Date: Tue, 9 Feb 99 10:17:59 EST
From: "Brian J. Callahan" <Brian=J.=Callahan%MT%DFCI-AT-EYE.DFCI.HARVARD.EDU>
Subject: re: Nietzsche


Mokey writes:
> actually, i've just read a book that explains that he was a real nice guy.
>despite all his rhetoric he was apparently one of the most honest, kind and
>helpful human beings that you ever could meet.  someone that would help old
>ladies across the road and all that.

Yes, it's true that there have been many reports of him being very sensitive 
to others in his life, but it seems he made up for it in his philosophical 
musings.  There's that story that he went mad after seeing a man beat a horse 
to death, but I'm sure the syphillis didn't help.  

You obviously are familiar with his writings, mokey, so I won't bother 
dumping all the many quotes that have been "misinterpreted" (according to Mr. 
Kaufman of Nietzsche Inc.).  Suffice it to say that not all scholars agree 
with Kaufman's point of view.  I can't remeber the name of the professor I 
had for "Nietzsche, Prohphet of Nihilism," but he was adamant that Kaufman 
was simply trying to whitewash Nietzsche.  Other professors I had shared that 
view to some degree.  While it's true the superman is the product of self-
overcoming not necessarily conquest of others, still the process of self-
overcoming involves moving beyond the concepts of good and evil and certainly 
anything tainted by sympathy for the "herd" (like anarchism).  It isn't 
fascism but rather nihilism that he preached.  God is dead.  Everything is 
therefore permitted, no?  It is in this fertile ground that the seeds of 
fascism grew.  

IMHO, the basic failure of Nietzsche's philosophy is his distorted view of 
humanity and the individual.  While I would agree that the will to power is 
an important motivator of human beings, Nietzsche willfully ignored any 
evidence that there is a similarly basic component of human life that 
revolves around care for other human beings.  He hates such feelings ( 
possibly because he felt them so keenly himself as a sensitive intellectual)
and so begins to worship at the altar of the Blonde Beast (yup, my hair's 
dark).                                                  

It's true that he even attacked the anti-semites of the day to distance 
himself from their crude attacks, but his own characterization of Judaism 
could not but help make anti-semitism more intellectually palatable.

He would have hated Hitler's lack of self-examination, but Nietzsche prepared 
the intellectual climate for his rise.  N's infuence on Heidegger, who 
collaborated in denouncing his colleagues, and also on Weber, who's 
characterization of the "charismatic leader" as essential fit in nicely with 
fuhrer worship, helped convince many intellectuals in Germany that Natzis 
were maybe a good thing.