status as ‘valuable’ or representing something ‘valuable’, for that reason he combats him, in the hope of, in some manner, wrestling it from him. As Bloom postulated concerning certain writers, Nietzsche seems to consciously perceive his agons and values them as the means to seize something coveted.

Considering Girard’s model of mimetic desire

Whilst Bloom occasionally considers Nietzsche’s writings under his theory of creativity (Bloom 1997, xxvii, 50, 118), a more sustained exploration of a psychological underpinning to Nietzsche’s agonistic footing is found in the writings of René Girard. More generally, Girard developed a theory of how an interpersonal ‘mimetic desire’ phenomenon recursively manifests itself in disputes under a rival-model pattern (Girard 2001, 9–12). Looking concretely at Nietzsche, Girard sees his ‘mimetic desire’ model as having significant explanatory power in unfolding Nietzsche’s agonistic relationship with Wagner (Girard 1976, 1984). The most comprehensive appraisal or response from a Nietzsche scholar to this analysis is Michael Platt’s, René Girard and Nietzsche Struggling. In unfolding Nietzsche’s relationship with Wagner, Platt comments that Girard’s analysis ‘strikes some pay dirt’, adding,

In all the things Nietzsche says of Wagner and his music, there is extra intensity, both heated and cold. After all, as Nietzsche confesses, meeting Wagner was an event in his life. Early, he almost adored Wagner; later he nearly reviled him; yet in both moods, we can detect something of the other. The needle between the two never quite settles. (Platt 2009, 355)

Nietzsche epitomises this in his striking call for the reader to cross out Wagner’s name when he earlier praises him and replace it with his own (EH, ‘Birth’, 4). There is an ambivalent love-hatred, rival-model dynamic in Nietzsche’s engagement with his former ‘master’ that Nietzsche is drawn to throughout his career (Girard 1976, 1163; Platt 2009, 356).

The philosophical utility of Girard’s model, as opposed to purely psychological, is in the manner it helps the interpreter to focus in on contested ‘objects’ between the two mimetic rivals, and thus helping to illuminate the rational pathways the ‘subject’ will use to gain it. In this instance, Girard (1976, 1161–1163, 1181) posits that the mutually desired ‘object’ fuelling Nietzsche’s ongoing conflict with Wagner, the ‘mediator’ of Nietzsche’s mimetic desire, is to overtake Wagner as the figurehead of cultural revival, and, secondarily, to gain the romantic attention of Cosima Wagner (Girard 1976, 1164–1165).

Girard’s approach calls attention to a number of Nietzschean texts, creating a convincing thread of analysis that runs through the author’s work, particularly, as Platt (2009, 356) acknowledges, a previously barely considered note in the Nachlass.¹⁸ These texts highlight a purposeful seeking on Nietzsche’s part of his two trophies, with far reaching notes of Wagnerian imitation on Nietzsche’s part. Even Nietzsche’s taking on of the name ‘Dionysus’ finds a somewhat surprising interpretive coherence when viewed as an effort to become a god to parallel Wagner’s godlike status among his devotees and, above all, before Cosima (Girard 1976, 1165; Gritti 2013, 151). Girard’s analysis also, in addition, acts as a psychological critique of Nietzsche. He suggests that Nietzsche’s self-proclaimed overflowing degree of ‘will to power’, and the dizzyingly unconquerable status of Wagner’s ‘deity’ had a destructive effect on his personality (Girard 1976, 1164, 1172–1173). Overall, Whilst Platt is sympathetic to Girard’s approach, he offers important qualifications which this present analysis will both concur with and add to.

First, whilst Girard presented the ‘objects’ in the Wagner-Nietzsche rivalry as singularly guiding for the entirety of Nietzschean interpretation, this must be rejected as overly reductive (Platt 2009, 372–373). This is, in fact, legitimate even within Girard’s methodology (2001, 8–10), for on his standard presentation of mimetic desire in interpersonal anthropology, an individual’s life is characterised by an enormous number of overlapping incidents of mimesis, rather than one sovereign conflict. Whilst it is useful to see aspects of Nietzsche’s writings within the context of a mimetic rivalry with Wagner, focusing exclusively on this relationship prohibits the consideration of other rivalries being of like significance, indeed, of any significance. Platt, and Fornari (2013, 78) following him, suggest that it is particularly in the area of Nietzsche’s complex relationship with Christ and Christianity that a second important mimetic rivalry can be identified.¹⁹

Moreover, as has been noted above, Nietzsche, in EH, self-consciously refers to a number of important rivalries he engaged in. Of these, a considerable amount of literature exists discussing Nietzsche’s complex relationship with Socrates (Dannhauser 1974, 236–237)²⁰ and Schopenhauer (Janaway 1998; Soll 2013) and what might be fruitfully considered his mimetic rivalries with them. It seems a better interpretive approach to take Nietzsche at his word on this, especially because these rivalries are, in fact, markedly reflected in his writing. Here, additionally, even under Girard’s presentation, mimetic rivalry is not something that necessarily eludes the perception of participants. Girard’s conception of human rationality is of humans potentially perceiving, critiquing, and even escaping rivalries. What cannot be done, he insists, is to avoid all mimesis entirely, which is an unavoidable factor of all human desire beyond very basic needs (Girard 2001, 14–16). On this point Platt (2009, 353–354) sets a further qualification, arguing that seeing all non-basic desires as socially determined seems too sweeping. His more nuanced position is that the mimetic plays a strong element in the desires of humans within society, not ruling out the possibility of fully self-originating desires. This, as Platt argues, is necessary in order to postulate the beginning of the sociological chain of imitative desires. The first, complex, non-basic desire, by definition, couldn’t have been imitative. Thus, whilst remaining aware of patterns of mimetic rivalry in Nietzsche’s thinking, it seems best to avoid any overly reductive accounts, or of imposing a psychological ‘why’ that runs against a different and manifestly logical train of argumentation.

Alongside Platt’s qualifications, this paper will add that viewing a trophy’s value as deriving solely in view of their current possessor’s jealous guarding of it, in all instances of rivalry, seems too excessive a claim. Whilst in some paradigmatic occasions of mimetic rivalry, such as children fighting over a toy, this explanation seems to fit, in others it is less persuasive. Some rivalries seem to be centred on objects with a social value that exceeds the rival’s coveted possession of it, or of others’ striving after it. Nietzsche’s desire to become a great figure in the revival of German culture doesn’t seem reducible uniquely to the fact that he sees Wagner, or anyone else, as attempting this. The project has an intrinsic, rationally justifiable social value for Nietzsche. Thus, even if Wagner’s rival quest to achieve a German cultural revival, and his fractious relationship with Nietzsche contributed to Nietzsche’s desire, it doesn’t, on its own explain it entirely. Its allure continues beyond Wagner’s demise and remains an ‘object’ for Nietzsche on rational grounds as a social good that a readership continues to appreciate.

Taking on these important qualifications, Girard's framework can still point Nietzsche scholarship towards discerning the ‘object’ Nietzsche is seeking through the conflicts he engages in. Then, additionally, it can notice the ways in which Nietzsche’s argumentation orientates towards gaining the ‘object’, whilst also bringing into a richer context the fierce opposition towards the rival who either possesses the ‘object’ or jointly fights for its exclusive possession. Whilst this framework might initially seem to contradict the earlier insight into Nietzsche’s desire for escalating antagonisms as conducive to self-overcoming, it actually concurs with it remarkably. Mimetic rivalries are ever escalating (Girard 2001, 10). The visible ‘conquest’ of an object is never final, for, as a social event, it influences others to desire the object that has been acquired at such effort, and the pattern of mimesis continues. Nietzsche’s mimetic quest to dethrone a rival and assume the desired ‘object’ affects the audience by ‘mimetic influence’, triggering others to enter the fray and heighten the combat. The paper will now consider the mimetic framework in relation to Nietzsche’s response to Strauss, to the degree that he embodies a ‘worthier’ foe.

Strauss as a ‘worthier enemy’

When a comparison is made between the treatment of Strauss and Nietzsche’s four modi operandi for selecting and fighting worthy opponents, Strauss is convincingly shown to be a worthier enemy. Looking at these individually, Nietzsche states: (i) that he only attacks winners; (ii) that he attacks when he will have no allies; (iii) that he will attack people only as magnifying glasses of their hidden, insidious predicaments; (iv) and that he will attack only when he has no personal animosity (EH, ‘Wise’, 7). In the first instance, Strauss’ work, whilst widely controversial, was, in fact, an immense commercial success, and with exactly the audience Nietzsche desired (Beiser 2020, 253).²¹ In the second instance, Nietzsche’s angle of critique against Strauss certainly stood out as novel, and from a position with very few allies, Wagner excepted (Newman 2014, 463). The vast majority of those who attacked Strauss opposed him from the standpoint of Christian orthodoxy, or otherwise, from liberal Protestantism, which wished to preserve a ‘rationalist’ Christianity (Beiser 2020, 273). In the third instance, Nietzsche doesn’t oppose Strauss for what was generally taken as provocative in his work, namely his consistent atheism. Rather, the ‘full force of arms’ is issued on account of the hidden and barely challenged ‘insidious predicaments’; the truth of an enlightenment ‘morality of compassion’, and, relatedly, a premature celebration of a cultural revival which Nietzsche views as nothing more than a philistine ‘mass culture’ (Newman 2014, 463). In the fourth instance, the situation is a little more complex given Wagner’s public animosity against Strauss (Breazeale 1997, xii), reflected, concretely, in Wagner’s notable absence from Strauss’ survey of the contemporary highlights in German culture (Strauss 1997, 2:177–215). Nietzsche, all the same, was not familiar with Strauss on any public or personal basis, hence the reason Strauss himself found his level of hostility bewildering (Beiser 2020, 273). Thus, according to Nietzsche’s own criteria, his behaviour towards Strauss follows the pattern of engagement with a ‘worthier’ foe.

With this status having been ascertained, Girard’s lens of mimetic rivalry can be considered as a means of further discovering the complexities of the Strauss-Nietzsche engagement. The model anticipates that an initial ‘love’ stands at the foundation for later rivalry, a quality already noticed in Nietzsche’s biographical discovery of Strauss. This is, again, explicitly averted to in A, where Nietzsche recognises his formative indebtedness to the ‘inimitable Strauss’ (A 28), a description not without irony. The initial ‘love’ leads to an ambiguous relationship with Strauss at the time of the Meditation, even if Nietzsche avoids vocalising it. A high degree of tacit esteem, however, remains present, above all through the fundamental agreement Nietzsche holds with the greater part of Strauss’ work (Williamson 2004, 254). The mimetic model prompts a consideration of a contested ‘object’ at the source of the rivalry; this will identify the basis of the conflict and the fuel of Nietzsche’s vehemence. In EH, with candid perspicacity and conscious awareness, Nietzsche identifies this ‘object’, writing, in appraisal of his first Meditation,

Basically, I had put into practice one of Stendahl's maxims: he suggests entering society with a duel. And how I chose my opponent! The leading free spirit in Germany, in fact, the essay introduced an entirely new type of free-spiritedness … I am the first immoralist. (EH, ‘Untimely’, 2)

Nietzsche desired to emerge as the leading ‘immoralist’ of his age, defeating Strauss, the supposed ‘leading free spirit’, in a duel. Beiser’s biography of Strauss concurs with this mimetic analysis, summarising,

Nietzsche was once an admirer of Strauss, whom he regarded as the greatest freethinker of his age. Now, however, Nietzsche wanted to inherit that mantle; he would attempt to steal it from Strass by showing that he had betrayed the ideal of freethinking. (Beiser 2020, 271)

Within the context of this rivalry, there are further elements of mimesis that Nietzsche utilises to obtain the contested object. First is Nietzsche’s heavy condemnation of Strauss’ desire to address his book exclusively to like-minded freethinkers rather than the unready, or unprepared public (UM 1:7). This is the very approach later taken by Nietzsche’s in the pitching and presentation of his own work (BGE 30, GS 381). Second, in spite of his accusation of cultural philistinism against Strauss, Nietzsche venerates the very same musicians, poets and artists, differing only superficially on their respective merits (Beiser 2020, 271–273). In the case of Lessing, Nietzsche even deliberately gives a false impression on the grounding of Strauss’ appraisal of him, which was, in fact, equivalent to his own (Beiser 2020, 270). Third, Nietzsche criticises Strauss’ attempts to charm life through a materialist, non-theistic spirituality, compared, quite metaphorically, to a ‘religion’ (UM 1:3,8). This is an approach very akin to Nietzsche’s mature Zarathustra project, and which, indeed, has earlier resonances in BT (Young 2006, 109–112, 198–199). Fourth, he attacks Strauss for offering his argument in an autobiographical form, as a ‘confession’ (UM 1:3), again, a genre he will utilise, quintessentially in EH. Then, finally, Nietzsche deliberately misrepresents the ostracisation and establishment condemnation of Strauss’ work which had reached the controversial conclusion of ‘we are no longer Christians’ (Strauss 1997, 1:107). This remark effectively pre-dated Nietzsche’s own ‘god is dead’ (GS 125) by a decade and is markedly similar, both denying Christian ontology and critiquing Christian morality, albeit, in this second area, less radically.

Nietzsche’s relationship with Strauss embodies a mimetic pattern akin to the one Girard observed in his relationship with Wagner. Early idolisation is followed by intense later conflict over a possessed attribute or trophy of the idol, punctuated with a high degree of mimetic imitation. This is not to say, as Girard might, that Nietzsche’s attempt to become the great immoralist is solely on account of Strauss’ possession of this status. Only that Nietzsche’s prior idolisation of Strauss as the immoralist operated as a significant factor in Nietzsche appreciating the social importance of this ‘trophy’. The contested ‘object’, whilst, in part, mediated to Nietzsche in his idolisation of Strauss, can be enunciated as socially significant by Nietzsche aside from any consideration of Strauss.²² Moreover, within the conflict with Strauss there is more than just Nietzsche’s quest for the single mimetic ‘object’. Nietzsche’s writings contra Strauss contain a coherent rational critique of Strauss’ ‘hidden predicament’ of enlightenment morality, and in a larger sense, his perceived ‘cultural philistinism’.²³ These charges carry their own rational force which can be appraised independent of the context of a mimetic rivalry.

The highlighting of the conscious rivalry, which assets itself in a mimetic fashion, does, however, offer a further layer of explanation to Nietzsche’s seemingly contradictory stance of rivalry and imitation, of early idolisation followed by vitriolic attack. It helps explain the strange fact that this work, critiquing Strauss, focuses on a mere ten percent of Strauss’ text, its appendix, and its deliberate overlooking, and indeed, attempted denial, of Strauss’ patent anti-Christian and anti-moral credentials. It also helps to illumine the ‘personal’ animosity Nietzsche holds towards Strauss, simultaneously idol and rival, a feature Struss both detected and was puzzled over (Beiser 2020, 273).

Expanding Girard’s approach to allow for numerous simultaneous relationships of mimetic rivalry not only allows a consideration of Strauss beyond the Wanger conflict, but also of the two conflicts as overlapping. For instance, Nietzsche’s cultural critique of Strauss gains an additional coherency when the parallel context of the Wagner-Nietzsche mimetic rivalry is invoked. This cultural critique of Strauss, whilst pleasing to Wagner, also, importantly, added to Nietzsche’s own projected cultural finesse and authority at a point when he is beginning to posture as a rival to Wagner. Again, Nietzsche’s opposition to Wagner, which he publicly asserts as in revulsion at his ‘piety’, acts as contributory to his project of dethroning Strauss (EH, ‘Human’, 5). Nietzsche is set on acquiring the status-goal of being the pre-eminent post-Christian freethinker of the era, and concertedly presents his disgust at Wagner to amplify his own credentials in this regard. This mimetic ‘object’ will maintain its hold on Nietzsche throughout his career, and it will overlap with later rivalries over other discreet ‘objects’.

Whereas for most people, their mimetic rivalries centre on far more mundane ‘objects’; the neighbour’s superior car model, a professional post, a house in an idealised setting, Nietzsche’s targets are notedly grand. As was observed earlier, Nietzsche consciously aspires for greatness and lasting influence, and so it is unsurprising that the ‘objects’ he competes for are ‘held’ by giants. In order to convincingly enter among ‘the greats’, he necessarily wrestles with them to seize a place for himself. In gaining these distinct ‘objects’, Nietzsche seeks to express a full manifestation of his complex character upon history, as he sees it, his genius.

Nietzsche’s review of the Strauss essay in EH also demonstrates how he appreciated and delighted in the ‘escalation’ of his conflict with Strauss. Immediately after recounting the ‘tremendous success’ of his ‘assassination attempt’, Nietzsche recounts a list of individuals who were drawn into the conflict, both for and against him. The ‘Würtenbergers and Swabians’ who were ‘cut to the quick’, Nietzsche explains, ‘answered as self-righteously and crudely as I could have wanted’ (EH, ‘Untimely’, 2). On the ‘cleverer’ agonistic replies from Prussia, Nietzsche speaks far more approvingly, before then describing the ‘few old men’ who were ‘completely on his side’. Nietzsche writes that German society, because of the Strauss essay, left him alone treating him with ‘gloomy caution’. This is Nietzsche’s depiction of either a mass of ‘unworthy enemies’, or possibly, instances of the ‘Last Man’ (Z 10), individuals lacking either the strength or the interest to ignite the embers of conflict. Beiser, in his biography, states that Strauss himself took Nietzsche’s essay with ‘a mixture of good humour and resignation’ (Beiser 2020, 273), perhaps re-confirming, that Strauss, by Nietzsche’s lights, was, indeed, a ‘worthier enemy’. Strauss was confident in his position and, whilst Nietzsche’s work made ‘quite a stir’ in society, the aged freethinker viewed it as another polemical riposte added to the many he had already received. Beiser, responding carefully and critically to Nietzsche’s arguments (Beiser 2020, 271–273), and Kaufmann’s support of Nietzsche, offers a vindication of Strauss’ status as the ‘leader of that parade of nineteenth-century German intellectuals who attacked the authority of revealed religion and orthodox Christianity’ (Beiser 2020, 1).

In a manner of speaking, then, the ‘polemic’ participatory influence of Nietzsche’s agonistic response to his worthier foes continues. In the posthumous dimension, pace Beiser, Nietzsche probably has successfully assumed the ‘pantheon status’ that Strauss then occupied. For whilst Strauss still entails himself a paragraph in the history of biblical exegesis (Morgan 2007), as a ‘freethinker’ or ‘immoralist’ Nietzsche has surely surpassed him, achieving his own desired monumental immortality (UM 2:2). From Nietzsche’s perspective, if you are not beneath his regard, or insensible to him, as the ‘Last Man’, then you will necessarily be drawn into engagement with him. Whether for or against, his hope is that the agonistic confrontation will constitute a ‘hardening’, a stimulation towards cultural greatness, and a response that will break through from the mediocrity of the herd.

Conclusion

Nietzsche’s engagement with Strauss in his first Meditation is a significant case study of how Nietzsche comports himself with a ‘worthier enemy’. With this kind of foe Nietzsche follows a consciously identified pattern, in which agonistic confrontation is accompanied with elements of commonality and intimation. It is a battle which has an outward orientation through its polemical tone, seeking an escalation of the conflict and a response from further would-be rivals. This pattern, interestingly, has some parallels with René Girard’s model of mimetic rivalry which this paper has highlighted, whilst qualifying a full acceptance of his psychological theory. Nietzsche’s imitation-rivalries, as distinguished from agonistic friends, are ordered towards ‘objects’ that cannot be shared, and where the value derives, at least to some degree, from the others’ possession of it, even if there is a social value to the ‘object’ which transcends Girard’s mimetic triangulation. The mimetic pattern is not offered as a means of explaining away the content of Nietzsche’s given argumentation, but, rather, focuses attention to its contours whilst offering an additional interpretive layer. Nietzsche’s consideration of the success of his work was based on the furore it achieved, causing, as he saw it, ripples through the academic public. He had, as he put it, attempted to ‘assassinate’ Strauss, but ironically, it was, at the same time, an attempt to ‘replace’ Strauss, to seize his status. Nietzsche’s polemic attempted to beckon the emergence of other ‘worthier’ foes to challenge him, to ‘escalate’ the conflict through society, and to reinforce his own self-narrative. In Nietzsche’s later writings, and particularly in his conflict with the priest-figure, this polemical fostering of ‘escalation’ acquires an even greater and more enduring scale.

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Notes

1 I use the following abbreviations for Nietzsche’s texts: HC = ‘Homer’s Contest’; BT = The Birth of Tragedy; UM = Untimely Meditations; HAH = Human, All Too Human; D = Daybreak; GS = The Gay Science; Z = Thus Spoke Zarathustra; BGE = Beyond Good and Evil; GM = On the Genealogy of Morality; TI =  Twilight of the Idols; A = The Antichrist; EH = Ecce Homo; WEN = Writings from the Early Notebooks; WLN = Writings from Late Notebooks. All translations are from the Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy editions of Nietzsche’s published works, with some minor adjustments. Standard chapter title abbreviations are used for sections of EH and TI. All citations are according to paragraph number, except Z, which is by page, and HC which is a short essay.

2 Understanding ‘enmity’ as indicating ‘enemy-relationship’.

3 Here Strauss appraises his first work and charts the subsequent development of his thinking.

4 GM 1:14, along with denying its truth, Nietzsche simultaneously offers a non-rational refutation of Christianity as something ‘disgusting’.

5 In which Nietzsche presents Paul as the mendacious synthesiser of these two worldviews, incorporating ‘subterranean’ eschatological and soteriological concepts from the Hellenic world into the Hebrew prophet Jesus, thus creating Christianity.

6 Milner (2010, 57–60) considers this ‘goal’ as a common quest for ‘truth’; Verkerk (2014, 280), responds, that it is self-overcoming inspired by the desire to realise the ‘overman’, as a post-metaphysical higher human aspiration. This corresponds more consistently with post Human All too Human (HAH) Nietzsche.

7 The discussion of ‘the good Eris’ highlights this.

8 Homer (1987, IX 639–652) Achilles asserts he will fight the Greeks only when Hector has routed much and reached his ships, (XVIII 97–127, XXVIII 314–343) Achilles acknowledges Hector's unequalled might, (XX 75–86) the gods themselves divide in support of the two champions, (XXII 76–99) Hector stands undaunted as a strong tower before the wrathful Achilles, (XXII 208–404) demonstrates a mutually acknowledged greatness in their final confrontation, (XXIV 559–596) Achilles, in obedience to the gods respectfully returns the body of Hector to Priam, (XXIV 55–77) Zeus declares Hector as the greatest of all the Trojans, just as Achilles is of the Greeks.

9 Analysis drawn from Nagy (1999, 55–58).

10 Nehamas (1985) explores further this theme of self-creation.

11 The priest figure in ‘Preface’, 3, ‘Tragedy’, 1, ‘Zarathustra’, 6, ‘Destiny’, 1, 3. Also, arguably, Wagner in ‘Tragedy’, 4, ‘Untimely’, 3 and ‘Wagner’, 1.

12 Van Fossen (2018) and Siemens (2015), both offer a different ‘reconciliation’ by positing a third category of a non-nihilistic desire for destruction of enemies. However, this suggestion downplays the strength of assertion Nietzsche makes in TI of the ‘productive agon’ as his sole treatment of ‘worthier foes’. The ‘polemical’ presentation of ‘destruction’ here defended maintains both texts, while highlighting the necessary ‘allegorical nature’ of ‘destruction’ in the realm of ideas.

13 UM 2: 2–4 In the healthy interaction of the monumental and critical history; The Case of Wagner and TI, ‘Socrates’ demonstrates this, as does GS 108, in a different sense, viewing ‘the shadow of God’ as a continual presence that remains to be defeated even after his ‘death’.

14 Nehamas (1985, 27) interprets Nietzsche's stylistic variety and use of hyperbole as directed towards stimulating a response. Conway (1997, 116–117, 145–146, 222) more controversially, considers this desired ‘reader response’ in political terms through the creation of ‘communities of resistance’.

15 BT 15 shows Nietzsche as aware of the ‘invitational’ nature of his writing; Z 14–15 shows Zarathustra beckoning both an active and oppositional response from his hearers.

16 Yelle (2000, 187–188) explores how Zarathustra both positively valorises contradiction whilst also, more fundamentally, blends all opposites into himself as a new unity through the Eternal Recurrence doctrine.

17 Clark (1990, 10, 206–207) explores this in terms of Heidegger's assertion of the centrality of the ‘will to power’ in Nietzsche's writing, stating that ‘most interpreters’ take this view, even if her book ultimately rejects this interpretation.

18 Writings from the Late Notebooks (WLN), 5[41] Nietzsche briefly but strikingly praises Parsifal, which he, elsewhere, intensely reviles. This passage also suggests an enduring ambivalence towards Christianity.

19 Platt (2009, 372–373) and Fornari (2013, 78) develop Girard's model to include this second fundamental rivalry.

20 This corresponds to Nietzsche's own stated continual ‘nearness’ to Socrates; Writings from the Early Notebooks (WEN), 6[3].

21 Selling 8000 copies within two months. This is plausibly beyond Nietzsche's lifetime sales, as estimated using Young (2010, 402, 459).

22 BGE 201–2; GM 1:12; A 43, 49 show Nietzsche as offering an argument on morality's detrimental social effects, a solid basis for him to aspire to be a destroyer of morality or opposed to morality independent to the existence of a mimetic rivalry with Strauss.

23 A point which connects to his BT 12–13 analysis of ‘Socratism’.