By Octavio Majul  (Buenos Aires, Argentina)

Does this question, formulated in this way, even make any sense? Under what concept of Nietzscheanism would we make such an evaluation? From our interpretation of Nietzsche’s work and its respective affinity with that of Max Weber? From the multiple and different readings of Nietzsche that were carried out in Weber’s time? From Weber’s own readings of him? What readings would those be? Which Weber, even, are we calling Nietzschean (or not)? All of his «work» or a specific period? These questions border on an issue that in the history of thought has generated its fair share of controversy: the problem of influences. Is it possible to assert if an author influenced another? And if it is possible, what is the scope of such an identification? Or, better, what is the point of an investigation of these traits?

The question of influences acquired an ambiguous status towards the end of the 20th century. While, on the one hand, the concept was discarded because it all too easily developed into a metaphysical form of the history of thought, or a “mythology of history” in the words of Quentin Skinner; on the other, it has been reintroduced whether in quotation marks or replaced by a less troublesome equivalent. “Footprint”, “trace” and even “elective affinity” — the Goethe-rooted concept that Weber himself employs — appear thus, many times, as ways of insinuating some kind of relationship between two thinkers. But ambiguity is not a friend of intellectual probity. If we are going to make a statement, we must be as explicit as possible so as to give opportunity for criticism and discussion. Crucially, denying the possibility that an author has influenced another is the equally metaphysical reverse of the obsession to find in influence the gateway to the “ultimate core” of the influenced author.

For starters, the question of Nietzsche’s influence on Weber must be separated from the question of Weber’s “Nietzscheanism”. While the latter is more akin to inquiring on the adoption of a religious creed, the first aims to clarify the way in which thought develops historically. That is the procedure I shall adopt here. It implies raising questions such as: at what point was Weber confronted with Nietzsche’s writings? How did Nietzsche circulate in the discursive communities close to Weber in his time? In relation to what problems in his work does Weber approach the texts of or about Nietzsche? Again, all these questions clearly point in one direction: the need to historicize and trace specific instances of that relationship of influence rather than comparing, across their entire output, the fundamental problems that the two supposedly address in similar (or interrelated) ways.

In that sense, I would like to specifically discuss this problem from the arc that is established between two of the initial instances in which Nietzsche is referred to in Max Weber’s work. The first – not necessarily chronologically – takes us to 1896 to the founding of the Nationalsozialer Verein [National-Social Association]. In this occasion, Weber made a devastating critique of Christian and pacifist perspectives on political life and called the public to recognize that choosing a dedication to politics meant accepting the eternal and inevitable struggle between human beings. In a challenge to his contemporaries, Weber closed his speech by invoking an old Thuringian expression: “Landgraf get tough [werde hart]!”, an interpellation almost identical to the one that Nietzsche had made in the section “The old and new tablets” of the third book of Thus Spoke Zarathustra. In this passage of the work, after criticizing the weak as decadent and praising the toughness that all creation needs, Nietzsche affirms: “This new table I place, my brothers, on your heads: harden yourselves! [werdet Hart!]”. Not coincidentally, after Weber’s intervention, the Christian journalist and politician Hellmut von Gerlach took the floor addressing Weber and stated: “I am not going to accompany the Nietzschean master’s morality [Nietzsche’sche Herrenmoral] in politics. There is no need to say ‘Landgraf, get tough!’ But ‘Landgraf, be merciful!’”

If Gerlach’s accusation that Weber subscribed to a Nietzschean master’s morality seems to support the predominant hypotheses about the Nietzsche-Weber relationship — i.e., suggesting their proximity—, the publication in 2020 of the last volume of the Gesamtausgabe, i.e., MWG III/2 Praktische Nationalökonomie. Vorlesungen 1895–1899, gathering materials from Weber’s teaching on ‘practical political economy’, brings us new data. In the chapter dedicated to political-economic ideas, which also encompasses contemporary debates, Weber identified Social-Darwinist positions that frame free competition in terms of a form of selection of the strongest as a form of “socio-political Nietzscheanism”. Let’s see how this appears in MWG III/2, p. 312:

Weber referred in this occasion to the Social-Darwinist positions of figures such as Otto Ammon. Weber distanced himself from such views not only because of their “questionable character with regards to methods and objective results” and claim to represent the “natural sciences”, but also because of their political bias — especially their combination of social-conservatism and free-market dogmatism:

A mistake of most contributions coming from the natural sciences in terms of clarifying questions of our science consists in the misguided ambition to “refute” socialism at all costs. In the fervor of this intent, the supposedly “natural-scientific theory” of the social order involuntarily becomes an apology of the latter.

Ein Fehler der meisten, von naturwissenschaftlicher Seite gelieferten Beiträge zur Beleuchtung der Fragen unserer Wissenschaft liegt in dem verfehlten Ehrgeiz, vor allen Dingen den Sozialismus »widerlegen« zu wollen. Im Eifer dieses Zweckes wird aus der vermeintlichen »naturwissenschaftlichen Theorie« der Gesellschaftsordnung unwillkürlich eine Apologie derselben. (MWG I/4.2: 554, f. 4).

Here, then, in the first appearance of the name Nietzsche in Weber’s output  —discounting two letters sent to Marianne in 1894 in which he only refers neutrally to reading him— we observe the distance Weber establishes with the former, especially in light of conservative interpretations at the time.

What should be drawn from both instances of Nietzscheanism mentioned above (one directed towards Weber, one attributed by Weber to another thinker)? Is it possible to claim part of Nietzsche’s work and publicly reject another? How to account for the fact that Nietzsche’s name was associated with different political factions at the time? With this said, the problems and limitations surrounding the question of Weber’s Nietzschean character  —  or lack thereof –  become evident. The fact is that the absolute and dichotomous character that the question possesses — requiring a yes or no answer — does not allow us to apprehend the often contradictory character of historical forms of thought. Weber was able to appropriate certain concepts —such as the notion of the “human type” — or ways of thinking — the “ineluctability of struggle” and the need to “toughen up” — from Nietzsche’s work and, at the same time, separate himself from other aspects from or ways of reading it. Faced with these issues, it makes more sense to ask oneself about the multiple instances of influence — whether “positive” or “negative” — and dwell on their singularities, yet without the temptation to eventually add them to a coherent and harmonious whole. Hence, it is worth asking, once again but now in a better formulation, what are Nietzsche’s influences on Max Weber?

Buenos Aires, November 2021