Nietzsche's Passing By

But political theorist Shalini Satkunanandan argues that Nietzsche offers us a method that can help us navigate the highly polarizing discourse that's afflicting our democracies today.

"I would say that we are almost talking too much. There's this constant need to correct, refute, criticize," said Satkunanandan.

"It's not clear that our constant need to engage is helping us move forward in any way. If anything it is making partisan divides even more pronounced."

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"There's a really key line in the book [Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra] that reads: 'Where one can no longer love, there one should pass by,'" said Satkunanandan, who is working on a book about the practice of 'passing by.'

"It's about making us more hesitant about engagement and antagonistic contest…Before any engagement it's worthwhile asking what its effects are going to be," she said. "I don't know if we always ask that because we see engagement as a good in itself, and as a sign of caring about shared life."

She says that sometimes caring for shared life means it's okay to not engage, and adds that 'passing by' should never be confused for disengagement.

"You are paying attention, but you're being extremely hesitant and minimalistic about direct participation."

How to engage within 'politics of resentment'

'Passing by' can be misread as resignation, being lazy, or apathetic. But veering away is not any of these things, argues Satkunanandan.

"Participation may actually aggravate a particular passional situation."

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The value of 'passing by'

Satkunanandan emphazises the space for creativity that opens up when we 'pass by.'

"When you pass by, it's almost like you're making it possible that you might sort of tap into or come to new languages for, for engaging with other people, new languages, for describing the world. It's almost like when you're constantly participating, you're always speaking to other people within received frames and received ways of seeing the world."

She explains that part of what Nietzsche was trying to get at with 'passing by' is the creation of new values — a way of fundamentally changing how we live to focus on meaning in our lives.

"If you want to really change the ultimate commitments that give meaning to our lives and thereby to help transform the world, then you actually need to be really careful about constant participation in public debate because you become incapable of speaking in other than the terms of received public debate," Satkunanandan said.

"And really creating new values requires you to give yourself the opportunity to sort of come to new ways of speaking and being in the world."