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’ is of 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 rupture from the religious past, but also a re-interpretation or recreation of the notion of transcendence implied in that faith.