Sacrifice In Marinetti's The Futurist Manifest

Marinetti and Nietzsche take on very different tones in their commentaries, but both depend on the avant-garde to advance Europe’s new generations. In The Futurist Manifesto, Marinetti’s tone affirms the reader that there will be a continuous cycle that replaces the elderly members of society with young, advanced minds. The new avant-garde will come forth with ideas, art, and technology that will replace anything that came before them. He writes, almost giddily, that when his generation become middle aged, “other younger and stronger men will probably throw us in the wastebasket like useless manuscripts—we want it to happen!” (F. Manifesto). Instead of fearing the day he becomes useless, he expresses his excitement for it because the new, budding

Self-centered behavior prevents progress because nothing is done for the greater good. His solution calls for a new age of thinkers all together. He writes that the “tempo…is much too slow and sleepy for the more impatient ones”, referring to the avant-garde, that has the ability to emerge from the masses and create new art and philosophies (62). Nietzsche, however, lacks Marinetti’s confidence. Instead of an affirmative statement that there will be a new age of philosophers coming to bring new ideas and works, his tone is persuasive with an underlying hints of pleading. He closes chapter five, “Natural History of Morals”, by regarding the audience as “we, who hold a different belief”, indicating that he is now directly addressing people who have the potential to recover Europe. He insists that they have a responsibility to their country, attempting to invoke enough passion in these individuals to rise out of the “people who obey” and become the ones that lead their country to prosperity. Nietzsche and Marinetti’s commentaries agree that Europe needs the avant-garde to lead it out of its decline, however their tones and confidence are on opposite sides of the