Was Nietzsche a Nazi?

Simply put... NO. Nietzsche was not a Nazi.

It was often thought that Nietzsche was a Nazi, or to a lesser extent, the inspiration for the Nazis. It is very clear that their are some succinct similarities between the work of Nietzsche and the policies of the Nazis, however the Nazis incorporated many philosophies (including Hegel) to meet their own insane philosophical needs; not just the work of Nietzsche.

Nietzsche is famous for the quote "God is Dead". Obviously this upsets the Judea-Christian ethos and thus he is labelled a Nazi as they believed he caused Nazism to happen.

He is associated with the Nazis due to consequentialism. Religious sects were annoyed with Nietzsche as even when you take away the argument of whether or not God does or does not exist, upholding religious morals does in fact hold weight because it makes people behave morally and in an except able manner.

The main ideas between the Nazi regime and Nietzsche are the concept of the 'will to power' and the ideas of the superman. Nietzsche's idea of the will to power would have been massively frowned upon at the time he wrote his work as it incorporates the ideas of strong leadership at a time when the world was widely democratic and liberal - it could be argued that this is a clear Nazi association as Hitler lived out the idea of the 'will to power'.

The idea of the superman was held by both the Nazis and Nietzsche, however Nietzsche does not look at 'supermen' through racial characteristics. He does see Jewish people as undermench but only due to their religious restraint, which he sees as somewhat of a slave religion, not their race. The Nazis would have labelled the Jews as lesser people because of their race. Clearly Nietzsche was not a Nazi as Nazism was racism. Furthermore Nietzsche would have perceived racism as conformity; something which he strongly opposed.

Nietzsche was not a Nazi, he was an individual.

GONZO JOURNALISM: MP FOLLOWING

Two weeks ago I went out with the winning candidate for the meon Valley, Conservative, George Hollingbery. I followed him for an afternoon on his campaign, where he went to speak with local farmers in the constituency. George was a likable fellow, but I in no way could relate to anything he said, and disagreed with much of his political outlook.

His secretary had arranged to have him pick me up from my house on Tuesday 20th April. He arrived at midday with a friend and informed me that we would be visiting a local farm in rural Boarhunt along with the other party candidates.

On arrival at the farm, we were greeted in a friendly manner by a dozen or so farmers who were eager to grill the Conservative Candidate of the new constituency. George made small talk with some of the farmers whilst we patiently waited for others to arrive. It was soon obvious that the farmers and George had a very clear class barrier; on the one hand you had these farmers who, despite the fact they owned and worked their own land, were clearly working class, then you had Oxbridge-educated, middle-class George. Their interactions before the meeting started felt somewhat like a ridiculous pantomime.

Before the meeting commenced, George took me aside and asked me what I was looking to get out of the day so I explained that I wanted to film the meeting and get an interview with him where he would be answering my pre-prepared questions. He was entirely complying and told me his only issue with the interview would be a ten minute time restriction. He then asked me what line of journalism I wished to get into and then went on to tell me that journalism was not a profession he would wish his children to get into as he went on to recite how little a local Hampshire paper's editor was being paid. Although I have no intentions of working for local papers, I did feel rather annoyed by the remarks and they only reaffirmed my initial preconceptions upon first meeting him.

Once all the farmers had arrived, we were ushered to a barn which somewhat resembled an equestrian-esque Question Time format - hay bails for seats etc. Mr Hollingbery then asked why were heading toward the barn as he thought that the meeting would be held inside. To me it was very obvious that the meeting would be taking place in the barn, however George seemed a bit perturbed by the suggestion. I remember thinking that it was quite fitting to have the meeting in the barn, and found it hard to fathom why George wouldn't have expected a similar meeting arena.

The discussed topics at the meeting included competition from abroad, farming disease, and the ridiculous nature of a variety of currently imposed restrictions. George clearly had little to no knowledge of agriculture but he did not try to create a false impression that he did; this was really his only option as the farmers would have quickly become aware that he did not know much in the field (excuse the pun). Fair play to Mr Hollingbery, he hadn't come completely unprepared; he would often try to appeal to the farmers by spouting agricultural sound-bites, one of which i recall went along the lines of, "asparagus from Peru? Come on?!" Despite the fact he was trying to convey some initiative toward the farmers, it seemed that his farming knowledge was more than likely extracted from a Broadsheet Sunday supplement as opposed to Farmers Weekly. It felt a bit like a car crash comedy skit.

Another preparation George had made so as not to look entirely clueless was the decision to invite his farming friend from Suffolk to the meeting. Initially i thought that the guy had just come to help with George's campaign trail, (he came down as the Iceland volcanic ash cloud had prevented him from going abroad so he had a spare few days) which he had, but it quickly became apparent that due to his farming knowledge that he was going to help George, and there were numerous occasions in the meeting where he jumped to Hollingbery's aid and pointed him in various directions. In fact, as we left the farm i distinctly remember George thanking his friend - his voice steeped with relief - for helping him.

I genuinely feel that he was a hit with the farmers. They accepted that his knowledge of agriculture was small, but he did come across as sincere in his promise to put agriculture as high up on his agenda as possible. However, for me it was his oratorical skills which shone through. I feel that he was more of a wordsmith than an implementer of promises. As much as he was indeed a polite gentleman, all he did was just firmly cement my bad preconceptions on the Conservative party. I acknowledge the fact that a lot of politics is all about the show but I strongly believe that once elected, farming will be a small issue for George and somewhat of an annoyance.

The Conservatives did not get my vote.

The Outsider

Albert Camus' "The Outsider" is a bleak novel with a striking outlook on society. The book strongly challenges the normal conventions of society. Camus' term of "the outsider" refers to the idea that anyone who does not conform to perceived idea of society's law is deemed an outsider. With the novel's protagonist, Meursault, Camus examines the problems of possessing a non-conformist outlook, and the loneliness entailed within the existentialist way of life. Meursault commits murder without remorse, and is conveyed as somewhat of an anti hero as despite the fact he has indeed killed a man, he courageously refuses to lie about his actions and rebukes all the morals of a traditional society.

Despite the fact that I do not sympathise with Meursault who kills in a seemingly racist attack, he is successfully conveyed by Camus as very human. His behavior is indeed remarkably strange but very believable; he just comes across as devoid from emotion. Ironically, it is Meursault's inability to lie - a characteristic which is promoted by society - which labels him an "outsider". To me, this is the single most important aspect of the novel as something as 'pure' as the truth has lost any sense of worth within a "conventional" society (clearly an attack on a conformist outlook of society).

The fact that the narrative is first person is different in the sense that the novel appears to present the way society deals with the "outsider" as opposed to the way he deals with society. Meursault is passive in his outlook yet Camus opts for a first person narrative. We rarely are in formed of Meurault's feelings or opinions. I believe this narrative adds to the alien feelings that the protagonist feels towards society, and firmly heightens the existentialist argument with Meursault, wrongly or rightly, looking like the victim.

WINOL PRODUCTION: Week 2

Following the capturing of the constituency profile footage I then began to edit the packages so they were good enough to be played without any flaws. The editing process was rather lengthily, and although I am used to editing as I am quite experienced with editing software, it felt more stressful as I knew that failure to provide decent packages would hugely effect the quality of the election coverage.

Some of the biggest problems was that I was rather short of decent GVs. Although I had been out for roughly three days filming my footage I didn't believe that I had a huge amount of decent GVs. I think the reason that I was short of GVs was because Chanin and I had so many constituencies to travel to that we often didn't take into consideration the amount of GVs we had filmed.

Even though we didn't have an abundance of camera shots, all of the final packages turned out to be excellent. After hours of stressing they were complete and ready to be put into the general election night.

The Road To Serfdom

Hayek's The Road to Serfdom is a relatively straightforward read. It basically discusses how no one group can ever know enough to successfully run an economy. To some extent Hayek is correct in arguing that any attempt to plan an economic future is setting itself up for failure as can be seen with the German Wiemar Republic's failure. Hayek goes on to say that this failure inevitably results in the rule of a dictator as a last ditch attempt to avoid chaos. Here one can see a clear correlation between the Nazi Regime.


The new command economy represents the submission of the individual to the dictating planners; where power was once dispersed amongst industrialists it is now stuck with a select few. This reduces the common man to that of a "serf" as he is unable to his produce for the highest price.



The book is as relevant now as it ever was. It is a piece of of literature which defends private property and supports the idea that promotes the individual to decide. It puts forward the argument to keep centralised power out of economic matters, and to Hayek, the central control of the economy equals slavery and an abolition of democracy. On the matter, Leon Trotsky said, "In a country where the sole employer is the state, opposition means death by slow starvation. The old principle - who does not work shall not eat - has been replaced by a new one - who does not obey shall not eat". This planning then doesn't cease and man becomes a mere cog in a machine, with every aspect of life being planned.



Although a lot of Hayek's ideas appear rather drastic - people even joked that Hayek would have you believe that if there was an over-production of baby carriages, planners would insist upon people having more children as opposed to halting production - his general arguments, which are based upon 20th Century events do bring home a huge amount of truth and poignancy.