xxxxxThe German
philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche rejected the accepted moral values
of the day and condemned Christianity as a “slave morality”. He
proclaimed that “God (i.e. religion) is dead”, and that people
were therefore free to create their own set of values. This being
so, each individual possessed the driving force, the will for
power, to become a “superman” (Ubermensch),
able to impose his or her will on the weak and worthless for the
good of the unfortunate. His major works, influenced in some
respects by the writings of the German philosopher Arthur
Schopenhauer, included Thus Spake Zarathustra of 1885, Beyond Good and Evil, and
On the Genealogy of Morals. His works
found little favour until the last years of his life -
FRIEDRICH WILHELM NIETZSCHE
1844 -
Acknowledgements
Nietzsche: date
and artist unknown. Wagners: from eBook
of The Loves of Great Composers by the
American music critic Gustav Kobbé (1857-
xxxxxThe German philosopher and classical philologist Friedrich Nietzsche became one of the most controversial and influential thinkers of the latter part of the 19th century. A confirmed atheist and a strong believer in human individualism, he discarded the foundations of Christianity and traditional morality in favour of “life affirmation”, the idea that humans should make the most of their life on earth, unimpeded by vague thoughts of a world beyond. His works had an impact over a wide field of human endeavour, including, art, literature and politics, and, together with the German philosopher Soren Kierkegaard, he became the precursor of existentialism, the belief that every individual should be free to determine his or her own development.
xxxxxNietzsche was born in the small village of Rocken, near Leipzig in Saxony. His father, a Lutheran minister, died when he was five, and the family then moved to nearby Naumburg, where he lived with his mother, grandmother, two aunts and his younger sister. During his teens he attended a Protestant boarding school not far from the town, and in 1864 entered the University of Bonn to study theology and classical philology. However, having by then studied Darwin’s theory of evolution and come to question the existence of a God, he soon abandoned theology as a subject, and concentrated upon the interpretation of classical and biblical texts. At that time he was much influenced by the writings of the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer and the music of the composer Richard Wagner.
xxxxxIn 1867 he carried out his national military service,
serving in an equestrian field artillery unit at Naumburg, and
then entered the University of Leipzig to continue his studies in
classical philology. It was here that he met Richard Wagner and
formed a close friendship with the composer which lasted for some
ten years. In 1869, on the strength of some philological articles,
published earlier, he was offered the chair of classical philology
at Basel University, Switzerland, and before taking up the
appointment at the age of 24, was awarded a doctorate in the
subject by Leipzig university. His ten-
xxxxxPerhaps not
surprisingly, in 1879 he resigned his post at the university. For
the next ten years he led a wandering existence, together with a
hectic life-
xxxxxWorthy of note among his early writings is The
Birth of Tragedy, published in 1872 while working at
Berne. In this he lamented the fact that the creative-
xxxxxHis major
works, quasi philosophical and strongly anti-
xxxxxImportant
among his last works, written in 1888, are The
Case of Wagner and Ecce Homo.
The first is a powerful criticism of his former friend. Having
heaped praise upon him in his earlier works -
xxxxxIt was only towards the end of his career when, in
fact, he was suffering from dementia, that his work began to be
recognised. Unfortunately, in the 1920s and 1930s his philosophy
was hijacked by the Nazi movement in Germany. The concept of a
superman or “lord of the earth”, who imposed his will upon the
weak and the worthless was particularly attractive to Herr Hitler,
the leader of the Nazi party. His interpretation of Nietzsche’s
philosophy was due in large part to the philosopher’s sister
Elizabeth. A firm believer in the Nazi ideals, and married to an
ardent anti-
xxxxxBut this
said, it is known that Hitler visited the Nietzsche Archives on a
number of occasions, and it is likely that he was familiar with
one or more of the philosopher’s books. Indeed, in his political
manifesto Mein Kampf, published in
1928, Hitler uses words and sentences very similar to those written in works such as Thus
Spoke Zarathrustra and Beyond Good and
Evil. Nietzsche was not anti-
xxxxxIncidentally, among those
influenced by the works of Nietzsche -
xxxxx…… The term Superman was popularized in the play Man and Superman, written by the Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw in 1903. A light comedy of errors, its plot puts forward the idea that in matters of love it is the women who force men to marry them, not the other way round.
Vc-