Friedrich Nietzsche's Writings Friedrich Nietzsche

Because of Nietzsche's evocative style and provocative ideas, his philosophy generates passionate reactions. His works remain controversial, due to varying interpretations and misinterpretations. In Western philosophy, Nietzsche's writings have been described as a case of free revolutionary thought, that is, revolutionary in its structure and problems, although not tied to any revolutionary project.[127] His writings have also been described as a revolutionary project in which his philosophy serves as the foundation of a European cultural rebirth.[128][129]

Apollonian and Dionysian

The Apollonian and Dionysian is a two-fold philosophical concept based on two figures in ancient Greek mythology, Apollo and Dionysus. This relationship takes the form of a dialectic.[130] Even though the concept is related to The Birth of Tragedy, the poet Hölderlin had already spoken of it, and Winckelmann had talked of Bacchus.

Nietzsche found in classical Athenian tragedy an art form that transcended the pessimism found in the so-called wisdom of Silenus. The Greek spectators, by looking into the abyss of human suffering depicted by characters on stage, passionately and joyously affirmed life, finding it worth living. The main theme in The Birth of Tragedy is that the fusion of Dionysian and Apollonian Kunsttriebe ("artistic impulses") forms dramatic arts or tragedies. He argued that this fusion has not been achieved since the ancient Greek tragedians. Apollo represents harmony, progress, clarity, logic and the principle of individuation, whereas Dionysus represents disorder, intoxication, emotion, ecstasy and unity (hence the omission of the principle of individuation). Nietzsche used these two forces because, for him, the world of mind and order on one side, and passion and chaos on the other, formed principles that were fundamental to the Greek culture:[131][132] the Apollonian a dreaming state, full of illusions; and Dionysian a state of intoxication, representing the liberations of instinct and dissolution of boundaries. In this mould, a man appears as the satyr. He is the horror of the annihilation of the principle of individuality and at the same time someone who delights in its destruction.[133]

Apollonian and Dionysian juxtapositions appear in the interplay of tragedy: the tragic hero of the drama, the main protagonist, struggles to make (Apollonian) order of his unjust and chaotic (Dionysian) fate, though he dies unfulfilled. Elaborating on the conception of Hamlet as an intellectual who cannot make up his mind, and is a living antithesis to the man of action, Nietzsche argues that a Dionysian figure possesses the knowledge that his actions cannot change the eternal balance of things, and it disgusts him enough not to act at all. Hamlet falls under this category—he glimpsed the supernatural reality through the Ghost; he has gained true knowledge and knows that no action of his has the power to change this. For the audience of such drama, this tragedy allows them to sense what Nietzsche called the Primordial Unity, which revives Dionysian nature. He describes primordial unity as the increase of strength, the experience of fullness and plenitude bestowed by frenzy. Frenzy acts as intoxication and is crucial for the physiological condition that enables the creation of any art. Stimulated by this state, a person's artistic will is enhanced:

In this state one enriches everything out of one's own fullness: whatever one sees, whatever wills is seen swelled, taut, strong, overloaded with strength. A man in this state transforms things until they mirror his power—until they are reflections of his perfection. This having to transform into perfection is—art.

Nietzsche is adamant that the works of Aeschylus and Sophocles represent the apex of artistic creation, the true realisation of tragedy; it is with Euripides, that tragedy begins its Untergang (literally 'going under' or 'downward-way;' meaning decline, deterioration, downfall, death, etc.). Nietzsche objects to Euripides' use of Socratic rationalism and morality in his tragedies, claiming that the infusion of ethics and reason robs tragedy of its foundation, namely the fragile balance of the Dionysian and Apollonian. Socrates emphasised reason to such a degree that he diffused the value of myth and suffering to human knowledge. Plato continued along this path in his dialogues, and the modern world eventually inherited reason at the expense of artistic impulses found in the Apollonian and Dionysian dichotomy. He notes that without the Apollonian, the Dionysian lacks the form and structure to make a coherent piece of art, and without the Dionysian, the Apollonian lacks the necessary vitality and passion. Only the fertile interplay of these two forces brought together as an art represented the best of Greek tragedy.[134]

An example of the impact of this idea can be seen in the book Patterns of Culture, where anthropologist Ruth Benedict acknowledges Nietzschean opposites of "Apollonian" and "Dionysian" as the stimulus for her thoughts about Native American cultures.[135] Carl Jung has written extensively on the dichotomy in Psychological Types.[136] Michel Foucault commented that his own book Madness and Civilization should be read "under the sun of the great Nietzschean inquiry". Here Foucault referenced Nietzsche's description of the birth and death of tragedy and his explanation that the subsequent tragedy of the Western world was the refusal of the tragic and, with that, refusal of the sacred.[137] Painter Mark Rothko was influenced by Nietzsche's view of tragedy presented in The Birth of Tragedy.

Perspectivism

Nietzsche claimed the death of God would eventually lead to the realisation that there can never be a universal perspective on things and that the traditional idea of objective truth is incoherent.[138][139][140] Nietzsche rejected the idea of objective reality, arguing that knowledge is contingent and conditional, relative to various fluid perspectives or interests.[141] This leads to constant reassessment of rules (i.e., those of philosophy, the scientific method, etc.) according to the circumstances of individual perspectives.[142] This view has acquired the name perspectivism.

In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche proclaimed that a table of values hangs above every great person. He pointed out that what is common among different peoples is the act of esteeming, of creating values, even if the values are different from one person to the next. Nietzsche asserted that what made people great was not the content of their beliefs, but the act of valuing. Thus the values a community strives to articulate are not as important as the collective will to see those values come to pass. The willingness is more essential than the merit of the goal itself, according to Nietzsche. "A thousand goals have there been so far", says Zarathustra, "for there are a thousand peoples. Only the yoke for the thousand necks is still lacking: the one goal is lacking. Humanity still has no goal." Hence, the title of the aphorism, "On The Thousand And One Goal". The idea that one value-system is no more worthy than the next, although it may not be directly ascribed to Nietzsche, has become a common premise in modern social science. Max Weber and Martin Heidegger absorbed it and made it their own. It shaped their philosophical and cultural endeavours, as well as their political understanding. Weber, for example, relied on Nietzsche's perspectivism by maintaining that objectivity is still possible—but only after a particular perspective, value, or end has been established.[143][144]

Among his critique of traditional philosophy of Kant, Descartes, and Plato in Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche attacked the thing in itself and cogito ergo sum ("I think, therefore I am") as unfalsifiable beliefs based on naive acceptance of previous notions and fallacies.[145] Philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre put Nietzsche in a high place in the history of philosophy. While criticising nihilism and Nietzsche together as a sign of general decay,[146] he still commended him for recognising psychological motives behind Kant and Hume's moral philosophy:[147]

For it was Nietzsche's historic achievement to understand more clearly than any other philosopher ... not only that what purported to be appeals of objectivity were in fact expressions of subjective will, but also the nature of the problems that this posed for philosophy.[148]

Slave revolt in morals

In Beyond Good and Evil and On the Genealogy of Morality, Nietzsche's genealogical account of the development of modern moral systems occupies a central place. For Nietzsche, a fundamental shift took place during the human history from thinking in terms of "good and bad" toward "good and evil".

The initial form of morality was set by a warrior aristocracy and other ruling castes of ancient civilisations. Aristocratic values of good and bad coincided with and reflected their relationship to lower castes such as slaves. Nietzsche presented this "master morality" as the original system of morality—perhaps best associated with Homeric Greece.[149] To be "good" was to be happy and to have the things related to happiness: wealth, strength, health, power, etc. To be "bad" was to be like the slaves over whom the aristocracy ruled: poor, weak, sick, pathetic—objects of pity or disgust rather than hatred.[150]

"Slave morality" developed as a reaction to master morality. Value emerges from the contrast between good and evil: good being associated with other-worldliness, charity, piety, restraint, meekness, and submission; while evil is worldly, cruel, selfish, wealthy, and aggressive. Nietzsche saw slave morality as pessimistic and fearful, its values emerging to improve the self-perception of slaves. He associated slave morality with the Jewish and Christian traditions, as it is born out of the ressentiment of slaves. Nietzsche argued that the idea of equality allowed slaves to overcome their own conditions without despising themselves. By denying the inherent inequality of people—in success, strength, beauty, and intelligence—slaves acquired a method of escape, namely by generating new values on the basis of rejecting master morality, which frustrated them. It was used to overcome the slave's sense of inferiority before their (better-off) masters. It does so by depicting slave weakness, for example, as a matter of choice, by relabelling it as "meekness". The "good man" of master morality is precisely the "evil man" of slave morality, while the "bad man" is recast as the "good man".[149]

Nietzsche saw slave morality as a source of the nihilism that has overtaken Europe. Modern Europe and Christianity exist in a hypocritical state due to a tension between master and slave morality, both contradictory values determining, to varying degrees, the values of most Europeans (who are "motley"). Nietzsche called for exceptional people not to be ashamed in the face of a supposed morality-for-all, which he deems to be harmful to the flourishing of exceptional people. He cautioned, however, that morality, per se, is not bad; it is good for the masses and should be left to them. Exceptional people, in contrast, should follow their own "inner law".[149] A favourite motto of Nietzsche, taken from Pindar, reads: "Become what you are."[151]

A long-standing assumption about Nietzsche is that he preferred master over slave morality. However, eminent Nietzsche scholar Walter Kaufmann rejected this interpretation, writing that Nietzsche's analyses of these two types of morality were used only in a descriptive and historic sense; they were not meant for any kind of acceptance or glorification.[152] On the other hand, Nietzsche called master morality "a higher order of values, the noble ones, those that say Yes to life, those that guarantee the future".[153] Just as "there is an order of rank between man and man", there is also an order of rank "between morality and morality".[154] Nietzsche waged a philosophic war against the slave morality of Christianity in his "revaluation of all values" to bring about the victory of a new master morality that he called the "philosophy of the future" (Beyond Good and Evil is subtitled Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future).[155]

In Daybreak, Nietzsche began his "Campaign against Morality".[156][157] He called himself an "immoralist" and harshly criticised the prominent moral philosophies of his day: Christianity, Kantianism, and utilitarianism. Nietzsche's concept "God is dead" applies to the doctrines of Christendom, though not to all other faiths: he claimed that Buddhism is a successful religion that he complimented for fostering critical thought.[158] Still, Nietzsche saw his philosophy as a counter-movement to nihilism through appreciation of art:

Art as the single superior counterforce against all will to negation of life, art as the anti-Christian, anti-Buddhist, anti-Nihilist par excellence.[159]

Nietzsche claimed that the Christian faith as practised was not a proper representation of Jesus' teachings, as it forced people merely to believe in the way of Jesus but not to act as Jesus did; in particular, his example of refusing to judge people, something that Christians constantly did.[158] He condemned institutionalised Christianity for emphasising a morality of pity (Mitleid), which assumes an inherent illness in society:[160]

Christianity is called the religion of pity. Pity stands opposed to the tonic emotions which heighten our vitality: it has a depressing effect. We are deprived of strength when we feel pity. That loss of strength in which suffering as such inflicts on life is still further increased and multiplied by pity. Pity makes suffering contagious.[161]

In Ecce Homo Nietzsche called the establishment of moral systems based on a dichotomy of good and evil a "calamitous error",[162] and wished to initiate a re-evaluation of the values of the Christian world.[163] He indicated his desire to bring about a new, more naturalistic source of value in the vital impulses of life itself.

While Nietzsche attacked the principles of Judaism, he was not antisemitic: in his work On the Genealogy of Morality, he explicitly condemned antisemitism and pointed out that his attack on Judaism was not an attack on contemporary Jewish people but specifically an attack upon the ancient Jewish priesthood who he claimed antisemitic Christians paradoxically based their views upon.[164] An Israeli historian who performed a statistical analysis of everything Nietzsche wrote about Jews claims that cross-references and context make clear that 85% of the negative comments are attacks on Christian doctrine or, sarcastically, on Richard Wagner.

Nietzsche felt that modern antisemitism was "despicable" and contrary to European ideals.[165] Its cause, in his opinion, was the growth in European nationalism and the endemic "jealousy and hatred" of Jewish success.[165] He wrote that Jews should be thanked for helping uphold a respect for the philosophies of ancient Greece,[165] and for giving rise to "the noblest human being (Christ), the purest philosopher (Baruch Spinoza), the mightiest book, and the most effective moral code in the world".[166]

Death of God and nihilism

The statement "God is dead," occurring in several of Nietzsche's works (notably in The Gay Science), has become one of his best-known remarks. On the basis of it, many commentators[167] regard Nietzsche as an atheist; others (such as Kaufmann) suggest that this statement might reflect a more subtle understanding of divinity. Scientific developments and the increasing secularisation of Europe had effectively 'killed' the Abrahamic God, who had served as the basis for meaning and value in the West for more than a thousand years. The death of God may lead beyond bare perspectivism to outright nihilism, the belief that nothing has any inherent importance and that life lacks purpose. While Nietzsche rejected the traditional Christian morality and theology, he also rejected the nihilism which many thought was the only alternative to it.

Nietzsche believed that Christian moral doctrine was originally constructed to counteract nihilism. It provides people with traditional beliefs about the moral values of good and evil, belief in God (whose existence one might appeal to in justifying the evil in the world), and a framework with which one might claim to have objective knowledge. In constructing a world where objective knowledge is supposed to be possible, Christianity is an antidote to a primal form of nihilism—the despair of meaninglessness. As Heidegger put the problem, "If God as the supra sensory ground and goal of all reality is dead if the supra sensory world of the ideas has suffered the loss of its obligatory and above it its vitalising and upbuilding power, then nothing more remains to which man can cling and by which he can orient himself."[168]

One such reaction to the loss of meaning is what Nietzsche called passive nihilism, which he recognised in the pessimistic philosophy of Schopenhauer. Schopenhauer's doctrine—which Nietzsche also referred to as Western Buddhism—advocates separating oneself from will and desires to reduce suffering. Nietzsche characterised this ascetic attitude as a "will to nothingness". Life turns away from itself as there is nothing of value to be found in the world. This moving away of all value in the world is characteristic of the nihilist, although, in this, the nihilist appears to be inconsistent; this "will to nothingness" is still a (disavowed) form of willing.[169]

A nihilist is a man who judges that the real world ought not to be and that the world as it ought to do not exist. According to this view, our existence (action, suffering, willing, feeling) has no meaning: this 'in vain' is the nihilists' pathos—an inconsistency on the part of the nihilists.

— Friedrich Nietzsche, KSA 12:9 [60], taken from The Will to Power, section 585, translated by Walter Kaufmann

Nietzsche approached the problem of nihilism as a deeply personal one, stating that this problem of the modern world had "become conscious" in him.[170] Furthermore, he emphasised the danger of nihilism and the possibilities it offers, as seen in his statement that "I praise, I do not reproach, [nihilism's] arrival. I believe it is one of the greatest crises, a moment of the deepest self-reflection of humanity. Whether man recovers from it, whether he becomes a master of this crisis, is a question of his strength!"[171] According to Nietzsche, it is only when nihilism is overcome that a culture can have a true foundation on which to thrive. He wished to hasten its coming only so that he could also hasten its ultimate departure. Heidegger interpreted the death of God with what he explained as the death of metaphysics. He concluded that metaphysics has reached its potential and that the ultimate fate and downfall of metaphysics was proclaimed with the statement "God is dead."[172]

Scholars such as Nishitani and Parkes have aligned Nietzsche's religious thought with Buddhist thinkers, particularly those of the Mahayana tradition.[173] Occasionally, Nietzsche has also been considered in relation to Catholic mystics such as Meister Eckhart.[174] Milne has argued against such interpretations on the grounds that such thinkers from Western and Eastern religious traditions strongly emphasise the divestment of will and the loss of ego, while Nietzsche offers a robust defence of egoism.[175] Milne argues that Nietzsche's religious thought is better understood in relation to his self-professed ancestors: "Heraclitus, Empedocles, Spinoza, Goethe".[176] Milne plays particularly close attention to Nietzsche’s relationship to Goethe, who has typically been neglected in research by academic philosophers. Milne shows that Goethe’s views on the one and the many allow a reciprocal determinism between part and whole, meaning that a claimed identity between part and whole does not give the part value solely in terms of belonging to the whole. In essence, this allows for a unitive sense of the individual’s relationship to the universe, while also fostering a sense of "self-esteem" which Nietzsche found lacking in mystics such as Eckhart.[177]

With regard to Nietzsche's development of thought, it has been noted in research that although he dealt with "nihilistic" themes ("pessimism, with nirvana and with nothingness and non-being"[178]) from 1869 onwards, a conceptual use of nihilism first took place in handwritten notes in mid-1880. This period saw the publication of a then popular work that reconstructed so-called "Russian nihilism" on the basis of Russian newspaper reports (N. Karlowitsch: The Development of Nihilism. Berlin 1880), which is significant for Nietzsche's terminology .[179]

Will to power

A basic element in Nietzsche's philosophical outlook is the "will to power" (der Wille zur Macht), which he maintained provides a basis for understanding human behaviour—more so than competing explanations, such as the ones based on pressure for adaptation or survival.[180][181] As such, according to Nietzsche, the drive for conservation appears as the major motivator of human or animal behaviour only in exceptions, as the general condition of life is not one of a 'struggle for existence.'[182] More often than not, self-conservation is a consequence of a creature's will to exert its strength on the outside world.

In presenting his theory of human behaviour, Nietzsche also addressed and attacked concepts from philosophies then popularly embraced, such as Schopenhauer's notion of an aimless will or that of utilitarianism. Utilitarians claim that what moves people is the desire to be happy and accumulate pleasure in their lives. But such a conception of happiness Nietzsche rejected as something limited to, and characteristic of, the bourgeois lifestyle of the English society,[183] and instead put forth the idea that happiness is not an aim per se. It is a consequence of overcoming hurdles to one's actions and the fulfilment of the will.[184]

Related to his theory of the will to power is his speculation, which he did not deem final,[185] regarding the reality of the physical world, including inorganic matter—that, like man's affections and impulses, the material world is also set by the dynamics of a form of the will to power. At the core of his theory is a rejection of atomism—the idea that matter is composed of stable, indivisible units (atoms). Instead, he seemed to have accepted the conclusions of Ruđer Bošković, who explained the qualities of matter as a result of an interplay of forces.[iii][186] One study of Nietzsche defines his fully developed concept of the will to power as "the element from which derive both the quantitative difference of related forces and the quality that devolves into each force in this relation" revealing the will to power as "the principle of the synthesis of forces".[187] Of such forces Nietzsche said they could perhaps be viewed as a primitive form of the will. Likewise, he rejected the view that the movement of bodies is ruled by inexorable laws of nature, positing instead that movement was governed by the power relations between bodies and forces.[188]

Other scholars disagree that Nietzsche considered the material world to be a form of the will to power: Nietzsche thoroughly criticised metaphysics, and by including the will to power in the material world, he would simply be setting up a new metaphysics. Other than Aphorism 36 in Beyond Good and Evil, where he raised a question regarding will to power as being in the material world, they argue, it was only in his notes (unpublished by himself), where he wrote about a metaphysical will to power. And they also claim that Nietzsche directed his landlord to burn those notes in 1888 when he left Sils Maria.[189] According to these scholars, the "burning" story supports their thesis that Nietzsche rejected his project on the will to power at the end of his lucid life. However, a recent study (Huang 2019) shows that although it is true that in 1888 Nietzsche wanted some of his notes burned, this indicates little about his project on the will to power, not only because only 11 "aphorisms" saved from the flames were ultimately incorporated into The Will to Power (this book contains 1067 "aphorisms"), but also because these abandoned notes mainly focus on topics such as the critique of morality while touching upon the "feeling of power" only once.[92]

Eternal return

"Eternal return" (also known as "eternal recurrence") is a hypothetical concept that posits that the universe has been recurring, and will continue to recur, for an infinite number of times across infinite time or space. It is a purely physical concept, involving no supernatural reincarnation, but the return of beings in the same bodies. Nietzsche first proposed the idea of eternal return in a parable in Section 341 of The Gay Science, and also in the chapter "Of the Vision and the Riddle" in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, among other places.[190] Nietzsche considered it as potentially "horrifying and paralyzing", and said that its burden is the "heaviest weight" imaginable (" das schwerste Gewicht").[191] The wish for the eternal return of all events would mark the ultimate affirmation of life, a reaction to Schopenhauer's praise of denying the will-to-live. To comprehend eternal recurrence, and to not only come to peace with it but to embrace it, requires amor fati, "love of fate".[192] As Heidegger pointed out in his lectures on Nietzsche, Nietzsche's first mention of eternal recurrence presents this concept as a hypothetical question rather than stating it as fact. According to Heidegger, it is the burden imposed by the question of eternal recurrence – the mere possibility of it, and the reality of speculating on that possibility – which is so significant in modern thought: "The way Nietzsche here patterns the first communication of the thought of the 'greatest burden' [of eternal recurrence] makes it clear that this 'thought of thoughts' is at the same time 'the most burdensome thought.'"[193]

Alexander Nehamas writes in Nietzsche: Life as Literature of three ways of seeing the eternal recurrence:

1. "My life will recur in exactly identical fashion:" this expresses a totally fatalistic approach to the idea;
2. "My life may recur in exactly identical fashion:" This second view conditionally asserts cosmology, but fails to capture what Nietzsche refers to in The Gay Science, p. 341; and finally,
3. "If my life were to recur, then it could recur only in identical fashion." Nehamas shows that this interpretation exists totally independently of physics and does not presuppose the truth of cosmology.

Nehamas concluded that, if individuals constitute themselves through their actions, they can only maintain themselves in their current state by living in a recurrence of past actions (Nehamas, 153). Nietzsche's thought is the negation of the idea of a history of salvation.[194]

Übermensch

Another concept important to understanding Nietzsche is the Übermensch (Superman).[195][196][197][198] Writing about nihilism in Also Sprach Zarathustra, Nietzsche introduced an Übermensch. According to Laurence Lampert, "the death of God must be followed by a long twilight of piety and nihilism (II. 19; III. 8). Zarathustra's gift of the overman is given to mankind not aware of the problem to which the overman is the solution."[199] Zarathustra presents the Übermensch as the creator of new values, and he appears as a solution to the problem of the death of God and nihilism. The Übermensch does not follow the morality of common people since that favours mediocrity but rises above the notion of good and evil and above the "herd".[200] In this way Zarathustra proclaims his ultimate goal as the journey towards the state of the Übermensch. He wants a kind of spiritual evolution of self-awareness and overcoming of traditional views on morality and justice that stem from the superstitious beliefs still deeply rooted or related to the notion of God and Christianity.[201]

From Thus Spoke Zarathustra (Zarathustra's Prologue; pp. 9–11):[202]

I teach you the Übermensch. Man is something that shall be overcome. What have you done to overcome him? All beings so far have created something beyond themselves: and you want to be the ebb of that great tide, and would rather go back to the beast than overcome man? What is the ape to man? A laughing-stock or a painful embarrassment. And just the same shall man be to the Übermensch: a laughing-stock or a painful embarrassment. You have made your way from worm to man, and much within you is still worm. Once you were apes, and even yet man is more of an ape than any ape. Even the wisest among you is only a conflict and hybrid of plant and ghost. But do I bid you become ghosts or plants? Behold, I teach you the Übermensch! The Übermensch is the meaning of the earth. Let your will say: The Übermensch shall be the meaning of the earth... Man is a rope stretched between the animal and the Übermensch—a rope over an abyss... What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal: what is lovable in man is that he is an over-going and a going under.

Zarathustra contrasts the Übermensch with the last man of egalitarian modernity (the most obvious example being democracy), an alternative goal humanity might set for itself. The last man is possible only by mankind's having bred an apathetic creature who has no great passion or commitment, who is unable to dream, who merely earns his living and keeps warm. This concept appears only in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, and is presented as a condition that would render the creation of the Übermensch impossible.[203]

Some[204] have suggested that the eternal return is related to the Übermensch, since willing the eternal return of the same is a necessary step if the Übermensch is to create new values untainted by the spirit of gravity or asceticism. Values involve a rank-ordering of things, and so are inseparable from approval and disapproval, yet it was dissatisfaction that prompted men to seek refuge in other-worldliness and embrace other-worldly values. It could seem that the Übermensch, in being devoted to any values at all, would necessarily fail to create values that did not share some bit of asceticism. Willing the eternal recurrence is presented as accepting the existence of the low while still recognising it as the low, and thus as overcoming the spirit of gravity or asceticism. One must have the strength of the Übermensch to will the eternal recurrence. Only the Übermensch will have the strength to fully accept all of his past life, including his failures and misdeeds, and to truly will their eternal return. This action nearly kills Zarathustra, for example, and most human beings cannot avoid other-worldliness because they really are sick, not because of any choice they made.

The Nazis attempted to incorporate the concept into their ideology by means of taking Nietzsche's figurative form of speech and creating a literal superiority over other ethnicities. After his death, Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche became the curator and editor of her brother's manuscripts. She reworked Nietzsche's unpublished writings to fit her own German nationalist ideology while often contradicting or obfuscating Nietzsche's stated opinions, which were explicitly opposed to antisemitism and nationalism. Through her published editions, Nietzsche's work became associated with fascism and Nazism;[205] 20th-century scholars contested this interpretation of his work and corrected editions of his writings were soon made available.

Although Nietzsche has been misrepresented as a predecessor to Nazism, he criticised antisemitism, pan-Germanism and, to a lesser extent, nationalism.[206] Thus, he broke with his editor in 1886 because of his opposition to his editor's antisemitic stances, and his rupture with Richard Wagner, expressed in The Case of Wagner and Nietzsche contra Wagner, both of which he wrote in 1888, had much to do with Wagner's endorsement of pan-Germanism and antisemitism—and also of his rallying to Christianity. In a 29 March 1887 letter to Theodor Fritsch, Nietzsche mocked antisemites, Fritsch, Eugen Dühring, Wagner, Ebrard, Wahrmund, and the leading advocate of pan-Germanism, Paul de Lagarde, who would become, along with Wagner and Houston Chamberlain, the main official influences of Nazism.[80] This 1887 letter to Fritsch ended by: "And finally, how do you think I feel when the name Zarathustra is mouthed by anti-Semites?" In contrast to these examples, Nietzsche's close friend Franz Overbeck recalled in his memoirs, "When he speaks frankly, the opinions he expresses about Jews go, in their severity, beyond any anti-Semitism. The foundation of his anti-Christianity is essentially anti-Semitic."[207]

Critique of mass culture

Friedrich Nietzsche held a pessimistic view of modern society and culture. He believed the press and mass culture led to conformity, brought about mediocrity, and the lack of intellectual progress was leading to the decline of the human species. In his opinion, some people would be able to become superior individuals through the use of willpower. By rising above mass culture, those persons would produce higher, brighter, and healthier human beings.[208]