Nietzsche, Democracy and Transcendence

Abstract

Socialism, utilitarianism and democracy, are according to Nietzsche secularised versions of Christianity. They have continued the monomaniac one-sidedness of the Christian idea of what a human being is and should be, and they have even strengthened this monomania through its ‘immanentisation’. The article shows that this ‘immanentisation’ has a crucial importance for Nietzsche’s critique of democracy. This critique may suggest that Nietzsche’s alternative for the disappeared Christian faith is not only a more radical nipture from the religious past, but also a re-interpretation or recreation of the notion of transcendence that was implied in that faith.