Nazi philosophers such as Baumler, Rosenberg, and many others altered Nietzsche’s philosophy and manipulated it to support their views on Nazism with Nietzsche as their forefather. Alfred Rosenberg even quoted that Nietzsche was “bound to be misunderstood” (Aschheim 237). Nazi philosophers in the Third Reich appropriated the term nietzscheanism which applies the Nazi components of Nietzsche’s philosophy most notably his concept of the will to power in society (Aschheim 240). Baumler in his Nietzsche: The Philosopher and Politician sought to politicize Nietzsche in the direction of the radical right and edited previous editions of Nietzsche to depict him as a “monolithic philosopher of heroic realism” (Whyte 179). Baumler’s conception and his …show more content…
This revolutionary regeneration connects to Rosenberg’s racial construction theories. The Nazi’s sought to regenerate Germany with their euthanasia program to remove those who were not of the Aryan race as they were seen as tainting the people of German society. Nietzsche’s concept of the overman and his idea on eternal recurrence was misinterpreted by the Nazi leaders and theorists. The overman for Nietzsche takes a long time to become and achieve. As God is dead, God was the source of all values and there needs to be a new being that prescribes values on to the people. The overman is the creator of new values without having the values of the old tablets as found in Christian doctrine. In order to become the overman, one must accept there are no absolute truths, there is suffering in life, and one must control their impulses and behavior. In addition, one must accept that the world is in a state of flux as life is constantly changing and adapting and we must adapt as life does. Furthermore, Nietzsche’s overman is courageous, self-expressive, powerful, and has strong influence over others (Kaufmann
When I read about Breuer in the book, When Nietzsche Wept I was completely drawn into the story. Breuer is a middle-aged Jewish doctor who is a well-known physician, but very passionate when it comes to his profession. While reading about Breuer it was interesting looking at his character’s id, ego, and superego from a Freudian perspective. First off I will start with his id, from the very beginning of the book Breuer mentions a woman named Bertha also known as Anna O. Throughout the entire story Breuer suffers from the fantasies that he has of Bertha. The id engages in primary thinking, which is primitive, illogical, irrational and fantasy oriented. Breuer becomes obsessed with these fantasies of Bertha to the point where he says, “This obsession
“As soon as a religion comes to dominate it has as its opponents all those who would have been its first disciples.” Nietzsche was one of the first modern philosophers to rebel against rationalism and when World War I came about, the revolution against religion truly became a legitimate statement. Friedrich Nietzsche strongly believed that many of those that practiced religion were led to the acceptance of slave morality. Religion had always played a fundamental role in society as it sets strict boundaries and standards of what is morally correct and incorrect. However, Nietzsche claims that, “Human nature is always driven by “ ‘the will to power’ ”, but religion will tell one otherwise, saying that one should forbid their bad desires. In Nietzsche’s
Nietzsche was a revolutionary author and philosopher who has had a tremendous impact on German culture up through the twentieth century and even today. Nietzsche's views were very unlike the popular and conventional beliefs and practices of his time and nearly all of his published works were, and still are, rather controversial, especially in On the Genealogy of Morals. His philosophies are more than just controversial and unconventional viewpoints, however; they are absolutely extreme and dangerous if taken out of context or misinterpreted. After Nietzsche's death it took very little for his sister to make some slight alterations to his works to go along with Nazi ideology.
Friedrich Nietzsche, a prominent German philosopher in the 19th century is one of the most well-read philosophers of the past two-centuries. His ideas regarding morality and nature continue to be discussed and debated to this day among scholars of all beliefs.
We have grown weary of man. Nietzsche wants something better, to believe in human ability once again. Nietzsche’s weariness is based almost entirely in the culmination of ressentiment, the dissolution of Nietzsche’s concept of morality and the prevailing priestly morality. Nietzsche wants to move beyond simple concepts of good and evil, abandon the assessment of individuals through ressentiment, and restore men to their former wonderful ability.
Friedrich Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher and held in regard amongst the greatest philosophers of the early part century. He sharpened his philosophical skills through reading the works of the earlier philosophers of the 18th century such as Immanuel Kant, John Stuart Mill, Arthur Schopenhauer and African Spir; however, their works and beliefs were opposite to his own. His primary mentor was Author Schopenhauer, whose belief was that reality was built on the foundation of experience. Such as it is, one of his essays, Schopenhauer als Erzieher, published in 1874, was dedicated to Schopenhauer (Mencken, 2008). In the past two centuries, his work has had authority and influence in both
Humans need the appearance of some sort of structure to live. They need rules to live by to tell them whether or not they are living “right”, in a good way or a bad way. We humans have come up with many different ways to tell whether we are living right “right” or not. We have come up with all of the different types of religions and the different sets of morals , all of which change throughout history and time depending on and reflecting it’s episteme. How can any religion or set of morals be considered the “right one” when there has been no consistency with either? Both Feuerbach and Nietzsche have the same belief, that religions and morals are only a crutch that humans grab on to in order to give some meaning to the random assortment of life on earth. Both think that religion was a crutch for humans because of our inability to be perfect. Religions especially Christianity (Jesus) have their own destruction built in to them because of the humanity aspect. Though Feuerbach and Nietzsche agreed upon this they had very different opinions on how it would come about.
Although the problem of the relationship between Nietzsche and metaphysics might seem to be a settled issue, this is in fact a quite complicated and fascinating problematic. The difficulty with this subject lies in the often unacknowledged ambiguity that the term ‘metaphysics’ exhibits in Nietzsche's writing, as this word assumes different nuances and connotations in different contexts. Therefore, if we can get past the usual rhetoric on the topic, we come to realize that Nietzsche addresses the topic of metaphysics in at least two distinct ways.
While Hitler was the leader of the Third Reich, the functionalists believed that the ‘road to Auschwitz’ was characterized by an indirect unplanned path that was defined by cumulative radicalization of the Nazis due to the prevalence of chaotic decision-making processes that were a major feature of the polycratic system of governance. Additionally, this system was characterized by the elimination of individuals considered as destructive to the Nazi movement, leading to the creation of a movement that was ready to do anything to achieve a ‘final solution’ to the ‘Jew problem’. Karl Schleunes falls in this school of thought. Karl Schleunes argument, like that of other functionalists, was cemented on institutions and structure of the Third Reich. With the intentionalists arguing that the Holocaust was the fulfillment of Hitler’s plan hatched in the 1920s, their argument was summer up as the ‘straight road to Auschwitz.’ For functionalists, however, the path to the Holocaust was not straight, a reason why Karl Schleunes labeled his book The Twisted Road to
In his book, Twilight of the Idols, Friedrich Nietzsche aggressively challenges conventional schools of thought dating back to the ancients. Philosophy, as we know it, began over two-thousand years ago in Athens with the birth of Socrates. Socrates introduced the practice of reasoning and dialectics—the art of discourse hoping to bring individuals closer to some universal truth—to an Athenian society that previously held aesthetics, not logic, as indicative of goodness. Socrates revolutionized life in Athens, and by extension, the Western tradition. His beliefs are found in works written centuries after his death. He is heralded as the “father of philosophy.”
Nietzsche shares a similar view of man. The important thing in man is his potential; man is striving but for something different, Ubermensch or superman. It represents man constantly striving to overcome himself and become a man whose values are independent from societal conceptions of good and evil. Ubermensch must be willing and able to reject what he is now to become something different and never become content with present values. Similar to Kierkegaard, Nietzsche sees life as a series of stages that take man from the herd to Ubermensch. The first step for man to achieve Ubermensch is to overcome a collective herd view of values because they are not bridges to Ubermensch. Once this herd is overcome, man can begin to concentrate on overcoming himself.
As stated previously, Nietzsche’s work was both great and highly influential. The Nazis even used his writings as a basis for their beliefs. Nietzsche believed that the greatest societies were always built upon the aristocratic system. Since he believed there
Nietzsche introduced an idea of philosophy that was more than simply a rational groundwork of existence or as the pursuit of an absolute truth. Instead, he suggested that philosophy is something to be respected as a personal interpretation of life and all its faculties (morality, existentialism etc.) and that was – for him - focused on life affirmation. Furthermore, this thinking implies that philosophy is not a be all and end all answer to life’s questions; rather, it is merely a
Nietzsche is widely known as a critic of religion. In fact, he talks in depth about morality in regards to religion in his essays about the genealogy of morals. But the problem is not within religion itself or within morals. The problem is involved in the combination of the two to create society’s understanding of morality through a very religious lens. In fact, Nietzsche has criticism for almost any set of morals constructed by a group of individuals and meant to be applied to society as a whole. True morality, according to Nietzsche, requires a separation from these group dynamic views of morality- or at least a sincere look into where they originated and why they persist- and a movement towards a more introverted, and intrinsically personalized understanding of what morals mean in spite of the fact that “the normative force to which every member of society is exposed, in the form of obligations, codes of behavior, and other moral rules and guidelines, is disproportionally high” (Korfmacher 6).
Nietzsche’s overman has the right to make promises because he, according to Nietzsche, is the only being who is able to keep those promises. For Nietzsche, an overman has the strength of character: the reliability and regularity to be able to make promises (“Second essay: ‘Guilt’, ‘bad conscience’ and related matters” 36). Nietzsche connects the would promise with the word responsibility, and the importance of that in a man who has the ability to make promises.