Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a philosopher, philologist, cultural critic, poet, composer, and thinker. His major works include The Will to Power, The Birth of Tragedy, An Anachronistic Investigation, So Says Zarathustra, Philosophy in the Age of Greek Tragedy, and On the Genealogy of Morality.
At the age of 24 Nietzsche became professor of classical philology in the German-speaking region of the University of Basel, Switzerland, specializing in ancient Greek and Latin literature. However, he resigned in 1879 due to health problems and has been suffering from mental illness ever since. Nietzsche had a nervous breakdown in 1889 and never recovered, living under the care of his mother and sister until his death in 1900.
Nietzsche's writings provide a broad critique and discussion of religion, morality, modern culture, philosophy, and science. His writing style is unique, often using techniques of aphorisms and paradoxes. Nietzsche had a great influence on the development of later generations of philosophies, especially in existentialism and postmodernism.
The real value of Nietzsche's thought lies in the deepening of human consciousness, and his assertion of human psychogenesis raises the level of human self-knowledge. His presence allows every well of thought to be dug deeper, and as to how others use Nietzsche's pickaxe, it is not something that Nietzsche himself can restrain. Nietzsche spent his life trying to heal himself. In the last days of Nietzsche's consciousness, he wept bitterly in the arms of a beaten horse in Turin, Italy, and there were already countless scholars who hoped to penetrate Nietzsche's heart at that moment, and I preferred to believe that Nietzsche, like Raskonikov, had regained "sympathy", a feeling that he had always hated, that he was no longer "superman", that he was a man.
Nietzsche's philosophy collapsed, Christ triumphed, and this was the life of Nietzsche the Antichrist. (In My Sister and Me, a possible forgery of Nietzsche's work, Nie uses a frantic whispering reference to Christ defeating him.) ）
【Biography】
↑↑↑1861 17-year-old Nietzsche
Friedrich Nietzsche was born on 15 October 1844 to a clergyman's family in the village of Lokken near Saxony-Lützen in Prussia.
On July 30, 1849, Nietzsche's father, Karl Nietzsche, died of cerebral malaise. In October 1858, he entered the Pufta Liberal Secondary School near Naumburg. During his time at school, he became friends with classmates Carl von Gosdorf and Paul Dussen.
In October 1864 he entered the University of Bonn to study theology and classical philology. In October 1865 he transferred to the University of Leipzig to continue his studies in philology. Reading Schopenhauer's The World as Will and Appearance was deeply influenced.
In 1866, he began to befriend his classmate Erwin Lord. On 8 November 1868 he met Richard Wagner in Leipzig. In February 1869 he was appointed Associate Professor of Classical Philology at the University of Basel. On 17 May, he visited Wagner for the first time on the outskirts of Tolipsen, on the outskirts of Lucerne. Inaugural lecture at the University of Basel on 28 May entitled Homer and Classical Literature.
In 1870, he wrote The Birth of Tragedy (published in January 1872). In March, he was appointed as a full professor. In August, he participated in the Franco-Prussian War as a volunteer caretaker and contracted diphtheria and dysentery. In October, he retired from the army due to illness and returned to the University of Basel to become friends with his colleague Franz Overbeck.
In February-March 1872, he gave a lecture at the University of Basel entitled "The Future of Our Educational Facilities". On May 22, he attended the groundbreaking ceremony of the Baylot Festival Grand Theatre.
In 1873, he wrote the first part of The Outdated Mind, The Confessor and the Writer David Strauss, And Philosophy in the Age of Greek Tragedy (unfinished, the fragments of which were later published as posthumous works).
In 1874, he created the second part of "Untimely Thoughts", "On the Advantages and Disadvantages of History on Life" and the third part, "Schopenhauer the Educator".
The fourth part of The Outdated Mind of 1876, Wagner in Bailot. In August, he went to Baylot to attend the first music festival. In September, he further socialized with psychologist Paul Ray and became a good friend. In October, he was taken on sick leave to spend the winter in Solent with Paul Ray and Marveda von Masenbug. He met Wagner for the last time in Solent in October and November.
In 1878, he created the first part of "Human Nature, Too Human". In 1879 he became seriously ill and resigned from the Faculty of the University of Basel. The Wanderer and His Shadow (1880), the second part of The Human, Too Human. First stay in Venice from March to June. Wintering in Genoa began in November for the first time.
↑↑↑ Nietzsche during illness
In 1881, he created "Dawn". Spent his first summer in the Alpine spa of Engadin, Switzerland, in Sears-Maria. In 1882, he created The Science of Happiness. In 1883, he composed the first and second parts of "What Zarathustra Says".
In 1884, he wrote the third part of "What Zarathustra Says". In August Henrich von Stein came to Visit Nietzsche in Sears-Maria.
In 1885, he wrote the fourth part of "What Zarathustra Says". In 1886, he created "The Other Side of Good and Evil". In 1887, he created The Genealogy of Morality.
He first stayed in Turin in April 1888. George Brandeis gave a lecture on Nietzsche at the University of Copenhagen. From May to August, he created "The Wagner Incident" and "Ode to Dionysus". (Published in 1891) From August to September, he created "The Twilight of idols". (Published in January 1889). In September, he wrote The Antichrist (published in 1894). From October to November, he created "Look at This Man". (Published in 1908). In December, Nietzsche refuted Wagner (later published in the complete works).
In January 1889, he was insane in Turin and sent to the Psychiatric Hospital of the University of Jena. He died in Weimar on 25 August 1900.
【Personal Life】
Family members
<col>
relationship
name
Brief introduction
Father
Karl Ludwig Nietzsche
He was a teacher and Protestant priest of four princesses of the Kingdom of Prussia
Mother
Francesca Ole
Devout Protestants
Younger sister
Elisabeth Foster-Nietzsche
Editor of Nietzsche's writings
Social interaction
In October 1875, he became acquainted with Marveda von Massenbug and later became friends. In May 1890 his mother escorted Nietzsche back to Naumburg. Nietzsche's mother died on April 20, 1897. Sister Elizabeth moved Nietzsche to Weimar.
【Main works】
Publication date
Chinese name
In 1867
Diogenes Larsio
In 1870
The Musical of Greece, Socrates and Tragedy
In 1872
"The Birth of Tragedy", "On the Future of Our Educational Institutions", "Homer's Competition"
In 1873
"Untimely Considerations", the first "David Strauss", "Thinking and Factuality"
In 1874
"Anachronistic Considerations", part II, "The Merits of Historical Research", and the third part, Schopenhauer as an Educator
In 1876
Untimely Considerations: Richard Wagner in Bayreuth, Part IV
In 1878
"Human, Too Human"
In 1879
The Wanderer and His Shadow, Miscellaneous Views and Proverbs, The Wanderer and His Shadow
In 1881
Dawn (aka Asaka)
In 1882
Delightful Knowledge Parts I, II, III, IV
In 1883
So Says Zarathustra, Parts I and II
In 1884
The third part of Zarathustra
In 1885
The fourth part of Zarathustra
In 1886
The Other Side of Good and Evil
In 1887
On the Genealogy of Morality
In 1888
The Case of Wagner, Twilight of the Idols, The Anti-Christians, Nietzsche vs. Wagner, Voila! This Man
【Philosophical Thought】
▲ Will to power
The will to life
For Nietzsche, philosophical contemplation is life, and life is philosophical contemplation. Nietzsche, in his first scholarly work, The Birth of Tragedy, began his critique of modern civilization. He pointed out that in capitalist society, despite the increasing material wealth, people do not attain true freedom and happiness. The rigid mechanical model suppresses man's personality, deprives him of the passion of free thought and the impulse to create culture, and modern culture appears so decadent that it is a disease of modern civilization, the root of which is the atrophy of the instinct of life. Nietzsche pointed out that to cure modern diseases, it is necessary to restore man's life instinct and give it a new soul and a new interpretation of the meaning of life. He was inspired by Schopenhauer and also pointed out that the essence of the world is the will to life.
Critique of traditional morality
Nietzsche violently exposed and critiqued traditional Christian morality and modern reason. Epistemologically, Nietzsche was an extreme anti-rationalist, and he made the most thorough critique of any rational philosophy. He believed that the two-thousand-year spiritual life of Europeans was centered on the belief in God, and that man was God's creation, appendage. The value of life, everything about man depends on God. Although the basis of God's existence has begun to disintegrate since the Enlightenment, because there is no new faith, people still believe in God and worship God. Nietzsche's famous phrase "One drink – God is dead" – is a ruthless and fearless critique of God. He borrowed the mouth of a madman and said that he was the murderer of God, pointing out that God deserved to be killed. Christian ethics bind the human heart, suppress man's instincts, and in order to set man free, he must kill God. Nietzsche believed that the decline of Christianity had its historical inevitability, that it had changed from the religion of the oppressed to the religion of the oppressors of the rulers, and that its decline was a historical necessity. The God who is god is killed, and the God of capital is ushered in, the God of capital incarnation.
Nietzsche believed that in a world without God, people had an unprecedented opportunity to establish new values, values centered on the will of man. To this end, it is necessary to liquidate the traditional moral values, which are the last bunker of God, who deeply penetrates into people's daily lives and corrupts people's hearts. Nietzsche, a self-described amorist and anti-Christian, fiercely criticized the virtues espoused by traditional Western morality.
Critique of modern reason
Nietzsche was also critical of modern reason. He starts with the rational philosopher, who points out that the first characteristic of the philosopher is the lack of a sense of history, and that for thousands of years everything that has been dealt with by the philosopher has become a conceptual mummy. The role of reason is nothing more than to freeze the flow of history and frame the living reality with some eternal concepts. The result is to stifle the process of change in the life and death of things, and kill life. The world is a world full of contingencies, turbulence, and thus elusiveness. There is no reality, everything is fluid, unattainable, dodgy. The philosopher's second characteristic is the "rejection of the evidence of the senses," inverting the real world and the imaginary world. The perceptual evidence is true and credible, and lies are only crammed into the processing of them. The third characteristic of philosophers is to confuse beginning and end, they deny the process of growth, the process of evolution. The fourth characteristic of philosophers is the use of "reason" in language to force people to make mistakes. "Yes" is conflated with "being", making falsehoods true, making truths false, deceiving ignorant people. He thought it absurd that everyone from Socrates to the modern age had a fanatical appeal to reason. The reason why human beings advocate reason is to expect it to bring freedom and happiness to people; but the result is just the opposite, reason is everywhere the enemy of human instincts, causing greater suffering to man.
It is correct to criticize the fallacies brought about by reason, but it cannot deny the existence of reason, the historical status and role of reason. Reason is the symbol of human progress and the fruit of the process of human civilization. Some outstanding philosophers in history have used the weapon of reason to observe the world and understand the world. Reason itself is not wrong, and reason cannot be denied. Without reason, human beings cannot correctly understand the world and the truth. Without reason, humanity will fall into a confused and terrible situation.
Strong will
Nietzsche wanted to build a new philosophy, a philosophy that placed the will to life above reason, a philosophy of irrationality. As a challenge to reason, he proposed the theory of strong will. Replace the position of God with a strong will, the position of traditional metaphysics. At the heart of the theory of strong will is the affirmation of life, the affirmation of life. The strong will is not a worldly power, it is an instinctive, spontaneous, irrational force. It determines the nature of life and determines the meaning of life. Nietzsche compares the different characteristics of the strong will and reason, the characteristics of reason are: calm, precise, logical, blunt, abstinent; the characteristics of the strong will are: passion, desire, wildness, activity, fighting. The strong will comes from life, belongs to life, it is the actual life. Although life is short, as long as you have a strong will, a creative will, and become a spiritual strongman, you can realize your own value. As the highest measure of value, strong will affirms the value of life on the one hand, and on the other hand, it also defends the inequality of the world. In Nietzsche's view, human beings, like natural life, are strong and weak, and the strong are always in the minority, and the weak are the majority. History and culture are created by the strong in the minority, who rightfully rule over the weak. Nietzsche overthrew the hierarchy of God and affirmed the hierarchy of man.
Superman philosophy
Nietzsche proposed his philosophy of the superhuman, a philosophy for constructing an ideal life. Superman is a symbol of the ideal of life, the ideal goal and realm of life pursued by Nietzsche. Nietzsche was very disappointed in modern man, modern life, and he dreamed of improving man and creating new people, that is, superman. Superman is not a concrete person, but an illusory image. Superman has the momentum and style of earth, sea, and lightning. Superman does not yet have the existence of reality, it is the ideal image of future man; Superman puts forward value goals for real life; Superman is man's self-transcendence. In Zarathustra, he pointed out that superman is the meaning of the earth. The metaphor is that superman is a denial of the kingdom of heaven and a substitute for God.
Nietzsche's voluntaristic philosophical values are twofold, on the one hand, Nietzsche inherited the essence of the Enlightenment and reflected the awakening of modern consciousness. The positive affirmation of the value of life has triggered people's thinking about the meaning of life and the repositioning of life; the negative criticism of instrumental rationality and industrial civilization has opened up the modern irrationalist trend. On the other hand, there is also a one-sidedness in the critique of reason, the denial of tradition, which is the appreciation side of postmodernism.
The most important point of Nietzsche's philosophical view is that the mission of philosophy is to focus on life, to give life an explanation, to give life an explanation, to explore the meaning of life. This has something to do with Nietzsche's reading of Schopenhauer's writings. Another point is that Nietzsche pointed out that philosophy is apolitical, and philosophy and politics are two different things. So Nietzsche's view of philosophy, the first is for life, the concern for life, the second is non-political, and the third is not academic. Philosophy is not purely academic. The key to Nietzsche's critique of traditional philosophy is that it does not pay attention to life. The consequence of traditional philosophy is nihilism. There is no essence behind the phenomenon.
Nihilism
Nietzsche called himself "the most thorough nihilist in Europe," but his doctrinal line can be said to have followed transcendent nihilism. Nietzsche believed that so-called values, ideas, and truths are merely man-made explanations, and that the world itself has no metaphysical truth or ultimate value or meaning. Nihilism negates all purposefulness, and Nietzsche believes that the rational world (the ideal state) described by Plato, the Christian kingdom of heaven, and the inevitable moral order of the world are only products of human beings, and have no ultimate objectivity. Nietzsche's use of "God is dead" as a symbol of the advent of nihilism became the philosophical starting point for many later existentialist philosophers such as Heidegger, Sartre, Camus, and others. Nietzsche believed that there are two kinds of nihilism: negative, morbid nihilism and positive nihilism. Negative nihilism includes Platonism, Christianity, and Schopenhauer's philosophy. Positive nihilism sees the crisis of losing ultimate value as an opportunity to create new values. Nietzsche believed that even when nihilism came, people could rebuild new values through value revaluation to gain a reason to survive. Nietzsche also emphasized that if people are to become free spirits, it is necessary to eliminate the desire for some definite eternal value. For "the need for some unconditional affirmation and negation is a need that arises from vulnerability."
Artistic redemption
Nietzsche proposed art as a basis for facing pain and absurdity. He advocated a dionysian spirit, simply put, an aesthetic perspective of looking at the circumstances of life. This is not to teach people to indulge in illusions, but to give people more courage and strength to face their lives. Nietzsche's ideal, therefore, was a tragic outlook on life. He believes that the spirit of tragedy is not to affirm a fair and just world order (in which those who are virtuous in tragedy are often tormented by fate), but in the power that can be inspired by being in fate.
The state that the tragic aesthetic can achieve is the "love of fate", which Nietzsche regards as a necessary condition for a great personality, "I think that all the great nature of mankind is the love of fate. Whether in the future or forever, there should be no luxury in expecting to change anything. Not only must he endure the inevitability of all things, but there is no reason to hide it— you must love this truth...". To love one's destiny is to affirm one's own destiny, and not even to be willing to change the status quo in any way. And eternal reincarnation is the touchstone of this spiritual power. Nietzsche apparently thought that this state could be attained by the will of man, which gave his philosophy a certain volutist tendency.
Nietzsche had a fairly high opinion of suffering, which had always been regarded as negative, and he hated the values of utilitarianism that pursued only the greatest value of pleasure, and "all this mode of thinking, which measures the value of things in terms of incidental and derivative phenomena, is a superficial mode of thinking and naïve behavior, and anyone who knows creativity and the conscience of the artist will laugh and despise it." He believed that suffering had a positive meaning because it made people wiser and more powerful.
Aesthetic ideas
Nietzsche believed that beauty cannot exist independently of man's judgment, and that beauty is also a product of man. At the same time, Nietzsche also believed that force and beauty are two sides of the same coin, "the force becomes soft and falls to the visible, and that decline I call beauty." Strength or not can also be used in judging the beauty and ugliness of man, and weak strength means weakness, poverty, and incompetence, so he said, "There is nothing uglier than a man who is in decline." In The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche distinguishes beauty between the dionysian spirit and the sun spirit. The Dionysian spirit represents an irrational state of ecstasy, which can be called a state of "drunkenness"; the spirit of the Sun God is calm and restrained, which can be described as a state of "dream". In "The Twilight of the Idol", Nietzsche changed his interpretation: "Both are understood as the type of drunkenness", and "the essence of drunkenness is the increase of power and the feeling of fullness", Nietzsche believes that true art can make the audience feel the state of full power (that is, drunkenness) when the artist first created, "The role of the work of the work is to arouse the state of creation, to stimulate the drunkenness".
Another of Nietzsche's theories about aesthetics is the combination of art and physiology: "Aesthetics is just an applied physiology. Because he believes that "the force consumed by a person in artistic conception and the force consumed in sexual acts are the same kind of force." "All beauty can stir up fertility ... Including sexual desire and the most spiritual creation. And artists are a group of people with strong sexual desires, "artists are inevitably lustful by their nature." But they know how to temper in order to store strength in creation. Nietzsche's aesthetic ideas and the concept of artistic redemption are concretely presented in his life orientation. He believes that when people appreciate beauty, they will also aspire to become beautiful things, and he also believes that people can also shape their lives into a work of art that can give people a sense of beauty, which is also a kind of artistic creation. "Giving a person a 'style' to a personality is a rare and sublime art!" And this process can be one of the pillars of putting up with the ugly parts of the world: "Man should be satisfied with himself, and only then can we fully tolerate the 'face of man'." Nietzsche did not believe that "existence precedes essence", as Sartre said, but has been determined by some innate essence, and that people should develop according to their own essence. So he said, "What is your conscience saying to you?" You have to be yourself. ”
Ethical critique
Many ethics belong to egalitarianism, such as the Christian emphasis on "equality before God", Kant's ethics also gives people the same dignity and value, even in utilitarianism, when calculating the maximum happiness value, everyone's feelings are taken into equal consideration. But Nietzsche strenuously opposed this notion, arguing that everyone's mental qualities are different, "People are not equal, and they will not become equal!" Advocating equality for all is even more unjustified, because this concept hinders the improvement of the overall quality of man, and he describes "equal preachers" as "poisonous spiders." Universalism is also a common ethical concept, the basic concept of which is that a moral law should be generalized to all. Nietzsche believed that everyone's qualities and personalities were different, and the corresponding moral obligations should also be different, "what is nourishing and pleasing to the superior, must be close to the poison for very different inferiors." The virtues of ordinary people may mean vices and weaknesses to philosophers." He further elaborates on the peculiarities of each act: "Anyone who still thinks that 'in this case, everyone will do this' is not yet five steps toward self-knowledge. Otherwise he would know that there is none, and he cannot act in the same way. ”
Nietzsche did not argue that man has sufficient free will, that "the predestination of a person's essence cannot be separated from all the predestinations that were and will be." Free will is the self-cause of the will as the cause that can no longer be traced back, and he says that the self-cause is", "the best self-contradiction that has been conceived so far." "So why did the theory of free will come up in the first place?" Nietzsche's answer was: "Men are considered free so that they can be judged or punished." Generally speaking, evil is often regarded as something that wants to be eliminated quickly, but Nietzsche believes that the existence of evil is valuable, and it has the effect of stimulating human beings: "The so-called good is to protect the human being, and the so-called evil is not good for the human race." But in fact, the stimuli of evil bring to mankind a considerable degree of proper and indispensable preservation and maintenance, and their effects are the same as those of the good—only their role is different. Another achievement of Nietzsche's moral critique was the presentation of the master-slave morality, which dissected the components of slave morality in morality from a psychological point of view. Nietzsche believed that the origin of morality was that when the weak were bullied by the strong, they used their spiritual power to create conscience condemnation, good and evil, etc. to resist the aggression of the strong. Slave morality is usually characterized by resentment and the reactionary mentality that comes with it. For example, an attempt is to equalize the value of the powerful with creativity and transform their characteristics into "evil" with ethical significance; the weak nature of oneself is transformed into "good" and so on. Nietzsche, because he did not believe in a moral source that preceded man," used slave morality to question the legitimacy of the source of traditional morality, especially Christian morality.
Political attitudes
Nietzsche was critical of the state, calling himself "the last anti-political German" and "the state ... There all the people lost themselves... Chronic suicide in all people is called 'life'." He was particularly dissatisfied with the arrogant, German-supremacy atmosphere that his home country, Germany, had developed after the Franco-Prussian War, "wherever Germany went, it corrupted the culture there." His criticism is largely based on his concern for culture: "Culture and the state ... It's the opposite... All great cultural epochs are epochs of political decline: anything that is culturally great is always apolitical, even antipolitical. This is why he admired France, which had been defeated in the Franco-Prussian War, rather than Germany. Nietzsche opposed the values that flaunted the supremacy of the interests of the state and the nation, and he regarded it as "klinenpolitik", in contrast to which Nietzsche looked forward to the "groβerpolitik" of the state led by people of that rank, "the era of petty politics is over, and the next century will bring us wars to dominate the earth - the impulse to engage in big politics."
Nietzsche repeatedly emphasized the hierarchy of man, and these ideas can be described as a portrayal of his ethical thought. Thus he was also opposed to democratic politics, with Nietzsche arguing that the idea of democracy was rooted in Christianity, and that "the democratic movement is the heir of the Christian movement." Behind this is the mentality of the weak who want to flatten the value of the strong.
But Nietzsche also had no sympathy for socialism, because he found too much revenge in it: "Who do I hate most of today's mob?" The socialist mob, who are apostles of the inferior people, who undermine the workers' instincts, pleasures and satisfaction with their small existence, who make the workers jealous and teach them revenge. ”
In his book The Antichrist, Nietzsche sketched out what he considered to be an ideal social system. He divided the social classes into three classes: the first class was the elite with the most spiritual power, creating value, and they took on the role of ruler. The second class are people of strong will or character who obey the orders of the first class and are responsible for maintaining social order and enforcing the law. The third class is the majority of the mediocre masses, satisfied with their ordinary lives. Nietzsche also emphasized that all three classes were indispensable for the establishment of an ideal society. He also did not approve of the bullying of the weak by the strong, and he believed that it was right for a superior person to be kind to those who were inferior to him. In fact, if there are to be exceptions, ordinary people are the first necessity needed: higher culture depends on it. The exceptional man should be more gentle with the ordinary than he himself and his peers, this is not a courtesy from the heart———it is fundamentally his duty", and such an "exceptional man" can even be described as "The Roman Caesar with the heart of Christ". As for how to implement this social system? Nietzsche did not answer this question.
【Literary features】
Nietzsche's Autobiography
Nietzsche's prose epitomizes the author's profound thoughts. First, Nietzsche opposed the concept-to-concept way of thinking, against the long-winded preaching and argumentation, but instead developed with feeling, in the form of subsections, in a subsectional manner, to present his new arguments in a form similar to aphorisms and aphorisms. It is in such essay-like prose that Nietzsche consciously approaches the Eastern way of thinking in order to break free from the shackles of the traditional, metaphysical mode of thinking of the West. In terms of expression, he expressed it more freely, making the text more vivid and perceptive, combining the thorough critical spirit with a solid classical language foundation to form his own unique style.
The second is to vibrate the deaf and send feedback. The main linguistic style of Nietzsche's prose is broken. In his work, Nietzsche explores various problems of life, all based on a basic view of the world, namely that the world is generated, that existence is set, and that God is fictional according to human needs.
Thus, Nietzsche argued that there are no facts in the world, only explanations, pointing out that "God is dead" and emphasizing value revaluation.
It is precisely because Nietzsche was able to point out the ills of Western social systems, cultural traditions, and conceptual forms to the point that people in the 20th century reacted to his ideas much more strongly than in his time.
Third, Nietzsche believed that the symbolism of art could lead to a deeper understanding of the world. Metaphors are a better way to inspire people to think. Therefore, his works use artistic means of artistic thinking such as metaphor, metaphor and irony freely. It is precisely because of the use of artistic means such as metaphors that his prose has more vitality, perception and tension in meaning.
Poetry
Nietzsche's poetry is divided into two categories, one is "aphorism", that is, philosophical poetry, and the other is "song", that is, lyric poetry. His aphorisms and poems are condensed, witty, concise and intriguing. Some aphorisms, just two lines long, cleverly conceived, simple in language, and meaningful. Such as "Honest Man", "Rust", "Involuntary Seducer" and "Against Arrogance". Nietzsche's lyric poems are also philosophical, but in a different way than aphoristic poems. He strives to use his lyric poems to fully express the basic spirit of his philosophy- the spirit of Dionysus, and pursues the style of music, dance, poetry and complete integration of body and mind in the ancient Greek Dionysian hymn, and his representative work is "Ode to Dionysus". This group of poems jumps in rhythm and rhymes freely, like dancing freely in a rugged mountain; emotions are also unrestrained, unrestrained, laughing and scolding, all of which become verses.
【Later Influences】
Nietzsche's ideas subvert Western moral thought and traditional values, revealing the spiritual crisis that humanity must face after God's death. Jaspers says Nietzsche and Kierkegaard brought tremors to Western philosophy. Jaspers, Sartre, Heidegger, Jack London, Foucault and Derrida, Freud, etc. are all philosophers deeply influenced by Nietzsche's ideas, and the literary scholars directly influenced by him are also numerous: Zweig, Thomas Mann, Shaw bernard, Hesse, Rilke, Gide, Lu Xun, etc.
Influence on the "militant culture" of the West
The formation of the "militant culture" in Europe in the 19th century is more thoroughly explained and most uniquely expressed in Nietzsche's doctrine of "master morality".
The fundamental significance of "On the Genealogy of Morality", a classic work published a year after the publication of the first volume of Capital (1887), is that it announces the epoch-making breakthrough of Century European values in the form of a "manifesto", which ruthlessly tramples on the existing value standards of all human civilization and regards it as "slave morality" and "the ethics of the weak". War, conquest, plunder, killing, and domination are called "master morality" and "the logic of the strong." The latter is considered to be the true essence of "modern civilization". Nietzsche's doctrine, with the eternal opposition of "the strong and the weak", completely reversed the value law dividing "barbarism and civilization", thus re-writing the human moral genealogy by taking the "law of power is the axiom" advocated by Europe in the 19th century as the origin of new values and new legal concepts of mankind.
Influence on the philosophy of life and Freudian psychoanalysis
Nietzsche was the first to explicitly reveal and carefully dissect the unconscious in the human psyche, and his work provides many enlightening ideas for the study of modern deep psychology. Freud laid the foundation for psychoanalysis with The Interpretation of Dreams, and Nietzsche made a similar analysis of the roles and mechanisms of dreams twenty to thirty years before him. Nietzsche had many insights into the unconscious, but they were sporadic. When Freud applied psychoanalysis to modern civilization, it can be found that he concretized some of Nietzsche's insights. Nietzsche also further analyzed and explored its deep psychological activity behind consciousness. He believed that so-called consciousness was nothing more than a state of our mental and psychological world, and Nietzsche's emphasis on the exploration of the deep psychology behind consciousness made him a pioneer of the Freudian school of psychoanalysis recognized by scholars.
Influence on existential philosophy
A clear and powerful retelling of Nietzsche's thought can be found in Sartre's writings, who likewise reduced human nature to freedom and freedom to will and evaluation. But although Nietzsche emphasized the absolute freedom of the individual to evaluate, he also proposed his own measure of value, that is, the strong will. Sartre, on the other hand, pushed the relativity of value to the extreme, denying any measure of consideration. It is in the form of folk culture that enters people's hearts.
【Character Evaluation】
The Chinese writer Lu Xun: "If you are a Chinese individualist, the most heroic of individualism." ”
Chinese writer and scholar Guo Moruo: "Nietzsche's thought is the center of consciousness in the May Fourth period"
The Chinese poet Wen Yiduo: "The most progressive, the most revolutionary, the most idealistic political thinker." His writings are a symbol of full vitality, the pinnacle of life."
The German philosopher Jaspers: "Brings trembling to Western philosophy." ”
【Character controversy】
During the First and Second World Wars, Nietzsche's philosophy was exploited by the Third Reich as a cloak of fascism. The theory of power and individual power was the guiding principle of German policy in the world war, and Nietzsche's philosophy was regarded as a "war philosophy" by many scholars at home and abroad, and Nietzsche became a "war agitator".
In the new era, the misreading of Nietzsche's philosophy has evolved negatively into individualism, which is not so much Nietzsche's controversy as it should be a controversy over Nietzsche's philosophy.
Some scholars and philosophers believe that his doctrine is using metaphysical negativity to engage in nihilism, completely subverting Western thought, is to push down and re-establish the values established by the West over thousands of years, and is an act of reversing history, and at the same time some scholars believe that his ideological theory is the culprit for the emergence of a large number of extremists in the future.
Posthumous commemoration
↑↑↑The Rockenitze Memorial
The Nietzsche Memorial is located in Lorken, the birthplace of Nietzsche, and its central building is the 50-square-meter Nietzsche Baptist Church, passing through the church is Nietzsche's cemetery, Nietzsche's tomb is 10 square meters, and three tombs are juxtaposed: Nietzsche on the west side and Nietzsche's sister Elizabeth on the east side.
【Quote】
A person who knows what he is living for can endure any kind of life. - Nietzsche
Maybe it means: Understand what you're a mess with, it's important?
When reading, endure the insults of classmates and the ridicule of teachers.
Go to work and endure ridicule and even bullying from colleagues.
But he laughed and endured all this, and he understood that it was not for the sake of these colleagues, but for his parents who were sick at home. Every month, he had to pay for medical expenses with this salary. Even if he was humiliated, he had to endure not to jump ship.
So it is this theory that people live, and at every stage, at every age, there will be different ways of living, to endure different lives. For others or for himself, it is premised that he knows his direction, his goals, and why he lives.
Nietzsche's most brilliant quote, only 23 words, countless people read it, will be very touched, after reading, but also understand why they live, but also can endure any kind of life.
Nietzsche's Collapse and Death
On the morning of January 3, 1889, after leaving his apartment in Turin, Nietzsche walked to Piazza Carlo Alberto and saw a coachman in a rental carriage whipping a horse fiercely. Nietzsche rushed forward to protect his horse, but fainted on the sidewalk. After a long period of loneliness and illness that he had endured before, he eventually lost his mind and had a mental breakdown.
Orwellbec, who had just received another letter from Nietzsche full of absurd remarks (ordering the execution of all anti-Semites), rushed to Turin as soon as he heard the news, trying to save his deranged friend. Upon arriving by train, Orwellbeck found Nietzsche crouched alone in the corner of his apartment, clutching a proof of Nietzsche's book Against Wagner, trembling involuntarily. Nietzsche stood up and hugged his old friend, began to sob hysterically, and then collapsed again. Ovelbeck saw his friend terminally ill, and he couldn't help but feel sad.
He resigned in 1879 due to health problems and has been suffering from mental illness ever since. He never recovered from the attack and lived in the care of his mother and sister until his death in 1900 at the age of 55.
What exactly drove Nietzsche into a desperate situation? Recent diagnostic studies have shown that he may have tertiary syphilis. But Nietzsche's symptoms were easily misjudged at the time, and his original diagnosis was never confirmed. Of course, as Nietzsche himself saw, his "crossing of the Rubicon" should have important physiological reasons. But he is also a victim of his own exaggerated mentality. The persecution complex that haunted Nietzsche throughout his life (he had predicted that his ideas would not appear until 50 years later) turned into an illusion of self-esteem and arrogance in his later years.
In 1849, Nietzsche's father died of cerebral softening, and at the age of 5 he witnessed the death of his 2-year-old brother, and he grew up lonely and autistic, according to Nietzsche's mother, Nietzsche's mental illness was not caused by heredity, but by taking a large number of sleeping pills and trichloroacetaldehyde. These do not prove or exclude that Nietzsche's disease is related to heredity, but it can be concluded that Nietzsche had precursors and tendencies to schizophrenia from an early age, and had nothing to do with politics or philosophy.
He resigned in 1879 due to health problems (at the age of 35) and has been suffering from mental illness ever since. On the morning of January 3, 1889, a coachman was violently beating the cattle, rushing up to hold the horse's neck, and crying, "O my suffering brother! (This is a parody of a fragment from Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, in which he could no longer distinguish between fiction and reality) and then fell to the ground, had a nervous breakdown, never recovered, and lived in the care of his mother and sister until his death in 1900.
According to the analysis of the occurrence, development and symptoms of schizophrenia, Nietzsche was isolated and autistic from childhood, and later developed into insomnia, confusion and confusion, and finally did not listen to the call of the hand, did not recognize people, and died of high fever. According to a large number of examples, it can be concluded that Nietzsche had precursors of schizophrenia from an early age and died of schizophrenia at the age of 55.
For a philosopher, there are inevitably all kinds of conjectures, and there are even sources that Say That Nietzsche is not really crazy at all, coincidentally, Nietzsche himself said: "My madness is not pretend, for a few weeks and months I lost my sense of time and space, I could not recognize anyone except my sister, and I tried to summon myself back from the abyss, repeating itself repeatedly: I am Friedrich Nietzsche, a philosopher with a hammer." (Nietzsche. My Sister and Me, Chapter 11)
Nietzsche considered himself a prophet or savior. In his view, his writings were not "written works" but "declarations of war", and the object of conquest was the spiritual crisis that shrouded Europe. Nietzsche saw himself as a "battlefield" where European history would unfold for the next two hundred years. For him, the two figures of Zarathustra and Dionysus are by no means metaphorical, they himself are Zarathustra and Dionysus, the prophets who foreshadow "superman" and "eternal reincarnation".
During the last period in Turin, Nietzsche was addicted to a god complex (he once wrote to his friend Jacob Burckhardt: "Actually, I would rather be a professor at the University of Basel than a god." But I'm not selfish enough to refuse to create the world as God. "), and his exaggerated self-description in the 1880s, in fact, is only one step away. Misunderstanding, humiliation, and crucifixion are all in Nietzsche's expectations of his own destiny, although in the end this foresight cannot help Nietzsche to bear his own destiny.
There is an extremely strong tension between Nietzsche's lofty self-expectations and the world's well-intentioned neglect of his work ("They're all talking about me... But no one thinks about me! I knew it was a new kind of silence, and the noise of the people covered my perception with a smock of burqas"), a tension that crushed Nietzsche's spirit and tragically pushed him to the brink of collapse.
Nietzsche believed that the will of the individual is greater than reason. So when is the will of the individual completely greater than reason? It is the time when reason dies, and at this time, it means that people are crazy. Nietzsche is such a man, he loves to preach loneliness, and he can't stop calling for "walking into your loneliness." What's more, he believes that the meaning of human existence is to create a superman who is far higher than human beings, and the creation of superman must first be different from almost all people, so the loneliness brought about by "being different from almost all people" has become one of the signs of loyalty to superman to realize the value of life.
In his lifetime, most of what he said was criticism, and what he made was an oath of battle, and it was easy to die early.
……
【Composer Nietzsche】
Nietzsche, in our minds, has always been the most creative and subversive thinker, but his other identity as a composer is often overlooked.
"This amateur composer, who had no professional training, succeeded in writing such imaginative, melodic, and harmonious works with his sensitivity to poetry. Here, his musical language is direct and beautiful, reminding us of his idol Schumann. His music was so bold that it foresaw the characteristics of Mahler's music. This is a comment written by columnist Fritz Schleicher to the Nuremberg Daily after a concert.
The object of this commentary is not the famous performers, but the object of their interpretation, Nietzsche's music. The evening's repertoire consisted of artistic songs by Nietzsche, piano four-handed playing and theatrical soundtrack recitation (Melodram).
↑↑↑ Nietzsche played the piano
Nietzsche was immersed in religious music from an early age, and he was soon able to play a good piano and mastered the composition skills through self-study. He often composed oratorios, and he also composed art songs for the poems of famous poets such as Petofi, Pushkin, Klaus Groth, etc.
In his early years, he used to dedicate these songs to his relatives on festive days, and the following art song "Da geht ein Bach" (lyrics from Glotte's poem) composed when he was 18 years old was dedicated to his aunt.
In 1864 he entered the University of Bonn to study theology and classics, but he soon lost interest in theology and immersed himself in classics. During his studies in Bonn, he frequently watched various opera and concert performances. During this period his musical interests focused mainly on composing artistic songs based on the poetry of Petofi and Pushkin.
Friendship with Wagner – In 1865 he transferred to Leipzig, where he read Schopenhauer's masterpiece The World as Will and Appearance, which was still forgotten at the time. Wagner, another musical giant of the same period, was also a big fan of Schopenhauer—it was the shared love of Schopenhauer's ideas that led to the friendship between Nietzsche and Wagner.
In a letter to Wagner, Nietzsche wrote: "To associate my name with you is the most important moment of my life, and I know that only one of your spiritual peers, Schopenhauer, can compare with you." ”
↑↑↑Nietzsche and Wagner
Nietzsche knew that the composing skills he had learned through self-study were completely incomparable to his genius friend, but he continued to send his musical works to the celebrities of the music industry, but again and again he received disappointing feedback.
He also greatly liked composers of his generation, such as Schumann. Nietzsche's artistic songwriting was mostly inspired by Schumann. In 1872 he visited the master conductor Hans von Bülow in Munich. He gave Bülow his four-handed meditation on Manfred meditation, which he had created under the influence of Schumann, and asked the master for an evaluation. After reading it, Bülow believed that Nietzsche's musical emotions were extremely exaggerated and extremely uncomfortable, and the work itself was anti-musical.
Although he repeatedly ran into musical composition, he published his seminal book Die Geburt der Trag?die (The Birth of Tragedy) in early 1872, which itself marked the honeymoon period of Nietzsche's and Wagner's relationship.
In the book, he believes that in Wagner's musical dramas, he can find the shadow of ancient Greek tragedy—a shadow of the spirit of Dionysus, the "god of wine" he admired. The spirit of Dionysus, the antithesis of the Apollo spirit, which emphasized "moderation and self-knowledge," was unbridled and unbridled, with the most primitive impulses, and was seen by Nietzsche as the key to reshaping a new humanity.
Nietzsche found an expression of this power in Wagner's music. In the same year, he also experienced the most important musical event of his life and was invited to Bayreuth to watch the music festival of that year.
↑↑↑Nietzsche's Birth of Tragedy
But the friendship didn't last long.
Nietzsche's last composition was The Hymn of Friendship, written between 1872 and 1875, and finalized with several revisions. The work stemmed from his friendship with Franz Overbeck. While in Basel, they often played four-hand pieces together.
But this work also implies the end of another friendship. In 1874, Nietzsche came to Bayreuth, but he was very sad that Wagner played a fragment of Twilight of the Gods on the piano. In the final scene, the gods are destroyed and the hero Siegfried is finally stabbed to death, which makes Nietzsche smell Wagner's betrayal of the true humanity he admires. In addition, the two differed opinions on Brahms's "Victory Song", deepening the feud between the two. Since 1874, Nietzsche had become critical of Wagner's music.
In 1876, Nietzsche was again invited to Bayreuth to see the premiere of Twilight of the Gods, but because of his poor health, he hurriedly fled Bayreuth, after which he wrote, "I must exercise full restraint in order to endure my present utter disappointment." Nietzsche's words were undoubtedly puns, and the betrayal of this spiritual ally had dealt him a more fatal blow than his own physical dissatisfaction. As the curtain falls on the final scene of Twilight, Nietzsche's hopes of his former best friend stopping at the last moment are completely disillusioned.
After writing his last opera, Parsifal, Wagner sent the score to Nietzsche, who in turn responded by sending back the manuscript Menschliches (subtitled "A Book dedicated to the Spirit of Freedom"), marking a complete rupture in the relationship between Nietzsche and Wagner, in which Wagner turned the last hope of humanity's salvation to Christianity. In Nietzsche's view, the emphasis on Christianity on the other shore is a renunciation of the world on this shore, and it is also a renunciation of true humanity.
Music is like a mirror of Nietzsche's life, imprinting his talents, witnessing the separation of people in his life, and at the same time one of the most important ways for him to achieve his spiritual ideals. Nietzsche once said, "Life without music is a mistake." "His music composition and adaptation are not driven by some inner abstract idea, but a direct expression of the experience of survival, and his music is a direct expression of his subjective emotions.
Nietzsche's biographer Werner Ross once wrote, "There is no doubt that Nietzsche was a musical genius. He must have regarded music as part of his mission, an endorsement of the spirit of Dionysus and the philosophy of Schopenhauer, and his piano performance was a testimony to his theory. Music flowed into his body and spilled out of his body. He would never make music just a living. ”
End.