Nietzsche Notes

Life

·         Born in 1844; died in 1900

·         Life goal: to teach how to live life to the fullest

Horizons

·         All societies have moral horizons

·         Say how we should live and diff. b/w right and wrong

·         Created by man

·         Horizons have a survival of the fittest method

·         Only perspectives so they are illusions

Master vs. Slave Morality

·         Created by Christianity

·         Slave: be caring and place others before yourself

·         Those who don’t follow, go to hell

·         Master: break away from false thinking

·         Allows some to rise above the weak

·         He hated Christianity, democracy, socialism, and communism b/c they all are based on equality

Christianity’s Moral Inversion

·         Before chirstianity: master morality was good

·         After: slave morality was evil

·         Good is passive, sacrificial, and nurturing (now)

·         Bad is strong, assertive, powerful, individualistic

·         Human drive à evil desire

Death of God

·         Nietzsche was an atheist

·         Believed God would die when man realized they created him

·         How God dies: Christianity makes us strive for perfection à we use science to order/perfection

The Last Man

·         Crisis follows God’s death: no horizons, many will be lost

·         Last man is a coward

·         Doesn’t have the power and is afraid to think for himself

Superman

·         Death of God liberates man

             Will to power is man’s internal drive for greatness and creativity

·         Will is suppressed by Christianity

·         Superman is part poet, part philosopher, part saint

·         Sees possibility in horizons

·         Is true to himself and breaks away from society

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