Friedrich Nietzsche – Nihilism (11-2005)

Sarah Diebel
PHL 205-Ethics
11-2005

Friedrich Nietzsche – Nihilism

(All topics are taken from "Basic Writings of Nietzsche" Translated by Walter Kaufmann)

Topic 1: (section 171)

In the past, people used their divine origin to prove the greatness of man. This way of thinking is no longer possible, because evolution proves we have no divine origin. Instead, people have started to look to the progress of mankind to prove its greatness, its potential. This way of thinking is also folly, because, one day, humankind will die. Mankind cannot pass into a higher order of existence.

Topic 2: (174)

All humanity commits four errors: First, they cannot see themselves as they actually are. Second, they imagine that they are more than they actually are. Third, they cannot see where they actually fit in with nature. Fourth, they continually create new values for themselves and consider these values to be unconditional and eternal. Without committing these errors, we would lose all humanity, humanness, and human dignity.

Topic 3: (176)

In response to his pleading search for God, the non-believers taunt him with language paralleling the Jewish prophet Elijah taunting worshippers of ‘false gods’ in the Old Testament. Through the madman Nietzsche claims we are responsible for murdering God. He then implies we have killed him with every ‘truth’ discovered, every question answered, every blank filled. As we continue to build our reality and define our existence we have nearly erased the need for a god.

In this context it almost seems that ‘God’ could also be a metaphor for youth, naivety, and innocence. Which, like God, are all things that disappear or are destroyed along the way. One day you wake up and realize you are with out all – youth, naivety, innocence, and God. Also, don’t skim over the madman’s incredulity at how we can live with ourselves after knowing what terrible act we have committed.

He then declares his time has not yet come. The impact and intensity of our communal act of the manslaughter of God has not hit us, and won’t for awhile to come. The madman then leaves the scene, on the way exemplifying a metaphor of Nietzsche’s view of religion. The madman went from church to church singing a dirge lamenting the death of God; requiem aeternam deo.

Topic 4: (170)

Both pleasure and displeasure are based on two illusions of man: Either, he believes in the similarity between certain facts and sensations therefore having to weigh past and present states before deciding whether something is or is not pleasurable. Or, he could believe that man is truly free and that since he is free he decides whether to experience pleasure or displeasure as a direct result of his actions. Without these illusions, we would not be what we are. Humanity thrives on illusion, on the idea that we are ‘free’, and that as a result we are greater than all. We create just to destroy, we call our short history ‘world history’, we are the vainest of all creatures. God is dead, and now we are him. Vanitas vanitatum homo.