On the Use and Abuse of History for Life

Description

We wish to serve history only insofar as it serves living. But there is a degree of doing history and valuing it through which life atrophies and degenerates. To bring this phenomenon to light as a remarkable symptom of our time is now every bit as necessary as it may be painful. With these words Friedrich Nietzsche, the revolutionary German philosopher, launches a frontal assault on the modern historical scholarship of his age. That scholarship, which prides itself on its objectivity and its ruthless enquiry into the facts, Nietzsche argues, undermines life, because it destroys our confidence in our own culture, our instincts, and our ability to live meaningful lives. We end up knowing all there is to know about our past, but losing contact with the emotionally meaningful value of that past. This captures the clarity, energy, and urgency of Nietzsche's challenge to the culture of his time, a challenge every bit a pertinent today as when it first appeared.