NORTH AMERICAN WNietgsche SOCIETY NIETZSCHEANA #9 NIETZSCHE IN A NUTSHELL A BRIEF RENDERING OF HIS PHILOSOPHICAL THINKING Richard SchachtCopyright © 2002 by Richard L. Schacht NIETZSCHEANA are occasional publications of the North American Nietzsche Society, produced in the central office of the Society at the University of Ilinois at ‘Urbana-Champaign under the editorship and supervision of the Executive Director, and distributed as membership benefits to members of the society. They are not for sale, and may not be reproduced for further distribution without the express written consent either of the Executive Director or of the author/editor/translator, in this instance Richard L. Schacht. Inquiries of the Executive Director should be directed to: Richard Schacht, Executive Director, NANS Department of Philosophy 105 Gregory Hall University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 810 South Wright Street Urbana, IL 61801 USA Phone: (217) 333-1939; Fax: (217) 244-8355NIETZSCHE IN A NUTSHELL A BRIEF RENDERING OF HIS PHILOSOPHICAL THINKING Richard Schacht "God is dead!" So proclaimed Friedrich Nietzsche a century ago. And this is only one of the many startling claims he made for which he had already become both famous and notorious by the time of his own death in 1900, He may be the most controversial thinker in the entire history of philosophy--not only because he is so easily misunderstood, but also because he rejects so many commonly accepted beliefs, and advances so many disturbing ide: in their place. The fact that the Nazis claimed him as their philosophical inspiration made it almost impossible for him to be given a fair hearing in the English-speaking world for many years, But even though their representation of his thought is now recognized to have been a travesty, he continues to be widely regarded with deep suspicion, and to arouse strong ‘opposition. This is hardly surprising. Nietzsche not only prociaims the "death of God," but also attacks Christianity violently. He rejects the religious idea of God as the source of all ‘meaning, and also the humanistic idea of the intrinsic value of the human individual; and he proposes replacing them with the idea of the Ubermensch--the “superman” or "overman’--2s “the meaning of the earth." He denounces both democracy and socialism; and he challenges every point affirmed in the declaration: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all ‘men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; and that among these rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Few philosophers have had a more profound driving concern than Nietzsche did; and few have felt that more depended upon their philosophical enterprises. He believed that our entire civilization is now facing a fateful crisis; for the fundamental assumptions about ourselves and the world that have long given meaning to life in the Western world have been - undermined, . The time has come when we have to pay for having been Christians for two thousand years: we are losing the center of gravity by virtue of which we lived; we are lost for a while. (WP 30] Nietzsche feared that unless something could be done, mankind would cease to grow and develop, and would instead sink into a degenerate and ultimately moribund condition. He saw Schopenhauer as the first modern European to give expression to this development. ‘Schopenhauer was not taken seriously by most of his contemporaries; but Nietzsche saw him as the herald of things to come, unless someone could show another way. ‘As we thus reject the Christian interpretation and condemn its "meaning" as counterfeit, Schopenhauer's question immediately comes to us in a terrifying way: Has existence any meaning at all? It will require a few centuries before this question can even be heard completely and in its full depth. [GS 357] Nietzsche viewed this situation with the greatest alarm. He sensed impending disaster; and the increasing urgency with which he wrote, and the relentlessness with which he drove himself, were expressions of his belief that a tremendous responsibility rested upon his shoulders. He could understand that weak souls like Schopenhauer will quite naturally lack the stomach to jump into the fray and try to make something of life in spite of its agonies, But he dreaded the thought that the whole human race might become as weak and as hostile to life as Schopenhauer was, and so took his stand against him.