How to Read Like a Parasite: Why the Left Got High on Nietzsche
A how-to guide for the left on how to overcome Nietzsche's divisive and damaging influence.''Exemplary… Tutt’s evaluation of the consequences of Nietzschean politics is more lucid than Left Nietzscheans might wish.'' — Ray Brassier, author of Nihil Unbound: Enlightenment and ExtinctionHow to Read Like a Parasite overturns the whitewashed and defanged version of Nietzsche that has been made popular by generations of translators and academic philosophers who have presented his work as apolitical and without a core reactionary agenda.The central argument of the book is that Nietzsche’s philosophy does have a center, and that the left learns a great deal from Nietzsche when we read him as driven by a highly sophisticated reactionary political vision that informs all his major concepts and ideas.The most important Nietzschean concepts — from perspectivism, ressentiment, eternal return to the pathos of distance — are analyzed in the historical context in which Nietzsche lived and wrote, and several case-studies of prominent left-Nietzscheans from Jack London, Gilles Deleuze, Wendy Brown to Huey Newton are discussed. How to Read Like a Parasite makes a persuasive case for how we can overcome Nietzsche’s damaging influence on the left, showing us how to read and understand his work without becoming victims of it.
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A how-to guide for the left on how to overcome Nietzsche's divisive and damaging influence.

''Exemplary… Tutt’s evaluation of the consequences of Nietzschean politics is more lucid than Left Nietzscheans might wish.'' — Ray Brassier, author of Nihil Unbound: Enlightenment and Extinction

How to Read Like a Parasite overturns the whitewashed and defanged version of Nietzsche that has been made popular by generations of translators and academic philosophers who have presented his work as apolitical and without a core reactionary agenda.

The central argument of the book is that Nietzsche’s philosophy does have a center, and that the left learns a great deal from Nietzsche when we read him as driven by a highly sophisticated reactionary political vision that informs all his major concepts and ideas.

The most important Nietzschean concepts — from perspectivism, ressentiment, eternal return to the pathos of distance — are analyzed in the historical context in which Nietzsche lived and wrote, and several case-studies of prominent left-Nietzscheans from Jack London, Gilles Deleuze, Wendy Brown to Huey Newton are discussed.

How to Read Like a Parasite makes a persuasive case for how we can overcome Nietzsche’s damaging influence on the left, showing us how to read and understand his work without becoming victims of it.

About the Author

Daniel Tutt is a philosopher and educator based in Washington, DC. He writes on Marxism, philosophy, and psychoanalysis and has taught philosophy at George Washington University, the Washington, DC jail and Marymount University. Tutt is a podcaster with Repeater and Zer0 Books. His first book, Psychoanalysis and the Politics of the Family (2022) is published with the Palgrave Lacan Series and has been hailed by philosopher Isabel Millar as “essential reading.”

Praise for How to Read Like a Parasite: Why the Left Got High on Nietzsche

“A compelling picture of the ways that Nietzscheanism hijacks the left.”

— Jan Rehmann, author of Deconstructing Postmodernist Nietzscheanism: Deleuze and Foucault

"Beautifully written and bursting with spirit, How to Read Like a Parasite is destined to be vital reading."

— Matthew McManus, author of Nietzsche and the Politics of Reaction

"Written with clarity and force, sensitive to historical context and covering an extensive array of the Nietzsche literature, this book animates a new standard in reading Nietzsche.”

— Don Dombowsky, author of Nietzsche and Napoleon: The Dionysian Conspiracy

"Exemplary... Tutt’s evaluation of the consequences of Nietzschean politics is more lucid than Left Nietzscheans might wish."

— Ray Brassier, author of Nihil Unbound: Enlightenment and Extinction "Today, in our age of quick new Right or new Left dismissals, such a stance is needed more than ever."

— Slavoj Žižek

"The conclusion of How to Read Like a Parasite is that a ruthless, even “parasitical” critique of Nietzsche, who cannot be ignored but must be constantly confronted head on, is the key to overcoming the destruction of reason in our time."

— John Bellamy Foster, author of The Dialectics of Ecology

"Tutt’s book sets a new standard for understanding how to read Nietzsche from the political left."

— Carl Sachs, author of Nietzsche Between Scientism and Irrationalism