Nietzsche's Parable Of The Madman

Given the spiritual dilemma first highlighted in Europe as thinkers gradually discovered that their newfound embrace of faith in reason could not be easily reconciled with faith in organized religion, Friedrich Nietzsche’s post-Enlightenment philosophy should not have come as much of a surprise to any of his contemporaries. In his Parable of the Madman, he frankly portends the immutable result of a communal belief in a Christian God that has been permeated by rationalism and science: “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.” Because, during this time, the world was receiving a flood of new ideas that ranged from the revolutionary concept of methodical scientific inquiry to the emergence of Darwinian Evolution, Nietzsche is …show more content…
Without God it would necessarily be the case that mortal purpose, the need for a communal sense of morality and the concept of objective and absolute truth would all become moot points. Granted, Nietzsche denies the existence of these three philosophical entities to begin with, but what causes him some anxiety is his belief that without any telos governing and directing human life, nihilism is inevitable and humanity at large will soon experience the “greatest crisis in its history.” One may consider the philosopher to be overly pessimistic or cynical because he attributes the figurative death of God to humanity’s degeneration into mediocrity or conformity. However, as nihilist Mikhael Bakunin once stated, “Let us put our trust in the eternal spirit which destroys and annihilates only because it is the unsearchable and eternally creative source of all life – the passion for destruction is also a creative passion!” Nihilism is thus both a destructive and a constructive force, and so the true human significance of the philosophical annihilation of the concept of God is the creation of a new moral/value set that focuses on the ubermensch, or the perfection of the individual Man which is achieved without relying on extraneous (and illusory) cosmic factors in a universe which has no