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Thus Spake

Nietzsche

On the 100th anniversary of his death,
a reconsidered look at history's
most misunderstood philosopher.

With this coupon • Expires Sept, 15. 2000

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ome philosophers are born
posthumously," said Friedrich
Nietzsche, and none more so
than Nietzsche himself,
arguably the most prescient and influ-
ential thinker of the modern era, and
none so controversial on his relation-
ship to the Jewish people.
Many poets, psychologist, philoso-
phers and theologians of the past cen-
tury owe a great debt to Nietzsche, a
pain-stricken, sickly man who died
100 years ago today.
A philologist, a person who studies
language and literature, Nietzsche con-
cerned himself with trying to discover
the underlying origins and motives of
Western religion and morality.
He was born Oct. 14, 1844, in
what is present-day Germany. His
father, a Lutheran pastor, died before
Friedrich's fifth birthday.
Nietzsche studied at the University
of Bonn, then Liepzig, where he corn-
posed music, discovered the philoso-
phy of pessimism of Arthur
Schopenhauer and befriended corn-
poser Richard Wagner.
At university, his brilliance
impressed his professor, who recom-
mended to the board at the University
of Basel that it accept Nietzsche for a
vacant professorship there. Although
he hadn't completed his requirements
to earn a degree in German, it was
conferred upon him nonetheless, and
he was given the position.
His subsequent university days were
short and sporadic. Upon the outbreak
of the Franco-Prussian war, he took
leave to be a medical orderly and
shortly contracted dysentery and diph-
theria. He returned to teach, but ill-
ness forced his leave again.
Unrelenting pain and deteriorating
health would remain with Nietzsche
for the remainder of his life. He col-

lapsed in January 1889 in Turin, Italy.
His last lucent act was comforting a
horse being whipped by its master.
Nietzsche spent the remaining 11
years of his life in mental darkness and
family care. Many scholars today spec-
ulate that Nietzsche suffered from ter-
tiary syphilis.

His Philosophy

During his time off from lecturing,
Nietzsche's relationship with composer
Richard Wagner and Wagner's wife,
Colima, grew. Nietzsche also wrote his
first book, The Birth of Tragedy, in
which he argued that ancient Greek
tragedy was the sum of two compo-
nents: Apollonian, restraint and har-
mony; and Dionysian, wild passion.
This dual tradition, he lamented,
was supplanted by the rationalism of
later Greek philosophers of the
Socratic tradition. Nietzsche praised
Wagner's operatic music as a rebirth of
the lost tradition of Greek tragedy,
which he so admired.
As Nietzsche's philosophy matured,
he turned to examine: the consequences
of the Enlightenment era's secularism.
Since the Renaissance, each succeeding
generation of philosophers had dimin-
ished God's relationship with man,
argued Nietzche, who made the final
cut by proclaiming, "God is dead," and
ushered in the 20th-Century philoso-
phy known as existentialism.
What he was really saying was that
existence did not have inherent value or
meaning, and yet, it was forever invested
with more significance than it merited.
Religious tradition, beginning with
priestly Judaism and later Christianity,
said Nietzsche, attempted to justify
existence and attribute suffering as the
will of God, thus making suffering tol-
erable and even purposeful.
In his analysis, Nietzsche believed
Europe suffered under a slave morality,
which, with the triumph of