Bronze Age Pervert

Answers from Bronze Age Pervert to the Nietzsche Academy’s Questionnary. Bronze Age Pervert is an american author famous in the alt right for his nietzschean book "Bronze Age Mindset". He defines himself on his X profile as an « Aspiring Nudist Bodybuilder. Free speech and anti-xenoestrogen activist.»

Nietzsche Académie - How important is Nietzsche for you ?

Bronze Age Pervert - Nietzsche was the thinker I discovered at age 16 and I was quite angry at first while reading him, but over a few months, I couldn't put his books down, and he seduced me in this way. I'd say that since then I've been convinced that Nietzsche is the prophet of our time meaning in the broadest sense, that he represents a break with history as profound as what developed around Plato or Jesus and maybe more so. We are now only about 100 years since his death but this will be seen I believe in the coming centuries. Having these feelings I can't help but feel that he is the most important thinker to me if I'm asked this question as a kind of ultimatum. But I need to emphasize that, although for polemical purposes--in part to protect myself--and out of modesty I've presented myself at times as a mere popularizer of Nietzsche, I didn't set out to write my own book self-consciously as a commentary on Nietzsche in any way...or on any other thinker or doctrine. The reason my book has enduring popularity I believe, despite the fact I had to self-publish and that it's mostly given the silent treatment by mainstream press or otherwise heavily distorted--is because I wrote it about my own experiences of the world and of life. So I've tried to "digest" Nietzsche--and other thinkers as well, though again they weren't on my mind when I was writing--and to render to the reader my own understanding or experience of the world. I don't like "book reports" in any case. And so I think I wrote something that was maybe half in novel form, and is accessible to many types of readers with different interests. If this helps people understand Nietzsche better then this is good as well--my friend LokiJulianus called Bronze Age Mindset the first book in 100 years that cuts through all the obfuscations about Nietzsche. As you may know, his thought has been highly "edited" so much that even academics and professionals believe mostly lies about him. I was going to add "maybe especially academics" but now with a new wave of popularity brought to Nietzsche in recent years online, I see so many stupid things said about him by so many different kinds of people.

N.A. - Being Nietzschean what does it mean ?

B.A.P. - One thing that's not "Nietzschean" in any sense is our age at the moment, the actual world we live in...it's no more "Nietzschean" than the Roman world of 140 AD was Christian, and I'd say far less so. This needs to be addressed because the previous distortions have led to a strange condition...both the populist right (at least in America, where it is allied with the religious and social conservative right) and the left, as well as other sectors of American society, like to call their enemies "Nietzscheans" today. Both call each other "Nietzschean eugenicists"; the left believes these bizarre conspiracy theories where "Nazi billionaires" are running worldwide Capital as a form of the Fourth Reich, or that Nazi Germany took over the United Stated through Operation Paperclip and such things. But the populist right, the Alex Jones people--and not just them, a large sector of the religious right--believe similar things. They think that "Bill Gates is the real Nietzschean" and is running worldwide depopulation Machiavellian schemes, or that liberal billionaires like Gates or others have special plans such as you see in movie "Elysium," to build orbital stations and that the current commotions of our time are engineered in this Machiavalliean cynical way. I'm not sure this stupidity is happening in Europe but in America it's very common on "dissident" circles right and left to claim that the country is actually Nietzschean as it is now. Some even go so far to say that Gavin Newsom, the ineffectual governor of California, is "Nietzschean" because he has a large good looking family and is obviously "practicing eugenics." So when this pitch of stupidity is reached around the labeling, the definition of this word, I think it's better abandoned rather that disputed. Of course you and I know, and anyone who reads Nietzsche knows, that none of this has anything to do with anything he wrote, and also in short that if he had written, "Any group in charge anywhere at any time in any country is great and deserving of its position and you need to admire and obey them," no one would have been inspired by him. Well then I'm sorry to have go on for so long on this, arguing against stupidity is debasing. But for an interview with Nietzsche Academie I thought it appropriate--this word having been debased and dumbified in our time, "Nietzschean," I think the question has to be outflanked somewhat. So I only answer here what is not Nietzschean--our age is not, and until there are giant statues of Nietzsche overlooking great cities, as the statue of Jesus stands over Rio de Janeiro, or until there are magnificent gigantic Nietzsche busts and temples publicly venerated, it's not appropriate to call a state or an age "Nietzschean." As for what it is, what it could be--it would have to be the full rebirth of Hellenism in our time, the full rebirth of the promise of Greek culture, in short.

N.A. - Which book of Nietzsche would you recommend ?

B.A.P. - I recommend Ecce Homo to start Nietzsche...it may be unusual suggestion to start, but it was Giorgio de Chirico's favorite book of Nietzsche's for a reason (he believed he was the reincarnation of Nietzsche by the way). It's always been artists who understood Nietzsche better than thinkers and "philosophers" in the 20th Century (I mostly believe there were no philosophers after Nietzsche). The problem is then you can tell someone, to understand Nietzsche read Mishima, early Junger, D'Annunzio, Joseph Conrad, Ernst von Salomon, Ernst Kantorowicz--you asked me what is a Nietzschean, I'd say these men are maybe true Nietzscheans, and add Chirico for just seeing it directly in perception, if you are open to such things...and a few other such artists and historians who I think show what Nietzsche is much better than a treatise or commentary....but then there's no easy way to explain to someone else what all this means in a few sentences. I think that's a good thing, that you can't say it that way, it would be a superficial "doctrine" in that sense. But Ecce Homo gives you direct access I think to this sensibility...then if you like that I'd say Nietzsche's greatest books are Twilight of the Idols and Beyond Good and Evil. "Skirmishes of an Untimely Man" in Twilight is a big pleasure to read...both books contain the most thorough-going attack on leftism and "modern ideas" and the disaster they bring. Genealogy of Morals also has title to be called maybe the most anti-leftist book ever written, despite the fact that it is his most "read" book in academia (no one actually reads it--just excerpts and the "point" you're supposed to take, forcefed by a commentary). So I'd say start with Ecce Homo, then move to Twilight of the Idols and the others if you like it. A different path could be, if you are especially artistically inclined, you can read Birth of Tragedy soon after Ecce Homo. For all I'd recommend to read and not miss Nietzsche's unpublished early essay on The Greek State --it is very certain demonstration of the unity of his thought throughout his life, and the way he combines philosophical, political, and artistic concerns in this essay is important key to his orientation.

N.A. - Nietzsche is left or right ?

B.A.P. - Without a doubt Nietzsche is the most right wing thinker ever. It's important to remember however that his concerns aren't ultimately political and his thought can't be reduced to merely political positions--it is the over-all development of man, or the possibility of human culture as such that is a much bigger concern for him. That said, the fact that Nietzsche has numerous other concerns including some that are more important than mere politics doesn't mean that his political positions aren't sincere or shouldn't be taken seriously--they are however meant to be "of the age," meaning that as all exoteric doctrines go, he adapts his political positions to the "modern age," which should be distinguished from the ancient age. There's a lot of confusion on these profound political problems in Nietzsche because of wishful thinking on one hand, and on the other wrong definitions of what right and left mean spiritually, as well as the related fact that almost all who address Nietzsche (including especially supposedly objective or apolitical academics) are emotional, political people, and Nietzsche presses people's buttons and provokes like no one else can. An entire book could be written about this, but as this is a short interview, I'll direct reader to the recent short academic book "Nietzsche on Theognis of Megara," which I guess you could find online. Unless I'm mixing things up there's an essay here where in very simple, direct way is shown that the reading of Nietzsche as a leftist or a liberal (or "individualist") is in no way tenable, and is a wishful construct of post-1950's academia. I think Allan Bloom was right about this by the way: that the left, with the Marxist predictions about the economy proven wrong and Marxist grand-narratives of History no longer in fashion--as well as the fact that the working classes in large part rejected Marxism in the West--switched to Nietzsche as a more fashionable or "edgy" thinker, who, however they distorted to try merely to "deconstruct" culturally dominant narratives and so on. From this point of view I actually think the conservative intellectual's use of the term "cultural Marxism" is in large part correct, as they moved on from economic and class analysis to what the equivalent would be in terms of cultural and literary analysis, using Nietzschean deconstructionist and genealogical techniques to try to achieve fundamentally egalitarian goals. This project furthermore goes very well with that of mass migration from the Third World--this is the post-Marxist analogue of the Marxist unity of "working class"...although I would say "Third World revolution or the revolution of the Global South" is actually the intended end effect of Marxism. Connected to this is the problem of sexual liberation-- this matter is highly distorted by stupid people like Alain Soral and other Duginists who lie about customs and practices of the Global South--but the original understanding is that the sexual looseness and gender vagueness common among tropical peoples (including in the Islamic world) would also challenge Western sexual repression norms inherent in the practice of monogamy, whether Christian or Greco-Roman. I am going off on quite a tangent here but these matters are connected, and I'd say rightly connected, in the minds and intentions of the original leftist post-Marxist thinkers, who I think actually have gone to the root intention of Marx rather than get mired in his demonstrably silly economic theories. The economic side of Marxism, as in any socialism, was never about economics as such of course. This "improvement" of Marxism which abandons Marxism cretinism on economics in favor of distorted Nietzschean arguments about deconstruction and genealogy isn't tenable for reasons briefly explained I think in the book I mentioned above. Nietzschean deconstruction and genealogy is inseparable from deconstruction of egalitarian ways of thinking specifically (democracy and socialism being naturalized forms of Judaism/Christianity). The reasons for this are too extended to get into in a short interview. But I'll add that this concerns a problem with the practice of "genealogy" as such, which is common now also on the "dissident right" and the new right. It's a common type of argument that assumes that if for example you "trace" modern problems to some thinker or doctrine--whether it's "Lockean individualism," the "Protestant Reformation," "nominalism," "Gnosticism," "Puritanism" and many such--that you've thereby solved the problem. Many times there's not even any effort to disprove or argue against the thinker or doctrine to which the modern problems are traced--it's a tactic to inspire in the reader or audience a reflexive rejection at a symbol or taboo. But even if you were able to disprove that "originating" idea, nothing would be achieved because it's entirely possible for a problem to have an intellectual origin in one thing but to be sustained in our own time by another thing. Therefore if I as a Nietzschean don't like Locke and his liberalism, on the other hand it's absurd to claim that today the problem in the United States is "Lockean individualism"--it's just so much a fantasy that this is what confronts youth in schools in America now for example. Nietzschean genealogy isn't this--it's very different because it doesn't try to just go to the origin of an idea or word, but to show why the psychological and impulsive base for it continues in our own time, even if under a somewhat different guise. This is very different from what goes today by the name genealogy, and especially so in leftist academic settings where Nietzsche is routinely distorted and edited beyond recognition. So much for this then--all of this aside, it's worth it to recognize that before 1940 Nietzsche was seen in Europe as the father of the most promising and radical right wing movements, and of the youth right wing movements specifically. This is simple historical fact that can't be changed no matter how many feet are stomped, and the only way around it is to claim that all Europeans before 1940, pro and anti-Nietzsche didn't understand him, but that only people after 1950 understand him. The wild, hopeful and energetic European right wing art and political-social movements of the time--again Giorgio de Chirico and what came out of him, the Futurists, Celine, the rush of spirit in Junger and Ernst von Salomon, the scouting movements, Stefan George and his circle--all of these were the explicit Nietzscheans of that time, and all would be rightly classified as "far right" or "radical right." Today reactionaries or conservatives either are ignorant about this or lie about it, and like to pretend that the only real right wing is some variety of "throne and altar," which upholds traditional culture and society, the remnants of the feudal order, and especially the role of the Church or Christianity in society. With this formula they have lost--they lost back then, they've lost continually since 1950 and led to the disasters of our time because of their impotence and complicity in the egalitarian disaster. Nietzsche was sympathetic to the ancien regime but he realized what nostalgists don't, that it was a dead order--socially, spiritually and intellectually. The Nietzschean position as the radical right after 1900 is an attempt to go to the roots of the problem, and constitute a new order and new hierarchy, including a new spiritual hierarchy, to not only oppose the "calamity of modern ideas" inherent in democracy, socialism, liberalism and leftism, but offer man a new path of ascent to nature, inspired by Hellenic spirit. In the context of current debates, it's important to remember that although Nietzsche advocates for a united Europe and criticizes both nationalism and monarchies, he does so from a pan-European persepctive that would be called racialist in our day. That it wasn't solely confined to race as such (or as currently understood) is true, but it's also true that Nietzsche would have seen the flood of the Global South into Europe as yet another predictable program of the united leftist impulses. On many occasions such as Beyond Good and Evil 208 and 243 he makes it clear that it is European man specifically that all hopes for future must rest on, and on whether a caste can be formed that will give European man mastery of the earth in the coming millennium.

N.A. – Which authors are Nietzschean ?

B.A.P. – I've mentioned quite a few already but I'd like to emphasize the importance of the Stefan George Circle as I think they are maybe some of the purest Nietzscheans--a secret society and artistic circle with a mission to refound the Reich on a pan-European basis and create the spiritual preconditions for the emergence of a new type of man. It was an amazing ambitious project that, whatever its other results, led to the creation of some of the best poetry and historical works. To any reader I'd recommend Ernst Kantorowicz biography of Frederick II Hohenstaufen, who Nietzsche considers one of history's fateful men. I think Stefan George's own poetry is maybe inaccessible to most, especially in English. Aside from this, the typical trio of Celine, Junger and Mishima should absolutely be read together with Nietzsche by any modern reader, because that's the best cure for the leftoid and liberal distortions of Nietzsche that have been spread for so long. D'Annunzio and his book Flame of Life and Ernst von Salomon the Outlaws are also very good. Then I think there are the "Nietzschean authors before Nietzsche" among who I'd say Stendhal is number one--reading Stendhal's novels, his work on Napoleon, and then searching through Nietzsche for Napoleon in context would be very useful on its own. I've mentioned others as well above. After Nietzsche the most notable nonfiction thinkers on the right would be Heidegger and Carl Schmitt...they are Nietzschean...whatever is true and insightful in them is mostly taken from Nietzsche or an elaboration of Nietzsche, and the rest isn't useful. The same is true for Leo Strauss. This is my opinion at least...I have friends who value them very highly and I respect this.

N.A. - Can you give a definition of the superman ?

B.A.P. - The superman is mankind's only possible project after the death of God. The alternative is no project at all or rather a continuation of the world of the dead God in his absence, which means that man returns to the mire of domestication, maybe this time made permanent by the loss of all memory in the adulteration of the few remaining pockets of vital blood with domestic. I know what I'm saying sounds maybe crazy but it's not: God, a kind of ultimately obsessive atheism, a denial of the divinity of the world and of matter, was only possible on the back of a radically egalitarian dogma that denied nature and the order of hierarchy in nature. When Nietzsche speaks of the falsification of the history of Israel in the Bible I think this is a very profound clue: you are dealing here not with a people or a religion in the normal sense up to that time. Judaism--whatever it may have been in remote antiquity (and it was probably a kind of normal polytheism) became after the Maccabees and the Hasmonean dynasty something entirely new, a form of aggressive nationalism with universalist pretensions, created as my friend the Bureaucrat whispers to me, as an alternative to Hellenism and Romanity, quite self-consciously. It was possibly heavily influenced by Plato's Laws: it's not a "religion" in the sense normally understood...as an inversion of Hellenism and Romanity, through an act of simplification and also unintentionally maybe even it hit upon something new: it should rather be understood as the ideological expression of a type of biology, or the liberation of the oppressed chandala of antiquity. This is how Tacitus understood it. Christianity in turn began only as a very aggressive and violent form of it, and the 2.0 peaceful version only gained prominence after the Christian-led revolt of the 60's AD during which Rome destroyed Judaea (the peaceful mask promptly went off with assumption of power of the priestly types). However as is well known the spiritual struggle was lost: although it can be argued that what came out of that part of the world was in this way adapted to civilization and "tamed" in fact the fundamental inversion was never nullified and gained the upper hand. In what was Rome and then the NOT-Rome that came out of the Levant, which was I still claim purely and entirely a NOT-Rome, out of this struggle emerged European civilization in the modern era (meaning simply not-ancient, and thus including the so-called Middle Ages). Which is a kind of spiritual battleground of the spirit, and European man carried this battle in him everywhere. I don't think this battle alone can be called the cause of European greatness, because it's also the root of its corruption by our day, and arguably Europe would have been much greater with simply Hellenic culture... but in its own way it contributed--anyway much more can be said about this, but to get to your question...the atheism inherent in the Biblical rejection eventually got the upper hand, there's the well-known Nietzsche line, that atheism is the result of 2000 years of training in the discipline of truth that finally forbids itself its precondition, the lie of God. But God (which is really an anti-gods, and not in any way comparable to ancient religiosity), this idea that tyrannized over man died, leaving behind only the moral project, and to some extent also the effects of 1000 years of this project, the misbreeding of man...a being suited to this project. It is this that threatens to swallow up all of mankind now in a wretched endless domestication. I went on this tangent to say: the superman is the attempt then to begin the correction of this calamity, and although it is calamity it opened up greater possibilities: it's an attempt to birth a new god and new gods on a scientific basis or rather on a true apprehension of the natural hierarchy of values. It is, in our situation, the only way out for mankind: the birth of new gods out of scientific atheism. I'm aware of all the other definitions, the redeemer of the eternal recurrence, Caesar with the soul of Jesus, and many other such, but I think this is the kernel of it.

N.A. - Which is your favorite Nietzsche's quote ?

B.A.P. - My favorite aphorism is the one about Alcibiades and Frederick 2 Hohenstaufen, from Beyond Good and Evil, 200. My favorite quote changes all the time. There are many beautiful ones from the Will to Power about total hygiene earth. But OK that's more complicated, not a final product. For today, let's say my favorite is aphorism 243 from Beyond Good and Evil: "I am pleased to hear that our sun is caught up in a rapid movement towards the constellation Hercules, and I hope that men on this earth act like the sun in this respect. And we first, we good Europeans ! "