Nietzsche, Friedrich

German philosopher, 1844-1900, author of Also Sprach Zarathustra, Die Geburt der Tragödie aus dem Geiste der Musik, Der Wanderer und sein Schatten, Der Wille zur Macht, Ecce homo and other works

Fishburn and Hughes: "A German philosopher whose belief that absolute truth is a philosophical invention had a marked influence on Borges. Nietzsche's writings must be understood against the background of the extreme physical suffering he endured which led eventually to his insanity. His philosophy is neither systematic nor expounded in a systematic form, but can be seen as a collection of different points of view reflecting the growing disintegration of his mind. In The Birth of Tragedy (1872) he changed traditional perceptions of classical culture as expounded by Goethe. He highlighted the irrational or Dionysian streak which, he maintained, had coexisted with the more restrained Apollonian element. In Beyond Good and Evil (1886) he developed the idea of the Übermensch ('overman') as the person who has organised the chaos of his passions, achieved a distinctive individuality and become creative. The term has been popularly misconceived: it was not intended in a Darwinian sense ('superman' is a bad translation), but as implying a desire to reach out beyond one's condition. Life for Nietzsche was not a wretched stuggle for existence but a positive and dynamic striving for power. He revolted against Christianity, which he came to see as an enfeebled religion of comfort, and he preached a new master morality, inciting the Übermensch to trample underfoot the servile herd of the weak. He cited the sprouting plant and the babe in the womb as evidence of this natural will to grow, declaring that creation necessarily involves destruction, since life is always at the expense of other life. Thus he saw pity in negative terms, as based on sentimental morality, admiring instead Schopenhauer's ideas of courage and destruction in pursuit of the realisation of one's own self. He regarded suffering, cruelty, dissimulation and revenge as virtues which developed strength and integrity. Speaking of the Übermensch, he wrote: 'We must be hard against ourselves and overcome ourselves; we must become creators instead of remaining mere creatures.' He considered Goethe the model of the Übermensch. Some of Nietzsche's coinage and epigrammatic sayings glorifying courage were taken out of context by the Nazis and used to support the ideology of the master-race. CF 93: refers to this misreading of Nietzsche's conception of power in militaristic terms. See Zarathustra." (139)