Nietzsche: Christianity Is the Most Successful Form of Nihilism

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This discussion is largely a response to some of the reactions to our most recent DBH interview. We discuss Nietzsche, Chesterton, antisemitism, Christianity, nihilism, morality, Nazism, Darwinism, Schopenhauer, and On the Genealogy of Morals.

We examine Nietzsche's critique of Christian morality, his relationship to Nazism, the influence of Darwin and Schopenhauer on his philosophy, and why Genealogy of Morals remains so provocative.

00:00 Introduction

02:28 Chesterton's claim that Hitlerism was "Jewish"

05:19 Conspiracy theory that Nazism was a Jewish plot

06:38 Nietzsche, Judaism, and Christianity

08:00 Christianity as the universalisation of ressentiment

10:48 Was Nietzsche a precursor to Nazism?

12:42 Nietzsche, Darwin, and evolutionary thought

13:13 Schopenhauer, the Will, and Darwinism

16:06 First impressions of Genealogy of Morals

18:16 Nietzsche's style

21:16 Reading Nietzsche for the first time

24:39 The power of Nietzsche's literary voice

27:11 The crisis of morality before Nietzsche

31:35 Nietzsche's wordplay and philosophy of affirmation

33:25 Compassion, suffering, and Christian morality

34:06 Christianity as "the most practical form of nihilism"

35:38 Socrates, asceticism, and the origins of morality

38:07 Determinism and the psychology of belief

40:53 Nietzsche's collapse and legacy

41:22 Nazi appropriation - Hitler, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche

43:23 Nietzsche's anti-nationalism and anti-anti-Semitism