This article argues for an interpretation of David Strauss: the Confessor and the Writer as embodying the key components of the Nietzschean practice of conflict with a ‘worthier’ enemy. These are carefully considered under the headings of ‘agonism’, ‘imitation’, and a propulsion towards ‘escalation’, that is, beckoning a response from other, would-be, ‘worthier’ enemies. Adding to the standard ‘cultural’ explanation for the origins of the Strauss essay, this article explores the polemical ‘assassination’ of Strauss as ultimately ordered towards assuming Strauss’ (...) status as the pre-eminent Post-Christian freethinker of the era. In this way, the Meditation also acts as an intentionally provocative means for Nietzsche to beckon his audience to both ‘escalate’ the struggle further, and to recognise his presence on the intellectual landscape. Nietzsche conceives greatness as facilitated through conflict; his conflict with Strauss, a worthier foe, anticipates the strategy and approach that Nietzsche will utilise in his later and more significant disputes. (shrink)

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This paper argues that Nietzsche is deliberately imprecise in his characterization of what he calls the slave revolt in morality. In particular, none of the people or groups he nominates as instigators of the slave revolt, namely, Jewish priests, the Jewish people, the prophets, Jesus, and Paul, were literally slaves. Analysis of Nietzsche's texts, including his usage of the term “slaves,” and his sources concerning those he nominates as the instigators of the slave revolt, make clear that Nietzsche knew none (...) of these were literally slaves. He calls it a slave revolt because he means that the propagators of that revolt preached what he takes to be the slavish values, including, humility, compassion, obedience, and lack of egoism. He uses the high loaded term “slave” both to disparage those values and, most importantly, to bring home to his readers the message that they, as inheritors of Judeo‐Christian values, actual adhere to and practice the debased slavish values preached, but not necessarily practiced, by the original instigators of the slave revolt. For Nietzsche, his readers are strangers to themselves, thus he notes “slavery is everywhere visible, although it does not call itself as such.”. (shrink)

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This paper explores background features in the development of Nietzsche’s criticism of Christianity by following him through what I have termed his conventional stage, his critical stage, and his stage of outrage. Next to examining some of his various criticisms during those stages, I also ask what the challenges were to which these criticisms responded and why Nietzsche eventually responded to these challenges with outrage. Outrage towards Christianity is unmistakably expressed in Nietzsche’s late work The Antichrist: A Curse on Christianity. (...) To understand Nietzsche’s outrage better we need to explore the role of ‘Antichrist’ in the title of that work and the meaning of ‘curse’ in its subtitle. (shrink)

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