Which of us in our youth did not read the famous work of the greatest German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche "Thus says Zarathustra", building ambitious plans and dreaming of conquering the world. The movement along the path of life made its own adjustments, and dreams of greatness and glory receded into the background, giving way to more mundane pressing issues. In addition, feelings and emotions entered our lives, and the impassive path of the superman no longer seemed to us such a tempting prospect. Is Nietzsche's idea applicable in our life, or is it a utopia of a celebrated genius, which is impossible for a mere mortal to approach? Let's try to figure it out.
Formation of the image of the superman in the history of the development of society
Who first put forward the idea of a superman? it turns out that it has its roots in the distant past. In the legendary Golden Age, superhumans acted as intermediaries in communication between gods and people who considered themselves weak and unworthy to touch a deity.
Later, the concept of the superman became closely associated with religion, and in almost all religions there is a similar idea of the messiah, whose role is to save people andintercession before God. In Buddhism, the superman even replaces the idea of God, because Buddha is not a god, but a superman.
The image of a superman in those distant times had nothing to do with ordinary people. A person could not even think that by working on himself he could develop superpowers in himself, but over time we see examples of endowing these qualities with real people. So, in ancient history, Alexander the Great, and later Julius Caesar, was perceived as a superman.
In the Renaissance, this image was associated with the sovereign, the bearer of absolute power, described by N. Machiavelli, and among the German romantics, the superman is a genius who is not subject to ordinary human laws.
In the 19th century, Napoleon was the standard for many.
Friedrich Nietzsche's Approach to the Superman
At that time, in European philosophy, the call to study the inner world of man is increasingly manifested, but the true breakthrough in this direction is made by Nietzsche, who challenges man, recognizing his ability to transform into a superman:
Man is something that must be overcome. What did you do to overcome the person?”
In short, Nietzsche's idea of the superman is that man, according to his concept, is a bridge to the superman, and this bridge can be overcome by suppressing the animal nature in oneself and moving towards an atmosphere of freedom. According to Nietzsche, man serves as a rope stretched between animals and the superman, and only at the endthis way he can regain his lost meaning.
Opinions about the teachings of Nietzsche, as well as about himself, are very ambiguous. While some consider him an undisputed genius, others perceive him as a monster who gave birth to a philosophical ideology that justified fascism.
Before we begin to consider the main provisions of his theory, let's get acquainted with the life of this extraordinary person, which, of course, left its mark on his beliefs and thoughts.
Biography Facts
Friedrich Nietzsche was born on October 18, 1844 in the family of a pastor, and his childhood was spent in a small town near Leipzig. When the boy was only five years old, due to mental illness, his father passed away, and a year later, his younger brother. Nietzsche took the death of his father very hard and carried these tragic memories until the end of his life.
From childhood, he had a painful perception and acutely experienced mistakes, so he strove for self-development and internal discipline. Acutely feeling the lack of inner peace, he taught his sister: “When you know how to control yourself, you begin to control the whole world.”
Nietzsche was a calm, gentle and compassionate person, but he had difficulty finding mutual understanding with those around him, who, however, could not but recognize the outstanding abilities of the young genius.
After graduating from the Pfort School, which was one of the best in Germany in the 19th century, Friedrich entered the University of Bonn to study theology and classical philology. However, after the first semester, he stoppedattend his theological classes and wrote to a deeply religious sister that he had lost his faith. He concentrated on the study of philology under Professor Friedrich Wilhelm Ritschl, whom he followed in 1965 to the University of Leipzig. In 1869, Nietzsche accepted an offer from the University of Basel in Switzerland to become a professor of classical philology.
During the Franco-Prussian war in 1870-1871. Nietzsche joined the Prussian army as an orderly, where he contracted dysentery and diphtheria. This aggravated his poor he alth - Nietzsche suffered from excruciating headaches, stomach problems since childhood, and while studying at the University of Leipzig (according to some sources) contracted syphilis while visiting a brothel.
In 1879, he alth problems reached such a breaking point that he was forced to resign his position at the University of Basel.
Years after Basel
Nietzsche spent the next decade traveling the world in an attempt to find a climate that could alleviate the symptoms of his illness. The sources of income during that period were a pension from the university and the help of friends. He sometimes came to Naumburg to visit his mother and sister Elisabeth, with whom Nietzsche had frequent conflicts about her husband, who had Nazi and anti-Semitic views.
In 1889, Nietzsche suffered a mental breakdown while in Turin, Italy. It is said that the trigger for this disorder was his accidental presence during the beatinghorses. Friends took Nietzsche to Basel to a psychiatric clinic, but his mental state rapidly deteriorated. At the initiative of his mother, he was transferred to a hospital in Jena, and a year later he was brought home to Naumburg, where his mother took care of him until her death in 1897. After the death of his mother, these concerns fell to his sister Elisabeth, who, after Nietzsche's death, inherited his unpublished works. It was her publications that played a key role in the later identification of Nietzsche's work with Nazi ideology. Further examination of Nietzsche's work rejects the existence of any connection between his ideas and their interpretation by the Nazis.
After suffering a stroke in the late 1890s, Nietzsche was unable to walk or speak. In 1900, he contracted pneumonia and died after suffering a stroke. According to many biographers and historians who have studied the life of the great philosopher, Nietzsche's he alth problems, including mental illness and early death, were caused by tertiary syphilis, but there were other causes, such as manic depression, dementia and others. In addition, in the last years of his life, he was practically blind.
Thorny path to the world of philosophy
Strangely enough, the years of painful suffering associated with poor he alth coincided with his most fruitful years, marked by the writing of many works on the topics of art, philology, history, culture, science and philosophy. It was at this time that the idea of the superman appeared in Nietzsche's philosophy.
He knew the value of life, because being terminally ill and living in constant suffering from physicalpain, still argued that "life is good." He tried to absorb every moment of this life, repeating the phrase that each of us has repeatedly said in our lives: “What does not kill us makes us stronger.”
By superhuman efforts, overcoming excruciating, unbearable pain, he wrote his imperishable works, in which more than one generation draws inspiration. Like his favorite image (Zarathustra), he “climbed the highest mountains to laugh at every tragedy of the stage and life. Yes, this laughter was through tears of suffering and pain…
The most famous and discussed work of the great scientist: the idea of the superman Friedrich Nietzsche
How did it all start? Since the death of God… This meant that an increasingly secular and scientific society could no longer find meaning in Christianity as it had in the past. Where could a person turn in search of the lost meaning, having lost the opportunity to turn to God? Nietzsche had his own scenario.
Superman is the goal that must be achieved in order to return the lost meaning to man. The very word "superman" Nietzsche borrowed from Goethe's "Faust", but put into it a completely different, his own meaning. What was the path of this new image?
Nietzsche traces 2 concepts of the development of events: one of them is based on Darwin's biological theory of the constant development of the evolutionary process leading to the emergence of a new biological species, and thus considered the creation of a superman as the next point in development. But in connection withNietzsche, impetuous in his impulses, could not wait so long along the extremely long path of this process, and in his work a different concept appears, according to which man is presented as something final, and the superman is the most perfect human type.
On the way to the superman, it is necessary to go through several stages of development of the human spirit:
- The state of the camel (the state of slavery - "you must", putting pressure on a person.
- The state of the lion (dropping the shackles of slavery and creating "new values". This stage is the beginning of the evolution of man into a superman.
- The state of the child (period of creativity)
What is he - the crown of creation, the superman?
According to Nietzsche's idea of the superman, anyone can and should become one, regardless of nationality and social status. First of all, this is a person who controls his own destiny, stands above the concept of good from evil and independently chooses moral rules for himself. He is characterized by spiritual creativity, complete concentration, the will to power, super-individualism. This is a person free, independent, strong, not in need of compassion and free from compassion for others.
The purpose of the life of the superman is the search for truth and overcoming oneself. He is freed from morality, religion and authority.
The will comes to the fore in Nietzsche's philosophy. The essence of life is the will to power, bringing meaning and order to the chaos of the universe.
Nietzsche is called the great moral subverter and nihilist, and his ideas about the need to build the morality of strong people in returnthe Christian religion, built on the principle of compassion, is associated with the ideology of fascism.
Nietzsche's philosophy and Nazi ideology
Followers of the connection between Nietzsche's philosophy and fascism cite his words about the beautiful blond beast that can go wherever he wants in search of prey and the desire for victory, as well as Nietzsche's calls for the establishment of a "new order" with the "ruler of the people" in chapter. However, when studying the works of the greatest philosopher, one can notice that his positions and those of the Third Reich are in many ways diametrically opposed.
Often, phrases taken out of context get a different meaning, completely far from the original one - in relation to Nietzsche's works, this is especially evident when many quotes from his works take only what lies on the surface and do not reflect the deep meaning of it teachings.
Nietzsche openly stated that he did not support German nationalism and anti-Semitism, as evidenced by his conflict with his sister after her marriage to a man who shared these views.
But how could the bloody dictator of the Third Reich get past such an idea when it was so… suited to his painful perception of his role in the history of the world? He considered himself the very superman Nietzsche predicted.
There is information that on Hitler's birthday, Nietzsche wrote in his diary: “I can accurately predict my fate. Someday my name will be closely associated and associated with the memory of something terrible and monstrous.”
Sorry,the grim omen of the great philosopher has come true.
Was there a place for compassion in the idea of the superman in the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche?
The question is by no means an idle one. Yes, the ideal of the superman denies this virtue, but only in terms of expressing the weakness of a spineless, passive being. Nietzsche does not deny the very feeling of compassion as the ability to feel the suffering of other people. Zarathustra says:
Let your compassion be guessing: so that you know in advance if your friend wants compassion.
The fact is that compassion and pity can not always and not everyone have a good and beneficial effect - they can offend someone. If we consider Nietzsche's "giving virtue", then the object is not one's own "I", not selfish compassion, but the desire to bestow others. Thus, compassion should be altruistic, not in the context of listing the act as one's good deeds.
Conclusion
What are the fundamental principles of Nietzsche's idea of the superman, which we will learn after reading the work "Thus says Zarathustra"? Oddly enough, it is unequivocally difficult to answer this question - everyone makes something for himself, accepting one and denying the other.
In his work, the great philosopher condemns the society of small, gray and submissive people, seeing them as a great danger, and opposes the depreciation of the human personality, its individuality and originality.
Nietzsche's main idea of the superman is the idea of the elevation of man.
He makes us think, and his imperishable work will always excite a person who is in search of the meaning of life. And can Nietzsche's idea of the superman serve to gain happiness? Hardly… Looking back at the pain-filled life path of this talented person and his monstrous loneliness that consumed him from the inside, we cannot say that the ideas he formulated made him happy.
