Polarizing times call for Nietzsche's practice of 'passing by'

Ideas53:59Polarizing Times Call for Nietzsche’s Practice of 'Passing By'

*Originally published on Jan. 20, 2025.

Existentialist German philosopher Friedrick Nietzsche is most popularly known for his declaration that 'God is dead' and for his wrestling with nihilism. 

But political theorist Shalini Satkunanandan argues that Nietzsche offers us a method that can help us navigate the highly polarizing discourse that's afflicting our democracies today. 

"I would say that we are almost talking too much. There's this constant need to correct, refute, criticize," said Satkunanandan.

"It's not clear that our constant need to engage is helping us move forward in any way. If anything it is making partisan divides even more pronounced."

Nietzsche's work was largely unknown during the course of his short life. He died in 1900 at the age of 55 after suffering a degenerative brain disease. 

He published Thus Spoke Zarathustra between 1883 and 1885 and in it he explores some of the core tenets of his philosophy through the book's main character — a fictional wandering prophet called Zarathustra. 

"There's a really key line in the book that reads: 'Where one can no longer love, there one should pass by,'" said Satkunanandan, who is working on a book about the practice of 'passing by.'

"It's about making us more hesitant about engagement and antagonistic contest…Before any engagement it's worthwhile asking what its effects are going to be," she said. "I don't know if we always ask that because we see engagement as a good in itself, and as a sign of caring about shared life." 

She says that sometimes caring for shared life means it's okay to not engage, and adds that 'passing by' should never be confused for disengagement. 

"You are paying attention, but you're being extremely hesitant and minimalistic about direct participation." 

How to engage within 'politics of resentment'

'Passing by' can be misread as resignation, being lazy, or apathetic. But veering away is not any of these things, argues Satkunanandan. 

"Participation may actually aggravate a particular passional situation."

It was no surprise that the Merriam-Webster dictionary crowned "polarization" as its word of the year in 2024. 

Jeffrey Church, chair of the political science department at University of Texas, Houston, has written books on Nietzsche. He also sees the value in Nietzsche's lesson of 'passing by.' 

"When we're constantly engaged in a struggle for revenge, that we're essentially chaining ourselves to the conditions of the world around us, to reacting to the conditions of the world around us, and not engaging in creating something new or transcending it," said Church.

That doesn't mean Nietzsche is suggesting to ignore injustices and problems, says Church, it's more about understanding the way "becoming obsessed with the ills or problems in the world can never allow us to be free." 

"If you pass over or transcend a lot of the minor ills or minor problems that you see, it allows you to get an intellectual space and a moral space where you can be free, where you're indeed not obsessed with every cabinet pick that Trump is making today," Church said.

"That you can in fact free that space in your mind where you're obsessed with all those names and devote that space and time to something that's distinctively for you, and that's distinctively an expression of who you are rather than a reaction to someone else."

The value of 'passing by'

Satkunanandan emphazises the space for creativity that opens up when we 'pass by.' 

"When you pass by, it's almost like you're making it possible that you might sort of tap into or come to new languages for, for engaging with other people, new languages, for describing the world. It's almost like when you're constantly participating, you're always speaking to other people within received frames and received ways of seeing the world."

She explains that part of what Nietzsche was trying to get at with 'passing by' is the creation of new values — a way of fundamentally changing how we live to focus on meaning in our lives. 

"If you want to really change the ultimate commitments that give meaning to our lives and thereby to help transform the world, then you actually need to be really careful about constant participation in public debate because you become incapable of speaking in other than the terms of received public debate," Satkunanandan said.

"And really creating new values requires you to give yourself the opportunity to sort of come to new ways of speaking and being in the world."
 

Download the IDEAS podcast to listen to this episode.

*This episode was produced by Nicola Luksic.

Guests in this episode:

Shalini Satkunanandan is an associate professor of political science at University of California Davis.

Jeffrey Church is chair of the political science department at the University of Houston. 

Thanks to Thomas Pfanner who read the part of Nietzsche and to Gavin Crawford who read the part of Nietzsche's fool.