Friedrich Nietzsche Essay, Research Paper

Friedrich Nietzsche

Some call Friedrich Nietzsche the father of the Nazi party. Was

Nietzsche’s ideas twisted and warped by a needy country? Nietzsche himself

despised the middle and lower class people. Was it Nietzsche’s Will to Power

theory that spawned one of the greatest patriotic movements of the twentieth

century? These are some of the questions I had when first researching

Friedrich Nietzsche for the following paper.

Friedrich Nietzsche, at one time called “the arch enemy of

Christianity”(Bentley, p.82), was born into a line of Protestant Clergyman on

October 15, 1844. During Nietzsche’s early years, he gave no indication that he

would not follow in his families’ clergy tradition. As a boy, Nietzsche

considered himself a devout Lutheran. At age six(two years after his father

passed away)Nietzsche, his mother and sister moved to the small town of Naumburg.

When Nietzsche was twelve he wrote ?I saw God in all his glory?(Bentley, p.82).

Later his description of his own mental state was one of Gottergebenheit; ?

surrender to God?(Bentley, p.82). At a very early age Nietzsche had already

displayed an aptitude for highly intellectual prowess. At fourteen, Nietzsche

left his home of Naumburg and went to an exclusive boarding school at the nearby

Schulpforta Academy. The school was famous for its grandeur of alumni that

included ?Klopstock and Fichte?(Brett-Evans, p.76). ?It was here that

Nietzsche received the thorough education in Greek and Latin that set him upon

the road to classical philology.?(Brett-Evans, p. 76) On many occasions

Nietzsche’s zeal to prove himself at the Pforta school spurned legendary tales.

One certain tale is when Nietzsche ?could not bear to hear of the courage of

Mucius Scaevol, who did not flinch when his hand was burnt off, without seizing

a box of matches and firing them against his own hand.?(Bentley, p.84) At the

age of twenty, Nietzsche left to attend Bonn University. By this time Nietzsche

had come to think of himself as an ?aristocrat whose great virtues are

fearlessness and willingness to assume leadership.?(Bentley, p.85) Ironically,

Nietzsche planned to study theology(to please his mother). At this time

Nietzsche no longer believed in Christianity, because ?with maturity he lost his

heavenly father?(Bentley, p.86). In 1868 Nietzsche was a student in Leipzig.

This is when he met Cosima and Richard Wagner. The latter was a world-renowned

musical artist. Both of these individuals were crucial to Nietzsche’s

development as a philosopher.

Theognis was a poet of the sixth century B.C. This man supplied

Nietzsche with the idea that an aristocracy ?should be scientifically bred like

horses?(Bentley, p.85) When Nietzsche was twenty, he had acquired a diverse

set of opinions and attitudes. He had been taught to ?admire strong

politicians and to think of himself as an aristocrat whose great virtues are

fearlessness and willingness to assume leadership.?(Bentley, p. 85) Despite

his own personal efforts to be bad and mean, Nietzsche remained innocent and

caring. The first major school of thought that Nietzche adhered to was because

of the writings of Schopenhauer. After purchasing Artur Schopenhauer’s The

World as Will and Idea, a book on metaphysics, Nietzsche wrote, ?I saw a mirror

in which I espied the whole world, life and my own mind depicted in frightful

grandeur. In this volume the full celestial eye of art gazed at me; here I

saw illness and recovery, banishment and refuge, Hell and Heaven.?(Bentley,

p.87) Nietzsche went back and forth with these opposites for the rest of his

life. Deviant from Schopenhauer’s class theory, Nietzsche’s ?endeavor was not

so much to elevate the practical man to the first rank as to merge

Schopenhauer’s first three ranks into one superhuman being.?(Bentley, p.89) As

Nietzsche did with all of his youthful inspirations, he turned against

Schopenhauer. ?The name of Schopenhauer was the flag under which he was proud,

for a time, to advance.?(Bentley, p.89) The second major influence in

Nietzsche’s development was the Wagners, Richard and Cosima. Nietzsche was

captivated by Richard Wagner. Nietzsche personally thought the reason behind

this was Wagner’s musical art and talent. Nietzsche’s sister Elizabeth was ?

closer to the truth in her belief that what held Nietzsche was Wagner’s

tremendous will power and instinct of command. Wagner, Nietzsche thought for a

time, was the highest of higher men and he held the key to a new epoch of art

and and new epoch of life.?(Bentley, p. 91) Wagner was the only man Nietzsche

knew that personified his will-to-power theory. In essence, Wager was

Nietzsche’s superman.

Nietzsche is given credit for the National Socialism movement in Germany

that began in the 1930’s. Far more damaging to his reputation has been the

course of German history from his death(1900) to 1945. ?To claim him, as

National Socialism did, as a prophet of the superiority of the Germanic race

and an advocate of German world domination is only possible by ignoring the

greater part of what he wrote.?(Brett-Evans, p.81) Matter-of-factly, Nietzsche

sternly despised anti-Semites. At certain times, there was not a harsher

critic of racist German nationlism. But some questions arise out of these

statements. What of the comments Nietzsche made concerning the ?will-to-power?

theory, the constant reference to the ?superman?, and his sometimes vigorous

patriotism? One of the most significant contributions Nietzsche made was in

the area of psychology not philosophy. One of the ?most significant

conclusions he came to in this field was that traditional morality consists of

different expressions for the same thing, that “good” actions and “bad” actions

can ultimately derive from the same motive.?(Brett-Evans, p.80) In truth I

believe that Friedrich Nietzsche was a visionary who was never able to replace

his earthly Father or his heavenly Father. This led to his strange emotional

relationship with women. His only friends were those women who he had failed

relationships with and men who he quarreled with. In the end, Nietzsche died of

syphilis that was allegedly contracted while in college.