PHILOSOPHY, Nietzsche ventured, should become “dangerous to life” and that this can only be achieved by making it appear “expensive”. The fact that people sacrifice themselves for God, Country and Freedom, he argued, should tell us that unless philosophy is also worth dying for then how on earth can it achieve primacy over its rivals? Philosophy, for Nietzsche, should become so immensely prized that it “demands still greater hetatombs.”

If we each fought for a single idea then things might degenerate to the level of G.K. Chesterton’s famous novel, ‘The Napoleon of Notting Hill’ (1904), in which a future dystopia leads to internecine warfare between the various boroughs of post-Victorian London. What Nietzsche actually meant, therefore, is not how far one might be prepared to go in defence of an idea, but the extent to which one would be willing to safeguard an entire field of ideas. In other words, to raise a sword on behalf of philosophy both in and of itself. Georges Bataille dismissed this notion completely, saying that

“If it were ever entertained, the proposal might prove interesting. With no one in the offing wanting to die for it, however, Nietzsche’s doctrine is null and void.”

This, from one of his twentieth-century disciples, although Bataille was thinking numerically in the sense that philosophy – of necessity – will presumably remain the preserve of a cerebral few and would thus fail to muster enough troops. I believe that God, Country and Freedom are themselves frequently justified from the perspective of philosophy. At least in theory. In many forms of religion, for example, there is a very thin line between theology and philosophy. A nationalist, perhaps, might wish to struggle for his ‘philosophical’ idea in patriotic garb. Meanwhile, an entire legion of philosophers have set aside both pens and pensiveness in order to fight on behalf of a liberty of their own choosing. This is why it is important to make a distinction between the singular and the plural. God, Country and Freedom only require but a single idea for people to throw themselves before cannons and corporals, muskets and machine-guns, but philosophy itself is an intellectual umbrella that covers an entire multitude of different ideas.

It is, of course, a guiding principle or academic discipline. Nietzsche, himself a ferocious destroyer of principles, was thinking in terms of a single, overarching entity. Isn’t National-Anarchism rather similar in terms of trying to incorporate a large array of divergent beliefs within a wider pool of uncrystallised commonality? We are less engaged in a battle of ideas, in other words, than in attempting to defend the propensity and expression of ideas themselves. Philosophy, however it manifests itself, has its seats of learning; we National-Anarchists are forging new centres to embody the principle of unity-in-diversity. Not with a view towards “still greater hetatombs,” I grant you, but certainly in the sense that what we wish to defend has immense value. After all, even the infinitesimal has a place within infinity and nothing comes without a price. Live and let live. Think and let think.