“God is dead,” claimed Friedrich Nietzsche. Such bold statements defined Nietzsche’s nonconformity and his critical attitude towards the public and Christianity in the late 1800’s. A nonconformist is one who does not comply with society's standards and opinions as a whole. Nietzsche fit this role of nonconformity perfectly, he disagreed with common opinions, criticized mainstream religion, and argued with modern philosophy. Friedrich Nietzsche was born in 1844 in Röcken, Germany. Nietzsche had always been influenced heavily by religion as his father and his grandparents had been Lutheran preachers. It is said that Nietzsche had “acquired his atheism early,” (Fritzsche) while attending the Schulpforta school, a prestigious institution (Biography.com).
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He created the concept of the superman to make his readers continually examine their lives (Fritzsche). This was to counter the effect of Christianity in which one blindly followed the Church’s teachings and got caught up in modern beliefs. The superman was also a concept created by Nietzsche to discuss what the ideal human would be like. The superman would be independant and not be influenced by others, such as ignoring the Church and forming their own opinions. Supermen would also understand that sometimes they would need to be selfish in order to better humanity as a whole and that suffering was a necessity in life. These people would be gentle towards the weak in consciousness of their own strength. “The lives of [supermen] will be the justification of reality; their preferences will constitute the standard of value” ("Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche." Encyclopedia of World …show more content…
His ideas had been supported and popularized by the Nazi party throughout the 1900’s. Nietzsche’s works were the philosophical inspiration for Hitler’s Reich (Conway) which tainted his image as a whole. His ideas had been copied and incorporated into Nazi propaganda which led to a hostile response to his works among many British and French readers (Schrift). His ideas were slandered by the German socialists who “in the 1930s frequently quoted Nietzsche as they constructed the Third Reich and its hierarchies of racial superiors and racial inferiors” (Fritzsche). Adolf Hitler had read Nietzsche’s works and used Nietzsche’s term of the “superman” to describe the Aryan race. Despite influencing Hitler and his regime, Nietzsche was only critical of the established normal beliefs of society in hopes of improving the human species and improving the lives of ordinary people. Nietzsche was not a Nazi and did not believe in their ideology yet he is associated with them because of their use of his writings and statements. For years to come, Nietzsche would be slandered for being related to the Nazi party, ruining his innocent philosophical ideas. His ideas did not conform with society's standards but he had good intentions with his beliefs and was for the betterment of
He created the concept of the superman to make his readers continually examine their lives (Fritzsche). This was to counter the effect of Christianity in which one blindly followed the Church’s teachings and got caught up in modern beliefs. The superman was also a concept created by Nietzsche to discuss what the ideal human would be like. The superman would be independant and not be influenced by others, such as ignoring the Church and forming their own opinions. Supermen would also understand that sometimes they would need to be selfish in order to better humanity as a whole and that suffering was a necessity in life. These people would be gentle towards the weak in consciousness of their own strength. “The lives of [supermen] will be the justification of reality; their preferences will constitute the standard of value” ("Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche." Encyclopedia of World …show more content…
His ideas had been supported and popularized by the Nazi party throughout the 1900’s. Nietzsche’s works were the philosophical inspiration for Hitler’s Reich (Conway) which tainted his image as a whole. His ideas had been copied and incorporated into Nazi propaganda which led to a hostile response to his works among many British and French readers (Schrift). His ideas were slandered by the German socialists who “in the 1930s frequently quoted Nietzsche as they constructed the Third Reich and its hierarchies of racial superiors and racial inferiors” (Fritzsche). Adolf Hitler had read Nietzsche’s works and used Nietzsche’s term of the “superman” to describe the Aryan race. Despite influencing Hitler and his regime, Nietzsche was only critical of the established normal beliefs of society in hopes of improving the human species and improving the lives of ordinary people. Nietzsche was not a Nazi and did not believe in their ideology yet he is associated with them because of their use of his writings and statements. For years to come, Nietzsche would be slandered for being related to the Nazi party, ruining his innocent philosophical ideas. His ideas did not conform with society's standards but he had good intentions with his beliefs and was for the betterment of