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Thestrongofthefuture

NietzschesaccelerationistfragmentinDeleuzeand

GuattarisAntiOedipus

Despite the passing of time there arefragmentsofthoughtthatacquirealifeoftheirown


and hit the headlines of philosophical and cultural journals with regards to their evaluation and
interpretation. Among the most famous ones is the
FragmentonMachines
byKarlMarx.1More
recently another fragment has gained importance in terms of discernment:adarkandforward
looking fragment in the fragment by Friedrich Nietzsche nestled in one of Deleuze and
Guattaris
AntiOedipus
(1972)crucialpages.2
As widely known the reference to Nietzsche in the famous accelerationist passage in
Deleuze and Guattaris
AntiOedipus
is decisive and closes the paragraph entitled
The Civilized
Capitalist Machine (Chapter III, Par. 9, pp. 222239). Until today the various commentators of
such passage have left aside or overshadowed the specific reference to Friedrich Nietzsches
Groe Proze
, others have simply quoted the accelerate the process issue referenced by
Deleuze and Guattari, mentioning Nietzsches book
The Will of Power but no one has ever
referredtotheprecisefragmentoritscontextandthepotentialthemesitimplies.
The quotation of the fragment is always derived from critical essays or secondary
literature books and never from the original Nietzschean work, apart for a note in Wikipedia at

KarlMarx:Grundrisse:FragmentonMachinestranslatedbyMartinNicolaus,Penguin,1973

GillesDeleuzeandFlixGuattari:AntiOedipus.CapitalismandSchizophrenia,UniversityofMinnesotaPress,1983

the definition of accelerationism3andMatteoPasquinellisshortmentioninhisEnglishpost


called
CodeSurplusValueandtheAugmentedIntellect.4
It is likely that this omission finds its origin in the fact that Deleuze and Nietzsches
English speaking/reading scholars when referring to the English edition of the Kritische
Gesamtausgabe edited by the Stanford University Press (Colli and Montinari critical edition)
may not have all the posthumous fragments available. The collection
The Complete Works of
Friedrich Nietzsche in fact started in 1995 but the editionsuddenlystoppedafterthepublication
of only three of the originally proposed twenty volumes, due to the loss of one of the two
curators, Ernst Behler, who died in 1997. Only ten years later, in 2011 Alan D. Schrift and
Duncan Large, the two new curators, published three new volumes but the accelerationist
fragment inserted in Vol.17
Unpublished Fragments: Summer 1886 Fall 1887 will be
presumablypublishedlater.
The controversial final part of
The Civilized Capitalist Machine maybefullyanddeeply
understood only through a clear reference and analysis of the accelerationist process described
by Nietzsche. The specific identification of the abovementioned Nietzschean fragment which
Deleuze and Guattari refer to, opens to a definitive interpretation of the final passage of
The
Civilized Capitalist Machine.
Christian Kerslake, a sharp critic and observer of Deleuzes work
findsthepassagequitedifficulttocomprehend.5Hereisthefamouspassagewhichhasbecome
acrucialissueespeciallyintheaccelerationistareaofcommentators:
3

QuotedinStrong,Tracy(1988).FriedrichNietzscheandthePoliticsofTransfiguration.Berkeley:UniversityofCaliforniaPress.p.211.
OriginalinTheWilltoPowernr.898(accessed18August2015)

CodeSurplusValueandtheAugmentedIntellect,post/latenightnotesdel10thMarch2014:
http://matteopasquinelli.com/codesurplusvalue/
(accessed23August2015).

ChristianKerslake
MarxismandMoneyinDeleuzeandGuattarisCapitalismandSchizofrenia
http://parrhesiajournal.org/parrhesia22/parrhesia22_kerslake.pdf


But which is the revolutionary path? Is there one?To withdraw from the world market, as
Samir Amin advises Third World countries to do, in a curious revival
of the fascist "economic
solution"? Or might it be to go in the opposite direction? To go still further, that is, in the
movement of the market, of
decoding and deterritorialization?Forperhapstheflowsarenotyet
deterritorialized enough, not decoded enough,fromtheviewpointofatheoryandapracticeofa
highly schizophrenic character. Not to withdraw from the process, but to go further, to
"accelerate the process," as
Nietzsche put it: in this matter, the truth is that we haven't seen
anythingyet.6

Our research has identified the precise Nietzschean fragment


quoted by Deleuze and
Guattari as
shown above. It is a fragment positioned in two different Friedrich Nietzsches
posthumous editions. The title of the fragment is
The Strong of the Future
anditwascomposed
in the Fall of 1887.Inthecollectionof fragmentseditedbyGastandNietzschessister(
TheWill
of Power
, 1906) 1.067 fragments were randomly listed and
The Strong of the Future
was
numbered 898.7 This arbitrary collection of fragments entitled
The Will of Power has produced
controversial debates in both political and philosophical fields since the beginning of the
twentiethcentury.

DeleuzeGuattari:AntiOedipus.CapitalismandSchizophrenia,UniversityofMinnesotaPress,p.239

HeinrichKselitz
(18541918),musicianandactor,FriedrichNietzschesfriendwhomhenicknamedPeterGast".
ElisabethFrsterNietzsche
(18461935),Nietzschessisterwhowasoftencriticizedbyherbrother,byGastandbyotherNietzscheanfollowers/supporters.ShewasaNazi,
proArianandantiSemitewoman,responsibleofNietzschesphilosophymanipulation.Hitlerandallhisgeneralstafftookparttoherfuneralin
1935.

The same fragment with the same title is present in Colli and Montinaris
TheComplete
Works of Friedrich Nietzsche. It may be found in Part II Vol. VIII of the Italianeditionentitled
Frammenti Postumi: 18871888 together with other 371 fragments that Nietzsche collected ina
series provisionally entitled
The Will of Power that he will never publish. Here the fragment is
numbered(105)9[153].
In the original fragment Nietzsche used the verb beschleunigen derived from the
physics world
literary meaning to accelerate something facilitating its faster track. In the
English translation by Kaufmann in 19678 the verb has been rendered as hasten whereas
accelerate would have probably been more pertinent even in English, due to the fact that the
former deals with thenecessityto acceleratenotonlyinaphysicalway,whilethelatterindicates
an intrinsic, innate faster speed increase of a process. In the Italian translation the verb used is
again affrettare(hasten) instead of accelerare (accelerate), strengthening the above
mentioned difference between the two verbs: accelerare means the intrinsic and physical
increase of an event or of a process whereas affrettare shows an external provision of such
increase.
Actually the only significant commentator on Nietzsches fragment and Deleuzes
quotation is Pierre Klossowski9 in his
Nietzsche andtheViciousCircle(1969),aworkdedicated
to Gilles Deleuze, who highly appreciated this publication together with Foucault. The useful
fertility of Klossowski is dual, first on an exegetic side of his essay
Nietzsche and the Vicious
Circle
and second for his fructificative translations of Nietzsches works. Not only we may

WalterKaufmann(19211980)wasanAmericanphilosopherandNietzschesscholarwhotranslatedTheWilltoPower(RandomHouse,New
York,,1967withR.J.Hollingdale).
9
PierreKlossowski(19052001)wasaFrenchintellectualstronglyinfluencedbyNietzschesworks.Hewasanimportanttranslator,writer,
philosopher,painterandoneofthespiritualfatherofDeleuzeandGuattari.

assert that Klossowski was afamoustranslatorfromGermantoFrenchofmanyintellectualsand


philosophers like Benjamin, Wittgenstein, Heidegger (his
Nietzsche
,1971)butwemaystatethat
he has been the best interpreter of Nietzsches thought in France thanks to his masterful and
superlative work on
The Gay Science in 1954 but in particular for the translation of the
FragmentsposthumesAutumn1887mars1888
editedbyGallimardin1976.
The fragment we refer to,
Les forts de lavenir
,hadalreadybeenreleasedin
Nietzscheet
le cercle vicieux in 1969. It is exactly there that we find the verb beschleunigen translated in
acclrer (accelerate) therefore Klossowskis interpretation hasbeenatthebasisofDeleuzes
choice in using the expression
to accelerate the process
when asking himself which
revolutionary path to undertake that is the same question theaccelerationistmovement poses
today.
Through an exegetic analysis of the fragment
The Strong of the Future
in his
Nietzsche
and the Vicious Circle, Klossowski evaluates Nietzsches thought of 1887 very extant and
contemporary, able to move from
untimely meditations to disconcerted newnessinlessthanone
hundred years, affirming that
the economic mechanism of exploitation
(developed by science
and the economy) is decomposed as an institutional structure into aset ofmeans
entailingtwo
results:
on the one hand, that society can no longer fashion its members as instrumentstoits
own ends, now that it has itself become the instrumentofamechanismontheotherhandthata
surplus of forces, eliminated by the mechanism, are now madeavailablefortheformationofa
differenthumantype
:thestrongofthefuture.10

10

PierreKlossowski:
Nietzscheandtheviciouscircle
TheUniversityofChicagoPress,1997Chapter6Theviciouscircleasaselective
doctrinep.164.

To reach such a new type of man we should not obstruct this irreversible great process
but foster its inexorablyexpansiveaccelerationinamechanismwhichmayseem(withoutbeing)
contrary to the main aim of the strong of the future: the differentiation. The
leveling and the
social
homogenization perpetrated by the democratization of the industrial society are
responsible of mens shrinking. The strong and the leveled ones willthenactfororagainst
such inexorable law in a paradoxical overturning, as well as workers and capitalists fight in
favor or against the relentless law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall, another big issue
DeleuzeandGuattariposedintheparagraphcalled
TheCivilizedCapitalistMachine
.
Wehavenowconcludedthisshortessaywhoseaimwastopreciselydescribethe
NietzscheansourceDeleuzeandGuattarihaddrawnfromintheirfamouspassageofthe
revolutionarypathinthebook
AntiOedipus
andtoproducetherightbibliographicreferences
totheaccelerationistfragmentinNietzschescomplexwork.Weareawaretohavejuststarted
achallengingworkonthedecodingofthedeepestmeaningoftheparagraph
TheCivilized
CapitalistMachine
andinparticularoftheaccelerationistpassageaboutthe
theoryandthe
practiceofdecodedanddeterritorializedflows.

ObsoleteCapitalism,August2015

Appendix

1.Lesfortsdelavenir
[
translatedbyPierreKlossowski,1969
]

Ce quen partie la necessit, en partie le hasard ont russi et l, soit les conditions
pralables la production dune espce
plus forte
: cest ce que dsormais nous pouvons
comprendre et
sciemment vouloir : nous pouvons produire ces conditions dans lesquelles
semblablelvationestpossible.
Jusqu prsent, l ducation navaitenvuequeleprofitdelasocit:
nonpas
leplus
grand possible profit delavenir,maiceluiprcisementdelasocitexistante.Onnevoulaitpou
elle que des instruments . Admis que la
richesse en forces
soit plus grande,une
soustraction
de forces
pourraitseconcevoir,dontlebutconsisteraitdansleprofit,nonplusdelasocit,mais
delavenir.
Semblable
tche serait poser, mesure que lon comprendrait en quel sens la forme
prsente de la socit se trouverait engage en une transformation piussante, jusquau jour o
elle ne pourrait plus exister pou ellemme :
mais rien quen tant que
moyen
aux mains dune
raceplusforte.
La mdiocrit croissante de ltre humain est prcisment la force qui nous pousse
songer au dressagedune
raceplusforte
:laquelletrouveraitjustementsonexcdentdans toutce
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en quoi lespce mdiocrise saffaiblirait encore (volont, responsabilit, assurance de soi,


pouvoirsefixerdesbuts).
Les
moyens
seraient ceux enseigns par lhistoire : l
isolement
par les
intrts
de
conservation
,
linverse de ceux qui aujourdhui forment la moyenne
: lexercice des valeurs
inverses la distance en tant que pathos la libre consciencedanstoutcequiestaujourdhuile
moinsestimetleplusrprhensible.
L
galisation
de lhomme europen est aujourdhui le grand procs irrversible : on
devraitencorelacclrer.
De ce fait, la ncessit de
creuser un foss
, la ncessit dune
distance
,dune
hirarchie
sontdonnes
nonpoint
lancessitderalentirceprocessus.
Cette
espce galise,
dsquelleseraralise,exigeune
justification
:ellersidedansle
fait serviruneespcesouveraine,laquellereposesurlaprcdenteetcenestquebasesurelle
quellepeutsleversapropretche.
Non pas seulement une race de matres dont la tche spuiserait gouverner maisune
race ayant
sa propre sphre de vie, un excdent de forceperlabeaut,lecourage,laculture,les
manires jusque dans ce quil y a de plus spirituelunerace
affirmative
quipeutsaccorder
tout
grand luxe
assez puissante pour navoir besoin ni de latyranniedelimpratifdevertu,nide
la parcimonie, ni de la pdanterie, au del du bien et du mal : formantuneserredeplantesrares
etsingulires.

PierreKlossowski
Nietzscheetlecerclevicieux
[MercuredeFrance,1969]
TranslatedfromGermanbyPierreKlossowski
Theoriginalfragment
Lesfortsdelavenir
byNietzscheispublishedbyGallimard:

uvresphilosophiquescompltesXIII
Fragmentsposthumes(Automne1887Mars1888)Parution:23101976
Trad.del'allemandpar
HenriAlexisBaatsch
et
PierreKlossowski
.
ditionde
GiorgioColli
et
MazzinoMontinari
Collection
uvresphilosophiquescompltes
(n13),Gallimard

2.Thestrongofthefuture

WM

n.898

[
translatedbyWalterKaufmann,1967
]

That which partly necessity, partly chance has achieved here and there, the conditions for the
production of a stronger type, we are now able tocomprehendandconsciouslywill:weareable
tocreatetheconditionsunderwhichsuchanelevationispossible.
Until now, "education" has had inviewtheneedsofsociety:notthepossibleneedsofthe future,
but the needs of the society of the day. One desired to produce "tools" for it. Assuming the
wealth offorceweregreater,onecouldimagine forcesbeingsubtracted,nottoservetheneedsof
societybutsomefutureneed.
Such a task would have to be posed the more it was grasped to what extent the contemporary
form of society was being sopowerfullytransformedthatatsomefuturetimeitwouldbeunable
toexistforitsownsakealone,butonlyasatoolinthehandsofastrongerrace.
The increasing dwarfing of man ispreciselythedrivingforcethatbringstomindthebreedingof
a stronger racea race that would be excessive precisely where the dwarfed species was weak
and growing weaker (in will, responsibility, selfassurance, ability to posit goals for oneself ).
The means would be thosehistoryteaches:isolationthroughinterestsinpreservationthatarethe
reverse of those which are average today habituation to reverse evaluations distance as a

pathos a free conscience in those things that today are most undervalued and prohibited. The
homogenizing of European man is the great process that cannot be obstructed: one should even
hasten it. The necessity to create a gulf, distance, order of rank, is given
eo ipsonot the
necessity to retard the process. As soon as itisestablished,thishomogenizingspeciesreguiresa
justification: it lies in serving a higher sovereign species that stands upon the former and can
raise itself to its task only by doing this. Not merelyamasterracewhosesoletaskistorule,but
a race with its own sphere of life, with an excess of strength for beauty, bravery, culture,
manners to the highest peak of the spirit an affirming race that may grant itself every great
luxury strong enough to have no need of the tyranny of thevirtueimperative,richenoughto
have no need of thrift and pedantry, beyond good and evil a hothouse for strange and choice
plants.

FriedrichNietzscheTheWillofPower
TranslatedbyWalterKaufmannandR.J.Hollingdale
EditedbyWalterKaufmann(Copyright,1967)
RandomHouse,NewYork,1967
orVintageBooksEdition(September1968)

3.DieStarkenderZukunft.9[153](105)NachgelasseneFragmente18851889
Was theils die Noth, theils der Zufall hier und da erreicht hat, die Bedingungen zur
Hervorbringung einer strkeren Art : dasknnenwirjetztbegreifenundwissentlichwollen:wir
knnendieBedingungenschaffen,unterdeneneinesolcheErhhungmglichist.
BisjetzthattedieErziehungdenNutzenderGesellschaft

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imAuge:nichtdenmglichstenNutzenderZukunft,
sonderndenNutzendergeradebestehendenGesellschaft.
Werkzeuge fr sie wollte man. Gesetzt, der Reichthum anKraftwregrer,solieesichein
Abzug von Krften denken, dessen Ziel nicht demNutzenderGesellschaftglte, sonderneinem
zuknftigenNutzen,
Eine solche Aufgabewrezustellen,jemehrmanbegriffe,inwieferndiegegenwrtigeFormder
Gesellschaft in einer starten Verwandlung wre, um irgendwann einmal nicht mehr um ihrer
selber willen existiren zu knnen : sondern nur noch als Mittel in den Hnden einer strkeren
Rasse.
DiezunehmendeVerkleinerungdesMenschenistgeradedie
treibende Kraft, um an die Zchtung einer strkeren Rasse zu denken : welche gerade ihren
berschu darin htte, worin die verkleinerte Species schwach und schwcher wrde (Wille,
Verantwortlichkeit,Selbstgewiheit,Zielesichsetzenknnen).
Die Mittel wren die, welche die Geschichte lehrt : die Isolation durch umgekehrte
ErhaltungInteressen,alsdiedurchschnittlichenheutesinddieEinbunginumgekehrten
Werthschtzungen die Distanz als Pathos das freie Gewissen im heute Unterschtztesten und
Verbotensten.
Die Ausgleichung des europischen Menschen ist der groe Proze, der nicht zu hemmen ist :
mansollteihnnochbeschleunigen.
Die Notwendigkeit fr eine Kluftaufreiung,Distanz,Rangordnungistdamitgegeben:nichtdie
Notwendigkeit,jenenProzezuverlangsamen.

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Diese ausgeglichene Species bedarf, sobald sie erreicht ist, einer Rechtfertigung : sie liegt im
Dienste einer hheren souvernen Art,welcheaufihrstehtunderstaufihrsichzuihrerAufgabe
erhebenkann.
Nicht nur eine HerrenRasse, deren Aufgabe sich damit erschptfe, zu regieren : sondern ein
Rasse mit eigener Lebenssphre, mit einem bersch von Kraft fr Schnheit, Tapferkeit,
Kultur, Manier bis in's Geistigste eine bejahende Rasse, welche sich jeden groen Luxus
gnnen darf , stark genug, um die TyranneidesTugendImperativsnichtnthigzuhaben,reich
genug,umdieSparsamkeitundPedanterienichtnthigzuhaben,jenseitsvonGutundBseein
TreibhausfrsonderbareundausgesuchtePflanzen.

FriedrichNietzscheSmtlicheWerke
KritischeStudienausgabeBand12
DTVdeGruyter

NachgelasseneFragmente18851889
1.Teil:18851887

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