I read
Nietzsche's "Antichrist" and I am currently finishing reading
"Thus Spake Zarathustra". Both
of these works are quite engrossing as their content covers several major
themes. Primarily speaking, Nietzsche is
writing about religion, the "Superman" (Ubermensch), human
anthropology, society, time, sexual differentiation, psychology, and
philosophy.
Nietzsche's work is still popular in
western culture today; however, many of his views are distorted and put out of
context in their current guise. To truly
understand anything one must research carefully all necessary materials before
trying to make presumptive statements regarding the validity of such
claims.
After reading two
of his more popular publications I have come to the conclusion that Nietzsche's
work really extended human imagination at their time of publication. When thinking about the era in which his
works were published; 1850-1900, it is important to remember that he followed
great contemporaries such as Darwin and Marx who had also written on similar
topics. His theories extended and pushed
the limits of human awareness in their era and have continued to have an impact
on culture today which means that their impact is timeless.
From the works
that I have read, I believe that Nietzsche starts out on the right basis; as he
would say, at the "bottom". In
all honesty, Nietzsche's works are obviously not infallible. He is extremely chauvinistic, misogynistic,
and over-bearing in his writing style; nonetheless, he did the world a service
by calling us to carefully analyze human beings. I think that science and technology will
continue to play a key role in the development of his theories; likewise, we
still do not know enough about the human brain to adequately sweepingly prove
or disprove his all of his theories.
What we do know
is that Nietzsche lived life the way he wanted to, and he would certainly be
happy today to be labeled as the "Antichrist". The pathos of his struggle in life literally
flows through the pages of his works.
His isolation, loss of friendship, misanthropy, and feeling of being
different from everyone else are all feelings that I can relate to in my own
life. Clearly, the path Nietzsche took
in life propelled him down the road to philosophy; all philosophers need some
type of motivation to get them started writing.
Clearly,
Nietzsche feels that the "Holy Spirit" is a fancy doctrine which is
not based in the evolution of our species until the last couple of
centuries. In his mind, the whole of
Christian philosophy poisons reality and tries to make good humans act like
robots by denying our true instincts.
In some regards,
Nietzsche seems to express remorse that evolution did not take humans down a
different path, a path directly to his "Superman" or
"Ubermensch". In his mind,
today humans focus too much on sentimentalities and have foolishly forgotten
how animalistic we truly are.
Nietzsche's
ideas have captured the imagination of many people today who would probably
confess to have not read a single of his works.
In this way, I think that we have failed to even contend with Nietzsche
in regards to debating his ideas. After
reading his works, I can say for the first time that I can almost understand
Nietzsche. His mind, his fury, and his
desire all seep through the pages of his work expressing the passion of this
great philosopher.
In sum, the
endearing spirit of Nietzsche's work has in many ways left an indelible mark on
philosophy; however, as any amateur photographer will tell you polarized lenses
used incorrectly can blur the scene. Nietzsche
is abhorred with the fact that humans will continue to believe in what he would
say was a "terrible lie" as well as remain sentimental to others in
need. Regardless, of what culture you
are talking about human genetics and evolution have together carried these
"lesser" traits with us to our present time which probably means
there is a good reason for doing so.
Nietzsche really seems to express frustration with this fact;
furthermore, he rests all of his hopes with the next evolutionary change
towards reaching his "Superman".
To me, if
something exists there is a reason for its existence. Nietzsche did the world a great service for
showing us how much we are still shackled by our evolutionary forbearers;
however, he missed hitting a home run by not taking into account the endearing
qualities that persist in our species today as well. In all reality, humans are extremely
interesting, difficult, and strange creatures to fully-understand. Always convoluted in our personalities,
humans actually take on an almost pitiful existence when one realizes that we
still do not know the mystery of our own existence in the universe. The mysteries of the human brain and a myriad
of other left un-answered questions will need to wait until science and
technology can match the passion in which we desire to know the answers to the
questions that have persisted in haunting us.
Personally, I
feel that since every trait which evolution has selected for our species today
parallels our development as humans; therefore, in a word there must be a
"reason" why those traits are present. I would argue that these genes point towards
a biologically innate tendency to want to work together in groups; however,
Nietzsche might see it as an inevitable outcome of unwanted genes not being
exterminated from the gene pool through a natural "weeding out"
process. I would contend that our
ability to develop useful technology has allowed humans to avoid that evolutionary
struggle which seems manifest in all Nietzsche writes.
In closing, I
like how Nietzsche pushes us to reflect more on our actions as well. The spirit of introspection permeates his
works. As Socrates so famously coined,
"The unexamined life is not worth living". I feel that Nietzsche adds another layer of
complexity to our great body of knowledge on the human condition. I recommend his works to those curious who
about the human condition. I hope this
review of Nietzsche was entertaining; I know that writing it was for me!
