Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) was a German philosopher, poet, and cultural critic. He is known for adamant and unrelenting criticisms of traditional European religion, views, morality, social and political doctrines, as well as of conventional philosophical ideas and the philosophers behind them. Some of his books include Beyond Good and Evil, The Antichrist, The Genealogy of Morals, and Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Nietzsche is one of the most prominent thinkers of the west, as he’s left a profound impact on philosophy. Nietzsche believed that the central function of philosophy is to teach humans how to “become who they are”, or in other words, how to achieve their highest potential. Thus, he criticized any school of thought, system, or religion that stands in the way of ultimate human flourishing. He criticized the morality of Christianity in particular, as he believed that it serves as mere justification for passivity and, at best a burden draining life of its potential. But how did Nietzsche become this self-proclaimed “Antichrist”?
It is rather ironic that a man who spent his entire adulthood attacking Christianity had an exclusively Christian upbringing. Nietzsche was an active member of the protestant church and lived in a household that was entrenched in Christianity. In fact, his father, Carl Ludwig Nietzsche, was a devoted Lutheran pastor. Nietzsche was incredibly pious throughout his youth. Early on in his childhood when he was only four, his father became severely mentally ill and got diagnosed with a terminal illness. Gradually, Nietzsche watched his father fade away in torment, his illness gnawing away at him. His father endured a year of pure anguish before passing away. To Nietzsche, the suffering and harrowing death of his father left an indelible mark on him, as it opened the door for questioning the nature of the Almighty God he and his father knew and loved. What kind of God would bestow such agony upon one of his most devoted followers?
Nietzsche’s journey of doubt sparked his reevaluation and detachment from the moral and religious basis on which he’d been raised upon. After practicing biblical criticism, Nietzsche began to view Christianity as a pernicious and illusive influence that fully disengages a person from the world and has damaging and deleterious effects on human life. His primary criticism of Christianity or other religious beliefs is not epistemic, but rather concerns the morality associated with religion. He considers the value system, that comes along with religions like Christianity, a greater threat than its belief system. In that sense, his primary target of criticism isn’t the religious people, but rather anyone who surrenders their ability to think critically and blindly conforms to a constraining set of doctrines.
Nietzsche critiqued Christianity from many aspects, one of them being Christianity’s value of the present. Christianity is focused on the next life, giving the message that this life is a painful and malicious interlude, meant to be endured solely for the purpose of potentially gaining an eternal reward. Nietzsche criticized Christianity by pointing out how its emphasis on the next life, is draining our now of all true meaning; it conveys life as a tragic exile from God’s superior realm. While on this earth, waiting to be granted an indefinite stay in paradise, Christianity has fabricated a morality system that if a person followed, will supposedly exalt them. Nietzsche considered that Christian morality and its basis of piety, obedience, reciprocity, moderation, and equality, are the weakest form of any morality. To Nietzsche, these beliefs stem from an inability to deal with the strengths of other people and a dire need to be led.
Nietzsche finds that Christianity inverts all the typically good and virtuous values — such as power, wealth, open-mindedness, and courage— into bad and shameful ones, and turns bad values—like meekness, humility, and submission— into good and honorable values. This inversion was greatly elaborated on in his book Beyond Good and Evil, Nietzsche writes “to shatter the strong, to spoil great hopes, to cast suspicion on the delight in beauty, to break down everything autonomous, manly, conquering, and imperious—all instincts which are natural to the highest and most successful type of “man”— into uncertainty, distress of conscience, and self-destruction; forsooth, to invert all love of the earthly and of supremacy over the earth, into hatred of the earth and earthly things—that is the task the Church imposed on itself.”ii This paragraph shows how Nietzsche viewed what European Christianity had become at that time. Nietzsche loathed the type of people that this inversion of values created; he describes them as ludicrous, sickly, and mediocre. The weak became able to elevate themselves above the strong, despite having none of their qualities. Instead of aiming to attain these strong qualities, they reversed the system of value in order to honor what they already have, impotence. Now their characteristics of sympathy, vulnerability, and kindness become those of a “great man” while traits of power and pride are greatly looked down upon. Another aspect to examine the reason behind this inversion would be to consider how Christianity’s main purpose is to preserve and care for humankind, but according to Nietzsche, the majority of people are weak and incompetent. Most people do not have the will of a “higher” type of person; therefore, Christianity tends to them by valuing their characteristics and devaluing anything that challenges them.
Nietzsche states that Christian morality is invented by a herd of inferior humans to hold back the few superior humans, thus perpetuating a master-slave morality. The master morality allows the nobleman to create their own values and be their own judge, without seeking approval from others. It values allowing the “higher type of man” to be the best they can be and excel. Slave morality is a response to master morality; they do not create their own values, their morality is a reaction to that of the master. Masters create their own values by their own will and volition, and the weak would see how they can never reach those ideals, thus they flip morality so that their traits would reign supreme. Slave morality views what is good as something that is beneficial to the entire society, not as what is most beneficial in the creation and flourishing of the higher type of man. Thus, they neglect the strong, deny their potential for greatness, strip them of what makes them unique, view them as sick, and label them “herd animals”.
Furthermore, Nietzsche believes that morality develops either bio-psychologically or culturally. Nietzsche found that the roots of bio-psychologically and culturally developed slave morality traced back to Judeo-Christian belief as a result of a set of events occurring in early history, the enslavement of Jews in Egypt. As a result of that occurrence, an internalized moral code had been developed for survival. Slave morality asserts that one must stifle their nature, instinct, and desire in compliance and become humble, patient, and obedient, or else face the circumstances. Many people are sheep-like, not interested in rebellion, and do not mind being slaves; however, some resent it. The people who resent it direct all of their strength and will for rebellion against their need for the expression of their strength and will for rebellion because if they do assert their strength they will be punished. This frustration and internal conflict make the slave despise the master, and also despise themselves and their community for obeying the master and for self-suppression. Hating the strong, self-loathing, and revenge fantasies in a slave causes them to become the social leader of the slaves, or to tie it back into Christianity, they become their priests. The priests who cheer meekness and humility and condemn the strength and power of the master while using their deluded morality as a weapon.“As is well known, the priests are the most evil enemies—but why? Because they are the most impotent. It is because of their impotence that in them hatred grows to monstrous and uncanny proportions, to the most spiritual and poisonous kind of hatred. The truly great haters in world history have always been priests; likewise, the most ingenious haters: other kinds of spirit hardly come into consideration when compared with the spirit of priestly vengefulness.” Thus wrote Nietzsche in his book The Genealogy of Morals.
Moreover, Nietzsche believes that religion demands constant sacrifice. Whether it is a physical sacrifice of human beings—a child or loved one— to their God, or the sacrifice of one’s nature and instinct—suppressing human desires. Nietzsche also mentioned one more type of sacrifice, the sacrifice of God himself. With the rise of scientific development, science became the main source for all answers and guidance instead of God. Nietzsche said that we are left with nothing to worship but rocks, gravity, and fate. Nietzsche called for the reevaluation of all values in an attempt to overturn western morality because people deep down no longer believe in it. However, most people—the herd— still chose to live their lives abiding by this morality, although society has evolved past the need for it as there was no longer a God to back it up. Nietzsche’s concept of “The Will to Power” became a central theme in the development of a new morality; Nietzsche thought that the only functioning and efficient system of morality would be one that implemented humanity’s identifying principle, the will to power. Nietzsche’s doctrine of the will to power claims that everything functions on the unifying basis of power pursuit. Nietzsche wrote “This world is the will to power—and nothing besides! And you yourselves are also this will to power—and nothing besides!”v It claims that every action a human takes from infancy until their last days is to expand and exude their power. The religious people fear this powerful side of man’s real nature and seek to suppress it and label it as something it isn’t.
As a replacement for Christianity, Nietzsche believed in the need to implement a new morality system. This new system of morality needs to recognize that the innate purpose of humanity is the strive for power, and thus better accommodate the journey to this end goal. It must emphasize the importance, beauty, and exhilaration of directing focus to this present life. It must demolish the idea that human life is only for the sake of self-preservation in anticipation of a better afterlife, and instead instill the idea that humankind should aim for greatness. It needs to allow the true nature of human potential to be achieved, embraced, and celebrated. It should stand against the “herd” mentality, and encourage critical thinking and flourishing self-development above all else. The new system of morality needs to inverse what Christianity has done in extinguishing individuality and perpetuating the fear of being alone or different; it should advocate the aspiration of being exceptional and powerful as something everyone should pursue. It also must encourage humans to be able to examine their own and others’ prejudices, motives, and values and be aware of their own susceptibility to ignorance or delusion.
All these aspects of great morality came into play when Nietzsche was about to write a book entitled “The Free Spirit. Critique of Philosophy as a Nihilistic Movement” that was meant to be centered around the “reevaluation of all values”. Sadly, Nietzsche passed before ever getting to conclude writing this book. His death gave his sister Elizabeth the opportunity to tamper with, appropriate, and publish his unfinished and abandoned works. Elizabeth had edited Nietzsche’s works to fit with her nazi political affiliation, which was absolutely not what he would have wanted. This depiction of the “perfect morality” not being completely written yet is almost poetic, as it goes to show how even a century after Nietzsche’s death we still have not overcome the boundaries we are restricted with by divisive religion and have gone on to create a more profound and liberating morality that aligns with the best of what humankind has to offer. Nietzsche’s draft of his theory of an improved system of morality being maliciously edited is incredibly fitting to the current situation of modern world morality. Whenever humankind attempt to ascend to a greater superior system of morality, the intentions are always antagonized, misunderstood, and misconstrued, just like the last works of Nietzsche. We live in a society that is dangerously attached to its millennia-long beliefs and is incredibly comfortable in its own ignorance while attacking any possibility of a new and improved system of morality being implemented. We live in a society that willingly turns a blind eye to all the faults in the life that we collectively lead; a society that is alarmingly in fear of any idea that challenges its own as it values temporary comfort over absolute truths that they refuse to acknowledge. And one absolute truth in particular, violently defending corrupt systems and ideologies out of covert ignorance will bury any hope of a brighter tomorrow and will lead to the plummeting of mankind down a fathomless abyss of self-destruction and inevitable doom.