Friedrich Nietzsche

Friedrich Nietzsche biography

Friedrich Nietzsche's biography begins in in Röcken, Germany on October 15, 1844. Unfortunately in 1849 when Friedrich was five years old his father, a devout Lutheran pastor, passed away from a brain ailment. To make matters worse, his brother died 6 months later at the age of two.

From a young age, Nietzsche showed a strong intellect and a great interest in several subjects including music, theology, philosophy, and language. Nietzsche learned Latin, Greek, Hebrew, and French, composed music, wrote poetry, and was a vigorous reader.

After moving around some as a child and excelling in school Nietzsche was accepted to the University of Bonn in 1864 where he began his studies in theology and philology with the intent of becoming a minister. However, Nietzsche quickly grew disenchanted with his religious beliefs and abandoned his theological studies in favour of philology.

Fig. 1, Portrait of Nietzsche, 1964

After completing his degree in philology at the University of Bonn Nietzsche was offered a full professorship in classical philology at the University of Basel in Switzerland at the age of 24. He worked at the university until 1879 at which point he retired because of medical issues which had plagued him his entire life and increased in severity with age. In 1889 Nietzsche suffered a mental breakdown while in Italy and was never able to recover from it, he would remain in the care of his mother until her death and would then be taken care of by his sister Elizabeth until he died in August of 1900.

Friedrich Nietzsche Existentialism

Friedrich Nietzsche and the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard are largely credited with starting the school of existentialism within philosophy. Existentialism, as it was formulated in the mid and end 19th century was born out of the rapidly declining belief in religion throughout Europe, specifically Christianity. Before moving into Nietzsche's discussion of existential questions we must first take a look at what existentialism is.

Existentialism asks questions such as, is there a purpose in life? Is there any meaning embedded in the universe? Does God exist? An existential answer to the first two questions would be a resounding no. For existentialism life is void of any preordained purpose, there is no destiny or greater reason for existence built into the universe. Instead, we have to create purpose and meaning for ourselves.

Friedrich Nietzsche and religion

Friedrich Nietzsche has some very strong views on religion. If we think back to those three questions we asked earlier; is there a purpose in life? Is there any meaning embedded in the universe? Does God exist?

For the third question, does God exist, the answers vary greatly in existentialism because it allows for the existence or non-existence of God. For Søren Kierkegaard, Christianity was the best way to answer these questions but for Nietzsche;

This quote is from Human, All Too Human, one of Nietzsche's first major work and clearly indicates a massive problem settling into Western culture. Nietzsche was no fan of Christianity and much of his work places Christianity (and religion more generally) in its crosshairs. However, Nietzsche did not do this simply because he disliked religion but because he saw a major cultural shock coming in the future caused by the enlightenment's erosion of religious truth in favour of scientific truth.

The above quote reflects Nietzsche's fear, notice how the tone and wording is not celebratory, but worried and grave. The "death of God" also meant the death of meaning, purpose, Christian morality (which Nietzsche greatly disliked), and a story for understanding humanity and its actions. The rapid reduction in religious truth in favour of scientific truth meant that people had to accept scientific truth which Nietsche argued is fundamentally incapable of providing the same psychological security as religious truth.

Fig. 1, The cover of Thus Spoke Zarathustra

The second response to a universe with no meaning built into it and destined for death is something known as nihilism.

Nihilism

Before jumping into a discussion of Nietzsche and nihilism let's start with a basic definition of the term.

It is not uncommon to hear Nietzsche's name associated with nihilism or even the claim that Nietzsche himself was a nihilist, but this is not the case. Nietzsche's work is in many ways an antidote to nihilism as he thought that nihilism was the direction the entire West was heading. As religion began to crack and give way to scientific truth Nietzsche argued that all of civilisation would be sent into a nihilistic world view and he wrote for a future-facing this crisis of meaning and looking for answers. He specifically points out that his work was meant for future generations and not his own, which he believed would not understand him.

Nietzsche welcomes nihilism only in so far as it is a fertile ground for the creation of meaning and argues to his readers that instead of creating new gods, they should create new values grounded in the real world. Nietzsche saw no point in creating a system of morals and values based on a God or something which is not on Earth. For him, humanity always gave the best of itself to the service of gods and religion as opposed to giving its best to humanity and the improvement of the human being.

He further suggested that the suffering which will spring from this societal existential crisis should be embraced and celebrated. Nietzsche recognised that a life void of meaning not only led to suffering which would have to be embraced and transformed into something else but that humans would find new things to replace God with:

For Nietzsche, this shadow on the wall was the state and in the next section, we will explore, through Nietzsche's own words, what he meant by this.

Friedrich Nietzsche quotes

Nietzsche had an incredibly pessimistic view of the state and also greatly disagreed with the ideas of social contract theorists who argued that the state came into existence through a kind of contract between the governed and those who govern.

In this quote, Nietzsche is arguing that it was an act of violence by a few against an unorganised populace that brought the state into existence. For Nietzsche, a strong few with no obstruction can subjugate an entire population against its will, as was the case with Germany only 30 years after his death.

This quote reflects Nietzsche's opinion that the state will create people in its image as religion did throughout history. When he says "I, the state, am the people" he is saying that the state sees itself as a representation of the people.

Here Nietzsche is pointing out that if the individual obeys the state as the individual obeyed God the state will give the individual something in return. Where religion generally offers some form of eternal existence in heaven, the state offers some type of lifestyle or a utopian dream. Nazi Germany is a great example of this, in return for total obedience to the Nazi state, the state would provide a new way of existence, a perfect life that is unparalleled but only once certain conditions were met that the people had to work towards.

Fig. 3, Friedrich Nietzsche towards the end of his life after his mental breakdown