genealogy Article Nietzsche, the Anthropologists, and the Genealogy of Trauma Iain P. Morrisson The Honors College, University of Houston, Houston, TX 77204, USA;
[email protected] Abstract: In this paper, I bring the Second and Third Essays of On the Genealogy of Morality into conversation with the anthropological work that Nietzsche uses to inform his understanding of human prehistory. More specifically, I show the ways in which Nietzsche’s genealogical use of prehistory both calls upon and departs from the work of figures like Edward Tylor, John Lubbock, and Albert Hermann Post. This departure is most significant in Nietzsche’s rejection of the progressive or developmental account of social and moral history for an account that emphasizes the way in which morality develops out of the psychological effects of recurring human traumas. Keywords: Nietzsche; genealogy; anthropology; prehistory; trauma Though Nietzsche’s genealogical approach to the nature and value of morality has often been heralded as a ground-breaking development in philosophy, it is worth remem- bering that the 19th century was one in which the study of history, broadly construed, 1 flourished in a number of fields of inquiry. It was in this century that paleontology, geology, comparative philology, evolutionary biology, and prehistoric archaeology all developed rapidly and established themselves as academic disciplines. Indeed, historical Citation: Morrisson, Iain P. 2021. development was a key idea in the Hegelian/Marxist philosophical schools as well as in Nietzsche, the Anthropologists, and the Genealogy of Trauma. Genealogy 5: the positivism of Auguste Comte. In this broader context, it is no surprise that modern 23.