Belonging Again II.1: Introduction (Presentation)

3 min readSep 11, 2024

An Address

Part I made the case that we are still waiting but the stakes are rising, that we need to address the task with which Nietzsche left us. As encouraged by Philip Rieff, we underwent an explanation of “the psychohistorical process” in Part I to be positioned for an address of “a psycho-political-economy” in Part II, and here we will argue that there is always a human and contingent element, meaning the development of the subject is central. Part I left us with considerations of Absolute Knowers, Children, and Deleuzian Dividuals, and the book also suggested that (if we mean something traditional by the phrase) “belonging again” is not possible or desirable without risking grave regression or consequence. In Part II, we seek to “address” this loss of possibility, and by “belonging again,” we might consider something more like “belonging (again),” which is a Hegelian negation/sublation, suggesting that ours is an age in which we might “belong” for the first time finally (to channel Little Gidding by T. S. Eliot). Nietzsche never wanted followers, Cadell stresses, but rather Children. Might that be us? Must it be? If so, we must learn to “leave Plato’s Cave on our own” — a founding story must be reconsidered, a genesis of a genesis.