ABSTRACT
The conception of democracy as “democracy to come” that Derrida defends is itself prefigured in the work of a thinker who is often thought of as one of democracy's most critical opponents: in the work of Nietzsche. Nietzsche embraced the possibility of such a development for European democracy, not, however, as an end in itself but because it opens the space for a few exceptional people – he will call them “real philosophers” – to emerge who ultimately promise something even more ambitious. Running the irresistible programme of the process of democratisation of Europe into a future projection, Nietzsche predicted the emergence in Europe of an increasingly dominant and prosperous “middle class” with more interest in “novelty and experiment” than it had piety for the “historic memories” of the old nation-states.
