The purpose of this contribution is not to provide a philologically accurate reading of Nietzsche’s writings. That is notoriously a daunting task. What we are going to discuss here is a particular reading of Nietzsche, which inevitably carries its own peculiar type of misinterpretation, a reading that develops within a specific political and philosophical context, that of the emergent and fast-growing movement of Anarchist Transhumanism.
It should be pointed out right away that separate discussion of the readings of Nietzsche within the Anarchist tradition, and within the Transhumanist movement in a broader (and ideologically quite different) setting have been analyzed in-depth in Moore and Tuncel (see also Ansell-Pearson, Sorgner, respectively). In both cases, it is clear that the way Anarchists, as well as Transhumanists, approach the corpus of Nietzsche’s writings is fraud with controversy. We will occasionally touch upon some of these broader themes, but our focus is more narrowly concentrated on how the philosophical and political movement of Anarcho-Transhumanism has acquired a new reading of some of the most classical and widely discussed passages of Nietzsche’s work.
Our focus will therefore be more on clarifying what Anarcho-Transhumanism is and how it approaches the controversial figure of Nietzsche than on a historical reading of the philosopher or a philologically rigorous exegesis of his cryptic writings.
This article is an elaboration of a shorter text on the same topic, contributed by the author as a part of the ongoing collective work “The Anarcho–Transhumanist Manifesto”.
Bridge and Sunset
Was groß ist am Menschen, das ist, daß er eine Brücke und kein Zweck ist: was geliebt werden kann am Menschen, das ist, daßer ein Übergang und ein Untergang ist. (Friedrich Nietzsche, “Also sprach Zarathustra”)
Mensch is a non-gendered word that is best translated into English as “the human”. So, according to these famous lines of Nietzsche’s “Also sprach Zarathustra”, “what is great about the human is that it is a bridge and not a goal”. Intrinsic in the idea of the human as a bridge is the evolutionary view of life: evolution is non-teleological, and the human is not the pinnacle of evolution, just another transient state in a process that keeps modifying the development of species and organisms. The human species, like any species, is not a goal of the evolutionary process but a part of the process itself. We will return in the next section to discuss more in depth the relation of Nietzsche to Darwin, and the approach of Anarchist-Transhumanism to the evolutionary view of life and nature.
For now, we want to focus some more on the use of the bridge image: a bridge is primarily a connection and its structural stability relies on it being structurally anchored at both ends, to the two shores it connects. If the human is not a goal but a bridge, in particular, it is also not a dead branch of the evolutionary tree. The process continues to the other side of the bridge: the human has a non-human past as well as a non-human future. The latter we may also call a trans-human future.
We can delve deeper into this image by considering another famous line of Zarathustra where the idea is further expanded: Der Mensch ist ein Seil, geknüpft zwischen Tier und Übermensch – ein Seil über einem Abgrunde.
(Friedrich Nietzsche, “Also sprach Zarathustra”)
In this line the same statement is reiterated and expanded: “the human is a rope, stretched between the animal and the trans-human”. The use of the word “animal” as a translation of the German “Tier” is reasonably accurate, even though the German word more exclusively refers to non-human animals, unlike its English counterpart, which can be construed as inclusive of the human and referring to the general animal kingdom of biology. It is much more controversial, and historically fraud with distortions and misinterpretations, how one should read Nietzsche’s choice of the word Übermensch. Here we choose to read it as “that which lies beyond and above the human”, where for us “above” does not imply a reference to any kind of power relation, but simply a further step in the evolutionary tree. We choose to interpret this concept as an instance of both the “trans-human” and the “post-human”.
“A rope”, Nietzsche’s line continues, “over an abyss”. The image of the abyss conjures danger, darkness, even horror. It is the blindness of the evolutionary process of natural selection, which leads most species to disappear into the depths of oblivion and extinction. The human/bridge escapes this fate and bypasses the abyss, by connecting to the other side of the animal, which in modern Transhumanism is often envisioned as the trans-human morphing of human and machine. However, we need to return to the fact that a bridge can only stand when it is grounded on both sides, on two shores. The connection to the animal is just as crucial to its survival as the connection to the transhuman-machine. The two sides of this Nietzschean bridge are the human-animal and the human-machine interfaces. One can think of these two aspects as the two faces of the often uneasy dialog between Post-humanism and Trans-humanism.
Coming back to the first quote above, the line continues with “what can be loved in the human is that it is a bridge and a sunset”. In fact, the choice of the pair of words Übergang and Untergang is particularly interesting: both contain the root “Gang”, which best translates as a “passageway”, so that the Übergang/Untergang contrast, at first sight, suggests a simple overpass/underpass counterposition. However, the actual meaning of the two words immediately slides away from this simple contrast, through an interesting and sudden twist of perception: the word Übergang, indeed, should really be translated as “transition” and Untergang as “downfall, demise, extinction”.
So while the first suggested contrast of “below” and “above” recalled once again the two shores of the bridge, rooted in the animal and the machine-transhuman Übermensch (über/above again), the actual contrast of meanings sees the human as a transition counterposed to and accompanied by the human as a downfall (the abyss): witnessing the sunset of the human.
As Nietzsche wrote in “Beyond Good and Evil”: wenn du lange in einen Abgrund blickst, blickt der Abgrund auch in dich hinein (“when you stare long into the Abyss, the Abyss stares back into you”).
The human is then a bridge, stretched between its interfaces with animal and machine, staring into the abyss of its own extinction, which stares back with the blind power of transformative evolution. The human is a transition, caught in the very act of becoming transhuman. In transitioning beyond the human it achieves its own demise: a bridge and a sunset.
The thought of the rise of new forms of life and intelligence beyond the human, especially at the boundary of the human-machine interface has frequently been a source of anxiety. It suffices to see the deep-seated fears that accompany the current rapid rise of forms of artificial intelligence, with speculations on the sudden rise of malevolent superintelligences that will wipe out the human race, Bostrom. These dark mythologies of the modern age add to an already broad repertoire of hostile aliens and machines. The tradition of speculative fiction is rife with renegade computers, artificial intelligence run amok, dehumanized cyborgs and androids, along the ubiquitous and ancient human-animal monster hybrids. This kind of cybernetic anxiety in the science fiction literature of the last century is analyzed in depth in Warrick. In a similar vein, one of the most widespread and profound criticisms addressed to Transhumanism is also in the form of anxiety about the downfall and eventual demise of the human. This is, for instance, the anti-transhumanist stance one finds in Agar: the rise of new trans-human forms of existence, especially in the form of radical enhancements through technology and merging with artificial intelligence and machines, would deprive us of the very essence of what it means to be human, and would inevitably lead to a tyranny of the post/trans-human over the human. A similar kind of anxiety about emerging and rapidly developing biotechnologies and their effect on the changing nature of the “human condition” is echoed, in a more nuanced form, in several of the essays collected in the volume Baillie.
This kind of overly pessimistic view at first appears to resonate with the idea of the sunset of the human in Nietzsche’s Zarathustra. Yet, if we look more closely at the bridge metaphor, the human bridge rests in place, stretched above the abyss of extinction, precisely because it is deeply grounded, on both sides of the abyss, to the animal and to the machine. Only by accepting and embracing the merging with both of these realities, the human bridge can remain solidly above the abyss, a transformation leading to a profound change in what it means to be human, but not one that will necessarily lead to the demise of what we would refer to as the essence of human nature.
An important point to keep in mind is that the notion of what it means to be human has already undergone profound changes in history, by gradually (and in fact too slowly) becoming more inclusive. This change of perspective on human has brought about the inevitable transition from Humanism to Posthumanism, (Braidotti). Transhumanism is but a further inevitable step in this transformative process. The anxiety about tyranny and domination of the post/transhuman over the human is grounded in perceiving life and society in terms of power, dominance, and hierarchical relations, which is exactly what Anarchism aims at abolishing.
The many worries and anxieties about the possibility of tyranny, violence, and domination in a transhuman future are not unwarranted, but they are primarily a reasonable fear of the effects of extending to the near transhuman future all those structures of power and domination upon which the current capitalist society is based. An appropriate answer to such fears should not rest on the idea of suppressing, limiting or prohibiting the technological advances that will lead to radical transformations of the human. If anything, these preoccupations show that Transhumanism needs Anarchism: the dismantling of all power relations and of all impositions of domination and submission is necessary for the human bridge to continue to stand above the abyss, to guarantee a peaceful constructive future for all intelligence, whether human, animal or artificial. Transhumanism must be inclusive of them all.
Ethics in a world of organisms
Implicit in the images that Nietzsche adopted in Zarathustra to illustrate the transitional nature of the human is the idea of an evolutionary view of life. Indeed, there is growing evidence that Nietzsche’s thought was profoundly influenced by Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection, even though this likely happened through exposure to secondary sources rather than to Darwin’s writings themselves (Wood) (see also Lemm). In particular, Nietzsche was profoundly affected by the lack of morality of the evolutionary process and spent a considerable amount of time exploring the question of the origin of ethics in a Darwinian universe (Wood).
This same theme, of how to envision ethics in the context of a Nature “red in tooth and claw”, as Tennyson aptly described it, has made several important appearances in the history of Anarchist thought and is now a key problem in the context of Anarchist Transhumanism. We will be discussing some general aspects of this crucial theme in this section.
Nietzsche and Darwin
Nietzsche sees the biological sciences of his time as trapped between two opposing tendencies: the mechanical (Darwin’s blind watchmaker) and the teleological and spiritual (Bergson’s {\em \’elan vital}). In Darwin’s evolutionary theory Nietzsche sees the profound wastefulness and amorality of Nature. In the 1886 preface to the new edition of his 1872 text “The Birth of Tragedy”, Nietzsche remarks that Life is essentially non-moral, a statement with clear reference to Darwin’s view of the evolutionary process. At the same time, although his own vision of Life appears closer to the spiritual and teleological viewpoints, Nietzsche distances himself from both the mechanical and the spiritual.
In 1884 he writes (Die Fragmente von Frühjahr 1884 bis Herbst 1885, Band 5 – Kapitel 3): Bisher sind beide Erklärungen des organischen Lebens nicht gelungen, weder die aus der Mechanik, noch die aus dem Geiste.
So far both explanations of organic life have failed, either from the mechanics and from the spirit. What is lacking for Nietzsche in both perspectives is the “becoming”, the spectrum of possibilities and agency.
The text continues in an interesting way: Die Regierung des Organismus geschieht in einer Weise, für welche sowohl die mechanische Welt, als die geistige nur symbolisch zur Erklärung herangezogen werden kann.
The “government of the organism”, according to Nietzsche, occurs in such a way that both the mechanical and the spiritual can only be used “symbolically” for an explanation. The concept of “government” (Regierung) in the context of organisms cannot be contemplated by the modern reader without the intervening filter of the Cybernetics tradition. The Anarchist-Transhumanist movement recognizes in Norbert Wiener’s Cybernetics (or “control and communication in the animal and the machine”) an important foundational precedent. Nietzsche’s bridge and sunset view of the human explodes human exceptionalism enshrined in Cartesian dualism. The Cartesian divide between the animal-machine and the soul-endowed-spiritual human is turned on its head by the emergence of a continuum of human-animal-machine, the same continuum that was at the heart of the cybernetic project. According to Nietzsche, on that bridge, that liminal state that is the human, both the mechanical and the spiritual become mere symbols. It is again tempting to approach this statement in the light of the modern intermediary of the theory of information and communication. In laying some early foundational steps of modern Semiotics, Charles Sanders Peirce classified signs as either icons, or indexes, or symbols, where icons refer to diagrammatic signs that are meant to resemble an object, indexes to signs that have a direct relation to an object, while symbols have no direct logical relation to objects. In a more modern view, we may argue that symbols are highly compressed (in the sense of complexity theory) representations of objects, in the same way in which one can argue that poetry is “a maximally Kolmogorov-compressed representation of the target mind state” (Manin). In this light, labeling both the mechanical and the teleological explanations of organisms as symbols invokes an encryption and encoding. We argue that an encoding exists that is entirely compatible with the anarchist-transhumanist goals. Transhumanism, in its politically anarchist connotation, aims at replacing the wasteful, amoral, and blind watchmaker of Darwinian evolution with a teleological, ethical, and watchful process of {\em morphological freedom}, entirely inscribed inside the physical and mechanical universe, that provides to each sentience the means of self-improvement. The mechanical and the teleological can then be seen as combined in a novel way that is not explanatory but rather informative, in the sense of a code, a fundamental set of instructions outlining a program.
The Amorality of Nature
The evolutionary process is efficient as much as it is wasteful. This apparent paradox means that natural selection has been extremely successful at shaping, over the course of eons, organisms fit for survival in their natural environments. The amazing variety of life forms (Darwin’s “endless forms most beautiful”) and the ingenious mechanisms regulating life from simple biological organs to complex animal behavior are polyphonic monumental praise to the incredible efficiency of evolution by natural selection. At the same time, the combined slow processes of small random mutations and selection by the environment imply that evolution is also immensely wasteful: how many individual organisms have to be selected against and perish for a successful mutation to become established in the evolutionary line?
It is inevitable to perceive something profoundly unethical in this process. This feeling of uneasiness about the Darwinian evolutionary process on ethical grounds is what led historically so many Marxists to reject Darwinism despite the overwhelming scientific evidence from genetics and molecular biology. Even leaving aside the extreme cases of overt scientific fraud, like the infamous Lysenko affair in the Stalinist Soviet Union (Ings, Pollock), there has been a continuous tension over the decades between Marxism and Darwinism, starting with Marx’s own ambivalent reaction to Darwin and the “struggle for existence” with its Malthusian connections, to a long courting of various forms of Lamarckism and “soft inheritance” by the political left, up until the current enthusiasm for the “epigenetic revolution” (Gissis, Meloni).
At the same time, crude ideas from Darwinism, and especially the concept of a wasteful and amoral evolution that privileges the fittest few at the expense of condemning the unfit many to extinction, were coopted by the political right in the form of Malthusian views of social Darwinism, with the capitalist accumulation of wealth as a preferred fitness function. Much of the current ideological debate is still entrenched along these faulty lines. The linking of “hard heredity” and Darwinian fitness to the eugenics movement, and the close connections of the latter with genocidal nazi ideology further rendered the political left highly sensitive to the ethical problems inherent in the process of natural evolution.
Modern Science and Anarchism
In the middle of this counterpoint of a socialist criticism of the amorality of the “struggle for existence” cast against a reactionary embracing of the brutal struggle for survival extended to human society, a very interesting dissenting voice came from the Anarchist tradition, especially through the writings of Peter Kropotkin (Kropotkin, Dugatkin).
Kropotkin’s essay “Modern Science and Anarchism” (Kroptkin) was written during the first decade of the 20th century. Despite the fact that, during that same decade, modern science was being shaken and reshaped by the joint revolutions of quantum physics and relativity, the “modern science” discussed by Kropotkin hardly touches on these innovations at all. A good deal of the discussion is focused instead on the development of modern biology arising from Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection. Unlike many of his Marxist counterparts, Kropotkin, a biologist himself, does not hesitate to accept the modern theory of evolution and heredity, but at the same time he emphasizes how nature is not just a brutal struggle for existence and a bloody competition for the survival of the fittest. Nature is rich in other important phenomena, such as symbiosis, mutual aid, altruism within and between species. All these aspects merit as much attention in the biological sciences as the selection process.
Kropotkin’s attempts to mitigate the troubling image of the “amorality of nature”, by calling attention to less destructive and wasteful phenomena than the survival of the fittest, was vindicated by recent research into “moral behavior” of non-human animals (Bekoff, Crane). Moreover, a view of organisms as collective organizations of symbionts has become a prominent viewpoint both within biology (Margulis) and also in the context of posthumanist philosophy (Haraway, Nayar, Tsing).
Thus, in the debate on the “amorality of nature” and on the question of the origin of morals, the anarchist tradition stands alongside modern science, by viewing the genealogy of morals squarely within the animal world, in the form of empathy and mutual aid, rather than as a product of human rationality, and at the same time rejecting any role of the supernatural. This point, in itself, resonates with Nietzsche’s view that ethical values should stem from the affirmation of life and are not bound to the realm of rational analysis (see the discussion in Wood). However, concepts like empathy are extremely subtle. While the role of empathy in the anarchist ethical project is crucial, one needs to distinguish between different forms of empathy.
Here is where anarchist thought parts ways with Nietzsche on the question of the genealogy of ethics. While the origin of moral behavior in the animal world is confirmed by the findings of contemporary biology (Bekoff], Crane, see also Bartal), the ethical role of biological functions is insufficient without constant cognitive engagement. In its raw affective form empathy tends to focus on the next of kin, those most similar to oneself, similarities making the empathic response easier to trigger. Left unchecked, this type of empathic response can easily generate a drive towards tribalism. The cognitive and the affective components of empathy only partly overlap. The first is more closely related to the capacity to step into another perspective, and is mediated by active engagement with the acquisition of sufficient knowledge and understanding to make that perspective shift possible, while the latter is an immediate response made of shared affective states (Lockwood). It is the cognitive form of empathy that, in the anarchist-transhumanist perspective, is regarded as a powerful engine in the construction of ethical values. Tribalism on the other hand is a malfunction, a breakdown of cognitive systems, whether biological or artificial (Dedeo). It is also one of the root causes of fascism.
Aspiration to Agency
The single most distorted and misunderstood concept in the entire history of philosophy is certainly Nietzsche’s “Wille zur Macht”. In order to appropriate and manipulate this term, the nazis went as far as concocting an entire non-existing book of Nietzsche’s writings by the same title. In their deformed vision “Macht” was made to align with the fascist worship of violence.
In reality, at the turn of the century, the biological theory of Darwinian evolution by natural selection was being confronted with other vitalistic visions of life based on some notion of élan vital, most prominently in the form of Henri Bergson’s “Creative Evolution”. Although scientifically discredited, Bergson’s idea were in fact influential in the scientific debate, especially in the early 20th century discussion on the nature of space and time (Canales). The idea of a “Wille zum Leben” as a primordial impulse regulating the universe is also prominent in Schopenhauer’s philosophy, which was another early influence on Nietzsche. It was certainly within this circle of ideas that the concept of “Will to Power” emerged.
Not unlike the contrast between the French words “pouvoir” and “puissance”, one can see a tension between different meanings of “Macht”. The word “Macht” can be read as power, though not in the sense of force (Kraft), or authority/ruling/domination (Herrschaft). There is a meaning of “power” as “capacity”, as “possibility” and “intention”, or to use a terminology that is a lot closer to the main theme of Anarchist philosophy, the meaning of “agency”. This is indeed the main aspect we will consider here, as it is the focus of the Anarchist-Transhumanist reading. For further discussion of different historical meanings of the word “Macht” see for instance (Clegg).
Anarchist-Transhumanism reads Nietzsche’s “Wille zur Macht” as a deep-seated and crucial “Aspiration to Agency”, which is shared by all sentient beings. Anarchism sees hierarchies of ruling and domination as inherently oppressive and antithetic to agency. Transhumanism is seen, in this light, as the use of modern science and technology as means for empowerment and liberation from oppression. The promise of Anarchist-Transhumanism is the fulfillment of that will to life and aspiration to agency for all cognitive entities, whether human or non-human, and all forms of intelligence, biological or artificial.
Ethics for and against Nature
An idealized view of Nature and the “natural” as inherently good has found a large echo chamber in contemporary radicalism, largely fueled by important and serious environmental concerns. However, the Gaia view of Life as a benevolent self-regulatory mechanism is naively optimistic. Not only Life itself can be self-destructive on the planetary scale (Ward), but as we already discussed above the effect of evolution by natural selection on individual organisms is unethical and largely destructive. Nature is not your friend, or at least not always and not necessarily.
In the “An Attempt at Self-Criticism” preface to the later edition of “The Birth of Tragedy”, where Nietzsche asserts that “Life is something essentially immoral”, in the same passage, he asks a more general question: “And what about morality itself? Isn’t morality a ‘desire for the denial of life’, […] and thus, the greatest of all dangers?” (English translation by Ian C. Johnston, Nanaimo, BC, Canada, 2003.)
Certainly, the social norms and the accepted morality of the society of Nietzsche’s time, based on a mixture of Christian dogma and European nationalism, were life-denying and oppressive. The question the philosopher was asking though is whether morality is always necessarily so.
Nietzsche himself attempted in some of his later writings to advocate for life-affirming ethics. The frequent use of metaphorical terms conjuring images of power and strength lends itself to easy interpretations of the social-Darwinist type. However, modern interpretations tend to emphasize the drive towards self-improvement and positive life-affirmation as the fundamental concepts in Nietzsche’s proposed answer to the question of morals. Self-improvement, increased agency, and a life-positive and life-asserting ethics are also important concepts in Anarchist-Transhumanism.
However, the affirmation of Life sometimes requires the negation of Nature. While this may seem paradoxical, it is only so if one accepts the postulate that Nature is necessarily good in its self-regulatory homeostasis, but this is precisely not the case. As the Xenofeminism manifesto asserts: “If nature is unjust, change nature!” (Cuboniks). Anarchist-Transhumanism entirely shares this viewpoint. It is in fact not surprising that some of the earliest successes of Transhumanism as a means of liberation and empowerment came through the anti-authoritarian affirmation of transgender rights (Rothblatt, Shannon). Another important component of the Anarchist-Transhumanism project is the affirmation of different abilities and neurodivergence in the empowering context of “morphological freedom”. This is intended not as the establishment of a preferred human form (either technologically enhanced or dictated by adherence to a supposed “natural” normativity standard) but as the affirmation of the validity of all forms, with the self-regulated use of technological means of intervention and modification of the “natural” to ensure maximal agency and choice to all.
This position “against the natural” does not imply a disregard for ecological concerns. On the contrary, environmentalism, the safeguard of biodiversity and fragile ecosystems, the importance of sustainability, and alternative energies are crucial concerns throughout the entire anarchist movement, not restricted to the tradition of Green Anarchism per se. Where the position of Anarchist-Transhumanism on this matter differs from other branches of the anarchist movement is in the emphasis on the crucial role of science, emancipated from the mechanisms of capitalist profit, in guiding our understanding of nature and our best chances at devising ecologically sustainable solutions. Ethics for Nature may also sometimes require the negation of the “natural” as an a priori confine of our range of action.
Nietzsche’s Gallery of Mirrors
The profound ambiguities, frequent inconsistencies, cryptic language, and intentional obscurity of a good part of Nietzsche’s writings make it so that anyone, from a vast range of perspectives and a wide angle of political affiliations, can construct a Nietzsche to claim their own. Nietzsche is an infinite gallery of mirrors in which everyone can see themselves reflected. Some of these interpretive exercises may seem vacuous and artificial: why to engage with the philosopher at all? There is a strong resistance in anarchist circles to even discuss Nietzsche from an anarchist viewpoint, given the long history of fascist appropriations. As a notable exception, around 1915 Emma Goldman delivered a series of lectures on Nietzsche in various venues across the US. It is reported that the lectures focused on Nietzsche’s anti-nationalism and atheism as important contributions from an anarchist perspective (see Moore for a discussion). Unfortunately, the writeups of Goldman’s lectures (along with several of her writings) were lost in a police raid on her office, so the exact content of the lectures can no longer be reconstructed. There is a feminist Nietzsche, the self-named “first psychologist of the eternal feminine”, whose apparent misogynistic utterances are interpreted as a scathing criticism of the view of the feminine in his contemporary society (see Oliver), the same Nietzsche for whom one of the main role models in life and inspiration for the figure of the Übermensch was a woman, the psychiatrist Lou Andreas-Salomé. (Her own analysis of Nietzsche’s writing is very relevant but too much of a digression here, Andreas-Salomé.) This Nietzsche lives side by side, in his gallery of mirrors, with an alt-right Nietzsche, genuinely misogynous, whose words of strength and power are to be read-only literally, no hint of metaphor and sophistication, in line with fascist oversimplification. In the current political circumstances, with a resurgent wave of fascism threatening both America and large parts of Europe, a discussion of the conflicting appropriations of Nietzsche’s visionary writings seems once again compelling. The anarchist movement itself, especially in its more science-oriented and techno-optimist brand of Anarchist-Transhumanism, has witnessed increasing attempts at fascist entryism, either through the permeable interface of the almost exclusively American “anarcho-capitalism” (right-wing libertarianism donning anarchist garments for coolness) or via direct attempts by alt-right fascism to penetrate and hijack the countercultural side of techno-futurism. Ongoing fascist attempts at appropriating aspects of Transhumanism amplify its shady connections to eugenics and eulogize a repressive rather than liberating view of a trans-human future, reviving along the way a throve of old and discredited power and violence oriented misinterpretations of Nietzsche. At the same time, within the anarchist movement, one can see the dangerous growth of a brand of egoist-nihilism, which also found room for such distorted readings, along with highly contentious attempts to cast extreme reactionary social Darwinist writings such as Ragnar Redbeard’s “Might is Right” as parts of the Anarchist tradition. The reading of Nietzsche that is presented in such contexts is in fact very similar to the old nazi misappropriations. Needless to say, the Anarchist-Transhumanist movement completely rejects any such attempt to invoke Nietzsche in an anarchist setting through the lens of old reactionary views and does not consider power-worshipping social Darwinism to be in any way acceptable in the context of anarchism. Transhumanism needs to be a liberating and empowering force, not a supply of novel technological means to prop up old forms of oppression.
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