Nietzsche's Niche (Part Three) The disrespect shown to a gifted thinker.

"The relationship between Nazism and Nietzsche is like the relationship between Christianity and Jesus," is stated in the comments section on part one of a video documentary found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOY87n-hI3k. And it sums up the besmirching of both theological philosophizing philologists. Modern Christian institutions rarely exalt the teachings of Jesus, and Nazism stole phrases from Nietzsche's work that acted as mottos and slogans. Terms such as Ubermensch, Superman, Overlords of the realm, were all "catch phrases" that Hitler could glom on to and hold eternally. Thusly, smearing Nietzsche with a fascist brush that Nietzsche would have thoroughly been disgusted by. His own sister, Elizabeth, was the betrayer of his works--the symbolic sister, Eve, that deceived in an ironic Genesis-like twist of the Christian story regarding the birth of humankind in Hitler's third reich of Nazism. It is a sad twist of a very important historical thinker.

The works of Nietzsche have inspired many writers, many of whom have won Nobel and Pulitzer prizes for their own works. Freud even credited Nietzsche with much of the origins of thought as Freud developed the theories of psychoanalysis.

Nietzsche even fought in a duel as he enjoyed his early twenties with literary college fellows--but as he came to develop his theories of life--optimism was always at his core. He met Wagner in Leipzig, held a crush on Cosima, Wagner's wife--the bastard daughter of Franz Lizst. The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music was Nietzsche's first work--and lauded Wagner, in one chapter, for creating beauty in a "dry and scientific world." It was a doomed relationship, because Wagner was an anti-Semite, but worse was Wagner's patriotic nationalism. Nietzsche would become stateless, without passport, for most of his life. Nietzsche was a citizen of the planet--scorning nationalism of any kind.

At the age of 36, Nietzsche fell in love for perhaps the first time in his life with a 21-year-old named Lou Andreas Salome in Weimar. Elisabeth was jealous of Lou, and poisoned Friedrich--who cut his own sister off at this time. The relationship with Lou was spoiled in spite of all efforts to hold to Lou. Elizabeth moved with Bernard Forster to Nueva Germania in Paraguay. Bernard Forster eventually committed suicide in Paraguay--but his anti-Jewish attitudes would continue to live in his like-minded widow. Elisabeth returned to Friedrich's side as his health continued to decline.

Nietzsche is believed to have acquired tertiary syphilis while visiting a brothel during his college years, he claimed this to be true, modern experts concur this fact to be very possible.

He was done writing by his 44th year in 1888. He would die, at the age of 65, on August 25th in 1900.

Elisabeth took his works and forged many conclusions that were not Nietzschean in Will To Power, his last, and unfinished, work. She even resculpted Nietzsche's death mask to her preference, and later with another symbolic insult to her brother, presented Adolph Hitler with Nietzsche's walking stick. She warped her brother's works into an image that helped present Hiter with twisted slogan/mottoes that Der Fuhrer was looking for--it was a horrible miscarriage of Nietzsche's humanist ideas and ideologies.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, was performed in four parts--initially it was supposed to be composed as a trilogy--but after completing the third installation, he realized the necessity for a fourth and concluding section. It is claimed he wrote each of the first three parts in various periods of ten days between the years of 1883-1887.

The fascinating misunderstanding of Nietzsche's work by religionists and politicians alike are easy to understand. Lesser minds couldn't see the very individualist core of Nietzsche's work--he was not writing to create dogma for collectivist parties or movements. Nietzsche grandly sought for human beings to "become what you are." Nietzsche saw the "fodder" of common man as the "rope" that through education and experience could realize a bridge to the "sea that is, the Superman." The understanding, Über human being that would seek to help preserve the planet--not destroy it--with blind faith in institutions that knew no more of the teachings of Jesus, than Hitler would of the teachings of Nietzsche's individualism. It is reported that is is very unlikely that Hitler read very much of Nietzsche's works

For Nietzsche, life was never meaningless--life was about realizing the ultimate creative realities of the human race--Superman--not the comic book hero, but the culmination of the human peak. The nihilistic tendency of slogging through life, trying to be good for a better afterlife, he credited to Schopenhauer, an early teacher. Nietzsche felt that time was more of a wheel...infinite repetitions of eternal truths. We may look on the universe now as expanding, but might it not come to a point of Uber expansion...stop and...ultimately contract to a singular point of the Big Bang Singularity once more? Eternally reoccuring? It is a theory--watch the movie trilogy, Matrix , for a taste of that formulaic explanation. The Wachowski brothers certainly researched into Nietzschean ideas to create their block buster films.

For Friedrich, the ultimate height of human creativity, expression and culture, based NOT in archaic cultures of Roman, Greek, Egyptian or Judaeo cultures--that is, mimicking ancient ways as Hitler did with much of the symbolism of the Third Reich, coincidentally--but, rather rising to the height of human existence to carry on. Nietzsche could not appreciate at all the end game of doom and gloom prophets who sought out an "end of days." A final reckoning for man. One reason Nietzsche named his prophet, Zarathustra--a parallel term used in reference to Zoroastrian--indicated the universality of Zarathustra's message. A world message...a message for all...a message for none...a message for the übermensh , Superman.

A decade after World War II, there was a revival of Nietzsche's philosophical writings thanks to exhaustive translations and analyses of the few--uncovering Elisabeth's lies and forgeries. Others wrote commentaries on Nietzsche’s philosophy. Many 20th century thinkers cite him as a profound influence, including Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Leo Strauss and Michel Foucault to name but a few European thinkers.

Other more recent thinkers like Allan Bloom, William E. Connolly and Judith Butler could also be named as interpreters of Nietzsche's works. President Nixon is rumoured to have perused Nietzsche, along with Charles de Gaulle, Mussolini and Theodore Roosevelt. W. B. Yeats and H. L. Mencken raised awareness of Nietzsche's work in Ireland and the United States, respectively.

Was Nietzsche an "übermensch," himself? He was certainly gifted beyond many in the depth of his historical understanding of the theological, moral, political, philological and many other "als" and "isms," even being credited with developing the theory of "perspectivism," but he would not claim himself to be "übermensch."

He deemed himself a "perfect" German writer. His claims after writing Thus Spoke Zarathustra gave him little room to be considered a humble man. "It is the greatest work of German literature ever created," he proclaimed. But when we look at what he was trying to give humankind for hope--it is a gift.

For Nietzsche, the idea of requiring a higher power to do great works was blasphemous. He would not have attended an Alcoholics' Anonymous meeting--he saw no need for that sort of thinking. He felt humanity should reach for the stars because of the need for us to be creative, to excel, to soar above the lofty stars--to touch "God/perfection." It is not far-fetched to realize that Nietzsche was so disillusioned by the "institutions of men" that he tried to create the realization that we, humanity, must go around these "shackling" forms of academia, national patriotism, legalism, religious zealotry and climb the mountain on our own to become what we were meant to be--superb individuals--higher beings--rather than simple living, hoping, and then, dead entities.

Free-thinking, accomplishing, driven beings of incredible purpose--Superpeople--"übermenschen."