Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche,
or, The Realm of Shadows
Henri Lefebvre
Translated by David Fernbach
Introduction by Stuart Elden
This work was published with the help of the French
Ministry of Culture – Centre national du livre
Ouvrage publié avec le concours du Ministère français
chargé de la culture – Centre national du livre
This English-language edition published by Verso 2020
Originally published in French as Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche: ou, le Royaume des ombres© Editions Casterman, 1975 Translation © David Fernbach 2020 Introduction © Stuart Elden 2020
All rights reserved
The moral rights of the authors have been asserted
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ISBN-13: 978-1-78873-373-1
ISBN-13: 978-1-78873-694-7 (HB)
ISBN-13: 978-1-78873-374-8 (UK EBK)
ISBN-13: 978-1-78873-375-5 (US EBK)
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Lefebvre, Henri, 1901-1991, author.
Title: Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, or, The Realm of Shadows / Henri Lefebvre ; translated by David Fernbach ; introduction by Stuart Elden.
Other titles: Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche. English
Description: English-language edition. | Brooklyn : Verso Books, 2020. | Includes index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019001975| ISBN 9781788733731 (alk. paper) | ISBN 9781788736947 (hardback : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 1770-1831. | Marx, Karl, 1818-1883. | Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm, 1844-1900.
Classification: LCC B2948 .L3513 2020 | DDC 193--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019001975
Typeset in Minion Pro by Hewer Text UK Ltd, Edinburgh
Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY
Contents
Three Stars, One Constellation: Introduction to Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche by Stuart Elden
2 The Hegel File
3 The Marx File
4 The Nietzsche File
Conclusion and Afterword
Notes
Index
The system of logic is the kingdom of shadows … to dwell and work in this shadowy realm is the absolute cultivation and discipline of consciousness.
– Hegel
The spirit of theory, once it has won its inner freedom, tends to become practical energy: it leaves the realm of shadows and acts as will on outward material reality.
– Marx
I will complete my statue: for a shadow came unto me – the stillest and lightest of all things once came unto me! The beauty of the Superhuman came unto me as a shadow.
– Zarathustra
Three Stars, One Constellation: Introduction to Hegel, Marx, NietzscheStuart Elden
__________________
Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, or, The Realm of Shadows was first published in 1975, between The Production of Space (1974) and Lefebvre’s four-volume study De l’État (1976–8).1 The same year saw him publish a new autobiography, a re-edition of some of his essays on structuralism, and an edited collection on Fourier.2 Lefebvre was in his seventies at the time, and showed no signs of slowing down – several other significant studies followed, including the third volume of his Critique of Everyday Life, the posthumous Elements of Rhythmanalysis and the untranslated Une pensée devenue monde: Faut-il abandonner Marx?, La Présence et L’absence and Qu’est-ce que penser?3
Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche is a summation of Lefebvre’s considerable debt to these three thinkers, and its organization is clear. It is structured as three main chapters, ‘files’ or ‘dossiers’ on each thinker, framed by a long introductory chapter on ‘triads’ and a conclusion. Lefebvre suggests that the modern world is Hegelian, Marxist and Nietzschean, and while each of those claims separately is not paradoxical, put together they suggest an irreconcilable tension. How these aspects might be understood, and their relations teased out, is the focus of the study. Each thinker grasped something of the modern world, and shaped Lefebvre’s own reflections accordingly.
Lefebvre makes the claim that Hegelian thought can be summarized by the word and concept of the state, Marxism through the social and society, and Nietzsche through civilisation and its values. The state and its relation to civil society is of course the focus of Hegel’s Elements of the Philosophy of Right, and there is much else in his work, but Lefebvre stresses the political here. To take the state as the focus would be a Hegelian view of the world, but there is also a Marxist view, where the state’s relations to civil society, classes and industrial change are paramount. Yet this too neglects things that Lefebvre thinks are important, and he finds these in Nietzsche. This would include the assertion of life against impersonal political and economic processes, a stress on the importance of the arts of poetry, music and theatre, coupled with the hope
