Some people say that Nietzsche is a rebel of the times, some people say that Nietzsche is a rebel of the world, and some people say that Nietzsche is a rebel of mankind, but those who have carefully read Nietzsche's works will find that Nietzsche is a rebel, he has betrayed the times, he has betrayed ordinary human beings, and he has gone to a path of thought that few people understand;
But Nietzsche is not a complete rebel, he also holds hope for life, love of life, and identification with hard work, so he is not a pure rebel, but the proportion of rebellious ideas in his thoughts is relatively large.
"On the Genealogy of Morality" is a masterpiece of Nietzsche's moral philosophy, in which he made a psychological analysis of the origins of Christianity, describing the opposition between noble morality and priestly morality, in his eyes, noble morality is the real morality, and priestly morality is far inferior to Greco-Roman morality;
In the second chapter, Nietzsche gives a general account of the origin of christian original sin, i.e., its origins on the basis of the long-established idea of repayment of debts between creditors and debtors; the third chapter emphasizes asceticism, which Nietzsche has always disapproved of, believing that it suppresses human instincts.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" >: The Reclusive Rebellion: Nietzsche's Life</h1>
1. Nietzsche and his writings: The Ideological Front of Rebellion
Nietzsche was involved in a wide range of things in his life, including philosophy, music, and art, especially in philosophy, nietzsche can be called a master of an era, who has been looking for a cure for the world through continuous thinking and seeing the shortcomings of society.
Nietzsche's rebellious ideas have a lot to do with his life experience, Nietzsche's full name is Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, which is his father, a priest who taught the Prussian prince, who gave his beloved son such a name to celebrate the birth of Nietzsche and Prince Friedrich IV on the same day, so Nietzsche's father was full of hope for Nietzsche's future.
Nietzsche was happy before the age of five, he had a father, mother and siblings, but after the age of five, Nietzsche's father died, and soon his brother died of the same disease as his father, and the successive deaths of his father and brother dealt a great blow to Nietzsche, which also laid the foundation for his later ideological rebellion.
At the age of fourteen Nietzsche entered secondary school and later studied theology and philosophy at the University of Bonn, Nietzsche was always devout to God and Christianity, often reading the Bible alone in silence. But university life bored Nietzsche, without any collision of ideas.
Until Nietzsche met Theatrical Professor of Classical Linguistics, which had a huge impact on Nietzsche's entire life, Nietzsche was greatly appreciated by Liefowei, and in his interactions with Liefowei, Nietzsche doubted that the bud of God gradually took root, and he was no longer the person who had once believed in God.
This skepticism of God became uncontrollable after Nietzsche read Schopenhauer's works, and he began to believe in Schopenhauer as a spiritual teacher and idol, and Nietzsche rarely believed in anyone in his life, except for a few ancient Greek thinkers such as Plato, most of whom were critics of other thinkers.
Nietzsche's writings were the main front of his rebellious ideas, including Voila! This Man, The Birth of Tragedy, The Will to Power, And Zarathustra, etc., have a great feature of his writings, that is, they are very systematic, and he constructs a grand world in his works, and Zarathustra is the superman among them, and many of his works are closely related, and only after reading most of them can Nietzsche be pertinently commented.
2. Nietzsche's break with Wagner: The Epitome of the Rebellious Magnate
When Nietzsche met Wagner, Wagner was already one of Germany's more famous composers. In 1868, at the age of twenty-four, Nietzsche met Wagner for the first time, and they had a great conversation, and even a sense of the same feeling, mainly because both were interested in music, and both were interested in Schopenhauer's ideas.
Schopenhauer was a representative of the German "pessimistic" philosophy, believing that life is pessimistic and meaningless, that people are trapped in desires, and that only death is the real liberation, an idea that made Wagner and Nietzsche feel empathy and recognize it.
Wagner and Nietzsche were friendly because of their common interests, and their friendship was like the attraction of acquaintance and mutual worship; but the break between the two was also the separation of interests, Wagner was a composer and conductor, and when his "Ring of the Nibelungen" was staged, he invited Nietzsche to watch it, and Nietzsche was unhappy with the applause and praise at the scene of the performance, he thought that these laymen or "last people" did not understand at all, and became angry with Wagner.
Later, both sides were unhappy because of Parsifal, and Wagner also changed from atheist to Christian, and Christianity is the object of Nietzsche's "On the Genealogy of Morality". After Nietzsche broke up, although he wrote critical of Wagner, he burst into tears when he heard of Wagner's death.
Nietzsche's break with Wagner is the epitome of Nietzsche's rebellious magnates, and although Nietzsche advocated the doctrine of superhumanism and strong will, he did not favor Bismarck and other prominent figures in the official arena of the German Empire, or strongmen, but was more sympathetic to the Jewish nation.
But Wagner, on the contrary, became acquainted with the imperial magnates, often played for Ludwig II and others, endorsed the anti-Semitic ideas of the German Empire, with a strong nationalism, a belief in the ancient legends of Germania, and so on. Nietzsche and Wagner: From Acquaintance to Stranger Point: "No one in the world but me (Nietzsche) understands Wagner's extraordinary talent. ”
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > two: against everything: criticism of God and the last man</h1>
1. Rebellious Criticism of God: "Conscience Condemnation" and "Guilt"
Nietzsche's most astonishing idea was to declare that "God is dead," but before that, he critiqued Christianity in On the Genealogy of Morality, criticizing ideas such as clerical morality, Christian original sin, and asceticism.
Nietzsche put forward the idea of a creditor and a debtor, which is the experience accumulated by people in ancient times in their daily lives, that is, the debtor must repay the debt to the creditor, that is, an ancient idea that the debt must be repaid. Nietzsche deduced this idea through the commune, the state, and ancestors, and ultimately deduced the role of the creditor to God.
In other words, God became the creditor, and the debtor was the indebted human being, and the original sin of mankind was paid by Jesus, the only begotten Son of God, through the cross, so that although mankind is no longer guilty, it is indebted to God, which is a debt that mankind can never pay. Nietzsche believed that it was through this ancient idea that the Christian clergy controlled the human mind and suppressed the human instinct, and it was the priest's almost deceptive behavior that he opposed.
Zhang Dian pointed out in "The Basic Problems of Nietzsche's Moral Genealogy": "Christianity glorifies the violent and cruel nature into a necessity for salvation, and Christianity cultivates a slave morality." Indeed, Nietzsche believed that Christianity originated from resentment, and that clerical morality subverted noble morality, that is, the morality of ancient Greece and Rome.
2. Rebellion against real people: The Superman Doctrine
Because of his disappointment with modern man, Nietzsche turned to the creation of superman, who is the commanding height, the traction of human development, and more specifically, the model of human progress. Nietzsche's superman did not happen overnight, his growth had to go through the forging of a tenacious spirit, to experience the hardships of camels walking through thousands of mountains and rivers, to experience the strength of the lion to defend the desert for freedom, and to experience the monkey's "I can understand", so that he could become a child.
Children can conceive of a new spiritual dwelling place— the world of the self. Nietzsche's superman is a collective noun that does not refer to any real person, including the great people of the past, or the great people of the present, he is just one of the most perfect ideas of man in Nietzsche's mind, and superman is constantly surpassing himself and achieving innovation in the eternal cycle.
The concept of superman is very broad, some people think that superman is absolute freedom, unfettered; some people think that superman is a future man, a kind of future imagination; others think that superman is a perfect person, can reduce the possibility of making mistakes, and lead mankind to freedom.
Nietzsche's book Zarathustra expresses the meaning of superman in Nietzsche's mind: "Superman is synonymous with the earth... Superman is the earth; superman is synonymous with the sea... Lightning and madness are Superman...". Therefore, the superman in Nietzsche's eyes is the all-encompassing nature.
In my opinion, Superman represents more of a will, the earth represents tenacity, lightning and madness represent the Spirit of Dionysus in Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy, a sense of interweaving of pain and ecstasy, and the all-encompassing natural world contains all the good qualities of Superman.
The reason why the superman doctrine is considered a rebellion against ordinary people is not because of the word superman, but because he conceived of a perfect superman that is incompatible with reality, in order to express his dissatisfaction with the real society. But at the same time as the rebellion, the superman doctrine is full of Nietzsche's expectations of future people, and he hopes that realistic people can develop with superman as the goal.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > third, summary</h1>
Nietzsche was seen as an outlier of the times because of his ideas, he criticized the Western rationalist tradition, criticized the Western metaphysical tradition, especially the eternal unchangeability that Western classical scholars have always pursued, criticized negative nihilism, but favored positive nihilism.
Nietzsche's greatest rebellion was his blatant declaration that "God is dead", although with the development of modern civilization, 19th-century Westerners have gradually stopped sincerely believing in God and have simply regarded weekly worship as a ritual that must be completed, but no one has dared to shout "God is dead".
Not only that, but Nietzsche was also critical of many European scholars, from the early Socrates to Kant and Hegel, and Nietzsche also borrowed from their ideas.
Nietzsche's opposition to Christianity can be glimpsed from the words "God is dead", and at the same time, Nietzsche opposed all religious beliefs, such as Buddhism, in order to promote freedom and to oppose the suppression of human freedom by these religions in the name of morality. Nietzsche also opposed modern industrial civilization, especially modern society, which caused people's spiritual emptiness, and wealth became man's only pursuit.
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" >4, See</h1>
Friedrich Nietzsche: On the Genealogy of Morality
Friedrich Nietzsche: Zarathustra
Friedrich Nietzsche: The Birth of Tragedy
Zhang Dian: The Basic Question of Nietzsche's Moral Genealogy
Dante: On the Empire of the World