> The same metaphysical view you're describing also enabled utopian totalitarian visions like Nazism and Communism.
Leninism and it's descendants are totalitarian, Communism (even Marxism) more generally is not, but, sure, you can certainly make the case that scientific rationality has some connection to Marxism and thus an indirect effect on Leninism. OTOH, scientific rationality and the proven results are also the explicit basis for the widespread Western rejection of Leninism and it's descendants (and explictly cited as such by wide segments of the Right, including those who generalize that rejection to Communism generally, which the left might argue is an overgeneralization, but even in that argument there is a broad consensus that there are actual material facts that one can draw conclusions about from material evidence which transcends ideology when approached correctly.)
OTOH, Nazism was not based on scientific rationality, except as a reaction against it, and in fact both Italian Fascism and Naziism were explicitly based on the exact Nietzschean view that you advance (both the idea and explicitly crediting it to Nietzche).
> Postmodernism hinges on whether or not there is an objective set of values. Conservatives believe there is (the Bible, natural law, God, etc) whereas Postmodernists believe there isn't.
That may be a difference between your particular worldview and postmodernism, but large number of other conservatives criticize the “postmodern left” not merely for rejecting objective values which you claim is the difference between Conservatism and Postmodernism, but for rejecting objective facts and viewing facts as constructs which depend on ideology—the position you take on the nature of facts is one explicitly rejected and criticized (and attributed as a failing of the left) by most mainstream conservative thinkers, though I will agree that the factions of the Right who adhere to it are at what is, at least, a recent local maximum of prominence.
How can you say this when Nazis famously "pioneered" and promulgated things like Phrenology and Eugenics? Scientific racism was at the heart of the Nazi program.
> the position you take on the nature of facts is one explicitly rejected and criticized (and attributed as a failing of the left) by most mainstream conservative thinkers,
I do agree with you here. What we're discussing really only has meaning when both sides of the discussion are able and willing to have a deeper discussion about this sort of stuff.
What Charlie Kirk and Ben Shapiro engage in is completely sufficient for the audience they're trying to engage with and appeal to. To get into this more abstract kind of discussion would be counterproductive in my opinion. Postmodernism is actually really harmful for people to believe in and at that point where you're lost in a world where most major cultural institutions are pushing that, you just need someone articulating an alternative view point. At that level, getting into a discussion about how they're actually similar would be a bad idea.
> How can you say this when Nazis famously "pioneered" and promulgated things like Phrenology and Eugenics?
They...didn't. Phrenology was was developed at the end of the 18th century and scientifically discredited by the mid-19th century; the Nazis may have adopted it, but that's proof that they weren't motivated by anything like scientific rationalism. Eugenics is overtly ideological (and, again, not pioneered by the Nazis, having become a widespread ideology before they existed), though it relies on scientific results (but even those who take your ideological stance of rejecting objective facts have no problem adopting the results of science that they see as useful for advancing their ideology, so there's nothing surprising about a group who does that adopting an ideological program relying on technology for it's implementation.)
But the reason I can say that Italian Fascism and German Naziism expressly adopted your Nietzschean view is because both said they did, and praised Nietzche for presenting it.
> scientifically discredited by the mid-19th century
I mean the science is bunk but it wasn't "discredited" in the sense that you mean among the scientific community or the policy community across the West who enacted policies based on it well until after the mid 20th century.
> the Nazis may have adopted it, but that's proof that they weren't motivated by anything like scientific rationalism
The Nazis adopted scientific racism and this is proof they weren't motivated by scientific rationalism? I suppose your contention would be that Hitler didn't really believe any of that or something and it was all just about power. That's such a lazy position to take IMO. If you really want to die on that hill I don't think we can go forward with the discussion at least on this front. The Nazis established a whole body of thought and policies around racial hierarchies that were in part dependent on the work of eugenics and phrenology. And yes I do believe they really believed this stuff.
> But the reason I can say that Italian Fascism and German Naziism expressly adopted your Nietzschean view is because both said they did, and praised Nietzche for presenting it.
Nietzsche was highly derisive of nationalism and the examples he would deride were actually those of German nationalism. You can read Beyond Good and Evil to see that.
What you're talking about is actually highly ironic considering that Nietzsche actually predicts some sort of Hitler-like figure coming to power due to how weak-minded and herd-like Europeans were. He didn't call them herd-like as a compliment.
What they adopted among other things was his method of attack on morality itself and in particular Christianity and Judaism. This is what he meant by going "Beyond" Good and Evil (morality itself) to replace it with Strong and Weak or Beautiful and Ugly which was more of the Greco-Roman system of values. That does sound more like Nazism doesn't it? You can see it in the iconography of the Nazis and all the Roman stuff they adopted (e.g. the Nazi standards which harken to the Roman standards).
Nietzsche wasn't perfect IMO. You can read Psychological Types by Carl Jung who does a beautiful job of analyzing and filling in the holes in Nietzsche's positions.
Since you dismiss the existence of objective, non-ideological facts, isn't that necessarily your position on all science?
> but it wasn't "discredited" in the sense that you mean among the scientific community or the policy community across the West who enacted policies based on it well until after the mid 20th century
Yes, phrenology was discredited , and why you posted a link about eugenics to support your rebuttal of a point about phrenology that had nothing to do with eugenics, I don't know.
> The Nazis adopted scientific racism and this is proof they weren't motivated by scientific rationalism?
That wasn't my actual argument, but it works, since “scientific racism” doesn't actually follow the methodology of post-enlightment empiricism, merely adopting it as an elaborate rhetorical flourish for propaganda purposes, much the way that, say, intelligent design does. It recognizes that some of it's audience might be positively disposed to the superficial appearance of empiricism, rather than actually embracing it itself.
Leninism and it's descendants are totalitarian, Communism (even Marxism) more generally is not, but, sure, you can certainly make the case that scientific rationality has some connection to Marxism and thus an indirect effect on Leninism. OTOH, scientific rationality and the proven results are also the explicit basis for the widespread Western rejection of Leninism and it's descendants (and explictly cited as such by wide segments of the Right, including those who generalize that rejection to Communism generally, which the left might argue is an overgeneralization, but even in that argument there is a broad consensus that there are actual material facts that one can draw conclusions about from material evidence which transcends ideology when approached correctly.)
OTOH, Nazism was not based on scientific rationality, except as a reaction against it, and in fact both Italian Fascism and Naziism were explicitly based on the exact Nietzschean view that you advance (both the idea and explicitly crediting it to Nietzche).
> Postmodernism hinges on whether or not there is an objective set of values. Conservatives believe there is (the Bible, natural law, God, etc) whereas Postmodernists believe there isn't.
That may be a difference between your particular worldview and postmodernism, but large number of other conservatives criticize the “postmodern left” not merely for rejecting objective values which you claim is the difference between Conservatism and Postmodernism, but for rejecting objective facts and viewing facts as constructs which depend on ideology—the position you take on the nature of facts is one explicitly rejected and criticized (and attributed as a failing of the left) by most mainstream conservative thinkers, though I will agree that the factions of the Right who adhere to it are at what is, at least, a recent local maximum of prominence.