Date: Wed, 12 Mar 2003 18:36:10 -0800
Subject: the antichrist



After completing "Twilight of the Idols", Nietzsche abandoned his previous
plans for writing a work to be called "The Will to Power". Instead he
decided to write a four part "Revaluation of All Values:  not a collection
of notes or aphorisms but four essays; and he succeeded in completing the
preface and the first essay: "Der Antichrist".

The title is ambigous. It first calls to mind the apocalyptic Antichrist
and this more sensational meaning is in keeping with the author's intention
to be as provocative as possible. But the title could also mean "The
Anti-Christian," and this interpretation is much more in keeping with the
contents of the book, and in sections 38 and 47 the word is used in a
context in which this is the only possible maening.

It is also likely that a parallel to "anti-Semite" is intended. Nietzsche's
attitude toward anti-Semitism in this work is, at first glance, puzzling;
it has even been suggested that his anti-Christianity might have been
motivated by anti-Semitism. But he is as opposed to anti-Semitism as ever.
This is plain in all the other works of 1888, including the two books he
composed after "The Antichrist:  "Ecce Homo" and "Nietzsche contra Wagner".

et cetera

reed it, or inherit the wind





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