Nietzsche

One of the best known Philosophers is Nietzsche, but, unfortunately, what is most generally thought to be true of him is almost completely mistaken. The typical image of him is as an immoral anti-Semitic militaristic Aryan supremacist, all aspects of which are wrong. His primary philosophical target was a pervasive version of European Christianity of the 1800s, which he both criticized and diagnosed. One focus of his criticism was the Christian Morality of the era, which he tried to expose as conformist and malignantly unnatural. One phrase that articulates this challenge is 'beyond Good and Evil', in the context of which he sometimes referred to himself as an 'Immoralist'. Since this effort included allusions to the kind of value system that he endorsed, including many points of agreement with Aristotle, the latter rubric was patently ironic. In the context of this project, Judaism is blamed primarily for breeding Christianity, and when differentiating the two, a rarity in that era, Nietzsche often expresses a preference for the Old Testament, and a respect for its people. His alleged militarism is based on a misunderstanding of his doctrine of Will to Power, which he intended as a rival for the traditional Will to Live analysis of human nature, not as an advocacy of brute violence. The concept of an Aryan 'master race' is cobbled together from several different sources, including what can easily be interpreted as a facetious reference to a 'blond beast'. In contrast, in some of the few comments explictly devoted to the topic of evolved humans, he reveals himself to be a eugenicist, proposing that such evolved types would have to be the product of an interbreeding that would combine the best characteristics of all races. Also, none of the superior race treatment has any connection to his concept of a 'Superman', which he proposed as a life-affirming ideal to replace the standard physical-denying image of Christ, which he diagnosed as slowly losing its influence in that place and time. For sure, the radicality of his views, and their provocative mode of expression, left his work susceptible to the growing Fascism of the time, especially once he became incapacitated, and placed in the care of a sister who was involved in that movement. But a conscientious reading of his views suggests that those Fascists were the embodiment not of his ideals, but of the coming Nihilism that he warned about.