Although Nietzsche isn't responsible for creating modernism, his philosophies were representative of the concerns and uncertainly of the modernist artists. Nietzsche and the modernists shared a dark outlook on society, one that he had called in his works "sick" and weak due to the constraints put upon them by the Christian church, and traditional values that had gone unquestioned for too long. To truly realize oneself, you must break free, denounce this imposed morality and search deep inside to develop into your own person.
Nietzsche realized that in the time of the modernist movement, certain people in Europe had begun to break free of these societal restraints, and experienced nihilism, yet he acknowledged that the common man
…show more content…
In process he achieved a following, because it's in the nature of the weak to follow one who exhumes power and confidence. The church moved to capitalize on this power, but creating its own power structure, complete with a documented list of rules. These people, so awed by their "savior" saw it necessary to continue to praise him after his death, and turned to the house of god to do so. When you have a group of people subservient, it is natural that those in positions of power above them will use this to their advantage. What started as a group of people following one Overman has now become the largest and most powerful institution in the world. Most people, content with their safety net of the church never think to look back and question why the church is what it is, and why they should follow it. They never ask who wrote the bible and why was it written. They never question the validity of a book that relays stories past on generation to generation by word of mouth (and no doubt embellished) before they were ever put onto paper. Its Nietzsche's conviction that Jesus' intent was never what the church has become, but instead to realize his own true self.
The Overman was Nietzsche's term for he who was able to see past the haze of this imperfect existence. To reach this status, Nietzsche outlined three important steps to Nihilism. First he had to accept that religion was fabricated. His famous phrase "God is dead" was a harsh way of alerting people that
“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
Nihilism is a philosophy often associated with Friedrich Nietzsche, a German philosopher. The main idea of Nietzsche’s nihilism is to separate from all of one’s values. This basically means to leave all of one’s knowledge behind and start from scratch. This kind of thinking could also be compared to Nietzsche’s “Beyond Good and Evil.” A part of Nietzsche’s “Beyond Good and Evil” is the free spirit of the soul. This means that the mind should never become too attached to one point of view and must often jump from viewpoint to viewpoint. This is similar to Nietzsche’s view of nihilism because Nietzsche repeatedly tells the reader that in order to become nihilist, one must separate from their values completely, and start with a clean slate. The
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.
In the novel The Power of One, Bryce Courtenay brings attention to the life of a boy named Peekay. He grew up in a racially and ethnically divided South Africa. He faces challenges about race, ethnicity, death, intelligence, and strength. As a small child, he was bullied for being British in an all Afrikaan school.
Friedrich Nietzsche’s On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense represents a deconstruction of the modern epistemological project. Instead of seeking for truth, he suggests that the ultimate truth is that we have to live without such truth, and without a sense of longing for that truth. This revolutionary work of his is divided into two main sections. The first part deals with the question on what is truth? Here he discusses the implication of language to our acquisition of knowledge. The second part deals with the dual nature of man, i.e. the rational and the intuitive. He establishes that neither rational nor intuitive man is ever successful in their pursuit of knowledge due
Nietzsche’s Overman has been described as “a person unencumbered by the influences and authorities of society and other people. This person wills their own destiny, creates their own values, and dances with the game of life to the tune of their own spirit.” (Bates). The Overman is one who has thrown off every sort of authority in his life. Nietzsche proposes that if one can break from the slave morality of religion, he can achieve true autonomy.
Friedrich Nietzsche once said, “Dostoevsky, the only one who has taught me anything about psychology.” The two writers share many similarities and differences. Dostoevsky clearly had an effect on the thinking of Nietzsche. The two would be considered both philosophers and psychologists. Both writers became prominent in the late 19th century in Germany and Russia respectively. Dostoevsky was noted for his Russian literary classics and would be responsible for a flowering of late 19th century Russian literary culture. His Russian contemporaries include Leo Tostoy and Anton Chekov. Dostoevsky’s most famous works include The Brothers Karamozov, The Idiot, and Crime and Punishment.
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
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.
In Nietzsche’s Will to Power, he writes, "Nihilism is . . . not only the belief that everything deserves to perish; but one actually puts one's shoulder to the plough; one destroys” (Dale Wilkerson, “Friedrich Nietzsche (1844—1900)”). Beyond Nietzsche’s works.
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.
3). In his most basic claims, Nietzsche implicitly negates the possibility of a “disinterested” or “objective” truth. He would not urge so definitively for an affirmation of reality, if he held out for the possibility of fantasy or god. The ‘innocence of becoming’ is a clear example of how Nietzsche, for all intents and purposes, “debunk[‘s]” the relevance of claims made by traditional authorities. In essence, Nietzsche basically nullifies the relevance of societal hierarchy. Not only this, but the further claims made by such a society regarding morality and philosophical thinking, are seen to be – at best – gullible and naïve. The ‘innocence of becoming’ refers to even the lowest classes of society finding power in their status. In lieu of accepting that we are completely alone in the world, Nietzsche asserts that we have a constant need to blame others for our state. It is simply much easier to do than to accept that everything we do has no genuine or reaching consequences. While the ‘innocence of becoming’ is not necessarily an innocent process as those we choose to blame are usually blameless, it is fair to say that we are innocent of it; much like the ‘will to power’ it also works through self-deception. Evidently we are able to commit to life affirmation by essentially taking no responsibility for our weakness. Christianity itself is closely connected with the ‘becoming’ process as in its
Modernism describes the ideology of the art and design that were produced during the modernist period. There has been a lot of controversy about when modernism started, yet many believe it initiated sometime in the late 19th century and continued to the early 20th century. The modernist movement was meant to be a break from traditions and it was set up to separate the value of certain works from the conservative realism. For instance, Unlike the traditional art that was aesthetic, this movement was more about space and form. In modernist design, shape and organization of products and buildings were based on their functional requirements. As a result, designs became simpler without the traditional decorative concepts. The idea behind the