The Noise of the Noisome: Nietzsche on Bürgerliche Morality

• In Event: Late Modern Critiques of the Bourgeois

Abstract

The bourgeois appear by their French name only once in Nietzsche’s published writings, where they are singled out for their “raving stupidity and obstreperous mouthiness” (BGE 254). One could call Nietzsche the greatest hater of the bourgeoisie were it not that he believed them beneath the honor conferred by his hatred. Yet his contempt for the bourgeois or the bürgerlich should not be all ira et studio, since he argues that “The rule is always more interesting to me than the exception” (D 442), and in late 19th century Europe the bürgerlich are the rule. Insofar as they, or we, remain the rule, Nietzsche’s analysis should be especially relevant. This paper therefore examines Nietzsche’s moral psychology of the bürgerlich as well as his reflections on their political significance. The former concludes that the emptiness of individualistic and compassionate bürgerliche moralities are for Nietzsche signs pointing to the need for a critique of morality as such. The latter concludes that Nietzsche, like us, confronts a world in which peoples are disappearing, being split between bürgerliche Gesellschaft on the one hand and the “cold monster of the state” on the other (Z I.11-12). The peculiarity of late modern Europe has to do with the existence of customs (Sitte) increasingly severed from the ethnic and religious bases they have had hitherto. Bürgerliche Gesellschaft proves to be the form customary morality takes when thus severed.

Author

• Ethan Cutler, Boston College