Man Not of History But of Modernity: Friedrich Nietzsche

This damnable Lifeguard and his memes. So here's my response to his second tag, to list seven facts about a favorite historical figure. Well fine, I of course pick Nietzsche. I love Nietzsche for his balls out attacks on virtually everything, his ceaseless questioning, his radical ideas and his astute psychological observations of humanity. I feel a kindred spirit with the man, and like him I feel I'm often misunderstood. Below I will point out some details about the man and, I hope, try to dispel or explain some of the major misconceptions about him and his philosophy.

• The Nietzsche family had produced a proud line of ministers prior to Friedrich's birth in 1844 that stretched back to the early 17th century and his mother's side had many as well. The irony that from such an illustrious christian heritage the man who would proclaim "god is dead", rail against christianity for most of his life, proclaim himself antichrist and the god Dionysus I find to be delicious irony.

• Many feel Nietzsche had syphilis, either congenital or by way of a prostitute. Either way, he was plagued most of his life with ill health, sometimes relying on friends to take dictation or willfully struggling through his pains to write for moments at a time. It is with this knowledge that it is in part clear to see inspiration for his fierce ideas of the power of will and overcoming. His eventual mental collapse is another thing many take as evidence for his syphilis.


• The concept of the Ubermensch (often referred to as either the Overman or the Superman) was not a supremacist validation for subjugating others or a brutish affirmation of "survival of the fittest". It was an ideal, a goal to strive for as an individual and on the whole by society. The concept, central to Nietzsche's philosophy and apparent in every aspect of it, was one of perpetual growth and improvement, or in his words "renewal". Never at any time did he claim to be a superman nor label any person, nation or race as such. He spoke of being a bridge to the Ubermensch.

This goes hand in hand with misunderstanding his Will to Power as being a might makes right justification to impose your will over others, essentially enslaving the weak. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, Nietzche saw this as actually a retarded will, one of immense inadequacies by which one attempts to compensate for failing to lord over oneself by lording over others. This retarded will he often called "resentiment", a key component of "slave morality", the morality of both the weak (defined as those who lack strength of will) and those who seek to weaken. He found religions, especially christianity, to be prime examples of slave morality.

• In an almost feverish final burst of genius before he went mad in 1889, from 1886-1888 he consolidated his thought and cranked out part V of The Gay Science, Beyond Good and Evil, The Genealogy of Morals, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, The Antichrist, The Twilight of the Idols, Ecce Homo, and Dionysus Dithyrambs, with the last five all written in 1888! He also started but never finished The Will to Power: Attempt at a Transvaluation of All Values.


• Nietzsche's sister Elizabeth was an anti-semetic cunt. She married a powerful anti-semite named Bernhard Förster in 1886(a wedding Freidrich didn't attend because he opposed the marriage due to Forster's anti-semeticism) who founded a colony in Paraguay which failed miserably. There were comments made by Forster revealing how dominating Elizabeth was and after the failure of the colony and the pressure and demands from Elizabeth, he committed suicide. Elizabeth also conspired to keep Freidrich from a young Russian aristocrat named Lou Salomâ, who he awkwardly proposed to and was in competition with Paul Rhee over her affections. It was Elizabeth who, once Freidrich went mad, gained sole possession of all of his works, including the unfinished Will To Power, and "cared" for him by propping him in a chair and selling tickets to come see him. It is in this state, dirty, unkept and with wild hair and mustache, that we mostly know of him today. For decades she edited and misinterpreted his works and released this trash loaded with her ignorant ideas and anti-semeticism to the world as his which the German nationals of WWI loved, namely one pathetic failed artist serving as a corporal named Adolph Hitler, whose Nazis later made this false Nietzsche their patron saint.

• Nietzsche had nothing but contempt for German nationalism and was not only not anti-semetic but in fact often praised the Jews for their contributions to the cultures they become a part of and considered those cultures most fortunate. He also broke with his editor Schmeitzner in 1886 over his anti-semetism.

• Of course much of the blame for Nietzsche being misunderstood is actually Nietzsche himself. First, as a lover of poetry and literature, he simply writes too creatively. His clever sarcasm, his flowery language, metaphors, turns of phrase, and general free flowing prose is a large departure from most philosophical writings which are dry, analytical and read like technical manuals. To make matters worse, Nietzsche was wildly opposed to systems of any kind. He felt that once one commits to a system, they are then enslaved by it. His criticism of other philosophers and intellectuals was that once establishing a system of thought, they can no longer question it and if they do, can't reject it or else lose everything they've built. In sharp contrast to this, Nietzsche may turn on his own opinions from book to book. Partly this was to challenge their validity, partly it was because he honestly may have changed his mind. Personally, I also feel he may have done this simply to be cheeky. He often deliberately challenged what was most popular, and did not exempt himself.

Here is part 1 of an interesting BBC documentary of Nietzsche. I like very much what Will Self says about him, that "his philosophy was not to think like him, but to think for yourself".

Oh I forgot to add that when you choose to read Nietzsche (which should be like right now) only read a Walter Kaufman translation.

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