Understanding of Nietzsche's Thought

When Nietzsche is mentioned, many people will naturally think of his inspiring and shocking famous saying:

For example, not talking about yourself at all is a noble hypocrisy. Idealism is hopeless. If he is thrown out of heaven, he will create an ideal hell. In the face of need, all idealism is hypocritical.

If there is a God, how can I bear that I am not a God, so there is no God! What is independent and brave is noble morality, and what is humble and obedient is servile morality.

There is no truth in the world, only explanation. Many truths are told in the form of jokes. People who don't believe in themselves are always lying.

If a woman loves a man, he should know fear, because she will sacrifice everything, and everything else is worthless in her eyes.

Nietzsche's famous words involve almost many aspects of human life, such as thought, truth, life, love, faith, morality and so on. Many of Nietzsche's statements are extreme and alternative. People also have different opinions about the meaning of Nietzsche's famous words.

Some people say that Nietzsche's philosophy of superhuman will contains love for people. Others say that Nietzsche's thought is too extreme and one-sided, and it is easy to have negative effects, such as racial discrimination or fascism.

We believe that only by combining western cultural traditions with modern people's social life can we make a more objective and comprehensive evaluation of Nietzsche's thought.

First, Nietzsche's thoughts, including the spirit of irrationalism and anti-essentialism, directly inspired and influenced the western post-modern culture.

Nietzsche's view of truth is enlightening and advanced, and his thought is also the source of western postmodern culture.

Westerners have always had a tradition of worshipping knowledge and truth, just as China people have always worshipped sages and saints.

For example, Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Newton, Descartes, Einstein and others worshipped by westerners are all famous philosophers or scientists. China people worship Yao, Shun, Yu, Tang, Wen, Wu, Duke Zhou and Confucius and Mencius, all of whom are saints with high moral cultivation.

Nietzsche's thought is unique and completely subverts the truth worship complex of westerners.

Nietzsche believes that all knowledge is a metaphor and a language game, and there is no absolute truth in the world. Keep your eyes wide open and awake, so as not to be deceived by absolute truth.

Nietzsche said that there is no truth, only explanation. Many truths are told in the form of jokes.

Nietzsche's above viewpoints not only criticized the Greek rationalist epistemology, but also attacked the enlightenment modernity represented by Hegel.

Hegel's idealistic philosophy, for example, has great ambition and is a typical representative of modern "unified" thinking mode. Hegel tried to explain all the mysteries of the universe with reason and logic, and tried to find all the truths of the world. In Hegel's eyes, God is the absolute truth.

According to Nietzsche and postmodernism, this way of thinking is wishful thinking and impossible to realize.

According to Nietzsche and postmodernism, human society and culture are not an undifferentiated unity, nor is it a piece of glass without any cracks; On the contrary, they believe that there are many differences and contradictions in people's thoughts, knowledge and social existence, and it is impossible to cover them all with Hegel's unified reason.

Therefore, Nietzsche and post-modern culture advocate the difference, heterogeneity and non-uniformity of things, rather than imagining the so-called absolute truth. We should try our best to explore the individuality, contingency, locality and marginality of things, such as new historicism, feminism and post-colonialism, which belong to post-modern cultural phenomena.

Nietzsche also pointed out that people's ideological understanding is related to the will to power, such as Socrates' rationalism and Christian belief, which all contain potential will to power, and its purpose is to make the will of most people obey the will of individuals. This is called power epistemology.

In other words, in Nietzsche's view, people's thoughts and knowledge are not objective and neutral things, not transparent things, but imply people's desires, needs and strength. Nietzsche's irrational epistemology was further developed into power knowledge by the French thinker Foucault.

Second, Nietzsche's moral concept of "superhuman will" is one-sided and extreme, and should be treated rationally.

Nietzsche's superman philosophy is very targeted and directly criticizes the core spirit of western culture: Greek democracy, equality and Christian humanism.

In Nietzsche's view, his thoughts actually contain love for westerners, which is only the love advocated by Nietzsche, not the affirmation and connivance of western culture, but the negation and tempering of western culture, that is, criticizing Apollo's rationalism and advocating Dionysus's instinct and desire, such as superman's will.

Nietzsche believes that traditional rationalism means the degradation of human nature, and his superhuman will is the tempering and promotion of human nature.

Nietzsche said that democracy, equality and rationality in Greece are hypocritical idealism, aiming at suppressing superman, destroying the will of the strong and reducing all people to the same level. The consequence of this practice is that Superman has nowhere to hide and his creativity declines.

Nietzsche advocated superman ethics. He believes that people are unequal, and superman's will and creativity are far superior to those of ordinary people. Superman is not a camel or a lion, just like a reckless baby. He ignores everything, denies everything, and starts from scratch to legislate for himself and social culture.

Nietzsche's superhuman will and aristocratic morality had a great influence on later fascism such as Hitler's thought. As a result, Hitler was spurned by the people and history, and Nietzsche died crazy. Lu Xun criticized Nietzsche, saying: Nietzsche calls himself the sun, seeking only to pay, not to return. Finally, he went crazy.

From the perspective of western social form and moral culture, westerners still believe in Greek values of freedom, democracy and equality, and western society is still a free and democratic society advocated by the enlightenment spirit. Imagine how Nietzsche would feel if he were still alive today.

Nietzsche's total denial of Christian belief and its moral ethics does not conform to the development reality of modern western society.

Nietzsche laughed at religious belief. He said that anyone who believes in God just doesn't want to know the truth. Nietzsche criticized Christian ethics as slave morality. In his view, Christian ethics emphasizes humility and obedience, and cannot cultivate superman with independent spirit, which should be completely denied and abandoned.

Nietzsche's moral ideal is radical and thorough, leaving no face for western traditional morality. Nietzsche said that when you stare into the abyss, the abyss also stares at you; Therefore, if a tree wants to get more sunshine, it must be rooted in a darker underground.

The fact is that Christian ethics is still the code of conduct and norm of people's daily life in modern western society, and it is still the mainstream values of western culture, such as sympathy for the weak, humanitarianism and charity. Christian ethics still plays an irreplaceable role in the daily life of modern westerners.

By the way, not only Christian ethics, but also China Confucian ethics and Buddhist beliefs all contain similar moral values. For example, Buddhist culture advocates compassion for all beings; Confucianism advocates that benevolent people love others and be merciful. It can be said that as far as the moral beliefs of the world are concerned, human sympathy, compassion and humanitarian feelings have always been an important symbol that distinguishes human beings from other animals. From this point of view, the superman ethics advocated by Nietzsche is neither in line with the reality of human nature nor with the development reality of modern western society.

In a word, as a critical thinker, many of Nietzsche's expositions are profound and unique, which contain some reasonable factors, but also have many limitations. We should treat it differently and understand it dialectically, so that Nietzsche's thoughts can better serve our modern life.