Bruce H. Detwiler

Bruce Harmon Detwiler, a long-time summer resident of Mount Washington, MA, Nietzsche scholar and civil rights activist died at his home in New York City on January 10, 2024 after a prolonged illness. He was 79 years old.

Bruce received an undergraduate degree from Yale as well as a law degree and PhD from Cornell University. As he was pondering his choice of college, a conversation with Robert Frost encouraged him to pursue an English major at Yale instead of Engineering as his family had urged. Bruce recalled that the poet suggested English would make him a man while Engineering would make him a tool. He chose the former.

During his undergraduate years, he became involved in the civil rights movement and was co-chair of the Civil Rights Council at Yale. He joined the Mississippi Summer Project (also known as Freedom Summer) and worked in that state during the summers of 1963-65, a time when young voting rights advocates were targeted and murdered. He advocated for Black empowerment in a piece, "A Time To Be Black", published in The New Republic. He was a staff writer for the Village Voice and contributed to The Atlantic and other journals.

After graduation from Yale, Bruce taught science in Zambia to students that included refugees from apartheid Rhodesia. He traveled to South Africa where he interviewed activists involved in resistance to the apartheid regime in that country. These experiences moved him to write, "Thaw in South Africa?" published in Commonweal magazine (1968, 87:527), in which he observed how the regime had become adept at giving lip service to racial tolerance while intensifying apartheid repression. Bruce often discussed how important these experiences were and how they changed his life.

Bruce received a law degree from Cornell in 1975. Midway through law school he took a 5-year leave of absence to study and work on a manuscript, ultimately unfinished, critiquing and analyzing philosophers including Nietzsche and organizing his own world view. His drive to extend his work on political philosophy led him to pursue a PhD in Political Science, given by Cornell in 1984. His thesis was meticulously refined and published in 1990 ("Nietzsche and the Politics of Aristocratic Radicalism", University of Chicago Press), recognized as a definitive analysis of the philosophy and politics of Friedrich Nietzsche. He then taught civil liberties, constitutional law and political theory as a tenured professor at Florida International University and later as a visiting professor at Cornell.

Bruce met his wife, Sandra (Sandy) Winters in Cambridge, MA. His continuous support of her and her art career led to his early retirement from teaching. Together, they resigned positions at FIU and moved to New York City in 1998. He became interested in the philosopher John Rawls and was asked to provide his analysis of Rawls' writings at Columbia University. In recent years, he dedicated time in support of Oxfam International with particular interest in their work in Africa.

Bruce was the son of Benjamin H. and Louise A. (Schneider) Detwiler. He was born on Independence Day in 1944, and grew up in Port Washington and Cutchogue, NY. His father died when he was 11. His mother subsequently married Walter Uhl, a noted home builder and developer on Long Island.

Bruce first discovered the Berkshires as a freshman at Hotchkiss School, visiting Mount Washington with Morgan Bulkeley who would become his lifelong best friend. He continued visiting the area while a student at Yale. He and Sandy married at Morgan's home in Mount Washington in 1975. Later, they built a house nearby and divided their time between New York City and Mount Washington. Bruce loved hiking and observing wildlife around their mountain home. Until shortly before his death, he continued the distance running he had practiced as a founding member of the cross-country team at Hotchkiss and later at Yale.

Bruce's personal philosophy of kindness and empathy resonated with family, friends and students. In conversation, he had the ability to make one feel to be the most important person in the room. He had a deep desire to understand others' perspectives. His expressed desire at the end of life was that his friends and colleagues would know his appreciation for what each contributed to his life.

He is survived by his wife, Sandy, a brother John Detwiler and his family, stepbrothers William and Thomas Uhl, and extended members of the Lanning, Wilson and Wintersieck families. Bruce was buried at the Cross Road Cemetery in Mount Washington. A memorial service will be held in late spring. In lieu of flowers, donations in his name may be made to Oxfam, www.oxfamamerica.org.