A Marriage Made in Hell
Where did they come from, these furiously self-righteous "social justice
warriors"?
The growing radicalism and intolerance on the American left is the
result of the strange union of Nietzsche's "will to power" and a
secularized Puritan moralism. In this penetrating study, Mark T.
Mitchell explains how this marriage made in hell gave birth to a
powerful and destructive political and social movement.
Having declared that "God is dead," Friedrich Nietzsche identified the
"will to power" as the fundamental force of human life. There is no good
or evil in a Nietzschean world--only the interests of the strong. Reason
and the common good have no place there.
The Puritan, by contrast, is morally rigorous, zealous to promote virtue
and punish vice. America's Puritan tradition, now thoroughly
de-Christianized, has been reduced to a self-righteous moral absolutism
that focuses on the faults of others, intent on avenging the sins of
society, institutions, and the past in pursuit of the secularized ideals
of equality, diversity, and social justice.
As Nietzsche's ideas have permeated our culture, a new generation of
radicals has embraced the rhetoric and tactics of the will to power. But
the strength of America's residual Puritanism keeps them only half-baked
Nietzscheans. More Christian than they care to admit, they cling to a
moralism that Nietzsche would despise.
The incoherence of their mixed creed dooms social justice warriors to
perpetual frustration. Their identity politics generates ever more
radical demands that can never be satisfied, further fracturing a
society in desperate need of a unifying myth. We seem to be left with
only two options, Mitchell concludes--Nietzsche or Christ, the will to
power or the will to truth. The choice is bracingly simple.
