Nietzsche philosophy of history position paper

The two sides

What is there to disagree if I say, “she is pretty but she has a bad accent.” Or if I say “I would like to propose a cultural exchange program and the advantages and the disadvantages are……” If there are two sides, the positive and the negative, the big and the small, the advantages and the disadvantages, then it will be absurd to say “I totally disagree!”

The idea of Friedrich Nietzsche in this sense is very reasonably compared to other philosophers and historical thinkers. In fact, his masterpiece which was written in 1872 was entitled “On the Use and Abuse of History for Life” which shows the two sides of history’s usage.

Two sides in Nietzsche’s case were the positive side and the negative side. If there was something positive about the proposed theory, then there must have been or there should have been a negative side about the theory.

Adding more details into my vague explanation on the types of Nietzsche’s theory, I would like to briefly discuss about the most important part of his theory which is the way he sees the history in three distinct historical interpretation or the three different types of history.

The first type of history according to Nietzsche is the monumental history. Monumental history is actually self explanatory until some extent because monumental history deals with monumental events and beings.

The example of monumental history is around us. We can easily pass by monuments or statues of heroes on the road. We see certain statues but sometimes don’t even know why they are there and the purpose of the statue standing in the middle of the road blocking the driver’s view.

The advantage of the monumental history is in my own words, learning from the past. There are certain things that are truly beneficial for us in the past. We don’t have to start from the baseline but we could start from the very end that our ancestors who has been a great model to the society and culture. For example, in the fields of medical science, we do not have to repeat all the procedures or experiments to find the great theories and findings of Hippocrates.

In the fields of psychology, we do not have to repeat all the experiments to come up with the thoughts about consciousness and unconscious nature that Sigmund Freud mentioned in his theory of psychology. In fact, the field of medical science or the field of psychology or other fields that were touched or built by other monumental beings are improved and will improve by standing firm on those achievements that our predecessors achieved.

But there’s another side which is the disadvantage of the monumental history. As I’ve mentioned earlier, some people doesn’t even know the purpose or the name of the monument that they are passing by. No one really cares about the deep meaning of Christmas or other national holidays that are monumental to us.

Another disadvantage of the monumental history is that it takes out, segregates, and almost deletes certain part of the history that isn’t monumental. And I quote

“Thus, if the monumental consideration of the past rules over the other forms of analyzing it, I mean, over the antiquarian and the critical methods, then the past itself suffers harm. Really large parts of it are forgotten, despised, and flow forth like an uninterrupted gray flood, and only a few embellished facts raise themselves up above, like islands.” (Nietzsche, 2007)

This is a great loss for historical thinker therefore monumental history needs a backup or an upgrade version in order to enhance the disadvantage of it. And I say that the backup for this type of history is the second type of history according to Nietzche, “the antiquarian type of history.”

The antiquarian type is the study of the collection of antiquities and of old things that we value. Antiquarian type of history includes the culture and tradition, the place that people are living which is the nation that they are included in.

In the time of crisis such as war or famine in one nation, beasts or animals tends to move into a different habitat, but the citizens of one’s nation which is under crisis tends to stay hoping that their nation will be recovered.

“The contentment of a tree with its root, the happiness of knowing oneself not to be holy or arbitrary, and accidental but rather as going out of the past as its heir, flower and fruit.” (Nietzsche, 2007)

If this is the positive side of the antiquarian type of history valuing the culture and tradition as something that is sacred and venerated, the negative side of the antiquarian history is the failure of distinguishing what is to be venerated and what not.

There is certain thing that needs enhancement. We can’t live in a hut or a tent forever. We shouldn’t use hands to eat because our ancestors used to eat with their hands. In this sense, antiquarian history has a big loophole that left the third world countries underdeveloped.

“Antiquarian history hinders the powerful resolve for new life. Stops human creativity and leaves it shackled to the dead hand of the past.” (Nietzsche, 2007)

And again, in order to fill all the gaps and loopholes of both monumental and antiquarian type of history, the third type of history, the critical history is stated by Nietzsche.

Critical history helps an individual to criticize the past events. It can give a very genuine product of history after passing the judgment table of an individual’s criticizes. But does that mean that critical history is “the type of history” that we should all follow? Sad to say that critical history is also a theory that is imperfect.

Personally, I don’t like people criticizing or judging others especially by the outer appearance of an individual. The same idea applies to the critical history. Because there is no one who is perfect enough so that he/she can’t be judged or criticized. And there is no historical event that doesn’t deserve any criticism.

After all has been said, I’m truly amazed about the scope and the broadness of Nietzsche’s philosophy of history. I agree with his understanding of history which teaches us that not just one type of the history is valued against another. But all three has to be present in order for us individuals to have a clearer and more accurate understanding of history.


Nietzsche, F. (2007). On the use and abuse of history for life (I. C. Johnston, Trans.).
(Originally published in 1873). Retrieved March 27, 2008, from
http://www.mala.bc.ca/~johnstoi/Nietzsche/history.htm.