Friedrich Nietzsche

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) was a German philosopher of the late 19th century who challenged the foundations of Christianity and traditional morality. He was interested in the enhancement of individual and cultural health, and believed in life, creativity, power, and the realities of the world we live in, rather than those situated in a world beyond. Central to his philosophy is the idea of “life-affirmation,” which involves an honest questioning of all doctrines that drain life's expansive energies, however socially prevalent those views might be. Often referred to as one of the first existentialist philosophers along with Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855), Nietzsche's revitalizing philosophy has inspired leading figures in all walks of cultural life, including dancers, poets, novelists, painters, psychologists, philosophers, sociologists and social revolutionaries.

It was the idea, the heroic resignation of the will, that turned Wagner's greatest disciple into his harshest critic. When he first met the composer, Friedrich Nietzsche believed he had found the paragon of all his dreams: a man of genius, strength of will, and the desire to rule. Here was proof that the possibility of greatness still existed in human nature. For the awestruck Nietzsche, Wagner was "the highest of higher men, holding the key to a new epoch of art and life. . . a premonition of the superman". Concerning the master's heroic creation Siegfried, Nietzsche praised him as the truly free human being beyond good and evil, man on his own as he must be after the death of God (Wotan). However, with time Nietzsche began to see cracks in his living idol, disapproving of Wagner’s bourgeois, hedonistic lifestyle, his petty, temperamental egomania, his fanatical German nationalism, his anti-Semitism. Likewise, the character of Siegfried became for him less than superhuman, in fact all too human: an ignorant brute driven by blind instinct, a descendant of Rousseau's natural man whom Nietzsche considered a regressive failure, not a superior being. Rather than return to nature, man needs to conquer his own nature, to ascend above, not descend below his present state.

Nietzsche's break with Wagner parallels his dissatisfaction with Schopenhauer. Once a disciple himself, Nietzsche turned against the philosopher's pessimism about the will. He called Schopenhauer the philosopher of decadence and Wagner the artist of decadence, citing the composer's predilection for associating eroticism with religion (Parsifal) and death (Tristan). Unlike Siegfried the hero of renunciation, Nietzsche's man of the future would redeem humanity "not only from the prevailing [inadequate] ideal but also from what it was bound to lead to – from the great loathing, from the will to nothingness, from nihilism. . . . This antichrist and anti-nihilist, this conqueror of God and nothingness – some day he must come", (Nietzsche’s emphasis). After the death of God, Schopenhauer had allowed himself to become enslaved again, this time to the all-powerful will. Nietzsche, however, refused to believe that the will was evil or uncontrollable. He accepted Schopenhauer's basic premise of the will as the fundamental, driving force of all existence but applied Fichte's evaluation of this force as positive and good. Against the denial of the will, he offered his philosophy of the will-to-power.

In many of his ideas Nietzsche was preceded by Thomas Carlyle in his 1840 lectures "On Heroes, Hero Worship, and the Heroic in History." Carlyle’s basic tenet, "That great men should rule and that others should revere them," is supported by a complex faith in history and evolutionary progress. Societies, like organisms, evolve throughout history, thrive for a time, but inevitably become weak and die out, giving place to a stronger, superior breed. Heroes are those who affirm this life process, accepting its cruelty as necessary and thus good. For them courage is a more valuable virtue than love; heroes are noblemen, not saints. The hero functions first as a pattern for others to imitate, and second as a creator, moving history forwards not backwards (history being the biography of great men). Carlyle was among the first of his age to recognize that the death of God is in itself nothing to be happy about, unless man steps in and creates new values to replace the old. For Carlyle the hero should become the object of worship, the center of a new religion proclaiming humanity as “the miracle of miracles. . . the only divinity we can know." For Carlyle's creed Bentley proposes the name Heroic Vitalism, a term embracing both a political theory, Aristocratic Radicalism, and a metaphysic, Supernatural Naturalism. The Heroic Vitalists feared that the recent trends toward democracy would hand over power to the ill-bred, uneducated, and immoral, whereas their belief in a transcendent force in nature directing itself onward and upward gave some hope that this force would overrule in favor of the strong, intelligent, and noble.

Nietzsche agreed with much of Carlyle's hero worship, transferring many qualities of the hero to his concept of the superman. He believed that the hero should be revered, not for the good he has done for the people, but simply out of admiration for the marvelous. The hero justifies himself as a man chosen by destiny to be great. In the life struggle he is a conqueror, growing stronger through conflict. The hero is not ashamed of his strength; instead of the Christian virtues of meekness, humility and compassion, he abides by the beatitudes of Heroic Vitalism: courage, nobility, pride, and the right to rule. His slogan: “The good old rule, the simple plan, that he should keep who has the power, and he should take who can".

With such a philosophy one might think that Nietzsche would have embraced wholeheartedly the views of Charles Darwin, especially his thesis of the survival of the fittest. However, like Carlyle before him and Shaw after him, Nietzsche saw the dark side of Darwin's removal of the metaphysical dimension from the universe. The idea of God had given meaning and purpose to human existence. Without God man was no longer made in His image, no divine spark dwelt in him, and his life had no higher significance than that of the animals. Nietzsche did not argue with the scientific truth of this thesis, but he dreaded the consequences if human beings did not take it on themselves to make their lives significant and meaningful. He criticized the inconsistency of those who rejoiced in their new freedom from God but continued to cling to Christian morality as if nothing had changed. Nietzsche grasped the fact that everything had changed, and that it was time for man to accept his new responsibilities as the only divinity in the universe.

Although he saw this new reality as a reason for hope, he became bitterly discouraged at the evidence around him that the current race of homo sapiens was woefully unfit for the challenge. To those who boasted that man had reached the pinnacle of evolution, Nietzsche protested, "Overproud Europeans of the 19th century, you are raving mad!" Eventually he abandoned his search for the new man in the present, turning to the future to his vision of the superman.

Nietzsche's philosophy stands on three main pillars: the superman, the will-to-power, and eternal recurrence. These beliefs replace the Christian doctrines of God, divine salvation, and eternal life. As substitutes for religious concepts, all three ideas defy definition, remaining in the realm of the poetic, the emotive, and the mysterious. As Bentley says, "Without mystery the superman would evaporate". Nietzsche's spokesman Zarathustra usually describes the superman in contrasting images: man is only a rope stretched over an abyss between beast and superman: as man is to ape, so superman will be to man: man is a lake rising higher and higher now that he does not drain away into a God. In a more comprehensive metaphor Zarathustra explains that man is a polluted stream. The Christian solution has been to remove the pollution, but when this is done, very little remains. The superman, however, will be so large a sea that he can accommodate the pollution without harm. Christianity has told men to abstain from evil, for one who touches pitch becomes defiled. The superman knows that there is no defilement in pitch, no such thing as evil, for all that exists is necessary.

Nietzsche had no conception of a super-race; he spoke only of the individual. He did not share Wagner's interest in the Volk or his belief in a race soul. Hitler's idea of a pure race would have been absurd to Nietzsche, for only through conflict between the races does advancement occur. For Nietzsche the "lesson of existence" is that only great individuals matter, those who raise themselves above their animal nature, their baser instincts for mere pleasure: “Mankind must work continually to produce great individuals – this and nothing else is its task”.

The human being separates himself from the animal kingdom through the exercise of the will-to-power. This concept means more than the natural desire for self-preservation. Nietzsche believed that human beings have a psychological need for power, a need to vent their strength, to assert themselves, to dominate. Such a view would seem an excuse for tyranny and sadism except that Nietzsche posits self-mastery, power over self, as the ultimate goal of the will-to-power. The superman is the one strong enough to overcome himself. This feat restores the distinction between man and animal that Darwin had eliminated, without the help of metaphysics.

It is true, however, that Nietzsche desired men to encourage the passions that lead to evil, for they are also the source of strength needed to achieve the most difficult of tasks, the mastery of self. He felt great wickedness was preferable to weakness, for it gives ground for hope: "Where there is great crime there is also great energy, great will-to-power, consequently the possibility of self-overcoming". The will can be controlled. but it takes the strength of a superman to do it.

Once he reaches this level, the superman can accept himself as he is and all that brought him to this point, saying Yes to his pain and suffering as well as his joys and triumphs. He attains to the supreme moment of existence when he would be content to relive his entire life with its good and its evil; this is the idea of eternal recurrence. Nietzsche speculated that if space and energy are limited but time infinite, then a point would eventually be reached when all possible combinations of events would exhaust themselves and the process would begin again. Whether or not the theory is true, Nietzsche felt men had an ethical imperative to live as if it were true, to live in such a way that they would will to live the same life again and again for eternity (in contrast to Schopenhauer’s Buddhist desire for redemption from rebirth). For the superman this affirmation of life is the highest achievement of the will-to-power.

Nietzsche is often accused of being a pessimist, an anarchist, and a nihilist. He was pessimistic about the man of the 19th century but not about life itself. He did exalt the individual who lives beyond good and evil but only after he has achieved mastery of himself. He recognized the loss of all values and meaning but only as a presupposition, the beginning not the end of his philosophy. In place of God he put the superman, a superior being but still one of us, who says Yes to life and the possibility of human greatness.

Richard Wagner

As Jacques Barzun argued, Darwin and Marx with their scientific and political revolutions were not the only ones to reshape the previous century. In similar fashion Richard Wagner altered the way his contemporaries thought about the arts. Wagner has a decidedly mixed reputation, being either praised as the champion of German music and culture or blamed as the inspiration of decadent art and the grandfather of Nazism. These conflicting evaluations stem partly from Wagner's complex ambitions. Not satisfied with composing music, he wanted to change the world through his artwork of the future. In 1849 Wagner wrote, "My task is this: to bring revolution wherever I go" as he felt that "the hope of a regenerated state is linked with a cultural revolution effected through the popular art of the theater" (Barzun 232). In his music-dramas he depicted inspiring tales of heroism and valor taken from German myth and legend in order to awaken in the German people an awareness of their potential greatness.

Although it took him 25 years to realize his dream on the stage, early in his career Wagner discovered his ideal vision of the Aryan race in the figure of Siegfried from Norse and Germanic mythology. For him Siegfried represented "the true human being," not a conventional figure of history who interests us more for the details of his life but someone "purely human" (McCreless 55). This perfect being did not as yet exist; as Wagner explained, "Siegfried is the man of the future whom we long for but cannot ourselves bring into being, who must create himself by our destruction." He will herald a new heroic faith to succeed the old Christianity: at Wotan's words, "The god gives place to the eternally young [Siegfried]," Wagner told the singer, "It should sound like the announcement of a new religion" (Bentley 1, 58).

Originally Wagner planned to portray the protagonist's tragedy in one music-drama, The Death of Siegfried, the first sketch completed in 1848. Wagner then decided to preface this drama with an heroic comedy about the exploits of young Siegfried who kills a dragon and awakens a sleeping damsel with a kiss. In Young Siegfried (as part 3 was originally called) Siegfried grows up in the forest as a rowdy, boisterous, naive innocent of immense strength and prowess who thinks of bears and dragons as no more than playmates. He is loud, violent, and arrogant, a man of impulsive action rather than thought. He knows nothing of the ways of gods or men and little about the world outside of the forest. Siegfried defeats representatives of the three older races – Fafner the stupid giant, Mime the crafty Nibelung, and Wotan the ruler of the gods – without realizing the significance of his deeds. In Bentley's words he is “a crude emanation of the Vital Energy" or Life Force, as yet undeveloped (153).

Only in the final scene with Brunnhilde is Siegfried transformed into the mature romantic hero, and only then does he take on the stature to fulfill the lofty role Wotan has set for him. With Brunnhilde at his side Siegfried can now establish a new world order, one ruled by the natural bonds of love and not the unnatural restrictions of law and power. In The Death of Siegfried, the promise of the superior Walsung race is cut short by Hagen's treachery, but in the original ending even death does not defeat Siegfried. In her role as Valkyrie, Brunnhilde brings him back to life and takes him in triumph to Valhalla (not destroyed by fire in the 1848 version) to be welcomed by the gods as their new ruler (McCreless 9).

The final tragedy of Siegfried follows Aristotelian guidelines to some degree. When he first learns the fateful history of the ring from the Rhinedaughters, Siegfried scorns the danger of its curse and refuses to give it back (error, hamartia), for it represents a symbol of his conquests in battle and in love. This show of pride and possessiveness places him for the first time under the power of the ring's curse, opening the way for his first and only defeat (reversal, peripeteia) in the form of Hagen's spear. Just before his death, the spell of forgetfulness leaves Siegfried and he remembers his true love for Brunnhilde; he dies recognizing (cognitio) that he betrayed her and seems to envision their reunion beyond the grave.

However much Wagner conforms to the tradition that the hero must be aware of the cause of his destruction, a much more significant criterion for him is that he must above all follow his most human, his most natural instincts regardless of the consequences (McCreless 7). In Opera and Drama (1851) Wagner praised Antigone as the greatest of tragic figures because she upheld natural law in opposition to the unnatural laws of the state. Conversely, Wagner criticized Sophocles' treatment of Oedipus because in breaking the incest taboo, Oedipus violated no natural law, only the social norm. In Wagner's opinion we should be repulsed at Oedipus' punishment for a wrong he committed in ignorance and which nature does not condemn.

In this analysis, which applies to his own dramas as well, Wagner contrasts two systems of morality: the old, life-frustrating, restrictive law code enforced by the state and church, and the spontaneous, life-affirming ethic of a fully aware human being. The representatives of the former, Creon and Wotan, can function only by means of the arbitrary exercise of power. Representing the latter, Antigone and Siegfried are free to follow the leading of inner necessity. Both these children of incestuous unions were born to be taboo-breakers who challenge conventional morality (Rather 55). However, as Nietzsche and Shaw both echo later, Wagner warned that society will condemn and put to death these defenders of "the free self-determination of the individual," branding them immoral without recognizing that they are living according to a higher, more human standard of morality.

Wagner's concept of this natural law of love was influenced by the writings of Ludwig Feuerbach to whom the composer dedicated his 1849 essay "The Artwork of the Future." For Feuerbach a philosophy based on metaphysical speculation or theological symbolism (i.e. the abstract religious idealism of Hegel) did not satisfy the needs of daily human existence. He proposed a more immediate, sensuous philosophy based on love, defining both epistemology and existence in terms of love: "What is not loved, what cannot be loved, is nothing. . . . Where there is no love there is also no truth. And only something that loves something exists; not to be and not to love is the same thing" (in Rather 66).

For Wagner the ultimate form of love was eros, sexual love: "Love in its fullest actuality is possible only between the sexes . . . all other love is only derived from that love, flows from it, relates itself to it or artificially imitates it" (in Rather 65). In Wagner's mythical universe Alberich's renunciation of love is the original sin that spoils the garden of Eden, and only the uniting of perfect lovers in supreme passion can bring redemption. In fact, Wagner cannot conceive of his savior Siegfried without Brunnhilde: "Siegfried alone (man by himself) is not the complete human being; he is merely the half. It is only along with Brunnhilde that he becomes the redeemer. To the isolated being not all things are possible; there is need of more than one, and it is woman, suffering and willing to sacrifice herself, who becomes at last the real, conscious redeemer" (in McCreless 5). The superman is not complete without the superwoman. In fact, it is Brunnhilde's supreme love, willing to reunite with Siegfried in death, that proves worthy to redeem their sins of mutual betrayal and to restore the natural order by returning the ring.

This philosophy of love which Wagner expounded to his friends as an answer to the Ring Cycle's mysteries did not satisfy all their criticism, nor was Wagner himself pleased with it for long. By the time it reached completion in 1852, the text of the four-night saga had taken on a dark, pessimistic tone. The conjoining of the Siegfried story with the fall of the gods, an element not found in any of the sources but of Wagner's own conception, placed on the entire work a somber shadow of nihilism and despair. It was not until he read the works of Arthur Schopenhauer in 1854 that Wagner found a philosophical system to explain his artistic intuition.

The keystone of Schopenhauer's thought is the concept of the denial of the will. The individual is not free but is at the mercy of the will, the ultimate primeval force underlying all existence. As the individual manifestation of the will exerts itself in the world, it comes into conflict with other individual wills, causing suffering and unhappiness. The only escape from this cruel but necessary state of struggle is the individual's denial of the will in deference to others. One must live the life of an ascetic or saint, denying all personal pleasures and desires, until the release of death, the ultimate renunciation of will and the only true good. (Schopenhauer rejected suicide as an ultimately selfish act.) Even sexual love becomes a means of asserting one's will by treating the beloved as a possession for one's own gratification. Agape, self-sacrificing universal compassion, replaces eros as the supreme form of love.

To his astonishment Wagner felt that Schopenhauer understood his masterwork more deeply than he himself did. He now realized that Wotan, not Siegfried, was the main tragic figure of the Ring, that it was his act of renunciation in atonement for his ruthless greed that formed the core of the legend and explained the significance of the fall of the gods. The climax of the entire work comes in Siegfried act 3 when Wotan acknowledges to Erda that he willingly accepts his inevitable doom (cognitio) and then loses to Siegfried in combat (peripeteia). The will that once ruled the world now wills to renounce its claims, relinquishing them to another race. Furthermore, the deaths of Siegfried and Brunnhilde are now seen as earthly images of Wotan's renunciation, their funeral pyre reflecting the conflagration of Valhalla. Their supreme love cannot save them, for by refusing initially to surrender the ring, symbol of their erotic love, for the universal good, they place selfish eros above selfless agape. One must renounce not only greed for power but sexual love as well if it conflicts with the needs of others.

With Nietzsche on the Road to Power

Three ideas that Nietzsche formulated bear mention in this context: the will to power; the concept of the overman, or superman; and the contrast between what Nietzsche called a "slave morality" and a "master morality."

By will to power Nietzsche meant the urge to dominate or master. He saw this urge as being a primary force in all life, including in man. The will to power, according to Nietzsche, explains the human tendency to press forward--often in the face of great strain, tension, and pain, and even the prospect of death--to accomplish tasks that allow one to feel powerful, capable, and strong. Some have misinterpreted Nietzsche as equating the will to power with domination and mastery over other people. Much more, Nietzsche was talking about power over one's self. He wasn't really interested in political or economic power. What he most cared about was self-mastery and self-overcoming--becoming better than one is now.

Nietzsche saw the will to power as the force that gives a unique value to human life. He thought that mankind could use this force consciously to become the embodiment of the vision of a higher form of man that he articulated. He imagined human beings mastering their own energies and channeling them so as to serve the process of transforming themselves into beings of boundless passion, fierce joy, and creative might. These creatures would be the overmen, or supermen. They would embody our glorious destiny.

But there is one obstacle in the way of achieving the superman that Nietzsche perceived, and it takes the form of a set of moral values--that is to say, concepts of right and wrong. Nietzsche called that set of moral values that stood in the way of the development of the superman the "slave morality." He contended that the slave morality is the product of the fear and resentment of the strong and accomplished by the weak and less able. He accused the Christian church of articulating and legitimizing the resentment of the common people against the masterful people in order to gain power for itself. The church encourages lesser people to define their own weakness as good and the aggressive strength and mastery of their betters as bad, said Nietzsche. According to the slave morality, pride and ferocity are bad and meekness and humility are good; and tough-mindedness is bad and sentimentality is good. The slave morality condemns self-assertion as arrogance, perverts the body and sexuality with shame, and undercuts earthly life by extolling an illusionary afterlife. Nietzsche saw the slave morality as essentially a denial of life.

Nietzsche called for a new, master morality which will affirm life pursued with zeal, promote self-transcendence, and eliminate a preoccupation with guilt. Nietzsche implored man to remain faithful to this earth. Instead of constructing an ideal above the clouds that only underscores human inferiority, he wanted us to conceive of a higher type of humanity and exert ourselves to realize it. But in order to embark on that adventure, he contended, we have to expunge the morality that keeps us enslaved. The superman and the means of creating this being must become the standard of value, said Nietzsche.

"Behold, I teach you the Superman. The Superman is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: The Superman shall be the meaning of the earth!"

"Man is a rope, fastened between animal and Superman--a rope over an abyss. A dangerous going-across, a dangerous wayfaring, a dangerous looking-back, a dangerous shuddering and staying-still. What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal; what can be loved in man is that he is a going-across."

"I love all those who are like heavy drops falling singly from the dark cloud that hangs over mankind: they prophesy the coming of the lightning and as prophets they perish. Behold, I am a prophet of the lightning and a heavy drop from the cloud: but this lightning is called Superman."

Nietzsche spent a lot of time in his writings, and especially in Zarathustra, lamenting human frailties and foolishness and looking forward to the time when we will overcome these things. To Nietzsche, the Superman embodies the ideal outcome of this process of overcoming. The Superman represents what man can become at his best. The Superman does not exist as yet. He is not yet born. But he will be born out of mankind. He isn't some kind of separate or transcendent being. So it comes down to an evolutionary job, a breeding job, which is to be completed over, probably, a great period of time. The task of those alive now is to prepare the earth for the Superman, pave the way, serve this process.

I think we can get some hints or partial ideas of what the Superman is like by looking at the range of qualities we see in ourselves and other people today and in people in the past, and then putting those qualities on a scale of low to high based on Nietzschean values, and then extrapolating to the very highest ideal. I think that gets us heading in the right direction.

The qualities that are at the top of the scale: Wisdom is one--wisdom grounded in objectivity, the ability to see the world as it really is. And there's courage, not being fearful or cowardly. Self-mastery is one--in fact, this is probably the most valuable trait a person can have. And willpower, the ability to use fully all of the talents and strengths that you have and not succumbing to weaknesses, and being able to stick to a task once you've made the decision to do something, putting everything else aside and focusing your ability and energy on accomplishing that task. Those are some that I put at the top of the list.

Through intelligent child raising and educational approaches. We can greatly improve in this area over what ends up being the case with people today. That is why I think permissiveness is such a destructive way of raising kids. The only way a child learns self-control that he can exercise as an adult is if external discipline is applied to him when he is young. It is only when a child is given a task to do and he knows that he must do it or there will be hell to pay can he develop the strengths that will support him in overcoming hardship and adversity and getting really big jobs done in later life.

The philosophy today so often is that children shouldn't be pushed to do things they don't want to do, and that they should never have to experience failure or the consequences of failure, and that there should always be a way out. I think it is disastrous to teach kids that there are no real consequences, that nothing bad is really going to happen to you if you goof off when you have been told to do something. It just trains people to behave that way.

What I see in Nietzsche is a striving for a higher type of humanity. To me, that means a more beautiful, more noble human being and human existence. You see that throughout Nietzsche, and to me that is the core of his teaching.