Frederick Nietzsche – The Pull Of The Land

(Note: This post largely extracts a letter I wrote 22 years ago, which is even more relevant today)

We’ve heard it said that seeds planted in a given century come to fruition in the next. If so, it may be helpful to look at 19th century seeds which gave the 20th and the 21st (so far) centuries a harvest of depravity unknown to the first 1,800 years of the Christian calendar.

We begin (without seeking to offend our neo-Darwinian friends) with Darwin’s (1809-1882) On the Origin of Species, which purported to explain why some “races” are superior to others (this purpose, actually in its original subtitle, is rarely mentioned today, and new editions omit it. The full title is: On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle For Life).

The book was published in 1859; its first 1,250 copies sold out overnight. It was not the common folks, but rather the intellectual elite, which bought it out and began to apply it, for it gave a patina of scientific support (emphasis on patina) to the ancient desire to divorce oneself from the claims of a Creator. Claims seen in political documents until then, such as the Declaration of Independence, which presupposed that we are created men and women with God-given (inalienable) rights. (The authors of the declaration knew pagan history; they knew the pagan idea of the eternity of matter and ascending circles of existence. This preceded Darwin by millennia. Yet, though knowing this, the Founding Fathers rejected it. They knew that inalienable rights could not be grounded on a la-la theory.)

Another 19th century seed, Karl Marx (1818-1883), first dedicated Das Kapital to Charles Darwin, who, in a rare fit of prudence, declined the honor. Darwin could never fully shake off his Christian heritage. His doubts pursued him to the grave. That was not the case with Marx. For more on this monster, known for “howling gigantic curses”, we would recommend Paul Johnson’s Intellectuals. For our purposes, suffice it to say that this seed reaped a more overt harvest than Darwin and Nietzsche (see below). Darwin and Nietzsche’s harvests are obvious to anyone who pauses but a moment. But to see Marx’s harvest doesn’t require a pause; it merely requires that one be sentient. His assertion that man is a mere economic animal fits nicely, as intended, with Darwin’s theory. In both, man is declared to be an animal.

The third seed, Frederick Nietzsche (1844-1900), whose most famous work was Thus Spake Zarathustra, was grossly antichristian. His most salient ideas were a despising of the weak, the mediocre, and the altruistic. He exalted war and chaos as a stimulus for energy and the triumphant life. He was hostile to Christian morality. To him, each individual — not a transcendent Creator — defines his or her identity, not to mention morality. But he did preach a morality of the lords and a morality of the slaves. The former, a superior morality, is characterized by power and dominion; the latter, a weak morality, is characterized by compassion, humility, and patience. He died a madman.

We hardly need to comment on the 20th century harvest from these seeds. The thoughtful reader will recognize how the above philosophies prevail in today’s political and corporate life. As illustration, we will simply summarize that harvest in terms of a basic rule: the good tends to life; the evil tends to death. Clearly the harvest of the 20th century has tended to death. And the progress so far of the 21st has not abated that tendency much.

The following statistics are conservative estimates. More data continues to become available which reflects numbers far higher than these (for example, The Black Book of Communism, Mao: The Unknown Story, Hungry Ghosts, etc.). Nonetheless, the data below will suffice for our purposes. It declares the 20th century tale of deaths caused by deliberate state policy:

95.2 million deaths; 477 per 10,000 population — Communist states (international socialism)

20.3 million deaths; 495 per 10,000 population — Fascist states (national socialism)

3.1 million deaths; 48 per 10,000 population — Partially free

8 million deaths; 22 per 10,000 population — Free

The above figures exclude the 60 million estimated deaths caused by abortions since 1973 in the United States and their territories; the 35.7 million estimated deaths caused by 20th century wars; and the 15 million deaths caused by the state-sponsored Ukraine famine of the early 1930s. Be reminded: the first two state systems in the list above are/were atheistic, antichristian systems, whose first order of business was to suppress the Bible and the Christians. This is well documented and overt, but hardly ever stated in polite company. If the Spanish Inquisition of a few centuries back deserves censure, then surely the regimes alluded to above deserve opprobrium. But the public elite has never been known for consistency … or honesty.

The biggest characters (using that term deliberately) associated with the statistics above, were ALL disciples of the ideas of Darwin, Marx, and Nietzsche.

Is there cause for optimism in the 21st century? Well, if evil seeds can be expected to germinate in subsequent centuries, then surely good seeds will do the same. On that basis, we can be cautiously optimistic, although the harvest may be more fully enjoyed by our children and grandchildren. We’ll mention only one such seed, but a most critical one: the great shift in education from a state sponsored function back to a father and mother duty.

This tectonic redirection was clearly seen in the latter part of the 20th century but was accelerated after the draconian measures imposed by most — though thankfully not all — “First World” governments since early 2020. These mandates — very few were formally passed into law by legitimate legislatures — ironically exposed the philosophies pushed by state education systems to horrified parents who promptly removed their children from government schools and either began to educate them at home or, at great financial sacrifice, in private religious schools.

This is a consequential shift back to first principles. We are already seeing some impact in that major universities are actively seeking home-educated children or at least those whose education has been closely overseen by their parents. In sharp contrast to the Zeitgeist since the mid-19th century, the late 20th and early 21st centuries mindset of many is that the child is on loan to the father and mother by God. And it is the family’s duty, not the state’s, to educate him or her. We are convinced this shift tends to life and, therefore, will result in a more compassionate and a more life-supporting and life-affirming 21st and 22nd centuries. May our children and grandchildren see that day!

Declaration of Independence, original (“engrossed copy”) on display in the National Archives

Charles Darwin, 1809-1882

Karl Marx, 1818-1883

Frederick Nietzsche, 1844-1900

Although it had long faded from public memory, this century has brought renewed awareness of the “Christmas Truce” of 1914. About ten years ago our family enjoyed the deeply moving, 2005 production of Joyeux Noel. We knew a little about the truce, but hardly enough. We later learned that there were truces in all fronts of that war.

To better understand this event requires an appreciation of the religious awareness of men and women at the turn of the twentieth century. Although the nihilism of Nietzsche, combined with the deleterious effects of the German, and, later, English “lower criticism”, had begun their march across elite academia and her handmaidens, their effect had not yet dribbled down to Everyman. Yet it was Everyman who would be sent out to march to his death in the name of the cynicism making its inroads into western civilization.

Most men and women of the West considered themselves Christian and cherished their traditions, with Christmas occupying a special place in their hearts. So when, a few days before Christmas, 1914, in defiance of national leaders, a “Christmas Truce” was observed across all fronts of the war, the politicians and military brass (along with certain civilian sectors ) were outraged. In other words, those not actually in the arena, in the war’s front; those not bleeding and dying, were angry. Adolph Hitler was not in the trenches at the time, but he is known to have been bitterly opposed to the truce. Charles De Gaulle called it “lamentable.”

In one section, the Truce began with Germans singing Silent Night, in their language. The British across no man’s land were surprised, but also began to sing the same Christmas carol in English. Eventually, a German soldier came out of his trench and erected a Christmas tree in no man’s land. British guns were aimed on him, but no one fired. That action spurred more spontaneous reactions, and, eventually, British and German soldiers were meeting in no man’s land, shaking hands, laughing, singing, exchanging cigarettes, food, and other small gifts — even soccer matches were held — in the spirit of Christmas.

Many letters are extant which tell, sometimes in moving prose, the details of the truce as it unfolded and ended in the letter-writers’ sections. Especially touching are the narrations about how the respite also allowed each opposing side to bury their dead.

In some sections, this truce extended through the first of January.

The brass descended with guns blazing. In one incident, an irate British officer, beside himself, took a rifle and, not to put too fine a point on it, murdered an unarmed German soldier standing in no man’s land.

The war resumed and carried on through three more Christmastimes and almost a fourth, were it not for the armistice of November 11, 1918. The high commands ensured there would be no more Christmas truces by, among other measures, issuing orders the following December warning against any “fraternizing” with the enemy. Anyone participating in any Christmas truce would be charged with “rendering aid and comfort to the enemy.”

By the end of the war, over twenty million people had died in the conflict, ten million of which were soldiers such as as those who had participated in the Christmas truce of 1914.

The 20th (twentieth) century should be known as the atheistic century, as it was characterized by regimes that boasted their denials of God. Gil Elliott in his 1972 work, The Book of the Dead tells us that the twentieth century, the century which represents the great triumph of humanism, gave us wars, revolutions, and concentration and re-education camps that killed between 89 and 159 million men, women, and children. Twenty-eight years later, seven French scholars wrote the magisterial, The Black Book of Communism which in over 900 chillingly documented pages, using formerly unavailable source documents, demonstrates that over 100 million fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, boys, girls, and babies died under the hand of atheistic communism, in addition to the dead from the wars of that century.

“From whence come wars and fightings among you? Come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members (James 4:1)?” The great fighter pilot and writer, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, whose existentialist tendencies I reject, but whose insights of man-in-action I respect, expressed it pithily: “For in the end, man always gravitates in the direction commanded by the lodestone within him.”

The Biblical, Augustinian concept of Just War needs to be dusted off and examined once again. There is evil in the world and Just Wars may be necessary; however, many wars certainly are not just.

On that first Christmas Day over two-thousand years ago was born the Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6). God commands all, including governors and princes and judges to honor Him. In history, many have done just that. And many have disdained to do so, especially in the 20th century. Peace and life tend to characterize the former; wars and death, the latter.

On this Christmas season of 2019, may we renew our love for God and may that renewal bring us to love our neighbor, and to be at peace with one another even as those soldiers of opposing armies were at peace, albeit for a short time, on the Christmas Truce of 1914.

Our family wishes you and yours a Very Merry Christmas season.

Tag: Frederick Nietzsche

Seeds Planted

Christmas 2019 — A Look at the Christmas Truce of 1914