To grasp how Nietzsche’s ideas contributed to the development of social thought one need to take the historical context into account. Nietzsche’s life and work came at the back of half a century of Marxist dominance in socio-political discourse. In many ways, the fall in prominence of the Marxist paradigm directly aided the revitalising of Nietzsche’s political philosophy. In contrast to Marxism, Nietzsche’s political philosophy, especially his theory of democracy, “rests on a notion of society located within the conceptual framework of the sociology of knowledge and culture. Precisely this difference gave Nietzsche’s political thought the semblance of being antiquated as long as the Marxist paradigm remained dominant.” (Kiss, 2001, p. 373)
While Nietzsche has offered fresh perspectives to philosophy and has proved to be a worthy source of scholarly research, his influence on society is not accepted as altogether positive. Allan Bloom wrote in his influential 1987 book ‘The Closing of the American Mind’ that Nietzsche has caused detriment to the academia and the society at large through the new set of vocabulary he introduced. Allan Bloom contends that Nietzschean terms such as charisma, life-style, commitment and identity have been co-opted by the youth to evade responsibility to the nation and to their own character development. Criticisms of Nietzsche also emanate from Church officials. The Archbishop of Canterbury, for example, had accused Nietzsche of undermining morality. He deplored the fact that
“the traditional vocabulary of moral discourse – virtue, sin, good, bad, right, wrong, moral, wholesome, godly, righteous and sober – have come under acute contemporary suspicion. And he made a fierce attack on the development of moral relativism, a world in which there are no firm ‘rights’ and ‘wrongs’ except what we as individuals deem to be true for ourselves.” (Gott, 1996, p.86)
Though Nietzsche was not a household name during most of his lifetime his legacy started to grow toward the end of his life. It is ironical that by the time he achieved fame he was descending fast into the world of madness. His condition was so acute that he was kept under lock and key by his sister during the last 10 years of his life. It is a mark of Nietzsche’s contribution to social thought that every important artist, musician, writer and playwright in Europe paid him homage. These included Gustav Mahler, George Bernard Shaw, Pablo Picasso, Thomas Mann, August Strindberg, James Joyce, Marcel Proust, Max Weber, Sigmund Freud and many others. It’s not difficult now to understand the appeal and influence that Nietzsche had then, for he