Volume XII, Issue II, Spring 2019

THE AGONIST
Editors’ Introduction
Welcome to the Spring 2019 issue of The Agonist. Included are three distinct
essays that explore feigned insanity, the futility of time travel, and species
extinction. Nietzsche is often misunderstood by his detractors as a prophet of
doom, but only a shallow reading discovers an irreducible nihilism in his texts.
That said, we readers of Nietzsche cannot fail to ignore his more prescient
warnings about the dangers of nostalgia and the allure of self-destruction—both
bodily and psychic ruin. In other words, what unites our essays is the respective
authors’ ability to capture the broader pre-apocalyptic anxiety that seems to haunt
public discourse in the early days of the 21 st century: ecological ruin, mental illness,
the failures of democracy, a misguided (and thus scientifically impossible)
romantic longing to return to an imaginary past.
In lieu of climate change, continued social injustices, and the resurgence of
nationalist fantasies, perhaps we still have much to learn from Nietzsche regarding
foreboding prognoses. He reminds us that philosophy can and should contend
not only with metaphysics and epistemology, but also cultural diagnosis. And few
philosophers and physicians of culture have better gauged the temperature of our
zeitgeist past, present and future.
We would like to thank all of our contributing writers, the members of our new
advisory board, the editorial staff at The Agonist, and, of course, our readers. We
look forward to hearing from you along with suggestions for any future topics.
The Editorial Board
May 2019