Notes on the Basics of Nietzsche

Friedrich Nietzsche, a 19th-century German philosopher, is known for his radical and thought-provoking ideas that continue to influence modern philosophy. In this blog post, we will explore the fundamental concepts of Nietzsche's philosophy.

Nietzsche constructed a genealogy for morality that is upheld in modern society. The initial form of morality was set by a warrior aristocracy and other ruling castes of ancient civilizations. Aristocratic values of good and bad coincided with their relationship to lower classes. Thus the moral values were that of strength and power. He believed that those who lacked power and authority resented those who held it, leading to a moral inversion. This inversion resulted in a society where once-weak qualities became virtues, and attributes of strength and pride were deemed immoral. This is known as the “Slave Revolt in Morality”. He believed that those who were historically powerless i.e slaves, such as the Jews according to him, resented the power and strength of those in authority and redefined moral values to favor qualities like humility, meekness, and compassion once the slaves took power by creating the religion of Christianity. Nietzsche believed that this inversion of values led to a situation where qualities that were once seen as weak became virtues, and qualities associated with strength and power such as pride were deemed immoral. The inversion of values was a negative for society and created weak people with a nihilistic outlook on life. He suggests that the emergence of conscience and guilt is linked to the development of social customs and moral values. According to Nietzsche, the imposition of moral constraints by society leads to a sense of guilt and bad conscience in individuals who deviate from these norms. This bad conscience found meaning in religion and especially in Christianity which claimed that humans are sinful by nature. Central to Nietzsche's philosophy is the concept of the Übermensch, or Overman, an individual who rises above societal constraints to create their own values based on strength, creativity, and self-mastery. This figure represents a departure from the constraints of conventional morality. In his book, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche writes, “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him”. This statement reflects his belief in the decline of religious influence in society and the need for new values to fill the void. Nietzsche portrayed Zarathustra, or Zoroaster as the ideal man or the Übermensch, and due to his negative outlook on the morals of Christianity, crafted a counter-Gospel and thus an inversion to the figure of Christ. The direct opposite of the Übermensch is called the Last Man.

Nietzsche introduced the concept of eternal recurrence, suggesting that everyone is living the same lives over and over again eternally. He encouraged individuals to embrace it and thus individuals should live in a way that would make them willing to relive their lives endlessly to avoid falling into Nihilism as expressed in his book, The Gay Science,

“What if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness, and say to you, "This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence" ... Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: "You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine."

Nietzsche's philosophy also explores the concept of the "will to power," which represents the continual effort to overcome the obstacles that get in one's way and overcoming oneself in pursuit of one's goals and values. He believes that this concept is inherent in humanity and must not be suppressed. True power is that of a roman emperor for example, whatever he wants he gets instantly. Contrast this with the slave or philosopher. The slave or philosopher must argue for their rights since they have no true power and this is why he despised them. Truth is not what philosophers attempt to seek, it is instead power. The world is just a struggle of competing wills. There is no objective truth for Nietzsche, only different perspectives.     

     Nietzsche said that the wisest philosophers all claimed that life is not worth living and full of suffering but he is against this and against the fact that one can make an objective evaluation of life altogether. When philosophers such as Schopenhauer predicate negativity to the world, they are mirroring themselves, weak-willed individuals, onto the world rather than positing any truth. Humans cannot judge life since they are taking part in it. Only a sick-man interprets life as sick. Furthermore, the ugly Socrates took advantage of the dying Athenian society and used his only weapon, reason, and made it a tyrant over happiness. However, what Socrates preached, turning away from human instinct, is the definition of true delusion. Therefore, we just return to pre-socratic ideals. He calls Socrates ugly in both body and spirit because he brought about the domination of the Apollonian spirit over the Dionysian. Apollo represents the Apollonian aspect, associated with order, rationality, and beauty. Dionysus, on the other hand, embodies the Dionysian aspect, characterized by chaos, intoxication, emotion, and the dissolution of boundaries. The Dionysian spirit is connected to music, dance, and the collective experience of ecstasy. It represents a more primal and irrational force and there needs to be a balance between these two forces. Going against our instincts extinguishes the flames our passions and this is what morality is based on, especially Christian morals. To remove the passions in life is to remove life altogether. Society has become weak due the overabundance of the weak individuals and therefore they hold to the morality and worldview of Schopenhauer and Christianity. For example, if one sees a table of gold, the strong would attempt to take it over and defend it while the weak, knowing they can never get it from the strong, make an excuse of being meek and preach against greed and will use their intellect to attempt to overcome the strong so they can become weak too and this occurs in every society. One should instead embrace their own natural instincts and move beyond morality to become the Übermensch. Socrates was representative of the decay of Hellenistic values. Ugliness used to be a straightforward refutation in Ancient Greece, and yet Socrates was taken seriously. The only way for this to happen was the decadence of Greek culture.

     Nietzsche believed that pity is one of the worst traits one could predicate of themselves and it is the central theme of Christianity. One turns away from their true focus, themselves, to aid another. It seems that Nietzsche wants to maximize individuality whereas having pity for another is a denial of life or nihilism as it is the reverse of his will to power. While Christianity says to love thy neighbor, Nietzsche labels this as a slave morality as pity favors the weak until all that remains is weakness which leads to nihilism. His attack on Christianity furthers with his attack on Kant and other idealists, that they have a suspicion about the true nature or ontological status of reality. Abstract concepts that philosophers hold to such as truth do not exist in the material world and therefore must come from another realm, a heaven for the Christians or the Will for Schopenhauer, or the noumena for Kant. Therefore, in a nihilistic fashion, the Christian and the philosopher put God and heaven above the real world thus flipping the order of importance and of morality as ethics is based on metaphysics according to the philosophers and theologians and the metaphysics is flipped to favor heaven. The only "good" for Nietzsche is an individual striving for power and the only "bad" for him is this drive being suppressed.