37 pages • 1 hour read
Friedrich NietzscheOn The Advantage And Disadvantage Of History For Life
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1874A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapter 2Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 2 Summary
Nietzsche re-asserts the importance of history in service to life. He distinguishes three kinds of history: monumental, antiquarian, and critical. Castigating “idlers,” Nietzsche claims that the active human “uses history as a means against resignation” (15). Such individuals are motivated to increase the happiness of themselves, their people, or of mankind.
The monumental form of history is envisioned as a “chain” of individuals whose acts are “linked throughout the millennia” (15). In this kind of history, great acts are eternal. This is problematic because while such great acts may be inspiring, they invalidate lowlier lives. Nietzsche also disputes whether a great act may be extricated from its context. National, religious, and military days of remembrance fall into this category. Monumental history also runs the risk of mythologizing the past. References to the monumental acts of the past can also discourage new monumental acts in the present.
Each of the three kinds of history is appropriate only in certain circumstances. The antiquarian approach to history assists a conservative approach, while the oppressed use recourse to critical history to oppose their present constraints.
Chapter 2 Analysis
Nietzsche’s distinction between the three forms of history he defines in Chapter 2 moves his argument forward by re-classifying the contemporary notion of history. Defining these three forms of history helps Nietzsche in his project of dismantling history as a universal and unassailable source of truth and wisdom. This fragmentation of the concept of history serves to weaken it, since Nietzsche is then more able to discredit each of the strains in isolation.
To a large extent, however, the kind of history to which Nietzsche continually returns in this essay is the monumental kind. He does so by contextualizing his essay in the tradition that includes ancient Greek civilization at the opening and close of the essay. The memorable metaphor of giants calling to each other across the ages in Chapter 9, and his appeal to art and religion in the same chapter, also pertain to monumental history. It is this monumental kind of history that is ultimately of greatest service to human life, and with which he hopes to inspire and unite the German youth of his day.
Nietzsche is concerned with the eminent moments of history. Yet in seeking to insert his text into its pages, he also shows awareness of what he calls “critical history.” He uses what he deems the failings of his own time as a platform on which to erect his contribution. By navigating between the different modes of historicism in his essay, Nietzsche is also better able to move advantageously between the roles of philologist, contemporary critic, and historian.
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