Expert groups do not govern culture

(translated from my Chinese blog)

This is my new project, “Nietzschean Philology”. In each installment, I’ll read a passage from Nietzsche’s original writings. By practicing text analysis, we can enhance our ability to understand the world.

The reading of "We Philologists" continues. Section 16 takes an organizational perspective: a nation's culture is not in the hands of the expert class, but in the hands of a few creative individuals. Organizational discipline hinders individual value creation, and thus, in terms of the impact of the organization on the individual, one can measure the cultural development of a nation by measuring the balance between organizational benefits and organizational costs.

We are under a false impression when we say that there is always some caste which governs a nation's culture, and that therefore savants are necessary; for savants only possess knowledge concerning culture (and even this only in exceptional cases). Among learned men themselves there might be a few, certainly not a caste, but even these would indeed be rare.

"We Philologists" 16, Friedrich Nietzsche, translated by J. M. Kennedy 

This section continues the criticism of philologists from sections 14-15, but from a different angle. Section 14 criticizes the weaknesses of philologists, section 15 criticizes their dogmatism and embellishment. This section criticizes the "unworthiness" of philologists.

Firstly, why did Nietzsche say "this is a false impression"? Is the error in the first half, which states that national culture always has a caste structure, or in the second half that "savants are necessary"? From the subsequent responses, both statements are problematic: while national culture is indeed guarded by a few people, these individuals do not constitute a "caste"; savants do not govern national culture, and for a nation, they are not necessary.

As mentioned earlier, Nietzsche is generally not concerned with social issues. Similarly, in this section, Nietzsche appears to be analyzing the social structure, but he is actually contemplating how individuals should act within such a social structure (especially how to engage in self-education). Why does Nietzsche believe that the culture of a nation cannot be controlled by a specific social class, but only by rare individuals among the learned? Connecting with the analysis of valuation and creation in the previous text, we have reason to speculate: to some extent, creators cannot form groups; they must create for themselves rather than for a group, and they must express themselves in their creations. This expression, which Nietzsche calls "the will to power," has an inherent exclusivity. We often see in stories that the founding team has fundamental disagreements over creative or research directions, ultimately tearing the team apart, and the reason is just this.

Once a caste is established, the solidification of value on a societal level is completed. Nietzsche radically despises all fixed organizational forms, viewing them as constraints on the creative valorization of genius and as obstacles to the self-valorization of the human species. Savants, or more broadly, expert groups, are, in Nietzsche's eyes, such obstacles. The norms of behavior, power structures, and social connections of these groups are disciplinary mechanisms for individual members. These structures create the illusion of governance, but do not produce any value; they merely standardize already-created values. Moreover, as generations change, the values fixed by these structures soon become inadaptable to the needs of new generations, instead suppressing the vitality of the new generation and making an entire generation of young people appear old.

Nietzsche said that savants only master "knowledge about culture," which reminds one of William James's distinction between knowledge of acquaintance and knowledge-about: the difference between the two is like that between close friends and mere acquaintances. We often know many people but are not really familiar with them. Similarly, savants only know a lot "about culture" but do not really "experience" these cultures or understand what these cultures mean. A Renaissance expert might know a lot about Raphael's paintings but know nothing about Raphael's character and disposition. Savants cannot be well-versed in all the cultures they come into contact with; they must sacrifice depth for breadth, while true cultural creation always comes from personal, in-depth cultural experiences. Therefore, Nietzsche would say that savants do not really govern a nation's culture; they govern at most only superficial impressions of past cultures.

Nietzsche reminds those who aspire to create that to achieve something in an era governed by experts, one must be aware of what the organizational structure demands of the individual and where their true creative freedom lies, and must constantly assess whether what one gains from the organization significantly outweighs the cost of maintaining one's position within it. For instance, a young university professor may face pressure to advance in their career and numerous administrative demands from superiors, but they also gain more academic and professional resources through their position. From this organizational perspective, one can also see how a nation's cultural creation is progressing: whether the organizational benefits provided to individuals by the group are higher than the organizational costs demanded from them or not determines whether the nation's culture is advancing or receding.