An ‘Entirely Tactless Nietzschean Jew’:Oscar Levy's Critique of Western Civilization

Abstract

A much neglected figure in the history of the reception of Nietzsche in Britain, Oscar Levy not only headed the Nietzsche movement, but went on to produce a challenging Nietzschean Zivilisationskritik of his own. Focusing especially on the role of the Jews in western civilization, Levy took on the majority of political ideologies of his day, including popular Nietzscheanism, and called into question the ability of Christianity, liberalism, communism or fascism to deal with the ills of contemporary society. Levy's consistent Nietzscheanism makes him stand alone in the history of Nietzschean thought, and illustrates the complexity of the history of ideas of the first half of the twentieth century. Yet his apparently bizarre views on the Jews are actually closer to Nietzsche's own than are the views of many better known Nietzschean thinkers, especially nazi philosophers. And his writings, incompatible with today's mainstream beliefs as they are, nevertheless demonstrate why Nietzsche was himself no fascist.