strangely enough, became a favorite author for feminists.^8
Nietzsche’s canonization by the Nazis (an unlikely fact, given
his opposition to anti-Semitism) was vigorously combated in
France by Georges Bataille and Pierre Klossowski, whose writ-
ings prepared the way for the later image of Nietzsche as post-
structuralist saint.
Derrida in Spursbrings to the fore the question of
Nietzsche’s styles. Nietzsche has always been known as the
most dazzling of writers among the philosophers, the most se-
ductive in his rhetoric. In his practice of style, Derrida argues,
Nietzsche identifies with women, whom he depicts as inher-
ently seductive creatures—for better and for worse. Derrida
adeptly overcomes the image of Nietzsche as a misogynist, an
image that had dogged his reputation virtually from the be-
ginning. This, after all, was the man who wrote, “From the be-
ginning, nothing has been more alien, repugnant, and hostile
to woman than truth—her great art is the lie, her highest con-
cern is mere appearance and beauty” (Beyond Good and Evil
section 232 ). Derrida revealed that Nietzsche was elusive and
thought provoking on the question of “woman,” as on every
other issue that he touched.
Woman as Nietzsche sees her is not merely a shallow, de-
ceptive figure who exists to tempt men into straying from the
truth (although she is also that, at times, in his work). Her se-
ductiveness is, for Nietzsche, a virtue. She cannot be pinned
down, and this is why dogmatic metaphysics takes such pains
to denounce her. She shows up the limitations of the old-
fashioned, conventional philosopher (Nietzsche’s frequent
target). The philosopher cannot deal with woman for the same
reason that he cannot deal with poetry, or with artistic illu-
sion. Both woman and art pose a permanent challenge to phi-
losophy’s stodgy belief in the accessibility of knowledge, the
166 Plato, Austin, Nietzsche, Freud