Employing Nietzsche’s Sociological Imagination

Harnessing the empowering ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche to read the human condition of modern existence through a sociological lens, Employing Nietzsche’s Sociological Imagination: How to Understand Totalitarian Democracy confronts the realities of how modernity and its utopianisms affect one’s ability to purpose existence with self-authored meaning. By critically assessing the ideals of modern institutions, the motives of their pundits, and their political ideologies as expressions born from the social decay of exhausted dreams and projects of modernity, Jack Fong assembles Nietzsche’s existential sociological imagination to empower actors to emancipate the self from such duress. Illuminating the merits of creating new meaning for life affirmation by overcoming struggle with one’s will to power, Fong reveals Nietzsche’s horizons for actualized and empowered selves, selves to be liberated from convention, groupthink, and cultural scripts that exact deference from society’s captive audiences.

“Nietzsche's work appeared at the birth of sociology, yet despite this and his direct interest for both the social and societal, few attempts exist that have tried to systematically analyze the sociological value of his work. Jack Fong has written the first truly sociological book on Nietzsche and offers a study that vibrates from Nietzsche's imagination. The result is fascinating and is highly relevant to sociologists as well as scholars of Nietzsche.”

Drawing on C. Wright Mills's "sociological imagination," Fong develops a new understanding of Friedrich Nietzsche, in which the anti-sociological father of existential philosophy is rediscovered as the founder and most profound practitioner of critical sociology. Though Nietzsche's sociology is partly rooted in the praxis-related struggles of the Übermensch, the "overcomer" serves also as an ideal type for a new mode of seeing, being, and existing. Thus, Nietzsche's critical sociology represents the first step in the formulation of an existential sociology, which is the larger ambition of the book. Fong's analysis of Nietzsche is scrupulously grounded in primary-source material and is contextualized through the author's impressive understanding of contemporary social theory. Fong's Nietzsche is a profound critic of the modern condition and is explicitly examined as a forerunner of the critical theory of the Frankfurt School (and its critiques of conformity, the culture. Highly recommended.

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Nietzsche’s work appeared at the birth of sociology, yet despite this and his direct interest for both the social and societal, few attempts exist that have tried to systematically analyze the sociological value of his work. Jack Fong has written the first truly sociological book on Nietzsche and offers a study that vibrates from Nietzsche’s imagination. The result is fascinating and is highly relevant to sociologists as well as scholars of Nietzsche. -- Patrik Aspers, University of St. Gallen
Here, Jack Fong masterfully presents and makes relevant the social and political ideas of one of the most influential philosophers of the nineteenth century. From cover to cover, Nietzsche’s sociological imagination is illuminated in all its complexities—from his critiques of nationalism and tribalism to his ruminations on the dystopia produced by liberalism’s own mythologies. Fong is astute in his understanding of Nietzsche’s significance in detecting and resisting ever-new, emergent forms of democratic authoritarianism. This book is a must-read, especially for those who deem Nietzsche as little more than a poet, a romantic, and an aphorist. -- Anas Karzai, Nietzsche and Sociology: Prophet of Affirmation

Jack Fong is professor of sociology at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona.

Harnessing the empowering ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche to read the human condition of modern existence through a sociological lens, Employing Nietzsche's Sociological Imagination: How to Understand Totalitarian Democracy confronts the realities of how modernity and its utopianisms affect one's ability to purpose existence with self-authored meaning. By critically assessing the ideals of modern institutions, the motives of their pundits, and their political ideologies as expressions born from the social decay of exhausted dreams and projects of modernity, Jack Fong assembles Nietzsche's existential sociological imagination to empower actors to emancipate the self from such duress. Illuminating the merits of creating new meaning for life affirmation by overcoming struggle with one's will to power, Fong reveals Nietzsche's horizons for actualized and empowered selves, selves to be liberated from convention, groupthink, and cultural scripts that exact deference from society's captive audiences.

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