Nietzsche

 

The 4th of December Channel 22 performed a special program at 5.30 p.m. about Nietzsche, with interesting interviews and a beautiful scenery.

      His first book was The birth of tragedy, inspired in part by Wagner. There he says: “he best is notto be born and the second best is to die quickly.

     He likes art because it takes our misery momentarily out. Someday, he went to hear Wagner’s music and he saw for three times Tristan and Isolde (I guess it’s an opera); he found the performance profoundly moving. He explained that the music of Wagner represents a Prechristian idea.

      He also loved the Dionysian culture and the cult of Dionysio ,a greek god, associated with music, excess,joy, sadness, pain, tragedy and absolute indiference. Nietzsche looked for a philosophical answer to the pain of existence.

     He used to be a sick child. He was born with a severe miopia and afterwards he got disenteria, difteria and sifillis. At the age of 30 he become a partial invalid. He wrote: “There is no pleasure left in life and I’m surprised how difficult living is”.

      Later on he broke his frienship with Wagner because he hated nationalism. In Beirut he heard a concert written by Wagner and he felt sick.

      His health was really detereorating. In a period of sickness and lowest vitality he discover life, including his own self. The will of power was made a philosophy. The instinct of self restauration was present. The task was selfmastery and this requires as much self knowledge as possible in several aspects: philosophy, psychology, physics, etc.

      One interviewer said that without Nietzsche there wouldn’t be Freud. Another one of his books is named Free Spirits. He felt that one of the influences of Christianity was to banish the body from culture. Therefore, there was a misunderstanding of the body, our physical nature and his view was that we have to find other ways, leaving Christianity at all.

      Walking was his method of work. He wrote Human all to human, where he explains that we should be our own source of experiences. He had freed himself (or set free) from traditions. He was aware his book was a polemic one. He lost all his friends and considered himself a hero.

      Nietzsche was looking for something hard. Philosophy means ice and life in high mountains. The solitude is tremendous,as he experimented. He hated pity.

      In 1882, while traveling in Italy he met Lou Andrea Salome, a brilliant young student. Paul Ree, a pshycologist, introduced them. They traveled in Italy living as free spirits. He always discussed the idea of founding a comunity of philosophers. Lou was very atractive as a woman to him, but she refused to marry him because she didn’t want to get married. Little later, she went off with Ree. Nietzsche felt abandoned. He suffered a lot and he started hating everybody. He had problems finding disciples. As Zarathustra, he was an isolated figure.

      He questioned how we can trascend ourselves, and he spoke of self overcoming. The german word ubermensch doesn’t mean superman but conquest. Afterwards, he was taken as a hero of the Nazis. The socialist interprete it wrong, an expert said. He was looking for a new way without God, on total liberty. “Ordinary life has to be trascended; the way to greatness is my own self.” He conceived a world beyond God. He found his consolation in philosophy and he found out that his way of thinking could flourish only if he found people with same will and ideas. Later he reached extreme of loneliness.

      In 1888 he went to Turin and tried to find a new system of values where God was no more present. He called this system transvaluator of all values. He question at Logic, History, Religion...He had a marvelous mind.

      His weakness was severe. In 1889 he became a madman. He signed like Dionisio or the Crucified. Nietzsche colapsed in the street. He was a man full of human diseases. His sister Elizabeth took him to Weimar. He had a progressive paralysis during eleven years. In 1900 he died of a stroke.

     He used to say: “If you cannot live beyond the law construct another law or find refuge in madness.” A black hold brougt him to madness. He colapsed.