Use and Abuse of History

“Whoever asks his friends whether they would live the last ten or twenty years over again, will easily see which of them is born for the ‘super-historical standpoint.’”

“The Use and Abuse of History” is a work antithetical to Hegelian and Darwinian views of history and progress of Nietzsche’s epoch. Modern man, Nietzsche claims, for all his meticulous studies of the Hellenes and Renaissance has yet to become anything resembling the life-affirming objects of his studies. However, central to this work is the “historical,” “unhistorical,” and “super-historical” senses. Historical studies make man unhappy, yet while man envies the animals who live unhistorically, man would not trade places with them. A healthier organism, for Nietzsche, is one who can appropriately learn and forget history.

Part of a larger work, “Thoughts Out of Season,” yet published, read, and taught independently of it, “The Use and Abuse of History” is an early work of Nietzsche’s in which he questions the overly scholarly studies of history and asks “How are such studies serving or not serving life?” - Summary by Public Domain Scholar