РефератыИностранный языкFrFriedrich Nietzsche Essay Research Paper Friedrich Nietzsche

Friedrich Nietzsche Essay Research Paper Friedrich Nietzsche

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.

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