How I Fell in Love With a German Philosopher in the 7th Grade
It was the second week of the 7th grade. A well-earned break due to Yom Kippur break had just ended and I was ready to get back into the role of things.
Walking into homeroom fashionably late, I put my embroidered Spiderman jacket in my locker and sat in my seat. I was ready to write pointless essays, read underappreciated books, and start studying for the ELA State Test! But to my surprise, Ms. Lauren told us that we’ll be covering philosophers.
This was strange for an English class… Before that point, the only person I remembered learning about for English was Shakespeare. But soon enough, I heard about a magnificent German man from the small town of Röcken:
Friedrich Nietzsche
As a mere 12-year-old, his concept of will to power immediately clicked with me. It seemed like a perfect framework to understand life through. The distinction between Kraft and Macht (strength and power) seemed to bear a close resemblance to a playground bully’s brute force and the might of a bystander standing up to it.
It felt like so many why questions about the world had been answered for me. Before learning social psychology, I had a way to psychoanalyze everyone’s actions, including myself. It gave me a heightened sense of awareness.
Power was synonymous for almost every desired outcome of any favorable action.
Although I never learned how to properly pronounce Nietzsche’s name, the idea of the will to power surprisingly stuck with me.
Fast forward to high school…
and I see this concept springing up everywhere. While reading Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, I see a similar pleasure principle or will to pleasure present in London, 632 AF (after Ford). Studying individual psychology, I see the direct ties Adler forms from his concepts to the will to power. In history, I saw how an insatiable desire for power led to the downfall of or corruption of nearly every empire or emperor.
I realized how Nietzsche’s philosophies transcended into pop culture, psychology, and influenced nearly every person alive. It was then I decided to finally revisit his work and understand the ways his work has defined my unconscious life — and yours too.
Here’s a glimpse:
Perspectivism
I had always been a debater by nature. As a result, I always understood any opposing views I was presented with. It was to the point where I was jokingly nicknamed Gandhi in high school for my constant role of arbitrator in disputes.
Turns out, Nietzsche was behind this too.
Along with will to power, perspectivism is one of Nietzsche’s other applicable and simple ideas. It rejects the idea of one objective and the neutral world and argues that each person’s world view shifts based on their experience, reason, and perspective.
Surprisingly, this dispassionate idea leads to an essential framework. One that is helpful in interpersonal relationships, empathy and compassion, and making connections.
Perspectivism teaches you to never take anything for face value and value everything.
Internalizing the fact that every opinion and voice has value and precedent is a powerful tool for equality and inclusion. You might think a certain way because of your upbringing or life experiences the same way a seemingly bigoted person might.
It helped me understand the value of perspective and the power of putting yourself in someone’s shoes — something that has been immeasurably valuable in having high emotional intelligence and meaningful relationships.
Apollonian and Dionysian Forces
Apollo and Dionysus were both polar opposite sons of the Greek god, Zeus. Apollo was the god of light, reason, harmony, balance, and prophesy, while Dionysus was the god of wine, pleasure, insanity, ecstatic emotion, and tragedy.
Based on this divine dichotomy, Nietzche outlined the concept of Apollonian and Dionysian forces as two central principles of Greek culture and human nature as a whole.
Both forces are in a perpetual struggle against each other and towards a critical balance.
In Birth of a Tragedy, Nietzsche believed that art is based on a critical balance of an ideal fusion of these two forces. It’s important to note, that he didn’t say that Apollonia ideals were the only thing that should be followed.
In fact, Nietzsche believed that Greek culture started deteriorating when they became obsessed with the idea of rational reason and complete control of their minds and started to forget Dionysus. True wisdom comes from accepting the Dionysian side of us.
Beyond art, this balance is also beautifully applicable to our own lives.
We all have a side of us that yearns for a reason and rational in our lives. Consequently, we also have one that seeks desires, ecstasy, and insanity. Instead of suppression, we need to understand that we — as humans — are complex beings that deserve to be understood and accepted.
Only then can we understand ourselves and reach higher levels of growth and self-actualization.
No one is perfect and no one should pretend to be either. Perfection is unachievable and unimaginable. The attempt or process of striving for perfection or balance is what’s valuable.
Internalizing this allowed me to focus less on extrinsic levels of accomplishment and rather focus on the process. It’s like the common saying, “Life is about the journey, not the destination”.
Rathe
Master-Slave Mortality
Modern moral systems have evolved through time from thinking in terms of “good and bad” to “good and evil”. This shift has been relevant to all of our lives since everyone’s morality is influenced by some sort of Judeo-Christian values — whether they realize it or not.
This is another thing Nietszche talks about in his views on the flaw of nihilism and atheism. Many writers of the same era also had similar ideas, including Fyodor Dostoevsky in his book, Crime and Punishment.
As a result, a lot of Nietzsche’s work is around morality. The following is one of those frameworks for understanding morality and defining your own.
In his book On the Genealogy of Morality, Nietzsche tells a story of an ancient civilization with two classes, Masters and Slaves. The Masters are strong, creative, wealthy, and powerful and the Slaves are weak, feeble, and inferior.
The Master’s morality sees those with strengths of both mind and body seeing as good. It values wealth, glory, ambition, excellence, and self-actualization — affirming life and everything in it.
Because the Slaves are oppressed by the Masters, they initially view themselves as bad, as the Masters do. But they eventually had a pessimistic reaction and developed their own morality to increase self-perception.
They redefine their suffering as being good and a choice by praising the week and dubbing the Master’s evil for choosing to be wealthy and capable. The Slaves deem themselves as good for being the opposite of the Master’s morally good values.
The Masters are dubbed evil for choosing to be wealthy, powerful, and capable. The Slaves become good for being the opposite of the Masters. This gives them the psychological strength to carry on and allows them to get back at the Masters by undermining the values system that encouraged them to exhibit their strengths.
This might seem harsh because of the Slave-Master dynamic but not all “Masters” was oppressive. Nietzsche placed great artists, thinkers, philosophers, and prophets into this category too — many of whom held slavish values or social status. The system isn’t one preaching sociopathy.
Rather, it’s preaching to be noble and not be coerced into a system of beleif.
Through tools like salvation, authoritarian political power, and mob mentality people can have their morals redefined into something they’re not. Nietzsche saw slave morality manifest in different ideologies that ultimately led to a gradual shift to nihilism and denying life.
You must be willing to have your values challenged and not fall prey to virtue signaling. This is ever so present in the current political climate of things. This has to lead me to be aware of things going on. It’s allowed me to challenge others and challenge myself which has ultimately lead to independent thinking and immense growth.
This is also similar to Nietszche’s critique of mass culture and the press for bringing about conformity and mediocrity. This leading to a halt of intellectual progress and lack of independent thinking.
Übermensch
The beauty of philosophy is how its value lies in the eyes of the beholder. This cannot be more true in the case of the Übermensch or Nietzche’s Superman — my favorite concept.
The Übermensch is this immortal being that is what mankind should strive to achieve and will achieve many years from now. According to Nietzsche, eternal return (also known as “eternal recurrence”) says that the universe has been recurring, and will continue to recur for an infinite number of times across infinite times and spaces.
In this case, the Übermensch or Overman is the creator of new values and appears as a solution to the problem of the death of God and nihilism. It’s the ultimate human having the strength to accept his fate of eternal return.
But that’s very meta.
The real value of the Übermensch is the values it strives to invoke: awareness, intentionality, purpose, and accepting of fate.
It’s these values that I believe are the ultimate representation of Nietzsche’s preaching. As expressed throughout this article and various texts from
Thus Spoke Zarathustra to The Birth of Tragedy.
The Übermensch is not something that can be reached but rather a concept to strive towards. In the process of attempting to become the Übermensch, we can become the best versions of ourselves.
That’s something that I’m still working on. 😉
